July 19, 2010
Leaking a Little More About Huntington’s Once Secret Uranium, Plutonium and Nickel Cold War Bomb Part Supplier
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – The memories of former workers from the radioactive material processing plant in East Huntington always comes with a preface that the shared information was formerly top secret. Some describe a high chain link fence with armed security guards. Others remember armed guards overseeing the loading and unloading of product by railcar.
The Huntington, WV Department of Energy plant supplied items to three gaseous diffusion plants that enriched uranium to make atomic weapons. These plants were in Piketon, Ohio (Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion); Paducah , Ky. (Paducah Gaseous Diffusion) and Oak Ridge, Tenn. (Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant).
These three plants enriched uranium in a mile-long system of pipes, ducts, chambers , motors and electrical lines. The sublimed crystalline gaseous and greenish uranium flowed through nickel filters which separated isotopes. This section of the diffusion plant has been called The Cascade. ( Description courtesy of “ A Pigeon in Piketon,” by Geoffrey Sea, January 1, 2004 American Scholar .)
The Huntington, WV plant received radioactive metals from the “cascades” of diffusion plants. It’s job was to melt out the precious nickel and separate uranium so both could be sent back to the diffusion plants to make additional nuclear weapons. But, a combination of secrecy and fear of litigation kept the specific exposure dosages per worker veiled. Fifty years later (or more) the existence of plutonium, neptunium, and nickel carbonyl exposures and residues would become public.
The uranium and nickel processing plant was torn down , carried out of Huntington, and entombed in 1978-1979 in a classified sarcophagus in Piketon. The burial occurred at night; many workers did not know what was occurring. Geoffrey Sea describes the necessity for disposal in the “Pigeon in Piketon” article: “The INCO plant quickly became so hazardous to operate, or even to be close to, that it had to be shut down. Not only was it a source for airborne nickel and uranium but its equipment had become coated in a top-secret chemical called nickel carbonyl, described banally in declassified documents as a colorless, volatile, flammable, poisonous residue.”
Unfortunately, there were hundreds of other plants doing work for the Atomic Energy Commission. They might have remained mostly classified or urban legends until former workers began dying from cancer.
AFTER THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
As development of the U.S. atomic program began , only a few non-government contractors were involved in the bomb making work code named the Manhattan Project. It ended World War II by dropping two bombs on two Japanese cities. After the war, the Soviet Union began making atomic weapons too. The United States government had to step up production in order to gain superiority over Russia’s nuclear production.
Private industry was contracted to turn uranium into a fissionable explosive for weapons and raw materials to make plutonium, the core of most nuclear weapons. Toxic and radioactive jobs were done at uranium refining and processing plants, steel mills , metal-working shops, chemical and metallurgical companies.
When the Atomic Energy Commission took federal control around 1960, most of the private sites were no longer used. But they were still contaminated. A so-called “mass balance” study released by the Energy Department in 2001 documented the movement of recycled uranium through the nuclear weapons complex during 50 or so years between 1952-1999.
According to the July/August Bulletin of Atomic Scientists some 250,000 tons of uranium contaminated with plutonium 239, neptunium 237, technetium 99, and other fission products were recycled and processed between 1952 and 1999 at more than two dozen facilities. The uranium was often sent to private facilities, universities, and military bases throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Most of these sites lacked the proper worker or environmental standards for handling these materials.
Of these private facilities several were “located in or near residential areas,” just like the Huntington Pilot Plant (a.k.a. Reduction Pilot Plant) , which sat on the grounds of INCO in East Huntington.
A series of articles in USA Today (“Poisoned Workers & Poisoned Places”) ran in 2000 and 2001. The national newspaper investigation laid it on the line: “In the 1940s and '50s, the U.S. government secretly hired scores of private companies to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material. But the companies were not prepared for the hazards of handling nuclear material. Workers were not informed of the risks. Thousands were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Government reports were classified and buried. The result is a legacy of poisoned workers and communities that lingers to this day.”
And where did the waste from these nuclear products go? Here are examples.
A 1980 federal survey of the Carnegie, Pa., site where “Superior Steel rolled uranium for the weapons program found radiation in scrap pits and floor areas well above safety standards. Plant owners later had the areas cemented over; federal officials decided there was no need to check the fix,” wrote USA Today.
Uranium dust spewed into Cleveland, Ohio around the Harshaw Chemical Company; it remained contaminated at the time of the article. Carborundum Metals, Akron, NY , had a federal government endorsement to dump ammonium thiocyanate waste (from hafnium and zirconium) into a sewer running into the Niagara River.
West Virginia had four “secret” plants on the list. One was in Huntington. The others were Morgantown’s Ordnance Works , and two without location identifications: Food Machinery & Chemical Corp.( a.k.a. F.M.C. Corp.) , and Amax Corp.
Under pressure, the federal government admitted thousands of ailing and dying workers had been exposed to radiation at facilities and no one had told them or sufficiently tested them for contamination. Some of the sites have been cleaned --- by standards deemed relevant at the time. Others, like Portsmouth, are in the process of D & D (Decontamination and Decommissioning). And, still others were left un-used and forgotten.
COMING: Cleaning the Mess… but by what year’s scientific standards?
