Fukushima Plant Set to Dump 777,000 Tons of Nuclear Waste Into Ocean

Arrogant dunces.

OK that’s enough. This is not right. Perhaps the world should prepare a plan to sink Japan into the ocean. It has no right to poison the world by mishandling this catastrophe. And it is arrogant: Japan steadily declines any help from outside organizations.

Let’s just sink Japan into the Pacific before it causes any more harm to the rest of the planet! (I am being silly obviously and I don’t recommend sinking any nation just yet)

Source: Fukushima Plant Set to Dump 777,000 Tons of Nuclear Waste Into Ocean

ANTIMEDIA

July 17, 2017

Written by Anti-Media Team

 Japan — More than three-quarters of a million tons of radioactive water is about to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean if the chairmen of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) have their way, Japanese media reported over the weekend. All they require now is final government approval.

 “The decision has already been made,” TEPCO chairman Takashi Kawamura told the media, according to the Japan Times. 

As of July 6, about 777,000 tons of tritium-tainted water is being stored in about 580 tanks at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The water, which is constantly injected into leaking reactor No. 1 to cool it since it was damaged by a tsunami in 2011, is then filtered to remove radioactive materials. The complex filtering system can eliminate everything but tritium.

This has left the Japanese government with a problem. They can’t go on filling up tanks forever. Something has to be done with the radioactive water. A government panel is currently coming to a decision on the issue, and simply dumping the water into the sea is an option on the table.

TEPCO chairman Kawamura is just waiting on the green light. “We cannot keep going if we do not have the support of the state,” he told the media. 

Kawamura certainly has the support of NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka, who’s been urging the TEPCO boss to make the move. Tanaka has been critical of Kawamura in the past, saying he should be more proactive in his handling of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

“An operator lacking the will to take the initiative does not have the right to resume operation of nuclear reactors,” he said recently at a special meeting with TEPCO’s top management.

According to the Japan Times, Kawamura “feels emboldened to have the support of the NRA chairman.” 

Tritium itself is said to be relatively harmless, and discharge of tritium-tainted water into the ocean is standard operating procedure at nuclear power plants. Oceanographer Simon Boxall spoke to The Guardian on the tritium issue last year, saying:

“In the broad scale of things, if they do end up putting the material in the Pacific, it will have minimal effect on an ocean basin scale.”

But local fishermen say the actual harmfulness of tritium isn’t the issue. What’s paramount is the perception people will have when they hear of hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive water being released into the ocean. In short, such a move would make customers question the safety of their catches, which would thereby affect their livelihoods.

“Releasing (tritium) into the sea will create a new wave of unfounded rumors, making our efforts all for naught,” Kanji Tachiya, who heads a fishermen cooperative, told the Japan Times.

And Aileen Mioko-Smith of Green Action Japan says there is even more to consider here. “They say that it will be safe because the ocean is large so it will be diluted,” she told The Telegraph, “but that sets a precedent that can be copied, essentially permitting anyone to dump nuclear waste into our seas.”

Furthermore, says Mioko-Smith, those in charge of managing the Fukushima nuclear crisis have had plenty of time to come up with solutions and that the “out of sight, out of mind” approach is unacceptable:

“This accident happened more than six years ago and the authorities should have been able to devise a way to remove the tritium instead of simply announcing that they are going to dump it into the ocean.”

Fukushima’s radioactive water to be released into ocean under new plan

Should Japan be sunk into the Pacific ocean?

Source: Fukushima’s radioactive water to be released into ocean under new plan — RT News

RT News

15 Jul, 2017

The plan will have to be approved by the Japanese government.© Toru Hanai / Reuters

The “decision has already been made” to release radioactive material from the Fukushima plant into the ocean, according to its owners. Fishermen have reacted with fury to the decision, claiming it will devastate their already struggling industry.

Under the plan the radioactive material tritium, which is being used to cool reactors whose cooling systems were damaged in the 2011 tsunami, will be released into the Pacific Ocean.

“I’m very sorry that Tepco has been prolonging making a decision,” the new chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) Takashi Kawamura told reporters on Thursday, reported Reuters. “We could have decided much earlier, and that is Tepco’s responsibility.”

The plan still requires the approval of the Japanese government before TEPCO can proceed.

Some 770,000 tons (metric) of tritium-containing water is currently stored in 580 tanks at the plant, reported the Japan Times. Toxic water at the plant is currently being treated through a processing system that can remove 62 different types of radioactive material, except tritium.

The local fishermen cooperative has hit out at the plan, saying it had not been discussed with local residents.

“Releasing (tritium) into the sea will create a new wave of unfounded rumors, making our efforts all for naught,” Kanji Tachiya, head of a local fishermen cooperative, told the Japan Times.

Situated 10 meters above sea-level, three of the nuclear power plant’s six reactors’ cooling systems were crippled by flooding caused by the tsunami, making the disaster the worst since the Chernobyl catastrophe in the USSR in 1986.

Hanford, Not Fukushima, is the Big Radiological Threat to the West Coast

“Hanford is home to 60% (by volume) of all of the high level radioactive waste stored in the United States. Nearly 80% of the Department of Energy’s inventory of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored just 400 yards away from the Columbia River.”

“There are many people who say they will not eat fish from the Pacific Ocean, or eat food from Japan. At the same time, there is no discussion about eating Salmon from the Columbia River, drinking wines from the Columbia Valley, or fruit from the orchards that fill the downwind area around Hanford. The amount of radiation in the Hanford area dwarfs the amount arriving on the West Coast of the United States on a scale that is mindboggling.”

