nwc cleanup report/criteria

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@cpeo.org>]

Dear members of RABs and others interested in military/defense cleanup.
Here is a recent press release describing a new report by the Alliance for
Nuclear Accountabiliy on clean up of the nuclear weapons complex. This
report, titled The Path Forward, lays out the criteria by which the
community and others can and will judge remediation efforts. At the end, I
included the email address for ANA. Feel free to request a copy of this
latest report, or of any of the earlier ones in the series. Sorry that the
formatting (e.g. italics) is lost via email here...

for immediate release

NEW REPORT DEFINES CRITERIA FOR EFFECTIVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS CLEANUP PROGRAM;
CASE STUDIES EVALUATE PROJECTS AT LAWRENCE LIVERMORE, OAK RIDGE, HANFORD

As Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary-designee Bill Richardson undergoes
confirmation hearings, a network of organizations from communities downwind
and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons facilities has released a set of
criteria for the new Secretary and the public to use in evaluating the
agency's troubled "cleanup" program. The Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability (ANA) report The Path Forward is the fourth in its Missing
the Path to "Cleanup" series. The Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs
contributed to the report.

According to Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs' Executive Director and a
close neighbor of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, "These criteria are
a starting point for a sound cleanup program. The Department's existing
inability to meet these fundamental guideposts has led to schedule delays,
missed milestones, cost overruns, and increased health and safety risks to
the public and to workers throughout the nation. Further, in the instances
where DOE is meeting key criteria outlined in The Path Forward, cleanup
efforts are improving in quality, safety and budget metrics."

Fifty specific criteria are organized into eight categories: Health and
Safety, Public Participation, Budget, Compliance with Regulations,
Contracting, Technology Development, Transportation, and Waste
Storage/Disposition. Within each category detailed criteria define how to
evaluate DOE activities, such as: "The project should be in full,
demonstrable compliance with all relevant federal, state and local health
and safety regulations. Compliance should be reflected in the budget
request and allocations."

Three case studies illustrate the application of the criteria to current
DOE projects. The first examines "in situ" vitrification at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. The report shows how the controversial plan to
solidify underground wastes produced a near-catastrophic explosion after
the criteria for health and safety, regulatory compliance and public
participation were ignored.

Similarly at the Hanford Nuclear Site in southeastern Washington, the tank
waste cleanup project, the most expensive activity in DOE's environmental
program, has fallen short on every one of ten specific health and safety
criteria. As a result as much as one million gallons of high-level wastes
have leaked into the soil beneath the tanks with unknown quantities
reaching groundwater and the Columbia River.

The final case study is a partial "success story" describing the cleanup
process at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's "Site 300," a
heavily-contaminated, Superfund-listed cleanup area where high explosives
and other components of nuclear weapons are tested. As The Path Forward
demonstrates, "progress in cleanup goes hand in hand with achievement of
criteria for public participation," according to Peter Strauss, a report
coauthor and technical consultant to Tri-Valley CAREs under the
organization's EPA-funded Technical Assistance Grant.

The new Alliance for Nuclear Accountability report concludes that the
criteria outlined in the report "should be at the foundation of any cleanup
plan, just as waging the Cold War was at the foundation of the production
plan. Acceptance of these criteria can begin to restore public trust and
can reflect the seriousness with which the Department of Energy takes its
commitment to clean up the Cold War legacy," according to ANA public policy
and communication advisor Bob Schaeffer.

Previous reports in the Missing the Path to "Cleanup" series focused on
the root causes of the failures of DOE's nuclear weapons Environmental
Management program, the false economic assumptions and flawed contracting
practices that result in misguided DOE projects that waste taxpayer
dollars, and DOE's Contractor Integration Report that advocates a intersite
"nuclear waste shell game" and promotes dubious technical solutions.

Prior to January 1, 1998, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability was known
as the Military Production Network. Tri-Valley CAREs has been a member
organization since 1989.

- - end - -

PS -- Copies of The Path Forward and the other reports in the Alliance for
Nuclear Accountability series Missing the Path to "Cleanup" are available
in hard copy on request. Using email, please contact ANA via
<bmorse@igc.org>. Be sure to send your snail mail address. Thank you.

Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
5720 East Ave. #116, Livermore, CA USA 94550

<www.igc.org/tvc/> is our website, currently under construction
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley
CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the
international Abolition 2000 network for the elimination of nuclear weapons
in 1995.