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American Medical Association wants action on radiation in seafoods

radiation-in-sea--food-chaiFlag-USAAmerican Medical Assn. Urges Testing Seafood For Radiation http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=10663 July 11th, 2013 The American Medical Association has passed a resolution calling for the US to continue to monitor and publicly report radiation contamination in seafood. The original resolution included the language that cited Fukushima as a main reason for the concern and focused on the Pacific ocean. The final resolution broadened it to include all seafood.

The resolution was approved before the recent announcement that Fukushima Daiichi has been continually leaking contamination into the Pacific for the last 2+ years.

The resolution is a good step for public health. The current policy of the FDA does no ongoing seafood testing for radiation. That done soon after the Fukushima disaster was vague, using frozen fish of unknown catch date and fish with an unknown catch location within Japan. The FDA and USDA so far have not publicly released any seafood testing for products hauled places other than Japan. The current US contamination level before the government will intervene is 1200 bq/kg far higher than other countries including Japan.

July 13, 2013 Posted by | oceans, radiation, USA | 1 Comment

Global maritime environment threatened by Russia’s floating nuclear plants

Russian-Bear Tow cables snap, Arctic conditions can be unpredictable, ships sink. As the ocean is the common heritage of humanity, perhaps the international community might evince a tad more interest in this project.

Chernobyl At Sea? Russia Building Floating Nuclear Power Plants http://www.zerohedge.com/node/476304  submitted by Tyler Durden   07/11/2013  by John Daly via OilPrice.com,So much for the lessons of Fukushima. Never mind oil spills, the Russian Federation is preparing an energy initiative that, if it has problems, will inject nuclear material into the maritime environment.

Speaking to reporters at the 6th International Naval Show in St. Petersburg, Baltiskii Zavod shipyard general director Aleksandr Voznesenskii said that the Russian Federation’s first floating nuclear power plant “should be operational by 2016.” Continue reading →

July 12, 2013 Posted by | oceans, politics, Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Fukushima radiation seeps into the ocean

The threat of radioactive substances spreading into the Pacific Ocean has prompted concerns from Japan’s neighbors

water-radiationToxic water at Fukushima likely contaminating sea – Japan’s nuclear watchdog RT.com July 10, 2013  Japan’s nuclear watchdog says that highly contaminated radioactive water is likely seeping into the ground from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors and contaminating the Pacific Ocean.

Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), said the contamination is “strongly suspected” and has been occurring since March 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered three meltdowns in the Fukushima plant.

“I think contamination of the sea is continuing to a greater or lesser extent,” Tanaka said. “It was contaminated at the time of the accident, but I think it has been continuing for the last two years. Coming up with countermeasures against all possible scenarios is a top priority.”

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), claims that the source of contamination is the pit from which radioactive water is leaking into the sea. However, Tanaka believes that this may be not the only source of contamination. Continue reading →

July 11, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Radioactive cesium levels 90% higher in Fukushima groundwater

Fukushima-reactor-6Fukushima Groundwater Shows Record Radiation Levels HUFFINGTON POST, Reuters   07/09/2013 “……SITUATION WORSENS Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima station, hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, said that an observation well between the damaged reactor No. 2 and the sea showed levels of radioactive caesium-134 were 90 times higher on Monday than they had been the previous Friday.

water-radiationTokyo Electric, also known as Tepco, said it detected caesium-134 at 9,000 becquerels per litre, 150 times above Japan’s safety standard. A becquerel is a measure of the release of radioactive energy. The reading for caesium-137, with a half life of 30 years, was some 85 times higher than it had been three days earlier.

The latest findings, 25 metres from the sea, come a month after Tepco detected radioactive caesium in groundwater flowing into its wrecked plant far from the sea on elevated ground. The level of caesium found in June was much lower than the amount announced on Tuesday.

The spike, combined with recent discoveries of high levels of radioactive elements like tritium and strontium, suggest that contaminated water is spreading toward the sea side of the plant from the reactors sitting on higher ground…..

