Nota: guardate in che mani negli USA sono i reattori nucleari navali

To Distribution:

The enclosed is a sixteen page document describing how the DOE/the Naval Reactor Program are out of control. These organizations interfere with the Constitutional rights of all of us by interfering with the Constitutions due process provisions and also by lying to federal investigators, which is a violation of 18 USC 1001. Furthermore, when the investigative arm of Congress, the GAO, gives false information to the entire Congress we really have something to worry about. If your not interested don't open it. If you want a good truthful insight into how Germany became a Fascist State give it a read

John P. Shannon Major USMCR (Retired)

Department of Energy
Washington DC  20585

October 19, 2000

The Honorable John R. Sweeney
U.S. House of
Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Sweeney,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide information relative to questions raised by Mr. John Shannon, a former employee at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, concerning the applicability of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 to employees at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. Mr. Shannon has for over 10 years been a vocal critic of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. His complaints, including those repeated in his most recent letters, have been reviewed numerous times by state, local, federal, and congressional investigators and found to be without merit. The following information is provided on the applicability of the proposed compensation program for DOE nuclear weapons program workers which is contained in Title XXXVI of  the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2001 (HR 4205/11 R 5408).

Federal and state programs are available for compensating workers whose health has been impacted by workplace exposures. However press reports and Congressional testimony have reported problems at same DOE nuclear weapons facilities that made It difficult for workers to overcome opposition to their claims and obtain benefits under the existing programs. The reported problems include, among other things, poor worker training, poor monitoring of workplace exposures, and poor record keeping. Where these problems may have adversely impacted a decision on compensation, the proposed compensation program is intended to facilitate fair adjudication of worker claims. As currently constituted, the proposed program covers claims far Illnesses potentially associated with workplace exposures to radiation, beryllium, and silica.

Since the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has not experienced the problems discussed above, the compensation program contained In the Act does not apply to work performed for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. This conclusion is supported by a well recognized record of performance as well as by an extensive fourteen?month investigation by the GAO In the early 1990's that confirmed that the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program accurately maintains records, and reports exposures. In addition, longstanding practices ensure that workers exposed to radiation or

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Oct 26 2000 11:34 am From HON JOHN SWEENEY 2022256234 T 081 P.003/003 F 919

hazardous substances associated with Program work receive comprehensive training and that their exposures are kept low. For example, since the 1950's, the average occupational exposure to radiation for workers monitored at the Program's laboratory facilities is approximately one-eighth rem per year--well below the Federal limit of five rem per year and approximately one-third of the annual radiation exposure received by a typical member of the U.S. public from natural background and medical sources.

Although the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory has for over four decades been dedicated to Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program work, this was not always the case. The Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory was initially established in 1946 under contract to the Manhattan Project for the nuclear weapons program and other nuclear - related work. The Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) facility is an example of work done at the Knolls site for programs other than the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. Similarly, the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory did work for multiple programs in the late 1940's and 1950's at the Peek Street site in Schenectady and the Sacandaga Road site in Glenville. In all, about 2000 workers were employed by the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory on work outside of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program at the Knolls, Sacandaga Road, and Peek Street sites during that time. Although there is no indication that the health of these workers was impacted by their work, these employees are included in the scope of the alternate compensation program,

In conclusion, our practices and procedures fully protect Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program workers from potentially harmful substances in their workplaces. Since Congressman McNulty also received a copy of Mr. Shannon's letter I am providing his office a copy of this response. If I can provide any further formation an this issue or other issues regarding the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, please do  not hesitate to contact me.

Signed by

Jonathen Kiell for

T. H. BECKETT
Deputy Director
for Naval Reactors

To:
Admiral Vern Clark
Chief of Naval Operations
2000 Pentagon Building
Washington, DC  20350-2000

Admiral Frank L. Bowman
Naval Sea Systems Command
2531 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA  22242?5160

The Honorable William S. Cohen
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC  20301?1000

VADM Michael D. Haskins
Naval Inspector General
Washington Navy Yard
1014 N Street SE, Suite 100
Washington, DC  20374?5006

The Honorable Richard J. Danzig
Secretary of the Navy
1000 Navy Pentagon
Washington, DC  20350?1000

Mr. W. R. Richardson
US Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20585

Gentleman:

I am enclosing the eighteen page document, covering only a small number of issues at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, because Beckett and Kiell's attempts to slander me are uncalled for, completely unprofessional, and completely untrue.

Everything that I have ever written about KAPL is completely true, the false GAO report notwithstanding, and I have documents to prove ever single word.

The Naval Reactor program, though a variety of illegal activities, has consistently prevented me from ever receiving a fair hearing in any forum, including illegally interfering with the Federal Court system.

The activity of Naval Reactors, and the reluctance of both elected and appointed officials to take any action against this corrupt and outrageous organization does not dissuade me from expressing the truth. Sooner or later I will be heard. Until that time, however, I will not tolerate any bureaucrat calling me a liar.

For your information, I am the Engineer/Physicist who designed the D1G Core 2 Nuclear Reactor. I, furthermore, did the physics studies that showed that this reactor could be used on the High Speed Nuclear Attack Submarines [HSNAS]. I was also called in to discuss the "belly band" for the HSNAS application of the D1G Core 2. Thermal design engineers had difficulty in determining the heat removal method from this solid metal "belly band." I informed them that simply drilling holes in the "belly band" would solve the problem and would furthermore improve its strength. I also brought the Nuclear Safety program into the twentieth century. I was attempting to do the same for the Industrial Safety program when my career was terminated for being too honest.

I was also called upon to determine why two critical assembly experiments were producing results that could not be accurate. After looking at the experiment, for perhaps thirty seconds, I informed the experimental physicists that they had used cadmium rather than aluminum in the experiment.

These are only snippets of my many contributions to the Naval Reactor program. I deeply resent being called a liar, by bureaucrat(s), simply because I exposed a situation that interfered with another bureaucrat's bonus.

