Nothing divine about this plan
People in Utah and Nevada are up in arms about the coming Divine Strake bomb experiment set early next month in the Nevada desert - and Idahoans ought to be, too. Tona Henderson of Emmett, a leader of the Downwinders group whose families contracted cancer from past tests, wrote this letter published in today's Idaho Statesman:
On June 2, there will be an explosion at the
Nevada Test Site called "Divine Strake." It will be a 700-ton
"non-nuclear" bomb. It will be the same kind of bomb that was used in
Oklahoma City, only 280 times larger. This bomb will be detonated 1.1
miles from the old nuclear testing sites. The government is claiming
there is no soil contamination in that area. In the '50s and '60s,
there were about 100 above-ground tests done in that area. That ground
is contaminated with uranium, plutonium, strontium and cesium, just to
name a few radioactive isotopes, some of which have millions of years
for a half-life.
What happens when this test takes
place? All the radioactive dirt will be sent into the atmosphere.
Downwinders know our government called us "a low-use segment of the
population" in the testing days and sent the fallout to Idaho. When
this bomb goes off, which way will it be aimed? Are we going to let
them take the chance of poisoning our children as they did us and say
"oops?" They won't even help the downwinders we have now. Please call
our delegation and governor and demand the test be stopped.
This was the first mention of Divine Strake in the Boise paper, though it's been big news elsewhere for weeks, maybe months, and it would be the largest non-nuclear bomb explosion in human history. The Downwinders.org website has links to all the latest news, including this column from the city editor of the St. George, Utah, newspaper ("Stop blast for kids' sake"). The Emmett Messenger-Index has plenty more, though much of it is picked up from elsewhere.
People from around the state helped stop the coal-fired power plant in Jerome County. This peril is at least as great. Utahns and Nevadans are working overtime to stop Divine Strake; so are people from as far away as Tennessee. It's time for Idahoans to raise our voices against this plan, and way past time for Idaho politicians and Boise reporters to start taking action and investigating the issue, too.
"...some of which have millions of years for a half life." Actually, uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years. That means that it's essentially not radioactive; a really long half life, used in the story to make it seem scarier, actually means it's less dangerous. (Half life means it takes that long for half of the sample to decay; radioactive substances aren't hurtful unless they actually decay when they're near you.)
Posted by: Bubblehead | May 09, 2006 at 08:56 PM