A Brief History of: The Church Rock Uranium Mill Disaster (Short Documentary)

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Hello everyone I hope you all enjoyed the video! Do you have any future suggestions for a video? Let me know below.

[@allawa]

Good job I liked this one!

[@Rattlesnakesam]

Wasn't Phobos Grunt spacecraft that crashed in the ocean filled with loads of nuclear goodies. I bet there's loads of dodgy nuclear stuff fell from orbit over the years. 😳😎 (Keep up the great work plainly) 💪☢️

[@Turbopotato3000]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_industrial_disasters I mean... here's something :p

[@mgtowdadYouTubeSucksCoxks]

Flint Water Crisis.

[@TheMr77469]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_Bay_nuclear_accident

[@treahblade712]

Some additional notes here to consider. The Navajo asked the governor of new Mexico to declare it an emergency to get funds from the FED to cleanup the spill yet he refused thus limiting the amount of money available to do a proper cleanup. The waste basically contaminated the river from New Mexico all the way to Arizona and no one is really sure how much it has affected the local population. I myself traveled though this part of the country as I live in AZ and had vacationed in Colorado. The area is very sparsely populated but there is little drinking water available here, many people rely on wells for water. Also United provided only 250 or so 1 gallon jugs of water to the people there where thousands of gallons of water would have been needed for humans and livestock so it was basically a slap in the face and left many with no choice but to use contaminated wells as even is the case today.

[@UrchinQueen]

Jfc…. Thank you for this comment. The world gets away with treating the indigenous populace like shit, and people don’t talk about it enough.

[@mattlogue1300]

Damn, another time we hurt the native inhabitants of our nation.

[@pizzlerot2730]

Just another Tuesday for US politics

[@jabbra1837]

Depressing, but sadly completely unsurprising.

[@jaysonstinson9458]

except the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, NZ, etc. are all CURRENTLY full-blown anti-White to the core and i highly doubt any of you have, or ever will, bring that up. White people are also human beings just like everyone else.

[@MsBloodyFox]

Everyone is afraid of a necluear melt down while true horrors like this go unreported. Great vid as always!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Yes! Thank you!

[@tin2001]

The other thing no one ever thinks about is that almost all the horrors they worry about happened in the 50’s to 70's... Before computers and advanced electronics. Like so many other kids of industrial accident, we've almost eliminated them by removing alot of the human error, and also by coming up with better procedures and equipment standards.

[@kiloalphasierra]

and there were a lot caused in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s because of over reliance on computers and not enough human input and knowledge. We need properly programmed computers and the computers need properly trained people for everything to work right.

[@disbeafakename167]

Unreported? Where do you think he got all the information from? The reports...

[@kiloalphasierra]

Disbea FakeName he means it never got any attention in the press. A lot of stuff like this got reported as simple industrial accidents by media if at all and if it did make the news if was usually buried in the back of the paper.

[@landermike4873]

I'm impressed with your knowledge of Navajo words. Thank you for recognizing our nation.

[@thalivenom4972]

what did he say?

[@annehaight9963]

@@thalivenom4972 Knowing him, the guy on the right probably replied "Balls."

[@millomweb]

Where WAS your nation ?

[@landermike4873]

@@millomweb it's mostly in northern Arizona and small parts of New Mexican, and Utah

[@millomweb]

@@landermike4873 Are you referring to the current area or the original ? You don't happen to have a map of the Americas dated 2000 years ago? This is real lost history !

[@jeffreyskoritowski4114]

The treaties with the Navajo put them on the land that they could barely scrape an existence from under the best of circumstances. Now the land is extremely contaminated and shouldn't be occupied at all. What makes this worse is that engineers know how to safely design, build and operate these kinds of dams. Obviously the Chernobyl operators modeled their emergency response plans on UNC.

[@that1nerdyblackgirl736]

To know that this happened is just straight up disgusting as hell

[@hmr1122]

You forget the main tenant of engineering: “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands (or a dam in this case), but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.”

@wargent99 Moron

@@hmr1122 Tenet you illiterate.

If Chernobyl happened in the US there would have been no evacuation.

[@MalcolmCooks]

"there are cracks forming in the dam!" "this man is delusional, take him to the infirmary"

[@dakat5131]

"You didn't see cracks in the dam because there weren't any!"

