Their malfeasance in servicing the cleanup of DOE's most toxic nuclear site endangers all of us

 

Cleaning Up the Hanford Nuclear Site Mess is Expensive

The Tri-Cities, where I live, consists of three closely linked cities -- Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco -- at the confluence of the Yakima, Snake, and Columbia Rivers in the Columbia Basin of Eastern Washington. If you classify it as one city (it isn't, but that's another story), it's a mid-sized city about 12-minutes drive from the "most toxic place in America," the Hanford Nuclear Site.

The contamination that made Hanford toxic came about as a result of its role in the Manhattan Project -- the development of the atomic bomb. As written in a 1996 Washington Post report, "In their rush to produce fuel for weapons of mass destruction, plutonium makers at Hanford dumped 440 billion gallons of contaminated liquid into the sandy soil, enough to flood Manhattan to a depth of 80 feet."

 

In addition, 61 million gallons of toxic radioactive waste were pumped into 177 underground tanks, at least 68 of which have leaked. The DOE calls Hanford "the single largest environmental and health risk in the nation." An impressive array of contractors have come and gone at Hanford, drawn not to the nasty work, but to the tasty rewards. According to a 2019 GAO Report (GAO-19-28);

 

In its fiscal year 2018 financial statement, EM added $82 billion to the environmental liability at DOE’s Hanford site, meaning EM’s liability increased from fiscal year 2014 through 2018 by nearly $130 billion and, as of October 2018, is $242 billion.

 

It Seems Particularly Greedy to Cheat

One can hardly blame businesses for making the most of their opportunities to rake in the money. That's why, after all, they're in business. That being said, when there's so much money -- taxpayer money (our money) -- to go around, it seems particularly greedy to cheat. And yet, they did. The Tri-City Herald reports that, “The companies building the $17 billion vitrification plant at Hanford have agreed to pay nearly $58 million to the federal government to settle allegations that they billed the Department of Energy for fraudulent labor costs.”

 

The first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington said, “It is stunning that for nearly a decade, Bechtel and AECOM chose to line their corporate pockets by diverting important taxpayer funds from this critically essential effort.” The Bechtel and AECOM contractors couldn't work out their projects such that electricians, millwrights, pipefitters and other skilled workers had any work during regular hours -- 10-hours per day Monday - Friday -- but billed DOE for idle time and then scheduled overtime on weekends and billed for that. Nice work if you can get it. The Tri-City Herald article points out that, in addition to Bechtel and AECOM, their subsidiary, Waste Treatment Completion Co., is named in the settlement.

Read more here: https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article245934540.html#storylink=cpy

 

This isn't the first time Bechtel and AECOM have run afoul of government watchdogs. In 2016, they agreed to pay $125 million to resolve allegations that they charged the DOE for materials and work that did not meet quality standards for nuclear facilities. According to charges, Bechtel also illegally used taxpayer dollars to lobby Congress for more money.

 

At the Vit Plant, we believe in exercising uncompromising integrity, honesty, and fairness in the way we do business. Bechtel and principal subcontractor AECOM are committed to adhering to the highest standards of business ethics. We stand by everything we do. Bechtel Mission Statement

 

Greed is Good

In the 1987 movie, Wall Street, venture capitalist, Gordon Gekko made a speech to shareholders in which he said, “The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good…Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

The "better word" Gekko lacked was self-interest. Self-interest underpins capitalism. When self-interest reaches its apex, the people running companies and their subsidiaries/subcontractors like Bechtel and AECOM and Waste Treatment Completion Co. and:

• Enron
  Goldman Sachs
  Dupont
  KPMG
  Wells Fargo 
  Waste Management
  WorldCom

and on and on and on, lie, cheat, and steal. Not everyone gets caught. And that's the rub.

Under Republican administrations, the regulatory bodies overseeing corporations and financial services, including the IRS, are starved of resources needed to do their jobs effectively. When that doesn't work, the regulatory tools, i.e., regulations and laws, are rolled back and or repealed -- this has been rampant under the Trump Administration. These regulations not only protect against financial wrongdoing, they protect against corporate malfeasance that directly threatens the health and well-being of people around the globe.

We can add Bechtel and AECOM to this list now. Their malfeasance in servicing the cleanup of DOE's most toxic nuclear site endangers all of us. Shame on them!

Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization 'Vit' Plant

The Issues Really Don't Favor Dan Newhouse, But Who's Paying Attention?

