Grassroots Actions for Peace

Trying to figure this out. Maybe you can help me? I don't have all the answers - but I sure wish I did! The US is bombing Hawaii - yes, its own country! Can someone please help me to think this through!  See [ entire article ]

A ship carrying 6,700 tons of sand contaminated with low levels of hazardous waste at a U.S. Army base in Kuwait during the first Gulf War will be unloaded at the Port of Longview on April 22.

The vessel BBC Alabama is delivering 306 containers of the sand, which contains low levels of uranium, to the port, which will then be loaded onto trains bound for a disposal site in Grand View, Idaho, said Doug Averett, the port’s director of operations.   See [ entire article ]

Other nations are giving the US their Depleted Uranium so we can "recycle" it and supposedly turn radioactive poison into modern medical cures. As they say, what goes around certainly this time is coming around. Is this a matter of simply deserving what we truly deserve?

In this eye-opening article, "A nuclear paradox: EnergySolutions CEO is attempting to change opinions on radioactive waste" we read of Uncle Sam's apparent need to take in foreign supplies of Depleted Uranium and thoughtfully "nuke" even more Americans by "recycling" invisible, nano-particle-sized Uranium aerosols (gas).  See [ entire article ]

Military veterans and anti-war activists took to the podium Oct. 5 to Oct. 7 for "Marching Home," a three-day symposium to raise awareness on the plight of soldiers on active duty and veterans returning home from the war.

Organized by Rutgers Against the War and the Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War, the weekend conference included lectures, workshops and a hip-hop concert, all geared toward students, veterans and families of those serving in the military.   See [  entire article ]

The U.S. nuclear weapons program has sickened 36,500 Americans and killed more than 4,000, the Rocky Mountain News has determined from government figures.

Those numbers reflect only people who have been approved for government compensation. They include people who mined uranium, built bombs and breathed dust from bomb tests.....   See [ entire article ]

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (Reuters Life!) - Visiting a nuclear city may be an unusual tourist attraction but the U.S. Department of Energy is finding growing interest in a uranium plant once so secretive it had no address and was not on maps.  See [ entire article ]

More than 400 pounds of depleted uranium, used as ballast in cruise missiles, litters the Utah Test and Training Range, according to Air Force records.

The material is radioactive, but given the relatively small amount and its distance from inhabited areas it likely poses little risk.

"It is probably not something for the public to worry about," said Steve Erickson, of the Citizen Education Project, who obtained the depleted uranium records from the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act. "It is something of a regulatory puzzle, however. You're not supposed to leave it there. It should be disposed of properly."   See [ entire article ]

OSLO, Norway: A nuclear waste dump in the Russia Arctic may be in danger of exploding because of corrosion caused by salt water in enormous storage tanks, the Norwegian environmental group Bellona warned Friday.

Russian and Norwegian nuclear officials downplayed the danger.

The three tanks are used to store spent nuclear fuel rods at Andreeva Bay, on the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia, just 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the Norwegian border, Oslo-based Bellona said in a statement.   See [ entire article ]

Toxic, radioactive dust released from armour-piercing depleted uranium shells lingers for decades in the environment and contaminates land far from where it is used, according to British scientists.

The finding raises fears that communities living in or returning to war zones may be forced to live on contaminated ground, in danger of inhaling the substance or consuming it in food or water supplies.

...
The team took soil samples from open ground and residential gardens in a suburban area near Colonie in New York State. During the 1960s and 1970s, the town was home to a depleted uranium manufacturing plant, which released an estimated five tonnes of the material into the air.

The team detected traces of uranium down to 35cm [> 1 foot, ed.] beneath the ground.  See [ entire article ]

A Senate panel on Tuesday approved a proposal to spend $1 million to test more than 800 veterans for exposure to depleted uranium, which the U.S. military has used to harden shells and other munitions for piercing armor.  See [ entire article ]

....The GAO produced the report after a memo from the Department of Energy's Inspector General's Office said as many as 1,825 cylinders had phosgene mistakenly left in them and may be corroding. Some experts have said a leak could release hydrogen fluoride, a toxic gas that hugs the ground.

About a month ago, the plant began processing its stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride in about 35,200 cylinders into a more stable compound.    See [ entire article ]

A Kuwaiti environmental official has said the US buried large amounts of nuclear waste in the Persian Gulf state during its liberation in 1991.  See [ entire article ]

LAKEWOOD, Colorado — A federal advisory panel recommended Tuesday that thousands of former workers at a nuclear weapons plant be denied immediate government compensation for illnesses that they say result from years of radiation exposure there.

The recommendation is a significant setback for a large number of people once employed as plutonium workers at the plant, Rocky Flats, 16 miles northwest of Denver. Their union, the United Steelworkers of America, had petitioned the Department of Health and Human Services to allow more than 3,000 of them to bypass a complex federal evaluation and compensation process established by Congress in 2000.  See [ entire article ]

Pentagon admits:

Depleted uranium that was left behind in Hawai'i in the 1960s came from a recoilless rifle capable of firing a 76-pound nuclear bomb, the Pentagon confirmed for the first time yesterday.

The weapon was known as a "Davy Crockett" and featured either a 120 mm or 155 mm recoilless rifle that fired a fission bomb with a yield of .01 kilotons, equivalent to 10 tons of TNT.  See [ entire article ]

A number of Hawaii residents are calling for the governor to sign a bill that would test the soil within 500 meters of Schofield Barracks for depleted uranium. [  read more ]

...
News stories claiming negative signs of depleted uranium's impact, including death and birth defects, are surfacing from Australia to England to the Far East. The controversy rages within government bodies and underlies the theme of TV shows like a recent episode of the medical series "House."

While the military continues to deny the connection of depleted uranium to sicknesses plaguing returning servicemen and women, a newly mandated study stemming from legislation signed by President Bush in October is just getting under way.  See [ entire article ]

Proposed explosives tests upwind from Tracy will release as much as 450 pounds of radioactive depleted uranium dust into the air every year, according to an air pollution permit application filed Friday by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.   See [ entire article ]

A so-called "nuclear renaissance" is budding in New Mexico with the construction of a major uranium-processing facility, but activists are waging a legal challenge in an attempt to stem the industry’s resurgence.  See [ entire article ]

The Nobel Peace Prize nominee on nukes, global warming, and why we’re closer to Armageddon than ever:

...We don’t get a lot of information about the use of depleted uranium. What has been the impact of that?

They are using uranium weapons in Iraq because they are terrific anti-tank weapons.

When they used 360 tons near Basra in the attack on Iraq in 1991, my colleagues … noted a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer where children have been infected with radiation. There have been anomalies like babies born with no brain, or no eyes, or single eyes, or no arms. The uranium they use has a half-life of 4.5 million years. So, America’s conducting nuclear war over there, and no one’s been asking about that either. They’ve used over 2,000 tons, I’m sure … and they shouldn’t be using it. It ends up punishing the children. It’s really wicked.  See [ entire article ]

The words are bright and unmistakeable, sitting high above Montana Avenue on the latest flashy billboard.  See  [ entire article ]

The folks who are cheering over the Indo-U.S. accord on civil nuclear cooperation live a world away from Jadugoda, the Jharkhand village where India’s uranium mine is situated. It is these hapless villagers who continue paying a terrible price in terms of toxic health hazards after being made the sacrificial lambs of a government policy where jingoistic hubris trumps compassion or accountability, writes Sunita Dubey.

• Half of all deaths preventable, say country’s medics
• Reconstruction seen as disaster
• More than 2,000 doctors and nurses are killed
• 18,000 more leave the nation
• Even the most basic treatments are lacking