Phil Radford: Koch Industries Lobbying Puts Over 4 Million Americans in Danger

Published on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 by Greenpeace

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/koch-industries-lobbying-puts-over-100-millio/blog/36476/

by Phil Radford

Recent Greenpeace analysis of lobbying disclosure records reveals that since 2005, Koch Industries has hired more lobbyists than Dow and Dupont to fight legislation that could protect over 100 million Americans from what national security experts say is a catastrophic risk from the bulk storage of poison gasses at dangerous chemical facilities such as oil refineries, chemical manufacturing facilities, and water treatment plants. Koch lobbyists even outnumber those at trade associations including the Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute. Only the American Chemistry Council deployed more.

In 2010 Koch Industries and the billionaire brothers who run it were first exposed as a major funder of front groups spreading denial of global warming in a Greenpeace report, which sparked an expose in the New Yorker. Since then, the brothers have been further exposed as a key backer of efforts to roll back environmental, labor, and health protections at the state and federal levels. Through enormous campaign contributions, an army of lobbyists, and funding of think tanks and front groups, David and Charles Koch push their agenda of a world in which their company can operate without regard for the risks they pose to communities, workers, or our environment.

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"Melissa Bell" - Nuclear Power Plants Under Surveillance after East Coast Earthquake Hits

Published on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 by The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/nuclear-power-plants-under-surveillance-after-earthquake-hits/2011/08/23/gIQAw1aUZJ_blog.html

by Melissa Bell

After a 5.9-magnitude hit Mineral, Va. Tuesday afternoon, rocking the East Coast, concerns quickly turned to the safety of nuclear power plants. With the Fukushima power plant disaster in Japan fresh in people’s minds, nuclear power companies were quick to report on the conditions of their facilities.

Two power plants in North Anna, Va., near the earthquake epicenter, shut down automatically when the quake hit. The Washington Post’s Steve Mufson reports that the plants lost power from the grid and switched to four diesel generators to power their electrical and cooling systems, according to a spokesman at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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"Agence France-Presse"- Greenpeace Finds Toxic Chemicals in Branded Clothing

Published on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/23-1

BEIJING — Traces of toxic chemicals harmful to the environment and to human health have been detected in products made by 14 top clothing manufacturers, Greenpeace said Tuesday.

Samples of clothing from top brands including Adidas, Uniqlo (above), Calvin Klein, H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lacoste, Converse and Ralph Lauren were found to be tainted with the chemicals, known as nonylphenol ethoxylates, the watchdog said at the launch of its report 'Dirty Laundry 2'. Samples of clothing from top brands including Adidas, Uniqlo, Calvin Klein, H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lacoste, Converse and Ralph Lauren were found to be tainted with the chemicals, known as nonylphenol ethoxylates, the watchdog said at the launch of its report "Dirty Laundry 2".

Greenpeace campaigner Li Yifang said that nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), commonly used as detergents in industries including the production of natural and synthetic textiles, were detected in two-thirds of the samples the group tested.

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"Agence France-Presse"- Japan's Fukushima Nuclear No-Go Areas to Last 'Decades'

Published on Monday, August 22, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/22-0

TOKYO — Some areas close to Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will likely remain no-go zones for "several decades", a media report citing an unnamed government official said Monday.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan is expected to visit the region as early as Saturday to apologize to people who had to flee their homes as a result of the nuclear accident more than five months ago.

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily, citing an unnamed government source, said areas within about three kilometers (1.8 miles) of the plant will likely be kept off-limits "for an extended period — possibly for several decades".

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"PF Louis"- Texas authorities actively hid evidence of radiation in drinking water

by PF Louis  http://www.naturalnews.com/033386_radiation_drinking_water.html

(NaturalNews) TV station KHOU of Texas, reported a cover up conspiracy regarding radioactive levels in Texas drinking water in May 2011. The cover up efforts were known as high as the Texas governor Rick Perry's office and allowed to continue. In a small way, this reflects what's been happening with the Fukushima radioactivity reports that affect the world.

The Water

High levels of radioactive radium were being discovered in excavated water pipes and discarded water heaters throughout parts of Central Texas recently. Those pipes and water heaters were so radioactive that the junk yard in Brady, TX could not take them. The pipes had only been in the ground transporting water from the area's Hickory Aquifer for five years.

The type of radiation is alpha radiation, which is emitted from radionuclides such as radium and uranium that occur naturally beneath the earth's surface. External alpha radiation is not considered much of a health hazard. But ingesting even a small amount from water creates DNA damage, leading to a plethora of health problems.

Even the water level alpha radiation exposure allowed by EPA standards could result in one in every 1,000 consumers getting cancer. But health experts have projected one in 400 locals could wind up with cancer with the current levels of radiation. Over 200,000 persons depend on water from the Hickory Aquifer and private wells in that area.

