Sickened,
and Fighting Another Cold War
By ANTHONY DePALMA and DAVID STABA NYT
December 23, 2007
They were some of the Cold War’s first warriors.
Now they say they are among its last casualties, coping
with cancers that may be linked to their work in Buffalo-area
factories that made components for nuclear weapons half
a century ago.
It took decades for the federal government to acknowledge
that it exposed thousands of workers around the country
to dangerous levels of radiation in factories handling
nuclear materials, starting with the Manhattan Project
in the 1940s and continuing, in some cases, into the
1970s.
The workers say they were never told there was any danger,
and many developed cancer. In 2000, Congress approved
a program to pay those sickened from exposure $150,000
each and to help with their medical bills.
But many of the workers and their families in New York
now say they have been harmed twice over. First they
were exposed to dangerous radiation without protective
equipment when their employers were under contract with
the government to do weapons work. Now the program that
was set up to help them cope with cancer, they say,
has turned out to be excessively complicated and arbitrary,
requiring decades-old employment records that in many
cases are incomplete or cannot be found.
So far, nationwide, more than 65 percent of 14,600 cases
have been denied based on incomplete or missing employment
records. In New York State, 55 percent of 1,021 cases
have been denied on those grounds.
Many workers say they have spent years struggling with
government red tape to get compensation for their illnesses.
Lately they have been worried that the federal government,
to contain costs, will make it even more difficult for
them to receive compensation.
“I’m not angry, I’m disillusioned,”
said Tom Murphy, 77, a maintenance worker at Linde Ceramics,
a company in Tonawanda that processed uranium ore for
the federal government’s atomic weapons program
in the 1940s. After he developed skin cancer and heart
problems, he filed for compensation but was denied because
his work records were incomplete. He has appealed twice
to the United States Department of Labor, which runs
the program.
While Mr. Murphy struggles with his application, his
family received posthumous compensation for his father,
John P. Murphy, who also worked at the Linde plant.
He died in 1973, of lung cancer linked to radiation
exposure.
Mr. Murphy said that safety engineers at the plant routinely
assured workers that there was nothing to worry about
from radiation. “They had Ph.D.’s and were
well-educated men,” Mr. Murphy said. “They
knew what the repercussions over time would be.”
Retired workers in western New York say they have had
a hard time meeting program requirements because they
worked for companies, like Linde and Bethlehem Steel,
where weapons development projects contracted by the
government made up only a small part of their business.
Over time, the companies changed hands or closed, making
records hard to come by, thus blocking compensation
for former workers.
Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton
have complained about the way the Department of Labor
has operated the program, which is known formally as
the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation
Program.
“It’s appalling and inhumane,” Mr.
Schumer said in a telephone interview. Last year, he
asked the Office of the Inspector General to investigate
the department and report by next spring on its handling
of the program.
“I have confidence that the report will bring
to light the almost pernicious activities of the department,”
Mr. Schumer said. “Then we’ll see if the
department can change on its own. If not, we’ll
have to take action.”
Labor Department officials insist that after a slow
start, the program is meeting expectations.
Over all, the program has provided some $3.4 billion
in compensation across the country. That figure includes
medical reimbursements and assistance through an additional
effort begun in 2004 to help workers at the same plants
who were disabled by diseases not linked to radiation
exposure.
“We understand that people are frustrated by how
long the process takes,” said Shelby Hallmark,
director of workers’ compensation programs at
the Department of Labor. He added that a substantial
number of workers or their survivors may still not be
aware of the program and have not yet filed claims,
“but over all, this program is working well.”
Some sick workers in western New York, however, say
too many claims are being denied without proper cause.
“For God’s sake, if somebody deserves it
and has as much proof as we have, there’s no reason
at all that they shouldn’t be compensated,”
said Edwin Walker, 74, who worked at Bethlehem Steel
in Lackawanna from 1951 to 1954. He repaired furnaces
and cooling beds where uranium ingots were shaped into
rods. Now he has bladder cancer. While pursuing his
claim for compensation, he has become an unofficial
spokesman for more than 300 Bethlehem retirees fighting
for compensation and care.
“We were told that to get compensated we would
have to prove that we were diagnosed with cancer and
that we worked there at the time,” Mr. Walker
said. “Those were the two criteria. That’s
all they told us.”
It can be difficult for workers to understand how much
proof the government needs. Russell Earley, 83, operated
a crane at Bethlehem Steel from 1941 to 1983, when he
had surgery for colon cancer. In 2006 doctors told him
he had a suspicious spot on each lung. His compensation
claim has been denied twice.
“They took 24 inches of intestines, sewed my rectum
up and hung a colostomy bag on me,” he said. “And
when they denied me, they said, ‘Sickness not
bad enough.’ Can you imagine?”
Under the program, workers exposed to radiation can
receive compensation two ways.
They can apply individually, using employment, medical
and exposure records to link their work to the cancer
they developed. Government doctors and scientists at
the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
then analyze the data to determine whether it is more
likely than not that the disease was caused by the radiation.
At the outset of the program in 2000, officials believed
that only 10 percent of claims would be approved.
The second option is to be part of what is called a
special exposure cohort. In cases where so many records
have been lost or destroyed that it is impossible to
accurately reconstruct radiation dosages, workers can
ask the government to declare anyone who worked in a
particular building where radioactive material or residue
was present to be included in a cohort.
In such cases, workers with any of 22 types of cancer
and other diseases are presumed to have become sick
from their work at the plant. Certain survivors can
also receive the compensation if the worker has died.
Antoinette Bonsignore, a lawyer who has been assisting
former Linde plant workers for three years, plans to
file a petition for special exposure cohort designation
for hundreds of men who worked at the plant from 1947
to 1953, when radioactive debris still contaminated
the workplace. Workers at the plant from 1942 to 1947
already have that status.
Ms. Bonsignore said the government has tried to make
the petition process difficult.
“This is an intentional effort to cut costs, and
not just a bureaucratic nightmare,” Ms. Bonsignore
said.
In late 2005, the federal Office of Management and Budget
sent a memo to the Department of Labor saying that it
might be necessary to “contain growth in the cost
of benefits” by adding layers of administrative
approval.
That memo was the subject to two congressional hearings
in 2006 in which Labor Department officials testified
that there was no change in policy and the memo was
merely a suggestion for controlling costs that was ultimately
ignored.
Lewis V. Wade, a senior science adviser to the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, is the
designated federal official on the Advisory Board on
Radiation and Worker Health, which evaluates the scientific
validity of decisions made in the nuclear workers’
compensation program. He said the number of special
exposure cohorts had been rising because the records
needed to make individual decisions about compensation
were not as available as expected.
He denied that there had been any attempt to curtail
the program.
“My agency has been given no instruction or in
no way has been pressured to do anything but apply our
science as accurately or in as timely a fashion as we
can,” Mr. Wade said.
Mr. Walker, formerly of Bethlehem Steel, said any attempt
to cut costs would be a betrayal of the workers who
rolled up their sleeves on the assembly line when the
government needed them.
“What isn’t right, isn’t right,”
he said. He vowed to continue fighting against what
he sees as injustices for as long as his health holds
up.
“I’ll go down swinging,” he said.
Anthony DePalma reported from New York, and David Staba
from Buffalo.
Rock
Stars Play Backup to Edwards' Populist Message
By John P. Gregg Valley News Staff Writer
Lebanon -- Pressing his populist campaign with greater
intensity and aided by rock 'n' roll star power, Democratic
presidential hopeful John Edwards yesterday told 500
Upper Valley voters that he has the experience and determination
to fight moneyed interests in Washington.
“The voters here in New Hampshire are going to
say the United States of America is better than this.
We are going to take this democracy back … we
are going to make this country work for everybody, and
not just the few,” Edwards said at a campaign
rally at the Lebanon Opera House. “I am the person
who has fought these people and won against them over
and over and over, my entire life.”
Edwards spoke following a four-song set by Bonnie Raitt
and Jackson Browne, two baby boomer rock stars drawn
to the North Carolina Democrat by his stand against
nuclear power.
