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04/29/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.104
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NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
1 Discovery of USGS report shows need for more study
2 A burning issue in the land of Bush
3 Nuclear power may revive
4 Texas PUC ordered TXU and Reliant to return billions to ratepayers
5 The Age: Nuclear power: The case for
6 The Age: Nuclear power: The case against
7 M1 protesters target uranium miners
8 Nuclear dump fight heats up again in Austin
9 A teenage sufferer of skin cancer caused by exposure to radiation.
10 Nuclear plant study reveals cancer cluster
11 Cancer cluster found close to nuclear plant
12 Young lives blighted in a nuclear wasteland
13 A deadly silence Government must be more open
14 Anti-Temelin Blockade of Wullowitz Crossing Ends
15 Austrian Environment Minister Unhappy About Prague's Temelin Note
16 Full Speed Ahead on Cleanup
17 Nuclear reactor shut down in Ukraine
18 Young victims of Chernobyl blast find hope in Israel
19 Mine-Waste Cleanup to Resume, Next concern is funding for
20 Public can weigh in on Duke plan to use plutonium in fuel
21 Bond asks Energy Department to lift ban on Mizzou reactor shipments
22 NRC finds potential problem at Kewaunee nuclear plant
23 Browns Ferry anticipating $99 million in upgrade
24 100 protest N-waste storage
25 Jabiluka traditional owners not convinced mine won't proceed
26 Stephenville recognized for Chornobyl efforts 4/27/01
27 Nuclear Reactor Shut Down in Ukraine
28 Nuclear safety and spent fuel import in Russia
29 Chernobyl Nuclear Fallout Still Being Felt
30 Asia Times: Chernobyl's poisonous legacy lives on By Sergei Blagov
31 Managers can learn from NU's errors
32 Regulators probe nuclear power plant
33 Say the words "nuclear power plant" and what images come to mind?
NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
1 Lugar fires salvo on Soviet nukes
2 U.S. Considers Shift In Nuclear Targets
3 Protests disrupt Vieques bombing
4 Bogota police foil 'atom bomb' sale
5 Study on hereditary A-bomb effects slated for next-generation
6 It's Cold War up North
7 Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq
8 Metro:Lawmakers oppose plan to cut facility's budget
9 Navy Bombing on Vieques Disrupted
10 Nuclear activist swims into Faslane
11 Protester paints hull of nuclear sub
12 US team in China to inspect spy plane
13 Officials look to weigh effects of new Hanford jobs
14 Bin Laden said to have nukes
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NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
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1 Discovery of USGS report shows need for more study
RGJ.com -
April 29th, 2001
This month’s disclosure of a 1994 study that found radioactivity
in Fallon-area wells is strong evidence that a lot of work
remains to be done in the search for the cause of a cluster of at
least 12 childhood leukemia cases diagnosed there in the past two
years.
It’s hard to understand how the state and federal officials
investigating the illnesses missed the U.S. Geological Survey
report, which determined that water from 31 of 73 wells tested
contained radioactive minerals exceeding federal standards. The
wells are used for agricultural and drinking water, though no
radioactivity was found in the deeper wells used by Fallon’s
municipal water system.
There is no evidence yet linking the naturally occurring
radioactivity to the leukemia cases, but radioactivity is a known
trigger for cancer and the report could provide the clue that
researchers have been looking for. So it’s important that federal
officials agree to the request of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and Rep.
Jim Gibbons that wells in the Carson River Basin be retested as
quickly as possible (and before federal budget cuts affect the
USGS program) to determine if the radioactivity has increased in
the past decade.
It’s also important that federal and state officials go back to
the drawing board to ensure that they haven’t missed any other
long-forgotten reports that might contain clues to the cluster.
There’s no telling what data might be lying under a layer of dust
on a bookshelf somewhere.
©2001 Reno Gazette-Journal
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2 A burning issue in the land of Bush
[Thestar.com] **
Apr. 29, 2001. 01:00 AM
As energy-starved Americans look for alternatives, their
government heaps praise on the potential of nuclear power
William Walker
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTONIT HAS taken 22 years since the nuclear power
industry's meltdown for the notion of building new U.S. reactors
to become fashionable again.
At least for Republicans in Washington.
The frightening 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile
Island plant was a near meltdown of the reactor's core that
released radioactive gas into the atmosphere. Combined shortly
thereafter with a chilling fictional movie portrayal of a nuclear
meltdown in The China Syndrome, it effectively turned out the
lights on the nuclear industry.
Then, in 1986 - 15 years ago last Thursday - came the harrowing
nuclear tragedy at the Chernobyl power plant in the former Soviet
Union in which 31 people were killed immediately and an estimated
8,000 others died later of cancer and radiation-related
illnesses.
By that time, the American nuclear industry appeared to have no
future. Hundreds of reactors were closed or decommissioned, the
approval process for new reactors was stopped and utilities
across the United States went back to relying on burning coal and
oil and harnessing hydroelectric power.
Today, only 18 per cent of America's dwindling electricity
supply is provided by 103 nuclear plants in 31 states. That
compares with 60 per cent of the supply in electricity-rich
Ontario.
But, for a decade or more, U.S. nuclear lobbyists have been
predicting a renaissance for the industry. Finally, it may
actually be happening.
Deeply ingrained public fear of nuclear power may be subsiding
amid more urgent concerns about rising natural gas prices, an
energy crisis in California and worry over fossil fuel emissions
from coal and oil.
President George W. Bush favours the oil and gas industry, which
heavily subsidized his campaign for president.
Some American environmental activists, already apoplectic about
the Bush administration's environmental record, are even
suggesting the flirtation with nuclear power is a mask for Bush
to advance the interests of the oil industry.
Others fear that the hawks on Bush's team are eyeing nuclear
plants as a means of producing more military by-products such as
tritium, which is used in nuclear warheads.
Bush appointed Vice-President Dick Cheney to head a task force
on energy solutions. Already, Cheney and Bush are singing nuclear
energy's praises, a change of tune for the downtrodden industry.
The government couches its pro-nuclear comments in environmental
do-goodism, stressing how nuclear power can help achieve targets
to reduce emissions blamed for global warming because it doesn't
produce carbon dioxide the way fossil fuels do.
This same administration recently announced it has no intention
of signing on to the landmark Kyoto agreement on reducing fossil
fuel emissions, although it does plan to deal with the issue of
carbon dioxide at some point in the future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then
you ought to build nuclear power plants. If you're really serious
about greenhouse gases, one of the solutions to that problem is
to go back and take another look at nuclear power' - Dick Cheney,
U.S. vice-president
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
``If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions,
then you ought to build nuclear power plants,'' Cheney said last
month. ``If you're really serious about greenhouse gases, one of
the solutions to that problem is to go back and take another look
at nuclear power.''
Republican House Majority Whip Tom DeLay talks about pushing
nuclear power in Congress and predicts new plants will be
approved soon. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham pledges to look
favourably on nuclear power and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans
wants nuclear power to be ``part of the long-term solution to
America's deepening energy troubles.''