The bureaucrats noted in this letter, Beckett and Kiell, know little if anything about KAPL. To my knowledge neither of them have made any technical contributions to the Naval Reactor Program, which makes both of them little more than absurd bureaucrats, who interfere more than help.

These are also the same types of  bureaucrats who did nothing to stop the illegal termination of twenty-six long term [all more than forty years of age] KAPL employees. The taxpayers now have to pay several millions of dollars for this further bureaucratic incompetence. It has been suggested that the Naval Reactor bureaucrats may have ordered the terminations, if true I would not be surprised. The law of the land seems to matter little to people who are sworn to " . . . uphold and defend . . . " etc.

Mr. Kiell has, in fact, been one of the leaders in making the lives of former Petty Officer Hills' and his family a nightmare existence. While Mr. Hills was stationed at the Naval Reactors facility in West Milton, NY, it was discovered, quite by accident, that Mr. Hills had been brutalized at boot camp several years earlier. Mr. and Mrs. Hills are still embroiled in a battle, with the Navy, and the NCIS, to have untrue information removed from their security and medical files.

What scoundrel's NR does now employ!

John P. Shannon

Mr. T. H. Beckett
Deputy Director
For Naval Reactors
Department of Energy
Washington, D.C. 20585

Mr. Beckett:

On October 15, 2000, I submitted a letter to my Congressman, John Sweeney, with the following request:

· "I would like an explanation as to why KAPL/KSO, present and former employees, are being excluded from the proposed Energy Employees Occupational IllnessCompensation Act of 2000."

Apparently, Mr. Sweeney forwarded this request to Naval Reactors. Rather than directing your response to the request, you make the following statement:

· "Mr. Shannon has for over 10 years been a vocal critic of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. His complaints, including those repeated in his most recent letters, have been reviewed numerous times by state, local, federal, and congressional investigators and found to be without merit."

Mr. Beckett, as  a government bureaucrat, why didn't you just respond by providing the requested explanation rather than resorting to an act of character assassination? I take very extreme exception to your statement for two reasons: first because you maliciously attempt to discredit me by use of the label "vocal critic ¼ whose complaints have been found to be without merit", and secondly because your statement is absolutely untrue, as are several other parts of your letter. However, your attack-the-messenger mentality is representative of what I, and many others, have come to expect from such a no?class organization as the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. Indeed, it is the same mark of sick leadership that purges sailors from the service via psychiatric discharge if they raise health and/or safety issues at the prototypes. The most despicable aspect of your response is in lying to two elected Representatives of the people. You are well aware that Congressmen McNulty and Sweeney are not technically trained in the nuclear field and must therefore depend on offices such as yours to provide them with factual information. You, sir, have failed miserably in this responsibility.

The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program is certainly a part of the proper federal agency known as the Department of Energy [DOE]. This department has a track record over the past 50 years that reads like the ultimate horror story. The magnitude of the corruption exhibited by the DOE is exceeded only by the incompetence of its cleanup efforts. The DOE has perpetrated the greatest environmental disaster this world has ever experienced, bar none. In the process, they have wrecked havoc with the health and well-being of untold millions of U.S. citizens, including unborn children, unknowing and unsuspecting DOE workers, and innocent American families living near and far from their facilities. The DOE has literally contaminated everything in sight, and then some, including our aquifers, major rivers, lakes, prairies, cities, food supply, and the air we breathe.  This folly is now costing the U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars for attempted cleanups. The joke is that those who created the problem are now being well paid to solve the problem, about which they haven't a clue. Recent independent studies funded by the DOE determined that most of the radioactively contaminated DOE facilities can never be completely cleaned and that the  contamination levels at these facilities are generally ten times higher than ever reported by the DOE or its contractors.

And, as indicated by the remainder of this letter, the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has contributed more than its fair share to this unending disaster, including the Navy's dumping of massive amounts or radioactive resins into harbors around the world. In addition to the examples cited below, there have been many other major Naval Reactors fiascoes that have wasted untold billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars on hair brained schemes, such as the sodium-cooled reactor, the rodless core, the D2W reactor design, and failure of the ten year, multimillion dollar, ECCS projects at the Kesselring Site Operation. Naval Reactors is a rogue outfit that has been pronouncing their own excellence for the past 50 years, while hiding behind Presidential Executive Order 12344 which, in fact, offers no exemption from oversight, false claims of national security, and a gag order on contractor employees to avoid any serious independent oversight of its operations. An employee who violates the gag order is subject to loss of job, a $100,000 fine, and life imprisonment ¼ but, you know, whatever it takes to achieve "excellence".

You would have Congressman Sweeney believe that the DOE, Naval Reactors, and you are the good guys and that I am the bad guy. Contrary to what you want others to believe, Mr. Beckett, this rogue behavior practiced by the DOE and Naval Reactors has not gone unnoticed. It has produced a legion of vocal critics, of which I am only one small voice. A few of these are quoted here:

· Rep. Al Swift (D, Wash) "There isn't any basis to trust them (the DOE) at all."

· Sen. John Glenn (D, Ohio) "We (the DOE) are poisoning our people in the name of national security."

· Rep. Thomas Luken (D, Ohio) "We've had 30 years of conspiracy, condoning of criminality and cover-up. ¼ The same thing going on at Rocky Flats is common elsewhere. ¼ You've had the government (the DOE) brazenly and crassly (saying), "Go ahead and commit the crimes; forget about the local residents."

· Rep. John D. Dingell (D, Mich.) "The DOE and DOD are among the most notorious offenders of our hazardous waste laws."

· Richard Celeste (Governor, Ohio) "They (the DOE) have lied to us. Without a mechanism to oversee what they're doing, we can't trust them. ¼ The cost of cleaning up Fernald is not a discretionary budget item. After 37 years of service, the citizens of Ohio ... and of our nation ... deserve better than this."

