Radium and Lead contaminate rivers From Thousands of Fracking Wastewater Spills
Duke Study: Rivers Contaminated With Radium and Lead From Thousands of Fracking Wastewater Spills. EcoWatch Sharon Kelly, DeSmogBlog | May 9, 2016 Thousands of oil and gas industry wastewater spills in North Dakota have caused “widespread” contamination from radioactive materials, heavy metals and corrosive salts, putting the health of people and wildlife at risk, researchers from Duke University concluded in a newly released peer-reviewed study.
High levels of lead—the same heavy metal that infamously contaminated water in Flint, Michigan—as well as the radioactive element radium, were discovered near spill sites. One substance, selenium, was found in the state’s waters at levels as high as 35 times the federal thresholds set to protect fish, mussels and other wildlife, including those that people eat.
The pollution was found on land as well as in water. The soils in locations where wastewater spilled were laced with significant levels of radium and even higher levels of radium were discovered in the ground downstream from the spills’ origin points, showing that radioactive materials were soaking into the ground and building up as spills flowed over the ground, the researchers said.
The sheer number of spills in the past several years is striking. All told, the Duke University researchers mapped out a total of more than 3,900 accidental spills of oil and gas wastewater in North Dakota alone……. http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/09/radium-lead-fracking/
The 1964 nuclear bomb exploded in South Mississippi – and its effects
In 1964 a nuclear bomb was detonated in South Mississippi http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2016/05/obama_hiroshima_nuclear_bombin.html By Jed Lipinski, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune The White House announced Tuesday (May 10) that President Barack Obama later this month will visit Hiroshima, Japan, site of the world’s first atomic bombing. It’s the most familiar nuclear explosion in history, but it’s just one of more than 2,000 such explosions — most of them tests — since 1945.
It happened 2,600 feet underground in 1964, when a 5.3-kiloton bomb, one fourth the size of the bomb used on Hiroshima, was detonated deep inside the Tatum Salt Dome in Mississippi. The Tatum Salt Dome explosion was part of a nuclear test to determine whether the U.S. “had the ability to measure Soviet nuclear tests underground in caves,” reporter Mark Schleifstein wrote in The Times-Picayune in 1990.
“The Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission — precursor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy — picked as their test site the Tatum Salt Dome southwest of Hattiesburg,” Schleifstein wrote. “It was huge, about a mile across, and relatively remote. Only about 250 families lived within five miles of ground zero.”
Three more blasts — one nuclear, two non-nuclear — followed over the next four years before researchers decided to abandon the site. Officials would later conduct a a massive clean-up effort, dumping 1.3 million gallons of contaminated water and 10,700 cubic yards of contaminated soil into the cavity.
Workers who participated in the clean-up said they were exposed to high levels of radiation on the job. Bill Teck, the chief of security at the site until 1971, was later diagnosed with skin cancer, which a Veterans Administration pathologist attributed to nuclear radiation.
Today, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality conducts annual tests of the surface water at the Tatum Dome to monitor slowly dropping levels of tritium, a mildly radioactive type of hydrogen that can seep into water supplies near nuclear power plants.
Respiratory diseases, radioactive fumes – concerns in St Louis County, USA
AIR POLLUTION, ATOMIC RISKS GROW AS TOXIC DUMP SMOLDER , URBAN NEWS SERVICE, Part 2 of a 2 part series. For part 1 visit “Near Ferguson, Ghosts of Hiroshima Haunt Fuming Landfill“.
BRIDGETON, Missouri – They can’t breathe.
Residents of this community near Ferguson — site of 2014’s police-involved shooting death of teenager Michael Brown — have complained for years about lung troubles caused by toxic fumes tied to radioactive waste linked to the atomic bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services will release a study in June to gauge these concerns. Many here call this step positive, small and too late; a slow-moving, subterranean landfill fire that began in 2010, could boost the site’s toxic-gas emissions.
Some locals have been diagnosed with cancer, which they connect to nuclear waste illegally dumped at the West Lake Landfill by the Cotter Corporation in 1973. This radioactive refuse is from World War II’s top-secret Manhattan Project.
Thanks to these conditions, residents who seek government-assisted relocation feel abandoned. Lengthy fights over who ultimately should control the site have slowed cleanup efforts……..
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly investigating the issue following a September 2014 study by Missouri’s health department. It found that, between 1996 and 2011, the ZIP codes around the landfill included statistically significant, higher incidences of leukemia plus cancers of the colon, prostate, kidney, bladder and brain.
“[The] recent study by St. Louis County is actually the first time that a government entity has asked people if they feel ill,” said Laura Barrett, executive director for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice…….
A 1988 Nuclear Regulatory Commission study revealed that its inspectors discovered in 1974 that the Cotter Corporation — which agreed to buy the atomic refuse from the federal government and dispose of it — mixed this waste with 39,000 tons of topsoil. Cotter illegally covered the West Lake Landfill with this irradiated earth in 1973, according to the nuclear agency’s report.
“It’s not in barrels. Some of it’s mixed in the soil and the garbage,” said Chapman. “Some of it’s just lying on the surface for over 40 years, and none of us knew about this.”……https://urbannewsservice.com/investigations/air-pollution-atomic-risks-grow-toxic-dump-smolder/
Ocean’s small shelled animals suffering from acidification due to global warming
Acidic oceans are dissolving shells of tiny sea snails, researchers find, ABC News, 2 May 16 By Kieran Jones Small organisms are struggling to survive as the ocean becomes more acidic, researchers say, including tiny sea snails whose shells are dissolving.
Key points:
- Acidification could severely affect the ocean’s food chain
- Small organisms are being damaged and scientists fear it could affect large animals
- A prominent researcher says reducing CO2 emissions would reduce acidification
Researchers fear an increase in acidification in the Southern Ocean could have a severe impact on the food chain off Australia’s south coast.
The concerns come as 350 scientists from more than 30 countries gather in Hobart for an international symposium on the impact of carbon dioxide on the world’s oceans.
Ocean acidification means the pH level of water has decreased, making it inhospitable for small organisms.
CSIRO research scientist Andrew Lenton was part of a team that developed a map of acidification around Australia.
He said the impact was already being felt.
“The changes in Australia are very close to the changes that are occurring everywhere else in the world, so this is really a global problem that Australia is part of,” he said.
“Already there are detectable changes in the Southern Ocean.”
Reducing carbon dioxide emissions would reduce acidification………The impact is also visible in tiny free-swimming sea snails call pteropods, which are a vital part of the diet of many large fish.
Researchers said the percentage of pteropods with dissolving shells observed had doubled since the pre-industrial era and was on track to triple by 2050.
Dr Richard Feely from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said reducing carbon dioxide emissions was the best way to avoid acidification.
“In order for us to address ocean acidification on a global scale we would have to add two billion tonnes of calcium carbonate,” he said………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-02/acidic-oceans-are-dissolving-shells-on-tiny-sea-snails/7376696?section=environment
Nuclear shipwreck still highly radioactive over 60 years later
Details Emerge from Cold War-Era Nuclear Shipwreck, New Historian, David DeMar May 01, 2016 More details have emerged regarding the wreck of the USS Independence, a US Navy vessel deliberately sacrificed in 1946 at the Bikini Atoll nuclear weapons tests at the very inception of the Cold War…….
NOAA and Boeing used a combination of high-resolution sonar imaging and an unmanned submersible known as “Echo Ranger” to locate and safely survey the still-irradiated wreck of the Independence. The resultant case study, plus newly declassified files on the Navy ship straight from the US National Archives, concerning its time as a nuclear weapons testbed, have been published in theJournal of Maritime Archaeology (JNA)……
merging documentary evidence with a study of the physical remains of a maritime archaeological site is a goal that can and should be pursued…….