Source: Hanford, Not Fukushima, is the Big Radiological Threat to the West Coast

With permission from

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Robert Jacobs

April 29, 2016

There is a dangerous radiological threat to the West Coast of the United States that puts the health of millions of Americans at risk. It includes dangers to public health, dangers to the food supply, and dangers to future generations from long-lived radionuclides, including some of the most toxic material in the world. It is not Fukushima, it is Hanford. While radiation from the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns is reaching the West Coast, carried across the ocean from Japan, the radiation from Hanford is already there, has been there for 70 years, and is in serious risk of catastrophe that could dwarf the effects of Fukushima even on Japan.

Hanford, on the Columbia River in Eastern Washington State, is the site where the United States produced the majority of its plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. These tens of thousands of American nuclear weapons were built as an end product of the high levels of plutonium production at Hanford. The first three nuclear reactors on Earth were built at Hanford, with a total of nine nuclear power plants being built there eventually. Nuclear power plants operated for ten years in this world before they were ever used to generate electricity. Electricity is a secondary purpose for nuclear power plants, they were designed and built as plutonium manufacturing plants.

Hanford was the first of these plutonium production sites. The two worst radiological disasters (besides nuclear weapon detonations) in the first four decades of the Atomic Age were accidents at the plutonium production sites of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, both in 1957. Military plutonium production sites remain among the most contaminated sites on Earth. During the period of operation more than 67 metric tons of plutonium were manufactured at Hanford. Hanford is home to 60% (by volume) of all of the high level radioactive waste stored in the United States. Nearly 80% of the Department of Energy’s inventory of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored just 400 yards away from the Columbia River. (Statistics taken from Physicians for Social Responsibility webpage)

Here is a very brief review of some of the worst impacts and dangers at the Hanford Site.

The Green Run

In December 1949 the United States deliberately released an immense amount of radiation into populated areas at the Hanford Site during the notorious Green Run. It was the largest intentional release of radiation conducted by the U.S. government. While nuclear testing in Nevada exposed many people to significant amounts of radiation, this was a byproduct of the desire to test weapons. In the Green Run the intention was specifically to release the radiation into the Hanford area. The Green Run was conducted in reaction to the test of the first Soviet nuclear weapon in Kazakhstan several months earlier. The first indications that the Soviets had successfully tested a nuclear weapon came when sensors at Hanford picked up the radiation several days later. It was decided to release radiation “similar” to that of the Soviet test to develop and hone detection equipment and better analysis of the Soviet program.

After the end of World War Two the U.S. method of processing the plutonium from the spent nuclear fuel rods involved “maturing” the rods, or letting them cool for approximately 100 days to allow short-lived nuclear isotopes (like iodine-131) to decay. Kate Brown has a detailed discussion of the decisions that eventually led to extending this maturing period at Hanford during this time in her pivotal book, Plutopia. The U.S. assumed that in their rush to produce nuclear weapons as quickly as possible the Soviets were “short-cooling” their plutonium being manufactured at the Mayak Complex, and thus processing the plutonium before these short-lived radionuclides had decayed. The Green Run was a plan to mimic this and process plutonium that had not cooled for 100 days, but instead had cooled only a few weeks and was, hence, “green.” To increase the ability of the radiation detection equipment in the area, and on the airplanes that participated, the filters at the plutonium processing plants that specifically filtered out iodine-131 were turned off for the 12-hour duration of the Green Run.

As bad as this deliberate release of radiation into the downwind communities was, things did not go as planned. The intended amount of iodine-131 to be released was dwarfed by the actual release, which was double what was anticipated. While scientists imagined they would then be tracking a coherent cloud as it moved away from the site, the resulting radiation dispersed throughout a vast area stretching across much of Washington State and into Southern Oregon. Concentrations were found in valleys and lowlands as the radiation distributed irregularly. Internalizing iodine-131 is a direct cause of thyroid cancer.

EPA map of iodine-131 distribution following the Green Run showing both heavy dose area and total distribution

The Tank Farms

Few things pose as great a threat to public health at Hanford than the Tank Farms. The Tank Farms are 177 single and double shelled waste storage tanks sited at two different locations on the Hanford complex. In the early days at Hanford, when plutonium for nuclear weapons was separated from the spent nuclear fuel, the leftover uranium from the process was stored in these tanks. Over the years a wide range of the highest level radioactive and chemical wastes were dumped into these tanks. According to the State of Washington the 177 tanks hold 53 million gallons of the highest level radioactive waste existing in the United States. 67 of the single shelled tanks have leaked over 1 million gallons of this highly radioactive waste which is migrating through the soil and groundwater into the Columbia River. In 2011 the Department of Energy emptied the contents of many of the leaking single shelled tanks into double shelled tanks, however the design of the double shelled tanks was found to be flawed, resulting in further leaks.

A section of the Tank Farms at Hanford.  Photo: D0E.

