Press Conference Saturday, October 16 at the Public Park across from the entrance to Naval Magazine Indian Island.  Contact Douglas Milholland @ 360-385-6525 for more info

Port Townsend Depleted Uranium Study team clarifies the issue: 

Why are Depleted Uranium Munitions a Local Issue?

Written by Douglas Milholland  October 14, 2004   360-385-6525

From mining and refining, production into bullets and bombs, and use on the testing range and the battlefield people exposed to so called “depleted” uranium are experiencing serious health effects according to national and international researchers and news sources.

Here, in Port Townsend, near the West Coast’s premier weapons shipment base, local citizens are beginning to ask questions such as: 

• Are our sons & daughters who become soldiers being exposed to toxic amounts of radioactivity?
• What are the health effects from inhaling or ingesting DU dust? 
• Are we local residents at risk from accidental or premeditated explosion of DU containing munitions?
• Are we US citizens allowing our government to permanently contaminate other countries and testing grounds with toxic radioactivity?

Indian Island is situated on Port Townsend Bay, 40 miles north of Seattle.  During the last four years more than a third of a million tons of explosive ordnance (bombs, missiles, torpedoes, bullets, shells) have been shipped out of Naval Magazine Indian Island. Truckloads of munitions routinely travel through Port Hadlock on their way to the

Indian Island weapons transfer depot. Containerships are often seen docked or moving in or out from the Indian Island Naval Base.

A year and a half ago some members of the Port Townsend Peace Movement decided to investigate the military’s shipment of radiological weaponry through their community and to inform themselves and the public about the health effects from inhaling or ingesting depleted uranium.  They call their study group the Port Townsend Depleted Uranium Study Team or PTDUST.   They have sponsored two ex military speakers to come to Port Townsend and share their experiences with uranium munitions.

Members of PTDUST are not experts on this subject.  There is a big argument going on with scientific and governmental voices claiming all sorts of things about DU.  PTDUST members are concerned, and they are paying attention, as are people all over the world.

This weekend PTDUST and the Northwest chapter of the Veterans for Peace are sponsoring the visit of independent scientist Leuren Moret.  Ms. Moret previously worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for 5 years and at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab for two years.  She will be speaking in Seattle, Friday, October 15, Olympia on the 16th, and Port Townsend Sunday evening, October 17th.  She is also conducting a press conference at the Public Park across from the entry to the Indian Island base at 10:00am on Saturday, October 16th.

She is very knowledgeable about how volcanic dust can travel around the world, and has found that radioactive dust is doing the same thing.  Her research has determined that in the mid-east a thousand mile diameter of radioactive contamination is occurring around the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Please come to hear her speak.

Last October after hearing Major Doug Rokke talk about his failure to get the US military to follow common-sense training, handling and clean-up regulations regarding DU, PTDUST members began urging their local elected officials to question the military’s shipping radiological munitions through Jefferson County communities.  These are some of the questions asked of local officials:

1. What are the radioactive (radiological) weapons that are being transferred through our community?
2. Is the shipping of Depleted Uranium weapons in unmarked trucks through Jefferson County considered a high-risk issue?
3. Could a shipping and handling accident occur involving weapons with Depleted Uranium content?  What risk factors are involved if DU containing weapons accidentally ignite?
4. Have the county sheriff, the hospital, the fire department, the City & County government applied for funds for training and equipment?  Does the hospital have a decontamination chamber?  Does NavMag?
5. Do Jefferson County school systems have sub-micron air filters on strategic assembly halls in each school?
6. What evacuation procedures and alert systems are in place to deal with the threat of wind-born radioactivity?
7. Do we want to risk having our children live in an environment contaminated with radioisotopes?

Partly in response to these legitimate concerns Bob Hamlin, local officer of the Department of Homeland Security, went to work, and succeeded in getting a 10 person decontamination chamber for Jefferson General Hospital, and training for 25 first responders - the firemen and police that might be the first ones to get to a truck accident containing burning uranium munitions.

Partly in response to local letters sent to the Department of Transportation regarding unmarked trucks carrying radiological weapons, the DOT did not automatically renew the US Military’s permission to continue to travel American freeways, highways & byways with unmarked trucks filled with radiological weapons.  The military appealed the DOT’s ruling, and continues to ship radiological munitions in unmarked trucks. The fact that the exemption was not renewed is a sign that the DOT is listening to our concerns.

Currently PTDUST is considering the following questions:

1. How can the military spend millions of dollars at NavMag Indian Island without any public hearings, no community right to know meetings, and no public questioning of whether safety arcs have been reviewed as the base mission grew to become the military’s only container port for the pacific basin?
2. What are the kinds of radiological weapons being offloaded, refurbished, stored and reloaded at NavMag Indian Island?
3. What are the safety arcs for radiological weapons?
4. Are dirty bombs being shipped through NavMag Indian Island?  A dirty bomb combines conventional explosives and atomic waste to spread radiation over a wide area.  2000 pound bombs made of “depleted” uranium were reportedly used in the latest wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.
5. Are guided missile weapon systems (such as the Tomahawk missile) that use depleted uranium as part of the warhead being shipped down our roads and through the base?
6. Are local workers, civilians, & military working on the base properly trained to protect themselves from the hazards of handling radiological weapons?
7. Are the workers being tested for radiological contamination on a regular basis?
8. Does the base have radioactive detection and containment systems in areas where radiological weapons are being handled?
9. Have medical baseline and exposure surveys of civilians near the base been conducted?
10. Are supplies of Food & Drug administration approved drugs for exposure to radioactive weapons stockpiled in Jefferson County?
11. Are there plans to build radiation proof assembly halls with sub-micron air filters at our local schools?
12. When will the military acknowledge that radiological weapons must be banned, that clean-ups must occur, and compensation to victims must be paid
13. If an emergency involving the base or weapons being transferred were to occur a 150 person Chemical Biological Radiological Response Team (CBRN) based in Kitsap County would respond. This team has full radiological and biological suits to protect themselves. The local Department of Homeland Security officer Bob Hamlin opinion was that their response time might be measured in hours, not minutes. Given that this very well may be true, wouldn’t it be wise to schedule a training exercise for the CBRN?
14. Will the Department of Transportation hold a public hearing in Jefferson County in regards to unmarked trucks carrying radiological weapons on our public highways?