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RE: DOE cleanup to fund tax cut
The entire 890 square miles is not contaminated. The radiological
contamination is mostly in fairly circumscribed locations, as are the
chemical ones, the two often being the same areas. Of more general
distribution is unexploded ordinance from when the Navy did gunnery here,
but that is being searched out and cleared.
But your point was well taken: total cleanup would be prohibitive in cost,
probably impossible, and definitely unverifiable.
Dave Neil neildm@id.doe.gov
When I was fourteen years old, I was amazed at how
unintelligent my father was. By the time I turned twenty-one, I was
astounded how much he had learned in the last seven years. -- Mark Twain
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stokes, James [SMTP:StokesJ@TTNUS.COM]
> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2001 7:54 AM
> To: 'RuthWeiner@AOL.COM '; 'loc@ICX.NET '; 'radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
> '
> Subject: RE: DOE cleanup to fund tax cut
>
>
> I would like to put this issue in my own personal perspective. The U.S
> DOE
> Defense Programs complex consists of about 2000 square miles of
> radioactively and chemically contaminated lands. Does anyone belive that
> there are enough tax dollars in The United Staes of America, to clean al
> of
> these lands to their original pristine condition? Do the calculations,
> and
> I will be willing to bet against it.
>
> Therefore, at some point, there will have to be a decision, that no more
> clean up will happen. I am not saying that this is the time for that. I
> am
> simply stating, pragmatically, that that time WILL come.
>
> Therefore, we most diligantly, and RESPONSIBLY spend the money while it is
> available, to clean up as much as we can. Because the "wallet" for
> cleanup
> is not bottomless. Remember that the Weldon Springs, MO sight sat idle
> for
> fifteen years, before any money was appropriated for its cleanup.
>
> Many do not know that it was the sister facility of the Fernald, OH site.
> Ask yourself why the Fernald sight received billions for its cleanup, when
> Weldon Springs only received millions. Answer, politics, not technical
> justification. Fernald is 1150 acres of uranium contamination. Hanford
> is
> 570 sq miles, INEEL is 890 SQ. miles, and Savannah River Site is about
> 270
> sq. miles. These sites have transuranic contamiation. Just usinf a
> simple
> linear extrapolation, the U.S. budget could not handle a cleanup to
> pristine conditions in our lifetime.
>
> The decisions that will have to be made will be emotional, negotiations
> protracted, and in the end, will satisfy noone. But all of us must look
> at
> what CAN be achieved, and do our best to ensure that the most that can be
> done, will be. But there will be a point at which the cleanup will have
> to
> end, because there just simply is just not enough money to do it all.
>
> These are my opinions alne, and probably conflict with many others who
> naively believe that we can have it all.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM
> To: loc@ICX.NET; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
> Sent: 4/6/01 6:16 PM
> Subject: Re: DOE cleanup to fund tax cut
>
> As at least one respondent pointed out, the sites are currently
> ecological
> preserves, precisely because human access is limited. Hanford's NERP
> (National Environmental Research Park) is in fact a rather unique
> ecology
> since it is a temperate zone desert. It's called the Arid Lands Ecology
>
> (ALE) site, and was inaugurated in 1976.
>
> I might also point out that in 1991 or 1992, when I was on a NAS risk
> prioritization panel, Curt Travis at Oak Ridge used a program called
> MEPAS to
> identify the most hazardous sites in the DOE complex, and there were
> really
> only a few places that posed any significant risk. However, this made
> most
> of the citizen activists mad, because in any prioritization some sites
> end up
> high on the list and others , lower. At their behest, Hazel O'Leary
> eliminated the prioritization idea (and the NAS panel) and instituted
> the
> Citizens' Advisory Boards, following some meeting at the Keystone
> conference
> center in Colorado that resulted in the so-called "Keystone Accords"
> that
> gave "stakeholders" a voice in what to clean up and how to do it. And
> here
> we are!
>
> Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.
> ruthweiner@aol.com
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