Karen Silkwood

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Karen Gay Silkwood (born February 19, 1946 in Longview , Texas , † November 13, 1974 on Route 74 , Oklahoma ) was a union activist who played an important role in uncovering a scandal in the US nuclear industry.

The trained chemical engineer working in the Kerr-McGee - plutonium concentration unit near Crescent , Oklahoma . She observed that the Kerr-McGee Corporation violated legal safety regulations and exposed its employees to serious health risks through contamination with radioactive material. She was found to be exposed to increased levels of plutonium. In addition, the company repeatedly delivered faulty fuel elements , the use of which endangered the safe operation of reactors. Those responsible in the company manipulated documents in order to conceal the poor quality of the elements.

Karen Silkwood put together a series of incriminating documents in order to expose the scandalous situation. She contacted reporters from the New York Times and officials from her union, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union . On November 13, 1974, she was killed in a traffic accident in her Honda Civic on her way to a meeting in Oklahoma City to hand over the incriminating documents . The official police report attributed this accident to her fatigue. However, there were suspicions based on an assassination attempt to silence her because of her scandalous whistleblower statements about the dangerous working conditions in the nuclear plant. However, these speculations could never be proven.

Her death caused a national media stir and led to extensive investigations. In 1975 the Atomic Energy Commission decided to close the plant completely.

Karen's father, Bill Silkwood, won $ 1.3 million in compensation in a lawsuit against Kerr-McGee that ran through 1986 . Bill Silkwood was represented in the trial by Gerry Spence , a well-known and respected attorney in the USA , who did not lose a trial between 1969 and his resignation in 2014, both as defense counsel and prosecutor. The company denied any responsibility for the death of Karen Silkwood. Kerr-McGee later left the nuclear business and was then primarily involved in oil and gas exploration. In 2006 the company was taken over by Anadarko Petroleum and dissolved. Anadarko was legally obliged to settle claims from uranium mining in 2014 .

Silkwood's story was filmed in the 1983 drama Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep .

literature

  • Joyce Hannam: The Death of Karen Silkwood , Cornelsen Verlag, 2001. ISBN 3464127486
  • Howard Kohn: Who Killed Karen Silkwood? Two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 1983

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Silkwood, Karen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silkwood, Karen Gay
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American human rights activist and scandal investigator
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Longview , Texas
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1974
Place of death Oklahoma