Dealing with the 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste is a multi-billion-dollar effort designed to manage the waste by 2050, or roughly 100 years after it was first manufactured. Currently almost nothing has yet been accomplished towards this goal besides the paying out of the contracts to design plans and begin the construction of the “Vitrification Plant” that is intended to encase the waste in glass. In recent years’ numerous whistleblowers have come forward from among Hanford employees to describe the flawed design and safety protocols of the Vit Plant. Most of these whistleblowers have been fired by the contractors running the Hanford cleanup. One, Walter Tamosaitis, the research and technology manager of the Vit Plant, was vindicated and awarded $4.3M to settle his wrongful termination suit, however other whistleblowers have been dismissed from their positions since that award. While the liquid waste has been extracted from the tanks the remaining high level waste in the tanks remains largely untreated.

Hanford employees who work maintaining the Tank Farms have suffered serious and unexplained health problems in recent years. Each year numerous workers have been exposed to “vapors” and have become sick or lost consciousness and required hospitalization. Many have suffered ongoing health problems as a result of these exposures. In 2014 over 40 workers suffered from such exposures including a two-week period in late March that saw 26 workers hospitalized. According to KGW news in Portland, a 1997 study conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory warned that workers exposed to vapors from specific tanks would have significantly increase risk of cancers and other serious diseases, but the conclusions of this report “were never made public, shared with Hanford workers or members of the federally chartered Hanford Advisory Board.”

On 29 September 1957 a tank containing waste similar to the waste in the Hanford Tank Farms exploded at the Mayak plutonium production site in the former Soviet Union, known as the Kyshtym Disaster. The cooling system for one of the tanks at the Mayak site failed and the temperature inside the tank rose eventually causing a chemical explosion that sent a radioactive cloud for over 350 km downwind and heavily contaminated an area near the plant with catastrophic levels of cesium-137 and strontium-90. This was one of the worst radiological disasters in human history at the time, and remained so, along with the fire three weeks later inside a nuclear reactor core at the Windscale facility (now called Sellafield) in Cumbria in the United Kingdom, until the Chernobyl meltdown and explosion in 1987. The Kyshtym Disaster, which a Soviet study concluded resulted directly in 8,000 deaths (not to mention illnesses) was the consequence of an explosion in one tank. At Hanford there are currently 177 such tanks, each containing similar disastrous potential, and located beside one another.

Contaminations and Dangers

The EPA has identified between 1,500-1,200 specific sites on the Hanford grounds where toxic or radioactive chemicals have been dumped. The ambiguity of that number speaks volumes about the lack of record keeping and functional data for addressing these problems. If plans for remediation of the waste in the Tank Farms at the Hanford Site are carried out as intended, there remains massive contamination of the soil and groundwater under the site, leeching into the Columbia River and surrounding countryside. That is if things go well. Things could go badly. The Kyshtym Disaster shows the dangers of an explosion in one of the tanks storing waste such as that stored in the 177 tanks at the Hanford Tank Farms. An incident in which multiple tanks experience problems could be catastrophic beyond our imagination. What’s more, there is not effective containment or security at the Tank Farms to face the threats of current times. While the countries around the world worry about the dangers of flying airplanes or drones into nuclear power plants, or of cyber attacks on the power supplies to such plants, those sites have at least some effective containment around the toxic materials they hold. The Tank Farms are open air and unshielded. The amount of deadly radiological materials contained in these tanks is far beyond that contained at any single nuclear site in the United States.

Hanford is Here, Fukushima is There

The triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi was a horrible disaster that has released massive amounts of radiation into the environment. The daily passage of tons of water through the watershed below the plants where the melted nuclear cores (corium) sit smoldering will continue to release radiation into the ocean for decades to come. The health toll that this will take, especially on the children of Northern Japan is horrifying. Already a much higher than expected incidence of thyroid cancers have been reported in area youth. This is the first of the cancers to present and is the tip of the iceberg of health impacts on those in the area. The release of long lived radionuclides such as cesium-137 and uranium into the ecosystem presents dangers to people all around the world as these particles cycle through the biosphere. But the largest and most tragic impacts of Fukushima will be on people in Japan. The plumes from the explosions of March 2011 deposited the bulk of their fallout within a few hundred kilometers of the plants. Radiation from the regular releases of contaminated water into the ocean, and the passage of groundwater across the corium will continue to bring radioactive particles into the Pacific Ocean where they will work their way up the food chain much as the fallout deposited by atmospheric nuclear testing did in the Pacific during the 1940s and 1950s. Some of that radiation is reaching the West Coast of the U.S., and this will continue as long as the site hemorrhages contaminated water into the ocean, which will likely be for some decades. This disaster should not be discounted. But it should also be remembered that it is the people of Japan, and specifically the children of Japan who live in the areas where the fallout plumes deposited that face the direst of these consequences.

There is currently a great deal of awareness about the arrival of Fukushima radiation on the West Coast. There are many people who say they will not eat fish from the Pacific Ocean, or eat food from Japan. At the same time, there is no discussion about eating Salmon from the Columbia River, drinking wines from the Columbia Valley, or fruit from the orchards that fill the downwind area around Hanford. The amount of radiation in the Hanford area dwarfs the amount arriving on the West Coast of the United States on a scale that is mindboggling. What is arriving from Fukushima is the result of the meltdowns of three nuclear cores, and it is crossing an ocean. What is stored at Hanford and leeching into the Columbia is resultant from 2/3rds of the high level nuclear waste of the United States, and is from production that began decades before Fukushima was built. This is not just contamination that is arriving today, or this year, it has been saturating the groundwater and ecosystem of the Northwest for more than 70 years.

