— Norway’s Halden Reactor: A poor safety culture and a history of near misses

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From Bellona.org

March 3, 2017

By Nils Behmer

haldenreactor

Are those who operate Norway’s only nuclear research reactor taking its safety seriously? A new report raises concerns.

October 25th brought reports that there was a release of radioactive iodine from the Halden Reactor. The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority subsequently withdrew the reactor’s operating license from the Institute for Energy Technology. The NRPA has pointed out several issues the institute must resolve before the reactor goes back online.

It’s not the first time the NRPA has had to issue an order to the IFE. The NRPA had been supervising the IFE since 2014 over its lack of safety culture. The incident in October shows this frame of mind persists.

Reactor cooling blocked

So what happened in October? The iodine emission began when the IFE should have dealt with damaged fuel in the reactor hall. This led to a release of radioactive substances via the ventilation system. The release began on Monday, October 24 at 1:45 pm, but was first reported to the NRPA the next morning.

The next day, the NRPA conducted an unannounced inspection of the IFE. The situation was still unresolved and radioactive released were still ongoing from the reactor hall. The ventilation system was then shut off to limit further releases into the environment.

This, in turn, created more serious problems. When the ventilation system was closed down, the air coming from the process should also have been turned off. Pressurize[d] air kept the valves in the reactor’s cooling system open, which in turn stopped the circulation of cooling water.

‘A very special condition’

In the following days, the NRPA continued to monitor the reactor’s safety, and many repeated questions about the closure of the primary cooling circuit. The IFE initially reported that the situation at the reactor was not “abnormal.” By November 1, the NRPA requested written documentation from the responsible operating and safety managers. A few hours later, the NRPA received notice from the IFE that the reactor was in “a very special condition.”

What that meant was that the IFE had discovered temperature fluctuations in the reactor vessel indicating an increased neutron flux in the core, and with that the danger of hydrogen formation. Bellona would like to note that it was hydrogen formation in the reactor core that led to a series of explosions at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011.

The IFE therefore had to ask the NRPA for permission to open the valves again, even if that meant releasing radiation to the public. The release that followed was, according to the NRPA, within the emission limit values specified in the operating permit.

In Summary

The IFE has been under special supervision by the NRPA, but it doesn’t seem to Bellona that the IFE has taken the requirement for increased reporting nearly seriously enough. It seems they further didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation that arose in October. The IFE either neglected procedures it’s obligated to follow, made insufficient measurements, or failed to report the results satisfactorily.

Bellona is concerned that the reactor core may become unstable by just closing the vents. Hydrogen formation in the reactor core is very serious, as Fukushima showed. The IFE has previously stopped circulation in the primary cooling circuit for, among other things, maintenance while the reactor has been shut down.

Those who live around Halden had previously been satisfied with guarantees that the ravine in which the reactor [sits] could hermetically seal it off. As the incident in October shows, this guarantee no longer applies.

Nils Bøhmer is Bellona’s general director.

http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2017-03-norways-halden-reactor-a-poor-safety-culture-and-a-history-of-near-misses

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News articles from incident:

http://enenews.com/alarm-radioactive-leak-at-nuclear-plant-damaged-fuel-in-reactor-workers-immediately-evacuated-from-site-reactor-in-a-very-special-condition-dangerous-neutron-flux-in-core-reported

— HAARP is running again — “the world’s most powerful ionosphere heater”

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From Scientific American

This week powerful radio waves will disturb the ionosphere to probe satellite disruptions and create strange glows

By Mark Harris
February 22, 2017

In the middle of a snow-draped forest in Alaska, a long four-hour drive east from Anchorage, sits a cleared 30-acre field where 180 silver poles sprout from the ground and reach 22 meters into the air. During four nights this week the poles—actually interconnected radio antennae—will spring to life after three years of dormancy, and heat the highest wisps of our atmosphere directly above.

The antennas belong to the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), a former U.S. military facility near the hamlet of Gakona. The array will beam 2.1 megawatts of radio energy into the ionosphere—the region that starts at 100 kilometers above the ground, where solar photons and charged particles crash into Earth’s atmosphere. There the radio signals will excite electrons and turn them into waves of relatively hot ionized gas, or plasma, in a narrow slice of sky. The hope is to better understand activity that hampers satellites as well as some elusive features of radio wave physics.

The antenna forest was originally funded by the U.S. Navy and Air Force to improve their navigation and communication signals bouncing around the planet. Since its first transmissions in 1999, however, it has been accused of doing much more. Iran blamed HAARP operations for floods, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez charged it with triggering 2010’s devastating Haiti earthquake and legions of other conspiracy theorists have accused it of everything from mind control to stealing souls.

In fact the only thing the military was interested in controlling was the hot plasma, says Bill Bristow of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who is HAARP’s chief scientist. The plasma can distort or delay satellite transmissions and GPS signals. The armed services wanted to know whether those perturbations could be manipulated from the ground to eliminate such problems, and perhaps enable new communications and radar technologies. So they built HAARP, the world’s most powerful ionosphere heater.

