Death in the Backyard: Part 4

“‘ Just 58 miles west of Indianapolis, the Newport Chemical Depot houses enough of the nerve agent VX to kill every person on earth.’ ” 

Wearing a Cheshire cat grin, Diogenes hit me with that quote this morning before I had even had coffee. I blinked at him.

“Gets your attention, doesn’t it?” he asked, handing me a magazine. “That’s the lede from an excellent and well-balanced story in Indianapolis Monthly. It’s the November 2001 issue. It was timed perfectly, as everyone was still jumpy about terrorism.

“Somewhere in the Operations Office of the Newport plant was a map of the region, divided by concentric circles centered on the Newport Depot. The central circle wasn’t red like a target. It was black, and it was called the Dead Zone. In the event of a major accident it was the area the powers that were had decided would have to be written off because there would be no way to evacuate and/or save those within it.    

“While my cousins—and I when I was visiting—were playing tag and baseball and swimming and riding bicycles and learning to dance and having picnics and campouts and birthday parties and big family Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings and trying to understand algebra and going to drive-in movies and parks and discovering sex and puzzling out conjugations of Latin verbs and having not a care in the world—and right on through maturity and falling in love and getting married and having children—we never knew we could be snuffed out in an instant. We worried a little about ICBM attacks, but not about ‘friendly fire’ death floating in across the river. We were in the Dead Zone! For almost half a century! And no one knew! Can you begin to understand why this angers me?”

This last he almost shouted, he was so heated. I’ve never seen him so exercised about an issue.

I was silent for a moment, partly out of respect for his emotion, and partly from the shock of hearing about his childhood. Until then I wasn’t sure he had had one.

Finally I ventured, “But you’ve said the plant wasn’t secret. Surely there was some knowledge of the facts.”

“It’s true that the plant itself wasn’t secret, and neither was the nature of its products, but the civilian workforce was strongly urged not to discuss their work or anything they knew about the plant. And such was the longstanding friendly relationship between the plant and its neighboring towns that the employees seem willingly to have acceded to that charge.

“My uncle was well placed in his community and had a great many contacts. He hobnobbed with politicians, law enforcement personnel and several people who worked at the plant, and if he knew anything he kept his silence.

“In the 1980s when the truth began to come out the army was forced to mount a sort of public relations campaign. There were public meetings held mostly to assure the locals they were in no danger, and some people began disputing that point. As more information emerged the public became more engaged, and some very heated meetings took place. 

"When the army’s plan to destroy the VX by incineration became public people became even more active. Incineration had proven problematic in the past, and the knowledge that the agent could be spread by fire helped to support arguments against the process. Finally, after some head butting between army personnel and activists, the incineration plan was dropped and chemical neutralization was agreed upon. It was at the beginning of the neutralization program that the spills I discussed last time happened.

“Let me draw a worst-case scenario for you. Let me stress that this series of events would have been statistically virtually impossible, but the real world does have a tendency sometimes to ignore statistics. The circle that was the Dead Zone had a 30 mile radius. It would have been near impossible for any accident to affect the entire area. Prevailing winds would have caused one vector to suffer while the rest would likely be spared. But humor me.

“Imagine a bright summer day with no clouds and no wind. It’s Sunday and only a minimum staff is at the plant. The army has agreed to allow CSX to park a half-dozen tank cars filled with LPG on a siding until the gas can be transferred to a holding tank on Monday. The siding is between two bunkers that hold ton containers of VX.

“Early that evening an off-duty guard is strolling the grounds, enjoying the evening air and a cigarette. As he crosses the siding with the tank cars he tosses his cigarette butt in their direction—and under, as it happens, a car with a leaking valve. The hapless guard is vaporized in the ensuing explosion, which also rips open the bunkers and ruptures a dozen or so VX containers. The nerve agent is carried upward by the firestorm thousands of feet higher than the visible fireball, expanding as it goes. At about 12,000 feet it stops and begins descending in a circle into the Dead Zone. No wind, remember?

“When the VX reaches ground level it immediately contacts a few hundred people within a few miles of the plant who have come outside to look at the fireball. The explosion destroyed the plant’s communication center, so the system that should have sounded an alarm is never activated.

