LETTER FROM LEROY MOORE TO THE EPA
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
P O. Box 1156, Boulder, CO 80306 USA Phone 303-444-6981 FAX 720-565-9755 www.rmpjc.org
March 5, 2010
Re: Call for EPA to revisit the Rocky Flats cleanup
Ms. Lisa Jackson, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
USEPA Ariel Rios Building (AR) 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20004
Dear Ms. Jackson:
Mary A. Gade, formerly director of the EPA Region 5 office in Chicago, recently encouraged me to write this letter to you and your colleagues to whom it is copied. Referring to the Obama administration’s commitment to good science, she insisted that I urge the EPA to revisit the “cleanup” of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant site near Denver. Regarding myself, I am a retired academic who has followed the Rocky Flats issue closely since 1979. During the dozen years of the cleanup I served on several bodies that advised the Department of Energy (DOE). I was also for several years a lay member of two committees of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. I am the author of numerous articles and papers on all aspects of Rocky Flats, including the Citizen’s Guide to Rocky Flats (1992). My critique of the cleanup, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, showed that the real driver of the cleanup was a secret deal that set a deadline and a funding limit for doing the job.1 The Rocky Flats site, which was badly contaminated by almost four decades of manufacturing plutonium components for nuclear weapons, was added to the Superfund National Priorities list in 1989. Most of the site was delisted in 2007 after certification that the cleanup had been completed in conformity with the Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement (RFCA). Parties to the RFCA were the DOE and the cleanup regulators, the EPA and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). The cleanup was quite inadequate, because the EPA and CDPHE did not consider some crucial data regarding environmental conditions at the site. This letter refers only to certain instances of this inadequacy. Upon certification of the cleanup, DOE transferred 4,465 acres of the Rocky Flats site to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to operate as a wildlife refuge. DOE’s Legacy Management Office retained 1,309 acres in the more contaminated central 1 Moore, “Rocky Flats: The Bait and Switch Cleanup,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan.-Feb. 2005, pp. 50-57. On line at http://www.rmpjc.org/rf_critique.
Moore, page 2
part of the site, the “hole” surrounded by the FWS “donut.” FWS plans eventually to allow public access to the proposed refuge, a matter that will be taken up below. Plutonium: The contaminant of principal concern at Rocky Flats is plutonium-239, referred to here simply as plutonium. Through the 37 years of production at Rocky Flats (1952-1989) considerable quantities of this highly toxic material were released as minuscule particles into the external environment. With a half-life of 24,110 years, plutonium remains dangerously radioactive for a quarter-of-a-million years. It emits radiation in the form of alpha particles that pose little danger outside the body. But if it is inhaled, ingested or taken into the organism via an open wound (say, a child’s scraped knee or elbow), it can cause cancer, malfunction of the immune system or genetic defects. Any quantity of this material remaining in the environment thus presents an essentially permanent hazard. Plutonium in soil at Rocky Flats: There’s no question that a goodly amount of plutonium remains in the Rocky Flats environment. RFCA allowed an amount of plutonium up to 50 picocuries per gram of soil (50 pCi/g) to be left in the top 3 feet of soil on the site, 1,000 to 7,000 pCi/g at a soil depth of 3 to 6 feet, with no limit on the amount allowed below 6 feet. For comparison, average plutonium concentration at Rocky Flats from global fallout from atmospheric bomb tests is 0.04 pCi/g. The 50 pCi/g allowed in the top 3 feet of soil at the site is 1,250 times this average fallout level. Exposure to plutonium from global fallout has been added atop natural background radiation, exposure to which already harms some people. Misleading claim about migration of plutonium in soil: EPA and CDPHE know that plutonium remains in the Rocky Flats environment, but they maintain that there is no pathway by which it can reach human subjects. They base this view on a team of scientists who did a multi-year “Actinide Migration Evaluation” (AME) at Rocky Flats and concluded that plutonium in soil at the site remains “relatively immobile.”2 The AME results, however, were based mainly on computer modeling rather than empirical observation. By contrast, environmental engineer M. Iggy Litaor, with instruments he had set up in the field, detected significant migration of plutonium in shallow subsurface soil at Rocky Flats in the unusually wet spring of 1995. Soon after his stunning real-time discovery, which attracted a great deal of attention because it countered the Rocky Flats orthodoxy, he was involuntarily terminated by cleanup contractor Kaiser-Hill and replaced by the AME team. Back in his native Israel, Litaor tried for about two years to get DOE-Rocky Flats to provide computerized data he needed to complete a report of his findings. They ignored his request. He thus was never able to publish a report documenting what he had found. Absent such, it’s as if the movement of plutonium he detected in the saturated conditions at Rocky Flats in the spring of 1995 never happened. EPA and CDPHE accepted the AME claim that plutonium left in the Rocky Flats environment is “relatively immobile.” The role of burrowing animals: In an unprecedented 1996 study, ecologist Shawn Smallwood, revealed how burrowing animals redistribute contaminants left in the 2 Kaiser-Hill Co., Actinide Migration Evaluation Pathway Analysis Summary Report, ER-108 (April 2004), p. 28.
