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The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) established the Formerly Utilized Sites
Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) to identify former Manhattan Project and AEC
sites that were privately owned but needed to be cleaned up.
The Manhattan Project (see September 1942)
and later the AEC (see July 1946) needed
various materials to build nuclear devices. At the time, no one in government
or industry was producing these materials, and, in many cases, no one knew how
to produce them. So, the Federal government hired various private companies to
research and produce the needed materials. Many private metal machining
businesses were contracted to shape, machine, and/or examine uranium products.
They produced uranium billets--uranium and metal machined together in a tube or
circle shape--for nuclear reactors. Machining uranium was a complicated process
because uranium is easily ignited in air. Uranium fires happened at many sites,
and now the U.S. Department of Energy is cleaning up the residue from these
fires as well as other forms of contamination at FUSRAP sites.
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