Disposing 20,000 Pounds Of Sodium In Water (1947)

During World War II the War Assets Administration acquired a tremendous quantity of sodium which it used in the manufacture of incendiary bombs. Following the war, however, it had little use for the highly reactive elemental metal and the WAA tried offering it up for sale. It was at that point that it was discovered that the containers which were holding the sodium had deteriorated to such an extent as to make shipping even more hazardous than normal, and no railroad company would agree to transport it to a purchaser. Furthermore, the cost of new containers was deemed prohibitively expensive.

Although one company proposed taking the surplus sodium for free, it was thought that such an arrangement could still make the government liable to lawsuits. Thusly came about the decision to dispose of 20,000 pounds of sodium by dumping it in the waters of Lake Lenore. Tossed off of the back of trucks from a 100-foot cliff, people reported that a column of smoke rose nearly a quarter mile in the air and was visible from 8 miles away.