The infamous tests at Bikini Atoll, The Bikini tests, conceived and undertaken just one year after dropping not one but two nuclear weapons on Japan, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end the Second World War, was one of the most visible and noteworthy events to signal a fundamental shift in postwar history.
In one of the newly-declassified reports dating from the era, it was suggested that the awesome power of nuclear weaponry represented a new era where the utter destruction of man had become possible, scouring the Earth of nothing but vestigial traces of humanity. http://www.newhistorian.com/details-emerge-cold-war-era-nuclear-shipwreck/6397/
Wildlife continues to suffer seriously from radiation at Chernobyl and Fukushima
Our studies provide new fundamental insights about consequences of chronic, multigenerational exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation. Most importantly, we have found that individual organisms are injured by radiation in a variety of ways. The cumulative effects of these injuries result in lower population sizes and reduced biodiversity in high-radiation areas.
Broad impacts at Chernobyl
Radiation exposure has caused genetic damage and increased mutation rates in many organisms in the Chernobyl region. So far, we have found little convincing evidence that many organisms there are evolving to become more resistant to radiation.
Organisms’ evolutionary history may play a large role in determining how vulnerable they are to radiation. In our studies, species that have historically shown high mutation rates, such as the barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), the icterine warbler (Hippolais icterina) and the Eurasian blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), are among the most likely to show population declinesin Chernobyl. Our hypothesis is that species differ in their ability to repair DNA, and this affects both DNA substitution rates and susceptibility to radiation from Chernobyl.
Much like human survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, birds and mammals at Chernobyl have cataracts in their eyes andsmaller brains. These are direct consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation in air, water and food. Like some cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, many of the birds have malformed sperm. In the most radioactive areas, up to 40 percent of male birds are completely sterile, with no sperm or just a few dead sperm in their reproductive tracts during the breeding season.
Tumors, presumably cancerous, are obvious on some birds in high-radiation areas. So are developmental abnormalities in some plants and insects.
Given overwhelming evidence of genetic damage and injury to individuals, it is not surprising that populations of many organisms in highly contaminated areas have shrunk. In Chernobyl, all major groups of animals that we surveyed were less abundant in more radioactive areas. This includes birds, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, grasshoppers, spiders and large and small mammals.
Not every species shows the same pattern of decline. Many species, including wolves, show no effects of radiation on their population density. A few species of birds appear to be more abundant in more radioactive areas. In both cases, higher numbers may reflect the fact that there are fewer competitors or predators for these species in highly radioactive areas.
Moreover, vast areas of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are not presently heavily contaminated, and appear to provide a refuge for many species. One report published in 2015 described game animals such as wild boar and elk as thriving in the Chernobyl ecosystem. But nearly all documented consequences of radiation in Chernobyl and Fukushima have found that individual organisms exposed to radiation suffer serious harm.
There may be exceptions. For example, substances called antioxidants can defend against the damage to DNA, proteins and lipids caused by ionizing radiation. The levels of antioxidants that individuals have available in their bodies may play an important role in reducing the damage caused by radiation. There is evidence that some birds may have adapted to radiation by changing the way they use antioxidants in their bodies.
Parallels at Fukushima
Recently we have tested the validity of our Chernobyl studies by repeating them in Fukushima, Japan. The 2011 power loss and core meltdown at three nuclear reactors there released about one-tenth as much radioactive material as the Chernobyl disaster.
Overall, we have found similar patterns of declines in abundance and diversity of birds, although some species are more sensitive to radiation than others. We have also found declines in some insects, such as butterflies, which may reflect the accumulation of harmful mutationsover multiple generations.
Our most recent studies at Fukushima have benefited from more sophisticated analyses of radiation doses received by animals. In our most recent paper, we teamed up with radioecologists to reconstruct the doses received by about 7,000 birds. The parallels we have found between Chernobyl and Fukushima provide strong evidence that radiation is the underlying cause of the effects we have observed in both locations.
