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High level of radioactivity near France’s uranium processing factory

France Info 29th April 2021, Residents of the largest uranium processing site in France, in Narbonne
(Aude), are worried: samples taken near the plant and analyzed in the laboratory show a high level of uranium. The site manager, however, says there is no danger to residents.

The most important uranium processing site in France is located three kilometers from Narbonne (Aude). Concerned local residents regularly check the level of radioactivity in the vicinity of the plant.

At the barrier that limits access to the site, the meter is racing and exceeds four times the natural level of radioactivity. The Orano Malvési plant is the entry point for nuclear power in France. Uranium arrives from all over the world in the form of yellow powder and must be purified and transformed into nuclear fuel. In 60 years, already more than 300,000 m3 of radioactive waste have been produced and are contained in basins, in the form of sludge.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/environnement-et-sante/narbonne-les-riverains-de-lusine-duranium-orano-malvesi-inquiets-des-taux-de-radioactivite_4604407.html

May 1, 2021 Posted by | environment, France, Uranium | 1 Comment

Sizewell C nuclear plant could kill 500m fish

Sizewell C nuclear plant could kill 500m fish, campaigners say

Environmental groups claim planned Suffolk power station will devastate marine life and key bird habitat, Guardian,
Karen McVeigh  27 Apr 21,

 More than 500 million fish, including protected species, could be sucked into the cooling system of a proposed £20bn nuclear power plant in Suffolk if construction goes ahead, environmental campaigners say.

A local campaign group, Together Against Sizewell C (Tasc), claims the subsequent deaths of millions of fish is “inhumane and unacceptable” and flies in the face of the government’s green agenda. Also opposing the development, the bird conservation group RSPB expressed concern over predicted levels of fish loss on the marine birds that feed on them…….

environmental campaign groups, including Greenpeace, argue that nuclear reactors are unnecessary and expensive, compared with a combination of renewable energy and battery storage technology. The RSPB and the local community group Stop Sizewell C said the reactor poses a risk to the natural habitats along the Suffolk coast and the adjacent Minsmere nature reserve.

Planning documents published by EDF have revealed that almost 8 million fish were “impinged” – or sucked into the cooling system – by the existing plant Sizewell B each year between 2009 and 2013. Extrapolating from these figures, Tasc has estimated that 28 million fish could be impinged in the cooling system of both plants each year, which is 560 million over the two decades the plants are expected to operate, between 2035 and 2055. The proposed plant is larger than Sizewell B and will take in 2.5 times the amount of seawater, Tasc said.

Pete Wilkinson, the chair of Tasc and a co-founder of Greenpeace UK, said the estimates were “staggering”. Such wildlife loss was the “tip of the iceberg”, he said, as it did not take into account fish fry, eggs, crustacea and other aquatic life.

“Tens of millions of fish, crustaceans and other marine biota will be sacrificed for the purposes of cooling a plant which is not needed to keep the lights on, which will do nothing to reduce global carbon emissions, which will be paid for from the pockets of all UK taxpayers and bill-paying customers, leaving future generations with a lasting legacy of an impoverished environment,” he said.

Wilkinson said he expected Cefas (The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science) to condemn the impact on fish at the inquiry stage of the Sizewell C planning process.

“Cefas’s stated aim is ‘to help keep our seas, oceans and rivers healthy and productive, and our seafood safe and sustainable … ’ Instead, it seems that Cefas appears quite at ease presiding over the deaths of millions of fish and clearly feels the huge number of fish deaths is acceptable in that the overall health of fish stocks will not be compromised.”

Adam Rowlands, the RSPB’s Suffolk area manager, said: “It is our position that the project should not go ahead. The potential impacts on the environment are too great. Fish impingement is one of our concerns. These fish provide a valuable food supply to rare birds nesting and breeding in the area.”

Protected species breeding in the area include little and common terns and in the winter there are a number of internationally important red-throated divers. “They won’t feed on dead fish,” Rowlands said…….

