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The ruined cities , temples , and statues of history 's great , vanished societies (Easter Island , Anasazi , the Lowland Maya , Angkor Wat , Great Zimbabwe and many more ) are the birthplace of endless romantic mysteries . But these disappearances offer more than idle conjecture : the social collapses were due in part to the types of environmental problems that beset us today

Yet many societies facing similar problems do not collapse . What makes certain societies especially vulnerable ? Why didn 't their leaders perceive and solve their environmental problems ? What can we learn from their fates , and

what can we do differently today to help us avoid their fates

There are the Hanford Nuclear Facility and Rocky Flats Plant stories to learn from . Construction on Hanford 's historic B Reactor began in October 1943 . B Reactor was part of the largest scientific , engineering and construction project ever-the Manhattan Project , a Corps of Engineers project organized in 1942 by the Federal government to develop a nuclear weapon . Built in less than a year , B Reactor was the world 's first full production-scale nuclear reactor . It operated for over 25 years , playing a key role in ending World War II (WWII ) and the Cold War

America was isolationist before WWII , but emerged from WWII as a nuclear power and world leader . B Reactor 's product changed the global balance of power for all time since then

One issue which was needed to tackle with these plants was that once they began processing irradiated slugs , the machinery would become radioactive to the point that it would be unsafe for humans ever to come in contact with it . They therefore had to devise methods to allow for replacement of any component via remote control . They came up with a modular cell concept , which allowed major components to be removed and replaced entirely by an operator sitting in a heavily shielded overhead crane

Since then , most of the surrounding structures have been removed and buried and the other Hanford reactors have been entombed or cocooned to allow radioactivity to decay . B Reactor is currently included in the cleanup of the portion of the Hanford Site along the Columbia River and is scheduled to be continued public access as an interpreted historical exhibit

It includes removing of all interior equipment , demolishing all peripheral structures adjoining the concrete shield wall around the reactor core reducing the building 's footprint dramatically , sealing all remaining openings in the shield wall , installing a 75-year roof , and eliminating access by welding the remaining door shut

The failure to anticipate a problem may come from lack of experience . A society may fail to anticipate a problem because it cannot preserve the memories of events that happened generations before . People failed to anticipate the problem of Hanford Nuclear Facility 's dangerous radioactive early on because of lack of experience . At that time there has been no studies about the harmful effects of the facility however by the time the people discovered its unsafe effects to human and environment , they...