From: richter@hardy.u.washington.edu (Josef Richter)
Subject: Fun in Oak Ridge (was: RADIOACTIVE MEAT, MILK & PRODUCE)
Keywords: Fun in Oak Ridge (was: radioactive meat, milk & produce)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 21:34:05 GMT

>>
>>What kind of medicine is "nuclear medicine" ? And wouldn't that be the
>>DoD, and not the DoE?
>
>Nuclear medicine refers to therapies which use radioactive materials.
>There are a number of them.
>
>The DoE is, in fact, the agency in charge of producing nuclear
>weapons.  It has facilities in Oak Ridge, TN, among other places,
>where weapons production takes place.
>

      On something of a side note -- my grandfather worked in Oak Ridge
all throughout WWII, and still lives there. I traveled down to visit him
this summer, and was treated (?) to endless atomic anecdotes. Among my
favorites:

      At one point, I raised the question of health hazards, esp. since Time
had just published an article on OR called `Living Happily Near A Nuclear
Trash Heap.' Granddad shushed this: 
      "That doctor is a young upstart, who just came to Oak Ridge to raise
trouble. None of those health dangers are proven -- look at me. Do I have
cancer? No! And I purified uranium for 3 years! I've worked up to my elbows
in radioactive ore! Hell, if nuclear waste caused cancer, half the town
would be dead by now. [here I gain interest]. You know how we got rid of 
nuclear waste? We just threw that stuff in a 50-gallon drum and dropped 
it in a quarry pool -- and if it didn't sink, we shot a few holes in it
with a .22. And you know what? This was AEC standard procedure for 25 
years. The AEC is the Atomic Energy Commission: the Department of Energy."
      And a couple of facts from the Time article to temper this: 
the stream that runs through the center of Oak Ridge is so radioactive, you
can't swim in it... no fish, no algae, nothing living. Every autumn, the
government cuts down and buries certain trees near to the nuclear plants
(Y-12, X-10, and K-25), so that they won't shed their leaves, which set off
geiger counters at a couple of feet. The government now admits that a 
colorful variety of chemicals were leaked into the environment, through
drainage and smokestacks: all sorts of uranium varients, plutonium, asbestos..
over 2 million gallons of mercury... several students at OR high school have
been shown to contain inordinate amounts of mercury and lead in their blood...
More than 20 square miles around OR are strictly off limits; last year, a 
man accidentally drove into a "controlled area", set off a siren, and was
mobbed by security personnel; the government bought his car on the spot. 
Granddad verifies this last one. 

      BUT (and this is probably a welcome BUT, after all that), my all-time
favorite story is how granddad got to work at OR in the first place. During
WWII, he was working as an engineer, designing dams and turbine systems for
the Tennessee Valley Authority. His hobby was particle physics... 
      Anyhow, when OR was being built, a favorite diversion among TVA
engineers was to speculate on the purpose of OR -- it's hard to ignore 
a 100,000 person community springing up in a month or two. Although the
entire area was fenced in and off-limits, rumors got around 'bout the sort
of equipment and the sort of personnel that were being imported. A lot 
of theories were flying around, but granddad put cyclotrons and physicists
and atomic theory together and hit the nail on the head. One day, while
he was talking with his co-workers about OR, he guessed that OR was a 
nuclear facility, purifying and creating parts to build atomic bombs. 
Needless to say, he got it right. And apparently, the walls have ears...
two weeks later, he was rapidly and secretly transferred into OR, where
he was set up as a high-level tech. 

        Hopefully this isn't too far off-subject.


>							spl
>-- 
>Steve Lamont, SciViGuy -- (619) 534-7968 -- spl@szechuan.ucsd.edu
>UCSD Microscopy and Imaging Resource/UCSD Med School/La Jolla, CA 92093-0608
>"If you don't think people are this crazy, you need to move to LA!"
>                                     - Gary Stollman


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