Re: FACTS ABOUT TENNESSEE ILLNESSES

[EASlavin@aol.com]

Dear Mr. Goldsmith:
Did your kids ever play in the creek?  Did your family ever obtain soil for 
gardens that you later found to be contaminated?  Did your kids ever atttend 
the junior high school where the ballfield was contaminated with mercury and 
had to be dug up by DOE?  How do you really know they were safe?  For most 
Oak Ridgers, such beliefs are a suspension of disbelief.  I appreciate your 
cognitive dissonance.  I had it too when I lived in Clinton and edited the 
Appalachian Observer.  I did not want to believe that these brilliant men 
with their good taste in opera, theatre and the like could be capable of such 
actions as took place there.  Yet there is too much evidence of too much 
contamination.  Fences, blue lines and yellow ropes do not keep it on the 
"Reservation."  Toxic chemicals are equal opportunity killers.
With kindest regards,
Ed Slavin

In a message dated 04/06/2000 2:12:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
bill_goldsmith@urscorp.com writes:

<< 
 Mr. Slavin:
 Your representation of whistleblowers, who may at times feel powerless, is
 commendable.  It is a fact that there are chronically ill people in the Oak
 Ridge area.  Everyone that I have conversed with is sympathetic to those
 who are ill and desires nothing less than their recovery from their
 ailments.  No one said anything good about the Tennessean articles because
 there was nothing good to say about them.  It is possible to feel empathy
 for the ill and disgust for those who seek to sensationalize on the basis
 of poor reporting.
 In your zeal to represent your clients, you have introduced some innuendos
 that portray Oak Ridge as a cess pool.  My 36 years of radiation protection
 and pollution abatement work have taken me to some real cess pools.  As a
 25-year resident of the Oak Ridge area, I can assure you and others who
 read RADSAFE postings that, in spite of what politicians and the Tennessean
 have said, Oak Ridge is a clean city.  In raising three children (who are
 now grown), my biggest concern for their welfare was the rising presence of
 drugs and criminal activity in their schools.  Never was I concerned for my
 children's health because we lived in Oak Ridge near the DOE facilities.
 Although I hope that I am not the only one who feels as I do, this posting
 does not represent the views of my employer, the City of Oak Ridge, or
 anyone else.
 Bill Goldsmith
 Radian Remediation Services
 865.220.8265
 bill_goldsmith@urscorp.com
  >>
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