nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Radioactivity in the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless

 Environment 360 7 April 2011  With contaminated water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain. by Elizabeth Grossman Over the past half-century, the world has seen its share of incidents in which radioactive material has been dumped or discharged into the oceans. A British nuclear fuels plant has repeatedly released radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, a French nuclear reprocessing plant has discharged similar waste into the English Channel, and for decades the Soviets dumped large quantities of radioactive material into the Arctic Ocean, Kara Sea, and Barents Sea. That radioactive material included reactors from at least 16 Soviet nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers, and large amounts of liquid and solid nuclear waste from USSR military bases and weapons plants.

Still, the world has never quite seen an event like the one unfolding now off the coast of eastern Japan, in which thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are pouring directly into the ocean. And though the vastness of the ocean has the capacity to dilute nuclear contamination, signs of spreading radioactive material are being found off Japan, including the discovery of elevated concentrations of radioactive cesium and iodine in small fish several dozen miles south of Fukushima, and high levels of radioactivity in seawater 25 miles offshore.

How this continuing contamination will affect marine life, or humans, is still unclear. But scientists agree that the governments of Japan, the United States, and other nations on the Pacific Rim need to ramp up studies of how far this contamination might spread and in what concentrations.

“Given that the Fukushima nuclear power plant is on the ocean, and with leaks and runoff directly to the ocean, the impacts on the ocean will exceed those of Chernobyl, which was hundreds of miles from any sea,” said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist in marine chemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “My biggest concern is the lack of information. We still don’t know the whole range of radioactive compounds that have been released into the ocean, nor do we know their distribution. We have a few data points from the Japanese — all close to the coast — but to understand the full impact, including for fisheries, we need broader surveys and scientific study of the area.”

Buessler and other experts say this much is clear: Both short-lived radioactive elements, such as iodine-131, and longer-lived elements — such as cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years — can be absorbed by phytoplankton, zooplankton, kelp, and other marine life and then be transmitted up the food chain, to fish, marine mammals, and humans. Other radioactive elements — including plutonium, which has been detected outside the Fukushima plant — also pose a threat to marine life. A key question is how concentrated will the radioactive contamination be. Japanese officials hope that a temporary fishing ban off the northeastern Japanese coast will be enough to avert any danger to human health until the flow of radioactive water into the sea can be stopped…….

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has reported that seawater containing radioactive iodine-131 at 5 million times the legal limit has been detected near the plant. According to the Japanese news service, NHK, a recent sample also contained 1.1 million times the legal level of radioactive cesium-137.

Studies from previous releases of nuclear material in the Irish, Kara and Barents Seas, as well as in the Pacific Ocean, show that such radioactive material does travel with ocean currents, is deposited in marine sediment, and does climb the marine food web. In the Irish Sea — where the British Nuclear Fuels plant at Sellafield in the northwestern United Kingdom released radioactive material over many decades, beginning in the 1950s — studies have found radioactive cesium and plutonium concentrating significantly in seals and porpoises that ate contaminated fish. Other studies have shown that radioactive material from Sellafield and from the nuclear reprocessing plant at Cap de la Hague in France have been transported to the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. A study published in 2003 found that a substantial part of the world’s radioactive contamination is in the marine environment.

But what impact this radioactive contamination has on marine life and humans is still unclear. Even the mass dumping of nuclear material by the Soviets in the Arctic has not been definitively shown to have caused widespread harm to marine life. That may be because containment vessels around some of the dumped reactors are preventing the escape of radiation. A lack of comprehensive studies by the Russians in the areas where nuclear waste was dumped also has hampered understanding. Two events in the early 1990s — a die-off of seals in the Barents Sea and White Sea from blood cancer, and the deaths of millions of starfish, shellfish, seals and porpoises in the White Sea — have been variously attributed by Russian scientists to pollution or nuclear contamination.

How the radioactive materials released from the Fukushima plants will behave in the ocean will depend on their chemical properties and reactivity, explained Ted Poston, a ecotoxicologist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. government facility in Richland, Washington. If the radionuclides are in soluble form, they will behave differently than if they are absorbed into particles, said Poston. Soluble iodine, for example, will disperse rather rapidly. But if a radionuclide reacts with other molecules or gets deposited on existing particulates — bits of minerals, for example — they can be suspended in the water or, if larger, may drop to the sea floor.

“If particulates in the water column are very small they will move with the current,” he explained. “If bigger or denser, they can settle in sediment.”…….http://e360.yale.edu/feature/radioactivity_in_the_ocean_diluted_but_far_from_harmless/2391/

March 23, 2016 Posted by | oceans, radiation | 1 Comment

The radioactive heaps at Paducah, USA

Voice of Paducah Plant Worker #1: And then later on, they took the Geiger counters out, and they told us, “That stuff won’t hurt you. It’s harmless. It won’t hurt you if you ate it, it wouldn’t hurt you.” I think they ought to be held accountable. And I’d like to see them be put on trial, and I hope they put them in prison, because a lot of my friends I know died from what they did.” 

