Category Archives: nuclear

Holy Crap

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Secret Cold War tests in St. Louis…

From the story:

But in 1994, the government said the tests were part of a biological weapons program and St. Louis was chosen because it bore some resemblance to Russian cities that the U.S. might attack. The material being sprayed was zinc cadmium sulfide, a fine fluorescent powder.

Now, new research is raising greater concern about the implications of those tests. St. Louis Community College-Meramec sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor’s research has raised the possibility that the Army performed radiation testing by mixing radioactive particles with the zinc cadmium sulfide, though she concedes there is no direct proof.

…makes you wonder what they’re doing now, in unsuspecting neighborhoods, for the war on terrorism?

My thoughts went to the chemtrails and how much they affect me and others.  I’ve definitely noticed a correlation between behavior and continuous (daily) spraying of trails.  When I had this last migraine, they had been spraying five or six trails at a time, all day,  every day, for three weeks.  (And I noticed that just before the elections in 2008, they were spraying the hell out of the skies for the four days prior to election day–keep your eyes on the skies before this election, folks, and see if you see the same phenomenon.)

Here’s a report on a news station:

I’ve read this this website before, but I can’t remember if I posted it.  A little dramatic, but I think there is cause for concern.

I went to the Environmental Working Group website, and could find nothing on the chemtrails.  Nothing on the Union for Concerned Scientists, either.

Joe Marmon has sued California authorities for contaminating the air.

Here’s a European take on the chemtrails phenomenon.

Czech Republic:

The coal debate

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I about fell off my chair when I heard the radio ad that Barack Obama “approves this message”.  I thought it sounded too much like an Onion spoof…but, alas…

The message?  He approves of coal…and fracking as viable energy sources.  Well, not that it’s a surprise that he *still* supports “clean coal”…but I thought that he at least had sense not to endorse fracking…I was apparently wrong.

Story here:  http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/09/obama_campaign_says_romney_not.html

Look at the faces of the miners–blackened with coal dust that contains mercury, lead, arsenic, and on...

91% of those children had respiratory problems–what more does it take?!  A 100%??

From the article:

But according to Stephen Lester, science director of the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, the air quality tests done at Marsh Fork were “extremely limited” and “provide meaningless information” since they did not test specifically for heavy metals like nickel, lead, arsenic, and mercury found in coal dust.  Rather, they conducted standard state tests for mold, air flow, and air filter upkeep

What a joke.  See, if you don’t acknowledge there’s a problem…then they don’t have to do something about it.  And the chemical industry/coal industry/nuclear industry…and on…can continue doing what they do without being held accountable.

A miner’s viewpoint here.

Environmental Working group has this from 2004.  And this from 2001:  the revolving door phenomenon.

This woman is a walking toxic dump.   Good Grief.  This a testament to our body’s ability to withstand a toxic beating and still try to correct the situation…but even the miracle of one’s body has its limits.

The problem with the situation is that as the above article states, scientists are testing folks for toxins in their systems, but they don’t know what it means–it doesn’t mean the presence of disease, but also doesn’t mean there’s no damage done.

From the article:

“Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s going to hurt you,” says Bruce Caswell, senior manager of environmental health and safety with the Canadian Chemical Producers Association. But it doesn’t mean it’s not hurting you either. We experience a constant barrage of synthetic stuff, even in the womb. Doses differ as do genetic and physiological vulnerabilities. “None of this belongs in our bodies. Period,” says Riina Bray, a family physician at Women’s College Hospital’s Environmental Health Clinic. Researchers suspect these toxic chemicals have links to a number of cancers, including breast, testicular and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, not to mention reproductive disorders and learning disabilities.

I wonder about the toxin drift as highlighted in this article with David Masty testing positive.  I think the bizarre actions of folks in the last decade or so are related to how toxic our environment is–that we’ve reached our limits of how much our bodies can take before we crash–and the result isn’t always physical, but mental.  This was one of the most surprising aspects of toxic poisoning that I’ve learned on this odyssey I’m on–I had no idea that toxins affected one’s mental abilities.  The medical profession has always treated mental issues as if they were exclusively a problem with the brain–not a likely result of toxic exposure.

And the children being born polluted…it should be enough to make every adult sit up and take notice….

