7/16/06 to Steve Johnson, US EPA
Sent Via Fax : 2 page letter with 1 page attachment
July 17th, 2006
Mr. Steve Johnson – US EPA Administrator
c/o Ms. Lori Dnbriel
Washington, D.C.
Dear Administrator Johnson:
Since last October, we have written to you seeking your personal involvement regarding our site, Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund Site, raising serious questions that we strongly believe have national policy implications concerning radiation and Cold War waste material. To date, we have yet to receive from EPA responses that are scientifically supportable. Rather, you have allowed Region 5 and NAREL, which are hardly considered to be impartial or objective regarding IEL, to “recycle” old, outdated opinions that are not consistent with good science found within either DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, your own agency’s R&D department or the MARLAP Manual.. Moreover, a reporter learned by making a few phone calls, that the majority of the panel members from the EPA IEL Science Advisory Board (SAB) didn’t even believe that they were qualified to discuss radiation testing methods. Yet, inexplicably, Mr. Mike Cook, head of EPA Superfund, recycled this same SAB report’s conclusions back at us on your behalf, (even though it is now clear it should be considered null and void) – ignoring this concern about the SAB usage when it was also expressed by national organizations, POGO and AFSC in the joint letter they sent to you dated 4/12/06 concerning IEL radiation. Administrator Johnson, given the very serious nature of our case and the recent findings of experts hired with a $50,000 grant ( please see our web site provided on the cover page) we are compelled to again seek scientifically supportable answers that can be peer reviewed. Please respond in writing to the following key issues:
Read More4/18/06 to Steve Johnson, US EPA
Sent Via Fax c/o Lori Burble cc: Liz Cotsworth
April 18th, 2006
Steven Johnson – US EPA Administrator
Washington, D.C.
Re: Response to Region 5 US EPA’s Karl letter dated March 22″d concerning IEL Plutonium & related issues
Dear Administrator Johnson:
We continue to be dismayed that you are deferring letters seeking your office’s intervention back to Region 5: Clearly, the Region is not an impartial entity, to say the least. Please find the following responses to Mr. Karl’s responses written on your behalf.
Read More4/12/06 to Steve Johnson, US EPA
April 12, 2006
Via Facsimile- (202) 501-1450
Administrator Steve Johnson U.S. EPA
Room 3000, Anal Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460
Dear Administrator Johnson,
The American Friends Service Committee (AlFSC) is a Quaker-relation social action organization and 1947 Nobel Peace Prize recipient; and the Project On Government Oversight (‘POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more accountable federal government. Our organizations have worked with the grassroots citizens group Concerned Citizens of Lake Township (CCLT) on the Industrial Excess Landfill (TEL) Superfund site in Uniontown, OH, for over ten years. We have been seeking the truth about what is buried at the landfill and a safe and permanent clean-up of the site. We have recently become concerned that the process used to test for man-made radiation at this site is being used as a model for testing at other similar SupErfund sites. We are concerned because scientific experts from the EPA, Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the private sector have found significant inadequacies and inherent biases in the Method used to test at IEL.
Read More2/25/06 to Steve Johnson, US EPA
Sent Via Fax 2/5/06
Steve Johnson – US EPA Administraton
US EPA Headquarters
Washington D.C.
Dear Administrator Johnson:
In the letter we wrote to you dated 10/13/05, we asked that you investigate the misuse of an SAB panel and its report issued at our Superfund Site in 1993/94 , that is believed to have been used to subvert and undermine the scientific concerns of US EPA’s research department.
Indeed, instead of conducting the investigation envisioned by Thomas Grumbly (who had made this recommendation to former Admininstrator Reilly) to learn what went on between Region 5 and two commerical labs who had found man-made radiation at our site and the use of a non-standard method forced upon the second lab, the focus was switched to that of using IEL generically as the example for the rest of the nation – whether the US EPA Finished Drinking Water 900 Method for Gross Alpha/Beta was appropriate for not only Uniontown but any other Superfund Site suspected of containing radiation.
Read More11/17/05 Lake Township Re: Formal Legal Comments
To: INTERESTED PARTIES OF UNIONTOWN IEL SUPERFUND SITE 11/17/05
Re: LEGAL DOCUMENT SUBMITTED BY LAKE TWP TO US EPA ON THE CLEANUP CHANGES PROPOSED IN 1999.
What evidence was presented after this was issued that caused the Lake Trustees to override these very strong statements, both legal and technical? It is 6 years later, and the public still doesn’t have this vital information, and Congressman Regula has told CCLT he is deferring to Lake Township concerning the Plutonium issue and other man-made radiation that could impact the area’s water supply.
Read More10/13/05 to Steve Johnson, US EPA
October 13th, 2005
Sent Via Fax 1 page + 1 page attachment
Mr. Steve Johnson – US EPA Administrator
Washington, D.C.
Dear Administrator Johnson:
We are requesting your personal attention to this urgent matter. Given the voluminous information we have accumulated over the last three years, we are increasingly concerned that our site, Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill, and the “Science Advisory Board” (SAB) were both wrongly used in 1993 by a certain faction within US EPA to overtly undermine and ultimately dismiss US EPA Research and Development’s attempts to change national policy to stop the filtering of water samples.
Read MoreComments of the Board of Lake Township Trustees
Comments of the Board of Lake Township Trustees on the Proposed Changes to the Remedy at the Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund Site
Serious omissions of substantive evidence, mistakes of fact and_ substantive flaws in methodology exist in the administrative record supporting the proposed remedy. As a result of these mistakes, omissions and methodological flaws, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (– USEPA) has failed to consider relevant factors and relied upon incomplete information in choosing the remedy for the Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund Site. No rational connection exists between the site conditions and the remedy selected. Its adoption without further site characterization and assessment of the short and long term potential for adverse effects to human health and the environment, including an epidemiological study, is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.
Read More1/12/05 To Parties Concerned
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
Wayne State University
To: Parties Concerned about the Industrial Excess Landfill, Uniontown, OH
The intent of this letter is to clarify several matters relating to the apparent presence of plutonium (Pu) in the Industrial Excess Landfill Site. It is apparent that EPA and other government agencies have focused mainly on the drinking water standards for gross alpha activity, and have not considered the true underlying issue, namely, whether the presence of Pu in the IEL groundwaters represents a non-natural situation. As scientists who have specifically studied and researched numerous issues relevant to environmental Pu, we would like to discuss several points. Our hope is that members of the public community will consider all technical view points that have been expressed to date.
Read MoreEnergy secretary wants more money to clean up radioactive contamination
Repository
Friday, February 1, 2002
By JOHN NOLAN Associated Press writer
CINCINNATI — U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday said more money is needed each year to speed cleanup of radioactive contamination at Energy Department sites nationwide.
Abraham proposed that $800 million annually go toward expediting cleanup of the 111 sites, of which only 30 are open. His proposal is part of the Energy Department’s $6.7 billion request for basic site cleanup. More details were to be released Monday with the department’s entire 2003 budget request.
Abraham said that while quicker cleanup at first will cost taxpayers more money, they eventually will save billions of dollars.
Read MoreRadiation? Mystery may never be solved at IEL
Sunday, December 2, 2001
By BRAD DAVIS Repository staff writer
LAKE TWP. – Drab military cargo trucks, rumbling through a slumbering Uniontown in the middle of the night. Radioactive warning placards on tanker trucks, spied through the blinds of nearby living room windows.
Mysterious deliveries of shiny, metal, Volkswagen-sized plutonium carriers, ordered to be buried among the rest of the trash.
Stories such as these have circulated quietly around northwestern Lake Township for years. Some have been vague references to what went into the Industrial Excess Landfill. Others have been more specific accounts.
Read More