Bill Gates’ Nuclear Pipe Dream: Convert Depleted Uranium to Plutonium to Power Earth for Centuries, Truth Out Tuesday, 15 March 2016By Josh Cunnings and Emerson Urry, EnviroNews | Video Report Editor’s Note: The following news piece represents the second in a 15-part mini-series titled, Nuclear Power in Our World Today, featuring nuclear authority, engineer and whistleblower Arnie Gundersen. The EnviroNews USA special encompasses a wide span of topics, ranging from Manhattan-era madness to the continuously-unfolding crisis on the ground at Fukushima Daiichi in eastern Japan.

TRANSCRIPT:

Josh Cunnings (Narrator): Welcome to the EnviroNews USA news desk. I’m Josh Cunnings. Thank you for tuning in for the second episode in our 15-part mini-series, Nuclear Power in Our World Today.

Last time, in our kickoff episode, we focused on the widespread devastation wreaked by 15,000 abandoned uranium mines. These toxic and festering open sores are sprawled all across the entire western U.S. landscape, posing a direct threat to humans and all life.

In episode two, we pick up where we left off with the dirty frontend of the nuclear power industry — which becomes in turn, the nuclear bomb fuel industry. Following the 1940s and 50s uranium rush to make bombs, over 80 sites were contaminated so badly that they received a special “legacy” site designation on the EPA’s superfund list — a special commitment from the U.S. government to clean up those places because weapons of war were manufactured there. Amongst those legacy sites is the gaseous diffusion uranium processing facility at Paducah, Kentucky………..

Voice of 2000 Paducah Plant Documentary Narrator: Even up through the 1980s, Department of Energy investigators say that protection against radiation at the site was very inconsistent. Men walked through uranium dust on the floors, and brushed it off the tables where they ate. Respirators weren’t required. At one point the company stopped providing work coveralls.

Voice of Paducah Plant Worker #1: And when they took those [coveralls] away from us, well we’d have to bring work clothes from home, and we’d work in that stuff, and we would get it all over us, and then we’d bring it home and it’d be washed in the laundry. I told them I didn’t like bringing that stuff home to be washed in the laundry with my kids’ clothes and my wife’s clothes. And the public relations people said, “Well, if you were really concerned, you’d wash your clothes here at the washroom.”…………

Voice of 2000 Paducah Plant Documentary Narrator: No one knew until this document was released last year that plant officials were also tracking worker cancers and deaths, while denying there was any reason to worry.

Cunnings: Due to poor market conditions, the company running the site went belly-up [in 2014]. The city once labeled as our nation’s premier atomic boomtown, now left in the wasteland of its own nuclear demise.

The radioactive heaps at Paducah are mostly depleted uranium — a byproduct of uranium enrichment, and a substance that used to be considered unusable for nuclear fission, rendering it useless for both nuclear power generation and bomb making.

But science is always advancing, and one technology kingpin has an idea for Paducah — an idea that not everyone thinks is a good one………. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35229-bill-gates-nuclear-pipe-dream-convert-mountains-of-depleted-uranium-to-plutonium-to-power-earth-for-centuries

March 16, 2016 Posted by | environment, USA | 1 Comment

The true scope of Fukushima nuclear radiation is not known, but it’s a nightmare

radation sign dirtyNuclear Expert: Fukushima “like the worst nightmare becoming reality” — Released as much as 1,000 atomic bombs worth of radioactive material — “Everyone on earth has been exposed… an increase in cancer will be the result”http://enenews.com/japan-nuclear-expert-fukushima-like-worse-nightmare-becoming-reality-released-1000-nuclear-bombs-worth-radioactive-material-everyone-earth-exposed-increase-cancer-will-be-result?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):

