Site 300 - U.S. Nuclear and Bio-Warfare Development
Site 300, a 7000-acre (11 square-mile) open field owned by the
Lawrence Livermore National Lab, is used as a high explosives testing
range. The range is located on Corral Hollow Road on the outskirts of
Tracy, near the heavily-trafficked Interstate 580. Earthquake faults,
such as the Elk Ravine Fault, traverse the whole area. Additionally, the
area is prone to wildfires 4.
Site 300 has been on the EPA's
"Superfund" list since 1990. It is polluted with many toxic and
radioactive materials, including tritium (radioactive hydrogen) and
uranium-238. Despite over 25 years on the list, the government still has
no cleanup plans for Site 300.
In early March, 2007, community members and environmentalists
celebrated a victory when the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District
rescinded its decision to allow the Lawrence Livermore Lab to test
350-pound bombs on Site 300. The planned tests were to have simulated
full scale nuclear weapons blasts. The district withdrew its permission
after learning from local residents that the bombs would contain
depleted uranium. The lab did not mention the use of depleted uranium in
its initial permit application.6
The federal government wants to do nuclear weapons testing and
bio-warfare agent experimentation on Site 300, near the city of Tracy,
California. Tracy, 19 miles from Livermore, home of the Lawrence
Livermore National Lab, is in the northern part of California's San
Joaquin Valley, some of the world's most fertile farmland. It is a
fast-growing city of the outer San Francisco Bay Area. The 2000 census
pegged the population at just over 56,000 people. Five years later, a
new estimate found that Tracy had added over 20,000 people.1
A 5,500-unit housing development is planned for an area only 1 mile
from the fence line of Site 300.2 Like its neighbors in the Bay Area,
Tracy is in earthquake country. The Black Butte Fault, the Midway Fault,
the Carnegie Corral Fault and the San Joaquin Fault are all sources of
seismic hazard in the immediate area. And Tracy would be endangered by a
"well-placed" quake along the San Andreas, Hayward, or Calaveras
faults.3
More testing radioactive devices DU devices in the U.S.
www.arsenalofhypocrisy.com/article.php
Marion Fulk, a highly respected Manhattan Project and Livermore
atomic scientist, says that depleted uranium "is perfect for killing
lots of people." That, in fact, along with contamination of the land, is
the purpose of the devices being tested.
If it's news to you, you're not alone. Livermore National Laboratory
has been testing radioactive devices – exploding depleted uranium and
tritium into the open air – just 50 miles east of San Francisco since
1961. And now the lab has a permit to raise the amount of radioactive
material they detonate yearly from 1,000 to 8,000 pounds.
Those who know are spreading the word and calling on the Bay Area to
turn out for two meetings next week in protest: the Tracy City Council
meeting Tuesday, Feb. 6, 7 p.m., at Tracy City Hall, 325 East 10th St.,
and the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District Hearing Board meeting
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 10 a.m., at 4800 Enterprise Way in Modesto.
The test site, called Site 300 by the Livermore nuclear weapons lab,
is located on 11 square miles in the Altamont Hills between Tracy and
Livermore. Like the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, formerly the site of
the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, Site 300 is a Superfund site,
one of the most contaminated places in the U.S. According to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Site 300 "is operated by the
University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
primarily as a high-explosives and materials testing site in support of
nuclear weapons research."
Site 300 Manager Jim Lane downplays the danger, saying in the Site
300 Annual Report: "Depleted uranium is used routinely. ... It contains
a trace amount of radioactivity. However, it is less than normal daily
exposure to the sun."
Marion Fulk, a highly respected Manhattan Project and Livermore
atomic scientist, however, says that depleted uranium "is perfect for
killing lots of people." That, in fact, along with contamination of the
land, is the purpose of the devices being tested.
The tests at Livermore Site 300 use exotic high explosives to
detonate weaponized uranium gas in solid metal form. The uranium metal
catches fire and burns at more than 3,000 degrees, producing fumes of
radioactive gas – or aerosols – that are deadly to all life forms.
Even a microscopic particle of these depleted uranium (DU) – mostly
Uranium-238 – aerosols lodged inside a human lung can cause severe
health problems, from cancers to diabetes, asthma, birth defects, organ
damage, heart failure and auto-immune system diseases. And this
radioactive gas travels long distances.
Nine days after the U.S. began its "shock and awe" bombing campaign
in Iraq on March 21, 2003, Dr. Chris Busby found DU aerosols in giant
high volume air filters in England, 2,500 miles from Baghdad.
The 7 million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area are all
endangered by the testing at Livermore Site 300, as are the people and
produce of the agriculturally rich Central Valley. In reality, San
Francisco and Northern California are under attack by the Livermore
nuclear weapons lab.
Since the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District issued
Livermore the new permit on Nov. 12, "(t)wo appeals have been filed, one
by a housing developer and the other by a resident who lives about five
miles from the radioactive blast location, Site 300," writes Washington,
D.C., area-based investigative journalist Cathy Garger. A large turnout
at the meetings Feb. 6 and 7 will show support for those appeals.
"Lawrence Livermore representatives will not reveal to Tracy
residents precisely how many bombs might be 'tested' in a year," writes
Garger. "Tracy Press reports that the only reason given by Lawrence
Livermore for the eight-fold annual increase in explosives testing is
'national security,' according to air district spokeswoman Kelly Morphy."
Bob Nichols is a Project Censored Award winner, newspaper
correspondent and a frequent contributor to various online publications.
Now completing a book based on 15 years of nuclear radiation war in
Central Asia, he is a former employee of the McAlester Army Ammunition
Plant. He can be reached at DUweapons [at] gmail.com. To learn more,
read Cathy Garger's story and blog at http://tinyurl.com/32pghh and
http://haltdutesting.blogspot.com/. Bay View staff contributed to this
report.
PHOTO: Livermore Site 300 1961 radioactive device:
CAPTION: This photo and the following comment come from the Livermore
Laboratory archives: "Hydrodynamic (bomb core) test on a firing table at
Site 300, 1961. The bright 'streaking' effect in the photo is likely
from shards of pyrophoric metal, such as Uranium 238, hurtling through
the air. U-238 is one of the contaminants of concern in the Site 300
Superfund cleanup."
| Additional Articles on the U.S. Nuclear & Bio Holocaust:s
|
|
|
