Mr. Forbes Goes To Brookhaven
Why did U.S. Representative Michael P. Forbes hold a private meeting last week with employees of the Brookhaven National Laboratory? His staff said the employees were worried about losing their jobs in the face of management changes and Federal budget cuts, and Mr. Forbes wanted to lend an ear. That, however, does not explain why he would exclude the press and the public.
A spokesman said the Congressman hoped to encourage "as candid and open a dialogue as possible" and believed "they would talk more openly without the television cameras." That's unsatisfactory, given that the employees have been outspoken on the lab's behalf since its troubles began. In the past, incidentally, vocal Brookhaven employees have wielded considerable political influence.
More telling is a report from Peter Bond, the lab's new interim director, that Mr. Forbes made a "public" apology to the employees during that meeting, saying his comments in recent months about radioactive pollution may have overstated the problem.
That there is radioactive poisoning of the groundwater and soil around the lab is not in doubt. The contamination is serious enough that hundreds of nearby houses have had to be hooked up to public water and the lab's nuclear reactors shut down. The situation involves a cleanup of Superfund proportions and an interim management takeover by a team from the Federal Department of Energy.
Like many others, Mr. Forbes has criticized Associated Universities, Brookhaven's ousted management, for its actions or lack of them, but recently his voice has softened noticeably.
As one of eastern Long Island's representatives in Washington, it is incumbent upon Mr. Forbes to continue to monitor the investigation and cleanup at Brookhaven, and to keep close tabs on the choosing of a new and more accountable management. He should act as the people's watchdog, not as matchmaker between a select group of constituents and Federal officials. In that role, the Congressman will not further the effort to right the wrongs of the previous management, whose removal can be attributed in large part to its history of secretiveness.