The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico • 9

J-C Vv i Tuesday March 29 1994 THE NEW MEXICAN B-3 Ex-LANL health chief warned about unfenced areas -T I fc-- i Jv 800000 disintegrations per minute per liter of water of the radioactive element polonium yaere discharged into the canyon that year The document said that as much as 13000 disintegrations per minute per fer of water of plutonium also were discharged into the canyon While the numbers may seem to indicate extremely high levels of radioactivity lab spokesman John Gustafson said the figures are misleading He said that those plutonium levels would be below the Energy Department -limit for effluent discharged into the environment' today By KEITH EASTHOUSE The New Mexican Official feared open canyons invited illness lawsuits Dr Louis Hempelmann chief of Los health division in the 1940s was concerned that unfenced contami- nated areas in canyon bottoms could make the laboratory vulnerable to a lawsuit a 47-year-old document shows Hempelmann in a July 1 1947 memo that was distributed to officials at what was-then called Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory said that radioactive contamination in Pueblo and Los Alamos canyons while did not pose a health threat But Hempelmann said the contamination could present a medico-legal we can state categorically that all contaminated areas have been completely enclosed by child-proof and dog-proof fences it will be extremely difficult to convince a jury that (the laboratory) was not at Hempelmann added Hempelmann said that cost of good fencing although considerable would undoubtedly be less than that of one or two successful lawsuits against (the Fencing 'and warning signs eventually were erected A lawsuit that alleged that former Los Alamos residents had contracted cancer from laboratory operations was withdrawn last year One of the plaintiffs was a Santa Fe woman who developed brain cancer several years ago The woman said she had been exposed to harmful amounts of radioactivity while playing in contaminated canyons at Los Alamos as a girl in the 1940s memo was one of a number of documents released Monday by Los Alamos National Human Studies Project Team established by the laboratory after Energy Secretary Hazel announced her in December One of the documents released Monday detailed radiation levels in effluent discharged into Los Alamosi Canyon in 1945 The document said that as much as I Hi i 4 5 Not quite duck soup Librarian in prison assault case suing prison officials according to the lawsuit Named in the suit are John Thomas warden Dareld Kerby director of adult institutions Lawrence Barreras deputy warden Jerome Tafoya associate warden of the North Facility and Barry Hertzog chief of security at the North Facility Lou Armijo prison spokesperson said Tafoya and Hertzog have changed jobs since the incident and no longer work in the North Facility Tafoya is executive assistant to Kerby and Hertzog is a compliance monitor at the prison Armijo said he had no comment on the lawsuit but said no disciplinary action was taken against any prison employee as a result of the incident summer at his request to Missouri where he had received a 75-year sentence for multiple crimes including armed robbery rape and jail escape In the civil suit the victim is seeking to recover damages for personal injury and deprivation of her constitutional rights The suit also alleges her husband has been damaged by of his consortium" The' suit charges the Corrections Department employees revised the hours and changed the schedule of the corrections officer assigned to the North library The victim who had worked as an assistant librarian for Santa Fe Community College and was the prison library supervisor said the changes meant there was no corrections officer present in the library at the time of the attack The victim personal injuries as a direct and proximate result of the negligent removal of the correction officer from the North Facility li The Associated Press Kayaker Jay Davis does some last-minute rubber-duck herding on Buffalo Bayou in Houston on Sunday before the sixth annual Great Houston Duck Race Organizers sought to raise more than $100000 for visually impaired residents By MARY MASSEY The New Mexican A prison librarian who said she was kidnapped and raped in 1992 by a Penitentiary of New Mexico inmate has filed suit in First District Court against the New Mexico Department of Corrections and five of its employees The librarian and her husband filed suit March 25 the day before the two-year anniversary of the incident in which the woman was held hostage at knifepoint for two hours and said she was sexually assaulted by inmate Charles James James was sentenced last April to 18V2 more years in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping and possession of a deadly weapon In return the state dropped the rape and assault charges James had been working in the library in the maximum-security North Facility as a clerk at the time of the incident Over the objections of the victim James was transferred last Pueblo doctor to The Associated Press Dr Michael Trujillo of Laguna Pueblo has been confirmed by the Senate as director of the Indian Health Service Trujillo becomes the first New Mexican and first Indian to head the IHS Sen Jeff Bingaman D-NM said Monday is good news for American Indians in New Mexico and across the said Bingaman who recommended Trujillo for the position Trujillo has the ability experience and commitment to direct the health care system for more than 1 million American Bingaman said a native New Mexican Dr Trujillo has a deep personal understanding of the problems that plague health care services for American Trujillo who was confirmed by the Senate late last week earned his undergraduate graduate and medical degrees from The University of New Mexico He also continue advice column Try talking to your brof and get him head health office has a degree in public health administration from the University of Minnesota His medical training is in family practice and internal medicine Trujillo 49 is area chief medical officer for the Indian Health Service in Portland The IHS is a branch of the US Department of Health and Human Services It is responsible for the delivery of health care to approximately 13 million of the 22 million American Indians and Alaska natives to give up the gun because guns are only good for trouble IRVIN SHORES AND TOBIAS SANCHEZ 1 advice to teen Inmates will By MARK OSWALD The New Mexican Two New Mexico state prison inmates will be allowed to continue writing an advice column for troubled teen-agers that had run afoul of prison regulations The next column by Irvin Shores and Tobias Sanchez inmates at Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Las Cruces will appear in the April issue of Desert Winds a monthly magazine published in Deming Earlier this month Shores said prison officials told the in- mates that their first column in Desert Winds violated a prison regulation that says inmates may not employed act as a reporter or publish under a by-! line for any outside news In the column Shores and Sanchez billed themselves as the and doled out 1 i 1 i f- i 7 i 5 I advice in response to letters from teen-agers with problems related to pregnancy drinking and gang violence among other things To a teen-ager with a brother in a gang they wrote: talking to your and get him to give up the gun because guns are only good for one thing and that means Lou Armijo spokesman for the state Corrections Department said Monday that Donald Dorsey warden at the Las Cruces prison decided to allow the inmates to continue with the column they Joyce Reynolds publisher of Desert Winds said there had never been a final decision against allowing the column to continue was a lot of miscommunication going Reynolds said She said the column will resume in an issue due out April 6 Armijo said prison officials want Desert Winds to keep using a disclaimer similar to one that appeared with the first column which said the views are not those of prison officials TUESDAY EVENING TELEVISION EARLY SHORTS OF JANE CAMPION AND SALLY POTTER 6:45 JAMON JAMOII 9:00 INEMATHEQU "thel TONIGHT 7 00 9 00 Illilic CHAECXlGEl4Q-93 f' ACADEMY AWARD NONUNEEX FARlWEll MVA CONCUBINE TONIGHT 7:15 beautiful movie What a -Kffnjr LjroM SNEAK mEVtEWV LYONS OEN KAMO MAD! 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