Building Bombs

The film begins with an introduction to the Savannah River Plant located near the small town of Aiken, GA. In the 1950s, the townspeople of Aiken were literally uprooted by the US government and the Atomic Energy Commission. The SRP consumed over 300 square miles of land to house what is now one of the largest nuclear facilities in the world. Though the government applauded the development of the land, the local economy and the security of the country, over 6,000 people lost their homesteads and had to be relocated. One family chose not to sell their land to the US government, even when they were offered a less-than-fair market price. Consequently, the government chose to house the family in a mental institution and took possession of the land.

Though the implementation of the SRP dislocated many lives, attitudes changed when jobs came in. The people soon experienced high times, and their futures seemed bright. Art Dexter, a physics engineer, is one individual whose life was changed by the SRP. As a young man, working for the SRP was quite a heady experience. He thought nuclear development was important for the country. Once he saw photos from Hiroshima, however, he changed his mind. Art realized the SRP was developing plutonium "buttons," each one capable of killing thousands. In 1953, Art was transfered into research, and though he was disillusioned, it was better than going to Korea.

In research, Art was working primarily with Tridium, the essential component needed to make hydrogen bombs. The SRP built 30,000 of the same bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki. US Nuclear plants altogether produced over 60,000 nuclear weapons. The SRP itself manufactured over 35 million gallons of radioactive sludge and still does, none of which can yet be destroyed. Since the SRP and others have been exempt from the federal pollution laws, they have buried more than 19 million cubic feet of radioactive waste in cardboard boxes.

A Department of Energy engineer, Bill Lawless was assigned to keep track of the buried waste even though the Department itself gave the SRP its blessings to bury as they wished. Bill noted in his report that DuPont, the company that owned the SRP, had buried waste in cardboard boxes for over 30 years, and did nothing to assure safety. He also realized that the Department of Energy, his own company, couldn't meet its own guidelines for plutonium levels ... so they lowered their standards. Lawless presented his report, but it was killed by the department. His superiors found him to be more and more difficult, so they handed him an award in order to insure his loyalty.

As time went on, Bill discovered more atrocities. Many of SRP's employees were developing cancer, and all were found to have Tridium in their blood. Even so, many of the workers and residents were reluctant to sign a health petition--they needed their livelihood. In the 1980s when radioactive turtles turned up on the grounds of the SRP, people finally started becoming aware, and Bill Lawless resigned. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, the Department of Energy came under great scrutiny, and DuPont resigned from the SRP after 38 years. Art Dexter has gone on to fight against nuclear weapons.

BUILDING BOMBS is more than a thorough historical account of the development of the atomic age in the US. It's a painting of the paranoid, naive and irresponsible climate that the Cold War created. Writers Susan Robinson, Mark Mori and William Suchy do an excellent job of presenting and re-evaluating what we thought we knew. Not only do they bring the information to our attention, they put it in our homes. The names we have grown to depend on, DuPont and Westinghouse, are names synonymous with safety. What a punch! But the writing is not the only selling point here: the music accompanying the footage is especially captivating. BUILDING BOMBS is understandably an award winner and should be required viewing for young and old alike. leave a comment