ML20211A262
| ML20211A262 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/06/1994 |
| From: | Funk D NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III) |
| To: | Borello C AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20210U181 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-98-341 NUDOCS 9908240009 | |
| Download: ML20211A262 (6) | |
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1 April 6, 1994 ;
I AMS NO. RIII-94-A-0026 3 ~
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Dear Ms. Borello:
i On February 22, 1994, during a telephone conversation with George McCann, Chief, Fuel Facilities & Decommissioning Section you provided the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with information regarding the possible dumping of uranium and other licensed materials at the Uniontown Landfill in Ohio.
An evaluation of these issues will be conducted which I anticipate will take a minimum of 120 days to complete. The review may include the participation of Uniontown Landfill to resolve the issues. However, any information provided will be done without identifying you as the source of our information and their response will be subject to our audit. I will inform you of the results upon completion of the reviews.
You also indicated that there may be untruths going on within EPA perta uing to this' site. Since this issue is not within the jurisdictional authority of the NRC the matter is being referred to the EPA Office of Inspector General for whatever action they may deem necessary.
Let me assure you that.every effort will be made to resolve your concerns.
The U.S. NRC is responsible for protecting the public in the uses of nuclear facilities and materials. We engage in major efforts on a daily basis to fulfill that responsibility.
Please write to me at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Illinois 60532-4351, or telephone me at (708) 829-9500 if you have any additional information or questions. Your cooperation with us is appreciated.
Sincerely, Original signeu di Donald Funk Donald E. Funk Jr.
Office Allegation Coordinator bec: G. M. McCann Information in this record was deleted in accordance with the Freedom of Information 9908240009 9908t7 M 7L PDR FOIA REED 98-341 PDR S N ,I -
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l T l Ohio EPA Director 4/30/94 l Mr. Donald Schregardus P.O. Box 1049 Watermark Dr.
Columbus, Ohio 43266-0149 l !
Dear Mr. Schregardus:
I am in receipt of your personal letter to me dated April 26th, and I would like to convey to you my shock at your very defensive and disparaging tone, taking me to task for documenting citizens' serious concerns about our current project manager at Uniontown IEL Superfund Site.
I must tell you that I feel extremely betrayed and " set up",
because I was told to do this by your own Assistant Director!
Infact, it was expressed that we should even put it in writing if we wanted' h " removed, but we declined to QT, do this, hoping that'our letters'of concern woula be enough to gain your attention on this matter. Grave concern was ,
expressed by OEPA Headquarters about exactly "Who put h .
in here," and they were also concerned by the fact that we .
were not getting enough answers about just why W made the .l I l
decision not to keep sampling the wells south and southwest that had shown high radiation readings in August of 1992, l sinc,e four seasonal rounds were supposed to have been i performed, (among other things), and the fact that residents remained vulnerable in these areas on a daily basis.
It appears by the tone of your letter to me that your staff is above reproach and can do no wrong. Instead of making a sincere attempt to listen to both sides and look at the facts, you seem to accept everything that they have told you as the final word and I do not find'their words especially objective or honest, (nor are their letters of response that you keep referring to in your letter). I find this to be a very sad state of affairs. Your predecessor, Dr. Rich Shank, was much more open to listening to citizens' concerns and made more than one trip up to Uniontown to personally talk to us. He valued our opinions and didn't readily dismiss us or criticize us for expressing valid concerns. To add insult to injury, you have sent your personal letter attacking me to top officials such as Carol Browner and, Val Adamkus, whom I DID NOT air CCLT'S' grievances to about'W 71n the two letters you refer to! This action was very disturbing, because you have now unfairly tainted me in your letter to these parties and they don't even know the details of what was in our two letters to you and Gerry Ioannides! ,
Information in this record was deleted Reedom ofinformation m
in accordance with wa d j
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,4 It appears to those observing this situation that you are trying to divert attention away from the true issues here at IEL,(which are technical and professional as it relates to judgement and decision-making and how these factors influence outcome} - by portraying our letters of concern as being
" personal, malicious and wholly unwarranted." Nhat you are then suggesting to us is that the actions and decisions of your staff are not to be held accountable and we, as taxpayers and stakeholders, are not allowed to question them, even if we sincerely believe the health and welfare of our community may be seriously compromised as a result. Then, if we dare to take issue with such actions and decisions, because we haven't gotten satisfactory answers, we ara ourselves attacked and our goals questioned, trivialized and even smeared. ,
Not only am I offended for the sake of all vocal victims of toxic waste in Ohio by this attitude, but I do also take this on a personal level, given my extensive work and with your agency in the past. Indeed, I spent countless hours, unpaid, helping your staff by providing anecdotal information as well as highly technical information. This was on a daily basis for many, years. At one point not too terribly long ago, but prior to(partner",
" equal h )duse of my extensive work with yourIwasreferredtobyanOEPAre bec people. (Many times I took alot of " heat" for them in TIC meetings, because as a citizen, I had the ability to verbalize concerns that we had jointly shared and we had previously discussed at length, whereas, OEPA reps were more reluctant because of political pressure - it's just the way things are and I accepted this role). It was at that time that your own staff shared such serious concern about what exactly was going on here at IEL concerning the high levels of radiation being thrown out by some parties in the state, that they encouraged me to go to the Senators for help, saying that they wanted to talk to the Senators' people. We 4 feared reprecussions for these OEPA whistleblowers, and tried I to protect them in our own way, by documenting the events, l but of course, any reprecussions have been since vehemently denied by your agency.
