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The National Park Service was storing three buckets full of highly radioactive uranium in the visitor area of its Grand Canyon museum for nearly two decades, according to the park safety manager.

The 5-gallon buckets were located near the taxidermy exhibit, and one was so full of uranium ore that it couldn’t be sealed, according to Elston “Swede” Stephenson, a manager who sent a rogue email to all Park Service employees earlier this month, AZ Central reports.

Tour groups, often including children, sometimes spent 30 minutes or more near the taxidermy exhibit for demonstrations. Using standards set by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Stephenson calculated that children could have been exposed to doses of radiation above federal safety standards within three seconds. Adults could have been exposed to dangerous doses in under 30 seconds.

For unknown reasons, the three buckets full of uranium were moved from a basement in Grand Canyon park headquarters to the Grand Canyon museum when it opened in 2000, according to Stephenson. The buckets were discovered by accident in March 2018 when the hobbyist teenage son of a park employee brought a Geiger counter into the taxidermy-collection room.

My coworkers had to spend 20 minutes being screamed at by customers who demanded that they receive their food anyway, despite the fact that we had no way to cook the food or issue a refund. Furthermore, people felt that begsusr they’d been waiting, they should have their order taken, despite the fact that we had no way to ring it up or again, cook the food. Once we finally did clear out the store, it was damn near impossible to keep people out of the drive through or from trying to enter the store. We parked a car across the entrance to the drive through and someone found a way to somehow drive around the car, and when no one answered at the speaker, they pulled to the window and tried to order. When we said we were closed, she said “oh but I’m just buying gift cards” as if that changes it.