Thread: WHY IS'NT MSM REPORTING ON THE escalating DANGERS of Radiation, UPDATED

NBC: US officials “hid concerns… as Fukushima melted’ — CIA told nuclear regulator that blast was hydrogen, experts then noted “no evidence to support” this theory

Published: March 11th, 2014 at 11:11 am ET By ENENews

NBC News, Mar. 10, 2014: ‘U.S. Nuclear Agency Hid Concerns, Hailed Safety Record as Fukushima Melted‘

• The NRC spokespeople sometimes had trouble following the public debate, because for days their computers were blocked by security rules from accessing Twitter and YouTube.
• [David McIntyre, Mar. 12, 2011:] Just saw an incoherent discussion on cnn by Bill Nye the science guy who apparently knows zilcho about reactors and an idiot weatherman who said Hydrogen explosion? Pfft. I’m not buying it.
• His boss sent back the following reply, correcting the staffer and explaining plans to ask the Obama administration to help blunt critical news coverage.
• [Eliot Brenner, Mar. 12, 2011:] There is a good chance it was a hydrogen explosion that took the roof off that building, though we are not saying that publicly. [...] I have just reached out to CNN and asked them to call (former NRC Chairman Nils) Diaz, and reached out to push the white house yet again to start talking on background or getting out in front of some of this crap.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (pdf): Unit 1 explosion [...] CIA suggested hydrogen explosion, no evidence to support.
See also: Fukushima Boss after 3/11: "It's awful, awful... No. 3 reactor just blew, probably a steam explosion" -- Steam explosion, not hydrogen? Reactor blew up, not reactor building? (VIDEO)

http://enenews.com/nbc-news-official...nce-to-support

Anyone living near a reactor might want this information.

Study: Nuclear Reactors Are Toxic to Surrounding Areas, Especially With Age

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2.

Study: Nuclear Reactors Are Toxic to Surrounding Areas, Especially With Age

Tuesday, 11 March 2014
By Candice Bernd, Truthout

A study released tlast week shows that public health in the communities surrounding California's Diablo Canyon power plant in San Luis Obispo County declined dramatically after the plant was built. The findings also document the presence of Strontium-90 in baby teeth.


Is the baby tooth under your child's pillow radioactive? It could be if you live relatively close to a nuclear power plant that has been operating normally and in accordance with federal regulations, according to a new study.


The study, released last week by the Santa Barbara-based think tank World Business Academy for its Safe Energy Project, found that public health indicators such as infant mortality rates and cancer incidence in surrounding areas rose dramatically after Pacific Gas and Electric's (PG&E) two nuclear reactors at the Diablo Canyon power plant began operations in 1984 and 1985.


"This should be a concern for any nuclear reactor and its health risks, whether it's been operating for a day or 30 or 40 years because these reactors create over 100 cancer-causing chemicals; much of it is stored as waste at the plant, but a portion of it is released into the environment and gets into human bodies through the food chain," said Joseph Mangano, who authored the study. He is the executive director of the nonprofit Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP).


The findings also document the presence of the radioactive isotope Strontium-90 in baby teeth, showing that the Strontium-90 levels in 50 baby teeth collected mostly from San Luis Obispo County, but also from Santa Barbara County, which is downwind from the Diablo Canyon plant, was 30.8 percent higher than the levels found in the 88 baby teeth from the rest of the state.


The isotope displays some biological similarity to the way calcium behaves in the body because of the way it becomes absorbed and deposited in bones and bone marrow. The effects of Strontium-90 on the human body are not completely understood, according to medical professionals, but it has been linked to bone cancer and leukemia.


The Academy study cites previous research conducted from 1996 to 2006 by RPHP, which remains the only analysis of radioactivity levels within the bodies of Americans who live close to nuclear reactors. RPHP tested about 5,000 baby teeth and found aconsistent elevation levels of Strontium-90 in the teeth of children born in counties closest to nuclear reactors and a consistent rise in these levels over time.


In California, the average Strontium-90 level found in baby teeth has risen with time, increasing 50.2 percent for children born in 1994-97 from the levels found in children born in 1986-89. After the halt of above-ground atom bomb testing in 1963, the average Strontium-90 levels fell, but they began to rise again in the 1980s and '90s. And according to the Academy study, there is only one source of this isotope not found in nature: the federally-permitted radioactive emissions from all operating US reactors, including the Diablo Canyon plant.


