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Nuclear
murder
America’s Atomic War Against Its Citizens and Why It’s Not Over
Yet
by David Proctor |
“After 15 years of investigating, I
have concluded that the United States government’s atomic weapons industry
knowingly and recklessly exposed millions of people to dangerous levels
of radiation.
“Nothing in our past compared to the official deceit and lying that
took place in order to protect the nuclear industry. In the name of national
security, politicians and bureaucrats ran roughshod over democracy and morality.
Ultimately, the Cold Warriors were willing to sacrifice their own people
in their zeal to beat the Russians.”
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| —Former Secretary
of the Interior Stewart Udall
from the foreword to Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s
Nuclear Arsenal By Michael D’Antonio |
Since early June, newspapers
in Australia and Great Britain have published articles about experiments
conducted in the 1950s and 1960s by U.S. scientists on the bodies of deceased
and stillborn babies.
Documents declassified by the U.S. Department of Energy show that scientists
from the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority worked with their American counterparts
to take the bodies of 6,000 infants from hospitals in Australia, Great Britain,
Canada, Hong Kong, South America and the U.S., then ship them to the United
States for the nuclear experiments—without permission from the parents.
It was called Project Sunshine.
Sunshine began in 1955 at the University of Chicago when Willard Libby,
later a Nobel Prize laureate for his research into carbon dating, instructed
colleagues to skirt the law in their search for bodies.
“Human samples are of prime importance, and if anybody knows how to
do a good job of body-snatching, they will really be serving their country,”
Libby is quoted as saying.
The reasoning: Nuclear tests released great amounts of Strontium 90 into
the atmosphere. Libby and others connected with the American defense industry
wanted to know how much radiation was entering the food supply. The bodies
and body parts were cremated and the ashes tested with a sophisticated Geiger
counter.
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Grotesque as Project
Sunshine was, it fits the pattern.
Since 1945, high officials of the United States government have maimed and
killed hundreds of thousands of their own people, first while they spent
$5.5 trillion to test and maintain nuclear weapons, then as they spent billions
to support and under-regulate nuclear power plants. To cover their actions,
the officials—and those who succeeded them—have for decades lied
to the public and perjured themselves in court about the amount of radiation
released and its effect on the millions of people exposed to it.
Now, that same government wants to transport hundreds of tons of nuclear
waste through 43 states, including Idaho, on inadequate rail lines and highways
past 138 million people to be stored in containers of unknown longevity
for hundreds of thousands of years in geologically unstable formations in
New Mexico and Nevada.
And once again, officials insist it will all be perfectly safe.
The government has known for at least 70 years that nuclear energy—regardless
of its form—is deadly to the human body.
The first publicized case of radiation injuries in America was the radium-dial
painters in the 1920s. These women used radium paint to put the luminous
numbers on watch dials. Many wet their brushes with their mouths to make
the tiny points needed for such fine work. When they began to die of cancer
their successful lawsuit against the watch company in 1928 made the dangers
of radiation very public.
The government also sponsored radiation experiments on animals in the 1940s,
as well as follow-up studies of the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico,
and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all in 1945.
Despite this knowledge, and America’s acceptance of the Nuremberg human
rights protocols, the Atomic Energy Commission, a group appointed by the
president and obligated by law to protect the public, detonated more than
300 aboveground nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site and in the Pacific
Ocean.
The blasts totaled 138,600 kilotons of explosive power, which Soviet scientist
Andrei Sakharov estimated would kill as many as 2.5 million people and American
Nobel laureate Linus Pauling calculated would cause 1 million seriously
defective children, another 1 million embryonic and neonatal deaths, and
create millions of hereditary defects.
In 1969, Dr. Ernest Sternglass traced the dramatic increases in infant deaths
and childhood leukemia in upstate New York to airborne radiation from the
nuclear tests. He estimated 375,000 American babies had been killed by fallout
radiation between 1951 and 1966. And that didn’t count the deaths caused
by the Soviet Union’s 715 tests.
Dr. John Gofman found that even low doses of radiation could cause cancer.
In the early 1970s, when Gofman and Dr. Art Tamplin refused to keep their
findings secret, they lost their research grants at DOE’s Livermore
National Laboratory.
The government, of course, did not have this information when it began aboveground
testing. It did know, however, that radiation was dangerous and was being
blown thousands of miles from the Pacific and Nevada sites. AEC’s response
was to lie about fallout readings, falsify some reports and bury others
so Americans and Pacific islanders would accept the government’s propaganda
mantra that there was no danger.
