Close Call in Paducah

The recent devastation wreaked by December tornados in Kentucky shows how close we came to a radioactive and chemical catastrophe at the uranium gaseous diffusion plant near Paducah, KY. For decades that plant has stored the waste product of their operation (depleted uranium) as the gaseous chemical uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in canisters on outside pads open to the weather and the environment. This is unconscionable, reckless and stupid. UF6 is both highly toxic chemically and also radioactive. If the tornados had hit the plant they would have hurled these canisters around releasing highly toxic gases and radionuclides into the environment which would have contaminated the entire area for millennia. This should serve as a wake up call; we can’t just forever assume it won’t ever happen to us here.