A rare short day in the Powers v. McDonough proceedings signals the trial's end is near. Judge Carter, meanwhile, continues to probe the property for places to house more veterans.
The plaintiffs class action lawyers were warned, in December 2023, in writing, that significant parts of the West LA VA North Campus were/are a radioactive landfill. They were told to read all of the reports and documents at Enviroreporter.com concerning the "LA VA Nuclear Dump". The plaintiffs lawyers ignored that information in putting on this trial. They called not a single witness to testify which parts of the West LA VA North Campus are a "safe distance" away from that radioactive landfill.
Whichever of the DOJ lawyers for the VA were officially working on the case, as listed in the Court Docket were also warned in writing back in December 2023 and were given that information "where to read-up on it" as well.
Every single one of the plaintiff's lawyers and the DOJ lawyers for the VA listed on the Court Docket were reminded of that information in July 2024, before the trial started. Both sets of lawyers were reminded that they had/have a duty of candor with Judge Carter. Yet it almost seems like none of the lawyers did any serious research on the radioactive waste issue or told Judge Carter the blunt truth, from the Nuclear Regulator Commission's files.
Back in January 1982, Robert Nelson, PhD was Co-Chairman of the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists. He had far more knowledge than any of the lawyers in this case about the dangers of radioactive waste, including the dangers of radioactive waste which came out of nuclear reactors like the one at UCLA back then.
Pay attention to the January 1982 letter authored by Robert Nelson PhD to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which tumbled out of an internet search on 8/23/24 using the word "NRC". The letter's internet address is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who the DOJ occasionally represents as counsel in litigation: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML9935/ML993500530.pdf The letter was written, mailed and received (per the stamp at the lower right corner of its first page) by the NRC in January 1982. The letter pertains to the radioactive waste dump on the West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital (West LA VA) North Campus. For the purpose of this comment, let's call that letter the "1982 FOIA Request".
The 1982 FOIA Request is 8 pages long, authored by that Co-Chairman of the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists. Read it at the link in this comment.
The first three pages of the 1982 FOIA Request contain a series of leading questions by Dr. Nelson, on behalf of the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists, to the NRC, specifically about the radioactive waste generated in Southern California, and where it was "disposed of". That letter's leading questions circumstantially confirm the rumors and press stories which have been around since 1979 or earlier, that radioactive waste from the UCLA Nuclear Reactor was buried at the West LA VA North Campus in what the VA and Judge Carter like to euphemistically call "the landfill". The letter even mentions the plutonium which was said to have been used in the UCLA Nuclear Reactor. We may have heard of it heard it called "weapons grade plutonium." (Reference in the letter to "Atomics International" is reference to the DOE's massive radioactive mess at the Santa Susana Field Lab in the northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles called Simi Valley, Bell Canyon and West Hills.)
Have any of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in Powers v McDonough or the lawyers for the VA (and technically for the NRC through their employment by DOJ) looked-for or even seen the NRC's written answers to Dr. Nelson's questions back in early 1982, in connection with any discovery conducted by any of the plaintiffs in the Powers v. McDonough case being tried this month?
The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th pages of Dr. Nelson's 1982 FOIA Request to the NRC makes actual requests for documents in the NRC's files and well as in the files of the NRC's "predecessor agencies" (Dr. Nelson's term) including the Atomic Energy Commission. As to those pages 4-8 of the 1982 FOIA Request, 5 questions needed to be asked of VA and NRC:
(1) In 1982 did the NRC provide documents answering the 1982 FOIA Request, or did NRC stonewall?
(2) Have the lawyers in this case obtained a full copy of the NRC's response to that 1982 FOIA Request? Did they give a copy to Judge Carter?
(3) Have the lawyers in this case provided a full copy of the NRC's response to that 1982 FOIA Request to plaintiff's counsel in the Powers v. McDonough case, to Secretary McDonough, to Dr. Steve Braverman and to their VA "business people" working on developing housing for veterans on the West LA VA North Campus? Has a copy been provided to Judge Carter?
