Glad you enjoyed the video. Must have been pretty awesome building that place. It’s such an amazing location. It’s a shame it isn’t producing power. But I’m glad it’s still standing.

@@RadioactiveDrew Thanks for the reply, I'll have to check out some of your other videos. Later in my career I worked at an operating Nuke plant including looking into an opened reactor vessel during refueling. There were colors of green and violet reflecting off the walls I've seen nowhere else except maybe in sifi movies. lol. I have lots of stories. Just subscribed.

I hope one day I’ll be able to see something like that as well. The video I shot at the San Onofre plant was fun to make. But that reactor was in the process of being decommissioned. So no blue glow from fuel elements.

I heard about this from one of the Hazmat guys when I was out on the exercise.

It wasn't just them, several companies nuclear operators and IH's and HPT's responded to deal with the contamination cleanup efforts, it ended up taking a couple months even actually...

It was pretty cool. I hope to do it again some day.

Thanks.

Thanks. Glad you’re enjoying it.

It was super intense filming all of this. I think I still have hearing damage from those chop saws.

Thanks.

It’s one of my favorite places to go to.

@@RadioactiveDrew Glad to hear it. It's one of mine too. For different reasons I'm sure.

It was very interesting for me to be there and see these people work. It was also one of the loudest environments I have ever been in.

@@RadioactiveDrew I'm sure of it. I imagine they made you use hearing protection for that very reason. I predict the sound pressure levels were easily peaking at 130-140 dB during those tests.

Thanks.

I grew up in Kennewick, my father was a project manager on the Hanford site. It's hard to get a pass in, it's really hard for someone with a camera to get a pass in. The only reason I ever got on site was for take your kid to work day, in '95 I think. If you really want info on it, check with the Richland, WA chamber of commerce, they can probably direct you to the government websites that are available for it. I would be interested in finding out how much radiation is leaking out into the Columbia River though. Not sure how someone would go about that, but it'd be interesting to find out.

They offer tours of B Reactor but I might know someone that could get me a slightly better tour than that. Still working on this one.

@@RadioactiveDrew I'm from Kennewick, and actually worked out at the Hanford area for one of the subcontractors as a mixed waste nuclear operator.. they would pull the radioactive waste that was buried, kick it into our rad zone, and we were responsible for what we called "shwacking" the waste, breaking it all down and repackaging and macro-encapsilating into boxes that then got shipped down to WHIPP. I also got to deal with the high level transuranic waste being repackaged as well... Did it all by hand, or with any tools necessary to get the job done! I loved that work! Get yourself a tour of one of those facilities doing the real true grunt work, and that's where you get to really see the actual clean up process truly getting done!!

@@sheebzT509 I'm hoping to do a private tour of the Hanford site and make a video about that place.

@@RadioactiveDrew yes do that, and hopefully they take you on a tour of the brand new vitrification plant that was just built to treat the liquid tank farm waste on site! But as far as the cleanup process goes, I gotta admit that alot of it happens "off-site" sorta lol, using the smaller sub-contractors. If your able to get the chance to set up a private tour of their processes and treatments, set one up with the company PermaFix NW, you won't be disappointed at all... That's where the action will be at that I'm sure you'd be surprised to see!

Those maps came in handy. That place was a maze when you were down in the lower levels.

@RadioactiveDrew If you're interested in doing something like that again. I might be able to arrange it. How can we get in touch?

@@RTWGraphics hit me up at radioactivedrew at gmail.

@@RadioactiveDrew You got it! Thx

@RadioactiveDrew I sent you an email.

None of the reactors were ever fired up. The one we were filming this in was built to about 75% completion.

@@RadioactiveDrew You said "None of the reactors were ever fired up." WPPSS #2 / WNP-2 (now Energy Northwest Columbia Generating Station) north of Richland, WA out on the Hanford Site went into commercial operation in December of 1984, is currently (05/14/2024) online at 100% power, and was recently re-licensed to operate until December 2042. WNP-1 and WNP-4 are adjacent but were never completed. I drive by the facility on my way to work 4 days per week. On a cool/cold day you can see the vapor plume from the cooling tower from literally miles away. Due to the local topography and wind patterns, said plume frequently resembles a classic "mushroom cloud". It can be hilarious to watch the facial expressions on non-locals when they ask what the mushroom cloud is and you reply "oh, that's just the nuclear power plant"... Here is a satellite view of CGS: www.google.com/maps/@46.4711873,-119.3262311,2576m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

They didn't destroy anything in this video. All the cutting was from steel they installed for the exercise.

