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January 20, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Treaty Banning the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction Enters Into Force

BUS activists join 2019 protest against US nuclear weapons deployed at Germany's Buechel Air Basey John LaForge

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) takes effect Friday, January 22, 2021.

After decades of campaigns of every kind to “ban the bomb”, to prevent the nuclear arms race, and later to freeze the arms race, and, the nuclear weapons prohibition outlaws not just their development, testing and possession, but forbids any threatened use — commonly known as “nuclear deterrence.” Like with other multi-generational struggles against slavery, torture, the death penalty, child labor, TPNW campaigners justly call it “the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”

The new international law  — which for the first time in weapons treaty law requires reparations and compensation to victims of H-bomb testing and production — is similar to earlier global prohibitions such as the Geneva Protocol (outlawing gas warfare), the Hague Conventions (forbidding poisoned weapons), the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Ban the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the anti-personnel Mine Ban.

The difference here is that the world community has finally added to the list of despicable, loathsome, appalling and shunned weapons of war those devices whose effects contain and exceed beyond comprehension the accumulated evil of the all the rest—nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons have been earnestly condemned for 75 years by legal scholars, religious leaders, peace groups, military commanders, prime ministers, presidents and corporate CEOs. They’ve been called “the ultimate evil” by the International Court of Justice in 1996 and any use of them was declared by the UN General Assembly as early as 1961 “a crime against [hu]mankind and civilization.” The TPNW’s language makes clear why: “Cognizant that the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons cannot be adequately addressed, transcend national borders, pose grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, including as a result of ionizing radiation…”

Yet nuclear-armed countries all hold that their plans and threats to commit atomic violence are legal. For example, the US Navy Field Manual says, “There is at present no rule of international law expressly prohibiting States from the use of nuclear weapons in warfare. In the absence of express prohibition, the use of such weapons … is permitted.”

No more. The TPNW rebukes and nullifies this artful dodge, which is partly why its establishment is a monumental accomplishment. Forbidding nuclear weapons by name is also a triumph of harrowing urgency, considering the number of doddering heads of state with access to nuclear launch codes and especially in view of the atomic scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” being set at 100 seconds to midnight.

Countries with nuclear arsenals rejected the UN negotiations in 2017 that produced the TPNW, and they dismiss its obligations because the law applies only to states that ratify it. The duplicity of the nuclear-armed governments was displayed by then US UN Ambassador Nicki Haley who led 35 countries in a boycott of the talks. Haley said the treaty would end up disarming the nations “trying to keep peace and safety”. At the time, the United States was militarily occupying and/or at war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger. Haley’s speech must have reminded the more than two-thirds of the UN Ambassadors that “hypocrisy is the respect that vice pays to virtue.”

The power of the new Treaty is worth celebrating for now, but then it must be employed by us all to end the public’s ignorance, denial, forgetfulness, and habituation regarding plans for nuclear war, and to bring the nuclear weapons states into compliance. ###

— John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, and with Kelly Lundeen co-edits its newsletter, Nukewatch Quarterly.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/20/treaty-banning-the-ultimate-weapon-of-mass-destruction-enters-into-force/

http://www.peacevoice.info/2021/01/19/treaty-banning-the-ultimate-weapon-of-mass-destruction-enters-into-force/

 

 

Filed Under: B61 Bombs in Europe, Environment, Environmental Justice, Nuclear Weapons, On The Bright Side, Radiation Exposure, US Bombs Out of Germany, War, Weekly Column

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

NRC Should Fix Potentially Fatal US Reactor Flaw 

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

On October 16, Beyond Nuclear submitted a “federal enforcement petition” to the NRC urging the immediate shutdown of the country’s 19 GE “Mark I” boiling water reactors until their faulty containment vents are replaced. The destroyed Fukushima reactors are the same design as these 19 US units. “The NRC has known for decades that the [GE] Mark I containment is … too small to contain the dynamic force of a severe accident,” said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear.

In the early 1970s, when many Mark I units were still under construction, the Atomic Energy Commission—the NRC’s predecessor—concealed design flaws and vulnerabilities in the reactors, fearing that disclosing the defects would lead to the shutdown of the reactors. GE engineers reportedly said in 1976 that nuclear power is “so dangerous that it now threatens the very existence of life on this planet.”

