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antoine-roquentin · 6 years ago

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For nearly two decades at the Grand Canyon, tourists, employees, and children on tours passed by three paint buckets stored in the National Park's museum collection building, unaware that they were being exposed to radiation.

Although federal officials learned last year that the five-gallon containers were brimming with uranium ore, then removed the radioactive specimens, the park's safety director alleges nothing was done to warn park workers or the public that they might have been exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.

In a rogue email sent to all Park Service employees on Feb. 4, Elston "Swede" Stephenson — the safety, health and wellness manager — described the alleged cover-up as "a top management failure" and warned of possible health consequences.

"If you were in the Museum Collections Building (2C) between the year 2000 and June 18, 2018, you were 'exposed' to uranium by OSHA's definition," Stephenson wrote. "The radiation readings, at first blush, exceeds (sic) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safe limits. … Identifying who was exposed, and your exposure level, gets tricky and is our next important task."

In a Feb. 11 email to Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall, Stephenson said he had repeatedly asked National Park executives to inform the public, only to get stonewalled.

"Respectfully, it was not only immoral not to let Our People know," he added, "but I could not longer risk my (health and safety) certification by letting this go any longer."

According to Stephenson, the uranium specimens had been in a basement at park headquarters for decades, and were moved to the museum building when it opened, around 2000.

One of the buckets was so full that its lid would not close.

Stephenson said the containers were stored next to a taxidermy exhibit, where children on tours sometimes stopped for presentations, sitting next to uranium for 30 minutes or more. By his calculation, those children could have received radiation dosages in excess of federal safety standards within three seconds, and adults could have suffered dangerous exposure in less than a half-minute....

Stephenson said the uranium threat was discovered in March 2018 by the teenage son of a park employee who happened to be a Geiger counter enthusiast, and brought a device to the museum collection room.

Workers immediately moved the buckets to another location in the building, he said, but nothing else was done.

A few months later, Stephenson said, he was assisting with a safety audit when employees told him about the uranium. As a former Army helicopter pilot who later worked as a safety manager in the Navy, Stephenson said he knew it was "bad mojo" and instantly called a National Parks specialist in Colorado.

Stephenson said specialists apparently had no Geiger counter, so they drove to Utah to pick up a Ludlum meter, which also measures radiation output.

The technicians reached the Grand Canyon several days after his call, on June 18. Lacking protective clothing, they purchased dish-washing and gardening gloves, then used a broken mop handle to lift the buckets into a truck, Stephenson said.

Those details are corroborated by photographs Stephenson included in a 45-page slideshow created to document the radiation exposure and alleged cover-up.

Stephenson said technicians concealed the radiation readings from him and dumped the ore into Orphan Mine, an old uranium dig that is considered a potential Superfund site below the Rim, about two miles from Grand Canyon Village....

Stephenson, a military veteran who is certified as an occupational safety and health technician, was in a similar controversy during his time in the Navy. According to court records, he began calling for action to prevent falls after a series of accidents in 2016.

As complaints escalated, Stephenson was fired. He turned to the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that protects whistleblowers, and his termination was stayed. It is unclear how that case was resolved, but within months, Stephenson had a new job with the National Park Service.

Stephenson said the uranium exposure saga developed while he was pursuing a racial-discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity office. Stephenson is African-American.

He said high-level officials in the Park Service developed a "secrecy pact" to conceal radiation exposure data despite his insistence that a "Right to Know" law mandates public disclosure.

"My first interest is the safety of the workers and the people," he added.

Stephenson eventually obtained a report submitted by the Park Service's regional safety manager, confirming the area was "positive for radioactivity above background" and showing high levels near the taxidermy area.

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dhagglund20ahsgov-blog · 5 years ago

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Executive Action Assessment of Issue

1) Trump believes that America’s energy revolution has produced affordable, reliable energy which means that our planet is no longer in need/ running out of energy. Also, he believes that we are dropping carbon emissions to their lowest level in 25 years. He believes a balance in economic growth and environmental protection must be met in order to encourage innovation and prosperity. Lastly, Trump states that a strong economy means a healthy environment.

2) I strongly disagree with this statement and belief. I think that a strong economy could benefit our environment by using that money to go towards eco-friendly products, but it could also be bad. With a strong economy, people could consume more and use more waste which ends up hurting the environment. Also, Trump states that our carbon emissions are very low which is also false. Our carbon emissions are extremely high and will continue to climb unless we do something to prevent it.

1) The Department of the Interior manages my issue.

2) The Cabinet’s mission statement is: The Department of the Interior (DOI) conserves and manages the Nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage for the benefit and enjoyment of the American people, provides scientific and other information about natural resources and natural hazards to address societal challenges and create opportunities for the American people, and honors the Nation’s trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island communities to help them prosper. This relates to my issue on oceanic health and preservation as it relates to environmental conservation efforts which strongly regards to the ocean. Environmental conservation is a large effort regarding several parts of the environment including the ocean.

