This is the second of a two-
part article prepared for the
U.S. Peace Council by Peter
Bower, a geochemist at Col-
umbia University’s Lamont-
Doherty Geological Obser-
vatory.

From 1945 to 1975, more than
200 million gallons of liquid radio-
active waste were generated by
the military. This was over 80% of
the liquid, radioactive wastes
generated in the United States.
Most of these wastes were trans-
ported and stored at Hanford,
Washington; Savannah River,
South Carolina; and Idaho Falls,
Idaho. The largest leak of high-
level radioactive wastes in U.S.
history occurred at Hanford
under the aegis of the Atlantic
Richfield company, contracted to
store this deadly legacy of the
Pentagon’s nuclear program.

More than a half-million gallons
leaked from huge storage tanks
over a 20-year period in a series of
“‘accidents”’ caused by the crimi-
nal neglect of corporate greed.
For many years these radioactive
wastes were poured into open
trenches in the ground. Expected-
ly, the 65,000 inhabitants of Rich-
land, a city housing and providing
support for the Hanford facility,
were the real losers. Like the
workers at Maine’s Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard who were ex-
posed to low-level radiation dur-
ing the refueling of nuclear reac-
tors for submarines and have now
been found to have cancer and
leukemia two and six times the
expected rate, the workers at
Hanford have higher rates of dis-
eases associated with exposure,
to radiation. For about 15 years
an ever increasing amount of evi-
dence, most of it suppressed or
ignored by the military, has been
discovered and uncovered that
indicates that exposure to low-
level radiation, particularly long-
term exposure can be dangerous.

Cancer Rates Rose

The Rocky Flats weapons plant

near Denver, which produces

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PENTAGON
SYNDROME

plutonium triggers for nuclear
bombs, including neutron bombs,
has a history of over 200 fires and
other assorted accidents, includ-
ing the spontaneous ignition in
1957 of hundreds of pounds of
plutonium and the release of large
quantities of the most dangerous
radioactive substances known,
into the environment as air-borne
particles. Well-documented esti-
mates that the inhalation of these
particles by nearby residents
would produce over 2,000 lung
cancers in excess of normal levels
were rejected by military rep-
resentatives and by Rockwell
International, the corporation
contracted to run Rocky Flats. A
report by the federal Energy Re-
search and Development Admin-
istration in 1977 claimed that the
environmental impact of the

Over 80% of liquid radioactive
waste is generated by the military
in the U.S. This not only poses
a threat to workers in plants deal-
ing with the material but hundreds
of civilian and military personnel
have been deliberately exposed
to radioactive elements with de-
vastating effects.

WELL,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 6, 1979—Page 6

&

plutonium released at Rocky
Flats was minimal.

But in April 1979 the Health
Department of Jefferson County,
where the bomb facility is lo-
cated, reported that people living
downwind .of the plutonium re-
leases had substantially higher
cancer rates. Abnormally high
rates of testicular cancer were
found in exposed men, a horrify-
ing corroboration of the fact that
plutonium is known to be concen-
trated in the testes of experimen-
tal animals given plutonium in
their diet. Higher rates of cancer
of the brain, ovary, tongue,
stomach, pancreas, and thyroid:

rally in Denver, Colorado last year.

were also reported and were
found to be directly related to in-
creased concentrations of
plutonium in the soil near the
homes of the people affected.

While we are justifiably
angered over the release of radio-
activity at the Three Mile Island
nuclear reactor, the amounts and
types of radioactivity released at
the Rocky Flats weapons facility
for over 20 years has been and will
continue to be a far greater
danger. :

In 1964, a Navy SNAP (System
for Nuclear Auxiliary Power)
communications satellite and its
plutonium power source vap-

orized during re-entry into the

atmosphere after failing to
achieve orbit, producing in one
incident more plutonium fallout
than all previous nuclear weapons
tests combined. Similarly, in
January 1966, a B-52 collided with
a tanker during mid-air refueling
and crashed near Palomares,
Spain, losing all four of its nuclear
bombs. Two of the bombs were
recovered ‘‘intact’’ but the other
two were shattered, releasing
enormous quantities of plutonium
and uranium, and prompting the
Pentagon to ship 1,500 tons of
highly contaminated vegetation
and topsoil back to the Savannah
River nuclear waste graveyard in
South Carolina. The remainder of
the contamination was merely
plowed under.

Another accident occurred
near Thule Air Force Base in
Greenland with all four bombs
being broken open, their radio-
active contents released into the
environment. Again, highly con-
taminated snow and the shattered
wreckage of the B-52 and its
bombs were shipped back to
South Carolina, leaving behind
high levels of radioactive waste.

Leukemia Peak in Children

Citizens of many small Utah
and Nevada towns were directly
exposed to fallout from nuclear
weapons tests in the 1950s. An
epidemic peak of leukemia has
now been found for young chil-
dren and fetuses exposed to the
radiation from this fallout.

In a similar manner, 4,000
sheep died from radiation sick-
ness caused by lethal doses of
fallout received from a 1953 nu--
clear weapons test. The govern-
ment maintained that the sheep

World public opinion runs high on the side of nuclear disarmament. Photo shows an anti-nuclear wea

had died of ‘‘natural causes, |
mysteriously en masse. Official
reports, secret until this yeal:
documented that the levels d
radioactive iodine were 250-1, 00)
times the maximum permissible
concentrations for humans.

Hundreds of thousands of GS|
(U.S. soldiers) were exposed 1
low-level radiation during nuclea!
weapons testing, including thov'|
sands who were victims of #
series of macabre experiments #
which they were ordered to wit
ness a nuclear bomb blast from#
distance of a few: miles and thet)
were marched to Ground Zem
several hours later.

The experiment was designed
to test soldiers’ reactions to
actual nuclear bomb explosion, ®
well as to provide footage for #
public relations film. These Gls
some of whom suffered it
mediate radiation sickness all
exposure to high levels of radi
tion at Ground Zero, are now sv!
fering excessively high rates of
leukemia, cancer, sterility
other radiation-induced diseases
These GI guinea pigs now sufie!
their fate without compensatio!
by the military which still refuse
to accept responsibility for 8)
crimes.

For more than three decades —
since the mushroom clouds ové
two Japanese cities snuffed out#)
quarter of a million lives — of)
people have been led to accept th
nuclear weapons program 4
necessary for national security:
But each new weapons develof
ment brings even greater insecul™
ty. Our country is already beilté
undermined from within as thé
economy is slowly strangled by)
wasteful military spending, and]
our public health is poisoned
radiation from nuclear wastes:
From Three Mile Island to Rocky |
Flats, we are daily threate! :
with extinction by the avarice of|
the corporations and the aggres”
sive intentions of the Pentagol) |
This is the greatest threat to ov!
national security.

Those forces who promote thé
arms race and oppose all mea)
sures, like SALT II, to arrest th
gamble not only with our lives bu!
with posterity. Our genetic helt
age will be passed on, failsafe *)
not forever. The unthinkable ®
not the same as the improbable