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F.A.C.T.S. Don Finch - Editor, retired Linde/Praxair employee Ralph Krieger - Linde/Praxair employee - President - Local 8-215 OCAW, AFL-CIO James Rauch -Technical Editor/Analyst, Pharmacist Purpose: To disseminate, in a timely manner, factual information relating to the cleanup of the Tonawanda nuclear waste site. Also, to serve as a resource to help interested citizens obtain relevant site-related materials. FACTS supports the complete removal of Tonawanda's radioactive waste to a dry, secure site, much more suitable for the long-term management of these wastes. On October 7, 1995 FACTS sent a letter to NY attorney General Dennis C. Vacco alerting him that the Department. of Energy's (DOE's) proposed "interim" action, an incomplete, partial cleanup of the Linde property, would violate applicable environmental review laws governing the cleanup process at the Tonawanda Site. We said that "a violation of the prescribed NEPA/CERCLA environmental review process for the Tonawanda Site is imminent which will result in the DOE applying cleanup criteria that are ten times less stringent than the cleanup criteria prescribed by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's (NYSDEC) TAGM - 4003." We requested that the State Law Department intervene on behalf of the Tonawanda community by taking "the following action to address this matter:
FACTS sent copies of the letter to all Tonawanda Site property owners, including Tonawanda's Town Attorney, Benderson Development Co. (Seaway), Ashland Oil, United Refining Co., and Praxair Inc., as well as to other interested parties; in a cover letter FACTS said in part: "We believe both human health and the value of contaminated properties will be enhanced by requiring the DOE to apply New York's TAGM - 4003 in their cleanup of the Linde/Praxair property, as well as in the cleanup of the remaining properties. Thus, it is very important that cleanup criteria derived from TAGM - 4003 be in place before work commences at the Linde/Praxair property." "Please let us know if you agree or disagree. If you agree and have not already done so, please inform the Attorney General of your view on this matter. If you disagree or would like additional information, please also let us know. We are all in this together. The time to act is now to ensure that the DOE performs the proper cleanup and that we do not have to revisit this problem again at a later date." On October 10, 1995 F.A.C.T.S. received a letter from DOE's James Wagoner in response to our September 10 letter sent to DOE Secretary O'Leary containing eight questions about the Tonawanda Site cleanup. The most important question was "Will New York State's Cleanup Guideline for Soils Contaminated with Radioactive Materials TAGM - 4003 be used in setting cleanup criteria for the proposed interim action?' This is crucial because if NY's guideline is not used the Site will be left ten times more radioactive and so will present a tenfold greater risk to human health. Since the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation TAGM became effective on September 14, 1993, FACTS has repeatedly told DOE Site Manager Ron Kirk that the NY cleanup guideline's policy and procedure must be followed during any cleanup of the Tonawanda Site. Mr. Kirk's only response has been the usual DOE double-talk: that all "ARARs" (applicable or relevant and appropriate requirements) would be followed. IN OUR COMMENTS ON THE PREVIOUSLY 'SUSPENDED' ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW PROCESS WE POINTED OUT THAT THE DOE's CLEANUP CRITERIA ARE NOT HEALTH- BASED. DOE CLEANUP CRITERIA WOULD ONLY RESULT IN A REDUCTION IN HEALTH RISKS (CANCER, BIRTH DEFECTS, ETC.) TO A LEVEL THAT IS STILL 33 PER CENT ABOVE NORMAL. NEW YORK'S CLEANUP GUIDELINE WILL REDUCE HEALTH RISKS TO A LEVEL THAT IS 3.3 PER CENT ABOVE NORMAL. At the August 21st meeting of CANiT, following the announcement of the proposed partial cleanup at the Linde/Praxair property, FACTS again raised this crucial cleanup criteria issue. CANiT's leader, Gorski- appointee Richard Tobe, brushed the matter aside, saying that it would "be determined later." Now, with cleanup work about to start at Linde/Praxair, we learn the dirty truth (and what FACTS suspected all along): DOE does not intend to follow NY's more stringent guideline. The letter from DOE's Wagoner claims that "New York State guideline TAGM - 4003 does not legally apply to the Department's work at the Tonawanda Site." FACTS has learned from citizens' groups in New Jersey (Concerned Citizens of Maywood and Concerned Citizens of Wayne) that the DOE is also attempting to violate New Jersey's more stringent cleanup criteria at DOE sites in that state. The Town of Wayne, NJ has retained a special environmental counsel, Michael Gerrard, to battle the DOE on this issue. In a letter to the DOE, Gerrard says that a "federal agency must incorporate state remediation cleanup standards which are more stringent than federal standards when conducting a cleanup at a site pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) . . . even though . . . the federal agency is conducting an interim cleanup as opposed to a final remediation." [emphasis added] ACCORDING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE) According