Humanitarian Issues
Fracking and a Radioactive Silvery-White Monster: Radium Must be Left in the Earth
Published on Friday, November 9, 2012 by Common Dreams
Fracking for gas not only uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate drinking and groundwater — it also releases substantial quantities of radioactive poison from the ground that will remain hot and deadly for thousands of years.Image: 8020 Vision
Issuing a report yesterday exposing major radioactive impacts of hydraulic fracturing known as fracking — was Grassroots Environmental Education, an organization in New York, where extensive fracking is proposed.
The Marcellus Shale region which covers much of upstate New York is seen as loaded with gas that can be released through the fracking process. It involves injecting fluid and chemicals under high pressure to fracture shale formations and release the gas captured in them.
But also released, notes the report, is radioactive material in the shale including Radium-226 with a half-life of 1,600 years. A half-life is how long it takes for a radioactive substance to lose half its radiation. It is multiplied by between 10 and 20 to determine the “hazardous lifetime” of a radioactive material, how long it takes for it to lose its radioactivity. Thus Radium-226 remains radioactive for between 16,000 and 32,000 years.
“Horizontal hydrofracking for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region of New York State has the potential to result in the production of large amounts of waste materials containing Radium-226 and Radium-228 in both solid and liquid mediums,” states the report by E. Ivan White. For 30 years he was a staff scientist for the Congressionally-chartered National Council on Radiation Protection.
“Importantly, the type of radioactive material found in the Marcellus Shale and brought to the surface by horizontal hydrofracking is the type that is particularly long-lived, and could easily bio-accumulate over time and deliver a dangerous radiation dose to potentially millions of people long after the drilling is over,” the report goes on.
“Radioactivity in the environment, especially the presence of the known carcinogen radium, poses a potentially significant threat to human health,” it says. “Therefore, any activity that has the potential to increase that exposure must be carefully analyzed prior to its commencement so that the risks can be fully understood.”
The report lays out “potential pathways of the radiation” through the air, water and soil. Through soil it would get into crops and animals eaten by people.
Examined in the report are a 1999 study done by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation “assisted by representatives from 16 oil and gas companies” on hydrofracking and radioactivity and a 2011 Environmental Impact Statement the agency did on the issue. It says both present a “cavalier attitude toward human exposure to radioactive material.”
Radium causes cancer in people largely because it is treated as calcium by the body and becomes deposited in bones. It can mutate bones cells causing cancer and also impact on bone marrow. It can cause aplastic anemia an inability of bone marrow to produce sufficient new cells to replenish blood cells. Marie Curie, who discovered radium in 1893 and felt comfortable physically handling it, died of aplastic anemia.
Once radium was used in self-luminous paint for watch dials and even as an additive in products such as toothpaste and hair creams for purported “curative powers.”
There are “no specific treatments for radium poisoning,” advises the Delaware Health and Social Services Division of Public Health in its information sheet on radium. When first discovered, “no one knew that it was dangerous,” it mentions.
White’s report, entitled “Consideration of Radiation in Hazardous Waste Produced from Horizontal Hydrofracking,” notes that “radioactive materials and chemical wastes do not just go away when they are released into the environment. They remain active and potentially lethal, and can show up years later in unexpected places. They bio-accumulate in the food chain, eventually reaching humans.”
Under the fracking plan for New York State, “there are insufficient precautions for monitoring potential pathways or to even know what is being released into the environment,” it states.
The Department of Environmental Conservation “has not proposed sufficient regulations for tracking radioactive waste from horizontal hydrofracking,” it says. “Neither New York State nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would permit a nuclear power plant to handle radioactive material in this manner.”
Doug Wood, associate director of Grassroots Environmental Education, which is based in Port Washington, New York, and also editor of the report, commented as it was issued: “Once radioactive material comes out of the ground along with the gas, the problem is what to do with it. The radioactivity lasts for thousands of years, and it is virtually impossible to eliminate or mitigate. Sooner or later, it’s going to end up in our environment and eventually our food chain. It’s a problem with no good solution – and the DEC is unequipped to handle it.”
As for “various disposal methods…contemplated” by the agency “for the thousands of tons of radioactive waste expected to be produced by fracking,” Wood said that “none…adequately protect New Yorkers from eventual exposure to this radioactive material. Spread it on the ground and it will become airborne with dust or wash off into surface waters; dilute it before discharge into rivers and it will raise radiation levels in those rivers for everyone downstream; bury it underground and it will eventually find its way into someone’s drinking water. No matter how hard you try, you can’t put the radioactive genie back into the bottle.”
Furthermore, said Wood in an interview, in releasing radioactive radium from the ground, “a terrible burden would be placed on everybody that comes after us. As a moral issue, we must not burden future generations with this. We must say no to fracking — and implement the use of sustainable forms of energy that don’t kill.”
