Tag Archives: transportation

Nuclear Waste Imports – Discussion: Port Huron

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Diane D’Arrigo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) will speak by satellite at 7 PM Wednesday, November 1, 2017, at the Donald Dodge Auditorium, St. Clair County Administration Building, 200 Grand River Ave., Port Huron, MI 48060, regarding the growing international opposition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) newly implemented policies, that plan for secretive large-scale foreign imports of dangerous nuclear power wastes to the U.S. for processing, in states such as: Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Washington State.

Ms. D’Arrigo will discuss how the NRC now is secretly granting “general” import licenses to U.S. Companies to truck Canadian (and likely other foreign nuclear power “materials”) across our borders, for treatment in U.S. states including: segregation, incineration, decontamination, recovery (re-use and recycling)! Some Canadian wastes will cross at the Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron, Michigan and travel on Michigan roads to be processed in other states, with the potential return transport of more concentrated radioactive ash or other “wastes.”

This “general” license allows for the first time, secret and numerous shipments of dangerous, radioactive nuclear power wastes (labeled as nuclear “materials”) to come into the U.S. – without any public notice, public comment, or the public’s right to intervene, in order to protect the health and safety of our communities! A general license to import also hides the identities of the owners and/or producers of these wastes and hides the wastes’ origin and characteristics (including radioactivity or types of wastes). Meanwhile in Canada, Ontario Power Generation is hastily re-organizing its radioactive waste import /export licenses behind the regulator’s closed doors, with no opportunity for a public hearing.

Alarmingly, some states that traffic in these wastes have “clearance levels”, which allow them to release some radioactive substances into the air and water during processing – and even into their landfills. WORSE, “clearance levels” allow some states to release radioactive substances into our recycling streams (metal, plastic, soil, concrete, asphalt and others). Since the start of the Atomic Age, U.S. citizens have STRONGLY rejected over a dozen attempts by U.S. regulators to deregulate and release nuclear wastes into everyday garbage and recycling streams. The American Iron and Steel Institute and Metals Industry Recycling Coalitions do not want to be the dump for radioactive metal from nuclear power and weapons! The American public is continually working to keep nuclear waste OUT of our air and water, our landfills, our consumer goods!

Some of these wastes remain dangerous for tens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of years (or longer) and can include such radioactive elements as plutonium, cobalt 60, strontium 90, tritium (radioactive hydrogen), carbon-14 and numerous others. Most scanners commonly used to check for radiation at our borders, or at metal recycling industries, can detect only gamma radiation and do not pick up highly hazardous alpha radiation that can wreak enormous damage inside a person’s body, if inhaled or ingested.

In Europe, one of the most widely publicized contamination incidents occurred with baby food jars being recalled, due to radioactive contamination in the steel sheets used to make them. Here, in the U.S., there have been a great many instances of recalled imported radioactive consumer items. To list just a few: imported radioactive tissue boxes were recalled from Bed, Bath and Beyond. Radioactive bike baskets and belt buckles (all imports) were found and taken off market. Do we really want radioactive baby cribs, jewelry, eyeglasses, cell phones or silverware? NIRS is leading the international campaign to stop this planned large-scale and secretive trafficking of nuclear power wastes! This critical campaign needs your support! Come learn what our communities can do to stop this madness!

Diane D’Arrigo is the Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Takoma Park, Maryland. Ms. D’Arrigo has degrees in Chemistry and Environmental Studies with work experience in Analytical Chemistry and Biological Research. She has international expertise in radioactive waste and radiation Issues. She is author of the 2007 report: Out of Control on Purpose – DOE’s Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products.
See:
https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/radwaste/outofcontrol/outofcontrolreport.pdf

The Great Lakes Environmental Alliance (GLEA) is an organization working to safeguard the health of the Great Lakes watershed, which comprises 90% of North America’s fresh surface waters, critical to all life and future generations.

https://www.facebook.com/GLEAorg/ 
www.GreatLakesEnvironmentalAlliance.org

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Opposition to Highly Radioactive Liquid Shipments Continues

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February 3 2017 – Washington D.C. 

In spite of a disappointing ruling by a US Judge on Thursday afternoon, February 2, public opposition remains to an unprecedented plan to ship 23,000 litres (6000 gallons) of intensely radioactive liquid from Chalk River, Ontario, to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina – a distance of over 2000 kilometres. The liquid is an acidic solution of dozens of extremely radiotoxic materials such as cesium-137, strontium-90, and plutonium-239.

