Environmental Justice

October 25, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Abolitionists While US Conducts Nuclear War Game

On October 6, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for its successful effort to establish a global treaty that bans all aspects of nuclear weapons. Peace and disarmament groups around the world celebrated the Peace Prize announcement and congratulated ICAN for its landmark treaty accomplishment.

By employing grassroots organizing and ordinary citizen diplomacy, the ICAN coalition managed to permanently stigmatize and eventually eliminate the most destructive weapons ever made. Nukewatch, established in 1979, is proud to be one of ICAN’s 468 partner organizations from 100 countries. In a statement ICAN called the prize “a tribute to the tireless efforts of many millions of campaigners and concerned citizens worldwide who, ever since the dawn of the atomic age, have loudly protested nuclear weapons, insisting that they can serve no legitimate purpose and must be forever banished from the face of our earth.”

The new Ban Treaty prohibits developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, possessing, stockpiling and deploying nuclear weapons, transferring or receiving them from others, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, allowing any stationing or deployment of nuclear weapons on national territories of signatories, and assisting, encouraging, or inducing any of these prohibited acts. The Treaty requires each signatory state to develop “legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress” the prohibited activities.

The new treaty was concluded on July 7 when 122 United Nations states voted in favor of its adoption. Since Sept. 20, 53 individual heads of state have “signed” the treaty, the first step in a government’s process of ratification which is decided by individual national parliaments. It will enter in force 90 days after at least 50 countries have ratified it.

The United States, the most powerful opponent of the Ban, called the treaty negotiations “unrealistic” and led a boycott, even though the talks are among the explicit mandates within the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, ratified by the United States in 1970.

US Fearmongering and Nuclear War Games Distract

Drawing attention away from the Treaty Ban and the abolitionist Nobel Prize announcement, the United States has for months been issuing wildly exaggerated claims about the threats posed by North Korea (which may have 20 nuclear warheads but no workable rockets for them) and Iran (which has no nuclear weapons).

At least the rest of the world is aware that US conventional weapons were sufficient to see the Pentagon take over two whole counties, nuclear weapons being superfluous. They are additionally and increasingly useless in US terror wars since nuclear weapons embody but never deter terrorism. A case in point: From October 16 to the 20^th the United States and some NATO partners conducted what they called their Steadfast Noon nuclear strike exercises. The annual war “game” is a NATO practice of nuclear weapons use with jet fighter bombers and the B61 H-bombs the US deploys in Europe.

The Washington Post reported Oct. 16 that one NATO official said the war game involves a “fictional scenario,” and the paper noted that the US keeps about 150-180 B61 nuclear weapons at six bases in five European countries. As Joseph Trevithick wrote for TheDrive online, “The bombs are technically ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons, though experts and advocates routinely debate the validity of this term and whether any nuclear weapon can be seen as a limited, tactical tool.” The B61 is an unguided gravity bomb that has an explosive force of 340 kilotons (27 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb that killed 170,000 people).

This month’s nuclear war practice took place at two locations: the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium and Büchel Air Base in Germany, both of which host about 20 of the B61s. Belgian and German pilots train to use these H-bombs in the event of a Presidential order to go nuclear.

The Peace Prize, which will be presented December 10 in Oslo, increases the stigmatization of nuclear weapons, NATO’s ghastly preparations for using them, and the nuclear-armed states’ archaic rationalizations. All three need to be publicized and acknowledged before another accident or miscalculation (think World War I) kills millions. — John LaForge

October 23, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Haul No! Tour Report: Building Momentum in Resistance to Grand Canyon Uranium Mining & Transport

Leona Morgan (standing) of Diné No Nukes in Albuquerque, New Mexico, spoke to an international gathering July 14 in Büchel Germany about the deadly colonial effects of the uranium fuel chain.

Fall Quarterly 2017

By Haul No!

This article was edited for length, with permission, from the original post at: www.haulno.org

In December 2016, Indigenous anti-nuke and sacred sites organizers formed volunteer-based Haul No! to raise awareness, organize, and take action to protect sacred lands, water, and health from the toxic threat of radioactive uranium ore transport from the Grand Canyon to the White Mesa Mill. In March 2017, Energy Fuels Inc. (EFI), the owner of Canyon Mine and White Mesa Mill (the only commercially operating uranium processing plant in the US), announced that it could start mining uranium in June 2017. Haul No! kicked into gear and started organizing an awareness and action tour along the 300-mile planned haul route.

