Short essay

Environmental Awareness in the Atomic Age: Radioecologists and Nuclear Technology

Author(s): Rachel Rothschild

Source: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences , Vol. 43, No. 4 (Sep., 2013), pp. 492-530

Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/hsns.2013.43.4.492

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RACHEL ROTHSCHILD*

Environmental Awareness in the Atomic Age:

Radioecologists and Nuclear Technology

ABSTRACT

The U.S. military first sponsored ecological research during World War II to monitor

the release of radioactive effluent into waterways from plutonium production. The Atomic Energy Commission later expanded these investigations to include studies of

radioactive fallout at the Nevada and Marshall Island test sites, particularly after the Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) accident in 1954. The public outcry against nuclear

testing from this accident, which contaminated nearby inhabited islands with radio- active fallout, resulted in a considerable influx of funding for environmental science at the Atomic Energy Commission. Many biologists who conducted these studies on

nuclear fallout and waste for the Atomic Energy Commission began to develop concerns about radioactive pollution in the environment from the long-term, cumu-

lative effects of nuclear waste disposal, the use of atomic bombs for construction projects, and the potential ecological devastation wrought by nuclear war. Their new

environmental awareness prompted many Atomic Energy Commission ecologists to try to draw congressional attention to the dangers that nuclear technology posed to

the environment. It also spurred reforms in the education and training of ecologists to meet the challenges of the atomic age through the new subfield of ‘‘radioecology’’ as well as research into problems of environmental pollution more broadly.

K E Y W O R D S : atomic energy, ecology, environment, fallout, nuclear technology, pollution, radioecology

*Program in the History of Science and Medicine, Yale University, P. O. Box 208015, New Haven, CT 06520-8015; [email protected].

The following abbreviations are used: AEC, Atomic Energy Commission; BESA, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; ESA, Ecological Society of America; UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles; UWRE, University of Washington, Laboratory of Radiation Ecology records, Special Collections Division, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, WA [Acces- sion No. 00–065 unless otherwise noted. In other notes, Accession no. precedes Box and Folder as per University of Washington Radiation Ecology record’s organizational structure.].

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Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 43, Number 4, pps. 492–530. ISSN 1939-1811, electronic ISSN 1939-182X. © 2013 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http:// www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2013.43.4.492.

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Now comes the Atomic Age, with its attendant new and immediate pro- blems, not to mention those that are of a long-term nature. Problems are multiple at every level of biological organization, and in each of the major areas of nuclear energy effort, ecological understandings are important and immensely needed. To the timid who blanch before the nobility of bio- chemical and molecular biological research of the past decade; who are debating the relative merits of various biological research approaches; and who are awed by the splendor of space, the excitement of creating a primor- dial living system, it is appropriate to suggest that ecologists stick to their own lasts. The last assessment of experimental results in biology must be ecological, and the understanding of the environment and its working com- plex is likely to be essential to survival.1

In 1961, John Wolfe, the Director of the Environmental Sciences Division of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), delivered the above statement in a speech entitled ‘‘Impact of Atomic Energy on the Environment and Envi- ronmental Science’’ to a gathering of over a hundred ‘‘radioecologists’’ from throughout the United States. It was the first time that ecologists held a national meeting to discuss the current scientific knowledge about the effects of nuclear technology on the environment, avenues for future research, and in what ways ecology needed to be transformed to meet the challenges of the new atomic age. Prior to the modern environmental movement that emerged in the 1960s from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, many of the ecologists present at this meeting recognized a threat to the environment from nuclear technology and hoped that ecological science could play an important role in understanding pollution problems.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how such a transformation in environmental awareness occurred among a group of ecologists working for the AEC during the early years of the Cold War at the University of Washington, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the AEC Division of Environmental Sciences. The biologists at the University of Washington and UCLA were the first to conduct ecological studies for the AEC through both fieldwork and laboratory investigations, and worked closely with the AEC Division of Environmental Sciences on the potential environmental dangers of nuclear technology after its formation in the late 1950s. I argue that their

1. John Wolfe, ‘‘Impact of Atomic Energy on the Environment and Environmental Science,’’ in Radioecology: Proceedings of the First National Symposium on Radioecology held at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, September 10–15, 1961, ed. Vincent Schultz and Alfred W. Klement (New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1963), 1.

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environmental concerns principally arose from their involvement in ecological studies of the Marshall Islands affected by the 1954 Lucky Dragon accident and in an environmental risk assessment for the AEC’s Project Chariot, which proposed to use an atomic bomb in order to create a harbor in Alaska. This paper will evaluate these two episodes in depth to demonstrate how they deepened these ecologists’ attentiveness to potential environmental dangers from nuclear technology. I will then examine the ways in which these ecolo- gists took action because of such concerns both by reaching out to congres- sional officials and by attempting to transform ecological training. My analysis will show that current scholarship on the history of ecology in the AEC has underestimated the existence of environmental concern among ecologists working for the organization and the extent to which such concerns shaped their activities while working for the organization.

As several historians of ecology have shown, the science of ‘‘ecology’’ has not always been synonymous with attentiveness to potential environmental harms.2 This is particularly true of ecological work before World War II and the modern environmental movement. In fact, the attempts by a few ecologists to involve themselves with the conservation movement during the interwar period caused a rift in the professional community that resulted in a majority of members of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) voting to prohibit any ESA involvement in the protection of nature, including political activities.3

Initially, the ecologists I examine also expressed few reservations about environ- mental degradation. Part of my goal in this work is thus to try to explain the development of interest in the environmental impacts of nuclear technology that occurred among a significant number of ecologists who worked for the AEC.

The transformation of ecology into a ‘‘Cold War science’’ has been dealt with by a number of historians of science, but the importance of ecologists’ environ- mental concerns in shaping their work for the U.S. military and AEC has been largely undeveloped.4 As Sharon Kingsland noted in a review of Frank Golley’s

2. Frank Egerton, ed., History of American Ecology (New York: Arno Press, 1977); Ronald C. Tobey, Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895– 1955 (Berkeley: University of California, 1981); Robert A. Croker, Pioneer Ecologist: The Life and Work of Victor Ernest Shelford 1877–1968 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1991); Sharon E. Kingsland, The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890–2000 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

3. The ESA’s Preservation Committee was abolished after the vote. For a detailed account of this incident, see Croker, Pioneer Ecologist (ref. 2), 120–45.

4. Historians Judith Johns Schloegel and Karen Rader have drawn particular attention to the need for further research on the environmental studies carried out at Argonne National Laboratory.

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Ecosystem Ecology, a much deeper study is needed of ecologists working for the AEC, whom Golley claims welcomed the new funding and were unperturbed by their military connections.5 Indeed, recent work by Stephen Bocking has argued that ecologists working at the Oak Ridge Laboratory did not harbor trepidations about radiation hazards in the environment and were free to pursue other ‘‘basic’’ research topics.6 Bocking also claims that before the late 1960s the Joint Com- mittee on Atomic Energy never mentioned ecological research or environmental issues, which this paper will show is incorrect; the committee held hearings in the late 1950s that explicitly addressed ecology and the environmental impact of nuclear technology and included testimony from the ecologists I will discuss.7

Scholars who have looked specifically at the University of Washington ecologists have characterized their research as focused on how nuclear tech- nology could be used to obtain ecological knowledge, without regard to the environmental repercussions. For example, Matthew Klingle has described their work for the AEC as geared towards scientific management of salmon populations for the ‘‘improvement’’ of nature, not the protection of it.8 Scott Kirsch’s examination of their involvement in Project Chariot portrays the AEC

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For their bibliographic essay on the documentary evidence concerning this work as well as a broader discussion of biological sciences in the national laboratories, see Judith Johns Schloegel and Karen A. Rader, Ecology, Environment, and ‘‘Big Science’’: An Annotated Bibliography of Sources on Envi- ronmental Research at Argonne National Laboratory, 1955–1985 (Oak Ridge, TN: Office of the Director, Argonne National Laboratory, ANL/HIST–4, 2005).

5. Sharon E. Kingsland, ‘‘Review: Ecosystem Ecology: A Cautionary Tale,’’ Quarterly Review of Biology 70, no. 2 (1995): 205–08.

6. This is difficult to reconcile with the fact that Oak Ridge sponsored the first training programs for ecologists interested in studying the environmental effects of atomic energy beginning in 1961, which will be discussed in more detail in the final section of the article. Though this paper does not focus on the Oak Ridge ecologists, such contradictions raise the question of whether further examination of their records might complicate the notion that they pursued their research without regard to environmental problems from nuclear technology. See Stephen Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 76, 79, 84–88.

7. Ibid., 86. 8. Matthew Klingle’s argument is persuasive regarding the University of Washington’s work

at the Fern Lake Project on salmon fisheries, but does not adequately capture the ecologists’ trepidations about the ecological impacts of nuclear technology. As Klingle does not examine their work in the Pacific and Nevada test sites in detail, this may explain his lack of attention to their environmental concerns. See Matthew W. Klingle, ‘‘Plying Atomic Waters: Lauren Donaldson and the ‘Fern Lake Concept’ of Fisheries Management,’’ Journal of the History of Biology 31, no. 1 (1998): 1–32. Laura Bruno has also mentioned the early role of the University of Washington scientists in examining nuclear wastes at the Hanford facility and radioactive fallout in the Pacific testing grounds, but does not explore their work in detail. See Laura A. Bruno, ‘‘The

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ecologists as displaying outright disregard for the environmental impacts of the program.9 My examination of these ecologists, however, will show that envi- ronmental problems caused by nuclear technology were in fact quite troubling to them.

In the first section of my paper, I explore why ecologists at the University of Washington and UCLA were initially recruited by the U.S. military during World War II and their early work for the AEC at the Los Alamos and Nevada test sites.10 A few of these scientists expressed misgivings about potential ecological dangers from nuclear testing and waste disposal during the late 1940s, but on the whole they appear to have been preoccupied with under- standing whether and how radioisotopes accumulated in flora and fauna rather than focusing on the potential for environmental harm.11 I then show how the 1954 Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) accident in the Pacific Ocean opened up new opportunities for ecological research as the AEC scrambled to assuage the fears of the public over radioactive fallout and created its Division of Envi- ronmental Sciences. I argue that these new research endeavors, including the AEC’s request for an ecological evaluation of the risks in allowing native populations to return to contaminated islands, generated considerable unease over the environmental impact of nuclear technology among many of the ecologists involved.

I subsequently examine the most significant conflict to emerge between the upper echelons of the AEC and ecologists at the University of Washington and the AEC Division of Environmental Science over a proposal to ‘‘peacefully’’ detonate an atomic bomb in order to create a harbor in Alaska in ‘‘Project Chariot.’’ I argue

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Bequest of the Nuclear Battlefield: Science, Nature, and the Atom During the First Decade of the Cold War,’’ HSPS 33, no. 2 (2003): 237–60.

9. Kirsch’s book is largely written from the perspective of biologists outside the AEC. Much of his argument about AEC ecologists is focused on John Wolfe, whom he describes as unconcerned about the environmental consequences from Project Chariot, instead seeing it as a useful eco- logical experiment. See Scott L. Kirsch, Proving Grounds: Project Plowshare and the Unrealized Dream of Nuclear Earthmoving (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 108, 206.

