A kovetkezo cikk a Nuclear Metals, Inc. (ma Starmet) nevu cegrol szol, melyik Concordban egy Bostontol nem messze levo kis varosban tevekenykedett az utobbi evekben. Ez a ceg gyartotta a NATO-nak a gyengitett uranlovedekekeket melyeket Irakban, es mashol hasznaltak. A cikk lenyege, hogy Concord varosban lenyegesen magasabbak a rakos emberek szama mint mashol Massachusetts allamban. (A hivatalos tudomanyos allaspont szerint nincs kapcsolat a gyengitett uran es a rak kozott, de a kosovoi az iraki es a concordi adatok egyutt azt sugalljak, hogy ahol gyengitett uran van a talajban, ivovizben, stb., ott megno a rakos betegek szama. A tudomany csupan csak nem tudott pontos kapcsolatot teremteni a ket dolog kozott, azaz nincs egzakt mechanizmus ami megmagyarazza a statisztikai adatokat.)
A cikk fobb allitasai:
-NMI (ma Starmet) gyartja a gy. u. lovedekeket, es a ceg Concordban Massachusetts allamban tevekenykedik.
-NMI-tol egy merfoldre a talaj szinte 100% gyengitett uran. Tehat ugy tevekenykedik a ceg, hogy a szel, viz stb. szethordozhatjak az uranreszecskeket. Az NMI nem kozli, hogy mennyi uran jutott a levegobe
-Rakos betegek szama magasabb Concordban mint mashol az allamban (leukemia, pajzsmirigyrak, mellrak, borrak, hererak, idegrendszerrel kapcsolatos daganatok)
-NMI 400000 tonna gy. u.-t temetett a foldbe, mely ma is szennyezi a kornyekbeli varosok ivovizet. Ennek a feltisztitasat ma adopenzbol fedezik
-A Starmet ma is gyart uranlovedekekekt Concordban, k a hely lakossag protestalalsa ellenere
-A cikk iroja javasolja a gy.u. alapo fegyverek betiltasat.
DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS AND WASTE IN CONCORD, MA by Judy Scotnicki for
the International DU Forum of the Military Toxics
Project held in Arlington Virginia, Nov. 14-16,1997
Is living near Nuclear Metals, Inc. hazardous to our health? This is a
fundamental question my citizens' group in Concord, Ma. has been asking
for
eight years now. Nuclear Metals, Inc.(NMI) moved into Concord in 1958.
This company is one of the two U.S. manufacturers of the radioactive,
armor-tank piercing depleted uranium penetrator.
While no link has been proven between Nuclear Metals and the higher
cancer incidence in Concord compared to surrounding towns, or state
wide, a
link to Nuclear Metals and higher depleted uranium levels in soil off
the NMI site has been proven. Dr. Charles Harper and Professor Stein
Jacobson,
in their laboratory at Harvard University, in 1994, confirmed that the
uranium in soil sampled a mile from NMI was nearly pure depleted
uranium. This
suggests that radioactive particles have escaped from Nuclear Metals in
the past. Airborne particles of depleted uranium (DU) pose the greatest
health risk to our community. Even reports prepared for the Department
of the Army point out that the short and long term health effects of
inhaled or
ingested depleted uranium include cancers, other illnesses and birth
defects. NMI has been unwilling to release its air emissions data for
the years
1958-1982 when it had operated a uranium melting reduction furnace in
addition to machining the penetrator. It is expected that the DU air
emissions
would have been higher in that period than later.
Are the cancers in Concord cancers that could have been caused by
radiation exposure? Experts will debate. In the first half decade of the
Massachusetts Cancer Registry, male leukemia in Concord from 1982-1986
was one of the highest in the state according to Dr. Richard Clapp, the
first Director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry. Our local group,
Citizens' Research and Environmental Watch, (CREW) reviewed the Registry
data for Concord up to 1990 which showed thyroid cancers 2 1/2 times the
statewide incidence. In this same period there were five other
high-incidence cancers; breast, skin melanoma, testicular, brain and
central nervous system and multiple myeloma. Last month, members of CREW
heard from a doctor at our local hospital that this doctor had been
treating MNI workers for multiple myeloma. Also, although the
Massachusetts
Department of Public Health was not aware before 1997, CREW learned from
one of our Concord mother's research, of three young adults in her
neighborhood, who had developed lung cancer. Lung cancer occurring in
people in their twenties is rare, even in a smoker. CREW has pressed the
State to investigate further these lung cancer cases and multiple
myelomas in Concord.
A worry for all the citizens in our community who are informed about
depleted uranium is "What is the risk to our children if there were a
major fire at
Nuclear Metals, Inc?" Typically NMI has 1,000,000 pounds of depleted
uranium on hand at its plant. The federal agency, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, in April 1993 letters to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
and one of our CREW members said about this issue, "credible emergency
scenarios, including a major fire at the facility, do not produce a
significant radiation dose to off-site individuals." Thus, if there were
a major fire at
NMI involving a portion of the 1,000,000 pounds of depleted uranium, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission is saying there is no risk of radiation
exposure for our community. Therefore we have no NMI specific emergency
notification or evacuation plans for Concord neighborhoods or those of
nearby communities.
One way that the scientists and doctors gathered at this conference
could help communities like mine is to formalize their consensus that
depleted
uranium (DU) is dangerous, with known, harmful health consequences when
it gets into the body. Then I urge you to make a plan with the rest of
us on
how to convince other doctors and scientists in the world community of
the dangers of depleted uranium.
Another area of concern for us in Concord has been the radioactive
contamination of the Nuclear Metals Inc. site itself. NMI dumped 400,000
pounds
of uranium wastes in an unlined pit on their property, until 1985. As a
result this migrating uranium has contaminated the ground water and is
not far
from the Assabet River which provides drinking water for the town of
Billerica. Nuclear Metals had two overflow pipes from the uranium pit
that went
into a cranberry bog on their property which is also radioactively
contaminated. There are radioactive contaminated soils around the NMI
buildings. The
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission are requiring NMI to "clean-up" the 400,000 pounds
of uranium waste in the unlined pit on their property. The cost of this
removal is being paid for by the U.S. Department of the Army paying $6.2
million-your tax dollars and mine. None of the other radioactive
contamination on the NMI site is part of this $6.2 million "cleanup." No
plan or cost for
"cleaning-up" the remaining contamination on the 46 acre site has yet
been determined.
The contaminated uranium waste will be removed from Concord in bags or
boxes loaded into 300 unmarked trucks traveling to Worcester, MA. From
there the radioactive waste will travel by rail to Envirocare in Utah
where, sadly, a new area of our country may become contaminated with DU.
For years our group Citizens' Research and Environmental Watch has been
collecting data on the health, safety and environmental impact of NMI on
our community. We have raised money to hire experts like Marvin
Resnikoff of Radioactive Waste Management Associates, who have produced
several excellent reports on Nuclear Metals, Inc. We have had the
respected Massachusetts firm of Pine & Swallow Associates, Inc. review
Nuclear
Metals Inc.'s own consultants' assessment of the contamination at the
NMI site. Even with the accumulation of these experts' reports on NMI
and
years of educational work by citizens in Concord, including town wide
petitioning, leafleting thousands of households, several different years
submission of articles for Concord Town Meeting votes, letters to the
editor campaign to our local newspaper, educational forums and working
with
media both locally and in Boston, we have not been able to stop the
production of the depleted uranium penetrator.
This fall Nuclear Metals, Inc. did change their name to Starmet. The
current president of the company, Robert Quinn, was quoted in the Wall
Street
Journal (6/10/91) as saying "We endlessly promote the value of depleted
uranium in our society." He actually said this after the Gulf War.
To me, personally, the most disturbing aspect of Nuclear Metals, Inc.
work in Concord is that here, in our town, they made the depleted
uranium
penetrator which was the weapon used in the Gulf War with deadly
consequences for friend and foe. It is possibly still killing our U.S.
and other Gulf
War veterans as well as civilians in Iraq, particularly the children in
Southern Iraq, due to the widespread radioactive contamination from the
DU
penetrators fired during the war. An intrinsic characteristic of
depleted uranium is its 4 1/2 billion year half-life. Varying estimates
of DU fired during
the war have been given from 300 to 800 tons. Thus there are areas of
the Middle East permanently contaminated from this weapon.
This depleted uranium penetrator is now proliferating around the world
with the following countries known to have or he developing these
weapons:
United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Sweden, Greece, Turkey,
Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Japan, Thailand,
Taiwan
and South Korea. In August, 1996 a sub-commission of the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution urging "all states to be
guided in their international policies by the need to curb the
production and spread of weapons of mass destruction and indiscriminate
effect, in
particular, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel air bombs, napalm,
cluster bombs, biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted
uranium."
The only way to prevent the depleted uranium penetrator from being used
again is to achieve a binding international ban on the development,
production, testing and use of depleted uranium weapons. To achieve this
ban we must develop a strategy, this weekend, that focuses both on the
United States and the United Nations. I urge this conference to commit
itself, immediately and wholeheartedly, to a campaign to achieve a
permanent,
international ban on depleted uranium weapons.
