Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Attacks Gundersen – Again! Plus SSFL/Woolsey Fire Update – NH #417
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff and management don’t like whistleblowers, and somebody who probably ranks as their least favorite one is this week’s Nuclear Hotseat guest.Arnie Gundersen is a former nuclear industry executive and nuclear engineer with more than 44 years of nuclear industry experience. He became a whistleblower in 1990. Gundersen has written dozens of expert reports for non-government organizations and the state of Vermont. His curriculum vitae shows Gundersen is a licensed Critical Facility Reactor Operator from 1971-1972. He is Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education.In this extended interview with Nuclear Hotseat Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy, Gundersen goes into his history as a nuclear industry insider, the consequences of his bringing safety considerations to the attention of his boss, and the personal and professional “fallout” that resulted from his standing up for the truth. Included is Arnie’s update on what can be shared thus far about the Woolsey Fire at the Santa Susana Field Lab and the challenges faced in trying to learn more from ash and soil samples.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff briefly published and then removed from public access a new edition of their official doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons. But a public copy was preserved. See Joint Publication 3-72, Nuclear Operations, June 11, 2019.
The document presents an unclassified, mostly familiar overview of nuclear strategy, force structure, planning, targeting, command and control, and operations.
“Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability,” according to one Strangelovian passage in the publication. “Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.”
The document might have gone unremarked, but after publishing it last week the Joint Chiefs deleted it from their public website. A notice there states that it (JP 3-72) is now only “available through JEL+” (the Joint Electronic Library), which is a restricted access site. A local copy remains publicly available on the FAS website.
The miniseries follows the power plant workers, first responders, Soviet Union officials, scientists, soldiers and the locals of Pripyat, Ukraine (formerly the Soviet Union) in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploding.
As with most historical dramas, the show has been critiqued for taking liberties with the truth in service of the story. And these departures are somewhat ironic for a show whose tagline is “the cost of lies”.
But the function of historical dramas isn’t pinpoint accuracy: the best ones work as allegories.
And as an allegory for our times, Chernobyl could not be more fitting.
Moscow has a long history of ‘fake news’
The lies start early on. While most of the town sleeps through the nuclear explosion, in the control room of the power plant, denial is in full swing.
The assistant chief engineer, Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter), tells his men to pump water to the core, insistent the problem can be fixed.
An engineer tells Dyatlov: “there is no core”.
Dyatlov insists the core is intact. From the earliest moments, the truth is in flux.
The radiation leak has already begun to kill these workers; we’re in the company of the living dead.
But despite the horror of watching these men slowly die, as if a needle is untethering the fabric of their DNA, it’s the words of a Soviet Union official (Donald Sumpter) that shock the most.
“When the people ask questions that are not in their own best interests,” he tells his men, “they should simply be told to keep their minds on their labour and leave matters of the state to the state.”
The next step is to seal the city and cut the phone lines to prevent the spread of misinformation.
The speech is met with applause.
Over the course of the series it becomes clear the Chernobyl disaster was caused by the cost-cutting measures of the Soviet Union, but the state was structured perfectly to work their way out of the problem and contain the truth.
Miners and soldiers are conscripted to clean-up the mess, despite the risk to their health. Scientists are told to do their job and not ask any questions.
All the while, Soviet officials work to compartmentalise the tragedy to hide the horrors of a nuclear meltdown.
For scientists Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) and Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson) to understand what caused the meltdown they must be critical of the Soviet Union.
The most intense moments are the conversations where characters weigh up the risk of telling the truth.
The war on the truth continues
Decades later, Moscow continues to tightly control the flow of information both at home and abroad — its “troll farms” set up to spread misinformation and propaganda are just the latest iterations.
But Australia is not immune to attempts by government to conceal and manipulate the truth.
Chernobyl focuses on what happens when government policy is put before human lives.
The scientists investigating Chernobyl repeatedly attempted to sound the alarm, warning Soviet Union officials that the problem was bigger than one reactor as poison spread across Eastern Europe (one study predicts by 2065 the disaster could cause 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers).
Today, scientists are trying to warn us of an existential threat to our health and safety: climate change. Once again, government drags its feet.