The prospects of unleashing, through fracking, radium, a silvery-white metal, has a parallel in the mining of uranium on the Navajo Nation.
The mining began on the Navajo Nation, which encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, during World War II as the Manhattan Project, the American crash program to build atomic weapons, sought uranium to fuel them. The Navajos weren’t told that mining the uranium, yellow in color, could lead to lung cancer. And lung cancer became epidemic among the miners and then spread across the Navajo Nation from piles of contaminated uranium tailings and other remnants of the mining.
The Navajos gave the uranium a name: Leetso or yellow monster.
Left in the ground, it would do no harm. But taken from the earth, it has caused disease. That is why the Navajo Nation outlawed uranium mining in 2005. “This legislation just chopped the legs off the uranium monster,” said Norman Brown, a Navajo leader.
Similarly, radium, a silvery-white monster, must be left in the earth, not unleashed, with fracking, to inflict disease on people today and many, many generations into the future.
Karl Grossman has been a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury for 32 years. He is a specialist in investigative reporting. He is the author of Fracking and a Radioactive Silvery-White Monster: Radium Must be Left in the Earth; Fracking and a Radioactive Silvery-White Monster: Radium Must be Left in the Earth
Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up.
Ohio: Pinhole leak of radioactive coolant found at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant
Published: Thursday, June 07, 2012, 11:18 AM Updated: Thursday, June 07, 2012, 6:38 PM

By John Funk Plain Dealer Reporter
Engineers at the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor near Toledo found a pinhole coolant leak in a pipe weld Wednesday evening while inspecting the plant.
Davis-Besse was preparing to resume operations after more than a month-long reactor shutdown for refueling and plant maintenance.
In a report early Thursday to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. estimated the leak of radioactive coolant inside the reactor containment building at about one-tenth gallon per minute.
Spokeswoman Jennifer Young said the leaked coolant flowed into a nearby floor drain and was captured for later processing. There were no injuries and no radioactivity escaped into the atmosphere, she said.
The leak did not occur until the cooling system was pressurized in preparation to restart the reactor, she said. Pressurization began on Tuesday.
The engineers were conducting the “walk-down inspection” while the reactor was in “hot standby” mode, with the cooling system running at normal operating pressures and temperatures.
Through the reactor had not yet been re-started, operators on Tuesday had switched on the four massive reactor coolant pumps, which pressurized the system and heated the coolant to about 300 degrees from sheer friction as the pumps pushed it throughout the nuclear core, said Young.
The company’s report to the NRC noted that the coolant was spraying from a pinhole in the socket weld of a three-quarter inch pipe at a 90 degree elbow between a reactor coolant pump and a safety valve.
When the leak was spotted, reactor operators immediately began a shutdown and engineers began repair preparations. The plant reached cold shutdown about 1 p.m. Thursday, said Young. Repairs were expected to be completed over the weekend.
FirstEnergy shut down the 908-megawatt reactor on May 6 for normal refueling, inspections and maintenance. Contractors employing more than 1,000 workers joined Davis-Besse employees to replace 68 of the reactor’s 177 fuel rods.
Contractors also were involved with preventative maintenance of major components including emergency diesel generators, valves and pumps — though not the coolant pumps and plumbing where the leak occurred. Crews also worked on the power plant’s cooling tower to improve efficiency.
Noble Dynasty The Caputo Family Association Black Falcon Award
NEWS
MAY 15, 2011
APPOINTMENT
Regional Delegate for Sicily
Cav. Dr. Gaspare Lo Monaco
Saturday, May 14, 2011, our Delegate General for Italy (right picture) Don Gianfranco Funari, formally presented the appointment Diploma of Regional Delegate to Cav. Dr. Gaspare Lo Monaco (left in picture) who is holding the Noble Dynasty Accreditation to such important position. Don Funari is also holding an Honorary Certificate for Don Salvatore Caputo, President of Noble Dynasty, issued by Dr. Lo Monaco, President of “Nazionale per Le Onoranze Alla Medaglia Oro al Valor Militare -Salvo D’acquisto Eroe dei Carabinieri” (National Honour Gold Medal for Military Valor-Salvo D’Aquisto Hero of the Carabinieri.
Cav. Dr. Gaspare Lo Monaco, retired NCO to Carabinieri Corp, was bestowed with many awards but we will mention only a few here: “Doctorado Honoris Causa en Humanidades” (Honorary Doctor of Humanities); Knight of Merit of the Italian Republic; Croix D’Honneur d’ Argent du Policier Européen; Silver Medal Merit with Sword conferred by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta; Pro Ecclesia-Merit awarded by the Holy See; Guard of Honor at Royal Tombs of the Pantheon; Member of C.I. S. O. M (Italian Ambulance Corps of the ‘Order of Malta) …and more.
