Utah Democratic Congressional Representative Jim Matheson reports in the Chicago Tribune that the restart of nuclear weapons testing in Nevada exacerbates the health problems his constituents and residents of the Rocky Mountain West already suffer from previous bomb tests.

"In the late 1970s, my father, Utah Gov. Scott M. Matheson, puzzled over an alarming number of cancer deaths among our family and friends in southern Utah. Relatives would bring him yellow legal pads filled with the names of relatives who died of cancer and my father searched for an explanation. Tragically, that explanation turned out to be beyond our worst imagination. Today, when some members of Congress support the development of new nuclear weapons and are poised to allow the eventual resumption of nuclear weapons testing, the story of my father and his fellow "downwinders" serves as both a history lesson and a warning.

"From 1951 until 1992, the U.S. government conducted more than 900 nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. I remember my father telling me how people in southern Utah would gather to watch the sky light up when those tests were being conducted--some of which used bombs larger and more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima. These Americans were patriots who supported the nuclear testing program. They trusted their government.

"It turns out that trust was misplaced. The government had known for some time that nuclear testing could seriously affect human health. Tests were deliberately conducted when the wind blew the fallout in the least populated direction--toward southern Utah. My father died in October 1990 of a type of cancer associated with radioactive fallout. He was 61 years old. Just days after his death, the federal government belatedly acknowledged its deception of the so-called 'downwinders.'

"Within the next few years, our government instituted moratoriums on nuclear testing and the research and development of new nuclear weapons. One of these moratoriums stayed in place until last year, when Congress voted to rescind the ban on research and development of new nuclear weapons and approved $13.5 million for new nuclear weapons studies, including so-called 'bunker busters' and low-yield 'tactical' bombs.

"Congress also provided $25 million in additional funding for nuclear weapons test site readiness. This year's budget requests an additional $27.6 million for research and seeks to shorten the lead- time for test readiness to just 18 months.

"Can the resumption of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site really be that far behind? Even more troubling is a Congressional Research Service report issued last month, showing at least one of the new nuclear weapons research programs--the bunker-buster--is projected to proceed beyond the study phase and will cost as much as $485 million over the next five years. America faces significantly different threats in 2004 than the types of threats we encountered back in the early 1990s. It is logical to revisit our decade-old defense policies as we combat terrorism, and I join my colleagues in Congress in supporting the development of innovative weaponry for our soldiers.

"But we cannot let some of our most shameful history repeat itself. That is why I have introduced the Safety for Americans from Nuclear Weapons Testing Act. The bill requires the government to conduct a full National Environmental Policy Act review to assess health, safety and environmental impacts prior to conducting nuclear weapons testing. It also explicitly requires Congress to authorize any weapons tests.

"If those hurdles are cleared, the bill requires the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and publicize radiation levels. Finally, the bill creates the National Center for the Study of Radiation and Human Health--a regional consortium of universities that will study the health effects of radiation exposure and radiation-linked illnesses.

"This legislation takes into account two infallible truths about nuclear weapons testing. The first is that there is no such thing as a completely safe test. Of the 800 underground tests conducted over the years, at least 126 were documented as having released significant radioactive fallout above ground. And that's just since 1970. The infamous Baneberry test was detonated 900 feet below ground, yet it ejected radioactive debris 10,000 feet into the atmosphere.

"The second truth is that no one in this country is immune to nuclear fallout. The only comprehensive fallout study of a radioactive isotope, by the National Cancer Institute, showed concentrations in every county across America. Some counties in the Midwest, and even as far away as Vermont and upstate New York, had higher concentrations of radiation than several areas directly downwind of the Nevada Test Site.