Yet Bush and his slim Republican majority in Congress are likely
to have a major fight on their hands over nuclear power. As well
as lingering safety concerns about operations and waste storage,
taxpayers have to be convinced that the astronomical costs and
staggering lead time needed for nuclear power plants are worth
it.
What is shaping up as a repeat of an old debate has
ramifications for Canada as well, and not only for the moribund
nuclear industry. The prospect of hydroelectric sales to northern
states and the building of gas and oil pipelines to the United
States from reserves in the Northwest Territories have been
discussed by Bush and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
Even before the U.S. debate begins in earnest, some supporters
argue the American public's perception about nuclear plants is
changing.
As the hot tubs keep conking out in California, a pro-industry
lobby group says a survey it commissioned showed support for
using nuclear generation to boost electricity supply jumped from
33 per cent to 52 per cent in the western United States from
October, 1999, to January, 2001.
Nationally, the support for nuclear power went from 42 per cent
to 51 per cent over the same time period. The newest poll shows
the support level this month at 66 per cent.
The survey was done by Bisconti Research Inc. for the Nuclear
Energy Institute, which spends $28.5 million (U.S.) annually
trying to revive nuclear power.
``There's absolutely no question we're encouraged by it,'' says
institute spokesperson Mitch Singer. ``It's our view that new
plants will be built within the next five years.''
An Associated Press poll done this month found not only that 50
per cent of respondents are in favour of nuclear energy, but also
that 55 per cent would support a nuclear reactor being built near
their home.
Singer says Three Mile Island was the catalyst for increased
training of nuclear operators and more efficiently run plants.
Reactors were out of service an average of 101 days a year five
years ago, but that number is now down to 41.
Nuclear power opponents dispute the industry's arguments.
``Every public opinion poll we've seen consistently shows that a
significant majority of the public remains against building more
nuclear power plants,'' says Gene Korpinski, an environmental
expert with the Washington-based Public Interest Research Group.
``Quite frankly, they still flunk the cost question and they
still flunk the safety question. Nobody has figured out yet how
to deal with nuclear waste in a positive way.''
Still, powerful voices like that of Scott McNealy, chairman and
CEO of computer giant Sun Microsystems, are onside.
In a recent speech to the Washington Press Club, McNealy said
that ``the answer's going to be nuclear power. . . . In terms of
the environmental cost and competitiveness and all the rest of
it, I just don't see any other solution. Rolling blackouts are a
bad thing.''
It may simply come down to the hard reality of Americans wanting
to keep their lights on - period.
Canada has not backed away from its nuclear reactor inventory,
mainly because its homegrown technology, the CANDU heavy water
reactor, is considered safe despite repeated technical glitches
and shutdowns at older plants.
The U.S. light water reactor technology employed at Three Mile
Island is less reliable, although reactors still in service in
America are running at about 86 per cent of capacity, a
reasonably good performance. (Light water and heavy water refer
to the liquid used to cool the reactors' cores, where uranium
burns so white-hot that a person coming into contact with it
would be vapourized instantly.)
The U.S. nuclear industry didn't just suffer from bad public
relations in the wake of Three Mile Island and The China
Syndrome. To make Americans feel safer and to guard against
future accidents, government regulations skyrocketed, making the
technology less affordable.
Both the industry and its critics agree it would cost $3 billion
to $4 billion and take at least five years to build a plant
today.
One of the few reactors that did come on line after Three Mile
Island initially did little to enhance the industry's reputation.
In southern California, Pacific Gas and Electric's Diablo Canyon
nuclear plant, which was announced in 1966 and approved before
the Three Mile Island accident, was originally to cost $320
million and be running by 1972.
It finally began operating in 1985 and was $5 billion over
budget.
Part of the cost overrun was owing to increased regulations, but
there were also delays caused by design mistakes, including
flawed blueprints that reversed the direction of pipes designed
to detect seismic activity from a nearby earthquake fault.
Still, Diablo Canyon has proved to be a well-run plant and made
PG more than $3 billion in profits.
Combined with deregulation and privatization in U.S. utility
markets, nuclear power is again being considered a potentially
profitable business venture.
But environmentalists and advocates for sustainable energy are
fighting a battle over any efforts to revive the industry.
One group, the Sustainable Energy Coalition, likes to debunk
what it calls the nuclear industry's propaganda about safety,
affordability, reliability and environmental effects.
It points out that more than two dozen U.S. reactors were closed
after 15 years or less in operation, meaning they lasted less
than 40 per cent of their federally licensed and projected
lifetimes.
One of the most crucial nuclear power issues, storing spent
radioactive fuel, is still not solved.
More than a dozen U.S. environmental groups have brought legal
challenges to the nuclear industry's claim to be environmentally
benign, primarily based on the issue of spent fuel.
The federal energy department is considering Nevada's Yucca
Mountain as a site to bury the spent fuel in rock, similar to
controversial proposals in Canada to bury it in the Canadian
Shield.
Environmentalists argue that there have been hundreds of
earthquakes in the Nevada region in the last 25 years.
It would take just one serious seismic eruption to cause a leak
in the proposed Yucca site that would contaminate groundwater
beneath the mountain and endanger the health of nearby residents,
they say.
In the meantime, Cheney is to present his report on energy
options to the president next month.
The nuclear industry has strong ties to Cheney's task force.
Member Joe Kelliher, an energy department official, once worked
as a nuclear industry lobbyist. Roy Coffee, who lobbied in
Washington on behalf of Bush when he was Texas governor, was
recently hired as a lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
People who back the oil and gas and nuclear industries appear to
be winning considerable influence with the new government,
Korpinski says.
``Unfortunately, they (members of the administration ) have
turned their back on clean energy sources, such as renewables,
and efficiency. That's the solution to the California problem and
to global warming.
``But unfortunately, that's not where their contributors are
from.''
Some believe only public opinion - still inflamed by memories of
accidents past - can stop the pro-nuclear sentiment in
Washington.
But industry proponents are using even lingering fears as
leverage in their arguments.
Nuclear power has become both safe and reliable since 1979, they
say, pointing out that the endurance record for continuous
service among American nuclear plants belongs to one of the
reactors at - where else? - Three Mile Island.
*****************************************************************
3 Nuclear power may revive
*A Boston Herald editorial*
Sunday, April 29, 2001
Like much of the environmental movement, Sen. John Kerry gets the
heebie-jeebies at the prospect of drilling for oil on one
one-hundredth of 1 percent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
in Alaska. Unlike most environmentalists, he has an open mind on
nuclear power, and we hope more of that movement will listen to
him on that score and pay less attention to his unjustified panic
about Alaska's flora and fauna.
Anybody who claims to be worried about global warming caused by
the carbon dioxide ought to endorse a nuclear revival. It is the
one large-scale source of electricity (hydro, wind, geothermal
and solar are not large-scale) that produces no carbon dioxide.
Kerry won't support new nukes until the ``transport and storage
of waste is shown to be safe,'' a reasonable position. The
industry is very close to such a showing.
The heavy steel cannisters that would be used to haul the highly
radioactive spent fuel already have been shown to be practically
indestructible by anything short of a nuclear bomb. And Yucca
Mountain on a Nevada military base seems almost certain to be
judged suitable, perhaps late this year, for isolating the waste
safely for the thousands of years necessary.
Nuclear plants provide more than 20 percent of the nation's
electricity. Except for a blip up in 1997-1998, operating costs
have fallen every year for 13 years, and are now about half the
cost of operating with today's popular fuel, natural gas. The
plants are expensive, but relative to other sources of
electricity are getting less so all the time. In five years or so
somebody could well order a new one. Environmentalists should
applaud.
Copyright by the Boston Herald and Herald Interactive
*****************************************************************
4 Texas PUC ordered TXU and Reliant to return billions to ratepayers
Power Engineering - power generation technology, Power-Gen Conference
[Magazine of power generation, utility deregulation, and the
official Power-Gen Conference. ]
By Ann de Rouffignac
*OGJ Online*
HOUSTON, Apr. 27, 2001—TXU Electric and Reliant HL will have to
return $1.6 billion and $2.1 billion respectively to electric
customers over a period of several years.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas ordered Wednesday that
customers be credited back these funds collected since 1999. When
the restructuring legislation, or Senate Bill 7, was crafted in
early 1999, it was presumed that nuclear power would not be
competitive with power produced by gas and coal-fired power
plants once the market opened for competition in 2002. The
nuclear plants owned by TXU and Reliant would be 'stranded' in
the Texas market by competition.
The legislature allowed the companies to redirect depreciation
from the transmission and distribution assets to pay down debt on
the so-called stranded assets. The legislation also allowed the
utilities to apply earnings beyond the approved rate of return to
reduce the book value of those plants.
"The most recent estimates of stranded costs show that these
excess earnings are not needed to mitigate the stranded costs,"
according to a memo from the PUC's financial review staff.
What happened was a dramatic and prolonged change in the price of
natural gas suddenly making nuclear power more competitive with
natural gas and meaning that the utilities over collected
stranded costs from customers.
The commission decided to return the money to consumers in two
different ways.
Redirected depreciation means the transmission and distribution
assets have not been paid down during the last 3 years. This
means transmission and distribution rates are higher than they
would have been if the assets had been depreciated in a normal
fashion.
The commission ordered redirected depreciation be reversed and
Reliant will remove $863.4 million from its rate base and TXU
will remove $798.4 million from its rate base.
By reducing the rate base on transmission and distribution,
customers will pay less. The commission estimates the average TXU
Electric residential customer will pay $1.30 a month less and
$2.80 less for each Reliant customer.
Regarding the excess earnings, Reliant will return $1.24 billion
to Reliant customers over 7 years as a monthly credit of about
$4.87 against transmission and distribution charges.
For TXU, the commission ordered $887.9 million, or about
$2.06/month on average, be credited to consumers over 7 years.
A TXU spokesman says it is unclear if Senate Bill 7 allows such
credits. The legislation established a "true-up" period when the
exact figure for stranded costs would be determined in 2004 after
the market opened. The value of the 'stranded costs' can be
determined from actual market data at that time.
"If we have overcollected, we will return it then," said Chris
Schein. "Otherwise consumers will be angry if it is determined
that the commission miss guessed the amount of stranded costs and
there is a big price increase in 2004."
Reliant HL did not return calls.
Copyright © 2001 - PennWell Corporation and PennNET, Inc. All
*****************************************************************
5 The Age: Nuclear power: The case for
By COLIN KEAY
Sunday 29 April 2001
It is 15 years since the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.
Following the destruction of the Chernobyl power station's No. 4
reactor, the very name Chernobyl has struck fear in the minds of
many. The thought of radioactive poisons falling from the sky on
defenceless citizens and their families, like a monstrous human
equivalent of a bug spray, is a horrifying threat magnified by
ceaseless anti-nuclear hype. Outside of scientifically authored
books and papers, one needs to search hard in this country to
find any items sympathetic to nuclear electricity generation. So,
with a reliable body of facts to draw on for perspective, it is
time to take stock.
As nuclear disasters go, how does Chernobyl rate? It was
certainly the worst non-military accident. To keep things in
perspective, the second-worst nuclear power accident occurred
seven years earlier in the United States in 1979 when one of the
two reactors at the Three Mile Island power station suffered a
serious meltdown.
It was a financial catastrophe for Consolidated Edison but no
lives were lost because the reactor's containment structure
confined all but a few harmless wisps of vented radioactive
gases. But Chernobyl was far worse than Three Mile Island because
the lack of a containment structure allowed about two-thirds of
the core radioactivity to be spewed into the atmosphere by an
ensuing graphite fire and blown by winds over much of Europe.
However, past military activities have released into the
environment more than a hundred times as much.
That brings us to consider the human toll of nuclear electricity
generation. Even allowing for the poor record of this industry in
the former Soviet Union, nuclear power has proved to be the
safest source of electricity in the world. Chernobyl remains the
only incident where lives have been lost as a direct result. Of
the thirty-one killed initially, twenty-eight deaths were
radiation related.
Numbers as high as eight figures have been bandied about, from
sources in the imagination rather than reality.
Here is what the authoritative United Nations Scientific
Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation had to say almost a
year ago: "Apart from about 1800 cases of thyroid cancer in
children exposed at the time of the accident, there is no
evidence of increased overall cancer incidence or mortality 14
years later ... not even among the recovery operation workers."
Most thyroid cancers are completely curable, and few are fatal.
In 1990, I visited a scientific research station in the Chernobyl
fallout zone where their unexposed films were densely speckled by
radioactive particles. The scientists vacuumed up the fallout,
buried it and went about their business. The staff treated me to
a picnic lunch out in the fields.
"Eat our food, don't eat our grass," they joked while their
children skinny-dipped in a nearby stream.
Tourists now visit the Chernobyl nuclear power station and take
lunch at a nearby restaurant.
The Chernobyl fallout was generally less than the natural level
of radioactivity experienced with no adverse effects by
inhabitants of high background radiation regions of Brazil,
Cornwall, Iran, Kerala and Sri Lanka, and even our own Kakadu.
However, the danger of the fallout was widely exaggerated,
leading to widespread fears of deformities in the unborn.
There are estimates that upwards of 50,000 needless abortions in
Europe resulted from such scaremongering.
Sooner or later, the Chernobyl disaster will be seen in its true
light: a temporary setback in the global development of nuclear
electricity generation that is unlikely to recur.
The world has now accumulated more than 15,000 reactor-years of
safe operation and, as Sir Fred Hoyle puts it, "married couples
receive more radioactivity from each other than they get from the
(civil) nuclear industry".
That very much maligned industry saves the emission of billions
of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. The
benefits of nuclear electricity are not lost on many of our
neighbors on the Pacific rim to the north. If Australia persists
with ridiculous anti-nuclear attitudes and negative legislation,
we will only have ourselves to blame when future energy shortages
bite and we could conceivably end up as the poor white trash of
the South Pacific.
Look at what's happening right now in California where they are
suffering power blackouts as a consequence of unwisely cutting
back their nuclear electricity generating capacity in favor of
poorly performing alternatives.
In the words of Ed Zander, president of Silicon Valley's giant
Sun Microsystems, "We have no power, the economy is imploding ...
California is finished".
