Ex-panel expert criticizes Yucca Mt. design

Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is planned to begin receiving waste in 2010. Some 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at commercial and military sites in 39 states would be stored in metal canisters underground in tunnels. The nation’s nuclear waste dump proposed for Nevada is poorly designed and could leak highly radioactive waste, Paul Craig, a physicist who recently resigned from a federal panel of experts on Yucca Mountain told the Associated Press on Feb. 18.

Craig, who was appointed to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board by President Clinton in 1997, brought up the fact that the 11-member technical review board outlined its concerns about the potential for corrosion in a report to the Energy Department in November about the metal for the canisters, called Alloy-22. The board’s report in November said the government had failed to take into account “deliquescence” — a phenomenon regarding the reaction of salt to moisture — in its plans to operate the dump at temperatures well above boiling water, or about 200 degrees. At those temperatures, the metal canisters would heat up, causing salts in the surrounding ground to liquefy, thus leading to corrosion, Craig said.

Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson defended the design plans for the repository and the metal in the storage casks. “We stand by our work,” he said. He said the department was preparing a formal response to the board’s November report. He had no further comment. (Associated Press)

Department of Energy disregarded hazards

Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, made public in a letter sent to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. that Energy Department officials were aware of potentially hazardous silica at Yucca Mountain, but did not enforce health protections until after workers had excavated a large portion of the site. Chu sent Reid the letter in the wake of reports that some former Yucca Mountain workers have contracted silicosis and other lung ailments they believe stemmed from their work at the site.

In the letter, which Reid made public Feb. 18, Chu said workers were given dust masks to shield them from inhalation of airborne silica particles when mining operations at the proposed nuclear waste repository began in 1992. However, Chu said, use of the masks was not mandatory. After August of 1996 the DOE began making safety improvements.

Department of Energy officials estimate that between 1,200 and 1,500 individuals were involved in carving a five-mile exploratory tunnel into Yucca Mountain or participating in experiments to determine its suitability for nuclear waste storage. The department has initiated a screening program to identify how many workers may have been exposed to toxic levels of silica or other cancer-causing fibers.

In a letter prepared to be sent Feb. 19, Reid asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to determine whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the Mine Safety and Health Administration have authority to oversee worker issues at the Yucca site. “Yucca Mountain workers have contracted a fatal illness because DOE wasn’t concerned with safety precautions,” Reid said in a prepared statement. Energy Department officials could not be reached for comment Feb. 18. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Studies show that Nalgene bottles may pose health risks

The durability of the popular Nalgene bottle comes from the material it is made of, Lexan polycarbonate resin. Lexan has been used over the years in a vast array of products, including baby bottles and water bottles.

The April 2003 volume of Current Biology published a study that cast suspicion on all polycarbonate plastics, including Lexan. The principle author, Dr. Patricia Hunt of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, accidentally discovered that strong detergents can cause polycarbonate plastics to leach one of its constituent chemicals, bisphenol A (BPA). BPA has been shown to mimic the hormone estrogen, and lead to an abnormal loss or gain of chromosomes. A University of Missouri study in the July 2003 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives further confirmed the Hunt study’s conclusions. In addition to determining that used, or discolored, polycarbonate plastics leach high amounts of BPA at room temperature, this study found that detectable levels of BPA leach from brand-new polycarbonate plastics at room temperature.

In other studies, BPA has been implicated in more than just chromosomal disorders, and it is just one of many chemicals known to be environmental endocrine disruptors — synthetic chemicals that interfere with hormonal messages that are central to important body processes like growth and development. (The Daily Barometer)

Groups sue Norton over Alaska oil plan

Seven environmental groups, including the National Audubon Society, Wilderness Society, Sierra Club and the Alaska Wilderness League are suing Interior Secretary Gale Norton to block a plan to open 8.8 million acres to oil and gas development in an area important to migratory birds, whales and wildlife. They are seeking a more balanced plan for the area, at the northeast corner of the 22.5 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The federal lawsuit, filed in Juneau, also names the Interior Department, the Bureau of Land Management and Henri Bisson, the bureau’s Alaska director.

