Navy sailors have radiation sickness

http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sa ... an-rescue/

"Crew members scrub contaminated snow off the deck of USS Ronald Reagan in March 2011 during a humanitarian mission off tsunami-stricken Japan.
Photo: Getty Images
Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper knew something was wrong when billows of metallic-tasting snow began drifting over USS Ronald Reagan.
“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” Cooper recalled of the day in March 2011 when she and scores of crewmates watched a sudden storm blow toward them from the tsunami-torn coast of Fukushima, Japan.
Modal Trigger
Lindsay Cooper
The tall 24-year-old with a winning smile didn’t know it then, but the snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air mixing with a plume of radioactive steam from the city’s shattered nuclear reactor.
Now, nearly three years after their deployment on a humanitarian mission to Japan’s ravaged coast, Cooper and scores of her fellow crew members on the aircraft carrier and a half-dozen other support ships are battling cancers, thyroid disease, uterine bleeding and other ailments."...

I know that there are lots of people who are going to be quick to place the blame on the Navy and the CO of the USS Ronald Reagan for injuries to the crew; let's not forget that the brave men and women who are in our service go where they are ordered to go when they are ordered to go there.

How many more civilians would have suffered and possibly died had the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan and the rest of the ships and boats in the carrier group not responded? BRAVO ZULU to every US service member who participated in the disaster recovery at and around Fukushima, your efforts and sacrifices are recognized by many grateful citizens of Japan and US military veterans.

In the meanwhile there are too many US service men and women who are highly susceptible to high speed lead poisoning, most likely in the caliber of 7.62mm, around the world right now. Most notably those personnel serving in Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Somalia.

The risks come with the job and those who accept their positions and recite the oath to protect our nation from all enemies, foreign or domestic, also accept the potential that they may be injured, handicapped, or die while serving. God bless each and every one of them as they defend our nation and our freedom. Our veterans deserve every bit of what they earned through their service; every service member who is injured while serving has earned all of the care they need to recover, survive, eventually die with dignity, and to be formally recognized and honored for their service.

Otis, do you have any CVN time. I wonder if radiation detectors went away with the Cold War, or at least became last priority re: PMS checks. I also wonder why they did not use the salt water wash down system to clear the deck instead of brooms. Not to point fingers I know the Navy I retired from in 1996 has changed a lot. With the continued down sizing, op-tempo keeps going up.

otisptoadwater wrote: I know that there are lots of people who are going to be quick to place the blame on the Navy and the CO of the USS Ronald Reagan for injuries to the crew; let's not forget that the brave men and women who are in our service go where they are ordered to go when they are ordered to go there.

How many more civilians would have suffered and possibly died had the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan and the rest of the ships and boats in the carrier group not responded? BRAVO ZULU to every US service member who participated in the disaster recovery at and around Fukushima, your efforts and sacrifices are recognized by many grateful citizens of Japan and US military veterans.

In the meanwhile there are too many US service men and women who are highly susceptible to high speed lead poisoning, most likely in the caliber of 7.62mm, around the world right now. Most notably those personnel serving in Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Somalia.

The risks come with the job and those who accept their positions and recite the oath to protect our nation from all enemies, foreign or domestic, also accept the potential that they may be injured, handicapped, or die while serving. God bless each and every one of them as they defend our nation and our freedom. Our veterans deserve every bit of what they earned through their service; every service member who is injured while serving has earned all of the care they need to recover, survive, eventually die with dignity, and to be formally recognized and honored for their service.

Bob, I spent too much time on, under, and above the ocean but never as a member of permanent ships company. I know about the sprinkler system on carriers and that would have made sense in the case you brought up in your OP. Somewhere a couple of Division Commanders and their staff have had to answer that question already. How about let's blame the CO, XO, and the Weather Smith too? Perhaps if anyone in the WX shop had their sh*t together and tracking the winds coming off Fukushima this wouldn't have happened? There's plenty of blame to pass around and obviously some mistakes were made.

Then again, how close did the ships need to be to be effective while assisting the evacuation and recovery efforts? I hate to admit it, but I would reluctantly send crew members under my command into a hazardous situation if they could save the lives of others and return them to safety even if it injured or potentially cost some crew members their lives.

There isn't any easy answer, rescuers and the people in peril are at equal risk. Is it better to stand back and let nature take it's course or to charge in and pluck out the lucky few who can be rescued now? I'm going with the fix it now solution; I know there are going to be consequences later but I'd rather deal with that as it comes over time.

Sad to hear that about our sailors but great point above, you think the military would be much more able to detect radiation than most anyone else.

How many of these nuclear accidents happen and are covered up? My sister was affected by one in northern Scotland. It is impossible to find any real information on it now, but an entire town was affected by our nuclear accident.

So is this a good enough reason not to use nuclear power anymore or are the risks of expensive energy more harmful to societies than the occasional nuclear fubar? I realize this isn't the actual topic, but I have a feeling this is where this conversation is headed.

Fuel poverty Britain: 24,000 will die from cold this winter and 6m fear they cannot heat their home

How many will die from radiation poisoning verses heat or cold?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rices.html

Just saying there are risks all around us and there is no way to prevent natural disasters 100%

Rick wrote: So is this a good enough reason not to use nuclear power anymore or are the risks of expensive energy more harmful to societies than the occasional nuclear fubar? I realize this isn't the actual topic, but I have a feeling this is where this conversation is headed.

Fuel poverty Britain: 24,000 will die from cold this winter and 6m fear they cannot heat their home

How many will die from radiation poisoning verses heat or cold?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rices.html

Just saying there are risks all around us and there is no way to prevent natural disasters 100%

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The BOLDED is somewhat micro in it's presentation......WHEN you build Nuclear power plants
on KNOWN fault lines and ON a shoreline that has tsunami tendencies.....how SMART is that?

ScienceChic wrote: I'm behind these sailors - the Japanese utility company has been trying to hide the seriousness of the damage caused by these plants since the get-go and they are just more collateral damage - it's not right. And there's more damage coming, this radiation issue should be a higher priority in the news - it's going to start impacting our food supply in a major way.

US Sailors: Response to Fukushima Emergency Resulted in Cancer
Dozens of crew members have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, testicular cancer and leukemia
- Common Dreams staff
December 17, 2013

As this Al-Jazeera blog post reports :

Fifty-one crew members of the USS Ronald Reagan say they are suffering from a variety of cancers as a direct result of their involvement in Operation Tomodachi, a U.S. rescue mission in Fukushima after the nuclear disaster in March 2011. The affected sailors are suing Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), alleging that the utility mishandled the crisis and did not adequately warn the crew of the risk of participating in the earthquake relief efforts.

The Department of Defense says the Navy took "proactive measures" in order to "mitigate the levels of Fukushima-related contamination on U.S. Navy ships and aircraft” and that crew members were not exposed to dangerous radiation levels.

Charles Bonner, attorney for the sailors, says the radiation the USS Ronald Reagan crew was exposed to extended beyond the tasks of Operation Tomodachi. Deployed ships desalinate their own water, so crew members were unknowingly drinking, cooking with, and bathing in contaminated water due to the ship's close proximity to the disaster site, according to Bonner. The USS Reagan was ultimately informed of the contamination after a month of living approximately 10 miles offshore from the affected region.

US Sailors Vs.TEPCO - Attorney Charles Bonner:
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Published on Dec 13, 2013

The Global Threat of Fukushima
A Global Response is Needed
by KEVIN ZEESE AND MARGARET FLOWERS
Weekend Edition October 25-27, 2013

The story of Fukushima should be on the front pages of every newspaper. Instead, it is rarely mentioned. The problems at Fukushima are unprecedented in human experience and involve a high risk of radiation events larger than any that the global community has ever experienced. It is going to take the best engineering minds in the world to solve these problems and to diminish their global impact.

There are three major problems at Fukushima: (1) Three reactor cores are missing; (2) Radiated water has been leaking from the plant in mass quantities for 2.5 years; and (3) Eleven thousand spent nuclear fuel rods, perhaps the most dangerous things ever created by humans, are stored at the plant and need to be removed, 1,533 of those are in a very precarious and dangerous position. Each of these three could result in dramatic radiation events, unlike any radiation exposure humans have ever experienced. We’ll discuss them in order, saving the most dangerous for last.

How much radioactive water is leaking into the ocean? An estimated 300 tons (71,895 gallons/272,152 liters) of contaminated water is flowing into the ocean every day. The first radioactive ocean plume released by the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster will take three years to reach the shores of the United States. This means, according to a new study from the University of New South Wales, the United States will experience the first radioactive water coming to its shores sometime in early 2014.

One month after Fukushima, the FDA announced it was going to stop testing fish in the Pacific Ocean for radiation . But, independent research is showing that every bluefin tuna tested in the waters off California has been contaminated with radiation that originated in Fukushima. Daniel Madigan, the marine ecologist who led the Stanford University study from May of 2012 was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying, “The tuna packaged it up (the radiation) and brought it across the world’s largest ocean. We were definitely surprised to see it at all and even more surprised to see it in every one we measured.” Marine biologist Nicholas Fisher of Stony Brook University in New York State, another member of the study group, said: “We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium 134 and cesium 137.”

The ENTIRE statement above reminds me of the old adage "dont' shit where you eat"......the
BOLDED means we are so-o-o screwed......the ocean is a sewer and IF you are eating from
this sewage your health ramifications are looking alittle shaky....JMO.... but The Gulf is NOT
pristine, regardless of what BP is ATTEMPTING to portray....JMO