THE SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY (ROCKETDYNE) BURNED IN THE WOOLSEY FIRE, THREATENING TOXIC EXPOSURES FROM CONTAMINATED DUST, SMOKE, ASH AND SOIL. https://www.psr-la.org/woolsey-fire-burns-nuclear-meltdown-site-that-state-toxics-agency-failed-to-clean-up/
THE DEPARTMENT OF TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL DENIES RISK THAT IT CREATED BY DELAYING THE LONG PROMISED CLEANUP. November 9, 2018, Denise Duffield, 310-339-9676 or dduffield@psr-la.org, Melissa Bumstead 818-298-3182 or melissabumstead@sbcglobal.net, Nov 9, 2018Last night, the Woolsey fire burned the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), a former nuclear and rocket engine testing site. Footage from local television showed flames surrounding rocket test stands, and the fire’s progress through to Oak Park indicates that much of the toxic site burned.
A statement released by the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said that its staff, “do not believe the fire has caused any releases of hazardous materials that would pose a risk to people exposed to the smoke.” The statement failed to assuage community concerns given DTSC’s longtime pattern of misinformation about SSFL’s contamination and its repeated broken promises to clean it up.
“We can’t trust anything that DTSC says,” said West Hills resident Melissa Bumstead, whose young daughter has twice survived leukemia that she blames on SSFL and who has mapped 50 other cases of rare pediatric cancers near the site. Bumstead organized a group called “Parents vs. SSFL” and launched a Change.org petition demanding full cleanup of SSFL that has been signed by over 410,000 people. “DTSC repeatedly minimizes risk from SSFL and has broken every promise it ever made about the SSFL cleanup. Communities throughout the state have also been failed by DTSC. The public has no confidence in this troubled agency,” said Bumstead.
Nuclear reactor accidents, including a famous partial meltdown, tens of thousands of rocket engine tests, and sloppy environmental practices have left SSFL polluted with widespread radioactive and chemical contamination. Government-funded studies indicate increased cancers for offsite populations associated with proximity to the site, and that contamination migrates offsite over EPA levels of concern. In 2010, DTSC signed agreements with the Department of Energy and NASA that committed them to clean up all detectable contamination in their operational areas by 2017. DTSC also in 2010 committed to require Boeing, which owns most of the site, to cleanup to comparable standards. But the cleanup has not yet begun, and DTSC is currently considering proposals that will leave much, if not all, of SSFL’s contamination on site permanently.
Dr. Robert Dodge, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, shares the community’s concerns. “We know what substances are on the site and how hazardous they are. We’re talking about incredibly dangerous radionuclides and toxic chemicals such a trichloroethylene, perchlorate, dioxins and heavy metals. These toxic materials are in SSFL’s soil and vegetation, and when it burns and becomes airborne in smoke and ash, there is real possibility of heightened exposure for area residents.”
Dodge said protective measures recommended during any fire, such as staying indoors and wearing protective face masks, are even more important given the risks associated with SSFL’s contamination. Community members are organizing a campaign on social media to demand that DTSC release a public statement revealing the potential risks of exposure to SSFL contamination related to the fire.
But for residents such as Bumstead, worries will remain until SSFL is fully cleaned up. “When I look at that fire, all I see is other parents’ future heartache,” said Bumstead, “And what I feel is anger that if the DTSC had kept its word, we wouldn’t have these concerns, because the site would be cleaned up by now.”
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles (PSR-LA) is the largest chapter of the national organization Physicians for Social Responsibility and has worked for the full cleanup of SSFL for over 30 years.. PSR-LA advocates for policies and practices that protect public health from nuclear and environmental threats and eliminate health disparities.
Parents vs. SSFL is a grassroots group of concerned parents and residents who demand compliance with cleanup agreements signed in 2010 that require a full cleanup of all radioactive and chemical contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
L.A.’s Secret Meltdown; Simi Valley, CA(1959)Largest Nuclear Incident in U.S. history.
LA’s Nuclear Secret: Part 1 link https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/LA-Nuclear-Secret-327896591.html– Sep 22, 2015 Tucked away in the hills above the San Fernando and Simi valleys was a 2,800-acre laboratory with a mission that was a mystery to the thousands of people who lived in its shadow, By Joel Grover and Matthew Glasser The U.S. government secretly allowed radiation from a damaged reactor to be released into air over the San Fernando and Simi valleys in the wake of a major nuclear meltdown in Southern California more than 50 years ago — fallout that nearby residents contend continues to cause serious health consequences and, in some cases, death. LA’s Nuclear Secret: Timelines, Documents, FAQ
Those are the findings of a yearlong NBC4 I-Team investigation into “Area Four,” which is part of the once-secret Santa Susana Field Lab. Founded in 1947 to test experimental nuclear reactors and rocket systems, the research facility was built in the hills above the two valleys. In 1959, Area Four was the site of one of the worst nuclear accidents in U.S. history. But the federal government still hasn’t told the public that radiation was released into the atmosphere as a result of the partial nuclear meltdown.
