While the U.S. government threatens sanctions and outright war against any non-imperialist country that obtains or states its intention to build nuclear plants, even for peaceful purposes, the United States maintains the world’s biggest nuclear weapons arsenal and covers up nuclear energy disasters that have plagued this country for decades.
It was recently revealed that the U.S. government kept secret massive nuclear accidents that occurred in California
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These accidents happened at the Santa Susana nuclear plant, often referred to as the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, located about 35 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The plant, run by Rocketdyne, conducted nuclear research and testing for the U.S. government for more than four decades.
In 1959 a partial meltdown of the nuclear testing facility occurred, releasing the third largest amount of radioactive iodine in history, lower only than Chernobyl in 1986 and Windscale, Britain, in 1957.
In 1964, a second accident occurred when 80 percent of the “cladding”—the material that covers the nuclear fuel rods—melted. The following year, that part of the plant was “decommissioned.”
These accidents involved the release of radioactivity as well as the release of heavy metals and other chemical contaminants. As a result, contamination is still found in soil, air, groundwater and surface water around the site.
The doses of radioactive iodine released in the 1959 accident are estimated to be as much as 100 times greater than at Three Mile Island.
They are sufficient to cause cancers of various types, as well as thyroid abnormalities. The iodine also readily gets ingested by dairy cows and contaminates the milk supply.
Shortly after the accident at Windscale, approximately 500,000 gallons of milk samples were collected from a 200-square-mile area around the plant and found to be contaminated.
The accidents at Santa Susana, however, were kept secret for years and the area around the site remained untested and untouched for decades. The 1959 accident was kept secret for 20 years. Crucial information that would allow scientists to conduct a comprehensive, conclusive study concerning health and environmental effects as a result of these accidents is still being withheld.
A five-year study released earlier this month concluded that emissions of radioactive material from these accidents were far greater than had been suspected. The emissions may have resulted in between 250 and 1,800 cases of cancer over many decades in communities surrounding the plant. The study also found that soil and ground water continue to be threatened by the residual chemical contamination from rocket engine testing conducted at the site. (LA Times, Oct. 6)
More complete or specific information about exposure to carcinogens from the site could not be determined because the U.S. Department of Energy and Rocketdyne’s owner, Boeing Co., refused to provide key information.
Physicist Dan Hirsch, co-chairman of the advisory panel overseeing the report, told the Los Angeles Times, “The pattern of secrecy and misrepresentation that began at the time of the [1959] accident continues to this day, where sloppy practices are done under a cover of darkness.”
Not isolated incidents
There are nuclear testing sites located throughout the United States. Many of these sites have seen accidents.
At the Hanford Site in Washington, tritium, a hazardous heavy metal, has been detected in ground water. High-level waste has leaked from storage tanks.
Approximately 1,000 tons of mercury has been released into the environment at the Oak Ridge nuclear plant in Tennessee.
At a nuclear site in Fernald, Ohio, hundreds of tons of uranium dust have been released into the atmosphere. Wells used for drinking water have been contaminated with uranium.
Traces of plutonium have been found in the soil and sediments around the Rocky Flats site in Colorado.
These are but a few of the many accidents that have occurred across the country, and there may well be scores of accidents that, like those at Santa Susana, have been kept secret.
Workers suffer the most
Workers at nuclear power plants or nuclear testing facilities put themselves at great risk, given what is known about the potential hazards they face. Their lives are in jeopardy if an accident occurs where they work.
However, an individual worker’s only legal recourse to receive financial remuneration concerning job-related impacts on health is worker’s compensation. Many workers at the Santa Susana site filed for worker’s comp when they became ill.
But the plant’s owners coerced physicians into writing on record that the workers’ illnesses were not work-related, thereby preventing these workers from obtaining the compensation due them. (Living on Earth, Jan. 20)
Similar scenarios have played out for workers at other sites across the country.
U.S. imperialism insists on global domination in every form. The U.S. government created the first nuclear weapons. It still possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. And the United States is the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons on civilians, all in the name of promoting global capitalism.
The U.S. government has demonstrated a history of utter disregard for the impact of its nuclear program—for military and energy purposes—on human health or the environment. From the hundreds of thousands of victims killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the contamination and environmental destruction caused by hidden nuclear accidents, the U.S. capitalist government has shown no remorse for its many crimes.
Revealing its crimes and demanding accountability is a necessary step in the working-class movement for lasting change.