Furthermore, the impacts from Hanford are not only what may happen, but what has already happened. Hanford downwinders have suffered generations of cancers and other diseases across a wide area of Eastern Washington and beyond. There is a legacy of death and illness that spans generations downwind from Hanford, and the source of those diseases percolates away in the tanks and waste sites that sit along the Columbia River, spreading deeper into the surrounding ecosystem. The radiation from Fukushima may slowly seep across the vast Pacific, while at Hanford we have the threat of a radiological explosion or terrorist act that could release volumes more radiation than was released by Fukushima and deposited in Japan any day of any week, and spread radiation across the West Coast and mountain west.

By all means we should be vigilant and monitor the levels of Fukushima radiation that arrives on the West Coast of the United States, while remembering that the most profound victims of Fukushima are children living near the site. But we should turn our attention and concerns to the radioactive wound that seeps radiation into the ecosystem of the American and Canadian West every day and threatens it with a radiological disaster that would dwarf the worst that Fukushima has done even in Japan. Stand up for Hanford whistleblowers. Demand transparency on waste management practices and plans at Hanford. Stand up for the health of Hanford workers who are being exposed to dangerous vapors in their workplace. And demand support and compensation for the downwind families and workers whose health and wellbeing has been devastated by the most radioactive site in the United States.

Robert Jacobs is a historian of nuclear technologies and radiation technopolitics at the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City University. @bojacobs.

More articles by:Robert Jacobs

Hanford, Imploding Cities, Derivatives, The NSA And The End Game

Source: Hanford, Imploding Cities, Derivatives, The NSA And The End Game | Video Rebel’s Blog

With permission from

vidrebel.wordpress.com

by horse237

May 15, 2017

That railroad tunnel filled with barrels of leaking radiation was an accident waiting to happen. Eugene Wigner was a mathematician who worked on the Manhattan project. He noted that radiation discomposes metal. That deterioration brought down the tunnel supports at Hanford. The government and the corporate media have said no radiation was released though private citizens to south with monitors had radiation counts as high as 99 cpm.

The Wigner Effect is why we are told that nuclear power plants are supposed to be replaced after 30 to 40 years. The US has 99 nuclear power generators. Their average age is 36 years. About a dozen are near known earthquake fault zones in California and New Madrid, Missouri.  The government and the corporate media have said no radiation was released at the Hanford tunnel collapse. Private citizens to the south with monitors had radiation counts as high as 99 cpm but those high counts have since stabilized at a lower level.

The deterioration of piping at nuclear power plants is a known issue. This has to date not been acted upon even at the planning stage.

The US has an infrastructure debt measured in the trillions. If we do nothing to reverse this deficit, America will cease to function as a developed nation. If America is not to die, we must decommission 99 nuclear power plants over the next several years.

This lack of concern should convince you how little your government cares for you. Neither political party has a plan for the survival of your nation.

They don’t care if there is a Fukushima or two near you.  They don’t care if you get caught in a radioactive rain shower or eat food that glows in the dark.

These are the people who let Wall Street steal $50 trillion from you and will cancel our pensions and cut our wages in half on the Day the Dollar Dies.

There are fewer than 12,000 police officers in Chicago.  There are 150,000 gang members in Cook county according to FBI numbers. President Obama, his political party, most of the corporate press and quite a few Republicans thought it would be a great idea to send out to Mexico, Central America and other parts of the globe to dramatically increase the number of gang members. Border Patrol officers were forced to admit confessed murderers and juvenile members of cop killing gangs to cross our border to join forces with those gangs who are destroying our cities. Chicago is not the most violent city in America even though their homicide rate is 4 times grater than New York’s. Detroit and Baltimore are not as safe as Chicago.

Yet thepoliticians add to the burdens of our cities. Children live in terror. One Chicago girl with good grades has decided to become a mortician. They have a guaranteed future. She lives in a city where our political class are unwilling to protect nine year-olds from being executed in the streets during the best of times. So what will happen to our cities the Day After the Dollar Dies and Food Stamps are cancelled? Washington doesn’t seem to care.

By design we are sitting on hundreds of trillions of dollars in Unpayable Debts. Dr Michael Hudson said Unpayable Debts are never paid. Oh! Does that mean that hundreds of trillions in Unpayable Debts will be canceled either in bankruptcy court or through inflation? Doesn’t that mean we are in for far worse times than the Great Depression when 3 million Americans starved to death.

Donald Rumsfeld admitted on 9-10-2001 to CBS Evening News that he had no way of knowing where $2.3 trillion in Pentagon spending actually went. But he did promise that some day in the future the government would adopt modern accounting procedures. That promise was never kept. Both political parties and the corporate media continue to let those men who own our government rob us by the tens of trillions.

Do you remember Edward Snowden saying how criminally irresponsible the NSA was? The NSA insisted on opening all those backdoors into our computers while designing advanced tools to hack them. Somehow those tools were released to cyber criminals who have exploited our mandatory backdoors. Some of us believe that elements within the NSA did the Ransomware hack. And they might be trying to take down Bitcoin.

The corporate media has missed the whole point of the story which is the criminally irresponsible behavior of the NSA and the who are allowed to rob the US government. But the media is owned by the same people so they are paid to not report the news.

This government absolutely despises you and wants you dead. Disagree? Watch Dr Seneff.

I have not written for a while. I am preparing for my future. I live in what many would consider to be a small town. At least, it used to be. I might be moving to a more rural location. We need to be making serious preparations. We need to be creating our own sources of food production instead of relying on canned beans and shotguns to see us through a 90 day collapse of the government and the loss of every city in the US. I do expect Nationwide Food Riots.

