and the next day we all went to work. Ten of us climbed down a metal ladder into a subterranean corridor that runs in a full circle under the reactor silo. There we were shown a pile of thick grease which had leaked out of an overhead valve. We cleaned this up in about half an hour with four or five working and four or five watching. The rest of the day we spent shooting the breeze and pitching pennies against the corridor wall. The next day they sent us down to the new sewage treatment plant outside the gates. Trucks pulled up and dumped loads of gravel, but there was no backhoe there to spread it, so about twenty of us spent the day doing what a backhoe could have done in about an hour. Every couple of hours our foreman would pay us a visit, and far from being dismayed at our slow progress, he would drawl, “Take your time boys, we're not in any hurry here, just take it easy.” Among us was a country-western musician who was worried about the upcoming division into day and night crews, as a night crew assignment would interfere with his music jobs. The last time our foreman came around, the musician brought up his problem. The reply was swift and final: “Well if you don't want to work nights, maybe you better just go down the road and pick up your check,” and that was it for him. On the spot 1learned that at Trojan it mattered not who you were, what you could do, or how hard you worked— just be there in the morning, keep breathing until quitting time, and keep a low profile. Hot Times 1 B n a Saturday morning we entered “containment” for the first time. The containment building “contains" the reactor itself, and is the silo-shaped structure with the domed roof visible over the top of the turbine building from Highway 30. We all wore the bright yellow protective suits and hoods, with orange rubber gloves, and black and yellow galoshes. The only exposed part is the face from hairline to chin, and the total effect is pretty bizarre. After a time 1came to realize that such uniforms breed a certain equality inside containment as nobody can tell who you are or what your job is. Unless you are familiar with a particular face, it is impossible to tell the plant superintendant or a nuclear physicist from the lowliest laborer. Containment is also the only area that is free of the many security guards scattered all over the rest of the premises, and unless someone fails to We spent all day making $15.74 an hour wandering around sweeping up. My entire output for the day yielded half a dozen cigarette butts, a few sunflower seed shells and a handful of dust. tilating fan sucking air out, and I stayed as close to it as I could to relieve the oppressive heat. On the way out, my moustache turned out to be “hot” (radioactive) enough to set off the alarm on the geiger counter we were frisked with by the radiation control engineers. They told me that, possibly as a result of hanging out near the exhaust fan, I had been exposed to some radioactive gas that had leaked into the air. I was instructed to wash carefully. That particular isotope was short-lived, and shaving off my moustache was deemed unnecessary. Another fellow was not so lucky and had to have some of his hair cut off after some contaminant had dripped on his head and soaked through the cloth hood. We were advised of the importance of keeping our suits dry. We made three trips into containment during that ten-hour working day. Each time we wiped for an hour; the rest of the time was consumed in getting dressed and undressed, resting, and playing poker. It was one of the most strenuous days I was to experience at Trojan. The next day was Sunday, scheduled as a twelve hour shift paying double time. The original plan was to continue wiping things down in containment, but that program was abandoned for some reason, and we sperft all day making $15.74 an hour wandering around with broom and dustpan sweeping up. Since the actual maintenance work hadn’t really begun yet, the big turbine room I had been assigned to was immaculately clean, and my entire output for the day yielded half a dozen cigarette butts, a few sunflower seed shells and a handful of dust. The same day’s Oregon Journal carried a full-color front page photo of the big turbine I had spent the day dusting, and a headline that read: "PGE ASKS FOR 8/o RATE HIKE.” I read the story with interest. It seemed that PGE (known among the workers at Trojan as “Portland Generous”) not only had to have this increase, but that it was an emergency—th# had to have it right now. This meant flat instead of going through regular