The Silkwood Project

Harold One Feather

 

The Silkwood project was Founded in 2006 by Harold One Feather, a Hunkpapa Lakota environmentalist, natural philosopher and volunteer for Defenders of the Black Hills. Also Founded by John LeKay, New York artist,   Heyoka magazine publisher and environmentalist.

The Silkwood project is named by Harold One Feather to honor the memory and bravery of Karen Silkwood, a social reformer.  Our mission is to raise global and national awareness about the increasing dangers and toxic levels of uranium in the environment of South Dakota,  particularly in the Black Hills, Harding County, Standing Rock and Rock Creek reservations.

The Silkwood Project is an educational vehicle and database of information for anyone interested in the life cycle of uranium, from its mining, depletion, use in nuclear energy reactors, weaponisation and its potential for toxic contamination, cause of uranium syndrome, cancers and birth defects. Its mission is to raise international awareness concerning the increasing dangers and toxic levels of uranium in the environment of South Dakota, particularly in the Black Hills, Harding County, Rock Creek, Standing Rock and Pine Ridge Indian reservations.

 

In 1972,  Karen Silkwood was hired as metallographic lab technician at the Cimarron River Plutonium Plant, operated by Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation, in Crescent, Oklahoma. On her first assignment to study plant health and safety issues, she discovered leaks, spills and potentially missing plutonium. In those days of the early-to-mid 1970s, Environmental concerns were making the headlines, and Silkwood felt that the plant management was not sufficiently concerned with worker safety. She testified before the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that she had suffered radiation contamination, and she participated in a union strike against the company.

John LeKay

 

According to the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, Kerr-McGee had manufactured faulty fuel rods, falsified inspection reports, and risked employee safety. Following work all day, on the evening of November 13, 1974, she attended a union meeting. At the end of the meeting, she left to meet with an AEC official and a New York Times reporter, to provide new evidence about the safety violations of the Kerr-McGee plant. She died in a one-car accident, which police estimated was due to her falling asleep at the wheel. A police autopsy showed that she had 0.35 mgs of Quaalude (a sleep inducing drug) in her blood, and 50 mgs of undissolved methaqualone in her stomach, more than twice the normal amount needed for sleep.

The autopsy also confirmed that her lungs and stomach were contaminated with small amounts of plutonium, in levels acceptable to the AEC for exposure by atomic workers, confirming the trace amounts of plutonium that had been found in her apartment the week before. Her death has led to speculation about foul play, however, nothing was ever conclusively proven. In 1984, a motion picture, "Silkwood," was made about her life. In 1986, her family sued Kerr-McGee for $11.5 Million for her contamination, but settled out of court for $1.38 million, and without Kerr-McGee admitting liability. 

If you are a writer, artist, poet, photographer or filmmaker, and would like to make  a statement regarding nukes, mining, weapons and nuclear reactors, you can submit pieces to john@heyokamagazine.com