ALARA: MSRE & K-25: Why House Office Workers Near Decontam'n &Decomissioning?

[EASlavin@aol.com]

Dear Tim:

Thank you for sharing your views with me.  It was good to hear from you.  I 
appreciate your recognizing the legitimate nature of worker illnesses in Oak 
Ridge, and their causation by the workplace.  Please consider in that light 
the facts about  about cyanide and the K-25 coverup (Chapter 3 of my 
testimony).  

You raise good questions.  In fact, DOE needs to be asked a lot of questions 
by the health physics profession, and the entire Nation: Why does DOE still 
have office workers (and others who do not need to be on the K-25 site to do 
their jobs) sharing a Superfund Site with decontamination, decommissioning 
and cleanup activities?  

To save money?  Is that ALARA?  

Why were workers not informed of the hazards around them?  Why were workers 
lied to about hazards like cyanide and plutonium?  What do we do now?  Have 
you been tested for cyanide and heavy metals?

The choice is not the false dichotomy that you pose -- a false dichotomy 
between decontamination on the one hand and leaving buildings sit 
contaminated on the other.  DOE let the Molten Salt Reactor (MSRE) sit idle 
for 25 years until one of my clients blew the whistle, and the DOE Resident 
Inspector and Joe La Grone got it closed.  They left the uranium and HF in 
the pipes. This was reckless.  Joe La Grone evacuated the building.  As I 
state in my testimony, there are now office workers back in the building, 
while it is being decontaminated and decommissioned. Why should office 
workers be housed next to a decontamination site?  Is DOE ORO out of their 
minds?  What does ALARA mean to them, if anything?

Why not move the MSRE and K-25 Site office workers to suitable locations, 
instead of putting them in harm's way?  What dollar value does DOE place on a 
human life?  How many Oak Ridge workers work in chemically, radiologically 
and biologically contaminated buildings? DOE has never answered the question. 
 Those from DOE who are reading this listserv, kindly answer the question 
today.  Please.  Now. 

Some other questions come to mind: Why would you project mean and base 
motives upon others you have never met, never talked to and never written 
privately, about a matter of human misery?   Why the mean rap about plant 
closing, an incredibly vicious accusation that spreads fear and loathing (is 
that what you intend?  I find occurs in every whistleblower case, from Oak 
Ridge to Hanford to San Onofre.  It is management's first means of social 
control over workers.  It almost always entirely misapprehends the 
whistleblowers' goals (good jobs and safe workplaces, not closed plants)?   
It is the kind of thing that can get workers (or lawyers) killed.  STOP IT.  
No one I know wants to shut any plants down.  There is, however, one group in 
Oak Ridge that does (Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance).  They are not 
talking to me -- haven't in years.  They have never helped sick workers and 
whistleblowers.  They have the "shut down the plants" goal that you 
incorrectly attribute to me.  That is not a solution.  ORNL has vital 
worldwide missions to accomplish, including research on environmental 
pollution and cleanup.  Oak Ridge workers deserve ALARA, good jobs at good 
wages, not a plant shutdown.

I appreciate what you say about the media. I wish Gannett had paid for 
biological sampling of hundreds of K-25 workers, which DOE and Lockheed 
promised but did not deliver at K-25.  I wish the headline writing and 
article and editorial writing had been worthy of SCIENCE magazine -- but then 
again, as reporter Jim Dykes used to say (at the Knoxville News Sentinel), 
"no matter what you say about it, it's still a newspaper."  Of course, any 
newspaper is an imperfect messenger for complex scientific facts.  How else 
does one start to expose the truth when the Government stonewalls?   100 
years from now, Oak Ridge will be a better place because of the Nashville 
Tennessean, because it dared to write the story of Oak Ridge as they saw it, 
"warts and all," as Lincoln would say it.  

