- Daily reports on efforts to contain Fukushima's disaster
remain worrisome. On April 5, New York Times writers Andrew Pollack and
Kevin Drew headlined, "Plant Operator Measures Higher Radiation in
Sea," saying:
-
- "(C)ompany officials said that seawater collected
near the facility contained radiation several million times the legal limit."
-
- According to Tokyo Electric (TEPCO), radioactive iodine-131
in samples collected measured 200,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter,
or five million times above normal. Cesium-137's elevated level was 1.1
million times. No information on uranium and plutonium concentrations were
given. Clearly, however, growing dangers are worrisome, yet official reports
downplay them. Coverup and denial persist. According to TEPCO,
- radiation levels have "no immediate impact"
on the environment or human health. In fact, it's catastrophic. More on
that below.
-
- Moreover, thousands of tons of radioactive water are
being dumped into the Pacific, likely to continue daily to make room for
more runoff despite the great risk to sea life and humans. No amount of
radiation is safe. Even dispersed in water, it poses grave dangers, and
the more dumped, the greater the hazard.
-
- Official reports, however, claim radiation dissipates
quickly in the Pacific. They also say long-term effects of seawater radiation
contamination are unclear, especially if dumping continues daily. In fact,
they're very clear, posing serious future health risks, being downplayed
by so-called experts, perhaps well-paid for their comments.
-
- The Times added:
-
- "The pumping effort is not expected to halt or alter
a leak from a large crack in a six-foot-deep concrete pit next to the seawater
intake pipes near" Unit 2. "The leak has been spewing an estimated
seven tons of highly radioactive water an hour directly into the ocean."
-
- In addition, other leaks "have flooded areas of
the plant, complicating" efforts to contain the disaster. According
to a Kyodo report, 60,000 tons of radioactive water are flooding the basement
of Fukushima's reactor buildings and underground tunnels. So far, nothing
done has stopped it.
-
- On April 4, Washington Post writer Andrew Higgins headlined,
"Peace of Mind, livelihood gone as Japanese city withers in shadow
of nuclear plant," saying:
-
- "The danger may or may not be grave, but one thing
is certain: Confusing and often contradictory announcements by jittery
officials in Tokyo and shifty obfuscation by (TEPCO) executives have already
stripped (residents) of their livelihood, their peace of mind, and the
fruits of decades of labor."
-
- As radiation levels spread, however, Northern Japan (one-third
of the country) is threatened, and if containment efforts fail, all bets
are off.
-
- EPA to Raise "Safe" Radiation Levels
-
- On April 5, Natural News writer Mike Adams headlined,
"EPA to raise limits for radiation exposure while Canada turns off
fallout detectors," saying:
-
- Planetary radiation contamination is increasing, exacerbated
by dumping thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific. On
April 4, "2.4 million gallons of planetary poison" went in, calling
it harmless. Potentially, it may continue for years, "making Fukushima
the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world." In fact,
it's that and more.
-
- America's Gulf was contaminated and destroyed by last
April's disaster, making nothing in it safe to eat. Potentially, Fukushima
may match it in the Pacific if no containment efforts work.
-
- "So what to do," asked Adams. "If you're
the (EPA)," one option remains: "Declare radiation to be safe!"
As a result, its Protective Action Guides (PAGs) are being revised "to
radically increase the allowable levels of iodine-131 (a radioactive isotope)
to anywhere from 3,000 to 100,000 times the currently allowable levels."
-
- In fact, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER) learned of it through a FOIA request. Its April 5 press release
headlined, "RADIATION EXPOSURE DEBATE RAGES INSIDE EPA," saying:
-
- Its plan awaiting approval will "dramatically increase
permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after
'radiological incidents' is drawing vigorous objections from agency experts...."
-
- EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air (ORIA) plans
to update its 1992 PAG, "governing radiation protection decisions
for both short (and) long-term cleanup standards." However, agency
experts object, including Stuart Walker of the Office of Superfund Remediation
and Technology Innovation, saying:
-
- "It appears that drinking water at the PAG concentrations....may
lead to subchronic (acute) effects following exposures of a day or a week.
In a population, one should see some express acute effects....that is,
vomiting, fever, etc."
-
- Moreover, proposed limits would also apply to food and
soil, so when Fukushima rains hit US cities, announcements, if made, will
claim they're "below accepted limits." In fact, though standards
and data can be manipulated, human health effects cannot. If Obama's EPA
gets away with it, millions of lives will be at risk.
-
- Currently, debate continues behind closed doors. PEER
wants everything discussed made public. Internal documents it obtained
showed a single glass of water "could give a lifetime's permissible
exposure. In addition, it would allow long-term cleanup limits thousands
of times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These new
limits would cause a cancer in as much as every fourth person exposed,"
a likely conservative estimate.
-
- Contaminating Planet Earth
-
- One of Project Censored's (PC) top 2007 stories was Mother
Jones writer Julia Whitty's article titled, "Oceans of the World in
Extreme Danger," saying:
-
- "Oceanic problems once found on a local scale are
now pandemic." Evidence shows "seas are changing in ominous ways....According
to oceanographers, the oceans are one, with currents linking the seas and
regulating climate."
-
- Yet, thousands of contaminants are "poison(ing)
marine creatures and devastat(ing) propagation." Before last April's
BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster, America's Gulf had "the highest mercury
levels ever recorded...." It also had a dead zone measuring nearly
8,000 square miles in 2001.
-
- Moreover, since 2000, "the global wild fish harvest
has begun a sharp decline despite (new) technologies and intensified fishing."
(If) the maelstrom of human assault on the seas continues, (they'll soon)
reach a point of no return."
-
- Fukushima accelerated the process, besides lots of other
contributors daily because governments powerful enough to stop it let it
to continue unabated.
-
- Rosalie Bertell (now in her 80s) is a longtime distinguished
environmental/nuclear expert. Two of her important books include "No
Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth" (1985) and "Planet
Earth: The Latest Weapon of War (2000)."
-
- In "Planet Earth," she discussed how the space
program and electromagnetic weapons destabilized the ecosystem, causing
widespread environmental, economic and social devastation. In "No
Immediate Danger," she exposed the dangers of radiation, saying:
-
- "Should the public discover the true health cost(s)
of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and
people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death."
-
- "On a clear day, the Earth looks wonderful,"
she said, so it's "hard to believe the warnings that we have seriously
compromised its health," en route to destroying it entirely. The dangers
from unbridled militarism alone are doing it, compounded by the madness
of sacrificing environmental safety for profit.
-
- In 1991, her article titled, "Radioactivity: No
Immediate Danger?" coined a new word to describe the ultimate human
rejection of life - "omnicide," what she called "difficult
to comprehend," but it's happening. Nuclear industries are killing
us by ionizing radiation exposure - cumulative, unforgiving amounts over
time.
-
- On the one hand are risks to life and health, including
dying of cancer or having a deformed child. "The benefit side is to
make money or gain political power. The bad news is that the people who
make these trade-offs for us are the same" ones who profit.
-
- She called industrial radioactive pollution "cumulatively
greater than from Chernobyl....We are now in a no-win situation with radioactive
materials, where (it's) acceptable to have cancer deaths, deformed children,
and miscarriages."
-
- Moreover, industry propaganda claims nuclear power is
clean and green, when, in fact, the nuclear fuel cycle discharges significant
amounts of greenhouse gases, as well as hundreds of thousands of curies
of deadly radioactive gases and elements into the environment every year.
"Claiming nuclear production of energy is 'clean,' " said Bertell,
"is like dieting but stuffing yourself with food between meals."
-
- Planetary survival depends on ending all forms of nuclear
proliferation. It's "imperative, because we now find ourselves in
a strange situation, where the military strategy to save industrialized
countries is not only destroying the environment and the gene pool in (them),
but also destroying the biosphere, as radioactive material is circulated
in the air, water, and food - whether or not (there's) a nuclear accident
or war."
-
- Gene pool mutations "create a next generation that
is physically less able to cope with hazardous material," a degenerating
process over time, affecting physical and mental well-being. Moreover,
"(w)hen chromosomes are damaged and then damaged a second time before
(having) a chance to repair," bizarre problems occur. For example,
"a child developed from damaged chromosomes may have a broad spectrum
of defects."
-
- All toxic hazards are serious, nuclear pollution worst
of all because "all human life is threatened....Our present path is
headed toward species death - whether fast, with nuclear war or technological
disaster, or slow, by poison."
-
- Our present path is suicide. Bertell said so in 1985
and again in 1991. Continued nuclear proliferation and Fukushima accelerated
it. What will it take to convince policy makers and profiteers to end this
madness? Nothing so far has worked.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
|
