Contention 1: Inherency

A. Despite past failures, the Status quo is not currently

considering sub-seabed disposal of nuclear waste
Bala 14

Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review

Amal Bala, Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could
Succeed Technically, Could It Also Succeed Legally?, 41 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev.
455 (2014), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/ealr/vol41/iss2/6 455 LMC

Nuclear power is a relatively familiar method of generating electricity in the

controversial because of high-level
radioactive waste. Conventional nuclear reactors use uranium fuel to sustain nuclear
fission, but eventually such fuel becomes spent and requires storage and
disposal because of its dangerous radioactive properties. The United
States produces a large amount of nuclear waste every year but has
struggled to develop a long-term disposal strategy. America favors
land-based disposal methods and is not giving serious consideration
to alternative methods, including sub-seabed burial. This Note discusses
Abstract:

United States, but the process remains

preliminary research on sub-seabed burial of nuclear waste and examines a sample of

domestic and international laws that could apply if the United States were to use the disposal
method. This Note concludes that if further research were to show that sub-seabed disposal
would work properly, the United States could probably engage in deep burial through drilling
without violating the applicable international and domestic laws discussed in this Note

Contention 2: Solvency
A. Sub-seabed disposal was proven to be the safest
method of disposing of nuclear waste
Professor Edward L. Miles 08
[Professor of Marine Studies and Public Affairs at the University of Washington; Adjunct Professor at the
School of Fisheries at the University of Washington; Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of
Denver (1965); Senior Fellow at the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University
of Washington; Co-Director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington;
Graduate from the School of International Studies at the University of Denver; studies in International
Law and Organization; Science, Technology and International Relations; Marine Policy and Ocean
Management ; did his Ph.D. dissertation on The Process and Politics of the Intergovernmental Codification
of International Law at the Supranational Level], Sub-Seabed Disposal of High Level Radioactive Waste:
The Policy Context Then and Now, Published on the Internet,
2008 ,http://www.xiamenacademy.org/upload/2-8%20Miles%20MASTER

%202008-07-29.doc[PB]
Ultimately, on the basis of radiological assessments conducted by
EPA and Sandia National Laboratories, the manager of both the
national and the coordinated international programs, the subseabed option was shown to be the safest of all options by several
orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, the U.S. program was
terminated prematurely by DOE in 1987 and the European program
couldnt survive on its own. What then had happened?

Thus, the plan: The United States Federal

Government should substantially increase subseabed disposal of nuclear waste in the Earths
oceans.

Contention 3: The Advantages

Advantage 1: Environmental
Racism
A. Environmental Racism affects Native Americans and
any person of color on a daily basis.
Bullard 8 (Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Environmental Justice Resource Center,
Clark Atlanta University, 7/2/08, POVERTY, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL
RACISM: STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/PovpolEj.html
The United States is the dominant economic and military force in the world today. The American
economic engine has generated massive wealth, high standard of living, and
consumerism. This growth machine has also generated waste, pollution, and ecological
destruction. The U.S. has some of the best environmental laws in the world. However, in the real
world, all communities are not created equal. Environmental
regulations have not achieved uniform benefits across all segments
of society. [2] Some communities are routinely poisoned while the government looks the other way .
People of color around the world must contend with dirty air and
drinking water, and the location of noxious facilities such as
municipal landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste treatment,
storage, and disposal facilities owned by private industry,
government, and even the military.[3] These environmental problems are exacerbated
by racism. Environmental racism refers to environmental policy,
practice, or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages
(whether intended or unintended) individuals, groups, or
communities based on race or color. Environmental racism is
reinforced by government, legal, economic, political, and military
institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies and
industry practices
to provide benefits for the countries in the North while shifting costs to countries in the South.

