USA army’s depleted uranium secret

“The burden should be on the Army to prove no harm. The Army says there is no harm because they haven’t looked and don’t want to look,” said Albertini. “A license to possess depleted uranium is a nuclear waste dump.”

Residents accuse Army of covering up contamination. DEPLETED URANIUM By NANCY COOK LAUER

WES T HAWAII TODAY 15 Jan 2010

ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com

HILO — Four Hawaii residents charged the U.S. Army with trying to cover up its discovery of depleted uranium and then taking a cavalier attitude about cleaning it up during a five-hour hearing Wednesday before a panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Army is seeking an after-the-fact license to possess the radioactive material that was used in weapons training at Schofield Barracks on Oahu and Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. The DU spotting rounds were used in the 1960s and have been emitting low levels of radiation since………

They say the Army has never proven the radiation is not harming those who live and travel near the military installations and they criticized the Army for sampling less than 1 percent of the 133,000-acre PTA installation off Saddle Road between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.

The three-member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board grilled the Hawaii residents, Army staff and NRC staffers alike. A decision on whether the petitioners have standing to participate in the license application will be made next month.

The petitioners participated by videoconference from a cramped video booth at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, while the federal officials participated from a Rockville, Md., hearing room.

Both the Army and NRC staff attorneys contend the petitioners didn’t prove they have a right to intervene in the license application process. Just living nearby is not enough, they said……

Harp was hesitant to believe the Army’s position that there was no health hazard associated with the DU contamination. He noted that the military has a long history of conducting biological and chemical warfare experiments on the Big Island under code names such as Blue Tango, Yellow Leaf, Green Mist and Tall Timber.

“No one knows how many may have become ill, disabled or died from these experiments because only the military and their partners knew about them,” Harp said.

Harden produced documents showing the government knew about the DU at Schofield as early as 1996, not 2005 as the Army claims….http://www.dmzhawaii.org/?p=5517

January 15, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, USA | antinuclear, cancer, depleted, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radioactive, uranium

2 Comments »

Just wanted to mention, this isn’t just a Hawaii problem. Many bases across the country have depleted uranium on their training ranges, also.

Comment by Shannon | January 15, 2010 | Reply
Aloha,
I was one of the plaintiffs, and I understand the need to argue my contentions before the NRC and the AEC. We had very little counsel, information, and time to prepare. Much of our expenses came out of our pocket. I used trim-tab as my structured arguments to fertile my way back home and begin to work at home with the many issues that was needed. I apologize to all for not having a clear argument with the judges. I chose the later because if one listen carefully, the downwinders were in support of the license and the permitting from within a 3 mile limit. My second argument, the landfill just behind my home is deadly and growing into an 19 acre dumpsite for the military and their low bid procurement. If one noticed the military covered up their argument when I mentioned the 50 plus truckers. These truckers since Nov. 2009 have been trucking in from military bases and land stocking in Makua. These truckers ‘poison dust’ have been aggregating the evidence from Nanakuli to Makua. What did the NRC say “enforcement” not for the military and their evil, but for residents of Waianae. Should I persist in my assertion about the Tad Davis and his continued distribution of DU into my community, harm will come to me and my community. Hey, a lie is a lie and I have a protocol to follow within my culture and I cannot support the lies and take the easy way out. NRC is made up of teenangers gamers, and have no hesitation of blackmailing the AEC for their past works with downwinders. Congress was AEC partner in crime for ‘downwinders’ cases and Lawrence Bush was part of Los Almos. I don’t want US money that’s not a clean up. I just want the US to stop bombing in Hawaii. And in the year 2050 sustainable plan, I want an exit plan for my people paid for by the US. We are already exposed to radioactive isotopes and our DNA is changing as we speak. Hawaii’s the first legal Abortion state in the US. This does not solve the problem of our already spiking birth defects.

What is the cosmology of the depleted uranium–model a rectangle from Pearl Harbor to Kaena point. We have three types of isotopes in this area. Plutonium, DU, and other isotopes mixed into a dumpsites which they are many backyard home grown sites by truckers in Waianae–what do you think? We have a ticking time bomb, how stupid is that?
Luwella Leonardi

Comment by Luwella Leonardi | January 27, 2010 | Reply