The United States' McMurdo Station on Ross Island installed Antarctica's first nuclear reactor in 1961.  The reactor was shut down in 1972 and shipped back to the US - along with over 100 drums of soils that were made radioactive by the plant.  The soil was considered contaminated by 'normal discharge of effluent'.   Later another 11,000 cubic meters of soil was removed , and the site was not released for unrestricted use again until May 1979.