Document written by: Katja Vinding Petersen, Michelle Wcisel, Brenda Walters, Oliver Jewell, Alison Towner, in cooperation with the Trustees from Dyer Island Conservation Trust.

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

This document outlines the concerns of The Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT) with regards to the proposed establishment of a nuclear power station (NPS) at Bantamsklip. It also provides an overview of the research which the DICT deems necessary to be carried out prior to the establishment of an NPS as well as suggested monitoring programs during construction and operational phases.

Insufficient Baseline Data

DICT finds the current baseline data concerning this area and the ecosystem insufficient. In order to protect this area’s unique marine biodiversity, DICT calls for further research prior to the establishment of a NPS. Should the NPS project at Bantamsklip proceed, DICT would like to see more monitoring programs during the construction and operations phases.

Current Lack of Knowledge

The DICT is highly concerned that rare and endangered marine species will experience devastating impacts in relation to the NPS. Since there have been no studies carried out prior to the NPS concerning the marine animals i.e. sharks, fur seals, cetaceans, birds and fish species in the area, it is unknown to which degree the proposed site is of significance to these animals. Also, due of this lack of knowledge, DICT find the conclusions made in the EIA and in the Marine- and the Oceanographic Specialist studies highly questionable.

Consequential Damage to Ecosystem

It is not difficult to find examples from the past where developments have unintentionally destroyed factions of an ecosystem when information about that system was unknown until the damage was done. Any visitor to the Cape Agulhas region can describe a bio-diverse habitat that is as incredible as it is delicate.

That is why the DICT is calling for more research to be conducted in this region before further development occurs. Enabling us to better understand the intricate cycle of life in this region and further assess how future development may impact the area.

DICT calls for a document outlining actual research projects which will be carried out prior to and during the construction phase as well as during the operational phase. This document should also state the aim, the methods, duration of the projects, the expected results and how it is linked to other projects carried out in conjunction with the NPS. Eskom’s degree of commitment to the different research projects should also be stated.

Full document 67 pages available here.

Buried in Earthskin - An Investigative journey into the impact of nuclear power on the environment and peoples of South Africa

Buried in Earthskin has been selected for the Encounters Documentary Film Festival.

It will be screening at the NuMetro Cinema at the Waterfront:  (THE BIG SCREEN)  on Sunday the 16th at 8:15 and Sunday the 22nd of August at 8 pm.

Sunday the 16tth’s screening will have a question and answer section at the end with myself, Helena Kingwill and Muna Lakhani of Earth Life Africa as a guest speaker.

What it’s about:

An Investigative journey into the impact of nuclear power on the environment and peoples of South Africa, and a glimpse into potential alternative solutions.

This film aims to look at the nuclear issue as holistically as possible, and sheds light on the severity of the predicament facing decision makers: energy generation versus the environment.   Alternative solutions are blowing in the wind, but can we access them?  Who pays the ultimate price for our convenient electricity?   Who holds the power and can a critical mass shift the paradigm?

Buried in Earthskin subtly demonstrates how energy and political power go hand in hand, and gives a voice to marginalized indigenous peoples who have paid the ultimate price for decisions made (about where we get our electric power) for the sake of political and financial power.

Reviews:  ”Powerful”-  Director of the Oakland International Film Festival- San Francisco.

“I loved it! It is powerful and very thought provoking. ”  Marie Holms Independent Consultant and Project Advisory, Bath, England.

TO ORDER copies of this documentary, please click here. (R120 per copy plus postage within South Africa)

China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group Co., the nation’s second-biggest builder of atomic plants, received state approval to construct two reactors in the southern province of Guangxi to boost supply of clean energy.

…but you don’t have to look too hard to see how far the infection has spread. When even the US’s Environmental Protection Agency refers to nuclear power as ‘clean’ you can see how deeply the idea is entrenched.

How has this happened and why? Are the journalists writing these pieces pro-nuclear and so smuggling their viewpoint (whether subconsciously or not) into their copy? Or are the words ‘clean energy’ being copied and pasted from nuclear industry PR(opaganda)? We’d genuinely like to know.

Full article

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/07/south_africas_dirty_bomb_myste_1.html

South Africa’s ‘dirty bomb’ mystery

If dirty bombs are such an overblown threat, and radioactive material so easily available, why are people still trying to steal it?

South African police are investigating what the five mokes busted with a Cesium-137 device at a Pretoria gas station last week were up to.
All of them are South African citizens, but not much else is known about them, police said.

Indeed, much about the July 9 incident is a mystery.

Authorities said the “industrial nuclear device” found with the men contained a small amount of radioactive material. The men intended to sell the device to parties unknown for 45 million Rand, the equivalent of$6 million to $7 million. Police said the men were also planning to sell a larger nuclear device, which police are searching for, according to South African reports.

