On Assignment; 1012; Teenage Pregnancy and School-Based Birth Control Counseling; Controvery Over Environmental Standards at WIPP; Johnson's Rib Hut

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.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. –. .. New Mexico has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the nation. Can school-based clinics remedy the problems? Parents should realize that their kids have to be educated. By someone, if they can't make a care of the nation,

they don't have a chance to. Controversy over environmental safety at the waste isolation pilot project near Carl's Bad, web, surfaces anew. They have a self-certification process. All the rest of the rules are ones they made up for by themselves. Just as a matter of democratic theory, I'm not comfortable with that. In my opinion, my opinion, the web project has proven itself. And down the fame to Route 66, history, barbecue, and nostalgia find a happy home. Well, we have people that come in too here, who are falling on. Different places. I'm going to California, California, and stop in. And they tell people back to their home, and when they come to, they could come to and find a guy. These stories next on assignment with Hal Rose. Good evening.

Most Americans seem to feel that teaching our young people about sex is a responsibility of which properly belongs to the family to parents. And doubtless, most parents fulfill that obligation to the best of their ability. But there is a problem. The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. And New Mexico has one of the highest in the nation. Clearly, something is a miss. Either sex education is not occurring in far too many of our homes or our young people are choosing not to be educated. In either case, the consequences of private sexual activity among young people are having a devastating social, economic, and public effect upon us all. An estimated 1 million American teenagers will become pregnant this year alone. Nearly one fifth of whom will be 15 years or younger. 200,000 will have abortions this year. And because the vast majority of those

who give birth to their children will have no visible means of support, the drain upon the public health and welfare systems is enormous. I think teenage pregnancy adds more than almost any single problem to the nation's woes, whether it's the welfare roles and the ensuing deficit in the national economy or whether it's the immortality of babies, which is much higher if the mother is a teenager. As a response to this nation's growing teen pregnancy problem, schools throughout the country have initiated counseling programs in what are called school-based health clinics in an effort to provide information where otherwise ignorance prevails. A number of such programs exist in New Mexico schools, including Albuquerque, Rio Grande, and Sivola High Schools in Albuquerque. That story tonight with the director

of Albuquerque Public Schools Health and Community Resources, Jerry Anderson, the executive director of the right to life organization in Albuquerque, Donine Dolce, and Carol Tuckler, executive director of the Albuquerque chapter of the Planned Parenthood Association. Later in this segment, the insights of three students at Rio Grande High School in Albuquerque, peer counselors, they are called, Sonja Pajardo, Daniel Dominguez, and Ivan Iwato. If it wasn't the one I thought it was, I thought that's the show. Albuquerque School-based health clinics are staffed by adult professionals from state and local community organizations and assisted by school nurses and students, funded by a variety of sources outside of the school system itself. And despite evidence of success elsewhere in the nation, New Mexico health clinics are not without their critics. The failure or success of the clinic

is based on the success or failure in the area of teenage pregnancy. That's the only thing they have addressed as far as the success or failure of the clinic. The big misrepresentation is that that's all we do. And it's really a small minority of the things that we do. So when we're called a birth control clinic or a pregnancy clinic, we feel misrepresented. And we also feel there's some harm in terms of the care we're able to provide. What they have done is to move, move the area of our children's sexuality into an area that once again closes out the parents. That's a very bad misunderstanding of what the clinics are. Very little amount of my time has to do with matters of birth control. For those students who are interested in questions of sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases, we're here to at least give correct information.

Young people have lots of questions. But if they have those questions answered by other peers who don't have the correct information, that can be a disaster. I'd bring to look. Can you see the mark from the rod and it's burning pretty bad? Go ahead and sign in. And what, why did you come? Not a cold and they said you could recommend a good penis. There must come in problems we see here. The number one is cold, lose. The second is sports physicals. And then our third is anything concerning that mincey is irregular, mincey's, birth control. They just have any questions or concerns about that. Like in the news, you changed generally. Working in collaboration with the professionals are students themselves, generally leaders in the student body. They are called peer counselors. And they do pretty much what their title implies. Talk to other students about problems some find difficult to discuss with adults, including their parents.

