Karen Silkwood
Karen Gay Silkwood ( born February 19, 1946 in Longview, Texas, † November 13, 1974 on Route 74, Oklahoma) was a trade union activist who played an important role in investigating a scandal in the U.S. nuclear industry.
The trained chemical engineer working in the Kerr -McGee plutonium processing plant near Crescent, Oklahoma. She observed that the company Kerr -McGee violated the statutory safety regulations and his staff exposed serious health risks due to contamination with radioactive material. In itself an increased load was found with plutonium. In addition to that, the company surrendered multiple faulty fuel whose use endangered the safe operation of reactors. Managers in the company manipulated documents to hide the poor quality of the elements.
Karen Silkwood put together a series of incriminating documents, with which they wanted to uncover the scandalous conditions. You made contact with the New York Times reporters and controllers of their union, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. On the way to a meeting in Oklahoma City, where she was about to deliver the incriminating documents, they came on November 13, 1974 in a traffic accident. The official police report attributed this accident to their fatigue. However, there have been suggestions that emanated from an assassination attempt to bring them because of their scandalous whistleblower statements about the dangerous working conditions in the nuclear factory to silence. However, this speculation could never be proved.
Her death sparked nationwide media attention, led to extensive investigations. In 1975, Kerr -McGee decided to completely close the plant.
Karen's father, Bill Silkwood, successfully fought a lawsuit against Kerr -McGee, which lasted until 1986, compensation in the amount of 1.3 million U.S. dollars. The company denied any responsibility for the death of Karen Silkwoods. Kerr -McGee later rose out of the nuclear business and was then mainly in the oil and gas industry operates. In 2006 the company was taken over and broken up by Anadarko Petroleum. Anadarko was 2014 court obliged to settle claims from uranium mining.
Her story was made into a film in 1983 in the feature film drama Silkwood with Meryl Streep in the lead role.