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The recent resolution passed by the Alameda County Board of Education seems to have caught Lawrence Hall of Science and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab officials off-guard, in its straightforward, no-nonsense advisory to Alameda County schools to suspend field trips to the Lawrence Hall of Science. Children could be put in danger, the Board of Education advised, by radiation releases in the form of tritium from the stack of the National Tritium Labeling Facility, located adjacent to the Hall of Science. 

Last week’s amended version of that resolution by the Board of Education softens but does not completely rescind the warning issued to parents, teachers and students. We are told in the amended resolution passed Tuesday, April 25, that the Alameda County Board of Education “notes the differences of opinion regarding the possibility of hazards associated with visits to the Lawrence Hall of Science, and recommends that educators, students and parents independently assess the possibility of risk and make individual decisions regarding the visits to the Lawrence Hall of Science.” 

Sounds good on paper, but how do we get this information, and how do we get it from unbiased sources, or at the very least, from a balance of sources, in order to come to some sort of meaningful conclusions on whether all field trips to the LHS are off? Do we proceeds to the Hall only when clad in full radiation protection gear and respirators; or do we declare all this a false alarm, and merrily frolic with abandon amongst the tritium-infused eucalyptus pods? 

And, what about those worrisome reports of yet another source of radiation release from the Lab, involving neutron bombardment of neighborhoods around the Lab’s accelerator? These are the questions and puzzlements confronting the community of parents, faced with a barrage of media coverage, some proclaiming this all to be no more than hoopla, some saying any radiation is harmful, some saying the jury is really out at this point. 

Then, of course, we have Lab representatives pointing out that radiation levels are well below regulatory standards, while citizen advocacy groups argue that such statements by the Lab distort reality. The Lab, the City, regulatory agencies and the citizen activist groups have been at this for a long time. But, it is only now that this issue (primarily due to intense media coverage of the Alameda County Board of Education resolution) has risen into the visual field of the public at large, and particularly, of parents with children who frequent the Lawrence Hall of Science. 

What to do? Well, fortunately one thing is working in the citizens’ and parents’ favor here: The City of Berkeley has hired an independent consultant, Berndt Franke, a person with a very positive track record with the public, to perform an independent analysis of potential risks. Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, in turn, was wise enough to contract with Dr. Owen Hoffman of SENES Oak Ridge, who is known to many members of the public and scientific communities at sites of radiation releases as a very straight shooter, with high integrity, someone who tells it like it is. 

So, we are off to a good start with regard to the “experts” to be involved in helping to analyze the true risk presented. The Lab plans a series of meetings with parents to answer questions and safety concerns, and those questions and safety concerns are rolling in, perhaps faster and in much greater quantities than the Lab had anticipated or hoped. 

Because the two of us, as parents of Berkeley students, are also both people (“Hanford downwinders”) who were exposed as children to offsite radiation emissions from the Hanford nuclear weapons facility in southeastern Washington State, we are understandably both a bit wary of blanket safety assurances by operators of federal facilities handling radioactive materials. After all, our parents were reassured by the operators of the Hanford facility that it was perfectly safe to live downwind from the plant. And the result? Both of us know have severe thyroid disease from the radioactive iodine we inhaled and ingested as infants and children from Hanford’s releases. We have parents and other relatives who have died far before their time from aggressive forms of cancer. 

We realize that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Hanford are two distinct radiation release scenarios, but safety reassurances made by the Lab cause in us a certain hesitation to believe without proof. We are ready to listen and to learn, like the parents who have spoken to us, but our fears are not readily put to rest by Lab officials saying not to worry.