There are crimes, and then there are CRIMES.
The Washington Post had an article today by Sonia Geis. I also visited Downwinders.com and pasted some of their information here. Anything in blue is from the Washington Post, anything in purple is from the Downwinders site. My thoughts are in this brown that I like so well.
It's about the nuclear testing that was done in Nevada and about the big bomb they want to test there now. Beginning in the 1950's until early in the 1990's, there were 925 announced nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. 825 of them were underground (There may have been many unannounced underground tests as well.)
Here is where the CRIME comes in. Our federal government assured the people of the little town of St George, which is East of the test site, that they were in no danger, as it detonated bombs in Nevada over forty years, just as they assured the folks in Washington, Oregon, and Utah, that the Hanford site was safe.
But thousands of people who lived downwind of the test site got radiation-related cancer.
This sounds much like the story the Hanford Downwinders tell.
The following is from the downwinder web site.
"In 1955 there were eight reactors in operation along the Columbia River. They used the river water to cool the intense heat at the core of the reactors. The water became contaminated with radioactivity, toxic chemicals and excessive amounts of heat. Within as little as 15-20 minutes, the contaminated water was released back into the river, allowing radiation to concentrate in the bodies of fish and other aquatic life. Local game animals, especially waterfowl, also became contaminated. People were then exposed when they ate the fish or game, drank the water or swam in the river. Hanford's operations discharged over 440 billion gallons of contaminated liquids into the ground, resulting in approximately 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater beneath Hanford.
Radiation exposure can occur either externally or internally. External exposure occurs as radioactive by-products descend from the sky as fallout from the stacks at Hanford and are carried by the wind in different directions and speeds depending on the size and chemistry of the material and the weather conditions. Internal exposure occurs by the direct inhalation of airborne radioactive material or by ingestion principally through food or water that has been exposed to radioactive material.
In Nevada, the government wants to test a huge bomb that will send radioactive dust from from earlier tests thousands of feet in the air. The people in St Georges are worried, and rightly so, that the dust will fall back on them again.
"The Nevada Test Site is one of the best-studied areas in terms of meteorology," said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Site Office. "We know the volume of dust picked up from the explosion. We took the weather for the worst time period: January, with the highest winds. When you model to that, it stays on the test site.
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), whose district includes St. George, is not convinced. Declassified documents that show the government did not detonate nuclear bombs when the wind blew toward Las Vegas. They waited until the wind blew toward St. George.
The recent release of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) study on the atmospheric testing of atomic weapons confirmed that areas of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho received radioactive air releases from the above ground nuclear tests conducted in Nevada in the 1950s. One of the primary fission materials in the fallout is iodine-131. Thus, some people were exposed to radioactive materials from both Hanford operations, and weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
http://www.downwinders.org/
The above site says; Welcome America, we are all downwinders now.
So what's the crime? Our Government wants to set off another bomb. To test to see if below ground bunkers can withstand the force of a 700-ton conventional weapon. I agree with Rep. Jim Matheson, who said, "there is no such thing as a 700 ton conventional weapon."
I have a question? Who or what is going to be hunkered down in those bunkers the governments is so worried about. I think it's a safe bet, that it won't be you or me.
Defense officials have looked at moving the test to another site, but they say the alternatives would cost $100 million and take three years of planning. Holding it in Nevada could be done this year for $5 million.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to spend all that money to work towards a ban on all nuclear weapons, so all the Earth's children could live a safer and healthier lives?
The Washington Post had an article today by Sonia Geis. I also visited Downwinders.com and pasted some of their information here. Anything in blue is from the Washington Post, anything in purple is from the Downwinders site. My thoughts are in this brown that I like so well.
It's about the nuclear testing that was done in Nevada and about the big bomb they want to test there now. Beginning in the 1950's until early in the 1990's, there were 925 announced nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. 825 of them were underground (There may have been many unannounced underground tests as well.)
Here is where the CRIME comes in. Our federal government assured the people of the little town of St George, which is East of the test site, that they were in no danger, as it detonated bombs in Nevada over forty years, just as they assured the folks in Washington, Oregon, and Utah, that the Hanford site was safe.
But thousands of people who lived downwind of the test site got radiation-related cancer.
This sounds much like the story the Hanford Downwinders tell.
The following is from the downwinder web site.
