Uranium Derby

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Uranium Derby is a feature-length documentary that centers around an experiment gone wrong—the American nuclear experiment. In the film, director Brittany Prater’s investigation into her Iowa hometown’s secret involvement in the Manhattan Project triggers a chain reaction of encounters through which it becomes clear that the topic of nuclear waste was more successfully buried than the waste itself. This film depicts the manner in which toxic nuclear waste, generated and collected in a few specific places, was allowed to spread to numerous sites around a small Midwestern university town and subsequently the country.

During our current neo-Cold War era, in which the Environmental Protection Agency has been all but disarmed, Uranium Derby provides a unique perspective into the long history leading up to our current predicament.

"Deeply personal...Illuminating...[Serves as] a reminder that nuclear waste cannot be seen or smelled and can lurk beneath an apparently idyllic landscape, doing its damage in secret." Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear International

“In Uranium Derby, filmmaker Prater tells the story of Iowa State University's involvement in the Manhattan Project during WWII. This history is ‘buried’ for two reasons: even Iowans know little about the Ames Laboratory, and few in the community are aware that dangerous radioactive materials were stored around the town, creating risk for workers and residents. Through interviews and archival work, Prater unearths a story that will cause communities to question their right to know about environmental health as well as appreciate living history." Amahia Mallea, Associate Professor of History, Drake University, Author, A River in the City of Fountains: An Environmental History of Kansas City and the Missouri River

"A compelling and contemplative account that unveils another community where the slow violence of nuclear secrecy has harmed generations. Ames, Iowa - like Monticello, Utah, or Church Rock, New Mexico - shows us just how many places unknowingly sacrificed environmental justice for atomic technology." Stephanie Malin, Associate Professor of Sociology, Co-Founder, Center for Environmental Justice, Colorado State University, Author, The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice

“This personal journey into a forgotten history of a corner of the Manhattan Project reminds us that the development of the atomic bomb didn’t just happen at the secret city of Los Alamos, but at places like Grand Junction, Colorado; Fernald, Ohio; Tonawanda, New York; and even Ames, Iowa. It also shows the process by which an everyday person like filmmaker Brittany Prater can uncover not only that history but the ongoing environmental legacies of nuclear development in the United States." Michael Amundson, Professor of History, Northern Arizona University, Author, Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West

"This powerful and fascinating film follows an investigation into a town's dark secret that many people don't want to talk about. Ames, Iowa, a classic Midwestern town among the cornfields, hosted a little-known laboratory that helped build the atomic bomb. Viewers get caught up as they watch a reporter dig deep into the lab's local radioactive legacy." Mark Stoll, Professor of Environmental History, Texas Tech University, Author, Profit: An Environmental History

“Using historical documents, oral histories, and in-depth understanding of this locale to excavate an important and ongoing American story, Uranium Derby reveals one of the many human tales behind the mythic Manhattan Project. In honest and forthright detail, the film reveals the long-term health impacts of radioactive waste to humans and one community’s efforts to manage this national trust. What does Ames’ experience tell us about America? What is the responsibility to help places like Ames that became infected to help a cause of national importance? This important film can begin such in depth inquiry in history or environmental science courses while also reinforcing the importance of OSHA and environmental politics and regulation. Uranium Derby masterfully humanizes this complicated issue with history and relevance." Brian Black, Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Pennsylvania State University-Altoona, Editor, Energy and Society

"Uranium Derby offers interesting insights into a largely forgotten chapter of Iowa’s environmental history. Through careful research, a plethora of interviews, and insightful storytelling, documentarian Brittany Prater thoughtfully investigates the legacy of the project to build the atomic bomb in Ames, Iowa. An engaging opportunity for audiences to explore an important topic in Iowa’s past, the film promises to dig into an oft-forgotten history which refuses to stay buried." Kevin Mason, Associate Professor of History, Waldorf University, Founder, Notes on Iowa

"Impressive. Uranium Derby is a fascinating - and alarming - testament to the continuing human costs of the nuclear age.” Gregg Herken, Professor Emeritus of History, UC-Merced and UC-Santa Cruz, Author, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller

Citation

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Main credits

Prater, Britt (film director)
Prater, Britt (film producer)
Prater, Britt (screenwriter)

Other credits

Cinematographer, Kate Stryker, Britt Prater; editing, Cheyenne Picardo, Lisa Gross, Britt Prater; music, Zeljko McMullen.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Ames,Iowa,Manhattan Project,uranium,toxic waste,nuclear waste,nuclear power,atomic bomb,nuclear weapons,american history,cancer cluster,midwest,cold war,EPA,Environmental Protection Agency,Brittany Prater; "Uranium Derby"; Bullfrog Films

[00:00:00.05]
[droning ambient chords]

[00:00:10.06]
[gentle piano music]
♪ [chorus vocalizing] ♪

[00:00:44.01]
- [Brittany] This is
the town of Ames, Iowa.

[00:00:47.01]
It's a small city of about 58,965,

[00:00:52.04]
give or take a few.

[00:00:55.05]
I grew up here.

[00:00:59.08]
I didn't always love it
here the way that I do now.

[00:01:04.02]
But I also didn't know
very much about the place.

[00:01:08.03]
I guess that's true of
most people in most places.

[00:01:12.09]
[playful orchestral music]

[00:01:15.03]
In fact, on the whole

[00:01:16.02]
I tended to underestimate
the significance of Ames,

[00:01:19.05]
which is a fairly easy thing to do.

[00:01:24.06]
- America needs a tidal wave
of the old time religion.

[00:01:28.00]
- [Narrator] It is the birthplace

[00:01:29.01]
of the evangelist preacher Billy Sunday.

[00:01:31.06]
- ...a hose to turn onward.

[00:01:33.05]
- [Brittany] But it is also the birthplace

[00:01:35.01]
of the world's first digital computer.

[00:01:37.00]
We embrace dichotomies here,

[00:01:38.07]
but we keep them safely tucked in,

[00:01:40.03]
where they won't bother anybody.

[00:01:42.08]
Ames is a college town,

[00:01:44.06]
an academic island in a sea of corn,

[00:01:47.07]
in a swing state in the
middle of the country.

[00:01:51.01]
It never seemed to be a place too affected

[00:01:53.01]
by the outside world.

[00:01:55.07]
But I came to discover

[00:01:56.06]
that the town was not without its secrets.

[00:01:59.06]
In fact, there was a whole
history that had been buried

[00:02:02.09]
or maybe just forgotten about.

[00:02:11.09]
- [Merle] Did you get the light working?

[00:02:13.03]
- [Jeffery] I don't
know whether, you know,

[00:02:14.04]
you have to have film in
it before the light works.

[00:02:17.01]
- No, when it goes to forward it goes on.

[00:02:20.04]
That's what turns the light on.

[00:02:21.07]
- Yeah...

[00:02:24.08]
- Well, now it's going that way.

[00:02:26.05]
- Yeah.

[00:02:27.06]
[ice clinking]

[00:02:29.06]
- It's kind of sour.

[00:02:30.08]
It's lemonade, and there's
some crackers over here

[00:02:32.08]
if you want any crackers to go with it.

[00:02:35.00]
[film projector whirring]
- Oh, look at.

[00:02:37.00]
- [Brittany] Oh, look
at that, yeah! [giggles]

[00:02:38.02]
- Let's see.

[00:02:39.01]
- [Elsie] Did they get it?

[00:02:39.09]
- I think so.
- Oh, L, light.

[00:02:43.02]
L means light.

[00:02:44.07]
- Well, hallelujah.

[00:02:45.06]
- [Jeffery] I don't think
it's a real high quality

[00:02:48.03]
piece of equipment but it's--

[00:02:50.01]
- [Elsie] No.

[00:02:51.05]
- [Brittany] It was my family,
specifically my grandfather,

[00:02:54.00]
who got me interested
in the history of Ames

[00:02:55.09]
during World War II.

[00:02:57.06]
- They made the little
doors open, and who did it,

[00:03:00.03]
and it was a little story, you know.

[00:03:03.03]
- [Merle] I can't apologize
because it's something

[00:03:07.04]
that Brittany got us into.

[00:03:10.05]
- [Jeffery] Nobody's in a rush.

[00:03:13.03]
[film reel whirring]

[00:03:15.02]
Yeah, it works real good.

[00:03:20.07]
- You recognize that, Steve?

[00:03:21.09]
- I do.

[00:03:23.07]
[projector clicking]

[00:03:28.02]
- This interview takes us
back to 1941, actually,

[00:03:31.09]
when I was a student
at Iowa State College.

[00:03:35.03]
[chiming instrumental music]

[00:03:38.06]
We would go by this little gray house.

[00:03:41.09]
Something was happening there,

[00:03:43.02]
and outside were all kinds
of 55 gallon containers

[00:03:47.05]
and it smelled a little bit
like carbide from miners' lamps.

[00:03:53.03]
But other than that, why,
nobody knew what was going on.

[00:03:58.09]
[train engine humming]

[00:04:17.01]
[door chime ringing]

[00:04:18.00]
- So we're going ISU, Black
Cultural Center, Ames Lab,

[00:04:20.04]
here we are, A-10-2-1.

[00:04:23.05]
And we should have a file,

[00:04:26.06]
"Ames Lab Manhattan Project" here.

[00:04:31.01]
Give you some space here.

[00:04:33.09]
Do you remember the Irvine
Paint and Wallpaper Store,

[00:04:38.04]
here in Ames on 5th street?
- No.

[00:04:40.00]
- It was Tom and Lois Irvine.

[00:04:41.03]
They would go down to the
Chicago Northwestern depot

[00:04:45.08]
of an evening to ship
out crates of their paint

[00:04:48.06]
to customers, and
sometimes the freight agent

[00:04:51.08]
would have them try and lift this box,

[00:04:54.01]
and it was so incredibly
heavy no one could.

[00:04:57.03]
And it really aroused a
lot of curiosity in Ames.

[00:05:00.07]
What are they shipping out here regularly?

[00:05:04.03]
[microfiche whirring]

[00:05:09.04]
[pensive ambient music]

[00:05:17.06]
[train engine humming]

[00:05:19.09]
- I wouldn't be happy any
place but in Iowa. [chuckles]

[00:05:25.02]
I grew up here and never did go very far.

[00:05:28.06]
You know, I got a few tours in Europe,

[00:05:32.01]
and at my age that's not important.

[00:05:35.00]
I just marvel and enjoy that other people

[00:05:38.07]
do keep going. [laughs]

[00:05:42.06]
- [Brittany] Elizabeth Smith
was the wife of Lyle Smith,

[00:05:45.01]
a machine shop technician
on the Manhattan Project.

[00:05:50.00]
She fed me three ice
creams in three hours,

[00:05:52.02]
and read postcards from her grandchildren.

[00:05:55.07]
- We were married in May of '43,

[00:05:59.03]
and he came here to Ames to
work in that little building,

[00:06:03.06]
we called it Little Ankeny,

[00:06:05.06]
which was just a very crude structure.

[00:06:09.02]
And there was about,

[00:06:10.05]
I would say maybe 12 guys employed there.

[00:06:15.09]
Anybody that worked there
wore their own clothes to work

[00:06:21.00]
and had to change while they were there

[00:06:23.04]
and then take those off and
wear their own clothes home.

[00:06:28.05]
And we didn't hardly know that.

[00:06:30.03]
I mean, the wives weren't
too aware of what that was,

[00:06:35.06]
and they weren't really telling you.

