The Air Force said its nuclear missile capsules were safe. But there were toxic dangers lurking, as documents show
by The Associated Press
Friday, December 29, 2023
In this August 2023 photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, two missile launch officers, Lt. Sam McGlinchey, 28, front, and Lt. Joy Hawkins, 23, a 24-hour underground shift at a launch control center at Malmstrom Air Force Base. For Hawkins and McGlinchey, the news that the Air Force was testing their capsules for possible cancer-related contaminants meant they had to be careful about medical exams. “It’s better for us early in our careers to get caught this early,” McGlinchey said. (U.S. Air Force via AP)
GREAT FALLS, Mont. —
A large puddle of dark liquid festering on the floor. No fresh air. Computer screens that overheated and leaked a fishy-smelling gel that made the crew sick. Asbestos levels are 50 times higher than Environmental Protection Agency safety standards.
These are just a few of the toxic risks of the past that lurked in the underground pods and silos where Air Force nuclear missile crews have worked since the 1960s. Now many of these service members have cancer.
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The toxic dangers were documented in hundreds of pages of documents dating back to the 1980s that The Associated Press obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. They tell a very different story than what Air Force leadership told the nuclear missile community decades ago when the first reports of cancer among military personnel began to surface:
“The workplace is free of health risks,” an Air Force investigation from Dec. 30, 2001, found.
“Sometimes diseases arise purely by chance,” says a 2005 Air Force follow-up study.
The capsules are being put to the test again.
The AP reported in January that at least nine current or former nuclear missile officers or missile launchers had been diagnosed with the blood cancer non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Then hundreds more came forward with their own cancer diagnoses. In response, the Air Force launched its most comprehensive review yet, testing thousands of air, water, soil and surface samples at every facility where soldiers worked. Four recent samples showed concerning levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a known carcinogen used in electrical wiring.
More data is expected in early 2024, and the Air Force is working on an official count of how many current or former missile civilian service members have cancer.
Some current missile launchers told the AP they were concerned about the new reports but believed the Air Force was being transparent in its current search for toxic threats. Many of them are taking the same precautions that rocket pilots have used for generations, such as wearing “capsule clothes,” the civilian clothes they put on once inside the capsule to complete the 24-hour shift. After one layer, the clothes end up straight in the laundry because they end up smelling metallic.
“Anytime you hear 'cancer,' it's a little concerning,” said Lt. Joy Hawkins, 23, a rocket launcher at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana. For Hawkins and his rocket colleague Lt. To Samantha McGlinchey, who spoke to an AP reporter as they completed an underground shift in launch control capsule Charlie, the news meant they would have to be careful with medical exams. “There's more testing, things to come, cleanup,” said McGlinchey, 28. “It's better for us early in our careers to be caught this early.”
Others fear that the dangers will be downplayed again.
When the latest test results were released, the Air Force did not initially disclose that samples showing contamination had significantly higher levels of PCBs than EPA standards allow – and dozens of other areas tested were just below the EPA's threshold, it said Steven Mayne, a former senior manager of the nuclear missile facility at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, who now runs a Facebook group dedicated to publishing Air Force news or internal memos.
“At this point, the EPA, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and the senators from North Dakota and Montana need to address this issue,” Mayne said.
In December 2022, former Malmstrom missile launchers Jackie Perdue and Monte Watts, both of whom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, asked the Defense Department's inspector general to investigate.
“I believe that health and safety standards were violated or not taken into account and should be investigated,” Perdue, who served as commander of the nuclear missile strike team at Malmstrom from 1999 to 2006, said in an inspector general complaint obtained by the AP.
There are currently three nuclear missile bases in the United States: FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Minot and Malmstrom. Each base has 15 underground launch control pods that serve as hubs for fields each containing 10 Minuteman III ICBM silos. The capsules are staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Missile launchers spend 24 hours or more each shift underground in these pods, monitoring ICBMs to fire them at the president's direction.
The Air Force acknowledges that the current review cannot provide complete answers about what previous missile launchers faced, but the data will create a health profile that will likely help them apply for veterans' benefits.
But documents obtained by AP contain numerous warnings about previous toxic risks.
“Nature and contents of asbestos, please call as soon as possible,” reads a handwritten note on a memo dated Nov. 9, 1992. All documents obtained by the AP have been redacted to omit names, but the urgency was high apparently. “PRIORITY,” the handwritten note reads in capital letters.
An environmental team at the Malmstrom Capsules Hotel and Juliet found worrying readings of asbestos under a generator in the capsules' mechanical rooms. The equipment room is also underground and is in the same sealed work area. The EPA limit for asbestos exposure is 1% for an eight-hour workday. But the rocket launchers were locked there for at least 24 hours at a time. If the weather was bad and the replacement crew couldn't travel to the site, a team could be stuck underground for up to 72 hours. Hotel and Juliet collected solid samples of chrysotile asbestos – a white asbestos that can be inhaled – between 15 and 30%.
However, the official report released just seven days later downplayed the risks.
“Asbestos only poses a health hazard when it is crushed (can be crushed or pulverized by hand pressure). All suspect (asbestos) were found to be in good condition,” the hotel’s annual inspection said.