10. Their research on the movement of radioactive isotopes through the environment eventually led to the widespread adoption of the newly introduced concept of an ‘‘ecosystem.’’ Angela Creager has recently drawn attention to the adoption of the ecosystem concept by ecologists at the University of Washington to track the effects of effluents and radioactive wastes from its nuclear plants. See Angela Creager, Life Atomic: Radioisotopes in Biology and Medicine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), 491–522.

11. Creager notes that the research undertaken in the late 1940s was concerned with identi- fying levels of radioactivity in the Columbia River water and the concentration of radioactivity in the bodies of fish, especially in the liver and kidneys, following exposure. Ibid., 511–15.

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that their involvement in this project, in combination with risk assessments in the Pacific and concerns about nuclear waste, convinced these radioecol- ogists of the substantial dangers that nuclear waste and war posed to the environment and prompted them to organize a national meeting of radio- ecologists to address such issues. As the Project Chariot controversy deep- ened between 1958 and 1961, several ecologists were asked to testify in front of the House of Representatives, many of whose members were also growing increasingly wary of the AEC’s policies on the biological effects of radiation. The ecologists’ attempts to draw national attention to the environmental repercussions of nuclear waste and war during these hearings and subse- quently build alliances with congressional leaders intent on regulating atomic energy is further indication of their deepening concern over nuclear tech- nology. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of how ecologists working for the AEC hoped to transform their discipline in order to meet the challenges nuclear technology posed to environmental protection.

ECOLOGY IN THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

Before the establishment of the Los Alamos Laboratory and the creation of the first atomic bomb, General Leslie R. Groves, who was in charge of adminis- tering the Manhattan Project for the U.S. military, began to search for a site to produce plutonium. Several characteristics were essential: distance from heavily populated areas, close proximity to power supplies, and extremely cold water to cool the reactors. Given these requirements, the Columbia River’s opening into the Pacific Ocean at Hanford, Washington, was selected as the ideal location. Winding over a thousand miles from Canada through the United States, the Columbia River was, and still is, one of the largest sources of fresh water in North America. Construction began on April 6, 1943, but production of nuclear material would have to wait more than a year, during which time General Groves and others began to consider the potential environmental consequences of the Hanford reactor. Groves had grown up in the Northwest on an Army base in Fort Lawton, Washington, and had attended the University of Washington, so the effect of the atomic program on a vital water resource of the region seems to have been personal for him.12 Most important, however, was the need to keep

12. Officers in the Medical Section of the Manhattan District, who were responsible for evaluating the potential effects of radiation on human health, also supported the formation of

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the work of the Manhattan Project a secret from the public. Groves feared that if controls on the levels of radioactivity in the water were not adequate, the surrounding community might become aware of the existence of the secret government plan to build an atomic bomb.13

At a high-level meeting of military personnel and scientists involved in the project, Groves concluded that biologists specializing in aquatic environ- ments needed to be recruited to monitor the conditions of the Columbia River. They could not be told the purpose of their work. Stafford Warren, the head of the Medical Section of the Manhattan project and a faculty member at the University of Rochester, suggested Lauren R. Donaldson, a forty-year-old professor of fisheries at the University of Washington. In August of 1943, he and a team of other biologists in his department would become the first group of scientists to study the environmental impacts of nuclear technology.14 Donaldson and three co-workers were the only scien- tists tasked with evaluating the effects of radioactive materials on the envi- ronment until 1946. Initially their work focused on irradiating fish eggs and adults in a laboratory, but Donaldson soon pressed Groves to allow him to conduct observations on the Columbia River itself.15 While it is unclear whether his appeals had much influence over Groves, the U.S. military did decide to install his assistant, Richard F. Foster, at a field station when the Hanford reactor began operating in 1944. The early years of their work focused on collecting data about the accumulation of radioactive material in the bodies of aquatic life forms exposed to radioactive effluents of varying levels along the river in conjunction with the ongoing laboratory studies.16

While the military’s primary goal was to monitor adverse reactions from long- term low exposure, such as increased incidence of leukemia, tumors, or other genetic effects, the ecologists were also asked to screen for any immediate effects

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a scientific program for the Columbia reactor. Neal O. Hines, Proving Ground: An Account of the Radiobiological Studies in the Pacific, 1946–1961 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963), 7.

13. Peter Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 289.

14. Hines, Proving Ground (ref. 12), 7–10. 15. Most of their initial research concerned the potential impact on the economically vital

salmon of the Columbia River. The U.S. military’s stated objective for the Columbia study was ‘‘to identify potentially significant effects of reactor effluent on humans and aquatic life down- stream, and to estimate the magnitude of this effect.’’ See ‘‘Columbia River Program: Objectives of the Research,’’ UWRE, Box 6, Folder 25, Columbia River Program.

16. ‘‘Columbia River Program,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 1, Folder 1, Historical Information, 1959.

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on the health of aquatic organisms and increased mortality from the radioactive effluent.17

The AEC took over responsibility for the work of the University of Washington laboratory after its creation through the Atomic Energy Act of 1946.18 In the following year, the Division of Biology and Medicine was subsequently formed to oversee the biological and medical studies that were begun during the war, including the continuation of the laboratory studies and monitoring of radioactive effluents by University of Washington ecologists.19

As the AEC prepared to launch its postwar testing program in the Marshall Islands, it contracted with additional biologists working under Stafford War- ren, now Dean of UCLA’s Medical School, to monitor the effects of radioac- tive fallout. They were asked to cooperate with members of the University of Washington Laboratory on research at the Los Alamos, New Mexico test site where the first nuclear bomb, Trinity, had been detonated in 1945.20 Warren and his colleagues in the biology department assembled a field group that included scientific specialists of mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, vegetation, and soil. The team conducted investigations into the environmental effects of fallout from the Trinity test in August and September each year from 1947 through 1951.21 They sampled levels of radiation at varying distance from the blast to determine the accumulation of fission products in soils, flora, and fauna, ranging from Russian thistle to cattle.22 Much of the initial results, however, baffled these scientists. In one animal species, the packrat, they discovered that

17. ‘‘An Evaluation of Long-term Effects of Acute and Intermittent Exposures of Ionizing Radiations,’’ 16 Jun 1949, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 19, Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) Project, 1948–1949.

18. After World War II ended, the work of the ecologists was temporarily overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers. All of the Manhattan District’s contracts, facilities, and management responsibilities were then transferred to the AEC when it began operations in the spring of 1947. See Hines, Proving Ground (ref. 12), 19, 79.

19. The Division of Biology and Medicine was founded in the fall of 1947 per the recom- mendation of the AEC’s Medical Board of Review, which had been asked by AEC Chairman David Lilienthal to outline a potential biomedical research program for the agency. It reported directly to Chairman Lilienthal. See United States Advisory Committee on Human Radiation, Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments: Final Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), 29–30.

20. Undated document entitled ‘‘Historical,’’ UWRE, Box 1, Folder 1, Historical Informa- tion, 1959.

21. Kermit Larson, ‘‘Continental Close–in Fallout: Its History, Measurement and Char- acteristics,’’ in Schultz and Klement, eds., Radioecology: Proceedings (ref. 1), 19.

22. Ibid., 20.

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the bones and liver showed evidence of radioactivity years after the test, while in other species, such as the Kangaroo rat, no detectable levels of absorption were observed.23 Studies on vegetation were also somewhat inconclusive, as the scientists struggled to differentiate between artificial radioactive elements and naturally occurring background radiation.24 By 1951, the team could only con- clude that the complexity and variations they observed were a result of a com- pilation of factors that included climatology, topography, soil properties, local food chains, and the biology and life cycles of different animal communities. Yet their work caused some uneasiness within the administration of the AEC, and that year, informal discussions within the Division of Biology and Medicine resulted in the creation of a specific ‘‘Radio-ecology’’ field group in order to deal with the ‘‘environmental biological problem.’’25

Shortly thereafter, as the U.S. increased the frequency of nuclear tests, ecological investigations began at the Nevada test site with a new emphasis on documenting fallout patterns and differences in the production of specific radioisotopes based on weapons type and method of detonation. Kermit Lar- son, a health physicist who would later direct UCLA’s Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology, led biological field groups on these expedi- tions. They included scientists from the Atomic Energy Project at UCLA as well as several University of Washington ecologists, who served as consultants to the expeditions.26 Donaldson’s laboratory also assisted the group by con- ducting tests of soil samples sent from the Nevada test site.27 Through these studies, Larson and his field groups identified a number of factors that ap- peared important in influencing the ‘‘biological fate and persistence’’ of radio- active fallout.28 For instance, distance from the blast site, differences in the

23. Ibid., 21. 24. Ibid., 20. 25. Stafford Warren to the Administrative Committee, Office of the Chancellor, UCLA, 22

Aug 1952, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring Program, Civil Defense. 26. Dozens of scientists at UCLA assisted with this work in addition to the University of

Washington ecologists. For a list of those who were most involved, see Kermit Larson, Factors Influencing the Biological Fate and Persistence of Radioactive Fall-Out (Los Angeles: University of California, Department and Laboratories of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology, 1959), 7–8. Regarding the University of Washington ecologists’ work at Nevada, see Hines, Proving Ground (ref. 12), 126, 133.

27. Donaldson and Larson would work closely together in the resurveys at Bikini and En- iwetok and continued to collaborate throughout their careers. Colonel J. B. Jartgering, Office of the Test Director, Nevada Proving Ground to Al Seymour, Acting Director, University of Washington Radiobiology Laboratory, 1 Jul 1952, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 20, Nevada Tests.

28. Larson, Factors (ref. 26).

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solubility of radioisotopes, variations in leaf-surface characteristics, and animal grazing patterns all appeared to play a role in the persistence of radioactive fallout in the environment.29

Yet precisely how and when accumulation of radioactive particles occurred was still a mystery, and many of the biologists expressed frustration with evaluating the biological impact of the tests. Frank Lowman, one of Donald- son’s colleagues at the University of Washington who participated in the expeditions, is representative of this sentiment among the AEC’s field group. He was overwhelmed not only by the extent of the scientific unknowns, but also problems with the monitoring equipment. ‘‘This last test was really an eye opener,’’ he wrote to the Deputy Director of the laboratory, Al Seymour. ‘‘Dangerous amounts of radioactive material, as far as inhalation is concerned, can be present but undetectable on an MX-5 [a radioactivity detector] . . . We’ve all been forced to change some of our basic assumptions concerning radiation hazards.’’30 For instance, Lowman found that the MX-5 was having trouble picking up beta radiation, which he believed to have important bio- logical implications. He sought to secure additional detectors and shot his own rabbit samples to bring back to the lab in order to examine this problem further.31 Seymour replied sympathetically that it sounded as if the Nevada field work continued to be plagued by some of the same difficulties that prevailed in former tests, and encouraged him to ‘‘hang tough.’’32 Ultimately, Lowman and others at the field sites concluded that it would be imperative to overhaul their methods and approach.33

The problem was that only a few studies had ever been done on the interactive relationship between an organism and its abiotic environment.34

Ecological research prior to World War II focused on succession of different plant communities, predator-prey relationships, and population fluctuations in the wild. Simply coordinating research between zoologists and botanists

29. Ibid., 32–77. 30. The MX–5 was one of the earliest meters built to detect and measure beta and gamma

radiation. Frank Lowman to Al Seymour, 2 Jun 1952, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring Program, Civil Defense.