Dan Newhouse Cutting a Ribbon

Congressman Dan Newhouse’s 2020 election year activity seems to consist mostly of meaningless photo ops, something he's learned to do well in his 3 terms as the Representative of Washington's 4th Congressional District. Newhouse includes the following issues on his campaign website:

• Budget and Taxes
• Seniors
• Immigration
• Hanford
• Agriculture
• Veterans

Newhouse has a very brief blurb under each heading. Suffice it to say, his ideas about what matters in those areas aren't going to convince any Progressive voters that he's the man to represent them. An examination of what's actually happening under any one of these areas could give even the most committed Republican voter pause, consider "Budget and Taxes," for example. But most Republicans aren't even going to read what Newhouse has written. They'll just vote for him out of habit; historically about 65% of the vote in this district goes to the Republican candidate. Christine Brown did well to get 37.2% of the vote in 2018.

What might convince Independents to give McKinley (@Doug_McKinley) a second look, and might even cause some moderate Republicans to scratch their heads and rethink their unwavering support of good-ole Dan, is what's missing from Dan's list of issues, i.e.:

• Health care
• Trade
• Climate Change

These are issues that should concern any voter in the sprawling, ag-intense, rural, 4th District of Eastern Washington. 

 Health Care

Newhouse voted some 56 times with his Republican colleagues to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Never happened, so they went about doing everything they could to undermine it. President Donald Trump has said multiple times he'd have a "beautiful, fantastic" plan in place, the last time it was before August of this year. That never happened, either. Now, Trump is suing to overturn the ACA. He’s installing a conservative justice to replace RBG, who already opined that the ACA was unconstitutional.

Rural hospitals/clinics in the 4th are practically broke. All while COVID-19 is raging. Even those who survive an attack, are likely to be left with pre-existing conditions. If the ACA goes, so goes coverage for them. Furthermore, Trump’s 2017 tax cut, taken together with the economic impact of the pandemic, means that big cuts are looming for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. If I read the census tables correctly, there are about 228,000 people in Newhouse’s district covered only by Medicare or Medicaid.

Trade

The retaliatory tariffs resulting from Trump’s trade war with China have hurt Washington’s farmers.  Dairy exports to China dropped by 75%, fruit exports dropped by over 16%, and wheat exports dropped by an amazing 94%. But Trump is buying off the farmers with massive taxpayer-funded bailouts; the Administration gave farmers across the country $12 billion in 2018 and another $16 billion in 2019, as part of the Market Facilitation Program (MFP), aka “socialism.” But  bailout money is distributed based on acreage and not a farmer’s need, so about half of the money (47%) went to the largest 10% of operations across the country.

Climate Change

Steve Ghan (@steveghan1), who leads the Tri-Cities chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby has tried multiple times to get Newhouse to join the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus. Newhouse won't do it. There is not one single Republican from Washington on the caucus. Agriculture accounts for $51 billion (13%) of Washington’s yearly economic activity. The counties that play the biggest role in the state’s agricultural economy are Grant and Yakima.

The Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington has for some time assessed the consequences of a warming climate on Washington. In a 2019 report, “No Time to Waste,” they wrote, "Warming is expected to increase the number of very hot days and the chance of both droughts and floods, bring larger and more frequent wildfires to both sides of the Cascades and challenge agriculture through stresses on irrigation supplies and changing pests and diseases.” They went on identify health impacts, increased wildfires, impacts on water availing, etc. Why is Newhouse, like so many other Republicans,  ignoring this? Because of vested interests in a carbon-intensive economy.

Congressman Newhouse's demonstrated appreciation for environmental issues generally is reflected in the ratings he receives from various environmental NGOs, i.e.:

• Defenders of Wildlife -- 0%
• Clean Water Action -- 0%
• Washington Sierra Club -- 0%
• Environment America -- 3%
• League of Conservation Voters -- 4%
• National Parks Conservation Assoc. -- 4%

 Doug McKinley

Check out Doug McKinley's campaign website, and Facebook page. Attend one of his weekly town hall meeting via Zoom. Learn more about what Doug stands for and help give our district a better chance to choose a better candidate, donate to Doug's campaign.

From Lincoln City to Mars and Back: Experiencing the Echo Mountain Fire at Lincoln City, Oregon

Ritchie Jensen, a friend and former colleague at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has a home in Lincoln City, Oregon. This is his description of experiencing the September 2020 coastal wildfires.

