Here’s a groaner, at least I think so — Bush reports that he considered sending troops to Darfur, according to the article below, making some Very Muddled commentary on the UN and “unilateral” action; it almost sounds like sarcasm. He didn’t, of course — actual humanitarian projects don’t seem to interest him, overly [think Katrina,] and I’d assume that he has enough control of the oil in the region to pretty much nullify those random daydreams of heroism he enjoys.
But Darfur DOES have liquid gold of a sort, and that’s the Very Good News of the day! A gi-normous underground lake has been spotted beneath their feet — now, if the region can only be stabilized long enough for engineers and the like to give them access, it could turn that part of the world around. Potential — visualize it done!
The next groaner is a heads-up on Uncle Dick’s running the country while the Dubby’s asleep … no, I don’t mean as usual; I mean when the doctors are performing a colonoscopy on him tomorrow. I will forgo the hand-puppet comments in relation to Cheney’s hand … but maybe they’ll find the stick George has up his butt. And let’s pray that Dick doesn’t start his long-dreamed-of war with Iran while the Dubby snores. Potential – visualize the Dick preoccupied with oil profits and Bull markets for a couple of hours.
The last pffffft! is just another cartoon-esque example of why the Fundamental Right is losing power by the handful … and why religion is no longer the club to bludgeon unbelievers it used to be. A CNN round table [on religion in the coming election] last night brought this comment from my son: Nice to hear intelligent conversation, for a change. Potential — a continued discrediting of rigidity and return to sanity; pray for it.
Three groaners and a happy thought — to take us into the weekend.
Jude
Bush says weighed sending US troops to Darfur
Raw Story
Thursday July 19, 2007
US President George W. Bush said Thursday that he had considered, and discarded, the idea of sending US troops unilaterally to Sudan’s Darfur province to halt what he calls “genocide” there.
“I made the decision not to send US troops unilaterally into Darfur,” he said. “I made the decision in consultations with allies, as well as consultations with members of Congress and activists.”
The embattled president’s comments came during a brief trip to Nashville to tout his economic policies and defend his handling of the unpopular war in Iraq.
Bush, who has increasingly expressed impatience with efforts to deploy a UN force to work with African Union peacekeepers already there, discussed the sluggish pace of progress on Tuesday with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“I’ve talked to Ban Ki-Moon about this, and this is a slow, tedious process to hold a regime accountable for what only one nation in the world has called a genocide, and that is us,” said the president.
“Therefore, what do you do? And if one is unwilling to take on action individually, then it requires international collaboration, and so we’re now in the United Nations,” he said.
According to UN estimates, at least 200,000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine since the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur erupted in February 2003.
The civil war broke out when rebel groups complaining of marginalization by Khartoum launched a rebellion, which was brutally repressed by the Sudanese government and its proxy militia, the Janjaweed.
A May 2006 peace deal failed to halt the fighting. Only one rebel group signed on and then promptly split into competing factions.
“We are now working to make sure that holds by insisting that the revenue sharing agreement of the oil on Sudan is effective,” said Bush.
“We have taken unilateral moves other than military moves,” he noted, pointing to economic sanctions on individuals blamed for the violence.
On Tuesday, Ban told Bush during talks at the White House that he would “step up” UN efforts on Darfur after “positive” talks in Tripoli on holding new negotiations between Khartoum and fragmented rebel groups.
Ban said Darfur negotiations were set for Arusha, Tanzania, in early August, and vowed to accelerate moves toward the deployment of a joint UN-African Union force.
“We are also going to facilitate humanitarian assistance,” the UN chief added. “I am going to step up efforts to deploy hybrid operations as soon as possible in Darfur, to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
On Monday, Ban urged the UN Security Council to vote this week on a draft resolution authorizing the deployment of a joint UN-AU force, saying it would allow more than 20,000 military personnel and civilian police into the strife-torn province.
Researchers: Underground Lake Could Bring Peace to Darfur
Democracy NOW
7/20/07
In Darfur, a team of international geologists say they’ve discovered the imprint of a vast underground lake that could help put an end to the mass killings there. Researchers say the so-called ‘mega lake’ is three times the size of Lebanon. Farouk el-Baz of Boston University’s Center for Remote Sensing said the potential water source could be the key to peace.
