Bethlehem workers and Western NY State

[NiagaraNet@AOL.COM]

Dear Barbara Hamrick and Michael Kent:



Perhaps those interested and making blind comment on this board should look 

at DOE records and see just how many AWE and Beryllium sites were associated 

with this area of the country--Niagara Falls, Tonawanda, Lackawanna, Lewiston, 

Porter, Youngstown and Lockport, NY. There are more W.W.II Manhattan Project 

legacy sites associated with the above locations than anywhere else in the 

United States. Do a little research and reading about the area before slamming me.



If no one breaths that "one last atom," or "every last atom" as it was put by 

Barbara Hamrick, then deregulate all you wish, as long as you isolate. One 

atom causing that one cancer more mortality shouldn't be acceptable to anyone. 

Anyone on this board think it's OK to expose someone?



Risk is everywhere, why add more by shoddy handling, incomplete cleanup or 

disposal of any material not natural to a specific environment in the first 

place? 



Keep in mind I speak from a Niagara Lewiston New York perspective -- the 

earliest and dirtiest of the "uncleaned" sites. Anyone out there remember Love 

Canal? My wastes of concern are mainly from the Congo, KAPL and U of R. Does it 

get any older or dirtier? All are direct to soil burials except for certain of 

the African pedigree materials. I include in this list Pu and other 

transuranic direct to soil burials.



Almost all of what I refer to here is related to these early 1942 - 1953 

activities that were sloppy and not in any sort of controlled laboratory 

environment. When I talk about Niagara, it is about 8th grade (or less) educated atomic 

laborers, wiping their brow with dirty hands and then opening their lunch 

boxes. I speak of an earlier age, in an industrial location that had very few 

rules or regulations of any kind. What there was: Lots of production goals and 

working stiffs, three shifts-24/7, 365. 



Since my articles have been mentioned numerous times here on the post, not 

necessarily by me, please read about the workers from the Manhattan era and see 

that none of these workers were ever informed of the dangers related to the 

materials they were handling. In fact, it is clearly shown through declassified 

documents that workers were misinformed or outright mislead. None of these 

affected workers disobeyed rules or went out of their way to break any safety 

protocol. There were none in most instances. The workers that came in the years 

after, into a potentially "dirty kitchen" and during periods of ineffective 

cleanups, were exposed and no one can say to what dose. In many cases not even to 

what isotope. How grand is that? The exposures that some were given without 

informing them was unconscionable but yet, no dosimetry.



How can accurate dose reconstruction be done when records are forever lost, 

never created, or that just not enough effort was made to locate supportive 

materials for these claims? The whole program is a scam IMO and intended to wait 

out the last of the survivors. Yes, these workers were "sacrificed." No other 

term fits when they were not informed of the dangers they were exposed to. 

That's right, sacrificed.



If this situation (claimant compensation) were to be a perpetual thing, with 

claims being made generation after generation, then perhaps I could see the 

resistance to the logic of paying these last-tier surviving workers or their 

families. 



Perhaps, on the other hand though, and because this may be proven to be true 

sometime in the near future with genetics, there is concern amongst some that 

this scenario is destined to be played out anyway, the paying for generations 

to come.



You make the call.

Sincerely,

Louis Ricciuti

Niagara Lewiston Porter Youngstown, New York 

Still the oldest, still the dirtiest little atomic secret in America.



The opinions expressed here are mine.

NEXT.