While working at YFC3 in c1963, we asked for, and were granted a tour of the Saxton "nuke" facility. The tour group included two "counselors" and twenty delinquent "campers". We were admitted to the reactor which was going 'HOT", and observed the green halo in the deep containment pool. Fast forward to 2010 when I met a Saxton native who was part of the decommissioning crew. He said the reactor site was selected given its isolated location "just in case", and water supply. Cleanup included digging pits and burying a lot of hot material. I can't say the exposure to the area as a worker and seasonal camper at Heritage Cove has had a negative effect on my 89 years. But then, nothing lasts forever!
Thank you for sharing your story. Amazing. And to be able to talk about the Green Glow, WOW! (nowadays it is Blue due to "cleaner" fissile material, but you actually got to see the infamous "green")
Imagine giving the okay to something that creates a handling problem for longer than recorded history. How much foolish optimism and or complete lunatic larceny do you need to be so cavalier with the future of human beings? SMH Let's all of us make sure no giant white elephants of the white man like these NP plants get built again.
Thank so much for finding this material! I grew up in Saxton and the surrounding areas. Not many people believe me when I tell them there was experimental plant there and that they let it flow into the river and supposedly buried barrels of waste in the ground there as well. I've heard folklore from old fisherman about deformed fish coming out the the streams and lakes near by long ago before my time but never seen it myself! My grandmother and mother always said this is why so many people in Saxton end up dying of some type of cancer too. Now I know they was right for sure! Thank you again.
Since publishing this video, I have received a large number of requests for my research material. Apparently there are a lot of survivors that are really angry they were not told the whole truth.
@@ODDySEEy yes from a distance. By the time I was old enough to think about getting pictures of it, it was gone. Dad mentioned he got a tour of it back in grade school. He said " I remember the domed retainment building and they took us into the control building with a lot of switches and round guages "
I lived in saxton all my childhood. Played right outside the saxton power plant. I skipped school and watched them remove the dome when they closed it all down
Great job as usual Scott. When I lived in Hollidaysburg, my Grandfather, Dad and I would go fishing in Saxton. I didn't know about this site. Keep up the Great Work!!!
I had heard about it several times and always looked for where there would be really big cooling towers. I didn't realize that it would be so... small. Yet so deadly.
LOL... Sorry if it was a bit of a heavy hitter. It didn't start off that way, it was just a leisurely stroll around a bunch of concrete pads behind a fence. Then it struck me what we were looking at and the investigation went down soooo many holes.
My grandfather helped build the dome and also did a lot of the asbestos work there. Growing up and still living in or near Saxton I used to fish there often in the 70's - 90's,still do time to time,but you have to walk to the river now.Would sometimes spend the night or weekend in a tent.Back till sometime in the 90's you could drive to the waters edge.Also used to be able to drive back "River Road" up river between the water treatment plant and the railroad trestle that went over Shoup St.,but First Energy owns that land too and has had it gated off for years. My uncle used to own the land across the river from the cliffs to the gate at what is now Heritage Cove.We also used to hunt it every year.Some of us would flank the drive on the plant side watching the waters edge for deer trying to cross the river or sneak back through the drive. I remember the day they hauled the reactor itself through town,it was on a flatbed covered with a tarp.The belly of the flatbed was very nearly scraping the road as it crested "Liquor Store" hill (catty-corner to the Martin General) and was surprised it didn't become high-centered. There's no mention of the dam just up river of the plant so it could be pumped into the plant nor the old bucket line that fed coal from Hickory Hill to the old coal plant.....My grandfather also rode the bucket a lot when young working the mines (concrete anchor pylons for the towers are still there going up both mountains). There's more to the "Nuke Plant" story than this video knows and mentions,and some of what is in the video has to be taken with a grain of salt,especially why it was decommissioned... Reading through the comments there are many folklore comments too. LOL the one about the Gov. needing a place to dump the waste has to be the funniest.... Flying a drone is also illegal there and along the river,the Army Corps has a no fly zone all along the Corps ground (lake/river and surrounding floodplain).
