Paducah CAB Board Resigns in Protest

["Miller, Mark L" <mmiller@SANDIA.GOV>]

Media Statement

For Immediate Release

August 14, 2003



PADUCAH CITIZENS ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS RESIGNING IN PROTEST





U. S. Department of Energy Citizens Advisory boards were established after

hard fought gains by people who lived in the shadow of DOE nuclear

processing facilities.  During the 1990s the many years of silence and

secrecy gave way to the right of the public to know the dangers in which

they lived.  This led to the establishment of the Site Specific Advisory

Boards now informally referred to as Citizens Advisory Boards (CABs).  DOE

has made a substantial investment of resources and time in the CABs in order

to establish a dialogue and credibility within the local communities in the

region of these facilities.  Although Paducah was one of the last of the

major DOE sites to get an advisory board, public involvement reform did

purport to come to Paducah in 1996 in the face of local pressure and

national organization oversight.

 

Many of us who had been involved in DOE activities before formation of the

Board decided to give DOE the benefit of the doubt and to participate in the

Citizens Advisory Board process.  Some of us who signed this statement

joined after the formation of the Board.  All of us had hoped that as Board

members we would be able to have meaningful input into DOE's decision-making

process.  After all, these boards are chartered under the Federal Advisory

Committee Act (FACA).  The purpose of this act is to insure that federal

advisory boards operate under strict guidelines and reflect a balanced, wide

range of views.  However, we have been disappointed.  Our tenure on this

Board has been difficult due to the lack of information from DOE combined

with the lack of dedicated support staff and the failure of DOE to take

board points of view and recommendations seriously.  Now difficult has

turned into impossible and impossible has turned into embarrassing.  We are

accomplishing nothing, but we are spending tens of thousands of dollars of

public money with little or no accounting.  This is the shared view of all

seven of us who now submit our resignations from this Board.  We can no

longer be a part of this failure, a failure that has to be laid directly

upon the DOE.

 

Some of the most critical reasons it has become intolerable to stay on the

CAB are as follows:

 

	1.	There is no difference in being involved as a general

citizen in DOE public participation activities compared to being a Board

member.  Yet the Board is costing the taxpayers $200,000 a year or more.

What's worse is that Board members cannot even get access to detailed

records about how contractors are spending CAB money.  It is becoming

embarrassing to be a part of this waste of money at a time when the rest of

the public is being cut out of the process and cleanup money is being

jeopardized.  This is not to say that public participation is not an

important part of an agency such as the DOE.  The DOE has a legal obligation

and a civic duty to involve the public in its decision-making process.

However, the Paducah CAB process is not providing the public with the

information necessary to fulfill those obligations and duties, yet it is

spending a good portion of the public participation budget.



	2.	DOE is not providing the CAB with information in a timely

manner to allow it to do its job despite the Board's continuing complaints

about this problem.  In some cases, the DOE officials seem to be  making it

difficult to obtain key information about environmental problems at the site

that could be important in cleaning up the site and surrounding lands.

(Apparently, some of this is done deliberately to hide problems in their

proposed processes.)



	3.	Recently, the DOE handpicked a new Board member bypassing

the Board's procedures.  Such action interferes with the balance the Board

is supposed to maintain.  



	4.	The fact that the Board's administrative staff works for the

main cleanup contractor appears to be a conflict of interest.  It is

particularly troubling that the very Company that provides the Board with

information and support reports to the prime contractor for the cleanup work

at the PGDP.  This systematic conflict of interest adversely affects the

Board's ability to get information and do its work.



	5.	DOE's rejection of existing cleanup agreements and abuse of

the dispute resolution procedure in the Federal Facilities Agreement has

made it virtually impossible for the public, including the Board, to keep up

with and be involved in the progress of the attempted resolution of these

disputes.  Resolution of these disputes is at the core of any progress being

made in site cleanup.



	6.	DOE has distanced itself from public input by moving the

decision process to Lexington and by putting Bill Murphie in charge.  Now

all major decisions and discussions are taking place far from Paducah where

neither the Board nor the public has access or input to these discussions.

This shows a lack of faith in public input and in the Board.  The Board has

become a public involvement hoax.



	7.	DOE continues to reject recommendations from the Board.

This makes our efforts even more meaningless.



	8.	DOE's actions indicate a desire to ignore fundamental

federal regulations that pertain directly to the cleanup and handling of

waste materials (i.e. hazardous/toxic waste treatment through blending).



	9.	DOE indicates a willingness to support violations of DOE

guidelines meant to promote the free flow of information pertaining to the

correction of environmental problems.



	10.	De facto removal of the DOE site manager without any

explanation caused us grave concern.  He was the first and only DOE manager

to show that he was really serious abut getting to the heart of issues and

having an honest debate.  Was this person removed because he was, as they

say, "acting too much like a regulator"?  We have no idea:  he simply

vanished from the process with no official DOE word on the matter.  

	 

	The resigning CAB members are not saying that the public should not

be concerned and involved in public oversight on DOE's cleanup activities at

the Paducah site.  Indeed, it is critical that citizens become involved in

these activities.  However, it borders on public deception to present the

Board as a public involvement vehicle.  Those now leaving the Board intend

to remain involved in all DOE public involvement processes, including

meeting together to discuss current issues from time to time.  Too much

money has been wasted on the sham cleanup at the Paducah DOE site.

Unfortunately, now we believe we can make more of a difference off the Board

than on it.  The resigning members no longer want to be a part of this

waste.  Instead, we want to speak out loud and clear as independent citizens

to help our community confront the huge environmental and economic problems

at the facility in a way that is sustainable both environmentally and

economically.

	 

	Merryman Kemp, Chair		270 442-7636

	Mark Donham            		618 564-3367

	Ronald Lamb			270 462-3636

	Craig Rhodes			618 564-2645

	Rosa Scott 				270 442-7814

	John Tillson 			270 898-4332

	Greg Waldrop 			270 444-9997 







Mark L. Miller, Certified Health Physicist

Weston Solutions

c/o Sandia National Laboratories

PO Box 5800, MS-1088

Albuquerque, NM  87185



(505) 284-2107   cell (505) 259-8557

fax (505) 284-2616

mmiller@sandia.gov







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