Nuclear Hotseat

 Nuclear Contamination in Ohio: Radiation releases from Piketon, Ohio's
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant into local community are being tracked by
Dr. Michael Ketterer (above)

• Nuclear Contamination in Ohio is being tracked by Dr. Michael Ketterer, who has a PhD in Analytical Chemistry and has worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement, taught at John Carroll University, Northern Arizona University, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and at University of Denver. Since 2000, Michael has been conducting studies of plutonium in the environment, publishing and lecturing extensively, and has analyzed samples from locations worldwide. He is currently studying plutonium dioxide particles in soils near the former Rocky Flats facility in Colorado, and fingerprinting off-site contaminants near the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in southern Ohio. Michael is currently Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University. We spoke on Friday, August 6, 2021.
• LINK to NH #413, May 22, 2021: Radioactive Contamination in Ohio School SPECIAL: Whistleblower Vina Colley Exposes Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant History https://nuclearhotseat.com/2019/05/22/radioactive-contamination-ohio-school-whistleblower-vina-colley-exposes-truth-nh-413/
• TV Report by Duane Pohlman, WKRC-TV 

Radioactive Ranger badges part of Historic Manhattan Project's ongoing con job!

• Episode on nukes from Nature Bats Last, with three of my favorite activists: Skipper Kevin Hester of NZ, Ecologist Guy McPhearson, and poet/activist Mimi German:      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIZ5VmXdeps&t=2101s

Hiroshima at 76: Professor Yuki Miyamoto, second generation Hibakusha,
whose mother survived the A-bombing of August 6, 1945

• Hiroshima Anniversary - 76 years after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the effects of that bombing persist.  Survivors - who are known as Hibakusha - went on with their lives as best they could, but the legacy of the a-bomb persist into second and now third generation.
• Hiroshima born Yuki Miyamoto is a second generation Hibakusha.  Her mother was in Hiroshima one mile from the epicenter of the bombing, yet survived it with what seemed like little physical damage... though other truths later emerged.  Yuki's story of what it was like to grow up in Hiroshima, the illnesses around her, the judgments made by others in Japan, makes for a gripping little-known narrative of the atomic bomb's aftermath.
• Yuki Miyamoto is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, where she introduces a new generation of young people to the hard truths about the atomic bombing and its continuing impact on survivors - especially  women - their children, grandchildren, and beyond. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and teaches nuclear discourse and environmental ethics at DePaul University in Chicago. 2011’s Fukushima nuclear accident urged her to examine environmental ethics, which led to her most recent work, A World Otherwise: Environmental Praxis in Minamata (Lexington Books, 2021). Miyamoto’s current work is on the formation of postwar nuclear discourse both in Japan and the United States. She has taken DePaul students to Hiroshima and Nagasaki since 2005 and has been appointed Nagasaki Peace Correspondent (2010) and Hiroshima Peace Ambassador (2011). We spoke on Friday, July 30, 2021. 
  

The Olympics - the Numnutz that Keeps On Giving!

• FRACKING: The Oil and Gas Industry Produces Radioactive Waste, Lot of it.
• Why the U.S. Once Set Off a Nuclear Bomb in Space
• Mary Stamos - Warped Plants Inspire Local Woman's Decades-long Effort to Examine Effects of Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident  - https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/warped-plants-inspire-local-womans-decades-long-effort-to-examine-effects-of-tmi-nuclear-accident/article_44cb65b6-ebff-11eb-9cbd-f30ade0e900f.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share&fbclid=IwAR1wz7mz4LDjXZ4WusqE-hZbrxzHIX5okhVdyXocF2wSqSrSvg-in4rzudk

Trinity A-Bomb – First photo of the birth of the Atomic Age: Trinity atomic bomb test blast on July 16, 1945.  Fallout from this "dirty bomb" is still harming Downwinders, who were exposed and are still exposed to the radiation.   

• Trinity Downwinder Tina Cordova grew up in her family home in the Tularosa Basin, 40 miles from the explosion of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. A cancer survivor like so many in her community, in 2005, she co-founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.  She and her community have been working for compensation for New Mexico atomic downwinders for the past 15 years.
  

Trinity downwinder Tina Cordova (l) being interviewed by Nuclear Hotseat’s Libbe HaLevy

• Video produced by the long term victims of the Trinity atomic bomb blast, Tularosa Basin Consortion Downwinders:

https://youtu.be/VHZWiXGwdkQ

It's been 42 years since the July 16, 1979 uranium tailings pond spill/disaster that contaminated Navajo Nation land, adding to the radiation burden already there from abandoned uranium mines.  Two brief interviews from Nuclear Hotseat #423 from July 23, 2019, where Nuclear Hotseat producer/host Libbe HaLevy covered the 40th anniversary events.

• Edith Hood grew up in the Red Water Pond Road Community, on land which had her living between two uranium mines and just down the road from the 1979 tailings pond spill. Edith worked at a different mine than the UNC facility that had the accident, but faced all of the same dangers.
• Terracita Keyanna has lived her entire life in the Red Water Pond Road Community on Navajo Nation. She was not even born when the Church Rock uranium spill happened… but that did not stop her being exposed to uranium mining waste from what was released and deposited by the spill.

Edith Hood of the Red Water Pond Community on Navajo Nation land –
between two uranium mines and just down the road from the
site of the Church Rock uranium tailings spill

Terracita Keyanna next to sign warning “no uranium mining” in Navajo

• Nuclear Hotseat #423: Church Rock Uranium Tailings Pond Disaster - full show.
• Piketon, Ohio Radiation Spikes from Demolition of Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
• FirstEnergy to pay $230M in agreement in Ohio bribery case
• Nuclear Power's reliability is dropping as extreme weather increases. 

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Extension Needed
for Downwinders of Trinity and Nevada A-bomb Tests, Uranium Miners:
Map of U.S. areas hit by fallout from at least three of the 100 atmospheric bomb tests
done above ground in Nevada.  Used by permission of Richard Miller

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was enacted by Congress in 1990 to provide one-time benefits to persons who have likely developed cancer or other specified diseases after exposure to uranium mining, milling or transport, and from radioactive fallout from atomic weapons testing in certain areas of Utah, Nevada and Arizona.  But uranium workers after 1971 are not currently eligible for compensation, despite most of the uranium mining production happening after 1971.

An extension of RECA to increase compensation and extend the people to whom it applies is currently being considered, but it has to pass within one year or RECA will completely go away.  To understand these issues, I spoke with three activists working on getting the RECA extension passed:

• Mary Dickson is a Salt Lake City journalist and writer whose award-winning play, Exposed, puts a human face on the cost of nuclear testing. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility for her lifetime work on behalf of downwinders and regularly speaks out against the resumption of nuclear testing as well as her downwinder information talks.  We previously interviewed Mary for Nuclear Hotseat #494, on December 8, 2021. Here, she talks about RECA, what it is, why it’s needed, and what is going to be required to pass it before it expires in 2022. We spoke on Thursday, July 15, 2021.LINKS: 
• Contact Mary Dickson:  [email protected]
• The Downwinders of Utah Archives at the University of Utah Marriott Library - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzxDhcOA2M 
• Downwinder Sherrie Hanna grew up in Arizona without understanding the consequences to her family and community from radioactive fallout from the 100 Nevada test site above-ground nuclear bomb tests. She is now a Downwinder Advocate, taking it as a personal mission to inform and educate as many people as possible. We spoke on Thursday, July 15, 2021.

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act – Mary Dickson

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act – Downwinder Advocate Sherrie Hanna

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act - Downwinder Advocate Sherrie Hanna

• Linda Evers a former uranium miner and is President of the Post 71 Uranium Workers Committee. She worked in uranium mining and production from 1976 to 1982, including during both her pregnancies. As you will hear, her working conditions while a miner were often harrowing, and the resulting consequences for her health and the lives of her two children graphically represent just some of the dangers of radiation exposure. We often speak of the dangers of radiation exposure, but rarely are we allowed to understand the magnitude of that impact and what it means in human terms. Linda allows us a glimpse into that world - and just know, it’s strong stuff.  We spoke on Friday, July 16, 2021.
  
  LINK: 
• Petition to Extend Radiation Exposure Compensation Act
• https://swuraniumimpacts.org/post-71-uranium-workers-committee/
• Downwinders, Inc website: http://www.facesdownwind.org/dwindex.html Radiation Exposure Compensation Act - Uranium miner Linda Evers

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act  - Uranium miner Linda Evers

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics.  Being held in 2021, but hey, branding...

Reference Man, used as the basis for evaluating radiation exposure risks, ignores the fact that
girls are 10 times more vulnerable to the exact same radiation exposure, and
women are 2 times more vulnerable.
A Radiation Girl standard would provide better protection for men, women, girls, and boys.

Reference Man is the standard first developed in 1949 to establish maximum permissible amounts of radioactive materials in the human body.  BUT because humans are so diverse in age, gender, weight, height, lifestyles, geographic locations and other factors, no Reference Man definition can possibly reflect anything other than a scant few individuals from the total population, however he is defined.  But there is a better standard that can be developed to protect the health of us all, and that's what this week's interviewees talk about.

• Mary Olson is founder and Acting Director of the Gender and Radiation Impact Project. She served from 1991 to 2019 as Staff Biologist and Senior Radioactive Waste Policy Analyst at Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Her work on radiation education lead her to the question of whether biological sex is a factor in radiation harm, and she has presented her findings at Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons; the UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review of 2015; the International Committee of the Red Cross Asia regional meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, and twice at the EU Gender Summit, in Brussels in 2016 and in London, 2018. In 2020 Olson served at an expert consultation on an update on the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons for the International Committee of the Red Cross / Red Crescent in Geneva, Switzerland.She founded the Gender and Radiation Impact Project in 2017.

Mary Olson (pictured) is currently raising funds to support a 2021 project to define a new, female-inclusive basis for radiation protection standards to help prevent unnecessary radiation exposure and reduce radiation harm.  Reference Man would be replaced by Reference Girl, providing greater protection for all.  Learn more at:  www.GenderandRadiation.org/reference-girl

• Dave Lochbaum was, for more than 20 years, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is a certified nuclear engineer who has taught reactor technology for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and co-author - with Edwin Lyman and Susan Stranahan — the book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster. He’s a board member of Gender and Radiation Impact Project.

Dave Lochbaum (r)

• Collapsed Florida Condo Sends a Giant Nuke Warning by Harvey Wasserman  
• Nuclear Stockholm Syndrome by Robert Jacobs
• The Experimental ITER Nuclear Fusion Reactor: A Titanic and Energy-intensive Project
  by Celia Izoard, Reporterre, Translated by Dennis Riches