EXCLUSIVE*****FREELANCE INVESTIGATIONS

EMPLOYEES FROM BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LAB EXPOSED TO UNKNOWN LEVELS OF RADIATION FROM 1947 to 1979...    Designated:  " Special Exposure Cohorts" Class

In response to a report released September 29, 2009,  Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has designated any employee who worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory from January 1, 1947 through December 31, 1979 to be part of a special class of employees known as the "Special Exposure Cohort Class" (SEC).

People in the class have purportedly been exposed to unknown levels of radiation also known as exposure to "hot" environmental circumstances on the job at BNL for decades.

In several identical letters,  dated December 10, 2009, sent to The President of the United States and majority and minority leaders of  Congress on both sides of the aisle,  Sebelius outlined the parameters for  adding these  class members to the SEC Class already established.

All employees of the Department of Energy, it's predecessor  agencies, and it's contractors and subcontractors who worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York from  

January 1, 1947 through December 31, 1979, for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either solely under this employment, or in a combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

In another letter from Paul L. Ziemer, Ph.D., Chairman of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, dated November 16, 2009, to Kathleen Sebelius, Dr. Ziemer had recommended that these workers be added to the class based on the following factors:

The Brookhaven National Laboratory site is a DOE (Dept. of Energy) covered facility from January 1, 1947 to present and serves as a facility involved with numerous radiological activities.

NIOSH  (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) found that though there is sufficient documentation that appropriate monitoring practices were conducted during the specified time period, historical data management and data retention practices prevent NIOSH from confirming the current  retrievability of the data necessary to estimate doses for the members of the defined class during the time period in question from January 1, 1947 through December 31, 1979.  The Board concurs with this conclusion.

NIOSH determined that health may have been endangered for the workers exposed to radiation at this facility during the time period in question.  The Board also concurs with this determination.

Based on these consideration the Board recommended that the Special Exposure Cohort petition be granted.

The original petition for consideration was submitted on behalf of all employees of the BNL facility on May 1, 2008.

Although the name of the original petitioner was redacted along with some other information, the box for spouse  was checked in the petition as relationship of petitioner to employee.  

The letter states that "My________ was involved in an incident during that time.________came home one day to tell me that a person inspecting the badges wanted to know where______had been because his badge was overexposed.

_______mentioned that during one of the experiments on the equiptment___maintained_________________________________

The warning light system indicating a radioactive area had been activated and_____was in the area repairing some malfunction.______also mentioned that the equiptment that ______was repairing was still "hot".

The incident was addressed specifically in the report with "available records showing that the claimant was constantly monitored for external radiation for the duration of his employ at BNL.  There are no gaps available in the monitoring record and the results were very low, usually below detection limits", according to the report.

The 120 page  SEC Evaluation Report discusses "hot" areas in a section titled DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED SCIENCE/NUCLEAR ENERGY. "The Target Processing Laboratory (also called the Hot Laboratory in 1993) officially opened on January 15, 1951, and is still in use today.  The original purpose of the central facility was to provide appropriately shielded areas for research with large amounts of radioactive material. The "hot" area of the laboratory included five hot cells, three chemical processing hot cells and three high level hot cells for handling and processing radioactivity in gaseous, liquid or solid form.", according to the report.


Based on the full research of the class under evaluation, all employees from 1947-1979, NIOSH has defined this single class of persons for which NIOSH cannot estimate radiation doses with sufficient accuracy, according to the report.


If it is not feasible to estimate with "sufficient accuracy" the levels of doses of radiations to these persons, then according to the NIOSH guidelines and rules, they must assume that any duration of unprotected exposure may have endangered the health of members of  the class when established that the class may have been exposed to high levels during a particular incident, or otherwise exposed during an aggregate of work days established at 250 days within the parameters of the SEC Class.  The report attempted to determine where radiation exposure to the workers at BNL may have occurred.


RESEARCH REACTORS


IN 1950 BNL began reactor operations with the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR), a research reactor "used for peaceful scientific exploration in the fields of medicine", according to the report.  In 1968, the BGRR was shut down because  the HIGH FLUX BEAM REACTOR (HFBR) developed in 1965 surpassed it in capacity.  In December, 1996 the HFBR was shut down.


PARTICLE ACCELERATORS

High energy particle research began in 1952 with the Cosmotron, the first particle physics accelerator to achieve billion-electron-volt-energies. The Cosmotron was followed in 1966 by the Alternating Gradient Synchotron (AGS), which was capable of accelerating protons at high speeds and is still in operation today.  Then between 1967 and 1970 to the present two more accelerators were introduced for medium energy physics and isotope production.  The Tandem Van de Graff began operating in 1970 and continues to the present. The Brookhaven LINAC Isotope Producer (BLIP) went on line in 1973, it was upgraded in 1996, in support of the Brookhaven Isotope Research Center (BIRC) program.  These accelerators work to provide a continuous beam of protons for radionuclide production for use in radiopharmaceutical development and production.  In 1982, the National Synchotron Light Source (NSLS) began operation. The NLSL guides charged particles into an orbit.  The radiation produced is used for VUV spectroscopy and for X-Ray diffraction studies.  Finally, in 1999 BNL unveiled its latest collider, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which is designed to recreate a state of matter that scientists believe existed moments after the universe was formed.  All of the preceding information was attributed in the report and also for purposes of this article,  to Lori Arent, Eugene Potter and Paul Ruhter all of M.H. Chew and Associates Inc. and their findings were peer reviewed.