[@gunnark9823]

You didn't see the cracks because you weren't there.:)))

[@rolfen]

You know, if you read the detailed account of the incident, you will see that it is Akimov (not Dyatlov) who was in denial of the core damage.

[@KRJayster]

It's kind of great how Chernobyl has given us all of these memes we can use in relation to nuclear accidents.

[@tootallforyou112]

Imagine ignoring a few cracks almost killing your entire company

[@garethevans9789]

$525k compensation to the Navaho Nation, wow 🤯 Even $500k per person wouldn't be enough. I'd love to know how much United Nuclear spend on lobbying (I'd wager it was a lot more than 500k). Then Superfund does the cleanup and the execs sail on unscathed. As the saying goes: Provitise profits and socialise loses.🙄

[@010203109]

You don't understand how the Superfund program operates. UNC still has staff on site for cleanup and monitoring activities frequently. GE bought them and so are dealing with this headache. Also estimating impact is complex, but you have overestimated most likely. Nearest residence to the site is nearly 2 miles away and many locals are still receiving bottled water.

[@revenevan11]

@Fen Vulpeus I agree, they did next to nothing for the place and people they destroyed for profit. I also think that the higher ups who made the decision to ignore the obviously unsafe dam to save money in the short term (and ultimately for nothing but to have the company, and likely not them personally, lose money in the long run when disaster inevitably struck) at the cost of horrendous human and environmental losses, should have been (or should be) executed, debatably by radiation poisoning if you want them to suffer poetically. If you don't believe in the death penalty, or in "cruel and unusual punishment" (which I don't either, I'm just mad) then at least end them some other way or give them a lengthy prison sentence (in general population at best, nothing cushy and NOT house arrest in their mansions). Decisions like this will keep being made until there are consequences greater than just the corporation getting a slap on the wrist and all the people who actually were responsible getting fined or charged with "negligence" at worst (which seems to be a more recent thing, slow progress is better than nothing... but it still let's this stuff happen, I think with no progress perhaps people would be angry enough to take justice into their own hands in a few cases and make the corporate decision makers fear for their lives and thus maybe have some motivation to not ruin the lives of thousands of ordinary people. This exact sort of thing is going on right now on a larger scale with the climate crisis. We should be putting as much effort as possible in to mitigate and even reverse as much damage as possible... but they've purposefully hidden the cracks and spread misinformation to cause doubt about them even being there for decades. They knew more than 50years ago! It makes me sick to my stomach, and feel so angry and helpless.

[@josedipaola708]

Chemical and energy companies are arguably the single worst blight on politics in the United States.

[@nunyanunya4147]

(outrage posted from iphone made by a factory in china with wires on the windows to prevent suicide during work hours... irony will never be lost)

[@garethevans9789]

@@nunyanunya4147 I don't use Apple products, so you're just trolling. Anyway that's irrelevant, issue is corrupt officials which are all too common. PS: Stop liking your own comments.

[@anoninunen]

Liquor and yellow-cake: The forbidden deserts.

[@jamielacourse7578]

Who doesn't like a double rye and piece of sponge cake before hitting the road? It's the breakfast of champions......not those soggy- ass flakes in a box. .

[@AngelaMerici12]

Sounds like a birthday party!

[@jacobrzeszewski6527]

The birthday child must be pretty RADiant at that party.

[@WineScrounger]

Let’s not forget plum pudding

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

The little Spelling Nazi in my skull is begging me to suggest doubling the "s" in "desserts"... BUT the Pun-meister in my skull is laughing his ass off. What with all this happening to Arizona and New Mexico, what difference does it really make? "Deserts" is FINE! ;o)

[@jacktingey7886]

Man, the US government has really screwed us here in the American Southwest. Nuclear tests, Downwinders, Church Rock Spill, land disputes. Thanks guys.

[@millomweb]

Have you only just noticed ?

[@k.chriscaldwell4141]

They also detonated a nuke, Gnome, in Southwest New Mexico, Carlsbad area, right on the border with one of the world's largest aquifers, the Ogallala Aquifer, and THE most important aquifer in America. The Ogallala Aquifer provides drinking and crop water for millions of American though out the Midwest, but not to be deterred, the US Tyranny risked contaminating it with radioactivity from a nuke bomb.