Great information! As for the "flying the drone..." "...illegal there", that is completely inaccurate. The ACE managed property ends at the junction of Logging Road 31018 and 31019 just north of this property. Drone operation was performed legally, in legal airspace, and not in any manner that could interfere with infrastructure, while being operated from public property. If you are not familiar with drone laws and process, please take the time to at least learn about it before making inaccurate statements regarding what can and cannot be done.
@@ODDySEEy You better check to see if First Energy isn't just "leasing" the land from ACE.ACE leases their land and even when leased people can't still do what they want on that land even if they're the lessee. Ask anyone that leases ACE ground. I have lived here all my 50 yrs,have many friends that own property near ACE ground and lease it off them.They have to abide by ACE rules and if you get the wrong person (name withheld) inspecting he'll throw the book at you (he's just that type of person/power went to their head). Most of First Energy property is on FEMA's Flood plane charts.... You also want to make sure you have the latest firmware for that drone,bet once you update it you will see you will no longer be able to take off there.
My grandmother, who lived in saxton, died in 1988, I was 13. She was buried in Granview Cemetary which is right there near where that reactor was. I remember going right past it on the way to the cemetary for the funeral. had never been there or had seen it before. I do remember saying to my mom.....this is exactly how night of the living dead started. That reactor being right there next to a cemetary always kind of freaked me out.
Thank you for the information and video. My mother, who grew up in the cove, had always talked about this site and most people listened to her but whether or not they BELIEVED her was another story.
I did my best to paint the "correct" picture. Only "facts" were presented. I was honestly surprised that the site, although it meets EPA, is still not as clean as what we are persuaded to imagine.
Yeah... I was really taken back by that and then I thought about Love Park in New York where the waste side and LLW landfill was SOLD to the school district and the schools were built on TOP of the site.
When I was a kid in 80's..we would fish directly behind the plant..glad I didnt eat the fish we caught..lol..great video scott..I never knew the history..thanks for sharing
Even though the general property is posted, people still walk the driveway down to the river to go fishing. We actually met someone who went down and was saying that it was unusually active recently. I wonder if it is just underfished or maybe there is a deep hole around the double bend.
Enjoyed the video very much. I see you went Hi- Tech with the drone.Great job of narrating and I can appreciate the time you spent researching the subject. Thanks
Much appreciated! I had someone ask what the "proof" of the site still being hot was without using a radiometer. That is one of the reasons I took the drone up. A HUGE piece of elevated plateau with an almost complete surround of the river... AND NOBODY BOUGHT IT FOR THEIR LAND??? It is a beautiful piece of property... with a sad history.
This site had a couple of meltdowns which were covered up. In some scarce documents on file at the NRC there are merely blurbs referring to "Fuel Failures", there are some breadcrumbs in other docments as well.
I was finding all kinds of errors, ommissions, and accidents, in some of the docs I found, but none went into any specific details. Thanks for the contribution.
Do you ever venture to points west? The Westinghouse collider near Pittsburgh was an interesting site. It was peripheral to the Manhattan Project and its best feature was the attached Van deGraaf generator.
I have a good number of western sites in the video list. More to come. There is a window of time and effort for everything east and west of my central location. Weather is the biggest price and gas is second. ;)
Just came across this video pretty cool local history. If you want more information you’ll have to look Adam Watson up he’s full of Saxton history and probably has lots of photos of it
I think I fired off an email to him previous to finalizing the research to see if there was any added info... unfortunately there was no response, but who knows, maybe I had a wrong email.
Hi, since we saw this video, are you aware of the ongoing Nuclear Waste Clean Up in Apollo and Parks Twp. , PA? Thought you might be interested. A good reference would be found on youtube The Apollo Affair: Nuclear Waste in Western PA by Ronald Rekowski. Thirty years ongoing and still a year from clean up at the cost of 1/2 billion dollars.... We live and work only about a mile from Parks Twp. Thought this would be interesting to you. We watch and love all your videos.
I will have to look into that. I wonder if they have Monessen and Bethel on their list (the golf course and kids parks both are on top of nuke waste burial sites).