In the aftermath of Fukushima, the NRC ordered owners of Mark I reactors to install new “reliable” vents intended to prevent an uncontrolled release of radioactive material during a severe accident. However, according to the petition, the installed vents cannot handle all the thermal energy that could be generated during a severe accident. The NRC stipulated that the new vents handle just 1% of a reactor’s thermal power level under accident conditions. In order to “cope with the vast amounts of thermal energy, steam, and explosive hydrogen gas produced during a partial or complete meltdown accident,” a vent needs to be capable of removing at least 25 times as much thermal energy as the NRC stipulated in its order.

—Beyond Nuclear press release, Oct. 20, 2020

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

French Rad Waste Freighter Arrives in US

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021

A freighter carrying high level radioactive waste from France arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 20. The freighter, Pacific Heron, left Cherbourg November 5 with a load of radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which had been used to power marine beacons. The Pacific Heron crossed the Atlantic with a deactivated location beacon—a common practice with shipments of radioactive waste—leaving the vessel difficult to locate and at higher risk of an accident, especially at night.

The RTGs contain strontium-90, a radioactive isotope dangerous for 300 years that is produced by nuclear reactors and bomb tests. It is known to cause leukemia, skin cancer, and bone cancer. In the body, strontium-90 behaves like calcium and permanently embeds itself in bone tissue, exposing the surrounding cells to continuous radiation. Because children have rapid bone growth, they are particularly susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of strontium-90.

The RTGs will be trucked across the US and buried in a shallow trench at the former Nevada Test Site, where RTGs have been disposed of in the past. Savannah River Site Watch reports that the RTGs are believed to have been fabricated by the US Department of Energy. The group said in a news release that neither the public in South Carolina, Nevada, nor the states along the route have granted permission for or even been informed of the transport of these materials through their jurisdictions. Neither the Nevada Attorney General nor the US Department Energy responded to requests for information.

—Savannah River Site Watch, Nov. 17, 2020; CDC Toxicological Profile for Strontium, 2004

 

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Growing Criticism of Unlawful Rad Waste Storage Plans

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021
By Christine Manwiller

Proposals targeting Texas and New Mexico for above-ground centralization of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste (dubbed Consolidated Interim Storage) under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), face broad opposition. In 2017, Holtec International and partners proposed what they call a “temporary” dump in New Mexico for the waste reactor fuel. The companies claims that storage of this waste will only last 40 years, but the fine print allows for 80 years of “renewals.” In 2018, Interim Storage Partners, Inc., and Waste Control Specialists (WCS) requested that the NRC “resume evaluation” of a separate proposal to store up to 40,000 tonnes of the waste, along with other radioactive waste referred to as “low-level,” in Andrews County, West Texas.

Beyond Nuclear, in Takoma Park, Maryland, notes that both the WCS and Holtec plans are proceeding unlawfully. Under the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act (as amended), the federal government may not take title to high-level radioactive waste from commercial nuclear reactors until a permanent geologic dumpsite is operating. Under this law, the federal government cannot authorize funds for the transportation or “interim” storage of the waste, as Holtec and WCS propose, because there is no operating federal abandonment site. A license cannot be lawfully issued to WCS or Holtec until either a permanent site is operating, or the NWPA statute is again amended. Beyond Nuclear’s lawsuit in the case is on appeal.

Broad public resistance to the dumps was joined by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott who wrote November 3 to the NRC outlining the plan’s negative consequences: the risks of allowing volatile waste to sit on the surface in casks; the danger of the waste being close to the “largest producing oilfield in the world”: the potential for the site to attract terrorist acts; and the likelihood of the waste remaining in Texas for much longer than the proposed limit.

Risky transport of such dangerous waste is also under attack, and 19 resolutions have been adopted by communities across Texas and New Mexico, several of which are municipal resolutions banning the transportation. —Carlsbad Current-Argus, Nov. 10; Office of Governor of Texas letter, Nov. 3, 2020

 

Filed Under: Environment, Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

January 2, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Air Force Veterans of Plutonium Dust Disaster Win Class Action Standing

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2020-2021
By John LaForge

Air force veterans exposed to plutonium after a first-ever US nuclear weapons disaster in Spain have won extremely rare recognition as a class in a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs.