The first armed convoy, in a series of 100-150 truckloads over a period of four years, had been put on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge in US federal court. Plaintiffs had urged the court to either suspend the shipments, or to require a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in compliance with US environmental law (NEPA), because such highly radioactive material has never before been transported over public roads in liquid form.

But on February 2 the court ruled against the Plaintiffs, deferring to the Department of Energy’s 2013 and 2015 claims that the transport of this dangerous waste in liquid form poses no more dangers than hauling it in solid form. So now, these unprecedented highly radioactive liquid waste shipments have been judged to have no legal obstacles, even without an EIS. Consequences of a spill and discussion of alternatives will not be available for scrutiny by the public or other agencies as a result of the ruling.

The suit was brought by seven US organizations: Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Savannah River Site Watch, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Lone Tree Council, Sierra Club and Environmentalists, Inc. Dozens of other organizations on both sides of the border support the plaintiffs in their opposition. All these groups will continue to challenge the plan to transport such dangerous liquid over public roads and bridges – a feat never before attempted, and one they consider to be entirely unnecessary as there are safer alternatives.

Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch in South Carolina, said “Citizens here don’t want to be a dumping ground for Canada’s nuclear waste. Last year, Indonesia demonstrated a method called ‘down-blending’, carried out with DOE approval, that eradicates any need for shipping highly radioactive liquid. The same technique can be utilized at Chalk River. Down-blending and solidifying the waste in Canada would be cheaper, faster and safer than moving this dangerous liquid cargo through dozens of communities, then processing and dumping it into aging waste tanks at SRS.”

Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., a mathematician with the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Marvin Resnikoff, Ph.D., a physicist with the US-based Nuclear Waste Management Associates, both filed technical declarations in support of the lawsuit.

Dr. Edwards’ declaration based on published data from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency, showed that the toxicity of a few ounces of the Chalk River liquid would ruin an entire city’s water supply. “This liquid is among the most radiotoxic materials on earth,” said Dr. Edwards.

Dr. Resnikoff’s statement pointed out that a severe sideways impact of the transport cask, or a prolonged diesel fire causing boiling of the liquid and over-pressure rupture of the containers, could spill the liquid contents into the environment. “The consequences of such realistic accident scenarios have not been adequately assessed,” said Dr. Resnikoff, adding that the containers have never been tested physically under such realistic conditions. The Judge disallowed the two expert declarations.

Mary Olson, one of the plaintiffs in the law suit, said “Even without any leakage of the contents, people will be exposed to penetrating gamma radiation and damaging neutron radiation just by sitting in traffic beside one of these transport trucks. And because the liquid contains weapons-grade uranium there is an ever-present possibility of a spontaneous chain reaction giving off a powerful blast of life-threatening neutrons in all directions – a so-called “criticality” accident.”

Road salt changes sex ratios in frog populations

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According to a new study co-led by scientists at Yale and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, salts commonly used to de-ice roadsurfaces can alter the sex ratios in nearby frog populations.

The new research, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, concluded that salt had a “masculinizing” effect that triggered a “sex reversal” mechanism during the early life of the frog.

The researchers believe that sodium binds to the amphibian’s receptor cells, mimicking the actions of testosterone or estrogen and altering the sex of the frog.

“There is a very small testosterone-like effect with one salt molecule,” said Max Lambert, who led the study.

“But if you’re dumping lots and lots of salt on the roads every winter that washes into these ponds, it can have a large effect.

“The health and abundance of females is obviously critical for the sustainability of any population because they’re the ones that make the babies, so if you have a population that is becoming male-based, the population might be at risk.”

The team performed a series of experiments where frogs were isolated in tanks containing water with varying levels of road salt and leaf litter from maple and oak trees. Some tanks mimicked natural pond conditions. The natural tanks produced an average 63% female population. Significant presence of road salt reduced the proportion of female frogs reared in the 500-liter tank by one in ten.

“You’re not only seeing fewer females but smaller females that may not be able to produce as many eggs, and the eggs are probably going to be lower quality,” said Mr Lambert.

Co-author Rick Relyea added: “The potential consequences to amphibian populations are interesting, including the continual masculinzation of frog populations for many generations in habitats contaminated with high concentrations of road salt, which could potentially affect the abundances of frogs in these habitats.”

What can you do?

  • Go easy on the salt at home. Learn more here
  • Contact your county road commission
    – Let them know you support reducing use of salt on your roads
    – Use the information in this article to articulate why
  • Take it to work!
    -Use less salt on the job
    -Tell the businesses you support to use less salt
  • Practice driving on ice!