Beach at Lincoln City

 

Although I didn’t know it at the time, my extra-planetary trip was set in motion at 7:30 pm on Monday, September 7, 2020.  At that moment, the winds at my home in Lincoln City shifted 180-degrees and temperatures suddenly jumped from 60 to 80 degrees.  The air began to fill with smoke.  By midnight, strong winds were uprooting trees throughout the area.  Half past 1 am on Tuesday, electric power was lost.  I awoke that morning to a bright red sky.  Looking out my west-facing bedroom window there appeared to be a red sunset.  What on earth was going on? “The end of days” popped momentarily into my mind.

That afternoon, after more than 12-hours without power my wife and I headed to Newport to buy batteries, lanterns and flashlights.  On our arrival, the sky was a jaw-dropping orange.  Outdoors everything had an eerie orange glow to it.  It felt like I was on another planet.  Mars came to mind.  Did I somehow drive through a worm hole and end up in a parallel universe?  On the curvy coastal highway (Hwy101) drive back, I had to try hard not to be distracted by the otherworldly scenery, lest I drive off a cliff. 

Yaquina Bay Bridge, Newport

 On Wednesday, the strange scenery was gone, replaced with thick white smoke that blocked out the sun.  A slight layer of ash was building on surfaces.  The amazement felt the day before was now replaced with fear and anxiety.  Parts of Lincoln City were being evacuated due to the approaching Echo Mountain fire
and we were told to prepare to evacuate.  Two nearby homes had sprinklers going atop their roofs. The town was completely shut down; no stores, restaurants, or gas stations were open.  Sirens were constantly blaring. I was back on earth again.

Newport Bay

 

Around 7 pm, electricity went out for a second 24-hour period. One doesn’t realize just how much we take electricity for granted, until it’s gone.  So many things that make life comfortable vanish in an instance.  No more lights, TV, internet, microwave, etc.  Just keeping clean is a chore.  I would improvise by washing with a bucket of still warm hot-tub water and then gingerly shower off with cold tap water, praying to avoid cardiac arrest. This, incidentally, is a disadvantage of having a tank-less water heater. 

Thursday morning the wind shifted back to normal and an ocean breeze dropped the temperature 25-degrees and replaced the smoke with fog.  The wind was also tending to push the fire away from Lincoln City.  Nonetheless, a Level-one -- prepare to evacuate -- evacuation status remained in place (Level-two is prepare to leave at a moment’s notice, and Level-three is get the hell outta here, now!).

Friday, the evacuation notice was lifted and rain was in the forecast. Thank goodness.  Despite feeling like I dodged a bullet, the fire continued to burn, threatening many others.

In sum, I had the mistaken impression that the Oregon coast region would benefit from global warming.  The summer had been wonderfully pleasant with tons of sunshine and almost no rain.  I was smug in ignoring warnings from scientists of increasing fire risk from drying out coastal forests.  No more.  The exact number of homes lost to fire is unknown, but likely more than 100.

______________________________________________

The official Lincoln City website stated that, "High winds, along with hot, dry conditions resulted in multiple fires igniting in Lincoln County. This has created power outages, road closures, and evacuations. The most immediate threat to Lincoln City is the Echo Mountain Fire Complex." The fire was 45% contained as of September 20th.

If you are interested in making a donation to help with recovery from the fire, here are a list of voluntary organizations active in disaster relief efforts: https://orvoad.communityos.org/cms/

I Don't Have the Words

My wife and I are both Air Force veterans. We met and married at Bitburg, Germany, while assigned to the 36th TFW. I made the Air Force a career. My wife, an Air Force nurse, helped save my life, then raised our two boys.

I volunteered for Vietnam after my assignment to Bitburg. I did so because I had friends, guys like myself in their early twenties, putting their lives on the line to serve their country. News was coming back to us that some were KIA or MIA. I felt a need to serve, as they had, and to honor them in doing so.

I had one particularly good friend — let’s call him ‘Dan’— who was shot down and spent 6 years in the “Hanoi Hilton.” When the war was over, he transited Hawaii, where I was stationed at PACAF HQ, and spent an evening with us. We had music playing. He asked me to turn it off. He’d been beaten so often and so severely that what we heard as music was just a cacophony of noise to him.

