Quarterly Newsletter

November 1, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Xcel’s 52-Year-old Monticello Reactor Leaking Radiation

Monticello Nuclear Station on the Mississippi River. Photo: KSTP.com.

By John LaForge

A damaged and leaking three-inch pipe at Xcel Energy’s single reactor at Monticello, Minnesota on the Mississippi River, is causing a radioactive pollution problem.

Last November, radioactive tritium leaking from the 52-year-old unit was found in a company’s onsite monitoring well. Xcel waited until mid-March to report the month-long 400,000-gallon leak. Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) just winked at the company’s four-month delay in reporting the leak. Xcel soon claimed to have plugged the leak.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that in November the concentration of tritium “was about 5 million picocuries per-liter” in groundwater within the company’s boundaries, according to Xcel’s website. This is 250 times the amount (20,000 picocuries per liter) of tritium legally permitted in drinking water. After claiming the leak to be fixed, Xcel reported a second leak of several hundred gallons of tritium-contaminated water which the firm said had sprung from an overflow tank used to collect the first leaked wastewater.

Originally licensed in 1971 to operate 40 years, Monticello was designed to close in 2010. Yet the NRC issued Xcel a license extension in 2006, allowing it to run until September 2030.

Monticello’s aged pipes, like 23 other Fukushima-style, General Electric Mark I reactors operating in the United States, are worn out and corroded — a chronic, nationwide hazard. “Radioactive tritium leaks found at 48 U.S. nuke sites,” was a headline in a four-part AP investigative series titled “Aging Nukes,” written by Jeff Dunn in 2011. “You got pipes that have been buried underground for 30 or 40 years, and they’ve never been inspected, and the NRC is looking the other way,” engineer Paul Blanch (who had worked for the industry and later became a whistleblower), told Dunn. “They could have corrosion all over the place,” Blanch said.

The Star Tribune reported June 17 that, “Tritium leaks unfortunately have been relatively common in the nuclear industry, and the Monticello spill was among the nation’s 10 largest.”

NRC public affairs officer Prema Chandrathil replied August 10 to some questions from Nukewatch, writing, “The now-stopped leak was from a pipe that ran between two buildings on site where the water had already been processed, filtered, and demineralized.” Asked if there were other radioactive materials in the wastewater, Chandrathil wrote, “When the leak was going on there were low levels of xenon and iodine detected near the leak. They decay away and become non-radioactive quickly due to their short half-life. Therefore, tritium is the only type of radioactive material currently present in the groundwater.”

This answer is suspect. Iodine-125 has a 60-day half-life, and, because it takes ten half-lives to “decay away,” its gamma radiation spews for 600 days. Iodine-129 has a half-life of 16 million years. If the NRC official meant iodine-131 — Chandrathil didn’t specify — that isotope decays for 80 days. Neither does xenon-137 just “decay away” as the NRC public affairs officer said. It decays to cesium-137 which takes 300 years to “decay away.” Again Chandrathil didn’t report which isotope of xenon was leaking, Xe-133, Xe-137, or some other.

The Minn. Dept. of Health website report on this event notes, “A conservative assumption in radiation protection is that any radiation exposure could result in an increase in cancer occurrences in the population, with the risk increasing as exposure increases.” However Xcel has said there is “no” health risk to the public as the affected groundwater contains “very low levels” of tritium.

This reassurance is untrue. Even “very low levels” of radiation exposure create a risk as the Health Dept. noted. Radiobiologists all agree that we can no longer speak of a ‘safe’ radiation dose level. And every federal agency that regulates industrial releases and medical uses of ionizing radiation warns that exposure to radiation (external or internal), no matter how small, increases one’s risk of cancer and other illnesses. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency says, “There is no firm basis for setting a ‘safe’ level of exposure above background ….”, “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.” And “[T]here is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.”

Tritium emits ‘beta’ radiation in the form of fast- moving particles, and several sources misreported related facts. The Minn. Dept. of Health said July 21, that beta particles “are too weak to penetrate the skin,” and the AP reported last March 17 that tritium’s beta radiation “cannot penetrate human skin.”