3) The secretary of the department is David Bernhardt. He is the 53rd Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Bernhardt is an avid hunter and angler. His expertise ranges from the Endangered Species Act to Outer-Continental leases, from mining royalties to Indian Affairs. He was raised in Rifle, Colorado and earned a B.A. He is married to Gena Bernhard and has two children. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is professionally qualified to lead this department because from 2001 to 2009, he held several positions within the Department of the Interior. Also, he served then-Secretary Norton as a deputy solicitor, deputy chief of staff and counselor to the Secretary, and as director of Congressional and Legislative Affairs and counselor to the Secretary before that. Since he is apart of the Republican Party and therefore apart of Trump’s political party, I think much less action will be taken in support of this department. Although he is an avid participator in the environment, I think steps towards preserving it will be much slower. Ultimately, this pushes my issue back further in time which it cannot afford since time is what is killing it.

4) I think the pollution issue and the going green service responds to my issue the best. The pollution issues page directly gives the Environmental Laws and Regulations related to pollution along with a link to report environmental emergencies and violations. On this page, there are several options to read about the environment. Specifics such as air pollutants, clean water, wildlife, pesticides, etc are explained through both laws and regulations stated. On the Going Green service page, there are two options for finding energy efficiency resources and also energy tax incentives. Under the resources, there are options to choose either at home or at work which is beneficial to many people trying to make a big difference in many places.

5) Overall, President Trump is not doing much to help the environmental issue. It seems as if he is almost ignoring it, hoping it will go away, as I saw online that he took the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement. I am not satisfied with the efforts of our executive branch to help the issue of the environment. Like I said before, by taking us out of beneficial programs President Obama put the US into, the problem will not disappear, it will just get worse. Additionally, by repealing from this agreement, Trump is acting like climate change and environmental health are no longer a problem. This problem has not gone away and is not close to being solved as the issue has just recently begun to spiral into action. This department is definitely one President Trump wants to cut funding on as he believes that the environment is recovering since our carbon emissions are decreasing, which is false and harmful to our world if the president believes this. I think cutting funding would do the exact opposite of resolving the issue. We need all the funding we can get to protect our planet and to come up with solutions to these issues. Ultimately, decreasing funding would leave our country with no money to take action against the declining health of our environment.

Article: Trump Administration Makes It Easier to Dredge Protected Areas to Restore Beaches

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/climate/trump-beaches-sand-protected-areas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

S- The subject of this article is that the Trump administration changed a policy allowing coastal communities to take sand from protected ecosystems to improve their beaches. Ultimately, this new policy change allows wealthy communities to harm coastal ecosystems in order to replenish their beachfront. This could destroy important habitats and poses as a threat to coastal zones.

A- The author of this article is Christopher Flavelle. The article is from the New York Times which is a fairly reliable source. Flavelle’s main articles focus on climate adaptation, so that makes him reliable for this article. Politically, this article is neutral as it states both Trump’s side and the other side.

C- This source was produced on November 7, 2019. Since is is so current and up to date, the information is reliable and recent. The information stating policy changes by Trump’s administration proves to be real as it occurred just this month. The New York Times article was produced by Christopher Flavelle.

A- This source was written to any audience, as it is a fairly neutral website. It could be interpreted that this source was written towards environmentalists because the article contains information supporting the side that this change in policy was a bad decision. Also, it mostly sides against the policy change because of environmental reasons such as the destruction of ecosystems and habitats. This source still proves to be reliable since it states both sides and the possible positive sides of the new policy enacted by Trump.

P- This article is objective because although it does mostly side with the environmentalists/liberal side, it also is posted by a neutral site that also states the side of the policy changers. I agree with this perspective because it is neutral, but also emphasizes the importance of how destructive this policy change could be. I specifically support the push against the policy change a little bit because the new policy does not support coastal ecosystems and oceanic preservation.

S- The significance of this article is showing the new policy by Trump’s administration and reviewing the pros and cons and the views of other officials. Facts supporting the environment and coastal habitats are used to support the author's claims. Also, statements such as the Coastal Barrier Resources System protecting 1.4 million acres of land around the country help the reader sympathize with the environment rather than with this new policy change. Additionally, the author uses direct quotes from the Secretary of the Department of Interiors stating “This flawed interpretation of the law has prevented a number of coastal storm damage reduction projects”. This quote proves his support of Trump’s administrative decisions with the environmental policies. All of this evidence proves the harms on these environmental coastlines are not seen by the head of the environmental department which overall is harmful to our world and future for the environment. I agree with this article because I believe that this new policy change is harmful to our environment and without it, we could be protecting our coastlines much better. Additionally, this new policy only adds up more costs which we could be using to protect our oceans in a different, more efficient way than we are now.

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usfwspacific · 6 years ago

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Secretary Bernhardt Expands Public Access to Hunting and Fishing on 1.4 Million Acres Nationwide

WASHINGTON – Kicking off this year’s hunting season and continuing the Trump Administration’s efforts to increase recreational access on public lands, U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced new hunting and fishing opportunities on more than 1.4 million acres nationwide on Aug. 30.

“This is the largest single effort to expand hunting and fishing access in recent history,” said Secretary Bernhardt. “President Trump has made increasing public access and streamlining government functions priorities of his administration, and this new rule delivers on both fronts given the unprecedented expansion of public acreage and removal or revision of 5,000 hunting and fishing regulations to more closely match state laws. This is a big win for sportsmen and sportswomen across the country and our collective conservation efforts.”