31. Ibid. 32. Al Seymour to Frank Lowman, 26 May 1952, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring

Program, Civil Defense. 33. Frank Lowman to Al Seymour, 20 May 1952, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring

Program, Civil Defense, 4. See also Larson, Factors (ref. 26), 15–17. 34. Gregg Mitman, The State of Nature: Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought,

1900–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 45–46, 65.

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appeared problematic, much less incorporating geological, meteorological, and chemical processes into ecological work.35 A textbook that integrated animal and plant ecology was not published until 1939.36 Thus, before ecologists could try to determine what the potential environmental effects of radioactive mate- rial would be, questions about the basic functioning of food chains, life cycles, seasonal variations, and climatology needed to be addressed.

Based in part on these realities, the ecosystem concept soon became the dominant organizing theoretical foundation for ecology within the next decade.37 Originally conceived by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in 1935, the ‘‘ecosystem’’ was defined as a system ‘‘in the sense of physics’’ and emphasized the use of physical laws to describe what was happening in nature.38 Yet little research had been done to demonstrate precisely what a study based on the ecosystem concept would look like until 1950.39 That year, already five years after the Trinity test, the first seminal study of an ecosystem was published by G. Evelyn Hutchinson of Yale University.40 His influence would come to be felt throughout radioecology in the following decades from the propagation of his ideas through his students. One of particular importance is Howard Odum, who came to study at Yale with Hutchinson during this period and was strongly persuaded of the merits of his views. His brother, Eugene Odum, went on to revise his approach to ecology when Howard gave him a copy of Elements of Physical Biology in the late 1940s after studying it with Hutchin- son.41 The text, written in 1925 by physical chemist Alfred Lotka, argued for studying biological and physical environments as one single, interactive

35. This was a major frustration of prominent ecologist Victor Shelford. See Croker, Pioneer Ecologist (ref. 2).

36. Frederick Clements and Victor Shelford, Bio-ecology (New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1939). 37. Kingsland, Evolution of American Ecology (ref. 2), 180–92. 38. This was in contrast to Frederic Clements’ organism concept, which had guided ecological

research in the first three decades of the twentieth century. See Arthur G. Tansley, ‘‘The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms,’’ Ecology 16, no. 3 (1935): 284–307.

39. Hutchinson had begun calling for the use of mathematics and a biogeochemical approach in 1940. See Robert McIntosh, ‘‘Ecology since 1900’’ in Egerton, ed., History of American Ecology (ref. 2), 360.

40. G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Vaughan T. Bowen, ‘‘Limnological Studies in Connecticut— IX. A Quantitative Radiochemical Study of the Phosphorus Cycle in Linsley Pond,’’ Ecology 31, no. 2 (1950): 194–203.

41. Eugene Odum had trained as an ecologist at the University of Illinois with Victor Shelford, who was a follower of Frederick Clements’ ‘‘organism’’ model, and a collaborator with him on early textbooks in the field. Betty Jean Craige, Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002), 35.

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system, and proved to be extremely influential on the Odum brothers’ work. Eugene was conveniently working at the University of Georgia near the Savan- nah River nuclear plant, one of only a handful in the country, and almost immediately applied for a grant to study the ecology surrounding the reactor.42

The reaction of the AEC is suggestive of the importance the agency then gave to ecology. It turned down Odum’s request the first time, and only approved it in 1951 after he slashed his budget tenfold and used graduate students for the bulk of the research.43

In spite of the recruitment of ecologists to the agency through both grants and internal employment, several incidents reveal that from the beginning of their work with the AEC, many ecologists began questioning the lack of attention to environmental and health impacts from the release of radioactive material.44

Frank Lowman’s experiences with Kermit Larson at the Nevada test site are exemplary in this regard. While initially told that the Division of Biology and Medicine would have the ultimate say in determining whether or not a shot would occur in relation to wind direction and velocity, Lowman informed his colleagues at the University of Washington that these recommendations were completely ignored by the ‘‘halfwits’’ at the command center. According to Lowman, if the detonation equipment hadn’t failed on one occasion, almost two thousand military men would have received ten to thirty times the tolerance limit for radiation exposure, in addition to Mercury and Las Vegas, Nevada receiving a ‘‘beautiful pasting’’ of radioactive ash. ‘‘I’m sick of the entire mess at CP [the command center],’’ he concluded by the end of his time in Larson’s field group.45 Though it’s not clear whether the servicemen and residents in nearby locations were as at risk as Lowman describes, his account is evidence of how marginalized the field group ecologists may have felt at the AEC test sites.

42. Frank Golley, an ecologist who worked with Stanley Auerbach at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has credited the research of the Odum brothers and the community of ecologists working for the AEC for the dominance of the ecosystem concept, but he does not describe in detail precisely how other ecologists, particularly the UCLA and University of Washington ecologists, became influenced by Hutchinson’s ideas. Frank B. Golley, A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 62–108.

43. Ibid. 51–54. 44. This is not to suggest that this was the only source of conflict between ecologists and the

AEC. Tensions between radioecologists and the AEC also originated over low levels of funding, certain military protocols, and the enormity of the workload. See Bocking, Ecologists and Envi- ronmental Politics (ref. 6).

45. Frank Lowman to Al Seymour, 26 May 1951, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring Program, Civil Defense.

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Back at the University of Washington, Lowman’s colleague Richard F. Foster was also becoming more and more bothered by the potential environ- mental risks of radiation from nuclear waste. Foster was a graduate of Donald- son’s program before World War II and his first hire to the Hanford project. As noted earlier, he took over a second cooperative laboratory at the Hanford facility.

In the years after Hanford began operations, Foster tried to alert his super- iors about environmental problems that might result from the release of radio- active waste into the river, but met with little success.46 Frustrated by the lack of response, he began speaking publicly about the problem of radioactive ‘‘pollution’’ in the Columbia River, though he was careful to acknowledge that he was not reflecting the views of his employers.47 Despite these efforts, in 1951 Foster received orders from the manager of Hanford, Herbert M. Parker, to implement ‘‘a policy deemphasizing waste disposal’’ which Parker had apparently ‘‘wanted all along.’’48 Foster was none too pleased with this, writing to Donaldson: ‘‘Presumably we are to gradually switch over to the more fundamental (biochemistry) type biology . . . the only legitimate reason I can see for doing such a thing would be an impending change in process, eliminating the problem [of radioactive waste] altogether. Of course, we peons don’t know of the reasons behind these intelligent decisions.’’49

Foster was not the only scientist beginning to express alarm about nuclear waste. Around this time the ecologist Orlando Park at Northwestern Univer- sity received a phone call from a young physicist, Edward Struxness, who had recently begun work with the AEC and had once taken an ecology course with Park while a graduate student. Though published documents do not reveal the

46. Richard Foster to H. A. Kornberg, 12 Jun 1953, UWRE, Box 1, Folder 12, General Electric Company, Nucleonics Division (Hanford, WA).

47. Lauren Donaldson’s copy of a talk given by Foster is preserved at the University of Washington Archives. See Richard Foster, ‘‘Effects of Pollution on Fresh Water Organisms,’’ 28 Nov 1950, UWRE, Box 1, Folder 12, General Electric Company, Nucleonics Division (Hanford, WA).

48. Richard Foster to Lauren Donaldson, 4 Mar 1951, UWRE, Box 1, Folder 12, General Electric Company, Nucleonics Division (Hanford, WA); emphasis in original.

49. Ibid. Foster notes that ‘‘this, of course, is what H. A. K. [Harry A. Kornberg] has wanted all along.’’ Kornberg was originally hired by Parker around 1947 to look into the possibility of identifying biochemical changes in blood due to radiation and eventually took over as manager of biology operations, a position he held for twenty years. See Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Annual Report for 1971 to the USAEC Division of Biology and Medicine, Volume 1 Life Sciences, Part 2 Ecological Sciences (Richland, WA: Battelle, 1972), 8.

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details of Struxness’s concerns, it is clear that radioactive wastes released into surrounding water and soil at several National Laboratories were causing some sort of problems with nearby vegetation.50 As a result, Park was asked to serve as a secret consultant to the AEC on the matter of nuclear wastes during this period.51

Notwithstanding the rumblings from these ecologists, however, there were no signs that the AEC had any intention of stopping the release of nuclear wastes or considering whether the environmental and health risks of atmo- spheric testing outweighed the needs of national security and defense.52 These problems were certainly not unique to ecologists; across the national labora- tories, life scientists had to overcome an initial ambivalence within the AEC concerning the need for biological and medical research support.53 While Donaldson’s and Larson’s staffs expected to continue monitoring the move- ment of radioactive material at the testing sites in the Marshall Islands and Nevada, these trips were more often than not pulled together with limited funding at the last minute.54 Only as a result of a terrible accident in the spring of 1954 would ecology gain a greater degree of attention and legitimacy within the organization.

THE UNLUCKY DRAGON AND THE ‘‘NASTY FLAP’’

In March of 1954, unexpected wind shifts caused radioactive ash from Oper- ation Castle Bravo on Bikini Island to fall on the Fukuryu Maru (Lucky

50. Manfred Engelmann, ‘‘Orlando Park, 1901–1969,’’ BESA 51, no. 1 (1970): 16–20. Years later, John Wolfe would describe the discomfort he felt at seeing rows of dead trees around the Oak Ridge reactor and hearing a laboratory representative describe it as due to ‘‘drought’’ while green pines topped the more distant ridges in the area. See John Wolfe, ‘‘Radioecology: Retro- spection and Future,’’ in Proceedings of the Second National Symposium on Radioecology, ed. Daniel J. Nelson and Francis C. Evans (Ann Arbor, MI: Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, 1969), xi.

51. David E. Reichle and W. Franklin Harris, ‘‘Resolution of Respect,’’ BESA 85, no. 3 (2004): 91–95.

52. As Peter Westwick has argued, during the period from 1947–54, defense needs predom- inately influenced the work of scientists working for the AEC. See Peter J. Westwick, The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947–1974 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 138–59.

53. Ibid., 246–52. 54. Lauren Donaldson to colleagues at the University of Washington laboratory, 21 Mar 1953,

UWRE, Box 6, Folder 25, Columbia River Program.

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Dragon), a Japanese fishing boat in the Pacific.55 The fallout sickened crew members and contaminated nearby tuna fish to such a high degree that they were deemed unfit for human consumption.56 Widespread fear erupted throughout the U.S. in the following weeks and months, and ecologists were sent to the Marshall Islands to look for any potential damage to surrounding vegetation and organisms.57 By 1956, the democratic presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson, became the first public official to call for a ban on above- ground nuclear testing.58

Ecological research, rather than aiding in this outcry, was instead a benefi- ciary of it. In the wake of these events, the AEC recruited more ecologists to join National Laboratories and increased financial support for their research.59

As one example, Park, now having served for several years as a secret consultant at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, asked his former student Stanley Auerbach to take over a new ‘‘ecology section’’ there in late 1954.60 Less than a year later, the chief of the biology branch of the AEC contacted the ecologist John Wolfe at Ohio University to come to their headquarters in Washington, D.C., to join the Division of Biology and Medicine for two years.61 At the end of his contract, the AEC took the dramatic step of creating a specific Envi- ronmental Sciences Division of the AEC in 1958 and named Wolfe the found- ing director.62 Wolfe quickly developed a close relationship with Lauren Donaldson and the Laboratory at the University of Washington, and shortly

55. Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 382.

