応じないと非国民？　岸田政権が旗を振る「国民運動」に違和感　国産水産物の風評被害を招いたのはそもそも　via 東京新聞

Posted on 2023/09/13 by nfield

　東京電力福島第1原発事故に伴う処理水の放出開始後、中国の禁輸の影響で、日本産水産物の売り上げ減が懸念されている。国内の消費拡大に躍起になるのが岸田政権。閣僚が試食し、「食べて応援」をアピールするだけではない。市井の人々を取り込む「国民運動」も進める。これには釈然としない思いが湧く。水産業界の苦境を招いたのは岸田政権なのに、国民が駆り出されるのか。応じないと非国民扱いされないか。（曽田晋太郎、安藤恭子）

◆自衛隊で食材利用、自ら試食、自民党ではホタテカレー

　「政府全体として日本産水産物の国内消費拡大に取り組んでいきたいと思っており、わが国の水産物の消費拡大にご協力願いたい」

　野村哲郎農相は8日の記者会見でこう述べ、省庁の食堂で日本産ホタテなどを使用したメニューを追加するよう閣議で協力を求めたと明らかにした。

　浜田靖一防衛相も同日に記者会見。全国の自衛隊の駐屯地や基地で提供する食事に日本産水産物を積極活用する考えを示した。

[…]

　岸田文雄首相や西村康稔経済産業相、渡辺博道復興相らは東京・豊洲市場や被災地を訪れるなどし、主に福島県産の魚を試食して安全性をアピール。経産省福島復興推進グループ総合調整室の担当者は「日本産水産物の消費を全国に広げる活動の一つ。首相や大臣が発信することに意味がある」と強調する。

　小泉進次郎元環境相は、福島県南相馬市の海岸で子どもたちとサーフィンをした後、地元で水揚げされた魚を試食と報じられた。5日にあった自民党の水産部会・水産総合調査会合同会議では、北海道産ホタテを使ったカレーが昼食として提供されている。

◆さらにCMなど予定「現時点で具体的な費用をはじくのは難しい」

　そもそも岸田政権は、海洋放出前から国内消費拡大の方策をまとめていた。

　8月22日の関係閣僚会議では行動計画を改定。テレビCMやネット動画などを活用したPR、学校現場で文部科学省の「放射線副読本」を使った理解醸成、インフルエンサーや著名人、日本サーフィン連盟に協力を依頼しての情報発信などを盛り込む。

[…]

◆対策1番目が「国民運動」…担当者は「あくまで協力要請」と説明

[…]

　水産物の輸出額のうち、中国と香港の合計で4割を占める。年額でいえば1600億円。海洋放出に伴う全面禁輸の打撃は甚大だ。そんな中で岸田政権は今月4日、「『水産業を守る』政策パッケージ」を発表。その最初の項目には、国内消費拡大に向けた「国民運動」の展開が掲げられた。

　国民運動とは果たして何を意味するのか。

　経産省福島復興推進グループ総合調整室の担当者は、ふるさと納税の返礼メニューの活用などを挙げた上で「国内での消費拡大の機運を高め、その流れを全国に広めるのが狙い」と説明する。「特定の国への輸出に依存していた部分が大きい日本産水産物を国内で消費し、水産業を守る取り組みの一環。あくまで協力要請」と述べる。

　国民運動については、5日の自民党部会でも盛り上げるべきだとの声が上がった。出席した議員の一人は「風評被害が起きないように皆で正しく理解しようとする方策だ」と語る。

　別の議員は「日本は正しいことをしていると世界にアピールする活動の一つだ」と説明する。

◆「海洋放出も『食べて応援』されるのも勝手に決められたこと」

[…]

福島原発事故の問題を取材しているフリーライターの吉田千亜さんは「海洋放出も、『食べて応援』されるのも、福島の人たちからすれば勝手に決められたこと。理不尽だという思いが募っている。でも政府のキャンペーンに疑問を呈せば『非国民』『風評加害者』とみなされるので、被害者は黙るしかない」と物言えぬ福島の空気を憂える。

