Newspaper ad against INEEL incinerator

["William F Miller/MILLERWF/LMITCO/INEEL/US" <MILLERWF@inel.gov>]

Us lucky folks at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Lab have
some wealthy neighbors in Jackson Wyoming (150 miles east) who are trying
to stop a proposed radioactive waste incinerator project.
They ran a full page ad in the local Idaho Falls paper.
How does one respond to these statements:
* incineration of any toxic waste, much less nuclear waste, is condemned by
most informed scientists, including DOE's own scientists.

*DOE scientist themselves have said NO to a proposed plutonium incinerator
in California.  LLNL said - we view incineration as a violation of the
cardinal principal of rad waste treatment: namely containing radioactivity
rather then spreading it around.

*LLNL's own internal panel thought it "prudent to avoid placing a mixed
waste incinerator in the midst of a rapidly growing, increasingly
residential environment."

*BNFL concluded that incineration at its own facility in England was too
dangerous and expensive to clean up.

quoting Dr. John Goffman (UC) - there has never been in the history of
science a any evidence that there's a safe dose of radiation ...there is no
threshold ...you can expect cancer or leukemia or chromosome injury all the
way down to the lowest conceivable dose.

* even DOE admits that incineration is 100 times more dangerous as opposed
to non incineration alternatives.

* INEEL expects to process a metric ton of Pu-239, equivalent to 166
Nagasaki size bombs.

* Review of INEELs operating history for the last decade reveals thirty
nuclear facility emission control system breakdowns, eight of which
involved filtered facilities - Were where the headlines on these facts.

* in the case of an incineration explosion, DOE estimates that about 500
grams of Pu-239 could be in the ventilation and filter system.  this
represents the equivalent of over six million lethal lung cancer doses.

* a study by the CDC and DOE admits there are gaps in knowledge.  The
report says- for  the safety of the communities surrounding INEEL a
determination must be made of the potential health risks that might result
from past exposures to chemicals and radionuclides released from the site.
In other words - INEEL doesn't know how dangerous its own actions have
been.

Bill Miller
INEEL
208-526-2185
millerwf@inel.gov

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