CONNECTICUT COALITION AGAINST MILLSTONE
EPA Dramatically Weakens Radiation Protection
For Immediate Release
Contacts: Dan Hirsch Committee to Bridge the Gap 831 336 8003
Diane D’Arrigo Nuclear Information and Resource Service 301 270 6477 x 15
April 15, 2013 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is publishing in the Federal Register today controversial new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) for responding to radioactive releases. EPA says it solicits public comment but is nonetheless making the PAGs immediately effective.
The new PAGs eliminate requirements to evacuate people in the face of high projected thyroid, skin, or lifetime whole body doses; recommend dumping radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps not designed for such waste; propose five options for drinking water, which would dramatically increase the permitted concentrations of radioactivity in drinking water, by as much as 27,000 times, compared to EPA’s current Safe Drinking Water Act limits; and suggest markedly relaxing long-term cleanup standards.
“In essence the government is now saying nuclear power accidents could produce such widespread contamination and produce such high radiation levels that the government should abandon efforts to clean it up and instead force people to live with radiation-induced cancer risks orders of magnitude higher than ever considered acceptable,” said Daniel Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap.
The PAGs are intended to guide the response to nuclear power reactor accidents (like Fukushima in Japan, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the U.S.), “dirty bomb” explosions, radioactive releases from nuclear fuel and weapons facilities, and nuclear transportation accidents.
“EPA ignores the fact that women and kids are at even greater risk from radiation. The doses permitted by the 2013 EPA PAGs will allow indecent exposures to radiation,” says Diane D’Arrigo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “Women are 50% more vulnerable than men and children are at even greater risk from radiation than adults, according to data from the National Academy of Sciences.”
Extremely high food contamination levels would be allowed by the incorporation of Food and Drug Administration 1998 guidance. EPA officials had previously criticized those standards, saying that 1 in 50 people eating food at those levels would get cancer from their exposure, on top of our normal cancer risk.
The PAGs also incorporate and expand controversial Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) PAGs adopted in 2008 which would allow long-term doses as high as thousands of millirems per year without cleanup being required. Associated guidance for carrying out the long-term cleanup, prepared for DHS and for which the comment period expires today, recommends abandoning EPA’s long-held cleanup standards and instead allowing people to be exposed to doses as high as the equivalent of three chest X rays a day for one’s entire life. Over 70 years, EPA estimates 1 in 6 people would get cancer from exposure that high, orders of magnitude higher risk than EPA has historically said is acceptable.
In addition, EPA admits that a nuclear power accident could far exceed the capacity of radioactive waste sites to manage waste generated from cleanups and therefore suggests allowing the waste to go to regular trash dumps, a fight the public has waged for decades in the US.
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for more information: www.committeetobridgethegap.org and www.bit.ly/radstandard
ON FUKUSHIMA ANNIVERSARY:
TIME TO INVESTIGATE GINA McCARTHY
Fukushima Two Years On:
Radiation Effects Widely Seen in Children
Fukushima is already harming our children
Harvey WassermanMarch 10, 2013
Thyroid abnormalities have now been confirmed among tens of thousands of children downwind from Fukushima. They are the first clear sign of an unfolding radioactive tragedy that demands this industry be buried forever.
Two years after Fukushima exploded, three still-smoldering reactors remind us that the nuclear power industry repeatedly told the world this could never happen.
And 72 years after the nuclear weapons industry began creating them, untold quantities of deadly wastes still leak at Hanford and at commercial reactor sites around the world, with no solution in sight.Radiation can be slow to cause cancer, taking decades to kill.
But children can suffer quickly. Their cells grow faster than adults'. Their smaller bodies are more vulnerable. With the embryo and fetus, there can never be a "safe" dose of radiation. NO dose of radiation is too small to have a human impact.Last month the Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey acknowledged a horrifying plague of thyroid abnormalities, thus far afflicting more than forty percent of the children studied.
The survey sample was 94,975. So some 38,000 children are already cursed with likely health problems...that we know of.
A thyroid abnormality can severely impact a wide range of developmental realities, including physical and mental growth. Cancer is a likely outcome.
This is the tenth such study conducted by the prefecture. As would be expected downwind from a disaster like Fukushima, the spread of abnormalities has been increasing over time. So has the proportion of children with nodules that are equal to or larger than 5.1 mm. The number of cysts has also been increasing.
And the government has revealed that three cases of thyroid cancer have already been diagnosed in the area. All have been subjected to surgery.Fukushima's airborne fallout came to our west coast within a week of the catastrophe. It's a virtual certainty American children are being affected. As health researcher Joe Mangano puts it: "Reports of rising numbers of West Coast infants with under-active thyroid glands after Fukushima suggest that Americans may have been harmed by Fukushima fallout. Studies, especially of the youngest, must proceed immediately."
Untold billions of gallons of unmonitored liquid poisons have poured into the Pacific. Contaminated trash has carried across the ocean (yet the US has ceased monitoring wild-caught Pacific fish for radiation).
Worldwide, atomic energy is in rapid decline for obvious economic reasons. In Germany and elsewhere, Solartopian technologies---wind, solar, bio-fuels, efficiency---are outstripping nukes and fossil fuels in price, speed to install, job creation, environmental impact, reliability and safety.
No one has yet measured the global warming impacts of the massive explosions and heat releases at Fukushima (or at Chernobyl, where the human death toll has been estimated in excess of a million).
The nuclear fuel cycle---from mining to milling to enrichment to transportation to waste management---creates substantial greenhouse gases. The reactors themselves convert ore to gargantuan quantities of heat that warm the planet directly, wrecking our weather patterns in ways that have never been fully assessed.
Even in the shadow of Fukushima, the industry peddles a "new generation" of magical reactors to somehow avoid all previous disasters. Though they don't yet exist, they will be "too cheap to meter," will "never explode" and will generate "radiation that is good for you."
But atomic energy is human history's most expensive technological failure, defined by what seems to be a terminal reverse learning curve. After more than a half-century to get it right, the industry has most recently poked holes in the head of a reactor in Florida, and installed $700 million steam generators it knew to be faulty in two more in California. It now wants to open San Onofre Unit Two at a 70% level, essentially to see what happens. Some 8 million people live within a 50-mile radius.
This from an increasingly dangerous industry that has brought us four "impossible" explosions---one at Chernobyl, three at Fukushima---clearly with more yet to come. Its radiation has spewed for decades. Its wastes have no place on this planet.
The ultimate death toll among Fukushima's victims may be inescapable. But the industry that's harming them is not.Those thyroid-damaged children bring us yet another tragic warning: There's just one atomic reactor from which our energy can safely come.
Two years after Fukushima, it is still 93 million miles away---but more ready than ever to safely, cleanly and cheaply power our planet.
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Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.harveywasserman.com. With Norman Solomon, Robert Alvarez & Eleanor Walters, he is co-author of KILLING OUR OWN: THE DISASTER OF AMERICA'S EXPERIENCE WITH ATOMIC RADIATION, available free on the internet. He will speak 3/24 at 2pm in Santa Monica on shutting San Onofre (ilenepr@sbcglobal.net).