*Dr Colin Keay is a retired academic who taught advanced nuclear
and reactor physics at the University of Newcastle. He has no
connection with the nuclear industry.*
Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, copying or
*****************************************************************
6 The Age: Nuclear power: The case against
By PETER GARRETT
Sunday 29 April 2001
The case against nuclear power, like nuclear weapons, rests on
the unalterable fact of the deadly and long-lasting effect on
human health and the environment that follows from exposure to
radioactivity produced by the nuclear industry processes: mining,
fission and waste.
Any proponent of nuclear energy must first confront history and
answer the experiences of Hiroshima, Three Mile Island and
Chernobyl. All these places experienced nuclear disaster and all
suffered a legacy of loss, psychological trauma and material
damage.
After Hiroshima, we witnessed the appalling consequences of the
use of nuclear weapons, and yet nuclear weapons and nuclear power
remain joined at the hip, leading to the spectre of plutonium
terrorism and the use of low threshold nuclear weapons in the
Gulf War. Three Mile Island is a reminder of the consequences of
human error, which, incidentally, effectively ended America's
love affair with nuclear energy. In the US, successive
administrations have wrestled with issues of liability, disposal
of the existing reams of nuclear waste, and clean-up of nuclear
sites with little resolution. The American public well
understands that the margin of error at a nuclear power plant is
slight and that mistakes can and will happen.
As we mark 15 years since radioactive plumes of smoke billowed
across Europe, the lesson of Chernobyl, with its radiated lands
and people, should also be well learnt. The accident caused the
deaths of more than 30,000 people and large tracts of Ukraine,
Russia and Belarus are still contaminated. The workers who
attempted to clean up the accident - now surrounded by a
30-kilometre no-go zone - experience significant health problems.
Dr Yuri M. Scherbak of the Kiev Institute of Epidemiology and
Infectious Diseases estimates a tenfold increase in thyroid
cancer affecting children in Ukraine as a result of Chernobyl.
The cost of the accident likely exceeds the contribution made by
the nuclear industry to the Soviet economy.
Yet, despite this graphic example, governments and big business
are flying the flag for nuclear power as an alternative to
coal-fired power and marketing nuclear power as a panacea for the
greenhouse effect. Despite no new reactor construction in Western
Europe or North America, and the World Bank's refusal to provide
loans for the upkeep or renewal of reactors, nuclear power is
being promoted to Eastern Europe and Asia by power utilities
whose traditional markets have closed in the West.
In Australia, approvals for uranium mining, often on Aboriginal
land, have increased, and a new reactor, taking a significant
portion of the science budget, is being constructed in the
southern suburbs of Sydney. Australia has taken an increasingly
permissive role in the nuclear cycle, unaware, it seems, that the
costs of the nuclear option are high and that there are real
alternatives in the energy-efficient sector to meet energy
demand.
Nuclear fails as a safe source of energy for several reasons. It
requires enormous infrastructure and, with laws, regulations and
monitoring, it will remain inherently unsafe. It contributes to
the growth of nuclear weapons-grade material and the transport of
these radioactive materials across the globe, thus making the
world less secure. It is more expensive than conventional or
alternative power sources because construction, maintenance and
waste disposal are all highly energy intensive. Large and
expensive plants are irrelevant to the needs of people in most
countries, including Australia. Decommissioning of nuclear
facilities is a hazardous and hugely expensive exercise at a cost
that would have to be borne by later generations.
Finally, there is the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry: the
safe disposal of hot, difficult-to-manage and highly toxic waste.
After six decades of expensive research, no method has been
satisfactorily developed to prudently and safely isolate nuclear
waste from people and the land they live on for the very large
time periods required. For those Australians pondering the merit
of Australia becoming the nuclear waste dump of the world, a
proposal actively advocated by the Pangea Resources Corporation,
the spectre of increasing volumes of nuclear waste being moved
through our ports and along our roads and streets, and then for
radioactive isotopes to reside in the Australian hinterland well
past any foreseeable events in our lives, grand finals, cities
fading away, rivers taking new directions, should give pause for
thought.
Our energy needs should be met by increasing energy efficiency,
developing natural gas-powered plants and the use of abundant
renewable resources (wind, solar, biomass and micro-hydro). We
can employ people and their ingenuity in developing this new
industry and lessen our impact on the environment if we choose a
non-toxic and sustainable energy path in the coming century.
The nuclear option should be rejected because it contravenes the
principle of sustainable development, it unnecessarily
jeopardises human health and the environment, it flies in the
face of common sense and it betrays the experiences of those, for
example, the people of Chernobyl, who have already suffered.
*Peter Garrett is president of the Australian Conservation
Foundation.*
Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use,
*****************************************************************
7 M1 protesters target uranium miners
The Courier Mail:
[ 29apr01 ]
URANIUM companies will be among the corporate giants targeted by
protests in Melbourne on Tuesday, as part of national action
against capitalism by the so-called M1 alliance.
The anti-globalisation protests will attempt to blockade stock
exchange buildings in all state capitals on May 1 around the
country with thousands expected to turn out to support the cause.
Melbourne's protests are expected to the largest and
anti-nuclear activists will also target uranium companies based
in the city in a "Leave it in the Ground Tour", protest spokesman
Marcus Brumer said today.
The anti-uranium mining protest will coincide with a blockade of
the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) building in Collins Street by
M1 protesters.
Protest groups, including unionists, will converge on the
building under the banner of M1 to mark the May 1 anniversary of
the introduction of the eight-hour working day.
Already, a two-metre wooden barricade has been erected around
the Rialto building, opposite the stock exchange building, with
police expected to erect their own barricades tomorrow.
Similar action is planned to blockade ASX offices around the
country, including an expected turn-up of about 5,000
demonstrators at Brisbane's stock exchange.
M1 activist and International Socialist Organisation spokesman
David Glanz has said the ASX represented everything that was
"cruel and capricious".
"The stock exchange for us is a cruel casino where the very rich
gamble on a daily, in fact even on an hourly basis, with the
lives, job prospects and the pensions of millions of ordinary
people," he said.
ASX spokesman Gervase Greene did not expect the blockade to have
any significant impact on share trading.
"A trading floor has not existed as such since 1988," Mr Greene
said.
Protesters are also expected to converge on other Melbourne
corporate targets, including Nike, McDonald's, Shell and Telstra.
M1 has emerged from the ranks of S11 protesters, who were
involved in violent clashes with police during their blockade of
the World Economic Forum in Melbourne last September.
Meanwhile, protesters from regional Queensland and NSW are set
to boost numbers at Tuesday's M1 protests outside Brisbane's
stock exchange.
M1 regional organiser Erin Cameron today said protesters from
Rockhampton, Townsville, Toowoomba and Lismore would take part in
the protest.
Rockhampton protesters held a meeting yesterday during which
they were shown a documentary film of last year's violent S11
protests in Melbourne.
Ms Cameron said members of the Democratic Socialist Party, the
Greens, Friends of the Earth and other environment groups would
form the backbone of the protests.
"The main thing we are hoping for is that it is a peaceful
protest," she said.
The protests are aimed at highlighting what demonstrators say is
global corporations' ignorance of social inequalities, human
rights abuses and environmental destruction.
