Independent Lens

Containment

Left over from the Cold War are a hundred million gallons of radioactive sludge, covering a great amount of land. Governments around the world are imagining society 10,000 years from now to create monuments protecting future generations. Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative but troubled distant future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.

Containment - Trailer

30s

Left over from the Cold War are a hundred million gallons of radioactive sludge, covering a great amount of land. Governments around the world are imagining society 10,000 years from now to create monuments protecting future generations. Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative but troubled distant future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.

  • Savannah River Site Nuclear Facility: No Fishing: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Savannah River Site Nuclear Facility: No Fishing

    S18 E4 - 1m 29s

    This excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Containment takes a tour of the swampy area in Burke County, Georgia, adjacent to Savannah River Site nuclear facility. The distance separating the two is the width of the river itself. "No fishing" signs dot the area, and as one of our guides points out, a lot of people think that's a territory thing rather than a warning about radioactive fish.

  • Scenarios 10,000 Years in the Future: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Scenarios 10,000 Years in the Future

    S18 E4 - 2m 12s

    In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Containment that features graphic novel style animation, scientists and futurists explain different scenarios in which future peoples, and possibly visitors to planet Earth, need to be warned about our radioactive waste buried underground. Whether it's drilling robots or looting humans, no scenario is too gloom-and-doomy to explore.

  • Material That Will Be Here for 100,000 Years: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Material That Will Be Here for 100,000 Years

    S18 E4 - 1m 42s

    In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film Containment, two former Chairs of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission express concern about the safety of nuclear power and waste. And even for towns like Carlsbad, New Mexico, home of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), that did "want it," the question is asked, what about the people who will live there 100-200 years in the future?

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