Earth Day: Burying Radioactive Waste and Dumping it into the Oceans

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burying nuclear waste, creation, destroying the earth, Doug Kimmelman, Earth Day, Energy Solutions, EnergySolutions, environment, Goldman Sachs, health, Investment Banking, ionizing radiation, Japan, nuclear energy, nuclear waste, TEPCO, tritiated water, tritium, UK, US, water, water cycle, WHOI, Woods Hole

April 22nd is Earth Day.

NASA Earth-Rise Christmas Eve 1968

Schedelsche Weltchronik or Nuremberg Chronicle Date 1493
While browsing on Google, the Earth Day web site kept forcibly opening. And, who is among the Earth Day sponsors? Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) located in Woods Hole Massachusetts: http://www.earthday.org/earth-day/earth-day-2016-partners/ Wikipedia tells us that Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) should not be confused with the nearby (and now infamous) Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). And as late as 2002 the founder of WHRC, George Woodell, raised concerns about the impacts of nuclear war on the environment, http://whrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2002-04-TooSmallForWar.pdf , whereas WHOI appears to have been long been tied in with the military. However, the two have recently been joined together in a consortium: http://www.woodsholeconsortium.org/news/consortium.html They are also listed as a WHOI funder-partner.

We turn then to the now infamous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) with its tainted funding ties and home to nervous, sniffling plutonium testing expert Ken Buessler, who has worked testing plutonium for the Savannah River Nuclear site and impacts of Chernobyl on the Black Sea, even writing his Ph.D. dissertation on the topic. But for Fukushima he has placed most of his focus on Cesium 134, half-life 2 years, in pure ocean water – not the best method – and to spend his time frightening people from eating potassium rich food such as bananas, without which you die. Life-giving potassium helps protect from man-made radioactive cesium. Thus, those who believe Ken Buesseler risk dying in the short or long term. What is this then but murder? One need look no further than Oak Ridge (National Nuclear Lab) Affiliated Universities (ORAU) to find the truth and that Buessler is peddling lethal lies: “The human body maintains relatively tight homeostatic control over potassium levels. This means that the consumption of foods containing large amounts of potassium will not increase the body’s potassium content. As such, eating foods like bananas does not increase your annual radiation dose. If someone ingested potassium that had been enriched in K-40, that would be another story.” http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/potassiumgeneralinfo.htm Radioactive K40 makes up only 0.012% (120 ppm) of the total amount of potassium found in nature.

This is the same Ken Buesseler who with his protege Jay Cullen has taken a physically disabled man, Dana Durnford, to court in Canada, pretending to be frightened or intimidated by him. Clearly their fear stems from his calling out their lethal lies. Why not sue ORAU? Or the Irish government, which concurs with ORAU?

WHOI’s funding-partners include the US Department of Defense, USDOE, MIT, US Naval Postgraduate School, Oregon State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Tokyo, Raytheon (see the entire list at the bottom). WHOI links back to EnergySolutions’ new owner Energy Capital Partners and its co-founder, Sr. Partner, Doug Kimmelman, through Priscilla B. Woods of the Woods Institute for the Environment Institute at Stanford University, to which he gave a large financial contribution in 2012.

One way that EnergySolutions is destroying the earth is by dumping and burying radioactive waste :

EnergySolutions Clive Dump in Utah

EnergySolutions buries nuclear waste near a school in Cumbria England (RadiationFreeLakeland photo)

EnergySolutions wants to buy their competitor, WCS, in west Texas who also bury radioactive waste:

Here in an old, old tradition from thousands of years ago, written almost 2,000 year ago, one sees much biological truth. The human body reflects the earth and water itself. If you poison the earth and the water with lethal radionuclides, humans and other life takes up these man-made radionuclides:
Genesis 2:6 “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” In this context, nuclear power appears to be “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

“Water is of major importance to all living things; in some organisms, up to 90% of their body weight comes from water. Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%“. http://water.usgs.gov/edu/propertyyou.html

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered, and the oceanshold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water. Water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers, and even in you…” http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html

“Phytoplankton absorb energy from the Sun and nutrients from the water to produce their own food. In the process of photosynthesis, phytoplankton release molecular oxygen (O2) into the water. It is estimated that between 50% — 85% of the world’s oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton

Manmade ionizing radiation is more dangerous than UV ionizing radiation. NASA tells us that “overexposure to UV-B impairs the productivity of phytoplankton in aquatic ecosystems.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/UVB/uvb_radiation2.php Thus, it appears clear that man-made ionizing radiation would have a negative impact on phytoplankton.

