America’s toxic Superfund sites to be ignored, as Pruitt cuts EPA funding?
Batavick: EPA cuts will have real consequences http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/opinion/columnists/cc-op-batavick-20180108-story.html, Frank BatavickContact Reporter
Since we were mostly a close bunch in high school — just 128 grads in 1963 — I thought it appropriate to share my friend’s sad news with other classmates and ask for their good thoughts and prayers. Just 12 days later, my friend’s sister contacted me and said he had died peacefully at home. I relayed this sorrowful update to the class.
Among the responders was a classmate who told me that he and my now-departed friend, as well as other kids from the neighborhood, were all regular playmates. Their “playground” in this blue-collar city on the Delaware River was a swampy landfill that was once the location of a gas mantle factory from the 1890s through the 1940s. Gas mantles were small mesh socks coated with radium and thorium that covered a lamp’s gas jet. When ignited, they brightly illuminated America’s streets and houses before electrification.
Today the mantle factory’s former setting is a Superfund site, as classified by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1996. The feds have spent more than $350 million ridding the area and adjacent locales of hazardous wastes, including that deadly radium and thorium. As these elements decay, they give off gamma radiation and radon gas, both proven carcinogens.
The sensible reaction to this horror story would be to double our efforts to protect the environment so today’s and tomorrow’s kids won’t suffer the same horrible fate as these afflicted adults. But then we don’t live in sensible times.Under EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the agency is slowly being dismantled. He and President Donald Trump have already canceled or overridden some key environmental regulations on coal waste and vehicle emissions, and the 2018 appropriations bill cuts the EPA’s budget for the Superfund program and climate change research.
Pruitt is on record denying the existence of global warming and, as a result of his staff’s disgust with his beliefs and a federal job freeze and buy-outs, more than 700 employees — 200 or more of them scientists — have left the agency in the last year. According to the union representing EPA staff, Pruitt’s ultimate goal is to cut “at least 3,100 full-time employees.”
Will this make our environment safer? Better yet, do you pack apples in your kids’ lunches? Last February, Pruitt withdrew a proposed ban on pesticides containing chlorpyrifos, used on apples, oranges and cherries across the country. This was despite the EPA’s own scientists, supported by the 66,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics, arguing that even low exposure levels to chlorpyrifos during early childhood increases the risk of learning disabilities, including reduced IQ and developmental delay, and behavioral problems, like ADHD. For expectant and new mothers, the agency’s scientists concluded that even the smallest amounts of the chemical can impact the brain development of fetuses and infants.
Chlorpyrifos are considered so toxic that their use has been banned in homes, schools, day care facilities, parks, hospitals, nursing homes and malls since 2000. But Pruitt says they are OK for your fruit bowl. The pesticide has also proven hazardous to farmworkers and approximately 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species.
A not-so-much fun fact is that Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of Lorsban which contains chlorpyrifos, underwrote President Trump’s inaugural parties to the tune of $1 million. Draw your own conclusions.
As things go, it’s not an especially big leap from a toxic playground in New Jersey in 1955 to an apple orchard in Maryland in 2018. The difference is that today we are supposed to be more discerning because some of us have reaped a sad harvest of family and friends who didn’t know a Superfund from Superman when they were growing up.
So what lessons have we learned? For me it is the undying power of greed — the greed that once caused a company to bury its toxic wastes instead of properly disposing of them, and the greed evinced by the current administration that’s at the beck and call of its corporate benefactors, whether they produce energy or chemicals. This hasn’t changed over the years, even when the guinea pigs are our own sons and daughters.
Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.
Is safety from nuclear attack a State or a Federal responsibility?
Federal responsibility in nuclear attack alerts is unclear, AP, By CALEB JONES, HONOLULU (AP) 18 Jan 18, — A timeline shows Hawaii officials botched efforts to immediately correct a false missile alert over the weekend, taking more than 20 minutes to contact federal authorities for approval they didn’t need and then taking another 15 minutes to cancel the alert that was sent to mobile devices statewide.
The astonishing error and dismal response has prompted both state and federal investigations and left one of the state’s U.S. senators wondering aloud if top brass at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency should be replaced.
“I think (Gov.) David Ige has a tough decision in front of him, and it’s his call,” Sen. Brian Schatz told reporters Wednesday. Either way, the state has a long road ahead in restoring the public’s confidence in the alert system, the Democrat said.
Nearly 40 minutes passed between the time Hawaii officials fired off the bogus alert about an incoming missile over the weekend and the moment the notice was canceled.
The confusion raises questions about whether any state should be solely responsible for notifying the public of such an event. The debate comes as North Korea claims it is testing weapons that could deliver a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile to Hawaii, Guam and even the U.S. mainland.
Hawaii is the only state in the nation with a pre-programmed alert that can be quickly sent to wireless devices if a ballistic missile is heading toward the U.S. FEMA said Hawaii did not require its approval to cancel the alert on Saturday.
