... we biologically encounter radiation in two distinctly different manners...
the models of medical risk from radiation established in the aftermath of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are insufficient for understanding the risks faced by people in contaminated environments like Fukushima. These models focus exclusively on levels of external radiation, while the risk faced by people in areas affected by radioactive fallout comes from internalizing fallout particles...
.. The primary health risk that people in Fukushima face is from internalizing alpha-emitting or beta particles through inhalation, swallowing or abrasions. Yet predictions of their risks are almost entirely modeled on data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the exposures were predominantly from external gamma waves.
.. models have helped to obscure the health impacts over the last 76 years of those exposed to fallout, from the people who experienced the Black Rain in Hiroshima, to the global hibakusha exposed through nuclear testing, production and accidents, and now to those living where the plumes deposited radiation in Fukushima...
.. when we encounter radionuclides, individual radioactive particles that remain after nuclear detonations, either as beta particles or alpha-emitting particles. We often refer to radiation in this form as “radioactive fallout” since it usually deposits into our ecosystems by “falling out” of clouds drifting from radiological explosions or fires...
... Once the particles have dispersed into the ecosystem, they are harder to locate. These are primarily dangerous to us if we internalize them inside of our bodies. If they remain inside of our bodies, they emit their very small amounts of radiation to nearby cells 24 hours a day for however long the specific particle remains radioactive.
.. Cesium-137, a particle that spread in large amounts after both Chernobyl and Fukushima, remains dangerous to living creatures for 300 years. These two forms of exposure (external whole body vs. internalized in a specific bodily organ) present distinctly different risks to human health (for a primer on these forms of radiation see here)...
... Since Geiger Counters measure the external energy that the particles radiate, we usually find them when they are present in large amounts. Now that they are widely dispersed, many have migrated far from the color-coded maps of risk we see of Fukushima. Those maps are snapshots of external readings at a specific moment that has passed...
.. For those who continue to live in, or are being returned to areas of lower contamination, we still measure the external levels of gamma radiation to predict the risks they face. However, just as with the Marshallese after US thermonuclear testing, just as the Kazakhs after Soviet testing, and just as with those living in contaminated areas downwind from the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine and Belarus, the primary risk to the public health is not the external radiation, the primary risk is that one may internalize radioactive particles and retain them inside the body...
... In the early years of the Cold War, it was assumed that future wars would involve the use of nuclear weaponry and the exposure of many people to large bursts of gamma rays as were the people near the hypocenter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that was not what happened; instead, over 2,000 nuclear weapons were tested, and millions of people were exposed to radioactive fallout. We did not have a robust database on the health consequences that might result from these exposures—so we used the tool we did have, the LSS...
.. (reformed in 1975 as the Radiation Effects Research Foundation), especially the Life Span Study (LSS) which began in 1950. This study establishes a large database, corelating radiation exposures to subsequent health outcomes and early mortality. The study is rigorous, yet its use in the years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki has frequently been careless. The LSS assesses only external radiation exposures, it explicitly excludes consideration of the health effects of internal radiation exposures from living with fallout.
... the health consequences of exposures of internalized radiation was made invisible, and the misapplication of the LSS was elemental to this cloaking. A key reason that the LSS has been weaponized to obscure the health effects of internalized radiation exposures is that since the exposures did not happen as acts of war, but rather as weapon development, those exposed should be entitled to compensation for their health problems, and the loss of value to contaminated land.
... Being cautious about our public activities in the age of COVID makes intuitive sense. We navigate our potential exposures, work to mitigate our potential contaminations, and worry endlessly about loved ones with health concerns. Each small, unrelated medical symptom a family member exhibits is met with anxiety. This is a reality for people worldwide. Those who live in areas dense with radionuclides face similar anxieties: the locations of the risk are indeterminable; who is being exposed and who is safe is unclear, even while the damage is inflicted; daily life is rife with anxiety... If a group of 10 people were to stand downwind from someone coughing out COVID microbes, some may get sick and some may not. Who has inhaled a microbe and who hasn’t will not be visible until the disease presents. This is what it is like to live in an ecosystem with migrating radionuclides. Even if their presence is not significant enough to make a Geiger counter ping, caution is rational... in radiologically contaminated communities it is not conspiracy theorists on social media dismissing them as irrational, it is state health officials. They draw maps, based entirely on externally measured levels of radiation, and use those maps to tell people to move back to villages where the levels of contamination are “acceptable,” to send their children to schools and move back to towns where the presence of radioactive particles is not dense enough to register on Geiger counters placed high above the ground.
... Speaking to an IPPNW symposium on the 10th anniversary of Fukushima, Mousseau examined the top 500 articles in the Web of Science database. He found that only 10 out of the top 500 papers (2%) were based on actual biological fieldwork assessing the impacts of radiation on living organisms. Almost all of the other 98% were studies of “calculated doses and the possible link to health impairments rather than any sort of directly measured biological consequences” (Mousseau, 2021).
... This model of utilizing measurements of external radiation and statistical databases of disease probabilities has been a critical component of how the global hibakusha have been ignored since the advent of nuclear weaponry. As radioactive fallout blanketed communities downwind from the Nevada Test Site, and other nuclear test sites around the world, such assessments were routinely used to dismiss the health concerns of downwinders...
Nuclear power plants are not sited inside of the urban areas where their electricity is consumed, but in the rural areas at a distance so that if there is a radiological release it exposes less people, but also less politically powerful people. Kate Brown has cited how the Soviet government purposefully seeded clouds from Chernobyl to rainout their particles in Belarus rather than over the large Russian cities they were drifting towards...
... nuclear test sites are not chosen because of their scientific properties, rather, communities are selected to be irradiated because of their political inability to resist such treatment. Nuclear test sites are built upwind of these communities. Hence, most of the exposures of global hibakusha were in colonial or postcolonial spaces, or were citizens of poor or developing nations and have not been recognized or awarded compensation for their suffering.
... Fukushima is part of a continuum of the dismissal of the harm endured by those who suffer from internal exposures to radioactive particles from nuclear tests, nuclear accidents and nuclear production worldwide. Looking at the broken maps works to obscure the real risks in Fukushima.
... The theatrical aspect is in pretending that by removing the radioactive particles from the towns they are now “clean.” Since the towns are themselves situated in larger ecosystems full of radionuclides, this “decontamination” cannot last: wind, rain, typhoons will all strip particles down from the forests and mountains surrounding the towns and re-contaminate them.
... the models of medical risk from radiation established in the aftermath of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are insufficient for understanding the risks faced by people in contaminated environments like Fukushima. These models focus exclusively on levels of external radiation, while the risk faced by people in areas affected by radioactive fallout comes from internalizing fallout particles.

• https://apjjf.org/2021/17/Jacobs
  #DownWinders #NuclearTheatre
  #NuclearAttacks #MedicalModeling #RiskModels #GlobalHIbakusha  #LSS #LifeSpanStudy #TimothyMousseau
  /HT @Bo Jacobs

#Wildfire risks high at #US #NuclearPlants

Posted on January 19, 2025 by beyondnuclearinternational

The GAO identifies a number of US nuclear power plant sites that are vulnerable to the possible outbreak of #wildfires where they are located.

"'According to our analysis of U.S. Forest Service and NRC data, about 20 percent of nuclear power plants (16 of 75) are located in areas with a high or very high potential for wildfire,' the GAO report states. 'More specifically, more than one-third of nuclear power plants in the South (nine of 25) and West (three of eight) are located in areas with a high or very high potential for wildfire.' The GAO goes on to identify 'Of the 16 plants with high or very high potential for wildfire, 12 are operating and four are shut down.'

"To analyze exposure to the wildfire hazard potential, the GAO used 2023 data from the U.S. Forest Service’s Wildfire Hazard Potential Map. 'High / very high refers to plants in areas with high or very high wildfire hazard potential. Those nuclear power stations described by GAO as 'high / very high' exposure to wildfires and their locations are excerpted from GAO Appendix III: Nuclear Power Plant Exposure to Selected Natural Hazards.

Table 1: Potential High Exposure to 'Wildfires' at Operating Nuclear Power Plants

–AZ / #SAFER, one of two mobile nuclear emergency equipment supply units in the nation, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–CA / #DiabloCanyon Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–FL / #TurkeyPoint Units 3 & 4 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–GA / #EdwinIHatch Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–GA / #Vogtle Units Units 1, 2, 3 & 4, nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–NC / #BrunswickNC Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–NC / #McGuireNC Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–NC / #ShearonHarris Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH /VERY HIGH”
–NB / #CooperNuclearPowerStation, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–SC / #Catawba Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–SC / #HBRobinson Units 1 & 2 nuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–WA / #ColumbiaNuclear power station, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”

Table 2: Potential High Exposure to “Wildfires” at Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants

–CA / #SanOnofre Units 1 & 2, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–FL / #CrystalRiver, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–NJ / #OysterCreek, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”
–NY / #IndianPoint Units 1, 2 & 3, “HIGH / VERY HIGH”

"Wildfires can transport #radioactive contamination from nuclear facilities

"A historical review of wildfires that occur around nuclear facilities (research, military and commercial power) identifies that these events are also a very effective transport mechanism of radioactivity previously generated at these sites and subsequently released into the environment by accident, spills and leaks, and careless dumping. The radioactivity is #resuspended by wildfires that occur years, even decades later.

"The fires carry the radioactivity on smoke particles #downwind, thus expanding the zone of #contamination further and further with each succeeding fire. The dispersed #radionuclides can have very long half-lives meaning they remain biologically hazardous in the environment for decades, centuries and longer."

Read more:
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/01/19/wildfire-risks-high-at-nuclear-plants/
#Downwinders #NoNukes #RethinkNotRestart #NoNukesForAI #NuclearSafety #ClimateCrisis

The Dirty Secrets: #Whales, the #GrandCanyon and #WarCriminals

by #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews
November 22, 2024

"People who travel the world will tell you two things that they really love: Whales and the Grand Canyon.

"The majestic Orca whales are now at risk from the massive oil tankers departing the shores of British Columbia with thick crude oil from Alberta tar sands in Canada, bound for distant refineries and ports.

"Meanwhile, in the heart of the Southwest, the Grand Canyon, loved by the people of the world, now has a uranium mine spewing radioactive dust into the air, and endangering Havasupai's aquifer and future generations.

"Neither the Appeals Court in Canada, nor the U.S. EPA and Interior have done anything to stop these assaults on the most beloved natural wonders in the world, whales and the Grand Canyon.

"Rueben George, səlilwətaɬ, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, remembers the long fight to halt the Trans Mountain Pipeline, now carrying crude oil from Alberta tar sands to the Salish Sea, which flows off the shores of British Columbia and Washington State to the Pacific.

"George said they thought they were winning their case in Canada's Appeal Court.

"'They said you're right it's going to kill all the Orca whales, you're right -- but we're going to build it anyway,' George said at the Salish Sea Assembly in Seattle in November.

"The uranium mine in the Grand Canyon is now spraying radioactive dust on Havasupai's medicine plants, and into the air for the world's travelers to breathe. The uranium mine, operated by Energy Fuels of Canada, threatens the aquifer of Havasupai and future generations.

"The mine's radioactive truck transport is a deadly risk for Supai, Paiute, Dine', Hopi and Ute on the haul route. The radioactive ore is transported by truck to the Energy Fuels mill in the White Mesa Ute community in southeastern Utah.

"Interior's Deb Haaland, who is Laguna Pueblo and Norwegian, has not only failed to halt the deadly risks and destruction, but has proclaimed that the atomic bomb industry, Los Alamos National Laboratory, will lead the green 'energy transition.'