Moore, page 3
soil at Rocky Flats. He identified 18 species of burrowing creatures at the site, all constantly moving soil and any adhering contaminants. They take surface material down and bring buried material up. Major diggers, like pocket gophers, harvester ants, and prairie dogs, burrow to depths of 10 to 16 feet and disturb very large areas on the surface, while coyotes, badgers, rabbits, and other animals move additional soil. Plants loosen soil and create passages animals can use. Smallwood estimates that burrowing animals disturb 11 to 12% of surface soil at Rocky Flats in any given year. The plutonium, which at Rocky Flats is only partially remediated to a depth of 6 feet and is not remediated at all below that level, is being constantly re-circulated in the environment. What is now buried is likely some day to be brought to the surface for wider dispersal by wind, water, fires or other means. Material brought to the surface in the more contaminated DOE-retained land at the center of the wildlife refuge can be redistributed widely within the refuge and beyond, posing a danger now and in perpetuity. Human and non-human beings will unwittingly take particles into their bodies.3 In his research Smallwood went onto the Rocky Flats site on three separate occasions in the summer and fall of 1996, each time accompanied by Rocky Flats personnel. He finished his report before the end of that year. But his findings were totally ignored by officials from the DOE, EPA, and CDPHE who established the soil remediation standards in the final RFCA of June 2003. They relied instead on the AME claim that plutonium left in the Rocky Flats soil would remain “relatively immobile.” In their 2004 final report the AME group stated that data on species of highly mobile fauna that might transport actinides “are not available and would be difficult and in some cases logistically nearly impossible to obtain.”4 Smallwood’s study had been completed eight years earlier. Failure to test respirable dust for its plutonium content: Neither EPA nor CDPHE has ever collected discrete samples of respirable dust in surface soil at Rocky Flats and analyzed each sample for plutonium content. This type of sampling would demonstrate the extent to which plutonium is present at the time of the sampling in breathable particles, its most dangerous form from a public health standpoint. Those responsible for the cleanup derived their data on plutonium in surface soil from about 4,400 samples. These samples, however, produced results that are very misleading, because the samples collected were whole soil samples taken from the top quarter-inch of soil, which dilutes dust by mixing it with other matter. Though dust sampling was never done on site at Rocky Flats, it was done in 1975, perhaps for the very first time anywhere, on land east or downwind of the Rocky Flats site by Carl J. Johnson, MD, then head of the Jefferson County Health Department, and two soil-science specialists from the U.S. Geological Survey. They found plutonium concentrations, on average, 44 times greater that what had been measured earlier at the same locations with the whole-soil method used by CDPHE.5 Johnson later 3 Shawn Smallwood, “Soil Bioturbation and Wind Affect Fate of Hazardous Materials that Were Released at the Rocky Flats Plant, Colorado” (November 23, 1996), Report submitted for plaintiff's counsel in Cook v. Rockwell International, United States District Court, District of Colorado, No. 90-CV-00181; see also the transcript of Smallwood’s appearance in court in this case, pp. 3912-4130.
4 Kaiser-Hill Co., Actinide Migration Evaluation Pathway Analysis Summary Report, ER-108 (April 2004), p. 23. 5 Carl Johnson, R. R. Tidball, and R. C. Severson, “Plutonium hazard in respirable dust on the surface soil,” SCIENCE, vol. 193, 6 August 1976, pp. 488-490.