Now, whistleblowers interviewed on camera by NBC4 have recounted how during and after that accident they were ordered to release dangerous radioactive gases into the air above Los Angeles and Ventura counties, often under cover of night, and how their bosses swore them to secrecy.
In addition, the I-Team reviewed over 15,000 pages of studies and government documents, and interviewed other insiders, uncovering that for years starting in 1959, workers at Area Four were routinely instructed to release radioactive materials into the air above neighboring communities, through the exhaust stacks of nuclear reactors, open doors, and by burning radioactive waste.
How It Began
On July 13, 1959, the day of the meltdown, John Pace was working as a reactor operator for Atomics International at Area Four’s largest reactor, under the watch of the U.S. government’s Atomic Energy Commission.
“Nobody knows the truth of what actually happened,” Pace told the I-Team.
In fact, Pace said, the meltdown was verging on a major radioactive explosion.
“The radiation in that building got so high, it went clear off the scale,” he said.
To prevent a potentially devastating explosion, one that in hindsight the 76-year-old Pace believes would have been “just like Chernobyl,” he and other workers were instructed to open the exhaust stacks and release massive amounts of radiation into the sky.
“This was very dangerous radioactive material,” he said. “It went straight out into the atmosphere and went straight to Simi Valley, to Chatsworth, to Canoga Park.”
Pace and his co-workers frantically tried to repair the damaged reactor. Instead, he said they realized, their efforts were only generating more radioactive gas. So for weeks, often in the dark of night, Pace and other workers were ordered to open the large door in the reactor building and vent the radiation into the air.
“It was getting out towards the public,” he said. “The public would be bombarded by it.”
Pace said he and his co-workers knew they were venting dangerous radiation over populated areas, but they were following orders.
“They felt terrible that it had to be done,” he said. “They had to let it out over their own families.”
Area Four workers “were sworn to secrecy that they would not tell anyone what they had done,” Pace explained.
He remembered his boss getting right in his face and saying, “You will not say a word. Not one word.”
That was more than five decades ago, but radioactive contamination didn’t just vanish. It remains in the soil and water of Area Four and in some areas off-site, according to state and federal records obtained by the I-Team. And, evidence suggests that the fallout could be linked to illnesses, including cancer, among residents living nearby.
Arline Mathews lived with her family in Chatsworth, downwind of Area Four during some of the radiation releases. Her middle son, Bobby, was a champion runner on the Chatsworth High School track team for three years, running to the Santa Susana Field Lab and back to school every day. Bobby died of glioblastoma, a rare brain cancer often linked to radiation exposure. Mathews said there is no known family history of cancer and she blames the radiation from Area Four for her son’s illness.
“He was exposed to the chemical hazardous waste and radioactivity up there,” Mathews said. “There’s no getting over the loss of son.”
The Government Cover-up
Six weeks after the meltdown, the Atomic Energy Commission issued a press release saying that there had been a minor “fuel element failure” at Area Four’s largest reactor in July. But they said there had been “no release of radioactive materials” to the environment.
“What they had written in that report is not even close to what actually happened,” Pace said. “To see our government talk that way and lie about those things that happened, it was very disappointing.”
In 1979, NBC4 first broke the story that there was a partial meltdown at Area Four’s largest reactor, called the Sodium Reactor Experiment. But at the time, the U.S. government was still saying no radiation was released into the air over LA.
But during its current yearlong investigation, the I-Team found a NASA report that confirmed “the 1959 meltdown… led to a release of radioactive contaminants.”
For years, NASA used part of the site for rocket testing and research.
More Radioactive Releases
After filing a Freedom of Information request, the I-Team obtained more than 200 pages of government interviews with former Santa Susana workers. One of those workers, Dan Parks, was a health physicist at Area Four in the 1960s.
In the early 60s, Parks said, he often witnessed workers releasing radiation into the sky through the exhaust stacks of at least three of Area Four’s ten nuclear reactors.
“They would vent it to the atmosphere,” he said. “The release was done with the flick of a switch.”
Radioactive Waste Up in Smoke
Parks said he often witnessed workers releasing radioactive smoke into the air when they disposed of barrels of radioactive waste from Area Four’s 10 nuclear reactors.
“We were all workers,” he said. “Just taking orders.”
Workers would often take those barrels of waste to a pond called “the burn pits” and proceed to shoot the barrels with a high-powered rifle causing an explosion. The radioactive smoke would drift into the air over nearby suburbs and toward a summer camp for children.
“It was a volatile explosion, beyond belief,” Parks said.
Whatever direction the wind was blowing, the radioactive smoke would travel that way.
“If the wind was blowing to the Valley, it would blow it in the Valley,” he said.
Ralph Powell, who worked as a security officer at Area Four in the mid-60s, recalled being blanketed by that radioactive smoke.
“I saw clouds of smoke that was engulfing my friends, that are dying now,” Powell said.
Powell believes it wasn’t just his friends who suffered the consequences. He fears he may have exposed his own family to radiation, tracking it home on his clothes and car.