[00:06:41.02]
[birds chirping]

[00:06:45.05]
- [Ray] Well, it was started
in Ames in early 1942.

[00:06:50.05]
Dr. Spedding was a very prominent chemist,

[00:06:54.06]
and he was called upon
by Dr. Compton in Chicago

[00:06:59.05]
to see if he could get
involved in a project.

[00:07:05.02]
.

[00:07:08.04]
.

[00:07:10.02]
.

[00:07:13.08]
.

[00:07:15.07]
- [Frank] And we couldn't do it at Chicago

[00:07:16.09]
until we'd built a building,

[00:07:18.00]
until we got some staff together.

[00:07:20.02]
And I told him that we
had him a telegraph,

[00:07:22.04]
and we had a furnace here at Ames,

[00:07:24.02]
and that we could get
some of this work going.

[00:07:27.07]
Dr. Wilhelm had been the other man

[00:07:29.04]
doing all the physical chemistry at Ames.

[00:07:31.06]
And I approached him, I knew
his abilities pretty well,

[00:07:35.05]
and asked if he wouldn't join us.

[00:07:37.07]
So that's the way we started.

[00:07:41.02]
- They had a small operation in a building

[00:07:45.01]
that used to be, I think, the
Popcorn Research Facility,

[00:07:48.03]
and at one point the women's gymnasium.

[00:07:51.03]
It was a little clapboard
building called Little Ankeny,

[00:07:54.03]
or that was the nickname.

[00:07:55.02]
It was actually, I think,
Chemistry Annex One.

[00:08:03.08]
[train wheels whirring]

[00:08:13.00]
[train cars clattering]

[00:08:22.03]
[microfiche clicking]

[00:08:38.07]
- [Brittany] Is the library that way, or?

[00:08:39.05]
- Uh, yeah, if you go around this way--

[00:08:42.09]
- I'm going that way, so I'll show her.

[00:08:44.03]
- Okay, perfect.
- Okay.

[00:08:46.02]
- [Assistant] Yeah.

[00:08:47.04]
- So, in the story of Little Ankeny

[00:08:50.04]
they talk about taking the uranium bars

[00:08:53.03]
from the building and loading
them onto the rail cars

[00:08:56.09]
and usually in the dark.

[00:08:58.05]
They must have loaded
onto these rail tracks.

[00:09:01.08]
[bells chiming melodically]

[00:09:07.09]
[crows cawing]

[00:09:15.09]
- Have you ever heard about
Ames Labs' involvement

[00:09:19.02]
in the Manhattan project?

[00:09:21.00]
- No. [chuckles]

[00:09:22.03]
- No.

[00:09:23.04]
- Uh, no, I haven't.

[00:09:24.07]
- That's not part of our Iowa history

[00:09:26.00]
that we learned in grade school.

[00:09:27.03]
- [Brittany] Yeah.

[00:09:28.01]
- So we're kind of on the list of bombings

[00:09:30.08]
or something like that.

[00:09:31.07]
We're, like, one of the top
five cities or something.

[00:09:33.07]
- [Brittany] Top five cities, oh,

[00:09:35.00]
that were part of the bomb, or?

[00:09:36.04]
- No, that would be bombed

[00:09:37.06]
if they were trying to hurt
America or something like that.

[00:09:41.09]
[bells chiming melodically]

[00:09:51.04]
- Woo, yeah!
[crowd roars]

[00:09:54.05]
- [Announcer] That's
another Cyclone first down!

[00:09:57.01]
[triumphant marching band music]

[00:10:01.00]
- [Cheerleaders] Go, Cyclones!

[00:10:03.08]
Go, Cyclones!

[00:10:06.05]
One, two, three, four!

[00:10:09.02]
- [Announcer] Check
the back of your ticket

[00:10:10.03]
for more information.

[00:10:12.07]
[attendees laughing]

[00:10:14.02]
- [Attendee] Take this, take this.

[00:10:15.03]
- [Announcer] Get out your
cell phones to help...

[00:10:17.09]
[gentle instrumental music]

[00:10:20.08]
[birds chirping]

[00:10:27.07]
.

[00:10:30.05]
.

[00:10:34.02]
.

[00:10:38.05]
.

[00:10:43.05]
.

[00:10:47.04]
.

[00:10:49.09]
.

[00:10:53.00]
.

[00:10:55.03]
[melodic electronic music]

[00:10:59.05]
- [Roland] He was a farm boy,

[00:11:00.07]
and he was used to making things

[00:11:02.07]
out of nothing, almost,
and he could improvise

[00:11:06.03]
and we got that thing just rollin' fine.

[00:11:10.03]
- [Harry] Wilhelm is a tinkerer,

[00:11:12.01]
and so he did a lot of things

[00:11:14.08]
that just kind of popped into his head.

[00:11:20.04]
- At the time, Mother wondered
why every trip he went on,

[00:11:24.01]
when he came home, his pocket was torn

[00:11:26.09]
and there was a hole in it.

[00:11:28.06]
He had a chain around his waist,

[00:11:32.03]
and he went and cut a hole in
his pocket, or tore a hole,

[00:11:35.07]
and put this tube that
had the uranium in it

[00:11:39.05]
to protect him from,
you know, it was a lead,

[00:11:42.02]
so it was pretty heavy.

[00:11:44.00]
And he had to have that
chained to his waist

[00:11:46.02]
so that pickpocketers and stuff

[00:11:48.04]
couldn't take it away from him.

[00:11:53.07]
- Uranium was the chemical

[00:11:56.02]
that they were trying to put to use,

[00:12:00.06]
but they all were a little bit

[00:12:05.06]
fearful of it.

[00:12:07.01]
- [Brittany] Yeah.

[00:12:07.09]
- Uh-huh.

[00:12:12.05]
[restaurant patrons chattering]

[00:12:15.02]
- They didn't know what
they were gonna get.

[00:12:17.00]
They didn't know if anything would happen.

[00:12:19.00]
- [Waitress] Order comin' out.

[00:12:21.01]
- They didn't.

[00:12:22.06]
Honest to God, they didn't.

[00:12:24.06]
.

[00:12:26.03]
.

[00:12:28.04]
- [Brittany] To help with my research,

[00:12:29.07]
my best friend's father,
Dr. Johanshir Golchin,

[00:12:32.04]
introduced me to Marv Anderson,

[00:12:34.03]
a physicist who once worked
for the Ames Laboratory.

[00:12:37.08]
Marv's team retrofitted an
atomic emission spectrometer

[00:12:40.08]
into a trailer and took
it to different sites

[00:12:43.04]
around the country to test
for radioactive contamination.

[00:12:46.09]
He also got to know some of the men

[00:12:48.06]
who worked on the Manhattan Project.

[00:12:50.01]
- [Waitress] What side did you want?

[00:12:51.00]
Fries, onion rings, salad?

[00:12:52.09]
- I want fries.
- Fries?

[00:12:55.01]
The Philly and fries,
I can do that for ya.

[00:12:57.07]
- [Brittany] We met at Village Inn

[00:12:58.07]
because you get a free piece of pie

[00:13:00.01]
with your coffee on Wednesdays.

[00:13:01.08]
- Oh, that looks awful good. [laughs]

[00:13:07.07]
First time they made it go critical,

[00:13:11.02]
they used a screwdriver,

[00:13:14.03]
and they were moving the
blocks close together.

[00:13:19.00]
- [Brittany] The blocks of...?

[00:13:20.01]
- Uranium.

[00:13:21.03]
- [Brittany] They moved them
together with a screwdriver?

[00:13:23.03]
- Yeah, to make 'em go critical.

[00:13:25.09]
- [Brittany] What does
that mean, go critical?

[00:13:27.06]
- When you put them together,

[00:13:29.02]
you increase the radioactivity.

[00:13:32.07]
Spedding and Wilhelm didn't
know it would work, and--

[00:13:36.07]
- [Brittany] They just
tried different things, or?

[00:13:38.07]
- Oh yeah.

[00:13:39.06]
Well, that's what research is.

[00:13:41.02]
You take a little of this
and a little of that,

[00:13:43.07]
and you put it in the pot and
cook it and see what happens.

[00:13:48.07]
- [Brittany] The uranium from
Ames was taken to Chicago,

[00:13:50.07]
where the first sustained
reaction took place

[00:13:52.09]
at Stagg Field football stadium

[00:13:54.08]
under the direction of Enrico Fermi.

[00:13:57.09]
- [Ray] And then the
thing started to fission,

[00:14:00.00]
and there was great joy.

[00:14:02.04]
People were really dancing
in the aisles there

[00:14:05.07]
because it proved that
this thing was working.

[00:14:09.08]
- During the war the main
job was to get it done,

[00:14:12.03]
and not how you did it,

[00:14:14.05]
because the pressure was there

[00:14:16.02]
that if it could be made to work

[00:14:18.07]
it could shorten the war
and save a great many lives.

[00:14:21.05]
- [Marv] They produced these
large beryllium copper vessels,

[00:14:28.08]
and they called them bombs.

[00:14:30.04]
And they would pack 'em with uranium

[00:14:33.04]
plus all the other junk,

[00:14:36.00]
and then they'd put the lid on it.

[00:14:38.01]
They found that if you heated these things

[00:14:42.02]
to a certain level,
they would continue to heat

[00:14:45.09]
when you shut the heat off.

[00:14:48.01]
And you would get a derby of uranium.

[00:14:53.09]
- Up until that time,
they only had uranium

[00:14:55.06]
in the size of your thumb,
little pellets.

[00:14:58.04]
Frank Spedding and Harley
Wilhelm, both metallurgists,

[00:15:01.08]
developed a way to make uranium

[00:15:04.00]
by the size of a bologna sandwich,

[00:15:06.04]
you know, a chunk of bologna,

[00:15:08.04]
in a matter of seconds.

[00:15:09.08]
They packed up the uranium
hexafluoride in there

[00:15:12.05]
in a tube and sealed it up

[00:15:13.08]
and put a spark plug in there
and it set off like a bomb.

[00:15:16.07]
A reaction occurred and calcium
fluoride was at the top,

[00:15:20.02]
and pure uranium was at the bottom.

[00:15:21.09]
They crack it open, they
actually made tons of it

[00:15:24.01]
on campus at Iowa State during the war.

[00:15:26.03]
- [Marv] They purified about a
thousand tons of uranium here

[00:15:30.07]
that were in the bombs of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[00:15:35.08]
- [Johanshir] It was the best-kept secret.

[00:15:37.09]
- [Marv] Yeah.

[00:15:43.05]
- [Brittany] Here it was,

[00:15:44.06]
the site where most of
the work had been done.

[00:15:47.05]
It didn't look like anything
special, no building left,

[00:15:50.05]
just a small rock that
students walk by every day.

[00:15:56.04]
- [Ray] We had a room
about six feet square,

[00:15:59.00]
and we bought the largest used
coffee grinder we could find,

[00:16:03.04]
and we ground this uranium tetrafluoride.

[00:16:06.07]
Well, things went very
well most of the time,

[00:16:10.09]
but on three separate occasions

[00:16:12.09]
we had an explosion, or blowout.

[00:16:15.05]
There was dust and uranium
dust and everything

[00:16:18.05]
all over the place,
and it was strong enough

[00:16:20.07]
that it blew the north
wall out of the building.

[00:16:24.00]
So we'd take a group of men down there

[00:16:26.09]
because we didn't want to stop anything,

[00:16:29.01]
and they'd go and get
two-by-fours and push up the roof,

[00:16:32.03]
push the wall back in place
and let the roof down,

[00:16:35.07]
and then go back to work.

