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Big fines for USA’s nuclear weapons labs for new security violations

safety-symbol-SmFlag-USANuclear weapons labs hit with sizable fines for new security violations A classified material was missing for years before anyone noticed, and a lab official’s public slides included bomb design data, Center for Public Integrity 6 June 15  By Patrick Malone 

The Obama administration levied fines totaling nearly a million dollars this week against two of the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories, mostly for failing to keep track of classified materials and for repeatedly disclosing information related to nuclear weapons design in public presentations stretching over nearly a decade.

In notices published by the Energy Department on June 5, the National Nuclear Security Administration provided only general information about the materials and data that got loose but said the breaches were among the most serious such infractions, and could have an “adverse impact on national security.”

It said a private company that operates Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, would be fined $577,500 for its poor handling of classified nuclear bomb design information.

A second private company that operates Los Alamos National Laboratories, also in New Mexico, faced a fine of $247,500 for failing to secure something that was identified only as classified “matter,” according to one of the notices, as well as a fine of $150,000 for an unrelated employee safety violation.

The notice did not explain what the missing “matter” is, but accused Los Alamos of conducting a poor investigation into what happened to it and of wrongly assuming, for years, that it had been safely destroyed.

The Energy Department said the two violations involving classified materials and data were labelled with its highest level of severity because they “involve the actual or high potential for adverse impact on the national security,” but it did not explain further. Even Los Alamos’s own internal inquiry “concluded that a compromise of classified information cannot be ruled out,” the Energy Department said.

The notices suggest that the laboratories – which endured unusual scrutiny a decade ago over allegations that they had failed to safeguard highly sensitive nuclear weapons information – are still having trouble complying with security regulations…….

In a separate probe, Energy Department investigators similarly found a longstanding security breach went undetected for years at Sandia National Laboratories. http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/06/05/17462/nuclear-weapons-labs-hit-sizable-fines-new-security-violations?utm_campaign=syndication

June 6, 2015 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Significant rise in ionising radiation in atmosphere over Southern California

radiation-warningThe first tests of summer also indicate a high presence of alpha radiation which, by itself, comprised 75 percent of the overage with beta making up the other 25 percent. Indeed, the alpha detected alone was over 168 percent of background levels of radiation.

While alpha particles are positively charged and are relatively heavy, blocking them is easier than beta or gamma because they travel a short distance before losing energy. Nevertheless, alpha radiation is between 20 to 1,000 times more dangerous to the human organism due to their “relative biological effectiveness” in causing cell-death and cancer according to numerous sources.

Until the EPA ever gets its RadNet system fully operational, Americans will only have a partial idea of how ‘hot’ with radiation its air is. Failure to maintain this system leaves the country at a huge loss should radiological releases happen due to nuclear plant malfunctions and meltdowns as well as terrorism by an expanding list of American enemies who vow to destroy it.

Flag-USAAlpha radiation clouds Los Angeles air, Enviro Reporter.com 3 June 15 The first summer air radiation analysis for Southern California shows a significant uptick in alpha and beta according to a dust analysis completed June 1. Results show radiation registering at 325.7 percent of background levels.

This means that the dust reading in its entirety was over three times background. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers radiation three times background or above to be “significant.” Continue reading →

June 4, 2015 Posted by | environment, radiation, USA | 2 Comments

Censored emails show US govt concern about Fukushima radiation on West Coast of USA

text ionisingFlag-USACensored US gov’t emails reveal proposed plan to test West Coast residents for Fukushima fallout — “Many cases of cancer may end up being attributed to exposures” — Doses could exceed EPA’s emergency levels — UC Berkeley Nuclear Dept.: “Prompt action should be taken” http://enenews.com/govt-emails-reveal-proposed-plan-test-west-coast-residents-fukushima-radiation-many-cases-cancer-being-attributed-exposures-doses-could-exceed-epas-emergency-levels?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29

FOIA Document — Excerpts from email by Per Peterson, Chair of Dept. of Nuclear Engineering at Univ.of California Berkeley & scientific adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu , Mar 23, 2011 at 1:35p (emphasis added):