  • As for the scale of the [Fukushima] accident… we simply don’t know… all the measuring equipment was destroyed at the time of the accident…
  • The Japanese government has reported estimates [of] 1.5×10^16 Becquerels of Cs-137, which would make it a release of 168 times more radioactive material than the Hiroshima bombing. And this is only material released into the atmosphere…
  • But I myself think the government’s numbers are an underestimate. Various experts and institutes from around the world have offered several of their own estimates… some two or three times higher than the government’s numbers. According to these other estimatesI think that the release of Cs-137 into the atmosphere could be around 500 times the Hiroshima bombing.
  • What has been washed into the sea… is likely not much different from the levels released into the atmosphere. Even today we are unable to prevent this release. And so if we combine the amount of Cs-137 released in the air and the ocean together, we get an estimate several hundred times the Hiroshima levels. And some estimates suggest the Fukushima accident could be as much as one-thousand Hiroshimas…
  • The amount released into the atmosphere from the explosion during the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant was 800 to 1000 times the Hiroshima levels. Put simply, these estimates place Fukushima on par with Chernobyl…
  • [T]he radioactive material released from Fukushima has been dispersed across the globe… everyone on earth has been exposed to additional radiation… An increase in cancer will be the result…
  • Not a single nuclear expert or policy maker ever seriously considered the possibility of an accident like this… I had been commenting on the possibility, referring to some results of simulations. But still I would have thought the kind of disaster that happened at Fukushima was some kind of impossible nightmare―yet it actually happened. It was like the worse nightmare becoming a reality… all those pronuclear people surely never gave it a moment’s thought. And so when it actually happened, no one had thought about, let alone built a system to deal with it.

Asia-Pacific Journal, Mar 2016: As we learn in this wide-ranging and important interview [with Hiroaki Koide], the accident often referred to as 3/11 was enormous and in many ways unprecedented. The full scope of the disaster is still unknown, but is clearly on the scale of Chernobyl, placing the amount of radioactive material released… up to 1,000 times the Hiroshima bombing of 1945.

See also: Japan Professor: I believe airborne release of cesium-137 from Fukushima equals 400 to 500 Hiroshima nuclear bombs — Another 400 to 500 bombs worth has already flowed into Pacific Ocean (VIDEO)

March 13, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, environment, Fukushima 2016 | Leave a comment

15,000 Abandoned Uranium Mines – Dirty, Deadly Front End of Nuclear Power —

The Dirty, Deadly Front End of Nuclear Power — 15,000 Abandoned Uranium Mines    Truth Out Friday, 11 March 2016 00:00By Josh Cunnings and Emerson Urry, EnviroNews | Video Report Editor’s Note: The following news piece represents the first in a 15-part mini-series titled, Nuclear Power in Our World Today, featuring nuclear authority, engineer and whistleblower Arnie Gundersen. The EnviroNews USA series encompasses a wide span of topics, ranging from Manhattan-era madness to the continuously-unfolding crisis on the ground at Fukushima Daiichi in eastern Japan. The transcript follows the video below:

TRANSCRIPT:

Josh Cunnings (Narrator): Welcome to the EnviroNews USA news desk. I’m your host Josh Cunnings. In this first episode of a unique 15-part mini-series of short-films, we are going to explore Nuclear Power in Our World Today.

Our journey extends outward from a bombshell interview conducted by EnviroNews Editor-in-Chief Emerson Urry, with the esteemed nuclear expert, whistleblower, and expert witness Arnie Gundersen. Gundersen is a nuclear engineer, as well as a former power plant operator, and trade executive, whose own life, for a good amount of time, was ruined by the nuclear industry after he exposed radioactive safety violations. So to get this series rolling, here’s what Gundersen revealed to Emerson Urry……..

The educational short serious we’re about to bring you spans a plethora of nuclear-related topics, but maintains a special focus on the myriad nuclear problems still festering right here in the US In this series, we will also explore with Gundersen, critical and downright disturbing details from the ongoing, ever-unfolding, nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi in eastern Japan.

Some of the segments in this series are very short and feature raw interview excerpts, while in other episodes we dive deeper into the content discussed between Gundersen and Urry.

But before going around the world to talk about the incredible state of despair, still palpable on the ground in Japan, we’re going to start this series right here on US soil — at the beginning where all nuclear complexities commence — we begin with the aftermath from the mining and extraction of the naturally occurring radioactive element uranium — a mineral with a four-and-a-half-billion-year half-life that presents very little harm when safely sequestered in the earth — but all that changes when it’s mined and brought to the surface……….

While for many years nuclear power rode under the guise of the so-called “peaceful atom,” the industry has been chastised for being a friendly cover for the bomb fuel business……….

In the 40s and 50s, America was pillaging uranium out of the earth as fast and furiously as possibly in a rush for both electricity and bombs — but it turns out that many of those mining messes weren’t cleaned up very well — if at all.

The perplexing problem of these open, deadly, toxic messes was discussed between Urry and Gundersen. Take a listen.

To our understanding there are about 15,000 abandoned uranium mines that have been left in complete ruin with very little cleanup or remediation at all, just in the western United States. This has happened, by-and-large, because of an antiquated mining bill — the 1872 Mining Bill — still affecting these situations today — that kind of allowed miners to just walk away from these situations — but yet, they remain in the open leaching off tailings — blowing around radioactive dust. I think there’s about 4,500 of these exposed mining sites just in Navajo country — another 2,500 or so in Wyoming. How do we deal with that situation? What does the future hold in those regards, and quite frankly, are we all being poisoned by these mines?…..

