Editing Project Chariot

{{Short description|1958 proposal to use nukes to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2018}}
[[File:Project Chariot plans.jpg|right|thumb|250px|One of the ''Chariot'' schemes involved chaining five thermonuclear devices to create the artificial harbor. The illustration shows both the original extent of excavation, and a reduced scope.]]
'''Project Chariot''' was a 1958 [[United States Atomic Energy Commission]] proposal to construct an artificial harbor at [[Cape Thompson, Alaska|Cape Thompson]] on the [[Alaska North Slope|North Slope]] of the [[U.S. state]] of [[Alaska]] by burying and detonating a string of [[nuclear explosions|nuclear devices]].
[[File:Chariot, AK.JPG|thumb|Aerial shot of Chariot, AK, located near Cape Thompson, the proposed site of an artificial harbor to be created using chained nuclear explosions.]] The project originated as part of [[Operation Plowshare]], a research project to find [[Peaceful nuclear explosions|peaceful uses for nuclear explosives]]. Substantial local opposition, objections from physical and social scientists engaged in environmental studies, and the absence of any credible economic  benefit caused the plan to be quietly shelved.
[[File:Chariot, AK (2).JPG|thumb|Aerial shot of Chariot, AK looking to the east]]

== History ==
A 1957 meeting at the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Lawrence Radiation Laboratory]] (LRL) proposed a program to use nuclear explosives for industrial development projects. This proposal became the basis for [[Project Plowshare]], administered by the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission]]. Chariot was to be the first Plowshare project, and was imagined as a way to show how larger projects, such as a sea-level [[Panama Canal]], or a sea-level [[Nicaragua Canal]], might be accomplished.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/>

The plan was championed by LRL director and nuclear scientist [[Edward Teller]], who traveled throughout Alaska touting the harbor as an important economic development for America's newest state. Teller promoted a study, contracted by LRL, that proposed development of coal deposits in Northern Alaska. Teller and the LRL proposed the harbor as a port for coal shipment, even though the harbor and surrounding Chukchi Sea would be frozen for nine months of the year. The mines themselves would have been on the far side of the [[Brooks Range]], requiring a railroad and storage facilities for the coal waiting to be shipped.<ref name="O'Neill 1989">{{cite journal | title = Project Chariot: how Alaska Escaped Nuclear Excavation | journal = [[Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]] | date = December 1989 | first = Dan | last = O'Neill | volume = 45 | issue = 10| pages = 28–37 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8wUAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28 |access-date = January 3, 2012| doi = 10.1080/00963402.1989.11459763 | bibcode = 1989BuAtS..45j..28O | url-access = subscription }}</ref>

As the plan developed, relatively small explosions in Nevada,<ref name="ONeill3" /> some previously planned, indicated that small blasts could accomplish much of the publicly-stated goals of the project with reduced releases of radioactive contamination. However, as Alaskan business leaders showed there was no economic justification for it, the project shifted to a more clearly avowed program for testing nuclear excavation in a remote location.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/>

Alaskan political leaders, newspaper editors, president [[William Ransom Wood]] of the [[University of Alaska System|University of Alaska]], and even church groups all rallied in support of the detonation. Congress had passed the [[Alaska Statehood Act]] just a few weeks before. An editorial in the July 24, 1960 ''[[Fairbanks News-Miner|Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]]'' said, "We think the holding of a huge nuclear blast in Alaska would be a fitting overture to the new era which is opening for our state."<ref name="ONeill3" />

==Opposition and abandonment==
Opposition came from the Inupiaq Alaska Native village of [[Point Hope, Alaska|Point Hope]], a few scientists engaged in environmental studies under [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|AEC]] contract, and a handful of conservationists.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/> The grassroots protest soon was picked up by organizations with national reach, such as [[The Wilderness Society (United States)|The Wilderness Society]], the [[Sierra Club]], and [[Barry Commoner]]'s Committee for Nuclear Information.<ref name=ONeill3>{{cite book | last=O'Neill | first=Dan | title=The Firecracker Boys: H-Bombs, Inupiat Eskimos, and the Roots of the Environmental Movement | location=New York | publisher=[[Basic Books]] | year=2007 | orig-year=1995 | isbn=978-0-465-00348-8 | url=https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_p6n8 }}</ref> Repeated visits to the community by AEC officials failed to sway local and Native residents, who opposed land transfers by the [[Bureau of Land Management]] (BLM) to the AEC. The opposition to Project Chariot that emerged from Point Hope launched a period of Native political organization and activism that led directly to the passage of the landmark [[Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act]] of 1971.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/>

