Blockading the Bomb Plant

By Sue Bowman

Vol. 5, No. 6, 1983 pp. 5-7

Demonstrations against the deployment of US Cruise and Pershing missiles have been mounted all over Europe this fall. In West Germany the campaign is called “Hot Autumn.” Included in the protests are civilly disobedient blockades of the American bases, scheduled as the deployment sites for the first-strike missiles.

In the early morning hours of October 24, the Natural Guard blockaded the “Bomb Plant” in South Carolina, the birthplace of every one of the United States’ nuclear weapons.

The pre-dawn light revealed about one-hundred people filing down the shoulder of Highway 125 toward the Jackson gate of the Savannah River Plant. Cars zipped by, their headlights glancing off the signs and banners that the protesters carried. The drivers looked straight ahead and kept moving–it was seven a.m., shift change, and they were among sixteen hundred workers entering this gate to be at work by 7:45 at SRP, the nation’s current producer of bomb-grade plutonium and tritium.

At the precise moment it was light enough to distinguish human forms from shadows, two cars travelling abreast on the highway slowed and stopped, halting the entire flow of traffic. Occupants of the car, members of a Natural Guard “affinity group” from Charleston, jumped out and positioned themselves and their banners in the road. The two cars pulled away, leaving the determined human roadblock.

Police, who had expected the protest but were unsure of the form it would take, immediately moved to arrest the blockaders, but as those people were dragged away, another group thirty yards back stepped into the road. This was repeated by three more groups.

Forty-five minutes later the traffic was still blocked. At one point the stoppage stretched back to Augusta, Georgia, twelve miles from the gate. Fifty-four people were arrested at the Jackson gate, as supporters cheered from the sidelines and chanted, “No Pershing, no Cruise, either way we all lose!” and “The people united will never be defeated!”

At the New Ellenton gate of the three hundred and twelve square mile facility a group of approximately sixty women who had participated in a peace camp sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) converged on a busy intersection at a red light. Twenty-five women blocked that entrance for fifteen minutes.

Seventy-nine blockaders were charged with refusing to obey police officers’ orders to leave the highway. Bond was set at $110.25. Some refused to give their names and were denied bond, some chose to stay in rather than pay bond for financial or moral reasons, and others bonded out the same day. Trial was initially set for November 8, but requests for jury trial have pushed the date to January 9.

The blockade capped a weekend of anti-nuclear actions that began with a Saturday rally at a site approved by SRP officials. Speakers at the rally included Anthony Guarisco of the National Association of Atomic Veterans, who spent sixty-seven days at ground zero in the Bikini Islands; Rebecca Johnson, a participant in the two-year-old peace encampment at Greenham Commons, a US base in England and one of the first deployment sites for the cruise missiles; Kay Camp, former member of President Carter’s Nuclear Disarmament Committee just returned from meetings with European peace activists; and many others.

The events were sponsored by the Natural Guard, a coalition of peace, environmental and human rights groups. The platform for the actions called for a halt to the global testing, production and deployment of all nuclear weapons, the funding of human needs over the military, and an independent study of the health and economic impacts of nuclear weapons production at SRP.

The Savannah River Plant was constructed hastily in the early 1950s, part of the government’s anti-communist thrust and the global powers’ race to gain thermonuclear superiority. The federal Atomic Energy Commission swallowed 312 square miles–two towns, six thousand people and 6,100 graves–in a rural corner of South Carolina, taking chunks out of Barnwell, Aiken and Allendale counties. Displaced farmers couldn’t buy land for what the government paid them, and the economy quickly shifted from its agricultural base to a dependence on the Bomb Plant. Today nearly ten thousand people work there. It is difficult to find a person in the surrounding communities who has no personal or family connection with the plant.

SRP is owned by the Department of Energy, direct descendent of the AEC, and has been operated since the beginning by E.I. duPont de Nemours. DuPont has so downplayed its connection with the military that few know of its integral role in nuclear weapons. The company operates SRP on a cost-plus contract as its “patriotic duty,” according to a DuPont report entitled “Certain Information About the Savannah River Plant.”