I rember my dad taking me to see the green dome as a kid. Probably about the late 80s. Intriguing, but never knew much beoynd it was an experimental reactor.
I remember my dad showing me sights like this when I was a kid... now they are sites that are totally hidden from view, probably because they don't want us to know anything.
Westinghouse in Madison, Pa had a meltdown in the 50s or 60s that nobody speaks of too. Its funny how often it seemed to have happened. Here, they just buried it under a field.
It is like California post Fukishima. When radiation hit a high that was unsafe for humans in the water, fish, and local foods... the FDA just upped the number of what defined "safe" and "unsafe". LOL
Wish I'd seen you, I would've stopped and said hi! I work in Saxton and live about 4 miles from where you visited! Haven't watched the video yet but I'm looking forward to finding out about the power plant...I've lived in the area about 12 years and know nothing about the history of the power plant.
@@ODDySEEy Yes, i have watched it and yes, it did shed some light on the area. Unfortunately the light is a toxic green color haha! A bit scary to say the least.
This site or the actual reactor? If it is the site, how's the fishing? If its the reactor... hmmm... the things that can be done with an old reactor :D
There was a place close to mount union that had numerous rail cars that had sat since I believe ww2 about 10 years ago they were supposed to go in and clear the trees and cut the cars up for scrap the site is supposed to be a historical landmark anyone know anything about this
They are still there, but I have not gotten a response from the New EBT group. I have placed an email request to go out and do a video there... very heavily marked "no trespass" and I don't just wanna step out and do a video with my face on location in that type of situation.
Around 6:34, you use the world "socialistic" when you could as easily be describing a common behaviour of American Capitalism. To place this in proper ideological context, we have often had (and your example is a case in point) privatized profits and socialized risks. Regardless of our preferred political alignments, that is a recipe for exploitation of small communities like Saxto, PA. Kudos on the video. I wish you had taken a geiger counter with you on the walk.
Thanks for the kudos. In regards to flagging ideological premise within my presentation... it is not done for political stoicism (i.e. I am not holding back on pushing any agenda nor a narrative). I am representing what was taking place as clearly and concisely as possible. For example, I am a Trekkie. LOVE anything Star Trek. But, I am not fooled by the illusion that Rodenberry's universe was anything short of purist socialism controlled by a military oligarchy. Honestly, it is bound to happen once we remove our dependence on Oil (which is the only true form of money on earth) and develop an energy source that costs less to produce than to consume. ;) (Be happy to side discuss this concept with you any time... ideologies and economic systems are a fascinating subject to me)
Unbelievable, I never knew that was up there, and they just pumped that shit into the Juniata River real nice I live about 50 miles downstream from Saxton, I am also having thyroid issues. The jackass's who first allowed nuclear power plants should have all been thrown in prison for life!
All of our waterways and soils are soooooo contaminated with so much garbage it is mind blowing. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like to have something truly natural out of the ground or ground water when those who were spoiling it were still alive.
While working at YFC3 in c1963, we asked for, and were granted a tour of the Saxton "nuke" facility. The tour group included two "counselors" and twenty delinquent "campers". We were admitted to the reactor which was going 'HOT", and observed the green halo in the deep containment pool. Fast forward to 2010 when I met a Saxton native who was part of the decommissioning crew. He said the reactor site was selected given its isolated location "just in case", and water supply. Cleanup included digging pits and burying a lot of hot material. I can't say the exposure to the area as a worker and seasonal camper at Heritage Cove has had a negative effect on my 89 years. But then, nothing lasts forever!
Thank you for sharing your story. Amazing. And to be able to talk about the Green Glow, WOW! (nowadays it is Blue due to "cleaner" fissile material, but you actually got to see the infamous "green")
Imagine giving the okay to something that creates a handling problem for longer than recorded history. How much foolish optimism and or complete lunatic larceny do you need to be so cavalier with the future of human beings? SMH Let's all of us make sure no giant white elephants of the white man like these NP plants get built again.