U.S. Reps. Colleen Hanabusa and Tulsi Gabbard, both of Hawaii, have asked the House Armed Services Committee to hold a hearing on the issue.
They said in a letter to the committee Tuesday that it’s understandable for states to have primary jurisdiction over warnings for floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.
“However, when it comes to matters of national security, including whether a ballistic missile has been launched against the United States, one must question whether any state emergency management agency is best suited for that role,” the letter says………
President Donald Trump did not make any public comments about the false alert on Saturday. He was at his golf club in West Palm Beach, accompanied by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Asked about the alert on Sunday, the president said it was “a state thing.”…….https://apnews.com/81a377f739c64036afd035e2d95c4576
USA jet -with 4 nuclear bombs on board – crashed in Greenland 50 years ago
Director of the Health Physics and Radiation Protection Graduate Program and Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown University January 18, 2018 Fifty years ago, on Jan. 21, 1968, the Cold War grew significantly colder. It was on this day that an American B-52G Stratofortress bomber, carrying four nuclear bombs, crashed onto the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord in the northwest corner of Greenland, one of the coldest places on Earth. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Danes were not pleased.
The radioactivity was released because the nuclear warheads had been compromised. The impact from the crash and the subsequent fire had broken open the weapons and released their radioactive contents, but luckily, there was no nuclear detonation.
To be specific, HOBO 28’s nuclear weapons were actually hydrogen bombs. As I explain in my book, “Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,” a hydrogen bomb (or H-bomb) is a second-generation type of nuclear weapon that is much more powerful than the two atomic bombsdropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those two bombs were “fission” bombs – bombs that get their energy from the splitting (fission) of very large atoms (such as uranium and plutonium) into smaller atoms.
In contrast, HOBO 28’s bombs were fusion bombs – bombs that get their energy from the union (fusion) of the very small nuclei of hydrogen atoms. Each of the four Mark 28 F1 hydrogen bombs that HOBO 28 carried were nearly 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (1,400 kilotons versus 15 kilotons).
Fusion bombs release so much more energy than fission bombs that it’s hard to comprehend. For example, if a fission bomb like Hiroshima’s were dropped on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., it’s likely that the White House (about 1.5 miles away) would suffer little direct damage. In contrast, if just one of the Mark 28 F1 hydrogen bombs were dropped on the Capitol building, it would destroy the White House as well as everything else in Washington, D.C. (a destructive radius of about 7.5 miles). It is for this reason that North Korea’s recent claim of achieving hydrogen bomb capabilities is so very worrisome.
Nuclear Explosion Power Comparison
After the crash, the United States and Denmark had very different ideas about how to deal with HOBO 28’s wreckage and radioactivity. The U.S. wanted to just let the bomber wreckage sink into the fjord and remain there, but Denmark wouldn’t allow that. Denmark wanted all the wreckage gathered up immediately and moved, along with all of the radioactively contaminated ice, to the United States. Since the fate of the Thule Air Base hung in the balance, the U.S. agreed to Denmark’s demands……… https://theconversation.com/50-years-ago-a-us-military-jet-crashed-in-greenland-with-4-nuclear-bombs-on-board-87155
Amid North Korea tensions, America revs up nuclear bomber deployments to Guam
The US just majorly stepped up nuclear bomber deployments to Guam amid soaring North Korea tensions http://www.businessinsider.com/us-deploys-nuclear-capable-bombers-guam-north-korea-tensions-b-1-b-2-b-522018-1/?r=AU&IR=T Alex Lockie 17 Jan 18
What if there were a real attack on Hawaii?
Hawaii: Here’s what would happen if there was a real nuclear attack, ABC News
By Anne Barker, 16 Jan 18, Consider the following scenario: a nuclear missile is launched from North Korea on a direct path for Honolulu.
For at least five minutes, Hawaiians are blissfully unaware of the danger.
Suddenly, the US Pacific Command detects the missile in mid-air and sends an alert to Hawaii’s State Warning Point, which instantly activates its public warning system.
Sirens begin blaring across the state and an alert is sent to mobile phones, radio and television.
Panicked residents and visitors have no more than 15 minutes to find somewhere to find cover — but there are no public fallout shelters.
Twenty minutes after launch, a nuclear bomb detonates 1,000 feet above the Hawaiian capital, and thousands are killed and many more are left with burns and radiation poison.
That exact scenario is being seriously considered
It’s the very real scenario Hawaiian authorities are preparing for, laid out in a document about the US state’s preparedness for a nuclear attack.
Although Saturday’s missile warning was a false alarm, US authorities believe there’s a very high likelihood that Hawaii — particularly Honolulu and the island of Oahu — would be the primary target of a North Korean nuclear attack.
The “Emergency Preparedness” document, published in November by Hawaii’s Emergency Management Authority, warns that Hawaiian residents and visitors would have “less than 12 to 15 minutes” to seek shelter in the event of a real nuclear missile threat.