[@jfh667]

But the people in the South keep voting for that kind of shit. Thats not getting screwed, thats getting what you voted for.

[@jed-henrywitkowski6470]

@@jfh667 "South", "the south" etc is east of the Mississippi "The Southwest", "the American Southwest" etc is west of the Mississippi and generally only includes southern UT, NV, all AZ, NM, and Western, Southern TX.

[@jed-henrywitkowski6470]

Like when those Lefty, Enviro Nazis at the EPA played a large part in the suttering mines and smelters. For the record, I am descendant of a PD man.

[@shakeyframe2330]

This is the only YT who covers stuff like this that I can watch for more than 5 minutes because they talk in a normal voice and don't have erie music playing in the background

[@AdmiralGray1911]

I completely agree. No forced drama or antics or padding. If you like him you might also try Fascinating Horror.

[@toyotaf1jarno]

Wait, they had to be told to stop pumping more tailings into the broken pond?

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Pretty much

[@NecromancyForKids]

Of course they did. Business is all about getting away with as much as you can get, here in the US. Lol

[@Chironex_Fleckeri]

@@NecromancyForKids Well, it's definitely not just the US. That's the case in most countries. It's the problem of the commons, or more precisely the fiduciary role taking precedence over everything else. Fiduciary duty is what incents companies to value profit maximization and thus cost minimization. They assess risks of litigation, impairment of Goodwill and other intangible assets, pretty much comes down to all public companies being legally obligated to always act in the best financial interest of their shareholders.

[@mabamabam]

@@Chironex_Fleckeri in most countries the risk of being rammed in the arse with giant fines and clean up costs is way way higher than the tiny bit of extra production. Having a spill is one thing recklessly pouring effluent into the environment is another.

[@andie_pants]

The shareholders demand their profits.

[@Galfrid]

Designer: Hey, I've got a great idea... Let's put a bunch of radioactive acid water on the dirt right next to a riverbed! It couldn't possibly leak into the soil it's sitting on OR escape the dam and flow into that river right over there. NRC: Well, if you're sure. We've never done this before. Go build it, then. We approve.

[@annakeye]

*+Galfridus* Oh, and don't worry about the liners. Mr Hahn will be most pleased we saved him a few cents there.

[@fartingfury]

@@annakeye Yeah, it's weird - how much could a few hundred metres of plastic film possibly have cost...

[@GMlilEASTSIDEcharlie]

Would’ve have to be lined with lead

[@rjwaters3]

@@GMlilEASTSIDEcharlie errr no? why would you make a container for an substance that dissolves lead, with lead?

[@kennyadams9741]

Crazy that I was born in New Mexico and lived there until my late 20s and have never heard a thing about this incident. They really went out of their way to bury this one.

[@RosesTeaAndASD]

The urge to yell and shake my fist at my phone screen in disbelief was overwhelming at times. Those poor people. Oh and thank you for your video.

[@PiranahKill]

Glad to see it out!!! My wife is Navajo and the absolute devastation the nuclear industry brought to their home is aweful. The saddest part is that so few people are even aware this even happened. My wife's family live just north of the Puerco, even in the 90s during her childhood they had no electricity, the navajo had almost nothing in the 70s and this took the land value which was all they had.

[@mattlogue1300]

I never heard of it either, but I do have amnesia.

[@atom5k563]

After watching a few of these I'm not sure if nuclear energy is plainly difficulty or if humans are just plainly irresponsible. We should be learning about the atrocities of UNC in school.

[@johndavidson2365]

People are plainly lazy. Its just too hard to do it right. People are plainly greedy. Its just too expensive to do it right. People are plainly stupid. Der.

[@colinstewart1432]

If history's taught us anything, it's taught us fuck - all. Humans never learn 🙄

[@DSAK55]

both

[@JeanSuki]

Your upload frequency is super solid!

[@thedungeondelver]

Well it's a combination of solids suspended in a liquid slurry.

[@kenetickups6146]

thedungeondelver kek

[@Voidhalen]

Unfortunately companies like this is why we don't have more nuclear reactors in 2020...

[@BTW...]

More Corporate mines and more reactors creating more waste beyond 2020... great idea, NOT.

