Radioactive water found in AZ

News: "Radioactive water found in AZ

PHOENIX � Radioactive water was found by work crews this week near a maze of underground water pipes in Palo Verde, according to a March 6 Tucson KVOA News report.

According to the report, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station operators are conducting tests to make sure radioactive water discovered near the plant hasn't seeped into the area's water supply.

The Arizona Public Service (APS) is working with state and federal officials to pinpoint the source of the contaminated water and determine how far it has spread, the statement said.

According to the report, initial tests confirmed the water contains more than three times the acceptable amount of tritium.
"

Cold Warrior Confessions

Cold Warrior Confessions: "The Russian military, under-funded at the best of times, is having trouble paying its own people. According to the U.S. National Intelligence Counsel, Russian Strategic Rocket Forces are suffering from wage arrears, food shortages, and housing shortages. Put simply, the Russian military is having difficulty paying, housing, and even feeding the very people entrusted with safeguarding their strategic nuclear weapons.

In 1997, the 12th GUMO (Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense) was forced to close a nuclear weapons storage site due to hunger strikes by its workers. In 1998, the families of Russian nuclear workers organized protests to recover back pay and benefits. The Russian media reports that the pay problems have been ironed out, and that most Russian military personnel are now paid regularly. But even on full pay, many members of the Russian military cannot afford to feed their families. Russian officers rarely receive more than $70.00 a month, and their enlisted personnel are paid considerably less than that.

Contrary to the reassurances of the Russian press, the problem hasn't gone away, and it doesn't stop at pay shortages. The U.S. intelligence community believes that weapons-grade plutonium seized in Bulgaria in 1999 originated in Russia. Some time between 2001 and 2002, Chechen rebels stole radioactive materials from the Volgodonskaya nuclear power station near the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don . Control over the material at the site in question was so lax that the date of the theft can only be estimated to within about 12 months. This is not the plot of a bad science fiction movie; it's an ongoing state of affairs.

In 2000, sailors aboard a Russian submarine in Kamchatka stole nine radioactive catalyst tubes used for igniting the nuclear reactor. The tubes contained palladium, which is more valuable than gold. Not realizing that the stolen tubes were radioactive, the sailors hoped to sell them to a local scrap metal dealer. Following the incident, the Kamchatkan newspaper Vesti reported that the thieves had nearly caused a nuclear disaster when they attempted to lift the control rods out of the reactor. The Vesti article claimed that an accident was only averted because an unidentified Russian submarine engineer had the foresight to weld the handle of the control mechanism in the down position so that the thieves couldn't lift it.

Two senior Russian submarine officers were relieved of duty after the incident came to light, and two Russian admirals and ten other officers were penalized for negligence. The deputy head of the Russian North East Army Group's press center accused the press of exaggerating the danger.

The crime rate in the Russian military is skyrocketing, with theft, criminal assault, drug dealing, and illegal weapons trafficking as the most persistent problems. Desertions and suicides are both on the rise among the enlisted ranks. The problem, in other words, appears to be getting worse rather than better.

If the difficulties were confined to the conventional Russian military, I'd call it an internal problem. After all, the crime rate in the Russian Federation and the readiness of their military are their business, not ours. But the incidents mentioned above and many more like them make it clear that the integrity of the Russian nuclear forces is being affected. Men guard Russian nuclear stockpiles. And the mounting evidence tells us that those men are in serious trouble.