“Inside a couple of hours 2,827 square miles of mostly productive farmland has been rendered unusable, possibly for years, and virtually every structure will be uninhabitable. More than a hundred fifty thousand people live within the Dead Zone, and they will start to die in minutes, along with all pets, livestock and wildlife under the umbrella of death.

“Within two hours, long before the fire at the plant is extinguished, the Dead Zone is dead.”

Death in the backyard: Part 3

Replying to some comments about his most recent post, Diogenes protested, “Yes, some people call me a conspiracy theorist, but that’s nonsense. I don’t think the army established an RDX plant in 1941 with the intention of converting it to VX manufacture twenty years later. VX hadn't even been developed then.

“What I do think is that they took advantage of a trusting and credulous populace. Even though the plant manufactured weapons of war and was guarded by the military, it frankly posed little risk of enemy attack, and virtually no risk to the surrounding population.

“RDX is a remarkably stable explosive; it’s still popular for that characteristic and is the primary ingredient of C-4. It explodes when primed by a fuze or blasting cap, but is almost impossible to energize in any other way. In the unlikely event of an explosion at the plant only those working there would have been harmed, and they surely knew the risks.

“Likewise with heavy water; you could bathe in it, drink it, use it otherwise just like common H₂O, with no ill effects. It is not radioactive, and you would have to ingest a great deal of it if it were to be injurious.

“So you have a plant that, despite its purpose, had a friendly and benign reputation and relationship with its host communities. And one of the things the military does very well is to recognize an opportunity when it sees one. 

“Retooling the plant to manufacture VX was obviously less expensive than building a new one, and they had a ready-made and willing work force nearby. It would seem, as the saying goes, to be a win-win situation. Unless, of course, some VX got loose. Then no one would have won.

“Again, this goes back to the military-industrial partnership, which even such a dyed-in-the-wool conservative as Dwight Eisenhower spoke against. Both the military and large corporations are by nature impersonal, and that makes them dangerous. Their officials think nothing of writing off death and injury as ‘collateral damage’ if their goal is attained.

“In any event, after Richard Nixon frustrated the M-I alliance by shutting down all U. S. chemical weapons manufacture in 1968, there remained as much as a quarter-million gallons—yes, you heard that correctly—of VX to do something with. The Newport facility was never designed as a storage depot, and for long periods of time a great deal of VX was stored under less than ideal conditions. It was not made truly secure until after 9/11.

“Ironically, the only reported accidents took place after the neutralization process had begun. All were blamed on faulty valves or gaskets. Four of those involved the spills of the waste byproduct from the process. It’s not dangerous in the same way as VX, but is highly caustic. Across the four spills hundreds of gallons were involved, but were reportedly cleaned up with no casualties.

“The one truly frightening and potentially hazardous reported spill happened on June 10, 2005, when 30 gallons of VX—not the byproduct—was spilled. VX is a viscous liquid, not a gas (although it can be aerosolized and sprayed), but again, only a minuscule amount can be lethal. The official report claimed the spill was safely contained and neutralized, but in such a situation mightn’t it have been possible for someone to make off with a small amount? Everyone has a price.

“By now, anyone reading this series will have done some research and learned that VX is generally not dangerous to the public at large under normal circumstances. Its primary military importance was as an area denial weapon; that is, if it were applied to an area via bombs, missiles or artillery it would make that area deadly and unusable. The problem with that strategy is that it would make that bit of real estate unusable by anyone for a long time. It’s remarkably persistent.

“I mentioned before that it can be aerosolized and sprayed, but the chief danger to the peacetime public would be a fire or explosion. VX doesn’t burn easily, but an explosion or hot enough fire can ignite it and spread it for miles if conditions are right. We know that VX was released from leaky valves and ruptured gaskets, and an unrelated explosion could certainly cause that kind of part failure. Or what if a train carrying VX munitions had derailed—remember Lac Megantic—or a plane crashed at the site causing an explosion?

