Seven years after the Three Mile Island incident, a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded and spewed a cloud of radioactive material across Europe. Pigford was appointed by the secretary of energy to a committee for evaluating the safety implementations of a similar reactor in Hanford, Washington. Pigford concluded that the plant, which was being used to make plutonium for nuclear bombs, was less safe than the American commercial nuclear reactors. He rejected safety measures proposed by the department, claiming that they would be no help at all. Immediately after this revelation, the department closed the reactor.