Radiation Danger in Seattle’s Magnuson Park, Part 1 of 4 

            I attended a Navy “Open House” at the Mountaineers building in Magnuson Park in northeast Seattle last night. It was a very interesting and somewhat contentious evening. The gathering was called so that the Navy, the Washington State Department of Health, the Washington State Department of Ecology and other officials could present the story of the radioactive contamination of Magnuson Park and the plan that the Navy had for cleaning it up.

            To start at the beginning of this story, it is necessary to go back to World War II when Magnuson Park was a U.S. Naval Air Base. Planes were repaired at the base. Part of the repair process was to refurbish the dials of instruments that were painted with radium paint so they could be seen in the dark. The old radium paint had to be stripped off and disposed of so the new radium paint could be applied. There were dedicated rooms in a couple of the base buildings for dealing with the preparation, application and disposal of radium paint. The old paint was flushed out of the buildings and into the drain system by piping. Radium is highly radioactive and highly toxic.

           After the war, the base was repurposed several times and ultimately closed in the 1990s. There was a cleanup of toxic waste in the 1970s but apparently the radium pollution was not part of the cleanup. The base was decommissioned and sections were turned over to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the City of Seattle. In 2009, the Navy did an assessment of old base buildings that were going to Seattle with respect to any lingering contamination and concluded that there was nothing to be concerned about.

          When the city of Seattle decided to renovate some of the base buildings in 2010, they went over old plans for the buildings and found that some of the rooms were labeled as radium painting and handling areas. When the Navy was called back in to test for radiation, they found hot spots of gamma radiation in several sections of the old buildings and nearby grounds. Gamma radiation can penetrate walls, floors and soil.  In addition of the presence of radium, cesium-137 and strontium-90 were found. These are both serious health hazards. The contaminated areas were promptly boarded up and removed from public use. Fences were put up around areas where the soil outside of the buildings showed signs of contamination. However, there was no attempt to make the situation known to the public at large beyond some signage on the walls of the contaminated rooms and on the fences around the contaminated soil.

            The situation at Magnuson Park began to seep into public awareness in March of 2013, nearly four years after officials of various agencies knew about the problem. But the problem was not officially presented to the public before the meeting last night. What the public found was that the various agencies had decided that the Navy had a good plan to deal with the problem as quickly as possible under a designation known as “Time Critical Removal Action.” Unfortunately, what the public also found out at the Open House was that this process circumvents the normal review and clean up of hazard waste sites with little opportunity for the community to express their concerns and recommendations.

In September 2010, Washington state health officials signed off on a plan by Seattle City Parks to allow an indoor sports arena to use an old Navy hangar at Magnuson Park. The conditions were it could be used while radioactive materials found in an attached painting structure were cleaned up. king5.com

The U.S. Navy NavFac website has information about the cleanup of radioactive contamination at Magnuson Park in Seattle. portal.navfac.navy.mil

The Navy plans a $9 million six-month cleanup starting in June at a Seattle park contaminated with radiation from glow-in-the-dark paint used on aircraft dials during World War II. sfgate.com

A public meeting about a proposed contamination cleanup at Magnuson Park erupted into a shouting match Wednesday night. seattletimes.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 30, 2013

Ambient office = .066 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .101 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .099 microsieverts per hour

Vine ripened tomato from local grocery store =  .074 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .138 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .092 microsieverts per hour

          I have posted several times about problems at the San Onofre reactor in Southern California. Problems with the faulty installation of new steam generators led to investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as charges and counter charges between the owners, Southern California Edison (SCE) and the manufacturer of the steam generator, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). There has been a startling new development in the public debate about restarting the reactor.

          Senator Barbara Boxer has made public a 2004 letter from a SCE Vice President to the General Manager of MHI. In the letter, the utility acknowledges that it knew that there could be a “disastrous outcome” from operating the replacement steam generator at San Onofre. MHI had fabricated the generator to SCE specifications. The letter was concerned that serious problems with the new generators could lead to “unacceptable consequences” for both companies. The VP says that the new designwas based on the seismic response characteristics of the original generator despite the design changes.