(4) What documents did the NRC leave out, in 1982, from the documents provided to Dr. Nelson in response to that 1982 FOIA Request?
(5) Have the DOJ or their clients at the VA provided a copy of the NRC's answer to the 1982 FOIA Request to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, and County Counsel, in connection with the VA's attempt to get the "permit hold" by the County released/or and to get the County's consent to the official closing of that West LA VA radioactive landfill?
It looks to me like VA employees, DOJ lawyers and the plaintiffs' counsel tried to hide the alleged existence of the radioactive waste in the landfill on the West LA VA North Campus from Judge Carter, and it looks like the VA employees tried to hide the alleged existence of the radioactive waste from the private developers on this West LA VA North Campus and from the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. I wonder if the whole crew involved in this trial are aware that under California statutes to protect tenants, landlords, lessors and real estate brokers are obligated to disclose material information about a rental apartment and the land-its-on, and about the neighborhood, to the tenant, saying something like: "Tenant should be aware this apartment building is built on a radioactive landfill" or "Tenant should be aware that this apartment is less than 1000 feet of a radioactive landfill."
With reference to the DOJ's and the Powers v. McDonough plaintiffs counsel's amended, revised Trial Exhibit List, Trial Docket #232, it is crystal clear that neither the 1982 FOIA Request, nor the NRC's responsive documents to the 1982 FOIA Request, nor any 1982 NRC response to Dr. Nelson's 3 pages of questions about the radioactive waste disposed-of in the West LA VA radioactive landfill, are trial exhibits in the Powers v. McDonough case. Again, does Judge Carter know about the ALL the information missing from the Trial Exhibits which were JOINTLY put together by the plaintiffs lawyers and the DOJ lawyers?
It almost looks to me that both the plaintiff's trial team, and the trial team at the DOJ, on behalf of its client the VA and its top officers, are playing "hide the ball" as to the nuclear-physics details of what kinds of radioactive waste was buried in the West LA VA radioactive landfill betwen 1948 and 1982 (per the 1982 FOIA Request, based on the rhetorical questions in the 1982 FOIA request, and the answers and the NRC/AEC documents which should have been produced to Dr. Nelson and the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists in response to that 1982 FOIA Request.
Its also noteworthy that the VA "took down" from the internet, every single document belonging to the VA, and NRC and its predecessor AEC, which Enviiroreporter Michael Collins links posted to on his website, with his news stories written about what he called the "West LA Nuclear Dump" between 2006 and 2019. See https://www.enviroreporter.com/vanukedumpinvestigation and in particular the category Enviroreporter/Collins called "VA Nuclear Dump Documents" more than 5,600 pages of documents whose linked are now gone from the internet. Congressman Henry Waxman also had pdfs of all those documents posted on HIS website back in the mid-2010's when Enviroreporter was communicating with him. The documents were not "secret" just hidden where an ordinary veteran or veteran's family member would not know enough to look for them.
Of the VA and NRC documents posted by Enviroreporter Collins whose contents have disappeared from the links he posted, perhaps the most important and easy-to-understand document would have been the "Phase II Environmental Assessment" which contained over $1+ Million worth of soil sampling and soil test results which were said to have been incorporated into that Phase II Environmental Assessment paid-for by the VA. That document should have been provided to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department in connection with obtaining building and grading permits for the property as well.
Everyone should wonder if the reason the County has imposed its "permit hold" and 1,000 foot set-back requirement from the landfill is because of what is in that "landfill" as well as what was in that Phase II Environmental Assessment if the County's decision-makers have seen it.
Its worth noting that in the VA's 2022 Master Plan for the West LA VA Campus, some of the maps EUPHEMISTICALLY refer to that landfill as a "Hazardous Medical Waste" site and the text of the plan refers to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's jusrisdiction over the landfill.
Is the VA's and DOJ's reluctance to disclose all of the documents referred to above, as trial exhibits about radioactive substances in that West LA VA Landfill, for the edification of Judge Carter as "finder of fact" in this trial, BECAUSE any radioactivity related cancers or other radioactivity-related injuries to veterans or innocent civilians are NOT covered by the pool of 'insurance premiums' to cover injuries arising out of "nuclear accidents" under Price-Anderson Act? Probably so, given that disposal of radioactive waste in the canyon and other land at the north end of the West LA VA North Campus was NOT "an accident".
