Amchitka 40 Years Later

Footage of the largest nuclear blast in US history.

In the late 1960s and early 70s the Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon chose the Alaskan island of Amchitka to test nuclear weapons. A valuable bird sanctuary designated by President Taft as a national wildlife refuge, Amchitka was home to nearly 100 migratory species, walruses, and sea otters - not to mention a thriving fishery of salmon, cod and halibut. Immediately after the the underground blast the fallout was dramatic. And the aftershock of the nuclear test has caused long term environmental consequences. Not surprisingly, the native Aleut population and workers at the test site later showed high levels or tritum and cesium. Most of this post contains information from Jeffrey St. Clair's recent article found here.

Amchitka's "isolated" location was used as an argument for the test.

Earlier tests - which triggered small earthquakes, splashed lakewater 50 feet into the air and turned the surrounding ocean into froth - were used to "calibrate" the island for larger explosions. The final test named Cannikin was the largest underground nuclear explosion ever conducted by the US. More than 385 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the test sparked legal and political action including a lawsuit filed in federal court citing that the test violated the Limited Test Ban Treaty, while President Nixon kept objections from several federal agencies secret. The Supreme Court eventually refused to halt the test in a 4-3 vote and five hours after the decision the Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon flipped the switch to detonate the bomb.

Sea otters penned up for observation during an early test blast.

Aleut families were forced to leave Amchitka in the 1880s shortly after Russian fur traders had decimated the sea otter population. Sea otter numbers were devastated again nearly 100 years later by the Cannikin blast. After the Cannikin bomb was detonated in 1971 with the force of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake thousands of marine animals including sea otters were killed by the blast. Most troublesome, however, was the explosion's effect on White Ash Creek. The Creek disappeared through a rupture in the earth's crust formed by the blast and into a new radioactive aquifer.