For the first time strontium 89 and 90 have been found on the seabed near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company tested the soil at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, on 02 and 03 June 2011, at locations 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the nuke plant.
While this is the first time strontium has been found in the seabed, it is not the first time it’s been found in the water.
It’s now official, for the first time since 1850 the number of people moving to California has declined! People are actually leaving! That’s according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
California is still the most populated state: 37 million.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 1.5 million middle class people left California in the past ten years. Where are the people leaving to? Anywhere that the taxes and cost of living are lower than in California! (mostly Texas, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona)
Immigrants now make up the majority of people moving to California. But that is on the decline as well. Why? Most migrants from south of the border are saying they can’t find any work! Those that have work say the cost of living in California is not worth it!
The problem now, is that California is becoming a state of extreme wealth and extreme poverty. According to the American Human Development Project, the exodus of middle class Californians is creating a state of two classes; rich and poor.
From 2009 to 2010, California’s GDP was in stagnation mode; at 1.8%, lower than many other states. By the way, when the media calls 1.8% “growth” it shows their economic ignorance. Anything from 2.9% to 0% is not growth, it’s stagnation.
I luckily escaped California in 1997. I’m now in Idaho, things are getting bad here as well (economically) but I’ve run out of escape money.
26 June 2011, an accident at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant resulting in the expanding Missouri River flooding into the compound. The water hit the nuke plant’s electrical transformers, cutting off power.
Electricity is still needed to keep the spent fuel pools cool. Plant officials say they are now running on back up generators.
Forth Calhoun officials ordered the installation of a water filled artificial levee (berm). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not approve the artificial levee. At about 1:25 am, 26 June, workers broke the water filled berm, allowing the Missouri River to flood in.
This natural disaster is the latest bad news for the Fort Calhoun nuke plant. In April plans to refuel its reactors were halted, over concerns of flooding by the Missouri River. Then, on 07 June, a fire broke out in one of the reactor control rooms. An inspection two years ago revealed that plant operators were not properly prepared for a flood.
After several months of spewing radiation all over northern Japan, Tokyo Electric Power Company is finally going to use boric acid on one of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors.
Actually TEPCo is pouring a borci acid/water mix into the spent fuel pool above Reactor 3. By Monday evening, 27 June 2011, they will have used 90 tons of the mixture.
What is happening in the fuel pool is that radioactive concrete debris, from the hydrogen explosions, were stored in the fuel pool. TEPCo has discovered that calcium hydrate from the concrete debris has made the water highly corrosive, increasing the chances of structural failure of the fuel pool. They fear the racks holding the spent fuel rods will collapse, causing the rods to crash into each other, thus causing “re-criticality”.
A group of doctors tested people living in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan. That’s where the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is. They discovered people living outside the evacuation zones are internally contaminated with radiation.
The doctors tested people in two cities; Iitate Village and Kawamata Town. They are about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the nuclear plant. They tested their urine, to check for internal radiation contamination. They found the people have three times what is considered normal exposure for one year.
The doctors are telling the people of Fukushima Prefecture to stop eating the locally grown vegetables.
Yesterday I speculated that Tokyo Electric Power Company probably installed their water radiation filters backwards. Today NHK reporting that incorrect settings of the system are the cause of TEPCo’s problems.
At least twice TEPCo had to stop their decontamination of water, at Fukushima Daiichi, because they were getting the reverse effect; an increase in radiation levels in the water. Another time they stopped because they broke a water pump.
It turns out all those problems were caused by the incorrect setting of valves. The result was that less than half of the filter chambers were being used. TEPCo blames their throwaway workers for misunderstanding the “open” and “shut” indicators on the U.S. designed system!
“We’re trying desperately to hold to these farms and we are paying our share. And if we haven’t been paying our share, it’s because assessors haven’t been doing their job.”-Grant Olson, wheat farmer
In a surprise announcement, Bannock County officials said they messed up and failed to properly assess farmland. They will now hit farmers with a property tax bill that’s at least 90% higher than last year!
Grant Olsen, a farmer in Robin, Idaho, says his tax bill has gone up year after year. Olsen is highly suspicious of the county’s reasons: “They say the reassessment hasn’t been done for 10 years, and now they have to obey the law. Why haven’t they been obeying the law?”
As a resident in Bannock County I can say that property taxes have gone up yearly, even with the decline in residential property prices. When I’ve complained to the assessor they’ve blamed increased fees due to the passage of school levees. That’s part of the problem, but the specific “property” tax has gone up as well.
County officials told the public that they would provide a better explanation of why they have to increase farmland property tax so much. Bannock County has a reputation for having higher than average property taxes.
10 cities around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were supposed to get evacuation orders immediately after the nuclear disaster, following the 11 March 2011 natural disasters. Only four of those cities got the evacuation order.
The national government of Japan, and the prefectural government of Fukushima have apologized for the break down in communication.
Also, Tokyo Electric Power Company was responsible for notifying five nearby cities/towns of the nuclear disaster, but evidence shows that was a major ‘F’ up. One town got 80 faxes of the notification, while another town got zero notification!
This major breakdown in communication, by TEPCo and government, resulted in massive confusion about what people were supposed to do.
For the third time Tokyo Electric Power Company stopped decontamination of radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi. This time radiation levels on the outflow side of the massive water filter skyrocketed, instead of going down.
The idea is that water coming out of the decontamination unit would have less radiation. The opposite is happening. When TEPCo re-started the operation on Tuesday radiation levels were at 3 millisieverts per hour, by Wednesday, 22 June 2011, the levels hit 15 millisieverts per hour.
The result is that not only has decontamination efforts stopped, but TEPCo says it can not inject anymore water to cool reactors, for fear of massive flooding of contaminated water out of the reactors (even more than what is leaking out now). Already the temperatures in Reactor 3 are rising.
Japanese media says the water decontamination unit was designed in the United States. Could it be possible that the decontamination chambers are backwards? Don’t laugh, here in Idaho in the late 1990s, on the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation boil order after boil order were being issued. Finally, after tribal officials investigated their new water treatment system, it was discovered that all the filters were in backwards.
A year long study of U.S. government documents, by the Associated Press, has revealed that radioactive tritium is leaking into groundwater.
Documents show that at least 48 nuclear plants in the U.S. have, or are, leaking tritium. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. The report comes from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
At least 37 of those leaks exceeded government safe levels for drinking water.
It’s not just tritium that’s leaking from U.S. nuclear reactors; cesium and strontium are also leaking.
Strontium 90 was found leaking at Indian Point nuke plant north of New york City.
Cesium 137 leaked from Fort Calhoun nuke plant in Nebraska. By the way, that reactor was just shut down because the Missouri River is flooding it.
There’s much more about the leaks from U.S. nuke plants in the AP report. Maybe this explains the increase in cancer rates over the past decades?
Like I said before: Everyone living near nuclear reactors in the United States should make plans to get away.