Related to this is the EWG filing suit after Cuomo refuses to release all requested documents.

In my case, although there are numerous red flags, the FDA refuses to recognize that dental amalgams poison people–even though most folks on the mercury support group became sick within a year of amalgam placement.  And I know that living near a coal-burning power plant in the 70s also contributed to my mercury/lead/arsenic load.  Truly, it was when I first had mercury symptoms–only they were minor annoyances that would be misdiagnosed or ignored.

And the USDA is still recommending a diet that is heavily grain based, even though this may mean it is opening the door for mercury/heavy metal poisoning for Celiacs.

…and then the poor sap that falls ill will be met with the “you don’t have a right to food or shelter…”

Italy’s Chernobyl and other toxic disasters

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this up at commondreams. 

If there isn’t a big explosion, or bomb, or someone bleeding…well, it’s just *got to be* something else besides toxic chemicals.  Seriously.  There are people who, faced with evidence, will still not believe that chemicals can do so much harm.

Also up from common dreams is this.  I clicked on the link someone posted in the comments section for American Progress–the paper is too long for me to read on the limited time here, so I’ve scrolled down to the companies responsible for getting this law pulled–for the Midwest: Link here.   (In case this doesn’t work, the page number is 11.)

For the general list  (page 9) of those fighting the EPA:  link here.

Another article in the comments section on the same subject here.

Again, the articles address the affects to humans, such as asthma, but fail to entertain the scope of all of nature being affected by the poisonous air.  Not to mention the affects on crops.

Boiling Fish

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commondreams has this up on Illinois nuke plants dumping 100 degree water into the rivers and waterways…in essence, boiling the fish.  The cavalier attitude is typical–it’s just a couple of fish, what are you so keyed up about?

The comments section has some thoughtful comments–forcing them to reuse the heated water, forcing them to power down.  And as stated, they’re not in the business to power down–that’s cutting into their profits.  And we all know that utility companies will not do the conscientious thing like actually taking into account the environmental damage they may be causing.

Good Grief.

Population, Resources and Environment

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…is the name of the book I found at the library.  Authors:  Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich (1970, revised 1972)

As promised, this is the text concerning nuclear disaster–specifically, they were concerned with nuclear war (as were we all) but I think with all of the nuclear reactors out there, their theory could be applied:

[…] The entire climate of the Earth would soon be altered.  In many areas, where the supply of combustible materials was sufficient, huge fire-storms would be generated, some of them covering hundreds of square miles in heavily forested or metropolitan areas.  We know something about such storms from experience during the Second World War.  On the night of July 27, 1943, Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force dropped 2.417 tons of incendiary and high-explosive bombs on the city of Hamburg.  Thousands of individual fires coalesced into a fire storm about 6 square miles in area.  Flames reached 15,000 feet into the atmosphere, and smoke and gases rose to 40,000 feet.  Winds, created by huge updrafts and blowing in toward the center of the fire, reached a velocity of more than 150 miles per hour.  The temperature in the fire exceeded 1,450 degrees F, high enough to melt aluminum and lead.  Air in underground shelters was heated to the point where, when they were opened and oxygen was admitted, flammable materials and even corpses burst into flames.  These shelters had to be permitted to cool 120 days to two weeks before rescuers could enter.  [the authors make note of the book The Night Hamburg Died by Martin Caiden].

[…]

In many areas the removal of all vegetation would no be the only effect;  the soil might be partly or completely sterilized as well.  There would be no plant communities nearby to effect rapid repopulation and rains would wash away the topsoil.  Picture defoliated California hills during the winter rains, and then imagine the vast loads of silt and radioactive debris being washed from northern continents into offshore waters, the site of most of the ocean’s productivity.  Consider the fate of aquatic life, which is especially sensitive to the turbidity of the waer, and think of the many offshore oil wells that would be destroyed by blast in the vicinity of large cities and left to pour their loads of crude oil into the ocean with no way of shutting them off. [BP oil spill, anyone?]