Key program problem may haunt Obama's potential EPA choice - Connecticut Post
Gina McCarthy:
Investigate- Not Nominate
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 1, 2013 Contact: Nancy Burton, NancyBurtonCT@aol.com
Gina McCarthy is being talked about as a possible successor to Lisa Jackson, who announced her intention to resign as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator on December 27, 2012. (See The Wall Street Journal, “The Next Lisa Jackson,”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324669104578206011318198152.html.) Jackson will exit the post in January.
But President Obama should investigate McCarthy, not nominate her, according to the Mothers Milk Project.
“McCarthy’s record on protecting the public from known radiation hazards, from goat’s milk to Fukushima, is scandalous,” said Burton, co-director of the Mothers Milk Project, a grassroots organization that collects human, goat and cow’s milk and has it analyzed for levels of radioactivity.
“Further, her recent failure to fully disclose emails under a Freedom of Information request demands Congressional investigation,” Burton asserted.
McCarthy served as chief of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection before Obama tapped her in 2009 to become EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation.
As Commissioner of Connecticut’s DEP, McCarthy defaulted on her legal responsibility to the public in favor of Millstone, the state’s sole operating nuclear power plant, located near the Rhode Island border in Waterford, Burton said.
“She allowed Millstone to operate for years on an expired Clean Water Act permit, allowing Millstone to flout the federal law with routine emergency authorizations that allowed unregulated releases of a thermal plume laced with chemicals and radioisotopes onto public beaches and the Long Island Sound,” Burton said.
“Millstone’s illegal releases decimated an indigenous population of fish - the Niantic River winter flounder - when larvae were sucked into Millstone’s mammoth water intake structures,” Burton said.
“McCarthy had the power to uphold the public trust by stopping the illegal releases and saving the fish from extinction, but she abused her power to prop up Millstone, the worst predator of fish in the Northeast,” Burton said.
Burton said McCarthy was also behind a blatant whitewash of data that linked Millstone’s routine venting of radioactive gases to high levels of radioactivity found in local goat milk.
Beginning in 2004, Burton called attention to high levels of strontium-90 in milk samples collected from a goat named Katie (“Katie the Goat”) who grazed in a pasture located five miles northeast of Millstone.
High concentrations of strontium-90, strontium-89 and cesium-137 in Katie’s milk were reported by Millstone’s owner, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., whose technicians collected Katie’s milk as part of its environmental radiation monitoring program. Dominion reported the results to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Connecticut’s DEP. Katie died on August 12, 2012 after being diagnosed with cancer. See www.KatieTheGoat.org.
In 2006, Burton transported Katie and two of her kids to the state capital in Hartford for a press conference to demand the Governor investigate why her milk was heavily contaminated with radiation.
Weeks later, McCarthy, as the state’s highest environmental regulator, released a report absolving Millstone from any role in the high radioactivity levels found in Katie’s milk. (See
http://www.kids.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=2712&Q=324734.)
“The report was a poster child for junk science,” Burton said, noting that two experts in radiation came forward to debunk the report. “McCarthy’s report absolved Millstone without identifying any other plausible culprit for the releases.”
Strontium-90, strontium-89 and cesium-137 exposures are all associated with serious health effects, including bone and breast cancer, leukemia and diseases of the immune system, Burton said.
McCarthy made a $1,000 donation to the Obama presidential campaign in 2008 (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/regina-mccarthy/gIQAgb7JAP_topic.html.)
On March 20, 2009, newly elected President Obama nominated McCarthy to serve as the federal government’s top protector of the public from radiation, heading the Office of Air and Radiation as EPA in the post of EPA’s Assistant Administrator.
That position put McCarthy at the pinnacle of protecting the American public from poisonous fallout from the March 11, 211 Fukushima nuclear disaster. (See EPA website: “Congress designated EPA as the primary federal agency charged with protecting people and the environment from harmful and avoidable exposure to radiation. EPA responds to emergencies, assists in homeland security, assesses radiation risks, sets protective limits on emissions and informs people about radiation and radiation hazards.” http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/oar.html; http://www.epa.gov/radiation/laws/index.html.)
McCarthy’s Office of Air and Radiation operates a network of radiation monitors across the nation, a system tested as three of the Fukushima reactors exploded with core meltdowns, releasing vast quantities of radiation into the air and Pacific Ocean.
The EPA radiation monitoring effort was a debacle.
At the outset of the Fukushima nuclear emergency, one out of five monitors was inoperable, according to a scathing, but little-reported-on, audit issued on April 19, 2012 by EPA’s own Inspector General, whose hand was forced to investigate by leaders of national safe energy organizations appalled by deficiencies in EPA’s monitoring. (See “Weaknesses in EPA’s Management of the Radiation Network System Demand Attention,”
http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2012/20120419-12-P-0417.pdf.)
The report is addressed to “Gina McCarthy, Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation.”
The IG report found 25 of EPA’s 124 stationary monitors were either broken or disabled due to “relaxed quality controls,” taking them out of service for an average of 130 days – four months – at the beginning of the Fukushima emergency.
The so-called “RadNet” system, consisting of 124 stationary monitors distributed across the United States and 40 mobile monitors, is designed to continuously sample the air for traces of radioactivity and report the data to EPA headquarters, alerting officials to unusual readings.
The monitors also serve as collecting stations for precipitation, drinking water and milk samples. The RadNet system has been identified by EPA as “critical infrastructure” for homeland security under the Patriot Act, according to Forbes Magazine. (See http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/04/27/inspector-general-faults-epa-radiation-monitoring/.)
EPA’s Inspector General bluntly placed responsibility for the gross deficiencies in the air monitoring system with McCarthy.
“We recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation establish and enforce expectations for RadNet operations readiness,” the report states.
“EPA’s RadNet program will remain vulnerable until it is managed with the urgency and priority that the Agency reports it to have to its mission,” the report stated.
“If RadNet is not managed as a high-priority program, EPA may not have the needed data before, during and after a critical event such as the Japan nuclear incident,” the IG warned. “Such data are crucial to determine levels of airborne radioactivity that may negatively affect public health and the environment.”
McCarthy’s gross failure to adequately manage the nation’s radiation air monitoring network is not surprising in light of her permissive record toward Millstone..
McCarthy’s name was put before President Obama as a candidate by Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman and then-Senator Chris Dodd, both unapologetic fans of the nuclear industry. Neither used the word “radiation” in his letter of endorsement. (See http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=b519766a-7b4c-466f-a302-acac3ebf50c7 and http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=202b8ff9-f21a-4509-ab87-913d92f7cfcc.)
During the course of McCarthy’s Senate Committee hearing on her nomination to serve as chief of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation on April 2, 2009, the word “radiation” was never uttered other than to identify the office she sought.
Ironically, on the very morning of the confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, McCarthy dispatched two Connecticut DEP attorneys to file motions in the Connecticut Superior Court to block environmentalists’ emergency applications to shut Millstone’s two operating reactors during the annual peak of the Niantic River winter flounder migration during the month of April to spare them from extinction, according to Burton, who brought the suit.