[@marianmarkovic5881]

@@BTW... u have tailings from all metals production not just uran,... and most of hevier ores actualy have of Uranium and Thorium tailings and thers decays,... Main point of Thorium reractor is there is no need to dig even inch of ground to have it,.. its mined in quantitis that could suply more electricity then we actualy use, but it sits unnused in tailings.

[@doctorthee]

@@BTW... Still would have been less poluting then the "green" energy + coal we do now.

[@kenetickups6146]

Nope, it's because of oil and coal lobbying

[@glitterklyt4005]

Thank goodness, just seems like more and more accidents are piling up over the years, do any of these accident sites become habitable or return to background radiation levels after the cleanups? And we’ve got kids worried about plastics in the ocean...rightfully so but they need to know about the radioactive legacy that isn’t taught in schools...at least not when I was growing up.

[@lujanjd]

Folks that remember it still joke there's "the full periodic table in the water"

[@iRunfastXC]

I have no idea what you just said

[@gabotron94]

@@iRunfastXC Because of so many elements contaminating it... almost all of them, like they appear in the periodic table

[@lainwired3946]

honestly most large bodies of water prob contain over half the periodic table at least if you're willing to count very small trace amounts lol. Of course there's some elements that can't exist stable on earth especially in water, but there'll be many samples of a lot of elements and few of many others.

[@TOO_RAW]

Great work dude! I have to say you're the best in the game when it comes to covering mans nuclear mishaps throughout history.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you! I really appreciate it

[@BobbyGeneric145]

There's a great book about every nuclear accident in history, and the majority involved a sudden flash of light!

[@brianhorne820]

"During the explosion of the nuclear industry in the 20th century..." I see what you did there.

[@francesconicoletti2547]

I’ll a this to the list of ‘yes we know what safety measures are we just won’t bother use them’ nuclear disasters. Nukes don’t kill people, people kill people.

[@killercaos123]

i have never heard of this before. this is extremely saddening

[@jenniferbaldini3527]

"Is there anything more frightening than people?" ~Svetlana Alexievich, 'Voices from Chernobyl'.

[@whitehuayra]

Actually yes. Nature. Nature is unbias in it's destructiveness. With humans, there's at least a possiblity of morality being a factor in preventing repetition of it

[@creativedesignation7880]

@@whitehuayra I'd prefer a natural disaster of systematic human cruelty every day.

[@KarlBunker]

Cracks in the dam? Just paint over them; that’ll fix it. 🤪

[@berryberrykixx]

That's exactly how First Energy has been handling Davis-Besse's 30-inch crack in the reactor casing.

[@GigsTaggart]

bentonite clay with a binder like kerosene is used for rocket nozzles. Packed into a shape it forms a hard plug. It is hardly "paint".

[@sarjim4381]

@@GigsTaggart Correct, but that presupposes a stable footing for the dam. If things keep moving, the bentonite cracks again.

[@GigsTaggart]

@@sarjim4381 right, it didn't fix the fundamental problem that they were storing something corrosive to the material used in the dam.

[@williamdavis3128]

Gigs they just used the bentonite as a bandaid a very cheap bandaid

[@fabiochristian77]

Worker: "I saw a crack in the dam" Anatoly Dyatlov: "You didn't!!! BECAUSE. IT'S. NOT. THERE."

[@TheRebornNukester200]

Live near the area, and the Navajo People. It’s always interesting to see how much history this land has, often overlooked by literally everywhere else around it. Thanks for doing this episode.

[@TheRebornNukester200]

For future content, especially again with the Dine/Navajo tribes, the Gold King Mine spill that ran from Colorado all the way down through New Mexico turned the Animas River into orange kool-aid looking water for an entire week. Lots of panic and distress for farm life and other such things ensued, but the long lasting effects seem to have subsided. But, I think the truth never much was shared.

[@bkondrk]

Thanks for a very interesting video, PD. I had no idea that the level of contamination from this incident was so high.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you

[@EHiggins]

Love the "Disaster Scale" looks incredibly accurate!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

I think so too!

[@berryberrykixx]

The last time I was this early, Fermi was building his nuclear piles under the bleachers in Chicago.

[@burkezillar]

I went to Gallup two years ago on Route 66, didn't even know this happened there. Also explains the 6th toe I've been growing since I got back...