If the plant goes ahead, it will be built on part of Sizewell marshes, a site of special scientific interest. It will also be adjacent to the southern boundary of the RSPB-owned Minsmere nature reserve, a Ramsar (internationally important wetland) site and special protection area. Minsmere is one of only five sites in Britain to receive the Council of Europe European Diploma for protected areas award, whose renewal depends on Sizewell C not causing any damage………

The Sizewell C planning process began in May 2020 and an examination is now under way by the Planning Inspectorate. This stage of the process is expected to take about six months, during which local people and organisations can make representations.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/28/sizewell-c-nuclear-plant-could-kill-500m-fish-campaigners-claim

April 29, 2021 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Not to be forgotten – the 1957 nuclear explosion in Mayak centre, Russia, that continues to poison the region.

Reporterre 26th April 2021, While the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred thirty-five years ago,
another explosion, which occurred in Russia in 1957 in the Mayak military
nuclear center, continues to poison the region. A look back at this
disaster kept secret for more than twenty years.

https://reporterre.net/Trente-ans-avant-Tchernobyl-la-catastrophe-nucleaire-de-Kychtym

April 29, 2021 Posted by | environment, history, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear fallout from the Cold War might be killing our bees

Nuclear fallout from the Cold War might be killing our bees,  The Takeout, 26 Apr 21    It’s no secret that humankind has been a massive dick to bees, even though they’re responsible for the pollination and survival of 80% of the world’s plants and are directly linked to more than one third of the world’s food supply…………

we’ve been killing billions of them every year with pesticides, chemicals, and god knows what else. Over the past few decades, the world’s bee population has been decreasing thanks to a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder;; fingers have been pointed at the aforementioned pesticides, malnutrition, starvation, and a whole slew of other things, but science still does not have a definitive answer as to what is killing the bees. Now, according to a study published last month in the scientific journal Nature Communications, there’s another potential culprit in the mix: Cesium-137.

What is Cesium-137, you ask? Well, it’s an isotope produced when radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium become bombarded by neutrons, which split apart their unstable atoms and releases an absolute ungodly amount of energy. In other words: it’s a radioactive byproduct of atomic bombs. Though the atomic bomb has only been used as a weapon twice, during the Cold War more than 2,000 were detonated in military technology tests around the world. Though most of these tests were conducted in New Mexico and Russia, lots of that sweet, radioactive cesium-137 got into the stratosphere where it was blown eastward, ended up in rain clouds, then came pouring down on the east coast of the U.S., where it was greedily sucked up by plants, which transformed it into nectar. Since nectar makes up 100% of bees’ food supply, they’ve been feasting on cesium-137 for decades and have been passing trace amounts into their honey. Of the 122 honey samples gathered from hives up and down the East Coast, cesium-137 was found in 68 of them.

Before you run frantically into the kitchen to grab all your honey and bury it deep underground, Jim Kaste, an associate professor at the College of William & Mary and one of the study’s co-authors, said in a statement that the levels of cesium-137 he’s found in honey are not high enough for humans to start freaking out about. Bees, however, should totally be freaking out, and they have every right to.

“What we see today is a small fraction of the radiation that was present during the 1960s and 1970s,” said Keste. “And we can’t say for sure if cesium-137 has anything to do with bee colony collapse or the decline of population.”   https://thetakeout.com/radioactive-honey-bees-cesium-137-atomic-bomb-colony-co-1846749211  

April 27, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, environment | Leave a comment

France tested 41 nuclear weapons in the Pacific, and grossly underestimated the radioactive fallout

Science 11th March 2021, From 1966 to 1974, France blew up 41 nuclear weapons in above-ground tests
in French Polynesia, the collection of 118 islands and atolls that is part of France. The French government has long contended that the testing was done safely.

But a new analysis of hundreds of documents declassified in 2013 suggests the tests exposed 90% of the 125,000 people living in French Polynesia to radioactive fallout—roughly 10 times as many people as theFrench government has estimated.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/france-grossly-underestimated-radioactive-fallout-atom-bomb-tests-study-finds

April 27, 2021 Posted by | environment, OCEANIA, radiation | Leave a comment

‘If it’s safe, dump it in Tokyo’ – Pacific Islanders don’t want Fukushima waste water

Guardian 26th April 2021, If it’s safe, dump it in Tokyo. We in the Pacific don’t want Japan’s
nuclear wastewater. To Pacific peoples, who have carried the
disproportionate human cost of nuclearism in our region, this is yet
another act of catastrophic and irreversible trans-boundary harm that our
region has not consented to.