If we take anything from Chernobyl, it should be this: put science before politics.
In 2019, we may have grasped the extreme dangers of radiation, but the war on the truth is ongoing — it’s eternal.
As we face another environmental catastrophe, the question will be: what is the cost of lies?
Born Violent: The Origins of Nuclear Power, Asian Journal of Peacebuildling, 2019, Robert (Bo) Jacob
Please excuse the “t”s and “f”s which have somehow turned into squares–my copying problems.
(Copious references are provided on the original) “…his article traces the origins o nuclear power technology as it was speciically developed to produce nuclear weapons or use against a civilian population in war……
It will trace numerous radiological disasters during the production history o the Hanord reactor fleet and at other military plutonium production reactor sites during the early Cold War.It will describe the later emergence o the nuclear power production industry which used nuclear reactors to also produce energy or civilian use and the history o partial and ull nuclearuel meltdowns that accompanied that industry……..
Hanford during the Cold War…..During the Cold War, the United States produced over 60,000 nuclear weapons, most o them with the plutonium produced at Hanord. This includes both ission weapons like the one used in the nuclear attack on Nagasaki, and also in thermonuclear weapons. While nuclear weapons were not used in wararea ater 1945, over 2,000 weapons have been detonated in nuclear tests, roughly hal o those (1,054) by the United States. The United States tested 928 nuclear weapons at the Nevada est Site, and another 67 at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands. wo hundred and sixteen o those tests were in the atmosphere, which distributed vast quantities o radioactive allout in heavy quantities close to the test sites, and also globally when the atmospheric clouds reached the upper atmosphere.
A 2015 article in The Lancet describes how “risk modelling studies o exposure to ionising radiation rom the Nevada est Site in the United States suggest that an extra 49,000 (95 percent CI 11 300–212 000)cases o thyroid cancer would be expected to occur among U.S. residents alive at the time o the testing—an excess o about 12 percent over the 400,000 cases othyroid cancer expected to develop in the absence o allout” (Simon and Bouville 2015, 407-408).
The Marshall Islands had ar ewer tests than the Nevada test site, however the United States tested its thermonuclear weapons exclusively at the Pacific Proving Ground which resulted in massive amounts o radioactive allout aecting the local population and also entering into the Paciic Ocean rom which the radionuclides could disperse throughout the Pacific Rim.
One test, the Bravo test o 1954, which was the largest weapon ever tested by the United States, created a vast and lethal allout cloud that enguled numerous Marshallese atolls. he entire population o Rongelap Atoll suered rom radiation sickness after the Bravo test. The Japanese tuna fishing boat the DaigoFukuryu Maru , among many others, was also exposed to the allout cloud. When it came to port in Yaizu, Japan two weeks after the test, its crew was hospitalized or radiation sickness. One crew member, radioman Aikichi Kuboyama, died ocomplications rom his exposure six months later,even though he was physically located about 100km rom the actual detonation point. All of these illnesses and deaths can be traced back to the nuclear reactors at Hanford.
During its years o production, Hanord was the site o numerous substantial radiological releases that endangered the local population as well as those downwind. …….. Large releases o radiation into the nearby ecosystem would be routine during the operation o the Hanord reactors and especially the plutonium extraction procedures. hese activities would leave a disastrous legacy once the plants were closed……
Historical Disasters at Plutonium Production Sites
Hanord did not suffer a major uel meltdown or catastrophic fire. However, all other nuclear weapon states have also operated multiple plutonium production reactors and the first two large-scale nuclear disasters occurred in such reactor complexes, happening within two weeks o each other.
On September 29, 1957, writes Kate Brown, as a soccer game was beingplayed in a stadium in Ozersk, in the Chelyabinsk Oblast near the Ural Mountainsin Central Russia, where the Mayak Production Association was located, a loudexplosion was heard nearby.Te source o the blast was an underground storage tank holding highly radioactivewaste that overheated and blew, belching up a 160-ton cement cap buried twenty-oureet below the ground and tossing it seventy-five eet in the air. Te blast smashedwindows in the nearby barracks and tore the metal gates off the perimeter ence.
