WHERE TO GET AN EDGE
Dev.
Hults
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Editorial
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Now & Then
If I were to tell an astrologer that I was born June
2nd, 1944 she could work up a chart that might tell
me what the future holds. If, on the other hand I
give the same information to the scientists who are
studying the health effects of radioactive releases
from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation from 1944
through 1957, well, I might learn even more about
my hopes for any future at all.
My son James and I were walking home on the
beach when I spotted a flight of Brown Pelicans
skimming the wave tops, heading south. The
pelicans are wonderful to watch, they fly single file
and the leader will pump his wings rhythmically,
then set them and glide, each bird in tum will do the
same until they are all on glide for a moment, then
the leader will start pumping, then the next, and the
next will break their glide, over and over as they fly
south. They are like flying music. I mentioned to
James that he almost didn't get to see the beauty
before us, because the Brown Pelican was on its way
to extinction until we finally banned DDT. "What's
DDT?", he asked. 1 didn't know whether to laugh or
cry. It was as if’he had asked "What's racism?"
Well, I told him about DDT and how we used to
think it was a miracle chemical that had helped us
wipe out diseases and various pests. I told him how
I had been sprayed with it in the Navy after we found
some unwelcome critters on the ship. How it was
used to wipe out mosquitos that carried Malaria and
other diseases. And then how we had discovered the
Pelicans and Eagle who were exposed to it began to
lay eggs with shells so thin that they wouldn't
survive long enough to hatch. He agreed that it was
a good thing that we banned it. But I told him DDT
is still used in other countries and can still be detected
in breast milk of pregnant women, to such a degree
that if it were in any other container it could not be
shipped anywhere in the United States. He
wondered why we had used such a dangerous
chemical in the first place. I was reminded of the
story Dennis Hayes, the founder of Earth Day, told
us on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of
what started the modem environmental movement.
He said that if on the very first Earth Day he had
been asked to name one chemical that was absolutely
harmless, non-toxic, non-corrosive, could be
swallowed with no ill effects, he would have named
Chlorafioracarbons. You see, he said, it wasn't until
ten years later when a scientist in California noticed
what happened when this harmless chemical reached
the Ozone layer it began destroying it. Our children
ask how we could have acted so recklessly. Well,
the truth is we just didn't know any better. Last
month Doug Deur's article on forest practices in the
past, and the clear cuts of today, is an example. As
we try to find ways to stop the dangerous behavior
of corporations and individuals that we all pay for,
we must remember how far we have come and how
much we have learned. In some cases, like tobacco
abuse, it is obvious that the industry knew the
dangers it was exposing its customer to as early as
the fifties. In other cases like the chemical industries
and nuclear industries it is not so clear. Yes, in some
cases it was reckless greed that motivated companies
to put products that were not safe on the market. In
the case o f Hanford, though, the scientists had a
pretty good idea that what they were doing was
dangerous to a large part of the population, but they
were prevented from going public with their
information due to the Cold War's need for National
Security. I didn't learn until the Sixties that because
I was under eleven when Stronium 90 was released
from Hanford, I probably had accumulated it in my
young bones. When my sister got Lukemia no one
knew what had caused it, and there was no cure.
Well, I'm delighted to say as I write this she is
celebrating her Sixtieth Birthday in Hawaii. She
underwent an experimental operation that obviously
worked for her in, Chicago in the late Sixties. Now
folks are doing a study on people exposed to Iodine
131 also released from Hanford in the forties and
fifties. Iodine 131 is thought to cause Thyroid
problems, like Thyroid Cancer. As a 'downwinder',
which is what they call folks exposed to radioactive
material in the atomosphere, I have decided to
participate in this study, and urge other to join. It
occured to me that the study was being done not to
find out what killed or crippled so many, they
already know that, but why some of us are still alive.
The information they sent me included an
anonymous story of one young couple who moved
to Richland so the husband could make good money
working at Hanford. The wife got sick, the two
boys they had were bom with weak immune
systems, but they couldn't move away even if they
thought they were in danger because the husband
needed his job. When he died of cancer, the wife
and children moved away. The project is called the
Hanford Individual Dose Assessment Project and the
number is 1-800-432-6242, and if you were there,
then, I ask you to give them a call, now that we can,
we should find out.
Recently reading a collection of Calvin & Hobbes
cartoons by Bill Watterson, a wonderful strip that
used to run in the Big O, there was one strip that
seemed relevent, it shows Calvin reading his Science
Fiction story to Hobbes, the story is in the form of a
poem that we would like to share with our readers.
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STEVE HAUGEN
JIM HAUGEN
"The aliens came from a far distant world
on a large yellow ship that blinked as it twirled.
It rounded the moon and entered our sky.
We knew they had come but we didn't know why.
Bright the next morning with noisy commotion
the ship slowly moved over the ocean.
It lowered a tube and drained the whole sea
for transport back to their galaxy.
The tube then sucked up the clouds and the air,
causing no sm all amount of earthling despair
With nothing to breathe we started to die.
"Help us! Please stop!" was the public outcry.
A hatch opened up and the aliens said,
"We're sorry to learn that you soon will be dead,
but though you may find this slightly macabre,
we prefer your extinction to the loss of our job."
© Bill Watterson 1993
In the last frame Calvin says, "That's my science
fiction story. Think it's too far-fetched?" "Not
enough, really," replies Hobbes.
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