Now, when Japan again announces the dumping of more radioactive water into the ocean, notice the emphasis on cost. It could be filtered. And, it could be held in place for decades, filtering out supposedly valuable helium along the way. With a half-life of 12 years it will remain radioactive for over 100 years:
“Ministry officials concluded that releasing water containing tritium into the sea after diluting it would be most reasonable in terms of both cost and time.” “TEPCO has been using a device called ALPS (advanced liquid processing system”
Dumping tritium from Fukushima into sea is best option: ministry
Once again, EnergySolutions owns the ALPS system.

The US government (Drake-LANL, 1996) study, “Recovery of Tritium from Tritiated Waste Water Cost-Effectiveness Analysis” was written by a physicist who holds an MBA, and did years of Ph.D. work in economics. Tritiated water is radioactive water. It is striking that his study opens up by saying: “Tritiated water is many 1000s of times more biologically toxic than tritium gas due to our water-based body’s propensity to incorporate tritiated water into its very makeup,” whereas currently the nuclear industry pretends that it is safe because it is dispersed throughout the body, even though this runs counter to logic. He does not mean evaporated tritiated water, which is also very dangerous upon inhalation and skin absorption, but rather pure tritium gas. https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/recovery-of-tritium-from-tritiated-waste-water-cost-effectiveness-analysis/

Savannah River (Nuclear) Site tells us: “Tritium is a heavy isotope of hydrogen and a key component of nuclear weapons, but it decays radioactively at the rate of 5.5 percent each year… Tritium radioactively decays to helium-3, which has become a precious commodity. One reason for the tremendous growth in demand for helium-3 is its use in neutron detection equipment that is being installed all over the world to protect our nation and its allies from terrorism. We recover, purify, and bottle this valuable byproduct of tritium. SRS is the sole producer of helium-3 gas in the United States.” http://www.srs.gov/general/news/factsheets/tf.pdf
So, why won’t Japan do this instead of dumping it?

In a 1995 interview, Dr. K.Z. Morgan stated: “I sent in my letter [to the NRC] showing these other ways you could dispose of the tritium without using humans as guinea pigs. It would be a little more expensive, a little more trouble, but the exposure would be almost zero. I also indicated, as I recall in the letter, why tritium is far more hazardous than was agreed-to officially when I was chairman of the committee that set the standards for tritium and other radionuclides for 20 years, you see. So I wasn’t just talking out of the wind.” Read the rest here: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/advice-of-father-of-health-physics-for-disposing-of-tritium-safely-rebuffed-by-us-nrc-dr-k-z-morgan-interview-dc-philadelphia-baltimore-treated-as-guinea-pigs/

See: “How To Remove Radioactive Tritium From Water; Four Methods And Technologies Illustrated“. http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-to-remove-radioactive-tritium-from.html

The US government (Drake-LANL, 1996) study, “Recovery of Tritium from Tritiated Waste Water Cost-Effectiveness Analysis“: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/recovery-of-tritium-from-tritiated-waste-water-cost-effectiveness-analysis/

A more recent study points out that “current legislation does not adequately take into account the nature of organic forms of tritium and therefore may be underestimating accumulation and toxic effect of tritium in the environment.” (Jaeschke BC, Bradshaw C., 2013) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863967

Dr. Ian Fairlie, expert in radiation biology, has pointed out: “the range of the beta particle emitted by the tritium is low. It doesn’t travel very far. But inside the cell, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to travel very far. It’s right there. A good comparison is that the average diameter of a DNA molecule is about half a micron. And that happens to coincide with the range of a beta particle from tritium, which is about 0.6 microns.” (April 18, 2016, Dr. Ian Fairlie: http://www.fairewinds.org/podcast//tritium-expos )

Just As Above Ground Nuclear Testing was Stopped, So Too Must Leaking of Radionuclides from the Nuclear Fuel Chain Be Stopped. Even from a statistical point of view they keep discovering that nuclear is more deadly than initially thought. For those who missed it:
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/another-look-at-the-recent-low-dose-radiation-exposure-study-inworks/ Shows that risk is around 15 times worse than BEIR VII thought, and maybe higher.