The Environmental Protection Agency and many other authorities say beta particles are “more penetrating than alpha particles,” and “are capable of penetrating the skin and causing radiation damage.” Dr. Rosalie Bertell in her book No Immediate Danger says beta particles can cause serious burns and other skin anomalies, including skin cancer. If beta particles are inhaled or ingested, they can cause biological damage more severe than external exposure inflicts because they can penetrate cell membranes.

In an apparent admission that Xcel has lost control of the underground radioactive plume moving toward the Mississippi, the firm announced August 17 that it would build an “underground metal barrier” between the leaking pipe(s) and the river. Xcel said the steel wall — 40-feet deep and 600 feet long — will take four to eight weeks to install “along the edge of the plant’s boundary with the river,” and is intended to keep Monticello’s contaminated groundwater from reaching the Mississippi River. Authorities have not reported whether the groundwater plume is deeper than 40 feet.

One grim irony of Xcel’s underground wall is that at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi — where three identical GE reactors, were destroyed by earthquake damage and meltdowns — the owners tried to retard the flow of groundwater by constructing an underground wall. The Japanese effort failed even after a $250 million investment. In addition, like at Fukushima where huge steel tanks currently store 1.37 million tons of contaminated wastewater, Xcel said last March that it was “considering building above-ground storage tanks” for its radioactively tainted leaks.

— CBS News, Aug. 18; Utility Dive, Aug. 28, 2023

November 1, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

No Accident: Japan’s Planned 40-Yr Dispersal of Radioactive Wastewater

Hydrogen explosions blew apart four of the six reactor containment buildings at Fukushima-Daiichi in March 2011.

Editorial

By John LaForge

On August 24, Japan began pumping millions of gallons of stored radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (Tepco’s) devastated triple reactor meltdown site at Fukushima-Daiichi.

The deliberate contamination of the public commons — no accident this time — is a license to kill, a criminally reckless endangerment of sea life and an attack on the food web. Yet the 1992 ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste applies only to barrels thrown from ships, not liquids sent into the sea through pipes. Further, the Law of the Sea allows victims to bring legal action only after an alleged harm has occurred, and then puts the burden of proof on victims to show that their illness(es) were caused by a particular radioactive poison.

The terrible Fukushima earthquake-tsunami-meltdowns of March 2011 have forced Tepco, owner of the three ferociously radioactive masses of melted uranium/plutonium fuel, to continuously pour cold water onto the unapproachable wreckage. Combined with rivers of groundwater that gush through quake-smashed cracks in the reactors’ foundations, another 130 tons of water every day becomes poisoned with radioactive uranium, cobalt, strontium, cesium, plutonium, and more.

While mainstream media regularly report that Tepco’s Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) has removed all the radioactive elements except for tritium, the system has been a nearly complete failure since at least 2018. The New York Times reported August 21, 2023, that, “According to Tepco’s website, just 30 percent of the approximately 473,000 tons of water in the tanks have been fully treated to the point that only tritium remains.”[1]

“This water is contaminated with such radionuclides as cesium-137, carbon-14, tritium (some of which will form the more dangerous ‘organically bound tritium’), strontium-90, cobalt-60, iodine-129, plutonium-239, and more than 50 other hazardous radionuclides,” reported Rick Steiner, a marine biologist in Anchorage and former University of Alaska professor of marine conservation, in the Anchorage Daily News.[2]

Spewing radioactivity is routine, if unknown

It’s no surprise that reactor-friendly governments such as the United States, France, and the UK, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (whose mission is to promote nuclear reactor proliferation), have given Japan’s oceanic pollution scheme their seal of approval. All of them have repeatedly declared that dumping radioactive wastes into public water bodies is standard industrial practice and legal. With straight faces, the authorities chant in unison that reactor operations contaminate the environment with radioactive liquids all day, every day, and this is somehow intended to demonstrate that such contamination is natural and the danger of chronic, low-dose exposure “negligible.”

At La Hague, France, and at Sellafield, England, giant radioactive waste processing systems produce millions of gallons of highly radioactive liquids, and for decades both have pumped radioactive materials directly into the North Sea (from France) and the Irish Sea (from England). Dr. Chris Busby, scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, has studied internal radioactive contamination and has found cancer clusters among children along the Irish seacoast.

