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EPA Dramatically Weakens Radiation Protection

For Immediate Release
Contacts: Dan Hirsch Committee to Bridge the Gap 831 336 8003
Diane D’Arrigo Nuclear Information and Resource Service 301 270 6477 x 15


April 15, 2013 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is publishing in the Federal Register today controversial new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) for responding to radioactive releases. EPA says it solicits public comment but is nonetheless making the PAGs immediately effective.

The new PAGs eliminate requirements to evacuate people in the face of high projected thyroid, skin, or lifetime whole body doses; recommend dumping radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps not designed for such waste; propose five options for drinking water, which would dramatically increase the permitted concentrations of radioactivity in drinking water, by as much as 27,000 times, compared to EPA’s current Safe Drinking Water Act limits; and suggest markedly relaxing long-term cleanup standards.

“In essence the government is now saying nuclear power accidents could produce such widespread contamination and produce such high radiation levels that the government should abandon efforts to clean it up and instead force people to live with radiation-induced cancer risks orders of magnitude higher than ever considered acceptable,” said Daniel Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap.

The PAGs are intended to guide the response to nuclear power reactor accidents (like Fukushima in Japan, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the U.S.), “dirty bomb” explosions, radioactive releases from nuclear fuel and weapons facilities, and nuclear transportation accidents.

“EPA ignores the fact that women and kids are at even greater risk from radiation. The doses permitted by the 2013 EPA PAGs will allow indecent exposures to radiation,” says Diane D’Arrigo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “Women are 50% more vulnerable than men and children are at even greater risk from radiation than adults, according to data from the National Academy of Sciences.”

Extremely high food contamination levels would be allowed by the incorporation of Food and Drug Administration 1998 guidance. EPA officials had previously criticized those standards, saying that 1 in 50 people eating food at those levels would get cancer from their exposure, on top of our normal cancer risk.

The PAGs also incorporate and expand controversial Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) PAGs adopted in 2008 which would allow long-term doses as high as thousands of millirems per year without cleanup being required. Associated guidance for carrying out the long-term cleanup, prepared for DHS and for which the comment period expires today, recommends abandoning EPA’s long-held cleanup standards and instead allowing people to be exposed to doses as high as the equivalent of three chest X rays a day for one’s entire life. Over 70 years, EPA estimates 1 in 6 people would get cancer from exposure that high, orders of magnitude higher risk than EPA has historically said is acceptable.

In addition, EPA admits that a nuclear power accident could far exceed the capacity of radioactive waste sites to manage waste generated from cleanups and therefore suggests allowing the waste to go to regular trash dumps, a fight the public has waged for decades in the US.

--30—

for more information: www.committeetobridgethegap.org and www.bit.ly/radstandard

ON FUKUSHIMA ANNIVERSARY:
TIME TO INVESTIGATE GINA McCARTHY

Fukushima Two Years On:
Radiation Effects Widely Seen in Children


Fukushima is already harming our children
Harvey Wasserman  

March 10, 2013

Thyroid abnormalities have now been confirmed among tens of thousands of children downwind from Fukushima. They are the first clear sign of an unfolding radioactive tragedy that demands this industry be buried forever.
Two years after Fukushima exploded, three still-smoldering reactors remind us that the nuclear power industry repeatedly told the world this could never happen.
And 72 years after the nuclear weapons industry began creating them, untold quantities of deadly wastes still leak at Hanford and at commercial reactor sites around the world, with no solution in sight.

Radiation can be slow to cause cancer, taking decades to kill.
But children can suffer quickly. Their cells grow faster than adults'. Their smaller bodies are more vulnerable. With the embryo and fetus, there can never be a "safe" dose of radiation. NO dose of radiation is too small to have a human impact.

Last month the Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey acknowledged a horrifying plague of thyroid abnormalities, thus far afflicting more than forty percent of the children studied.

The survey sample was 94,975. So some 38,000 children are already cursed with likely health problems...that we know of.

A thyroid abnormality can severely impact a wide range of developmental realities, including physical and mental growth. Cancer is a likely outcome.
This is the tenth such study conducted by the prefecture. As would be expected downwind from a disaster like Fukushima, the spread of abnormalities has been increasing over time. So has the proportion of children with nodules that are equal to or larger than 5.1 mm. The number of cysts has also been increasing.
And the government has revealed that three cases of thyroid cancer have already been diagnosed in the area. All have been subjected to surgery.

Fukushima's airborne fallout came to our west coast within a week of the catastrophe. It's a virtual certainty American children are being affected. As health researcher Joe Mangano puts it: "Reports of rising numbers of West Coast infants with under-active thyroid glands after Fukushima suggest that Americans may have been harmed by Fukushima fallout. Studies, especially of the youngest, must proceed immediately."

Untold billions of gallons of unmonitored liquid poisons have poured into the Pacific. Contaminated trash has carried across the ocean (yet the US has ceased monitoring wild-caught Pacific fish for radiation).

Worldwide, atomic energy is in rapid decline for obvious economic reasons. In Germany and elsewhere, Solartopian technologies---wind, solar, bio-fuels, efficiency---are outstripping nukes and fossil fuels in price, speed to install, job creation, environmental impact, reliability and safety.

No one has yet measured the global warming impacts of the massive explosions and heat releases at Fukushima (or at Chernobyl, where the human death toll has been estimated in excess of a million).

The nuclear fuel cycle---from mining to milling to enrichment to transportation to waste management---creates substantial greenhouse gases. The reactors themselves convert ore to gargantuan quantities of heat that warm the planet directly, wrecking our weather patterns in ways that have never been fully assessed.

Even in the shadow of Fukushima, the industry peddles a "new generation" of magical reactors to somehow avoid all previous disasters. Though they don't yet exist, they will be "too cheap to meter," will "never explode" and will generate "radiation that is good for you."

But atomic energy is human history's most expensive technological failure, defined by what seems to be a terminal reverse learning curve. After more than a half-century to get it right, the industry has most recently poked holes in the head of a reactor in Florida, and installed $700 million steam generators it knew to be faulty in two more in California. It now wants to open San Onofre Unit Two at a 70% level, essentially to see what happens. Some 8 million people live within a 50-mile radius.

This from an increasingly dangerous industry that has brought us four "impossible" explosions---one at Chernobyl, three at Fukushima---clearly with more yet to come. Its radiation has spewed for decades. Its wastes have no place on this planet.
The ultimate death toll among Fukushima's victims may be inescapable. But the industry that's harming them is not.

Those thyroid-damaged children bring us yet another tragic warning: There's just one atomic reactor from which our energy can safely come.
Two years after Fukushima, it is still 93 million miles away---but more ready than ever to safely, cleanly and cheaply power our planet.
--
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.harveywasserman.com. With Norman Solomon, Robert Alvarez & Eleanor Walters, he is co-author of KILLING OUR OWN: THE DISASTER OF AMERICA'S EXPERIENCE WITH ATOMIC RADIATION, available free on the internet. He will speak 3/24 at 2pm in Santa Monica on shutting San Onofre (ilenepr@sbcglobal.net).

 

ON FUKUSHIMA ANNIVERSARY:
TIME TO INVESTIGATE GINA McCARTHY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 11, 2013
Contact: Nancy Burton, NancyBurtonCT@aol.com

Gina McCarthy’s release of only four emails concerning the Fukushima nuclear disaster in response to a Freedom of Information request – two on March 11, 2011, when it began and two a day later, both heavily redacted – raise grounds for her investigation, not nomination, a Connecticut anti-nuclear organization said today.

On March 4, 2013, President Obama nominated McCarthy, who has served as head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation since 2009, to become head of EPA. She has yet to undergo a Senate confirmation hearing.

“Gina McCarthy’s handling of the Fukushima crisis as EPA’s chief of radiation protection demonstrates she is not qualified for that position,” said Nancy Burton, director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone.

EPA’s own Inspector General issued a scathing report which found that McCarthy’s management of the nation’s air monitoring network was seriously deficient and many stations inoperable in the immediate aftermath of the triple nuclear meltdown at Fukushima commencing two years ago today. (See “Weaknesses in EPA’s Management of the Radiation Network System Demand Attention,”
http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2012/20120419-12-P-0417.pdf.)

The limited air monitoring system detected Fukushima fallout in the U.S., particularly in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast but extending across the nation to Vermont and Connecticut. Fukushima fallout was detected in milk in Vermont and rainwater in Hartford, Connecticut.

Burton filed a Freedom of Information request on June 12, 2012 seeking all of McCarthy’s emails and correspondence concerning radiation released by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

In response, McCarthy released only 5 emails – 2 dated March 11, 2011 and 3 dated March 12, 2011.

In 4 of the emails, she redacted the name of the recipient.

In a March 12, 2012 email, McCarthy misspelled “Chernobyl.” Referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine, she spelled it “Chernoble.”

None of the emails released by McCarthy contained substantive information.

On December 27, 2012, Burton appealed from McCarthy’s disclosure to the EPA’s FOIA and Privacy Branch. No action has yet been taken on the appeal.

“McCarthy’s record of failing to provide even a minimal level of radiation monitoring during the Fukushima crisis – one of her primary responsibilities as EPA’s head of Air and Radiation – is more than deeply troubling,” Burton said.

“McCarthy’s obvious failure to provide full disclosure under the FOI Act reinforces concerns about her commitment to protect the American public from radiation exposure and detection,” Burton said.

“On this second anniversary of Fukushima, we call upon Congress to fully investigate McCarthy’s record on radiation protection,” Burton said.

 

Key program problem may haunt Obama's potential EPA choice - Connecticut Post

Gina McCarthy:
Investigate- Not Nominate


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 1, 2013   Contact: Nancy Burton, NancyBurtonCT@aol.com



Gina McCarthy is being talked about as a possible successor to Lisa Jackson, who announced her intention to resign as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator on December 27, 2012. (See The Wall Street Journal, “The Next Lisa Jackson,”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324669104578206011318198152.html.) Jackson will exit the post in January.
But President Obama should investigate McCarthy, not nominate her, according to the Mothers Milk Project.
“McCarthy’s record on protecting the public from known radiation hazards, from goat’s milk to Fukushima, is scandalous,” said Burton, co-director of the Mothers Milk Project, a grassroots organization that collects human, goat and cow’s milk and has it analyzed for levels of radioactivity.
“Further, her recent failure to fully disclose emails under a Freedom of Information request demands Congressional investigation,” Burton asserted.
McCarthy served as chief of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection before Obama tapped her in 2009 to become EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation.
As Commissioner of Connecticut’s DEP, McCarthy defaulted on her legal responsibility to the public in favor of Millstone, the state’s sole operating nuclear power plant, located near the Rhode Island border in Waterford, Burton said.
“She allowed Millstone to operate for years on an expired Clean Water Act permit, allowing Millstone to flout the federal law with routine emergency authorizations that allowed unregulated releases of a thermal plume laced with chemicals and radioisotopes onto public beaches and the Long Island Sound,” Burton said.
“Millstone’s illegal releases decimated an indigenous population of fish - the Niantic River winter flounder - when larvae were sucked into Millstone’s mammoth water intake structures,” Burton said.
“McCarthy had the power to uphold the public trust by stopping the illegal releases and saving the fish from extinction, but she abused her power to prop up Millstone, the worst predator of fish in the Northeast,” Burton said.
Burton said McCarthy was also behind a blatant whitewash of data that linked Millstone’s routine venting of radioactive gases to high levels of radioactivity found in local goat milk.
Beginning in 2004, Burton called attention to high levels of strontium-90 in milk samples collected from a goat named Katie (“Katie the Goat”) who grazed in a pasture located five miles northeast of Millstone.
High concentrations of strontium-90, strontium-89 and cesium-137 in Katie’s milk were reported by Millstone’s owner, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., whose technicians collected Katie’s milk as part of its environmental radiation monitoring program. Dominion reported the results to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Connecticut’s DEP. Katie died on August 12, 2012 after being diagnosed with cancer. See www.KatieTheGoat.org.
In 2006, Burton transported Katie and two of her kids to the state capital in Hartford for a press conference to demand the Governor investigate why her milk was heavily contaminated with radiation.
Weeks later, McCarthy, as the state’s highest environmental regulator, released a report absolving Millstone from any role in the high radioactivity levels found in Katie’s milk. (See
http://www.kids.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=2712&Q=324734.)
“The report was a poster child for junk science,” Burton said, noting that two experts in radiation came forward to debunk the report. “McCarthy’s report absolved Millstone without identifying any other plausible culprit for the releases.”
Strontium-90, strontium-89 and cesium-137 exposures are all associated with serious health effects, including bone and breast cancer, leukemia and diseases of the immune system, Burton said.
McCarthy made a $1,000 donation to the Obama presidential campaign in 2008 (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/regina-mccarthy/gIQAgb7JAP_topic.html.)
On March 20, 2009, newly elected President Obama nominated McCarthy to serve as the federal government’s top protector of the public from radiation, heading the Office of Air and Radiation as EPA in the post of EPA’s Assistant Administrator.
That position put McCarthy at the pinnacle of protecting the American public from poisonous fallout from the March 11, 211 Fukushima nuclear disaster. (See EPA website: “Congress designated EPA as the primary federal agency charged with protecting people and the environment from harmful and avoidable exposure to radiation. EPA responds to emergencies, assists in homeland security, assesses radiation risks, sets protective limits on emissions and informs people about radiation and radiation hazards.” http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/oar.html; http://www.epa.gov/radiation/laws/index.html.)
McCarthy’s Office of Air and Radiation operates a network of radiation monitors across the nation, a system tested as three of the Fukushima reactors exploded with core meltdowns, releasing vast quantities of radiation into the air and Pacific Ocean.
The EPA radiation monitoring effort was a debacle.
At the outset of the Fukushima nuclear emergency, one out of five monitors was inoperable, according to a scathing, but little-reported-on, audit issued on April 19, 2012 by EPA’s own Inspector General, whose hand was forced to investigate by leaders of national safe energy organizations appalled by deficiencies in EPA’s monitoring. (See “Weaknesses in EPA’s Management of the Radiation Network System Demand Attention,”
http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2012/20120419-12-P-0417.pdf.)
The report is addressed to “Gina McCarthy, Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation.”
The IG report found 25 of EPA’s 124 stationary monitors were either broken or disabled due to “relaxed quality controls,” taking them out of service for an average of 130 days – four months – at the beginning of the Fukushima emergency.
The so-called “RadNet” system, consisting of 124 stationary monitors distributed across the United States and 40 mobile monitors, is designed to continuously sample the air for traces of radioactivity and report the data to EPA headquarters, alerting officials to unusual readings.
The monitors also serve as collecting stations for precipitation, drinking water and milk samples. The RadNet system has been identified by EPA as “critical infrastructure” for homeland security under the Patriot Act, according to Forbes Magazine. (See http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/04/27/inspector-general-faults-epa-radiation-monitoring/.)
EPA’s Inspector General bluntly placed responsibility for the gross deficiencies in the air monitoring system with McCarthy.
“We recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation establish and enforce expectations for RadNet operations readiness,” the report states.
“EPA’s RadNet program will remain vulnerable until it is managed with the urgency and priority that the Agency reports it to have to its mission,” the report stated.
“If RadNet is not managed as a high-priority program, EPA may not have the needed data before, during and after a critical event such as the Japan nuclear incident,” the IG warned. “Such data are crucial to determine levels of airborne radioactivity that may negatively affect public health and the environment.”
McCarthy’s gross failure to adequately manage the nation’s radiation air monitoring network is not surprising in light of her permissive record toward Millstone..
McCarthy’s name was put before President Obama as a candidate by Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman and then-Senator Chris Dodd, both unapologetic fans of the nuclear industry. Neither used the word “radiation” in his letter of endorsement. (See http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=b519766a-7b4c-466f-a302-acac3ebf50c7 and http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=202b8ff9-f21a-4509-ab87-913d92f7cfcc.)
During the course of McCarthy’s Senate Committee hearing on her nomination to serve as chief of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation on April 2, 2009, the word “radiation” was never uttered other than to identify the office she sought.
Ironically, on the very morning of the confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, McCarthy dispatched two Connecticut DEP attorneys to file motions in the Connecticut Superior Court to block environmentalists’ emergency applications to shut Millstone’s two operating reactors during the annual peak of the Niantic River winter flounder migration during the month of April to spare them from extinction, according to Burton, who brought the suit.
Burton contends that McCarthy’s recent response to an FOIA request she submitted on June 13, 2012, seeking all of McCarthy’s emails which concern Fukushima radiation, warrants Congressional inquiry.
McCarthy responded to Burton’s FOIA request by releasing only four emails. Each deletes the name of an addressee and one deletes a portion of the content. In one, dated March 12, 2012, the name of the single addressee is redacted and McCarthy misspells “Chernobyl” as “Chernoble.” (“I spoke with Lee [last name not given] and she has it all together. She indicated that at this point there doesn’t seem to be a significant release and she reminded me that the US did not have to take any protective action with Chernoble – even though that was a much more extreme situation. . . .”)
“It simply strains credulity to believe that in the whole course of the 20-month, ongoing Fukushima disaster Gina McCarthy, as head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation with responsibility for the EPA’s national network of continuous air monitors, issued only four emails concerning the Fukushima radiation and none of them after March 12, 2011,” Burton stated.
On December 27, 2012, Burton appealed to the EPA’s FOIA office, challenging the completeness of the FOIA disclosure, the withholding of an unidentified document and redactions.
Burton also filed an additional FOIA request, seeking all emails concerning Fukushima radiation which may have been generated by McCarthy using an alias email address other than her official mccarthy.gina@epa.gov address.
It came to light shortly before Lisa Jackson announced her resignation as EPA Administrator that she had created an “alias” email address other than her official email address by which she generated more than 12,000 emails in her official capacity. (See http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/14047-epa-chief-lisa-jackson-announces-resignation.)
EPA’s Inspector General has opened an internal investigation into the agency’s electronic records management.

