Does Fermilab produce nuclear waste?
No. Fermilab is not a nuclear laboratory and has no nuclear reactor. It does not produce nuclear waste. Fermilab does create a small amount of low-level radioactive waste, which is properly packaged and transported to a Department of Energy Facility in Washington state. Does Fermilab keep buffalo in order to monitor the environment? No. The oft-told tale that the buffalo are Fermilab’s equivalent to the canary in the mineshaft, living Geiger counters to warn of radioactivity, is strictly fiction. The Fermilab site does not present a radiation hazard, and Fermilab buffalo do not glow in the dark. Our buffalo herd carries on a tradition begun by Robert Wilson, the laboratory’s first director, to recognize and strengthen Fermilab’s connection to Illinois’s prairie heritage. Wilson brought the first American bison, a bull and four cows, to Fermilab in 1969; and in 1971 the Illinois Department of Conservation gave us 21 more. Today’s herd are descendents of those first animals. Could the Fe