56. ‘‘Radioactive Fallout in the Marshall Islands,’’ Science 122, no. 3181 (1955): 1178–79. 57. Though the Lucky Dragon accident prompted the first public outcry against radioactive

fallout, concerns about the biological effects on radiation were not new. Radioactive materials were known dangers for decades before World War II because of the growing use of x–rays and the resulting skin burns from misuse. See Jacob Darwin Hamblin, ‘‘‘A Dispassionate and Objective Effort’: Negotiating the First Study on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation,’’ Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 147–77.

58. Allan M. Winkler, Life Under a Cloud (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 102–04. 59. Lauren Donaldson to Al Seymour, 19 Jun 1958, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic

Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1. Donaldson notes that the workload of the laboratory at the University of Washington was greatly increased during the last four years, and that the work itself had changed from monitoring to a more ‘‘qualitative’’ evaluation. Kingsland has noted that the AEC increased funding for ecological work after 1954 out of concern for radioactive contamination, but does not specifically point to the Lucky Dragon accident as motivating this shift in AEC policy. See Kingsland, Evolution of American Ecology (ref. 2), 192.

60. Reichle and Harris, ‘‘Resolution of Respect’’ (ref. 51). 61. George Sprugel, ‘‘John N. Wolfe, 1910–1974,’’ BESA 56, no. 3 (1975): 16–22, 20. 62. Ibid.

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thereafter, Al Seymour decided to accept Wolfe’s offer to work with him in his new office in Washington, D.C.63

In addition, after the Lucky Dragon incident, ecologists were much more frequently sought out by the AEC to document the environmental effects of fallout. The AEC told Donaldson that from then on, it would include his laboratory and a ‘‘full blown marine program’’ for all testing in the Pacific as a result of ‘‘the nasty flap that took place after March 1, 1954.’’64 The work of Donaldson’s laboratory underwent a profound transformation as a result of these events, with increased funding and opportunities for ecological research. One assignment in particular, which was a direct result of the accident, appears to have considerably influenced the University of Washington ecologists’ per- ceptions about dangers from radiation in the environment. As a result of the nuclear explosion, large amounts of radioactive ash had descended over the inhabited island of Rongelap in the archipelago. Tasked with determining when it would be safe for the evacuated communities to return, the laboratory began repeated visits to study the ecology of the island and establish whether native foods were contaminated with radioactive materials.

Building from their work at the Hanford laboratory and the earlier test sites in Nevada, Donaldson, Seymour, Lowman, and other ecologists from the University of Washington began tracing radioactive isotopes through food chains and mineral cycles in the Pacific testing grounds. They hoped to detect whether harmful levels of certain isotopes accumulated in various species of plants and animals, and if so, how. This new approach provided answers to basic ecological questions for the first time, though the ecologists struggled to determine how much certain damages they observed in vegetation could be attributable to radiation or other factors such as diseases or drought.65 In retrospect, the scientists involved felt it was the first study they were able to conduct using a true ecosystem approach, as they were not simply obtaining

63. Al Seymour to Lauren Donaldson, n.d., UWRE, Box 5, Folder 10, General Correspon- dence of Staff: Seymour, Alan H. Also see ‘‘Objectives and Interests,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 1, Folder 4, Program Review.

64. W.R. Boss, AEC Assistant Chief, Biology Branch to Lauren Donaldson, 4 May 1956, UWRE, Accession No. 90–060, Box 1, Folder 21, Correspondence of Donaldson, Lauren R. The University of Washington group, despite its small size, seems to have been the most sought after lab for work of this kind. In his letter, Boss interestingly remarked that the Scripps Institute of Oceanography was ‘‘not equipped to do the job you are, in instrumentation, analyses or detection of radioactivity in the water.’’

65. Edward Held to John Wolfe, 6 Mar 1961, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1–4.

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total concentration levels in organisms, but uncovering the environmental interrelationships in accumulation of radioactivity from the soil through potential health hazards to man.66

Although the University of Washington ecologists were excited by the scientific breakthroughs made possible from this new research, the overall purpose of their work seems to have alarmed them. They were particularly uneasy about the fact that they were being asked to provide information regarding human health impacts when they were not trained medical profes- sionals or experts in the genetic effects of radiation.67 This issue, and the findings of their studies, appears to have prompted the University of Washing- ton ecologists to more deeply consider the potential harmful consequences of fallout from nuclear detonations and accidental environmental contamina- tion.68 For instance, it was discovered that the radioisotopes cesium-137 and strontium-90 were easily absorbed by plants since they acted chemically much like potassium and calcium, respectively.69 These radioisotopes were found to accumulate in some organisms, and as a result of their ecological studies, Donaldson’s team recommended that crabs be removed from the diet of the Rongelapese as a precaution after high levels of cesium-137 were discovered.70

The ecologists also encouraged the AEC to release the complete contents of their research to the United Nations Trust Territory government and repre- sentatives of the Rongelapese, and Donaldson became one of the first ecolo- gists to speak out about radioactive contaminants in the environment to the larger scientific community based on this work at Rongelap.71

66. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 4 Oct 1963, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1–3.

67. While the ecological field group offered to share their research with the medical team at the island, they emphasized that they wanted to restrict their purview simply to studying the ecology of the island. Edward Held and Lauren Donaldson to I. E. Wallen, 29 Jun 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1–5.

68. ‘‘Rongelap Ecology Studies: Objectives of the Program,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 7, Folder 22, Rongelap.

69. John C. Bugher et al. of the Advisory Committee for Biology and Medicine to John A. McCone, Chairman of the U.S. AEC, 25 May 1960, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 2–3.

70. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 9 Feb 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 2.

71. John Wolfe, J. J. Davis, and other ecologists working at UCLA and Hanford publicly presented their findings of radioactive contamination of the environment at this time as well. See ‘‘General Program Meeting of Biological Societies. American Association for the Advancement of

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Eugene Odum was another ecologist who became attuned to these pro- blems through research in the Pacific completed after the Lucky Dragon acci- dent. The following summer, as a result of his work at the Savannah plant, Eugene was asked by the AEC to conduct the first ecological study at the Eniwetok Atoll.72 Knowing his brother’s expertise from working with Hutch- inson, Eugene asked Howard to join him for six weeks at the AEC’s marine station. The reef they examined had yet to be directly disturbed by nuclear testing, and provided them with their first opportunity to apply an ecosystem approach in a marine environment.73 The research left them with a new appreciation for the vulnerability of ecosystems to disruption from human actions.74 The intricate symbiosis and interconnectivity of coral ecosystems conveyed to them the potential destructive power of radioactive materials on the ‘‘whole’’ environment.75

Notwithstanding the AEC financial and institutional gestures toward eco- logical studies after the Lucky Dragon incident, the AEC did not alter its policies on nuclear waste and testing in its aftermath.76 The AEC continued to release radioactive effluents into the environment and conducted further aboveground nuclear tests in the belief that it was necessary for national security.77 Indeed, despite the creation of an environmental sciences section,

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Science (Pacific Division). Stanford University Palo Alto, California. August 25–29, 1957,’’ AIBS Bulletin 7, no. 4 (1957): 15–100, on 74–75.

72. Howard T. Odum and Eugene P. Odum, ‘‘Trophic Structure and Productivity of a Windward Coral Reef Community on Eniwetok Atoll,’’ Ecological Monographs 25, no. 3 (1955): 291–320.

73. Ibid., 318. 74. Craige, Eugene Odum (ref. 41). 75. While at Eniwetok, the brothers met and received assistance from Lauren Donaldson,

further enlarging and connecting the community of scientists who were investigating these issues. Odum and Odum, ‘‘Trophic Structure and Productivity’’ (ref. 72), 292.

76. There is some indication that the AEC simply tolerated the radioecologists’ open dis- agreements with their policies during this period and did not actively revoke research support or otherwise seek retribution. See Al Seymour to Max Zelle, Deputy Director of the Division of Biology and Medicine, AEC, 2 Dec 1960, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine.

77. The belief that the release of radioactive wastes below certain levels was generally safe guided waste disposal practices throughout the early years of the Cold War at Hanford and other facilities. It was not until 1961 that the AEC began reducing levels of radioactive wastes released from Hanford facility based on new reports that the permissible amounts of effluent might not be so safe. For a review of AEC waste disposal policies at Hanford and other facilities in this period, including other scientists who were also concerned about such practices, see J. Samuel Walker, The Road to Yucca Mountain: The Development of Radioactive Waste Policy in the United States

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Wolfe was apparently not welcomed at most of the AEC laboratories he visited.78 This likely did little to assuage the initial reticence Wolfe apparently felt towards working in the organization. When he was first recruited by the AEC after the fallout controversy, Wolfe was quite hesitant to give up his professorship with Ohio University to head the Division of Environmental Sciences. His university position offered far more professional respectability, and one of his new colleagues in the organization described him as ‘‘uncowed by bureaucracy to the point of irreverence.’’79 Wolfe ultimately chose to take on the challenge, but an ensuing battle over a new attempt to use nuclear weapons for ‘‘peaceful purposes’’ would test his resolve to work within the AEC.

MOVING THE EARTH: PROJECT PLOWSHARE AND

‘‘ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS’’

In 1953, President Eisenhower delivered his famous ‘‘Atoms for Peace’’ speech, calling on scientists in the U.S. and abroad to advance research in nuclear technologies not simply for warfare, but for the betterment of mankind. One program subsequently developed by scientists at the Livermore National Lab- oratory of the University of California became known as ‘‘Project Plowshare.’’ They proposed to use atomic bombs in construction projects since it was cheaper than using conventional materials for explosions larger than two kilo- tons, and by a progressively larger factor as the scale of the project increased.80

The Livermore laboratory was headed at the time by Edward Teller, a phys- icist who had played a key role in developing the hydrogen bomb. Teller was not a stranger to controversy. He had developed somewhat of a negative reputation among physicists because of his behavior while working at the Los Alamos laboratory, where he pushed ahead with his own research plans rather than participate in the race to produce the first atomic bomb during World

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(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 6, 26, 30, 33. On the continuance of AEC nuclear testing policies despite potential biological risks, see Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 340–41, 455–56.

78. Al Seymour to Lauren Donaldson, n.d. (the letter was likely sent between 1956 and 1958, as Seymour was in Washington at the time it was written), UWRE, Box 5, Folder 10, General Correspondence of Staff: Seymour, Allyn H.

79. Sprugel, ‘‘John N. Wolfe’’ (ref. 61), 21. 80. Al Seymour, ‘‘Future Use of Atomic Energy, Project Chariot,’’ 15 Nov 1960, UWRE,

Accession No. 90–060, Box 3, Folder 9, Future Use of Atomic Energy, Project Chariot, Alaska, 2–3.

