[CPEO-MEF] JEFFCO WELLS TESTED FOR REFINED URANIUM

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

[original message posted by Adrienne Anderson]


 DENVER POST
 May 9, 2001
 
 JEFFCO WELLS TESTED FOR REFINED URANIUM
 
 http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E31591,00.html
 
 In the print version, there is a large photo of an angry and worried 
citizen advisory board member, Joan Jacobsen, with two C.U. Boulder 
Environmental Studies students shown behind her, attending the 
USAF/Martin RAB meeting. The cutline underneath the photo reads:" Former 
Friendly Hills resident Joan Jacobsen listens as officials explain why 
results of tests on well water haven't been released."
 
 For the last ten years, citizens have been demanding radiation testing 
of the area, which Martin and US Air Force officials have refused to do, 
claiming that there was no history of use of radioactive materials at 
the Titan Missile manufacturing site.  Under continuing citizen 
pressure, the Colorado Department of Health and EPA had 10 residential 
wells tested at the end of February, but had not released the results to 
affected residents.
 
 Students in my "Environmental Ethics" class researched the issue during 
their semester project, using the Colorado Open Records Act, but were 
denied the well results, even though they had been completed on April 
16th, and were in the health department 's files.  An angry citizen 
advisory board member, Joan Jacobsen, upon learning this, went down to 
the health department in person and demanded the test results from 
Charles Johnson, CDPHE's person assigned to the Martin/USAF Superfund 
site.
 
 Upon review, the test result, performed for EPA, show evidence of 
enriched uranium and radioactive well levels at many times above safe 
limits.  At last night's meeting, no representative from the EPA showed 
up, and the State of Colorado didn't think it was urgent that people 
drinking water from these wells be notified promptly of the results.
 
 Shocked by this lackadaisical attitude by public health officials, C.U. 
students offered to make the notification calls to residents themselves, 
as they had acquired the list of well owners in the area tested during 
their semester investigation of the US Air Force/Lockheed Martin site, 
and its failure to conduct proper investigation of off-site public 
health impacts from the world's largest defense contractor's activities 
in Colorado, despite ongoing controversies over contaminated water, 
childhood cancer clusters, infant deaths and other disorders in the 
south suburban neighborhoods where Martin/Air Force contaminants have 
been at issue in public drinking water supplies over the last two 
decades.
 
Adrienne Anderson
Environmental Studies Program
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0339
Phone:  (303) 492-2952 (message)
Fax:       (303) 329-0217

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