Internationally, the project drew objections from the Soviet Union, which viewed such projects as a way of circumventing the [[Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty]], which was in negotiation at the time.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/>

In 1962, facing increased public uneasiness over the environmental risk and the potential to disrupt the lives of the Alaska Native peoples, the AEC announced that Project Chariot would be "held in abeyance." It has never been formally canceled.<ref name=ONeill3/>

In addition to the objections of the local population, no practical use of such a harbor was ever identified. The environmental studies commissioned by the AEC suggested that [[radioactive contamination]] from the proposed blast could adversely affect the health and safety of the local people, whose livelihoods were based on the hunting of animals and other subsistence practices. The investigations noted that radiation from worldwide fallout was moving with unusual efficiency up the food chain in the Arctic, from [[lichen]], to [[caribou]] (which fed on lichen), to humans (for whom caribou was a primary food source).<ref name=ONeill3 /> Studies also showed that the blasts would thaw the [[permafrost]], making the slopes surrounding the harbor unstable, and negating any experimental value to be gained from using the project as a basis for extrapolation to other, warmer locations. While the AEC publicly touted prevailing winds from the north for dispersing radioactivity over the sea, the AEC privately desired to study landward distribution. The consistent wind patterns would prevent northward fallout patterns over land.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/>

In the meantime, test shots in Nevada provided some data to assist the AEC in modeling excavation scaling and radiation release. The very small 430-ton equivalent Danny Boy test in March 1962 encouraged the AEC to stage the much larger 104-kiloton [[Sedan (nuclear test)|Sedan]] test in July 1962. [[Gerald W. Johnson (nuclear expert)|Gerald Johnson]], the director of Project Plowshare, described the Sedan test as "an alternative to Chariot" arising from frustration at recommendations for Chariot's cancellation.<ref name="O'Neill 1989"/> Fallout from Sedan turned out to be the second-highest of any test in Nevada.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallout/feasibilitystudy/Technical_Vol_1_FrontMatter.pdf|title=''Report on the Feasibility of a Study of the Health Consequences to the American Population from Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted by the United States and Other Nations'', Vol 1. Technical Report. |publisher=Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Cancer Institute|date= May 2005|access-date=4 August 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/13778/Appendix-E-External-Dose-Estimates-from-NTS-Fallout-|title=Appendix E, 'External Dose Estimates from NTS Fallout' – Radioactive Decay – Gamma Ray|website=Scribd|access-date=4 August 2017}}</ref>

==Plan==
The project initially envisioned the use of four 100 kiloton devices to excavate a channel, and two one-megaton devices to excavate a turning basin, for a total of 2.4 megatons of explosive equivalent, displacing {{convert|70000000|ST|MT}} of earth. Later iterations reduced the explosive total to 480 kilotons, and subsequently a 280 kiloton test or demonstration.<ref name="O'Neill 1989" />

==Contamination==
Although the detonation never occurred, the site was radioactively contaminated by an experiment to estimate the effect on water sources of radioactive ejecta, which, landing on tundra plants, might or might not be washed down and carried away by rains. Material from a 1962 nuclear explosion, and other laboratory-produced [[Radionuclide|radionuclides]], were transported to the Chariot site in August 1962, used in several experiments, then heaped into a pile and covered with dirt (the permafrost preventing burial). The site comprised a mound of about {{convert|400|sqft|m2}}, about {{convert|4|ft|cm}} tall. Thirty years later, the disposal was discovered in archival documents by University of Alaska researcher [[Dan O'Neill (writer)|Dan O'Neill]]. State officials immediately traveled to the site and found low levels of radioactivity at a depth of two feet (60 cm) in the burial mound. Outraged residents of the Inupiat village of Point Hope, who had experienced an unusually high rate of cancer deaths, demanded the removal of the contaminated soil, which the government did at its expense in 1993.<ref name=ONeill3 /><ref name="doe chariot">{{cite web |title=Chariot, Alaska, Site A Plowshare/Vela Uniform Program Site |url=https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/ChariotFactSheet.pdf |website=energy.gov |publisher=United States Department of Energy |date=July 2022}}</ref>