The expansion included in the rule is more than double the acreage that has been opened or expanded compared to the last 5 years combined. Seventy-seven national wildlife refuges and 15 national fish hatcheries managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are incorporated in the new rule and are now open to hunting and fishing for the first time or have expanded opportunities for new game species.

“We are pleased to offer all Americans access to hunting and fishing opportunities and other recreational activities on refuge and hatchery lands where they are compatible with our conservation management goals,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Margaret Everson. “This generations-old heritage of hunting and fishing is all about loving outdoor traditions and time spent with family.”

This action will now bring the number of units in the Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System where the public may hunt to 381 and the number where fishing will be permitted to 316. In addition, this will formally open lands on 15 hatcheries of the National Fish Hatchery System to hunting and/or sport fishing for the first time.

The following are new or expanded hunting and/or sport fishing opportunities in the Pacific Northwest:

Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho: Open big game hunting (elk) for the first time on 300 acres already open to other hunting. Expand existing sport fishing by extending the boating season.

Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon: Expand existing sport fishing to new areas.

McKay Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon: Open mourning dove, wild turkey and big game (elk, white-tailed deer and mule deer) hunting for the first time on 620 acres already open to other hunting.

Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon: Open sport fishing for the first time on acres already open to other activities.

Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Washington: Expand existing waterfowl hunting to 1,142 new acres.

Entiat National Fish Hatchery in Washington: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.

Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery in Washington: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.

Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery in Washington: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.

San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Washington: Open sport fishing for the first time on acres already open to other activities.

Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery in Washington: Formally open to sport fishing for the first time.

Other new refuge opportunities include the opening of sport fishing at Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Pennsylvania for the first time, and the opening of Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming to migratory bird game hunting for the first time.

Expansions of refuge opportunities include at Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama and Mississippi, the expansion of season dates for existing migratory game bird hunting to align with state seasons, the opening of coot, crane and tundra swan hunting on acres already open to other hunting at Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, and the expansion of existing sport fishing to new areas at Cedar Point National Wildlife Refuge in Ohio.

Final changes at hatcheries include the formal opening of lands on Dexter National Fish Hatchery in New Mexico to migratory game bird and upland game hunting, and Edenton National Fish Hatchery in North Carolina and Valley City National Fish Hatchery in North Dakota will formally open their lands to sport fishing. An update to hatchery regulations is also included in the final rule.

The final rule also outlines a comprehensive revision and simplification of all refuge-specific hunting and fishing regulations in all 50 states to more closely match state regulations while continuing to ensure safe and compatible opportunities. The Service worked closely with the states in preparing the rule.

A copy of the final rule and a complete list of all of the refuges and hatcheries are available online.

Hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities contributed more than $156 billion in economic activity in communities across the United States in 2016, according to the Service’s National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, published every five years. More than 101 million Americans — 40 percent of the U.S. population age 16 and older — pursue wildlife-related recreation, including hunting and fishing.

For more than 145 years, the National Fish Hatchery System has worked collaboratively with tribes, states, landowners, partners and stakeholders to promote and maintain healthy, self-sustaining populations of fish and other aquatic species. There are 70 national fish hatcheries visited by more than one million people each year. Hatcheries offer opportunities for viewing the operations and learning about fish, as well as activities such as fishing, hunting, hiking, sightseeing, nature study, birdwatching and photography.

The Refuge System is an unparalleled network of 567 national wildlife refuges and 38 wetland management districts. There is a national wildlife refuge within an hour’s drive of most major metropolitan areas. More than 55 million Americans visit refuges every year. National wildlife refuges provide vital habitat for thousands of species and access to world-class recreation, from fishing, hunting and boating to nature watching, photography and environmental education.

Under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, the Service permits hunting and fishing along with four other types of wildlife-dependent recreation, including wildlife photography, environmental education, wildlife observation and interpretation, when they are compatible with an individual refuge’s purpose and mission. Hunting, within specified limits, is currently permitted on 344 wildlife refuges and 37 wetland management districts. Fishing is currently permitted on 282 wildlife refuges and 34 wetland management districts.

The Service manages hunting and fishing programs to ensure sustainable wildlife populations while also offering other wildlife-dependent recreation on public lands.

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gwydionmisha · 6 years ago

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#David Bernhardt #Interior Department #Endangered Species #Pesticides #News

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inbonobo · 6 years ago

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Although federal officials learned last year that the 5-gallon containers were brimming with uranium ore, then removed the radioactive specimens, the park's safety director alleges nothing was done to warn park workers or the public that they might have been exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.

"Respectfully, it was not only immoral not to let Our People know," he added, "but I could not longer risk my (health and safety) certification by letting this go any longer."

According to Stephenson, the uranium specimens had been in a basement at park headquarters for decades and were moved to the museum building when it opened, around 2000.

RELATED: Understanding radiation: 6 key things to know about public exposure

One of the buckets was so full that its lid would not close.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission measures radiation contamination in millisieverts per hour or per year. According to Stephenson, close exposures to the uranium buckets could have exposed adults to 400 times the health limit — and children to 4,000 times what is considered safe.