Scientists, ecologists, medical authorities, environmentalists, historians, and oceanographers have repeatedly pointed out that there are practical alternatives to Japan’s dumping scheme, and that nothing positive can result from adding more radioactive pollution to the environment.

The nuclear industry and its government protectors manage this legalized dispersal of gaseous, liquid and solid radioactive wastes using bailouts, bribes, and winks, and approvals from captured regulatory agencies. Radioactive polluters also depend on the lengthy “latency period” — years or decades between one’s radioactive contamination and the appearance of cancer, heart disease, etc. — which produces untold numbers of victims the world over. The nuclear industry can depend on the fact that the odds of losing a radiation damage lawsuit are between a slim chance and a fat chance.

The British Medical Journal, on August 16, published news of yet another study that has found that exposure to low levels of radiation is more harmful than scientists previously thought. Dozens of studies have made exactly the same finding since the beginning of the nuclear age. Some examples include:

• “Risk of cancer death after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation underestimated, suggests nuclear industry study,” British Medical Journal, Aug. 16, 2023.

• “Even low-level radioactivity is damaging, scientists conclude,” Science Daily, Nov. 13, 2012.

• “With New Data, a Debate on Low-Level Radiation,” New York Times, July 19, 2005.

• “Study: No Radiation Level Safe,” AP, June 29, 2005.

• “Study: Even Low-Dose Radiation is Dangerous,” Reuters, Oct. 9, 1997.

• “Radiation health effects understated, study shows,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 25, 1995.

• “Researcher discovers greater radiation risk,” Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 9, 1992.

• “Radiation risks may be more than believed,” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1991.

• “Higher Cancer Risk Found in Low-Level Radiation,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1989.

Scientists: Little known about wastes’ effects

The U.S. National Association of Marine Laboratories released a statement in December 2022 saying it was not convinced by Japan’s data. Marine biologist Robert Richmond, from the University of Hawaii, told the BBC on August 26: “We’ve seen an inadequate radiological, ecological impact assessment that makes us very concerned that Japan would not only be unable to detect what’s getting into the water, sediment and organisms, but if it does, there is no recourse to remove it … there’s no way to get the genie back in the bottle.”

And biology professor Timothy Mousseau at the University of South Carolina, author of an exhaustive review of existing studies on tritium, told The National Observer, that tritium “has been insufficiently studied to be making hard promises about the long-term safety of this kind of release.” Mousseau went on, “We don’t actually really understand what the potential ramifications of a massive point source of tritium will be on the natural environment.”

The Japanese government and Tepco hope that their global dispersal of meltdown cooling water will save the industry enough money that it can stay afloat amid the astronomical, ever-rising costs of post-Fukushima liability and disaster response. But August’s launch of Japan’s globalized pollution solution raises the chaos and deadliness of reactor operations to new heights, while the authorities claim that nothing needs to be done about nuclear reactor risks.

—

Notes

[1] New York Times, “Japan to Release Treated Water from Ruined Nuclear Plant Despite Concerns,” August 21, 2023.

[2] Anchorage Daily News, “U.S. must urge Japan not to release Fukushima wastewater into the sea,” April 25, 2021.

[3] British Medical Journal, “Risk of cancer death after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation underestimated, suggests nuclear industry study,” August 16, 2023.

[4] The Mainichi, “Researchers develop technology to remove radioactive tritium from water,” August 28. 2018.

[5] National Observer, “As Japan releases Fukushima wastewater into the ocean, a fallout of fear follows,” August 31, 2023.

November 1, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

White House Sending DU Weapons to Ukraine

By John LaForge

The Biden administration will send depleted uranium (or DU) munitions to Ukraine, even though the weapons are radioactive and their use causes contamination hazardous to health and the environment. The armor-piercing munitions made of waste uranium-238 are part of a new military supply donation for Ukraine, according to Reuters, and the DU will be delivered to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

Uranium is extremely hard, a toxic heavy metal almost twice as dense as lead. It becomes “depleted” uranium or “DU” after most of the uranium-235 is separated for use in making nuclear reactor fuel and cores for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. military began testing DU about 40 years ago, and used it as a weapon on a mass scale for the first time in the 1991 bombardment and occupation of Iraq. As late as July 7, 2023 the Pentagon’s website says “DU has fewer risks than natural uranium because it is less radioactive.”

