Tag: radiation

Fukushima nuclear plant’s operator says the first round of wastewater release is complete

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said Monday that it has safely completed the first release of treated radioactive water from the plant into the sea and will inspect and clean the facility before starting the second round in a few weeks.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant began discharging the treated and diluted wastewater into the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 24. The water has accumulated since the plant was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and the start of its release is a milestone in the plant’s decommissioning.

The discharge, which is expected to continue for decades until the decommissioning is finished, has been strongly opposed by fishing groups and by neighboring countries. China has banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response, hurting producers and exporters and prompting the Japanese government to compile an emergency relief fund. Groups in South Korea have also fiercely protested, demanding Japan stop the release.

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Radioactive Fish Discovered Near Fukushima Renews Concerns Over Plans To Dump Nuclear Wastewater Into Ocean

Japanese plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) studied a black rockfish in May and found that it contained levels of radioactive cesium that were 180 times over Japan’s regulatory limit.

The radioactive fish was caught near drainage outlets at the TEPCO plant, where three nuclear reactors melted down amidst a tsunami in March 2011. Rainwater from areas near the reactors flows into the area where the fish was caught.

The alarming discovery reignited concerns over TEPCO’s plans to start releasing 1.3 million tons of treated wastewater from the former Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by August.

A report from July 23 showed that the problem is still unaddressed, prompting questions about how dangerous the company’s plans are for the public.

Radioactive cesium health risks

Radioactive cesium has been detected in surface water and different kinds of food, such as breast milk and pasteurized milk. The amount of radioactive cesium in food and milk depends on several factors.

The most important factor is whether or not there has been a recent fallout from a nuclear explosion, like a weapons test or an accident at a nuclear power plant.

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Nuclear Weapons: Devastation Inside the US

Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer has focused new attention on the legacies of the Manhattan Project — the World War II program to develop nuclear weapons.

As the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, approach, it’s a timely moment to look further at dilemmas wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb.

The Manhattan Project spawned a trinity of interconnected legacies. It initiated a global arms race that threatens the survival of humanity and the planet as we know it. It also led to widespread public health and environmental damage from nuclear weapons production and testing. And it generated a culture of governmental secrecy with troubling political consequences.

As a researcher examining communication in science, technology, energy and environmental contexts, I’ve studied these legacies of nuclear weapons production. From 2000 to 2005, I also served on a citizen advisory board that provides input to federal and state officials on a massive environmental cleanup program at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state that continues today.

Hanford is less well known than Los Alamos, New Mexico, where scientists designed the first atomic weapons, but it was also crucial to the Manhattan Project. There, an enormous, secret industrial facility produced the plutonium fuel for the Trinity test on July 16, 1945, and the bomb that incinerated Nagasaki a few weeks later.

(The Hiroshima bomb was fueled by uranium produced in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at another of the principal Manhattan Project sites.)

Later, workers at Hanford made most of the plutonium used in the U.S. nuclear arsenal throughout the Cold War. In the process, Hanford became one of the most contaminated places on Earth (for more see video below). Total cleanup costs are projected to reach up to $640 billion, and the job won’t be completed for decades, if ever.

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Trinity Nuclear Test Fallout Impacted 46 States, Canada, and Mexico

A recently released study exposes the “widespread dispersion” of radioactive fallout and devastation caused by the US government’s first detonation of a nuclear weapon. The “Trinity” atomic bomb test which caused  “environmental contamination and population exposures” was carried out in New Mexico on July 16th, 1945. This new research shows within 10 days of the explosion, which saw a mushroom cloud as high as 50,000 – 70,000 feet, radioactive deposits were dispersed across 46 states, and even parts of Canada as well as Mexico.

The study covers the Trinity test as well as dozens more, above-ground, “atmospheric” nuclear tests, conducted as a result of the Manhattan Project. Not included in the study are the myriad underground nuclear weapons tests. Between 1951 and 1998, Washington blew up more than 800 subterranean nuclear weapons.

Utilizing a combination of data previously unavailable during past studies, the researchers used “high-resolution reanalyzed historical weather fields, U.S. government data, and complex atmospheric modeling to try to chart the distribution of radioactive fallout in the days following historical nuclear tests,” reports Gizmodo. The study was led by Sébastien Philippe, a scientist and researcher from Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. “Our results show the significant contribution of the Trinity fallout to the total deposition density across the contiguous U.S….and in New Mexico in particular,” the study reads.

During the time period analyzed by the researchers, there were 101 nuclear tests conducted. Since Trinity, there were subsequently 93 more atmospheric tests in Nevada which saw nuclear fallout distributed across the country yet again by radioactive mushroom clouds. The US government also launched 45 “airburst” tests, which saw nuclear bombs, tipped on rockets, detonated within the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

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‘Atomic Fallout’: Records reveal government downplayed, ignored health risks of St. Louis radioactive waste for decades

For kids like Sandy Mitchell, Ted Theis and Janet Johnson, childhood in the North St. Louis County suburbs in the 1960s and ‘70s meant days playing along the banks or splashing in the knee-deep waters of Coldwater Creek.

They caught turtles and tadpoles, jumped into deep stretches of the creek from rope swings and ate mulberries that grew on the banks.

Their families — along with tens of thousands of others — flocked to the burgeoning suburbs and new ranch style homes built in Florissant, Hazelwood and other communities shortly after World War II. When the creek flooded, as it often did, so did their basements. They went to nearby Jana Elementary School and hiked and biked throughout Fort Belle Fontaine Park.

Growing up, they never knew they were surrounded by massive piles of nuclear waste left over from the war.

Generations of children who grew up alongside Coldwater Creek have, in recent decades, faced rare cancers, autoimmune disorders and other mysterious illnesses they have come to believe were the result of exposure to its waters and sediment.

“People in our neighborhood are dropping like flies,” Mitchell said.

The earliest known public reference to Coldwater Creek’s pollution came in 1981, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed it as one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S.

By 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising residents to avoid Coldwater Creek entirely. Cleanup of the creek is expected to take until 2038. A federal study found elevated rates of breast, colon, prostate, kidney and bladder cancers as well as leukemia in the area. Childhood brain and nervous system cancer rates are also higher.

“Young families moved into the area,” Johnson said, “and they were never aware of the situation.”

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Radioactive Material Reported Missing Near Southern U.S. Border — U.S. Officials Remained Silent While Mexican Officials Issued Alert

A container of Iridium-192 reportedly went missing in the southern border state of New Mexico, prompting Mexican officials to issue a warning and speak out to a local news station in El Paso. While concern was raised south of the U.S. border, American officials remained silent.

Now, questions remain after a recent report that the radioactive material was recovered on July 3.

KVIA El-Paso reported on July 2nd:

“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission radioactive equipment disappeared in southern New Mexico, according to Mexico’s federal government.”

ICR further reported:

“The missing equipment is described as a container with Iridium-192, which is used for medical treatments and also in the oil industry, according to the commission.”

According to KVIA, Juarez Civil Protection Director Roberto Briones said this isn’t the first time his department has issued an alert for missing radioactive materials.

Although it is now reported the materials were recovered, a cursory overview of news reports on Google suggests Iridium-192 goes missing all the time.

As reported by Discover on March 1, “it’s scary to think how often these dangerous materials” disappear.

“Potentially dangerous radioactive material “goes missing” about 100 times a year worldwide,” Discover explained while citing a February report from The Guardian.

Less than two weeks after the story from Discover, Nuclear Newswire reported that a radiographic camera, including it’s “iridium-192 radioactive sealed source” went missing in Houston, Texas, on March 11.

A 2004 Department of Homeland Security report details the risks associated with a “dirty bomb” made from stolen radioactive materials including Iridium-192.

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Japan Begins Secretly Releasing Irradiated Water From Fukushima Disaster Into The Ocean

Tokyo Electric Power Company (better known as TEPCO) started releasing irradiated seawater from Monday afternoon into an underwater tunnel that has been built to release Fukushima nuclear contaminated water into the sea, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK said on Tuesday.

According to TEPCO, the tunnel will be filled with some 6,000 tons of seawater by around noon on Tuesday.

The process, according to China Daily, was carried out “secretly” on Monday because Japan’s unilateral decision of dumping more than 1.3 million metric tons of treated but still radioactive water into the ocean provoked consistent protests from neighboring countries, such as China, Pacific Island communities and civil society groups in the most affected prefectures such as Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi.

And instead of targeting what will be a tangible environmental catastrophe in just days, the hollow and hypocritical virtue signaling talking heads continue droning on about such meaningless drivel as ESG and global warming.

Also, oddly enough, there has not been a peep about this clear and present ocean disaster from either the original Greta, or her new and improved for mass-consumption replacement, Sophia Kianni, who lately appears to be more focused on building up her scantily-clad, environmentally-fighting image than, well, fighting for the environment…

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EPA finds radioactive contamination in more areas of West Lake Landfill

Radioactive waste in the West Lake Landfill is more widespread than previously thought, officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

The finding is based on two years of testing at the St. Louis County site, which has held thousands of tons of radioactive waste for decades. An underground “fire” in another area of the landfill threatens to exacerbate the issue, which residents believe is responsible for a host of mysterious illnesses.

Chris Jump, the EPA’s remedial project manager for the site, said the findings don’t change the agency’s planned cleanup strategy or the level of risk the site poses to the surrounding residents. The radioactive waste is still within the footprint of the landfill, she said.

“The site boundaries themselves aren’t expanding, but the area that will need the radioactive protective cover is larger than previously known,” Jump said to a crowd of about 50 Tuesday night at the District 9 Machinists hall in Bridgeton.

The Missouri Independent and MuckRock are partnering to investigate the history of dumping and cleanup efforts of radioactive waste in the St. Louis area.

St. Louis was pivotal to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, and community members say they’re still suffering. Waste from uranium processing in downtown St. Louis — part of the Manhattan Project — contaminated Coldwater Creek, exposing generations of children who played in the creek and most recently forcing the shutdown of an area elementary school.

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US nuclear plant admits to radioactive leak

The authorities in the northern US state of Minnesota revealed on Thursday that a nuclear power plant near Minneapolis had suffered a radioactive water spill amounting to over 1.5 million liters. Xcel Energy, which owns the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, is working to clean up the spill and insists there is no danger to the general public.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said that around 400,000 gallons of tritiated water leaked from a broken pipe at the facility. The leak was first discovered on November 22, and its source was found on December 19 and patched “soon after.”

The authorities decided to keep the public in the dark about the incident, while Xcel Energy and the state were “actively managing” the situation to prevent the underground plume of irradiated water from spreading to the nearby Mississippi River, MPCA assistant commissioner Kirk Koudelka told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

“Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information,” MPCA spokesman Michael Rafferty added on Thursday.

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Another, Possibly Deadlier, Ohio Eco-Disaster Still Festers Near Train Derailment Site

Some 200 miles from the toxic train derailment site in East Palestine, Ohio, another environmental disaster still festers due to years of neglect by the U.S. government.

This other environmental disaster in Piketon, Ohio, the home of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, also known as PORTS.

In the Cold War era, the U.S. government used PORTS to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Then, in the 1990s, the site was likely the recipient of polluted uranium from Russia in the 1990s due to a Bill Clinton-era program called “Swords to Ploughshares,” which entailed the United States converting Soviet Union nuclear warheads to uranium that could be used to power U.S. nuclear reactors.

Now, Piketon has a cancer problem—more than 500 cases per 100,000, or about 10% above state average, according to the Ohio Cancer Atlas.

Former PORTS worker Jeff Walburn told Headline USA that the disaster in Piketon could be worse than even what the people in East Palestine are dealing with.

“Here’s the difference: You saw wreckage of a train, you saw an explosion, you saw fire, and you see dead fish. Nuclear material is silent, invisible, and it’s a deadly killer. And the chemicals being transported outside of the plant to the community are just as deadly, but you’re not seeing the explosion or fire,” he said.

As someone who’s tried to hold the companies and federal agencies responsible for poisoning his community accountable for decades, Walburn also has advice for the residents of East Palestine.

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