Emily Davis, a public affairs specialist at the Grand Canyon, said the Park Service is coordinating an investigation with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Davis stressed that a recent review of the building in question uncovered only background radiation, which is natural in the area and is safe.

"There is no current risk to the park employees or public," Davis said. "The building is open. … The information I have is that the rocks were removed, and there's no danger."

Davis declined to address Stephenson's assertion that thousands of people may have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, or his allegation that the Park Service violated the law by not issuing a public warning.

"We do take our public and employee safety and allegations seriously," she said.

Clean-up with dish-washing gloves?

Reached by phone at the South Rim, Stephenson said his only concern is the safety of everyone who spent time in a danger zone, and he alerted them only after failing for eight months to get park officials to act.

"I've never seen anything like this in my life," he said.

Workers immediately moved the buckets to another location in the building, he said, but nothing else was done.

Stephenson said specialists apparently had no Geiger counter, so they drove to Utah to pick up a Ludlum meter, which also measures radiation output.

Those details are corroborated by photographs Stephenson included in a 45-page slideshow created to document the radiation exposure and alleged cover-up.

Stephenson said he drove to Phoenix in November and filed a report with OSHA, which sent inspectors to the museum building in yellow protective suits.

Stephenson said they detected a low-level site within the building and traced it to the three buckets, which Park Service technicians had inexplicably returned to the building after dumping their contents.

"You could hear their meters going off," Stephenson said.

Davis, the Park Service spokeswoman, declined comment on those details.

A spokesman for OSHA confirmed an investigation is underway, but declined to provide any other information.

A 'secrecy pact'?

Stephenson said the uranium exposure saga developed while he was pursuing a racial-discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity office. Stephenson is African-American.

He said high-level officials in the Park Service developed a "secrecy pact" to conceal radiation exposure data despite his insistence that a "Right to Know" law mandates public disclosure.

"My first interest is the safety of the workers and the people," he added.

The report indicated radiation levels at "13.9 mR/hr" where the buckets were stored, and "800 mR/hr" on contact with the ore. Just 5 feet from the buckets, there was a zero reading. The abbreviation, "mR" typically stands for milliroentgen, a measurement roughly equivalent to a millirem, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The NRC says average radiation exposure in the United States from natural sources is 300 millirems per year at sea level, or 400 at high altitude.

The commission lists a maximum safe dosage for the public, beyond natural radiation, is no more than 2 millirems per hour, or 100 per year.

The report's recommendations did not call for public notification, but suggested guidelines for handling and storing geology samples in the future.

Stephenson calculated potential exposures over 1,400 times the NRC's safe level for children, and over 140 times the safe level for adults.

He said he pressed park superintendents to take action, submitted an Inspector General complaint, contacted the FBI, and wrote to every member of Congress.

In his letter to colleagues, Stephenson apologized for the untimely notice. He stressed that exposure may not be severe depending on how close individuals got to the source, how long they were exposed, what they were wearing, and other factors. He also emphasized that employees will not necessarily suffer health consequences, but should consider receiving a medical screening.

"Of particular concern are 1000s of children attending 'shows' in very close proximity to the uranium," he wrote. Those presentations lasted a half hour or more, he said, yet radiation dosages could have exceeded federal safety standards within seconds.

Stephenson said he's heard nothing from superiors at the Park Service since he sent the warning letter.

"They're in cover-up mode," he said. "I've been cut off from any kind of information."

(via Grand Canyon tourists exposed to radiation, safety manager says)

Since the news broke that three buckets of uranium ore sat in a Grand Canyon museum for years, alarm has been spreading about the radiation “cover-up.” But it’s tough to figure out exactly how dangerous the uranium truly was to visitors and staff.

The buckets had been sitting next to a taxidermy exhibit at the National Park Service’s Grand Canyon Museum Collection, a location where groups of schoolchildren stopped on tours, according to The Arizona Republic. After a visitor with a Geiger counter discovered them, they were moved to a hallway, and eventually their contents were dumped in an old uranium mine, whistleblower Elston “Swede” Stephenson told The Arizona Republic. Stephenson did not reply to a message on LinkedIn; the museum told The Verge to contact Emily Davis at the National Park Service, and Davis did not respond to emailed or phone inquiries.

Uranium ore is a naturally occurring rock with a high concentration of uranium, which gives off a mixture of different types of radiation. Uranium can also break down into other radioactive materials, like radium — and it can release the noble gas radon, which can cause lung cancer in large concentrations. That people, especially children, could have been unknowingly exposed to radiation is worrying, because radiation can damage DNA. “If that damage isn’t repaired correctly, then you potentially set the stage for cancer,” says Kathryn Higley, head of the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering at Oregon State University. The Republic reported that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had opened an investigation into the situation.

There’s no reason buckets of ore should have been hanging around without anyone’s knowledge, and apparently without a radiation label on them, Higley says. “People should have been more mindful of them,” she says. But the question is whether three buckets of ore produced enough radiation — and if people were close enough to them for long enough — to suffer health consequences. The Arizona Republic’s story also cites a report by a National Park Service safety manager that said radioactivity was measured in the ore and “where the buckets were stored.” But the radiation dropped to zero five feet away. Based on that information, Higley says, “The likelihood of people receiving serious radiation exposures is extremely unlikely.”

