For their “persistent protest against nuclear weapons at the Büchel Air Base,” Germany’s prestigious Aachen Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to Marion Küpker (at right in photo) and Elke Koller, and to the organizations they represent. Küpker is the international coordinator of DFG-VK, the German Peace Society, and spokesperson for the “Büchel is Everywhere!” campaign. Koller coordinates the group “Initiative Circle Against Nuclear Weapons.” Küpker, who also coordinates Nonviolent Action for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons which targets the Büchel base, wrote to friends when she heard the news, “I thank all those who have been in Büchel. This prize belongs to all of us!” Küpker’s organizing advocates creative nonviolent civil resistance, and Koller’s group uses more conventional public education. The annual prize comes with a grant of €2,000 ($2,200) and is announced every May 8th, which is celebrated in Germany as “Liberation from Fascism Day.” The award ceremony took place September 1st, the day German trade unions nationwide celebrate as “Anti-War Day.”
Glitches Delay B61 H-Bomb Replacement
Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2019
All the B61 bombs now in the United States and Europe are scheduled to be replaced by the “mod-12.” The website airforcetechnology.com says, “The B61-12 air-launched tactical bomb will carry a low-yield nuclear warhead….” [emphasis added] With 50 kilotons of explosive blast (50,000 tons of TNT), the B61-12 has over three times the force of the Hiroshima bomb that killed 140,000 people. Only a military mentality reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove can imagine over 420,000 dead as a “low yield.”
A total of about 3,155 B61s have been produced (as of 2012), beginning with mod-0. Approximately 540 are still deployed, 415 are in “inactive” status, and 520 are set for dismantlement, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
According to the Dept. of Energy, four versions of the B61 remain in the arsenal: models 3, 4, 7, and 11. These nuclear bombs have explosive forces of 170 kilotons (mod 3), 45 kilotons (mod 4), 340 kilotons (mod 7), and 400 kilotons (mod 11). They have between 27 and 32 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb.
The B61-11 was reportedly built to destroy underground targets, and the Pentagon has asserted that it can detonate at depths of “several hundred feet.”
The Pentagon intends to replace all the B61s now deployed in five European NATO countries. The B61-3s and B61-4s are to be replaced with the new B61-12. About 400 of the new bombs were scheduled to enter full production in 2020 and be deployed after 2023, but the $10 billion program has been delayed because of the delivery of faulty commercial electronic parts.
Asked in May 2019 if the B61-12 will be ready in 2023 as planned, National Nuclear Security Administration head Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said, “That should be beyond 2025,” she said, noting that “an issue” had arisen, without elaborating. Energy officials later said the delay to the B61-12 could last 18 months, Congressional Quarterly News reported.
At present, Turkish, Dutch, Italian and possibly Belgian air forces are planning to buy some F-35 fighter jets from the United States, and the F-35s could begin replacing existing NATO warplanes in 2024. Germany is expected to extend the use of its Tornado fighter jets through the 2020s. German Tornado fighter jet pilots at Büchel Air Base practice in the use of the US B61s to initiate nuclear war.
In July 2018, after a group of International Week protesters occupied the air base runway, the chief pilot from the base made a personal visit to the peace camp to complain. The chief pilot said to Susan Crane of the US delegation that the protesters had “endangered themselves and the pilots.”
Crane replied that the “pilots endanger the whole world by planning and preparing for war with US nuclear weapons.” The chief then said, “There were no nuclear weapons on those jets today.” -JL
—Sources: Congressional Quarterly News, Sept. 17, 2019; Nuclear Weapon Archive; The National Interest, “Why the B61-12 Bomb Is the Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon,” Oct. 9, 2018; Nuclear Threat Initiative; Government Accounting Office, “B61-12 Nuclear Bomb: Cost Estimate,” May 31, 2018.
Foundation Sues German Military for Büchel Air Base Radiation Data
The German civil liberties group Foundation for Renewable Freedom (FRF) wants to know if radiation—emitted by US nuclear weapons stored at Büchel Air Base—is a health threat to workers and the local population.
The Ministry of Defense refuses to publish data and documents on radiation hazards at the Büchel site. The FRF considers this irresponsible and has brought the Ministry of Defense to court demanding the release of the information to the public. “…we have filed a lawsuit and will release this information to the public through the courts,” said Martin Modlinger of the FRF Board of Directors.
“Anyone who is exposed to dangers must have a right to information about these dangers. How else does a society … debate meaningfully, and decide whether it is willing to bear these dangers?” Modlinger asked. “We cannot accept such disregard for citizens’ information rights.”
According to a news release by FRF, Germany’s Environmental Information Act allows citizens to request environmental data from authorities. Details about radiation from the air base can be demanded in order to assess the potential endangerment of residents or military personnel stationed there, FRF says.
Worst Kept Secret: US Nuclear Weapons Still in Europe
Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2019
Nuclear weapons are secluded behind high-level security and top-secret deniability. None of the nine nuclear-armed countries ever “confirm or deny” the locations of their particular warheads. In our last issue we deciphered enough military doubletalk to confidently if unofficially verify that 20 US nuclear bombs are still deployed at Büchel.
Still it came as a surprise this summer when the Belgian newspaper De Morgen published a leaked NATO document detailing the exact numbers and locations of the US nuclear weapons now in Europe.