[00:16:38.09]
[ethereal ambient music]

[00:16:48.05]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:16:50.06]
- [Brittany] I was now
looking at the campus

[00:16:52.01]
completely differently
than I ever had before.

[00:16:55.06]
[uptempo marching band music]

[00:17:09.00]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:17:10.06]
I couldn't believe that
something of this magnitude

[00:17:12.04]
happened in quiet little Ames.

[00:17:15.05]
[uptempo marching band music]

[00:17:28.04]
The college students also seemed younger

[00:17:30.02]
and more carefree than I remembered.

[00:17:32.07]
In fact, some of the men
working on the atomic project

[00:17:34.09]
were the exact same age.

[00:17:38.01]
[uptempo marching band music]

[00:17:47.02]
[ethereal ambient music]

[00:18:01.09]
- [Frank] The first group
I took into my program

[00:18:04.07]
were my own graduate students.

[00:18:09.08]
- He was very wise,

[00:18:12.06]
but he wasn't a college-bred person,

[00:18:16.06]
so for him to be too aware,

[00:18:21.09]
it wouldn't be like some
of these who were really--

[00:18:26.04]
Dr. Spedding was the most outspoken one

[00:18:30.05]
that he was hired by, you see.

[00:18:33.06]
And I can remember what
really brought him to Ames

[00:18:39.05]
was because he was scheduled S4F

[00:18:43.07]
when it was time for all
these men to go to war.

[00:18:46.09]
He didn't qualify to be
a soldier or to train.

[00:18:51.00]
That gave him freedom, one might say,

[00:18:57.01]
to do something that wasn't in service.

[00:19:06.05]
[triumphant orchestral fanfare]

[00:19:16.01]
[explosion rumbles]

[00:19:19.00]
- [Narrator] Two down and one to go.

[00:19:20.06]
[gong reverberates]

[00:19:22.03]
[crowd cheering]

[00:19:27.01]
[bell tolling]

[00:19:34.09]
Our Pacific troops fought

[00:19:36.05]
and held back a savage foe

[00:19:38.04]
so that we might concentrate the full fury

[00:19:40.09]
of our offensive power
against Nazi Germany.

[00:19:44.04]
[explosions booming]

[00:19:47.05]
And then as we gathered
strength in the Pacific,

[00:19:49.08]
they have closed in on the enemy,

[00:19:51.08]
destroying his ships and planes

[00:19:52.09]
in preparation for the final kill.

[00:19:56.00]
[plane engine buzzing]

[00:19:58.06]
We had won the battle of Europe,

[00:20:01.07]
but the war, the global war,
will not be won

[00:20:05.01]
until we have exterminated
Japanese military power.

[00:20:10.00]
- [Homma] We are prepared
to lose 10 million lives

[00:20:13.09]
in our war with America.

[00:20:16.03]
[Homma shouts in Japanese]

[00:20:17.09]
[crowd roars]

[00:20:19.04]
- [Narrator] Is Japan
committed to world domination

[00:20:21.05]
or to death?

[00:20:23.07]
[ethereal ambient music]

[00:20:34.03]
- [Brittany] My own
grandfather never had to fight

[00:20:36.01]
in World War II.

[00:20:37.06]
He was building airplanes,
and his naval duty

[00:20:40.00]
was picking up stranded
soldiers off of islands

[00:20:42.06]
after the war had ended.

[00:20:44.09]
He always counted himself lucky

[00:20:46.05]
that he never had to pick up a gun.

[00:20:48.09]
[playing cards slapping]

[00:20:52.03]
- Watch that I don't cheat now.

[00:20:53.07]
- Don't say anything
incriminating about yourself.

[00:20:56.00]
- [Elsie] Oh, look at this.

[00:20:58.03]
One, two.

[00:21:03.04]
Three!

[00:21:04.03]
- [Brittany] No!

[00:21:05.04]
Well, I got the other king at least.

[00:21:06.08]
- [Elsie] Now, that doesn't
have voice with it does it?

[00:21:09.09]
- Umm.

[00:21:11.03]
- This is going to be
quite a picture. [laughs]

[00:21:13.01]
- We'll probably only use a second

[00:21:14.09]
of the whole thing anyway.

[00:21:16.05]
- [Elsie] Can you cut the voices out?

[00:21:17.03]
- Oh yeah, we can cut
anything out that we want.

[00:21:19.06]
- Oh, you know if you put that with--

[00:21:20.09]
just buy a regular bottle of applesauce

[00:21:23.05]
and add about 10 of
those to it, it makes it,

[00:21:27.00]
gives it a little bit of cinnamon flavor

[00:21:28.08]
and they turn pink, and
it's a lot more fun to eat.

[00:21:32.08]
- [Brittany] My grandma
was also in college here

[00:21:34.06]
during the war.

[00:21:36.02]
But she never talks about it.

[00:21:40.03]
And that's Uncle Tom.

[00:21:41.01]
- [Elsie] Yeah, Tommy, he
was our little retarded one.

[00:21:44.01]
He was our fun boy. [laughs]

[00:21:51.00]
- [Brittany] I don't know why,

[00:21:52.03]
but Grandpa did not seem
excited about my project.

[00:21:56.05]
He said I didn't know what
I was getting myself into.

[00:22:02.04]
I got the impression that
any research I needed to do,

[00:22:05.05]
I would have to do on my own.

[00:22:08.01]
Reading up on radiation seemed
like a good way to start.

[00:22:11.06]
[gentle ambient music]

[00:22:15.01]
[keyboard clicking]

[00:22:18.09]
An atom has a nucleus that is made up

[00:22:21.01]
of positive protons and neutral neutrons.

[00:22:24.04]
This nucleus is more or less orbited

[00:22:26.04]
by tiny, negatively-charged electrons.

[00:22:30.07]
Elements on the periodic
table are arranged

[00:22:32.08]
by atomic number, which
is the number of protons

[00:22:35.05]
that the atom of that element has.

[00:22:38.02]
Atoms range in size on the
periodic table from very small,

[00:22:41.09]
such as hydrogen, which has
only one proton, to very large.

[00:22:46.05]
Uranium is the largest
naturally-occurring element

[00:22:49.04]
on the periodic table.

[00:22:51.08]
Because uranium is such a large atom,

[00:22:54.05]
its binding force, or nuclear
gravity, isn't strong enough

[00:22:57.05]
to hold it all together,
so it begins to decay.

[00:23:03.06]
During this decay it often
undergoes a transformation,

[00:23:07.03]
turning from one element into another.

[00:23:10.02]
There are three different
types of radiation.

[00:23:12.06]
Alpha, beta, and gamma.

[00:23:15.02]
In alpha, the atom loses
a cluster of two protons

[00:23:18.08]
and two neutrons.

[00:23:20.08]
Alpha radiation is big
enough that it can be stopped

[00:23:24.00]
by a piece of tissue paper, or by skin.

[00:23:26.06]
Thus, alpha particles are
not considered harmful

[00:23:29.01]
unless ingested or inhaled into the body

[00:23:31.09]
in the form of dust.

[00:23:34.02]
In beta radiation, the
atom loses an electron.

[00:23:37.08]
When this happens, a
neutron turns into a proton.

[00:23:41.01]
Beta radiation can go up to
a centimeter into the skin

[00:23:44.04]
before it stops.

[00:23:47.04]
Gamma radiation usually follows

[00:23:49.03]
one of the other two types of radiation.

[00:23:52.04]
In gamma radiation, an
electromagnetic wave is emitted

[00:23:55.09]
from the atom, stabilizing it

[00:23:57.09]
without changing its atomic mass.

[00:24:00.06]
Gamma radiation can pass through

[00:24:02.03]
up to two feet of
concrete before stopping.

[00:24:06.00]
But how is this decay used
to create an explosion?

[00:24:09.04]
[playful orchestral music]

[00:24:10.09]
- [Narrator] If an atom
could change itself,

[00:24:14.00]
why couldn't man change an atom?

[00:24:16.09]
What would happen if they fired a neutron

[00:24:20.04]
at a uranium nucleus, already
the heaviest in nature?

[00:24:24.01]
Why not try?

[00:24:25.06]
So they tried, and the result:
nuclear fission.

[00:24:30.07]
Instead of a minor change,
the atom split in two.

[00:24:34.04]
Here now is the release of
energy as heat and blast.

[00:24:39.02]
Here are powerful rays being
given off, similar to x-rays.

[00:24:44.01]
But here, here are free
neutrons driven out

[00:24:47.06]
with tremendous speed.

[00:24:49.03]
Those neutrons bombard
other uranium atoms,

[00:24:52.07]
causing them to split
and split still others.

[00:24:56.07]
The result: a chain reaction.

[00:24:59.07]
[explosion booms]

[00:25:00.05]
Over a million billion billion atoms

[00:25:03.01]
exploding within two seconds.

[00:25:06.04]
Truly a discovery to change the world,

[00:25:09.03]
for what had happened when
the uranium atom split

[00:25:12.04]
was a kind of double miracle of science.

[00:25:16.07]
[melodic electronic music]

[00:25:30.00]
- [Brittany] Hi!

[00:25:30.09]
- Oh, come on in.

[00:25:32.04]
- [Brittany] How are you?

[00:25:33.02]
- How are you?
- Good. [giggles]

[00:25:35.09]
So good to see you.

[00:25:38.02]
.

[00:25:44.06]
- [Brittany] Before this
visit, I hadn't realized

[00:25:46.05]
that my friend's father was
an environmental regulator

[00:25:49.09]
for Superfund sites for
the federal government

[00:25:52.01]
back in the early '90s.

[00:25:54.03]
He had many things to discuss

[00:25:56.00]
including Iowa watersheds,

[00:25:58.03]
his work on global
intelligence systems and GPS,

[00:26:01.06]
but I was most interested

[00:26:03.02]
in hearing about his environmental work.

[00:26:06.02]
.

[00:26:09.04]
.

[00:26:12.07]
.

[00:26:16.01]
.

[00:26:18.06]
.

[00:26:20.06]
.

[00:26:23.09]
.

[00:26:26.00]
.

[00:26:29.09]
.

[00:26:32.07]
.

[00:26:35.08]
.

[00:26:38.00]
.

[00:26:39.07]
.

[00:26:41.08]
.

[00:26:45.07]
.

[00:26:48.01]
.

[00:26:50.08]
.

[00:26:55.07]
.

[00:27:00.07]
.

[00:27:06.02]
.

[00:27:13.04]
.

[00:27:17.02]
.

[00:27:22.00]
.

[00:27:26.09]
.

[00:27:31.02]
[car engine rumbles]

[00:27:37.07]
[paper rattling]

[00:27:45.03]
Here, where the hay bales are.

[00:27:49.07]
.

[00:27:52.04]
.

[00:27:54.04]
.

[00:28:00.09]
- [Brittany] So the former
waste treatment plant

[00:28:02.06]
is now a dog park

[00:28:05.08]
right next to the cemetery
where we were standing.

[00:28:10.04]
[ethereal ambient music]

[00:28:21.07]
- When we first moved to Ames,
we weren't afraid of it

[00:28:23.06]
in the slightest, and we
let our children go down

[00:28:27.05]
and we went along to
have picnics in the woods

[00:28:30.04]
and hike around.

[00:28:32.03]
YMCA, or YW, some Y program
had a little lodge over there

[00:28:38.02]
and people spent a lot of time there.

