Nuclear for climate? – DON’T MENTION RADIATION! – theme for October 21.

Recommending nuclear power as a a cure for climate change is like recommending cigarette-smoking as a cure for obesity – Helen Caldicott

Well, it’s just not nice to talk about ionising radiation right now – when we’re all gearing up for the COP26 Glascow climate change talkfest . I mean, by now the nuclear lobby has probably bribed its way into the conference, along with other corporations.

You’re allowed to mention – costs , safety, even time delay – in assessing the relationship of the nuclear industry to global heating.

Strangely – you can talk about the rapid health effects of tiny invisible viruses. BUT NOT the slow drawn out effects of tiny particles of low-level ionising radiation. Health impacts of unseen dangers 

Especially ignored are thg effects of Internal exposure – radioactive particles taken in by breathing or swallowing:

The dangers are probably still  small for most foods, but hazards are tenfold to a hundredfold for children, infants, and fetuses, who have the fastest rates of mitosis and development. Rapidly dividing cells in the young are most sensitive in any organism. Similarly, organs with rapidly dividing cells are affected (bone marrow, digestive tract, skin).  So risk avoidance is most important for the young.

Some of the list of long-term impacts for human health include the following:

• Circulatory damage (high blood pressure, rhythm disturbances, MI, stroke, cardiomyopathies, rhythm disturbances artery spasm, especially during cardiac stress such as temperature extremes, physical/emotional stress) (Bandazhevsky, 2001)
• Hematologic problems (leukemias especially)
• Endocrine problems (especially Hypothyroidism, thyroid nodules/Cancer, and Diabetes)
• Immune system
• Uro-genital system
• Musculoskeletal system
• Dental problems as cesium replaces calcium in teeth and bones
• Central nervous system and psyche
• The eye (cataracts and retinopathies)
• Increase in congenital malformations
• Increase in cancers
• Accelerated aging
• Increased frequency of mutations
• Fertility problems and Change in secondary sex ratio (Yablokov, 2012)

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October 1, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's themes, radiation

5 Comments »

1. Christian fascists and white supremacists, like Mining awareness, Majia Nadesan and the murderous Alex Jones and Stock aka Steve Olsen, were never antinuclear. It was a fraud . The support the black hearted, nuclearist demon Trump. They spit in our face. demons of nuclear-fascist hell.. Olsen and Alex Jones bragged about hiring a teenager to murder antifascist in Wisconsin . They were all just spitting in our face and backstabbing us while using their fakeconcern about fukushima as a political tool for propaganda

   
   Gotta get up

   
   Always

   I sent my writing on radionuclide pyrophorsis and wild fire spreading of radioactive particles to Gunderson and Kaltofen . now it’s getting some traction. Citizen scientists

   CALL

   HELP MOVE ENERGY EDUCATION FORWARD WITH FAIREWINDS!

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   Maggie Gundersen, Editor

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   Woolsey Fire Data—Journal of Environmental Radioactivity

   October 14, 2021

   View fullsize

   Woolsey Fire from Topanga’ Photo Credit: pbuschmann on Flickr.

   By Maggie Gundersen

   If you watch TV or surf the net, you’ve seen the daily images of climate-crisis-induced forest fires, melting ice caps, and rising sea levels. While here in Charleston, South Carolina, we face rising seas daily, our west coast friends, family members, and colleagues face dramatic heatwaves, droughts, and most of all – raging forest fires. These climate-crisis-induced wildfires have claimed thousands of acres of land, destroyed entire communities, killed innocent people, and now release radioactivity that literally blows on the wind.

   We are proud to announce the publication of our scientific analysis about one such wildfire, the 2018 Woolsey Fire near Los Angeles.

   One of our findings is that the Woolsey Fire caused radiation from the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL) to become airborne and travel as far as 9 miles into the Thousand Oaks community. So, then, what makes our study unique? Using sophisticated radioactive measuring devices on a huge sample set, we found radioactivity on the public side of the SSFL fence line that positively matched the radioactive ash particles we found downwind in the Thousand Oaks community.