While Powell was working at Area Four, his son Michael was diagnosed with leukemia — a cancer linked to radiation exposure — and died at age 11.
“I suspect it caused the death of my son,” he said. “I’ve never gotten that out of my mind.”
Toxic Chemical Contamination
In addition to the radiation, dozens of toxic chemicals, including TCE and Perchlorate, were also released into the air and dumped on the soil and into ground and surface water from thousands of rocket tests conducted at the Santa Susana Field lab from the 1950s to 80s. The tests were conducted by NASA, and by Rocketdyne, a government aerospace contractor.
According to a federally funded study obtained by the I-Team, “emissions associated with rocket engine testing” could have been inhaled by residents of “West Hills, Bell Canyon, Dayton Canyon, Simi Valley, Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Woodland Hills, and Hidden Hills.”
Contamination Moves into Neighborhoods
Radiation released at Area Four continues to contaminate the soil and water of the Santa Susana Field Lab.
In 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency completed a $40 million soil test of the site and found 423 hot spots — places contaminated with high levels of man-made radiation.
Other studies and government documents obtained by the I-Team show that radiation has moved off-site, and has been found in the ground and water in suburbs to the south, northeast and northwest of the Field Lab.
“Radiation doesn’t know any boundaries,” said Dr. Robert Dodge, a national board member of the Nobel Prize-winning nonprofit Physicians For Social Responsibility, which studies the health effects of radiation.
Dodge, who has reviewed numerous government and academic studies about the contamination at Santa Susana, said he believes the contamination has spread far beyond the facility’s borders.
“If the wind is blowing and carrying radiation from Santa Susana, it doesn’t stop because there’s a fence,” he said.
One of the places radiation has been found, in a 1995 study overseen by the U.S. EPA, was the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley. The Institute is a nationally-known center of Jewish learning, and the home to Camp Alonim, a beloved summer sleepaway camp that has hosted some 30,000 children.
In December 1995, The Brandeis-Bardin Institute filed a federal lawsuit against the present and past owners of the Santa Susana Field Lab, alleging that toxic chemicals and radiation from the field lab “have subsequently seeped into and come to be located in the soil and groundwater” of Brandeis “is injurious to the environment” and “will cause great and irreparable injury.”
Brandeis settled the lawsuit in a confidential agreement in 1997.
A spokesman for the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, Rabbi Jay Strear, told NBC4 that the groundwater and soil is “tested routinely,” and the results have shown the “the site is safe.”
The I-Team asked Brandeis-Bardin to provide NBC4 with those test results showing the site is safe and free of hazardous substances. The Institute refused, and in an email said “we are not in a position to devote the required staff time to respond to your more detailed inquiries, nor do we see the necessity for doing so.”
A government scientist who has studied the contamination at Santa Susana told the I-Team he thinks there’s a continued threat of radiation and toxic chemicals flowing from the field lab to places like Brandeis-Bardin, via groundwater and airborne dust.
Clusters of Cancer
Researchers inside and out of government have contended that the radiation and toxic chemicals from Santa Susana might have caused many cancer cases.
“The radiation that was released in 1959 and thereafter from Santa Susana is still a danger today,” Dr.Dodge said. “There is absolutely a link between radiation and cancer.”
The I-Team tracked down dozens of people diagnosed with cancer and other illnesses who grew up in the shadow of Santa Susana — in Canoga Park, West Hills, Chatsworth, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley. Many of them believe their cancers were caused by radiation and chemicals from the field lab.
Kathryn Seltzer Carlson, 56, and her sisters, Judy and Jennifer, all grew up in Canoga Park around the time of the nuclear meltdown and for years after, and all have battled cancer.
“I played in the water, I swam in the water, I drank the water” that ran off the Santa Susana Field Lab, said Carlson, who finished treatment for ovarian cancer earlier this year and is now undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma. “I’ve had, I don’t know how many cancers.”
Bonnie Klea, a former Santa Susana employee who has lived in West Hills since the 60s, also battled bladder cancer, which is frequently linked to radiation exposure.
“Every single house on my street had cancer,” Klea said.
A 2007 Centers for Disease Control study found that people living within two miles of the Santa Susana site had a 60 percent higher rate of some cancers.
“There’s some provocative evidence,” said Dr. Hal Morgenstern, an epidemiologist who oversaw the study. “It’s like circumstantial evidence, suggesting there’s a link” between the contamination from Santa Susana and the higher cancer rates.
Silence From the Government
For more than two months, the I-Team asked to speak with someone from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the federal agency that’s responsible for all nuclear testing, to ask why workers were ordered to release dangerous radiation over Los Angeles, why the DOE has never publicly admitted this happened, and what it plans to do to help get the site cleaned up.
The DOE emailed the I-Team, “We will not have anyone available for this segment.”
So the I-Team showed up at a public meeting this month about Santa Susana and asked the DOE’s project manager for the site, Jon Jones, to speak with us. He walked away and wouldn’t speak.
Will the Contamination Ever Be Cleaned Up?
Community residents, many stricken with cancer and other radiation-related illnesses, have been fighting for years to get the government and the private owners of the Santa Susana Field Lab to clean up the contamination that remains on the site.
But efforts in the state legislature and state agencies that oversee toxic sites have, so far, stalled.
But residents, with the support of some lawmakers, continue to fight for a full cleanup.
“People are continuing to breathe that (radiation) in and to die,” Chatsworth resident Arline Mathews said.
“See that this is done immediately, before more lives are lost.”
When America lost a nuclear bomb, Fosters.com, By D. Allan Kerr news@seacoastonline.com 11 Nov 18, In January 1966, an American B-52 bomber collided mid-air with a refueling tanker off the coast of Spain. The resulting fiery crash claimed the lives of seven crew members.
While the loss of life was devastating, there was potential for even greater catastrophe – the B-52 was carrying four fully-loaded hydrogen bombs.
Three of the bombs were located within 24 hours, in the vicinity of a Spanish fishing village called Palomares. The fourth was nowhere to be found.
With the Cold War mired in a deep chill, the United States dispatched an entire Navy armada to try to locate the missing bomb, which was believed to have gone into the Atlantic Ocean. Among those involved in the search was a 23-year-old Navy officer named Donald Craig.
Craig was an ensign at the time, having graduated the previous year from Officer Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island. He was serving aboard his first vessel, the minesweeper USS Sagacity (MSO 469).
As it happened, Sagacity was near Barcelona, Spain, on a Mediterranean cruise when the tragedy occurred. The minesweeper was dispatched to the scene and over the next several weeks took part in the massive search for the missing nuke.
Craig is now 76 years old, retired, and a longtime resident of Kittery Point, Maine. He still recalls the hunt for the missing nuclear bomb, and the race to get to it before the Soviet Union.
He also remains frustrated on behalf of fellow veterans who say they are dealing with adverse health effects from radiation exposure during the incident – with no assistance from the government that sent them there.
“We knew nothing,” Craig said recently of the possible aftereffects. “We were just out there doing our job.”
A disaster begins
It should have been a routine operation…………
At one point the Navy lost the bomb again in the process of bringing it to the surface, and it sank even deeper into the ravine. Eventually, the bomb and an unmanned vehicle, which had become entangled in its parachute lines, were hauled onto the deck of the submarine rescue ship USS Petrel nearly three months after the initial tragedy.
But then the United States government had to deal with a whole separate controversy – the environmental repercussions of an unleashed hydrogen bomb.
Plutonium blowing in the wind
Members of the U.S. Air Force and residents of Palomares were all exposed to radioactivity from the two bombs that had broken apart on land. Craig recalls winds of about 30 knots at the time.
“Plutonium was blowing in the wind, it was all over the place there,” he said. “They (Air Force personnel) were sitting on the edge of the crater eating their lunches.”
An area of about one square mile was contaminated, including the village’s tomato crop. American servicemen removed this soil and brought it back to South Carolina for disposal.
But in a rather bizarre attempt to show there was no danger, the U.S. government fed the contaminated tomatoes to our troops for “breakfast, lunch and dinner,” according to a June 2016 New York Times article. The U.S. ambassador to Spain and the Spanish minister of tourism swam at a nearby beach in front of a crowd of reporters to prove the waters were safe.
“If this is radioactivity, I love it!” Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke told the media.
Somehow, no civilians on the ground were seriously harmed by falling debris from the aircraft collision. America pledged to the Spanish government the site would be cleared of contamination.
“The main objective here is to leave Spain as we found it,” Duke told LIFE magazine back in 1966.
But as recently as 2015, then-Secretary of State John Kerry and Spain’s foreign minister agreed to negotiate a binding agreement to resume cleanup efforts and further removal of contaminated soil from the site. While no substantive findings have verified serious health issues among the villagers, studies of wildlife such as snails have turned up high radioactive levels.
Craig, however, is particularly outraged by the treatment of Air Force veterans who took part in cleanup efforts at Palomares and now say they are suffering ill health effects as a result. The 2016 Times article featured several former servicemen now suffering from cancer and other ailments.
The Air Force has long insisted there were no serious adverse effects from the incident, so these conditions are not covered under Veterans Administration benefits. An estimated 1,600 veterans took part in the cleanup.
“That shouldn’t happen. They should absolutely be taken care of,” Craig said. ”(The government) did not look after their safety, and there are a lot of people suffering for it now.”
Last year, a number of veterans filed a lawsuit in Connecticut over disability benefits they were denied because the Pentagon refused to release records and reports related to the incident………….
D. Allan Kerr is the author of “Silent Strength,” a book about the 1963 loss of the nuclear Navy submarine USS Thresher. http://www.fosters.com/news/20181111/when-america-lost-nuclear-bomb
California’s Woolsey Fire Now Threatening Malibu Went Through The Site Of A Nuclear Accident First, Forbes, Eric Mack 9 Nov 18 out of control and heading into populated areas of Malibu. All residents must evacuate immediately. ”
A mandatory evacuation is now in effect for the entire city of Malibu in southern California as a fast-moving fire dubbed the Woolsey Fire burns through the suburban hills and canyons between Simi Valley and the Pacific coast.