“We don't lend our endorsement lightly, we're
here for a reason,” Raitt told the crowd. She
lauded Edwards, a former trial lawyer and one-term U.S.
senator, as a “man of fortitude” and said,
“He has a lifetime of standing up for people who
don't have a voice (who can) shake things up in Washington
to stop business as usual. That's why we’ve got
to get this guy elected, so we get some real change
and not just lip service.”
The two singers, who a generation ago headlined the
No Nukes concerts, were an obvious attraction for many
in the audience, with a set that included Angel From
Montgomery, I'm a Patriot and Thing Called Love.
Cornish resident Beverly DuVal, a clinical secretary
at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, brought a 1982
Raitt album she was hoping to get autographed and cheered
and swayed along with the songs.
“I love Bonnie. I've always loved her,”
said DuVal, who attended the event with her daughter.
“When she sang Montgomery, I cried. I knew every
word. She's the best, that’s why I have her album
from '82.”
The concert and town hall rally was both a local campaign
forum and a made-for-TV event, with students from Lebanon
High School sitting on stage behind the headliners.
Lebanon High teacher Deb Nelson, an Edwards supporter,
said the campaign forum and a recent appearance at the
high school by former President Bill Clinton, were an
opportunity for students to see civics in action, but
she also kept an eye on logistics, excusing herself
to tidy up the students on stage before the concert
started.
“I want to be sure to get rid of their gum,”
she said.
After Raitt and Browne performed, Elizabeth Edwards
spoke for about 10 minutes about her husband's background
as the son of a millworker whose mother gave up a modest
antique shop and took a job at the post office to ensure
that she and her husband had health insurance.
And she firmly rejected the notion that her husband
is an “accidental populist,” as an article
in the New Republic suggested, saying his support for
universal health care, a more progressive tax policy
and other reforms were deep-rooted and personal.
“None of the policies that he talks about are
accidental. They are not something he read about in
The New York Times or the New Republic and decided to
embrace, and not something some consultant whispered
in his ear, or even his wife whispered in his ear,”
Elizabeth Edwards said. “These are the things
that he believes at his core because of the way he was
raised.”
Given the atmospherics of the event, Edwards himself
was dressed informally, having traded in his usual blue
blazer or suit coat for a zippered pullover with his
campaign logo, “Tomorrow Begins Today.”
Several voters said they were drawn by Edwards' passion
and conviction, though many are still undecided among
Edwards and rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
“I was impressed by him. I liked his ideas. I
liked the firmness that he's expressing about the changes
he wants to make,” said Frank Fahey, a retired
educator from Claremont also considering Obama's candidacy.
“I don’t think we see that, even though
I like Obama, I don't think we see that firmness from
Obama or Clinton.”
Raitt and Browne weren't the only celebrities at the
venue. Actor Peter Coyote introduced them, and MSNBC's
Hardball host Chris Matthews was greeted by more than
a dozen voters as he watched Edwards' speech as a working
journalist.
Matthews later broadcast his show from Murphy's on the
Green in Hanover and also recorded a nine-minute interview
with Edwards in the middle of Colburn Park, with Lebanon's
City Hall, and the snow-covered downtown, as a backdrop.
“It's the middle of December, it's New Hampshire,
and it's cold,” Matthews told a producer.
Banish
the Censorship:
Nancy Burton v. Patricia Daddona et al.
RETURN DATE: JANUARY 22, 2008 : SUPERIOR COURT
NANCY BURTON : JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF
: HARTFORD
v. :
PATRICIA DADDONA :
THE DAY PUBLISHING COMPANY :
RICHARD S. BLUMENTHAL : :
PATRICK GAURUDER : DECEMBER 17, 2007
COMPLAINT
1. The Millstone Nuclear Power Station (“Millstone”),
owned and operated by a for-profit corporation, Dominion
Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.(“Dominion”), and
located on Rope Ferry Road in Waterford, Connecticut,
is designed to and does routinely release radiation
into the surrounding residential environment.
2. Airborne radioactive effluents, which cannot be seen,
felt, smelled, tasted or heard, are carried by the wind
to locations offsite where members of the public are
involuntarily and unknowingly exposed to them.
3. Millstone has released more radiation to the environment
than nearly any other nuclear power plant in the United
States.
4. On April 17, 2005, Millstone suffered a Class II
emergency during when unusually high levels of krypton
and other radioactive gases, which decay to highly carcinogenic
“daughter” products, were released into
the atmosphere, over a period of many hours.
5. Dominion falsely denied unusual radiation releases
during the Class II emergency event in its statements
to the news media.
6. On occasion, Millstone engages in the act of “purging”
its radiation control systems and facility by venting
larger-than-normal radioactive gases to the environment;
despite citizen requests, Dominion refuses to alert
the public in advance of its planned releases.
7. In 2002, Dominion reported to the State of Connecticut
Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”)
that goat milk it sampled in the year 2001 at 22 Dayton
Road in Waterford, Connecticut, five (5) miles north
of Millstone, had a concentration of 51 picoCuries per
liter of strontium-90, a deadly carcinogen which, mimicking
calcium, settles in teeth and bone tissue, causing cancer
and diseases of the immune system.
8. A concentration of 51 picoCuries of strontium per
liter is an extraordinarily high concentration, approximately
50 times the concentration found in commercial cow’s
milk randomly sampled across the nation by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency at approximately the
same time.
9. At other times, goat milk sampled at the same location
was significantly elevated, as reported by Dominion
to DEP.
10. Radionuclides released by Millstone cause biological
harm and chromosomal damage to human cells.
11. Much about the process by which radioisotopes damage
human cells is not well understood.
12.However, it is known that radiation disrupts chromosomes,
that in 1 per cent of pregnancies the umbilical cord
contains only two blood vessels rather than the normal
three and that in such instances studies suggest that
about 25 per cent of the babies have birth defects,
including chromosomal or other abnormalities; that tumors
occur in umbilical cords and the rupture of such tumors
may lead to intrauterine fetal death; and that medical
authorities frequently incorrectly attribute stillbirth
to umbilical cord entanglement when other medical causes
are at issue.
13. According to a 2006 report of the National Research
Council of the National Academies (“Health Risks
from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR
VII - Phase 2"), http://darwin.nap.edu/books/030909156X/html,
no exposure to radiation is without potential risk of
health consequence and exposures to radiation are cumulative.
14. Fetuses developing in utero are the most vulnerable
to radiation exposure; they are at risk of death due
to radiation exposure.
15. Young children are particularly vulnerable to radiation
exposures.
16. Indeed, according to a report issued in October
19, 2006 by the Institute for Environmental and Energy
Research, entitled “Science for the Vulnerable:
Setting Radiation and Multiple Exposure Environmental
Health Standards to Protect Those Most at Risk,”
http://www.ieer.org/campaign/report.pdf, “[T]he
overall risk of developing cancer from radiation exposure
as a young child (0 to 5 years) is 2.6 times greater
for a boy than the risk for a 25-year-old adult male
and 3 times greater for a girl than the risk for an
adult female. For young children, the risk to girls
is 86 per cent higher than the risk to boys for the
same level of exposure.”
17. Children living within 5 kilometers (approximately
3.1 miles) of 16 nuclear power plants evaluated over
a period of 24 years in Germany were 60 per cent more
likely become afflicted with cancer and 120 per cent
more likely to develop leukemia (a blood disease which
may be linked to strontium-90 damage to bone marrow
tissue), according to a report recently released the
German section of International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War and carried out by the Office for Radiation
Protection, which reports to the German government.
See http://www.bfs.de/en/bfs/presse/aktuell_press/Studie_Kernkraftwerke.html.
18. Millstone routinely releases toxic chemicals and
radioactive byproducts into the Long Island Sound; wind
and tidal action wash these effluents ashore to surrounding
public beaches (“Pleasure Beach” in Waterford
and Hole-in-the-Wall Beach in East Lyme/Niantic).
19. The residential communities located near Pleasure
Beach and Hole-in-the-Wall Beach are well known to suffer
from high rates of cancer; clusters of brain cancer,
breast cancer and life-threatening illnesses among children.