Gundersen: The way our system is set up is that you take the profit early, and then when everything is done you walk away and the government takes the risk. So, we’ve socialized the risk, and the capitalists make the profit early on and the rest of us pick up the cost afterward. And that’s historically true on the Navajo reservation especially — but you get in the Black Hills and the Lakota Sioux… We had a member of our board go out to South Dakota and sample a dried riverbed, and the bottom of the riverbed had as much uranium in it as a mine — from runoff from uphill mines. We have a legacy that we’re really not admitting exists. Thousands and thousands of these mines — mainly on the Native American property, but not entirely………

Charmaine White Face (excerpt from Defenders of the Black Hills video): Dr. Lilias Jarding in her research that she completed in 2010 calledUranium Activities’ Impacts on Lakota Territory talked about, not only what was happening on the Northern Great Plains, but also in Colorado. All of these are abandoned open-pit uranium mines. 397 in Montana, 2103 in Wyoming, 113 in North Dakota, 272 in South Dakota, and 387 in northern Colorado, for a total of 3272………

Dr. Kearfott with her students came out and started doing some readings in our treaty territory, and this is what they found: “The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima nuclear disaster.” Higher. Fukushima radiation levels were higher than Chernobyl. The Northern Great Plains’ levels are higher than Fukushima — and these are not from nuclear power plants or from an atomic weapon, or atomic bomb being exploded. These are from 2,885 abandoned open-pit uranium mines and prospects, and we are subject to that radioactive pollution constantly. We, the people of the Great Sioux Nation, we are the miner’s canary. We are the miner’s canary for the rest of the United States. We have the highest cancer rates now. We never gave permission for uranium mining to occur in our treaty territory. It’s not just the nuclear power plants that people have to be afraif. All of these abandoned open-pit uranium mines in the Northern Great Plains are affecting everyone, but they are genocide for the Great Sioux Nation — for my people. This is genocide……….

Tune in tomorrow for the second part of fifteen in this EnviroNews special — Nuclear Power in Our World Today. For EnviroNews USA — Josh Cunnings.   http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35179-nuclear-power-in-our-world-today

March 12, 2016 Posted by | environment, Uranium | Leave a comment

Comprehensive report on Chernobyl – 30 years on

Chernobyl 1986highly-recommended TORCH, Ian Fairlea, March 10, 2016  First of all, apologies to the many readers who have written complaining about the lack of new blogs/information on this website.

The explanation is that I’ve been busy for the past 5 months writing a new report on the health effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster -TORCH-2016. This is an update of the 2006 TORCH report. (TORCH means The Other Report on Chernobyl.)

The report (120 pages) was commissioned by Global 2000/Friends of the Earth Austria and funded by the Vienna City Council Environmental Ombuds Office.

The report updates the new health evidence which has been published in peer-reviewed journals during the 10 year period 2006-2016.

In a nutshell, the report finds

  • 5 million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia still live in highly contaminated areas
  • 400 million people in less contaminated areas
  • 37% of Chernobyl’s fallout deposited on western Europe; 42% of western Europe contaminated
  • 40,000 fatal cancers predicted
  • 6,000 thyroid cancer cases to date, 16,000 more expected
  • increased radiogenic thyroid cancers now seen in Austria
  • increased radiogenic leukemia, cardiovascular disease, breast cancers confirmed
  • new evidence of radiogenic birth defects, mental health effects and diabetes
  • new evidence that children in contaminated areas suffer radiogenic illnesses   https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/TORCH%20-%20The%20other%20Report%20of%20Chernobyl.pdf

March 12, 2016 Posted by | environment, health, Reference, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Exceptionally high level of radioactive caesium-137 in Helsinki.

Cesium-137flag-FinlandHuge radioactive caesium detected in Helsinki   http://www.finlandtimes.fi/health/2016/03/08/25649/Huge-radioactive-cesium-detected-in-Helsinki FTimes-STT Report, Mar 8 The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) on Monday said it has detected an
The detection was made last week when dust collected from the Roihupelto district of Helsinki was found to contain an exceptionally large amount of caesium.
“The last time we observed this magnitude was in the spring and summer after the Chernobyl [nuclear power plant accident],” STUK Environmental Radiation Monitoring Department Director Tarja K Ikäheimonen told the news agency STT.
The amount, however, was not enough to impact human health in a meaningful way, said STUK.
“The measurement, 4,000 microbecquerels per cubic metre of air, is about a thousand times higher than normal,” Ikäheimonen said in a statement.
According to her, the concentration in this case is about a millionth of the concentration at which people should begin protecting themselves.
The regularly detected caesium-137 is usually derived from fallout from the Chernobyl meltdown.
However, the caesium detected this time was so great that it could not have come from Chernobyl.
STUK plans to investigate into the matter.

