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Beiträge, die mit radioactive getaggt sind
#Algonquins say proposed #NuclearWaste site near #OttawaRiver prioritizes money over safety
By Tom Fennario, Oct 18, 2024
"Verna Polson steps out of the boat and onto the sand bar of Pointe aux Baptêmes. She walks a few feet before turning back towards the water, where the August morning light shimmers off the waves.
"There she makes a tobacco offering to the Ottawa River. Except for her, this waterway that divides modern-day Quebec and Ontario is known by its original Algonquin name: Kichi-Sìbì.
"The Great River.
"'Kichi-Sìbì is a place where our ancestors used to travel. That was their highway,' explains Polson. 'This is how they kept the land, protected from many different nations.
"Polson grew up near the Kichi-Sìbì in #TemiskamingFirstNation, about 300 kilometers north of here. On this day, she finds herself downstream to take in not only the beach of #PointeAuxBaptêmes but also the industrial smokestacks of the #ChalkRiverLaboratories. It sits less than a kilometre upstream from where Polson offered her tobacco- the site sticks out in contrast to the rolling hills and blue waters of the Kichi-Sìbì.
"This place is known as the cradle of the Canadian #nuclear industry.
"'I think about the water, I think about the animals and think about future generations and what they’re going to be left with,' says Polson. 'And that’s something I don’t want to leave my granddaughter and my great-grandchildren as something to deal with this nuclear waste.'
"Established in 1944 about 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, Chalk River Laboratories is famous for research that led to the development of the #CANDU (CANada Deuterium #Uranium) reactor, one of the most efficient and safe nuclear reactors ever created, according to officials in the industry.
"Researchers at Chalk River have gone on to win Nobel prizes, and for decades, it was a world leader in the creation of radioisotopes for fighting cancer.
"However, Chalk River also has a darker legacy which includes supplying fuel for American #NuclearWarheads and in 1952, being home to the world’s first #NuclearMeltdown.
"But much has changed since then. Chalk River Laboratories has been absorbed into #AtomicEnergyCanada, a #CrownCorporation that contracts out to a company called Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (#CNL) to operate it.
"CNL is currently in the midst of a government funded $1.2-billion facelift. But before it can be transformed into a state-of-the-art nuclear campus, nearly 80 years of #radioactive legacy waste must be addressed.
"In a statement, CNL says 'While this waste was stored according to the best practices and regulations at the time, standards have changed.'
"So the solution CNL is trying to get off the ground is called the Near Surface Disposal Facility (#NSDF).
"Others might call it a dump.
"'This facility will not bring great things to the water or the land,' says Polson, 'every one knows across #TurtleIsland, #WaterIsLife.'"
Read more:
https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/algonquins-say-proposed-nuclear-waste-site-near-ottawa-prioritizes-money-over-safety/
#NuclearWasteStorage #EnvironmentalRacism #FirstNations #Canada
By Tom Fennario, Oct 18, 2024
"Verna Polson steps out of the boat and onto the sand bar of Pointe aux Baptêmes. She walks a few feet before turning back towards the water, where the August morning light shimmers off the waves.
"There she makes a tobacco offering to the Ottawa River. Except for her, this waterway that divides modern-day Quebec and Ontario is known by its original Algonquin name: Kichi-Sìbì.
"The Great River.
"'Kichi-Sìbì is a place where our ancestors used to travel. That was their highway,' explains Polson. 'This is how they kept the land, protected from many different nations.
"Polson grew up near the Kichi-Sìbì in #TemiskamingFirstNation, about 300 kilometers north of here. On this day, she finds herself downstream to take in not only the beach of #PointeAuxBaptêmes but also the industrial smokestacks of the #ChalkRiverLaboratories. It sits less than a kilometre upstream from where Polson offered her tobacco- the site sticks out in contrast to the rolling hills and blue waters of the Kichi-Sìbì.
"This place is known as the cradle of the Canadian #nuclear industry.
"'I think about the water, I think about the animals and think about future generations and what they’re going to be left with,' says Polson. 'And that’s something I don’t want to leave my granddaughter and my great-grandchildren as something to deal with this nuclear waste.'
"Established in 1944 about 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, Chalk River Laboratories is famous for research that led to the development of the #CANDU (CANada Deuterium #Uranium) reactor, one of the most efficient and safe nuclear reactors ever created, according to officials in the industry.
"Researchers at Chalk River have gone on to win Nobel prizes, and for decades, it was a world leader in the creation of radioisotopes for fighting cancer.