　日本政府は今月5日、日本の水産関係者を支援する経費として本年度の予備費から207億円を支出すると閣議決定した。風評被害対策300億円、漁業継続支援500億円の基金と合わせ計1007億円の対策となる。

◆被害も負担も国民が引き受ける？　識者「東京電力に求償すべき」

　大島堅一・龍谷大教授（環境経済学）は「中国の禁輸で、全国の漁業者が被害を受け、その支援を税金でまかなうことになる。さらに国民全体で被害も負担も引き受けるというのは筋違い」と指摘し、事業者の責任を定める原子力損害賠償法に基づき、国は事故を起こした東電に求償すべきだと述べる。

　さらに「環境の影響を受ける他国などとの協議は国際原子力機関（IAEA）の国際安全基準でも定めている」と述べ、7月に公表された包括報告書でもその旨が記されていると解説。「中国の反発を『想定外』としながら、『食べて応援』を呼びかけるのは不誠実だ」と話す。

◆日本の魚を食べて中国に勝つ？

　協議の乏しさが露呈する中、複数の全国紙の今月6、7日付朝刊では「保守派の論客」とされるジャーナリスト、桜井よしこさんが理事長を務める公益財団法人の意見広告が掲載された。

　「日本の魚を食べて中国に勝とう」

[…]

◆「意見を調整できないまま、陳腐なキャンペーンで社会を分断」

　そもそも物価高で、国内の消費は厳しい。総務省が発表した7月の家計調査によると、1世帯（2人以上）当たりの消費支出は28万1736円。物価変動の影響を除く実質で前年同月を5.0％下回った。支出の3割ほどを占める「食料」の支出も切り詰められ、魚介類は前年同月比11.9％減と落ち込んだ。「国内で魚の消費を増やすのは現実的でない。勝者なんてどこにもいない」（早川さん）

[…]

◆デスクメモ

　関係者の理解を得ずに話が進む。唐突に国民運動が始まる。政府の非は棚上げされたまま、運動の目的として「他国に勝つ」が掲げられる。私たちは何に巻き込まれているのか。わけが分からぬ状況。こうして戦時動員されるのか。まだ歯止めはかけられる。国民が良識を示さねば。（榊）

全文

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The Discharge of Fukushima’s Radioactive Water could be a Precedent for Similar Actions via Dianuke

Posted on 2023/09/11 by nfield

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

By Pinar Demircan

Underlying the disregard for objections from global civil society and transforming the ocean into a nuclear waste dump lies a bigger goal inspired by capitalist practices that arise from its crisis: to achieve another threshold by normalization of cost-cutting measures for the sake of the nuclear industry.

While the climate crisis is rapidly turning forests and habitats of living creatures into coal and ash with a tiny spark of fire in Turkiye, Greece, and Canada, the planet’s seas, already polluted with plastics and waste, are also being recklessly infused with radioactivity, driven by profit and cost-centered policies. On August 24, within the framework of the procedures carried out by the Japanese government and TEPCO, the discharge of 1.34 million tonnes of radioactive water which is accumulated in tanks at the plant site, started.

The installation of a treatment system costing 23 million USD, the discharge of wastewater without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is being realized by foregoing safer alternatives such as solidification of wastewater into construction materials or long-term storage costing 100 times more that constitutes ecocide. Clearly, this method of release that is expected to be carried out over the next 40 years, indicates a systemic assault on the global ecosystem that is longer and more severe than presently apparent.

[…]

A detail that has been overlooked till today is that there is no information regarding the amount of discharge during this 40-year time frame for the disposal of radioactive water into the ocean. This might indicate that the discharged amount may even be equivalent to the period of, for example, 100 years despite the declared duration of 40. In addition, since the present objections have been disregarded, it is worth considering the potential impact of future oppositions at the end of the 40 years.

