Mobile nuclear meltdowns: Coming soon to a town near you?
By Vladimir Slivyak – Translated by Maria Kaminskaya | Bellona | January 18, 2012
MOSCOW – Some three hundred nuclear time bombs are to cross the vast expanses of Russia within the next dozen years as Moscow embarks on its plan to send special-purpose trains with spent nuclear fuel (SNF) burnt at the country’s commercial reactors to a storage facility in Siberia. That’s the “solution” the nuclear industry has come up with for the ever mounting problem of nuclear waste – take it cross-country and pile it up where it will threaten the environment and public health for generations to come.
The first train bound for Krasnoyarsk Region in Central Siberia – where a repository is being built for both Russia- and foreign-produced nuclear waste – will carry spent nuclear fuel generated at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), a site near Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg, in the country’s northwest.
The date of departure – the first in a large-scale series of shipments devised to scoop up and stow away nuclear waste from all over the country – is being kept secret. The State Nuclear Corporation Rosatom plans to move some 22,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel to Siberia before 2025. This means three new trains loaded with dangerous waste – 300 shipments in total – will be arriving in the closed town of Zheleznogorsk, also known as Krasnoyarsk-26, every second month for the next thirteen years.
Shipments like these threaten the safety of residents of more than 15 large Russian cities that will happen to be on the way, urban centers like the Russian capital, Moscow, as well as St. Petersburg, Penza, Samara, Kirov, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk and so on – virtually every industrial hub on Russia’s enormous map. Even though the shipping routes have not been disclosed, simple logic suggests moving trains loaded with cargoes as massive and logistically sensitive as these will require major railroads – such as those that involve stations, links, and depots serving heavy-traffic areas.
Nuclear transports as a whole present a particular risk for both the population at large and, specifically, those railroad personnel who may find themselves working in the vicinity of cargoes emitting high levels of radiation. As the Russian tradition holds, no warnings are issued in such cases to caution against potential danger – the usual cross-your-finger approach dictates it’s going to be just fine. All three hundred times. But there is the risk of radioactive contamination that could occur in case of an accident – brought on either by the poor condition of Russia’s railroads or as a result of a malicious act. (In 2009, a homemade bomb planted on the tracks derailed a passenger train on the country’s busiest route – the Moscow-St. Petersburg link, favored by government and business elites – constituting one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Russia’s recent history outside of the volatile Caucasus region). And this not even taking into account that the transportation of these radioactive materials will be overseen by a chain of agencies whose expertise hardly includes dealing with issues related to nuclear safety: Russia’s railway network and other transport services, as well as a variety of regional authorities.
Spent nuclear fuel is the most hazardous kind of radioactive waste nuclear power plants produce. It contains plutonium, an isotope with a half-life of 24,000 years. The nuclear industry vehemently objects to this material being referred to as waste, arguing it is instead a valuable resource that can be used again as fuel after reprocessing – a highly questionable process that itself generates hundreds of times more radioactive waste as a result.
Meanwhile, Russian law speaks clearly to this issue: If nuclear material cannot be put to further use, then it is waste. Incidentally, the better part of the SNF Rosatom plans to move to Siberia has been burnt in reactors of the RBMK-1000 series – the same type that blew up in Chernobyl and remains in operation at three nuclear power plants in Russia, the site near St. Petersburg and Kursk and Smolensk NPPs, in Western Russia. But not only does Russia possess no technological capacity to reprocess spent fuel of this type, it furthermore has no plans to build any soon, for reasons of exorbitant costs. The very idea is simply economically indefensible. In fact, of the 33 reactors in operation in Russia, only seven currently produce spent nuclear fuel that lends itself to reprocessing.
To be sure, Rosatom’s continued operations imply that the so-called “dry” storage facility slated for completion at the Mining and Chemical Combine in Krasnoyark-26 will in fact be a nuclear repository set to remain there for many thousands of years: The plutonium alone will remain highly hazardous for 10 half-life periods – a quarter of a million years. In other words, one stroke of Rosatom’s pen forces the residents of Krasnoyarsk Region to assume the risks created by the sixty-five years of the nuclear industry’s development.
It is likewise not customary practice in Russia to first inquire of the locals whether they mind living next door to a nuclear dumpsite of international proportions – no more so than it is to conduct a fair parliament election or warn of hazardous cargoes passing through a populated area. Previous attempts that a number of countries have undertaken at building nuclear repositories have inevitably fallen flat – quashed either by large-scale public protests or by prohibitive costs (or a combination of both). A great uncertainty thus remains in the United States, Germany, Japan, and other countries that have historically relied on commercial nuclear power as to what to do with their accumulated waste. This means the Krasnoyarsk site may in the long term become the go-to facility for foreign SNF producers wishing to be rid of their nuclear headaches, and plans to accommodate imported waste have been developed before. One such project, revealed by Ecodefense in 2001, was a study sponsored by the US Department of Energy for a US-funded program looking to employ the option of storage and eventual geologic disposal in Russia of spent fuel of US origin used in Taiwan.
Taking into account the significant safety hazard associated with nuclear waste, the less than state-of-the-art condition of Russian railroads, and the sometimes inadequate security en route, nuclear trains have all the makings to turn into a catastrophe waiting to happen – three hundred mobile Chernobyls that Rosatom, despite the obvious risks, would rather keep secret from the public. It falls, then, to environmentalists to fill this information gap.
What could we Russian citizens do? We could keep a Geiger counter ready at home and be generally prepared to protect ourselves from radioactive exposure. But most importantly… we could speak out against nuclear shipments in our regions. Make ourselves heard by local parliamentaries, government officials, and emergency services. Take our protest to the streets.
This is not a trifling matter. What we are dealing with is not a one-time nuclear delivery from point A to point B. At issue is a program that puts at risk the better part of the Russian territory for thirteen years. This program must be stopped as soon as possible – and that means putting our voices together for a clamorous public outcry. This is a simple choice we are facing – live a life of fear of a radiological disaster, or head out en masse to the railways to voice our protest and just maybe stop this madness from happening. It is our health and environment we need protecting – and it is our choice to make.
The nuclear industry is certainly not making this task any easier for us. Six decades into the peaceful atom’s history, the problem of nuclear waste still remains unsolved. No other industry in the world has produced so much dangerous and long-lived waste that has the capacity to inflict such harm to the environment and human health both now and throughout the next many thousands of years. Not to mention the gigantic financial burden that the storage of nuclear waste will place on the shoulders of thousands as-yet unborn generations. No one today is in any position to guarantee the safety of this waste thousands of years in advance, as the industry has simply not conceived of any way to efficiently remove the threat – but it will have to, at some point.
