DOE Army Plant

["Harry Hinks" <harryhinks@hotmail.com>]

http://www.ottumwacourier.com/display/inn_iowanews/armyplant.txt

Former Army Plant workers meet with health experts


MIDDLETOWN, Iowa (AP) - Jane Stonger and her sister, Debbie Detherage, were 
just kids when their father died at age 56 after a 19-year career at the 
Iowa Army Ammunition Plant.

Their father, Floyd Todd, died of Hodgkins disease. The sisters, who live 
across the Mississippi River in Illinois, don't know exactly what their dad 
did - only that he did it on the Production Line One involving the assembly 
and disassembly of nuclear weapons.

They were among about 150 anxious people who met Wednesday evening with 
health researchers from the University of Iowa's College of Public Health.

Since late August, they have been trying to determine whether former 
employees who worked on the nuclear devices at the plant were exposed to 
radiation or other health hazards.

Stonger of LaHarpe and Detherage of Dallas City suspect but can't say for 
sure what caused their father's illness. He worked at the plant from 1949-68 
and then died in 1970.

That's why the sisters brought a three-inch thick binder neatly organized 
with their father's health records compiled by doctors and hospitals as well 
as his work records and presented it to the research team headed by Dr. 
Lawrence Fuortes.

"Hopefully, we'll be satisfied some day about what happened and we'll have 
some answers," Detherage said.

Aides of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, also attended the meeting, the first of 
two this month, as did Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, whose district 
encompasses Middletown.

"We're very serious about this. I'm just delighted at the effort going on. 
It's long overdue," Boswell said.

Fuortes, who presented a slide show at the informational meeting and 
answered questions, said his team has determined that there were about 
50,000 people who worked at the Middletown plant during the Cold War period.

Of those, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 worked on Production Line One, he 
said.

His team is punching in information - names, addresses, job titles, badge 
numbers - of each of the 50,000 workers.

"From there, we have to discern which ones worked on Line One, which ones 
are still alive, where they live, and then contact them to offer them 
medical screening," Fuortes said, adding the project could take two or three 
more years to complete.

The researchers, funded with a $500,000 contract by the U.S. Department of 
Energy, have set up shop in southeast Iowa as they work to track down the 
former workers.

Nuclear weapons work at the U.S. Army-owned facility, a sprawling 
19,127-acre complex located about 10 miles west of Burlington, was overseen 
by the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission.

Questions have now arisen whether workers were properly monitored when the 
nuclear weapons line was in operation and whether their health might have 
been affected.

Chunks of depleted uranium have recently been found in areas of the plant 
thought to have been cleaned up years ago by the AEC when it moved 
Middletown's nuclear operations to Amarillo, Texas.

That discovery was made nearly a year after high levels of barium were found 
in soil at the northeast part of the plant.

Along with radioactive materials, College of Public Health officials are 
concerned that former workers may have been exposed to other hazardous 
materials, including explosives, solvents, epoxies and heavy metals.

The Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing a $100 million Superfund 
cleanup at the plant, which is not expected to be completed at least until 
2014.

H. Hinks
harryhinks@hotmail.com




_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html