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War II. His decision to testify against physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, during congressional hearings that resulted in the revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance in 1954 also did not endear him to many scientists.81 However, he remained an extremely influential figure within the AEC and government circles and was a staunch advocate against any ban on nuclear testing.82

Teller and his colleagues began discussing the possibility of using a nuclear bomb to excavate a portion of Point Hope, Alaska, in order to create a harbor for easier shipment of fossil fuels in 1957. Receiving approval from the AEC in 1958 for ‘‘Project Chariot,’’ Teller informed only members of Alaska’s relevant state agencies and initiated the planning process with negligible biological studies.83 In fact, despite being the preeminent group in the AEC regarding environmental and biological issues, the Laboratory of Radiobiology at the University of Washington was completely uninvolved in the planning for Project Chariot and only made fully aware of Teller’s plans when Al Seymour received a frantic letter from Alaska’s Associate Regional Director of the Inte- rior Department, George Harry, after Teller and representatives from the AEC visited in 1958.84 Seymour and Lauren Donaldson were also contacted by biologists at the University of Alaska who were gravely worried about the potential effects of any nuclear detonation.85

Once informed of Teller’s plans, Donaldson and John Wolfe decided to stage an intervention at a meeting of the Livermore laboratory, where they insisted to Teller and the AEC that a full-scale ecological program was needed.86 After

81. Oppenheimer had been accused of communist affiliations by Senator Joseph McCarthy. For more on Teller and Oppenheimer, see Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 182–83, 532–34.

82. Ibid., 556. 83. Al Seymour to George Harry, Assistant Regional Director for Research, United States

Department of the Interior, 2 Dec 1958, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare. Seymour believed that a biological program adequate to assess the biology cost of the Chariot program was not appreciated in the early planning phases.

84. Ibid. Seymour wrote that Harry was likely better informed of the plans than anyone at the University of Washington.

85. Al Seymour to T. Saunders English, 28 Jan 1959, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare. Seymour seemed particularly concerned to have English clarify what the AEC’s ‘‘conflicting and crudely misleading statements about the possible biological effects of this explosion and the entire weapons testing program’’ had been.

86. Donaldson felt that those who were at the meeting did not seem to have any concern for the biological problems from the detonation. Lauren R. Donaldson to Charles L. Dunham,

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multiple attempts to convince them of the biological problems which might result from the detonation, they were granted permission to conduct a biological survey with Kermit Larson from UCLA and several scientists from the AEC and Livermore laboratory in 1959.87 What could be deemed the first environmental impact assessment was thus undertaken by a committee of ecologists, who were instructed to determine the ‘‘biological cost’’ of Project Chariot under the direc- tion of Wolfe and Seymour.88 There were twenty-three specific parts to the program, and it represented ‘‘the greatest concentration of effort at any place or any time on an ecological problem.’’89 The completed study was over a thousand pages in length, and became the first report on the potential environmental damage of a nuclear explosion that the AEC released prior to a weapon detonation.90

Although seemingly well intentioned, the committee’s ecologists soon ran into problems with both native Alaskans, including biologists, and the AEC. The Eskimos who hunted caribou near where the blast was planned were anxious about the project and the release of radioactive material into their environment. At the commencement of the survey, Wolfe’s group met with tribal representatives but sensed they were too afraid to ask questions.91 The Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also complained to Wolfe and Seymour that there had not been reasonable cooperation from the AEC and that the responsibilities of the State of Alaska in Project Chariot had

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Director of the Division of Biology and Medicine, 29 Apr 1958, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine. A draft proposal for a program in biological studies was prepared over the next several months. See ‘‘A Proposal for a Program in Marine Biology and Oceanography for the Alaska Harbor Project,’’ Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 6 Jan 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine. For additional remarks on Wolfe and Donaldson’s exhortations to the Livermore lab on the subject, also see Gordon Dunning to Lauren Donaldson, 5 Mar 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine.

87. Al Seymour to Clarence Anderson, Director Alaska Fish and Game Commission, 2 Apr 1959, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.

88. ‘‘Objectives and Interests,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 1, Folder 4, Program Review. 89. The twenty-three parts were as follows: human geography, human ecology, archaeology,

radioecology, limnology, entomology, phycology, marine biology, ichthyology, oceanography, areal geology, coastal processes, site geology, geothermal study, exploratory earth boring, aerial photo research, pedology, botany, terrestrial mammalogy, marine mammalogy, terrestrial avi- fauna, sea–cliff avifauna, micrometerology. Environmental Program Coordination Meeting, 9 Mar 1960, Anchorage Alaska, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.

90. John Wolfe, ‘‘Atomic Energy Commission,’’ BioScience 14, no. 5 (1964): 22–25. 91. ‘‘Trip Report, Washington D.C. Meeting of the Committee on Environmental Studies for

Project Chariot,’’ 10–15 Dec 1961, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.

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not been adequately recognized.92 Caught in the middle, Seymour attempted to convey that everyone associated with the ecology program was more than willing to cooperate with Alaskans and that they recognized their interests in Project Chariot.93 Several members of both the University of Alaska and the Department of Fish and Game subsequently joined the University of Washing- ton teams in the research that was to be carried out.

However, the group was under immense pressure from their superiors at the AEC San Francisco Operations Office and the Livermore scientists, and lim- ited in their ability to influence the final determination of whether or not to go through with a detonation.94 Seymour tried to mollify concerned Alaskan biologists by stressing that the AEC had only approved a ‘‘preliminary’’ project, and that the decision to detonate a nuclear device would have to receive approval from not only the AEC, but also the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy of the U.S. Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, and the president himself. More importantly, he noted, if ecological studies showed that unfa- vorable biological consequences would result, it would be highly likely that this would be reason enough for one or all of the above to refuse to approve the detonation.95 Yet privately, the ecologists seem to have been afraid that what- ever their report said, the shot might still go through. The members of the environmental program decided to compile their preliminary reports from 1959 and forward copies to Governor Egan of Alaska separately from the AEC. The importance of their studies, they told the governor, ‘‘could not be overstressed’’ since they would form the basis for the AEC’s decision to continue Project

92. Al Seymour to C. L. Anderson, 26 Jun 1959, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare. 93. Ibid. 94. The Environmental Committee reported directly to the AEC’s San Francisco Operations

Office, which technically oversaw Project Plowshare. E. C. Shute served as the Manager alongside Russell H. Ball, Assistant Manager for Technical Operations; Rod L. Southwick, Assistant to the Manager; and Charles L. Weaver, Safety Coordinator for the Project Manager. See U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, San Francisco Operations Office, No. Chariot 1–60, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot. It should be noted, however, that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore laboratory appear to have wielded considerable influence over the progress and direction of the program, including the involvement of the environmental committee. For example, when the ecologists complained to a representative from the AEC San Francisco Operations office that they hadn’t been invited to several planning meetings, he replied that ‘‘attendance at these meetings was not determined by SAN [the San Francisco office], but by other offices.’’ See Committee on Envi- ronmental Studies, Project Chariot, ‘‘Minutes of Eleventh Meeting,’’ 30 Nov 1961, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot, 4.

95. Al Seymour to John Charrett, Regional Director U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 9 Apr 1959, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.

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Chariot and the scope of further environmental investigations if the project went forward.96

Many of the ecologists also repeatedly battled their own doubts about the adequacy of the environmental program to objectively evaluate the biological cost of the Chariot detonation.97 Their meeting notes document growing frustration among the majority of the committee, who felt that while much had been learned about the ecological environs of the shot site, they were ill- equipped to predict with any scientific certainty what biological effects might result. After more than a decade of ecological research at various testing sites, ecologists had found much cause for worry, but no information suggesting that low-yield, aboveground nuclear explosions had permanent or long-term dele- terious effects on entire ecosystems or humans. The degree of uncertainty was also high, as the earliest ecological studies showed profound variations in assessing potential biological damage because of the characteristics of different radioactive particles, the particular species involved and their life cycles, the tissues affected, seasonal variations, and the food chain of the ecosystem.98

They confirmed some instances of mammalian uptake of radioactive isotopes, but only a few documented cases of severe damage and death to wildlife outside the blast zone.99

In addition to facing these scientific uncertainties, ecologists felt that they had to be incredibly careful not to appear to be taking a position on whether or not a bomb should be detonated. They believed that their duty was to simply analyze scientific results and translate them into a description of environmental problems and possible effects. At one meeting that ran well into the evening hours, the environmental committee concluded that it should try to avoid being in a position of recommending for or against the shot, since the ecolo- gists did not feel that they could ‘‘determine the advisability of engendering environmental costs, whatever they may be, and balance them against the gains

96. Ernest D. Campbell, Secretary for the Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot to all Environmental Program Group Leaders, 18 Nov 1959, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot.

97. Wolfe directed Seymour, Larson, and Davis to prepare a report to explain this concern. See ‘‘Trip Report, Washington D.C. Meeting of the Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot,’’ 10–15 Dec 1961, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.

98. J. J. Davis and R. F. Foster, ‘‘Bioaccumulation of Radioisotopes through Aquatic Food Chains,’’ Ecology 39, no. 3 (1958): 530–35, 535.

99. For an explanation as to why these ecological fallout studies were difficult to correlate to ‘‘human hazards,’’ see Larson, Factors (ref. 26), 16–17.

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to be achieved by conducting the detonation.’’100 Later, a compromise was reached, and the committee members decided to create two separate publica- tions: one that would publish findings concerning only the ecology of the region, and another that would address the problem of predictions and ‘‘bio- logical costs’’ directly.101

Despite their serious misgivings about the adequacy of the ecological survey to provide the necessary information on risks to human health and the envi- ronment, the environmental committee issued a preliminary statement on January 7, 1960, that nuclear detonations could be conducted under certain limitations on the basis of their 1959 studies. But the committee also stated that the data currently available was incomplete, and continuing study during 1960 would be required for firm recommendations.102 At the time, a moratorium on testing was in effect, so there was no immediate threat of a nuclear detonation.

What might have compelled them to go ahead with these recommenda- tions? It appears that the environmental committee was alarmed that they were not included in several important meetings regarding the detonation as they were analyzing their findings.103 Given the fact that the ecologists had reason to believe that their report, whatever its conclusions, might not be taken seriously in the hands of men such as Teller, it’s possible that they were motivated to give scientific guidance on the best time of year to detonate a bomb in case the venture actually did get approved.104 The preliminary report was explicitly designed to time a detonation scenario that would min- imize the biological cost. The environmental committee recommended that if a shot went through, it should take place in the spring, as few birds would be in the area, most small animals and plants would be under snow cover, local

100. Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot, ‘‘Minutes of Eleventh Committee Meeting,’’ 30 Nov 1961, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot.

