fallout

Nuclear Hotseat: New study on Santa Susana Field Lab radioactive fallout from Woolsey Fire; PSR-LA’s Denise Duffield, Melissa Bumstead – NH #541

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From Nuclear Hotseat
November 3, 2021
by Libbe HaLevy

Santa Susana Field Lab Fallout from Woolsey Fire Study of Radioactive Releases – Melissa Bumstead (above) of Parents Against SSFL.

This Week’s Featured Interviews:

Santa Susana Field Lab – the push to clean up the 2,680 acre site continues in the wake of findings about the Woolsey fire releasing radioactive micro-particles into the surrounding Los Angeles neighborhoods.  One of the ongoing people helping to lead the fight is Denise Duffield.  She serves as Administrator for Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA’s (PSR-LA) and directs its nuclear threats program, which advocates for health protective policies related to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.  Denise also works on environmental health and justice issues, addressing the needs of local communities who are impacted by toxic contamination and the failure of regulatory agencies to protect them. She leads PSR-LA’s efforts to ensure a full cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL).

Melissa Bumstead lives within 3.6 miles of the Santa Susana Field Lab.  She became an “accidental activist” for the SSFL cleanup after her four year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia in 2014. She founded Parents Against SSFL and continues to lead community efforts for a complete clean-up of the Boeing – former Rocketdyne – site.  (Her daughter is now 11 years old and cancer-free.)

nuclearhotseat.com/2021/11/03/santa-susana-field-lab-woolsey-fire-radiation-study/

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— Trinity downwinders: Dancing in the dust of death

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Deliberate government atrocities —

“From the very beginning, the federal government has refused to take responsibility,”  — Sen. Tom Udall

‘A few people were probably overexposed, but they couldn’t prove it and we couldn’t prove it so we just assumed we got away with it.’” — Manhattan Project Medical Director, Dr. Louis Hempelmann

From Beyond Nuclear International

July 16 2018

Time to recognize New Mexico’s Trinity downwinders

By Linda Pentz Gunter

When Barbara Kent was twelve years old she went away to dance camp. It was July 1945. A dozen young girls were enjoying a summer retreat, sleeping together in a cabin, and sharing their love of dance. On July 16 they danced with something deadly.

After being jolted unexpectedly out of bed, they went outside pre-dawn when it should have been dark, to find it bright as day with a strange white ash falling like snowflakes. “Winter in July,” Kent, now 86 years old, has called it.

The girls rubbed the “snowflakes” on their bodies and caught them with their tongues. Before they all turned 40, 10 of the 12 girls had died.

No one had warned the girls, or their teacher, or anyone in the community, that the US government had just exploded the first atomic bomb a little more than 50 miles away at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico, now known as the Trinity Test Site. The “snowflakes” were deadly radioactive fallout and just the beginning of an endless — and likely permanent — cycle of disease, death and deprivation.

“While it was not the end of the world, it was the beginning of the end for so many people,” said Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, an organization that “seeks justice for the unknowing, unwilling and uncompensated participants of the July 16, 1945 Trinity test in southern New Mexico.”

Uncompensated because, even though the Trinity atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico, and for no reason that anyone has yet ascertained, the people of New Mexico dosed by the fallout have never been acknowledged or officially recognized by the federal government as downwinders.

They have never been compensated and, certainly, they have never received an apology from the US government.

That is why, for the past eight years, first as a US congressman and now as a member of the US Senate, Tom Udall (D-NM) has been fighting for the Trinity downwinders in his state to be included in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that, since the law’s inception in 1990, and even after it was amended in 2000, has failed, among others, to include New Mexico victims of the Trinity test.

On June 26, 2018, a hearing finally took place before the US Senate Judiciary Committee, at which Udall and many victims of exposure to radioactive fallout and uranium mining — on the Navajo Nation, in Idaho, New Mexico and even Guam — testified. All of them asked that RECA be amended once again to include those forgotten, ignored and affected, even though in many ways it is coming seventy three years too late.

“People sometimes ask me, ‘why don’t you just move?’” said Cordova when we talked after the Hill hearing. “Well the only safe day to move was July 15, 1945.”

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— The nuclear cattle of Fukushima

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Inspiring story. The Japanese people have very deep connections to the land, which farmers have maintained. This is one of the greatest tragedies of the Fukushima disaster — the disruption of the thousands years old relationship, and the dislocation of an ancient people from their ancestral lands.

From CNN

By Emiko Jozuka, CNN
September 28, 2016

Some families have at least one relative who’s either odd or eccentric. Others boast family members of a more unusual kind.

That’s what one filmmaker discovered in 2011 when he heard of a group of former farmers in Fukushima‘s nuclear exclusion zone, fighting to keep their radiation-affected cows alive, though they brought them no profit.
“The farmers think of these cows as family. They know that these cows can’t be sold, but they don’t want to kill them just because they’re not worth anything,” Tamotsu Matsubara, who made a film called ‘Nuclear Cattle’ (Hibaku Ushi) on their plight, told CNN.
It costs around 2,000 dollars to maintain each cow for a year. The farmers featured in Matsubara’s film are among those who refused to obey the Japanese government’s initial requests to euthanize cows in the exclusion zone.
“[These farmers] really want them to serve a greater purpose for humans and for science,” explained Matsubara.

Nuclear Cattle — chart on CNN website of location of farms in relation to the disaster

On March 11 2011, a 15-meter tsunami triggered by a 8.9-magnitude earthquake, disabled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, causing a nuclear accident.
Residents within a 20 km radius of the facility were forced to evacuate their homes and leave behind their livelihoods and possessions.
Before leaving, some farmers released their cows so they could roam free and survive in the nuclear fallout-affected area. 1,400, however, died from starvation, while the government euthanized 1,500 more.
Since 2011, Matsubara has documented both the relationship six farmers have with their surviving herds as well as an ongoing study examining the effects radiation has on large mammals.
The farmers — who return two or three times a week to their former farms — initially kept their cows alive just out of love. But since 2013, Keiji Okada, an animal science expert at Iwate University, has been carrying out tests on them.
Okada established the Society for Animal Refugee & Environment post-Nuclear Disaster, a non-profit with researchers from Kitazato, Tohoku and Tokyo university. The researchers are funded through their universities, and say their project is the first to look into the effects of radiation on large animals.
“Large mammals are different to bugs and small birds, the genes affected by radiation exposure can repair more easily that it’s hard to see the effects of radiation,” Okada, told CNN.
“We really need to know what levels of radiation have a dangerous effect on large mammals and what levels don’t,” he added.
So far, the cows living within the exclusion zone haven’t shown signs of leukemia or cancer — two diseases usually associated with high levels of radiation exposure. Some, however, have white spots on their hides. Their human minders suspect that these are the side-effects of radiation exposure.
As Japan continues to confront its nuclear past, present and future, Okada said his group’s study would keep the country prepared in the event of another disaster.
“We need to know what levels of radiation are safe and dangerous for large mammals, and have that data ready so that the euthanization of livestock can be kept to the minimum,” added Okada.

The ‘cows of hope’

Elderly farmers feeds their radiation-affected cows in the exclusion zone.

Elderly farmers feeds their radiation-affected cows in the exclusion zone.
Since 2011, the Japanese government has taken measures to decontaminate radiation-affected zones within Fukushima by stripping surface soil from contaminated zones and by cleansing asphalt roads and playgrounds.
Evacuation notices have also lifted on some towns in Fukushima. Taichi Goto, a spokesperson from the Ministry of the Environment’s Office for Decontamination told CNN that Namie, a town currently in the exclusion zone, was scheduled to be decontaminated by March 2017. Yet critics point that the state’s measures still aren’t enough.
Matsubara acknowledged the government’s decontamination work but asserted that it was impossible for them to clear the mountainous areas west of the exclusion zone.
While some farmers have slowly started to rebuild their lives by starting new businesses in decontaminated areas in Fukushima, the campaign to keep alive irradiated cows within the exclusion zone continues.
“These cows are the witnesses of the nuclear accident,” Masami Yoshikawa, who lives in Namie town in the heart of the exclusion zone, states in Nuclear Cattle.
“They’re the cows of hope.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/27/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-cows/
More photos on website.
Posted under Fair Use Rules.

Monterey Peninsula tourists: Stay out of the rain!

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It rained on the Monterey Peninsula in central California on Monday, November 2. This is on the West Coast, bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Measurements were taken in the morning in Monterey with an Inspector Alert radiation monitor.

The background air radiation level was approximately 31 CPM.(alpha, beta and gamma radiation)

The radiation monitor was then enclosed in a bag and placed in the rain. Measurements of beta and gamma radiation generally ranged from 70s to 113 CPM (alpha radiation was blocked by the bag). Readings in the 90s were common. Measurements might have been higher if alpha was included.

