Nukewatch

Working for a nuclear-free future since 1979

by Leave a Comment

EPA Proposes Shocking Thousand-Fold Increase in Radioactivity Allowed in Drinking Water

Proposal Would Permit Radiation Exposures Equal to 250 Chest X-Rays per Year
Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2016

WASHINGTON, DC—On June 6 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) quietly issued proposals to allow radioactive contamination in drinking water at concentrations vastly greater than allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The new “Protective Action Guides” (PAGs) would permit radiation exposures equivalent to 250 chest X-rays a year. Environmental groups called the proposal “shocking” and “egregious.”

The proposed PAGs would allow the general population to drink water hundreds to thousands of times more radioactive than is now legal. For example, radioactive iodine-131 has a current limit of 3 pico-curies per liter (pCi/L) in water, but the new guides would allow 10,350 pCi/L, 3,450 times higher. For strontium-90, which causes leukemia, the current limit is 8 pCi/L; the new proposed value is 7,400 pCi/L, a 925-fold increase.

“Clean water is essential for health. But just like lead, radiation—when ingested in small amounts—is very hazardous to our health. It is inconceivable that EPA could now quietly propose allowing enormous increases in radioactive contamination with no action to protect the public, even if concentrations are a thousand times higher than under the Safe Drinking Water Act,” said Dr. Catherine Thomasson, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility in a press advisory issued with Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Food and Water Watch.

The Bush Administration in its last days unsuccessfully tried to put forward similar proposals, which the incoming Obama Administration pulled back. Now, in the waning months of the Obama Administration, EPA’s radiation office is trying again.

“All of this is extraordinary, since EPA has recently accepted the National Academy of Sciences’ most current risk estimates for radiation, indicating radiation is considerably more dangerous per unit dose than previously believed,” said Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at NIRS.

“These levels are even higher than those proposed by the Bush Administration—really unprecedented and shocking,” D’Arrigo said.

The Bush Administration proposal for strontium-90 was 6,650 pCi/L; the new proposal is 7,400 pCi/L. For iodine-131, the Bush proposal was 8,490 pCi/L; the new proposal is 10,350 pCi/L. For cesium-137, the Bush proposal was 13,600 pCi/L; Obama “beats” Bush with an allowable limit of 16,570 pCi/L.

All radionuclides can cause cancer and other health and reproductive problems. There is no completely safe level of exposure. Strontium-90 causes bone cancer and leukemia. Women, infants and, children are at greater risk than adult males.

PAGs apply not just to emergencies such as “dirty bombs” or Fukushima-type nuclear power meltdowns, but also to any radiological release for which a protective action may be considered—even a radio-pharmaceutical transport spill. The proposed drinking water PAG would apply not to the immediate phase after a release, but rather to the intermediate phase after the release has been stabilized and lasting up to several years thereafter.

Radiation doses (in rems) cannot be measured but are calculated based on some measurements and many assumptions. Current Safe Drinking Water Act radiation limits are based on an allowable dose of 4 millirems per year. The new PAGs would allow 500 millirems per year for the general population. A single chest X-ray gives about 2 millirems. Because of the way EPA is changing the definition of “dose,” for many radionuclides, the allowable concentration would be thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of times higher than presently set under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Internal EPA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the EPA itself concluded that the proposed concentrations “would exceed MCLs [Maximum Contaminant Limits] by a factor of 100, 1000, and in two instances, 7 million.” The EPA’s internal analysis showed that for one radionuclide, “drinking a very small glass of water of approximately 4 ounces … would result in an exposure that corresponds to a lifetime of drinking … water … at the MCL level.”

“Pushing allowable concentrations of radioactivity in drinking water up orders of magnitude above the longstanding Safe Drinking Water Act levels goes in exactly the opposite direction than the official radiation risk estimates go,” D’Arrigo said.

“Under these proposals, people would be forced to get the radiation equivalent of a chest X-ray 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, for up to several years, with no medical benefit or informed consent, just from drinking water. This is immoral,” D’Arrigo said.

by Leave a Comment

Radiation Harm Deniers?

Pro-Nuclear Environmentalists and the Chernobyl Death Toll
Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2016
By Dr. Jim Green 

When it comes to the long-term death toll from the1986 reactor meltdown at Chernobyl, most self-styled pro-nuclear environmentalists conflate uncertainty with a mortality rate of zero. Denying the deadly impact of a nuclear disaster because the exact science is uncertain is a position just as indefensible as denying the existence of climate change for similar reasons.

