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Marking the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. nuclear meltdown

Marking the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. nuclear meltdown Los Angeles Times By Louis Sahagun
July 13, 2009

Holly Huff, 58, believes her leukemia and thyroid problems are related to the radioactive gases released from the Atomics International laboratory near her home when she was 8 years old.

A reactor in Chatsworth began leaking radioactive gas on July 14, 1959. Some area residents blame the facility for their health issues and say the site remains contaminated……………………………..A reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains had experienced a power surge the night before and spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere………………………..the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to spend $40 million in stimulus funds on a comprehensive radioactive survey of the nuclear site.

“It’s about time,” said Holly Huff, who was 8 years old when the meltdown occurred a mile from her home.

Standing on a bluff overlooking the 2,850-acre facility, which is now owned by Boeing Co. and NASA, Huff said, “They say it will be cleaned up by 2017 — I doubt it. We’ll wait and see.”………………

………………….For about two weeks, the facility, which employed several thousand people, had been venting colorless and odorless radioactive gas into the environment.

“Radioactivity levels during the accident went off-scale,” said Dan Hirsch, a spokesman for the antinuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap. “We thus do not know to this day how much radioactivity was released.”

Details of the incident were not disclosed until 1979, when a group of UCLA students discovered documents and photographs that referred to a problem at the site involving a “melted blob.”

Ever since, residents have worried about downstream health risks associated with soil contaminated by years of rocket and nuclear testing.

Radioactive emissions from the accident could have resulted in 260 to 1,800 cases of cancer within 62 miles of the site over a “period of many decades,” according to a study released in 2006…………………………………… Half a century after the accident, nuclear cleanup operations and chemical decontamination remain incomplete.

By Louis Sahagun
July 13, 2009

Marking the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. nuclear meltdown – Los Angeles Times

July 14, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, wastes