Employees at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina - once a Cold War nuclear production plant - found a wasp nest on July 3 that measured radiation levels nearly 10 times above federal safety limits, prompting a swift response from federal authorities.
Officials stress there’s no public risk: the nest, located near storage tanks of legacy nuclear waste, was treated as radioactive material, removed without any area contamination, and safely disposed of.
The wasps themselves were not found alive, and experts suspect the nest simply absorbed radiation lingering from past operations - not an active leak or equipment failure.
A watchdog group, Savannah River Site Watch, slammed the report’s lack of detail - warning that without knowing exactly how the contamination occurred or what type of wasps built the nest, other hot nests or unseen leaks could remain undetected.
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