The explosion and subsequent radiological disaster, known as the KyshtymDisaster, occurred just eight years and one month after the detonation o the firstnSoviet nuclear weapon made with plutonium produced at Mayak, the plutonium production that was the target o surveillance motivating the Green Run at Hanord.
he radioactive cloud rom the explosion, “settled over an area o 20,000square kilometers, home to 270,000 people” (Rabl 2012). Te Soviet authorities were slow to react to the crisis. “A week after the explosion,” writes Brown, who did extensive fieldwork in the region as well as at Hanord, “radiologists ollowed the cloud to the downwind villages, where they ound people living normally,children playing bareoot. hey measured the ground, arm tools, animals and people. he levels o radioactivity were astonishingly high” (Brown 2013, 239-240). he contaminated area would eventually be known as the East Urals Radioactive race (Ichikawa 2015).
Eleven days later a fire ignited in one o the reactors at the Windscale Works, the plutonium production site o the United Kingdom located in Cumbria in Northwest England. he ire burned inside o the reactor or three days and released massive amounts o radiation blanketing surrounding communities and downwind areas. “While the authorities denied large releases o radioactivity at the time, this was not a correct portrayal o the situation…On 12 October, authorities stopped the distribution o milk originating rom seventeen areaarms. However, just three days later, milk rom a ar wider area (200 square miles compared to the previous 80) was restricted” (Makhijani et al. 1995, 418). Falloutrom the accident was detected in Ireland, and the confiscated milk was dumped into the Irish Sea (Bertell 1985)
The Establishment of Commercial Nuclear Power……. Many o these plants would experience occasional leaks or releases oradiation into their local ecosystems. Several would have catastrophic nuclear accidents. In addition to the accidents at plutonium production reactors citedabove, partial core meltdowns would occur at Santa Susana in Simi Valley,Caliornia (1957), Fermi-1 in Detroit, Michigan (1966), the Lucens reactor inVaud, Switzerland (1969), Leningrad-1 in Leningrad, USSR (1975), and hreeMile Island-2 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (1979). A ull, catastrophic nuclearmeltdown occurred at Chernobyl-4 (1986) and three ull meltdowns occurred at Fukushima 1-2-3 in 2011.
In addition to these dire nuclear accidents, the spent uel rom normal operations at nuclear power plants pose a vexing problem or tens o thousands o generations. hese spent uel rods will need to be eectively contained or millennia as they will remain highly dangerous or over 10,000 years, and seriously dangerous or over 100,000 years. Almost all o this spent uel, millions o tons, sit in temporary or intermediate storage on the grounds o the reactors where the uel was burned. Finland will be the very irst nation to attempt to permanently store the spent uel rom its very limited nuclear power program in deep geological storage at the Onkalo site on the Baltic Sea, beginning in the2020s. All o the spent nuclear uel rom the long history o operation at Hanord still sits in temporary storage, some o it or over seventy years now (Deense Nuclear Facilities Saety Board 1997).
he challenges o containing this highly toxic waste or millennia and insuring that the sites are not damaged by geologicalorces or breached by uture human societies is speculative at best. The ongoing capacity o nuclear power to damage the health o human beings and other creatures or millennia, through the risks posed by this waste, means that we can never adequately grasp the ull violence that will result rom its production (Jacobs2018). o date, over seventy years after the successul operation o CP-1, not one spent uel rod has been placed in “permanent” storage anywhere on the planet………
Beyond the visible, nuclear waste may kill and harm for tens of thousands of years to come. Hundreds of thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel rods will remain deadly for over 100,000 years and must be successfully contained for that entire period of time to protect the health of thousands of generations of humans and other creatures yet unborn. Nuclear power will remain violent long past the generation of any electricity that will benefit any being. The legacy waste of operating nuclear power plants—for weapons or for electricity—will remain dangerous for longer than human civilization has so far existed.
Abe pushing idea that Fukushima nuclear disaster is ‘under control’, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201906110001.htmlTHE ASAHI SHIMBUN, 10 June 19 Without special protection against radiation, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood on elevated ground about 100 meters from the three melted-down reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
“I was finally able to see the view just wearing a normal suit without having to wear protective clothing and a mask (for radiation),” he said on April 14 after hearing explanations from Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials. “The decommissioning work has been making progress in earnest.”
