Letter Sent To News 12 Employees Working in Bethpage...Warns of Risk of Radioactivity in Water...

In a letter addressed to all employees of News 12 and faxed to them January 11, 2014 from  Dr. Carmine Vasile, a former Grumman employee who has been diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning among other serious environmentally related health issues, Dr. Vasile warns them of a health risk they may also face.

FAX to All NEWS12 Employees based in Bethpage (1/11/14)

You are all at risk from radioactive gases produced by Uranium & Thorium used by Grumman on secret, nuclear projects with Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). Radium-226/228 is found tap water supplies for Bethpage, Calverton, Hempstead, Manorville, Riverhead, Moriches, etc. --- yet, only the Suffolk County Water Authority tests for total Radon; the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. No NYS water company tests for Radon's 39 isotopes or their dozens of decay product that plate lung with cancer-causing isotopes of Lead, Polonium, Bismuth, etc. Contrary to what the panel of experts said at NEWS12's Town Hall Meeting discussing "What's in The Water", if you check water quality & supplemental well reports linked to www.scwa,com  you will find evidence proving more than one of NEWS12's "experts" lied and better understand why Long Island is the cancer capitol of America and why the attached reports excluded known causes of cancer -- radioactive isotopes Grumman routinely dumped in its on-site landfills.  

Yours truly,
Dr, Carmine F. Vasile,
Former Grumman Inventor-of-the-Year 1992 (Ph.D in Electrophysics) 

Dr. Vasile responded to the letter from Susan Kelly from the NYS Department of Health that was her response to his FOI request.  Dr. Vasile said the report that Ms. Kelly refers to does not adequately answer his questions.   The full report is available on line at the Department of Health website. (Human Health Risk Assessment by ARCADIS U.S.)

The letter in reply to Dr. Vasile's FOI request:

Nirav R. Shah, M.D., M.P.H. HEALTH Sue Kelly
Commissioner Executive Deputy Commissioner
January 3, 2014
Carmine F. Vasile
60 Herbert Circle
Patchogue, NY 11772
FOIL #: 13-12-168 

Dear Dr. Vasile:
This letter responds to your Freedom of Information Law request of 12/11/2013, in which
you requested records regarding "copies of Health Assessments for the NWIRPs @ Calverton & Bethpage.  If they exclude health assessments for radionuclides in their NTNC water systems, please add them." I have enclosed documents responsive to your request.
Should you feel that you have been unlawfully denied access to records, you may appeal
such denial in writing within 30 days to the Records Access Appeals Officer, Division of Legal Affairs, Empire State Plaza, 2438 Corning Tower, Albany, New York, 12237-0026.
If you require additional information or wish to discuss this matter further, please do not
hesitate to contact me at (518) 474-8734. 

EAS/ro
HEALTH.NY.GOV
facebook.com/NYSDOH
twitter.com/HealthNYGov

(NWIRP: Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant)

Dr. Vasile  said "The attached FOIL reply from the NYSDOH  is non-responsive. It's 79-page Human Health Risk Assessment by ARCADIS U.S., pursuant to Section II of the July 4, 2005 Administrative Order on Consent (AOC) issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) (2005) is a fraud -- as is its 27-page Bethpage Cancer study, because they do not include the Calverton NWIRP or any risk assessments of radionuclides in Grumman's contaminated NTNC (Non-Community, Non-Transient) water systems in either Bethpage or Calverton. The only radionuclides the NYSDEC seems to care about is Cs-137 in deer shot near BNL.

