And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: via DOEWATCH <A HREF="http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=062799&ID=s600296&cat= "> http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=062799&ID=s600296&cat=</A> ================================================== Salmon close to radiation Plutonium byproduct found near Hanford Reach spawning beds Karen Dorn Steele - The Spokesman-Review In the shadow of Hanford's old H Reactor, salmon jump as scientist Norm Buske's Geiger counter chatters. This swirling stretch of the Columbia River -- near the White Bluffs that overlook Hanford Reach -- is home to the spawning beds of fall chinook salmon, who return here from the ocean. At the edge of this productive fishery, Buske has made a potentially ominous discovery: radioactive Strontium 90 at 25 times safe levels in mulberry bushes whose roots reach into the river. The radiation was found only 100 feet from some of the salmon beds. Strontium 90, a byproduct of plutonium production, is a highly toxic element that attacks bone marrow and takes 38 years to decay to half its original strength. Hanford contractors have already detected a spike of hexavalent chromium, a powerful chemical and carcinogen, in the river at this very spot. It's below H Reactor's old retention basins, where radioactive cooling water and damaged fuel rods were dumped during the Cold War. The chromium is coming from a plume under Hanford in concentrations 25 times higher than what is known to harm juvenile salmon, according to a 1996 study for the U.S. Department of Energy. Buske's discovery this spring raises the stakes: Has Strontium 90 followed the same gravelly channel into the river as the chromium? Hanford officials say there's probably no problem. Others aren't so sure. "This is a big deal," said John Erickson, director of radiation protection for the Washington Department of Health. "It's a hot issue whenever salmon are involved." Buske's discovery is "extremely unsettling and of serious concern," said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, the largest organization of commercial fishermen on the West Coast. Eighty percent of fall chinook in the Columbia River come from the Hanford Reach, as do 25-30 percent of all the salmon caught in Alaska, Spain said. There's no evidence that Hanford radiation is reaching salmon or their spawning beds, but Buske's findings warrant a thorough government investigation, Spain said.<<end excerpt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Strontium-90 Adjacent to Fall Chinook Salmon Redds at H-Reactor Area of the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River Norm Buske Government Accountability Project 1402 Third Avenue, Suite 1215 Seattle, WA 98101 June 25, 1999 Summary Strontium 90 intrusion, at eight times permissible activity, from the Hanford H Reactor area into the Columbia Riverbed at a very local area of Fall Chinook spawning grounds is here reported for the first time. This discovery raises concerns for the health of the salmon stock and for the adequacy of governmental regulatory oversight of large scale, dangerous activities of the U.S. Department of Energy at Hanford Site. Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
