🚀 go-pugleaf

From: "Jonathan Parfrey" <psrsm>

*********  W A R D   V A L L E Y   C R I S I S  *********

                 * * * URGENT ACTION NEEDED * * *

  Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is set to decide in
the next ten days whether to transfer the federal land at
Ward Valley to the State of California to use as a
nuclear waste dump. The radioactive waste facility would
consist of unlined trenches twenty miles from the
Colorado River, the main water souce for much of the
Southwest. It is to be operated by a company called US
Ecology, which has operated failed dumpsites in three
other states. If Babbitt declines to transfer the land,
Republicans in Congress are set to force the transfer
legislatively.

  This is the time to act. If you care about your
drinking water supply, you must act now, before it is too
late. Please, immediately, call, fax, and/or write the
officials on the attached sheet. Do it immediately.
Contact as many as you can. This is the moment of
decision. Tell them: 

 1.  The Ward Valley project is dangerous. Large amounts
of nuclear power plant wastes to go into unlined trenches
near the Colorado River. 

 2.  The company to operate the dump, US Ecology, has
operated failed, leaking nuclear dumps in Illinois and
Kentucky. The Kentucky site is a SuperFund site, one of
the nation's most contaminated locations.

 3.  The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has revealed
that US Ecology's arid site at Beatty, Nevada, has also
contaminated ground water.

 4.  The NAS study has confirmed that there are four
hydrologic pathways between the Ward Valley aquifer and
the Colorado River. If the amount of plutonium is limited
to a few ounces, concentrations in the River would be
below permissible levels. However, if the amount of
plutonium estimated to go to Ward Valley in the US
Ecology License Application (the amount which the country
actually did dump at two of its existing sites), then the
concentrations would exceed permissible levels. There is
no restriction of wastes to the lower levels.

 5.  The NAS panel unanimously recommended further
measurements of tritium and other tracers to determine if
rapid migration of radionuclides was possible at the
site. Tritium had already been found 100 feet below the
surface. The panel concluded that the tritium was either
due to measurement error or represented rapid migration;
if it is the latter, the site would be unsafe. They
unanimously recommended further measurements, including
for tritium and chlorine-36. They said the measurements
could be accomlished in a few weeks.

 Basic message: Oppose any transfer of the Ward Valley
land to make a nuclear dump. Secondary message: If a
transfer is to be considered at all, insist that the
recommended measurements be made beforehand. If tritium
is found, there should be no transfer. There should be no
transfer without those measurements.


------------------------


People to Contact About Ward Valley
(In Order of Importance)

Secretary Bruce Babbitt
United States Department of the Interior
Washington, DC  20240
Phone:  (202) 208-7351
Fax:  (202) 208-5133

Senator Dianne Feinstein
331 Senate Hart Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC  20515
Phone:  (202) 224-3841
Fax:  (202) 228-3954

The Honorable <Your Congressional Representative>
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Ms. Kathleen McGinty
Assistant to the President on Environmental Quality
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC  20500
Phone:  (202) 456-6224
Fax:  (202) 456-2710

Vice President Al Gore, Jr.
Old Executive Office Building
Washington, DC  20501
Phone:  (202) 456-2326

President Bill Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC  20500
Phone:  (202) 456-1414

----------------------------

For more information contact:
Los Angeles Physicians for Social Responsibility
1316 Third Street Promenade, Suite B-1
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310-458-2694/voice
310-458-7925/fax
psrsm@psr.org