“MANDATORY evacuation now in effect for all of City of Malibu, and all areas south of 101 Fwy from Ventura County line to Las Virgenes / Malibu Cyn, southward to the ocean due to Woolsey Fire. Use PCH to evacuate, avoid canyons,” reads a 10 a.m. PT update from the city.
UPDATE: According to the latest alert from the city of Malibu at 12:27 p.m. PT, the Woolsey Fire “is now burning out of control and heading into populated areas of Malibu. All residents must evacuate immediately. “
A mandatory evacuation is now in effect for the entire city of Malibu in southern California as a fast-moving fire dubbed the Woolsey Fire burns through the suburban hills and canyons between Simi Valley and the Pacific coast.
“MANDATORY evacuation now in effect for all of City of Malibu, and all areas south of 101 Fwy from Ventura County line to Las Virgenes / Malibu Cyn, southward to the ocean due to Woolsey Fire. Use PCH to evacuate, avoid canyons,” reads a 10 a.m. PT update from the city. ……….
The blaze began with a brush fire ignited near the closed Santa Susana Field Laboratory (also referred to as the Rocketdyne facility) south of Simi Valley Thursday afternoon and has since grown to over 10,000 acres and claimed an undetermined number of structures.
The Rocketdyne facility was the site of a partial nuclear meltdown nearly sixty years ago and the subject of controversial and stalled cleanup efforts for decades…….. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/11/09/californias-woolsey-fire-burned-through-the-site-of-a-nuclear-accident-on-its-way-toward-malibu/#4983a84b2142
‘You guys have gotten me afraid.’ Radioactive groundwater found at SC fuel factory, The News and Observer, BY SAMMY FRETWELL, sfretwell@thestate.com November 09, 2018 , COLUMBIA, SC
Groundwater at Westinghouse’s nuclear fuel factory on Bluff Road is contaminated with unsafe levels of radioactive material from years-old leaks that state and federal regulators only learned about in the past year.
Recent tests found levels of radioactive uranium that exceed safe drinking-water standards at two test wells adjacent to the nuclear fuel-rod plant southeast of Columbia, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said during a community meeting.
Thursday night’s meeting was held as part of Westinghouse’s application for a new 40-year license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate the Bluff Road plant.
………. Thursday night’s revelation of high uranium levels in two test wells follows news this year about other leaks and spills at the Westinghouse plant, a major employer in the Columbia area since opening in 1969.
The NRC did not learn about the 2011 leak until last year and, only recently, found out about the 2008 leak from the fuel rod plant. Westinghouse did not tell the agency at the time the leaks occurred because that was not required, the company and federal officials have said. The leaks occurred in the same area of the factory, three years apart.
The 2008 and 20111 leaks are not the only concern.
In July, Westinghouse told state and federal regulators it had discovered that a uranium solution leaked through a hole in the floor in another part of the plant this summer and contaminated the ground.
Unlike the 2008 and 2011 leaks, regulators say they haven’t found that the uranium that leaked this summer got through the ground and into the water table below. The company is cleaning up that leak by excavating nine feet of tainted soil, Westinghouse spokeswoman Courtney Boone said.
Residents living near the plant expressed concerns Thursday about the safety of the facility. About 70 residents attended Thursday’s meeting at a Garners Ferry Road conference center.
Residents are concerned groundwater pollution could affect the private wells from which they draw drinking water. They also worry about the possibility of a nuclear accident.
……….. Critics of the plant say Westinghouse should not get a 40-year operating license because of problems at the site. …. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article221376635.html
The argument from cyberspace for eliminating nuclear weapons NOVEMBER 9, 2018 “…….Computer errors that almost started nuclear wars
Unclassified reports reveal that problems within the computers of nuclear command and control date back to at least the 1970s, when a deficient computer chip signalled that 200 Soviet missiles were headed towards the U.S. Computer problems have persisted: In 2010, a loose circuit card caused a U.S. launch control centre to lose contact with 50 nuclear missiles. In both cases, the accident might have been mistaken for a deliberate attack. Failing to recognize the mistake could have resulted in the U.S. launching nuclear weapons.
These cases were presumably the result of unintentional errors, not deliberate actions. But hacking and other forms of targeted cyberattacks greatly increase the risk of accidental nuclear launch or other devastating actions. Overconfidence on the part of the officials overseeing the nuclear arsenal is therefore negligent and dangerous.
A more recent compounding factor is the ongoing, roughly trillion-dollar upgrade of the U.S. nuclear arsenal started by the Obama administration. This so-called modernization effort included upgrades to the nuclear command and control system. The Trump administration continues to make this a priority.
Modernization increases the possibility that changes to the nuclear command and control system will introduce new or reveal hitherto unknown vulnerabilities into the system. The evidence from the GAO report and other publicly available documents indicates that the officials in charge will be emphasizing speed, convenience, or cost over cybersecurity.
