(10 to 500 years) into the environment. That's millions of pounds of Pu to add to the earlier radioactive releases which caused the observed species extinctions via the hot, explosive shutdowns of the numerous nuclear reactors. If these Nukes are not adequately attended, the next Chernobyl will take its toll on sharks, rays, carnivorous Humans and mammals and carnivorous reptiles between 1999 and 2050 AD. By 2100 all humans would be dead. Figure 12 shows how "the NEXT CHERNOBYL" would impact species' genomes that were smaller than 2x109 basepairs.

Then the wave of long-lived radwastes from all of the nuclear reactors on Earth would overwhelm the biosphere and KILL ALL LIFE ON EARTH before the year 3000 AD!

From that point of view, shutting down all 500 to 1500 nuclear reactors by 2016 AD looks easy.

The choice is clear: If we don't shut down at least the worst 200 of the 450 large operating nuclear reactors, and soon; they will shut us all down, and soon; way too soon!

If we let each nuclear reactor live out their "normal" lifetimes (30 years?), go off-line forever, and not be replaced with Nukes; we might keep the nuclear wolf outside.

To be realistic in our quest to put Our Nuclear Armageddon off, we must shut down the "lemons" and "rotten apples"* immediately and recognize that Russia, China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Taiwan, etc. WON'T COOPERATE in the No Replacement Policy for Nuclear Power Plants. Under these conditions, we could decrease the number of operating Nukes to less than 265 by 2015 AD. If "the next Chernobyl" hasn't occured by then, the expected date for "the next Chernobyl" would be put off from 2025 (450 Nukes) to 2050+ (250 Nukes). Then, if we can get another 83 shut down during the following ten years, by 2025, without realizing "the next Chernobyl", Armageddon might be as far away as 2075 AD. Is one Chernobyl every 100 years acceptable to "the People" of the earth? Let us hope that Humans live long enough to find out.

For the time-being, I suggest that (young) people move to the Southern Hemisphere and work to shut down the 10 Nukes there (Brazil-5, Argentina-3, and South Africa-2). The rest of us can work to shut down the remaining 440 Nukes in the Northern Hemisphere. The two-year delay at the equator decreases the Southern Hemispheric surface contamination (Cs-137) by 10x to 1000x. So it's well worth the trip till >90% of all Nukes are shut down.

Before you move to a region, first determine if and where the Nukes are within 100 miles. Then select a region more than 100 miles upwind from the nearest Nuke, and not within 1000 miles downwind or downstream from any Nuke.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* "Disasters Waiting to Happen", etc.
 

+ By 2050 we would have a clear picture of Global Human, Mammal, Amphibian, Vertebrate, Insect, Mollusk & Plant Costs of Chernobyl.

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Okay, we have to "Swim Up A Waterfall" to keep the window of Human Survival Ajar. That's a BIG order!

Regardless of the size of the task, the best way i know to guarantee that we fail is for no one to work seriously on how to "Swim Up Waterfalls"! As long as one committed, determined person is working seriously on solving a problem, I believe that there is hope that that problem will be solved!

We are entangled in a proliferating, global, NUCLEAR TRAP! THE NEXT CHERNOBYL will kill most of your children, and all of your grandchildren.

I believe that many Humans can escape that trap in the short term, but we must swim up some intimidating waterfalls soon to escape that trap! We must all start doing more than we have been doing.

We're in a new ballgame now, and "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

Shutting down 90% of the world's Nukes may be mandatory, but we can be smooth to start with. Of the 450 large Nukes, a large number of Nukes are Really Undesireable "Accidents Waiting to Happen!"

LET US GET THOSE MONKEYS OFF OF OUR BACKS! Then we can figure out just how to include these technical realities into realistic, responsible, political and legal thinking.

First,

(1) All Nuclear Reactors (of all kinds) that are "off-line" now are to be kept off line.

(2) Any Nuclear Reactor that goes "off-line" (for any reason), will remain off-line.

(3) The purpose of shutting down nuclear reactors so promptly is to prevent another Chernobyl. The best way to do that is to shut down immediately all of the earth's nuclear "rotten apples", "lemons", "Accidents Waiting to Happen", etc.! Sometimes nuclear engineers can tell which ones they are, and they're the ones we want "off-line." No New Operating License or Construction License will be issued for a Nuclear Reactor.

(4) We MUST shut down the Worst 200 of the earth's 450 largest operating Nuclear Reactors during the next ten to fifteen years (before 2015). Then we must shut down another 100 large Nuclear Reactors during the following ten to fifteen years (before 2030). That's quick!

(5) These same shutdown rates apply to military, marine, isolated, and other Nuclear Reactors (100 Megawatt): 60% shut down before 2015 and 80% shut down before 2030!

(6) WIPP MUST NOT OPEN, ever! That is my personal commitment. WIPP is a Radioactive Release Program for Pu!*

(7) Yucca Mountain MUST NEVER OPEN!

(8) We MUST stop all discovery, mining, processing, transporting, or using of large amounts of uranium worldwide.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* See "the book" for details.
 
 
 

(9) We MUST stop releasing radioactive matter! We MUST adopt a "ZERO RELEASE Policy" for all radioactive matter!
 

These are the things that MUST be done immediately and maintained.
 

While becoming "VEGAN" (no milk, no eggs Vegetarians) won't guarantee Human Survival, it does increase your chances of survival by 10x to 1000x over those who eat meat, milk and/or eggs! It is a thing worth doing. I became a vegetarian on 23 September 1998. Before that, I endured "HEARTBURN' bouts daily. Since then, I have not experienced a single heartburn attack, no matter how much margarine or olive oil I put on my veggies!

There are some physical and economic realities realities involved with the long-term containment of Many Thousands of Tons of Pu, etc., etc., ... So we MUST develop new technologies that allow us to neutralize radioactive substances; turn all radioactive matter into harmless non-radioactive ash. That would require new scientific discoveries before any "neutralization" could take place. The world's national labs could be focused on this problem in a friendly, but crucial, global competition to get it solved ASAP!

Indeed, you can't choreograph specific discoveries, but you can increase the numbers of scientific explorers and escalate their dedications. Additional funds for these researchers would involve the government, commercial, independent and university communities in the discovery efort. Then it's a matter of time, wit and luck. Only then can we think in terms of the long-term survival of life on earth.

If that is to occur, there is a crucial short list, and a desireable long list, of changes that are to be made before "business as usual" can again become an acceptable mode of operation in society, capitalism, the law, government, or at home.

Until all of these changes are made and carried out worldwide, we will still be in that global nuclear TRAP!

Be "the straw that breaks the (nuclear) camel's back!" Keep at it: We'll know in ten years.

The Siberian "sole source of survival" "Pu Production Reactors", et al. are a real problem that needs solving because these reactors will be shut down eventually. So let us solve that problem while we are still in control in these situations, before the disastrous shutdowns do start to occur.

When Reactor shutdown mandates extinction of remaining populations, let that local "extinction" be due to migration, not termination. So evaluate the children, the pregnant first, and then the fertile, and let the others close up the associated towns.

Can we extend the suggestion of Gould, et al. that "safe" low levels of radioactivity (the dark areas on the Gould Map of above average U.S. breast cancer death rates, (Figure 6, p.55) interfere with human immune systems enough to decrease resistance and to cause increased vulnerabilities to people in all areas of high population density? Or does their finding apply only to the highly-developed societies? There high concentrations of disease and chemical pollutants from fossil fuel burning (cars, power plants, industries, etc.), petrochemical industries, etc. combine synergistically with local and global radioactive contamination. That combination produced the breast cancer plagues that have started around most of the operating nuclear reactors in the U.S.

Extrapolation to the global scale suggests that Chernobyl's Cs-137, Kr-85, Cs-134, I-131, Xe-131, etc. have established a global radioactive context that encourages and accelerates viral, bacterial, amoebic and fungal outbreaks and plagues worldwide. These catastrophes would be particularly conspicuous within 1000 km. of Chernobyl and immediately around and downwind from NTS, Novaya Zemlya, TMI, Chelyabinsk-40, etc. Exactly what impact will occur for specific human epidemics is not clear, but recent perennial global and local maladies like bubonic plague, smallpox, cholera, HIV/AIDS, flu, cancers, etc. are prime candidates for the immune-suppressing synergies of our radioactive world

Our "civilized" laws require that victims demonstrate real, manifest physical damage (photos, tapes, medical records, bills) before "justice" can occur, and unborn victims get no justice. Thus, our system is doomed to self-destruct on any large-scale, silent, invisible, latent biohazard that is not manifest for more than 5-10 years. These conditions are more than satisfied by radioactivity!

Radioactive insults to cell genomes produce just such a set of manifestations. Cancers typically take 3, 5, 10, 20, 50 yrs. to develop in humans, and one generation time for humans to manifest genetic damage is about 20 yrs. So continuous population-wide exposure to global radioactivity that is producing increasing mutations, cancers, immune system suppressions, localized extinctions, miscarriages, first-year deaths, etc. will produce in humans inevitable population-wide mass extinctions within 5 generations (100 years). One more Chernobyl in the northern hemisphere, and all of that will come to pass.

Population control through periodic (1 per century) Chernobyls, and we think that cigarettes are bad. One Chernobyl per century means 30 operating reactors, or an "accident" rate that is 10x better than our record to date.

If Scientology, et al. are to prevail and "free us" in the next millennium, their followers had better shut down the world's Nukes SOON, or start teaching the rest of us how to survive in a suffocatingly radioactive world without any other living vertebrates in it.

That also goes for "Jehovah's Witness" and other belief systems, religions, etc. that expect any kind of Human Ascendancy during the 21st century. Shutting down the world's Nukes during the next ten to twenty years is a good test of faith.

Welcome to the struggle.

When is Ted Turner going to produce Jane Fonda's sequel: "The Last China Syndrome" that shows what would happen if a modern reactor exploded and burned like Chernobyl did; but with modern attitudes, communications, training, facilities, etc. The ending is dreadful in any event

So there it is!
 

We have the physical mechanism and a first order mathematical model for genome mutation rates due to intracellular concentrations of known radioactive isotopes (U-238, Pu-239, I-131, Sr-90, Kr-85 or Cs-137).

When quantative Chernobyl data are extrapolated to continental, hemispheric and global scales, then used in "the Species Survival Equation" for Cs-137, many of the world's recent problems are shown to be caused by the 4x10⁷ Ci(Cs-137) released into the global biosphere during Chernobyl's 1986 explosion, meltdown and core fire. Those global problems include a decade of amphibian decimations, a 20% increase in low birthweight babies, unexpected and increasing thyroid and breast cancer death rates, a startling 39% decrease in the life expectancies of Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians. These points and more elaborated in "The Enemy Within" by Jay M. Gould (aka S. Jay Gould). The "handwriting on the wall" of 1985 has become common knowledge in the minds of interested scientists in 1998. So why haven't the powers that rule our world responded to these self-evident, mathematically inescapable nuclear truths in some reasonable way?

President Clinton has shown us all some of the childish tendencies that powerful people cling to when they are caught:

Denial! Lies!

Denial! Lies!

Lies! Denial!

The nuclear nations are the same when it comes to the harmful effects of a self-regulated nuclear industry. The Republican U.S. Congress has brought Bill Clinton up short, but in 1997 many of those same U.S. Senators voted to renew the 45 yr. old Price-Anderson Act..
 

The following is a series of quotes of some of the conclusions presented in "The Enemy Within." Jay Gould, p. 197 and 198:

"I would like to offer one reason for believing that solving the problems of low-level radiation can ultimately lead to a rational reordering of a pollution-free global economy, one that will constitute a revolutionary break with an outmoded past. The process may begin at any moment, in the aftermath of the next inevitable nuclear accident of the magnitude of Chernobyl, which I don't believe any current political system will be able to survive.

My believe rests on the recognition that Chernobyl was the watershed event that will eventually be seen as the necessary counterpart to Hiroshima in changing the course of history. Despite the fact that Einstein said the nuclear bomb changed everything except the way people think, Chernobyl has begun to change the way people think. This is a fact still denied by the nuclear powers, who misread Chernobyl exactly as they failed in 1945 to see in Hiroshima its ultimate threat to human survival."
 

"In this book, I have stated my grounds for believing instead that, in a single cataclysmic moment, Chernobyl revealed the Soviet rulers' massive deception of the Soviet population, which gave rise to the wave of civil disorder that continues today.

We have shown in this book that the Western powers that won World War II and saw in the nuclear bomb the promise of unlimited power are now also beset with an uncontrollable epidemic rise in radiation-induced illnesses and in the costs of medical care. All major nuclear powers today face the probability that the next nuclear accident of the magnitude of Windscale in 1957, Three Mile Island in 1979, and Chernobyl in 1986 will severely challenge their political legitimacy.

Indeed, the mindless zeal with which governments now permit the earth's fragile environment to be undermined can be likened to the political idiocy of the European heads of state on the eve of World War I. I believe that their inevitable failure to cope with problems beyond their understanding means that they will ultimately suffer the same fate as Corbachev and the leaders of the former Soviet Union."
 

"Even in the former Soviet Union, suffering from a ten-year drop in life expectancy attributable to past misrule, I do not think the present state of near anarch can continue indefinitely."
 