More than a decade of experiments, however, failed to produce any major breakthroughs. Eventually the military threw in the towel. In 2014 David Walker, then deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology and Engineering, told a Senate committee, “If there is not somebody who wants to take over the management and the funding of the site…we plan to do a dismantle of the system.”

The pending demise caught the attention of scientists at U.A. Fairbanks’s Geophysical Institute. “We felt that there was a large investment of public money that should not just be destroyed,” Bristow says. “There’s a lot of scientific work yet to be done, so we wanted to give it a go.” The Air Force officially handed over HAARP’s keys to the institute in 2015.

Now after years of repairs, upgrades and fund-raising, HAARP is about to embark on its first scientific campaign under civilian control. Much of the work is a continuation of studies that began under the military. Plasma scientists, for example, will hunt for an elusive phenomenon called two-plasma decay instability. This involves an electromagnetic signal decaying into two electron plasma waves. Understanding this instability is key to some experimental nuclear fusion reactions but it has never been observed for high-frequency radio waves.

The facility is also going to be generating artificial aurorae. At full power, HAARP’s transmitter can produce a glowing plasma high in the sky that, although not as bright as the natural aurora borealis, is visible to the naked eye. Producing artificial aurorae has taught scientists unexpected lessons about how gases are ionized in the ionosphere, a process that helps protect Earth from harmful ultraviolet solar radiation. “Understanding how energy from the sun flows into the upper atmosphere is important for understanding the effect on Earth from extreme solar events,” Bristow says.

And the military could not quite let go of HAARP altogether. The Naval Research Laboratory thinks it can use the ionosphere to improve spy satellite operations. The lab will be running an experiment where it bounces radio signals off the ionosphere and then back down to the sea, hundreds of kilometers over the horizon. Satellites overhead will then try to use the radio reflections from the ocean surface to detect ships or ice. Because the satellites will rely on the facility’s signals, and not their own, this method could enable them to stay cloaked from prying eyes and conserve their own energy.

The success of these initial experiments will be critical in demonstrating the long-term viability of HAARP to the agencies funding the efforts along with the navy: the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy. “This beauty of HAARP is that it’s a way to turn the ionosphere into a plasma lab where we can control the knobs and timing,” says Mark Moldwin, a professor of space sciences at the University of Michigan who is not involved with the current research. “It has essentially come back from the dead and the community is hopeful that its continued operation will enable education and research opportunities.”

U.A. Fairbanks says it will support the facility for about two more years. Then it could pull the plug if more sponsors are not forthcoming. But for the week ahead the biggest risk is nature itself, Bristow says: “If it’s cloudy, we won’t see the auroras, and a solar storm could wipe out our ability to do any heating at all.” There is nothing the facility can do about clouds and storms. Despite the rumors, Bristow says, HAARP has never been able to control the weather.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-activity-will-heat-alaskan-skies-deliberately-and-picturesquely/

— Fukushima catastrophe at 6 years: normalizing radiation exposure demeans women and kids, shames people into risking their health

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From Counterpunch

March 6, 2017

By Cindy Folkers

Since the election of President Trump, certain words have taken prominence in our lexicon: “alternative facts”, “gaslighting”, “normalization”. But the techniques these words represent have been used by the nuclear industry and its purveyors in government since the Cold War love affair with nuclear weapons began.

And as we deal with the continuing fallout 6 years after the Fukushima, and 31 years after the Chernobyl, catastrophes began, the nuclear industry continues to put these techniques to good use. They have labeled “radiophobic” those who question nuclear power or who refuse to move back to contaminated areas or eat contaminated food. They shame people into taking health risks and socially isolate those who refuse to comply. They sell the lie of decontamination despite the fact that what has been decontaminated one day, may be recontaminated the next.

Women and children are often the focus of these “normalization” techniques. And they are the ones with the most to lose including supportive social and familial structures, and ultimately, health. Females, children and pregnancy pay a disproportionate price for nuclear energy because they are especially vulnerable to radiation damage. When a catastrophe like Fukushima happens, they become targets: targets of gaslighting, social isolation, radiation damage.

Japan’s radiation refugees

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) estimates that as of Nov 2016, the number of people displaced because of the earthquake, tsunami and radioactive contamination remains at 134,000. Of this number, 84,000 are still displaced around Fukushima, where evacuation orders are not yet lifted around the reactor.

In 2017, Japan is lifting evacuation orders and basically forcing people to move back to towns that were, and still are, contaminated with radioactivity from the ruined Fukushima nuclear reactors. Those who return are promised a one-time sum for doing so. For those who will not go back, the Japan government will cut off compensation. The IDMC frames the issue as a horrible choice: return to risk or try to reintegrate elsewhere without any resources. Greenpeace, in their February 2017 report, demonstrates that the uncertain risks and unpredictable nature of radiological contamination mean there is no return to normal.

