The Mighty Oak-Chernobyl coverup

When it comes to the truth about radiation and health effects, there are no experts who are honest - not in government, not in science, not anywhere. Yet, people would rather listen to liars than challenge their assumptions about the sources of the so-called truth and disregard the purveyors of actual truth on this topic: the non-creditialed self-taught. - Andrew Kishner, May 18, 2013

FUKUSHIMA

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LaSalle Nuclear Plant News

May 1, 2013 - Listen to Gail Snyder and Andrew Kishner discuss LaSalle - Podcast program titled 'LaSalle SCRAMS x4; Will Chicagoans Have to Scram?' at Nuclear Hotseat - Also, sign the petition demanding that the NRC revoke LICENSES of operating GE Mark 1 and 2s in U.S.!! - more analyses and news on the menu 'LaSalle' tab

April 30, 2013 - While LaScram ~~LaSalle~~ Falls Apart, Operator Asks NRC If They Can Put a Hemi In It- Exelon is proceeding with a formal request to the NRC for a mega-power boost (aka 'uprate') at the LaSalle plant to increase thermal output by a whopping 12.5%. Also, it has been learned that the culprit of the technical shutdown of LaSalle Unit 1 reactor on April 27th was the same exact valve that failed following a scram in February 2011 due to a welding defect. The recommended fix (buy a new one, duh!) was apparently not heeded; Status: LaSalle 1 is being restarted (at 22%). LaSalle 2 is at 1% power.

April 29, 2013 - Map of eastern U.S. nuclear plants that have no containment vent filters (which is a 'Fukushima lessons learned' that 'wasn't implemented')- enlarge image

April 25-27, 2013 - April 25: LaSalle Unit 2 restart attempt results in a scram - reason: condenser leak. April 26: NRC announces 'Special Investigation' into April 17th events; April 27: during Unit 1 startup process, operators were forced to shut reactor down after leak was detected in the primary containment

April 25, 2013 - Is the NRC and the nuclear industry trying to prevent us from knowing, questioning, something or some things? 'Day 9 of LaSalle Radiation Release Incident

April 19, 2013 - Analysis of safety issues and incident on April 17th at LaSalle by Potrblog.com - link to video

April 17, 2013 - LaSalle County Nuclear Generating Station is hit by lightning - both reactors scram - pressure builds in containment - radioactive gases vented from containment - monitoring fails - vents from Unit 2 not filtered - leaks and other problems not reported until days later - our initial report and our analysis of the types of radioactive gases released in unfiltered vent

From April 28 through May 2, while Chernobyl's radioactive plumes were slowly creeping across the ocean to reach the Americas, the Energy Department purged several hours each day while the winds were blowing towards the 'low-use' people.¹²

Daily venting continued through and beyond May 2nd but record-keeping - as evidenced in a final report completed in 1986 by the EPA for the DOE - deteriorated starting on that day. This was especially so between May 5 to May 9 - the EPA didn't specify the wind direction that corresponded with purges, simply labeling the five-day cumulative direction as 'variable.'

Test site workers purged the tunnel every day beyond May 2nd for a duration of a minimum of 4 hours per day to a maximum of 24 hours dependent on 'weather conditions [that] were favorable' (meaning when winds would blow north and east into less populated areas).

The radioactive clouds linked to the Chernobyl accident on April 26 arrived in the Western United States on May 7th. Per the EPA, the 'first detectable Chernobyl fallout' appeared on May 7th in Denver, Colorado and also in towns in Utah and Nevada.

Two days later, on May 9, the EPA suddenly decided to pack up their bags and cease monitoring Mighty Oak venting. According to their official report, EPA's 'special sampling was discontinued after May 9 following the return of airborne xenon concentrations to background levels.' This means they removed all 'special noble gas' monitoring equipment around the Nevada Test Site that was specifically there to monitor Mighty Oak effluent. That equipment was used in part to collect radioiodine from the air that test negative for iodine-131 until May 9 when slightly positive readings were ported. The final round of air samples were tested on May 10 which tested positive for iodine-131 in five Nevada towns, including a peak reading of 4.6 'iodine units' in air at Twin Springs Ranch, Nevada. The EPA said regarding these measurements in Nevada's air that the radioiodine 'originated from the reactor accident in the USSR' and not Mighty Oak. ¹³ How did they know? They would also attribute an airborne reading in Boise, Idaho, on May 11th that was the 'highest in the country' for beta radiation, or 2.12 picocuries of beta (radiation) per cubic meter, on Chernobyl.

