Tons of depleted uranium polluting Iraq

US forces unleashed at least 75 tons of toxic depleted uranium on Iraq during the recent war, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

An unnamed US Central Command spokesman disclosed to the Monitor last week that coalition forces fired 300,000 bullets coated with armored-piercing depleted uranium (DU) during the war.

“The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 — a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq,” wrote correspondent Scott Peterson.

While the Pentagon maintains that spent weapons coated with the low-level, radioactive nuclear-waste are relatively harmless, Peterson notes that US soldiers have taken it among themselves to print leaflets or post signs warning of DU contamination.

On a group of abandoned burnt-out US munitions supply trucks, Peterson saw signs US troops put up warning in Arabic, “Danger — Get away from this area.” A local vendor said that soldiers in masks warned him and others to keep away from the site.

These were the only warnings Peterson found. He wrote that despite the military’s attempts to bulldoze the surrounding topsoil, the Geiger counter readings on remaining piles of radioactive DU dust registered at hundreds of times the average, and a DU dart from a 120 mm tank shell emitted radiation over 1,300 times normal.

Two other sites visited were randomly selected Iraqi armored vehicles destroyed with DU bullets. The remains of these tanks sit near a produce vendor on the outskirts of Baghdad, and have become popular playthings for children; the Geiger counter reading from “a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser” near one child registered 1,000 times normal. (YellowTimes.org)

New forest-thinning policy drops safeguard for wildlife

As cabinet members and lawmakers looked on Dec. 3 as Bush signed legislation aimed at speeding fire-prevention efforts in federal forests, his administration quietly adopted a rule that would expedite timber-thinning projects by removing a safeguard for endangered species.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the US Forest Service and other federal agencies are required to seek confirmation from the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before taking any action that may adversely affect any endangered plant or animal.

The new policy, which does not require congressional approval, authorizes biologists for the Forest Service or other land-management agencies to make the call that no endangered species will be adversely affected, exempting them from consulting with the agencies whose main mandate is protecting rare plants and animals.

The Bush administration stressed that the policy would not reduce the level of protection for rare animals and plants.

But environmentalists said the policy removed a key check and balance.

“The conflict of interest is that the agency whose top job is to do the logging will make this decision, rather than the agency whose top job is to protect threatened or endangered species,” said Marty Hayden, legislative director for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.

With this policy and the rest of its “healthy forests” initiative, Hayden added, “the administration has used the emotional issue of wildfire to get the kind of weakening of environmental law and limiting of public involvement that they have wanted.” (Los Angeles Times)

Glowing fish? When pigs fly, state says

A state commission on Dec. 3 denied a Texas company’s plan to sell genetically altered, glow-in-the-dark fish in California pet stores, calling fluorescent fish an example of science gone wrong.

The decision by the State Fish and Game Commission makes California the only state to ban GloFish, which will be available for aquariums in the rest of the country next month. Despite conclusions from several scientists that the new breed of fish posed little threat to the state’s natural resources, three of four commissioners said genetically engineered pets are simply too scary to endorse, while environmentalists said that the risk is too great and that the altered fish could someday wreak havoc on the state’s environment.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s right to produce a new organism just to be a pet,’’ said Commissioner Sam Schuchat. “What’s next? A pig with wings?’’ (San Francisco Chronicle)

Bush’s mercury cut delay could endanger newborns

A change in rules by the Bush administration that would give utilities more time to cut mercury emissions could expose more children to nerve damage, an environmental group said on Dec. 4.

The changes would relax terms of a December 2000 finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that would have required up to 90 percent cuts in mercury emissions from utilities, the largest industrial source.

The new rules would delay a cap-and-trade system to begin mercury emission reductions by 2018. The original plan, proposed by the Clinton administration, called for the cuts to take effect in 2008.

“Toxic mercury emissions from power plant smokestacks put countless infants and children at risk for brain damage,” said Linda Greer a health expert at the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC). Delaying the program will result in several hundreds of tons of extra mercury emissions, NRDC officials say. (Reuters)

Banished biotech corn not gone

Contaminated grain is still showing up in the nation’s corn supply even though it was pulled from the market three years ago. In September 2000 a genetically engineered corn, banned from human consumption, turned up in taco shells, chips, and muffin mixes, causing its production to be immediately halted.

