Nuclear Radiation is Harmful

Radiation exposure causes central nervous system disruption, vomiting, uncontrolled bleeding, serious infections, cancer, and early death.

Nuclear radiation also causes harmful genetic disorders in children born from parents exposed to this radiation, and just one nuclear explosion could expose thousands of innocent people to this harmful radiation. These genetic disorders result in child deformities and lifetime health problems. Any parent would be very concerned and troubled about this. In addition, the public health costs would be huge in dealing with these health problems of future generations.

Radiation from a Nuclear Explosion

Any use of a nuclear weapon would cause massive long-term health problems from its radiation fallout upon the land, into the water and into the air, and this harmful radiation can spread out hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the blast and continue to be a health threat for decades!

Therefore, any use of a nuclear weapon would violate the human right-to-safely for people who are distant from the blast and innocent populations who were not even involved in the conflict that motivated this nuclear explosion. As such, even a nuclear attack directed on a military base/arsenal would spread radiation disease to innocent people far away from the blast and harmfully effect future generations. Nuclear tests are just as bad, as they spread harmful radiation into the atmosphere.

Radiation from Testing Nuclear Bombs

Since 1945, eight countries have conducted 2,054 nuclear test explosions in locations all around the world. 528 early tests were conducted in the atmosphere, spreading radioactive material throughout the atmosphere. Underground tests have also vented radioactive material into the atmosphere and contaminated soil.

The Castle Bravo test in 1954, which was 1,000 times more powerful than the bombing of Hiroshima, vaporized three entire islands in the Bikini Atoll, and fallout from the bomb spread radioactive material over 11,000 sq. km from the detonation point, exposing around 665 island inhabitants to significant levels of radioactivity.

Radiation from nuclear testing has been very detrimental to human health and the environment. Nuclear weapons testing by the US and the Soviet Union involved at least 423 atmospheric tests between 1945 and 1957 and about 1400 underground tests between 1957 and 1989. The actual harm to health from of all of these tests are still not completely known. A Japanese physicist calculated that nearly 1.5 million people were exposed to fallout from Chinese nuclear tests and nearly 200 thousand of them may have died from diseases linked to radiation from those tests. In the US it is estimated that testing in the 1950s caused thousands of deaths in areas nearby the tests; while the military monitored these effects from the nuclear radiation.

Approximately 250,000 US military personnel have been involved in nuclear-weapons tests and thus were exposed to harmful levels of nuclear radiation. In addition, International Physicians have estimated that exposure to radioactive material from nuclear tests have caused early deaths for 2.4 million people worldwide.

Nuclear-weapons testing has also had a significantly harmful effect on agricultural land and marine environments, because radioactive material concentrates in living organisms throughout food chain. For example, it was discovered that radioactive iodine-131 from US nuclear tests accumulated in rainfall runoff and in soils, which then entered into grasses, which was then consumed by cows, which then produced contaminated milk in the US and in other countries.

Nuclear weapons production has also been hazardous for workers. It is estimated that over 500,000 workers in nuclear weapons production facilities during the Cold War were harmfully exposed to radioactivity and dangerous chemicals, causing lung disease and early death.

More information on Health Hazards →

from International Red Cross
from ArmsControl.org
from WA Physicians for Social Responsibility

Nuclear Waste is a Threat to Health

Even if nuclear weapons are not detonated,
they are still a threat to public health,
due to the radioactive waste contamination
from production and waste storage,
in addition to the health dangers
from mining and processing uranium.

Deadly radioactive waste is a byproduct of nuclear weapons production and nuclear reactors, and this nuclear waste will be a potential health hazard for hundreds or even thousands of years. More than a quarter million metric tons of highly radioactive waste sits in storage near nuclear power plants and weapons production facilities worldwide, with over 90,000 metric tons in the US alone.

Yet these waste storage containers are unreliable and unsafe. Even after just a few decades, many have leaked, and as more of these storage containers continue to age, more and more of them are likely to leak into our drinking water and contaminate nearby soils. There is no absolutely reliable safe storage for nuclear waste, nor is there even a safe nuclear-waste management plan, for the thousands of years that this radioactive material will exist and be a threat to future lives.

The Problem of Nuclear-waste Storage

Nuclear weapons production produces vast amounts of radioactive waste, which can have devastating impacts on the surrounding environment, and production sites have resulted in massive leaks of liquid radioactive material, contaminating groundwater and agricultural land.

There are 517 nuclear weapon sites that were considered for radioactive clean up in the United States. 43 sites were found by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to have the “potential for significant radioactive contamination”.

For example, the Hanford Nuclear Site in Eastern Washington State is the most contaminated nuclear site in the western world. The Columbia River is just a few miles from the Hanford Site, and downstream are two dams, because the government wanted the Hanford Site to be close to dams for electricity and close to the river to cool the reactors.

