Strontium-90 detected in fish near VT Yankee

Okay, this is getting scarier. VPR:

The Vermont Health Department says the radioactive substance strontium-90 has been detected in the flesh of a fish north of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

…this is the first time strontium-90 has been found in a part of a fish that is edible.

The Health Department says it cannot determine the source of the substance

Strontium-90 is one of the most dangerous constituents of reactor waste. It is a “bone seeker” and is associated with bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone, and leukemia.

Yikes.

17 thoughts on “Strontium-90 detected in fish near VT Yankee

  1. Nobody is even allowed to think about it unless they work for the NRC.  Besides, it’s not like Mr Occam would say the Strontium came from VY…

  2. Gov. Peter Shumlin’s statement strontium-90 found in edible portion of fish

    by Press Release | August 2, 2011

    For Immediate Release

    Aug. 2, 2011

    Contact

    Susan Allen

    802-828-3333

    Gov. Peter Shumlin issued the following statement following detection of strontium-90 in the edible portion of fish near Yankee nuclear plant:

    More:

    http://vtdigger.org/2011/08/02

     

  3. It’s now made its way into ‘the edible portions’.

    Who can forget these gems?

    Vermont Department of Health NEWS DUMP hides more VY bad news on a holiday weekend

    by: Maggie Gundersen

    Sat Jul 03, 2010 at 00:25:11 AM EDT

    http://greenmountaindaily.com/

    Strontium-90: it’s what’s for dinner

    by: JulieWaters

    Tue May 25, 2010 at 06:16:51 AM EDT

    http://greenmountaindaily.com/

    I don’t think good Entergy Louisiana’s good friend & faithful apologist Irwin will pull the handy ‘1950’s fallout’ or ‘Chernobyl fallout’ song & dance this time, but I’m sure there’s much more disinformation & many more distortions where those came from.

  4. …which parts of a fish, exactly, are inedible? I know we Americans are very picky eaters, and won’t venture very far beyond the fillets. But it’s pretty common in most cultures to eat a lot more of a fish. Indeed, whole fish are often used in making stock if nothing else.

    So (to make this comment slightly less tangential), in which parts of CT River fish has strontium-90 previously been found?  

  5. No PSB mandated weekly Groundwater Monitoring results posted monthly on VDH website, which show the activity of the ongoing radioactive nuclear waste leak.

    Investigation Update

    August 2, 2011

    http://healthvermont.gov/envir

    More troubling information regarding the troubled nuclear plant? My guess is a yes.

    And, no information about the contaminated COB drinking water well or the ‘site conceptual model’, their latest coverup. Results are supposedly due sometime in August.

  6. I don’t know how much stock I put in a Health Department that claims strontium-90 occurs “naturally” in the environment.

  7. Since the Strontium-90 atoms do not say ‘Property of VT Yankee’ on them, therefore it can not be from VY!

    See how science works?

    This is the same reasoning the tobacco industry uses, BTW.

  8. From today’s Free Press:

    William Irwin, radiological health chief with the Vermont Health Department, said it was possible strontium-90 from Vermont Yankee could have turned up in the river, but unlikely the plant was the main source of the substance. He said the releases in 2002-2005 may have stemmed from faulty nuclear fuel that was shipped to some power plants.

    Since when has the Vermont Health Department been engaged to offer excuses for Entergy?

  9. What bothers me is the fact that the fish were caught 13 months ago (June, 2010), and we’re just now getting the results!

    Per Terri Hallenbeck:

    Irwin said tests results on the fish were delayed after the state contracted with a laboratory that was unable to do the tests. The fish were kept on ice and tested by a new contracted lab, Irwin said. The state received the results Friday [July 29], he said.

    [bracketed date added for clarity]

    And then Shumlin-appointed Health Commissioner (and former VT state Rep.) Harry Chen says, “I’d eat the fish” caught in the Windham County part of the Connecticut River. Okay, Commissioner Chen, you go ahead and take that risk for yourself. But why would you suggest that it’s just fine and peachy keen for children and pregnant women to take that risk?

    What is it that officials don’t get about the fact that we are allowing corporations to poison us and our environment for decades and centuries to come – for short-term profit?

    What happens to the Vermont “clean & green” brand when the Connecticut is no longer fishable? When soils within 50 miles of an aging and already leaking plant (an area crossing two or three state borders) are shown to be contaminated? Where will locals get their vegetables, their milk? How big a fence will we need to close off the contaminated area? How will Vermont handle the costs of lawsuits from other states for its negligence in allowing the contamination of a common resource? How do you fence off a river?

    NanuqFC

    The human race has today the means for annihilating itself … by careless handling of atomic technology through a slow process of poisoning and of deterioration in its genetic structure. ~ Max Born (Nobel Prize winner for Physics, 1954; from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1957)

  10. BTW, in searching for the original BFP article from its main web page, I got the following results for sponsored links (screen captured):

    Photobucket.

    Click on the thumbnail to get something readable.

    Just think, folks, we can buy Strontium at our nearest online vitamin shoppe for anywhere from $10.75 to $33.99. Of course that higher price purports to be from a Canadian source (the price inflation must be a result of that stronger-than-US-dollar we’ve been hearing about), but the county suffix for Canada is .ca, not .co as shown in the ad.

    Somebody’s faulty algorithms are showing (assuming  those ads are simply come-ons and not true). Talk about your “dirty bombs!”

    NanuqFC

    To repeat the error [of Hiroshima] by exhibiting, through the construction of nuclear reactors, the same disrespect for human life is the worst possible betrayal of the memory of Hiroshima’s victims. ~ Kenzaburo Oe (1994 Nobel Laureate)

  11. From: Dave Lochbaum

    Date: August 8, 2011 8:38:01 AM EDT

    To: “lsmith14@entergy.com”

    Cc: “Daniel.Holody@nrc.gov”

    Subject: Strontium in fish taken from the Connecticut River

    Mr. Smith:  



    I was forwarded a copy of the statement you released on

    August 2, 2011, which contained the following statement:  

    “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Vermont Yankee is the source for the strontium-90. We have 31 monitoring wells on site that are tested regularly. No groundwater sample from any well at Vermont Yankee has ever indicated the presence of strontium-90, or any other isotope other than tritium.”  

    ‘Absolutely no evidence’?

    Really? Come on.

    How about the report that Entergy submitted to the NRC on May 11, 2011 (pages attached)?

    http://www.evacuationplans.org/

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