Klipsun Magazine, 1985, Volume 16, Issue 05 - April

Western Washington University Western CEDAR Klipsun Magazine Western Student Publications 4-1985 Klipsun Magazine, 1985, Volume 16, Issue 05 - April Shaun McClurken Western Washington University Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/klipsun_magazine Part of the Higher Education Commons, and the Journalism Studies Commons Recommended Citation McClurken, Shaun, "Klipsun Magazine, 1985, Volume 16, Issue 05 - April" (1985). Klipsun Magazine. 82. https://cedar.wwu.edu/klipsun_magazine/82 This Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Western Student Publications at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Klipsun Magazine by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. \ * i J ¥ < i ■ rS peautlW =“"’*'' *onl"’«’"'"® India*^ LUtTI*^' Klipsun"ls» • (xO^ \ <-VO May. S late c <i ^•^v :V|,v way ve^V^"°b'^V your oNP** v'^V' coming .S‘ ,o‘ Issue rV> Next KLICKER JOHN 2 April1985 JUl 2 8 im VVWU LIBRARY ARCIilVCS April 1985 -16 copyr'g*^* CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. Ruth Weiner takes on the Department of Energy with one hand, and battles nuclear hysteria with the other. By Diane Dietz.....................................A ONGS IGH'TS ^(sIIMAL R Has man’s use of animals for food and clothing, and drug and chemical testing, become abusive? A local animal-rights group thinks so. By Lynn Hersman......................................................8 line CRISIS A late-night wait for a phone call has never been so mysterious. Crisis Line volunteers answer the unexpected. By Laura Boynton.................................................................... 12 MAKING TRACKS. Technicians and musicians meet and make beautiful music together in the Fairhaven recording studio. By Jeff Braimes.................................................... 15 ACTS OF LIGHT. Photographs can explore a dimension denied to simple human sight. By James Ryder KIDS’ CtU® Nothing chuck pus about the Whatcom County Boys’ and Girls’ Club; strictly moss pus with plenty of studs. No ickts. By Sandy Neil........................................................................... 21 FOOD PATHOLOGY. America’s on-going love affair with “thin” drives some young women to abuse their bodies as they pursue a mental and physical ideal. By Bridget Yearian................................................................................................................24 MODERN MINSTRELS. Brad Darley and Jennifer Mclntire help people say it with enter- tainment telegrams. By Leanna Bradshaw...................... ....................................... 28 KLIPSUN 3 o CONSCIENTIOUS BIECTOR Fear. Lies. Ignorance. Ruth Weiner battles them all I o By DIANE DIETZ uth weiner At home she seems irresistably explained, “It’s going to drawn to nuclear have to go somewhere. politics.R The Huxley pro As citizens of the world fessor has again entered we have to see that it will the fray, opposing the be stored as safely as it Department of Energy’s can be stored.” (DOE) selection of the Sitting in the harsh Hanford nuclear reserva light of a television tion as a possible, or even camera, she told the probable, burial site for DOE re presentative high-level radioactive Hanford is simply not a waste. safe site. Lecturing, giving “Hanford was never expert testimony, selected because anyb remaining relentlessly ody thought it would be a available to the press, good place. It’s clear and even debating when you drive to Spo former governor Dixy kane: you see the basalt Lee Ray, Weiner energet pillars shot through with ically protests the pro fractures—why would posed site at Hanford, you think it’s any differ and is sharply critical of ent underground?” the DOE’S methods in its The concern is that selection. ground water eventually Her political involve will filter down to the ment has earned her the repository, buried 2,000- tag ‘outspoken environ 3,000 feet below the sur mentalist,’ but her docto face, dissolve the waste rate in physical chemistry containers over time and from Johns Hopkins carry radioactive parti University would seem to cles out to the Columbia qualify her to dispute the River, only six miles saftey of a Hanford rep away. ository intended to iso Weiner said she sus late nuclear wastes for pects Hanford was thousands of years. selected for reasons other Sitting one Saturday than its geophysical in the 8 a.m. sun streaK characteristics. Hanford ing across her dining is just “some nice federal room table, she property with some explained, “The industry nuclear things on it has Ph.D.s, so why anyway—the same with shouldn’t the Sierra Nevada (with Hanford, Club?” one of the three finalist As outspoken as she is sites). They didn’t even against DOE actions, she know the rocK type” equally abhors the when it was selected. “nuclear hysteria” that She said the DOE was the aftermath