“We don’t know what these suspects’ intentions were, and we need to find the device quickly,” police said, according to Canada’s online Digital Journal.

Likewise, South African authorities told SpyTalk over the weekend that “the origin of the device is still not known.”

South African reporter Graeme Hosken says the substance was of a type of Cesium used in South Africa’s mining industry. Cesium is also used in nuclear medicine and is manufactured in significant quantities at the Pelindaba nuclear plant near Pretoria.

Pelindaba was involved in another mysterious incident in 2007, when its highly guarded operations center was broken into by two armed gangs. One official was shot during the attack, which some believe was aimed at stealing highly enriched uranium. The case remains unsolved.

In last week’s incident, “there are no known linkages of the suspects with any groupings or persons from foreign countries,” according to a South African investigative file made available to SpyTalk. “None of them ever traveled across the SA borders.”

One of the suspects, Andre Le-Sar, 37,“ previously worked at the YSCOR arms factory in Van Der Bijl Park [an industrial zone south of Johannesburg],” according to one of the South African investigators, “but was unemployed at a stage and is now a self-employed plumber.”

No details could be learned about the four others being held, beyond their ages and residences of record.

But that’s just part of a larger mystery.

In 2002, U.S. intelligence sources, backed by Bush administration officials, reported in 2002 that al Qaeda had designs for a “dirty bomb.” Fears mushroomed that Washington and other Western capitals were unprepared to cope with such an attack, which involves salting conventional explosives with radioactive materials.

But the threat was hyped, many believe. The government eventually dropped its dirty-bomb conspiracy charges against American Jose Padilla, the Bush administration’s poster boy for the threat.

“Dirty bombs are very overblown,” says Richard Barlow, who once tracked black-market nuclear materials for the CIA and Defense Department. “There are vast quantities of available material out there if someone wanted to make one.”

The Washington Post’s Joby Warrick reported in 2002 that “U.S. businesses and medical facilities have lost track of nearly 1,500 pieces of equipment with radioactive parts since 1996. …”

Security of the materials has been tightened since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but experts say determined thieves wouldn’t have a hard time obtaining them.

Outside of a couple of Chechen plots against Moscow, and notwithstanding last week’s bust in Pretoria, the question remains: Why hasn’t a credible dirty bomb plot surfaced in the West since 9/11?

Graham Allison, a former assistant secretary of defense, said it may just be a matter of theatrics: al-Qaeda likes things that go boom — big, big boom. “Well, if you look at 9/11, and you look at al-Qaeda and their m.o., and you look at what they said, you know that they like big, spectacular events that kill large numbers of people,” Allison said on the PBS program “Nova” back in 2003.

A cesium plume lofted by dynamite, in other words, is peanuts compared with the real deal — a nuclear bomb.

“The press spokesman for Mr. bin Laden put out a rather chilling statement, which said that they’re required to kill four million Americans, including women and children, in order to balance the scale of the atrocities that we and the Israelis have visited upon the Arab population,” Allison said. “If you are trying to kill a lot of people at one time, you’re at the high end of violence, which is nuclear. There is something almost like the moth to the flame with respect to the nuclear threat.”

Not really comforting.

That leaves the last week’s mystery in Pretoria. With such hot goods virtually falling off trucks, how could even scam artists hope to fence cesium for upwards of $6 million, as the South African police believe?

Maybe the answer lies with P.T. Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But who were those suckers in Pretoria?

Update: MSNBC’S Rachel Maddow picks up the story with a shout-out to SpyTalk.

Nuclear Protest at Thyspunt - Jeffrey's Bay

By Melanie Gosling
Environment Writer
Source

Just over 2 000 people marched through Jeffreys Bay on Sunday in protest against the multi-billion rand nuclear power station Eskom plans to build at the nearby Thyspunt.

While marchers converged on the local municipal offices where organisers handed over a memorandum, 14 chokka (squid) fishing boats dropped anchor just behind contestants in the Billabong international surfing championships and switched on their lights in support of the marchers.

The protest was organised by the Thyspunt Alliance, an umbrella body of several local resident, ratepayers, environmental, surfer and other organisations, who were joined by the chokka fishermen and a range of local people.

Allliance spokesperson Trudi Malan said on Sunday: “We thought we would not get many people because we were competing with the surfing and the rugby, but some of the surfers phoned and said please can we wait till the Kelly Slater heat had finished. We did and they all came rushing over. And some rugby fans told us they could always watch rugby again, but they may not have the opportunity to show their support again against a nuclear power station that would affect all their lives.”

Malan said the Alliance had purposely not entered the debate about the pros and cons of nuclear power, but were all opposed to siting a nuclear power station at Thyspunt. The Alliance was heavily critical of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) Eskom had commissioned, saying it had failed to address many biophysical issues of building the power plant at that spot.