Barry Commoner, 1917-2012
"Scientist, and Planet Earth's Lifeguard"
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/us/barry-commoner-dies-at-95.html?hpw
"He found his political voice when he encountered the indifference of government authorities to the high levels of strontium 90 in the atmosphere from atomic tests. Quite simply, he said in an interview with The Chicago Tribune in 1993, 'The Atomic Energy Commission turned me into an environmentalist.'"
Dr. Commoner initiated the original Baby Tooth Project to document the global effects of radioactive fallout, documenting concentrations of strontium 90 in thousands of human baby teeth. His work contributed significantly to the adoption of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
We remember and honor this brilliant public health pioneer dedicated to protection of the planet and all its life.

Katie Recognized and Remembered at U.S. Capitol Rally

Katie the Goat was recognized and remembered at a nationally-sponsored rally to end nuclear power and nuclear weapons at the U.S. Capitol on September 20, 2012.
Nancy Burton, Katie’s caretaker, addressed the rally of C.A.N. (Coalition Against Nukes), telling national anti-nuclear leaders and grassroots activists gathered from across the country about Katie’s radiation monitoring near the Millstone and Indian Point nuclear power plants.
Burton called on the NRC to require nuclear power plant operators to allow the public to access real-time control room data of reactor radioactive emissions to the air and water.
Other speakers included Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace, Diane D’Arrigo, of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Fukushima native Iori Mochizuki, Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth, Robert Tohe of the Sierra Club, Kristin Iverson, author of Full Body Burden, and many others.
The rally kicked off a major three-day event including a Congressional briefing on defective nuclear power plants led by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and an “Occupy the NRC” protest at the headquarters of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 

Read about Katie the Goat, her life of anti-nuclear activism and her battle with cancer.   www.KatieTheGoat.org

Katie the Goat, Radiation Monitor and Anti-Nuke Symbol, Succumbs to Cancer

KATIE THE GOAT – NUCLEAR WHISTLEBLOWER SUCCUMBS TO CANCER
Katie the Goat, whose milk contained high levels of radioactivity when she lived near the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut and who was stricken with inoperable cancer, died on Sunday, August 12, 2012, at her Redding, Connecticut home.
Katie became a news media celebrity, participating in events that took her from the State Capitol in Hartford in 2006 to the White House on March 11, 2012, the first anniversary of the Fukushima triple nuclear meltdown.
First Lady Michelle Obama pronounced Katie’s invitation to donate a granddaughter to the First Family to serve as a White House pet as well as radiation monitor “a fantastic idea.”
With a concentration of 55 picoCuries/liter in 2001, it is believed that Katie’s milk contained the highest level of strontium-90 ever detected in milk in the state of Connecticut, perhaps the nation. That number was twice the highest concentration recorded in milk sampled in Connecticut during the peak of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s.
Most samples of Katie’s milk, taken when she lived five miles northeast of Millstone in Waterford, Connecticut, from the late 1990s until 2003, had elevated levels of strontium-90, as well as strontium-89 and cesium-137. All are potent carcinogens.
Katie became a news media celebrity when she first ventured to the State Capitol in 2006 after anti-nuclear activists became aware of the high concentrations of radioisotopes in her milk, as reported by Millstone’s owner, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. Dominion had assured Katie’s owner that her milk was safe to drink and its environmental reports containing the milk measurements had not been publicized.
There is no federal or state standard for strontium-89 or strontium-90 levels in milk nor do federal regulations limit the volume of strontium-89 and strontium-90 that nuclear power plants may release to the environment, according to Nancy Burton, co-director of the Mothers Milk Project, which collects milk from dairy cows and goats as well as humans and has it tested for levels of radioactivity.
Katie, a white nanny goat of Saanen and Nubian descent, was believed to be in her late teens.
Katie’s 2006 press conference on the lawn of the State Capitol forced then-Governor M. Jodi Rell to direct the state Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the cause of high concentrations of strontium-90 in Katie’s milk.
DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy released a report absolving Millstone from any role in the milk poisoning but failed to provide a credible alternative explanation, Burton said.
“Two qualified scientists studied the DEP report and rebuked it as junk science,” Burton said. Both experts tried to meet with the DEP authors of the study to correct what they perceived to be gross errors, but to no avail.
(McCarthy now serves as President Obama’s appointee as the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant secretary for air and radiation, where her responsibilities include protecting the public from radiation hazards.)
‘ Katie’s milk was tested once she moved to Redding, which is located about 25 miles downwind from the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Buchanan NY. Frequently, radioactive strontium was detected in her milk far above national averages.
Katie became a familiar presence at anti-Millstone rallies near Millstone and elsewhere around the state. She appeared next to Ralph Nader, longtime anti-nuclear advocate, in Willimantic. She offered up a sample of her milk at a “Clean Beaches” rally in East Lyme where activists gathered to protest Millstone waste discharges to Niantic Bay, a popular recreational site for swimmers. She wore a “Got Strontium?” sign at a rally supporting a Millstone whistleblower who was fired after reporting to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that Dominion routinely deliberately deactivated its perimeter security system.
Katie was diagnosed with inoperable soft tissue sarcoma in her left shoulder in February 2012. The medical condition is associated with radiation exposure, Burton said.
A Farewell Tour was planned.
Katie returned to the State Capitol for a press conference. Though invited, Governor Dannel Malloy refused to meet Katie and his office issued a statement that he would not meet her in the future..
Katie’s keeper, Burton, communicated with the First Family, asking it to adopt one of Katie’s granddaughters to serve as a White House pet as well as an onsite radiation monitor.
Through her press office, First Lady Michelle Obama replied:
“Dear Ms. Burton,
Thank you for your interest in the First Family. Your offer is extremely generous and seems like a fantastic opportunity, it is truly appreciated. Unfortunately, we are unable to satisfy your request. We apologize that we could not be more helpful. Again thank you so much for such a kind gesture. We wish you well in the future.”
Undeterred, Katie and 3-month-old Dana Blue-Eyes headed to Washington DC and strolled in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on March 11, attracting attention to issues of nuclear power hazards.

