No more Fukushimas, Garoña shut down

The very old and obsolete nuclear power plant of Garoña is not just the closest one to where I live but it is also too similar to the design of the ill-fated Fukushima to be relaxed about it at all. The license of the plant is being extended once and again in spite of reports and promises. 

For that reason and, coincident with the unwanted visit of the monarch of the occupant power Juan Carlos Borbon Borbon (alias 'Double Bourbon' - for good reason, mind you) on Tueday 21st there will be a protest before the monster tower of Iberdrola (the local feudal electricity company) which is formally inaugurated in that day (building pictured).

More details at Sare Antifaxista[es]: link 1, link 2.

The greatest risk area of Garoña includes most of the Basque Country

From the Net: '[Japanese] Governor: Why no arrests over [nuclear] crisis?' (Japan Times)

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

Governor: Why no arrests over crisis?

By MINORU MATSUTANI

Staff writer

Saitama Gov. Kiyoshi Ueda wants to see Tokyo Electric Power Co. held criminally responsible for the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

At a regular news conference, he sharply criticized the utility and questioned why nobody in Tepco has been arrested.

"Tepco has caused this big trouble to everyone under the sun and nobody has been arrested. I want to ask, 'Doesn't anyone (in Tepco) want to turn themselves in?' " Ueda said Monday.

He was asked for comments about Tepco raising electricity bills for big users like corporations by 10 to 20 percent in April.

"Some people would be arrested if gas tanks explode or a fire breaks out in a department store," he said angrily, blaming Tepco for not taking full responsibility for the harm caused by the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. "The procedure of raising power bills without fully explaining it is unacceptable. It is extremely cruel treatment of (big users) who have been forced up to now to cooperate in saving electricity."

From: Japan Times (found via Energy News).

It is ironical however how he only rises his voice when big corporate users are affected. But still it was about time someone said that in japan.

Fukushima official report: 'so shocking' that Japanese authorities decided to ignore it

How is that rational? Who is hysterical and panicking? Who is in denial? Who is unfit to govern? Who should go to jail for crimes against Humanity? Who makes the captain of the shipwrecked Italian cruise appear as a cold rational and responsible leader by comparison?

The Japan Times reports today that the report, issued in March, soon after the catastrophe, that stated that Fukushima nuclear disaster was (and is) a worst case scenario was buried and ignored and dismissed as a personal note by the Japanese authorities, who preferred to look in another direction, pretend they were idiots and suggest to the victims of the disaster to smile and not think in radiation. 

"The content was so shocking that we decided to treat it as if it didn't exist," a senior government official said.

Very rational! The same people who claimed that panic would be worse: hypocrites, criminals!

Kondo drew up the document at Kan's request and is dated March 25, 2011. The document forecast that in a worst-case scenario the plant's crippled reactors would intermittently release massive quantities of radioactive materials for about a year.

The projection was based on a scenario in which a hydrogen explosion would tear through the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel, forcing all workers at the plant to evacuate because of the ensuing lethal radiation levels.

The document said that in such an event, residents within a radius of 170 km of the power station, and possibly even further away, would be forced to evacuate. Those living within a radius of between 170 km and 250 km of the plant, including Tokyo, could chose to evacuate voluntarily. The wrecked power station is about 220 km northeast of the capital.

People are dying and falling ill by millions for ignoring this document. When will we see Kan and his ministers in jail?

Found via EneNews.

Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe still haunts the USA: birds dying all around

Whatever you read in the mainstream media, which is essentially ignoring or decorating the matter (because of the huge economic interests in offshore oil drilling, no doubt), the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe and the subsequent poisoning of the waters and atmosphere with extremely toxic dispersants (which only aggravate the problem, even if they may serve BP to lower its indemnification's bill, along with other cover up measures), the disaster is far from over. 

As anyone following any of the specialized sites (I follow mostly Florida Oil Spill Law) can say, the ecological, human health and economic consequences are only growing each day. I reckon I do not post too much here on this matter, mostly because I expect anyone with interest, to follow the specialized links rather than my more generalist blog. But now and then I feel compelled to write something.

These days there has been a most alarming sequence of dead birds by the hundreds or thousands in several locations across the US southern coasts or the Mississipi basin (generally towards the south of it). This is a list, probably incomplete:

• Arkansas: thousands of birds, mostly red-winged blackbirds, fall from the sky in Jan 3rd, related: experts doubt they died from fireworks, poison instead.
• Louisiana: some 500 blackbirds found dead (Jan 4th).
• Kentucky: hundreds of birds fall from the sky (Jan 5th).
• East Texas: hundreds of dead birds (coots) (Jan 6th).
• West Texas: many dead grackles found (Jan 6th).
• Indiana: 25 dead crows near Indianapolis (Jan 6th).
• Tennessee: swarms of dead birds found (Jan 7th).

All these birds, as far as I can tell, have something in common: they feed primarily or secondarily in water areas and may have passed by the Gulf coasts in the recent days or weeks (it is not possible that the poisons went upstream through the Mississippi and other rivers, though other explanations like atmospheric poisoning or illnesses may still be possible). 

Anyhow it is not just a matter of birds falling from the sky: massive amounts of dead fish are incredibly common these days, even as far as the Carolinas and Maryland, where the Gulf Stream should have carried the poisons already. Also in Florida, an Arkansas river (100,000 fish, too big to clean), dead dolphins,

Notice also hundreds of dead pelicans at North Carolina beach.

And the reports accumulate in just the first week of this year: manatee deaths may be related to oil and corexit poisoning, tarballs outnumber seashells in Alabama and Florida beaches, illnesses (poisoning) plague Gulf residents and beach cleaning crews, dispersants are still being sprayed every single night in spite of claims that this practice was discontinued long ago, officials acknowledging that the oil is still there on the beaches, sticky "red foam" washing off at Mississippi state coasts (left), lobsters hard to find in Florida Keys, oil obvious in Alabama waters, oil rolling onto Louisiana beaches (Grand Isle), young woman developed cancer in weeks after swimming in Gulf, physicians denounce criminal White House stand on contaminated seafood or swimming in Gulf waters, fishermen weep the loss of their livelihood, BP cleanup worker gets lab results: oil and dispersant chemicals in all his body, methane has not vanished from the Gulf (scientific counter-report), millions of seafood dead in Mississippi beach along "rainbow sheen", etc.

As I say, the information is so overwhelming and so sad that, even if I read it daily, I often just browse through it. But still I reckon how important is to denounce all this ecological disaster and the criminal manipulation by corporate and government agents, who are only trying to hide the impact. People is dying, being murdered, because of this and the ecological damage is unprecedented (not even Chernobyl was so bad over such a large area). 

It may even arrive to Europe at some point because here is where the Gulf Stream comes to, after getting separated from the Eastern US coast at roughly the latitude of Virginia. Some reports of dead crabs with black sand (said not to be from oil but pyrite) at Kent, Britain, are at least alarming (nonetheless because the UK government and media have been mostly covering up for BP so far, so I am not sure if the dismissal of oil causes is true or just another lie).

Idyllic beaches in the Gulf of Mexico? Not anymore.

A lot has been said on the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, mostly outside the mainstream media channels, which have remained suspiciously silent. An image is anyhow sometimes worth a thousand words and here you have it:

From National Geographic, via Florida Spill Law.

It corresponds to Orange Beach, Alabama, described in tourist pamphlets as:


Mix two parts sugar white sand with one part crystal blue water.

Hungary does the right thing after toxic flood

Zoltan Bakony, chief executive of the factory that caused the mass poisoning has been arrested and the company, MAL Hungarian Aluminum, intervened by the state. PM Viktor Orban declared that those responsible for the catastrophe will bear the financial consequences. The temporary nationalization of the company has two objectives: to preserve the jobs and to make sure every damage is paid.

Now please compare with the attitude of the USA after the much larger and much worse environmental catastrophe caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico: no arrests, BP put in charge of "cleaning"  and "managing" (i.e. hiding and causing even greater damage), hiding the true dimensions of the disaster from public scrutiny, allowing increased poisoning of the coasts and waters with the use of extremely poisonous dispersants, minimizing the costs for the culprit corporation, etc.

All life in the Marcal river downstream the toxic dam seems to have been extinguished. Much of the same can be said from vast areas of the Gulf of Mexico, however the information arriving from the USA is very fragmentary and most of the time unofficial. Research is being hindered by the authorities, which in most cases cannot be taken apart from BP private security.

Source for Hungarian events: BBC. For the Gulf of Mexico see for instance Florida Oil Spill Law or Project Gulf Impact.

Hungary toxic sludge reservoir was damaged before it broke

While MAL company remains in stubborn denial, the images now available at Al Jazeera show that the chemical waste's reservoir dam was already leaking before it broke, killing many and destroying a whole river:

Hungary is now working as fast as possible to restore the broken dam before more toxic material (extremely alkaline, arsenic, heavy metals) is released to the environment.

I already commented how weak regulations may allow companies to get away with such criminal disasters, caused by negligence and irresponsible and inadmissible cost cuts. And how this situation of corporate irresponsibility cannot be tolerated by any healthy society.

Another murderous corporation evading responsibility

While I am still outraged on how BP is getting away with the Louisiana oil catastrophe, a similar case seems to be happening in Hungary with the chemical sludge that hit a couple of days ago at the town of Kolontar, destroying several villages, killing four, critically injuring 11 and potentially damaging the downstream waters of the Danube river.

The sludge, which has an ochre color because of harmless iron oxide, is extremely hazardous because of two reasons: on one side it has an extremely alkaline pH of 13 (in a scale of 14, similar to pure bleach) which is totally caustic and is probably behind the deaths and injuries, on the other hand it contains many heavy metals which are extremely carcinogenic. It seems that when the sludge dries up, the danger will be increased because the dust will be able to reach the lungs. 

Most worrisome is anyhow that the corporation in charge (MAL, a Hungarian firm) is trying to get away as not responsible. They claim that they made all compulsory checks in the chemical residue reservoir and they have offered to pay a ridiculous compensation of 504 USD to each family affected. Obviously this is mere peanuts, when you have lost your home and probably also all your way of life (jobs, community, etc.), not to mention health issues. 

It is simply outraging and the logical reaction should be to intervene the company and possibly sell it out so it pays its debt with society. When such a catastrophe happens, it is only penally relevant if the company abode by the rules or not, it is still civilly responsible for all the damage caused. And the corporation is responsible with all its assets, regardless that managers or workers are also responsible for manslaughter or other crimes if it can be demonstrated they failed to stand up in their work to legal security standards. 

It is critically important to make corporations pay for catastrophes like these, specially because if they are not held fully responsible to the last penny, they will repeat. However in our decadent late Capitalist society it is becoming outrageously normal that companies get away after paying just a minor fine. It happened in Bhopal, it is happening in the Gulf of Mexico with the insulting complicity of the White House and the corporate media and it may happen at the heart of Europe again unless the Hungarian government takes a strong stand. 

Luckily it seems that the government is indeed pissed off and willing to take action. But from words to acts there is a long walk. We'll see. 

Ref.: Al Jazeera.