Environment: Making Fertilizer from What?

A uranium processor's novel experiment starts a national furor

Two years ago Justin Suddeth, then 14, found a deformed, nine-legged frog at a pond near the Sequoyah Fuels plant in Gore, Okla. In 1981 an eyeless baby girl was born to parents living a few miles from the same plant. The National Cancer Institute has reported that the leukemia rate for white men in counties surrounding Sequoyah Fuels is five percentage points higher than the national average. Is there a connection? Local residents think so: Sequoyah Fuels processes uranium concentrate into ingredients for bombs and nuclear-power- plan t fuel. The factory has been cited in the past for safety lapses,...

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