The Under Secretary for Science
Washington, DC 20585
June 6, 2019
Mr. Matthew Brewster
Health Commissioner
Pike County General Health District,
116 S. Market Street
Waverly, Ohio 45690
Dear Mr. Brewster:
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is committed to protecting the safety and health
of the general public and our workforce. For decades, DOE’s Environmental
‘Management (EM) program has maintained a robust environmental monitoring program
in communities across the Nation. As you know, in the area of Portsmouth, there is
continuous sampling of air quality at six air monitoring stations on DOE property and ten
air monitoring stations in the surrounding community, and if at any time, data from a
‘monitoring station exceeds health and safety standards, DOE would immediately not
the appropriate state and local officials.
In response to recent events at Zahn’s Comer Middle School, Secretary Perry asked EM
to perform a comprehensive review of the longtime monitoring process at the Portsmouth
Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio.
During this review, we were notified by our contractor, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, LLC
(EBP), on May 28, 2019, that a minor miscalculation resulted in under-reporting of
certain individual dose rates provided in several reports, including the 2001 to 2017
Annual Site Environmental Reports and the 2001 to 2017 annual National Emission
Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants Reports submitted to the Ohio Environmental
Protection Agency (Ohio EPA). The contractor discovered the error in its calculations
used to convert measured air monitor data to individual dose. The contractor corrected
the error, and after recalculating, the revised individual dose rates remain far below
health and safety standards.
Furthermore, at DOE's direction, qualified professionals at two of its National
Laboratories confirmed the contractor's corrected calculations and found that the
resulting dose levels remain far below EPA limits and are not a public health concern.
This error had no effect on the compilation data from 2015 through the first quarter of
2019, which DOE released in May 2019.
DOE continues to support your desire for a third party study to be conducted by an entity
of your choosing. We await your selection of qualified entities, as discussed in your
initial meeting in May with DOE.
@We appreciate your support and look forward to continuing to work with you and state
officials. If you need additional information, please contact me or Robert Edwards,
Manager of the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, at (859) 227-5020.
Sincerely,
Pad MO bor
Paul M. Dabbar
ce: Scioto Valley School Board
Robert Edwards, Manager
Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office