The coming economic debacle could get a lot more than 10 million Americans killed.

The people who own the government decided to give us an interest bearing currency at a cost of $850 billion a year. They decided we needed a fractional reserve currency so we would have a wild ride on the way up and devastating times on the way down when those loans are cancelled.

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Hidden Radiation Secrets of the World Health Organization

Fukushima explosions from air,

“Ms Katz worked inside the WHO for 18 years. She insists that WHO, in cahoots with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), dangerously misrepresents the inherent dangers of ionizing radiation, an insinuation that smacks in the face with egregiousness galore.”

Source: Hidden Radiation Secrets of the World Health Organization

With permission from

counterpunch.org

by Robert Hunziker

May 2, 2017

Imagine the following hypothetical: The World Health Organization (“WHO”) is deeply involved in a high level cover up of the human impact and dangers of ionizing radiation, intentionally hiding the facts from the public, a chilling storyline!

After all, the world community depends upon WHO as an independent org t0 forewarn the general public of health dangers and to help in times of crises, not hide pivotal health facts from public eye.

As it happens, that nightmarish hypothetical comes to life in an interview with Alison Katz, who claims: “We are absolutely convinced that if the consequences of nuclear radiation were known to the public, the debate about nuclear power would end tomorrow. In fact, if the public knew, it would probably be excluded immediately as an energy option.”

Alison Katz heads a NGO known as Independent WHO, and she spends a lot of time arranging sandwich boards with messages like: “Complicity in Scientific Crime” or “Crime of Chernobyl – WHO Accomplice” in front of WHO headquarters/Geneva. For 10 years now on a daily vigil from 8:00-to-6:00 she and/or other protestors expose alleged misbehavior committed by WHO, right outside of the headquarters building. Imagine this: Ten years on the same street corner every working day. It’s commitment and determination sans pareil.

“The aim of the silent vigil is to remind the World Health Organisation of its duties. It was Hippocrates who formulated the ethical rules for health practitioners. The World Health Organisation ignores these rules, when it comes to protecting the health of the victims of the consequences of the nuclear industry”.

Which brings forth: Ten years of hard work combating a difficult and challenging issue warrants public adulation beyond carrying posters back and forth, come rain or shine, trudging away in the heat of the sun or the freezing cold and snow in front of WHO Hdqs. Hopefully, this article serves that purpose for Alison Katz.

The mission of Independent WHO is to expose WHO’s failings whilst calling for WHO independence away from influence by the worldwide nuclear syndicate: According to WHO Independence’s Web Site: “The World Health Organization (WHO) is failing in its duty to protect those populations who are victims of radioactive contamination.”

Ms Katz worked inside the WHO for 18 years. She insists that WHO, in cahoots with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), dangerously misrepresents the inherent dangers of ionizing radiation, an insinuation that smacks in the face with egregiousness galore.

Ms Katz’s April 2017 interview, which this article is based upon, can be heard in its entirety.

This article condenses and summarizes her one-hour interview. As such, according to Ms Katz: “The health consequences of nuclear activity, whether they are civil or military, are not known to the public… There has been a very high level cover up… including the WHO.”

For over 50 years WHO provided “a clean bill of health for nuclear power.” However, according to Ms Katz, that clean bill of health is not based upon independent science. It’s based upon “pseudo science” manipulated and largely controlled by the nuclear lobby and International Atomic Energy Agency, the Queen Bee of the pro-nuke Hive.

Furthermore, within the “United Nations family hierarchy,” WHO is entirely subservient to IAEA. In turn, IAEA reports to the Security Council of the UN or the very top echelon of the power hierarchy of the world, including France, China, UK, U.S., and the Russian Federation. Far and away, these are the world’s biggest nuke heads.

Connecting the dots leaves one breathless within a telling trail of pro-nuke advocacy of the highest order… hm-m-m, thus raising the question: How is it humanly possible for WHO to objectively, impartially, squarely and soberly analyze and recommend ionizing radiation issues on behalf of the general public?

Is it at all possible, even a little bit?

As it goes, the IAEA has two mandates, which sound innocent enough: (1) to prevent proliferation of nuclear power and (2) promotion of the use of the atom on a peaceful basis, ah-ah-ah… oh well, never mind. In reality, IAEA is a commercial lobbying org promoting use of the atom, yet at the same time, it dictates WHO procedures, standards, and published articles on the matter of nuclear radiation, prompting a very pregnant question: Is this a conflict of interest for WHO? Answer: Yes, it is! WHO is a creature of the dictates of IAEA, which is the world’s largest promoter of the atom. Whereas, WHO is supposed to “independently serve the public interest,” not kowtow to a nuclear advocacy powerhouse that reports to nuclear powerhouse countries that have a deepening love affair with nuclear power, warts and all.

For example, sixty (60) reactors are currently under construction in fifteen countries. In all, one hundred sixty (160) power reactors are in the planning stage and three hundred (300) more have been proposed. That’s a love affaire.

Meanwhile, as for WHO’s mandate: It serves as the leading authority of standards for public health, coordinating research, advising member states, and formulating ionizing radioactivity health policies. However, IAEA has been usurping WHO’s mandate for the past 50 years. In fact, a 1959 Agreement (WHA 12-40) between the two says WHO needs prior approval of IAEA before taking any action or publishing material dealing with nuclear, period!