The facilities include five reactors, three now churning out plutonium, one inactive, and the L Reactor, scheduled to restart this year. The L Reactor recently became the subject of a heated controversy when the state of South Carolina joined a suit by environmental groups to prevent the reactor from operating without an Environmental Impact Statement. The DOE reluctantly agreed under legal order to do an

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expedited EIS, but other questions remain unresolved and troublesome. The reactor will dump 176°F. water into Steel Creek because the reactors, unlike commercial plants, have no cooling towers; radiation releases are not controlled by containment structures: and the Tuscaloosa aquifer beneath SRP is threatened with eventual radioactive contamination (officials are now dealing with chemical contamination in the aquifer).

Meanwhile, production is being stepped up, with the possibility of a new reactor being sited at SRP, although there is increasing sentiment expressed by experts that the plutonium and tritium are not needed.

The Bomb Plant has operated for thirty years under the government’s cloak of mysticism–national security. Consequently, most of the reports on radioactive releases from the plant have been classified. Dr. Carl Johnson, former Director of Health for Jefferson County, Colorado, who has done extensive studies on health effects around the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility, examined declassified documents from SRP and found that routine and accidental releases of radiation have been several times that reported to the public. Although vital statistics indicate that rates of infant mortality, cancer and heart disease are higher study done surrounding counties, there has never been an independent study of the health effects caused by SRP’s operation.

An unpublished by DuPont has shown that “lung cancer and leukemia were significantly increased” among workers at the Savannah River Plant when compared with other DuPont workers and the general public, according to Bob Alvarez of the Washington based Environmental Policy Institute. Alvarez was asked to participate in a Center for Disease Control evaluation of the study.

Why did the Natural Guard take on the Bomb Plant with civil disobedience?

“Six years ago the Natural Guard took the point on opposition to nuclear waste and reprocessing with eight-hundred arrests in 1978 and 1979,” commented Natural Guard organizer Brett Bursey. “We were then viewed as the lunatic fringe. Now the governor and even Strom Thurmond have come around on that issue. Direct action is but one of the factors that change social and political realities–but I believe it is a dynamic catalyst that can light fire under an issue. The issue of nuclear disarmament will be resolved when the social and political costs outweigh the gains. We plan to be a significant cost they will have to consider.”

Jill Morris of Athens, Georgia, said she blockaded SRP “because the Bomb Plant is killing us–and if we don’t commit civil disobedience at the Bomb Plant we’re commit tiny ourselves to suicide.”

Local farmer Steve McMillan, who has long been a vocal opponent of SRP in every other forum available to him, said, “To tell you the truth, I’m putting my money where my mouth has been. I felt kind of lonesome out there–I knew I would probably get criticized by a lot of local people who would look down their nose at me and think I’m crazy, but it was time for me to take a stand for what I been saying.”

Randy Tatel commented, “When I decided that nuclear weapons were a political and humanistic insanity, I turned to find a legislator who represented me…and there were none. Consciously, it fell to my shoulders to be my own representative and take the military machine head-on. Civil disobedience then was a natural decision.”

Bursey notes that it is not a frivolous decision. “What we’re seeing now is that the government is ready and willing to crack down on civil liberties to stem mass protests like this.” He pointed to a legal maneuver by the federal government just before the blockade which would have drastically altered the character of the demonstration. “A federal judge virtually declared martial law in South Carolina.”

One week before the blockade, a US Attorney, prompted by the Department of Energy, asked federal judge Charles Simons for an injunction to prevent the Natural Guard from interfering with the operation of the Savannah River Plant. The injunction would have provided criminal contempt of court charges against anyone who trespassed or blocked access to the plant. Wording of the request went as far as to request that the injunction prevent anyone from aiding, abetting or assisting someone in trespassing or blocking access to SRP. It attempted to certify the Natural Guard as a class, subject to a class action suit, although it is not a membership organization but “an ad hoc coalition called together to host a specific event.”

U.S. Attorney Henry Dargan McMaster said the broad nature of the injunction meant protest organizers could be cited for contempt before the blockade and jailed without bond for six months and possibly longer. Bursey asked hypothetically, “Does that mean if a church takes up a collection to support the blockade, they could be held in contempt for aiding and abetting the blockaders?”

It was only the point of interfering with access that actually concerned the blockade plan. The Natural Guard’s stated objective was to block traffic on state property, never intending to trespass on federal land. The state misdemeanor carries a maximum penalty of thirty days and/or one hundred dollars, while trespass on SRP property would have brought a fine of one thousand dollars.

Federal officials, frustrated that they would have no jurisdiction and fearing that the state penalties would not discourage protesters, sought to extend federal authority onto state property. The idea was that with the injunction in place, the federal government would have the power to deal with anyone who even looked cross-wise at the Bomb-Plant if they could convince the court that such activity would irreparably threaten national security.

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Judge Charles Simons was glad to oblige the US Attorney’s request. Simons is used to power. As Strom Thurmond’s former law partner, maneuvered into judgeship by Thurmond under Nixon, he has long wielded a stern gavel in South Carolina. In numerous cases before him Simons has been openly hostile to anti-nuclear protesters. He said on the record that wherever Brett Bursey goes “violence is likely to follow”. He clearly expresses his view that the Natural Guard is more than a bunch of pesky demonstrators but a dangerous threat to national security.

During the three hour hearing, Simons told Natural Guard attorney Danny Sheehan, “We do things a little different in South Carolina,” and proceeded to talk at though he had already ruled even before he had heard the defense. When defense attorney Lewis Pitts protested, “We just feel the ballgame’s over,” the judge snapped, “I happen to be in the driver’s seat and we will move forward.”

“Regardless of the legal niceties I would be inclined to do whatever is necessary to protect the operation of the bomb plant,” Simons said.

The judge was riled by the suggestion that he may not have the authority to issue the injunction. “I don’t care if they (the protesters) are up in Columbia. I’d have not hesitancy about issuing an injunction if the operation of the SRP was in question.”

“If I don’t have the authority to enjoin, I’d be surprised,” he growled.

Natural Guard attorney’s argued that the injunction violated separation of powers because there were already penalties established by state and federal legislators for the violations protesters intended to commit. Sheehan noted “They are actually subordinating fundamental constitutional structures to get at these people.”

“Waving the red flag of national security is used frequently to blind the court,” Sheehan insisted.

Simons was not impressed and he slapped on the injunction with apparent relish. The ruling confused many people planning to attend the legal rally on Saturday, who believed Simons had made even that exercise illegal.

The Natural Guard made a mad dash for the Fourth Circuit of Appeals, racing to get a decision before the rally now only days away. On Friday night, an expedited hearing before one judge gained a suspension of Simons’ order pending a full hearing. Fourth Circuit judge Francis D. Murnaghas, Jr., ruled that the proposed actions would not be a grave threat to national security and that the First Amendment rights of the protectors would be impermissibly infringed upon by the injunction.

The constitutional nature of this case has prompted legal assistance from national and state organizations of the American Civil Liberties Union as well as several large firms specializing in constitutional law. The outcome will have implications for any group planning to demonstrate at federal facilities linked to national security.

The many-faceted international opposition to nuclear weapons, combined with a growing awareness of “the bomb in our backyard,” is tugging away SRP’s cloak of mysticism. The reality behind it is becoming more frightening. Antinuclear activists in the southeast will be increasingly called upon in the near future to “Blockade the Bomb Plant” not only with civil disobedience but with every means available to sane, intelligent and nonviolent people.

Sue Bowman lives in Columbia, South Carolina and writes regularly about Southern disarmament activities for several publications.

The Bomb Plant on Trial

By Sue Bowman

Vol. 6, No. 1, 1984, pp. 10-12

Fifty demonstrators who blockaded entrances to the Savannah River Plant last fall were found guilty of a traffic violation January 11, but the nuclear weapons facility which produces the plutonium for US weapons, sustained a direct hit to its reputation.

The two-day trial of the protesters, before Aiken, South Carolina, Magistrate Court Judge Max A. Meek, resulted from a demonstration October 24 hosted by the Natural Guard, a coalition of peace and environmental groups (see Southern Changes, December 1983). The blockade coincided with international demonstrations against nuclear weapons.

A three-man, three-woman jury deliberated over an hour before returning a guilty verdict for “failure to obey a police officer.” The defendants were sentenced to one-hundred dollar fines or eleven days in jail.

During the trial, blockaders explained that to prevent a “greater harm,” they were compelled to disobey police orders to leave the road in front of the plant. The thread running through expert testimony suggested that they had every reason to be concerned. A former Department of Energy “company man” confirmed allegations that SRP has withheld reports of widespread radioactive contamination; an authority on the medical effects of radioactive contamination warned that the plant endangers the lives of people living around it; a retired Navy admiral and Pentagon nuclear weapons strategist testified that increased production and deployment of nuclear weapons has greatly increased the threat of nuclear war and that the Bomb Plant would be a first target.

DuPont, contracted by DOE to run the plant, is guilty of a pattern of negligence and has suppressed information about radioactive contamination, according to DOE’s former head of nuclear waste management at SRP. William Lawless, nuclear waste project engineer for six years, said a 1981 report which outlined his criticisms of the waste program was reclassified as a “draft” report. He said DuPont objected to the contents of the report and that because of the reclassification, the document could be withheld from the public, even if requested through the Freedom of Information Act.

Lawless gave many examples of contamination reports withheld from the public and numbers-juggling by the company to make releases appear harmless.

One report deliberately withheld was a 1977 internal document which listed forty “monitoring wells” on SRP property which had been contaminated with radioactive tritium. Some of the wells contained levels of radiation 200,000 times that allowed for drinking water. (Out of court, Lawless said this discovery caused him to quit drinking plant water.) According to Lawless, the contaminated water, as much as 400,000 gallons from one well, was pumped out of the wells onto the ground to conceal high levels of radiation. This would result in temporarily lowered readings of contamination in those wells.

No records on types of hazardous and radioactive waste were kept at the “burial ground” at the plant. For twenty years, pipes in which tritium was manufactured were buried “uncapped” at the plant, contaminating the water.

There was extensive corrosion in twenty-seven high level waste tanks, even before they were fully constructed, and Lawless testified that reports of these conditions were deliberately suppressed.

Numbers were juggled and regulations rewritten to make releases of radioactive gases appear less significant. “In the real world, the gas is still there,” he said.

Robert Alvarez, Director of the Nuclear Weapons and Power Project for the Washington-based Environmental

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Policy Institute called Lawless’ testimony “startling and highly significant …. This is the most significant finding about SRP that’s been made public in years.”

SRP officials accuse Lawless of misinterpreting facts, and said the reports were available to anyone who asked for them–but each report must be requested by name.

Lawless’ testimony about mishandling of waste at SRP, and discrepancies between public and internal reports, magnified the testimony by Dr. Carl Johnson, former Director of Public Health, Jefferson County, Colorado. Johnson told-the jury how the releases and discrepancies translated into dangers to health.

Johnson told the packed courtroom that declassified SRP internal documents from 1954-1975 showed radioactive releases were much larger than those reported to the public. On March 15, 1955, an accidental release of radiation resulted in radiation levels four hundred times background level. “In my opinion it should have resulted in evacuation of this area.”

Johnson said that it is hazardous to live in Aiken or the surrounding area, that residents lives are in danger “to a medical certainty.” Johnson based his predictions that the area would show high cancer rates on data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and on his own extensive studies of health effects around the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility in Colorado. “There is no level of radiation without effect,” he said several times

Rear Admiral Gene LaRocque, retired after thirty-one years in the Navy, seven as Pentagon nuclear weapons strategist, brought the spectre of nuclear war into the courtroom. He spoke matter-of-factly about the vulnerability of facilities like SRP in a nuclear attack.

“Plutonium production facilities would be among the first targets,” he said. “If we hit a production facility (in the Soviet Union). . tit would spread radioactive material over a tremendous part of the country and be a devastating blow. . .It would be a natural first target. . .We would want to get their war-making capacity.”

“We need to assume that the whole Aiken area would be a prime target for a nuclear strike,” LaRocque said. If an attack hit right on the plant, due to wind shifts, “the radioactive materials would be impossible to control. . . We don’t have plans to deal with that sort of catastrophe.”

LaRocque said that with the offensive posture of US nuclear policy, we’ve actually decreased our national security. The military is geared to “fight to win. . we’re uncomfortable with deterrence.”

“We’re ready now in thirty minutes to destroy the Soviet Union. All the president has to do is say go.” he added.

LaRocque defended the blockaders’ tactic. “Civil disobedience is one of the many good ways to bring it to public attention. . .People should do something every day to prevent nuclear war.”

Framed in the context of expert testimony, defendants’ compelling reasons for blockading the road and being arrested made absolute sense. In the courtroom, a very diverse group of individuals told their stories.

Adele Kushner, a retired county employee and grandmother from Atlanta, said, “I have become concerned over what kind of world we are leaving for our grandchildren.” She said she had tried every other means to get her government’s attention before deciding to participate in the blockade.

Beth Ann Buitekant, a registered nurse from Atlanta, talked about the inadequacy of the health care system because of military expenditures. About weapons proliferation, she said, “I personally have no control over it, except to do exactly what I have been doing.”

Andy Summers, a Methodist minister and pastoral counselor from Savannah, downriver from the plant, said nuclear war would result in “destruction on such a massive basis that we hardly have the capability to think about it” and that this results in a “psychic numbing.” “We need to develop new, vivid symbols to come to grips with the worsening situation.”

Brett Bursey, program director of a social action organization in Columbia, South Carolina, noted, “Not only are they doing something against the wishes of the majority of the American people, but they’re lying about it.” He referred to Lou Harris polls indicating that three-fourths of the American people support a nuclear freeze.

Bursey expressed the importance of civil disobedience in American history, including the Boston Tea Party and civil rights movements. “There would not be black people on this jury if years ago black people didn’t refuse to go to the back of the bus,” he said, addressing the one black juror.

Ed Clark, 77, a church pianist from Greenville, said his participation in the blockade was “a way of bearing witness against the nuclear arms race. . .which could happen tomorrow. I felt it was an urgent matter–I had to take part.”

A former welder at SRP and other facilities, Butch Guisto, who grew up and still lives in Augusta, testified that his welds were never X-rayed, and that there was a “cavalier treatment about radioactive releases” at that plant. “I know for a fact that tritium releases occur,” relating that he had been present on several occasions. “I live in this area, and I’m just as responsible as anyone else,” he added.

Testimony in the trial deeply affected even the defendants, who are generally more educated about nuclear issues than the average citizen. Local farmer and blockader Steve McMillan had testified that he became concerned

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about the Bomb Plant over a period of time. “I began to suspect the people in our area weren’t getting the truth,” he told the jury. Walking out of the courtroom after the verdict, he slowly shook his white head–“It’s worse than we said it was.”

The jury chose to take the prosecutor’s way out and find the defendants guilty of the traffic violation. “They broke the law, plain and simple,” Assistant South Carolina Attorney General James Bogle told the jurors.’

Defendant Randy Tatel commented on the jury’s decision. “I empathized with the jurors in that they couldn’t have remained objective in reviewing the evidence. It would have meant overcoming the numbness, the years of acceptance of the Bomb Plant in their back yard–they were told pointblank that the plant was killing them and their children and contributing to the threat of nuclear holocaust.”

But the “convicts” were jubilant. Not one expressed more than a shrug of “well, it would have been nice to be acquitted,” instead, conversation went to the impact of the trial. As one defendant later expressed, “The more I think about it, the more I realize how big we won. We never really expected to be acquitted, but think of the local education that occurred! The policemen listening to Dr. Johnson, the judge, the jury, people who will talk to the jury about what they heard, the list goes on.”

He concluded, “Maybe next time we will be acquitted as well.”

Sue Bowman lives in Columbia, South Carolina and writes regularly about Southern disarmament activities.