Burton contends that McCarthy’s recent response to an FOIA request she submitted on June 13, 2012, seeking all of McCarthy’s emails which concern Fukushima radiation, warrants Congressional inquiry.
McCarthy responded to Burton’s FOIA request by releasing only four emails. Each deletes the name of an addressee and one deletes a portion of the content. In one, dated March 12, 2012, the name of the single addressee is redacted and McCarthy misspells “Chernobyl” as “Chernoble.” (“I spoke with Lee [last name not given] and she has it all together. She indicated that at this point there doesn’t seem to be a significant release and she reminded me that the US did not have to take any protective action with Chernoble – even though that was a much more extreme situation. . . .”)
“It simply strains credulity to believe that in the whole course of the 20-month, ongoing Fukushima disaster Gina McCarthy, as head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation with responsibility for the EPA’s national network of continuous air monitors, issued only four emails concerning the Fukushima radiation and none of them after March 12, 2011,” Burton stated.
On December 27, 2012, Burton appealed to the EPA’s FOIA office, challenging the completeness of the FOIA disclosure, the withholding of an unidentified document and redactions.
Burton also filed an additional FOIA request, seeking all emails concerning Fukushima radiation which may have been generated by McCarthy using an alias email address other than her official mccarthy.gina@epa.gov address.
It came to light shortly before Lisa Jackson announced her resignation as EPA Administrator that she had created an “alias” email address other than her official email address by which she generated more than 12,000 emails in her official capacity. (See http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/14047-epa-chief-lisa-jackson-announces-resignation.)
EPA’s Inspector General has opened an internal investigation into the agency’s electronic records management.
Barry Commoner, 1917-2012
"Scientist, and Planet Earth's Lifeguard"
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/us/barry-commoner-dies-at-95.html?hpw
"He found his political voice when he encountered the indifference of government authorities to the high levels of strontium 90 in the atmosphere from atomic tests. Quite simply, he said in an interview with The Chicago Tribune in 1993, 'The Atomic Energy Commission turned me into an environmentalist.'"
Dr. Commoner initiated the original Baby Tooth Project to document the global effects of radioactive fallout, documenting concentrations of strontium 90 in thousands of human baby teeth. His work contributed significantly to the adoption of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
We remember and honor this brilliant public health pioneer dedicated to protection of the planet and all its life.
Katie Recognized and Remembered at U.S. Capitol Rally
Katie the Goat was recognized and remembered at a nationally-sponsored rally to end nuclear power and nuclear weapons at the U.S. Capitol on September 20, 2012.
Nancy Burton, Katie’s caretaker, addressed the rally of C.A.N. (Coalition Against Nukes), telling national anti-nuclear leaders and grassroots activists gathered from across the country about Katie’s radiation monitoring near the Millstone and Indian Point nuclear power plants.
Burton called on the NRC to require nuclear power plant operators to allow the public to access real-time control room data of reactor radioactive emissions to the air and water.
Other speakers included Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace, Diane D’Arrigo, of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Fukushima native Iori Mochizuki, Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth, Robert Tohe of the Sierra Club, Kristin Iverson, author of Full Body Burden, and many others.
The rally kicked off a major three-day event including a Congressional briefing on defective nuclear power plants led by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and an “Occupy the NRC” protest at the headquarters of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Katie the Goat, Radiation Monitor and Anti-Nuke Symbol, Succumbs to Cancer
KATIE THE GOAT – NUCLEAR WHISTLEBLOWER SUCCUMBS TO CANCER
Katie the Goat, whose milk contained high levels of radioactivity when she lived near the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut and who was stricken with inoperable cancer, died on Sunday, August 12, 2012, at her Redding, Connecticut home.
Katie became a news media celebrity, participating in events that took her from the State Capitol in Hartford in 2006 to the White House on March 11, 2012, the first anniversary of the Fukushima triple nuclear meltdown.
First Lady Michelle Obama pronounced Katie’s invitation to donate a granddaughter to the First Family to serve as a White House pet as well as radiation monitor “a fantastic idea.”
With a concentration of 55 picoCuries/liter in 2001, it is believed that Katie’s milk contained the highest level of strontium-90 ever detected in milk in the state of Connecticut, perhaps the nation. That number was twice the highest concentration recorded in milk sampled in Connecticut during the peak of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s.
Most samples of Katie’s milk, taken when she lived five miles northeast of Millstone in Waterford, Connecticut, from the late 1990s until 2003, had elevated levels of strontium-90, as well as strontium-89 and cesium-137. All are potent carcinogens.
Katie became a news media celebrity when she first ventured to the State Capitol in 2006 after anti-nuclear activists became aware of the high concentrations of radioisotopes in her milk, as reported by Millstone’s owner, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. Dominion had assured Katie’s owner that her milk was safe to drink and its environmental reports containing the milk measurements had not been publicized.
There is no federal or state standard for strontium-89 or strontium-90 levels in milk nor do federal regulations limit the volume of strontium-89 and strontium-90 that nuclear power plants may release to the environment, according to Nancy Burton, co-director of the Mothers Milk Project, which collects milk from dairy cows and goats as well as humans and has it tested for levels of radioactivity.
Katie, a white nanny goat of Saanen and Nubian descent, was believed to be in her late teens.
Katie’s 2006 press conference on the lawn of the State Capitol forced then-Governor M. Jodi Rell to direct the state Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the cause of high concentrations of strontium-90 in Katie’s milk.
DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy released a report absolving Millstone from any role in the milk poisoning but failed to provide a credible alternative explanation, Burton said.
“Two qualified scientists studied the DEP report and rebuked it as junk science,” Burton said. Both experts tried to meet with the DEP authors of the study to correct what they perceived to be gross errors, but to no avail.
(McCarthy now serves as President Obama’s appointee as the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant secretary for air and radiation, where her responsibilities include protecting the public from radiation hazards.)
‘ Katie’s milk was tested once she moved to Redding, which is located about 25 miles downwind from the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Buchanan NY. Frequently, radioactive strontium was detected in her milk far above national averages.
Katie became a familiar presence at anti-Millstone rallies near Millstone and elsewhere around the state. She appeared next to Ralph Nader, longtime anti-nuclear advocate, in Willimantic. She offered up a sample of her milk at a “Clean Beaches” rally in East Lyme where activists gathered to protest Millstone waste discharges to Niantic Bay, a popular recreational site for swimmers. She wore a “Got Strontium?” sign at a rally supporting a Millstone whistleblower who was fired after reporting to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that Dominion routinely deliberately deactivated its perimeter security system.
Katie was diagnosed with inoperable soft tissue sarcoma in her left shoulder in February 2012. The medical condition is associated with radiation exposure, Burton said.
A Farewell Tour was planned.
Katie returned to the State Capitol for a press conference. Though invited, Governor Dannel Malloy refused to meet Katie and his office issued a statement that he would not meet her in the future..
Katie’s keeper, Burton, communicated with the First Family, asking it to adopt one of Katie’s granddaughters to serve as a White House pet as well as an onsite radiation monitor.