BLACK FALCON AWARD
Our Dear Member, Margot Gennaro de Bourbon, was awarded with the distinguished Black Falcon Award for the continuing promotion of Noble Dynasty The Caputo Family Association. We appreciate her devotion to the Organization. CONGRATULATIONS MARGOT!
The Black Falcon Medal is designed to meet all those who contribute to efforts for Progress, for the Well-being, Culture, and the Understanding of International Solidarity and Augment and for the success of the projects of the Caputo Family Association.
See web pages: http://www.nobledynasty.com/latestnews.htm
http://www.nobledynasty.com/delegates.htm
http://www.nobledynasty.com/laurusnobilismembers.htm
ITALIANO
Sabato 14 Maggio 2011, IL nostro Delegato Generale per l’ Italia, Don Gianfranco Funari (foto a destra), presentó formalmente la nomina di Delegato Regionale per Sicilia al Cav. Dott. Gaspare Lo Monaco (sinistra nella foto) che tiene in mano IL diploma che lo accredita a tale posizione cosí importante. Don Funari é anche in possesso di un Certificato D’Onore per Don Salvatore Caputo, Presidente di Noble Dynasy, rilasciato dal Dr. Lo Monaco, Presdiente di “Nazionale per Le Onoranze Alla Medaglia Oro al Valor Militare-Salvo D’acquisto Eroe dei Carabinieri”.
Cav. Dott. Gaspare Lo Monaco, retirato Sottufficiale dei Carabinieri, é stato conferiti con molti premi onorifici ma citiamo solo alcuni: Doctorado Honoris Causa en Humanidades”; Cavaliere Al Merito Della Repubblica Italiana; Croix D’Honneur d’ Argent du Policier Européen; Medaglia d’ Argento al Merito con Spada conferita dal sovrano Ordine Militare di Malta; Pro Ecclesia Merito assegnato dalla Santa Sede; Guadia d’Onore alle Tome Reali del Pantheon; Membro di C.I.SOM (Corpo Italiano di Soccorso dell’Ordine di Malta)….e altro ancora.
BLACK FALCON AWARD
La nostra cara socia, Margot Gennaro di Bourbon, é stata premiata con IL prestigioso premio di Black Falcon Award per la sua costante promozione Della Noble Dynasty The Caputo Family Association. Apprezziamo molto la sua devozione per l’ Associazione. CONGRATULAZIONI MARGOT!
Vedere Le pagine nel sito: http://www.nobledynasty.com/latestnews.htm
http://www.nobledynasty.com/delegates.htm
http://www.nobledynasty.com/laurusnobilismembers.htm
ESPAÑOL
Sábado, 14 de Mayo de 2011, el nuestro Delegado General para Italia, Don Gianfranco Funari (foto derecha), presentó oficialmente el nombramiento de Delegado Regional al Cav. Dr. Gaspare Lo Monaco (izquierda en la foto) que sostiene en sus manos el Diploma que lo acredita a tal importante posición dentro de la Organización. Don Funari sostiene también un certificado de Miembro Honorario para Don Salvatore Caputo, Presidente de Noble Dynasty, emitido por el Dr. Lo Monaco, Presidente de “Nazionale per Le Onoranze Alla Medaglia Oro al Valor Militare -Salvo D’acquisto Eroe dei Carabinieri”
El Cav. Dr. Gaspare Lo Monaco, retirado Suboficial del Cuepro Carabineros, fue galardonado con números premios, pero vamos a mencionar aquí sólo algunos: “Doctorado Honoris Causa en Humanidades”; Caballero de Mérito de la República Italiana; Croix D’Honneur d’ Argent du Policier Européen; Medalla de Plata el Mérito con Espada atribuida por la Orden Soberana Militar de Malta; Guardia de Honor a Las Tumbas Reales del Panteón; Miembro C.I. S. O. M (Cuerpo Italiano de ambulancias de la Orden de Malta)…y muchos más.
BLACK FALCON AWARD
Nuestra querida socia, Margot Gennaro de Bourbon, fue galardonada hoy con el distinguido premio “The Black Falcon Award” por su continua promoción de Noble Dynasty The Caputo Family Association. Agradecemos enormemente su dedicación a la Asociación. FELICIDADES MARGOT!
El premio The Black Falcon Award está diseñado para satisfacer a todos aquellos que contribuyen a Los esfuerzo para el progreso, bienestar, cultura y el Entendimiento Internacional de Solidaridad para el éxito de los proyectos de la Asociación de Noble Dynasty.
Ver las páginas : http://www.nobledynasty.com/latestnews.htm
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