Some members of the radiation regulatory community have been slow to acknowledge how nuclear accidents have harmed wildlife. For example, the U.N.-sponsored Chernobyl Forum instigated the notion that the accident has had a positive impact on living organisms in the exclusion zone because of the lack of human activities. A more recent report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation predicts minimal consequences for the biota animal and plant life of the Fukushima region.
Unfortunately these official assessments were largely based on predictions from theoretical models, not on direct empirical observations of the plants and animals living in these regions. Based on our research, and that of others, it is now known that animals living under the full range of stresses in nature are far more sensitive to the effects of radiation than previously believed. Although field studies sometimes lack the controlled settings needed for precise scientific experimentation, they make up for this with a more realistic description of natural processes.
Our emphasis on documenting radiation effects under “natural” conditions using wild organisms has provided many discoveries that will help us to prepare for the next nuclear accident or act of nuclear terrorism. This information is absolutely needed if we are to protect the environment not just for man, but also for the living organisms and ecosystem services that sustain all life on this planet……https://theconversation.com/at-chernobyl-and-fukushima-radioactivity-has-seriously-harmed-wildlife-57030
Climate Change threatens the already leaking Marshall Islands radioactive dome
This dome in the Pacific houses tons of radioactive waste – and it’s leaking
The Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands is a hulking legacy of years of US nuclear testing. Now locals and scientists are warning that rising sea levels caused by climate change could cause 111,000 cubic yards of debris to spill into the ocean , Guardian Coleen Jose, Kim Wall and Jan Hendrik Hinzel on Runit Island 3 July 2015
“……..Officially, this vast structure is known as the Runit Dome. Locals call it The Tomb.
Below the 18-inch concrete cap rests the United States’ cold war legacy to this remote corner of the Pacific Ocean: 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive debris left behind after 12 years of nuclear tests.
Brackish water pools around the edge of the dome, where sections of concrete have started to crack away. Underground, radioactive waste has already started to leach out of the crater: according to a 2013 report by the US Department of Energy, soil around the dome is already more contaminated than its contents.
Now locals, scientists and environmental activists fear that a storm surge, typhoon or other cataclysmic event brought on by climate change could tear the concrete mantel wide open, releasing its contents into the Pacific Ocean.
“Runit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and climate change,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the dome in 2010.
“It resulted from US nuclear testing and the leaving behind of large quantities of plutonium,” he said. “Now it has been gradually submerged as result of sea level rise from greenhouse gas emissions by industrial countries led by the United States.”
Enewetak Atoll, and the much better-known Bikini Atoll, were the main sites of the United States Pacific Proving Grounds, the setting for dozens of atomic explosions during the early years of the cold war……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in grave danger from global warming
Now the scientists have found that the coping mechanism barrier reef corals use to prepare themselves to face warm summer water is also under threat from global warming, and from human activities such as agriculture, shipping, and fishing.
“As temperature warms, the evidence is that this protective mechanism will no longer function
How the Great Barrier Reef is going from bad to worse Christian Science
Monitor, 14 Apr 16 Though the corals of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef historically have managed to adjust to gradually warming seawater of the summer months, they will likely lose their defenses when the ocean warms overall in the near future, say scientists. (at left – coral bleaching )This was the latest finding from a team of American and Australian coral reef experts from James Cook University, the University of Queensland, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
These same scientists recently reported that their aerial surveys of some of the 3,000 coral reefs that make up this iconic natural wonder off Australia’s northeastern coast have showed that coral bleaching this year is the worst that has ever been observed. This is largely due to a recurring weather event known as El Niño, a storm system that is expected to become more frequent and more severe in the future.
I agree that El Niño is a natural variability; it’s a part of nature, but that variation in patterns and temperatures is superimposed upon a trend of warming,” Scott Heron, a NOAA coral reef scientist based in Australia, tells The Christian Science Monitor in an interview. “There are ups and downs, but now there are just higher ups than ever before, and the downs are not as low,” he says.