[00:28:43.06]
- My husband and I built the house

[00:28:45.09]
and moved into it in 1956,

[00:28:49.06]
and lived in that house until 2006.

[00:28:54.09]
We were pretty broke
after buying that house,

[00:28:57.07]
and trying to put in a little
flower bed in the front.

[00:29:01.00]
Our neighbor said, "Oh,
well you can go out

[00:29:03.02]
"to the solid waste treatment plant

[00:29:05.01]
"and get some sewage sludge,

[00:29:08.01]
"and if you don't get very much it's free.

[00:29:11.03]
"You haul it yourself, scoop it up,

[00:29:13.03]
"put it in your flower bed

[00:29:15.01]
"and it'll really help
fertilize those flowers."

[00:29:17.03]
So we did that,

[00:29:19.05]
and whether that had radioactive
materials, I don't know.

[00:29:25.08]
We never had any concerns about it

[00:29:27.08]
because we were assured that
everything was safe for us.

[00:29:32.05]
And indeed, as far as I know, it was.

[00:29:38.06]
- And then, one day we heard that

[00:29:41.09]
they were going to pick up
some sort of residue, I guess,

[00:29:44.08]
that had been buried that was
in incompetent containers.

[00:29:48.07]
They had the idea that
they were going to leak

[00:29:52.08]
from those containers,

[00:29:54.00]
and that was why it needed
to be dug up and taken away.

[00:29:59.01]
- One of our neighbors became concerned

[00:30:01.05]
because we seemed to have a very high

[00:30:05.09]
incidence of cancer.

[00:30:08.01]
All kinds of cancer,
not one particular kind.

[00:30:10.06]
There was breast cancer,
there was bone cancers,

[00:30:14.07]
larynx and lung, that
occurred among the people

[00:30:19.08]
in that neighborhood.

[00:30:22.01]
Some of them moved in and developed cancer

[00:30:26.05]
shortly after they moved in,

[00:30:29.00]
and then others developed
the cancer after they left.

[00:30:31.06]
But we were there during that 50 years

[00:30:34.02]
and knew all of these people.

[00:30:36.05]
- Ross Road, just two blocks of it,

[00:30:39.02]
and I can go down the
houses and name them.

[00:30:42.09]
At the same time Susan was diagnosed,

[00:30:44.06]
she was in fourth grade,

[00:30:45.08]
a little boy in my
younger daughter's class,

[00:30:48.06]
he had Hodgkins at the same
time Susan had leukemia.

[00:30:53.02]
You know you think, why my child and how?

[00:30:56.01]
How was her life different
from her sister's?

[00:30:59.01]
You know, what could she
have been exposed to?

[00:31:03.02]
[melodic electronic music]
[raindrops pattering]

[00:31:14.00]
.

[00:31:17.01]
.

[00:31:22.03]
.

[00:31:29.07]
.

[00:31:32.04]
.

[00:31:43.00]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:31:50.09]
[baseball bat clanking]

[00:31:54.04]
- [Spectator] Run, run, run, atta boy!

[00:31:56.03]
- Come on, come on!

[00:31:58.08]
Nice job!

[00:32:00.01]
- [Spectator] Get in!

[00:32:02.02]
He did it!

[00:32:03.09]
- [Roland] Uh, there is absolutely
no hazard there any more.

[00:32:06.05]
These are background levels.

[00:32:07.07]
It's as clean as your own front lawn.

[00:32:10.00]
And we, with this report,
will be apply to the DNR

[00:32:12.08]
to release this site for unrestricted use.

[00:32:16.07]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:32:18.02]
- [Spectator] Oh!

[00:32:25.03]
[rooster crowing]

[00:32:26.06]
- [Brittany] Dr. Golchin and I

[00:32:27.04]
went to Onion Creek Farm
together to visit Joe Lynch,

[00:32:30.07]
a friend of his who's an organic farmer

[00:32:32.08]
who used to be an engineer.

[00:32:35.03]
[insects humming]

[00:32:36.09]
[rooster crows]

[00:32:39.07]
- There's 7 billion people on the planet,

[00:32:41.06]
and we do stupid stuff all the time

[00:32:45.09]
without knowing the consequences
of what we dream up.

[00:32:51.07]
Whether it's a new technology,

[00:32:54.05]
nuclear power, nuclear weapons.

[00:32:57.03]
Hey Buster, no, come on. [clapping]

[00:32:59.09]
Come on, no...

[00:33:00.09]
- [Brittany] Joe was opposed
to the sports field going up

[00:33:03.02]
back in the '90s, so I expected
the interview to be easy,

[00:33:06.04]
but I didn't know what questions to ask.

[00:33:08.03]
- Yeah, how did we get here?

[00:33:09.03]
- [Brittany] So then Dr.
Golchin got involved.

[00:33:11.07]
.

[00:33:13.04]
.

[00:33:14.08]
.

[00:33:18.00]
.

[00:33:19.03]
.

[00:33:21.07]
.

[00:33:24.08]
.

[00:33:26.00]
.

[00:33:26.09]
.

[00:33:28.02]
.

[00:33:30.02]
.

[00:33:33.09]
.

[00:33:36.02]
.

[00:33:38.01]
.

[00:33:38.09]
.

[00:33:41.00]
.

[00:33:43.09]
.

[00:33:45.04]
.

[00:33:48.06]
.

[00:33:49.09]
.

[00:33:51.08]
.

[00:33:55.00]
.

[00:33:57.00]
.

[00:33:59.08]
I don't know what they knew.

[00:34:00.06]
.

[00:34:01.04]
.

[00:34:03.01]
.

[00:34:04.05]
.

[00:34:05.03]
.

[00:34:07.00]
.

[00:34:08.03]
.

[00:34:09.03]
.

[00:34:10.03]
.

[00:34:11.02]
.

[00:34:13.00]
.

[00:34:14.02]
.

[00:34:15.00]
.

[00:34:17.04]
[crowd and coaches shouting]

[00:34:20.06]
.

[00:34:22.01]
.

[00:34:27.04]
.

[00:34:29.06]
.

[00:34:32.07]
.

[00:34:39.09]
.

[00:34:43.03]
.

[00:34:46.09]
.

[00:34:50.01]
.

[00:34:52.00]
.

[00:34:54.08]
.

[00:35:01.07]
- [Brittany] Our next
interview was with Pat Brown,

[00:35:04.02]
an insurance agent

[00:35:05.01]
who'd been on the city
council at the time.

[00:35:07.06]
- I got a phone call one
night from this woman,

[00:35:10.00]
she wouldn't identify herself.

[00:35:12.07]
And it could be a crazy
person and maybe not,

[00:35:16.02]
but she said to me, she said,

[00:35:18.05]
"There's a lot of hot
spots around this town."

[00:35:20.03]
She said, "You're right,
and that's one of them."

[00:35:22.07]
And she said, "I used to inspect

[00:35:24.07]
"and have to monitor these
things for the government."

[00:35:28.00]
And she said, "I had a regular
route that I would go to

[00:35:29.08]
"and do this."

[00:35:31.03]
Now, maybe it was a hoax call,

[00:35:32.07]
but it sounded very legitimate.

[00:35:37.05]
[soft electronic music]

[00:35:44.07]
- [Brittany] This is footage
from Alamagordo, New Mexico,

[00:35:47.04]
where the first plutonium bomb was tested.

[00:35:50.06]
There were several sites
around the country involved

[00:35:52.09]
in the making of both atomic bombs.

[00:35:55.04]
The purification in Ames
was only the first step.

[00:35:59.02]
- And I believe that's about when

[00:36:02.02]
there was really a historical event.

[00:36:06.06]
The bomb was dropped about then?

[00:36:10.07]
- [Brittany] '45.

[00:36:11.07]
- [Elizabeth] '45, yes, okay, okay.

[00:36:18.00]
.

[00:36:20.02]
.

[00:36:23.04]
.

[00:36:25.06]
.

[00:36:28.09]
.

[00:36:31.03]
.

[00:36:33.06]
.

[00:36:37.04]
- It was like a lot of
people sitting around

[00:36:40.07]
listening to a football game.

[00:36:44.05]
You just are anxious
to see what's going on.

[00:36:53.02]
[explosion booming]

[00:37:03.04]
- [Narrator] A great
towering mushroom effect

[00:37:05.04]
could be seen going higher and higher

[00:37:07.07]
and reaching into the stratosphere.

[00:37:09.08]
Because the bomb was exploded
high above the ground,

[00:37:12.01]
the greatest part of its
harmful radioactive material

[00:37:15.02]
was dissipated in the stratosphere.

[00:37:17.04]
As a result, the area under the explosion

[00:37:20.00]
was relatively free from radioactivity.

[00:37:23.00]
Persons entering Nagasaki
shortly after the explosion

[00:37:25.07]
to do rescue work sustained
no ill effect or injury.

[00:37:30.06]
- It's hard for people
to understand, I guess,

[00:37:34.00]
the euphoria of the dropping of the bomb

[00:37:39.05]
in today's world.

[00:37:40.07]
- [Interviewer] As you
look back on your work

[00:37:42.07]
in this project, what it
eventually was used for,

[00:37:47.04]
how do you look at yourself
and your role in it?

[00:37:51.02]
How do you feel about
the work that you did?

[00:37:53.08]
.

[00:37:57.04]
.

[00:37:59.06]
- [Interviewer] Yeah, any guilty feelings,

[00:38:00.06]
or do you feel like a hero?

[00:38:02.05]
.

[00:38:05.00]
[crowd cheering]
[uptempo swing music]

[00:38:13.02]
- I think it's hard to realize

[00:38:15.03]
actually a feeling of being heroes

[00:38:19.01]
of having, you know, just brought this war

[00:38:23.01]
to an abrupt and instant conclusion.

[00:38:26.00]
- A short time ago an American airplane

[00:38:29.09]
dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.

[00:38:32.09]
The Japanese began the war
from the air at Pearl Harbor.

[00:38:37.00]
They have been repaid manyfold,
and the end is not yet.

[00:38:42.08]
With this bomb, we have now added a new

[00:38:45.08]
and revolutionary increase in destruction

[00:38:49.09]
to supplement the growing
power of our armed forces.

[00:38:54.03]
It is an atomic bomb.

[00:38:56.08]
It is a harnessing of the
basic power of the universe.

[00:39:00.07]
[birds chirping]

[00:39:04.07]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:39:05.08]
- [Spectator] Ready, set, shoot!

[00:39:07.06]
- [Spectator] Go, Reagan!

[00:39:08.05]
- [Spectator] Kick it
across, go, go, go, go!

[00:39:10.06]
That's right!

[00:39:12.01]
[crowd applauding and cheering]

[00:39:15.09]
- [Child] Watch out, guys,
here comes a big one!

[00:39:18.09]
[rock thudding]

[00:39:19.07]
- [Councilman] Our next
item on the agenda,

[00:39:20.07]
the youth sports complex,
we'll let Nancy start it off.

[00:39:25.02]
- There would be seven baseball fields,

[00:39:28.06]
twelve soccer fields,
and four softball fields.

[00:39:32.06]
This is the entire property itself.

[00:39:35.00]
- A centralized youth sports complex

[00:39:37.00]
accomplishes the following.

[00:39:39.07]
It puts neighbors back
into neighborhood parks,

[00:39:44.02]
it enhances Ames' image as
a first-class community,

[00:39:48.01]
and it's a revenue generator.

