Dennis Foreman, a frequent critic of Department of Energy decisions at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio is not being appointed to a new term on the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board, he said Tuesday.
Foreman, a schoolteacher and member of Piketon Village Council, became a member of the advisory board four years ago and learned last week he would not be appointed to an additional two-year term, he said in an “open letter to Southern Ohio” sent Wednesday to various in-state newspapers as well as Weapons Complex Monitor.
Members of the advisory board, appointed by DOE’s assistant secretary for environmental management, may serve up to six years.
Foreman learned of DOE’s decision in a Friday phone call from Eric Roberts of EHI Consultants, a firm that contracts with the agency to administer the advisory board. Foreman said he was not given a clear reason for not being retained but was told it was supported by “multiple levels” with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
The Department of Energy declined to say precisely who recommended that the advisory board drop Foreman, and who in the Office of Environmental Management agreed with the decision.
Following advisory committee guidelines, the Office of Environmental Management (EM) “incorporates a rotating diversity of views on its boards and strives to provide a productive environment for board members to conduct business,” an EM spokesperson said in a Thursday email.
The factors EM looks at in advisory board makeup can include regional representation, affiliation with civic or other organizations or being a representative of local governments, the spokesperson added.
The member selection language for the Site Selection Advisory Boards specifically points to the importance of having representatives from government entities.
“I speak for over 2,700 people” in the Village of Piketon,” Foreman said. “I don’t speak [just] for myself.”
The Portsmouth advisory board’s website lists 15 members, including Foreman. It can have up to 20 members, Foreman said. Of the 15, six are listed as being from Pike County. Foreman and one other are listed as government representatives, the other being a school administrator.
“[W]hen I was first appointed four years ago, I joined to make sure DOE treated our community fairly,” Foreman said in the letter. “I have asked tough questions. I have pushed them hard to treat us like they treat other nuclear communities.”
In his letter, Foreman pointed to a local middle school near the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant that closed its doors in May 2019, after university researchers said air and soil samples collected around the campus contained enriched uranium and neptunium-237. Later sampling by DOE detected only trace amounts of contaminants, deemed far too limited to endanger human health.
Foreman said because DOE’s then-assistant secretary for environmental management, Anne Marie White, was too attentive to resident concerns about the school contamination she was replaced as the head of EM.
“We went from Anne White to Ike White. I call it a whitewash,” Foreman said. “DOE contamination closed Zahns Corner School,” Foreman said in the letter. “DOE is forcing a nuclear dump [an on-site disposal cell] on our community against our wishes. DOE contamination pollutes our community every day,” he added.
In June 2018 Foreman questioned if some members of the advisory panel had potential conflicts of interests, and should have recused themselves from a vote on whether to ask DOE and the state Environmental Protection Agency to reopen a record of decision on the on-site disposal cell at Portsmouth. The action, which Foreman supported, fell short of the needed two-thirds majority.