While Japan’s plan is for the water to be
diluted first and discharged over the course of about 30 years, and the
Japanese government has tried its hardest to convince the wider public of
the treated water’s safety through the use of green mascots and backing
from American scientists, Pacific peoples are once again calling it for
what it is: an unjust act.

“We need to remind Japan and other nuclear
states of our Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement slogan: if it
is safe, dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington,
but keep our Pacific nuclear-free,” said Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, Vanuatu
stateswoman and veteran activist of the Nuclear Free and Independent
Pacific (NFIP) movement, after Japan’s announcement. “We are people of
the ocean, we must stand up and protect it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/if-its-safe-dump-it-in-tokyo-we-in-the-pacific-dont-want-japans-nuclear-wastewater

April 27, 2021 Posted by | OCEANIA, oceans | 2 Comments

Getting the facts straight about Chernobyl, nuclear disasters, and ionising radiation

Fact check: 5 myths about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Monday marks the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. What happened in the former Soviet Union on April 26, 1986, is no longer a secret.  DW, 

Is Chernobyl the biggest-ever nuclear disaster?

The 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine is often described as the worst nuclear accident in history. However, rarely is this sensational depiction clarified in more detail. 

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) does classify nuclear events on a scale of zero to seven, breaking them down into accidents, incidents and anomalies. It was introduced in 1990 after being developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (NEA/OECD). Level seven denotes a “major accident,” which means “major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures.”

Both the Chernobyl and 2011 Fukushima disaster have been categorized as such. But INES does not allow for nuclear events to be classified within a level.

If the term nuclear disaster is not only used to describe events, or accidents, in nuclear reactors but also radioactive emissions caused by humans then there are many occasions when human-caused nuclear contamination has been greater than that of the Chernobyl disaster, explained Kate Brown, professor of science, technology and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Let’s take the production of plutonium,” she told DW, referring to the American and Soviet plants that produced plutonium at the center of a nuclear bomb. “Those plants each issued as part of the normal working everyday order at least 350 million curies [a unit of radioactivity — Editor’s note] into the surrounding environment. And that was not an accident.

“Let’s look at, even more dire, the issuance of radioactive fallout in the detonation of nuclear bombs during the periods of nuclear testing ground, which were located throughout the world, ” she continued. “Those just take one isotope, one radioactive iodine, which is harmful to human health because it’s taken up by the human thyroid, causing thyroid cancer or thyroid disease.

“Chernobyl issued 45 million curies of radioactive iodine just in two years of testing, in 1961 and 1962. The Soviets and the Americans issued not 45 million curies, but 20 billion curies of radioactive iodine,” she said. And these tests, she added, were by design — not due to an accident or human error.

Are there mutants in the exclusion zone?

………….. “The influence of ionizing radiation may cause some restructuring in the body, but mostly it simply reduces an organism’s viability,” he explained, giving the example of high embryo fatalities in rodents due to genomic defects that prevented the organism from functioning. Those animals that survive the womb sometimes have disabilities that prevent them from staying alive in the wild. Vishnevsky and his colleagues have conducted research into thousands of animals in the exclusion zone, but have not found any unusual morphological alterations.

“Why? Because we were always dealing with animals that had survived and had won the fight for survival,” he said. He added that it was difficult to compare these animals with creatures that scientists had deliberately exposed to radiation in laboratories.

“That’s a very seductive idea, that human messed up nature and all they have to do is step away and nature rewrites itself,” she said. In reality, however, biologists say that there are fewer species of insects, birds and mammals than before the disaster. The fact that some endangered species can be found in the exclusion zone is not evidence of the area’s health and vitality.

Has nature reclaimed the site of the disaster?

Reports entitled “Life Flourishing Around Chernobyl” and photo series suggesting that the exclusion zone has become a “natural paradise” might give the impression that nature has recovered from the nuclear disaster. But Brown, who has been researching Chernobyl for 25 years, is adamant that this is “not true.”