101. Ibid. 102. ‘‘U.S. Atomic Energy Commission San Francisco Operations Office: Plowshare Pro-

gram. Project Chariot, 1960,’’ 4 Mar 1960, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot. 103. Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot, ‘‘Minutes of Eleventh

Committee Meeting’’ (ref. 100). 104. Scott Kirsch, who looks at this episode from the perspective of biologists outside the

AEC, seems to interpret a few statements from Wolfe on the potential usefulness of the deto- nation as indication that he was unconcerned about the environmental impacts. Given my discussion here, I believe such remarks might be more accurately seen as evidence that Wolfe feared that such detonations could become commonplace, necessitating ecological knowledge of how to conduct them in a manner that was the least damaging environmentally. Though he may have thought the detonation might have useful biological findings, it’s clear he was also concerned about the environmental dangers. See Kirsch, Proving Grounds (ref. 9), 206.

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hunting activity would be minimal, weather and daylight would be optimal, and spring runoff would likely flush any escaping radioactive debris into the sea.105

Many Alaskan biologists and citizens reacted with outrage. University of Alaska biologists came forward to argue against the detonation on the basis of the possibility that dangerous levels of strontium-90 could be absorbed by lichens, eaten by caribou, and then consumed by Eskimos.106 Their assertions were amassed by biologist and activist Barry Commoner and submitted to Science, eventually resulting in a public relations catastrophe for the AEC and the cancellation of the test.107 Wolfe and the environmental committee were horrified both by the way their report was portrayed by the AEC, which downplayed their emphasis on the uncertainties and need for more research before firm conclusions could be reached, and the Alaskan biologists, who they felt exaggerated the evidence for the possibility of radiation damage occurring to Eskimos through their food supply.108 In a speech to other radioecologists the year after the controversy, Wolfe emphasized that very few potentially carcinogenic mutations had been seen at the Nevada and Pacific testing sites from the absorption of radioactive isotopes in fallout.109 He hastened to add that this was ‘‘not to say that there have been no effects—simply that none has been found and intensive inquiry has been a part of the total research effort.’’110

Once the controversy died down, Wolfe seems to have been left with a great deal of bitterness regarding the AEC’s environmental program, feeling that the committee’s role had simply been ‘‘token’’ and that they had no influence over the final decision. ‘‘Affairs are pretty much in the hands of those not competent to carry out such programs or unable to see their far-reaching implications,’’ he wrote to a colleague in 1962.111 Yet at the same time, Wolfe was also incensed

105. John Wolfe, Max Britton, Kermit Larson, Robert Rausch, Allyn Seymour, Norman Wilimovsky, Arthur Lachenbrunch, and Ernest Champbell, ‘‘Statement of Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot,’’ 7 Jan 1960, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot.

106. Kirsch, Proving Grounds (ref. 9), 103–08. 107. Barry M. Commoner, M. W. Friedlander, and Eric Reiss, ‘‘Project Chariot: Letter to the

Editor,’’ Science 134, no. 3477 (1961): 495–500. 108. Seymour described the AEC’s discussions of the report as ‘‘unpalatable.’’ Allyn Seymour,

‘‘Trip Report: Vancouver, B.C.,’’ 25–27 Jun 1962, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare. 109. Wolfe, ‘‘Impact of Atomic Energy’’ (ref. 1), 1–2. 110. Ibid. 111. John Wolfe to Neal Hines, 14 Dec 1962, UWRE, Box 12, Folder 46, Proving Ground, by

Neal Hines: General Correspondence.

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by accusations from scientists at the University of Alaska that the commit- tee’s ecological studies had been actively manipulated to support a shot going forward.112 Seymour felt that it had been a ‘‘miserable assignment’’ and was upset by charges that the group could not be impartial by virtue of their association with the AEC.113 Donaldson was outraged as well by accusations from Commoner and a colleague of his, Michael Friedlander, that the envi- ronmental implications of the test were worse than the committee had acknowledged.114 Implicit in these debates was the problem of what levels of risk were acceptable to whom, what role scientists should play in these decisions, and whether the ecological studies done to date could provide a conclusive answer to the possible environmental harm from the nuclear explosion. The committee was unmistakably conflicted about all these issues and felt deeply ambivalent about weighing the ecological ramifications against the possible benefits of a detonation. The one thing that seems to have been clear to them by the end of the study was that the sensitivity with which they approached evaluating the environmental costs was not shared by those in charge of the project at the AEC.

As conflicts with the AEC over the Chariot project intensified, ongoing studies into problems of radioactive waste began to produce disconcerting findings regarding the environmental risks of nuclear power. In combination, they appear to have amplified the initial trepidations these ecologists had when they started working with the AEC and awakened an environmental ethos within them. This is evident from their attempts to draw congressional atten- tion to the potential environmental dangers from nuclear waste and war during hearings in 1959, as well as the organization of the first national meeting of radioecologists in 1961 to debate how to address the environmental problems of nuclear technology.

112. Ibid. 113. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 13 Mar 1961, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy

Commission Division of Biology and Medicine. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 19 Jan 1961, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine.

114. Michael W. Friedlander, ‘‘Predictions of Fallout from Project Chariot,’’ Nuclear Infor- mation 3, nos. 4–7 (1961): 5–8. In reaction to Friedlander’s article, Donaldson wrote to Wolfe that he was ‘‘alternating between the desire to sum up my most vindictive vocabulary and write a blast to the editors or throw the worthless mess into the round file and forget about it. I am sure we will always have such people as the three principle [sic] characters in this tragedy, but I am sure you as well as I hope that they find another stage to dance on.’’ Lauren Donaldson to John Wolfe, 4 Aug 1961, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1–2.

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THE ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS OF NUCLEAR POWER AND WAR

The ecological research that seems to have most troubled many radioecologists emerged in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and concerned the effects of nuclear waste on the environment rather than the impact of fallout. ‘‘Low level’’ wastes were first released into marine environments at Hanford in the early ’40s, and by the ’50s, three national laboratories were disposing of radioactive material into both freshwater and oceanic ecosystems.115 As part of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the U.S. government began steadily developing a full-scale nuclear power industry. Over the next several years, preparations began for the con- struction of four reactors in Pennsylvania, Detroit, Chicago, and New York City in addition to the reactors already releasing wastes from weapons-grade uranium and plutonium production at the National Laboratories.116

Ecologists had ample reason to be more anxious about waste than fallout simply because of the volume of radioactive material being released, which increased the possibility of concentration in species at the top of the food chain. But crucially, as they began to develop food chain models for marine ecosystems around nuclear reactors, ecologists also discovered a clear relation- ship between the amounts of radioactive effluent released and accumulation in species at high trophic levels through their diet. The first person to do so was Richard Foster, who continued his work on the aforementioned radioactive pollution in the Columbia River at the Hanford Laboratory in spite of dis- couragement from the AEC. He found that fish collected downstream from the reactors were a hundred times more radioactive than laboratory fish ‘‘exposed to equivalent mixtures of the effluent, but fed uncontaminated food.’’117 The highest documented levels of accumulation in marine organisms were several times greater than studies had found in terrestrial ecosystems, making the release of wastes into aquatic environments especially problem- atic.118 In the presence of such alarming data, Lauren Donaldson, with the assistance of Foster, undertook a large-scale study of the effects of radiation

115. The locations of the first laboratories to release these ‘‘low level’’ wastes were at Hanford, Washington, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Savannah, Georgia. As previously noted, there is evi- dence that this played a significant role in establishing ecological stations at these facilities in the 1950s. See Stanley I. Auerbach, ‘‘The Soil Ecosystem and Radioactive Waste Disposal to the Ground,’’ Ecology 39, no. 3 (1958): 522–29, and Engelmann, ‘‘Orlando Park’’ (ref. 50).

116. Auerbach, ‘‘Soil Ecosystem’’ (ref. 115), 522. 117. Davis and Foster, ‘‘Bioaccumulation of Radioisotopes’’ (ref. 98), 531. 118. Ibid., 534.

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on aquatic organisms. They concluded in 1957 that serious damage to these populations was possible even under the maximum permissible concentrations for drinking water, and that controls needed to be put into place to limit the hazards of these facilities.119

Eugene Odum was another ecologist who called attention to these problems after he returned from his study of the fallout effects on a coral reef ecosystem in the Pacific Ocean. The following year, he was selected as an official delegate to the 1955 international conference on peaceful uses of atomic energy in Geneva.120 Much of the excitement surrounding the gathering was related to the possibilities for large-scale nuclear power plants, yet when Odum asked about the disposal of wastes, he was rebuffed by many of the engineers who insisted that the issue would not pose any problems. Undeterred, he and Howard presented a paper at the conference entitled ‘‘Consideration of the Total Environment in Power Reactor Waste Disposal,’’ which emphasized the necessity of protecting not just humans from long-term damage to radioactive waste, but the environment as well.121 Upon returning to the U.S., Odum moved quickly to further educate himself and the rest of the ecological com- munity on the importance of addressing these new dangers. He received a leave of absence from the University of Georgia to study with UCLA scientists at the Nevada Test Site and began a revised edition of his renowned ecology text- book, entitled Fundamentals of Ecology, originally published in 1953. He left much of the old version intact, but added an additional chapter on radioecol- ogy for the 1959 edition that specifically emphasized its importance to nuclear waste disposal, warning that it would ‘‘pose a far greater problem to human society in the future than fallout, in the absence of atomic war.’’122

As his fellow ecologists working on Project Chariot began to feel at this time, Eugene Odum came to believe that ecologists could play pivotal roles in deciding how, where, and when to discharge radioactive materials from nuclear technol- ogy. He saw no other discipline except ecology as capable of providing infor- mation about the potential environmental effects, and pleaded with ecologists to

119. Lauren Donaldson and Richard Foster, ‘‘Effects of Radiation on Aquatic Organisms,’’ in National Academy of Sciences, The Effects of Atomic Radiation on Oceanography and Fisheries, Report (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1957), 101. Interestingly, Donaldson and Foster’s study was the first to consider the potential effects of other types of toxic pollutants besides radiation from nuclear power plants, such as chemical wastes and thermal pollution.

120. Craige, Eugene Odum (ref. 41), 66. 121. Ibid. 122. Ibid., 71–73.

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get involved with policy decisions regarding the release of waste material into the environment.123 Members of the ESA also took concrete steps to mobilize ecologists around this issue, and over time the ESA became a key organizer and sponsor of research on the dangers of nuclear waste. Orlando Park, alongside Eugene Odum, initially founded a special committee for coordinating studies on radioactive pollution, called ‘‘The Effects of Radioactivity on Natural Popula- tions,’’ a year after the Lucky Dragon incident.124 In 1960, the ESA renamed it as the ‘‘Radioecology’’ committee and decided to make it a permanent standing group in the organization with the responsibility for addressing the environmen- tal problems caused by nuclear technology.125 It proved to be one of the most influential and longstanding in the society’s history.126

At the time of the Radioecology committee’s inception, the government began soliciting advice from several committee members on the environmental dangers of nuclear waste and war.127 In recognition of the magnitude of the request, Auerbach asked for help from the entire community of ecologists on the ecological problems resulting from these two issues, welcoming ‘‘sugges- tions and expressions of interest from all ecologists.’’128 He likely did not have to look far for assistance. The editors of Ecology had begun to receive such a massive influx of papers on radioactive contamination and ‘‘environmental poisoning’’ that they were forced to issue a warning to possible contributors that manuscripts must also illuminate ‘‘important ecological problems.’’129

While ecologists may not have taken center stage publicly in debates about nuclear weapons testing, energy, and war or explicitly aligned themselves with the anti-nuclear movement, their attempts to draw policymakers’ attention to the environmental dangers did achieve some notable successes. One partic- ularly important convert to their cause was Congressman Chet Holifield (D-CA). He arrived in the House of Representatives three years before the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, and took an early and intense interest in nuclear technology after a chance appointment to the Military Affairs Committee in

123. Craige, Eugene Odum (ref. 41), 73. 124. ‘‘Back Matter,’’ BESA 36, no. 1 (1955): 36–40, 39. 125. Robert L. Burgess, ‘‘The Ecological Society of America,’’ in Egerton, ed., History of

American Ecology (ref. 2), 12–14. 126. Ibid. 127. Paul G. Pearson et al., ‘‘Proceedings,’’ BESA 44, no. 1 (1963): 5–28. 128. Stanley I. Auerbach, ‘‘Report of the Committee on Radioecology for 1962,’’ in Pearson

et al., ‘‘Proceedings’’ (ref. 127), 22–23. 129. John E. Cantlon et al., ‘‘Proceedings,’’ BESA 40, no. 1 (1959): 10–29.