[@lesd40]

I enjoy your stories...they are well researched and nicely presented. I have sort of a request for a future video: The Kerr-Mcgee Oklahoma Cimarron facility that sparked the Karen Silkwood incidents. Thanks for all the current videos. They're great.

[@brucelytle1144]

I was thinking the same! I worked for K-M at another of their facilities and had seen how much they thought of their workers 😮!

[@jdruin1]

I see “Nuclear waste tidal wave” and knew it had to be America. For better or worse, we are go big or go home.

[@thalivenom4972]

glow big, and glow home, if you keep this up

[@djalienprime]

10:16 Chernobyl Chechnya, USSR??????? SERIOUSLY??? Didn't ever realize that I live in Chechnya...

[@Praxid]

"Naaaah, it's fine, it's only 1 curie." *takes sip of water* "huh. Metallic." *drops dead*

[@gyromurphy]

You should check out the Babcock Wilcox radiation leak in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania. It happened in the mid to late 90s. It's hard to research though because that company has been sued so many times for negligence. As a matter of fact my friends family won around $16,000,000 for their lawsuit. Went from the poorest kid in school to ..well...the richest family in town.

[@michaelearlgrey]

So my hometown has a superfund site (Canon City CO Cotter Corp (side project owned by General Atomic, the UAV company)) and the whole thing about lining tailing ponds is just ubsurd. The best pond liners are only rated to last about 20 years. Then the managing company has ZERO plans on how to replace them. That's before they dump broken heavy equipment in and tear holes in the liners. Not that it mattered since there was never enough water to cover the tailings. We could go out on a windy day and see radioactive dust just blowing away. At least our water supply was upriver but sucks for everyone below.

[@dsandoval9396]

That sucks.

[@infiltr80r]

That casualness with what many approach radioactivity is insane.

[@fort809]

@@infiltr80r *businesses

[@paulferrari3921]

Hol’up... the UNuc CEO called David “The Nuclear Boy Scout” Hahn, to try to smooth things over? That’s surprising, given that both of them were responsible for creating super fund sites.

[@andyroobrick-a-brack9355]

Top Ten Anime Crossovers.

[@iaincowell9747]

No. Not the same David Hahn.

[@dyveira]

He literally says in the video it isn't the same guy, they just share the exact same name.

[@annakeye]

@@dyveira And *+Paul Ferrari* literally says, "[ ]given that _both_ of them were responsible for creating super fund sites."

[@exMuteKid]

you mean superFUN sites

[@jamielacourse7578]

Thank you for countering the stupidity out there with good programs.

[@mbrsart]

So many nuclear accidents seem to have an air of "Eh, it'll be fine."

[@seawuff]

Especially when they’re on some marginalized people’s land.

[@765kvline]

Sadly that's the case with many non-nuclear tragedies, too. Bill Mulholland and Harvey Van Norman said the same thing twelve hours before the collapse of St. Francis Dam, which they had inspected for muddy leaks. Hundreds died for that kind of mindless carefree optimism. The Columbia shuttle disaster's okay to re-enter the atmosphere came from this sort of nonchalance. Sadly, others pay the price for misguided sanguineness.

[@exerminator2000]

"overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer"

[@glitterklyt4005]

How are we still here as a species? How have we not destroyed ourselves with all the DNA destroying chemicals we’ve concentrated and dumped into the environment? How???

[@ingvarhallstrom2306]

They didn't give a shit if people died, that's the problem.

[@alphaadhito]

_The other_ David Hahn

[@demox4435]

Hey plainly, would you want to make a few more videos on the broken arrow incidents? Industry nuclear accidents are interesting, but lost or broken nuclear weapons of mass destruction is a little more spicy

[@Cline3911]

Did someone say Spicy? I would like to see more on broken arrows as well, as well as the nuke tests done in Mississippi.

[@Gail1Marie]

Like the Damascus incident? Though there's already an excellent documentary, "Command and Control," based on Eric Schlosser's book.

[@misterflibble6601]

MAD: an acronym that applies to more than nuclear weapons

[@etatauri]

Love your vids! But just a quick correction at 5:14, you wrote Plutonium (Pu), instead of Polonium (Po).

