http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet9/trnsc09b.txt

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS

                                  FRIDAY
                             DECEMBER 16, 1994
                                   - - -
                             WASHINGTON, D.C.
                                   - - -

          The Advisory Committee met in the Empire Room of the
Omni Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert Street, N.W., at 8:00 A.M.,
Ruth Faden, Chair, presiding.

          CHAIRMAN FADEN:  Could the committee please come to the
table so we can begin the meeting.           Good morning. 
Welcome to the second day.  We're going to begin our morning
meeting with a session of public testimony.  We have lost about
15 minutes, but we'll try to -- We'll give the full period over
to public testimony and readjust the agenda accordingly.

          CHAIRMAN FADEN:  Is Ms. Vina Colley in the room?  

          MS. COLLEY:  Good morning.

          CHAIRMAN FADEN:  Good morning.

          MS. COLLEY:  My name is Vina Colley, and I am President
of a group called Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental
Safety and Security, PRESS.

          PRESS is also a member of the Military Production
Network, which represents more than 40 grassroots, national and
local organizations representing communities living in the U.S.
Department of Energy nuclear facilities.  We are also a member of
the Human Radiation Task Force.

          I went to work in 1980 for Goodyear Atomic, which is
now Martin Marietta.  I was hired as a second class electrician,
as a healthy, energetic, and hard working employee.  I felt lucky
to land a good paying job that I felt also served my country. 
You see, patriotism runs as deep as poverty and unemployment in
the rural Appalachian community surrounding the Portsmouth
Gaseous Diffusion plant in Piketon, Ohio.

          It was the most money I had ever made.  I also thought
it was a very safe job because of the attention given to wearing
hard hats and safety glasses.  I realize now I was wrong.

          The entire time of my employment at the government-
owned facility, myself and fellow co-workers were exposed to
radiation and chemicals without being informed about the effects
of the dangers involved.           In a memorandum dated
September 24, 1947 to Colonel James Cooney and Mr. Edward
Huddleson from Mr. Green, it was admitted that the people hired
by the contractors were not, because of security, told of the
hazards involved in their job.  This policy of secrecy continues
to this day.

          As a result of my exposure to radiation, my health has
been severely affected.  Some of my problems include:  Chronic
bronchitis, shortness of breath, rashes, arthritis, depression,
stomach problems, and I have Uranium 235 in my lungs, and
urinalyses have revealed the presence of fluorides.  Finally, in
1987 I was diagnosed with multiple leiomyomata.

          I have also had a total abdominal hysterectomy caused
from my exposure to hazardous chemicals.  Some of the tissue
removed during my hysterectomy was taken from the hospital
without my knowledge or my consent.  This is confirmed by a
letter from Scioto Memorial Hospital submitted with my testimony,
which states:  "The specimen as received weighs 164 grams, total. 
The weight of the specimen would have been 190 grams.  The
specimen has been opened previously, and there is evidence that
some tissue has been removed."

          I have tried to locate my tissue, but I have been
informed by the hospital they do not know what happened to it.

          Recently, I have learned about the experience and
various programs involving the collection of human tissue,
etcetera, which our government actively participates in, programs
such as the Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource which
started in 1964 with a feasibility study of the Hanford workers
in Washington.  

          I have also learned the extent of the U.S. Transuranium
and Uranium Registries, established by the Department of Energy,
which holds close to 20,000 tissue samples.  I believe that my
tissue was removed from the hospital and taken to some
transuranic registry.

          Workers at Piketon and other DOE sites are continuously
exposed to hazardous chemicals such as Uranium Hexafluoride,
Technetium, Thorium, Plutonium, and many other similar
contaminants.  Yet under the justification of national defense,
DOE has intentionally sought to cover up the health effects of
its workers from these exposures.  People like Dr. Eugene Saenger
are involved in this cover-up.

          As early as 1943, the harmful effects of radiation have
been known.  In fact, in a 1961 statement to the Committee of the
Women's Strike for Peace, Leo Goodman, Secretary, Atomic Energy
Technical Committee of the Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO,
identified some of the known effects of radiation exposure,
including:  Epilepsy, congenital malformations, neuromuscular
defects, blood and skin defects, defects in vision and hearing
and skeletal defects, mental defects and defects in the
gastrointestinal and urinary tracts.

          Proof of wrongful exposure to radiation and harmful
effects of such exposure exist in the form of lists of radiation
injury settlements, and include the names and place of accidents,
settlement and dates.  These settlements are paid to workers who
were exposed while working in the AEC.