· Anthony Celebrezze (Att. Gen. Ohio) "During the Reagan Administration, the Justice Department kept throwing up road blocks. It slowed the process of getting Federal facilities cleaned up."

· Rep. David Skaggs (D, Colo.) "It is unprecedented to have a battalion of FBI agents to descend on a Federal (DOE) facility to conduct an investigation of alleged violations of important environmental laws. ¼ The only implication that comes out of an action of this scale is that Federal authorities were concerned about the destruction of evidence."

· Dan Reicher (NRDC) "This (FBI action) will send a shock wave through the nuclear weapons complex. ¼ It will cut to the heart of the problem, which has always been accountability."

· Rep. Mike Synar (D, Okla.) "Currently, the department is not in control of its own defense complex. DOE is, in effect, a captive of its own contractors."

· Dennis Eckart (D, Ohio) "The size of the vote indicates clearly that those who want to adopt a let's wait and see attitude about cleaning up the Federal (DOE) facilities have little standing in Congress."

· Roy Romer (Gov. Colo.) "I will insist on much stricter state controls at the plant ... and if the Federal government balks, I may shut the plant as a health hazard. ¼ All of us cannot become the dump of last resort for the Department of Energy."

· Hazel O'Leary (former Secretary of Energy) "Workers who expose flaws at nuclear weapons plants and labs regularly are harassed and undermined by their bosses. ¼ There has been a practice of repeated and long-term reprisal that visits (a whistle-blower) in the place he or she is most vulnerable .... by questioning the employee's competence."

· Judge Loren N. Brown "Kakretz's present absolute denial of having called Bordell an evil man is not persuasive ¼ Uncertainty under oath at the deposition has become more certain under oath in the affidavit supporting a motion to dismiss. Under the circumstances, what he says in support of this motion lacks credibility." (A. Kakretz, a General Electric Employee,  was the KAPL General Manager for 14 years.)

· Tom Carpenter ( Attorney Government Accountability Project): "It emerges quite clearly that SNR's priorities lie in protecting GE's economic considerations at the expense of the health and safety of KAPL workers."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "responses to virtually all ¼ complaints ¼ are usually in the form of non-responses, e.g. "there is no evidence...", "...there is no unsafe condition...", "...management will investigate further...". Responses such as these are clearly inappropriate particularly when related to asbestos concerns."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project ): "The Saratogian newspaper quoted Mr. Sabian as saying that no problems had been found related to that complaint. You state ¼ that an investigation of the incident has yet to be completed. This lack of candor further reduces worker confidence."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "It took two years from the time of his complaint ¼ to obtain an asbestos abatement plan. ¼  I would furthermore not consider ¼ a conclusory three-sentence statement which lacks appropriate details, to be an abatement plan in any meaningful sense."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "Attachments ¼ indicate a tangled asbestos mess for which, until the GAO investigation was announced, neither GE nor DOE management has given much more than lip service."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "¼ a request for approval of a course of action to alleviate the asbestos problems then plaguing KAPL, clearly acknowledges that 4,000 feet of pipeline covering needs repair since weather conditions had severely reduced its effectiveness. Furthermore, G. Terranova {KAPL Employee Relations] states that "[t]hese areas must be repaired to prevent a release of asbestos fibers."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "These largely baseless responses routinely deny any violation of Occupational Safety & Health Standards or health and safety provisions found in their respective Articles of the IUE/GE National Contract. The documentation belies the KAPL myth, perpetuated by your letter, that management acts responsibly to correct egregious and potentially life?threatening concerns brought to light through union grievances."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "This grievance alleged loose surface contamination on top of the cell, unstable duct work, and high radiation levels from some sections of the duct work. A reading of 24,000 picocuries per 100/[square-cm] was well in excess of the allowable limits. KAPL management was aware of the situation. However, three months passed before SNR responded that "[t]here is no evidence that any KAPL employee has been exposed to an unsafe condition...[nor that] KAPL's radiological controls practices are inadequate for radiological work on top of Radioactive Material Laboratory [R. M. L.] cell #10. ¼One could have just as easily said that there is no evidence that employees were not exposed to the high radiation levels on Cell 10 ? ? assuming it does not make it so. Prudent radiological practice mandates that conditions described in the union's grievance be rectified so as to eliminate the possibility of an exposure."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "Several complaints concerning improper handling of radioactive materials were highlighted in 1985. Responses from management were typically devoid of both detail and of timeliness which the nature of the allegations demanded."

· Tom Carpenter (Attorney Government Accountability Project): "The niggling responses of GE and SNR management to legitimate safety and health concerns demonstrates the elevation of production concerns at the expense of worker and public health and safety."

· Doug Allen (IUE-AE Business Agent): "There seems to be no mention in their (GAO) report for procedures for my carpenters, who have cut threw transite walls with skill saws to make door openings or window openings, or to replace broken transite wall panels, or cutting cemesta board for walls; a large amount of this work was done in closed shops or offices, in which it looked like it was snowing while performing this work ? with no air sampling being done, no monitoring, no procedures, no protection, whatsoever, no training, no qualifications for this work, and no requirements for respirators until approximately 1989, and no protection for the office workers while this work was being performed."

· Doug Allen (IUE Local 301 AE Business Agent): "I find it most interesting that a similar incident occurred in 1990 while your (GAO) investigators were here. In the DIG Plant, they had the Navy remove lagging from some piping in which they were told it was non?asbestos, so they took no precautions other than to wear surgical masks, then proceeded to rip it down, stuff the asbestos in garbage bags, then dragged the garbage bags through the hallways of Building 13, and then threw the garbage bags in the regular garbage dumpster. ¼ So, why was this incident not mentioned in their (the GAO) report?"

· Doug Allen (IUE Local 301 AE Business Agent): "Mr. Synar, if their controls have been so great and there has been no other incidents, maybe someone can explain how the following people (an attached list of 150 workers) contacted Asbestos related Cancer and have past away or have developed asbestosus [sic] (a lung disease). ¼ But I see no mention of any of this in their (the GAO) report and the list will probably continue to grow, but we are safe ? no problem ? your investigators say so!"

· Doug Allen (IUE Local 301 AE Business Agent): "I would like to discuss some of the radiological information we provided to your investigators - such as going into radiation areas and putting film badges in lead boxes so it doesn't show a dose rate. Most of this information was in documents given to the GAO or from interviews they held. ¼ Also, they were informed of the KAPL Landfill and the buried drums with radiation symbols. ¼ I even offered, Mr. Synar, to volunteer my own time, if the Government would provide the heavy equipment to dig up the Landfill to prove or disprove, if the contaminated drums were buried there ¼ but nobody wanted to hear about it. "

· Doug Allen (IUE Local 301 AE Business Agent): "Mr. Sinar, [sic] I would like to say on behalf of myself and my members, that ¼ the employees who have worked in these facilities in the past and the spouses who have lost loved ones from exposure to hazardous material from these facilities is that ? We know better, Sir! ¼ we would like to thank your investigative branch the GAO, especially those individuals who did the investigation and all of the experts they brought in for us to talk to, which we never saw much less got to talk to, and who looked into our allegations ? it was deeply appreciated and we all feel much safer and healthier since the 52 page report has been released, and we could read for ourselves that Naval Reactors still carries the Seal of Excellence ¼ ."

· Wenonah Hauter (Director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project) "The NRC has ignored these important safety issues for decades. If these nuclear reactors don't meet safety requirements, they should be shut down until they do."

· Washington Monthly magazine "The DOE's nuclear weapons complex had deteriorated for 30 years before the GAO noticed."

· Rep Richard Armey (R, TX) "The first recipient of the Mark Twain Statistical Distortion Award is the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress. It's the Mark Twain award, because there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

· Harold L. Ryan (Senior United States District Judge ) "DOE (Naval Reactors) simply does not seem to understand that this nation is depending on it to protect the health and safety of all Americans from the danger associated with its activities."

· Harold L. Ryan (Senior United States District Judge ) "...the court denied DOE's Motion because DOE had made serious misrepresentations to the court.. ¼ When the court learned of these developments, it was dismayed by DOE's apparent bad faith in its representations to the court. Consequently, the court was unmoved by DOE's promise of future compliance."

· Notra Trulock (former Chief of Counterintelligence at the Energy Department) "I was Screwed, blued and tattooed, which I am convinced was the work of political enemies. ¼ This is what happens to whistle-blowers who speak truth to power in the Clinton administration. ¼ I was hounded out of the department (the DOE) for my efforts to expose Chinese nuclear spying."

· Notra Trulock (former Chief of Counterintelligence at the Energy Department) "My judgment on intelligence was questioned by an inspector general's report that went to great lengths to coverup the entire Chinese espionage debacle."

· Notra Trulock (former Chief of Counterintelligence at the Energy Department) "Their responses (DOE superiors) were always "appropriate,"  ¼ but their actions never matched their expressions of concern."

· Notra Trulock (former Chief of Counterintelligence at the Energy Department) "To his credit, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson did present me with a $10,000 bonus, but this didn't offset the fact that I had been demoted, relegated to a meaningless job and eventually forced out of the department. Routine stuff for whistle-blowers in this administration."

· Notra Trulock (former Chief of Counterintelligence at the Energy Department) "I read that I was a 'dangerous demagogue,' a 'great impostor,' 'obsessed,' that my 'style' was abrasive and a host of other epithets ¼ including imputations of racism and xenophobia. This was pretty heavy stuff for someone who has spent most of his career trying to stay out of the public eye."

· Notra Trulock (former Chief of Counterintelligence at the Energy Department) "Of course, most of these allegations came from the very officials within DOE and the White House responsible for the cover-ups and stonewalling of the Congress, and who had fought so hard to kill any meaningful security reform at the labs. Many of these were the perpetrators, if not the creators, of the very security lapses that made Chinese espionage possible in the first place."

· Congressional Report (Staff members of the House Commerce Committee's Republican majority) "The U.S. Department of Energy has "squandered hundreds of millions of dollars" since the end of the Cold War trying to develop innovative technologies for cleaning up the nation's contaminated nuclear weapons sites."

· Harold L. Ryan (Senior United States District Judge ) "Idaho has submitted an internal DOE memorandum which suggests that DOE never intended to reprocess the (naval) fuel, but simply used that as an excuse to send it to INEL for indefinite storage."

Now surely Mr. Beckett you must find this criticism and condemnation of the DOE, the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, and the General Accounting Office appalling, in lieu of your long time effort to sell the myth of "Naval Reactors Excellence." However, you should be able to malign these misguided soles, all respected citizens, into realizing their egregious error. They have quite obviously lost their senses. And when you have completed their enlightenment, please notify me and I will forward another 1000 names of critics for similar conversion.

As to why your disgusting character assassination statement is also patently false, I list five state, federal, and independent findings that clearly and completely validate the merit of allegations I have raised against Naval Reactors. They also show your broad brush smear for what it really is, slander.

1.  1986 Schenectady Naval Reactors Investigation of Asbestos Violations: In 1986 KAPL demoted me from my position as KAPL Manager of Nuclear Safety, Industrial Safety and Industrial Hygiene because an audit team that I headed in 1985 found gross violations in asbestos safety and record keeping at the Laboratory, as well as eighteen pages of other serious safety deficiencies. This report could have cost SNR management their performance bonus for the year. Six months later, after the US Navy threatened to pull its entire force of 1200 sailors out of the Kesselring Site Operation because of the alarming asbestos situation, Schenectady Naval Reactors substantiated the findings of my audit in reporting that KAPL had no asbestos control oversight program ("Management attention to the asbestos control program simply did not exist." ??? Barry Ericson, Manager of SNR). Since then, Naval Reactors has spent $30,000,000, out of a budgeted $100,000,000 million on an asbestos cleanup program at KAPL and KSO that is yet to be completed. The KAPL asbestos cleanup has been categorized by one national asbestos expert as the largest such cleanup in the history of the country. Furthermore, KAPL management continues to thwart all efforts by both union and non-union employees to obtain compensation for asbestos exposures to thousands of past and present employees.

2.  1987 New York State/DOE Investigation of The Peek Street Weapons Factory: NY State DEC representatives and the DOE working as an investigation team at the former Peek Street weapons factory verified my allegation that Naval Reactors had abandoned that facility in 1953 without decontaminating it of high levels of radioactivity both inside the building and on the grounds. Prior to the NY State/DOE finding, KAPL repeatedly denied that Peek Street was contaminated. After abandonment, the building was sold to a food wholesaler (Buy-Rite), who distributed food from this radioactive site throughout the Capitol District for 20 years.  In 1988 radiation measurements along an adjacent bike path where children played were found to be 700% above normal background radiation. Subsequently, DOE FUSRAP covertly removed this radiation from Peek Street but never supplied the city of Schenectady with a final report as to what the radiation status was. The building was destroyed in a roaring inferno in 1999 but the rubble, almost certainly contaminated with radioactivity, remains. Naval Reactors should still be held accountable for this mess.

3.  1988 New York State Investigation of The KAPL Radioactive Parking Lot:
In response to my allegations of a radioactive parking lot at KAPL, The Schenectady Gazette reported that an unpaved parking lot at the Knolls Site was radioactively contaminated, and had been so for 20 years. Radiation levels were measured as high as 10,000% above normal background. This finding by a local Newspaper contradicts the GAO audit. After initially denying that the parking lost was radioactive, KAPL paved it with asphalt. During this time KAPL spent upwards of $1 million on investigations trying, without success, to discover who had obtained the soil samples from the parking lot.

A NY State Labor Department investigation found that the General Electric Co. violated six sections of state labor law. GE was cited for:

· failure to confine possession and use of radioactive materials to controlled areas
· possessing soil contaminated in excess of state standards for unrestricted use
· failure to record the radioactivity during inventory
· failure to record survey checks or tests on the lot
· failure to report the radioactivity to the state labor commissioner
· failure to conspicuously post a sign warning of radioactive danger at the parking lot

4.1989 DOE Inspector General Investigation of the 1995 Nuclear Criticality Safety Audit: I alleged that the 1985 KAPL Fuel Handling and Storage Safety Counsel [FHSSC] audit was fraudulent because of a number of major irregularities, including appointing an audit leader who had no experience in nuclear criticality safety, changing the scoring system used to quantify the results so as to falsely indicate a precipitous drop in safety, including non-nuclear safety issues in the scoring, writing a cover letter to the report that was not representative of the findings, and issuing the report without sign off (proof of review) by members of the FHSSC committee. The DOE-IG report, following its investigation, found my allegations had merit. Inexplicably, no action was taken to force KAPL into compliance with federal law [DOE Order 5483.1A], and reinstate me as a Manager of Health and Safety.

The DOE-IG findings included the following:

(1) "It would have been appropriate for KAPL management to have more fully addressed the concerns of Shannon regarding the cover letter to the 1985 FHSSC audit. ¼ Three of six statements in the Summary of Findings section of the 1985 FHSSC audit cover letter were misleading or erroneous, even though the [erroneous] findings were generally accepted [by KAPL management] as accurate"

(2) "Scoring of Findings were inconsistent. Trend determinations were inconsistent" and "Trend assessments were erroneous"

(3) "Characterization and other aspects of reporting of ... Nuclear Safety audit results was inconsistent and erroneous"

(4) "There were  ¼ no written procedures that specifically addressed the conduct and reporting of FHSSC Nuclear Safety Audits"

(5) "There was insufficient management oversight of the summarization, categorization and other aspects of reporting of FHSSC Nuclear Safety audits"

The DOE-IG recommend that the Manager, Schenectady Naval Reactors office:

(a) "Ensure that KAPL management improves the conduct and reporting of FHSSC Nuclear Safety audits by developing and publishing  additional guidelines and procedures, as appropriate, for the conduct and reporting of FHSSC audits.

(b) Provide for appropriate KAPL management oversight to ensure consistency and accuracy in the reporting of FHSSC Nuclear Safety audit results."

Interestingly, the Manager of the Schenectady Naval Reactors Office (whose educational credentials amounted to a degree in Hotel Management), and the SNR Manager of Safety, suddenly found it expedient to take early retirement before the DOE Inspector General arrived at KAPL for this investigation. In any case, The DOE-IG's recommendations were ignored by SNR/ NR since the purpose of the audit was obviously to provide cause to remove me from my position as Health and Safety Manager for reporting an asbestos disaster in 1985. It was a blatant exercise in retaliation.

5.  1995 National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) - Department of Energy Retaliation Complaint Study: In response to my repeated complaints to the DOE and to Congress that I had been retaliated against for raising safety violations at KAPL, I was considered to be a whistleblower and was one of many interviewed by NAPA. My allegation was, that despite the DOE's policy of "zero tolerance for reprisal" my case had not been resolved, my hard earned reputation for excellent performance had been damaged, and my professional career was in ruins. In addition, I charged that the perpetrators of the retaliation against me had continued their employment unpunished, and even with promotions and bonuses. NAPA found that the DOE contractor employees had no viable procedure for review of such whistleblower allegations and concluded that a special procedure should be developed that would review  "old cases", such as mine, expeditiously in a cost-effective manner and provide finality to them. The DOE and Naval Reactors have totally ignored the results of this study because it was not what they wanted to hear.