Coral bleaching happens when ocean temperatures rise to a point that zooxanthellae – tiny algae that live on corals and provide them with nutrients and their radiant colors – leave their coral homes, thereby rendering coral white or “bleached.” When corals go without zooxanthellae for too long, they die. This affects about a quarter of marine species that depend on coral reefs for shelter, and the humans who depend on those species for their livelihoods.
This year’s is the third major bleaching event in recent history for the 2,300-kilometer-long Great Barrier Reef, which is home to one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. But this one is much worse than the bleaching events that occurred in 1998 and 2002, say scientists who recently found bleaching in almost 1,100 kilometers of northern barrier reef, from the island of New Guinea to the Australian coastal city of Cairns. The researchers estimate that 30 to 50 percent of the corals there are already be dead.
Now the scientists have found that the coping mechanism barrier reef corals use to prepare themselves to face warm summer water is also under threat from global warming, and from human activities such as agriculture, shipping, and fishing.
“As temperature warms, the evidence is that this protective mechanism will no longer function,” C. Mark Eakin, a scientist with NOAA Coral Reef Watch, tells the Monitor in an interview…….
The most viable immediate remedy, say paper authors, is to reduce the carbon emissions that cause warming and restrict other human activities near the reefs that add more stress, including runoff from agriculture, unsustainable fishing practices, and physical damage to the reef from ship groundings.
“These are all human stressors on reef that have to be minimized or eliminated for reefs to be able to bounce back from these bleaching events, even in a decade or two,” Eakin says.http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0414/How-the-Great-Barrier-Reef-is-going-from-bad-to-worse
Fukushima – the irradiation of a nation
Top Official: Over 60 million Japanese irradiated by Fukushima — Nuclear Expert: 50,000 sq. miles of Japan highly contaminated… Many millions need to be evacuated… Gov’t has decided to sacrifice them, it’s a serious crime — TV: More than 70% of country contaminated by radiation (VIDEOS) http://enenews.com/top-official-60-million-japanese-irradiated-fukushima-nuclear-expert-50000-square-miles-country-highly-contaminated-many-millions-be-evacuated-govt-decided-sacrifice-serious-crime-professor-70-l?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Interview with nuclear engineer Hiroaki Koide (translation by Prof. Robert Stolz, transcription by Akiko Anson), published Mar 8, 2016 (emphasis added): [Radioactive] material has been dispersed, contaminating Tohoku, Kanto [Tokyo area], and western Japan… [The law says] that absolutely nothing may be removed from a radioactive management area in which the levels exceed 40,000 Becquerels per square meter… [H]ow much area has been contaminated beyond 40,000 Bq/m2… that answer is 140,000 km^2 [54,054 square miles]… Indeed, while centered on Fukushima, parts of Chiba and Tokyo have also been contaminated. The number of people living in what must be called a radiation-controlled area is in the millions, and could exceed ten million… I believe the government has the responsibility to evacuate these entire communities… the government decided to leave them exposed to the real danger of radiation. In my view, Fukushima should be declared inhabitable… but if that were to be done, it would likely bankrupt the country… They’ve decided to sacrifice people… In my view, this is a serious crime committed by Japan’s ruling elite… [F]undamentally, people must not be forced to live in contaminated areas… First must come complete evacuation… [W]hen it comes to radiation… “removal of contaminants” is impossible… This stuff contaminates everything.
Naoto Kan, former Prime Minister of Japan, Apr 11, 2016 (at 2:15 in): The molten material broke through the pressure vessel and accumulated low down in the containment. Now what would have happened if this molten material had escaped from the containment?… A radius of 250 kilometers — which includes the city of Tokyo — anyone living in this area, if you count them up it comes to 50 million or 40% of the Japanese population, and they would all have had to be evacuated. As we know from Chernobyl, not just a couple of weeks, but 30 years or 40 years — it would have virtually meant the end of Japan. [Note: Many nuclear experts believe the molten fuel did in fact escape from the containment] Half the population was subject to radiation [Japan Population: 127 million]. That’s something that could just be imagined, for instance the event of losing a major war.
Arirang (Gov’t-funded Korean TV network), ‘Fukushima and Its Aftermath’, Mar 16, 2016 (at 6:45 in) —Prof. Kim Ik-Jung, Medical College at Dongguk Univ.: “When you look at the contamination map, about 70% of Japan is contaminated by radiation. That means that 70% of Japan’s agricultural and marine products are contaminated.”… According to PNAS, one of the five major scientific journals, over 70% of the land in Japan is contaminated by radiation.
Rapid collapse of ice shelves in Antarctica
Scientists Are Watching in Horror as Ice Collapses Everything we learn about ice shows that it is disturbingly fragile, even in Antarctica. National Geographic, By Douglas Fox APRIL 12, 2016 “……..The catastrophic collapse of Larsen A and several other ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula has yielded important lessons about the vulnerability of Antarctica’s ice sheets to a warming climate. A new analysis of ice sheet instability, published March 31 in Nature, took the public by surprise when it projected that global sea level might rise six feet by 2100, and as much as 40 to 50 feet by the year 2500. (Read “Why the New Sea Level Alarm Can’t Be Ignored.”) That study seemed to double, overnight, the amount of sea level rise that can be expected. But many glacial scientists weren’t surprised. The new estimate is based on insights that have emerged slowly, over 20 years, in the aftermath of these ice shelf collapses.
The Aftermath of an Ice Shelf Collapse
Explore the fjords along the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula today, and it’s easy to find landscapes that look scarred even to the casual observer. …..
The glacier, now absent, had retreated several miles into its fjord. The fjord used to hold 2,000 feet (600 meters) of ice. Now it held 2,000 feet of seawater instead.
The aftermath of an ice shelf collapse is obvious in Sjögren’s fjord. When the ice shelf in front of Sjögren disintegrated in 1995, it removed the buttress that stabilized the glacier. The glacier started sliding into the sea at twice its original speed. Sjögren erupted in crevasses and thinned by several hundred feet as it stretched. After a few years, the glacier had retreated miles into its fjord as icebergs splintered off the glacier’s front faster than the ice could flow forward…….
Every ice shelf that disintegrated along the Antarctic Peninsula has shown the same pattern: summer melting of its top layers, winter refreezing of those top layers into icy crusts able to hold large melt ponds, and the re-exposure of long-buried crevasses.
For all of these ice shelves, the moment of death occurred suddenly. Each collapse began when water from the melt ponds drained into the crevasses. The weight of the water drove the cracks deeper—like a wedge, says Ted Scambos, a glaciologist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who discovered the process. These fluid wedges eventually broke through the bottom of the ice shelf, calving off one iceberg, then another and another—a process called hydrofracturing that can devour an ice shelf nearly the size of Rhode Island in a matter of hours or days……..
Ice loss may have begun at a narrow beachhead in Antarctica, at the north end of the Antarctic Peninsula, but it has expanded on multiple fronts, as new regions of ice come into play every several years. As warm summer temperatures push farther south, so will the problems of melt ponding, ice shelf disintegration, and ice cliff collapse, which drive the rapid retreat of ice. (Read more about how calving causes mini-tsunamis daily in Antarctica.)
Scattered melt ponds already appear on some of the ice shelves that surround the Antarctic mainland, much farther south than any that have collapsed so far. The amount of ice lost each year from all of Antarctica’s ice shelves has increased 12-fold between 1994 and 2012.