"We have paid dearly for accepting government assurances that nuclear testing was safe. Americans still don't have the whole story. Did fallout in the 1950s and 1960s cause cancers in the 1990s? Can future generations be spared the uncertainty of the effects of radiation exposure? I encourage Congress to enact measures to better protect Americans." ⁽¹⁾

For many years, Downwinders have demanded comprehensive dose and risk analysis on what they were exposed to (without consent) as a result of nuclear weapons tests and exposure to Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons material production and waste management operations. To date, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the primary agency tasked with conducting health studies at DOE sites, refuses to provide comprehensive analysis of these combined exposures nor to include the other radionuclides in addition to Iodine-131 that contributed significantly to the radiation exposure from fallout. This CDC obfuscation is within the context of CDC's own DOE site advisory committees, ⁽³⁾ and the agency's national Advisory Committee for Energy Related Epidemiological Research (ACERER) recommendations to include fallout in site specific exposure estimates. ⁽⁴⁾ Owen Hoffman reports in Health Physics magazine that:

"Exposures of the American public occurred nation-wide from the testing of nuclear weapons in the United States, the Pacific, and the former Soviet Union. After decades of diminished public awareness on the subject of health risks resulting for exposure to fallout, the release of the National Cancer Institute's 1997 report on nationwide exposure to Iodine-131 from the Nevada Test Site (NTS) has led to renewed interest. Public requests for information are focused on individual and family health problems, the right to credible and full disclosure of information, and the need for medical care and assistance for exposure-related health problems. Public concerns have been raised regarding: (a) the lack of information on the potential health risks from exposure to all biologically significant radionuclides in fallout; (b) the lack of independent oversight that includes public participation; (c) governmental portrayal of exposures averaged over very large segments of the population without identification of much larger values for individuals or population subgroups likely to be highest risk; and (d) a governmental response to known or suspected human exposures that consumes large periods of time and devotes considerable funding to various research-related activities before serious consideration is given to addressing health care responsibilities to exposed individuals. To some extent, these complaints and concerns are rooted in the legacy of government secrecy surrounding the development and testing of nuclear weapons, public distrust of government sources of information about radiation exposures and health risks, and the imposition of past exposures without informed consent. Members of the public participation in the oversight of dose reconstruction projects and epidemiologic studies are requesting information on the total impact from all relevant sources of exposure at each site that might contribute significantly to an individual's risks from these cumulative exposures, with estimates of uncertainty, including estimates of the absorbed organ dose (as opposed the effective dose), the risk of disease incidence as opposed to the risk of a cancer fatality, and the chance that a person's diagnosed disease was caused by past exposure (i.e., the probability of causation). This paper attempts to address some of these concerns. We [SENES] conclude by noting that many individuals exposed in childhood during the 1950's to Iodine-131 in fallout from nuclear weapons production and testing would qualify for compensation and medical care if the present rules for the adjudication of claims for atomic veterans and radiation workers at DOE sites were to be extended to the public." ⁽⁵⁾

Hoffman additionally cites statements by Trish Pritkin (a Hanford Downwinder) that; "For all of those people significantly exposed to fallout from NTS bomb tests, this is the third major human rights violation we have endured: first, our involuntary exposure, in which many of us were exposed during infancy and childhood when we were most vulnerable: second, through the years of suffering with the health impact of these unknowing exposed (decades of untreated, severe hypothyroidism, or worse): and now being violated a third time, in having withheld from us the results of the NCI fallout report (including individual dose and risk estimates due to our exposures) for so many years." ⁽⁶⁾

It is always useful to put some of these numbers into a relevant perspective. For instance, the 1979 Pennsylvania Three Mile Island commercial reactor melt-down, the most significant commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, released 15 curies of radioactive Iodine-131. Hoffman reports DOE Hanford Iodine-131 releases at 800,000 curies, Oak Ridge up to 40,000 curies, Savannah River Site at up to 60,000 curies, Nevada Test Site at 150,000,000 curies, and the U.S. Marshall Island Test Site at 8 billion curies of Iodine-131. ⁽⁷⁾ As previously noted, Iodine-131 only constitutes a portion of radiation releases, while the other isotopes such as cesium, strontium, and plutonium with long half-lives constitute a persistent exposure to downwinders. CDC's INEEL Dose Reconstruction Health Study has generated draft reports that will soon be finalized. For comments on one of these reports see Environmental Defense Institute's website: http://www.environmental-defense-institute.org