Are they worrying that no sane construction mortgage lender, or "permanent" mortgage lender will finance the building of the 1,800 permanent apartments they and Judge Carter want to build on the West LA VA Campus, at least on the part of the North Campus near or on top of the radioactive landfill? Are they worried that no mortgage lander will finance the installation of 1,000 pre-fab "temporary" housing units on that West LA VA North Campus? In response to the questions raised by these stories, that's probably WHY "new" and more veterans housing hasn't been built on the North Campus...because savvy mortgage lenders do their own "due diligence" about whether radioactive and toxic substances are on or very close-to a property the mortgagee is being asked to lend-on.
Back in 1948 or so, when radioactive substances were first disposed of on the West LA VA North Campus, "whoever was in charge" probably breached their fiduciary duty "to the veterans" described in that 1888 gift deed of the land to the U.S. government...but seriously I doubt that any VA employees had a clue about the "future black-eye effect" on that property in the eyes of mortgage lenders. Worrying about toxic and radioactive contamination of real estate "didn't become a thing" until 1979 and the fracas over Love Canal....though the Feds intentionally hid the serious nuclear accident at their contractor's reactor in Simi Valley in 1959, failing to disclose all the details even when a bunch of UCLA graduate students spilled the beans in 1979 when they found a dead nuclear physics professor's notes about that nuclear accidents. The nucclear reactor accident notes were in a UCLA library. The point is that only fools hide the occurrence of radioactive waste landfills and nuclear waste from the public. Only fools allow the building of apartments for veterans, especially those with families, on top of or too close to radioactive waste landfills.
My family has been filled with veterans since my direct ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War in the Massachusetts Militia, and my 3 great-grandfathers fought in the Civil War including the 9th New York Cavalry, which was part of Lincoln's Grand Army of the Potomac. I would not want any of my family living in a "veterans apartment" built on a radioactive landfill.
The plaintiffs class action lawyers were warned, in December 2023, in writing, that significant parts of the West LA VA North Campus were/are a radioactive landfill. They were told to read all of the reports and documents at Enviroreporter.com concerning the "LA VA Nuclear Dump". The plaintiffs lawyers ignored that information in putting on this trial. They called not a single witness to testify which parts of the West LA VA North Campus are a "safe distance" away from that radioactive landfill.
Whichever of the DOJ lawyers for the VA were officially working on the case, as listed in the Court Docket were also warned in writing back in December 2023 and were given that information "where to read-up on it" as well.
Every single one of the plaintiff's lawyers and the DOJ lawyers for the VA listed on the Court Docket were reminded of that information in July 2024, before the trial started. Both sets of lawyers were reminded that they had/have a duty of candor with Judge Carter. Yet it almost seems like none of the lawyers did any serious research on the radioactive waste issue or told Judge Carter the blunt truth, from the Nuclear Regulator Commission's files.
Back in January 1982, Robert Nelson, PhD was Co-Chairman of the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists. He had far more knowledge than any of the lawyers in this case about the dangers of radioactive waste, including the dangers of radioactive waste which came out of nuclear reactors like the one at UCLA back then.
Pay attention to the January 1982 letter authored by Robert Nelson PhD to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which tumbled out of an internet search on 8/23/24 using the word "NRC". The letter's internet address is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who the DOJ occasionally represents as counsel in litigation: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML9935/ML993500530.pdf The letter was written, mailed and received (per the stamp at the lower right corner of its first page) by the NRC in January 1982. The letter pertains to the radioactive waste dump on the West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital (West LA VA) North Campus. For the purpose of this comment, let's call that letter the "1982 FOIA Request".
The 1982 FOIA Request is 8 pages long, authored by that Co-Chairman of the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists. Read it at the link in this comment.