A threshold to be achieved

Apparently, over the next decade, the radioactive water discharged from Fukushima is anticipated to disseminate into multiple seas worldwide, encompassing the Marmara, Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Sea, which surrounds Turkiye. A recent scientific study [2] suggests that the evaporation in these seas will escalate industrial radioactivity levels in the ecosystem. Given this backdrop, it is important to ask why TEPCO, the Japanese government, and the IAEA continue to disregard the adverse impacts of the discharge, which also makes them responsible for the potential increases in cancer, DNA damage, increased miscarriages, hormone imbalances, and unhealthy future generations worldwide? Underlying the disregard for objections raised by global civil society, and transforming the ocean into a nuclear waste dump, lies a bigger goal inspired by capitalist practices that arise from its crisis: to achieve another threshold of the normalization of cost-cutting measures for the sake of nuclear industry.

How can we be sure of the exact amount to be released?

It is also possible to consider the above statement with the possibility of adding wastewater from the other nuclear power plants across Japan to the already 1 million 340 thousand tonnes of water accumulated over the past 12 years at Fukushima. While nuclear power plants operate under higher costs and have to cope with four times cheaper renewable energy production costs, the ocean dumping of the radioactive wastewater offers an easy solution for the nuclear industry. Crossing this threshold guarantees the capability to manage climate-induced hazards to nuclear facilities since now, societal consent has been obtained for this plan of action. Imagine how beneficial this course of action will be for the nuclear industry, with the IAEA promising its support for the industry – to the 410 reactors operating worldwide, approximately 50 reactors under construction, and 80 reactors [3] in various stages of maintenance, repair, decommissioning, and dismantling.

Take for example, Rosatom of Russia, the owner of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant which reached its final stage of construction for the first reactor in Turkiye. It has a long history of concealing the Mayak nuclear power plant accident, well into the 1990s. Furthermore, from 1948 to 2004, Rosatom discharged nuclear waste into the Techa River, thus reinforcing its already questionable track record, and also points to how the legalization of nuclear discharge might be beneficial for the industry. It is also easy to predict the potential impact of this approach in the Mediterranean region by a nation with an underdeveloped democratic system and institutional dynamics dominated [4] by political power. This is especially important since an exemption made for the Akkuyu NPP in the article which allows for the discharge water from the facilities around the Mediterranean temperature of the plant and allows the sea temperature to reach up to 35 Celsius and poses serious ecological challenges indicating that Turkiye violates Barcelona Agreement.

[…]

It is noteworthy to mention that the IAEA’s involvement in the nuclear industry stems from a confidential agreement WHA 12-40 [6] with the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1959, stating that “whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement”. Consequently, the IAEA, established to promote the growth of nuclear power plants worldwide, refrained from disclosing any potential health hazards posed by these plants.

Obviously, it would be misleading to rely on the IAEA’s statements suggesting that radioactive wastewater does not pose any risk to global health. This information strengthens the likelihood that the IAEA did not reveal valid and precise radiation data regarding the Chornobyl accident and Zaporizhia nuclear power plant during the ongoing Ukrainian war either.

[…]

Read more.

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We are all Hibakusha via Beyond Nuclear International

Posted on 2023/09/05 by nfield

M.V. Ramana

The front page of the Times of India of August 7, 1945, carried the headline World’s deadliest bomb hits Japan: Carries blast power of 20,000 tons of TNT. For millions around the world, headlines of that sort would have been their first intimation of the process of nuclear fission on a large scale.

But, a careful stratigrapher, who studies layers in the soil or rock, might be able to discern that, in fact, nuclear fission had occurred in July 1945. The stratigrapher would just have to look for plutonium at Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada, the site proposed as the “golden spike” spot to mark the start of the Anthropocene (recognising the problems with its definition as highlighted in Down To Earth’s interview with Amitav Ghosh).

What happened in July 1945 was, of course, Trinity, the world’s first nuclear weapon test, now familiar to many through the film Oppenheimer. A group of researchers recently reconstructed how the plutonium released during that explosion would have been transported by the wind. They calculated that direct radioactive fallout from that test would have reached Crawford Lake within four days of the test, “on July 20, 1945 before peaking on July 22, 1945”.

Since Crawford Lake is nearly 3,000 kilometres from the Trinity test site in New Mexico, it stands to reason that many other places would also have received radioactive fallout from the Trinity test. Now consider the fact that there have been at least 528 nuclear weapon tests around the world that took place above the ground, plus the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and you can easily imagine how radioactive fallout must have fallen practically everywhere, whether on land or in the oceans.