   Co-authored by Dr. Marco Kaltofen, Arnie Gundersen, and me [Maggie Gundersen], let me quote from our peer-reviewed research paper entitled Radioactive microparticles related to the Woolsey Fire in Simi Valley, CA, published by the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity:

   “In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire burned north of Los Angeles, CA, USA, potentially remobilizing radioactive contaminants at the former Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a shuttered nuclear research facility contaminated by chemical and radiochemical releases. Wildfire in radiologically contaminated zones is a global concern; contaminated areas around Chernobyl, Fukushima, Los Alamos, and the Nevada Nuclear Test Site have all experienced wildfires.”

   A 1959 meltdown at one of the Santa Susana Field Lab’s (SSFL’s) experimental test reactors and leaking radioactive materials emanating from the operation of other test reactors has left the SSFL site radioactively and chemically contaminated. Citizens and communities near SSFL were concerned about the spread of radioactivity into their homes for decades before the Woolsey fire occurred. Local citizens approached Fairewinds Energy Education and our scientific colleague Dr. Marco Kaltofen to analyze the extent of spreading radioactivity due to the Woolsey Fire. Thus, our community-volunteer citizen-science Woolsey Fire Project was born.

   Fairewinds Energy Education and Dr. Marco Kaltofen designed specific procedures for area sample collections and the protocols to be followed by citizen-scientists conducting this work. Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles (PSR–LA) joined us in this community-volunteer citizen-science project to quickly train and lead citizen-scientists in wildfire ash, dust, and dirt collection as soon as possible after the fire had subsided.

   Fairewinds Energy Education launched its global research projects with Dr. Kaltofen and Fairewinds’ community-volunteer citizen-scientists in 2012. “Citizen-Science is not a new phenomenon; it began more than 2000 years ago in ancient China to monitor and track migratory locusts that destroyed harvests (Nature 2018)” (Environmental Radioactivity 2021).

   Moreover, this quote from Unfriending the Atom really captures the concept of citizen-science in today’s world:

   “Citizen Science is a pandemic-proof and low-carbon footprint way to advance evidence-based Science and respectfully use the skills and knowledge of indigenous and community-based investigators.”

   The Woolsey Fire Project Crew included: Dr. Marco Kaltofen, Fairewinds’ chief engineer Arnie Gundersen, and Fairewinds’ founder Maggie Gundersen, Denise Duffield with PSR–LA, community-volunteer citizen-scientists, Fairewinds crew members, and Dr. Kaltofen’s graduate students in a unique project program specifically created to analyze more than 350 dust and dirt samples collected by PSR–LA’s citizen-scientists. Let us be clear, the sample size of this project is a vast, scientifically meaningful set of data.

   The Journal of Environmental Radioactivity published our Woolsey Fire Project peer-reviewed paper, entitled Radioactive microparticles related to the Woolsey Fire in Simi Valley, CA, on Friday, October 8, 2021. This paper clearly details how microparticles of highly radioactive dust and dirt migrate unseen and untracked when carried on ash in clouds of wildfire-induced smoke or in post-wildfire weather events like rainstorms and high winds. Let me quote from the Journal’s Abstract:

   However, offsite samples collected in publicly-accessible areas nearest to the SSFL site perimeter had the highest alpha-emitting radionuclides radium, thorium, and uranium activities, indicating site-related radioactive material has escaped the confines of the laboratory. In two geographically-separated locations, one as far away as 15 km, radioactive microparticles containing percent-concentrations of thorium were detected in ashes and dusts that were likely related to deposition from the Woolsey fire. These offsite radioactive microparticles were colocated with alpha and beta activity maxima. (Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 2021).

   Please note that in publishing this paper, the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity graciously allows each of you to read it for free for 50-days! Just click here or on the image below and it will take you to the page containing the downloadable PDF.

   JER-image.jpeg

   Remember, you may download the PDF for free for only 50-days.

   We will also post our authors’ share link on social media and the on Fairewinds’ Home Page and our outstanding Peer Reviewed Journal Page.