So much for whether my complaints were found, by legitimate state, federal, and independent investigators, to have merit. They were, and the allegations that Naval Reactors has so far succeeded in stonewalling and continuing to coverup will also eventually be found to have merit. I do not make allegations for which I do not have well-documented proof.

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Now I will address the one, and only, major investigation of KAPL, conducted by the General Accounting Office [GAO] in 1991, that, to the GAO's everlasting discredit, refused to confirm my allegations. That investigation was a travesty that will be dealt in due time and those committing a Federal crime by providing false information to a Federal agency, namely the GAO, will be prosecuted. There is no statute of limitations on this kind of criminal activity.

In 1990 I submitted a list of serious safety and environmental violations at KAPL to the late Congressman Mike Synar's office. These violations included operation of four unsafe prototype power reactors at the Kesselring Site, the retaliatory 1985 audit of nuclear criticality safety operations, the long time procrastination by KAPL in dismantling the highly radioactive weapons factory complex (SPRU), the asbestos and hundreds of 55 gallon drums filled with toxic waste and radioactive sludge buried in the landfills, the radioactive contamination at the abandoned Peek Street Site, the radioactive parking lot, the horrendous asbestos situation throughout the Laboratory, the thousands of curies of radioactive Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 dumped into the Mohawk River, and the over-classification of KAPL documents to circumvent Freedom of Information Requests and to maintain their ongoing cover-up.

I alleged that Naval Reactors dumped hundreds of curies of Cs-137 and Sr-90 into the mighty Mohawk river for 10 years before discovering that the Cs-137 was going directly into the river sediment. Municipal water wells were located less than 1 mile downstream from this irresponsible action. A follow-up Naval Reactor's study of  the river concluded that radioactive fish were a result of fallout from bomb testing.

I also alleged that the radioactive contamination from the SPRU facility had spread throughout the surrounding grounds and most of the internal work areas of the Laboratories (including offices, hallways, libraries, rest rooms, analytic laboratories, storage rooms, parking lots, bike paths, sewers, landfills, railroad sidings, river banks, the Mohawk river, employees' clothing, cars and homes, and even woodchuck holes), with various long live radioactive isotopes, including plutonium. Naval Reactor's 1975 solution ¼ remove the employee's radiation monitoring badges as a cost saving. Then in 1984, the Manager of RHEP issued a letter to Naval Reactors indicating that a hundred finds of significant radiation had been discovered throughout the Laboratory as a result of a one month search. An attempt to obtain this letter under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] was stymied when the copy I received was entirely redacted. Fortunately I have an un-redacted copy. The document is not classified, merely embarrassing to NR and GE. A fact also ignored by the GAO.

The false GAO report ignored some of my allegations and found against most of the remaining, although it did, begrudgingly, admit that there was concern over lack of asbestos management and over the possibility that toxic (not radioactive) materials may exist in the landfill.

There were many major irregularities in the GAO investigation of KAPL, including but not limited to the following:

1.  The GAO investigative team ignored several of my major allegations, specifically those concerning the radioactively contaminated Peek Street Site, the dumping of thousands of curies of radioactivity into the Mohawk river, and the landfills that hold hundreds [perhaps thousands] of 55 gallon drums containing radioactive sludge.

2.  The GAO investigative team never requested documentation offered in support of my allegation, and contrary to the final report did not interview a single individual on a long list of current and former employees I provided who would give first hand testimony to support my allegations.

3.  The GAO did not keep their promise to allow me to talk to their so called nuclear safety expert about the unsafe reactors at the Kesselring Site Operation. After the false GAO report was issued, I phoned the NRC and discussed the matter with Mr. Duane G. Fitzgerald, a Nuclear Engineer, and purportedly the GAO inspection team member for reactor safety. He informed me that he knew little about the subject of naval reactors, did not visit KSO to inspect the reactors, and was not significantly involved in the investigation. The GAO report falsely states that the KAPL prototype reactors " . . . meet the intent of NRC safety criteria for normal operations and accident conditions." Nothing presently known of, or available in the Nuclear Industry replaces an Emergency Core Cooling System or a Containment Vessel. The GAO comment is a blatant lie.

4.  The GAO, specifically Mr. Victor Rezendes, the team leader of the KAPL investigation, has refused to honor my request for a copy of the original notes taken during the investigation. Mr. Rezendes claims that it is the policy of the GAO to destroy such notes after three or five years, depending on when I talked to him. Should this be true, then it is quiet likely that the GAO is in violation of Federal law which requires that all Federal GAO records be maintained for a period of at least ten years.

I have attempted, without success, to get a local, state or federal agency to press charges against KAPL management for lying to the GAO [Under 18 U. S. C. 1001]. My failure to find an agency willing to conduct such an investigation does not make the lying any less despicable, it simply means that the judicial agencies and courts are afraid to enforce the laws of the land, something not new in our nations history. Members of Synar's staff confided to me that the GAO report on KAPL was a fraud and a member of the GAO audit team apologized and said it was "the best we could do."

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As my dear departed mother always told me, "Don't pay attention to what they say, it's more important to watch what they do." And sure enough, since issuance of the false GAO report, it has become apparent that a deal was struck between Naval Reactors and the GAO such that the GAO would find against my allegations, i.e., provide a whitewash for Naval Reactors, if KAPL would agree to take corrective action in the areas of the allegations. It is verifiable and on the record that since the 1991 GAO audit, KAPL and Naval Reactors have taken several actions that are directly a result of my allegations, which include but are not limited to:

1.  Removed the KAPL Manager of Radiation Protection from his job[ after the GAO investigation]: This individual was not a Certified Health Physicist and had never earned a degree in Health Physics. However, he did achieve the distinction of being known throughout the Laboratory as "Dr. Truth", for the simple reason that he seemed incapable of ever telling the truth. It has been apparent in recent years that many other individuals in the Naval Reactors program suffer this same affliction.