An act of bravado, perhaps. But it was more likely one of the ways Abe and his government want to show that the Fukushima disaster is, as he famously said, “under control.”
Progress has been made, albeit slowly, for the monumental task of decommissioning TEPCO’s crippled nuclear plant.
But radiation levels in certain areas of the plant are still lethal with extended exposure. The problem of storing water contaminated in the reactors continues.
And only recently was TEPCO able to make contact with melted nuclear fuel in the reactors through a robot. The means to extract the fuel has yet to be decided.
However, the government keeps touting progress in the reconstruction effort, using evacuee statistics, which critics say are misleading, to underscore its message.
Abe’s previous visit to the nuclear plant was in September 2013.
“When I conducted an inspection five years ago, I was completely covered in protective gear,” he said at a meeting with decommissioning workers in April. “This time I was able to inspect wearing a normal suit.”
Officials in Abe’s circle acknowledged that they wanted to “appeal the progress of reconstruction” by letting the media cover the prime minister’s “unprotected” visit to the site.
His visit in a business suit was possible largely because the ground was covered in mortar and other materials that prevent the spread of radioactive substances, not because decommissioning work has lowered radiation levels as a whole.
The radiation level at the elevated inspection ground still exceeds 100 microsieverts per hour, making it dangerous for people who remain there for extended periods.
Abe’s inspection ended in six minutes.
The prime minister raised eyebrows, particularly in Fukushima Prefecture, in 2013 when he gave a speech to promote Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Concerning the Fukushima nuclear plant, he told International Olympic Committee members, “Let me assure you, the situation is under control.”
An hour before he inspected the plant in April, Abe attended the opening ceremony of the new government building of Okuma, one of the two towns that host the nuclear plant.
The ceremony followed the lifting of an evacuation order for part of the town on April 10.
“We were able to take a step forward in reconstruction,” Abe said.
The central government uses the number of evacuees to show the degree of progress in reconstruction work.
In April 2018, Abe said in the Diet that the lifting of evacuation orders has reduced the number of evacuees to one-third of the peak.
According to the Reconstruction Agency, the number of people who evacuated in and outside of Fukushima Prefecture, including those who were under no orders to leave, peaked at about 160,000. But the initial evacuation orders for 11 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture have been gradually lifted, and the agency now puts the total number at about 40,000.
About 71,000 people were officially registered as residents of areas that were ordered to evacuate. Now, only about 11,000 people live in those zones.
This means that about 60,000 people have not returned to the homes where they were living before the nuclear accident unfolded in March 2011.
The gap of 20,000 can be attributed to how the agency classifies or declassifies evacuees.
NOT COUNTED AS EVACUEES
The Reconstruction Agency sent a notice in August 2014 to all prefectures that have counted the number of evacuees.
It defined “evacuees” as people who moved to different places because of the nuclear disaster and have the “will” to return to their original homes.
The notice also said that if it is difficult to perceive their “will,” they can be regarded as people who have ended their evacuation if they bought new homes or made arrangements for new accommodations.
Based on the notice, people in Fukushima Prefecture who have bought new homes during their evacuation or settled down in public restoration housing or disaster public housing are regarded as living “stable” lives and are not counted as evacuees.
“It is not a problem because we continue supporting them even if they are removed from the evacuee statistics,” a prefectural government official said.
An official of the Reconstruction Agency said, “The judgment is made by each prefecture, so we are not in a position to say much.”
However, the prefecture has not confirmed all evacuees’ will to return to their homes. In addition, those who are removed from the list of evacuees are not informed of their new status.
Many people bought homes in new locations during their prolonged evacuations although they still hope to return to their hometowns in the disaster area.
Yumiko Yamazaki, 52, has a house in Okuma in a “difficult-to-return” zone.
But because she moved to public restoration housing outside of the town, she is not considered an evacuee by the agency and the prefecture.
“I had to leave my town although I didn’t want to,” Yamazaki said. “It is so obvious that the government wants to make the surface appearance look good by reducing the number of evacuees.”
“I can’t allow them to try to pretend the evacuation never happened,” Yamazaki said.