Through her press office, First Lady Michelle Obama replied:
“Dear Ms. Burton,
Thank you for your interest in the First Family. Your offer is extremely generous and seems like a fantastic opportunity, it is truly appreciated. Unfortunately, we are unable to satisfy your request. We apologize that we could not be more helpful. Again thank you so much for such a kind gesture. We wish you well in the future.”
Undeterred, Katie and 3-month-old Dana Blue-Eyes headed to Washington DC and strolled in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on March 11, attracting attention to issues of nuclear power hazards.
Millstone Foiled by Its Own Hot Water: Unit 2 Shuts Because of Overheated Long Island Sound
Since 1970, the Millstone N uclear Power Station has continuously pumped a hot water plume of
billions of gallons of water per day into the Long Island Sound through its once-through cooling system.
For the past decade, the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone has advocated for Millstone's conversion to a closed cooling system which would not release hot water - laced with radioactive waste products and toxic chemicals - into the Long Island Sound but instead cool the reactor from an onsite pool of continuously circulating water.
Dominion and its ally in government, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, have resisted this common-sense, environmentally-protective alternative. Ironically, a 1993 study by Northeast Utilities pronounced such a conversion feasible, and DEP excluded that report from evidence in recent licensing proceedings.
On Sunday, August 12, 2012, Dominion had to shut down Unit 2 and suffer the economic stresses of losing $1 million or more a day in lost profits because a license condition prevented it from operating when the temperature at the intakes exceeds 75 degrees, as it did then. In issuing the Unit 2 license, the NRC had determined that the Unit 2 reactor cannot be safely cooled by water exceeding that temperature.
The prospect is that Unit 2 will remain shut down for weeks, as the Long Island Sound temperature in that vicinity historically peaks in late August. With Sunday's shutdown, the region experienced above-"routine" releases of radioactivity to the air and water because the reactor is designed to vent and purge during shutdowns.
Millstone 3 is on the edge and may be forced to shut down soon for a long period as well because of the rising temperature of the Long Island Sound.
These shutdowns could have been avoided if Dominion had converted the nuclear facility to a closed cooling system, as it was ordered to do in neighboring Rhode Island at Brayton Point by the U.S. EPA.
As temperatures were rising in July, Dominion squirmed. The Virginia-based company, anticipating such a showdown later in the summer, applied to the NRC for an emergency amendment which would allow it to operate Unit 2 even if the temperature exceeded 75 degrees. Dominion's engineers played with their numbers and asked if they could sample water from three locations and calculate the average, which would likely be lower. Consistent with its rubber-stamping pattern, the NRC approved the emergency amendment.
The emergency amendment was of no avail on Sunday, however, because even with the new averaging, the temperature was too hot to risk running Unit 2 at full power.
To obtain the license amendment, Dominion had to represent in good faith and candor that it was not responsible for the circumstances and that the circumstances were unavoidable in order to establish an "emergency.". If Dominion could not make such an honest representation, the NRC would have been legally compelled to order Dominion to shut Unit 2. If Dominion wanted to pursue the amendment on a non-emergency basis, it would have to risk a public hearing and public scrutiny.
Here's where it helped Dominion to have a kindred spirit in the NRC, which at all costs helps nuclear licensees to avoid shutdowns. Shutdowns make the industry look bad. They drive down the performance stats and they cost the utilities money.
In its analysis of the emergency license amendment, the NRC failed to take into account the fact of Dominion's continuous release of hot water to the Long Island Sound in a wide thermal plume within the very area from which Millstone draws in its coolant water, particularly at twice-daily times of high tide.
Thus, the NRC did not analyze whether, if Dominion put both Unit 2 and Unit 3 in cold shutdown, the temperature of the incoming coolant would drop to below 75 degrees.
Rather, NRC blithely concluded in its evaluation of the license amendment: "This emergency situation is caused by environmental factors beyond the control of DNC [Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone's corporate owner]."
Read: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/heat-shuts-down-a-coastal-reactor/
Japan Admits Nuclear Plant Still Poses Dangers The plant is still in a precarious state 3/29/2012
Katie the Goat Takes Her Farewell Tour to White House 3/11: Mission Accomplished
Katie the Goat, the celebrated nuclear radiation monitor from Connecticut, took her Farewell Tour to the White House on March 11, the first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns. Katie's granddaughter, Dana Blue-Eyes, appealed to the First Family to adopt her as its official White House monitor for strontium-90.
Come back to this site for a full story of the exciting day!
Katie the Goat Takes Her Farewell Tour to the White House; Will Appeal to First Family to Adopt Her Granddaughter As a Pet and as a Radiation Monitor
Katie and Dana Blue Eyes Dana Blue Eyes
Katie the Goat will take her Farewell Tour to the White House on Sunday, March 11 at 12 noon, and appeal to the First Family to adopt her granddaughter, 3-month-old Dana Blue-Eyes, as a pet and a future radiation monitor.
In a letter delivered to First Lady Michelle Obama and the First Family on March 8, Katie’s caretaker, Nancy Burton, co-director of the Mothers Milk Project, asked the First Lady to help draw attention to the Project’s findings of radioactive contamination of human, cow and goat milk near the Indian Point and Millstone Nuclear Power Plants.
“Mothers are unknowingly feeding their children milk which is contaminated with nuclear materials which are potent carcinogens,” Burton says. “There are no federal standards for strontium-90 or strontium-89 in milk, even though these dangerous radioisotopes are known to mimic calcium in their chemical properties and find their way into our milk supply. They are routinely released by nuclear power plants”
“By adopting Dana Blue-Eyes, the First Family will have a devoted and playful pet who will double as a radiation monitor when she begins producing milk,” Burton says. “They will signal to the country their commitment to ensuring the purity and safety of the food we provide to our children.”
Strontium-90 and strontium-89 disperse in the air after their release from nuclear power plants and fall to earth during weather events. Cows, goats and humans can ingest them through breathing, drinking water and eating vegetation.
Read the Letter to First Lady Michelle Obama and the First Family here:March 8, 2012:
Honorable First Lady Michelle Obama and the First Family
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC
Dear First Lady Obama and the First Family,
As Co-Director of the Mothers Milk Project, I applaud First Lady Obama for her outstanding work and commitment to improving the nutritional health of our nation’s children. Her legacy will be lasting.
In 2008, I co-founded the Mothers Milk Project to call attention to an issue which also has profound nutritional and health implications for our nation’s children – and indeed all Americans. That is the presence of radioactivity in our milk.
The Mothers Milk Project has sampled milk from lactating mothers – humans, cows and goats included – in the area surrounding the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Buchanan, New York.
The results, presented by an independent, certified laboratory, show the presence of strontium-90 and strontium-89, manmade radioisotopes released in nuclear fission. Both radionuclides are potent bone-seeking carcinogens medically associated with bone cancer, leukemia and soft tissue cancers.
Children are most vulnerable to the health effects of ingesting radioactive strontium because their teeth and bones are growing at an accelerated rate.
Epidemiological studies have found elevated cancer rates among children with strontium-90 in their discarded baby teeth, in contrast with those without strontium-90 in their teeth, in the vicinity of Indian Point.