Japan Admits Nuclear Plant Still Poses Dangers  The plant is still in a precarious state 3/29/2012

Katie the Goat Takes Her Farewell Tour to White House 3/11: Mission Accomplished



Katie the Goat, the celebrated nuclear radiation monitor from Connecticut, took her Farewell Tour to the White House on March 11, the first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns. Katie's granddaughter, Dana Blue-Eyes, appealed to the First Family to adopt her as its official White House monitor for strontium-90.

Come back to this site for a full story of the exciting day!

Katie the Goat Takes Her Farewell Tour to the White House; Will Appeal to First Family to Adopt Her Granddaughter
As a Pet and as a Radiation Monitor

   

Katie and Dana Blue Eyes                                                                                                                                  Dana Blue Eyes

Katie the Goat will take her Farewell Tour to the White House on Sunday, March 11 at 12 noon, and appeal to the First Family to adopt her granddaughter, 3-month-old Dana Blue-Eyes, as a pet and a future radiation monitor.

In a letter delivered to First Lady Michelle Obama and the First Family on March 8, Katie’s caretaker, Nancy Burton, co-director of the Mothers Milk Project, asked the First Lady to help draw attention to the Project’s findings of radioactive contamination of human, cow and goat milk near the Indian Point and Millstone Nuclear Power Plants.

“Mothers are unknowingly feeding their children milk which is contaminated with nuclear materials which are potent carcinogens,” Burton says. “There are no federal standards for strontium-90 or strontium-89 in milk, even though these dangerous radioisotopes are known to mimic calcium in their chemical properties and find their way into our milk supply. They are routinely released by nuclear power plants”

“By adopting Dana Blue-Eyes, the First Family will have a devoted and playful pet who will double as a radiation monitor when she begins producing milk,” Burton says. “They will signal to the country their commitment to ensuring the purity and safety of the food we provide to our children.”

Strontium-90 and strontium-89 disperse in the air after their release from nuclear power plants and fall to earth during weather events. Cows, goats and humans can ingest them through breathing, drinking water and eating vegetation.

Read the Letter to First Lady Michelle Obama and the First Family here:March 8, 2012:

Honorable First Lady Michelle Obama and the First Family
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC

Dear First Lady Obama and the First Family,

As Co-Director of the Mothers Milk Project, I applaud First Lady Obama for her outstanding work and commitment to improving the nutritional health of our nation’s children. Her legacy will be lasting.

In 2008, I co-founded the Mothers Milk Project to call attention to an issue which also has profound nutritional and health implications for our nation’s children – and indeed all Americans. That is the presence of radioactivity in our milk.

The Mothers Milk Project has sampled milk from lactating mothers – humans, cows and goats included – in the area surrounding the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Buchanan, New York.

The results, presented by an independent, certified laboratory, show the presence of strontium-90 and strontium-89, manmade radioisotopes released in nuclear fission. Both radionuclides are potent bone-seeking carcinogens medically associated with bone cancer, leukemia and soft tissue cancers.

Children are most vulnerable to the health effects of ingesting radioactive strontium because their teeth and bones are growing at an accelerated rate.

Epidemiological studies have found elevated cancer rates among children with strontium-90 in their discarded baby teeth, in contrast with those without strontium-90 in their teeth, in the vicinity of Indian Point.

Goat milk is considered the best and most sensitive indicator of airborne radiation releases, even superior to onsite mechanical radiation detectors at nuclear power plants. In fact, the owner of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station disabled its onsite strontium-90 detectors in 2001, citing the superiority of goat milk as an environmental indicator.

To help call attention to this serious issue, we ask you to accept our gift of a 3-month-old baby goat named Dana Blue-Eyes to be your pet and to serve as a radiation monitor at the White House grounds. She is not quite old enough to have babies and produce milk, but she will give the First Family great pleasure as you watch her grow up. (We are reminded of the fact that President Abraham Lincoln accepted a gift of Nanko and Nanny, kid goats, while he and his family of young boys were White House residents, and the family grew devoted to them.)

Dana Blue-Eyes is the granddaughter of Katie the Goat, who lived five miles from Millstone in 2000-2003. Millstone’s owner, Dominion, collected her milk every month for sampling and reported excessively high levels of strontium-90 in her milk.

Katie presently resides with me in Redding, Connecticut, 25 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. She was recently diagnosed at Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Massachusetts with terminal cancer presented in a visible shoulder protrusion and a large tumor buried in her chest. The soft-tissue cancer is medically associated with radiation exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which cites strontium-90 exposure as a risk factor in bone cancer, leukemia and soft-tissue cancer. http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/strontium.html. Still, Katie continues her public service as a radiation monitor even in her illness.

Last March 25 and April 26, days after nuclear reactors exploded at Fukushima, one after another, unleashing vast amounts of radiation to the air and the sea, Katie’s milk showed spikes in radioactivity. In fact, her milk concentrations of strontium-89 were the highest ever seen during Katie’s 12-year career as a radiation monitor (4 and 5.49 picocuries/liter, respectively).

The nuclear power plant closest upwind to the White House - Calvert Cliffs in Lusby, MD, 50 miles away – does not monitor milk for radioactivity. There are no federal standards for strontium-90 or strontium-89 levels in milk.

This Sunday, March 11, at 12 noon, we will appear at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with Katie and Dana Blue-Eyes on hand. May we hope that you will accept our (and Katie’s) generous offer to install Dana Blue-Eyes at the White House as its personal radiation monitor?

Please do contact us at your earliest opportunity. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Nancy Burton

 

Katie the Goat, Millstone Radiation Whistleblower, Stricken by Nuclear Fallout

Begins ‘Farewell Tour’ to Alert Public to Deadly Hazards of Nuclear Power       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pibMpWbneCk

Katie the Goat, whose milk contained excessive levels of radioactive strontium-90 when she lived five miles from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station from 2000 and 2003, has been diagnosed with untreatable terminal cancer medically linked to radiation exposure.

Connecticut’s well-known radiation monitor and nuclear whistleblower has been fatally stricken with nuclear fallout.