Energy Solutions at Fukushima

Energy Solutions has been left in place since March of 2012, largely failing to deal with the radioactive water situation at Fukushima. They should have been quickly shown the door. Instead, radioactive water builds up and gets dumped into the ocean for five years now. Who manages Fukushima but Toshiba. Toshiba is part of the Mitsui “Keiretsu” conglomerate group, which centers around the Sumitomo Mitsui bank. Sumitomo Mitsui has repeatedly invested in Goldman Sachs going back to at least 1986, when Sumitomo bought a 12.5 percent stake in Goldman Sachs. Hence, one might suspect that a friendship exists between the former Goldman Sachs managing directors-partners and Sumitomo Mitsui bankers, which has led to too many chances given to Energy Solutions – an admission that their ALPS system failed would look really bad for them.

Regarding Energy Solutions at Fukushima since March of 2012: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/14/energysolutions-fukushima-clean-up-contract

On the 21 of May, 2014, Reuters reported the following about the Energy Solutions ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System): “A water treatment facility known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System, designed to remove the most dangerous nuclides, was completely shut down again this week. The system has not been fully operational since it was installed nearly two years ago.” http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/environment/~3/N5wi8D-D4cc/story01.htm

In March of 2014 the Japanese Times reported: “Tepco halts ALPS water cleanup system at Fukushima nuke plant” JIJI, MAR 18, 2014 “Tokyo Electric Power Co. halted the operations of all three advanced radioactive water cleanup systems, collectively called Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on Tuesday.” http://www.japantimes. co.jp/news/2014/03/18/national/tepco-halts-alps-water-cleanup-system-at-fukushima-nuke-plant They state: “With its daily processing capacity of 750 tons, ALPS is regarded as a key element in containing the radioactive water crisis at the crippled plant. However, due to a series of problems, Tepco has yet to start full operations.” (Emphasis added)

Energy Solutions, Stanford U. and Woods Hole (WHOI)-MIT

Frighteningly, the CEO of Energy Capital Partners (Doug Kimmelman) serves on the Advisory Council of Stanford Woods Environmental Institute (Stanford University) and donated $5 million in 2012 for environmental research, etc. at Stanford, including to the Woods Environmental Institute. Priscilla B. Woods who is on that Council with him (apparently she and her husband are the Woods in the name) also serves on a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, WHOI, Advisory Committee (Ocean Institute Committee). WHOI is also affiliated with MIT, from whence comes the current head of the US Dept. of Energy, Moniz – ardent nuclear supporter. Stanford and MIT are still rated top US and world universities, so this environmental research will carry weight. In short, with this donation, Kimmelman bought major ideological clout, along with a tax write-off. The $5 million included a senior fellowship at Woods Institute for the Environment, graduate fellowships in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, seed grants funding at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He had previously endowed the Kimmelman Professorship and undergrad scholarships. Stanford is well-known for its research for the US military-industrial complex, and as a top CIA university – no surprises that Condoleeza Rice was there.

Energy Solutions is also at Sellafield: http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2016/01/sellafield-decommissioning-deal-set-to-deliver-jobs-and-local-investment-for-a-decade/ As well, through FCC Environment and Waste Recycling Group, it is involved with putting radioactive waste in the Lillyhall Cumbria landfill, near a school. Juan del Rivero, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Spain was recruited by Omega Capital which manages Alicia Koplowitz’ money. Alicia is sister to Esther – owner of FCC. Energy Solutions also brought in German nuclear waste to burn in Tennessee. The EnergySolutions incinerators have been operating since around 1990 and reportedly never undergone a comprehensive environmental impact analysis, as of 2011. http://www.nonukesyall.org/stop_German_waste_import.html