Goat milk is considered the best and most sensitive indicator of airborne radiation releases, even superior to onsite mechanical radiation detectors at nuclear power plants. In fact, the owner of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station disabled its onsite strontium-90 detectors in 2001, citing the superiority of goat milk as an environmental indicator.
To help call attention to this serious issue, we ask you to accept our gift of a 3-month-old baby goat named Dana Blue-Eyes to be your pet and to serve as a radiation monitor at the White House grounds. She is not quite old enough to have babies and produce milk, but she will give the First Family great pleasure as you watch her grow up. (We are reminded of the fact that President Abraham Lincoln accepted a gift of Nanko and Nanny, kid goats, while he and his family of young boys were White House residents, and the family grew devoted to them.)
Dana Blue-Eyes is the granddaughter of Katie the Goat, who lived five miles from Millstone in 2000-2003. Millstone’s owner, Dominion, collected her milk every month for sampling and reported excessively high levels of strontium-90 in her milk.
Katie presently resides with me in Redding, Connecticut, 25 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. She was recently diagnosed at Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Massachusetts with terminal cancer presented in a visible shoulder protrusion and a large tumor buried in her chest. The soft-tissue cancer is medically associated with radiation exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which cites strontium-90 exposure as a risk factor in bone cancer, leukemia and soft-tissue cancer. http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/strontium.html. Still, Katie continues her public service as a radiation monitor even in her illness.
Last March 25 and April 26, days after nuclear reactors exploded at Fukushima, one after another, unleashing vast amounts of radiation to the air and the sea, Katie’s milk showed spikes in radioactivity. In fact, her milk concentrations of strontium-89 were the highest ever seen during Katie’s 12-year career as a radiation monitor (4 and 5.49 picocuries/liter, respectively).
The nuclear power plant closest upwind to the White House - Calvert Cliffs in Lusby, MD, 50 miles away – does not monitor milk for radioactivity. There are no federal standards for strontium-90 or strontium-89 levels in milk.
This Sunday, March 11, at 12 noon, we will appear at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with Katie and Dana Blue-Eyes on hand. May we hope that you will accept our (and Katie’s) generous offer to install Dana Blue-Eyes at the White House as its personal radiation monitor?
Please do contact us at your earliest opportunity. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Nancy Burton
Katie the Goat, Millstone Radiation Whistleblower, Stricken by Nuclear Fallout
Begins ‘Farewell Tour’ to Alert Public to Deadly Hazards of Nuclear Power http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pibMpWbneCk
Katie the Goat, whose milk contained excessive levels of radioactive strontium-90 when she lived five miles from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station from 2000 and 2003, has been diagnosed with untreatable terminal cancer medically linked to radiation exposure.
Connecticut’s well-known radiation monitor and nuclear whistleblower has been fatally stricken with nuclear fallout.
“Katie’s message is for the whole world to hear: that radiation from nuclear power plants is deadly,” said Nancy Burton, director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone (www.MothballMillstone.org) and Katie’s caretaker.
Katie’s dire diagnosis provides unprecedented proof linking exposure to Millstone and Indian Point radioactive emissions with deadly cancer. Even during routine operation, nuclear power plants are designed to vent radiation into the air. They are dispersed by wind and weather conditions. They can be ingested by a goat – or a human – through breathing, drinking water and eating vegetation, including garden produce.
“In Connecticut, nature’s purest and best nutrient - mother’s milk – can harbor insidious poisons from Millstone and Indian Point and we are being lied to by those who produce and profit from these deadly nuclear byproducts,” she said.
“The implications for child welfare and public health are enormous,” Burton said. “We are all at risk.”
Katie was adopted by the Coalition when it discovered her high strontium-90 milk levels in little-noticed reports filed with the state and federal governments and, appearing at numerous rallies and events across the state, Katie made headlines and became a “poster goat” alerting mothers and others to the hazards of nuclear power.
She appeared with Ralph Nader and on public-access television. She appeared at a rally at Millstone to support Sham Mehta, the Millstone whistleblower fired by Dominion after he reported to the NRC that Dominion was routinely deliberately disabling its perimeter security system.
Most famously, Katie appeared at the State Capitol in June 2006 with her baby kids, Cindy-Lu and Joe-Joe, for a press conference and with hopes to meet with then-Governor M. Jodie Rell to share the laboratory results of her contaminated milk. Health physicist Dr. Ernest Sternglass appeared alongside Katie to explain that the excessive levels of strontium-90 found in her milk – higher, he said, than in milk produced during the peak of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s – derived from Millstone releases and appeared to represent an exceedence of federal radiation standards. The Governor declined to meet with Katie.
Katie returned to the State Capitol today for a press conference to inaugurate her ‘Farewell Tour’ and to present a letter to Governor Dannel Malloy sharing laboratory results analyzing her milk, both when she lived at 120 Dayton Road in Waterford and, since 2008, when she has resided in Redding, Connecticut. Redding is located approximately 25 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station.
Katie’s results show high levels of strontium-90 as well as the presence of strontium-89 at both locations. Both radioisotopes are manmade byproducts of nuclear fission and both are potent carcinogens. In their chemical composition, they mimic calcium and, once ingested from the air, water or food, they concentrate in the bones and teeth, causing bone cancer, leukemia and soft-tissue cancer.[1] Katie has been diagnosed with a soft-tissue sarcoma in her shoulder above her foreleg by the Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Massachusetts.
Strontium-90 has a half-life of 30 years, meaning that it loses half its radioactivity after 30 years. Strontium-89 has a half-life of only 50 days. If it can be detected, it means it was freshly produced, probably not far away. Of the two, strontium-89 is the more significant indicator that a nearby nuclear power plant is responsible for the presence of the carcinogen.
Katie was joined at the press conference by her now grown-up daughter, Cindy-Lu, and granddaughter Dana Blue-Eyes.
Since she first gave birth in Redding in 2008, Cindy-Lu’s milk has also tested positively for strontium-90 and strontium-89. The goats’ caretaker, Nancy Burton, is also co-director of the Mothers Milk Project (www.MothersMilkProject.org), which collects milk samples from cows, goats and humans living near Indian Point and sends the samples to a certified private laboratory for analysis.
When Katie lived near Millstone in Waterford, agents of Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. collected her milk and tested it every three months. The long lag time enabled what strontium-89 might have been present to decay to undetectable levels. Nevertheless, some samples showed the presence of strontium-89.
In reports it filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone’s owner, reported the following levels of strontium-90 and strontium-89 (all in picocuries/liter) at 120 Dayton Road in Waterford (“Location 22”):
2000
June 28: Sr-90 11.0
September 26: Sr-89 2.2, Sr-90 44.4
2001
June 29: Sr-89 2.5, Sr-90 13.2
September 19: Sr-89 3.2, Sr-90 55.5
2002
[Unavailable]
2003
June 24: Sr-90 9.2
August 19: Sr-89 6, Sr-90 14.5
By way of comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last issued a report in 1993 of levels of strontium-90 in milk sold commercially in 37 U.S. cities. The highest level reported was 2.8 picocuries/liter in Little Rock AK, with 12 of the samples less than one.[2]
Dominion also reported that Katie’s milk contained concentrations of other radioisotopes, including Iodine-131, Cesium-134, Cesium-137 and others.