"In 1955 there were eight reactors in operation along the Columbia River. They used the river water to cool the intense heat at the core of the reactors. The water became contaminated with radioactivity, toxic chemicals and excessive amounts of heat. Within as little as 15-20 minutes, the contaminated water was released back into the river, allowing radiation to concentrate in the bodies of fish and other aquatic life. Local game animals, especially waterfowl, also became contaminated. People were then exposed when they ate the fish or game, drank the water or swam in the river. Hanford's operations discharged over 440 billion gallons of contaminated liquids into the ground, resulting in approximately 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater beneath Hanford.
Radiation exposure can occur either externally or internally. External exposure occurs as radioactive by-products descend from the sky as fallout from the stacks at Hanford and are carried by the wind in different directions and speeds depending on the size and chemistry of the material and the weather conditions. Internal exposure occurs by the direct inhalation of airborne radioactive material or by ingestion principally through food or water that has been exposed to radioactive material.
In Nevada, the government wants to test a huge bomb that will send radioactive dust from from earlier tests thousands of feet in the air. The people in St Georges are worried, and rightly so, that the dust will fall back on them again.
"The Nevada Test Site is one of the best-studied areas in terms of meteorology," said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Site Office. "We know the volume of dust picked up from the explosion. We took the weather for the worst time period: January, with the highest winds. When you model to that, it stays on the test site.
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), whose district includes St. George, is not convinced. Declassified documents that show the government did not detonate nuclear bombs when the wind blew toward Las Vegas. They waited until the wind blew toward St. George.
The recent release of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) study on the atmospheric testing of atomic weapons confirmed that areas of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho received radioactive air releases from the above ground nuclear tests conducted in Nevada in the 1950s. One of the primary fission materials in the fallout is iodine-131. Thus, some people were exposed to radioactive materials from both Hanford operations, and weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
http://www.downwinders.org/
The above site says; Welcome America, we are all downwinders now.
So what's the crime? Our Government wants to set off another bomb. To test to see if below ground bunkers can withstand the force of a 700-ton conventional weapon. I agree with Rep. Jim Matheson, who said, "there is no such thing as a 700 ton conventional weapon."
I have a question? Who or what is going to be hunkered down in those bunkers the governments is so worried about. I think it's a safe bet, that it won't be you or me.
Defense officials have looked at moving the test to another site, but they say the alternatives would cost $100 million and take three years of planning. Holding it in Nevada could be done this year for $5 million.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to spend all that money to work towards a ban on all nuclear weapons, so all the Earth's children could live a safer and healthier lives?
posted by Gem_with_faraway_eyes | 9:30 AM
5 Comments:
One would think so..but you know people and their bomb fixation...be they verbal or nuclear...when did it become "human " nature to destroy everything around it?
Hope your day doesn't get as busy as mine has been so far!
Hi I love your stuff. Gem, what kind of delivery system is used for a 700 ton conventional weapon?
Do they use an airplane, missle, submarine or tank or something?
I'm worried but glad you clued me in.
http://www.downwinders.org/
For more than you ever wanted to know about this issue, please go to the web site above.
The site begins with the words, "Welcome America, we are all downwinders now."
To answer your question, Jim Matherson said this,
"Last April, I wrote to James Tegnelia, Director of DTRA, voicing my concerns - chief among them, that Divine Strake was being conducted in order to further attempts to build new low-yield nuclear devices. I wrote that at 700 tons, the Divine Strake demonstration won't simulate a conventional bomb - no bomber in the U.S. fleet can carry a weapon that size.
What you read at the above site will knock your socks off.
Hi Gem You have better info than the newspaper or evening news.
Thank you, to the person who posted above.
Some other anonymous person doesn't think any of the downwinder stuff is true.
I'm not publishing the comment because it contains a personal jab at yours truely. and I am not playing the game any more.
This person said "I suppose you'd rather be speaking Japanese and praying to the emperor, which is what you'd be doing if it were'nt for nuclear weapons.
While that may be true, "THE BOMB" did bring an end to the war with Japan, and of course kept the cold war from becoming a hot war, while the super powers built up an arsenal of bigger and badder nuclear weapons.
That still doesn't excuse the government. Whether from ignorance, or malice, the government was untruthful and our citizens health and lives were put at risk.
The government now wants to test bombs again. The citizens closest to the test site, the people in our country who will be most effected, are saying they don't want another generation of downwinders created.
This ugly little war we are throwing right now could turn nuclear and the war over who's God is best could distroy the earth.
The bloody war mongers will create more, bigger and better wars, to excuse creating bigger and better bombs, when in reality, if those bombs get used, we will all die. if not in the blasts, then from the fallout. The earth will become as dead as the moon.
Nothing will be left but the cockroaches.... (I can't help myself) The same cockroaches that are still coming here to annoy me.
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