The Verge spoke with Higley about uranium, cancer, and what uranium ore might be doing in a bucket.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Please tell me all your thoughts about the uranium ore in a bucket.

Without knowing exactly how it was stored, looking at some of the measurements that were taken, the radiation readings certainly are above what you’d consider the normal background. But the likelihood of people receiving serious radiation exposures is extremely unlikely. People work around uranium in the process of manufacturing fuel, for example. But also I’m looking here on the radiation levels taken by some park personnel, and it says five feet from the bucket is basically a zero reading.

So you see the dose rate drops off really, really quickly as you move away from the source. It’s a combination of dose rate and the length of time that they would’ve been exposed to it. And they’re not going to be hugging this thing and lugging it around for extended periods of time. I’m not seeing a health risk. I’m seeing people being sloppy and did some things that they really shouldn’t have done. And they’re probably going to get a nasty note from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, like “Why do you have this in a closet? What are you doing with it?”

How hazardous is uranium ore? Can it give you cancer?

It’s a complicated answer, because we know at a high enough dose that you have an increased risk of getting cancer, but in the low environmental ranges, there’s not a strong relationship between dose and emergence of cancer. We’ve looked at data from people that mined uranium in the past. They went down into the mines and just like coal mining, they would dig it out and ship it off for processing. There has been a relationship of those miners getting lung cancer, because they were inhaling some of the radioactive gas that was coming off. Also, a large number of them happened to be smokers at the time, too — so there was kind of a double whammy in terms of them getting cancer.

We know that prolonged exposure to one of the decay products of uranium or radon gas in high concentrations increases your chance of getting cancer. But three buckets of ore sitting in a basement or in a closet is a lot different than somebody going down into a mine and working for 30 years mining uranium ore. It’s not just the dose rate, but it’s the total dosage you get is what determines your risk.

Why is the ore less worrying than, say, if there had been three buckets of spent fuel?

It’s like having a little, tiny warm rock sitting in a bucket in your living room versus having a massive slug of molten metal in your living room. I mean, one is like, “Oh, yeah, okay. I can feel it. It’s a little warm.” And the other one’s like, “Holy crap, it’s going to destroy my house.”

“HOLY CRAP, IT’S GOING TO DESTROY MY HOUSE.”

With nuclear fuel, the uranium is fissioned. So it’s put into a reactor and it’s bombarded with neutrons and the elements actually split into pieces and the pieces, the fissioned products, are extremely radioactive. And so not only is that fuel, depending on how fresh it is, thermally really, really warm. But it is emitting a lot of radiation — way, way more than this ore would. Particularly if the fuel is reasonably fresh out of a reactor, for example. And so the radiation field around it would be extremely dangerous. And if you had a fuel rod, depending on the type of fuel, it’ll probably kill you if you stood by it for even a brief period of time. This ore will not do that. So that’s the difference — the concentration of radiation coming off of it.

Why would someone keep uranium ore around in a bucket?

There are some uranium sites around the Grand Canyon. There’s some mining activity. If they were teaching geologists, it could be to show “here’s what uranium ore looks like.” You could use it as a tool, to say here’s what kind of radiation count rates you’re going to see if you find this kind of grade ore. Or they may have brought it in if the museum was associated with a lab and they wanted to do an assay to see what the concentration of uranium was, because all the detector would do is give you a rough indication of the quality of the ore. There’s a lot of reasons why there might be ore in a bucket that somebody then forgot about and set in a closet.

“IT’S A LEGITIMATE TEACHING TOOL. IT REALLY IS.”

Ore in a drum was part of a teaching tool when I was getting my master’s and my doctorate in radiological health sciences. We wanted to understand how radon was produced and how you measured the activity concentrations of radon, and in order to do that, you need a source. The cheapest source is to get a 55 gallon drum and have some uranium ore in there and you let it decay and the drum is sealed and the radon can build up and you can actually pull off some of the radon and do measurements with it. It was in an area where they could control air flow. For that particular situation, you’re concerned about inhaling really high concentrations of radon gas. It’s a legitimate teaching tool. It really is.

What’s the route of exposure — is the concern being in very close proximity to it and touching it? Is the concern eating particles? Is the concern inhaling the gas, or dust?

It’s not something that in small quantities is going to kill you. You’d have a small increase of cancer risk. There’s natural uranium outcroppings all over the United States — for example, where the Navajo Nation is. A lot of the Navajo worked in the mines. Some of the rock that wasn’t good enough quality to ship off for processing could be used in building structures. They’ve had issues where families would build hogans out of rock that had elevated levels of uranium, and that would then result in elevated levels of radon in the homes. And so the EPA has been working with the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency to actually identify homes and areas that have elevated uranium and radon concentrations and remediate homes and get them in safer building structures. But again, it’s a much larger quantity than three buckets sitting in a closet or in a back room.

What about the risk from radon gas? How long does the radon stick around?