“That’s a very seductive idea, that human messed up nature and all they have to do is step away and nature rewrites itself,” she said. In reality, however, biologists say that there are fewer species of insects, birds and mammals than before the disaster. The fact that some endangered species can be found in the exclusion zone is not evidence of the area’s health and vitality.

On the contrary: there has been a significant increase in the mortality rate and a lowered life expectancy in the animal population, with more tumors and immune defects, disorders of the blood and circulatory system and early ageing.

Scientists have attributed the apparent natural diversity to species migration and the vastness of the area. “The exclusion zone comprises 2,600 square kilometers [about 1,000 square miles]. And to the north are another 2,000 square kilometers to the north is Belarus’ exclusion zone,” said Vishnevsky. “There are also areas to the east and west where the human population density is extremely low. We have a huge potential for preserving local wild fauna.” That includes lynxes, bears and wolves which need a great deal of space.

But even 35 years after the disaster the land is still contaminated by radiation, a third of it by transuranium elements with a half-life of more than 24,000 years.

Is it safe for tourists to visit Chernobyl?

The exclusion zone was already a magnet for disaster tourists, but in 2019 annual numbers doubled to 124,000 after the success of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. The State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management has set up a number of routes so tourists can visit the region by land, water or air. It has also drawn up a number of regulations to protect visitors, stipulating that people must be covered from head to toe. They shouldn’t eat any food or drink outside, and they should always follow official paths. It’s estimated that the radiation dose received over a one-day visit does not exceed 0.1 millisievert (mSv) — roughly the same dose that a passenger would be exposed to on a long-distance flight from Germany to Japan, according to Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation

Are there people living in the area?

Today, Pripyat, the closed city built to serve the nuclear plant and house its employees, is often described as a ghost town, as is the nearby city of Chernobyl.

However, neither has been entirely empty since 1986. Thousands of people, usually men, have stayed there, often working two-week shifts and ensuring that the crucial infrastructure in both cities continues to function. After the explosion in reactor No. 4, reactors 1, 2 and 3 continued to operate, closing down only in 1991, 1996 and 2000. Special units of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry police the zone. There are also stores and at least two hotels in Chernobyl, which are mainly for business visitors.

There are also a number of unofficial inhabitants, including people who used to live in the area and have chosen to return. They have settled in villages that were evacuated after the disaster. The exact number of people is unknown: when DW asked the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management how many people lived in Chernobyl, the official answer was “nobody.” 

In 2016, about 180 people were thought to be living in the entire exclusion zone. Because they tended to be older, this number may well have fallen. Even though these locals are officially only tolerated, the state does support them in their everyday lives. Their pensions are delivered once a month, and every two to three months they are supplied with food by a mobile store.   https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-5-myths-about-the-chernobyl-nuclear-disaster/a-57314231

Below – a video from past years tells the earlier story of the chernobyl disaster

April 26, 2021 Posted by | environment, radiation, Reference, Ukraine, wastes | Leave a comment

70 years later, ionising radiation from nuclear bomb tests still found in U.S. honey

Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades after bomb tests, Science  Nikk Ogasa Apr. 20, 2021 

Fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and ’60s is showing up in U.S. honey, according to a new study. Although the levels of radioactivity aren’t dangerous, they may have been much higher in the 1970s and ’80s, researchers say.

“It’s really quite incredible,” says Daniel Richter, a soil scientist at Duke University not involved with the work. The study, he says, shows that the fallout “is still out there and disguising itself as a major nutrient.”

In the wake of World War II, the United States, the former Soviet Union, and other countries detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads in aboveground tests. The bombs ejected radiocesium—a radioactive form of the element cesium—into the upper atmosphere, and winds dispersed it around the world before it fell out of the skies in microscopic particles. The spread wasn’t uniform, however. For example, far more fallout dusted the U.S. east coast, thanks to regional wind and rainfall patterns.

Radiocesium is soluble in water, and plants can mistake it for potassium, a vital nutrient that shares similar chemical properties. To see whether plants continue to take up this nuclear contaminant, James Kaste, a geologist at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, gave his undergraduate students an assignment: Bring back local foods from their spring break destinations to test for radiocesium.