[4] Environmental racism is a form of institutionalized discrimination. Institutional

discrimination is defined as "actions or practices carried out by members of dominant (racial or ethnic) groups that have differential and negative impact on members of subordinate (racial and ethnic) groups." [5] The United States is grounded in white racism. The nation was founded
on the principles of "free land" (stolen from Native Americans and Mexicans), "free labor" (African slaves brought to this land in chains), and "free men" (only white men with property had the right to vote). From the outset, racism shaped the economic, political and ecological landscape
of this new nation. Environmental racism buttressed the exploitation of land, people, and the natural environment. It operates as an intra-nation power arrangement--especially where ethnic or racial groups form a political and or numerical minority. For example, blacks in the U.S. form
both a political and numerical racial minority. On the other hand, blacks in South Africa, under apartheid, constituted a political minority and numerical majority. American and South African apartheid had devastating environmental impacts on blacks. [6]

Environmental racism also operates in the international arena

between nations and between transnational corporations. Increased
globalization of the world's economy has placed special strains on
the eco-systems in many poor communities and poor nations
inhabited largely by people of color and indigenous peoples . This is

especially true for the global resource extraction industry such as oil, timber, and minerals. [7]
Globalization makes it easier for transnational corporations and capital to flee to areas with the least
environmental regulations, best tax incentives, cheapest labor, and highest profit. The struggle of African
Americans in Norco, Louisiana and the Africans in the Niger Delta are similar in that both groups are
negatively impacted by Shell Oil refineries and unresponsive governments. This scenario is repeated for
Latinos in Wilmington (California) and indigenous people in Ecuador who must contend with pollution from
Texaco oil refineries. The companies may be different, but the community complaints and concerns are

Many nearby
residents are "trapped" in their community because of inadequate
roads, poorly planned emergency escape routes, and faulty warning
systems. They live in constant fear of plant explosions and
accidents. The Bhopal tragedy is fresh in the minds of millions of people who live next to chemical
very similar. Local residents have seen their air, water, and land contaminated.

plants. The 1984 poison-gas leak at the Bhopal, India Union Carbide plant killed thousands of people-making it the world's deadliest industrial accident. It is not a coincidence that the only place in the U.S.
where methyl isocyanate (MIC) was manufactured was at a Union Carbide plant in in predominately African
American Institute, West Virginia. [8] In 1985, a gas leak from the Institute Union Carbide plant sent 135

residents to the hospital. Institutional racism has allowed people of color communities to exist as colonies,
areas that form dependent (and unequal) relationships to the dominant white society or "Mother Country"
with regard to their social, economic, legal, and environmental administration. Writing more than three
decades ago, Carmichael and Hamilton, in their work Black Power, offered the "internal" colonial model to
explain racial inequality, political exploitation, and social isolation of African Americans. Carmichael and

The economic relationship of America's black communities

. . . reflects their colonial status. The political power exercised over
those communities go hand in glove with the economic deprivation
experienced by the black citizens. Historically, colonies have existed for the sole
Hamilton write:

purpose of enriching, in one form or another, the "colonizer"; the consequence is to maintain the economic
dependency of the "colonized." [9] Institutional racism reinforces internal colonialism. Government

Institutional racism defends, protects,

and enhances the social advantages and privileges of rich nations.
institutions buttress this system of domination.

Whether by design or benign neglect, communities of color (ranging from the urban ghettos and barrios to
rural "poverty pockets" to economically impoverished Native American reservations and developing
nations) face some of the worst environmental problems .

The most polluted communities

are also the communities with crumbling infrastructure, economic
disinvestment, deteriorating housing, inadequate schools, chronic
unemployment, high poverty, and overloaded health care systems.

B. Native Americans do not want nuclear waste on their

land as temporary storage sites
Minn Post 9/3/14
http://www.minnpost.com/political-agenda/2014/09/redwing-officials-disappointed-feds-decision-spent-nuclearfuel
Red Wing city officials and leaders of the Prairie Island Indian
Community say they are unhappy with a recent Nuclear Regulatory
Commission ruling that does little to resolve the ongoing dispute
over storage of spent nuclear fuel. The Prairie Island nuclear power
plant is on the Mississippi River in Red Wing, and is adjacent to the Indian
reservation. A story in the Rochester Post Bulletin says the NRC ruling:
"...opens the door for on-site nuclear waste storage for 100 years or
more. The language also lifts a suspension on licensing additional
nuclear facilities even without the creation of a national repository
for nuclear waste." Not good, says Red Wing City Council member
Peggy Rehder, who has lobbied in Washington, D.C., on the issue, and
wasn't surprised with the ruling "There's been a movement toward saying
that spent fuel in dry cask storage is safer for a longer period of time," she
said. "It's disappointing, but on the other hand, we're seeing movement in
Congress toward getting spent fuel that's in storage in at a least an interim
storage site." And Ron Johnson, president of the Prairie Island Indian
Community's Tribal Council, said in a statement: "...the NRC
affirmed a new rule and generic environmental impact statement
that concluded that spent nuclear fuel some of the most
dangerous and toxic substances known to mankind can be safely
stored 600 yards from our homes indefinitely if no geologic
repository is ever built. No other community sits as close to a
nuclear site and its waste storage." According to the paper, Xcel Energy
says it has "38 casks containing nuclear waste near Red Wing and is