It wasn’t only civilians who were handed this line of falsehoods. The
Defense Department marched soldiers within a few hundred yards of ground
zero during several atomic tests. When these “atomic veterans”
started getting cancer, their claims for benefits were denied. Soldiers
who obtained their service records found no mention of their trip to the
Nevada Test Site. Only recently has Congress recognized their sacrifice
and authorized limited treatment for the dying veterans.
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Radioactive waste management complex at Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory, located 32 miles west of Idaho Falls. |
In the early 1950s,
southern Utah ranchers lost thousands of animals from radiation poisoning
following a particularly dirty test shot. They sued the government, but
during the discovery phase of the trial AEC officials lied about having
reports that documented the radiation the animals received and testified
there was no connection between fallout and the deaths. The truth came out
at another trial 30 years later.
Cancer deaths spiked in southern Utah in the mid-1950s. Diseases that had
been nearly nonexistent until then decimated whole families. The overwhelmed
undertaker in Cedar City, Utah, needed special training in order to prepare
the cancer-devastated bodies.
Simultaneously, Nevada Test Site workers began to develop the same types
of illnesses and die at an alarming rate. AEC again insisted the workers
were safe, that there was no connection between the cancers and the fallout.
But there was a connection, and AEC knew it. Government records, finally
released after decades of denial and secrecy, show that the entire country
was repeatedly dusted by fallout. Radioactive hot spots were found as far
away as Albany, New York. Public health statistics showed hundreds of thousands
of American babies were killed by fallout between 1951 and 1966. Another
study found SAT scores dropped in Utah during the testing.
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The story of the
uranium miners is as tragic as any. During the 1940s and 1950s, thousands
of poor, uneducated men, most of whom were American Indians, labored in
mines in the Four Corners region to produce uranium needed to manufacture
plutonium for bombs and atomic tests.
Forced to work without even the most basic ventilation system, the miners
breathed uranium-laced air, drank uranium-contaminated water and carried
the deadly dust home to their families. Thousands have since died of lung
cancer and other radiation-related diseases. Thus far, Congress has approved
no compensation for them.
The deadly rain of fallout stopped in 1963 but only momentarily. Even after
the United States and the Soviet Union’s limited test-ban treaty, many
of the next 700 underground tests “vented,” the government’s
euphemism for explosions that drifted radiation across the country.
In order to conduct those tests and build its nuclear stockpile, the government
needed bomb factories—huge installations that manufactured, assembled
and tested the deadly nuclear components. These factories were located at
Savannah River, South Carolina; Fernald, Ohio; Rocky Flats, Colorado; Pantex,
Texas; Idaho National Engineering Laboratory; Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford,
Washington.
Again, the government played fast and loose with the safety and health of
both its employees and the thousands of civilians who lived nearby.
At Hanford, the infamous “Green Run” in December 1949, released
20,000 curies (a curie is a measure of radioactivity) of xenon-133 and 7,780
curies of iodine-131. The radioactive plume measured 200 by 40 miles and
dropped high concentrations of fallout on the Tri-Cities. There was no public
health warning and no follow-up studies on the health of the residents.
Over the years, Hanford plastered the Columbia Valley repeatedly. About
1 million curies, the largest accumulation of atomic industrial pollution
on record, were dumped in the air, water and ground.
Some lambs near Hanford were born without eyes, mouths or legs. Some had
two sets of sex organs, others had none. Juanita Andrewjeski had three miscarriages
and kept a map of her neighborhood, one of the closest farms to Hanford.
On it were 35 crosses for heart attacks and 32 circles for cancer. One girl
was born without eyes. Another couple had eight miscarriages and adopted
all their children. Two children were born without hipbones. One farm wife
killed her baby and herself after her husband died of cancer.
In 1974, Dr. Samuel Milham, a Washington State Department of Health epidemiologist,
noticed a 25 percent excess of cancers among Hanford nuclear workers when
compared with the rates among the state’s non-nuclear workers. As it
had done so many times before, AEC buried Milham’s findings. The agency
commissioned another study from a company with extensive Hanford contracts.
When that study affirmed Milham’s work, it was buried, too.
Some 600,000 people worked in the nuclear weapons industry. Only last year
did Congress approve lump payments of $150,000 and lifetime care for those
approved. The Labor Department estimates 43,000 workers per year, and 28,000
survivors, will apply annually.