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1944 because of the unexpected death of another Representative. Impressed with his passion for atomic issues, the House Speaker appointed Holifield to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in 1946. He officially began chairing the committee in 1961, but had already assumed a leadership role in the 1950s and soon became known as ‘‘Mr. Atomic Energy.’’130

In response to the Lucky Dragon accident and the mounting public appre- hension about fallout, Holifield and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy held hearings in 1957 on ‘‘The Nature of Radioactive Fallout and Its Effects on Man.’’131 The goal was to assess whether nuclear testing was harmful to human health with information from scientists both inside and outside the AEC, which was accused at the time of concealing the potential risks. No ecologists were asked to attend, but an oceanographer gave testimony who had worked extensively on these issues with ecologists such as Lauren Donaldson and Richard Foster.132 Roger Revelle, the head of the Scripps Institute of Ocean- ography, strayed from the chosen topic in his testimony in order to draw attention to the problem of releasing nuclear wastes into the environment.133

Congressman Holifield seemed quite troubled by Revelle’s presentation, and noted in his concluding remarks that it raised serious questions about the disturbances nuclear technology could cause in nature if not properly con- trolled.134 On the last day of the hearings, Holifield openly regretted that this field had not been covered. He demanded additional hearings to determine how nuclear wastes were being disposed of and in what quantities, as well as the potential impacts on the environment and the international components of the issue.135

130. Richard Wayne Dyke, Mr. Atomic Energy: Congressman Chet Holifield and Atomic Energy Affairs, 1945–1974 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 22–40.

131. United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, The Nature of Radioactive Fallout and its Effects on Man: Hearings Before the United States Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Special Subcommittee on Radiation, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 4–7 Jun 1957 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957).

132. In his remarks, Revelle noted that findings by the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Effects of Radiation on the Oceans were disconcerting, as marine organisms were found to have a unique ability to concentrate radioactive materials. He worked extensively with Donaldson and Foster in preparing the NAS report on the effects of atomic radiation on oceanography and fisheries and relied upon much of their work. See National Academy of Sciences, Effects of Atomic Radiation (ref. 119).

133. United States Congress, Nature of Radioactive Fallout (ref. 131), 523–50. 134. Ibid., 548. 135. Ibid., 1425.

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True to his word, in 1959 Congressman Holifield initiated a round of hearings specifically on the problem of radioactive waste disposal from nuclear facilities. Crediting the 1957 testimony for raising his awareness of the issue, the congressman warned that the problem of waste disposal was as serious as radioactive fallout. He expressed his hope that a disaster ‘‘such as the contam- ination of the fishing boat, The Lucky Dragon’’ would not be needed to focus public attention on the matter.136 This time, Richard Foster was asked to present his research from the study he performed with Lauren Donaldson’s radioecology group at the University of Washington, which showed the dan- gerous accumulation of radioactive materials by marine species even under the maximum permissible concentrations for drinking water.137 An ecological study on the high levels of cesium-137 in marine ecosystems compared with terrestrial environments was also presented by two other members of the biology division at Hanford Laboratories.138 In contrast to some more reassur- ing testimony by plant operators and engineers, several health physicists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory affirmed the ecologists’ contentions, with the Director of the Health Physics Division stating that the ‘‘immense volume’’ of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste posed a substantial environ- mental problem: ‘‘What concerns us here is not the massive effects that might result from the accidental release of large quantities of fission products, but the rather subtle, cumulative effects that might be building up due to the slow but continuous increase in radioactive contamination of our environment.’’139

The next steps by the committee speak to the unease the ecologists’ testi- monies engendered in them. The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy decided to hold a special hearing several months later to question top AEC officials specifically on the disposal of radioactive waste into the ocean, and several used the opportunity to introduce new legislation setting guidelines for offshore nuclear waste in order to prevent what one congressman called the ‘‘unlimited authority of the Atomic Energy Commission to license dumping in 5 feet of

136. United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Industrial Radioactive Waste Disposal: Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 28–30 Jan 1959, 23 Feb 1959 (Washington, DC: U.S. Gov- ernment Printing Office, 1959), 1.

137. Ibid., 1018–47. 138. Ibid., 1093–102. 139. These health physicists believed that environmental research programs needed to be

undertaken immediately and specifically geared towards ‘‘the contamination problem.’’ Ibid., 2375. For additional testimony on negative environmental effects, see ibid., 344–53, 1048–73, 1103–14, 2373, 2374.

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surf if their whimsy so dictates.’’140 However, because of disagreements related to the regulation of radioactive materials by the states versus the federal gov- ernment, the bills were ultimately never reported by the committee.141

In addition to problems of nuclear waste, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy also decided to investigate the possible ecological catastrophes caused by nuclear war.142 After the 1957 hearings and Revelle’s testimony, Holifield prepared a highly detailed hypothetical attack scenario, including a precise date so that historical weather data could be used. The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy then convened a five-day hearing on the ‘‘Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War’’ in June of 1959 to receive testimony regarding the consequences of such an attack.143 Out of twenty scientists including meteorologists, health

140. United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Industrial Radioactive Waste Disposal: Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 29 Jul 1959 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959), 3060.

141. The committee had a lengthy discussion on the issue of whether or not they could preempt the states in regulating radioactive materials. Some of the congressmen argued that the 1954 Atomic Energy Act gave them sufficient precedent for such a move, but others were less convinced. There was also disagreement over the timing of the legislation and through what agencies the federal government would oversee nuclear waste policies. In the end, the chairman decided that since it was so late in the session, it did not make sense to introduce a potentially controversial bill. The congressional record shows that the states, particularly along the Gulf of Mexico, instead attempted to intervene. See United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, To Consider Draft Committee Reports on Various Legislation, and To Consider Nominations of John A. McCone and Paul F. Foster To Be Delegate and Alternate to General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 31 Aug 1959 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959).

142. In a second round of hearings on the application of radioisotopes in the life sciences in 1961, Congressmen Holifield and his committee again raised the issue of nuclear wastes even though it was not within the scope of the meetings. Al Seymour, who had now returned to the radiation biology lab at the University of Washington, presented a summary of how radioactive tracers can illuminate food chains within ecosystems. But at the close of his talk, the panel questioned Seymour about the accumulation of radioactive isotopes from nuclear waste at the Hanford laboratory. Seymour voiced his concerns about the accumulation of radioactive sub- stances in fish at the Hanford plant and dismay that it was not receiving more public attention. United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Applications of Radioisotopes and Radiation in the Life Sciences: Hearings before the United States Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Subcommittee on Research, Development, and Radiation, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 27–30 Mar 1961 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 3, 266–76.

143. United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Biological and Environ- mental Effects of Nuclear War: Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 22–26 Jun 1959 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959), 1–5.

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physicists, and engineers, the ecologists John Wolfe and Kermit Larson were called as witnesses to discuss the impact of nuclear war on the environment in a panel on ‘‘Environmental Contamination.’’

Larson began his testimony by stating that the previous decade of research in radioecology was designed to answer one principal question: ‘‘How much manmade radioactivity distributed in the environment can be tolerated safely by man and his economy?’’144 While no studies had been carried out with high-yield weapons likely to be detonated over metropolitan areas, Larson argued that radioecology’s fallout studies could be used as a baseline to illu- minate the environmental effects of nuclear war. His presentation was largely technical in nature, and described the ecological research performed on bio- availability of radioactive fallout based on food webs, climate, and topograph- ical factors.145 The congressmen became far more agitated by the next speaker, who turned Larson’s data into a frightening picture of the environmental consequences of a nuclear attack.

John Wolfe’s subsequent testimony focused on the long-term ecological effects of nuclear war.146 While hoping not to paint ‘‘a spectacular picture’’ he described several horrific outcomes of a nuclear attack, such as how an elimination of algae from a nuclear bomb could lead to a collapse of food systems in Alaska and how postattack fires on the East Coast could destroy the entire forest cover, leading to severe erosion, flooding of valleys, and the complete un-inhabitability of these regions.147 As the committee struggled to understand the magnitude of his statements, he pointed to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s as just a small example of the kind of destruction that nuclear war could wreak on ecosystems. Wolfe called several congressmen’s estimations that postattack forest fires would be similar to those caused by cigarette butts or camp fires ‘‘almost ludicrous.’’148 One congressman expressed disbelief as Wolfe explained that no part of the U.S. would remain completely uncon- taminated as surviving radioactive animals in blast regions moved to ‘‘clean’’ areas and were eaten. An Army colonel also present at the hearing interjected to affirm that ‘‘the picture that Dr. Wolfe has presented here is very real’’ and by the end of Wolfe’s remarks, many congressmen appear to have been persuaded

144. Ibid., 796. 145. Ibid., 798–831. 146. Wolfe was the first self-identified ‘‘ecologist’’ to testify in Congress, although he noted

that they had received much ‘‘ecological testimony’’ in their previous hearings. Ibid., 831. 147. United States Congress, Biological and Environmental Effects (ref. 143), 833–36. 148. Ibid., 837.

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of the potential environmental consequences.149 Coverage of his testimony was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which noted that Wolfe ‘‘painted a very grim picture of the impact of war upon a nation’s ecology.’’150

Wolfe’s statements appear to have further incited Congressman Holifield on the issue of nuclear war; he had been a staunch advocate for civil defense planning for several years.151 After the hearing, he concluded that the focus on carcinogenic aspects of radiation had obscured the real problem of nuclear war and its potential destruction. Now, armed with ‘‘authoritative testimony,’’ he petitioned the Kennedy administration for additional funding for civil defense. Though his requests were initially turned down, Holifield eventually earned the president’s support, and Kennedy appropriated significant funding for civil defense projects.152 Whether they served a practical purpose in pre- serving the environment in the event of a nuclear war may be questionable, as most of the resources went to the construction of fallout shelters. In the meantime, ecologists decided to turn inward to examine perceived problems in their science with the hope that changes in the field might allow them to provide improved analyses of the possible environmental impacts of nuclear technology.