Geologists believe the reserve may contain 6 billion to 13 billion barrels of oil. Critics contend the oil would be costly to recover and amount to no more than nine months of the nation’s fuel supply. (Associated Press)

Pesticide tests on humans backed

A panel of the National Research Council said Feb. 19 that human test subjects could be intentionally given doses of pesticides and other toxic substances as long as the companies or government agencies conducting the studies met high ethical and scientific standards. The Bush administration sought advice from the panel after it reversed, a Clinton-era moratorium on the use of paid volunteers in tests that aid the Environmental Protection Agency in determining safe exposure levels for pesticides used on fruits, vegetables, and other crops.

Too much exposure to some pesticides can result in neurological damage, cancer, or other serious illnesses. Children, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups are most susceptible. In its report, the panel suggests that such groups can be involved in a test, but that “selection of persons from vulnerable populations must be convincingly justified in the protocol.”

The EPA is not bound by the panel’s recommendations, but it is expected to give them much weight as it establishes a new test policy on human testing. The pesticide companies want EPA officials to consider the results of the tests on humans, in addition to studies on laboratory animals, when they decide how much of a particular pesticide can be applied to crops and how close to harvest it can be used. The panel stressed that a human test can be accepted by EPA only if several stiff criteria are met, such as ensuring that the tests address important regulatory questions that cannot be answered without them and that the possible benefits to society outweigh the anticipated risks for participants. (Los Angeles Times)

WHO ‘suppressed’ study into DU cancer fears in Iraq

An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret. The study cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. The study was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization(WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO. Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards. Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination.

Baverstock’s study pointed out that Iraq’s arid climate meant that tiny particles of DU were likely to be blown around and inhaled by civilians for years to come. It warned that, when inside the body, their radiation and toxicity could trigger the growth of malignant tumors. The study suggested that the low-level radiation from DU could harm cells adjacent to those that are directly irradiated, a phenomenon known as “the bystander effect.” This undermines the stability of the body’s genetic system, and is thought by many scientists to be linked to cancers and possibly other illnesses. (Sunday Herald (Scotland))

White House quietly shelved MTBE ban

The Bush administration quietly shelved a proposal to ban MTBE, a gasoline additive that contaminates drinking water in many communities, helping an industry that has donated more than $1 million to Republicans. The EPA’s decision had its origin in the early days of President Bush’s tenure when his administration decided not to move ahead with a Clinton-era regulatory effort to ban the clean-air additive.

The proposed EPA regulation said the environmental harm of the additive leaching into ground water overshadowed its beneficial effects to the air. The Bush administration decided to leave the issue to Congress, where it has bogged down over a proposal to shield the industry from some lawsuits.

Three MTBE producers contributed $338,000 to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, the Republican Party and Republican congressional candidates in 1999 and 2000, twice what they gave Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Since then, the three producers have given just over $1 million to Republicans.

The producers are Texas-based Lyondell Chemical and Valero Energy and the Huntsman companies of Salt Lake City.

On their own, 17 states banned the additive and dozens of communities are suing the oil industry. (Associated Press)

World Bank oversees carve-up of Congo rainforests

Environment, development, and human rights groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) called on the World Bank to halt or change projects that will lead to the parcelling-out of tens of millions of hectares of Congo’s rainforest to logging companies.

In a statement issued Feb.13, more than 100 groups said that plans for the “development” of DRC’s forests would have “major repercussions for the rights and livelihoods of millions of Congolese citizens, with serious and irreversible impacts” on the forest environment.

The World Bank, together with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is supporting the development of comprehensive new forestry laws in the Congo, as well as the “zoning” of the country’s entire forest area.

Internal World Bank documents obtained by the Rainforest Foundation reveal that the Bank is aiming to “create a favorable climate for industrial logging” in the Congo, and envisages a 60-fold increase in the country’s timber production. (Rainforest Foundation (UK))