What was the reason for the EPA 'pulling out' of the Mighty Oak monitoring and blaming environmental radiation peaks exclusively on Chernobyl? The EPA noted in their final report that 'no radioactivity attributable to Mighty Oak was detectable after May 5, 1986.' But there was no way to know this. Levels of iodine-131 and xenon-133 gas began rising on and after May 5th that could have been from either or both Mighty Oak and Chernobyl. A scientist could not pinpoint the point of origin of a single radiochemical. Even if the EPA was using sophisticated models for determining the 'gas signature' of Chernobyl, the agency couldn't attribute the origin of every cubic meter of iodine-131 gas in the American West to Chernobyl if there was another source of iodine-131 pollution nearby. Iodine-131 from Asia and Rainier Mesa would be chemically identical.

Soviet Overtures for Nuclear Freeze

Mighty Oak was the ninth nuclear weapons test announced by the U.S. since August 6, 1985, when the Soviet Union declared a moratorium on nuclear testing. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared a six-month unilateral moratorium and extended it until March 31, 1986. He offered to continue the moratorium if the United States refrained from its tests. Although the Soviet Union had completed a round of tests prior to the moratorium, their offer seemed genuine; August 6, 1985 was the 40th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. Moreover, U.S. congressional and peace leaders pressured the U.S. government to follow suit and take the offer.

The reaction in the Soviet Union to Mighty Oak was fierce: the Soviet Tass news agency had choice words, calling the test a "dangerous destabilizing step"...."as if [the U.S.] had decided to ride for a fall on the brink of a nuclear precipice"..."another demonstration of the Reagan administration's criminal contempt for the calls of U.S. and world opinion to join the Soviet Union's moratorium on all nuclear explosions." A commentator on Moscow's nightly television news said, "The further carrying out of nuclear tests by the United States will force the Soviet Union to renew its tests. We regret this, but we shall have to do it, as we cannot waive our own security and the security of our allies."

Despite the fact the U.S. had conducted nine nuclear tests since Gorbachev's moratorium announcement, the USSR did not break the moratorium even after the March 31 deadline. The Energy Department conducted its tenth nuclear test under that moratorium on April 20 ('Mogollon') and the eleventh on April 22 ('Jefferson').

Gorbachev probably couldn't break the moratorium with a nuclear test - the Soviets were reeling from the aftermath of Chernobyl, an accident attributable to carelessness and poor management; power plant staff 'forgot' to switch back on the emergency cooling system following a brief experiment.

The first nuclear test by the USSR since the announced moratorium occurred on February 26, 1987. This was some six months after all of that angry rhetoric.

The verbal moratorium between the Soviets and the U.S. - that banned nuclear testing - between 1958 and 1961 was a delicate peace and to the Soviets carried much promise; a perpetual testing ban would have great potential for economic recovery for the Soviet Union if vast sums of monies used for testing were no longer needed. But when another Western power, France, didn't think it was bound to the verbal moratorium and conducted two above-ground nuclear tests in 1960 and 1961, the Soviets easily broke the moratorium, and with a vengeance: the Soviet's 1961 and 1962 open-air nuclear tests included the largest superbomb ever detonated - 3,000 times the Hiroshima bomb - and testing during that timeframe resulted in stratospheric fallout of strontium-90 that was equal to all of the nuclear testing before or after - even through the present. The strontium-90 from the stratospheric residues caused a tremendous health crisis in America¹⁴ and other nations downwind.

The EPA somehow ignored the fact that the DOE's venting continued until late May. A 2004 report¹⁵ disclosed that venting of the T-Tunnel continued on a daily basis through the 19th of May. But the EPA published no data beyond May 9 of the number of hours of purging per day or the corresponding wind direction. There is actually no record anywhere of the wind direction or length of purging from T-Tunnel during the second and third weeks of May! So, just because the EPA failed to detect xenon-133 gas from May 5 to May 9 in its special monitoring of Mighty Oak venting doesn't mean xenon and iodine gasses wouldn't leak out into the environment at some point while tunnel venting continued until being ceased altogether on May 19th. Couldn't some of the contaminated air in the U.S. 'thought' to be from Chernobyl fallout be radiation from the tunnel purging? In the spring of 1986, the EPA went on record saying that whenever it rained in the United States in May 1986 there was ' Iodine-131,' a water-soluble thyroid-seeking radionuclide, in it from Chernobyl.¹⁶ They never mentioned that Iodine-131 from Mighty Oak was in that rain too. The EPA would blame all anomalous radiation readings, like the airborne iodine-131 spike in Nevada towns on May 10, on Chernobyl in 1986 to suit an agenda.

The EPA has believed since those fateful weeks in April and May 1986 that iodine-131 did not flow in any quantities out of the T-Tunnel. They argued that on-site filtration had removed all or the most significant quantities of iodine-131 gas before leaving the tunnel¹⁷. However, we know that a Nevada Test Site spokesman told the Associated Press on May 15th that test site workers "cut through two heavy concrete doors that keep radioactive gases from escaping out the end of the main tunnel." The AP article noted that "minor amounts of radiation were recorded at Alamo, 50 miles east of the test area, when some gases were ventilated from the tunnel." Yet the EPA had fully removed their special radiation monitoring equipment from the test site area on May 10th and wasn't able to measure what was in air around the test site on May 15th!

The EPA failed to acknowledge that the May 15th tunnel breach leaked radioactivity that contained iodine-131 gas. Any physics professor will tell you that while the half-life of iodine-131 gas is short (around 8 days), it takes three or more months until there are no detectable quantities left. A test site spokesman actually told a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle on May 15 ('Nevada Nuclear Test Mishap') that instrumentation in the tunnel in mid-May was registering "about 25 rads per hour" and that re-entry wouldn't be possible for "several weeks." Part of this intense radiation was iodine gas. An AP article in mid-May indicated that "while working in one of the tunnels," two test site workers received 'measurable radiation doses of iodine 131.'¹⁸ Since test site workers were measurably exposed by this iodine gas in mid-May in the tunnel, why wouldn't the EPA acknowledge that the worker-related tunnel breach on May 15th leaked some of this iodine gas into the outside air? The EPA also failed to acknowledge that unfiltered releases could have flowed out of the tunnel through another exit - a vertical shaft that was drilled from the mesa surface to insert radiation and seismic equipment.¹⁹ Per the Associated Press, workers at the test site were still at work attempting to vent radioactivity remaining in the T-Tunnel from the April 1986 accident as late as March 1987, when the DOE said operations were halted to help prepare for another nuclear test elsewhere in the tunnel complex. The EPA didn't cite any of the above points in their 1986 'final' report.

The EPA knows as much as anyone that iodine-131 is a radiological toxin that affects the thyroid gland and floats easily across the landscape. The EPA must have known that workers were trying to access the tunnel (for the equipment) beyond May 9th. The EPA must have known that radioactive gasses likely would be pouring out of the side of Rainier Mesa into the outside air yet they abruptly ended special monitoring on May 9th. It turns out the highest (average) concentration of iodine-131 in milk found in the U.S. after the Chernobyl (between May 6 to June 30) was Boise, Idaho, which is located a few hundred miles away from the test site to the north. Boise's average milk contamination (of I-131) was 71 'iodine units,' much higher than the second-ranked city: Spokane, Wash., at 42 'iodine units.'²⁰ How much of Boise's milk contamination was attributable to the Mighty Oak *deliberate* ventings? Zero percent? Fifty percent? Recall that Boise was in the general direction where test site managers 'aimed' air while purging Tunnel-T.

The Iodine-131 from Mighty Oak easily could have traveled to Canada and the eastern seaboard, and Europe and even Chernobyl itself! But because of the collusion between the EPA and DOE - and the failure of the media - the U.S. government's Mighty Oak accident, in the 'official' sense, only emitted a puff of xenon gas while Chernobyl dumped 100% of the the Iodine-131 on America. But Mighty Oak probably released thousands of curies of Iodine-131 that mixed with the strontium-90, cesium-137, plutonium-239, cobalt-60, and radioiodines that Chernobyl dumped all over North America.²¹ Both Chernobyl and Mighty Oak filled America's air with other gaseous poisons as krypton-85, xenon-131m, xenon-133, xenon-133m, Argon-37, Argon-39, Carbon-14 and gaseous tritium-compounds. These were all vented from 'Tunnel-T' and Chernobyl's Unit 4 reactor. These aren't harmless gases. They are all radioactive compounds that can soak, seep and incorporate into our bodies' tissues.

The Iodine-131 from Chernobyl and Mighty Oak put millions of Americans at risk for thyroid disease and cancer, including the participants of 'Hands Across America,' a chain of 4+ million humans holding hands, formed on May 25, 1986, that stretched from coast to coast to bring attention to the causes of homelessness and hunger.

While it is difficult for any American, including residents of America's Intermountain States, to believe that the EPA lied and put American lives at risk to save the DOE's skin, it is easy for these Westerners to believe the following disgraceful acts of the DOE. Westerners have been down that road with the DOE, as downwinders themselves or as family members of downwinders. Following the detonation, on April 10, an Energy Department spokesperson told the Associated Press that the test went off 'without incident.' The DOE didn't admit publicly that there was an accident with Mighty Oak for nearly four weeks, until a press conference on May 6th. (The DOE, though, first admitted to the accident on a local TV station on May 1st.) Tom Clark, the Energy Department manager in Nevada, told newspapers on May 8 that "The highest release recorded in any area was the equivalent to 90 seconds of background radiation" but on the same day, Dave Miller, another spokesman told the Associated Press that the levels released were "comparable to five minutes of average background radiation." Three days prior Dave Miller told the Wall Street Journal that there were no outside releases of radioactivity. Which Dave Miller was telling the truth? The Dave Miller on Friday or the Dave Miller on the following Monday?

The confession by the DOE that radiation did leak from the Mighty Oak accident via the Rainier Mesa tunnel didn't come voluntarily. It came in mid-May after a reporter noticed a report lying on a desk of an EPA official in Las Vegas. (Peter Dale Scott article).

A decade after the Mighty Oak coverup, the DOE was still backpedaling. The DOE was still at work revising the truth. Although a 1986 Energy Department report ²³ noted the maximum level of xenon-133 detected following Mighty Oak was the EPA's 550 'xenon unit' figure, a 1996 declassified Energy Department document restated that peak reading to 450 units!

More than 25 years since Mighty Oak, neither the EPA, the CDC, the DOE nor the DOD has confessed and told the truth of what really happened. When the truth emerges, 'Mighty Oak' will be a term for use in our everyday language, i.e, when a corporation dumps oil into a river or sea that just experienced an accidental oil spill, that is a 'Mighty Oak'.

It turns out the U.S. wasn't the only one with the novel idea at the time of Chernobyl. Peter Dale Scott wrote in his 1986 article 'The Nevada Radiation Cover-up' (The ThreePenny Review) that Dr. Rosalie Bertell noted that "West German radiation from a reactor accident on May 4 was initially attributed to Chernobyl and, that according to the French Green Party, there was a similarly disguised venting at this time from a nuclear reactor mishap at Cap de la Hague in France."

In the final analysis, in pure and simple terms, Mighty Oak was a disguised venting by the U.S. (copycatted by other Western powers) that it couldn't pass up thanks to a terrible accident in the USSR. Instead of trying improve public health, these Western powers aided its deterioration.