Aside from warm air, the fringes of Antarctica’s ice are under assault from another source—warming ocean currents that melt the undersides of ice shelves. (Read more about research on what climate change will mean for whales.)……..http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160412-ice-sheet-collapse-antarctica-sea-level-rise/
Florida drinking water wells threatened by nuclear plant leak
Nuclear Plant Leak Threatens Drinking Water Wells in Florida, NYT By LIZETTE ALVAREZ MARCH 22, 2016 MIAMI — When Florida’s largest power company added two nuclear reactors to an existing plant that sat between two national parks — Biscayne Bay and the Everglades — the decision raised the concerns of environmentalists and some government officials about the possible effects on water quality and marine life.
Now more than four decades later, Florida Power & Light’s reactors atTurkey Point, built to satisfy the power needs of a booming Miami, are facing their greatest crisis. A recent study commissioned by the countyconcluded that Turkey Point’s old cooling canal system was leaking polluted water into Biscayne Bay.
This has raised alarm among county officials and environmentalists that the plant, which sits on the coastline, is polluting the bay’s surface waters and its fragile ecosystem. In the past two years, bay waters near the plant have had a large saltwater plume that is slowly moving toward wells several miles away that supply drinking water to millions of residents in Miami and the Florida Keys.
Samples of the water at various depths and sites around the power plant showed elevated levels of salt, ammonia, phosphorous and tritium……
last month, a Florida administrative judge, Bram Canter, chastised the state and Florida Power & Light, finding that the cooling canal system is “the major contributing cause” for the growth of the large underground saltwater plume and for its westerly move toward the drinking water well fields. He ordered the state and the company to clean up the cooling canals, which it had started to do under an October consent decree with the county.
The Biscayne Aquifer, the judge noted in his ruling, is an “important natural resource.” It is the main source of drinking water in the county and is vital to irrigation and the marsh wetland communities, he added. Judge Canter made his ruling after a Florida rock mining company sued the company over the saltwater plume. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/us/nuclear-plant-leak-threatens-drinking-water-wells-in-florida.html?ref=energy-environment&_r=1
Indigenous people push for decontamination of Los Alamos National Laboratory atomic research area
Tribe on front lines of fight over nuclear lab contamination Seattle Times, April 4, 2016 By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The tribal community of San Ildefonso Pueblo sits in the shadow of Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the nation’s premier laboratories and the birthplace of the atomic bomb.
The tribe is on the front lines of a battle to rein in contamination left behind by decades of bomb-making and nuclear research.
Pueblo Gov. James Mountain says he’s encouraged that New Mexico regulators, under a revamped cleanup proposal, have identified as a priority a plume of chromium contamination at the tribe’s border with the lab.
San Ildefonso Pueblo, in northern New Mexico’s high desert, has a tribal enrollment of about 750. Its members are known for their artistry, creating jewelry, paintings, traditional black-on-black pottery and other works.
Groundwater sampling shows increasing chromium concentrations at the edges of the plume, indicating it’s migrating through an area considered sacred by the tribe and closer to the Rio Grande, which provides drinking water to communities throughout the region. The plume has stretched about 1 mile into the upper part of the regional aquifer, and is about a half-mile wide and 100 feet thick.
It’s about a half-mile from the closest drinking water well.
“Without a doubt, it definitely raises concerns,” Mountain said.
The contamination was first detected more than a decade ago, and officials traced it to potassium dichromate used to prevent corrosion inside cooling towers at Los Alamos lab’s power plant. As part of regular maintenance from 1956 to 1972, the chemicals were discharged into canyons below…….
The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is asking for $189 million for work at the lab next fiscal year. That would pay for handling radioactive waste stored at the lab, as well as completing the chromium investigation.
“The essence is groundwater is precious in New Mexico so we take threats to groundwater very seriously,” he said. “We certainly think there’s an elevated risk associated with any contamination to groundwater.”
The area also is home to flaked stone tools, ceramic shards and even a wagon road that dates back to the homestead period of the 1800s.
“It’s a very important area to the pueblo,” Mountain said. “And it’s not just on the parameters of physical inhabitation. There’s an effect on the pueblo’s health and welfare, on our mental well-being, our spiritual well-being.” http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/tribe-on-front-lines-of-fight-over-nuclear-lab-contamination/
EPA will clean up thorium pollution adjacent to West Lake Landfill.
