Re: salem radiation forum 9/8

["Tony Harrison" <laharris@smtpgate.dphe.state.co.us>]

You're not alone Ruth, but it works both ways.  One day in 1995 I spent the morning representing the State at a meeting regarding Emergency Planning around a certain DOE plutonium factory in Colorado.  We requested information that could be verified, having had enough of Subject Matter Expert Opinion.  The DOE rep & their contractors spent quite awhile attacking my motives, insisting that I was a stick in the spokes of progress, etc.  No one called me a communist but they called me everything else they could think of.  After lunch the same day I went to a meeting of citizen activists who were conducting their own sampling and analysis program around the same facility.  They got extremely belligerent when I suggested that the results of previous sampling conducted by the State and DOE were in reasonably good agreement, and showed that the risks offsite were low.  One of the nicer things they called me was a lying, corrupt tool of the DOE.  

The bottom line for me was that if you want to deal with the public, including regulated government entities, on subjects like this you'd better have a thick skin.

Best regards,
Tony Harrison, RSO, MSPH
Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment
Laboratory and Radiation Services Division
(303)692-3046
tony.harrison@state.co.us 


>>> ruth_weiner@email.msn.com 08/17/00 02:07PM >>>
>That line about lynching is quite unfair and unprofessional.  Go to
>www.unplugsalem.org, read the names of the organizations signed on to the
>campaign

Apologies in advance -- rant to follow.  Skip it if you don't like rants,
please.

Maybe no one else on the list has experienced this sort of thing.  If so, I
stand corrected and there must be something just wrong with me.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com 


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