[@wadeguidry6675]

I like the new radioactive disaster scale. 8 seems accurate.

[@stevie-ray2020]

PD should darken the room & shoot that rating-scale section of the video with a UV lamp or torch on those plastic-numbers, as fluorescing numbers seems very appropriate to me!

[@14112ido]

The moment you said that the dam was constructed on top of unstable ground and that it's not lined, my brain just instantly went "Yup this is going to go horribly wrong."

[@ElementofKindness]

This, they can get away with, with barely a slap on the wrist. I try to build my own house, and the government puts me through countless hurdles, permits, inspections, demands, and fees.

[@birchtree2274]

That's because you failed to procure a few multimillion dollar lobbying and legal firms before you began your project. If you had only done it correctly and -bribed- contributed to the Congress member of choice's election, you too could jump over all hurdles, sensible and insensible. (need I add a /s ?)

[@jamesharmer9293]

You're obviously not greasing enough palms.

[@DrummerGhisi]

"...which is about here on a map..." is my favorite phrase of the channel

[@stephancasas]

Solid video as usual, but worth noting at 5:14, you mention Polonium-210, using the symbol for Plutonium.

[@peterwill9660]

I have driven by this place dozens of times traveling and never knew it was there. I'm checking it out for sure next time I go through there. Great videos dude! Thanks for making them

[@Wafflepudding]

So many people watched Chernobyl thinking "that kind of thing only happens in the USSR". Hah!

[@infiltr80r]

Who thought that? As someone who was born in the USSR, people in Europe and by extension North America are not that different.

[@PAUL-eq6ot]

they do happen a lot but the problem with Chernobyl was dyatlov he was as incompetent as they come.

[@Wafflepudding]

@@infiltr80r Search Chernobyl reaction videos. Plenty of people blame the disaster on the USSR uniquely.

[@birchtree2274]

​@@Wafflepudding It is absolutely the case that all sides playing with nuclear fire have found ways to burn themselves, and sometimes in stunningly similar ways. That said, the USSR was a particularly negligent society where corruption, falsification of reports, and cutting corners was nearly mandatory, and where external checks on the Soviet state were nearly non-existent. Chernobyl was hardly the only massive nuclear disaster in the USSR. Except for location (Chernobyl being located in a fairly populated part of the USSR), I'd argue the 1957 Mayak disaster was at least as bad. Of course we've come a bit too close to a Mayak-style disaster in Hanford for comfort.

[@Turbopotato3000]

There can't be THAT many more nuclear accidents. Kinda wondering what other cool topic'll pop up once you run out of interesting radiation ones. Edit, that being aaid, if you need a cool subject, how about that mine under a lake, that accidentally created a singhole in the lake, sucking the whole thing into the mine. It was even caught on video. Or the story of sergi korolev, the man who gave up so much for us to get into space, but got screwed over so hrd by the soviet goverment

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Probably cover more industrial disasters next

[@Turbopotato3000]

@@PlainlyDifficult holy shit, you're fast, kinda wrote just half my comment by the time you responded, but hey, that sounds cool to me :D

[@TheFilmFatale]

...that would be Lake Peigneur: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur

[@Lazy_Tim]

Both of these have been covered very well in youtube. I would prefer a topic like this one that is a it forgotten.

[@bradlemmond]

@@Lazy_Tim Yes, I don't know any other channels that cover little-known nuclear and industrial accidents like this.

[@toter-drache]

As with many of your videos, i never heard a word of this back then, or so little about it was reported that it didn't make it into memory, Thanks for researching and making videos about this sort of stuff.

[@Chidelabedledester]

Hey ! Nice episode today ! Have a look at Lucens reactor partial meltdown in 1969, a Swiss quality nuclear disaster ;)

[@DarkDisc1]

Loving the frequent uploads man!! Keep up the great work

[@gtw4546]

Weird that I'd JUST watched your video of the nuclear boy scout only to have David Hahn mentioned in this one!

[@Zeppflyer]

In addition to the optics of an industrial accident vs a nuclear plant meltdown, TMI is in the middle of a populated area, close to Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC, as opposed to this operation out in the middle of nowhere in the southwest. There was also probably a racial element to the coverage. It's just just not going to get as much attention when most of the victims are Navajo.

