Some Good News: Students Organizing for Ethics in Action

Last week I had the distinct honor of delivering the keynote talk at the 2019 Ethics in Action Conference at at my alma mater The Evergreen State College. The students who invited me to speak at Evergreen organized the entire conference of their own volition, outside of formal responsibilities to their individual courses or studies, driven by a desire to engage in meaningful conversation about the question “How do we create the world we wish to live in?” I was excited to participate in this conference after a month of really difficult news on the nuclear front. Early 2019 saw Trump’s administration announce production of new “low-yield” American nuclear weapons, declare their intentions to withdraw the United States from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, and drop demands for full accounting of North Korea’s nuclear program ahead of Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un.[I] All of these developments point toward the resumption of uranium extraction, plutonium production, weapons development and testing, and the expansive production of nuclear waste.

These news items are only a few of the most recent reasons I feel called to put my own ethics into action; my work is driven by the stories people have shared with me about the impacts of life in radiogenic communities.

The Ethics in Action conference is a space for curious and critical minds to engage with what ethics means to them personally, as a society, and how we can incorporate ethics into our daily lives. Our key question is: “How do we create the world we wish to live in?” We ask this question because we want to look at both ethical theory, where ideas emerge, and action, which puts those ideas into practice. The conference will consist of speakers, a symposium, and workshops. Students, faculty, grassroots activists and community members are invited to present on their particular ethical inquiries and practices. We hope that through collaboration and discourse, participants may feel empowered as ethical agents to act collaboratively in order create the world they wish to live in..

In my talk, “By Way of the Pasts We Write”: A Historian’s Perspective on Engaged Scholarship, (title thanks to the eloquent Dr. Martha Jones) I shared my journey to learn about, document, and advocate for the stories of downwinders and uranium-impacted communities around the American Southwest. We discussed the responsibilities of academics (i.e., historians!) to contribute to public conversations and policy. These imperatives troubled history of academic pursuits like history, anthropology, that have been tangled in colonialism, the military industrial complex, and white supremacy. Students and conference participants from a wide array of disciplinary and community backgrounds shared thoughtful responses, questions, and ideas, and we ended the evening by reflecting as a group on several key questions:

The following day, student organizers put on a series of breakout sessions, including a harm reduction workshop, a panel discussion on incarceration, education, and recidivism, a workshop on addressing homelessness, a workshop on rethinking disability, an anti-oppression workshop at the intersections of domestic and sexual violence, and a transformative justice ethics workshop. They hosted over a dozen local organizations for a tabling session, and then offered two sessions of papers examining varied and provocative ethical questions, contributed by students and community activists.

I commend each of the extraordinary organizers and participants for their dedication, labor, vision, and robust contributions to this vital conversation. I am inspired by their questions, their passion, and their commitment to co-creating a more just and sustainable world.

[i]Aaron Mehta, “Trump’s new nuclear weapon has entered production, Defense News (28 January 2019) at https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2019/01/28/trumps-new-nuclear-weapon-has-entered-production/(accessed 12 February 2019) and Julian Borger, “Donald Trump confirms US withdrawal from INF INF nuclear treaty,” The Guardian(1 February 2019) “https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/01/inf-donald-trump-confirms-us-withdrawal-nuclear-treaty, (accessed 10 February 2019).

Book Review by Sarah Fox published by Oxford journal of Environmental History

I recently had the privilege of reviewing an important new book on the 1970 Baneberry incident at the Nevada Test Site, and the ensuing 25 year legal saga. 

Review: The Baneberry Disaster: A Generation of Atomic Fallout. By Larry C. Johns and Alan R. Johns

The Baneberry Disaster: A Generation of Atomic Fallout. By Larry C. Johns and  Alan R. Johns. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2017. xvi + 210 pp. Illustrations, glossary, notes, index. Paper $24.95.

Review by Sarah Fox, Environmental History,  https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emy066

Published: 20 August 2018

Larry and Alan Johns’ The Baneberry Disaster is a gripping and timely account of an American nuclear episode that is long overdue for closer examination. The December 1970 Baneberry underground nuclear test vented close to 7 million curies of radiation, more than double the amount released in the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Numerous workers were exposed to contamination from the Baneberry test, and two died of leukemia within a few years. The workers’ widows became plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against the contractors of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by two young lawyers, Larry and Alan Johns. The lawyers were brothers just beginning their law practice; the Baneberry case would drag on for twenty-five years.

The Baneberry Disaster began as a memoir project for Larry Johns. After the lawsuit concluded in 1996, he began working with Alan to reconstruct the events of Baneberry and the ensuing saga of research and legal efforts. The book is based almost entirely on their notes and legal briefs as well as the testimony of expert witnesses, including test site workers and managers, meteorologists and geologists, and specialists from the fields of radiation health, cytogenetics, and epidemiology.

Baneberry fits into a well-documented historical pattern of disregard by the AEC and AEC contractors for health and environmental risks connected to nuclear development, dating back to the inception of the AEC in 1946. Larry Johns admits this pattern was not always visible to them as lifelong residents of Las Vegas: “The AEC became part of our community ... A-bomb tests became so commonplace we paid little attention” (p. 3). With the shift to underground testing in 1963, nuclear development receded further from local view. Baneberry was not the first underground test to vent into the atmosphere—numerous tests in the Plowshare series were designed to breach the surface for cratering research, and other tests did so unexpectedly—but Baneberry surpassed them all in severity. Surveys of the area prior to the test indicated geological instability, but the decision was made to detonate the ten-kiloton device regardless. No evacuation plan was prepared, and workers remained dangerously close to the detonation site. When the vent occurred, evacuation orders were delayed nearly two hours and then carried out by security guards instead of properly trained and outfitted radiation safety monitors. One of these security personnel, Harley Roberts, spent the entire day in the radioactive cloud; four years later, he died of leukemia.

Much of the lawsuit the authors filed on behalf of Roberts and other workers hinged on the complex task of reconstructing radiation doses, then connecting them to genetic changes and illnesses. To tackle this challenge, the Johns brothers sought out Dr. Shields Warren, the AEC’s first director of biology and medicine, noted epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart, and Dr. John Gofman, one of the original Manhattan Project scientists and the first medical director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Discussions about working with these researchers offer some of the book’s most interesting material.

Another valuable contribution of The Baneberry Disaster is its accessible discussions of the legal nuances of this and other efforts to hold the federal government accountable for health impacts from domestic Cold War nuclear contamination. While the authors ultimately lost the Baneberry lawsuit, and other lawsuits on behalf of exposed workers and citizens also failed to provide redress, these cases heightened awareness of nuclear risk and federal malfeasance and helped lay the foundation for the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The Baneberry Disaster’s primary limitation is its form as a memoir-based history. The authors’ intention was to record their own experiences and reconstruct the scientific and medical understandings available at the time of the trial. While the book succeeds in doing so, some sections have a distinct popular history feel, which will engage non-academic readers but may not satisfy those looking for a more rigorous historical analysis. The history of American nuclearism is impossible to apprehend with the tools of any single academic discipline. A willingness to approach these events with interdisciplinary tools and careful attention to the experiences and narratives of those living and working in proximity to nuclear sites is crucial. The Baneberry Disaster is a strong example of this sort of approach and an important contribution to the field.

Teaching Downwind

After the release of Downwind in 2014, I spent a year and a half touring the book and speaking to as many audiences as I could arrange to meet. My friends held a community fundraiser, university professors cobbled together honorariums, and humanities organizations lent their support.  I was still waitressing full time, with a young family, and I was still conducting oral history interviews with downwinders. The juggling act was not sustainable, and I worried I wasn't doing enough to launch the book and its stories out into the world. 

A new opportunity arose. Friend and colleague Rachel DeMotts, Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Politics at University of Puget Sound, invited me to develop an upper-division environmental studies course based on my research. "Nuclear Narratives of the American West" is the course that emerged, and I've now had the privilege of teaching it three times to students in the Environmental Policy and Decision Making program at UPS.  These students don't just read Downwind; they study oral histories from uranium workers and downwinders, historic AEC documents, popular media, scientific studies, poems, legal briefs, and epidemiological reports. They discuss research by scientists, sociologists, historians, and folklorists, poetry by Simon Ortiz, Sherman Alexie, Kathleen Flenniken and Michael McLane. They view original art by Ed Singer, take in documentary film, and pore over nuclear-impacted regions using google map technology. Some of them even folded paper cranes.

From the syllabus: 

This course will examine the history of Cold War era nuclear testing and uranium extraction in the American West, in order to understand the environmental, cultural, political, and health ramifications of these activities. Using nuclear history as a case study, we will explore interdisciplinary methodologies for gathering and studying narratives about human relationships with the environment.

For nearly five decades, the American West served as the primary staging ground of United States nuclear weapons production.  Vast swaths of land were appropriated by the military, the federal government, and the uranium industry, and massive amounts of toxins were released into the environment.  Severe contamination persists in many regions, and citizen populations have been struggling to make sense of the impact of this contamination for generations. How do we as scholars of environmental studies assess this chain of events? We must critically assess multiple narratives, including federal documents, small town newspaper coverage, oral citizen narratives, and peer-reviewed scientific studies. What analytical tools are most useful for sifting through this array of accounts? How have industry and government experts exerted their power to shape research, reportage, and public perceptions related to nuclearism?  How have the residents of affected areas come to understand the impact of nuclear industries in their regions, and how can we as scholars best analyze this local knowledge? More broadly, how can the information we draw from place-based environmental histories and the methodologies we employ in doing so inform our approach to other global environmental issues? 

The sixty students who have made their way through this class have produced remarkable reports on nuclear sites around the world.  They have produced original art, economic analyses, and legal critiques. Students have come to this class from fields as varied as health sciences, business administration, politics and government, music, biology, geology, sociology.  Each of them has applied their major disciplinary tools to the complex research and ethical questions nuclearism poses, and I have learned from every single one of them.  I hope to feature some of the remarkable work they have produced here in the future. In the meantime, I'll to leave you with some of the final reflections from students who took the course in the Fall of 2017. (See below). Their work gives me something different than hope. It gives me faith. (Thank you Rachel DeMotts for putting this into words!) Faith that they will keep these stories alive, think more critically, ask more questions about knowledge and power, and reach across disciplines to find more data, faith that they will bring this knowledge into their work as professionals and as citizens and as members of communities.

It's been an honor to teach this class the past few years and I look forward to doing it again soon. With gratitude... Sarah

# # #

"History has never been something I've had interest in; however, this course captivated me and kept me engaged throughout the entire 16 weeks. One thing that's stayed on my mind... is the role of scientists in society. I have always thought of science as meaningful work for public safety and awareness; but, as we've seen, science can also be used to manipulate citizens into thinking what other may want them to think. As a future environmental scientist, this has made me think about how I can ensure that this manipulation does not continue, and how I can work with others to present truthful, and impactful science for the general public. 