"However, Chalk River also has a darker legacy which includes supplying fuel for American #NuclearWarheads and in 1952, being home to the world’s first #NuclearMeltdown.
"But much has changed since then. Chalk River Laboratories has been absorbed into #AtomicEnergyCanada, a #CrownCorporation that contracts out to a company called Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (#CNL) to operate it.
"CNL is currently in the midst of a government funded $1.2-billion facelift. But before it can be transformed into a state-of-the-art nuclear campus, nearly 80 years of #radioactive legacy waste must be addressed.
"In a statement, CNL says 'While this waste was stored according to the best practices and regulations at the time, standards have changed.'
"So the solution CNL is trying to get off the ground is called the Near Surface Disposal Facility (#NSDF).
"Others might call it a dump.
"'This facility will not bring great things to the water or the land,' says Polson, 'every one knows across #TurtleIsland, #WaterIsLife.'"
Read more:
https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/algonquins-say-proposed-nuclear-waste-site-near-ottawa-prioritizes-money-over-safety/
#NuclearWasteStorage #EnvironmentalRacism #FirstNations #Canada
Nuclear waste site near Ottawa opposed by Algonquins
A proposed nuclear waste site nearly 200 kilometres west of Ottawa is being opposed by Algonquin peoples in the area.Tom Fennario (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network)
Sites with #radioactive material more vulnerable as #ClimateChange increases #wildfire, #flood risks
Climate change increasingly threatens research laboratories, weapons sites and power plants across the nation that handle or are contaminated with #radioactive material or perform critical energy and defense research.
By TAMMY WEBBER
Updated 1:04 AM EDT, May 22, 2024
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission [#NRC] considers only historical #ClimateData rather than future projections in licensing decisions and oversight of #NuclearPowerPlants, according to a General Accounting Office study in April that recommended the NRC 'fully consider potential #ClimateChange effects.' The GAO found that 60 of 75 U.S. plants were in areas with high flood hazard and 16 were in areas with high wildfire potential."
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-flood-climate-change-nuclear-radioactive-sites-72bf711fe931a051709e44199c656267
#NoNukes #NoWar #NuclearWeapon s #NuclearWaste #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateCrisis #SeaLevelRise #GlacierMelt #PantexPlant #LosAlamos #CerroGrandeFire #SantaSusana #LawrenceLivermore #Hanford
Climate change increasingly threatens research laboratories, weapons sites and power plants across the nation that handle or are contaminated with #radioactive material or perform critical energy and defense research.
By TAMMY WEBBER
Updated 1:04 AM EDT, May 22, 2024
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission [#NRC] considers only historical #ClimateData rather than future projections in licensing decisions and oversight of #NuclearPowerPlants, according to a General Accounting Office study in April that recommended the NRC 'fully consider potential #ClimateChange effects.' The GAO found that 60 of 75 U.S. plants were in areas with high flood hazard and 16 were in areas with high wildfire potential."
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-flood-climate-change-nuclear-radioactive-sites-72bf711fe931a051709e44199c656267
#NoNukes #NoWar #NuclearWeapon s #NuclearWaste #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateCrisis #SeaLevelRise #GlacierMelt #PantexPlant #LosAlamos #CerroGrandeFire #SantaSusana #LawrenceLivermore #Hanford
Sites with radioactive material more vulnerable as climate change increases wildfire, flood risks
Climate climate change increasingly threatens research laboratories, weapons sites and power plants across the nation that handle or are contaminated with radioactive material or perform critical energy and defense research.TAMMY WEBBER (AP News)
The Lies Have It: #XcelEnergy Wins Operating Extension for Nation’s 5th Oldest Nuclear Reactor
by John Laforge, January 10, 2025
"I.F. Stone famously said, 'All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.' The aphorism applies well to #NuclearReactor operators, including Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy.
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (#NRC) has granted Xcel a second license extension for operating its 54-year-old #MonticelloReactor on the #MississippiRiver in #Minnesota. The decision will permit this GE jalopy, a #Fukushima clone, to run until it’s 80 years old — a dangerous feat never been done in the history of nuclear power. The NRC received over 3,000 public comments mostly critical of the extension, but the the commission has rubber stamped 87 of 92 similar requests, so call the NRC Never Really Concerned.