In 1998, U.S. Senator Harkin (D-IA) promoted legislation asking for the CDC and National Cancer Institute to produce a report on the feasibility of dose reconstruction and risk assessment for all other radionuclides in Nevada Test Site (NTS) fallout and from global fallout. After a long delay, a draft report was released by CDC in 2002. This report was reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2003. It is now well into 2004, and the CDC has still not released the final report, which should conclude that it is indeed feasible to quantify the past doses and future risk of public exposure to fallout from nuclear testing. EDI is informed that the report is still, as of this writing, undergoing high-level review within HHS/CDC.

Scientific tracking of Japanese atomic bomb survivors provides crucial information about the long-term effects of radiation exposure because the health-outcomes can take decades to surface. David Malakoff and Dennis Normble report in Science Magazine that these funding cuts will undercut not only the public's need to know but also the U.S. and the international regulatory process of establishing appropriate standards for radiation exposure to the public.

"The United States is considering major cuts in its support of a 54-yr study of Japanese survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. Late last month the Department of Energy (DOE) warned scientists working with the Hiroshima-based Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) about possible funding cuts that could derail ongoing studies and force layoffs in the group of 40 scientists.

"The U.S. now provides 40% of the $40 million annual budget for the foundation, which was created in 1975 to continue studies of the bombing survivors. Any cuts would take effect just as the two nations prepare to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the attacks. 'We would seem to be turning our backs on the survivors,' says radiation researcher Burton Bennet, RERF's top official.

"The foundation runs three major studies of the life span and health of the 280,000 survivors and their children, plus it maintains a tissue bank and other records. RERF findings have played an important role in developing radiation exposure models and setting international standards, says Michael Fry, a retired radiation scientist in Indianapolis, Indiana: 'Anyone in the field will tell you that this population has been very important.'

"He and other scientists say it would be premature to halt the studies now when more than 40% of the survivors are still alive. For example, researchers are interested in clarifying recent results that suggest exposure to radiation has led to unexpectedly higher rates of cardiovascular disease as well as increased cancer rates. Bennet says the U.S. also 'has a moral obligation to continue' the work." [emphasis added] ⁽⁸⁾

Dr. Allen Benson, author ⁽⁹⁾ and scientific consultant on behalf of the Hanford Downwinder class-action suit slated to go to trial this year, challenges the basic monitoring methodology employed by federal agencies. Benson says that more than Iodine-131 was released from Hanford, INEEL and other DOE nuclear production sites. Federal health studies ( CDC dose-reconstruction studies) must change their methodology to include all radionuclides released and conduct monitoring of individuals and environmental elements in the acknowledged impact areas. This would include "full body counts," bone lesions (observable via X-rays) of alleged individuals as well as environmental sampling of tree-core and soil sampling in effected areas. The Radiation and Public Health Project is also conducting a "tooth" collection project that will analyze the strontium in teeth of individuals living in the shadow of nuclear power plants and DOE production plants that will add extensively to the public knowledge. http://www.radiation.org

James Ruttenber, MD, former head of CDC's Center for Environmental Health, also believes in this approach (monitor the victims) in his ongoing research at the University of Colorado ⁽¹⁰⁾ School of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, related to the DOE Rocky Flats emissions. Too much "fuzy" science is involved in dose-reconstruction utilizing questionable DOE emission data and "fate-transport" ( atmospheric pollution dispersion computer) models that fail to accurately include geographic and meteorological data. Rather than looking for the "needle in the haystack" it is more useful to look at those who claim to be victims in known downwind areas. Science now allows us the capability to test an individual's exposure (via whole body scans and analysis of teeth). Yet, federal agencies refuse to put funding into this monitoring likely to minimize federal financial obligations to compensate victims.