In its conclusion, the GAO report explained that the DOD “has taken several major steps to improve weapon systems cybersecurity.” But the DOD “faces barriers that may limit its ability to achieve desired improvements,” such as constraints on information sharing and workforce shortages. That is not reassuring.
There is a more basic problem that we have emphasized above: the risks associated with cyberattacks can be ameliorated but not fully eliminated. When this intrinsic risk is integrated with the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons, the only way to avoid a catastrophic accident at some point in time is to embrace efforts to abolish the weapons themselves.
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US Navy investigates sailors working in nuclear department of USS Ronald Reagan for taking LSD, Telegraph 7 NOVEMBER 2018 The US Navy has confirmed it is investigating 15 sailors working mainly in the nuclear reactor department of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan for allegations of LSD abuse.Lt. Joe Keiley, spokesman for the Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, said that two sailors are already heading to court-martial accused of using, possessing and distributing the hallucinogenic drug, while three are waiting to see whether they will be charged as well.
Another 10 sailors were administratively disciplined. Of the 15, 14 worked in the nuclear department. News of the LSD ring was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in February, but Lt Keiley confirmed that the initial investigation had resulted in charges. When the allegations were first reported, the Seventh Fleet – beset by a series of problems – issued a statement saying that “the Navy has zero tolerance for drug abuse and takes all allegations involving misconduct of our sailors, Navy civilians and family members very seriously.”…….. The Seventh Fleet has been plagued by problems over the past year. In 2017, two ships – the USS John S. McCain and the USS Fitzgerald – were involved in separate collisions with commercial vessels, killing 17 sailors. In August 2017 Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of all US naval forces in the eastern Pacific, was fired as the result of a “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” the Navy said.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/07/us-navy-investigates-sailors-working-nuclear-department-uss/ |
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Hanford nuclear plant employees told to ‘take cover’ over incident, Rt.com : 26 Oct, 2018 Employees at the Hanford Vit Plant – one of the US’ largest nuclear waste processing facilities – have been told to “take cover.” The alert was issued as a precaution, the company operating the facility said.
The employees at the waste treatment plant were allegedly told to “go to the closest Take Cover facility” and avoid “eating or drinking until further notice,” according to the text message published by the people on social media.
The warning to the employees was issued because steam was coming out from one of the tunnels at the waste treatment plant construction site, Bechtel, the company in charge of the construction works said, adding that it was made out of “precaution.”
TWEET: Jade Redinger@JadeKAPPKVEW
“There is no indication of a release of hazardous material,” a Bechtel statement said. However, the workers were still said to stay in cover until further notice………https://www.rt.com/usa/442365-hanford-nuclear-plant-employees-cover/
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Fluor says heat reaction ruptured waste drums, Post Register, By NATHAN BROWN nbrown@postregister.com Oct 25, 2018 The rupture of four radioactive waste drums at a U.S. Department of Energy site in April occurred when “a reactive metal with radionuclides” heated up after being exposed to the air for the first time in almost 40 years.
Fluor Idaho, DOE’s cleanup contractor at the desert site west of Idaho Falls, announced the results of its months long investigation on Thursday. “This heating up of the reactive metal started a secondary reaction that caused a rapid rise in pressure inside each drum, resulting in the ejection of their lids,” a Fluor news release said…..https://www.postregister.com/news/local/fluor-says-heat-reaction-ruptured-waste-drums/article_e52132b9-33b0-5f61-8668-ae3f3dd4ce38.html |
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October 26, 2018
The High Flux nuclear reactor in Petten in the province of Noord Holland was shut down on Thursday because radioactively contaminated water had leaked into the crawl space of the building, owners Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group NGR said in a statement…….https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/10/leak-shuts-down-nuclear-reactor-in-petten/
| The Pantex nuclear weapons facility in Texas was just locked down … it took a while for them to explain why https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/the-pantex-nuclear-weapons-facility-in-texas-was-just-locked-down-it-took-a-while-for-them-to-explain-why/news-story/a9d78aee41461ba3e1e10a723f962712 Jamie Seidel, News Corp Australia Network, October 24, 2018 NOTHING invokes such fear as the threat of a nuclear accident. So when a leading US manufacturer of nuclear weapons declares an ‘operations emergency’, the world sits up and pays attention. Problem is, they’re not telling us anything.
All we were told is what is contained in a simple tweet:
Mollified much? Not when it comes to the amount of explosive radioactive material held at the plant, near Carson County, Texas. Pantex is where the US nuclear arsenal is both constructed and disassembled. New devices are built. Old devices are broken down for safe disposal. Naturally, it’s a high security site. And safety precautions are well established. Local media reported “an unexpected event at the plant”. But not what that unexpected event was. “At this time, there appears to be no offsite impact and no need for the public to take any action.” Those are calming words. To a point. “The Pantex onsite response effort is being conducted by the Emergency Response Organization, a highly-trained group of employees with detailed knowledge of plant operations and emergency response procedures. These employees represent plant functions such as security, logistics, safety, medical response, radiological assessment, firefighting, operations and public information.” That’s not so calming. Security? Medical response? Radiological assessment? The local sheriff closed local roads close to the eastern edge of the extensive facility. Then, out of nowhere, it was all over. Perhaps.