In its 2001 annual report, Dominion stated that its own monitoring of strontium-90 and strontium-89 in air particulate filters at the Millstone radiation stack was inferior to testing milk samples for these radioisotopes in the environment.[3]
Dominion acknowledges that “Over the many years of station operation, Sr-89 has often been released in comparable quantity to Sr-90,” yet the Virginia-based company has consistently denied that Millstone was responsible for the radioactivity in Katie’s milk.[4]
The operators of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station never sampled goat milk and limited their testing to one dairy farm located five miles northeast of the facility. Sampling of milk at that location by New York State between 1982 and 1992 found levels of strontium-90 in cow’s milk to generally be in the 1-3 picocurie/liter range, with a spike of 14 in 1983 and another spike in 1991 of 7.25. When the dairy farm closed in 1992, Indian Point discontinued milk sampling. Customarily, the plant’s owners report annually to the NRC, as they did in their 2010 report, that its operations “did not result in exposure to the public greater than background levels.” In other words, the plant’s routine radiation releases to the air stopped at the plant’s perimeter and did not disperse into the environment.
Nevertheless, both Katie and Cindy-Lu – and other participants in the Mothers Milk Project – have been producing milk with significant detectable levels of both strontium-90 and strontium-89 during their residency in Redding.
Among the highlights of their milk sampling are these results:
June 29, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 3.5
June 30, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 1.8
July 11, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-89 3.7, Sr-90 3.4
July 16, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 2.3
July 19, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 5.1
July 24, 2008 Katie Sr-90 1.0
August 28, 2008 Katie Sr-89 3.8, Sr-90 2.1
June 5, 2010 Katie Sr-89 1.1
March 8, 2011: Katie Sr-89 2., Sr-90, 1.1
May 13, 2011: Katie Sr-89 2.03 March 25, 2011 Katie Sr-89 .4 , Sr-90 1.2
April 26, 2011 Katie Sr-89 5.49
May 13, 2011: Cindy-Lu Sr-89 5.74, Sr-90 1.75
Katie and her caretaker planned to present these results to Governor Malloy and to ask him to meet with them for a full discussion of the issue.
Neither the State of Connecticut nor the federal government independently monitors milk produced in the state.
Katie and Cindy-Lu – and other goats at two locations near Millstone – carry out this public service.
There is one and only one way to eliminate the risk of contaminating mother’s milk with nuclear radisotopes and that is to achieve a nuclear-free world, Burton said.
The first best step is to close the Millstone and Indian Point reactors.
“We need only look to Japan, which has functioned without blackouts since Fukushima one year ago, even though it has shut all but two of its 58 nuclear power plants,” Burton said.
“The best energy generation is energy conservation,” she said. “The Japanese have learned to conserve and do with less and so can we. The health of all biological species depends on it.”
- 30 -
[1] “Internal exposure to strontium-90 is linked to bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone and leukemia. Risk of cancer increases with increased exposure to strontium-90. The risk depends on the concentration of strontium-90 in the environment and on the exposure conditions.” http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/strontium.html
[2] http://www.epa.gov/narel/radnet/erd75.pdf (page 31)
[3] “The most sensitive indicator of fission product existence in the terrestrial environment is usually milk samples. Goat milk samples can be a more sensitive indicator of fission products in the terrestrial environment than cow milk samples. . . . The fact that milk samples are a much more sensitive indicator of fission product existence in the environment prompted [Dominion’s decision in 2001 to discontinue the use of air particulate filters to monitor strontium-90 and strontium-89 releases].” Millstone 2001 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report, ADAMS Accession Number ML021300024, pages 4-5 – 4-6.
[4] See, e.g., Millstone 2001 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report at pages 4-6 – 4-7, 6-1 – 6-3.NIRS REACTORWATCH - To read the petition and for information in depth go to:
http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/emergency/emergencyhome.htm
Mischief in the Air
Dominion is developing plans to burn new uranium fuel assemblies - supplied by French-owned Areva – at Millstone Unit 2.
That’s what they told the NRC at a little-noticed meeting on February 15, 2012.
Publicly available details are sketchy, but it appears that the Areva CE14X14 HTP fuel assemblies, with their greater pellet density and “higher uranium loading,” will generate higher levels of radioactivity, including nuclear fission wasteproducts such as plutonium. And a higher heat load.
That translates to more heat being released in the thermal plume exiting to the Long Island Sound, and higher airborne doses to the unsuspecting public living in the shadow of Millstone.
Dominion should not act as though this is a done deal. Their business plan assumes NRC approval in 2012, fuel reshuffling within the Unit 2 spent fuel pool in spring 2012 and receipt of the new fuel assembles in summer 2012.
A Union of Concerned Scientists expose published in 2008 found the NRC had allowed dozens of Areva uranium fuel assembles at U.S. nuclear power plants despite a serious common flaw: the fuel assemblies grew abnormally long once in the reactor, potentially deforming and damaging the fuel.
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone Joins
National Petition to Expand Nuclear Evacuation Zones
The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone joined 37 national clean-energy groups in petitioning the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for rulemaking on February 15, 2012 to adopt new rules to expand emergency evacuation zones and improve emergency response planning around U.S. nuclear reactors.
“It’s past time to plan realistically for the aftermath of a major nuclear disaster at Millstone,” said Nancy Burton, CCAM director. “In a real nuclear emergency, we need to be prepared to protect all within the 50-mile zone of danger, and that means Hartford, New Haven, Providence, and the eastern end of Long Island.”
The formal legal petition calls on the NRC to incorporate the real-world lessons of the Fukushima nuclear disaster by expanding current 10-mile evacuation zones to 25 miles around nuclear reactors.
The expanded emergency evacuation zone would bring the eastern end of Long Island, with its heavy seasonal population, into mandatory planning and drills and it would extend into the state of Rhode Island.
The petition also calls on the federal regulator to establish a new zone of up to 50 miles around each reactor site in which nuclear licensees would have to identify and publicize potential evacuation routes.
The 50-mile zone would stretch to include Providence RI, Hartford, New Haven, New Britain and Waterbury in Connecticut and both North and South Forks of eastern Long Island.
The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is lead petitioner.
In addition, the petition would expand the “ingestion pathway zone,” which monitors food, milk and water, from 50 miles to 100 miles around reactors.
Finally, utilities and state and local governments would be required to practice emergency drills hat include a natural disaster that either initiates or occurs concurrently with a nuclear meltdown. Currently, utilities need not demonstrate the capability to conduct an evacuation during a natural disaster even though - as happened at Fukushima – natural disasters can lead to nuclear meltdowns.
Shortly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster began to unfold on March 11, 2011, the U.S. Government directed U.S. citizens to evacuate beyond a 50-mile radius of the site where three of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants suffered meltdowns.