          Although there had been major design changes made to the replacement generator, SCE told state and federal regulators that the generator was a “like for like” replacement for the original generator. SCE kept its concerns secret. Had they been honest about the design changes, regulations would have required a delay in construction to certify the new design and would have raised costs significantly.          Activist groups say that the letter proves that SCE was more concerned about keeping to a construction schedule and making money than insuring public safety.

           The anticipated serious problems did arise. In just two years, the new generators failed and caused a release of radiation. The reactors were shut off and opponents of the San Onofre plant want them to stay off. State and federal regulators want additional assurances of safety. SCE wants to restart the reactors this year and is threatening to close the plant permanently if it cannot restart the reactors soon. On May 13, the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing board said that to grant a license to restart the San Onofre reactors would be an unacceptable experiment without sufficient understanding of the problems and their solutions.  

           Despite dire warning of electrical outages, so far the utilities in Southern California have been able to make up the missing power from the nuclear plant by firing up natural gas generators which, unfortunately, will increase air pollution in the area.

            The San Onofre situation is a perfect example of a theme that I have stated many times. Corporations are institutions that have only the single goal of making money for the shareholders who are shielded by the corporate “veil” from paying for the consequences of bad behavior on the part of the corporation. Again and again it has been revealed that individual corporations have withheld information about the danger of their products and practices. This secrecy has led to the death of millions of people and crippling of millions more. In the nuclear industry, such dishonesty could pose a threat to our very civilization. For the sake of everyone on Earth, nuclear power must end!

Tape, broomsticks, and safety cones used at the Fukushima Unit 4 reactor to manage leaks. enformable.com

Cs-134/137 from pool bottom sediment of 9 of 9 elementary school in Chiba, Japan found to be eight times food safety limit. fukushima-diary.com

Radiation at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Missouri poses no threat to the public, according to an aerial survey conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency in March. stlouis.cbslocal.com

The U.N. nuclear watchdog acknowledged on Wednesday it might not find anything if allowed access to an Iranian military facility, in an apparent reference to suspected clean-up work there, diplomats said. reuters.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 29, 2013

Ambient office = .074 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .072 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .061 microsieverts per hour

Romaine lettuce from local grocery store =  .108 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .093 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .063 microsieverts per hour

              I have discussed nuclear weapons in many previous posts as well as nuclear treaties aimed at disarmament and non-proliferation.  The United States has not been focused on developing new nuclear weapons or adding to the number of weapons in our stockpile during the first term of President Obama. Obama has been espousing nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of nuclear weapons on a global scale since he entered politics. During his first term in office, he brought up the subject of nuclear disarmament in speeches both here and abroad.

             In 2010, Obama convinced the Senate to ratify a new strategic arms limitation treaty with the Russians. The new treaty set the cap on the number of allowed deployed warheads to thirty percent below the cap at that time.  This new cap would be set at around fifteen hundred deployed warheads.

             Now, in his second term, he has been working quietly to gain the support of the U.S. military to cut the number of operational U.S. nuclear warhead to around one thousand which would be the lowest U.S. nuclear arsenal in decades. His new initiative also calls for additional cuts to warheads if the Russian will agree. Obama has been responsible for cutting the total number of warheads in the U.S. arsenal from over fifty two hundred to about forty seven hundred. At the height of the Cold War in 1961, the U.S. had over twenty five thousand warheads.

            Since there is no real way to defend against a nuclear attack, the U.S. has adopted a strategy of deterrence based on the idea that if anyone attacked us, we could retaliate and devastate them. This is known as mutually assured destruction. Of course, it all depends on the U.S. having enough warheads left after a massive nuclear attack to successfully retaliate. A trio of warhead delivery systems consisting of ICBMs in silos, nuclear bombs on U.S. bombers and Trident nuclear missiles on U.S. submarines is intended to guarantee this retaliatory capability.