“Katie’s message is for the whole world to hear: that radiation from nuclear power plants is deadly,” said Nancy Burton, director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone (www.MothballMillstone.org) and Katie’s caretaker.

Katie’s dire diagnosis provides unprecedented proof linking exposure to Millstone and Indian Point radioactive emissions with deadly cancer. Even during routine operation, nuclear power plants are designed to vent radiation into the air. They are dispersed by wind and weather conditions. They can be ingested by a goat – or a human – through breathing, drinking water and eating vegetation, including garden produce.

“In Connecticut, nature’s purest and best nutrient - mother’s milk – can harbor insidious poisons from Millstone and Indian Point and we are being lied to by those who produce and profit from these deadly nuclear byproducts,” she said.

“The implications for child welfare and public health are enormous,” Burton said. “We are all at risk.”

Katie was adopted by the Coalition when it discovered her high strontium-90 milk levels in little-noticed reports filed with the state and federal governments and, appearing at numerous rallies and events across the state, Katie made headlines and became a “poster goat” alerting mothers and others to the hazards of nuclear power.

She appeared with Ralph Nader and on public-access television. She appeared at a rally at Millstone to support Sham Mehta, the Millstone whistleblower fired by Dominion after he reported to the NRC that Dominion was routinely deliberately disabling its perimeter security system.

Most famously, Katie appeared at the State Capitol in June 2006 with her baby kids, Cindy-Lu and Joe-Joe, for a press conference and with hopes to meet with then-Governor M. Jodie Rell to share the laboratory results of her contaminated milk. Health physicist Dr. Ernest Sternglass appeared alongside Katie to explain that the excessive levels of strontium-90 found in her milk – higher, he said, than in milk produced during the peak of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s – derived from Millstone releases and appeared to represent an exceedence of federal radiation standards. The Governor declined to meet with Katie.

Katie returned to the State Capitol today for a press conference to inaugurate her ‘Farewell Tour’ and to present a letter to Governor Dannel Malloy sharing laboratory results analyzing her milk, both when she lived at 120 Dayton Road in Waterford and, since 2008, when she has resided in Redding, Connecticut. Redding is located approximately 25 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station.

Katie’s results show high levels of strontium-90 as well as the presence of strontium-89 at both locations. Both radioisotopes are manmade byproducts of nuclear fission and both are potent carcinogens. In their chemical composition, they mimic calcium and, once ingested from the air, water or food, they concentrate in the bones and teeth, causing bone cancer, leukemia and soft-tissue cancer.[1] Katie has been diagnosed with a soft-tissue sarcoma in her shoulder above her foreleg by the Tufts Veterinary Hospital in Massachusetts.

Strontium-90 has a half-life of 30 years, meaning that it loses half its radioactivity after 30 years. Strontium-89 has a half-life of only 50 days. If it can be detected, it means it was freshly produced, probably not far away. Of the two, strontium-89 is the more significant indicator that a nearby nuclear power plant is responsible for the presence of the carcinogen.

Katie was joined at the press conference by her now grown-up daughter, Cindy-Lu, and granddaughter Dana Blue-Eyes.

Since she first gave birth in Redding in 2008, Cindy-Lu’s milk has also tested positively for strontium-90 and strontium-89. The goats’ caretaker, Nancy Burton, is also co-director of the Mothers Milk Project (www.MothersMilkProject.org), which collects milk samples from cows, goats and humans living near Indian Point and sends the samples to a certified private laboratory for analysis.

When Katie lived near Millstone in Waterford, agents of Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. collected her milk and tested it every three months. The long lag time enabled what strontium-89 might have been present to decay to undetectable levels. Nevertheless, some samples showed the presence of strontium-89.

In reports it filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone’s owner, reported the following levels of strontium-90 and strontium-89 (all in picocuries/liter) at 120 Dayton Road in Waterford (“Location 22”):

2000
June 28: Sr-90 11.0
September 26: Sr-89 2.2, Sr-90 44.4

2001
June 29: Sr-89 2.5, Sr-90 13.2
September 19: Sr-89 3.2, Sr-90 55.5

2002
[Unavailable]

2003
June 24: Sr-90 9.2
August 19: Sr-89 6, Sr-90 14.5

By way of comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last issued a report in 1993 of levels of strontium-90 in milk sold commercially in 37 U.S. cities. The highest level reported was 2.8 picocuries/liter in Little Rock AK, with 12 of the samples less than one.[2]

Dominion also reported that Katie’s milk contained concentrations of other radioisotopes, including Iodine-131, Cesium-134, Cesium-137 and others.

In its 2001 annual report, Dominion stated that its own monitoring of strontium-90 and strontium-89 in air particulate filters at the Millstone radiation stack was inferior to testing milk samples for these radioisotopes in the environment.[3]

Dominion acknowledges that “Over the many years of station operation, Sr-89 has often been released in comparable quantity to Sr-90,” yet the Virginia-based company has consistently denied that Millstone was responsible for the radioactivity in Katie’s milk.[4]

The operators of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station never sampled goat milk and limited their testing to one dairy farm located five miles northeast of the facility. Sampling of milk at that location by New York State between 1982 and 1992 found levels of strontium-90 in cow’s milk to generally be in the 1-3 picocurie/liter range, with a spike of 14 in 1983 and another spike in 1991 of 7.25. When the dairy farm closed in 1992, Indian Point discontinued milk sampling. Customarily, the plant’s owners report annually to the NRC, as they did in their 2010 report, that its operations “did not result in exposure to the public greater than background levels.” In other words, the plant’s routine radiation releases to the air stopped at the plant’s perimeter and did not disperse into the environment.

Nevertheless, both Katie and Cindy-Lu – and other participants in the Mothers Milk Project – have been producing milk with significant detectable levels of both strontium-90 and strontium-89 during their residency in Redding.

Among the highlights of their milk sampling are these results:

June 29, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 3.5
June 30, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 1.8
July 11, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-89 3.7, Sr-90 3.4
July 16, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 2.3
July 19, 2008 Cindy-Lu Sr-90 5.1
July 24, 2008 Katie Sr-90 1.0
August 28, 2008 Katie Sr-89 3.8, Sr-90 2.1
June 5, 2010 Katie Sr-89 1.1
March 8, 2011: Katie Sr-89 2., Sr-90, 1.1

May 13, 2011: Katie Sr-89 2.03 March 25, 2011 Katie Sr-89 .4 , Sr-90 1.2
April 26, 2011 Katie Sr-89 5.49
May 13, 2011: Cindy-Lu Sr-89 5.74, Sr-90 1.75

Katie and her caretaker planned to present these results to Governor Malloy and to ask him to meet with them for a full discussion of the issue.

Neither the State of Connecticut nor the federal government independently monitors milk produced in the state.

Katie and Cindy-Lu – and other goats at two locations near Millstone – carry out this public service.

There is one and only one way to eliminate the risk of contaminating mother’s milk with nuclear radisotopes and that is to achieve a nuclear-free world, Burton said.

The first best step is to close the Millstone and Indian Point reactors.

“We need only look to Japan, which has functioned without blackouts since Fukushima one year ago, even though it has shut all but two of its 58 nuclear power plants,” Burton said.

“The best energy generation is energy conservation,” she said. “The Japanese have learned to conserve and do with less and so can we. The health of all biological species depends on it.”