Taking radiation into your psyche, as if it is normal

Radiation is associated with disease, even at low levels. Nuclear power proponents incorrectly contend that if you think you are sick from radiation exposure, it is all in your head and your health problems resulted from your worry. In other words, it was your fault, not theirs. They term it “radiophobia”. This pernicious label was first coined in the United States in the 1950’s. Like much of the initial Cold War nuclear policy, it attempted to “normalize” nuclear technology so that above ground atomic bomb tests could continue unhindered.

In fact, an opinion piece in the Western journal of surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, a medical journal which addressed women’s health issues, blamed caretakers for inciting fear of nuclear weapons in children. In the piece, entitled “RADIOPHOBIA; a new psychological syndrome,” the author claims “Anxiety-ridden parents or teachers who fear atomic bombs probably project the same fears to their children…” And that this “conditioning amounts to psychological punishment”. In essence the author, who was not a qualified mental health practitioner, was accusing these parents of abuse. The not-so-subtle implication was that radiophobia was a woman’s disease that she passed to any children she contacted.

The unscientific radiophobia label has persisted through the larger nuclear power catastrophes. For instance, according to a Macmillan dictionary entry, “Chernobyl has left an enduring legacy of opposition to nuclear power, now often referred to as radiophobia by technical experts…” However, the targets of this dismissive and derisive label are not just those who oppose nuclear power. The mysogynistic overtones of the radiophobic label are clearly present as the Fukushima and Chernobyl catastrophes continue to unfold.

In the wake of a nuclear catastrophe, exposed women and children are specifically berated into silence. If they continue to express concerns about health impacts, they risk becoming social outcasts. In this context, radiophobia is a social label used to stigmatize, not a scientific or medical diagnosis. In the case of Japan, radiophobia is called “radiation brain mom“. This epithet particularly refers to women who question whether food is contaminated; and it implies that they are irrational, overly emotional and unscientific, merely for asking the question.

Radiophobia accusations at Fukushima put children and women’s health at risk

After Fukushima began, doctor of psychosomatic medicine, Katsuno Onozawa, was interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun in 2013. As an actual expert on psychosomatic disorders, she stated: “children were exhibiting a range of symptoms including sore throats, nosebleeds, diarrhea, fatigue, headaches and rashes…” Yet these symptoms were written off as “radiophobia” and the mothers were accused of making their children sick by worrying. “Many reproach themselves, thinking, ‘Maybe I’m the one who’s strange,’ and become depressed.” She concludes: “If we say ‘it’s safe’ despite the risks only to erase fears, then we simply leave in place the danger that defenseless children may be contaminated.”

For the record, here are some symptoms of short-term, higher radiation exposure: “nausea, vomiting, headache, and diarrhea…swelling, itching, and redness of the skin” Many around Three Mile Island complained of similar symptoms following the partial meltdown there. The higher the radiation dose, the quicker the symptoms manifest. Children are more vulnerable to radiation exposure than adults, women more vulnerable than men.

In Japan, the “radiation brain mom” label has resulted in a self-censoring of concern about radiological contamination, leaving women and children unprotected after exposure to the initial radiation cloud. Subsequently their health is continually put at risk from food and environmental contamination. “Silence was not imposed by an iron fist of government, but rather wrapped around people like soft velvet, gently making women feel that they had to be silent.”

Taking radiation into your body, as if it is normal

Since the Fukushima catastrophe started, recommendations for radiation exposure limits in Japan were increased by 20 times. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) sets non-binding recommendations internationally for post nuclear catastrophes. Their limit is 1 mSv per year in addition to background radiation. This effectively would double the dose from unavoidable natural background, which is already 0.8 to 1 mSv per year. However, according to the IAEA, 1-20 mSv per year “is acceptable and in line with the international standards and with the recommendations from the relevant international organisations, e.g. ICRP, IAEA, UNSCEAR and WHO”.

Therefore Japan is, under controversy, encouraging resettlement in areas up to 20 mSv/yr. The increase in the allowable exposure limit occurred after contamination created wide-reaching negative economic impacts. Before the radioactive release contaminated Fukushima province, it was a center for organic farming and the “eat locally” movement. Since the contamination, consumer instinct has been to avoid Fukushima products.

Since studies show cancer and other disease impacts can occur within the range of natural background, clearly, the decision to allow a higher exposure level had nothing to do with health. Instead, it was an economic decision that took advantage of the fact that many diseases induced by this radiation exposure may not show for years, or may show as hard-to-attribute subclinical impacts, masking radiation’s disease-causing role. For those health impacts that do appear, nuclear proponents can always fall back on the argument that “it is all in your head”–i.e. radiophobia.

International agencies and industries normalize eating contaminated food to save face and money.