In_ our letter to me, you suggest pursuing our concerns about !
o the Ohio Highway Patrol or the IG. Wewill[pJC, take this u ,nder advisement and consider doing so. However, we still think that you should have been personally concerned and fair about our various complaints from citizens. For ,
the record, we stand by all of our previously written i
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M statements'of concern, which can be substantiated by eye witnesses, video tapes of meetings, transcripts,_ letters or just the simple review of the facts as they presented themselves regarding our project manager.
EAn additional example of a serious situation that you'have apparently chosen to ignore or dismiss would be regarding the million pico curies of Tritium radiation that was
" invalidated" by one of your former staff members in Columbus under very questionable circumstances. _You should have been very concerned, because the laboratory itself indicated that the QA/QC was fine, and yet your agency took it upon itself to throw this extremely high reading out that was found in a residential well. The importance of your staff's decision on this matter was critical and far reaching. But based on your letter criticizing me, we'take it that citizens shouldn't come to you about such' incidents, because-it would again be viewed-as "a personal. attack" and written off. This leads us to. wonder about what would' happen if one of your own staff had similar concerns about.one of their peers or fellow agencies... Would they feel free to tell you about their concerns, or would they feel a's I do rignt now?-
Please be-informed that I will continue to write about and expose potential wrong doing as president of.CCLT and on the behalf of our citizens whenever it is felt necessary, because we care deeply _about the residents of Uniontown and want to see justice for these people and I want to see children grow up' free from diseases like cancer. Your entire approach to this situation is unfortunate and very discouraging to our citizens, because the fate of my community is ultimately in the hands of the state, when the o & M is taken over. If you do not act in an open and forthcoming way with people now,.we will have no confidence in what your agency does here in the future in monitoring this site. I used to have very good feelings toward Ohio EPA and was very loyal, continually supporting'OEPA*S work here in Uniontown publicly, but no longer.
Sincerely,
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Christine Borello/ President concerned Citizens of Lake Twp IEL Superfund Site cc:
following page -
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Senator Metzenbaum Congressman.Dingell Congressman Sawyer Senator Glenn Governor Voinovich USEPA' Director,_ Carol Browner Region 5 Administrator,. Val Adamkus SAB, c/o Robert Flaak OEPA, Gerry Ioannides Rod Beals Jack VanKley, AGO Lee-Fisher, AG.
Robert Horowitz, Stark Prosecutor Henry Cole NRC Tom Grumbly, DOE- <
I Mick Harrison, esq. GAP Rick Sahli, OEC David Aultman, esq. -
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Steve Hindall, USGS l
'Dr. Barry Johnson, ATSDR 1
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CCLT Concerned Citizens of Lake Townshin P.O. Box 123 Uniontown. OH 44685 l
o Chris Borello erned Citizens of Lake Township, Stark County, Ohio "JB!BIEL"amit _ *[ux Information in this record was deleted j
in accordance witg freedom of lin' formation l Act, nem 1 FDik , .. ,s s, ;
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