The first three pages of the 1982 FOIA Request contain a series of leading questions by Dr. Nelson, on behalf of the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists, to the NRC, specifically about the radioactive waste generated in Southern California, and where it was "disposed of". That letter's leading questions circumstantially confirm the rumors and press stories which have been around since 1979 or earlier, that radioactive waste from the UCLA Nuclear Reactor was buried at the West LA VA North Campus in what the VA and Judge Carter like to euphemistically call "the landfill". The letter even mentions the plutonium which was said to have been used in the UCLA Nuclear Reactor. We may have heard of it heard it called "weapons grade plutonium." (Reference in the letter to "Atomics International" is reference to the DOE's massive radioactive mess at the Santa Susana Field Lab in the northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles called Simi Valley, Bell Canyon and West Hills.)
Have any of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in Powers v McDonough or the lawyers for the VA (and technically for the NRC through their employment by DOJ) looked-for or even seen the NRC's written answers to Dr. Nelson's questions back in early 1982, in connection with any discovery conducted by any of the plaintiffs in the Powers v. McDonough case being tried this month?
The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th pages of Dr. Nelson's 1982 FOIA Request to the NRC makes actual requests for documents in the NRC's files and well as in the files of the NRC's "predecessor agencies" (Dr. Nelson's term) including the Atomic Energy Commission. As to those pages 4-8 of the 1982 FOIA Request, 5 questions needed to be asked of VA and NRC:
(1) In 1982 did the NRC provide documents answering the 1982 FOIA Request, or did NRC stonewall?
(2) Have the lawyers in this case obtained a full copy of the NRC's response to that 1982 FOIA Request? Did they give a copy to Judge Carter?
(3) Have the lawyers in this case provided a full copy of the NRC's response to that 1982 FOIA Request to plaintiff's counsel in the Powers v. McDonough case, to Secretary McDonough, to Dr. Steve Braverman and to their VA "business people" working on developing housing for veterans on the West LA VA North Campus? Has a copy been provided to Judge Carter?
(4) What documents did the NRC leave out, in 1982, from the documents provided to Dr. Nelson in response to that 1982 FOIA Request?
(5) Have the DOJ or their clients at the VA provided a copy of the NRC's answer to the 1982 FOIA Request to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, and County Counsel, in connection with the VA's attempt to get the "permit hold" by the County released/or and to get the County's consent to the official closing of that West LA VA radioactive landfill?
It looks to me like VA employees, DOJ lawyers and the plaintiffs' counsel tried to hide the alleged existence of the radioactive waste in the landfill on the West LA VA North Campus from Judge Carter, and it looks like the VA employees tried to hide the alleged existence of the radioactive waste from the private developers on this West LA VA North Campus and from the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. I wonder if the whole crew involved in this trial are aware that under California statutes to protect tenants, landlords, lessors and real estate brokers are obligated to disclose material information about a rental apartment and the land-its-on, and about the neighborhood, to the tenant, saying something like: "Tenant should be aware this apartment building is built on a radioactive landfill" or "Tenant should be aware that this apartment is less than 1000 feet of a radioactive landfill."
With reference to the DOJ's and the Powers v. McDonough plaintiffs counsel's amended, revised Trial Exhibit List, Trial Docket #232, it is crystal clear that neither the 1982 FOIA Request, nor the NRC's responsive documents to the 1982 FOIA Request, nor any 1982 NRC response to Dr. Nelson's 3 pages of questions about the radioactive waste disposed-of in the West LA VA radioactive landfill, are trial exhibits in the Powers v. McDonough case. Again, does Judge Carter know about the ALL the information missing from the Trial Exhibits which were JOINTLY put together by the plaintiffs lawyers and the DOJ lawyers?
It almost looks to me that both the plaintiff's trial team, and the trial team at the DOJ, on behalf of its client the VA and its top officers, are playing "hide the ball" as to the nuclear-physics details of what kinds of radioactive waste was buried in the West LA VA radioactive landfill betwen 1948 and 1982 (per the 1982 FOIA Request, based on the rhetorical questions in the 1982 FOIA request, and the answers and the NRC/AEC documents which should have been produced to Dr. Nelson and the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists in response to that 1982 FOIA Request.
