Idaho Falls Read online

  Decades later, Atomic Energy Insights, a journal published by Adams Atomic Energies, Inc., devoted the July 1996 issue to SL-1 and its story's absence from the history books. In an article that probes the reasons for SL-1's obscurity, author Rod Adams reported that insiders, who did not want their names used, believed there were “unstated reasons for not releasing the [AEC] report. While the term ‘cover-up' wasn't used, the phrase, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie' was used more than once.”

  And the dogs did sleep. Years after the explosion, Fordham University's Natural Science Professor Eric J. Simon conducted an informal poll of students, professionals, and professors—including one professor with a graduate degree in nuclear engineering—and none of them knew that the world's first nuclear deaths occurred in Idaho. They, like most other people, mistakenly believed that the 1979 Three Mile Island incident was the first serious reactor accident in America.

  In the aftermath of the explosion, the industry did take internal steps to prevent a recurrence of the SL-1 tragedy. Reactors around the country were shut down, while operating procedures were rewritten and emergency response plans strengthened. The AEC increased its supervision of nuclear contractors and reactor programs. Respirators were redesigned to prevent the fogging that hampered rescuers at SL-1. Detection meters were created to read much higher levels of radiation. No reactor would ever again be designed with the ability to go critical from the removal of one control rod.

  But those were technical responses to the SL-1 incident. What of the human questions raised by the accident? Were undertrained, inexperienced operators let loose on a marginal reactor? Did a well-known prankster take a stunt with his coworker too far? Did a young guy with a host of young guy problems—a rocky relationship, money troubles, a fast-lane lifestyle—take his frustrations out on a delicate and dangerous piece of machinery? Did jealousy, infidelity, and rage burn even hotter than enriched uranium that night in the steel silo?

  Those were—and are—uncomfortable questions for an industry that depends on everything working just right. Those are questions that can't be answered by better engineering, more sophisticated physics, and new materials. Those are questions, say insiders, that truly reveal the larger story behind SL-1, a story that is as pertinent to the nuclear industry and the public today as it was in 1961.

  “What is the story? The story is, you can wreck one of these plants,” says nuclear regulator Stephan Hanauer. “Something went very badly wrong, either in somebody's head or in some piece of machinery or in the execution of commands that never should have been given. So I think there's plenty of blame for everybody. . . . This technology really depends on people and machinery. I don't know if people really understand that or not. Both can make trouble.”

  George Voelz, medical director at the Testing Station at the time of the explosion, believes that the human factor in the SL-1 incident is still relevant, even with today's far larger and safer nuclear reactors. “I think the human element is present in many of these accidents,” he says. “This reactor really has no relevance to [modern] power reactors because they're so much bigger and complex. If this was done as a deliberate act, you couldn't do anything like this in a power reactor now. But the general conclusion that human decisions or performance plays a role in many nuclear accidents is certainly true. In a high portion of accidents you'll find that if someone had done something differently, you wouldn't have had a problem.”

  Egon Lamprecht, the firefighter who initially responded to the alarm at SL-1, makes no claim of technical expertise. He doesn't pretend to understand the complex mix of technical problems, faulty design, and human failings that came together so badly that night in 1961. He doesn't pretend to be an expert on the implications the accident posed for the industry. But he was there. He's read the reports and talked to people who had first-hand knowledge about the crew and the reactor. And he's had decades to think about it.

  “We will never know for sure if it was a murder-suicide or whether it was an accident,” he says. “I know it was man-caused. No one can deny that. That control rod got pulled out by a human being.

  “Why was it pulled? We'll never know. Dead men don't talk.”

  Appendix

  Explosion Timeline

  –500 milliseconds The central control rod withdrawal begins.

  –120 milliseconds The reactor goes critical when the control rods reaches 16.7 inches; rod continues to its full 20-inch extension.

  0 seconds The power of the nuclear excursion peaks at 19,000 megawatts; the fuel plates begin to vaporize as temperatures hit 3,740 degrees Fahrenheit.

  0.5 milliseconds The nuclear energy release ends; the center fuel elements and central control rod blade and shroud are ejected from the core; the water column above the core begins to accelerate upward.

  34 milliseconds The water column rushes into the lid of the vessel; shield plugs are ejected from the lid at speeds of 85 feet per second; the vessel rises out of its sheath.

  160 milliseconds The first shield plug hit the reactor room ceiling; two-thirds of the water inside the reactor is expelled and 5 percent of the fission products are released.

  800 milliseconds The reactor vessel hits the ceiling.

  2,000–4,000 The reactor vessel falls down and comes to rest milliseconds in its sheath.