permitted to store waste in 64 casks when the current operating licenses end
in 2033 and 2034."

C. The US government blackmails and exploits Native

Americans into lending land for radioactive waste
Daniel Brook, 2000. Environmental Genocide: Native Americans and Toxic
Waste. <
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_n1_v57/ai_20538772>
One very significant toxic threat to Native Americans comes from
governmental and commercial hazardous waste sitings. Because of the
severe poverty and extraordinary vulnerability of Native American
tribes, their lands have been targeted by the U.S. government and
the large corporations as permanent areas for much of the
poisonous industrial by-products of the dominant society. Hoping
to take advantage of the devastating chronic unemployment, pervasive
poverty and sovereign status of Indian Nations, according to Bradley
Angel, writing for the international environmental organization Greenpeace, the waste disposal industry and the US. government have
embarked an all-out effort to site incinerators, landfills, nuclear
waste storage facilities and similar polluting industries on Tribal
land (Angel 1991, 1).
In fact, so enthusiastic is the United States government to dump
its most dangerous waste from the nations 110 commercial nuclear
power plants (ibid., 16) on the nations 565 federally recognized tribes
(Aug 1993, 9) that it has solicited every Indian Tribe, offering
millions of dollars if the tribe would host a nuclear waste facility
(Angel 1991, 15; emphasis added). Given the fact that Native
Americans tend to be so materially poor, the money offered by the
government or the corporations for this toxic trade often more
akin to bribery or blackmail than to payment for services
rendered! In this way, the Mescalero Apache tribe in 1991, for example,
became the first tribe (or state) to file an application for a U.S. Energy
Department grant to study the feasibility of building a temporary [rid
storage facility for 15,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel
(Akwesasne Notes 1992, 11). Other Indian tribes, including the Sac, Fox,
Yakima, Choctaw, Lower Brule Sioux, Eastern Shawnee, Ponca, Caddo, and
the Skull Valley Band of Goshute, have since applied for the $100,000
exploratory grants as well (Angel 1991, 1617).

D. Environmental racism is a new manifestation of historic

racial oppression.
Dr Deborah Robinson 2000 was formerly a member of the Programme to Combat
Racism team of the WCC. She is currently the Executive Director of International Possibilities
Unlimited in Washington DC. She is also the co-chair of the International Committee of the
Interim National Black Environmental and Economic Justice Coordinating Committee and is
working to facilitate the participation of that body and other NGOs in the UN World Conference
Against Racism. <http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-17-02.html>

Environmental racism can be defined as:Racial discrimination in environmental policy making and the
enforcement of regulations and laws; the deliberatetargeting of people of Colour communities for toxic and
hazardous waste facilities; the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants
in ourcommunities; and the history of excluding people of colour from the leadership of the environmental
movement. Others have added to that definition by saying environmental racism refers to "any government,
institutional, or industry action, or failure to act, that has a negative environmental impact which
disproportionately harms - whether intentionally or unintentionally - individuals, groups, or communities
based on race or colour."It is important though, to understand environmental racism

