Sizewell C nuclear plan puts iconic British nature reserve in danger
The battle of nature versus nuclear: will Sizewell C destroy Minsmere nature reserve? Sophie Atherton Telegraph 22nd Sept 2019 Almost anywhere you walk at the RSPB’s Minsmere nature reserve, you get a view of the Sizewell nuclear power stations. They are a curiously ambivalent landmark, a somewhat menacing presence on the skyline, but also lending a moody, sci-fi edge to the landscape – especially on grey days when the dome of Sizewell B seems to appear and disappear depending on the passing clouds. It’s impossible not to notice the industrial behemoths, but because Minsmere is such a carnival of wildlife, you can, to a degree, ignore them. For now.
However, French energy company EDF and partner China General Nuclear Power Corporation want to build a nuclear power station to the north of the two already there.
Almost anywhere you walk at the RSPB’s Minsmere nature reserve, you get a view of the Sizewell nuclear power stations. EDF and partner China General Nuclear Power Corporation want to build a nuclear power station to the north of the two already there. Construction is due to start in 2021 and
going on for 10 to 12 years. “The plans EDF have shared have tried to indicate that the visual impact won’t be that great because of this bank of woodland,” says Rowlands, gesturing to a line of trees beyond the water overlooked by the Island Mere bird hide. “We’re trying to ascertain what
that means in reality.
I think at Hinkley – which they are modelling this station on – it’s something like 56 cranes at the peak of the construction but what does that look like – and even if the visual is somewhat obscured,
how does the noise travel? How does that affect the wildlife if it becomes more noisy?” The RSPB feels that EDF’s plans for Sizewell C throw up as many questions as answers and is concerned about the lack of information on the environmental impact of such a huge construction project so close to sites that are internationally renowned for their wildlife importance.
As well as the power station itself, building it requires new roads (for the daily journeys of hundreds of HGV lorries), a new rail link, a double-deck car park for 1,500 vehicles and several three and four-storey accommodation blocks providing 2,400 bed spaces for workers.
That’s merely a flavour, rather than an exhaustive list, of what will happen to this Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty – on supposedly protected land – if Sizewell C goes ahead. One of the things that makes Minsmere so remarkable is that it has such a variety of different habitats. Some nature reserves are predominantly one type of landscape, but Minsmere has everything. The fate
of its reed beds, wet grassland, scrapes and lagoons, woodland, heath, vegetated shingle and beyond that the sea, along with all the thousands of species that live there, are all inextricably interconnected.
It is like a microcosm of the whole of the UK’s ecology. If one part is damaged, the whole will be affected as creatures and plants lose the conditions and then the food they need to survive.
Nuclear power is supposed to be a part of the UK’s plans for phasing out fossil fuels and moving to sustainable, eco-friendly, renewable energy sources. But if a new power station threatens to destroy the very things we are trying to protect, we have to consider carefully where to put it.
The latest stage of the Sizewell C public consultation closes on Sept 27. Details of how to respond can be found at sizewellc.co.uk
Surface melting causes Antarctic glaciers to slip faster towards the ocean
Direct link between surface melting and short bursts of glacier acceleration in Antarctica
- Date:
- September 20, 2019
- Source:
- University of Sheffield
- Summary:
- Study shows for the first time a direct link between surface melting and short bursts of glacier acceleration in Antarctica. During these events, Antarctic Peninsula glaciers move up to 100% faster than average. Scientists call for these findings to be accounted for in sea level rise predictions…….
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190920111355.htm
Nuclear watchdog groups warn legal action over environmental impact of plutonium pit production
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Federal officials have set a deadline of 2030 for ramped-up production of plutonium pits. The work will be split between Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment threatened legal action in a letter sent this week to officials. In June, the National Nuclear Security Administration said it would prepare an environmental impact statement on pit-making at Savannah River. A less extensive review was planned for Los Alamos this week .
