#project chariot

[unwelcome-ozian]

1958–1962: An Atomic Energy Commission field study — “Project Chariot” — spread radioactive materials over Inupiat land in Point Hope, Alaska. Today, cancer is the leading cause of death in Point Hope. Alaska Dispatch, 2012.

[uafairbanks]

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission decided in 1958 that it would be a good idea to use six nuclear blasts to excavate a harbor near Point Hope, Alaska. The commission called it Project Chariot. The next year, the University of Alaska got a $107,000 contract from the AEC to study the environmental impacts of the proposal. The university, demonstrating its enthusiasm for the idea, granted an honorary doctorate to Edward Teller, the "father of the H-bomb," who was then directing an AEC lab in Livermore, California. As the environmental research progressed, several university scientists objected to the way AEC officials downplayed the risks of radioactive fallout. In 1961, biologist Les Viereck resigned from the contract work in protest. His decision cost him his teaching job -- the university administration declined to keep him on staff. The next year, biology Professor William Pruitt was fired after he resisted modifications to his report to the AEC and publicly criticized the proposal. The AEC dropped Project Chariot in August 1962 in response to the growing criticism from scientists, environmental activists and Alaska Native peoples.

[midcenturysuggestion]

publish a glowing editorial about the plan to detonate h-bombs on the coast of your state to excavate a completely unnecessary harbor

[captawesomesauce]

Project Chariot was a 1958 US Atomic Energy Commission proposal to construct an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson on the North Slope of the U.S. state of Alaska by burying and detonating a string of nuclear devices.

Opposition came from the tiny Inupiat Eskimo village of Point Hope, a few scientists engaged in environmental studies under AEC contract, and a handful of conservationists

In addition to the objections of the local population, no practical use of such a harbor was ever identified. 

Although the detonation never occurred, the site was radioactively contaminated by an experiment to estimate the effect on water sources of radioactive ejecta landing on tundra plants and subsequently washed down and carried away by rains. 

 Sometimes you come across stuff like this and you just have to shake your head and hate mankind for its hubris and it's stupidity.