Per 
Construction of the Hanford Site Tank Farms.
Item #: SCP-5870
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-5870 is to remain inside of SCP-5870-1. Foundation assets embedded within the Hanford Nuclear Site are to monitor for and conceal SCP-5870-A incidents, administering Class C amnestics as needed.
A loudspeaker broadcasting music, news, or other content that SCP-5870 requests is to be maintained and replaced as needed due to radioactive degradation of its components.
Description: SCP-5870 is a sentient mass of roughly one million liters of mixed hazardous waste contained inside of an underground storage tank on the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state.
Hanford was first chosen in 1942 by the United States Government as the site for the construction of the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactors and mass production of fissile Plutonium during the Manhattan Project. This activity generated over a hundred million liters of mixed toxic and radioactive waste, which was stored in hundreds of underground storage tanks. Between 1968 to 1986, dozens of additional storage tanks were constructed to hold radioactive waste.
The first known SCP-5870-A incident ocurred on January ██, 1987, when Hanford site personnel reported plumes of waste being ejected from a riser leading into tank A█-10█, hereafter designated SCP-5870-1. An investigation by the United States Department of Energy determined that a pressure buildup inside the tank was “sufficient to blow the flange off of a riser, allowing for an unintentional release of aerosolized hazardous waste.” As no evidence of anomalous events were found, the Foundation was not notified. A simple “breather filter” was installed to equalize the pressure between the outside atmosphere and the headspace of SCP-5870-1.
The Foundation discovered the existence of SCP-5870 on February ██, 1987. According to an government report DOE-H3███, Radiological Control Technicians performing routine monitoring of radiation levels near SCP-5870-1 reported hearing “screaming” and “cries for help” emanating from the rudimentary click speakers on their Geiger-Mueller Portable Contamination meters. After an investigation by the United States Department of Energy ruled out the possibility of non-anomalous origins, Foundation personnel were mobilized.
Mobile Task Force Alpha-Beta-Gamma was ordered to administer Class C amnestics to any Hanford Site personnel that witnessed anomalous events and to erect a simple containment structure around the complex containing SCP-5870-1. Senior Foundation Research Associate Yurei Kakusei was placed in charge of efforts to determine the source of the anomalous screaming.
After an initial assessment, Dr. Kakusei proposed attempting to communicate with what could be the source of the screaming by lowering a loudspeaker into SCP-5870-1 and recording the audible speaker output on a standard issue Foundation Geiger Counter. Below is a transcript of the initial conversation between Dr. Kakusei and SCP-5870.
Towards the end of the interview, SCP-5870 became verbally hysterical and unresponsive to further questions. Pressure inside the tank rose to a far greater degree than was thought possible, resulting in a severe SCP-5870-A incident. The subsequent explosive release of waste severely damaged the containment built around SCP-5870-1 and caused the death of several Foundation agents.
Photo of the annulus of SCP-5870 taken in August 2012.
Given the incredibly hazardous nature and sheer volume of SCP-5870, extraction is unfeasible. The previous containment structure was demolished, and a more sophisticated and permanent containment structure has been built around SCP-5870-1 that is designed to accommodate for future SCP-5870-A incidents.
An excavation of soil surrounding SCP-5870-1 led Foundation agents to uncover what appears to be the body of a Caucasian woman in her twenties, designated SCP-5870-2. While the deceased individual is presumed to be the source of SCP-5870’s sentience, the details of how this happened are unclear. SCP-5870-2 was not observed to have any anomalous properties.
It is not known how SCP-5### is able to modulate the random disintegration of radioactive nuclei in a manner that allows it to produce intelligible speech through the speakers of nearby contamination monitoring instruments, or how it is able to comprehend what is broadcasted through a loudspeaker.
Through additional interviews, researchers have determined SCP-5870’s music, news, and entertainment preferences. Playing this media through the loudspeaker installed into SCP-5870-1 has been shown to drastically reduce the frequency and severity of SCP-5870-A incidents. Therefore, the broadcasting of this media shall be implemented in Special Containment Procedures.
Addendum: Some researchers have suggested that the creation of SCP-5### could be connected to ███████ or artifacts of the local Nez Perce Native American tribe or other Native American tribes that inhabited the area for a period of over ten thousand years prior to the US Federal Government’s occupation in 1942. Research is ongoing.
Would someone with O5 Clearance issue a memo to our research staff that it's a bad idea to tell volatile hazardous waste that it’s trapped in a tank? Training Foundation agents requires a lot of resources. It wasn’t just some D-Class personnel that were lost here. -Dr. Dono