   If you have not read the two previously published peer-reviewed journal articles, also co-authored by Fairewinds and Dr. Kaltofen, that detail the migration of radioactive microparticles from the Fukushima meltdowns, please take an opportunity to do so. It is essential to us you know that the nuclear industries and the governments that support nuclear weapons and atomic power do not acknowledge that microparticles of radioactive dust and dirt pose a significant risk to life on our whole planet.

   Okay, in plain language, what did we learn from analyzing those 350 ash and dirt samples?

   The Woolsey Fire Project analyses of collected samples determined that one out of every 30-samples, fully 3%, contained much higher radioactivity than anticipated. This research also revealed that the radioactivity migrated from the SSFL site.

   Citizen-scientist collected dirt samples located on public land adjacent to the SSFL fenceline. These samples matched the radioactivity on ash samples as far away as Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

   The fire burned a vast area between SSFL and the sea, so only a fraction of the ash produced by the fire originated at SSFL. It is therefore not surprising that only a fraction of the ash measured from offsite was radioactive. However, our report proves that the radiologically contaminated ash we found did come from the Santa Susana site.

   Our most radioactive sample was found 9 miles away in Thousand Oaks. This sample was 19 times more radioactive than normal background levels, was a chemical match to what we measured at the fenceline, and clearly shows that more radioactive material is yet to be identified on the SSFL site and in the communities beyond.

   Deposition of radioactivity could have been much worse! The most radioactive part of the SSFL site did not burn during the Woolsey Fire.

   The analysis created in the Woolsey Fire Project clearly questions the previous studies that belittled radiation releases from the Woolsey Fire as it traversed the SSFL site and progressed to Malibu beach.

   View fullsize

   Map showing the Woolsey Fire area (in red lines). Photo from Wildfire Today

   Map showing the Woolsey Fire area (in red lines). Photo from Wildfire Today

   We know that 3% does not sound like a large number, but let’s put it in perspective. According to the 2010 US Census, 730,000 people are living within ten miles of SSFL. So, three percent of 730,000 means that at least 22,000 people may have been exposed to significant radiation carried by the Woolsey Fire on ash contaminated by the Santa Susana Field Lab radioactivity.

   Let’s look at it another way, for every ton of smoke and ash thrown up by the Woolsey Fire as it burned on the SSFL site, 60 pounds – 3% – of that ash contained highly radioactive particles, some of which were airborne as far away as Thousand Oaks and beyond. As a result, when I look at Woolsey Fire Photos and see those clouds billowing over SSFL, I imagine that 3% of those clouds were radioactive during the fire.

   For several years, I was a volunteer in a community-based volunteer ambulance Corp near a group of nuclear power reactors in upstate New York. I am horrified when EMS personnel are fighting the Woolsey Fire without a respirator or radiation protection suits. We believe these facts are genuinely frightening!

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   SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – The Los Angeles Fire Department joined allied agencies on the afternoon of November 8, 2018 in battling the wind-driven Woolsey wildfire that began in the Simi Hills of Ventura County and spread southward into Los Angeles County toward Malibu. Hundreds of homes are believed to have been lost, and at least three civilians are believed to have perished in the flames. © Photo by Mike Meadows

   SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – The Los Angeles Fire Department joined allied agencies on the afternoon of November 8, 2018 in battling the wind-driven Woolsey wildfire that began in the Simi Hills of Ventura

   Comment by Heidie Jenson | October 17, 2021 | Reply

   • The American stock market is a joke! The USA, government and fed, pump a trillion dollars a year into that piece of crud stock market and the nukist military and their complex! That’s why the bogus American stock market, going up. Worthless hype. It’s a damnable worthless bubble and blood sucker. Rockets to Mars. Nuclear bombs. Nuclear space weapons, shitty lethal nuke reactors. No possible place to put the waste. USA has the worst medical system in the world for a country it’s size! Musk and gates and the demon Bezos have billions of dollars, tied up in rotten con games, like colonizing Mars or ithe most dangerous nuke reactors in the universe. They doit at environmental doomsday pace. And they help prosecuting assange because it cuts into their bottom line. The greedgut devils, do it at taxpayers expense. It’s all so evil. All fake assets so, these husks of human monkeys, can set off coups in Ecuador and Honduras make thousands homeless in murica steal real asserts , steal other countries asetts, cheat taxpayers over and over again and parade like banty roosters.