to information contained in a recent letter written by DOE FUSRAP Project Manager Lester K. Price, your life is only worth $300,000, based on "values generally considered appropriate in the nuclear industry [i.e. DOE] as a benchmark of cost-effective dose reduction." IN OTHER WORDS, IT IS NOT WORTH SPENDING MORE THAN $300,000 TO PREVENT YOU FROM GETTING A FATAL CANCER AS A RESULT OF YOUR EXPOSURE TO THE RADIOACTIVE WASTES WHICH ARE LEFT BEHIND AT FUSRAP SITES FOLLOWING THE PARTIAL CLEANUP DOE IS PROPOSING. Assuming a person works an average 50 years, this works out to a maximum 'value' of $6,000 per year that DOE has put on your life to avoid a preventable fatal cancer. We do not believe anyone, let alone a DOE official whose agency has seriously mismanaged its radioactive wastes, has the moral right to assign a dollar value to any individual's life. (See "The Law of CONCENTRATED BENEFIT over DIFFUSE INJURY by John Gofman, Ph.D. and Egan O'Connor, on pages 4 to 7). We guess that Mr. Price makes at least $50,000 per year, or about $300,000 in six years. In view of this and based on his recommendation against using more stringent cleanup levels, we suggest that the DOE either reduce Mr. Price's salary or issue a refund to the taxpayers for his overvalued previous 'service', depending on the length of that 'service'. The Details: Excerpt from letter to Mr. William Muszynski, Acting Regional Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Mr. Joe La Grone, Manager, Oak Ridge Operations, DOE: "In summary, results from this additional analysis indicate that reducing the cleanup criterion for subsurface soils from 15 pCi/g to 5 pCi/g would yield a reduction in collective dose of approximately 280 person-rem [sic] over a 200 year period, at a cost of approximately $110,000 to $430,000 per person-rem avoided. This cost is more than two orders of magnitude higher than the values generally considered appropriate in the nuclear industry as a benchmark of cost-effective dose reduction." Two orders of magnitude is a 100-fold difference, so the "appropriate" cut-off for "cost-effective dose reduction" that is being recommended by Mr. Price is about $1000 per person-rem avoided (one hundredth of $110,000). Since the average dose of radiation to a person to produce cancer is about 300 rems (according to the work of John Gofman, an independent radiation specialist and member of The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility), This $1000 per person-rem avoided limit that Mr. Price is recommending translates into $300,000 per cancer avoided (300 rems x $1000 per person - rem avoided). However, Mr. Price's portrayal is very misleading because he has calculated the radiation dose for only a tiny fraction of the hazardous life of these wastes. He has calculated the avoided dose (the dose that would be avoided by the imposition of the more stringent cleanup level) to be 280 person-rems based on an exposure timeframe of only 200 years, when in reality these radioactive wastes will remain hazardous for over 500,000 years. If one calculates the total dose that would be avoided during the wastes' entire life by using the 5 pCi/g cleanup level instead of the 15 pCi/g cleanup level, it is actually closer to 700,000 person-rems (280 person-rems per 200 years = 1.4 person-rem per year, and 1.4 person-rem per year x 500,000 years = 700,000 person-rems). This translates into about 2300 avoided cancers (700,000 person-rems divided by 300 person-rems per cancer), at a total cost of $31 million (280 person-rems x $110,00 per person-rem avoided) or about $13,500 per avoided cancer. Therefore, when the total avoided dose is calculated for the entire hazard period and the corresponding total number of avoided cancers is considered, the cost in terms of avoided cancers of using the more stringent cleanup level, i.e. $13,500 per cancer avoided, is actually far less than DOE is portraying. FACTS is a volunteer citizen group. If we are to be successful in the getting the Tonawanda Site properly cleaned up, we need your support now. Recently the pace of developments has increased and we expect a need for more newsletters and mailings in the near future. The FACTS Newsletter is funded solely by the staff and our expenses are increasing. We realize that this is one of many requests for support that you probably receive. BUT, this a local issue that really affects your health and well-being. Therefore, we ask that you please take the time to fill out and mail the form below:
Your name: ____________________________________Phone: ___________________ Address: _______________________________________________________________ City: ___________________________ State: _____________ Zip:__________________ Please list persons who would be interested in receiving the newsletter: Name:__________________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________________ City: ___________________________ State: _____________ Zip:_________ Name:___________________________________________________________ Address:________________________________________________________ City: ___________________________ State: _____________ Zip:_________ Comments:___________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ |
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