Prior to the disaster, Japan had established evacuation zones extending for 6 miles beyond nuclear reactor sites. The zone is now being expanded to 18 miles, although thousands of people were evacuated more than 25 miles away.
December 9, 2011: Congressman Ed Markey Exposes NRC Conpiracy to Delay and Weaken U.S. Nuclear Safety in the Wake of Fukushima - Cites a 'Regulatory Meltdown That Has Left America's Nuclear Fleet and the General Public at Risk"
'Hazardous Radiation Dusts All of Japan"
(courtesy Beyond Nuclear)Earthquake in Virginia:
Dominion's North Anna Reactors Lose Offsite Power in Earthquake;
Dominion's Surry Reactors Declare Level 1 Emergency ("Unusual Event")Fukushima Radiation Alarms Doctors
Estimated 45 Per cent of Children in Fukushima Prefecture
Have Suffered Radiation Exposure to Their Thyroids from the Nuclear Calamity
Trace Amounts of Fukushima Fallout Found in Fukushima Children's Urine
These Terrible Findings Suggest Internal Organs Exposed to Radioactivity in the Most Vulnerable
Three Months On (June 11): The Fukushima Cover-Up Continues
Swiss Council Votes to Phase Out Nukes 08 June 2011
Switzerland's National Council has voted in support of the phase out of nuclear energy in the country following a decision by the Swiss cabinet not to replace its existing nuclear plants. 101 members of the 200-seat lower house of the Swiss parliament voted in favour of phasing out nuclear energy by 2034, with 54 against. The proposal must also be approved by the upper house, the 46-member Council of States. Switzerland currently relies on five nuclear plants to gen erate 40% of its electricity, and up until the accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant triggered by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami had been planning to replace its reactors with new units as they reached the end of their operating lives.
Media Silent About Plutonium Contamination of Japanese Rice
Gov't crisis center kept in dark over data on radiation dispersal
Millstone 2 Lost Operability of Its 2 Diesel Generators on October 7, 2009
Read the full expose: "Fukushima Fallout: Regulatory Loopholes at U.S. Nuclear Plants" by Congressman Ed Markey
NRC Inspectors: Millstone Vulnerabilities to Fires, Flooding, Seismic Events
Fukushima parents dish the dirt in protest over radiation levels
Furious Fukushima parents dump school playground earth that may have radiation levels well above the old safety level
Parents in Fukushima are angry over rule changes which mean that school children can be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible.
Earthquake at Haddam CT - Site of Thousands of Tons of Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods
An earthquake measuring 1.3 on the Richter Scale occurred on March 23 in Haddam, Connecticut, where thousands of tons of high-level radioactive waste is "temporarily" stored in above-ground upright casks.
Custodians of the casks containing the waste generated by the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant were unaware of the earthquake until they were notifed by the state's department of emergency mnagement in Hartford, according to an email discovered by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone on April 28.
The state's department of emergency management notified the state Department of Environmental Protection's Edward Wilds of its concerns about the spent nuclear fuel.
"There are no issues with the spent nuclear fuel," Wilds, who is not a seismologist, wrote in an email on March 24.
The Coalition is demanding an investigation by the State of Connecticut, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Departtment of Energy.
April, 2011
Citizens arm themselves with umbrellas, raincoats, boots, Korea Times, April 7, 2011:
… The Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) said radioactive iodine and cesium were found in rainwater collected in the early morning at a checkpoint on the island. The concentration level of iodine-131 was 2.02 becquerels per liter (Bq/l), that of cesium-137, 0.538 Bq/l, and that of cesium-134, 0.333 Bq/l. …
Following the news that minuscule radioactive substances were detected on Jeju, people in all parts of the country carried umbrellas to work or school even though the rainfall was light.
Parents h ad their children not only use umbrellas but also wear raincoats, rubber boots and even masks. Some of them gave their children a ride to school, with streets near schools congested.
In Gyeonggi Province, about 130 pre-, elementary and middle schools were closed after the regional educational office allowed school heads to close them if they deemed it necessary. More than 40 others shortened school hours. …
Read the report here.
UCB Rain Water Sampling Results, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Nuclear Engineering:
Iodine-131 level in rainwater sample taken on the roof of Etcheverry Hall on UC Berkeley campus, March 23, 2011 from 9:06-18:00 PDT
20.1 Becquerel per liter (Bq/L)
Read the report here: Radioactive Iodine-131 in rainwater sample near San Francisco 18,100% above federal drinking water standardRead more:
“Yellow rain” around Tokyo caused by pollen officials say – Rain may have contained radioactivity
“Yellow rain” recently reported in Tokyo also happened after Chernobyl — Government assured residents it was pollen
Rain stimulating “reagents” used during Chernobyl to protect Moscow from fallout — Expert recommends same over Pacific for Fukushima
NY Times contributor confirms California rainwater 181 times above drinking water standards for radioactive iodine-131
Radioactive Iodine-131 in rainwater sampl e near San Francisco 18,100% above federal drinking water standard.
German minister: Human Costs of Nuclear Energy Too High
Radioactive iodine found in breast milk of Japanese mothers
Tornado Shuts Down Offsite Power to Dominion's 2 Surry Reactors in Virginia
Long Island Pushes for 50-Mile Millstone Evacuation Zone
Strontium-90 Detected in Fukushima Fallout More Than 30 Kilometers Offsite
Fukushima Fallout French Radiation Experts:
Lactating & Pregnant Women & Children: Avoid 'Risky' Behavior Including Drinking Milk and Rainwater and Eating Leafy Vegetables"Evacuating L.I. -- a Nuclear Dead End."
"NRC's Pro-Nuke Spin on Evacuation Zones"
Union of Concerned Scientists:
Internal NRC Documents Reveal Doubts About Measures to Ensure U.S. Plants Survive Fukushima-Type EventsState of Virginia Warns Residents to Avoid Drinking Rainwater
Children of Fukushima Being Denied Refuge and Medical Treatment Over Radiation Fears
Analysis of Goat Milk collected in September 2010
25 Miles Downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station
Has Detectable Levels of Strontium-90 and Strontium-89Strontium-89, a carcinogen produced in nuclear fission, has been found in goat milk 25 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. The milk was collected in September 2010. Strontium-89 has a half-life of 50 days. When strontium-89 is detected in a milk sample, its source is a recent fission event, not resdue from nuclear weapons fallout or Chernobyl. Strontium-90, also a carcinogen which, when ingested, can cause bone cancer, disease of the immune system and other illness, was also found in the goat milk. Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28 years. Radiation bioaccumulates in the human body.
The pathways for radioactivity released by a nuclear power plant to concentrate in goat milk include inhalation of airborne radiation and ingestion of radionuclides from drinking water and pasture grass.
The detection of strontium-89 in the goat milk is further evidence that Indian Point is poisoning our environment and endangering our children.
The risk of releases of strontium-89 and other carcinogens from Indian Point can be significantly decreased by shutting down these dangerous nuclear reactors.
For more updates on the Nuclear crisis in Japan go to:
March 24
Radiation and Public Health Project: Fukushima Fallout May Harm U.S. Babies
March 23
From Our Archives: Class 1 Emergency at Millstone Unit 2 in 2008 After Power Loss
Millstone Unit 1 Spent Fuel Pool: Empty It!