  • [Sent to John Holdren, senior adviser to Pres. Obama on science & technology, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, DOE/NRC officials, and others who were redacted]
  • I would like to raise another issue which now merits expeditious, near term action. There is a short time window… during which it will remain possible to… measure any I-131 that members of the public may have ingested…
  • Collecting this data… would be very valuable…
  • UCB faculty [is in] general agreement that prompt action should be taken…
  • Many cases of thyroid cancer, and other health problems, may end up being attributed to exposures from the Fukushima accident… on the U.S. west coast…

Continue reading →

June 4, 2015 Posted by | environment, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s defense authorisation bill- unaffordable – detached from budgetary reality

missile-moneyNuclear weapons: The ‘all of the above’ strategy, The Hill,  By John Isaacs and Greg Terryn, 3 June 15 
This week, the Senate is scheduled to begin consideration of the annual defense authorization bill. In a move detached from budgetary reality, the bill backs an unaffordable plan to modernize or replace nearly every aspect of the United States’ oversized nuclear arsenal. It is an “all of the above” strategy that avoids any of the hard, but necessary, strategic choices. This is the budgetary equivalent of trying to drive 50 miles with 25 miles worth of gas and the Pentagon will not be happy with the results.

The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2016 (NDAA) passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee includes a long wish list of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The current plan is to design and build 12 new nuclear missile submarines, as many as 100 new nuclear-capable bombers, as many as 1,100 new nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, and to modernize around 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles and the various nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal. In addition, the Committee requires the modernization and replacement of forward-deployed nuclear weapons, dual capable fighter-bomber aircraft and perhaps the development of intermediate range nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon itself is concerned about the affordability of this plan…….http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/243807-nuclear-weapons-the-all-of-the-above-strategy

June 4, 2015 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Washington was contaminated with radiation in 1949 secret Air Force experiment

text ionisingThe Secret 1949 Radiation Experiment That Contaminated Washington, Gizmodo, 3 June 15  Sarah Zhang The physicists who invented the nuclear bomb worked out of Los Alamos in New Mexico, but the people who did the dirty work of making the bombs were in Hanford, Washington. Throughout the Cold War, Hanford churned out plutonium for our nuclear arsenal. It was also, conveniently, a place to experiment with radiation.

Today, Hanford is the most contaminated radioactive site in America—the site of a massive (and troubled) cleanup effort. Radioactive material is still accidentally leaking into the ground. Though Hanford’s plants routinely released small doses of radioactive material into the air, most of this damage came from an event in 1949 called Green Run.

Green Run was a secret Air Force experiment that released Hanford’s largest single dose of radioactive iodine-131. On the night of December 2, 1949, at the behest of the military, scientists at Hanford let 7,000 to 12,000 curies of iodine-131 into the air, where it rode the wind as far as 200 miles. For a sense of scale, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident released an estimated 15 to 24 curies of iodine-131 and the Chernobyl accident 35 million to 49 million curies.

The Green Run stayed secret until the 1980s, when it was revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests from local newspapers. The military details are still classified. More than half a century later, suspicion and controversy continue to lurk around Green Run, especially among the residents who lived downwind of Hanford.

There’s still much that we don’t know about the Green Run, but here is what we do.

Hanford, Factory and Farm …….Hanford was always more than a production facility; it was also a research complex. Up to 1,000 animals were housed on a farm near reactor F for experiments on the effects of radiation. The animals included fish, dogs, pigs, sheep, and even alligators. Sheep, especially, were given feed with iodine-131, the same radioactive material that the reactors were discharging into the air…….http://gizmodo.com/the-secret-1949-radiation-experiment-that-contaminated-1707748721

June 4, 2015 Posted by | civil liberties, history, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Whole brain radiation found not to be beneficial for brain cancer patients

medical-radiationCancer study could change radiation treatment for hundreds of thousands, Guardian, 1 June 15 
Treating whole brain with radiation found to harm cognitive skills without improving survival, study finds – meaning many could be spared such care A major study could change care for many of the hundreds of thousands of people each year who have cancer that spreads to the brain from other sites, study leaders said on Sunday.