20. Many neighborhoods in the towns surrounding Millstone
are populated by families with cancer victims, such
as Niantic River Road, Seabreeze Drive, Shore Road,
Brahmin Road and Dayton Road in Waterford.
21. On or about November 2006, an organization named
Kids Against Cancer released information at a press
conference it held on the Millstone grounds of some
36 cases of cancer then-currently afflicting children
in the New London-Waterford-East Lyme area; the organization’s
survey was not exhaustive.
22. Cancers which may be linked to Millstone radiation
releases - such as leukemia, thyroid cancer, bone cancer
and others - have caused the deaths of many children
in the New London-Waterford-East Lyme area in the recent
past; many children in the area suffer from developmental
disabilities.
23. Zachary Hartley was born with a rare life-threatening
cancer in his face which required surgical removal of
his jawbone during infancy; his mother, otherwise healthy,
frequently swam at Hole-in-the-Wall Beach during her
pregnancy.
24. Millstone’s owner reported that cesium-137,
a potent carcinogen which lodges in muscle tissue, was
found in a fish in Niantic Bay not far from Hole-in-the-Wall
Beach the year of Zachary’s birth and that the
cesium-137 was released from Millstone into the Long
Island Sound next to Niantic Bay as a waste byproduct
of Millstone’s nuclear fission.
25. There is medical reason to believe that Zachary’s
life-threatening condition was caused by his mother’s
exposure during pregnancy to Millstone’s deadly
waste byproducts in Niantic Bay.
26.Routine operations of Millstone constitute a menace
to the public health and are a public nuisance.
27. The Day Publishing Company, with offices at 47 Eugene
O’Neill Drive, New London, Connecticut, publishes
a daily newspaper known as The Day, which has a readership
of 100,000 in the 20-town region of southeastern Connecticut.
28. The Day receives large revenues from real estate
advertising; these revenues and other revenues would
plummet if the full truth of Millstone’s environmental
and health effects to the community were widely known
in the community.
29. The Day also receives substantial revenues from
publication of obituaries for which it charges a fee.
30. The Day maintains an archive of obituaries published
in The Day; the archives contain hundreds of obituaries
of individuals in southeastern Connecticut who have
died from cancer just during the past two years.
31. On or about August 11, 2006, The Day published the
obituary of Evan Joel Gauruder, containing the following
text:
Quaker Hill - Evan Joel Gauruder, beloved infant son
of Patrick and Channing Badurek Gauruder, of 469 Mohegan
Avenue, Quaker Hill, entered eternal life on Aug. 9,
2006. He was the beloved brother of Christopher and
Teancum Gauruder. The Funeral Service will be held on
Saturday at 10 a.m. in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints, 12 Dunbar Road, Waterford. Interment will
be private. Impellitteri-Malia Funeral Home, 84 Montauk
Ave., New London, has been entrusted with the arrangements.
32. The obituary did not state that Evan Joel Gauruder
was stillborn nor that his death was attributable to
an umbilical cord entanglement but gave the contrary
impression that Evan Joel Gauruder was alive at birth
but died in infancy.
33. By virtue of such voluntary publication of the obituary
in The Day, the death of Evan Joel Gauruder in his infancy
became a matter of public record.
34. The Gauruder address, 469 Mohegan Avenue, Quaker
Hill, is located approximately seven (7) miles downwind
of Millstone and near the location where goat milk sampled
by Dominion from 2001 through 2005 showed high concentrations
of strontium-90.
35. It is also in an area with a pronounced pattern
of elevated cancer incidences.
36. Because the death of any child for other than accidental
cause is a matter of general public concern within the
society, and particularly where the death occurred within
the ten-mile “peak fatality” radius of a
nuclear power plant and downwind of it, the untimely
death is a matter of heightened public concern.
37. On or about October 1998, Nancy Burton, of 147 Cross
Highway, Redding Ridge, Connecticut, co-founded the
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, a grassroots,
all-volunteer, public interest coalition of various
statewide safe-energy organizations, Millstone whistleblowers,
individuals and families across the state.
38. The Coalition was specifically organized to mount
a challenge to an application by Millstone’s owner
to expand the storage capacity of its Unit 3 spent fuel
pool, during which challenge the Coalition exposed the
company for losing track of two highly radioactive 12-foot-long
spent fuel rods and concealing such fact from the public
for 20 years.
39. At the same time, the Coalition was created to strengthen
statewide grassroots efforts to conduct research into
the environmental and health consequences of Millstone
operations, to educate the public about the dangers
of Millstone operations and to arouse government leaders
to take action to protect the public health and safety
from the risks of Millstone operations.
40. The community residing closest to Millstone suffers
some of the highest rates of cancer in the state and
has an elevated infant mortality rate.
41. Nevertheless, concerted appeals to federal, state
and local government officials to investigate the cause
of this phenomenon have to date been virtually unavailing;
indeed, appeals to Attorney General Richard S. Blumenthal,
the Connecticut DEP and the Connecticut Department of
Public Health have met with complete disinterest.
42. Worse, DEP released a study, perhaps secretly authored
by Dominion, denying any link between Millstone and
the very high levels of strontium-90 found in goat milk
at 22 Dayton Road in Waterford; yet when confronted
with exposes by two independent experts on the issue,
DEP refused to reconsider its absurd position.
43. When Zachary Hartley’s mother appealed, directly
and indirectly, to state and local authorities to post
signs at Hole-in-the-Wall Beach warning of the hazards
to pregnant women and young children from bathing in
Niantic Bay because of the presence of chemical and
radioactive waste byproducts released by Millstone,
her pleas were ignored by the state DEP, the state Department
of Public Health and the First Selectman of the Town
of East Lyme, who hid the sign she presented as a gift
to the town in a closet in his office rather than post
it at the town beach.
44. To date, there are no signs warning of the hazards
to pregnant women and young children from bathing in
the waters at Hole-in-the-Wall Beach or Pleasure Beach.
45. Similarly, appeals to Attorney General Richard S.
Blumenthal to act to stop Millstone nuisance activities
and to direct Dominion to virtually eliminate its toxic
and radioactive waste discharges to the public waters
by complying with the federal Clean Water Act and converting
to a closed cooling system have met with opposite results:
Mr. Blumenthal’s concerted efforts to keep the
Millstone nuclear reactors running and to maintain the
status quo with regard to the environmentally harmful
once-through cooling system.
46. Similarly, appeals to the Connecticut Department
of Public Health to take action pursuant to its authority
under state law (Connecticut General Statutes §19a-74:
“The Department of Public Health may make investigations
concerning cancer, the prevention and treatment thereof
and the mortality therefrom and take such action as
it deems will assist in bringing about a reduction in
the mortality due thereto.”) have to date been
unavailing.
43. Ms. Burton, as director of the Coalition, in an
effort to draw community, government and media attention
to a perceived growing epidemic of early childhood mortalities
and in the hope of marshaling government support to
investigate any possible relation to Millstone’s
radiation releases to the environment, contributed a
posting to the Coalition’s website, www.MothballMillstone.org,
in 2006, which stated as follows:
Where Have All the Children Gone?
Are we allowing Millstone to kill our own?
Most unforgivably, we are losing babies, young children
and young adults daily to rare cancers and illnesses
that may be linked to radiation exposure. All these
sad losses deprived us of promises unfulfilled and brought
the deepest heartache tho those who knew and loved these
children best.
We grieve for the families of*
Eli Paul Levesque of Niantic who died at age 17 months
Collin Mahkai Blanco of Gales Ferry, who died at 7 months
Douglas Weaver of New London who died the day he was
born
Evan Joel Gauruder of Quaker Hill, who died in his infancy
Christopher Graham of Mystic, who died of cancer at
age 23
Erin Marie Beacham of North Stonington, who died of
cancer at age 23
*From information published in The Day in 2006.
39. On or about December 5, 2007, Patrick Gauruder telephoned
Ms. Burton to request that the name of his son, Evan
Joel Gauruder, whose name appeared on the website, be
removed from the website.
