
          The Bomb Plant on Trial
          By Bowman, SueSue Bowman
          Vol. 6, No. 1, 1984, pp. 10-12
          
          Fifty demonstrators who blockaded entrances to the Savannah River
Plant last fall were found guilty of a traffic violation January 11,
but the nuclear weapons facility which produces the plutonium for US
weapons, sustained a direct hit to its reputation.
          The two-day trial of the protesters, before Aiken, South_Carolina,
Magistrate Court Judge Max A. Meek, resulted from a demonstration
October 24 hosted by the Natural Guard, a coalition of peace and
environmental groups (see Southern_Changes, December
1983). The blockade coincided with international demonstrations
against nuclear weapons.
          A three-man, three-woman jury deliberated over an hour before
returning a guilty verdict for "failure to obey a police officer." The
defendants were sentenced to one-hundred dollar fines or eleven days
in jail.
          During the trial, blockaders explained that to prevent a "greater
harm," they were compelled to disobey police orders to leave the road
in front of the plant. The thread running through expert testimony
suggested that they had every reason to be concerned. A former
Department of Energy "company man" confirmed allegations that SRP has
withheld reports of widespread radioactive contamination; an authority
on the medical effects of radioactive contamination warned that the
plant endangers the lives of people living around it; a retired Navy
admiral and Pentagon nuclear weapons strategist testified that
increased production and deployment of nuclear weapons has greatly
increased the threat of nuclear war and that the Bomb Plant would be a
first target.
          DuPont, contracted by DOE to run the plant, is guilty of a pattern
of negligence and has suppressed information about radioactive
contamination, according to DOE's former head of nuclear waste
management at SRP. William Lawless, nuclear waste project engineer for
six years, said a 1981 report which outlined his criticisms of the
waste program was reclassified as a "draft" report. He said DuPont
objected to the contents of the report and that because of the
reclassification, the document could be withheld from the public, even
if requested through the Freedom of Information Act.
          Lawless gave many examples of contamination reports withheld from
the public and numbers-juggling by the company to make releases appear
harmless.
          One report deliberately withheld was a 1977 internal document which
listed forty "monitoring wells" on SRP property which had been
contaminated with radioactive tritium. Some of the wells contained
levels of radiation 200,000 times that allowed for drinking
water. (Out of court, Lawless said this discovery caused him to quit
drinking plant water.) According to Lawless, the contaminated water,
as much as 400,000 gallons from one well, was pumped out of the wells
onto the ground to conceal high levels of radiation. This would result
in temporarily lowered readings of contamination in those wells.
          No records on types of hazardous and radioactive waste were kept at
the "burial ground" at the plant. For twenty years, pipes in which
tritium was manufactured were buried "uncapped" at the plant,
contaminating the water.
          There was extensive corrosion in twenty-seven high level waste
tanks, even before they were fully constructed, and Lawless testified
that reports of these conditions were deliberately suppressed.
          Numbers were juggled and regulations rewritten to make releases of
radioactive gases appear less significant. "In the real world, the gas
is still there," he said.
          Robert Alvarez, Director of the Nuclear Weapons and Power Project
for the Washington-based Environmental 