EPA says it will remove radioactive dirt on private property adjacent to landfill, St Louis Post Dispatch, By Jacob Barker St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2 Apr 16
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to clean up spots of dirt on private property just outside the radioactively contaminated West Lake Landfill.
Testing from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources identified radioactive contamination on property beyond the landfill’s perimeter, according to a report released Friday. The agency said the findings were “consistent” with prior EPA studies.
Levels of thorium were above Environmental Protection Agency limits for unrestricted use in two locations on the edge of property now used as a service and repair facility for AAA Trailer Services.
The contamination is to the west of the northernmost part of the West Lake Landfill known as “Area 2,” which is not adjacent to thesmoldering Bridgeton Landfill……..
EPA limits thorium levels to 7.9 pico Curies per gram for unrestricted use (a pico Curie represents 2.2 atomic disintegrations per minute). ……. Thorium mostly emits radiation that can’t pierce the skin, so radiation exposure is mostly through ingestion or inhalation.
West Lake was contaminated with byproducts from uranium processing for the nation’s early nuclear weapons program. Thorium was the only uranium decay product found at levels above EPA guidelines in the DNR tests. The DNR report recommended further investigation around the areas where the contamination was detected. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/epa-says-it-will-remove-radioactive-dirt-on-private-property/article_3732051c-ea91-5ba2-9120-88fe8e0cc5b8.html
Multiple rivers in Fukushima Prefecture have radioactive sediments
Radioactive sediment found in Fukushima rivers Zee News , April 1, 2016 – Tokyo: Japanese researchers have detected relatively high levels of radioactive substancesin sediment in multiple rivers running through Fukushima prefecture, the media reported on Friday. The prefectural government in January surveyed the density of radioactive materials in soil and other sediment that has accumulated on the bottoms and banks of 72 rivers in the prefecture, public broadcaster NHK reported…..
The researchers found up to 54,500 becquerels per kg of radioactive substances in the Maeda river in Futaba town, where the plant is situated, and 39,600 becquerels in the Hiru river in Fukushima city. They also detected more than 10,000 becquerels at five other locations in four municipalities…….
The prefectural government plans to study restricting access to rivers with high concentrations of radioactive materials.
It also plans to urge the central government to remove contaminated soil and other sediment. http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/radioactive-sediment-found-in-fukushima-rivers_1871348.html
Radiation in seafood. Is that why California bans commercial crab fishing?
California bans commercial crab fishing due to excessive radiation in seafood, March 27, 2016 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer NaturalNews In November of last year, California state officials placed an indefinite hold on the commercial crab season, in order to protect public health. The reason given by the state was dangerously high levels of algal toxins in the bodies of the crabs.
But according to New York radio station 95.1 FM (SuperStation 95), insiders from the California Fish and Game Commission have revealed that the real reason for the ban was dangerously high levels of radioactivity resulting from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Radioactive crab are so dangerous to eat that state officials felt the need to protect the public, Superstation 95 reports. But officials were unwilling to publicly admit the true reason for the ban, which contradicts official claims that the Fukushima disaster poses no threat to the U.S. West coast………..
“If people started connecting the dots proving radiation in seafood was making them sick, it would utterly destroy California’s seafood industry in days,” SuperStation 95 quotes the sources as saying………
The crab are not the first West Coast seafood to be reported radioactive. A recent study found that 100 percent of Pacific bluefin tuna tested off the coast of California contained radioactive materials from the Fukushima disaster.
Among the radioactive isotopes already detected off the U.S. west coast is strontium-90, which mimics calcium in the human body and therefore accumulates in the bones. There it can cause cancers of the bone and blood.
Sources for this article include:
SFChronicle.com http://www.naturalnews.com/053440_California_crab_season_radioactive_ocean.html#ixzz44MERWbgz.
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