Category Archives: Safety

Trust the radiation-lying document-forging nuclear industry to build new nukes?

TEPCO that lied about deadly levels of radiation at Fukushima is part of the industry Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning brags about as producing

“nuclear power as a clean, safe, affordable solution for this world’s energy future”.

SO and Georgia Power are building two new nukes at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River, including parts by Korea’s document-forging Doosan. Forging as in lying, as in what the Korean press is now calling the Korean nuclear mafia of power companies, vendors, and testers. Stateside U.S. NRC is refusing to supply Congress with safety documents. And when I asked NRC if they were going to take account of Doosan in their webinar about foreign ownership of U.S. nuclear reactors NRC staff told me Vogtle was an unbuilt reactor and they were only dealing with existing power reactors. Which is very strange, considering their Commission Direction explicitly refers to unbuilt and not-even-permitted Calvert Cliffs 3 in its subject.

And considering Doosan’s online map of its customers includes not only six not built yet, Vogtle 3,4, Summer 2,3, Duke Energy’s Levy County 1,2 (since cancelled), but also nine operating nuclear power reactors, Entergy’s Waterford 3 (west of New Orleans; remember the dark Super Bowl?), TVA’s Sequoyah 1 and 2 near Chattanooga and Watts Bar 1 near Knoxville (all within 500 miles of here) plus Entergy’s Indian Point 2 and 3 near New York City and Arizona Public Service’s Palo Verde 1,2,3 near Phoenix, Arizona. With Vogtle 2 and 3, that’s fifteen reactors in the U.S. supplied by document-forging Doosan. OK, 13 now that Levy County 1 and 2 won’t be built.

How about we say the same soon about Vogtle 3 and 4? That they won’t be built? Probably Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers could say that. GA PSC, Georgia legislature, or SO CEO Tom Fanning could say that. We’re listening.

-jsq

TEPCO lied about Fukushima radiation: it’s 18 times worse

Officer, I wasn’t speeding, I pegged my speedometer at 50, nevermind all those people I ran over! Like TEPCO using radiation detectors that maxed out much lower than the actual levels. Is this an industry we want building new nukes in Georgia?

Mike Adams wrote for NaturalNews.com 1 September 2013, TEPCO admits deliberately using radiation detectors that give deceptively low readings; radiation leaks far worse than reported,

We also know from news reports in 2011 that TEPCO ran around the Fukushima facility turning off the radiation detectors to prevent alarms from going off. Radiation? What radiation?

And now we find out the company has been deliberately using radiation detectors that max out at just 100 mSv.

That’s right, as BBC reported 1 September 2013, Continue reading →

Aquifer and well contamination miles from Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site

At the Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site meeting, caller Anthony Samsel said (42 minutes and 10 seconds into the video) of a site in Massachusetts:

I was the first person to track contamination of the ground to aquifers that travel several miles; plastics, formaldehyde, from a plastics manufacturing plant, and there was contamination of city wells with a lot of cancer clusters and a lot of sick, dead, and dying people.

He was talking about the Wells G & H Superfund Site in Woburn, MA, where, according to EPA,

The groundwater was contaminated with industrial solvents, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Soil on the five properties was contaminated with VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides. Sediments in the Aberjona River were contaminated with PAHs and heavy metals such as chromium, zinc, mercury and arsenic.

Thirty years later, that one is still toxic.

In a 29 September 2011 coment Samsel said Continue reading →

Watkins family on other cases

It’s not so much what you know as what you can prove, says a concerned father, and the mother wants better representation for others whose children like her daughter have gotten caught in a felony with little if any evidence at school.

Mrs. Watkins said after her daughter was tackled at school be a deputy, she found “there are a lot of children in the judicial system that may not have good representation.” She and Mr. Watkins and George Boston Rhynes are starting an organization to at least show concern. George said in one visit to juvenile court he encountered two families with problems with probation and law enforcement knocking down doors and searching without search warrants.

Mr. Watkins wants to help people know their rights. Things we older folk may have done as children now there are laws against, and the children and their families need to know things like the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor, and the importance of writing things down. “Details is all that matters.” Later he noted that Continue reading →

Moody Family Housing is in aquifer recharge zone @ LCC 2013-08-27

The Moody Family Housing just rezoned is in a recharge zone for our drinking water supply, the Floridan Aquifer. What will keep runoff from this subdivision from feeding through the wetlands and sinkhole into the aquifer? Should we depend on county engineering, which never put in the traffic calming measures required for nearby Nelson Hill, or other county staff, who gave waivers for other required items there, or just didn’t require them to be implemented? What assurances can we get from our county government that Moody Family Housing won’t pollute our drinking water?

The above map is a detail from Lowndes County’s own Water Resource Protection Districts Ordinance (WRPDO) overlay Map. Here’s an even more detailed view courtesy VALOR GIS (turn on Streams and Waterbodies, NWI Wetlands, Muncipal Boundaries, and Groundwater Rechard Areas): Continue reading →

Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross –Joan McNeal for Channel 22

People are still getting sick and dying in Waycross after Chemical company Seven Out closed and left a toxic waste site. It’s now a Superfund site, which doesn’t mean anything has been cleaned up. 10 out of 30 City Hall employees have cancer and 8 have already died. Many living around the site are sick, and teachers and school children. What will Georgia Reps. Jason Spencer and Ellis Black who attended do after that 29 August 2013 meeting? Will action wait until more people die? And to which landfill were those precipitated solids taken?

