So what lessons can be learned, to avoid a similar fiasco?

For Educators and Administrators

Science education and outreach is crucial if the public is to support science. Although Brookhaven Lab has several good education and public outreach programs, the funding is minimal compared to the $400 million lab budget. Had there been a more serious effort over the years, the lab's neighbors might not have reacted with such fear and suspicion.

Scientific ignorance has very real consequences that hurt not just scientists but all of society. Funding is cut and research is slowed. At Brookhaven, research on radionuclides to dull the pain of metastatic cancers is on hold, as is structural research on Lyme disease bacterium antigens that might lead to a vaccine. Other research, just as important but without immediate applications, also awaits restart of the HFBR.

Scientists, educators, and those who run their institutions should take science education and public outreach much more seriously, and devote more financial and human resources to them. If every adult near Brookhaven Lab had truly understood that 5,000 picocuries of tritium is a vanishingly small and harmless amount, if they had understood that the tritium plume in the groundwater would not even reach the site boundary for 12 years and by then would be almost too small to measure, millions of dollars would have been saved, scientific research would have progressed more quickly, and people would not have been needlessly scared.

Public understanding of basic science needs to improve. So does public understanding of real versus perceived environmental risks.

For Politicians and Policy Makers

Using an issue for political grandstanding hurts people. It's not just a game to get reelected. Make the effort to understand the scientific reality, not just the political reality.

U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato and U.S. Representative Michael Forbes, who represent New York State and eastern Long Island, respectively, have been among the lab's biggest critics. Both Republicans have taken heat in the past for their weak environmental records, and both are exploiting Brookhaven Lab for political gain. Senator D'Amato, in particular, faces a tough reelection battle in 1998.

If Senator D'Amato had made a serious effort to understand the science, or if he had bothered to talk to any of dozens of experts, he might have learned that the groundwater tritium contamination put no one's drinking water supply at risk. He might not have announced that "there is no doubt that the operation of this facility has caused a very real threat to the groundwater in Suffolk County."

If Congressman Forbes had toured the reactor and learned about its elaborate safeguards, he might not have proclaimed that the "the people who have operated the reactor have not followed adequate safety procedures."

Perceptions are not the only things that matter. So do facts.

For Environmental Activists

Scaring people and playing fast and loose with the facts may get short-term results, but it damages long-term credibility and hurts an important cause.

A small but vehement antinuclear fringe on Long Island continually claims that the lab and the reactor are poisoning Long Island's environment. One of the lab's most vocal opponents, a group called Long Island SHAD, flew a banner over Long Island's beaches in August that read "BNL + water = cancer." Other activists cite dubious or discredited scientific studies as "proof" that there is an "epidemic" of cancer around Brookhaven Lab, or that even tiny environmental releases of radiation will cause cancer, even if they result in exposures hundreds or thousands of times less than the natural background radiation level of 300 mrem per year.

It's dishonest and counterproductive to scare people with dubious "facts" and crackpot scientific theories. Form conclusions based on evidence, not vice versa.

For Reporters and their Editors

Accurate reporting of environmental issues demands at least a minimal understanding of the science involved.

Business reporters are expected to be knowledgeable about the workings of the companies they cover, and only the most shorthanded editor would assign an education reporter to cover a football game. Yet general assignment and political reporters with no background in risk assessment regularly cover environmental stories. The least they could do is to accurately describe environmental hazards and put them in their proper context.

If reporters covering Brookhaven Lab had placed the environmental risk in its proper perspective, then the community would have better understood how low the tritium levels really were, and why there was no threat to anyone's drinking water. Outrageous claims about Brookhaven poisoning the children of Long Island and epidemics of cancer would have been treated with the skepticism they deserved, and the public might have seen more balanced, less sensational stories that more closely approached the truth.

Stories like the HFBR are not just political football. An understanding of science is necessary for reporters to tell the real scientists from the charlatans, and accord them appropriate credibility.

For Scientists (and Scientists Who Are Also Scientific Administrators)

Communicating with the public is important and necessary. People may not understand your research, but they pay for it. Accord them the respect they deserve.

At Brookhaven, some of the lab's scientists, including former director Nicholas Samios, responded logically to public concerns, but with seeming indifference to their fears. Samios and other lab scientists simply stated that the public was overreacting and the health threat was insignificant, citing the groundwater tritium measurements. While his statements were factually correct, many in the community felt dismissed, and they were infuriated.

Facts are not the only things that matter. So do perceptions.

A Chance to Get it Right

The fate of the HFBR, and the research of hundreds of scientists, still hangs in the balance. D'Amato and Forbes recently filed federal legislation to permanently shutter the reactor; they say they won't be talked out of it. The DOE is holding a series of public meetings with lab and DOE personnel to educate the public on the HFBR and obtain community feedback. The local media is beginning to see through some of the more outrageous claims of the antinuclear activists, and coverage is becoming more balanced. On September 4, about 500 lab employees, including scientists, protested outside Forbes's office, denouncing him for ignoring the facts about the HFBR and overreacting.

Unless the federal legislation forces his hand, Secretary of Energy Federico Pe?a will decide the reactor's future in January 1998.

By then, with any luck, cooler heads will prevail. If and when the spent fuel pool leak is repaired and the reactor is again deemed safe, it should reopen. Then scientists will once again do important research at a safe - and valuable - neutron research reactor.

Dan Ferber, Ph.D., is a freelance science writer based in Urbana, Illinois.

Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller, and New Statesman.

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Endlinks

Brookhaven National Laboratory - guide to the center's conferences, status of the cleanup of the tritium groundwater contamination, and community-oriented information. Pages on the High Flux Beam Reactor review the reactor's scientific uses and planned upgrades to the reactor.

Neutron scattering on gases, liquids and solid matter . . . - a brief overview of the scientific uses of neutrons, from the Institut Laue-Langevin in France.

Why neutrons? - short primer on neutron scattering, maintained by Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

U.S. Department of Energy - a starting point to learn about DOE and the vast national laboratory system. The Environmental Protection Agency Web site has a page on Brookhaven.