Better late than never...or better never
?
One of the problems of having numerous computers is
that messages often get downloaded to the least-used one and never answered.
Since the subject of the "Port Chicago" incident is one of the few fringe
stories ... that is, one of the few of the far-out conspiracy theories which I
buy into, I wanted to answer Terry's old message:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry Blanton"
Funny you should mention this smoking gun... Not
only does the county in question (Contra Costa) have the highest cancer rate in
the USA by far .... it could have been much worse.
Twenty-thee miles out from the SF Bay area sit the
lovely, seemingly unspoiled Farallones Islands. Their beauty hides a deep
grim secret. Even in 2005, as they have for over sixty years, a few barges
from Hunter's Point carrying radioactive waste pass under the Golden Gate
Bridge, heading for clandesting nuclear waste dumping into the deep water
of the Farallones.
There... the false-bottom of the barges opens to
release radioactive waste into the sea, just as first happened on July
19, 1944 following a wartime explosion - at Port Chicago (now called
"Concord"). The dredged material from this incident, would normally have
been used at the Yerba Buena fill site, twenty miles closer in... but for one
grotesque and deadly secret.
The Naval Radiological Defence Laboratory at
Hunters Point, the leading laboratory of the United States military for applied
nuclear research, oversees this continuing quasi-illegal activity. Their
classified files could open the US government and the Navy to hundreds of
billions of dollars in liability for past deeds, if the Port Chicago secret even
came out... but that may never happen. Port Chicago is, in a curious
irony, one of the main reasons that the continuing illegal dumping
continues. No amount of present dumping can add much to the already immense
burden of toxicity which is already there. Thank the Lord for deep
waters.
These days, most nuclear waste is sent out in 55
gallon drums - originating at the University of California, operator of
three national laboratories, and the acknowledged leader in nuclear
research... and clandestind dumping (along with the US Navy). Radioactive waste
from McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, supposedly home to more nukes
than any place on earth, is also dumped in the Farallones. In a
curious anachronism, barrels that do not go
down immediately, are holed by rifle shooting by sailors in order to hasten
immediate sinking. Many of the US Navys lower level radioactive waste
containers are consequenly breached from the start, but that is de minimis
compared to the waste already there - on the sea bottom of the
Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Site. Anything we do these days pales in
comparison to what was dumped there after the dredging of Port Chicago in the
summer of '44 and later, some of the Bikini waste was even hauled all the way
here.
The Farallon waste site is a triangle shaped piece
of sea space at a distance of 30 miles west of San Francisco. It encompasses
most of the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, a refuge of gorgeous
marine and other wildlife. The site includes some of the most fertile commercial
fishing waters in the Pacific. These waters are rich with fish and other sea
life. The islands themselves are home to the nations largest population of
breeding sea birds, and sea lions. But astonishingly this was Americas largest
sea dump of nuclear waste. Why was nuclear trash dumped so close to the densely
populated Californian coast, and sea traffic, could only be explained by the
curious events of that fateful summer, when hundreds of Afro-American servicemen
were blasted into oblvion, and then the remainder of their comarades charged
with mutiny in what has become (until recently) America's greatest
shame.
It is the one and only wartime "accident" ever
investigated by what later became the Los Alamos National Labs - LANL. Now
why would that be? Why would lab officials have been on site the next day
following the disaster? Why whould this lab have witten up 20,000 pages of TOP
SECRET classified information on an accidnet involving the Navy? LANL is not run
by the Navy and never was. They never investigate any other accident? This was
totally outside their mission, especially during the wartime years. Why would
they have top officials at Port Chicago the day following an "accident" which
should have been of absolutely no concern to them? Why is the material still
calssified? Where is the Mark II?
There is only one way that most of these questions
can be answered.
US officials have long
acknowledged that this nuclear dump site contains some 47,500 barrels of low
level radiation waste produced by nuclear power reactors, and US Navy and
University of Californias nuclear laboratories. But they have fallen far short
of coming-clean. Curiously, the Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Site is still
officially termed as a low level, nuclear waste repository. This claim has
been challenged and oblitereated by environmentalists and journalists, who
stress that extraordinarily high levels and long lived radioactivity, and far
more dangerous materials are parked and are sitting at the bottom of the sea out
there, some admttedly coming from Bikini. How could that be low
level?
According to SF Weekly US
Navys unclassified documents reveal significant amounts of nuclear bomb
component plutonium which has a half life of 24000 years, and similarly long
lived mixed fission products were used at the US Navys laboratory at Hunters
point. The US Navy has asserted that all nuclear materials used at the NRLD
were disposd of at the Farallon Nuclear Waste Site. An entire radioactive ship
the 10,000 ton, aircraft carrier Independence used as target in the Bikini
Atolls largest US atomic bomb tests is believed to have been sunk near this
waste site... they do not mention Port Chicago, the hidden secret and last
monstrous 'skeleton in the closet' remaining from WWII.
Thank heavens for one
fact. This water is extremely deep, still and cold - and lifeless. The US
Environmental Protection Agency has said that radioactive material from this
dumping site could nevertheless be entering the food chain, and even on to
beaches and into San Francisco Bay. It is astonishing that despite environmental
outcry, sixty years of radioactive waste, starting with the Post Chicago
dredging, was dumped at the heart of a major fishery, near the incredibly
beautiful city of San Francisco... and still continues to be dumped there behind
a veil of secrecy.
Were it not for deep
calm waters and short memories, who knows what forther evil could have befallen
the area ....
Jones
