You're describing the dirty bomb problem.

To recap, a dirty bomb is a bunch of radioactive shit put somewhere that it will freak people out. The freakoutitude of most people associated with radioactivity is off-the-hook bad; an excellent example of the possible effects can be found in Brazil.

- 93 grams of radiology-grade Cesium 137, stolen by scrap metal thieves

- contaminated scrap metal sold to a wholesaler

- thief's 6-year-old daughter painted herself up with enough glowing Ce137 to kill her dead within a month

- thieves begin to think oh shit maybe we shouldn't have pried out that glowing blue shit we didn't understand

- total fatalities: 4

- total cases of radiation sickness treated: 20

- Number of radiation screenings performed: 112,000

I can't find a good estimate of the Goiania costs, but they were scraping topsoil, demolishing buildings, all sorts of oh-shit remediation the likes of which reminds one of anthrax island. It was a major infrastructure clusterfuck and a stupendous effort, wholly outsized when one considers the actual area denial and health impact.

And that's because dirty bombs spook the shit out of people. Here's the trick, though - they spook the shit out of people once. Ask any expert and he'll tell you that once people acclimatize to the fundamental danger level, as opposed to the hyperbolic danger level, and people stop caring nearly as much. The first dirty bomb is gonna be hell on the economy. The second one? Not so much. Kiev is just another city. Radiation is just another hazard. People put up with contaminated air, contaminated groundwater, you name it.

Cars had a rough time initially. A horse-drawn culture wasn't ready for them. They were spectacles. Fast forward thirty years and they're commonplace. The step between "driven car" and "driverless car" is substantially less than the step between "horse" and "car" and we managed that just fine.