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| | | published Saturday, October 24, 2009 | 922 Views :: 0 Comments |
PLUTONIUM AND PEOPLE DON’T MIX
WHY THE ROCKY FLATS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
SHOULD REMAIN CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC
by LeRoy Moore, PhD, Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center, October 13, 2009
Soon after completion in 2005 of the “cleanup” of the site of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb plant near Denver, the Department of Energy (DOE) transferred about three-fourths of the nearly 10 square mile Rocky Flats site to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to operate as a wildlife refuge. FWS had already decided to open the future refuge for public recreation. This paper elaborates three reasons why this decision should be reversed:
• The site is contaminated with an unknown quantity of plutonium and americium.
• Standards for permissible exposure to plutonium and americium adopted for the site provide inadequate protection for potential visitors to the refuge because the standards are based on a flawed method of risk assessment and a truncated view of the toxicity of these materials.
• In addition, those responsible for the Rocky Flats “cleanup” did not consider some crucial data regarding environmental conditions at the site.
• Together, these points add up to a great weight of uncertainty that underscores the need for caution. The conclusion to this paper looks at alternatives for dealing with the refuge, including a visionary approach for nuclear guardianship.
To read full paper, click here
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2009 Fact Sheet Complex Transformation Wrong Policy, Wrong Priority, Wrong Direction | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 910 Views :: 0 Comments |
The “Complex Transformation” (formerly Complex 2030) plan ignores U.S. disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and threatens to derail diplomatic efforts to stem nuclear weapons development by other nations. It also would create serious environmental and health risks for communities downwind and downstream of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Complex final5.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Nuclear Weapons Forever | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 526 Views :: 0 Comments |
Life Extension Program
In the late-1980’s the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Rocky Flats Plant, which produced plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, was shut down after a raid by the FBI. Eventually, the plant was shuttered, disrupting the U.S. capacity for producing new warheads.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: LEP2 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Plutonium "Triggers" for Nuclear Bombs | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 477 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits — carefully fabricated spheres of metal — and high explosives are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. The U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver until 1989, when the FBI raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes, effectively ending industrial-scale plutonium pit production.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Pits5 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Permanently Ending Nuclear Testing | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 419 Views :: 2 Comments |
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) prohibits countries from conducting nuclear weapon explosions and establishes an extensive verification system through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). U.S. ratification of the CTBT would be a key component in repairing an already damaged non-proliferation regime.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: CTBT Fact Sheet 2009.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Nuclear Weapons Environmental Cleanup | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 394 Views :: 0 Comments |
Six decades of U.S. nuclear weapons research, testing, and production activities have left dozens of Department of Energy (DOE) sites polluted with massive amounts of radioactive and hazardous wastes. Most DOE sites are now on the Superfund list of the nation’s most environmentally dangerous facilities. Their contamination threatens millions of people living near the sites or along major waste transportation routes. Some of the nation’s most important water resources are endangered.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Cleanup5.1 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Global Nuclear Energy Parnership: Environomental and Security Risks | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 360 Views :: 0 Comments |
In 2003 the Bush Administration launched the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which it also called the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. GNEP is designed to revive the practice of reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel to separate out the plutonium. At the same time, however, it would endanger the environment, encourage nuclear bomb-making, squander U.S. taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, and deepen the nuclear waste problem.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: GNEP4 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Plutonium Dispoistion Remains in Disarray | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 231 Views :: 0 Comments |
After a decade of work on its program to eliminate surplus weapons plutonium, not a single gram has been disposed by the Department of Energy (DOE). By any standard, the program is a failure. Left unchanged and without adequate oversight and budget scrutiny, it will continue to suffer from chronic bad management, escalating costs, and technical uncertainties. Congress and President Obama can put the disposition program onto the safer, less costly plutonium immobilization or “vitrification” track
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: MOX6 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet New Reactors Too Expensive and Unnecessary | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 286 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nuclear Power Will Not Solve Climate Crisis
In terms of both monetary cost and time, nuclear power is ineffective at solving the climate crisis. Dr. Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, in his 2008 analysis The Nuclear Illusion, has shown that energy efficiency is seven to ten times more cost effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while renewable sources such as wind are significantly faster and less expensive to deploy than nuclear power. In his 2007 book Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), has shown that both fossil fuels and nuclear power can be phased out of the American economy by mid-century and completely replaced with efficiency and renewables
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Reactors5 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Radiation Standards | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 135 Views :: 0 Comments |
Many federal regulations governing public and worker exposure to ionizing radiation fall short because they rely on Reference Man.
"Reference Man" is the hypothetical person on which many federal radiation protection standards are based. These standards affect many areas of people’s lives, including limits on radioactive contaminants in air and drinking water, clean-up of contaminated sites, and workplace exposures. Ionizing radiation is classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known human carcinogen.
Download Fact Sheet 2009 Radiation Standards: Healthy5 final.pdf
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