— ‘Crash of the Pacific sardines’: 98.5% collapse since 2006. NMFS may cancel Monterey Bay 2019 and 2020 seasons.

admin , , , , , ,

The numbers are startling.

2017  86,586 metric tons
2018  52,065 metric tons
2019  27,547 metric tons, “a 98.5 percent collapse since 2006.”

“The collapse is a result of overfishing, [Geoff] Shester said. Sardine populations go through natural cyclical fluctuations, but to see numbers this low is caused from over-fishing.“

That isn’t credible.

Fukushima hit in 2011 when the sardines were in a severe down-swing (see chart below). Radioactivity contaminated the kelp and the ocean initially. The Monterey Bay kelp had measureable levels. The contamination increases by air and ocean releases to this day, and none of it is “biodegradeable”.

Historic over-fishing is only one factor. Fukushima radioactive contamination is never mentioned by the media or the scientists.

The ocean environment is crashing. The sardines are canaries. They’ve had no chance at recovery. And the brown pelicans and sea lions are just two species that are dying of starvation as a result.

sardines and kelp
Photo, courtesy of NOAA

From the  Monterey Herald


Sardine fishery likely will be closed this season

Dennis Taylor

3-28-19

MONTEREY — Sardine fishermen in Monterey Bay are facing a fifth straight year of restrictions on the amount they will be permitted to catch, creating financial hardships for the commercial industry.

A new draft assessment from the National Marine Fisheries Service indicates a sardine population of 27,547 metric tons. According to the Fisheries Service, any tonnage below 50,000 metric tons is considered “overfished.” That’s a 98.5 percent collapse since 2006.

The restriction, which would essentially cancel the 2019-2020 commercial sardine season, must be applied when populations drop under 150,000 metric tons, said Geoff Shester, senior scientist with the Monterey office of Oceana, a marine environmental watchdog group.

“The crash of Pacific sardines has been difficult to watch,” Shester said. “We’ve witnessed dramatic starvation effects to ocean animals.”

Continue reading →

— Eight Years Ago: The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Perspective

admin

From Global Research

By Dr. Helen CaldicottGlobal Research, March 04, 2019 Originally posted 12 May 2011

Dr. Helen Caldicott’s March 18th, 2011 press conference in Montreal, sponsored by the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)


Our thanks to Felton Davis for the transcription from the GRTV Video recording and for the annotations.

“One of the most deadly [nuclear byproducts] is plutonium, named after Pluto, god of the underworld. One millionth of a gram, if you inhale it, would give you cancer. Hypothetically, one pound of plutonium if evenly distributed could give everyone on earth cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilograms of plutonium in it. You only need 2.5 kilograms to make an atomic bomb, because plutonium is what they make bombs with. (Helen Caldicott, March 18, 2011)

This press conference organized by Global Research was held in the context of Helen Caldicott’s public lecture to Montreal on March 18, 2011.

http://www.radio4all.net/responder.php/download/101841/111851/123945/?url=http://www.radio4all.net/files/scottprice666@hotmail.com/4319-1-GRNH_252_mar_15__2019_.mp3

Transcript:

First I want to present this report, produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, a report on Chernobyl.  It can be downloaded.(2)  They translated 5,000 articles from Russian for the first time into English.  It seems that nearly a million people have already died as a result of Chernobyl, despite what the WH0(3) says and the IAEA.(4)  This is one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine.  Because everybody should know about this.

Continue reading →

— California’s Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation

admin , , , , , ,

In some areas, schools still had young people participating in track meets and other sports, despite the risks from “normal” smoke inhalation.

The Woolsey fire which started at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site and spread further, through a highly radioacitvely contaminated area, created an even more intense exposure for Los Angeles area residents. That smoke lofted and spread local radioactivity over a wide area. to be inhaled and to fall out.

From Akio Matsumura, Finding the Missing Link
August 7, 2018

After the government of Japan announced last year that it would take at least forty years to remove the irradiated cores from three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, I shifted my focus to the dangers to marine life and the potential risk to people in North America resulting from the forty-year flow of radioactive wind and contaminated water from Fukushima.

After the government of Japan announced last year that it would take at least forty years to remove the irradiated cores from three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, I shifted my focus to the dangers to marine life and the potential risk to people in North America resulting from the forty-year flow of radioactive wind and contaminated water from Fukushima.

Continue reading →

— Russian nuclear firm wins contracts to clean up Fukushima

admin

From Russia Today (RT)
January 14, 2019

Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom will help Japan in handling the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP) and will be engaged in the nuclear control plan, according to the company’s CEO Aleksey Likhachev.

“We have been engaged by Japan to implement the nuclear accident management plan at the Fukushima NPP. We have won two tenders and are going ahead,”Likhachev told Russia-24 news channel.

In September 2017, Rosatom’s First Deputy CEO Kirill Komarov said that Rosatom offered their Japanese counterparts assistance in cleaning up at the Fukushima NPP and in decommissioning other unsafe nuclear power plants.

That followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russia and Japan will start joint efforts to clean up after the accident.

The decommissioning of the wrecked Fukushima reactors could take several decades and cost $200 billion. Japan plans to restart 16 out of the 45 Fukushima-type reactors, while the others will be mothballed. The country intends to reduce the share of nuclear energy from 29 percent in 2011 to 21-22 percent by 2030…

https://www.rt.com/business/448765-rosatom-bids-fukushima-npp/

In 2017, President Vladimir Putin talked with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and announced:

The countries’ “cooperation in the sphere of the peaceful atom has been growing, and we expect that by the end of the year we will announce joint projects to eliminate the consequences of the Fukushima meltdown,” Putin said on Thursday at the Eastern Economic Forum.

During the talks, the two leaders agreed to exchange information on experiments in getting rid of nuclear waste.

-https://www.rt.com/business/402342-russia-japan-fukushima-putin/

— Fukushima evacuees forced back into unacceptably high radiation zones

admin

..[T}he Abe government…is desperately attempting to “normalize” radiation among the population to create a public veneer that everything is as it was. This is motivated at least in part by an effort to dissipate fears about radiation exposure levels that will still be present during the 2020 Summer Olympics there, with events held not only in Tokyo but also in the Fukushima prefecture.

From Beyond Nuclear International
December 6, 2018

One man is advocating for their protection

By Linda Pentz Gunter

A UN Special Rapporteur who last August joined two colleagues in sounding an urgent alarm about the plight of Fukushima workers, has now roundly criticized the Japanese government for returning citizens to the Fukushima region under exposure levels 20 times higher than considered “acceptable” under international standards. 

He urged the Japanese government to “halt the ongoing relocation of evacuees who are children and women of reproductive age to areas of Fukushima where radiation levels remain higher than what was considered safe or healthy before the nuclear disaster seven years ago.”

Continue reading →

— NRC says San Onofre Holtec nuclear waste containers are all damaged and SCE knew in January; community meeting Nov. 29

admin , , , ,

From San Onofre Safety
November 29, 2018

Handout: https://sanonofresafety.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/nrc-allholteccanistersdamaged2018-11-29.pdf 

The Holtec nuclear waste storage canisters at San Onofre are lemons and must be replaced with thick-wall casks.

11/29/2019 Oceanside:   The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) admits in their November 28, 2018 NRC Inspection Report and Notice of Violation, ML18332A357 (page 8 and 9) every Holtec canister downloaded into the storage holes is damaged due to inadequate clearance between the canister and the divider shell in the storage hole (vault).  The NRC states canister walls are already “worn”.  This results in cracks. Once cracks start, they continue to grow through the wall.

The NRC stated Southern California Edison (and Holtec) knew about this since January 2018, but continued to load 29 canisters anyway.  Edison’s August 24, 2018 press release states they plan to finish loading mid 2019.

The NRC states Edison must stop loading canisters until this issue is resolved.  However, there is no method to inspect or repair cracking canisters and the NRC knows this.

Attend November 29th SONGS Community Engagement Panel meeting. Tell the NRC and Edison:
The Holtec thin canister system is a lemon and must be replaced. Demand they replace all thin-wall canisters with proven thick-wall casks before it’s too late. Ratepayers didn’t pay for lemons.  

  • QLN Conference Center, 1938 Avenida Del Oro, Oceanside, CA 92056
  • November 29, 2018 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM
  • More meeting details at songscommunity.com website

For the rest of the story: 

11/29/2018: NRC admits San Onofre Holtec nuclear waste canisters are all damaged

— Massive California fire started at radioactive Santa Susana Field Laboratory site, Physicians for Social Responsibility warns of radioactive releases

admin , , , , , ,

From Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles
November 12, 2018

See website for more photos

Massive Woolsey Fire Began On Contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Close to Site of Partial Meltdown

Continue reading →

— California Woolsey fire burns nuclear meltdown site SSFL; Physicians for Social Responsibility responds to LA Magazine misinformation

admin , , , , , , , ,

From Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles

November 9, 2018

THE SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY (ROCKETDYNE) BURNED IN THE WOOLSEY FIRE, THREATENING TOXIC EXPOSURES FROM CONTAMINATED DUST, SMOKE, ASH AND SOIL. THE DEPARTMENT OF TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL DENIES RISK THAT IT CREATED BY DELAYING THE LONG PROMISED CLEANUP.

For Immediate Release: November 9, 2018

Contact: Denise Duffield, 310-339-9676 or dduffield@psr-la.org, Melissa Bumstead 818-298-3192* or melissabumstead@sbcglobal.net,


Last night, the Woolsey fire burned the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), a former nuclear and rocket engine testing site. Footage from local television showed flames surrounding rocket test stands, and the fire’s progress through to Oak Park indicates that much of the toxic site burned.

A statement released by the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said that its staff, “do not believe the fire has caused any releases of hazardous materials that would pose a risk to people exposed to the smoke.” The statement failed to assuage community concerns given DTSC’s longtime pattern of misinformation about SSFL’s contamination and its repeated broken promises to clean it up.

“We can’t trust anything that DTSC says,” said West Hills resident Melissa Bumstead, whose young daughter has twice survived leukemia that she blames on SSFL and who has mapped 50 other cases of rare pediatric cancers near the site. Bumstead organized a group called “Parents vs. SSFL” and launched a Change.org petition demanding full cleanup of SSFL that has been signed by over 410,000 people. “DTSC repeatedly minimizes risk from SSFL and has broken every promise it ever made about the SSFL cleanup. Communities throughout the state have also been failed by DTSC. The public has no confidence in this troubled agency,” said Bumstead.

Continue reading →