"So this, then, is the basis of my belief that the struggle against environmental pollution is one that cannot be lost-humankind will not permit its extinction at the hands of those few whose wealth and power can be swiftly eroded in the wake of the consequences of environmental folly."
 
 

If you live within 100 miles of an operating nuclear reactor, or if another Chernobyl-like disaster occurs, add stable iodine (I) to that list.

Since about 440 of the world's 450 large nuclear power plants are in the northern hemisphere, "the next Chernobyl" is very likely to be in the north! So a move to the Southern Hemisphere, far from the ten NUKES there, is the best thing that you can do to protect you and yours from radioactivity.
 

There are two classes of experiments that can test and refine the mathematical model(s) presented in this study:

• Measure the concentrations of Pu, U, Sr and Cs in cells as outlined below.
• The determinations of G-values for extinct, extincting, mutating and healthy amphibia. The most decimated amphibian species would exhibit the highest G-values (10¹⁰G10¹¹), and those salamanders* with the smallest G-values (6x10⁸G2x10⁹) would exhibit minimal genetic impacts.

 

• In Amphibia, their eggs and tadpoles, large Fish and large Mammals in 260 Global fresh water sites: one per nation plus 100 "selected" fresh water sites in and out of nearby, downwind and downstream fallout tracks.
• In associated Estuaries, Muds and Waters (Streams, Rivers, Ponds, Marshes and Headwaters), in and out of downwind and downstream tracks and around Chernobyl, TMI, "C-40," NTS, etc.
• In associated Fish, flowering Plants, Monera, Ferns, Angiosperms, Algae and Protista.
• In associated Amphibia Prey (Insects, Crustacea, Worms and small Fish).
• In the associated Amphibian Predators (Fish, Reptiles, Birds, Mammals).

 

Again, I quote from "The Enemy Within," p. 192:

"As a result of human population growth, consequent shifts in hunting and habitat patterns, and recent environmental abuses, it has been estimated that over the past few millennia biological species have been disappearing at a rate of 30,000 each year, a rate matching that of the Permian extinction 65 million years ago, when nearly 95 percent of all species were obliterated. One should consider, for example, that the current worldwide disappearance of frogs includes remote areas with inaccessible high altitudes, which cannot be attributed to industrial chemical pollution alone."

"In retrospect, it seems obvious that if low-level radiation can harm the human immune response, all other living beings would also be adversely affected. Certainly there has been considerable damage done in the past half century."
 
 
 
 
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Species of Bolitoglossine Salamanders

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In 1952 the U.S. government told U.S. utilities "Go nuclear, or we will nationalize the electric power industry." The utilities asked where they could get insurance, for not even "Lloyd's of London" would set premiums for this large, dangerous and untried new technology. Senators Price and Anderson drafted an Act that provided federal coverage (a few cents on the dollar) for losses endured from an accident in the first 63 nuclear power reactors (dubbed "experimental") in the U.S.

The U.S. Insurance industry responded promptly by writing a "Nuclear Exclusion Clause" into every insurance policy sold from then on in the U.S. Check your own insurance policies (home, business, etc.). The "Nuclear Exclusion Clause" provides that your insurance policy does not apply to losses due to nuclear war or nuclear reactor accidents, releases or radioactive contamination. Many go into great detail about what they don't cover.

There are now 107 commercial nuclear power plants operating in the U.S., and more than 4000 Reactor years of U.S. commercial nuclear power experience (Fermi, TMI-II, ?), not to mention the experimental nuclear reactors that exploded at Los Alamos and Idaho NEL. The "Price-Anderson Act" has been reenacted each time it has come up for renewal every 5 years, and U.S. insurance policies have nuclear exclusion clauses.

All of this GUARANTEES that the (U.S.) Public is not protected from physical contamination or from economic ruin by our large, irresponsible nuclear power industry.* What about the "coverage" provided by the out-of-date Price-Anderson Act? Since all of the operating commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. are about 1000 MegaWatts (Almost Ten Billion Dollars each), guess which nuclear utilities have Applications Already Filled-Out (except for the date) and ready to submit to the AEC/NRC so they can recover their losses FIRST!!! Guess how much of the Price-Anderson money will be left for "The People" after the nuclear utility is paid for the nuclear reactor that they lost! Duh!

Once again the nuclear Federal-Industrial Conspiracy ("business as usual") against the interests of "The People" is clear. So what can we do?

• Tell your U.S. senators that it is time to discard the Price-Anderson Act (comes up again in 2002 AD).
• In view of the elevated U.S. breast cancer death rates within 100 mi. of most operating nuclear reactors in the U.S.*,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* See Figure 6 (p. 19), copied from "The Enemy Within" by S. Jay Gould, et al, 1997.
 

This same point of view expects the Chiefs of Justice in the sovereignities of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, England, France, Italy and Norway, et al. to seek repayment for the present and future human and economic costs of Chernobyl releases?

National, State and Local "Fish and Wildlife" Departments worldwide can now bring suits to recover Chernobyl-induced losses due to the decade of National, State and Local amphibian and other decimations. To make this legal knot tight, the observations specified on p. 52 must be taken and verified.

The logical conclusion of this reasoning is that when the determinations of G's and C's (Pu, Sr+Cs, U, etc.) in species and in environments, Isotope Ratios, etc. show that the Amphibian Decimations are indeed due to radioactive insults released from Chernobyl IV, a call will propagate around the world for the prompt shutdown of large (commercial, military, etc.) nuclear reactors worldwide. That call will resonate and grow into a deafening thunder that will bring down the walls of The Nuclear Jericho.

To start with, the worst of the chronically bad nuclear reactors must be shut down immediately and decommissioned. Then the rest will be phased-out ASAP with impatience.

With informed public, corporate and government participation in a global energy conservation and procrastination program, most of the remaining nuclear reactors on Earth will be shut down. Thus, terminal escalation of the ongoing vertebrate mass extinctions can be precluded. This is a thing that must be done intelligently in the next ten to fifteen years if humans are to survive the 21^st century.

Once that we "Victims* of Chernobyl" start winning our lawsuits against Chernobyl's heirs, we'll see how eager governments are to license or to operate more large nukes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* No physical protection, no property protection, no insurance protection, no health protection, no economic protection, no inheritance protection; no land, crop or livestock protection,

no, no, no, no . . . Just Say No Nukes!!!
 

The U.S. Federal Government has seized "states'" and "the people" Constitutional "powers" when the Feds told U.S. Utilities (each with a STATE franchise) to "Go nuclear or We Will Nationalize the Utilities", and when the Feds enacted "The Price-Anderson Act", they were in direct, unconstitutional, economic competition with U.S. and world insurance companies:
 

Amendment x (1791)

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
 

Since no state has surrendered its right to license (to construct, or to operate) nuclear power plants, states still have the right to shut down nuclear power plants operating in their jurisdictions. So "The People" may be most effective by getting their states to revoke nuclear power plant licenses.

Federal Subsidies of Large-Scale Nuclear Technologies (Military and Commercial) Must Stop, and a National Program to Shut Down All Large Scale Nuclear Projects Worldwide and to Start the Crash Program to Remove Radioactive Hazards for the Biosphere will become our primary commitment. Assign every National Lab and each Federal Contractor the task of finding new, failsafe ways of "completely" removing U.S. Radioactive Hazards from the Biosphere. Thinking is our most fruitful effort.

Burial in the Earth does not provide a real expectation of isolation of radioactive wastes from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. Existing radioactive wastes will remain hazardous for almost one million years.

Burial at sea is an absurd idea that does not survive scrutiny.

Normal transport accident rates guarantee releases of radioactivity along transport routes.

One large rocket in 25 or 30 explodes in the atmosphere; that's too many to carry radioactive wastes. We would no survive the explosion of one such rocket in the atmosphere. Remember, we are talking about millions of tons of radioactive wastes.

Burning radioactive wastes in an incinerator invariably releases radioisotopes into the atmosphere and defeats the goal of "isolation." Further, whatever radioisotopes are captured in the incinerators' filters must be isolated from the biosphere for more than 750,000 years and longer! We still don't know how to do that.

The entirety of my testimony on the Health Problems in "The People of Socorro, New Mexico" due to "Depleted Uranium" Weapons Testing a few miles upwind, and in "the People" of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo and other "Depleted Uranium" release sites is presented here.

I was born and raised in New Mexico, and I have had an interest in New Mexico's Growing Radioactive Contamination since 1945 when I saw "the Trinity Shot."
 

In Iraq the average surface contamination (Ci/km²) of thousands of square miles due to "Depleted Uranium" incendiaries (DUI) is equal to the average global surface contamination due to Chernobyl's Cs-137 releases (0.01 to 0.1 Ci/km²) as shown in the map of northern Eurasia. Since Chernobyl's 1986 radioactive releases have caused 10X to 100X increased biospheric radioactivity, the global amphibian decimations, increased cancer death rates in humans, a decrease in "Life Expectancy" from 68 years to 42 years for Russians, and regional contamination of U.S. populations in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, etc. (all shown directly downwind from the Nevada (A-bomb) Test Site (NTS) on the U.S. NTS map where A-bomb fallout and radioactive releases from Los Alamos had already elevated surface radioactivity (Pu, Cs, Sr, etc.) during the 40 years before Chernobyl); additional radioactive releases only escalate the radioactive threats to exposed living beings.
 

Socorro County, New Mexico already has its share of Chernobyl's Cs-137 contamination (0.01 to 0.1 Ci/km²) and NTS's Pu-239, Cs-137, Sr-90, "HOTS", etc. fallout (which should be somewhat less than the NTS fallout in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona); "Trinity" Pu, Cs, Sr, etc.; elevated breast cancer death rates due to radioactive releases from Los Alamos' Nuclear Reactors (see the following U.S. and New Mexico maps)* from 1942 to now (in black) and of New Mexico and the U.S. that includes predictable WIPP transport releases in red, plus the windblown Uranium aerosols from DUI burning in the Socorro Test Site (STS) just west of New Mexico Tech. (NMT), (see the maps of Socorro and environs) starting in 1972.
 

In addition to the other radioactive contaminations, the large amounts of DUI released into the STS environment and distributed according to the STS schedule and STS windrose(s) has not been good news for downwind and downstream amphibia, children, . . . mammals, . . .
 

A good way to compare the relative significance of STS Radioactivity with Chernobyl's is to determine where the growing amphibian population depletions started; [(N(t)] for DUI's after '72 or after '86 out to 50 miles in the STS windrose lobes.
 

"DUI" = "depleted uranium" indenciaries

= depleted uranium "Incendiots" who order, buy, plan for and use these insidious, radioactive incendiary weapons! Naughty! Naughty!
 

Here I interject a letter to the U.N. and two Preprints from my forthcoming book ("Human Extinction on this Chernobyl-Contaminated Planet" : "A WARNING" and the chapter on "Gulf War" Cancers from "Depleted Uranium (U-238) Penetrators"). In the last table in that chapter, "Estimated Ci(U-238)/km² (STS)," the local surface contamination due to the burning of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* See Figures 6, 7 and 8 too. 

 
 

I am an independent PhD physicist concerned about radioactive contamination.
Attached is a 9-point argument that supports my request that you expand your U.N. studies of the global U-238 problems to include the measurements that I need to define unambiguously the relationship(s) between U-238 contamination and specific morbidity, mortality, and survival problems in exposed Iraqui, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian, U.N., U.S. and other populations.
 

These empirically-defined relationships would allow us to determine which regions of Iraq; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia; Socorro, New Mexico; etc. are uninhabitable "sacrifice zones"
 

Further, appropriate compensation for these unintended, unexpected and denied consequences of U.S. and British U-238 war technologies can be offered.
 

I am enthusiastic about participating in the proposed programs. Pleas feel free to call on me to demonstrate and explain the mathematical model and its applications to anyone you want.
 

Also enclosed are:
 

A) The summary and the derivation of the mathematical model from my published book:
 

"Human Survival on a Plutonium-Contaminated Planet," Amador Press: Albuquerque, New Mexico: 1998.
 

B) "A WARNING" and the chapter "Gulf War" Cancers from . . ." preprints from my soon-to-be-published book "Human Extinction on this Chernobyl-Contaminated Planet," Amador Press: Albuquerque, New Mexico: 1998.
 
 
 

Cordially,
 

Charles L. Hyder
 

Copy to U.S. Secretary of Defense Cohen
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Attachment
 

• I have derived a sound mathematical model for radioactive insult by alpha-particles in cells' genomes that specifies the concentration of Pu in cells, C(Pu) required to cause harmful mutation rates in the contaminated cells of various vertebrate species (see the published Pu book enclosures).

 
• In my forthcoming Chernobyl book, that mathematical model is applied to the enormous release of 40 million Curies of Cs-137 from Chernobyl during the spring of 1986.

 
• Global contamination by that Cs-137 explains the worldwide extinctions and decimations of amphibian species since Chernobyl.

 
• Measured high Cs-137 contaminations of Europe and Asia explain the drastic reductions in "Life Expectancy" in Russia, Ukraine and Byelorus since Chernobyl.

 
• The "unexpected" and "surprising" worldwide increases in post-Chernobyl cancer rates are also explained by the high global concentrations of Cs-137.

 
• These analyses show that humans (all mammals) are on the threshold of experiencing the same radioactive consequences as the amphibia have shown. The next Chernobyl-size disaster will push Humans, et al. over that threshold and cause global mass extinctions of humans, mammals, many fish and reptiles, some birds and even more amphibian species and threaten human survival before the year 2100.

 
• When this mathematical model is applied to WIPPu, it shows that even a release of 100 lbs. Pu from WIPP (<1% release) during the next 50,000 yrs would also threaten Human Survival and cause global mass extinctions of any other vertebrate species.

 
• Detailed measurements of U-238 contaminations (Curies/sq. kilometer, Ci/km²; and micro Curies/individual, µCi body burden), and associated individual locations and body weights, are needed throughout Iraq, Kuwait and northeastern Saudi Arabia and around Socorro, New Mexico before any conclusive connections can be made between U-238 contaminations and the observed human mortalities and morbidities in the contaminated regions.

 
• Health problems due to U-238 would involve primarily lungs, kidneys bones, the spleen, the lower large intestine, the liver, fatigue and survival in exposed populations.

Dear Secretary Cohen:
 

The enclosed letter to Kofi Amman (UN) outlines real problems that can arise from the use of "Depleted Uranium (U-238) penetrators in regions occupied by living things. The Iraqi claims that their people are being victimized by the U-238 contaminations in their homelands could well be true.
 

It is said that 300 tons to 1,000,000 tons (?) of U-238 contaminations in their homelands could well be true.
 

Given the recent bombings, Kuwait may be the best place to initiate these clarifying measurement studies, and their public health consequences. After that, Iraq may be more receptive to these proposals.
 

Please do what you can to expedite clarification of this issue. Subjecting the UN, Iraqi and other peoples to unintended and unnecessary suffering due to our actions cannot be a goal of the U.S., of the British, or of the U.N.
 

Thank you for your attention.
 

Cordially,
 

Charles L. Hyder

22 March 1999
 

Dear Secretary Cohen:
 

In the context of my certified letter of 16 December 1998 that arrived at your Pentagon on 16 February 1999:
 

There is an element, Hafnium (Hf) that is:

Pyrophoric when "finely divided"!

Dense, Sp. Gr.=13.31;

NOT Radioactive! And

of Low Toxicity!!!
 

This element looks like it is an excellent, humane replacement for "Depleted Uranium" in your penetrating weapons (bunkers and armor).
 

Hafnium may not be the best solution; I happened across it when I was studying other things. Perhaps your experts can find a preferable dense, pyrophoric, non-toxic substance that satisfies your military needs without causing any unnecessary suffering by unintended innocent victims.
 

I really feel strange as I help you redesign weapons of war!
 

Cordially,
 

Charles L. Hyder
 

RSVP

xc: Kofi Annan

Damacio Lopez

The World
 

1000 to 3000 large (ten pound) "Depleted Uranium Penetrators", or 15,000 to 45,000 small

(2/3 lb.) Rounds, within 3 miles (5 km) of STS would equal or exceed the 0.01 to 0.1 Ci/km² of global Chernobyl contamination. So those amounts of aerosolized U-238 would double the radioactive insult in living things downwind from STS to the Rio Grande River and beyond. Since Chernobyl contamination has already caused global amphibian decimations, that doubling is more than enough to cause all of the ill health effects observed in "The People" of Socorro, N.M.

In the Grants-Mt. Taylor-Shiprock Uranium mine and mill region, strict regulations limit how much U-238 etc. can be left lying around. Here at the STS, NMT researchers take no pains to contain the highly toxic clouds of hot, windblown U-238 aerosols generated at the STS. That's not right!

Does anyone really believe that the New Mexico economy, (tourism, real estate, retirement, etc.) will thrive, or even survive, when the highly-publicized WIPP Transport accidents in New Mexico (50 to 150) lead to radioactive releases (5 to 20) along I-25 and U.S. 285 between Raton and WIPP (see NM map) during the next 30 years or so that add even more long-lived radioactive contamination to our already considerable radioactive exposures? Fat Chance!

"We The People" are experiencing the consequences of "safe", "harmless", low levels of radioactive exposure, and we are teaching our governments and our top board members that even releases of "benign" "Depleted Uranium" will not be tolerated. It is extremely cruel, then deadly for anyone or anything living in, around, downwind from, or downstream from (Depleted) Uranium Explosions, Tests, Mines, Mills, etc. Any radiation detector will tell you if Depleted Uranium contaminates any Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, U.S. test site, soldier, child, river, etc.

Chernobyl raised the global biospheric radiation levels above the publicly-acceptable level when Chernobyl's Cs-137, etc., decimated global amphibian populations. Since then even "benign" additions of radioactivity to the biosphere elevate the local Human Populations above the "harmless" levels and cause Human Beings in Iraq; Kuwait; NTS; Socorro, New Mexico (Exhibit 3 & U.S. Map); etc. to exhibit the same symptoms as the millions of Human victims of Chernobyl, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and the same as those billions of radioactive amphibian victims have exhibited since Chernobyl (26 Apr. 1986).

Our nuclear decisions makers must face the fact that Chernobyl has pushed us past the edge; we have taken up all of the radioactive "slack" that biological reality allows on this Earth!

What would another Chernobyl do now in that intolerant context?

We must stop releasing radioactivity into the biosphere!

There are about 500 Chernobyl-size nuclear reactors operating on the Earth. The "drums" are no longer distant. It is time to shut down those large nuclear reactors, and the more than 1000 military and commercial reactors that power ships, submarines, isolated populations, etc.

Oh yes indeed, there is an alternative to extinction; NASA, et al. (Provided they stop sending radioactive power supplies to the Moon(s) and to Mars!).

The global Cs-137 contamination will dominate vertebrate health and survival for more than a century! Then Pu-239 contamination will dominate for the next million years! But the U-238 contaminated regions will remain deadly "sacrifice zones" until the Sun Expands to consume the Earth in 5 billion years!

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¹Anything in here may be copied and distributed freely as long as proper credit is given: Booktitle, author and Publisher name, address and phone number conspicuous.

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Today, 1 Dec. 1998, the four major U.S. TV networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN) announced that Dictator Saaddam Hussein claimed that U.S. Uranium (from "Depleted Uranium Penetrators") has contaminated his people (adults and children) and given them many cancers and deaths. An M.D. confirmed unusually high cancer rates in people from the vicinity of tank battlefields.

On p.3 of "the book" ^† (9 Nov. '98') this cancer plague was "predicted" in, near and downwind from those tank battlefields, "Depleted Uranium" fires in Kuwait and bunker-penetrating bomb detonations, see paragraph (3) on p. 3, of "the book": "Many Iraqi and U.N. soldiers and Iraqi and Kuwaiti civilians and their descendants will die of cancers and other genetic damage caused by the 300 tons of radioactive 'Depleted Uranium penetrators' that were vaporized during the one-sided 'Gulf War' bombings and in tank battles."

U.S. "experts" claimed that "Depleted Uranium is so benign* that it cannot cause the claimed Iraqi cancers and deaths."

These contradictory claims can be resolved by measuring C(U-238) in the cells of the Iraqi victims. The following analysis based on "the Species Survival Equation", (p. 23 of "the book") for U-238 in Humans ( = 4.5x10⁹ yrs., G = 3x10⁹ and Ro = 5x10^-3 cm.) shows what C(U-238)'s in Human cells are required to cause mutations, cancers, etc. for t₂>100 ("2X")) and deaths (t₂"2X").
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¹Anything in here may be copied and distributed freely as long as proper credit is given:

Book title, author and Publisher name, address and phone number conspicuous.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*"Uranium and its compounds are highly toxic, both from a chemical and radiological standpoint." p. B-36, CRC "Handbook of Chemistry and Physics," 55th Edition (1974-75).

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^† "the book" = "Human Survival on a Plutonium-Contaminated Planet",

1998 by Charles L. Hyder, Amador Publisher.

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C = the concentration of radioactive isotope (I)

I = Sr-90+Cs-137 (ß-emitters), or Pu-239(-emitter), or U-238, ...

20 - "the -factor", =1.0 for ß's

= the isotope "decay time", = _1/2/0.69

R_o = the particle (, or ß) range
 
 
 

For t₂(U-238) = t₂(Pu-239),
 

_U 4.5x10⁹ yrs.

_Pu 2.4x10⁴ yrs.
 
 

so C(U-238) 1.9x10⁵ C(Pu-239), and
 

For t₂ = "2X",
 
 

The graph of "The Equation" for C(U-238) is shown in Figure 12 along with C(Pu-239) for comparison.

From Figure 12, the minimum harmful range of C(U-238) for humans is:
 

The heavy black border in the Table encloses the U-238 "body levels" that exceed the 0.009 Ci "permissible body level" for insoluble uranium in the words of the CRC Handbook (see second footnote on p. 2).
 

So Human cells with average U-238 concentrations, C(U-238) somewhere in the range:
 

will cause the symptoms observed in Iraqi victims of U.S. and British U-238 weapons. With these numbers of Uranium atoms per cubic centimeter (<10¹⁴ to 10¹⁸), the "body levels" of U-238 in Curies (Ci) are needed for all exposed individuals.

An additional test of the consequences of "benign" vaporized U-238 is to study amphibian populations along the Euphrates River and the Rio Grande River, or marshes near, or downwind and downstream from, areas where "Depleted Uranium Penetrators" were used. If humans are indeed suffering from exposure to U-238 radioactive contamination, nearby amphibia would exhibit a variety of typical symptoms (elevated cancers, mutations, morbidities, extinctions, etc.), depending on their genome sizes (see Figure G).

"The Species Survival Equation" is specifically applicable to the "benign" low levels of radioactivity (10^-3 to 10^-1 Rem) that the World's nuclear establishments habitually call "safe" and "non-hazardous" for humans.

While this section was developed with Iraqi and Kuwaiti civilians and soldiers in mind, it is also applicable to U.N. soldiers who were exposed to high levels of U-238 contamination during "The Gulf War", and to the many U.S. citizens exposed during tests of these insidious U-238 weapons near Socorro, New Mexico, etc. (See the maps in "A WARNING").

Could U-238 Contamination be a synergistic source of "Gulf War Syndrome" in U.S. Gulf War Veterans? The symptoms are right. How about the symptoms exhibited by the citizens of Socorro, N.M.?

Thus, the Iraqis, the Kuwaitis and the U.N. inspectors, et al. need to determine wholebody Ci values for individual victims; all to be recorded along with their weight and their personal and health histories, particularly their locations and experiences during and after "the Gulf War". In addition, good maps showing Ci(U-238)/km² throughout, within 100 miles of and within the downstream and downwind plumes (500 miles long and 200 miles wide) of all penetrating explosions in Iraq and in Kuwait. With these data, "Lethal and Dangerous" zones can be defined, evacuated and fenced. The costs of all of these actions and more must be born by the U.N., the Nations using "Depleted Uranium Penetrators" and the Nations that decided to use such inhumane, cruel weapons.

I would be happy to do the analyses and to make and explain the necessary determinations if I can get the specific data for U-238, etc. outlined above before the DOE sends its first truck to WIPP ( spring 1999).

With "Uranium compounds" a comparison shows that its chemical toxicity (CT) is 6× less than even its "benign" radioactive toxicity (RT). If we use that comparison to estimate the radioactive toxicity of other isotopes compared with the chemical toxicity of "Uranium compounds", we get

Only Insoluble levels were defined as "permissible" for both, and a "chemically permissible level" of 0.24 mg/m³ for U-238 in air would exceed the IU^* Radioactive "permissible levels" by a factor of 6! So Uranium radioactive toxicity is much greater than its chemical toxicity (CT). Pu-239 Radioactive Toxicity is about one million times greater than UCT; with Sr-90+Cs-137, their RT = 10¹⁰xUCT; and "The HOTS" RT is ten million billion times greater than U CT! Whew!

In general, radioactivity is much more toxic per gram of a radioactive isotope than chemistry. So if someone is known to be suffering from the chemical toxicity of "Depleted Uranium", they are sure to be suffering from its RT too, probably even more.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

^*IU = Insoluble Uranium

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So these Heavy Radioactive Aerosols of Cs₂O and UO₃ will behave about the same if pyrophoric T(U+O₂->UO₃) 2500C. The Cs₂O cloud from Chernobyl circled the Earth more than twice! So the UO₃ aerosols will arise from the open-air burning of U (on the ways into and out of a tank) on the outsides of tanks penetrated by Uranium weapons. Open air tests onto the ground, rocks, targets, hillsides, etc. would yield UO₃ aerosols spread in abundance over the bottom half-mile of the atmosphere above, and for many miles downwind from, the "explosion" site. For those "small" amounts of U-238 per weapon (Recall that > 2.5 Tons (U-238) would yield 1 Ci of radioactivity), say ten lbs of pyrophoric U is vaporized, then "aerosolized" to UO₃+U₂O₃. How many tons of Uranium were burned/vaporized/aerosolized in the open air at the Socorro Test Site (STS) at about (1/500) Ci per 10 lb. U-weapon?