Farouk el-Baz:
“What most people don’t really know is that the fight, the war, the instability in Darfur, is all based on the lack of water, simply put, nothing else. So now, if you find water for the farmers, if you find water, in addition to that to the nomads, if you find water in addition to these two for agricultural production, to feed them, to give them grain, then you resolve the problem completely.”
Up to 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Sudanese-backed militias and rebel groups. In a report last month the UN Development Programme said widespread environmental problems are the root of the violence.
Bush to Have Colonoscopy at Camp David
DEB RIECHMANN, Huffwire
July 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — President Bush will have a routine colonoscopy Saturday and temporarily hand presidential powers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House said.
Press secretary Tony Snow told reporters Friday that Bush will have the procedure at his Camp David, Md., mountaintop retreat.
He last had such a colorectal cancer check on June 29, 2002.
“As reported at the time and in subsequent physical exams, absent any symptoms, the president’s doctor recommended repeat surveillance in approximately five years,” Snow said. “The president has had no symptoms.”
Two polyps were discovered during examinations in 1998 and 1999, while Bush was governor of Texas. That made Bush a prime candidate for regular examinations. For the general population, a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer is recommended every 10 years. But for people at higher risk or if a colonoscopy detects precancerous polyps, follow-up colonoscopies often are scheduled in three- to five-year intervals.
“Although no polyps were noted in the exam in 2002, age and history would suggest that there’s a reasonable chance that polyps will be noted this time,” Snow said. “If so, they’ll be removed and evaluated microscopically.” Bush is 61.
Snow said results would be available after 48 hours to 72 hours, if not sooner.
The procedure will be supervised by Dr. Richard Tubb, the president’s doctor. It will be done by a team from the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md. Because the president will be under the effects of anesthesia, Bush has elected to implement Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, making Cheney acting president until Bush indicates he is prepared to reassume his authority.
In 2002, Bush transferred presidential powers to Cheney for more than two hours.
During Saturday’s transfer of power, the vice president will be at his home on the Chesapeake Bay in St. Michaels, Md., about 30 miles east of Washington, Snow said.
The 2002 transfer was only the second time that the Constitution’s presidential disability clause was invoked. President Reagan was the first to invoke the Constitution’s 25th Amendment since its adoption in 1967 as a means of dealing with presidential disability and succession.
The earlier colonoscopy for Bush also was done at the medical facility at Camp David near Thurmont, Md. Bush felt well enough afterward to play with his dogs and take a 4 1/2-mile walk with first lady Laura Bush and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Card’s wife. Bush then went to the gym for a light workout.
The 2002 procedure began at 7:09 a.m and ended at 7:29 a.m. Bush woke up two minutes later but did not resume his presidential office until 9:24 a.m., after Tubb conducted an overall examination. Tubb said he recommended the additional time to make sure the sedative had no aftereffects.
President of the Christian Action League, 74, Is Arrested after Paying Hooker with Checks
Privette on two occasions allegedly paid the prostitute with checks then reported the checks stolen.
Jon Ponder, Pensito Review
Jul. 19, 2007
Rev. Coy Privette, the president of the Christian Action League, a North Carolina ultraconservative Christian political organization based in Raleigh, has been arrested for soliciting prostitution:
Privette, 74, was charged with six counts of misdemeanor aiding and abetting prostitution by renting a hotel room and paying for sexual acts, according to State Bureau of Investigation Agent Kevin Canty. Tiffany Denise Summers, 32, of Salisbury, was charged with six counts of misdemeanor prostitution, Canty said.
And:
Police said officers were investigating a forged check case, which led them to the prostitution charges. Privette on two occasions allegedly paid the prostitute with checks then reported those checks as stolen, officials said.
According to its website, the Christian Action League is:
a Christian public policy organization that addresses public policy and legislative issues from a Christian worldview. The Christian Action League has a full-time presence in the General Assembly of North Carolina and has garnered considerable respect from both the Republican and Democratic parties. The League’s purpose is to assist the church in fulfilling Christ’s command to be the “salt” and the “light” of the earth.
The Christian Action League is funded by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, and it is affiliated with the ultra-rightwing American Family Association.