The ICRP is guilty of encouraging radiation ingestion, despite known risks. One recommendation is the encouragement of growing, selling and consuming, contaminated food, as an economic imperative for those in contaminated areas.

ICRP has also supported an effort in the wake of Fukushima called ETHOS that encourages “practical radiation protection culture” (PRPC). ETHOS was an effort originally started with the French nuclear industry, after the Chernobyl catastrophe began, when they realized that the cost of evacuation and compensation was starting to impact the nuclear industry’s financial and public standing worldwide.

Encouraging PRPC is a cowardly way of saying it’s too expensive to move people away from contaminated areas or allow them to eat clean eat food, so officials need to tell people there is no health risk from contamination. This is done under the guise of empowering the local populations by providing them with monitoring equipment, training, and a sense that eating contaminated food is okay. Mothers in Belarus were trained to measure the radioactive contamination of their children and to accept a certain level, resigning them to the fate of living with and eating radioactivity.

ETHOS goes one step further in claiming that individuals bear the responsibility to keep themselves safe from radioactive contamination with little to no help or resources from the industry that caused the contamination in the first place. Now, ETHOS is in Fukushima, protecting the nuclear industry from those whose lands it has defiled and whose lives it has marred.

The U.S. will be no different

For those who are hoping the U.S. will somehow escape the radiation normalization process, think again. We are learning from Fukushima and Chernobyl that international bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) or ICRP will provide no support for clean food and relocation to uncontaminated land should we suffer a nuclear catastrophe.

We are further learning that our U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that decontamination is a lie. Using very colorful and demeaning language regarding radiological cleanup, an EPA employee said in 2013 “‘U.S. residents are used to having ‘cleanup to perfection,’ but would have to abandon their ‘not-in-my-backyard’ mentality in such cases. ‘People are going to have to put on their big-boy pants and suck it up…’”.

Dove-tailing on this egregiously tone-deaf statement, EPA proceeded to institute “protective” action guides (PAGs) meant to provide levels of acceptable contamination in food and water subsequent to a radiological incident. A radiological incident can include a catastrophic release but also lesser releases from transport accidents, for instance. The limits EPA recommends are hundreds to thousands of times higher for some radionuclides than previously allowed. Exposure could continue at these levels for years, endangering women and children the most. Just like women have been resigned or bullied into silence at Chernobyl and Fukushima, we can expect the same modus operandi here.

UN Human rights instruments offer women and children radiation protection when other  national and international agencies fail to

Women and children are more susceptible to radioactivity, therefore any attempt to label women as irrational for fearing radioactivity is ludicrous. The fact is, women and early life stages are not protected by the recommendations of international experts. Women and children have, and will continue to, pay a disproportionate price for the use of nuclear power, it’s routine radioactive releases, and the catastrophes it causes.

Increasing allowable levels of exposure post accident for economic convenience or to tamp down fear is unacceptable. Encouraging women and children to eat contaminated food appears to be in violation of Article 24 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), particularly the principle of needed access to “adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking-water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution”.

Women’s voices should count for more, not less

Women are often the most concerned about social health, and are the first and most vociferous in protecting public health following a nuclear catastrophe. And science shows they should be. Women and children are more vulnerable to radiation’s impacts and the life-stage of pregnancy is uniquely sensitive. They pay the highest price for nuclear power and it releases, so their voices should count for more, both in the energy decisions we currently face and in how we protect those whose lives are upturned by nuclear catastrophes.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/06/fukushima-catastrophe-at-6-normalizing-radiation-exposure-demeans-women-and-kids-and-risks-their-health/

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— South Korea’s Jeju Air drops Fukushima charters over continued radiation contamination

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From Ch-Aviation

March 6, 2017

Jeju Air (7C, Jeju) has dropped plans to operate Seoul Incheon–Fukushima, Japan, charter flights this month following crew concerns over continued radiation contamination in the Japanese coastal city.

In 2011, the outer housings of two of the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma exploded following damage from the 2011 9.1 Tohoku earthquake and the ensuing tsunami it triggered. The explosions caused a partial meltdown and fires at three of the facility’s other units. Over 150,000 inhabitants were forced to evacuate after plumes of radioactivity were released across the Fukushima region and Japan itself.

As such, a Jeju Air spokesman told the Kyodo news agency last week that in light of the crews’ concerns, the charter flights will be switched to Sendai, located 110 kilometres away. Inbound service is scheduled for March 18 with the outbound slated for March 20.

At present Fukushima airport is served by ANA – All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda), its ANA Wings (EH, Sapporo Chitose) unit, and Ibex Airlines (FW, Sendai) (operating as ANA Connection). Destinations served include Sapporo Chitose and Osaka Itami.

http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/53850-jeju-air-scrubs-fukushima-charters-over-radiation-fears

— Fukushima radiation poisoned U.S. Navy personnel tell stories of betrayal

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Before they were allowed off ship, Navy personnel were compelled to sign a statement saying they did not hold the Navy responsible and that they were not sick.