Its also noteworthy that the VA "took down" from the internet, every single document belonging to the VA, and NRC and its predecessor AEC, which Enviiroreporter Michael Collins links posted to on his website, with his news stories written about what he called the "West LA Nuclear Dump" between 2006 and 2019. See https://www.enviroreporter.com/vanukedumpinvestigation and in particular the category Enviroreporter/Collins called "VA Nuclear Dump Documents" more than 5,600 pages of documents whose linked are now gone from the internet. Congressman Henry Waxman also had pdfs of all those documents posted on HIS website back in the mid-2010's when Enviroreporter was communicating with him. The documents were not "secret" just hidden where an ordinary veteran or veteran's family member would not know enough to look for them.
Of the VA and NRC documents posted by Enviroreporter Collins whose contents have disappeared from the links he posted, perhaps the most important and easy-to-understand document would have been the "Phase II Environmental Assessment" which contained over $1+ Million worth of soil sampling and soil test results which were said to have been incorporated into that Phase II Environmental Assessment paid-for by the VA. That document should have been provided to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department in connection with obtaining building and grading permits for the property as well.
Everyone should wonder if the reason the County has imposed its "permit hold" and 1,000 foot set-back requirement from the landfill is because of what is in that "landfill" as well as what was in that Phase II Environmental Assessment if the County's decision-makers have seen it.
Its worth noting that in the VA's 2022 Master Plan for the West LA VA Campus, some of the maps EUPHEMISTICALLY refer to that landfill as a "Hazardous Medical Waste" site and the text of the plan refers to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's jusrisdiction over the landfill.
Is the VA's and DOJ's reluctance to disclose all of the documents referred to above, as trial exhibits about radioactive substances in that West LA VA Landfill, for the edification of Judge Carter as "finder of fact" in this trial, BECAUSE any radioactivity related cancers or other radioactivity-related injuries to veterans or innocent civilians are NOT covered by the pool of 'insurance premiums' to cover injuries arising out of "nuclear accidents" under Price-Anderson Act? Probably so, given that disposal of radioactive waste in the canyon and other land at the north end of the West LA VA North Campus was NOT "an accident".
Are they worrying that no sane construction mortgage lender, or "permanent" mortgage lender will finance the building of the 1,800 permanent apartments they and Judge Carter want to build on the West LA VA Campus, at least on the part of the North Campus near or on top of the radioactive landfill? Are they worried that no mortgage lander will finance the installation of 1,000 pre-fab "temporary" housing units on that West LA VA North Campus? In response to the questions raised by these stories, that's probably WHY "new" and more veterans housing hasn't been built on the North Campus...because savvy mortgage lenders do their own "due diligence" about whether radioactive and toxic substances are on or very close-to a property the mortgagee is being asked to lend-on.
Back in 1948 or so, when radioactive substances were first disposed of on the West LA VA North Campus, "whoever was in charge" probably breached their fiduciary duty "to the veterans" described in that 1888 gift deed of the land to the U.S. government...but seriously I doubt that any VA employees had a clue about the "future black-eye effect" on that property in the eyes of mortgage lenders. Worrying about toxic and radioactive contamination of real estate "didn't become a thing" until 1979 and the fracas over Love Canal....though the Feds intentionally hid the serious nuclear accident at their contractor's reactor in Simi Valley in 1959, failing to disclose all the details even when a bunch of UCLA graduate students spilled the beans in 1979 when they found a dead nuclear physics professor's notes about that nuclear accidents. The nucclear reactor accident notes were in a UCLA library. The point is that only fools hide the occurrence of radioactive waste landfills and nuclear waste from the public. Only fools allow the building of apartments for veterans, especially those with families, on top of or too close to radioactive waste landfills.
My family has been filled with veterans since my direct ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War in the Massachusetts Militia, and my 3 great-grandfathers fought in the Civil War including the 9th New York Cavalry, which was part of Lincoln's Grand Army of the Potomac. I would not want any of my family living in a "veterans apartment" built on a radioactive landfill.