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TONAWANDA NUCLEAR SITE INFO

" Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. [1953] We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. " [1961] ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Sixty-three years ago U.S. President Harry Truman gave the order to use two atomic bombs against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This turning point in human history is well known to virtually all Americans and most of mankind. (For a revealing discussion of the little-known targeting details see an article from the May 2003 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.) Yet until recently, few American citizens were aware of the extensive harm done here at home by Manhattan Project operations and the subsequent massive "Cold War" atomic weapons buildup. The health and lives of tens of thousands of unsuspecting workers and their families were sacrificed. Dozens of communities where production facilities were located were carelessly contaminated with radioactive materials and wastes, and still remain so. These Poisoned Workers & Poisoned Places are casualties of a Cold War that had no winners. Tonawanda, NY is one of these "legacy" communities. Today, some of its citizens are fighting with their own government to rectify past worker wrongs and to correct inadequate Army cleanup actions at the contaminated properties. These pages are dedicated to advancing this struggle.

Mushroom cloud from "Little Boy", much of the Hiroshima bomb's uranium was refined at Tonawanda, NY

TONAWANDA SITE FUNDAMENTALS

*ALERT* CURRENT UPDATES

LIBRARY

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*update* ENERGY EMPLOYEES COMPENSATION PROGRAM

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WNY NUCLEAR DUMPS

West Valley, NY nuclear site

SITE DESCRIPTION

Will Governor David Paterson display wisdom and back a bond issue
to exhume the State's nuclear waste dump at West Valley?

Instead of backing exhumation and removal of radioactive wastes from this physically most unsuitable location, Gov. Spitzer opted to stick his fingers in the dike in the false hope of managing the deadly dump/tank wastes in place at the West Valley, NY nuclear site. All attempts to control erosion will inevitably fail in this steep glacial till valley; see photos. The ensuing discharge of wastes will poison the downstream water supplies of Cattaraugus Creek, Lake Erie, the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. Buttermilk Creek landslide, near the West Valley nuclear waste burial grounds  For years, shortsighted State and federal officials have backed indefinite onsite maintenance, not because it will save money and avoid environmental disaster in the long term, but simply because it is less costly in current budget years. The Department of Energy and NYSERDA want the long overdue, court-ordered, sitewide closure NEPA decision at West Valley, NY to be delayed thirty more years while DOE/NYSERDA implement "interim actions." In fact, their proposed "enhanced interim action end state" constitutes a de facto CERCLA long-term onsite management decision and as such clearly violates SEQRA, NEPA, and the Coalition's twenty year-old Stipulation of Compromise Settlement. It also represents a colossal failure of leadership that even surpasses the original siting blunder of a naive Nelson Rockefeller. Application of CERCLA ("Superfund") at West Valley would render public participation toothless and result in governments throwing away billions trying to maintain waste isolation at this untenable location. The DOE employed the same NEPA-evasion strategy at the Niagara Falls Storage Site in the 1980s, squandering millions on a faulty "interim" tumulus that otherwise would never have been sited; see the NFSS story. The Spitzer administration did not offer to join the Coalition in its complaint against DOE for a lawful cleanup process at West Valley. Instead NYSERDA joined DOE's "Core Team" and quietly planned this CERCLA "interim end state." (See the 3/1/07 EPA letter to DOE and 4/17/07 DOE response that outline this illegal CERCLA plan.) If West Valley is allowed to fall under CERCLA (note: the NYSERDA lawsuit asks for $1.4 million damages from DOE under CERCLA, a paltry sum in exchange for loss of NEPA protections), the court-ordered, NEPA sitewide closure process will be effectively terminated, an unconscionable act to long-time public interest participants. This would neutralize the most effective public interest watchdog the site has had: the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes. What should the State now do to ensure a safe, fiscally sound outcome at the West Valley site? Gov. Paterson should ask NY's two Democrat Senators to withdraw from consideration in the Senate the West Valley Remediation Act (WVRA) bill. This bill was originally scripted by NYSERDA at former Gov. Pataki's direction. NYSERDA should also drop its cause for relatively minor CERCLA damages from its lawsuit against the DOE. NYS Attorney General Cuomo should take legal actions to enforce completion of the 1987 sitewide NEPA process, which was illegally terminated following release of the 1996 sitewide closure draft EIS, and to assure compliance with the letter of the West Valley Demonstration Project Act including: 1) injunctions to stop illegal "interim actions" being conducted before the NEPA sitewide closure ROD is issued, 2) a declaration that DOE is responsible for exhumation of the high-level waste tanks, the NRC-licensed Disposal Area (NDA) and the federally-sourced materials in the SDA, as well as removal of the process buildings and soils, and 3) a declaration that NRC must perform a site-specific EIS to fulfill its main WVDPA task: prescribing site-specific cleanup criteria. But first, Gov. Paterson needs to end the State's conflict of interest at the site by declaring that the State Disposal Area (SDA) burial ground must be exhumed, even if that means a substantial share of this cost is borne by New Yorkers and bonding of the project is required. On May 24, 2007 Republican Congressman Randy Kuhl re-introduced the WVRA bill as H.R.2476, joining NY's two Democrat Senators in pushing this irresponsible piece of legislation. Rep. Kuhl first introduced this bill two years ago. Ignoring the opposition of over 40 citizens' groups, Senators Schumer and Clinton previously re-introduced the WVRA bill in the 110th Congress as S.81.

Evaluation of the West Valley Remediation Act bill

Appalling irresponsibility by NY's Democrat US Senators: July 2003, Schumer introduced the site transfer "study" bill; 9/30/05, Presidential-aspirant Clinton and Schumer introduced S.1806, the Pataki administration's WVRA bill, in the Senate. The latter action received no apparent local media coverage.

Freshman Republican originally introduced Pataki administration's irresponsible WVRA bill

Comments on the 1996 West Valley sitewide closure draft EIS
Great Lakes United resolution on West Valley Nuclear Wastes

West Valley workers seek EEOICPA compensation for cancers
Former West Valley operator, Nuclear Fuel Services, has near-criticality spill
New firm to wrap up DOE operations at West Valley
Safety lapses result of contractor's rush to pocket acceleration bonuses

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Niagara Falls Storage Site

A Long History of Poor Decisions Blatant violations of NEPA are highlighted in a 1994 ROLE letter; also see DEC's comments on the 1984 DEIS (note comments 4-7, and 9-22), and officials' recommendations for management of the K-65 residues. *update* Legislative Mismanagement of K-65 Residues IEER report slams DOE mismanagement of K-65 residues, must reading for Lew-Port residents 1994 walkover survey of the NFSS vicinity Army will not form new group; Rauch letter.

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Did you know: atmospheric A-bomb testing in Nevada during the 1950s released 150 million Curies of iodine-131, approximately 15 times the amount released by the Chernobyl meltdown. Downwind fallout heavily contaminated much of the U.S. milk supply with I-131 and strontium-90; New York State was one of the more affected areas. See 1997 report to Congress by the National Cancer Institute. Eight years later NAS issued a report claiming that "in most cases, it is unlikely that exposure to radiation from fallout was a substantial contributing cause to developing cancer." This ridiculous statement contrasts with NCI's determination that millions of Americans, young to old, were exposed to individual fallout doses up to 16 rems (twice the average lifetime background exposure). The resulting collective population dose is clearly in the millions of rems.
The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research estimates the global radiation doses from the atmospheric testing by the five nuclear-weapon states that are parties to the Nonproliferation Treaty to be about 544 million person-rems (TCDE to the year 2100). Using EPA's cancer risk coefficients, the range of global cancer deaths as a result of nuclear testing fallout is conservatively between 200,000 and half a million. See "A Readiness to Harm" in IEER's January 2006 issue of SDA.
Strange, we are obsessed with the 3,000 murdered on 9-11, yet the institutionalized killing of 100 times as many innocent bystanders by these five governments goes largely unnoticed.

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LEGISLATIVE WATCH > NYS proposal grants feds complete control of West Valley decisionmaking > High-level waste declassified > High-level K-65 Residues misclassified

NUCLEAR WASTE NEWS > Texas is sued over K-65 residues dump > NYS cleanup rulemaking starts > NRC finalizes dilution as 'solution' > NRC issues letter re Barnwell closing

WAR ON IRAQ > More Bush administration felonies > Bush's Plamegate > US Christian fundamentalism : no WMDs, and no accountability

INFORMATION FOR VOTERS > Last wild Allegheny being expunged by greed > France, others stand up to Monsanto > Species extinction: 25-30% already gone > Universal health care/Market fundamentalism

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Cost of the War in Iraq

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"Shock and Awe" ... Five years on ... Civil war has destabilized the entire region;
4100 US soldiers and 700,000 Iraqis killed in a war started by US;
meanwhile the "Doomsday Clock" moves closer to midnight.
Greenspan denounces Bush policies, yet like most US media,
ignores the consequences of huge 'off-budget' Iraq war costs.
1994 Cheney video: Cheney/Bush41 reasons not to invade Iraq.
A true democrat spells out Bush's responsibility for the war;
Back at home, the Bush Administration is caught trying to limit atomic worker compensation payments.

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About TNSI

Last updated July 22, 2008

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