Date

Jul 3, 1947

Description

During the weeks and months after Trinity, Dr. Louis Hempelmann and Los Alamos colleagues visited people who lived near the test site and collected data on beta burns on dogs and ranch cattle. In July 1947, Los Alamos published a compilation of the reports and memoranda that Hempelmann had prepared after the test.

One downwinder family that Hempelmann and others visited several times were the Ratliffs, a pair of grandparents and their grandson, who had been completely unnoticed during the pre-test surveys. They lived near the “Hot Canyon” where fallout levels had been high. The grandson was at school on 16 July so he had less exposure during those hours. The grandparents did not report anything unusual about that day, although during his initial visit, Hempelmann wrote that there was “rain in this area on the night after the shot: this means that some of the [radio]activity was carried into their drinking water and may have been drunk on the following day and thereafter.” [Page 7] During a subsequent visit, on 11 November, Mr. Ratliff told Hempelmann something that he had not mentioned before: “an interesting story of the appearance of the ground immediately after the shot.” The “ground and fence posts had the appearance of being covered with light snow, or of being ‘frosted’ for several days after the shot” [Page 69].

The Los Alamos staffers took samples of the drinking water but apparently none of them mentioned possible health risks to the Ratliffs or others. According to Hempelmann’s calculations during the two weeks after Trinity, the Ratliffs received an estimated 47.0 roentgens of gamma radiation when the “allowable limit” was 1.4 roentgens (Page 9). In any event, during the weeks after the test, Hempelmann reported that the Ratliffs appeared to be in “excellent health.” Other nearby families who experienced the fallout were completely overlooked.[21] Years later, Hempelmann observed, “a few people were probably overexposed, but they couldn’t prove it and we couldn’t prove it. So we just assumed we got away with it.”[22]

Much of this compilation consists of reports, some highly clinical, focusing on the fallout exposure of farm animals, mostly cattle, but also cats and dogs on the Ratliff ranch and elsewhere. With respect to cattle, Hempelmann and others reported lesions on the skin and hair loss, although the cattle appeared normal in other respects. Data collected by the Army indicated that up to 600 cattle in the Trinity area “showed signs of beta rays damage” [Page III-8, after page 69]. The Army purchased 75 of the most affected cattle, with 17 going to Los Alamos and 61 shipped to “Site X.” At Oak Ridge, they experienced various health problems, including skin cancer, with the last surviving member, “Granny,” living until she was euthanized in 1964.[23]

Source

Federation of American Scientists Website

Document published in following posting(s):

The First Atomic Explosion, 16 July 1945

Jul 16, 2024

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California, L. H. Hempelmann, compiler, “Nuclear Explosion 16 July 1945: Health Physics Report on Radioactive Contamination Throughout New Mexico Following the Nuclear Explosion, Part B: Biological Effects,” 3 July 1947, Official Use Only