Tuesday's protests and blockades around the country are expected
to begin at 7am.
© 2001 Queensland Newspapers
*****************************************************************
8 Nuclear dump fight heats up again in Austin
HoustonChronicle.com
*April 28, 2001, 8:16PM*
By KATHRYN A. WOLFE
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN -- Welcome to the latest episode of what some have called
the West Texas waste wars.
A bill that would create a nuclear waste dump in West Texas, a
legislative hot potato since the mid-'90s, is once again
wrestling its way through the Legislature as the session draws to
a close.
And as before, it has pit Capitol watchdogs and environmentalists
against lawmakers and waste lobbyists in a power struggle over
licensing a private company to run a low-level nuclear waste
dump.
Lawmakers say it's needed to honor the terms of a federal compact
designating Texas as a host site for nuclear waste from Maine and
Vermont. It also would provide an economic bootstrap to ailing
Andrews, the oil bust town where the dump likely would be
located, they say.
"We have an obligation in our compact that we need to meet," said
Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. "It is the responsible thing to
do. We can't stick our heads in the sand in Texas; we have
low-level radioactive waste stored all over the state. It's just
common sense that it's easier to safely regulate that in one
location."
Passed by Congress, the compact sets up regional sites to store
radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and other sources
such as hospitals, laboratories or factories.
The compact calls for a commission of one representative from
Maine and Vermont and six governor-appointed representatives from
Texas. It is estimated that the compact states together will
generate 2.7 million cubic feet of nuclear waste over the next 35
years, according to state records.
In exchange for storing their nuclear waste, the two states would
provide Texas with $50 million -- $25 million to build the site
and $25 million to clean up any future spills.
Critics say the bill, which mandates state ownership of both the
waste and the site's land, would stick taxpayers with the
liability for accidents while a private company profits from fees
paid by waste producers.
Those profits are what have driven Pasadena-based Waste Control
Specialists, which operates a hazardous waste facility in Andrews
and is in line for the license, to lobby legislators
aggressively, said Andrew Wheat of Texans for Public Justice, a
nonpartisan legislative watchdog group.
Wheat called Senate Bill 1541 a quid pro quo "sham" designed to
funnel profits to Dallas power broker Harold Simmons, who owns
Waste Control and is a generous campaign donor.
"The last thing you want sort of to be your political legacy is a
nuclear dump," Wheat said. "The only way you can have any hope of
getting something like this through is to make it worth the
politicians' while, and we're talking money."
The key lawmakers involved with the measure -- Duncan, author of
the bill; Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown, R-Lake Jackson, chairman of
the Senate committee; Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo; and Rep.
Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, chairman of the House committee -- have
accepted a combined $56,000 in campaign contributions from
Simmons and Waste Control since 1995, according to Texas Ethics
Commission documents.
Simmons is also the third largest donor to Gov. Rick Perry's
campaign, with contributions of more than $200,000, according to
Houston Chronicle research. "This is basically saying we're going
to let Harold Simmons make billions of dollars in profit and
we're going to stick the public with the liability, which is
absurd," Wheat said.
All four legislators have denied any relationship between
campaign donations from Waste Control and the waste bill, which
is pending in the House Environmental Regulations Committee and
awaiting debate on the Senate floor. Bivins characterized the
contributions to his campaign coffers -- which at $25,800
represent the lion's share of the group, including two $10,000
donations from Simmons and the Waste Control PAC given on the
same day -- as business as usual for American government.
"Major corporations that do business with the state wind up
giving a lot of money," Bivins said. "Our system clearly has
flaws, and it's easy for [journalists] to paint those as though
they're glaring flaws, but the reality is that this is our
system.
"I probably wouldn't have been involved in this bill at all were
it not for the fact that I represent Andrews County," Bivins
said.
The waste that would be stored in the dump could range from
medical waste to the walls of dismantled nuclear reactors --
essentially anything but spent fuel rods -- and varies widely in
radioactivity and how hazardous it is.
The Sierra Club is concerned that the waste may leak and
contaminate the Ogallala Aquifer, which the dump sits atop.
The Ogallala Aquifer, which stretches under four states, is the
largest in North America.
Fred Richardson of the Texas Sierra Club said the real question
isn't whether there will be a spill, but when.
"That's the ultimate problem with radioactive waste: You don't
just stick it in a hole in the ground and it goes away. It
remains radioactive," Richardson said. "Somebody's going to have
to deal with it in the future."
Diane D'Arrigo of Nuclear Information Resource Service, a
Washington, D.C., watchdog group, said funds historically aren't
set up to combat nuclear spills at commercial sites, or the money
is inadequate.
"You can't bind a corporation to long-term liability," D'Arrigo
said. "We can try to, but it doesn't even look like Texas is
trying to. What incentive is there for Waste Control to manage it
properly?"
Even within the Legislature, lawmakers are divided on how and
whether to proceed with the bill, with some pushing for allowing
the site to accept federal waste and others wanting to restrict
waste to the compact states. Bivins, who tacked an unfriendly
amendment onto Duncan's bill that would open the site to federal
waste, said revenue from the Department of Energy is necessary to
make the Andrews site financially viable.
The bill passed the committee as amended, with Duncan beating a
hasty exit after the vote.
Duncan said the point of his bill was to limit waste to compact
states, and that Bivins' amendment is unacceptable.
"The state won't own the federal waste site, and that gives me
some concern as well, because it could open some opportunities
for Texas to lose control over the volume of waste," Duncan said.
DOE waste is projected to outpace the compact states by leaps and
bounds, with estimates placing the amount of waste generated by
the DOE through 2010 at 2.6 million cubic meters. An Olympic-size
swimming pool will hold about 2,500 cubic meters of water.
Torpedoed last year over the issue of private ownership of the
dump, this session the bill's fate is just as uncertain.
Duncan says it has a better chance of passing without Bivins'
amendment, and Bivins says the opposite.
The bill also has been put on and taken off the Senate's
discussion calendar, generally an indication that the author
needs to drum up more support. Other lawmakers are warier still.
While tentatively approving of the bill, Sen. Eddie Lucio,
D-Brownsville, said he probably wouldn't vote for it if it was in
his back yard.
But the people at the site's ground zero, the citizens of
Andrews, seem to support the dump and the infusion of cash and
jobs it means for their community.
Joe Weatherby, a longtime Andrews resident, was present at the
first town meetings in 1994 when Waste Control was opening its
hazardous waste dump. The people of Andrews, where jobs are a
needed commodity, have approved of the dump from the start, he
said.
"We're a small town and I go for coffee every day. I hear all the
gossip," Weatherby said. "We've had danger around here since
they've had oil discovered. This isn't even brought up anymore."
*****************************************************************
9 A teenage sufferer of skin cancer caused by exposure to radiation.
The Taipei Times Online: 2001-04-29
April 29th, 2001
Radioactive rebar linked to cancer
PUBLIC HEALTH: Medical experts fear for the health of former
residents of radiation contaminated buildings who may no longer
be checking up on their health
By Chiu Yu-Tzu
STAFF REPORTER
A five-year study of the incidence of disease among residents of
radiation-contaminated buildings was recently completed, showing
that the possibility of chromosome aberration -- damage to DNA --
was proportional to long-term exposure to low-dose radiation.