CREATING A ‘‘NEW GENERATION’’ IN ECOLOGY

To answer the environmental challenges of the atomic age, radioecologists realized they needed to reform their training. The first decade of research had shown that these problems could not be addressed without high competency in physics and chemistry.153 Prior to World War II, professional ecologists

149. Ibid., 838. 150. Ralph Lapp, ‘‘What Is the Price of Nuclear War?’’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 15, no. 8

(1959): 340–43, 341. For coverage of Wolfe’s testimony in the popular press, see Herman Kahn and Sidney Lens, ‘‘Are Shelters Necessary?’’ Rotarian 101, no. 1 (1962): 9–13, 58–59, 13.

151. Dyke, Mr. Atomic Energy (ref. 130), 204. 152. Historian Richard Dyke does not specify in his biography of Holifield what this

‘‘authoritative’’ testimony was in the 1959 hearings, but it seems clear from the congressional record that it was Wolfe’s discussion of the environmental devastation which served this purpose. No other speakers addressed widespread damage to areas throughout the United States. See ibid., 207–08.

153. It should be noted that training in ecology itself was also in limited supply at this time. Almost half of leading U.S. universities offered no courses in ecology, and within biology de- partments, ecology was generally not a requirement to complete a degree. Paul B. Sears, ‘‘The Place of Ecology in Science,’’ American Naturalist 94, no. 876 (1960): 193–200, 193–97.

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generally came from one of two educational tracks: botany, the dominant background of practitioners, and zoology. This balance remained until the initiation of studies related to radioactive fallout.154 By 1961, collaboration among oceanographers, members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, health physicists, and traditional ecologists had led to a substantial shift in what counted as ecological research and who was considered a member of their scientific community.155

In the aftermath of the Project Chariot fiasco, Kermit Larson began orga- nizing the first national meeting of ‘‘Radioecologists’’ with the help of the ESA’s Radioecology committee. The conference organizers hoped to review all the research thus far in the field and discuss how to address the environ- mental problems of nuclear technology, particularly regarding nuclear waste and war. It took place over five days in September 1961, and included ecologists from the University of Washington, UCLA, and the AEC Division of Envi- ronmental Sciences.156 While much of the conference focused on discussions of scientific papers, a special panel on the last day of the conference sparked considerable preoccupation with how ecological training could be revised to confront the unique environmental problems posed by the atomic age.

The panel was chaired by Eugene Odum, who had authored the first textbook on ecology and had advocated for reforms in the education of future ecologists in order to facilitate research on the ecological impacts of nuclear technology. Odum began writing the first ecology textbook back in the late 1940s while working as a new professor at the University of Georgia and for the AEC at their Savannah plant. Pressed by his colleagues both within the biology department and at the nuclear facility to articulate the major prin- ciples of ecology, Odum decided to take up the difficult task that ‘‘no one seems to want to tackle’’ and composed a textbook for students interested in

154. At the second National Symposium on Radioecology, John Wolfe pointed out that much of the first ‘‘ecological and environmental’’ work was ‘‘obscured’’ under unfamiliar names like ‘‘biophysics’’ and said that he hoped future historians would incorporate these studies into the history of ecology. Wolfe, ‘‘Radioecology: Retrospection and Future,’’ in Nelson and Evans, eds., Proceedings (ref. 50), xi.

155. For an account of the emerging cooperation among forestry, game, soil, fisheries and zoological experts with oceanographers and meteorologists at the University of Washington laboratory, see Paul Wells, ‘‘Atomic Science Seeks Answers to Impoverished Lakes, Forests,’’ Sunday News & Leader, 26 Jul 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine. In further support of this point, see Sigmund Olsen to Stanley Auerbach, 6 Jul 1965, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 15, Fern Lake.

156. See Schultz and Klement, eds., Radioecology: Proceedings (ref. 1).

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the field.157 As noted earlier, he revised this work to include new information on radioecology in the late 1950s, and continued to push for both new graduate training and the reeducating of current professionals.158

The two-hour session was widely attended and spawned an open discussion from the audience where more than twenty people responded to the panelists. In his introductory remarks, Odum stated his belief that the field had recently experienced rapid growth because of its significance in preserving ‘‘the welfare of man.’’ Noting the cooperation among health physicists, environmental engineers and ecologists, Odum encouraged his colleagues to dissolve the distinction between pure and applied science for the ‘‘best interest of man- kind’’ and argued for establishing radiation ecology as an interdisciplinary field.159 The attendees reached a general agreement on the need to retrain current ecologists and overhaul doctoral programs to provide a solid education in the physical and chemical sciences for ecologists, as well as push for greater ecological training among biologists more generally.

Stanley Auerbach, also on the panel, responded to Odum’s presentation with a proposal to open a new course at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for postdoctoral students interested in the environmental effects of atomic energy, with a specific focus on nuclear fallout and waste. Prospective applicants would need a solid foundation in mathematics and chemistry, and the course would be designed to create a ‘‘new generation’’ of ecologists under the tutelage of the program’s future graduates. Within a year, the first crop of students completed Auerbach’s course after he secured sponsorship from the National Science Foundation, the AEC, the ESA, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, and the program was lauded as a major success.160

As the modern environmental movement erupted across the United States after Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring in 1962, Auerbach’s program

157. Craige, Eugene Odum (ref. 41), 38. 158. Odum at times conveyed his ‘‘personal disappointment’’ that more ecologists were not

willing to retrain themselves in radioecology, forcing the field to turn to the next generation. His passion was unmistakably rooted in the ongoing damage to the environment. As he put it in an article on the ‘‘new’’ ecology: ‘‘If biologists do not rise to the challenge, who will advise on the management of man’s environment—the technicians who have great skill but no understanding, or the politicians who have neither?’’ See Eugene Odum, ‘‘The New Ecology,’’ BioScience 14, no. 7 (1964): 14–16.

159. Eugene Odum, ‘‘Panel Discussion on Education and Research Training,’’ in Schultz and Klement, eds., Radioecology: Proceedings (ref. 1), 643.

160. Ibid., 644.

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helped launch the lab into a model for transforming the National Laboratories into environmental science centers.161 Oak Ridge received new grants from the AEC for an environmental research laboratory, and the National Science Foundation appointed Auerbach as director of a forest biome program to study ecosystems across the eastern United States.162 The project formed the basis for subsequent programs at Oak Ridge and other National Laboratories to investigate a number of environmental problems, notably acid rain and climate change.163 In this way, though the transformation in environmental awareness which occurred among AEC ecologists did not result in substantive policy changes, their research into the environmental consequences of nuclear technol- ogy and attempts to reform their educational training did facilitate the transition to examining a myriad of environmental problems in the ensuing years.

At the second national symposium of radioecologists in 1967, Wolfe seemed optimistic about ecologists’ increasing role in environmental problems, if chas- tened by the challenges of the last decade.164 Reflecting on the public uproar over a growing number of issues beyond nuclear fallout and waste, such as toxic chemicals and air pollutants, Wolfe noted that these were fundamentally ‘‘ecological’’ problems that required their unique expertise and experience. He seemed to lament that radioecologists could not have done more in the past to shape policies, conceding that mistakes were made, and he urged ecologists to reach out more to government administrators.165 Wolfe told his audience not to regret what they had lost in the last three generations from changes to the environment, but to fight to reconstruct what they had left.

The guest of honor was none other than Congressman Holifield, who echoed Wolfe’s sentiments.166 He argued that the techniques to study the

161. Laboratory Director Alvin Weinberg dubbed 1969 the ‘‘year of the environment’’ in his annual State of the Laboratory address, exclaiming: ‘‘On every hand we are being told the fruits of technology are endangering our living space . . . . The ecologists have displaced the physicists as high priests in this new era of environmental concern.’’ The National Laboratories, but especially Oak Ridge, helped the AEC prepare its first Environmental Impact Assessment Reports under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Carolyn Krause, ed., ‘‘Oak Ridge National Laboratory: The First Fifty Years,’’ ORNL Review 25, nos. 3 and 4 (1992): 1–288, on 173.

162. Ibid., 149, 173. 163. Ibid., 166. 164. Wolfe, ‘‘Radioecology: Retrospection and Future,’’ in Nelson and Evans, eds., Pro-

ceedings (ref. 50), xi. 165. Ibid., xii. 166. Holifield, ‘‘The Scientist’s Responsibility in the Control of Man’s Environment,’’ in

Nelson and Evans, eds., Proceedings (ref. 50), 1.

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effects of nuclear weapons and wastes were ‘‘directly applicable to the analysis of pollution problems’’ and hoped radioecologists would assist in such work.167 True to his word, a few months after the 1967 meeting, Holifield’s Joint Committee on Atomic Energy introduced legislation to enlist the AEC’s National Laboratories in studies on environmental pollution. It was passed and enacted into law in December of that year. This research experience proved vital after the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969, which required the AEC to submit environmental impact assessment reports on nuclear power plants. Ecologists at the National Laboratories were given responsibility for completing the first such reports for the government.168

Radioecologists also began to receive increasing recognition for their envi- ronmental expertise from fellow biologists. During the 1969 ‘‘Year of the Environment,’’ John Wolfe was invited to give the inaugural address at the annual meeting of the American Institute for Biological Sciences. Entitled ‘‘Chickens,’’ Wolfe’s speech implored biologists to utilize their knowledge to solve the environmental problems facing humanity and decried early failures of ecologists to involve themselves in public affairs.169 It was the only speech to have ever received a standing ovation at the society’s meeting.170

The attempts of Wolfe and other radioecologists to raise awareness about the potential dangers of nuclear technology should prompt historians to reex- amine to what extent AEC biologists pursued ‘‘basic’’ research without regard to its consequences for the natural environment. As this paper has shown, studies to ascertain the ecological damages from the Lucky Dragon accident and the controversy over using atomic weapons in construction projects caused Wolfe, Donaldson, Larson, Seymour, and others involved in this work to profoundly question how their scientific research could play a role in evaluat- ing the environmental implications of nuclear fallout, waste, and war. These men were certainly far from activists on such issues. But their private expres- sions of apprehension about the implications of their research for the AEC, attempts to alert the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy to these problems, and efforts to reform ecological science to better evaluate environmental risks from radioactive pollution provide clear evidence of the intensifying concerns of these ecologists over nuclear technology. Understanding these developments

167. Ibid., 7. 168. Ibid. 169. Sprugel, ‘‘John N. Wolfe’’ (ref. 61), 22. Wolfe was still employed by the AEC at the time.

He left the organization several years later and died of cancer in 1974. 170. Ibid.

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is essential to grasping how ecological science began to play a greater role in the environmental issues facing American society.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Daniel Kevles, Bruno Strasser, Angela Creager, Alistair Sponsel,

Helen Curry, and Robin Scheffler, each of whom offered helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. Comments from Thomas Wellock and Judy Johns Schloe-

gel considerably improved the paper as well, and I am very appreciative of Jacob Darwin Hamblin’s guidance in making revisions. Portions of the paper were presented at Yale University’s Northeast Regional Environmental History Conference in April

2011 and at the annual History of Science Society meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 2011; thank you to everyone who attended and provided thoughtful

feedback. This material was based on work supported by a National Science Foun- dation Graduate Research Fellowship.

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