nuclear-news

Ionising radiation at Niagara Falls – long buried secret of nuclear wastes

The nuclear age is littered with tragedies of unnecessary contamination of unsuspecting populations because of the pretense by government and the nuclear industry that the very real hazard of low levels of internal exposure is no hazard at all.

Radiation Alert: Niagara Falls , The Palestine Telegraph, June 21, By Paul Zimmerman and Louis Ricciuti, “………..Witnessing all this sunshine activity around you, you remain innocently oblivious to the underlying reality being played out before your eyes on this summer day, 2010, in downtown Niagara Falls, New York. In truth, the scene is shrouded by a pall, both invisible and macabre. For you see, what is being excavated besides decayed roadway are dirty little secrets long buried. The dirt and dust taking flight upon the wind is laced with radioactive waste!………..……Although touted as simple roadwork, the project also is camouflage, cushioned by insufficient oversight and little public awareness, for the cleanup of hazardous concentrations of radioactive material deposited in these roadways. Radiation surveys sponsored by the contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) [Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow] have confirmed that long stretches of both roads are emitting gamma radiation at levels between 6,500 CPM (counts per minute) to 10,500 CPM. Emissions from soil in some areas beneath or adjacent to the roads range from 11,000 CPM to 15,000 CPM.

These readings are referred to by the contractor as “background radiation.”  Peppering this background radiation are a number of anomalous “hotspots” with counts as high as 100,000 CPM.  To gain a picture of what lays buried beneath the Honeymoon Capital of the World, “true” background radiation in the region emitted by soil and the local geology ranges between 5 and 50 CPM.  Unwittingly, local residents have been receiving elevated levels of external gamma exposure for years from the hidden hazard laid literally at the their  doorsteps.

Their accumulated doses will now be compounded when they internalize construction debris emitting alpha and beta radiation. From the point of view of public health, the situation this summer in Niagara Falls is alarming.  Both road workers and residents will be vulnerable to an inhalation hazard.
The origin of the unnatural material, euphemistically characterized as emitting “background” radiation, is open to question…….
explanation for the contamination that haunts Niagara Falls is that it is legacy radioactive waste, a byproduct of uranium refining, metallurgical production, and other experimental processes conducted during the Manhattan Project and the early years of the Atomic Energy Commission. This explanation is supported by the fact that more than 100 sites in and around Niagara Falls are contaminated with unnatural quantities and concentrations of radioactive material discarded by industry and that scores of streets, constituting dozens of miles of roadway, are underlaid with material manifesting many different isotopic compositions……………
When the Manhattan Project got underway in 1942, all hopes for rapid success hinged on recruiting the sophisticated technological expertise and industrial capacity of the companies located in Niagara Falls………….
The refining processes created a huge stockpile of radioactive tailings waste containing high concentrations of radium-226, uranium, thorium and other radioactive elements [2]. (An enormous quantity of this material was trucked north, through Niagara Falls, to nearby Lewiston-Porter to be stored or buried at the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. In the mid-1980s, those wastes which could be recovered were consolidated for “interim storage” and are currently located at the Department of Energy’s Niagara Falls Storage Site [2].) ……….
Scores of sites have been identified in the Niagara Falls area that became the repository of this dangerous material……………..
The nuclear age is littered with tragedies of unnecessary contamination of unsuspecting populations because of the pretense by government and the nuclear industry that the very real hazard of low levels of internal exposure is no hazard at all. ………

Radiation Alert: Niagara Falls

June 22, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, reactors, uranium