     Comment by Doug | October 18, 2021 | Reply

2. Colin Powell died of covid. Colin Powell, famously said “Nuclear weapons are completely useless, because they can never be used.”
   In this last week we lost Sister Megan Rice who was 91 years old. Rice was imprisoned for two years in federal prison when she was in her 80s after she broke into a government complex to protest nuclear weapons. Her activism was influenced by her parents who worked with Dorothy Day for economic justice during the Great Depression and by her uncle who had spent four months in Nagasaki, Japan, following the criminal nuclear bombing of civilians by US forces. After living and working in West Africa for 23 years as a teacher and pastoral guide she returned to the US and became a major activist in the peace movement. Sister Rice will not get the attention of a dead general in the mainstream press or by politicians of the ruling parties. Those who expose war crimes or who advocate peace are generally marginalized, imprisoned or silenced in militaristic societies.

   During Powell’s time in and around the Reagan White House, the CIA and it’s drug-running contras tried to overthrow the Sandinistas, killing more than 31,000 Nicaraguans and displacing more than 10 percent of the nation’s population of 3 million people.

   Over roughly the same period (1981 to 1992), more than 75,000 civilians were slaughtered in El Salvador, largely at the hands of US-financed and trained government death squads. While in Honduras, the US trained “Battalion 316” tortured and assassinated 184 of the country’s most

   Prominent environmentalists , along with thousands of others were killed in Honduras, when powell worked for Reagan. . Then in Guatemala 250,000 were wiped out in what has been called a “civil war”, but was really an extermination campaign against the nation’s indigenous population.

   In one form or another, all of these mass killing operations came across Colin Powell’s desk. He either helped plan them, implement them, strategize them, evaluate them, rationalize them or deny them. As he lies in state, many of the murdered are still waiting to be unearthed.
   Colin Powell was also partially responsible responsible for the death of 1 million iraquis, in the illegal Invasion of Iraq.
   “Americans have a remarkable ability of sanitizing the crimes of their ruling class. Their lives often seem to eclipse the mountains of corpses on which they stand atop. The regions left in disarray and ruin. The lives and families and hopes that were forever disfigured or shattered. All of that disappears, is explained away, or is designated as a mere footnote when one of the elite dies. The nationalistic panegyrics that are employed are designed to do just that. A kind of novocaine that glazes over eyes and numbs collective memory. But as the late Howard Zinn said: “‘There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” And, despite the enormous effort made, that shame cannot be sponged away in death.”
   Ken Orphan

   https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/19/legacy-of-shame-colin-powells-blood-soaked-service-to-the-empire/

   Comment by .... | October 20, 2021 | Reply

3. I trust Dr Caldicott but, she was naive in putting this Sgi, soka Gakkai Bs up on her Twitter feed .
   Soka gakkai contriols a major conservative political party in Japan, the Komeito .The kometo party, is the third strongest political party, in Japan. The Komeito is exclusively controlled by Soka Gakkai Iternational or SGI, a religious group in Japan .
   SGI and Komeito are allied with the conservative LDP, in Japan . Together, they Are trying to get nuclear weapons, for Japan and nuclear submarines, for Japan which negates any good will a few of their members do, who particicipate in Ican.
   Komeito and the LDP, are trying To break the constitutional mandate, that does not allow any nukes for Japan. The Ican stuff is a front. The Sgi is a multibillion dollar prosperity cult, that has major power in Japan.
   The Sgi tweet Helen caldicott allowed on her Twitter, is pure propaganda diarrhea. Sgi owns mitsubishi, had conreolling shares in Tepco, I was talking to an SGI leader about nuclear once, and he said nuclear is the cleanest cheapest energy possible! He said Sgi in America and Japan just pay lip service to antinuclear weapons .
   SGI, owns, Seven eleven and several other major corporations in Japan. I know soka gakkai . Most of the major Tepco execs involved in the Fukushima meltdowns and coverups, we’re and stil nuclear executives or Tepco. Too bad caldicott allowed the interloper to tweet on her Twitter feed.

