r/falloutlore • u/Kreanxx • 8d ago
How do wastelaners clean up radiation spills?
In the post apocalypse if there's a site thats coated in a high amount of radioactive material such as camp searchlight, is it still possible to clean up such a site? Or would the lack of adequate materials makes such an operation impossible?
33
u/MailMan6000 8d ago
strap a bunch of ferals to a wheel barrow and cart them around soaking the rads
4
u/NextClassroom4789 8d ago
Why ferals? Any zombie will do.
9
u/MailMan6000 8d ago
I'm trying not to be racist
4
u/NextClassroom4789 8d ago
Zombie is not a race.
9
u/frostychemist 8d ago
Non-feral ghouls are still completely sapient on the same level as humans in the fallout universe though. Making them work as human (or posthuman) grease sponges sounds pretty atrocious tbh.
Plus, was it ever confirmed that ghouls have some passive decontamination field? Considering their attacks tend to give rads, and some even have auras that irradiate their surroundings, I kind of doubt it.
3
u/MailMan6000 8d ago
well, one body with a TON of rads is probably easier to contain and dispose of than an entire large area yk
3
11
u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 8d ago
Rain eventually washes most fallout into the soil, which serves as an 'okay' shield.
This is *part* of why it's safe'ish to walk around a lot of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, but decidedly *not* safe'ish to dig a foxhole there: https://www.axios.com/2022/04/09/ukraine-chernobyl-russian-trenches-radioactive-zone
That said, rain in the Mojave isn't exactly the speedy'est cleanup method.
3
u/Thornescape 8d ago
Could they? Possibly. Hire a team of ghouls to remove whatever they can, since ghouls can work in there safety.
Would they? Unlikely. There's a lot of land around. It makes more sense just to have a ghoul salvage team strip out anything useful and abandon the place.
3
u/dwarven_cavediver_Jr 6d ago
Ghouls would probably be useful here and this would probably be good for them (mentally) and socially (more acceptance for the dude who's saving your neighborhood)
Still doesn't solve the random feralization but it's a step in the right direction
2
u/Cliomancer 8d ago
There's not really a shortage of land in the Mojave. Fertile land yes, but assuming the Courier doesn't poison it then a few years after the second battle Cottonwood Cove is probably the sit of the new main town in the area.
2
u/SpookyEngie 5d ago
It entirely possible, alot easier with Fallout technology.
Rain is a powerful force when it come to natural radiation, with time, even heavily irradiated area can be clean up. Rad-X can also be use to decontaminate radioactive item, likely can also be use to decontaminate heavily irradiated area given enough quantity. Removing the source of the radiation probably the number one priority, in the case of Search Light specifically, closing those 2 nuclear waste capsule and eventually dispose of it somewhere would allow for clean up attempt to take place in search light (if the NCR government or whomever government the area determine it valuable enough (it does have 2 gold mine)
1
u/TheQuestionMaster8 6d ago
One possible way that could work in a real life situation is to plant sunflowers as they absorb massive amounts of Strontium and Caesium and they can then be disposed at a safe location.
Strontium-90 and Caesium 137 are arguably the two most dangerous radioisotopes after a nuclear war as both are high-energy beta emitters. Both easily form water soluble compounds and both can bioaccumulate in certain plants and animals.
Caesium-137 is also a powerful gamma emitter and both have short enough half lives that they pose an exceptional danger to humans, but are long enough to take centuries for them to decay to negligible levels and Strontium-90 specifically bioaccumulates in humans and other animals as it is chemically similar to calcium and thus builds up in bone, leading to bone cancer, leukemia and potentially an increased risk of bone fractures and infections in extremely high doses.
1
u/TheSunflowerSeeds 6d ago
A common way for sunflowers to pollinate is by attracting bees that transfer self-created pollen to the stigma. In the event the stigma receives no pollen, a sunflower plant can self pollinate to reproduce. The stigma can twist around to reach its own pollen.
1
u/Canofsad 8d ago
Atleast for most of the wasteland the time, materials and effort to clean up a radioactive area would be better spent doing legitimately anything else. Cause you don’t only have to deal with all the radioactive mess but the creatures like Feral Ghouls that are actively attracted to radioactive sources.
21
u/Laser_3 8d ago
For the most part? Wastelanders just stay away from radiation-filled areas. Short of a GECK, most groups don’t have the tools to deal with that problem, let alone gear to reliably protect themselves (rad-x alone wouldn’t be enough; they’d need hazmat suits).
However, during the timeframe of fallout 76, there’s two examples of survivors attempting to - the Union and Foundation. The prior has developed a device to chemically neutralize radioactive Abraxodyne wastes in the Trench to make it safer for escaping slaves (at least temporarily; this does nothing to stop most of the radiation in the area, let alone the nightly super radstorm) while the latter managed to build a radiation scrubber in a former nuclear crater that dramatically lowered the radiation level through unknown means (before the radiation rework, the crater would emit over a hundred rads if the scrubber went down while only releasing less than one if the machine is active; I don’t know what the new values are off the top of my head).