RE: "New Yorker" story on Paducah

["Weiner, Ruth" <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

I read Bobbie Ann Mason's story as I am an avid New Yorker reader.  She gets
most of what "science" there is wrong, as I expected, but mercifully there
isn't much.  One of the  worst technical errors was, in my opinion, the
failure to distinguish between the chemical and radiological hazards of
uranium hexafluoride -- it's nasty stuff chemically, for sure.  I am not
sure what her point was in writing the article, but she is a good writer and
quite accurately captured the ambivalent feelings of Paducah.  

The greatest sin of omission, it seems to me, is the failure to mention
comparable hazards of other resource extraction and conversion processes
associated with both power and weapons production.  A Kentuckian and she
didn't mention coal mining and milling?  Also, her statement about no
letters being published was simply wrong -- one of the letters to the
Paducah paper was reprinted on RADSAFE.

I am left uneasy as to why the article was (a) written and (b) published.  

Clearly only my own opinion.

Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
Sandia National Laboratories 
MS 0718, POB 5800
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
505-844-4791; fax 505-844-0244
rfweine@sandia.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: William V Lipton [mailto:liptonw@dteenergy.com]
Sent: January 03, 2000 6:16 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: "New Yorker" story on Paducah


I recommend that RADSAFER's read the story, "Fallout - Paducah's secret
neclear disaster," pp. 30ff, in the January 10, 2000 issue of "The New
Yorker."  The magazine describes the author, Bobbie Ann Mason, as
"...novelist and short-story writer..."  This is an outsider's view of
the facility and its effect on the population.  Although she does not
attempt to understand the technical issues, she seems to accurately
"read" the feelings of the town.

I expect that many RADSAFER's will want to respond with:

 - attacks on the author, i.e. shoot the messenger,

 - abstruse technical arguments, i.e. "if you can't dazzle them with
brilliance ..."

 - other technologies are more dangerous, i.e. comparative body counts.

None of these can change the fact that there is a real problem which
must be addressed.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com


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