Disclaimer: The cover picture on the video claims “100s of US servicemen die”. That is not in the video, and I have not seen that documentation anywhere.

Testimony from 2013

Title: Press conference with US Navy Quartermasters (retired) Maurice Enis and Jaime Plym
Event: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident
Date: March 11, 2013 at 1:00p ET

US Navy Quartermasters (retired) Maurice Enis and Jaime Plym who both suffered radiation exposure and subsequent health damage while serving on the USS Ronald Reagan during a Fukushima aid and rescue mission.

At ~9:00 in US Navy Quartermaster (retired) Maurice Enis, USS Ronald Reagan: I go in and they had to remove three layers of skin off my hands and arms. It wasn’t like back to back. They would scrub off one layer then I would have to wash it off, this orange grit stuff that you use to get off paint and oil. Then they would do it over and over again and check. And we’d start the process all over, so in my head I was just praying that the machine would stop beeping so I can get it over with. Nobody told me at the time what was going on, everybody just told me just to stand and be quiet, not touch anybody or anything. It was almost as if I had the plague. Finally the machine stopped beeping and they let me go.

— Many at Fukushima now have brain damage; worker develops 3 types of cancer in a year; secret hospital treated those sickened by radiation exposure

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From ENE News

March 3, 2017

Kyodo News, Mar 1, 2017 (emphasis added): A former worker at the site of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster filed a lawsuit Tuesday with the Sapporo District Court seeking labor compensation from the state for his subsequent development of three types of cancer… The man was diagnosed with bladder, stomach and colon cancers between June 2012 and May 2013 after taking part in work to clear debris with heavy machinery at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex… and was exposed to 56.41 millisieverts of radiation in total, according to his written complaint. His application for labor compensation filed at a labor standards supervision office in Fukushima Prefecture was rejected in August 2013. He repeatedly filed requests for re-examination of his application but they were also rejected… But his legal team said, “It’s rare for a person to develop three types of cancer at almost the same time“…

Al Jazeera, Aug 29, 2016: Fukushima’s surfers riding on radioactive waves… An employee of the nuclear plant said that he would never swim here as the water is too contaminated. Five of his friends who work at the plant now have brain damage.

Phoenix New Times, Oct 27, 2016: On my last day in Japan, I met with disaster medicine expert Dr. Atsushi Kumagai in a small conference room in the Fukushima University Hospital, about 52 miles from the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant… Two days after the accident at Fukushima, he, along with two nurses, a radiation technician, and a radiation biologist boarded an army helicopter and flew to Fukushima University Hospital… they managed to set up a temporary and secluded hospital-within-a-hospital at FMU. No one there knew how to handle radiation exposure, which meant that Kumagai and his staff had to train the FMU employees and treat sick people at the same time. For days, the staff worked long hours, taking a few hours at night to sleep on the floor in an empty part of the building. “Every night, we had deep discussions about how to think about this all. We talked about our feelings and anxieties, about the meaning of life, and ‘can we survive?’ “We had such deep conversations, and people cried,” Kumagai says, placing his hands over his heart. “Before the accident, frankly speaking, nobody was concerned about nuclear power… It is a big problem that nobody cared… No one really understood the risk or how to measure or think about the risk,” he says.

See also: “Shocking how many people died in Fukushima” — Cremated bodies of Fukushima radiation workers found near plant — “Such a high rate of cancer” being detected in Fukushima children (VIDEOS)

http://enenews.com/many-at-fukushima-now-have-brain-damage-worker-develops-3-types-of-cancer-in-a-year-secret-hospital-used-to-treat-those-sickened-by-radiation-exposure-doctor-people-cried-can-we-sur

— Professor links die-offs on U.S. West Coast to Fukushima; “Nobody has any idea what to do”

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Includes information posted on ENE News, February 28, 2017

Cornell University forum, March 11, 2016
Five years after Fukushima: What have we learned from nuclear accidents?

Charles Perrow, Yale University professor emeritus and Stanford University visiting professor, published Apr 2016 (emphasis added):

Could I just make an observation that’s been missing from this interesting discussion? Fukushima accident is not over – not by any means… The cancer rate in Japan is going to rise steadily. It’s going to be denied by the government because there’s no transparency on this issue in Japan. There’s a particular example of the problem that intrigues me is when they put the plant in, they not only dug it out so it’d be closer to the water source – the sea – but they put it where there was a river flowing underneath that area. They went up the hill and they diverted the river so that it flowed down on the sides of the large area there and that was no problem. They never anticipated an earthquake could wreck their diversion. So know we have a strong underground river flowing directly under the plant where three huge globs of molten fuel are sitting on the bottom, giving off radiation, and sending that radiation into the water through the river that’s underneath the plant. And it’s going out into the ocean and we’re seeing damage in the marine life in the West Coast of the U.S. and British Columbia. There’s no way that’s going to be stopped, until they get the molten cores out of there, and they have no way — that they know of — of doing that. Nobody has any idea what to do about the continuing Fukushima contamination.