Radon has roughly a three-day half life. It’ll diffuse out of the buckets into the room, but if the room is ventilated, then the concentration drops and it’s not really a large issue. If you have it in a room that has really crummy ventilation and then potentially you could have an elevated radon level that exists. And so again, that would be something that people would take a look at and say, “Okay, is this in a closed space where folks would be sitting for prolonged periods of time? What is their potential risk over the long-term from inhaling any radon that’s coming off of that?” It’d be an elevated risk of lung cancer, and again, it takes a pretty large dose to get to a level where we can actually see evidence of cancer causation in populations.

What sort of cleanup would make the museum 100 percent safe?

“TAKE THE BUCKETS OUT.”

Take the buckets out. Say one of the bucket’s lids didn’t close: take a survey and make sure you don’t have little particles of soil that have dropped out. You remove it from the museum, there’s no hazard there. You move it back to the natural environment, and there might be an elevated level in the environment. But again, unless you build your house on top of the ore body and you live there 100 percent of the time, you’re going to be fine walking around.

via

#radiation #tourism #usa #uranium #radon #grand canyon

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citizenlayne · 6 years ago

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As Ryan Zinke steps down amid a string of ethics investigations, his deputy David Bernhardt — a former oil-industry lobbyist and a polarizing figure — will take over at the Department of the Interior. https://n.pr/2LLvzLu

#NPR #News #Politics

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tpmmedia · 7 years ago

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Top Trump-Appointed Interior Dept. Officials Have History Of Hostility To Native Tribes Trying To Get Justice From Federal Government

Current and former members of Congress and former Interior Department officials tell TPM that two top Trump political appointees at the department — at least one of whom played a key role in the reassignments — have long been hostile to Native concerns. Both officials, Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, the department’s second in command, and Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason, served in top DOI posts during the George W. Bush administration, at a time of intense conflict between the agency and Native American tribes.

Cason has more recently sparked tensions with tribes by characterizing the settlement-funded land buy-back program as “free money” in testimony to Congress last year. He was chided for the remark by Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA), who reminded him that it wasn’t free money, but repayment for stolen resources.

#native american #native american discrimination #discrimination #trump #native american issues #justice

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rjzimmerman · 4 years ago

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Another example, probably example #3,879, of trump or his political appointees, ignoring the law. In this case, ignoring a court order. The judge says, “The law was violated by shuffling this man around from position to position without confirmation, so get rid of him.” The man says, “trump and secretary bernhardt support me, and I’m still in charge but with a different title, so nothing has changed.”

Excerpt from this story from The Hill:

One of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) highest ranking officials said his ouster ordered by a federal judge last month “has no impact, no impact whatsoever” on his role within the department.

A Montana-based U.S. District Court judge ruled last month that William Perry Pendley "served unlawfully ... for 424 days," giving the Department of the Interior 10 days to justify why it shouldn’t throw out many of the decisions Pendley has made during his tenure.

In an interview with the Powell (Wyo.) Tribune, Pendley said the court ruling has changed little for him as he stays at the department by virtue of his official title as one of the department’s two deputy directors.

“I’m still here, I’m still running the bureau,” Pendley told the outlet. “I have always been, from day one.”

#william perry pendley #BLM #Bureau of Land Management #trump

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dendroica · 6 years ago

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After years of effort, scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service had a moment of celebration as they wrapped up a comprehensive analysis of the threat that three widely used pesticides present to hundreds of endangered species, like the kit fox and the seaside sparrow. “Woohoo!” Patrice Ashfield, then a branch chief at Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters, wrote to her colleagues in August 2017. Their analysis found that two of the pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos, were so toxic that they “jeopardize the continued existence” of more than 1,200 endangered birds, fish and other animals and plants, a conclusion that could lead to tighter restrictions on use of the chemicals. But just before the team planned to make its findings public in November 2017, something unexpected happened: Top political appointees of the Interior Department, which oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, blocked the release and set in motion a new process intended to apply a much narrower standard to determine the risks from the pesticides. Leading that intervention was David Bernhardt, then the deputy secretary of the interior and a former lobbyist and oil-industry lawyer. In October 2017, he abruptly summoned staff members to the first of a rapid series of meetings in which the Fish and Wildlife Service was directed to take the new approach, one that pesticide makers and users had lobbied intensively to promote. Mr. Bernhardt is now President Trump’s nominee to become interior secretary. The Senate is scheduled to hold a hearing on his confirmation Thursday.

Interior Nominee Intervened to Block Report on Endangered Species - The New York Times

#David Bernhardt #pesticide #endangered #environment #corruption #politics

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fumpkins · 6 years ago

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Congress wants to know why the incoming Interior Chief is keeping his calendar secret

This story was initially released by Mom Jones and is replicated here as part of the Environment Desk cooperation.

The acting head of the Interior Department David Bernhardt states he has to bring a little card around to advise himself of the list of his previous customers he need to prevent, however the previous oil and gas lobbyist firmly insists that he does not require to keep a comprehensive day-to-day calendar. “I have no legal obligation to personally maintain a calendar,” Bernhardt composed in a letter to Congress in late February. “Further, no Agency guidance exists recommending that I create or retain one. I have not personally maintained a calendar for years, and I have no intention of suddenly doing so now.”