So instead of putting hundreds of Chernobyls-on-wheels in motion all over the country, the more reasonable option would be to leave the waste where it was produced – providing the highest level of safety possible to ensure against all eventualities. Equally reasonable would be to expect Rosatom to stop prolonging the operational life terms of old reactors or building new ones – and instead direct all efforts toward solving the problem of nuclear waste, not amassing it. The time to move the waste already accumulated must not be before we have a clear idea of how we can keep the public and the environment safe during the entire term this waste remains a menace.
Experts in the United States have established this period at one million years, but the US likewise lacks a definitive solution for the problem. And certainly, the dry storage facility in Krasnoyarsk-26 is not an answer, if only because it won’t last a thousandth of the time it will take to keep the waste safely isolated.
As it stands, Rosatom’s plan is nothing but travesty, a pitiful attempt at a solution that will only shift the burden of responsibility onto future generations – forcing the job of safeguarding the growing nuclear mess on our grandchildren, and our grandchildren’s grandchildren, and so on ad aeternum. This simply will not do.
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See also:
The Radioactive Waste Crisis
By LINDA PENTZ GUNTER | CounterPunch | January 20, 2012
Before the month of January is out, the US Department of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future will unveil the result of its two year-long investigation into what to do with the accumulated radioactive waste at the country’s nuclear power plants. By this year’s end, that waste will constitute a mountain 70 years high, with the first cupful generated on December 2, 1942 at the Fermi lab not far from Chicago when scientists first created a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
There remains no viable solution for either the management or certainly the “disposal” of nuclear waste. Yet, the one recommendation that will not be contained in the DOE report is to stop making any more of it. While a child would never be allowed to continue piling up toys in his or her room indefinitely, failing to tidy up the mess, the nuclear industry continues to be permitted to manufacture some of the world’s most toxic detritus without a cleanup plan.
A sneak peak last July at the Commission’s draft report confirms that no new miracles are to be unveiled this month. Its preferred “solution” appears to be “centralized interim” storage, an allegedly temporary but potentially permanent parking lot dumpsite for highly radioactive waste that, based on past practices, will likely be targeted for an Indian reservation or a poor community of color. “Centralized interim” storage sites for the country’s irradiated reactor fuel rods could easily become permanent if no suitable geological repository site is found. It will mean transporting the waste from reactors predominantly located east of the Mississippi to a likely more remote, western location. And these wastes would then have to be moved again, transported past potentially 50 million homes, en route to a “permanent” dump site or for reprocessing.
Reprocessing, a chemical separation used extensively in France, creates enormous amounts of additional radioactive wastes that are discharged into the air and sea and a plutonium stockpile that could be diverted for nuclear weapons use. The Commission looks unlikely to recommend reprocessing for now but the DOE is still willing to squander tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a year of taxpayers’ money on research and development.
The repository debacle ended temporarily in 2011 with the wise cancelation of the scientifically flawed proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. But new moves are afoot to search for an alternative site with the granite states – such as Vermont, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Carolina – highly favored. The Blue Ribbon Commission may point to the granite repository currently under construction in Finland as the way forward. But as one Scandinavian official stated unforgettably in the haunting documentary, Into Eternity, that examines the implications for the future if the Finnish repository is ever completed – in reality, “nobody knows anything at all.”
Attempting to find a site that can store deadly radioactive waste for a million years – the amount of time that the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges the waste will remain hazardous – could indeed be beyond the scope of humanity for the foreseeable future. But advocates of dump sites, permanent or temporary, argue that something must be done with the waste already accumulated. Almost all reactor fuel pools are filled to capacity, necessitating “overflow parking” in outdoor casks on site: both are vulnerable to accidents, attacks, and natural disasters. If a cask wears down, no safe, sure plan yet exists to transfer the waste inside it to a new cask.
While failing to advocate a cessation of production until a radioactive waste disposal solution is found, the DOE has also consistently ignored the only reasonable interim option, one that is technically feasible and avoids the need to move the waste vast distances to unwelcome destinations. This is Hardened On-Site Storage or HOSS, endorsed by scientists and more than 200 environmental advocacy groups around the country. HOSS calls for emptying the fuel pools and placing the irradiated rods in high quality outdoor casks fortified by thick bunkers and berms. Safeguards, security, and monitoring would be designed to protect against leaks, accidents and attacks.
HOSS would buy time, necessary while we wait to see if scientific advances will ever deliver a safe, secure and enduring radioactive waste solution. But until such a time, generating more waste, and rushing it into repositories that likely would not shield their deadly cargo for the sufficient time while the isotopes and their containers decay, is a reckless decision that leaves a deadly legacy for future generations.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a Takoma Park, Maryland-based safe energy advocacy organization.
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Honduras: Return to Rigores
By Chuck Kaufman | Upside Down World | 11 January 2012
On Jan. 9, 2012 an Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) delegation of US and Canadian citizens visited the farming community or Rigores, Honduras in the fertile Aguan Valley near the country’s Caribbean Coast.
It was a far different visit than was experienced by a previous AfGJ delegation just six months earlier. On that July 1st morning our delegation stood in a line at the top of a wash, standing between 40 police armed with military grade weaponry, and peasant farmers determined to hold their land against an illegal eviction. For 3-1/2 hours our delegation faced down the police, who had pistols drawn and snipers targeting us from the tree line.
Unable to produce an eviction order and unaccompanied by a lawyer as required by Honduran law, the police did not know what to do when faced with nearly 20 North Americans wearing blue t-shirts reading “Observador Internacional de Derechos Humanos” (International Human Rights Observer). After hours of tense discussion, negotiation, and demands, the police decided that they could leave the community. We accompanied them to their vehicles and then stayed with the community for another couple of hours during which the police drove through several times to see if we were still there.
But July 1, 2011 was neither the beginning nor the end of the story for the peasant farmers of Rigores. Rigores is a long-established community of farm cooperatives. The cooperative which we helped shield from eviction was 10-years-old, a tenancy under Honduras’ Law of Agrarian Reform which should have insured them title to the land. But one of Honduras’ rich landowners wants their corn fields, bean fields, grazing land and orchards so he can expand his African Palm plantation with this tree that produces an oil that is used in the majority of food products in First World supermarkets and supplies an increasing share of the European and US biofuel market.