In 1989, levels of up to 50% amosite asbestos, a brown asbestos found in cement and insulation, were found in the Quebec-12 missile silo. And a team looking at Malmstrom's Bravo capsule that same year had warned that it could be dangerous even if left undisturbed. “Diesel room – asbestos leaks when running,” it warned.
In his inspector general complaint, former Malmstrom rocket pilot Watts said there was also asbestos in the floor tiles and that the rocket launchers “routinely removed, handled and replaced these tiles as part of the required inventory of survival equipment.”
The documents also reveal several PCB spills over the decades. A 1987 report tells of a rocket launcher who called his commander to report a severe headache and dizziness. The crew finds a clear, sticky syrup leaking from under the capsule's power panel. “I suggested opening the blast door to allow more ventilation and avoid contact with the substance,” documents a bioenvironmental engineer. “All the team had to do was open the blast door and stay away from the spilled liquid. There was no need to close the capsule.”
“It's frustrating to know that they thought of it at the time,” said Doreen Jenness, whose husband, Jason Jenness, was a Malmstrom rocket launcher and died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2001 at age 31. “That makes me frustrated and angry that they can keep telling these young men and women that they can't find anything – knowing that something was going on there in 2001, 2003 and the early 2000s.”
Doreen and Jason Jenness met when he was assigned to Malmstrom. They married and lived on base in the mid-1990s. Her rocket friends always made fun of her because they had a golden Labrador named Sierra, the same name as one of the pods that Jason's squadron operated.
The environmental reports from Malmstrom when Jason was deployed there show that Sierra had a long list of hazards. In 1996, a medical team reported that more than 25 gallons of liquid containing biological growth had spilled onto the floor of the Sierra capsule. There was an inlet in the parking lot that collected outside air for Sierra, and the team observed a moving car stationary nearby for 20 minutes. The team documented that a fan designed to deliver clean air to Sierra had been broken for at least six months. The only way for the crews to get fresh air was to leave the capsule's steel vault door open.
At the other capsules, the team said air quality was “low but not expected to cause serious health problems.” Sierra was dangerous. In March 1996, the medical team measured carbon dioxide levels in the air of 1,700 parts per million. “At these levels, the majority of occupants are expected to experience complaints of headaches, sleepiness, fatigue and/or difficulty concentrating. Removal of workers should be considered.”
Nothing has changed. In May this year, the medical team again recorded exposure levels of 1,800 ppm and again recommended that the rockets be removed.
Leaking computer consoles
By the mid-1990s, a new missile targeting system was needed, and each capsule began modernization to install a wall-sized computer console called REACT (Rapid Execution and Combat Targeting System). The new system would allow the United States to reprogram and retarget its nuclear missiles more quickly in the event of war. The demolition of the old computer and the construction of REACT began in each of the 15 Malmstrom capsules.
Rocket launchers wonder whether the REACT remediation further destroyed the asbestos and PCBs still in the capsules. However, once installed, the new console also exposed the rocket launchers to a new toxic threat.
“Crew members reported a faulty video display characterized by a clicking sound,” said a report of a May 1995 incident on Malmstrom's Bravo capsule. “After clicking, the video display turned off and only a white line was visible to the crew members.”
A clear liquid began to leak, followed by a fishy, ammonia-like smell. The crew began complaining of headaches and nausea and the capsule was evacuated two hours later.
Malmstrom's team learned that the fluid was dimethylformamide, an electrolyte used in the capacitors of REACT's video display units, because FE Warren, the base in Wyoming, had recently reported similar leaks.
“The capacitors overheat and vent into the capsule rather than causing a catastrophic failure,” said a 1996 memo found after a second dimethylformamide leak at Bravo. “To date, we have no idea how much of this material is contained in the capsules, nor do we have any idea of the relative danger to rocket crews and maintenance personnel who come into contact with this material.”
Medical studies on dimethylformamide's connection to cancer are divided; Some report a clear link with liver cancer, others say more studies are needed.
All capsules will be decommissioned in a few years when the military's new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sentinel, becomes operational. As part of the modernization, the old capsules will be demolished. A new, modern underground control center is being built on them. Air Force teams working on the new designs are aware of the cancer reports and are applying modern environmental health standards at the new centers – requirements that did not exist when the Minuteman capsules were first built, said Maj. Gen. John Newberry, commander of the Nuclear Weapons Center the air force.
“We're absolutely learning from Minuteman III or understanding what's going on with Minuteman III and whether there's something we need to look at from the Sentinel side,” Newberry said.
However, the old capsules will remain in use until then, which makes it all the more important that the Air Force is now completely open with its rocket launchers, said Doreen Jenness.
Because they were so young, neither she nor Jason knew they had cancer when he started feeling tired in the fall of 2000. Not even when his hip started hurting in December.
When he finally gave in and sought medical attention in February 2001, he was hospitalized that same day. By March, Jason and Doreen knew his lymphoma was untreatable. He died in July.
“We can all pretend we don’t know, because it’s really hard to know,” Doreen Jenness said. “It's even harder to know and do something about it. Now, 23 years after Jason's death, a whole host of young men and women are going through the same things we did. They have to live the same life and maybe have the same future as me and that's just sad. Very sad.”
This story has been corrected to show that the documents list toxic hazards, not toxins.
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