Thursday, August 22, 2013

Fukushima Leak Is Much Worse Than We Were Led To Believe



Fukushima Leak Much Worse Than We Were Led To Believe

A nuclear expert has told the BBC that he believes the current water leaks at Fukushima are much worse than the authorities have stated.

Mycle Schneider is an independent consultant who has previously advised the French and German governments.

He says water is leaking out all over the site and there are no accurate figures for radiation levels.

Meanwhile the chairman of Japan's nuclear authority said that he feared there would be further leaks.

The ongoing problems at the Fukushima plant increased in recent days when the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) admitted that around 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank on the site.

Moment of crisis

The Japanese nuclear energy watchdog raised the incident level from one to three on the international scale that measures the severity of atomic accidents.

This was an acknowledgement that the power station was in its greatest crisis since the reactors melted down after the tsunami in 2011.

But some nuclear experts are concerned that the problem is a good deal worse than either Tepco or the Japanese government are willing to admit.

They are worried about the enormous quantities of water, used to cool the reactor cores, which are now being stored on site.

Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity and every day an extra 400 tonnes of water are being added.

"The quantities of water they are dealing with are absolutely gigantic," said Mycle Schneider, who has consulted widely for a variety of organisations and countries on nuclear issues.

"What is the worse is the water leakage everywhere else - not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place. Nobody can measure that.

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Do I really need to write a comment about this? This should be the lead story on every newscast in the US. Have you seen it? Do you have any idea how this is affecting the West Coast of the US? The Pacific Ocean? The marinelife? The people of Japan? Do you think TEPCO didn't know this? Do you think they have told the truth? LEAKING EVERYWHERE.

Fukushima Radiation Spiking Suddenly

Yet, all we get from the Obama administration however, is more nuclear as part of their "All Of The Above" energy plan and silence on this growing global catastrophe.

I didn't think it would end this way. I thought we would fight harder and care more.



All this for PROFIT.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Mysterious Dolphin Death Rate 7 Times Above Normal

8/22/13 Update: U.S. Dolphin Deaths Rise to 300; Cause Still a Mystery

"The spike follows a general trend in unusual mortality events that have occurred in recent decades in the United States. In the northern Gulf of Mexico, for instance, where there's an ongoing unusual mortality event, over a thousand dolphins and whales have washed up dead since February 2010. (Also see "Dolphin-Baby Die-Off in Gulf Puzzles Scientists [2011].") The "concern is we're doing more and more to protect dolphins from harm, yet dolphin strandings are on the rise," Matthew Huelsenbeck, a marine scientist at the nonprofit Oceana, said earlier this month. "No one seems to have a solid grasp as to what's going on." End of excerpt.

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I find it amazing how scientists are so baffled as to why so many animals are killed by the oceans... It's because we are KILLING THEM. Oil spills, toxic chemicals, fertilizers, plastic waste, radiation, climate change, overfishing... Can we stop acting so surprised when we see the food chain disrupted and animals and marine life dying as if we are in denial regarding what we are doing to this planet and especially to its water?

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Mysterious Dolphin Death Rate 7 Times Above Normal

Bottlenose dolphins are washing up on mid-Atlantic beaches in staggering numbers this summer. In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared an "unusual mortality event," and researchers say the death rate is seven times higher than normal for the East Coast in July.

"This is the highest number that we have had for this time of year since 1987," Susan Barco, research coordinator for the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center told USA Today. And what happened in '87? Morbillivirus, a virus related to measles, killed over 740 dolphins along the East Coast in a three month span. According to the Press of Atlantic City, four of the 28 dolphins that washed up in New Jersey last month had the morbillivirus, with lab tests pending for the rest of the carcasses.

“The minute (the dolphins) started coming in, there were similarities (to the 1987 outbreak),” Bob Schoelkopf, founding director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, told the Press of Atlantic City. The huge number of strandings has put an enormous financial strain on groups like his that lack institutional backing, but the NOAA's declaration of an "unusual mortality event" will direct some federal funding to the Center.

An “unusual mortality event” is rare; the Press of Atlantic City reports that only 59 have been declared nationwide since 1991. This month's declaration comes after a particularly deadly month for bottlenose dolphins, with at least 124 strandings reported from Virginia to New York since July. Last month, 13 bottlenose strandings were reported on Long Island from Long Beach to Montauk, along with one in Coney Island and one in the Rockaway, Newsday reports.

So far this year, 201 dolphins have been reported stranded. Locally, the year started on a grim note with a poor dolphin dying in the Gowanus Canal.

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This is heartbreaking. Forty nine dolphins off the NJ coast since July 10th this year have washed up. It is obvious something is poisoning them. Could it be the Corexit sprayed in millions of tons by BP after they killed the Gulf in 2010 finally making its way up the current loop in concert with a virus exacerbated by record warmth of our ocean? People seem to forget that tragedy happened as they are pushing Fukushima out of their minds as well.

We humans are killing the very ecosystems we and other species also need to survive. That is why deaths like this are so heartbreaking because they not only happen to species that did not cause them and cannot escape them, they were precipitated by us. People need to understand that what happens to other species should be a red flag to us. Dolphins are mammals and this "unusual mortality event" could go up the food chain.

Also, surface temperatures off the East Coast have been at record warmth, so this may also be a factor in increased activity of viruses. Climate change IS HERE and it is affecting all species.



I would hope to get the truth from government officials, but that hope isn't very strong. Whatever this is I am very saddened at seeing the deaths of these beautiful creatures. It is also a sign that we as humans have lost touch with our purpose on this planet. We better wake up.

EPA To Allow Consumption Of Toxic Wastewater By Wildlife and Livestock

EPA to Allow Consumption of Toxic Fracking Wastewater By Wildlife and Livestock

Millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals from oil and gas drilling rigs are pumped for consumption by wildlife and livestock with the formal approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to public comments filed yesterday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Contrary to its own regulations, EPA is issuing permits for surface application of drilling wastewater without even identifying the chemicals in fluids used for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, let alone setting effluent limits for the contaminants contained within them.



Photo credit: J Henry Fair / LightHawk

The EPA has just posted proposed new water discharge permits for the nearly dozen oil fields on or abutting the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming as the EPA has Clean Water Act jurisdiction on tribal lands. Besides not even listing the array of toxic chemicals being discharged, the proposed permits have monitoring requirements so weak that water can be tested long after fracking events or maintenance flushing. In addition, the permits lack any provisions to protect the health of wildlife or livestock. “Under the less than watchful eye of the EPA, fracking flowback is dumped into rivers, lakes and reservoirs,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing out that in both the current and the new proposed permits the EPA ignores its own rules requiring that it list “the type and quantity of wastes, fluids or pollutants which are proposed to be or are being treated, stored, disposed of, injected, emitted or discharged.”

“Gushers of putrid, grayish water encrusted with chemical crystals flood through Wind River into nearby streams,” he added.

Surface disposal of water produced by oil and gas drilling is forbidden in the Eastern U.S. but allowed in the arid West for purposes of “agricultural or wildlife propagation,” in the words of the governing federal regulation. Thus, the “produced water,” as it is called, must be “of good enough quality to be used for wildlife or livestock watering or other agricultural uses.” In the last decade, fracking fluids often consisting of powerfully toxic chemicals have been included in this surface discharge. The exact mixture used by individual operators is treated as a trade secret.

But one recent analysis identified 632 chemicals now used in shale-gas production. More than 75 percent of them affect the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems; 40-50 percent impact the kidneys and the nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems; 37 percent act on the hormone system; and 25 percent are linked with cancer or mutations. “Amid all the controversy on this topic, there is one point of agreement: Drinking fracking fluids is not a good idea,” added Ruch, pointing to cases where cattle drinking creek water contaminated with fracking fluids died or failed to produce calves the following year. “The more than 30-year old ‘produced water’ exception was intended for naturally occurring fluids and muds from within the geologic formations, not this new generation of powerful chemicals introduced downhole.” PEER is asking the EPA to rewrite the permits to regulate all the chemicals being discharged and to determine whether the “produced water” is potable for wildlife and livestock. The public comments period on the proposed Wind Reservation permits closes on July 26.