Critics say the central government’s emphasis of positive aspects and the downplaying of inconvenient truths in the evacuee statistics have much in common with its response to the suspected nepotism scandals involving school operator Moritomo Gakuen and the Kake Educational Institution.
It sends shockwaves through your life’: how the media raids will silence whistleblowers, Guardian Christopher Knaus@knausc 9 Jun 2019
Whistleblowers who revealed government wrongdoing already face jail. This week’s raids will only deter others from coming forward “……… The warrant listed David McBride as the police’s first subject of interest. McBride unleashed powerful forces when he decided to go public years ago with what he discovered as a military lawyer serving in Afghanistan.
Those forces have already exacted a crippling toll.
“[My ex-wife] would probably say – and I think there’s an element of truth in it – it killed David McBride,” he says. “The man that she married was killed by the defence force, and I’m someone who’s different.
“Doing something like this, taking on the whole government, it sends shockwaves through your life, and not much survives, really.”
Wednesday’s raid on the ABC prompted outrage among civil rights groups, transparency campaigners, journalists and unions. It came just a day after federal police searched the home of the News Corp reporter Annika Smethurst, searching for documents related to her coverage of proposed new surveillance powers for the Australian Signals Directorate. 2GB host Ben Fordham’s revelation about asylum seeker boats attempting to reach Australia from Sri Lanka is also the subject of a home affairs investigation, as the department attempts to identify his source.
The raids have not occurred in isolation. Multiple whistleblowers who revealed government wrongdoing are currently being pursued through the courts with alarming vigour.
The government is prosecuting Witness K and Bernard Collaery, who revealed an unlawful spy operation against Timor-Leste during oil negotiations. Richard Boyle, the tax office worker who revealed the government’s heavy-handed approach to recovering debts, faces a long stint in jail if convicted.
Assoc Prof Joseph Fernandez, a journalism lecturer at Curtin University, has spent years studying source protection and the Australian media. He says the consequences of this week’s raids are clear, regardless of whether journalists are charged.
“Such raids, regardless of what happens here to journalists or to others, will have an immeasurable censoring effect on contact people have with journalists,” Fernandez says.
“In my research in this area over the years, it was clear that even senior public servants are apprehensive about having contact with journalists, even about mundane things, in the wake of laws that enable the authorities to track down sources.”
The McBride matter had been bubbling away for some time before Wednesday’s raid. Guardian Australia understands police have been talking to the ABC since at least September, trying to find a way to access the documents without resorting to a very public raid. …….
7th June 2019 On behalf of the ABC, I have registered with the Federal Government my grave concern over this week’s raid by the federal police on the national broadcaster.
An untrammelled media is important to the public discourse and to democracy. It is the way in which Australian citizens are kept informed about the world and its impact on their daily lives.
Observance of this basic tenet of the community’s right to know has driven my involvement in public life and my career in journalism for almost five decades.
The raid is unprecedented – both to the ABC and to me.
In a frank conversation with the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, Paul Fletcher, yesterday, I said the raid, in its very public form and in the sweeping nature of the information sought, was clearly designed to intimidate.
It is impossible to ignore the seismic nature of this week’s events: raids on two separate media outfits on consecutive days is a blunt signal of adverse consequences for news organisations who make life uncomfortable for policy makers and regulators by shining lights in dark corners and holding the powerful to account.
I also asked for assurances that the ABC not be subject to future raids of this sort. Mr Fletcher declined to provide such assurances, while noting the “substantial concern” registered by the Corporation.
There has been much reference in recent days to the need to observe the rule of law.
While there are legitimate matters of national security that the ABC will always respect, the ABC Act and Charter are explicit about the importance of an independent public broadcaster to Australian culture and democracy.
Public interest is best served by the ABC doing its job, asking difficult questions and dealing with genuine whistle-blowers who risk their livelihoods and reputations to bring matters of grave import to the surface. Neither the journalists nor their sources should be treated as criminals.
In my view, legitimate journalistic endeavours that expose flawed decision-making or matters that policy makers and public servants would simply prefer were secret, should not automatically and conveniently be classed as issues of national security.
