03 July 2014 (14:42 UTC-07 Tango)/05 Ramadan 1435/12 Tir 1393/07 Geng Wu(6th month) 4712
“We are learning that the nuclear accident didn’t contaminate the entire ocean, but created spots that tend to have higher radioactive levels than others.”-Blair Thornton, University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science
“…the average concentration of cesium-137 was 90 becquerels. But of the locations charted 4 km offshore, 20 sites measured higher than 1,000 becquerels and some locations 6 km offshore registered levels as high as 2,000 becquerels.”-The Asahi Shimbum, Study shows muddy seabed off Fukushima coast has higher levels of contamination
In Japan, the Fukushima Medical University reporting thyroid problems in children are now 40 times what is considered normal. National government officials deny it.
In the backyard of the United States, Bahamian officials have asked for international help in conducting health screenings for people living around the Freeport Industrial Park. Back in January it was revealed that some products being shipped from Japan, and arriving in Jamaican and Bahamian ports, are radioactive.
The Bahamian government now admits there are higher than ‘normal’ cases of cancer, birth defects and other health problems among residents living in towns around Freeport Industrial Park. The area is the industrial center of Bahamas, and is also a free trade zone. For the past 25 years residents have been reporting massive amounts of pollutants from the Park. Government officials now asking Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) to investigate.
U.S. taxpayers have been paying for radiation detection at Caribbean ports since 2009, under a U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) program. That’s because your exalted nuclear industries are not as secure as you think. In 2013, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed 146 “incidents” in which nuclear material was in some way compromised. In other words, there’s a lot of nuclear material out there in the hands of who knows! But wait, there’s more! From 1993-2013 there have been 2477 “incidents involving unauthorized acquisition…..supply, possession, use, transfer or disposal…..of nuclear and other radioactive material” reported to IAEA, and that’s just from the countries that participate in the reporting!
A recent International Relations and Security Network (ISN) article gives a warning about how easy it is to get contraband, including weapons of mass destruction, through the ports of the Caribbean. My own article, Will new 9-11 attack come from the new money magnet of Bahamas?, suggests that U.S. elected officials know of a coming 9-11 style attack.
In the U.S. state of Alaska, the lower Cook Inlet is being tested for radiation from Fukushima. Non-profit Cook Inletkeeper is getting social media crowd funding to conduct the testing: “We recognize how important safe seafood and clean water are to Alaskans, not only for personal consumption, but also marketability….We’re sampling water, the FDA is sampling fish so it’s a complementary sampling regime.”-Bob Shavelson
In Ohio, a company called Austin Master Services has been given a license to store nuclear materials used by the petroleum industry. Local residents were concerned about the whole thing, and company officials revealed that a lot of that nuclear material they’ll be storing/disposing of is used in the fracking process for natural gas.
Austin Master Services specializes in “site decommissioning”. They use In Situ Object Counting Systems to determine if the radiation waste they collect from the oil industry is ‘safe’ to be dumped into your local landfill!
In Washington, the DoE is finally going to clean up the site of a major incident at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. It happened in 1976, and one employee was so irradiated he was called The Atomic Man.
A hot reaction caused a sealed glove box to explode, exposing the operator to a massive dose of americium (500 times safe limits). The victim was so hot that he had to be initially handled by remote control. He spent five months in experimental treatments, including shots of zinc DTPA. He continued to have radical medical problems until he died in 1987. Government officials declared that he died of a heart attack!
The room where the explosion happened is now going to be cleaned up, as part of ongoing demolitions of the Plutonium Finishing Plant.
It’s been revealed that contractors at Hanford have spent at least $3.5 million USD in legal expenses, and a U.S. Senator discovered that taxpayers are actually paying for those legal fees: “The Department of Energy may be providing an incentive to contractors to engage in protracted litigation with whistleblowers by reimbursing the contractors’ legal expenses.”-Claire McCaskill, Senator from Missouri
A long time resident and real estate developer in Hanford has died at the age of 79. He died of leukemia.
Utah based EnergySolutions, which packages waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), denies their ‘green’ cat litter caused the explosions in its nuke waste shipments to New Mexico‘s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). DoE investigators suspect organic cat litter found in the mixed waste drums absorbed and concentrated certain chemicals, resulting in a chemical reaction explosion.
Miles Smith, of EnergySolutions, says they followed DoE packing instructions and that a hot reaction could not have occurred from inside the drums: “…we don’t think it has the ability to start burning on its own. It needs an outside source of ignition.”
Despite their denials, Energy Solutions has laid off 115 employees since the March WIPP explosions! Some reports say it’s because their LANL contracted had ended, other reports say it’s because LANL has had to shift funds to the ongoing WIPP investigation.
The DoE has begun phase two of their WIPP investigation, which will include basically what they’ve been doing in phase one; a lot of observation.
It will include “restoring mine habitability”. This implies the radiation levesl are too high for humans to remain long enough to conduct a proper investigation. DoE admits they can’t even move the suspect mixed waste drums.
Meanwhile, U.S. Congressmen continue to screw around with funds for investigating the WIPP hot reactions. This time employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were seeing their retirement funds whittled away. Congress wants to take $120-million from the retirement fund to help pay for the WIPP fiasco. Idaho’s dynastic Mike Simpson tried to lie to the NNSA employees: “It’s a high priority for me that WIPP is returned to full and safe operations as soon as possible. There are some misunderstandings regarding the funding source…concerns that it would adversely affect contributions made into the department’s contractor employee pension plans. I would like to assure members that this bill will meet all requirements for employees’ pensions, which are contractual obligations assumed by the department as part of its operations and maintenance contracts.”
Despite Simpson’s claims, an amendment was introduced to try and protect the NNSA retirement money, and it was adopted unanimously.