The Academy study's other key findings include that the infant mortality and child/adolescent mortality rates in San Luis Obispo County, which were far below California's average rates before the plant began operations, have nearly closed the gap with the state's average. Moreover, the county's overall cancer rate, which was previously below the state's average, is now much greater than the California average. In fact, San Luis Obispo County has the highest rate of cancer incidence of the state's 20 most southern counties,according to the study, and these rising cancer incidences include statistically significant increases in thyroid and breast cancers, which are particularly radiosensitive.


"Permissible" Limits

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows what it calls "permissible" limits of radioactive emissions from nuclear reactors as well as radioactive concentrations in the surrounding environment, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires all reactor operators to submit detailed annual reports on the types of radioactive emissions released and their concentrations. But many scientists and medical experts agree there is no safe concentration of radiation, no matter how small, especially for children and other vulnerable demographic populations.


"Every single exposure to radiation carries some level of harm. It's like saying if you smoke four cigarettes a day, that's relatively low so we're going to call it permissible, we're going to call that safe," Mangano told Truthout. "Well, cigarettes are cigarettes," he said.


Mangano has authored 32 peer-reviewed medical journal articles on the topic of radiation and public health impacts. He notes that the nuclear industry, regulators, government health agencies and academics have all neglected to produce studies demonstrating the safety of nuclear plants, so there is no evidentiary basis for what is "permissible."


"[Regulators] just set these permissible limits, measure them, say 'yes, we're below permissible so we're good.' ... As a health researcher, I think that's irresponsible to do, and I think it's misleading to the public because these are not your ordinary chemicals," he said.


Mangano believes his work is just the beginning. He hopes other researchers will follow up by studying potential health impacts on surrounding communities in more depth. Other medical experts agree that his study is enough to warrant this additional work.


Dr. Stephen Hosea, who is associate director of internal medicine education at the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara told Truthout he believes the study has strong epidemiological merits in that it analyzes patterns of changing health and disease conditions and identifies risk factors in defined populations.


"Any time you look at a study you want to ask if it makes sense with other things that we know, and we certainly know that exposure to radiation can cause birth defects and problems with the fetus and neonates," Dr. Hosea said. "It also is well-known to cause cancer as well. So it certainly makes sense from that standpoint."


The Academy commissioned the study in the hope it will prompt the replacement of California's last nuclear energy source with renewable energy sources instead. The people behind the Academy and its Safe Energy Project aim to inspire businesses to take responsibility for the environment and the concerns of civil society.


Representatives of the Academy have testified in hearings before the California Public Utilities Commission to shut down the San Onofre nuclear plant in San Diego. The plant closed in June of 2013, but the Academy continues to intervene in ongoing legal hearings before the utilities commission for a refund of $1.5 billion in rate-payer dollars charged to consumers, claiming the plant was mismanaged by the utility company that owns it.


"Obviously our goal is to close down Diablo Canyon, we had that goal before this study was done," Jerry Brown, who directs the Academy's Safe Energy Project, told Truthout. "However, our hope is this study will inspire all interested parties ... to take a serious looks at the health impacts of nuclear power plants, Diablo Canyon, and of all the nuclear power plants in the country."


Predictably, The Industry and the Government Hit Back


Industry and government regulators claim Mangano's study, as well as his previous peer-reviewed research studying the health impacts of radiation on local communities, is not credible.


"Given Mr. Mangano's history of discredited reports due to poor science and that this newer report draws on the previously discredited work, PG&E is not giving this report any consideration," Blair Jones, a PG&E spokesman, told Truthout in a written statement. "Recent assessments performed by the US nuclear industry's federal regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), demonstrate Diablo Canyon is being operated safely and in a manner that protects the health and safety of the public. The NRC has found our operations continue to meet all safety and security performance objectives."


And the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an industry group, reacted even more aggressively, calling Mangano a "fearmonger" and "scaremonger." The group regularly cites a statistic from the EPA that nuclear power plants only account for 0.1 percent of the radiation an average American is exposed to in the course of a year and that exposures from common medical procedures such as CT scans and X-Raysaccount for about 50 percent of this overall level.


But Dr. Hosea questions their claims. "At least with medical radiation you know you're exposed and you can make a decision whether or not it's worth the risk of getting a cat scan which is very, very small compared to not knowing [about potential risks from reactors] and finding out later that there's potentially a problem," he said. "We keep being reassured there's not a problem, but there very well may be a problem," he said.


Strontium-90 is not typically released in the radiation patients are exposed to diagnostically, and different radioactive isotopes can be of different qualities in terms of how much harm they can do to the human body.


"In whose interest is it to discount the study and not pay attention to it? It needs further investigation so we can really know the truth," Dr. Hosea said.


PG&E and the industry group both point to staffers from eight state departments of health and the NRC who have looked into Mangano's work and have invalidated it. The NEI claims that most of the Strontium-90 in the environment, which has a half-life of 28 years, is a remainder left over from above-ground atom bomb tests in the 1950s and early '60s, and that there has been no significant change in background levels of radiation near nuclear reactors.


But Mangano's research has found an overall statistically significant increase in concentrations of Strontium-90 found in baby teeth near Diablo Canyon over time. His previous research has also found that after the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in Sacramento was closed, public health indicators in the surrounding areas improved.


"What the industry does in the absence of not doing these studies and not liking the results, is calling names," Brown said. "This is not fifth grade; you do not get to talk about the health and safety of your customers and your neighbors by pointing fingers, and calling names, and trying to discredit, and trying to shoot the messenger."


"This is not Joe Mangano's data, this is data that is put out and publicly available by the Centers for Disease Control, by federal statistics and by the California cancer registry," Brown said.


An NRC spokesman agreed with the industry that Mangano's latest study lacked credibility. But more than 20 years after a highly cited study claimed there was no increased cancer risk from proximity to nuclear plants, the NRC is finally looking into the matter. The agency has asked National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to perform its own assessment on cancer risk for populations surrounding nuclear reactors, which is still in the works. The NAS has confirmed there are no safe levels of radiation exposure, in contrast with the EPA's "permissible limits" approach.


"[The NAS assessment] is essentially the study we asked for 20 years ago," said nuclear engineer David Lochbaum, who directs the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Lochbaum told Truthout that when he asked NRC staffers why they did not address health impacts in a draft environmental impact statement for a nuclear plant seeking a 20-year license extension in 1998, the staffers told him that "human health was outside the scope of their assessments."


"We applaud the NRC for doing [the health impact study], we just wish it would have been done..." he paused. "I guess better late than never, so we'll look at the glass as half-full."
When it comes to the credibility of Mangano's work, Lochbaum told Truthout more research still needs to be done.


"When I read Joe's work, it seems plausible," he said. "When I read industry's objections, that seems plausible too, and I know they both can't be right and I don't know which is. That's why we advocated ... for a health study that included people from the entire spectrum."


Aging Nuclear Plants Like Diablo Canyon Dot the Nation

The United States currently has 100 operating nuclear reactors in 31 states. The last nuclear plant to be constructed was finished in 1996, and the oldest was built in 1969. The average age of all operating nuclear plants in the United States is about 30 years.


Since the last new plant was constructed, the nuclear industry has struggled to get new plants up-and-running. The ongoing nuclear crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant has largely renewed concerns about the inherent safety of nuclear reactors, echoing concerns in the United States that date back to the reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
Before Fukushima, Congress allotted $17.5 billion in loan guarantees to jump-start the nuclear industry with new power plants, but nothing much came of the effort because expenses for construction increased sharply as the economy dragged.


Mangano's study not only suggests that the normal operations of nuclear plants are potentially toxic to local communities, but also that there is an increased likelihood of radioactive leaks from nuclear plants as they age, problems not just confined to the Diablo Canyon plant in California, but to all nuclear plants in the country, which are aging.


"[Nuclear plants] go through steam generator corrosion and leaks. That's been a generic problem with pressurized water reactors throughout the industry. They go through pressure vessel corrosion. They go through reactor vessel embrittlement that makes it more likely for cracking or leaks, and thinning," Brown said.


Diablo Canyon Risks Fukushima-Style Disaster

Another one of the Academy's and grassroots groups' concerns is that the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is at a major risk of a Fukushima-style disaster because it sits atop an active fault line, and the plant's age is a factor in its vulnerability to seismic activity.


PG&E told Truthout that the Diablo Canyon plant was built with seismic safety in mind and "is designed to withstand the largest ground motions, or shaking that could be expected to be generated from any nearby faults." The company also stressed that it maintains a seismic team of experts who partner with independent scientists to study the seismic activity of the region, and that these scientists' analysis confirm the plant is designed to withstand the highest levels of seismic activity that could occur.


But Lochbaum, who authored a report for UCS called, "Seismic Shift: Diablo Canyon Literally and Figuratively on Shaky Ground," maintains the earthquake hazard in the 1970s, when the Diablo Canyon plant was proposed and constructed, led its designers to protect against seismic activity no greater than 0.4 g-forces. That was before two other major active fault lines in the region were discovered and estimated to cause a ground motion of around 0.75 g-forces. PG&E has not made any structural adjustments or modifications to account for this discrepancy.


Lochbaum said that the studies PG&E has conducted about the seismic activity of the region, which state that the plant is safe, use flawed methodology, and that the NRC has also rejected the company's analysis.


But with the three-year anniversary of arguably the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history today, the two Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors remain potentially at risk of a very similar catastrophe off the coast of California.


And despite the potential health impacts of the everyday operations of all US nuclear reactors and the inherent risks of a potentially catastrophic environmental disaster occurring at any one of them, some see a potential "nuclear renaissance" on the horizon just three years after the Fukushima meltdown.


In February Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced the approval of $6.5 billion in loan guarantees to Atlanta-based Southern Co. for two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. The $14 billion project is just one of a handful of new reactors planned for construction.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2...-as-plants-age

*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… Gov’t should be doing something”

Published: March 12th, 2014 at 10:51 am ET By ENENews

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 may have on humans — 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.”
See also: Experts: Areas along West Coast “may be… affected in significant way” by Fukushima plume in coming months — Impact can’t be accurately predicted, currents to produce complex results — Radioactive materials can be ‘fairly concentrated’ even after crossing ocean

http://enenews.com/scientists-raise-...mination-cross

Can't wait to see how the propagandist try to minimize this....

Gundersen: Fukushima will be bleeding into Pacific for next 100 years — Such a worldwide catastrophe — Molten cores being released into groundwater and moving off site — ‘Radioactive lake’ developing beneath reactors — New Yorker: “Human disaster that may never end” (VIDEO)

Published: March 13th, 2014 at 7:01 am ET By ENENews

Fairewinds Energy Education, Mar. 12, 2014:

• Arnie Gumdersen, Fairewinds chief engineer (at 0:45 in): Is most of the cleanup complete? Are the people of Japan, especially the children, OK? Are the Japanese evacuees returning home? And, are the oceans OK? Sadly the answers are no.
• Gundersen (at 5:15 in): The aftermath of this catastrophe remains as hazardous as ever. The power plant site itself, entire sections of the surrounding Fukushima Prefecture and the Pacific Ocean are contaminated in ways that humans never imagined, so no method of mitigation exists. The Fukushima catastrophe will continue to be life-threatening and continue to cause extreme hardship for Tepco employees and cleanup workers,the former Fukushima residents, who and the Pacific ocean — its habitats and its on the ecosystem […] The reactors continue to release the radioactive remnants from the molten cores into the surrounding groundwater that’s migrating off site. [...] Tokyo Electric appears to have little control over the deteriorating environment, and it behaves like the victim, rather than the perpetrator of the greatest industrial mishap of all time. What will the future bring? The Fukushima Daiichi site will continue to bleed radiation into the Pacific Ocean for 100 years. As contaminated water beneath the site slowly evolves into a radioactive lake. […] Most likely the cleanup of the entire site is at least a century away, if ever. How has this calamity evolved into such a worldwide catastrophe? It happened because the Japanese government chose to protect Tepco, its financial interest and the goals of the nuclear power industry.

The New Yorker, Mar. 11, 2014: “A story of human disaster that may never end.”
Seattle Weekly, Mar. 11, 2014: “The 3/11 snowfall was the beginning of Japan’s nuclear winter.”
Watch the Fairewinds presentation here

http://enenews.com/gundersen-fukushi...ve-lake-develo

I find it sad that so much sea life is trapped in a contaminated, ocean a place where they once thrived and now they die there because of man's stupidity.....

‘Ultra-Rare’: Up to 70 endangered ‘whales’ by California coast — Seen once in several decades, lives in open ocean — Breached as if performing, rubbing heads on boat — So loud thought it was engine — “Seemed to be speaking to camera” — Also spotted in Western Pacific same day (VIDEO)

Published: March 14th, 2014 at 5:11 am ET By ENENews

Corona Del Mar Today, Mar. 13, 2014: False killer whales are members of the dolphin family and are listed as endangered [...] “According to the news, these are so rare that they haven’t been seen in Southern California for well over a decade,” [Sgt. John Hollenbeck] said. “They were traveling in a pod of perhaps 50 or so, spread out over about a quarter of a mile. They were very noisy. I could hear them whistling and singing to each other through the hull of my boat as they passed around me. I’ve heard that many times before before with common dolphins, but these were much louder. Initially, I didn’t even realize it was their song – I thought there was something wrong with the engine on my boat.”
Pete Thomas Outdoors, Mar. 13, 2014: [There were] between 50 and 70. [...] [Capt. Dave Anderson] managed not only to capture close-ups of the false killer whales, but vocalizations [...] including one that seemed to be speaking to the camera. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Anderson said. “I was sitting there for about five minutes and the whales came over and surrounded me. Their whistles were so loud I could hear them above the surface.”
KPCC, Mar. 12, 2014: Ultra-rare ‘false killer whales’ sighted off California – [NOAA's Jay Barlow] says he last saw this species in Southern California in the early 1980s [...] Normally they live in tropical waters, and Barlow says even there they are rarely seen. One reason false killer whales are seen so rarely is that they typically live in the open ocean [...]
CBS, Mar. 12, 2014: “I have been cruising in this area for many years, and I have never seen this species of cetacean off of our coast.” -Capt. Mike Bursk, Ocean Institute’s RV Sea Explorer
GrindTV, Mar. 13, 2014: On Monday morning, a pod of similar size was spotted off Ensenada, Mexico [...] during each sighting, one animal stood out because of the peculiar shape of its spine. [Bursk] said the false killer whales came to him and were riding in his wake. When he stopped, some of the mammals rubbed their heads against the vessel. [...] [Capt. Larry Hartmann] spent about 45 minutes alone with a small pod, and said they were breaching, as if “performing for me.”
South China Morning Post, Mar. 13, 2014: Hong Kong’s unusually chilly waters didn’t put off one unusual group of visitors. A pod of about 100 false killer whales has been in local waters [...] the first mass sighting of the marine mammal in Hong Kong. [...] researchers found the sight of the pod deeply impressive. “If you looked around, they were everywhere. It was spectacular view” [Dr Samuel Hung Ka-yiu said] “I can’t really think why (they were here).”
See also: US Gov't Expert: Large marine animals likely sensed danger of Fukushima plume and fled, "Not going to wait until they start to die off" -- Explains unprecedented concentrations of whales and other sea life clustering off West Coast? (VIDEO)
Watch footage from the West Coast encounters here

Fukushima Japan nuclear power plant radiation leaks reaches lethal levels after HAARP caused 6.2 earthquake

Posted by PRESS Core World news Friday, March 14th, 2014

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck wide areas of western Japan early today just 3 days after the 3 year anniversary of the March 11, 2011 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that caused catastrophic explosions and damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The HAARP floating platform called SBX-1 is currently deployed with and protected by the U.S. Carrier Strike Group Five in the Japanese region/ Malaysia region.

Today’s earthquake struck less than 57km NW of the Ikata Nuclear Power Plant. Shikoku Electric Power Co. said no abnormalities were detected in measuring instrument data at its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ikata, Ehime Prefecture. That is what the nuclear electric power company operators at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant first claimed on March 11, 2011 when the 9.0 earthquake struck. Reactors were shut down automatically after the earthquake but cooling system failures caused a partial nuclear meltdowns in units 1, 2 and 3: catastrophic explosions and radiation leaks in units 1 and 3 and a suspected explosion in unit 2. Radiation has been leaking, unabated for the past 3 years.
According to Japan Radiation Maps from the Japan Institute for Information Design radiation levels for Fukushima have reached lethal levels – 127,000 Nanosievert per hour (nSv /h).
The sievert (symbol: Sv) is a derived unit of ionizing radiation dose in the International System of Units (SI). It is a measure of the effect of low levels of radiation on the human body. Quantities that are measured in sieverts are designed to represent the stochastic health risk, which for radiation dose assessment is defined as the probability of cancer induction and genetic damage. Doses greater than 1 sievert received over a short time period are likely to cause radiation poisoning, possibly leading to death within weeks. 127,000 nSv/h = 0.000127 Sievert per hour (Sv/h) or 1.113282 Sievert per year (Sv/y).
The people of Japan are are not being exposed to the lethal 127,000 nSv/h ionizing radiation doses. They probably won’t be dying within weeks, however millions throughout the Pacific Ocean are now secretly being condemned to death from exposure to lethal dosages of radiation poisoning from Fukushima’s destroyed and leaking nuclear reactors.

The people of Japan will be spared a high death toll because Fukushima is located on its east coast and the deadly levels of radiation are being pushed away from land and Japan’s densely populated cities by the jet stream and Pacific Ocean currents to the Canadian and United States west coast and their densely populated cities.
For more than 3 years Canadians and Americans are being irradiated to death by the Fukushima nuclear reactor radiation leaks and not a word about it in any Canadian or U.S. newspaper or cable news networks or from our elected representatives, health officials, environmental protection agencies or emergency management agencies.
http://presscore.ca/fukushima-japan-nuclear-power-plant-radiation-l...

3Years On: Contaminated Fukushima water may be dumped into Pacific Ocean

Published at 5:42 p.m. on March 14, 2014 | Modified at 5:43 p.m. on March 14, 2014





The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant says it might eventually have to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. It's been three years since the nuclear disaster, but TEPCO is still struggling to clear up, with occasional radioactive leaks still happening. RT has been following the disaster since it began. RT LIVE
http://www.heraldonline.com/2014/03/14/5772122/3-years-on-contamina...

Fairbanks city council unanimously passes Fukushima monitoring resolution: Alaska and U.S. West Coast in danger — “No safe levels of radiation… constitutes grave risk” — Alaska Senator: “We need to be vigilant” (AUDIO)

Published: March 15th, 2014 at 3:35 pm ET By ENENews

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Mar. 10, 2014 (h/t Anonymous tip): Council to ask for more radiation testing [...] [Fairbanks city] council will consider a resolution tonight that calls on the federal government and United Nations to do more radiation testing in Alaska waters. It asserts that health risks related to nuclear meltdown have been vastly understated [...]
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Mar. 12, 2014: [...] By a unanimous vote Monday, the Fairbanks City Council passed a resolution urging the state and federal government, as well as the United Nations, to do more radiation testing in Alaska waters. The resolution was introduced by Fairbanks City Mayor John Eberhart and had the support of the council and several people who came to testify. [...] Larry Hartig, the state commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation [said] People ingest more radiation from eating a banana than from eating a tuna [...] Concern about Fukuskima radiation also was raised at the Tanana Chiefs Conference convention Tuesday in Fairbanks. P.J. Simon, a delegate from Allakaket, said possible radiation in migrating salmon posed a risk to subsistence activities. [...] “We need to be vigilant on this,” [Senator Lisa] Murkowski said.
RESOLUTION NO. 4617, A RESOLUTION REQUESTING FURTHER INVESTIGATION ... (pdf), Mar. 10, 2014:

• WHEREAS, the March 2011 meltdowns of three nuclear power plants on the northeast coast of Japan constitute a danger to Japan, the North Pacific basin, Alaska and the west coast of North America; and [...]
• WHEREAS, available information from scientific sources, the government of Japan, and the corporate operator of the facility, reveal unprecedented large and ongoing releases of extremely dangerous radioisotopes to the atmosphere and the ocean; and
• WHEREAS, there are no safe levels of radiation emitted from manmade isotopes, and human and animal ingestion and/or contact with them constitutes grave risk for many forms of cancer and multiple dysfunctions in biological systems [...]
• NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of Fairbanks, Alaska, urges the federal government, State of Alaska, and the United Nations to begin a thorough and ongoing monitoring program of Alaska’s coastal water resources, its major fresh water streams and lakes, particularly surface waters that supply potable water to citizens. The monitoring program should be adequately funded to accomplish scientific analysis at the University of Alaska, wherein it will identify and quantify levels of radioisotopes in commercial seafood and subsistence foods. Data should be published on a web site dedicated to that purpose.
• Section 2. PASSED and APPROVED this 10th day of March 2014.

KUAC broadcast available here
http://enenews.com/fairbanks-city-council-passes-resolution-for-fuk...

Fukushima’s comeback: Radiation from unending mess could threaten Alaska’s fisheries



Posted: Monday, September 2, 2013 1:45 pm | Updated: 11:53 am, Wed Sep 4, 2013.
Douglas A. Yates
Editor's note: An earlier version overstated the weight of fuel in the three melted reactors. The text has been edited to reflect the correct amount.
FAIRBANKS — The Obama administration’s failure to alert Americans to the danger of Fukushima radiation is motivated by corporate politics and the interests of the nuclear power industry. The March 11, 2011, earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan wrecked a complex of nuclear power plants, throwing three units into meltdown and exploding high-level radionuclides into the environment. With the industry’s reputation and billions of dollars in financial arrangements hanging in the fire, the president chose expediency, saying there’s no threat to Americans.



These assurances were highlighted recently when Fukushima Dai-ichi’s operators reported that since the earthquake it has been spilling large amounts of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. While great efforts have been made to sequester hot water in tank farms, the tanks are leaking and the buildings are insecure. Among the toxics soaking coastal zone soils are fission products: cesium-134 and 137, strontium-90, iodine-131 and 129, along with various isotopes of tritium, uranium and plutonium. These elements and hundreds of others have escaped containment and are moving into the North Pacific at a rate that varies from 300-900 tons of water per day.
Following the president’s lead, most of the media has ignored the story, leaving many Americans in the dark. But the blinders are off in Alaska and the West Coast of North America as more people figure the implications of tainted seafood. Pacific tuna ranges between California and Japan on its annual migration. Sampled by scientists from Stanford University in 2012 and 2013, tuna were found with elevated cesium-134 and 137 in their muscle tissue. A public health official in British Columbia is urging the federal government to monitor salmon and tuna. Last week, the state of Washington said it will begin testing salmon and steelhead. The newspaper in Alaska’s capital, Juneau, is asking science to settle the question, writing “Let’s be 100 percent sure our Alaska salmon are safe to eat.” (See page F2 for an excerpt.)
Distrust of safety assurances here and in Japan mounted when the plant operator, TEPCO, admitted that it had low-balled previous data and that actual releases were 20-30 percent greater than earlier claims. Numbers are being revised upward almost daily. Currently, while the totals remain in flux, independent observers suggest that Fukushima has surpassed Chernobyl in the amount of radiation released to the environment. Chernobyl spilled 85 quadrillion becquerels across Europe while Fukushima’s totals climb to 276 quadrillion in some estimates. Outliers put it as high as 690 quadrillion. (A becquerel is the international system unit of radioactivity equal to one disintegration of an atomic nucleus per second.)
Approximately half of the initial aerosol releases fell into the ocean. Maps show that 12,000 square miles of land has been contaminated with cesium and other isotopes. Of this area, 4,500 square miles exceeds the International Commission on Radiological Protection’s human safety limit of 1 millisievert per year. (The sievert is a unit of exposure used to compare the biological effects of various forms of ionizing radiation.) Nearly 200,000 Japanese have been turned into refugees.
The Japanese government, as expedient as Obama, quickly raised the allowable dose from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year — 20 times higher than the limit on March 11. People who should have been evacuated remain at home, soaking in cesium. According to Physicians For Social Responsibility, the dose exposes children to a 1 in 200 risk of getting cancer. “And if they are exposed to this dose for two years, the risk is 1 in 100. There is no way that this level of exposure can be considered ‘safe’ for children.”
Radionuclides concentrate as they move along the food chain, from plankton, kelp and herring, and up the line to salmon, seals, bears and people. Cesium-contaminated food bio-accumulates in the heart and endocrine tissues, as well as kidneys, small intestine, pancreas, liver and spleen. Children, particularly girls, are many times more susceptible than adults to the effects of ionizing radiation.
When the exclusion zone boundaries were announced, at a place inside the red line the oldest man in the village — 102 — killed himself rather than evacuate. “In front of the village hall, a machine that looked like an oversized parking meter flashed a real-time radiation reading in large red digits: 7.71 microsieverts ... 8.12 ... 7.57. Being there was equivalent to receiving a chest X-ray every twelve hours,” The New Yorker reported in Oct 17, 2011.
At the Berkeley campus of the University of California, rainwater collected on March 23, 2011, measured iodine-131 radioactivity at 20.1 becquerels per liter. The federal maximum level of iodine-131 in drinking water is 0.111 becquerels per liter. The sample exceeded this level by 181 times. Fukushima radiation was further confirmed when Berkeley researchers discovered iodine-131 in California dairy milk and in a local waterway. Similarly high levels of iodine-131 were recorded in Portland, Olympia, Boise and points east.
The U.S. government organized a multi-agency stealth response in the wake of the reactor meltdowns. Friends of the Earth and others filed FOIA requests to learn how the crisis was being managed in days after March 11. A trove of emails moving between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, its field agents in Japan and other agencies show efforts to downplay concern and withhold information. Within days of the event, federal managers’ emails tallied plumes of iodine-131 as they approached America. Supervisors demanded confidentiality while maintaining a press blackout, assuring that most Americans had no chance to prepare or mitigate.
James Mangano, an epidemiologist, and Janette Sherman, a toxicologist, are expert in calculating health effects from radiation exposure. Their review of U.S. deaths before and after the March 11 event indicates that 18,000-22,000 Americans died as a result of radiation from Fukushima. Carried east by the jet stream, and deposited as rain and snow, uptake into people, plants and animals is primarily through inhalation, ingestion and contact. Infants under the age of one had the highest increase in reported deaths in the 14 weeks after Fukushima’s initial explosions. Increased mortality was also seen in the aged, the infirm and immune compromised.

Today, radioactivity washing out to sea is in a combination of seawater that’s being used to cool the wreckage and an influx of groundwater. The groundwater is rising at the toe of the slope behind the facility, threatening to inundate the complex. People working there say the surface is becoming unstable and that building foundations may fail.

Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, represents a growing consensus that speculates the nuclear fuel in the three melted units has burned through the containment vessels and the basement foundations. The molten fuel (about 360 tons) is now tunneling through geologic strata that underlay the Japanese archipelago. If true, TEPCO’s engineers have lost control; with no options for retrieval, this is an unprecedented catastrophe with no end in sight.
Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear engineer who leads the watchdog group Fairewinds Energy Education, says this is the last year he’ll eat fish from the Pacific, reasoning that Fukushima’s toxic stew has contaminated the ocean. Gundersen says that north of Hawaii, midpoint between Japan and North America, scientists are measuring cesium levels 10 times higher than normal. Background levels of 1 becquerel per cubic meter have been constant for years. It has now increased to 10 becquerels per cubic meter.

The Fukushima disaster is worse than Chernobyl, it’s ongoing. While the North Pacific is a big place, wind and currents move in Alaska’s direction. Dilution is not a solution. A declassified military report, written in 1955, concluded that seawater may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents and that it’s likely to travel in highly concentrated “pockets” and “streams.”

While the radiation pouring out of Fukushima can’t be seen or smelled, its implications to Alaska’s fisheries, our economy and cultural resources are obvious. It’s past time to begin talking about the threat and planning for its consequences. We might begin by retrieving the president from the pocket of the nuclear power industry.
Douglas A. Yates, of Ester, is a writer and photographer.

http://www.newsminer.com/opinion/com...9bb30f31a.html

Russian Experts: Fukushima pollution spreads all over Earth, clearly a large amount of fish, seaweeds, and everything in ocean has been polluted — These products are the main danger for mankind as they can end up being eaten by people on a massive scale

Published: December 25th, 2013 at 11:17 pm ET By ENENews

Maxim Shingarkin, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee for Natural Resources, Dec. 26, 2013:“Currents in the World Ocean are so structured that the areas of seafood capture near the US north-west coast are more likely to contain radioactive nuclides than even the Sea of Okhotsk which is much closer to Japan. These products are the main danger for mankind because they can find their way to people’s tables on a massive scale. [...] Air emissions were not projected either on the Sea of Okhotsk, or Sakhalin, or the Far East, or the Kuril Islands. So airlifting cargoes does not seem dangerous so far. I mean so far because not all the nuclear fuel has been taken out of the power generation units. This means that radioactive emissions into the atmosphere are possible as a result of heating.”

Vladimir Slivyak, Co-chairman of the Ecodefence international ecology group, Dec. 26, 2013: “The Russian government planned to restrict fishing in the Far East. As far as I know, no such restrictions have been introduced so far. Still it is possible that some steps will be taken. [...] It took years after Chernobyl to make detailed conclusions about the scale of nuclear pollution. We are having a similar situation with Fukushima [...] We’ll probably know the consequences of this accident in 10-15 years. It is clear that a large amount of fish, sea weeds and everything the ocean contains has been polluted. It is clear that pollution spreads all over Earth. It is clear that vast territories have been polluted in Japan itself. All this is generally clear. But we need research to provide more details and this will take a long time.”

More from Shingarkin and Slivyak here: Expect airborne radiation releases from Fukushima to increase — Seafood catches off U.S. Pacific coast more likely to be contaminated than ones far closer to Japan — ‘Gravest danger’ to public is if they eat these products