Watch Perrow’s comments on Fukushima here (at 1:34:30 in)

Professor Sonja Schmid at 1:39:16

“The question of nuclear becomes a question of democracy and ultimately a question of justice. Who gets to say something? And whether we entrust these decisions to governments and technocrats, or how, if we decide to do so, we democratize the process. And it’s challenging no matter how you plan to go forward, but I think that’s the ultimate lesson of this, that we can no longer have technocrats, scientists and engineers in charge defining “the real risk” and then solving it, and the rest of the population just watches and has no impact whatsoever on these questions or how they are being addressed.”

Charles Perrow’s paper “Nuclear Denial”,published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2013

Click to access Bulletin_of_the_Atomic_Scientists-2013-Perrow-56-67.pdf

Sonja Schmid is a professor at Virgina Tech. From her bio: “Sonja Schmid teaches courses in social studies of technology, science and technology policy, socio-cultural studies of risk, energy policy, and nuclear nonproliferation. She is particularly interested in examining the interface of national energy policies, technological choices, and nonproliferation concerns. “

http://enenews.com/yale-professor-links-die-offs-on-us-west-coast-with-fukushima-nobody-has-any-idea-what-to-do-about-the-continuing-contamination-river-flowing-under-plant-with-molten-fuel-on-the-bottom-a

— “Mysterious cancer” killing sea lions along U.S. West Coast; bones turning to “mush”; animals dying at “alarming rates” (VIDEO)

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From ENE News
March 1, 2017

KTVU, Aug 12, 2016 (emphasis added): Sea lions are contracting and dying from cancer, at alarming rates in their uro/genital tracts, most often among the females. “We are concerned that it is such a high incidence. It’s 19 or so percent in this particular population of California sea lions which is very unusual for any mammal,” says Dr. Padraig Duignan, Chief Pathologist at the Marine Mammal Center… “So, usually when you see a severe disease outbreak like this, in wildlife, there’s some big underlying problem,” adds Dr. Cara Field, a rehabilitation veterinarian…  “Certainly understanding why they get it and what the contributing factors are and ‘do these contributing factors represent a risk to us?’ is critically important for us in understanding what other risks there may be for us as well as other animals,” says Dr. Field.

California Academy of Sciences (bioGraphic), Aug 29, 2016: Scientists Investigate a Mysterious Cancer Plaguing California Sea Lions… The disease starts in the reproductive organs… By the time they die, tumors have sometimes infiltrated their backbones and turned vertebrae to “mush,” [Tenaya Norris, a scientist at The Marine Mammal Center] says. She describes examining one dead animal whose spine she could simply slice through. More than a quarter of the adult California sea lions that die at the Marine Mammal Center suffer from cancer, says director of veterinary science Shawn Johnson. That’s one of the highest cancer rates seen in any wild animal… There’s been a surge of sick animals, especially California sea lions… “Off the California coast, the ecosystem is really under stress,” says Johnson. That stress is hitting California sea lions particularly hard… Over the past three years, Johnson says, 80 to 90 percent of all California sea lion pups have died… And whether or not the disease is becoming more common or simply holding steady, Johnson says he knows one thing for certain: “It’s not declining.” The disease rates researchers are seeing among sea lions are far from normal, and they want to know why. “Wild populations shouldn’t have cancers like this,” Johnson says… Tumors first form in the cervix or penis, then spread, often metastasizing to the lymph nodes and spine… Inside a stricken animal, “there’s just masses of yellow, cancerous tissue,” says Frances Gulland, senior scientist at the Marine Mammal Center… [C]ancer-stricken sea lions have more pollutants in their blubber… “That’s really important for the human health perspective as well,” Gulland says. “These are contaminants the sea lions are acquiring from their prey. And the fish they eat are the same fish that we eat”…

See report from 2014: CBS: Record number of sick seals & sea lions — Doctor: A lot with “large pockets of green and yellow puss all over their body” (VIDEOS)

Watch KTVU’s broadcast here

— Food chain collapses yet “nowhere is any of this said to be possibly connected to radiation from Japan”

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Question posed on Armstrong Economics, February 13, 2017

