Yellow flyer entitled "SALT DOME NUCLEAR TESTING 1964 AND 1966 40 YEARS OF SUFFERING AND DEATH 40 YEARS OF GOVERNMENT INDIFFERENCE."

SALT DOME NUCLEAR TESTING 1964 AND 1966 40 YEARS OF SUFFERING AND DEATH 40
YEARS OF GOVERNMENT INDIFFERENCE. At the time of the detonations, 365 families were living
 
within a 5-mile radius of the Salmon Test Site. The blasts were carried out without the consent of the people and there were no evacuations. In 1989 Senator Trent Lott expressed his support for a cancer study in Lamar County, which to this day has not been done. The families that have not been wiped out altogether have had to deal with multiple deaths, chronic illness, and staggering medical and future expenses. No one has ever received a single dime that might have helped to defray these costs or to relocate the innocent victims. In the year 2000, a bill was passed in Congress in cooperation with the Department of Labor to compensate site workers, a process which is currently underway. The resident's tragic fate, however, was swept under the rug. Neither Senator Trent Lott nor Congressman Gene Taylor has responded to our pleas for help (dated 7/4/03, 8/4/03, and 11/17/03). These officials were elected to serve us, their constituents. It is their duty to right the wrong done by sponsoring a bill in Congress which will allow us to be fairly compensated. It is also their duty to put an immediate halt to the renewed activity currently going on at the site to prevent further contamination. If you feel, as we do, that the government should make restitution for the horrendous crime perpetrated upon us 40 years ago, Please post this text on the Internet, distribute it to the news media, and mail as many copies as you can to the Honorable Trent Lott, United States Senate, Suite 487, Russell Senate Office Bldg, Washington, DC 20510-2403. and to The Honorable Gene Taylor, United States Congress, 2311 Rayburn House Office Bldg, Washington, DC 20515-2405. Thank you very much. We are extremely grateful for your support for all families concerned, Irmgard Anderson and Betty Bryant, 209 Bay Creek Road, Lumberton, MS.
39455, Tel. (601) 794-6935, e-mail: imzanderson@aol.com.

The Tatum Salt Dome, also known as the Salmon Site, is a region of woods in Lamar County, Mississippi used for nuclear weapons testing. In 1960, the Atomic Energy Commission Site Evaluation Committee selected the Tatum Salt Dome as the experimental site. Four years later, the first of two nuclear weapons test detonations known as the Salmon Event occurred. The Salmon Event has a 5.3 kiloton (KT) yield which was about ⅓ of the energy of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Two years after the initial Salmon Event, the Sterling Event happened with a 0.38 KT yield. There were two additional gas explosion tests as part of Project Miracle Play. The first one was a Diode Tube Gas Explosion in 1969 while the second one was a Humid Water Gas Explosion in 1970. These events were part of a series of nuclear device tests because the United States wanted to learn more about detecting underground detonations during the Cold War.

To avoid contamination, scientists filled the area with a concrete plug and gravel. However, two months after each event, scientists drilled a hole to lower tools into the blast's area. Both times, the drillings raised the radioactive water and soil to the surface. Prior to the Salmon Event, locals complained that they did not want the nuclear devices detonated near their homes but were only given $10 per adult and $5 per child evacuated. Directly after the detonations, the government reimbursed many residents who complained about damage caused to their homes or water wells.

Official site cleanup began in 1971. By April 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that there was an insignificant amount of tritium, a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen, in the surface ground, and that the federal and state guidelines for contamination were met. In July of 1993, the Remedial Action Corporation (RAC) stated that, after reviewing published data of research by Federal and State agencies, the full extent of contamination was still uncertain and required long term remediation due to the presence of hazardous substances.

In April of 1995, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Health and Office of Epidemiological Studies published a "Tatum Salt Dome Test Site Descriptive Cancer Study." The goal of this study is to find the rate of cancer deaths in relation to the Tatum Salt Dome. This study quantified cases of cancer based on an analysis of death certificates from 1980-1991 because there was no cancer registry in Lamar County. There were 177 deaths from respiratory and intrathoracic organ cancer and 158 deaths from non-cancer respiratory diseases.

In June 1995, the Mississippi Forestry Commission advocated for converting the Tatum Salt Dome into a state forest. While a bill was proposed in 1996 to turn the land into the Jamie Whitten Wildlife Management Area, it was not successful. In the 1990s, the DOE invested $1.9 million in a safer water system for locals of the area. In 2015, the United States government paid about $5.5 million to residents who reported illnesses caused by the nuclear device tests. Additionally, a monument was raised to warn people against digging the land.

For additional information:

Cresswell, Stephen "Nuclear Blasts in Mississippi" Mississippi History Now, August 2008, https://mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/nuclear-blasts-in-and%20behaved%20like%20ocean%20waves

Richter, Bonnie S. "Tatum Salt Dome Test Descriptive Cancer Study" Department of Energy Office of Health and Office of Epidemiological Studies, April 1995

Thome, J. "Research and Development Environmental Monitoring Report Radiation Monitoring On and Around the Tatum Salt Dome, Lamar County, Mississippi" Environmental Protection Agency, April 1991

Associated Press "Federal government pays $5.5M for nuclear site claims." Hattiesburg American, 13 December 2015, https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/local/2015/12/13/tatum-salt-dome-millions- paid/77254776/

United States, Congress, House "All Information (Except Text) for H.R.2552 - To transfer the Tatum Salt Dome property to the State of Mississippi to be designated by the State as the Jamie Whitten Wilderness Area." Congress.gov, 26 October 1995, https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/house-bill/2552/all-info

Text by Fatima Karim, Sophomore, Biological Sciences (Biomedical Emphasis).