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radiation is your friend? by Preston Peet (ptpeet@cs.com) - May 13, 2001 |
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| The US government has conducted atomic and nuclear experiments on a large proportion of the military and civilian population within the United States, and elsewhere, and is responsible for many accidents as well. These are facts that cannot be disputed. The US government has even begun paying claims to victims of some official US nuclear policy. There are three different classifications of those who are qualified for recompense: 'Test Site Participants'; 'Downwinders'; and 'Uranium Miners'. 'Test Site Participants' are the Atomic Soldiers: men who were placed as close to ground zero as their commanders in the US 'Department of Department' (and the scientists in the 'Atomic Energy Commission'), could get them to test the radiation, and psychological effects of having an atomic bomb dropped upon them, or who helped in the clean-up of nuclear waste and later came down with a 'compensable' disease. 'Downwinders' are people who were physically present downwind of the Nevada Atomic Test site between the years 1951 to 1962, and then came down with a 'compensable' disease. 'Uranium Miners' are the miners underground who then developed lung cancer, or respiratory disease. The limit of monetary award for 'on-site' participants has been set at US$75 000. It is estimated that approximately 250 000 US servicemen participated in either the Nevada, or the Pacific Island atomic tests, and at least 100 000 civilians were affected by fall-out from the Nevada tests. It hasn't just been the atomic bomb tests. 'Downwinders' living in areas surrounding other nuclear facilities, or nuclear waste facilities have tried to take the US Department of Energy to court to force the release of records detailing waste disposal methods, and to hold the DOE accountable for the damage it has done to both people and the land. There are 1767 sites around the US that are either radiation contaminated, or potentially contaminated. There are no easy clean-up procedures yet to get rid of nuclear waste. All we can do is hide it inside containers, or launch it out into space. Prisoners, soldiers, and mentally ill patients have been subjected to injections of radioactive material without their consent or knowledge. In the 1990s, US Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary agreed to pay US$4.8 million to families of some of the victims of the experiments. A Special Grand Jury in Colorado, in 1992, found that the DOE had not performed its oversight duties at the Rocky Flats Plant, and that the plant and the contractors running the plant were "engaged in an on-going criminal enterprise," and had violated Federal environmental laws. "When the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency raided the plant on June 6th 1989, they found compelling evidence that hazardous wastes, and radioactive mixed wastes had been illegally stored, treated, and disposed of," report Downwinders.org staff. It has been over forty years that "Federal, Colorado, and local regulators and elected officials have been unable to make DOE and the corporate operators of the plant to obey the law." Rocky Flats plant had discharged radioactive wastes into the Platte River, and into the drinking water of Broomfield and Westminster, Colorado. There are more than one hundred nuclear facilities in the US, which supply only about 20 percent of the energy needs. Each nuclear plant produces waste that needs to be disposed of safely and permenantly, but which for the most part is kept on site in unsafe, temporary facilities. Radioactive waste can't be turned off. It will continue to produce radiation for millennia to come. It is not going to go away. It is, however, going into the rivers, the fish, the animals and plants, and into us, forever altering the genes that make us who we are. |
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US Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Radioactive Waste Atomic Veterans Nuclear Information World Wide Web Hyphen-man's Radioactive Waste Site Nuke-Energy.com Military Nuclear Mess: Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Government Accountability Project Reactor Hazards & Accidents Deadly Nuclear Radiation Hazards: USA On The Development of Nuclear Technology Downwinders High Level Radioactive Waste Plutonium On The Internet GE Nuclear Energy, Inc Campaign for Nuclear Phase Out Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety Human Test Subjects Newborn Deterioration in The Nuclear Age Will Nuclear Waste Travel Through Your State? Hiroshima: Was It Necessary? The Toxic Mountain Water Safety Concerns Spurred Cleanup Plan DOE Probes Plutonium Exposure Informed Scientists for Radiation From Chernobyl to Yucca Mountain Hanford Watch: Portland Oregon Feds Hide Risk of Waste Project US Government Aims To Stop Human Tests Plutonium Flight Ripped Nuke Waste Plan Cancelled US Department of Energy Agrees to Pay US$275,000 for Nuclear Waste Law Violations N-Waste Hearings Get Little Fanfare Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal Ward Valley Iowa State University De-commissions Nuclear Reactor Nuclear Waste History US Closely Linked with French Nuclear Weapons Development Poisoned Power |
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