of the didn’t consider any other accident at Three Mile basalt sites. “Would Island. basalt ever have been She prefaced her (considered a) good attacK on the DOE’s medium if it had not been environmental assess under Hanford?” ment at an Olympia hear The first questions the ing in March by saying: DOE should have asked “All of the hindsight are: “How well is the rock about nuclear power going to work? Will it development and desires leak? All other consider for an end to the nuclear ations are secondary— arms race are not going the overriding question to result in the disappea- should be the geology,” race of this radioactive she said, tapping three waste material; we can fingers on the table for not wish it away.” emphasis. The proposed reposi Weiner wonders tory will contain com whether the DOE fol mercially spent nuclear lowed the Nuclear Waste fuel and other radioactive Policy Act requirement wastes in a complex of adopted by Congress in tunnels occupying If you perceive injustice, you don’t sit around and be quiet about it. It’s incumbent on peopie to take part in their government.” 1982, which she helped roughly 2,000 acres. write. Sites with other KLIPSUN 5 geology, such salt and granite, were selected gress in 1954, was organized as both judge after extensive national surveying. and advocate. Weiner said it was mostly the When the DOE approached Hanford, it later. It wasn’t until 1974 that Congress was more like “Let’s start digging around established an independent regulatory and slap together something that looks like a commission. nuclear repository,” Weiner said. Because of the lack of scrutiny, industry In her 10-minute testimony before the representatives traveled around telling the DOE, Weiner took only one full breath. public nuclear wastes could be boiled down Emphasizing her points by shoving the air to the size of a shirt button. Weiner said with the back of her hand, near microphone “that is a blatant deception...(the industry) level, she accused the DOE of being biased, spent years and years throwing that kind of secretive in its proceedings, and of omitting junk to the public.” People had nowhere to crucial information in the sites initial envir turn for better information, she said. onmental assessment. “People need a certain kind of knowledge, She seems unsuprised by the rather clan and there’s nowhere to get it...if you want destine selection. She said it’s the same old detailed, honest explanations out of the story of the nuclear establishment. industry, where are you going to go?” Her first experience was in 1959 when she This was Weiner’s niche in nuclear polit was a “little graduate student” at Johns ics. She would help citizen’s groups “frame Hopkins. She went to a lecture by Edward questions in a way that catches attention of Teller, the “father of the atomic bomb.” It licensing agencies,” of proposed power was during the period when people were plants. Even then, it wasn’t guaranteed pub afraid of the dangers of strontium 90 in milk. lic concerns would be heard. In 1968, she Tellar told the students it was “silly” to and the group she was speaking for were worry about the contamination unless bone asked to leave a hearing of the Atomic chips somehow got in the milk. Safety and Licensing Board, which was con “I said to myself, ‘now look, Edward sidering the Fort St. Vain, Colo., plant. Teller knows better than that, even I know That same year, some people came to her better than that.’” because a nuclear bomb would be detonated Later, when she was an assistant chemis underground near their homes to liberate try teacher at Johns Hopkins, she said she natural gas. They didn’t know the effects; can remember thinking, “There must be a they just knew “a bomb would be set off reason for the untruths in the industry.” underground--that’s enough to scare In the early days of nuclear power, it was anybody.” assumed that anyone asking questions was Information was still hard to come by two techniques for losing it. Either she “anti-nuke,” or worse, “unamerican,” even from the “Atomic Energy Commission, or would slow way down so the traffic would such questions as. “What are you going to do any of its decendents...we had to blast our force the car ahead, or she’d pedal up a with the wastes? way into the NRC.” Worse, industry spo one-way street the wrong way for a few “You use to take your life in your hands kesmen were “still singing the same old blocks. anytime you criticized anything the govern song—‘no one ever died over nuclear Then, she said, her school allowed her ment was doing with nukes,” she said. energy.’ And that’s the unfortunate political work phone to be tapped. “I hope they got history of the nuclear establishment in the some charge out of hearing me talk to my Weiner still expresses a wry humor in the U.S.” babysitter,” she said with a laugh.

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