For instance, Michael Cawley, INEEL worker heavily exposed, underwent a whole body scan at the DOE Rocky Flats plant, however the results were denied to Cawley, or his attorney, nor was this crucial data introduced in Cawley's litigation against the Idaho Workmen Compensation Commission. ⁽¹¹⁾ More currently, have the soldiers returning from both the 1991 Persian Gulf War (with Gulf War Syndrome) and the current war in Iraq sustained depleted uranium exposure resulting from the U.S. munitions? Comprehensive and accurate whole body scans are apparently not even provided to these individuals.

Tim Connor, likely the most ardent public advocate for credible radiation health study science, writes in Burdens of Proof that, "Moreover, the precise mechanism by which a cancer, or other late occurring effect, is induced is often difficult, if not impossible, to determine. Even when one or more plausible disease mechanisms have been identified for a given substance, scientists caution us that cause effect relationships for late occurring health effects are highly complex." ⁽¹²⁾

Within this scientific never-never uncertainty land, the morally and ethically right thing for the federal government to do, given the fact that virtually the whole country has been exposed without consent or even warning, is to implement a national federally-sponsored health care program along the lines of the Canadian model. The victims are suffering right now, and cannot wait for some vague future study to determine if they are due compensation, because they will likely be dead by then.

Relationship of Cancer to Radiation
Summarized from the BEIR V 1990 ⁽¹³⁾

Leukemia has been identified as a significant heath problem in downwinder and nuclear worker progeny populations. Berny Morson reports in the Rocky Mountain News that leukemia rates are higher in children of nuclear workers. "A British study has found a higher-than-expected leukemia rate among the children of workers at plants similar to [DOE] Colorado's Rocky Flats. The British study found more than twice the number of leukemia cases among children whose parents worked in nuclear power and weapons plants as in the general population - about 11.9 cases of leukemia per 10,000 children of radiation workers, compared with a national rate for the disease of 5.4 cases per 10,000 children." ⁽¹⁴⁾

DOE is also aggressively pushing legislation in Congress to redefine high-level waste. Mat Wald reports in the New York Times that: "A Senate committee is preparing to take up an Energy Department proposal that would leave millions of gallons of highly radioactive sludge in underground tanks in three [DOE] sites. The legislation, which Senate aids say has wide support in an effort to overturn a [Idaho] federal judges' ruling last year that the department's plan violates a law governing radioactive waste. But the department has also declared that it wants to cut costs and speed the cleanup by leaving some residual waste in the tanks. At one of the three plants, the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., it has already mixed residual waste with cement and then sealed the two tanks holding them. Over ruling the judge by changing the law has 'significant support,' said a Senate staff member involved in nuclear waste issues and Senator Lindsey Graham (Rep) of South Carolina is circulating an amendment to a military financing bill that would exempt the department from some provisions of the statute, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. It is this amendment that the Armed Services Committee is to address." ⁽¹⁵⁾

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) won a major U.S. District Court ruling blocking DOE's reclassification of high-level radioactive waste, however, DOE is appealing this ruling to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. ⁽¹⁶⁾ Washington State's Attorney General, Christine O. Gregoire, is leading the states of Idaho, Oregon, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Washington, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority in support of the NRDC suit against DOE. NRDC and the states are challenging DOE's cuts in cleanup funding by $20 billion including obfuscation of high-level waste disposition requirements under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Gregoire's brief states that: "The plain language of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, supported by the legislative record, makes it clear that DOE is obligated to dispose of defense-generated high-level waste in a deep geologic repository. DOE cannot escape this obligation by reclassifying the highly radioactive material resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel independent of the criteria in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act/Atomic Energy Act." ⁽¹⁷⁾

Currently the United States is the single largest debtor nation in the world, to the tune of about $3 trillion that is expected, at the current rate ($500 billion/year), to double in the next five years! ⁽¹⁸⁾ This does not include an additional $25 trillion in unfunded mandates to Social Security and Medicare. ⁽¹⁹⁾ The interest on this debt amounts to about $15,000/per American (man, women and child). China now holds $290 billion in US government debt, more than any other foreign entity, together with China's annual $100 million trade deficit. ⁽²⁰⁾ The average American taxpayer must work from January to May just to pay their taxes. US corporations, on the other hand, pay less than 5% of revenue collected by the US Internal Revenue Service. In fact, most US military contractors and oil-related corporations pay no tax at all while getting enormous back-door subsidies.