As it turned out, the Air Force had other plans for me, and I didn’t end up going to Vietnam. I was afforded the opportunity to go back to college for an advanced education, and retired from the Air Force twenty years later with a PhD, and without the lining around my heart, which had been stripped during my assignment at Bitburg. I was probably the first Air Force officer cleared for worldwide duty after undergoing such a procedure.

I was lucky. So many of my generation weren’t. They gave the “last full measure of devotion” to their country — those who died, and those who live afterward with the scars of their service forever etched in their psyche.

I haven’t the words to express my emotions when hearing of Donald Trump’s disdain for our military, now an all-volunteer force. He will never understand, “what was in it for them,” because for him sacrifice is a sucker’s bet, and my friend Dan was a “loser,” because like John McCain, he got shot down.

I simply don’t have the words. 

John McCain, August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018

Why Do Over Half of Men Polled Approve of Donald Trump's Handling of the Economy?

I heard on the news this morning, the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War II, that although Donald Trump’s poll numbers are relatively dismal, just over 50% of men approve of his handling of the economy. I’m puzzled by this. The U.S. national debt at over $26 trillion now exceeds the record debt incurred during WWII, but more troubling, debt as a percentage of GDP at 136% is its highest in history. According to economists, this level of debt-to-GDP slows economic growth, and as revenues decline the debt-to-GDP ratio climbs, and the “Greek Death Cycle” accelerates.

Maybe men see Trump as a hugely successful businessman, so under the circumstances he must have handled the economy as well or better than anyone could. But, in fact Trump is a terrible businessman, as has been thoroughly documented. Furthermore, the “circumstances” are largely of his own creation — surely no one would argue that he’s managed the coronavirus pandemic well, unless the predicted 200,000 deaths is acceptable.

Maybe men, especially those relatively well off, are attracted by the siren call of today’s advancing Stock Market. But the Market is a chimera buoyed by Fed bond buying, and propped up by stock buybacks, collateralized loan obligations, and other “unknown unknowns,” as Donald Rumsfeld might have said. In any case, according to Reuters, 84% of stocks owned by U.S. households are held by the wealthiest 10% of Americans. So the deregulatory fever under Trump has boosted the Market, but, as usual, it’s the rich getting richer.

Maybe more men are impacted by and therefore especially appreciative of the lower tax rates instituted under Trump. But first of all, the so-called Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) didn’t end up paying for itself, as promised. In fact, the TCJA substantially reduced revenues, adding further to the aforementioned monumental debt.

Secondly, it was corporations who gained the most from the TCJA; their taxes were reduced by 40%, and they are permanent, unlike individual tax cuts, which expire in 2025.

 

Finally, the TCJA increased disparities in after-tax income by giving the largest relative and absolute tax cuts to high-income households — the top 1 percent will claim 83%of the benefit of the bill. As Stephanie Kelton, a senior economic policy analyst has pointed out, “Trump’s plan will widen the country’s already dangerous wealth and income gaps, and because the gains go mostly to those at the very top, the tax cuts won’t do much to promote broad-based consumer spending or overall job growth.”

So, I remain puzzled. Who are the guys that approve of the way Trump is handling the economy and what explains their attitude?

America's Schools Are Indispensable: Shame On Us

In a July 7, 2020, talk in the White House East Room, President Donald Trump said, “We want to reopen the schools. Everybody wants it. The moms want it, the dads want it, the kids want it. It’s time to do it.”

The President went on to laud the declining COVID-19 death rate. “You know, our mortality rate is, right now, at a level that people don’t talk about, but it’s down tenfold.  Tenfold.”

Over 137,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 to date (7/11/20), and 64,600 new cases were confirmed — about five times more than the entire continent of Europe. Several U.S. states, including Arizona and Florida, currently have more confirmed cases per capita than any country in the world.

Realizing that deaths lag emerging cases, Dr. Fauci cautioned against becoming complacent in light of the decreased death rate. Perhaps he’s visited some of the refrigerator trucks serving as morgues in Arizona and Texas.

Trump went quickly from talking about the coronavirus pandemic to the U.S. economy and a rebound in the Stock Market, likely revealing why he wants schools to open. Parents need to get back to work, and schools need to babysit their kids so they can do so.

Vice President Pence took the podium after the First Lady touted her “Be Best” initiative. Mrs. Trump stressed the importance of recess. Pence pointed out that some 7 million American children suffer from either mental illness or emotional disturbance, and stated that they principally receive care from health and mental services at their school. Might we ask why?