Before considering the pro-nuclear environmentalists’ misinformation, here is a brief summary of credible positions and scientific studies regarding the Chernobyl cancer death toll (for detail see the April 26, 2014 article in The Ecologist).

Epidemiological studies are of course important, but they’re of limited use in estimating the overall Chernobyl death toll. The effects of Chernobyl, however large or small, are largely lost in the statistical noise of widespread cancer incidence and mortality.

The most up-to-date scientific review is the TORCH-2016 report written by radiation biologist Dr. Ian Fairlie. Dr. Fairlie sifts through a vast number of scientific papers and points to studies indicative of Chernobyl’s impact:

  • An increased incidence of radiogenic thyroid cancers in Austria;
  • An increased incidence of leukemia among sub-populations in ex-Soviet states (and possibly other countries—more research needs to be done);
  • Increases in solid cancers, leukemia and thyroid cancer among clean-up workers;
  • Increased rates of cardiovascular disease and stroke that might be connected to Chernobyl (more research needs to be done);
  • A large study revealing statistically significant increases in nervous system birth defects in highly contaminated areas in Russia, similar to the elevated rates observed in contaminated areas in Ukraine; and more.
So what else have we got?

Without for a moment dismissing the importance of the epidemiological record, let alone the importance of further research, suffice it here to note that there is no way that one could even begin to estimate the total Chernobyl death toll from the existing body of studies.

Estimates of collective radiation exposure are available. For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates a total collective dose of 600,000 person-Sieverts over 50 years from Chernobyl fallout. And the collective radiation dose can be used to estimate the death toll using the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model.

If we use the IAEA’s collective radiation dose estimate, and a risk estimate derived from LNT (0.1 cancer deaths per person-Sievert), we get an estimate of 60,000 cancer deaths. Any number of studies (including studies published in peer-reviewed scientific literature) use LNT to estimate the Chernobyl death toll. These studies produce estimates ranging from 9,000 cancer deaths (in the most contaminated parts of the former Soviet Union) to 93,000 cancer deaths (across Europe).

Those are the credible estimates of the cancer death toll from Chernobyl. None of them are conclusive—far from it—but that’s the nature of the problem we’re dealing with.

Moreover, LNT may underestimate risks. The 2006 report of the US National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII) states: “The committee recognizes that its risk estimates become more uncertain when applied to very low doses. Departures from a linear model at low doses, however, could either increase or decrease the risk per unit dose.”

So the true Chernobyl cancer death toll could be lower or higher than the LNT-derived estimate of 60,000 deaths—a point that needs emphasis and constant repetition since the nuclear industry and its supporters frequently conflate an uncertain long-term death toll with a long-term death toll of zero.

A second defensible position, taken by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), is that the long-term Chernobyl cancer death toll is unknown and unknowable because of the uncertainties associated with the science.

Pro-nuclear environmentalists

A third position—unqualified claims that the Chernobyl death toll was just 50 or so, comprising some emergency responders and a small percentage of those who later suffered from thyroid cancer—should be rejected as uninformed or dishonest spin from the nuclear industry and some of its scientifically-illiterate supporters.

Those illiterate supporters include every last one of the self-styled pro-nuclear environmentalists. We should note in passing that some pro-nuclear environmentalists have genuine environmental credentials while others—such as Patrick Moore and Australian Ben Heard—are in the pay of the nuclear industry.

James Hansen and George Monbiot cite UNSCEAR to justify a Chernobyl death toll of 43, without noting that the UNSCEAR report did not attempt to calculate long-term deaths. James Lovelock asserts that “in fact, only 42 people died” from the Chernobyl disaster.

Patrick Moore, citing the UN Chernobyl Forum (which included UN agencies such as the IAEA, UNSCEAR, and WHO), states that Chernobyl resulted in 56 deaths. In fact, the Chernobyl Forum’s 2005 report estimated up to 4,000 long-term cancer deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations, and a follow-up study by the World Health Organization in 2006 estimated an additional 5,000 deaths among people exposed to lower doses in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

Australian “ecomodernist” academic Barry Brook says the Chernobyl death toll is less than 60. Ben Heard, another Australian “ecomodernist” (in fact a uranium and nuclear industry consultant), claims that the death toll was 43.

There doesn’t appear to be a single example of a pro-nuclear environmentalist—or a comparable organization—providing a credible account of the Chernobyl death toll. They’re perfectly entitled to follow UNSCEAR’s lead and argue that the long-term death toll is uncertain. But conflating or confusing that uncertainty with a long-term death toll of zero clearly isn’t a defensible approach.