As a result of this 50-year conflict of interest, which is deeply embedded by now, Ms Katz claims WHO must, absolutely must, become independent, thus breaking the stranglehold of numero uno promoter of nuclear power over WHO, which is mandated to serve the public, not IAEA.

Not only is there a serious conflict of interest, Katz claims WHO fails, time and again, to meet its mandate to the public, as for example:

1) WHO remained absent from Chernobyl for five years even though the WHO mandate requires it to be present the “day after a catastrophe” to evaluate and provide assistance. But, WHO was MIA for 5 years.

2) WHO does not issue independent reports on radiation issues. All nuclear-related reports are written by IAEA but published “in the name of the WHO.”

3) Following Chernobyl, there were two international conferences held to analyze the implications of the catastrophe; one held in Geneva in 1995 and the second in Kiev in 2001. The “Proceedings of the Conferences” were never published by WHO; thus, never made public even though WHO claims the proceedings are publicly available. Confusing? Yes! To this day, the relevant question remains: What did “the analyses” show?

As a result of WHO’s egregious conflicts, the world community has no independent arms-length source on nuclear radiation. That is a situation fraught with conflict and extremely difficult to accept, sans grimacing with a lot of teeth grinding.

Once again, with emphasis: There is no independent international authority reporting to the public on nuclear radiation…. none whatsoever. All information about nuclear radiation ultimately comes from the primary users/promoters of nuclear power even though they have a very big heavy axe to grind.

Of course, there are independent scientists, but they face enormous obstacles in coming forward with the truth, thereby risking monetary grants and risking personal positions, as well as family livelihood.

Not only that, but over the years all departments within WHO that dealt with nuclear radiation have been highly compromised. Even worse, according to Ms Katz, no senior radiation scientists work for WHO, none… nada.

What constitutes the “nuclear establishment” is a fair question; it consists of the major governments of the world like France and the U.S but led by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the top dog, establishing standards for the world. Strangely enough, there are no health experts at ICRP, prompting a logical question: Why not?

There is more to be concerned about, e.g., another shocking fact regarding ICRP, as if there are not already enough shockers with the thread that runs throughout nuclear power’s closely-knit network: Even though “ionizing radiation is mutagenic and always causes mutations, causing damage at the cellular level, there are no molecular biologists working in the ICRP” (Katz). Thus, the world’s largest institution for determination of radiation standards for the public has no molecular biologists on staff. That fact is beyond belief, an eye-opener beyond all other eye-openers.

It’s almost as if the regulators don’t give a damn about the effects of radiation on the general public. Do they?

Fukushima

Just after Fukushima in 2011, Ms Katz met with the Director General and five of the highest-ranking officials of WHO. The mayor of Geneva also attended the meeting; curiously, the City of Geneva, where WHO is headquartered, has an anti-nuclear provision in its city code.

The outcome of that meeting clearly demonstrated to Katz, and to the mayor of Geneva, that WHO abdicated its responsibilities for Fukushima.

However, a small victory ensued during the meetings as some solace was found when the Director General did admit, “there is no safe threshold of radiation.” And, she admitted to differences between internal and external radiation, which was a change of heart.

Remarkably, the Director General also confessed a shocking level of incredulity that only 50 people died from Chernobyl, widely claimed by the Director General’s own organization, WHO. That is the final number (50) of deaths that WHO attributes to Chernobyl. Howbeit, it’s a fabricated number w/o any meaning whatsoever and not supported by observational data.

Consequences of Chernobyl

WHO held a Chernobyl Forum in 2004 designed to “end the debate about the impact of Chernobyl radiation” whilst WHO maintains that 50 people died.

Here’s the final conclusion of that Chernobyl Forum ‘04: The mental health of those who live in the area is the most serious aftereffect, leading to strong negative attitudes and exaggerated sense of dangers to health and of exposure to radiation. Mental health was thus identified as the biggest negative aftereffect.

Because that conclusion is so brazenly bizarre, the Chernobyl Forum ‘04 must’ve been part of an alternative universe, way out there beyond the wild blue yonder, maybe the Twilight Zone or maybe like entering a scene in Jan Švankmajer’s Alice, a dark fantasy film loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Here’s reality: Chernobyl Liquidators fought the Chernobyl disaster. Eight hundred thousand (800,000) Liquidators from the former USSR, largely recruits from the army, with average age of 33, fought the Chernobyl disaster.

According to an interview (2016) with a Liquidator, “We were tasked with the deactivation of the third and fourth reactors, but we also helped build the containment sarcophagus. We worked in three shifts, but only for five to seven minutes at a time because of the danger. After finishing, we’d throw our clothes in the garbage” (Source: Return to Chernobyl With Ukraine’s Liquidators, Aljazeera, April 25, 2016).

“Estimates of the number of liquidators who died or became ill as a result of their work vary substantially, but the men of the 633rd say that out of the 259 from their group, 71 have died. Melnik says that 68 have been designated as invalids by a state committee, which investigates their health and determines whether or not their diseases are attributable to Chernobyl… Dr Dimitry Bazyka, the current director-general of the National Research Centre for Radiation Medicine in Kiev, says that approximately 20,000 liquidators die each year,” Ibid.

As for total deaths, the Chief Medical Officer of the Russian Federation reported that 10% of its Chernobyl Liquidators were dead by 2001. The disaster occurred in 1986 with 80,000 dead within 16 years. Authorities out of Ukraine and Belarus confirmed Russian death numbers. Yet, WHO claims 50 died.

