Accumulated Environmental Radiation
The ECRR report2 considers “natural background” radiation levels to be pre-1905, before radiation was introduced by man into the environment. Since then, and particularly after World War II, accumulated radiation has incrementally increased the radiation burden to the global community. Nuclear weapons testing, nuclear power plants, and radiation accidents like Three Mile Island and Chenobyl are steadily increasing the radiation contamination of the global environment. We cannot escape exposure because we breathe the air, drink the water and eat food from contaminated soils.
A good example of the accumulated effect is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there are unexplained high breast cancer rates in Marin County and the Marina District of San Francisco. Large amounts of funding for studies by the University of California and the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab on Marin County, so far have not produced an answer. Recently I was surprised to read an article in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity19 on a study conducted by the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab which has been monitoring Cesium-137 (a man-made fission product) on sediments in San Francisco Bay. When I investigated further, I discovered that the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the eastern edge of California, have an accumulation of residual fission product radiation from nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (the source of radiation on the fallout map), Chernobyl, and the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant which was shut down in 1989. The sediments and radiation washing out of the Sierras travel past the shorelines of Marin County and the Marina District. The “Irish Seacoast Effect” described by Dr. Chris Busby18 reports on cancer clusters in children and adults caused by the radiation dumped into the Irish Sea from the Sellafield Nuclear Reprocessing Plant. This effect is also reported around other nuclear power facilities where low level radiation is washing up on the coastlines of Ireland and Wales. This could explain the high breast cancer rates in the Marina District and Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is certainly ironic that the University of California, called the “University that poisoned the world [with radiation]” and the nuclear weapons lab they manage, now have control of studies on breast cancer in the Bay Area. Another example of rewarding failure – they get paid to make the mess and then get paid to clean it up.
More Releases to the Environment:
“If you think Cancer is a problem now, wait until more depleted uranium is released into the world.” 20
The 1991 introduction of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq, the radioactive trash from the “nuclear project”, broke a 46 year taboo. These radioactive weapons, the “Trojan Horse of Nuclear War”, continued to be used over the past decade and are still being used today. A study by Dr. A. Alaboudi reports on the radiation effects on camels in contaminated areas of the southern Sahara where the French conducted nuclear tests and camels living in DU contaminated areas of southern Iraq21. People, camels and other animals in both areas are reported to have cancer and radiation related diseases. There are some differences which would be expected from the different radiation sources – fission products from nuclear testing and decay products from DU.
The ECRR report2 considers “natural background” radiation levels to be pre-1905, before radiation was introduced by man into the environment. Since then, and particularly after World War II, accumulated radiation has incrementally increased the radiation burden to the global community. Nuclear weapons testing, nuclear power plants, and radiation accidents like Three Mile Island and Chenobyl are steadily increasing the radiation contamination of the global environment. We cannot escape exposure because we breathe the air, drink the water and eat food from contaminated soils.
A good example of the accumulated effect is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there are unexplained high breast cancer rates in Marin County and the Marina District of San Francisco. Large amounts of funding for studies by the University of California and the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab on Marin County, so far have not produced an answer. Recently I was surprised to read an article in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity19 on a study conducted by the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab which has been monitoring Cesium-137 (a man-made fission product) on sediments in San Francisco Bay. When I investigated further, I discovered that the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the eastern edge of California, have an accumulation of residual fission product radiation from nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (the source of radiation on the fallout map), Chernobyl, and the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant which was shut down in 1989. The sediments and radiation washing out of the Sierras travel past the shorelines of Marin County and the Marina District. The “Irish Seacoast Effect” described by Dr. Chris Busby18 reports on cancer clusters in children and adults caused by the radiation dumped into the Irish Sea from the Sellafield Nuclear Reprocessing Plant. This effect is also reported around other nuclear power facilities where low level radiation is washing up on the coastlines of Ireland and Wales. This could explain the high breast cancer rates in the Marina District and Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is certainly ironic that the University of California, called the “University that poisoned the world [with radiation]” and the nuclear weapons lab they manage, now have control of studies on breast cancer in the Bay Area. Another example of rewarding failure – they get paid to make the mess and then get paid to clean it up.
More Releases to the Environment:
“If you think Cancer is a problem now, wait until more depleted uranium is released into the world.” 20
The 1991 introduction of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq, the radioactive trash from the “nuclear project”, broke a 46 year taboo. These radioactive weapons, the “Trojan Horse of Nuclear War”, continued to be used over the past decade and are still being used today. A study by Dr. A. Alaboudi reports on the radiation effects on camels in contaminated areas of the southern Sahara where the French conducted nuclear tests and camels living in DU contaminated areas of southern Iraq21. People, camels and other animals in both areas are reported to have cancer and radiation related diseases. There are some differences which would be expected from the different radiation sources – fission products from nuclear testing and decay products from DU.