DECOLONIZING YOUR NEWSFEED
|
The 1945 Trinity Test in New Mexico of the world's first atomic bomb
explosion. Galerie Bilderwelt / Getty Images
|
FIRECRACKER BOYS | 06.05.22
Spoiler Alert: The following is a book review of The Firecracker Boys by Dan O’Neill (St Marten’s Press, 1994). It reveals various plot twists for those who would rather read (or listen) to the book
undeterred.
The Firecracker Boys opens centuries ago on the dramatic sand spit of Tikigaq in Alaska’s far north — home to the Tikirarmiut, an Iñupiaq diaspora, who intriguingly is referred to as the
“aristocrats of the Arctic.” In the 1700s, their wealthy subsistence economy thrived from an abundance of bowhead whales, bearded seals, walruses, caribou, and birds. The book traces a wayward plan in the 1950s and ‘60s by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that would disrupt these Indigenous lifeways by detonating a hydrogen bomb to create an instant harbor for exporting coal three months out of the year when the Chukchi Sea is not frozen. More than anything, the effort, named
“Project Chariot,” was intended to demonstrate a peaceful use of the atom, an idea that triggered fast concerns in nearby Tikigaq, by then known as Point Hope. When University of Alaska-Fairbanks biologists are brought on board to predict the environmental impact that the atomic blast might have on the Arctic, they begin to detect lies told by the AEC about the real risks of contamination. In turn, the scientists distance themselves from the deception by doing what some oil and gas workers are today doing: professionally revolt, expose industrial fallacies, and demand accountability. For
this, they are censored and ultimately lose their jobs at UAF. At least one of the men, William Pruitt, is convinced he’s been blacklisted after being offered a faculty position at another university only to see the opportunity suddenly rescinded. Pruitt later finds out that his former employer and members of the AEC disparaged his good name. When he lands another university professorship, he packs up his life in Fairbanks telling the Tundra Times, “If I told
anyone where I am going, I am sure the [UAF] would see that I didn’t get that job, too. Weeks later, AEC representatives reportedly approached the University of Oklahoma where Pruitt was teaching and encouraged his dismissal — an effort that, like Project Chariot, had altogether failed.
Earlier this week, I finished reading The Firecracker Boys and have been processing its 17 chapters. I was lent a dog-eared copy by a Fairbanks couple who have ties to the tight-knit science community featured in the book. The log cabin they live in was
once home to two women who gave birth to Alaska’s conservation movement, first in helping establish the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge in the 1950s before turning their attention to Project Chariot. So, I feel a special insider connection to O’Neill’s words marked with penciled side notes from those directly linked to this storied past. But my added tabs and Post-It notes fill in the
margins for all that I was anticipating from each turn of the page — a longing for the kind of revelatory and agreeable prose that had pulled me in from the start of Chapter One. I kept waiting.
|
Dan O'Neill, Fairbanks author of four books, including The Firecracker Boys. Dan O'Neill
| A
historical investigation, The Firecracker Boys published in 1994 by St. Marten’s Press is considered a literary staple in the timeline of Alaska affairs. Its author, Dan O’Neill said he was motivated by a sense of injustice befallen the ousted biologists. “[They] were fired and the points of view of [UAF president] William Wood and the Atomic Energy Commission
prevailed,” O’Neill said after he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from UAF, last year. But perhaps it is the way O’Neill came to writing the book that impeded a more meaningful narrative — one that could have centered Alaska’s larger colonial arc reflected in Project
Chariot and that speaks to a lasting legacy of pollution beyond Point Hope.
|
Originally, The Firecracker Boys, the nickname Alaskans gave the AEC scientists, was the working title behind a documentary for broadcast on the PBS station affiliated with none other than UAF. Local managers got cold feet about how the film might portray
the University — they feared negatively — and they canceled O’Neill just as UAF had canceled the biologists decades earlier. Such strange camaraderie no doubt contributed to O’Neill’s lopsided gaze on what can only be described as White Man politics. But for all the government deception, civic participation, and environmental racism that represents the saga of Project Chariot, it should make The Firecracker Boys one of the most relevant reads thirty years on. It’s
not. Instead, we are left to fill in important blanks.
As I read the book, one theme I was sure would be mentioned, but wasn’t, was how Indigenous lands were early and often targets for militarized radioactive fallout, beginning with the Mescalero Apache in New Mexico. Their reservation was no more than 50 miles downwind from
the Trinity Test site, the first atomic bomb ever to be detonated by the U.S. government on July 16, 1945. No warning was ever given by the AEC or its Manhattan Project. It would take another 75 years before the National Cancer Institute, in 2020, would come to the conclusion that some people probably got cancer from the fallout. And it’s been even longer for the federal government to accept responsibility. Last month, the U.S. House voted to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 (RECA) to include, for the first time, “downwinders” including the Mescalero Apache, and other neighboring communities. The deadline to reauthorize RECA falls one day before the blast’s anniversary.
|
Jackpile Mine, Pueblo of Laguna, Paguate, New Mexico Lee Marmon
I came of age in New Mexico on the Laguna Pueblo, about 200 miles west of the Trinity Test site, but we were equally in danger by our own exposure to radioactive waste. In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, our community was reeling from the aftereffects of operating, at once, the largest open-pit uranium in
the world: the Jackpile Mine. For decades, the mine employed hundreds of Lagunas, including my grandfather who was one of many who passed away before his time, probably from cancer. My family qualifies for RECA reparations, but my grandmother rejected the idea. She was too patriotic for any of that; my grandfather, after all, was a Navy veteran. As I got older, such military pride found its
place in my understanding of the dubious distinction, “national sacrifice area” of which my Pueblo and a constellation of other Native communities had been declared as part of the so-called Uranium Belt in the American Southwest.