Then Dr. Vasile points the News 12 employees to an article from 2002 first printed in the New York Times:

Brookhaven Deer Shows High Radiation
By Valerie Cotsalas
Published: February 24, 2002
"A deer believed killed by a vehicle on the William Floyd Parkway in January was found to be contaminated with the radioactive isotope cesium-137 at twice the highest levels ever seen at Brookhaven National Laboratory, lab authorities reported last week.
The contamination level in the doe, found on Jan. 9, was 21 picocuries per gram. The highest reading for a deer found on lab grounds before that date was 11 picocuries in 1996.
The discovery, announced in a public meeting at the lab on Feb. 14, raised concern among lab officials and environmental watchdogs. ''They have to figure out where it's coming from and that's the most important issue,'' said Scott Cullen, a lawyer for Standing for Truth About Radiation, an East End environmental group.
Scientists said the deer may have jumped a seven-foot barbed-wire fence and grazed in an enclosed hazardous waste site on the 5,265-acre Brookhaven Laboratory campus. The area's soil was contaminated in the 1950's by water from cleaning operations at the lab's graphite research reactor, which has been shut down for decades. The deer might also have slipped through a gap in the gate's fence, said Timothy Green, a zoologist and the natural resource manager at the lab."

In a letter response to Dr. Vasile's  June 30, 2012  letter and HA-Petition regarding "groundwater plumes originating from the Grumman facilities in Bethpage, Great River, and Calverton, New York." acting ATSDR Director Tina Forrester responded in part:

"In regards to your concern that the Grumman facilities have been affected by radioactive fallout from BNL, please know that ATSDR has previously evaluated the available sampling data for BNL. That evaluation considered the community's exposure to radioactive releases to the air (not the water) and concluded that the past releases are not expected to harm human health." (parenthesis and highlight added)

The letter did not respond to the question of releases in the ground or water and tests of the water were not part of the ATSDR study.

A call to Tina Forrester was responded to by Susan Neurath, who sent the questions to Public Information Office...they had not responded at time of publication.

Dr. Vasile has been trying for years to get the water tested for levels of radioactivity.  Radioactivity is colorless, tasteless and odorless.  New York State does not test any water for radioactivity, according to Dr. Vasile, who worked at Grumman for many years and was Grumman Inventor of the Year in 1992.

                                                      Huntington Connection?

William Perks, a former Huntington Harbormaster and Hazardous Materials Coordinator for the Town of Huntington says sources revealed Brookhaven National Laboratory regularly sent waste to be burned in the Ogden Martin (now Covanta) facility in Huntington at 99 Town Line Road and waste oil to be burned in the Northport power plant.  Then the fly ash was used to cap the local landfills.  He claims when he tried to alert officials the newly installed radiation detector was consistently going off at the waste-to energy facility and the workers had no protective gear, they retaliated against him and simply raised the background levels on the radiation detector so high that many radioactive events would not set off the alarm.  Then the Town began to spend tens of thousands of dollars per month to legally dispose of the radioactive waste that formally they had been burning undetected in violation of their permit.

At the time there were four incinerators on Long Island burning garbage and Huntington was the only one without a radiation detector for ten years, a fact that most probably did not go unnoticed by disreputable carters who could burn radiated waste for free.

Mr. Perks filed complaints with the New York State Labor Department that resulted in sanctions against the Town for failure to have an emergency response plan as required by New York State law.  Mr. Perks said the most disturbing facet of this was that at no time were the Fire Departments or the Police or any other Town employees notified with regard to the numerous incidents and accidents concerning the burning of radioactive waste.  That was back in the late 1990's and the Town of Huntington has hired attorneys and resisted releasing documents to the New York State Attorney General's office for over fourteen years in direct violation of the Right-to-Know laws of New York State,  according to Mr. Perks.

Examination of legal bills from the Town of Huntington show attorneys were researching Right-To-Know laws with regard to the Perks complaints.

New York State has five separate agencies that have responsibilities to handle radioactive events:

The New York State DEC:  No summonses were ever issued, no punitive action ever taken.

The New York State Health Department:  No summonses issued, no action taken.

The New York City Health Department:  No action taken.

The New York State Department of Transportation:  Regulates truck commerce and radiated waste traveling on highways...a permit is necessary to transport any radioactive material and for years this waste was moving on the Island without permits, regulation or monitoring.  No fines were ever levied.

(PESH) The New York State Labor Department:  Public Employees Safety and Health, did not do anything regarding the radiation over a ten year period.

    THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW.........

