Salt of Patriots

It is a story of a place, an industry, and most of all an innocent trust, which no longer exist.These “Cold Warriors” have much to learn about an industry as young as they are. Despite the atomic risk , they attend their dependable jobs with patriotism and pride leavened with uncertainty and suspicion at what exactly they are processing and at what cost. vaunt patriotism and pride leavened with uncertainty and suspicion at what exactly they are doing at this uranium processing plant and at what cost.

In the vein of SILKWOOD and ERIN BROKOVICH, SALT OF PATRIOTS shines light on the nuclear industry’s early days at the Feed Materials Production Center (FMPC) by focusing on ground level workers in this rural Ohio uranium processing plant.  Around-the-clock, employees vaunt patriotism and pride leavened with uncertainty and suspicion at what exactly they are doing at this uranium processing plant and at what cost. Run by the government’s Atomic Energy Commission, efforts are so crucial to the Cold War that armed guards, FBI background checks, and contracts of secrecy were taken for granted among new hires. Fernald, 17 miles northwest of Cincinnati, and the FMPC were a reality of southwest Ohio for more than 50 years. Together, honest, hardworking men and women embarked on learning about, and developing this new industry.

The FMPC could not help but affect the land and the lives of families who rely on the dependable employment despite the atomic risk in their midst. This shadowy industry shapes, and re-forms them, as if these “patriots” themselves were the uranium ore being refined.

Characters and events are loosely based on the author’s uncles who worked at the FMPC, and imagined from hundreds of true interviews conducted as part of lawsuit remediation activities in the 1990's.