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Brandon Turbeville
With all the focus placed on the Japanese radiation leak as well as the toxic plume of radioactive particles (possibly containing uranium and plutonium) heading for the United States, another potential disaster is receiving virtually no attention.
Of course, attention should be paid to the Japanese situation. Especially since the mainstream media is doing everything it can to cover up the scale of the disaster. Nevertheless, it seems the continent of North America is being hit from two sides in terms of radiation danger.
On March 16, a report was released by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) stating that Canada’s Ontario Power Generation has released radioactive water into Lake Ontario via a leak in the Pickering A nuclear generating station.
As a result of what appears to be a pump seal failure, tens of thousands of litres of radioactive water escaped the generating station on Monday and ended up in Lake Ontario. This is troubling for a number of reasons, but it is especially so considering the fact that Lake Ontario is the main source of drinking water for millions of people.
Typically, the Canadian government is claiming that the water contamination is of little concern and that the citizenry should not be alarmed. In an official statement, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission claimed, “The radiological risk to the environment and people’s health is negligible.”
Likewise, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and the Canadian government have been preferring to use the term “demineralized” water instead of “radioactive” water when discussing the leak. No doubt this is an attempt to hush concern over another radioactive accident amid anxiety over the “demineralized” catastrophe in Japan.
John Luxat, an “expert” on radiation from McMaster University claims the water that found its way into Lake Ontario Monday is actually not radioactive at all. In an interview with the CTV News Channel, Luxat stated, “It is not radioactive; it is not going through the reactors. It is actually just going through steam generators to produce steam to drive the turbines. It is used to remove heat from the heavy water going into the generators, but it doesn’t at any time go into the reactor.”
That sounds reassuring enough. However, it conflicts with a report (that was meant to be reassuring) from OPG itself. Also in the same interview with CTV News Channel, Ted Gruetzner of OPG said, “People are concerned about nuclear power, but this particular incident is normal water with a bit of radiation. It is well below our regulatory and other limits.”
Apparently, the nuclear industry was unable to get its story straight this time around. According to Mr. Luxat, there is no radiation involved with this water spill. But Mr. Gruetzner has admitted that there is. As an employee of OPG, it would not seem to be to his advantage to makes such an admission, so we can assume with great probability that there is, at the very least, some radiation now polluting Lake Ontario.
As Gordon Edwards, spokesperson for the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, stated, “That water came from the spent fuel bays right into Lake Ontario. The spent fuel bays in Japan are currently the source of some of the greatest radiation exposures. If there is an accident in Pickering, the fact that there is a direct pathway from the spent fuel bay into Lake Ontario should be quite alarming.”
Cause for great concern indeed. With two radiation-related accidents in only a few weeks, and a confirmed cover-up in both cases, one could almost begin to wonder if there is more to all this than meets the eye. Regardless, this new radioactive contamination should be watched closely and dealt with immediately.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Mullins, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University where he earned the Pee Dee Electric Scholar’s Award as an undergraduate. He has had numerous articles published dealing with a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, and civil liberties. He is also the author of Codex Alimentarius - The End of Health Freedom
11 comments:
Is there no end to the insanity?
There is, when the insane are gone...
This writer quotes Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, who made this amazing statement in a recent radio interview with Dr Helen Caldicott, which totally took me off the fence about nuclear energy:
“A nuclear reactor is not really producing electricity so much as it is producing two things: long-lived nuclear waste which lasts for millions of years and plutonium which lasts for many thousands of years. The electricity is just a little drop in the bucket. It’s a little flash in the pan. You get electricity for maybe 20 or 30 years if you’re lucky, then you have plutonium forever.”
Why cause a war to thin the heard when you can simply sabotage the most dangerous pieces of infrastructure? You can charge more for power and get rid of billions in the process. Especially in a country where health care will be all but destroyed in the coming year. They are playing chess with our lives.....not checkers.