The battle over Bernhardt’s calendars signals among the larger debates ahead in his period after his most likely verification as Interior secretary. Ecologists have actually charged Bernhardt, and his predecessor Ryan Zinke, of politicizing Flexibility of Details Act reactions, leaving out calendar entries, and even extending the limits of the Federal Records Act.

“It worries me a lot that that’s not being followed,” Home Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva (a Democrat from Arizona) informs Mom Jones. The calendar “is the window into decision-making.”

Calendars of public authorities can assist expose who is affecting the policy and offer some step of responsibility when specific unique interests appear to have a specific hold over the decision-making. Scott Pruitt’s early calendars revealed his close coordination with oil market executives, for instance, as his EPA chose to reverse policies on methane emissions. It’s likewise ended up being more typical for authorities to keep secret calendars.

Because Bernhardt was initially validated as the deputy secretary in the summertime of 2017, the public has actually had fairly couple of information about how he invests his days while running a company accountable for a fifth of the country’s landmass. The majority of the calendars that Interior has actually offered absence descriptions about who he is conference with and calling. Bernhardt has more than two-dozen previous customers and a broader web of market contacts from a profession invested in the lobbying sector.

As I kept in mind in my profile of Bernhardt:

Bernhardt’s understanding of the department’s operations and the allies he’s set up in essential political posts allow him to guide its complicated network of decentralized workplaces while leaving couple of finger prints. His calendars frequently have little information in them; the ecological group Western Worths Task has actually kept in mind how few of his e-mails show up in their regular Flexibility of Details Act demands to the Interior. “Kind of amazing that he can do anything without leaving a paper trail behind him,” stated Aaron Weiss, media director of Center for Western Priorities, another preservation group.

On the eve of David Bernhardt’s Senate verification hearing on Thursday to lead the Department of the Interior, the Home Natural Resources personnel had 27,000 pages of internal files that it had actually not yet processed or taken a look at. Interior sent out over the batch previously today in reaction to the committee’s duplicated ask for more interactions surrounding the acting secretary’s activities and decision-making, in an effort to tease out just how much of it has actually been affected by his previous relationship with oil, gas, and mining markets.

“That’s a good example of what’s been a pattern under Zinke and now under Bernhardt, which is to basically to make it very difficult for people to get information.”

On Wednesday, Grijalva informed Mom Jones that his personnel is examining the concern of whether Bernhardt has actually prevented preserving a continuous record of his day-to-day activities by counting on a Google Doc calendar for his comprehensive schedule that is overwritten every day. The matter is worrying for the chair due to the fact that it raises concerns about whether Interior is breaking a federal records law in erasing his day-to-day schedule and declaring it falls outside FOIA’s province.

Home Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings (a Democrat from Maryland) pushed the concern in a hearing previously with an acting deputy FOIA director previously this month.

“Is the calendar for the acting Secretary deleted at the end of each day, do you know that?” he asked. The deputy FOIA director, Rachel Spector, responded she didn’t, however acknowledged “that the solicitor’s office in the department is working with the records officer in the department to determine what’s occurred there, and whether it’s consistent.”

Interior’s political appointees have actually applied more control over the FOIA procedure in current months. At the end of 2018, a political appointee who is a previous Charles and David Koch advisor organized reacting to and fielding demands. Then, at a Home Natural Resources spending plan hearing on Wednesday, Grijalva pointed to a March 14 email from a senior Interior authorities, whose name was redacted, asking that “any correspondence being sent to any Senator as well as Representative Grijalva NOT be sent until you have further direction.” Grijalva kept in mind the timing of the guidelines was considerable: The next day the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee openly revealed Bernhardt’s verification hearing date.

Democratic senators prepare to ask Bernhardt straight about his calendars in the Thursday hearing. However, extremely little bit still stands in the method of his verification in the GOP-controlled chamber, after which Bernhardt will definitely deal with more concerns from the Democratic Home.

“Why go through all these machinations?” Grijalva asked. “Why deny me or the senators information if there’s not something you’re hiding and something you’re concerned about?”

New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2019/03/29/congress-wants-to-know-why-the-incoming-interior-chief-is-keeping-his-calendar-secret/