March 11, 2016 Posted by | environment, Finland | 1 Comment

Miami-Dade County threatened by excessively saline water, due to Turkey Point nuclear plants

Nuclear Plant Threatens Miami-Dade’s Water. Mayor Says, ‘This Isn’t Flint’Updated March 10, 2016  [includes audio]  npr, GREG ALLEN 10 Mar 16 A study shows excessive saltwater from Florida Power and Light’s nuclear plant is threatening Biscayne Bay and the aquifer that supplies much of Miami’s water   “…….

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: It’s a problem that began to develop two years ago, after Florida Power and Light upgraded generating capacity at its two Turkey Point nuclear plants south of Miami. After the upgrade, the plants ran hotter. Issues turned up in a closed network of canals that provide water to cool the plants. Because of evaporation, water in the canals became saltier and saltier. Now tests by the county confirm that a plume of that hypersaline water has contaminated the aquifer. Miami-Dade County officials are concerned about well fields not far from the nuclear plants that provide drinking water for the 2-and-a-half million people who live here. County Mayor Carlos Gimenez says while it has to be addressed, it should be kept in perspective…….
ALLEN: New test results released this week show contamination from the nuclear plants is threatening not just the county’s drinking water, but also the health of Biscayne Bay. The bay, which stretches from Miami to the Florida Keys, is a shallow and fragile ecosystem. The county tests show hypersaline water from the cooling canals – along with phosphorus, ammonia and a radioactive isotope, tritium – is leaching into the bay. Rachel Silverstein with Miami Waterkeeper, an environmental group, says it’s already had an impact……..http://www.npr.org/2016/03/10/469897682/as-nuclear-plant-threatens-miami-dade-s-water-mayor-says-this-isn-t-flint

March 11, 2016 Posted by | USA, water | Leave a comment

Radioactive contamination “in a variety of marine products” harvested off USA’s West Coast

New Gov’t Report: Fukushima radiation found in US marine life — Investigators detect radioactive contamination “in a variety of marine products” harvested off West Coast — Effects of exposure need to be studied and understood in coming yearshttp://enenews.com/new-govt-study-finds-fukushima-radiation-marine-life-investigators-detect-radioactive-contamination-variety-marine-products-harvested-west-coast-effects-exposure-marine-life-be-studied-understoo?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29

U.S. Department of Commerce – NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (pdf), Dec 2015 (emphasis added): Results of testing for Fukushima Radiation in northern fur seals on St. Paul Island, AK – In summer 2014, NOAA Fisheries in partnership with Colorado State University collected tissue from northern fur seals harvested from St. Paul Island for lab testing.

We detected very small amounts of Fukushima-derived radioactive material in the seal tissue…

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Feb 2016: Fukushima-derived radiocesium was detected in migratory northern fur seal… In July 2014, our investigative team traveled to St. Paul Island, Alaska to measure concentrations of radiocesium in wild-caught food… [O]ther investigators have detected Fukushima-derived radionuclides in a variety of marine products harvested off the western coast of North America. We tested… 54 northern fur seal… when composited, northern fur seal tissues tested positive for trace quantities of [Cesium-134 adn Cesium-137]. Radiocesium was detected at an activity concentration of 37.2 mBq 134Cs kg [fresh weight, not dried] and 141.2 mBq 137Cs kg… indicating that this population of seals has been exposed to small quantities of Fukushima-derived radiocesium… [The] 2011 Tohoku earthquake… led to loss of containment [at the Fukushima nuclear power plant] and releases of radionuclides to the atmosphere and the marine environment… [M]arine releases may be ongoing due to groundwater seepage… The atmospheric plume from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors traveled east and passed over North America days after the initial release… The arrival of the Fukushima marine plume has aroused concern for some North American stakeholders, particularly those living near the coast and those who consume seafood from the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, the potential effects of exposure to Fukushima derived radionuclides on sensitive marine species will need to be studied and understood in the coming years… Radiocesium biomagnifies through marine foodwebs…Thus the northern fur seal, a predator, should be an excellent sentinel of marine radiocesium in the North Pacific… Northern fur seal exposure to Fukushima radionuclides likely occurred via the consumption of fish or other prey from areas of the Pacific Ocean contaminated by the Fukushima marine release… the population likely has not been exposed to the higher concentrations found within the main body of the Fukushima marine plume… Radiocesium is unlikely to cause health impacts in northern fur seal or the human populations consuming this species.