Such an attack would “likely occur without prior warning”, it warns.
What would the toll be?
It says that a single-kiloton range nuclear weapon detonated at 1,000 feet could kill almost 18,000 people and cause 50,000 to 120,000 trauma and burn casualties.
As well as widespread building collapses and structural fires, up to 30 per cent of survivors would suffer acute radiation syndrome.
The document, while offering advice to residents on how to survive a nuclear attack, also confirms that Hawaii has no public fallout shelters or shelter supply caches.
Instead, it advises people to seek shelter in a building away from windows, or lie flat on the ground.
Hawaiians are unprepared
The actions of many panicked residents after Saturday’s false alarm were a far cry from what authorities recommend, and show just how unprepared Hawaii is for a North Korean nuclear missile attack……. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-15/hawaii-what-would-happen-if-there-was-a-real-nuke/9330162
Coal and nuclear industries still pushing for taxpayer bailouts, despite knock-back from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC)
FERC rejected Perry’s plan, but coal and nuclear are still asking for bailouts http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/368814-ferc-rejected-perrys-plan-but-coal-and-nuclear-are-still-askingBY MARY ANNE HITT, — 01/16/18 This is set to be the year that America decides if it values clean, affordable energy or political cronyism in its electricity markets.
TheFederal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) recent rejection of Secretary of Energy Rick Perry’s plan to force electricity customers across the country to pay billions of dollars to prop up uneconomic coal and nuclear plants is only the tip of the iceberg in the fossil fuel industry’s bailout efforts.
Today, there are still numerous proposals making their way through state legislatures, public utility commissions, electric market operators, and Congress that will unfairly prop up fossil fuel plants that can’t compete in America’s modern energy markets.
These proposals are rooted in the entitled belief by fossil fuel billionaires that any competition that outperforms their lumbering, polluting power plants — especially clean energy resources like solar, wind, and energy efficiency — is somehow illegitimate.
The proposals themselves have gotten traction recently because over the past decade, clean energy resources have displaced hundreds of coal and nuclear plants as American customers have steadily cut down on their electricity usage and demanded cleaner, safer energy at a lower cost. As a consequence, these new resources have also created a vibrant clean energy economy that employs hundreds of thousands of workers.
Fossil fuel billionaires are fearful that this trend will create a permanent shift away from their dirty and dangerous energy, and are subsequently trying to force electricity customers to pay hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars to prop up their plants.
The most egregious example of this political cronyism was Perry’s directive to FERC to create new rules that would have forced electricity customers to pay extra money for the energy produced by uneconomic coal and nuclear plants.
This expensive, foolish directive was rejected by FERC. Despite its failure, however, there are still numerous other proposals which are not as well publicized, but equally costly attempts by fossil fuel billionaires to prop up their plants.
Washington energy lobbyists, for example, have already been busy pushing coal tax credits and the extension of nuclear industry tax incentives in this year’s spending packages.
In Indiana, Sierra Club caught the state’s public utility commission approving a massive bailout of two coal-burning power plants for a local utility, NIPSCO, and is considering legal action to overturn it. The bailout came after uncontested NIPSCO data was revealed which showed that retiring the plants, instead of bailing them out, would save customers as much as $420 million.
In Ohio, FirstEnergy has tried for years, and is still trying, to get the state government to bail out its obsolete coal and nuclear plants that can’t compete with the Midwest’s legion of wind farms. Consumer and environmental advocates have defeated this bailout multiple times, but the utility keeps coming back to try again.
In the Great Plain states, reports show that throughout the region, utilities have been taking advantage of loopholes to force customers to bail out local coal plants to the tune of $300 million over a two year period in the Southwest Power Pool, home to abundant cheap wind power.
Electricity markets that are supposed to be competitive and open to all resources aren’t immune from efforts to rig the system against cleaner energy.
For example, on the same day FERC rejected Energy Department’s misguided proposal, New England’s market operator filed a proposal that would obstruct states’ rights to pursue cost-effective renewable energy projects and make it easier to prop up dirtier, costly power plants that should retire. PJM, which manages the electric system for much of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, has also threatened to override public policies for clean energy in order to raise consumer costs and bail out unnecessary power plants, despite a massive surplus of electric capacity.
This recent, ongoing wave of proposals to bailout coal and nuclear plants on behalf of billionaires is a very real threat that will stifle innovation, increase costs, and corrupt democratic processes that have served us well for decades.
The backlash against these bailouts has been overwhelming thus far, but it will only be effective if it can stop all of them in their tracks. A reliable, affordable, and clean energy future hangs on the decisions we make in 2018 and we must choose our decisions wisely.
Mary Anne Hitt is the director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
University of California grilled over Los Alamos nuclear lab safety issues
UC grilled over LANL safety issues, Lamonitor.com, By , January 15, 2018 Three university systems went before the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities Friday to tell the coalition once again why they would be the best candidate to take on the job of operating and managing the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The University of California, Texas A&M made full presentations while the University of Texas System gave a short statement at the end of the meeting during the public comment portion.