One student returned with honey from Raleigh, North Carolina. To Kaste’s surprise, it contained cesium levels 100 times higher than the rest of the collected foods. He wondered whether eastern U.S. bees gathering nectar from plants and turning it into honey were concentrating radiocesium from the bomb tests.

So Kaste and his colleagues—including one of his undergrads—collected 122 samples of locally produced, raw honey from across the eastern United States and tested them for radiocesium. They detected it in 68 of the samples, at levels above 0.03 becquerels per kilogram—roughly 870,000 radiocesium atoms per tablespoon. The highest levels of radioactivity occurred in a Florida sample—19.1 becquerels per kilogram.

The findings, reported last month in Nature Communications, reveal that, thousands of kilometers from the nearest bomb site and more than 50 years after the bombs fell, radioactive fallout is still cycling through plants and animals………

The findings raise questions about how cesium has impacted bees over the past half-century, says Justin Richardson, a biogeochemist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “They’re getting wiped out from pesticides, but there are other lesser known toxic impacts from humans, like fallout, that can affect their survival.”

After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, scientists showed radiation levels nearby could hamper the reproduction of bumble bee colonies. But those levels were 1000 times higher than the modern levels reported here, notes Nick Beresford, a radioecologist at the U.K. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

So even though the new study shouldn’t raise any alarm bells over today’s honey, understanding how nuclear contaminants move around is still vital for gauging the health of our ecosystems and our agriculture, says Thure Cerling, a geologist at the University of Utah. “We need to pay attention to these things.”  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/nuclear-fallout-showing-us-honey-decades-after-bomb-tests

April 22, 2021 Posted by | environment, radiation, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Decision on Fukushima waste water should be in consultation with international agencies, not just a decision by Japan alone.

Disposal of Fukushima nuclear wastewater should be assessed under framework of intl agencies, not let world pay: FM, By Global Times, 21 Apr 21, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday the disposal of Fukushima nuclear wastewater should be assessed and discussed under the framework of international agencies including the UN, the WHO, and the IAEA, urging the Japanese government to correct its irresponsible decision to dump of the wastewater to the ocean and avoid involving people all around the world in paying for its wrongdoings. 

The remarks came after South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong expressed opposition to the move, and said on Tuesday that Seoul will work closely with international agencies to deal with Japan.

At a routine press conference, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stressed that before dumping nuclear-contaminated water, there should be a discussion with neighboring countries and an evaluation within the framework of international agencies including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Wang added that Japan’s decision to dump the nuclear-contaminated water is not only opaque, unscientific, unlawful, irresponsible and unethical, but also at risk of being condemned by the world.

“A ban has been placed on black scorpionfish caught off Fukushima waters from entering markets due to the detection of excessive radioactive materials. And this is the second time that fish have been found with excessive radioactive materials in Fukushima waters since February,” said Wang.

All of these signs point to the fact that disposal of radionuclides is complicated and difficult, noted Wang, adding that the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident has been bringing harm to its surroundings for the past decade since it happened. ……..

Wang said that the methods of the wastewater disposal concern the safety of the Asia-Pacific region, the global ecological environment, and the lives and the health of people in all countries. The data should be evaluated and consultations held with all parties whose interests are bound to it.

“We noticed that Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company intends to submit a progress plan for wastewater disposal in May. We express strong opposition and serious concern to the matter as Japan unilaterally pushes forward the plan without consultation with the international community especially neighboring countries,” Wang said.  

“Please don’t let people all over the world pay for Japan’s wrongdoings,” he added.  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1221712.shtml

April 22, 2021 Posted by | Japan, Legal, oceans, politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

Japan’s government bans shipments of black rockfish from Fukushima, due to highlevels of radioactive cesium

Fish radioactive report prompts Fukushima ban, http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202104/21/WS607f7f4ea31024ad0bab93e5.html

By WANG XU in Tokyo China Daily 2021-04-21  The Japanese government banned shipments of black rockfish from Fukushima on Monday, after a radioactive substance was found to be more than five times higher than acceptable levels in the fish caught off the prefecture.

The Fukushima prefectural government said 270 becquerels of radioactive cesium were detected per kilogram of the black rockfish, which had been caught at a depth of 37 meters near the city of Minamisoma, Fukushima, on April 1.