State representative Jason Spencer District 180 said the state health report should be finished in October, and was quick to point to Rep. Ellis Black District 174 as representing the specific area. Rep. Black said they’d just heard about this and would be looking into it, and:

I’m a farmer from Clyattville…. I spent some time in the farm-supply business and I have messed with agricultural chemicals all my life and I’ve got a lot of experience there. And I can tell you that I know firsthand something about the danger and the challenges of dealing with these really sensitive products and how minute amount can cause problems. And it’s something that’s Continue reading →

Mrs. Watkins says her 14-year-old daughter was charged with a felony at Pine Grove Middle School despite no evidence

Mrs. Watkins said a sheriff’s deputy used excessive force against her daughter and despite no evidence her daughter was charged with a felony. George Boston Rhynes asked:

If your child would have been been caught with what her child have experienced, wouldn’t you want somebody in Valdosta and Lowndes County and the state of Georgia and the state and the nation to know what had happened to your child?

According to Mrs. Watkins, between 11AM and noon on 14 May 2013 she Watkins was called by the principal of Pine Grove Middle School saying her daughter had assaulted her. When Mrs. Watkins got there Deputy Robert Adkins told her he was going to charge her daughter with several charges, even though he had no statement from anyone. When she got home, she found a facebook video of two children attacking her daughter, who wasn’t attacking anyone, and the teacher was never struck, which the deputy also confirmed he had not heard happened. Yet Mrs. Watkins said none of the other children were charged and her daughter was charged with a felony. See for yourself what she said, in a lot more detail:

Here’s the video:

Continue reading →

Moody can’t get onto site for Moody Family Housing –Michael Noll @ LCC 2013-08-27

Dr. Michael G. Noll of VSU said representatives of Moody Air Force Base for the second time could not get permission to go on the site for the Moody Family Housing the Commission approved rezoning for two weeks before, at the 27 August 2013 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

He also handed the Commission and interested parties copies of a public comment he and VSU professors Don Thieme and Can Denizman had sent to USAF. Plus the developer still refused to provide a copy of the geotechnical report the Air Force’s Environmental Assessment says the developer is required to send to the Air Force.

If there is nothing to hide, if there are no problems with possible developments of the area, why not share the report?

Two different people report seeing Commissioner Richard Raines catch Dr. Noll on the way out of the building and ask him what would be involved in doing the geophysical survey Dr. Noll has repeatedly asked to do.

Japanese government forced to take over Fukushima nuclear crisis

This is not the type of “crisis” or “leak” that ends quickly even with the Japanese government now taking over from TEPCO: radioactive water has been seeping into groundwater and the Pacific Ocean for two years, many of those tanks holding radioactive water, built with rubber seams only meant to last five years, are leaking, and the containment wall next to the ocean is making groundwater rise behind it, spreading into the aquifer and spilling over it into the ocean, with every tuna caught off California bearing radioactive signatures from Fukushima. The radioactive uranium cores are somewhere in or under their containment buildings, with no known way to extract them, still requiring cooling water poured over them for some unknown number of years, and continuing to be radioactive for thousands of years. Remember, the Fukushima reactors are the same GE Mark I model as Plant Hatch on the Altamaha River. Why are we building more nuclear reactors in Georgia when ten U.S. nukes have been cancelled or will never be built in the past year? Google already installed on time and on budget almost as much solar and wind as both new Plant Vogtle nukes would produce and for less than what has already been spent on them, plus solar panels and wind farms don’t leak radioactivity.

Photograph by Kyodo/Reuters

Latest Radioactive Leak at Fukushima: How Is It Different? by Patrick J. Kiger for National Geographic 21 August 2013,

The water from the leaking tank is so heavily contaminated with strontium-90, cesium-137, and other radioactive substances that a person standing less than two feet away would receive, in an hour’s time, a radiation dose equivalent to five times the acceptable exposure for nuclear workers, Reuters reported. Within ten hours, the exposed person would develop radiation sickness, with symptoms such as nausea and a drop in white blood cells.

Mari Yamaguchi wrote for AP 28 August 2013, Fukushima Leak Upgraded To Level 3 Severity, Continue reading →

Importance of transparency, due diligence, and communication –Michael G. Noll @ LCC 2013-08-27

Received yesterday on VSU professors write to USAF consultant about Moody Family Housing @ LCC 2013-08-27. -jsq

Thanks for posting this John.

One should note that the VDT was absent at the LCBOC meeting on August 13, when the county commissioners approved the rezoning request. This approval came after we presented our concerns and before the period given by AFCEC for public comments in regard to the Environmental Assessment (EA) expired. No mention in the VDT on August 14 about any of it, since no VDT reporter was present.

In regard to the EA and the possibilities to submit comments, it should also be noted that the phone number listed in the public announcement was incorrect. Thus, any attempts to contact Mr. Allen Richmond, the AFCEC representative, with this published phone number were unsuccessful. We eventually received the correct phone number with the help of Moody AFB personnel. While we were able to speak once with Mr. Richmond and establish email contact, his ability (or willingness?) to communicate was limited.

Moreover, we asked Mr. Allen Richmond on August 12 if we Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange