Also see below:     
Citizens Speak Out Against Divine Strake    [

    Utah Residents Rail Against Divine Strake Test
    By Judy Fahys
    The Salt Lake Tribune

    Friday 19 January 2007

    St. George - Southern Utah residents welcomed the opportunity Thursday to speak their piece about the proposed Divine Strake explosion test.

Person after person stepped to the microphone during the first of Gov. Jon M. Huntsman's two Divine Strake public hearings. Many of the same people derided information sessions held last week by the federal agencies behind the explosion test.

    Unlike the federal hearings, the governor's was not subject-limited to technical issues. The hearing was more like a political rally, where outrage, grief and frustration spilled out from about five dozen people who blame atomic testing in the 1950s at the nearby Nevada Test Site for a grim litany of illnesses and deaths. The non-nuclear Divine Strake blast also will take place at the Nevada Test Site.

    "It always surprises me we have to fight this," said Claudia Peterson, whose family has been plagued with cancer that she believes is caused by the atomic testing. "I don't think we should have to fight so hard to have a happy, healthy life."

    But a fight is exactly what all but one speaker insisted state leaders should do.

    They doubt the federal government's assertion the test will not send a mushroom cloud of radiation-tainted litter into Utah, like the earlier atomic tests did. They also want Divine Strake stopped to ensure that the U.S. government does not begin testing and using nuclear weapons once again.

    Department of Environmental Quality Director Dianne Nielson, representing the Republican governor, listened for more than two hours in a packed Dixie State College auditorium.

    Physicist Raymond H. Cyr urged Nielson to "be all over the measures" if the tests do go forward, since radiation from the atomic tests could be seen as far away as New York. "Distrust and verify," he said.

    Richard Andrews complained about lies from the federal government over the impacts of past tests.

    "I don't know about anyone else," he said, "but I don't trust them."

    Applause roared from the audience of more than 200 after his remarks, as they did many times after speakers talked about the lingering impacts of past tests.

    Two agencies, the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, say that Divine Strake (the name, they insist, has no meaning) will help the government learn more about destroying underground bunkers being used by U.S. enemies.

    Their plan is to detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate, a non-nuclear explosive, to measure the likely impact of both conventional and nuclear explosions.

    To many people, including Michelle Thomas, the federal government's studies and assurances mean nothing.

    "They can send me booklets up the yin-yang and I won't believe them," she said.

    St. George resident Carl Palmer was the sole speaker in support of the tests as a necessary tool for securing national security - and he was booed for it.

    He noted that he watched the atomic test explosions when he was a boy growing up in Cedar City, and hundreds of people like himself suffered no ill effects. He said the remarks made Thursday represented "a lynch-mob mentality."

    Palmer's comments, like those of his critics, will be included in the state's official statement to the federal agencies on their environmental assessment.

 

---

    Go to Original

    Citizens Speak Out Against Divine Strake
    The Salt Lake Tribune

    Saturday 27 January 2007

    The following statements were made at the hearing sponsored Wednesday by Gov. Jon Huntsman in Salt Lake City on the planned Divine Strake weapon test:

    "I was blood tested and tattooed along with my classmates by the government so they could monitor the effects of testing. I'm not interested in going through this again. I'll lie in the road if I have to. The trucks will have to run me over."
    Michelle Bird

    "It's empowering to hear everybody's personal stories. To those worried about being emotional: We need to be emotional. Write letters and make phone calls. This is a too-familiar road we're traveling down."
    Cindy Bur

    "I'd like to talk about U.S. leadership - or lack thereof. At a time when there are legitimate fears about nuclear-weapons programs in Iran and North Korea, at a time when just last week the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their clock a few minutes closer to midnight, at a time when U.S. credibility around the globe is at its lowest ebb, it's critically important the U.S. not take this action. As several others have said tonight, it's not divine, it's not rational, it's not necessary."
    George Cheney

    "The public can demand an Environmental Impact Statement and I hope that's something everyone will do. An EIS finally gives the public a say, but if people don't request it, it won't happen."
    Michael Cowley

    "I'm confused. An agency I've never heard of has a $2 billion-plus budget. Why isn't this money being spent better elsewhere? A bunch of guys just want to set off firecrackers."
    Terry Crowther

    "I'm a downwinder. My life has been shaped by what happened to me at the hands of my government. I have thyroid cancer and I lost a sister to lupus. In the neighborhood I grew up in I've counted 45 people who died of fallout-related illnesses. We traded our trust for our lives. We won't do it again."
    Mary Dickson

    "I believe we should use our resources, our science and our technologies to fund and explore options for peace rather than more options for war."
    Monica Dixon

    "I've had two miscarriages [the five other women in my family have had none]. The only difference was my address was Moab and theirs was Michigan. The government can't predict what dose of radiation downwind populations may receive nor how many cancers and miscarriages it will cause. There is no such thing as an acceptable dose."
    Susan Dolan

    "It's been my honor to listen to this testimony. I, too, went to the so-called hearing the government offered; it was a sales pitch for this disaster. It's ironic that [tonight's testimony will] be put on the Department of Environmental Quality Web site the same week the Legislature votes to cut their funding, in a year when we have a $1.6 billion surplus. When we pull the rug out from under the guardians, who will protect us?"
    Ed Firmage Jr.

    "I find Divine Strake to be totally counterproductive. We cannot blast our way to world cooperation."
    Naomi Franklin

    "For 25 years I've been attending hearings about nuclear this and nuclear that. I'd like to say no, no nuclear anything."
    Meg Hards

    "My husband and I, along with our children, moved to Cedar City in 1951. Our son Norman died at 42 of cancer. My son Paul died a horrible death at 55 from leukemia; my husband died three weeks later. These deaths were diagnosed as cancer from overexposure to radiation. Divine Strake is wrong and we need to stop it. I don't know how, but I know we must."
    Lois Iverson

    "This testing will begin an escalation impossible to stop."
    Janie Iwamoto

    "I was raised by a uranium-mining and hauling family. I've watched loved ones take their last breath and die of cancer related to radiation exposure. In the names of those I have buried, please do not allow these losses to be wasted."
    Collette Johnston

    "Here we are at the threshold of a decision. Do we walk back into weapons development with its environmental, health and ethical quandaries, or do we step into the future and make a stand for public health, well-being and peaceful diplomatic solutions? These choices define our character."
    Tara Maher

    "Developing and testing new weapons won't make our global community any safer; rather it will fuel continued violence and resentment toward the U.S. Let's put our resources toward true tools of peace."
    Shea Pickelner

    "I grew up without grandparents - they died of cancer and we received "compensation" which is a horrible, horrible word - so I grew up without anyone older than my parents, as did many my age in St. George. I want to add that story of suffering to the many that have been said."
    Katie Savage

    "My father died from multiple myeloma as a downwinder. They offered us compensation but no one can compensate for my father. We need to stand up and be noted and have the courage to say, 'I will not allow it again.' I hope we can get enough strength going between all of us."
    Barbara Stratton

    "I want to remind people about a victory: MX missile. We fought it tirelessly and eventually the government conceded. We stopped MX; we can stop Divine Strake."
    Robert Volker

    "I have a 1-year-old daughter; I'm here as momma bear. I love this state an awful lot. Every time I go camping I wonder am I camping on top of uranium tailings. I love gardening and I don't want to be afraid to grow food. I don't want to be afraid to drink water, or to breathe. We should just redraw the borders of Utah into the shape of a giant guinea pig."
    Kerri Warner

    In tests they exposed sheep to the same radiation downwinders received. The sheep died. I just want the federal government to know that we aren't your sheep.
    [name unknown]