Hot Particles From Fukushima Reactor Core ~ Found in Norway
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“Nuclear fuel fragments” from Fukushima found in Europe — 10,000+ kilometers from reactors — Study: Plume “directly from N. America” — Hot particles a “significant part” radioactive releases — Quickly spread over entire hemisphere — Film shows core material on Norway air filter (PHOTO)
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, Atmospheric removal times of aerosol-bound radionuclides, May 2012: Hot particles (e.g., fragments of the nuclear fuel) were present in the FD-NPP plume.
Elsevier (academic publisher) — Fukushima Accident: Radioactivity Impact on the Environment, 2013: Paatero et al. (2012) estimated that a significant part of the Fukushima-derived radioactivity is in hot particles from autoradiogram of a filter sample from 1 to 4 April 2011 at Mt. Zeppelin, Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.
Poster for Alaska Marine Science Symposium (Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands), Jan. 20, 2014: Exposure to fallout while on ice in 2011. Models suggest pinnipeds may have been exposed while on ice to the following: Hot particles, nuclear fuel fragments, were detected in air samples taken in Svalbard, Norway (Paatero et al. 2012).
(Paatero et al. 2012) Airborne fission products in the High Arctic after the Fukushima nuclear accident: The plume arriving in Svalbard did not come from Europe but directly from North America. Hot particles are either fragments of the nuclear fuel or particles formed by the interactions between condensed radionuclides, nuclear fuel, and structural materials of the reactor. A significant part of the activity related to Fukushima was in hot particles. So far the authors are not aware of any other reports concerning hot particles from the Fukushima accident. Radionuclides emitted into the atmosphere were quickly dispersed around practically the whole northern hemisphere within a couple of weeks.
From Africa To Canada: Deadly Ebola Virus Outbreak Gets Mobile
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Thank you to Forest Sandifer for Bringing This Subject to Our Attention.
Background | RT.com
Today Is March 25th, 2014 Time: 19:51 Hrs. PST
From Africa To Canada: Deadly Ebola Virus Outbreak Gets Mobile
Extract:The local Health Ministry in Canada’s Saskatchewan province said a man had been put in solitary confinement, with the test results expected on Tuesday. The patient’s family also remains in quarantine.Dr. Denise Werker, the province’s deputy chief medical officer, declined to say how long the man had been in Africa but said he only fell ill after returning to Canada.
“As of this morning six cases have been reported of which five have already died – four female adults and one male child. One of the suspected cases, a female child, is under treatment,” Liberian Health Minister Walter Gwenigale said in a statement, as quoted by AFP
Published on Mar 25, 2014
The African nation of Guinea has banned the sale and consumption of bats in order to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
A man who recently traveled to West Africa is seriously ill and being kept in isolation in a Canadian hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with symptoms of a hemorrhagic fever resembling the Ebola virus.
The man fell ill after returning from the West African nation of Liberia.
Sixty two people recently have been killed by the virus in Guinea, with suspected OUTBREAKS reported in neighbor country Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Health official say as of now there is no cure or vaccine. The symptoms are external bleeding, diarrhea and vomiting.
It is said to be the first time Ebola has struck Guinea, with recent outbreaks thousands of miles away, in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
When did it first emerge?
According to the World Health Organization, Ebola first appeared in 1976 in two areas at once: in Nzara, Sudan, and in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The latter was near the Ebola River, hence the name.
How is it transmitted?
Ebola is transmitted from person to person through bodily fluids.
Humans first got the virus through contact with the bodily fluids of infected animals.
WHO reports, “infection has been documented through the handling of infected chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found dead or ill in the rainforest.”
According to WHO, fruit bats are considered natural hosts for Ebola, and as a result, “the geographic distribution of Ebola viruses may overlap with the range of the fruit bats.”
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had set up two quarantine sites in southern Guinea to try to contain the outbreak.
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Radioactive Ocean, Don’t Talk, Don’t Tell
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Information Compiled By | Forest Sandifer
Today Is March 21st, 2014 Time: 16:32 Hrs. PST
HEADLINES: Swiss Journalist: Marine Biologists Now Telling Me There’s Been A Change In Radioactive Material Coming From Fukushima — More And More Strontium Being Detected In Samples, Not Just Cesium — Is Gov’t Testing For It… Is It In Our Food?
Agency (IAEA) at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Mar. 17, 2014
(at 59:00 in):
Journalist from Switzerland: I talked to some marine biologists a few days ago and they told me that in their samples they see a change in the mix of radionuclides. They’re saying proportionally there’s more and more strontium, not just cesium. The food checking here is purely on cesium, under the assumption there is very little else. But are the Japanese authorities actually measuring the right thing if they’re only focusing on cesium? Or are we getting in our food strontium and I don’t know what else which is simply not measured?
Yukiya Amano, IAEA: Sorry I don’t have the exact answer now. My recollection is that they are monitoring strontium, but the sea monitoring by various agencies in Japan, I do not know. I can’t give you an exact answer which Japanese agencies are monitoring strontium and if they do, in which depth and width. I do not want to mislead you. Sorry I don’t have the exact answer for now.
Journalist: Do you recommend doing it?
Amano: We are recommending the Japanese authority to follow the standard set by the IAEA […] but to be honest I do not know exact facts about this strontium monitoring for now.
Start Watching Video at 58:49
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(NOTE) This Don’t …Talk, Don’t Tell Operation Is Absurd.
The Nuclear Industry Is Afraid That If Word Gets Out About What Is In The Ocean, Stocks Will Fall On Uranium. Think I’m Kidding? Look Up Uranium Stocks By Doing A Search.
What’s More?
Lamphier: Uranium Stocks On The Rise: Click HERE
List Of Countries By Uranium Reserves: Click HERE
WISE Uranium Project: Click HERE
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Diabolical Radiated Smoke Arriving West Coast in 6 Days
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Commentary Per | Valerie Price
This is a major event. That is smoke after what appear to be recriticalities, simultaneously occurring, feeding off one another. With the shortage of manpower at Fukushima, I was worried they would lose the fuel pools. I can’t tell whether the diabolical energy releases occurring all across the plant are from the fuel pools, but with that amount of smoke, I don’t believe it could be anything else. God be with us all.
Any of my FB friends who CAN leave the West Coast, I strongly urge you to do so. The smoke you see in this video will arrive on the West Coast in 6 to 8 days. It may be from the fuel pools. I can’t imagine the cores doing that unless they are uncovered and if the cores don’t have water on them, neither would the fuel pools. This is a lot of smoke, a tremendous amount of energy being released. Very disturbing video. From today.
Three Years After Fukushima, Ex-Nuclear Chief Lobbies For Worldwide Phase-Out
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Source | Huffington Post
TOKYO (AP) — As radiation spewed from Japan’s nuclear disaster three years ago, the top U.S. atomic energy regulator issued a 50-mile evacuation warning for any Americans in the area, a response some found extreme.
Gregory Jaczko, who stepped down as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012, still believes he was right, and says the events at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant show that nuclear power should be phased out in Japan and worldwide.
“The lesson has to be: This kind of accident is unacceptable to society. And that’s not me saying it. That’s society saying that,” he said in an interview this week in Tokyo, where he is giving lectures and speaking on panels marking the third anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that overwhelmed the Fukushima plant.
Now a lecturer at Princeton University, Jaczko, 43, has become a hit on the speaking circuit in Japan, where all 48 nuclear plants remain offline as the country debates what role nuclear power should play in its future.
The government is pushing forward with a plan to restart several reactors after safety checks, despite continuing public opposition. Nuclear regulators announced Thursday they are beginning the final approval process for the restart of two reactors at a plant on the southernmost main island of Kyushu.
Jaczko said he had always been concerned about nuclear safety. But so much unfolded at Fukushima that experts were unprepared for, that it changed his view, and that of the Japanese public, on nuclear power.
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were major accidents, but for Jackso, Fukushima definitively undermined industry assumptions such as multiple accidents were unlikely or hydrogen leaks would be controlled.
Three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had meltdowns, and two had hydrogen explosions. The idea that a plant wouldn’t be under control three or four days after an accident was unthinkable before Fukushima, he said.
“We have defined safety measures against the things that we kind of know. An accident is going to be something that we didn’t predict,” he said.
During the Fukushima crisis, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff discussed possible evacuation zones of between 20 miles and 50 miles, and given the uncertainty, opted for 50 miles, he said. A 50-mile evacuation has never been adopted as a standard for disaster scenarios in the U.S.
Jaczko said it luck the wind blew in a direction that sent much of the radiation out to sea.
His resignation from the NRC, three years into his five-year term as chairman, followed complaints about his management style. He says he could no longer support the licensing of reactors in the U.S. after Fukushima.
Yotaro Hatamura, an honorary professor at the University of Tokyo who took part in a government investigation of Fukushima, said the right decision on nuclear power can’t be made without addressing the what-if scenarios of accidents.
“A true debate is needed, but all we’re getting is: Are you for or against nuclear power?” he said, sitting with Jaczko on a recent panel at the Japan Press Center.
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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama
Troubled Waters: Nuclear Radiation Found in British Columbia
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Chum salmon, such as these, spawned out next to Kilby Provincial Park on the Harrison River, are being tested for evidence of radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan. Photograph by: John Preissl
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Commentary | Valerie Price
Was Having Electricity Worth It For Your Children’s Lives? There never was any shielding for the cores. The explosions were not Hydrogen explosions, they were core explosions. Scientific testing of the mystery black dust that were exploded from the cores and fell even in Tokyo, has proven this. What this determination of radioactive, metallic fallout particles being found on …LAND on the West Coast of North America means is that the explosions were Chernobyl-like, but the releases were much larger. There is no escaping the consequences for any human on Earth. I hope President Obama looks at his daughters tonight and realizes that he sold their lives when he sold MY childrens’ lives for filthy money. Was it worth it. Even the President and the nuclear proponets have been poisoned. Their doctors have all been poisoned. We all have a new and nearer expiration date and I plan to try to enjoy whatever time I have left. Candles and oil lamps work great for pennies. Solar is fantastic, but nobody would listen to the warnings. Was it worth it? Not to me..
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Content From | Vancouver Sun
A radioactive metal from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan has been discovered in the Fraser Valley, causing researchers to raise the alarm about the long-term impact of radiation on B.C.’s west coast.
Examination of a soil sample from Kilby Provincial Park, near Agassiz, has for the first time in this province found Cesium 134, further evidence of Fukushima radioactivity being transported to Canada by air and water.
“That was a surprise,” said Juan Jose Alava, an adjunct professor in the school of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University, in an interview on Tuesday. “It means there are still emissions … and trans-Pacific air pollution. It’s a concern to us. This is an international issue.”
Cesium 134 has a half-life of two years, meaning its radioactivity is reduced by half during that time. Its presence in the environment is an indication of continuing contamination from Fukushima.
A more persistent danger to people and marine life is radioactive Cesium 137, which has a half-life of 30 years, and bioaccumulates in the food chain.
Researchers developed a model based on the diet of fish-eating killer whales along with the levels of Cesium 137 detected and predicted (less than 0.5 becquerels per cubic metre, a measurement of radioactivity) by other researchers in the Pacific waters offshore of Vancouver Island.
The models suggests that in 30 years, Cesium 137 levels in the whales will exceed the Canadian guideline of 1,000 becquerels per kilogram for consumption of seafood by humans — 10 times the Japanese guideline.
“It’s a reference, the only benchmark we have to compare against,” Alava said.
He said recent federal government cutbacks have placed a greater burden of testing and monitoring for aquatic impacts on academics, non-governmental organizations and even private citizens.
“The Canadian government is the one that should be doing something, should be taking action to keep monitoring to see how these contaminants are behaving, what are the levels, and what is next.”
It was a citizen, Aki Sano, who provided SFU with the soil sample from Kilby park, near the mouth of the Harrison River, on Nov. 16, 2013. Samples of chinook, sockeye and chum spawning salmon nearby are also being analyzed for evidence of radiation.
While the soil sample tested positive for Cesium 134, the exact level is not yet known, although it is thought to be low. The plan now is to test soil samples from Burnaby Mountain, closer to Vancouver.
Earlier research by Kris Starosta, associate professor of chemistry, and his colleagues at SFU has shown evidence of Iodine 131, which has a half-life of eight days, in rainwater and seaweeds in B.C. Fisheries and Oceans Canada conducted the analysis of sea water off Vancouver Island.
An adult killer whale weighing up to 5,000 kilograms can eat five per cent of its body weight, or 250 kilograms of fish, per day.
Endangered resident killer whales already face a host of challenges: the need for high-protein chinook salmon, habitat degradation, underwater noise pollution, harassment from whale watchers, and climate change. While the additional impact of Cesium 137 is unknown, it may negatively affect the immune system or endocrine system, Alava said.
“The impact on the animal needs to be studied. This is part of a cumulative impact on the marine environment.”
The results raise concerns for aboriginal people who maintain a diet heavy in fish.
“We might expect similar results because the diet of First Nation communities is based on seafood,” Alava said. “Humans at the top of the food web can perhaps see increasing levels in the future.”
The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant suffered a catastrophic failure due to a 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011, which killed almost 19,000 people. Alava noted the plant continues to leak radiation, meaning that the problem is not going away soon. “There’s going to be a long-term exposure to organisms building up in the marine environment.”
While radiation levels so far remain low, the long-term implications deserve further study.
“So far the levels are safe,” Alava said. “We shouldn’t be worried now, but we need to keep monitoring in the long term to see whether these levels are building up in the food web.”
A victim of federal cutbacks, Peter Ross, a former research scientist with the federal Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney on Vancouver Island, joined the Vancouver Aquarium last month as director of a new ocean science program.
Ross said he worked almost 18 years at the institute until Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced in May 2012 it would cut 55 positions nationally, nine of them within B.C., as part of a plan to “divest itself of ocean pollution research and monitoring to the private, non-profit and academic sectors.”
No one at Fisheries and Oceans Canada or Health Canada was available immediately to comment Monday.
Alava noted that there remain low background levels of Cesium 137 dating back to the 1960s due to the dumping of radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean from nuclear submarines and reactors.
The BC Centre for Disease Control has been notified of the latest research finding.
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For Your Eyes Only
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Thank You To | Forest Sandifer For Sharing
Today Is March 15th, 2014 Time: 21:04 Hrs. PST
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Extract: The Comedian Dick Gregory Made An Amazing And Inspiring Point:
What We’re Doing Here Today Is More Important That The Vietnamese War, It’s More Important Than Dealing With Racism, Than Dealing With Sexism, Than Dealing With Hunger. Because I Can Feel Hunger. I Can See War. I Can Feel Racism. I Can Feel Sexism. I Cannot See Radiation. I Cannot Smell Radiation. I Cannot Hear Radiation. I Look Around One Day And I Am Dead. Somewhere, You Have To.
So I Say To You Today, When You Leave Here, You Have To Give Radiation An Odor. You Have To Give Radiation A Sound. So Go Back Into Your Communities. And Be Willing To Go To Jail If It Comes To That. Because I’d Rather See You In Jail With The Jails Filled Up, Than The Graveyards Running Over. March 28, 1979
Source Link: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Fukushima/StevenStarr.html
Squelching Efforts to Measure Fukushima Meltdown
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A decontamination worker at the entrance of Futaba, an abandoned town near the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Thanks to | Forest Sandifer for providing this information.
Good Afternoon, Today Is March 16th, 2014 Time: 13:03 Hrs. PST
HEADLINES: “Squelching Efforts to Measure Fukushima Meltdown”
(Photo Is: A decontamination worker at the entrance of Futaba, an abandoned town near the Fukushima nuclear plant.)