The operator has been flushing water over the three reactors to keep them cool for more than two years, but contaminated water has been building up at the rate of an an Olympic-size swimming pool per week. In April, Tepco warned it may run out of space to store the water and asked for approval to channel what it has described groundwater with low levels of radiation around the plant and to the sea through a “bypass”. Local fishermen oppose the proposal….. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/fukushima-groundwater-radiation_n_3565767.html

July 11, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Japan, water | Leave a comment

Gathering storm of protest against endangering Great Lakes by radioactive waste

Lake-Huron,-Bruce-County,-OThe Canadian nuclear industry, like its counterparts in nuclearized countries around the world, was born promoting the myth that nuclear energy is safe, green and too cheap to meter

why would anyone consider dumping radioactive poisons that will remain deathly dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years next to such an integral part of the our Great Lakes ecosystem?

Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Waste Dump  Eco Watch, Michael Leonardi  July 3, 2013“……….More than 500 citizens from across North America gathered at the Southampton, Ontario, flagpole on High Street by the lake. They gathered to voice their opposition to nuke dumps on these beautiful shores and to the continued production of this dangerous and deadly waste. They walked several kilometers through the town and along the beach to heighten awareness and bring attention to this diabolical plan, orchestrated largely in secret by local and national authorities and a deceitful industry, to bury low level, intermediate and high level nuclear waste underground and less than a mile away from this important fresh water source. They gathered to push back against a corrupt political leadership from the local level to the upper levels of dirty energy frontman Stephen Harper’s disastrous national government. They marched to say no to an industry that has been lying and deceiving the public about the dangers of nuclear energy and radiation exposure for decades. They walked to promote real renewable wind and solar energy alternatives.

Surely the question that comes to many is why on Earth would anyone in their right mind consider the shores of Lake Huron for the first permanent nuclear dump in North America? Lake Huron sits to the north of Lakes St. Clair, Erie and Ontario and the water of this lake flows southward and eastward, eventually connecting to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Great Lakes account for 21 percent of the world’s fresh water resources, Continue reading →

July 8, 2013 Posted by | Canada, water | Leave a comment

Health and environmental destruction in Africa, by foreign uranium companies

Health hazards posed by uranium mining IPP MEDIA  5th July 2013“……..History has it that uranium mining companies had never solved problems associated with extraction of uranium and also never employed good practice of settling uranium radioactive waste seriously after the mining activity is complete.

Of course, these foreign companies have their eyes fixed on maximising profits against corresponding safe infrastructure investment. Some of the companies run away from implementing this social cooperative responsibility to the poor ignorant communities.

This happens in countries where local atomic energy commissions are non-existent, or if present are under- equipped with the necessary human and material resources for effective supervision, monitoring and control of lung-cancerthe foreign mining companies for radiation protection to the miners and the environment.

The whole population in the area surrounding the mines is endangered with the diseases mentioned above, lung cancer being the most serious for miners due to inhalation of radon gas in the pits and in the dusty atmosphere of the processing mills.

Uranium radioactive waste stored close to the mines can leach into ground water and contaminate drinking water. Other possibilities of radioactivity reaching humans and environment are a result of deficient radioactive waste management practices by the mining companies,  Continue reading →

July 6, 2013 Posted by | AFRICA, environment, health, Uranium | Leave a comment

Uranium mining’s threat to Grand Canyon water

Are We Really Okay With a Uranium Mine Next Door to the Grand Canyon? This move would definitely not fall under the good neighbor policy Take Part, July 3, 2013   The Sierra Club has stated that, “Originally approved in 1986, the Canyon Mine has long been the subject of protests by the Havasupai Tribe and others objecting to potential uranium mining impacts on regional groundwater, springs, creeks, and cultural values associated with Red Butte, a Traditional Cultural Property.”

During his recent visit, Brune met with Havasupai Tribal leaders. He tells TakePart: “Sierra Club leaders have been working to stop uranium mining in the area for decades. And working to protect the lands from uranium mining by advocating for the mineral withdrawal issued by then Secretary of Interior Salazar, as well as permanently protecting the area through a Grand Canyon.”

The Obama administration has taken steps to protect one million acres around Grand Canyon from new uranium mining, but Canyon Mine has been permitted to move forward as an existing claim even though the last environmental review of the project is over two decades old.

“Mining has a history of taking precedence over other important issues due in part to the outdated Mining Law of 1872 and the significant political influence of large multinational mining corporations,” says Brune.

“The reviews for Canyon Mine are more than 27 years old, older than a number of the volunteers working on this issue,” he adds. “The mine’s permit was issued with no consideration of significant new information, including the designation of the Red Butte Traditional Cultural Property and the reintroduction of the endangered California condor.”

