THE HOTTEST SWIMMING HOLES IN THE WHOLE DAMMED RIVER… wait… no… you mean the whole damned...

Of course we wouldn't see anything like this in the MSM, and nuclear energy companies have spent millions and millions of dollars to clean up the public sentiment, think about this the next time you visit a local river or stream...matter of fact isn't that where our freshwater for drinking comes from??

I have swum in the Deerfield and Connecticut Rivers. Perhaps this is foolish of me. These rivers are beautiful, they appear reasonably clean, they draw me in to their ominous currents, their tranquility, their wild nature. There was a time when I didn’t know what I was doing. Later I made a conscious choice. What distinguished that choice from the blind choices of so many other people however, is my personal awareness of the insidious and deadly nature of the nuclear reactors on both rivers.

People swim in these rivers. People eat the fish. Tourists and adventurers raft the whitewaters of the Deerfield. These paying customers are not informed of the potential health risks due to upstream radiation releases. Corporate responsibility -- in a just and honest world -- dictates that people be informed of the risk. Public health departments have a responsibility to alert the public of radioactive threats.

Always defined “safe” by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, amongst the radiotoxic byproducts YAEC has confirmed present in these releases are cesium-137, cobalt-60, strontium-90 and tritium. Cesium 137 decays to cesium 133 – an isotope with a radioactive half-life longer than your imagination (can imagine).

Source and article continued

[edit on 15-11-2009 by alyosha1981]

[edit on 15-11-2009 by alyosha1981]

WOAHHHHHH! ELLO!
Nice catch man and troubling read.

reply to post by Happyfeet


Yes troubling indeed, been going on for awhile and I wonder how many millions of people swam in rivers just like the author (I'm included) that could possibly have illnesses atributed to this type of nuclear waste that they don't even know about?

Isotopes that have extremely long half-lives are not very dangerous at all because of their long half-lives. They decay slowly. The shorter lived stuff, such as Polonium-210 (with a half life of 137 days) is far worse. It was actually used to assassinate political opponents.

As far as that article, complete load of rubbish. The NRC was created to specifically destroy Nuclear Power. This is shown with Nuclear financial disasters such as...: Bellefonte, Watts Unit Bar-2, Marble Hill, Shoreham, and Seabrook Unit-2, which the NRC absolutely KILLED after billions of dollars worth of investment. The fact that Vermont Yankee passed the NRC review with "high marks" speaks for itself.

I must admit, the Three Mile Island Debacle was rather amusing. Three Mile Island Unit-2 was designed, constructed, and operated completely under the eye of the NRC. This was the reactor that had the well known incident. Funny, though, Three Mile Island Unit-1 was built a few years earlier under the oversight of the Atomic Energy Commission, cost half as much, had none of the design flaws that Three Mile Island Unit-2 had, and continues to operate to this day. The NRC needs to be abolished, it is completely useless at improving Nuclear safety and only serves the interests of COAL. The problems with the NRC continue to this day.


[edit on 15/11/2009 by C0bzz]

reply to post by C0bzz


I fail to see how the high content of this material in our streams and rivers is "complete rubbish"

It's funny how you guys speak of the millions of dollars used by the Nuclear Industry as PR, even though the pseudo-environmentalists made that pretty much illegal. In any case if you want evidence of actual BS lobbying then look no further than the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) link in my signature.

Originally posted by alyosha1981
reply to post by C0bzz

 

I fail to see how the high content of this material in our streams and rivers is "complete rubbish"

It's garbage because their is no actual scientific literature in said article. It has many flaws which are obvious hyperbolic BS. It might be nice as a High School persuasive piece though. I'll have to look into it further though, maybe find the actual study they're quoting or whatever.

I will say this - no credible study has ever found elevated cancer levels linked to Nuclear Power Plants, furthermore, radiation releases are far lower than the only competitor to Nuclear; Coal. If there was a rare leak of Cobalt-60, then the leak should be corrected, and the appropriate action taken so that it does not occur in the future.

The article also deliberately confuses the somewhat relevant Cobalt-60 (and it was mostly Cobalt-60) leak, with Tritium gas releases, as if they are somehow comparable. Radioactive Hydrogen gas (Tritium) is simply too dilute to pose a problem, and will simply rise completely out of the biosphere, where it will decay within a couple of years. Tritium is the same stuff that makes the hands on a clock glow.

The alternative to Nuclear is this...:


Really, the only thing worth discussing in that article is the accidental leak of a small amount of cesium-137, cobalt-60, & strontium-90. The leak has since been fixed (or should have?) and tritium is absolutely no threat. The water coming out of Nuclear Power Plants should be warm, with absolutely no radioactive pollutants at all. I THINK it might have Chlorine in it, however this is no different to any other thermal power plant.



Who's afraid of Nuclear power? COAL COMPANIES! Coal loves wind also.

[edit on 15/11/2009 by C0bzz]