The permit issued by the DEC for the burning of garbage at Covanta strictly prohibits the burning of any kind of radiated waste including medical waste.  The Suffolk County Environmental Crimes Unit at the District Attorney's office also was notified by Mr. Perks about the trucks with radioactive waste arriving at the  Ogden Martin (now Covanta) facility from Gershow for burning.  Officials at the DA's office did not even bother to respond to Mr. Perks' warnings and took no action to stop the radiated waste from traveling on Long Island roads, according to Mr. Perks.  Even when he brought a witness to the burning of the radiated scrap to Manhattan to speak to the Attorney General, C. Michael Higgins, he took no statements for the record and requested no affidavit of the witnesses.

Mr. Perks then went to the FBI environmental crimes unit and the agent came twice to Mr. Perks' home.  The first time he heard the complaint, when he returned he said to Mr. Perks "I am only one guy."  Mr. Perks was shocked that only one agent handled all environmental crimes in the whole tri-state area, especially since at the same time dozens of agents were sent to the home Elian Gonzales down in Florida, a Cuban refugee, threatened with deportation.  Why were there agents available for that and only one man assigned for the whole tri-state region, for environmental crimes, Mr. Perks asked.

The radiated waste smoke went into the air, the ash was transported to the landfills in Babylon, Brookhaven and Islip.  The grizzly or radiated scrap metal went to Gershow Recycling in Medford, through residential streets where people walked and with children playing outside.

Children are at a higher risk of exposure and the most vulnerable to contamination by radioactive materials while they grow.  Gershow finally installed a radiation detector after an Ohio foundry sued them for radiating their entire foundry--including the crucible.  Then the loads of radiated scrap (Grizzly) were clearly identified as only coming from Huntington and so were sent back to the Ogden Martin facility (now Covanta) without any notification to anyone.  They just turned the trucks around and sent them back on the same roads they had come from exposing the public to re-contamination again.  It was then re-introduced into the incinerator and burned over and over and over again, according to sources.  Documents with the bills of lading and proof of transport of at least 22 truckloads  containing tons of the radiated scrap were obtained by Freelance Investigations.

Eventually, the DEC sent Covanta and Huntington a letter saying they were not supposed to do this.

When Mr. Perks questioned the DEC as to why there was no radiation detector for so long at Ogden Martin, he was told the law strictly prohibits the burning of radioactive waste, but there was no legal requirement forcing the Town to install a radiation detector, (which is a relatively inexpensive monitoring device).  Since radiation is colorless, tasteless and odorless, Mr. Perks asked the DEC if they were just trusting the garbage cartels to be the good guys and do the right thing.  The two inspectors from the DEC that were assigned to the Ogden Martin facility admitted to Mr. Perks they had absolutely no knowledge or training in the field of radiation or radioactive waste, unlike Mr. Perks, who was clearly certified in emergency Haz-Mat response.

Complaints to then Governor Pataki's office were met with the response "You can't prove anything." by New York State Inspector and Special Investigator, Officer Lipinsky.  Mr. Perks said Mr. Lipinsky refused to look at any of the documents he had available for him to view to prove his contentions.  Mr. Lipinsky kept asking Mr. Perks if he was taping him and Mr. Perks told him several times he was not. The one page report from Officer Lipinsky said only "complaint unfounded."

Efforts to communicate with Eliot Spitzer, the State Attorney General at the time, caused the Town of Huntington to hire attorneys to prevent documents from being released.  C. Michael Higgins assigned to the case from the State Attorney General's Office told Mr. Perks after an exchange of correspondence regarding the matter, "You can take solace that they (the Town) are doing the right thing now."  No fines were ever levied against the Town and Mr. Perks was characterized as a "disgruntled employee".

Mr. Perks said in a recent interview, "The DEC will be all over a fisherman whose striped bass is a quarter inch short or two days out of season resulting in heavy fines, confiscation and a court appearance, yet Huntington Town burned huge quantities of radioactive waste over a decade in violation of their permit and Right-To-Know laws and nothing was done to them even as they kept it all a dirty secret from the public."