[00:39:50.08]
- [Tom] None of the radiation
contaminated material

[00:39:54.04]
was ever out there anyway,

[00:39:56.00]
so that's a non-issue
as far as I'm concerned.

[00:39:59.09]
- Some very strange
kinds of coverup occurred

[00:40:04.04]
with that field.

[00:40:06.02]
- Still more controversy tonight,

[00:40:08.01]
this time over a new youth
sports complex in Ames.

[00:40:11.07]
- Some say the site will make kids sick.

[00:40:13.09]
Others are ready to play ball.

[00:40:15.05]
- But not everybody's
happy about the placement

[00:40:17.04]
of the complex.

[00:40:18.06]
Some residents say there may
be radioactivity in the soil.

[00:40:22.04]
We have five grandchildren in Ames,

[00:40:24.04]
and not one of them will come down here.

[00:40:26.03]
- [Brittany] I wasn't
too surprised to find out

[00:40:28.00]
that my grandfather was
involved in something like this.

[00:40:30.06]
But I went back to ask him more about it.

[00:40:32.04]
I have the camera, just so you know.

[00:40:34.07]
- [Merle] Oh, not you again, here we are.

[00:40:36.06]
- It's me again.
- How you doing?

[00:40:37.08]
- [Brittany] I'm good, I'm
doing well, how are you doing?

[00:40:39.08]
- Well, you know. [chuckles]

[00:40:43.02]
I am me, whoever I am.

[00:40:46.02]
- I was just wondering how you found out

[00:40:47.04]
about the youth sports complex.

[00:40:49.01]
- Well you see, the thing was,

[00:40:51.04]
I knew quite a bit about
ionizing radiation.

[00:40:55.03]
What I've done is collected knowledge.

[00:40:58.08]
This is the uranium decay chart.

[00:41:02.08]
It's 4 1/2 billion years it
takes to go from here to lead.

[00:41:07.07]
This is happening all the time.

[00:41:09.06]
There's things in here that
you don't know beans about.

[00:41:14.00]
[car beeping]

[00:41:16.02]
I needed proof that that area
by the field was contaminated,

[00:41:19.06]
and I'd found the minutes
to a city council meeting

[00:41:22.00]
where the sports field
was initially discussed.

[00:41:25.05]
Then someone told me that
all the city council meetings

[00:41:28.00]
were taped and aired on
public access television,

[00:41:31.02]
and that these tapes had ended
up at the historical society.

[00:41:34.05]
- We didn't have room
for them at the time,

[00:41:37.03]
so we put them in the
basement of the US Bank.

[00:41:40.02]
There's no order, no sequence.

[00:41:42.03]
They have to divert staff
to kind of watch over us

[00:41:45.05]
because there are private banking records,

[00:41:47.04]
and I can understand their point.

[00:41:50.03]
So it's really not feasible
for us to go down there

[00:41:53.01]
and search them.

[00:41:54.08]
- [Brittany] But there were some videos

[00:41:56.00]
that I did manage to track down.

[00:41:59.04]
- Hello, my name is Tom Barton,

[00:42:01.06]
and I'm the director
of the Ames Laboratory,

[00:42:04.00]
one of twelve Department
of Energy laboratories

[00:42:06.06]
represented on the Department of Energy

[00:42:09.00]
Laboratory Directors
Environmental and Public

[00:42:11.08]
slash Occupational Health
Standards Steering Group.

[00:42:14.07]
That's a real mouthful,

[00:42:16.01]
so the Standard Steering Group for short.

[00:42:19.04]
[retro electronic music]

[00:42:23.06]
- [Brittany] The Ames Laboratory

[00:42:24.04]
is a national laboratory,

[00:42:26.00]
which means that it is a
rather small subsidiary

[00:42:28.08]
of a large government organization

[00:42:31.01]
known as the Department of Energy, or DOE.

[00:42:38.06]
[keyboard clicking]

[00:42:41.01]
On the DOE website, you'll find pictures

[00:42:43.02]
of all types of energy.

[00:42:45.06]
Fossil, nuclear, wind and solar.

[00:42:48.00]
But its former name, until 1974,

[00:42:51.02]
was the Atomic Energy Commission.

[00:42:53.09]
[bold orchestral music]

[00:43:01.03]
- [Narrator] If you were to take a trip

[00:43:02.06]
in almost any direction
across our great country,

[00:43:05.08]
you might suddenly come
upon a sign such as this.

[00:43:09.07]
Atomic City.

[00:43:11.09]
This means the location nearby

[00:43:13.02]
of one of our atomic energy plants,

[00:43:15.03]
a potent reminder that we
now live in the Atomic Age.

[00:43:20.02]
- [Brittany] The AEC was
founded after the war

[00:43:22.02]
as an agency that could foster and control

[00:43:24.06]
peacetime development
of all things atomic.

[00:43:27.06]
- First of all, sir, could
you illustrate simply for us

[00:43:30.07]
how extensive the atomic
energy program is today?

[00:43:35.09]
- Well, the atomic energy
program is big business.

[00:43:38.00]
It's about as large as any
of the largest corporations

[00:43:40.09]
in the United States at the present time.

[00:43:43.01]
When our expansion program is complete-

[00:43:45.01]
- [Interviewer] Not
quite as big as US Steel.

[00:43:47.00]
- Not quite as big as US Steel,

[00:43:48.00]
but it'll be about $8 billion

[00:43:50.04]
at the end of this expansion period,

[00:43:51.04]
which means about $200 or
more per family invested.

[00:43:55.03]
- In other words, every
American family now

[00:43:57.06]
has $200 invested in atomic energy.

[00:43:59.08]
That's a total of about $8 billion.

[00:44:02.00]
[bold orchestral music]

[00:44:04.04]
- [Narrator] This is the valley

[00:44:06.00]
where the giant mushrooms grow.

[00:44:07.08]
More atomic bombs have
been exploded on these

[00:44:10.06]
few hundred square miles of desert

[00:44:12.09]
than on any other spot on the globe.

[00:44:16.08]
Little bombs.

[00:44:18.02]
[explosion roaring]

[00:44:25.02]
Big bombs.

[00:44:26.03]
[explosion roaring]

[00:44:34.05]
Within the last 2 years,
20 of these colossal blasts

[00:44:38.04]
have echoed across the
great barren stretches

[00:44:40.01]
of the southwest.

[00:44:42.00]
This testing ground in our own backyard,

[00:44:45.06]
just an aerial stone's throw

[00:44:47.02]
from the Los Alamos Laboratory,

[00:44:49.01]
has been used only for
experimental devices

[00:44:51.09]
below certain power levels.

[00:44:54.03]
Even so, it has been hugely valuable

[00:44:56.06]
from the standpoint of safety,

[00:44:58.06]
the priority watchword
of the whole program.

[00:45:01.02]
[explosion booming]

[00:45:04.04]
- 800 of them were set off
below ground in Nevada.

[00:45:07.05]
People could see them from Las Vegas,

[00:45:10.05]
see them go off at night.

[00:45:12.04]
- [Interviewer] How many
people are working for it now?

[00:45:14.01]
- About a 100,000 people
work on the program

[00:45:18.01]
in operations, and
construction is largely--

[00:45:20.01]
- [Interviewer] Those people
aren't directly working

[00:45:21.07]
for the government?

[00:45:22.06]
- These people don't
work for the government.

[00:45:24.04]
Only about 6,000 people work

[00:45:26.02]
for the Atomic Energy Commission itself,

[00:45:27.09]
so that most of the work
is actually done by private

[00:45:30.07]
industrial contractors.

[00:45:32.02]
- In many situations the employers

[00:45:36.07]
are not the government itself,
they are contractors.

[00:45:41.08]
So Honeywell, or Mason and
Hanger, or General Electric,

[00:45:46.08]
or University of California,

[00:45:49.03]
could have contracts with
the Department of Energy,

[00:45:52.03]
they could hire workers

[00:45:53.07]
on these Department of Energy contracts

[00:45:55.06]
and be responsible for
production or research

[00:45:59.00]
or what have you.

[00:46:00.00]
- And they made hundreds
of tons of plutonium.

[00:46:03.03]
You know how much plutonium
you need for a bomb?

[00:46:05.07]
About that much.

[00:46:08.01]
About the size of a softball.

[00:46:09.08]
Just think about 2,000 tons of that stuff.

[00:46:11.08]
They made 50,000 nuclear weapons, easy.

[00:46:14.04]
At the height of the war, 1945,

[00:46:16.07]
the estimate was there were 250,000 people

[00:46:18.08]
working on the Manhattan Project.

[00:46:20.01]
They didn't know what they were doing.

[00:46:21.04]
They didn't know they
were making materials

[00:46:22.09]
for atomic bombs.

[00:46:23.09]
- [Narrator] But suppose you are a worker

[00:46:25.06]
in an atomic energy plant

[00:46:27.03]
located near one of these atomic cities.

[00:46:30.01]
This is you coming home to your family.

[00:46:33.03]
Aside from the usual safety precautions,

[00:46:35.09]
what steps are taken
to protect you at work?

[00:46:39.02]
Matter of fact, there are many,

[00:46:40.08]
so many that working in these plants

[00:46:43.00]
is among the safest
occupations in the world.

[00:46:45.07]
- [Brittany] It was after
the bomb was dropped,

[00:46:47.06]
then they stopped that production

[00:46:50.04]
and then he started working on
something else, your husband?

[00:46:53.02]
- He went from his original employment,

[00:46:57.06]
working towards this bomb,

[00:47:01.09]
which evolved into bigger
offices and places to work.

[00:47:07.08]
- [Narrator] But the
coming of the Atomic Age

[00:47:09.03]
and work with radioactive materials

[00:47:11.02]
has brought a necessity
for special laboratories

[00:47:14.04]
with special equipment.

[00:47:16.02]
Such is the case at the research center

[00:47:18.04]
of the Ames Laboratory on the
Iowa State College campus.

[00:47:22.04]
Samples of highly radioactive
materials arrive at the lab

[00:47:25.06]
in specially-built lead containers

[00:47:27.09]
from reacting atomic plants
in other parts of the country.

[00:47:31.06]
Iowa State College and the Ames Laboratory

[00:47:34.01]
are currently searching for an atomic fuel

[00:47:36.08]
that would be as efficient as coal or oil.

[00:47:41.01]
[ominous ambient music]

[00:47:45.09]
- The Department of Energy
has long prided itself

[00:47:48.07]
on having an exemplary safety record.

[00:47:51.00]
Federal agencies involved
in environmental remediation

[00:47:54.05]
recognize that action must be taken.

[00:47:58.01]
Risk is difficult, if not impossible,

[00:48:00.08]
to calculate accurately.

[00:48:02.07]
But the risk estimation process in itself

[00:48:06.00]
is important because it focuses attention

[00:48:09.04]
on potentially unsafe workplace
practices and hazards.

[00:48:13.00]
- [Brittany] I wanted
someone to show me around

[00:48:14.06]
the inside of the Ames Laboratory,

[00:48:16.08]
and no one currently working
there was up for doing it.

[00:48:20.04]
Then, someone suggested
a former security guard.

[00:48:23.03]
- I was walking around one night

[00:48:25.09]
and I saw a Geiger counter
in a lab around the hall.

[00:48:29.09]
And I just picked it up
and I walked into the room,

[00:48:34.09]
and I turned the thing on and it was just

[00:48:36.09]
click click click.

[00:48:38.05]
It goes clear over and pegs itself.

[00:48:40.09]
I talked to one of my
supervisors and he says,

[00:48:43.07]
"Well you don't have to
worry about that too much.

