From: jad@ckuxb.att.com (John A Dinardo)
Subject: Part 4, RADIOACTIVE MEAT, MILK & PRODUCE: Supermarkets Selling Leukemia
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Keywords: radioactive meat, milk & produce: supermarkets selling leukemia
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 20:09:31 GMT

       The following article is from IN THESE TIMES,
       August 19 - September 1, 1987.
       Back issues and subscriptions can be ordered
       by calling (312) 772-0100.

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                         (continuation)
In Oklahoma, Kerr-McGee and politics are synonymous. According to
Richard Rashke in THE KILLING OF KAREN SILKWOOD, in 1959, the late
Senator Robert F. Kerr (D.-Oklahoma) arranged for Kerr-McGee to sell
to the Atomic Energy Commission (later to become the NRC) three
hundred million dollars worth of uranium. His grandson, Robert F.
Kerr III, is currently the Lieutenant-Governor of Oklahoma. 
But it is the Oklahoma Water Resources Board "where people speculate
that Kerr-McGee gets the most pull politically," says Rhonda Haraway,
a reporter for the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
The late senator's son and the present lieutenant-governor's father,
Robert F. Kerr Jr, is a major Kerr-McGee shareholder and sits on
the company's board of directors. He also is on the Water Resources
Board that regulates Kerr-McGee's discharge of radioactive waste 
water into the Illinois River, one of Oklahoma's designated "wild 
and scenic" rivers. 

WASTE DOWN THE RIVER:
According to Kerr-McGee records, the company annually dumps eleven
thousand pounds of uranium into the Illinois River. But local
residents believe that the actual amount dumped is MUCH higher.
The company operates with two discharge permits, one of which is
issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1984 and
1985, the EPA cited Kerr-McGee with twenty-one dumping violations.
(Figures do not exist for 1986 because the facility was closed due
to the uranium hexafluoride explosion.)

The NRC also found problems with the river dumping, and wrote in a
report:

   "Accumulation of uranium in the sediment or soil along the 
    combination stream [the ditch that carries the waste to the
    river] has reached a significant level; therefore, [NRC] staff
    has requested Sequoyah Fuels to propose a better method of 
    transference of the waste from the facility to the river."

Kerr-McGee's second dumping permit is issued by the Oklahoma Water
Resources Board. The board's guidelines originally did not require
that it regulate radioactive waste, but that had changed by 1982
when the company's state dumping permit expired.

For the past five years, Kerr-McGee has discharged its radioactive
water into the Illinois River through a legal loophole. Oklahoma
law states that if the Water Resources Board fails to renew a permit
before it expires, the company involved is allowed to dump at the
old levels until the board acts. So in 1982 when the Water Resources
Board did not renew Kerr-McGee's permit, the company could legally
discharge its radioactive water as usual.

Robert F. Kerr was named to the Water Resources Board that same
year. Kerr-McGee says that Kerr doesn't take part in board decisions
involving the company, yet Oklahoma law allows a board member to
vote on permits affecting his business concerns if that individual
believes that he can give the matter "a fair and impartial hearing."
In the case of Sequoyah Fuels, Kerr's actions have yet to be tested
since over the past five years no permit has been voted on.

   "What it says to me is that Kerr-McGee and the Water Resources 
    Board appear to be acting in concert,"

says Kathy Carter-White, the attorney for NACE. Evidence of this
conclusion is a Jan. 24, 1984 Water Resources Board internal
memorandum addressed to the board's chief of water quality that
acknowledges dumping violations.  The note says:

   "An enforcement action is in progress. If we draft up a permit
    before the enforcement request is satisfied, we would put the
    permittee under more instant violations."

Late last year, the board finally moved to control Kerr-McGee's
discharge of radioactive waste into the river and set a December 9th
date for a public hearing on the company's disposal methods. But
before they could take place, Kerr-McGee obtained an injunction to
stop the hearings. The company argued that the NRC, not the Water
Resources Board, was the government body responsible for regulating
uranium dumping.

Early in July, a district court judge ruled that the Water Resources
Board did have jurisdiction over Kerr-McGee's dumping. The company
then appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which on July 21st,
upheld the lower court ruling, saying that the company would have
to get a permit from the Water Resources Board both to dump plant
waste into the Illinois River and to dump its raffinate fertilizer
on the ground.

On August 31st, the Wate Resources Board will hold a public hearing
on Kerr-McGee's proposal practices. NACE, Carlisle Area Residents
Association and Warner Area Residents are busy preparing for the
hearings. NACE's attorney Carter-White will present the board with
thirty-one arguments against approving a dumping permit. Greenpeace's
Costner will ask for a peer review of all Kerr-McGee test data.
The Warner Area Residents have a veterinarian who will testify
about heavy-metal poisoning causing kidney failure in pets that
wandered onto raffinate-sprayed property. He will also document the
sudden appearance of mutations in a local herd of pure-bred cattle.

Carter-White believes that the permit proposed by the Water Resources
Board will

   "be an improvement."     She says:
   "The discharges will be considerably less than would have 
    occurred if citizens hadn't intervened. Yet it is still not 
    adequate. The board will continue to allow Sequoyah Fuels to 
    dump toxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic and radioactive wastes into
    the river. The proposed permit allows Kerr-McGee to dump up to
    five hundred and fifty-two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five
    pounds of uranium into the Illinois River per year -- as long as
    the discharge, when tested in the laboratory, does not kill
    an excessive number of flathead minnows."
                         (end of report)
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        If you believe that American consumers have a right to know if
        the food and milk they are ingesting is giving them leukemia and 
        other cancers, please assist in disseminating this story by posting
        it to other bulletin boards and by posting hardcopies in public
        places, both on and off campus.

              John DiNardo