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RE: Hanford and the HTDS
Bjorn Cedervall wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Bjorn Cedervall
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Sent: 6/23/2002 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: CDC: No incr thyr risk w/rad dose at Hanford
>http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r020621.htm
>CDC Releases Hanford Thyroid Disease Study Final Report
>Data Show Risks of Thyroid Disease About the Same Regardless of
Radiation Dose from Hanford
<snip>
>The HTDS study population represents a sampling of people born between
1940 and 1946 to mothers who lived in seven counties in Washington
State: Benton, Franklin, Adams, Walla Walla, Okanogan, Ferry, and
Stevens.
-----------------
Okanogan and Ferry are relatively far north whereas Yakima (I assume
that
Hanford is located in southern Yakima), Grant, Douglas and Chelan were
not
included in the study. Can anyone explain? Could it be the semi-desert
character - so that there were simply no people to study? If I recall
correctly a few thousand people had to leave the Hanford area when it
was
built. The Native Americans in the Grand Coulee Dam area - well - a
couple
of black & white pictures where taken before the dam was built in the
1930:ies - but I guess the Natives stayed in the area (because I heard
local
community leaders referring to them as a problem a few decades ago).
For a county map - see:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wagenweb/
My personal reflections only,
Bjorn Cedervall bcradsafers@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/bjorn_cedervall/
=====================
The Hanford Reservation is in the northeast corner of Benton County. Adams,
Franklin, and Walla Walla counties are across the Columbia River,
immediately to the northeast, east, and southeast of the reservation. They
are the downwind counties. Yakima county is west of the reservation and
upwind. Okanogan, Ferry, and Stevens counties are roughly 150-200 miles to
the north and north-northeast of the reservation and represent something
approximating control populations, with much lower exposures to the I-131
releases. They are dry, mountainous terrain, while the other counties are
semi-arid and mostly flat. If my memory serves, something less than a
thousand people were given two weeks to leave their homes and land in and
around the small towns of White Bluffs and Hanford. For at least the last
couple of decades, survivors have been given one day a year to visit their
former homesites. I don't believe any native Americans were relocated,
although fishing and hunting grounds along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia
River and Gable Mountain, a site of religious significance, became off
limits. Fishing is now allowed and hunting across the river, but Gable
Mountain is still off limits. A U-shaped strip of land, about 200,000
acres, incorporating the Hanford Reach and Rattlesnake Mountain and its
surroundings, was made a National Monument two or three years ago, after a
long, ideological controversy.
The CDC conducted a public meeting in Richland Friday evening to discuss the
release of the final HTDS report. A few days earlier, the downwinder's law
suit against DOE and its contractors was reinstated by the 9th (10th?)
federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The Sunday NY Times had a roughly six
column inch AP story on the final report, buried on about p. 20 of the first
section of the paper. The cynic might suspect that placement and emphasis
would have been different if the results of the study had been different.
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov
These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my
management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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