[00:48:45.07]
"That's probably just alpha emitters,

[00:48:48.01]
"and you don't have to worry

[00:48:49.07]
"as long as you don't inhale any of 'em."

[00:48:51.07]
- [Brittany] After a brief interview,

[00:48:53.02]
Mr. Davis agreed to take
me into the building.

[00:48:57.07]
.

[00:49:03.02]
.

[00:49:04.08]
.

[00:49:08.08]
[knocking]

[00:49:10.00]
.

[00:49:12.02]
.

[00:49:15.02]
.

[00:49:17.06]
.

[00:49:19.01]
.

[00:49:20.00]
.

[00:49:21.08]
.

[00:49:23.04]
.

[00:49:26.01]
.

[00:49:27.09]
.

[00:49:30.08]
.

[00:49:34.09]
.

[00:49:35.07]
.

[00:49:37.09]
.

[00:49:39.08]
.

[00:49:41.03]
.

[00:49:43.06]
.

[00:49:45.08]
.

[00:49:47.02]
.

[00:49:49.01]
.

[00:49:51.01]
.

[00:49:52.07]
.

[00:49:54.01]
.

[00:49:55.07]
.

[00:49:58.02]
.

[00:49:59.08]
.

[00:50:01.03]
.

[00:50:02.03]
.

[00:50:03.06]
.

[00:50:06.08]
.

[00:50:08.06]
.

[00:50:10.00]
.

[00:50:11.04]
.

[00:50:12.03]
.

[00:50:14.01]
.

[00:50:15.05]
.

[00:50:16.03]
.

[00:50:17.02]
.

[00:50:18.03]
.

[00:50:19.09]
.

[00:50:21.01]
.

[00:50:22.02]
- [Jake] Yep, see ya.

[00:50:23.02]
- [Brittany] The head of public relations

[00:50:24.04]
found us very quickly in the building

[00:50:26.06]
and nervously escorted
us from the premises.

[00:50:29.00]
We couldn't just come in and ask people

[00:50:30.05]
about their jobs, he said.

[00:50:34.04]
In 1970, the Department of
Labor passed the OSHA Act

[00:50:38.04]
to protect employees from
health hazards at work.

[00:50:42.05]
- DOE is uniquely different
than other federal agencies

[00:50:48.04]
in that DOE is exempt from the OSHA Act

[00:50:52.09]
and has been self-regulating
practically from day one.

[00:50:57.09]
[droning ambient chord]

[00:51:18.09]
- He...

[00:51:24.01]
He wakened up one Sunday morning and said,

[00:51:29.04]
"I'm bleeding to death."

[00:51:31.04]
And that's the first evidence he ever had

[00:51:38.07]
of a problem.

[00:51:40.03]
It seemed like he...

[00:51:45.03]
His bowels,

[00:51:47.00]
he just must have had, like,
a hemorrhage of the bowel

[00:51:52.05]
even at bedtime or in the night.

[00:51:57.04]
I wasn't aware until he
told me the next day.

[00:52:03.01]
He died of colon cancer,
and I guess we

[00:52:08.09]
have been encouraged to pursue it

[00:52:12.07]
thinking that perhaps working with uranium

[00:52:18.02]
could have been the, well--

[00:52:24.03]
initially cause of cancer to develop.

[00:52:28.03]
But I don't think anyone ever

[00:52:33.06]
proves anything about that.

[00:52:36.02]
That isn't something that I let bother me.

[00:52:39.00]
I just realize, life is life. [chuckles]

[00:52:43.09]
And that he was only 61, and
my gosh, he was so ambitious

[00:52:50.02]
and was dreaming about retiring

[00:52:53.09]
and all the things that
men like to do. [chuckles]

[00:53:01.04]
- [Director] Beginning, one more time,

[00:53:02.02]
watch me in the pulpit.

[00:53:04.06]
♪ In thee ♪

[00:53:08.06]
♪ In thee O Lord ♪

[00:53:13.05]
♪ have I trusted ♪

[00:53:18.09]
♪ Let me not be confounded forever ♪

[00:53:31.04]
- [Interviewer] Now did you
ever worry about radioactivity?

[00:53:34.03]
- Never.

[00:53:35.04]
I worked with the uranium
from day one, practically,

[00:53:41.04]
and we handled the
turnings with no problem.

[00:53:46.01]
- [Ray] We were all exposed
to radiation all the time.

[00:53:51.04]
I didn't wear a monitor or anything.

[00:53:54.02]
- Yes.

[00:53:55.01]
- And I guess it's come back
to haunt some of us now.

[00:54:01.01]
- The people from the Ames Lab,

[00:54:02.08]
they were working in one of the
most contaminated facilities

[00:54:06.09]
in the history of this industry.

[00:54:10.00]
- [Brittany] Dr. Fuortes runs a program

[00:54:12.01]
that screens atomic workers in Iowa

[00:54:14.02]
for their illnesses and helps
them receive compensation

[00:54:17.00]
from the federal government.

[00:54:19.02]
- Some forms of radiation are referred to

[00:54:21.06]
as whats called "ionizing."

[00:54:23.09]
Ionizing radiation can
disrupt the chemical bonds

[00:54:27.07]
holding DNA together,
causing breaks in DNA.

[00:54:32.04]
Once they are repaired, they
may be repaired correctly,

[00:54:35.07]
in which case you have
a healthy cell again.

[00:54:37.05]
They may not be repaired
at all, a cell may die,

[00:54:40.07]
or they may be repaired incorrectly

[00:54:43.07]
and they can divide with
incorrect formation of DNA,

[00:54:47.05]
and that's called a mutation.

[00:54:50.01]
You know if you shoot
a bullet up in the air,

[00:54:53.01]
statistically there is
a risk that one of us

[00:54:54.09]
will get hit by it.

[00:54:57.01]
If you shoot thousands
of them up in the air,

[00:54:58.08]
there's a greater risk.

[00:55:00.09]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:55:09.07]
- [Competitor] Ready, set, shoot!

[00:55:12.02]
- [Spectator] Go, go, go, go, go!

[00:55:13.08]
- That's right, Bella.
- Go, Amanda!

[00:55:15.07]
[crowd cheering]

[00:55:18.07]
- [Interviewer] There's
still a final report coming.

[00:55:20.07]
- [Roland] Yes.

[00:55:21.06]
- Is that correct?

[00:55:22.04]
- Yes.

[00:55:23.02]
- And is that from EPA?

[00:55:25.00]
- Is that what?
- Is that from EPA, or?

[00:55:26.09]
- No.

[00:55:28.03]
The EPA has delegated the
authority for these areas

[00:55:31.07]
to the DNR.
- Okay, so DNR.

[00:55:33.07]
- It's never been on a
national priority list,

[00:55:35.04]
it is not a CERCLA site,
it is not a RCRA site

[00:55:37.05]
or anything else.

[00:55:39.00]
The DOE regulations are applied most often

[00:55:42.06]
on radioactive contamination.

[00:55:45.05]
EPA really doesn't have
any good guidelines.

[00:55:47.09]
.

[00:55:50.01]
.

[00:55:52.07]
.

[00:55:57.01]
.

[00:56:01.04]
- And we will use this
report and apply to the DNR

[00:56:04.04]
for release of these sites,
these various sites

[00:56:06.08]
around the city for unrestricted use.

[00:56:09.06]
- [Brittany] I got a copy of
the RUST report from city hall

[00:56:12.06]
and took it to a geologist
named Kermit Dirks.

[00:56:15.06]
Mr. Dirks looked at the report

[00:56:17.02]
and agreed to an audio recording,

[00:56:19.01]
but did not wish to be videotaped.

[00:56:21.00]
- [Kermit] I've written it down here.

[00:56:22.00]
Page six tells you what
their recommendations were.

[00:56:24.09]
Except for that one gate
area at the sewage plant,

[00:56:27.09]
the rest of the contamination was all

[00:56:29.08]
strictly along the west fence line,

[00:56:31.08]
which had both exposure
limit contamination

[00:56:35.09]
and water contamination,
and upper soil contamination.

[00:56:40.03]
I would recommend that
that area be protected.

[00:56:43.00]
It shouldn't be allowed to
be exposed at this time.

[00:56:46.05]
- [Brittany] Do you feel
like it's a thorough report,

[00:56:48.02]
you think?

[00:56:49.08]
- [Kermit] No, not at all.

[00:56:53.04]
Jumps here and there, and it
doesn't cover half the issues.

[00:56:56.09]
It was designed to cover up more

[00:56:58.07]
than it was designed to expose.

[00:57:00.07]
- [Brittany] But, like,
the places, the holes,

[00:57:02.07]
were taken, or?

[00:57:04.04]
- [Kermit] Yeah, for instance,

[00:57:05.03]
they're scattered all over here and there.

[00:57:07.03]
They're not in any order.

[00:57:08.07]
I'm used to this kind of report,
and I had trouble with it.

[00:57:11.09]
[dog barking]

[00:57:14.00]
[indistinct chatter]

[00:57:16.02]
[playful orchestral music]

[00:57:23.07]
.

[00:57:27.08]
.

[00:57:31.07]
.

[00:57:33.09]
.

[00:57:37.03]
.

[00:57:42.00]
.

[00:57:45.03]
.

[00:57:48.03]
.

[00:57:51.04]
.

[00:57:55.03]
- [Councilman] So our
next item on the agenda,

[00:57:56.06]
the youth sport complex,

[00:57:58.00]
we'll let Nancy start it off.

[00:58:00.08]
- There will be seven baseball fields,

[00:58:03.07]
twelve soccer fields-

[00:58:06.00]
.

[00:58:08.01]
.

[00:58:09.05]
.

[00:58:13.07]
I don't think we can delay
the project endlessly,

[00:58:16.02]
so the hope would be that
we can start moving forward

[00:58:19.02]
on this project.

[00:58:20.02]
.

[00:58:21.05]
.

[00:58:25.06]
.

[00:58:27.06]
.

[00:58:30.07]
.

[00:58:34.04]
.

[00:58:38.00]
.

[00:58:43.03]
.

[00:58:50.02]
.

[00:58:54.02]
.

[00:58:58.01]
.

[00:59:00.08]
.

[00:59:04.00]
- Our follow-up surveys in
1988 indicated that the site

[00:59:07.05]
was in fact clean, and there's
really no further concern

[00:59:11.05]
as far as we can see.

[00:59:13.02]
.

[00:59:16.05]
.

[00:59:19.08]
.

[00:59:21.01]
.

[00:59:24.06]
.

[00:59:29.04]
.

[00:59:31.01]
.

[00:59:33.04]
.

[00:59:35.04]
.

[00:59:39.07]
.

[00:59:41.05]
.

[00:59:43.08]
.

[00:59:46.01]
.

[00:59:48.06]
.

[00:59:53.08]
.

[00:59:57.04]
.

[00:59:59.05]
.

[01:00:03.06]
.

[01:00:06.04]
.

[01:00:09.05]
.

[01:00:14.01]
.

[01:00:19.04]
.

[01:00:25.01]
- Institutions and people are
very much alike in some ways.

[01:00:29.04]
Now if you haven't already
celebrated your 50th birthday,

[01:00:32.08]
let me tell you something about it.

[01:00:34.07]
It's a time both of reflection

[01:00:37.00]
and also one of careful
planning for the future.

[01:00:41.00]
You look back over your life

[01:00:43.00]
and you savor some accomplishments,

[01:00:45.08]
you kind of cringe at some recollections,

[01:00:48.05]
but no matter what, you vow
to do better in the future.