None of this history was mentioned by O’Neill, not even when discussing, at length, the Nevada Test Site which was created by the forced displacement of 100 Native families under President Truman. The Western Shoshone never ceded their claim
to the land where the NTS carried out aboveground nuclear weapons testing from 1951 to 1963 — about 65 miles north of Las Vegas. And there’s no tally on how many downwinders were affected by the fallout. What is known is that about 85% all RECA downwinder claims have been approved out of 30-thousand filed, totaling to an estimated $1.2 billion.
The people of Point Hope aren’t even eligible to apply for RECA. Government officials have long-dismissed claims that Project Chariot can be traced to a spike in cancer rates first detected as early as 1990, but, as part of the Project, the AEC flew in nuclear waste from Nevada to the Arctic and
buried it in the frozen soil. Like the Apaches, the Iñupiaq were never told about it. They learned from Dan O’Neill who had come across these details through his research. According to the document, the soil came from within a mile of a blast at the Nevada Test Site. Officials with the U.S. Geological Survey told The New York Times that it buried the waste to see how radioactive isotopes containing strontium-85 and cesium-137 would react in the frozen tundra. They also downplayed the scale of the secret and the impact of its radioactivity. Perhaps no one was more upset by these revelations than Wilfred Lane Sr., an
Inupiat who had chosen 160 acres adjacent to the burial mound as part of his allotment assigned after the Alaska Land Claims Settlement Act in 1971 — the issue that ultimately put a stop to Project Chariot.
|
|
The Tikirarmiut stood up against the the AEC, questioning their falsehoods, recording their meetings, and demanding respect for their inherent sovereignty. Media
activism was central to this repertoire with the creation of the Tundra Times. These are moments that O’Neill is right to celebrate in The Firecracker Boys. But for this reader, it only makes me want more. You can order your book from the Indigenously Bookshelf, or take it in however you enjoy books these days.
|
|
|
ESSENTIAL LINKS
I am mindful of the topics I choose to write about each week, and so it’s not lost on me that I’ve delivered two back-to-back editions focused on Alaska. There may be more of that as I grapple with meeting some big deadlines this summer. I mean, it’s why I’m up here — for the extended reporting.
But I’d love to know what you think. The alternative is also to take a summer hiatus starting end of July so I can focus. But I value your readership so much. I’m torn. Please chime in and let me know what you would do in trying to make the best use of time while also nurturing such an awesome community.
Taikuu, you. Thank you for being here,
|
Number of Hiroshimas equal to the amount of nuclear devices the AEC planned to detonate with Project Chariot: 160
Average amount of caribou consumed annually by 300 villagers of Point Hope in 1960, in pounds:
100,000
Within the months of late March to early May: 9,000
Estimated mileage that caribou was harvested within the proposed Project Chariot blast site:
25
Average time an Inupiaq hunter could skin, gut, and quarter a caribou, in minutes: 30
Exact number of copies that rolled off the presses for the inaugural edition of the Tundra Times in
1962: 5,000
Estimated number of peak Cold War workers involved in nuclear weapons research and production: 600K
Estimated number of RECA downwinder claims filed since 1990: 30K
Average percentage which has been approved: 85%
Approximate amount of compensation paid to downwinders: $1.2B
By all RECA claimants: $2,547,360,067
Estimated amount the Department of Energy says is required to clean up nuclear waste from abandoned weapons sites dating back to World War II: $407B
Number of Notices of Intent to Sue threatened by Alaska against the Interior Department over contaminated federal lands conveyed to Alaska Native Corporations: 548
Estimated number of sites the Bureau of Land Management identified as contaminated lands in Alaska: 94
Total number of books authored by Dan O’Neill: 4
|
Learn More About RECA
Please share with anyone who may be eligible
The RECA covers certain uranium industry employment in the 11 states
The United States conducted nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons development tests from 1945 to 1962, mostly with uranium. Mining and processing the ore was carried by tens of thousands of workers.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed on October 5, 1990 as a low-cost alternative to litigation. And it will be extended for another two years.
Explore the RECA homepage for a partial summary of the requirements for compensation under RECA and why some claimants will receive $100K while others only half that
See how many RECA Awards have been approved, to date
|
“Thank you for writing this. Your newsletter inspires me.”
Wendy, the Internet
|
| Thanks, Wendy and to so many of you who reached out and shared a little about what spoke to you from last week's newsletter, "Climate Silence." Primaries are coming up for a good many of you, and I hope it has you thinking about what these midterms mean to you. Still monitoring Jessica Cisneros's race in Texas. It's a nail-biter.
|
And never miss an edition.
|
|
|
|