All three systems submitted bids to the National Nuclear Security Administration before the administration’s deadline.
UC Vice President for National Laboratories Kim Budil faced some tough questions before the coalition from Coalition Chairman and Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales.
The University of California has been a partner in the lab’s operation since it’s inception in 1943.
“Clearly there were a lot of mistakes made of the last couple of years in Los Alamos that led to the shut down of WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) and the threat that ultimately posed to the community for those mistakes,” Gonzales said. “I’m interested in how the University of California during that time and what levels of assurance as communities we would get, if you were selected, that it wouldn’t happen again.”
Gonzales also wanted to know, after all the years the university has been a part of the management of the laboratory, why there are “still families struggling, there’s still big challenges in poverty and opioid addiction … all of these other things that you shouldn’t have to solve on your own as a contractor, but quite honestly donated money to a foundation and feeling that might be the end of an obligation is not necessarily what I would use as a good corporate citizen.”
Gonzales also wanted to know why the coalition often had to go alone to Washington, D.C. to ask for money every year without any help from UC……. http://www.lamonitor.com/content/uc-grilled-over-lanl-safety-issues
Hawaii false alarm dramatically highlights nuclear war risk with Trump
False Alarm Adds to Real Alarm About Trump’s Nuclear Risk , NYT, By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, JAN. 13, 2018 It was the sort of nightmare that had only ever been real for most people’s parents or grandparents — the fear of an impending nuclear attack. “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii,” read the emergency alert that residents of the Aloha State received on Saturday morning. “Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”
The authorities quickly announced that the alert was a mistake. But it made tangible the growing fears that after decades of leaders trying to more safely control the world’s nuclear arsenals, President Trump has increased the possibility of those weapons being used.
At a time when many are questioning whether Mr. Trump ought to be allowed anywhere near the nuclear “button,” he is moving ahead with plans to develop new nuclear weapons and expanding the circumstances in which they’d be used. Such actions break with years of American nuclear policy. They also make it harder to persuade other nations to curb their nuclear ambitions or forgo them entirely.
Mr. Trump has boasted about the size and power of America’s nuclear arsenal, threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, pushed for a massive buildup of an arsenal that already has too many — 4,000 — warheads and wondered aloud why the United States possesses such weapons if it isn’t prepared to use them.
Now, as he tries to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons capability and ensure that Iran never acquires one, Mr. Trump is poised to make public a new policy that commits America to an increasing investment in those very weapons, according to a draft document made public by HuffPost and confirmed by The Times.
…….. The proposed nuclear policy says a more aggressive nuclear posture is warranted because the world is more dangerous, with China, North Korea and Iran cited as concerns. Yet blowing up the Iran deal would free Tehran to resume its nuclear activities and make the world less safe. In other words, Mr. Trump’s approach makes no sense.
Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, signed in 1968, the United States and Russia promised to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons. They made significant, although insufficient, progress. After reductions under a succession of past presidents, the American stockpile is 85 percent smaller than it was at the height of the Cold War. Negotiations on further reductions have stalled in recent years as Russia, threatened by America’s superior conventional arsenal, became more reliant on nuclear weapons, and there is no serious sign that Mr. Trump wants to revive the talks.
President Barack Obama made a down payment on a saner policy by narrowing to “extreme circumstances” the conditions under which nuclear weapons would be used and ruling out their use against most non-nuclear countries. Mr. Trump’s policy also talks about “extreme circumstances, ” but it dangerously broadens the definition to include “significant non-nuclear strategic attacks,” which could mean using nuclear weapons to respond to cyber, biological and chemical weapon attacks.
Until Mr. Trump, no one could imagine the United States ever using a nuclear weapon again. America’s conventional military is more than strong enough to defend against most threats. But Mr. Trump has so shaken this orthodoxy that Congress has begun debating limits on his unilateral authority to launch nuclear weapons. Expanding the instances when America might use nuclear weapons could also make it easier for other nuclear-armed countries to justify using their own arsenals against adversaries.
As the residents of Hawaii can tell you, it’s a risk the world cannot afford. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/opinion/sunday/trump-nuclear-weapons-war.html?smid=li-share
Possibility of first strike, and increased nuclear role in USA weapons – leaked draft of USA policy document
New Trump policy could strengthen role of nuclear weapons, Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) 13 Jan 18,- President Donald Trump’s administration could pursue development of new nuclear weaponry and explicitly leave open the possibility of nuclear retaliation for major non-nuclear attacks, if a leaked draft policy document becomes reality.
The Pentagon did not comment on the document, which was published by the Huffington Post website and prompted sharp criticism from arms control experts, who voiced concerns it could raise the risks of nuclear war.
The Defense Department said on Friday it did not discuss “pre-decision, draft copies of strategies and reviews.”