See also: “Alarming signs of oceanic distress” on West Coast — Record number of stranded Northern Fur Seal pups, nearly 2,000% of normal levels — “Bags of skin and bones” (VIDEO)

March 7, 2016 Posted by | oceans, USA | Leave a comment

Radiation damage – mutations appearing in Fukushima forests

text ionisingflag-japanMutations, DNA damage seen in Fukushima forests: Greenpeace, Phys Org,  March 4, 2016 Conservation group Greenpeace warned on Friday that the environmental impact of the Fukushima nuclear crisis five years ago on nearby forests is just beginning to be seen and will remain a source of contamination for years to come………

As the fifth anniversary of the disaster approaches, Greenpeace said signs of mutations in trees and DNA-damaged worms were beginning to appear, while “vast stocks of radiation” mean that forests cannot be decontaminated………..

In a report, Greenpeace cited “apparent increases in growth mutations of fir trees… heritable mutations in pale blue grass butterfly populations” as well as “DNA-damaged worms in highly contaminated areas”, it said.

The report came as the government intends to lift many evacuation orders in villages around the Fukushima plant by March 2017, if its massive decontamination effort progresses as it hopes.

For now, only residential areas are being cleaned in the short-term, and the worst-hit parts of the countryside are being omitted, a recommendation made by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But such selective efforts will confine returnees to a relatively small area of their old hometowns, while the strategy could lead to re-contamination as woodlands will act as a radiation reservoir, with pollutants washed out by rains, Greenpeace warned.

The conservation group said its report relies largely on research published in peer-reviewed international journals.

But “most of the findings in it have never been covered outside of the close circles of academia”, report author Kendra Ulrich told AFP.

The Japanese government’s push to resettle contaminated areas and also restart nuclear reactors in Japan that had been shut down in the aftermath of the crisis are a cause for concern, Ulrich said, stressing it and the IAEA are using the opportunity of the anniversary to play down radiation impacts.

“In the interest of human rights—especially for victims of the disaster—it is ever more urgent to ensure accurate and complete information is publicly available and the misleading rhetoric of these entities challenged,” she said.

Scientists, including a researcher who found mutations of Fukushima butterflies, have warned, however, that more data are needed to determine the ultimate impact of the Fukushima accident on animals in general.

Researchers and medical doctors have so far denied that the accident at Fukushima would cause an elevated incidence of cancer or leukaemia, diseases that are often associated with radiation exposure.

But they also noted that long-term medical examination is needed especially due to concerns over thyroid cancer among young people—a particular problem for people following the Chernobyl catastrophe.  http://phys.org/news/2016-03-mutations-dna-fukushima-forests-greenpeace.html#jCp

March 5, 2016 Posted by | environment, Fukushima 2016, Japan | Leave a comment

Scientific Investigation Into Fukushima Disaster’s Effect On Pacific Ocean,

Fukushima toiletClean Technica, February 26th, 2016 by   Nearly five years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Greenpeace has launched a high-tech investigation into the radiation effects of the meltdowns on the Pacific Ocean. “…… Greenpeace Japan announced Thursday that it is conducting an underwater investigation into radiation contamination of the Pacific Ocean caused by the disaster. According to Greenpeace, the investigation will be conducted aboard a Japanese research vessel using a one of a kind Remotely Operated Vehicle fitted with a sensitive gamma radiation spectrometer and sediment sampler.

Mr Naoto Kan, the former Prime Minister of Japan and leader at the time of the nuclear accident, joined the crew of the Greenpeace Flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, on the opening day of the investigation, and called for a complete phase out of nuclear power.

“I once believed Japan’s advanced technology would prevent a nuclear accident like Chernobyl from happening in Japan,” said Mr. Kan. “But it did not, and I was faced with the very real crisis of having to evacuate about 50 million people at risk from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. I have since changed my mind. We do not need to take such a big risk. Instead we should shift to safer and cheaper renewable energy with potential business opportunities for our future generations.”

Since the disaster, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which has maintained the plant, has produced over 1.4 million tonnes of radioactive contaminated water in an effort to cool down the three reactors that went critical. Furthermore, in addition to the initial release of liquid nuclear waste during the first weeks of the accident, and the daily releases ever since, contamination has also flowed from the land itself, particularly nearby forests and mountains of Fukushima, and are expected to continue to contaminate the Pacific Ocean for at least the next 300 years.

“The Fukushima disaster is the single largest release of radioactivity into the marine environment in history,” said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist with Greenpeace Germany. “There is an urgent need to understand the impacts this contamination is having on the ocean, how radioactivity is both dispersing and concentrating and its implications.

“TEPCO failed to prevent a multiple reactor meltdown and five years later it’s still an ongoing disaster. It has no credible solution to the water crisis they created and is failing to prevent the further contamination of the Pacific Ocean.”

Greenpeace’s investigation will continue into March along the coast of the Fukushima prefecture, and will protrude into the 20 kilometer radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

“There is still no end in sight for communities in Fukushima, many of whom can’t return home due to radiation contamination,” said Mamoru Sekiguchi, Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Japan. “Rather than pushing for the restart of nuclear power, the Japanese government should put these people first and focus on managing the Fukushima Daiichi site. Many people in Japan have rejected nuclear power and are demanding the only safe and clean technology that can meet Japan’s needs – renewable energy.”

Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist with Greenpeace Germany, explained more about the crisis in a recent blog post, and the role that Greenpeace has played, and continues to play. http://cleantechnica.com/2016/02/26/greenpeace-launches-scientific-investigation-fukushima-disasters-effect-pacific-ocean/

February 29, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, oceans | Leave a comment

‘uncontrollable radioactive flow’ from Indian Point nuclear station into the Hudson River

water-radiationFlag-USANew York City’s nuclear power plant leaking ‘uncontrollable radioactive flow’ into Hudson River, http://inhabitat.com/new-york-citys-nuclear-power-plant-leaking-uncontrollable-radioactive-flow-into-hudson-river/ Inhabitat, by , 27 Feb 16 New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently called for an investigation after Indian Point, a nuclear power plant on the Hudson River, reported a leak of radioactive material flowing into the groundwater. Now, new samples taken from the local groundwater show that contamination levels are 80% higher than previous samples, prompting experts to claim this leak is spreading in “a disaster waiting to happen” and calling for the plant to be shut down completely. The Indian Point nuclear power plant is located just 25 miles north of New York City, and it’s a crucial source of of power for over 23 million people living in the greater NYC metropolitan region.

The Indian Point plant is located upriver from NYC, and it’s a serious threat to the whole region, according to watchdog group Riverkeeper. “It’s a disaster waiting to happen and it should be shut down,” Paul Gallay, president of Riverkeeper, told CBS News. Indian Point has been operating for around 40 years, and generates about 25 percent of the electric power for Westchester and New York City. The plant, owned by Entergy, is leaking tritium, a radioactive substance. Three of the forty Indian Point wells showed an increase in radioactive material, and one of the wells showed a 65,000 percent increase. Entergy states that this leak will not harm local inhabitants, as the groundwater is located on their property. John J. Kelly, former director of licensing for Indian Point and a certified healthy physicist, said that tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that is found naturally. “It’s more of a regulatory problem than an environmental problem,” said Kelly.
This isn’t the first problem at the plant, though. Power failures, fires and an alarm failure have all plagued the site in the past year. “This latest failure at Indian Point is unacceptable and I have directed Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos and Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to fully investigate this incident and employ all available measures, including working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to determine the extent of the release, its likely duration, cause, and potential impacts to the environment and public health,” Cuomo said in an official statement.
“For over 40 years, Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear facilities have been damaging the coastal resources of the Hudson River estuary…New York is home to four commercial nuclear facilities. When properly located and safely functioning, these facilities are regarded as important generators of electricity… However, by virtue of its location as well as its operations, the Department cannot make the same finding as to Indian Point,” Secretary of State Cesar Perales said.

Indian Point has experienced other leaks in the past, and the investigation may influence whether the power plant continues to operate in the future.

Via NY Daily News, CBS News, EcoWatch

February 27, 2016 Posted by | USA, water | Leave a comment

As far away as Tokyo, highly radioactive black sand from Fukushima meltdowns is found

New Meltdown Byproduct Found Far From Fukushima Daiichi, Simply Info  February 4th, 2016  Another type of material has been found by researchers that is tied to the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi. We have reported extensively over the years on the finding of “black stuff” around mainland Japan. This is a highly radioactive black sand like material that had gathered in gutters and roads as far away as Tokyo. Analysis of materials of that type has linked them to the meltdowns inside the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. This new finding is also linked directly to the reactor meltdowns……..http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=15283

February 27, 2016 Posted by | environment, Fukushima 2016, Japan | Leave a comment

Radioactive contamination still a very real crisis for Fukushima fishermen

Nuclear water: Fukushima still faces contamination crisis, Phys Org, February 25, 2016 by Harumi Ozawa, Quentin Tyberghien Fish market vendor Satoshi Nakano knows which fish caught in the radiation tainted sea off the Fukushima coast should be kept away from dinner tables.

 Yet five years after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl there is still no consensus on the true extent of the damage—exacerbating consumer fears about what is safe to eat……..

“It was the single largest release of radioactivity to the marine environment in history,” Greenpeace nuclear expert Shaun Burnie told AFP on the deck of the campaign group’s flagship Rainbow Warrior, which has sailed in to support a three-week marine survey of the area the environmental watchdog is conducting.

Fukushima is facing an “enormous nuclear water crisis,” Burnie warned. He added: “The whole idea that this accident happened five years ago and that Fukushima and Japan have moved on is completely wrong.”

Safe to eat?

