Full at
http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2012/05/18/poisoning-people-in-apollo-all-in-a-days-work/
"Apollo is a small town in western Pennsylvania, part of the old coal and steel
belt that surrounds Pittsburgh. The shallow Kiskiminitas River, a tributary of
the Allegheny, flows through the borough. Although it is close to my hometown,
I never knew much about it, except that my artist uncle once made a glass
carving for the town to commemorate the Apollo astronauts the community had
embraced.
I remember passing through Apollo and noticing a large industrial complex at
the edge of town. Years later, I learned that this plant was owned by the
Babcock & Wilcox Corporation, and it produced uranium fuel. Babcock & Wilcox, a
global conglomerate, has been involved in nuclear-related industrial production
ever since the Manhattan Project, designing, fabricating, and supplying
components for nuclear power plants, ships, submarines, and weapons.
The facility in Apollo and another one in nearby Parks Township, initially
built by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in 1957 and
later bought by the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and then by Babcock &
Wilcox, closed in 1986. Left behind were contaminated land and water and sick
and dead residents. Victims and their families sued the companies in the
mid-1990s for damages suffered, and ARCO and Babcock & Wilcox were forced to
pay $80 million to compensate victims for cancers and loss of property value.
Sadly, by the time the lawsuits were settled, in 2008 and 2009, 40 percent of
the claimants had died."
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