EnergySolutions and WIPP

According to the DOE- Office of Inspector General (OIG) EnergySolutions was, at least partially, at fault in the WIPP disaster which sent lethal plutonium and americium into the environment: “Notably, Los Alamos National Security, LLC and its subcontractor, Energy Solutions, added potentially incompatible materials to waste stored in drums during the waste remediation process at LANL’s Waste Characterization, Reduction and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF)…. the addition of these potentially incompatible materials to nitrate bearing TRU waste drums during the waste remediation process has resulted in problems that the Department will ultimately need to address. Such actions, likely costly, will require additional efforts to examine the storage, relocation and processing of the remaining drums containing the potentially incompatible materials at LANL, WIPP and at a temporary waste storage facility the Department used when WIPP shipments were interrupted…. in September 2013, Los Alamos National Security, LLC and Energy Solutions began using a liquid acid neutralizer with an ingredient that was highly reactive with oxidizers and was, therefore, potentially incompatible with the nitrate salts. According to a Department official, the majority of the nitrate salt bearing drums that had liquids was neutralized with this particular liquid acid neutralizer.” http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/10/f18/DOE-IG-0922.pdf ” Blame appears to have been officially laid at their feet: “the AIB concluding that the release was caused by an exothermic reaction involving the mixture of organic materials and nitrate salts in one drum that was processed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in December 2013. The Phase II AIB report was issued April 16, 2015.” http://www.wipp.energy.gov/wipprecovery/accident_desc.html

Industrial Hygienist for Energy Solutions when requesting permission from LANL operations (LANS consortium) for new neutralizer. His name is at the link, but his title “Industrial Hygienist” and his company “Energy Solutions” are sufficient: http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/NMED/Issues/documents/5.19.14-Combined-ESTransmittalofNeutralizersUsedinNSProcessin….pdf (His boss, EnergySolutions’ Lockwood allegedly taught Corporate Leadership at Stanford and was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs).

Some journalists have tried to let the Energy Solutions Industrial Hygienist off the hook for WIPP and blame others, because he said he’s not a criticality expert, but that’s got nothing to do with it. Firstly, why is he working there if he’s not a plutonium expert and secondly, you don’t even have to know what criticality is to know that explosive chemical combinations and radioactive waste don’t mix! If the Energy Solutions guy didn’t know much of anything about the topic and appears too lazy to find out to boot, then why is Energy Solutions involved at all!? This appears a failure of an investment banker’s “corporate leadership”. Investment bankers in nuclear waste are a sign of a larger problem, which will ultimately destroy the earth, if not stopped pronto.

It is clear that Energy Solutions-Energy Capital Partners are responsible for staying at Fukushima, with an (?sometimes? often?) inoperable ALPS system, instead of gracefully bowing out and letting someone else do the job. ALPS is an old system and innovation has been locked out. So, the investment bankers at Energy Solutions – Energy Capital Partners are responsible for poisoning the Pacific. If they keep on and the phytoplankton die, then we will all die for lack of oxygen. More oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the ocean, than in forests. If greed and arrogance continue to rule, we all die, just like the an Energy Solutions worker in Erwin, Tennessee recently did.

WHOI is tied to pro-nuclear MIT (home to USDOE head Moniz), and through board member/advisory committee member Priscilla B. Woods to Woods Institute at Stanford. The Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Institute for the Environment has received an apparently large donation from Doug Kimmelman, founder and Senior Partner of Energy Capital Partners, owner of EnergySolutions Nuclear Waste company. http://giving.stanford. edu/stanford-benefactor/stories/power-and-finance-5-million-gift-energy-investor Stanford As already discussed, EnergySolutions is involved in the failure to clean-up Fukushima water with its “ALPS” system. Doug Kimmelman used to work for Goldman Sachs, as did many others running EnergySolutions. Goldman Sachs had ties with one important Japanese Bank.

