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The technology being used to clean up the chemical and radioactive mess at US
nuclear weapons facilities is “simply ineffective”, says a report from the
National Research Council in Washington DC. The Department of Energy is spending
billions of dollars trying to remove contaminated soil, and pumping groundwater
to the surface for treatment. However, the report says the contamination at the
sites is so severe that the problem should be tackled in situ. It
suggests using new methods such as extracting metals and radionuclides from soil
with electromagnetic fields, and applying chemicals that prevent toxic metals
spreading through groundwater.