The Nation - News from Nov. 8, 1988

A laboratory exhaust stack probably released the plutonium found on the hands and shoes of 18 Savannah River Plant employees during the past two weeks, a spokesman said. Plant officials said the plutonium may have entered the air through one of a series of valves in the 75-foot stack. Air from those valves is now being sent through an extra sand filter, Du Pont spokesman Clif Webb said. The plant across the Savannah River from Augusta, Ga., produces plutonium and tritium for the nation’s nuclear reactors, but since April all three of its reactors have been shut down for maintenance amid questions of safety. A number of near-accidents and several releases of radioactive materials have been disclosed.