Shaky understanding

Evidence of pro-nuclear environmentalist ignorance abounds. For the most part, pro-nuclear environmentalists had a shaky understanding of the radiation/health debates (and other nuclear issues) before they joined the pro-nuclear club, and they have a shaky understanding now.

James Hansen’s understanding of the radiation/health debates is shaky, to say the least. He falsely claims there is a “generally accepted 100 millisievert threshold for fatal disease development.” But the accepted scientific position is that there is no threshold. Thus, a 2010 UNSCEAR report states that “the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”

Barry Brook is another example of someone whose understanding was shaky before and after he joined the pro-nuclear environmentalist club. Brook says that before 2009 he hadn’t given much thought to nuclear power because of the “peak uranium” argument. By 2010, Brook was in full flight, asserting that the LNT model is “discredited” and has “no relevance to the real world.”

In fact, LNT enjoys heavy-hitting scientific support. For example the US National Academy of Sciences’ BEIR report states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”

Likewise, a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states: “Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.”

Conspiracy theories

On Chernobyl, Brook said: “The credible literature (WHO, IAEA) puts the total Chernobyl death toll at less than 60. The ‘conspiracy theories’ drummed up against these authoritative organizations rings a disturbingly similar bell in my mind to the crank attacks on the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, NASA and World Meteorlogical Organization in climate science.”

But the WHO, IAEA and other UN agencies estimated 9,000 deaths in ex-Soviet states in their 2005/06 reports, and more recently UNSCEAR has adopted the position that the long-term death toll is uncertain.

Brook repeatedly promotes the work of Ted Rockwell from “Radiation, Science, and Health,” an organization that peddles dangerous conspiracy theories such as this: “Government agencies suppress data, including radiation hormesis, and foster radiation fear. They support extreme, costly, radiation protection policies; and preclude using low-dose radiation for health and medical benefits that apply hormesis, in favor of using (more profitable) drug therapies.”

Brook promotes the discredited “hormesis” theory that low doses of radiation are beneficial to human health. …

Good for wildlife?

If Brook and contrarian scientists are right, Chernobyl (and Fukushima) have been beneficial by spreading health-giving, life-affirming ionizing radiation far and wide. And according to some pro-nuclear environmentalists, Chernobyl has been a boon for wildlife and biodiversity.

The region surrounding Chernobyl is one of Europe’s “finest natural preserves” according to Stewart Brand. Pro-nuclear environmentalist Mark Lynas says the Chernobyl “explosion has even been good for wildlife, which has thrived in the 30km exclusion zone,” and he says that restrictions on fishing around Fukushima “will improve the marine environment there.”

James Lovelock says the land around Chernobyl “is now rich in wildlife” and he follows this asinine argument to its logical conclusion: “We call the ash from nuclear power nuclear waste and worry about its safe disposal. I wonder if instead we should use it as an incorruptible guardian of the beautiful places on Earth. Who would dare cut down a forest which was a storage place of nuclear ash?”

According to most pro-nuclear environmentalists, radiation exposure from Chernobyl has been harmless (except for those exposed to extremely high doses), and according to some it has been beneficial to human health. And Chernobyl has been good for wildlife and biodiversity (mutations aside). Follow the pro-nuclear environmentalists down these rabbit-holes and you come up with Hansen’s claim that the nuclear industry’s safety record is “superior to any other major industry,” or Lynas’ claim that nuclear power is “extraordinarily safe,” or Brook’s claim that “nuclear power is the safest energy option.”

Nuclear power the safest energy option? Safer than wind and solar? To arrive at that conclusion, Brook and others understate the death toll from Chernobyl (and Fukushima) by orders of magnitude. They conflate an uncertain long-term Chernobyl death toll with a long-term death toll of zero, ignoring the science every bit as much as do climate change deniers.

—Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter. This article, which has been edited for length,was written for the April 7, 2016 edition of The Ecologist.

by Leave a Comment

“We are the Miner’s Canary”

Indigenous Groups Call for Clean Up of “Homegrown” Radioactive Pollution
From Clean Up the Mines

On January 28, representatives of Indigenous organizations from the Southwest and Northern Great Plains and supporters called for “no nukes” in a protest addressing radioactive pollution caused by 15,000 abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) posing a toxic threat in the US. The demonstration was held at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, DC, to call for immediate clean-up of these hazardous sites, protection of Indigenous sacred areas from uranium mining, and for intervention in communities where drinking water is poisoned with radioactive contamination. The groups charged that the EPA has been negligent in addressing these toxic threats that severely threaten public health, lands, and waterways.