For over three decades, Privette has been one of the best known and most outrageous spokesmen for “family values” and Christian extreme right politics in North Carolina. In the 1970s, he was serving as minister at the North Kannapolis Baptist Church when he joined the tide of evangelicals entering politics that included the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition. He served in the N.C. Legislature from 1984 to 1992, and has been a member of the board of commissioners in Cabarrus County since 1998.
He and his wife, Betty, have four children.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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July 20th, 2007
There was a 6-something earthquake in the SF Bay Area today — cracked windows, broken stuff but no actual emergency. When I was a kid, rocking back on my chair at the dining table in the Berkeley hills, this was the point in which my mother gave me “I told you so” grief. Can’t tell you how often I went splat. I was a daredevil, having a life-long flirtation with the feeling of finding myself on a brief roller coaster ride, sudden, unexpected. I saw lots of damage, but little tragedy — I’d have been less cavalier, I’m sure, if I’d seen the Oakland freeway collapse in the 90’s … or been in the 60’s quake that spelled disaster for Alaska, as was my grandfather … or the devastation of San Francisco a hundred years ago, the infamous quake that brought my great-grandparents together.
I suppose this rock ‘n roll stuff is encoded in my DNA … and it was something of a bemusement, but no shock, to find that living here in the Pea Patch, I’m nestled over America’s biggest and least active [at least for now] fault line.
There were many small quakes when I was a child … a few a week, at least — better to have the small than the large, of course. And best of all, to consider BEFOREHAND what damage they might do, what unthinkable collection of Pandora’s they might release upon the world. Japan might be thinking about that today — we should ALL be thinking about it; the last article makes that clear. So — even if I have a few geothermal quirks — I promote sanity on this issue.
NO MORE NUKES!
Jude
UPDATE:
CORRECTION to last post — the Oakland earthquake was only a 4.1 — rock ‘n roll! Bygones. By the way, if you’re a quake junky, pop this link into your favorites for breaking news.
The Earthquake That Screamed “NO NUKES!!!”
Harvey Wasserman, CommonDreams
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The massive earthquake that shook Japan this week nearly killed millions in a nuclear apocalypse.
It also produced one of the most terrifying sentences ever buried in a newspaper. As reported deep in the New York Times, the Tokyo Electric Company has admitted that “the force of the shaking caused by the earthquake had exceeded the design limits of the reactors, suggesting that the plant’s builders had underestimated the strength of possible earthquakes in the region.”
There are 55 reactors in Japan. Virtually all of them are on or near major earthquake faults. Kashiwazaki alone hosts seven, four of which were forced into the dangerous SCRAM mode to narrowly avoid meltdowns. At least 50 separate serious problems have been so far identified, including fire and the spillage of barrels filled with radioactive wastes.
There are four active reactors in California on or near major earthquake faults, as are the two at Indian Point north of New York City. On January 31, 1986, an earthquake struck the Perry reactor east of Cleveland, knocking out roads and bridges, as well as pipes within the plant, which (thankfully) was not operating at the time. The governor of Ohio, then Richard Celeste, sued to keep Perry shut, but lost in federal court.
The fault that hit Perry is an off-shoot of the powerful New Madrid line that runs through the Mississippi River Valley, threatening numerous reactors. The Beyond Nuclear Project reports that in August, 2004, a quake hit the Dresden reactor in Illinois, resulting in a leak of radioactive tritium. Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, slated as the nation’s high-level radioactive waste dump, has a visible fault line running through it.
More than 400 atomic reactors are on-line worldwide. How many are vulnerable to seismic shocks we can only shudder to guess. But one-eighth of them sit in one of the world’s richest, most technologically advanced, most densely populated industrial nations, which has now admitted its reactor designs cannot match the power an earthquake that has just happened.
In whatever language it’s said, that translates into the unmistakable warning that the world’s atomic reactors constitute a multiple, ticking seismic time bomb. Talk of building more can only be classified as suicidal irresponsibility.
Tokyo Electric’s behavior since the quake defines the industry’s credibility. For three consecutive days (with more undoubtedly to come) the utility has been forced to issue public apologies for erroneous statements about the severity of the damage done to the reactors, the size and lethality of radioactive spills into the air and water, the on-going danger to the public, and much more.
Once again, the only thing reactor owners can be trusted to do is to lie.
Prior to the March 28, 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island, the industry for years assured the public that the kind of accident that did happen was “impossible.”
