Atomic Housecleaning

Atomic Housecleaning Reporting for work at General Electric's plutonium plant in Hanford, Wash., a night watchman began the routine of checking in. He stopped before an Alpha radiation counter about the size and shape of a soft-drink machine, casually stuck his hands in, and listened for the amplified clicks by which the sensitive instrument registers its count. The chatter he heard from the machine shocked the startled patrolman right out of his routine, sent him rushing to the Health Instruments Division. There, doctors quickly confirmed the machine's verdict. His hands were emitting more radiation than a radium watch dial.

Under questioning, the contaminated patrolman tried to remember where he could have picked up his dose of radiation. Finally he recalled that on his rounds the night before, he had come across a broken wrench. Unaware that it had been used on equipment for processing plutonium, he had taken the wrench home, figuring that it might come in handy around the house.

A crew of technicians raced out to Richland, eight miles from the check-in gate, to test the suspected wrench and the patrolman's home. Both proved to be radioactive. At once, the intricate machinery of the Atomic Age whirred into action.

With Soap & Water. With a portable Alpha counter the technicians began retracing the patrolman's path from the plant all the way to Richland. The path was none too well marked. He had slipped the hot wrench into his metal lunchbox, and the box had acted as a shield--which frustrated the counter and had protected the patrolman's fellow passengers on the long bus ride home. But the patrolman, his home, his car, and a few areas around the plant (where he had carried the wrench in his hand) were hot enough to make the detectors sound off.

Clad in white cotton coveralls, and wearing masks to filter out contaminated dust, the decontamination crew went to work. The patrolman moved into a company dormitory, and for the next six days his house got the kind of spring cleaning that many a homeowner wishes he could afford. Inside & out, everything (including the unhappy patrolman) was swabbed down with soap & water. Later, all the cleaning gear was carefully collected, carted off and tossed on to a restricted disposal dump.

Frying Pans & Slip Covers. Alpha particles had been sucked into the hot air heating system, so the whole house was suspect. But the bulky portable counter, which can only operate close to the source of radiation, couldn't fit into every corner. Taking no chances, the decontamination crew followed a simple rule: if it can't be checked, chuck it out. The whole furnace was ripped out and destroyed. Any articles that could easily be replaced were also discarded. Frying pans, slip covers, clothes, all went to the dump, to be replaced at Government expense.

This week the patrolman, still smarting from a reprimand, was back on the job. Tests showed him out of immediate danger,* and his name was withheld by his cautious employers. But suspicious Richlanders, who thought they might have visited him or shaken his hand, were already asking for a personal swabbing down and an atomic housecleaning of their own.

* Alpha activity is not harmful externally, causes trouble only when it enters the bloodstream through the mouth or cuts in the skin. Hanford has yet to suffer its first fatality from radiation.

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