“Native American nations of North America are the miners’ canaries for the United States trying to awaken the people of the world to the dangers of radioactive pollution,” said Charmaine White Face from the South Dakota-based organization Defenders of the Black Hills.

Leona Morgan of Diné No Nukes speaks at a January protest at EPA headquarters in Washington, DC, calling for clean-up of abandoned uranum mines. Photo: Eli Laliberte, Konnected.tv.

Indigenous communities have been disproportionately impacted as approximately 75 percent of AUMs are located on federal and Tribal lands. A majority of AUMs are located in 15 western states with the potential to impact more than 50 million people.

Outside of the EPA headquarters the groups chanted “No More Churchrock Spill, No More Fukushima!” and “Clean Nuclear is a deadly lie!” in response to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which they say promotes nuclear power.

Activists dropped a massive banner declaring “Radioactive Pollution Kills” with the image of a Miner’s Canary and a radiation warning symbol inside EPA headquarters.

In the days leading up to the protest, Clean Up The Mines, Defenders of the Black Hills, Diné No Nukes, Laguna and Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment (LACSE), Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE), and Indigenous World Alliance (IWA) met with members of Congress, the Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and the EPA.

The Clean Up The Mines! campaign is focused on passing the Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act that would ensure clean-up of all AUMs. The act was submitted two years ago as a draft to Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D–Arizona, but has yet to be introduced to Congress.

Currently, no comprehensive law requires clean-up of the dangerous abandoned uranium mines, meaning corporations and federal government agencies that benefitted from the uranium extraction do not have to take responsibility for the continuing harm they have caused.

“This is an invisible national crisis. Millions of people in the United States are being exposed as Nuclear Radiation Victims on a daily basis,” said White Face. “Exposure to radioactive pollution has been linked to cancer, genetic defects, Navajo Neuropathy, and increases in mortality. We are protesting the EPA today because we believe that as more Americans become aware of this homegrown radioactive pollution, then something can be done to protect all peoples and the environment. In the meetings we had in DC, not only were AUMs discussed, but we also talked about radioactive pollution from coal dust, coal smoke, and in water. These show a need for amendments to the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.”

The groups addressed extreme water contamination, surface strip coal mining and power plants burning coal laced with radioactive particles, radioactive waste from oil well drilling in the Bakken Oil Range, mill tailings, waste storage, and renewed mining threats to sacred places such as Mt. Taylor in New Mexico.

“With adherence to out-dated, racist policies promoting colonialism, such as the 1872 mining law, Indigenous peoples across the country will continue to be oppressed, and we will continue to demand that our land be returned and restored to its original condition, to that of before the colonization by the United States,” stated Leona Morgan of Diné No Nukes. She continued, “The United Nuclear Corporation mill tailings spill of 1979, north of Churchrock, New Mexico, left an immense amount of radioactive contamination that down-streamers, today, are currently receiving in their drinking water. A mostly-Navajo community in Sanders, Arizona has been exposed to twice the legal limit allowable for uranium through their tap–this is criminal!”

Diné No Nukes is a collective focused on educating the general Navajo population about the issues created by the US Atomic Energy Commission, as well as ongoing and new threats from the nuclear industry.

Tommy Rock, a member of Diné No Nukes and graduate student from Arizona stated that the water crisis in Flint, Michigan was extremely similar to the crisis in Sanders. “The regulatory agencies are responding by sending the Army National Guard to provide bottled water for the community of Flint. However, the small community of Sanders which is also predominantly an Indigenous community that is off the reservation is not receiving the same response from the state regulatory agency or the state legislatures and the media,” stated Rock, who worked on a recent study that uncovered levels of uranium in the drinking water system of residents and an elementary school in Sanders that violated the drinking water standard for uranium. Rock called for the community of Sanders to be included in the second Navajo Nation 5-Year Clean-Up Plan and an amendment to the Clean Water Act.

“In 2015 the Gold King Mine spill was a wake-up call to address dangers of abandoned mines, but there are currently more than 15,000 toxic uranium mines that remain abandoned throughout the US,” said White Face. “For more than 50 years, many of these hazardous sites have been contaminating the land, air, water, and national monuments such as Mt. Rushmore and the Grand Canyon. Each one of these thousands of abandoned uranium mines is a potential Gold King mine disaster with the greater added threat of radioactive pollution. For the sake of our health, air, land, and water, we can’t let that happen.”