Thank so much for finding this material! I grew up in Saxton and the surrounding areas. Not many people believe me when I tell them there was experimental plant there and that they let it flow into the river and supposedly buried barrels of waste in the ground there as well. I've heard folklore from old fisherman about deformed fish coming out the the streams and lakes near by long ago before my time but never seen it myself! My grandmother and mother always said this is why so many people in Saxton end up dying of some type of cancer too. Now I know they was right for sure! Thank you again.
Since publishing this video, I have received a large number of requests for my research material. Apparently there are a lot of survivors that are really angry they were not told the whole truth.
Great video! I grew up in Martinsburg and my dad took us by there a few times in the 90s and told us about it.
So were you able to see the green dome and everything?
@@ODDySEEy yes from a distance. By the time I was old enough to think about getting pictures of it, it was gone.
Dad mentioned he got a tour of it back in grade school. He said " I remember the domed retainment building and they took us into the control building with a lot of switches and round guages "
I lived in saxton all my childhood. Played right outside the saxton power plant. I skipped school and watched them remove the dome when they closed it all down
Great job as usual Scott. When I lived in Hollidaysburg, my Grandfather, Dad and I would go fishing in Saxton. I didn't know about this site. Keep up the Great Work!!!
I had heard about it several times and always looked for where there would be really big cooling towers. I didn't realize that it would be so... small. Yet so deadly.
Great video! Thanks for all of the info!
Glad it was helpful!
Great Video. Wonderful to wake up, drink coffee, and see a wonderful video. Very interesting
LOL... Sorry if it was a bit of a heavy hitter. It didn't start off that way, it was just a leisurely stroll around a bunch of concrete pads behind a fence. Then it struck me what we were looking at and the investigation went down soooo many holes.
My grandfather helped build the dome and also did a lot of the asbestos work there.
Growing up and still living in or near Saxton I used to fish there often in the 70's - 90's,still do time to time,but you have to walk to the river now.Would sometimes spend the night or weekend in a tent.Back till sometime in the 90's you could drive to the waters edge.Also used to be able to drive back "River Road" up river between the water treatment plant and the railroad trestle that went over Shoup St.,but First Energy owns that land too and has had it gated off for years.
My uncle used to own the land across the river from the cliffs to the gate at what is now Heritage Cove.We also used to hunt it every year.Some of us would flank the drive on the plant side watching the waters edge for deer trying to cross the river or sneak back through the drive.
I remember the day they hauled the reactor itself through town,it was on a flatbed covered with a tarp.The belly of the flatbed was very nearly scraping the road as it crested "Liquor Store" hill (catty-corner to the Martin General) and was surprised it didn't become high-centered.
There's no mention of the dam just up river of the plant so it could be pumped into the plant nor the old bucket line that fed coal from Hickory Hill to the old coal plant.....My grandfather also rode the bucket a lot when young working the mines (concrete anchor pylons for the towers are still there going up both mountains).
There's more to the "Nuke Plant" story than this video knows and mentions,and some of what is in the video has to be taken with a grain of salt,especially why it was decommissioned...
Reading through the comments there are many folklore comments too. LOL the one about the Gov. needing a place to dump the waste has to be the funniest....
Flying a drone is also illegal there and along the river,the Army Corps has a no fly zone all along the Corps ground (lake/river and surrounding floodplain).
Great information! As for the "flying the drone..." "...illegal there", that is completely inaccurate. The ACE managed property ends at the junction of Logging Road 31018 and 31019 just north of this property. Drone operation was performed legally, in legal airspace, and not in any manner that could interfere with infrastructure, while being operated from public property.
If you are not familiar with drone laws and process, please take the time to at least learn about it before making inaccurate statements regarding what can and cannot be done.
@@ODDySEEy You better check to see if First Energy isn't just "leasing" the land from ACE.ACE leases their land and even when leased people can't still do what they want on that land even if they're the lessee.
Ask anyone that leases ACE ground.
I have lived here all my 50 yrs,have many friends that own property near ACE ground and lease it off them.They have to abide by ACE rules and if you get the wrong person (name withheld) inspecting he'll throw the book at you (he's just that type of person/power went to their head).