“The Nuclear Posture Review has not been completed and will ultimately be reviewed and approved by the President and the Secretary of Defense,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
One source familiar with the document told Reuters the draft was authentic, but did not say whether it was the same version that will be presented to Trump for approval.
The Republican Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, declared his intent to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in his Nuclear Posture Review in 2010, the last time the policy document was crafted.
The Trump administration’s draft document, said, however, that Obama-era assumptions of a world where nuclear weapons were less relevant proved incorrect.
“The world is more dangerous, not less,” it said.
It more readily embraces the role of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to adversaries, and, as expected, backs a costly modernization of the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that modernizing and maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years will cost more than $1.2 trillion.
…….. Kingston Reif, director for disarmament research at the Arms Control Association advocacy group, said the draft document was a departure from long-standing U.S. policy.
“It expands the scenarios under which the United States might use nuclear weapons and therefore increases the risk of nuclear weapons use,” Rief said.
Although it reaffirmed an Obama-era pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states if they joined and adhered to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the draft introduced a caveat. The United States reserved the right to alter that assurance, given the evolving threat from non-nuclear technologies…… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear/new-trump-policy-could-strengthen-role-of-nuclear-weapons-idUSKBN1F202N
Uranium miners keen to pollute Navajo land even more in the Grand Canyon
Uranium Miners Pushed Hard for a Comeback. They Got Their Wish. NYT, MONUMENT VALLEY, Utah — Garry Holiday grew up among the abandoned mines that dot the Navajo Nation’s red landscape, remnants of a time when uranium helped cement America’s status as a nuclear superpower and fueled its nuclear energy program.
It left a toxic legacy. All but a few of the 500 abandoned mines still await cleanup. Mining tainted the local groundwater. Mr. Holiday’s father succumbed to respiratory disease after years of hacking the ore from the earth.
But now, emboldened by the Trump administration’s embrace of corporate interests, the uranium mining industry is renewing a push into the areas adjacent to Mr. Holiday’s Navajo Nation home: the Grand Canyon watershed to the west, where a new uranium mine is preparing to open, and the Bears Ears National Monument to the north.
The Trump administration is set to shrink Bears Ears by 85 percent next month, potentially opening more than a million acres to mining, drilling and other industrial activity. But even as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke declared last month that “there is no mine within Bears Ears,” there were more than 300 uranium mining claims inside the monument, according to data from Utah’s Bureau of Land Management office that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The vast majority of those claims fall neatly outside the new boundaries of Bears Ears set by the administration. And an examination of local B.L.M. records, including those not yet entered into the agency’s land and mineral use authorizations database, shows that about a third of the claims are linked to Energy Fuels, a Canadian uranium producer. Energy Fuels also owns the Grand Canyon mine, where groundwater has already flooded the main shaft.
Energy Fuels, together with other mining groups, lobbied extensively for a reduction of Bears Ears, preparing maps that marked the areas it wanted removed from the monument and distributing them during a visit to the monument by Mr. Zinke in May.
Energy Fuels’ lobbying campaign, elements of which were first reported by The Washington Post, is part of a wider effort by the long-ailing uranium industry to make a comeback.
The Uranium Producers of America, an industry group, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw regulations proposed by the Obama administration to strengthen groundwater protections at uranium mines. Mining groups have also waged a six-year legal battle against a moratorium on new uranium mining on more than a million acres of land adjacent to the Grand Canyon.
For the Navajo, the drive for new mines is a painful flashback.
“Back then, we didn’t know it was dangerous — nobody told us,” Mr. Holiday said, as he pointed to the gashes of discolored rocks that mark where the old uranium mines cut into the region’s mesas. “Now they know. They know.”
Supporters of the mining say that a revival of domestic uranium production, which has declined by 90 percent since 1980 amid slumping prices and foreign competition, will make the United States a larger player in the global uranium market.
It would expand the country’s energy independence, they say, and give a lift to nuclear power, still a pillar of carbon-free power generation. Canada, Kazakhstan, Australia, Russia and a few other countries now supply most of America’s nuclear fuel.
……….President Trump has prioritized scrapping environmental regulations to help revitalize domestic energy production. His executive order instructing Mr. Zinke to review Bears Ears said that improper monument designations could “create barriers to achieving energy independence.”
In theory, even after President Barack Obama established Bears Ears in 2016, mining companies could have developed any of the claims within it, given proper local approvals. But companies say that expanding the sites, or even building roads to access them, would have required special permits, driving up costs.
……….
A bill introduced last month by Representative John Curtis, Republican of Utah, would codify Mr. Trump’s cuts to the monument while banning further drilling or mining within the original boundaries. But environmental groups say the bill has little chance of passing at all, let alone before the monument is scaled back next month.
“Come February, anyone can place a mining claim on the land,” said Greg Zimmerman, deputy director at the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group.
………Fred Tillman, an environmental engineer with the United States Geological Survey, said during a recent visit to the mine that the groundwater flows in the region were too complex to rule out the risk of contamination.