From November 1995 to June 2000, a research team at National
Yang Ming University (¶§©ú¤j¾Ç) kept track of more than 4,100
sample people who once lived in buildings that had been
constructed in Taipei City between 1982 and 1983 using
radioactive steel reinforcing bars.
"Where are undiscovered radiation contaminated buildings? They
could be all over the island."
*Hsu Ssu-ming, secretary general of the Radiation Safety
Protection Association Taiwan*
A high incidence of diverse cancers was discovered among samples
taken from the group.
The researchers said that cancer could be induced by various
factors, including personal lifestyle and environmental and
occupational conditions. Exposure to radiation exceeding safety
limits is also a factor that deserves close attention, they said.
"We found that DNA damage and chromosome aberration was closely
related to samples' long-term exposure to low-dose radiation,"
Chang Wu-shou (±iªZ×), leader of the research team, told the
*Taipei Times*.
Staff of the Atomic Energy Council take away
radiation-contaminated steel bars found in the Taipei's Shihlin
district. Recently concluded research on residents of buildings
found to have been built using radioactive steel suggests close
links between long-term exposure to low-dose radiation and DNA
damage.
The 4,100 sample patients, who have been receiving treatment at
Taipei Municipal Jen-ai Hospital, are among some 7,800 residents
recorded by the Taipei City Government as victims of radiation
contamination.
Eighty-nine of the 4,100 samples were diagnosed with cancer,
including cervical cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer, leukemia
and thyroid cancer. Researchers said that high incidence of the
disease might be attributed to chronic low-dose radiation
exposure.
Over the course of the research period, 39 of the 89 cancer
sufferers died.
Researchers said that the situation did not mean that the
mortality from cancer in the group was higher than that in other
population groups because there was no direct link between cancer
and the patients' exposure to low-dose radiation.
Researchers, however, concluded that excessive radiation did
have a negative impact on humans.
"For example, we discovered that the height of children who had
been exposed to radiation [exceeding the safety limits] was
generally below average," said Chang, an environmental health
sciences professor. He also said that the incidence of cataracts
(¥Õ¤º»Ù) among children who lived in radiation-contaminated
buildings was higher than the national level.
"We also concluded that radiation causes damage to white blood
cells, weakening people's immune systems," Chang said.
Unpleasant reminder
Chang's study, supported by the National Health Research
Institute (°ê®a½Ã¥Í¬ã¨s°|), might raise public awareness of
safety issues regarding radiation. The research, however, has not
been welcomed by the Atomic Energy Council (AEC, ì¯à·|), the
government's nuclear watchdog responsible for everything from
radioactive medical waste to nuclear waste, because the history
behind the research was the last thing officials of the council
wanted to be reminded of.
Officials from the council contacted Chang several times,
asserting that his research on low-level radiation would not
result in any new scientific discoveries. They told him that a
low dose of radiation has been demonstrated to be beneficial to
humans.
Chang, however, said the council should be ashamed of itself for
discouraging him from conducting his research because Taiwan was
the only country which could provide such samples for medical
research.
"Contaminated buildings in other countries would be dismantled
immediately after radiation pollution was confirmed," Chang told
the *Taipei Times*.
In the early 1980s, rebar contaminated with Colbalt-60 was used
in the construction of more than 100 buildings in several
counties in Taiwan. The situation was not publicly known until a
1992. One day that summer a Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, ¥x¹q)
worker took a Geiger counter, an instrument to measure the
intensity of radiation, back to his home and discovered levels of
background radiation that greatly exceeded safety limits.
High amounts of radiation had actually been detected years
earlier. In 1985 a dentist had an x-ray machine set up in his
apartment in Minsheng Villas (¥Á¥Í§O¹Ö) in Taipei and dangerous
amounts of radiation had been detected. The dentist was banned
from operating the machine. However, AEC officials did not
mention to residents that high levels of radioactivity came from
the walls of the building rather than the x-ray machine.
The truth was exposed later. Because of a dispute over
promotions at the council, high-ranking officials revealed in
1992 that AEC officials had been involved in a cover-up of the
radiation-contaminated buildings.
After a reporter from the *Liberty Times* discovered that
radiation levels at the villa exceeded safety limits by hundreds
of times, a comprehensive check was carried out on thousands of
buildings constructed between 1982 and 1984 in Taipei City. More
than 100 buildings, including office buildings, schools and
kindergartens in the city were confirmed to be contaminated by
radiation.
At the time, thousands of residents, young and old, were
identified as having been exposed to more than 1 milli-Sievert
per year (mSv/y), a safety limit set by the International
Radiation Protection Association (IRPA), for up to 12 years.
Following the investigation in Taipei, buildings with radioactive
reinforced steel bars were discovered elsewhere in the country,
including Taipei, Changhua, and Taoyuan counties and also Keelung
City.
Hsu Ssu-ming (³\«ä©ú), secretary-general of the Radiation Safety
and Protection Association Taiwan (RSPAT), told the *Taipei
Times* that the radiation-contaminated reinforced steel bars
discovered to date only account for a small portion of the
radioactive bars.
Hsu said that an ironworks produced 20,000 tonnes of
contaminated rebar but so far the government has discovered only
7,000 tonnes of the product.
The 7,000 tonnes of contaminated rebar was used in more than
2,000 homes and 30 schools, affecting more than 10,000 residents.
Hsu said that potential dangers from undiscovered radiation
contamination continue to threaten the public because the
ironworks lost all records of the steel bars.
"Where are undiscovered radiation-contaminated buildings? They
could be all over the island," Hsu said.
Health check
"We strongly encourage victims to have free medical examinations
to take care of their health," Hsu said.
He pointed out that many victims relocated from the
radiation-contaminated buildings ignore the potential threats to
their health after they have moved away.
A teenage boy, who relocated to Kaohsiung County after going to
a primary school contaminated by radiation in Taipei for two
years, ignored the notification from the Taipei City Government
and missed chances to receive treatment. He later discovered he
had leukemia. By the time the Tzu Chi Foundation (·OÀÙ) found
enough suitable bone marrow for him from 140,000 donors, it was
too late for him to have an operation. The boy died of the cancer
last December.
The boy, however, was not one of the subjects in Chang's
research.
"The government has lost contact with too many victims and are
therefore no longer getting any help," Hsu told the *Taipei
Times*.
A group of residents led by Minsheng Villas residents
established the Radiation Victims' Association Taiwan to fight
for compensation from the government and to raise public
awareness that being exposed to radiation was dangerous.
Many of the victims had spent their life savings on the
apartments they saw as their dream homes, but which later became
the source of their nightmares.
In 1993, three officials were censured for neglect of duty after
having learned in 1985 that Minsheng Villas was seriously
contaminated by radiation. In 1994, the Taipei District Court
accepted lawsuits for state compensation from 65 residents of
Minsheng Villas.
But it was not until 1997 that the court made a judgment in favor
of 57 of the residents and told the government to compensate them
for physical, property, and psychological losses resulting from
the intentional negligence of government officials who had
concealed information.
That was the only successful case for victims who asked for
state compensation.
