FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, January 27, 1998
Contact: Michael Tebo
Phone: (202) 328-5019
Contact: Kate Probst
Phone: (202) 328-5061
RFF RESEARCHERS ASK "DOES ANYBODY CARE ABOUT CLEANING UP THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX?"
WASHINGTON, DC - Researchers in Resources for the Future's (RFF) Center for Risk Management have initiated a new project that has as its goal increasing public attention to the issues raised by the contamination and environmental risks left behind from decades of nuclear weapons production in the United States. The Center received grants for this project from two of the major philanthropic foundations that fund work in this area: the W. Alton Jones Foundation and The John Merck Fund.
"Although the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) annual budget for 'environmental management' (EM) activities is approximately $6 billion - a figure almost as large as the total annual budget of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and twice as large as total annual public and private Superfund program expenditures - the debate about the nation's environmental policy all but ignores the human health and environmental risks posed by the nuclear weapons complex," says Kate Probst, RFF senior fellow and director of the Center's nuclear weapons cleanup program. "Not only is there little attention paid to these important environmental concerns by the traditional environmental community, but there is a lack of independent evaluation of DOE's cleanup program generally."
The purpose of this new project, Probst says, is to make clear the importance of increased public scrutiny regarding EM operations in order to assure that more DOE dollars go to environmental cleanup. It also strives to ensure that the environmental management budget is not used as a cover for maintaining nuclear production capabilities, and that DOE is not a pork-barrel program protected by members of Congress in the five states that get 70 percent of DOE's environmental dollars.
"If the future of the nuclear weapons complex continues to be an issue only to those concerned with nonproliferation issues, and is not brought to the attention of a wider community, it will be impossible to enact the kind of fundamental changes that are needed to make the EM program worthy of the tax dollars invested in it," concludes Probst.
There are three major reasons why the cleanup of the nuclear weapons complex has garnered so little attention. First, the issues surrounding the weapons complex are difficult and complicated. Second, these problems are concentrated geographically and are virtually invisible to most of the public, as many of the weapons production sites were selected because of their remote location. Third, the economic benefits are large and, again, concentrated. Approximately 70 percent of DOE's environmental management budget goes to five sites, and, at many sites, DOE is a major local employer. While the federal EM workforce is relatively small, about 3,000 employees, most estimate the contractor workforce at 110,000. Thus, there is a tremendous incentive to preserve the status quo in order to assure local economic activities.
The project has two major components. The first is for researchers to develop an issue paper intended for a lay audience. They plan to outline the challenges of cleaning up the weapons complex, analyze the incentives of those involved in the cleanup of the complex, and make recommendations regarding fundamental changes to the current institutional structure within DOE for cleaning up the weapons complex to assure a more effective and transparent environmental management program. The second component of the project involves extensive outreach activities and dissemination of the issue paper. Because these issues are vitally important to those living near and working at the sites in the weapons complex, RFF researchers will need to build new networks with organizations concerned with these issues at individual DOE sites.
To facilitate dissemination of the Center's work, the issue paper will be distributed to a broad audience. RFF's home page on the internet will also be augmented to include a section devoted to issues related to the nuclear weapons complex. The special website will provide an easy way for people to obtain information on the Center's work in this area and will also provide a resource center for other relevant web sites.
BACKGROUND
The nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union resulted in a vast research, production, and testing network - the nuclear weapons complex. During half a century of operations, tens of thousands of nuclear warheads were manufactured and more than one thousand were detonated. At its peak, the complex consisted of 16 major sites, including vast reservations of land in Nevada, Idaho, Washington, and South Carolina; national laboratories in New Mexico and California; and other facilities in Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee where weapons components were produced.
In its drive to build large numbers of nuclear weapons, the U.S. government based its production decisions on expediency to ensure national security, with threats to health, safety and the environment accorded secondary importance. With the arms race over and weapons production severely curtailed, DOE is now focused on cleaning up over 100 sites across the country, many of which harbor widespread contamination of soil and groundwater resulting from mismanaged radioactive materials and toxic chemicals.
A recent DOE initiative ("Plan 2006") aims to accomplish much of the cleanup within 10 years, but many analysts project that this unprecedented task may ultimately require decades to complete at a projected cost to taxpayers of more than $200 billion, according to some estimates. In addition, it is quite clear that no matter what DOE does, many risks will remain at the sites in the weapons complex, even after "clean up" activities are complete.
ABOUT THE PROJECT'S FUNDERS
The W. Alton Jones Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation headquartered in Charlottesville, VA, that focuses on global environmental protection and the prevention of nuclear war or other massive release of radioactive material.
The John Merck Fund, headquartered in Boston, MA, makes grants in six program areas: developmental disabilities in children, for medical research on the underlying causes of development disabilities; environment, for work in New England and to address global problems of climate change and air pollution; disarmament, for promoting nonproliferation of nuclear weapons; population policy, for projects dedicated to support reproductive rights and improve access to quality reproductive health care in the United States; international human rights; and job opportunities, for job training and creation in the northeast United States. Funding from The John Merck Fund is for the outreach component of RFF's project.
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