Ecological and Human Health Impacts of Contaminated Food and Environments by Ming Hung Wong, 2025
This book discusses linkages between the natural and disturbed chemical composition of the earth's surface and ecological and human health. It reviews the environmental geochemical cycles of natural elements and persistent toxic substances (PTS) in the environment.
This book discusses linkages between the natural and disturbed chemical composition of the earth's surface and ecological and human health. It reviews the environmental geochemical cycles of natural elements and persistent toxic substances (PTS) in the environment.
So, #Terrapower and other #HALEU energy projects are being touted as "carbon-free". But alas, a lot of energy is spent digging, milling, transporting and enriching #Uranium -- and there's still no place to permanently store #NuclearWaste.
And #NewNuclear is far from CLEAN -- ask the residents of #PiketonOhio -- who are still dealing with #contamination from when the uranium enrichment plant was operating before!
Radioactive cylinders abound at former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site
by The Guardian
August 7, 2024
PIKETON, Ohio – "The site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon is home to a significant number of radioactive cylinders, posing ongoing environmental and health risks. As of 2022, there are a total of 20,570 uranium hexafluoride (#UF6) cylinders at the site, including 1,879 low-enriched uranium (LEU) cylinders, 18,206 depleted uranium cylinders, and 385 empty cylinders.
"These cylinders, which have been stored in the open for decades, are known to be among the highest sources of #radioactive contamination at the entire plant site. The U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE] has repeatedly reported the #hazardous conditions associated with these cylinder yards.
"UF6 is highly reactive with moisture, forming uranyl fluoride (UO2F2) and hydrogen fluoride (HF). Both compounds are extremely corrosive and toxic. HF can lead to severe corrosion of the cylinder walls, potentially resulting in leaks and the release of hazardous materials. The environmental and health impacts of these compounds are severe; HF can cause respiratory issues, skin burns, and eye damage, while UO2F2 can lead to kidney damage and other serious health problems.
Historical Accidents
"The potential risks are not hypothetical. In 1978, a major incident occurred when a UF6 cylinder ruptured, releasing over 20,000 pounds of uranium hexafluoride into the atmosphere. Over the years, there have been dozens of such accidental releases, exacerbating the environmental and health risks associated with the site."
"Toxic 'forever chemicals' are increasingly appearing in U.S. pesticides — contaminating waterways and posing a possible threat to human health, a new study has found.
"Pesticides containing these compounds, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (#PFAS), are used widely nationwide on staple foods, such as #corn, #wheat, #kale, #spinach, #apples and #strawberries, according to the study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives.
"Known for their ability to linger in the human body and the environment, PFAS have been linked to many illnesses, such as thyroid disease, kidney cancer and testicular cancer.
"PFAS-laden pesticides are also used inside homes, for flea treatments on pets and in insect-killing sprays, noted the authors, who represent several environmental organizations.
"The researchers — from the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Working Group and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — said they drew their conclusions by compiling data on sources of PFAS in pesticide products.
“This event has implications on all life in the region, including salmon stock recovery.
Chief Dawna Hope of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun has sounded the alarm after a landslide and failure of a leach pad at a gold mine in Yukon.
She says there is a serious risk of cyanide and other chemical contamination. She wants an independent investigation of the site and of the environmental impacts.
"Cordelia Saunders remembers 2021, the year she and her husband, Nathan, found out that they’d likely been drinking tainted water for more than 30 years. A neighbor’s 20 peach trees had finally matured that summer, and perfect-looking peaches hung from their branches. Cordelia watched the fruit drop to the ground and rot: Her neighbor didn’t dare eat it.
"The Saunderses’ home, in Fairfield, Maine, is in a quiet, secluded spot, 50 minutes from the drama of the rocky coast and an hour and 15 minutes from the best skiing around. It’s also sitting atop a plume of poison.
"For decades, sewage sludge was spread on the corn fields surrounding their house, and on hundreds of other fields across the state. That sludge is suspected to have been tainted with PFAS, a group of man-made compounds that cause a litany of ailments, including kidney and prostate cancers, fertility loss, and developmental disorders. The Saunderses’ property is on one of the most contaminated roads in a state just waking up to the extent of an invisible crisis.
Onur Apul, an environmental engineer at the University of Maine and the head of its initiative to study PFAS solutions, told me that in his opinion, the United States has seen 'nothing as overwhelming, and nothing as universal' as the PFAS crisis. Even the #DDT crisis of the 1960s doesn’t compare, he said: DDT was used only as an insecticide and could be banned by banning that single use. PFAS are used in hundreds of products across industries and consumer sectors. Their nearly 15,000 variations can help make pans nonstick, hiking clothes and plumber’s tape waterproof, and dental floss slippery. They’re in performance fabrics on couches, waterproof mascara, tennis rackets, ski wax. Destroying them demands massive inputs of energy: Their fluorine-carbon bond is the single most stable bond in organic chemistry."
