------- Forwarded Message
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 13:12:22 -0500
From: pgz@ornl.gov (Patricia Greeson, Y-12 Public Affairs)
Subject: Nashville Scene -
Forwarded To: Y-12: ;

Following article appeared in the "Nashville Scene," an urban distribution weekly with a fairly high-income, well-educated readership.

After more than a year of investigation and 100 stories about environmental problems at Oak Ridge, "The Tennessean" hasn't yet found space to print last week's report from a panel of experts who found that--guess what?--the new toxic-waste incinerator that prompted the paper's investigation is safe after all.

The expert panel was appointed in May by Gov. Don Sundquist, who directed panel members to investigate "allegations in The Tennessean" that the DOE incinerator "was the cause" of unexplained illnesses among some DOE workers and community residents.

In a draft report released last Wednesday and reported in both "The Knoxville News-Sentinel" and "The Oak Ridger," the panel said it had been unable "to establish any direct cause and effect relationship" between the incinerator and the illnesses at Oak Ridge, that the incinerator was performing well within federal safety standards, and that it should "continue to be operated."

"The Tennessean" has reported that many of the sick workers "blamed their ailments primarily" on the incinerator. But the panel noted, "to our surprise," that the sick workers "who presented their information to us did not blame their illnesses on the incinerator."

While recognizing that there are sick people in the area who want and need medical care, the panel said it found "no specific causes for the illnesses" and recommended that, in the future, government money would be better spent "on providing relief" to those workers "and not on more studies such as ours."

"The Tennessean" wrote in August that "Tennessee shouldn't sleep until it has some solid answers" to the problems at Oak Ridge. After reporting at length on so many of the panel's public meetings, it is almost beyond belief that the paper missed, by at least a week, the news of the panel's findings. Perhaps it's time to wake the newsroom.

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Patricia Greeson, manager Y-12 Public Affairs
pgz@ornl.gov phone 576-4220;
fax 574-9127
pager 873-7167