STAR Meeting with Secretary Richardson

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

In view of the previous items  on the trials and triabulaltions of
Brookhaven National Laboratory on Radsafe, the following item may be of
interest:


>>From Science & Government Report, February 1, 1999, p. 1
>
>DOE GIVES ANTINUKES BIG ROLE IN DECIDING BROOKHAVEN REACTOR'S FATE
>
>	A rabidly antinuclear group has gotten the okay from Energy
>Secretary Bill Richardson to conduct its own safety review into the possible
>restart of an idled research reactor on Long Island, NY.  What's more, the
>Department of Energy could end up paying for a study whose outcome is
>preordained to come out squarely against restart.
>
>	The group, which calls itself "Standing for Truth Against
>Radiation" is dominated by well-heeled patrons from eastern Long Island's
>Hamptons. Its celebrity spokesman is movie star Alec Baldwin who went on
>the Montel Williams talk show last year to describe how Brookhaven National
>Laboratory is poisoning the surrounding populace.
>
>	Scott Cullen, a STAR lawyer who joined Baldwin and other group
>representatives at a Jan. 13 meeting with Richardson, said last week it was
>"still up in the air" whether DOE will pay for the review of BNL's High
>Flux Beam Reactor.  Also unsettled, he said, are the study's cost and the
>number and kinds of experts that it would hire to do the work.
>
>	Robert Alvarez, a senior policy adviser to Richardson, said STAR
>didn't ask for money at the meeting, but he agreed that DOE might entertain
>such a request.  The agency offered to open the books on its own review,
>making calculations and computer codes on such items as projected radiation
>doses from a meltdown and the rate at which the reactor vessel will
>deteriorate available for STAR's scrutiny.  Further, DOE has agreed to
>provide access to its in-house experts.
>
>	Richardson also consented to doubling the usual 45-day comment
>period for the environmental impact statement and to hold a workshop with
>STAR and other local citizen groups to obtain their input.  In return, says
>Alvarez, STAR was asked to serve as a liaison between DOE and other local
>citizens groups who object to the reactor's opening.
>
>	Cullen had a different understanding of the agreement.  STAR's
>review is totally apart from DOE's process which is known as an
>environmental impact statement, and will "have no impact" on Richardson's
>decision making, he said.  How the politically suave and diplomatically
>inclined secretary could ignore a report reflecting a vocal, however
>emotional, segment of the area's residents is almost as puzzling as the
>question of how an organization whose web site is named "noradiation.org"
>and proclaims "there is no such thing as a safely operating nuclear
>reactor" could possibly prepare an objective review of any reactor.
>
>	STAR unabashedly tutors visitors on its web site on the reasons why
>they ought to oppose HFBR restart, proclaiming it's concerned about toxic
>effects of radiation in general, and nuclear contamination at Brookhaven in
>particular.
>
>	One of two major US reactors capable of producing highly intense
>neutron beams for research purposes, BNL's High Flux Beam Reactor has been
>shut down since late 1996 when it was discovered that tritium from its
>spent fuel basin had been seeping into the ground for a dozen years.  The
>quantity of radiation that leaked during the period is very small,
>equivalent to one-fifth the amount in a single self-illuminating exit sign,
>and none of it has migrated off the boundaries of the Brookhaven site.  But
>area residents were understandably upset that it had been going on for so
>long and that earlier signs of leakage were ignored by the lab.
>
>	The tritium leak led to the firing of the lab's contractor at the
>time, Associated Universities, Inc., and the hiring of new team in late
>1997 that includes nearby SUNY at Stony Brook and Battelle Memorial
>Institute.  DOE has been preparing its environment impact statement in
>preparation for Richardson's decision on restart.  A draft EIS won't be out
>for about a month, but Alvarez said it will be neutral on the restart issue.
>
>	STAR's ranks are peopled by Hampton's tycoons and celebrities like
>environmental rabble-rouser Helen Caldicott, the pediatrician founder of
>Physicians for Social Responsibility.  Its battery of lawyers includes Jan
>Schlichtmann, whose battle with WR Grace and Beatrice Foods in the 1980's
>over contamination of the Woburn, MA water supply is portrayed by John
>Travolta in the movie "A Civil Action"

Andy Hull
BNL
Upton NY 11973
ph. 516-344-4210
e-mail: hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov

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