The two nuclear reactors at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York were shut down in the late 1990s because they had been leaking tritium into the water table below, part of the island’s aquifer system on which more than 3 million people depend on as their sole source of potable water.
BNL was established on a former Army base in 1947 by the then U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to develop civilian uses of nuclear technology and do atomic research.
BNL scientists were upset with the U.S. Department of Energy over the closures. BNL has been a DOE facility in the wake of the elimination of the AEC by the U.S. Congress in 1974 for being in conflict of interest for having two missions, promoting and also regulating nuclear technology.
The water table below BNL flows largely into a community named Shirley.
Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir of an Atomic Town is a 2008 book by Kelly McMasters, a professor at Hofstra University on Long Island, who grew up in Shirley.