Most of First Energy property is on FEMA's Flood plane charts....
You also want to make sure you have the latest firmware for that drone,bet once you update it you will see you will no longer be able to take off there.
My grandmother, who lived in saxton, died in 1988, I was 13. She was buried in Granview Cemetary which is right there near where that reactor was. I remember going right past it on the way to the cemetary for the funeral. had never been there or had seen it before. I do remember saying to my mom.....this is exactly how night of the living dead started. That reactor being right there next to a cemetary always kind of freaked me out.
Children of the 80's and 90's were blessed with the greatest horror films. Fortunately, they have prepared us for what is unfolding in todays world.
@@ODDySEEy Absolutely!
Thank you for the information and video. My mother, who grew up in the cove, had always talked about this site and most people listened to her but whether or not they BELIEVED her was another story.
I did my best to paint the "correct" picture. Only "facts" were presented. I was honestly surprised that the site, although it meets EPA, is still not as clean as what we are persuaded to imagine.
It's crazy how close Tussey Mountain Schools are located to the reactor site.
Yeah... I was really taken back by that and then I thought about Love Park in New York where the waste side and LLW landfill was SOLD to the school district and the schools were built on TOP of the site.
Thank you so much!!! So informative and interesting!!!
You are so welcome!
When I was a kid in 80's..we would fish directly behind the plant..glad I didnt eat the fish we caught..lol..great video scott..I never knew the history..thanks for sharing
Even though the general property is posted, people still walk the driveway down to the river to go fishing. We actually met someone who went down and was saying that it was unusually active recently. I wonder if it is just underfished or maybe there is a deep hole around the double bend.
Any recent studies completed regarding number of individuals diagnosed with cancer in Saxton and the surrounding areas?
Not recent, but when you look at the "county" numbers... Southern Huntingdon is rather high.
Enjoyed the video very much. I see you went Hi- Tech with the drone.Great job of narrating and I can appreciate the time you spent researching the subject. Thanks
Much appreciated! I had someone ask what the "proof" of the site still being hot was without using a radiometer. That is one of the reasons I took the drone up. A HUGE piece of elevated plateau with an almost complete surround of the river... AND NOBODY BOUGHT IT FOR THEIR LAND??? It is a beautiful piece of property... with a sad history.
This site had a couple of meltdowns which were covered up. In some scarce documents on file at the NRC there are merely blurbs referring to "Fuel Failures", there are some breadcrumbs in other docments as well.
I was finding all kinds of errors, ommissions, and accidents, in some of the docs I found, but none went into any specific details. Thanks for the contribution.
Do you ever venture to points west? The Westinghouse collider near Pittsburgh was an interesting site. It was peripheral to the Manhattan Project and its best feature was the attached Van deGraaf generator.
I have a good number of western sites in the video list. More to come. There is a window of time and effort for everything east and west of my central location. Weather is the biggest price and gas is second. ;)
This was practically in my back yard, I played in the sulfur creek along the property.
That is so cool. Personal question... did you ever catch a 3 eyed fish named blinky?
Just came across this video pretty cool local history. If you want more information you’ll have to look Adam Watson up he’s full of Saxton history and probably has lots of photos of it
I think I fired off an email to him previous to finalizing the research to see if there was any added info... unfortunately there was no response, but who knows, maybe I had a wrong email.
Hi, since we saw this video, are you aware of the ongoing Nuclear Waste Clean Up in Apollo and Parks Twp. , PA? Thought you might be interested. A good reference would be found on youtube The Apollo Affair: Nuclear Waste in Western PA by Ronald Rekowski. Thirty years ongoing and still a year from clean up at the cost of 1/2 billion dollars.... We live and work only about a mile from Parks Twp. Thought this would be interesting to you. We watch and love all your videos.
I will have to look into that. I wonder if they have Monessen and Bethel on their list (the golf course and kids parks both are on top of nuke waste burial sites).
I rember my dad taking me to see the green dome as a kid. Probably about the late 80s. Intriguing, but never knew much beoynd it was an experimental reactor.
