COLD WAR TALE: Nuclear Workers Drank Contaminated Water When the Pipes Got Mixed Up
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2000/08/04/5.html
A Case for Erin Brockovich
David Case is a reporter for TomPaine.com. He writes about the environment
for the magazine.

Today's specials: Tuna casserole a la chromium!

Sound appetizing? It could have been on the menu at the Department of Energy's top-secret Oak Ridge atomic bomb fuel facility, thanks to some very creative plumbing.

Citing former supervisors at the plant, the Tennessean has reported that engineers, in a rush to produce bombs during the Cold War, sometimes hastily fused the sprawling facility's three separate water systems - mixing pipes for drinking water with those containing impure water for fire fighting and cooling machinery.

"If the (uranium fuel) process required additional water, they cut into the nearest pipe, whether it was the cooling water, fire water or sanitary water," a former plant supervisor said. (It's a good thing surgeons haven't picked up on this idea.)

The result? A firefighter quoted by the Tennessean says that in one building "workers had been assuming that they were drinking sanitary water when, in fact, they were drinking fire water that contained an antifreeze and substance and the chromium we put in to keep the pipes from corroding year-round and freezing in the winter."

Unfortunately, that may be responsible, in part, for the vast number of illnesses former workers complain about - cases that range from bleeding rashes and immune system shutdowns to "constant bone pain so sever that wearing clothing can be unbearable."

      Now this is a good simple point on the water contaminations in these plants and puts it into things the public connects with like Erin B movie.