40. Mr. Gauruder stated that Evan Joel Gauruder was
stillborn and that the umbilical cord was around his
neck when he was delivered and that, therefore, Mr.
Gauruder did not believe that Millstone was in any way
responsible for the death of Evan Joel Gauruder.
41. Ms. Burton expressed her sincere sympathy to Mr.
Gauruder and told him that Evan Joel Gauruder’s
name would be removed from the website.
42. Ms. Burton thereupon contacted the website webmaster,
who removed Evan Joel Gauruder’s name from the
website shortly thereafter.
43. Minutes later, Mr. Gauruder sent an email to the
webmaster, having confirmed that Evan Joel Gauruder’s
name had been removed from the website and expressing
his thanks.
44. Patricia Daddona is a reporter for The Day who has
been assigned to cover Millstone for the past several
years.
45. During such period of time, Ms. Daddona and The
Day have manifested bias in suppressing and withholding
important information and neglecting and refusing to
provide coverage of many significant matters involving
Millstone, including whistleblower disclosures of Dominion’s
practice of routinely disabling its security system
(until the story broke in the national media), Dominion’s
current application to increase Millstone’s Unit
3 radiation emissions to the environment by an estimated
9 per cent and other topics of key significance to the
community, and much of the newspaper’s Millstone
coverage has been inaccurate, misleading and reported
verbatim from Millstone’s corporate public relations
personnel and lobbyists.
46. Indeed, on one recent occasion, Ms. Daddona denied
that a Waterford resident had recorded high radiation
readings on her radiation detector near Millstone at
the onset of an unplanned shutdown, although Ms. Daddona
had no basis whatsoever for her statement other than
a desire to shield Millstone’s radiation rfeleases
from public scrutiny; The Day did not publish the information.
47. Upon information and belief, after confirming that
the name of Evan Joel Gauruder had been removed from
the said website, Mr. Gauruder contacted The Day and
Attorney Richard S. Blumenthal and others to complain
that Evan Joel Gauruder’s name had appeared on
the website.
48. The Day assigned Ms. Daddona to report on Mr. Gauruder’s
complaint.
49. Ms. Daddona contacted Ms. Burton for comment; she
did not inform Ms. Burton that she had a letter from
Mr. Gauruder nor share its contents; although Ms. Burton
provided a written comment ( copy below), Ms. Daddona
falsely reported that Ms. Burton “did not respond
to several e-mails and phone calls seeking comment”
and the article did not include Ms. Burton’s comment:
The Day has published hundreds of obituaries of members
of the New London community who have died of cancer
during the past two years.
There are clusters of breast cancer, brain cancer, lung
cancer and supposedly rare forms of cancer which particularly
target children in the towns surrounding the Millstone
Nuclear Power Station. A just-released German study
has found that children under five are at 60 per cent
greater risk of cancer and 120 per cent greater risk
of leukemia if they live within 5 kilometers of a nuclear
power plant. The study covers the locations of 16 German
nuclear power stations over a period of 24 years. The
study was carried out by the Office for Radiation Protection,
which reports to the German government. Please contact
the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone or the German
government for a copy of the study.
The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone calls on
government and the news media to examine the apparent
link between proximity to Millstone and a heightened
risk of cancer.
50. By failing to publish Mr. Burton’s comment,
or any portion of it, Ms. Daddona and The Day perpetuated
their practice of censoring negative information about
Millstone and particularly suppressing information linking
Millstone to cancer, infant mortality and other health
effects; moreover, Ms. Daddona and The Day perpetuated
their now-habitual practice of denigrating Ms. Burton
so that the southeastern Connecticut community would
reject her message and remain in the dark about the
Millstone menace.
51. On December 15, 2007, The Day published an article
entitled “Parents Say Anti-Nuclear Group Exploited
the Death of Their Child.”
52. A copy of the article is annexed hereto as Exhibit
A.
53. The article is defamatory and libelous in its totality.
54. The article contains passages which are false and
defamatory as follows:
(a) “Infant Evan Joel Guaruder died last August,
but a listing on the “Mothball Millstone”
Web site suggests, incorrectly, that he might have succumbed
to radiation exposure.”
(b) “Patrick and Channing Gauruder of Quaker Hill
said they were stunned last week when a random Google
search for their last name turned up in a list on the
anti-Millstone site with five other children and young
adults.”
(c) “The site’s section is headlined ‘Where
Have All the Children Gone?’ It lists the six
lives as possibly succumbing to “rare cancers
and illnesses that may be linked to radiation exposure.’”
(d) “”Dealing with death is hard enough
on an everyday basis,’ Patrick Gauruder said.
With the incorrect information posted on the Internet,
‘you have to relive it,’ he said, ‘because
someone uses your baby’s name because they want
to further their cause and elicit an emotional response.
To me, there’s no honesty at all.’”
(e) “Burton removed most of the references after
Patrick Gauruder called her last week, he said.”
(f) “The Web site states that the information
Burton or the coalition posted was taken from obituaries
that have run in The Day.”
(g) “Burton did not respond to several e-mails
and phone calls seeking comment.”
(h) Still angry, the Quaker Hill couple said they are
considering suing Burton or the coalition. They are
as upset now by what they call misrepresentation and
manipulation as when Patrick Gauruder first found the
listing, they say.”
(i) That day, late on December 5, Patrick Gauruder e-mailed
friends as well as Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn, about what he could
do to hold Burton and the coalition accountable.”
(j) “‘First and foremost, I am deeply sympathetic
as a parent of four children to the grief and hurt that
their letter reflects,’ he [Blumenthal] said.
‘I was moved by it and certainly deeply disturbed
by what happened. Whether we can do anything to help
them I cannot say at this point. We need to review the
facts and explore the law.’”
(k) “The Gauruders also have appealed to the press
and other media concerning the situation, which they
describe as unethical and possibly illegal. Publication
on the Internet without their consent or the correct
facts misrepresents the cause of Evan’s death
and invades their privacy, they added.”
(l) “Even if radiation emissions from Millstone
were a concern of hers, Channing Gauruder said, ‘I
still would not want my son’s name there because
it’s not related.’”
(m) “‘I’m not looking for money out
of this,’ Patrick Guaruder said. ‘I’m
looking that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.’”
(n) [Photo Caption] “Patrick and Channing Gauruder
complained to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal after
an anti-nuclear group claimed the stillbirth of their
baby possibly linked to radiation from the Millstone
nuclear power complex.”
55. The defamation was a product of a longstanding malicious
intent on the part of The Day and Ms. Daddona in their
zeal to censor and suppress information about the health
effects of Millstone operations.
55. Ms. Burton’s posting of Evan Joel Gauruder’s
name as a member of the community who died as an infant
was undertaken to alert the community to the loss of
its infant member and to arouse the government and news
media to investigate the cause for such loss.
56. The posting of Evan Joel Gauruder’s name as
a member of the community who died as an infant was
a privileged publication.
57. The posting of Evan Joel Gauruder’s name as
a member of the community who died as an infant was
an act of protected speech under the First Amendment.
58. On December 15, 2007, Ms. Burton communicated demands
to The Day and Ms. Daddona to retract their libelous
article forthwith pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes
Section 52-237, to no avail.
59. Moreover, on December 15, 2007, The Day posted the
article on its website, www.TheDay.com, together with
a series of false and defamatory comments provided by
mostly anonymous writers; a copy of the posting is attached
hereto as Exhibit B.
60. Further on December 15, 2007, Ms. Burton communicated
demands to The Day and Ms. Daddona to take down the
defamatory website postings forthwith pursuant to Connecticut
General Statutes Section 52-237, to no immediate avail;
subsequently, The Day removed some of the offending
anonymous defamatory postings.
61. Richard S. Blumenthal is Attorney General of the
State of Connecticut.
62. Mr. Blumenthal is sued herein in his official and
personal capacities.
63. The article states that Mr. Gauruder emailed a letter
to Mr. Blumenthal which Mr. Blumenthal had not read,
but that The Day provided Mr. Blumenthal with a copy
of the letter.