I give them skills in listening, supportively in problem solving and communication skills. And we give them a lot of information on particular issues that are of concern to teenagers, like suicide, pregnancy, birth control, sexual transmitted diseases, divorce, grief, drug problems. In the health education, we are going to take over the psychiatric and psychological approach to your child. We're going to have them bring in their problems with the family and role play them in the classrooms. And their peers are going to decide whether or not the family was right, to tell them they couldn't stay out there after midnight or go sleep with their boyfriend or girlfriend or, you know. We like to be seen as a comprehensive medical clinic and we have no apologies about all the services we do. But to see it just from the more controversial aspect of things having to do with sex drugs and there's no rock and roll. But the rest of it is potentially really interfering

with the quality of care that we can provide kids here. So, Jerry Anderson, that sort of sets us up. Perhaps you could help us understand how do these clinics get started? I mean, what was the impetus behind their creation? Well, how initially the providers that operate those clinics contacted school officials and indicated their willingness to operate school-based clinics. So, it was really a situation where providers contacted us. Certainly, in any school-based clinic where we're reliant upon a community-based resource to provide the horsepower to make it go, hopefully we both gained our student population gains as does the provider of services. Well, the moment ago, in the introductory segment,

we heard one of the critics of these programs argue that this kind of activity has two consequences. One, it tends to promote promiscuity amongst teenagers. And secondly, it has the consequences, the argument was, of alienating young people from their parents by removing sex education from the home and placing that in the school. How do you react to that kind of criticism? Well, it's a valid issue. I'm not sure that I would agree that the final proof is in on either issue how. Certainly, the schools don't ever want to get in a situation where we are part of alienating students from their families. Ideally, sex education should be provided by families in homes. These clinics are not purely sex clinics.

As many people have labeled them, they serve a multitude of functions. And those services that they provide that are related to family planning or human sexuality are a minority of what they do. So if you're having said that, let's get back to the issue that you ask about. We sort of want to get in the way. Promotion and promiscuity. Try that with. Any evidence that you see that that's the case? Not in my opinion. I can understand the argument. However, studies, recent studies, especially, have shown that adolescents are much more promiscuous than most adults would like to believe. So I think that kind of behavior is going to occur whether or not there are clinics in operation in schools. Dunneen Delsey, you've been critical of the health clinics. Fact of the matter is, United States

has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. And Mexico has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the entire nation. This is a real problem. It's not something somebody's invented. Don't we need to address it? Yes, we do need to address it. But I don't believe this is the approach of dressing it because this is not going to stop pregnancies because we have the statistics in for school-based clinics around the nation. It has not reduced pregnancies. It has reduced birth. That's why we get involved in it because that means that many of these students are being counseled for abortions. I think we have to go much further back than this. We have to go back to addressing what our children are being taught, what methods are being used, how you include the parents so that there's more than just a school with the responsibility of teaching children, and getting into understanding youth and reaching out to them to learn responsibility and respect for themselves and others.

This did take place in our schools and years gone by, what is being taught in the schools now does not address them. For 30 years, it's been in the schools teaching sex education. And I think the teen sex clinics are saying, well, we failed here, so let's go to something new. I don't believe it at work. On top of it, I do agree that it does break up the family. And I also believe it makes children believe that the parents are the adults. Are endorsing their activities by not saying, well, you're going to do it anyway, so we're going to provide you this. I don't think as adults, we should ever say that to our children. We should say there is something positive we can do for you and help you see you can be strong people and have lives that are based on decency and to me, lives that are based on responsibility. A couple of reactions. One, obviously, somebody is not getting such a sex education in the home. How else would you explain this very high incidence of teenage pregnancy in the United States?

I mean, somebody's either not teaching it at home, but the kids at home are paying attention. Well, there's a couple of things there. I don't believe the home is taking care of their part. A good deal, but I think they would, if a compliment of what was in the school. But what's in the school is, in sex education, is not what I taught my children at home in sex education. So it'd be very difficult to compliment the two factions. As a result, I believe a lot of parents who would be willing to teach sex education have stopped in frustration. But I don't excuse them on this role. I think parents are required to teach their children sex at home just as much as they are in raising them and feeding them and clothing them. That is part of the responsibility of being a parent. And if they won't take the responsibility, I believe that you could make laws to allow parents that would make parents to be more involved, working with the schools, just as they're involved and having to get their child to school. But I believe that you won't find that the majority of parents would need that law.

I think most of them would be willing to teach your children at home if they were aided and knowing how to teach their children if they could be aided in communications with their children and three if there wasn't such a separation of school and family. Let me pick you up on to me as you said earlier, that studies are in and these clinics don't work. There is that now famous John Hopkins University study published last year over three year period they look at it. They found two things. Clinics like this do have the consequence of reducing teenage pregnancy. And secondly, they have the consequence of postponing or delaying the period of sexual activity and more students than otherwise would have been the case. I mean, that's impressive to me. If you believe that report is accurate, but if you look at the background of that report and where do they do their information from, it was from a very small segment. But there are other reports showing all across the nation that not only have the clinics been started, they've been closed down.

One, because the cost is very expensive. Two, you're asking taxpayers to pay for something that's already available in their community for their children. If they want birth control, there are centers to provide for that. And yes, you can talk about the schools that are working in other areas then just contraceptives, et cetera. But they start out that way. They are eventually getting into sex education and not sex education, but sexual guidance. I care talk left between 1972 and 1982. The number of young people, teenagers, engaging in sexual activity, nearly doubled. Any idea why? I think the answer to that is probably very complicated and it's got to do with a lot of things going on in our society, the mass media and how they portray sexuality, the fact that, unfortunately, families aren't talking with their children enough about sexuality, the quality of education in the schools regarding sexuality is variable.

Teenagers listen to a lot of very sexual messages on the radio, a lot of very rapidly moving factors in the society, I'd say. The argument, sex education belongs in the homes, not in the schools, irrespective of where people might think that belong, where in fact, from your experience, do most young people receive their sex education? In a recent Lou Harris poll that Planned Parenthood commissioned, teenagers reported that parents were still the most important sex educators for students. Peers were the second, schools were third, and the media was fourth. So teenagers are saying parents are important, but teenagers were also saying that what they learned from their parents was inadequate, only a third of teenagers reported that their parents, for example, ever talked with them about family planning. Parents are trying two-thirds of teenagers reported

that their parents had given them some information about sexuality, but only a third of teenagers felt that they'd gotten really a broad base of information from their parents. Does, from your experience, education of this sort in the schools alienate children from their parents? That hasn't been my experience. If the family is doing its job, and by the way, at Planned Parenthood, we've got a great new book called, how to talk with your children about sexuality. If the family is doing its job, the school can complement that and perhaps provide updated information that a parent might not have, that sort of thing. The two can work together. We also have to remember that some children, unfortunately, don't have an adequate family situation. And so the education they get is that school period and from their peers. Well, folks, you've been most helpful. Thank you very much. Now, coming up, a conversation with some high school students themselves about this important and very sensitive subject. Sonya, we were just talking to some folks

about this program overall. This is your second year as a peer counselor, a young person who discovers she's going to have a baby. What kind of an impact from your experience does that have on her life? A lot of times they feel like they're going to have to make a decision whether or not they're going to have to stay in school or leave school to get married or take care of the child. And a lot of times it's due to the fact that their parents react in a way that they refuse to give help to this young lady. And she has a hard time dealing with that, maybe because she doesn't want to leave school and she's not ready for that responsibility. It's a big impact on their life. I mean, it's really hard because you know, you have to make a lot of changes. Big responsibility for you, too, as a counselor, I suppose, to talk through this as it were. It's hard because you've got to be hard to say, you can't take sides.

If it's a mistake, well, then it's a mistake, but maybe it wasn't. And I can't make that decision for her. I've got to be able to help her along with her problem to get to a point where she can lead a normal life and can live the way she wants to. She doesn't have to be forced into any situations that she doesn't want to be into. Daniel, there's an argument amongst adults about sex education in general, whether it belongs in the home, whether it belongs in the school, education design to prevent unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted disease. What do the kids think? I mean, is it either or school or home? Well, I don't know. I think it's better that students, like we have a freshman health class in freshman health that you have sex education. I think it's good that you get it in high school because a lot of parents are really afraid to talk about it.

