Thread: Nuclear Fallout

Opinion
Nuclear Fallout



EG&G Rocky Flats/Associated Press

1991 aerial view of the Rocky Flats nuclear bomb facility, 16 miles northwest of Denver.
By KRISTEN IVERSEN
Published: March 10, 2012


I GREW up in Arvada, Colo., in the shadow of a nuclear bomb factory, so I read the just-released report on the Fukushima meltdown in Japan with special interest. Coinciding with the first anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the 400-page report details the extensive misinformation supplied to the public by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) in collusion with Japanese officials.
Related


The Japanese government’s failure to warn citizens about radioactive danger put the entire city of Tokyo at health risk — and the rest of us as well. The report, which was written by an independent investigative panel established by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (published March 1 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), bluntly states that the much vaunted “absolute safety” of nuclear power is no more than a “twisted myth.”

The threat from nuclear power plants is twofold: grand scale catastrophe and continuing health problems connected with radioactive contamination in our air, water, soil and food supply — both short-term, high-level contamination and the long-term, low-level kind.

In Japan, radiation was detected in beef, milk, spinach, tea leaves and rice. And more than a dozen cities in the United States tested positive for fallout from Fukushima in their water supplies. Scientists found radiation from Japan in milk from Phoenix to Little Rock, Ark., to Montpelier, Vt. A year later, many questions about Fukushima’s operations remain unanswered.

Tepco may be the latest in a line of the nuclear businesses with a self-imposed mandate to suppress truth. Here in the United States, we have our own tightly held radioactive secrets.

Rocky Flats, the now notorious Colorado bomb factory, produced plutonium “triggers” for nuclear weapons in the United States from 1952 to 1989. There were countless fires, leaks and accidents at Rocky Flats; after decades of weapons production, and little environmental oversight, the area was profoundly contaminated.

During my childhood, none of us knew exactly what the plant actually did; the rumor in the neighborhood was that it made household cleaning products. We knew nothing about the 5,000 tainted barrels that leaked plutonium into the soil. Nor did we know about the two large fires, in 1957 and 1969, that sent radioactive plumes over the Denver metro area. Wind and water carried toxic elements into surrounding neighborhoods, including mine. The public was never warned. Energy Department studies confirm that plutonium, carbon tetrachloride and other radioactive and toxic contaminants routinely escaped from the plant. Although the plant closed more than 20 years ago, a recent study suggests that plutonium may still be migrating into neighboring areas. The connection between Fukushima and Rocky Flats was made explicit when recent soil tests for offsite plutonium at Rocky Flats found cesium — from Fukushima.

I worked at Rocky Flats but didn’t realize what kind of risks the plant posed until a 1994 “Nightline” special informed me I was working next to 14 tons of plutonium, most of it unsafely stored.

One man tried to sound an alarm. Dr. Carl Johnson, Jefferson County health director from 1973 to 1981, directed numerous studies on contamination levels and health risks the plant posed to public health. Based on his conclusions, Dr. Johnson opposed housing development near Rocky Flats. He was fired. Later studies confirmed many of his findings.

The government and private operators of Rocky Flats say that there’s been no harm to local residents and that the plutonium that has escaped from the plant — potentially as much as three tons over nearly four decades — is harmless. It’s no greater than “a pinch of salt and pepper,” Edward Putzier, the health physics manager for Dow Chemical, which used to operate Rocky Flats, told a civic group in 1971 . One difference between salt and pepper and plutonium is that one-millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled or ingested, can cause cancer. Also plutonium, unlike salt or pepper, is invisible.

Rocky Flats was in my backyard, but our collective backyard — from Tokyo to Cincinnati to Denver to Benton County, Wash., home of Hanford, which housed nine nuclear reactors and is now one of the most heavily contaminated places on earth — is under similar threat. Interestingly, in 1991 when Congress approved closure of Fernald, an Ohio uranium processing facility, federal scientists conceded that no one could ever safely live there, and that the site would have to be closely monitored forever. The only absolute is the potential for tragedy.

Yet President Obama supports investment in nuclear energy, including two new nuclear power plants in Georgia. The National Nuclear Security Administration wants to build a new facility to increase trigger production at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico. And in Colorado there’s a big push to build a highway and expand business and residential development on contaminated land. In spite of everything we’ve learned, profit continues to trump safety.

In 1995, the Department of Energy said it would take 50 years and $37 billion to clean up Rocky Flats, and it wasn’t sure the technology existed to do the job. The D.O.E. later awarded a $3.5 billion contract to Kaiser-Hill to clean up the site.

The Energy Department based the standards for the cleanup project on the exposure level of a wildlife refuge worker rather than families and children. Now, despite public opposition, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility is the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Except for the 1,300-acre portion of the site so drenched in plutonium that federal and state officials say it is not safe for human activity.

Rocky Flats is a beautiful area, with great mountain views, and supplies a perfect setting in which to reflect on nuclear safety and other twisted mythologies.

Kristen Iversen is the director of the M.F.A. program at the University of Memphis, and author of the forthcoming “Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/op...t.html?_r=1&hp

How Dangerous Is The Radioactive Wave Headed Toward The US?

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, joins Thom Hartmann. California beware! A radioactive wave is headed toward the West Coast of the United States courtesy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster? So with nuclear power still wreaking havoc on the environment - why are the Japanese about to flip on more of their nuclear reactors?




Before It's News

Natural Solutions Foundation Action eAlert - Saturday, April 28, 2012

Urgent Warning: Fukushima Estimate of Situation
REPORT FROM THE ROAD

We're at our second stop on the Four City Tour. Both here and in San Francisco we've met with extraordinary people who are committed to making a real difference. One main purpose of this tour is to alert the American people about the escalating disaster emanating from the ruins of the Fukushima reactors. To do that General Bert prepared a formal Estimate of Situation and he's recorded that warning as a special, private YouTube video. We are making it available to the readers of the Action eAlert and we are asking you to share this link with all your circles of interest so they can also get the EoS, after they've joined this list! Please watch this private video but DO NOT SHARE IT! Rather, share this link: Protect Your Family from Fukushima's Deadly Radiation - 4 Simple Steps - Home -- this is where people can see a 2 minute invitation from General Bert to join the list and receive access to the EoS!





Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine's Personal Estimate of Situation
Protect Your Family from Fukushima's Deadly Radiation - 4 Simple Steps - Home


Urgent Warning: Fukushima Estimate of Situation - YouTube


Fund for Natural Solutions: Doing Good while Doing Well…

Fukushima still spewing massive radiation plumes; America in 'huge trouble,' says nuclear expert

Tuesday, May 01, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer




1,886 [Share this Article]

(NaturalNews) During a recent Congressional delegation trip to Japan, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden witnessed with his own eyes the horrific aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which we have heard very little about from the media in recent months. The damage situation was apparently so severe, according to his account, that he has now written a letter to Ichiro Fujisaki, Ambassador of Japan, petitioning for more to be done, and offering any additional support and assistance that might help contain and resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

The letter, which many experts see as the ominous writing on the wall for the grave severity of the circumstances, offers a disturbing glimpse into what is really going on across the Pacific Ocean that the mainstream media is apparently ignoring. While referencing the fact that all four of the affected reactors are still "badly damaged," Sen. Wyden seems to hint in his letter that Reactor 4, which has reportedly been on the verge of collapse for many months now, could be nearing catastrophic implosion.

Imminent collapse of Reactor 4 could create a mass extinction event of both humans and animals
According to Christina Consolo, an award-winning biomedical photographer and host of Nuked Radio, Reactor 4 has remained in such bad shape that even a very small earthquake could quickly level the building, sending the fuel from more than 1,500 unused fuel rods into the environment. And with Reactor 4 still filled with the highest levels of radioactive MOX and other fuels, the consequences of this potential collapse could be far worse than anything that has happened thus far as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.

"[S]itting at the top of [Reactor 4], in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods (give or take a few), some of them 'fresh fuel' that was ready to go into the reactor on the morning of March 11 when the earthquake and tsunami hit," writes Consolo. "If they are MOX fuel, containing six percent plutonium, one fuel rod has the potential to kill 2.89 billion people."

Sen. Wyden is also asking U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko to assess how much additional assistance their agencies might be willing to provide to help Japan, and the entire world, avoid a nuclear catastrophe of Biblical proportions.

"The scope of damage to the plants and to the surrounding area was far beyond what I expected and the scope of the challenges to the utility owner, the government of Japan, and to the people of the region are daunting," wrote Sen. Wyden in his letter, dated April 16, 2012. "The precarious status of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear units and the risk presented by the enormous inventory of radioactive materials and spent fuel in the event of further earthquake threats should be of concern to all and a focus of greater international support and assistance."

Sources for this article include:

Home | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden

ENENews.com – Energy News

End the Lie – Independent News | Alternative News Daily

Learn more: Fukushima still spewing massive radiation plumes; America in 'huge trouble,' says nuclear expert

Fukushima still spewing massive radiation plumes; America in 'huge trouble,' says nuclear expert