Monthly Archives: January 2014

Activism, Ecocide ALert, Preventing Ecocide

Citizen scientists can fill info gaps about Fukushima effects

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After years of skepticism about the contribution ordinary people can make to scientific research, the latest thinking is citizen scientists do good science. But can it be trusted?

by David Suzuki, reposted from Rabble.ca, Jan 28, 2014

An Internet search turns up an astounding number of pages about radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown that followed an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. But it’s difficult to find credible information.

One reason is that government monitoring of radiation and its effects on fish stocks appears to be limited. According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, “No U.S. government or international agency is monitoring the spread of low levels of radiation from Fukushima along the West Coast of North America and around the Hawaiian Islands.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s most recent food testing, which includes seafood, appears to be from June 2012. Its website states, “FDA has no evidence that radionuclides from the Fukushima incident are present in the U.S. food supply at levels that would pose a public health concern. This is true for both FDA-regulated food products imported from Japan and U.S. domestic food products, including seafood caught off the coast of the United States.”

The non-profit Canadian Highly Migratory Species Foundation has been monitoring Pacific troll-caught albacore tuna off the B.C. coast. Its 2013 sampling found “no residues detected at the lowest detection limits achievable.” The B.C. Centre for Disease Control website assures us we have little cause for concern about radiation from Japan in our food and environment. Websites for Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency yield scant information.

But the disaster isn’t over. Despite the Japanese government’s claim that everything is under control, concerns have been raised about the delicate process of removing more than 1,500 nuclear fuel rod sets, each containing 60 to 80 fuel rods with a total of about 400 tonnes of uranium, from Reactor 4 to a safer location, which is expected to take a year. Some, including me, have speculated another major earthquake could spark a new disaster. And Reactors 1, 2 and 3 still have tonnes of molten radioactive fuel that must be cooled with a constant flow of water.

A radioactive plume is expected to reach the West Coast sometime this year, but experts say it will be diluted by currents off Japan’s east coast and, according to the Live Science website, “the majority of the cesium-137 will remain in the North Pacific gyre — a region of ocean that circulates slowly clockwise and has trapped debris in its center to form the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ — and continue to be diluted for approximately a decade following the initial Fukushima release in 2011.”

With the lack of data from government, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is asking the public for help. In January, Ken Buesseler, senior scientist and director of the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity at the U.S.-based non-profit, launched a fundraising campaign and citizen science website to collect and analyze seawater along North America’s West Coast.

“Whether you agree with predictions that levels of radiation along the Pacific Coast of North America will be too low to be of human health concern or to impact fisheries and marine life, we can all agree that radiation should be monitored, and we are asking for your help to make that happen,” Buesseler said in a news release.

Participants can help fund and propose new sites for seawater sampling, and collect seawater to ship to the lab for analysis. The David Suzuki Foundation is the point group for two sampling sites, on Haida Gwaii and at Bamfield on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Data will be published at How Radioactive Is Our Ocean? and will include an evolving map showing cesium concentrations with links to information about radioactivity in the ocean and what the levels mean.

The oceans contain naturally occurring radioactive isotopes and radiation from 1960s nuclear testing. Buesseler doesn’t think levels in the ocean or seafood will become dangerously high because of the Fukushima disaster, but he stresses the importance of monitoring.

The Fukushima disaster was a wake-up call for the potential dangers of nuclear power plants, especially in unstable areas. North Americans may have little cause for concern for now, but without good scientific information to determine whether or not it is affecting our food and environment we can’t know for sure. The Woods Hole initiative is a good start.

With contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Ecocide ALert, Remediation and Restitution

‘Even at low doses, arsenic can be carcinogenic:’ Corriveau

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Thirty-one workers at the Giant Mine cleanup site have already shown high levels of arsenic
trioxide

by CBC News North, Jan 30, 2014

Dr. Andre Corriveau: ‘Even at low doses, arsenic can be a carcinogen.’

The Northwest Territories’ chief public health officer is urging caution for workers at the Giant Mine cleanup site.

Dr. Andre Corriveau says regular exposure to arsenic can have deadly consequences.

Thirty-one workers at the site have already shown high levels of arsenic trioxide, a highly toxic compound found in abundance at the old Giant mine.

The employees who had elevated levels of it in their bodies had been working in the most contaminated area at the site.

Corriveau warns that long-term exposure to arsenic can cause cancer.

“Many of the employees are likely going to be working on site for several years,” he says. “Even at low doses, arsenic can be a carcinogen, so a cause for cancer if you’re exposed for an ongoing basis for several years.”

The employees who tested high for arsenic wear two body suits, a respirator mask, and two pairs of gloves when they’re working on site.

Corriveau says improper hygiene or misuse of this equipment can be dangerous.

“Arsenic can cause strong irritation if you’re exposed on your skin or if it gets into your eyes. If you breathe it in, it can cause an irritation in your lungs. That’s why the protective equipment is critical so that these incidents don’t occur.”

None of the 31 workers who had elevated levels of the toxin got sick this past year.

And no claims have been filed with the Workers Safety and Compensation Commission.

However, some of the 31 workers showed elevated levels of the toxin repeatedly.

Site officials plan to increase safety training when the cleanup resumes in the spring. SOURCE

 

Politics, Preventing Ecocide, solutions

Climate justice demands rich polluters help poorer nations

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Climate justice also demands that those richer countries that have done the most to cause the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere — and reaped the benefits — help poorer nations adapt to the climate change already underway. —Kofi Annan

Activism, Ecocide ALert, Preventing Ecocide

A united call for action on climate change

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Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan: “Every year the world fails to act brings us closer to the tipping point when scientists fear that climate change may become irreversible.”

by Kofi Annan, reposted from the Washington Post, Jan 22, 2014

When Nelson Mandela formed the Elders in 2007 to promote peace and human rights across the world, he challenged us to be bold and to give a voice to those who have none. No issue demands these qualities more than our collective failure to tackle climate change.

Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. It threatens the well-being of hundreds of millions of people today and many billions more in the future. It undermines the human rights to food, water, health and shelter — causes for which we, as Elders, have fought all our lives.

No one and no country will escape the impact of climate change. But those with no voice — because they are already marginalized or are not yet born — are at greatest risk. The Elders have an urgent moral duty to speak out on their behalf.

Given the compelling weight of evidence, it can be hard to understand why anyone is still dragging his or her feet on the coordinated action needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The latest reportfrom the expert Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states clearly that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that human behavior is extremely likely the dominant cause.

Recent months have also brought examples — from typhoons in the Philippines to thepolar vortex in North America and widespread floods in Europe — of the increase in extreme weather events that experts warn is the inevitable outcome of climate change. The costs are already enormous, which is why the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and theInternational Energy Agency have joined the scientific community in warning about the risks. It is no longer only environmentalists who are ringing alarm bells.

Every year the world fails to act brings us closer to the tipping point when scientists fear that climate change may become irreversible. This is a terrible gamble with the future of the planet and with life itself. MORE

Ecocide, Remediation and Restitution

BP Rig Supervisors Must Face Manslaughter Charges For Deepwater Horizon Deaths, Judge Rules

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The Deepwater Horizon rig one day after it exploded April 21, 2010
The Deepwater Horizon rig one day after it exploded April 21, 2010
CREDIT: HERBERT/AP

By Emily Atkin, reposted from ClimateProgress, Jan 29, 2014

The two BP supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon rig who made the last critical decisions before its tragic and historic explosion in 2010 won’t be able to easily escape involuntary manslaughter charges over the deaths of eleven fellow workers, a Louisiana federal judge ruled Monday, saying the case should be decided by a jury.

Donald J. Vidrine and Robert Kaluz had pled not guilty in 2012 to the charges in their 23-count indictment, which accuses them of mishandling an important safety test and failing to report abnormally high pressure readings that attorneys say were were obvious signs of an impending disaster. The blast, which blew out of BP’s Macondo well, immediately killed 11 workers and resulted in the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.

The supervisors had tried to get the involuntary manslaughter charges dismissed from the case before it went to trial, but U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. was not convinced by their arguments.

“Provided that the government is able to prove that the defendants’ actions caused the blowout that caused the eleven deaths on the Deepwater Horizon, the facts as alleged are sufficient to conclude that an ordinary person would reasonably understand that the improper administration of the negative testing and actions surrounding such administration of the test in light of the inherent danger in deepwater drilling would subject one to criminal sanctions,” Judge Duval wrote.

Attempting to get the case dismissed, attorneys for Donald J. Vidrine and Robert Kaluza had argued that the criminal statutes governing the case were unconstitutionally vague — specifically, that the federal statute for involuntary manslaughter was not specific enough regarding the “standard of care” that the supervisors were supposed to maintain on the rig. According to their argument, BP’s professional conduct guidelines had provided “little to no ascertainable standard” of how supervisors were supposed to have acted to prevent the blowout. Vidrine and Kaluza, they said, never could have known they were violating the law. MORE

Audio, Ecocide, Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism

Much Of North Dakota’s Natural Gas Is Going Up In Flames

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A gas flare in North Dakota.
Credit: Gas flares are used to burn off excess natural gas at an oil well in North Dakota. There’s currently insufficient infrastructure to store or ship the gas being produced by oil drillers in the state. (Annie Flanagan for NPR)

by Jeff Brady, reposted from NPR, Jan 30, 2014

A remarkable transformation is underway in western North Dakota, where an oil boom is changing the state’s fortunes and leaving once-sleepy towns bursting at the seams. In a series of stories, NPR is exploring the economic, social and environmental demands of this modern-day gold rush.

North Dakota’s oil boom isn’t just about oil; a lot of natural gas comes out of the ground at the same time. But there’s a problem with that: The state doesn’t have the pipelines needed to transport all of that gas to market. There’s also no place to store it.

In many cases, drillers are simply burning it.

“People are estimating it’s about $1 million a day just being thrown into the air,” says Marcus Stewart, an energy analyst with Bentek Energy. Stewart tracks the amount of gas burned off — or flared — in the state, and his latest figures show that drillers are burning about 27 percent of the gas they produce. MORE

Uncategorized

Scientists question why Ottawa hired top oil lobbyist to advise government on lakes facility studying pollution

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Gerry Protti, a former Encana executive and one of the founders of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, was hired by the department in December 2012 on a three-month “management consulting” contract for $21,000.
Gerry Protti, a former Encana executive and one of the founders of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, was hired by the department in December 2012 on a three-month “management consulting” contract for $21,000. Todd Korol for National Post

by , reposted from the National Post, Jan 29, 2014

One of Canada’s most prominent oil lobbyists was hired to advise the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on the Experimental Lakes Area, a freshwater research facility that the federal government ordered shut in 2012.

Gerry Protti, a former Encana executive and one of the founders of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, was hired by the department in December 2012 on a three-month “management consulting” contract for $21,000.

Emails obtained under access-to-information legislation show that Protti worked with senior DFO officials as they were negotiating with the organization trying to save the ELA.

In 2012, DFO contacted scientists at the northwestern Ontario facility near Kenora to let them know the government would no longer fund the ELA, which meant that long-term experiments related to environmental contamination of fresh water had to be stopped. MORE