Governor Dannel Malloy: WHERE WERE YOU?
On March 22, 2011, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo scheduled a meeting between his staff and officials of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review earthquake hazards of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant which the NRC has placed at highest risk of earthquake consequences of any nuclear power plant in the nation.
WHERE WERE YOU?
Nearly 20 million people live within 50 miles of Indian Point.
That includes nearly all the residents of Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Greenwich is only 15 miles downwind from Indian Point.
The time for Connecticut to bury its head when it comes to Indian Point is over. The Fukushima disaster has made that clear.
It's time for Connecticut to join the demand to shut Indian Point.Parents cautioned not to feed their babies Tokyo tap water
High radiation levels contaminate fish off Japanese coast
Radiation levels '1600 times above normal" in Fukushima
www.beyondnuclear.org'I could have been the father of a Japanese Chernobyl':
Remorseful admissions of an engineer who covered up a defect in Fukushima 4:
March 21
Fukushima 3 Nuclear Reactor 3/21/2011 Courtesy: Tokyo Electric Power Company via AP
The Child of Chernobyl Thinking about the Children of Fukushima
Amory Lovins: 'Learning from Japan's Nuclear Disaster
European Committee on Radiation Risk Predicts 120,000 cancers worldwide from Fukushima based on current known releases:
World Health Organization's Toxic Link to IAEA
French Laboratory Finds High Levels of Radioactive Contamination in Food in Japan
New Gallup Poll Shows Waning Support in U.S. for Nuclear Power
March 19
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone Tells Press Conference:
'Fukushima Can Happen Here'March 18
Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Seen Crying
After Telling Press ReportersFukushima's Escaping Radiation Will Kill People
Fukushima Reactor 4's spent fuel pool has run dry, exposing rods' radiation to the environment
Fukushima: There is no "safe" dose of radiation.
Union of Concerned Scientists Study Exposes NRC's Lax Regulation of U.S. Nuclear Power Industry Read the report
The Windmills Didn't Melt Down
March 16, 2011:
Millstone and Indian Point Among Worst in Safety Rankings
China Suspends Plans for 28 New Nuclear Power Plants
Nuclear Meltdown Crisis Worsens at Fukushima
MOX(plutonium-based)-fuelled Nuclear Reactor 3 Feared Ruptured
'Japan Says Second Reactor May Have Ruptured with Radioactive Release'
Experts Say Nuclear Emergency Nearing 'Point of No Return
March 15, 2011:
Fukushima at Millstone?
It CAN Happen Here
The New London CT Day is reporting that the Millstone Nuclear Power Station "has equipment in place to prevent power loss and meltdowns like those occurring at reactors in Japan."http://theday.com/article/20110315/NWS01/303159902/1018
It represents Dominion's public relations move to reassure the public that the radiological catastrophe now unfolding in Japan can't happen here.
Unfortunately, it CAN happen here and it almost has, more than once.
At least once, Millstone has lost power from the grid and the "equipment it had in place" - back-up diesel generators - failed.
This is exactly what happened at Fukushima.
And it can happen again.
Other events at Millstone have been close calls.
And they can happen again.
We will be posting further details.
Will all the world now focused on the folly and horrors of nuclear power, we must shut down the nuclear reactors wherever they are.
RADIOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE LOOMS AT FUKUSHIMA
'Japan Braces for Potential Radiation Catastrophe' (Reuters)
Radiation levels around Fukushima declared harmful to human health; nuclear workers evacuated; fire in spent fuel pool feared.
www.BeyondNuclear.org
'Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise' (The New York Times)
Radiation levels in Tokyo 20 times above "normal"; region south of Fukushima reports radiation levels 100 times above "normal"; radiation spikes outside Fukushima nuclear power station at lethal levels (exposure for 75 minutes will lead to acute radiation sickness)
What will spark the next Fukushima?
America on nuclear alert: Could fallout from Japan explosion reach U.S. West Coast?
Japan Bracing for Nuclear Meltdown'We're Told Not to Breathe the Air'
Dramatic footage of explosion at Fukushima Nuclear Reactor 3 on March 14, 2011
Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 fuel core meltdown reported underway7:39AM EST March 14---We have received a report from our Japanese colleagues that Tokyo Power Electric Company is reporting that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 has lost all cooling water and the fuel core is completed exposed. The fuel rods are very likely melting. There is no word on efforts to flood Unit 2 to avert an uncontrolled meltdown.
Two hydrogen gas explosions have already rocked Unit 1 and Unit 3. A third explosion is now likely in Unit 2 potentially releasing significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere if the vessel fails followed by containment failure as the result of a possible full scale meltdown. Courtesy of Beyond Nuclear
Fukushima Update: March 13, 2011 Nuclear Madness Visited Upon Japan's Youngest
(Photo credit: Reuters)
Multiple nuclear emergencies in Japan have forced the evacuation of 200,000 people from their homes near the disabled Fukushima nuclear reactors on Japan's northeast coast. The threat of an explosion at Fukushima No. 3 nuclear reactor - which uses plutonium-based MOX (mixed oxide fuel) - looms, according to Japan authorities. Plutonium is the deadliest substance produced in nuclear fission and it remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years.
The young children in this photograph are being examined for possible radiation exposure. Children are most vulnerable to radiation exposure because their cells are rapidly dividing as they grow.
For the sake of the children, the use of nuclear power must end.
Fukushima instructs that it's time to mothball all the nuclear reactors of the world.
Fukushima Fallout (updated March 13, 2011)
Former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nils J. Diaz, Responds to Japanese Nuclear Crisis
Sixth Nuclear Reactor at Fukushima Loses Core Cooling System From KYODO News TOKYO,3.13, Kyodo
Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body
TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.
Nuclear Power Plant Explodes on Japan Coast: Meltdown Feared 3/12/11
AP
Go to www.beyondnuclear.org for updates, videos, truth-telling
Statement from the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) 3/12/11:
re: the Nuclear and Earthquake Disaster Unfolding in Japan
The Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) is deeply concerned
for the health and safety of the people affected by the earthquakes
and tsunamis that have struck Japan over the last two days. We are
particularly concerned for the people in the vicinity of nuclear power
plants, including workers who are trying to minimize the scope of the
disaster.Unit 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is in a state of
meltdown. A nuclear disaster which the promoters of nuclear power in
Japan said wouldn't happen is in progress. It is occurring as a result
of an earthquake that they said would not happen.This could and should have been predicted. It was predicted by
scientists and NGOs such as CNIC. We warned that Japan's nuclear power
plants could be subjected to much stronger earthquakes and much bigger
tsunamis than they were designed to withstand.Besides the question about how this accident will unfold, the big
question now is, will the government and the nuclear industry
acknowledge its mistakes and change track?
Tell President Obama Nuclear Energy is Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive
(Courtesy of Harvey Wasserman and Beyond Nuclear) Harvey Wasserman: "$7 Billion New Nuke Attack" » Wednesday Jan 26 2011