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From 1952 to 1970, INEL (now
known as INEEL) workers dumped some 16 billion gallons of liquid radioactive
wastes into injection wells that fed directly into the water table below.
Radioactive contamination has been found 7.5 miles away, threatening the
long-term viability of the huge Snake River Plain Aquifer, the major underground
water source for 270,000 people and Idaho’s famous potatoes.
There were also intentional iodine-131 releases in 1957 and 1963 that dosed
the residents of the farming communities west of INEL. Site officials waited
for the wind to blow away from Idaho Falls, where they lived, to make the
release. The people downwind were not told of these incidents until years
later.
The taxpayers’ bill to clean up this ungodly mess has already run into
billions of dollars, and the meter is still running.
In the 1950s, nuclear energy was billed as the answer to America’s
energy questions. Today we know that billions of dollars have been wasted
in this attempt to produce electricity “too cheap to meter.” The
power plants, according to a study done after Three Mile Island, were under-engineered,
poorly built, poorly staffed and badly run.
Now, as President Bush lobbies for more nuclear plants, ratepayers and taxpayers
are still on the hook for the billions of dollars it will cost to decommission
the plants, clean up the sites and safely store the contaminated building
and fuel rods for hundreds of thousands of years.
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Hazardous and radioactive waste previously buried at an INEEL subsurface
burial area. |
Finally, let us
not forget the ugly history of medical experiments.
Declassified documents show that government and university doctors injected
scores of prisoners, mental patients, retarded adults and children and even
pregnant mothers with radioactive substances—nearly always without
full consent—sometimes just to see what would happen.
The Next 500,000 Years
Now, with this revolting 50-year record behind it, the government wants
us to believe it can safely move military, commercial and foreign waste
to gigantic burial grounds near Las Vegas (Yucca Mountain) and Carlsbad,
N.M. (Waste Isolation Pilot Project or WIPP). And protect it there for hundreds
of thousands of years.
Yucca, which is still not built despite 20 years of study and nearly $7
billion invested, is intended to hold high-level nuclear reactor waste.
WIPP, which is open, was built to hold transuranic waste—clothing,
tools, sludge and dirt contaminated with small amounts of plutonium.
The thousands of shipments that will be made to these repositories through
43 states, this “mobile Chernobyl,” are a nightmare of potential
accidents, economic catastrophe and terrorism.
The radioactive garbage will then be stored in containers that haven’t
been adequately tested and placed for longer than the human race has recorded
its own history in underground caverns whose long-term stability remains
in doubt.
As one engineer put it, “How would you like to have to build something
that had to be 99.99999 percent perfect—forever?”
Perfect. That word doesn’t quite describe either WIPP or Yucca.
The WIPP salt caverns near Carlsbad, N.M., are located 2,150 feet below
the surface and consist of a 112-acre underground area on which taxpayers
have spent $2.1 billion so far. In 30 to 35 years, when the space is filled,
the price tag is expected to be $9 billion. It will include an elaborate
marker system to warn people not to drill into the salt for the next 500,000
years.
But some scientists expect problems long before that. DOE first discovered
water seeping into the WIPP excavations in 1983. The leaks finally became
public in 1987 when New Mexico scientists concluded the salt formation contains
much more water than DOE anticipated. They warned that over time the brine
could corrode the waste drums and create a “radioactive waste slurry”
that could eventually reach the surface.
Inside WIPP, cracks have appeared in the ceilings and floors of several
large waste storage rooms, and the ceiling has collapsed in three areas—the
result of natural room closure (salt movement) that is two to three times
faster than anticipated. In 1983, DOE estimated it would take 25 years for
the salt walls to completely close in and lock the waste barrels into solid
salt rock. At the rate the rooms are closing, it may take only 13 years.
Another hazard is the known reserves of gas and oil. There is even an existing
oil and gas lease beneath the WIPP site. Despite the warning signs, these
resources could invite intrusion during the long future the repository must
stay isolated.
WIPP also has capacity problems. The repository is expected to hold about
160,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste. However, there are expected to
be 443,000 to 592,000 cubic meters of waste that will need storage—roughly
two-and-one-half to three-and-one-half times WIPP’s capacity.
Yucca Mountain, located about 80 miles from Las Vegas, the fastest growing
city the America, has been studied for 22 years to the tune of nearly $7
billion—paid by electric utility customers. There is still no agreement
on whether it is a suitable site or not.