in an historical context. "The exploitation of people of color has taken the

form of genocide, slavery, indentured servitude and racial discrimination in employment, housing and practically all aspects of life. Today we suffer
from the remnants of this sordid history, as well as from new and
institutionalized forms of racism, facilitated by the massive post-World War
II expansion of the petrochemical industry." In the United States, the
victims of environmental racism are African Americans, Latinos, Native
Americans, Asians, and Pacific Islanders, who are more likely than Whites
to live in environmentally hazardous conditions. Three out of five African Americans
live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites. Native American lands and sacred places are home
to extensive mining operations and radioactive waste sites. Three of the five largest commercial hazardous
waste landfills are located in predominantly African American and Latino communities. As a consequence,
the residents of these communities suffer shorter life spans, higher infant and adult mortality, poor health,
poverty, diminished economic opportunities, substandard housing, and an overall degraded quality of life.
Environmental racism, therefore, is a new mani-festation of historic racial oppression. It is merely "old wine
in a new bottle." Many people trace the birth of the environmental justice movement in the United States to
the 1991 First National People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit held in Washington, DC, but
there were many important antecedents to this event. In 1982, North Carolina State officials decided to
locate a PCB (polychlorinated-biphenyl) landfill in a predominately African American community. In
response, protestors lay down in the streets trying to block trucks carrying the toxic waste to the landfill and
over 500 people were arrested. This act of civil disobedience was the first time anyone was jailed for trying
to halt a toxic waste landfill. One of those arrested was US Congressman Walter Fauntroy. He later asked
the US General Accounting Office (a federal agency) to determine the correlation between the location of
hazardous waste landfills and the racial and economic status of the surrounding communities in that region.
The GAO study concluded that, "Blacks make up the majority of the population in three out of four
communities where landfills are located."The landmark 1987 report by the United Church of Christ
Commission for Racial Justice, Toxic Wastes and Race, extended the GAO study. It was based on a national
study that mapped the location of toxic waste sites and the racial composition of the community. They found
that people of colour were twice as likely as White people to live in a community with a commercial
hazardous waste management facility and three times as likely to live in a community with multiple facilities.
Further analysis and studies by others proved that race is the number one predictor of where toxic sites are
located. For more than a decade environmental racism in the United States has been well-documented by
NGOs, universities, and even the US government.6 However, the government has provided no effective
remedies to the victims of these racist practices, nor has it taken effective action to stop such practices from
occurring in the future. Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota8 - As state environmental

regulations have become more stringent in recent years, Native American

reservations have become prime targets of waste disposal firms. As of 1992, the
leaders of more than 100 reservations have been approached by such firms.
Many waste-disposal companies have attempted to avoid state regulations
(which are often tougher than federal regulations) by targeting Native
lands. Because of their quasi-independent status, Native American
reservations are not covered by state environmental regulations . In 1991, a
Connecticut-based company proposed to build a 6,000 acre municipal landfill on Sioux land. Solid waste
from other areas would be dumped on Sioux land. Local residents founded the Good Road Coalition and
appealed to the Tribal Council to rescind the contract signed with the company. They were able to block
construction of the landfill.Why is this happening?Racism - First, a double standard exists
as to what practices are acceptable in certain communities, villages or cities and not in others. Second,

people of colour around the world pay a greater and disproportionate price for economic development,
resources extraction and industrialism in terms of their health, quality of life and livelihood. Although
corporate greed and the lack of corporate accountability explains a tremendous amount of what is described
above, racism in the form of environmental racism, plays a significant role that must not be
overlooked.Transnational Power and the Mobility of Global Corporations Financial institutions and trade agreements have facilitated the movement of capital and goods across
borders. Corporations have become more powerful than nation states and are not accountable to anyone
except their shareholders. Their mobility has made it possible for them to seek the greatest profit, the least
government regulations, and the best tax incentives, anywhere in the world. Workers are exposed to
economic and environmental blackmail; they either accept low-paying, often non-unionised jobs with
environmental health risks, or the jobs will move to another country.Profits Before People Some have argued that resource wars will be the impetus for the major conflicts in the 21st Century.18
Traditional land rights and sacred cultural sites are under-valued when it interferes with gaining access to
resources and therefore profit. The impact that extraction and processing industries have on human health
and quality of life doesnt matter. People are increasingly unwanted and unneeded for increased profit; they
are becoming disposable.Lack of Power - Minority groups in Nigeria, small rural African American
communities in Louisiana, Indigenous Peoples around the world and others share something in common;
they lack the political power, they lack information and vital global strategies to take on powerful
multinational corporations and/or repressive state or national governments/regimes.

