Highly radioactive liquid from Canada raises concerns about worker safety at Savannah River Site

Transfer containers used to unload highly radioactive liquid waste from Canada may not provide adequate radiological shielding for workers at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina where the first shipment was recently unloaded. In a press release today, watchdogs, including Beyond Nuclear, sounded the alarm about worker safety as the first of these unprecedented liquid radioactive waste transports completed its journey from Chalk River, Ontario to SRS. Activist groups from both sides of the border and along the travel route have long been protesting and attempting to prevent these transportations, the first time liquid radioactive waste has been moved in this way. Read the full press release.

A simple video tutorial about the not-so-Utopian evolution of nuclear energy

Written by M.V. Ramana (also a Beyond Nuclear Advisory Board member) and Sajan Saini.

Nevada stands firm agains attempts to revive Yucca Mountain dump

On May 9, Republican Nevada Senator Dean Heller, spoke out agains attempts to revive the canceled Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump in his state. "Yucca Mountain is dead," he said.

“Last year, Las Vegas welcomed nearly 43 million visitors,” said Heller. “Any issues with the transportation of nuclear waste to the site, or issues with storage there, would bring devastating consequences to the local, state, and national economies. Mr. President, would you want to come to Las Vegas knowing that high level nuclear waste is being transported very likely through the heart of the strip?”

Hanford tunnel collapses onto rail cars storing radioactive wastes

A tunnel at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State collapsed today on top of railcars stored there that contain “mixed” radioactive waste, an accident that local watchdog group, Hanford Challenge, describes as a “crisis.”

The tunnel is located next to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility, also known as PUREX, and contains substances classified as “dangerous waste.” The collapse prompted an initial evacuation of workers in the area that then spread to a “take cover” order for the entire site.

The already embattled Hanford site was originally part of the Manhattan Project, and a major supplier of military plutonium. It houses 177 storage tanks containing liquid radioactive sludges, some of which have been leaking radioactive effluent that could eventually threaten the Columbia River. Cleanup at the site did not begin until 1989.

The Hanford tunnel collapse may have been caused by soil subsidence due to vibrations from nearby road works.

"The current unfolding crisis at Hanford, the bursting barrel at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant  (WIPP) in New Mexico in 2014, and the exploding radioactive waste dump in Beatty, Nevada in 2015, show that radioactive waste management is out of control," said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear.

”That’s why the Yucca Mountain dump in Nevada, the Canadian dump targeted at the Great Lakes shore, and the parking lot dumps in Texas and New Mexico must be blocked, to prevent future disasters," Kamps added.

Read and share the full Beyond Nuclear press release.

Fire near Fukushima nuclear site could spread radiation further

BEYOND NUCLEAR PRESS RELEASE

Efforts to quench on-going fire in Fukushima zone hampered by high radiation levels from 2011 nuclear disaster

Never over nuclear accident continues to spread radiation 

TAKOMA PARK, MD, May 2, 2017 --A raging wildfire in the Fukushima radiation zone not far from the March 2011 Japan nuclear power plant disaster, demonstrates that a nuclear accident has long-term and on-going effects that can worsen over time, says Beyond Nuclear, a leading national anti-nuclear advocacy group. 

The fire, which began on April 21 in the mountains outside Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, is in an area where human entry is barred “on principle” because of high radiation levels resulting from the Fukushima nuclear triple meltdowns and explosions. The fire is being fought from the air with helicopters spraying water.

“Just as high radiation levels barred rescuers from retrieving many earthquake and tsunami victims five years ago, today firefighters are being hampered from battling the blaze in the still contaminated area,” said Paul Gunter, Director of Reactor Oversight at Beyond Nuclear. “This makes extinguishing these radioactive fires more difficult which can have far reaching effects,” he said. 

The geographical range of radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster could be expanded as smoke from the forest fire lofts radioactivity into the air and spreads it to regions that were not contaminated by the nuclear accident. 

“The Chernobyl forest fire experience shows that forest fires in radioactively contaminated areas re-suspend contamination in the area, making it more available to natural processes like absorption by plants, but also spreading contamination to areas of lower or no contamination,” said Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

The fire could be the first of many. A startling discovery made by Dr. Timothy Mousseau, a professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina, when studying the ecosystems in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, revealed that fallen trees and leaf matter were not decaying at the proper rate, creating a build-up of “tinder” on the forest floor.

“In higher areas of contamination, forest matter fails to decay because creatures responsible for decay like bacteria and fungi, do not function properly in the radioactive environment,” Folkers explained. “This ‘zombie’ forest litter presents an increased forest fire hazard in the radioactive landscape—exactly the place where you don’t want fire kindling.”

There have already been a number of serious forest fires around Chernobyl in recent years, spreading radioactivity into wider areas. However, there have not been adequate studies to monitor exactly where the radiation goes.

“Forest fires are dangerous enough, but radioactive forest fires raise the stakes for human health and safety because of the added difficulty to reliably monitor where radioactivity is traveling in the smoke,” said Gunter.   

The Fukushima fire is a reminder that a major nuclear accident is never really over or confined.

“The long-term implications of on-again-off-again fires in radioactive forests are stark including re-contamination of so-called “decontaminated” areas, and re-suspension of radioactive particles thought to be out of the reach of natural processes,” said Folkers. 

“This all points to the impossibility of containing man-made radioactivity from catastrophes like Chernobyl and Fukushima, once it is released. Resettlement in such areas would be unstable at best, with the constant threat of increased exposures and resulting health impacts,” Folkers concluded. 

Download the press release in PDF.

For additional information see:

The Mainichi link http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170501/p2a/00m/0na/003000c

Common Dreams link https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/01/sparking-fears-airborne-radiation-wildfire-burns-fukushima-no-go-zone