The study, one of three discussed at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, found that contrary to conventional wisdom, radiation therapy to the whole brain did not improve survival, and harmed memory, speech and thinking skills.

“This is the classic question: Which is worse, the disease or the treatment?” said one study leader, Dr Jan Buckner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Radiation helped control the cancer, Dr Buckner said, “but at the cost of cognitive decline”.

For patients, the study is not necessarily the bad news it may seem. It shows that in this case, quality of life is better with less treatment, and many people can be spared the expense and side effects of futile care………

The first study affects the most patients by far. An estimated 400,000 patients in the US alone each year have cancer that spreads to the brain, usually from the lungs, breast or other sites.

That is different from tumors that start in the brain, like the one that on Saturday claimed the life of Joseph “Beau” Biden, the son of vice-president Joe Biden.

Cancer that spreads to the brain is usually treated with radiosurgery – highly focused radiation with a tool such as the Gamma Knife, followed by less intense radiation to the whole brain. The latter treatment can cause hair loss, dry mouth, fatigue and thinking problems……

Dr Paul Brown of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer in Houston led a study of 213 patients with one to three tumors in the brain to see whether the risks of whole brain radiation were worth its help in controlling cancer.

Half of the patients had the usual radiosurgery and the rest had that followed by whole brain radiation. Three months later, 92% of patients who got both treatments had cognitive decline versus 64% of those given just radiosurgery.

“The negative effects far outweigh any benefits” of the combination treatment, Brown said……..http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/31/cancer-patients-spared-brain-radiation-study

June 4, 2015 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Just 30 miles from New York City – a nuclear disaster-in-waiting

reactor-Indian-PointHOW A POTENTIAL FUKUSHIMA SITS 30 MILES FROM NYC , Pontiac Tribune,   11 May 15  “…………..there is something of grave concern scheduled to begin shortly, and its close proximity to the aging nuclear plant — which at one time found itself on the list of the nation’s worst — has largely escaped coverage by the corporate media. Oh, did I mention IPEC is located in a seismic zone?

When contemplating risk, there is an assumption that the factors under consideration will lead to an informed decision in answering the question: Is it worth it?

The Algonquin Incremental Market Project (AIM) is a glaring example of an entire industry hellbent on ignoring that essential question altogether. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), gave the green light on plans for Spectra Corporation to construct a 42″, high – pressure natural gas pipeline which will run through the IPEC facility, less than a quarter mile — at one critical point just 105 feet — from the No 2 and No 3 reactors. But that’s only the beginning of the folly characterizing the AIM pipeline expansion, a project intended to pump fracked shale gas from Pennsylvania into New England.

Spectra, a giant in the natural gas infrastructure industry, has been seeking the addition to its 1,129 mile long Algonquin Pipeline since 2011. Though the project gained approval, how it managed to do, is a feat that defies logic entirely. Working with the NRC from its outset, engineer Paul Blanch is a nuclear energy proponent with decades of experience in nuclear safety and federal regulation, and holds security clearance for his job — by all accounts an industry ‘insider’. His take on the AIM project should carry weight:

“I’ve had over 45 years of nuclear experience and [experience in] safety issues,” Blanch told Truthout. “I have never seen [a situation] that essentially puts 20 million residents at risk, plus the entire economics of the United States by making a large area surrounding Indian Point uninhabitable for generations. I’m not an alarmist and haven’t been known as an alarmist, but the possibility of a gas line interacting with a plant could easily cause a Fukushima type of release.”

Gas is a volatile, explosive substance, and the pipelines tasked with transporting it are subject to corrosion and neglect, making maintenance and inspection the highest priority. However, a report [pdf] by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in January found operators had“inadequate evaluation of threats […] which may lead to underestimating the true magnitude of risks to a pipeline”, compounded by “inspectors [who] lack training to effectively verify the validity of an operator’s risk assessment”. With that in mind, an increase in the number of ‘incidents’ (read: accidents) in high – consequence areas (HCA), which are locations where injury and property damage are likely to occur, really comes as no surprise. And yet, Indian Point could qualify as the area of the highest consequences possible . . . New York City, with some 20 million people, sits just 37 miles to its south.