“Featured Partners & Sponsors of WHOI” (Emphasis our own):
GOVERNMENT: UNITED STATES
National Science Foundation
Department of Defense
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. (NOAA)
National Aeronautics and Space Admin. (NASA)
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Department of Energy USDOE)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
GOVERNMENT: INTERNATIONAL
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ecuador’s Naval Oceanographic Institute French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea
India’s Coucil of Scientific and Industrial Research Pakistan‘s National Institute of Oceanography
Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology
ACADEMIC
Alexandria University
Cape Breton University
Cornell University
Dalhousie University
Korea Maritime University
Marine Biological Laboratory
Masachusetts Institute of Technology
National Oceanograhy Centre, Southampton
Naval Postgraduate School
Oregon State University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Shanghai Ocean University
Universidad de Concepción
University of Tokyo
INDUSTRY
Chevron Flatley Discovery Lab
James Fisher Defense
Kongsberg Hydroid
Raytheon
Schlumberger Doll Research
Sonardyne
Teledyne Technologies
NON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS
Boston Museum of Science
Cape Abilities Conservation International
Consortium for Ocean Leadership New England Aquarium
Smithsonian Institution
Waitt Institute
Woods Hole Research Center
http://www.whoi. edu/main/partners-sponsors (Link intentionally broken)

Ken Buesseler’s WHOI-MIT Ph.D. dissertation was on plutonium. He has done research for the USDOE at the Savannah River site, studying plutonium. Most of his student and professional life he has been affiliated with WHOI, which is considered academic incest, and should make people wonder why.

Buesseler is a plutonium testing expert, but has mostly focused on Cesium, in the context of Fukushima. Cesium 134 has a half-life of 2 years, whereas Cesium 137 has a half-life of around 30 years. Thus, testing for Cesium 134, 3, 4, and 5 years after Fukushima, as he has done, is fraudulent, unless this is accounted for. Furthermore, testing sediments, algae and seaweed, appears more worthwhile. The numbers of tests have not been statistically significant. In short, it is methodologically flawed. Of course, it depends on what you do (or do not) want to know.

The reader can decide if any becquerels (radioactive shots) of manmade radiation are acceptable in their seafood. They can also decide if it has anything to do with what the US government calls “Unusual Mortality Events”. Los Alamos Nuclear Lab, the National Academy of Science BEIR committee, and common sense (at least for those who have good backgrounds in biological sciences) tell us that there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation. Increased dose is increased risk.

Most, and maybe all, of my chemistry and biology professors were pro-nuclear, and even came from the nuclear industry, but never did they try to tell us that radiation was good for us. Rather we were told that alpha radionuclides weren’t very dangerous unless you ate them. And, what fool would eat the stuff? Where they failed us was by not pointing out that the soil where food is grown could be contaminated and thus we would eat it. Nor did they tell us that nuclear weapons testing had contaminated the soil and water. Much of the world is still contaminated by nuclear weapons testing, routine radioactive emissions from nuclear facilities, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima. By TEPCO’s own admission the Fukushima reactors continue to spew out radiation, along with intermittent dumping of radioactive water. Dana Durnford has continually pointed this out. This is not news that either the nuclear industry or fishing industry would want out. Canada’s Cameco Corporation is the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company. Penny stock uranium miners are also registered in Canada. Cameco co-owns a uranium mine (Cigar Lake) with TEPCO and Areva.

The biggest crime of Buesseler and Cullen, up until now, has been to frighten people away from eating food with potassium, such is bananas. Without potassium you die, period. It is necessary for the functioning of the nervous system, including heart function. Potassium deficiency can literally make you drop dead. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000479.htm It appears difficult to get enough potassium and it is dangerous to get too much. Thus, it needs to come mostly from food. Frighteningly, if someone is potassium deficient then they are more likely to pick-up deadly radioactive cesium. The same is true of plants and animals. Putting potassium on the ground has been used to help plants uptake potassium instead of cesium.

Oak Ridge (Nuclear Lab) Affiliated universities make clear the deception by Buessler and Cullen regarding potassium. They state: “The human body maintains relatively tight homeostatic control over potassium levels. This means that the consumption of foods containing large amounts of potassium will not increase the body’s potassium content. As such, eating foods like bananas does not increase your annual radiation dose. If someone ingested potassium that had been enriched in K-40, that would be another story.““General Information About K-40, Paul Frame, Oak Ridge Associated Universities”
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/potassiumgeneralinfo.htm
Radioactive K40 makes up only 0.012% (120 ppm) of the total amount of potassium found in nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-40 On the other hand, radio-active cesium can be taken up in potassium’s stead. Cesium acts as both a chemical and radiological poison. The banana and potato industry need to take Buesseler and Cullen to court for trying to scare people away from life-giving bananas and potatoes. They must have lost a lot of money from this con-game of trying to scare people away from bananas, in an apparent attempt to make man-made radioactive pollution of the earth look ok.