   Soka Gakkai Offficial
   Oct 19 Helen Caldicott Twitter
   Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, speaks about freeing the world from the threat of #nuclearweapons and how ICAN has worked together with the SGI.
   https://sokaglobal.org/resources/expert-perspectives/beatrice-fihn-doing-what-we-can.html
   #SokaGakkai #nuclearabolition #nuclearfreeworld #SGI #TPNW

   Comment by Forget Sgi Member | October 20, 2021 | Reply

4. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/radioactive-waste-woolsey-fire-wildfires-simi-valley-santa-susana-field-lab/2714652/?amp&__twitter_impression=true

   NBC Los Angeles
   NBC4 I-TEAM
   Radioactive Waste Fell On Some LA-Area Neighborhoods During 2018 Woolsey Fire, New Study Shows
   The majority of samples found just “background” or normally occurring levels of radioactivity. But 11 samples showed significantly elevated levels of radioactive materials.
   By Joel Grover and Josh Davis • Published October 14, 2021 • Updated on October 15, 2021 at 12:17 pm

   NBC Universal, Inc.
   High levels of radioactive particles landed in LA area neighborhoods during the massive 2018 Woolsey fire which started at the contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab. Joel Grover reports for the NBC4 I-Team at 11 p.m. on Oct. 14, 2021.

   High levels of radioactive particles landed in neighborhoods from Thousand Oaks to Simi Valley during the massive 2018 Woolsey fire, which started at the contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab, according to a peer-reviewed study just published by a team of scientists known for studying environmental disasters.

   What’s stunning about the findings is that they run contrary to what California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said to calm public fears in the hours after the Woolsey Fire, “We do not believe the fire has caused any releases of hazardous materials… associated with contamination at the [SSFL] site.”

   Our redesigned local news and weather app is live! Download it for iOS or Android — and sign up for alerts.
   “The DTSC lied. They said that contamination from hadn’t migrated away from Santa Susana and the study proves that it has,” said Jeni Knack, part of a group of volunteers who helped collect samples analyzed in the study.

   Knack participated in the sample collection because she had a background doing data collection on archaeological sites, and because she’s the mom of a 6-year old who lives in Simi Valley, just five miles from Santa Susana.

   Local
   Local news from across Southern California

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   “I was afraid that radioactive and chemical contamination were being carried by wind and smoke during the fire,” Knack told NBC4.

   It was back in 2015, that the NBC4 I-Team — in an ongoing series titled “LA’s Nuclear Secret” — revealed how the ground and vegetation at the Santa Susana Field Lab were highly contaminated with toxic radioactive and chemical waste from years of nuclear accidents and rocket tests. And the I-Team found federally-funded studies that showed that contamination could migrate to neighboring communities in wind and rain.

   So after the Woolsey Fire in November 2018, a team of world-renowned scientists wanted to find out if radioactive ash and dust from the fire at SSLF had migrated off the site. The team was lead by Dr. Marco Kaltofen, who has studied fallout from nuclear accidents such as one the in Fukushima, Japan in 2011.

   Kaltofen trained a group of volunteers to collect samples of ash, dust, and soil from neighborhoods and publicly accessible lands in the “fire zone,” an area up to about 10 miles from SSFL.

   The majority of the samples found just “background” or normally occurring levels of radioactivity. But 11 samples showed significantly elevated levels of radioactive materials.

   “The data left very little doubt. Radioactive contamination from SSFL was spread into some of the outlying communities during the fire,” Dr. Kaltofen told the I-Team.

   The “hottest sample” was found nine miles from SSFL in Thousand Oaks, at 19 times above normal or “background” levels of radiation.

   “People can breathe these in and take the contamination into their bodies where it could continue to affect them for months and even years,” Kaltofen said.