Why does this pipeline have approval? Continue reading →

June 1, 2015 Posted by | safety, USA | 1 Comment

70 years of cancer-causing nuclear pollution in St Louis

Caldicott,-Helen-4This week, internationally recognized physician Dr. Helen Caldicott reviewed documents and reports concerning the West Lake landfill. She stated in no uncertain terms that the health records and data clearly show that contaminants have been causing cancers in the affected region at elevated levels.

As the recipient of 21 honorary doctoral degrees for her work on the health consequences of exposure to nuclear material including the disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, Caldicott is one of the world’s most-respected experts on the topic. With regard to the West Lake site, she concluded that ongoing health dangers demand that, “the [West Lake] site needs to be dealt with immediately. It needs to be cleaned-up this year.”

Radioactive site continues to plague St. Louis residents and region http://www.examiner.com/article/radioactive-site-continues-to-plague-st-louis-residents-and-region, 29 May 15 In North Saint Louis County, Missouri, in the City of Bridgeton, there is a ticking time bomb in the form of several contiguous landfills which contain radioactive waste and all the “daughter products” associated with weapons-grade uranium processing. Most notably, the site in question, the West Lake landfill, has the largest concentration in the nation of one of these highly dangerous daughter products.

ThoriumIn a 2013 report entitled, The West Lake Landfill: A Radioactive Legacy of the Nuclear Arms Race, Robert Alvarez states, “Of significance is the fact that the largest estimated amount of Thorium-230, a long-lived, highly radiotoxic element, is present at West Lake — more than any other U.S. nuclear weapons storage or disposal site.” Continue reading →

June 1, 2015 Posted by | environment, radiation, Reference, USA | 1 Comment

Extreme heat will finish “Business As Usual” in USA, and probably Australia ,too

heat_waveAnthony M Horton: Extreme heat – ‘Business as usual’ life to end in less than 30 years in the U.S.
A new study projects that the United States will have a four to six-fold increase in extreme heat exposure by 2070 — and even earlier in the South. Unfortunately, no similar study has been conducted in Australia…

As a scientist, I am concerned that research into a range of climate related issues are seemingly not on the agenda in Australia and stellar pillars such as the world renowned Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) are suffering increasingly deep staff cuts at a time when they are needed the most.

It also appears that the long held “without fear or favour” bastion of these pillars has also seemingly ended. If this is really the case, it is a truly sad day for Australia-especially given the many world leading breakthroughs achieved by the former and the proud record of the latter. …

I fear for the future of Australia if this trend becomes entrenched as, by the time the Government realises they have made a tactical error, there won’t be enough trained people left to pick up the slack, as they will have retired, retrained or will be employed elsewhere in the world. https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/business-as-usual-life-in-the-us-will-end-in-less-than-30-years,7750

June 1, 2015 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, climate change, USA | Leave a comment

USA and Israel tried a Stuxnet type computer worm to muck up North Korea’s nuclear program

computer-worm-nukeTHE US TRIED TO STUXNET NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM  KIM ZETTER  Wired,  05.29.15 A PRECISION DIGITAL weapon reportedly created by the US and Israel to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program had a fraternal twin that was designed to attack North Korea’s nuclear program as well, according to a new report.

The second weapon was crafted at the same time Stuxnet was created and was designed to activate once it encountered Korean-language settings on machines with the right configuration, according to Reuters. But the operation ultimately failed because the attackers were unable to get the weapon onto machines that were running Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

WIRED reported back in 2010 that such an operation against North Korea would be possible in light of the fact that some of the equipment used by the North Koreans to control their centrifuges—the devices used to turn uranium hexafluoride gas into nuclear-bomb-ready fuel—appeared to have come from the same firms that outfitted the Iranian nuclear program………

While the plan worked beautifully in Iran, it ultimately hit a snafu against North Korea where the nuclear program is even more tightly controlled than Iran’s and where few computers—belonging to contractors or anyone else—are online and accessible via the internet.

As WIRED reported in 2010, “someone would have to infiltrate the Hermit Kingdom’s most sensitive sites and introduce the worm into the command systems, a hard bargain to say the least. In other words, don’t go thinking the United States or an ally could magically infect North Korea with Stuxnet. But if more information emerges about the North’s command systems, that might provide fodder for a copycat worm—provided someone could introduce it into Yongbyon.” http://www.wired.com/2015/05/us-tried-stuxnet-north-koreas-nuclear-program/

May 30, 2015 Posted by | Israel, North Korea, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Nothing happening in much vaunted nuclear deal between USA and India

Buy-US-nukesflag-indiaLittle progress on nuclear deal after ‘breakthrough’ http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/little-progress-on-nuclear-deal-between-india-and-us-after-breakthrough/article7261405.ece NARAYAN LAKSHMAN 29 May 15 More than four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Barack Obama announced a “breakthrough understanding” to resolve a long-standing impasse in the bilateral civil nuclear energy agreement, forward movement has apparently ground to a standstill and neither the government nor the private sector here  held out hope for a speedy resolution.

Responding to queries from The Hindu this week a State Department spokesperson said that there was “nothing new to announce on the civil nuclear deal at this time.”

Even as early as February, a top State Department official, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal, indicated that there may not be much more that the two governments could do to smooth the path for U.S. corporations to supply India with nuclear reactors. Ms. Biswal said that while Washington was “still in the process of taking what [India’s latest] top-line commitments were and trading paper to be able to find the more detailed understandings,” for the U.S. resolution of this “lingering challenge” hinged on the convergence between India’s 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLND) and the 1963 CSC.

She emphasised that with the “breakthrough understanding” reached in January, “now it will be up to the companies to assess for themselves the business case scenarios and make their own decisions based on the commercial aspects – how to move forward.”

“Nothing happening” Continue reading →

May 30, 2015 Posted by | India, marketing, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

South Carolina nuclear company wants ratepayers to pay upfront for new nuclear units being built

nuclear-costs1SCE&G wants to raise rates again to pay for nuclear units, Post & Courier, Warren L. Wise May 29 2015 South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. wants to raise electric rates an overall 2.78 percent to help pay for new nuclear units being built north of Columbia.

The Cayce-based utility, part of SCANA Corp., filed for the increase Friday with the S.C. Public Service Commission and the state Office of Regulatory Staff.

The $70 million-a-year request is part of a 10-year series of price hikes expected annually through 2018 to offset the $10 billion costs of building two units at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County.  The new units will come online at the end of the decade. SCE&G jointly owns the nuclear power plant with state-owned utility Santee Cooper of Moncks Corner…………

Commercial and industrial customers would also see their bills go up.

The rate hike would take effect in October if approved. SCE&G serves about 692,000 electric customers across South Carolina. About half are in the Charleston area.

Rates for SCE&G customers have jumped 14 times over the past seven years. Seven of those were connected to the nuclear units. http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150529/PC05/150529222/sceg-wants-to-raise-rates-again-to-pay-for-nuclear-units

May 30, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Mistaken Assumptions about Past and Present US Policies to China

A Critique of US “Grand Strategy toward China”, My Catbird Seat, 

If one were to propose a realistic and reasonable ‘US Grand Strategy toward China’ one would have to start by shedding all the false assumptions and bellicose proposals that have been put forth by the CFR and the authors of the Report under review. 

May 30, 2015  Seven Mistaken Assumptions, Presumptions and Prescriptions by Dr. James Petras 

Introduction

The highly influential Council on Foreign Relations recently published a Special Report entitled, “Revising US Grand Strategy toward China”, (Council on Foreign Relations Press: NY 2015), co-authored by two of its Senior Fellows, Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis (‘B and T’), which proposes a re-orientation of US policy toward China.

The Report a policy for buttressing ‘US primacy in Asia’ and countering what they describe as “the dangers that China’s geo-economic and military power pose to US national interests in Asia and globally”. The Report concludes by listing seven recommendations that Washington should follow to re-assert regional primacy.

This essay begins by discussing the basic fallacies underpinning the Report, including outdated and dangerous presumptions about US power and presence in Asia today, and the authors’ incoherent, contradictory and unrealistic prescriptions. Continue reading →

May 30, 2015 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

USA government effectively stymied Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference

atomic-bomb-lObama Administration Sabotages Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference , 27 May 2015 By Joseph Gerson, Truthout “…..So much for President Obama’s commitment to a nuclear-weapons-free world.

With its decision on May 22 to block the adoption of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Review Conference’s consensus statement, the Obama administration gave the human species another hefty push toward nuclear catastrophe, shaking the foundations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Why the sabotage? Well, for one thing, the draft text had the temerity to call for the convening of a conference within six months to prepare the way for a Middle East nuclear-weapons-and-weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone. It called for all parties to the NPT Review – read especially the United States – to fulfill previous Review Conferences’ promises to begin the process of creating the zone.

Dangers

Though it doesn’t currently garner much media coverage, the danger of nuclear war is anything but an innocuous abstraction. Each of the nuclear powers is currently modernizing its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems. (US plans call for spending $1 trillion over the next 30 years for these nuclear weapons.) With NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders, and Russia’s responses in Ukraine and across Europe, we have entered a new era of confrontation between nuclear superpowers, which between them possess more than 90 percent of the world’s 16,400 nuclear weapons – weapons that have been exercised in posturing during the Ukraine war.

The situation isn’t much better in Asia and the Pacific. China’s second-leading official newspaper, Global Times, said in a May 25 editorial that “war was inevitable” between China and the United States unless Washington stopped demanding that Beijing halt the building of artificial islands in a disputed waterway (the South China/Western Philippine Sea). Those islands may be designed to host naval bases for China’s nuclear-armed submarines, in order to overcome the possibility of the US and Japan blockading China’s mainland ports. Plus, at a time when the US is deepening its military alliances and deploying first-strike-related “missile defenses” along China’s periphery, China has begun installing multiple warheads on its nuclear missiles……

the near-complete failure of this year’s Review Conference further undermines the credibility of the seminal treaty, leaving the world without even a minimal agreement about how to reduce, let along eliminate, the risk of nuclear annihilation. Continue reading →

May 29, 2015 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

High cancer rates in thorium and uranium contaminated sites in Missouri

highly-recommendedThe problem, critics such as McKeel and Kleba said, is that the study’s design diluted the string of infant deaths into regional data, making the amount seem statistically insignificant. Between October 1999 and October 2000, the Riverfront Times reported, seven of the eight deaths were children at Kleba’s church, all of whom lived near Dardenne Creek.

in an unexpected turn, a 2014 Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services study did indeed find higher rates of cancers in ZIP codes near known contaminated sites in St. Louis County, and the state promptly requested help from the Center for Disease Control to conducted further studies in the area.

radiation-warningFlag-USASt. Louis burning: What killed the babies near Weldon Spring? Aljazeera America by Ryan Schuessler @RyanSchuessler1 April 30, 2015

State health studies did little to ease residents’, activists’ concerns about potential radiation exposure in metro area This is part two of a three-part series investigating the effects of radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project on St. Louis and its suburbs. Part one examined the health problems impacting those who lived near Coldwater Creek.

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. — On a Saturday afternoon in late February at the Immaculate Conception Parish of Dardenne, a fresh snow was falling on the graves of more than a dozen infant-sized tombstones. The church bells tolled, signaling the beginning of Mass as parishioners walked briskly through the cold.

It was at this Roman Catholic parish where, some 15 years ago, the small congregation’s streak of infant deaths caught the attention of locals and media, both of whom drew connections to the area’s atomic history that left groundwater in the area contaminated with uranium.

But the state of Missouri said nothing was out of the ordinary. Continue reading →

May 29, 2015 Posted by | children, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

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