The onus must always be on the public’s right to know. If that is not reflected sufficiently in current law, then it must be corrected.
As ABC Chair, I will fight any attempts to muzzle the national broadcaster or interfere with its obligations to the Australian public. Independence is not exercised by degrees. It is absolute.
Peter Dutton denies prior knowledge of AFP raids on ABC and News Corp, Guardian, Sarah Martin and Kate Lyons 5 Jun 2019
Home affairs minister says police investigations are independent of government as he praised the agency’s ‘important’ work. The home affairs minister Peter Dutton says he had no prior knowledge of raids on the ABC and the home of a News Corp journalist, and has praised the “important” work of the Australian federal police.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An attorney is asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the Tennessee Valley Authority’s new whistleblowing program before it’s implemented.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reports attorney Billie Garde filed a letter Tuesday saying TVA fired some of its nuclear employee whistleblowing program managers. Garde represents the managers. She says the move is designed to stop safety complaints and silence workers.
TVA’s Chief Nuclear Officer Tim Rausch says the whistleblower program is being improved after worker complaints and other criticism. He says the managers weren’t fired but don’t qualify for the new positions within the overhauled program. Rausch says they are being offered other positions within the utility.
TVA has three nuclear plants: Browns Ferry in Athens, Alabama; Sequoyah in Soddy-Daisy; and Watts Bar in Spring City
Feds offer to speed cleanup of SC’s deadly nuclear waste. But plan isn’t that simple, The State, BY SAMMY FRETWELL
JUNE 06, 2019
The U.S. Department of Energy is proposing to ship what has long been considered some of the world’s most deadly nuclear waste from South Carolina to burial grounds in the western United States under a plan to reclassify some of the atomic refuse as less dangerous.
According to plans, the energy department would classify some of the Savannah River Site’s high-level waste as low-level waste, a type of atomic refuse that is considered less toxic. That, in turn, would allow the material to be shipped to low-level nuclear waste disposal sites in the deserts of Utah and Texas.
“We want to look at taking the waste stream in South Carolina and reclassifying it and moving it out of state,’’ said Paul Dabbar, the energy department’s undersecretary for science.
The DOE’s plan for reclassifying and shipping waste from SRS is part of a larger proposal to change the definition of nuclear waste at weapons complexes in other parts of the country. The agency says it has historically considered much of the waste that resulted from Cold War weapons production to be high-level. Now, it will consider how radioactive the material is, the DOE said.
In addition to the Savannah River Site, nuclear weapons sites in Washington and Idaho that also have high level waste could benefit from the department’s plan to change the definition of nuclear waste, the agency said.
The SRS proposal and a companion plan for nuclear sites across the country, released Wednesday, drew immediate criticism from environmental groups, which said the plans are potentially dangerous.
But the Department of Energy says reclassifying some of the high level waste would occur only after a thorough analysis and environmental studies.
Federal records show the agency will look at whether 10,000 gallons of Savannah River Site wastewater should still should be classified as high level waste or downgraded to another category. For now, the DOE said it is only considering the 10,000 gallons for disposal at a licensed faciliity outside South Carolina, records show. The wastewater comes from the Defense Waste Processing Facility, an industrial plant that converts high-level waste into glass in an effort to neutralize its danger.
Reclassifying waste would speed cleanup at the Savannah River Site, the agency said. The 310-square-mile weapons complex has tons of atomic refuse left over from Cold War weapons production. Much of that waste is held in about four-dozen aging tanks, some of which have cracked. A handful of tanks have been emptied, but most still contain waste……..
Geoff Fettus, who tracks nuclear waste issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said reclassifying waste might also allow officials at SRS to avoid cleaning up some material altogether.
Fettus said that if some of the waste at SRS is no longer considered high level, the DOE could leave the material there and walk away. If that happens, it would not be the first time at SRS. In 2002, the energy department offered plans to reclassify waste so some residual material could remain in the tanks.
“That is the big thing,’’ Fettus said. “I think this is just as much about what stays in the tanks, as to what comes out.’’
Fettus said the environmental group has serious reservations about the plan being advanced by President Donald Trump.
“The Trump administration is moving to fundamentally alter more than 50 years of national consensus on how the most toxic, radioactive and dangerous waste in the world is managed and ultimately disposed of,’’ Fettus told The State newspaper. “No matter what they call it, this waste needs a permanent, well-protected disposal option to guard it for generations to come.’’
Tom Clements, who heads Savannah River Site Watch, also said the proposal is unwise and unsafe.
“DOE’s questionable rewriting of the regulations is simply a cost-cutting measure designed to get thousands of HLW (high level waste) containers dumped off site,’’ he said in an email.
Any waste that is reclassified would not be sent to South Carolina’s Barnwell County low-level nuclear waste site near SRS, but to commercial facilities near the Texas-New Mexico border and in Utah, energy officials said. The low-level Utah waste site is owned by the same company that runs the aging Barnwell County low-level waste dump, which has leaked.
“It allows us to dispose of this into facilities … in Texas or in Utah,’’ Dabbar said….. https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article231181298.html
XY Chelsea (2019) Official Trailer | Chelsea Manning SHOWTIME Documentary
In Showtime’s “XY Chelsea,” filmmaker Tim Travers Hawkins aims to reframe the media’s narrative around the Army whistleblower, who identifies as transgender. HuffPost By Curtis M. Wong, 5 June 19 Filmmaker Tim Travers Hawkins aims to relay former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning’s “sense of principles and sacrifice” in a new, sure-to-be-controversial documentary.
NUCLEAR fall-out from the Chernobyl power station disaster could be responsible for the global rise in cancers and diseases, according to a terrifying new book.
By SIMON OSBORNE Mar 15, 2019US historian Kate Brown has been investigating the impact of radiation from the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster and claims the real death toll has been deliberately covered up by organisations with vested interests. She alleges scientists joined forces with the UN, Red Cross and World Health Organisation to withhold evidence of hundreds of thousands of people who have died as a result of the 1986 nuclear explosion in what is now Ukraine.
She said at the time it was widely agreed and underestimated by scientists that the accident would cause around 200 deaths over 80 years.
But in her book, Manual For Survival: A Chernobyl Guide To The Future, she claims: “International scientists suppressed evidence of a cancer epidemic among children.”
Cancer Research UK acknowledged rates of the disease were rising but said this war largely down to people were living longer coupled with increased consumption of red and processed meats, increasing obesity in the west, and a culture of sunbathing and sunbeds were largely to blame.
One in two people are now likely to develop the disease rather than the previous estimates of one in three.
Ms Brown believes the increase in cancer may be linked to Chernobyl while governments and nuclear industry chiefs have dodged responsibility.
She said: “Minimising both the number of deaths so far and the on-going health consequences of the Chernobyl disaster provided cover for nuclear powers to dodge lawsuits and uncomfortable investigations in the 1990s.”
She criticises a lot of senior figures, both past and present, for not admitting that nuclear radiation is really poisonous and therefore not providing adequate protection or support for people who may still be affected.
Her book details how the threshold for the amount of radiation legally allowed in produce exported for consumption in the US is surprisingly high and could be dangerous.
It also describes what the nuclear plant workers and local residents saw and experienced when the explosion tore through the power station.
It reveals how workers clearing the devastated site were advised by Soviet doctors to drink vodka throughout the day because they claimed it would stimulate the liver and cleanse the body of radiation.
Ms Brown conducted her research over four years and relied on 27 archives of information from Europe, the US and the former Soviet Union.
She reckons the actual death told could be as high as 150,000 for Ukraine alone over the past three decades.
She concludes by calling for the impact of nuclear radiation on human health and the facts and figures surrounding to Chernobyl to be reassessed.
Sweden’s Uppsala District Court has found in favour of Assange: the court ruled NOT to detain Assange in absentia. The preliminary investigation can proceed without Assange’s extradition to Sweden. This was always the case as Assange has always cooperated with the investigation.
Suzie Dawson on Julian Assange’s mistreatment #FreeAssange
Assange won’t face charges over role in devastating CIA leak The decision surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to go after the WikiLeaks founder on Espionage Act charges.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not face charges for publishing Vault 7, a series of documents detailing the CIA’s arsenal of digital code used to hack devices Politico, By NATASHA BERTRAND, 6/2/19
The U.S. Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case.