Bluff, Utah — Shut Down White Mesa Mill

Haul No! initiated the tour on June 13, 2017 in Bluff, Utah, just 20 miles south of the White Mesa Mill. Since 1979, the mill has processed and disposed of some of the most toxic radioactive waste produced in the US. Energy Fuels stores the mill tailings in “impoundments” that occupy about 275 acres next to the mill, which was built on sacred Ute Mountain Ute land. The site includes more than 200 rare and significant cultural sites, several of which have already been destroyed by Energy Fuels.

The White Mesa Mill is currently undergoing renewal of its Byproduct Radioactive Material License and Groundwater Quality Discharge Permits.

Ute Mountain Ute residents of White Mesa joined Haul No! and shared their experiences with the Bluff community. Ephraim Dutchie spoke about the spiritual quality of the land and the environmental racism they experience from mill workers, pro-mill residents, and law enforcement. “They don’t care about our community they only care about money. White Mesa is not the only community that will be affected by this. Keep water pure and land sacred,” Ephraim said.

Bluff and White Mesa residents expressed great concern that their drinking water will be contaminated by further milling. In the past two years alone, two spills have occurred en route to the mill. Both involved trucks from the Cameco Resources uranium mine in Wyoming, and one spill spread radioactive barium sulfate sludge along US Highway 191.

The next day, Haul No! met up with Ute Mountain Ute organizers at the White Mesa Mill. Haul No! volunteer Leona Morgan, who also organizes the Radiation Monitoring Project, donned her hazmat suit and mask to monitor radioactive pollution at the entrance of the mill. Part of the crew went directly to the mill site to bring the message that we want them to shut down. Yolanda Badback, White Mesa Concerned Community Organizer, confronted EFI workers as law enforcement agents arrived in response to a call regarding trespassing and vandalism. Yolanda stated, “This was our land and now it’s poisoned, Energy Fuels has no right to be here.” There were no issues aside from a warning.

Oljato, Utah/Monument Valley/Kayenta, Ariz. — A Legacy of Abandoned Uranium Mines

Haul No! volunteer Leona Morgan, who also works with Diné No Nukes and Radiation Monitoring Project, donned her hazmat suit & mask to monitor radioactive pollution at the entrance of the mill. When mistaken for being simply a photo-op, Leona said, “I’m not just messing around guys…I’m really working here.”

Our next stop was Oljato, Utah, which is located within the iconic Monument Valley. Oljato Chapter was the first to pass a resolution opposing transport in December 2016 and has long been plagued by abandoned uranium mines.

More than 523 abandoned uranium mines remain throughout the Navajo Nation, where Diné families have been subject to decades of radioactive contamination. The Navajo Nation banned uranium mining and milling in 2005 and transport of radioactive materials in 2012, though this matter is one of conflict due to lack of jurisdiction over state and federally-controlled highways such as EFI’s planned Canyon Mine haul route. This point is a policy focus of Haul No!

While two of our group headed to Blanding, Utah to testify at a White Mesa Mill hearing, the rest of the crew headed to Kayenta. Folks there stated that they’ve already seen trucks that look like uranium hauling barreling through their town. We clarified that at this point we know that uranium and arsenic-laced water from Canyon Mine was being transported in unmarked vehicles, and that this may be un-permitted—but no ore has been mined or transported. It was very clear that those in attendance do not want any more radioactive transport through their community.

Tuba City, Ariz. — Rare Metals’ Deadly Legacy

At the Tuba City Flea Market, our table volunteers heard constant accounts of cancer and passing of relatives due to work at the Tuba City Rare Metals mill. From June 1956 to November 1966, the mill processed 796,489 tons of uranium ore. In 1988, Department of Energy started cleaning up this Superfund site, where a layer of soil and rock remains the only covering over 2.3 million tons of hazardous waste. A rock dam surrounds the radioactive waste to control runoff water that flows into nearby Moenkopi Wash.

During our presentation that evening, Leona asked how many of the 40 or so people in attendance had a relative or were themselves directly impacted by uranium mining or milling, and everyone raised their hands. All expressed strong opposition to further transport of radioactive materials through their lands.

