8,000 Pounds of depleted Uranium exploded above this plant

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

Did any Radsafers work at this plant described below?  I have read other 
reports that 8,000 pounds of depleted uranium were shot off above the plant 
over the years in the "hydroshot" test.

Source:
http://www.thehawkeye.com/daily/stories/ln31123.html
========================================================
12/31/2000
Lax safety at IAAP recounted



By Dennis J. Carroll
The Hawk Eye
Former workers share tales of fear, danger.

MIDDLETOWN -- Working at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant over the past 50
years -- producing the weapons that saved the world from Hitler and won the
Cold War -- at times could be a trip into hell. Perhaps as many as 40,000
southeast Iowans and others from nearby states often handled extremely
hazardous materials, turning out weapons for soldiers who often were better
protected than they were. Safety measures could be minimal, nonexistent or
considered a joke, and workers were routinely maimed in explosions, many of
which were never reported to the outside community, former workers say. Some
workers, known as the "China ladies," blended explosive powders and 
literally
turned yellow from exposure to the hazardous materials. Others routinely
handled radioactive substances with bare hands, and breathed in deadly fumes
and powders unprotected by masks. Some workers on Line 1 -- where atomic
weapons were produced -- were said to ha! ve developed a certain death walk.
Bent and sickly looking, their slow gait was known as the "Line 1 shuffle."
"The name of the game out there was production -- the hell with safety, get
(it) built and get it out the door," said Vaughn Moore, 55, a guard at the
plant from 1967 until the mid-1970s. Working the security detail, there were
few areas of the plant Moore and the other guards did not see.And what they
did see was scary -- assembled nuclear weapons left unattended on open 
ramps,
detonator packages in unsecured areas.Raccoons would find their way into 
some
areas and rustle through who knows what, possibly carrying it back 
outside.As
fellow workers have continued to die of cancer and other illnesses that may
be related to their work at the plant, Moore and others like him have become
more willing to talk about their experiences.They have painted a frightful
picture of what it was like working at the plant from the late-194! 0s at 
least
into the mid-1970s. "We lost another one yesterday," Moore, West Burlington,
said of a co-worker who died last week. Moore said he figures he probably 
has
something deadly eating away at him too, but he doesn't want to know for
sure."I got some problems," he said. "I just hope it's the fast one and not
the slow one." Moore said he has watched fellow workers die slow, agonizing
deaths.. Despite the danger and stress, IAAP workers took great pride in
their work. And few, if any, complained about the dangers. "We were known as
the 'sugar factory,' of the (Atomic Energy Commission) because we built the
best," Moore said.He said weapons made at other nuclear weapons plants were
often shipped to Middletown. "We had to rework it because they didn't have
quality." When a weapon left Middletown, "it was perfect," Moore said. "The
decals were exactly right, the screws were (tight)." Former workers also 
tell
disconcerting st! ories of how materials that may have been contaminated
managed to find its way off the plant -- from the poisoned water and deadly
toxins burned into the air, to possibly contaminated dinner buckets taken
home, or the used metals given to high school shop classes; from 
contaminated
laundry delivered to a Burlington cleaner to pop bottles retrieved from 
toxic
trash bins for redemption at local stores."We took this stuff home with us
and gave it to our families," Moore said.Sam Creagan, 65, Burlington, worked
at the plant from 1968 to 1973. He often hauled contaminated work clothes to
the plant laundry. "The health of the people who washed the clothes was
terrible," said Creagan. "They were coughing all the time. They were real
sickly looking and they had a lot of health problems." Former workers laugh
at the past assurances from local officials that radioactive or other
hazardous materials or the nuclear weapons themselves were ne! ver 
transported
across Burlington streets or on local rail lines. "We went right down
Roosevelt Street with that stuff in convoys" on the way to the airport, 
Moore
said. Everything shipped in or out of the plant was accompanied by armed
guards, he said. "You mess around with one of them and they'd blow your head
off. Them couriers were serious boys. They'd pop you no questions asked."He
also told of close calls at the airport, which would be closed off to other
air traffic when an IAAP shipment was being flown out.On one occasion, a 
C-47
transport plane, loaded with an IAAP shipment, sputtered ominously after
takeoff but managed to circle back and land without crashing.The stress of
working at the plant did not necessarily go away at the end of a shift.Some
workers believe their home phones were tapped, and that their comings and
goings often were monitored. "They knew more about you than you knew about
yourself," Moore said.! Any trips out of the country were particularly 
suspect,
and workers had to detail the plans for their trips and who they would be
meeting.Moore recalled a vacation he took to Mexico."I got down there and we
were walking around (Juarez, Mexico) and this guy kept following us," Moore
said. "Finally I confronted him, and he looked right at me and said, 'Hi
Vaughn. How you doing?' And I said, 'How do you know my name?' And he said,
'Well, weren't you supposed to be here today?' .... He followed us until we
got back across the border." Moore said he and other security guards
accompanied ambulance runs to work-site explosions."They used to have flash
fires on Line 7, the old horseshoe line," said Moore. "The only way they
could get out of there when that room flashed was to get down on their hands
and knees and crawl out."Moore said that one time, the doors on the room had
been installed backwards -- they opened inward instead of outwa! rd -- and
"women were stacked up against the doors. We had a mess. We had broken arms,
legs ... I'd never seen such a mess."Moore and others also have told of many
workers losing fingers or hands assembling grenades or working with other
explosives. Thurman Huffman, Burlington, also a former plant guard, recalled
his exposure to baratol, a deadly mixture of barium nitrate and TNT."It 
would
suck your eyes right out of your head," Huffman said. "It was bad 
stuff."Many
exposure or explosion incidents were not reported, Moore and Huffman said.
"They didn't want to make waves out there or make incident reports," Moore
said. The two also claimed that there were never any safety meetings or
briefings for guards. "We were responsible for the security of that plant,"
Moore said, "(but) we never had a safety meeting; we never had a debriefing
meeting." He said workers usually were never told what they were working 
with
or what it could! do to a person.The guards, especially, were unprotected,
Moore said, even though they often were required to enter some of the most
dangerous areas."We never had any kind of meeting to tell you what you were
working with," Moore said. "We had no protective clothing, we had no film
badges, we had nothing. Yet we were required to go everywhere in that plant
and be aware of what was going on." Moore said he and many other workers are
not interested in the $150,000 compensation package for former nuclear
workers approved by Congress."That would (only) cover three trips to Iowa
City for chemotherapy," Moore said. "We want the health coverage ... We want
doctors, good doctors."

====================================================
Harry Hinks
harryhinks@hotmail.com

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