Santa Susana Had Several Nuclear Accidents and Leaks

Only a small number of nuclear mishaps may be readily recalled by the majority of individuals. There haven't exactly been hundreds of them, but the most well-known ones include Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. Would Santa Susana, however, be on your list? The majority of people wouldn't, but they ought to because the Santa Susana Field Lab, a sizable experimental research site situated dangerously close to Los Angeles, had its own nuclear catastrophe in 1959.

Even when the event became widely known in 1979, very little media attention was given to it, so most people paid little attention. Radioactive vapors were being released because a reactor core overheated. Before it was turned off, it continued doing this for ten days. 1,465 degrees Fahrenheit was the high. At various times, three other reactors also experienced incidents. Furthermore, none of them had containment systems.

A physicist who was employed there saw radioactive materials released. Even worse, he saw someone drop nuclear waste into open pits where it would be burned. However, as complexes were being erected on potentially contaminated surrounding land, officials lied about what had occurred for years. Many local residents have health issues that could be related to the poisoning.

Despite a 2010 commitment for cleanup to be completed by 2017, the property has still not been cleaned up. The Department of Energy, NASA, and Boeing—all of which did research there—have argued that the location isn't particularly hazardous and that cleaning it up would be too difficult.

• Year: 1959

• Damage: widespread radioactive and toxic chemical contamination