Idealist

Divine Strake lawsuit evidentiary hearing on Wednesday

By StopDivineStrake.com

June 27, 2007

If you were asked which person is more likely to die from cancer - a forty-year, two-pack-a-day smoker, or a rescue worker who inhaled large quantities of airborne toxins at the World Trade Center ground-zero site - what would be your answer? These two types of toxic exposures - long-term low-dose, and short-term high-dose - are equally as damaging to human health. Therefore, the fear that was held by downwinders of the mega-explosive experiment called Divine Strake, which threatened radioactive fallout in Utah and neighboring states, should be no less for what the government is proposing in its place. Today, a federal judge will hear testimony from environmental and health experts who will assert that the DTRA's proposal to conduct 'confirmatory' experiments (smaller-scale blasts) at the Nevada Test Site poses a health danger to residents downwind. Although the DTRA denies that it has such plans for testing, the Pentagon agency's plans are in writing - they were unequivocally stated in a February 2007 press release: "The agency will develop advanced analysis techniques and conduct confirmatory experiments at a much smaller scale to assist in developing new capabilities to defeat underground facilities."

It is believed the plaintiff's lawyer hopes to establish that the government has acted in bad faith and that its future actions will not properly comply with environmental statutes. Therefore, the hope is that the judge will determine that despite the lack of an 'administrative decision' to begin small-scale testing at the NTS, the DTRA cannot be trusted and that oversight of unannounced future actions is required. Further evidence will show that since the Atomic Energy Commission could not prevent plumes from atomic tests from traveling in opposite directions and over longer distances than predicted, then small scale testing involving radioactive dust is likewise not safe; one exhibit will show that low-level dust clouds from atomic tests followed unpredictable patterns and traveled over greater distances than predicted. In a legal brief submitted yesterday, the government's attorneys suggested that the judge should reject all evidence - a total of 19 exhibits - and limit today's hearing to oral arguments only.

Although its plans are in writing, the ambiguity of the DTRA's intentions is what is at issue and most feared. The worst-case scenario - if the federal judge dismisses the 14-month long injunction against the DTRA's actions - is that the DTRA could conduct countless small-scale surface explosions at locations at the NTS without giving warning to downwinders or providing a democratic process for the public to hold hearings or question environmental studies. The danger of exposure to downwinders from testing at the NTS is one that hasn't been contemplated by the general public for over 15 years - underground nuclear testing was stopped at the NTS in 1992. In those 15 years, governmental studies have pointed to links between the long-term exposure of radioactively contaminated dust (fallout) and a host of health disorders. The government estimated the death toll from fallout from NTS testing in the tens of thousands. Several international peace and health organizations, however, put that number - the death toll - into the hundreds of thousands, or millions.

The federal lawsuit, which may be resolved today for good or for worse, beckons, as it has in the past, citizen involvement. Sponsored by a small number of activists, downwinders and Western Shoshone tribal members, the lawsuit is symbolic of the downwinder struggle that spans several Western states. That struggle parallels similar struggles experienced by downwinders of Pacific atomic testing, Chernobyl, Sellafield, Thule, and dozens of other areas worldwide that fell victim to short- or long-term radioactive contamination. Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, another injunction is expected to be filed. In the same spirit, citizens ought to demonstrate an unflinching opposition to testing of any kind at the Nevada Test Site. The DTRA's proposed actions threatens the health of downwinders and the sovereign rights of the Western Shoshone Nation, and further demonstrates an unwillingness by our government to comply with international treaties opposing nuclear proliferation.

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