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The ozone layer is repairing – international co-operation pays off
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BY MAANI TRUU, 17 Sept 19, The world’s ozone layer is on track to be completely healed by the 2060s, according to modelling by the UN’s environmental agency (UNEP).
In the past 19-years, parts of the ozone layer have recovered at a rate of one to three per cent every ten years, UNEP has found. If this continues, the Northern Hemisphere’s ozone layer is set to heal completely by the 2030s, the Southern Hemisphere by the 2050s, and the polar regions in the following decade. As we rightly focus our energies on tackling climate change, we must be careful not to neglect the ozone layer and stay alert to the threat posed by the illegal use of ozone-depleting gases,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Monday. “The recent detection of emissions of one such gas, CFC-11, reminds us that we need continued monitoring and reporting systems, and improved regulations and enforcement.” The ozone layer, made up of three types of oxygen atoms, is located approximately 15 kilometres above the earth and helps to protect the planet from ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer, crop damage, eye cataracts and other issues. But since the late 1970s, the ozone layer had been consistently thinning due to the overuse of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, reaching a crisis point in the 1990s when about 10 per cent of the layer had been eroded. n 1987, UN members signed a treaty – known as the Montreal Protocol – aimed at phasing out ozone-depleting substances and developed replacements. According to the UNEP, the Montreal Protocol has successfully led to the removal of 99 per cent of chlorofluorocarbons, which previously existed in refrigerators, air-conditioners and other consumer products. “The Montreal Protocol is both an inspirational example of how humanity is capable of cooperating to address a global challenge and a key instrument for tackling today’s climate crisis,” Mr Guterres said. “Under this international treaty, nations have worked for 32 years to slash the use of ozone-depleting chemicals, used largely by the cooling industry. As a result, the ozone layer that shields us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation is healing.” The ozone layer is also instrumental in curbing the effects of climate change, with the barrier stopping approximately 135 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere between 1990 to 2010, UNEP said. Earlier this year, China came under fire for allegedly releasing large quantities of banned chemical Chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11) into the atmosphere, in violation of the UN treaty. |
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Strong environmental case to scrap Bradwell B new nuclear build
Mersea Island Courier 16th Sept 2019, Native oysters at risk from new nuclear build. Graham Farley of Mersea Island Environmental Alliance (MIEA) shares why marine life in the
Blackwater Estuary will be at risk if the Bradwell B nuclear new-build goes
ahead.
CHINA General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) and EDF Energy are currently
circulating updates on the proposed Bradwell new-build nuclear project. In
their article they say that members of the public have a chance to win a
photographic competition or even submit their happy memories associated
with the original Bradwell Magnox Station!
My memories of the Bradwell Magnox station include: radioactive leaks, record fines, more leaks and attempts to cover up a catalogue of failures including the failed FED
dumping of radioactive waste in our estuary.
Unsurprisingly, there are no mentions of climate change and environmental protection in their
literature. It was assumed that with the decreasing cost of green energy,
spiralling costs of new nuclear projects and collapse of other UK proposed
nuclear builds that Bradwell would be shelved.
However, this isn’t so, as we have a copy of a Marine Licence application from July this year to
survey the estuary, which confirms that the project is still moving
forward. This document confirms the power station “will likely operate
with cooling water abstracted from the Blackwater Estuary”.
The case I’m making to stop the nuclear new build at Bradwell is environmental:
the Blackwater Estuary is one of the most important wildlife habitats in
the country, therefore safeguarding and preserving this habitat for future
generations is a priority! We must protect of the delicate ecology of the
mud flats, salt marsh and the shallow estuary with its many international
environmental protections and UK Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) status.
Opposition in Suffolk to Sizewell nuclear plan, which hugely threatens wildlife
ITV 15th Sept 2019, RSPB hosts new festival in response to EDF’s plans to build nuclear reactor
at the edges of a nature reserve. A thousand people attended a festival
today organised by the RSPB in response to EDF’s plans to build a nuclear
reactor in Suffolk. Sizewell C will be built on the boundary of the
Minsmere Nature Reserve which is home to more than five and a half thousand
species of wildlife.