[01:00:53.08]
.

[01:00:55.07]
.

[01:00:57.08]
- Yeah.

[01:00:59.07]
.

[01:01:01.01]
.

[01:01:03.07]
- Is there anyone at the
lab who would just consider

[01:01:06.06]
to kind of talk about this stuff?

[01:01:08.04]
You know, basically that the waste

[01:01:09.07]
had been cleaned up and stuff?

[01:01:11.03]
And to tell me where it was taken?

[01:01:15.04]
- [Steve] I-- I don't wanna say right now.

[01:01:21.02]
Again, I go back to the Iowa
Department of Public Health

[01:01:24.03]
and the fact that they oversaw the cleanup

[01:01:27.01]
- Right, but they...
- for the region of Iowa.

[01:01:28.09]
- But they declined to
interview, you know.

[01:01:30.08]
It would be nice...

[01:01:31.08]
Everyone kept referring me back

[01:01:33.03]
to the Iowa Department of Public Health,

[01:01:35.02]
which had apparently
okayed the sports field

[01:01:37.03]
after Dr. Golchin at
the DNR wouldn't do it.

[01:01:39.06]
.

[01:01:43.09]
.

[01:01:47.05]
.

[01:01:50.05]
.

[01:01:52.09]
.

[01:01:54.03]
.

[01:01:56.05]
.

[01:01:59.01]
.

[01:02:01.04]
.

[01:02:04.03]
.

[01:02:05.01]
.

[01:02:06.00]
- [Brittany] According to Dr. Golchin,

[01:02:07.00]
the IDPH received a few
million dollars from the DOE

[01:02:10.09]
to revamp their radiological division.

[01:02:13.00]
Shortly thereafter, they
approved the sports field

[01:02:15.04]
for unrestricted use.

[01:02:17.05]
[indistinct chatter]

[01:02:20.04]
But I still had questions
about why the field

[01:02:22.08]
couldn't just be cheaply
and easily tested now.

[01:02:26.06]
Why don't you just go out to that field--

[01:02:29.02]
- [Marv] And use a Geiger counter.

[01:02:30.04]
- And use a Geiger counter, yeah.

[01:02:32.02]
- The Geiger counter doesn't
tell you what is emitting

[01:02:36.00]
and how much it's emitting.

[01:02:38.01]
- What does it detect, then?

[01:02:40.01]
- [Marv] Alpha emission.

[01:02:41.05]
.

[01:02:45.03]
.

[01:02:47.08]
.

[01:02:51.03]
.

[01:02:53.04]
.

[01:02:54.09]
.

[01:03:01.02]
.

[01:03:04.04]
- Why do people know about
Geiger counters, then?

[01:03:07.00]
- [Marv] Because everybody uses them.

[01:03:09.08]
If you don't know anything, you use it

[01:03:13.02]
and determine, "Oh, we
don't have a problem."

[01:03:16.03]
.

[01:03:19.04]
.

[01:03:22.03]
- [Brittany] So a Geiger
counter's not great,

[01:03:24.04]
but there are other machines
that can accurately test soil.

[01:03:27.09]
One of them is an atomic
emission spectrometer.

[01:03:30.06]
Marv took one of these and
built a trailer around it,

[01:03:33.03]
to take it to different contaminated sites

[01:03:35.04]
across the country.

[01:03:36.08]
- We built the mobile lab to
go to the contaminated site,

[01:03:42.04]
take a sample,

[01:03:43.05]
and determine how much
contamination was there.

[01:03:46.02]
- We were trying to
implement a new methodology.

[01:03:49.02]
Up until that time, they'd get
a bunch of people in a room,

[01:03:51.05]
this is now the DOE, look at the documents

[01:03:53.03]
about where people
think they buried stuff,

[01:03:55.04]
and they would write up
what's called a work plan.

[01:03:58.02]
It's about that thick.

[01:04:00.01]
They would do this without
anybody every going out

[01:04:02.04]
and walking the site

[01:04:03.04]
and actually seeing what it looked like.

[01:04:05.00]
First time they went out,

[01:04:06.01]
most of the samples came back non-detects.

[01:04:08.02]
Non-detects cost just about
as much money as a detect.

[01:04:11.00]
- They would have to take
a sample, send it off-site,

[01:04:15.04]
and have somebody analyze it.

[01:04:18.02]
As soon as they sent the sample off-site,

[01:04:21.04]
wherever that sample went,
they contaminated.

[01:04:24.04]
- [Brittany] Oh.

[01:04:25.03]
- I think DOE has these listed

[01:04:28.09]
at $2,000 to $5,000 a sample.

[01:04:31.08]
Digging the sample, sending it off-site.

[01:04:34.06]
We built the mobile lab with the idea

[01:04:37.09]
that we could save them.

[01:04:40.06]
It would essentially
cost us $200 a sample.

[01:04:45.06]
- [Brittany] Did you ever
test any sites in Ames?

[01:04:47.05]
There were a bunch of sites in Ames

[01:04:49.03]
that were contaminated, right?

[01:04:51.01]
- No, no.

[01:04:53.06]
The closest place we
tested was out at the--

[01:04:57.09]
oh, the buildings back
by the railroad track,

[01:05:00.09]
to see if it would work.

[01:05:02.05]
We found some material there.

[01:05:04.08]
Ames Lab says, "That shouldn't
be there." [chuckles]

[01:05:09.00]
- [Brittany] Why did you
never use the machine

[01:05:10.08]
to test the sports field in Ames?

[01:05:12.09]
- Yeah.

[01:05:13.07]
- [Brittany] The one that,
that site up where the--

[01:05:17.01]
- It was forbidden.

[01:05:18.08]
We never tested anything around Ames.

[01:05:24.06]
Powers to be.

[01:05:28.05]
[indistinct chatter]

[01:05:37.01]
- People thought that they
could put stuff in the ground

[01:05:39.03]
and it would stay put.

[01:05:41.03]
If they'd have talked to hydrogeologists,

[01:05:43.05]
they would have been told
that that's not the case.

[01:05:46.04]
The groundwater, on average,
is only four or five feet deep,

[01:05:50.03]
and then there's water,
like big giant lakes.

[01:05:53.01]
Aquifers, they're called.

[01:05:54.05]
And the water flows, like a pipe.

[01:05:57.01]
Contamination would move with it.

[01:05:59.01]
It could move miles from where you put it

[01:06:01.09]
in a matter of years.

[01:06:04.02]
[nimble orchestral music]

[01:06:08.04]
- [Narrator] Nuclear waste
can be hazardous for hundreds,

[01:06:11.03]
even thousands of years.

[01:06:13.08]
The safe management of
these nuclear wastes,

[01:06:15.08]
including their storage,
transportation, handling,

[01:06:21.08]
treatment and disposal is a
vital issue for all countries.

[01:06:27.01]
Whatever of their differences
in geologic media,

[01:06:30.00]
schedule or government policies,

[01:06:33.00]
all these countries confront
the common challenge

[01:06:35.06]
of developing the technologies,

[01:06:37.06]
performing the scientific studies,

[01:06:39.07]
and designing and developing
sound, permanent solutions

[01:06:42.07]
for the disposal of their
high level nuclear waste.

[01:06:46.05]
- [Narrator] The United States of America

[01:06:48.00]
has more than 100 nuclear power units.

[01:06:50.06]
Ultimate responsibility
for these activities

[01:06:53.01]
lies with the United States
Department of Energy.

[01:06:56.05]
The spent fuel from the
nation's nuclear power plants

[01:06:59.08]
is currently stored
on-site in pools of water

[01:07:03.02]
or above ground in specially
designed containers.

[01:07:07.02]
- [Brittany] And the barrels,
what were they made out of?

[01:07:09.01]
- [Merv] Steel.

[01:07:10.02]
- [Brittany] But you
just said that steel--

[01:07:12.05]
- Corroded.

[01:07:13.06]
After about 20 or 30 years,
it rots through.

[01:07:18.00]
Then they pick the barrel up

[01:07:20.01]
and they spill this stuff
all over the ground.

[01:07:23.01]
- [Brittany] Marvin started talking to me

[01:07:24.05]
about a site he visited
with the mobile laboratory

[01:07:27.01]
in Fernald, Ohio, where a
company called National Lead

[01:07:30.04]
took over the uranium purification process

[01:07:33.00]
that had been invented here in Ames.

[01:07:35.01]
They set up something called a
feed processing center there.

[01:07:38.05]
- [Marv] Everybody in the area knew

[01:07:40.05]
it was a feed processing plant.

[01:07:42.06]
What they didn't realize

[01:07:44.01]
was the feed was uranium. [chuckles]

[01:07:46.05]
- [Narrator] This is the story
of how these feed materials

[01:07:49.01]
are processed at the plants operated

[01:07:51.03]
for the United States
Atomic Energy Commission

[01:07:53.04]
by the National Lead Company
of Ohio at Fernald, Ohio,

[01:07:56.07]
and by the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works

[01:07:59.00]
at Weldon Spring, Missouri.

[01:08:00.07]
- The steel, when it
rusts, rust is a catalyst,

[01:08:05.06]
so that uranium would go
directly into the groundwater.

[01:08:10.02]
The last few years,
they're cleaning the aquifer.

[01:08:13.09]
Uranium was moving an inch
a year towards Cincinnati.

[01:08:19.03]
How do you clean an aquifer?

[01:08:22.04]
- [Brittany] How do you do it?

[01:08:24.00]
- Well--

[01:08:24.08]
- [Johanshir] It cannot be done.

[01:08:26.01]
- The only thing they can do
is pump the water out down here

[01:08:30.08]
and pump it upstream
and go through a process

[01:08:36.06]
before they put the water back in.

[01:08:38.09]
.

[01:08:41.01]
.

[01:08:42.05]
.

[01:08:46.02]
.

[01:08:50.04]
.

[01:08:52.05]
.

[01:08:56.08]
.

[01:08:59.06]
.

[01:09:02.05]
.

[01:09:07.00]
.

[01:09:09.03]
.

[01:09:12.04]
.

[01:09:19.02]
- There were other people

[01:09:22.07]
who were affected by that uranium.

[01:09:29.02]
We had three very nice children,

[01:09:31.03]
and I still have two but the
youngest one has already died.

[01:09:37.06]
Pancreatic cancer.

[01:09:41.01]
And that was a real
heartbreak because his daddy

[01:09:45.09]
had already died, so we lost my husband

[01:09:52.00]
and then the boy.

[01:09:58.01]
- So when was it that
you made the connection

[01:10:00.02]
that Tom's illness might have
been caused by radiation?

[01:10:07.07]
- This is "Radiation and Human Health"

[01:10:10.04]
by Dr. John Gofman, probably
one of the top experts

[01:10:15.01]
in the country.

[01:10:16.00]
There was one whole chapter
on Down syndrome mutations

[01:10:22.02]
from low-level radiation.

[01:10:24.06]
Suddenly it clicked to me.

[01:10:26.06]
That's Tom.

[01:10:31.05]
There's about 50 pages he talks about

[01:10:34.04]
atom bomb survivors' offspring.

[01:10:37.07]
- [Brittany] Whoa.

[01:10:39.04]
- He talks about maternal age,
when it occurs.

[01:10:42.05]
Studies by studies by studies
by studies by studies.

[01:10:46.08]
When Tom was born, well, that was a time

[01:10:49.03]
when there was much nuclear
fallout from the tests.