Despite all this red ink and major cuts to nuclear waste cleanup funding, the Bush Administration's Energy Bill found $4 billion to build a new bomb factory (called "Modern Pit Facility) to manufacture 450 plutonium pits per year, which are the core of nuclear bombs. Michelle Nijhuis reports in Mother Jones that, "Indeed, the DOE says the new facility is needed not just to make replacement pits for existing weapons, but to provide the 'flexibility to produce pits of a new design in a timely manner.' To some observers, that actually means the ability to make pits for nuclear weapons that can be fired in battle - such as deep-penetrating 'bunker busters' that can destroy underground command centers. 'In order to have mini-nukes, you need to mass-produce them, and the U.S. does not currently have the capacity to do this,' says Robert Alvarez, a former top DOE policy adviser in the Clinton administration. 'The modern pit facility is part of a bigger effort to reconstitute the nuclear production and testing complex.

"Yet, even if the new plant only produces replacement pits for existing weapons, environmentalists, and peace groups opposing the project still don't see the need. The U.S. already has some 10,000 pit-equipped warheads, 5,000 ready-to-use pits in strategic reserve, and another 7,000 functional pits left over from dismantled warheads according to a recent Natural Resources Defense Council study." ⁽²¹⁾

Additionally, Bush found another $1.1 billion for DOE's budget to fund a new nuclear reactor slated for INEEL reportedly to produce hydrogen as an alternative energy source. ⁽²²⁾ Commercial interests simply will not risk any nuclear reactor projects, so DOE is once again jumping in where even the smart money fears to tread. It is uncertain how ultimately the hydrogen produced at this new INEEL reactor will be used given DOE and the Air Force's ongoing development at the Sandia National Laboratory of a "nuclear rocket" slated to deliver heavy payloads into space for the space based defense system (SDI). The nuclear rocket (Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Program ) uses hydrogen as a propellant. ⁽²³⁾ Despite hydrogen's extremely explosive characteristics, it is to be used because it is lighter than air, thus allowing for heavier payloads for SDI "platforms" equipped with nuclear powered lasers for shooting down missiles, or as critics contend, offensive first-strike weapons. INEEL is identified as a candidate for testing the nuclear rocket because of its relative remote location and extensive infrastructure at Test Area North left over from an earlier nuclear jet program called the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program.

IDEQ fails to mention that the agency has allowed these operations to function for many decades without the necessary oversight and permits to ensure protection of the public's health and safety. Again inadequate information on the permit is offered to the public via its Notice, Fact Sheet [hereinafter referred to FS], and inadequate public availability of the full draft permit for review.

Although IDEQ offers its three page Fact Sheet on its internet website, no additional facility description or reasonable discussion on the multitude of operations and regulatory issues related to these operations is offered. ⁽²⁵⁾ Generally, these ANL-W plants house some of the most toxic and radiologically hazardous operations on the INEEL site, such as an ongoing fast breeder reactor program, spent reactor fuel reprocessing to extract highly enriched uranium and plutonium, and highly toxic contaminated reactor sodium coolant (pyrophoric when exposed to air) waste processing, and storage/ maintenance of four metric tons of bomb grade plutonium . ⁽²⁶⁾

These operations deserve the kind of full disclosure and permit process transparency requisite for such significant regulatory actions under (40 CFR 270). Even the more inquisitive member of the public that takes the additional effort to "log-on" to IDEQ's website, still would not have a clue as to the enormity of this ongoing public health and safety hazard because the state only offers a three page "fact sheet" containing a single short paragraph describing the operation. Therefore, IDEQ fails to offer the public even the most cursory information upon which any informed decisions on the subject permit can be based.

The Environmental Defense Institute (EDI) offers only these cursory comments because the crucial detailed draft permit application information is not readily available that would be otherwise necessary to submit a substantive critique of the subject permit application. What limited analysis EDI offers is largely based on Freedom of Information Act requests and other government agency information sources also not readily available to the general public.

Historically, ANL-W radioactive airborne releases have been significant (1952-81 period were 44,580 Ci). More recent (1998) ANL-W releases were 4,804,362.6 mili-curie. ⁽²⁷⁾

The proposed ANL-W Permit offers no guarantees that upgrades to emission control systems will be required for the new SNF processing. In 1999, ANL-W released 1,911 curies and 402.5 curies in 2000 of radioactivity into the atmosphere. ⁽²⁸⁾ These release numbers are considered grossly understated because ANL-W release data is nearly all based on what DOE/ANL-W calls "engineering calculations" and because "only two of the ANL-W fourteen identified release sources are "continuously monitored." ⁽²⁹⁾

IDEQ and DOE continue this obfuscation of environmental law in the INEEL Permit to Construct a Pollution Source where IDEQ grants DOE "self-exemption from permitting requirements of certain small emission sources, removal of permit requirements on boilers that predate permit to construct requirements, and to eliminate the requirement for a nitrogen oxide ambient monitoring network." ⁽³⁰⁾

A curie of radioactive gas/liquid/solid is an enormous amount of radioactivity. To put this into perspective, most standards for public exposure to radioactivity are expressed in pico-curies, or one-trillionth of one curie, or one part per trillion, due to the extremely biological toxic nature of radioactive (gas/liquid/solid) material on the human body.

Although the ANL-W electrometallurgical reprocessing uses a high-temperature melting process that generates less solid/liquid waste than the conventional (PUREX) liquid acid/solvent dissolution process used by DOE, the air emissions are apparently significantly higher due to the high temperatures that release of volitized radioactive and toxic contaminates. Currently, only HEPA particulate (dust) filters are used, which are ineffective at removing volitized pollution.

Recent findings by EPA (1/29/03) state that the INEEL Title V Clean Air Permit was rejected due to understated emissions of hazardous air pollutants. ⁽³¹⁾ Additional Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) reprocessing and other operations included in the proposed RCRA permit will only increase these emission violations.

Additionally, IDEQ has recently attempted to grant DOE/ANL-W a variance to the State of Idaho's Settlement Agreement that prohibits additional waste shipments to INEEL. This variance (if granted) would allow significant quantities of "out-of-state" nuclear reactor spent fuel to be reprocessed at ANL-W. ⁽³²⁾ The current status of this variance is uncertain.

A reasonable and credible predictor of future compliance is analyzing past history of an operation. Therefore, EDI offers additional historical data that is useful in evaluating ANL-W current waste miss-management of legacy waste and an ongoing propensity to disregard regulatory requirements as well as shipping waste to the INEEL waste burial-ground RWMC as a means to shift management responsibility. The 1977 radioactive content of ANL-W's annual waste generation sent to the ANL-W Radioactive Scrap and Waste Facility (RSWF) or INEEL burial ground (RWMC) is 1,300,126 curies. [ERDA-1552 @V-23] DOE claims that ANL-W dumped 1.1 million curies at the RWMC between 1952 and 1983. ANL-W's Zero Power Physics Reactor fuel was releasing fission product because the uranium has oxidized and hydrided on approximately 25% of the plates, causing stainless steel cladding to bulge. In a few isolated cases, the cladding is breached. A total of 83,276 spent fuel elements/assemblies are stored at ANL-W. ⁽³³⁾

There is no apparent documentation that waste interred in the RSWF has been moved, so it is assumed that the inventory based on previous documentation is what currently is interred in the ANL-W RSWF burial ground vaults. It must be noted that ANL-W in previous years, and in a desperate attempt to obfuscate RCRA regulations, "classified" the material in the RSWF as "product" destined for further processing to extract nuclear material for DOE.

Generally, IDEQ appears to be carving out arbitrary exemptions to statutes and regulations that would otherwise be required of DOE to comply with applicable environmental laws. These IDEQ actions again demonstrate the arguments presented by EDI/KYNF/McCoy in our joint petition filed with EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) Aug 8, 2000 that requests withdrawal of IDEQ's enforcement authority.

EPA/OIG published a report responding to our petition 2/5/04 that identified numerous IDEQ permitting deficiencies related to INEEL operations as well as an earlier September 1998 OIG Audit Report on Idaho's Air Enforcement Program that found, "We concluded that the State's administration and the Region [10] oversight of the stationary source air enforcement program of Idaho's significant violators were not sufficient to ensure compliance with federal and State laws and regulations." ⁽³⁴⁾

As a public advocate, EDI must continue to emphasize that the problem is over a decade old, and reiterate that these operations at issue here are processing the most deadly material on the planet - nuclear reactor fuel at ANL-W. IDEQ has never demonstrated anything close to "due diligence" in exercising enforcement authority as clearly indicated by the fact these INEEL operations have always operated (for more than a decade) without the required permits and emission control oversight (as clearly and specifically articulated in EPA/OIG reports cited herein).

IDEQ is required by law that the Permittee (DOE/ANL-W) must inspect data gathered from monitoring and leak detection equipment and overfill controls once each operating day. Visual inspections of the tank systems and waste storage units will be performed daily, not as DOE proposes "whenever a cell is entered for equipment maintenance or repairs." Without this it a violation of the regulations that requires daily visual inspection, not whenever the "cell is entered." (40 CFR 264.1034(c))

40 CFR 270 requires DOE to submit reports verifying compliance. The EPA/OIG reports clearly articulate that DOE has failed over many years to provide IDEQ or EPA timely or credible documentation on data substantiating compliance. The OIG report notes, "Further, we found that IDEQ had incomplete emissions data and waste characterization information because inspections ... of major RCRA requirements." ⁽³⁵⁾

For more detailed analysis of this ANL-W and other recent INEEL permit applications see EDI website.

Endnotes:

