environment « nuclear-news

Lab Chromium Contamination Confirmed on San Ildefonso Pueblo Land.

Since chromium contamination was first reported in 2004, the Lab’s nuclear weapons budget has more than doubled to $5 billion (now 84% of LANL’s ~$6 billion annual budget). Cleanup is being cut to $278 million (less than 5% of the Lab’s total budget), as are virtually all non-nuclear weapons programs (research into renewable energies is being eliminated).[6]

Comprehensive Cleanup Needed Instead of More Nuclear Weapons

November 14, 2025, nuclear watch , New Mexico, nukewatch.org

Santa Fe, NM – The New Mexico Environment Department has announced:
“A toxic chromium plume from Los Alamos National Laboratory has spread beyond Lab boundaries onto Pueblo de San Ildefonso land for the first time, with contamination exceeding state groundwater standards… These new results are conclusive evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy’s efforts to contain the chromium plume have been inadequate.” In reality, chromium groundwater contamination probably migrated beyond the LANL/San Ildefonso Pueblo boundary long ago, with Lab maps of the plume “magically’ stopping at the border. In the past, tribal leadership has commented that it was fortunate that the contamination stopped there, but that any future indications of groundwater contamination on Pueblo land could have serious consequences. The San Ildefonso Pueblo is a sovereign Native American tribal government.

As late as the late 1990s the Lab was falsely claiming that groundwater contamination was impossible because underlying volcanic tuff is “impermeable.” [1] This ignored the obvious fact that the Parajito Plateau is heavily seismically fractured, providing ready pathways for contaminant migration to deep groundwater.
By 2005 even LANL acknowledged that continuing increasing contamination of the regional aquifer is inevitable.[2] Some 300,000 northern New Mexicans rely upon the aquifer for safe drinking water. The potential serious human health effects (including cancer) caused by chromium contamination was the subject of the popular movie Erin Brockovich.

LANL’s chromium contamination plume is at least one mile long, a half mile wide and 100 feet thick.[3] It is commonly regarded as the Lab’s most serious environmental threat. One drinking water supply well for Los Alamos County has already been shut down because of the plume. But even two decades after it was first reported, the Lab still doesn’t know how big the chromium plume is.

On December 30, 2024, in the middle of the holiday season, the Lab posted the report Independent Review of the Chromium Interim Measures Remediation System to its largely unknown Legacy Cleanup Electronic Public Reading Room. The Report’s bottom line was:
“…at this time the plume is not sufficiently characterized to design a final remedy… data gaps and uncertainties need to be addressed before committing to an alternative or final remedy.”

From 1956 to 1972, water containing potassium dichromate was used to prevent corrosion in cooling towers, releasing as much as 160,000 pounds of potassium dichromate into the headwaters of Sandia Canyon.[4] Over a 3-year period ending in November 2022, the Department of Energy extracted, treated and reinjected more than 400 million gallons of groundwater. But the December 2024 chromium report stated that only ~680 pounds of chromium was actually removed.[5] At this rate it will take more than a century to treat and remediate the chromium plume.

While failing to recommend a final remedy, the new chromium report did argue that extraction and treatment of groundwater should be continued. However, in order to speed up cleanup as part of any final remedy, Nuclear Watch New Mexico argues for pumping or trucking the treated groundwater uphill to flush out the chromium contamination at its source. In addition, more monitoring wells should be installed to finally determine the true depth and breadth of the chromium contamination that threatens northern New Mexico’s largest supply of drinking water.

According to the independent Government Accountability Office, expected completion of Lab cleanup has been repeatedly pushed back, most recently to 2043 with an estimated cost of $7 billion.[7] But even this is a false cleanup with the Lab planning to “cap and cover” some 800,000 cubic yards of radioactive and toxic wastes, leaving them permanently buried in unlined pits and shafts as a perpetual threat to groundwater. As the Lab becomes more and more a nuclear weapons production site for plutonium “pit” bomb cores, it remains woefully ignorant over the extent and depth of the contamination it has caused to the regional groundwater aquifer. At the same time, LANL continues to downplay widespread plutonium contamination in soil, water and plants.[8]

Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented: “LANL’s expanding nuclear weapons programs are a two-fold threat. First, they fuel the new nuclear arms race that threatens all of humanity. At the same time, they rob funding from vitally needed cleanup that would permanently protect our irreplaceable groundwater. As is commonly said in northern New Mexico, “Aqua es Vida!” Nuclear weapons can destroy both.”

November 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Toxic plume from Los Alamos National Laboratory spreads to nearby pueblo

by: Nicole Sanders, Nov 14, 2025 https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/toxic-plume-from-los-alamos-national-laboratory-spreads-to-nearby-pueblo/

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) — A toxic chromium plume from Los Alamos National Laboratory has spread onto Pueblo de San Ildefonso land, with contamination levels exceeding state groundwater standards. The New Mexico Environment Department says there is no imminent threat to drinking water on pueblo land or Los Alamos County because the plume is not near any known drinking well yet.