TOKYO — In the chaotic, fearful weeks after the Fukushima nuclear crisis began, in March 2011, researchers struggled to measure the radioactive fallout unleashed on the public. Michio Aoyama’s initial findings were more startling than most. As a senior scientist at the Japanese government’s Meteorological Research Institute, he said levels of radioactive cesium 137 in the surface water of the Pacific Ocean could be 10,000 times as high as contamination after Chernobyl, the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Two months later, as Mr. Aoyama prepared to publish his findings in a short, nonpeer-reviewed article for Nature, the director general of the institute called with an unusual demand — that Mr. Aoyama remove his own name from the paper.
“He said there were points he didn’t understand, or want to understand,” the researcher recalled. “I was later told that he did not want to say that Fukushima radioactivity was worse than Chernobyl.” The head of the institute, who has since retired, declined to comment for this article. Mr. Aoyama asked for his name to be removed, he said, and the article was not published.
The pressure he felt is not unusual — only his decision to speak about it. Off the record, university researchers in Japan say that even now, three years after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, they feel under pressure to play down the impact of the disaster. Some say they cannot get funds or university support for their work. In several cases, the professors say, they have been obstructed or told to steer clear of data that might cause public “concern.”
“Getting involved in this sort of research is dangerous politically,” said Joji Otaki, a biologist at Japan’s Ryukyu University who has written papers suggesting that radioactivity at Fukushima has triggered inherited deformities in a species of butterfly. His research is paid for through private donations, including crowdfunding, a sign, he said, that the public supports his work. “It’s an exceptional situation,” he said.
The precise health impact of the Fukushima disaster is disputed. The government has defined mandatory evacuation zones around the Daiichi plant as areas where cumulative dose levels might reach 20 millisieverts per year, the typical worldwide limit for nuclear-power-plant workers. The limit recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection is one millisievert per year for the public, though some scientists argue that below 100 millisieverts the threat of increased cancers is negligible.
In an effort to lower radiation and persuade about 155,000 people to return home, the government is trying to decontaminate a large area by scraping away millions of tons of radioactive dirt and storing it in temporary dumps. Experts at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology put the cost of this project at $50 billion — widely considered an underestimate.
The chance to study in this real-life laboratory has drawn a small number of researchers from around the world. Timothy A. Mousseau, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina who has written widely on Chernobyl, studies the impact of radiation on bird and insect life. He has published papers suggesting abnormalities and defects in some Fukushima species. But he said his three research excursions to Japan had been difficult.
In one case, a Japanese professor and two postdoctoral students dropped out of a joint research paper, telling him they could not risk association with his findings. “They felt it was too provocative and controversial,” he said, “and the postdocs were worried it could hamper their future job prospects.”
Mr. Mousseau is careful to avoid comparisons with the Soviet Union, which arrested and even imprisoned scientists who studied Chernobyl. Nevertheless, he finds the lukewarm support for studies in Japan troubling: “It’s pretty clear that there is self-censorship or professors have been warned by their superiors that they must be very, very careful,” he said.
The “more insidious censorship” is the lack of funding at a national level for these kinds of studies, he added. “They’re putting trillions of yen into moving dirt around and almost nothing into environmental assessment.”
Long before an earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima meltdown, critics questioned the influence of Japan’s powerful nuclear lobby over the country’s top universities. Some professors say their careers have been hobbled because they expressed doubts about the nation’s nuclear policy and the coalition of bureaucrats, industrialists, politicians and elite academics who created it.
Mr. Aoyama, who now works at Fukushima University, sees no evidence of an organized conspiracy in the lack of openness about radiation levels — just official timidity. Despite the problems with his Nature article, he has written or co-written eight published papers since 2011 on coastal water pollution and other radiation-linked themes.
But stories of problems with Fukushima-related research are common, he said, including accounts of several professors’ being told not to measure radiation in the surrounding prefectures. “There are so many issues in our community,” he said. “The key phrase is ‘don’t cause panic.”’
He is also critical of the flood of false rumors circulating about the reach of Fukushima’s radioactive payload.
Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s department of marine chemistry and geochemistry, in Massachusetts, who has worked with Mr. Aoyama, said he has spent much of his professional energy fighting the rumor mill. The cause is not helped, he added, by institutional attempts to gag Japanese professors.
“Researchers are told not to talk to the press, or they don’t feel comfortable about talking to the press without permission,” Mr. Buesseler said. A veteran of three post-earthquake research trips to Japan, he wants the authorities to put more money into investigating the impact on the food chain of Fukushima’s release of cesium and strontium. “Why isn’t the Japanese government paying for this, since they have most to gain?”
One reason, critics say, is that after a period of national soul searching, when it looked as if Japan might scrap its commercial reactors, the government is again supporting nuclear power. Since the conservative Liberal Democrats returned to power, in late 2012, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has begun trying to sell Japan’s nuclear technology abroad.
Professors, meanwhile, say that rather than simply defend what is a piecemeal approach to studying the disaster, the government should take the lead in creating a large, publicly financed project.
“If we’ve ever going to make any headway into the environmental impact of these disasters, statistical power, scientific power, is what counts,” said Mr. Mousseau of the University of South Carolina. “We get at it with massive replication, by going to hundreds of locations. That costs money.”
By DAVID MCNEILL | THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Site URL Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/squelching-efforts-to-measure-fukushima-meltdown.html?_r=0
Phase IV
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Graphics and Article By | Forest Sandifer
PHASE IV
Today Is March 16th, 2014 Time: 20:00 Hrs. PST Good Evening!
This Evening’s Topic Is About Your Food, And My Planting Seeds For You To Educate Yourselves, To Save You, Your Families, And Friends From The Denial Of What Is Taking Place. It Is Not My Intention To Start A Panic Over The Material You Are About To Read. However, This Will Leave No Doubt In Anyone’s Mind That WE Face A Serious And Deadly Situation.
I Ask That You To Read And Listen To What I Have Compiled For You In This Rather Lengthy Report. Take Your Time In Doing So, As There Is Much To Digest And Accept.
For Those Of You Who Still Have TV, My Question Will Be Obvious When You See Another Commercial Advertising Sea Food.
Fast Food Restaurants Are Pushing Fish And Seafood Dinners At An Alarming Rate. Have You Noticed? They Offer Great Deals But! What’s The Catch?… The Answer Is Simple: “You Are !”
So Why Be So Concerned With Seafood At Mc Donalds, Wendy’s, Carls Junior, Or Any Other Restaurant? Is There A Risk You Should Know About?
I Believe There Is, And You As A Consumer Have Every Right To Know Why. Your Family Has The Right To Know That The Fish You Bring Home Is Contaminated By Radiation From Fukushima Japan.
The Next Time You Go Out To Eat Sea Food At A Restaurant, Ask This, “Ask, Where Does This Fish Come From. Watch Them Say, I Don’t Know.
So How Is This Possible ? It’s Been 3 Years, Surely The Radiation Would Have Diluted By Now.
However, That’s Not Entirely True. Radioactive Isotopes, Just To Name A Few., Do Not Dilute With Water And Have Half Life Disintigration Value Which Extends Over A Long Period Of Years. Americium, Plutonium, Strontium, Cesium, Tritium.
Dr. Steven Starr Expained It Best In His Audio. Listen Here: http://tucradio.org/Starr_FUKU_SYM_FOUR.mp3 You Can Follow This By Looking At The Page With Graphics Explaining In Detail. Seen Here: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Fukushima/StevenStarr.html
Steven Starr’s Credentials: [ Senior Scientist, Physicians for Social Responsibility Director, University of Missouri, Clinical Laboratory Science Program Helen Caldicott Foundation Fukushima Symposium New York Academy of Medicine, 11 March 2013 ]
Bluefin Tuna, Salmon, Shellfish All Have Been Affected By The Ongoing Radiation Which Is Being Dumped Continually Into The Pacific Ocean. The Low Estimates Of This Was Reported To Have Been 300 Tons A Day. Now, The Figures Have Climbed To A Staggering Number Of 1000 Tons A Day. Whether Or Not These Figures Are Conservative In Their Values Numerically, The Fact Remains, The Pacific Ocean Is Literally Being Contaminated On A Daily Basis. Everyone, And Every Living Creature Is At Serious Risk For Hundreds Of Years To Come.
What Are You Being Told By The General Media On Television? Anything Other Than, “Don’t Worry, It’s Safe To Eat.” “No Worse Than Eating A Banana.” Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth.
The EPA Has Raised Its Standards Of Radiation Intake In The United States To Keep Radiation Fears Down, And For All We Know, Panic In The Streets From Happening. The President Of The USA Has Even Gone So Far As To Sanction Japan’s Secrecy Law, By Giving His Seal Of Approval.
The Japanese Government’s Decision To Withhold Crucial Evidence Of Radiation Contamination Is A Crime, Alongside With Tepco. It’s Genocide In The Strictist Sense.
Further, It Is A Crime Now To Release Any Information That The Japanese Government Does Not 1st Approve. The Media Is Given Reports Of What To Say With Regards To The Japanese People Being Informed. Penalty For Disobeying Is Jail Or Prison.
Recently, The Former Residents Of Fukushima Were Given The Okay To Return Home. I Find It Incredible That After The 1986 Chernobyl Incident, Such A Thing Could Happen As To Send Residents Into A Highly Radioactive (NO GO ZONE). Have They Lost Their Minds? Fukushima Makes Chernobyl Look Like A Beginners Set. ————————————————————————————– HEADLINE: “Fukushima: Japan’s PM Ready To Send Residents Back Home Despite Radiation” March 12th, 2014
Extract: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Has Publicly Announced That He Would Like To Have 30,000 Residents Return To Their Houses In The Fukushima Area Despite Grave Radiation Concerns.
Read Here: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_11/Fukushima-Japan-s-PM-ready-to-send-residents-back-home-despite-radiation-7535/ ————————————————————————————– Below Is A List Of Compiled Reports Which You Can Verify By Clicking On The Included Links. Again, Please Take You Time In Doing So. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FOOD REPORTS:
Fast Food: Could Your Fish Sandwich Be Radioactive? Posted about 1 week ago
Extract: “So you would think that as an American Consumer you would be safe. But you are not. It has recently come to my attention that several fast food chains could be selling poisonous fish.”
Extract: “Juan Ortiz De Jesus, is a fisherman from California, everyday he wakes up and takes to the sea. He works for a company called Southern Pacific Fisheries (SPF). The company has a fleet of trawler ships that catch thousands of tons of fish a day. This fish haul is then sold to plants that process the fish. From there the fish is divided by quality into lots, with high quality fish being sold to high price restaurants, fish markets and grocery stores. Low quality fish is sold to fast food chains to be further processed into their fast food fair.”
Extract: The problem comes as De Jesus tells us; “At the beginning of the year we started to notice that many of our catches looked sick, some were very weird. Like they had big bumps on them and more fins than they should have. We were not sure what it was. The company called some scientists. They said that the fish were poisoned by the radiation from Japan. They thought they could not sell the fish. The processing plant refused to buy our fish. I thought I was out of work. But an accountant at the company found a new place to sell our fish. So I kept my job. Now I work everyday.”
As it turns out the place that the SPF found to sell the fish, was directly to many of the fast food companies. At this time we can not name any of the companies for legal reasons. But we did talk to Nueva Jimenez, spokesperson of SPF.
“You are correct. We are selling fish thought to be irradiated by the Fukishima disaster, but our scientists have assured us that the fish is perfectly safe in small amounts. We will not name names and we do not recommend that you eat it every meal. But one or two a week will not hurt you at all. We sell a safe product and so do our clients” said Jimenez.”
Read More Here: http://nationalreport.net/fast-food-fish-sandwich-radioactive/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Suggested Reading: “3 Disturbing Fukushima Facts The Government Is Covering Up” Extract: Here’s an edited quote from that article:
“The mega Fukushima meltdown continues to assault the planet on a daily basis with barrages of radioactive fallout that have infiltrated everything from our international food supply to the Pacific Ocean…Fisheries continue to operate and governments continue to pretend nothing has gone wrong…. just keep eating seafood from Japan and don’t mind the fact that radiation levels are still spiking. And definitely don’t mind the EPA raising ‘acceptable limits’ of radiation in your food supply.”
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/3-disturbing-fukushima-facts-government-covering/?utm_source=Natural+Society&utm_campaign=4898c3a8d0-Email+272%3A+10%2F13%2F2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f20e6f9c84-4898c3a8d0-323115961 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Headline: “Local Chef Takes North Pacific Seafood Off Menu” POSTED: 05:19 PM PST Jan 15, 2014 Seen Here: http://www.keyt.com/news/local-chef-takes-north-pacific-seafood-off-menu/23950972 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Loki Fishing Company, Seattle Wa. Doing Test Found Positive Cesium. Headline: “Fishermen Test Their Own Salmon For Fukushima Radiation” January 20, 2014 at 11:13 AM Seen Here: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/allyoucaneat/2014/01/20/fishermen-test-their-own-salmon-for-fukushima-radiation/ PDF Report Here: www.lokifish.com/seafood%20and%20radiation.doc >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> UC Berkely Begin Tests For Pacific Radiation
Extract: Sockeye Salmon Tested – Cesium 134 and Cesium 137 Detected -BRAWM Response Please
Seen Here: http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/sockeye-salmon-tested-cesium-134-and-cesium-137-detected-brawm-response-please.2012-07-02 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Headline: “B.C. Sardine Fishery Collapse Leaves ‘A Hole In The Marketplace,’ Repercussions Up The Food Chain To Humpback Whales” October 15, 2013 10:11 AM ET
Read Here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/15/b-c-sardine-fishery-collapse-leaves-a-hole-in-the-marketplace-repercussions-up-the-food-chain-to-humpback-whales/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Headlines: “They’re All Gone”: Shock As Sardines Vanish Off California — Fishermen Didn’t Find A Single One All Summer — Scientist: This Is About The Entire Pacific Coast… Canada, Mexico, U.S. — NOAA: We Don’t Know Why; The Young Aren’t Surviving” Published: January 14th, 2014 at 8:16 pm ET
Read Here: http://enenews.com/theyre-all-gone-shock-as-sardines-vanish-off-california-fishermen-didnt-find-a-single-one-all-summer-scientist-this-is-about-the-entire-pacific-coast-noaa-the-young >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Headline: “China Imposes First-Ever West Coast Shellfish Ban” December 13th, 2013 at 3:38 pm ET
Extract: China has suspended imports of shellfish from the west coast of the United States — an unprecedented move that cuts off a $270 million Northwest industry from its biggest export market.
Read More Here: http://kuow.org/post/china-imposes-first-ever-west-coast-shellfish-ban And Here: http://enenews.com/unprecedented-china-bans-all-imports-of-shellfish-from-u-s-west-coast-official-theyve-never-done-anything-like-that-that-ive-ever-seen-includes-washington-oregon-a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Headlines: “Fairbanks City Council Unanimously Passes Fukushima Monitoring Resolution: Alaska And West Coast Of N. America In Danger — “No Safe Levels Of Radiation… Constitutes Grave Risk” — Alaska Senator: “We Need To Be Vigilant” Published: March 15th, 2014 at 3:35 pm ET
Read Here: http://enenews.com/fairbanks-city-council-passes-resolution-for-fukushima-monitoring-alaska-and-u-s-west-coast-in-danger-no-safe-levels-of-radiation-constitutes-grave-risk-alaska-senator-we-need-to-be >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ARE YOUR PETS SAFE?