"The NRC nod is based partly on the commission’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (#EIS) for the re-licensing, even though the document confirms that Xcel repeatedly made false statements about its massive 2022-‘23 leak of #radioactive cooling water. According to a March 16, 2023 Associated Press (AP) story, Xcel’s first public response to the major leak was, 'There’s no danger to the public.' Xcel then proceeded to understate by more than half the leak’s actual volume, only estimating it was 400,000 gallons.
"Xcel eventually acknowledged that volume of the leak, from an old corroded underground pipe, was 829,000 gallons, and that the #groundwater plume of reactor cooling water — some of which would later reach the Mississippi River — had a radioactive footprint of some fourteen curies of #tritium — a very large amount. (For a reference, the 1979 partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island released an estimated 15 curies of gaseous radioactive iodine-131 to the Pennsylvania atmosphere. Other radioactive materials went into the Susquehanna River.)
"Xcel’s 829,000-gallon leak was always a direct threat to drinking water because — as the company’s own 2023 Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report states on page 13 — 'It is assumed groundwater continuously flows to the river…' The Mississippi is the drinking water source for 20 million people, including #Minneapolis, #StPaul and their surrounding suburbs 37 miles downstream from the leaky reactor."
Read more:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/10/the-lies-have-it-xcel-energy-wins-operating-extension-for-nations-5th-oldest-nuclear-reactor/
#RethinkNotRestart #NoNukes #NuclearPowerCorruptionAndLies #WaterIsLife #MonticelloNuclearPlant
by John Laforge, January 10, 2025
"I.F. Stone famously said, 'All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.' The aphorism applies well to #NuclearReactor operators, including Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy.
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (#NRC) has granted Xcel a second license extension for operating its 54-year-old #MonticelloReactor on the #MississippiRiver in #Minnesota. The decision will permit this GE jalopy, a #Fukushima clone, to run until it’s 80 years old — a dangerous feat never been done in the history of nuclear power. The NRC received over 3,000 public comments mostly critical of the extension, but the the commission has rubber stamped 87 of 92 similar requests, so call the NRC Never Really Concerned.
"The NRC nod is based partly on the commission’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (#EIS) for the re-licensing, even though the document confirms that Xcel repeatedly made false statements about its massive 2022-‘23 leak of #radioactive cooling water. According to a March 16, 2023 Associated Press (AP) story, Xcel’s first public response to the major leak was, 'There’s no danger to the public.' Xcel then proceeded to understate by more than half the leak’s actual volume, only estimating it was 400,000 gallons.
"Xcel eventually acknowledged that volume of the leak, from an old corroded underground pipe, was 829,000 gallons, and that the #groundwater plume of reactor cooling water — some of which would later reach the Mississippi River — had a radioactive footprint of some fourteen curies of #tritium — a very large amount. (For a reference, the 1979 partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island released an estimated 15 curies of gaseous radioactive iodine-131 to the Pennsylvania atmosphere. Other radioactive materials went into the Susquehanna River.)
"Xcel’s 829,000-gallon leak was always a direct threat to drinking water because — as the company’s own 2023 Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report states on page 13 — 'It is assumed groundwater continuously flows to the river…' The Mississippi is the drinking water source for 20 million people, including #Minneapolis, #StPaul and their surrounding suburbs 37 miles downstream from the leaky reactor."
Read more:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/10/the-lies-have-it-xcel-energy-wins-operating-extension-for-nations-5th-oldest-nuclear-reactor/
#RethinkNotRestart #NoNukes #NuclearPowerCorruptionAndLies #WaterIsLife #MonticelloNuclearPlant
The Lies Have It: Xcel Energy Wins Operating Extension for Nation’s 5th Oldest Nuclear Reactor - CounterPunch.org
I.F. Stone famously said, “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” The aphorism applies well to nuclear reactorJohn Laforge (CounterPunch.org)
Does anyone in #Philly have a #radioactive source that produces X-ray/gamma or beta #radiation, or know where I can visit / borrow one?
I bought a geiger counter alternative on Kickstarter, and I have no idea if it works. I could buy radioactive test material, but then I would be intentionally creating the situation I am trying to avoid: radiation in my house.
So I want to find a gamma or beta radiation source not in my house, to test my radiation detector, but I don't want to keep it.
I bought a geiger counter alternative on Kickstarter, and I have no idea if it works. I could buy radioactive test material, but then I would be intentionally creating the situation I am trying to avoid: radiation in my house.
So I want to find a gamma or beta radiation source not in my house, to test my radiation detector, but I don't want to keep it.