Small-diameter boreholes drilled to measure soil characteristics were remediated in 2014. The five boreholes, drilled in the early 1960s, had used refrigerated diesel fuel as a drilling fluid, contaminating the surrounding area.<ref name="doe chariot"/>

==See also==
* [[Project Carryall]]
* [[Project Gnome]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite report |url=http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1046574/ |title=The Off-Site Plowshare and Vela Uniform Programs: Assessing Potential Environmental Liabilities through an Examination of Proposed Nuclear Projects,High Explosive Experiments, and High Explosive Construction Activities |last=Beck |first=Colleen M. |last2=Edwards |first2=Susan R. |last3=King |first3=Maureen L. |date=2011-09-01 |issue=Tech Rpt 111 DOE/NV/26383-22, 1046574 |doi=10.2172/1046574 |volume=1 |language=en}}
* {{Cite report |url=http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1046575/ |title=The Off-Site Plowshare and Vela Uniform Programs: Assessing Potential Environmental Liabilities through an Examination of Proposed Nuclear Projects,High Explosive Experiments, and High Explosive Construction Activities |last=Beck |first=Colleen M. |last2=Edwards |first2=Susan R. |last3=King |first3=Maureen L. |date=2011-09-01 |issue=Tech Rpt 111 DOE/NV/26383-22, 1046575 |doi=10.2172/1046575 |volume=2 |language=en}}
* {{Cite report |url=http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1046576/ |title=The Off-Site Plowshare and Vela Uniform Programs: Assessing Potential Environmental Liabilities through an Examination of Proposed Nuclear Projects, High Explosive Experiments, and High Explosive Construction Activities |last=Beck |first=Colleen M. |last2=Edwards |first2=Susan R. |last3=King |first3=Maureen L. |date=2011-09-01 |issue=Tech Rpt 111 DOE/NV/26383-22, 1046576 |doi=10.2172/1046576 |volume=3 |language=en|doi-access=free }}
* Coates, Peter. 'Project Chariot: Alaskan roots of environmentalism'. Alaska History 4/2 (1989), 1-31
* {{cite book |last=O'Neill |first=Dan |title=The Firecracker Boys |location=New York |publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] |year=1994 |isbn=0-312-13416-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/firecrackerboys00onei}}
* {{cite book|last=Seife | first=Charles | author-link = Charles Seife| title=Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking | publisher=Penguin | year=2009 | orig-year=2008 | isbn=978-0-14-311634-9}}
* Vandegraft, Douglas L [http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/VirtualClassroom/Chariot/vandegraft.html Project Chariot: Nuclear Legacy of Cape Thompson]. Proceedings of the U.S. Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee Workshop on Arctic Contamination, Session A: Native People's Concerns about Arctic Contamination II: Ecological Impacts, May 6, 1993, Anchorage, Alaska
* Wedman. William, and Charles Diters. [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pur1.32754075508014;view=1up;seq=14 The legacy of project Chariot.] Bureau of Indian Affairs, Alaska Region regional archaeology report under the National Historic Preservation Act. Undated, circa 2007.

==External links==
* {{cite web |url=http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/SEEJ/chariotseej.html |title=Project Chariot: The Nuclear Legacy of Cape Thompson, Alaska |access-date=June 16, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921065625/http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/SEEJ/chariotseej.html |archive-date=September 21, 2015 |url-status=dead }}

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[[Category:1958 in Alaska]]
[[Category:American nuclear weapons testing|Chariot]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Alaska]]
[[Category:Proposed Project Plowshare projects|Chariot]]
[[Category:Code names|Chariot]]