64. Upon reading the letter, and without making any
attempt to contact Ms. Burton to ascertain the facts
of the matter, the article states Mr. Blumenthal made
the following comment:
I was moved by it [the letter] and certainly deeply
disturbed by what happened. Whether we can do anything
to help them I cannot say at this point. We need to
review the facts and explore the law. [Emphasis added.]
65. The statement attributed to Mr. Blumenthal is defamatory.
66. By innuendo, Mr. Blumenthal condemned the posting
of the death of Evan Joel Garauder in his infancy, as
reported by The Day in a published obituary, as an unprivileged
act providing cause for potential litigation.
67. Moreover, Mr. Blumenthal’s comment fomented
vexatious and abusive litigation without cause against
Ms. Burton and thereby Mr. Blumenthal maligned and defamed
Ms. Burton.
68. Having failed to make any effort to investigate
the true facts of the matter before uttering his condemnation
of the posting, Mr. Blumenthal evinced reckless indifference
to the truth.
69. The inevitable effect of Mr. Blumenthal’s
pronouncement will be to perpetuate further the state’s
refusal to investigate the cause of heightened cancer
and infant mortality rates in southeastern Connecticut
and to fail to address the effects of Millstone’s
radiation releases on the human community and particularly
its children.
70. Mr. Blumenthal’s egregious action was in clear
abuse of his authority and clearly beyond his statutory
authority.
71. Mr. Blumenthal’s act was a betrayal of the
public trust in the health and wellbeing of young children.
72. Mr. Blumenthal’s defamatory condemnation was
also a product of his personal malice against Ms. Burton,
who challenged his deceptive record on nuclear and other
issues when she campaigned in 2006 as the Green Party
candidate for Connecticut Attorney General.
73. For example, while Mr. Blumenthal has issued press
releases and signed petitions condemning the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) for its inadequate
standards governing nuclear reactor relicensing, neither
Mr. Blumenthal nor any governmental official challenged
Dominion’s application to obtain relicensing federal
relicensing for Millstone, in which proceedings the
NRC refused to consider the true health and environmental
consequences of continued Millstone operations to date
nor during the projected relicensing period ; in contrast,
Mr. Blumenthal has petitioned to intervene in pending
proceedings on relicensing of the Indian Point Nuclear
Power Plant in another state.
74. For example, while Mr. Blumenthal has issued press
releases and signed petitions condemning federal failures
to provide for safe disposal of high-level radioactive
waste accumulating at nuclear reactor sites, he vigorously
advocated in support of Dominion’s recent application
to the Connecticut Siting Council to store highly radioactive
spent fuel rods above-ground in a container licensed
for only 20 years, on an unprotected platform site vulnerable
to terrorism rather than the obvious alternative dictated
by concerns for the public health and safety: to reject
the application in favor of effectuating the closure
of Millstone Unit 2 and its generation of deadly waste
for which no safe repository exists.
75. For example, while Mr. Blumenthal recently argued
vigorously as an amicus curiae party to the U.S. Court
of Appeals in Riverkeeper, Inc. that federal law mandates
conversion of nuclear power plants using once-through
cooling systems to closed cooling systems to diminish
adverse environmental impacts to marinelife and thermal
impacts, in ongoing proceedings before DEP Mr. Blumenthal
is arguing vigorously for the continuation of the status
quo which amounts to an illegal profit windfall for
Dominion at the expense of the public trust.
76. On December 15, 2007, Ms. Burton emailed a request
to Mr. Blumenthal to retract his false and defamatory
remarks, to no avail.
77.The article quotes Mr. Gauruder as stating that the
website posting lacked ”honesty,” involved
“misrepresentation” and “manipulation,”
and was “unethical” and “possibly
illegal”; such statements are false and defamatory.
78. The website posting was honest and in good faith,
did not involve misrepresentation or manipulation and
it was ethical and legally privileged and indeed necessary
in the current vacuum of governmental attention to this
issue.
79. On December 15, 2007, Ms. Burton emailed a request
to Mr. Gauruder to retract his
false and defamatory remarks, to no avail.
80. Ms. Burton has been harmed by the original publication
of the defamatory article, continual posting of the
article on the Day website and posting of defamatory
comments on the Day website by, in most cases, anonymous
individuals.
81. Ms. Burton has suffered personal harm to her reputation.
82. In addition, the publications constitute a bad-faith
assault upon community nuclear whistleblowing and conscientious
efforts to protect our most vulnerable population -
young children and the unborn - and they constitute
deceptive and mean-spirited intimidation tactics whose
employment is inimical to the wellbeing of the community.
83. Ms. Burton has no adequate remedy law.
WHEREFORE, the plaintiff requests that the Court grant
the following relief:
1. That her complaint be sustained;
2. That she be awarded punitive and compensatory damages
in accordance with law and §52-237, a portion of
which will be utilized to investigate the causes of
elevated cancer and early infant mortality in the communities
surrounding Millstone;
3. Cost of this action;
4. A temporary and permanent injunction enjoining The
Day from continued posting of the offending defamatory
article and associated “public comments”
on its website.
NANCY BURTON
By: _________________________
Nancy Burton
147 Cross Highway
Redding Ridge CT 06876
Tel. 203-938-3952
NancyBurtonCT@aol.com
John
Gofman's Nuclear Courage
by JOSEPH J. MANGANO
[posted online on September 14, 2007]
The life of eminent nuclear scientist and physician
John Gofman ended last month just short of age 89. The
New York Times obituary recounted his scientific résumé
but ignored the backlash he faced from industry and
government, simply describing him as a "nuclear
gadfly." Gofman should be remembered for his brilliance
and integrity, which are critical factors in the current
debate over the future of nuclear power.
Gofman's brilliance was evident early. His doctoral
dissertation described co-discoveries of radioactive
uranium-232 and -233, and protactinium-232 and -233,
and the ability to transform uranium-233 into an atomic
bomb. Soon after graduation, Gofman joined the Manhattan
Project to help win the race with Nazi Germany for the
first atomic bomb. His team at the University of California,
Berkeley, made more than one milligram of plutonium--the
most created to that point--leading to the plutonium
bombs tested in New Mexico and used at Nagasaki.
After the war, Gofman settled in at Berkeley as a teacher
and researcher, focusing not on radiation but coronary
disease. His pioneering work on lipoproteins in the
blood--HDL and LDL cholesterol--remains a cornerstone
of cardiology. In 1974 the American College of Cardiology
named him as one of the twenty-five leading researchers
in the field over the previous quarter-century.
But the arms race between the United States and the
Soviet Union pulled Gofman back into the nuclear world.
In the early 1950s the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
set up a nuclear weapons research lab at Lawrence Livermore
Laboratories, fifty miles from Berkeley. Gofman formed
the lab's medical department and worked part-time for
several years, helping with calculations on health effects
and problems of nuclear war before returning to Berkeley.
In late 1962, during the depths of cold war tensions,
Livermore beckoned again. Massive atomic bomb testing
by both superpowers was spreading fallout across the
globe in unprecedented amounts, and the world came perilously
close to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis
of October 1962. Gofman headed a biology and medicine
lab; with an annual budget of more than $3 million,
he formed a crackerjack staff of 150.
With scientists like Linus Pauling and Andrei Sakharov
warning about hazards of bomb fallout, and with the
government issuing repeated denials, a moral crisis
was imminent for Gofman. Soon after he took over the
lab, an official at Livermore asked him to help suppress
publication of the work of AEC scientist Harold Knapp,
who concluded that doses of radioactive iodine from
bomb tests in Utah were much higher than the AEC had
publicly admitted. Despite the warning that "we
can't afford to have him publish that evidence,"
Gofman reviewed Knapp's analysis with his staff, and
found it accurate. Refusing to yield to political heat,
Gofman urged publication of the data, which the AEC
reluctantly allowed.
Nuclear tensions eased after the Partial Test Ban Treaty
of 1963, signed by President John F. Kennedy and Premier
Nikita Khrushchev, banned atmospheric nuclear tests.