- 30 -
[1] “Internal exposure to strontium-90 is linked to bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone and leukemia. Risk of cancer increases with increased exposure to strontium-90. The risk depends on the concentration of strontium-90 in the environment and on the exposure conditions.” http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/strontium.html
[2] http://www.epa.gov/narel/radnet/erd75.pdf (page 31)
[3] “The most sensitive indicator of fission product existence in the terrestrial environment is usually milk samples. Goat milk samples can be a more sensitive indicator of fission products in the terrestrial environment than cow milk samples. . . . The fact that milk samples are a much more sensitive indicator of fission product existence in the environment prompted [Dominion’s decision in 2001 to discontinue the use of air particulate filters to monitor strontium-90 and strontium-89 releases].” Millstone 2001 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report, ADAMS Accession Number ML021300024, pages 4-5 – 4-6.
[4] See, e.g., Millstone 2001 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report at pages 4-6 – 4-7, 6-1 – 6-3.

 
JAPAN: Mothers Rise Against Nuclear Power

Radioactive cesium detected in infant milk powder formula in Japan 9 months after Fukushima disaster began; wide recall ordered

Fukushima Radiation Alarms Doctors

Trace Amounts of Fukushima Fallout Found in Fukushima Children's Urine

These Terrible Findings Suggest Internal Organs Exposed to Radioactivity in the Most Vulnerable

Indian Point Lapses in Radiation Monitoring:
Entergy cites “heavy work load” and “limited resources” for delays in repair
 Seven instruments to measure Indian Point Nuclear Power Station’s radiation releases failed and were out of service for greater than 30-day periods during 2010, according to the plant’s annual radiation effluent monitoring report issued on April 22, 2011.

"The Breast Cure" (New York Times June 23, 2011)

Mother's Milk Sing-Along with Margo Schepart performing at the June 18, 2011 Hudson Clearwater Revival Festival



Photos from the Mothers Milk Project display at the Hudson River Clearwater Revival Festival at Croton-on-Hudson on June 18, 2011.

  

   

Fukushima parents dish the dirt in protest over radiation levels
Furious Fukushima parents dump school playground earth that may have radiation levels well above the old safety level
Parents in Fukushima are angry over rule changes which mean that school children can be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters. Jonathan Watts in Tokyo The Guardian, Mon 2 May 2011 16.43 BST

Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools.
Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime minister, Naoto Kan, was criticised by politicians from his own party.
Ministers have defended the increase in the acceptable safety level from 1 to 20 millisieverts per year as a necessary measure to guarantee the education of hundreds of thousands of children in Fukushima prefecture, location of the nuclear plant that suffered a partial meltdown and several explosions after the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.
It is estimated that 75% of Fukushima’s schools may have radiation levels above the old safety level of 1 millisievert. The local authorities in Koriyama have tried to ease the problem by digging up the top layer of soil in school and day centre playgrounds, but residents near the proposed dump site have objected.
The new standard of 20 millisieverts a year – equivalent to the annual maximum dose for German nuclear workers – will mean those schools remain open, but parents and nuclear opponents are angry that safety concerns are being ignored.
A group claiming to represent 250 parents in Fukushima visited the upper house of parliament and presented government officials with a bag of radioactive dirt from the playground of one of the affected schools. A geiger counter clicked over it with a reading of 38 millisieverts.
“How dare they tell us it is safe for our children,” said Sachiko Satou of the Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation Association. “This is disgusting. They can’t play outside with such risks. If the government won’t remove the radioactive dirt then we’ll do it ourselves and dump it outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric.”
Greenpeace, Friends of the Ea rth and other environment and anti-nuclear groups submitted a petition against the regulations. They accused the Nuclear Safety Commission of meekly accepting the new safety limit after just two hours of closed-door discussions with government officials.
However, representatives of the commission denied agreeing that 20 millisieverts was safe. Education ministry officials fudged demands for an explanation. “I think 20 millisieverts is safe but I don’t think it’s good,” said Itaru Watanabe of the education ministry, drawing howls of derision from the audience of participants. He promised the government would carefully monitor the situation and do all it could to get radioactivity down to 1 millisievert.
The health impacts are disputed. Physicians for Social Responsibility – a US-based Nobel prize winning organisation that opposes nuclear power – said children were more vulnerable than adults. It said the new acceptable limit exposed children to a one in 200 risk of getting cancer, compared with a one in 500 risk for adults.
“It is unconscionable to increase the allowable dose for children to 20 millisieverts,” the group said in a statement. “There is no way this level of exposure can be considered safe.”
This is not the first time the government has shifted safety baselines since the start of the crisis. Permissible levels of radiation exposure for nuclear workers were amended soon af ter the disaster struck to allow emergency operations at the stricken Fukushima reactor. Several weeks later the cabinet allowed the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric, to violate regulations by dumping 11,500 tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific. The radioactivity of the discharge was 100 times higher than the acceptable limit. The government says it has to take unprecedented measures to deal with an unprecedented disaster.
Kan has lost one of his chief scientific advisers over the latest decision. Toshiso Kosako – a Tokyo University professor who was called in to help deal with the crisis – walked out on Friday and has since accused the government of ad hoc policy making and contravening internationally accepted norms for the sake of political expediency.
Kan has also come under fire from lawmakers in his ruling Democratic party.
Mori Yuko, an upper house member, said she was disgusted by the decision to loosen the safety limit. “Would politicians and bureaucrats allow their own children to go to a contaminated school,” she said. “This makes me furious.”
She called for more rigorous and widespread health monitoring of children and criticised an earlier government policy to withhold data about radiation levels and wind direction. After a public outcry these figures are now published daily in newspapers, but the allegations of cover-ups and shifting safety baselines are taking a heavy political toll.
A mere 1.3% of respondents in a weekend poll by the Kyodo news agency thought Kan was exercising sufficient leadership. But many people also criticise the main opposition Liberal Democratic party for lax nuclear regulation while it was in power.

Radioactive rain causes 130 schools in Korea to close —
Yet rain in California had 10 TIMES more radioactivity

Citizens arm themselves with umbrellas, raincoats, boots, Korea Times, April 7, 2011:
… The Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) said radioactive iodine and cesium were found in rainwater collected in the early morning at a checkpoint on the island. The concentration level of iodine-131 was 2.02 becquerels per liter (Bq/l), that of cesium-137, 0.538 Bq/l, and that of cesium-134, 0.333 Bq/l. …
Following the news that minuscule radioactive substances were detected on Jeju, people in all parts of the country carried umbrellas to work or school even though the rainfall was light.
Parents h ad their children not only use umbrellas but also wear raincoats, rubber boots and even masks. Some of them gave their children a ride to school, with streets near schools congested.
In Gyeonggi Province, about 130 pre-, elementary and middle schools were closed after the regional educational office allowed school heads to close them if they deemed it necessary. More than 40 others shortened school hours. …
Read the report here.
UCB Rain Water Sampling Results, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Nuclear Engineering:
Iodine-131 level in rainwater sample taken on the roof of Etcheverry Hall on UC Berkeley campus, March 23, 2011 from 9:06-18:00 PDT
20.1 Becquerel per liter (Bq/L)
Read the report here: Radioactive Iodine-131 in rainwater sample near San Francisco 18,100% above federal drinking water standard Read more:
“Yellow rain” around Tokyo caused by pollen officials say – Rain may have contained radioactivity
“Yellow rain” recently reported in Tokyo also happened after Chernobyl — Government assured residents it was pollen
Rain stimulating “reagents” used during Chernobyl to protect Moscow from fallout — Expert recommends same over Pacific for Fukushima
NY Times contributor confirms California rainwater 181 times above drinking water standards for radioactive iodine-131
Radioactive Iodine-131 in rainwater sampl e near San Francisco 18,100% above federal drinking water standard.

JAPAN IMPOSES RADIATION LEVEL ON FUKUSHIMA SCHOOLCHILDREN EQUAL TO
MAXIMUM DOSE ALLOWED FOR NUCLEAR PLANT WORKERS IN GERMANY
THE LEVEL IS THE DOSE LEGALLY RECOGNIZED TO INDUCE LEUKEMIA
IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT WORKERS
STOP THIS CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY!
SIGN THE PETITION OF THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN

Radioactive iodine found in breast milk of Japanese mothers
The breast milk of four Japanese mothers has been found to contain small quantities of radioactive iodine.

By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo 11:00AM BST 21 Apr 2011
The government faced calls for a full investigation into the impact of the nuclear disaster on mothers and babies following the discovery.
The radiation contamination came to light after tests were conducted on breast milk samples taken from nine women living northeast or east of Tokyo.
Four of these women were found to be contaminated, with the highest reading of 36.3 becquerels of radioactive iodine per kg detected in the milk of the mother of an eight-month-old baby in Kashiwa, Chiba prefecture.
There are no current legal safety levels for radioactive substances in breast milk as set by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan.
However, the breast milk readings were below the safety limit of 100 becquerels per kg of tap water consumption by infants under one year of age and no radioactive cesium was found.
The findings of the study, conducted by a citizen's group in Japan, has sparked concerns surrounding the impact of the nuclear crisis on mothers and babies.
''We cannot yet determine safety, but infants drink breast milk,'' Kikuko Murakami, who heads the group, told Kyodo News. ''We want the government to conduct an extensive investigation swiftly.'' Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is believed to have been emitting radioactive substances since it was severely damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Workers at the stricken power plant were continuing to work around the clock in increasingly challenging conditions in order to bring crucial cooling functions under control.
A Japanese newspaper meanwhile has alleged close links between Tepco, which runs the plant, and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party. Recently retired senior officials are alleged to have donated more than £140,000 to the party over the last three years.
Masataka Shimizu, the Tepco president , has said the company had not made any political donations since 1974.
Tepco denied any systematic involvement in the donations.

State of Virginia Warns Residents to Avoid Drinking Rainwater

Children of Fukushima Being Denied Refuge and Medical Treatment Over Radiation Fears

Fukushima Fallout: Radiation Detected in West Coast Milk

Dense populations and risk of plutonium releases could mean Fukushima accident worse than Chernobyl, prominent Russian scientist says

Analysis of Goat Milk collected in September 2010
25 Miles Downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station
Has Detectable Levels of Strontium-90 and Strontium-89

Strontium-89, a carcinogen produced in nuclear fission, has been found in goat milk 25 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. The milk was collected in September 2010. Strontium-89 has a half-life of 50 days. When strontium-89 is detected in a milk sample, its source is a recent fission event, not resdue from nuclear weapons fallout or Chernobyl. Strontium-90, also a carcinogen which, when ingested, can cause bone cancer, disease of the immune system and other illness, was also found in the goat milk. Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28 years. Radiation bioaccumulates in the human body.
The pathways for radioactivity released by a nuclear power plant to concentrate in goat milk include inhalation of airborne radiation and ingestion of radionuclides from drinking water and pasture grass.
The detection of strontium-89 in the goat milk is further evidence that Indian Point is poisoning our environment and endangering our children.
The risk of releases of strontium-89 and other carcinogens from Indian Point can be significantly decreased by shutting down these dangerous nuclear reactors.

 

 

 

 

March 23:

Parents cautioned not to feed their babies Tokyo tap water


High radiation levels contaminate fish off Japanese coast


Radiation levels '1600 times above normal" in Fukushima


 

 

Mothers Milk Project: Fusushima demands a Connecticut response
to protect mothers and children living near Indian Point Nuclear Power Station.

Mothers Milk Project
www.MothersMilkProject.org

March 21, 2011

Hon. Dannel Malloy
Governor
State House
Hartford CT 06101

Hon. Daniel Esty
Commissioner
Department of Environmental Protection
79 Elm Street
Hartford CT 06106

Dear Governor Malloy and Commissioner Esty:

I co-direct the Mothers Milk Project, which is dedicated to collecting mammalian milk samples in the vicinity of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant for their assessment by a qualified laboratory for levels of radioactivity.

Since the project was instituted in 2008, many of our samples – particularly from human donors and goats residing within 30 miles of Indian Point - have testified positively for strontium-90, a carcinogen which settles in the bones and teeth. Developing fetuses and growing babies are particularly vulnerable to its toxic effects, which include bone cancer, leukemia and suppression of the immune system.

Most disturbingly, some of our samples have also tested positively for the presence of strontium-89, also a carcinogen, which has a short half-life of 50 days. (Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28 years.) The detectable presence of strontium-89 in human and other mammalian milk indicates that the donors have been exposed to a recent release of nuclear fission products.

As you know, the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant is located on the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York. Greenwich, Connecticut, is the state’s town closet to the plant (approximately 14 miles). Stamford, New Canaan and Ridgefield are the next-closest. Most of Fairfield County is located downwind of and within 50 miles of Indian Point.

As the horrific events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan enfold, we must take action to protect our own vulnerable populations. Dairy milk within 20 miles of the nuclear complex has been found so contaminated with Iodine-131 that Japanese officials have banned its sale. It is feared that food contamination will spread widely.

With New York State, Connecticut is opposing Indian point relicensing in formal adjudicatory proceedings.

This step is not enough to protect Connecticut’s people, resources and food supplies.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recently identified Indian Point as the nation’s highest-risk nuclear power plant in terms of consequences from an earthquake event. It is certainly a prime terrorist target as well and nuclear meltdown could devastate the northeast corridor of the United States for untold generations.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, while New York Attorney General, called Indian Point “a catastrophe waiting to happen.”

We urge you to take the following immediate steps:
(1) Demand immediate shutdown of Indian Point‘s two operating reactors;
(2) Demand expansion of the evacuation zone from 10 to 50 miles;
(3) Demand distribution of potassium iodide to Connecticut residents within 50 miles of Indian Point;
(4) Assist in fortification of Indian Point’s vulnerable infrastructure, vital components and back-up power.

We further request the opportunity to meet with you to expand upon our concerns and share the information we have developed.

Sincerely,

Nancy Burton

Dr. Louise Reiss, Pioneer Who Exposed Levels of Strontium-90 in Baby Teeth from Atomic Fallout    1920 - 2011

"The Breast Whisperer"

Indian Point Unit 2 tripped        January 11, 2010  

Indian Point nuclear plant officials say amount of radioactive steam released was 'Insignificant'
BY Abby Luby  SPECIAL TO THE NEWS Friday, December 11th 2009, 4:00 AM

That cloud spewing out of the Indian Point nuclear plant last month wasn't a smoke signal - it was radioactive steam.  Read more>>>

Di Paola/Bloomberg - Traces of radioactivity were released via steam leak at Indian Point nuclear power plant, but officials said there was no cause for concern.

 

New report shows newborn hypothyroidism rate near Indian Point is 92% above US

Mothers Milk Project at Hawk Watch Festival and Green Bazaar!

Meet Deo and Theo, 3-week-old babies of Mothers Milk Project participant Cindy-Lu!
Note to Breastfeeding Moms: Bring us a sample of your milk!

The Hawk Watch Festival and Green Bazaar takes place Saturday September 19 and Sunday September 20 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Audubon Greenwich, 613 Riversville Road. $10 for adults 18 and older, $7 for youth 3 and older, and free for under 3. 203-869-5272, www.greenwich.audubon.org.

