Table of Contents

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Introduction

Question #1. 3
How shall we honor the environmental moms of Los Alamos who in 1946 demanded protection of children and family pets playing in canyons contaminated with plutonium? Who can tell us about other unrecognized acts of resistance by citizens and workers?

Question #2.4
For how many years after 1946 did the Lab have a policy of assigning a special internal classification to health-related documents whose release might result in lawsuits against "the project"?

1950s

Question #3. 5
Was the Lab ever able to account for the 100 grams of plutonium missing from DP Site in 1951? Where did it go?

Question #4. 6
Are stack releases from DP Site of 1.4 to 1.8 Ci plutonium for the years 1951, 1952 and 1953 reported in a 1990 LANL ER document accurate (Nyhan, 1990)? How can these numbers be reconciled with published reports of only 1-2 curies of plutonium released into the air from DP Site in all of 1948-1989?

Question #5. 8
Historical stack monitoring reports in the 1950's and 1960's obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have pages missing in a regular sequence. What information is reported on the missing pages?

Question #6. 9
Did operation - and failure - of the Clementine reactor in 1952 result in the release into the environment of fission products, mercury and/or plutonium? If so, in what quantities?

Question #7. 10
What accounts for the extraordinarily high ambient level of radioactivity recorded in late September 1954 at the following residential address: 2135 B 35th St.?

Question #8. 12
What caused the "blue snow" reported by citizens near Black Lake in May 1955?

Question #9. 14
What is the total number of subjects used in human radiation experiments at Los Alamos? How can individuals, or their survivors, who believe they were experimented upon gain access to records documenting the identities and quantities of radionuclides to which they were exposed? Won't environmental epidemiologic studies be hopelessly confounded unless individuals' past exposures in human radiation experiments are taken into account?

Question #10. 16
Was the old trailer park, originally located near the Omega Were the residents ever notified?

1960s

Question #11. 17
What specific production activities at Los Alamos account for the rise in air emissions of plutonium from TA-21 in the second half of 1969 after the Rocky Flats pit production unit was shut down by the May 1969 fire?

Question #12. 20
Why do monitoring reports from TA-21 carry the notation:

"These figures should not be recorded on yearly report"

alongside large numbers in July 1969? Did similarly large numbers appear in stack samples? Why does a yearly emissions inventory, compiled in 1970, claim that Room 401 at TA-21 was "not in use" during 1969?

Question #13. 22
Are there possible long-term effects on public health from the Los Alamos Molten Plutonium Reactor Experiment, which was halted when several plutonium fuel elements ruptured?

Question #14. 24
What source terms are associated with E.R. Graham's finding of I-131 in grassclippings, at levels greater than regional background, near Omega West Reactor in 1962? Any later data?

Question #15. 25
When will Health Division Monthly Progress Reports later than 1964 be released unexpurgated to the public?

Question #16. 28
What proportion of the 15,500 Ci of mixed fission products reported released from TA-2 (Omega West Reactor) in 1967 is accounted for by radioiodines or precursors?

Question #17. 29
What specific processes were carried out at OWR beginning in the mid-1960's that necessitated an increase in power from 5 to 8 MW? What are the associated source terms and their potential impacts on public health?

Question #18. 31
What activities at OWR beginning in the mid-1960's justified the national security exemption which Los Alamos won from AEC reactor siting criteria? What are the associated source terms and their potential impacts on public health?

Question #19. 37
How many "indigent patients" were recruited from Indian Hospitals and local communities for human radiation experiments? What radionuclides, if any, were they exposed to, and in what quantities? Can valid environmental epidemiologic studies be conducted without taking into account experimental exposures?

Question #20. 38
How can independent epidemiologic researchers gain access to the records necessary to compile a roster of subjects involved in the human radiation experiments? How many of the cases in the NM DOH study of thyroid cancer in Los Alamos County were subjects in the human radiation experiments?

