I know alot of you are wondering, and are probably apprehensive about what is happening in Japan, with their serious nuclear power station fires/explosions, and radioactive material releases, after their tragic earthquake/tsunami last week. We feel great sorrow for the people of that area of Japan, the northern section of the island of Honshu. Many of whom are still cold and starving, after having lost everything, family and friends, their livelihoods and homes. Now they are having to deal with the terrible threat of losing even the land they can live in, from radioactive contamination, and exposure to it, that would greatly increase cancer rates there, over the coming decades. We'll do our best to provide you with the most up-to-date and scientifically assessed potential threats of contamination reaching Alaska and the western U.S./Canada, over the coming weeks. Alot depends on the dangerous situation at the Fukushima reactor complex, which is still evolving, and which may take weeks before the real threats can be assessed and described.
We are strongly against nuclear power at the A.P.R., now of course, more than ever, and we must all work to see that not just our government, in the U.S., but all those around the World, finally and fully cease using this incredibly dangerous and unsafe technology, just to boil water. To generate steam pressure, which drives turbines, generating electricity.
When talking about the dangers of nuclear power though, we think it's important to realise, it has been built upon decades of bad practices, from outright lies and corruption, from corporations seeking government funding and support for their products. To environmental poisoning and destruction in every stage of the process from mining the raw Uranium ore, to refining it and extracting the isotope Uranium-235, which is the isotope that undergoes "fission", releasing the energy that can either be used in nuclear weaponry, or, if controlled, generate power (naturally occurring Uranium, mined from the Earth, is almost all U-238, a more stable isotope that doesn't naturally split as easily/frequently as U-235, which occurs in an exceedingly small fraction of the raw ore, which requires incredibly complex refining to extract). And through the waste cycle, where the highly dangerous and unstable used nuclear fuel must be continually cooled, and monitored, to prevent it overheating, which could generate a chemical explosion, powerful enough to spew radioactive isotopes that are dangerous for decades, to centuries, over a large area.
We came across this article the other day, in our general research, about the growing nuclear crisis in Japan, and thought it worthy of sharing and commentary. Because it illustrates several unfortunate themes:
- the tragic mistreatment of Indigenous peoples on this continent, which continues to this day
- how irresponsible and destructive to people and the environment unregulated and uncontrolled
capitalism was, and continues to be, in fact, more than ever
- how dirty and dangerous just the first cycle in the nuclear energy process is, that of mining the
raw Uranium ore
An “Overwhelming Problem” in the Navajo Nation
A look at one uranium mine shows how difficult it will be to clean up the reservation’s hundreds of abandoned Cold War-era mines
Not all is well in the Navajo Nation. [Image Credit: photopedia ]
There’s an old uranium mine on rancher Larry Gordy’s grazing land near Cameron, Arizona. Like hundreds of other abandoned mines in the Navajo Nation, the United States’ largest Indian reservation, it looks as if it might still be in use—tailings, or waste products of uranium processing, are still piled everywhere, and the land isn’t fenced off.“It looks like Mars,” said Marsha Monestersky, program director of Forgotten People, an advocacy organization for the western region of the vast Navajo Nation, which covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently embroiled in a massive effort to assess 520 open abandoned uranium mines all over the vast reservation. (Forgotten People says there are even more mines on Navajo land: about 1,300.) Earlier this month, the cleanup got a boost from a bankruptcy settlement with Oklahoma City-based chemical company Tronox Inc., which will give federal and Navajo Nation officials $14.5 million to address the reservation’s uranium contamination.
During the Cold War, private companies like Tronox’s parent company, Kerr-McGee Corp., operated uranium mines under U.S. government contracts, removing four million tons of ore that went into making nuclear weapons and fuel. When demand dried up with the end of the era, companies simply abandoned their mines as they were.
The remediation work started ten years ago, when the EPA mapped the mines by investigating company records and surveying the land with helicopters equipped with radiation detectors. They are now halfway through visiting mines to determine their radiation levels. “It’s an overwhelming problem,” said Clancy Tenley, EPA assistant director for the region.
The mines expose Navajo Nation residents to uranium through airborne dust and contaminated drinking water. Many residents’ homes were built using mud and rocks near mines, and some of that building material is radioactive. There are few published studies on the effects of uranium mines on nearby residents, but researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of New Mexico are working on health assessments, according to EPA officials. Researchers have known for decades that uranium exposure increases the risk of lung and bone cancers and kidney damage.