Eskom had selected the site in the apartheid era with no input from the public. One of the criteria was that a site for a nuclear power station had to be at least 100km from any of the former “homeland” areas for security reasons.

“The EIA is an atrocious document. The biggest flaw is that it did not consider the chokka industry and there was no public participation in the site selection. During construction they will dump 6.3-million cubic metres of sand into the sea, which will kill the chokka industry. We do not want to jeopardise the development of our country, but we do not believe development should come at the expense of the environment,” Malan said.

Read full article

Opposition party member Ali Riza Ozturk shows the 170,000 anti-nuclear signatures in Turkey’s Parliament (© Greenpeace)

As is usual with nuclear deals, the details of the agreement reveal just how ludicrous it is. The reactors will be built, owned and operated by the Russian nuclear industry with Turkish partners. So much for nuclear power providing energy security. Turkey is making itself reliant on Russian expertise and nuclear fuel for its energy needs.

Not only that but, as you would expect, the economics of the deal are pitiful. Tetas, the Turkish grid company, is committed to a 15-year deal to buy electricity from the reactors at a price of US$124 per megawatt hour. That, unbelievably, is more than double the market prices for electricity across the EU right now. So much for nuclear power being affordable and competitive.

Of course, when it comes to projects of this kind -  especially in Turkey where previous attempts to join the nuclear club have been a comedy of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes and record-breaking costs – it isn’t worth raising one’s expectations. There still are many obstacles in the way of four nuclear reactors being built in Turkey on time and on budget, if at all.

Here at Greenpeace we’ll be continuing the fight to make sure it never happens.
read full article

The employees are accusing the nuclear power station for various illnesses which they allege are a direct result of the radiation they were exposed to while ‘on the job’. They have organised themselves into a formal group which is headed by Alfred Sepepe.

The 58-year-old chairperson said most These allegedly ailing workers told Hartbeespoort News that they, and their loved ones, have suffered ‘severe health risks’ after working at the nuclear plant, near Phelindaba.

These (affected) workers have  organized of the workers, all of whom have served at Necsa at some time or the other, are suffering from various diseases, including lung and kidney cancer.

Sepepe, who had previously worked as a machine operator … for some 14 years … said Necsa’s nuclear radiation had caused tremendous health problems in his life – much as was the case with other colleagues.

“I was healthy before I started working for that company,” he alleged during an interview with Hartbeespoort News. “Since I have been working there though, I have been in and out of hospital, suffering from various diseases.”

This father of three claimed that, as a result of one particular illness he endured, he underwent an operation during which one of his testes was removed … to prevent the spread of a growth.

He explained how his doctors had also told him that the cause of his illness was radiation.

Sepepe is now part of the group of over 80 former Necsa employees who want Necsa to be held legally accountable for the health hazards they were exposed to during their tenure at the company (and also ‘the loss of beloved ones’).

Hartbeepoort News has learned that the former workers have engaged professional legal aid as they seek to  claim compensation from their former company.

In documents in possession of Hartbeepoort News, there is proof that these complaints have also been forwarded to the Office of the State President, Jacob Zuma, and also referred to the Minister of Energy Affairs, Dipuo Peters.

In response to a query from Hartbeespoorl News, Elliot Mulale, communications and media manager for Necsa, remarked that the company was ‘not aware of any health risks suffered by employees due to exposure to radiation’.

He also alleged, “Necsa’s facilities operate in such a way as to ensure that individuals are not exposed to radiation levels in excess of international dosage limits.”

Former employees, he concluded, are welcome to approach Necsa for their medical records … ‘but this information will only be provided on receipt of their full contact details’.

Former employees have alleged that Necsa would not allow them to consult private medical practitioners during their terms of employment. They alleged that they were instead referred to on-site doctors by the company.

Unable to admit defeat – and in the face of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes, and ludicrous, record-breaking costs – the country’s government have resurrected the plan once again and have drawn up an agreement with Russia to build a nuclear reactor in the south of Turkey. The parliament will vote on the agreement this Friday.

This week 60 activists took a petition with 170,000 signatures to the parliament building to demonstrate the widespread opposition to the nuclear plan. Will the politicians listen to these voices? The evidence, history and the people are all against a nuclear reactor being built in Turkey.

source: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/170000-say-no-to-turkeys-dirty-nuclear-deal/blog/12903

The story “What’s really wrong with Harties?” featured in the 7 May 2010 issue of Farmer’s Weekly, contains information worth noting – try locate it if you missed it. I received many responses, many in support and one not. Of those in support, one was the horror story of Mary-Ann van Niekerk, addressed to the editor in the 21 May 2010 issue. It was the letter of the month. Stories like these are bound to anger some people who value money and investments more than health and life.

The negative response was an official letter from the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) that appeared in the letters column of the 18 June 2010 issue of Farmer’s Weekly. Please read it before you continue as I’ll only be dealing with the letter and not with the mountains of global data I have on the subject.

This letter shows how heavily Necsa has depended on its powerful propaganda machinery for decades, so much so that it no longer cares how misleading, inaccurate, incomplete, illogical or untruthful the information that it expects the public to swallow is. How logical is it to start the letter by stating that it’s the fate of 25% of people to die of cancer without ever being exposed to radiation and then to end the letter by saying “we are all exposed to it (radiation) all the time”?

Necsa’s statements that “Steyn attributes his friend’s death to radioactivity in the water of Hartbeespoort Dam and specifically to effluent from Pelindaba” and “implicitly assumes that there is a conspiracy involving Nesca, the Department of Water Affairs, the National Nuclear Regulator, Wits University and the University of Pretoria”, reflect how poorly my article was understood. Anyone who read it properly would see that I never wrote that. Necsa tried to read my mind, instead of what I wrote. In fact, I had never even thought about the possibility of a conspiracy, but seeing as Necsa brought it up, could it perhaps be true?

Necsa complained that I blamed it for the dam’s shocking condition and the demise of thousands of blue kurper. In fact, I devoted two long paragraphs to other pollution sources – sewerage plants, mines and Rietvlei runoff – although this doesn’t absolve Necsa from being the straw that broke the camel’s back.

By using the Crocodile River to dump its radioactive waste, Necsa is simply adding to the toxic brew of an already overloaded system, further harming the environment and endangering the health and lives of people living downstream from Pelindaba. I never laid the blame solely at its doorstep, but if the cap fits, it can wear it.

Necsa rightly calls its “current” effluent outflow of 350 000ℓ/day into the Crocodile River “a lot of water”, but in 1999, its average daily outflow was double that, due to a “calculation error”. Without disclosing the amount of the effluent’s radioactive content, it maintains that it is so “minuscule”, that “upstream and downstream” of Pelindaba, the river’s uranium content is the same.

Do you believe that? Does it make sense to use the contents of an olympic-size swimming pool to flush your toilet? It seems that calculation errors and inaccurate statistics are commonplace at Necsa and form part of its disinformation strategy. To demonstrate that the 100kg of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that escaped from its plant in 1992 was no big deal when compared to the amount of uranium the Crocodile River carries down from upstream, it had to increase its flow.

According to Necsa, the river flows at an average of 20m3/s. Simple school arithmetic shows that there are 31 536 000 seconds in an average year. Multiplied by 20, it means that via the Crocodile River alone, 630 720 000m3 flows into Harties every year – three times its total known capacity of 212 000 000m3. This means that, without taking the Magalies River inflow into account, the Crocodile will, from bone dry, cause the dam to overflow three times every year.

A very real health threat

Necsa also downplayed the health hazard of the UF6 that escaped. By stating in the same breath that uranium is “relatively common” and only “slightly soluble”, it blatantly creates confusion with the uranium metal in the river, comparing apples to pumpkins. In contrast to metallic uranium, UF6 gas is one of the most highly soluble uranium compounds known. It’s an intermediate industrial compound used in the uranium-enrichment process and, chemically, it’s much more toxic and radioactive than uranium.

When airborne, it hydrolyses immediately upon contact with water molecules in the atmosphere to form highly toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF) and uranyl fluoride (UO2F2), which comes back to earth no matter how high your chimney stack may be. The higher you release it, the wider it spreads.

HF is a corrosive vapour that can damage exposed parts of the body and when inhaled, can severely harm and damage the lungs, while the uranium component can cause acute kidney damage and various cancers. The main long-term storage place of these compounds in the body is bone. In the past, high exposures have resulted in immediate death.

And 100kg of this gas is a huge amount. The accidental escape of under 200kg of UF6 in the US in 1944 and the fatalities it caused are still mentioned today in reference articles about the gas. Necsa states that the 1992 incident is “absolutely not to be repeated”. They don’t know that I’m aware of another undisclosed incident, when 800kg of UF6 escaped from the plant in 1998.

Necsa concludes by stating that it “dispersed without causing any harm”. How does it know? Did it look, or did it look away?

The latter is most probably true if one considers that it ignored the plight of 225 of its former employees, who – some very ill – had submitted requests for their medical records. After a delay of almost two years, Necsa offered these employees an opportunity to be evaluated by a doctor it would provide. Those employees who were examined by this doctor had their claims that their illnesses were related to radiation dismissed across the board.

Forgive me for recommending that Necsa appoint more shrewd and competent people to drive its propaganda machine, because I think its long-standing bubble has finally been popped by its letter.
Contact Abré J Steyn on 083 235 4822 or at abrejsteyn @ gmail.com.

Source: http://www.farmersweekly.co.za