Waste Management


When these research reactors and accelerators are in operation there is the intrinsic need for waste management by BNL.  According to the report, in late 1949 a Waste Disposal Group began monitoring the liquid waste discharges.  

The Waste Disposal Group operated an incinerator in 1949 and then added a hot laundry operation...They also conducted a temporary radioactive waste storage operation wherein highly activated or highly contaminated items were stored in trenches or buried containers until they could be disposed of properly.  The group also containerized the radioactive material into drums for sea disposal until the early 1960's when they switched over to concrete container vaults that were shipped to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) or West Valley for burial.

The report also mentioned that removal and disposal of "slurry or other waste liquid" by mixing it with concrete and placing it in the above-mentioned containers, either alone or as a means of encasing other radioactive items already in drums or vaults..." was common practice.  The same six individuals in the Waste Disposal Group worked from 1960 1966.


In 1971 the responsibility for reporting on monthly gaseous and liquid releases was taken from the Waste Disposal Group and given to the environmental group.  In 1997, a new Waste Management Facility was opened.


Some believe, classified D. O. E. experiments relating to fusion and fission projects from 1947 on- were most likely the cause of  the radioactive contamination at BNL.  According to information from the report, depleted and natural uranium compounds were commonly used in ton quantities at BNL.  Uranium in various enrichments, including highly-enriched, was used in critical assemblies and reactors. 

Approximately 110 tons of natural uranium fuel slugs were fabricated into aluminum-clad fuel rods by the BNL metallurgy group.  There were 28 reported ruptures of BGRR  fuel from 1950-1958 and one rupture of a uranium oxide sample that was being irradiated.  Leaking or spent fuel cell elements were moved to a pool-type underground canal where they were chopped up for shipping for off-site disposal.  Over 2414 fuel elements generated during a 12 year period were shipped from the canal.

Uranium was also used in critical assemblies for nuclear reactor research.  In 1957 a series of explosions of liquid bromine triflouride, uranium hexaflouride and uranium metal occurred in Building 801 at BNL.  One worker was seriously burned, several others were treated and released and approximately 50 pounds of natural, un-irradiated uranium were released into the atmosphere. (Volatility 1957)


In 1995, Depleted Uranium (DU) the product of a variety of BNL experiments was found to be present in eleven buildings at BNL in quantities ranging from a few grams to nearly 27,000 kilograms.


Research and development on Liquid Metal Fuel Reactors was in progress from 1957-1975 and Th-U-233 was used in the Fuel Rod Development Program.  Approximately 30 kg of U-233 was in the uranium-thorium mixture (Special Nuclear, 1963), according to the report and generally U-233 contains U-232 as an unavoidable contaminant. 


FISSION and ACTIVATION PRODUCTS


The reports concludes that Fission and activation products were present at BNL from the earliest days to the present. 


Some were intended products, but others the report states were produced as unintended by-products which were contaminants and that they also imported fission and activation products from other AEC/DOE facilities.  Many of the radioactive materials are know as "long-lived", meaning their radioactivity will not quickly diminish and in some cases may last for hundreds or thousands of years.


Other materials listed in the report such as Tritium, Thorium, Plutonium, Americium (a by-product of plutonium production and/or irradiation) and  Polonium were also used or were by-products of activities involving ionizing radiation which were cited in the report as regular products of activities at BNL.

Given the broad scope of BNL activities involving ionizing radiation, workers were potentially exposed to external photon, beta and/or neutron radiation from a variety of sources.

In fact,  nine major BNL incidents that might have a significant potential for internal and external exposure were listed on a chart contained in the report spanning the years 1952 through 1990.  In the 1990 incident at the HFBR Building 750,
which was the subject of a formal investigation, alarms sounded as workers began to enter and exit the facility.  The contamination had spread to two personal vehicles and low-level contamination was also found in two homes but was easily removed, according to the report.   A total of 108 residences were surveyed as a result of the incident and the 60 workers had whole body counts done and three were found to have low-level dispositions.  In 1999 the DOE  indicated the general public was not affected by this incident.


According to John Howard, Director of NIOSH, from a bulletin in the Federal Register, the Special Exposure Cohort Class designation was set to take effect on January 9, 2010 unless Congress provided otherwise.


Mona Rowe, spokesperson for BNL confirmed that the designation did take effect on that date and promised that Dr. Joseph Falco, who is the point person on the issue for BNL  and who has been sending letters to the employees regarding the SEC status would comment publicly in the near future regarding the issue.