PLUTONIUM IN YOUR PANCAKES: LOWRY LANDFILL RESOLUTION

[hdqrs@worldnet.att.net]

>From: Adrienne Anderson <andersa@spot.Colorado.EDU>
>Date: Monday, March 01, 1999 6:44 PM
>Subject: PLUTONIUM IN YOUR PANCAKES: LOWRY LANDFILL RESOLUTION
>
>Dear Folks:  In the attached file, please find a resolution we have
>prepared for supporting organizational endorsements in our campaign to
>block the pumping of plutonium-contaminated Superfund site waste at the
>Lowry Landfill (Colorado) into public sewer lines, with the sludge to
>"fertilize" crops in eastern Colorado growing crops for sale throughout the
>U.S. commercial food supply.  if you have any questions or need for
>clarification on the facts of the resolution, please e-mail me.
>Furthermore, if you have strategic points to raise, please do so.  If your
>group can sign on to this at the earliest opportunity, we'll add you as
>supporters when we present our report to Congress on the growing use of the
>Clean Water Act loophole (Section 503, that "detoxifies" toxic sewage
>sludge) is now big enough to drive a nuclear waste truck through.  This is
>a precedent setting plan, that will distribute plutonium, cesium,
>americium, strontium, radium, uranium, tritium and a host of other
>radionuclides...in solution with toxic solvesnts, pesticides, PCBs,
>dioxins, and all the rest into our sewers and food.
>Thanks,
>
                                                          
        (the following arrived as an attached document file..it has been
converted to plain text ~minus pictures~ in order for the listserve
software to handle it and included here, below..Ish)
                       
RESOLUTION 
in support of
Safe Communities, Farms and Food

According to documents reviewed over the last two years in a citizens'
investigation, the EPA has approved a plan to pipe radioactive and
hazardous waste-contaminated groundwater from the Lowry Landfill Superfund
site through the public sewer system in Aurora and Denver.  At the Metro
Wastewater sewage treatment plant, the wastes would be mixed with domestic
and industrial sewage sludge.  Some of the resulting wastewater would be
"recycled" as irrigation water on Denver and Aurora-area parks, golf
courses and other public recreation areas, while the rest would be
discharged to Sand Creek and the South Platte River, upstream of numerous
communities' drinking water supplies.  

The largest volume of the resulting sludge would be trucked to eastern
Colorado for application as "fertilizer" on farmland at Deer Trail in
Arapahoe and Elbert Counties (purchased with public funds), growing crops
for sale throughout the nation's food supply.  Other portions of the sludge
are trucked to other privately-owned farms under lease for this purpose in
other rural Colorado counties.  The EPA has stated that the Lowry Landfill
Superfund Site wastewater could be piped into the Denver/Aurora sewer
system as early as Summer 1999, under present plans.

Whereas:

Department of Energy-certified laboratory analyses conducted from 1988
through 1991 confirmed the presence of high levels of plutonium, americium,
tritium and numerous other nuclear-related materials contaminating
groundwater and other media in and around the Lowry Landfill at levels far
in excess of normal background conditions; 

According to C.R.S. 25-1-608, "any application, spreading, composting,
landfilling, or dumping of any of sludge/bio-solids and/or products
formulated from sludge/bio-solids, including anything which contains
radioactive materials or hazardous waste" is prohibited; and

The Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA, or Superfund), as mandated by the US Congress, intends to isolate
hazardous waste and Superfund waste from exposure to the general public;  and 

In 1992, Amendments to the Clean Water Act created a loophole for hazardous
material which has grown to include Superfund waste and hazardous waste
which is currently being applied to farmland as sludge/bio-solids; and

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved a plan between Waste
Management, Inc., the City and County of Denver and the  Metro Wastewater
Reclamation District to allow partially treated groundwater from the Lowry
Landfill Superfund site to be pumped into the Denver/Aurora public sewer
system, despite unanimous and widespread citizen opposition; and

Professional environmental consulting firms have detected plutonium and
other man-made radionuclides in the groundwater, surface water, soil and
sediments throughout the Lowry Landfill and beyond its boundaries; and 

EPA has withheld from the public more than 8, 800 secret documents
concerning the Lowry Landfill, including studies, memoranda and reports
funded by taxpayers concerning radionuclide findings at the site; and

There is presently no treatment process either on-site at the Lowry
Landfill or at the Metro Wastewater sewer plant to remove radioactive
elements, toxic heavy metals or numerous other dangerous and persistent
toxic compounds that are present in the Lowry groundwater effluent, which
will therefore be widely dispersed by discharge to public sewer lines,
processing at a public sewage treatment works, transport along public
roadways, and disposal on public-owned farmland in Eastern Colorado at Deer
Trail; and 

Workers at the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District are not protected by
enforceable health and safety standards under the Occupational Safety and
Health Act (OSHA), and the facility is not a licensed nuclear waste
handling or storage facility; and 

Sewer lines are not designed to carry radioactive or highly toxic
materials, and often corrode, break, rupture and even explode under normal
operating conditions,  thereby risking potentially catastrophic releases of
radioactive and other hazardous constituents to contaminate property along
the Denver Metro sewer line infrastructure, the health and safety of
neighboring residents and workers called in to conduct response and repair
activities; and 

Colorado's family farmers and small rural communities are already suffering
economic hardships and this plan further threatens the viability and
sustainability of farming communities in rural Colorado where these wastes
would be disposed; and

There has been widespread public opposition to the EPA's Lowry plan,
including farmers, sewage plant workers and citizens across Colorado who
have written more than 400 letters in opposition to the plan to the EPA; and 

Citizen opposition to this plan includes more than 4, 000 people
petitioning the US EPA Office of the Inspector General, US EPA Hazardous
Waste Ombudsman, and the Attorney General's Office to investigate the EPA
Region 8 Office for fraud, lies and failure to protect public health and
the environment; and

The EPA's Office of the Inspector General in response to these pleas began
an investigation of the EPA Region 8 office in October of 1998 and is
presently under way without conclusion, to date; and

Other investigations requested by the USEPA Hazardous Waste Ombudsman and
others may be forthcoming; and

Public opposition to the plan to spread radioactive waste includes such
citizens groups such as Family Farmers for the Environmentally Safe Use of
Property (FES UP), Bombing Range Environmental Action for Community Health
(BREACH), the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW),
the Colorado AFL-CIO, Student Environmental Action Coalition and others,
currently united through "STOP THE SLUDGE!", and 

The Metro Wastewater Reclamation District has developed a permit for Waste
Management Inc. and the City and County of Denver, as owners/operators of
Lowry, which would allow as "legal" discharges of plutonium from the site
into the sewers at up to 160 times above the state's current drinking water
standard, as well as scores of other radionuclides, dioxins, PCBs, toxic
metals, solvents and other poisons.

Prevention of hazardous waste clean-up is more cost-effective than a
retroactive clean-up; and 

The inclusion of the public in the decision making process is a cornerstone
of our democracy as defined by the United Nations and is required as a
component of all EPA decisions regarding remediation of all Superfund sites
in the United States; and

EPA has repeatedly ignored the public voice in regard to this clean-up
plan, repeatedly provided disinformation concerning the radioactivity at
Lowry Landfill, and consistently failed to prove that this plan is
protective of public health and the environment.

Now therefore be it resolved, that we, the undersigned, urge that:

EPA's Administrator Carol Browner, USEPA Inspector General's Office and/or
Congress halt the plan to flush Lowry Landfill Superfund waste into the
Metro Denver area sewer system, with ultimate disposal of the resulting
radioactive and toxic sludge as "fertilizer" on Colorado farmlands growing
crops for commercial sale and distribution throughout the nation's food
supply; and 

EPA unseal all of the withheld secret documents related to the Lowry
Landfill for a complete public examination of this case for proper
evaluation of the public health risks, and appropriate clean-up options; and

EPA's contractor at the Lowry Landfill Site, CH2MHill, be immediately
dismissed as a contractor at the site, based on their admitted conflict of
interest over the implications of radionuclide findings at the site, as a
Department of Energy contractor at Rocky Flats (a Lowry liable party) and
other nuclear weapons sites throughout the country; and 

Colorado's Congressional delegation call for a General Accounting Office
investigation of EPA for their misuse of federal funds in retaining
CH2MHill as EPA's Lowry Landfill contractor, despite EPA's knowledge of
CH2MHill's admitted conflicts of interest regarding the extensive
radionuclide contamination found at the site,  simultaneously holding
billions of dollars in contracts with the Department of Energy at Rocky
Flats (a liable party at Lowry Landfill) and other nuclear weapons sites
throughout the country, while attributing the presence of plutonium and
other nuclear-related transuranics to "cosmic dust" or "natural
occurrence"; and 

All monies misappropriated by EPA to CH2MHill be collected and reinvested
in a study of the site by a party that has no conflicts of interests with
the major liable parties at the site, including the Rocky Flats Nuclear
Weapons Plant and other military/industrial contractors who dumped at
Lowry; and 

The Lowry Landfill Superfund Site be re-evaluated and cleaned up in
accordance with existing laws and regulations governing a mixed waste,
radioactive and hazardous waste site, including transuranic nuclear wastes
and low-level radioactive wastes in solution with toxic solvents,
pesticides, metals and other poisonous compounds; and

Urge Attorney General Janet Reno to: 1) appoint an independent prosecutor
- -- free from the history of demonstrated conflicts of interest with Lowry
PRPs by the Denver U.S. Attorney's Office -- to investigate the EPA, DOE
and certain PRPs associated with the Lowry Landfill site for fraud and
other crimes in connection with their cover-up and conspiracy to defraud
the public regarding the actual threats at Lowry Landfill for appropriate
clean-up actions and protection of public health and safety and the
environment; and 2) re-empanel the Rocky Flats Special Grand Jury to review
evidence of Rocky Flats' off-site disposal of plutonium and other
radioactive-contaminated waste to the Lowry Bombing Range and Lowry
Landfill (and potentially other, undisclosed sites), and evidence of false
statements to the EPA and general public regarding these activities in
conjunction with Lowry Landfill investigations and the controversy
concerning the current sludge disposal plan.

The "Stop the Sludge Campaign" -- uniting farmers, sewage plant workers,
environmentalists, students and other citizens concerned about food safety
and community protection from radio-toxic poisons -- pursue any and all
avenues of administrative and legal recourse to stop this plan from going
forward and to force public accountability for misdeeds uncovered by the
citizens' on-going investigations, with our full support. 

RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY:  ______________________________(Name of organization)

                                  Signed by:
______________________________(Authorized Agent)

  Date:  ______________

Please return the signed resolution to:

"STOP THE SLUDGE!"
c/o Colorado Citizen Action Network 2
1200 Madison Street, P.O. Box 625
Denver, Colorado 80206-0625

Fax:  303-329-0217

Or by e-mail to any one of the contacts listed below:

Spencer Hanes        <Hanes@Colorado.EDU>
Adrienne Anderson  <andersa@spot.Colorado.EDU>
Don Holmstrom        <donho@earthlink.net>
Aubrey Fennewald   <a_fennewald@hotmail.com>

Thank you for your support!