One Mile From Home: Casualties

Posted By Gary Zalimeni on Jun 8, 2015

One Mile From Home ®

By Gary Zalimeni

One Mile from Home: Beginnings (Part One), Published March 2015 (Provides links to all previously published One Mile from Home Articles.

Part Four. Casualties

As expected our findings, that radioactive contamination was present in our local neighborhoods, made national headlines. Since I was the chairman of our newly formed citizens committee, I was the spokesperson that the major networks wanted to interview. Surprisingly, doing interviews on national TV isn’t that difficult when you are sure of your findings . . and we were. With Dr. Karlson’s reputation in the Nuclear industry we had no doubt about his test results.

Since my father‘s death, two years earlier, I became more and more aware of people in our locale who either had cancer or had died of cancer. With that in mind our committee decided to make a list of the people that we knew who had been stricken. We were shocked to find that there were 43 people, living in a two block area, who either had cancer or died from cancer. My father was one of those people.

Soon after our story made national headlines I received a call from a representative of the environmental group Greenpeace. I was informed that they wanted to help raise public awareness about the radioactive contamination in Ashtabula. Within a week we met with their representatives and informed them of our findings including the locations of the residents who had died of cancer. We presumed that they would hold a demonstration at the RMI plant location but they did more than that, much more.

On the morning of their planned demonstration we woke up to find a black flag, with a white skull and crossbones, posted on our front yard. Upon seeing this I walked to the front of our home and looked both ways up and down our street and saw black flags on almost every tree lawn (area between the sidewalk and street). Greenpeace had placed hundreds of these flags throughout east Ashtabula in the areas nearest the RMI plant. On that same day members of the group, all dressed as the Grim Reaper, climbed utility poles and refused to come down.

My first reaction was a feeling of satisfaction that this international organization would recognize the severity of our situation and decide to show solidarity with us. On the other hand, because of the esteemed people working with us (Gen. Lambros and Dr. Karlson) our committee did not want to be involved or associated with radical behavior of any kind. It was too late, Greenpeace had done its’ job. Once again, their demonstrations, caused the story to make national headlines, their plan had worked.

I decided to call Kim Bratten from WKYC TV Cleveland to announce our request for a detailed health survey by the Ohio Department of Health. Her story made regional headlines and two days later, out of the blue, I received a call from Mr. Robert Indian, the director of the Ohio Department of Health. After a lengthily conversation I convinced him to conduct a health study which would target the cancer cases within one mile of the RMI location. The following day Mr. Indian advised me that the decision had been made to start the study immediately. I was convinced his decision was the result of immense public pressure from news media coverage.

During the weeks that followed we had several major meetings with executives from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Reactive Metals Corp. In the first meeting they required Dr. Karlson to give a detailed report of his radiation test results. It seemed apparent that in the subsequent meetings with the NRC and RMI, they were trying to test us for further information that we might have. I found these meetings to be very unnerving considering their seriousness. Was there a possibility of arrest, after all, the plant was a top secret operation and I was the one who inadvertently blew the whistle? What about reprisal, would there be any? Their attire and demeanor didn’t help. Looking back, their appearance reminded me of the lead characters in the movie Men in Black.

Although I received much support throughout our community, I was also criticized for making a “big stink about nothing.” To me, one of the most surprising revelations was just how many people were so apathetic to a situation that was obviously detrimental to their personal well being even when the threat is literally on their doorstep. A good example was Mt. Carmel elementary school which was located about 500 ft. from the RMI uranium extrusion plant.

I cannot recall one single comment from Mt. Carmel’s administration concerning the danger that the RMI posed to the children in their school in spite of the fact that many students were victims of childhood leukemia. A close friend of mine, who taught at Mt. Carmel, came down with Hodgkins disease.

Dear Reader, This image shows the proximity of the school in reference to the plant site. If you Google map Mt. Carmel School, Ashtabula, Ohio you can zoom in on the plant site to see how they raised the plant completely and removed all materials along with all the mud down to a depth of 30 feet. Author

We waited anxiously for the results of the Ohio state health study that would confirm our suspicions and perhaps our greatest fears.