NRC file photo, showing Fermi 2 located on the Lake Erie -- which Waterkeeper Sandy Bihn calls "the fishiest," that is most biolgically productive, of the Great Lakes

The Detroit News has reported, in an article entitled "Fermi 3 foes urge health analysis," that indications of health damage from the operations of Fermi 2 be further studied before any plans for a new reactor at Fermi 3 move forward. The article reports on the questions raised in a recent report by Joe Mangano, Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, such as why Monroe County suffers from inexplicably high rates of infant motality, low birth weights, cancer mortality, and non-fatal cancer incidence.

Mangano serves as an expert witness for the international environmental coalition officially intervening against the Fermi 3 proposal. The coalition's member groups are Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter.

The article quoted from Mangano's submission: "Of 19 indicators, the Monroe County rate change (before and after Fermi 2 began operating) exceeded the state or nation for all 19...".

The article also quoted from Don't Waste Michigan's Michael Keegan: "It's important to establish what the situation is...If you're talking about putting another reactor into play, you need to know where you are with baseline cancer statistics."

The following 18 different types of food products sampled in Japan in December and January violated those limits: log-grown Shitake mushrooms (up to 2,390 bq/kg); greenling fish (up to 1,540 bq/kg); goldeye rockfish (up to 1,630 bq/kg); common skate (up to 640 bq/kg); rockfish (up to 2,130 bq/kg); bitter melon tea (up to 1,020 bq/kg); boar meat (up to 13,300 bq/kg); dehydrated taro stalk (up to 750 bq/kg); righteye flounder (up to 1,380 bq/kg); Yuzu citrus fruit (930 bq/kg); Japanese smelt (591 bq/kg); dried Japanese radish (800 bq/kg); Asian black bear meat (1,110 bq/kg); sika deer meat (573 bq/kg); dried yacon leaf (570 bq/kg); lefteye flounder (540 bq/kg); fox jacopever fish (1,310 bq/kg); dried oyamabokuchi (570 bq/kg).

See the IAEA Fukushima update dated Jan. 27, 2012, pages 7 to 9, for more information.

While the data above was collected in the context of the human food chain, it nonetheless shows that both wild plants and wild animals (various species of fish, and even mammals such as bear, boar, and deer) have been radioactively contaminated by Fukushima fallout.

NRC file photo of Byron nuclear plant; although Unit 2's cooling tower is not currently releasing steam, its turbine hall is -- steam contaminated with radioactive tritiumAs reported by a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) media release

As revealed by Exelon's "Event Report," offsite firefighters were called in, Unit 1 is still at full power, and Unit 2's cool down "steam [is] leaving via atmospheric relief valves."

An initial AP report on the incident stated: "The steam contains low levels of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, but federal and plant officials insisted the levels were safe for workers and the public...[NRC] officials also said the release of tritium was expected...[NRC spokeswoman Viktoria] Mitlyng said officials can't yet calculate how much tritium is being released. They know the amounts are small because monitors around the plant aren't showing increased levels of radiation, she said...Tritium molecules are so microscopic that small amounts are able to pass from radioactive steam that originates in the reactor through tubing and into the water used to cool turbines and other equipment outside the reactor, Mitlyng said. The steam that was being released was coming from the turbine side...Tritium is relatively short-lived and penetrates the body weakly through the air compared to other radioactive contaminants."

But the linear no threshold theory, endorsed by the U.S. National Academies of Science for decades, holds that any exposure to radioactvity, no matter how small, still carries a health risk, and such risks are cumulative over a lifetime. It would be more honest for NRC officials to states that the tritium releases from Byron are "acceptably risky," in their judgment, but not "safe." After all, tritium is a potent radionuclide, a clinincally proven cause of cancer, mutations, and birth defects, and if inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through the skin, can integrate anywhere in the human body, right down to the DNA level.

A follow up article by AP quoted NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mytling as assuring that the reactor would not be re-started until a root cause of the incident was determined, and the problem fixed. However, such a promise by NRC at Davis-Besse, near Toledo, was recently broken by NRC: widespread cracking in the reactor's concrete shield building, a secondary radiological containment structure, did not stop NRC from rubberstamping the reactor's re-start on December 6th, even though the root cause, extent, and fix for the cracking have still not been determined.

The most recent update from AP reports that Exelon has announced a cause for the incident: a failed electrical insulator, which fell off.

A satellite photo dated Oct. 7, 2011 shows the extent of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie

One of those contentions concerns thermal and toxic chemical discharges from Fermi 3 which would worsen harmful algae blooms already running rampant in Lake Erie's shallow, fragile, and biologically productive Western Basin (see photo above left). Lake Erie is home to a world famous walleye fishery. The coalition is also contending that Fermi 3 would threaten numerous endangered and threatened species, such as the Eastern Fox Snake, due to its large-scale impacts on wetlands, as from new transmission line construction.

The January 11th filings included: the environmental coalition's comments and contentions; comments by CACC; comments by the Council of the Three Fires, representing the Walpole Island First Nation; comments by Lake Erie Waterkeeper; comments by Beyond Nuclear Launch Partner Keith Gunter; comments by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Michigan Environmental Council; and comments by expert witness Joe Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project.

(A comprehenisive, running list of comments, media coverage, and nuclear utility and NRC responses is now posted on Beyond Nuclear's website.)

"The leakage very likely isn’t over, either. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the plant, said Sept. 20 that it believed that something on the order of 200 to 500 tons a day of groundwater might still be pouring into the damaged reactor and turbine buildings.

Chernobyl-induced radiation in the Black Sea peaked in 1986 at about 1,000 becquerels per cubic meter, he said in an interview at his office in Woods Hole, Mass. By contrast, the radiation level off the coast near the Fukushima Daiichi plant peaked at more than 100,000 becquerels per cubic meter in early April.

Mr. Buesseler said there were grounds for concern about bioaccumulation of radioactive isotopes in the food chain, particularly in seaweed and some shellfish close to the plants. A fuller understanding of the effect on fish that are commercially harvested will probably take several years of data following several feeding cycles, he said.

But there was also an unpleasant surprise. 'Rather than leveling off toward zero, it remained elevated in late July,' he said, up to about 10,000 becquerel per cubic meter. ‘That suggests the release problem has not been solved yet.'

The working hypothesis is that contaminated sediments and groundwater near the coast are continuing to contaminate the seas, he said." New York Times