The reminiscences of former workers from the radioactive material processing plant in East Huntington always comes with a preface that the joint information was formerly top secret. Some describe a high chain link barrier with armed security guards. Others remember armed guards overseeing the loading and unloading of product by railcar.
The Huntington, WV Department of Energy plant supplied items to three gaseous dispersal plants that enriched uranium to make atomic weapons. These plant life were in Piketon, Ohio; Paducah , Ky. and Oak Ridge, Tenn.These three plants enriched uranium in a mile long system of pipes, ducts, chambers , motors and electrical lines. The sublimed crystalline gaseous and greenish uranium flowed through nickel filters which alienated isotopes. This section of the diffusion plant has been called The Cascade.
The Huntington, WV plant conventional radioactive metals from the “cascades” of dispersal plants. It’s job was to melt out the valuable nickel and separate uranium so both could be sent back to the diffusion plants to make extra nuclear weapons. But, a combination of secrecy and fear of litigation kept the specific contact dosages per worker veiled. Fifty years later the survival of plutonium, neptunium, and nickel carbonyl exposures and residue would become public.
The Huntington, WV Department of Energy plant supplied items to three gaseous dispersal plants that enriched uranium to make atomic weapons. These plant life were in Piketon, Ohio; Paducah , Ky. and Oak Ridge, Tenn.These three plants enriched uranium in a mile long system of pipes, ducts, chambers , motors and electrical lines. The sublimed crystalline gaseous and greenish uranium flowed through nickel filters which alienated isotopes. This section of the diffusion plant has been called The Cascade.
The Huntington, WV plant conventional radioactive metals from the “cascades” of dispersal plants. It’s job was to melt out the valuable nickel and separate uranium so both could be sent back to the diffusion plants to make extra nuclear weapons. But, a combination of secrecy and fear of litigation kept the specific contact dosages per worker veiled. Fifty years later the survival of plutonium, neptunium, and nickel carbonyl exposures and residue would become public.
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