    1. Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2004
    2. F. Owen Hoffman, A. Iulian Apostoaei, and Brian A. Thomas; "A Perspective on Public Concerns About Exposure to Fallout from the Production and Testing of Nuclear Weapons," SENES Oak Ridge, Health Physics Society, 82(5):736-748; 2002. Hereinafter referred to Hoffman, et al., 2002.
    3. Environmental Defense Institute Newsletter, 7/99, 2/99, and 1/99.
http://www.environmental-defense-institute.org/publications
    4. Advisory Committee for Energy Related Epidemiologic Research. The ACERER resolution including six recommendations concerning the Department of Health and Human Service's follow-up to the NCI study on nationwide exposure to I-131 in Nevada Test Site fallout. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 1998, as cited in Hoffman, 2002.
    5. Hoffman, et al., 2002, Abstract.
    6. Hoffman, et al., 2002, page 739.
    7. Hoffman, et al., 2002, page 744 and 745.
    8. David Malakoff, Dennis Normile, "U.S. Could Pull Back on Studies of Atomic Bomb Survivors," Science Magazine, Volume 304, 2 April 2004, page 33.
    9. Allan, B. Benson, "Hanford Radioactive Fallout, Hanford's Radioactive Iodine-131 Releases (1944-1956) Are there Observable Health Effects." High Impact Press, 1989
    10. Dr. Jim Ruttenber is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Department of Preventive Medicine and Bio Metrics since 1991.
    11. Michael P. Cawley, Claimant-Appellant v. Idaho Nuclear Corporation, Employer and Insurance Company of North America, Surety, Defendants, Number 17514, December 29, 1990, Supreme Court for the State of Idaho. Also see Idaho Supreme Court 1989 Opinion No. 145.
    12. Connor, Tim, Burdens of Proof, Science and Public Accountability in the Field of Environmental Epidemiology with a Focus on Low Dose Radiation and Community Health Studies, Energy Research Foundation, 1997. Connor also chaired the DHHS/CDC ACERER Subcommittee on Community Development.
    13. Idaho Division of Health citing Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR-V) 1990 Report that has since been updated to the BEIR-IV 1998 National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Commission on Life Sciences, Board on Radiation Effects Research.
    14. Morson, Berny, "Leukemia rate high in kids of nuclear workers," Rocky Mountain News, 21 December 1997.
    15. Matthew L. Wald, "Bill Backs Energy Department in Atomic Waste Battle," New York Times, May 1, 2004.
    16. Natural Resources Defense Council, et al., v. Spencer Abraham, DOE, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District, No. 03-35711.
    17. Amicus Brief in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellees [NRDC] Filed on behalf of Amici Curiae States Idaho, Oregon, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Washington, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. No. 03-35711, 3/24/04.
    18. William Greider, "The Debtor Nation," The Nation, May 10, 2003, page12. Also Greider, "The End of Empire," The Nation, September 23, 2002. http://www.thenation.com
    19. Will Hutton, "The American Prosperity Myth", The Nation, September 1/8, 2003.
    20. Greider, William, "The Real Cancun," The Nation, September 22, 2003
    21. Nijhusi, Machelle, "New Mexico's Strange Love, Small-town boosters are itching to host the Bush administration's nuclear weapons plant," Mother Jones, January/February 2004.
    22. Mark Hertsgaard, "Three Mile Island," The Nation, April 5, 2004, page 8.
    23. Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Program, Particle Bed Reactor Propulsion Technology and Validation, Final Environmental Impact Statement, April 28, 1993, U.S. Air Force.
    24. Evaluation Report, Review of EPA Response to Petition Seeking Withdrawal of Authorization for Idaho's Hazardous Waste Program, Report No. 2004-P-00006, February 5, 2004, Office of Inspector General, US Environmental Protection Agency, herein after referred to as EPA/OIG 2004.
Also see US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General, Audit Report Air Idaho's Air Enforcement Program, EIGAF8-10-0018-8100249, report from Truman R. Beeler to Chuck Clark, EPA Regional Administrator, September 30, 1998. See both reports at: www.epa.gov/oig/reports.
    25. See IDEQ website: www2.state.id.us/deq
    26. Plutonium Working Group Report on Environmental, Safety, and Health Vulnerabilities Associated with the Department's Plutonium Storage, USDOE, DOE/EH-0415, 11/94.
    27. 1998 INEEL National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants-Radionuclides, Annual Report, June 1999, USDOE/ID, DOE/ID-10342(98), and  DOEE/ID-10054-81@19.
    28. Idaho High-Level Waste and Facilities Disposition, Final Environmental Impact Statement, page 4-30, September 2002, DOE/EIS-0287.
    29. 1998 INEEL National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants-Radionuclides, Annual Report, June 1999, USDOE/ID, DOE/ID-10342(98). And ID-10054-81@19.
    30. State of Idaho, Department of Environmental Quality, Notice of Opportunity for Public Comment on a Permit Application with the Option to Request a Public Comment Period on the Proposed Permit to Construct, Joan Lechtenberg, Air Quality Division, 20 March 2003.
    31. Michael S. Alushin, Director, Compliance Assessment and Media Programs Division Office of Compliance, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, January 29, 2003 letter to Chuck Broscious, Environmental Defense Institute.
    32. Comments on Argonne National Laboratory-West Spent Nuclear Fuel Processing Variance Proposed by State of Idaho, Environmental Defense Institute, March 18,2003. www.environmental-defense-institute.org
    33. DOE Spent Fuel Working Group Report, p.25, U.S. Department of Energy, and EG&G-WM-10903
    34. US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General, Audit Report Air Idaho's Air Enforcement Program, EIGAF8-10-0018-8100249, report from Truman R. Beeler to Chuck Clark, EPA Regional Administrator, September 30, 1998, page 1. www.epa.gov/oig/reports
    35. EPA/OIG, 2004, page 4, and (40CFR 265.1035(a)(3)(G)(v))