Exactly one week before our stressful experience, police entered Rigores and at gunpoint burned the homes of 135 families, killed their animals, bulldozed their orchards, the school, and two churches. When we arrived on July 1, the community was living in the town’s community center and a large tent provided by a Catholic charity. The police had arrived that day to drive off or kill the people, breaking their tenancy and weakening their legal case of ownership.
Six months later all but four families remain on their land. They have rebuilt their houses, although now from branches and mud wattle where before stood larger block or poured cement homes. Their corn is waist high, a few banana and orange trees survived the depredations, and chickens, pigs, turkeys, and cows which survived the slaughter are breeding quickly.
Today Rigores is poor in material wealth but the people are rich in courage and determination that they will not be driven from their land; land that is their hope for their children. As a person privileged to have visited Rigores both on that fateful day in July 2011 and again today, the current visit was an emotional experience. To witness growth where previously there was only destruction, to see chicks and piglets where previously there were only carcasses, but most of all to hear the stories of courage and defiance of a people who will be pushed no farther, was to renew my faith in solidarity and struggle. This peasant Occupy Movement long precedes our own. We can only hope to show the same courage as these people who daily face death defending their right to land to grow food to feed their families and their communities.
But this is not a fairy tale. There is no happy ending where the people of Rigores get to live happily ever after and we get to feel satisfied by performing a good deed.
Police, military, and private “security guards” still drive through the community and fire their weapons. On Sept. 16 and again on Sept. 19, the military invaded and terrorized the community. The 15-year-old son of the community spokesperson and another boy were kidnapped by the military, beaten, doused with gasoline and threatened with being set on fire.
Community members gave testimony to our delegation about the trauma they are suffering, especially the children. One man said, “Whenever my son hears a noise he shouts, ‘The police are coming. The police are coming.’” A woman said her young child crawls under the bed when he hears noises. When their houses were burned in June 2011, children were torn from the arms of their mothers and literally thrown from their houses. Mothers were shot at inside their houses to force them to leave. They were brutalized in ways that are hard for us in the United States to comprehend, and impossible for those who suffered through the terror to remain unmarked.
And now, as they still struggle to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, they have learned from the media that an official eviction order has been signed by a judge with an eviction date of later this month. At this point the eviction order may or may not exist. It is certain that they are receiving daily threats of violent eviction from the hired thugs of a rich landowner. However, they do not intend to leave their homes and we have an obligation to shine the light of international attention on the repression and injustice suffered by the people of Rigores and by the many other communities of the Aguan which are under similar threat. … Full article
Biofuels not food the biggest driver of ‘land grabbing’ deals, says report
‘Land grab’ report highlights growing interest from speculators in ‘flex’ crops like soya, palm oil and sugarcane that can be used for biofuels or food
By Laurie Tuffrey | The Ecologist | 18th December, 2011
The amount of land acquired for biofuels globally is far higher than previously thought, according to one of the most comprehensive assessments yet by the International Land Coalition (ILC).
Biofuels are now the major driver for large-scale purchases of farmland or ‘land grabbing’ in the global south, with almost 53 per cent of the 71 million hectares cross-referenced in the report, being used for biofuels.
In Africa, the impact of biofuels was even stronger with 66 per cent of land purchases used for biofuels. Food was next highest at 15 per cent.
This is far higher than a World Bank’s analysis last year that just 21 per cent of global land grab deals conducted between 2008-9 were being used for biofuels.
Europe’s biofuel demand
Campaigners say ‘land grabbing’ is being driven by EU targets to source 10 per cent of all transport fuels for buses and cars from biofuels rather than conventional fossil fuels by 2020.
‘These findings suggest that the scale of land-grabbing for biofuel production is far worse than previously imagined,’ Robbie Blake of Friends of the Earth Europe. ‘Europe’s appetite for land is already unsustainable, reaching well beyond its borders, with devastating social and environmental impacts.’
The report, ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land’, involved the collaboration of over 40 different organisations in the research process – the biggest study to date. It says rural livelihoods have been put in jeopardy by the land grabbing deals, with the promise of jobs not, as yet, materialising.
‘Weak governance, corruption and a lack of transparency in decision-making, which are key features of the typical environment in which large-scale land acquisitions take place, mean that the poor gain few benefits from these deals but pay high costs,’ says Dr Madiodio Niasse, Secretariat Director of the International Land Coalition.
Rise in ‘flex’ crops
Report author Michael Taylor, from the International Land Coalition, says they were surprised by the dominance of biofuels in land grabbing deals.
‘What one would expect is that food would be a bigger driver, because biofuel is largely driven by two factors which can change quite quickly: one is subsidy […] the other is other is technological change.’
Taylor said that there had also been a rise in ‘flex’ crops in land grabbing deals, which could be used for biofuels or food, such as soya, palm oil and sugar cane.
‘I think some savvy investors are moving towards planting crops that, as the market changes, they can use for whatever they want. At the moment, it looks like energy is maybe more profitable than food, and so it’s biofuel food stock. But, if something changes in the market, they can change it to food.’
After biofuels and food, the other main drivers of land-grabbing deals were mineral exploitation, tourism and carbon sequestration projects. It is not just foreign investors who buy land either, in some cases national elites were behind the deals, buying up land before offering their services to overseas companies.
Land deals going wrong
The report highlighted land grab deals that went wrong and left local populations with degraded land. For example, in Mozambique and Tanzania land was abandoned after the financial crisis and changing oil prices, which made biofuels less attractive to speculators.
As well as changing financial circumstances, the report says many investments were failing because of unrealistic targets and an underestimation of the technical, logistical, administrative and community engagement challenges involved in getting these projects going.’
Governments were also guilty of abusing the land rights of local communities. In Ethiopia, a large area of land owned by the Indian company Karuturi has been put out of bounds to its original users, despite the company only using a small area of it, denying them access to a water supply and thereby rendering their grazing land useless.
And in Indonesia, the government has given large concessions of forest to companies to produce oil, which was subsequently harvested for its timber without any planting taking place, leaving the area unusable by its local communities.
U.S. Abandons Toxic Burn Pits as it Withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan
By Matthew J. Nasuti | Kabul Press | December 10, 2011
U.S. service members and their Iraqi and Afghan allies have a common enemy. It is not Iran, the Taliban or al-Qaeda, but the Pentagon which operated hundreds of toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the U.S. completes its withdrawal from Iraq and begins to draw down in Afghanistan, the American military, pursuant to its “pollute and run” policy, is abandoning millions of kilograms of toxic and potentially radioactive waste. Everything is being buried and covered over, just as it did in Vietnam and in the Philippines when the U.S. withdrew from Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay naval installation.
The Pentagon seems to hope that all the health problems of U.S. troops can likewise be buried and covered over.
