Livermore surveyors found the playground contamination by accident. But the plutonium contamination within the top two inches of the playground soil turned out to be 100 times higher than expected, according to reports from the lab. On the surface, Livermore hardly seems like an unhealthy place to live. Faulk, who retired in 1985, now works with CARE to make the hazardous nuclear weapons research illegal. But scientific research can't be done in secret.
Science has to be an educational exchange.
The display was installed on court orders based upon a First Amendment decision after a year-long legal battle between the laboratory and CARE, Faulk says. CARE is currently involved with the International Court of the United Nations to petition an outlaw on weapons research in Livermore due to the health risks it allegedly imposes on the community. For most of Livermore, relations with the laboratory are tight. Both Livermore's mayor and vice mayor, who is an engineer at the privately owned Scandia laboratory in town, went to Washington D.C. last year to lobby against proposed laboratory budget cuts. Faulk thinks job-losses are a natural occurrence in an evolving society.