In July, the leaders of Forgotten People began pushing the EPA to begin cleanup in Cameron because they were worried about the effects of the mines there on ranchers like Gordy, whose cattle drink and graze on uranium-contaminated land. Their tussle with the agency highlights the difficulties the EPA faces in all stages of its cleanup, which will likely take decades. The uranium mine Gordy found wasn’t even included in the EPA’s original atlas. “We’re grateful to [Monestersky] for pointing that out to us,” said Tenley, the agency spokesman. He initially said the EPA would visit the site within six months but publicity over conditions there apparently prompted a change of heart.
Instead, EPA contractors assessed the site November 9. A scientist who participated wouldn’t discuss what he found without EPA officials present, and agency officials couldn’t be reached for comment. However, Lee Greer, a biologist from La Sierra University in Riverside, California, was part of a conference call about the assessment’s results. Greer has been working with Forgotten People to record radiation levels at sites that interest the advocacy group. He said the EPA contractors found radiation levels at the mine that were higher than the EPA’s Geiger counters could measure.
The accelerated assessment of Gordy’s ranch came six days after Greer presented his radiation results from the site to the Geological Society of America. A geologist who was present at the society meeting said that, based on Greer’s findings, a cleanup of the mine should be a high priority. “The sooner, the better,” said Michael Phillips, a professor at Illinois Valley Community College. Because the uranium at this mine is on the surface of the land, people and animals are more likely to come in contact with it, he added.
But the preliminary assessment of the site is just the first step on a long road to a cleanup that is years and possibly even decades away. The time lag between an assessment and a remediation job depends on what scientists find at a particular mine, said Andrew Bain, EPA remediation project manager. The U.S.’s five-year plan for the Navajo Nation’s uranium mines only covers assessment, not cleanup. The EPA started remediating the reservation’s largest mine, the Northeast Church Rock Mine in New Mexico, in 2005, and doesn’t expect to finish until 2019. “We have no estimate for how long it’ll take to clean up all the mines,” Tenley said.
As for the price tag, the recent Tronox settlement will only cover a fraction of the overall cleanup. Just assessing the uranium mines in the Navajo Nation costs the EPA about $12 million every year, said Tenley. Remediation would cost more, he added. How much more? “In the hundreds of millions,” he said.
All this means a long wait for residents like Gordy, though they’ve already waited more than twenty years since the close of the Cold War. “It’s taking forever to get it cleaned up,” said Don Yellowman, president of Forgotten People. “It seems like everyone’s aware but nobody’s taking notice. We don’t understand.”
We understand, here at the A.P.R. Corporate profits are more important than people's lives, and livelihoods, under our current government. And since the Indigenous people of this continent are the most marginalised and neglected "minority" in this country. Not only that, now the EPA is under great threat of being gutted in it's ability to operate in any real sense of "Environmental Protection" by the new Republican sociopaths in Congress. In order that corporate profits will not be affected by having to respect and protect the global environment and all the beings therein.
A Navajo woman wrote a report in 2008, published by a UN committee on climate-change related issues, which describes first-hand, even better, the terrible situation their people face, from decades of uranium mining, parts of which are here:
2007/WS.5
Original: English
|
UNITED NATIONS NATIONS UNIES
Co-organizers
United Nations University – Institute of Advanced Studies, Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA)
INTERNATIONAL EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
DARWIN, AUSTRALIA
APRIL 2-4, 2008
Climate Change on the Navajo Nation Lands
Paper by
KIMBERLY SMITH
Navajo Nation
ARIZONA, USA
Introduction
The cost of the United States fossil fuel economy has always impacted the Indigenous peoples in the Americas. However, the costs have been more than monetary. Indigenous peoples have been relocated to what was seen as ‘useless pieces of land’. These lands were deemed ‘useless’ because they had poor vegetation. Now, these ‘useless pieces of land’ are rich in oil, gas, coal, uranium, and water. Indigenous lands contain 30% of all coal in the United States. The Navajo Nation has the largest coal mining operations not only in Southwest, but also in the world. Not only that, 37% of all uranium is found on Native American reservations. For twenty years, uranium was mined on the Navajo Nation. The impacts of the mining operations on Navajo territories were, and still are fatal to the health, economy, culture, of the Navajo People.
