Scientist quits Lawrence Livermore Lab and Condemns Nuclear Weapons
More Plutonium Slated for Idaho
incinerator than Acknowledged in State Permits
*With an open letter to appeal to "every secretary, technician,
custodian, scientist, engineer, and any other person whose participation
supports the world war machine to withhold their skills from weapons
work and from activities that support or enable weapons work",
a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory chemist resigned from
his classified position in the lab's nuclear weapons program last
week.
Dr. Andreas Toupadakis, who had previously worked at Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where he witnessed several
instances of dangerous plutonium mishandling, took a job at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in August 1998 to do environmental
work, but was assigned to the nuclear weapons program. Most recently,
he worked in Lawrence Livermore's Stockpile Stewardship program
on nuclear weapons maintenance and refurbishment.
"When I was hired
by Livermore Lab, I was not adequately informed about the specifics
of my job responsibilities. I came to do environmental work, believing
that weapons were being dismantled and help was needed to bury
their deadly byproducts. Instead, I found myself being expected
to work on the maintenance of nuclear weapons. I believe that
I am not alone having this experience. When I refused to work
on weapons, I found myself looking for a job on environmental
or nonproliferation projects, but soon realized that such a thing
is an illusion. I came to realize that I was fooling myself, that
all work at Livermore Lab is directly or indirectly related to
weapons. My conscience simply does not allow me to work for the
development or maintenance of nuclear weapons. That is why I have
resigned from my position as a scientist in the nuclear weapons
program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory."
Dr. Toupadakis also expressed deep concerns about the hiring of
college and high school students at nuclear labs, and the Department
of Energy's efforts to lure civilian establishments such as the
nation's universities to participate in the development of the
nuclear arsenal and train a new generation of weapons designers.
According to anti-nuclear activists, Dr. Toupadakis' resignation
is a rare and perhaps unprecedented case in which a scientist
left the weapons program in mid-career to embrace the peace movement.
*According to anti-nuclear activists
from the Idaho-based Environmental Defense Institute, State of
Idaho permits and the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact
Statement for the plutonium incinerator at the Idaho National
Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) only acknowledge
a fraction of the plutonium that is candidate waste to be processed
at the so-called Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant.
Although
DOE is not publicly acknowledging the fact, its internal reports
show that the buried waste slated for the facility contains 11
million curies of radioactivity including 1,455 kilograms of plutonium
from Rocky Flats. The total buried plutonium contains more than
700,000 curies of radioactivity. These buried wastes alone represent
potentially 17 times more radioactivity to be processed than is
acknowledged in the Plutonium Incinerator Environmental Impact
Statement or the applications for state and federal permits. Moreover,
calculations indicate that the above figures for the radioactivity
of the buried waste are still significantly understated because
they rely on original shipping records that are now known to be
inaccurate.
Anti-nuclear activists are concerned that other contaminates
and candidate waste locations are equally improperly characterized
by the Department of Energy.
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