What the public needs to know

Public access to information about contamination from toxic and radioactive waste sites is particularly important in South Carolina where there are disposal sites that once catered to waste producers from across the nation. Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster provided the state Department of Health and Environmental Control a needed reminder of that responsibility this week.

At issue are data about radioactive contamination from the Chem Nuclear site at Barnwell, which has provided for disposal of low-level waste for much of the nation for many years. Mr. McMaster has found several shortcomings in the agency's disclosure of information.

For example, Mr. McMaster concluded in his written opinion that the agency has been too quick to take the company's word about what information should and should not be released.

And he cautioned that information must be made available "in a form that is comprehensible to the public." Clearly, that hasn't been routinely done.

The agency's failure to provide information, as required under the state Freedom of Information Act, has diminished the decision-making process regarding the disposal of radioactive material at the site, Mr. McMaster concluded. The site is soon scheduled for closure to most of the nation under a three-state compact approved by the Legislature in 2000, following a long and heated debate.

Even so, a legislative committee this year considered the possibility of extending site availability to other states at the request of Chem Nuclear and of local officials, who feared the loss of jobs and revenue from the site.

If the level of groundwater contamination on and around the site had been fully known, the debate might have been resolved much more easily, and the suggestion of its extension might never have arisen.

"The fact that the Barnwell site is a storage facility for nuclear waste makes it especially important that the public be given as much information regarding the site's operation and safety as is possible," the attorney general wrote. " There is little doubt that secrecy only compounds the public's fears and enhances its misgivings."

So far, DHEC has taken the position that it has properly followed the FOIA in its disclosure of material to the public. Its board should clarify the matter.

Mr. McMaster reminds the agency that the FOIA's instruction is to narrowly limit allowable exemptions to public disclosure. "All doubt must be resolved in favor of disclosure," he wrote.

Those words and this opinion should be reviewed by all state agencies to remind them that the public has a right to know how matters of public health and safety are being handled.