This idea of science also carries over to another important topic I learned: how we value people's narratives based on their background. I really appreciated the discussion we had regarding how people believe scientists because of their education, more than they do downwinders. To be quite honest, I feel as though this might have also been my mindset coming into the class as well. But after reading Downwind, I understand now that even stories that may not be scientifically corroborated can still be meaningful. These narratives can still provide insight into information that we cannot find in a scientific paper or report, such as local demographics, history, and culture. I cannot go into environmental studies in the future without considering the position of those who may not have a white-collar job. Although I picked up a lot of information in the class (and a slight distrust of the government now), these two points have impacted me the most, and have given me a lot to think about for the future. Seeing how nuclear testing may be resurrected soon, what I've learned will certainly be applicable in the next coming years. I am so thankful to have taken this class."

"I plan to become a scientific researcher, so it was very eye-opening to see the ways in which science was biased and suppressed during the nuclear era when findings conflicted with government interests. I think that learning about this will make me more critical of studies conducted by the government, pharmaceutical companies, etc. when there are obvious conflicts of interest. I think it will also make me more cognizant in general of what types of research are being conducted, and who is deciding to fund this research. This course has also given me a more nuanced picture of the costs and benefits of nuclear energy. Before taking the class, I thought that nuclear power sounded like a great alternative to fossil fuels, and avoided a lot of the problems of scale and efficiency that come with renewable sources of energy. However, this class has shown me how dangerous nuclear energy can be, not only in terms of accidental meltdowns, which are rare but may increase in frequency as the rates of natural disasters increase, but also in terms of the radioactive waste produced. As of now, it seems that there are no good, long-term solutions for dealing with radioactive waste, and instead this waste often ends up being ineffectively stored near poor and marginalized communities."

"Undoubtedly one of the biggest takeaways from this class is an entirely new understanding and perspective about the Cold War, and the realization of my previous ignorance regarding it.  So often we get caught up learning the narratives provided for us by major news sources, textbooks, and others who have very specific knowledge and understandings.  This course has taught me to search elsewhere, to seek out the stories of those who may have a harder sharing them.  Additionally, the further exposure to the overwhelming environmental racism in this world is detrimental and has pushed me in a different direction in my studies here than I had expected, but am grateful for, and plan to focus on and work towards helping in different ways for the rest of my life."

"I absolutely loved taking this course, I really appreciated how I was able to apply a broad range of my own interests to it which is unfortunately rare. One of the biggest takeaways that I am getting is my own research on the Marshall Islands.  I had never put much thought into this area of the world but have become captivated in it through my research. It is one of the first cases studies that I feel like really taps into many of my academic and extra curricular interests. I’m not sure right now if I will continue this research in an academic setting, but I plan on carrying a notebook with me after college that is on this topic and just seeing how full it ends up getting. The second biggest take away from this course is the research skills that I gained. I feel like the paper reviews were very beneficial and really got me in the habit of researching the people who where writing the sources I was looking at. I hope to take this into future work that I do."

"From this class, I will take away how governments can designate certain people (usually minorities or people from lower socieoeconomic classes) expendable. I think it is easy to oftentimes look at disasters or events that negatively affected people from a numbers perspective and see that “only x amount of people died, it must not have been too bad” but this class helped me approach these events from a more human side, one that looks at the stories the individuals have to tell. I knew very little about the nuclear testing that had gone on in the United States before this class and to learn about the atrocities that our government inflicted on its own citizens for the 'greater good' was horrifying for me. This class has helped me understand that there are many events in our history that are not taught in most classes or talked about by most people and so many people can grow up with no understanding of many of the atrocities that have occurred. I think that this class will help me dig a little deeper when looking at current events, especially those with environmental impacts to be able to see the full story about its impacts."

"This course has actually taught me so much, that narrowing it down to 2 or 3 learning points is quite difficult. But, the biggest takeaway I got from this class was my passion for environmental justice. I honestly learned so much more about the injustice that takes place in our world, apart from other issues, and I am excited to share my knowledge with the people around me. I want to make this environmental crisis into a social issue so more people are aware of the corruption our current policy holds. I had also thought that I had a pretty good critical eye when it came to scientific research prior to this class, but I have now been able to develop the skills to actually dissect the rhetoric reports use, where the funds are coming from, and able to find alternative responses to reports conclusions. Finally, this class has really solidified my affinity for the research world."

"I valued learning about an event that took place within the 'middle' part of the U.S. So many of my courses talk about decisions of large governments or political organizations, of if they discuss events occurring to people, those people are located in large cities, or other centers of people and money. I enjoyed taking a course that actively worked to center the experiences of people who are not near money or power--both in the U.S., and in some cases, outside of the country as well."

"I can say with confidence that I learned something new every week. I am so so excited to be taking your community environmental research course next semester to gain even more understanding of the world of environmental justice. You have been one of the best professors I have had at this school because you are able to teach students basic understanding of the society we live in, while not having students feel discouraged because they don't know much about a topic." 

"Some of the most important things I’ve learned from this course is that the American government does not care for the safety and health of its citizens when national security is in question. The government will also try and hide its mistakes rather than share information that may save people. Also, this class has taught me that there is much more radiation left in the environment than the US government would like us to believe, and that Native Americans have especially had to deal with more radioactive waste than almost any other minority group. I have also learned how important it is to consider all types of sources when researching a subject, and that anecdotal sources are just as important as scientific sources in understanding a situation like nuclear testing."

