Introducing Reference Girl

Current radiation exposure standards are based on an outdated model known as Reference Man, defined as “… a nuclear industry worker 20-30 years of age, weighs 70 kg (154 pounds), is 170 cm (67 inches) tall…is a Caucasian and is a Western European or North American in habitat and custom.” But with current global exposures to ionizing radiation increasing, Reference Man no longer represents the most protective model, leaving out women, children and pregnancy, which are less resistant to radiation exposure.

CANCER CONNECTION?

"Study: Elevated cancer deaths in Monroe may be result of nuclear plant," by Tyler Eagle, Monroe Evening News/USA TODAY NETWORK, March 12, 2021.

Watch a recording of the press conference here, posted at WTVG/ABC-13's website. (The first three minutes of the recording are microphone checks, so fast-forward to the 3 minute mark of the recording, where the press conference begins.) The press conference features: Michael Keegan of Don't Waste Michigan, a Monroe native; Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, and author of the newly published cancer fatality rate study focused on Fermi 2; and Christie Brinkley, also a native of Monroe, and board member of the Radiation and Public Health Project.

Here is the Radiation and Public Health Project's postings related to this newly published report focused on Fermi 2.

Update on March 10, 2021 by admin

See the press advisory put out by Don't Waste Michigan and the Radiation and Public Health Project.

Update on March 13, 2021 by admin

DTE (formerly Detroit Edison), owner/operator of Fermi 2, responded to Mangano's report, as reported by the Monroe Evening News.

"We aren't prepared for something like this" -- Ohio school next to uranium enrichment facility closed after radioactive contaminants detected

As reported by CNN, Newsweek, WLWT Cincinnati, the ExchangeMonitor, and a growing number of news outlets, radioactive contaminants detected at the Zahn's Corner Middle School in Pike County, Ohio, (photo, above) located very near the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, has led to the school's abrupt closure, and caused deep concern about the children's health, and contamination of other area homes, surface waters, etc. The Pike County General Health District published a press release. There is concern that DOE's highly controversial on-site radioactive waste and contamination disposal activities have liberated fugitive dust clouds, contaminated with hazardous radioactivity, causing the now-detected fallout downwind. Despite this, and frantic community concern, especially regarding the impact on children's health, DOE is refusing to suspend the operations, claiming more data is needed. 

 

As concerning as environmental contamination by Uranium-235 (and other uranium isotopes, for that matter) is, even more deeply concerning has been the detection of trans-uranics, such as neptunium, americium, and plutonium isotopes in the surrounding community and workforce, as well as fission products like artificial, radioactive cesium and technetium isotopes. The puzzling question is, where could such post-reactor irradiation hazardous radioactive contaminants have come from, at a uranium enrichment facility?

DOE's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, previously produced enriched uranium, including highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium for the United States nuclear weapons program, as well as low-enriched uranium, for nuclear power reactor fuel. Uranium straight from the mines would not contain such post-reactor irradiation trans-uranics and fission products. While DOE may try to deceptively claim that such elements are the result of atmospheric nuclear bomb testing global fallout, another explanation could well be that DOE "recycled" uranium, post-reprocessing, contaminated with such high-level radioactive waste ingredients.  

 

After all, this is exactly what happened at Portsmouth's sibling facility, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, downstream on the Ohio River in Kentucky, as revealed by the Washington Post's Joby Warrick in 1999. Such contamination in Paducah caused a deadly cancer epidemic, and other diseases, among the facility's workforce, and in neighboring communities. See an August 11, 1999 article by Warrick, as well as an August 8, 1999 article by Warrick.

Beyond Nuclear's Alliance for Nuclear Accountability coalition partners, Coalition for Health Concerns in the Paducah area, and Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS), have long watch-dogged these DOE facilities on behalf of their communities. (See ANA DC Days entry, below.) In more recent years, grassroots watch-dogs like the Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Committee have successfully fought back against attempts to do uranium centrifuge enrichment at the Portsmouth site (see this Dayton Daily News article from Nov. 14, 2006; and see another article from the same publication), and even centralized interim storage for commercial irradiated nuclear fuel, a precursor to reprocessing, as proposed by the George W. Bush administration DOE's "Global Nuclear Energy Partnership" a decade ago. 

Update on May 16, 2019 by admin

See a lengthy investigative article in Earther, examining the environmental justice aspects of this scandal, entitled "This town didn't want to be a radioactive waste dump, [but] the government is giving them no choice."

Update on May 17, 2019 by admin

Columbus Dispatch

Decision time for St. Louis’ radioactive waste

Kay Drey, Beyond Nuclear board presidentOp-ed by Kay Drey (photo, left), Beyond Nuclear's board president, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Also see Kay's pamphlets about the West Lake Landfill, "The Safety of St. Louis Drinking Water Depends on You!!" and "Remove the Radioactive Wastes NOW!!".

As Kay points out, the Manhattan Project radioactive wastes at the West Lake Landfill are among the very oldest of the Atomic Age, and all these decades later, we don't even know what to do with the first cupful! And as is so often the case, as shown in the tragic photo accompanying her op-ed above, as well as a Beyond Nuclear pamphlet, and palm card, it is children (and women, pregnant women and the fetus in the womb, and other highly vulnerable populations, including the elderly, immune-compromised, etc.) who very often bear the worst brunt of the radioactive health hazards.

As reflected in the op-ed above, as well as her cameo in the powerful documentary film "Atomic Homefront," Kay is the institutional memory of such nuclear watch-dogging as at West Lake Landfill. Her vigilance has persisted for 45 years.

Federal health officials agree radioactive waste in St. Louis area may be linked to cancer

As reported by CBS News.

RT's Ashlee Banks interviewed Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps about this news.

After the ATSDR report was published, Beyond Nuclear did a post going into more detail on the Cold Water Creek and West Lake Landfill radioactive contamination disaster in metro St. Louis, MO.