Google This: Contaminated Pacific Fish Used For Pet Food
(Excellent Article Regarding Radioactive Seafood In Pet Food) “Possible Radioactive Foods and Pet Foods: Fukushima Meltdown’s Aftermath” Melanie Neer, Yahoo Contributor Network Nov 29, 2013
Extract: “Now comes a new concern for both humans and pets, and that is any food products, especially fish caught in the Pacific Ocean and from Japan, but not limited to that country.”
“Worse case scenario yet, such radioactive and contaminated foods may be in our foods already; it could take months, perhaps years before any effects of such contaminated food show any affect, and longer for the FDA gets its act together for any official recall.”
Read More Here: http://voices.yahoo.com/possible-radioactive-foods-pet-foods-fukushima-12363058.html
On Facebook: Author From Above Article: “Possible Radioactive Foods and Pet Foods: Fukushima Meltdown’s Aftermath”: Bringing Awareness Of What Is In Commercial Pet Foods https://www.facebook.com/groups/312583641021/ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> THE CON
Friday, February 21, 2014 News: 2014 Lenten Fish and Seafood Fastfood Round Up Fast Food Restaurants Offering Sea Food Specials
Read more at: http://www.brandeating.com/2014/02/news-2014-lenten-fish-and-seafood-fastfood-round-up.html >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Alright, Now You Know What I Know. I Trust What You Decide From Now On, Will Be The Right Choices For All Concerned.
Best Regards,
Forest Sandifer )-(
W.I.P.P Daily Updates
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Wipp Updates Compiled By | Forest Sandifer
WIPP UPDATES AS OF MARCH 14, 2014
Good Afternoon, Today Is March 14th, 2014 Time is: 16:47 Hrs. PST Here Is The Latest WIPP Updates. (NOTE): Serious Researchers: Please Check The Links For Additional Material. As Always, If You Like, Please Share. Thank You )-(
As Follows:
Today Is March 14th, 2014 http://www.wipp.energy.gov/special.htm
DOE Finalizes WIPP Fire Investigation Report March 14, 2014 – 11:00am http://energy.gov/em/articles/doe-finalizes-wipp-fire-investigation-report =============================================== Summary Report Here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/212461561/Executive-Summary-WIPP-Underground-Fire-Report-03-12-2014# =============================================== Complete PDF Report Here: http://energy.gov/em/articles/doe-finalizes-wipp-fire-investigation-report Final WIPP Underground Fire Report 03.13.2014 Link Here: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/Final%20WIPP%20Underground%20Fire%20Report%2003.13.2014.pdf =============================================== HEADLINE: “Report: New Mexico Nuke Dump Fire Was Preventable” Updated: Mar 14, 2014 10:43 AM PST
Extract Of Text:
By JERI CLAUSING Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Federal investigators have uncovered a series of shortcomings in safety training, emergency response and oversight at the troubled southeastern New Mexico nuclear waste dump where a truck caught fire and 17 workers were recently contaminated by a radiation leak.
A report released Friday on the investigation into the first of back-to-back accidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad says a Feb. 5 truck blaze apparently was ignited by a buildup of oil and other combustible materials that should have been regularly cleaned off the vehicle. The truck also was operating without an automatic fire suppression system, the Department of Energy report said. And one of several mistakes made in the chaotic moments that followed switched the filtration systems in the mine a half-mile underground and sent smoke billowing into areas where workers expected to have “good air.”
The report also identified problems with safety culture at the federal government’s only permanent repository for waste from the nation’s nuclear bomb-building facilities, and it said a series of repeat deficiencies identified by an independent oversight board had gone unresolved.
New Mexico Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich called the report “deeply concerning.”
“Fortunately, no one was hurt,” the Democrats said in a joint statement. “The community of Carlsbad and the nation expect WIPP to operate with the highest level of safety. The board has identified a number of serious safety concerns that will need to be fully addressed. We believe all levels of management at the Department of Energy and at WIPP must take the recommendations from the board very seriously and fully implement them. ”
Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican whose district includes the plant, applauded the DOE for a transparent report that highlights “the sloppy procedures that caused the fire.”
An investigation of a radiation release nine days later that contaminated 17 workers and sent toxic particles into the air around the plant is expected to be complete in a few weeks. At this point, officials say they are unsure if the fire and the radiation release are related. The mine has been shuttered since the Feb. 14 release, but investigators hope to be able to get below next week to see what happened.
The accidents are the first major incidents at the repository, which began taking radioactive waste 15 years ago.
Just hours before the report on the truck fire was previewed at a community meeting Thursday evening, the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant demoted the facility’s president.
At the community meeting, the DOE official who led the investigative team, Ted Wyka, said the fire probably started about 30 minutes before the driver saw the orange glow from the engine compartment and tried to put it out. But the automatic fire-suppression system that might have detected the heat earlier was not active, Wyka said, and the systems activated by the driver sprayed didn’t work.
Wyka praised the 86 workers who were underground when the fire started around 11 a.m. on Feb. 5 for their response. But he said a number of systems failed. For example, he said emergency strobe lights were not activated for five minutes, not all workers heard the evacuation announcement and workers had trouble using their emergency air canisters. One worker also switched the air system from normal to filtration made, which sent smoke billowing through the tunnels.
Six workers were treated for smoke inhalation after the fire.
“We were pretty lucky that day,” he said. “… Despite all the safety systems that sort of let them down, the workforce down in the mine that day was very calm, collected and in many ways heroic.”
Wyka said the workers “did everything they could” to notify colleagues to get out, even before the evacuation alarm sounded. “Some stayed behind to make sure everyone got in the elevator to get out.”
The biggest lesson, he said, is about the mindset at the site.
“This is not just a mine, not just an operating nuclear facility – this is both,” Wyka said, noting that trucks used in the part of the mine where waste is hauled are kept much cleaner than the old trucks used to haul salt a half mile underground, where massive waste storage rooms are being dug a half mile in the 2,000-foot thick ancient Permian Sea bed. They also have active fire-suppression systems. The truck that caught fire hauling salt for removal from the mine.
Joe Franco, who runs the Department of Energy’s site office at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, choked up as he addressed the meeting, telling the community that at first, he took the findings personally.
“It’s one of those things, being part of the family, one of those things that’s a little tough,” he said. “But I think what’s important (is) we definitely got away with not … having anyone seriously hurt. So we need to learn from that. It is what I wanted to hear, and I wanted the truth. We don’t need any sugar-coating.”
Read More Here: http://www.wafb.com/story/24973133/report-nuke-dump-fire-preventable ===================================================== ALL WIPP Updates: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/special.htm ===================================================== http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/wipp/sdi/doe_sdi_62012-2.pdf U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY CARLSBAD FIELD OFFICE A CONCEPTUAL PLAN FOR SALT DEFENSE DISPOSAL INVESTIGATIONS FOR THE DISPOSAL OF DOE-EM MANAGED WASTES
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March 5, 2014 Time: 13.20 Hrs. PST ~ Per Forest Sandifer
HEADLINES: “WIPP Expert: Nuclear Waste Is Getting Out Above Ground — Plutonium / Americium Found In “Every Single Worker” On Site When Leak Began — New Mexico Officials ‘Totally Unsatisfied’ With Lack Of Info From Feds — “We Don’t Know How Far Away It’s Gone” — Continuing Threat For Long Time To Come”
(AUDIO)
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February 28, 2014 ~ Per Valerie Price | Good video. Still nothing concrete, lots of nuclear industry reassurances and comparing people who don’t like breathing Plutonium to Alien conspiracy theorists. Wow! It’s pretty insulting to anyone trying to find any hard data or test results.
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
Today Is: February 25th, 2014 Time: 14:50 Hrs. PST
HEADLINES:
“Officials: Nuclear Release From Container(s) Indicated At #WIPP site — “We Never, Ever Thought This Kind Of An Event Would Occur” — “Absolute Seriousness Of This Can’t Be Overstated” — Resident: “I Feel Like They’re Not Telling Us Everything” (VIDEO)”
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Commentary by | Valerie Price
February 25, 2014 4:34 PM EST ~ Officials say a big “puff event” of Plutonium from the WIPP in New Mexico. Expert states, Plutonium can travel a long way on the wind.” Government says, don’t worry, most people won’t die of Plutonium. They don’t seem to be worried about the ones who will die of it.
Carlsbad Residents Meeting on WIPP Radiation Release, Feb. 24, 2014 (emphasis added):
- Question at 1:35:30 in: Whenever [CEMRC director] Russell Hardy was standing at [the WIPP site] pulling the filter, how many [millirem] was he exposed to roughly?
- Roger Nelson, U.S. Department of Energy: When he was there the large amounts of particulate that were in the puff as it went by were gone.
KFOR NewsChannel4, Feb. 24, 2014:
- Kevin Ogle, KFOR anchor: It’s being called a radiation event, and you know what? It could be making its way here to Oklahoma. Officials say a radiation leak happened sometime between Feb. 11 and Feb. 16 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. What they’re saying not totally reassuring. They’re saying we shouldn’t worry — YET.
- Ed Doney, KFOR reporter: Yet is the key word, Kevin. Experts are hesitant to push the panic button right now. Could a radiation leak at an underground nuclear waste site in Southeast New Mexico reach Oklahoma?
- Don Hancock, nuclear waste expert: It very much depends on the winds because plutonium and americium can travel a long way.
- Dr. John Nail, Oklahoma City Univ. chemistry professor: Most people will get more radiation exposure from eating bananas than they ever will from this New Mexico repository site.
Watch the 2-hour residents meeting here — Watch KFOR’s broadcast here
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CLICK HERE for Real Time Coverage of W.I.P.P.
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February 24, 2014 ~ Live Town Hall Meeting in Carlsbad, New Mexico ~ Background ~ Current Argus . Com
CARLSBAD — Around 300 Carlsbad residents packed the Pecos River Village Conference Center Monday for the chance to ask officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant about last week’s radiation leak.
Several members of the audience asked and received assurances that the levels of radiation that escaped from WIPP’s underground into the outside air was safe.
“Our main goal and concern is to continue to protect our employees and the environment,” Nuclear Waste Partnership Farok Sharif said. “Everything is looking good and safe. There is no indication at all to say that we have any issues.”
Prior to the town hall, the Department of Energy released new data on Monday afternoon that bolstered the agency’s claim that there is no contamination threat for local citizens in Southeast New Mexico.
Assessment of environmental samples collected in and around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant show radioactive contamination in the air around the nation’s only nuclear repository ranged from 1.3 to 4.4 disintegrations per minute. Samples were taken at numerous locations around the repository, according to a news release.
Radiation was detected above ground last week by a lab that monitors radiation levels at the site. Officials haven’t said the cause of the leak, but they’ve said the radiation’s signature is consistent with the type of waste being buried at WIPP.
WIPP is the nation’s only disposal facility for transuranic waste, commonly referred to as “TRU” waste, which is radioactive material generated from the nation’s nuclear weapons program during the Cold War era. The site, 26 miles east of Carlsbad, started accepting shipments from nuclear facilities around the country in 1999. The waste is disposed 2,150 feet below ground in the salt beds of the Permian Basin.
DPM measures the contamination by referring to how quickly radioactive material is decaying and releasing radioactive particles of energy.
Sharif and Department of Energy Carlsbad Field Office Manager Joe Franco appealed to the audience by letting them know they shared in the worries about the radiation leak.
“This is my town,” said Sharif, who has worked at WIPP for more than 20 years and spent a majority of his time living in Carlsbad after moving to the United States from Malaysia.
Franco told the audience that he was born and raised in Carlsbad and that his take on the situation was that it is “very serious” and “unfortunate, but it is what it is.”
The DOE found through dose assessment modeling, which calculates potential radioactivity exposure to people, that humans have a potential of less than one millirem of exposure to radiation from the Feb. 14 leak. A person receives about 10 millirems from a chest X-ray procedure.
No outside protestors appeared at the town hall meeting and the question and answer forum moderated by former State Senator and chairman of the Carlsbad Nuclear Task Force John Heaton ran smooth for the most part.
The only disturbance came in the form of Martin Mills, who is running in Carlsbad’s mayoral election against incumbent Dale Janway.
Mills used his question to shout at Heaton and other WIPP officials and would not let them give a response.
At one point during Mills’ rant, a guest shouted, “this is not a political campaign forum.”
WIPP received and disposed of its last waste shipments underground the morning of Feb. 5, the day a vehicle used to haul salt caught on fire, forcing immediate evacuations of all personnel. Six workers were treated for smoke inhalation at Carlsbad Medical Center.
Most of WIPP’s recently disposed waste has come from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory. The facility had been averaging 16 waste shipments per week according to the DOE.
WIPP had also received some waste from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois on a more limited basis.
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
Today Is February 24th, 2014 Time: 17:34 Hrs. PST
WIPP UPDATE:
“Radioactive contamination now reported in city over 20 miles from leaking U.S. nuclear site WIPP — 10th largest population in state of New Mexico (MAP)
Source URL Here: http://enenews.com/radioactive-contamination-reported-city-20-miles-leaking-new-mexico-nuclear-site-10th-largest-population-state
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
Today Is February 24th, 2014 Time:15:56 Hrs. PST
Headline: “Just In: ‘New Tests Show Elevated Radiation’ Near U.S. Nuclear Site — ‘More Airborne Radiation Detected’ Around WIPP — Gov’t Issues Press Release On ‘Radiological Event’ (MAP)”
Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 24, 2014: New tests show elevated radiation near WIPP — New test results indicate “slightly elevated” levels of airborne radiation near a nuclear waste repository in southeast New Mexico, the U.S. Department of Energy said Monday. The DOE said the data show a potential dose of less than one millirem — a calculation of radioactivity exposure — at each of the sampling locations. WIPP has been collecting numerous air and soil samples since a radiation alert was sounded on Feb. 14.
ABC News, Feb. 24, 2014: More Radiation Detected Near New Mexico Nuke Site — More airborne radiation has been detected in southeastern New Mexico from a leak at the nation’s first underground nuclear waste dump. The U.S. Department of Energy said Monday the results are from samples collected last week at numerous air monitoring stations. Last week, DOE officials confirmed the first-ever leak at the facility. It stores plutonium-contaminated waste. The results are consistent with the kinds of waste stored at the plant. Carlsbad’s mayor has scheduled a community meeting Monday evening.
U.S. Department of Energy Press Release, Feb 24, 2014: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today reported new environmental monitoring data. Results indicate slightly elevated levels of airborne radioactive concentrations, which are consistent with the waste disposed of at WIPP. The samples taken demonstrate these concentrations remain well below a level of public or environmental hazard. The samples were collected by WIPP radiological and environmental monitoring personnel. February 17-18 the release data showed a potential dose of less than one millirem at each of the environmental sampling locations. WIPP is continuously monitoring the environment, and the latest air monitoring results ranged from 1.3 to 4.4 DPM [disintegrations per minute] based on preliminary analyses. Numerous air, soil and water samples have been collected on and around the WIPP site since the radiological event on February 14.
