Radioactive wasp nest with 10x radiation found at Savannah River Nuclear Site; is the public at risk?

A recent discovery at the Savannah River Site, a former nuclear weapons facility in South Carolina, has left experts with more questions than answers. During a routine inspection on July 3, 2025, Department of Energy (DOE) staff came across a wasp nest containing radiation levels 10 times above federal safety limits. As per the official, not a single wasp was found nearby.

According to a US Department of Energy report, the nest’s radioactive contamination was “greater than 10 times the total contamination values” listed in the federal regulation that identifies the need for posting contamination and high-contamination areas.

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In the local newspaper, Aiken Standard, they stated that the section of the facility where employees discovered the nest contains 22 underground carbon steel tanks. Each tank is reportedly capable of holding between 750,000 and 1.3 million gallons of radioactive waste.

Radiological Control Operations (RCO) teams acted quickly, spraying and disposing of the nest as radioactive waste.

Further testing showed no external leak or contamination, pointing instead to what officials called an "onsite legacy", leftover radioactive contamination from the site's active years producing nuclear bomb components.

But here's the real puzzle: how did wasps end up building a highly radioactive nest in the first place?

Could the wasps have collected contaminated materials?

According to Fox News, depending on the species, wasps build their nests using materials like soil, plant fibers, or decaying wood. If they collected contaminated particles while gathering these materials, from the ground or structures at the Savannah River Site, the nest could have absorbed radiation, explaining its high levels.

While the Department of Energy did not specify the nest’s construction materials, the watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch emphasized that identifying the nest type (e.g., soil-based versus plant-based) is critical to tracing how it became contaminated.

Understanding the material could point to areas with residual “legacy” contamination left over from the site’s Cold War-era operations.

Where are the wasps now, and is the nest dangerous?

One of the most perplexing aspects of the discovery is what was missing: the wasps themselves. No live or dead wasps were found in or around the nest, raising questions among experts. Did the insects die off elsewhere? Or did they abandon the structure before radiation levels became harmful?

The tanks containing the wasp nest are located within the boundaries of the nuclear waste site. According to a statement from Savannah River Mission Completion, wasps typically fly only a few hundred yards from their nests, so it is unlikely that they are found outside the facility.

If wasps were to be found, they would have significantly lower levels of radiation than their nests, as noted in the statement provided to the Aiken Standard.