[@GigsTaggart]

also everything they spilled came from the local ground anyway... Yeah its bad to have concentrated the worst parts and made them mobile in the water supply, but its not like any isotopes were released that aren't already in the soil. I like this channel but I fear he's run out of real accidents and is now hyping up things that weren't even that bad, stretching the truth to make a good story.

[@Max._Power]

@@GigsTaggart yes, because the soil at the surface and the soil several metres underground are the same thing, that isn't how soil stratification works, or any event where tailings were dumped into the environment would be no big deal because "the stuff in the tailings is in the soil anyways" "oh I know we spilled arsenic contaminated water all over the place and it's extremely toxic but it's fine because arsenic occurs naturally underground anyways". also radiation levels 7000 times higher than allowable limits are fine because there are radioactive isotopes underground anyways, so it's fine that people who aren't white who live in the area are at increased risk of cancer and mutation now.

[@willdejong7763]

@@GigsTaggart Wow that's an amazing way to think about that. I suspose that you'd be fine if I took a bulldozer to your house, just leveled everything on your property and drove off. What's that you say? Now you don't have a place to live? I mean I didn't take anything, all your stuff is still there, right? No worries.

[@paulablack1863]

Awesome channel! Thanks so much for posting and I truly appreciate all of your hard work. It's apparent.

[@alexball5907]

Interesting (and depressing) video once again. However, at around 5'14 you refer to Polonium 210, but accidentally give it the symbol Pu (Plutonium).

[@jackfanning7952]

I would be interested in a video on the Shinkolobwe uranium mine that supplied very rich uranium ore for the Manhattan Project.

[@oceanman3804]

Your uploads make my day every time

[@bansheemania1692]

If it Wasn't for you. I WOULDN'T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES STUFF WAS Leaked In My Own Backyard. Wow and Thanks

[@deadfreightwest5956]

At the end of the movie, _Koyaanisqatsi_ there are presented several dire Hopi prophesies, one of which is, "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."

[@sallyvillarreal4294]

I wonder if this is largely forgotten because it’s a rural/tribal area. We tend to pay less attention to those areas, especially tribal areas. But that brings me back to my previous comment about news media. Three Mile Island went on for several days, and I think the suspense led to the interest. The entire country, if not the world, tracked TMI through news media. Where was the media? This might not have caused the same kind of suspense, but how, and more importantly how much, was this covered? Kind of wonder if the way Westinghouse handled it had something to do with keeping it out of the media.

[@busterbeagle2167]

Great video. Grew up in Michigan, never even heard of that. Unfortunately my guess to why is as follows. 3 miles island threatened a large population of...... vrs local indigenous folks (that the us government allowed to live on “reservations”)

[@3rdalbum]

I know pretty much nothing about civil engineering, but as soon as you said "unlined" I facepalmed.

[@0therun1t21]

This is another one I lived through and didn't know it, scary!

[@colesherrill7472]

I love your videos, any way you could cover the Waverly, TN tank car explosion in 1978? It led to a major rework in how hazardous materials were handled. Since then, there was a dramatic drop in loss of hazmat workers due to site hazards.

[@tapiocajesus7295]

So I forgot what your channel name was so I just searched “Radiation spill British guy”

[@Meredith34567]

""""" Earthen Dam """" Yeah, this isn't going to end well.

[@carldagroundskeeper]

THAT levy sure wasn't dry.

[@stevengill1736]

Imagine the miner's exposure - even open pit mining exposed one to mildly radioactive dust. I remember applying for jobs in that part of the country, and even in the early 70s one of the questions on the application was, "have you ever worked in a uranium mine?"

[@stevie-ray2020]

PD should darken the room & shoot that rating-scale section of the video with a UV lamp or torch on those plastic-numbers, as fluorescing numbers seems very appropriate to me considering that water-course must've glowed at night!

[@mac10man]

I like how you did this one. I live across the street from this. No Joke. I was in preschool when this happened and always grew up knowing about this.

[@minimanadam]

My new favorite videos ...LOVE EM ! Happy fathers day too all the other dads out there !!!!!!