The plan is to bury the waste 660 to 1,400 feet below the surface in a 1,400-acre
facility served by 100 miles of tunnels. By the time it’s finished,
it will cost about $53 billion. Utility ratepayers will fork over $28 billion.
The rest of the bill will be handed to taxpayers.
One of the most volatile issues is the mountain’s geology. There are
33 known faults near Yucca Mountain. About 600 seismic events have occurred
near the site in the last 20 years alone, including a 5.6-magnitude earthquake
in 1992.
Meanwhile, 70,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods are
stored at 77 sites around the country. The waste increases by 300 to 600
tons per year, and those facilities are quickly running out of space.
If Yucca ever is opened, it will be full in less than 15 years.
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Twice in the 1960s, INEEL’s Pit 9, a subsurface disposal area, was
flooded by snowmelt runoff. |
First,
though, the waste has to get there. The Yucca shipping campaign would
be the largest nuclear materials transport in history—some 80,000
shipments over 24 years.
Accidents happen. The federal government predicts 70 to 310 nuclear transportation
accidents over the next 75 years.
From 1964 to 1990, 2,561 spent fuel containers were shipped in the United
States. If a repository opens, there will about that many shipments per
year.
An accident or terrorist act that opened a high-level waste cask would
be catastrophic. DOE predicts a severe accident in a rural area would
contaminate 42 acres and cost $620 million. In an urban area it would
cost $2 billion. Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, the nuclear physicist who was an
expert witness in the 1991 Andrus vs. U.S., testified that a similar accident
would cost $40 billion. Andrus vs. U.S. was a case filed by Idaho Governor
Cecil Andrus. A judge ordered that Andrus not interfere with nuclear waste
shipments.
The waste will be transported by rail (88 percent) and truck (12 percent).
Union Pacific is the largest rail company in America and will handle most
of the work. Their track record is not encouraging. Derailments and other
problems have become an epidemic.
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| Even
former Gov. Phil Batt, who allowed DOE to bring more than 1,000 shipments
of waste into Idaho and store it on the promise it would be removed to
Yucca and WIPP, declared Union Pacific’s safety record “unacceptable.”
Utah-based Huntsman Chemical says problems with Union Pacific have cost
more than $8 million in lost business and increased shipping costs since
June 1997. The U.S. military stopped using Union Pacific because of delays,
and once the railroad left a shipment of M-1 tanks unguarded.
The Association of American Railroads has said today’s rail lines—in
Idaho and elsewhere—cannot handle the weight of nuclear casks, the
casks themselves may not withstand an accident and the railroads cannot
afford to carry casks at the slow speed the federal government requires.
In the meantime, the existing nuclear plants continue to produce this
deadly poison, much of which will last longer than human civilization
has existed thus far.
The public has been alerted to these dangers, but nuclear energy is a
silent killer, and the nuclear industry has run a very effective lobbying
campaign. Crucial to this is the fact that cancers take up to 20 years
to develop, and in that time people move, officials retire and change
jobs, records are lost. It is not a spectacular earthquake or even the
AIDS epidemic, which burst suddenly upon the world. Nuclear radiation
kills quietly, with diseases that sometimes do occur for other reasons.
The tragic truth is it may take a large-scale accident to get through
to the daily media and much of the public.
Clearly, the history of nuclear energy—not just in the United States
but worldwide—demonstrates that the human race has not yet learned
how to deal with this incredible power and the waste it produces. We have
left death and destruction behind us every step of the way, from the mining
of raw uranium, to the manufacture of plutonium, to the assembly of weapons
and reactors, to the operation of the reactors, to the disposal of the
waste they create. If we humans had to pass a test, had to prove to some
rational outside observer that we deserve to be able to continue working
with nuclear power, we would fail utterly.
The only sensible solution is to stop producing nuclear waste altogether
and store existing waste as safely and as close to the point of production
as possible. Then, begin a reverse Manhattan Project to find ways to neutralize
the deadly mess we have created.
David Proctor has written for Boise Weekly, The Salt Lake Tribune,
Idaho Mountain Express, The Idaho Statesman, USA Today and Gannett News
Service as a reporter and editor. His work has also been published in
Rolling Stone, Utah Holiday, New Times, Zoo World, Edging West, InPrint,
Focus, Boise and Supermarket News magazines and Reuters news service. |
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