The amount of radioactive cesium is five times more than the limit set by a local fisheries cooperative of 50 becquerels per kg. It is also sharply higher than Japan’snational standard in general foods of 100 becquerels per kg.

In response, Japan’s national nuclear emergency response headquarters on Monday ordered a ban on the shipment of the fish caught off the waters of Fukushima.

Early in February, radioactive cesium 10 times above permitted levels in Japan were detected in the same area.

Scientific research showed the amount of cesium in foods and drinks depends upon the emission of radioactive cesium through the nuclear power plant, mainly through accidents. High levels of radioactive cesium in or near one’s body can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma, and even death.

Monday’s restrictions came a week after Japan’s government decided to release radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea despite fierce opposition from fishing crews at home and concern from the international community.

“The (Japanese) government’s decision is outrageous,” said Takeshi Komatsu, an oyster farmer in Miyagi prefecture, north of Tokyo. “I feel more helpless than angry when I think that all the efforts I’ve made to rebuild my life over the past decade have come to nothing.”

South Korea strongly criticized the decision to release the contaminated water, with its Foreign Ministry summoning the Japanese ambassador. President Moon Jae-in ordered officials to explore petitioning an international court over the issue.

April 22, 2021 Posted by | Japan, oceans, radiation | Leave a comment

Alaska to increase its radiation testing of seafood..

A Decade After Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Alaska Expands Seafood Monitoring High North News,  Apr 21 2021

State environmental regulators announced Monday they’re expanding radiation testing of commercially harvested Alaska seafood using a gamma radiation detector at a state laboratory in Anchorage, according to APM.

A devastating earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan in 2011 crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which released radioactive material into the air and ocean……..  https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/decade-after-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-alaska-expands-seafood-monitoring

April 22, 2021 Posted by | oceans, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

The danger of Japan dumping Fukushima wastewater into the ocean

Storage tanks for radioactive water are seen at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 18, 2019. Picture taken February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato

The danger of Japan dumping Fukushima wastewater into the ocean, https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/548726-the-danger-of-japan-dumping-fukushima-wastewater-into-the-ocean

BY RICK STEINER,— 04/17/21  The Japanese government just announced that it intends to release over 1.2 million tons of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant into the North Pacific. This would result in dangerous radionuclides flowing across the ocean to Russia, Alaska, Canada, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast. The release of this material — which is strongly opposed by local scientists and residents in Japan — would begin in two years and continue for another 40 years.

The Biden administration must urge Japan to abandon this unnecessary and dangerous plan.

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster was caused by the 9.1 magnitude Tohoku earthquake and a 14-meter-high tsunami. The tsunami flooded and disabled emergency generators needed to pump cooling water into the nuclear reactor cores, causing three reactor core meltdowns and hydrogen explosions. Radionuclides flowed eastward across the Pacific and were eventually found in waters off California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia  and Alaska. We all live downstream. 

The storage tanks now hold seawater that has been used to continue cooling the reactor cores, and this water is contaminated with such radionuclides as Cesium-137, Carbon-14, tritium (including the more dangerous “Organically Bound Tritium”), Strontium-90, Cobalt-60, Iodine-129, Plutonium-239 — and over 50 other radionuclides. Some of this has reportedly been removed, but some has not (e.g. radioactive tritium and C-14).  

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that owns Fukushima, and is now responsible for the cleanup (that is likely to last the remainder of this century), didn’t admit until recently that the wastewater contains significant amounts of radioactive Carbon-14. As C-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, and is known to bio-accumulate in marine ecosystems and cause cellular and genetic impairment. This is a very serious concern.

Fukushima C-14 will be added to the already elevated radioactive C-14 load in the oceans from nuclear weapons tests — or  “bomb carbon” — last century. It’s now found in organisms even in the deepest part of the ocean, the Marianas Trench. It is easy to imagine the impact this new, intentional Fukushima release could have, rightly or not, on the public image of clean marine seafood and tourism along the Pacific coast.