I remember my dad showing me sights like this when I was a kid... now they are sites that are totally hidden from view, probably because they don't want us to know anything.
Very interesting. I didn't know this.
Which part? The nuke site or the fact PA is really secretly dirty?
@@ODDySEEy Both, so much "dirt" in plain site, but John Q Public doesn't know it. ( and the 4th nuke site ) . Thanks for sharing
Westinghouse in Madison, Pa had a meltdown in the 50s or 60s that nobody speaks of too. Its funny how often it seemed to have happened. Here, they just buried it under a field.
It is like California post Fukishima. When radiation hit a high that was unsafe for humans in the water, fish, and local foods... the FDA just upped the number of what defined "safe" and "unsafe". LOL
im from saxton pa and i promise this place caused many health problems.
long lasting lifelong
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Wish I'd seen you, I would've stopped and said hi! I work in Saxton and live about 4 miles from where you visited! Haven't watched the video yet but I'm looking forward to finding out about the power plant...I've lived in the area about 12 years and know nothing about the history of the power plant.
Hopefully you have watched it and I hope it shed light on the area a little.
@@ODDySEEy Yes, i have watched it and yes, it did shed some light on the area. Unfortunately the light is a toxic green color haha! A bit scary to say the least.
The reactor is basically in my backyard. It’s within walking distance anyway haha.
This site or the actual reactor? If it is the site, how's the fishing? If its the reactor... hmmm... the things that can be done with an old reactor :D
@@dolarhyde I think I know where you live😂
There was a place close to mount union that had numerous rail cars that had sat since I believe ww2 about 10 years ago they were supposed to go in and clear the trees and cut the cars up for scrap the site is supposed to be a historical landmark anyone know anything about this
They are still there, but I have not gotten a response from the New EBT group. I have placed an email request to go out and do a video there... very heavily marked "no trespass" and I don't just wanna step out and do a video with my face on location in that type of situation.
@@ODDySEEy ok that makes sense EBT owns them because it was the old owner of east broad top that wanted a company local to me to scrap them
I dated a girl who dad had a girlfriend who is a nuclear engineer and she told me this story before she knew alot about it
THOSE are the people who can confirm the validity of the claims made in videos such as these (and equally negate any false narratives)
Galin Winsor
Thats why raystown lake exists the government needed a place to bury the toxic waste and i thought that was in waterfall
Any links on any information regarding this? I am not aware of burial sites within the Raystown region.
@@ODDySEEy lol i think its just folklore im from mount union and heard that for years but idk if there is any truth to it lol
Around 6:34, you use the world "socialistic" when you could as easily be describing a common behaviour of American Capitalism. To place this in proper ideological context, we have often had (and your example is a case in point) privatized profits and socialized risks. Regardless of our preferred political alignments, that is a recipe for exploitation of small communities like Saxto, PA.
Kudos on the video. I wish you had taken a geiger counter with you on the walk.
Thanks for the kudos. In regards to flagging ideological premise within my presentation... it is not done for political stoicism (i.e. I am not holding back on pushing any agenda nor a narrative). I am representing what was taking place as clearly and concisely as possible. For example, I am a Trekkie. LOVE anything Star Trek. But, I am not fooled by the illusion that Rodenberry's universe was anything short of purist socialism controlled by a military oligarchy. Honestly, it is bound to happen once we remove our dependence on Oil (which is the only true form of money on earth) and develop an energy source that costs less to produce than to consume. ;) (Be happy to side discuss this concept with you any time... ideologies and economic systems are a fascinating subject to me)
Unbelievable, I never knew that was up there, and they just pumped that shit into the Juniata River real nice I live about 50 miles downstream from Saxton, I am also having thyroid issues. The jackass's who first allowed nuclear power plants should have all been thrown in prison for life!
All of our waterways and soils are soooooo contaminated with so much garbage it is mind blowing. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like to have something truly natural out of the ground or ground water when those who were spoiling it were still alive.
This is all posted lol
1. Go back and read the posted signs, 2. Learn what "asking permission" means, 3. Don't make assumptions. 4. Thank you for watching the video ;)