The delegation was supported by Piscataway Nation and DC area organizations such as Nipponzan Myohoji Temple, Popular Resistance, Movement Media, La Casa, NIRS, and the Peace House.

by 1 Comment

“The most toxic war in history”—25 Years Later

Twenty-five years since the first widespread use of depleted uranium munitions, have lessons been learned about the need to protect civilians, military personnel and the environment from the toxic remnants of war?
Nukewatch Quarterly Spring 2016
By Doug Weir, International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the start of Operation Desert Storm, the combat phase of the Gulf War. Precipitated by Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990, the conflict was the first to see the widespread use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition. US and UK forces subsequently acknowledged firing a combined 315 US short tons, or 286 metric tons, of DU—the vast majority of which was fired by US Abrams and M60 tanks, and A10 and Harrier aircraft.

The decision to deploy the radioactive and chemically toxic weapons—which had been under development since the 1950s as a response to Cold War concerns over defeating Soviet armored divisions—would prove highly contentious in the following years. Once the media and military’s enthusiasm for what was promoted as a new paradigm in high-tech low-casualty warfare began to subside, veterans, journalists, and civil society organizations in the US and UK increasingly began to challenge the general conduct of the war, and the use of DU in particular.

This was largely to be expected, and had been anticipated just six months before the conflict in a US military study on the environmental and health risks of DU, Kinetic Energy Penetrators; Environmental and Health Considerations, which states: “Public relations efforts are indicated, and may not be effective due to the public’s perception of radioactivity. Fielding and combat activities present the potential for adverse international reaction.” Those wishing to continue to use DU weapons recognized that they would need to plan vigorous public relations efforts in order to justify their continued use, a pattern that continues today. Following 1991, this saw DU branded as the “Silver Bullet”—a weapon capable of such astonishing feats, and so militarily important, that any concerns over its potential health or environmental impacts should be disregarded.

“The most toxic war in history”

In the years that followed, as increasing numbers of veterans began to report post-war health problems, attention began to focus on the overall toxicity of the conflict. From oil fires and pesticides, to the use and disposal of chemical weapons, the Gulf War was increasingly viewed as “the most toxic in history.” Whether it was … or whether this just represented a growing awareness of the linkages between chemicals and health is a matter of debate. Nevertheless, questions were asked about whether possible exposures to a suite of chemicals could be responsible for the ailments reported by veterans. These ranged from birth defects to chronic fatigue, and led to the emergence of the catch-all term “Gulf War Syndrome” (GWS).

20mm depleted uranium ammunition for the Phalanx Gatling gun aboard the USS Missouri.

In the decade that followed, a number of internal reviews—which were triggered by public concern over veterans—spotlighted problems caused by the haste to deploy DU weapons. For example, a 2000 review by the US Government Accounting Office found that there had been significant failures in the training policies intended to minimize exposure of military personnel to DU. The report also found flaws in the systems of data collection necessary to determine exposure levels and subsequent health impacts—not only for DU but also for other toxic exposures.

In the case of DU, it also became clear that scientifically unjustified assumptions had been made about the health risks it posed. These ranged from basic information about the quantity of DU released when targets are struck, to the complex biological responses within the human body when cells are exposed, with in vitro and animal studies—necessary to identify DU’s role in causing cancer—only initiated in 2000. For those troops hit by their own sides forces [so-called friendly fire incidents], or who returned to, or repaired, DU-damaged vehicles, it was clear that the scientific knowledge available on these and other issues was insufficient to answer questions about the health risks they faced.

The clear lesson from DU’s use in 1991 is that far more data is required on the health risks and environmental behavior of the substances used in munitions before they are deployed. Indeed, such data should be a pre-requisite for determining both the legality and acceptability of munitions prior to their use. In the rush to deploy the weapons, DU advocates found it all too easy to rely on assumptions that were not based on robust scientific evidence. Similarly, the lack of accurate monitoring of other toxic battlefield exposures hampered efforts to determine the cause or causes of GWS among military personnel. The situation was similar to that experienced by veterans from the conflict in south-east Asia, when efforts were made to quantify their exposure to dioxin contaminated herbicides.

Increasing concerns over the health of Iraqi civilians

Concerns over the health risks that DU weapons posed to Iraqi civilians took rather longer to emerge but by 1996, reports had begun to circulate from western journalists visiting Iraqi hospitals. Harshly affected by the sanctions regime, which blocked access to basic equipment and medication, medical professionals were identifying changes in the rates and age distribution of certain cancers, and in the prevalence of birth abnormalities.

Politicization of the findings by the Iraqi regime, and a disinterest in the humanitarian consequences of the legacy of the 1991 conflict, contributed to a failure to meaningfully address these reports. Yet the problems that the US military had faced in trying to determine the health effects being reported by their own troops during the 1990s also applied for those who sought, and continue to seek, to examine the impact of the weapons on Iraqi civilians.

As was the case with military personnel, systems to track and record potential environmental exposures for communities in conflict were, and remain, largely absent. Mechanisms for warning civilians about possible environmental exposures are largely non-existent, in spite of the numerous pollution risks found in contemporary conflicts. Systems to follow up possible exposures in order to determine health effects in the medium to long-term are almost unheard of. What civilian epidemiological or exposure research there is, is often undertaken independently with minimal resources, as a result studies may be temporally or geographically limited, which can leave methodologies open to criticism.

The new norm?

The pollution generated in 1991 affected military personnel and public and environmental health across the Persian Gulf area, with smoke plumes travelling 994 miles and oil slicks affecting 273 miles of coastline, but it was not unique by contemporary standards. The conflict in Ukraine is also thought to have produced significant pollution, due to the fighting taking place in one of the most heavily industrialized regions on Earth. Elsewhere, current Russian and Coalition bombing operations against Islamic State-controlled oil facilities in Syria have also caused widespread air, water and soil pollution. This is also likely to be the case for the conflict as a whole, which has seen half of Syria’s housing stock pulverized to rubble with fighting in and around industrial areas. From Iraq, to Libya and South Sudan, isolated and strategically valuable oil and gas facilities are often the targets-of-choice for militaries and armed groups alike.

Instability and armed conflicts also degrade the institutional frameworks that safeguard environmental and public health. These forms of degradation can create pollution problems in their own right, for example by limiting governmental systems of oversight or management for industrial or domestic wastes. Institutional damage also reduces the capacity of states to properly address pollution threats to public health and the environment. Instability can also slow or halt progress towards the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements, be they on waste, water or biodiversity, ensuring that the environmental legacy of armed conflicts last well beyond the cessation of hostilities. Together with the direct environmental damage caused by conflict, the diminution of environmental governance and institutional capacity has serious implications for the attainment of the environmental dimensions of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Lessons learned?

A quarter of a century on from the Gulf War, what have we learned? As anticipated in 1990, DU weapons have not become any more acceptable, with an overwhelming majority of States demonstrating critical concerns at the UN General Assembly every two years. This has helped encourage a shift in US policy on their use. Gulf War veterans are still seeking recognition for their illnesses but the experiences from 1991, and Vietnam before it, have helped catalyze progress on the collection of “environmental intelligence” for troops on deployment.

Rather less progress has been made for the civilians living in environments polluted by conflict, and much more could and should be done to gather data on environmental risks and integrate it into humanitarian assistance and public health systems. As for environmental protection in times of war, little has changed since 1991. For that reason Ukraine deserves praise for sponsoring a resolution on the necessity of greater environmental protection and more effective response ahead of this May’s UN Environment Assembly.

Last year, the Toxic Remnants of War Project completed a study that examined whether a more formalized mechanism of post-conflict environmental assistance could not only help address wartime environmental damage when it does occur, but also help to strengthen norms against the most damaging military behaviors. For inspiration, we looked to the treaties on land mines and cluster bombs, and also to the norms and principles established by international environmental and human rights law. Although primarily a think piece, it clearly demonstrated that elements of these systems are readily transferrable to the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts—if the political will could be mobilized to address the topic in a meaningful way.

Building the political will for the systemic change that could overhaul the existing ad-hoc responses to wartime environmental damage—and challenge the weakness of current protection under international humanitarian law—is a significant challenge, but if we fail to do so we will be ignoring the lessons from 1991 and from many conflicts since.

—This report, with embedded links to sources, and is available at <http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/the-most-toxic-war-in-history-25-years-on>

by Leave a Comment

Triple Reactor Disaster: Fukushima Five Years On

Nukewatch Quarterly Spring 2016

Five years into the Fukushima-Daiichi triple reactor meltdowns and radiation disaster, officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co., its owners, have said leaks from the six-reactor complex with “at least” two trillion Becquerels of radioactivity entered the Pacific between August 2013 and May 2014. Relentless drainage of contaminated water from the site is estimated to be about 300 tons a day and has continued for 60 months. “[W]e should be carefully monitoring the oceans after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history,” researcher Ken Buesseler, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said Sept. 27.