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
Today We Will Cover Current Headlines Of WIPP, A Past History Of How It Came To Be, And A Seismic Activity Report Done In 2010. If You Live Near This Area, You’ll Want To Read The Material. If You Like, Please Share. Thank You. )-( … TODAY’S HEADLINES: “Official: “4,400,000 Disintegrations Of Alpha Radiation” Including Plutonium Detected At Leaking U.S. Nuclear Site; “Highest Recorded Level” — Santa Fe Briefing: “Serious Incident Involving Radiation At The WIPP Site” — Gov’t “Reaching Out To Employees Who Are Worried” About Exposure”
Source URL: http://enenews.com/official-4400000-disintegrations-of-alpha-radiation-including-plutonium-detected-at-leaking-u-s-nuclear-site-highest-recorded-level-santa-fe-briefing-serious-incident-involving-radi
Part #2. 1/25/2012 @ 6:04PM
“Nuke Us: The Town That Wants America’s Worst Atomic Waste”
Source URL By Forbes Magazine: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/01/25/nuke-us-meet-the-town-that-wants-americas-worst-nuclear-waste/
Part #3.
Seismic Study of Carlsbad, NM
ABSTRACT Since January 1, 2000, there have been numerous earthquakes recorded in the vicinity of Carlsbad, NM. Importantly, these shallow (10km) earthquakes with magnitudes < 4.3, do not have a fault or system of faults directly mapped to explain these events. We will be relocating the largest and most recent earthquake, which occurred 25km west of Carlsbad, NM of magnitude 4.1 on March 28, 2010. Data recorded by seismic stations from the USArray, a large National Science Foundation project, and our local Kidd Observatory will be used for this analysis. The use of Standing Order of Data (SOD) allows us access seismograms, and the Seismic Analysis Code (SAC) helps in the analysis of the seismic data. We will correlate the hypocenters of aftershocks to the main event hypocenter, allowing us to identify the fault plane. Once a fault plane has been identified, we will begin work on relocating a second event, thereby identifying the responsible faults. We believe that faulting in this area is related to the Rio Grande Rift extension and can be used as evidence for an active rift.
Theory, Conjecture and Mystery Of Malaysia Flight 370
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Graphics and Article By | Forest Sandifer
Today Is March 14th, 2014 Time: 20:22 Hrs PST THEORY, CONJECTURE, & MYSTERY Put Them All Together With A Missing Plane, And You Have A Conspiracy Story.
Prelude: They Are Unwilling To Respond Or Unable To Respond.
So Lets Weigh The Evidence Which Is Available And Proceed:
We Have A Missing Airliner With Conflicting Stories Regarding Its Last Known Trajectory. Pilot’s Last Voice Transmission Indicated All’s Well. With Transponder On. Airliner Was Old, & Due For Retirement. Stress, Wear And Tear, & Warnings From The Maker. Boeing Indicated As Much. Stolen Passports That Were Probably Used To Immigrate. More Than Enough Fuel To make The Trip To Beijing China. 25 Chinese Defense Hi Tech People Were On Board That Plane As Well.
Lets Begin:
Passenger Manifest. Who Were They, What Were They Going To China For, And Why?
Phase #1. If There Was Foul Play Involved, M.M.O. Comes To Mind. Motive, Means, Opportunity. For All Crimes A Bases Must Be Established.
Phase #2. The Means. Just How Does A Jetliner Vanish Leaving No Trace Of Wreckage To Be Found?
Phase #3. Opportunity (The How)
There Are Many Possibilities Which May Have Occurred To Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Sabotage, Hijack, Mechanical, & Or Electrical Malfunction, To Even CNN’s List Of Theories, A Meteor May Have Struck It. Reference Here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-questions/
No One Is Looking At The Obvious Though. The Military. Which Military Is The Big Question.
In Light Of The Evidence, Or Lack Of, I’m Going To Present My Own Theory. Even As I Write This Article Up, I’ve Been Informed That News Agencies Are Floating A Story That Flight 370 Was Bound Somewhere For The South Pole. (Yes, You Read That Correct.)
For The Sake Of Argument And Theory, I’ll Leave Out The WHO And Just Introduce The TECHNOLOGY Needed To Accomplish The Task Of Bringing Down A Jetliner.
Particle Beam Weapons: Do We Have The Technology? & What Is It ? Reference here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle-beam_weapon The Answer Is Yes, We Have It, And I’ll Provide The Proof.
1st, Ask Yourself, “How Fast Is The Speed Of Light?” In Other Words, At The Speed Of Light, At What Distance Is Limited For A Target To Be Eliminated?
For Instance: The Speed Of Light Is Sometimes Referred To As The “Cosmic Speed Limit”. Light Travels In A Vacuum At 186,282.4 Miles Per/Second Or 299,792,458 Meters/Second. For Simplicity, It Is Often Said That These Numbers Are 186,000 Miles Per Second, And 3.00 x 10^8 Meters Per Second. Reference Here: http://www.universetoday.com/43806/how-fast-is-the-speed-of-light/
(Lockheed Martin) Test Fires High Energy Laser: Well Worth Watching To Understand The Principle Of My Article. http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/5711/Lockheed-Martin-Test-Fires-High-Energy-Laser.aspx
Laser Weapon System (LaWS) Smaller Scale Laser Ship Mounted (Military Test Videos) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmoldX1wKYQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqLkpcHavZE
“US Navy is Set Deploy its First Laser Weapon” http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/7305/US-Navy-is-Set-Deploy-its-First-Laser-Weapon.aspx
Navy Site Showing The Ship USS Ponce: Oddly Enough, The Ship Builder Is: Lockheed Shipbuilding http://www.ponce.navy.mil/
Description And History Included: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ponce_%28LPD-15%29
Laser weapon testbed
The USS Ponce is reported to become a testbed platform for the Laser Weapon System (LaWS), with Installation Of A Prototype Weapon System To Be Completed “Sometime After October 2013”. The Weapon System Is Said To Be Effective Against Drones And Small Watercraft. The USS Ponce Will Deploy With The Laser Weapon In 2014.
Now I’m Not Saying The US Military Shot Down A Plane. However, What I Am Saying Is, That The Technology Is Out There. You Decide, Or Wait For The Movie.
All My Hopes That This Mystery Is Solved So That Families Can Move Forward With Their Lives. My Heart Goes Out To Them With Sincere Regret For This Incident Taking Place. )-(
Other Contributions For This Theory Below: NAVSEA: http://www.navsea.navy.mil/default.aspx Ratheon: http://www.raytheon.com/ Lockheed Skunk Works: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/aeronautics/skunkworks.html
If You Like Share With My Permission. )-(
The Fate Of The World Is Sealed ~ Life Ending Emergency
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Graphics | Forest Sandifer
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Opinion Courtesy Of: Imre Kolozsvary
Mar. 12, 2014 at 3:25pm ET: The Nuclear reality now in B.C. Absolutely delivers life ending emergency; The Fukushima Nuclear Radiation and Contamination impact for local marine life, and the effect it has on humans — A radioactive metal from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan is now in the Fraser Valley, causing researchers to expose the truth about the long-term impact of radiation on B.C.’s west coast. The soil sample from Kilby Provincial Park, near Agassiz [approx. 100 km east of Vancouver coast], is for the first time in this province full of Cobalt-58, Cobalt-60, Krypton-85, Krypton-85m, Krypton-87, Krypton-88, Rubidium-86, Strontium-89, Strontium-90, Strontium-91, Yttrium-90, Yttrium-91, Zirconium-95, Zirconium-97, Niobium-95, Molybdenum-99, Technetium-99m Ruthenium-103, Ruthenium-105, Ruthenium-106, Rhodium-105, Tellurium-127 Tellurium-127m, Tellurium-129, Tellurium-129m, Tellurium-131m, Tellurium-132 Antimony-127, Antimony-129, Iodine-131, Iodine-132, Iodine-133, Iodine-134 Iodine-135, Xenon-133, Xenon-135, Cesium-134, Cesium-136, Cesium-137 Barium-140, Lanthanum-140, Cerium-141, Cerium-143, Cerium-144 Praseodymium-143, Neodymium-147, Neptunium-239, Plutonium-238 Plutonium-239, Plutonium-240, Plutonium-241, Americium-241 and Curium-242, further evidence of Fukushima radioactivity being transported to Canada by air and water. Its presence in the environment is proof positive of a total Nuclear Contamination from Fukushima. The samples were taken near the mouth of the Harrison River, on Nov. 16, 2013. Samples of chinook, sockeye and chum spawning salmon nearby are nearly all dead and or mutated to near extermination is the total fact of Fukushima Nuclear Radiation Contamination. This is no surprise. It means the ongoing emissions from the Melt-Downs of Fukushima continue its voyage of devastation. It’s a fact to us. This is a planetary issue. The Canadian Government is not doing anything, it should be taking actions to inform Canadians how these contaminants are impacting life, and that there are no levels of Nuclear Contamination that are safe and to expect the worst, that is to come next. The impact on the animals is mind numbing, as is the cumulative impact on the marine environment, which in total provides for all the existence of Humanity. We expect that Humans at the top of the food web are moving towards extinction in the future. The on going long-term effects of Fukushima to all living organisms are uncontainable and the fate of the World is sealed.
Cesium Detected in Fukushima Debris in Canada
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Graphics and Compilation By | Forest Sandifer
Good Morning,
Today Is March 12, 2014 Time: 10:52 Hrs. PST
Science Report Brought To You By: Suspiciousobservers.org
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*Just In* Scientists Raise Alarm: “Radioactive metal from Fukushima” detected in Pacific Northwest; Concern for impact on humans, west coast ecosystems; Continuing contamination crossing ocean, not going away soon; “A surprise ~ This is an international issue ~Government should be doing something”.
Vancouver Sun, Mar. 12, 2014 at 9:31a ET: Nuclear radiation found in B.C. may pose health concerns; Discovery of Fukushima radioactivity raises concerns for local marine life, and the effect it — A radioactive metal from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan has been discovered in the Fraser Valley, causing researchers to raise the alarm about the long-term impact of radiation on B.C.’s west coast.
Examination of a soil sample from Kilby Provincial Park, near Agassiz [approx. 100 km east of Vancouver coast], has for the first time in this province found Cesium 134, further evidence of Fukushima radioactivity being transported to Canada by air and water.
Its presence in the environment is an indication of continuing contamination from Fukushima. The sample was taken near the mouth of the Harrison River, on Nov. 16, 2013. Samples of chinook, sockeye and chum spawning salmon nearby are also being analyzed for evidence of radiation. Cesium 137 may negatively affect the immune system or endocrine system, Professor Juan Jose Alava said. The results raise concerns for aboriginal people who maintain a diet heavy in fish. Alava noted the plant continues to leak radiation, meaning that the problem is not going away soon.
Professor Juan Jose Alava, school of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University: “That was a surprise. It means there are still emissions and trans-Pacific air pollution. It’s a concern to us. This is an international issue. The Canadian government is the one that should be doing something, should be taking action to keep monitoring to see how these contaminants are behaving, what are the levels, and what is next. The impact on the animal needs to be studied. This is part of a cumulative impact on the marine environment. We might expect similar results to the killer whales because the diet of First Nation communities is based on seafood. Humans at the top of the food web can perhaps see increasing levels in the future. There’s going to be a long-term exposure to organisms building up in the marine environment.”
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(Please Take Note): At 2:37 Sec Into The Video, Mention Of Canada Detecting Cesium Debris From Fukushima.
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30,000 People Sentenced To Death
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Graphics By | Forest Sandifer
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Background | Suspicious Observors
“Fukushima: Japan’s PM Ready To Send Residents Back Home Despite Radiation”
Extract: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Has Publicly Announced That He Would Like To Have 30,000 Residents Return To Their Houses In The Fukushima Area Despite Grave Radiation Concerns.
The reactors will be turned back on within two years’ time, it has been said. What is worse is that a nuclear industry expert told one media outlet that the hard hit Fukushima reactor is still unstable, three years post disaster. Two former prime ministers and a Fukushima insider revealed that moving all of those people back into their homes would be an irresponsible move, according to a news agency. Requesting to stay anonymous, the man who was employed at TEPCO’s Fukushima power plant for over two decades said the situation at the reactor is not under control. Another nerve wracking issue is that nobody knows how to solve the problem on hand, according to the insider.
“There are too many systems and they all have problems,” the Fukushima insider said and continued on, “For example, too many water tanks with too many lines – it’s very difficult to operate. It’s made worse because all the experienced workers have reached their radiation limits, so TEPCO has to rely on staff that don’t know the site and who aren’t trained.”
Errors are being made on a weekly basis and the Pacific Ocean is the receiver of the contaminated water leaks, claims the whistleblower. The man also explained that the damaged reactors never have a shot at being decontaminated and that residents should not even consider moving back into the no-go zone. The area that is off limits as of right now is about 12 miles of excluded land around Fukushima.
“I feel it is impossible to fix before my death,” he said, according to an abc.net.au article, “We just don’t have the technology to fix it. It currently doesn’t exist. We just can’t deal with the melted fuel.” TEPO declined to make a comment about the allegations being brought against the viability of the area.
In spite of the harsh words the insider had given, the government will start bringing people back into the region in April of this year. Fukushima evacuees will be able to return to the no-go zone in just a few short weeks. This is part of a larger effort of the Abe government’s agenda to switch on all of Japan’s 48 nuclear reactors by mid-2104. All of these power plants have been turned off since 2011 when the disaster struck the island country.
There is no such thing as a zero risk nuclear plant, according to the words spoken from a government spokesman from Japan. Some degree of risk is always involved but could be managed in the proper manner with the new safety standards that have been put in place, according to the spokesperson.
It has been noted that it in the best interest of the economy to make nuclear power the main source of Japan’s energy. Concern has been made vocal over relying on coal and gas imports to the extent that the economy would stagnate and weaken the country’s frail recovery process.
“The causes of the accident haven’t been investigated properly. Contaminated water is still leaking, and compensation for victims hasn’t been sorted out,” former prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa said, according to an abc.net.au article, “I think in these circumstances it is very irresponsible to turn the reactors back on.”
Hosokawa is not alone in his opinion as another ex-prime minister feels the same way. “They are trying to restart the nuclear reactors without learning the lessons of the March 11 accident,” Naoto Kan, the ex-prime minister who was in office at the time when the nuclear disaster hit in 2011, said, “If the accident had spread just a little further, then 50 million people around Tokyo would have been evacuated for a long time and that would have put Japan in chaos for 20 to 30 years.”
Kan claims that no nationwide evacuation plan has been created and by rushing to turn the reactors back on the government is disregarding the public safety and well-being. Today marks the third year since the Fukushima meltdown.
Voice of Russia, Aba.net.au
Read More Here: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_11/Fukushima-Japan-s-PM-ready-to-send-residents-back-home-despite-radiation-7535/
Dr. Helen Caldicott Extended Interview
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Graphics and Compilation Courtesy Of | Forest Sandifer
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Physician And Anti-Nuclear Advocate, Helen Caldicott, Explains How The Fukushima Disaster Could Affect Australia.
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The Omega Factor Of Nuclear Waste
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Thanks to Forest Sandifer for Graphics
Officials now confirm Plutonium and/or Americium reached Carlsbad, New Mexico’s 10th most populated city — Container of radioactive waste may have “blew up”.
Carlsbad Current-Argus, Mar. 10, 2014: Four more employees at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have tested positive for elevated levels of radiation over the weekend. The Department of Energy announced that fecal samples taken from employees at the nuclear waste facility found 17 workers tested positive for low levels of radiation. After initial testing more than a week ago, the DOE reported 13 workers tested positive for trace amounts of americium and plutonium.