[@RCAvhstape]

If you're looking for more almost forgotten industrial disasters to cover, there was a tanker collision on the Delaware River near Philadelphia in 1975 that resulted in two ships exploding and burning and some guys killed. Blew out the windows in Marcus Hook, PA. The river was on fire for a day or so with all the burning oil and fuel. Because it was before the internet, it's hard to find info on, but there was a good US Coast Guard report on it which I ran across somewhere. The tanker was called the Corinthos, and the other ship was called the Queeny I think.

[@Darkdoxie534]

I would love to see something on Fernald. Its quite a beautiful nature preserve now. They are also an amusement park just down the road now.

[@JerrySpoonpuncher]

Amazing video as always!

[@Tindometari]

Was a guy named Dyatlov involved here? Just checking. Oh, and props for the use of Diné. Not many would have thought of it.

[@656hookemhorns]

Very good video as always. I've been to that area of New Mexico many times and never knew about it

[@kimhohlmayer7018]

Excellent report. I can not understand why nuclear energy is still a thing.

[@fastback000]

Thats wild. I lived in NM for 18 years and never once heard about this, not even in NM history.

[@bigjay875]

I wonder why that company was allowed to store this fluid at an acid ph rather than being neutralized before storing!

[@Backyardmech1]

Groundwater pump and treat system is probably the best method in the sense of cost and hopefully reducing the spread of the groundwater plume. It’s a long term remediation method, but far outweighs the costs of digging the site out, backfilling, and figuring out how to dispose of the affected soil. Not to mention the other exposure factors to the workers and equipment.

[@schautamatic]

I’ve been in quite a few places in Navajo Nation (Dilkon, Indian Wells, Low Mountain, Piñon, Burnt Corn) and now wonder what covered-up dirt is in those places. Also, I lived for five years in New Mexico and have explored a lot of areas…including along the RIO PUERCO. I wonder if any of the Church Rock spill made it near the Cabazon Peak area. Three towns that I know of around there: Turrion, San Luiz, and Cabazon are there. I just have to wonder….

[@robb617iejb56]

Another great video. Well done

[@theheavyscar]

Great video!

[@bartfoster1311]

Wow, hard to believe i never heard of this before!

[@Di3mondDud3]

You started video by just brushing over something happening in my home state of Rhide Island lmao now i gotta find that video

[@grindstone4910]

Thanks for bringing this to wider attention! Can you do a video on Picher, Oklahoma?

[@robertpierce1981]

2 years on I’m watching this. John: I need to send you pics and video from Three Mile Island as it’s only 10 air miles from my house.

[@sawyerawr5783]

Its interesting: I actually came across an aerial survey of the arroyo and creeks leading away from this site in my volunteer/internship with the new Mexico State Library. I didn't know this event existed, but it was taken shortly before I think (if I recall the date right...it actually might have been shortly after, come to think of it). either way, now I know why said survey was done. I love putting historical pieces together.

[@gateauxq4604]

This is why we can’t have nice things including nuclear.

[@MrFLAIMEBRAINE777]

Great video but the spill was north of gallup, keep up the great work

[@RetroAmateur1989]

-Cracks are forming on the dam wall! -What wall? -The dam wall! -Yeah, but which wall -I already told you! The DAM wall!!! -What damn wall!? -the wall, of the dam! -oh

[@bigjay875]

The contaminated soils should have been strip mined and stored on they're property till radioactive levels naturally Decomposed! Unforgivable!

[@justincase1898]

You should say the level not just point it out on the screen, cause i mostly listen to this like a pod cast without watching.... Thanks for your great content/documentaries!!!

[@xs-1b415]

The shaking 👍 really got me... 😅

[@andrewstrausbaugh4517]

I live near miles, less than 10, from TMI. We had crazy procedures at school and a special pickup plan if we were in the meltdown zone as they called it. But other than the few of us, smack dab in the corners of a few districts, no one ever really thought about it. It’s a pretty cool place to visit. Really peaceful waters.

[@joj.]

At 5:13 the chemical symbol for Polonium is incorrect (Pu instead of Po)

[@johndemeritt3460]

I'm afraid you've got that reversed: polonium is Po (as in Po 210, found in tobacco), while plutonium is Pu (as in Pu 239, found in nuclear weapons).

[@joj.]

@@johndemeritt3460 No, I was highlighting the error made (the video showed Pu-210 instead of Po-210).

[@60079regulatorylaw]

Thank you always informative.