A federal testing program recently found traces of the banished grain, called StarLink, in more than 1 percent of samples submitted by growers and grain handlers in the past 12 months.

The corn variety, engineered to produce its own pesticide, was supposed to be limited to animal feed and industrial use out of fear it might cause severe allergic reactions.

While the health effects of StarLink are still unknown, many worry that the government remains unprepared to deal with unexpected health problems from genetically engineered crops, especially those now being field-tested to mass-produced medicines, vaccines or industrial chemicals. Despite dozens of claims from individuals who say they suffered allergic reactions after eating corn products, officials of the biotech industry say the contamination caused no proven health effects. (San Jose Mercury News)

42 A-plants found to lack enough cash for cleanup

The owners of nearly half the nuclear power reactors in the US are not reserving enough money to decommission them on retirement, according to Congressional auditors, who also say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not tracking the money carefully.

Money is accumulating too slowly at 42 plants, including some shut for years like Indian Point 1, in Buchanan, NY, and Millstone 1, in Waterford, CT. Those plants and some others are probably decades from decommissioning, because they are next to plants that are still operating and their owners have decided not to act until all plants at a site have been retired.

Representative Edward J. Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who requested the report, said in a statement, “While happily pocketing their profits today, many plant owners are shirking their duty to save for tomorrow.”

Taxpayers could be left with billions in clean-up costs, Markey said. (New York Times)

’66 H-bomb accident still a concern in Spain

Almost 40 years have passed since the US Air Force accidentally dropped four hydrogen bombs on Spain. But the fallout continues with a newly published scientific study that traced the spread of radiation from the accident site — supporting rumors about a mysterious fifth bomb that supposedly is still leaking on the Mediterranean Sea floor.

On Jan. 17, 1966, a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanker aircraft collided during a refueling exercise over the sleepy farming village of Palomares on Spain’s southeastern coast.

Both planes disintegrated and down went the B-52’s four hydrogen bombs, creating the first US nuclear weapons crisis near a populated area. Each 1.5 megaton bomb packed 100 times more explosive power than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.

Two were found intact. One fell on land, the other into the Mediterranean, where it was recovered after an 80-day effort. Seven pounds of plutonium were splattered over 558 acres of Palomares, forcing an $80 million clean-up by the United States. Military crews hauled away 1,500 tons of radioactive soil and tomato plants for burial at a nuclear waste dump in Aiken, SC. Some radioactive material inevitably was left behind, perhaps as much as 15 percent of the total.

“The remainder of the original plutonium clearly has spread, and spread widely,” said William R. Schell, a University of Pittsburgh emeritus professor and a member of the international team that reported on the accident in the current edition of the journal, Science and the Total Environment.

Radioactivity was detected in western Mediterranean plankton — tiny plants and animals that drift in the water and serve as staple food for fish and other larger organisms.

The study revived rumors that a fifth nuclear bomb from the Palomares accident was never recovered and remains submerged in the Mediterranean, leaking radiation.

Plutonium is extremely toxic and lingers in the environment for ages. It takes 24,000 years for half of a given amount to decay. (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Report warns there’s ‘no doubt’ industry is primary cause of climate change

Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for increasing global temperatures, an ominous trend that has sped up in the past 50 years and threatens to continue for centuries, according to a report by two of the nation’s leading atmospheric scientists.

Thomas Karl, a meteorologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC, and Kevin Trenberth, chief of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, said climate change “may prove to be humanity’s greatest challenge” and warned that “it is very unlikely to be adequately addressed without greatly improved international cooperation and action.”

The two disagreed with assertions by some scientists that swings in worldwide temperatures over the years are normal and natural. “There is no doubt,” they say, “that the composition of the atmosphere is changing because of human activities, and today greenhouse gases are the largest human influence on global climate.’’

While some climate analysts have noted that the vast quantities of soot emitted by many industries and volcanic eruptions can actually cool the atmosphere, that kind of cooling can last only a few years with little or no effect on the long-range trend, the two scientists say.

They estimate that by the end of this century there is a 90 percent chance that the world’s climate will heat up between 3.1 and 8.9 degrees Fahrenheit. (San Francisco Chronicle)