Only later was an official explanation given. A ‘routine’ inspection had sparked a bomb scare. Security guard dogs had ‘sniffed out’ something suspicious.
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60,000 tons of dangerous radioactive waste sits on Great Lakes shores Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press Oct. 19, 2018 “……… Fukushima and ‘The Devil’s Scenario’
On March 11, 2011, following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and an ensuing, 50-foot tsunami, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan lost cooling capabilities for four of its six reactors. The cores became damaged and radiation was released into the atmosphere, making it the world’s second-worst nuclear power industry accident after Chernobyl.
But it’s what happened — or almost happened — at the plant’s Unit 4 spent-fuel pool that gives nuclear watchdogs nightmares.
A hydrogen explosion four days into the disaster left the building housing the Unit 4 spent-fuel pool in ruins. The pool was seven stories up in a crumbling, inaccessible building.
It “was so radioactive, you couldn’t put people up there,” von Hippel said. “For about a month after Fukushima, people didn’t know how much water was in the pool. They were shooting water up there haphazardly with a hose, trying to drop it by helicopter.”
Two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission secretly conducted a worst-case scenario study of the ongoing disaster. The biggest fear that emerged: that a self-sustaining fire would start in the Unit 4 spent fuel pool, spreading to the nearby, damaged reactors. That, they found, would release radiation requiring evacuations as far away as 150 miles, to the outskirts of Tokyo and its more than 13.4 million residents.
“That was the devil’s scenario that was on my mind,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said during a special commission’s 2014 investigation of the accident.
“Common sense dictated that, if that came to pass, then it was the end of Tokyo.”
The worst-case-scenario report was not released for nearly a year. “The content was so shocking that we decided to treat it as if it didn’t exist,” the Japan Times quoted a senior Japanese government official as saying in January 2012.
What kept the spent fuel rods covered with water in Unit 4 was a miraculous twist of fate: The explosion had jarred open a gate that typically separated the Unit 4 spent fuel pool from an adjacent reactor pool.
“Leakage through the gate seals was essential for keeping the fuel in the Unit 4 pool covered with water,” a 2016 report on the Fukushima accident by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded.
“Had there been no water in the reactor well, there could well have been severe damage to the stored fuel and substantial releases of radioactive material to the environment.”
It’s a startling “very near-miss,” said Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Given wind directions that are common in Japan, they could have been looking at removing the population of Tokyo for decades, or centuries,” he said. “You’re talking tens of millions of people that would have to relocate. That’s the bullet that Japan dodged.”……..https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/10/19/nuclear-waste-great-lakes/1417767002/
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Workers who trudged through nuke plant contributed to June uranium leak, report says, The Island Packet, BY SAMMY FRETWELL, sfretwell@thestate.com, October 11, 2018
Workers at the Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory for years walked across a plastic liner that was supposed to keep toxic uranium acid from leaking out of the Lower Richland plant. All that foot traffic eventually weakened the liner, which covered the plant’s concrete floor. And this summer, Westinghouse discovered that a uranium solution had seeped through the liner, eaten a hole in the plant’s floor and trickled into the earth. Westinghouse wasn’t conducting detailed inspections to find problems in a section of the plant where toxic acid is mixed for production of nuclear fuel rods, the federal inspection report shows. That acidic solution deteriorated concrete after it seeped onto the plant’s floor for a “prolonged” period of time, the report said. The report said several safety systems, designed to contain leaks, failed. As a result, “hydrofluoric acid solution was spilled’’ on June 16 from a process tank through the floor. “They were not doing their maintenance inspections correctly or adequately,’’ Tom Vukovinsky, a senior fuel facility inspector with the NRC, said of Westinghouse. The NRC’s findings add to a series of questions raised this year about how Westinghouse has operated the 550,000-square-foot factory. Since discovering the uranium solution had leaked through the plant’s floor this summer, residents of the the Lower Richland community near the factory also have learned about other leaks, previously unknown. The NRC acknowledged recently it did not know for years about leaks in 2008 and 2011, which has caused concern among nearby residents. ………https://www.islandpacket.com/news/state/south-carolina/article219825805.html |
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Was Three a Near-Fukushima Event on the Atlantic During Hurricane Florence? ObRag, Ocean Beach California by on OCTOBER 10, 2018 Nuclear Shutdown News for September 2018 Black Rain PressNuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working for a nuclear free future. Here is our September 2018 report.
