ML19332C775

FOIA Request for Documents Re HHS or Predecessor Depts Response to 790328 Nuclear Accident at Tmi,Particulary J Califano Role During Accident

ML19332C775
Person / Time
Site:	Crane, 05000350
Issue date:	07/05/1989
From:	Dekok D AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:	HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES, DEPT. OF
References
FOIA-89-446 NUDOCS 8911280535
Download: ML19332C775 (3)

Text

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I David DeKok 113 Conoy Street IIarrisburg, Pa.17104

-July 5,1989 c_.

U.S. Dept. of liealth & lluman Services f,REEDOM 0F INFORMATION-lE y

i attn. Freedom of Information Unit ACT REQljEST 6~a rri

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200 Independence Ave., S.W.

Washington, D.C. 20201 g7 g

Der Sir or Madam, MN i

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I would like copies of '

all documents in the files of IIHS or predecessor departments pertaining to departmental response to the March 28.1979 nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pa. I am especially interested in documents that would show Secretary Joseph Califano's role during the accident.

Included in my request are allletters--both outgoing and incoming--reports, memorandums, telephone call logs or. memos, i

chronologies, and any post-event audits relating to the department's efforts to protect public health and safety during the accident. I have submitted a separate request to the FDA for its TMI documents.

If Mr. Califano has relevant personal papers from this period not accessible through the F0IA, I would be gratefulif you would indicate that and where I might contact him.

I would also like copies of any departmental plans that existed prior to the TMI accident for responding to nuclear accidents, and copies of any current plans and related documents developed afterward.

I am also asking for a public interest waiver of all search and copying fees. These documents will be used in a book I am writing about the TMI accident and its impact on the world, a book that I hope e91128o535 89U7 D

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will be the definitive history. These docum' ents will contribute significantly to public understanding of the most serious U.S. nuclear accident, to the role played by HHS during the accident, and whether the depertment was prepared for such an accident then and now..

To establish my professional credentials, I would call your attention to the enclosed review of my previous book. Unseen B.rnger which appeared in the Sunday book review section of The New York Ilgtqt on Jan 4,1987, If you have any questions, please contact me at (717) 234-5662, mornings.

Thank you for your kind assistance.

Sincerely.

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in C%r1ssie Kogut's home sn int o mxhtne momtors earton monostds emtssiorts from the underground mine id OU are surrwnded by all the trtmendows pe in centrona, Pa Photographs from *$1ow Sure forces of eksture, straintr>g agamst your ef.

wster ran Mt from the cold taucets. Roads were made fort to e stract this coal (1 you are m a con-By now, s!! ist about # of Centre!!a's SModd impassable by smc5 A ftthng stauon's sa.sotira tasas.

ttnual struggle. Nature N out to prote<t its houses have been raset More tha.a 9M people have resourtes and you are there, wre sthng the bowels out of been relocated at Govertueens exynw be a prtgrarn were pumped dry to keep thern favra evioding. And tn IMI the ground gen eay teneath a 12 ytarold boy, the thing, $o you are in cortstant danger in a coal mme

• that cost f ar more than the effon.s, now alorted, to fight who was swaDowed into the snine pit As he dargled Many urban Amertcarts may new the coat f'ekis of the fire in the IFTs. Relocatbn money wts wrung hem A;patachta a.s lethat and remote. De riska of mining Washirigton only thewth the prokmato agwry of grass.

from a handhold on a tret rcot, his rfd cap was sptted coal underground art ecl1 enough known Bat what roots polidcal actMsm, Arid ocer rennsylvania towns through the furnes and stearn. Itc vsa prAed ba went unsaid in the elquent testimony stove, given by a rnay be next hroc4hout the region, Mr. DeKok wrftes from hell Centr @.a was not Ustrig unpubtahed docuroenu obtained under the in tJnseen Danger,* *the pennal for new mine Ares Freekm of Information Act Mr. DeKok accuses offi-a inmer to a Congressional comm.ttee a generation ago

- er.d what thew angry bmka demonstrate arew that is as great u ever?

cfals of passir4 the tuk and of cynicalIrdirrerence to Coverntnant stdl finds ways to overbok - is Gat the in the 19Ws. when Centralta's houses tegan filnns the teople of Centrina Former secretary of the in-percs of the subterranean battle for coalbetween man with lethal fumes, the Intenor Dvartment sugptied terior James C. Watt is quoted as saybg in 1981, the and naturv extend upward to the surface.

monstors that detected them.The armserground mine 19th yeer of the Centratta mlne firt *There is not a ne United States Bureau of Mines repried la 1971 fire spreacL Some residents wert kroded unconscious threst to health and safety. [The fliel gxs kwn deegr, (and ha s said little on the subject since) that more than by the nos.fous gases that rose to tlw surface. WinJows 2 rn"!!!on people in 19 states - 8C percent of them in had to be kept open during the winter, and sucw melted the deeper it burns, the less risk there is to safety.

Pennsylvania - were suffering damage to health and on the steaming grourut In kitchens and bathroorns, Eventuany it will burn out*

But there are enough burtaucrack vtBains here to

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-- ' fin a Dkkens revel Mr. DeKok descrites Richdrd 1.

property from some 150 uncontrolled fires in aban-

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iG Thornburgh, the former Republ4sn Covernor of Perm-dom 4 underground coal mines and surf ace culm (conf sylvania, as teing ensive about the CentraDa firt. De vsste) banks, a number of whlch have teen burning for j**

Covermr's prednessors, Wilitam $ctantou ard MDton years "Particularty durms the first half of this cer*

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Shapp. shart the blame, the author says, abng with a

- tury," the bureau said then, coal mining was *actom-

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phshed without today's technological, social and envi-O.Jr

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clarly Mr. Scranton's Secretary of Mines and Mineral runrnentalinsight.* But as *tTn'seen Danger

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Burn" show, the bureau's self satisfied infererw a that k '. J things were gettmg better in the second half of the cen-

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tury wu premature pubhc relations.

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Progress Administration-style photographs by News. Item in Shamokin Pa., and Renet'Jacobs, a f ree-Renee Jacobs portrays with poignancy a Welsh, Lance photographer, provtde postrnortems on the slow ths'.

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4,3 1rtsh and Slavic Roman Catholic comrnunity as it death of the little Pennsylvania town of Centraha,123 4@ et F.

y once was. poised in stubborn bewilderment. Describtng miles nurthwest of phstadelphia. This village of 1,000 g

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the hundreds of deep bore holes, drilled during the

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years of futile efforts to track the course of the fire, ginn krmwn to miners as "the anthsacite" was smoked

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schoolyards and churthyards,in sidewalks and Lnter-Margaret O. Kirk, a frettance writer. In a brief intro-and chuked for 24 years by a runaway inferno tn the duction to the tak, writes that the test hotes - dug in absndoned mine tuimets beneat5 It. De fire's ortgin is

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e till officially a mystery, although M r. Dekok pomts out b

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&y' sections, and topped at ground level with man.Mgh thnt it may have been igmted when the town set fire to a T.. ~ : ' ; r..i '

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(.t smokestacks for the steam exhaust - seemed stuck in

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the ground *hke freshly lit cigarettes?

On Memordat Day. lS84. Drownie Trwp Na 175 passes What Nnseen Dang # and %w B d han to Ben A,1"ranklin, a correspondent in the Washmg*

ton bureau of ne New York Times whohas covered the a bore hote that vent s steam and snioAe from rAe Lell us is that smoking cual mines are dacterous to your O

q coalIndustry hi Appalachta,is writing a history of coat undergroundfire.

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