Flagstaff, Ariz. — A Critical Point Of Intervention

Our tour continued on Monday, June 19 in Flagstaff, where 65 people attended our presentation. The next day our crew and local residents delivered a petition to Flagstaff City Council calling for a resolution and ordinance to oppose uranium transport. The City of Flagstaff has jurisdiction over a small part of the transport route and organizers see this as a possible stopping-point to safeguard all communities.

Cameron, Ariz. — A Legacy Of Abandoned Uranium Mines

On Tuesday, June 20 we made it to Cameron, where everyone at our tour stop had been directly impacted by uranium mining and expressed great concern of high-level radioactive ore coming through their lands. The small community has faced uranium contamination for decades. Cameron officials have already expressed that they are willing to block uranium transport if necessary.

Gathering at Red Butte

The Haul No! Tour culminated at the Red Butte Gathering hosted by the Havasupai Tribal Council, June 23-25. We set up camp near Sacred Red Butte on traditional Havasupai homelands about 4 miles from Canyon Mine. Haul No! offered training in Non-Violent Direct Action and gave updates on the mine and transport issues. We listened to talks, participated in prayer walks, and round danced in blistering Arizona temperatures. We will focus more on the Red Butte Gathering in Part 2 of the Haul No! Tour Report Back.

Flagstaff City Council

On July 5, 2017, our request for “Consideration of Council Action to Oppose Uranium Transport” was approved despite a surprise appearance by Energy Fuels President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Chalmers, who claimed that the transport is not more dangerous than other transport that happens on a daily basis. He also informed the Council that EFI’s preferred route would go north of the San Francisco Peaks and not through Flagstaff. The agenda item will be discussed at the City of Flagstaff regular council meeting on October 10, 2017.

Further updates will be posted at www.haulno.org, where you can sign our pledge of resistance. For inquiries or to make a donation; email: stopcanyonmine@gmail.com.

—Arianne Peterson and Leona Morgan helped edit this article.

October 17, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

A Uranium Mining Test for the EPA: Stronger Water Projections Needed, not Weaker

Another test of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its anti-environmental chief Scott Pruitt is underway, and the result will trumpet the agency’s uranium footprint for decades to come. Will EPA’s Congressional mandate be replaced by Everybody’s Poison Adventures?

Now a proposed EPA rule change could put the uranium industry “on a path to a full accounting of the environmental harms and costs of the nuclear fuel chain,” writes Geoff Fettus, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which submitted 60 pages of technical and legal comment on the proposed rules. The comment period just ended, and more than 44,000 citizens and groups weighed demanding justice for the affected communities and long-term protections from future mining.

The rule changes, titled “Health and Environmental Protection Standards for Uranium and Thorium Mill Tailings,” regard water quality, clean-up requirements, and new mining practices. First proposed late in the Obama Administration, a revised set of rules put up by EPA’s Pruitt and Co. weaken protections to groundwater included in the first proposal. The weaker rules would shorten the duration of long-term monitoring after mining concludes, and the lower standards for setting original baseline groundwater quality.

Communities and drinking water across the western U.S., from Texas to Wyoming, have for 70 years been contaminated by uranium mining. Uranium is a natural radioactive and toxic heavy metal, and there are some 15,000 abandoned uranium mines and mills in the west, mostly located on Native North American Indian Reservations. Mountains of abandoned uranium ore tailings, some 190 million metrtic tons at licensed mill sites,* have been left in the open air.

Since uranium mining is mostly done in dry, windy desert areas, radioactive dust is easily dispersed by winds and rains. Surface and underground waters are then contaminated by uranium and its byproducts including lead 210 and polonium 210. These radioactive materials also accumulate in the plants and sediments of rivers, ponds and lakes.

Uranium mine and mill workers suffer similar illnesses and elevated death rates from cancers, kidney and breathing diseases known to be associated with the radiation and heavy metal toxins released by uranium mining. Yet the polluting companies have done little to compensate sickened workers or clean up their contaminated sites, even after disasters like the worst radioactive spill in U.S. history — the 1979 uranium mine dam collapse on the Navajo Nation near Church Rock, NM that poured 94 million gallons of radioactive waste to the Puerco River, poisoning drinking water in downriver communities.

Current EPA rules for uranium mining endanger public health and the environment, the Defense Council’s Fettus says, because they don’t address “in-situ leaching” (ISL), also known as acid leach mining which employs highly corrosive and deadly sulfuric acid. Fettus wrote in an Oct. 16 letter that “regulations promulgated decades ago did not contemplate ISL uranium recovery and its associated harms,” and are “wholly inadequate to the task of protecting scarce western US groundwater resources.”

Most acid leach uranium mining in the US has taken place in the “inter-mountain west” and new or expanded acid mining is in the works, especially with new EPA chief Pruitt and the president having zero tolerance for pesky safe water regulations. The desert southwest is seeing rapid population growth, prolonged droughts, and simultaneous resource extraction projects (like coal bed methane drilling). All this causes severe competition for surface and underground water which these industries use in great quantities. Permanent contamination — that is, the total loss — of underground freshwater (aquifers) has been caused by acid leach mining and will again, unless stringent rules are adopted and enforced.

Attorney Fettus sounded an alarm in his letter, noting, “Any attempt by EPA, under the administration of industry lobbyist Scott Pruitt, to further weaken the standards violates federal law and contradicts the established science of uranium recovery and its impact on groundwater.” Contact the Natural Resources Defense Council (nrdc.org) to amplify your efforts as a water protector.

— John LaForge

* Arjun Makhijani, Howar Hu, & Ketherine Yih, Nuclear Wastelands, The MIT Press, 2000, p. 122.

September 4, 2017 by Nukewatch 2 Comments

Choose Your Experts: “Radiation Is Good for You” or “There’s No Safe Dose”

By John LaForge

The old canard that “a little radiation exposure is good for you,” peddled by nuclear power advocates and nuclear waste generators, repeatedly needs refuting because the industry relentlessly downplays the dangers of radiation. It recently convinced the Environmental Protection Agency to weaken water pollution law and allow increased levels of radioactive poisons in our water.

Take David Ropeik writing in The Week, on Aug. 6 of all days, under the headline, “Should we really be so afraid of nuclear radiation?” Ropeik says, “The fear of ionizing (nuclear) radiation is deeply ingrained in the public psyche. For reasons partly historical and partly psychological, we simply assume that any exposure to ionizing radiation is dangerous.”

No David, the reasons are scientific and factual. No less than the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that any exposure to ionizing radiation is dangerous. The NAS has found repeatedly that there is no such thing as harmless radiation exposure, no “threshold” dose below which the exposure is safe.

No one need “simply assume” this. It’s a point of fact, made clear in the most comprehensive government studies of the dangers of radiation exposure, the National Academy’s seven BEIR reports (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation). Its most recent book-length study, “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII,” was issued June 29, 2006. Consequently, every federal agency that regulates ionizing radiation warns that any exposure to radiation, no matter how small, increases one’s risk of cancer.

Based on BEIR’s repeated declarations that there is no exposure so low as to be harmless, the US Environmental Protection Agency says for example, “There is no firm basis for setting a ‘safe’ level of exposure above background ….” and, “Based on current scientific evidence, any exposure to radiation can be harmful (or can increase the risk of cancer). ….no radiation exposure is completely risk free.” The National Council on Radiation Protection says, “[E]very increment of radiation exposure produces an incremental increase in the risk of cancer.” The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “[T]he radiation protection community conservatively assumes that any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer and hereditary effect, … any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.”

But nuclear power promoters like those at the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s engineering department, particularly retired professors Michael Corradini and Max Carbon (his real name), still peddle the officially debunked “hormesis” theory: that low-dose exposures act like inoculations and help people build immunity to the damage done by radiation’s effects on cells. The conjecture is even applied to fetuses, infants, children, girls and women, all of whom were reported in the BIER-VII to be far more vulnerable to radiation’s harmful effects than the rest of the population.

Dr. Carbon and Dr. Corradini have no background in health physics or medicine, and taught nuclear reactor engineering. Like business page columnists or nuclear industry investors, they know that the strengthening of radiation protection standards and strictly enforcing current anti-pollution laws will cost the nuclear industry hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. So for decades these vested interests have worked to weaken the regulations using the nonsense that a little radiation exposure won’t hurt you, and may even help.

The National Academy’s BEIR VII report, at page 315, politely refutes the hormesis humbug:

“The possibility that low doses of radiation may have beneficial effects (a phenomenon often referred to as ‘hormesis’) has been the subject of considerable debate. Evidence for hormetic effects was reviewed, with emphasis on material published since the 1990 BEIR-V study on the health effects of exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation. … [T]he preponderance of available experimental information does not support the contention that low levels of ionizing radiation have a beneficial effect.” [Emphasis added]

The late Herbert L. Abrams was chairman of radiology at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy’s committee that produced BIER VII. He said when it was published, “There appears to be no threshold below which exposure can be viewed as harmless.” So when deciding about radiation, choose your experts wisely. Do you want health advice from medical doctors or reactor engineers?

June 30, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Rockets’ Red Glare and Bombs Bursting in Air

Library image: US Marines fire a Howitzer in northern Syria on March 24th 2017 in support of Coalition operations. (Photo: Airwars.org, via USMC/ Cpl. Zachery C. Laning)

A June 27 Pew Research Center poll says world opinion of the United States has plummeted since Donald Trump took office. Surveying people in 37 countries, 49 percent held a positive view of the United States, down from 65 percent at the end of 2016. Maybe we could cancel the fireworks this 4th of July considering the insensitive symbolism of vicariously enjoying war.

With the Pentagon’s rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air smashing seven majority Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — negativity toward the United States is easy to understand. US drone attacks originating in Nevada, 7,200 miles from Iraq, and jet fighter-bomber strikes launched from super-carriers in the Persian Gulf are killing hundreds of frightened bystanders month after month. At least 25 civilians were killed in Mosul, Iraq on Sat., June 24 when US bombs destroyed four houses.

Every child killed or maimed by US-made weapons inevitably creates enemies among survivors. President Obama (pronounced “Oh-Bomb-Ah”) made the point himself May 23, 2013 in a speech to National Defense University. He said drone attacks “raise profound questions: about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies…” And Obama warned that, “US military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies.”

Whether bombing civilians only “risks” creating enemies or can be positively guaranteed always to do so, is a matter of opinion. But one need only consider the globalized, mechanized, mass US military reaction to 9/11 — and the country’s demonization of whole groups and religions — to know that demands for revenge, retribution, and retaliation always follow the deaths of innocents.

If your business is peddling weapons, you could be smugly satisfied about every civilian wedding party, funeral procession, hospital, or Sunday market hit by US drones, gunships or F-18s. One StarTribune headline on April 2, 2017 directed attention away from our arms dealers. It read, “Civilian deaths a windfall for militants’ propaganda.” Never mind the windfall for war profiteers.

US offers $6,000 for each dead civilian [sarcasm alert]

In the world of weapons sales, nothing is better for business than TV footage of the anguished and grief-stricken after civilians are indiscriminately attacked by “foreigners.” In the countries being bombed, we are those foreigners, occupiers, and militarists accused of cheapening human lives. You decide: when a US gunship obliterated the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan Oct. 3, 2016 killing 42, the Pentagon offered $6,000 for each person killed, and $3,000 for each one injured.

The government and munitions makers say our bombs are saving people by killing terrorists, and — being a world away from the torn limbs, the burning wounds, the screaming parents — Americans want to believe it. The US dropped 26,171 bombs across the seven states during 2016, according to Jennifer Wilson and Micah Zenko writing in Foreign Policy. Each explosion is guaranteed to produce enough newly minted militants to insure steady orders for more jets, bombs and missiles.

Even with a stockpile of 4,000 Tomahawk Cruise missiles, some in the military say the store could be run low by the bombing of Syria, Iraq and the others. “We’re expending munitions faster than we can replenish them,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told USA Today in December 2015. “Since then, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has asked Congress to include funding for 45,000 smart bombs in the [Pentagon’s] 2017 budget,” Public Radio International reported in April 2016. And now Trump’s SecDef, Gen. James Mattis has asked for far more in the 2018 budget for what he calls an “annihilation campaign.”

Lockheed Martin Corp. was paid $36.44 billion for weapons in 2015, and $47.2 billion in 2016, according to the Stockholm Int’l Peace Research Institute’s February 2017 report. SIPRI says that half of all US weapons exports in 2015 went to the Middle East. Last May’s $110 billion US sale to Saudi Arabia alone is bound to bring peace and stability to the region. Obama’s $112 billion in arms to the Saudis over eight years certainly did. The Kingdom’s fireworks in Yemen will cause “oooohs” and “ahhhs” of a different sort than our holiday firecracker fakery.

This cheering of faux bombs on the 4th while denying that our real ones produce enemies and prolong the war is why terrified villagers, refugees and the internally displaced of seven targeted countries will go on cringing and crouching over their children as US drones and jets howl overhead. But “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto — ‘In God is our trust’ — And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” —John LaForge