A Near-Fukushima on the Atlantic? On September 17 the Raleigh News & Observer reported, “Floods limit access to Duke’s Brunswick nuclear plant: crews us partopotties, cots.” Did the Atlantic coast have a near-Fukushima event when during September Hurricane Florence made landfall? Utility Duke Energy’s Brunswick two nuclear reactors are located 30 miles south of Wilmington, NC, where the former Category 4 hurricane made landfall as a tropical storm in mid September. It was reported that “workers are sleeping on cots and using portable toilets because the water is currently shut off and the toilets can’t flush”, and that there was “limited access to the plant, and some workers have been able to leave the site and check up on their homes nearby. After the storm passed some drove to a Walmart in Southport to stock up on provisions.” Brunswick’s twin reactors started up in the 1940s, and are now approaching their designed operating life, 40 years. They are called boiling water reactors, the same model as the three Fukushima reactors that melted down in 2011, and were built by the same company, General Electric. US nuclear plants are required to shut down if hurricane force winds, 73 miles per hour or higher, are moving in. Fortunately the winds weren’t quite that strong when Florence hit the East Coast. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported, “Flooding of roads and downed trees prevented fresh crews from relieving the nearly 300 Duke Energy ‘storm riders’ who had been on site for days. And the blocked roads made it impossible to reach the 10 mile emergency evacuation zone if a higher level emergency is declared” Food had to be brought in by helicopters…….https://obrag.org/2018/10/was-three-a-near-fukushima-event-on-the-atlantic-during-hurricane-florence/ |
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CHALK RIVER (Ontario), Dec. 2, 1952: The first major commercial reactor disaster occurred at this Canadian reactor on the Ottawa River when it caused a loss-of-coolant, a hydrogen explosion and a meltdown, releasing 100,000 curies of radioactivity to the air. In comparison, the official government position is that Three Mile Island released about 15 curies, although radiation monitors failed or went off-scale.
ROCKY FLATS (Colorado), Sept. 11, 1957: This Cold War factory produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons 16 miles from Denver. It caused 30 to 44 pounds of breathable plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 to catch fire in what would come to be known as the second largest industrial fire in US history. Filters used to trap the plutonium were destroyed and it escaped through chimneys, contaminating parts of Denver. Nothing was done to warn or protect downwind residents.
WINDSCALE/SELLAFIELD (Britain), Oct. 7, 1957: The worst of many fires burned through one reactor igniting three tons of uranium and dispersed radionuclides over parts of England and northern Europe. The site was hastily renamed Sellafield. Another large radiation leak occurs in 1981and leukemia rates soared to triple the national average.
KYSHTYM/CHELYABINSK-65 (Russia), Sept. 29, 1957: A tank holding 70 to 80 metric tons of highly radioactive liquid waste exploded, contaminating an estimated 250,000 people, and permanently depopulating 30 towns which were leveled and removed from Russian maps. Covered up by Moscow (and the CIA) until 1989, Russia finally revealed that 20 million curies of long-lived isotopes like cesium were released, and the release was later declared a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The long covered-up explosion contaminated up to 10,000 square miles making it the third- or 4th-most serious radiation accident ever recorded.
SANTA SUSANA (Simi Valley, Calif.), July 12, 1959: The meltdown of the Sodium Reactor Experiment just outside Los Angeles caused “the third largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power,” according to Arjun Makhajani, President of the Institute for Energy & Environmental Research. Released radioactive materials were never authoritatively measured because “the monitors went clear off the scale,” according to an employee. The accident was kept secret for 20 years.
CHURCH ROCK (New Mexico), July 16, 1979: Ninety-three million gallons of liquid uranium mine wastes and 1,000 tons of solid wastes spilled onto the Navajo Nation and into Little Puerco River, and nuclear officials called it “the worst incident of radiation contamination in the history of the United States.” The Little Puerco feeds the Little Colorado River, which drains to the Colorado River, which feeds Lake Mead—a source of drinking water for Los Angeles.
TOMSK-7 (Russia), April 7, 1993: In “the worst radiation disaster since Chernobyl,” Russian and foreign experts said a tank of radioactive waste exploded at the Tomsk nuclear weapons complex and that wind blew its plume of radiation toward the Yenisei River and 11 Siberian villages, none of which were evacuated.
MONJU (Japan), Dec. 8, 1995: This sodium-cooled “breeder reactor” caused a fire and a large leak of sodium coolant into the Pacific. Liquid sodium coolant catches fire on contact with air and explodes on contact with water. Costly efforts to engineer commercial models have failed. Japan’s Monju experiment was halted in 2018 after over 24 years of false starts, accidents and cover-ups.
TOKAI-MURA (Japan), Sept. 30, 1999: A uranium “criticality” which is an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction caused a “neutron burst” that killed three workers and dispersed neutron radiation throughout the densely populated urban area surrounding the factory.
Not to be slighted, deliberate contamination has also been enormous: Five metric tons of plutonium was dispersed over the earth by nuclear bomb testing, and other nuclear weapons processes; Over 210 billion gallons of radioactive liquids were poured into the ground at the Hanford reactor complex in Washington State; and 16 billion gallons of liquid waste holding 70,000 curies of radioactivity were injected directly into Idaho’s Snake River Aquifer at the Idaho National Lab.
6 June – WEBINAR- Get Inspired by Protests Against Military Bases!
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
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