          I have a list here of workers in the United States who
were paid by our government for radiation exposures.  If such
wide hazards of radiation have been known, could you please tell
me Dr. Saenger was permitted to experiment on these individuals
to find out the effects of radiation on the human body?  These
experiments were conducted without the knowledge or the
permission of the victims.

          By allowing this activity to occur, the AEC and its
followers engaged in activities similar to those under the Nazi
regime of World War II.  The practice continues today.

          To learn the full injustice committed by Dr. Saenger
and other so unethical government employees, a full investigation
into the falsification of all records must be conducted.  Also, a
complete declassification of all records pertaining to the
Portsmouth Uranium Enrichment facility and all facilities
controlled by DOE and DoD and contractors must occur.

          Experiments on workers at the DOE sites are not limited
to the past, but continue to this day.  It is time our government
be accountable and settle up  with workers like myself.  As
stated at the Whistleblowers Conference in Bethesda, Maryland,
November of 1993, we cannot go forward until we take care of the
past wrongs.

          Evidence of past wrongs can easily be demonstrated in a
discussion of the occurrence at the Piketon plant.  

          The "E Area" of Piketon Plant is a section of the
uranium recovery operation.  As workers explained, the uranium
operation consists of three stages.  First, the uranium comes in
the form of shavings, chips, broken rods had to be powdered in a
rod mill.

          "It was the worst thing, temperamental.  It kept you on
your toes, trying to run the thing.  All at once you would see
dust all over the place.  The lid had come off of your rod mill,
and uranium dust would be all over the place."

          Then if the material had to come in the form of uranyl
nitrate hexahydrate, it would be fed into a calciner that would
be entered into the top of a conversion tower.  Fluorine would be
pumped into the bottom of the tower and would react with the
oxide to form uranium hexafluoride, which could then be entered
into the cascade.

          The fluorination would create tremendous heat, which
the operators had to keep controlled.  The temperature would go
wild.  You would try to cool it, and then, all of a sudden, you
have cooled it too much.  At that point the UF6 within the tower
might crystallize, and the operators would to enter the tower to
prevent it from building up and going critical.

          The tool they used was a sledgehammer.  You'd have to
get in there and beat on it.  You'd bat on it so much, it would
blow out on you.  Every shift and every day, you would bat on it.

          All E area equipment was open to the atmosphere.  No
glove boxes were used.  Operators would wear coveralls, rubber
gloves, and an assault Army mask.  Since the masks were not self-
contained, they were almost 97 percent ineffective anyway and,
when they were removed, the inside of the mask became
contaminated.

          All the material handling was done by hand.  Some
workers would try to keep the area clean, but the air was laden
with dust.  The dust was so thick that some workers could write
their names in it.  Some of the dust was washed down the drain in
an attempt to keep the area clean.  The dust that filled the room
and settled was insoluble uranium oxide.

          Workers in E-Area also ran tests in which Plutonium was
used.  Between around 1957 and 1965, the chemical operators
working in E-Area were being massively contaminated and were
essentially unmonitored, since the company only checked the
urine.

          In groups of four, Portsmouth workers began to make a
three-day trip to Y-12 weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. 
Elbert Bowman, age 38, died of lung and kidney problems.  William
Murphy died of a heart attack, but he also had cancer.  Before
Bill's death, he had a child born dead.

          Bob Elkins' hair turned white, and he began showing
signs of leukemia.  William C. Bird, cancer; G.E. McClellan died. 
One of the men had prostate cancer, and one other had a massive
heart attack.  

          Tom Salisbury told me ten years after he left the
plant, he developed colon cancer, and he felt, out of all the
workers that worked at the plant, E-Area workers should have been
monitored.  He relayed this to me, because he felt someone should
know.

          Documents that are available show that the Portsmouth
plant has larger than normal inventory losses of Special Nuclear
Material from the period of October 1, 1980 through March 31,
1983.  In a memorandum to Secretary of Energy Admiral Watkins
wrote to Honorable John D. Dingell that "Due to the large
uncertainty, our 1983 conclusion that the Piketon plant loss
could have ben greater than 100 kilograms of uranium 235."  

          The records for the releases of the oxide conversion
area of X705 and the feed plant have not been released to the
public.  The feed plant operated between 1958 and 1962, the oxide
conversion area of building X705 which operated from 1961 to
1978.  Both of these plants emitted insoluble uranium, which will
significantly affect the workers and the off-site community.  

          The X705 recovery was found to have a large
Transuranium problems.  In July 1978 a test was run on the air
filter traps, which disclosed a number of unexplained airborne
samples.  This disclosed a problem of, no matter what training
and equipment was available, there would always be a risk of
unexplained equipment failures and resulting employee exposures.

          On March 7, 1978 when 28,000 pounds -- Could I have
your attention, please?  I've come a long way, and it's cost me a
lot of money.  I've slept on floors.  I've researched this stuff
for nine years, and it's hard for me to have people not paying
attention.  

          On March 7, 1978 when 28,000 pounds of uranium
hexafluoride was released over a few days, the comparison between
this accident and the accidents one year later at Three Mile
Island indicated that the dose to the bone surface (endosteal
tissue) from Piketon was greater than the similar dose from Three
Mile Island.

          I have attached estimates of air emissions releases of
radioactive material and fluorides from the Portsmouth plant,
Diffusion Plant, between 1950 and 1984.  This document was
prepared by Arjun Makhijani, a Ph.D., and Bernard Franke and
Milton Hoenig, Ph.D.

          Radioactive waste was burned at the Portsmouth plant
from the mid-1950s until 1986, around 50,000 pounds annually. 
From 1955 until 1992 some 23,122 pounds of uranium was released
into the air, while 17,213 pounds of uranium was released into
the water.  An estimated 11,308 pounds of uranium was also hauled
away to landfills and incinerators.

          July 17, 1975, 250,000 gallons of sterilizing chemical
was discharged from the decontamination building to the drainage
ditch which enters into the Scioto River which enters into the
Ohio River.

          Approximately 18 million gallons of water per day is
used at the plant to keep the system cooled.  Portsmouth
recirculating water currently is being discharged into the Scioto
River.  There is a 

2 1/2 inch pipe from the plant that goes straight to the Scioto
River, which runs into the Ohio River.

          Spent reactor fuel from West Valley, New York, was sent
to the Portsmouth plant.  All of this spent fuel was contaminated
fission product, technetium and plutonium, which gummed up the
works.  It is also important to note that no uranium from a
commercial reprocessing plant has been successfully reclaimed.

          There are three enrichment plants in the United States: 
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio.
All of these facilities are owned by the government and
contracted out to Martin Marietta.  The Portsmouth and Paducah
plants passed into the hands of a government entity called the
U.S. Enrichment Corporation.

          The Portsmouth, Ohio, story serves as a fitting
introduction to the complexities and frustrations which
characterize occupational health and safety in the industries
producing nuclear materials for national security purposes.  

          Incident rates for injury and illness are high, and
exposure to toxic substances are reaching a crisis proportion for
both workers and communities living around these government-owned
facilities.  Ionizing radiation is deeply connected to the
defense sector.

          The Portsmouth plant, which enriches uranium for use in
nuclear power plants and bomb production,  has been operated
unsafely.  Employees have frequently witnessed large uncontrolled
atmospheric releases of highly radioactive uranium gas.  The
community has never been informed of such releases or otherwise
been given the opportunity to seek safety outside of the
community.

          In 1979 the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Union
stormed Senator John Glenn's office over health and safety
issues.  This was the first time that an entire workforce has
risen in protest against the nuclear industry.  Furthermore, the
union has joined forces with environmental and anti-nuclear
activists.

          The younger workers that come into this plant, like
myself, never graduated from high school.  Moreover, the plant
pays the highest and the best wages in our part of the state.  

          New workers are often required to perform dangerous
operations without receiving proper instruction.  These workers
suffer severe damage to their health before they even know what's
going on.

          I have spent nine years of my life reading everything I
can get my hands on, and still I do not know what I have been
exposed to.  It seems that it is easier to get rid of the workers
than to fix the problem.

          I have listened to this panel for the last  and have
become very troubled by your discussion.  It is evident to me
that the members of the Committee do not understand the plight of
the workers and other victims of radiation experiments which you
are researching.

          Accordingly, I feel that you must add to your panel a
representative of the victims of these experiments, for only they
can lend this Committee the perspective that is needed for you to
make your decision.

          This is a child that was born in Pike County.  This is
his leg, and this is a tumor.  The boy has an inoperable brain
tumor.  He's around 15 years old now.  You cannot count the brian
tumors and the leukemia and the cancers in this community. 

          This mother was told, don't worry about this child, you
have two healthy children, but the other two children wind up
having a lot of problems, too.  So I'd like to pass this around
for the Committee to see.  

          I'd also like for the Committee -- and they're making
copies -- for you to see the workers and the causation of cancers
from radiation.  By the year of 1900 there were 170 recorded
cases in which X-ray had produced biological damage to
individuals, and it seems hard for me to understand why Dr.
Saenger has been permitted all this time to do these experiments,
when we already knew the causation.  To me, what he has done is
injustice.  

          We want accountability.  We want someone to stand trial
for what they've done to the American citizens and, unless you do
this, it will never change.

          I have the exposure records of the workers that
traveled to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  

          CHAIRMAN FADEN:  Thank you, Ms. Colley.  Can we also
have a copy of your testimony?

          MS. COLLEY:  Yes.

          CHAIRMAN FADEN:  That would be helpful, since you
provided us with a lot of information.  We can make copies for
all the Committee members.  Thank you very much.

          MS. COLLEY:  I'd like to suggest that some of these
workers from Oak Ridge, I'm hoping, will come out to testify when
you come down there.  I'd also like for the Committee to get a
copy of Leo Goodman's statements.  Matter of fact, he published a
book, and I have a copy of all the incidents, partial incidents
of accidents that's happened in the United States.  So I've
included his statement here.

          I've also included workers at the Piketon facility that
have died of cancer or heart problems, and there's a big list of
their names.

          DR. TUCKSON:  I know time is short.  Let me just ask
you a quick question.  In your community, as you described the
difficulties, you said you can't count all of the brain tumors
and so forth and so on.  Have you been at all in touch with the
Health Department of your state and county?  Have they --
particularly, the epidemiologists there.  Have there been any
dialogues back and forth?

          MS. COLLEY:  You see, the cancer in our county go to --
We live in small, a rural Appalachian area, and we have to -- 100
miles.  We go to Cincinnati.  We go to Columbus.  We go to
Cleveland.  So our cancers aren't counted in our county.

          If you die of a heart attack, then your death
certificate doesn't say you died of cancer, which was the
underlying problem.  I read an article in the paper in Cincinnati
two years ago that in Scioto County we had a higher rate of
cancer, and it was being noticed in Cincinnati, Ohio, 100 miles
away from our community.

          DR. TUCKSON:  I see.  So in other words, it's that
because of the location, people travel to other states,
surrounding states.  Is it all in one state or do people wind up
going to other states -- hospitals in other states?

          MS. COLLEY:  They go different places, because -- Well,
we just now got a cancer thing set up in Scioto County, but
before there was no one to treat.  Also, I'd like to note that
there's a list of hospitals who have been tied up in some of the
experimentation.

          DR. TUCKSON:  Well, we'll talk further.  Obviously,
you've been in close touch with the Outreach Committee and so
forth, but it would just seem to me that one of the things that,
in addition to speaking with us and to the DOE and so forth, is
that -- It seems to me that perhaps there ought to be an
opportunity to try to get at least those commissioners of health
for the affected states, and to see if we couldn't find a way to
better understand some of the disease incidences that you have
noted.

          MS. COLLEY:  The community ourselves -- We have went
door to door.  We've knocked on doors, and we've dated our cancer
ourselves.  You know, it's kind of hard for someone to come into
a community like mine, because people usually don't move away. 
We stay around the area, and we know everybody.

          I'm worried now, because I think that the people who
run ATSDR and CDC and Health and Human Services and all these
people are whiting-out your names so you won't know if you've
been a victim.

          So the longer we stall on this, someday we'll never
know that we're victims.

          DR. TUCKSON:  I understand.  Well, thank you, and
again, just realize, though, that since you have been doing that
hard work, there are people employed in these state health
departments who are expert at being able to capture and collect
data.  

          I just think that maybe they ought to have the
opportunity to hear from you so that they might think of this as
an area that might capture their attention, and also might be a
legitimate part of their responsibility, so that you don't have
to do all of this yourself.  That's all I'm saying.

          MS. COLLEY:  Well, that would be okay, but they're too
scared to come forward, because there's no other jobs in these
communities, and the health departments and them won't come
forward.

          We went through the vital statistics in Ohio.  The
state of Ohio has risen in 65 percent cancer deaths since these
facilities have started production.  

          DR. TUCKSON:  Well, if you don't ask them, then you
cannot, I think, legitimately --

          MS. COLLEY:  I've worked with all the agencies, and I
know how they give you the run-around.  They're too scared,
because there's no other jobs in these communities, you know. 
The agencies are hiding.

          DR. TUCKSON:  If you don't ask them --

          MS. COLLEY:  I have asked them.  I have asked
everybody.  My phone bills have been $400 a month.  Who else do I
have to ask?  

          DR. TUCKSON:  Okay.  We'll follow up on it.  Thank you.
          
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