The AEC's role
Fewer than 20 of the almost 200 buildings discovered to be
contaminated by radiation were properly dealt with. Some
residents continued to live in the radiation-contaminated
buildings because the selling price offered by the AEC was far
less than what the homeowners had originally paid.
The AEC also carries out studies relating to
radiation-contaminated buildings. Researchers from the medical
school of National Taiwan University confirmed only that the rate
of death of thyroid-related diseases among the victims was higher
than that of other population groups.
Another research paper by the AEC published in the British
medical journal the *Lancet* in February last year shows that the
incidence of chromosomes being affected in people who lived in
radiation-contaminated buildings was substantially higher than
that of control groups.
This story has been viewed 321 times.
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/04/29/story/0000083627]
Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
10 Nuclear plant study reveals cancer cluster
THE SUNDAY TIMES: NEWS
April 29 2001 BRITAIN
*Lois Rogers, Medical Correspondent *
EVIDENCE of a new cluster of childhood cancers linked to
radioactive contamination from a power station has been uncovered
by a nuclear biologist. The unpublished study is based on data
from cancer registries, covering the period 1974 to 1990, for
people living close to the ageing Oldbury nuclear reactor on the
River Severn.
Although the data, which were given inadvertently to the
scientist Chris Busby, cover only a tiny area in and around
Chepstow, they record three cases of myeloid leukaemia in
children under four.
Busby, a statistician and adviser to the European parliament's
Green group, has calculated that the odds against such a cluster
occurring by chance are 1,000 to one.
His finding mirrors a similar study in Seascale, close to the
Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, where four
cases of leukaemia were observed in children under 14 between
1950 and 1983.
He believes that radioactive material contaminates tidal sediment
around power stations. When mud flats are exposed at low water,
particles are carried away on the wind.
Similar work by Busby has suggested that men living near the
Oldbury reactor are at greater risk of prostate cancer and women
have a greater risk of breast cancer.
He recently investigated breast cancer cases occurring in a
three-mile area downstream from the old Severn Bridge, and found
that 262 women had died, 50% more than would be expected.
In other published research he has found higher rates of breast
cancer apparently linked to Hinkley Point power station in
Somerset and Bradwell power station in Essex. "I believe
proximity to coastal power stations is a crucial factor in the
development of these diseases," he said.
Efforts to expand on his latest research around Chepstow have
been blocked by the refusal of cancer registries to release any
more data to him.
There is growing unease among scientists that safety data for
radiation exposure are mainly derived from research on victims of
the Hiroshima atomic bomb and that not enough work has been done
on the effects of newer forms of radioactive material.
But even the data available cause some experts concern. Vyvyan
Howard, a senior anatomy lecturer at Liverpool university and an
expert on the effects of toxins on human tissue, said: "Although
you cannot demonstrate any causal linkage from this study, we
know the data are accurate and they do show a significantly
increased incidence of cancer which needs further investigation.
"The incidence of cancer is going up inexorably. It now kills one
in three people, and it has to be something to do with the way we
live or the world we live in."
British Nuclear Fuels, the power station operator, dismissed
Busby's findings: "We are not aware of any properly validated
work showing higher rates of cancer occur around power stations."
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided
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11 Cancer cluster found close to nuclear plant
Guardian Unlimited Observer | UK News |
[UP]
Anthony Browne, health editor
Sunday April 29, 2001
One of the most significant leukaemia clusters in Britain has
been discovered among children living near the Oldbury nuclear
power station on the banks of the Severn.
A study has found that people living near the river, which
contains high levels of radioactive particles, are up to twice as
likely to die of cancer as people elsewhere.
The report claims children in Chepstow, South Wales, are 11 times
more likely to get leukaemia than the national average and that
the probability that this is just coincidence is one in a
thousand.
One primary school near Chepstow had three cases of leukaemia at
the same time. The study is based on figures from 1974 to 1990,
but The Observer has discovered that over the past two years
there have been at least two more cases of childhood leukaemia in
the town.
The report highlights a particularly high incidence of myeloid
leukaemia, a very rare and dangerous form of the disease that has
been linked to radiation. The author, Dr Chris Busby, a former
adviser to the Irish government on the health effects of
radiation in the Irish Sea, said: 'This is a discovery of a new
nuclear site child leukaemia cluster. The high level of myeloid
leukaemia suggests that radiation is the cause.'
The study also finds that men living near Oldbury are 37 per cent
more likely to die of prostate cancer than expected. Women living
along the coast downstream from Oldbury are 50 per cent more
likely to die of breast cancer than those living more than three
miles inland. The chance of this being random is one in 50,000.
In Gordano, downstream from Oldbury, men are 80 per cent more
likely to die of cancer than elsewhere, and women 40 per cent.
The work was commissioned by Michael Holmes, an Independent MEP
for the South West, who works in co-operation with the Green
Party. Holmes said: 'If the possibility of cancers is related to
living near a nuclear power station, they should be closed down.'
Leukaemia clusters were first discovered around Sellafield
nuclear processing plant in 1983, and have now become widely
accepted by cancer epidemiologists. However, there is no
consensus on whether they are caused by radiation. BNFL, which
runs Oldbury, insisted that the levels of radiation emitted there
are far too low to cause cancer.
A spokesman dismissed Busby's findings: 'He comes up with these
things virtually every week. Every time he comes out with a
report it is rubbished by people.'
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
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12 Young lives blighted in a nuclear wasteland
Guardian Unlimited Observer | UK News |
[UP]
Today's shocking revelation about a child leukaemia cluster in
the Severn Valley sounds a radiation health alert for all who
live near nuclear plants. Anthony Browne reports
Sunday April 29, 2001
It was a home video that first made the family realise something
might be wrong. As Sue and Allen Langford looked back at the
footage of their 18-month-old son Stephen, they noticed he seemed
lethargic. He usually raced up and down his favourite climbing
frame, but the video showed he now had little interest.
Rapidly Stephen got more and more tired. He would crawl into the
centre of the floor and just sit there. He didn't want to walk at
all. He eventually went off his food. 'We took him to the doctor
four times,' said Sue, sitting in the front room of their house
with its view of the River Severn. From here, when the weather is
clear, they can see Oldbury nuclear power station. 'I knew it was
something serious, even life threatening - but I had no idea it
was cancer.'
Eventually Stephen was diagnosed as having myeloid leukaemia, one
of the most unusual and dangerous forms of the disease, so rare
there are only a handful of child victims every year in Britain.
'He was in such a bad state by the time he had treatment, I think
he only had a week left. It was touch and go,' said Sue.
A new study suggests that Stephen is part of a leukaemia cluster
among children in the small town of Chepstow, sitting across the
Severn from Oldbury power station. The report claims that
children in the town are 11 times more likely to get leukaemia
than the national average, and the probability that it is just
bad luck is one in a thousand, making it probably the most
significant cancer cluster near a nuclear power station in the
UK.
Dr Chris Busby, a former adviser to the Irish government over the
health effects of radiation in the Irish Sea, said: 'This is a
discovery of a new nuclear site leukaemia cluster. The high level
of myeloid leukaemia suggests that radiation is the cause.'
