WASHINGTON ACTION FOR SAFE WATER

4-30-11

To:

James R. Deal, JD
Bill Osmunson, DDS, MPH
Washington Action for Safe Drinking Water
Fluoride Class Action
James and Bill,

We are all thankful for you sending in detailed comments to the EPA and to Health and Human Services. Thanks also for posting my original FDA ban petition 2007, its supplement 2010, and a few comments I sent to the EPA on your Fluoride Class Action site.

Editor’s note:  See articles by Dr. Sauerheber.

I was asked by the San Diegans for Safe Drinking Water group today if I could send them your EPA and HHS comments and also Dr. Osmunson’s cost analysis data he sent to the FDA to supplement the FDA ban petition, so I sent copies of all that by e-mail.

Down here in San Diego we are concerned about the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.

Emissions have now entered into Chernobyl-type total releases. Fukushima now ranks in nuclear disaster category 7 along with Chernobyl.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO should bury the entire facility under boron and concrete to stop the radioactive emissions. Instead it is still saying it wants six more months to bring the reactor under control, during which time they expect radiation releases to continue.

TEPCO engineers still have this idea they can salvage the plant and continue using it, despite its being seawater corroded and so radioactive that it is too dangerous to work there.

Meanwhile it continues to belch out radioactive iodine, cesium, strontium, and plutonium. We are all breathing whatever drifts over here continuously. It has stopped raining now here in California, which was cleaning out the air. It is going to stop raining soon in Washington, and you are going to be breathing radiation too.

Governments are saying that it’s the same amount as a chest x-ray. But there is a big difference. An x-ray stays outside of your body. But we are inhaling the radioactivity from Fukushima into our lungs, where the alpha, beta, and gamma rays will continue to punch holes in our DNA for weeks, months, years, and decades, depending on the half-life of the isatope. These rays are known human carcinogens, and there is no amount that is safe to consume. They do not kill everyone, and they do not kill quickly, but they do kill. Chernobyl has killled around a million people who would otherwise still be alive, and it is not done killing.

Likewise, there is and will be radiation from Fukushima in our water, milk, vegetables, and every thing cooked with our water, our milk, and our vegetables. It will be in the fish we eat too.

So this is a water issue. I ask everyone in the de-fluoridation movement to write, call, fax, and email their mayors, governors, representatives, senators, and agencies.This is a safe water issue. We should really get riled up about this.

Fukushima needs to be buried in boron and concrete as soon as possible, and we need to shut down our reactors and build no more of them.

I have decided to buy a HEPA air purifier. It is made by Holmes and was only $44.00 down here at a Target store. It will protect us somewhat at least while we are home. It filters particles down to 0.3 microns.

Perhaps it’s fighting the ocean with a spoon, but at least it’s fighting.  It is a portable handy unit about the size of a room fan with 3 speeds, so it can be turned down for almost zero noise, as desired. Lots of people use it to filter out air mold, cat hair and allergens and smoke for those with allergies.

We should insist on HEPA air filtration at home and at work.

And we need to be wearing Japanese style masks.  It would be a way to make a visible statement regarding this radioactive pollution of our air.

It’s amazing: We get toxic fluoridated water to drink, plus a little lead and arsenic.

Now we are getting toxic radioactive air to breath. And the radioactivity falls in the water and further pollutes it.

Is this totally insane, or what?

Richard Sauerheber

See articles by Dr. Sauerheber.

If you like what we are doing here at Washington Safe Water, click here and contribute.

Nuclear Energy is Not Green
By James Robert Deal

The Seattle Times has published another one-sided propaganda piece in praise of nuclear power, written by a career nuclear supporter. (See “Nuclear energy, version 3.0 – time to revisit this low-carbon energy source,” Seattle Times, July 4, 2010.

Nuclear power is not “low-carbon.” Although nuclear plants do not emit carbon dioxide, the mining and enriching of nuclear fuel is highly energy intensive. When this is factored in, nuclear power has a carbon equivalent approaching that of natural gas. Further, around five percent of energy production from a nuclear plant is expended containing and cooling nuclear reactions.

There is no mention in the pro-nuclear article of how filthy the mining of uranium is. Uranium mining in Canada has left behind 200 million tons of radioactive tailings, fine as flour, which blow in the wind and flow downstream for hundreds of miles. The article says that nuclear fuel is cheap, but that is true only if you ignore the huge environmental cost of mining it. Radioactive and heavy metals should be left in the ground as much as possible.

No state wants nuclear waste. Nevada opposition to Yucca Mountain has resulted in its rejection. Every site seems to be geologically unstable, which is not surprising on a planet where continents are slowly but constantly moving. So waste is being stored on site, at plants where it is produced. No permanent technology for storage of spent fuel has been developed.

The presumption underlying the pro-nuclear article is that without nuclear power it will be impossible to meet our energy needs. However, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., consultant to corporations and governments, says

Wind energy resources in 12 Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states equal about 2.5 times the entire electricity production of the United States… Solar energy resources on just one percent of the area of the United States are about three times as large as wind energy.”

See www.ProCon.org, which presents both sides of the nuclear power debate.

A study commissioned by the state of California found that in terms of both capital construction cost and ongoing cost per kwh, wind beats nuclear hands down, while solar is competitive. Google for “Levelized Cost Of Energy Analysis – Version 2.0.”

A new reactor typically costs $5 to $7 billion, and cost overruns are common. It has taken from eight to 24 years to complete nuclear power plants in the US. The same billions spent to build solar arrays, windmills, geothermal heat pumps, microbial fermenters, tidal and wave farms, and many other alternative technologies can yield results more quickly and supply all the power we need.

Proliferation is a concern. A country with nuclear power plants is a step away from nuclear weapons. If the US had not encouraged the Shah to build nuclear power plants in the 1950s, perhaps Iran would not now be building nuclear weapons. If the United States builds hundreds of nuclear plants, other countries, including unstable countries, will build thousands. Promoting nuclear energy as a worldwide solution to energy needs is like giving children loaded guns to play with.

Security is a concern: Each nuclear power plant is a terrorist target. If the US builds hundreds of nuclear plants, other countries will build thousands. With a few pounds of plutonium a sophisticated terrorist can make a nuclear bomb; an unsophisticated terrorist can make a dirty bomb. Perfect security is impossible to achieve with such toxic material.

Nuclear energy proponents claim that nuclear fuel is cheap. To the contrary, each nuclear power plant is bankrupt from the day it is built. The energy produced over its 40-to-60-year life span can never cover the cost of storing and guarding its nuclear waste for thousands of centuries.

Nuclear power is so risky that lenders will not lend to utility companies for construction of nuclear plants without federal loan guarantees. Nor are insurers willing to insure against liability, so under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, the US government covers the majority of any loss. Like the coal and oil industries, the nuclear industry receives large tax credits. Like the others it is a “protected polluter.”

Time continues indefinitely into the future. Ice covered much of the northern hemisphere 10,000 years ago, including the Hanford Reach, and it will return someday. Glaciers will crush nuclear plants and waste dumps and spread radioactivity. Wars will come. Countries will collapse. Reactors will be neglected or sabotaged and burn like Chernobyl. Suitcase nuclear bombs will be detonated. Our descendants will curse us if we continue down the nuclear road.

End

Note: To follow the links in this article, go to http://nuclear-power-is-not-green.blogspot.com