The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, which is also known as the Wheeler Howard Act, gave the first nations the right to govern themselves. The IRA ended all traditional tribal forms of government and put in place a ‘fill-in-the-blank government’. Most importantly, it gave the tribal landholders the right to sell their lands. Therefore, making it easy for energy corporations to come in and create mining contracts with Indigenous peoples.
Energy enthusiasts see the abundance of fossil fuels as a gift, but Indigenous peoples are faced with tainted water, diminished food resources and plants, forced removals, increased rates of health ailments, and are being held hostage economically. The Navajo Nation is one Indigenous nation that has direct dealings with energy companies. The Navajo Nation has the largest reservation in the United States. The Navajo nation is rich in livestock, song and dance, stories, ceremony, language and natural resources.
The Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation extends from Northern Arizona into Western New Mexico, and Southeastern Utah. The Navajo land base is the size of Ireland. The Navajo are the second largest Indigenous nation in the United States. There is an energy gold mine within that 18.5 million acre land base. Navajo land is abundant in gas, coal, water, and uranium. Currently, there are 5 extractive industries on our territories. Of those, there are 3 coal-fired power plants that are polluting our lands and contributing greatly to climate change. These industries have played a remarkable role on the economy, our people, our culture, and our rights to these resources and land. Unfortunately, 48.54% of the Navajo Nation is unemployed. This creates an interesting situation for the Navajo people, because the environmental impact of these extractive resources and the need for jobs holds Indigenous peoples as economic hostages. In most cases, the tribal governments are in favor of the mining developments, creating a dilemma, dividing the people and their government.
The Navajo Nation economy includes activities such as: sheep and cattle herding, weaving, jewelry making, and art trading. The Navajo government employs hundreds in civil service and administrative jobs. There are also tribal members that set up roadside stands selling handmade crafts, especially on major highways or near major tourist attractions. The Navajo Nation's extensive mineral resources are among the most valuable held within the United States. Aside from the mining occupations, the Navajo government employs most Navajos. Other Navajo members work at retail stores and other businesses within the Nation's reservation or in nearby towns. As stated earlier, the reservation is the second largest in the nation.
Currently, our unemployment rate is 48.54% and the annual per capita income is $5,759 according to the Navajo Division of Economic Development. Newer industries that employ[ed] tribal members include coal and uranium mining. Currently, uranium mining is no longer exists on the Navajo Nation. The abundance of natural resources has eased the unemployment on the nation. In exchange, we are plagued with water depletion, drought, relocation, toxic water, a rise in cancer, and other respiratory illnesses. Climate Change has also plagues the Navajo Nation. This is a term that is not in Navajo vocabulary, but our elders have predicted a change in the environment if we were not careful. These affects are due to the uranium, gas, and coal mining on our territories...
...Uranium mining
Uranium mining on the Navajo Nation began in the 1940’s and continued for over 50 years. It has been over fifty years since uranium mining ended but the impacts are still felt today. Hundreds of abandoned mines have not been cleaned up and the land is dotted with contaminated tailings. These mines were left with no warning of the health hazards. In this area, Navajos have suffered from high cancer rates and respiratory problems.
Cancer rates among Navajo teenagers living near mine tailings are 17 times the national average. In the 1970s, Navajo uranium miners and their families began to see the effects of the mine. They asked for help to show that their lung diseases had been caused by their work in underground uranium mines in the 1940s-1960. The miners sought help from the federal government and the government compensated workers that were employed before 1971. Although the government helped the miners with their illnesses, they have yet to clean up hundreds of abandoned mines that present environmental and health risks in many Navajo communities.
In April of 2006, the Navajo Nation president approved legislation banning uranium mining on Navajo Nation land. There is no mining on the Navajo reservation, but Hydro Resources Inc. has been working with the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years to try to get approval for mining near the Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, New Mexico. The company estimates around one hundred million pounds of uranium exists in these areas making it worth millions of dollars. Hydro Resources proposes to inject chemicals down into the aquifer next to the communities’ water supply. This aquifer is the only source of drinking water for 10,000 to 15,000 people living in the Eastern Navajo Agency in New Mexico. In 1979, the largest accidental release of radioactive material in U.S. history happened in Churchrock, New Mexico. A tailing dam burst, sending eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid pouring toward Arizona into the Puerco River. Today, the Navajo communities still cannot use the water.
Conclusion
Since day one, the US government continues to violate the treaties by killing the Native Americans and supporting the advancement of capitalism over the health and good of the people. In the 21st century, the US violates every international treaty by not recognizing the Navajo Nations right to self-determination and by threatening the Navajo language’s existence, by impacting the culture, territory, and the right to live in a clean healthy environment. The impact of the US fossil fuel economy has been felt by indigenous peoples and our communities but our struggles have been long and hard but we have a duty to care for Mother Earth and sustain healthy environments for the seven generations ahead. Our successes have come due to our faith in the land and from the support of many people around the world. In the end, we hope that we will inspire others to take back what is theirs, whether it is land, clean air, or the right to exist. We need to always remember to Honor The Earth.
Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants
The no-BS info on Japan's disastrous nuclear operators
Monday, March 14, 2011
for Truthout/Buzzflash
by Greg Palast
Texas plants planned by Tokyo Electric. Image:NINA I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.
I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.
But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.
Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on CNN:
Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on CNN:
The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.
Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.
The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from 'failed' to 'passed.'
The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build the Texas plant, Lord help us.
There's more.
Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.
These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."
What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.
Now be afraid. Obama's $4 billion bail-out-in-the-making is called the South Texas Project. It's been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse — Toshiba.
I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it's kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth's core.
TEPCO and Toshiba don't know what my son learned in 8th grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn't have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.
Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They'd been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."
(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)
In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells Tokyo Electric to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn't want to do.
I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and Tokyo Electric to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.
In Japan, it's simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary-men, who work all their their lives for one company, to drop the dime.
Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn't buy the corporation's excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.
Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I'm far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York. (The company's other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)
If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become world-wide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.
The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I'm in the middle of investigating the American partners, I'll save that for another day.
So, if we turned to America's own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.
After Texas, you're next. The Obama Administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.
And now, the homicides:
CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.
In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn't care who lives and who dies whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.
Heaven help us. Because Obama won't.
***
Greg Palast is the co-author of Democracy and Regulation, the United Nations ILO guide for public service regulators, with Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor. Palast has advised regulators in 26 states and in 12 nations on the regulation of the utility industry.
Palast, whose reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight, is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.
Many conservatives and pro-nuclear industry people will try and spin that without nuclear energy, much of the World's energy needs couldn't be met, and thus, standards of living and economies would suffer without it. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are more and more new ways of generating power now from renewable, sustainable, and safe sources. Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal power stations could all be refined, expanded, and made even more efficient, if our government in the U.S., and others across the globe, were forced to commit just a fraction of their resources to a focused effort to develop and implement these resources. Similar to the space program in the 1960s-early '70s. Corporate profits, or your, your families, and your descendant's health, which is more important to you?
We need to provide you a little information about our assessment of any threats to the Alaskan and western U.S. areas from the Fukushima reactor complex unfolding disaster. First, we need to put things in perspective, a little. We have to remember, fires and radioactive releases occurring there are essentially a "point-source", and a fairly small-scale one. Between the coast of northern Honshu island, and the western coast of North America, lies 9000 km of the Pacific Ocean. While it is true that the jet stream is usually moving from Japan, east across the Pacific, to North America, weather systems in this flow continually act to disperse the very small volume of contaminated air (which would contain microscopic particles of radioactive material), and incorporate it into clouds, and eventually precipitation, which then would be rained out. Of course, that means it would then fall into the ocean, where it could be taken up by marine life, and enter the food chain.
This chart of contours of the height at which the atmospheric pressure equals 500 millibars (which is usually centred around 5500 metres, +/- 500), illustrates the jet stream flow across the Pacific today, 17 March 2011. The flow is parallel to the contours, moving generally east-west. You can see there are two large upper-level low pressure centres in the jet stream flow between Japan and western North America. In each of these large upper-level lows, there are several smaller disturbances containing clouds and areas of precipitation, cleansing the atmosphere. For this reason, we here at the A.P.R., are not all that worried about any direct radiation threats/exposure for us here in Alaska, or the western U.S., at least at the current time. Not so for the unfortunate people of Japan, and possibly closely surrounding areas like Korea, northern China, or far southeast Russia. However, full scale worst-case "meltdown" explosions/fires, and spent fuel explosions/fires have not yet occurred at Fukushima. We will certainly be monitoring this every day, as best we can, and will give you our assessments. There are more radiation monitoring sites being set up now in Alaska and the Western U.S., which is a good thing, and many scientific agencies are gearing up computer modeling, but all of these efforts still need the ultimate information, about just how much, and for how long, radioactive materials will be released. Cheers.