The RSPB manages the site and opposes the energy
giants plans. They say building the reactor so close to the nature reserve
could threaten the thousands of different species of wildlife that call
Minsmere home. EDF say that the environmental impact of the new site would
be kept to a minimum, and argue that new jobs for local people will be
provided.
Among the visitors supporting the festival today (Sunday,
September 15) was television presenter, Bill Turnbull, who lives nearby. He
said: There’s no infrastructure or communications for it here. What is
here, is Minsmere – where the RSPB have been trying really hard to get all
these birds to come back. And we are going to risk it all just simply
because it’s a convenient place to build a power station.” The public
consultation into EDF’s proposal for Sizewell C will end on September 27.
Russia’s nuclear torpedoes at the bottom of the sea
A Dead Russian Submarine Armed with Nuclear Torpedoes was Never Recovered, National Interest, Robert Farley, September 15, 2019
Key point: She rests at a depth of 15,000 feet —too deep to make recovery practical.
The Novembers (627):
Japan says TEPCO will dump more than 1 million tons of radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear plant into Pacific Ocean
10 Sept 2019 | Japan’s environment minister announced Tuesday that the country will have to dump radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant into the ocean because it is running out of space, Reuters reported. According to Reuters, Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has collected more than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the cooling pipes used to keep fuel cores from melting since the plant was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. “The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it,” the minister, Yoshiaki Harada, told a news briefing in Tokyo…The government is awaiting a report from an expert panel before making a final decision on how to dispose of the radioactive water. (The Hill, Reuters)
UK forest to be chopped down for Sizewell C nuclear project, though project approval not yet complete
East Anglian Daily Times 11th Sept 2019, Coronation Wood will now be chopped down to make way for Sizewell C – even though the proposed new twin reactor nuclear power station has not beengiven the go-ahead yet.
The application from EDF Energy, part of major
changes to the Sizewell B estate needed for Sizewell C’s construction,
generated a huge number of objections. However, it was approved by East
Suffolk Council’s (ESC) strategic planning committee by nine votes to
eight. Theberton and Eastbridge Parish Council, supported by a number of
other parish and town councils, will now ask the Secretary of State for
Housing, Communities and Local Government to “call in” the application and
consider it for a planning inquiry.
Paul Collins, of Theberton & Eastbridge
Action Group on Sizewell, said: “We strongly oppose ESC’s decision to
approve this application when the DCO request for Sizewell C has neither
been submitted nor approved. If Sizewell C does not go ahead – and there
are many reasons why it might not, including uncertain financing and major
environmental obstacles – the AONB will have been needlessly damaged.”
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/sizewell-c-coronation-wood-and-visiting-centre-plan-decision-1-6265010
Environmental, health, threats of USA’s zombie uranium mines
When toxic waste piles — either solid rock or liquid confined behind earthen dams — are left unaddressed, the potential increases for “catastrophic failure
WHILE ‘ZOMBIE’ MINES IDLE, CLEANUP AND WORKERS SUFFER IN LIMBO As the governor of West Virginia and other mine owners warehouse their operations and avoid cleanup, the Trump administration stifles attempts to write rules that could restrict the practice. Center for Public Integrity, 8 Sept 19
……….RADIOACTIVE LEGACY
Remnants of America’s nuclear past litter the Grants Mining District in northwest New Mexico: signs warning of radioactivity, a spiked drill bit outside the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants, businesses offering to help retired miners get U.S. Department of Labor health benefits.
Mount Taylor — “Tsoodzil” to the Navajo Nation — towers over the landscape. At the base of the 11,305-foot-tall inactive volcano sits the Mount Taylor Mine, idled in 1990 and allowed to flood.