Here's a link to the exact shirt I was wearing in the beginning of the video. www.exofficio.com/men/tops/shirts/mens-air-strip-long-sleeve-shirt/AFS_613543164933.html

We were using a mix of radium doped items, like gauges and deck markers along with a bunch of uranium ore samples. That's how I got invited out, I sold the company a bunch of uranium ore to use for the exercise and brought out some of my radium sources. It was fun using sources to setup an area that the firefighters had to figure out.

@@RadioactiveDrew Cool!!!

I would imagine that’s pretty standard for most fire departments during an emergency operation.

I’ve heard it referred to as that as well.

This drill took place during Christmas. Christmas tree man and Rudolph the red nose reindeer, went on a mission to free Santa Claus. Rudolph's nose was glowing in the dark due to intense radiation (over the GM counter scale). I hope this helps.

Seems like it was just for decoration and to be highly visible.

I don’t think so…sounds cool.

So I've been told.

I think the name of them is on the side of the air units. I believe it was a German company that made them. I could be wrong but that’s what I remember.

@@RadioactiveDrew I found it! Heres a little info, Dräger or Draeger BG 4 Plus Closed Circuit Breathing Apparatus Rebreather, its a hybrid PAPR and SCBA system apparently, also I enjoy yer videos keep up the good work!

@@miurako8900 thanks for finding that.

No...I think that one is out towards the East Coast.

I think there’s more to it than that.

@@RadioactiveDrew perhaps, but the nuclear building plans/projects were mentioned specifically in studies of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. I love here... I've been researching that and other potential natural disasters, etc.

That does sound interesting. I have a bunch of uranium glazed items and I've always wondered how much uranium is on them.

@@RadioactiveDrew that'd make an awesome and informative video, plus im curious because I've been told that the radiation given off by the paint increases when scraped or chipped!

Bad idea. It's not "paint"... it's glaze. Doing that type of thing can get you in trouble with the NRC and EPA. Hazmat van, cleanup crew, etc. Not advised. Occasionally a raid shows up in the media when someone gets busted. One happened a few years ago at an Idaho apartment complex. Big mess. The guy probably got evicted. I heard the bill starts out at $250,000 to the landlord and goes up from there. Same goes for extracting radium from paint and Americium from smoke detector sources. Leave the isotopes intact where they are in these vintage antiques and they are allowed to be used as safe test sources around the house.

​@@RadioactiveDrew Best not to mess with it. Cody's Lab also got a gentle raid by the authorities for extracting uranium from ore and chemical processing. The NRC doesn't want you making changes to stuff. They confiscated some of his gear like a centrifuge and other stuff due to contamination issues. He didn't even have an alpha sensitive geiger counter and was making videos with visible fumes/steam coming off. Wasn't wearing a proper respirator, etc. Pretty cavalier and not in a good way for long term health.

@@nefariumxxx my bad i called it "paint" that obviously bothers you. And i suggest you go check out Nile red/ Nile blues youtube channels, he SAFELY handles operations way stronger then this just fine. And nobody raids his house. Glad youtube made you the radiation police though!

Sorry I should have said 100 tons

I'm not sure if it was just for the exercise or if Christmas Lights always has those lights on his setup. He wasn't an observer but it did seem like he might have had some kind of higher roll that most. There were observers and people to help the firefighters with navigating the exercise...so they didn't cut through something they weren't suppose to. Also there were a couple women on the team. One of them was working the cutting torch in the video. Figured I would throw that info in so your daughter could know.

The idea is to get people to watch the video as they are scrolling through a bunch of other content. So its not to scare people but to peak their interest.

@@RadioactiveDrew It’s misleading due to the fact it’s not truthful. It’s better to peak someone’s interest with a smartly worded and honest title.

@@ClagwellsGarage it is truthful. They are in an abandoned nuclear reactor and they are dealing with a radiation threat...but its all part of a training exercise.

@@RadioactiveDrew It’s not a threat. It’s a low activity training source for emergency crews to practice with. I know you know this.

@@ClagwellsGarage in the scope of the training exercise it was a radiological threat. That is how it was identified.

No. To do this video I had to plan it out with the public information officer at the site. That took a couple months of back and forth. Plus myself and my other cameraman had to do a security background check before we could be let into the sensitive areas of the site. They do offer a tour there but I feel like you don't get to see everything I showed in this video.