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PARTON 9
records request was sent to the UA for “any information pertaining to any effort, exploration, explanation, or attempts at testing for radioactivity levels at this well-site.”(80) The University’s response to this public records request as per the Memorandum from Lloyd Wundrock, Environmental Safety Officer, UA Dept. of Risk Management dated July 8, 1999 (81) states in its entirety: “I spoke with my director, Steve Holland, and he believes that the letter of 04/13/83 from Martha Anderson was her recollection of a phone conversation with Major Robert Sutay and our department never had a copy of the report requested.”The concrete encapsulated well head can be seen today from the roadside turn-off to the old missile site, eighty yards off to the north of Highway 77, approximately one mile west of the Willow Springs road. Also of note is an exchange of documents found within Arizona Game and Fish Department files, again accessed through public records requests. In 1979, the Arizona Game and Fish Department was asked by the University to collect samples of wildlife from the site to be tested for radiation exposure levels. On July 30, 1979 ten specimens from on and around the PTRL site were transported to the Arizona Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) for this testing. On October 10, 1979 the AAEC’s Ralph B. Ochoa, Supervisor, Environmental Surveillance Laboratory, forwarded a letter to an Arizona Game and Fish Dept. representative which listed the test results for two of the ten specimens originally delivered for testing: an adult Gambel’s quail collected 100 yards from the dump (tag #1), and a round-tailed ground squirrel collected that had been utilizing a burrow within the radioactive/toxic waste compound (tag #7).(84) The AAEC letter (84) states: “Sample tag #1: Less than 540 picocuries of tritium per liter. Sample tag #7 (composite): 2900 + 670 picocuries of tritium per liter. |
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