Eighty-thousand (80,000) Liquidators, as of 16 years ago, dead from Chernobyl, and that body count, according to Ms Katz, leaves out the people most contaminated by Chernobyl, meaning evacuees and also 57% of the fallout for Chernobyl came down outside of the USSR, Belarus, and Ukraine, and in 13 European countries 50% of the countryside was dangerously contaminated.

As for studies of the radiation impact of Chernobyl: “Thousands of independent studies in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation and in many other countries, that were contaminated to varying degrees by radionuclides, have established that there has been significant increase in all types of cancer, in diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, urogenital, endocrine immune, lymph node nervous systems, prenatal, perinatal, infant child mortality, spontaneous abortions, deformities and genetic anomalies….” (Katz)

Hence, WHO’s handling and analysis and work on Chernobyl leaves the curious-minded speechless, open-mouthed, agape, and confounded.

WHO’s Flawed Fukushima Report

WHO issued two reports on Fukushima:
1) Evaluation of exposure
2) Likely health effects

Alex Rosen of Int’l Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War critiqued the two WHO Fukushima reports, found to be extremely problematic, and once again, similar to Chernobyl, shoddy work that sweeps way too much dirt under the carpet.

Here’s the problem: WHO’s estimates of Fukushima radioactive exposure are at least 50% less than any other estimates, including estimates provided by TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator) itself. But, WHO is supposed to be the guardian of public health concerns, not TEPCO.

Also, two critical population studies are ignored in the WHO reports, i.e., all of the residents within the 20 km exclusion zone are eliminated, even though their radiation exposure would be very high, actually highest. The second group ignored is workers on site… ahem!

Additionally, WHO cavalierly approved the Japanese government’s drastic change in annual maximum radiation exposure allowed for the general population up to 20 mSv per year.

Effects of Radiation

The genetic effects of radiation likely exceed anything understood by the general public, as WHO and other health orgs do not properly educate the public about radiation’s risks: “The genetic effects, far from diminishing with time, increase” (Katz), which is extra bad.

Years of research around Chernobyl show that the genetic impact of radiation to the human body becomes much, much worse as time passes. Thus, “radiation is both a continuing and a worsening catastrophe as time passes” (Katz). Radiation’s impact gets worse over time; it does not heal, does not dissipate, does not go away; it grows progressively worse, like the film sequels to Godzilla, which was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons in the early 1950s.

Indisputably, all organ systems of the human body are affected by radioactive contamination. Cancer is not the only nasty result of radiation exposure. Radioactive contamination affects the entire human immune system from head to toe, thus impacting every organ system in the body, e.g. musculoskeletal, etc. This damage to organs is in addition to the various cancer risks.

After all, consider this, 30 years after the fact, horribly deformed Chernobyl Children are found in over 300 asylums in the Belarus backwoods deep in the countryside.

Equally as bad but maybe more odious, as of today, Chernobyl radiation, since 1986, is already affecting 2nd generation kids.

According to a USA Today article, Chernobyl’s Legacy: Kids With Bodies Ravaged by Disaster, April 17, 2016: “There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health care. Of these, 453,391 are children — none born at the time of the accident. Their parents were children in 1986. These children have a range of illnesses: respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, eye diseases, blood diseases, cancer, congenital malformations, genetic abnormalities, trauma.”

It’s taken 30 years for the world, via an article in USA Today, to begin to understand how devastating, over decades, not over a few years, radiation exposure is to the human body. It is a silent killer that cumulates in the body over time and passes from generation to generation to generation, endless destruction that cannot be stopped.

Where is WHO is kinda like Where is Waldo, but sadly the effects of ionizing radiation are not part of a game. It is deadly serious, forevermore. In the meanwhile, Fukushima irradiates and irradiates, limitlessly and so far, unstoppable. Where does its radiation go?

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com

 

More articles by:Robert Hunziker

Fukushima Report: Hundreds of Millions of Salmon Missing, Presumed Dead; All Forms of Ocean Life Dying in Stunning Numbers Across Pacific

Source: Fukushima Report: Hundreds of Millions of Salmon Missing, Presumed Dead; All Forms of Ocean Life Dying in Stunning Numbers Across Pacific | Humans Are Free

humansarefree.com

March 24, 2017

South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL), Mar 16, 2017 (emphasis added): The low salmon run size for the Yuba River appears to be part of another regional salmon collapse.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife point to preliminary data from the Sacramento River that indicates salmon runs have also dropped to record low levels.

According to Dan Bacher’s reporting, last year’s salmon run on the Klamath River was a 38-year low… Gary Reedy, SYRCL’s consulting salmon expert reports that “A new crash for the Central Valley Chinook salmon is not unexpected.”…

The Oregonian, Mar 15, 2017: Worst Klamath chinook run on record forecast — The worst run forecast on record for the Klamath River’s chinook salmon could close all salmon fishing along most of the Oregon Coast this summer…

Mendocino Beacon, Mar 16, 2017: Returns of spawning Klamath River fall Chinook are projected to be the lowest on record in 2017…

“The salmon runs this year will present a challenge for ocean fishermen and managers throughout the West Coast,” said Executive Director Chuck Tracy… “the low forecast for Klamath River fall Chinook is unprecedented”…

“This year will be an exceptionally difficult year for ocean salmon fisheries, especially in Oregon and California”… said Council Chair Herb Pollard.