"Most all of my classes have focused on quantitative research and with the introduction to your book and the other material I enjoyed learning about ethnographic focused research and its accompanying characteristics. I found that it was intensely personal and in this case heavily reliant on peoples relationship with their government, land, and bodies. In thinking more about this another important takeaway was that relationship I described earlier. Before I had read any of the material I had no clue about the nuclear legacy of the American west. A nuclear legacy that seemed to take place right in my backyard around where I grew up. This has shown me that I cannot stand by idly and take my situation for what it is. It has taught me to look deeper into my home and surrounding area, wherever that may be, seeing that the nuclear legacy is not only specific to the American west but also the Pacific Northwest."

"Downwinders took note of things such as settler colonialism and environmental racism which a lot of books I’ve been assigned in college don’t. I also really appreciated the pieces by Sherman Alexie. He is an author I really like a lot and it was really interesting to see the way he incorporated his nuclear past in his work. I also really appreciated all the poetry we read. Its so interesting to read poems that have such personal and political meaning." 

"This class has left me with several valuable takeaways. One is distinguishing between the advantages and disadvantages of narrative as a way to justify a perceived environmental justice vs. scientific method/data as a way of justification. Another is understanding information flows and how media and certain power dynamics can manipulate stories/events so as to play along (or not play along) with governmental influence. Lastly, I have been left with a greater understanding of how corrupt government agendas negatively affect culture--particularly the cultural aspects of land and food--and especially how they negatively affect people of color."

"Before this course, I had never talked about in a course before was the way in which it is possible to critically evaluate oral histories of people within academic contexts. Most of the other classes I have either held oral histories as either unworthy of acknowledgement as unauthoritative knowledge, or otherwise, framed as infallible sources of radical information. I appreciated this course's more practical approach, particularly the way in which we discussed how to consider inaccuracies in information as further opportunities to study events. I also appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of the class, because the opportunity to compare formal documents, oral histories, artistic narratives, etc, helped me to understand a fuller and more accurate picture of what happened to folks living in Downwind regions of the world."

"What impacted me the most was hearing personal testimonies from people who had either experienced cancer themselves or had watched loved ones slowly die as a result of radiation exposure. It was heartbreaking to hear these difficult stories, and made me angry that our own government had caused this. I also thought it was very interesting to investigate the way in which women played a large role in the efforts to stop nuclear testing, and how they were faced with so many double standards - they couldn't be emotional or they were dismissed, but they couldn't be stoic because then they would be labeled as unloving and cold. The most influential aspect of this class was writing my research paper because it allowed me to dig really deep into a specific site. The case of the Marshall Islands, my chosen site, is both very interesting and very tragic. Learning about the forced (multiple) exiles of the Marshallese people, the sheer magnitude of the nuclear testing, and the way in which the US government used and promptly forgot about the native people was an eye-opening experience. Overall, I simply cannot believe how few people know the true story of US nuclear testing, and it makes me want to inform myself and everyone I know. This is so important!!!"

"Learning about the hierarchy of risk of the Soviet Union reminded me a lot about the hierarchy of risk of the AEC. How the AEC covered up the sheep death to avoid embarrassment is exactly the way the leaders of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant tried to cover up the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster. It clicked in my head that governments don’t pursue what is in each citizens interest when they pursue nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. In the United States, the government chose marginalized people to expose to environmental hazards... I usually believe that people are doing the best they can and that sinister behavior is just rumor and that this extends to officials in power. This class has taught me that those officials in power are only doing the best for their constituency, the people that keep them in power, not all people, not the people negatively affected by their decisions."

"Coming into this class, I knew pretty much nothing about nuclear activities or narratives, aside from the two bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I did not know anything about Downwinders or their testimonies, nor did I know about the U.S. government testing nuclear bombs in the American West."

"I personally have learned a great deal about radioactivity and elements that should not be played with unless taking appropriate safety measures to handle. Elements consisting of Plutonium and Uranium. I have learned that I should pay more attention to nuclear talks on the news hour, because their outcomes can decide the fate of millions of people. It was very informational to learn about the four major accidents that have happened at nuclear plants, like Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the other one. Before this class I had heard of Fukushima because it happened in 2011, but I did not understand the extent of damage that had actually taken place. This class has definitely taught me to be more suspicious of U.S. government documents and the idea of “national security.” I had a lot of fun learning about NASA, Cassini, and the Department of Energy’s role in creating the nuclear site on Saturn. It is scary to think that their have been nuclear accidents hidden from the public because they were not reported in the media. When I was researching media headlines for the Chernobyl accident, in my head I though I would find tons of headlines, much like there were for 9/11. But, instead I barely found any reporting at the time of the accident, which also taught me a lot about the media. Overall, this class was mostly depressing to learn about all of the sad Downwinder stories, and all of the wrongs the U.S. government has done, especially against indigenous peoples. But it also had a lot of very important information that needed to get out to public ears."

"I think it is really important to offer a class that teaches this subject material to future generations, because eventually... there will be no one who knows this history to stop the U.S. government from performing these tests and exposing people to radiation again. This class can help to prevent that from ever happening by getting the information the government does not share, out to the public."

Bringing DOWNWIND to the City of Salt

Sunset from the roof of the Salt Lake City Public Library, Tuesday October 20

In the past three days I've been able to present Downwind: A People's History in three different and really special Salt Lake City venues.  Tuesday night I visited the beautiful downtown library in SL and had a conversation with downwinder activist, playwright, KUED Director of Services, and all around force of nature, Mary Dickson.  It was a great format. Attendees sat in a semicircle of chairs and we sat in the center, sharing stories and fielding some fantastic questions.

Mary and myself speaking to a lovely audience at the SL Library. Thanks to Christina McWhinnie for this and all other photos from this event.

 I met Mary over ten years ago, when I was first begining my research on these issues.  I'd gone to hear writer and downwinder Terry Tempest Williams speak at USU in November of 2004. After her talk I waited in line to meet her and I told her that I was thinking about writing my master's thesis on the downwinders. She clasped my hands, gave me her best wishes, and told me I'd better call Mary, whose number she scribbled down on the margin of a program.  Mary immediately agreed to let me interview her, but she quickly became more than an informant for my project. She took me out to eat, she took me to the movies, she shared everything she knew. We spent one long night sitting up eating Girl Scout cookies and making postcards to send to elected officials in protest of the planned Divine Strake test.  Several years later Mary wrote a remarkable play, Exposed, about her journey to awareness as a downwinder, which was performed in SL and around the state to critical aclaim.  It was an honor and a pleasure to be reunited at this event to talk about our respective journeys and our work. This event (and in fact, most of my Utah tour) wouldn't have been possible without the help of several key folks. Rob DeBirk (who happens to be Mary's nephew) who worked for many years with HEAL, connected me to Michael McLane of Utah Humanities. Michael set up this and most of my other Utah tour events, lending his passion for the subject and his extensive connections around the state.

Michael McLane, the organizer of the Utah Book Festival and most of the Downwind Utah tour. Michael is an exceptionally talented writer and a particularly kind human being, to boot.  

The SLC Public library audience was full of really lovely people. I so appreciated each of their questions, comments, and stories, and their willingness to come out and participate in this event. Also, big thanks to SLC's Weller Book Works, who sold books at this and my Utah Archives Event. They have signed copies available in their store. 

On Wednesday I visited the Utah State Archives as a guest of Archives Month, where I spoke to a great crowd of archivists and community members about some of the archival documents that informed Downwind. (A link to a video of my talk can be found in the caption of the slide image below). Prior to my talk, Justin Sorenson and Heidi Brett of the University of Utah Downwinders Archive offered a short presentation about the remarkable work they are doing to preserve and share Downwinder oral histories, documents, and data. 

Click here to access a video of my presentation at the Archives. 

After my talk, archivist Jim Kichas gave me a fantastic tour of the facilities. People, there are SO MANY BOOKS in this room waiting to be written.  Get yourself to an archive and ask a brilliant archivist like Jim what's good. Its pretty magical when they set down that box on the table and you get to pull out those folders and see the literal pieces of history tucked inside.  

Behind the scenes at the Utah State Archives.  

Thursday I joined staff and several very special supporters of HEAL Utah for a luncheon to discuss Downwind and the work of building awareness and action around these stories.  Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the work to be done on this issue, I take great comfort from clicking over to HEAL's website to be reminded of the incredible work they are are doing every day to advocate for the environment and the people of Utah. It was amazing to meet them in person, and to hand over my small, heartfelt donation from the first year of Downwind's royalties. Keep up the good work, you amazing people. 

with the fantastic staff of HEAL Utah: Laura, Ashley, Matt, and Sophia. (Their official titles with HEAL are in caption below).

HEAL staff and some of the remarkable people who support HEAL's work through their own extraordinary activism, scholarship, civic engagement, and political work.  Back row: Professor Danielle Endres of U of U, Matt Pacenza, Executive Dir of HEAL, downwinder activist Eve Mary Verde, former Utah State Representative Jennifer Seeling. Middle row: Ashley Soltysiak, HEAL Senior Policy Associate, Jean Welch-Hill of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Front row, Laura Schmidt, HEAL Outreach Coordinator, Mary Dickson, downwinder activist and KUED Dir of Services, and me. Not pictured because she was taking the picture: HEAL Associate Director Sophia Nicholas.

I've had the great pleasure of staying with dear friends in SLC... thanks Christina and Sadiki! Now its on to events in Malad, Idaho and Emmett, Idaho this weekend.

Historical Treasures and an Unexpected Interview

Tuesday morning I had the unexpected pleasure of sitting down with Bruce Brower and Jan Arnell, children of Stephen Brower, who readers of Downwind will remember from Chapter 3 "Home on the Range," which discusses the Cedar City sheep die off of 1953. Jan graciously allowed me to look through her father's papers about the incident, which span several decades and have been assiduously preserved and organized, thanks to Jan. 

They document the career and efforts of a principled and earnest individual who spent years advocating for the ranchers of Iron County.   

I was thrilled to look through his papers, which included ample correspondence between Brower and AEC officials, public health officials, elected officials, private contractors brought in by the AEC to help assess the afflicted livestock, and later, Governor Scott Matheson of Utah, who also advocated strongly for the people of his state who had been affected by radiation. Brower saved his copies of meeting minutes with the livestockmen and the AEC, reports on the sheep deaths, and newspaper clippings documenting years worth of controversy around the sheep case. He even corresponded with former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall about Udall's efforts to organize Downwinder plaintiffs and "embarass the government into acting."

Press clippings from around the nation Brower saved in his files.  

It was an unexpected pleasure to get to interview Jan and Bruce about their father.  Here's hoping some day I get a chance to do another edition of Downwind  that includes some of the fascinating data from his personal papers. 

DOWNWIND: A People's History Utah tour set to begin soon (with special appearences in Idaho!)

This week, Downwind: A People's History of the Nuclear West author Sarah Fox will be returning to the region where her book research began ten years ago, to speak at libraries and universities across Utah (with a side trip to two communities in Southern Idaho) during the Utah Book Festival.  Her visit is made possible by the generous support of Utah Humanities, the Charles Redd Center for Western American Studies, and the libraries and institutions that will host her on this trip. Fox will be available to record oral history interviews for residents who are interested in sharing their memories of the Cold War in three different locations (noted below). Learn more about how to sign up for an oral history session here. 

Highlights of Fox's tour include:

Utah State University, Logan, Monday October 19, at 3:30 pm.

Salt Lake City Library, conversation with Mary Dickson, Salt Lake City, Tuesday October 20, at 7 pm.

Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City, Wednesday October 21, at 12:00 pm (Courtyard Meeting Room, 346 South Rio Grande (450 West), Salt Lake City, UT).

HEAL UTAH visit, Salt Lake City, Thursday October 22.

Oneida County Library, Malad Idaho, Friday October 23, 5 pm.

Emmett Library, Emmett, Idaho, Saturday October 24, 12:00 pm.

Oral History Gathering Session, Emmett Library, October 24, 1:30-4:00 pm. (email the author at downwindhistory@gmail.com to sign up for a time.)

Washington Branch Library, Washington City, Monday October 26, 7 pm.

Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Tuesday October 27, 7 pm.

Oral History Gathering Session, SUU Library, Tuesday October 27, 1-4 pm. (email the author at downwindhistory@gmail.com to sign up for a time.)

Enterprise Library, Enterprise, Wednesday October 28, 7 pm.

Oral History Gathering Session, Enterprise Library, 5-6:30 pm. (email the author at downwindhistory@gmail.com to sign up for a time.)

Charles Redd Center for Western American Studies, BYU, Provo, 11:00 am.

Downwind author Sarah Fox's Radio West interview with KUER's Doug Fabrizio

On October 15 Downwind author Sarah Fox sat down at Seattle's KUOW studios to chat with KUER Radio West's Doug Fabrizio about some of the stories in Downwind: A People's History. Listen to the program here.

Would you like to share your story of life downwind?

Author Sarah Fox will be available on three dates during her upcoming tour to record oral history interviews with residents who are interested in sharing their memories of the Cold War.  Digital recordings of these interviews will be donated to the University of Utah Downwinders Archive and the SUU archive.

Oral History Gathering Sessions will take place on the following dates:

Emmett Library, Emmett, Idaho, Saturday, October 24, 1:30-4:00 pm.

Southern Utah University Library, Cedar City, Utah, Tuesday October 27, 1-4 pm.

Enterprise Library, Enterprise, Utah, Wednesday October 28, 5-6:30 pm.

If you or someone you know is interested in sharing a story, please email the author at downwindhistory@gmail.com to sign up for a time at one of these sessions. If you aren't able to make it to an oral history gathering session, but would still like to share your story, you can submit a written history to Fox for donation to the archives (email downwindhistory@gmail.com to learn more), or you can contact the Utah Downwinders Archive directly to see about having your story preserved. 

Your stories matter. They are helping to change the historical record of the Cold War as it played out in the American West.  They are helping to bring awareness to the health problems, environmental contamination, and family tragedies that are still playing out across the downwind and uranium-affected regions. Thank you for telling them, and keeping this history alive.

Downwind reviewed in Environmental History

It was an honor to read Leisl Carr Childers' review of Downwind (excerpted below) in the July 2015 issue of Environmental History, a preeminent interdisciplinary journal published by Oxford University Press.  A former assistant director of the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Childers is intimately familiar with the stories associated with this period in history.  She's a well-respected scholar of the American West at the University of Northern Iowa and author of the upcoming book The Size of the Risk: Histories of Multiple Use in the Great Basin, due out this fall. You can read her full review of Downwind online if you subscribe to Environmental History, or access it online at a public or university library.

Excerpts from Review of Downwind by Leisl Carr Childers, Environmental History (July 2015), pp 527-8.

"In this riveting narrative about the experiences of those who suffered in the shadow of atmospheric nuclear testing and uranium mining, Sarah Alisabeth Fox offers readers a glimpse into what it meant to be part of 'all those little communities' in the American West downwind of military test sites and big corporate mines.  For Fox, downwind is at once a concept, a state of being, and a geographic location.  During the latter half of the twentieth century, downwind meant hazardous exposure to radiation; to be downwind meant to be rural, pastoral, Native or Mormon; to live downwind meant abiding in an undesirable place, proximate to dangerous activities, with no refuge or recourse.  Given these parameters, Fox argues that Downwinders, those who share in this concept, state of being, and place, represent the human cost of national security during the Cold War." 

"Navajo artist Edward Singer's 2008 painting Dear Downwinder on the cover captures the essence of her study---the problematic intersection of bodies and radioactive contamination."

"Written in an accessible literary style rarely seen in works that employ rigorous theoretical analysis, Downwind offers students and scholars of the Cold War a new perspective on the resilience of Downwinders despite efforts to obfuscate the effects of radiation exposure."

"Current works on the same topic... offer similar insights but do not interrogate the meaning of downwind.  Combining the intricacies of the official record with the complicated narratives of the individuals she interviewed, Fox provides texture and insight into becoming and being downwind within the framework of both nuclear testing and uranium mining."

Downwind author Sarah Fox interviewed on Bainbridge Community Broadcasting

This week I had the pleasure of riding the ferry over to Bainbridge Island to meet with my friend Channie Peters of Bainbridge Community Broadcasting. We had a wonderful discussion about my experience researching and writing the book, which you can listen to on the What's Up Bainbridge podcast on the BCB website. I'm looking forward to returning to Bainbridge on Sunday, July 19 to speak about Downwind at the beloved local and independent Eagle Harbor Book Co.