Question #21. 40
How many fuel failures - apparently intentional occurred during the Molten Plutonium Burn-up Experiments? What are the associated source terms?

Question #22. 41
Did anyone ever find the cobalt-60 pins that were scattered into the environment near TA-33 in 1962?

Question #23. 42
Is there a specific Lab process at Los Alamos that might be associated with the excesses of female brain cancer in the 1960's (4 cases, statistically significant) and again in the 1980's?

Question #24.43
What doses were received by Indian crews working without full personal protective equipment on the Bayo Canyon clean-up in 1963? How do their doses compare with those of Zia personnel?

Question #25. 45
What accounts for the discrepancy between AEC officials' claim that the Salamander incinerators at TA-21 released no radioactivity versus stack monitoring data which show emissions of Pu-239 and fission products?

1970's

Question #26.46
Are the reported plutonium source terms of:

1972 7.9 mCi
1973 7.3 mCi

for TA-3 accurate, in light of problematic stacks which repeatedly exceeded the AEC's maximum permissible concentration for plutonium in air (MPCa)? Is it noteworthy that these stacks are about one mile upwind of the Western Area?

Question #27.48
Is the source term of 10 micrograms Pu-238 accurate for the incident of October 7, 1970, in which an experiment in a chemical hood released contamination through an unfiltered stack at TA 21?

Question #28. 52
Were the concerns of H-Division personnel about environmental contamination adequately addressed before "single point tests" were conducted in the early 1970's? What were the environmental source terms associated with these experiments?

Question #29. 54
Did LAMPF ever produce kilocurie quantities of radioiodine isotopes, as suggested by this 1970 planning document?

Question #30. 55
Is there a more thorough (but perhaps less widely circulated) historical emissions inventory than the 1973 memo by Valentine? It fails to consider I-131 simply because it is short-lived.

Question #31. 56
What did H-1 personnel see when they reached the Omega surge tank on August 23, 1971? Why is a key sentence blacked out on this "best available copy"?

1980's

Question #32. 57
Did Los Alamos scientists bombard uranium and thorium targets as large as 2,000 kg at LAMPF in the 1980's, as planned? If so, were significant quantities of fission products generated and released?

Question #33. 58
Was a space reactor under development at LANL also ground tested at LANL?

Question #34. 59
Does the inventory of 3,520 curies of I-131 at Target Cell #4 of the Weapons Neutron Research Facility represent reality or an exaggerated "worst case"? How much was emitted via the stack? What process(es) generated I-131? And for how many years were these processes carried out?

Question #35. 60
Was LANL's Omega West Reactor active in the production of Mo-99, Tc-99 and radioiodine isotopes (I-125, I-131, etc.) during the 1980's?

Question #36. 61
Were the Sheba critical assemblies ever operated at a large number of fissions (- 10¹⁸) without holding tanks to allow decay of the large quantities of radioiodines that would have been produced?

Question #37. 63
Were the shut down(s) of the Los Alamos Critical Assemblies Facility related to health and safety-related concerns?

Question #38.64
For the years of greatest emissions of activation products from LAMPF are the lab's official estimates of public bystander doses accurate?

1990's

Question #39. 65
Were there leaks from the "iodine production loop," or related activities, at OWR in 1992 or earlier?

Question #40. 69
Did the four confirmed recent cases of leiomyosarcoma (soft tissue sarcoma) share a common residential history that is either: a) downwind of the plume of an old incinerator (whose ash pile contains dioxins); or b) on the rim of Acid Canyon in the 1950's and 1960's?

Question #41. 71
Do these two internal memos by ESH-12 in 1992 personnel accurately account for historical sources of radioiodine around LANL?

Question #42. 73
Who has ever heard of "Omega East Reactor"? It apparently refers to the Water Boiler, which was 100 times less powerful than Omega West Reactor.

Question #43. 77
What steps can be taken to prevent the premature destruction of historical documents important for dose reconstruction, as may have occurred recently at INEL?

Index80

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