"Los Alamos Labs produces nuclear weapons and is already poisoning the Pueblo homelands in northern New Mexico with radiation. A federal judge recently halted the push to produce and store more plutonium at the site, citing a risk to the environment."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-dirty-secrets-whales-grand-canyon.html

#AlbertaTarSands #TarSands #LosAlamos #EnvironmentalRacism #Plutonium #Greenwashing #NuclearWeapons #UraniumMining #UraniumMills #DebHaaland #NuclearIndustry #AtomicBombs #Downwinders #Environment #WaterIsLife #Supai #Paiute #Dine' #Hopi #Ute #HaulNo #EnergyFuels #WhiteMesaUte #WhiteMesa #Havasupai #SalishSeaAssembly #Salish #OceansAreLife #RadioactiveDust #RadioactiveContamination #TsleilWaututh #TsleilWaututhNation #CanadasAppealsCourt #TransmountainPipeline #RuebenGeorge #BritishColumbia #WashingtonState #NoUraniumMining #NoTarSands #Oiligarchy #ExtractiveIndustries #CorporateColonialism #ReaderSupportedNews #ProtectHaKamwe #NavajoTransitionalEnergyCompany #DefendTheSacred #AirIsLife

#Navajo #uranium miners, people #downwind of atom bomb tests demand justice as Congress lets aid program lapse

by Keetra Bippus / Cronkite News
July 5, 2024

WASHINGTON – "A federal program to compensate people exposed to fallout from U.S. nuclear testing expired June 10.

"The #Radiation Exposure Compensation Act has paid out $2.6 billion to over 41,000 people since 1992. In March, the U.S. Justice Department projected that another 1,070 claims would be approved by the end of September.

“'Why do we have to beg to pass #RECA?' said #MaggieBilliman, whose father, a #NavajoCodeTalker during World War II, died of stomach cancer she attributes to exposure to #fallout that affected their hometown in #Arizona. 'You don’t put a price tag on human life.'

"Starting with the #ManhattanProject’s Trinity test on July 16, 1945, weeks before bombs destroyed #Hiroshima and #Nagasaki, the U.S. government conducted 94 tests that produced radioactive mushroom clouds in remote areas of the West. Most were over #Nevada. One was over #NewMexico.

"People #downwind – including many in #Arizona – were exposed to dangerous #fallout, typically without warning.

"The Billimans’ hometown, #SawmillArizona, on #NavajoLand, is part of the large affected area where Congress made residents eligible for compensation.

"#Radioactive particles fell throughout Arizona, according to research from Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. The state’s population grew from about half a million just before World War II to over 1.3 million in the early 1960s.

"Congress adopted RECA in 1992 to address claims from downwinders and uranium miners.

"The program offers an apology, and lump sum compensation ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 to those who developed certain illnesses linked with radiation exposure, and who either lived in the #FalloutZones or worked at #UraniumMines and #UraniumMills.

"The law came in response to lawsuits from uranium workers who accused the government of failing to warn them about radiation hazards.

From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore was extracted from Navajo lands. The Manhattan Project itself, led by physicist #RobertOppenheimer, was disbanded in 1947, two years after Japan surrendered to end World War II.

"An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 Navajo people worked in the mines. They and their families lived nearby.

“'The closer you live to mine waste, the higher your risk of chronic #metabolic disease,' said Chris Shuey, director of the Uranium Impact Assessment Program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. 'People who live in these communities next to these wastes, they’re exposed through all of the pathways: air, water, land.'

"Claims from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and #Colorado account for $1.8 billion of the payouts under RECA.

"Most of the #NavajoNation was covered due to potential fallout. About one in seven approved claims – 5,480 through the end of 2023 – have come from #NativeAmericans, 86% of them Navajo, totalling $372.6 million.

"The Environmental Protection Agency counts 523 abandoned uranium mines on or near the Navajo reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, an area bigger than Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

"The Senate voted 69-31 in March to extend the RECA filing period for five more years, with 46 Democrats and 20 Republicans in favor, along with Sen. #KrystenSinema of Arizona and two other independents. Sen. #MarkKelly, D-Ariz., also supported the bill.

The bill has stalled in the House, with no explanation from Speaker Mike Johnson or Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both Republicans from Louisiana.

"Their aides did not respond to multiple requests for comment."

Read more:
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2024/07/05/navajo-uranium-miners-people-downwind-atom-bomb-tests-demand-justice/