Oakland Tribune February 2, 1997
L A Wood Letter to the Editor:

THANK YOU for your continuing coverage concerning radioactive emissions from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's tritium facility. However, the title of your last story, "Lab plans high-cost cleanup of tritium (Jan. 20), is inaccurate. When LBNL says it will spend $100,000 on monitoring the radioactive contamination in the hills, it cautiously avoids talking about any site cleanup.

Last week, while explaining the tritium facility's emissions to the Berkeley school board, lab officials stated that the state of California was about to release them from any further cleanup. This is based on the assumption that LBNL will receive the new state "containment zone" status. For LBNL this will mean reduced cleanup standards, or more likely, no cleanup at all.

A year ago, the Berkeley City Council began its discussions with the city of Emeryville over containment zone designation and a possible EIR lawsuit. Emeryville's plan is to redevelop without cleanup of its urban environment. Now Berkeley is confronted with LBNL asking for the same thing, to conduct research without any responsibility for cleanup. So what's the $100,000 really for? This reader thinks it's to silence the growing community outcry.