Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Radioactive Methane and Nuclear Cowboys



Hat Tip to William who recommended this amazing film, Nuclear Cowboys:


I very strongly recommend watching this 30 minute (approximately) video. Here is the film description:


Documentary film covering the top secret 1959 Sodium Reactor meltdown in Los Angeles, California. The incident, kept secret for decades, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 300 to 1,800 people and is the suspected source of elevated cancer rates in adjacent suburban communities. The amount of contaminants released have been estimated at over 400 times that of the highly publicized Three Mile Island incident. This film features accounts from former Atomics International employees detailing the incident that sent highly radioactive gases over parts of Los Angeles for two weeks. Employees also recall illegal acts of mass pollution such as open burn pits that sent radioactive waste into the open air for decades. These experiments took place at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, in the hills between Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley. The film gathers comprehensive incident footage and testimonial interviews with local survivors, physicians, scientists, researchers and reporters regarding the 1959 meltdown and the grassroots movements to clean the site in order to save generations from exposure to it's migrating contaminants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhtygifsuE 



The film has particular relevance now given the methane volcano erupting in Southern California just miles from the sites featured in Nuclear Cowboys.

Radioactive contamination from the Santa Susana site may have rendered methane stored in the area radioactive given reports that high levels of radon gas are being detected in the area (as reported by Robert Kennedy Jr in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBYpL3JDCzA&feature=youtu.be&t=285). (Hat Tip Enenews).

As it turns out, methane can be rendered radioactive, as evidenced by this article published in 1962:
Heavyweight Methane Formed in Bomb Tests SCIENCE NEWS LETTER for January 13, 1962

METHANE containing the triple weight hydrogen known as tritium is formed in the fireball resulting from hydrogen bomb explosions, a United States scientist reports. Dr. Richard Wolfgang of the University of California, San Diego, states the amount of tritium in methane (marsh gas) has been found to be considerably higher than expected. The tritium, he believes, comes from "the testing of nuclear devices."

Prior to this suggestion there was no satisfactory explanation for the fact that tritium occurred in relatively high amounts not only in atmospheric methane but also in atmospheric hydrogen and water vapor in the stratosphere.
Downwinders of the methane plume ought to demand more intensive monitoring of their communities.

Do NOT expect that authorities will automatically prioritize human health. Demand it!






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