Science: Fire in the Uranium

Late in the afternoon, scientists at Britain’s Windscale plant, the main British source of plutonium, saw danger signals on a temperature control instrument. A hurried second glance told them what had happened. One of the two nuclear reactors had been closed down all day; deep in the massive structure of graphite blocks, one or more canisters of uranium had grown red hot and burst open. Apparently the uranium, heated by its fierce radioactivity, was burning in an oldfashioned, chemical way by combining with oxygen in the air that is blown past to cool it.

Old-Style Water. Workers and scientists in protective clothing played streams of carbon dioxide into the cooling channels, but the fire in the uranium did not go out. Police were alerted to evacuate the area, as scientists debated whether it would be safe to put out the strange, new-style fire with old-style water. The decision was made to go ahead, and hoses poked into the reactor soon put out the fire. The alert was canceled, and the single casualty, Worker Stan Ritson, who got unpleasantly radioactive, was scrubbed over and over and sent home with all his body hair shaved off.

The crisis at Windscale was over, but alarm spread across Britain and refused to be checked by soothing statements from the Atomic Energy Authority. Air that has passed through the Windscale reactors is blown up a 416-ft. chimney that is capped by filters to keep radioactive dust from escaping into the atmosphere. The uranium fire deep in the reactor was too much for them. Some of its deadly “smoke” got loose, and a good bit settled on the surrounding countryside, now known in Britain as “Geiger Gulch.”

Hot Thyroids. Inspectors armed with Geiger counters and chemical test apparatus swarmed over the dairy farms, testing grass, cows, milk and eggs. At first everything looked all right, but after a few days, inspectors reported samples of fresh milk spiked with radioactive iodine 131. The cows of Geiger Gulch were eating contaminated grass, and the concentration of iodine 131 in their milk and thyroid glands was building up. No sample was found to be really dangerous, but as a precaution, all milk from 150 farms was ordered dumped. Later the embargo was extended to 1,000 more farms.

Mothers near Geiger Gulch switched their children to orange juice, and scrubbed them all over twice a day. Coal miners’ unions worried about the air blown down their mine shafts. The big city of Manchester (pop. some 700,000) worried about its water, which comes from the edge of Geiger Gulch. Beef cattle sent to market from the region were marked with yellow paint so their thyroids would be destroyed right after slaughter. No one has been damaged yet (except the plant worker who was shaved), but all Britain has had a disquieting look at a kind of accident that may become common in the atomic future.