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INEEL NEWS Environmental Defense Institute News and Information on Environmental Health and Safety Issues INEEL NEWS Environmental Defense Institute News and Information on Environmental Health and Safety Issues June 2003 Volume 14 Number 4 Nuclear Reactors Pose Heath Hazard In a 1/29/01 Nation article, Harvey Wasserman closed in 1995. Later research on two additional reactors, identifies independent health research studies that indicate Main Yankee and Big Rock Point in Michigan, both of significant health hazards in populations living near which went cold in 1997, showed that infant death rates fell commercial nuclear power plants and Department of Energy a stunning 33.4 percent and 54.1 percent, respectively. nuclear operations. 1 Wasserman contends that topping the “Forty-two million Americans live downwind list of reactor shut-downs in health terms was the within fifty miles of commercial reactors,” says Mangano. long-overdue final shutdown of the Russian Chernobyl “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows nuclear plants nuclear power station on December 15. Unit Four at the to emit a certain level of radiation, saying that amount is too Ukrainian complex blew up in 1986, spewing radioactive low to result in adverse health effects. But it does not do death and destruction around the planet. Evidence points follow-up studies to see if there are excessive infant deaths, to a skyrocketing death rate among the 800,000 birth defects or cancers.” Additional research by Mangano “liquidators” who were forced by the then-Soviet also indicates a drop in overall cancer deaths among elderly government to help clean up the stricken reactor, while new people living near nuclear plants once they are deactivated. studies also show escalating cancers among civilians in the On June 5, 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that some downwind areas. 1,900 central Pennsylvanians living downwind from the Earlier in the year, on the fourteenth anniversary of Three Mile Island nuclear plant could sue for health the Chernobyl debacle, the Radiation and Public Health damages. Local residents and researchers claim that a Project and Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR), a plague of death and disease followed the March 28, 1979 national safe-energy organization, released a path breaking melt-down and radiation leak at TMI Unit 2. study showing that radioactive emissions from commercial Even longer-overdue justice is coming to workers reactors are having catastrophic health effects on people in the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons production living near them comparable to those experienced by facilities. From the 1943 beginnings of the Manhattan nuclear weapons workers, for which the Energy Department Project to the ongoing enrichment of uranium at gigantic has finally admitted responsibility. The study, by Joseph plants in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, the government Mangano, a nationally known epidemiologist, compared has denied virtually all claims from thousands of workers infant death rates in areas surrounding five nuclear power suffering from a range of radiation-related diseases. But plants while they were operating and in the years after their the DOE finally issued a series of sweeping admissions after shut-downs. Mangano found that from 1985 to 1996, DOE-sponsored research found excess worker deaths from average nationalwide death rates for infants under the age of cancer and other causes at fourteen DOE facilities. A DOE 1 dropped 6.4 percent every two years. But in the areas report issued in May, 2000 confirmed that hundreds of surrounding five reactors closed down between 1987 and workers at Ohio’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, 1995, infant death rates dropped an average of 18 percent in whose supervisors did not require them to wear protective the first two years. “It’s hard to imagine a clearer masks, routinely inhaled uranium dust, arsenic and other correlation,” says Mangano. “The fetus in utero and small lethal pollutants. President Bill Clinton signed into law a babies are the most vulnerable to even tiny doses of the federal compensation program for DOE workers exposed to kinds of radiation emitted from nuclear power plants. Stop radiation, beryllium and silica. The program will cover the emissions, and you save the children.” some 600,000 people involved in making nuclear weapons. Published in the journal Environmental The DOE’s admissions give new weight to public Epidemiology and Toxicology, Mangano’s study covered demands that the commercial reactor industry come to terms these reactors: Wisconsin’s LaCrosse, which closed in with public health risks now that numerous aging and leaky 1987; Rancho Seco, near Sacramento, and Colorado’s Ft. St. reactors are waiting in line for extended licenses from the Vrain, both closed in 1989; Trojan, near Portland, Oregon, NRC. “How much more of the bodies-in-the-morgue which shut in 1992; Connecticut’s Millstone plant, which Environmental Defense Institute Page 2 approach to public health research do we need?” asks The administration's logic, Reed said, is that "we Robert Alvarez, executive director for STAR. “Shutting don't want to be constrained in any way about any weapon reactors may save lives. What more needs to be said.” we want to field." Harvey Wasserman, author of “The Last Energy The defense authorization bill was passed 5/23/03. War: The Battle Over Utility Deregulation” is senior adviser When critics sought during committee deliberations to to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. strike the language lifting the ban, they were unable to prevent some of the 12 Democratic members from joining the 13-member Republican majority in approving it. The bill provides $15.5 million in funding for US Congress research on a large hydrogen bunker-buster bomb called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. This bomb would be a Approves Nuclear Bomb Tests redesigned version of an “existing” nuclear weapon to make it better able to burrow deeply into the earth. Unlike the proposed low-yield bombs, which have an explosive force Paul Richter reporting for the Los Angles Times in of no more than 5 kilotons (five thousand tons of TNT) this an article (5/10/03), states that the Bush administration took weapon would have yields in the range of tens of kilotons, to a big step toward developing a new generation of nuclear a megaton, making it at least six times more powerful than weapons when a Senate panel approved a bill that would lift the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. a 10-year ban on researching small atomic bombs for It would be intended to generate shock waves that battlefield use and fund more study on a nuclear could crush targets 300 meters below the earth, experts say. "bunker-buster" bomb. Critics contend only 50 meters of penetration, and the The annual defense authorization bill, approved by fallout would cover such a wide area and cause so many the Senate Armed Services Committee, also increases casualties that presidents would be reluctant to order its use. funding for a nuclear weapons site in Nevada to enable the Fallout is expected when the testing phase begins again at Pentagon to more quickly resume the weapons testing it the Nevada Test Site, which has a sordid and tragic history suspended 11 years ago. of contaminating American citizens. The administration, in a major shift of recent U.S. Along with the $15 million for research on the nuclear weapons doctrine, has been moving to develop bunker buster, the bill would set aside $6 million for options with nuclear weapons to enable it to better deal with advanced research on nuclear weapons. emerging threats, such as the deeply buried bunkers where The bill also seeks $25 million in improvements to potential adversaries may conceal banned weapons and the Nevada nuclear weapons test site and U.S. nuclear labs missiles. because U.S. officials fear some of the nuclear infrastructure Administration officials have been formulating a has become unreliable since President Clinton declared a new policy since President Bush came into office but are voluntary test moratorium in 1993. Clinton ordered that the only now beginning to carry out the changes. Since the end nuclear weapons complex should be prepared to restart of the Cold War, the United States has not acknowledged testing within two to three years of a presidential order to do designing any new nuclear weapons, as it and Russia have so. worked to scale back their strategic nuclear arsenals. But Bush administration officials fear that tests may The administration's new tack has alarmed arms be needed to ensure the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons, control advocates, who fear that the availability of smaller and they want the lead time reduced to no more than 18 bombs that promise less secondary damage would months. Arms control advocates say they fear that, given the encourage nations to use weapons that have been nearly administration's other statements about nuclear weapons, unthinkable for half a century. the proposal for these improvements suggests that the White They worry that expansion of the U.S. nuclear House intends to begin retesting, perhaps in a second term if arsenal would encourage more countries to build weapons Bush is reelected. and weaken already fragile international non-proliferation The $25 million proposal "indicates the efforts. administration wants to keep the door open," said Daryl G. "We're moving away from more than five decades Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control of efforts to delegitimize the use of nuclear weapons," said Association. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Armed John D. Isaacs, president of the Council for a Services Committee. He questioned whether the United Livable World, which advocates arms control, noted that States needs additional nuclear weapons, especially given while some lawmakers have been pushing to change nuclear the growing capabilities of its conventional precision guided policy for some time, this year there has been a new source munitions.
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