On Jan. 17, 1966, an air force B-52 bomber exploded over the village of Palomares, Spain during a routine airborne refueling. Seven airmen were killed and the bomber’s four hydrogen bombs were thrown to the earth. Conventional explosives (not the nuclear warheads) in two of the bombs detonated in massive explosions, one right in the village, gouging massive, plutonium-covered craters and spewing as much as 22 pounds of pulverized plutonium dust over houses, streets and farm fields.

On June 19, 2016, the New York Times published a 4,500-word investigative report about the lawsuit filed in the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims by chief master sergeant Victor Skaar (USAF, Rt.). Skaar, who was 30 at the time, was part of a clean-up team, dubbed Operation Moist Mop, assigned to the disaster response. A throng of some 1,700 soldiers were put to surveying 400 acres and washing the inside and outside of village buildings. Over a period of 80 days they filled 4,810 barrels with plutonium-contaminated soil and loaded the drums aboard a ship bound for disposal stateside.

Two years after Skaar retired in 1981, he came down with a blood disorder called leukopenia. He’s been trying ever since to have the illness recognized as service-related. In a phone interview, Skaar told Nukewatch that dozens of the veterans contaminated during the clean-up are also sick. If their claims can be established in court, they would be eligible for free health care and a disability pension. Sometimes “clean-up” amounted to hosing the plutonium dust. It was hosed off houses, streets and even a school, leaving the toxic runoff to contaminate downstream surface waters. When the barrels of collected soil had excessive radiation readings, troops blew the dust off using air compressors. When testing the troops’ clothing, radiation meters regularly went off-scale.

After the 2016 exposé in the Times, Michael Wishnie, a Professor of Law at Yale Law School who runs the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, called Skaar and offered the aide of the clinic in the case. It’s been a David and Goliath battle from the beginning. Skaar told the Times, “First they told me there were no records, which I knew was a lie because I helped make them.” The air force seems determined to keep denying responsibility until the surviving vets die off and the lawsuit becomes moot. Meghan Brooks, a former Yale clinic member, told the Times, “The bunk science the air force was using was not just harming Mr. Skaar, but all the other Palomares veterans. Mr. Skaar really wanted to fight on behalf of others,” she said.

After Sgt. Skaar’s three decades of relentlessly filing Freedom of Information Act requests and repeatedly appealing FOIA denials, he and the Yale team finally broke through. In a Dec. 6, 2019 decision the appeals court granted class action status for some but not all the Palomares veterans. The court also found that Skaar could serve as “class representative” for as-yet-unnamed class members.

Class action status for Skaar and the other appellants “represents a major step forward for veterans with long-term health issues linked to toxic exposure in the service,” the Times reported on Feb. 11, 2020. Then on Sept. 2, 2020, the court heard oral arguments in the case and accepted new evidence including a declaration by Dr. Murry Watnick, a former Strategic Air Command Medical Officer. (Full disclosure: Dr. Watnick is a longtime Nukewatch supporter and alerted us to the class action.) Part of Watnick’s affidavit notes that, “The amount of plutonium-239 released was estimated to be approximately 10 kilograms [22 lbs]. One microgram of plutonium-239 is extremely toxic. The estimated release was three billion micrograms.”

Plutonium’s chief danger is from inhalation, because its deadly alpha particles lodge in the lungs “bombarding the adjacent cells with highly toxic ionizing radiation,” Watnick wrote. Troops involved were exposed to “plutonium dust six to eight hours daily in an environment highly conducive to inhalation of alpha particles.”

The class action is focused on the VA’s denial of Mr. Skaar’s claim of service-related illness, and the military’s “arbitrary and capricious” use of inadequate radiation data which is based on shoddy methods of recording and maintaining urine samples taken from clean-up crew members. The veterans also challenge the VA’s omission of Palomares cleanup operations from its list of radiation risk activities. The appeal is currently ongoing.

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure

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