Atomic Confession

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Transcript of "Living on Earth" interview with Washington Post reporter
Joby Warrick follows.  Can anyone out there in RadSafe land confirm or
deny Warrick's reports?  How serious was (or is) the situation at
Paducah in your estimation?  In your opinion, were the HPs performing
their jobs adequately?  What's missing from what we've been hearing in
the media?

A brief aside:  Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for ES&H at DOE
was complaining that the plutonium was causing all the consternation,
but he felt the neptunium was the bigger health threat because of the
greater quantity involved.

Atomic Confession
Air Date: Week of February 4, 2000

After decades of denial, the U.S. government admits to widespread worker
health problems at nuclear weapons factories.

CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood. The federal government
recently admitted that for decades workers at many of its nuclear
weapons
facilities were exposed to high levels of radiation and cancer-causing
chemicals. At the same time, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced
plans to more than double spending on clean-up and medical screening at
two
uranium enrichment plants, one in Piketon, Ohio, the other in Paducah,
Kentucky. For residents of Paducah, it was the latest ripple in an
unsettling story they first heard about last August. That's when
Washington
Post reporter Joby Warrick broke the news of secrecy and cover-up that
prevented workers from discovering their exposure to highly radioactive
materials. Joby Warrick says he'd been investigating nuclear facilities
when a source suggested that he look into Paducah.

WARRICK: We started going over some documents together, and one thing
that
jumped off the page at us was this -- the word "plutonium." We saw some
indications of plutonium contamination in the plant and off-site, and
this
is a real surprise to us. Because as far as we knew, there was never
plutonium at Paducah. There's no reason for it to be there.

CURWOOD: So why would there be plutonium in Paducah?

WARRICK: It turns out that for a period of about 20 years, the
government
tired to economize on its uranium stockpile by recycling uranium that
had
already been used elsewhere, and basically in plutonium bomb factories.
They took this used stuff and would feed it right back into this uranium
plant; and as it turned out, this used uranium contained not only
plutonium but a
whole suite of other very serious, very radioactive isotopes that are
much
more dangerous than uranium.

CURWOOD: Now, workers didn't know about this. How were you able to get a
hold of the studies that show that this was going on?

WARRICK: Well, this was something that required a lot of deep digging in
archives, some records that had been recently declassified. It's not
something that we could come across in reading public documents, for
example, and EPA documents, clean-up documents for the plant. But in
looking at some classified memos that had been declassified and released
to
us, we were able to piece together the whole history of this program
that
brought these contaminants to Paducah.

CURWOOD: Did you actually go down there at one point with a shovel, to
find
out what might be going on?

WARRICK: Yeah, we made a number of trips down there. But one of the
early
things we wanted to do was -- just sort of as a reality check -- to
determine if this was still a problem, if it's something that an average
person roaming around in the woods around the plant might encounter
because
we had seen there were reports of levels of plutonium off-site. So I
went
down there on a couple of occasions with Geiger counters and once with
actually a little shovel and some sampling jars, and we just started
taking
samples. And we sent them to a lab for analysis. And sure enough, we
found
plutonium at levels hundreds of times above background and above the
level
that the government certifies as safe.

CURWOOD: Wow. So you took a chance yourself doing this, then.

WARRICK: A little more than we anticipated. We didn't expect to find the
amounts that we did, and we tried to follow the rules and were very
careful. But still, it was a little disconcerting when we found out that
we'd
actually been in some fairly contaminated areas.

CURWOOD: I mean, do I have this wrong? As I understand it, like a
millionth
of a gram of plutonium, if you inhale that, that's it. I mean, it's
going
to set off lung cancer, right?

WARRICK: If you inhaled that dose, yeah. There are some studies that
show
that even that small of a quantity of plutonium inhaled can cause the
mutations of cells that will eventually lead to cancer. It's very
dangerous
stuff.

CURWOOD: So, as you started speaking to workers in Paducah, what kind of
picture did they paint to you of work and worker exposure at the plant
over
the past 40 years?

WARRICK: The assumption by most of these workers, based on what they ad
been told by management, was this was a very safe working environment.
Workers were literally told that the materials they were using were safe
enough to eat, and we had many workers who told us of managers who would
actually eat the stuff, this uranium powder that would come in for
processing. They'd sprinkle some on their food, or they'd put it on a
finger and lick it, just to illustrate that this stuff was completely
harmless. So because of this, workers were not concerned when, over the
years, they
began to notice this heavy dust in these working environments getting
onto
their clothes, and coming home with it on their skin. And even sometimes
getting
in their food. Many stories from workers who had talked about waking up
with their bedsheets stained with this green or black powdery dust that
they
worked in every day.

CURWOOD: And of course, there was a little bit of plutonium in that. But
they didn't know that, did they?

WARRICK: A little bit of plutonium. And again, this was not realized by
the
rank and file, the workers, until decades later.

CURWOOD: Let's step back for a moment. Help me understand what this
plant
in Paducah meant to the people there.

WARRICK: Well, this was a fairly isolated and impoverished region of
western Kentucky. Its claim to fame is that it had a vice president, Mr.
Alban
Barkley, who was the vice president under Truman. And one of the things
he
was able to do for this part of his state during his vice presidency is
to
convince the Atomic Energy Commission to build this uranium enrichment
facility there. So it was by far the largest employer. At any time, a
couple thousand people were employed there and in all kinds of ancillary
jobs,
where people would come in for contract work. And it was by far the best
paying job, and people were very proud to work there and very proud of
this
opportunity.

CURWOOD: Joby, who knew that there were much more toxic and radioactive
substances than uranium, the plutonium, the neptunium, and the other
kind
of exotic-sounding, what do you call them? Trans-uranic metals?

