Dear Agathos,I am a human health risk assessor who has performed...

Dear Agathos,

I am a human health risk assessor who has performed radionuclide risk assessments using the DOE model RESRAD. I have been performing risk assessments for radioactive and nonradioactive hazardous waste sites for over 17 years, along with chemical fate and transport evaluations. I have 32 years experience in the field of chemistry and environmental and analytical chemistry.

You are grossly misinformed as to the safety of the LAMP. If you are not an expert in the field, I can easily see how you could be misled by reading the wrong sources of information on the internet. The internet is a powerful source of both information and disinformation.

The radioactivity issue has be laid to rest with the research performed by independent consultants from both academic and third party consultants. The levels of naturally occuring Uranium and Thorium are orders of magnitude lower than the levels in the ore byproducts at the old plant in Malaysia 25 years ago. In addition, the environmental engineering technology - covering air, water, and solid byproducts at the LAMP - are multistage, state-of-the-art, and subject to continuous monitoring. There is a one mile buffer zone of woods around three sides of the plant and a very heavy chemical manufacturing industry industrial park on the fourth side. There will be no residential exposures. Occupational exposures will be controlled by the occupational health and safety best industry practices used all over the world. Making this plant state-of-the-art was no small feat.

Sometimes the environmental activists of the world get so caught up in the emotions of agreeing with every singe instance where a group of people "feel" threatened that they entirely lose their objectivity of what science tells us. Perhaps someday those over-enthusiastic protestors who are inclined to do some positive good for society, rather than just complain and protest, will themselves end up being environmental engineers and environmental scientists and learn to do constructive environmental work as opposed to pretending they are living in a magic Garden of Eden with no anthropogenically produced materials whatsoever. Were it not for the rare earth industry, we would not have hybrid cars to lower our reliance on fossil fuels that produce global warming, wind turbines that produce electric power without producing CO2, and a myriad of electronic devices - including cellphones, cameras, ipads, and computers - that allow us to disseminate news, educate people, share our viewpoints, and communicate without having to use printed media which kills millions of trees daily and also increases global warming.

There has been a huge educational campaign by some of the brightest minds in academia, private industry, and government in Malaysia. The message here is not JUST for the Malaysians. I suggest Australians who are opposed to every man-made product that uses batteries, magnets, or rare alloys stop holding their hands over their ears, and start reading up on the information being disseminated by the experts, not by some wacko fanatic fringe of an opposition party who found an unemployed physician who can be bribed to talk about subjects outside the area of his expertise.