Then the utility repeatedly assured the public there had been no melt-down of fuel and no danger of further catastrophe. Nine years later a robotic camera showed that nearly all the fuel had melted, and that avoiding a full-blown catastrophe was little short of a miracle.
The industry continues to say no one was killed at TMI. But it does not know how much radiation was released, where it went or who it might have harmed. Since 1979 its allies in the courts have denied 2400 central Pennsylvania families the right to test their belief that they and their loved ones have been killed and maimed en masse.
Prior to its April 26, 1986, explosion, Soviet Life Magazine ran a major feature extolling the virtually “accident-proof design” of Chernobyl Unit Four.
Then the former Soviet Union of Mikhail Gorbachev kept secret the gargantuan radiation releases that have killed thousands and yielded a horrific plague of cancers, leukemia, birth defects and more throughout the region, and among the more than 800,000 drafted “jumpers” who were forced to run through the plant to clean it up.
Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the industry has claimed its reactors can withstand the effects of a jet crash, and are immune to sabotage. The claims are as patently absurd as the lies about TMI and Chernobyl.
So, too, the endless, dogged assurances from Japan that no earthquake could do to Kashiwazaki what has just happened.
Yet today and into the future, expensive ads will flood the US and global airwaves, full of nonsense about the “need” for new nukes.
There is only one thing we know for certain about this advertising: it is a lie.
Atomic reactors contribute to global warming rather than abating it. In construction, in the mining, milling and enriching of the fuel, in on-going “normal” releases of heat and radioactivity, in dismantling and decommissioning, in managing radioactive wastes, in future terror attacks, in proliferation of nuke weapons, and much much more, atomic energy is an unmitigated eco-disaster.
To this list we must now add additional tangible evidence that reactors allegedly built to withstand “worst case” earthquakes in fact cannot. And when they go down, the investment is lost, and power shortages arise (as is now happening in Japan) that are filled by the burning of fossil fuels.
It costs up to ten times as much to produce energy from a nuke as to save it with efficiency. Advances in wind, solar and other green “Solartopian” technologies mean atomic energy simply cannot compete without massive subsidies, loan guarantees and government insurance to protect it from catastrophes to come.
This latest “impossible” earthquake has not merely shattered the alleged safeguards of Japan’s reactor fleet. It has blown apart—yet again—any possible argument for building more reactors anywhere on this beleaguered Earth.
Nuclear Power No Panacea, Critics Say
Haider Rizvi, Inter Press Service
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
[this article contains an excellent picture of quake damage]
UNITED NATIONS - The nuclear mishap caused by Monday’s earthquake in Japan has unleashed another wave of environmental concerns about the use of nuclear technology to meet the world’s energy needs.
“Nuclear power is hardly the safe panacea its supporters claim it to be,” said Norman Dean of Friends of the Earth (FoE), a network of hundreds of environmental groups around the world.
Raising similar concerns, the environmental group Greenpeace International’s Jan Beranek described the Kashiwazaki nuclear site incident as another “reminder” that nuclear power “is not safe”.
Both Dean and Beranek warned of “far more serious nuclear accidents” and “real risks” posed by earthquakes and industrial disasters, as well as possible terrorist attacks in the future.
Monday’s earthquake killed nine and wounded more than 1,000 people, in addition to causing a radioactive leak and fire at the world’s largest nuclear-power producing plant.
Japan’s energy officials have acknowledged that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant leaked hundreds of gallons of water that was contaminated with radioactive waste.
However, they described the amount of radioactive waste mixed with water as “tiny,” and said there had been “no significant change” in the sea water and that there was no effect on the environment.
Greenpeace accused Japanese officials of “lying” in their initial assessment of the impact of the fire — in which they said there was no danger of radioactive leakage — adding that the Japanese and global nuclear industries have been marred by a series of accidents and cover-ups.
According to environmentalists, there are many similarities between what happened in Japan and an incident at Germany’s Krummel power plant last month, in which a fire broke out in the transformers building and damaged the reactor.
“In Germany, the industry first claimed that the fire had no impact on reactor safety,” said Beranek, “[but] in realty the fire led to serious malfunctions that directly threatened the safety of the reactor.”