2.  Forced the  KAPL Manager of Radiation Health and Environmental Protection [RHEP] to retire early [after the GAO investigation]: This individual had zero experience in either field. He retired  from KAPL at age 57. The General Manager of KAPL noted that McHugh had "... no sense of leadership".  and  that " the major reasons we are in the media today. . . is because of the actions you took regarding the . . . FHSSC audit, Shannon/Stater, Bordell, and now Cottrell"

3.  Permanently shutdown two of the four unsafe prototype reactors at the Kesselring Site Operation (KSO): The S3G prototype was decommissioned and the D1G prototype was shutdown [after the GAO investigation]. These were the two oldest and most decrepit of four reactors. I alleged that the four prototype reactor plants at the KSO, located just six miles from the resort area of Saratoga Springs, NY, were unsafe because of lack of two vital safety systems mandated by the NRC on all commercial reactors, namely, Emergency Core Cooling Systems (ECCS) to prevent core meltdown and Containment Systems to prevent release of radioactive materials to the environment. The recent crippling and probable core melt on the HMS Tireless, moored in Gibraltar since May, well illustrates the vulnerability of nuclear-powered submarines to a non-isolable coolant leak without an ECCS. The GAO report falsely stated that, " Naval Reactors have provided (prototype) safety measures that are consistent with commercial nuclear reactor requirements."

4.  Initiated a multimillion dollar clean up of major facilities within the Laboratory in 1997: Offices, hallways, analytic laboratories, duct work, cabinets, filters, etc. are being cleaned of radioactive contamination, plutonium, beryllium, asbestos, and other toxic materials. One subcontractor employee carried radioactive contamination to his home in Gloversville, NY, approximately 40 miles from the Laboratory.

5.  Admitted, this year [2000], that KAPL is a weapons factory: After repeated denials for over a decade, KAPL finally confesses that both the Peek Street Site and the Knolls Site contain pilot plants for using the PUREX process in separating plutonium from depleted nuclear fuel. The plutonium was used to make nuclear bombs. A DOE contract exists for a 14-year cleanup of this facility and a large tank farm at the Knolls Site.. I also allege that SPRU is subject to the same fire risk as Peek Street, but with the potential to release massive amounts of contained radiation. It is from these weapons factories that most of the radioactive contamination, spread throughout the two Sites, originated.

6.  Announced, this year, that the SPRU facility will be dismantled at a cost of $200 million over the next 14 years. The DOE states that "it considers SPRU to be a contamination risk, but not an immediate threat to health and environmental safety" ¼ even though it is known that cells and storage tanks containing high levels of radiation have been leaking to the surrounding grounds for years ¼ and even though they indicate that the contaminated materials will be packaged and shipped to a disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Yucca Mountain is the yet to be completed U.S. high level waste repository, which explains why SPRU has remained in limbo for 50 years. The facility is so radioactively hot there was no place to dispose of remains.

7.  Announced that it will test, this year, a radioactive parking lot that may have been built with radioactive fill: This is the same parking lot that I first alleged was radioactive in 1989.

8.  Admitted, this year, that a defunct railroad spur is radioactively contaminated: This is the same railroad siding that I alleged was radioactive in 1989.

9.  Submitted to Congressional action, this year, a proposal that removes KAPL exemption from Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Act: I alleged that Naval Reactors had covertly introduced an exemption for their program into the bill, even though KAPL was a weapons factory. Subsequently it was removed because of my extensive letter writing campaign to several Senators and Governors, exposing Naval Reactor's deceit.

Seven of these actions have been initiated since 1997, with six being very recent. That's from five to eight years after the false GAO report was issued. Perhaps, by this time, KAPL and Naval Reactors thought that I had gotten on with my life and was no longer paying attention. Well, I hate to disappoint everyone, but I am watching your activities like a hawk. In addition, I still have plenty of informants within the Laboratory. Sorry!

The contradictions between the false GAO report and the KAPL corrective actions after the GAO investigation are indeed remarkable. Likewise, the correlation between my allegations and the KAPL corrective actions after the GAO investigation is too remarkable to be a coincident. This alone is grounds for recall of the false GAO report and prosecution of those that supplied false information to the GAO.
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And with all of this, there remain four items in your letter to Congressman Sweeney that are totally false. It is indeed amazing how much rubbish you can spew into one short letter.

You state that "the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 was necessary because of problems that otherwise prevented weapons workers from obtaining redress. These problems included poor worker training, poor monitoring of workplace exposures, and poor record keeping", which you then falsely claim were not experienced in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. Sir, I would like to refer you to the 1986 Schenectady Naval Reactors Investigation of Asbestos Violations. These are precisely the failures of the KSO asbestos program as identified by your Schenectady office, and were directly associated with Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program activity. And contrary to the false GAO report, these very same failures were, and are, pervasive in the KAPL Radiation Protection program, as evidenced by removal of both the Manager of Radiation Protection and the Manager of Radiation Health and Environmental Protection.

You also state that, "In addition, long-standing practices ensure that workers exposed to radiation or hazardous substances associated with Program work receive comprehensive training and that their exposures are kept low. In all, about 2000 workers were employed by the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory on work outside of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program at the Knolls, Sacandaga Road, and Peek Street sites during that time. Although there is no indication that the health of these workers was impacted by their work, these employees are included in the scope of the alternate compensation program."