[01:10:56.06]
We moved back to Ames in 1984.

[01:11:00.05]
The city sewage disposal plant
had this radioactive sludge

[01:11:04.02]
that was piling up.

[01:11:05.03]
They were using it for
fertilizing around the city.

[01:11:08.00]
There was a series of people with cancer.

[01:11:11.01]
Pat Brown, who was on the city council,

[01:11:13.06]
became very concerned about it,

[01:11:16.02]
so concerned it was in the newspapers.

[01:11:18.03]
So I wrote an open letter
to her about my experiences

[01:11:22.01]
with radiation.

[01:11:25.02]
There must have been a
dozen doctors got into it

[01:11:27.02]
and didn't want it.

[01:11:29.01]
- [Brittany] I had
reached the same dead end

[01:11:30.04]
that Grandpa had 20 years ago.

[01:11:32.08]
There was no way to prove
anything about the field

[01:11:35.02]
without millions of
dollars for proper testing.

[01:11:38.08]
There was a forest fire at Los Alamos.

[01:11:40.08]
- [Marv] Yeah.

[01:11:41.06]
- [Brittany] And the
Department of Energy--

[01:11:43.04]
- [Marvin] Wanted to take the lab

[01:11:44.09]
and check for contamination.

[01:11:47.05]
- [Brittany] They didn't
have the equipment themselves

[01:11:49.01]
to do it.

[01:11:50.00]
- [Marv] No, we had the only mobile lab,

[01:11:52.09]
and DOE had already disabled it.

[01:11:55.02]
- [Johanshir] So basically what happened?

[01:11:56.01]
- [Brittany] Why?

[01:11:57.00]
- Because the project was canceled.

[01:12:00.08]
- Why was it canceled?

[01:12:02.02]
- [Marv] Ask Washington that.

[01:12:05.01]
[gentle electronic music]

[01:12:07.05]
- It's a whole lot better
for the Department of Energy

[01:12:09.08]
that has to pay for it, but
it's not a whole lot better

[01:12:12.04]
for the people who had the
contract to clean up the site.

[01:12:14.07]
These companies are in
a position to dictate

[01:12:18.06]
how those sites are cleaned up

[01:12:20.05]
and have a conflict of
interest that is monumental.

[01:12:23.05]
Namely, the longer it takes
the more money they make.

[01:12:25.09]
And their political
influence outweighs that

[01:12:28.00]
of the government influence
of Department of Energy.

[01:12:31.04]
- And they were calling
me a liar when I said,

[01:12:34.02]
"Well, we can save you so much money."

[01:12:38.02]
One of the guys came up to me and he says,

[01:12:41.01]
"What will we do with all
the extra money we get?"

[01:12:45.02]
- They have a vested interest
in prolonging this cleanup

[01:12:48.00]
as long as possible.

[01:12:49.03]
The biggest one is Hanford, of course,

[01:12:50.08]
up in Washington State.

[01:12:52.03]
They're spending a billion
and a half every year

[01:12:54.04]
and they're hardly doing anything.

[01:12:55.08]
- [Brittany] But how much
money could the DOE save?

[01:12:58.00]
Dr. Golchin started
calculating some numbers.

[01:13:01.03]
With a minimum savings
of $2,000 per sample

[01:13:04.04]
at one contaminated site the
size of six football fields,

[01:13:07.07]
like in Fernald, Ohio,
you would need a grid

[01:13:10.01]
of at least 10,000 samples.

[01:13:12.09]
Even if they only took
one sample in each spot,

[01:13:15.07]
that is a savings of $20 million,

[01:13:18.07]
and then there are 10,000
to 20,000 contaminated sites

[01:13:21.08]
in the country.

[01:13:23.04]
.

[01:13:27.07]
.

[01:13:31.01]
.

[01:13:32.05]
- [Brittany] That would pay
off a lot of student loans.

[01:13:34.02]
.

[01:13:41.07]
- Hi, Dennis! [laughs]
- Brittany!

[01:13:43.08]
How good to see you.

[01:13:45.04]
You got my message, I guess, on the phone.

[01:13:47.03]
- [Brittany] I did, I'm so excited.

[01:13:48.01]
- Fabulous, we found the tape.

[01:13:50.00]
Here is the original tape.

[01:13:51.08]
- [Brittany] It's like
a needle in a haystack.

[01:13:53.02]
- Exactly, exactly.
- Amazing, wow.

[01:13:55.00]
- This has been probably our
biggest challenge to date.

[01:13:57.07]
2,130 tapes.

[01:14:01.04]
And again, there was no guarantee

[01:14:03.06]
that it would actually be there.

[01:14:05.04]
- [Brittany] Mmm-hmm.

[01:14:07.03]
I never thought I'd be so excited

[01:14:08.07]
about public access TV footage.

[01:14:12.09]
[VCR whirring]

[01:14:15.01]
- Good afternoon, my name is Tom Newman,

[01:14:16.08]
I'm Director of Water
and Pollution Control

[01:14:18.05]
for the City of Ames.

[01:14:21.03]
I guess I've kind of gotten
into this in more detail

[01:14:23.05]
the last couple of weeks
than I anticipated I would.

[01:14:27.01]
This site was a water and
pollution control plant operation.

[01:14:32.00]
In 1950 and '51, there were some spills

[01:14:36.03]
to the sanitary sewer
of radioactive material.

[01:14:41.09]
It came to our waste
water treatment plant.

[01:14:43.08]
It was treated through the plant.

[01:14:46.05]
Thorium is a heavy metal.

[01:14:48.02]
Heavy metals attach to
the solids in the sewage,

[01:14:51.00]
it settles out with the solids,

[01:14:52.09]
it becomes part of the sludge.

[01:14:54.06]
So, that's where that
material was basically trapped

[01:14:57.08]
or contained.

[01:14:58.08]
Sludge material that was stored on site

[01:15:01.01]
was removed from the site,
transported to other sites

[01:15:04.03]
around city, on city-owned
property, the Ames airport,

[01:15:07.01]
the cemetery, and that
material was land-applied

[01:15:11.00]
and mixed in with the
soil at those locations.

[01:15:16.04]
We made our dry solids available to anyone

[01:15:20.04]
that wanted to come down and use it.

[01:15:23.01]
It was very good for home
gardens and flower gardens

[01:15:27.00]
and things like that.

[01:15:28.05]
You could put it on grain
crops such as corn and soybeans

[01:15:31.02]
or something like that,

[01:15:33.01]
and that's what we've essentially done.

[01:15:36.01]
[gentle ambient music]

[01:15:41.08]
- Children, in their development stage,

[01:15:43.08]
they're much more susceptible
to radiation than adults.

[01:15:47.02]
The kids get into the dirt,

[01:15:48.06]
and they get these particles,
and they take them home

[01:15:51.08]
in their clothes and so forth.

[01:15:54.04]
Most of these mutations from radiation

[01:15:57.04]
take anywhere from 10, 20,
to 30 years to show up.

[01:16:01.01]
Department of Health was
persuaded some way or another

[01:16:05.01]
that we don't know how and why,

[01:16:08.02]
but it was unprofessional
for them to do what they did.

[01:16:13.06]
.

[01:16:17.00]
.

[01:16:20.02]
.

[01:16:21.06]
.

[01:16:25.03]
.

[01:16:30.01]
.

[01:16:33.04]
.

[01:16:36.09]
- [Narrator] The excavation
progressed as planned,

[01:16:38.09]
beginning with pit number one,

[01:16:40.06]
which contained approximately
90 30-gallon drums.

[01:16:45.02]
As the excavation continued,

[01:16:47.01]
pyrophoric metals were
eventually uncovered.

[01:16:50.02]
These metals were anticipated,

[01:16:52.03]
and the subsequent reactions
were allowed to take place

[01:16:55.02]
under controlled conditions using soil

[01:16:58.00]
and Met-L-X fire extinguishers.

[01:17:02.00]
Nearly 1,500 cubic yards
of contaminated soil

[01:17:05.01]
was removed from the excavation area

[01:17:07.04]
and placed into 826 super sacks,

[01:17:10.01]
425 one-yard bags and 401 three-yard bags.

[01:17:14.04]
.

[01:17:19.03]
.

[01:17:23.04]
.

[01:17:26.01]
.

[01:17:30.08]
.

[01:17:35.06]
[heavy machinery beeping]

[01:17:37.06]
- [Al] Are they more
susceptible to terrorist attack

[01:17:39.06]
because it's dispersed all over the place?

[01:17:41.04]
Probably.

[01:17:42.05]
Would it be better to
have them all in one place

[01:17:44.03]
guarded by the best guard we could have?

[01:17:47.01]
Yeah, it would be better there

[01:17:48.08]
if it was concentrated in one place.

[01:17:54.02]
[railroad gate clanging]
[train whistle blaring]

[01:18:03.08]
[somber electronic music]

[01:19:29.08]
- They thought that they
were national heroes,

[01:19:31.06]
and they were told that
they were national heroes.

[01:19:34.09]
But they didn't want to admit
what they had been doing

[01:19:38.05]
had been harming maybe more people

[01:19:41.02]
than what they had intended
to save from communism

[01:19:45.07]
or whatever else it might be.

[01:19:49.02]
People don't like to be heroes
and then become villains.

[01:19:54.01]
It's just something that isn't palatable,

[01:19:56.06]
so they just bury the problems,

[01:20:00.09]
and the problems go to
the grave with them,

[01:20:04.01]
and you may not find it out
unless somebody talks about it.

[01:20:09.03]
- [Brittany] So it turns
out that my hometown,

[01:20:11.03]
and even my country,

[01:20:12.01]
are not the places I thought they were.

[01:20:14.04]
But strangely enough I
don't love my home any less.

[01:20:18.01]
If anything I feel a stronger
desire to protect it.

[01:20:22.00]
The problems we face as a result

[01:20:23.07]
of environmental
contamination are complex.

[01:20:27.04]
They are not going away by
pretending they don't exist.

[01:20:32.01]
[uplifting piano music]

[01:20:34.08]
- And as one.

[01:20:36.08]
♪ My country's skies ♪

[01:20:40.04]
♪ are bluer than the ocean ♪

[01:20:46.09]
♪ And sunlight beams ♪

[01:20:51.00]
♪ on cloverleaf and pine ♪

[01:20:56.07]
♪ But other lands ♪

[01:21:01.02]
♪ have sunlight too and clover ♪

[01:21:08.04]
♪ And skies are everywhere ♪

[01:21:14.02]
♪ as blue as mine ♪

[01:21:19.04]
♪ Oh hear my song ♪

[01:21:23.08]
♪ thou God of all the nations ♪

[01:21:30.06]
♪ A song of peace ♪

[01:21:35.03]
♪ for their land and for mine ♪

[01:21:44.06]
♪ This is my song ♪

[01:21:48.04]
♪ oh God of all the nations ♪

[01:21:54.02]
♪ A song of peace ♪

[01:21:58.00]
♪ for lands afar and mine ♪

[01:22:03.06]
♪ This is my home ♪

[01:22:07.03]
♪ the country where my heart is ♪

[01:22:13.02]
♪ Here are my hopes ♪

[01:22:16.09]
♪ my dreams, my holy shrine ♪

[01:22:23.02]
♪ But other hearts ♪

[01:22:26.09]
♪ in other lands are beating ♪

[01:22:32.07]
♪ with hopes and dreams ♪

[01:22:36.05]
♪ as true and high as mine ♪

[01:22:41.04]