The following comments come from posts at Infowars.com. They are extremely important first-hand accounts, so they have been re-posted here. Please visit the following link to keep up with that thread: http://www.infowars.com/cover-up-in-canada-radioactive-leak-into-lake-ontario/
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Drayson says:
March 18, 2011 at 7:20 am
I live right beside the plant. I asked a local pharmacy for pottasium iodide pills and she laughed at me. Like WTF is going on here. Its a little bit strange to say the least that this happens now of all times. I have lived here in Oshawa, which is smack in the middle of the Pickering and Darlington nuke plants, and I can’t remember this happening, ever.
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ryantheappleguy says:
March 18, 2011 at 7:28 am
Yes, it is VERY strange that one would happen after the other and especially way out here where we rarely or never have stuff like this happening. I’ve lived Oshawa as well and I don’t remember and nuke plant problems back then.
My 11 year old cousin lives close to the plant and hes really scared about it. The first thing he said about it was “I don’t think they’re telling us everything”.
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ryantheappleguy says:
March 18, 2011 at 7:12 am
I was in that area for a week and this happened just after we had a 4.3 EQ nearby.
There’s a guy on youtube showing a ray of radar coming from a facility in the states and expanding around the area where the EQ was here.
Mr. Turbeville, thank you for this report. Now, will you please refrain from your improper usage of the word "concerning"(see paragraph four of this article). Writing of this nature is intolerable.
Those reactors in Ontario are too old now
close them down or face the music.
How about "troubling" Mr. McDougall? Any other suggestions? Any thoughts about the actual event?
Of course there is more to all of this...its part of the population control agenda....we are being hit from all sides. Our water, food, air etc. is completely poisoned from their additives, spraying, dumping etc. Pretty straight forward stuff actually.
It would be nice to see some numbers about the amount of radiation released. After all, walking in the daylight exposes you to more radiation than walking at night. Maybe both experts are right. The amount of radiation released is so close to zero that one said "a bit" the other said none. Maybe he meant none to be concerned about. Some coverup when it's on the national tv network.
I know this article is old, but I would like to clarify what potassium iodide does and offer a likely explanation for the difference in statements between the OPG and the professors statements.
First about potassium iodide. In our necks is a gland called the thyroid gland and it loves iodine. It needs iodine to function (That's why most table salt is iodine enriched). One byproduct of a reactor meltdown or nuclear bomb is a radioactive isotope of iodine called iodine 131. If enough of this iodine 131 enters your thyroid gland it increases your chance of thyroid cancer. Potassium iodine floods your thyroid with iodine so it takes up the normal iodine instead of the radioactive iodine. Iodine 131 is dangerous because it has a half life of 8 hours, and therefore produces a lot of radiation per gram. This also means that three days after the release of the iodine, there is basically none of it left.
Onto the likely reason for the difference in the statements. There are two ways water can become radioactive. The major one is having radioactive particles dissolved or suspended in the water. The other is having the water itself become radioactive. If radioactive particles are entering the water, that's REALLY bad, and it is very unlikely that this is the case here. Not even water running past the fuel rods normally gets radioactive particles in it. The water itself may be made radioactive by neutron activation. Water is made up of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. If you throw enough neutrons at the hydrogen atoms, one may hang onto one or two of them. If a hydrogen atom has two neutrons then it is called tritium and has a radioactive half life of 12 years. Tritium is dangerous if ingested or inhaled. Not only does tritium release a beta particle on decay, but it also undergoes self-radiolysis. This means that when the tritium atom decays the water molecule is broken up and produces a hydroxyl radical. Other molecules incorporating a tritium atom will also be damaged when the tritium atom decays. One of the ways tritium is produced is by neutron capture, where hydrogen atoms will pick up a stray neutron from another nuclear reaction. Any water passing near a neutron source (like spent fuel) may have one of its hydrogen atoms activated to become tritium.
It is likely that the water released in this leak contained more tritium than standard water, but the amount of tritium in the water was not enough to make it dangerous.
Finally I would like to make the point that if the US actually reprocessed its fuel instead of just sitting on it then we would have plenty of fuel and much, much less waste. Too bad president Carter signed an executive order banning reprocessing, as it can be used to produce bomb grade material.
If you have any questions about simple nuclear physics, chemistry, biology, or physics, I would be glad to answer them.
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