The heyday of Southwestern uranium mining lasted just 30 years. Much of the industry, including this mine, has since remained in standby.
The country’s last operational underground uranium mine shut in 2015, and open-pit mines haven’t produced in decades. Only one mill in Utah and four in-situ-leach operations, in which ore is dissolved belowground and pumped up, are still active. Two other mills and 15 in-situ-leach sites are either officially in standby or not producing. The American uranium industry employed only 372 people last year, down from 1,120 two decades earlier. Production from U.S. uranium mines fell 85 percent during that period, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
At current prices, mining uranium in the Four Corners remains untenable.
But now the Mount Taylor Mine is reopening, at least on paper.
…… the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine, once the world’s largest open-pit uranium mine, is now a Superfund site. In the broader Four Corners region, the U.S. Department of Energy is supposed to clean up more than 20 such Cold War relics, from former mills to waste piles. Some leak arsenic, lead, uranium and other toxic substances into groundwater. Recently, hoofprints were found leading from an unfenced pollution control pond near Slick Rock, Colorado, indicating that cattle likely drink from it.
Just inside the southeastern corner of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, an unsettling sign hangs from barbed wire: “DANGER. ABANDONED URANIUM MINE,” a pile of mine waste looming behind it. Residents here in the Red Water Pond Road Community are surrounded by two abandoned uranium mines and a mill…….
Living around or working in uranium mines can worsen, or even trigger, autoimmune disorders, kidney disease, respiratory issues, hypertension and cancer. A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the University of New Mexico and Navajo agencies found that Navajo Nation citizens, including infants, had elevated levels of uranium in their bodies.
Paul Robinson, Southwest Research and Information Center’s research director, has tracked the industry for more than 40 years. While the New Mexico Mining Act mandates that waste rock and other infrastructure be stabilized before entering standby status, it allows operators to delay reclamation while mining is paused, he said.
“Leaving the wastes that are generated at a mine uncovered is one of the ways to ensure airborne or waterborne release,” Robinson said.
Thompson Bell, a member of the Navajo Nation who spent five years as a mechanic in a uranium mine, grew up here and returned for the study. He said many of his mining coworkers died from lung cancer. The sheep and cattle that used to graze here have all but disappeared, the flocks given up for fear of contamination.
“The thing about uranium, we found out: It destroys humans and land,” Bell said.
Opinion remains split locally about whether the return of relatively high-paying mining jobs — if that ever happened — would be worth the human and environmental consequences. Christine Lowery, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a commissioner for the county where the Mount Taylor Mine is located, said she welcomes a cleaner economy.
“Those mines were open for one generation,” she said. “The legacy lasts forever…….
The federal government leaves it to the states to impose limits on uranium-mine idling. The resulting patchwork of state rules are largely anchored on a 147-year-old federal law aimed more at promoting mining than managing it.
Over time, uranium production has dropped, stockpiles remained large, nuclear power’s share of the country’s electricity production fell, and power plants bought more uranium from overseas. Still, mine owners hope for a revival…….
Modern surface mining in Central Appalachia has been linked to health problems ranging from cancer to birth defects. And in a 2012 study, Bernhardt estimated that surface mining impaired about one in three miles of southern West Virginia’s rivers.
But idling poses other risks, Bernhardt said. When toxic waste piles — either solid rock or liquid confined behind earthen dams — are left unaddressed, the potential increases for “catastrophic failure,” she said, even as opportunities to use the land for new purposes are delayed…..