End of excerpt

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I know, you just read that and thought I mistyped it. I didn't. Since fracking us to oblivion is now the new bogus "clean energy" mechanism and part of the "All Of The Above" energy policy of the Obama Administration, the EPA now under Gina Mc Carthy doesn't seem any different in how it is handling this environmental catastrophe nor in doing anything regarding closing the Halliburton Loophole. Killing livestock, farmland and causing diseases in its citizens doesn't sound like the true mission of an agency that is supposed to be dedicated to environmental protection. However, even our water has been politicized. I don't hear much outrage from Democrats about this. Matter of fact there are Democrats that support fracking, even in Pennsylvania where the Republican governor has been in the pockets of these companies as residents become ill, livestock dies and the EPA once again looks away from the evidence of this insanity that has Dimock Pennsylvania as the central point. Guess they aren't as different as some think they are when it comes to putting $$$$$$$$$$$ over health and human and animal rights and respecting our waterways which are all we have. This is why we need to continue fighting this. Fracking is not "clean energy." To even use those words in a sentence together is preposterous. I will be keeping up with news on this.

Also see here for more information:

Fracking Wastewater

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Texas Drought Sets Residents Against Fracking



Fracking Vs. The Drought: They Call It Texas Tea, But You Can’t Drink Oil

How dry is it in Texas? So dry some residents are wishing for a hurricane to replenish the aquifer. So dry that many Texans are now against using water to frack for oil, which is famously called Texas Tea.

Every fracking job requires several million gallons of water. “Only about 20 percent to 25 percent on average of the water is recovered, while the rest disappears underground, never to be seen again.” Fracking is probably not the wisest use of water anywhere, but in a drought it’s downright self-destructive.

In one South Texas county, fracking was nearly one quarter of total water use in 2011, a fraction that is expected to hit one third soon. The Texas Water Development Board estimates frackers used 13.5 billion gallons water used in 2010, a number they project to more than double by 2020! Back in June, CP’s Tom Kenworthy reported on a Ceres study of 25,000 shale oil and shale gas wells that found nearly half these wells were in places “with high or extremely high water stress” because of large withdrawals for use by industry, agriculture, and municipalities. In Texas more than half were in high or extremely high water-stress areas.

Of course the warming-worsened drought in Texas has left much of the state parched. The town of Barnhart actually ran out of water. And the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality projects some 30 communities could run out of water by year’s end.

End of excerpt

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I predicted this would happen when this fracking frenzy first started. Dirty energy is the biggest user of water next to agriculture so this was bound to happen. Climate change is also amplifying the hydrologic cycle as more heat in the atmosphere causes more soil moisture evaporation. In the film above someone mentions that the atmosphere is changing. The people of Texas need to understand that global warming is indeed a large part of this prolonged drought. Looks as though this particular event is also testing the moral code of people. Water has a way of doing that. Selling water to companies while people in your county go without?

This story clearly illustrates the lengths these companies will go to in order to not only satisfy their thirst for water but for greed. They would rather see people die of thirst all to frack a toxic well to make a few dollars. However, this is also showing a side to them that the people of Texas needed to see in order to understand that the climate is changing and water is part of that equation. It also clearly illustrates that voting for people who do not consider climate change an important crisis and who are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry brings you to this crossroads.

What then will the future hold as we now see fracking infiltrating 38 states of our country? Not only scarce water but toxic water and that effects our farms, our food safety and our health. The sun shines very bright in Texas. That is what needs to be the source of their power. The age of oil must end in order to save our water.

Another World Water Day Gone

We see another World Water Day pass us by. The theme, Water For All, signifies that though some progress has been made we are woefully behin...