UND LAsorice
explosive “single-shell” high-level nuclear waste storage tanks and other major hazards within the plant,
and of contamination of the Columbia River and
groundwater reservoirs was followed by a DOE admis-
nah River Site.t!+* At Mound,‘ in Miamisburg, Ohio,
investigators discovered that a pipe carrying high-level
waste burst, and plutonium seeped into irrigation ca-
I-131 had been released to the atmosphere during the
Ridge,***” the Nevada TestSite,** the Pantex plant,“
the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Califor-
sion that hundreds of thousands ofcuries of radioactive
1940s and 1950s, with the possible exposure of up to
13,000 children, some of them to doses as high as 70
rads. 35-40
Widespread environmental contamination, danger-
ous reactor accidents and a threat of explosions in
waste storage tanks were also idennfied at the Savan-
nals and water supplies for several years afterward.
Contamination was extensively documented at Oak
nia. A conservative preliminary estimate of the cost of
“cleanup,” a task expected to take decades and generate new potential health risks, exceeds $100 billion.”
By the spring of 1988, all of the DOE’s nuclear
Office of Technology Assessment’s Report on the Environmental Legacy
of Nuclear Weapons Production
Congress asked its Office of Technology Assessment
(OTA) to evaluate what is known about the contamination and public health problemsat the Nuclear
Weapons Complex and to investigate technological
and other approaches to solutions. In February of
1991, OTAreleased its final report, Complex
Cleanup! The report includes an analysis of research on the health effects of the DOE weapons
complex on off-site populations and observations
on basic problems in the organization and conduct
of DOE epidemiologic research.
Complex Cleanup questons the DOE’sclaim that
current contamination from weapons production
poses “no immediate threat” and no “near-term
risk” to public health. The authors conclude that
such claims are “largely unsubstantiated” and “also
somewhat misleading.” °?
The OTA report explains that the DOE’s effort
to surveysite contamination is critical in determining the health risks of weapons production. Complex
Cleanup concludes thatin this process crucial public
health concerns have not been investigated adequately.** Responsibility for conducting site-specific studies is scattered throughout several federal
and state agencies, and such efforts are under-funded.
Important health objectives may beslipping through
the cracks because there is no single agency or coordinating bodyresponsible for this work.**
The OTA report reinforces many of the Secretarial Panel for Evaluation of Epidemiologic Research Activides (SPEERA) findings, noting that
basic structural problems are at the heart of the
DOE?’s failure to adopt a health-based approach to
cleanup of the Weapons Complex. Complex Cleanup
points our that the “DOE has recognized thatits
current organizational structure for investigating
possible off-site health impacts of the nuclear weap-
Onssites is in need of improvement.” ®°
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Complex Cleanup reports that DOE research has
been kept away from open scrutiny. Those in charge
of the DOE have not fostered adequate health re-
search, in part, because there is an inherent conflict
of interest between their primary mission of weapons production and their simultaneous responsibility to protect worker and community health. The
OTA points out that under the DOE’s proposed
reorganization ofits health research program:
[No] ‘unsolicited proposals’ would be funded by
the [DOE] Office of Health. Howsuch arrangements would differ from present practice ofarrang-
ing for scienusts at the DOEnationa! laboratories
to conduct the bulk of DOE-funded epidemiologic
studies is not discussed.*°
In examining the process of determining off-site
health effects, the OTA report finds thar:
Available studies do not afford a comprehensive
survey of contamination present throughout the
Weapons Complex; information abouttoxic chemicals is especially lacking. Noris reliable information
available regarding human exposure routes and dose
range.°”
The OTAattributes this problem to the DOE’s
lack of an aggressive health research agenda. They
find that public health concernsarestill not being
investigated adequately by the DOE orother government agencies. Complex Cleanup concludesthat:
Published reports and available data can neither
demonstrate nor rule out the possibility that adverse health effects have occurred or will
occur... .. Investigations beyondthose already com-
pleted will be necessary to pursue questions about
the occurrence ofoff-site health effects and to pro-
duce the information required to identify the most
pressing cleanup priorities.**
DEAD RECKONING
REP Aeer
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