Based on INEELs history, the likelihood is this proposed incinerator will be a deadly health hazard to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone Park.

Because of these hazards, Idaho, with its smaller population, was chosen for this $1.2 billion structure. Our children's and grandchildren's exposure to nuclear radiation and other airborne toxins can continue for decades, and is unacceptable.

The Department of Energy at INEEL has proven to be unreliable both as to its operations and its truth-telling.

Jackson Hole and Yellowstone Park are downwind from INEEL.

The rights of Wyoming citizens have been utterly ignored. Only Idaho citizens were given lawful notice of the air quality permit. No formal consideration was given to Wyoming citizens, nor did Idaho's governor think we were entitled to it.

Q: Is the planned incineration at INEEL of nuclear and other toxic materials potentially dangerous to Teton County and Yellowstone Park?

A. Yes. Responsible scientists for the government will never warrant that the proposed incinerator's filters will contain all cancer-causing nuclear particles. Nor will they warrant the filters will not fail. INEEL's past operations have been frightening its history for truth-telling, abysmal-thirty nuclear facility emission control breakdowns, eight of which involved filter failures that released 18,564,868 curies of radionuclides into the atmosphere between 1952 and 1989 alone. The EPA regulates civilian exposure to radionuclides in terms of picocuries--one one-trillionth of one curie. The extent of this potentially devastating exposure to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone can only be imagined and is yet to be revealed by INEEL.

There is no safe dose of ionizing radiation, no matter how small, and INEEL admits that the proposed incinerator will, even if carefully operated and monitored, emit some radioactive particles. The incinerator permit also admits to 43 chemicals and heavy metal contaminates that will be released to the air, eleven of which are known carcinogens.

As for the builder and operator of the proposed facility, British Nuclear Fuels Limited, its record in the UK at its Sellafield facility is terrorizing and is the subject of panicked outcry by frightened citizens in Ireland, by fishermen and outraged Scandinavian countries as well.

Q: Why us?

A. Efforts have been made to establish incinerators at Lawrence Livermore, Rocky Hats, and Los Alamos. In every case these efforts have been turned back, mostly by legal action instituted by the public. The primary argument was the actual versus the claimed safety of the filtration systems.

An internal panel of scientists at Lawrence Livermore reported: "We view incineration as a violation of the cardinal principle of radioactive waste treatment, namely, containing radioactivity rather than spreading it around." In short, the scientists at Lawrence Livermore rejected the incinerator at that facility and suggested that DOE come to Idaho!

Q: Once begun, how long can this incineration continue?

A: Already awaiting disposal are 85,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste which will be processed over the next 13 years. Waiting is another 120,000 cubic meters of waste from INEEL and other DOE sites. No actual end-date can or will be guaranteed by INEEL.

Q: Can we rely on the information provided by the Dept. of Energy at INEEL?

A: INEEL has a long time record of fading to provide accurate information to the public. The published data on the accidental releases from INEEL are presently being questioned by The Center for Disease Control. In 1994 the Center gave DOE a list of all the documents that the health agency wanted preserved for later analysis despite which an estimated 6.5 million pages were thereafter destroyed by INEEL, some of which contained information sought by the Centers for Disease Control.

Q: Are we really downwind?

A: Senator Craig Thomas (R, Wyo.) tells us that we are not really down wind from INEEL. This is in serious error and is no doubt based on inaccurate information he gained from sources supporting the incinerator.

"In general, particulate matter that is emitted into the airflow over eastern Idaho will be directed, the majority of the time, over some portion of Northwestern Wyoming," says Jim Woodmencey, Meteorologist, Jackson, Wyoming. When there are radioactive particles in the air, major precipitation such as we experience in heavy winter snows, brings on the "rain-out effect" that causes these particles to fall to the ground with the rain or snow and to pollute both ground and surface water.

Q: Can we stop this lurking catastrophe?

A: Not unless we organize, mobilize, and unconditionally commit our resources to its defeat. If citizens elsewhere have been successful in defeating this monstrous threat, can't we? Send your investment in a nuclear free Jackson Hole to: "Stop the Incinerator Fund, Inc.", c/o Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, PO Box 4838, Jackson, Wyoming 83001

SOURCES:

--Environmental Defense Institute paper, August 18, 1999.

--Citizen's Guide to Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Environmental Defense Institute.

--John W. Goffman, credited for first isolating plutonium, and professor emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkley.

--Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Radioactive and Mixed Waste Incineration report at Lawrence Livermore as quoted at page 70 in Citizen's Guide, above.

--INEEL News, July, 1999.

--Final Report of the Director's Internal Panel on the Decontamination and Waste treatment Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, Feb. 21,1990.