Regulators in Virginia have few options. Justice mine cleanup liabilities in Virginia total as much as $200 million, and taxpayers could get stuck with a large share of that if the state takes over. That’s because those companies have put up only about $51 million for cleanup if the operations are abandoned. Half of that amount would likely be worthless in that scenario because, state records show, it is backed against the value of the companies. A pool of money Virginia set up to close gaps like this at 150 permits across the state, including some of Justice’s, has less than $10 million in it. ……..https://publicintegrity.org/environment/while-zombie-mines-idle-cleanup-and-workers-suffer-in-limbo/?fbclid=IwAR1PsslGwAV0UPxPBIn4qv1JTypoGVk1
Radioactive pollution of beaches and abandoned boats, following Russian nuclear explosion
Russian Nuclear Blast Debris Is Still Emitting Radiation, Reports Say, Moscow Times, Sep. 4, 2019 Journalists in northern Russia have measured high levels of radiation near two abandoned boats that were brought ashore following last month’s mysterious accident during a test at a military site that has raised international concerns and safety fears……
The radiation poisoning of Iraq lingers on
“The destruction of a society”: First the U.S. invaded Iraq — then we left it poisoned Scientist: Bombs, bullets and military hardware abandoned by U.S. forces have left Iraq “toxic for millennia”, Salon.com DAVID MASCIOTRA 7 Sept 19
The political and moral culture of the United States allows for bipartisan cooperation to destroy an entire country, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, without even the flimsiest of justification. Then, only a few years later, everyone can act as if it never happened.
In 2011, the U.S. withdrew most of its military personnel from Iraq, leaving the country in ruins. Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American military personnel perished in the war. Because the bombs have stopped falling from the sky and the invasion and occupation of Iraq no longer makes headlines, Americans likely devote no thought to the devastation that occurred in their name.
With the exception of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is currently polling at or below 2 percent, no candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has consistently addressed the criminality, cruelty and cavalier wastefulness of American foreign policy. Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the race, not only supported the war in Iraq — despite his recent incoherent claims to the contrary — but as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee acted as its most effective and influential salesman in the Democratic Party.
The blasé attitude of America toward the death and destruction it creates, all while boasting of its benevolence, cannot withstand the scrutiny of science. Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan and recipient of the Rachel Carson Prize, has led several investigative expeditions in Iraq to determine how the pollutants and toxic chemicals from the U.S.-led war are poisoning Iraq’s people and environment. The health effects are catastrophic, and will remain so long after the war reached its official end.
I previously interviewed Savabieasfahani about her initial research, and recently acquired an update regarding her team’s latest discovery that there is a close correlation between proximity to a U.S. military base and birth defects in Iraqi children.
Average Americans, even many who opposed the war in Iraq, seem to believe that once the military campaign is over the casualties of war stop accumulating. What is the purpose of your general research regarding the toxicity of the Iraqi environment resulting from American bombs, munitions and other materials? How does the American invasion and occupation continue to adversely affect the health of Iraqis?
Bombs and bullets have been used on an extreme scale in Iraq. Dropping tons of bombs and releasing millions of bullets leaves toxic residues the in air, water and soil of the targeted population. These pollutants continue to poison those populations years after the bombing stops
What’s more, the United States imported thousands of tons of military equipment into Iraq to use in their occupation. They include, tanks, trucks, bombers, armored vehicles, infantry weapons, antiaircraft systems, artillery and mortars — some of which are coated with depleted uranium, and much more. These eventually find their way into U.S. military junkyards which remain across Iraq.
There are unknown numbers of military junkyards scattered across the Iraqi landscape.
Fluctuations in temperature facilitates the rusting and weathering of military junk, releasing toxic pollutants [including radioactive uranium compounds, neurotoxic lead and mercury, etc.] into the Iraqi environment.
Uranium and its related compounds remain toxic for millennia and poison local populations through food, air and water contamination.
The exposure of pregnant mothers to the pollutions of war, including uranium and thorium, irreversibly damages their unborn children. We found thorium, a product of depleted uranium decay, in the hair of Iraqi children with birth defects who lived in Nasiriyah and Ur City, near a U.S. military base.
The destruction of a society does not stop after U.S. bombs stop falling. Environmental contamination which the U.S. leaves behind continues to destroy our environment and poison our people decades after the bombs have stopped falling. The U.S. has a long history of irreversibly destroying human habitats. That must end…….