The Town may be on the hook for millions in legal fees if their appeal of the attorney's fees award to Mr. Perks' attorney, Ed Yule, is lost.  They have already spent millions in legal fees in court cases started by former Town Councilwoman Susan Scarpati-Reilly against various Town Attorneys, Councilpersons and Town employees and continue to do so to the present day.  Mr. Perks says he was personally destroyed through legal machinations that still continue, in order to destroy his credibility.  "No one wants Long Island to be known as the next "Love Canal", but people have a right to know why so many people are getting sick with deadly cancers." Mr. Perks said.  "The politicians are worried about property values and votes. It is about people's health and the health of their family members, not politics."

Hundreds of tons of radioactive grizzly or scrap metal was returned to Ogden Martin.  This occurred from 1990 until 2002...for those who claim this is old news consider the half-life of some of the radionuclides are tens of thousands of years and they are sitting right over the water table in landfills.

An independent investigation is called for according to both Dr. Vasile and Mr. Perks including a public health assessment of the water quality and a poll of the cancer cases of those down wind of the Ogden Martin (Covanta) facility and along the truck routes that the radiated waste travelled.

                               Calverton and Bethpage..........

The Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant at Calverton (NWIRP) was a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) facility which had the mission of designing, fabricating, and testing prototype aircraft from 1956 until 1996.  It was located in Riverhead, New York.

In 1956 the United States Navy purchased about 6,000 acres on the Peconic River by New York Route 25 for the facility. Among the properties purchased was a mansion belonging to the grandson of F.W. Woolworth.  The Navy was to build among other things a 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runway. It is labeled on topographic maps as Grumman Peconic River Airport.

The E-2 Hawkeye, the EA-6B Prowler and the more well known F-14 Tomcat were just a few of the aircraft assembled, retrofitted and tested at the facility.  Marine corps and older Navy aircraft were also tested there including the F9F Panther, F-9 Cougar and the F-11 Tiger.

The Grumman Bethpage site consisted of "Plant Six," where final assembly of F-14s, A-6s, EA-6Bs, and E-2Cs took place, and "Plant Seven," for Flight Test.

During the "Space Race",  Grumman built a mock up of the lunar surface to test its proposed Lunar Roving Vehicle.  Many of the lunar astronauts were said to have visited the plant back then.

In 1965, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller proposed converting the airport into the fourth New York City metropolitan airport joining Laguardia Airport, John F. Kennedy Airport and Newark Airport. The proposal was abandoned following opposition from both Grumman and local residents.

Grumman merged with Northrop Corporation in 1994, forming Northrop Grumman Corporation and the new firm eliminated almost all operations on Long Island. Grumman vacated the site on February 14, 1996.  The airport has since been developed into Calverton Executive Airpark.

References:

Airport information for Calverton Executive Airpark (IATA:CTO, FAA:3C8) at Great Circle Mapper.
FAA Airport Master Record for 3C8 (Form 5010 PDF), effective 2007-10-25
TopoZone.com map. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
Grumman Memorial Park
Shaman, Diana (February 25, 1996). "Planners Ponder 2,900-Acre Northrop Grumman Site". The New York Times.  Retrieved 2009-08-02.

The Radionuclides Rule for Drinking Water

The following information is taken directly from the EPA/US website:

In 2000, EPA revised the radionuclides regulation, which had been in effect since 1977.  The revisions required new monitoring provisions to ensure that all customers of community water systems will receive water that meets the Maximum Contaminant Levels for radionuclides in drinking water.  EPA also issued a standard for uranium, as required by the 1986 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. The current standards are: combined radium 226/228 of 5 pCi/L; a gross alpha standard for all alphas of 15 pCi/L (not including radon and uranium); a combined standard of 4 mrem/year for beta emitters. The new MCL for uranium is 30 µg/L.

What health effects are associated with exposure to radionuclides from drinking water?


Exposure to radionuclides from drinking water results in the increased risk of cancer. The radioactive particles (alpha, beta and gamma particles) emitted by radionuclides are called "ionizing radiation" because they ionize ("destabilize") nearby atoms as they travel through a cell or other material. In living tissue, this ionization process can damage chromosomes or other parts of the cell. This cellular damage can lead to the death of the cell or to unnatural reproduction of the cell. When a cell reproduces uncontrollably, it becomes a cancer. Certain elements accumulate in specific organs: radium (like calcium) accumulates in the bones and iodine accumulates in the thyroid.
For uranium, we must consider not only the carcinogenic health effects from its radioactive decay and the decay of its daughter products ("radiotoxicity"), but also damage to the kidneys from exposure to the uranium itself ("chemical toxicity"). Exposure to elevated uranium levels in drinking water has been shown to lead to changes in kidney function that are indicators of potential future kidney failure.


 What are the sources of radionuclides in water?

Most drinking water sources have very low levels of radioactive contaminants ("radionuclides"), levels low enough not to be considered a public health concern. Of the radionuclides that have been observed to occur in drinking water sources, most are naturally occurring. However, contamination of drinking water sources by anthropogenic ("human-made") nuclear materials also occurs. Naturally occurring radionuclides are found in the Earth's crust and are created in the upper atmosphere. For example, trace amounts of long-lived isotopes (e.g., uranium-238, which has a half-life of almost five billion years) have been present in earth's crust since the crust first formed. As these long-lived trace radionuclides decay, shorter-lived ("more radioactive") daughter products are formed. Of particular concern are naturally occurring uranium and the naturally occurring radium isotopes, radium-226 and radium-228, which have been observed to accumulate to levels of concern in drinking water sources.

An email to News 12 for comment on the Fax to their employees was not responded to at time of publication.

County Executive Steve Bellone posted this on his FaceBook Page on January 29th.


Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone As with all emerging contaminants, SCDHS is concerned with potential radionuclide contamination, and remains proactive in investigating potential sources. In fact, the SCDHS has the only certified radiological laboratory on Long Island.

To date, the SCDHS has not confirmed any significant concentrations of radionuclides in public water supply wells in Suffolk County. With respect to your specific questions, radon levels are naturally low on Long Island compared with background levels in other areas of the country, tritium levels have been well under drinking water standards, and there have been no confirmed significant detections of lead-210 (which is a naturally occurring radionuclide for which there is currently no drinking water standard).

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services, Office of Water Resources currently tests all community water supply wells for radionuclides every 3 years, except that Suffolk County Water Authority wells closest to Brookhaven National Laboratory are sampled every year as a precaution. In addition, there is also a monitoring well network upgradient of the Suffolk County Water Authority Wells that are frequently sampled by Suffolk County Department of Health Services staff, Suffolk County Water Authority and Brookhaven National Laboratory. This sampling exceeds the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The NYSDOH, the USEPA, and the SCDHS have previously reviewed the Suffolk County Water Authority’s Annual Water Quality Report supplements that included detections of Lead-210. However, these detections were determined to be likely false positives, and subsequent resampling by SCWA in 2013 did not identify any detections. The standard error, also known as uncertainty, for nearly all of the historical detections were close to or more than the actual measurements reported by Suffolk County Water Authority’s contract laboratory. The Suffolk County Water Authority has investigated the high uncertainties and they were informed by their contract laboratory that the results were an anomaly of the analysis.

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas produced from the breakdown of radium which may be present in certain soil and rock geological formations. Studies conducted by the USEPA reveal that radon is a natural constituent of most groundwaters. Based on historical monitoring and research, it has been determined that the radon levels detected in Suffolk County water resources were below the natural background level found in other areas of the country. At present, there is no enforceable drinking water standard for radon; however, please note that our staff in the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, Office of Water Resources routinely collect samples for gross alpha, gross beta and tritium analyses. The gross alpha analysis would identify the presence of radon’s parent compound, Radium-226, which is an alpha emitter and regulated under the USEPA Radionuclide Rule; gross alpha results in public water supplies in Suffolk have never approached drinking water standards.

Finally, in response to your inquiry on the BNL sewage treatment plant, the NYSDEC has determined that the relocation of the outfall to groundwater will have beneficial effects on the Peconic River. Our evaluation of the proposed discharge, using best available modeling and assessment tools, shows that the outfall will not be near the contributing areas to any public supply wells, and the discharge is not expected to impact public water supplies.