channels they were applying directly to the Public Utilities Commissioner. (The goed Commissioner later denied this request.) Cost Plus Calypso B uring my first week 1heard a lot of stories about the work pace and the “cost-plus” contract. Cost-plus means simply that the contractor is paid whatever it costs him to complete the work, plus an agreed-upon profit margin. Hence they could care less how many guys had nothing to do, as long as the work got done more or less according to schedule. One morning over breakfast in Rainier with a pipefitter, 1was told that he ard 75 other pipefitters had been on the jab for two weeks at $100 a day before they were given any pipes to weld. A few seconds with a pencil and I was looking at $76,000 from Portland Generous. This fellow dso confided to me that the day they asked him to work inside containment woud be the day he went looking for another db. Many of the older laborers wee assigned to “fire watch,” which consists of watching a welder and standing b with a fire extinguisher in case sonething catches fire. Since everything ati rojan is either steel or concrete, the chace of fire is remote. In any case, most c the time the welders were only sittig around smoking cigarettes. Most people who work with their hands find it dficult, or at least uncomfortable, to sit and watch somebody else work. But to st and watch somebody else not work dos something funny to one’s sense of vabes and the idea of making an honest li’ing. At least one young man I knew som quit out of disgust and boredom and want off to look for a real job. I hadn’t been dispatched to a job all the previous winter, had been fined twice by the union for falling behind in my dues, and had eked out an existence by delivering newspapers and pumping gas. I stayed on. Workers fell into petty disputes over territory. Once I was called in to clean up some oil in a catchpan built into a machine of some kind that the millwrights had been working on. Glad to have something to do for a change, I cleaned up the oil and then began wiping up some smears of grease on the front of the machine. As I was doing this, my foreman came up and told me he obey posted instructions, such as changing into clean boots when emerging from a particularly contaminated area, one’s presence there is never challenged. This makes containment one of the most popular places for sleeping, and it was a common sight to see yellow-clad bodies sprawled along the halls and decks of the reactor silo. Inside it was hot—the reactor still in the process of cooling off, having been shut down only 24 hours before. We were given wet Kimwipes and told to wipe down all surfaces: walls, pipes, tanks, floors, and railings, and then to put the soiled Kimwipes into big plastic trash bags. As I made my rounds I discovered a large venMOBS o®nos xaB? Antiques ofElegance since 1973 . . . We take pride in our professionalism in finding fl unique and exquisite pieces, featuring Cut glass, Art glass, Orientalia, Royal Doulton, Continental porcelains. Please Come In and Introduce Yourself to MORE OR LESS COLLECTIBLES Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 AM-5:00 PM 7828 S. W. Capitol Hwy. Portland, OR 97219 Phone: (503) 244-9534 24 Clinton St. Quarterly WALK ON WAH CHANG Saturday, April 16 The Teledyre Wah. Chang zirconium plant near Albany, Oregon, has been granted a 'license by the State of Oregon to create a permanent radioactive chemical waste dump 400 feet from the Willamette River on the flood plain. Help Forelaws On Board reverse this decision in the Oregon Supreme Court and in the Oregon Legislature. Join us on a 10-mile walkathon through Portland’s Forest Park on the beautiful Wildwood Trail. Get your walker’s packet and start collecting pledges now. WALKER’S PACKET LOCATIONS Alliance for Social Change, 519 SW 3rd, Dekum 810 Victoria’s Nephew, 212 SW Stark Portland State University, Smith Center, OSPIRG Office Nature’s Food &T00I, 5909 SW Corbett Ross Island Grocery, 3338 SW Corbett Lewis & Clark College, Templeton Center, on table outside bookstore King Harvest, 2348 SE Ankeny Music Millenium, 3158 E. Burnside People’s Food Store, 3029 SE 21st. Old Wives Tales, 1300 E. Burnside Reed College, Bookstore Food Front, 2675 NW Thurman Music Millenium, 636 NW 21st Artichoke Music, 722 NW 21st Oregon Mountain Community, 60 NW Davis Nature’s Food &T00I, 3437 NE 5th Everett Community Center, 2917 NE Everett (office) R.E.I. Coop, 1798 Jantzen Beach Center, Customer Service desk Forelaws On Board 777-0330
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