"The Grand Canyon truly lives up to its name, being the largest canyon on Earth and one of the most popular national parks in America. But due to #UraniumMining in the area, some advocates are warning it could become the site of a future #EnvironmentalDisaster, which threatens to make one Indigenous village 'extinct.'
"More than 80 groups signed onto a statement on Monday — representing Indigenous communities, scientists and environmental nonprofits such as the #SierraClub and the #CenterForBiologicalDiversity — directed at President #JoeBiden and #Arizona Gov. #KatieHobbs, demanding they close the #PinyonPlain uranium mine, which is located near the Grand Canyon.
"'We have a choice in front of us. Allowing the Pinyon Plain mine to proceed is subjecting this landscape and its interconnected waters to a legacy of devastation and disregarding the rights of the #IndigenousPeoples on the land,' Sanober Mirza, Arizona program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in the statement. 'Or we can choose a different path — one that holds a promise of protecting the Grand Canyon’s cultural sanctity, its people and natural resources.'
"To understand why the mine's opponents feel so strongly, one can turn to #AmberReimondo, who work as energy director at a conservationist non-profit called the #GrandCanyonTrust. Reimondo explained to Salon by email that, on the one hand, #Biden permanently banned mining operations on nearly 1 million acres of federal managed lands by creating the #BaajNwaavjo I'tah Kukveni - Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in August 2023. Yet the Pinyon Plain mine was #exempt from this prohibition, and Reimondo argues that the impact on the region has been 'several fold.'
"'The Grand Canyon region as a whole and especially the location of the mine, is deeply significant to Indigenous cultures and is a place where tribal members have conducted #ceremonies, collected medicine, hunted, and more, for centuries,' Reimondo said. 'The mine also overlies critical and complex [and] not well understood groundwater systems. One #aquifer in particular — the #RedWallMuavAquifer — is the sole source of water for the remote #HavasupaiVillage of #Supai inside the Grand Canyon. The mine poses a #contamination threat to these #groundwater resources not just today, but importantly, after the mine's mere 28-month operational lifespan has concluded and the mining operator 'cleans up' and moves on.'
"Supai is so remote, it's only accessible only by helicopter or an 8-mile mule ride or hike, Reimondo explained, noting that if the newly-oxygenated groundwater comes into contact with nearby rocks, minerals like #arsenic and #uranium will be dissolved by the groundwater and enter aquifers used by the local community and essential to local ecology, including #HavasuFalls. Taylor McKinnon, Southwest Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, expressed similar concerns.
"'Ultimately, this mine is going to require political leadership,' McKinnon told Salon in an interview, referring to both the Biden and #Hobbs administrations. 'Those administration's agencies have the authority to fix this problem if they so choose, and that's what they should do.'
"We have detailed strenuously for years that neither regulators nor industry can ensure against the permanent and irretrievable damage to Grand Canyon's aquifers and springs," McKinnon added. "This mine was approved originally in 1986, under a record of decision from the US Forest Service under a presumption that it was highly unlikely that the mine would encounter groundwater, and further unlikely that if it did, it had the potential to contaminate deeper aquifers in the springs that they feed. Subsequent state permitting from the #ArizonaDepartment OfEnvironmentalQuality has basically parroted those same assumptions.'
"Yet McKinnon alleges that in 2016 the mine punctured a perched aquifer, causing roughly 10 million gallons of water per year to drain into the mine workings. From there he asserts that a surface pond formed with water that has concentrations of uranium and arsenic far in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency (#EPA)'s water quality standards. Not only does this threaten the local endangered and endemic species, but it also impacts the nearby Havasupai tribe.
"Havasupai means 'people of the blue-green water,' McKinnon said. "It's their longstanding cultural identity, and it is the water they drink, they farm with and that provides for all of their tourism economy because it is this just a beautiful series of massive verdant waterfalls that flow through the village and down into a series of waterfalls and pools where people camp and they derive tourism dollars.'
"In a 2022 letter of opposition, the Havasupai Tribal Council, laid out what is at stake in the uranium mining controversy.
"'Our identity as a people is intrinsically intertwined with the health of #HavasuCreek and the environment to which it gives life,' the tribe’s letter explained. 'We use this water for drinking, #gardening and irrigating, municipal uses, and #cultural and #religious uses. If the water source becomes contaminated like we have seen in other areas of Arizona due to uranium mining, we will no longer be able to live in our homes and Supai Village will become extinct.'
"These fears are based on precedent. The nearby #NavajoNation is scattered with old uranium mines — over 500, in fact — awaiting cleanup, exposing locals to risk of '#LungCancer from inhalation of #radioactive particles, as well as #BoneCancer and impaired kidney function from exposure to #radionuclides in drinking water,' according to the EPA. Likewise, members of the #UteMountain#Ute tribe in #WhiteMesa, Utah have protested against uranium mines they say have contaminated local groundwater, air and even wildlife."