PEER c/o Jeff Ruch,
Hi Jeff,
Hoping that you still remember me and our phone discussions back in mid 2000s, when I told you the Uniontown IEL Superfund Site in NE Ohio's Pu levels, according to rad experts, were 1000 xs what was expected world -wide ( and in just surface waters, not deep in groundwater like at IEL)...I told you how they said Uniontown 's levels reported exceeded the action limit at Colorado's Rocky Flats = 0.15 pico curies per liter, where DOE contractors were reportedly fined for hundreds of thousands of dollars for breeching this limit.
At that time, you wished me well, but said that your organization couldn't help sites unless federal ( or state) employees contacted you and became "whistleblowers"...I said that we had numerous ones, at both state and federal levels. Perhaps you heard in later years, if I copied you, that even the top radio chemist out at Idaho National Lab, RESL, David Sill, had cried foul on IEL's Pu analysis in various ways - failing to preserve, field filtration, filtration on top of "Low Flow" , allowing PRPs to stop the Pu lab counting at merely TWO HOURS, vs. the routine, mim. amount DOE requires - 16 hours - to obtain proper certainty!
PRC/ Tetra Tech was USED HERE reportedly BEFORE they were used out in CA at Hunters' Point. Even US EPA good guy research & development scientists tried to help us, "talking multiple hours" with the US EPA Inspector General's person, Christine Baughman ( under Paul Mc Kechnie who had replaced Robert Martin who had quit in sheer disgust about what was going on at sites like Uniontown. Indeed, IEL was a central case being overseen by Martin and his chief investigator, Hugh Kaughman.
Therefore, CCLT is contacting you after all these many years in hopes that perhaps, since you are helping H.P., you might consider help Uniontown? Tragically, a top whistleblower for US EPA I was personally engaged in conversations with back in 2003, Ken Lovelace, committed suicide in 2006, and his peers led me to believe his death was related to Uniontown IEL and pressure placed upon Ken. Surely, given all the above, special consideration might be given to our case by PEER?
I was even provided in 2018 by DOE's Dave Sill a very disturbing email along with others in a chain ( for his protection), that DOE was leaning on Sill to look the otherway on improper Pu test methods . ( He knew this info. would certainly not surprise us here at IEL given what EPA allowed!)...
Sadly, Dave passed away in 2021. But the burden ALL the whistleblowers placed on my shoulders as a citizen serving as a "conduit" to the outside in efforts clearly to get that information out to the public, is worthy of considering myself as a "whistleblower" though I have never received a penny in compensation as said workers did?
Sincerely ,
Chris Borello, spokeswoman for Concerned Citizens of Lake Twp., Uniontown IEL Superfund Site, OH