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
Leaking a Little More About Huntington’s Once Secret Uranium, Plutonium and Nickel Cold War Bomb Part Supplier
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – The memories of former workers from the radioactive material processing plant in East Huntington always comes with a preface that the shared information was formerly top secret. Some describe a high chain link fence with armed security guards. Others remember armed guards overseeing the loading and unloading of product by railcar.
The Huntington, WV Department of Energy plant supplied items to three gaseous diffusion plants that enriched uranium to make atomic weapons. These plants were in Piketon, Ohio (Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion); Paducah , Ky. (Paducah Gaseous Diffusion) and Oak Ridge, Tenn. (Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant).
These three plants enriched uranium in a mile-long system of pipes, ducts, chambers , motors and electrical lines. The sublimed crystalline gaseous and greenish uranium flowed through nickel filters which separated isotopes. This section of the diffusion plant has been called The Cascade. ( Description courtesy of “ A Pigeon in Piketon,” by Geoffrey Sea, January 1, 2004 American Scholar .)
The Huntington, WV plant received radioactive metals from the “cascades” of diffusion plants. It’s job was to melt out the precious nickel and separate uranium so both could be sent back to the diffusion plants to make additional nuclear weapons. But, a combination of secrecy and fear of litigation kept the specific exposure dosages per worker veiled. Fifty years later (or more) the existence of plutonium, neptunium, and nickel carbonyl exposures and residues would become public.
The uranium and nickel processing plant was torn down , carried out of Huntington, and entombed in 1978-1979 in a classified sarcophagus in Piketon. The burial occurred at night; many workers did not know what was occurring. Geoffrey Sea describes the necessity for disposal in the “Pigeon in Piketon” article: “The INCO plant quickly became so hazardous to operate, or even to be close to, that it had to be shut down. Not only was it a source for airborne nickel and uranium but its equipment had become coated in a top-secret chemical called nickel carbonyl, described banally in declassified documents as a colorless, volatile, flammable, poisonous residue.”
Unfortunately, there were hundreds of other plants doing work for the Atomic Energy Commission. They might have remained mostly classified or urban legends until former workers began dying from cancer.
AFTER THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
As development of the U.S. atomic program began , only a few non-government contractors were involved in the bomb making work code named the Manhattan Project. It ended World War II by dropping two bombs on two Japanese cities. After the war, the Soviet Union began making atomic weapons too. The United States government had to step up production in order to gain superiority over Russia’s nuclear production.
Private industry was contracted to turn uranium into a fissionable explosive for weapons and raw materials to make plutonium, the core of most nuclear weapons. Toxic and radioactive jobs were done at uranium refining and processing plants, steel mills , metal-working shops, chemical and metallurgical companies.
When the Atomic Energy Commission took federal control around 1960, most of the private sites were no longer used. But they were still contaminated. A so-called “mass balance” study released by the Energy Department in 2001 documented the movement of recycled uranium through the nuclear weapons complex during 50 or so years between 1952-1999.
According to the July/August Bulletin of Atomic Scientists some 250,000 tons of uranium contaminated with plutonium 239, neptunium 237, technetium 99, and other fission products were recycled and processed between 1952 and 1999 at more than two dozen facilities. The uranium was often sent to private facilities, universities, and military bases throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Most of these sites lacked the proper worker or environmental standards for handling these materials.
Of these private facilities several were “located in or near residential areas,” just like the Huntington Pilot Plant (a.k.a. Reduction Pilot Plant) , which sat on the grounds of INCO in East Huntington.
A series of articles in USA Today (“Poisoned Workers & Poisoned Places”) ran in 2000 and 2001. The national newspaper investigation laid it on the line: “In the 1940s and '50s, the U.S. government secretly hired scores of private companies to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material. But the companies were not prepared for the hazards of handling nuclear material. Workers were not informed of the risks. Thousands were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Government reports were classified and buried. The result is a legacy of poisoned workers and communities that lingers to this day.”
And where did the waste from these nuclear products go? Here are examples.
A 1980 federal survey of the Carnegie, Pa., site where “Superior Steel rolled uranium for the weapons program found radiation in scrap pits and floor areas well above safety standards. Plant owners later had the areas cemented over; federal officials decided there was no need to check the fix,” wrote USA Today.
Uranium dust spewed into Cleveland, Ohio around the Harshaw Chemical Company; it remained contaminated at the time of the article. Carborundum Metals, Akron, NY , had a federal government endorsement to dump ammonium thiocyanate waste (from hafnium and zirconium) into a sewer running into the Niagara River.
West Virginia had four “secret” plants on the list. One was in Huntington. The others were Morgantown’s Ordnance Works , and two without location identifications: Food Machinery & Chemical Corp.( a.k.a. F.M.C. Corp.) , and Amax Corp.
Under pressure, the federal government admitted thousands of ailing and dying workers had been exposed to radiation at facilities and no one had told them or sufficiently tested them for contamination. Some of the sites have been cleaned --- by standards deemed relevant at the time. Others, like Portsmouth, are in the process of D & D (Decontamination and Decommissioning). And, still others were left un-used and forgotten.
COMING: Cleaning the Mess… but by what year’s scientific standards?
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