But the treaty did not mean the end of the battle over
fallout's harm. In 1969 University of Pittsburgh physicist
Ernest Sternglass startled many when he published an
article in Esquire magazine showing that for the first
time in the twentieth century, the steady rate of decline
in US infant death rates had halted as bombs were tested
in the atmosphere. Sternglass calculated that 400,000
additional American infants died in the 1950s and early
'60s, and suggested that fallout was the cause.
The AEC called on Gofman and his colleague Arthur Tamplin
to debunk the article. Although Gofman later acknowledged
that "Sternglass may have been right," the
two estimated that excess infant deaths were about 4,000,
not 400,000. But even that wasn't enough for AEC officials,
who told them to publish only a critique with no estimates.
They ignored the AEC and published the paper using the
4,000 figure.
By now, Gofman had built a reputation for being an obstacle
to the AEC party line, but he had yet to be disciplined.
A more cautious person might have stopped insisting
that nuclear power was harming people, to preserve his
professional status. But that wasn't John Gofman. Just
months after the Sternglass controversy, he turned to
radiation routinely emitted by nuclear power reactors,
the darlings of the nuclear industry, heralded as a
"peaceful" use of the atom.
In late 1969 Gofman and Tamplin were among the first
scientists to oppose nuclear power in a paper asserting
that even low-dose radiation harmed humans. "I
realized that the entire nuclear power program was based
on a fraud--namely that there was a 'safe' amount of
radiation, a permissible dose that wouldn't hurt anybody,"
recalled Gofman. The duo calculated a worst-case scenario
in which 32,000 additional Americans would die of cancer
each year if everybody received the permissible AEC
dose from reactors.
He proposed a five-year moratorium on new nuclear plants,
declaring that "licensing a nuclear power plant
is in my view, licensing random premeditated murder."
Gofman had now become too much for the establishment.
In 1972 the AEC removed funding for twelve of thirteen
of Tamplin's staff members. Later, it threatened to
remove Gofman's $250,000 in funds for cancer research
at Livermore. He applied to the National Cancer Institute
for replacement funding but was rejected, as the blacklist
extended throughout the federal government. Gofman resigned
and went back to Berkeley.
Being ousted from Livermore didn't stop Gofman from
investigating radiation risks. His 1985 book X-rays:
Health Effects of Common Exams, co-written with Egan
O'Connor, stated that 75 percent of cancer cases are
caused by medical radiation, including X-rays, mammograms
and CT scans. Doctors howled about how wrong and inflammatory
Gofman was--while giving no evidence proving safety.
He had now incurred the wrath of both of his chosen
professions: physics and medicine. But he never stopped
speaking out against the human toll radiation exacts,
predicting that nearly 1 million people would develop
cancer from Chernobyl, far more than any other estimate.
Gofman was certainly a courageous scientist. But was
he right, and is his work relevant?
Are even small radiation doses harmful? A 2005 blue-ribbon
panel of the National Academy of Sciences examined hundreds
of articles and concluded that no safe threshold exists.
The panel used reports from up to fifty years ago, when
pelvic X-rays to pregnant women were found to raise
the chance that the fetus would die of cancer as a child.
Could up to 32,000 Americans a year die from cancer
from reactor emissions? A 1994 General Accounting Office
report to Senator John Glenn estimated that the maximum
exposure permitted by the government to every American
would result in a lifetime premature cancer death risk
of one in 300--or 1 million deaths, or about 14,000
cancer deaths a year--which fits Gofman's prediction,
made when limits were higher.
Will 1 million people develop cancer from exposure to
Chernobyl radiation? For years the International Atomic
Energy Agency insisted that only 4,000 would die. But
in 2006 a Greenpeace report from scientists who reviewed
statistics from Belarus projected that 270,000 would
develop cancer. Research continues, but with 5 million
to 8 million people still living in highly contaminated
areas, Gofman's estimate may yet prove to be correct.
Did thousands of infants die from bomb fallout half
a century ago? The period 1950-1963 remains as the only
part of the twentieth century in which infant deaths
did not fall sharply, and is still unexplained. In 1992
British scientist R.K. Whyte published a paper in the
British Medical Journal concluding that bomb fallout
was the likely reason.
Do medical X-rays give people cancer? A storm of protest
is growing over the number of X-rays, especially CT
scans, administered to children, who are most susceptible
to harm from radiation. The National Cancer Institute
cautions that physicians should only conduct pediatric
CT scans when necessary, adjust exposure parameters,
minimize use of multiple scans in a single examination
and consider alternatives to CT scans.
Validation of Gofman's findings is vital to the current
debate over nuclear power. After a long decline, the
nuclear industry has seized on concerns over global
warming and costs of fossil fuels to tout reactors as
a "clean and safe" alternative. Bush Administration
regulators have thus far granted permission for more
than half of US reactors to operate twenty years past
their expected life span of forty years. Just last month
the first order for a new US reactor since 1978 was
made (at the Calvert Cliffs plant near Washington, DC).
Congress is considering $50 billion in loan guarantees
for construction of other new reactors.
Utility companies and the Bush Administration claim
that reactors are safe--without furnishing any hard
evidence backing their claim. They turn a blind eye
to potential risks of a major meltdown and actual risks
of ongoing radioactive emissions. Objective research
and educating people of these risks regardless of political
fallout was Gofman's legacy. There is no time like now
for citizens and scientists to embrace this legacy to
protect public health.
Debate
on Yucca turns with politics
By Lisa Mascaro, Sun Washington Bureau
Published in the Sun on Oct. 29, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Energy Department, rushing before
President Bush leaves office to submit its long-delayed
application to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain,
will find itself on the defensive Wednesday as the project
is scrutinized at a Senate hearing stacked with Democrats
and infused with presidential politics.
This will be the first hearing under a Democratic-controlled
Congress after the proposed nuclear repository received
mostly friendly handling from Republicans during much
of Bush’s presidency. Both Yucca supporters and
opponents are anticipating a new era of debate.
Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear
Information and Research Service, a watchdog group,
expects the hearing to showcase more critical oversight
while hinting at the nuclear policies of a Democratic
White House.
Democratic presidential contender Sen. Hillary Clinton
of New York called for the hearing to investigate the
administration’s delay in releasing radiation-exposure
standards, among other issues.
Clinton serves on the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee, but she might not be the only presidential
contender in attendance at its hearing Wednesday: There
is talk that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona
might stop by. And Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois
will submit questions to the panel.
The industry thinks the hearing could offer a venue
to clarify the candidates’ positions on nuclear
power, which is rebounding with about 30 new nuclear
plants on tap. Congress also is debating $50 billion
in federal loan guarantees.
That said, Democrats are already being criticized for
loading the hearing’s witness table with anti-Yucca
forces. “It’s probably going to be more
of a Halloween freak show,” one nuclear industry
representative scoffed.
As the Energy Department makes a final push to get its
application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before
the June 30 deadline, vital issues remain that the committee
is poised to address.
After years of hearings, inch-thick reports and several
legal battles, the debate comes back to one of the most
personal subjects of all: cancer.
Just how much cancer-causing radiation should be allowed
to come from the tons of spent nuclear fuel that the
federal government wants to store in perpetuity at Yucca,
90 miles northwest of Las Vegas?
Is a risk of 1 in 1,700 people dying from cancer from
the repository acceptable, as has been proposed? How
about 1 in 70, as is suggested for the future? What
about 1 in 13?
Yucca Mountain raises many specters for Nevadans, including
the prospect of thousands of shipments of nuclear waste
traveling to the state in what critics fear could become
a “mobile Chernobyl” or target of terrorist
hijacking.
Once buried, the radioactive waste could pollute ground
water used for drinking and livestock for generations
to come.
Nevadans have reason to be skeptical of government assurances
that the site will be safe. This is the state that lived
through the atomic age of above-ground nuclear tests
at the Nevada Test Site, and the health problems that
have resulted, including higher cancer rates among Test
Site workers and downwinders.
Keeping a promise of safety for the next 1 million years
seems impossible.
