OUR HOT LEGACY
“Where and how will
we treat and dispose of the backlog of wastes from nuclear weapons
production? How clean is clean? Should we exhume large volumes of
contaminated soil in order to allow for unlimited use of the land
in the future? To foster a sustained and informed public debate on
these and other critical questions, we created this book. In it we
use photographs as well as facts and figures, because only this
combination can begin to convey the scale, the complexity, and the
reality of the legacy we face …”
* From the
introduction to the Department of Energy’s Closing the
Circle on the Splitting of the Atom
The story might be told with
photos alone; there is the oddly graceful starburst of a plutonium
particle embedded in lung tissue, seemingly endless rows of toxic
waste drums, and workers, dressed like spacemen, hands encased in
clumsy gloves. But the story is also told in clear prose. From the
Manhattan Project to the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons
production has taken from the United States a staggering
environmental toll. As part of an ongoing attempt to earn trust and
include the public in its decision-making, the Department of Energy
has published a 105-page book, Closing the Circle on the Splitting
of the Atom. It examines, as the subtitle says, “The environmental
legacy of nuclear weapons production in the United States and what
the Department of Energy is doing about it.” The book should
interest residents of the 32 states near the 137 contaminated
facilities, and it should be of particular interest to people in
the Intermountain West, where most of the nuclear weapons
facilities are located. Many of the storage facilities spread over
3,000 square miles are aging and inadequate, and records of what is
buried where are incomplete. This chastening history, authored by
Jim Werner, Jenny Craig and Peter Gray, includes a glossary, photos
by Robert Del Tredici, and suggestions for further reading. For a
free copy, call the DOE at 1-800/736-3282.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Our hot legacy.
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