Even, you know, my mom's pretty open about her. My dad really doesn't like to talk about it. Most parents don't like to talk, are really afraid to talk to their kids about that. So some kids are fortunate and they do have parents who are really open about it. But those who don't really stuck, you know, with listening to the myths that go around school about sex, about getting pregnant, about diseases. So they don't really, they aren't really educated. So I think it's good things having in the school because if a student doesn't want to take that health class, he doesn't have to. If on, uh, Daniel's raised an interesting points, the myth. So there is you can tell, there's a peer counselor. Where do most teenage kids in school here get their information, their knowledge about sexual activity? I would say they probably get it from the students themselves. From the students themselves? From one another. Yes, just from talking to one another. And I don't really think they go to the house clinic, you know.

I mean, everyone knows how and everything. I think it's mainly from the students, you know, the house clinics, they're to help them. And they do use it. But I think it's mainly from the students. The argument to the clinics promote promiscuity. Do you see any evidence of that at all? I really don't think so. I think you can say that. I mean, usually when a student goes to the health clinic to get birth control, he, she has made up their mind that they're going to have sexual intercourse. I don't think you ever had somebody, you know, who's never, never had, you know, of course, someone walking to the health clinic to talk about, I don't know the, about getting a shot or something. And they come out of there saying, oh, wow, I'm going to have sex because I learned all this stuff at the health clinic. I don't think that really, you know, that'd be ridiculous to say that students are learning how to do it. They are learning that they should do it because I don't think they are. I think it's there just for the students who have made up their mind that they're going to do it. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I do. And then it also helps the girls that are already pregnant and helps comfort them and make them feel a little bit better about it, just help them make decisions. They've got a lot of decisions to make too. Sonya, young people like yourself there've been a lot of adults listening to what you have to say here this evening. Miss versus facts, you know, fictions versus reality. What would you like if you had the opportunity to have adults understand where young people are today on this matter of sex education, sexual activity and the general sex health issue? What would you like adults to understand about this? I think parents should think about it and it's not a fact that sex is not in the high schools. It's in middle schools now. It's not fact that you're going to learn it after you get married. You've got to learn. Your children's going to learn it from somewhere, kids talk. And parents, you know, it's like my son would never do that.

My daughter is not that way. But you are not around them all the time. And sex is going around. Kids do find out about it. They're not going to turn their back away from it. Some may, but not too many will. Parents have to realize that. Danielle, what would you like, would you like adults to understand about this watching this show? Should they be so worried about sex education undermining parental responsibility, for example? Well, I mean, if they're, I don't think the parents that are really willing to educate their children have anything to worry about because they're already doing the right thing, which I think is educating their children. But, you know, some parents who don't believe their children learn about those things, they're really just throwing their children out to the dogs to, letting their children learn on the streets, you know, myths. Things that really aren't true about sex, about, you know, because a lot of things go around, you know, word of mouth, that you won't get pregnant on your first time, you know, different things. And kids will, their kids will believe that.

And if they ever experiment, they may end up praying it because they didn't know. So I think, you know, parents should realize that their kids have to be educated by someone there if they can't educate them and they should let others have a chance to. Ron, I want to give you the last word here. Would you like some folks to pay attention to as we talk about this process happening in the schools as opposed to the home? Well, just adding to what Daniel said, I think better communication with parents would be very helpful. Because they do learn from school, but what they learn might not be the right thing or what's going to happen. You know, they might get false information about it. And I guess the house can help them a lot, you know, to better understand it. But I think good communication between parents is the most important. Good luck. Part of me, go ahead. I'll say, and just because we're young and curious and everything, I don't think it means, you know, every teenage is going to go out and have sexual intercourse. That's a good idea.

It is going to happen that they understand the consequences. You folks have been a big help to us here this evening. I really appreciate this conversation. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. Thank you. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project near Karlsbad with has been the source of considerable controversy in New Mexico for quite some time now. In its initial stages, opponents of this nuclear waste depository attempted unsuccessfully to block its construction altogether. And if the present schedule holds, whip will begin receiving nuclear waste in about a year and a half now. From the beginning, Karlsbad, civic, and political leaders have supported the whip installation

as an important boost to the region's faltering economy. But state environmentalists have long argued that the risks of low-level nuclear waste disposal and proposed high-level nuclear waste experimental storage at the site involve potential environmental problems which outweigh the economic advantages of the project. It has been a convoluted controversy to say the least. And for a period of time, it seemed to have subsided. But as the project nears completion, voices have been raised anew about the wisdom and the safety of the whip project. The contours of these developments this evening with the former director of the state environmental improvement division Denise Ford and Democratic state representative Bob Hawke, chairman of the state legislature's interim committee on radioactive and hazardous materials. For the record, we invited representatives

of the United States Department of Energy, the federal agency responsible for constructing and managing whip to join us for this conversation, but they declined to participate. The history of controversy surrounding whip is marked by a number of key events, February 1980. Then President Carter tells Congress he plans to cancel the project altogether. Congress rejects Mr. Carter's efforts. May 1981, then New Mexico Attorney General Jeff Bingham and brings suit against the Department of Energy to address the state's concerns about its role in determining the environmental safety of the project. Violation of 30 days. September 1981. For now, we're not authorized to enter upon this property to think what is the leave of nation. This warning applies to all personnel on property of the US Department of Energy.

20 environmental protesters are arrested for trespassing at whip. Seven news reporter covering the demonstration are also arrested. Whether you're not leaving, now that's what I'll show you back up there a while to go. When you start in here, I'm sorry. I ask you to read the back of my state police and I don't think it's right there in the middle of this. This is an entirely the past police lines wherever formed. That doesn't say on the edge of anything. It says wherever forms are. I'm going on the basis of that. It's signed by Mr. Martin. You've been there for the police. We have. That's fall up. You got to say about it. Uh-huh. Are they ready? Critics of the 1979 congressional authorization for whip have historically focused upon two key provisions of that legislation which they argue has significant environmental implications. One, whip is not required to be regulated or licensed by the federal nuclear regulatory commission.

This, despite the fact that three years later, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which would require any future depository to be licensed by the NRC. And secondly, the state of New Mexico is permitted consulting, but no veto power over will. Since 1979, three administrations, those a former governor's Bruce King and Tony Anaya, and now Governor Gary Carothers, have found themselves grappling with the situation and perhaps understandably, the Carothers administration has yet to formulate its own policy on the matter. I'm reviewing the files of Denise Forte in the previous administration, and the correspondence back and forth between the Department of Energy, EEG, and the ID. I have not completed that review of the files. I am interested in receiving all that DOE

is just prepared to give us and to analyze and to review it. Well, whatever policy the Carothers administration ultimately settles upon, the lines of the controversy with which it must contend are clear. According to the critics, even as the date for nuclear waste disposal at whip approaches, nagging environmental questions remain unanswered. But the proponents say that is not true. We gave away the shop. We lost the veto. I'm thinking back to when the controversy first arose in the late 70s. The issue at that time, Carl, was how much power would the state hold in negotiations with the federal government regarding a nuclear waste site in New Mexico? Now, at that time, the legislature made the decision to take a stand that

was a little more cooperative with the Department of Energy and decided through its various committee structures to go along with the idea of consultation and concurrence. And those became the two key words, consult with the federal government, and then we would have the right to concur. Under the law, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, every other state will be able to veto any other repository site in their state. But New Mexico doesn't. Every other site will have NRC licensing. Whip will not. So whip is different. So yes, New Mexico, the state of New Mexico and people in New Mexico have been and are being treated differently than any other state on citizens of any other state in this country. This is an area of congressional decision

and, no matter DOE policy, I presume, everyone knows that Congress authorized whip for its mission and it's specifically exempted it from licensing by the NRC. The reasons behind that, you would presume that we have to ask the congressional oversight committees who pass the authorizing legislation. I'm a scientist, I'm a geologist. And the environmental evaluation group, since it was set up in 1979, has prided itself for neither anti-Nolpro whip per se. We were charged with, and we always have done objective scientific evaluation and have called the shots on everything from geology to the type of waste and transportation