OECD Family database

The sad fact is that when it comes to caring for America’s children, we are all delinquent. Let’s start at the beginning.*

• In America, the infant death rate is twice as high as in similarly wealthy countries.
• In America, for every 100,000 live births, 28 women die in childbirth or shortly thereafter. In Canada, the same figure is 11. Black women in America die having a child at roughly the same rate as women in Mongolia.
• In America, we spend less of our gross domestic product on family benefits than all other OECD countries, save for Mexico and Turkey, whose combined GDP is less than a tenth of ours.
• In America, we do not guarantee impoverished parents welfare. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program provides benefits to fewer than one in four poor families.
• In America, our child poverty rate is higher than in nearly all other OECD countries — two, three, or even four times as high as in nations comparable in terms of per capita income.
• In America, as many as 1.5 million families caring for three million kids live on less than $2 per person, per day, in cash income.
• In America, in any given year there are 2.5 million kids that experience homelessness.
• In America, we profess to support mothers, and encourage them to keep working when they have children, but we have no paid maternity, parental, or home-care leave entitlement. We are the only OECD country for which that is true.
• In America, both Republican and Democratic administrations claim to support early childhood education and care, yet as a percentage of GDP, we are truants, ranking practically at the bottom of the list on spending.
• In America, 10 to 15 percent of children in some states have no form of health insurance, no way to pay for vaccinations, medications, counseling, etc.
• In America, teenagers are 82 times more likely to die from a gun homicide than their peers in other wealthy nations.
• In America, rich kids have better schools than poor kids, largely because we link school funding to property taxes. As a result, the so-called “poverty gap” in standardized test scores is 40% larger today than it was a generation ago. Our kids rank in the bottom third of OECD countries in terms of reading and mathematics, and only three in five American kids are proficient in those subjects by 8th grade.

The area in which America is far and away the leader is in our criminal “justice” system. We have the highest rate of incarceration on Earth, and we lead in putting minors behind bars; fourteen states have no minimum age for when a child can be prosecuted and punished as an adult.

The United States of America is the only country that has not ratified the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Hillary Clinton wrote a best-selling book in 1996 addressing America’s dismal history of educating and caring for its children. It was titled, “It Takes a Village.” Clinton said “I chose that old African proverb… because it offers a timeless reminder that children will thrive only if their families thrive and if the whole of society cares enough to provide for them.”

Mrs. Clinton is well-known as a “policy wonk,” and her book is a study in specific policy fixes for America’s glaring deficits in educating and caring for its children. Critics at both extremes of the political spectrum had plenty to dislike about Clinton’s prescriptions, but Republican reaction was particularly scathing, assailing her vision as paternalistic, anti-religious, and that old reliable Republican bugaboo, socialistic.

What’s missed in all the nitpicking and gnashing of teeth over the book, is the fact that Mrs. Clinton presented a broad vision for dealing with childhood education and care, and an integrated, systematic approach for realizing that vision. How refreshing. This is something sorely lacking in today’s chaotic approach to societal division and disintegration; a situation now exacerbated by an unforgiving contagion equally poorly managed and contained.

The Trump Administration’s insistence that we must reopen schools in the Fall in light of America’s miserable excuse for a childhood education and care system is not just irresponsible, it is indefensible.

Show us you can manage the pandemic, Mr. Trump, then we’ll talk about reopening schools.
________________________________
*I have borrowed heavily in this list from the comprehensive article on this subject written by Annie Lowrey for The Atlantic, June 21, 2018. Refer to that article for original sources (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/06/how-america-treats-children/563306/).

Reflections on Independence Day 2020

My friend Bill Pennell reflects on his heritage as he considers Independence Day 2020.

Patrick Henry
E. William Sievers, Sculptor 1932

I consider myself patriotic. There is an American flag flying outside our house at this very moment on the 4th of July. On my mother's side of the family, I am descended from men who fought for our independence. Patrick Henry was the family's solicitor at the time, and yes, they were slaveholders. And on both sides, I am descended from men who fought on both sides of our Civil War.

Yet I recognize that our country is not perfect. Some things we have done and stood for do not hold up to scrutiny by contemporary standards. And some of them did not hold up to scrutiny by the standards of the day. As Patriots it is our duty to "see things whole" as John Wesley Powell put it. We need to recognize our virtues and our shortcomings and to do what we can to correct the latter.

____________________________

William T. 'Bill' Pennell served as director of the Atmospheric Science & Global Change Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington.