Blowing in the Wind

Submitted by Bob Burton on

A five-year long study into the 1959 meltdown of a nuclear reactor near Simi Valley in California has concluded that it could have caused between 260 and 1,800 cases of cancer. The report could not be more specific because the U.S. Department of Energy and Boeing, the parent company of Rocketdyne, refused to provide the weather data crucial to modelling where the radioactive pollution went. The report states that Boeing officials told the researchers that the wind data was proprietary information. "How can you possibly declare a trade secret which way the wind blew on a certain day?" Dan Hirsch, the co-chairman of the advisory panel that oversaw the study, told the Los Angeles Times. At the time of the accident, the lab issued a media statement claiming, "No release of radioactive materials to the plant or its environs occurred, and operating personnel were not exposed to harmful conditions."

Main Source: 
Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2006
Topics: 
Issue Management
Nuclear Power
Environment
Health
Secrecy
U.S. Government

Comments

ShellyM replied on

I was meant to see this story...in 1962-63, my family was living in Oxnard, CA, where my older sister was born. I was not yet born. My mom was 20 years old, with two small children. By the time she was 24, she was battling colon cancer. She was told she would not survive, that she had 6 months to live. She had NO FAMILY HISTORY of cancer. Miraculously, she somehow survived. Six years later I was born. 25 years after her diagnosis of colon cancer, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This time, she was not so lucky. She died 18 months later. My family STILL, to this day, has had no other cancer diagnoses or deaths. She has two sisters and a brother, many aunts and uncles. No cancer. Oxnard is 41 miles from Santa Susana. I KNOW in my heart this is what caused her death. She was only 50 years old & in the prime of her life---a beautiful, successful business woman. She never got to see my kids. I came across the story by chance---it was meant to be. I will pursue this to the end. That is my vow. 1800 people died and THAT SHOULD NOT BE SWEPT UNDER THE RUG.