KRQE, Mar. 10, 2014 (emphasis added): WIPP radiation leak still a mystery Contamination drifted across the countryside and 26 miles west, all the way to the city of Carlsbad itself [10th most populated city in New Mexico]. Nuclear experts told residents, worried about children, the WIPP contamination now confirmed to have reached town is not dangerous. ”Below any limit, just above background, and would result in no health potential to a child, or a fetus,” Fran Williams, URS technical advisor said. Panel 7 is where workers most recently put waste. The radiation leak is believed to be in that panel, which is the length of a football field. It’s thought most likely part of the roof of the mine here collapsed on, and ruptured, containers. Another possibility is that a container blew up. Roof sections here have collapsed before, two decades ago during stress tests, when hundreds of tons of salt crashed down. Salt is elastic, so from the moment tunnels are dug they start to close back in. Roof bolts slow down, but do not stop that.
Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds chief engineer and former nuclear industry executive: “[An] x-ray is broadly distributed externally over a large piece of mass. On the other hand, the radioactivity [from WIPP] in the air is in a particular form [i.e. particulate] that can deposit in your lung. Radioactive material is attracted to your lung tissue. What you breathe in does not come out.
New York Times: Plutonium and americium lodged in the body bombards internal organs with subatomic particles for the rest of the person’s lifetime.
Glowing Cores Fukushima Fission ~ More Plutonium Victims ~ No Place to Put Radioactive Waste
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Thank you to Valerie Price for bringing this to our attention:
Fission ongoing at Fukushima. The cores are glowing. Per ENENews | Nuclear-friendly Magazine: Fukushima melted fuel is glowing, could still be ‘lava-like’.
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Only vaguest idea of where corium is. Pouring concrete in structure being discussed. They may not be able to decommission plant, but have to give it a try.
IEEE Spectrum (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Eliza Strickland, Feb 28, 2014:
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- [Japan’s nuclear experts] have only the vaguest idea of where the melted fuel ended up
- Damaged reactor cores continue to glow with infernal heat
- Containment vessels are riddled with holes
- Reactors are kept in check only by ceaseless vigilance
- To placate the furious Japanese public, [TEPCO must] remove every trace of the facility
- TEPCO officials have admitted frankly that they don’t yet know how to accomplish the tasks
- “At Fukushima you have wrecked infrastructure, three melted cores, and you have some core on the floor, ex-vessel,” [TEPCO adviser Lake] Barrett says
- Nothing like Fukushima, [Barrett] declares, has ever happened before
- There is no guarantee that this epic project can be accomplished — But faced with the wrath of the Japanese people, TEPCO has no choice but to try
- Explosions sprayed radioactive materials throughout the buildings
- Many of the leaks are thought to be in the suppression chambers, doughnut-shaped structures that ring the containment vessel
- Rooms that surround them are now filled with water no easy way to spot the ruptures
- TEPCO may [end up] pouring concrete into the suppression chamber
- As long as that melted fuel glows inside reactors 1, 2, and 3, Fukushima Daiichi will remain Japan’s ongoing nightmare
- Melted fuel may also have a lavalike consistency, with a hard crust on top but softer materials inside.
In another article for IEEE Spectrum, the author of the report highlighted above wrote, “The calamity will undoubtedly improve nuclear plant design. True, the antinuclear forces will find plenty in the Fukushima saga to bolster their arguments.”
Also, IEEE appears on a Tepco document revealing a select group of entities that are “working together” with Tepco to “disseminate” Fukushima-related information.
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
Today Is March 10th, 2014 Time: 04:58 Hrs. PST W.I.P.P. Update
HEADLINE: “4 More Test Postive For Radiation At U.S. Nuke Plant”
Transcript:
HOUSTON, March 9 (Xinhua) — Four more workers have tested positive for radiation following a leak at an underground nuclear waste plant in the U.S. state of New Mexico, bringing the total of affected workers to 21, plant operators said Sunday.
The leak, which happened early February at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico, entered the first phase of its recovery process over the weekend, according to a statement published on the plant’s website.
So far, 21 workers have tested positive for radiation, including 13 employees who were confirmed positive late February.
There has been no detectable contamination in their urine samples, which, according to the statement, indicates contamination was not inhaled into their lungs.
The WIPP stores waste that emits alpha and beta radiation, so the risk is of inhalation not penetration, it said.
“The levels of exposure are extremely low, and none of the employees is expected to experience any health effects from the exposures. The four most recent positive results were at a barely detectable level and reflect extremely low levels of exposure,” the statement said.
Plant operators said new air testing conducted during the weekend showed no detectable radioactive contamination in the air at the site.
Tammy Reynolds, WIPP’s recovery process manager, said they would do a final analysis of these samples before they send anyone down the underground facility, which “may occur as soon as the end of the week.”
WIPP, the country’s first deep underground nuclear repository, was shut down on Feb. 14 after an air sensor detected unusually high levels of radioactive particles on its underground levels. No workers were reportedly underground at that time and no injuries or damages were reported.
Initially, officials said radiation was believed to be confined on the underground levels and no contamination had been detected on surface levels, but an independent monitor center found radioactive isotopes in an air sensor a half mile (600 meters) from the site several days later.
State and federal authorities confirmed the reading and the U.S. Department of Energy sent a team to investigate.
The cause of the leak remains unknown. A truck fire was reported at the underground site on Feb. 5 and prompted evacuations, but officials said the fire was in a different part of the site and did not seem related to the leak.
The plant stores “transuranic waste” leftover from nuclear weapons research and testing from the nation’s past defense activities, according to the Energy Department. The waste includes clothing, tools, rags and other debris contaminated with radioactive elements.
Source Link Here: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-03/10/c_133175100.htm
Today Is March 9th, 2014 Time: 15:28 Hrs. PST WIPP Nuclear Waste Shipments Are Backing Up.
HEADLINE: “WIPP Radiation Leak Raises Questions About Future For Nuclear Waste Around The Country”
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Extract: With Operations At The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant On Hold, So Are All Shipments, Including The Last Of Nearly 4,000 Barrels Of Toxic Waste That Los Alamos National Laboratory has been Ordered To Remove From Its Campus By The End Of June. Other Waste From Labs In Idaho, Illinois And South Carolina Is Also Without A Home While Operations Are Halted.
Read More Here: http://www.currentargus.com/carlsbad-news/ci_25307117/wipp-radiation-leak-raises-questions-about-future-nuclear#
(RESEARCH NOTE For Those Interested.) The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant In New Mexico Stores Transuranic Wastes. They Range From Slightly Contaminated Clothing To Barrels Of Waste So Radioactive That It Can Only Be Handled With (Remote Control Equipment).
EPA Reference Here: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/plutonium.html#medicaltest
Definition Of Transuranic: Elements Having Atomic Numbers Greater Than That Of Uranium Are Called Transuranic. Americium-241 And Several Isotopes Of Plutonium.
Health Effects of Plutonium From the EPA ~ Update Re: WIPP
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Compiled by | Forest Sandifer
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What does plutonium do once it gets into the body?
The stomach does not absorb plutonium very well, and most plutonium swallowed with food or water passes from the body through the feces. When inhaled, plutonium can remain in the lungs depending upon its particle size and how well the particular chemical form dissolves. The chemical forms that dissolve less easily may lodge in the lungs or move out with phlegm, and either be swallowed or spit out. But, the lungs may absorb chemical forms that dissolve more easily and pass them into the bloodstream.
Once in the bloodstream, plutonium moves throughout the body and into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissue to radiation.
Health Effects of Plutonium How can plutonium affect people’s health?
External exposure to plutonium poses very little health risk, since plutonium isotopes emit alpha radiation, and almost no beta or gamma radiation. In contrast, internal exposure to plutonium is an extremely serious health hazard. It generally stays in the body for decades, exposing organs and tissues to radiation, and increasing the risk of cancer. Plutonium is also a toxic metal, and may cause damage to the kidneys.
Click HERE for Full Description of the Effects of Plutonium on Human Health, provided by the EPA.
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Arnie Gundersen Talks About The Latest Developments At The WIPP Facility In New Mexico.
“What’s Leaking From the Nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Program”
Posted On: Mar 6, 2014 At: http://www.fairewinds.org
Located Near Carlsbad, New Mexico This Department Of Energy (DOE) Experimental Nuclear Waste Dump Is Attempting To Store Leftover Radioactive Plutonium And Americium From The US Weapons Program. On February 14, 2014 There Was A Nuclear Safety Failure At The Site And The Department Of Energy Is Not Being Honest About It. In This Film Fairewinds Energy Education’s Arnie Gundersen Pieces Together What Happened And Points Out Fairewinds’ Major Concerns About The Facility, The Accident, And The Lack Of Transparency At The DOE.
All Credits Go To Arnie Gundersen At Fairewinds.org My Sincere Thanks For He And His Wife, As Well AS Staff, For Bringing Today’s Truth To The Public.
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Radiation Daily Updates ~ March 5 2014
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Updates Per | Forest Sandifer
March 5th, 2014 Time:17:11 Hrs. PST
HEADLINE: “Technology And Working Conditions For Decommissioning Process Still Lacking”
Extract: Workers At The Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant Began Removing Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods From The No. 4 Reactor’s Cooling Pool In November 2013. But Spent Fuel In Reactors No. 1, 2 And 3 Has Remained Untouched, And We Still Lack Technology That Can Withstand High Levels Of Radiation In The Decommissioning Process. Considering This Is A Major Undertaking That Will Take Up To 40 Years, We Have Barely Taken The First Step.
Source URL Here: http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140304p2a00m0na012000c.html
Today Is: What We Bring | Though I Walk Through The Valley
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Today | We Must Choose Wisely …
March 5th, 2014 Time: 12:38 Hrs. PST
HEADLINES:
Report: “It’s A Big Lie, Everybody In Japan knows” — Fukushima “Far Worse” Than Authorities Admit, They Must Come Clean About What Really Happened — Forbes Even Getting Suspicious? “Nuclear Disaster At Fukushima Perhaps The Worst Of All Time”
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Hanford Nuclear Plant at Risk ~ 65 Foot Crack in Dam
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March 5, 2014 Time: 21:53 Hrs. PST Provided By | Forest Sandifer
HEADLINES: “TV: Dam a ticking time bomb? “Next 24-48 Hours Critical” — “Preparing for worst-case scenario” — No ‘immediate’ threat — Feds monitor structure, ‘sudden release’ possible — “Very few have faced this” — NPR: New photo shows ‘pronounced curve’ — Docks near Hanford nuke site closed (VIDEO & PHOTO)
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Valerie Price’s Latest Update on March 4, 2014
Valerie Price: They don’t know how to fix the Washington dam crack. Possible that the pier can topple. It’s the largest dam in the state. If this dam breaks, Hanford will be creamed. Giant, 700 rod core, boiling water nuclear reactor at Hanford and a nuclear power plant further south on the river. If the dam has a catastrophic failure, it will be a catastrophe.
ENEWS: NPR: Operators struggle with major crack in dam; Spillway could topple — AP: “Extends all 65 ft across monolith”; About 20 miles from Hanford nuclear site — TV: “Pretty crazy… one of biggest dams in state, going to be a catastrophe if something happens”.
Northwest Public Radio, NPR network, Mar. 3, 2014 (emphasis added): Dam operators are struggling to find a solution for a major underwater crack in the Wanapum Dam. It spans the Columbia River in central Washington. The worst-case scenario is if the spillway was to topple. But [Thomas Stredwick, Grant County Public Utility District] thinks other sections of the dam would hold on and downstream communities should be safe. >> Listen to the broadcast here
AP, Mar. 3, 2014: Pressure caused a slight bowing in the dam that was first detected Feb. 24 by a staff member who noticed a curb on the road on top of the spillway was out of alignment. Engineers sent down divers who discovered the crack Thursday, 75-feet below the waterline. The crack extends all 65 feet across the monolith, which is 126 feet tall and 92 feet thick. Stredwick doesn’t think the crack extends all the way through the pier. About 20 miles downriver is the Priest Rapids dam, near the Hanford nuclear reservation.
KIMA-TV, Mar. 2, 2014:
KIMA: The Wanapum Dam built almost 50 years ago has a crack in it. Officials don’t know how it happened, and neighbors are worried.
Kyle Rosskelly: “The aging of these structures and we should be on top of it, so if there’s something we could have done to prevent it, it’s pretty surprising it hasn’t been done.”
Thomas Stredwick, Grant County Public Utility District: “That’s what they’re really inspecting at this time, so right now, we don’t have any information either way. What we’re doing is stabilizing” […]
KIMA: Kyle is still concerned about the worst-case scenario.
Kyle: “It’s pretty crazy. It’s one of the biggest dams in the state, and it’s going to be a catastrophe if something happens.”
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Compilation and Commentary Courtesy of Valerie Price
“Emergency plan has been activated. There is a crack underwater that spans the length of the dam. Failure risk high. Hanford at risk and a boiling water reactor nuclear power plant that burns more than 700 rods in massive core.”*****
Engineers have started emergency procedures to stabilize a Washington dam after they found a 65-foot crack in the structure.
The Wanapum Dam, a hydroelectric project located on the Columbia River in Grant County, Wash., is still running after divers discovered a 65-foot crack that is 2-inches wide.
The problem was first identified after an engineer noticed a “bowing” in the roadway above the dam and later discovered that a concrete spillway was raised above the water by 2.5 inches, according to Grant County Public Utility District spokesman Thomas Stredwick.
“Since we’ve noticed the issue, there’s no additional movement for that spillway section,” said Stredwick.
Stredwick said there are more than a dozen concrete spillway sections, but only one has been affected by the crack.
The dam has not been evacuated and is still producing electricity for the central Washington region. Due to the severity of the problem, a crisis scenario plan has been implemented, meaning that the damage is significant enough that there is potential the dam could fail.
Some emergency procedures have been initiated, including collaborating with other agencies and notifying residents who own land below the dam of the issue. No evacuations have been ordered.
Engineers have also started to lower the water elevation and they expect the level of the river water to be 20 feet lower than normal by Monday.
To help repair the plant, engineers are performing stability studies to identify the extent of the damage. The crack could also cause problems at other hydroelectric dams along the river as the water is lowered or raised.
The failure of the dam would primarily affect the town of Vantage, which is six miles upstream.
The Romans built things to last thousands of years by building things that COULD last thousands of years, like aqueducts, many of which still bring water to the city and towns. Americans build things to last long enough for contractors and politicians to get to the bank with your tax money. This dam is unsafe. Anyone below it should consider a long vacation.
Per Washington Post: Crack found in Washington dam on Columbia River.
EPHRATA, Wash. — A 65-foot-long crack in a Columbia River dam in central Washington has prompted officials to begin lowering the water level by 20 feet so inspectors can get a better idea of how serious the damage is.
There’s no immediate threat to public safety from the crack in the Wanapum Dam, Grant County Public Utility District spokesman Thomas Stredwick said Friday. The dam is located just downstream from where Interstate 90 crosses the river.
“At this point we already know there’s a serious problem,” Stredwick said. “We want to make sure the spillway is stable enough that inspectors are safe when inspecting it.”
An engineer earlier this week spotted a slight “bowing” above the spillway gates near where cars can drive across the dam, The Seattle Times reported (http://is.gd/aE0vDj ). Divers found a 2-inch-wide crack along the base of one of the spillway piers.
Public utility district officials analyzed the divers’ data and decided Friday that the failure risk was sufficiently high that they should notify other government agencies and downstream water users.
Officials have lowered the water level by 6 feet already and plan to let the level drop another 14 feet by Monday.
Dam failure in the rural area south of the small town of Vantage would primarily affect farmers, fishermen and power generation. The dam can generate more than 1,000 megawatts of hydroelectric power.
PUD officials are working with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to determine how best to repair the cracked pillar.
Repairs could also affect the rest of the Columbia River hydroelectric system.
