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Action against wrongdoing pays

Helen Frost's courage has paid off.

Frost, a Las Vegas widow who claims her husband's death was linked to exposure to toxic fumes when he worked at the Groom Lake air base, will be awarded a $10,000 Cavallo Prize this month.

The prize will be presented June 13 at the Hart Senate Office Building for Frost's courage and action in the face of government wrongdoing, according to a statement this week from the Cavallo Foundation Inc.

Every year, the foundation awards three prizes of $10,000 each to people who choose to speak out when it would be easier to remain silent.

The other two awards will go to former U.S. Forest Service employee Bill Shoaf, for discovering a flaw with a plan for an Alaskan timber sale; and to Lt. Darlene Simmons for her testimony about sexual harassment in the Navy.

According to the foundation's statement, since her husband's death, Frost has "mounted a one-woman campaign to end environmental and safety violations at Groom Lake," an Air Force operating location, 35 miles west of Alamo in Lincoln County. The installation is the focal point of two lawsuits by former Groom Lake workers.

Her husband, Robert, was a sheet metal worker for Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co. He died in 1989 of what she claims were health problems linked to dioxins and furans that he inhaled while working on hangars downwind of hazardous waste pits.

"Despite financial constraints and constant opposition from the government, Frost has been relentless in her campaign to force the government to implement adequate safety and environmental protection procedures," the foundation's statement said.

Frost said, "I certainly didn't expect it, but it will help pay for some of my expenses.

"I think we still have a lot of work to do. By the time the government gets around to helping, these guys (former base workers) are going to be dead and they need help now," she said.

Frost said the government claims it has investigated the hazardous waste disposal practices at Groom Lake, but it hasn't released any information about the trenches where workers said coatings for Stealth aircraft were burned in the open air in defiance of federal hazardous waste laws.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley represents Frost and the former Groom Lake workers. Turley, director of the Environmental Crimes Project, has taken the cases pro bono. In the cases, the government has tried to withhold information sought in discovery by invoking the national security privilege.

Turley said the government's secrecy tactics are "bizarre and disoriented."

"According to the government, the existence of jet fuel at an Air Force base visible from public lands is a national secret," Turley said this week.

This "excessive use" of national security is "the latest line of defense in a case that is collapsing due to conflicting statements and mounting evidence of wrongdoing," Turley said.