Not included in the abovementioned list of 528 is the debated 1979 “Vela incident” that most likely involved an Israeli nuclear weapon test with help from South Africa. It is described as debated only because political elites in the United States, whose Vela satellite 6911 detected a double-flash of light that is characteristic of nuclear explosions, did not want to impose sanctions on Israel.

In 2018, two scientists collected a range of evidence consistent with such a nuclear test, importantly cases of radioactive element iodine-131 that was found in the thyroids of some sheep in 1979—in the south east part of Australia, across the oceans. Again, proof that radioactive fallout from nuclear weapon tests spread out globally.

But it is not just nuclear weapons tests. Accidents at nuclear power plants, too, have produced radioactive fallout that has contaminated the peoples of the world. Radioactive cesium released by the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion was found in multiple countries across Western Europe. Yet again, sheep, this time in England, Scotland and Wales, were contaminated, and for a time scientists could not even understand the behaviour of the radioactive cesium that the sheep were ingesting.

[…]

Even without nuclear weapons explosions and reactor accidents, people around the world are exposed to radioactive materials—from reprocessing plants. These facilities chemically process the irradiated spent fuel from nuclear power plants, while also producing very large volumes of liquid and gaseous radioactive effluents. These effluents are released into the air; exposure to these constitutes the largest component of the radiation dose to “members of the public from radionuclides released in effluents from the nuclear fuel cycle”.

[…]

But underground nuclear weapon tests do, sometimes, vent, releasing radioactive materials into the air. After the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, all US nuclear weapons tests were designed to completely contain the radioactivity underground. Nevertheless, 105 of them vented radioactive materials into the atmosphere. A further 287 tests had “operational releases” whereby radioactivity was released during routine post-test activities. Similarly, several hundred underground nuclear weapons explosions at the Novaya Zemlya test site in the Soviet Union released radioactivity into the atmosphere.

Radioactive materials from these releases spread far and wide. In 1970, radioactive materials vented during the Baneberry test were detected as far as Canada; but Canadian diplomats told US officials that “they had no intention to make a formal protest or to conceive of the event as a violation” of the Limited Test Ban Treaty.

[…]

Read more.

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Didier Anger’s Message against the release of radioactive water from Fukushima via Yosomono-net

Posted on 2023/08/21 by nfield

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Revisiting the “inalienable right” via Beyond Nuclear International

Posted on 2023/08/21 by nfield

Austria cautions against nuclear power in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The following is a statement delivered by George-Wilhelm Gallhofer, diplomat at the Austrian Mission to the United Nations, on behalf of the Government of Austria, on 8 August 2023, during the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2025 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna, Austria.

Austria fully respects the inalienable right of all Parties to the NPT to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. At the same time, Austria calls on all States to limit “the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” to those applications not raising concerns for possible military applications. This is specifically laid out in Art. IV of the NPT, which simultaneously requires conformity with Article I and II.

In this regard, we see the use of nuclear power differing significantly from any other application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Any expansion of nuclear power necessarily increases the risk of proliferation while applications in health, agriculture, imaging and physical measurement do usually not raise this risk.

For this reason, full scope safeguards and ideally an Additional Protocol must accompany each nuclear program.

Let me also caution against advertising nuclear power as an appropriate source of electricity to combat negative climate effects and answer to the climate crises. The comparatively low CO2 emissions of nuclear power do not compensate for disadvantages inevitably connected to nuclear power. Let me give you three examples:

1) The safe and permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel is still unresolved. To date, not a single repository for such waste is in operation worldwide. Even if such repositories were to become operational in the foreseeable future, today’s knowledge cannot guarantee the safe enclosure required for hundred thousands of years.

2) We cannot completely exclude severe accidents from nuclear power plants involving large and early releases of radionuclides with significant adverse consequences, including contamination even on the territory of other countries.

3) There is only a limited supply of uranium and thorium available and a nuclear “fuel cycle” does not exist so far. If there would be such a cycle, it would trigger more challenges regarding safety, security and safeguards.

This list is by far not exhaustive but underlines my previous point: Austria does not consider nuclear power to be compatible with the concept of sustainable development. In our view, reliance on nuclear power is neither a viable nor a cost-efficient option to combat climate change. Both the polluter-pays principle and the precautionary principle are grossly violated in nuclear power use.

Let me reiterate that Austria regards technical cooperation as an integral part of its activities. While we retain reservations about nuclear energy generation, we fully support the activities in the wider area of non-power applications of peaceful nuclear science and technology.

In this regard, we would like to highlight our continued support for the ongoing modernization of the IAEA nuclear applications laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria, under ReNuAL2. We are glad to see the work on this program continuously progressing.

Austria further welcome approaches to establish comprehensive and ambitious international nuclear safety standards and guidance that prioritize nuclear safety. In addition, we urge States to maintain nuclear safety of existing nuclear power plants, for example by adequately addressing physical aging. When deciding to engage in nuclear power production, nuclear safety needs to be the one of the main concerns at all times and continuous investments in its improvement have to be guaranteed.

In this regard, we are particularly grateful for the IAEA’s tireless efforts which culminated in DG Grossi’s presentation to the UN Security Council on establishing five concrete principles on nuclear safety and security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant based on the Seven Indispensable Pillars. In order to prevent a nuclear accident, Austria underlines the indispensable importance of due priority to nuclear safety and strongly supports these principles and their implementation.

Reports of military equipment and explosives being placed within the plant perimeter at ZNPP and direct shelling are extremely worrying. Nuclear power plants are not designed to withstand armed conflicts. Violating the “five principles” is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance and create additional psychological pressure on plant staff. 

Let me be clear, the attack on nuclear power plants or other nuclear facilities can have complex humanitarian consequences, rendering these acts illegitimate under international humanitarian law. We urge Russia to withdraw its military equipment and all personnel from the ZNPP, and return its full control to its rightful owner, Ukraine and to refrain from any further acts incompatible with international humanitarian law.

Therefore, Austria stands ready to continue its support for the Agency’s work in and on Ukraine. Nuclear safety and security issues are traditionally important to Austria and the extremely dangerous situation in Ukraine requires our particular attention. 

To this end, Austria has contributed one million euros for the IAEA mission for safety and security in Ukraine in order to effectively implement their mandate and help to enhance the safety and security situation on site.

To conclude, let me re-emphasize that Austria respects the sovereign and free choice of all States regarding their energy production. However, whenever our Austrian environment and people are potentially affected in a harmful manner, we will continue to raise our concerns.

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‘It’s a great day’: St. Louis activists encouraged by Biden’s support for radioactive waste victims via KSDK.com

Posted on 2023/08/12 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, who lead the activist group Just Moms STL, said they’re optimistic but not letting up.

Author: Jim Salter (Associated Press)

Published: 11:58 AM CDT August 11, 2023

Updated: 11:58 AM CDT August 11, 2023

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis-area activists have been fighting for years to get government compensation for people with cancer and other serious illnesses potentially connected to Manhattan Project nuclear contamination. This week marked a major victory, with support coming from the president.

Uranium was processed in St. Louis starting at the onset of World War II as America raced to develop nuclear bombs. In July, reporting as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press cited thousands of pages of documents indicating decades of nonchalance and indifference for the risks posed by uranium contamination. The government documents were obtained by outside researchers through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the news organizations.

Since the news reports, bipartisan support has emerged to compensate those in St. Louis and elsewhere whose illnesses may be tied to nuclear fallout and contamination. On Wednesday, that support extended to President Joe Biden.

“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” Biden said during a visit to New Mexico.

[…]

St. Louis is far from alone in suffering the effects of the geographically scattered national nuclear program. Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.

Months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in St. Louis began processing uranium into a concentrated form that could be further refined elsewhere into the material that made it into weapons.

By the late-1940s, the government was trucking nuclear waste from the Mallinckrodt plant to a site near Lambert Airport. It was there that the waste was dumped into Coldwater Creek, contaminating a waterway that was a popular place for kids to play. Just last year, Jana Elementary School, which sits near the creek, was shut down over possible contamination, even though studies conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers found none.

In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission demolished and buried buildings near the airport and moved the waste to another site, contaminating it, too. Documents cited by AP and the other news organizations showed that storage was haphazard and waste was spilled on roads but that mistakes were often ignored.

Uranium waste also was illegally dumped in West Lake Landfill, near the airport, in 1973. It’s still there.

[…]

Still, in 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report that found people who regularly played in Coldwater Creek as children from the 1960s to the 1990s may have a slight increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. The agency determined that those exposed daily to the creek starting in the 2000s, when cleanup began, could have a small increased risk of lung cancer.

Many of those with direct connections to illnesses are far more convinced. Kyle Hedgpeth’s young daughter and niece both were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, within a month of each other. Both have since recovered.

Hedgpeth’s wife and her brother grew up near a creek that flows from the St. Charles County site. He believes they picked up something from exposure to the creek and passed it down to their girls.

Read more at ‘It’s a great day’: St. Louis activists encouraged by Biden’s support for radioactive waste victims via KSDK.com

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The human cost of France’s nuclear tests in the Pacific via Aljazeera

Posted on 2023/08/10 by yukimiyamotodepaul

101 East investigates the effects of France’s nuclear tests in French Polynesia.

For 30 years, France undertook nuclear testing in its Pacific territory, French Polynesia.

In recent years, investigations have revealed the effects of the tests were far greater than France has officially acknowledged.

A total of 193 nuclear tests were undertaken, including 41 atmospheric tests that exposed the local population and site workers to high levels of radiation.

Today, children across the Pacific islands are still dealing with the nuclear fallout.

Cancer and other developmental diseases plague new generations born after the last test in 1996.

Read more at The human cost of France’s nuclear tests in the Pacific via Aljazeera

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3 lakes near Weldon Spring have elevated levels of uranium, records say. Health department lacks current data on fish. via St Louis Post-Dispatch

Posted on 2023/08/09 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Jack Suntrup Jul 22, 2023

[…]

Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for DHSS, said the department formulates its fish consumption advisories — which warn anglers to limit or avoid consumption of fish due to contaminants detected — based on review of data provided by other agencies.

But Cox said the health department doesn’t have current data on the Weldon Spring site or nearby Lakes 34, 35 and 36 in the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area, which is adjacent to the Weldon Spring site.

The three lakes and the presence of uranium were mentioned in state and federal government records that were the subject of a recent report by The Missouri Independent on apparent disagreements between regulators about the pace of cleanup at Weldon Spring.

[…]

Cox said the DHSS has asked the Department of Energy, which controls the Weldon Spring site, for current fish tissue data in comments on previous five-year Weldon Spring site reviews at least as far back as 2016.

“DOE has previously told us that they assessed fish contamination risk already, but we have asked for them to update that assessment to account for any changes that have occurred,” Cox said in an email.

She said a July 1995 report “may be the assessment DOE has previously referenced.”

That report says the human health risk associated with eating fish from the three lakes with elevated levels of uranium “is below the EPA’s target range for unacceptable human risk levels.”

[…]

A U.S. Department of Energy spokesman in an email Friday said because monitoring results for surface water at Lakes 34, 35 and 36 have remained below the maximum contaminant level for uranium since the late 1990s, no further testing of fish has been conducted.

State Rep. Tricia Byrnes, R-Wentzville, said she is concerned that federal agencies are “not providing answers to the questions of our state agencies.

[…]

The Weldon Spring site has been a focus of area nuclear waste activists in the wake of recent reporting on St. Louis’ role in the development of nuclear weapons and the legacy of contamination left behind.

Mallinckrodt moved its uranium processing operations from its St. Louis plant to Weldon Spring, at the former site of a World War II-era TNT and DNT plant, in 1957. By the time it stopped uranium processing there in 1966, the site was heavily contaminated. Surface remediation concluded with completion of a 41-acre, onsite disposal cell in 2001 visible from Highway 94 just west of Francis Howell High School.

[…]

Uranium levels at the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area are referenced in a 2021 Department of Natural Resources review of a draft five-year report being prepared by the Department of Energy.

“The uranium levels at Busch Lake 34 continue to be higher than the other locations…,” the DNR document says, quoting from the Department of Energy draft.

“Please include a discussion on why the uranium levels are higher in Busch Lake 34 than other locations,” the DNR wrote to the Department of Energy.

In response, the Department of Energy told the DNR that the passage would be revised to: “Busch Lake 34, the relatively highest uranium concentration pond, is immediately downgradient of Burgermeister Spring where much of the groundwater from the Chemical Plant flows.

[…]

Read more at 3 lakes near Weldon Spring have elevated levels of uranium, records say. Health department lacks current data on fish. via St Louis Post-Dispatch

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Fukushima fish with 180 times legal limit of radioactive cesium fuels water release fears via The Guardian

Posted on 2023/07/24 by nfield

A fish living near drainage outlets at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in May contained levels of radioactive cesium that are 180 times Japan’s safety limit.

The black rockfish caught on 18 May was found by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to have 18,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium-137, compared with the legal maximum level of 100 becquerels per kg.

Japan’s plan to release 1.3m tonnes of treated water from the Fukushima plant has sparked concern in the region, despite approval from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Hong Kong has threatened to ban food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures if the water release goes ahead as planned.

[…]

Rainwater from the areas around reactors one, two and three, which melted down during the March 2011 disaster, flows into the inner breakwater where the rockfish was caught in May. Cesium concentration in the sediment from the seabed in the inner breakwater measures more than 100,000 becquerels per kg, according to Tepco.

“Since contaminated water flowed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station port immediately after the accident, Tepco has periodically removed fish from inside the port since 2012 using fishnets that have been installed to prevent the fish from escaping the port,” a Tepco official told the Guardian.

A total of 44 fish with cesium levels above 100 becquerels per kg have been found in the Fukushima plant port between May 2022 and May 2023, Tepco confirmed, with 90% of those caught in or near the inner breakwater. Other specimens identified as having particularly high radioactivity were an eel with 1,700 becquerels per kg, caught in June 2022, and rock trout, with 1,200 becquerels in April 2023.

Regular monitoring of fish from the inner breakwater had been suspended after nets were installed in January 2016 to keep potentially contaminated fish inside the area.

https://6a870d560a816abe3b8c52dcdd13d1fd.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

“However, when a black rockfish with radioactive concentrations that exceed regulatory standards was caught off the coast of Soma [about 50km north of the plant] in January 2022, we began sampling again within this area in conjunction with the installation of more nets to prevent fish from leaving the port,” added the Tepco official.

Shipments of black rockfish caught off Fukushima prefecture were suspended in February 2022 after the radiation was detected and have yet to resume. The high radioactivity levels found in the tested specimen led authorities to believe it had escaped from the nuclear plant’s port. All species of seafood from the areas around the plant are regularly monitored for radioactivity.

[…]

Read more.

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Trinity Nuclear Test’s Fallout Reached 46 States, Canada and Mexico, Study Finds via New York Times

Posted on 2023/07/21 by nfield

By Lesley M. M. Blume

  • Published July 20, 2023Updated July 21, 2023, 9:05 a.m. ET

In July 1945, as J. Robert Oppenheimer and the other researchers of the Manhattan Project prepared to test their brand-new atomic bomb in a New Mexico desert, they knew relatively little about how that mega-weapon would behave.

On July 16, when the plutonium-implosion device was set off atop a hundred-foot metal tower in a test code-named “Trinity,” the resultant blast was much stronger than anticipated. The irradiated mushroom cloud also went many times higher into the atmosphere than expected: some 50,000 to 70,000 feet. Where it would ultimately go was anyone’s guess.

A new study, released on Thursday ahead of submission to a scientific journal for peer review, shows that the cloud and its fallout went farther than anyone in the Manhattan Project had imagined in 1945. Using state-of-the-art modeling software and recently uncovered historical weather data, the study’s authors say that radioactive fallout from the Trinity test reached 46 states, Canada and Mexico within 10 days of detonation.

“It’s a huge finding and, at the same time, it shouldn’t surprise anyone,” said the study’s lead author, Sébastien Philippe, a researcher and scientist at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security.

The study also reanalyzed fallout from all 93 aboveground U.S. atomic tests in Nevada and created a map depicting composite deposition of radioactive material across the contiguous U.S. (The team also hopes to study U.S. tests over the Pacific Ocean in the future).

How much of Trinity’s fallout still remain at original deposition sites across the country is difficult to calculate, said Susan Alzner, an author of the study and the co-founder of shift7, an organization that coordinated the study’s research. The study documents deposition as it originally hit the ground in 1945.

“It’s a frozen-in-time image,” she said.

The findings could be cited by advocates aiming to increase the number of people eligible for compensation by the federal government for potential exposure to radiation from atmospheric nuclear explosions.

The drift of the Trinity cloud was monitored by Manhattan Project physicists and doctors, but they underestimated its reach.

[…]

At the time, Dr. Stafford L. Warren, a Manhattan Project physician specializing in nuclear medicine, reported to Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project, that the Trinity cloud “remained towering over the northeast corner of the site for several hours.” Soon, he added, “various levels were seen to move in different directions.” Dr. Warren assured General Groves that an assessment of the fallout’s reach could be undertaken later on horseback.

In the decades that followed, a lack of crucial data has bedeviled assessments and attempted studies of the Trinity test’s fallout. The U.S. had no national monitoring stations in place in 1945 to track the fallout, Dr. Philippe said. Plus, essential historical weather and atmospheric data was available only from 1948 onward. Remodeling fallout from tests in Nevada — starting in 1951 — was easier, but Trinity remained frustratingly difficult to reanalyze.

“The data sets for the Nevada tests and the available data that we could possibly find for Trinity were not comparable,” Ms. Alzner said. “You couldn’t put them on the same map. We decided to keep pushing.”

Determined to fill in the gaps, the team started the study about 18 months ago. Dr. Philippe has extensive background in modeling fallout and was an author of a similar project in 2021 that documented the effects from French nuclear tests.

A breakthrough came in March, when Ms. Alzner and Megan Smith, another co-founder of shift7 and a former United States chief technology officer in the Obama administration, contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There, Gilbert P. Compo, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado and the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, told the team that the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts had only a week earlier released historical data that charted weather patterns extending 30,000 feet or higher above Earth’s surface.

“For the first time, we had the most accurate hourly reconstruction of the weather back to 1940, around the world,” said Dr. Compo, who became a co-author on the study. “Every single event that puts something in the air, no matter what it is, can now be tracked, by the hour.”

Using the new data and software built by NOAA, Dr. Philippe then reanalyzed Trinity’s fallout. And while the study’s authors acknowledge limitations and uncertainties within their calculations, they maintain that “our estimates likely remain conservatively low.”

[…]

Trinity test “downwinders” — a term describing people who have lived near nuclear test sites and may have been exposed to deadly radioactive fallout — have never been eligible for compensation under the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). It has provided over $2.5 billion in payments to nuclear workers in much of the Western U.S. and to downwinders who were located near the Nevada test site and may have developed cancer or other diseases as a result of radiation exposure.

[…]

Census data from 1940 shows that as many as 500,000 people were living within a 150-mile radius of the test site. Some families lived as close as 12 miles away, according to the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. Yet no civilians were warned about the test ahead of time, and they weren’t evacuated before or after the test.

“This new information about the Trinity bomb is monumental and a long time coming,” Tina Cordova, a co-founder of the consortium, said. “We’ve been waiting for an affirmation of the histories told by generations of people from Tularosa who witnessed the Trinity bomb and talked about how the ash fell from the sky for days afterward.”

[…]

Although Dr. Wellerstein said that he approaches such reanalyses of historical fallout with a certain amount of uncertainty, partly because of the age of the data, he said there is value in such studies by keeping nuclear history and its legacy in the public discourse.

“The extent to which America nuked itself is not completely appreciated still, to this day, by most Americans, especially younger Americans,” he said.

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