Policy Institute called
Lawless' testimony "startling and highly significant .... This is the
most significant finding about SRP that's been made public in
years."
          SRP officials accuse Lawless of misinterpreting facts, and said the
reports were available to anyone who asked for them--but each report
must be requested by name.
          Lawless' testimony about mishandling of waste at SRP, and
discrepancies between public and internal reports, magnified the
testimony by Dr. Carl Johnson, former Director of Public Health,
Jefferson County, Colorado. Johnson told-the jury how the releases and
discrepancies translated into dangers to health.
          Johnson told the packed courtroom that declassified SRP internal
documents from 1954-1975 showed radioactive releases were much larger
than those reported to the public. On March 15, 1955, an accidental
release of radiation resulted in radiation levels four hundred times
background level. "In my opinion it should have resulted in evacuation
of this area."
          Johnson said that it is hazardous to live in Aiken or the
surrounding area, that residents lives are in danger "to a medical
certainty." Johnson based his predictions that the area would show
high cancer rates on data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and on his own
extensive studies of health effects around the Rocky Flats nuclear
weapons facility in Colorado. "There is no level of radiation without
effect," he said several times
          Rear Admiral Gene LaRocque, retired after thirty-one years in the
Navy, seven as Pentagon nuclear weapons strategist, brought the
spectre of nuclear war into the courtroom. He spoke matter-of-factly
about the vulnerability of facilities like SRP in a nuclear attack.
          "Plutonium production facilities would be among the first targets,"
he said. "If we hit a production facility (in the Soviet Union). . tit
would spread radioactive material over a tremendous part of the
country and be a devastating blow. . .It would be a natural first
target. . .We would want to get their war-making capacity."
          "We need to assume that the whole Aiken area would be a prime
target for a nuclear strike," LaRocque said. If an attack hit right on
the plant, due to wind shifts, "the radioactive materials would be
impossible to control. . . We don't have plans to deal with that sort
of catastrophe."
          LaRocque said that with the offensive posture of US nuclear policy,
we've actually decreased our national security. The military is geared
to "fight to win. . we're uncomfortable with deterrence."
          "We're ready now in thirty minutes to destroy the Soviet Union. All
the president has to do is say go." he added.
          LaRocque defended the blockaders' tactic. "Civil disobedience is
one of the many good ways to bring it to public attention. . .People
should do something every day to prevent nuclear war."
          Framed in the context of expert testimony, defendants' compelling
reasons for blockading the road and being arrested made absolute
sense. In the courtroom, a very diverse group of individuals told
their stories.
          Adele Kushner, a retired county employee and grandmother from
Atlanta, said, "I have become concerned over what kind of world we are
leaving for our grandchildren." She said she had tried every other
means to get her government's attention before deciding to participate
in the blockade.
          Beth Ann Buitekant, a registered nurse from Atlanta, talked about
the inadequacy of the health_care system because of military
expenditures. About weapons proliferation, she said, "I personally
have no control over it, except to do exactly what I have been
doing."
          Andy Summers, a Methodist minister and pastoral counselor from
Savannah, downriver from the plant, said nuclear war would result in
"destruction on such a massive basis that we hardly have the
capability to think about it" and that this results in a "psychic
numbing." "We need to develop new, vivid symbols to come to grips with
the worsening situation."
          Brett Bursey, program director of a social action organization in
Columbia, South_Carolina, noted, "Not only are they doing something
against the wishes of the majority of the American people, but they're
lying about it." He referred to Lou Harris polls indicating that
three-fourths of the American people support a nuclear freeze.
          Bursey expressed the importance of civil disobedience in American
history, including the Boston Tea Party and civil_rights
movements. "There would not be black_people on this jury if years ago
black_people didn't refuse to go to the back of the bus," he said,
addressing the one black juror.
          Ed Clark, 77, a church pianist from Greenville, said his
participation in the blockade was "a way of bearing witness against
the nuclear arms race. . .which could happen tomorrow. I felt it was
an urgent matter--I had to take part."
          A former welder at SRP and other facilities, Butch Guisto, who grew
up and still lives in Augusta, testified that his welds were never
X-rayed, and that there was a "cavalier treatment about radioactive
releases" at that plant. "I know for a fact that tritium releases
occur," relating that he had been present on several occasions. "I
live in this area, and I'm just as responsible as anyone else," he
added.
          Testimony in the trial deeply affected even the defendants, who are
generally more educated about nuclear issues than the average
citizen. Local farmer and blockader Steve McMillan had testified that
he became concerned 

about the Bomb Plant over a period of time. "I
began to suspect the people in our area weren't getting the truth," he
told the jury. Walking out of the courtroom after the verdict, he
slowly shook his white head--"It's worse than we said it was."
          The jury chose to take the prosecutor's way out and find the
defendants guilty of the traffic violation. "They broke the law, plain
and simple," Assistant South_Carolina Attorney_General James Bogle
told the jurors.'
          Defendant Randy Tatel commented on the jury's decision. "I
empathized with the jurors in that they couldn't have remained
objective in reviewing the evidence. It would have meant overcoming
the numbness, the years of acceptance of the Bomb Plant in their back
yard--they were told pointblank that the plant was killing them and
their children and contributing to the threat of nuclear
holocaust."
          But the "convicts" were jubilant. Not one expressed more than a
shrug of "well, it would have been nice to be acquitted," instead,
conversation went to the impact of the trial. As one defendant later
expressed, "The more I think about it, the more I realize how big we
won. We never really expected to be acquitted, but think of the local
education that occurred! The policemen listening to Dr. Johnson, the
judge, the jury, people who will talk to the jury about what they
heard, the list goes on."
          He concluded, "Maybe next time we will be acquitted as well."
          
            Sue Bowman lives in Columbia, South_Carolina and writes
regularly about Southern disarmament activities.
          
        
