state of affairs. What are we paying you for? To stab us in the back by letting the University off the hook? 

The enclosures summarize the basic issues. The arguments of your staff against the three basic points are irrelevant and nonsensical. They appear to have, for example, no grasp whatsoever of vadose monitoring concepts pioneered by the University’s own scientists and advocated by them for the monitoring of the Page Ranch dump.” (75) 

       It may be recalled that in Bill Varney’s March 30, 1987 memo, he referred to the state regulators from the Arizona Dept. of Health Services as “neophytes who represented the state.” (74) While such a disclosure may not necessarily have been prudent in light of the fact that it is being read on this page, Mr. Varney may have been an honest man. Like an echo returning from across a vast, vacuous bureaucratic canyon, Frank Pierson and Mary Ellen Kazda received an official reply to their letter of April 6, 1987 (75). In a candid passage from this letter written by Ted Williams, Director, Arizona Dept. of Health Services on May 13, 1987 (76) Mr. Williams, in his own words, discloses the depth of expertise and experience that the state monitoring agency entrusted with the protection of the health of the citizens of Oracle is in possession of: 

“The Department does not claim to employ personnel who are experts in every environmental concept. For this we rely on numerous sources, including the general public. As such, I urge you to submit any appropriate technical information. The Department appreciates your interest in this issue.”(76)