When the federal officials started discussing the cancer-causing
potential from Yucca, they proposed a 1 in 1,700 cancer
fatality risk for the first 10,000 years — meaning
one in every 1,700 people exposed throughout their lifetime
to radiation primarily from the aquifers across the
site had a risk of dying of cancer.
A federal court threw out that standard as not tough
enough. Even though that level of exposure is used by
the Environmental Protection Agency as a general rule,
the court said the agency needs to account for a future
when the waste will be its most toxic, about 100,000
years from now.
So the agency offered a new risk assessment: 1 in 1,700
for the first 10,000 years, then 1 in 70 for the years
after that. It used the median, rather than the mean,
as required by Congress and the courts, meaning half
the people would be exposed to higher doses. Those getting
the most exposure would face a cancer death risk of
1 in 13, said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute
for Energy and Environmental Research, who has argued
against the standard.
Makhijani said the risk is even greater for women, making
it “a little like Russian roulette.”
“All of these risks we would consider unacceptable.”
The process has stalled and a final version of the dose
levels is being reviewed by the White House’s
Office of Management and Budget.
Clinton, speaking to Nevada reporters this summer, announced
her intentions to call the Senate hearing to shed light
on the “great deal of confusion and stonewalling
by the administration.”
Nevada’s lead attorney fighting the dump, Joseph
R. Egan, is among many who think the delay is an orchestrated
attempt by the Bush administration to dodge a Nevada
lawsuit before the June deadline if the state finds
the new cancer standards unacceptable.
“We’re pretty cynical about the process
and for good reason,” Egan said. “We think
they’re deliberately holding out.”
However the Energy Department has said it can move forward
with its June application without the radiation-exposure
standards.
The Energy Department’s latest report on Yucca
Mountain shows that it thinks there will be far less
exposure to cancer-causing radiation than is currently
allowed under the EPA’s existing guidelines —
less than 1 percent of allowable limits in most cases.
Yucca Mountain is already 20 years behind schedule,
with its new opening date estimated in 2017 or beyond.
The nuclear industry, which once said Yucca was vital
to its efforts to build new power plants as part of
the Bush administration’s nuclear renaissance,
now sees the dump as one piece of a plan that includes
keeping waste in interim storage at nuclear plants,
as is done now.
“Yucca Mountain isn’t a silver bullet,”
said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy
Institute, the leading industry trade group. “The
good news is because of the success of interim storage,
we’re not looking at a crisis situation.”
The cancer issue is only one of the many debates that
probably will play out over the next several months
as Democrats take the lead and the June deadline looms.
In many ways, the conversation about how to use a Yucca
repository might be just beginning.
Nils Diaz, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, said last week he thinks Yucca will be used
in some capacity.
But, he said, “I believe we will first determine
if there are better alternatives to storing fuel at
Yucca Mountain.”
October 31,
2007
Peach Bottom Nuclear Power
Plant Whistleblower Fired
For Immediate Release
Contact: Marthena Cowart or Peter Stockton (202) 347-1122
Washington, DC - Kerry Beal, a whistleblower who exposed
overworked and exhausted guards at the Peach Bottom
Nuclear Power Plant, was notified this week by owner
Exelon Nuclear that he “did not meet the selection
criteria” for continuing to work at the plant.
Beal filmed guards sleeping at the plant only after
his efforts to notify Wackenhut (Exelon’s Peach
Bottom security contractor) and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) of the regular occurrence of sleeping
guards were met with inaction. Wackenhut Corporation
lost its contract to provide security to the Peach Bottom
nuclear plant because of the resulting publicity surrounding
the sleeping guards.
“This is the stupidest thing they could have done.
Now, they’ll ensure no one else will be brave
enough to come forward and try to fix problems”
said Danielle Brian, Executive Director, Project On
Government Oversight.
Mr. Beal’s whistle-blowing prompted USA Today
to editorialize: “The Peach Bottom case is a stark
example of what has to go right in the crucial effort
to keep nuclear plants safe. In this case, the plant
owner, the security company and the NRC all failed.
It shouldn't take a hidden camera to make them do their
jobs.” (see http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/10/our-view-on-nuc.html
)
An internal Wackenhut email released by POGO today shows
that up until a few weeks ago, guards were still being
forced to work more than 60 hours per week. The October
16, 2007 email from Wackenhut manager David Draghi notes:
“I have revised the shift schedule…If you
can afford to start giving your team members a break
from 60 hours please do so.”
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Order from 2003 sought
to reign in the problem of overworked guards. But industry
efforts to weaken the Order prevailed, resulting in
the current situation where security officers can work
up to 72 hours per week. POGO issued a letter to NRC
Chairman Klein today pointing out that pending efforts
at the NRC to strengthen the rules are being dragged
out for another two years.
In the letter, Ms. Brian also noted that the problem
is not limited to Peach Bottom or Wackenhut but is a
nationwide phenomenon, stating, “Blame cannot
simply be laid at Wackenhut’s door: these abuses
have been occurring for years under the NRC’s
watch. In February 2007, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, reported on exhaustion of security officers
at Three Mile Island [Pennsylvania], noting that in
2005, “officials cited three security workers
for inattentiveness, or sleeping, on the job”;
a Securitas security officer at Beaver Valley [Pennsylvania]
was fired two weeks ago for sleeping; and Entergy security
officers were recently caught sleeping at Indian Point
[New York]. Today’s Miami Herald reports sleeping
security guards at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant
[ Florida ]. http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/290238.html.
It is time for the NRC to take responsibility for the
excessive hours and fatigue of the security forces.”
In an October 17 letter to the NRC, POGO complained
about the NRC’s decision to investigate Mr. Beal
rather than investigate the NRC’s own failures
to respond to concerns raised by whistleblowers like
Mr. Beal: “Complaining to supervisors quickly
proved fruitless. NRC Region I refused to investigate
seriously the security concerns raised in the March
letter 2007. Under these circumstances, it was more
than understandable; it was heroic, for Mr. Beal to
videotape the sleeping guards.”
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight
(POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates
and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order
to achieve a more accountable federal government.
# # #
See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage.
CONNECTICUT
COALITION AGAINST MILLSTONE
www.MothballMillstone.org
October 31, 2007
Hon. Regina McCarthy
Commissioner
Department of Environmental Protection
79 Elm Street
Hartford CT 06106
Re: Delicensure of Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.
Dear Commissioner McCarthy:
This is a request that you convene proceedings forthwith
to delicense Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (“Dominion”),
owner and operator of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station,
pursuant to state law and DEP’s Rules of Practice.
Section 22a-3a-5 of DEP’s Rules of Practice provides
in pertinent part that grounds for delicensing include
conduct whereby
“The licensee or a person on his behalf failed
to disclose all relevant and material facts in the application
for the license or during any Department proceeding
associated with the application.”
As you know, Dominion is pursuing an application for
renewal of the NPDES permit DEP issued in 1992.
In these proceedings, Dominion has failed to disclose
all relevant and material facts, namely, its intention
to increase Millstone’s thermal heat load to the
Long Island Sound by 7 per cent and to increase its
radiological releases to the Long Island Sound by an
estimated 7-9 per cent.
These facts came to the Coalition’s attention
during its review of a pending application to the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) to
increase electricity generation at Millstone Unit 3
by 7 per cent. For your information, I am enclosing
a copy of Dominion’s environmental supplement
to its NRC application.
Apparently, Dominion has already secured the NRC’s
approval of the application, for it is notifying investors
it plans to achieve the electricity uprate in the fall
of 2008.
Dominion’s application for NPDES renewal does
not incorporate these facts, which are central to the
DEP adjudicatory process. As you know, Millstone’s
thermal discharge is a critical element of DEP regulation.
Accordingly, Dominion’s knowing omission of its
plans to increase thermal discharge substantially above
what it represents in its application to DEP constitutes
compelling cause for delicensing under DEP’s legal
standards.
Please advise if we may be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Nancy Burton
Encl.