E. Environmental Racism IS RACISM- it perpetuates dehumanization

Wilder and Memmi, 1996

Gary and Albert, WEB Dubois institute, racial theorists, Irreconcilable differences.
Transition, 71, 1996, pp. 158-177
Perhaps Memmi's most precocious and valuable insights emerge from his belief that racism

traps its victims in "an

impossible condition ... a condition which can have no solution in its actual structure." We can read Memmi's work as an
inventory of possible responses to colonization, racism, and anti-Semitism. He believes that racialized

subjects
are inevitably impelled by contradictory gestures of self-rejection
and self-affirmation, and that it is as impossible to secure recognition as

different but equal as it is to gain full access to "universal" humanity: "No matter which way
I turned I always found my- self an accomplice of the established order." He has profound empathy for oppressed peoples' attempts to
survive with dignity, and he allows us to see the desire to disappear into the mainstream and the wish to retreat into ghettoized
enclaves as natural reactions to the racial dilemma.

F. Dehumanization is every impact discussed in debate felt by real people every day
and must be rejected
Berube, 1997; David M., Professor of Communication Studies at University of South Carolina., NANOTECHNOLOGICAL
PROLONGEVITY: The Down Side, http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/faculty/berube/prolong.htm]
This means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu and Matson's treatise on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn[s]: "its

destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague,

famine, or natural calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the

quality of life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation.

For that reason this

sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the holocaust lay a
dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a dehumanized image
of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p. xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact dehumanizing ethics may have
had on humanity, it is safe to conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities which would be foregone. When we
calculate the actual losses and the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value greater than any tools which we can

Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse ,

and international genocide. When people become things, they become dispensable.
When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity can be justified. Once justified,
currently use to measure it.

they seem to be inevitable for every epoch that has evil and dehumanization is evil's
most powerful weapon.

Advantage 2: Leakage
A. Nuclear Waste Leakage is inevitable in the Status
Quo- Hanford Proves

NBC News 3/6/14

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/possiblenew-leak-hanford-nuclear-waste-site-n46616
Just two days day after the Obama administration
proposed to cut millions of dollars in funding to
clean up the infamous Hanford nuclear site in
Washington state, the Energy Department said
Thursday that one of the location's oldest storage
tanks have sprung another leak.The Energy Department's contractor
overseeing operations at Hanford which houses millions of gallons of radioactive waste and is
considered one of the most contaminated sites in the United States and possibly on Earth
notified its Office of River Protection of the possible leak Wednesday, the Energy Department
confirmed Thursday."Preliminary data" indicated "a change of condition" at the oldest so-called
double-shell tank at the site near Yakima in eastern Washington specifically, the discovery of an
unidentified "dried material" in the area that hadn't been there when it was last visually inspected
in September 2012, the department said in a one-paragraph statement posted on the Hanford
website (pdf).There's no indication that the material which covers about 7 feet by 21 inches
has leaked into the outside environment, according to the Energy Department, but it has ordered
the contractor "to do another video inspection" of the entire area.The unidentified material was
found outside a riser a support beam providing external access to the damaged tanks only
50 to 60 feet from another riser where a confirmed leak was reported in late 2012, officials

.In February 2013, the Energy Department

acknowledged that the extent of leaks at Hanford
had been underreported, telling officials that six of
the site's 177 tanks were, in fact, leaking.The head of the
said

contracting company took early retirement without explanationthree months later.Lawmakers

from both parties expressed concern after the Obama administration asked Congress on Tuesday
to cut $67 million from the Hanford cleanup budget for fiscal year 2015.Sen. Patty Murray, DWash., scolded officials of the White House Office of Management and Budget at a Senate hearing
Wednesday, telling them she thought she had made it clear that "I expect the federal government
to meet its milestones at defense environmental cleanup sites."

B. Sub-seabed nuclear waste disposal solves radiation

leakage

Dillon in 2014 Kenneth (Historian who writes on science, medicine, and

history)Sea-Based Nuclear Waste Solutions, Scientia
Press,http://www.scientiapress.com/nuclearwaste. MWH

First formally proposed in 1973, the concept of burying nuclear waste in stable clay formations
under the seabed was investigated by international teams of scientists for many years. A
substantial scientific literature details the various modalities, associated risks, and geological
conditions. The large undersea plain some 600 miles north of Hawaii, stable for some 65
million years, received special attention. Researchers found that the clay muds in such

sub-seabed formations had a high capacity for binding radionuclides, so that any
leakage would be likely to remain within the clay for millions of years, by which time
radioactive emissions would decline to natural background levels.

C. Leaks can lead to genetic mutations, cancers, and

other serious health hazards
http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/stop-polluters/indian-point/radioactivewaste/ Radioactive Waste and Pollution, River Keeper.org New Yorks Clean
Water Advocate 2014
River Keeper 14

Every exposure to radiation increases the risk of damage to

tissues, cells, DNA and other vital molecules. Each exposure
can cause programmed cell death, genetic mutations, cancers,
leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and
endocrine system disorders. There is no safe threshold to
exposure to radiation.
Government regulations allow radioactive water to be released
from Indian Point nuclear power plant to the environment
containing permissible levels of contamination. However,
since there is no safe threshold to exposure to radiation,
permissible does not mean safe.

It doesnt take an accident at the Indian Point nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water, and soil. As a matter of regular operation, radiation is released from Indian Point in the form of liquid,
gaseous, and solid radioactive wastes. Solid radioactive wastes include laundry (considered low-level waste) and irradiated spent fuel (considered high-level waste.)
Each reactor routinely emits relatively low-dose amounts of airborne and liquid radioactivity. This radioactivity represents over 100 different isotopes only produced in reactors and atomic bombs, including
Strontium-89, Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Iodine-131. Humans ingest them either by inhalation, or through the food chain (after airborne radioactivity returns these chemicals to earth).
Each of these chemicals has a special biochemical action; iodine seeks out the thyroid gland, strontium clumps to the bone and teeth (like calcium), and cesium is distributed throughout the soft tissues. All are
carcinogenic. Each decays at varying rates; for example, iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, and remains in the body only a few weeks. Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28.7 years, and thus remains in bone and
teeth for many years.
These chemicals are different from background radiation found in nature in cosmic rays and the earths surface. Background radiation, while still harmful, contains no chemicals that specifically attack the thyroid
gland, bones, or other organs. Indian Point ranks among the top emitters with respect to radioactive releases over the years it has operated.
Radioactive releases result from plant accidents and accidents happen. On February 15, 2000, IP-2 suffered a ruptured steam generator tube that released 20,000 gallons of radioactive coolant into the plant. The
incident resulted from poor plant maintenance and lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The accident, a stage 2 event, triggered a radioactive release to the atmosphere. The NRC gave the plant its
worst rating because of the previous plant operators failure to detect flaws in a steam generator tube before the February 2000 leak. One week after the accident, 200 gallons of radioactive water were accidentally
released into the Hudson River.
Since at least August 2005, radioactive toxins such as tritium and strontium-90 have been leaking from at least two spent fuel pools at Indian Point into the groundwater and the Hudson River. In January 2007 it was
reported that strontium-90 was detected in four out of twelve Hudson River fish tested.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission relies upon self-reporting and computer modeling from reactor operators to track radioactive releases and their projected dispersion. A significant portion of the environmental
monitoring data is extrapolated virtual, not real.
However, radioactive releases from Indian Points routine operation often are not fully detected or reported. In fact, accidental releases may not be completely verified or documented.
And, they occur throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, which includes uranium mining, uranium milling, chemical conversion, fuel enrichment and fabrication, the process by which electricity is generated at plant via
controlled reaction, and the storage of radioactive waste, both on-site and off-site.
Finally, radioactive by-products continue giving off dangerous radioactive particles and rays for enormously long periods described in terms of half lives. A radioactive material gives off hazardous radiation for at
least ten half-lives. One of the radioactive isotopes of iodine (iodine-129) has a half-life of 16 million years; technetium-99 has a half-life of 211,000 years; and plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. Xenon135, a noble gas, decays into cesium-135, an isotope with a 2.3 million year half-life.