When I was Editor of the Appalachian Observer, I noticed something mighy 
peculiar about other three local daily newspapers -- every single one of them 
would take DOE and Union Carbide press releases, and print them -- often 
without changing a word, without indicating their "source."  That's not 
journalism either.  That's what Oak Ridge had for years, until the 
Appalachian Observer and Nashville Tennessean and Washington Post and New 
York Times and SCIENCE Magazine and other publications dared to print the 
truth.  

Is there any critical article abort Oak Ridge that you have ever found, like 
Goldilocks, to be "just right?" If so, please give me the citation.  

Some Oak Ridge managers are hierarchical and authoritarian: they just don't 
like criticism, and make makeweight arguments about the Tennessean's 
"statistical methodology" as a substitute for what they really mean, a 
thought expressed by the Mayor of Oak Ridge in language previously quoted, in 
attacks on this listserv on the Tennessan and sick workers, and again on this 
listserv earlier today, to wit: "shut up."

Interesting that you used the word "paranoia."  Several years ago, a New 
Mexico jury returned a $300,000 verdict against a DOE consultant psychiatrist 
for saying that a whistleblower was "paranoid" because she filed more than 
one EEO complaint.  Last year, an Anderson County CIrcuit Court jury of 
twelve returned a $600,000 jury verdict against DOE's consultant 
psychiatrist, who had found my client "paranoid, delusional and psychotic" 
for supposing there were environmental problems at K-25, resulting in loss of 
her job and security clearance.  These jurors are your neighbors.   The term 
"paranoid" is too often slung around loosely by DOE managers and used to 
attack whistleblowers.  See, e.g., Matthew L. Wald, "Retribution Seen in Atom 
Industry -- 4 Who Cited Safety Say They Were Told to See Therapists," New 
York Times, August 6, 1989 at 1:
"The workers all say the implications in the orders that they were suffering 
from mental problems was part of a long campaign of harassment that included 
tactics like demotions, ridicule in front of co-workers, and threats to 
revoke the security clearance required for their jobs.  They were sent to the 
psychologist or psychiatrist at least once; one refused but fears retaliation 
for his refusal.... Workers who have made public allegations of wrongdoing by 
the Government and its contractors have been punished for calling attention 
to problems.  The Department of Energy has previously acknowledged to 
Congress that it has done a poor job of protecting whistleblowers in its own 
plants.... Representative Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has become a 
specialist on Hanford, said, "This is an old strategy that goes on in 
totalitarian countries.  It's incredibly grotesque that it's being used here."

See also, Statements of DOE and Edward A. Slavin, Jr. in Standards and Due 
Process Procedures for Granting, Denying and Revoking Security Clearances, 
Joint Hearings before the House Subcommittee on the Civil Service of the 
Committee on Post Office and Civil Service and the Subcommittee on Civil and 
Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, 101st Congress, 
Committee on the Judiciary Serial No. 85, Post Office and Civil Service 
Serial No. 101-57 (October 5, November 2 & 16, 1989; February 28 & March 8, 
1990).   It is axiomatic that  security clearance decisions may be based upon 
"malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy."  Greene v. 
McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 496-97 (1959).   DOE and its contractors turn this 
viciousness into an art forum.  Despite jury verdicts against two DOE 
consultant psychiatrists -- one in Oak Ridge and one in Albuquerque, DOE 
still uses their services, exercising chilling effects upon ethical 
employees.  DOE has not instituted suspension and debarment investigations 
against the wrongdoing psychiatrists. 

Paranoia is one word I have always hesitated to use in describing the DOE 
managers who discriminate against whistleblowers.  Their actions speak for 
themselves.  :)   Tim, with all due respect, I suggest that you might wish to 
kindly read the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV definitions of 
paranoia before you ever again sling mud thattaway ever again.  Those words 
were undeserved.  I think your ad hominem attack is unworthy of you.  People 
might think you were an "old culture" DOE/LOCK. manager.  BTW, I understand 
that anger as well as depression and frustration can be caused by toxic 
chemicals.  :)  

I trust this answers your questions.  Thank you for speaking out.  I do 
respect you, because you took the time to tell me what you think, and it is 
obvious to me that you do think for yourself and that you do have compassion 
for sick workers.   