On Tuesday morning, the day after, a 10-minute timed measurement of air radiation levels. The reading average over 10 minutes was 44 CPM (alpha, beta, gamma) — a 42% increase in air radiation levels from Monday.

This was “hot” rain.

Rainfall and snowfall should be regularly tested for radiation levels. If you get higher than normal readings, alert your family, friends and schools. Children should not be playing in the rain unless low radiation levels are verified. They should also not be playing outdoors when airborne radiation spikes occur. School districts should have good quality radiation monitors, and post the numbers for students and staff to refer to.

When it rains or snows, use umbrellas, and use precautions in storing rain- and snow-contaminated items, such as shoes, inside your home. Dump bird baths and outside pet water after rain, wash out, and fill with fresh water. Frequently dump and refill due to fallout, and if getting high rad readings, do this daily. It won’t eliminate the exposure, but it will reduce their internal intake.

‘Fallout signatures’ on radiation monitors suggest Fukushima is still going re-critical underground

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Citizen researchers can be the best at assembling and analyzing data, and then alerting the public about an issue. Why? Because university credentials and their mystique are not necessary to understand and communicate many issues. In addition, the public may not be prone to the same conflicts of interest as those whose income or career depend on what they find. Finally, there is the issue of community stewardship and care that many so-called scientists seem not to feel. And it is an issue of heart.

The disaster at Fukushima continues to be redacted from the mainstream corporate news.

In the exceptional column below and in his other recent articles are in-depth investigations by Michaël Van Broekhoven on recent radiation spikes in Europe and the search for their source. His articles are important, and the evidence indicates Fukushima as the source. Throughout, he shows the international radiation monitors that are “off line” when radiation spikes are present, keeping critical information away from public view.

The detection of Iodine-131 is alarming because it indicates that there is active fission happening now, almost four years after the initial accident.

Until most of our governments are willing to face this situation, it will be up to the rest of us to learn, educate others, and pressure our countries to take action.

DATA of ‘Fallout Signatures’ on Radiation Monitors Suggest Fukushima Still Going Re-Critical Underground At Times. Airborne Fallout Continues To Come Down Across the Northern Hemisphere.
January 31, 2015
by Michaël Van Broekhoven

Excerpts:

Limitations

We, the lay public, don’t have access to all the data, and no access at all to the most precise data.  Our best guess for a radiation spike is in most cases, ironically, an absence of data (a data gap in public monitor data). That’s how dismal the transparency and integrity of the governments’ radiation monitoring actually is these days:  When it matters most, they simply turn the monitor off.  This is as true for the US and Canada, as for Europe, Russia and Japan.  Some of the emerging nuclear powers, like India and China, do not even have a public-access radiation monitoring network.  It does not need to stay this way, but as it is, we are essentially ‘on our own‘…

!–> This blog post builds upon the previous blog post (Jan 24, 2015), “Did Germany just get a Massive Amount of Fukushima Fallout and “No One Noticed”? (A Eurdep-Nullschool investigation of the Nov. 16, 2014 radiation Upticks…)“, which grew out of the 4-part series (long-term data for  The Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland and Germany) that preceded it, which grew out of my investigations into the officially-denied radioactive cloud that moved from Zaporizhia, Ukraine (ZNPP) into Latvia and other parts of Europe at the end of Nov. and Dec. 2014.  (See my 2011-2015 Nuclear Blog Post Archive and look in the period Dec. 2014 – Jan. 2015 for much more on all that).

Examples of Recent Radiation Upticks

Bulgaria, Cyprus, USA, Japan,…:

!-> IODINE-131 DETECTED AGAIN?!   I’ll start with the very striking I-131 data from Cyprus, then I’ll check on a ground-level gamma radiation uptick in Bulgaria the other day, the highest in the past half year; I’ll look at Radmon.net’s recent highest spike in Georgia (USA), to continue looking deeper into the shifting NETC.com alerts from Japan, and much more.  This is a smorgasbord of radiation uptick reports, which I will investigate, one by one, using Nullschool super-computer-powered meteorological data to search for clues on these radiation upticks’ more likely origins…

For the complete article:

https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/fukushima-radiation-europe-unitedstates-pacific-eurdep-radnet-nullschool-endjanuary2015/