NMED says that the US Department of Energy’s chromium mitigation efforts failed, and because of that they are planning to file a lawsuit. Health officials say that long-term chromium ingestion can lead to cancer.

November 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA | Leave a comment

The remnants of Chernobyl are still present in the Black Sea

Forty years have passed since Chernobyl, but Chernobyl-related radioactive contamination in the Black Sea has not ended. TENMAK’s research has revealed that the concentration of caesium-137 in the Black Sea is seven times higher than in the Mediterranean Sea.

BirGün Daily, Giriş: 07.11.2025 , https://www.birgun.net/haber/the-remnants-of-chernobyl-are-still-present-in-the-black-sea-667018

Nearly 40 years have passed since the Chernobyl disaster, considered one of the world’s three largest nuclear accidents, but the radioactive contamination caused by the accident continues to affect the Black Sea. At the IVth National Symposium on Monitoring and Assessment in the Seas, Dr Aysun Kılınçarslan, presenting on behalf of the Turkish Energy, Nuclear and Mining Research Institute (TENMAK), announced the results of monitoring studies on radioactive contamination in Turkey’s coastal waters and sediments.

Analyses conducted in coastal sediments between 2015 and 2023 detected high levels of caesium-137 and strontium-90. While an average of 21 becquerels of caesium-137 isotope per kilogram was observed in the Black Sea, this rate was recorded as only 3.2 becquerels in the Mediterranean Sea. Values that are relatively high in the Sea of Marmara decrease as one moves towards the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. The highest value found in the analyses exceeds 82 becquerels. This figure is 10 times higher than the highest value observed in the Mediterranean Sea. When viewed on a regional basis, the highest caesium-137 value in sediments, 50 becquerels, was found in Hopa. Hopa is followed by Trabzon and Sinop.

HIGH FIGURES IN TRABZON AND HOPA

In measurements taken in coastal surface waters between 2014 and 2023, the caesium-137 concentration averaged 9 millibecquerels per litre in the Black Sea, while this figure dropped to 1.6 millibecquerels in the Mediterranean Sea. Rates in the Bosphorus, Marmara and Çanakkale ranged between 8.4 and 6.9 millibecquerels, while the amount of caesium-137 in the water decreased in the Aegean Sea, falling to 1.8 millibecquerels. The highest figures were found in Trabzon and Hopa, which have been affected by Chernobyl for years and where cancer rates have increased. Tekirdağ, Ordu, Karasu and İğneada stand out as other regions with high measurements. Although the study’s findings indicate that these levels do not pose a risk to human health or environmental pollution, the significant difference between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean clearly demonstrates the consequences of Chernobyl-related contamination.

CHERNOBYL FLOWS

Another noteworthy finding of the study was the detection of plutonium-239, which does not occur naturally and is produced by nuclear reactions, alongside caesium-137. While average values do not differ between seas, the locations most affected by this contamination include Erdek, the Bosphorus Strait, Hopa, and Sinop. Experts point out that the sources of contamination linked to these isotopes are nuclear power plant accidents, nuclear weapons tests, and operational nuclear reactors. Chernobyl is also cited as a source of contamination in the Black Sea. Radioactive pollution from the out-of-control melted reactor and the surrounding area reaches the Black Sea via groundwater and the Dnieper River.

MARINE ASSESSMENT IS NECESSARY

Prof. Dr. İnci Gökmen, who revealed high levels of radiation in tea after Chernobyl, points out that the radiation level detected at 21 becquerels per kilogram is quite high. Gökmen states that data collected from the seas and coasts also highlights the need to measure radiation levels in the soil, adding, “It is surprising to see plutonium in the seas, even at low levels. Strontium is not surprising. However, since strontium does not emit gamma radiation and must be measured by chemical separation, measurements were rarely taken despite the presence of strontium in the environment and food after Chernobyl. However, the strontium values immediately after the accident can be estimated from the current results. By looking at the caesium levels in coastal surface water in some areas, it would be good to calculate the doses that swimmers or those working at sea, such as fishermen, would receive. It would be appropriate to take measurements in fish, mussels and other seafood. Thirty-nine years have passed since Chernobyl. Caesium has only undergone one half-life. This means that radioactive elements will remain in the seas for a long time to come,” he said. WHAT IS CAESIUM (CS-137)?

The most common radioactive form of caesium is Cs-137. Caesium-137 is produced by nuclear reactions. External exposure to Cs-137 can cause burns, acute radiation sickness and even death. Exposure to large amounts of Cs-137 can result from the misuse of a powerful industrial Cs-137 source, a nuclear explosion, or a major nuclear accident. Under normal conditions, large amounts of Cs-137 are not found in the environment. Exposure to Cs-137 can increase the risk of cancer due to the presence of high-energy gamma radiation. Ingestion or inhalation of Cs-137 increases the risk of cancer by causing the radioactive material to spread to soft tissues, particularly muscle tissue. Vascular plants do not accumulate high levels of caesium through root uptake because caesium is strongly adsorbed to the soil. However, the accumulation of radioactive residues on flora with large surface areas, such as lichens or mosses, is significant. Animals that feed on these plants can consume large amounts of radiocaesium (and other radionuclides present in radioactive fallout). Human consumption of the meat of such animals leads to the uptake of these radionuclides into the body.

