I’m guessing you can’t throw the whole building away, so what would happen? Would it ever be safe to return to? For the purposes of the question, let’s say it’s contamination on the level of needing professional involvement
In: Chemistry
You remediate it, similar to the process for asbestos or a chemical spill.
Depending on what/where, you might strip out flooring, grind surfaces or treat the affected areas with a chelating solution to bind the contamination and wash it away.
For fixed, weak contamination, you might simply make a note and paint over the area. Put down a brightly colored polymer-based paint as the base coat and then prime and paint the top coat to match the building color scheme. If you ever get wear and can see the bright base coat coming through, your rad controls team knows they need to re-paint to keep the contamination sealed.
If you can’t get the levels down, you might just post that area as one of the special zones for radiation controls and keep the non-trained folks out. A relatively minor fixed spill in the prep lab for your nuclear medicine department might be manageable if you need to use those (unique) facilities and the only people in that space are trained rad workers who are monitored under your occupational radiation exposure program.
Lots of defense and research facilities have “historical” contamination and remain in service.
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