The (U.S.) Air Force Times ran an editorial on March 1, 2010 that read: “Stamp Out Burn Pits” We reprint the first portion of that editorial:
“A growing number of military medical professionals believe burn pits are causing a wave of respiratory and other illnesses among troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Found on almost all U.S. bases in the war zones, these open-air trash sites operate 24 hours a day, incinerating trash of all forms — including plastic bottles, paint, petroleum products, unexploded ordinance, hazardous materials, even amputated limbs and medical waste. Their smoke plumes belch dioxin, carbon monoxide and other toxins skyward, producing a toxic fog that hangs over living and working areas.”
On April 12, 2010, the Richmond Times-Dispatch carried an article by David Zucchino who investigated the American burn pits in Iraq. He interviewed Army Sgt. 1st Class Francis Jaeger who hauled military waste to the Balad burn. Jaeger told Zucchino:
“We were told to burn everything – electronics, bloody gauze, the medics’ biohazard bags, surgical gloves, cardboard. It all went up in smoke.”
According to a website called the “Burn Pits Action Center” large numbers of American veterans who came in contact with burn pit smoke have been diagnosed with cancer, neurological diseases, cardiovascular diseases, breathing and sleeping problems and various skin rashes.
On October 28, 2009, President George W. Bush, signed into law H.R. 2647, which included the provisions of “The Military Personnel War Zone Toxic Exposure Prevention Act.” The Act was sponsored by Congressman Tim Bishop of New York and supported by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Guard Association of the United States, and the Military Officers Association banned the use of burn pits unless they were specifically deemed essential by the Secretary of Defense. Despite the law, burn pit use continued in Iraq and reportedly continues today in Afghanistan.
The impetus for H.R. 2647 was Lieutenant Colonel Darrin L. Curtis, Ph.D., who was a Bioenvironmental Engineering Flight Commander at Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2006. Lt. Col. Curtis wrote a December 20, 2006, report on the environmental and health impacts of the Balad burn pit. He stated that the burn pit was “the worst environmental site” he had seen in seventeen years of environmental work in the United States. He characterized the smoke released by the military as: “an acute health hazard” to everyone who has been deployed or will be deployed to Balad. Lt. Col. Curtis’ report was reviewed and endorsed by Lieutenant Colonel James R. Elliott, Chief of Aeromedical Services. The Pentagon ultimately ignored the report just as it had ignored the Fall 2004 study in (U.S. Army) “Engineer – The Professional Bulletin” which found that by 2002, Kandahar Airfield was facing “a growing human health and environmental threat” from the uncontrolled burning of hazardous waste.
In June 2008, the U.S. Army Center of Health (USACHPPM) issued a “Fact Sheet” that downplayed any health problems associated with the burn pits. It stated that the safety of the burn pits had been independently validated by the Defense Health Board (DHB). It went on to claim that:
“The DHB is an independent board comprised of experts from private industry and recognized universities.”
Research into the DHB reveals otherwise. The Board is primarily composed of retired Generals, Admirals and Colonels, along with political appointees from prior Administrations and civilian consultants currently under contract to the Pentagon and other government agencies. There is nothing independent about the Board. The Senate Democratic Policy Committee took testimony from Dr. Anthony Szema, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at SUNY and a physician with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He provided a detailed refutation of the DHB’s flawed findings regarding the burn pits. His testimony is available on the Internet under the phrase: “Are Burn Pits Making Our Soldiers Sick?”
On October 3, 2008, the Military Times published a damning report by Kelly Kennedy entitled “Army Making Toxic Mess in War Zones.” The article was prompted by the release in September 2008, of a Rand Corporation study that detailed a horrific series of environmental spills, releases and disposals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bruce Travis of the U.S. Army Engineering School told the Times that no environmental rules were complied with in Iraq from 2003-2008 (this would presumably apply to Afghanistan also). He went on to state that an estimated 11 million pounds of hazardous waste were disposed of in Iraq up to 2008. This practice did not end in 2008. A U.S. Government Accountability Report in 2010, detailed inspections in 2009/2010 of four American bases in Afghanistan and none were found to be compliant with environmental standards.
Most American military waste falls into one of the following twelve (12) categories. They are called the “dirty dozen:”
1. Paints, asbestos, solvents, grease, cleaning solutions.
2. Building materials that contain formaldehyde, copper, arsenic and hydrogen cyanide.
3. Hydraulic fluids (hazardous), aircraft de-icing fluids (toxic), antifreeze (poisonous) and used oil (cancer-causing).
4. Jet fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel.
5. Pesticides and various neuro-toxic poisons resulting from attempts to control flies, mosquitoes, ants, fleas and rodents. The military refers to such practices as “vector control.”
6. Lead, nickel, zinc and cadmium battery waste and acids (toxic/corrosive).
7. Electronic waste (or E-waste). This includes computers, printers, faxes, screens, televisions, radios, refrigerators, communications gear and test equipment. They contain cancer-causing chemicals such as the flame retardant PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), PCDD (polychlorinated dioxins), barium, copper, lead, zinc, cadmium oxides and cadmium sulphides and trivalent antimony.
8. Light bulbs containing hazardous levels of mercury. Disposal of these light bulbs in ordinary landfills is prohibited in the United States.
9. Plastics. When burned, many plastics release a deadly mix of chemicals including dioxins, furans, benzene, di 2-ethylhexyl phthalates (DEHP), hydrochloric acid, benzo(a)pyrene (BAP) and various acids and chlorine gas (which is a neurotoxin).
10. Medical/Infectious Disease waste and Biohazard Materials.
11. Ammunition waste. Lead, brass and other metals from ammunition along with all the constituents of the propellants, including trinitrotoluene, picric acid, diphenylamine, nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, potassium nitrate, barium nitrate, tetracene, diazodintrophenol, phosphorus, peroxides, thiocarbamide, potassium chlorate, vinyl fluoride, vinyl chloride, sodium fluoride and sodium sulfate.
12. Radioactive waste. The American military routinely uses a large number of devices and equipment that contain radioactive elements or radioluminescent elements. These materials are referred to as “Radioactive Commodities” by the military. The primary radioactive materials are: Uranium, Tritium, Radium 226, Americium 241, Thorium, Cesium 137 and Plutonium 239. A partial list of radioactive equipment that may have been disposed of in burn pits or buried in Iraqi and Afghan landfills includes: night vision devices, calibration sets, engine components, weapon sights, compasses, fire control devices, level gauges, collimators, sensors, test equipment, vehicle dials, radios, chemical agent monitors and communication equipment, along with laboratory and hospital machines. In addition to these commodities, the military also uses 120mm depleted uranium (DU) warheads and 20mm DU ammunition along with DU armor plating.
The Pentagon admits operating 84 “official” burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet Adam Levine from CNN reported on October 15, 2010, that at least 221 burn pits were operated in Afghanistan alone. That number is believed to be only half of the actual burn pits operated in Afghanistan. On February 10, 2010, CBS News published a report by Nick Turse entitled: “the 700 military bases of Afghanistan.” CBS claims that about 400 bases, posts and camps belong to Coalition forces, most of which are American. Each of these facilities may have one or more burn pits, landfills, or disposal pits. The number of U.S. military bases in Iraq may be double this. Each needs to be excavated, sampled and analyzed.
The latest and perhaps the most disturbing burn pit information was published last month on Wired.Com. Written by Katie Drummond, it was entitled: “Congressman: The Military’s Burn Pit Screwed Our Soldiers.” The Congressman is Todd Akin from Missouri. The outrage was over a press release issued on October 31, 2011 by the Institute of Medicine, which is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. It was unable to complete its report on the burn pits, a report that had been commissioned by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Institute of Medicine found 53 toxins in the air above the Balad air base in Iraq but could not determine the sources for each due to a lack of assistance by the Pentagon. The Institute was unable to obtain information from the Pentagon as to what it burned and buried. The Pentagon claims it kept no records and has no scientific data,. The reason is that it apparently never sampled and analyzed the material in any of its Iraq or Afghan burn pits. The U.S. military is now simply covering them all over with dirt as the U.S. prepares to withdraw from Iraq and begins to draw down in Afghanistan.
In summary, there has been no competent assessment of the long-term environmental harm to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan from the abandonment of such a massive volume of toxic waste. The Pentagon has likewise abandoned its own solders, sailors, marines and airmen whom it poisoned and injured. Until all the burn pits are excavated and sampled, there is no way to determine the full makeup of the toxic soup of pollutants that U.S. military personnel were exposed to.
This “pollute and run” policy should not be permitted. If invading countries had to clean up and restore the countrysides they invaded and damaged, and if they had to treat and care for all those they injured, perhaps they might in the future think twice before launching such wars.
Sources for Further Reading:
Houston Chronicle – February 7, 2010 – “GIs tell of horror from burn pits”
Los Angeles Times – February 18, 2010 – “Veterans speak out against burn pits”
Salem News – March 29, 2010 – “Sick Veterans Sue KBR Over Iraq and Afghanistan Burn Pits”
Kabul Press – April 25, 2010 – “EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Creating an Environmental Disaster in Afghan Countryside” (Part 1 of 3)
Kabul Press – May 2, 2010 – EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Burn Pits Pollute Afghan Countryside (Part 2 of 3)
Kabul Press – May 4, 2010 – EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Burn Pits Pose Risk to Future Generations of Afghans (Part 3 of 3).
Israeli SodaStream: Maybe Green, Definitely Not Clean
By Theresa Wolfwood | Palestine Chronicle | December 10, 2011
It seems like a great idea – to buy a counter top device that converts tap water into sparkling fizzy water. Add a line of 100 flavours of sweet syrups; in the words of the sales clerk I spoke to, ‘it’s a fun thing.’
SodaStream (sometimes marketed as Soda Club) is sold around the world including in my city, often by big chain stores like Costco, Kmart and Amazon (USA); Sears, The Bay, and Home Outfitters (Canada); Tesco, Asda and Argos (UK); Migros (a large coop network in Switzerland); Carrefour (France & other countries); Edeka, Adler, and Karstadt, (in Germany where it is distributed by Brita, the international water filter company. Brita products are sold in Israel by SodaStream.)
The world’s largest producer of home carbonation systems, sold in 41 countries, SodaStream claims to be environmentally friendly because it uses its own reusable bottles, saving the production and transport of millions of disposable plastic containers and saving money and time for consumers. As some of the syrups use natural products, while others use sugar and artificial sweeteners, it is promoted also as “healthy” in natural food, eco-friendly, green and biological shops.
It sounds too good to be true – and so it is.
These products are labelled “Made in Israel”, the company claims to have factories elsewhere including China. An examination of the corporate annual report reveals that only some parts are made in China. (SodaStream International Ltd.; Annual report,” 30 June 2011).
SodaStream is owned by Soda-Club, an Israeli company founded in 1991 by Peter Wiseburgh and publicly traded on NASDAQ as SodaStream International under the symbol SODA with 2009 revenues of USA$ 142,842,000.
However, the products are not made in Israel at all.
SodaStream is manufactured in Mishor Adumin, (also known as Mishor Edomin) one of 171 illegal settlements within Palestine. Mishor Adumin is about 20 kilometres east of Jerusalem in a strategic area of illegal settlements designed to cut off Palestinians’ right of free movement between the northern and southern areas of the West Bank. Syrups are produced in another settlement, Ashkelon. (The device uses disposable carbon dioxide cartridges which are made in Germany and other countries.)
“These products are fraudulently labelled as “Made in Israel”, but are in fact produced in illegal settlements under the conditions of the military occupation in the West Bank, outside the internationally-recognized borders of Israel.” http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011
Environmentally-friendly? Think of the Palestinian residents and farmers of Mishor Adumin whose homes, fields, orchards and forests were destroyed to create this industrial settlement and the neighbouring residential settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim which today ranks third in population of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Over 1.5 million trees have been destroyed in Palestine by the occupiers as they insinuate their homes and factories into Palestinian land. More than 300,000 Palestinians are homeless as a result of home demolitions in Palestine.
The environmental destruction continues. When I was in Palestine I witnessed fields, orchards and homes being bulldozed and leveled, preparing for the continuation of the wall and the construction of an Israeli-only super highway linking all the settlements around Jerusalem, including Ma’aleh Adumim and Mishor Adumin.
So how can SodaStream be green?
There is nothing clean about the production of this ‘fun’ product, either. Many of the workers in SodaStream factory are Palestinians, desperate for any kind of job. Independent research has revealed that workers are poorly paid, sometimes below the minimum wage, are threatened with job loss (in any Israeli-owned facility) if they complain about bad working condition, job insecurity or low wages. They are the occupied subjects of military rule, lacking legal rights, including the right to organize. (For more details, see here)
SodaStream has also been accused of fraud. The European Union grants certain tax benefits to Israeli goods imported into Europe, but that does not include goods produced in occupied territories. In 2010 the European Court of Justice ruled that its products manufactured in Israeli-occupied territories were not subject to the preferential import duty treatment as goods manufactured within Israel. In Germany shipments of these products have been stopped by customs because they are not labelled truthfully.
