DoomsdaysCWThe #USA Buried #NuclearWaste Abroad. #ClimateChange Could Unearth It
A new report says melting ice sheets and rising seas could disturb waste from US #nuclear projects in #Greenland and the #MarshallIslands
by Anita Hofschneider
Science
Mar 2, 2024 8:00 AM
"Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaii in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: 'Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an AEC RadSafe team member on Rongelap two days after ʻBravo.’
"Tibon had never seen the man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfather’s. At the time, he was living on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands when the US conducted #CastleBravo, the largest of 67 nuclear weapon tests there during the Cold War. The tests displaced and sickened #Indigenous people, #poisoned fish, upended #TraditionalFood practices, and caused #cancers and other negative health repercussions that continue to reverberate today.
"A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and #Spain. The authors conclude that #ClimateChange could disturb nuclear waste left in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. '#RisingSeaLevels could spread contamination in RMI, and conflicting risk assessments cause residents to distrust radiological information from the US Department of Energy,' the report says.
"In Greenland, #ChemicalPollution and #radioactive liquid are frozen in #IceSheets, left over from a #NuclearPowerPlant on a #USMilitary research base where scientists studied the potential to install nuclear missiles. The report didn’t specify how or where nuclear contamination could migrate in the Pacific or Greenland, or what if any health risks that might pose to people living nearby. However, the authors did note that in Greenland, frozen waste could be exposed by 2100.
"'The possibility to influence the environment is there, which could further affect the food chain and further affect the people living in the area as well,' said Hjalmar Dahl, president of #InuitCircumpolarCouncil Greenland. The country is about 90 percent #Inuit. “I think it is important that the Greenland and US governments have to communicate on this worrying issue and prepare what to do about it.'"
#EnvironmentalRacism #IndigenousPeople #NuclearContamination #NoNukes #NoWar #Genocide