            Everyone agrees that a few thousand warheads are more than enough to preserve the U.S. ability to respond to a nuclear attack. However, there are some who question whether an arsenal of a thousand or less is enough for retaliation. They claim that if an enemy thinks that they can destroy enough of our nuclear capacity in a first strike, they can escape serious retaliation. They are especially concerned that if we disarm completely or even down to a few hundred warheads, then an enemy might think that they can escape any retaliation if they attack us.

            It has been estimated that even a nuclear exchange of a few hundred warheads would be enough to cause a nuclear winter that would doom billions of people and effectively end our civilization. The infrastructure and the economy of the world is so intertwined and integrated globally that nuclear destruction of even a few major U.S.  cities would have a major impact on the rest of the world including the attacker. I don’t really believe that the other major nuclear powers are so suicidal that they would believe they could survive any nuclear attack on the U.S. without suffering terrible damage to their own economy, environment and citizenry.

U.S.S. Michigan, Ohio class submarine carrying Trident missiles:

The Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI) is seeking proposals to examine the comparative value of radiation therapy and will provide support for the research project in the amount of $200,000 over two years. newswise.com

Seaweed caused the shutdown of multiple nuclear reactors in the United Kingdom. enenews.com

Iran’s presidential candidates clash over their approach to Iran’s nuclear program.  reuters.com

Kentucky’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant will begin shutting down at the end of this week. nuclearstreet.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 28, 2013

Ambient office = .103 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .115 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .133 microsieverts per hour

Mango from local grocery store =  .076 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .087 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .081 microsieverts per hour

               In a recent blog, I discussed an argument by the Nuclear Energy Institute to the effect that new nuclear reactors were necessary because of rising electricity demand. Apparently, the idea that electrical demand is rising is not universally accepted.

           Sweden began investigating nuclear energy in the forties and built several heavy water reactors that could utilize Swedish uranium without needing isotope enrichment. When Sweden signed the Non-Proliferation treaty in 1968 which precluded the use of plutonium as fuel for reactors, they switched to light water reactors. Six reactors began commercial operations in the 1970s, another six were built by 1985. Two reactors have been closed leaving a total of ten operating reactors at three nuclear power plants. Nuclear power currently supplies about half of Sweden’s electricity.

           After the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979, Sweden held a national referendum on the future of nuclear power in Sweden. The people voted against nuclear power and the Swedish government put a ban on the construction of new reactors in 1980. They also created a nuclear phase-out policy which intended to end the use of nuclear power in Sweden.

           In 1992, it was found that five reactors had been operating without emergency cooling capability because of clogged drains. All five were shut down and repairs were made. There have been other problems at Swedish nuclear reactors since then and the political debate over the phase out continued. Ultimately, concerns about energy security and global warming caused the Swedish parliament to reverse the existing ban on reactor construction and end the phase-out plans in June of 2010..

              Vattenfall AB, is the largest Scandinavian utility. It generates power through hydroelectric and nuclear energy.  It currently operates seven nuclear reactors in Sweden at the Forsmark and Ringhals power plants. When the change in policy was announced by the Swedish government, Vattenfall quickly requested permission to build an unspecified number of new reactors starting in 2025.

               Vattenfall recently announced that it was going to extend the lifespan of existing Swedish nuclear reactors and delay the construction of any new Swedish reactors for at least five years. The reason they offered for such a decision was the fact that their forecasts fail to anticipate a rise in demand for electricity and rising electricity production as wind turbines are brought online in the near future. Their analysis of electricity demands and need for new reactors is ongoing and they do not feel that they will be able to make a well-informed decision on investment in new reactors for at least another ten years. Their plan calls for modernization of their Ringhals reactors to extend their lifespan by ten years. Under the new plan, two of Vattenfall’s reactors at the Ringhals power stations will operate until 2025 and another two Ringhals reactors will operate until 2040.

              So even a country with its own supply of uranium and reactors that supply half its electricity is not sure it wants or needs more nuclear reactors.

Ringhals power plant: