Environment

A stunning new report indicates the US Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago. The revelations cast new light on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by the sailors against Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts, but are being stonewalled by Tepco and the Navy. The Reagan had joined several other US ships in Operation Tomadachi (“friendship”) to aid victims of the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami. Photographic evidence and first-person testimony confirms that on 3/12/11 the ship was within two miles of Fukushima Dai’ichi as the reactors there began to melt and explode. In the midst of a snow storm, deck hands were enveloped in a warm cloud that came with a metallic taste. The Reagan’s 5500-member crew was told over the ship’s intercom to avoid drinking or bathing in desalinized water drawn from a radioactive sea.

Ohioans were horrified to hear news stories about the spill of toxic material into the Ohio River from a West Virginia coal company. Some of our neighbors to the southeast still cannot drink their water. What most Ohioans have not heard about is the intentional dumping of 20,000 gallons of radioactive and toxic fracking waste water into Ohio’s Mahoning River. Three tanker trucks full of so-called “brine” were deliberately pumped into a storm drain leading into the Mahoning on Thursday, January 31, 2013. More than a year later, it is still not clear exactly what chemicals the illegally disposed of waste contained. The presence of radioactivity in the fracking waste could potentially keep Ohioans from drinking water in areas near the Mahoning River for thousands of years. Documents obtained by the Free Press indicate that the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) may be misleading the public regarding the severity of the illegal dumping.

Citing a wide range of ailments from leukemia to blindness to birth defects, 79 American veterans of 2011’s earthquake/tsunami relief Operation Tomadachi (“Friendship”) have filed a new $1 billion class action lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).    The suit includes an infant born with a genetic condition to a sailor who served on the USS Ronald Reagan as radiation poured over it during the Fukushima melt-downs, and an American teenager living near the stricken site. It has also been left open for “up to 70,000 U.S. citizens [who were] potentially affected by the radiation and will be able to join the class action suit.”    Now docked in San Diego, the USS Reagan’s on-going safety has become a political hot potato. The $4.3 billion carrier is at the core of the U.S. Naval presence in the Pacific. Critics say it’s too radioactive to operate or to scrap, and that it should be sunk, as were a number of U.S. ships contaminated by atmospheric Bomb tests in the South Pacific.    The re-filing comes as Tepco admits that it has underestimated certain radiation readings by a factor of five.

[This is the first in a two part series] Fukushima’s missing melted cores and radioactive gushers continue to fester in secret. Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye. But that doesn’t keep the actual radiation out of our ecosystem, our markets…or our bodies Speculation on the ultimate impact ranges from the utterly harmless to the intensely apocalyptic. But the basic reality is simple: for seven decades, government bomb factories and privately-owned reactors have spewed massive quantities of unmonitored radiation into the biosphere. The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them. Indeed, the official presumption has always been that showing proof of damage from nuclear bomb tests and commercial reactors falls to the victims, not the perpetrators. And that, in any case, the industry will be held virtually harmless.

Organizers are gearing up for a march that will go from Los Angeles to Washington DC to call attention to the need for serious, immediate action to stave off a looming, deadly climate change catastrophe. The Great March for Climate Action is the brainchild of former progressive Iowa state legislator turned talk show host Ed Fallon, who identified the climate crisis as the most serious challenge facing humanity. Eight organizers have been hired to oversee the March and its logistics. Called the Climate March for short, it starts, appropriately, on March 1, 2014. Marchers will undergo eight months of heat, cold, wind, sun, rain, mountainous terrain, blisters and insects—all for an incredibly rewarding, life-changing adventure meeting and educating people and policymakers along the way. Marchers will walk around 15 miles per day and tent camp at night. The distance is very doable in comparison with a 20 or more mile per day walk. The March will go through Phoenix, Albuquerque, Taos, Denver, Omaha, Des Moines and Chicago. The route will go through Northwest Ohio to Toledo and along Lake Erie to Cleveland and then to Youngstown.