Thank you Bellingham!

Bellingham brought a fantastic set of questions to my talk on Downwind last week. It was a huge honor to speak at Village Books, and dear to connect with some of Bellingham's thoughtful writers, readers, scholars and activists.  If you live in the Whatcom or Skagit areas, please make a point of purchasing your copy of Downwind from Village Books.  They do incredible work in their community and they have been supporting authors like me for thirty-five years! They also have signed copies.

Downwind in the Cascadia Weekly today (and Bham's Village Books tomorrow!)

Today the Cascadia Weekly features a story on the writing of Downwind.  Check it out here! Tomorrow author Sarah Fox will be speaking about Downwind at Bellingham's own Village Books, at 7pm.  This week marks Village Book's 35th year in business... a remarkable achievement in a day and age when brick and mortar bookstores are disappearing from our neighborhoods.  Please come out to celebrate a remarkable independent bookstore, and pick up your copy of Downwind!

Ten days till Downwind debuts in Bellingham!

Bellingham friends! In ten days I'll be heading north to one of my favorite places...  Village Books. I grew up choosing titles there as a kid and a young adult, and I haunted the aisles when I lived in Bellingham in 2003, just before I headed off to grad school in Utah.  I'm especially thrilled to be speaking there during Village Book's 35th Birthday week.  (They're only 53 weeks older than me.) I can think of few independent bookstores I've loved or respected more. I look forward to seeing lots of familiar and beloved faces on Thursday, June 11, 7 pm!.

This week: Support the West Seattle Historical Society by purchasing Downwind and other titles!

This Friday, June 5, Downwind will be featured in the Words, Writers & West Seattle series at the Barnes & Noble in Westwood Village.  From 5-7 pm, I'll be speaking about the journey of writing the book, answering questions, and signing copies. It's my neighborhood so I'm particularly thrilled to be a part of this series, and I'm looking forward to seeing fellow WS faces. The best part though?

"Any purchases made by those attending the talk that afternoon and for the next five days will result in a contribution of 10 percent of proceeds to the Southwest Seattle Historical Society under the Barnes & Noble Bookfair program."

Please come on down and support Downwind: A People's History and the wonderful SW Historical Society!

DOWNWIND at The Evergreen State College

This past week I had the incredible honor of returning to my alma mater, The Evergreen State College, where I completed a Bachelor of Arts back in 2001.  I could not have researched or written Downwind without the training I received at Evergreen, an interdisciplinary college of the arts and sciences founded on inquiry and critical thinking.  A concern for social and environmental justice underscores many of the programs at Evergreen, which blend research from various disciplines to consider a central question or theme.  Four programs attended my talk: In Search of Lost Time, Where Are You: Introduction to Geography and Geographical Awareness, Counter Narratives: Songs and Stories Across Cultures, and Cultural Landscapes: Sustainable Communities, Environmental Justice and the Media. 

Honestly, I was ready to re-enroll right there. Each of the programs sounded incredible and worthy and fascinating. 

It was a thrill to discuss the power of interdisciplinary research for reckoning with pressing social and environmental problems with a group of scholars all deeply invested in doing similar work. 

Thanks for having me back, Greeners....

and thank you to my longtime mentor and former professor Sam Schrager, who gave me a really lovely introduction, and who taught me so much of what I know. (Look for a quote from him in Downwind)...

Back to my Geoduck roots

Some of you in the Pacific Northwest may have seen this story about the Evergreen State College this week.  It came as some overdue recognition and publicity for an incredible institution of learning, one many Washingtonians don't even know about. Tucked away in the woods outside of Olympia, TESC turns 44 this year, and its been doing incredible work for the duration.  I'm a Greener from way back (class of 2001) and this week I am honored to return to my roots to speak about my book.  Downwind is uniquely a product of the education I received at Evergreen.  Social and environmental justice were cornerstones of my learning as an undergraduate, and the thoroughly interdisciplinary training I received at TESC launched me into graduate school (and my research into nuclear history) with an ample toolkit for research and analysis.

I will be speaking at Evergreen this Thursday, May 14 in the COM Building Recital Hall from 12:00pm to 1:00 pm. 

Is Your State on this Map?

Areas of the United States crossed by two or more clouds from atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada between 1951 and 1962.  Map created by researcher Richard Miller based on AEC records on radiation dispersal from weapons testing.  Widely distributed by downwinder activists to demonstrate how  the fallout from US tests blanketed most of the country during this era.

Areas of the United States crossed by two or more clouds from atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada between 1951 and 1962.  Map created by researcher Richard Miller based on AEC records on radiation dispersal from weapons testing.  Widely distributed by downwinder activists.

Springtime in the Southwest, 1953

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Iron County Record, March 19, 1953

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Washington County News April 30, 1953, Iron County Record, May 7, 1953

The spring of 1953 was a busy time in the Southwest. Southern Utah ranchers were herding their sheep back across southern Nevada for lambing.  Baby-boomer families were raising children in the small communities scattered across the region.  Upwind, the Atomic Energy Commission was busy conducting its Upshot-Knothole atmospheric test series, which included eleven large-scale nuclear weapons. (For purposes of comparison, Hiroshima, Japan was bombed with a 15kt device- approximately 15,000 tons of dynamite. Several of the Upshot-Knothole tests topped 60kt).  Enlisted men from every branch of the armed services participated in the tests in order to condition themselves for atomic warfare.  Pigs were dressed up in military uniforms and caged in the blast zone, and AEC monitors gathered samples of radiation in wild animals, water, and agricultural products. Citizen concerns were dismissed by government representatives and assurances were repeatedly made that the tests posed no danger to human health in downwind communities. 

The Upshot-Knothole series in spring of 1953 released multiple dangerous radioisotopes, many of which were not fully monitored at the time.  Perhaps the most comprehensive data exists for Iodine-131, which swiftly entered the food chain via cows milk.  The spring 1953 tests account for approximately 25% of the total I-131 exposure to American civilians over 50+ years of weapons testing.  That exposure is conservatively estimated to have caused 28,000 cases of thyroid cancer. 

Spring of 1953 figures prominently in the stories of downwind residents, many of whom witnessed the mushroom clouds on the horizons from their playgrounds and remember the catastrophic livestock die-offs and miscarriages that followed in subsequent months.

Thanks to Theresa Trebon, who helped comb through hundreds of feet of microfilm to survey newspapers from the downwind region.

Turning over the Soil

When my husband and I bought our home in south Seattle's White Center neighborhood four years ago, I was six months pregnant with our son.  My husband built raised bed garden boxes in the front yard, and we immediately started growing our own food. Fast forward two years: we wanted to transform even more of our 1/3 acre from lawn into into growing space.  Before we broke ground though, I wanted to research something I'd heard about while I was pregnant:

The Asarco Plume.

For a full century, the Asarco Company smelted copper at their plant in Tacoma, about 30 miles south of where my family lives now. It dispersed a cloud of contamination bearing lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals across the south Puget Sound region, contamination that persists in soil around the area. 

Our neighborhood appeared to have experienced mild to moderate contamination, but just to be safe, I dug up soil samples and sent them to the University of Massachusetts soil testing lab.  There were negligible amounts of heavy metals, so we went ahead with cultivating food in our soil.  Lots of other folks in our region aren't so lucky. This is a problem that has played out in communities downwind of industrial sites across the United States.  Mines, nuclear facilities, factories, processing plants, factory farms, and other facilities of business all create plumes of contamination, not to mention the risks to environments and populations downwind if an accident occurs at those sites, or on the roads to and from those sites, along which toxic waste and chemicals may be transported.  Turn over the soil in your community: find out what industries have operated there historically, and the risks posed by current industries! This MomsRising blog post on vulnerability zones is a good place to start.  Knowledge is power! If your soil is contaminated, build raise beds and bring in safe soil before you grow food. Raise your voice in your community to make sure your family, your food, and your water are being protected from the byproducts of industry.

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On taking DOWNWIND to the Place I grew up

Last week I packed up my notes and a few copies of Downwind and drove an hour and a half north of Seattle in the wee hours of the morning.  I was headed to the town where I grew up, to give a few radio interviews and speak to a local writers guild. 

My parents still live in Sedro-Woolley, a small Pacific Northwest farming and logging town in the Skagit Valley, tucked against the Cascade foothills.  Driving the backroads from their house to my first engagement, I reveled in the rippling furrows of freshly turned soil, the glassy and crooked Skagit River winding between the fields, the aging barns still standing. 

I don't get back there as often these days.  My life in Seattle is rich and busy and complex, a tangle of research, parenting, marriage, writing, editing, waitressing, home-owning, and community.  Driving across the Skagit on the Francis Road a few miles from the community college where I studied over 15 years ago, I was struck by a realization:

The place I grew up, so distant from my current thinking, fundamentally informed my research and writing in Downwind.

From an early age, I was surrounded by the people and processes of agriculture and resource extraction.  As kids we went to the dairy to get milk in glass bottles.  My brother and I walked past tiny, dilapidated migrant worker shacks on our way home from the schoolbus.  We picked raspberries every summer for spending money, uncomfortably aware that the families who labored alongside us were picking for rent and groceries rather than movie tickets.  My sister and I shoveled manure for the chance to ride horses at the small ranch down the road.  Our mother brought us inside from the yard when the pesticide sprayers arrived, and we watched the harvesting machinery from our kitchen table while we ate breakfast before school.  Logging trucks rumbled down our highway, taking lumber out of the North Cascades, and our town hosted an annual "Loggerrodeo" to showcase the skills of its timber workers.  Volunteers from our high school filled sandbags every winter to stem the floodwaters of the Skagit.  Our parents still live in our childhood home across the street from the Mapes Farm, a family operation that has grown potatoes, carrots, and raspberries, among other crops, for decades. The rhythms and labors of agri-culture and resource extraction culture surrounded me as a young person. 

When I found myself in the farming, ranching, and resource extraction communities of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, and Nevada, struggling to understand the impacts of nuclear testing and uranium mining, I drew on the language and the culture of my childhood to engage in conversations with the members of those communities.  Familiar with the terminology and vernacular of the rural, I found common ground with my interviewees, becoming more deeply invested in their stories as a citizen and a scholar.

Despite my great love for the city in which I now reside, my roots will always stretch toward the rural. My concern for the people and places that produce our food and resources will always inform my work.

It was an honor and a pleasure to speak to:

The Skagit Valley Writers League, (thank you Sharon Anderson!)

Jodie Buller of Speak Up, Speak Out Radio (interview to air Tuesday, April 22 at 5 pm on 91.7/ksvr.org)

and Ann Bodle Nash of Skagit Talks Radio. (interview to air Tuesday, April 14 at 5 pm on 91.7/ksvr.org)