“Scientific studies published since 1986 demonstrate more strongly the connection between the water in this area and the seeps, springs, and creeks in Grand Canyon. If this mine pollutes the groundwater, it pollutes Grand Canyon,” says Brune………http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/07/03/uranium-mine-next-door-grand-canyon

July 5, 2013 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA, water | Leave a comment

Radiation stored in forests of Chernobyl: the fire danger

text ionising27 Years Later, Radiation Still Hides Out in Chernobyl’s Trees (Fukushima’s Too) The April 26, 1986, meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power flag-UkrainePlant scattered radioactive material across 58,000 square miles of eastern Europe. In a ring 18 miles from the destroyed plant, authorities set up the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—a place where no one is supposed to live (though of course some do.) Scientific American has the story of how, though the disaster took place decades ago, radiation persists in a huge area around the defunct power plant—ready to be re-released to the environment. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/06/27-years-later-radiation-still-hides-out-in-chernobyls-trees-fukushimas-too/ 30 June 13

In the forests around Chernobyl, the trees have absorbed some of the radioactive fall-out. Washed from the air by the rain, radionuclides are taken up by trees and stored for long periods. The worry, says Scientific American, is that a forest fire could loose this radiation back to the environment.

For almost three decades the forests around the shuttered nuclear power plant have been absorbing contamination left from the 1986 reactor explosion. Now climate change and lack of management present a troubling predicament: If these forests burn, strontium 90, cesium 137, plutonium 238 and other radioactive elements would be released, according to an analysis of the human health impacts of wildfire in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone conducted by scientists in Germany, Scotland, Ukraine and the United States. Continue reading →

July 1, 2013 Posted by | environment, radiation, Ukraine | Leave a comment

UK’s Minstry of Defence caused radioactive beach

Dalgety Bay radiation: Sepa says MoD was responsible for contamination, BBC News 28 Jue 13Diggers have excavated sections of the beach The Ministry of Defence has been found solely responsible for radioactive contamination at Dalgety Bay in Fife.

It follows an investigation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) into the history of the contamination at the beach.

Its report said the MoD had routinely incinerated and disposed of aircraft dials in the bay before the town was developed.

The dials had been illuminated by paint containing radium-226.

The aircraft had been stationed at the nearby HMS Merlin airfield, which was commissioned in 1939 as a Royal Naval Aircraft Repair Yard and decommissioned in 1959 before being sold off through the 1960s……..

“Contamination on the foreshore at Dalgety Bay is the result of erosion of deposited material and subsequent re-working and re-deposition of contaminated marine sediments resulting from coastal erosion, a process which is considered to be a normal part of life.”

Significant amounts of material remain buried on the coast and continue to erode through coastal processes and re-contaminate the foreshore areas, the report added.

It concluded that Sepa considered the MoD to be the sole “appropriate person” for the contamination…….

The local MP and former prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the MoD was “merely delaying the inevitable” and had a “moral duty” to clean up the site.

“Having been named as the polluter, the Ministry of Defence must now agree to fund the clean-up of the area to remove the contaminated substances from the Dalgety Bay beach, and the work must start immediately,” he said……. The local MP and former prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the MoD was “merely delaying the inevitable” and had a “moral duty” to clean up the site.

“Having been named as the polluter, the Ministry of Defence must now agree to fund the clean-up of the area to remove the contaminated substances from the Dalgety Bay beach, and the work must start immediately,” he said.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23098001

June 29, 2013 Posted by | environment, Reference, UK | Leave a comment

Big rise in radioactive sea-water: groundwater near Fukushima seeping to ocean?

water-radiationRadioactive material “soars” in ocean near Fukushima plant — Tepco: Contaminated groundwater leaking into Pacific? http://enenews.com/radioactive-material-soars-in-ocean-near-fukushima-plant-tepco-contaminated-groundwater-leaking-into-pacific
Title: Tritium samples in sea near No. 1 soar
Source: Japan Times
Author: Reiji Yoshida
Date: Jun 25, 2013
The density of radioactive tritium in samples of seawater from near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant doubled over 10 days to hit a record 1,100 becquerels per liter, possibly indicating contaminated groundwater is seeping into the Pacific, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The latest sample was taken June 21 from the sea near a water intake point east of the reactor 1 turbine building. […]

Tepco said late Monday it was still analyzing the water for strontium-90 […]

[…] during a news conference Monday in Tokyo, Masayuki Ono, a Tepco executive and spokesman, this time did not deny the possibility of leakage into the sea, while he said Tepco is still trying to determine the cause of the spike.
See also: TV: Groundwater shows massive spike in radioactive material at Fukushima plant — Strontium-90 up over 10,000% in past few months — Tepco apologizes (VIDEO)

June 27, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Enewetak coral atoll transformed by US atomic bomb testing

Cactus Dome: A Concrete Cap for a Nuclear Crater http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/06/25/the_cactus_dome_is_enormous_concrete_structure_built_over_a_nuclear_crater.html By  , June 25, 2013, With its ring of verdant islands surrounding a deep sapphire lagoon, the Enewetak coral atoll was a beautiful place to launch the world’s first hydrogen bomb. After capturing the atoll from the Japanese during World War II, the U.S. evacuated the islands, exhumed its fallen soldiers to send them home for reburial, and conducted a series of nuclear tests.

Between 1948 and 1958, 43 weapons exploded over Enewetak. Among these was Ivy Mike, a world-first hydrogen bomb, 500 times bigger than Hiroshima’s Little Boy, that destroyed the entire island of Elugelab. By the time testing ceased, the entire atoll was highly radioactive, its reefs and islands dotted with craters that each measured several hundred feet in diameter. (Off the coast of Runnit what looks like a natural blue hole is the Lacrosse Crater, the results of an earlier fission test.)

Enewetak-atoll-Cactus-dome

Evacuated residents began returning to Enewetak during the 1970s. It was at this time that the U.S. government determined it ought to decontaminate the islands. In 1979, a military team arrived to gather up contaminated soil and debris, mixing it with cement and piling the sludge into a 350-foot-wide blast crater on Runit Island in the atoll’s east. When the mound reached 25 feet high, army engineers covered it with a saucer-shaped concrete cap. It was dubbed the Cactus Dome, after the Cactus bomb that caused the crater.

The U.S. declared Enewetak safe for habitation in 1980. Currently, about 900 people live on the atoll though none live on the Cactus Dome. A 2008 field survey of the Cactus Dome noted that 219 of its 357 concrete panels contained defects such as cracks, chips, and vegetation taking root in joints.

June 27, 2013 Posted by | environment, OCEANIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

.Radiation from nuclear tests

U.N. Downplays Health Effects of Nuclear Radiation, IPS, By George Gao, 26 June 13  UNITED NATIONS, –  Fukushima on the Hudson“…… During the Cold War, the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site in present day Kazakhstan.

“Based on information collected during the missions and subsequent research, there is sufficient evidence to indicate that most of the area has little or no residual radioactivity directly attributed to nuclear tests in Kazakhstan,”according to the IAEA. 

Mayak disaster

But the IAEA narrative differs from those who live around Semipalatinsk. According to the preparatory committee for theComprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO),”A number of genetic defects and illnesses in the region, ranging from cancers to impotency to birth defects and other deformities, have been attributed to nuclear testing.”

“There is even a museum of mutations at the regional medical institute in Semey, the largest city near the old nuclear testing site,” it noted.

“What radiation does – gamma, alpha or beta – is it either kills the cell or changes the biochemistry of the DNA molecule,” Caldicott, who has worked on nuclear issues for 43 years, explained. “One day [the cell] will start to divide by mitosis in an unregulated way, producing literally trillions and trillions of [mutated] cells, and that’s a cancer,” she said.

“You don’t know you’ve been exposed to radiation,” Caldicott pointed out. “You can’t taste or see radioactive elements in the food, and when the cancer develops, of course it doesn’t denote its origin.”…… http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/u-n-downplays-health-effects-of-nuclear-radiation

June 27, 2013 Posted by | environment, health, Russia | Leave a comment

People of Jadugoda, India, suffer effects of uranium mining

see-this.waySee the environmental and health damage at Jadugoda, India, in these photographs http://www.galli.in/2013/06/jadugoda-unumo-tene-ashish-birulee.html?utm_source=Galli+Magazine&utm_campaign=19921c605d-UA-24811720-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_810b488293-19921c605d-28734661

 

U.N. Downplays Health Effects of Nuclear Radiation, IPS, By George Gao, 26 June 13  UNITED NATIONS, –  “……..Radiation from uranium mining The IAEA promotes “safe, responsible development of uranium resources”, the raw materials used to fuel nuclear reactors and build nuclear bombs.