WARRICK: Trans-uranics. It's a whole set of radioactive elements that
are
more radioactive than uranium. But yes, there was very specific
knowledge
about these contaminants as late, excuse me, as early as the late 1950s,
and we were able to document this from memos that we received that
showed
discussions by some of the plant managers about the contaminants in this
material, and what to do about them. Their big concern early on was, is
this going to contaminate the product that we're making? Not is this
going
to be a threat to the workers? And their discussions about hazardous
working
environments, where you had this one very telling memo from the early
1960s
where a doctor is saying, look, we may have a problem with contamination
with these workers, but we don't know it because we're not allowed to
test
them because the plant is afraid to alarm these workers and they're
worried
about some kind of hazardous duty pay these workers might demand if they
know they're working with more dangerous materials.

CURWOOD: So the bosses knew and didn't want to tell the workers.

WARRICK: Yeah. There's no indication in the record that anybody was told
in
terms of the regular workers at least until the early 1990s, when some
memos were circulated to some of the senior union officials saying,
look,
there may be other things in the plant -- this kind of vague language
about
trans-uranic materials, which most of the workers wouldn't understand.
But
not until this past summer, when our reports came out, did workers
really
begin to understand the gravity of the situation.

CURWOOD: Joby, did any of the workers suspect that something was wrong
here?

WARRICK: Well, one in particular did. It's a man named Joe Harding, who
as
an employee at the plant for more than 20 years. And he began to notice
through the years a whole range of unusual symptoms in his own body. He
developed some weird spots and rashes that just covered him from head to
foot. He had fingernail-like growths coming out of his palms and of his
knuckles. He developed stomach cancer that eventually killed him. And he
began to bring his health concerns to the attention of the managers at
the
time and to the government, saying, look, there are serious exposures
going
on in this plant. Workers are breathing this uranium dust, this
radioactive
dust. It's going home with them. I think this is causing my own illness.
The government did not take these claims very seriously at the time. It
launched an investigation based on what Joe Harding said, and
essentially
dismissed all his concerns and said that radiation levels at the plant
were
not unusual, and that if Mr. Harding developed cancer it was likely due
to his
diet of eating country ham. It turns out that, after Harding died, his
attorney and his widow had the body exhumed and the bones tested for
uranium, and the content of his body showed uranium levels of about
100,000
times higher than you'd expect in a normal person. But the government
continued to resist any, you know, resist compensation for this widow,
until just two years ago she settled out of court for $12,000. Just a
settlement for all the back worker's comp that he would have been paid.
It was a real travesty.

CURWOOD: What's been the response in Paducah?

WARRICK: There has been some elation on the part of workers and their
families. They're very excited about just the acknowledgment, really,
more
than the money, that the government's finally saying, look, this was
real,
and we owe you an apology and a full explanation at the very least. Some
are very happy to see some money coming because some of these families
have
been carrying some heavy financial burdens in terms of health costs that
weren't covered by worker's comp or anything else. And just in the case
of the
workers, there are also a number of people who would just like to see
this
problem go away. The Chamber of Commerce is upset that Paducah's getting
a
bad name, and they're afraid they're not going to attract any jobs.
There
are lots of old-timers who just don't believe that radiation is a
serious
problem, and just think that the stories are exaggerated or they're just
not that serious.

CURWOOD: Now, how does the local response compare to the national
response
you got when you started digging in this?

WARRICK: The initial stories we did really touched off a firestorm on
Capitol Hill. There were immediate calls for hearings. There have been a
total of three hearings and the Congress has gotten very involved in
this
issue of accountability by the government at these DOE plants and also
in
demanding that workers be taken care of. And this whole issue of
compensation for workers has matured in the last year, in a way that we
really never anticipated. And now the White House is talking about, for
the
first time, getting some kind of compensation for workers at all these
plants who may have been injured by their work in helping make the
United
States safe from Cold War attacks.

CURWOOD: Joby, looking back, who was lying and how long did they lie?

WARRICK: What we've been able to determine, and that's always a
difficult
question to know who to blame in a situation like this, there was
certainly
the government. The Atomic Energy Commission sort of started this thing
in
motion, you know, began these plants and imposed this culture of secrecy
and expediency in developing nuclear weapons. And at the same time they
farmed out the responsibility to some very big corporations and told
them,
look, do what it takes, you know, meet these quotas. Get the job done.
You know,
don't come up to us with problems. And this is the environment that
created
this whole sort of nightmare for a number of workers, in which they did
their jobs without really knowing what they were being exposed to, and
didn't learn about problems until decades later. So how do you parse
that
out? I mean, who was ultimately responsible? Probably it was both, I
think.

CURWOOD: Now the government is admitting that workers at many other
sites
around the country may have been exposed to high levels of radiation and
cancer-causing chemicals, as well as the people in Paducah. But I'm
wondering, Joby, do you think there's still more we don't know about? Do
you think there are still other untold stories of hazards that are going
to
surface, or have yet to surface?

WARRICK: Yeah, absolutely. We get calls daily from people and plants and
places all over the country -- those that are operating today and some
that
closed years ago and had fairly small and obscure roles in building
nuclear
weapons. But the theme that the workers bring to us is, it's generally
the
same, that production and sort of national security took precedence over
safety concerns. And perhaps that was the necessary attitude of some of
these places at the time. But these workers all feel very strongly that
they've been the guinea pigs in this vast effort to build bombs, and
that
they think the time is now for people to recognize this and take care of
them.

CURWOOD: Joby Warrick is a reporter with the Washington Post who broke
the
Paducah, Kentucky, story. Thanks for joining us, Joby.

WARRICK: Thanks, Steve. I enjoyed it.

(Music up and under)
Washington Post Articles
-- 
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Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
136 S Illinois Ave, Ste 208, Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Phone (865) 483-1333; Fax (865) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net 
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