“WALK THE TALK” Berkeley Public Access Cable: Host Gianna Ranuzzi “Preserve Strawberry Canyon Watershed" with Guests Carole Shimmerling & L A Wood Program recorded in 2004 Berkeley Citizen Copyright 2004 All rights Reserved

Note to viewer: The following Berkeley Community comments were directed to the Chemical Control Division, (7405M) Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20460-0001 Re: EPA proposal to regulate nanomaterials through a voluntary pilot program Docket ID: OPPT-2004-0122 June 21, 2005 We are providing these comments in response to the above referenced EPA proposal to regulate nanomaterials.We endorse the comments already submitted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) dated June 9, 2005 and would like emphasize the fact that EPA’s proposed voluntary program is inadequate and inappropriate. In addition to the NRDC concerns we would like to bring to EPA’s attention the Berkeley community’s experiences from the past 2 1/2 years with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) nanoscale research facility. The Laboratory failed to create a transparent, public process in the planning and construction of the Molecular Foundry in the City of Berkeley, and in the middle of a residential neighborhood, without a buffer zone. LBNL skirted public process by issuing a negative declaration under the California Environmental Quality Act, (CEQA), rather than preparing an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which would have allowed the community a formal public hearing on the project. The Lab’s resistance to community involvement and any environmental process is reflective of LBNL’s and DOE’s continuing “cold war culture”. This is represented by the comments made by Lab attorney Nancy Ware, in response to community concerns about the lack of public process and an EIR for the Molecular Foundry; “An EIR would have been absurd, especially when we have an environmental document that says we don’t need one, “ Ware said. When further challenged about the need for an EIR, Ware stated, “So, sue us”. (Berkeley Daily Planet, May 13-15, 2003) The Molecular Foundry is a Department of Energy (DOE) User Facility, which will operate without any local or state oversight. Our past experience with another LBNL User Facility, the National Tritium Labeling Facility (NTLF), now raises great concern for our community, again. For example, the NTLF was allowed to inventory and use up to 15,000 curies of tritium compared to the 150 curies in the inventory of the state’s regulated labs operating on the central UC Berkeley campus. Further, commercial pharmaceutical companies limited their tritium inventory to just 40 curies due to insurance/liability concerns. In fact, a local pharmaceutical company kept only 3 to 5 curies in their inventory. But, just up the street, the NTLF operated as a commercial facility selling the use of their tritiation line to pharmaceutical companies. These companies were then able to come and utilize the kilocurie quantities of tritium in their experiments without being held liable for the potential environmental and health consequences of their experiments under the protection of DOE. If proper EIR/EIS environmental documents had been prepared in the early 1980s and our community offered an opportunity to comment on the NTLF project, the City of Berkeley and residential neighbors bordering LBNL could have been spared so much concern and contamination. Currently the NTLF operations have ceased but the Tritium contamination in the environment will remain for 125 years. For the reasons stated above, we request that EPA, in the process developing regulations for nanotechnology, use special scrutiny with respect to DOE nanotechnology User Facilities and make them subject to all local and state regulations. The users of these DOE facilities should be made responsible for the environmental and health consequences of their experiments, like other commercial nanotechnology operations. In conclusion, we are providing below the names and addresses of members of the Berkeley community who provided comments on LBNL’s Molecular Foundry, and others, and ask that you include them as stakeholders from our community to be updated on a regular basis on the development of regulations by US EPA on nanoscale materials. Sincerely, • Pamela Sihvola, Co-chair/CMTW - Berkeley, CA •L A Wood, City of Berkeley’s Environmental Commission* *For identification only