History: Winning the Cold War Meant Destroying This South Carolina Town
 

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https://www.ozy.com/flashback/winnin...c1fc106f66bb56 ---I wanted to post the opening pic from this article, but it was too big to post here.



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" The original Ellenton’s fate was sealed when President Harry Truman learned in 1949 that the Russians had built their own atomic bomb. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission began exploring locations for a site to prepare an even more powerful explosive response. In all, 128 sites across America would be considered, before the commission narrowed it down to this one area straddling Aiken, Barnwell and Allendale counties in South Carolina. The announcement on Nov. 28, 1950, ordered the displacement of some 6,000 residents and 6,000 graves, uprooting an area roughly the size of New York City. In their place would be the Savannah River Plant, which would process plutonium and tritium for the H-bomb".



"In all, approximately 6,000 people were moved or forced to move by the government; nearly 700 of those displaced citizens were living in the town of Ellenton."



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--------------"After 50 plus years of operation, the Savannah River Site (shown below in 2010 in a demolition project) is considered to be one of the most contaminated sites in the world. The ground, the streams, the ponds, even the turtles all test positive for high levels of toxic waste."



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Wife an I drove through the very area the week before last after leaving friends house in Aiken on our way to a railroad convention in St Augustine. I arrived glowing .....

Back in 1996 when I was an undergrad, we did a 2 day trip to the University of Georgia ecology lab over at the Savannah river site. We took a tour of the unrestricted areas and the areas around Par Pond which is famous for "unusual" biological mutations. Saw a couple of rattlesnakes, fortunately they were normal. Really interesting areas if you know the history. The biodiversity is amazing as well.

- Buck

I remember reading in the local paper years ago that the alligators there we humongous as they had not been bothered by anyone as the SRS was a restricted area. Buck, glad you survived the field trip!