The J. Strom Thurmond Dam (1954), the Hartwell Dam (1962), and the Richard B. Russell Dam (1985) and their reservoirs combine in order to form over 120 miles (190km) of lakes.[13]. And scientists say it takes about 10 half-lives before the radiation is essentially gone. The United States won the Cold War, not on a battlefield in some far off place, but in the Savannah River valley of South Carolina, the isolated deserts of New Mexico and along the Columbia River in Washington state. But secrecy at the hush-hush facility remained so tight he could not breathe a word about what he did. Houses in the foreground were abandoned by Chernobyl plant workers a few days after the explosion. ltr = coded.charAt(i) Contaminants such as mercury and pharmaceuticals have . The movie underscored what Americans increasingly understood: That mutually assured destruction, the strategy shared by the U.S. and the Soviets, was exactly what its acronym said, "MAD." Dr. Now she is trying to win compensation but was told she can't prove her cancer was caused by anything at the plant. And America was losing ground.