The following Table of estimated average U-contamination (Ci/km²) of the NE quadrant downwind from the Socorro Test Site (STS) shows that amphibia, high-G insects, mammals (Humans) and Max.-G reptiles would suffer serious genetic damage out to 1 to 3 mi. (1.7 to 5 km) from STS, and amphibia with (10¹⁰ G 10¹¹) in the Rio Grande Valley would be extincting. Those same amphibian species 6 to 20 mi. downwind would be mutating and showing peculiarities, but those >50 miles away (north of Belen) would be unharmed? except in "Hot Spots" north, east and south of STS.
 
 

^*Equals Average global Contamination due to Cs-137 from Chernobyl (Ci/km²) that has decimated global amphibian species since 1986-1988. Conditions inside the heavy border are "not healthy for children and other living beings."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Thus, careful studies of amphibian species in the Rio Grande Flood Plain between Bernardo, N.M. and San Marcial, N.M. would show a decrease in genetic damage in those amphibia with distance from Socorro with most damage observed between Escondida and San Antonio, N.M. Eventually, a great deal of that dispersed U-238 will be washed into the river and scoured downstream into "Hot Spots", San Acacia, the Elephant Butte Marsh and finally deep Elephant Butte Silts where most of it will contaminate, accumulate and remain to contaminate the lake's food webs "till time and times are done, ...". Don't eat fish, waterfowl, reptiles or amphibia taken from Elephant Butte Res. or from the Rio Grande River south of Bernardo. The Uranium will accumulate in your bodies throughout your lifetimes. This is particularly important for young people.

While the regions within 5 mi. (8 km) of STS are lethally contaminated with U-238 radioactivity, there will be additional deadly "Local Hot Spots" along the river and on the plains beyond 6 to 20 miles from the STS; perhaps as far as the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, part of which is 15 to 55 miles downwind northeast of the STS.

While these estimates and predictions are "reasonable," only careful measurement of surface-contamination (Ci/km²) and "body levels" ( Ci) of U-238 within 50 mi. of Socorro (STS) can define which regions are risky, dangerous or "unhabitable" for Humans, amphibia, other mammals, reptiles, fish, etc. in and around Socorro, 50 mi. north and south along the river and on the hills and plains N, NE and E of Socorro. A good "wind rose" for STS would help.

For "body levels" of U-238 (Ci) in populations occupying lands where Ci = Ci/km² numerically, like with Chernobyl's Cs-137 contaminations, estimations of C(U-238) in vertebrate cells can be made for various body weights (10, 60, 120, 180 & 240 lbs.) for
 

so 10¹⁴ C(U-238) 10¹⁷.
 

This range for C(U-238) would damage many species of amphibia, including frogs, and kill those species with the largest genomes. Fig. 12 shows this. For "Hot Spots" of U-238 (0.5 Ci/km² and 10¹⁶ C(U-238) 10¹⁷), Humans, mammals, reptiles, frogs and some fish would be severely threatened or killed. These highest concentrations of U-238 will occur in "Hot Spots" and usually within three miles of STS.

Again, only careful measurements (Ci/km² & Ci) can define "Hot Spots" and "uninhabitable" regions in Iraq; Socorro, N.M.; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia, etc.

The measurements and experiments needed to determine the U-238 contamination levels from STS "tests" must include studies of People, amphibia, reptiles, and birds who live within ten miles (all directions) of STS and within fifty miles in the STS windrose lobe(s).

Because of this multitude of existing sources of radioactive contamination, and future sources (WIPP releases, more "tests" at STS, plus . . .), the NM State Epidemiologist is the ideal person to propose a few new laws designed to protect NM citizens from the growing threat of local to state-wide population decimations [first many amphibian species, then reptiles and People (mammals)] due to ever higher levels of radioactive contamination in, around, downwind and downstream from the STS and other sources of radioactive releases in New Mexico:

(1) Put the "Burden of Proof" on anyone who proposes a radioactive program in New Mexico that their program will not harm people, pets, livestock, or wildlife in New Mexico.

(2) Since victims of radioactive exposure suffer the consequences (cancers, death, generations of genetic damage, etc.) years, decades and generations after exposure; inevitable latent consequences of exposure to victims of radioactivity must be given "legal standing" in the State of New Mexico and in New Mexico Courts.

(3) For large-scale radioactive programs that could decimate the populations or the economies of New Mexico towns, cities, counties, highways or regions; sound scientific studies MUST determine whether a program is approved! Currently, all of our decisions are based exclusively on economic, political and/or corrupt considerations.

I submit my book "Human Survival on a Plutonium-Contaminated Planet" because it contains the derivation of "The Species Survival Equation" which is the basis for Figure 12. Also because it gives detailed arguments on why we all need the three new kinds of laws proposed above to protect us all from the spreading, global radioactive plague that threatens all life on this earth.

Thank You.

The current ratio U-235/U-238 = 7x10^-3. That ratio (N₅/N₈) was about one, or

N(U-238) N(U-235) when the earth was formed.

With that kind of enrichment of U-235, Natural Reactors and A-Bomb fizzles must have been commonplace during the first 3 b.y. of the earth. Then N₅/N₈<2% finally occurred about

2.4 b.y.a.

With 2% U-235 115%, would there be Natural Reactor conditions satisfied frequently within, or deep within, the earth?

How does this, the "C 40 Pu trench" and 2,600 lbs. of WIPPu, etc. look? Hundreds to Thousands of years of released WIPPu accumulating in layers of wet silts in the Red Bluff Reservoir, Texas are capable of reconcentrating critical masses in a 4m³ sphere11 lbs Pu

(>10^-3 gm Pu/cc) to produce a "Pu fizzle" like the "Chelyabinsk-40 Pu-trench" yielded the world's first wet "Natural" 13 kT "Pu fizzle" in 1957-'58. We would be more likely to get the World's first "Natural" Water-Moderated Pu-Reactor, which would form in the wet site of the Red Bluff Reservoir, Texas, and cause some WIPPu to fission into its 300-odd dangerous "fission daughters". Such a configuration would be continuously resupplied with freshly-released WIPPu as older Pu was consumed by fissions.

The Red Bluff Reservoir would become "The Uncontrolled Red Bluff Pu Reactor" that would send the majority of its "fission daughters" 45 miles south through Pecos, Texas; then to the Rio Grande River and the Amstad Reservoir, Del Rio, Texas (Ciudad Acuna, Mexico) and into the Falcon Reservoir*, Brownsville (Matamoro, Mexico) and finally the Golfo de Mexico* and the Atlantic Ocean.

Have the DOE, Westinghouse, the EPA, the U.S. Congress, Sandia Labs, LANL, the AEC or the NRC done the computer models for a Wet "Natural" Pu Reactor there?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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*These are two additional dam sites and the Rio Grande Delta where lots of WIPPu can accumulate in silts.

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The Inevitable WIPP Breccia Pipe:
 

Even if an unhealed WIPP Breccia Pipe (WIPPipe) does not reach the surface, how far would it have to go up before it:

• released large amounts of overlying Rusler, Culebra and aquifers (brines and fresh) that would flow down into the WIPPipe that would have direct access to WIPPu, and mobilize all of that "isolated" WIPPu, etc.?
• it would breach into overlying Karst Formations in times < 2000 years?

 

On Saturday, 9 January 1999, new Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said
 

"In my view, WIPP is ready to open. The project has satisfied a number of health conditions at the state and federal level. I believe shipments can go forward."
 

When discussing New Mexico's requirement for a state permit to ship "mixed wastes"* to WIPP, Richardson said:
 

"We want to work with the state . . . not against it."
 

In response to New Mexico concerns about additional hazardous waste shipments to WIPP after Los Alamos ships its 116 "drums" of radioactive-only wastes to WIPP, Richardson assured:
 

"We will ensure that the interests of the state are protected, . . ." and

"It is my view that WIPP is safe."
 

I could fill an encyclopedia with what is wrong and misleading about Richardson's statements, but there is a better-informed critic of WIPP safety than I. Charles M. Loftus, the experienced engineer who was brought in by the DOE years ago "to finish WIPP," has responded to Richardson's comments, and I quote him.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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* radioactive wastes and "other hazardous wastes" in the same barrel.
 

In January 1999, Loftus wrote (Loftus' letters have been corrected for "typos"):
 

"To: Bill Richardson, Energy Secretary
 

From: Charles M. Loftus
 

"This morning when I received my Current Argus newspaper, I read the article where you state "The WIPP is ready to open. The project has satisfied a number of health conditions at the state and federal level. I believe shipments can move forward." I am telling you the same as I told the admiral when he was Secretary of Energy in 1987 that the site is not ready to receive waste at this time as it has many health and safety problems that have not been corrected. The problems that I wrote to the secretary of Energy in 1987 still exist today. Each of them are a health and safety problem. When I wrote to the admiral twelve years ago, his assistant called when they received the letter and wanted to know why I had stated in my letter that they had a site and buildings but would not used them for ten years. I told him of some major problems. He in turn told the admiral, the Secretary of Energy, the same. He called me and asked for some major problems, which I told him about. He slammed down the phone, flew to Carlsbad overnight, and fired the supervisors at the site for not telling him about these problems.
 

"I have told the admiral, Hazel O'Leary, who was Secretary of Energy, Mr. Peña and now you Mr. Richardson of these health and safety problems. I will be forwarding to you the letters I sent to them and the faxes to the President and Vice President about these problems. At this time, I am only going into one problem. As you know, the Waste Handling Building is designed to operate in negative pressure in case of a spill or accident in the building so the contamination would be contained in the building. The original design had airlocks for the trucks to drive into so they could unload their hazardous and radioactive cargo in the building. In 1986 when I arrived to work for the Corp of Engineers as acting Project Engineer, we the Corp and DOE and Westinghouse already knew the airlocks were too small to handle the trucks and large containers. It was suggested that the airlocks be removed and one large airlock built parallel to the building so the trucks could be unloaded into the negative pressure area of the Waste Handling Building; this has never been done. Their method of correcting this problem was to buy a large forklift truck and unload the containers off the trucks in the yard outside of the building with no protection from radiation or contamination if they have an accident when unloading the cargo. As you can see, this alone is a major health and safety problem which could contaminate the site and surrounding areas. I firmly believe, until this problem is taken care of that no waste should be allowed to be shipped to the site.
 
 
 

"I would like you and the President and the Vice President and the Speaker of the House to come to Carlsbad and take my tour, so I can show you all of the other health and safety problems on the site. I want no DOE, Westinghouse, or any other contractors on site to be on this tour as I want to show you, as I stated above, all of the health and safety problems and how they could be corrected. DOE and the contractors do not want you or congress to know of these problems, because it would take another five, possibly ten years of construction to correct them. They do not want to go to congress at this time and ask for a large sum of money to do what is necessary for the safety of all people on the site and the State of New Mexico.
 

"I close again by stating the WIPP Site is not ready to receive any waste at this time. Also, the local newspaper and local radio station have blackballed us so that we can not print an answer to your statements in the paper. This is not free press or free speech. I think the people of Carlsbad and the State of New Mexico, the Attorney General, the Governor, and all the Senators and Congressmen from the state of New Mexico should be told of these problems."
 

"Sincerely,
 

Charles M. Loftus

Retired Corp of Engineers
 

cc: Bill Clinton, President

Al Gore, Vice President

Speaker of the House"
 
 
 
 
 

As you can see, it was clear to Mr. Loftus that WIPP was not ready to open in January 1999. Then in February 1999, Mr. Loftus sent Richardson a followup letter, which I have edited for brevity:
 
 
 

"My name is Charles M. Loftus, for you people who don't know who I am. Ten years ago, I was acting Project Engineer for the U.S. Army Corp Engineers at the WIPP site. I was brought over from California to make sure the site was completed per plans and specifications."
 

"I retired shortly after Westinghouse and DOE took over the site, and at this time the Admiral who was Secretary of Energy has made the statement that the site was ready to open and receive waste. I wrote the Admiral a letter telling him that he had a site and buildings that he would not use for ten years. The next morning, my home phone rang and it was the assistant Secretary of Energy wanting to know what I knew about the site that he did not know. I told him I have a list of 135 changes that Westinghouse and DOE told me that they had to have done before the site could open. About 15 minutes later, the phone rang again and it was the Admiral, the Secretary of Energy. He said to me 'We have made our inspections and couldn't find anything wrong with the site.' I told him, 'That's right sir. You did hold your inspections, but you didn't know what they hell you're looking for.' And that's when I told the man about the 30 major changes that had to be made before the site could open and that was the end of our conversation.
 

The next morning, down at the Best Western Sevens, the people sitting in the restaurant in the front of the building could hear him yelling and screaming at the personnel who were in charge of running the WIPP site. He immediately fired all of the personnel who were in charge of the WIPP site and brought new people in who were from Hanford, Washington to run the site. They started to make the repairs and the changes that had to be made to make the site safe to operate. I went to the site at about six months intervals and kept the Admiral advised on how the changes were coming."
 

"Up until two years ago, the WIPP site could not pass safety tests held by many inspection groups who came to town to inspect the site. They couldn't pass the electrical code until about a year and a half ago. But all along they kept saying we're ready, give us the waste we're ready to operate. In my first conversation with the Admiral ten years ago, I mentioned to him that the big steel doors that they had designed to seal off the rooms after they had placed the waste would not work.
 

"Hazel O'Leary, when she was in town about 2 years ago, called me aside and said, 'Charlie, I want you to know that all of the scientists and all of the big engineers have agreed to what you told them ten years ago, that the metal doors will not work.' Hazel O'Leary asked Mr. Dials to come up with a solution to this problem and that I was supposed to go and talk to Mr. Dials about the same. Which I did. He showed me that they had designed a method of closing the rooms off by using large slices of salt blocks, concrete and salt blocks. Hazel O'Leary said Mr. Dials would let me know when to test to see if this would work, when it would be held, and what the conclusion was. I was never notified if or when the test was to run, but he did call me one time and told me a bunch of numbers that came up at the completion of the test and that in theory the salt blocks and the concrete and salt blocks would seal the rooms after the waste had been put in the rooms.
 

"All solutions to this problem have only been in theory and never tested because without bringing waste to the site, and filling a room and back filling with salt, and closing with the salt blocks and concrete, and waiting for the ceilings to collapse, which in turn smash the containers filled with the radioactive material into the salt. We do not know that the pressure build up when the ceilings collapse will blow the salt blocks and concrete out just like the cork of a champagne bottle under pressure. And until this test is run they should not open the WIPP site."
 

"This is a follow up to the first fax sent in January 1997. In this fax I will list all of the major design problems that we will talk about at this time.
 

"1) Air Locks
 

In the design of the waste handling building the Air Locks were to be used to bring the canisters containing the waste into the building to be unloaded in a safe environment, but when they designed the Trupact containers and the large truck to carry same, it was discovered that the Air Locks were too small to allow the trucks to enter the building to be safely unloaded. The answer to this problem instead of building bigger Air Locks they bought a 40-ton fork-lift to unload Trupact containers outside the building and bring them into the building through the Air Locks with the fork-lift."
 

"When I mentioned concrete walls they say, 'The public is not going to wait for us to put up concrete walls.' But, I always say, 'You've had eleven years to put up concrete walls.' They say, 'Radiation doesn't require concrete walls.' I say, 'Contamination does require concrete walls.' Their next comment is, 'We don't know why you're so worried about the exterior metal siding. It is the same type used on all commercial buildings.' But I say, 'This is, and I repeat, this is not a commercial building. This is a nuclear waste handling building and as such should have concrete walls on the exterior for safety and contamination reasons.' Also, to answer number one: Air Locks, I have suggested many times when you build your concrete walls you build a large concrete Air Lock parallel to the building so you can bring the trucks and Trupact container into the Air Lock and safely be unloaded into the building instead of unloading them out in the yard with the fork-lift truck. This completes design problems in the CH area.
 

"2) RH area.
 

We have the same condition with all walls and floors in the entire RH area where we have raw material behind all equipment on the side walls and the floors. When you stand in the RH area with your back to the interior walls you have the same metal siding that we talked about the CH area except that it is a much larger problem here because it could be radiation and contamination both in this area."
 

"3) Hot Cell.
 

For some unknown reason, the Hot Cell was designed on the third floor level instead of on the receiving level. This creates many, many problems which have yet been solved. In order to get anything into the Hot Cell, the large concrete door has to be opened, material put into the receiving bay, close the big door, remove the concrete plug from the Hot Cell area, and raise the material from the receiving bay to the Hot Cell area. The Hot Cell itself is supposed to be a room contained with concrete walls with four sides, concrete ceiling, and concrete floors. But for some reason, the floors of this Hot Cell are about 1/3 concrete, 1/3 metal plates, and 1/3 metal gates with openings. The worst part is the areas directly in front of the oil field windows, where the operator works the manipulator to handle radioactive material, has the grates in the floor in this area; so any contamination released automatically contaminates floors below. All walls and ceiling areas also have nuclear coating problems like the CH area has, raw material behind everything behind the walls."
 

"4) When you go down the stairwell from the RH receiving area, you're about five to six floors below the Hot Cell area (all types of work rooms in this area). When you stand in these rooms and look up again you have steel grating that you can see three to four stories up from this room which should be concrete rooms that should be completely sealed off for contamination reasons. Again we have the same conditions in all these rooms on the nuclear coated walls.
 

5) Underground area. I am not a scientist or underground specialist so I only have two problems. One, which is whether the seals on the rooms will hold after they fill the rooms with the drums, the backfill, and the ceilings collapse whether the pressure will be too great for the salt blocks to remain in place. I think they should think of a temporary support system to hold the salt blocks in place until the ceilings collapse. Then after about 48 hours they can remove them and use them the next time on the next room if this system works.
 

The second problem, and as far as I know nobody has addressed it, is when the ceiling collapses, the void left in the area above the room between the collapsed ceiling and the remaining material should be filled with a solid material so that many years down stream we don't have the material continually dropping until it reaches the surface and causes a large depression above each room area where the barrels are stored which could gather water in future years and possibly give the water a source to the mine level. I think some time should be spent checking in to this.
 

6) We now leave the waste handling building and go to the filter building. If there was an accident in the mine all the air from the mine would go through the HEPA filter system in the filter building, which is a series of all different kind of screens to catch contaminates which would not be released into the environment. It is a very good system except once you have a mine accident at the present time, they have no way to decontaminate and change the filters out so that it can be used in case of another mine accident."
 

"They need to design a system with a quick closing valve right next to the filter system so they can decontaminate the series of rooms which contain the filters and have all the filters automatically removed through the top of the areas between the series of filter rooms. This way they can decontaminate all the rooms and change the filters in a short time and be ready to be back in operation."
 

"I am getting too old and too tired to fight this problem on my own anymore. My options are to pass the problems to you, or to release the information in these faxes through the WEB site and to all TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations in the United States and the World. I have kept this information confidential to only those who were involved with the WIPP site for the last eleven years, and since they are now talking about opening the site, it is time. I'm sorry to say, but I have no alternative but to release this information to the public.
 

I am not against the WIPP site, I just want the site, when it does open, to be safe for the employees of the WIPP site, the citizens of New Mexico, the people of the United States and the rest of the World.
 

C. M. Loftus"
 
 
 

Then on 15 March 1999 he wrote:
 

March 15, 1999
 

TO: Secretary of Energy

Mr. Bill Richardson
 

FROM: Charles M. Loftus

1117 West Ash Street

Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220
 

I am writing to you again about the WIPP site to bring you up to date on the hearings in Carlsbad, New Mexico on March 9, 1999, at which time I made the following statements to the Hearing Officer from Santa Fe in regards to getting a permit to bring pipe barrels and mixed waste to the WIPP site.
 

First, I told him no matter what the engineers, scientists, DOE, or Westinghouse said, the site still had many safety problems and until they are corrected no waste of any kind should be allowed on the site.

• As you know, I have always stated that you have to have air locks large enough to get the trucks into the waste handling building to unload the cannisters and cargo from the trucks. This has never been done. As you probably know, they have opted to buy large forklift trucks to unload the cannisters outside the building and bring them in through the undersized air locks. This is not a safe situation and should never be used to unload the trucks.

 

• It has been two years or longer, when they got their EPA permit, and at that time they said they were ready to receive waste and there were no safety problems on the site whatsoever. As I told the hearing officer here we are having a debate on whether to issue a permit to bring mixed waste and pipe barrels to the WIPP site when they (DOE) have no way to even close the rooms after they put the barrels and backfill in as all their previous efforts have failed. They have drawn up a new plan to do this, but they have not even gotten a permit to use it. I told them I want a copy of the plan and specifications of this new system so that I could see if it is going to fail like I told them the last two would.

 
• I have a big problem with this permit for mixed waste and pipe barrels that somebody dreamed up in Albuquerque that they would meet the criteria to be deposited at the WIPP site. In all the ten years that I went to the EPA hearings, there was no mention of mixed waste or pipe barrels in any of the calculations that would show gas, heat, and radiation from the mine when you mix all three of these types of waste in the mine. We did a five-year test to find out what kind of readings the clothing barrels would give us. We now need a five year test on a mixture of pipe barrels, mixed waste, and clothing barrels, so that we do not have a mixture of explosive materials at the WIPP site, which could be a great disaster. Until these tests are run, I again ask you as I did the Secretary of Energy in 1987, to do the same as he did and say no waste to the site until we can prove to people in New Mexico, the people of the United States, and the leaders of the world that the WIPP site is safe at this time.

 

P.S. Along with this, I will send a list of other safety violations at the site.
 

Sincerely,
 

Charles M. Loftus
 

cc: President, Bill Clinton

Vice President, Al Gore

Speaker of the House"
 
 
 

LIST TO DISCUSS
 

• Concrete exterior walls - CH & RH
• Nuclear coatings of floors
• Airlocks - why are you going to unload canisters outside of the building
• Filter room in waste handling building - openings in floor
• Airlock on railroad door
• Sysstem to bring railcars in and out of building
• Hot cell
• Metal plates on water troughs
• Filter building
• Decontamination station
• How to change filters without contaminating area
• Pipe barrels
• Mixed waste"

Finally, on 29 March 1999, Mr. Loftus wrote:
 

"March 29, 1999
 

To: Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson
 

From: Charles M. Loftus

117 West Ash Street

Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220
 

I am writing you about the WIPP site to bring you up to date on the hearings in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I gave my testimony on March 25, 1999.
 

• When we were on our tour with the hearing officer, scientists and geologists on March 8, 1999, the following statement was made by one of the DOE personnel in charge of the tour. While in the Waste Handling Building, the statement was made that they will never have to worry about contamination or decontamination because they will never open a barrel on this site. So, I sir, being an old navy man, in my mind I said, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," and this is just what I did. I started by telling them that this statement is true, because at this time the way DOE is using the facility, they will never open a barrel. Then sir, I went back to when congress allotted the money to build the site and described in detail how the site was to be use. I told them the rooms that were to be used to handle the corroded barrels and the hot cell was to be used to handle leaky barrels, due to DOE not wanting to go to congress to ask for X number of millions of dollars to correct design and safety problems, all of their supervisors since 1987 would be liable to perjury because they had said the site was safe to receive waste (not only to me, but to the president, the vice president, secretary of energy, congress, the people of the United States, and all the leaders of the world), that this is a safe way to deposit the nuclear waste.

 
• The DOE testimony in Santa Fe was smoke, mirrors, and theory, because they themselves admitted they had no way to compare the site to any other because this has never been done before. The rebuttal testimony was done by doctors in geology, science and other fields who had 30 years or more experience, each in salt mining throughout the world. They sir, told DOE, not once, but twice that panel one and room seven where you now have waste stored should be condemned and no personnel be allowed to enter this area. The reason for this is the roofs in panel one and roof seven have already had a roof failure. They sag about three feet in the center. The original rock bolts have been sheared off. New and stronger rock bolts and heavy cable mesh have been installed to hold the failed roof up so they could use this panel and these rooms. I, sir, on my tour of March 8, 1999, also observed this same condition.The roof is fractured on both sides. The entire length of pane one and room seven, you can see where the rock bolts have fractured due to the failure of the roof and every once in a while, you can hear a loud ping sound, which was another roof bolt failure. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and all I wanted to do was get out of there. Sir, I am sure that if you would come to the site and stand at the end of panel one and look at the condition of the roof, that your hair would curl on the back of your neck too, and you would wonder, "For God's sake, why are these people at DOE having their people work under these unsafe conditions."

 
• You and the WIPP site have had your day on television and newspapers throughout the world, "WIPP is open and the first shipment arrived on Friday morning, March 26, 1999." But God forbid, the next headline you read could be, "National Disaster! Roof cave in at WIPP site, X number of employees killed in accident. Nuclear barrels of waste crushed with no room closures in place. The Mine Was Evacuated, Site was evacuated. Site is closed until DOE can figure out how to clean up their mess just because they wanted to use panel one and room seven to put their waste in." They were told this roof could fall; it could happen at any moment. Again, I repeat, they said that panel one and room seven should be closed and no personnel allowed to enter these areas.

 
• I beg of you sir, come to Carlsbad and see this condition yourself. Do not rely on what DOE personnel in Carlsbad are telling you. One look and I am sure you will tell them to get the waste they have already put in room seven out of that dangerous condition, bring it back to the waste handling building, and no waste be delivered to the site until panel two is excavated and a new room is dug out, so that we can safely put men and waste in a room where the roof could not fall at any time.

 
• I am telling you this to say you will be as responsible for this disaster, if it happens, as your DOE people in the Carlsbad office. I sir, went to the hearings in Santa Fe after DOE did a lot of arguing that I should not be able to make statements at this hearing. But, as I said above, my testimony was deemed as important as all the doctors, scientists, and geologists that came to talk about the WIPP site in rebuttal to DOE's presentation.

• Again, I say, God forbid, that the mentioned above does not happen, but I will close now by saying; please, immediately, get a report of all testimonies in regards to the WIPP site at the Santa Fe hearing now. Do not wait until the hearing officer makes his decision because by that time the above headline could be in every newspaper and television in the world.

 

Charles M. Loftus
 

cc: President, Bill Clinton

Vice President, Al Gore

Speaker of the House"
 
 
 

In view of the powerful and compelling nature of Charles Loftus' testimonies, I conclude his resumé here so that you can make your own evaluation of his credibility as a witness.
 
 

Charles M. Loftus March 21, 1999

1117 West Ash Street

Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220

Telephone (505) 885-3886

Fax (505) 887-5937
 

1939 - While going to trade school, my father fell and got hurt and could not support the family, and since I was going to trade school, the weeks that I was going to be in shop I was allowed to go and work with Blum Welden Engineering Company in Pittsburgh as instrument man on a survey crew on dams and locks on the Ohio River, coal mine survey, underground and strip mining, and private surveys as needed from 1939 to 1942.
 

In March 1942, I entered into the U.S. Navy and worked in engine rooms and boiler rooms on aircraft carriers. One sunk, the other was damaged to the extent that a crew of 4500 and only 704 brought the ship back to the states. I transferred to the Franklin Delanor Roosevelt supercarrier, but never commissioned due to the end of the war. I was discharged on November 5, 1945.
 

I returned home to Pittsburgh on November 5, 1945. I took a GS corp test to go to work for the city of Pittsburgh in the planning department and public works department. I was hired as engineering tech in 1946. I worked from 1946 to 1948 on all projects connected with public works in the city of Pittsburgh.
 

In 1948, due to the Korea war, I went back to work for the government as a civil service employee at Bangor ammunition depot in Bangor, Washington in the surveillance lab, testing all powder and shells from 22 caliber pistols to 16 inch shells for the battle wagons. In all the shells from 5 inch to 16 inch, I had to change all the primers and fuses. On the powder cases, I had to restring due to the ether eating the leather laces on the powder cases, so that when we shipped shells and powder bags to the ships to be used, everything would be okay; this was from 1948 to 1951.
 

In 1951, I transferred to Kodiak, Alaska on a naval airstation, again, working as a civil service employee in the power plant as engine man on lower deck, starting and stopping all machinery needed to put steam turbines online in the power plant to produce electricity. I made necessary repairs on boilers and machinery as required. While working at the power plant, I took ICS courses, highway engineering, and civil engineering, which the government paid for such courses to better ourselves. I worked from 1951 to 1956.
 

In 1956, I went to work for Washington state highway building bridges, freeways, tunnels, and everything needed to build freeway systems from Portland Oregon to the Canadian border; now known as Interstate 5. I worked on two floating bridges, the Evergreen Floating Bridge, and the Hood Canal Floating Bridge. I also built major interchanges as needed. I built freeways from Seattle to Ellensburg, over the mountains, and from Ellensburg to Yakima, Washington, and then from Yakima to Tricities. I worked from 1956 to 1975 with the highway department.
 

In 1975, I went to work again as a civil service employee with the government as IWP programmer at Mountain Home Airforce Base in Idaho. The IWP programmer is responsible to make sure the entire base is kept running, including the planes flying as needed for our national defense, as it was headquarters for the B-52 bombers of the SAC. My job as IWP programmer was to keep everybody on the base and employed, which included our own railroad, powerhouse, waterwells, garbage dump, all public works employees, and the big job of keeping the hangers and runways in operation so the planes could carry out their missions. I worked there from 1975 to 1978.
 

In 1978, I went to Hawthorne, Nevada, again, to work in power plants for the Naval Ammunition Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada, where we produced electricity and steam to keep the entire base in operation. I only stayed there about a year, form 1978 to 1979. The base was contracted out and all civil service employees were relieved of duties.
 

In 1979, I transferred to Hebo, Oregon to work for the Forest Service doing all surveys necessary for timber contracts from 1979 to 1980.
 

In 1980, I transferred to Springerville, Oregon, again working for the Forest Service in conjunction with timber sales. Also in this position, I had summertime college employees under my supervision to train them how to survey and how to lay out timber sales from 1980 to 1981.
 

In 1981, I went to work as facility engineer in Long Beach Naval Supply Station. I was in charge of all buildings, docks, dry docks, San Pedro Fuel Pier and Tank Farm, U.S. Navy housing and the hospital, to keep all in operation from 1981 to 1982.
 

In 1982, I transferred over to the engineering department in the Long Beach Naval Ship Yard. I had responsibilities for all surveying and engineering problems in the shipyard and public housing and the naval hospital. In this position, I was also responsible for taking elevation readings in the entire Long Beach peninsula, Long Beach harbor, San Pedro Harbor, and the Long Beach Navy Supply and Navy shipyard. What was happening was in the shipyard and all the above mentioned areas, the oil wells surrounding the area were pumping oil out from under the above mentioned areas by what is called slant well pumping, which in turn, all the above areas were slowly descending below sea level. My job was to notify pumping stations in the surrounding area that was pumping sea water to displace oil that was being pumped out to keep the entire area on an even plane. When it came time to check the dry docks, I had to take hydrostatic pressure readings to make sure the dry docks would not pop up like corks. We had relief valves in the dry docks to open to relieve the pressure to keep everything balanced out. In 1982, I was given the job to complete the battleship New Jersey, so it could be commissioned in December 28, 1982. When the ship was commissioned, I was responsible for President Reagan, the White House staff, all admirals, generals, and dignitaries from all around the world, the congressmen, senators, and honored guests. The ceremony consisted of 10,000 spectators, TV camera men from the states and around the world, newspaper reporters from same, in order for this commissioning ceremony to be held, I worked with the White House staff, Secret Service, the FBI, underwater demolition teams to make sure that the battle ship and the president would be safe when we held the ceremony.
 

In 1984, I transferred to the Corp of Engineers to work as construction representative at Fort Erwin in California. The job included 33 miles of roads, 13 bridges, 30 some miles of flood control, all new gas lines on the base and housing areas, new commissary, additions to the hospital, new BOQ's, new bowling alley, and other projects as needed.
 

In the later part of 1986, I was transferred to the WIPP site, quality control section, to finish the site according to plans and specifications. I was in charge of all nuclear coatings on the walls and floors of the Waste Handling Building and Filter Building, and all projects included to complete the site. I held all preliminary inspections with DOE, Westinghouse supervisors and designers, planners and myself. I went through the Waste Handling Building and Filter Building, room by room, and asked DOE and Westinghouse to give me a list of the things they needed to safely operate the site. When it came time for final inspections, Westinghouse and DOE would not go with me on the final inspections, because they were not given items that were not on the plans and I could not at that time have the contractor give it to them, so I and the contractor, the planners, the designers, their safety engineer, and their inspector held the final inspection. All areas were found to comply with plans and specifications and I, as representative for the Corp of Engineers signed off on the Waste Handling Building and the Filter Building at which time, knowing DOE and Westinghouse would want to get into the building to put things in the mine below, I had the contractor chain and lock all the doors on the Waste Handling Building and Filter Building until Westinghouse and DOE would sign below my name. At which time, the locks and chains were removed and the site was turned over to Westinghouse and DOE.
 

In 1987, when the Secretary of Energy came to inspect the site, he wrote in the Carlsbad newspaper in big headlines, Site Ready to Receive Waste. I immediately sent him a letter and told him he had a site and buildings that he would not use for ten years. My telephone rang in the morning, the assistant secretary of energy said, "I received your letter," and he stated that the site had been inspected and it was ready to receive waste and wanted to know what I knew. I told him I had a list of items that DOE and Westinghouse had given me on my preliminary inspections. I read him a few items on the list. He hung up. A few minutes later, the Secretary of Energy called and said, Mr. Loftus, I understand you have a list of safety problems. He asked me for ten major problems, which I had given him over the phone. At which time, he hung up the phone, flew in here over night, fired some supervisors at the site and brought in his own people to finish the site. So, since 1987 to 1999, I have made a number of tours of the site. Each time noting whether or not they have corrected the safety problems. I have written many letters to the president, vice president, secretary of energy, speaker of the house, congressmen and senators in regards to these problems, and I am now going to give rebuttal statements at the Santa Fe hearings when I am called to do so.
 

Charles M. Loftus

Retired Corp of Engineers

It is clear that the testimony of Charles M. Loftus, and of many other expert witnesses have "put the DOE's feet to the fire." If these testimonies do not persuade Secretary Bill Richardson and the DOE to stop WIPP operations, and to make the significant changes called for by Loftus and other experts, they will have written their own epitaph!!! In addition, they will have insured that Clinton's dark paragraph in history books: "The U.S. President who opened WIPP and KILLED THE WORLD" is in bold type and is darker than Hitler's, Saddam's and Maloshevic's.

"Healing" occurs way too slowly to seal these ceiling blocks or to seal the 300 to 3000 year WIPP Breccia Pipe before copious waterflows cascaded down into WIPPu. Where would all of that water/brine go??? Up and out thru what shafts? What Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers, etc.? See "the book".

Warm Halite (T>200C) is famous for its plastic "healing and sealing" properties, but in WIPP the temperature of the "CH wastes" is not supposed to reach such high temperatures. Further, the fact that large ceiling blocks in WIPP rooms sag, fracture, separate then fall to the floor means that plastic Halite flows occur far too slowly for any "healing/sealing" to occur in less than 10,000 years. By then, a great deal of WIPPu-migration into the Pecos River will have occurred, and it won't matter if WIPP Halite heals/seals.
 

The "Gnome Shot" has given us a perfect opportunity to study the hydrologies and the migration and accumulation times and reaches of Pu, Sr, Cs, etc. radioisotopes in natural halite under WIPP-like conditions. Further, thermomigration* of brine inclusions in natural halite can be observed directly and applied to WIPP. These studies would give us priceless, real, natural data to use for predicting these same effects for Radioactive Pu, Sr, Cs, etc. stored in WIPP.

So how did the DOE use the incomparable "Gnome" resource in its million-page WIPP Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)? The DOE never mentioned "the Gnome Project" in any WIPP EIS!!! Further, the DOE didn't use any of the crucial data available at the Gnome site in any of their studies of WIPP or of its radioisotopes.

I am almost at a loss for words!!! The degrees of deception, treachery, betrayal, lawlessness and irresponsibility practiced by the DOE throughout the WIPP program are beyond apt characterization. Is it any wonder that I use the word TREASON in my attempt to characterize the DOE's behavior?

So I started a Terminal Fast to stop WIPP on 25 March 1999. If WIPP remains open and is still operating on 1 January 2000, it will be over my dead body!!!
 
 
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* "Thermomigration" is the process that describes the movement of all water inclusions toward a heat source in halite.

With all of the attention given to radioactive threats to Human Survival, one could get the idea that there are no other large-scale threats to Human Survival expected on Earth during the 21st Century.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is a surprisingly large number of global threats that will reach crisis proportions during the next 15 to 500 years (Biotechnologies, PCB's, Ozone, CFC's, Toxic Heavy Metals, Dioxin, HIV, DDT, synergy, etc.). The newest overriding global threat to Human health, safety and stability is the 25-year 1f increase in the average global temperature (Figure 14). Global heating will cause large-scale migrations of all life-types away from rising global sea levels, which could become catastrophic if a significant fraction of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) went into the sea quickly.

In 1995, a large ice-island (90 mi. x 30 mi.) broke off the "Larsen Ice Shelf", the northern-most "ice shelf" in Antarctica, disintegrated. With global heating, the maximum temperature increases are expected at the poles, so that is where we can expect to see the first and greatest global heating effects. The average temperature at the poles has increase 4f in the last 25 years, and thinning of the "Greenland Ice Sheet" has reached 30% in places. These are all conspicuous, early manifestations of Global Warming (regardless of what is causing it). You can see in Figure 14 that the Global heating has just started.

The rate of global temperature increase has been maximum for each of the last seven years, while the global mean temperature increased by 1f during the last 30 years. Thus, we optimists can expect the annual global temperature increases to maximize during the next 20 years (that would involve at least one more 1f increase in the global mean temperature), then the temperature would peak at 1f higher yet, after an additional 30 years. That's a net 3f increase in the global mean temperature and a 12f increase in polar temperatures; that's almost a 7f increase in polar mean temperature during the period 1968 to 2050, or so. If a 2C (4f) increase causes a large island of the disintegrating "Larsen Ice Shelf" to break away by 1995, what will the additional 6C increase in the Antarctic mean temperature bring to Antarctica during the period between 1995 and 2050? Figure 15 shows Antarctica, the "Larsen Ice Shelf" (), the "Ross Ice Shelf" () and the "Edith Ronne Ice Shelf (); plus the subice volcano (V), between and , which is on the inland edge of the "suspected Rift Trench" ( R). Four or five rapidly-flowing "Ice Streams" (0.7 km/y) originate in these heated regions (V & R) and carry 500 km³ of once-inland ice into the "Ross Ice Shelf" , each year. At that rate, one tenth (1/10) of the WAIS would move into the "Ross Sea" and raise sea level by one half of a millimeter (½ mm-1/500 inch) per year for 1333 years for a total of 2 feet. That's slow enough to allow life forms to adjust, and the inland migration will occur, sometimes violently, during that 1333+ years. More rapid ice movements are considered later.

Note that ice that breaks away from an ice shelf doe not change sea level because shelf ice is already afloat on the sea. It is when ice resting on the Antarctic continent moves into the sea that sea level will rise.

 
 

These kinds of futures for humans on Earth make human survival on the nearly Pu-free Moon and Mars increasingly attractive and, possibly, our only alternatives. Martian and Lunar Astronauts should be married male-female pairs. If such a migration comes let us not repeat our contaminated, corrupt "business as usual" societies there.

Little or no change is expected in average equatorial temperatures during the coming global heating episode, if Greenhouse Gases are indeed the main cause of global heating.

While Global Heating does not threaten Human Survival directly, it does promise to increase global stress (demographic, economic, political, legal, social and environmental) and provide a global context that is conducive to the choreographed outbreak of terrorism, WARS, mass migrations and nuclear reactor disasters.

The fruitless effort to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and technologies will be expressed as nuclear attacks by globally-immature, nuclear-capable and critically-distressed nations during the coming decades. The global spread of nuclear weapons has been given an enormous boost by the political and economic chaos, famine and corruption that have gripped Russia since 1986 (Chernobyl, economic disaster and the end of "the Cold War").

The Global Population Bomb continues to increase global stresses exponentially throughout the "undeveloped world." China has done a spectacular job of pulling themselves out of that uncontrolled morass; and the Latin, African and Indian nations need to follow suit if the world is to escape the ravages of the Global Population Bomb in the 21^st century.

Three of the direct consequences of the Global Population Bomb are: (1) Increasing frequencies and magnitudes of plagues, epidemics, etc.; (2) Increasing Erosion of Global Environmental Quality by large toxic chemical and radioactive releases; and (3) the Rapine Exploitation of the Earth's Natural Resources (Fresh, Clear Water; Lake and Ocean Fish; "Old Growth" Woods; large Whales; Wilderness; Clean Air, Fertile Soil; the World's Great Predators; Elephants; Rhinos; etc., etc., etc.).

Now throw in another Chernobyl, or two, or ..., and the prospects for Human Survival in the 21st Century grow ever-dimmer.

Insatiable, dedicated Greed in an Unbridled Capitalism has brought the world to this Global Abyss!, and only a radical, new paradigm can help free us from this "business as usual" trap!

"Trust the System", indeed!

"Frontline" (PBS) tells us that the greatest threat to the health and safety of U.S. citizens is a terrorist attack on a large city with biological weapons (ebola, smallpox, anthrax, ...).

An ADM Industries commercial tells us that "... feeding the people of the world in the 21st century is the biggest problem facing the world today."

Neither point of view reflects any grasp of the significance of the unprecedented radioactive releases from Chernobyl IV in 1986 and the 450 nuclear reactors operating on earth today. The last decade of global amphibian extinctions is but a prelude to the next century of radioactive mass extinctions of other vertebrates that the Next Chernobyl will cause. Well, that's bad enough, but the worst of that radioactive threat is that additional Chernobyl-like nuclear disasters will occur before 2100 AD.

"Murphy's Third Law" (Murphy III), "if something can screw-up, it will!" was a primary operator in causing the Chernobyl Disaster; and . . .

How many more Chernobyl-like releases of radioactivity (>10⁸ Ci) are likely to occur during the 21st century (1998-2098 AD)? If we ignore "Murphy III", that possibility can be estimated from an experience to date: Since 1952, the world has experienced two such large scale nuclear reactor disasters, TMI-II and Chernobyl, during about 3800 reactor years of operation. With TMI II, we lucked-out because it had been on-line for less than 3 months when it exploded, and its inventory of "HOTS" had not yet built up to the meltdown levels that resided in Chernobyl after more than 2 years of operation. So we can look forward to one or two disastrous Chernobyl-like nuclear releases for each 5000 reactor years or so of experience. "The Table" (p. 43) shows the number of reactor years of experience and the number of predictable Chernobyl-like disasters as a function of the number of operating nuclear reactors during the 21st century.

"The Table" (p. 43) makes it clear that only a new "failsafe" design for nuclear reactors will permit nuclear power to be a significant future energy source for the Earth. Continuing to operate the world's 450 largest nuclear power reactors even 25 more years would yield one or two Chernobyl-size radioactive releases. One or two explosive releases of 80 million Ci. of Sr-90+Cs-137 and 50+ lbs. of Pu before the year 2025 would extinguish all humans from the Earth before 2100 AD! Even 30 reactors could not operate for more than 30 or 40 years without running a high risk (>50-50) of another nuclear disaster!

So by far the biggest problem facing the world today is how to prevent another disastrous Chernobyl-like release of radioactivity. That means that we must reduce the number of operating nuclear reactors on Earth to 200 by 2015 AD and to 30 by 2050 AD, or we take a real risk of human extinction before 2100 AD!

It would be a pity (indeed, a tragedy) if these warnings were not heeded, and humanity lived-out one of our worst-case scenarios during the 21^st century. One of those, powered by "Murphy III", follows.

As you might guess, one aspect of this "Doomsday Scenario" is the "high-tech" Radioactive Inventory in the world's operating reactor "fuel rods" and in "spent fuel rods," wherever they may be. Another is a traditional natural catastrophe (Abrupt elevations of sea level) that had normally produced global species, genus and family extinctions, but not global extinction of life!!! But there are a couple of ways to elevate sea level quickly; one is to move the WAIS promptly into the sea during the Hot 21^st Century. This is where "Murphy III" comes into play.

First, let me set the "Murphy III" context in which the onset of the 21^st century will occur:

• All of the threatening issues, Laws, Bombs, Disasters, habits, etc. raised in these two volumes.
• All of the problems that grows out of the "Y2K computer problem."
• Combinations of (1) and (2) worldwide.
• During the next 4 years (1999-2003 incl.) The solar system will experience a Maximum of Solar Activity (Fused Circuits, Radio/Radar interference, fried satellites, electronic glitches & gremlins, sporadic Arctic & Antarctic heating by Solar Mass Ejections, etc., etc., etc.)
• Combinations of (3) and (4) for the next 4 years+.
• The combination of the natural 100,000 year periodic global warming with "Greenhouse Global Warming" due to atmospheric CO₂, H₂O, CFC's, volatile hydrocarbons, etc. released by humans.
• At this time, when all of the above are getting worse with time, or are peaking now/soon, and are global; the health and survival of the biosystem require that specific global hazards and threats must be regulated ever more strictly on scientifically sound grounds.

I wonder who the Republicans talk to about Nukes, Chernobyl and Survival.

Thus, we are led into a vision of the untested global nuclear trap. With "Murphy III" for a dealer, I can't think of a worse realistic prospect for life on this earth. Thus, "Murphy III" has us set up for the WAIS.

Talk about The Paranoids being Right!
 

• All that I have not included (those are the ones that usually get you).

 

The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is flowing rapidly (300 to 700 m/yr.) From the sub-ice, active volcano on the inland edge of the Antarctic Rift toward the Ross Ice Shelf. This flow is in the form of "Ice Rivers," or "Ice Streams," activated by the volcano and "The Rift." Half of the Western Antarctic Ice will have reached the sea before 1000 years, and after 20 years, i.e. before 3000 AD and after 2020!

The 1000-year timescale given above is for a constant ice flow rate and volcanic stimulation rate during the 1000 years, which is what "the Hawaiian Hotspot" and most rift volcanos have done. But "the Pacific Rim Volcanoes" (of which at least some of the Antarctic Volcanoes like "Deception Island" are a part) usually exhibit centuries of silence broken up by rare explosive episodes. If the sub-ice volcano is of the explosive type*, we may be in for a catastrophic rise in global sea level during the next one-to-ten years? or 100 to 200 years?

The energy released by the Krakatoa explosion could have melted 2/3 of the WAIS.

Realistically, about 1/10 of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is involved with the volcano, the rift and its Ice Rivers. So a catastrophic volcanic event could cause a 2 ft. rise in global sea level that would start with a tidal shock wave more than 1000 ft. high at the outer edge of the Ross Ice Shelf (70 S). If all of that ice went into the sea during 3 to 6 hours. Figure 16 shows that shock move north across the Pacific. The height of that deep sea tidal wave would be more than 100 ft. at Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America (55 S). The Coastal Nukes in South Africa are within 200 ft. of sea level! Are the coastal Nukes in the northern hemisphere immune to a 2 ft. rise in sea level introduced by a thousand-foot Global Tidal Wave originating in the Ross Sea, Antarctica? 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Krakatoa, Pinatubo, Mt. St. Helens, etc., etc., etc.

"In the last million years, the glaciers have grown and shrunk about 10 times. And they typically spend about 90,000 years growing and 10,000 years melting, and 90,000 years growing and 10,000 years melting, and so on."

"So, there is some concern that the warming at the end of the last Ice Age would now be causing melting at the bottom, and that as more melts, it goes faster. That makes friction, which makes heat, which melts more, which goes faster. And the same thing - disaster."

"We have these fast-moving ice streams, which are lubricated on the bed, and between them are ridges of slow-moving ice which are probably frozen to their beds. The temperature of the bed depends on a number of things. It depends on how hot the earth is underneath and how much heat comes up, but it also depends on how hot the atmosphere" (and the ocean) are.

"When you look at the long record, the warm-up from the Ice Age to today was not a smooth process. It jumped. It would be coming along and then - Boing! - the world changed. And the "boing" may have taken 50 years, it may have taken 20 years, some of the "boings" one to three years. And the change is something, a third to a half of the whole warming from the Ice Age. Just the world changed.

Narrator: This is a volatile world. If climate shifted abruptly in the past, not just once, but repeatedly, it's inevitable it will happen again. The question is, when?"

Richard B. Alley: "Ultimately, we would like to know what faces us in the future. Will the climate do this again? Should we get ready for it? Will our actions effect it? If we humans do this, will the climate change? Can we change it so that it's nice to us, or might we change it so it's very bad for us?"
 

The possibility of an explosive volcanic event under the WAIS is remote, but not impossible. "Deception Island" is the exposed rim of a "phreatic explosion" of a volcano near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. A "phreatic explosion" occurs when large amounts of sea water pour into the main lava chamber of an active volcano. The resultant self-reinforcing steam explosion significantly increases the power of "ordinary" volcanic explosions. Krakatoa & Deception Island are examples.

The WAIS can be destabilized rather easily by heating it. That heating is being provided by a warming polar atmosphere and by warming polar seas. One of the "easing" conditions is that the majority of the WAIS contact with the continental plate is about 1 km (0.6 mi.) BELOW sea level.

Global circulations of the oceans take ten to fifteen years to complete, so global ocean warming will lag global atmospheric warming by ten to thirty years. So the last 25 years of atmospheric warming will not be reflected in global ocean temperatures for another 10-to-30 years. By then the average polar atmosphere temperatures will have increased by another 2f to 10f, and the WAIS may have manifest its unstable nature.

If the entire Western Antarctic Ice Sheet went into the sea, there would eventually be a 20 ft. rise of sea level worldwide; even if it started abruptly with Thousand foot Tidal Shocks that would ravage All Pacific Islands and All Pacific Coastal Regions.

How many of the earth's Coastal Nukes* would survive a 20 ft. rise in sea level? The U.S. & Japanese Coastal Nukes are shown in Figures 17 and 18.

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* In the U.S. that's A Minimum of 23 U.S. Nukes!!!
 

------ 3 (WA)

Eureka (CA)

Diablo Canyon 1 & 2 (CA)

San Onofre 1 & 2 (CA)

South Texas 1 & 2 (TX)

Grand Gulf 1 (LA)

River Bend 1 (LA)

Waterland 3 (LA)

Crystal River 3 (FL)

Turkey Point 3 & 4 (FL)

St. Lucia 1 & 2 (FL)

Calvert Cliff (?)

Oyster Creek 1 (LI)

Indian Point 2 & 3 (NY)

Millstone 1, 2, & 3 (CT)

pilgrim 1 (MA)

Seabrook 1 (NH)

Maine Yankee (Maine) 

 
 

Even if those Nukes were not destroyed promptly, they would be flooded with salt water, and EVERYONE who might take care of these reactors would be swept away or killed. Without immediate care, all of the inundated Pacific Coastal Nukes would explode, melt down, disintegrate or just leak endlessly. In any case, the world would have to deal with the release of ten or more Nukes, radioactive inventories as shown in "The Final Figure." No Human, No Amphibian, No Vertebrate, No Mollusk, Few Insects and Few Plants could survive on this earth. Such an event would certainly end human life on this earth. Again, with no humans left to attend the remaining 400+ Nukes in this world, the 400+ non-coastal Nukes would eventually release their inventories into the environment and no living thing would survive. So the earth would see one Chernobyl (1986), then a WAIS Tidal Shock that would give us 10 Chernobyls, which would lead to 400 Chernobyls, and that would eliminated any hope for "life on earth" for 1,000,000 years or so.

Such is the nature of "Murphy III" operating on a Nuke-rich, Radioactive Trap called earth, 1999-.

Numbing? Depressing? Looking for a way back into the womb? What can anyone do? Humans can't affect Antarctic Volcanos, Ice Sheets, Rifts or Polar Heating; but we can remove all Nukes from coastal regions where they could be destroyed by thousand foot Tidal Shocks. Anyone interested in visualizing a thousand-foot Tidal Shock Wave should see the movie "Deep Impact." My main problem with that movie is that they didn't consider the impact of their thousand-foot Tsunami on the Antarctic Coastal Nukes. That would have reversed the "happy" ending that they showed. 

Where to start?
 

People have been warning for thousands of years that "Business As Usual" is going to swallow us all up in an imminent cataclysm of Doom and Destruction! Yet we are still here! Humanity has survived all of those threats.

The establishment has always laughed at "Prophets of Doom", and "The People" didn't want to hear, didn't want to be bothered! They are busy taking care of real and important matters.

The problem is that no one knows how to "fix" a broke Nuke, or how to retrieve released radioactivity. To date, we have immersed dead Nukes (Fermi, Chernobly, et al.) in concrete and steel tombs that need to be reinforced or rebuilt every ten to thirty years. Chernobyl's inadequate Sarcophagus started disintegrating before ten years were up, and Chernobyl has intensified, compounded and escalated all of the usual Soviet problems. That has brought a whole new set of serious problems to "The People" of the world, to the amphibians of the world, and to many other carnivorous species on this earth.

So what do we do in the meantime? If we do not actively interfere with Nuclear "Business as Usual"; I, and many other scientists and engineers, can guarantee that another Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster will occur (very likely in the Northern Hemisphere) during the next 16 years (by 2015 AD)! AND so will another TMI-like nuclear disaster [the top half of the TMI core disintegrated and collected in the bottom of "the Reactor Vessel," which maintained its integrity as did the TMI "Containment Vessel"(Chernobyl had NO "Containment Vessel"!)].

By the time that Chernobyl had exploded in 1986, the world had almost 4000 Reactor-Years (RY) of experience with the large nuclear electric power plants. During that time, the TMI disaster (1979) had also occurred. That's TWO MAJOR NUCLEAR REACTOR CORES that destroyed themselves (one lucky; one unlucky) during the first 4000 RY of nuclear power reactor experience. Does that mean that we can expect two more MAJOR NUKE DISASTERS during the next 4000 RY? No, for 3 reasons: (1) We learn from experience; (2) luck may be on our side, and (3) Data: "the next 4000 RY were completed before 1998 (400+ Nukes "on line" for 10 years after Chernobyl), and no MAJOR COMMERCIAL NUKE disaster has occurred on earth since Chernobyl.

So we would normally predict that "the next pair of NUKE disasters" are expected between 4000 and8000 RY after Chernobyl. Further, risk-takers might venture that "I guarantee that the next Chernobyl will occur before 2015 AD." That's about 12,000 RY AFTER 1986; a fairly safe bet!

So our task is clear, but how to go about accomplishing that task is anything but clear.

I have written this two-volume study in order to make these things as clear and as inescapable, as I can so that you and your understandings, dear reader, can join us in our determined efforts to solve this human survival problem before it's too late.

So just DO YOUR THING without violence. Follow your star.

Now it would have been nice to have ended this chapter on that crescendo, BUT unfortunately, NUKES have two other MAJOR radioactive problems that must be addressed and solved if humans are to survive the 21^st century:

• The regular releases of radioactive gases (I-131, Kr-85, Xe-133, Tritium, (H-3), etc.) that have led to the human cancer plagues within 100 miles of U.S. and all other NUKES, and
• The millions of pounds of very long-lived radioisotopes (Pu-239, Pu-240, U-234, Cs-135, Am-243, etc.) accumulating in all nuclear reactor cores in the world and in "spent" fuel rods.

The huge quantities of the long-lived radioactive wastes preclude isolation by burial, rockets, etc. So shutting down Nukes only stops additions of Pu, etc. to our growing radioactive waste problems. Only an active global crash program to develop new technologies to neutralize, or remove, these deadly doses from the earth's environments can keep the window of Human Survival Open.

Laws (made primarily by lawyers for the benefit of the rich) are usually designed to protect (and regulate) society's institutions and corporations and the powerful rich people who control and maintain them. It is not difficult to see how this kind of perversion of government function came about. Thus the preoccupation with money and its pursuit is built into "law-abiding citizens", our educational systems (one of our basic institutions) and decisions.

The ponderous rigidity of this money-based system provides little room for individuality, change, or any of the basic traits that distinguish humans from mountains. There doesn't seem to be a place, or a way, for citizens to cast a vote in their own behalf. Indeed, we are "allowed to vote" -- we get to choose between two sets of well-healed clowns whose minds are controlled by belief in dollars from those same corporations and institutions. Thus the citizenry has no way of finding justice from our legal/justice system; so when social problems transcend the citizens' occupation with economic safety, there is little that can be done via the avenues offered by our "bottom line" societies.

When the blind machinations of the rich controllers go beyond our capacity to solve the problems via ordinary physical avenues, the citizenry depends on those who are able to operate effectively on avenues not controlled or maintained by the law, corporations, institutions, money, etc. History offers a few examples where human will transcended institutions and brought about profound changes in human relations with their peers, their institutions and their environments. Many of these "examples" brought about changes in the citizens' right view of god: Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, Gandhi, et al.

Our blind leaders have led us again into a box that appears inescapable, so it's time again. What happened 2000 B.C. to "0" C.D.?

I assure you that the people will declare "It's time again." if another Chernobyl occurs, or if a Supernova occurs. I feel that one is imminent in our galaxy, but I'd like to see one so much that I can't trust my "feel".

We are way overdue for a supernova in our galaxy anyway. Don't worry, you won't need a telescope to see a supernova in our galaxy (the "Milky Way").
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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* From "Peace is a State of Mind", 1981

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The original purpose of this book was to show the many kinds of arguments against WIPP and to present some ways of stopping WIPP and of changing our legal, economic and political systems to nurture Human Survival in the 21^st century.

The new discoveries^* about Chernobyl's radioactive releases and the world's determination to experience additional "Chernobyls" have changed that. The current purpose of this book is to alert the world to the manifest significance of the ongoing radioactive mass extinctions of amphibia that will end human survival and the survival of all vertebrates if we do not STOP WIPP AND shut down more than 200 NUKES before 2015 AD! Due to the instability of the WAIS, the NUKES on the Pacific coasts within 100 meters (330 ft.) of sea level, and all of their fuel rods, should be included in that first 200 Nukes.

Oh yes indeed, the above scenario for humans can be realized, but it requires the immediate adoption of a number of unlikely, permanent and global changes:
 

• Zero Release of Pu-239, Sr-90, Cs-137, etc.; and Replace WIPP, Yucca Mtn., etc. with RSSF's ("Dry Cask" storage).
• Part of (1) is to shut down more than 1/2 of all operating nuclear reactors (especially Pacific Coastal NUKES) as soon as possible (before 2015 AD)!

(4) "Business As Usual" Must Be Abandoned for decisions involving large scale public hazards;

• All nations must initiate CRASH PROGRAMS to discover new "failsafe" technologies to neutralize, or to isolate the world's tons of radioactive wastes from the earth's biosphere.

 

Zero Release for all Sr-90, Cs-137 Pu, TRU, U, etc. is our only hope for Survival!!!

These decisions must be put into the hands of an informed public; political, bureaucratic and economic decision makers have generally proven to be too ignorant, inadequate, irresponsible, deceptive, treacherous, corrupt and/or tyrannical to protect the public!

This list may not be complete, but it is hard enough to accomplish as is. If we get all four of these "changes" executed before 2015 AD, there is hope for humans to survive the radioactive siege that grips our world today.

Many will criticize the results and conclusions of these studies. While we await the results of the critical measurements of Pu, Sr+Cs, etc., concentrations in global amphibia and in other life forms and environments; WIPP must be put on hold, and as many nuclear reactors as possible (power, naval, military, etc.) must be shut down worldwide (the worst ones, and the Pacific Coastal NUKES first).

Become "Vegan" (strict Vegetarian); no milk, cheese or eggs either: Block Sr-90, Cs-137, I-131, etc., from your body with healthy, survival-designed overdoses of Ca, K, Fe, and I, etc.

Resolve the question: contrary to AMA belief, can "a healthy gut" in a "Vegan" Human produce enough B₁₂ to keep that person healthy for life? If not, we need to add sub-lingual B₁₂ supplements to our survival diets.

Overall this study has specified QUANTITATIVELY the amounts, kinds, lifetimes and locations of the major releases of radioactivity into the global biosphere during 1945 to 1998. The deadly impacts of Chernobyl releases, local then global, on amphibians is chronologically, radioactively, geographically, and mathematically coordinated.

The mathematical model specifies inescapably what concentrations of Sr-90+Cs-137, U-238 or of Pu-239 pose a specific threat to vertebrate cell populations. For Sr-90+Cs-137, that range of concentrations, C(Sr+Cs), is 10⁴ C(Sr+Cs) 10⁶ atoms/cc, for Pu-239 that range is 10⁹ C(Pu) 10¹¹ atoms/cc, and for U-238: 10¹⁴C(U)10¹⁶ atoms/cc. Unique amphibian decimations are predicted as the first and only response of all lifeforms exposed to a 10x to 1000x (HOTS) impulsive increase in cellular concentrations of Cs-137 and Sr-90, above

10⁴ atoms/cc.

There are about 450 Chernobyl-size nuclear reactors operating on Earth today. More than 200 of those would yield Chernobyl-size releases of radioactivity every 20 or 30 years. If the next nuclear disaster does occur before 2016, only the most primitive lifeforms (singe-celled) would survive the 21st century on Earth as all NUKES, unattended, released their deadly inventories into the environment. Then, All Life on Earth Would Become Extinct.

The clear conclusion is that the operating nuclear power plants must be shut down as soon as possible, which is MUCH sooner than ... "as soon as practical."

This NUCLEAR TRAP has put the world into a situation that is intolerant of the "natural disasters" that have occurred regularly throughout earth history (like the WAIS disappearance).

As a minimum, as many "lemons," ageing and 3^rd year fuel rod reactors as possible must be taken off-line now and kept off-line as much as possible! In the meantime, the necessary measurements of Sr, Cs, U and Pu concentrations in the cells of healthy and extincting amphibian species worldwide, in other vertebrates and in their environments must be taken, publicly confirmed and published. With those data in hand, we can determine if publicly-subsidized closings of all nuclear power plants (commercial, government, weapons, experimental, private, etc.) is called for.

But if those measurements show that high concentrations of Sr+Cs, Pu or U have been the cause of the global amphibian decimations, only new Failsafe Technologies that can quickly alchemize radioactive substances into harmless, non-radioactive ash, or that can safely "transport" our radioactive hazards into the core of the sun can prevent global mass extinctions of all Humans, all Birds, all Reptiles, all Fish, all Mammals; INDEED, OF ALL LIFE ON THIS PLANET!!!

Note that the thrust of this 2nd volume has become Chernobyl, Sr-90, Cs-137, U-238 and nuclear reactor disasters; while the thrust of the original edition of "The Book" was NO Pu releases, No WIPP and No Yucca Mtn.

These are the single facets of a single fact: The people who control the nuclear technologies have shown no responsibility to the people or to the future. So the facets of that truth that carry the greatest significance and the greatest urgency draw the most intense and determined efforts. WIPP timing and the daily threat of another Chernobyl both qualify. So does the threat of a thousand foot tidal wave in the Pacific. The Chernobyl-induced amphibian decimations and "The Species Survival Equations" for Pu, for U-238 and for Sr+Cs connect Human Survival quantatively to how much radioactivity (Sr, Cs, "HOTS", U, Pu, etc.) is released into the biosphere during the next 15 to 50 years.

How do "We The People" regain our world from the monied halls of fear, power, global irresponsibility and inhumanity?

The hope is that these two volumes have moved us all toward an answer to that question.
 

Herein a mathematical and empirical model involving a cause-and-effect relationship between Chernobyl's Radioactive releases, Species' Extinctions (Amphibia first!), and Human Survival is presented. It is a powerful statement.

What is needed to specify and clarify the true nature of the global extinctions is to take definitive measurements of radioactive Pu, Sr, Cs, U, Br, Kr, Rb, I and Xe concentrations in all Amphibia, Humans, etc. and in their environments, predators, and prey worldwide. These measurements would be the basis for the definitive empirical models for the quantitative relationships between Chernobyl radioactivity, species Extinctions (Amphibia first!) and Human Survival.

The sooner that these global measurements of radioactive isotopes in Amphibia, Humans, environments, etc. are taken, the sooner we can determine what steps really need to be taken over what time-scales.

Never forget: One of the 450 operating nuclear reactors is the world's next Chernobyl racing toward its explosive extinction and the next wave of worldwide, radioactive mass extinctions of Humans, more amphibia and most other vertebrates.
 

There is no compromise with nature! We must comply with nature's laws or fail.
 

As a species, we pursue imaginative, unlikely, and remote doomsday scenarios when the inevitable repeat of Chernobyl explosions, and their immediate and chronic releases, will complete the purge of Amphibia started at Chernobyl. The rest of us earthlings will be engulfed too.

I have developed a much deeper respect for Sternglass, Gofman, Gould, Tamplin, et ilk who have had the courage to calculate, address, observe and think about the real costs of the Global Nuclear Folly in real numbers. I have taken that step that glimpses the specific horrors that will befall the untold billions of Chernobyl's victims, 1986-2075 AD (Cs-137 globally plus Pu and Sr-90 locally).