PRESS RELEASE
Cory Harden
PO Box 10265, Hilo, Hawai’i 96721
808-968-8965 mh@interpac.net
For immediate release
January 8, 2010, Hilo, Hawai’i
Attachment:
Memorandum and Order, January 7, 2010, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
DEPLETED URANIUM PROCEEDING, JANUARY 13, HILO, HAWAI’I
A legal proceeding on an Army application for a depleted uranium (DU) license will be held Wednesday, January 13, from 9 AM to about 3 PM, by videoconference between Hilo, Hawai’i and Rockville, Maryland.
The proceeding is oral argument on standing and contention admissibility before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding hearing requests by four petitioners: Jim Albertini of Malu Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action, Cory Harden, and Isaac Harp, all from Hawai’i Island, and Luwella Leonardi of O’ahu.
The Army denied having DU in Hawai’i until 2006, when citizen groups obtained information from Army e-mails, then announced the Army found DU spotting rounds the previous year at Schofield Barracks on the island of O’ahu. The spotting rounds were from a classified Davy Crockett weapon system used in the 1960s. The Army acknowledged the find, and later also found spotting rounds at Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) on Hawai‘i Island. The rounds were also distributed to twelve other states and three foreign countries in the 1960s. There were about 75,000 rounds, each about eight inches long and containing about six and a half ounces of DU alloy.
“It’s unclear whether the Army didn’t know, or didn’t tell, that it had DU in Hawai’i,” says Harden. “But it is clear that information about military hazards in Hawai’i is unreliable.”
Albertini and Harden say that Army searches, reports, and air monitoring plans for DU at PTA are inadequate, so airborne DU from live-fire and dummy bombs impacting undiscovered spotting rounds may go undetected. The same concerns have been expressed by a geologist, a consultant to Los Alamos National Laboratory, and a former Army doctor who is a consultant to the World Health Organization, all from Hawai‘i.
Albertini and Harden call for a search of classified and unclassified records by all military forces in Hawai’i for other forgotten radioactive hazards. Harden asks why an Army report cites a 1996 document about a Davy Crockett DU spotting round at Schofield, when the first find was supposedly in 2005.
Albertini says reports of animal tumors around PTA should be investigated, and says the Army has ignored Hawai‘i County Council resolutions concerning DU.
Albertini and Harp say the Army has not fully disclosed the extent of its DU use in Hawai’i. Harp says there are high cancer rates around PTA, says the Army has violated Federal law, and calls for removal of DU munitions and waste from Hawai’i.
Leonardi says the Army excavated contaminated soil at Schofield, then transported and deposited it near her home, impacting health in her community.
Due to the limited size of the videoconference room at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, the public may not attend. However the proceeding will appear via live webcast at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=65044. The webstream will be available for viewing for up to 90 days, and a transcript of the hearing will be posted on the ADAMS system on the NRC website.
A decision on the proceeding is anticipated in February.
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