[CPEO-MEF] Savannah River Ecology Laboratory may be cut

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Budget cuts raise questions about DOE priorities

Kellyn Betts
Environmental Science & Technology
April 20, 2005 

Two potential casualties of the Department of Energy's (DOE) proposed
fiscal year 2006 (FY '06) budget are funding for the Savannah River
Ecology Laboratory (SREL) and research into surficial science?a new area
of study for DOE that focuses on radionuclide behavior and has been
deemed important by scientists inside and outside the agency. Both cuts
are raising concerns from environmental scientists as well as policy
makers. 

"SREL is a valuable national resource and, in my opinion, one of the
premier ecological research organizations in the world," says Brian
Looney, an advisory scientist with the Savannah River National
Laboratory (SRNL), a separate facility. SREL scientists have "an
incredible record of pioneering research and are recognized by the
frequent use of their research [books and papers] in the ecology
classrooms of universities everywhere," he adds. If DOE's FY '06 budget
is approved by Congress, it would end nearly 54 years of DOE funding
that began with the Atomic Energy Commission, which eventually was
subsumed by DOE. 

Funding SREL makes good sense as part of DOE's research portfolio
because the Savannah River site has contamination in the surface waters,
which is unique in terms of DOE's problem areas, adds Jim Tiedje, a
distinguished professor of crop and soil sciences and of microbiology
and molecular genetics at Michigan State University. 

...

For the entire article, see
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/apr/policy/kb_SREL.html 


-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
_______________________________________________
Military mailing list
Military@list.cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org/mailman/listinfo/military