In April 2015, a marine expedition conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found the USSIndependence, a radioactive World War II– era light aircraft carrier, roughly forty miles off the coast of San Francisco. The discovery of theIndependencewas not a surprise. Researchers have long known that in 1951, the U. S. military sank the warship in an area that is today known as the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, near California’s Farallon Islands.¹ TheIndependencehad been contaminated with radiation in 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads, the United States’ first postwar nuclear weapons test