Better your  approach than that of the putative managers in the Federal 
Building, who treat people as objects but won't talk to them -- people like 
DOE ORO Manager Jim Hall (now with Westinghouse), who would not meet with  
the sick Oak Ridge workers for years.  

BTW, I was in a whistleblower trial in Amarillo last year and sought to show 
the Respondent's CEO a chapter in a book on welding hazards "to raise his 
consciousness."  The defense lawyer loudly objected, saying "I object to 
raising your his consciousness."  I  think  the sick workers and residents 
have helped raise your conciousness, and those of other HPs.   Only a few of 
you "object."  We understand cognitive dissonance.  I am sure that even they 
are thinking about what was said about the sick workers and residents, in 
contrast to the reality of what they have suffered.  See 
http://www.downwinders.org/victims.html

 It has been a nightmare for all of them, and they want it to end.  I think 
everyone involed wants Oak Ridge cleaned up to make it safe for future 
generations to work and live in peace, working together toward a better 
world.  

Our Commander in Chief  has apologized for slavery, for Bosnia and for the 
Tuskegee Experiment.  The President to apologize to Oak Ridge residents and 
workers, and to other victims of the Nuclear Weapons nightmare, who should be 
fairly compensated.  Is that too much to ask?

Thank you for listening.

With kindest regards,

Ed Slavin
------------
Subj:    
Date:   04/07/2000 9:57:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From:   twaddell@mnsci.com (Tim Waddell)
Sender: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
Reply-to:   radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu (Multiple recipients of list)

Mr. Slavin:

I am also a native Oak Ridger who has lived here for thirty five years.  I
do not doubt that there is a problem with contamination in areas of the
reservation.  I also am aware of the remediation that has taken place along
popular creek and other areas "outside the fence." I also believe that some
of the illnesses claimed by the sick workers from the DOE site are probably
related to industrial exposures of chemicals and toxins.

However, in the media reporting of the studies that have been done on Oak
Ridge residents, I have not scene any conclusive evidence that any residents
have been harmed by contamination.  One study published recently was full of
wording like "may have been", "could have been", and "it is likely", but
failed to establish direct evidence.  If there is a study that provides
conclusive proof, please refer me to it so that I can consider the results
for myself.

As for some of your earlier postings to this list go, I think it is you and
other zealots like you who foster the "us against them" attitude.  Merely by
remarks such as "Do y'all want to be part of the solution or part of the
problem?" suggests that if we are not in agreement with your positions, we
are part of the problem.  Additionally, I think that you have brought a lot
of the skepticism on yourself.  As I said before, I do believe that some of
the illnesses suffered by workers from the DOE sites are probably related to
industrial exposures.  If so, those people are entitled to compensation and
medical benefits.  However, I find it very difficult to believe that every
malady from depression to sore throat and sniffles is brought on by these
exposures.  By enlisting in your cause every person who has the slightest
ache, pain or other problem merely diminishes that cause for the other
people who probably have legitimate reasons for compensation.

By some of your earlier remarks, it seems that you will not be happy until
the plants are closed, your clients are paid off, and whole city of Oak
Ridge ceases to exist.  At the same time, you seem to fight efforts to clean
up K-25 in the most economical manner possible. It seems you and others like
you would prefer to lock the gates and let things sit as they are.  Well, I
for one would prefer not to let abandoned buildings, process equipment and
containers full of hazardous contaminants sit until they corrode and leak
additional contamination into the surrounding air, water and soil. Your
attitude regarding the government and government contractors borders on
paranoia.

In one of your earlier postings you say of the sick workers "They're not
going away.  It's their country.  It's their boat.  They have a right to
rock it."  Yes, they do have a right to rock it.  However, when the wave
from their boat starts rocking my boat as well, I am going to rock back.

Tim Waddell
Oak Ridge, TN

These views are my own, and do not reflect the views of any other
organization.
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