“If any of those things had happened, God knows how many people would have been at risk and not even known it. With the exception of employees and maybe their family members all most people knew was that some kind of chemical was made at the plant, and their long familiarity with the plant made them accepting. The nature of that chemical wasn’t widely known until 1987, and the staggering amount of VX stored at Newport wasn’t made public until 1994.

“That’s the crux of my chagrin with the situation, even all these years later: Not the hypothetical ‘what if,’ but the plain fact that if VX got loose the local towns, including people I cared about, lacked preparedness and didn’t know what measures to take because for almost 30 years after production began they hadn’t specific information about what was there. 

"It doesn't matter that nothing happened; it matters that the government owes its own people the ability to protect themselves against danger and they did not provide it.

"That is one reason why I do not trust the word of the military establishment, nor that of most government agencies.”

I was exasperated. “For heaven’s sake, are you ever going to tell me where Kim Jong-nam comes in?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Next time.”

--Richard Brown

Death in the backyard: Part 2

I almost never dispute with Diogenes, because I never win. But in this case, with him jumping from topic to topic with no apparent connection, I had to try to get him focused. So I said, “You’re not making sense, you know. What do all these questions lead to, and what is it that’s got you riled?”

“It’s actually a personal matter that lies in the past. I was hoping to avoid making it public, but Kim Jong-nam’s death brought it up front and center in my mind.”

He took a deep breath. “All right. Here’s the context. In November, 1941—just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor, which I find interesting—the army identified a site just south of Newport, Indiana, as suitable for an ammunition plant. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was hired as the contractor, and tasked with making the high explosive RDX.

“The plant was an economic boon for the area. And after we became engaged in World War Two, jobs there were especially prized. Those who had been declared unfit for combat were especially pleased, as they were able to make a direct contribution to the war effort.

“There was nothing hush-hush about the plant. It was a huge complex set down on acres of flat farmland, approachable from all directions. It wasn’t secret like Oak Ridge or the Manhattan Project. Nor was there any secret about RDX, or any race to make it. It was used extensively by both sides in the war.

“The plant soon became part of the local background. Despite its military guard and formal name, ‘Wabash River Ordnance Works,’ it was simply called ‘the plant,’ or colloquially and ungrammatically, ‘Dupont’s.’

“In 1942-43 a heavy water production facility was added to the Newport plant to provide deuterium for the nation’s nuclear weapons and research program, including the Manhattan Project. It was shut down in 1945 but reopened in the 1950s to support the Savannah River Site. It finally closed for good in 1957.

“In 1959 the army hired a new contractor to retool the plant as a production site for the nerve agent VX—one of the most toxic substances on the planet. Throughout the 1960s the plant, renamed the Newport Army Chemical Plant, turned out the army’s entire stockpile of that nightmarish weapon.

“Munitions—bombs, rockets, mines—were loaded with VX there and shipped by rail all over the country, as well as to bases abroad. The amount of product made in Newport was measured in the thousands of tons and hundreds of thousands of gallons—and one small drop can kill a person.

“After Nixon ordered production to be stopped in 1969 the military’s entire stockpile was stored there, even though the facility was never designed for storage, and finally it was all finally destroyed between 2005 and 2008.

“At any time during that nearly fifty-year span hundreds of thousands of people could have been killed and thousands of square miles of farmland could have been contaminated by something as simple as a loose valve or a corroded gasket.

“You ask why this has been troubling me; I have family and friends in the area, and visited there many times during the VX period. At no time did anyone I knew there express misgivings about the plant.

“In 1959 the army hired Food Machinery Corporation to run the VX program. I remember my uncle had a thermometer with their advertising on it. And despite the change in contractor and mission, most people I knew continued to refer to the plant as a du Pont operation.

“Consider the army’s actions: they switched the plant’s mission from a factory for making a very stable explosive to making harmless heavy water, then quietly switched to manufacturing an incredibly lethal compound made by the innocuous-sounding Food Machinery Corporation. Today that contractor is FMC, a military megacontractor. This was a process very similar to a classic bait-and-switch, it strikes me that the army put a lot of people at high risk without informing them of the danger.

“Now do you understand why it bothers me? It’s another example of the military-industrial complex caring only for weapons effectiveness and bottom lines, with no concern for civilian safety.”