Moore, page 4
proposed that the state set a new standard based on plutonium in respirable dust on the surface of the soil because this method produces more accurate results that are more protective of the public health. His proposal was rejected. My own efforts over the past year to get FWS or CDPHE to establish a program for this type of sampling and analysis at Rocky Flats have met repeated refusal. There has never been any attempt to determine the plutonium content in respirable dust in surface soil at Rocky Flats. The moral of this story is that you can’t find what you don’t look for. Inadequacy of air monitoring: Though air monitoring no longer occurs at Rocky Flats, historically it was done both on and off the site. If plutonium particles were blowing in the wind, didn’t air monitors detect them? Meteorologist W. Gale Biggs, Ph.D., who in the 1980s was appointed by then-Governor Roy Romer to assess air monitoring at Rocky Flats, insists that airborne particles of plutonium were not fully detected by monitors because the particles were so tiny – “probably smaller than 0.01 microns” – that most of them passed undetected through the filters of any air monitors they might have reached.6 His critique supports the evaluations of the monitoring devices made by Harvey Nichols, emeritus professor of biology who in the 1970s did research funded by ERDA on air transport of radioactive particles at Rocky Flats. He found that the air samplers were not efficient at collecting small lightweight particles because they did not pivot into the wind, did not compensate for changes in wind speed, and were roofed in a way that prevented intake of many particles.7 Both these independent scientists concluded that Rocky Flats air monitoring data reported periodically misrepresented reality and provided false assurance. Particles 10 microns or smaller can be inhaled. Data from investigation of environmental lawbreaking not reviewed: The EPA and FBI raided Rocky Flats in 1989 to collect evidence of alleged environmental lawbreaking by plant operator Rockwell International. A special grand jury that spent nearly three years reviewing the evidence wanted Rockwell prosecuted and several Rockwell and DOE officials indicted. In a rebuff to the grand jury the Department of Justice reached an out-of-court settlement that indicted no individuals, dropped major charges listed in the original affidavit and sealed 65 cartons of documents from the case in the Denver Federal Courthouse. Do these cartons contain information that should have been reviewed by those responsible for the Rocky Fats cleanup? The grand jury’s opposition to the settlement suggests that such review should have occurred.8 Yet EPA and CDPHE, the regulators of the cleanup, never reviewed these documents. Wes McKinley, who chaired the grand jury, now sits in the Colorado state legislature. Though he is forbidden by court order from revealing what he learned about conditions at Rocky Flats, he decries the fact that the cleanup was finished without the public or the regulators having access to data that remains locked away in the Federal Courthouse. Likewise, Jon Lipsky, former FBI agent who headed the investigation, felt betrayed by the sealing of the 6 Biggs, “Emissions and Monitoring of Plutonium from Rocky Flats,” April 26, 2007. 7 Nichols, "Pollen and spores as vectors of radionuclide particles at the Rocky Flats facility, Colorado,” First Progress Report for US ERDA under Contract No. E (11-1) - 2736, October 15, 1975; and "Some aspects of Organic and Inorganic Particulate Transport at Rocky Flats," Final Report for US ERDA on Contract EY-76-S-02-2736, prepared for US ERDA in 1977. 8 See Wes McKinley and Caron Balkany, The Ambushed Grand Jury (NY: Apex Press, 2004).
Moore, page 5
evidence and the failure to prosecute. Though he also is forbidden from telling what he knows, he calls the cleanup “woefully inadequate – a farce.”9 No EIS for the Rocky Flats cleanup: NEPA requires federal agencies undertaking action that significantly affects the human environment to do an EIS for that action, yet none was done for the cleanup of the Rocky Flats site. The only site-wide EIS ever done at Rocky Flats was in 1980, while the plant was at the peak of production.
Conceivably, a cleanup EIS would have uncovered data ignored or overlooked in the cleanup. DOE clearly did not want an EIS, and EPA did not require it. EPA and the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge: As noted above, in 2007 DOE transferred most of the Rocky Flats site to FWS to operate as a wildlife refuge. FWS had already made a decision to open the refuge for public recreation, despite the fact that 81% of the parties that commented on the refuge EIS rejected public access and only 11% explicitly favored it. The principal reason cited for opposing access was the risk of exposure to plutonium and other toxins left in the environment. Opening the site as a wildlife refuge has been postponed because FWS so far lacks the requisite funds. In preparation for this eventuality, however, FWS has developed language for signs that will be posted at entry points to the future refuge. Each sign will acknowledge that during production years “plutonium and other contaminants were released into the environment.” It will report that the levels of contamination at the refuge are low and that EPA and CDPHE “have determined that the land is safe for public recreation,” including for children who may visit the refuge.10 This language downplays risk, claims safety and makes no provision for informed consent. In response, Colorado State Rep. Wes McKinley, who chaired the grand jury convened after the 1989 FBI-EPA raid on Rocky Flats, has made several attempts, so far without success, to get a bill passed in the state legislature that would require the state to post prominent signs at refuge entry points informing potential visitors that visiting the refuge entails some risk and also requiring parental or guardian consent for children to visit the refuge. His approach offers a modicum of informed consent. As of the moment of this writing, negotiations are underway that may result in some melding of McKinley’s language for refuge entry signs with that of FWS. Exposure standards and uncertainty: An invisible thread that runs through all the proceeding is that standards for permissible exposure to various toxins are codified according to an arcane process called risk analysis. In an activity freighted with uncertainties distant outsiders couch their findings in abstractions about one in ten thousand or one in a million, etc. Their dicta get imposed on affected folk who very rarely have input and never direct participation in the standard setting process. In short, unknown parties decide our earthly fate, and we’re expected to accept the possible cost to our well-being as a fair exchange for some vague larger benefit, when in fact it’s plain as day that standards for permissible exposure in reality are measures necessary to keep a harmful enterprise going. The EPA is up to its neck in this pretense. A National Academy of Sciences report published in December 2008 harshly criticizes the EPA for routinely treating scientific uncertainty as a sign of 9 http://www.grist.org/article/little-rockyflats/ 10 http://www.fws.gov/rockyflats/Signage/Sign.htm
Moore, page 6
the absence of a problem rather than the possible presence of one. “There’s almost an incentive,” one scientist observed, “to having scientific uncertainty.”11 The report points to ways in which risk analysis can be improved, including greater stakeholder involvement and transparency.12 Meanwhile, affected populations at sites like Rocky Flats are expected to live with the results of approaches now criticized by the scientific establishment. The flouting of democratic process in deciding what exposure is “acceptable” is the real elephant in the EPA room. Pulling things together: This letter shows that all along the way EPA has, with CDPHE, continually ignored data that should have been considered in the cleanup done at Rocky Flats.
