Posted By Gary Zalimeni on Apr 30, 2015

One Mile From Home  ™

By Gary Zalimeni

 One Mile from Home: Beginnings  (Part One), Published March 2015 (Provides links to all previously published One Mile from Home Articles.

Part THREE:  Chilling Test Results

Two days after my neighbor told me about his possible radiation exposure, I attended the Ashtabula city council meeting, I was determined to make my inquiry. My chance finally came; “are any of you aware of a facility in this area that handles radioactive materials,” I asked. There was dead silence. Finally, the councilman from my ward spoke out, “yes, the RMI works with radioactive materials and I used to work there!” A literal firestorm of shouts began, all aimed at me. The city manager accused me of “trying to create a panic.” Council members accused me of “spreading rumors.” The pandemonium that broke out forced an immediate adjournment of the meeting. Local news reporters surrounded me for more details. I had none.

With one inadvertent yet honest answer, my ward councilman publicly released a highly classified government secret. It was about the RMI (Reactive Metals Inc.) plant which extruded uranium billets used in the production of nuclear warheads for the U.S. Defense Dept. It had been a top-secret facility for 18 years. It was located one mile from my home.

I arrived home, shaken from the answer and response I received at the meeting. The realization of widespread radiation exposure in our community hit me hard, very hard. I began to think of the untimely death of my father from Lymphoma two years earlier and the dozens of people in our neighborhood that died of cancer. Was there a connection? Within 15 minutes of my arrival home the phone rang.

“Hello Gary, I watched the meeting on television and I’m calling to tell you that you are going to get all my help, they (council) are not going to kick you around like this!” It was Maj. General Gus D. Lambros, a prominent local attorney and ex Ashtabula city manager who had served on Gov. James Rhodes Environmental Task Force. He successfully defended the Ohio National Guard in the Kent State shooting case. Maj. General Lambros was also a close family friend.

The following day the disinformation campaign in the press began. In a Cleveland Plain Dealer interview Jim Daniels the CEO of the RMI Corp. referred to me as “anti government and communist inspired.” Legally, it was a libelous  statement and obviously, completely untrue but they did their best to discredit me.

Gen. Lambros suggested the formation of a citizens committee which was called the Ashtabula Pollution Abatement Committee (APAC). The twelve committee members included, an ex harbor master, ex city manager, a school board president, a dock master, educators along with several local residents . Our purpose was to find the extent of the radioactive contamination.

Our information requests to the RMI Corp. were promptly denied. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) returned the same results. Every government agency we contacted stonewalled our inquiries which increased our suspicions of widespread contamination.

We turned to Dr. Eskil Karlson a nuclear physicist/biologist who lived in Erie, P.A. Dr. Karlson helped in the development of the U.S. nuclear program. After a brief meeting and a fee agreement, he decided to help us determine the extent of the contamination. In order to do so he decided to actually build his own dosimeter which is used to measure low-level radioactivity. You see, Dr. Karlson was an inventor who had dozens of U.S. patents and was well-known for his fair and unbiased scientific research and opinions.

Within 30 days we began our tests, with results so unexpected, that even Dr. Karlson was shocked. We drew 11 soil samples, several by the plant, several in nearby neighborhoods, one in my backyard and a neutral sample taken 10 miles away. The neutral sample was for a “background” reading and used to compare with the other samples taken in the “hot zones.” The results were chilling. Every lab tested sample was way above EPA permissible levels, including the supposed neutral background sample. It was much, much worse than anyone expected.

We surmised radioactivity would be present but nothing like the test results we received. We also knew that we were sitting on extremely explosive news, news that would catapult our community into the national headlines.

We all realized that as soon as we released our test results to the press the maelstrom would begin, it was a frightening feeling but we had no other choice. We called Kim Bratten, a veteran news reporter from WKYC-TV in Cleveland and gave her our findings and Kim immediately put it over the wire. The storm we expected began the following day.

Note from author below photograph.

One of the many Marinas located on the Ashtabula river.

Fields Brook flows into the Ashtabula river just above the line of boats on the far right foreground where the clump of trees  is located.  The river flows one mile further into lake Erie. The radioactive waste and chemical contamination was  dredged from the entire stretch.

In spite of the fact that we put the information out there, people still parked there boats there, fished there (ate the fish)  and used it for recreational purposes.  Truly unbelievable if you ask me.

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 One Mile from Home: Beginnings  (Part One), Published March 2015 (Provides links to all previously published One Mile from Home Articles.