“All right, I get it. But I still don’t understand where Kim Jong-nam comes in.”

Dio sighed. “Next time.” 

--Richard Brown

Death in the backyard: Part 1

I can always tell when something is troubling Diogenes. He goes into Socratic mode, trying to solve the problem dialectically.

Today started with, “Is the phrase ‘An enemy of the state’ inherently sinister?”

I allowed that it was, considering that in recent conversations about tyrants we have concluded that the phrase is usually applied by tyrants who conflate their own identity with that of the state, and seek to get rid of their own enemies in the name of the state.

“And how about ‘Interests of national security’? Is that similarly sinister?”

“I think it depends on the context. If people who disagree with the government are being dragged off the street in the name of security, then yes. But if you’re referring to a routine response an official might make to someone who was seeking information unavailable to the public for legitimate security reasons, then—probably—no.”

“Does the government have a right to put its own citizens in peril for the sake of ‘national security’?”

“What kind of peril? Are you talking about detonating A-bombs 65 miles north of Las Vegas, or processing black powder in Allegheny, Pennsylvania? Or something worse?”

“Never mind the details. Has the government the right to imperil its own citizens without informing them of the nature of the peril?”

“Well, it does it all the time. I suppose the Social Contract implies that the state can put some of its citizens at risk in return for the protection it offers them . . .”

“Damn the Social Contract! Has it the right to do so and keep them completely in the dark? Has the state, under any ethical or moral system you’re aware of, have a right to hold an invisible deadly threat over the heads of its citizenry and not inform them of its nature?”

“If those citizens have no sense of the nature of the threat, I assume they have no strategy in place for dealing with it?”

“Correct.”

“And the government has no provision for disaster relief?”

“No.”

“Is this a secret project?”

“Not entirely. The threat is housed in a well-known and familiar facility where many locals actually work.”

What?

“Forgive me, but this is just too cryptic. What the hell got this line of questioning started?”

“Kim Jong-nam.”

“The Korean dictator’s half-brother who was killed with the nerve agent VX a few months ago?”

“Yes. Was he an enemy of the state, that is, of Kim Jong-un? Did he pose a security threat? Or was he just a convenient target for trying out the poison?”

“Why should that trouble you?”

“Because I think, despite their protests, that this nation still has a chemical weapons stockpile, and I don’t like the way they’re handled it in the past.”

--Richard Brown

Praetorian Guard redux

"Are you aware that Richard Nixon perpetrated one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of the presidency?" asked Diogenes out of the blue last night. 

Giving him my best have-you-become-senile boggle, I said, "Um--let me guess; Watergate?" When he fixed me with one of his oh-you-poor-ignoramus looks I sat back, prepared to listen and learn.

"In 1970 during a visit to West Germany, Nixon so admired the uniforms of the honor guard he saw there he decided to have a similar ceremonial outfit designed for the White House police--you know, the uniformed Secret Service guys who regularly let intruders jump the fence. He hired a fancy designer who came up with a double-breasted jacket festooned with fourragere and topped by a leather shako. That Graustarkian ensemble was so hideous the agents were mortified to be seen in it. It was soon retired and the whole kaboodle was, I think, donated to a high-school band in Iowa.

"I was reminded of that pathetic episode while considering the Praetorian Guard." 

I think I've said that Dio's leaps of logic frequently baffle me, but I could actually see where this one was going. The Praetorian Guard were an elite body of Roman legionaries with the mission of protecting and defending the emperor--the imperial secret service, so to speak. Of course that's an oversimplification; Google it for the full story.

As with many things Roman, the character of the guard changed over time, from committed and effective to corrupt and venal. The guard murdered about a half-dozen emperors, forced a few more overthrows, and late in the empire actually raffled off the imperial throne.

But surely Diogenes wasn't drawing parallels with the United States Secret Service? The men and women who put loyalty to the president above all else? If they can't be trusted to be incorruptible who can be?

"Remember Amsterdam and Cartagena? All that drunkenness and whoring? Just the tip of the iceberg."

Well, OK, but was Dio saying that maybe the Secret Service might take a tip from the Praetorians? The sex scandals alone nearly destroyed the service's credibility. If they turned against the people they're sworn to protect no one in government could feel safe.