Forty-four years after U.S. forces left Vietnam, there are still Vietnamese babies born with birth defects from the American military’s use of Agent Orange. How long do you believe Iraqis will continue to suffer from the American-led war?
If left unmitigated, the population will be permanently exposed to elevated toxic exposures which can impact the Iraqi gene pool.
Through the use of the scientific method, you are gaining the ability to identify a severe problem in Iraq. Considering that the problem is a result of the U.S. invasion, what could the U.S. do to solve or at least mitigate the problem?
The U.S. must be held responsible and forced to clean up all the sites which it has polluted. Technology exists for the cleanup of radiation contamination. The removal and disposal of U.S.-created military junkyards would go a long way towards cleaning toxic releases out of the Iraqi environment.
You are a scientist, not a political analyst, but you must have some thoughts regarding the political implications of your work. How do you react to the lack of substantive conversation about the consequences of war in American politics and the press, and the American establishment’s evasion of responsibility on this issue?
I expect nothing from the American political establishment or their propaganda machines which masquerade as “news media” and feed uncritically off State Department press briefings.
Fortunately, there is a movement to criminalize environmental contamination caused by war. Damage to nature and the human environment must be considered a war crime.
Scientists are currently asking international lawmakers to adopt a fifth Geneva Convention which would recognize damage to nature as a war crime, alongside other war crimes. I hope that will make a difference in our ability to protect human lives and our environment. …… https://www.salon.com/2019/09/07/the-destruction-of-a-society-first-the-u-s-invaded-iraq-then-we-left-it-poisoned/
Japan nowhere near solving the problem of Fukushima nuclear waste water
Japan briefs diplomats on Fukushima nuclear water concerns, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/japan-briefs-diplomats-fukushima-nuclear-water-concerns-65376017 Japan tried to reassure foreign diplomats Wednesday about safety at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant amid concerns about massive amounts of treated but radioactive water stored in tanks.
Diplomats from 22 countries and regions attended a briefing at the Foreign Ministry, where Japanese officials stressed the importance of combating rumors about safety at the plant, which was decimated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, while pledging transparency.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, said last month that it would run out of storage space for the water in 2022, prompting South Korea to raise safety questions amid tensions with Japan that have intensified over trade and history. South Korea was among those represented at Wednesday’s briefing.
Water must be continuously pumped into the four melted reactors at the plant so the fuel inside can be kept cool, and radioactive water has leaked from the reactors and mixed with groundwater and rainwater since the disaster.
The plant has accumulated more than 1 million tons of water in nearly 1,000 tanks. The water has been treated but still contains some radioactive elements. One, tritium — a relative of radiation-emitting hydrogen — cannot be separated.
Tritium is not unique to Fukushima’s melted reactors and is not harmful in low doses, and water containing it is routinely released from nuclear power plants around the world, including in South Korea, officials say.
The water has been a source of concern, sparking rumors about safety, especially as Japan tries to get countries to lift restrictions on food imports from the Fukushima area ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Import restrictions are still in place in 22 countries and regions, including South Korea and China.
“In order to prevent harmful rumors about the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant from being circulated, we believe it is extremely important to provide scientific and accurate information,” Yumiko Hata, a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry official in charge of the Fukushima accident response, said at the briefing. “We appreciate your understanding of the situation and continuing support for the decommissioning work at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.”
Officials said there were no complaints from the diplomats Wednesday about Japan’s handling of the water.
More than eight years after the accident, Japan has yet to decide what to do with the radioactive water. A government-commissioned panel has picked five options, including the controlled release of the water into the Pacific Ocean.
As disputes between Japan and neighboring South Korea escalated over export controls and colonial-era labor used by Japanese companies, Seoul last month announced plans to step up radiation tests of Japanese food products, and asked about the contaminated water and the possibility of its release into the sea.
Experts say the tanks pose flooding and radiation risks and hamper decontamination efforts at the plant. Nuclear scientists, including members the International Atomic Energy Agency and Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, have recommended the water’s controlled release into the sea as the only realistic option scientifically and financially. Local residents oppose this, saying the release would trigger rumors of contamination, which would spell doom for Fukushima’s fishing and agriculture industries.
The panel recently added a sixth option of long-term storage.
The radioactive fallout from Chernobyl continues to impact lives.
The legacy of Chernobyl: Zombie reactors and an invisible enemy ABC News, Foreign Correspondent By Europe correspondent Linton Besser, Mark Doman, Alex Palmer and Nathanael Scott, 3 Sep 2019, As the Soviet Union grappled with the scale of the disaster unfolding at Chernobyl, radioactive material spewed into the environment.
In the immediate aftermath of the 1986 explosion inside reactor number four of the nuclear power plant, dozens of first responders received fatal doses of radiation, forests surrounding the reactor were poisoned, and nearby waterways were contaminated.
Despite attempts to douse the fire in the core with sand, boron and lead, the reactor burnt for 10 days, releasing huge amounts of radioactive materials beyond the plant’s perimeter.
Three decades on from what is considered to be one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, the fallout from Chernobyl continues to impact lives.
Carried in the prevailing weather patterns, the radioactive particles pouring out of reactor four spread rapidly.
The vast majority of particulates fell over parts of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine where more than 5 million people now live in contaminated areas. But modelling by the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, shows how, within two days of the disaster, the radioactive plume was transported more than 1,000 kilometres.
There’s also the highly contaminated Red Forest to the south and west. It got its name from the colour the trees turned as they died after the blast. Here researchers continue to uncover highly radioactive pockets of soil. Access to this area is largely restricted, but the Safecast data shows areas inside the forest reaching an average of around 30µSv/h. Then of course there’s the reactor itself. A place so irradiated it sits entombed in a giant sarcophagus made of steel and concrete. Some estimates suggest the core will remain radioactive for thousands of years.
There’s no data at the core because access to the area is heavily restricted for safety reasons. Azby Brown, the lead researcher with Safecast, said many of the hardest-hit areas, like the abandoned town of Pripyat, will remain unsafe to live “for generations”.
“If you just look at the half life of Caesium-137, it’s 30 years. So it’s been through one half life, meaning naturally half of it has decayed, so anywhere you went 30 years ago in Chernobyl was twice [as radioactive] as what it is today,” he said.
Despite the lingering risks, there are some who’ve chosen to ignore the warnings and return to live inside the exclusion zone.
Sofia Bezverhaya was living just 30 kilometres from the plant in the village of Kupovate when the plant exploded.
The breach of reactor number four occurred on a Saturday. But Sofia, the local council administrator, heard nothing of it.
“It was only on the Monday that we’ve found out there’d been an accident,” she told Foreign Correspondent. That day, she took a phone call from a Communist Party official. “There’s been an accident,” she was told. “Prepare for the evacuation.”
“They kept telling us, it’s just for three days … [but] all of us had that uneasy feeling creeping into our souls, that we might just leave our homes and never ever come back. And that’s what came to be.”
“Our grand- and great grandparents are buried here. And we also want to be buried here, in our village. It’s our dream.”
The official death toll from Chernobyl is disputed, but a UN report into the “true scale of the accident” found as many as 4,000 people could die as a result of radiation exposure.
Once Sofia returned, despite official warnings to avoid locally grown produce, she had little choice but to continue to plough her own yard for food. And more than three decades later, she’s still doing it.
From the garden bed, which runs beside the length of her blue weatherboard home, she grows tomatoes, zucchinis, pumpkins, capsicum, sorrel, potatoes and onions.
“For me, my resort is my work in the garden … where I can watch a squirrel collecting nuts, and hear the singing of nightingale.”