Quoting the leaked NATO report, De Morgen revealed that the “… US forward-deploys approximately 150 gravity bombs, specific B61 gravity bombs, to Europe for use on both US and Allied dual-capable aircraft. These bombs are stored at six US and European bases—Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano in Italy and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in The Netherlands, and Inçirlik in Turkey.” (“Dual-capable” is a warplane that carries both nuclear weapons and others.)
De Morgen’s July 16 headline was, “Finally in black and white: There are American nuclear weapons in Belgium.” The paper’s exposé marks the first time that the officially secret deployment has been authoritatively confirmed by NATO itself. Dutch broadcaster RTL News mocked the significance of the leaked document saying, “NATO reveals The Netherlands’s worst-kept secret.”
The NATO report, titled “A new era for nuclear deterrence? Modernization, arms control, and allied nuclear forces,” was finished April 16, 2019 by the Canadian Senator Joseph Day, who is the rapporteur for the Defense and Security Committee of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly. —JL
—Brussels De Morgen, July 16; The Washington Post, The South China Morning Post, the London Sun, the London Express, and Military Times online, July 17, 2019
Ohio School District Rejects Energy Dept. Directive to Reopen Contaminated Middle School
Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2019
By Kelly Lundeen
This fall, the middle school’s 300 children, mostly between the ages of eight and eleven, will not have to be unknowingly exposed to disputed levels of radioactivity in order to attend class.
The Columbus Dispatch reported Sept. 13 that: “cancer-causing toxins including plutonium, neptunium, americium and uranium were detected on the property, and officials say the toxins are likely from the US Department of Energy’s decommissioning and disposal of radioactive materials from the former Portsmouth Gas Diffusion Plant about 3 miles from the school.”
The area school board officially quarantined the school site in September with the superintendent, Wes Hairston reported to have said, “No student should ever be unnecessarily exposed to dangerous chemicals or toxins. (DOE officials) like to use the words ‘trace amounts.’ Well, maybe that’s accurate. If that’s your child, would you want your child exposed to those things?”
The Piketon, Ohio school was closed May 14, 2018, after an independent study reported radioactive contamination that month, followed by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) admission that it had detected the presence in the school of—but had not informed the public about—radioactive americium in 2018, and neptunium-237 in 2017 (See Summer 2019 Nukewatch Quarterly cover story). The middle school is 3 miles from the giant Portsmouth uranium processing factory, which did uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons and reactor fuel for 47 years. Closed in 2001, the factory is being demolished by the DOE. Its 10 million square feet of floor space made it one of the largest industrial facilities in the world.
In May, additional studies were planned in order to “determine the source, levels, extent, and most importantly, the risk to human health related to the offsite contamination,” stated a Pike County Health District press release. In July, the DOE and independent researcher Michael Ketterer—the Northern Arizona University professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry who originally alerted the community to the contamination—reported conflicting results from samples taken at the school.
The DOE’s Portsmouth Environmental Monitoring website says, “Results from sample analyses conducted by experts at Savannah River National Laboratory show no radioactivity detected above naturally occurring levels, and no cause for public health concern. There is no public health or safety risk from radioactive material preventing Zahn’s Corner Middle School from opening this fall.”
Ketterer on the other hand duplicated his earlier findings of enriched uranium contamination. When he was asked about discrepancies, he explained that he had detected uranium contamination in the blank filters used to collect samples. “I was thinking when I saw that, ‘Why would [the DOE] choose this medium because it’s contaminated?’” the Columbus Dispatch reported. In a public meeting at Piketon High School August 10, Ketterer said that the DOE agreed, “with the findings that non-fallout (uranium, neptunium and plutonium) are present in some samples, and the elemental and isotopic signatures of those materials are consistent with (uranium) from [Portsmouth’s enrichment process],” the Portsmouth Daily Times reported. Ketterer also revealed that the samples he took outside of the school indicated the presence of neptunium in the Little Beaver River that feeds the Scioto River, a primary source of drinking water for south and central Ohio.
To help resolve the issue, the DOE is funding a third study by Solutient Technologies, a firm chosen by the Pike County General Health District. After the conclusion of the study currently underway, the local school board will decide the fate of the Middle School.
Not surprisingly, area residents have been in an uproar following the disclosure of radioactive contamination in the school. At least two class action lawsuits and a cancer cluster study have been launched. The Pike County General Health District is seeking assistance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the cancer cluster study. “There has always been speculation that the cancer rates are higher in people that live near the plant, but there has never been a scientific study to show that correlation,” said Matt Brewster, a Pike County Health commissioner. Ohio Department of Health records show that Pike County has the fifth highest rate of cancer in the state. Over the last five years, elected officials have reported five students contracting cancer while attending local schools.
Cathy Eick is a former staff member at Zahn’s Corner Middle School and a parent of two children who attended the school. “My kids have had friends that have either passed away or they’ve watched them fight cancer and it’s just not acceptable, especially when you hear the reports that they find something in your school that can make your child sick,” Eick told the Columbus Dispatch at a protest outside of a DOE event in May.
—Columbus Dispatch, Sept. 13, July 25, & May 21; Portsmouth Daily Times, Aug. 12; Department of Energy, July 2019; Cincinnati Enquirer, June 5 & May 14; WOSU Public Radio, May 15; Pike County General Health District, May 14; Ohio Department of Health, Jan. 18, 2019.
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