  Sources

  Author's note: Sources are generally attributed within the narrative of this book. Present tense attributions indicate the subject spoke with the author; past tense attributions indicate the material came from subjects' interviews with government investigators. Below, in alphabetical arrangement, are sources the author used—either directly or indirectly—to tell the story of the explosion of the SL-1 reactor.

  Prologue

  • National Geographic article, “You and the Obedient Atom,” Allan C. Fisher Jr., September 1958

  • The SL-1 Accident, a film produced the US Atomic Energy Commission's Idaho Operations Office, undated but circa 1963

  Chapter 1: Nuclear Apprenticeship

  • Cave Archeology of the Snake River Plain, Idaho, US Bureau of Land Management, December 1999

  • Craters of the Moon, Historic Context Statements, National Park Service, August 1999

  • Coming of Age: Idaho Falls and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Ben J. Plastino, BookCrafters, Chelsea, MN, 1998

  • Idaho: A Bicentennial History, F.R. Peterson, Norton, New York, NY, 1976

  • Idaho Falls, City of Destiny, Mary Jane Fritzen, Bonneville County Historical Society, Idaho Falls, ID, 1991

  • Idaho Falls Post-Register, Golden Jubilee Edition, September 10, 1934

  • INEEL Comprehensive Facility and Land Use Plan, US Department of Energy, Idaho Operation's Office

  • Interviews with John Byrnes, son of John (Jack) Byrnes, November 2001 and March 2002

  • Interview with Martin Daly, graduate of “Army Nuke” program, April 2000

  • Interview with Stella Davis, friend of Arlene Byrnes and wife of a former military supervisor at SL-1, November 2000

  • Interviews with Ed Fedol, graduate of Army Nuke program and acquaintance of Legg and Byrnes, April and June 2000

  • Interviews with Elwyn Legg, cousin of Richard Legg, November 2000 and January 2001

  • Proving the Principle: A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Susan M. Stacy, US Department of Energy, Idaho Operations Office, Idaho Falls, ID, 2000

  • SL-1, a docudrama, produced by Diane Orr and C. Larry Roberts, a Beecher Films/KUTV Inc. Production, Salt Lake City, UT, 1983

  • Snake River Plain Volcanics, US Geologic Service, May 2001

  • The Story of Idaho, VM Young, University of Idaho Press, 1990

  Chapter 2: Atomic Energy Meets the Cold War

  Much of the historical information about the National Reactor Testing Station, including the BORAX 1 and Air Force nuclear airplane projects, is drawn from the exhaustively researched Proving the Principle: A History of the Id
aho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory by Susan M. Stacy, US Department of Energy, Idaho Operations Office, Idaho Falls, ID, 2000

  • Coming of Age: Idaho Falls and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Ben J. Plastino, BookCrafters, Chelsea, MN, 1998

  • Interview with Brad Bugger, employee of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, August 2000

  • Interviews with Egon Lamprecht, lifelong resident of southeast Idaho and a former firefighter at the National Reactor Testing Station who was among the first to arrive at the scene of the SL-1 explosion, June, August, and October 2000

  • Interview with Homer Clary, longtime Idaho Falls resident, coworker of John Byrnes at Texaco gas station, and acquaintance of both Byrnes and Richard Legg, March 2001

  • Interview with Homer Clary, March 2001

  • Interviews with Michael Cole, brother of Judy Legg and a former employee at the National Reactor Testing Station, October and November 2001

  • Interview with Clay Condit, former civilian physicist assigned to the naval nuclear submarine project at the National Reactor Testing Station and later assigned to investigate the cause of the SL-1 explosion for the US Navy, August 2000

  • Interview with Stella Davis, November 2000

  • Interviews with Elwyn Legg, November 2000 and January 2001

  • Interview with Melbourne Legg, cousin of Richard Legg, February 2001

  • Interviews with Susan M. Stacy, historian and author of Proving the Principle: A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, July and October 2000, January 2001

  • New York Times, “Rickover Honored by AEC for Role in Submarine Program,” January 18, 1961

  • Proving the Principle: A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Susan M. Stacy, US Department of Energy, Idaho Operations Office, Idaho Falls, ID, 2000

  • “SL-1 Accident,” US Atomic Energy Commission Investigation Board Report, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congress of the United States, June 1961

  • The Army's Nuclear Power Program: The Evolution of a Support Agency, Lawrence H. Suid, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, 1990

  • US Atomic Energy Commission Investigation Board, transcripts of hearings held in January 1961, Idaho Falls, ID

  Chapter 3: “There Must Be Something Wrong at SL-1”

  The narrative of the personal and professional lives of John Byrnes and Richard Legg in the months leading up to the explosion is reconstructed using two confidential reports by Leo Miazga, investigator, Division of Inspections, US Atomic Energy Commission. The first, dated January 20, 1961, is addressed to EB Johnson and is titled “John A. Byrnes III, Idaho Nuclear Power Field Office, United States Army.” The second report is dated July 25, 1962, and is titled“SL-1 Incident, Supplemental Report.”

