Strontium-90 Coming to a Great Lake near you
Thursday, February 28, 2013
If you have thought at all about West Valley lately, you probably thought that the problems there were more or less solved after that big project to solidify the high level radioactive waste being stored there. The problem is not solved, not by a long shot, according to the Sierra Club; Diane D’Arrigo of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service; Barbara Warren of the Citizens’ Environmental Coalition; Joanne Hameister of the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes and Agnes Williams of the Indigenous Women’s Initiative.
High level radioactive waste being stored in unlined trenches, erosion from torrential rains and a plume of Strontium-90 working its way to Lake Erie are just some of the problems facing the site. Add lack of transparency from the DOE, federal budget cuts to the clean up funding and almost total rejection of citizen and outside scientific input and these dedicated women have an overwhelming problem they have been resolutely working on for years.
Of all the problems facing this site and the people living around it, one of the most serious and pressing is a plume of Strontium-90 slowly flowing underground towards Lake Erie.
Strontium-90 is a radioactive element that acts like calcium in your body. It gets absorbed by your bones and then irradiates your bone marrow for a half of 29.1 years. After 29.1 years, half the Strontium in your bones will have converted Yttrium, the other half stays right in your bones irradiating away. The risk of bone cancer and leukemia are increased with strontium-90 exposure.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/strontium.html
The Strontium 90 migrating towards Lake Erie is from a spill on site and was discovered in the 90's. The image below shows the radioactive plume on the West Vally site. Pink is the most radioactive and 100,000 times hotter (more radioactive) than the rest of the plume. The DOE installed the containment wall in 2010 to keep the radioactivity from migrating to Lake Erie. Obviously it didn't work so well and currently the plume is less than 150 feet from Frank's Creek. Frank's Creek empties into Lake Erie. The DOE is committed to studying this problem until at least 2020.
With the water supply to millions of US citizens, Canadian Citizens and Native Americans at risk, the Sierra Club, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes, Indigenous Women’s Initiative think the DOE's plan to continue studying the problem forever is unacceptable.
They ask your help. Please contact your federal representatives and tell them to Dig It Up!
More about West Valley:
http://www.cectoxic.org/Radioactive.html
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/decommissioning/decommissioninghome.htm
http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/43501.html
US Dept. of Energy ~ http://tinyurl.com/bxrtocx
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It's quite amazing, really, that after years of presenting them with solid science documenting the dire need for immediate action, that adding a bit of pink coloring to a power point presentation has finally gotten the attention of the US DOE .
We now have their full attention.
If you care at all, please call your representatives and demand they take action now!
Canadians, please call your MPs and a call or two to the US Embassy couldn't hurt.
Clean-Up West Valley Now!