“All these dams coordinate to generate energy on a regional scope,” Stredwick said. “If Wanapum is impacted, that has impacts on dams upstream as well as below.”
Officials with the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal utility that sells and transmits much of the Northwest’s cheap and abundant hydroelectric power, declined to comment on any potential impact to power generation, The Times reported.
Wanapum Dam was built in 1959 and is more than a mile long.
The piers supporting its 10 spillway gates are each 65 feet wide, 126 feet tall and 92 feet deep.
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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
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Everyone downstream in any proximity to the land at risk of flooding, should be evacuated even as a precaution. It’s crazy they are saying on one hand the dam is at high risk of failure and yet they take no precautions. Crazy!
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Radiation Daily Updates ~ March 4, 2014
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Compilation and Commentary By | Valerie Price
March 4, 2014
Valerie Price: They say the radioactive contamination is here but no one has a sample that says it’s here. And that’s right. Only nobodies want a sample like that and they’re no one. Anybody who’s anybody won’t listen to them. Anybody who’s anybody will make sure they never collect that sample or they will become like the KelpWatch Scientists, sudden no ones.
ENEWS: Fox Host: Most of Fukushima’s radioactive releases in ocean to hit our coast. “And there it is, moving toward us” — “Frankly scientists are being very careful about what they say about the radioactivity” — Official: Plume may already be in US.
Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Feb. 21, 2014: “Projections show most of the radioactive ocean plume from Fukushima will hit our coast — the U.S. West Coast — sometime later this year. And there it is, moving toward us.”
Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, March 2, 2014: “A group of scientists is now estimating that the radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear
disaster 3 years ago could now reach our West Coast this April — and frankly scientists are being very careful about what they say about the radioactivity.”
Mike Priddy, supervisor of Washington’s Environmental
Sciences Section, Feb. 25, 2014: “From now on out, there’s the possibility that the plume is here, but no one yet has a sample that says it’s here.”
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Valerie Price: A USS Reagan sailor’s baby born with multiple genetic mutations.
ENEWS: induced Baby of Navy sailor born with multiple genetic mutations, mother pregnant aboard USS Reagan for Japan rescue mission.
Stuart H. Smith, Esq., attorney with decades of experience in radiation cases, Mar. 3, 2014: I noted last week that the news from the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan keeps getting worse and worse. Every week brings new reports of leaks or potential meltdowns. There’s growing evidence a large number of Americans already face serious health threats. The U.S. Navy crew that was dispatched to Japan for disaster relief; a $1 billion lawsuit was filed by the sailors; Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts. Among the 81 plaintiffs in the federal class action are a sailor who was pregnant during the mission, and her “Baby A.G.,” was born that October with multiple genetic mutations. [Source] This situation is tragic, and it’s stunning that their lawsuits and the related information that has been revealed so far has not received more play in the American media.
Interview with nuclear engineer Dave Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear Safety Project director, TruNews, Feb. 18, 2014 (39:00 in) – Q: When will we start seeing a spike in diseases and death rates attributed to Fukushima? A: Theoretically we’ve seen that already. Some of the consequences of radiation-induced illnesses are low-weight births, genetic defects, things like that — which would have already occurred. Some of the latent cancers, the latency period for cancers takes 5-6 years before you see a statistically discernible increase. But one thing that is known is that it’s going to get worse, nobody is going to get healed by this.
(FULL INTERVIEW Starts At 39:00)
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Valerie Price: Three Mile Island releases determined to have been thousands of times higher than official story. Body count always gives nuclear liars away.
SOUTHERN STUDIES Investigation: Revelations about Three Mile Island disaster raise doubts over nuclear plant safety.
A special Facing South investigation by Sue Sturgis
It was April Fool’s Day, 1979 — 30 years ago this week — when Randall Thompson first set foot inside the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. Just four days earlier, in the early morning hours of March 28, a relatively minor problem in the plant’s Unit 2 reactor sparked a series of mishaps that led to the meltdown of almost half the uranium fuel and uncontrolled releases of radiation into the air and surrounding Susquehanna River.
It was the single worst disaster ever to befall the U.S. nuclear power industry, and Thompson was hired as a health physics technician to go inside the plant and find out how dangerous the situation was. He spent 28 days monitoring radiation releases.
Today, his story about what he witnessed at Three Mile Island is being brought to the public in detail for the first time — and his version of what happened during that time, supported by a growing body of other scientific evidence, contradicts the official U.S. government story that the Three Mile Island accident posed no threat to the public.
“What happened at TMI was a whole lot worse than what has been reported,” Randall Thompson told Facing South. “Hundreds of times worse.”
Thompson and his wife, Joy, a nuclear health physicist who also worked at TMI in the disaster’s aftermath, claim that what they witnessed there was a public health tragedy. The Thompsons also warn that the government’s failure to acknowledge the full scope of the disaster is leading officials to underestimate the risks posed by a new generation of nuclear power plants.
While new reactor construction ground to a halt after the 1979 incident, state leaders and energy executives today are pushing for a nuclear energy revival that’s centered in the South, where 12 of the 17 facilities seeking new reactors are located.
Fundamental to the industry’s case for expansion is the claim that history proves nuclear power is clean and safe — a claim on which the Thompsons and others, bolstered by startling new evidence, are casting doubt.
Randall Thompson could never be accused of being a knee-jerk anti-nuclear alarmist. A veteran of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine program, he is a self-described “nuclear geek” who after finishing military service jumped at the chance to work for commercial nuclear power companies.
He worked for a time at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant south of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania’s York County, but quit the industry six months before the TMI disaster over concerns that nuclear companies were cutting corners for higher profits, with potentially dangerous results. Instead, he began publishing a skateboarding magazine with his wife Joy.
But the moment the Thompsons heard about the TMI incident, they wanted to get inside the plant and see what was happening first-hand. That didn’t prove difficult: Plant operator Metropolitan Edison’s in-house health physics staff fled after the incident began, so responsibility for monitoring radioactive emissions went to a private contractor called Rad Services.
The company immediately hired Randall Thompson to serve as the health physics technician in charge of monitoring radioactive emissions, while Joy Thompson got a job monitoring radiation doses to TMI workers.
“I had other health physicists from around the country calling me saying, ‘Don’t let it melt without me!” Randall Thompson recalls. “It was exciting. Our attitude was, ‘Sure I may get some cancer, but I can find out some cool stuff.'”
What the Thompsons say they found out during their time inside TMI suggests radiation releases from the plant were hundreds if not thousands of times higher than the government and industry have acknowledged — high enough to cause the acute health effects documented in people living near the plant but that have been dismissed by the industry and the government as impossible given official radiation dose estimates.
The Thompsons tried to draw attention to their findings and provide health information for people living near the plant, but what they say happened next reads like a John Grisham thriller.
They tell of how a stranger approached Randall Thompson in a grocery store parking lot in late April 1979 and warned him his life was at risk, leading the family to flee Pennsylvania. How they ended up in New Mexico working on a book about their experiences with the help of Joy’s brother Charles Busey, another nuclear Navy vet and a former worker at the Hatch nuclear power plant in Georgia. How one evening while driving home from the store Busey and Randall Thompson were run off the road, injuring Thompson and killing Busey. How a copy of the book manuscript they were working on was missing from the car’s trunk after the accident. These allegations were detailed in several newspaper accounts back in 1981.
Eventually, after a decade of having their lives ruled by TMI, the Thompsons decided to move on. Randall Thompson went to college to study computer science. Joy Thompson returned to publishing and writing.
Today they live quietly in the mountains of North Carolina where, inspired by time spent seeking refuge with a traveling circus, they have forged a new career for themselves as clowns — or what they like to call “professional fools.” As Joy Thompson wrote in the fall 2001 issue of Parabola, a journal of myth, the role of the fool is to help people “perceive the foolishness in even … the most powerful institutions,” noting the medieval court jester’s role of telling the King what others dare not.
That conviction has led the Thompsons to tell their story today.
“They haven’t told the truth yet about what happened at Three Mile Island,” says Randall Thompson. “A lot of people have died because of this accident. A lot.”
Anomalies abound
That a lot of people died because of what happened at Three Mile Island, as the Thompsons claim, is definitely not part of the official story. In fact, the commercial nuclear power industry and the government insist that despite the meltdown of almost half of the uranium fuel at TMI, there were only minimal releases of radiation to the environment that harmed no one.
For example, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying group for the U.S. nuclear industry, declares on its website that there have been “no public health or safety consequences from the TMI-2 accident.” The government’s position is the same, reflected in a fact sheet distributed today by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency charged with overseeing the U.S. nuclear power industry: TMI, it says, “led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community.” [The watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert offers their take on the NRC factsheet here.]
Those upbeat claims are based on the findings of the Kemeny Commission, a panel assembled by President Jimmy Carter in April 1979 to investigate the TMI disaster. Using release figures presented by Metropolitan Edison and the NRC, the commission calculated that in the month following the disaster there were releases of up to 13 million curies of so-called “noble gases” — considered relatively harmless — but only 13 to 17 curies of iodine-131, a radioactive form of the element that at even moderate exposures causes thyroid cancer. (A curie is a measure of radioactivity, with 1 curie equal to the activity of one gram of radium. For help understanding these and other terms, see the glossary at the end of this piece.)
But the official story that there were no health impacts from the disaster doesn’t jibe with the experiences of people living near TMI. On the contrary, their stories suggest that area residents actually suffered exposure to levels of radiation high enough to cause acute effects — far more than the industry and the government has acknowledged.
Some of their disturbing experiences were collected in the book Three Mile Island: The People’s Testament, which is based on interviews with 250 area residents done between 1979 and 1988 by Katagiri Mitsuru and Aileen M. Smith.
It includes the story of Jean Trimmer, a farmer who lived in Lisburn, Pa. about 10 miles west of TMI. On the evening of March 30, 1979, Trimmer stepped outside on her front porch to fetch her cat when she was hit with a blast of heat and rain. Soon after, her skin became red and itchy as if badly sunburned, a condition known as erythema. About three weeks later, her hair turned white and began falling out. Not long after, she reported, her left kidney “just dried up and disappeared” — an occurrence so strange that her case was presented to a symposium of doctors at the nearby Hershey Medical Center. All of those symptoms are consistent with high-dose radiation exposure.
There was also Bill Peters, an auto-body shop owner and a former justice of the peace who lived just a few miles west of the plant in Etters, Pa. The day after the disaster, he and his son — who like most area residents were unaware of what was unfolding nearby — were working in their garage with the doors open when they developed what they first thought was a bad sunburn. They also experienced burning in their throats and tasted what seemed to be metal in the air. That same metallic taste was reported by many local residents and is another symptom of radiation exposure, commonly reported in cancer patients receiving radiation therapy.
Peters soon developed diarrhea and nausea, blisters on his lips and inside his nose, and a burning feeling in his chest. Not long after, he had surgery for a damaged heart valve. When his family evacuated the area a few days later, they left their four-year-old German shepherd in their garage with 200 pounds of dog chow, 50 gallons of water and a mattress. When they returned a week later, they found the dog dead on the mattress, his eyes burnt completely white. His food was untouched, and he had vomited water all over the garage. They also found four of their five cats dead — their eyes also burnt white — and one alive but blinded. Peters later found scores of wild bird carcasses scattered over their property.
Similar stories surfaced in The People of Three Mile Island, a book by documentary photographer Robert Del Tredici. He found local farmers whose cattle and goats died, suffered miscarriages and gave birth to deformed young after the incident; whose chickens developed respiratory problems and died; and whose fruit trees abruptly lost all their leaves. Local residents also collected evidence of deformed plants, some of which were examined by James Gunckel, a botanist and radiation expert with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Rutgers University.
“There were a number of anomalies entirely comparable to those induced by ionizing radiation — stem fasciations, growth stimulation, induction of extra vegetative buds and stem tumors,” he swore in a 1984 affidavit.
Scientists say these kinds of anomalies simply aren’t explained by official radiation release estimates.
Evidence of harm
The evidence that people, animals and plants near TMI were exposed to high levels of radiation in the 1979 disaster is not merely anecdotal. While government studies of the disaster as well as a number of independent researchers assert the incident caused no harm, other surveys and studies have also documented health effects that point to a high likelihood of significant radiation exposures.
In 1984, for example, psychologist Marjorie Aamodt and her engineer husband, Norman — owners of an organic dairy beef farm east of Three Mile Island who got involved in a lawsuit seeking to stop TMI from restarting its Unit 1 reactor — surveyed residents in three hilltop neighborhoods near the plant. Dozens of neighbors reported a metallic taste, nausea, vomiting and hair loss as well as illnesses including cancers, skin and reproductive problems, and collapsed organs — all associated with radiation exposure. Among the 450 people surveyed, there were 19 cancer deaths reported between 1980 and 1984 — more than seven times what would be expected statistically.
That survey came to the attention of the industry-financed TMI Public Health Fund, created in 1981 as part of a settlement for economic losses from the disaster. The fund’s scientific advisors verified the Aamodts’ calculations and launched a more comprehensive study of TMI-related cancer deaths led by a team of scientists from Columbia University. The researchers found an association between estimated radiation doses received by area residents and instances of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, lung cancer, leukemia and all cancers combined. Crucially, however, the researchers decided there wasn’t “convincing evidence” that TMI radiation releases were linked to the increase in cancers in the area because of the “low estimates of radiation exposure.” The paper did not consider what conclusions could be drawn if those “low estimates” turned out to be wrong.
By the time the Columbia research was published in the early 1990s, a class-action lawsuit was underway involving about 2,000 plaintiffs claiming that the radiation emissions were much larger than admitted by the government and industry. (The federal courts eventually rejected that suit, though hundreds of out-of-court settlements totaling millions of dollars have been reached with victims, including the parents of children born with birth defects.)
Consulting for the plaintiffs’ attorneys, the Aamodts contacted Dr. Steven Wing, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health in Chapel Hill to provide support for the plaintiffs. Dr. Wing was reluctant to get involved because — as he wrote in a 2003 paper about his experience — “allegations of high radiation doses at TMI were considered by mainstream radiation scientists to be a product of radiation phobia or efforts to extort money from a blameless industry.” But impressed with the Aamodts’ compelling if imperfect evidence, Wing agreed to look at whether there were connections between radiation exposure from TMI and cancer rates.
Wing reanalyzed the Columbia scientists’ data, looking at cancer rates before the TMI disaster to control for other possible risk factors in the 10-mile area. His peer-reviewed results, published in 1997, found positive relationships between accident dose estimates and rates of leukemia, lung cancer and all cancers. Where the Columbia study found a 30 percent average increase in lung cancer risk among one group of residents, for example, Wing found an 85 percent increase. And while the Columbia researchers found little or no increase in adult leukemias and a statistically unreliable increase in childhood cases, Wing found that people downwind during the most intense releases were eight to 10 times more likely on average than their neighbors to develop leukemia.
Dr. Wing reflected on his findings at a symposium in Harrisburg marking the 30-year anniversary of the Three Mile Island disaster last week.
“I believe this is very good evidence that releases were thousands of times greater than the story we’ve been told,” he said. “As we think about the current plans to open more nuclear reactors, when we hear — which we hear often — that no one was harmed at Three Mile Island, we really should question that.”
Documenting discrepancies
Randall and Joy Thompson couldn’t agree more. If anything, they think Dr. Wing’s findings understate the impact of Three Mile Island because they’re based on low-ball estimates of radiation releases.
“Given what he was allowed to know or could figure out, he did a slam-bang job of it,” Joy Thompson says.