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So…if there were a disaster such as Japan’s here, it would affect the entire area in much the same way.  Not as catastrophic as the above, but nevertheless, it would affect the area in much the same say, just on a smaller scale.  And what kind of domino effect would there be?  Because we all know that what happened in Japan didn’t stay in Japan–it migrated here, causing fish to become radioactive.  I found a more in-depth article here with the same researcher–puts a different light on it with him saying, in so many words, “it’s not that bad.”  Pfft.  What kills me is that they only measured fifteen fish, and ALL of them had it.  Yeah, nothing to see here, folks…move along….

Incidentally, the researcher mentions that funding for the project came from Noah.  I think that was the writer’s error, and he was actually saying NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

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Onto the next topic:  Synthetic Insecticides (same book)

Chlorinated Hydrocarbons

This group includes DDT, benzen hexachloride (BHC), dieldrin, endrin, aldrin, chlordane, lindane, isodrin, toxaphene, and similar compounds designed to kill insects.  DDT is the most thoroughly studied of the chlorinated hydrocarbons, and much of the following discussion is based on it.  Its behavior is more or less typical of the group, although other chlorinated hydrocarbons are more soluble in water, more toxic, less persistent, etc.   In insects and other animals these compounds act primarily on the central nervous system in ways that are not well understood, but the effects range from hypersexcitability to death following convulsions and paralysis.  Chronic effects on vertebrates include fatty infiltration of the heart, and fatty degeneration of the liver which is often fatal.  Fishes and other aquatic animals seem to be especially sensitive to chlorinated hydrocarbons.  Oxygen uptake is somehow blocked at the gills, causing death from suffocation.  That chlorinated hydrocarbons apparently can influence the production of enzymes may account for their wide range effects.

1.  Chlorinated hydrocarbons have a wide range of biological activity; they are broad-spectrum poisons, affecting many different organisms in many different ways.  They are toxic to essentially all animals including many vertebrates. 

2.  They have great stability.  It is not clear, for instance, ho long DDT persists in ecosystems.  Fifty percent of the DDT sprayed in a single treatment may still be found in a field 10 years later.  This does not mean, however, that the other 50 percent has been degraded to biologically inactive molecules;  it may only have gone somewhere else. […]

3.  Chlorinated hydrocarbons are very mobile.  For example, the chemical properties of DDT cause it to adhere to dust particles and thus get blown around the world.  Four different chlorinated hydrocarbons have been detected in dust filtered from the air over Barbados; frog populations in unsprayed areas high in the Sierra Nevada of California are polluted with DDT.  Furthermore, DDT codistills with water; when water evaporates and enters the atmosphere, DDT goes with it.  Chlorinated hydrocarbons thus travel in the air and surface waters.

(I found this reference, but was sorely disappointed at the statement that chlorinated hydrocarbons have only been used for the last ten years. Good Grief, a research paper that doesn’t have historical data.)

4. Finally, chlorinated hydrocarbons become concentrated in the fats of organisms.  If you think of the world as being partitioned into nonliving and living parts, then these pesticides may be thought of as moving continually from the physical environment into living systems.  To attempt to monitor DDT levels merely by testing water (as has been frequently done) is ridiculous.  Water is saturated with DDT –that is, can dissolve no more–when it has dissolved 1.2 parts per billion.  Besides, the chemical does not remain for long in water, it is quickly removed by any organisms that live in water. 

It is these four properties –extreme range of biological activity, stability, mobility, and affinity for living systems –that cause biologist’s fears that DDT and its relatives are degrading the life-support system of our planet.  If any one of these properties were lacking, the situation would be much less serious, but in combination they pose a deadly threat.

Organophosphates

This group includes parathion, malathion, Asodrin, diazinon, TEPP, phosdrin, and several others.  These poisons are descendatns of the nerve gas Tabun (disopropyl-flurophosphate), developed in Nazi Germany during WWII.  All of them are cholinesterase inhibitors; they inactivate the enzyme responsible for breaking down a nerve “transmitter substance,” acetylcholine.  The result is, in a acute cases of poisoning, a hyperactivity of the nervous system; the animal dies twitching and out of control. 

Unlike chlorinated hydrocarbons, organosphospates are unstable and non-persistent; thus, they tend not to produce chronic effects in ecosystems or to accumulate in food chains.

