>> Last time it was wolves, now it is deer.

Deer-Hunt Ban Sought at Lab
By Ching-Ching Ni, Staff Writer, NY Newsday 5/14/98

A group of environmentalists yesterday asked the state to formally ban
deer hunting on the Brookhaven National Laboratory's campus, citing
abnormally high levels of radioactive material found in the meat.

"We are aware that there is a lot of illegal hunting going on," said
Scott Cullen, legal counsel for Standing for Truth About Radiation, the
East Hampton organization that petitioned the state. "We want them to
make the ban formal and post more signs and consumption advisories,"

A 1996 report from the lab, released in April, indicated abnormally high
levels of radioactive material in the flesh of dead deer found in the
Brookhaven lab area. But officials said no action was necessary because
the level of radioactivity was not enough to harm anyone who ate the
meat.

"Passing a restriction is not necessary because there is no hunting
allowed on the lab property anyway," Paid Cathy Shigo, a spokeswoman for
Department of Environmental Conservation. "If an advisory (on
consumption) is deemed necessary, it should be done through the
department of health."

According to the lab report, the most contaminated deer on the campus
had 13 times the amount of cesium-137 in the most contaminated deer
found elsewhere. But the report noted that anyone who had eaten 20
pounds of the contaminated meat would have received a radiation dose of
.5 millirems, only one-twentieth of the federal limit for public
radiation exposure.

"The EPA looked at the test results and determined that it doesn't pose
a health threat," said Rich Cahill, a spokesman for the Environmental
Protection Agency. But more needs to be done to inform the public about
the potential harm of radioactive contamination in and around the lab,
Cullen said.
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