Since you have been detected, and embarrassed, in your covert attempt seeking total Naval Reactor exemption from compensation, you now try to maneuver to minimize the number of employees who may apply. In a letter to Secretary Richardson, I have taken a somewhat different, and more conservative, position on who should be included for compensation. I stated that, "Nearly all of the environmental damage from these pilot plants remains in place. And, since both the small pilot plant at Peek Street in downtown Schenectady and the much larger pilot plant at the Knolls Site, called the Separations Research Process Unit (SPRU), extensively contaminated both facilities, including the surrounding grounds and most of the internal work areas of the Laboratories (including offices, hallways, libraries, rest rooms, analytic laboratories, storage rooms, parking lots, bike paths, sewers, landfills, railroad sidings, river banks, the Mohawk river, employees' clothing, cars and homes, and even woodchuck holes), with various long live radioactive isotopes, including plutonium, it is not just the few hundred pilot plant workers who were exposed to excessive levels of radiation and beryllium, but rather every employee who ever worked at either facility. All must be assessed for compensation."  This amounts to upwards of 20,000 current and former KAPL employees, plus hundreds, if not thousands, of subcontractor employees, as well as their families.

In addition, there was substantial work done with beryllium metal during the early days of the Naval Reactors program, at Peek Street, at KSO, and at the Knolls Site, as associated with the Submarine Intermediate Reactor project (SIR) which utilized a beryllium moderator. This work consisted of cutting and machining beryllium without proper safety controls. As a result, beryllium dust still remains in large areas of the Laboratory, which at the Knolls Site includes D-building, E-building, F-building, the Q-4 building, and possibly other buildings. Subcontractor employees cleaning E?building have been exposed to, and contaminated with, beryllium dust within the past year. But here again, many employees not directly involved in beryllium work were exposed to the beryllium dust because it was so widely dispersed. Therefore, all present and past KAPL employees, and contractor employees, must be eligible for compensation due to health problems associated with beryllium exposure.

You also falsely state that. "¼ exposures are kept low. For example, since the 1950's, the average occupational exposure to radiation for workers monitored at the Program's laboratory facilities is approximately one- eighth rem per year--well below the Federal limit of five rem per year." Here again, even though you have been detected, and embarrassed, in your covert attempt seeking total Naval Reactor exemption from compensation, you persist by concocting false reasons to prejudge why KAPL employees will not receive compensation. Sir, this volunteered information does not mesh with your miserable track record of intentional failure in protecting employees, which stands on its own, and includes removal of the Manager of Radiation Protection and the Manager of Radiation Health and Environmental Protection after the GAO audit, placing employee radiation badges in lead boxes to prevent exposure during work in high radiation areas, discontinuing use of employee radiation badges even though the Laboratory was widely contaminated with radioactivity ¼ as evidenced by the 100 finds of radiation contamination ten years later, and illegally firing a senior certified health physicist for reporting that 400 KAPL employees may have received internal over exposures. In addition, the KAPL radiation protection program operated on the absurd premise that high personnel radiation exposure readings were to be ignored unless they could be related to a known nuclear incident. This premise (directive) is exactly opposite that used by legitimate radiation programs.

You also falsely state that, "The Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory was initially established in 1946 under contract to the Manhattan Project for the nuclear weapons program and other nuclear - related work." By this bit of garbled misinformation, the key word being "initially",  you are implying that the weapons work and the Naval Reactors program occurred at separate times. It is well known, and well documented, that at both Peek Street and the Knolls Site the weapons work and the Naval Reactors work were initiated at the same time and proceeded in parallel. The weapons factories were an integral part of both the Peek Street Site and the Knolls Site, with both facilities being used primarily for Naval Reactors work. All contractor people working on both projects were all GE employees, with the only distinction being the source of funding. Weapons factory workers had full access to Knolls Site, use the same security badges as Naval Reactors employees, used the same hallways, used the same rest rooms, used the same library, used the same cafeteria, used the same parking lot, and could transfer freely between weapons and Naval Reactor work. There was no physical boundary between the weapons factory and the Naval Reactor areas.

Most notably, you never once responded to Congressman Sweeny's request for an explanation as to why KAPL/KSO, present and former employees, are being excluded from the proposed Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act of 2000. In fact, you never once acknowledged that such an exemption ever existed. Rather, you state that, "Although there is no indication that the health of these workers was impacted by their work, these employees are included in the scope of the alternate compensation program", as though Naval Reactors warrants credit for such an altruistic deed. Sir, you know as well as I, that it was Naval Reactors that was responsible for covertly having the exemption for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program entered into the original legislation. This exemption read as follows:

". . . (A) in which operations are, or have been, conducted by, or on behalf of, the Department of Energy (except for buildings, structures,  premises, grounds, or operations covered by Executive Order No. 12344, dated February 1, 1982 (42 U.S.C. 7158 note), pertaining to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program)."

The removal of this exemption came about due to my extensive writing campaign to a number of Senators and Governors. Yet, you have the audacity and the effrontery to claim that my allegations are without merit at the very time my allegations have caught you in the act of implementing a devious and despicable scheme of exemption. Instead of resorting to bureaucratic obfuscation, why didn't you just answer the simple request for an explanation, Mr. Beckett?

And finally, a complaint about an aspect of your response that is truly shocking. On January 15, 1998, Mr. Carl H. Schmitt, Deputy Director, Office of Naval Reactors, responded to an inquiry by the Honorable Orrin G. Hatch, Committee of the Judiciary, by falsely stating, "Mr. Shannon has raised these issues regarding the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory on a number of occasions in the past and they have been found to be without merit." You Sir, nearly three years later, in addition to all the other misinformations in your letter, have essentially plagiarized Mr. Schmitt's statement. Have you no sense of decency? Next time please try to slander me with a little more originality, even if it takes considerable effort on your part. It will make you feel really good, all over. Have a good day!

Sincerely,
John P. Shannon
John P. Shannon, Major USMC (Retired)
Thirty Year General Electric Company Employee at KAPL
Nuclear Physicist/Nuclear Engineer
Former Manager of Nuclear Safety
Industrial Safety/Industrial Hygiene
at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory

CC:
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Congressman Michael McNulty
Plus at least one million e-mails
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