Organophosphates inhibit other enzymes as well as cholinesterase.  Indeed, some of those that show relatively high insect toxicity and low mammalian toxicity do so because they poison an esterase that is more critical to the functioning of insect rater than of mammalian nervous systems.  Malathion, which is violently poisonous to insects, is relatively nontoxic to mammals because the mammalian systems contain an enzyme, carboxy-estrase, that destroys malathion.  But toxic effects on mammals can occur when malathion is used in combination with other organophosphates, which apparently inhibit the carboxy-esterase enzyme. 

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I was trying to find something written about the effects of the pesticides on enzymes–much is talked about them in health circles–the general consensus is that with the advent of the chemical age, enzymes have been diminished.   They advocate raw foods, non-microwaved foods, and organic foods to increase enzyme activity.  Enzymes are even more reduced in toxic people like myself, so taking a supplement of enzymes is needed.

I’ve looked at photos of our parents and grandparents when they were our age, and they don’t look as old as the Boomer generation does at that same age.  Our skin doesn’t look as healthy, either–it doesn’t have that glow.    I have to think it’s from unhealthy food coupled with the toxins in the atmosphere.    FW has had many “Ozone days” this summer due to the stupid, unrelenting heat.  I didn’t think it affected me that much until I went out for a jog last week on an Ozone day.  I felt pretty good jogging, but when I was going up the stairs to my apartment, I started to wheeze.  Well now that was not good.  So now, when I could be jogging outdoors, I have to do aerobics inside.  Not that I mind aerobics, because it’s fun, but I’d rather be outside jogging.

Anyway, I’m concerned about the long term exposure of the chlorinated hydrocarbons–we’ve all been exposed.  How much?  How long a period?  How has our DNA been affected?  And just because at the writing of this book the organosphosphates were not of big concern, it was written decades ago–what new information has been uncovered?  And is it information that was researched without $$ from chemical companies or those with an agenda?

What would be…

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…the name for slow leakage of nuclear radiation?  Since China Syndrome means a core meltdown (to China)…we have to come up with some name for slow leakage of nuclear radiation….that does as much damage (or dread the thought *more damage*)…

How about Radiation Mist Syndrome?  The radiation slowly flows in the air, over the land– making people ill but not dead.  See, the public only gets concerned when people start dying, but if it’s not that dramatic, then…apathetic shrugs.

This article states the ratepayers paid $671 million for this boondoggle.  Couldn’t they have foreseen that tubes rubbing together would cause a problem?  It’s probably a bit simplistic, but it would seem that friction would be the first lesson these scientists would be aware of? And why are these plants allowed such long licenses?  Shouldn’t they have to be renewed every five years or so?  But, no, we couldn’t have that–they might actually find something wrong with them after spending millions to build them…

Good God, the end of the article, they say these were built during the Reagan years…yeah, I’d been shutting those babies down.

Nuclear Disaster

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common dreams has this up.

I was reading about all the consequences of nuclear disaster in the ecology textbook yesterday…brought back a lot of that anxiety of the 60s and 70s…

The costs are enormous and not necessarily recoverable.  The book likened it to what happened in Hamburg during WWII– it was July, 1943, that Hamburg was just plastered with bombs.  There were fires that shot flames 1500 feet into the air.  People were incinerated by the heat.  They reported that bomb shelters were turned into infernos and rescue workers could not enter them for two weeks following the bombing.  The book likened this to nuclear disaster because of the chemical component that poisoned the land, rivers, killed the humans and wildlife in the area.  It was total devastation of life. And the soils would not recover from the chemical devastation that killed not only vegetation, but the beneficial soil bacteria that helped the rooted ones to survive.

I’ll have to write a more thorough report of how the book details the ripple effect of nuclear disaster–chilling.

China Syndrome

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… they lied…as DN reported before.

I wonder how much of that radiation made its way to the U.S. via the ocean and the air currents?

Here’s a link on the subject…if they detected it as far as Massachusetts and North Carolina, you can bet there was much more radiation over the western half of the States than is being admitted.  I wonder how many folks have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer since the accident?  And if they are diagnosed, how many doctors are doing detective work to find the cause?  My bet is that they will blame the patient or will not even recognize thyroid issues and instead diagnose the patient with psychosomatic illness?  Nah, that can’t happen…/snark.