It was a warm and breezy afternoon at Red Gate Woods in the Palos Park Forest Preserve Sunday as Dr. Leo Seren, along with about 30 others, began their long trek up the gravel trail that once was Argonne Road.
Seren, a retired nuclear physicist for Argonne National Laboratory who helped create the chain-reaction process that resulted in the atomic bomb almost 50 years ago, had made the trip many times before.
”I used to drive my station wagon up this dirt road,” Seren said, strolling solemnly in his canary-yellow windbreaker. ”I`m one of the few scientists who worked on nuclear energy and turned against it.”
While the others in the group might not have had Seren`s credentials in nuclear studies, they shared his strong concern and dislike for the use of nuclear energy and its hazardous byproducts.
On Sunday, they erected placards with bright fuscia letters declaring:
”Caution: radioactive waste dump-proceed at own risk!” near 18 radioactive ”hot spots” in the southwest Cook County forest preserve where excessive levels of radiation were discovered by state officials two years ago.
”We believe the people have a right to know what is there,” said Martin Murray, co-director of Broken Arrow, which organized the sign posting. ”This material was found two years ago and they haven`t moved anything yet.”
Murray said Broken Arrow and other groups are planning similar events to mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Atomic Age, which began on Dec. 2, 1942 with Enrico Fermi`s development of the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
Residents and environmentalists also signed letters asking Cook County Board President Richard Phelan to post permanent warning signs in the area.
The environmental groups contend that not enough is being done to inform people about the history and potential danger of the area.
The sites contain radioactive waste from the world`s first two nuclear reactors. The reactors were part of the secret Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II.
Brian Quirke, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy, said seven of the 18 spots have been cleared and the other 11 are relatively harmless.
”People who are using the Forest Preserve for recreation should not fear contamination from radioactive materials because we have studied this territory more thoroughly than just about any other piece of property in the United States,” Quirke said.
Seren said that his years of studies have showed him the effects nuclear energy and waste can have on people. And after losing a few colleagues to radiation poisoning, he knew he had to get out.
”I know what it does to people,” he said. ”Even low levels of radiation can be dangerous because it builds up over the years. It starts out in small organisms like insects and then works its way up the food chain, eventually affecting humans.
”No matter what the government says, there is no safe threshold for radiation,” he said.
As the environmentalists marched through the woods tacking up their signs, bystanders played softball, barbecued and picnicked, seemingly oblivious to the groups` presence.
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Sarah Jane Knoy, regional director of Greenpeace, pointed out rusted pipes that still protrude from the ground where computers once stood to collect data on radioactivity in the area.
”It`s a shame that they have contaminated this beautiful area,” she said. ”And they`ve done nothing to warn people about what used to go on here so they just sit around like nothing is wrong, without knowing what they are sitting on.”
In 1990, the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety found radioactive material on the surface and slightly below ground at two sites. The Energy Department conducted a 200-acre survey a year later and discovered the 18
”suspect” areas where radioactive contamination is present. The property is owned by Cook County, but the federal government monitors the former nuclear reactor sites.
The Department of Energy has planned further study of the area in the fall, but no warning signs or fences have been put up to warn the public of the contamination. However, the handles have been removed from some of the pumps on wells that were found to be contaminated.
”They took the handles off the well over there because the water was contaminated and they didn`t want people to drink it,” said Robert Pritchard, co-director of Broken Arrow, pointing to a pump. ”But then they are still operating this well here which draws water from the same underground aquifer, what kind of sense does that make?
”The government has already spent over $800,000 surveying and cleaning up some of the area,” Pritchard said. ”But we want them to clean it all up.”
The first of the two reactors buried at the site was built and designed by a team of Univeristy of Chicago scientists under the direction of Enrico Fermi and performed the world`s first human-generated nuclear reaction. It was originally built on the University of Chicago campus, but was moved to the Palos Park Forest Preserve in 1943. The second reactor was built in 1944.
Both operated at Red Gate Woods in the forest preserve until 1954 and were then buried in 1956, along with other nuclear waste generated from the project.
And this has worried Eddie and Colleen Mangan, an Oak Forest couple who joined with the group in the forest preserve.
”This is very important. This is the water we are talking about,” said Colleen Mangan, 29. ”A lot of people come walking through here and picnic and things, and they could be hurt. I know I wouldn`t let my kids play here.”
During the 11 years that the Energy Department operated the reactors, workers dumped radioactive waste in a one-acre parcel of land now known as Plot M. In addition, after shutting down the reactors-the larger of which was 12 by 14 feet-the department buried one of the shells in a 19-acre area called Site A. All other materials from the two reactors were transported out of the state.
The existence of the two locations are presently tagged by commemorative granite markers that warn visitors that radioactive material is buried there. Quirke said the federal government has not removed the material because they have not been able to find another suitable location for it.
Federal analysis of the area is continuing, however. Administrative work has delayed a plan to drill parts of the area to get a better understanding of what is below the surface of the former reactor and material sites.
”This site really does not have the potential to harm people except for the stress that the thought of radioactive material can have on people,”
Quirke said.
But Pritchard said that as long as the materials are still on the land, there will always be a need to worry.
”Yeah, I get scared that something might happen to me if I keep coming up here,” he said.”But what about the future generations? I have kids and something has to be done to protect them.”