and so on, as we have seen them. The salt of the site isn't good. It's got cracks and inner beds in it. Are there any incursions and slippy juice in the geology of the area since the building of the project? Underneath the salt, you have brine and the deep salt being dissolved and water that can come up into the repository. How much water have they traced in the flow and what's going on with that? New Mexico and the Department of Energy have a binding commitment that the Department will demonstrate compliance with the EPA standard for the whip facility. The DOE has asked Sandia to develop the performance assessment program over the next few years. And that is the program, which is the one which will primarily determine whether or not whip is in compliance with the EPA standard.

Since that has not been done yet, since the compliance with the EPA standard has not been demonstrated, I think it is premature to say that we, as the evaluation group, can tell the people of New Mexico that the project is safe from geological standpoint. It's very interesting, Denise Ford. We just heard this geologist from the state and environmental evaluation group. And in effect, say, we have the cart before the horse here that nuclear waste is scheduled to be deposited at whip before all of the studies are in. And I suspect there's an awful lot of new Mexicans who rub the opinion, at least, that the suit brought by former Attorney General now United States Senator Jeff Bingham. And against the Department of Energy was calculated to make that sort of thing impossible. Obviously, there's some misunderstanding.

Well, the suit didn't. The suit was really the states way of saying, listen to us. And things had gone pretty far. And the state was really not getting any response at all from DOE. And had to take the dramatic step of suing the DOE, at which point, all of a sudden serious negotiations that everybody had been asking for in the previous years took place. And what the suit gave us that's relevant to the situation now is really the opportunity to talk to DOE. It doesn't guarantee relief. And the ultimate appeal is to the DOE itself. And so there are certainly matters on which the state and the DOE may end up and have ended up having disagreements. But it may seem strange. But until the time the suit was brought, there was every prospect of a nuclear waste repository simply being established in the state without any kind of official state relationship with the federal agency that was bringing it in. The ball now is in the court of a new state administration. You and others are concerned that nuclear waste

will be deposited with, before all the studies are in, both low level deposits and high level experiments. You're just recently departed from state government, where you were a state environmental improvement, division director. Why didn't you do something when you were in office and had the power to do something? We raised these issues with the DOE when we were in office. And I think, in fact, Governor Anaya, who, when he was Attorney General, had followed the whip project very closely, had been involved with it, called on the Department of Energy to cease any further operations for disposal until we could reach agreement with them on such things as NRC review. We were simply a nuclear regulatory commission, which if this project involved uranium meltailings or low level commercial waste, or almost any other sort of nuclear operations would be subject to the review of the NRC. We were simply unsuccessful, and we were unsuccessful in getting that,

the request that the governor had made being agreed to by Congress, by members of the Congressional Delegration, or by the Department of Energy. So given that, the state really is in the position that what all we can do is bring to DOE's attention are concerns with how the project is proceeding. They have in some instances agreed with us and change some of the plans for the project and others they have it. But that's really the position that the state is in. And it is not a position. If we were looking at the commercial waste disposal project, the state would have veto power over that. That's something that we were not successful in getting for the whip project, the governor. Because it's a military waste disposal project. I think that's the historic reason that some have said, it's because of the type of the waste. But I think it really is because it was in the hands of the Department of Energy, and there were those within Congress who didn't think the Department of Energy should have to answer to a civilian licensing authority. The state representative Bob Hawke, your interim committee is constituted by the legislature to monitor developments at whip.