  The statement that Byrnes accepted Mitzi's offer of sex is an educated assumption. The government has redacted a critical sentence in the “SL-1 Incident, Supplemental Report” that would answer the question definitively. However, a close reading of the report—and the fact that a portion of a critical sentence describing Byrnes's interaction with Mitzi is redacted—seems to buttress this assumption. Paraphrasing an interview with then army sergeant Paul Conlon, Miazga wrote: “Sgt. Conlon said that [Mitzi] proved to be a woman of easy virtue and suggested a price of $20 per person. He added that some discussion ensued and she reduced her price to $2 per person and that some of those present took advantage of her offer while others declined. He said to the best of his knowledge [redacted], while Legg declined.” Conlon, through the Department of Energy's Idaho Operations Office, declined to comment. Two former high-ranking employees of the Testing Station who either read the unredacted report years ago or who talked to investigators declined to deny that Miazga had reported a liaison between Mitzi and Byrnes.

  • Interview with Homer Clary, March 2001

  • Interview with Stella Davis, November 2000

  • “There was a buttoned up Mormon culture . . .”: Interview with Department of Energy employee Julie Braun, a lifelong resident of the Idaho Falls area, August 2000

  • US Atomic Energy Commission Investigation Board, transcripts of hearings held in January 1961, Idaho Falls, ID

  • “SL-1 Accident,” US Atomic Energy Commission Investigation Board Report, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congress of the United States, June 1961

  • “SL-1 Cadre Log,” Department of Energy, Idaho Operations office records repository

  • “SL-1 Reactor Accident, Interim Report,” May 15, 1961, Combustion Engineering Inc.

  Chapter 4: Wayward Atoms

  • Confidential reports: “John A. Byrnes III, Idaho Nuclear Power Field Office, United States Army,” January 20, 1961, and “SL-1 Incident, Supplemental Report,” July 25, 1962, by Leo Miazga, Division of Inspections, US Atomic Energy Commission

  • Idaho Falls Post-Register, community notices, January 3, 1961

  • Interview with C. Wayne Bills, the US Atomic Energy Commission's deputy director of health and safety at the National Reactor Testing Station at the time of the incident, October 2000

  • Interviews with Don Petersen, former radiation biologist at Los Alamos Laboratory and a member of the SL-1 autopsy team, October and November 2000

  • Interview with Bette Vallario, wife of Edward Vallario, July 2000

  • Interviews with Robert Vallario, son of Edward, September and October 2000

  • Interview with Dr. George Voelz, US Atomic Energy Commission's director of medical services at the National Reactor Testing Station at the time of the incident, September 2000

  • Interviews with Egon Lamprecht, June, August, and October 2000

  • Interview with Stella Davis, November 2000

  • Interview with Don Petersen, October and November 2000

  • US Atomic Energy Commission Investigation Board, transcripts of hearings held in January 1961, Idaho Falls, ID; interviews with Edward Vallario, Walter Moshberger, Max Hobson, Paul Duckworth

  Chapter 5: “Caution: Radioactive Materials”

  • Interview with Vernon Barnes, former employee at the Testing Stations Chemical Processing Plant, May 2000

  • Interviews with Elwyn Legg, November 2000 and January 2001

  • Interviews with Don Petersen, October and November 2000

  • Interview with C. Wayne Bills, October 2000

  • Interview with Dr. George Voelz, September 2000

  • SL-1, a docudrama, produced by Diane Orr and C. Larry Roberts, a Beecher Films/KUTV Inc. Production, Salt Lake City, UT, 1983

  • “The SL-1 Reactor Accident, Autopsy Procedures and Results,” C.C. Lushbaugh, D.F. Petersen, L.G. Chelius, T.L. Shipman, May 1961, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

  • US Department of Energy, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years (oral histories), Dr. Clarence Lushbaugh and Don Petersen

  • US Atomic Energy Commission, “Interim Report on SL-1 Incident, January 3, 1961,” The General Manager's Board of Investigation, January 27, 1961

  Chapter 6: Accident Aftermath

  • “Briefing on SL-1 Accident at NRTS,” minutes of US Atomic Energy Commission Meeting No. 1687, January 11, 1961

  • Curtis Nelson, cover letter, US Atomic Energy Commission, “Interim Report on SL-1 Incident, January 3, 1961,” The General Manager's Board of Investigation, January 27, 1961

  • Deseret News and Telegram, “A-Reactor Blast Kills 3 In Idaho,” January 5, 1961

  • Dr. Albert Heustis, commissioner of Michigan Department of Health, memo to Francis J. Weber, chief of the US Public Health Service, January 17, 1961