As a veteran of the Cold War, I feared the former strength of the Russian military. Now, in the wake of its virtual collapse, I'm beginning to fear its weakness even more. "

Nuclear Waste Plant Chief Dismissed Over Breach of Environment Safety in Central Russia - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM

Nuclear Waste Plant Chief Dismissed Over Breach of Environment Safety in Central Russia - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM: "Nuclear Waste Plant Chief Dismissed Over Breach of Environment Safety in Central Russia

Created: 03.03.2006 11:58 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:59 MSK, 21 hours 43 minutes ago

MosNews


A Russian court on Thursday ordered the dismissal of the director of the nation’s main nuclear waste processing plant who has been charged with violation of safety rules that led to the dumping of radioactive waste in rivers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The court in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg determined that Vitaly Sadovnikov, the director of the Mayak plant, could not remain in his post, Interfax said.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s office said Sunday that he had sanctioned dumping of tens of millions of cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste into the Techa river in 2001-2004, even though the facility had enough money to prevent it, The Associated Press reported.

Instead of preventing the damage to the environment, Sadovnikov had spent the money on maintaining a representative office in the Russian capital and lump payments to himself, it said.

Mayak, located near the Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk, about 1,500 kilometers (950 miles) east of Moscow, produced nuclear weapons during Soviet times and is now Russia’s main nuclear waste processing plant. Some environmentalists say the area around it is among the most contaminated on the planet."

The U.S. radiates civilians and soldiers with depleted uranium -

The U.S. radiates civilians and soldiers with depleted uranium -: "The U.S. radiates civilians and soldiers with depleted uranium
3/3/2006 5:00:00 PM GMT

Depleted uranium remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years.

Last week, the U.S. military placed an order for $38 million in depleted uranium rounds, bringing the total amount of the order from a West-Virginia Based company to $77 million for fiscal year 2006.

The new order was placed with Alliant Techsystems for 120-mm ammunition. Once the new deal is completed, the company will have produced 35,000 rounds for the U.S. army. In a statement, the company making the deadly weapon said: "Its state-of-the-art composite sabot, propellant, and penetrator technologies give it outstanding accuracy and lethality."

The Pentagon uses depleted uranium in its rounds because it says that it is extremely effective in penetrating heavy armor. But critics of these controversial munitions believe that inhaling the radioactive dust left by the highly combustible weapon causes cancer and birth defects.

Depleted uranium remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years. The byproduct of manufacturing nuclear weapons or reactors contaminate water and soil.
It also poses a more serious threat when it is inhaled and absorbed into the human body. Studies show that DU can remain in human organs for years.

* Gulf War

According to an editorial on The Guardian, the depleted uranium (DU) used in the first Gulf War led to a significant increase in the levels of childhood leukaemia and birth defects in Iraq.

In 1991, the U.S. and its allies blasted a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such deadly weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqi soldiers retreated from Kuwait. Now, almost 15 years after the end of the Gulf War, the highway where the tanks were blasted remains a radioactive toxic wasteland, some experts even call it the "Highway of Death.”

An article on The Seattle Post-Intelligencer states that “many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans."

In the “Highway of Death” in Iraq, radiation levels register 1,000 times normal background radiation levels. Tedd Weymann, deputy head of the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC), said: “At one point the readings were so high that an alarm on one of my instruments went off telling me to get back. Yet despite these alarmingly high levels of radiation children play on the tanks or close by.'

* Iraq War

The exact amount of DU used during the 2003 Iraq war hasn’t been revealed, but some experts estimate it was more than a thousand tons used in more than 51 sites across the country. An Iraqi tank destroyed by the U.S. weapon in Basra, where UK forces are stationed, registered 2,500 times normal background radiation. In the surrounding area, researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal.

In 2003, Human Rights Watch said that hundreds of “preventable” civilian deaths in Iraq have been caused by the use of cluster bombs by U.S. and UK occupation forces. Experts also called for the water and milk being used by Iraqi civilians in Basra, where more than 1 million people live, to be monitored after analysis of biological and soil samples from area found 'the highest number, highest levels and highest concentrations of radioactive source points' in the Basra suburb of Abu Khasib, the centre of the fiercest battles between British troops and Saddam loyalists.

British Professor Brian Spratt, who head a Royal Society working group on the hazards of DU, said: “British and U.S. forces need to acknowledge that DU is a potential hazard and make inroads into tackling it by being open about where and how much has been deployed. Fragments of DU penetrators are potentially hazardous, and should be removed, and areas of contamination around impact sites identified. Impact sites in residential areas should be a particular priority. Long-term monitoring of water and milk to detect any increase in uranium levels should also be introduced in Iraq.”

The U.S. and its allies committed another war crime in Fallujah, which witnessed a bloody offensive in 2004. Residents, mainly civilians, were subject to bombardment by napalm, depleted uranium shells, phosphorus bombs (a weapon that is illegal if used against civilians). The use of such banned weapons makes the U.S. responsible for the same crimes that the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is accused of.

* “Crime against humanity”

The U.S. military acknowledges the deadly impacts of depleted uranium in a training manual, which requires anyone who come within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment to wear respiratory and skin protection, warning that “contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption”.

Dr. Doug Rokke, a Vietnam and Gulf War combat veteran, is an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions. "DU is the stuff of nightmares," he said. “Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring… This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."

In addition to Iraq, DU munitions were used in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia in 1999. In the same year, a UN sub-commission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, primarily blocked by the U.S., according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations.

“Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem."

"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people“."

Colombia seizes 13.5 kilograms of uranium, possible Soviet origin

Colombia seizes 13.5 kilograms of uranium, possible Soviet origin: "From Monsters and Critics.com

Americas News
Colombia seizes 13.5 kilograms of uranium, possible Soviet origin
By DPA
Mar 2, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Bogota - The Colombian military seized 13.5 kilograms of depleted uranium, which could potentially be used in the creation of a so-called dirty bomb, the Colombian military said on Thursday.

The material may have its origins in one of the former Soviet Republics, US officials were reported as saying.

Officials have released two people arrested for attempting to sell it, because possession of uranium material is not against the law in Colombia.

The suspects had tried to sell the uranium for 315 million dollars to an undercover police agent on 24 February, said Brigadier General Gustavo Matamoros.

The uranium was seized in an area of the capital known to be a hotbed for right wing paramilitary activity, local media reported. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the two people had intended to use the uranium to make a dirty bomb, which combines conventional explosives and radioactive material.

Colombian officials have been working to trace the origins of the uranium, but members of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who tested the material\'s purity believe it may have come from one of the former Soviet Republics.

Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process in nuclear power plants. Some countries use it to make shielding plates in nuclear power plants due to its high density, while the US and Russian military have been known to use it to make armour- piercing munitions.

A safe method of disposal of the material has yet to be developed, and the cost could run into billions of dollars.

� 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

© Copyright 2003 - 2005 by monstersandcritics.com.
This notice cannot be removed without permission.
"

Will County to residents: Use bottled water

Will County to residents: Use bottled water: "News
Will County to residents: Use bottled water

March 1, 2006

FROM STAFF REPORTS



Will County health officials recommend residents near a nuclear power plant who fear their water supply may have been contaminated use bottled water for drinking and cooking. Health Department Director Jim Zelko said the county is trying to determine if water supplies were contaminated by three leaks of tritium-laced water in 1996, 1998 and 2000 from the Exelon plant at Braidwood.

Tritium is a radioactive hydrogen isotope that's a byproduct of the production of electricity at nuclear reactors. High levels are thought to cause cancer. 'We are in the process of identifying the number of wells in an area and assessing the risks and are working to determine what sampling is necessary,' Zelko told the county Board of Health.

The county plans to collect its own samples and will not rely on tests conducted and paid for by Exelon Corp. The Will County state's attorney's office is studying whether legal action can be taken against Exelon for the spills.

Tom O'Neill, Exelon's vice president of regulatory affairs, admitted the company did not do enough to solve past problems but stressed elevated levels of tritium were only found on the northeast side of the plant. "There has been no tritium found in the village of Godley," O'Neill said, adding health risks to humans are very low.

The U.S. EPA has established a safe drinking water limit of 20,000 picocuries of tritium per liter. Exelon said most of the wells it sampled were well below that upper limit. But O'Neill also said Exelon would help with the costs of bringing in bottled water and do whatever is necessary to assure a safe water supply to the area.

"

Reuters AlertNet - KYRGYZSTAN: Informal mining of radioactive dumps linked to cancer rise

Reuters AlertNet - KYRGYZSTAN: Informal mining of radioactive dumps linked to cancer rise: "KYRGYZSTAN: Informal mining of radioactive dumps linked to cancer rise
01 Mar 2006 16:11:03 GMT
Source: IRIN
ORLOVKA, 1 March (IRIN) - Hundreds of people dressed in dirty clothes and masks are digging in a refuse site for lumps of silicon just 10 metres from a radioactive waste dump in the northern Kyrgyz village of Orlovka, 100 km east of the capital, Bishkek.

Through the stench of rotting rubbish and the dust, "miners" sitting around eating and drinking become aggressive when asked if they are aware of the dangers they face.

"Go away! I need to work. There is no radiation here. If there was radiation, we would all be sick already," Azamat, 32, from the neighbouring village of Bistrovka, shouted.

A legacy of the Soviet Union's uranium enrichment programme, many radioactive waste dumps in the mountainous Central Asian state remain a real danger to health until they can be safely neutralised.

But the dumps – consisting of soil and rocks discarded after uranium has been extracted – are attractive to those seeking precious metals that they can sell, despite the risks. The silicon they find sells for about US $10 per kilo and ends up in China where it is used in the manufacture of semiconductors.

According to the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), an NGO working to strengthen global security by reducing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, there are 36 uranium tailings sites and 25 uranium mining dump sites in the former Soviet republic.

Home to some 8,000 residents, Orlovka is a former industrial settlement. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, factories and plants in the area ground to a halt and many local residents lost their jobs, forcing many plant workers into improvised mining to make a living.

Nurbek, a local taxi driver living in Orlovka since 1992, said that illegal mining started in 1994. "During that time, even I worked there and we were looking for copper, then for aluminum, now people search for silicon," he explained.

The illegal mining tends to be seasonal – reaching a high point before spring when work on the land begins. "We need to earn some money to get fuel for tractors and to cultivate the land, that's why we do it. In two weeks I am sure people will stop their work," Tynchtyk, 28, another miner, said.

Some 40 percent of the country's 5.1 million inhabitants live below the national poverty line, according to the World Bank

Illegal mining in Orlovka had been highlighted after some local NGOs and a national television channel claimed in February that the miners were falling sick from working in the radioactive waste.

Experts from the Kyrgyz Ministry of Emergency examined the site after the claims and found that the radioactive dumps had not been disturbed by mining, but noted that radioactivity levels in and around the dumps in some cases were up to 10 times the norm, they said.

But specialists from the State Epidemiological Monitoring Department (SEMD) concluded after a field mission to Orlovka that the level of radiation there was not harmful to health.

In an effort to prevent any radioactive leaks, the Orlovka council decided to shut down the site and ban local residents from searching for scrap silicon in the area.

Local medical staff confirm the dump is being linked to a rise in serious disease in the community.

Nuria Dotalieva, a family doctor in Orlovka, said that after 1997 there had been a steady rise in the number of cancer cases in the village. "There are 108 registered cases in our village already. And that is not only among old people, but also young ones as well," Dotalieva clarified.

This equates to one cancer patient per 75 residents in the village - roughly 16 times the national average rate for cancer.

"Last year one person died from leukemia and in general there is a rise of pulmonary diseases among young people and children as well," Irina Mamatkulova, another family doctor in the town, added.

Although the authorities banned illegal mining in the dump more than a week ago, local villagers continue to come with their children to the area. "We have been working here for almost 10 years and we're still here," Kyialbek Baike, 40, an illegal miner, said as he shoveled earth into a basket in the hope of finding silicon."