It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. ……
Prosecutors were stymied by several factors. First, the government is facing a ticking clock in its efforts to extradite Assange to the United States from the United Kingdom, where he is being held. Extradition laws require the U.S. to bring any additional charges against Assange within 60 days of the first indictment, which prosecutors filed in March, accusing Assange of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into military computers.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not face charges for publishing Vault 7, a series of documents detailing the CIA’s arsenal of digital code used to hack devices | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case.
It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the WikiLeaks founder on more controversial Espionage Act charges that some legal experts said would not hold up in court. The decision also means that Assange will not face punishment for publishing one of the CIA’s most potent arsenals of digital code used to hack devices, dubbed Vault 7. The leak — one of the most devastating in CIA history — not only essentially rendered those tools useless for the CIA, it gave foreign spies and rogue hackers access to them.
Prosecutors were stymied by several factors.
First, the government is facing a ticking clock in its efforts to extradite Assange to the United States from the United Kingdom, where he is being held. Extradition laws require the U.S. to bring any additional charges against Assange within 60 days of the first indictment, which prosecutors filed in March, accusing Assange of helping former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into military computers.
Second, prosecutors were worried about the sensitivity of the Vault 7 materials, according to an official familiar with the deliberations over whether to charge Assange. Broaching such a classified subject in court risks exposing even more CIA secrets, legal experts said. The CIA has never officially confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, even though analysts widely believe them to be authentic……
June 2, 2019 Former Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says Julian Assange could die in prison and blames the apparent deterioration in the WikiLeaks founder’s heath on how he is being treated by the US and UK governments.
Speaking on ‘Ron Paul Liberty Report, the 83-year-old accuses the US government of pursuing Assange and says they would like to either challenge him with a death penalty or a life time in prison ‘for being a journalist.’
The Libertarian calls Assange’s a ‘tragic story’ and describes his health as ‘very very bad,’ commenting that friends of the whistleblower are worried that his health may not hold up.
Assange, 47, has been moved to the hospital wing at Belmarsh prison and has been found too unwell to appear by video-link as scheduled at Westminster magistrates’ court.
His lawyers reported it was not possible to have a normal conversation with him.
U.S. authorities accuse Assange of violating the Espionage Act over the publication of secret documents.
Sweden wants to question him about sexual misconduct allegations.
Paul also compares Assange’s plight to the case of Otto Frederick Warmbier, an American college student imprisoned in North Korea in 2016.
In June 2017, Warmbier was released by North Korea in a vegetative state and died soon afterward.
Paul goes on to ask what the ramifications would be if Assange is much sicker than is being revealed and dies in prison as the result of how his case has been handled by Washington and London.
‘If he had a terminal disease or something happens to him, good, bad, or whatever and he dies in the prison, how would we look a lot different to the North Koreans on the surface?’ Paul questions.
Paul’s claims come as an independent expert for the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council who visited Assange in prison says he ‘showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture.’
Nils Melzer, the special rapporteur on torture, visited Assange on May 9 with two medical experts in examining potential victims of torture and ill-treatment, as reported by The U.N. human rights office on Friday.
The UK, along with the US and Ecuador, has engaged in a ‘relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr Assange’, Melzer said.
He added it was ‘obvious’ that Assange’s health had been affected by ‘the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment’ he faced for years.
In ‘Ron Paul Liberty Report,’ Paul goes on to slam the American media and journalists for their lack of reporting on Assange’s health problems, adding that news of his ill health came out via a Swedish newspaper.
Paul adds there is ‘not much good journalism around any more’ and that by not doing more reporting on Assange, journalists ‘don’t want to protect their right to be a journalist.’
Paul defends Assange’s leaking of information saying it is ‘not like he spied for the enemy.’
‘His crime was telling us the truth,’ Paul says. ‘He was telling the truth, he was revealing information … he is a whistleblower in the form of a journalist,’ Paul added.
Assange lived in Ecuador’s Embassy in London in 2012 until he was arrested in April after Ecuadorean officials withdrew his asylum status.
nuclear-news 