For Ashish Birulee, a Ho tribal resident of Jadugoda, India, safe uranium mining in his community is far from reality, and the health effects of radiation are as clear as the photographs he has taken to document them.

Birulee, a student and photojournalist, lives next to a tailings dam, filled with radioactive waste from a uranium purification plant operated by the Uranium Corporation of India.

“Lung cancer, skin cancer, tumours, congenital deformities, down syndrome, mental retardation, megacephaly, sterility, infertility in married couples, thalassemia [and] rare birth defects like Gastroschisis [are] common in the area,” he told IPS.

“We are like guinea pigs here,” he said, citing government negligence on the matter. “I’m experiencing everyday radiation exposure and also witnessing how my people are suffering.”…   http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/u-n-downplays-health-effects-of-nuclear-radiation/

 

June 27, 2013 Posted by | environment, health, India, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Utah’s Moab uranium mine created a radioactive wasteland

TV: Western U.S. turned into “radiant wasteland” by nuclear-related facilities http://enenews.com/tv-western-u-s-turned-into-radiant-wasteland-by-nuclear-related-facilities
Title: Moab, Utah: Beauty and the Nuclear Feast
Source: KCET
Author: Char Miller
Date: June 19, 2013  

[…] The [uranium] tailings made Moab [Utah] glow — and not in a good way. For nearly 30 years, the various companies that operated the facility dumped ton after ton of the radioactive sandy byproduct into an unlined impoundment area located 750 feet from the river. Over the decades, this Geiger-hot waste, which ultimately totaled 12 million cubic yards, was spread over 130 acres at a depth of more than 80 feet. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), which took over remediation of the site, the tailings “have an average radioactivity of 665 picocuries per gram of radium-226,” and because the center of the monstrous pile has a “high water content…excess water in the pile drains into underlying soils, contaminating the ground water.”

Some the deleterious consequences are revealed in “The American West at Risk,” an illuminating book whose authors pay special attention to the Moab mill. It’s hard to dispute their claim that it ranks “high in the annals of indiscriminate disposal,” for the tailings each day continue to release “an estimated 28,000 gallons of radioactive pollutants and toxic chemicals into the only major river draining the southwestern United States.” […]

The Moab mine, like Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Rocky Flats weapons facility in Colorado, and Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico, helped turn the west into a radiant wasteland. […]
See also: Los Angeles-area Meltdown: Cesium-137 still up to 1,000 times higher than standard — Plutonium also detected — Located between Chatsworth and Simi Valley

June 22, 2013 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Schoolground in Japan has high levels of radiation in fungus

text ionisingChilling Phenomena”: Fungus emitting radiation 70 times higher than nearby asphalt — “A boy sitting on that patch could do real damage to his gonads”  http://enenews.com/chilling-phenomena-fungus-emitting-radiation-70-times-higher-than-nearby-asphalt-a-boy-sitting-on-that-patch-could-do-real-damage-to-his-gonads   Title: Cleanup From Fukushima Daiichi: Technological Disaster Or Crisis In Governance? 
flag-japanSource: Fairewinds Energy Education
Author: Art Keller
Date: June 13, 2013
[…] One of the first demonstrations conducted by [Kevin Wang]’s team was at a Japanese school still in routine use. The contamination was widespread and included troubling accumulations of radiation in biological materials. While the asphalt driveway was contaminated, the grass next to it was four times as radioactive as the asphalt. The worst were the patches of fungus on the bleachers at the school’s baseball field, which had sucked-up radionuclides to such a degree that they were emitting radiation at 70-times the contaminated asphalt.

[Sam Engelhard, an industrial hygenist and certified radiation protection technologist] described the chilling phenomena of the fungus-turned-radiation-sponge as, “a remarkable example of biological amplification.”

Wang said it more bluntly, “A boy sitting on that patch to watch a baseball game could do real damage to his gonads.” […] Full report here

June 15, 2013 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a comment

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