Resolutions #242 & #338 of the UN Security Council include statements that prohibit permanent settlement of occupied lands for domestic or commercial purposes; Israel continues to rob Palestine of land, resources and access. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 also states that, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, founded by 180 civil organizations in Palestine, has spread around the world. Solidarity groups everywhere are chalking up successes in consumer products and institutional investments, including national pension plans. (See: BDS: BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. 2011. Haymarket Books, USA by Omar Barghouti)
Meanwhile SodaStream claims with much publicity to have sold one million of its devices in socially-responsible Sweden. But in July, 2011 the Coop (Cooperative Stores Network) announced it would stop selling SodaStream products because they are made in occupied territory and their sale was in conflict with Coop’s own ethical standard as well as Global Compact, the UN ethical guidelines for businesses. In Belgium as well as other European countries BDS campaigners actively protest against the sale of SodaStream.
USA and Canada both have a Free Trade Agreement with Israel. That means, as in the European Union, certain taxes are not levied on partners. By allowing SodaStream to sell its fraudulently labelled “Made in Israel” products, illegally produced under military occupation, as free trade products, the company receives financial concessions under Free Trade agreements.
Boycotts are powerful tools for our international campaigns for human rights. Ahava Cosmetic Products are also made in an illegal settlement, Mitzpe Shalem, near the Dead Sea; they are no longer sold in major outlets in Canada and USA after boycott actions. As law respecting citizens we have a responsibility to stop the illegal sale of another luxury product with dubious health or environmental benefits, made under conditions that violate the human rights of workers and all Palestinians.
Boycott SodaStream!
– Theresa Wolfwood is a writer and activist in Victoria, BC, Canada. She visited Palestine in 2010 and Belgium in 2011.
The Worst of the One Percent?
Meet Wal-Mart’s Rob Walton
By DAN BACHER | CounterPunch | November 30, 2011
Brave New Films, the film studio that produced the ground-breaking documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” is holding an online vote to pick the “worst of the 1%.” They’re looking for the person who is doing the most with their wealth to exploit the rest of the country – and to privatize public services and public trust resources.
Walmart Watch is urging people to vote for Rob Walton, chairman of Walmart and an heir to the Walton’s family fortune, as the worst of the one percenters. Walmart Watch is an organization that “seeks to hold Walmart fully accountable for its impact on communities, the American workforce, the retail sector, the environment and the nation’s economy.”
I also strongly urge everybody to vote for Rob Walton as “worst of the 1%” for his efforts to crush labor and human rights and drive local “mom and pop” operations out of business, as well for funding corporate environmental NGO efforts to privatize the oceans by promoting “catch shares” programs and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
To vote, go to: http://www.bravenewfoundation.org/dirty-thirty/all/rob-walton.
“When it comes to the 1%, Rob Walton and the Walton family are it,” according to Walmart Watch. “The Walton family has amassed more than $93 billion in wealth, making them the richest family in the country.”
“The Waltons inherited that wealth, much of it was created by paying many workers at poverty-level wages, offering poor benefits, and lowering conditions in the supply chain by demanding ever-lower prices. Walmart’s trade deficit with China alone eliminated hundreds of thousands of US manufacturing jobs,” the group ntoed.
Rob Walton himself has an overall estimated worth of $21 billion running the world’s largest private employer. It is estimated now that 1.4 million people work for Walmart or 1 out of every 222 people in the U.S.
“The dividends of the Walmart stock the Waltons own alone could go a long way toward making Walmart jobs good, living wage jobs. Instead he chooses to keep the average employee below the family poverty line and cut health benefits for hundreds of thousands employees,” the group added.
The Waltons have used the Walton Family Foundation to advance an extreme anti-worker and anti-human rights agenda. In the last five years, the Walton Family Foundation (where Rob sits on the board) has given money to the Heritage Foundation, the National Right to Work Foundation and other groups that advance the agenda of Wall Street banksters and other corporate operatives who have looted the economy.
Walmart Watch stated, “In 2010, the Walton Family Foundation spent more than $157 million to support the so-called school choice movement. This movement generally seeks to divert money from public schools to private schools through policies such as vouchers and charter schools. These donations make the Walton Family Foundation one of the largest funders of efforts to undermine public education.”
Wal-Mart gives $36 million to ocean privatization efforts
In addition to anti-worker and school privatization campaigns, the corporate giant also dumps millions into “environmental” programs to greenwash the privatization of public trust resources.
The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), a national grassroots recreational fishing organization, in August slammed the Walton Family Foundation’s contribution of $36 million to ocean privatization efforts through “catch shares” programs and the creation of so-called “marine protected areas.”
“Wal-Mart announced this week its efforts to help fund the demise of both the recreational and commercial fishing industry while also working to ensure that the next generation of sportsmen will have less access to coastal fish stocks than at any point in U.S. history,” according to a news release from RFA.
In a August 16th news release from Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Walton Family Foundation announced “investments” totaling more than $71.8 million awarded to various “environmental” initiatives in 2010. The foundation handed over $36 million alone to Marine Conservation grantees including Ocean Conservancy, Conservation International Foundation, Marine Stewardship Council, World Wildlife Fund and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
The five top grantees were: Conservation International, $18,640,917; the Nature Conservancy,$9,305,449; Environmental Defense Fund $7,086,054; the Marine Stewardship Council, $4,500,000; and the Ocean Conservancy, $3,757,768.
Critics of Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, have blasted the company for decades for being able to sell its products at cheap prices only by employing sweatshops, undercutting competitors, wielding its market power to cripple both competitors and suppliers, and flouting national and international health, safety, labor, and environmental standards. Anti-corporate globalization opponents have long regarded Wal-Mart as a virtual “Darth Vader” of retailers, as documented in the film, “The High Price of Low Cost.”
Greenwashing Wal-Mart’s Image
However, in 2006 the retail giant hired Adam Werbach former Sierra Club president to “polish” its image. This latest Wal-Mart release is apparently part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to greenwash its image – and extend control over public trust resources.
According to the release, the Walton Family Foundation “focuses on globally important marine areas and works with grantees and other partners to create networks of effectively managed protected areas that conserve key biological features, and ensure the sustainable utilization of marine resources – especially fisheries – in a way that benefits both nature and people.”
