One hundred people attended annual Hiroshima Day remembrance events in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the still-active Y-12 Plant supplied enriched uranium for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In the evening, following a memorial service and street theater, twelve people, ranging in age from 17 to 84, attempted to enter the Y-12 Plant to post a STOP WORK order and seal the production buildings with red plastic tape which said DANGER -DO NOT CROSS.

Three men and nine women including a mother and two daughters, walking arm-in-arm, were arrested when they attempted to enter the facility. They were cited for trespass by local police and released. Eleven of the twelve pleaded guilty and paid a fine; the one juvenile is scheduled for a separate proceeding.

Y-12 is currently engaged in manufacturing components for nuclear weapons "modifications", such as the nose cone for the (not new!) earth-penetrating B-61 Modification 11, and in the "life extension" program to assure weapons reliability for the next 30-50 years. Y-12 is also, in the words of management, "intimately involved" in the design and testing of new and prototype nuclear weapons, working in conjunction with the weapons labs.

The annual vigil is sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA). Upcoming events in OREPA's STOP the BOMBS campaign that may include civil disobedience include Mothers Action for Peace on October 25, Artists for Peace on December 10, 1998 (Human Rights Day), and Clergy Call for Abolition on March 5, 1999, the anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

For more information, contact OREPA, 100 Tulsa Rd, Suite 4A, Oak Ridge TN 37830, (423)483-8202, email: orep@igc.org