Natick Army LabsSolar Pig Furnace In the early and mid-1960's the Army labs carried out experiments on sun screen lotions which might protect soldiers from nuclear blasts. To this end pigs were placed into a giant solar furnace and exposed to the highly concentrated rays of the sun. The solar furnace was a multistory faceted (flat, nonparabolic) reflective surface. The entire apparatus could track the sun on its steel supports. The reflector's efficiency was quite high given that each panel was individually oriented. The use of a surface coating eliminated any absorption from glass supports used in conventional mirrors. Old photos of the Army Labs show the solar furnace at the extreme western tip of the base on the lakeshore, close to the boiler plant building's three tall smokestacks. The solar furnace was also used to test the survivability of soldiers' clothing and helmets. The entire facility was moved to White Sands, New Mexico where the sun is stronger and animal rights types are weaker. The move came in the late 1960s, and it was operational at WSMR in 1972. The move cost $230,000 for transportation and reconstruction. Say what you will, but it's more elegant to use a solar concentrator than to do the same experiments with an above-ground thermonuclear bomb test. Perhaps that was proposed first and struck down due to budget restraints. The heliostat does a pretty good job, being able to produce temperatures as high as 7,000 degrees F.
The furnace works similarly to a camera. Test chamber exposure system has two shutters, one fast (0.1 sec) and the other slow. The former interrupts the leading edge of thermal pulse and the latter, water-cooled, moves up in front of the fast shutter to prevent burning. The attenuator controls intensity of radiation. Shutters control time of exposure. Natick's Solar Furnace now lives in New Mexico. Why use pigs? Pigs were selected as a test model because according to US Army formerly-restricted documents, "Pigs have sensitive skin." Test dogs used in other experiments at the Labs had their voice boxes surgically altered to eliminate their barking. Pigs have the advantage over other animal models of not being able to bark, and thus not requiring surgery. Bummer for the dogs though, because it turns out the vocal chord removals were only partially sucessful. Once the german shepherd dogs were silenced, the sounds of a large dog kennel nearby on the lakefront made sure that the Army Labs were still serenaded by the sounds of barking. Pigs exposed to these simulated nuclear blasts were then disposed of after checking for radioactive contamination. (A standard procedure for test animals leaving the Labs on their way to the great pig sty in the sky.) Carcasses were thought to have been dumped at the Natick Labs Annex approximately ten miles to the north. A local geographical feature called Pig Hill is more likely to have been the farm where the pigs were aquired rather than the burial ground for dead test pigs. The remains of this furnace still exist today at the extreme western edge of the base, on the shore of Lake Cochitutate. Surviving documents note that the animals were offically known as the simulated nuclear blast pigs. Would their quarters have been known as the simulated nuclear blast pig chambers? The following text comes from the Sunday June 13, 1999 Edition of the Boston Globe, Metro West section - Army/Natick said to be near settlement on tainted wells The Army facility used a host of mundane and exotic toxic materials in its research, including radioactive substances, according to a 1980 report by the US Army Toxic and Hazardous Materials Agency. These include isotopes of cobalt, phosphorus, radium and sodium, the report said. The report also shows that the Natick base or its annex in Sudbury ordered a variety of biological substances, including the bacteria pseudomonas putrefaciens and bottles of salmonella antiserum. Records available about the military facility show it ran some unusual experiments, Kaltofen said.
Lab scientists in the 1960s tested the effect of the sun's burning rays on skin by erecting a large solar mirror in the sky and directing it at live pigs, (Facility Restoration Officer John) McHugh said.
The Army also worked with flying cockroaches, something many people on and off the facility probably regret.
The Army used the roaches, who some say were giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches and others American cockroaches, for basic pest research, McHugh said. After the Army finished with them, it scooped them into garbage bags with insecticide and carted the bags off to the Natick dump. In 1974, some cockroaches wintered over in the warmth of the landfill, and the insecticide slowly ate away the plastic bags, (Local Board of health Director Roger) Wade said.
''They were really large'' by the time the insects made it into nearby homes, Wade said. New on the job at the time, Wade was recruited to help kill the roaches with insecticides, which eventually worked, he said.
At first, the Army denied the cockroaches were from the Army labs, Miller said. Wade said it later paid for the cleanup.
Even after the roach problem, much of the public in Natick considered the labs a great neighbor, Miller said.
Then, about 10 years ago, workers discovered benzene in soil at the facility during construction of a gymnasium. The state Department of Environmental Protection launched an investigation, and numerous toxic sites and contaminated ground water were discovered. © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
Update! In 1998 civilian engineers tracked fuel wastes discovered just east of the former piggery at the base's boiler plant (Building 19). The remains of the base piggery were seen in aerial photographs taken in the1950's and early 1960's. Up to four soil test sites and a geophysical survey will try to determine if the piggery resulted in any contamination of the site. Stay tuned. |