Various agencies measured Monday’s earthquake between 6.7 and 6.8 on the Richter scale.
The quake hit on Marine Day, an official holiday in Japan, when most people were inside their homes. The Japanese media reported that a series of smaller aftershocks are still going on.
On Monday, authorities said they had evacuated some 2,000 people whose homes had been completely destroyed by the quake.
Critics point out that this was not the first time the Japanese nuclear industry has tried to cover up a nuclear accident.
According to Beranek, for example, the Hokuriku utility did not inform the public or nuclear inspectors about a serious incident that took place at the Shika nuclear power plant, where a mechanical failure in 1999 led to an uncontrolled chain reaction.
In April 2006, there was a radioactive spill of 40 litres of liquid containing plutonium in the brand new reprocessing plant in Rokkasho-Mura, the group said, adding that in August 2004, a pipe was ruptured in the Mihama plant, which resulted in the death of five workers.
More famously, nuclear meltdowns occurred at Three Mile Island in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania in 1979 and in 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the former Soviet Union. A recent Greenpeace report estimated that 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancers were caused by that disaster.
Greenpeace and many other environmental groups have repeatedly called for the United Nations, United States and other powerful nations to stop promoting nuclear technology as an alternative to fossil fuels.
In April 2006, some leading European politicians raised serious questions about the U.N.’s role in encouraging countries to acquire nuclear energy for non-military purposes.
Former environment ministers from European countries, including Russia, sent a letter to the former U.N. chief Kofi Annan urging him to reform the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“Nuclear power is no longer necessary,” they said in the letter. “We have now numerous renewable technologies available to guarantee the right to safe, clean, and cheap energy.”
Greenpeace’s Beranek echoed the same message Monday. “Nuclear power undermines real solutions to climate change, by diverting resources away from the massive development of clean energy sources the world urgently needs,” he said.
“What’s more,” he added, “climate change will increase natural disasters, in turn posing a greater risk to nuclear power plants, and to our safety.”
But this line of reasoning has failed to win over many of the world’s most powerful nations. In July last year, when leaders of the world’s most industrialised countries, known as the Group of Eight, gathered in St. Petersburg, Russia, they signed a joint statement saying that nuclear energy is one way to address climate change.
Many environmentalists see nuclear reactors as dangerous because in addition to natural disasters they are also vulnerable to unintentional human error.
“Energy conservation and wind and solar power are cleaner and safer than nuclear power,” said Dean. “They are a better way to fight global warming.”
Japan’s nuclear leak: earthquakes, fire and fault lines
by bex, Greenpeace UK
19 July 2007
On Monday, an earthquake hit Kashiwazaki in north-western Japan, killing nine people and injuring hundreds more. Already a disaster for the citizens of Kashiwazaki, thousands of whom are now living in shelters, things could have been much, much worse.
Kawashaki is the location of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant – the site of seven nuclear reactors. At first it was thought that the 6.8 magnitude earthquake had just caused a fire at the plant and Tepco – the nuclear company - initially said no radioactivity was released. “No harm” was done, said a spokesperson.
Then we were told that in fact there had been a leak, but it was only 1.5 gallons of radioactive water. On Tuesday, it emerged that just a smidgen more radioactive water might have leaked than 1.5 gallons. About 243 times more. And the water was 50 times more radioactive than had been stated.
Then came the news that around a hundred nuclear waste barrels had fallen over - but only a couple of dozen of them lost their lids and leaked low grade nuclear waste. Finally, there was the atmospheric release of cobalt-60, chromium-51 and radioactive iodine…
Yesterday, came the revelation that the power plant sits over a fault. I’ll say that again: The world’s biggest nuclear power plant was built bang on top of an active fault line.
“We did not assume an earthquake of this magnitude at the time of designing the nuclear power plant,” said a Tepco official. “After looking at aftershock location data, we have come to realize a fault lies right below the plant.”
Apart from bearing a terrifying resemblance to The Onion’s satirical take on the story (”What a shame. In every other respect, that earthquake zone was the perfect place to build a nuclear reactor,” was one of their fabricated quotes), the statement directly contradicts the claim made on Tepco’s own website:
“Designed for the Largest Conceivable Earthquake: Before constructing a nuclear power plant, the site is carefully studied for previous earthquake records and geological features. This study establishes that there is no active fault under the site.”