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Çernobil’in izleri hâlâ Karadeniz’de, published in BirGün newspaper on November 7, 2025.

November 13, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

The Silicon Thirst: When Data Drinks the World Dry

4 November 2025 Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/the-silicon-thirst-when-data-drinks-the-world-dry/

We live in an age of digital miracles, where intelligence is artificial and clouds are not in the sky, but in warehouses. Yet, this ethereal realm has a staggering physical appetite, one that is quietly draining the planet of its most vital resource: water.

The numbers are not just statistics; they are a prognosis.

A single data centre can consume 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day – the equivalent of a small city.
Training a single advanced AI model can gulp down 185,000 gallons of fresh, clean water, used to cool the furious processors dreaming of a digital future.
By 2027, the water footprint of the AI sector alone could reach 4.2 billion cubic metres, a thirst that begins to compete with the needs of nations.

This is not progress. It is a profound and suicidal miscalculation.

Efficiency for What?

The technology giants speak of “efficiency,” but it is a narrow, self-serving metric. It is the efficiency of a faster loading time, a more intrusive advertisement, a more powerful algorithm for predicting our desires. But by what possible measure is it “efficient” to exchange a million gallons of drinking water for a fractional improvement in computational speed?

This is the logic of a parasite that has forgotten its host is mortal. It is the logic of a civilisation that will meticulously optimise a virtual world while making the physical one uninhabitable.

The Path of the Steward: A Call for Conscious Calculation

The solution is not to abandon technology, but to re-forge it in the image of stewardship. We must demand a new calculus, where the true cost of every byte and algorithm is accounted for. This requires:

A Radical Shift in Cooling: The era of guzzling pristine freshwater must end. Investment must be urgently directed toward air-assisted liquid cooling, the use of recycled or saltwater, and the strategic placement of data centres in colder climates to drastically reduce their environmental burden.
Transparency and Accountability: The water footprint of digital services must be made as visible as their price tag. Consumers and regulators have a right to know the true ecological cost of their cloud storage and AI queries.
Licensing to Operate: A social license to operate in the 21st century must be contingent on water neutrality and a demonstrable positive environmental impact. Profit cannot be the sole metric of success when the very habitability of our home is at stake.

The choice is no longer between technology and nature. The choice is between a technology that devours its own foundation, and a technology that exists in harmony with it.

The silicon world is thirsty. But the thirst of children, of farms, of ecosystems, must come first.

November 6, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology, water | Leave a comment

Leaked document reveals Amazon deliberately planned to hide data centers’ full water use.

Amazon deliberately excludes majority of water use from public sustainability reports
Serdar Dincel, Türkiye Today, Sat, 25 Oct 2025

mazon deliberately withheld information about the complete scope of its data centers’ water consumption from the public to protect its corporate image, according to an internal document obtained by the Guardian.

The leaked memo reveals that executives at Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing arm, debated whether to report what they termed “secondary” water use — the water consumed in generating electricity for the company’s data centers — before launching a 2022 sustainability campaign.

Ultimately, leadership opted to publicize only a fraction of the company’s water footprint, citing concerns about “reputational risk” if total consumption figures became public knowledge.

The document, dated one month before AWS unveiled its “Water Positive” initiative in November 2022, shows Amazon consumed 105 billion gallons of water in 2021. That volume would supply approximately 958,000 U.S. households annually, comparable to a city larger than San Francisco.

Company reported fraction of actual consumption in public campaign

Instead of reporting this total, Amazon disclosed only its primary water use — 7.7 billion gallons per year, roughly equivalent to 11,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools — when measuring progress toward sustainability goals.

The Water Positive campaign committed Amazon to “return more water than it uses” by 2030, targeting a reduction in primary use to 4.9 billion gallons. Secondary water consumption was excluded from these calculations…………………………………………….

As the world’s largest data center operator, Amazon is rapidly expanding its artificial intelligence infrastructure despite growing concerns about water resources needed to cool computing facilities. The company has faced mounting criticism for refusing to disclose total water usage, a transparency measure adopted by competitors Microsoft and Google.

Amazon’s Water Positive campaign remains active but continues to exclude secondary water use from its accounting, and the company has not made its overall water consumption public. https://www.turkiyetoday.com/business/amazon-deliberately-excludes-majority-of-water-use-from-public-sustainability-reports-3208989

October 27, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | water | Leave a comment

Israel’s Untold Environmental Genocide

Kit Klarenberg, Oct 21, 2025

On September 23rd, the UN published a little-noticed report highlighting a barely-acknowledged facet of the 21st century Holocaust in Gaza. Namely, the Zionist entity’s genocide is wreaking a devastating environmental toll not merely on occupied Palestine, but West Asia more widely – including Israel. The damage is incalculable, with air, food sources, soil, and water widely polluted, to a fatal extent. Recovery may take decades, if at all. In the meantime, Gaza’s remaining population will suffer the cost – in many cases, with their lives.