Mothers Milk Project at Clearwater Hudson River Revival Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, June 20 and 21.

Mothers Milk Project co-directors Margo Schepart (l) and Nancy Burton welcome visitors to their booth and encourage lactating mothers to share their breastmilk confidentially for analysis to detect radioactivity.

Cindy-Lu-the-Goat and her kids, Luna and Dude, are the star attraction of the Mothers Milk Project display. They live 25 miles downwind of Indian Point. Cindy-Lu's milk contains strontium-90 and strontium-89, carcinogens especially harmful to developing babies and young children. Sr-90 and Sr-89 are routinely released by the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant 6 miles north of the festival site.

SCREENING PROGRAM TO TEST IF INDIAN POINT HAS HARMED THYROID GLANDS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS
For immediate release Contact Joseph Mangano 609-399-4343 Sharon Cunningham 647-477-5672

Ernest J. Sternglass, Ph.D. writes an open letter to:Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy 2/7/2009

Breast Is Best - New Yorker magazine 1/19/2009

Radioactive fish breast cancer rates and a nuclear power plant thecancerblog.com 06/13/2006

Join the Mothers Milk Project at the Beacon Sloop Club CORN FESTIVAL
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Noon to 5 PM at the Beacon NY Waterfront
Bring us a sample of your breast milk - we will test it for radioactivity for free!
Take Metro-North to Beacon Station
Visit www.beaconsloop.org

Help spread the word! Download this flier and share it with your friends and post it in your community!

PLEASE DONATE  A SAMPLE OF YOUR BREAST MILK!

We are collecting mothers milk within a 50-mile radius of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in New York and Connecticut.
The milk will be analyzed confidentially for traces of radioactivity - strontium-90 - which is routinely released by Indian Point.
Strontium-90 causes birth defects, bone cancer and leukemia. Exposure increases risks for breast, lung and other soft tissue cancers.
Help us create a database of information.
The New York State Department of Health and Indian Point’s owner stopped sampling cow’s milk near Indian Point in 1991 - just as strontium-90 levels were increasing. They never sampled human breast milk.
Visit www.MothersMilkProject.org! 

Mothers Milk Project at Indian Point Benefit

Join the Mothers Milk Project at its table at the Monday, June 30, 2008 Indian Point Safe Energy Council benefit at Lincoln Center in New York City. The event includes two film screenings: the New York premiere of award-winning "Woven Ways," which explores the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo people, and "Nowhere to Run," about consequences of an accident at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in Buchanan, New York. 6:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M. Walter Reader Theatre at Lincoln Center, 165 West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam. Tickets $20.

Dear Muscoot Farm,
Please share Pineapple's milk with the Mothers Milk Project!
Muscoot Farm is a beautiful working and educational farm located exactly 10 miles downwind of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Somers, New York. Pineapple, the Jersey cow pictured here, is milked twice a day. Some of her milk is fed to her calf, Papaya, and the rest is fed to the Tamworth pigs (pictured here taking their morning nap) as swill. Westchester County owns Muscoot Farm and it is well maintained by Westchester County taxpayers. The Mothers Milk Project is asking Muscoot Farm to share one quart of Pineapple's milk once a month to be tested for radioactivity. The Mothers Milk Project is also asking for samples of goat milk from Isabelle (left) and Skye (right). We hope to extend special thanks on this website to Muscoot Farm for their contributions to our project!

Mothers Milk Project Signs Up Breastfeeding Mothers at Clearwater Festival on June 21

Mothers Milk Project co-directors Nancy Burton and Gail Merrill signed on a dozen more lactating mothers from New York and Connecticut communities to donate their breastmilk samples for radioactivity testing. Pictured here is a New York City mother and her baby who signed on to the Project. Cindy-Lu-the-Goat, who visited the Festival with her kids, Hannah and Henry, gave her first live radio interview with WBAI. George Amarant, of Haddam, Connecticut, dropped by to tell us he kept three milking goats near his home one mile west of the now-defunct Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in the 1970s. He said the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told him they would test his goats' milk for Iodine-131 but not strontium-90 because they predicted the strontium-90 would be below detectable levels.

Mothers Milk Project Invites Lactating Mothers at
Clearwater Hudson River Revival Festival to
Give Milk Samples For Indian Point Study

The Mothers Milk Project invites lactating women to share samples of their breastmilk at the annual Clearwater Hudson River Revival. The Project will share a booth with WestCan (Westchester Citizens Awareness Network).
Where: Croton Point Park, Croton NY
When: Saturday and Sunday, June 21-22 from 12 noon to dusk, rain or shine.
For more information and directions visit: www.Clearwater.org and www.IPSECinfo.org.

Listen to the Mothers Milk Project interview with Rebecca Myles on WBAI-Pacifica Radio, 99.5 FM on the June 18, 2008 evening news from 6 to 6:30 PM (repeated at 11 PM) and streamed live at www.wbai.org.

Legendary songwriter Pete Seeger joined Mothers Milk Project leaders as they accepted a donation of mother's milk at the Strawberry Festival in Beacon, New York on June 15, 2008

Fifteen more breastfeeding mothers signed on to donate their milk to have it tested for levels of strontium-90 and other radioisotopes routinely emitted by the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Buchanan, New York.

Cindy-Lu-the-Goat, also a milk donor, and her kids Hannah and Henry greeted visitors to the Mothers Milk Project booth.

Have your goat's milk tested for strontium-90!

Breastfeeding mothers offered samples of their milk on June 5, 2008 to launch the Mothers Milk Project to test for radionuclides within a 50-mile radius of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in Buchanan, New York. A milk donation was also made by Nubian Goat Cindy-Lu, mother of Hannah and Henry, pictured to the right.
PRESS CONFERENCE was held at
227 Silvermine Road, New Canaan, Connecticut
on Thursday, June 5, 12 noon
Contact: info@mothersmilkproject.org

    The Mothers Milk Project is being launched on June 5, 2008 to begin a systematic sampling of mothers milk produced by humans and other mammals living within 50 miles of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station in Buchanan, New York.
    Indian Point's owner and the New York State Department of Health stopped sampling cow's milk near Indian Point in 1991 and have never tested human breast milk.
    The project is an unpredecented campaign to create a database of findings of the potential presence of radioisotopes in milk of mammalians, including humans, near the nuclear power plant.
    Indian Point, in common with all nuclear power plants, is designed to routinely release fission products into the air. These include strontium-90, which has a half-life of 30 years and remains biologically active for 600 years. Strontium-90 mimics calcium in its chemical composition and is readily taken up by bone cells and teeth, where it continuously emits pulses of energy which disrupt the functions of nearby cells. Strontium-90 exposure is linked to bone cancer, leukemia, diseases of the immune system and cancer of soft tissue including breast and lung. Strontium-90 is only one of more than 100 radioisotopes routinely released by Indian Point. All are carcinogens and all.are most harmful to young children and developing babies.
    We encourage breastfeeding mothers to participate in this program by donating a cup of their breast milk monthly. Each sample will be divided into four parts: one for the New York State Department of Health, one for Entergy, Indian Point's owner, one for the project's independent laboratory, and one to be retained by the project. There is no cost and all samples will be taken confidentially with results anonymous.
    The Mothers Milk Project will also include dairy cow and goat milk samplings. Other mammals may be included as well.
    The Mothers Milk Project is designed to inform the community about a known hazard - radiation - which is insidious because it cannot be seen, tasted, smelled or detected except with sophisticated equipment and which is biologically harmful at any degree of exposure.
    Please return to this website for future updates.
    To donate milk to the Mothers Milk Project, click here