I have just returned from visiting my friend, who is a senior cetacean biologist at one of the large west coast universities. While there, he described an amazing situation to me that has alarmed me greatly. He said that research at his university has conclusively identified the complete or almost complete collapse of several dozen food chains within the Pacific Ocean, all within the last 36 months or so. Further, in “unauthorized” exchanges with the relevant departments in other coast universities, he learned that the numbers involved may well be more like hundreds of chain collapses in the same timeframe as opposed to dozens. Finally, in talking with authoritative figures in Vancouver, they apparently believe that the figure is likely closer to 1000. My friend also explained that equally alarming is the fact that all these research departments are finding within the genres of sea life they have physically examined within the same timeframe “huge numbers of general body mutations, as well as skin disorders” which all cannot yet be accounted for in terms of causation.
As bad as all of this sounds, here is the real rub. Regarding these findings about food chain collapses, mutations, and injuries, my friend’s university has instituted a policy that forbids them from publishing their findings, from discussing their findings (on this subject) publicly or in private with other researchers outside their own campus, or finally from taking “unauthorized” radiation readings as part of their research. The penalties for violating these new rules are severe: loss of tenure, civil lawsuits for violation of contract, and potentially employment termination. He showed me a memo on the subject from her own university, so there is no doubt about that in my mind. For the part about colleagues at other universities encountering the same things, I have nothing but my his word but that is good enough for me.

I have never viewed myself as an alarmist or a conspiracist, and I know that he is neither of those things; he is someone who has always been dedicated to the scientific method and to facts. However, despite the preposterous look of this thing I must say that I feel something is badly wrong here. In doing some quick research on all of this, I have indeed found quite a number of articles from mainline sources talking about massive food chain collapses in the Pacific, but not quite on the scale my friend’s colleagues have suggested, and nowhere is any of this said to be possibly connected to radiation from Japan…

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The “answer” includes:

There are some who believe the mutations and dead was set in motion by the nuclear disaster in Japan. The data I have run demonstrates that we are headed toward another spike in the extinction cycle. This is entirely normal cyclical activity….Obviously, man may be aggravating the cycle increasing the amplitude, but there is no evidence that this cycle is set in motion by humankind. This appears to be a natural cycle at this point….

He wouldn’t even use the word “Fukushima”.

The query’s information, if true, is certainly supported by the “there, there; don’t worry over Fukushima” approach in the media, from government officials, and by scientists. When ocean disasters are covered, Fukushima is almost never mentioned. The information about universities is not surprising, if true.

Has the Extinction Cycle Also Turned Against Us?

— Radioactive weapons are killing innocent civilians in Iraq—and the US military is behind it

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By Prof. Vijay Prashad
Global Research, February 26, 2017
Alternet 22 February 2017

“Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying.”

On Monday, February 20, US-led coalition fighter jets bombed al-Shefaa, a residential area in eastern Mosul (Iraq). Sources from a variety of perspectives say that several dozen civilians died in the raid and a large number were wounded. The highest numbers are being quoted by the Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency, while the lower numbers come from al-Jazeera. The coalition commanders have not answered questions about the raids.

According to Airwars, a large number of civilians have been killed due to US-led coalition bombings that began in 2014. The total civilians killed range from 5,875 to 7,936, while those specifically killed by coalition airstrikes number between 2,405 and 3,517. These are twice the number of civilians as killed by Russian airstrikes in Syria, according to Airwars figures.

The Iraqi military confirms that it has slowed down its advance into Mosul because it does not know how to fight ISIS without endangering the 750,000 civilians in the region. The most recent UN situation report from Iraq counts 160,000 people already displaced as a result of the Mosul crisis. Low income levels, shortages of water, great threats because of the fighting – these define the situation for residents in and around Mosul.

A joint investigation by Airwars and Foreign Policy pushed the US military to confirm that in two incidents in 2015 the United States used depleted uranium (DU) shells against ISIS targets in Syria. When Airwars’ Samuel Oakford asked the United States military whether it had used any DU in Syria, they first denied it, then finally admitted to its use earlier this month. DU ammunition was fired from A-10 aircraft against fuel tankers.

Strikingly, the A-10 aircraft normally carries high explosive incendiary (HEI) ammunition which, according to its manufacturer General Dynamics, ‘provides fragmentation and incendiary effects for use against personnel, trucks, ammunition storage and many other targets’. The HEI would have been sufficient to destroy the fuel tankers, so that it was unnecessary to use DU – a radioactive substance – to contaminate parts of northern Syria.

Make the Desert Glow.

At the same time as the US was using radioactive weapons in Syria, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said of ISIS – ‘We will carpet bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out’. This was plainly a reference to some kind of radioactive bombardment. It was precisely what the administration of Barack Obama had already been doing.

Not long after Cruz first made this comment – which became a standard for his stump speeches – Mark Halperin of Bloomberg asked another Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, whether he would go nuclear against ISIS. ‘Well, I’m never going to rule anything out’, replied Trump. When pushed by Chris Matthews of MSNBC on this issue, Trump said, ‘Somebody hits us within ISIS – you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?’