Alarming! Radiation from Fukushima Now Causes 100% Infant Mortality Rate in West Coast Orcas

Juneau Empire, Mar 6, 2017: Spring king fishing canceled by emergency order… the Juneau area will be closed for king salmon fishing… biologists expect a second-straight year of record-low king salmon returns on the Taku River.

“We’ve been in a period of low productivity, not just on the Taku, but on several rivers up and down the coast,” Juneau Area Management Biologist Daniel Teske said…

Nobody knows exactly why Southeast king salmon are struggling, but biologists do know where the fish are being affected: in the ocean… The increased die-off must be happening in a marine environment, Teske said, otherwise numbers on the four rivers wouldn’t fall at the same time…

Undercurrent News, Feb 1 , 2017: Japanese salmon fisheries in historic collapse — Landings in Hokkaido, Japan are the lowest in nearly three decades, reports the blog RussGeorge.net.

The volume of salmon caught at main fishing ports, including Hokkaido, plunged 30-40% in 2016 from the previous year. The figure represented the lowest level in 28 years. The collapse has been confidently attributed to the starvation of four-year-old Chum salmon…

Fukushima Nuclear Radiation Detected in U.S. Food Chain

Russ George, Jan 31, 2017: Japanese Salmon Fisheries in Historic Collapse… News from Japan is terrible for NW Pacific fish…

Local fishermen have been increasingly concerned over the fact that the trend of meager catch that continued in recent years has not been held in check and indeed is worsening every year…

Given the shortfall of fish and the scrawny condition of the fish that were caught all evidence points to a cataclysmic collapse of ocean pasture primary productivity and fish starving at sea… Across the Pacific ocean salmon pastures have failed…

Minato-Tsukiji, Nov 17, 2016: Japan chum salmon landings the worst in 24 years — This year’s chum catch in Japan is very poor, with declines in landings not only in the Hokkaido region but also in Honshu… Also, chum sizes are also getting smaller…

Russ George, Feb 3, 2017: Hundreds of Millions of Pacific Salmon Missing and Presumed Dead — Across 10,000 miles of North Pacific ocean pasture declarations from Japan and the USA are reporting a cataclysmic collapse of Pacific Salmon.

The fish are tragically starving at sea as the plankton pastures have turned into clear blue lifeless deserts… Collapse of North Pacific ocean fish pastures has resulted in near total collapse of Pacific Salmon…

It’s not just Pacific salmon that are dying in the North Pacific all forms of ocean life are being reported dead and dying [in] stunning numbers…

All of a Sudden, Fish Are Dying by the MILLIONS All Over the Planet

Hokkaido Shimbun, Jan 31, 2017: Salmon landings in Hokkaido in 2016 are the lowest in three decades — The number of salmon caught in Hokkaido in 2016 plunged 29.4% from the previous year…

The figure represented the lowest level in 28 years… Local fishermen have been increasingly concerned over the fact that the trend of meager catch that continued in recent years has not been held in check…

Minato-Tsukiji, Mar 3, 2017: The harvest in Hokkaido was the worst in 24 years… Beginning with the Sanriku area, landings all over Honshu were below those of the previous year…

The number of returning four-year-olds, which are regarded as the main shoal, was a record low…

Reference: ENENews.com

Nuclear engineer says Fukushima contamination will go on for thousands of years

Source: Nuclear engineer says Fukushima contamination will go on for thousands of years

newstarget.com

By: News Editors

Date: March 16, 2017

Arnie Gundersen, former nuclear engineer, Mar 11, 2017 (emphasis added): The scientific impact of the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi is an ongoing disaster that was never envisioned by the engineers who created and designed these atomic reactors and countries who built them… no country in the world with nuclear power reactors was prepared for the explosive radioactive contamination of Fukushima Daiichi. Over and over, people ask me about what happened inside the plants and what is still happening inside with robots fried by radiation, corium that can’t be found, and massive amounts of radioactivity migrating to sensitive estuaries, aquifers, contaminating all the ground water, and polluting the Pacific Ocean… No one has discovered where the nuclear cores have disappeared to.  The $400,000,000 “ice wall” continues to leak… Moreover, the cover-up continues, with the health effects from radiation being camouflaged as stress related illnesses… I decided to share the photographs I took last year in Japan… these photos cannot adequately convey the scientific and human impact of the worst industrial cataclysm in the history of the world… [R]adioactive isotopes will be extreme hazards for 250,000 years, of course no one knows when it will end.

(Article republished from Enenews.com)

BBC Newsday interview with nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, Feb 28, 2017: “As they get in [the containment vessel at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2], they’re finding that combination of hot steam — these are not just radioactive chemicals, but it’s a toxic mix of chemicals that are going to react with the steel. So there’s rust and hunks of nuclear fuel lying around, and steam, and it’s raining all the time because of the condensation. I think it’s about as close to hell as I could imagine.”

Arjun Makhijani, nuclear engineer, Feb 17, 2017: Yes, so the bottom of the reactor under the reactor there is a grating and then under the grating there’s the concrete floor, and what this robot discovered… the grating was deformed and broken. So, now it appears that some of the molten fuel may have gone through the grating… [H]igh radiation turns into heat, so the whole environment around the molten fuel is thermally very hot, and so whether it is going through the concrete, whether it is under the concrete, I don’t know that we have a good grip on that issue… Fukushima is possibly the longest running, continuous industrial disaster in history. It has not stopped because the risks are still there.

Read more at: Enenews.com