The report also catalogues the increased risk of many forms of
cancer for all those who live along the Severn estuary. Based on
cancer figures over five years for 147 wards in the area, it
claims that living near the Severn can make you up to80 per cent
more likely than the national average to get some forms of
cancer.
Women living along the coast downstream from Oldbury power
station are 50 per cent more likely to die of breast cancer than
those living more than five kilometres further inland. The chance
of this being just random is one in 50,000.
Overall, death rates for any form of cancer are 18 per cent
higher for people living within 5km of the Severn, compared to
those living further inland. Men living within 7.5km of Oldbury
are 37 per cent more likely to die of prostate cancer than the
national average.
Oldbury has two ageing Magnox reactors, and has permission to
release a limited amount of tritium, or radioactive hydrogen,
into the air and water. But the Severn also has other possible
sources of contamination. Just upstream is the now decommissioned
Berkeley power station, and downstream is Hinkley A, which was
closed after it too was associated with a leukaemia cluster a
decade ago. On the Welsh coast, there is the nuclear research
company Amersham International.
Anti-nuclear campaigners say that the Severn has more radioactive
hydrogen than any other stretch of water in the world.
Dr Busby said: 'It shows that living near the Severn is bad for
you. It's probably got the highest concentration of nuclear power
stations and sources of radiation in Europe. There is airborne
concentration of radioactive particles near the mudflats, which
can get into the lungs of children.'
For Stephen's parents, it was clear that something was unusual as
soon as he started four horrific - but ultimately successful -
rounds of chemotherapy. Doctors at Llangdough Hospital in Cardiff
conducted a blood test on him, and were surprised to find he
wasn't naturally prone to leukaemia. They also had the house
tested for radium, but the reading was insignificant.
In Magor primary school, which Stephen went to, there were just a
couple of hundred pupils, but three children had leukaemia, a
highly unusual statistical occurrence. The leukaemia study is
based on figures from 1974 to 1990, but The Observer has
discovered that in the past couple of years in Chepstow, there
have been two further cases of childhood leukaemia, making the
evidence for the cluster even stronger.
Jim Duffy, of the Shut Oldbury campaign, leapt on the findings:
'It's an atomic bomb in the lap of the nuclear industry. The
leukaemia cluster must put a lid on Oldbury's operation.' Michael
Holmes, one of the MEPs for the South West, who commissioned the
research from EU funds, said: 'If there is a significant risk to
public health, Oldbury should be decommissioned, and not allowed
to stagger on.'
Since the controversial discovery of a leukaemia cluster around
Sellafield nuclear processing plant in 1983, the existence of
such clusters has become widely accepted. Whether they are caused
by the nuclear industry is still subject to debate.
In 1988 the Somerset Health Authority found a strong correlation
between leukaemia in young people and the opening of Hinkley A
station in 1964. The new cluster, combined with the increased
risks in lung, prostate and breast cancer, suggests that Oldbury
could be the most significant finding yet. The nuclear industry
has always dismissed the connection between its emissions and
cancer clusters.
It insists - with the backing of the Government's National
Radiological Protection Board - that the level of radiation
released into the environment is insignificant compared to
natural background radiation, and is far too low to lead to
cancer.
BNFL, which runs Oldbury, says it can emit only one 400th the
level of background radiation. But Busby claims that if the
radioactive particles are ingested, even low levels of radiation
can spark off tumours.
British Nuclear Fuels dismissed both the new report and its
author. Its spokesman, David Cartwright, said: 'He's a
professional scaremonger_ he comes up with these things every
week.'
Dr Michael Clark, scientific spokesman for the National
Radiological Protection Board, also attacked the report and its
author: 'Dr Busby has discovered clusters in other parts of the
country. But when these have been looked at by professional
epidemiologists, they tend to disappear.' But Busby also has
powerful supporters. Vyvyan Howard, professor of toxico-pathology
at Liverpool University, said: 'Busby is a good statistician.'
And Professor Ray Cartwright, director of the Leukaemia Research
Fund's centre for clinical epidemiology, said: 'His epidemiology
is OK. It is important there is a robust debate about this.'
Back in Chepstow, Stephen is now an almost healthy 13-year-old.
The leukaemia treatment left his heart weak, and may mean it will
be impossible for him to father children.
It has also left his parents wondering why he ended up with this
terrible disease. 'We need more research into this. If the power
station is a risk, then it ought to close,' said Allen.
anthony.browne@observer.co.uk http://www.cancernet.co.uk
[UP]
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13 A deadly silence Government must be more open
Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search
April 29, 2001
Will we ever learn? Eighteen years after the Department of Health
promised greater openness about the incidence of cancers around
nuclear power stations, we report today the appearance of another
frightening cluster near the Oldbury reactor next to the Severn
Estuary. Two decades after Sellafield became a by-word for danger
to public health, children in the town of Chepstow appear to be
11 times more likely than elsewhere in Britain to contract
leukaemia. This incidence of illness is not only an indictment of
successive governments' complacency about the dangers of nuclear
power. It is, equally important, testament to the pathetic
resolve of politicians of all parties to ensure that public
information should reside in the public domain. Cancer clusters
are still almost impossible to trace from government statistics
as currently published; the figures are too general and cover too
large an area. Yet postcode analysis of the incidence of illness,
for both cancer and other diseases, could transform our
understanding of some illnesses. As always, the stock inclination
of Britain's institutions - the Department of Health is little
different from any other - remains to disclose as little as they
can get away with.
Swathes of important information remain hidden because
impertinent public scrutiny is much harder work for public
officials than secrecy. We cannot blame this government alone for
failing to brush away the patronising fetish for obfuscation of a
Civil Service which has never known - or acted - any better. But
the Oldbury scandal reminds us graphically that we still live in
a secret society.
[UP]
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14 Anti-Temelin Blockade of Wullowitz Crossing Ends
Czech Today on Central Europe Online - Czech Today -
WULLOWITZ, Austria, Apr 28, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency)
Upper Austrian opponents of the Czech nuclear power plant in
Temelin ended the blockade of the Wullowitz Austrian-Czech border
crossing, launched on Friday evening, at 1:30 a.m. today and left
the site peacefully, the Dolni Dvoriste-based Czech foreigner
police have told CTK.
An originally peaceful, previously announced demonstration at the
crossing, organized by the Stop Temelin group of nuclear
opponents, developed into a spontaneous blockade, with traffic on
the border being interrupted and the police on both sides of the
border having to divert it towards neighboring crossings.
Earlier in the afternoon, still before the spontaneous blockade
was launched, the demonstrators were addressed by Upper Austrian
Governor Josef Puehringer who rejected as unacceptable the Czech
government's answer to the Austrian note demanding that the Czech
Republic complete its recent report on Temelin's environmental
impact, drawn up by a Czech government-appointed commission of
experts, dominated by Czechs but also including several foreign
specialists.
Situated in south Bohemia, the Temelin nuclear power plant
started to be launched in October 2000, following numerous
delays. Many opponents of the plant have voiced concerns about
whether it is safe, since it is an unprecedented mixture of a
Soviet design and technology from the U.S. firm Westinghouse.
*((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)* ![]()
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