If EPA water radiation standards are exceeded, local area environmental commissions are required to notify the public. There have been no public notices, because the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) fudged their test results each year, creating lower radioactive reports than the actual readings.

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Radiation in the workplace - A review of studies of the risks of occupational exposure to ionising radiation

Radiation in the workplace - A review of studies of the risks of occupational exposure to ionising radiation.pdf

"Beth Wellington" - The Myth of Mountaintop Removal Mining

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/21-2

Published on Sunday, August 21, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

 

Big Coal says it's a tough choice: we can have prosperity and jobs or a pristine environment, but not both. That's a Big Lie

by Beth Wellington

CNN correspondent Soledad O'Brien's recent piece on mountaintop removal (MTR) in the Appalachian mountains has the troubling title, "Steady job or healthy environment: what [sic] would you choose?"

How about we choose both?

In any case, MTR does not, despite industry claims, deliver employment to offset its environmental damage. It's simply a win-win for Big Coal and its political supporters, and a lose-lose for ordinary people who live in mining areas. Whatever the industry would have you believe, basing an economy on coal is not a sustainable development plan. A study by the Appalachian Regional Commission noted the effects of mining on employment in Central Appalachia:

"As employment in Central Appalachia's mining sector has declined over time...many counties that were already typically experiencing relatively poor and tenuous economic circumstances...have been unable to successfully adapt to changing economic conditions."

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"David McNeill in Tokyo and Jake Adelstein" - The Explosive Truth Behind Fukushima's Meltdown

Published on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 by the Independent/UK

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-explosive-truth-behind-fukushimas-meltdown-2338819.html

by David McNeill in Tokyo and Jake Adelstein

It is one of the mysteries of Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis: How much damage did the 11 March earthquake inflict on the Fukushima Daiichi reactors before the tsunami hit?

The stakes are high: if the earthquake structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every similar reactor in Japan may have to be shut down. With almost all of Japan's 54 reactors either offline (in the case of 35) or scheduled for shutdown by next April, the issue of structural safety looms over any discussion about restarting them.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) and Japan's government are hardly reliable adjudicators in this controversy. "There has been no meltdown," government spokesman Yukio Edano repeated in the days after 11 March. "It was an unforeseeable disaster," Tepco's then president Masataka Shimizu famously and improbably said later. Five months since the disaster, we now know that meltdown was already occurring as Mr Edano spoke. And far from being unforeseeable, the disaster had been repeatedly forewarned by industry critics.

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"DAVID McNEILL and JAKE ADELSTEIN" - TEPCO's Darkest Secret

The Fukushima Daiichi Reactors Were in Meltdown After the Earthquake, But Before the Tsunami Hit

By DAVID McNEILL and JAKE ADELSTEIN

http://counterpunch.org/mcneill08122011.html

It is one of the mysteries of Japan’s ongoing nuclear crisis: How much damage did the March 11 earthquake do to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors before the tsunami hit?  The stakes are high: If the quake structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan will have to be reviewed and possibly shut down.  With virtually all of Japan’s 54 reactors either offline (35) or scheduled for shutdown by next April, the issue of structural safety looms over the decision to restart every one in the months and years after.

The key question for operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) and its regulators to answer is this: How much damage was inflicted on the Daiichi plant before the first tsunami reached the plant roughly 40 minutes after the earthquake?  TEPCO and the Japanese government are hardly reliable adjudicators in this controversy. “There has been no meltdown,” top government spokesman Edano Yukio famously repeated in the days after March 11.  “It was an unforeseeable disaster,” Tepco’s then President Shimizu Masataka improbably said later.  As we now know, meltdown was already occurring even as Edano spoke.  And far from being unforeseeable, the disaster had been repeatedly forewarned.

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"Greg Mitchell" - How the US Hid Shocking Hiroshima Footage For Decades

By Greg Mitchell, The Nation
Posted on August 3, 2011, Printed on August 4, 2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162543/great-hiroshima-cover

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan sixty-six years ago this week, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included vivid color footage shot by U.S. military crews and black-and-white Japanese newsreel film.

The public did not see any of the newsreel footage for twenty-five years, and the shocking US military film remained hidden for nearly four decades. While the suppression of nuclear truths stretched over decades, Hiroshima sank into “a kind of hole in human history,” as the writer Mary McCarthy observed. The United States engaged in a costly and dangerous nuclear arms race. Thousands of nuclear warheads remain in the world, often under loose control; the United States retains its “first-strike” nuclear policy; and much of the world is partly or largely dependent on nuclear power plants, which pose their own hazards.

Our nuclear entrapment continues to this day—you might call it “From Hiroshima to Fukushima.”

The color US military footage would remain hidden until the early 1980s, and has never been fully aired. It rests today at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, in the form of 90,000 feet of raw footage labeled #342 USAF.

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