This disinformation appears on the same website (The Pentagon’s “Health Readiness & Combat Support” site) where the military admits that DU munitions and tank armor are contaminated with radioactive and hazardous metals besides uranium, including plutonium, americium, neptunium and technetium. The website notes that even after claiming to have studied the inclusion of the highly radioactive waste materials in the DU munitions, the military doesn’t know how much of today’s DU weapons (30-millimeter shells, 120-mm shells, and tank armor) is spiked with plutonium, etc. Back in the year 2000, when plutonium was first found to have contaminated the Balkans following the U.S./NATO bombings of 1994, 1995, and 1999, the Pentagon said it would find out what percentage of its DU munitions is contaminated with plutonium — a substance called the most toxic known to science.

The above “Health Readiness & Combat Support” website includes official material about DU. It says in part: “The Department of Defense (DoD) began testing depleted uranium (DU) about 40 years ago, and first used it in a military operation in 1991. It has fewer risks than natural uranium because it is less radioactive. DoD and many other organizations have studied, and continue to study, the health, chemical, radiological and environmental effects and exposures of DU.”

Sydney Young reported in Harvard International Review Sept. 22, 2021, that DU “may pose a risk to both soldiers and local civilian populations. When ammunition made from depleted uranium strikes a target, the uranium turns into dust that is inhaled by soldiers near the explosion site. The wind then carries dust to surrounding areas, polluting local water and agriculture.”

“Researcher Al-Azzawi cites studies,” Young reported, “showing that children’s leukemia cases increased by 60 percent between 1990 and 1997 and that birth defects tripled between 1990 and 1998 in Basra, Iraq. Basra experienced massive U.S. bombardment in response to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Al-Azzawi suggests that depleted uranium used during such conflicts is responsible for the rise in cancer and birth defects in the area.”

— Democracy Now!, Sept. 5, 2023; Harvard International Review, Sept. 22., 2021; Health.mil

November 1, 2023 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

How Weapons Makers Influence the Ukraine War Debate

By Ben Freeman

‘Experts’ from [weapons] industry-funded think tanks are flooding the media, pushing for more arms without disclosing their benefactors.

“To be brutal about it, we need to see masses of Russians fleeing, deserting, shooting their officers, taken captive, or dead. The Russian defeat must be an unmistakably big, bloody shambles. …to the end, with the utmost urgency, the West should give everything that Ukraine could possibly use,” argues Prof. Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic.

What neither Cohen, who also famously pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, nor The Atlantic, acknowledge in the article is that most of the weapons Cohen mentions in the article — including long-range missiles, F-16s, and even F-35s — are made by funders of Cohen’s employer, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

While this might seem like a glaring conflict of interest that, at the very least should be disclosed in the article, a new Quincy Institute brief that I authored, “Defense Contractor-Funded Think Tanks Dominate Ukraine Debate,” shows that this article isn’t an exception; it’s the norm. [The United States’] top foreign policy think tanks are awash in funding from the [weapons] industry. They’ve dominated the media market related to the Ukraine war, and they seldom if ever disclose that many of the weapons they’re recommending the U.S. give to Ukraine are made by their funders.

In short, when you hear a think tank scholar comment on the Ukraine war, chances are you’re hearing from someone whose employer is funded by those who profit from war, but you’ll probably never know it. That’s because 78 percent of the top-ranked foreign policy think tanks receive funding from the defense [weapons] sector.

These and other think tanks that receive considerable defense [military] sector funding have publicly advocated for more militarized U.S. responses to the Ukraine war and, compared to their counterparts at think tanks that accept little or no defense [weapons] sector funding, have dominated the media landscape related to the Ukraine war.

Media outlets were, similarly, not transparent about the conflicts of interest of the experts they were citing. In fact, none of the media mentions analyzed in the brief were accompanied by disclosures of defense [weapons] industry funding of think tanks that were, at times, recommending policies that could financially benefit their funders.

— Ben Freeman, a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote this piece for Space Alert!

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By John LaForge

Editorial

By John LaForge

Spewing radioactivity is routine, if unknown

Scientists: Little known about wastes’ effects

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