“We focus our work in the United States’ primary river systems and in some of the world’s most ecologically significant marine areas,” said Scott Burns, director of the foundation’s Environment Focus Area and the former director of marine conservation at the World Wildlife Fund. “It’s important to us to protect and conserve natural resources while also recognizing the roles these waters play in the livelihoods of those who live nearby.”
The RFA countered that these specially managed areas of coastal waters are also referred to as “marine protected areas” or “marine reserves,” and the end result is denied angler access, of little or no benefit to the very people whom Wal-Mart claims to benefit.
Marine protected areas without real protection
“A quick visit to the Ocean Conservancy website should be telling enough for anglers interested in learning where Wal-Mart’s profits are being spent,” said RFA executive director Jim Donofrio. “These folks are pushing hard to complete California’s network of exclusionary zones throughout the entire length of coastline, and they’ve made it very clear that they would like to see the West Coast version of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) extended into other coastal U.S. waters.”
Grassroots environmentalists, fishermen, members of Indian Tribes, civil liberties activists and environmental justice advocates have criticized Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, for its numerous conflicts of interest and the violation of numerous state, federal and international laws.
The so-called “marine protected areas” established under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil drilling and spills, water pollution, wave and wind energy projects, military testing, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other human impacts upon the ocean other than fishing and gathering. In an extreme case of corporate greenwashing, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, served as chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force that created these questionable “marine protected areas” on the Southern California coast. She also served on the task forces for the North Central and North Central Coasts.
When not chairing or serving on these rigged panels, Reheis-Boyd has been busy lobbying for new oil drillling off the California coast, tar sands drillling in Canada, and for the weakening of environmental regulations throughout the West.
The Walton Family Foundation release also said that so-called “marine protected areas” being promoted with the foundation’s money include those in Indonesia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico.
“Here’s an organization which has publicly opposed creation of artificial reefs used by Wal-Mart’s tackle buyers, in some cases openly advocating for their removal, yet the Walton family is handing over tons of money for support,” Donofrio said of Ocean Conservancy in particular.
Jack Sobel, a senior scientist for the Ocean Conservancy, has said “There’s little evidence that artificial reefs have a net benefit,” citing concerns such as toxicity, damage to ecosystems and concentrating fish into one place (worsening overfishing).
Wal-Mart boycott follows Safeway boycott
“Shopping for fishing equipment at Wal-Mart is contributing directly to the demise of our sport, it’s supporting lost fishing opportunities and decreased coastal access for all Americans,” Donofrio said. “I hope all RFA members across the country will remember that when it’s time to gear up, but I would also wonder if perhaps our industry can help spread the message and support our local tackle shops by also pulling product off Wal-Mart’s shelves.”
RFA in April 2011 announced its support of a national boycott of the Safeway Supermarket chain, including Genuardi’s in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, because of that corporation’s support for California’s widely-contested MLPA initiative.
“Apparently Safeway has gotten some bad advice from the people in the ocean protection racket, a community to which the California-based mega-corporation is now donating profits,” said Jim Martin, West Coast Regional Director of the RFA. “Safeway says it is supporting groups that make a difference like the Food Marketing Institute’s Sustainable Seafood Working Group, the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions and the World Wildlife Fund’s Aquaculture Dialogues, but it’s little more than corporate greenwashing.”
RFA believes it’s time that Wal-Mart was added to the angler boycott list as well.
“The Walton family created this huge corporate entity which has threatened the vibrancy of our local retail outlets, and now they’re essentially doing the same thing with our fishing communities,” Donofrio said.
“Much like Safeway has done with their financial investment in the environmental business community, Wal-Mart apparently prefers customers buy farm-raised fish and seafood caught by foreign countries outside of U.S. waters, while denying individual anglers the ability to head down to the ocean to score a few fish for their own table,” noted Donofrio.
Wal-Mart pushes catch shares program
The Walton Family Foundation is also working “to create economic incentives for ocean conservation,” while candidly pledging their support for “projects that reverse the incentives to fish unsustainably that exist in ‘open access fisheries’ by creating catch share programs,” according to the official news release.
A broad coalition of commercial and recreational fishing, consumer and environmental groups is opposing the catch shares programs being pushed by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, a former vice-chair of the Board of Directors of Environmental Defense, because these programs amount to the privatization of public trust resources by concentrating fisheries in the hands of a few corporate hands. Wherever catch shares have been introduced, local fishing communities, fish populations and the environment have been devastated.
“A catch share, also known as an individual fishing quota, is a transferable voucher that gives individuals or businesses the ability to access a fixed percentage of the total authorized catch of a particular species,” according to Food and Water Watch. “Fishery management systems based on catch shares turn a public resource into private property and have lead to socioeconomic and environmental problems. Contrary to arguments by catch share proponents – namely large commercial fishing interests – this management system has exacerbated unsustainable fishing practices.”
Donofrio emphasized, “Our local outfitters and tackle shops along the coast have had to face an immense challenge by going up against Wal-Mart’s purchasing power during the last decade, but now that the Walton family is so up front about their opposition to open access fisheries, it’s hard for me to believe that any sportsmen would ever be interested in shopping there again.”
“California anglers have been outraged to learn that money they spend at a Safeway grocery store might end up in the hands of anti-fishing groups like the EDF and the Ocean Conservancy, so I hope more anglers will join the national boycott by sending a message to Wal-Mart as well as Safeway,” Martin added.
Sam and Helen Walton launched their “modest retail business in 1962″ with guiding principle of helping “increase opportunity and improve the lives of others along the way,” according to the Walton Family Foundation website. It is that principle the foundation says, that makes them “more focused than ever on sustaining the Walton’s timeless small-town values and deep commitment to making life better for individuals and communities alike.”
RFA said grassroots efforts to combat the corporate anti-fishing, pro-privatization agenda are more than just an uphill climb.
“The EDF catch share coffers are already filled to the top, while Pew Charitable Trusts has billions in reserve,” Donofrio said. “The individual anglers and local business owners are being denied opportunity, and I hope the federal trade representatives are willing to get onboard with their support of real small-town values.” He emphasized that the Ocean Conservancy and EDF combined received more than $10 million in Walton Family Foundation grants in 2010.
EDF: RFA’s contention is ‘just wrong’
The EDF public relations department was quick to respond in defense of their $7,086,054 Walton Family Foundation donation.
Tom Lalley, communications director for the Oceans Program of the Environmental Defense Fund, claimed, “RFA’s contention that the contribution in question was made by Wal-Mart is just wrong.”
