DISCLAIMER The following is a staff memorandum or other working document prepared for the members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. It should not be construed as representing the final conclusions of fact or interpretation of the issues. All staff memoranda are subject to revision based on further information and analysis. For conclusions and recommendations of the Advisory Committee, readers are advised to consult the Final Report to be published in 1995. TAB H PART 3 xxx DRAFT x FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES xxx MEMORANDUM TO: Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments FROM: Advisory Committee Staff DATE: November 6, 1994 RE: An Analysis of the Green Run This memo combines the facts and concerns of the previous memos. The facts of the Green Run are analyzed from the perspective of the general ethical concerns of intentional releases and from the perspective of current regulations. Two issues will be highlighted. How should we assess the Green Run? Could it happen today? I. THE HARMS AND BENEFITS OF THE GREEN RUN Did the intentional release cause more benefit than harm? To determine the harm caused to health we need to determine the number of individuals exposed and the doses they received. Unfortunately, the Hanford Dose Environmental Reconstruction Project did not calculate the expected dose from the Green Run. We can, however, construct a rough approximation. The maximally exposed individual from the Green Run has been estimated at 188 millirem to the thyroid which is roughly equivalent to a 6 millirem effective dose. The exposed population was roughly 100,000. This puts the collective dose close to the 100 person/rem standard adopted by internal Department of Energy guidance. No study has been conducted to determine whether this could have had a significant impact on the environment. In addition to the question of how much harm the Green Run caused, the question of whether the Green Run ought to have been conducted forces us to ask the question of how much harm the Green Run was expected to cause. This issue is difficult to address in part because it requires us to assess what those in charge of the Green Run could reasonably have been expected to know about potential harms. Did those who proposed and executed the Green Run adequately appreciate the risks of low-level radiation, given the state of knowledge at the time? How well did they understand how radiation would be distributed in the environment? These questions are difficult to answer from the documents that we currently have, although looking at the documents that remain classified may shed some light. 1 The benefits, and anticipated benefits, of the Green Run are also difficult to determine from available documents. Most importantly, the purpose of the Green Run remains classified, and it does not seem possible to adequately analyze it without knowing its purpose. At least one of the purposes of the Green Run, however, probably was the development of a long range monitoring system for plutonium production. At minimum, the fact that the planning documents are still classified tells us that its purpose was related to national security. This suggests that an assessment of the Green Run forces us to weigh the value of national security against the value of public health. The difficulty of adjudicating this conflict is made even more difficult because of the sense of urgency and fear that Americans felt at the time of the Green Run. The Green Run followed shortly after the first Soviet atomic weapons test. Developing a system to monitor Soviet plutonium production, and thus determine the extent of the Soviet threat must have been considered paramount to national security. Furthermore, the limited understanding of atmospheric physics may have made a Green Run-like test necessary for the construction of such a monitoring system. The Green Run may have been very important for national security. Without looking at the planning documents, however, these issues remain speculative. If our current environmental laws were in place in 1949 it is unclear that they would have prevented the Green Run. The Green Run would fall under NEPA and thus the Air Force would have to analyze alternatives. The analysis, however, would not have to have been made public since the Green Run was classified. Furthermore, no reviewing agency would likely have been in the position to refute or even authoritatively question any claims of national security made by the military and the AEC. Substantive regulations might not have had much impact either. The Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) require an assessment of risk to the population, but the means to calculate this risk did not exist in 1949 (tables currently exist to calculate the risk, but they are disputed). Furthermore, both CAA and AEA regulations can be superseded in cases of "paramount national interest." Given the perceived Soviet threat this exemption might easily have been invoked. II. SELECTION OF SITE AND QUESTIONS OF JUSTICE FOR THE GREEN RUN If the Green Run did protect national security then it did so by burdening a single community, and the burdens may be considered disproportionate. Since the Hanford community is highly polluted, we might also say that the Green Run further burdened an already heavily burdened community. But the Green Run could only have occurred at the Hanford Plant. In 1949 this was the only U.S. facility capable of reprocessing sufficient quantities of irradiated uranium for a full-scale field test of the long-range detection of gases released in plutonium production. This raises two questions. First, was a full-scale test necessary to meet the objectives of the Green Run? If not, the test could have been done in another location and it could have posed fewer risks. Second, why was the Hanford site chosen for plutonium production? Hanford's sparse population and plentiful supply of fresh water to cool reactors may have been its most important features. 2 It is unclear what impact Executive Order 12898 would have on this issue. Neither DOE nor DOD has yet proposed a strategy for combating environmental injustice. Until they do, we cannot know whether considerations of environmental justice would have affected the Green Run. III. LEGITIMACY, AUTHORIZATION, AND CONSENT We have no indication that anyone outside the government and its contracts were informed about the Green Run much less that they consented to it. The government did not consult with the affected populations in an open setting, nor did they elicit any public input. The public neither had an effective method of challenging the government's decision nor did they have any way to hold the officials responsible in an election. We can question, therefore, whether the government took adequate steps to obtain the "consent of the governed." Today's NEPA regulations would have required a public hearing process, but the Green Run would have been exempted as a secret program. IV. SECRECY AND THE GREEN RUN The Green Run was not made public until 1986. On that date Hanford's manager Michael Lawrence released nineteen thousand pages of documents on Hanford's history in response to public concerns over the risks posed by downwind radiation from the Hanford site. The planning documents, which would tell us who authorized this release of radiation and the arguments employed in favor of the release, remain classified today. As far as we know the government did not provide any information to the exposed populations about the test or its risks. More importantly, perhaps, we have no indication that the government warned the public of the release. This absence of warning would have prevented affected individuals from taking precautionary actions. Individuals could have left the Hanford area during the Green Run, or they could have stayed indoors. Simple precautions may have reduced the dose to which individuals were exposed. It is not clear whether any environmental law would have forced aspects of the Green Run into the open. NEPA does not require public comment on classified projects. Today's EPA monitoring network would certainly have detected the release of radiation, however, and those data are openly available. If a monitoring network was available, of course, the Green Run would probably have been needless. V. PRIOR REVIEW OF THE GREEN RUN We have no indication that anyone in the government who did not promote the Green Run reviewed the plans. It would be hard, therefore, to call those who did review the plans disinterested. 3 We also have no indication that radiological safety considerations were taken into account in planning the Green Run, though such documents may yet appear. Health Instruments Divisions said they would raise serious objections against a repetition of the experiment, but did not block the initial test. An EIS under NEPA and EPA approval under CAA would have been required for Hanford operations, which would probably place limits on operational emissions. A report to EPA would be required on atmospheric emissions, and would likely have raised concern, since 6 millirem for one day comes close to 10 millirem annual limit. But, as stated earlier, the public would not have been given the opportunity to review the Green Run and no agency that could have reviewed it would have been in the position to refute or authoritatively question military or AEC claims of national security. No current regulation would have required the executive branch to notify Congress before the Green Run, but if the president invoked the "paramount national interest" exclusion to CAA he would have to report to Congress at the end of the year. An effective third party review would have been unlikely. VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS In the Green Run, the value of national security seems to have trumped other ethical concerns. In addition, if today's environmental regulations were in place in 1949 they could have been circumvented by the executive branch. We can ask whether the Green Run should have happened, but perhaps more importantly, we should ask whether current regulations provide sufficient protection against analogous cases in the future. Should any public notice be required for classified projects? For example, should the public be notified of possible health risks that classified project may pose even if they cannot be told about the details of its nature, and if so how? What kind of oversight should apply to classified projects? For example, should Congress review any executive action which invokes the "paramount national interest" exemption? 4