ExposureBlog

As a sometimes-litigation consultant, I have come to appreciate the work opposing counsels put into depositions and trial.  If there is a shred of positive evidence to support their side of the case, they will polish it until is shines like a 5000-watt beacon.  If there is a pinhole-sized irregularity in your conclusions they will turn it into the fatal flaw.  That’s their job.  What’s more, that’s good for you.  And good for the case–because it helps the truth become real.  The jury listens to both sides, decides whose side has the worst case, and votes for the other side.   That is exactly the way it should be and that’s the way it is.

Except, apparently when the government is involved.  The World Trade Centers fell in a cloud of dust—a toxic brew of asbestos, mercury (probably americium-241), PCBs and heaven-knows-what-else. Thousands of New Yorkers were exposed.   And yet in the five year span since that event, the EPA has never bothered to determine the quantitative concentration of the cloud, i.e. in terms of milligrams per cubic meter–even though such metrics form the standard for many regulatory agencies such as OSHA, NIOSH and EPA.  And even though people possibly have begun to die from that very exposure.

  Instead, the EPA apparently grabbed a professorload of “exposure experts” who never seemed to answer phone calls OR be able to divide mass by volume (though this is something that guys in the litigation field do all the time.)  Thus, no concentration value, no quantified exposure.  No quantified exposure, no evidence.  Reporters assigned to the hearings aren’t really good at math and science, but that’s okay.  They get the big picture.  And the big picture is, so it happens, painted by the EPA–who assures us there is some information that we really don’t actually need.

But that’s another post for another time.

But now, I’m seeing the same thing with Divine Strake the big ammonium nitrate and fuel oil explosion set for sometime in June at Area 16 at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site.  And the feds–albeit another branch–are doing it again. 

Here are the facts:  Seven hundred tons of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil will be detonated at Area 16 of the Nevada Test Site.  The soil at Area 16 probably is loaded with radioactive elements such as cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium and maybe even americium-241.  How do I know this?  Because the place was contaminated with above-ground nuclear tests such as those code-named Easy (1952), Turk (1955), Coulomb B(1957), Kepler and Smoky (1957)–and maybe others.  The contamination countours were mapped and published in a government document called DASA-1251.  You can see two of the maps here and here.

These tests were known to have produced long-lived radioactive elements. Thus, as any high school student would surmise, if these tests contaminated what is now Area 16, and if these same tests produced long-lived hot isotopes that are active for 50 years, then Area 16 is still hot.

The federal government claims that there are NO radioactive isotopes at the site because no atmospheric tests were detonated there. 

What they are not saying is that Area 16 is a mere eight miles from the ground zeroes of many of the 1957 nuclear tests.  Reporters were kept seven miles from ground zero so as to avoid contamination and exposure.

Eight miles is not a terribly great distance, considering that most of the aboveground tests occurring nearby produced debris clouds that reached 30,000 feet into the sky. 

In response to inquiries about safety, I have been informed that the federal response has been, in effect: “We monitored both sides of a road in Area 16 and we found nothing exceeding background radiation.” 

Anyone presenting that kind of lame excuse for evidence in a real civil courtroom would be devoured by opposing counsel.  I can imagine the questions:

• Did the area you sampled involve sites that would be entrained in the actual dust cloud?
• Did you use alpha detection apparatus, or did your managers just drive down the gravel road—steering with one hand while holding a Geiger counter out the window?
• Did you calibrate the instrument? (probably not)
• Do you know that alpha emitters—known carcinogens—can have their radiation occluded by a layer of dust?
• Did you use alpha detectors to detect radioisotopes such as americium-241?
• Did you actually sample the soil expected to be converted to dust in the detonation?
• Did you perform a kriging analysis (a geospatial sampling procedure that purportedly accurately represents the conditions of the site as a whole)?  If not, why not?
• Did you analyze the soil in order to catalog the radioisotopes that are still active in the blast zone?  If not, why not?
• If you did analyze the soil, what are your limits of detection?  Are they appropriate given the levels of activity that are expected to be present?
• Several prior ammonium nitrate-fuel oil explosions have been detonated by your agency.  Can you tell us what altitude was attained by the debris clouds?
• Did these debris clouds leave the test site?
• Did you track them at all, and if so, by what means?
• How do you plan to track the debris cloud from shot Divine Strake? Airplanes?
• Are offsite monitors equipped to properly detected and identify individual radioisotopes from this test?  NOT just gross beta, gamma or alpha.
• Can you tell us which offsite monitoring stations (if any) are equipped with a means to immediately determine alpha values?
• Are you willing to identify the personnel who will perform the offsite analysis?

Actually the last one was an easy shot: the EPA has a monitoring network, but the last time I looked (2003) the sites only checked for gross beta and gamma and not alpha—and they mail the samples to the EPA Lab in Montgomery, Alabama—there were only 50 sites in the U.S.—and most were staffed by volunteers.

When I asked the EPA representative for an opportunity to interview one of the volunteers in the Iowa lab, she refused.   So much for quality control. 

This eventually led me to suggest to the Department of Homeland Security that a terrorist organization could detonate a 1 kg block of the alpha-emitter am-241 at 20,000 ft altitude over western Wyoming—contaminate thousands of square miles of U.S. soil—and completely escape detection by the EPA system.  Another story, another post, another time.

Bottom line I: If the government “experts” played by the rules of even the most rural southern jurist, then the truth might surface a tad faster.

Bottom line II:  I have nothing against the Defense Threat Nuclear Agency testing bunker busters at various sites around the United States.  That sort of thing comes with the job classification; and they’re doing it, ultimately, to protect us, the American people.  I have no quarrel with the good men and women of the Defense Threat Nuclear Agency.

What I do find offensive is if they try to avoid or suppress evidence that would shed light on the full known consequences of their actions—i.e. qualitative assurances where quantitative values are required. Or hand-waving (”Bechtel said it was fine.”)  Specious arguments (”no above ground testing at Area 16–so it’s safe.”)  No passing the buck to some subcontractor (protected by the Feres doctrine.)  Stuff that would bring on scathing venom from even the most inexperienced trial lawyer if it were presented by his opposing counsel’s expert. 

In other words, Divine Strake is the sort of thing that could impact real people in the real world—therefore it should be held to real world standards—and not some reporter who got his job on the environment beat because no one else wanted it.

In civil litigation the experts have to play fair and tell the truth, because if they don’t they will surely be called on it—and their client will have a greater chance of losing. 

The very same criteria should apply to the feds and their faux nukes—even those–like this one–that are turbocharged with a barnload of fertilizer and fuel oil.