Three generals who made their mark in Iraq between 1991 and 2008 now lead President Trump’s national security team. General James Mattis (Secretary of Defense), General John Kelley (Secretary of Homeland Security) and General H. R. McMaster (National Security Advisor) all led the US counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. Of the three, General James Mattis had the closest relationship to the use of radioactive weapons in Iraq. This was during the siege conducted by the United States against the city of Fallujah in 2004. To grasp the attitude of the US officers in this war, reflect for a minute on Mattis’ statement made in a 2003 speech to soldiers regarding how to comport themselves in Iraq, ‘Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet’.

Fallujah is one of the most forgotten contemporary US battlefields. In that battle to defeat the popular insurgency against the American occupation, the United States used chemical (white phosphorus) and radioactive (DU) weapons with great abandon. The fierceness of the war destroyed three quarters of the city and sent most of its population to the grave or into flight. At this time, General Mattis headed the 1st Marine Division that was key to the Fallujah war.

Ironically, the United States went into Iraq in 2003 with the claim that it wanted to destroy weapons of mass destruction. In turn, it was the United States that used weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq.

The United States dropped at least 116,000 kgs of DU ammunition during the bombing campaign of the 2003 Iraq War. At that time, A-10 fighter jets were used for these missions, the same planes used in Syria. Strike logs released to George Washington University in 2013, shows that in the early months of the war (March-April 2003), DU ammunition was used against cars and trucks as well as buildings of all kinds. The widespread use of these radioactive weapons across Iraq contaminated large swathes of the country. What transpired in Fallujah the next year was merely the continuation of what had become normal policy. The data from that war has not been released as of yet. It would show that DU weapons were fired not only from A-10 jets, but also from tanks and other ground-based devices. These not only contaminated the soil, but also endangered US troops.

It is not as if the US military did not know that DU weapons are dangerous.

The US Environmental Protection Agency calls these weapons ‘a radiation health hazard when inside the body’. A 1975 US Air Force review suggested that these weapons not be used against troops, but only against ‘tanks, armored personnel carriers or other hard targets’. This prohibition was routinely violated during the US War on Iraq. In 2003, the UK’s Royal Society of Medicine and the UN Environment Program warned against the use of such weapons. None of these warnings were heeded. People like Mattis and Kelley had their fingers on the trigger. There is no available evidence that they cautioned against what is tantamount to a war crime.

Everyone Seems to be Dying of Cancer.

Evidence from Baghdad and Fallujah is compelling. Before she died of leukemia, artist Nuha al-Radi wrote, ‘Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over 30 per cent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are a lot of kids with leukemia. The depleted uranium left by the US bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country’.

Dr. Samira Allani, a pediatric specialist at the Fallujah General Hospital, sees the connection between Iraq and Japan – two countries struck hard by weapons of mass destruction. The rate of children born with birth defects in Fallujah are much greater than that of children born – after 1945 – in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The dust from DU emits alpha radiation, which experts say is twenty times more dangerous than the gamma radiation from nuclear weapons. There was no dramatic mushroom cloud over Baghdad or Fallujah, but the smaller explosions might have been just as deadly.

Over the years, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has pushed a non-binding resolution in the UN General Assembly against the use of DU ammunition. Both in 2012 and 2014, the overwhelming majority of the world’s states voted for a resolution brought by the NAM against DU weapons. Both times the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Israel voted against the resolution. In December 2014, the NAM resolution came just as US A-10 fighter jets arrived in Kuwait to bomb ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. There was fear that the US would use DU weapons once more in the region. This fear, we now find, was not unwarranted. The US has said that it used DU twice. One should not be comforted by this number, since there might be other instances where DU was used in the last few years.

It would be naïve to assume that the United States and its coalition are not using DU weaponry in the fight against ISIS in Mosul and elsewhere. These are dangerous weapons, whose radioactivity lasts a very long time and damages societies for generations. Statements by Trump and Cruz about the use of nuclear weapons and the lack of outrage against that shows how desensitized the population has become about violence against the brown bodies of West Asia.

And even against the ecology of the region. In her captivating memoir, Nuha al-Radi writes about fleeing into her family orchard when the US bombing of Iraq took place in 2003. ‘The birds have taken the worst beating of all’, she wrote. ‘They have sensitive souls, which cannot take all this hideous noise and vibration. All the caged lovebirds have died from the shock of the blasts, while birds in the wild fly upside down and do crazy somersaults. Hundreds, if not thousands, have died in the orchard. Lonely survivors fly about in distracted fashion’.

Whether Nuha, powerful artist that she was, wrote of the birds alone or wrote with allegory close to her pen is moot. Both the birds and Iraqis as well Syrians go about in a distracted fashion. Their lives continue to be turned askew by the hideous bombardment of this ongoing war.

Vijay Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of 18 books, including Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK Press, 2012), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013) and The Death of a Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016). His columns appear at AlterNet every Wednesday.

The original source of this article is Alternet
Copyright © Prof. Vijay Prashad, Alternet, 2017

http://www.globalresearch.ca/radioactive-weapons-are-killing-innocent-civilians-in-iraq-and-the-us-military-is-behind-it/5576752