Kupovate is firmly within the boundaries of the exclusion zone around the reactor. But once a year, Sofia Bezverhaya said, her garden vegetables are tested, and the results are within acceptable limits.
It’s an anomaly which demonstrates the caprice of the fallout; the red lines of the exclusion zone simply do not prescribe the limits of the contamination……… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-03/chernobyls-radioactive-legacy-zombie-reactors-an-invisible-enemy/11432430
UN warns on need for global action – treaty – as the world’s oceans are in dire trouble
INTERVIEW-Ocean treaty needed to tackle ‘deep trouble’, says UN envoy, http://news.trust.org/item/20190831063635-oygwk/, by Adela Suliman | @adela_suliman | Thomson Reuters Foundation, Saturday, 31 August 2019 The oceans are increasingly threatened by global warming, acidification and pollution, and the impacts will affect us all, warned the U.N. oceans envoy. By Adela Suliman
STOCKHOLM, Aug 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The world’s seas are increasingly threatened by global warming, acidification and pollution, making it crucial to agree on a global treaty to protect them, the U.N. oceans envoy said.
Peter Thomson warned in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the oceans were “in deep trouble”.
“It is worse than we think and there are no easy solutions,” he said at World Water Week in Stockholm this week, as the latest round of talks on a treaty wound up in New York.
The first global ocean treaty is due to be agreed in the first half of 2020. But on Friday environmental group Greenpeace said the negotiations were “disappointing” so far, blaming a lack of political will to secure a “progressive outcome”.
Thomson said a “comprehensive global regime” was needed to accelerate action to protect waters beyond national jurisdictions.
“It is critical in these challenging times for planetary environmental conditions that we develop a binding treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the ocean,” he said.
A flagship scientific report warned this year that two-thirds of the ocean area was already affected by growing human impacts, primarily from stressors linked to global warming.
Climate change and the oceans were “intimately linked”, Thomson said, adding humanity was on a “totally irresponsible course” by not tackling global warming urgently enough. In 2015 nearly 200 nations signed up to the Paris Agreement that aims to keep the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, and ideally to 1.5C.
“(Climate change) is going to have huge human impact and there will have to be a change of occupations, a change of domiciles,” Thomson warned.
Fishing communities and coastal dwellers would be worse off and needed support to adapt in a warmer world, he added.
A set of global development goals to be met by 2030 include conserving and using oceans, seas and marine resources wisely.
Much of the planet’s rainwater, drinking water, food and weather systems are provided or regulated by the sea.
“Every second breath you take comes from oxygen from the ocean,” said Thomson, a Fijian diplomat.
But seawater warming and acidification could change the chemical composition of the oceans, with profound effects for humans, he warned.
TURNING THE TIDE?
Pollution, including plastic, industrial waste, sewage and fertiliser, poses a serious threat to marine life, Thomson said.
“There are over 500 ‘dead zones’ all over the world where actually no life exists because of what’s coming down those rivers by way of pollution,” he said.
Meanwhile, irresponsible fishing practices have depleted fish stocks and are “part of the human tragedy of ending biodiversity”, he added.
Billions of people depend on oceans for their food and livelihoods, but the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has said nearly 90% of fish stocks are over-fished or fully exploited as global demand rises.
Thomson said, however, that pollution and over-fishing were “very fixable” with better environmental management.
Individual action had begun to make inroads – from public beach clean-ups to how people shop and vote.
Climate change, on the other hand, was a more “pernicious” threat to the Earth’s water, he said.
The U.N. climate science panel is due to publish a special report in late September on how climate change is affecting the world’s oceans and frozen water. Thomson said it would be a “guiding light” for future international protection efforts by providing scientific insight on how global warming is affecting life in the sea.
“The report will no doubt provide further support for dramatic scaling up of political ambition (to act),” he said.
“It’s no time to be sitting around philosophising … The changes have to be made now
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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