I know an employee of the Ontario, California, Toyota North American Parts Center distribution warehouse.
He says they have been ‘requested’ to take “leave without pay”, due to the parts shortage in Japan.
While they are enjoying time with their families they are concerned about how long their time off without pay will last, they can’t go too long without getting paid. Toyota is not certain about when parts will start flowing into the U.S. again.
University of California Berkeley is reporting that their own testing on rain water revealed radiation contamination 181 times safe limits.
The Federal government’s max safe level of iodine-131 allowed in drinking water is 0.111 becquerels per liter. The UC Berkeley test showed iodine-131 at 20.1 becquerels per liter. Again, that was a test of rain water. Eventually the rain water will end up in municipal water supplies.
A local East Idaho TV news reporter interviewed an official at the Idaho National Laboratory, regarding the safety of the INL’s nuclear reactor during a seismic event. INL’s emergency director Riley Chase made almost the same statements that Japanese officials made right before their nuclear disaster.
“If we were to have a seismic event, the safety systems would shut that reactor down…”, also, “…we have diesel generators that run, and we have battery backed-up systems that will provide and constantly keep cooling…”
I’d like to remind people that this is what the officials said in Japan. Their safety systems and back up systems failed. This is because the quake and tsunami in Japan was much stronger than anyone planned for. The Japanese systems were set up to withstand a 7.9 quake. It is now clear that the event was much, much stronger. I believe if we in Eastern Idaho experienced such a strong event the INL system would fail as well. A major fault line does run through East Idaho, from Salt Lake up to Yellowstone.
On the plus side, the INL reactor is low power, and is run for 6 weeks each time it’s powered up. So hope that the big one hits when the reactor is shut down.
By the way, the INL reactor is not the only nuclear plant in East Idaho. Idaho State University has a graphite reactor on its Pocatello campus. Shouldn’t be much concern, their ANG-201 reactor produces only 5 watts of power (at least that’s the maximum it is allowed to produce).
I have talked to long time building maintenance employees at the University, and they have told stories of the radioactive waste, from ANG-201, being stored in unmarked buildings. The story I heard was that some maintenance employees were on the roof of a building when they were suddenly told to get off the building. They were sent for medical exams, where they learned they were being checked for radiation exposure. Apparently the building they were on was being used to store radioactive waste.
This brings up the issue of radioactive waste. In the United States storage of radioactive waste has become a problem, because no one wants it in their back yard. So what happens to it? Some nuclear plants in California have simply been building up a stockpile of waste on their property. Here in East Idaho, the INL has been dealing with the problem of contaminated waste for decades. If the U.S. experiences a major seismic event near nuclear plants, not only will the reactors become an immediate threat, so will the waste.
The latest Realty Trac survey puts Idaho in the top five states for home foreclosures. Idaho is ranked number 5, right behind California at number 4.
Realty Trac says Idaho saw a 13.67% increase over the same time last year, and a 19.74% increase since the 2nd quarter of this year. For the 3rd quarter of 2010, one out of 86 homes in Idaho are in some stage of foreclosure. California, while seeing a drop in foreclosures, still has one out of 70 homes in foreclosure.
The top 5 states, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, California and Idaho, make up 50% of foreclosures in the United States.
This news comes as the big banks involved in the foreclosure fiasco are reporting big profits for the same quarter.