Generally speaking, would you be more comfortable if all of the environmental studies were in digested and understood before there was any thought of depositing any kind of waste, nuclear waste, low level or high level on an experimental basis at the Carlsbad project? That's not going to affect the whip project how, anyway whatsoever. And I don't feel any less are more comfortable because those reports are not in. What's going to be in the report? For one thing, there are a tremendous number of reports in. If I had saved all the reports that I've gotten, they would fill that table by about five feet. I've had to pass them on to other people through the last several years. But I think to a great extent, in my opinion, in my opinion, the whip project has proven itself. And the reports that are in justify its continuation

and the deposit of waste. The thing that amazed the committee was that what the report is that we're talking about, that you're talking about here is the one which is required by EPA, the federal environmental protection you see. And in their own words, they say that it is not do until not later than five years after the first waste is deposited in the whip, which is towards the end of next year, although that may be running a little bit behind schedule right now, as I understand. But I think that the reports that are in and the progress that's being made are satisfactory. I think that also something as overlooked is that the independent evaluation that was set up by the stipulated agreement,

the lawsuit of the Attorney General Binghamman several years ago, established the EEG, the Environmental Evaluation Group, which is a segment of state government now reporting to the task force of four secretaries. And that independent evaluation has proved to be quite valuable. And a geologist with that group told us, look, this worries me. That's all right, that's all right. And I accept that, too. I think he's doing his job when he makes that statement. I'm just saying it doesn't worry me. It doesn't worry me. There's several geologists around who have been looking at this whole situation. And so it doesn't bother me. But I think he's doing his job when he says it worries me. What they're worried about is there's going to be, I've forgotten, the quantity that will be in place before the report is due,

the final report is due. I mean, now he's dead. Back or maybe disagree somewhat on these EPA standards, because I think it's very important. When the state became the designated repository for the first nuclear waste repository in the country, the first disposal operation, we've been breaking new ground ever since then. The one thing that the Department of Energy agreed to be bound by were these EPA standards. And they agreed in the stipulated agreement. The standard EPA standards themselves provide that they apply to this project. Now we hear from the department that, yes, we're bound by them. But we're not going to figure out whether or not the site complies with them until sometime after we've put the waste in. I think it's a far more serious question than another report. If somebody in the street comes up to me and says, does this site comply with the EPA standards? I have to say, I don't know. And if they say, well, when will you know? I have to say, I'm not sure. It's up to the DOE to let us know when they're going to know.

If we take these standards seriously, then we have to consider the possibility that the site may not be suitable under those standards for disposal of waste. And if that's the case, how can we possibly justify bringing waste here, putting them in the ground, causing the risk that that necessary risk that that entails and the transportation and the emplacement of the waste, if the eventual answer may be that the project does not meet the EPA criteria? Representative Hawke, former environmental improvement director, Denise Forrest says, we're not talking about another piece of paper we're talking about. Environmental standards, which he takes seriously. Do you take him seriously? And if you take him seriously, why shouldn't we wait for that piece of paper that documents that? I'm not talking about another piece of paper either. How? Let me tell you what we're talking about here. We are talking about a health issue. We're not talking about the economy of cars better. We're talking about a health issue. That's the only reason for whips existence.

Is there is an excess amount of radioactive materials waste that is above ground in the country today, and there needs to be a permanent disposal for it. That's the reason the whole whip project got started in the first place was the dispose of these transuranic waste that are in existence around the country. Primarily they're being stored on the surface in Idaho today. That is the question. Are we going to continue and take care of this, which is a real, which can be a real harm to your and my health? Are we going to continue to figure out another obstacle to place in the way of getting the project at whip going? My problem with that argument is that I don't see that we're talking here about whether or not nuclear waste disposal goes forward. What we're talking about is whether or not before DOE brings the waste here, they demonstrate compliance with the EPA standards.

And I think the question the states got to ask is, why is that date of October 1988 when the trucks are supposed to start rolling here for rocky flats from Idaho labs from Los Alamos? Why is that date so important? Can anybody concretely say that environmental harm is going to occur at the sites where the waste are now stored if it's five more years until the waste starts rolling in here? You've got to remember, as Denise just stated, this started as a DOE project with defense materials involved, and it still is. EPA wasn't even in the picture originally. That has come in in recent years. But don't I believe that these can correct me if I think that it's established in a project like this for heaven's sakes in the state of New Mexico where nuclear waste is involved? Don't we need the comfort of knowing that whether or not one follows the other? What we're saying, if that follows, and what we're saying is DOE and all of its contractors are really not concerned with the environment.