It also neatly sidesteps the fact that, two years ago, local residents took out a lawsuit to close the plant because, they said, there was an active fault line there. (They lost.)
Our Making Waves blog is keeping an eye on the news from Kawashaki so keep checking there for regular updates, and find out what you can do to stop new nuclear power plants from being built here in the UK.
Concerns Rise Over Vulnerability of U.S. Atomic Facilities to Earthquakes After World’s Largest Nuclear Plant Damaged by Japanese Quake
Linda Gunter, Beyond Nuclear
MARYLAND — JULY 18— The extensive damage at a seven-reactor nuclear power plant in Japan after an earthquake this week is stoking concern that U.S. reactors and other nuclear facilities may also be vulnerable to releases of deadly radioactivity into the environment due to earthquakes.
Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa atomic power plant, the largest in the world in terms of electricity output, suffered 50 cases of “malfunctioning and trouble” after a 6.7 tremor struck nearby two days ago. Radioactively contaminated water, now calculated at more than 600 gallons, leaked into the Pacific Ocean and an estimated 400 barrels containing radioactive waste tipped over, with 10% of the lids falling off. Hazardous radioactive isotopes, cobalt-60 and chromium-51, were emitted into the atmosphere from an exhaust stack.
Concerns that a similar event could happen here are confirmed by an incident in August 2004, when an earthquake in Illinois broke an underground pipe attached to one of the Dresden nuclear power plant’s radioactive waste condensate storage tanks. The broken pipe was leaking tritium (a harmful, radioactive form of hydrogen) into groundwater, creating an expanding underground plume of hazardous radioactive contamination.
Several U.S. atomic reactors may be especially vulnerable to earthquakes. The twin reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, California was already built before it was discovered that an earthquake fault line associated with the infamous San Andreas Fault lay just offshore in the Pacific Ocean.
Fires, such as the one that broke out in Japan, are also a legitimate U.S. concern.
“Earthquakes are notorious for sparking fires, which could spell disaster at U.S. nuclear power plants given that many are not in compliance with safety regulations for fire protection and reactor shutdown systems,” said Paul Gunter, the nuclear industry watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, and an expert on nuclear plant fire protection. “An earthquake-sparked inferno, or failure to safely shut down a reactor, could lead to a meltdown, catastrophic release of radioactivity, and deadly fallout hundreds of miles downwind and downstream,” Gunter added.
A 1982 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, known as CRAC-2, shows that a major accident at a U.S. atomic reactor could cause tens to hundreds of thousands of radiation-related deaths and injuries, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars of property damage.
Risks extend to the radioactive wastes stored on-site at U.S. reactors as well.
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit last month against the NRC for failing to enforce its earthquake safety regulations for outdoor storage of high-level radioactive wastes at the Palisades atomic reactor on the shores of Lake Michigan. The lake supplies drinking water for Chicago and millions downstream.
“An earthquake could bury the containers under sand causing the nuclear fuel rods to overheat, or could even submerge them under the waters of Lake Michigan,” said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear. “This could initiate a nuclear chain reaction in the wastes making emergency response a suicide mission. In either case, it would amount to a radiological disaster for Lake Michigan and the millions who depend on it for drinking water.”
Earthquake risks also plague the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada dumpsite for commercial and military high-level radioactive wastes. Nearly three dozen earthquake fault lines are in the vicinity, and two faults actually intersect the proposed burial spot. Many hundreds of tremors larger than 2.5 on the Richter scale have struck within 50 miles of Yucca Mountain since 1975. One jolt, measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, struck just ten miles from Yucca Mountain in 1992, doing extensive damage to the U.S. Department of Energy’s field office at the site. Critics fear that a major earthquake at the dump site could cause a radiological catastrophe by damaging waste handling surface facilities planned for the site, or could cause tunnel collapses that would breach waste burial containers, spilling their deadly contents into the drinking water aquifer below.
“The risks of earthquakes alone are reason enough to stop the Yucca Mountain dump proposal dead in its tracks right now,” said Kamps.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ringtones in spanishmmf ringtoneson upstage ringtones samsungringtones simon paulringtones card razr sd v3cringtones counts count thewith contract ringtones nomembership ringtones fees without Map
July 20th, 2007