“There are these big unknowns about the potential impacts on cultural resources, on biological resources, on water resources,” Dr. Tillman said.
A senator steps in Even as troubles persist on the ground, the industry pushback has continued.
In court, mining groups led by the National Mining Association have challenged a 20-year moratorium on mining in the Grand Canyon watershed, established in 2012 by the Obama administration. (The Canyon Mine predates the moratorium.)
A federal court of appeals upheld the moratorium last month. But the United States Forest Service has recommended rolling back the protections, meaning the Trump administration could soon reverse them on its own.
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce, which represents mining interests, also backed an effort to defeat a separate proposal that would have permanently banned mining on 1.7 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon. An Energy Fuels executive testified in Congress against the ban.
And with the help of Republican senators like John Barrasso of Wyoming, the industry has pressed the E.P.A. to withdraw an Obama-era proposalthat would strengthen groundwater protections at uranium mines.
Senator Barrasso has received more than $350,000 in campaign contributions from mining groups over his career. His office did not respond to requests for comment.
The proposal would regulate a mining method called in-situ recovery, which involves injecting a solution into aquifers containing uranium and bringing that solution to the surface for processing — a method criticized by environmentalists as posing wider contamination risks.
……..A town still struggles https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/climate/trump-uranium-bears-ears.html
2018 – a lovely year ahead for America’s bonanza of weapon sales abroad
the global deregulation of American firearms which could, in turn, according to critics, put such weaponry ever more easily in the hands of both criminal gangs and extremist groups
As Donald Trump might put it, major weapons contractors like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin cashed in “bigly” in his first year in office.
This year will undoubtedly be a banner year for arms companies. The only question is: Might it also mark the beginning of a future movement to roll back unconstrained weapons expenditures?
Tomgram: William D. Hartung, 2018 Looks Like an Arms Bonanza OpEd News.com, By Tom Engelhardt 11 Jan 18 This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.
Here’s a cheery note for you: the last mass killing of 2017 took place moments before midnight on New Year’s Eve. A 16-year-old New Jersey boy picked up a semi-automatic rifle, “lawfully acquired” by a member of his family, and killed his father, mother, sister, and a family friend. In doing so, he helped ensure that 2017 would be the deadliest year for mass killings in our modern history. (There is now, on average, slightly more than one mass killing a day in this country.) Nonetheless, guns of all sorts, including military-style assault rifles and even bump stocks like the 12 Stephen Paddock evidently used to turn his semi-automatics into functional automatics and slaughter 58 people from a hotel window in Las Vegas, are still readily available. Nowhere on Earth, not even in ravaged Yemen (which takes second place in gun ownership), is more weaponry available to more types of people. As the years go by here, such weapons are more easily and openly carried with only the most minimal of background checks (or less than that). Think about this: Americans, 4.4% of the people on this planet, own 42% of the guns and commit 31% of the mass killings.
Oh, and I did promise you that there was something cheery in all this, didn’t I? So here it is: the Trump administration, knowing a good thing when it sees it, is now hard at work ensuring that American weapons makers will make it a remarkably similar world. Its officials are intent, it seems, on recreating the planet in an American image. Keep in mind that U.S. arms makers like Lockheed, Raytheon, and General Dynamics already monopolize the global arms market in a way that should (but in this country regularly doesn’t) stagger the imagination. Continue reading
Negotiations continue, as USA keen to market nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 12th Jan 2018, After a lengthy hiatus, negotiations will soon resume between the UnitedStates and Saudi Arabia on an agreement for civil nuclear cooperation.
Concluding a bilateral civil nuclear agreement (often called a “123
agreement,” after the section of the Atomic Energy Act mandating such
agreements for nuclear cooperation with other countries) would enable US
companies to participate in the Saudi Kingdom’s ambitious plans to build a
fleet of nuclear power reactors to meet its growing electricity
requirements.
uranium enrichment, with the United States insisting that Saudi Arabia
accept a legally binding commitment not to engage in enrichment or
plutonium reprocessing and the Saudis refusing to foreclose what they
regard as their sovereign right to pursue nuclear technologies of their
choosing for peaceful purposes.
https://thebulletin.org/us-saudi-civil-nuclear-negotiations-finding-practical-compromise11426
Renewable energy prices rapidly falling, becoming competitive with traditional fuels
City AM , New York, 13th Jan 2018, Renewable energy to be competitive with fossil fuels by 2020 as prices drop. The cost of generating renewable power is falling at an “unprecedented” rate, and by 2020, all renewable technologies will be price competitive with traditional fossil fuels, a new report says.
Since 2010, the cost of generating power from onshore wind has fallen by around a quarter, while solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity costs have dropped by 73 per cent, according to a report published today by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).
Within just two years years, Irena expects solar energy generation costs to halve, and it said the best onshore wind and solar PV projects could be delivering electricity for an equivalent of 3 cents (2 pence) per kilowatt hour (kWh), or less.
The report said the current cost spectrum for fossil fuel power generation ranges from 5 to 17 cents per kWh. In comparison, all current commercial forms of green energy are expected to generate in the range of 3 to 10 cents per kWh by 2020.
“Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now – overwhelmingly – a smart economic one,” said Adnan Amin, Irena’s director general.
http://www.cityam.com/278717/renewable-energy-competitive-fossil-fuels-2020-prices-drop
Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump nominee for White House Environment czar, faked water radiation data
170 MILLION IN U.S. DRINK RADIOACTIVE TAP WATER. TRUMP NOMINEE FAKED DATA TO HIDE CANCER RISK. https://www.ewg.org/research/170-million-us-drink-radioactive-tap-water-trump-nominee-faked-data-hide-cancer-risk#.WlvAYryWbGg By Bill Walker, Editor in Chief, and Wicitra Mahotama, Environmental Analyst, 11 Jan 18, Drinking water for more than 170 million Americans contains radioactive elements at levels that may increase the risk of cancer, according to an EWG analysis of 2010 to 2015 test results from public water systems nationwide.
Radiation in tap water is a serious health threat, especially during pregnancy. But the Environmental Protection Agency’s legal limits for several types of radioactive elements in tap water are badly outdated. And President Trump’s nominee to be the White House environment czar rejects the need for water systems to comply even with those outdated and inadequate standards.
The nominee, Kathleen Hartnett White, former chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, admitted in a 2011 interview that the commission falsified data to make it appear that communities with excessive radiation levels were below the EPA’s limit. She said she did not “believe the science of health effects” to which the EPA subscribes, placing “far more trust” in the work of the TCEQ, which has a reputation of setting polluter-friendly state standards and casually enforcing federal standards.
Last month, after Hartnett White again admitted to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee she knew the TCEQ had ignored the EPA’s radiation regulations, her nomination was sent back to the White House. But on Jan. 8, the White House renominated her, setting up another confirmation vote before the committee, and then by the full Senate.
EWG’s Tap Water Database compiles results of water quality tests for almost 50,000 utilities nationwide. EWG also mapped the nationwide occurrence of radium, the most common radioactive element found in tap water. From 2010 to 2015, more than 22,000 utilities serving over 170 million people in all 50 states reported the presence of radium in their water.
Radioactive elements enter groundwater from natural deposits in the earth’s crust, and the levels can be higher when uranium mining or oil and gas drilling unearth these elements from the rock and soil. They produce radiation called “ionizing” because it can release electrons from atoms and molecules, and turn them into ions.
The EPA has classified all ionizing radiation as carcinogenic. There is clear evidence that high doses of radiation cause cancer in various organs. The probability of developing cancer decreases with lower doses of radiation, but it does not go away.
The developing fetus is especially sensitive to ionizing radiation. At doses higher than are typically found in drinking water, radiation has been shown to impair fetal growth, cause birth defects and damage brain development. But there is no evidence of a dose threshold below which a fetus would be safe from these effects.
Six radioactive contaminants were included in EWG’s Tap Water Database, including radium, radon and uranium. By far the most widespread are two isotopes of radium known as radium-226 and radium-228, which contaminate tap water in every state. The EPA does not have a separate legal limit for each isotope, only for the combined level of the two.
From 2010 to 2015, 158 public water systems serving 276,000 Americans in 27 states reported radium in amounts that exceeded the federal legal limit for combined radium-226 and radium-228.
But federal drinking water standards are based on the cost and feasibility of removing contaminants, not scientific determinations of what is necessary to fully protect human health. And like many EPA tap water standards, the radium limits are based on decades-old research rather than the latest science.
The EPA’s tap water limits on the combined level of the radium isotopes and the combined level of alpha and beta particles were set in 1976. They were retained in 2000, when the uranium standard was established.
To more accurately assess the current threat of radiation in U.S. tap water, we compared levels of the contaminants detected by local utilities not to the EPA’s 41-year-old legal limits, but to the public health goals set in 2006 by the respected and influential California Office of Environmental Hazard Assessment..
California public health goals are not legally enforceable limits, but guidelines for levels of contaminants that pose only a minimal risk – usually defined as no more than one expected case of cancer in every million people who drink the water for a lifetime.
California has separate public health goals for radium-226 and radium-228 that are hundreds of times more stringent than the EPA limit for the two isotopes combined. The EPA standard for radium-226 plus radium-228 is 5 picocuries per liter of water. The California public health goal for radium-226 is 0.05 picocuries per liter, and for radium-228 it is just 0.019 picocuries per liter. The lifetime increased cancer risk at the EPA’s level is 70 cases per 1 million people.
California has the most residents affected by radiation in drinking water. Almost 800 systems serving more than 25 million people – about 64 percent of the state’s population – reported detectable levels of radium-226 and radium-228 combined.
Texas has the most widespread contamination. More than 3,500 utilities serving more than 22 million people – about 80 percent of the state’s population – reported detectable levels of radium-226 and radium-228 combined.
But while Kathleen Hartnett White was chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality from 2003 to 2007, the state regularly and deliberately lowered the levels of radiation in tap water it reported to the EPA.
A 2011 investigation by KHOU-TV of Houston unearthed TCEQ emails documenting the deception. Instead of reporting the levels measured in laboratory tests, TCEQ would first subtract the test’s margin of error. Because TCEQ’s falsifying of data made it appear that the system met EPA standards, the system did not have to inform its customers that their tap water contained dangerous levels of radiation.
How dangerous?
In 2001, TCEQ reported to top state officials – including Hartnett White and then-Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump’s energy secretary – that some types of radiation in the tap water of some Texas communities posed an increased lifetime cancer risk of 1 in 400. The EPA’s increased lifetime cancer risk for five types of radioactive elements ranges from 2 to 7 in 100,000. But the practice continued until 2008, after an EPA audit caught the state cooking the books.
In a 2011 interview with KHOU-TV, Hartnett White defended the deception, saying the EPA’s standards were too protective and that it would cost small communities millions of dollars to comply. She said TCEQ continued its practice instead of challenging the federal rules in court because it would be “almost impossible” for the state to win:
As my memory serves me, [subtracting the margin of error] made incredibly good sense … We did not believe the science of health effects justified EPA setting the standard where they did … I have far more trust in the vigor of the science by which TCEQ assesses, than I do EPA.
KHOU investigative reporter Mark Greenblatt pressed Hartnett White: “But what if you’re wrong? What if you’re wrong and EPA’s right about there being a danger?”
“It would be . . . it would be regrettable,” she replied.
In October, Trump nominated Hartnett White, now a fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which coordinates environmental policy for all federal agencies. One of its major responsibilities is “to develop and recommend national policies to the President that promote the improvement of environmental quality and meet the Nation’s goals.”
In November, in her confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, she characterized TCEQ’s falsification of data as “one of these technical issues” and declared: “I would never, ever tell staff to underreport health hazards.”
In her written responses to follow-up questions from the committee, Hartnett White said she was “aware of the EPA’s interpretation of its rule,” but that she did not “recall EPA telling TCEQ during my tenure there that TCEQ’s methodology was not legal.” But KHOU’s investigation documented that in June 2004 the EPA warned the TCEQ if it did not stop the falsification, the federal agency could take over regulation of the state’s water systems.
The Environment and Public Works Committee voted along party lines to send Hartnett White’s nomination to the full Senate. But on Dec. 21, Senate Democrats refused to vote on the nomination before the end of the 2017 legislative session. On Jan. 8 the White House renominated her without comment. She will now face a second confirmation vote before the committee before a vote by the full Senate.
Installing a head of the Council for Environmental Quality who deliberately falsified data to get around federal regulations is an egregious betrayal of public trust. The fact that her deception left people at a serious risk of cancer makes it even more alarming.
The Senate should reject Hartnett White’s nomination. The EPA must also tighten its legal limits for radioactive contaminants and require more extensive radiation testing and better disclosure – including making sure that rogue state regulators like Hartnett White don’t try to hide risks.
You can read more about the health risks posed by radioactivity in drinking water in EWG’s Tap Water Database radiation report.
Navajo town remembers water pollution due to uranium mining – fears of new mines
Uranium Miners Pushed Hard for a Comeback. They Got Their Wish. NYT, JAN. 13, 2018 “………The Navajo town of Sanders, Ariz., a dusty outpost with a single stoplight, is a reminder of uranium’s lasting environmental legacy.
In Sanders, hundreds of people were exposed to potentially dangerous levels of uranium in their drinking water for years, until testing by a doctoral researcher at Northern Arizona University named Tommy Rock exposed the contamination.
“I was shocked,” Mr. Rock said. “I wasn’t expecting that reading at all.”
Mr. Rock and other scientists say they suspect a link to the 1979 breach of a wastewater pond at a uranium mill in Church Rock, N.M., now a Superfund site. That accident is considered the single largest release of radioactive material in American history, surpassing the crisis at Three Mile Island.
It wasn’t until 2003, however, that testing by state regulators picked up uranium levels in Sanders’s tap water. Still, the community was not told. Erin Jordan, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, said the department had urged the now-defunct local water company for years to address the contamination, but it had been up to that company to notify its customers.
Only in 2015, after Mr. Rock raised the alarm, did local regulators issue a public notice.
The town’s school district, whose wells were also contaminated with uranium, received little state or federal assistance. It shut off its water fountains and handed out bottled water to its 800 elementary and middle-school students.
The schools finally installed filters last May. Parents remain on edge.
“I still don’t trust the water,” said Shanon Sangster, who still sends her 10-year-old daughter, Shania, to school with bottled water. “It’s like we are all scarred by it, by the uranium.”https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/climate/trump-uranium-bears-ears.html
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of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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