Livermore Bio-Warfare Gets Green Light

By Marylia Kelley

Thumbing its nose at the nation's environmental laws, the Dept. of Energy (DOE) on Dec. 16 granted itself the go-ahead to construct and operate a bio-warfare agent facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The agency signed a "finding of no significant impact," opening the flood gate to the importation of live anthrax, plague and other deadly bio-agents to the Bay Area nuclear weapons lab - all without benefit of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to analyze the dangers and alternatives. In making its determination, the DOE ignored nearly 100 letters calling on the agency to conduct an EIS and hold public hearings. (See the Aug. & Dec. 2002 editions of Citizen's Watch.)

The DOE plans to buy a 1,500 square foot, prefabricated building and place it on a cement slab in the middle of the Lab's one and one-half square mile site. After sealing and testing it for air tightness, DOE says it could have it up and running by this summer.

The bio-warfare facility would be a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3), so it will require double sets of doors and a special ventilation system. Workers will wear protective suits with masks and gloves. The bio-agents (e.g., germs, viruses, bacteria, bio-toxins and genetic mods) will arrive by various means, including courier truck and the U.S. postal service.

In addition to its obvious health, environment and security risks, the proposed BSL-3 has been harshly criticized by a broad range of scientists and policy analysts for its potentially devastating impact on the global control of bio-weapons, and on the treaty banning them.

Barbara Rosenberg, chair of the Federation of American Scientists' working group on biological weapons considers it risky to locate a BSL-3 facility inside a working center for the creation of weapons of mass destruction. "It makes a handy excuse for why there can't be any kind of verification that the biological defense work in the lab is in compliance with the ban on biological weapons," she told the Stockton Record.

Tri-Valley CAREs is working with independent scientists and allied groups across the country to oppose the facility. Further, we are investigating the possibility of bringing litigation to compel DOE to conduct a thorough environmental and nonproliferation analysis before operations can begin. Stay tuned!

By Inga Olson

Our U.S. Representative, Ellen Tauscher, has done her homework on the need for a permanent resource center for employees from Livermore Lab and other Dept. of Energy (DOE) facilities in California to help them apply for the Energy Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Program (EEOICP). Many Lab workers are sick due to on-the-job exposures to radiation, beryllium, silica, and other toxic substances. In a recent letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Tauscher wrote, "... there is no permanent center to assist ex-DOE employees who have been exposed to radiation in the course of their work at any of the 20 DOE sites in California, some of which are the biggest in the nation." She goes on to say, "the Bay Area alone is home to some 48,000 nuclear-weapons workers and their families."

California appears to be the only major DOE facility state without a permanent resource center. Even Alaska -- where that nuclear facility has been closed for 20 years -- has a full-time resource center. Dozens of letters have been sent by members of Tri-Valley CAREs' sick worker support group to Shelby Hallmark, the Dept. of Labor official who has the authority to make a new resource center happen.

Atomic workers and their survivors face numerous problems throughout the application process. A resource center, staffed by a strong worker advocate, could be a huge help. Gnarly problems confronting local workers include: 1) Sick nuclear workers cannot apply for the EEOICP compensation if they worked at the former nuclear laundry in Pleasanton or the Hunters Point Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory-which worked hand in glove with DOE -because these facilities are not covered. 2) The machining of beryllium is one cause of pulmonary fibrosis, yet this is not a covered illness for family members of deceased workers. 3) Many Lab workers were not aware of the health dangers of beryllium, or of the existence of a beryllium sensitivity test developed in 1993, yet workers who have not taken that test (since 1993) have an uphill struggle to receive compensation. 4) The DOE often claims it does not have the records the employee needs to apply for compensation, and the employee is forced to find alternative ways to prove his/her employment and exposure.

Tauscher has also co-sponsored H.R. 5493, an amendment to the original Compensation Act of 2000, to provide coverage for some additional atomic workers, enable an ombudsman and establish payout deadlines and other administrative improvements. On Nov. 25, 2002, H.R. 5493 was referred to the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.

By Marylia Kelley and Abel Russ

Two of the largest tritium accidents in the history of the United States happened at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Tritium is radioactive hydrogen, the element that boosts the destructive power of modern nuclear weapons. In 1965, an LLNL accident resulted in an airborne release of 350,000 curies of tritium. A 1970 mishap sent 300,000 curies into the environment. One curie is a large amount of radiation, equal to 37 billion radioactive disintegrations per second. Additional tritium has been released in numerous, smaller accidents.