“The contribution was made by the Walton Family Fund and not Wal-Mart,” Lalley told http://www.fishnewseu.com. “These are two different entities. There is no connection between the two other than the fact that the fund’s money comes from private holdings of the same Waltons who started and managed Wal-Mart, but none of the money comes from the existing company. So it was the family, and specifically the family’s foundation, that made a contribution for sustainable fishing and ocean conservation, and not the store.”
According to RFA managing director Jim Hutchinson, Jr., the marketing executives at EDF are “some of the best in the ‘astroturfing’ business,” but he calls Lalley’s claims “almost comical.”
“So I leave you a $1,000 bill in the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart, tucked under a box of sugar coated corn flakes, does that mean that Wal-Mart actually gave you the $1,000, or maybe EDF would argue it was really a contribution from Tony the Tiger himself,” Hutchinson laughed.
“The heirs to the corporate fortune have spent two decades successfully building back their stake in this publicly held company to the point they now own over 50% of the Wal-Mart operation. The Walton Family Foundation is Wal-Mart, and the Walton family itself is making billions in our local communities, so to say that the two are separate entities is simply ridiculous. Actually expecting us to believe that statement is borderline insanity,” Hutchinson emphasized.
Commercial fishermen join recreational anglers in denouncing Wal-Mart’s support of privatization
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), praised the RFA for criticizing Wal-Mart’s contributions to ocean privatization efforts and welcomed the organization’s call for a Wal-Mart boycott.
“Wa-Mart is wrong on this issue, just as it has been in the past on labor and community issues,” said Grader. “The privatization of public trust resources is the antithesis of conservation.”
“I’ve been boycotting Wal-Mart for decades and it’s absolutely great that recreational and commercial fishermen are together on this,” noted Grader.
It is worth noting that Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy, the two top recipients of Walton Family Foundation funds, are known throughout the world for their top-down “environmental” programs that run roughshod over local communities to achieve their corporate greenwashing goals.
Corporate environmental NGO ‘leaders’ support peripheral canal
The Nature Conservancy in California is a strong backer of state and federal plans to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies. Peripheral canal opponents, including recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Delta residents, family farmers and California Indian Tribes, believe the construction of the canal would result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other imperiled fish populations.
The Walton Family Foundation’s contribution to Conservation International is no surprise, since Rob Walton is chairman of the executive committee of Conservation International’s Board of Directors (http://www.conservation.org/about/team/bod).
Also serving on the Board of Conservation International is Stewart A. Resnick, Chairman of the Board of Roll International Corporation, who is the largest tree fruit grower in the world and one of the biggest recipients of subsidized water from the imperiled California Delta. While making a tidy profit from selling his subsidized water back to the public, Resnick has waged a relentless campaign to divert more water from the Delta through the peripheral canal and has done everything in his power to eviscerate Endangered Species Act protections for Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt and other listed species.
Resnick’s Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, an agribusiness “Astroturf” group, has also spent a great deal of effort in litigation attempting to eradicate striped bass from the Bay-Delta Estuary by falsely claiming that “striped bass,” rather than water exports, are the cause of Delta smelt and salmon declines.
MLPA Initiative Background:
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA “Initiative” to “implement” the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.
The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of “marine protected areas” included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of interest. Catherine Reheis Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association who is pushing for new oil drilling off the California coast, served as the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast.
The MLPA Initiative operates through a controversial private/public “partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The Schwarzenegger administration authorized the implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG).
Dan Bacher can be reached at: Danielbacher@fishsniffer.com
Nuclear waste train brought to a stop
Morning Star | 24 November 2011
Militant anti-nuclear activists forced French authorities to halt a trainload of reprocessed nuclear waste near the German border today.
The train, en route from a nuclear waste processing site on the English Channel to a storage site in northern Germany, ground to a halt at Remilly junction.
Nuclear privateer Areva, French state rail firm SNCF and police are now deciding how to get the radioactive waste to its destination, given that thousands of activists are expected to try to stop it once it crosses the border.
The train loaded with uranium has been harassed by hundreds of activists since it set off from a depot in Valognes on Wednesday.
Riot police confronted 300 protesters in fields in Lieusaint village outside Valognes and fired tear gas at people waving banners reading: “Stop this radioactive train.”
It was not immediately clear if there were injuries.
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Book Summary
The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food
Lies Are Unbekoming | January 20, 2026
Soybeans generate approximately $80 million annually in mandatory producer assessments alone, funding a marketing apparatus that has transformed an industrial commodity into one of America’s most trusted “health foods.” The campaign succeeded. Soy milk lines supermarket shelves beside dairy. Soy protein fortifies everything from infant formula to energy bars. Vegetarians rely on tofu and tempeh as dietary staples. Doctors recommend soy to menopausal women. School lunch programs serve soy-based meat substitutes to children. An estimated 60 percent of processed foods contain soy derivatives. The premise underlying this proliferation—that Asians have thrived on soy for millennia and that modern science validates its health benefits—has been repeated so often it functions as established fact.
Kaayla T. Daniel’s The Whole Soy Story dismantles this premise through systematic examination of the scientific literature. The book documents that traditional Asian soy consumption averaged roughly one tablespoon daily, consumed as fermented condiments after processing methods that neutralized inherent toxins—a pattern bearing no resemblance to American consumption of industrially processed soy protein isolate, soy flour, and soy oil. Daniel catalogs the antinutrients that survive modern processing (protease inhibitors, phytates, lectins, saponins), the toxic compounds created by industrial methods (nitrosamines, lysinoalanine, hexane residues), and the heavy metals concentrated in soy products (manganese, aluminum, fluoride, cadmium). She traces the mechanisms by which soy isoflavones—plant estrogens present at pharmacologically significant levels—disrupt thyroid function, impair fertility, and interact with hormone-sensitive cancers. The evidence emerges from peer-reviewed journals, FDA documents, and industry sources themselves.
The stakes extend beyond individual dietary choices. Infants fed soy formula receive isoflavone doses equivalent to several birth control pills daily, with blood concentrations 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than their natural estrogen levels. Soy protein isolate—the ingredient in formula, protein bars, and thousands of products—has never received GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status; its only pre-1960s use was as an industrial paper sealant. Two senior FDA scientists formally protested their own agency’s approval of soy health claims, citing evidence of thyroid damage and reproductive harm. The Honolulu Heart Program found that men consuming tofu twice weekly showed accelerated brain aging and increased dementia. These findings have not penetrated public awareness because the institutions responsible for consumer protection have been compromised by the industry they regulate. The Whole Soy Story presents the evidence that has been systematically excluded from mainstream health messaging, enabling readers to evaluate for themselves what the soy industry prefers they never learn. … continue
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