USS Calhoun County sailors dumped thousands of tons of radioactive waste into ocean

[Coyotl]

USS Calhoun County sailors dumped thousands of tons of radioactive waste into ocean
William R. LevesqueWilliam R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer
Dec 20, 2013 http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/the-atomic-sailors/2157927

They asked the dying Pasco County man about his Navy service a half-century before. He kept talking about the steel barrels. They haunted him, sea monsters plaguing an old sailor.

"We turned off all the lights," George Albernaz testified at a 2005 Department of Veterans Affairs hearing, "and … pretend that we were broken down and … we would take these barrels and having only steel-toed shoes … no protection gear, and proceed to roll these barrels into the ocean, 300 barrels at a trip."

Not all of them sank. A few pushed back against the frothing ocean, bobbing in the waves like a drowning man. Then shots would ring out from a sailor with a rifle at the fantail. And the sea would claim the bullet-riddled drum.

Back inside the ship, Albernaz marked in his diary what the sailors dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. He knew he wasn't supposed to keep such a record, but it was important to Albernaz that people know he had spoken the truth, even when the truth sounded crazy.

For up to 15 years after World War II, the crew of Albernaz's ship, the USS Calhoun County, dumped thousands of tons of radioactive waste into the Atlantic Ocean, often without heeding the simplest health precautions...........

[2naSalit]

1. Not to make fun of this

because it's truly and important revelation but...

Suddenly what popped into my head was... so "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" was based on fact!?!

Or was that Godzilla?

At any rate, I recall the opening of one of those movies where boatmen were dumping barrels overboard and some of them leaked and at some point a monster was created from that event and came to terrorize the lives of humans and haunt them. Metaphor perhaps but some truth to it all the same... and this revelation adds to that.

[Bennyboy]

2. 64 Million pounds of toxic waste (nerve and mustard agents) dumped into the oceans

The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste – either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels. image from : politicalcortex.com

http://poopy.org/water-pollution/army-admits-dumping-waste-offshore/

[99Forever]

3. Yay for...

... teh military!

Always protecting us.

[valerief]

4. Don't be a wise guy. You know their job is protecting the 1%'s property. nt

[Coyotl]

5. Amend that to preserving the global structure of special economic privileges

In other words, the new world order of not-so-obvious colonialism.

[99Forever]

6. We are the 1%'s property...

... to be used, abused, drained, then disposed of.

(And just STFU while it happens.)

[valerief]

7. Ha! Yeah, but we're not their precious property. We're like paper napkins--disposable. nt

[DetlefK]

8. Something similar happened in the Baltic Sea.

The Soviets were tasked with getting rid off the chemical weapons of the Nazis after WWII. The barrels with the chemicals were supposed to be dropped at very specific locations in the Baltic Sea. That didn't happen: Most of the stuff was just thrown overboard as soon as the russian sailors were out of sight from the coast. Nobody knows where.

And nobody knows how fast the barrels are rusting and when they will release their content.