I think that's the way I have to, that's the way I'm interpreting what's that statement. And I think when I look at all the evaluation, all the studies, all the research has been done, all those stacks of materials that we've put together. I can tell you that if this were under the NRC, that they wouldn't have let the first ground, first shovel of dirt been taken from the site until the project had been shown to meet the EPA standards. If those kinds of things give peace of mind to citizens of the state, who are as far as I can tell, honestly concerned, why not? Where nuclear waste materials are concerned? How, it's really, that's a very hypothetical type question. And I can't imagine how you can answer that question since we're not even there. But the way you are, what you're saying is that the opinion of state functionaries don't matter afoot where whip is concerned.

I think they do. I think they do. I think the suit that was filed with the state back when Attorney General Bingham was in office, Attorney General, I think that it did, because the state won that suit. And it wasn't one concession. It wasn't one concession from DOE. Yeah, right. And it caused concessions from DOE, which I have outlined right here. And I think it has served a purpose. Frankly, I think that there are some problems with, as a citizen of the state, and simply relying on state government to say, well, you tell us if it's safe or not, and if you tell us it's safe, and we'll be assured everything is fine. The first place, the level of funding, doesn't begin to compare to that, which other states, which may receive. And at this point, they didn't even know they will, but three states, which may receive the commercial waste of far higher levels of funding than we have.

And the second place, I think there's a built-in conflict. It's not a secret that we're, I think, throughout the state agencies, people have got a sense that you can't bite the hand that feeds you, ultimately DOE is the source of the funding. And that has some sort of effect on the technical, on the state's ability to do technical oversight. Third, there is the political element that, when the, because the state's establishment, political establishment has for the most part, made up its mind that it supports the project, it becomes increasingly difficult to raise any issue of a technical level, which should be raised to the DOE, and these are not all life or death should the project go forward or should it not. I think the project is pretty clearly going forward. What we're talking about now are the sort of questions. Should the, should the trucks turn left? It lost Vegas, New Mexico, or should they go on down the road near Laming New Mexico and turn left there? What sort of route should they take? A number of questions that we're not talking about, does it go forward, but rather what's the safest way

for it to go forward? Around time, just very quickly, very quickly, what's your response? Well, you see, I'm sorry, I feel very confident with the way that WIP has been progressing and with the studies that have been going on and the reports, this last evaluation by EPA is going to occur. It isn't that it isn't going to occur. The only question is, is the timing and relation to the placing of the nuclear waste in the website? And how long it'll be there before the report is absolutely due. No one has said that the report is going to be five years coming out, no one has made that statement yet. It probably, all they've said is it probably will not come out before the first waste goes in down there. And that's, that's all they've said. And I, any PAs accepted this, by the way, they've accepted this, it's in writing from them to the EEG that they have accepted this.

Well folks, you've been very informative, thank you. Thank you. Pleasure to get to talk to you. Now, that's taught, Bob. It is a landmark on Route 66 and a magnet for those who like their barbecue home style and their atmosphere and nostalgic, and it is a subject of our postscript tonight. There we go.

I opened up New Year's Eve of 1968. I restarted out just to finally prepare. My main knowledge of barbecue, I learned that in Chicago, of course, I saw your cooking, but by my little boy. Our barbecue is from Scratch, right on the pit, and then the sauce. And that's really what we consider true barbecue. And a lot of places have a wetter juicer of the chopped barbecue or mashed up barbecue. And then we want you to bait it off the bone. And we have a famous pinto beans that the westerns are crazy about.

Of course, we put a little, a little odd touch of flavor you took to them. And people see to be treated up for a super day of price. Yeah. Hi, babe. How are you doing? How are you? I'm OK. I want you to Chicago for Christmas. And I have quite a few customers that found that I was away and come in here and come back.

So that's kind of nice to know that you're missed. I tell people, and they say, coming through, I tell them to look for that pig up in the air. I'm out there to see if you see it with several blocks. And of course, that pig lets you know that there's rips in here. Thank you. Thank you. Tonight's postscript with all due apologies to the Colonel finger-licking good.

New Mexico celebrates its silver anniversary, 75 years of statehood. And even as statehood is celebrated, 1987 marks the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Until next week, then, I'm Hal Rhodes on assignment. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.