Existing contamination means fishermen are banned from operating within a 20-kilometre (12.4-mile) radius from the plant……..http://phys.org/news/2016-02-nuclear-fukushima-contamination-crisis.html

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Fukushima 2016, Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Spread of Hanford radioactive pollution is “alarming”

text-what-radiationHanford contamination spread across public highway

Fall windstorm spread radioactive contamination across Route 4 north of Richland

Some contamination likely spread by plants, animals

EPA requires report from DOE in April  

BY ANNETTE CARY acary@tricityherald.com 23 Feb 16 The Environmental Protection Agency has called the uncontrolled spread of small amounts of radioactive waste at Hanford “alarming” after a Nov. 17 windstorm.

Surveys six miles north of Richland after the winds subsided found specks of contamination had spread beyond Route 4, the public highway from Richland out to the Wye Barricade secure entrance to Hanford.

The contamination had blown from the 618-10 Burial Ground, which is being cleaned up on the west side of the highway.

The search also turned up previously undiscovered specks of radioactive waste believed to have been spread by plants or animals outside known contaminated areas…….

EPA, in a letter to DOE, said the spread of contamination “is a matter that is alarming to EPA and requires further investigation and discussion.”

It has given DOE until the third week of April to prepare a report on its loss of control of radioactive material. DOE is required to describe for EPA, a Hanford regulator, what actions and technology it plans to prevent a recurrence.

DOE and its contractor, Washington Closure Hanford, have had problems with contamination spread at the 618-10 Burial Ground as early as summer 2014, according to the weekly staff reports of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board……..

The report required by EPA is expected to address not only issues directly related to the 618-10 Burial Ground but the spread of contamination by plants and animals. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article61710052.html

February 26, 2016 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Cesium 137 found in 7 fish near Canada’s West Coast, but not in salmon

Radiation from Fukushima nuclear disaster not found in B.C. salmon http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/radiation-from-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-not-found-in-bc-salmon/article28846578/ MARK HUME VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail Feb. 23, 2016 Five years after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, radioactive contaminants continue to circulate across the Pacific to Canada’s West Coast, but not at dangerous levels.

A B.C. scientist monitoring fish for tell-tale traces of cesium-134 said the radionuclide, which is the fingerprint of the Fukushima disaster, has been found in seawater but not in recent samples taken from 156 salmon.

Steelhead, Chinook, sockeye and pink salmon were collected by First Nations from locations spread along the B.C. coast last year as part of an ongoing monitoring program.

 In releasing the latest test results, Jay Cullen, with the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, said Monday even with the most sensitive measurements possible, no trace of radioactivity from Fukushima was detected in any of the salmon.

He said tests did find low levels of cesium-137 in seven fish, but cesium-134 was not also found in those salmon.

“Because no c-134 was detected in these fish it is not possible to say whether detectable c-137 can be attributed to Fukushima contamination, or simply normal variability in contamination owing to nuclear weapons testing fallout,” Dr. Cullen said.

“The vast majority of c-137 that’s in the environment today came from weapons testing; fallout from atmospheric weapons tests last century,” he said. “And also there is an imprint of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 in the Pacific.”

Dr. Cullen said seawater far offshore and in coastal waters continues to show low levels of contamination from 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima power plant. The accident released a pulse of radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere. Debris has drifted across the ocean and for the past few years has been washing up on West Coast beaches.

Dr. Cullen said tests in recent months have shown that the levels of radioactive contamination in sea water are low, but are varied depending on where the samples are taken.

“Offshore the contamination is much more evenly distributed, from place to place.

“Along the coast, probably because of complex water circulation and freshwater inputs, we see it show up in certain places more often than in others,” he said. Dr. Cullen said none of the measurements raises any health concerns.

“It’s thousands of times below the maximum allowable [level] of cesium in our drinking water. It’s still a very trace level. In order for us to detect it, we have to use the most sensitive techniques that we have,” he said.

“The amount of radioactivity from these isotopes from Fukushima in our water or in our fish [is] a fraction of the count you’d get using a Geiger counter.”

Dr. Cullen said the level of contamination in the Pacific off the West Coast continues to rise, but that was anticipated.

“Given the time that it takes for the ocean currents to bring that contamination as it spreads across the North Pacific this is when the models predict those levels should be peaking,” he said.

“The heart of that contamination is just arriving offshore.”

Dr. Cullen, who works with a network of researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Health Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the University of B.C., the University of Ottawa and UVic, said monitoring of both seawater and fish will continue and shellfish will be added to the testing this year.

The research group is known as InFORM, for Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring Network.

“The goal of the InFORM project is to continue to monitor the water and fish because this information is … useful for determining what the risk might be to the ecosystem or to humans who rely on fish,” he said.

February 26, 2016 Posted by | Canada, environment | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »