LETTER TO ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS FROM GREG WINGARD, May 21, 2000

-----Original Message-----
From: greg wingard [mailto:gwingard@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 5:27 PM
To: Ruckle, John T
Subject: Tonawonda cleanup, or lack thereof

Dear Mr. Ruckle:

I am very concerned about the Army Corps apparent disregard for life and
well being in regard to the totally inadequate cleanup being pursued by
your agency in Tonawanda, NY, at the Paxair/Linde site.

To set standard orders of magnitude higher than any other related site
in the country, is a threat to us, not just in New York, but all across
the country.

How the Army Corps could even suggest such an approach is beyond me.
Perhaps you are all in bunkers some where ignoring breaking news, like
for instance, the recent radiation health study conducted among workers
at federal radioactive materials facilities across the country. If you
could pass the information along to the rest of the wonks making the
apparent stupid decisions, it would be appreciated. In short, the study
found that workers exposed over their working life time to 5 rems of
radiation were at a 325% increased risk of dying from multiple myloma.
As it is legal to expose workers to 5 rems per year, and that exposure
level is supposed to have a safety margin built in, a number of
conclusions are obvious. The present levels of protection for workers
not only do not have a safety margin built in, but are responsible for
actually killing a lot of workers. As the standards for protecting the
general population are based on the same information as that which is
used to derive the occupational standards, the current standards,
obviously, do not protect the public. This, of course, also applies to
the standards used for soil cleanup, as they are based on pathway
assumptions, that rely on human exposure assumption for setting the
appropriate cleanup standard. That means the current standards for
cleanup are, based on government health studies, way too high. In this
context, along comes the Corps of Engineers and unilaterally, with no
basis in law, regulation, or precedent, raises the contamination cleanup
standards for FUSRAP sites by orders of magnitude.

From the outside, the only apparent explanation, is that those in charge
of the decision making are either on the take, or brain dead.

Please make sure that this message gets to the right person in your
organization to formulate a response, which specifically states how the
Corps of Engineers intends to fix this mess.

I understand the Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently looking
into possible criminal violations in connection with the site mentioned
above. It is my hope that as many people as possible are jailed.
Perhaps that will finally get the attention of the people making these
irresponsible, and deadly decisions, that will effect us and generations
to come.

I look forward to your response.

Greg Wingard,
Executive Director
Waste Action Project
PO Box 4832
Seattle, WA 98104-0832

RESPONSE:

Message: 13
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 09:23:09 -0800
From: greg wingard <gwingard@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: Tonawonda cleanup, or lack thereof

This just in from the Corps. Nothing like a little customer service.

Regards,

Greg

"Ruckle, John T HQ02" wrote:

Mr. Wingard:

Thanks for your message. Since I am a general point of contact for the
whole of the USACE presence on the web, I try to get our customers closer to
a point of contact who knows the relevant topic best.

I am forwarding this message to our Office of Public Affairs.

I hope this helps.

Tim Ruckle
HQUSACE

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