"And do you think anyone in government, or in America, feels safe now? An idiot child is at the helm of the ship of state, and it's armed with nuclear weapons. Congress has no will to act, no popular uprising can get the necessary traction, Cabinet officials and staff are cowed and/or in the GP's pocket. Who better than well-trained armed personnel who are close to him all the time to remove him?"

"Remove? As in . . ."

And he zapped me with The Look again.

--Richard Brown

The real cost of Trump

On April 25, Diogenes published a post titled "Inhumane Humana" about a Type I diabetic friend of his who was being victimized by the Humana health insurance company who refused to bill her insulin to the appropriate part of Medicare, which would have saved her a great deal of money. The friend's name was fictitious, but the story was true to the last detail, and was unfolding as he wrote it.

Now comes a similar story to us, this one from a friend of mine, both on Facebook and in real life. Her husband has chronic lung disease not caused by any bad habit like smoking  or drugs, and not from working in a risky profession. It's just from one of those unfortunate rolls of the dice that Nature sometimes throws at us. Like Dio's friend, he requires expensive medications to remain healthy--indeed to live--which are placed out of his family's financial reach by the pharmaceutical industry's limitless greed and insistence on pricing critical medications beyond the buying power of most American people.

Her story appears below verbatim, edited only slightly for paragraph structure and punctuation.

"This is long, but please read. My husband and I have been personally affected by Trump policies. And so have you, but you might not even know it.

"In January I picked up one of Nick's meds at the pharmacy. It was $742.58 for a one month supply. Because I have a separate deductible for my prescription end of my insurance I had to pay the whole thing. It is considered not on the approved list even though there is no generic for it and until I reach the deductible I had to pay full price. Great! But it gets better.

"I went back in February to get that month's supply and the clerk tells me it is now $1104.36! Really!? I asked why and was told it had to do with the manufacturer and I should call my insurance. She was very nice and understanding and I know this is not the pharmacy's fault. I went home and called my insurance and after my running around calling this one and that one I spoke to a girl who told me this: She said the price of the medicine had gone up and then she said, 'I am not sure what your political affiliation is, but this is why. One of the first regulations that Trump lifted after he came into office was rules on drug regulations ( or prices) for the drug companies. Obama had kept them in check for 8 years. They were not allowed to increase cost more than 20% without government regulation. Trump's lift of that particular regulation gave them free rein to increase the cost at their whim.'

"And who do you think were some of his biggest supporters in this election? You got it: the pharmaceutical companies. Remember that promise to lower medicine cost? Well, we are proof that was just a lie. Plain and simple. I don't usually share my business or struggles like this, but people need to be aware of this. This man has NOT got anyone's interest in mind except his and his ego's.

"It didn't take me long to reach that prescription deductible (3 months), but even after that burden I still have to pay a copay for that medicine of $70 per month. You may think that's not bad, but that is one of 10 medicines my husband has to take. I have become an expert at robbing Peter to pay Paul. But I shouldn't have to be. I work and pay a horrible premium for insurance that is lousy. This is making America great again? Tell that to my husband when he can't breathe.

"Now you know someone who is been directly affected by this healthcare mess. I am your friend, your neighbor, your father, mother, grandparent, child, sister, brother, family, coworker. I work next to you every day. I struggle and I am not alone. I am not afraid to work and pay my way. I have been at the same job for 36 years and have never been on welfare. I am you. You could be us at any moment. Always remember that. I hope you stay healthy for as long as you can and never walk in our shoes. But if you do, I will be right there with you.

"People need to be aware this man is dangerous for this country at the very least."

In January of 1898 the writer Emile Zola published "J'Accuse . . .!", an indictment of the French president and government for complicity in the unjust imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus. Zola was found guilty of libel and had to leave the country for several months, but was ultimately vindicated and Dreyfus was set free.

We need a Zola now to openly and forcefully accuse the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries for crimes against the American people, including not only perpetuating chronic illnesses, but also for indirectly causing the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of our citizens. And Trump is indeed complicit.

--Richard Brown