Public Pushes Back Against Planned Test on Old Nuke Site

[helderheid]

by Megan Tady

Suspicious of government assurances that a planned desert explosion will not rekindle radioactive fallout from past events, Westerners and Native Americans want the plan halted.

Jan. 31 – Michelle Thomas’s mother took great pains to protect her children from what she suspected was something unhealthy in the dust that settled on the lawns, the cars and the houses every time a mushroom cloud appeared over the Nevada desert. Such memories have been roused recently by fears that the military will stir that dust back up by bombing the area once again.

Born in 1952 in St. George, Utah, just a few hours’ drive from the Nevada Test Site (NTS), nuclear explosions were routine for Thomas. She can recall her mother – wrapped in overalls, boots, and gloves, and with a dishtowel covering her mouth – pulling the laundry from the line when they heard or saw another bomb go off.

By 1962, the government would have conducted 100 atmospheric nuclear tests at NTS. And eventually, St. George would be dubbed the "Fallout City" for the amount of radioactive dust that had snowed down on the town.

Thomas’s mother kept a chart on the wall by their dining room table, which tracked the sudden deaths and illnesses of their neighbors during the "testing years." A square box represented every house within a three-block radius.

When Thomas’s aunt, who lived across the street, died of breast cancer during the early years of nuclear testing, Thomas told The NewStandard, her mother marked the chart with an "X."

"And when a little 12-year-old died of leukemia suddenly a few years after the testing," she recalled, "and a 5-year-old a few doors down got leukemia, and when someone got lymphoma, she would put an ‘X’ on their house."

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http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=4226

[helderheid]

1. kick for no more "x"s

[helderheid]

2. X