TEPCO claims the water has been sufficiently treated and is OK to release, but the treatment system they are using is reported to be substandard and not up to the job. Communities across the Pacific deserve an independent scientific assessment of TEPCO’s claims, by an Independent Scientific and Technical Commission. Remember, TEPCO and the Japanese government approved locating the nuclear power plant’s emergency generators in a tsunami flood zone. Their assurances now that there is no risk in releasing this radioactive water are neither credible nor scientifically defensible.

China and South Korea have registered objections to the release plan with Japan, but other downstream nations — the U.S., Russia and Canada — have stayed quiet. It isn’t often that China expresses more concern for the environment than the U.S., but this is one such time.

And even if the ecological and public health risk from the planned release is indeed low, as claimed (this is highly doubtful), the risk is entirely unnecessary and avoidable. 

Beyond marine discharge, several other disposal options have been considered, including evaporating the water, or injecting it into deep geologic formations.

But by far the best solution is for TEPCO to build more storage tanks and continue holding all contaminated water for another 15 years or so, during which time the radioactive tritium level will decay by half, and simultaneously treat it with best available technology (such as ion exchange systems and modular “detritiation” systems in the U.S.) to remove all radionuclides possible. 

Japan and TEPCO considered this long-term storage option, but opted instead for the cheapest choice — simply dumping the wastewater into the Pacific. 

The era of intentionally dumping toxic waste in our one global ocean is, or should be, over.

Fukushima was, and continues to be, a nuclear nightmare, and all nations should join together in a collaborative effort to resolve this mess. This effort will take hundreds of billions of dollars, over many decades, and the U.S. and other G20 nations must step up and help both financially and technically.

Unless and until this wastewater is independently certified as effectively free of radionuclides and safe, not one drop should be released into the beautiful deep blue Pacific.

Finally, Fukushima should be the last nail in the coffin for the notion that nuclear fission power could be a realistic solution to our climate crisis.

Rick Steiner is a marine conservation biologist in Anchorage and former professor of marine conservation with the University of Alaska from 1980-2010. He now consults for the U.N., governments and NGOs on marine environmental issues. He is author of “Oasis Earth: Planet in Peril.”

April 20, 2021 Posted by | oceans, radiation, wastes | Leave a comment

U.N. experts concerned at Japan’s decision to dump Fukushima nuclear waste-water into the Paific.

UN Experts Decry Japan’s Plan to Dump Radioactive Fukushima Wastewater Into Ocean, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/16/un-experts-decry-japans-plan-dump-radioactive-fukushima-wastewater-ocean?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2W9TNN5pZWTgQjFhnnd_99e_F3cH4y7uPJggM1row-iqAzbRtoZvj2tvM

The decision is particularly disappointing as experts believe alternative solutions to the problem are available,” said the three special rapporteurs.by Brett Wilkins, staff writer  18 Apr 21, A trio of United Nations experts on Thursday added their voices to the chorus of concern over the Japanese government’s decision to dump hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, saying the move threatens not only the environment but also the human rights of people in and beyond Japan.

Japanese officials announced earlier this week that 1.25 million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the deactivated nuclear plant—which in March 2011 suffered major damage from a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami—would be discharged into the sea starting in about two years. Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide called the planned release “a realistic solution.” 

However, anti-nuclear campaigners joined Japan’s neighbors China and South Korea in condemning the decision, with Greenpeace saying that it “completely disregards the human rights and interests of the people in Fukushima, wider Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region.”

Marcos Orellana, Michael Fakhri, and David Boyd—respectively the U.N.’s special rapporteurs on toxics and human rights, the right to food, and human rights and the environment—weighed in on the issue Thursday with a joint statement calling Tokyo’s decision “very concerning.”

“The release of one million tonnes of contaminated water into the marine environment imposes considerable risks to the full enjoyment of human rights of concerned populations in and beyond the borders of Japan,” they said, adding that “the decision is particularly disappointing as experts believe alternative solutions to the problem are available.”

Critics say other options for disposing of the the water, including evaporating and then releasing it into the air, were not fully considered, although nuclear experts stress that evaporation would not isolate radioactivity. 

Japanese officials claim that levels of radioactive tritium are low enough to pose no threat to human health. However, scientists and other experts warn that the isotope bonds with other molecules in water and can make their way up the food chain to humans.

Cindy Folkers, radiation and health hazards specialist at the advocacy group Beyond Nuclear, said in a statement Wednesday that Fukushima Daiichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) “wants us to believe that the radioactive contamination in this water will be diluted in the ocean waters, but some of the radioactive isotopes will concentrate up the food chain in ocean life.”

“Some of the contamination may not travel out to sea and can double back on itself,” said Folkers. “Dilution doesn’t work for radioactive isotopes, particularly tritium, which research shows can travel upstream.”

“TEPCO data show that even twice-through filtration leaves the water 13.7 times more concentrated with hazardous tritium—radioactive hydrogen—than Japan’s allowable standard for ocean dumping, and about one million times higher than the concentration of natural tritium in Earth’s surface waters,” she added. 

Japanese officials did reverse one highly controversial policy related to the wastewater dump this week. Amid intense public backlash, the government hastily retired Little Mr. Tritium, an animated radioactive mascot meant to promote and popularize the discharge. 

“Some of the contamination may not travel out to sea and can double back on itself,” said Folkers. “Dilution doesn’t work for radioactive isotopes, particularly tritium, which research shows can travel upstream.”

“TEPCO data show that even twice-through filtration leaves the water 13.7 times more concentrated with hazardous tritium—radioactive hydrogen—than Japan’s allowable standard for ocean dumping, and about one million times higher than the concentration of natural tritium in Earth’s surface waters,” she added. 

Japanese officials did reverse one highly controversial policy related to the wastewater dump this week. Amid intense public backlash, the government hastily retired Little Mr. Tritium, an animated radioactive mascot meant to promote and popularize the discharge. 

“It seems the government’s desire to release the water into the sea takes priority over everything,” Katsuo Watanabe, an 82-year-old fisher from Fukushima, told Kyodo News. “We fisherman can’t understand it.” 

April 19, 2021 Posted by | Japan, oceans, politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

South Korea raises with USA its worries about Fukushima water to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean

South Korea raises Fukushima concerns with U.S,

Yahoo News, April 18, 2021  As U.S. climate envoy John Kerry appeared in Seoul over the weekend to discuss global warming,

South Korea’s foreign ministry says it raised concerns to him over Japan’s plans to dump contaminated water from its defunct Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea…….

Under the plan, more than 1 million tonnes of water will be discharged from the plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Seoul has strongly rebuked the decision……

Kerry’s visit to Seoul precedes U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual summit with world leaders on climate change, set for two days starting April 22. https://news.yahoo.com/south-korea-raises-fukushima-concerns-080908571.html

April 19, 2021 Posted by | oceans, politics international, South Korea, wastes | Leave a comment

French MPs urge Macron to provide data about nuclear waste buried in Algeria

French MPs urge Macron to provide data about nuclear waste buried in Algeria https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210415-french-mps-urge-macron-to-provide-data-about-nuclear-waste-buried-in-algeria/, April 15, 2021   Nine French MPs have called on President Emmanuel Macron to provide data and maps about nuclear waste sites in Algeria, agencies reported yesterday. The French conducted nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara in the 1960s You now have the opportunity to take concrete action in favour of the civilians and the environment which continue to be affected by nuclear waste buried by France in the sands of the Algerian Sahara,” the MPs told Macron. “You must seize it.”They  pointed out that the fifth session of the Algerian-French high level intergovernmental committee, which should have held on 11 April, has been postponed indefinitely. The committee works to resolve historical disputes between France and Algeria.

In February, the MPs said, the sky over a large part of France had an orange hue which was the result of sand carried by strong winds from Algeria. “This meteorological episode reminded us once again that France has left an indelible radioactive imprint in the heart of the Sahara… Seventeen nuclear explosions were carried out in [Algeria] between 1960 and 1966, both above ground and underground, to test the French atomic bomb.”Key information is still missing about the waste for the most part buried in the sand, added the MPs. “Providing the details requested,” they insisted, “will ensure the health and safety of the people living in the areas in question, protect future generations and take the necessary and appropriate measures for the restoration of the environment.”

April 17, 2021 Posted by | AFRICA, environment, France, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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