The Irish government seconds Oak Ridge Universities: “Potassium-40, a naturally occurring radionuclide, is present in relatively large activity concentrations in the marine environment. However it is controlled by homeostatic processes in the human body [Eisenbud and Gessell, 1997] and its equilibrium activity concentration in the body is normally independent of the amount consumed. Therefore, while the activity concentrations of this radionuclide in seafood are considerably higher than many other natural radionuclides, its presence does not result in an increased radiological hazard” https://www.rpii.ie/RPII/files/7d/7dd84765-857b-4c45-9fab-8542a428a3e4.pdf

As noted above, in a few passages of Genesis, one reads much biological truth. The human body reflects the earth and water itself. The majority of the human body is water.

Water and carbon are the foundations of life as we know it. Thus, any real student of biological sciences has to read with alarm about radioactive carbon 14 and radioactive water (tritiated water) coming out of nuclear power stations.

Many manmade radioactive elements mimic the natural elements, spreading radiation throughout the body (E.g., plutonium mimics iron, strontium mimics calcium, cesium mimics potassium, radioactive cobalt can replace the non-radioactive cobalt in vitamin B12). Thus, many manmade radionuclides may act as chemical poisons, as well as radiological poisons. Many are heavy metals. It should come as no surprise that heavy metal poison lead is at the end of many of the radioactive decay chains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Actinide_alpha_decay_chains

“J Environ Radioact. 2013 Jan;115:28-33. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2012.07.008. Epub 2012 Aug 3.
Bioaccumulation of tritiated water in phytoplankton and trophic transfer of organically bound tritium to the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis. Jaeschke BC1, Bradshaw C.
Author information
Abstract
Large releases of tritium are currently permitted in coastal areas due to assumptions that it rapidly disperses in the water and has a low toxicity due to its low energy emissions. This paper presents a laboratory experiment developed to identify previously untested scenarios where tritium may concentrate or transfer in biota relevant to Baltic coastal communities. Phytoplankton populations of Dunaliella tertiolecta and Nodularia spumigena were exposed at different growth-stages, to tritiated water (HTO; 10 MBq l(-1)). Tritiated D. tertiolecta was then fed to mussels, Mytilus edulis, regularly over a period of three weeks. Activity concentrations of phytoplankton and various tissues from the mussel were determined. Both phytoplankton species transformed HTO into organically-bound tritium (OBT) in their tissues. D. tertiolecta accumulated significantly more tritium when allowed to grow exponentially in HTO than if it had already reached the stationary growth phase; both treatments accumulated significantly more than the corresponding treatments of N. spumigena. No effect of growth phase on bioaccumulation of tritium was detectable in N. spumigena following exposure. After mussels were given 3 feeds of tritiated D. tertiolecta, significant levels of tritium were detected in the tissues. Incorporation into most mussel tissues appeared to follow a linear relationship with number of tritiated phytoplankton feeds with no equilibrium, highlighting the potential for biomagnification. Different rates of incorporation in species from a similar functional group highlight the difficulties in using a ‘representative’ species for modelling the transfer and impact of tritium. Accumulations of organic tritium into the mussel tissues from tritiated-phytoplankton demonstrate an environmentally relevant transfer pathway of tritium even when water-concentrations are reduced, adding weight to the assertion that organically bound tritium acts as a persistent organic pollutant. The persistence, potential for biomagnification and the increased toxicity of organic tritium increases the potential impact on the environment following a release of HTO; current legislation does not adequately take into account the nature of organic forms of tritium and therefore may be underestimating accumulation and toxic effect of tritium in the environment. Such information is necessary to accurately assess the distribution of tritium following routine releases, and to adequately protect the environment and humans. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22863967 (Emphasis our own).

Dr. Ian Fairlie-Greenpeace report on Tritium: http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/global/canada/report/2007/6/tritium-hazard-report-pollu.pdf

NIRS Image: Radioactive Releases from Nuclear Power Plants of the Mississippi River Watershed

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

Genesis 2:
“6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
[…]
15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Revelation 11:18
“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; AND SHOULDEST DESTROY THEM WHICH DESTROY THE EARTH”