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Re: AW: Hanford Site cleanup standards





The interest in workers only appears to be "sudden" because this is one of the few times it has come up on RADSAFE.  My own very active interest dates back to 1954, when I was a laboratory technician in a tomato canning plant one summer, and the other technician and I tried to improve the working conditions of the (mostly) women on the canning line. Most HPs are exceedingly interested in worker safety because that is where the exposures are, and having worked with a number of unions (Steelworkers, UAW) I recognize that this is also true for hazardous chemical exposure. I am also sure I am not the only RADSAFER who has ever worked on an assembly line.



Re the "hazards of new technology" and "responsibility for environmental damage":  consider the incredible environmental damage wrought, for example, by automobile and truck use, as compared with light or heavy rail use.  Should (or could) the early developers of the internal combustion engine have foreseen that?  Did anyone think about the Celilo Falls fishry when Grand Coulee dam was built ("roll on, Columbia, roll on")?



As has been pointed out on RADSAFE, the AEC did far more to prevent health damage than most similar large heavy industries have done when they started up.  I remember well when NEPA and the 1970 Clean Air Act were written and enacted, and how strongly they were opposed by the various U. S. industries.  I heard a speaker at the 1969 meeting of the American Mining Congress say that heavy industry had always been free to release its wastes into America's air and water, and would continue to do so. OSHA was enacted in 1970. By contrast, the Atomic Energy Act was quite a bit ahead of its time with its health protection clauses.



 

Finally, we have yet to see any adverse PUBLIC health effects from any of the DOE sites, including Hanford.



Ruth





-- 

Ruth F. Weiner

ruthweiner@aol.com

505-856-5011

(o)505-284-8406



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