In 1995, the Thompsons — with the help of another health physics expert who was also hired to monitor radiation after the TMI disaster, David Bear (formerly Bloombaum) – prepared a report analyzing the Kemeny Commission findings. Their research, which hasn’t been covered by any major media, documents a series of inconsistencies and omissions in the government’s account.
For example, the official story is that the TMI incident released only 13 to 17 curies of dangerous iodine into the outside environment, a tiny fraction of the 13 million curies of less dangerous radioactive gases officials say were released, primarily xenon. Such a number would seem small compared with, for example, the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl, which released anywhere from 13 million to 40 million curies of iodine and is linked to 50,000 cases of thyroid cancer, according to World Health Organization estimates.
But the Thompsons and Bear point out that the commission’s own Technical Assessment Task Force, in a separate volume, had concluded that iodine accounted for 8 to 12 percent of the total radioactive gases leaked from Three Mile Island. Conservatively assuming the 13 million curie figure was the total amount of radioactive gases released rather than just the xenon portion, and then using the Task Force’s own 8 to 12 percent estimate of the proportion that was iodine, they point out that “the actual figure for Iodine release would be over 1 million curies” — a much more substantial public health threat.
In another instance, the Kemeny Commission claimed that there were 7.5 million curies of iodine present in TMI’s primary loop, the contained system that delivers cooling water to the reactor. But a laboratory analysis done on March 30 found a higher concentration of iodine in the reactor water, which would put the total amount of iodine present — and which could potentially leak into the environment — at 7.65 million curies.
“Thus, while the apparent difference between 7.5 and 7.65 seems inconsiderable at first glance,” the Thompson/Bear report states, “this convenient rounding off served to ‘lose’ a hundred and fifty thousand curies of radioactive Iodine.”
They also offer evidence of atmospheric releases of dangerously long-lived radioactive particles such as cesium and strontium — releases denied by the Kemeny Commission but indicated in the Thompsons’ own post-disaster monitoring and detailed in the report — and show that there were pathways for the radiation to escape into the environment. They demonstrate that the plant’s radiation filtration system was totally inadequate to handle the large amounts of radiation released from the melted fuel and suggest that the commission may have arbitrarily set release estimates at levels low enough to make the filtration appear adequate.
Shockingly, they also report that when readings from the dosimeters used to monitor radiation doses to workers and the public were logged, doses of beta radiation — one of three basic types along with alpha and gamma — were simply not recorded, which Joy Thompson knew since she did the recording. But Thompson’s monitoring equipment also indicated that beta radiation represented about 90 percent of the radiation to which TMI’s neighbors were exposed in April 1979, which means an enormous part of the disaster’s public health risk may have been wiped from the record.
Finally, in a separate analysis the Thompsons point to discrepancies in government and industry accounts of the disaster that suggest the TMI Unit 2 suffered a scram failure — that is, a breakdown of the emergency shutoff system. That would mean the nuclear reaction spiraled out of control and therefore posed a much greater danger than the official story allows.
The Thompsons aren’t the only ones who have produced evidence that the radiation releases from TMI were much higher than the official estimates. Arnie Gundersen — a nuclear engineer and former nuclear industry executive turned whistle-blower — has done his own analysis, which he shared for the first time at a symposium in Harrisburg last week.
“I think the numbers on the NRC’s website are off by a factor of 100 to 1,000,” he said.
Exactly how much radiation was released is impossible to say, since onsite monitors immediately went off the scale after the explosion. But Gundersen points to an inside report by an NRC manager who himself estimated the release of about 36 million curies — almost three times as much as the NRC’s official estimate. Gundersen also notes that industry itself has acknowledged there was a total of 10 billion curies of radiation inside the reactor containment. Using the common estimate that a tenth of it escaped, that means as much as a billion curies could have been released to the environment.
Gundersen also offered compelling evidence based on pressure monitoring data from the plant that shortly before 2 p.m. on March 28, 1979 there was a hydrogen explosion inside the TMI containment building that could have released significant amounts of radiation to the environment. The NRC and industry to this day deny there was an explosion, instead referring to what happened as a “hydrogen burn.” But Gundersen noted that affidavits from four reactor operators confirm that the plant manager was aware of a dramatic pressure spike after which the internal pressure dropped to outside pressure; he also noted that the control room shook and doors were blown off hinges. In addition, Gundersen reported that while Metropolitan Edison would have known about the pressure spike immediately from monitoring equipment, it didn’t notify the NRC about what had happened until two days later.
Gundersen maintains under the NRC’s own rules an evacuation should have been ordered on the disaster’s first day, when calculated radiation exposures in the town of Goldsboro, Pa. were as high as 10 rems an hour compared to an average cumulative annual background dose of about 0.125 rems. No evacuation order was ever issued, though Gov. Dick Thornburgh did issue an evacuation advisory on March 30 for pregnant women and preschool children within 5 miles of the plant. The government also did not distribute potassium iodide to the public, which would have protected people from the health-damaging effects of radioactive iodine.
Lessons for the future?
When asked by Facing South to respond to these allegations, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not address them directly, instead stating that it continues to stand by the Kemeny Commission report. The NRC further insists that the radiation releases from Three Mile Island had only “negligible effects” on the physical health of humans and the environment, citing other reports from federal agencies [For a PDF of the NRC’s response to Facing South, see here.]
But Gundersen and the Thompsons argue such claims don’t address new findings at odds with the government’s account.
“I believe [the] data shows releases from TMI were significantly greater than reported by the federal government,” Gundersen says.
They also say their findings that releases were potentially much larger have important ramifications for current plans to expand the nuclear power industry.
With more than $18 billion in federal subsidies at stake, 17 companies are seeking federal licenses to build a total of 26 nuclear reactors across the country, the first applications since the 1979 disaster. The Atlanta-based Southern Co. plans to begin site work this summer for two new reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia, where state lawmakers recently approved legislation forcing ratepayers to foot the bill for those facilities up front. Florida and South Carolina residents have also begun paying new utility charges to finance planned reactors, USA Today reports. Plans are in the works as well for new reactors in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
Harold Denton, a retired NRC official who worked in Three Mile Island during the crisis, recently told Greenwire that changes made after the 1979 disaster “significantly reduced the overall risks of a future serious accident.” But the Thompsons and Gundersen point out that the standards the NRC is applying to the new generation of nuclear plants are influenced by assumptions about what happened at Three Mile Island. They say the NRC’s low estimates of radiation exposure have resulted in inadequate requirements for safety and containment protocols as well as the size of the evacuation zones around nuclear plants.
Other nuclear watchdogs have also raised concerns that the NRC’s standards for protection against severe accidents like TMI remain inadequate. In a December 2007 report titled “Nuclear Power in a Warming World,” the Union of Concerned Scientists notes that the worst accident the current generation of reactors was designed to withstand involves only partial melting of the reactor core but no breach of containment. And the NRC requires operators of plants found to be vulnerable to severe accidents to fix the problem “only if a cost-benefit analysis shows that the financial benefit of a safety backfit – determined by assigning a dollar value to the number of projected cancer deaths that would result from a severe accident – outweighs the cost of fixing the problem,” the report states.
Given their personal experiences, the Thompsons warn that we may be fooling ourselves into believing nuclear power is safer than evidence and history suggest.
“Once you realize how deep and broad the realignment of facts about TMI has been, it becomes really pretty amazing,” Randall Thompson says. “I guess that’s what it takes to protect this industry.”
(Images from top: Photo of President Jimmy Carter leaving Three Mile Island for Middletown, Pa. on April 1, 1979 from the National Archives and Records Administration; photo of Randall Thompson swallowing fire by William Mosher; map showing increases in cancer rates in the TMI area after the disaster courtesy of Dr. Steve Wing; graph showing dramatic spike in pressure inside the TMI containment on March 28, 1979 courtesy of Arnie Gundersen.)
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NUKE-SPEAK: Glossary of terms used in this story
- Cesium
- an element occurring naturally in rocks, soil and dust. The breakdown of uranium fuel in nuclear reactors produces radioactive forms including cesium-134 and cesium-137, exposure to which can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding and death.
- curie
- a measure of radioactivity, with 1 curie equal to the activity of one gram of radium.
- Erythema
- redness of the skin due to capillary congestion, it can be caused by radiation exposure.
- Iodine-131
- a radioactive element produced in nuclear reactors. Absorbed into the body, it accumulates in the thyroid gland, which controls metabolism, and can cause cancer and other diseases.
- Kemeny Commission
- a panel created in April 1979 by President Jimmy Carter to investigate the Three Mile Island disaster. It was chaired by John G. Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College, and released its final report on Oct. 31, 1979.
- Noble gases
- a group of chemical elements that occur in nature in a number of isotopes, some of which are unstable and emit radiation.
- Nuclear fission
- the splitting of an atom accompanied by the release of energy. In a nuclear reactor, the fission energy is converted to heat used to generate electricity via steam turbines.
- Nuclear meltdown
- a severe nuclear reactor problem that occurs when there is a loss of control over the reactor core, causing the radioactive fuel to melt and release highly radioactive and other toxic elements.
- Nuclear reactor core
- the part of a nuclear reactor containing the nuclear fuel; it is where nuclear reactions take place.
- Radiation, ionizing
- subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves energetic enough to detach electrons from atoms or molecules. It includes alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays.
- Radiation poisoning or sickness
- damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. Acute symptoms include erythema, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss and internal bleeding.
- Radium
- an extremely radioactive chemical element that was at one time used in self-luminous paints for watch dials, leading to radiation-related illnesses in dial painters.
- Rem
- an acronym that stands for “roentgen equivalent in man,” this is a unit for measuring absorbed doses of radiation equivalent to one roentgen of X-rays or gamma rays.
- Roentgen
- a unit of measurement for ionizing radiation.
- Scram
- an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor, also referred to as a “trip,” achieved by inserting neutron-absorbing control rods into the reactor core.
- Strontium
- a highly reactive chemical element whose radioactive isotope, strontium-90, is produced by nuclear fission. It takes the place of calcium in bones and can lead to bone disorders including cancer.
- Three Mile Island Units 1 and 2
- the two reactors at the commercial nuclear power plant located south of Harrisburg, Pa. on an island in the Susquehanna River. TMI-2 suffered a partial meltdown on March 28, 1979 and is no longer in operation. Originally built by General Public Utilities Corp. and operated by Metropolitan Edison, TMI-1 is now operated by Chicago-based Exelon while Unit 2 is owned by Met-Ed.
- Uranium
- a radioactive element used by fuel in nuclear reactors.
Plutonium from New Mexico Nuclear Accident ~ Worst Case Scenario Most Likely
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Commentary by | Valerie Price
The situation at WIPP is untenable. The public has not been informed as to whether the WIPP breach is ongoing or where the two announced plumes have traveled. No warnings have been issued. No officials at the DOE are willing to communicate.
The recently released results of air filter analysis from the area around the WIPP have revealed astronomical numbers, but without context, the public may mislead themselves to believe the release is small. The announced results are incomprehensibly large and many people remain downwind of the site, waiting for warnings that will NEVER be issued, even if warnings could save lives.
The situation with nuclear power, waste, and weapons has never been acceptable but since Ernest Moniz was named Energy Secretary, the nuclear industry has deteriorated to buffoonery! Transparency is needed immediately and the public MUST be informed in order for people to make decisions with full awareness of the scale and scope of what is now known to be a disaster.
Reprinted From | ENENews
Most likely a ‘worst-case scenario’ at WIPP — NPR: ‘Huge chunk’ of salt believed to have crushed drums of radioactive waste — ABC: “Investigators now admit problem is serious” — NYT: Plutonium, americium can bombard organs “for rest of a person’s lifetime”.
Published: February 28th, 2014 at 6:14 pm ET By ENENews
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ABC, Feb 28, 2014: New concerns now about a story we brought you yesterday. Investigators now admit that the problem is serious. A container of radioactive waste leaked underground at the WIPP, and they admit it’s too soon to tell how dangerous it could be for those exposed.
NPR, Feb. 28, 2014 (emphasis added): CAPTION: A piece of salt is believed to have fallen from a cavern ceiling and crushed drums of waste; the most likely scenario is that a huge chunk of salt fell from the ceiling and ruptured a drum or multiple drums of waste.
AP, Feb. 28, 2014: Government officials, politicians, and the contractors emphasize that all the safety systems designed to react to worst-case scenarios like a ceiling collapse worked.
NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel, Feb. 28, 2014: Nobody knows exactly what happened. That’s one of the strange things about this – the speculation I’ve been hearing is that a chunk of salt, probably, fell off the ceiling and struck a drum or drums and ruptured it. Oh, I think it’s very unlikely there is risk to the public. They are following these workers quite closely to see how this radioactivity clears their system. Clearly something’s gone wrong. Unfortunately, nobody can go underground to find out what’s happened.
New York Times, Feb. 28, 2014: The workers inhaled plutonium and americium, which if lodged in the body bombards internal organs with subatomic particles for the rest of the person’s lifetime.
Wall St. Journal, Feb. 28, 2014: Plutonium and americium particles can lodge into bones or muscle tissue, affecting cellular structures and DNA, experts say. “When it gets into your body it can do a lot of damage,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. “Even very small amounts are a potential concern.” “Absolutely people are concerned,” said Tony Hernandez, a commissioner in Eddy County.
Al Jazeera America, Feb. 28, 2014: Arnie Gundersen said the DOE’s tight lips might be a sign that the leak is bigger than originally thought. “There are signs they’re playing keep-away with data,” he said. “We need to know what they measured for. They’re only giving us half the numbers” Gundersen said officials are likely conducting a slew of tests that they are not disclosing to the public. He said the fact that radiation is being detected 3,000 feet away from the site suggests the leak is large.
CEMRC Ambient Air Sampling Results (pdf), Feb. 27, 2014: 11.8 Miles SE of WIPP Exhaust Shaft — Am241 *Sample Being Reanalyzed
Watch the ABC News broadcast here
We Are Running Out of Time ~ Are You Ready For What is Coming?
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Alert Courtesy Of | Forest Sandifer
For Years I Have Posted Subject Material Pertaining To Matters Of Significant Interest, Specifically Fukushima And The Effects Of What Is To Come. Much To My Dismay, This Has Generated Little Interest And Only With A Select Group Of Concerned People Around The Globe. I Cannot Stress Any Further, The Need For People To Rise From Their Ignorant Slumber And Put Away The Dis-informative Sources Of Televised News Regarding The Radiological Damage Which Will Occur In The United States.
The Madness Of Denial Needs To End. Transparency Needs To Happen So That An Informed Public Is A Prepared Union. Time Is Running Out. Why Is This Such A Difficult Concept To Grasp?
What More Do You People Need In Order To Wake Up To The Finality Of Reason Which Is Before Your Very Lives?
Your Food Is Poisoned, Your Water Is Now Tainted By Fallout, The Air You Breath Is No Longer Safe, Your Government Leaders Are Complaisant With Corporate Energy Interests (Money & Power).
We Live In Dangerous Times Of Servitude With An Ever Growing Government Reaching Dictatorial Powers, That Is Stripping The Very Fabric Of Your Freedoms. The Constitution Of The United States. Is There No End To What They Are Doing, That Which Will Grab Your Attention In Order To Finally Say, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”
It Has Been Nearly 3 Years Come 3/11/14 Since The Fukushima Incident Happened, And Still No Media Coverage To Speak Of Has Happened On National TV. Aren’t You In The Least Bit Curious As To Why? Have You People Lost Your Sense Of Reality So Much That You Have Forgot What Happened In Chernobyl Russia?
I For One Being A Researcher Of 20 Years Have Not Forgot. Fact Is, I Have Branched My Interests From A-Z Since 9/11 Happened. The Symbols Of Dates Alone, Should Be Your Biggest Clue In Seeing A Pattern Of Something Being Terribly Wrong.
Look Around Your Cities That You Live In. What Is More Prosperous In Business? Now Take A Look At What I See. (The Medical Professions.) If You Live In A Big City, Just Look At How Many Cancer Treatment Centers Are Being Built. Have You Noticed?
If You Are Young, Do Not Think That You Are Immune To The Effects Of Radiation. That Wonderful Fish Dinner You Had Not So Long Ago, May Well Be Your Demise In Disguise Having Cesium In It; And If You Are So Fool Hardy To Believe The Government, Or Worse Yet, President Obama, That Pacific Seafood Is Safe To Eat, You Are Trusting Your Life With Indeed A Fool’s Opinion.
To Fully Understand The Scope Of This Equation, One Needs To Understand The Food Chain. The Damage Will Affect The Tiny Creatures First. The Bugs, & The Bees. Ect Ect.) The Birds Will Be One Of The 1st Casualties Of This Undeclared War, As They Eat The Bugs And Remains Of Other Animals. My Expectations Are The Gulls 1st As They Are Closest To The Sea. Secondly, The Inland Birds.
The Rains And Snow Are Contaminated. There’s No Getting Around The Proof Of Its Existence.
Many People Live In Valleys. The Snow Melts Into Rivers Which In Turn Feed Wild Game In The Mountains, Then The Farms & Ranches Below.
The Dairy Industry Will Be Heavily Impacted. Farms Having Livestock And Vegetables, As Well As Orchards Having Fruits. Drinking Water Will Be Traded Like Gold.
Radiological Contamination Doesn’t Discriminate.
All They Care About Is Business In Washington DC. The Seafood Industry Is About To Crash, And They Know It Well. Fact Is, They Are Desperate To Keep This Entire Catastrophe Quiet Till It Cannot Be Kept Quiet Any Longer. By That Time, Panic In The Streets Will Be Taking Place. People Will Be Sick, Dying, And Pleading For Medical Care; But Don’t Worry, Obama Has A Medical Care System Just For You And Your Families If You Can Afford It.
If That’s Not Bad Enough To Rock Your Stable World, Then Read On.
I Have More.
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Food Prices Will Go Up Very High.
Real Estate Will Drop Again.
Gas Prices Will Go Through The Roof.
The DHS Has Armed Itself To The Teeth, Ready For A Full Scale War.
Why Do You Think That Your Second Amendment Is Under Attack And Ready To Be Stripped.
They Just Passed A Law Allowing Police To Enter Your Home Without A Warrant.
Is This Getting Real Enough For You?
Returning Veterans Are Under Fire Of Losing Their Right To Bear Arms.
The Government Is Using A Claus That Says They Might Have “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”; And Since That Worked So Well, They Have Extended It To The Civilian Population. It’s Proving Quite Useful For Their Purposes In Disarming Civilians Of Their 2nd Amendment Right.
Don’t Believe Me? Look Up Penalty For Terrorist Threats. That Includes, Allegations Of Never Having Made A Threat. This Also May Or Will Come Under The Domestic Violence Cases As Well.
You Go To Jail, You Lose Your Gun, You Get A Federal Record And Play Hell Never To Get Your Gun Back If The Charges Are Dismissed By The District Attorney. In Essence, You’re Defenseless, And Probably A Lot Broker Than You Were Prior To Going To Jail.
Reference For California Code Here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=422-422.4
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Now, If You Have Any Vision To A Mass Populous Being Disbanded, You’ll See What’s Coming Next.
REBELLION
There Will Come Groups Gathering In Secret, Not Only Hide Their Guns, But To Take Action By Forming Militias. Then It Gets Nasty.
When The DHS Decides To Make Their Move, The Streets Will Turn To Blood. Towns And Cities Will Be Locked Down, Eventually Locking Down States. Any Exodus Leaving A State To Another Will Not Be Permitted. Additionally, Any One Attempting To Do So, May Be Shot For Going Against The Order. Leaving The United States May Not Be Possible Either, As Passports Will Be Denied On A Federal Level.
But That’s Just My Vision. Comments Are Invited
Thank You For Reading If You Made It This Far.
You May Also Share This If You Wish.
Best Regards, And Good Luck.
Forest Sandifer.
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Tepco Workers Damaged Cable ~ Spent Fuel Cooling Stopped
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Per | Valerie Price
Cooling system electric component damaged at Fukushima Reactor 4 fuel pool. No report of restart or resumption of fuel removal. It was only supposed to take 2 hours.
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Background | Shanghai-Daily
TOKYO, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) — Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) operator of the stricken Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture said Tuesday cooling operations were stopped at its No. 4 reactor unit’s spent fuel pool, due to workers damaging an electrical cable.
TEPCO in a statement said that workers who were drilling at the time damaged the cable while they were drilling near electrical equipment, causing an alert and the shut down of cooling at the No. 4 spent fuel pool as well as the halting of an ongoing operation to remove hundreds of spend nuclear fuel rods from the spent pool.
The beleaguered utility said that the resumption of operations to start cooling operations would take approximately two hours and that the temperature of the water was unlikely to rise to levels deemed dangerous.
TEPCO was first made aware of the incident at around 9:40 a.m. this morning and the utility said the cooling system shut down approximately five minutes later.
The operator of the plant, which saw multiple meltdowns following a massive earthquake-triggered tsunami knocking out the plant’s vital cooling systems in March 2011, sparking the worst nuclear accident since Chernoybyl in 1986, also said Tuesday a fire was triggered by the damage to the cable, although workers were able to extinguish this, the utility said.
Since the initial meltdowns, TEPCO has been beset with a myriad of problems, the latest of which saw the utility on Feb. 13. state that samples of water it tested contained radioactive cesium at levels”never seen before”by the embattled utility.
TEPCO said there was a new leak at the site of a well located just 50 meters from the adjacent Pacific Ocean and confirmed that the levels of cesium found in its groundwater samples were as high as 54,000 becquerels per liter of cesium 137 and 22,000 becquerels per liter of cesium 134.
The levels of cesium detected were 600 times higher that the government regulation for contaminated wastewater allowed to be released into the ocean, with the samples testing 30,000 times higher for cesium 137, compared to samples taken just a week earlier.
The utility has failed to locate the source of the leak, in another major failing of TEPCO to contain the ongoing nuclear crisis.
The Japanese government on Jan. 15 injected 4 trillion yen (38. 3 billion U.S. dollars) in additional state backing to help the ailing utility deal with a string of mishaps at its facilities as it works towards decommissioning its stricken, yet volatile reactors.
Despite the injection of fresh capital, TEPCO is still eying dumping toxic water into the Pacific Ocean as it fails to contain in makeshift storage tanks — the source of a number of previous leaks — a massive daily influx of water needed to cool the battered reactors, while nuclear experts believe that other methods need to be traversed before contaminating the ocean.
Dumping radioactive water into the ocean is of grave concern to local fisheries cooperatives as the potential for radioactive materials to spread to marine life remains a distinct possibility, despite TEPCO’s assurances the levels of radioactivity will be kept well below the government’s and regulator’s limits.
The overall decommissioning of the plant is expected to take around 40 years, with the removal of all nuclear fuel from the No. 4 reactor building being completed by the end of this year, however, TEPCO said it had only successfully removed around 9 percent of more than 1,500 unused and spent fuel assemblies in the reactor building’s storage pool.
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911 ~ Cooling System to Reactor 4 has Stopped ~ Alarm Sounding
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Thanks to | Valerie Price
Cooling to Reactor 4 fuel pool at Fukushima has stopped! Power to the reactor fuel pool system may be damaged. The cooling system has stopped. Alarm went off in Kyodo. I have been waiting to hear that cooling was restored, but nothing has been announced. They would say it was restored if it were operational.
Background | ENE News
NHK, Feb. 24, 2014 at 9:39p ET: Fukushima No.4 reactor pool’s cooling fan halts — The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says a cooling fan for the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor has stopped working. [Tepco] announced on Tuesday that a warning alarm for an electrical problem went off it will switch to the second one and cooling should resume by around 1 PM. A nearby electrical cable may have been damaged in excavation work.
Kyodo News, Feb. 25, 2014: (Translation) Spent fuel cooling system stops at Fukushima No. 4 reactor — Fukushima 4 reactor spent fuel pool cooling stops, the leakage warning sounded in the nuclear power facility.
Tepco, Feb. 25, 2014: (Translation) Cooling systems at Fukushima Unit 4 spent fuel pool now offline around 9:00 am, in road excavation between the Process Main Building and incineration building, hurt the cable no abnormality in the voltage value of the power plant, and has continued the supply of power
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Click HERE for VIDEO
New Mexico Admits Nuclear Plant Leaking Plutonium
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Published on Feb 24, 2014
Federal officials confirmed a local nuclear plant in southern New Mexico is leaking waste and releasing radiation into the surrounding area. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad was leaking for days before state officials were notified.
While health officials insist there is no risk to the public, it could take weeks before crews can reach the leak to figure out how it happened. The plant is the first underground nuclear repository in the US.
In the meantime, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster is back in the news: The country is planning to lift part of the nearly three-year-old evacuation order around the damaged nuclear plant, even as a new radioactive leak was discovered there.
RT’s Meghan Lopez discusses all things nuclear with Paul Gunter, director of Beyond Nuclear’s Reactor Oversight Project.
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Plutonium Release ~ W.I.P.P. ~ Obama Says Take Immediate Action
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On Feb. 5, a salt truck caught fire at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which is located in southeastern New Mexico, 26 miles east of Carlsbad. No radioactive release was reported on that day.
On Feb. 12, an alarm sounded, indicating high levels of alpha and beta radiation underground. This is consistent with the nature of the nuclear waste stored in the repository. Workers were evacuated. CEMRC (Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring & Research Center) reported that they found 0.64 Bq of Americium 241 & 0.092 Bq of Plutonium 239+240 in the air filter 1/2 mi away from WIPP.
This repository started receiving nuclear waste in 1999 and is expected to hold 3.45 million curies of radioactivity after it is filled in 20 years or so.
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Click HERE for daily updates on this Serious Situation at the Nuclear Waste Facility in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
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OBAMA’S NUCLEAR COMMISSION ISSUES FINAL REPORT, URGES IMMEDIATE ACTION ON ATOMIC WASTE ~ Forbes
Today President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future issued its final report urging immediate action on a number of fronts to deal with the long-intractable issue of what to do with America’s hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste. According to the official press release from the commission, their final report hews closely to the draft released last year.
For some thoughts on the report and what it implies for the nation, I reached out to Dr. James Conca, senior scientist with the RJ Lee Group in Hanford, Wash. Conca — who worked for many years as a repository scientist on the Department of Energy‘s Yucca Mountain Project, as well as the New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (see my new article Nuke Us: The Town That Wants America’s Worst Atomic Waste) — is intimately knowledgable about the issues involved and the hurdles to be overcome in finding a lasting solution to our atomic legacy. Here’s Conca’s take on the BRC findings:
To some, the perceived inability of the United States to dispose of high-level nuclear waste justifies a moratorium on expansion of nuclear power in this country. I see it more as an example of how science yields to social pressure, even on a subject as technical as nuclear waste. Most of the problems stem from confusion on the part of the public and their elected officials, not from a lack of scientific knowledge. We know where to put nuclear waste, how to put it there, how much it will cost, and how well it will work. And it’s all about the geology.
The Yucca Mountain Project, the nation’s first selected nuclear disposal site, could work as engineered, but the cost would be prohibitive. Something must fill its void. The Blue Ribbon Commission has just released a number of recommendations addressing nuclear energy and waste issues, and three specific recommendations have set the stage for a new strategy to dispose of high-level nuclear waste and to manage spent nuclear fuel in the future. They are:
1. interim storage for spent nuclear fuel,
2. resumption of the site selection process for a second repository, and
3. a quasi-government entity, or FedCorp, to execute the program and take control of the Nuclear Waste Fund in order to do so.
The first recommendation would allow storage of spent fuel from reactor sites either to be used in future reactors or eventually disposed, without needing to retrieve it from deep in the earth.
The second recommendation would allow permanent disposal of actual high level waste that has no value since it is the waste from reprocessing old fuel. This real waste needs to be disposed of promptly. It has cost billions to manage this waste in places that were always meant to be temporary. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act allows this second repository different criteria so other rock formations can return as candidate sites with complimentary features and the whole program can move forward faster.
The third recommendation concerns costs and administration. This quasi-government entity would be focused on this mission alone, concentrating on costs as it will be limited to the Nuclear Waste Fund, and on consensus, seeking agreement from all levels from local to tribal to State to Federal, something stressed by the Blue Ribbon Commission. Since nuclear waste has become a State-rights issue, it is critical that the States most affected, i.e., those that have the problem and those that have a solution, develop an independent multi-state agreement in order for a successful program to move forward. This multi-state compact would then approach the quasi-government entity, then that group would approach the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and if that passes, Federal approval would follow.
These recommendations, along with others from the Blue Ribbon Commission that address energy and research, outline an optimistic path forward for an essential industry that will be a significant part of our energy mix well into the future. Congress and the Administration should support them. From rumblings on the Hill, it sounds like that support will grow on both sides of the aisle.
Then again, politics could stand in the way. Congress will not easily give up control of the Nuclear Waste Fund to this quasi-government entity or FedCorp. And the lawsuits flying around from the industry and the States will muddy the waters. That’s why I stress the States most impacted have to take charge, and I think they will. The FedCorp would then be able to carry it out as a partner and fund it without Congressional appropriations. The key step is the forming the FedCorp and repealing parts of the 1987 amendment to the NWPA. No new laws have to be written, just clarified.
The BRC’s recommendations provide a path forward that everyone can accept where only strife and discord existed before.”
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the viability of these recommendations and whether there’s enough political will to push them through. Also, for a good look at the town that thinks it holds the key to disposing of our nuclear trash, check out my new cover story, Nuke Us: The Town That Wants America’s Worst Atomic Waste, where commission member Sen. Pete Dominici (ret.) shares his thoughts on where the waste should go.
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Blue Gold : World Water Wars
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
Wars Of The Future Will Be Fought Over Water As They Are Over Oil Today, As The Source Of Human Survival Enters The Global Marketplace And Political Arena.
Corporate Giants, Private Investors, And Corrupt Governments Vie For Control Of Our Dwindling Supply, Prompting Protests, Lawsuits, And Revolutions From Citizens Fighting For The Right To Survive.
Past Civilizations Have Collapsed From Poor Water Management. Can The Human Race Survive?
Award-Winning Featured Documentary Narrated By Malcolm McDowell. Global Warming Is An Issue Of ‘How’ We Live, The Water Crisis Is An Issue Of ‘If’ We Live.
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Imagine Seeing This
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Courtesy of | Forest Sandifer
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Somewhere In The Future, “The Place You Must Always Remember to Forget”.
There Will Be A Place Long Forgotten By Generations Passed. Behind The Many Walls And Tunnels, A Labyrinth Of Death Awaits The Discoverer.
It Is The Labyrinth To A Legacy Left By A Civilization Who Tried To Harness The Power Of The Sun For Their Energy And Weapons Usage.
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Documentary on Underground Storage of Nuclear Waste. Outlines the pros and cons of this method of storage for the tons of waste produced by the Nuclear Power Industry. Interesting the most difficult threat to mitigate is the human one.
Labyrinth To A Legacy 