In June 2024, the UN issued a preliminary assessment on the Gaza genocide’s “environmental impact”. It found the Zionist entity’s barbarous aggression had “exerted a profound impact” on “people in Gaza and the natural systems on which they depend.” Due to “security constraints” – namely, Israel’s continuing assault – the UN was unable “to assess the full extent of environment [sic] damage.” Nonetheless, the body was able to collate information indicating “the scale of degradation is immense,” and has “worsened significantly” since October 7th.

For example, Tel Aviv’s 21st century Holocaust has “significantly degraded water infrastructure leading to severely limited, low-quality water supply to the population.” The UN finds this “is contributing to numerous adverse health outcomes, including a continuous surge in infectious diseases.” Groundwater contamination is rampant, with catastrophic implications “for environmental and human health.” None of Gaza’s wastewater treatment facilities are operational, while “heavy destruction of piped systems, and increasing use of cesspits for sanitation, have increased contamination of the aquifer, marine and coastal areas.”

Resultantly, the genocide “has all but eliminated Gazan fishing livelihoods.” Israel’s “destruction of institutional capacity” in the sphere means “there are no effective controls of contamination in the food chain from fish supply, leading to consumption of poisonous fish” by starving Palestinians. “Marine ecosystems have clearly been contaminated with munitions, sewage and solid waste,” the UN gravely concludes. The situation demands “urgent re-installation” of the Strip’s water supply and wastewater collection capacity “to prevent further human health impacts and prevent future outbreaks of communicable diseases.”

Elsewhere, “remote sensing assessments” conducted by the UN indicate that by May, 97.1% of Gaza’s tree crops, 95.1% of its shrubland, 89% of its grass/fallow land and 82.4% of its annual crops had “been damaged.” As such, “production of food is not possible at scale,” and “soil has been contaminated by munitions, solid waste and untreated sewage.” The UN concludes the Zionist entity’s “military activity” has resulted in the “degradation of soils through loss of vegetation and compaction,” with disastrous results.

The Gaza genocide’s consequences reverberate in Israel itself. Tel Aviv’s Health Ministry calculates that in 2023 alone, pollution produced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s blitzkrieg caused at least 5,510 premature deaths locally. Given the Zionist entity’s industrial-scale carnage – primarily inflicted via air – subsequently intensified to unprecedented levels, we can only speculate how much the situation has worsened today. Israeli officials were hesitant to release the 2023 report, and more recent figures are unavailable. The rationale for this omertà is obvious.

‘Safe Movement’

The UN report details how destruction in Gaza “is extensive”, with an estimated 78% of the Strip’s “total structures destroyed or damaged,” including homes, hospitals, mosques and schools. Locally, debris “is now 20 times greater than the combined total debris generated by all previous conflicts in Gaza since 2008.” Current estimates suggest “more than 61 million tons of debris will require clearing, sorting and recycling or disposal.” Much of this detritus “is contaminated with asbestos, and industrial chemicals.”

Littered throughout the rubble will be untold human remains, recovery of which naturally requires “sensitivity”. In the meantime, surviving Gazans must endure “significant volumes of dust” created by Zionist entity bombing and demolition, which have “contributed to increased cases of respiratory infection,” with over 37,000 cases reported in June 2025 alone. Unexploded ordnance also poses a high risk in urban areas, with safe removal necessary “to mitigate risks of future explosion, damage, traumatic injuries and loss of life.”

The UN nonetheless acknowledges its findings significantly underrate the true situation on-the-ground, as “limited data is available on air quality, due to minimal air-quality monitoring” locally. Still, “known challenges” include “pollution from explosions and resultant fires during bombing campaigns, and emissions from explosions of munitions and resultant fires in bombed structures, including industrial facilities, which will also have likely released toxic chemicals into the air.” Moreover, the “repetitive nature” of Israel’s attacks “will likely have a cumulative impact on the environment” in Gaza:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Presently, the amount of deadly chemicals and dust released into the local atmospheres of Iran and Lebanon due to Israel’s indiscriminate savagery cannot be quantified. However, history shows the impact of such offensives is enduringly lethal. NATO’s illegal 78-day-long bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 primarily targeted civilian and industrial sites. A subsequent Council of Europe report concluded over 100 toxic substances circulated widely throughout the region due to the campaign. Not coincidentally, the former Yugoslavia ranks highly in global cancer rates today.

Perversely, even if the Zionist entity was to uphold its brittle ceasefires with Beirut and Tehran, and cease annihilating Palestinians, Tel Aviv’s genocide would continue apace – invisibly, through the putrified air civilians breathe, food they eat, and water they drink. Yet, in a bitter twist, the environmentally ruinous legacy of Tel Aviv’s deranged bloodlust has rendered Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultimate goal of eradicating Gaza to make way for Greater Israel null and void. Any Zionist settlement of the area would be literally suicidal. https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/israels-untold-environmental-genocide

October 25, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

Russia to Raise Cold War Nuclear Submarines From Arctic—What’s Hiding on the Seabed?

Ivan Khomenko, Oct 20, 2025 , https://united24media.com/latest-news/russia-to-raise-cold-war-nuclear-submarines-from-arctic-whats-hiding-on-the-seabed-12644

Russia plans to begin preparations in 2026 for raising two Soviet-era nuclear submarines that sank in Arctic waters, according to RBC on October 18. The recovery work itself is scheduled to start in 2027.

As RBC reported, the draft federal budget for 2026 and the planned period of 2027–2028 includes allocations for rehabilitating Arctic sea areas contaminated by sunken or submerged radiation-hazardous objects.

These activities are part of Russia’s state program Development of the Atomic Energy and Industrial Complex.

According to the explanatory note cited by RBC, the section titled “Safe Handling of Federal Radioactive Waste and Decommissioning of Nuclear and Radiation-Hazardous Legacy Facilities” earmarks 10.5 billion rubles for 2026, 10.7 billion for 2027, and 10.6 billion for 2028.

The project reportedly focuses on two of the seven sunken Soviet nuclear submarines—K-27 and K-159.

K-27, introduced in 1963, was an experimental submarine equipped with liquid-metal cooled reactors using a lead-bismuth alloy. In 1968, during its third voyage, a reactor accident exposed more than 140 crew members to radiation, killing nine.

The vessel was scuttled in the Kara Sea in 1981 and now lies at a depth of about 75 meters.

K-159 entered service the same year as K-27 and remained operational until 1989. It sank in 2003 in the Barents Sea while being towed for dismantling near Kildin Island, resulting in the deaths of nine crew members. The wreck rests at approximately 250 meters.

Plans to lift these submarines have been discussed for more than a decade but were repeatedly postponed due to the lack of specialized equipment, qualified personnel, and safety concerns. In 2021, Rosatom estimated that raising the vessels would cost around 24.4 billion rubles.

The renewed inclusion of the project in Russia’s 2026 budget marks the first concrete step since 2012 toward removing the radioactive wrecks from the Arctic seabed, though the exact reasons for the timing remain unclear, RBC noted.

Earlier in October, Russia’s Novorossiysk submarine—armed with Kalibr cruise missiles—was forced to abandon its Mediterranean mission and return to Saint Petersburg after a fuel leak disabled its underwater capability.

The incident highlighted Russia’s growing naval limitations following the loss of its Syrian logistics hub in Tartus and Turkey’s blockade of the Bosphorus Strait.

October 22, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | oceans, Russia, wastes | Leave a comment

Coral die-off marks Earth’s first climate ‘tipping point’, scientists say.

A surge in global temperatures has caused widespread bleaching and death of warm-water corals around the world.

By Jeff Tollefson, Nature 12th Oct 2025

Surging temperatures worldwide have pushed coral reef ecosystems into a state of widespread decline, marking the first time the planet has reached a climate ‘tipping point’, researchers announced today.

They also say that without rapid action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, other systems on Earth will also soon reach planetary tipping points, thresholds for profound changes that cannot be rolled back.

“We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” says Steve Smith, a social scientist at the University of Exeter, UK, and a lead author on a report released today about how close Earth is to reaching roughly 20 planetary tipping points. “This is our new reality.”

Temperature spike

Led by Smith and other scientists at the University of Exeter, the report assesses the risk of breaching tipping points such as ice-sheet collapse, rising seas and dieback of the Amazon rainforest. It also discusses progress towards various positive tipping points focused on social and economic change, such as the adoption of clean energy.

The group’s first such assessment, released less than two years ago, raised alarms but did not officially declare that any climate tipping points had been reached. In the past few years, however, global temperatures have surged, sparking concerns among some scientists that global warming is accelerating and could lead to even more widespread impacts in the coming decades than the changes that have already been recorded.

The impact on coral reefs has been particularly severe in the past two years , pushing these ecosystems to their tipping point, the researchers say. The warming waters have caused corals across the globe to bleach, a process that occurs when the organisms expel the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients, oxygen and vibrant colours. The fourth global bleaching event in the past few decades began in January 2023, and researchers estimate that it has affected more than 84% of the planet’s coral ecosystems.

The initial tipping-point report talked about large-scale threats to corals in the future tense, but the latest global bleaching event has made it clear that the crisis is now, says Michael Studivan, a coral ecologist at the University of Miami in Florida………………………………………
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03316-w

October 20, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, oceans | Leave a comment

World’s oceans losing their greenness through global heating, study finds.

The world’s oceans are losing their greenness owing to global heating,
according to a study that suggests our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon
dioxide could be weakening. The change in the palette of the seas is caused by a decline of phytoplankton, the tiny marine creatures that are
responsible for nearly half of the biosphere’s productivity. The
findings, which also have alarming implications for oxygen levels and food
chains, are based on a groundbreaking study of daily chlorophyll
concentrations in low- to mid-latitude oceans from 2001 to 2023.