   For years, doctors have told the NBC4 I-Team they are concerned about the health effects of radioactive waste from SSFL migrating into neighboring communities.

   “If the wind is blowing and carrying radiation from Santa Susana, it doesn’t stop because there’s a fence… There’s absolutely a link between radiation and cancer,” said Dr. Robert Dodge, board member of the Nobel Peace Prize winning non-profit Physicians for Social Responsibility.

   Back in 2015, the then-head of California’s DTSC told the I-Team that contamination at the field lab would be cleaned up by 2017. But six years later, most of the contamination remains, according to government documents.

   Just today, four California congressmembers and one U.S. senator sent a letter to the head of California’s EPA , Jared Blumenthal, saying “We are deeply concerned about the lengthy delays in the clean up of SSFL.”

   At the same time, 11 high-level local elected officials also sent a letter to CalEPA’s Blumenthal saying they’re concerned about “confidential negotiations between DSTC and Boeing that could delay or weaken cleanup [of SSFL] by Boeing.” Boeing is the current owner of most of the field lab.

   The I-Team asked Boeing to talk to us for this story. Instead the company sent a statement saying “Cleanup at Santa Susana will continue to follow California law… The transformation of Boeing’s land at Santa Susana from a field laboratory to open space is well underway.”

   The DTSC also wouldn’t talk to us, but sent a statement saying “CalEPA and DTSC have also been participating in non-binding mediation with Boeing … to hold Boeing accountable to its 2007 … cleanup obligations.”

   Neither DTSC or Boeing would comment on Dr. Kaltofen’s peer-reviewed study just published.

   Kaltofen says his big concern right now is that another wildfire could burn through Santa Susana, before much of the contamination is cleaned up.

   “We could see that the more contaminated parts of the laboratory might be burned during the next fire,” Kaltofen told the I-Team. “If this is what we’ve seen when the lesser radioactive places burn, I don’t want to be there if the more radioactive places go up.”

   Full statement from DTSC:

   CalEPA and DTSC are proud of the swift progress that has been made at the SSFL site under this new Administration. Since 2020, the last of the 18 remaining DOE-owned buildings have been demolished and disposed of at a licensed facility out of state. The final environmental impact report will be released next year, at which point DTSC will move quickly to implement the last phase of cleanup at the site. We appreciate DOE’s cooperation with the state of California, as well as ongoing support from the state’s federal delegation, who have directed DOE and NASA to expeditiously comply with DTSC’s orders to continue this work. We look forward to working in partnership with them toward its completion. CalEPA and DTSC have also been participating in non-binding mediation with Boeing and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to hold Boeing accountable to its 2007 order and its cleanup obligations.

   Having just been made aware of the independent study regarding SSFL and Woolsey Fire, we cannot comment on its contents at this time. However, DTSC released a final report in December 2020, which confirmed that data from multiple lines of evidence did not identify a release of contaminants from SSFL.

   -Allison Wescott, Deputy Director of Communications

   Boeing’s full statement:

   “Boeing and the State of California have agreed to pursue mediation as a tool to attempt to accelerate resolution of a pending dispute and commencement of site cleanup. Cleanup at Santa Susana will continue to follow California law and the 2007 consent order – which includes all required public notice and comment opportunities. The transformation of Boeing’s land at Santa Susana from a field laboratory to open space is well underway. Native plants and animals are reclaiming many of the previously developed areas of the property and the community is protected through the investigation, cleanup and monitoring activities.”

   As for the study, on background: The state of California did an extensive report as you mentioned, so we don’t have a position on that study. I am sure you are already doing so, but I might suggest you ask the state for their response. However, as you noted, the DTSC’s final report on the Woolsey Fire stated that, “Data from multiple lines of evidence did not identify a release of contaminants from SSFL. Like the interim report, this final report also finds the risk from exposure to smoke during the Woolsey Fire was not higher than what is normally associated with wildfire.”

   This article tagged under:
   NBC4 I-TEAMSANTA SUSANAWOOLSEY FIRE

   Comment by Woolsey Redux | October 23, 2021 | Reply

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