The Hanford weapons production facility began operating in 1944, and by the height of plutonium production in 1957, eight plutonium production reactors were dumping a daily average of 50,000 curies of radioactive material into the Columbia River. By comparison, only 15-24 curies of iodine-131 were released at Three Mile Island nuclear disaster.

Storage Leakage at Hanford

The Hanford Weapons Site had produced these tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, but without much concern about what do with the life-threatening radioactive waste. The less-contaminated liquids went into ponds, solid waste was buried, and the toxic gases were simply released into the air.

Now, across the Hanford Site are 1600 waste sites, with over 50 million gallons of high-level radioactive chemical waste and 24 million cubic feet of solid radioactive waste buried in trenches and tunnels.

Most concerning is the highly radioactive waste that was stored in 177 underground storage tanks, each holding between 55,000 and 100,000 gallons. The first 149 tanks were built with a single shell of steel. But by 1989, 68 of the 149 tanks were leaking, and the Hanford Management admitted that one tank was leaking nearly 300 gallons of nuclear waste every year! In total these tanks have leaked about one million gallons of nuclear waste into the ground, which then enters into the groundwater and drinking water for millions of downstream residents.

So, after discovering that the single-shell storage tanks were leaking after only a few decades, in 1968 the Military developed 27 double-shelled storage tanks and over the next 20 years workers transferred the high-level radioactive waste into these newer tanks. But even these newer tanks could also be deteriorating and leaking. In fact, they were estimated to only last 20-50 years, and officials now admit that at least one storage tank has been actively leaking since at least 2013. This prompted a Government Report stating, “Contamination in the groundwater could eventually reach the Columbia River, which provides drinking and irrigation water for a significant portion of the Pacific Northwest, as well as a habitat and spawning area for several endangered species of salmon.” The Report also recommended that the Department of Energy develop plans to address additional double-shell tank failures. The department agreed, but said that management of the hazardous waste requires a “balanced approach” – between safety and available funding.

In spite of the safety risk of this radioactive waste storage, the Trump administration tried to downgrade the threat levels, in order to save the needed 40 billion dollars on cleanup efforts.

Read... 56 mil gallons of radioactive leakage
Read... Health hazards of Hanford
Read... Hanford unprepared for waste leaks
Read... Nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean

The Problem of long-term Storage

About a dozen European countries are planning deep geological repositories for their nuclear waste. In the US, government officials have proposed storing the country’s waste in a repository beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Yucca Mountain site is about 300 meters below ground level and about 300 meters above the water table. But if these repositories ever crack or leak, then the ground water for millions of local residents will be radioactively contaminated.

The Story of Yucca Mountain

Since Nevada lacks voter clout in Congress, a plan was made for the nation’s nuclear waste to be shipped to a proposed centralized storage site in Yucca Mountain. Beyond geological concerns with the plan, local communities in Nevada near Yucca Mountain have protested the decision to move this waste into their backyard. Yucca Mountain also poses risks beyond Nevada communities. Because of its distance from the vast majority of nuclear waste in the country (which is mostly east of the Mississippi), the transportation routes for this hazardous material would impact a wide swath of the United States. While rail accidents are rare, low probability events occur over time and the risk posed from the transport of this material should concern many Americans.

Interim Storage of Nuclear Waste

The US Dept. of Energy has proposed an ambitious plan for 'reprocessing' nuclear waste, which is to chemical separate fissionable uranium and plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. But the National Academy of Sciences estimated in 1996 that reprocessing our current nuclear waste would cost taxpayers over $500 billion.

Nuclear waste is currently being stockpiled at a number of different sites plus on-site at nuclear reactors. Hardened on-site Storage (HOSS), though not eliminating the risk with nuclear waste, is an interim practical solution that can be implemented far safer and quicker than a centralized waste facility, and this type of storage will limit the movement of hazardous nuclear material.

Read more... Nuclear Waste storage
– a challenge for multiple generations

Health Problems from Mining Uranium

Uranium mining poses a hazardous health risk to workers and surrounding communities, especially through exposure to radon-222, which can cause lung cancer, and waste leakage from the mining can contaminate soils and drinking water.

Tailings, a by-product of uranium mining, contain many toxic materials and 85% of the radioactivity of the uranium ore. In Australia, one of the top uranium producing countries, mining one ton of uranium produces on average 848 tons of tailings and 1152 tons of low-grade ore and waste rock. This makes mining easily the largest point of radioactive waste production in the nuclear fuel/weapons production chain.

Despite regulations, there have been many incidents of leaks and contamination from tailings into groundwater, waterways, and the nearby environment. For example, it was discovered after almost 10 years of operation that a tailings dam had leaked billions of liters of tailings into groundwater at the Olympic Dam in Australia.

No closed uranium mine in the world has been successfully cleaned up, and the waste remains radioactive and harmful for tens of thousands of years.