Guardian 17th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/17/worlds-oceans-losing-their-greenness-through-global-heating-study-finds

October 19, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, oceans | Leave a comment

Boldness is needed to take on toxicity of nuclear power.

SCOTLAND’S nuclear facilities, civilian and military, are leaking. Is
this an occasional hazard to bear, as we resolutely defend and power
ourselves? Or another indicator of how much independence has to clean up the modernity of Scotland?

This week’s reports of radioactive water
rushing into the Caithness shore at Dounreay – containing Caesium-137, as
well as alpha- and non-alpha-emitting radionuclides – admittedly came
from a clean-up situation, the decommissioning of the plant itself. But the
context makes you shudder. These “accidental” releases – spewing from
some “underground facility” – were deemed a “very small fraction of
our normal discharges via authorised discharge routes”, says Nuclear
Restoration Services (NRS), the firm responsible. (By the way, according to
the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory – a chilling vista of our
nation’s industrial filth – the “authorised” routes contain
Strontium-90 and tritium, some of the most dangerous by-products of nuclear generation).

Consider also last year’s leaks. They identified “corroded
steelwork in a building being used to store drums of radioactive sodium,
and leaks from low-level radioactive waste pits”, as reported in this
paper. It’s all a demonstration of the sheer toxicity of nuclear power
– as evident in its disassembly, as in its installation. And I can’t
not mention the 585 cracks in the graphic reactor core of the ageing
Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian, reported by The Ferret earlier this
year. This is a tiny bit less than the amount – counted across two
reactors – that compelled the shutdown of Hunterston B in 2022. Much
technocratic reassurance from the French owner-operators EDF about safety, until some projected cessation in the early 2030s.

But I’m not exactly
consoled. Are you? And if we need investigative reporting to unearth leaks
in the notoriously defensive nuclear energy sector, imagine the digging
required to get the same from our nuclear warfare facilities.

The Ferret again triumphed in August after a six-year battle, releasing proof of a 2019 irradiated spill from burst pipes at Royal Navy’s Coulport nuclear bombstore, pouring deep into Loch Long.

The National 11th Oct 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25535392.boldness-needed-take-toxicity-nuclear-power/

October 13, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, UK | Leave a comment

RADIOACTIVE material was accidentally released at Scotland’s Dounreay nuclear.

An investigation was launched in June 2024 after Nuclear Restoration Services
(NRS) – the firm which is responsible for the north Caithness complex’s
clean-up and demolition – informed the Scottish Environmental Protection
Agency (Sepa) of a potential leak of contaminated water. Scotland’s
environmental regulator confirmed that a “small leak” from a carbon bed
filter had occurred. Three different radioactive substances –
alpha-emitting Radionuclides, alpha-emitting Radionuclides and Caesium-137
– were all released, according to the Scottish Pollutant Release
Inventory (SPRI) data. Monitoring from NRS didn’t detect any increase in
radioactivity in groundwater downstream. But Sepa found that the firm had
breached environmental regulations and has ordered it to review its
groundwater monitoring arrangements and “establish the extent of
contamination” which has arisen from the leak.

The National 7th Oct 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25525191.radioactive-water-highland-nuclear-site-leaked-major-breach/

October 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, UK | Leave a comment

45K gallons of radioactive water to be dumped into Hudson River from Indian Point nuclear plant

Shane Galvin Oct. New York Post, 2, 2025,

Roughly 45,000 gallons of radioactive water from a defunct plant north of New York City will be discharged into the Hudson River after a federal court ruling struck down a state environmental law.

US District Judge Kenneth Karas sided with company Holtec International over New York State in a ruling issued last week that reversed the 2023 “Save The Hudson” law which sought to prevent the company from muddying the Hudson’s waters.

Holtec sued the Empire State last year, arguing that only the federal government had the right to regulate discharge of the Indian Point plant’s nuclear waste, which amounted to the 45,000-gallon sum, The New York Times reported……………………………………..

Indian Point, which sits on the Hudson River about 35 miles north of Manhattan, was closed in 2021 after years of public outcry from the local community over environmental concerns…………………… https://nypost.com/2025/10/02/us-news/45k-gallons-of-radioactive-water-to-be-dumped-into-hudson-river-from-indian-point-nuclear-plant/

October 6, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes, water | Leave a comment

Would cockroaches really survive a nuclear apocalypse?

The U.S. TV series “Mythbusters” tested the cockroach survival theory in 2012 when they exposed cockroaches to radioactive material. The roaches survived longer than humans would have, but they all died at extreme levels of radiation.

Phys Org, by Kate Stanton, University of Melbourne, 3 Oct 25

The 2008 film Wall-E depicted Earth as a post-apocalyptic wasteland with nothing on it but the abandoned remnants of human society and a forlorn, trash-compacting robot. The titular robot’s only living company is a surprisingly adorable pet cockroach named Hal, Pixar’s nod to the popular myth that cockroaches will outlive us all.

