Ep. 02: Fallout

The story of the Hanford Nuclear Site | In 1942, the U.S. government chose a remote stretch of desert along the Columbia River in eastern Washington to build the reactors that would produce the plutonium for America's nuclear arsenal. What they left behind may be uncontainable.177 underground tanks, some of which are leaking, hold 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste, making it the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere. Some of that waste moves through the soil toward the Columbia River, the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest.“Fallout” traces the decisions that created the Hanford Nuclear Site, the decades of cover-ups, and the cleanup project that has consumed billions of dollars and produced very little success.