However, Japan isn’t even monitoring seawater near Fukushima, according to The Ecologist. (“Japanese government and IAEA ignore radiation risks to coastal population,” Sept. 28.)

The Quarterly, in nearly every issue since the crisis began, has followed the deluge of accidents, leaks, faulty cleanup efforts, and widespread contamination of workers, citizens, food and water.* Our effort to inform our readers is in part a response to the lack of mainstream US news coverage of the disaster. It is also a reminder of the daily potential for catastrophic radiation releases in the United States stemming from the 23 Fukushima-clone GE Mark I reactors in this country.

Japanese media coverage of the catastrophe, along with analysis by independent scientists and researchers is mostly available online. We have relied on them extensively, along with several recent books, to analyse and report on Japan’s ongoing disaster response, water, soil and food contamination, cancer studies, lawsuits by US sailors, Japanese evacuees and others, and the government’s and industry’s ever-changing decommissioning and waste managment plans.

As Japan Times reported last October, “Extremely high radiation levels [inside the three destroyed reactors] and the inability to grasp the details about melted nuclear fuel make it impossible for [Tepco] to chart the course of its planned decommissioning of the reactors.”

Greenpeace to study disaster’s effect on Pacific

On February 26, Greenpeace International launched a major investigation into Fukushima’s effects on the Pacific Ocean. The gusher of radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific has continued unabated for five years.

In a press release, Greenpeace said its investigation will be conducted aboard a Japanese research vessel using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) with a sensitive gamma radiation “Spectrometer” and sediment sampler.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who headed the government when the disaster began, joined the crew of Greenpeace’s Flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, on the opening day of the study, and called for a total phase out of nuclear power.

“I once believed Japan’s advanced technology would prevent a nuclear accident like Chernobyl from happening in Japan,” Kan said. “But it did not, and I was faced with the very real crisis of having to evacuate 50 million people [from Tokyo and surrounds]… Instead, we should shift to safer and cheaper renewable energy with potential business opportunities for our future generations.”

In the press release, Greenpeace noted that “In addition to the initial release of liquid nuclear waste during the first weeks of the accident, and the daily releases ever since, contamination has also flowed from the land itself, particularly nearby forests and mountains of Fukushima, and are expected to continue to contaminate the Pacific Ocean for at least the next 300 years.”

Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist with Greenpeace Germany said, “There is an urgent need to understand the impact this contamination is having on the ocean, how radioactivity is both dispersing and concentrating and its implications. Tepco … has no credible solution to the water crisis they created and is failing to prevent further contamination of the Pacific Ocean.”

Criminal charges leveled against reactor executives

Japan’s first criminal charges against executives of Tepco were filed February 29 against three former officials who are alleged to have refused to take precautionary measures that could have prevented the loss of off-site power (known as a “station blackout”) and the resulting out-of-control overheating and complete meltdown of reactor fuel in three units. The three are accused of professional negligence resulting in death and injury, specifically having ignored research and specific warnings about the inadequate height of the seawall protecting the reactors and about the improper location of emergency backup diesel generators which were destroyed by the surging tsunami.

Over 14,000 Japanese citizens filed the lawsuit which was initially dismissed and then reinstated on appeal.

Starting from scratch

Last October, then 4½ years into the unprecedented self-destruction of three reactors, Japan’s Atomic Energy Agency announced the opening of an institute to “develop” techniques to inspect and eventually decommission Fukushima’s three destroyed reactors.

Radiation levels inside the devastated reactor cores remain too high for workers to make inspections.

Because of the unprecedented complexity of the disaster, the new “Remote Technology Development Center” is starting from scratch. The daily Asahi Shimbun reported that “Experts hope…the facility will lead to a reduction in the number of failures of devices deployed.” All the robots sent inside to try and locate the melted fuel have been destroyed by the thermal heat and harsh radiation.

Naohiro Masuda, Tepco’s chief of decontamination and decommissioning, told the Associated Press Dec. 18, “This is something that’s never been experienced. A textbook doesn’t exist for something like this.”

The ultimate goal of Fukushima reactor dismantling work is to remove the melted uranium fuel rods. Researchers don’t yet know how to patch up the cracks in wrecked chambers under the failed reactor, and the new institute is tasked with inventing a first-ever technique to repair the leaking container. It needs to be made watertight, because removal of the melted fuel has to be done under water.

The planners also must invent a system of possible routes by which to remove the still-unseen melted fuel. Designers also need to develop methods to reduce the radiation doses that will inevitably be endured by workers.

Two mayors agree to host waste dump sites

After first opposing the central government’s plans, two local governments in Fukushima Prefecture have agreed to Tokyo’s proposal for permanent radioactive waste disposal. The sites, one at an existing facility in the town of Tomioka, and another at Naraha, have been chosen for disposal of “designated waste” in exchange for certain economic incentives, including the construction of an industrial park. The subsidies are reported worth about $81 million.

“Designated waste” is defined as material with between 8,000 and 100,000 Becquerels of radioactivity per kilogram. Oddly, the Japan Times called this material “low-level nuclear waste,” while the daily Asahi Shimbun called the same material “highly radioactive.”

Under the plan, the Tomioka facility, now run by a private group called Ecotech Clean Center, will be nationalized, and will then bury some 650,000 cubic meters of the designated waste. This waste, mostly incinerator ash, sewage sludge and rice straw, is a tiny fraction of the estimated 22 million cubic meters of waste that’s been collected in large black bags and stored outdoors at hundreds of sites in 11 different prefectures.

Wastes with higher levels of radiation are to be kept at temporary facilities being built near the doomed Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex. (Japan Times & Asahi Shumbun, Dec. 3, 2015)

A proposal floated a week later by the Ministry of Industry is to bury high-level radioactive waste under the seabed. Asahi Shimbun reported December 12 that an expert panel made the recommendation, saying the waste could be transported by ships.

What was unsafe yesterday called safe today

Following the start of the disaster in 2011, the permissible external radiation exposure limit was dangerously raised by the government. One milliSievert (mSv) per year was raised to 20 mSv for residents in areas affected with radioactive fallout. For radiation workers in the nuclear industry the annual limit was raised from 100 mSv to 250 mSv.

Robert Hunzinker reported in CounterPunch December 14 that the Physicians for Social Responsibility complained that the 20 mSv “allowable dose” means that for children there’s a 1 in 200 risk of getting cancer; and over two years the risk increases to 1 in 100.

Cesium found in 5% of Korean and Russian seafood 

An analysis of 150 samples of fish, kelp and sea mustard sold in discount stores in South Korea found cesium-137 in eight, or 5.3%. The highest rates of contaminated fish in the survey were Russian cod (13%) and Russian pollock (11.5%). In December, South Koreans with the Citizen’s Radiation Monitoring Center called for a halt to imports of Japanese seafood.

Sea wall making matters worse

In October Tepco completed a long seawall dug into the shore between the ocean and the damaged reactor buildings. Intended to halt the flow of contaminated groundwater to the Pacific, the dam has cause groundwater levels to rise. Tepco had planned to dump less contaminated groundwater from newly dug wells into the sea, but has found the water to be so heavily poisoned with tritium that sea dumping was not allowed. Now the company is dumping the fast rising groundwater into highly contaminated reactor buildings—where the water is expected to become severely contaminated by coming into contact with the mass of hot melted uranium fuel inside. (Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 26, 2015)

2 more reactors set for restart

The Fukui District Court in western Japan has ruled that the Takahama reactor 3 and 4 may be allowed to restart, in spite of legal efforts by local residents who argued that an earthquake larger than the reactors’ defenses were built for could devastate the region much like the Great East Japan Earthquake that wrecked Fukushima. The reactors were to go back on line in late January 2016.

Singapore, European Union to weaken food import rules

The government of Singapore is set to follow the European Union (EU) in weakening food and farm product import rules that had been imposed following the start of the Fukushima disaster, which sent plumes of radioactive contamination broadly across farm land and into the Pacific Ocean.

The EU had required all Fukushima food to arrive with radiation inspection certificates. The EU still restricts rice, mushrooms and some seafood items. Kyodo News reported that after Japanese diplomatic efforts 14 countries have ended their import restrictions, but several dozen others have kept them in place.

—JL

*A hard copy compilation of Nukewatch Quarterly reports on Fukushima is available for $10. 

Contact Us

(715) 472-4185
nukewatch1@lakeland.ws

Address:
740A Round Lake Road
Luck, Wisconsin 54853
USA

Donate To Nukewatch

News & Information on Nuclear Weapons,
Power, Waste & Nonviolent Resistance

Stay Connected