Please reply to:
Nancy Burton
Director
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone
147 Cross Highway
Redding Ridge CT 06876
Tel. 203-938-3952
Contact: Marthena Cowart or Peter Stockton (202) 347-1122
The Department of Energy is failing to secure
bomb-grade nuclear materials located at U.S.
facilities, according to two reports obtained by POGO.
Less than half of eleven nuclear weapons sites will
have enough security to defend against what is considered
a realistic threat of a terrorist attack by the deadline
of 2008.
An unreleased briefing from the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) concludes that “sites will be at
greater risk” until the new security is put in
place.
The reports concern what is called the “Design
Basis Threat” (DBT), which are security standards
developed based upon government intelligence assessments.
The DBT is classified and includes factors such as the
number of attackers, the weapons they might use, and
circumstances under which an attack would take place.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the DBT
was significantly revised and “has undergone substantial
changes in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007,” according
to the GAO. DOE has currently fallen behind on implementing
the 2005 DBT. Plans to implement upgrades to the DBT
can costs hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars
as new security personnel are hired or the government
invests in technology upgrades.
POGO, numerous government reports, and the Congress
have urged the DOE to shrink the number of sites which
contain nuclear weapons materials in order to avoid
having to invest billions of dollars in security upgrades.
One POGO report estimated that shrinking the number
of nuclear sites in half could save $3 billion (U.S.
Nuclear Weapons Complex: Homeland Security Opportunities).
However, bureaucratic inaction and protectionism at
DOE and its sites has thwarted progress forward. Of
all the nuclear sites scattered nationwide, only one
site to date has been de-inventoried of its nuclear
materials, the infamous TA-18 at Los Alamos National
Laboratory where mock attackers regularly succeeded
in stealing or “blowing up” materials in
simulated tests.
In response to budgetary pressures posed by the excessive
security costs that would result from the 2005 DBT,
the DOE responded by watering down security requirements.
Insiders who suggested that DOE consolidate its materials
to fewer sites in order to save money were ignored according
to internal emails. According to POGO’s 2006 report:
On November 30, 2005, the Secretary [of Energy] lowered
the security requirements, reverting to a security posture
closer to the 2003 DBT. An exception was that Pantex,
which houses assembled nuclear warheads and SNM [Special
Nuclear Material], and the Office of Security Transportation,
which transports assembled nuclear weapons and SNM,
would stay at the far more robust 2004 DBT level. For
the other sites, including the sites with a high IND
[Improvised Nuclear Device] risk, the number of adversaries
were reduced by approximately 25%. The sites are supposed
to implement the new 2005 requirements by 2008 –
again, almost seven years after 9/11. It is important
to note that, according to government investigators
interviewed by POGO, the Russian DBT standards to protect
their nuclear materials are more robust than even the
most robust U.S. 2004 DBT. (U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex:
Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory At High Risk)Other
Resources
Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman's letter
to Representative David Hobson, Chairmand, Subcommittee
on Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies,
Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives,
July 14, 2006.
GAO Analysis of Department of Energy Report to the Congress
on Implementing the 2005 Design Basis Threat , Briefing
for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, July 27, 2007.
Security Upgrades at Several Nuclear Sites Are Lagging,
Auditors Find, New York Times, October 29, 2007.
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight
(POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates
and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order
to achieve a more accountable federal government.
# # #
DEP
Gets $1 Million State Grant to Save Lobsters
While It Lets Lobster-Killer Millstone Off the Hook
We give DEP and its Commissioner, Regina McCarthy, an
A for hypocrisy.
Millstone Nuclear Power Station sucks in 2 billion gallons
of water per day from the Long Island Sound. The water
is used to cool the plant components, generate steam
and to keep the reactors from melting down.
But it is not only seawater that is sucked in: the seawater
is the rich habitat of billions of marinelife larvae,
including lobsters. Lobster larvae are sucked into the
Millstone intakes in high numbers and destroyed during
24/7 routine operations at Millstone. Imagine what that
does to lobster population dynamics.
Adding insult to injury, Millstone discharges over 100
radionuclides and the most toxic chemicals known into
the Long Island Sound, routinely, 24/7.
Millstone is the worst predator of fish in the Northeast,
according to a Rhode Island expert in fish and wildlife.
We award DEP "A" for hypocrisy because Millstone's
discharges are illegal. DEP Commissioner Regina McCarthy
expressly allows Millstone to operate with a permit
that expired in 1997 - 10 years ago. For nine straight
years, since 1998, Millstone has been operating under
an "emergency authorization," a legal category
of supposed very limited duration. The emergency authorization
- OKed in secret without public notice of hearing -
allows the release of a bigger thermal plume, increased
intake volume and unlimited - and hence unenforceable
-chemical and radiological releases.
Now Dominion wants to increase its heat load to the
Long Island Sound by 7 per cent to achieve a 7 per cent
increase in electricity generation. Most of the new
electricity would be exported out-of-state at high profit
to Dominion. The increased heat load to the Sound would
speed up the demise and departure of the Long Island
Sound lobster population if allowed.
If DEP and Commissioner McCarthy truly cared about the
Long Island lobsters, they would make Dominion convert
Millstone to a closed-cooling system. That would virtually
eliminate intake suction, the thermal plume and the
radioactive and toxic dumping.
Call Commissioner McCarthy today and tell her to save
the lobsters by ordering closed cooling at Millstone:
860-424-3001, gina.mccarthy@po.state.ct.us
Call DEP's Lobster Biologist, Colleen Giannini, and
tell her to speak out against the Millstone once-through
cooling system. Tel. 860-447-4308, colleen.giannini@po.state.ct.us.
Read Judy Benson's lobster report at: courant.com/news/local/hc-ctaplobster1029.artoct29,0,2776914.story
KEEPING
THE COMMUNITY IN THE DARK
The New London Day, which once distinguished itself
for enterprising reporting on the Millstone Nuclear
Power Station, is holding its proverbial finger in the
dike these days to hold back the tide of negative information
about Millstone.
The most recent example involves Dominion's current
ill-conceived application to the NRC to "uprate"
electrical generation at Millstone Unit 3 by 7 per cent.
The Day reports on this application as though it were
an unqualified boon to the community.
Here are some of the negatives The Day will not publish.
(We have brought them to the attention of The Day, and
the information is publicly available on the NRC website,
but on Millstone issues, "The Day" might just
as well be called "The Night.")
A 7 per cent increase in electrical generation at Millstone
Unit 3 will have a corresponding 7-9 per cent increase
in routine radiation emissions to the air and water
above current levels. That translates to a 7-9 per cent
increase in the levels of strontium-90 delivered to
cow's milk, goat's milk - and human milk.
A 7 per cent increase in electrical generation at Millstone
Unit 3 will have a corresponding 7 per cent increase
in the heat load delivered to the Long Island Sound
in Millstone's thermal plume. That means the Long Island
Sound lobsters will disappear sooner than predicted
because they cannot tolerate the increasingly warm water.
Would a 7 per cent uprate also translate to a 7 per
cent increase in cancer, infant mortality and diseases
of the immune system in the surrounding community? That's
anyone's guess. It's all part of the Great Nuclear Experiment
- and we are the guinea pigs!
Millstone Unit 3 has unique structural peculiarities
that compel denial of the uprate application. Stay tuned
to this website for more details as the Connecticut
Coalition Against Millstone reaches out to public officials
to stop this latest madness at Millstone.
CONFLICT!
The Town of Waterford - host community to the Millstone
Nuclear Power Station - has filled a vacancy: Civil
Preparedness Director. The job pays $6,000 with an operating
budget of $2,000.
According to Waterford First Selectman Dan Steward,
who used to work at Millstone and behaves as though
he still does, the new director will "oversee management
of such townwide emergencies as blizzards, hurricanes
and floods."
Apparently, the new director, Philipp H. Baumann Jr.,
is not expected to prepare the town for a nuclear emergency
at Millstone.
Perhaps that is just as well: he works at Millstone.
With Mr. Steward/Millstone in charge of protecting Waterford
residents, they might just as well be sticking our heads
in the radioactive sand.
New
report: Davis-Besse nuke plant might have been days
away from disaster