Last year, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) published a draft "health assessment" that contains serious flaws and understates the risks posed by LLNL's 1965 and 1970 accidents. Tri-Valley CAREs and its health project partners have won a grant from the Citizen's Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund to retain independent scientists to review ATSDR's draft document.

Our project will evaluate how well the ATSDR is dealing with the public concern expressed about tritium releases from LLNL, and specifically how well they assessed the question of risk. Our technical advisors are evaluating the assessment methods used by ATSDR staff as well as the overall quality of their report.

The assessment breaks down into two major components, exposure and risk. Exposure is modeled as a function of (a) release of tritium from the facility and dispersion of the airborne plume, (b) the deposition of tritium on the ground, and (c) the potential exposure of people through inhalation or ingestion of tritium in air, water, and food. ATSDR chose to model a maximum exposure scenario; this ends up being someone hypothetically sitting at the Lab fence one mile from the point of tritium release. Our analysis will also explore the maximum calculated adult dose (we will suggest that the ATSDR estimate should be somewhat higher) and estimate a maximum neonatal dose, not estimated by ATSDR. We will also look at an alternative approach, which will estimate the total dose received by the downwind population.

The second part of the ATSDR report is a discussion of the health risks of the estimated doses. We believe that the ATSDR does not adequately present or incorporate available scientific evidence that low doses of radiation can be harmful. A quantitative estimate of the risk of any size dose is feasible and was discussed by an expert review panel convened by the ATSDR during the preparation of their report. However, the recent draft report from the agency is instead based on the outdated concept of a threshold below which no health effects are expected. We disagree with this approach and our scientific experts will estimate the health risk for both the maximally exposed individual and the other, numerous, less exposed individuals.

Our technical experts include Dr. Robert Goble of the Dept. of Physics at Clark University in MA, and Abel Russ, a researcher with the George Perkins Marsh Institute, also at Clark University. They will present their preliminary findings at an informal "roundtable" presentation for our interested group and community members at 7 PM on February 6 and at a second meeting for LLNL and agency officials at 10 AM on February 7. Call our office.

PRINT BITES: All the News that Fits to Print

By Marylia Kelley and Inga Olson

By Marylia Kelley

In Nov., Congress established a Dept. of Homeland Security, which is expected to employ more than 170,000 people when the legislation is fully implemented. The Bush administration is touting it as the biggest reorganization of the government in 50 years. It may also prove to be the most ill considered, dangerous and anti-democratic legislation of the past 50 years.

One thing is certain -- the new law is hundreds of pages long and begs for a reasoned analysis followed by action to oppose and change many of its most corrosive provisions.

The DOE nuclear weapons complex figures prominently in Homeland Security. In particular, Livermore Lab is positioning itself as the lead lab for the newly created agency. The legislation will impact the weapons complex in three areas: 1) limiting public access to information, 2) boosting research and development on nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (in the name of countering them), and 3) increasing the weapons labs' role in broadly defined "emergency response" activities.

Tri-Valley CAREs has contracted with Dr. Robert Civiak, a former White House budget examiner with jurisdiction over DOE's weapons program, to produce a report analyzing the impacts of Homeland Security on the weapons complex. The study will also contain our recommendations for change.

The new Dept. of Homeland Security is slated to begin operation in March 2003, and our report will be available then. We see it as a valuable tool for helping the public understand the new Department's dark underbelly, namely the slide into a "Homeland Security State" and concomitant loss of our basic democracy.

We will be using the report in meetings with Congress and other decision-makers and in our community and campus organizing activities. If you are interested in working with us on Homeland Security issues, please call our office.

By Tara Dorabji

As the Bush Administration threatens the world with preemptive nuclear strikes, it becomes even more important that the voices of the people - supporting peace - are heard. To this end, Tri-Valley CAREs is circulating a petition. To date, we have collected about 4,000 demanding a reversal of Bush's nuclear policy, an end to the further development of nuclear weaponry and adherence to our nation's disarmament obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We have shared copies with Senators Feinstein and Boxer and have meetings planned with other Members of Congress. Now, more than ever, we need to demand they find the political courage to reject Bush's nuclear policy.

Join us and collect petition signatures at the Jan. 18 rally in SF, or any other time. Copies of the petition are available on our web site. Or, call our office and we will mail them to you.