• No one from these agencies reviewed the court-sealed documents from the 1989 raid on Rocky Flats to see if they contained information pertinent to the cleanup. Unfortunately, those who best know the contents of these documents cannot tell us what they know.
• Both agencies agreed to a cleanup based on the assumption that plutonium left in the Rocky Flats environment will be “relatively immobile,” despite Litaor’s 1995 real-time detection of plutonium migration and Smallwood’s 1996 revelation that plutonium in soil at the site is being constantly redistributed by the activity of burrowing animals.
• As early as 1975, when Carl Johnson proposed testing respirable dust at Rocky Flats for plutonium content, CDPHE dismissed the need for such and EPA went along, though anyone paying attention knows that inhaling particles too small to see is the surest and most dangerous way to take plutonium into one’s body.
• EPA and CDPHE, the agencies responsible for protecting the pubic health, have made no effort to determine the extent to which plutonium may now be present in breathable dust at Rocky Flats. Yet they allow FWS to quote their words in telling potential visitors to the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge that the site is “safe.”
• Children, who will be encouraged to visit the refuge if it ever opens, are of all creatures most vulnerable, because they stir up dust, breath in gasps, eat dirt, may scrape a knee or an elbow and have before them a whole lifetime in which internalized plutonium can have its effect.
Conclusion: Who knows if a cleanup EIS would have produced a different outcome? That mistake cannot be corrected, but others can. EPA should do the following:
1. Gain access to the documents sealed in the Denver Federal Courthouse and make them available for review by the public, not just by the EPA and CDPHE,
who let us down.
2. Acknowledge that plutonium in soil at Rocky Flats migrates and give up the assumption that there’s no pathway by which it can reach humans.
3. Rescind endorsement of pubic recreation at the wildlife refuge and take the precautionary approach that public access to the Rocky Flats site should be
permanently denied because of the uncertainties of the risk. 11 Cornelia Dean, “Panel Seeks Changes in EPA Reviews,” New York Times, December 3, 2008.
12 Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, National Academy of Sciences, Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment (Washington, DC: National Research Council, 2008). See http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12209.
Moore, page 7
4. Ensure establishment at Rocky Flats of a long-term program for periodic testing of respirable dust in surface soil for plutonium content; repeated testing is necessitated by the wholly random rate at which burrowing animals may bring buried plutonium to the surface where it can be picked up by the wind.
5. Give affected populations or their surrogates a direct role in setting standards for permissible exposure to various toxins, including radionuclides.
6. Create the means by which designated humans become advocates for our nonhuman neighbors, so that we understand their ways and so far as possible protect them from the toxins we have introduced into their native habitats. The six steps listed above EPA could carry out with only minor changes of direction. As more is learned about conditions at Rocky Flats, the cleanup can be revisited. My paper, “Plutonium and People Don’t Mix,” includes detail not mentioned in this
letter, such as the likelihood that deeply buried contaminants were overlooked (see http://www.rmpjc.org/RF_PU_People_DontMix). Conceivably the 2012 CERCLA review can provide the occasion for the beginning of this more elaborate endeavor. I appreciate the opportunity to present the concerns expressed in this letter. If you have questions or comments, I can be reached by telephone at 303-447-2779 or by email at leroymoore@earthlink.net.
Yours sincerely,
LeRoy Moore, Ph.D.
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
P O. Box 1156, Boulder, CO 80306 USA
Phone 303-444-6981
FAX 720-565-9755
www.rmpjc.org
<-- List of Articles |