Despite Hal’s sympathetic portrayal, many people think cockroaches are pretty gross.

But the creepy crawlies do have a reputation for resilience, likely contributing to the belief that they could even survive a nuclear bomb and subsequent radiation exposure.

Media reports have suggested that the cockroach myth stems from rumors that insects thrived in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But School of Population and Global Health Professor Tilman Ruff, a Nobel Laureate who studies the health and environmental consequences of nuclear explosions, says he has yet to see any documented evidence that there were cockroaches scuttling through the rubble.

“I’ve certainly seen photographs of injured people in Hiroshima that have lots of flies around, and you do imagine some insects would have survived,” Professor Ruff says. “But they still would have been affected, even if they appear more resistant than humans.”

School of Biosciences Professor Mark Elgar says the results of the Mythbusters test are incomplete because they only looked at how many days the cockroaches lived after exposure. They didn’t look at the cockroaches’ ability to produce viable eggs, thus ensuring the continued survival of the species.

“There is some evidence that they seem quite resilient to gamma rays, although they are not necessarily the most resistant across insects.”

“You could argue,” Professor Elgar adds, “that some ants, particularly those that dig nests deep into the ground, would be more likely to survive an apocalypse than cockroaches.”

Previous tests of insects subjected to radiation found that cockroaches, though six to 15 times more resistant than humans, would still fare worse than the humble fruit fly.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Professor Elgar questions whether they would be able to thrive without humans and other animals.

“For a while they’ll be able to eat dead bodies and other decaying material but, if everything else has died, eventually there won’t be any food. And they’re not going to make much of a living,” Professor Elgar says.

“The reality is that very little, if anything, will survive a major nuclear catastrophe, so in the longer term, it doesn’t matter really whether you’re a cockroach or not.” https://phys.org/news/2025-10-cockroaches-survive-nuclear-apocalypse.html

October 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment | Leave a comment

Leah McGrath Goodman, Tony Blair and issues on torture (with added radiation)

Published by arclight2011- date 15 Sep 2012 -nuclear-news.net

[…]

Accusations: Despite the mockery of the film Borat, leaked U.S. cables suggest the country was undemocratic and used torture in detention

Other dignitaries at the meeting included former Italian Prime Minister and ex-EU Commission President

Romano Prodi. Mr Mittal’s employees in Kazakhstan have accused him of ‘slave labour’ conditions after a series of coal mining accidents between 2004 and 2007 which led to 91 deaths.

[…]

Last week a senior adviser to the Kazakh president said that Mr Blair had opened an office in the capital.Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said: ‘A large working group is here and, to my knowledge, it has already opened Tony Blair’s permanent office in Astana.’

It was reported last week that Mr Blair had secured an £8 million deal to clean up the image of Kazakhstan.

[…]

Mr Blair also visited Kazakhstan in 2008, and in 2003 Lord Levy went there to help UK firms win contracts.

[…]

Max Keiser talks to investigative journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman about her being banned from the UK for reporting on the Jersey sex and murder scandal. They discuss the $5 billion per square mile in laundered money that means Jersey rises, while Switzerland sinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_aVZrR5NI&feature=player_detailpage#t=749s

And as well as protecting the guilty child sex/torturers/murderers of the island of Jersey I believe that they are also protecting the tax dodgers from any association.. its just good PR!

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair was reportedly involved in helping to keep alive the world’s biggest takeover by Jersey-incorporated commodities trader Glencore of mining company Xstrata.

11/September/2012

[…]

Mr Blair was said to have attended a meeting at Claridge’s Hotel in London towards the end of last week which led to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund supporting a final revised bid from Glencore for its shareholding. Continue reading →

October 4, 2025 Posted by arclight2011 | 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES, Belarus, civil liberties, depleted uranium, environment, Fukushima 2012, health, Japan, Kazakhstan, marketing, politics international, Reference archives, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Ukraine, USA, wastes, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Living with the legacy of France’s nuclear weapons testing

Nina Werkhäuser 26 Sept 25, https://www.dw.com/en/living-with-the-legacy-of-frances-nuclear-weapons-testing/a-74131800

France tested nuclear weapons for 30 years in the Pacific. The people of French Polynesia bore the brunt of the testing.

“For 30 years, we were France’s guinea pigs,” says Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, a young member of parliament from French Polynesia.

This South Pacific archipelago, a French overseas territory that includes Tahiti and is famed for its white beaches, swaying palms, and turquoise waters, is often romanticized as a paradise.

But beneath the idyllic image lies a painful legacy: decades of nuclear testing and its enduring consequences.

Between 1966 and 1996, the French military detonated 193 nuclear bombs on the remote atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa. These tests were carried out in Ma’ohi Nui, as the territory is known to its indigenous inhabitants. The first explosion, codenamed Aldebaran, took place on July 2, 1966. It marked the beginning of a long chapter that would leave deep scars on the land and its people.

