Divine Strake: Legacy of Radiation Illness Stirs Objection to Nevada Bomb Test

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Legacy of Radiation Illness Stirs Objection to Nevada Bomb Test
Blast Won't Be Nuclear, but Many Fear Contaminated Dust
By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 7, 2007; Page A06

ST. GEORGE, Utah -- When the baby boomers of St. George were children, radioactive ash from nuclear test explosions in Nevada regularly drifted toward the red bluffs of their town and fell like snow. They played in it and wrote their names in it on car windows.

The federal government reassured the townspeople they were in no danger as it detonated 952 bombs in Nevada over four decades. But thousands of people who lived downwind of the test site got radiation-related cancer, and the town of 50,000 has its own cancer-treatment center today.

So when word got out recently that the government wants to test a huge conventional bomb in Nevada, sending a mushroom cloud thousands of feet in the air, people in St. George felt an unwelcome blast from the past.

At a series of emotional meetings last month in Las Vegas, St. George, Salt Lake City and the Idaho capital of Boise, people who live downwind of the Nevada Test Site expressed fear that if the government goes ahead with its code-named Divine Strake test, radioactive dust from previous tests will blow their way....

***

The Pentagon plans to test a 700-ton ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil "bunker buster" weapon on the Nevada Test Site, a 1,375-square-mile chunk of desert. Divine Strake will demonstrate the impact on deeply buried tunnels should a U.S. complex be attacked, or should the United States attack a bunker in another country. No date for the test has been set....(S)tudies predict a mushroom cloud will rise about 4,500 feet above the desert and then settle back in place....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020601606.html

[Bitwit1234]

1. Did you hear this about the bomb test?

John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Agnes Morehead were filming a picture up wind of the atomic bomb tests. Something about one of the Khans. Well not only was the area supposed to found out later to be contaminated with radiation, they were there when some of the tests were made.

As you know, all three died with cancer. And I don't remember how many but out of the crew that worked on the picture on location about 2/3's contacted cancer also. So no matter how the government nay says, you can't convince me it does not happen.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I think I did hear that story, long ago -- thanks for the reminder. nt

[medeak]

4. they smoked tho eh?

My family never smoked and we were exposed to "pink dust"......

[Vidar]

9. "The Conqueror", a dreadful movie also starring Slim Pickens

as a Mongol general.

[medeak]

3. it's not going to happen

Reid fought it off last June and guarantee he will again.

I was a tot in Overton NV in the 50's and firetruck would come and hose off our house and car after above ground "test"... a pink layer of dust would be covering everything.

Received the following today which is not germain...but close:

btw..my Mom had cancer



For Immediate Release Monday, February 5, 2007

Contact: Jon Summers/Josh Orton 202-224-9521



REID ANNOUNCES NEW EFFORT TO HELP NEVADA TEST SITE WORKERS

Petition submission brings Cold War Veterans one step closer to compensation



Washington, DC—U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada announced a petition that will put Nevada Test Site workers, who contracted cancer from their work during the under-ground nuclear tests, one step closer to receiving the compensation they deserve.



The goal of this petition is to increase the number of former Test Site workers who receive Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) designation. The SEC is a legal designation that simplifies and expedites the compensation process for workers within the cohort. Currently, only people who worked at the site for 250 days or more between 1951 and 1962 fall in this category. That represents only about a third of all claimants.

Reid’s goal is to expand the SEC designation to all Test Site workers who may have been put in harm’s way between 1951 and 1993.

“This is the right thing to do for Nevada Test Site Workers who have become ill as a result of their work,” said Reid. “These are atomic energy veterans who deserve nothing but the best in return for the contributions they made to protect our country. I look forward to the day when I can announce that they and their families will receive the compensation they truly deserve.”

There are two ways to become part of an SEC. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) can initiate the SEC process or an SEC can be established through legislation.

NIOSH initiated an SEC for workers present at NTS before 1963 as a result of a letter Reid wrote to President Bush in November of 2005. This SEC was passed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health in May of 2006 and went into effect on July 26, 2006. The current SEC covers Nevada Test Site workers who were employed there from 1951-1962 for at least 250 days. This affected approximately one-third of all claimants.

Reid submitted legislation last Congress, but was unsuccessful in an attempt to attach it as an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill. Reid will begin work on updated legislation for the 110th Congress.

The petition signed by former workers, Paul Stednick and Peter White, and Lori Hunton, daughter of a former worker, will cover employees of the Department of Energy (DOE) or any DOE contractors or subcontractors who were:

Present during an underground nuclear test and/or performed drill backs, re-entry, or clean up work following such test at the Nevada Test Site (NTS);
Present at an event involving the venting of an underground test at NTS or at other events where there was an uncontrolled episodic radiation release;
Present for tests or post test activities related to the Nuclear Rocket Testing Program;
Assigned to work in Area 51 (or other classified program areas);
Employed at NTS in a job activity that was monitored for exposure to ionizing radiation or worked in a job activity that is or was comparable to a job that is, was or should have been monitored for exposure to ionizing radiation at NTS, during the period from January 1, 1963 through September 30, 1992, or in combination with work days with the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the SEC.

The U.S. held 100 above-ground nuclear tests and 828 underground tests at the site between 1951 an 1993 -- when the below ground nuclear tests stopped. Many people at the Test Site worked with significant amounts of radioactive materials without knowledge of the risks. Some of those workers have been waiting for decades for the government to acknowledge the sacrifices they made for their country. Many have been waiting for compensation while they suffer from life-threatening cancers, and others have already died.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Thanks for your post, medeak. nt

[medeak]

6. thanks

but not sure I can ever get over the horrible welcome you gave me years ago when first posting here....along with many friends who were dem players.

edited to say...dem players were first posters along with me..I brought them along.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. I thought that was resolved as a misunderstanding. I have never once...

been accused here of being unkind to anyone, except in that instance. It's still a mystery to me. If I hurt you, or anyone else, you have the satisfaction that you have just hurt me to the core.

[Name removed]

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