#Climate Desk #Rebecca Leber

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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As Senate Debates Interior Nominee, the Department Moves on Climate Change WASHINGTON — As the Interior Department awaits its new secretary, the agency is already moving to lock in key parts of President Biden’s environmental agenda, particularly on oil and gas restrictions, laying the groundwork to fulfill some of the administration’s most consequential climate change promises. Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Mr. Biden’s nominee to lead the department, faces a showdown vote in the Senate likely later this month, amid vocal Republican concern for her past positions against oil and gas drilling. But even without her, an agency that spent much of the past four years opening vast swaths of land to commercial exploitation has pulled an abrupt about-face. The department has suspended lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico under an early executive order imposing a temporary freeze on new drilling leases on all public lands and waters and requiring a review of the leasing program. It has frozen drilling activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, delayed Trump-era rollbacks on protections of migratory birds and the northern spotted owl, and taken the first steps in restoring two national monuments in Utah and one off the Atlantic coast that Mr. Trump largely dismantled. As early as this week, one administration official said the Interior Department is poised to take the next steps in preparing a review of the federal oil and gas leasing program. Even critics of the administration’s agenda said they have been surprised by the pace of the agency’s actions. “They’re obviously moving forward quickly and aggressively,” said Nicolas Loris, an economist who focuses on environment policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation. That aggressiveness, along with Ms. Haaland’s long history of pushing to shut down fossil fuel drilling and pipelines, has put the agency in the line of fire from Republicans and the oil and gas industry. “I almost feel like your nomination is sort of this proxy fight over the future of fossil fuels,” Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, told Ms. Haaland during her confirmation hearing last week. The Environmental Protection Agency will ultimately take center stage in the regulatory battles over climate change because it is the lead agency policing emissions from the electricity and transportation sectors — the two largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. But the Interior Department, which decides when and whether to sell publicly owned coal, oil and gas, is at the heart of the always contentious fight over keeping such resources “in the ground” — that is, whether the vast majority of America’s fossil fuels should remain untapped to avoid dangerous concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Mr. Biden already has appointed nearly 50 top Interior officials across the vast agency, many of them veterans of the Obama administration, adept at pulling the levers of policy. They include Kate Kelly, who spent six years at the Interior Department before going to the liberal Center for American Progress where she focused on public lands policy, and Laura Daniel Davis who served as chief of staff to former secretaries Sally Jewell and Ken Salazar. This time around, she is a principal deputy assistant secretary over land and minerals management. Perhaps the most significant driver of the agency’s most aggressive early action, supporters of the administration said, has been David Hayes, who served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations as deputy secretary of Interior. Mr. Hayes worked on Mr. Biden’s transition and ahead of Inauguration Day was tapped to be a special adviser to the president on climate change policy. “These are people who know how to get things done,” said Sarah Greenberger, interim chief conservation officer at the National Audubon Society. The appointments have had immediate effects. The day after Mr. Biden named a new offshore energy regulator at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, for example, the office revived the review of an offshore wind farm near Martha’s Vineyard that the Trump administration had moved to cancel. Ms. Greenberger noted that actions like suspending the Trump-era rule that gutted protections for migratory birds required particularly fast planning since the Biden administration had only a short window to act before the rule was set to take effect, on Feb. 8. Similarly when an Alaska Native group missed a deadline to conduct a seismic survey in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the department moved to effectively kill the survey. “There was an enormous amount of thought put in during the transition, especially into understanding what needed to happen and what were the opportunities,” Ms. Greenberg said. Critics took a dimmer view. “Makes you wonder if they’re treating the new secretary as a figurehead and the deputies are going forward with what they had planned regardless,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based oil and natural gas association. In a statement Jennifer Van der Heide, chief of staff at the Department of Interior, said those already in place at the agency are working to implement Mr. Biden’s campaign promises until Ms. Haaland is confirmed. “There are some actions we can or must move quickly on, but when we have a secretary, she will provide the leadership, experience and vision to restore morale within the department, build a clean energy economy, strengthen the nation-to-nation relationships with tribes, and inspire a movement to better conserve our nation’s lands, waters, and wildlife,” Ms. Van der Heide said. The Interior Department manages about 500 million acres of public lands and vast coastal waters. Its agencies lease many of those acres for oil and gas drilling as well as wind and solar farms. It oversees the country’s national parks and wildlife refuges, protects threatened and endangered species, reclaims abandoned mine sites, oversees the government’s relationship with the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes, and provides scientific data about the effects of climate change. That sprawling range of authorities has allowed Interior to move more quickly than smaller agencies that rely more on the slow churn of regulations, experts noted. Interior has initiated consultations with tribal leaders to hear their suggestions on federal policies and reversed restrictions that Mr. Trump’s Interior secretary, David Bernhardt, had imposed on the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which prevented money from being used to buy public land. But some major actions — such as an expected revision of the Endangered Species Act, which Mr. Trump’s administration curtailed through regulation — must await a Senate-confirmed secretary. Mr. Biden’s Interior Department will ultimately be defined by its reversals on fossil fuels after four years in which the Trump administration aggressively pursued energy production on public lands. At Ms. Haaland’s confirmation hearing Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, noted that she has advocated for keeping fossil fuels “in the ground.” He pressed her on where oil and gas workers in his state and others that depend on drilling will work if Mr. Biden’s drilling pause becomes permanent. Ms. Haaland sought to reassure Republicans that she would enact Mr. Biden’s policies of pausing future fracking, not banning it. In fact, Mr. Biden’s position is not far from Ms. Haaland’s. He campaigned on a promise of “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” and it remains unclear for now whether the Biden administration will move forward with a permanent moratorium. Ms. Sgamma, whose group has filed a lawsuit challenging Mr. Biden’s executive order, said she believes the administration’s review of the leasing program is actually designed to drag on for the duration of Mr. Biden’s term. “In the meantime, we will expect no leasing and a slowdown in other permitted activity. That’s why this is not a pause’ on leasing,” she said, adding, “Whether you call it a ‘pause’ or a yearslong ban, it is unlawful and I like our chances in court.” Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation at EarthJustice, an environmental group, said he hopes the early pause will be a down payment on Mr. Biden’s campaign pledge. “The climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis isn’t standing still,” he said. Source link Orbem News #Change #Climate #Debates #Department #interior #Moves #nominee #Senate

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