In 2025, Morgant-Cross journeyed over 15,000 kilometers (more than 9,320 miles) to Berlin to speak at an event in May, hosted by the international medical NGO International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, or IPPNW. There, she delivered a searing testimony about the long-term consequences of France’s nuclear testing program: disproportionately high cancer rates, children born with deformities and ongoing contamination of the region’s water and soil.

“So they really poisoned the ocean where we found all our food,” says Morgant-Cross who has also addressed the United Nations in New York. “We have been poisoned for the greatness of France, for France to be a state with a nuclear weapon.”

The ‘clean bomb’ myth

The French government at the time knowingly gave false assurances to the islanders about the dangers of the nuclear testing.

Then-President Charles de Gaulle described the French atomic bomb as “green and very clean,” suggesting it was safer or more environmentally friendly than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

Morgant-Cross calls it nothing more than “French propaganda.”

In reality, radioactive clouds drifted across vast parts of the South Pacific and even reached the main island of Tahiti, more than 1,000 kilometers from the test site. Often, residents of nearby islands weren’t informed or evacuated.

No Apology from France

France didn’t cease its nuclear testing program until 1996, following intense domestic and international outcry. Despite the halt, the French government has never formally apologized for the harm caused to its overseas territories.

During a 2021 visit to French Polynesia, President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged France’s role, stating, “The guilt lies in the fact that we conducted these tests.”

“We would not have carried out these experiments in Creuse or Brittany [in mainland France],” he said.

United Nations and various NGOs have observed September 26th as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons since 2014. The days is a solemn reminder of the ongoing responsibility borne by nuclear-armed states.

Yet the suffering endured by victims of nuclear testing is in danger of being forgotten. In response, a rising generation from former test sites is refusing to accept the silence of those in power. They are mobilizing across borders, channeling their concern into coordinated action.

Parliamentarian Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross is among those speaking out. While visiting Berlin, she shared her family’s painful legacy: her grandmother was 30 when the nuclear tests began and later developed thyroid cancer as did her mother and aunt.

Morgant-Cross, born in 1988, revealed that both she and her sister also developed cancer, underscoring the generational toll of radioactive exposure.

Cancer can develop generations later

Experts warn that nuclear testing has led to clusters of cancer cases within affected families. Exposure to ionizing radiation can cause genetic mutations, which may be inherited by subsequent generations.

“The insidious nature of ionizing radiation lies in its ability to affect people across generations,” says nuclear weapons expert Jana Baldus of the European Leadership Network (ELN). “It significantly increases the risk of various cancers, particularly lymphoma and leukemia.”

Another consequence of nuclear testing is reproductive harm.

“Women exposed to radiation during the tests have given birth to children with congenital defects and have suffered miscarriages,” Baldus tells DW. “These effects can be passed down through generations, potentially leading to infertility in women.”

For Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, the multiple cancer diagnoses in her family were a driving force behind her decision to enter politics.

She is now calling on France — the state responsible for the nuclear tests — to provide greater support for her fellow citizens.

“We don’t have the medical care that we should have, that we deserve, because we are 30 years late, in terms of medicines. We don’t have technology like medical scans.” she says. “It really pushed me to go into politics, and to demand that we deserve a better hospital, we deserve better treatment.”

Only a small fraction of those affected have the means to travel to Paris for medical treatment, leaving many without access to adequate care.

Victims face an uphill battle for compensation

In 2010, the French government enacted legislation to provide compensation to victims of nuclear testing. However, each case is assessed individually, and claimants must demonstrate a direct link between their illness and the nuclear tests. That burden of proof is not always easily achieved.

Expert Jana Baldus points out a major hurdle.

“Victims must prove they were physically present at the exact location when the tests occurred — a nearly impossible task decades later.” In addition, compensation is limited to a narrow list of officially recognized illnesses. According to the global coalition ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), only 417 residents of French Polynesia received compensation between 2010 and July 2024.

For Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, the fight isn’t only about securing practical support, it’s also about education.

In her homeland, a persistent narrative still portrays the nuclear tests as a so-called clean endeavor that brought prosperity.

“For decades, we had pictures of the nuclear mushroom in all the living rooms of the Tahitian people because we were proud the French decided to choose us,” she recalls. Her mission now is to dismantle what she calls that “colonial mindset” and shed light on the true consequences of the tests.

The future of nuclear testing: risk or rhetoric?

France wasn’t alone in conducting extensive nuclear tests. The Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and China also carried out large-scale detonations.

In total, more than 2,000 nuclear explosions have taken place. The resulting radioactive fallout not only contaminated the immediate test sites but also contributed to elevated radiation levels across the globe.

Nuclear testing was halted primarily through moratoriums and international negotiations surrounding the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

In recent years, North Korea has been the only country to conduct such tests. Yet amid rising geopolitical tensions, experts warn that a resurgence of nuclear testing remains a real possibility.

September 29, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, OCEANIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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