Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky
Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation
Room 625 LOB
Albany, NY 12248

Subject: Falsification of Superfund Rating for the Hazardous KAPL Landfill

Enclosure: [1] Letter to the Honorable Elliot Spitzer, Attorney General, State of New York: Falsification of CERCLA Hazard ranking of the Knolls Site Land Disposal Area" (With Attachment), dated May 18, 2001.

Dear Sir:

This letter is to notify your office of an extremely hazardous 120-acre landfill located at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) in Niskayuna, New York. The landfill contains widespread contamination, consisting of both toxic materials and radioactive waste from a nuclear weapons factory pilot plant. KAPL has admitted to a failure in record keeping, beginning in 1948 and continuing for 27 years, such that it does not know what, how much, or where contaminants are in the landfill.

Despite the lack of historic records, tests has revealed a mix of deadly substances, including cyanide in the groundwater at levels as high as 1,400 ppb, groundwater arsenic at levels up to 4,147 ppb, and extensive areas of radioactively contaminated soil at levels up to 400 pCi/g. Landfill operators report that unknown quantities and types of radioactive materials are deeply buried in the landfill, including more than one-hundred 55-gallon drums, many affixed with radioactive labels. Much of this nuclear weapons factory waste is laced with deadly unrecovered Plutonium-239. This latent reservoir of poisons is an ongoing threat to the community because the landfill is situated on the Mohawk River, about one-mile upstream of the Niskayuna municipal water wells. The groundwater in the landfill flows to the river.

And although 4 acres of the KAPL landfill are currently on the DEC Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites in New York State, there is irrefutable evidence that KAPL falsified a 1988 CERCLA submittal in order to avoid having the landfill assigned to the National Priority List for remedial action. In 1986 an internal KAPL report detailed widespread toxic and radioactive contamination in the KAPL landfill, as is characteristic of other Department of Energy weapons factory dumps. Scarcely three months later an altered KAPL report, which was eventually used as the basis for CERCLA rating, described a truly remarkable transformation of the very same landfill into a pristine meadow with very little hazardous waste contamination and no radioactive contamination. By this deception, KAPL has succeeded in circumventing state and federal environmental regulations pertaining to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).

Although this information has been submitted to the New York State Attorney General's office via Enclosure [1], their decision is apparently not to take action. If the illegal CERCLA falsification stands, this poisoned weapons factory landfill will never be cleaned up by the Department of Energy before it eventually reverts to private ownership. Later, when the forgotten toxins cause a health disaster for the citizens of this state, as is sure to happen, it will be too late. Several other states have forced the Department of Energy to clean up after similar weapons factory fiascoes. Why not New York State? Since the KAPL landfill is such an extreme hazard, and one that will remain so for many decades to come, we the undersigned respectfully request that your office initiate an immediate investigation into this matter.

Sincerely yours,

John P. Shannon
Physicist, Nuclear Engineer
Nuclear Engineer, P.E.
262 Jones Rd. Saratoga Springs, N.Y. 12866

Robert G. Stater
Nuclear Engineer, P.E.
105 Pashley Rd. Scotia, N.Y. 12302