376 



are too high and could, if given to large segments of the population, result in 

 thousands of cases of cancer and leukemia, and Inestimable numbers of genetic 

 ■defects being passed on to future generations. 



In fact, the major Impact of radioactive pollution will be felt by future genera- 

 tions, both because the projected production of radioactive wastes ascends steep- 

 ly to and beyond the end of this century, and because the genetic and ecological 

 effects of low level radiation emerge slowly. When they do emerge, it will be 

 too late to do anything about it : the most troublesome waste, strontium-90, has 

 SL half -life of 30 years, and others go into the hundreds and thousands of years. 



8trontium-90 levels in the Irish Sea, due to the nuclear power station at 

 "SA'iudscale, are already about a hundred times as high as in most other waters, 

 in a concentration range where the Soviet biologist Polikarpov (1) observed 

 -abnormalities, especially in the spinal cords, of developing fish eggs. He con- 

 cluded that one effect of radioactive pollution will be to shift the ecological bal- 

 ance from more radiosensitive species like fish to less sensitive species like 

 plants. As in terrestrial ecology, the more highly developed organisms are the 

 first eliminated by radiation (2) . 



Aside from nuclear power plants, the principle sources of radioactive pollu- 

 tion will be radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, 

 and nuclear shipping. As a result of nuclear weapons tests more than a decade 

 ago by the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., the world's oceans were contaminated with 

 approximately twenty million curies of strontium-90 and cesiuni-137 (1), and 

 IJie fallout will continue for another generation, supplemented by the current 

 nuclear weapons tests of France and China and those of other nations when they 

 are ready. When one considers that Polikarpov observed deleterious effects on 

 fish eggs at "^Sr concentrations of 10"^- curies/liter, and that most fish eggs are 

 iu the upper five centimeters of seawater, the most vulnerable to fallout, the 

 liotential for ecological disaster may be appreciated. 



Nuclear shipping represents hazards of yet another magnitude. Radioactive 

 wa.stes discharged directly into the water by nuclear plants and nuclear ships 

 are only about one-millionth of the total fission product produced in these re- 

 actors. The remainder are buried or stored in tanks as corrosive liquids that 

 will boil for more than a hundred years (3). Two serious "blow-ups" have oc- 

 cured in stationary nuclear reactors — at Chalk River, Canada, and Windscale, 

 England — that resulted in thousands of curies of isotopes being released to the 

 environment. With ships, accidents are inevitable, and can be expected to be- 

 come increasingly frequent as more and more vessels are nuclear powered. The 

 loss of the U.S. Nuclear Submarine Thresher in 1963 may have released a mil- 

 lion curies of fission products : enough, according to Polikarpov, to contaminate 

 a volume of water as great as both the Black and the Irish Seas. Such a catas- 

 trophe within a closed harbor, where most shipping accidents ocur, could result 

 in closure of the harbor to all commercial activities for years : In the open sea, 

 the effects will not be as immediate but merely add to the increasing radiation 

 buiden of all sea life. 



The proponents of nuclear power consistently minimize the risks, thougli their 

 reassuring statements often have the opposite effect ; as, for instance this one, 

 from Mawson, in his book on Management of Radioactive Wastes (3), writing 

 in 1965 regarding nuclear ships : "Liberation of radioactive material into the 

 confined waters of harbors would appear very hazardous, and liberation at sea 

 would contaminate an international resource, with no control other than that 

 of the captain of the ship. However, similar problems concerning the discharge 

 of fuel oil have been faced vnth considerable success . . ." 



The nuclear power advocates, which include the U.S. Atomic Energy Com- 

 mission, point out that effluents from reactors do not exceed the maximum per- 

 missible concentrations set as safe by the Federal Radiation Council. But aquatic 

 organisms may concentrate trace amounts of radioactive materials a thousand- 

 fold or more. An example occurred in a worker at the Hanford reactor, which 

 discharges large amounts of zinc-65 into the Columbia River. The worker was 

 found somehow to have taken in excessive amounts of ^szn. Finally the source 

 was traced not to industrial carelessness, but to some oysters he had eaten which 

 came from the Pacific Ocean 2.50 miles away, and which contained 200,000 times 

 as much radioactive zinc as the surrounding ,sea (1). We do not know how many 

 •such cases are occurring in people who are not routinely checked for absorption 

 of fission products. 



Another objection to the "safe limits" argument is the questionable adequacy 

 'Of present radiation standards. Recently Gofman and Tamplin (4,5), and others. 



