Ellen Pattis has candidly expressed her concerns over possible health threats posed by one of her next door neighbors - the DOE's Savannah River, S.C., nuclear site. She knows after a decade of phone calls and letters that her name isn't always recalled in a welcomed way. But Pattis doesn't care. Savannah River Illnesses found at secondary sites, too After the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, American leaders wanted to ensure that they had bigger and better weapons from a supply line that could not easily be interrupted.
Site still receives nuclear fuel for storage.
High of 26,000 in 1990. Today, the reactors are shut down. The site serves as storage graveyard for nuclear fuels provided to foreign researchers and then returned to this country under the Atoms for Peace program, which was designed to discourage nuclear proliferation. The fuels will require close maintenance for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The site is characterized as one of the most contaminated tracts of land and water anywhere.