Nuclear Threats
From uranium mining that has poisoned indigenous communities and the environment, to the risk of
accidental or intentional nuclear weapons detonation, to the health and security hazards of nuclear
power and radioactive waste – the entire nuclear cycle presents threats to health that are uniquely
harmful and potentially catastrophic to our very existence.
The devastating force of nuclear weapons and high toxicity and long-lived nature of radionuclides make
health protective nuclear policies of vital importance.
PSR-LA’s Nuclear Threats program brings the credible voice of physicians to nuclear policy debates.
We work to build awareness about nuclear threats and organize healthcare professionals and the public
to advocate for health protective nuclear policies.
Learn more about our Nuclear Threats programs:
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Nuclear Weapons
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Nuclear Power
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Contaminated Sites – the Santa Susana Field Laboratory
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons are capable of causing massive and indiscriminate destruction and illness on a scale
modern medicine cannot meet. PSR-LA believes the best way to save lives from a nuclear disaster is
to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Today’s global arsenal of over 15,000 nuclear weapons, most of which are far more powerful than those
that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, represent a clear and present danger to humanity.
Thousands of nuclear weapons are on hair trigger alert. Dozens of accidents, near misses, and losses
have occurred.
A recent IPPNW and PSR report found that a limited nuclear exchange could result in climate change
that would cause global famine and put up to 2 billion people at risk of starvation. Today, we also face
the post 9-11 threat of nuclear terrorism with “suitcase” or “dirty bombs.”
How serious is the current nuclear threat? Very, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which
recently moved the hand on the allegorical “Doomsday Clock” to three minutes before midnight, as
close as it was during the height of the Cold War. The Bulletin based its decision in part on nuclear
weapons modernization programs in the US and Russia, a lack of progress in warhead reduction, and
escalating tensions in Europe, the Middle East, and the South China Sea. Read PSR-LA Board Member
Dr. Bob Dodge’s article in The Hill, “Three minutes to midnight: A prescription for survival”
Yet a nuclear weapons free world is possible. The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons campaign,
a new international movement spearheaded by PSR, is gathering strength and momentum. In response
to the campaign, 155 countries – a majority of the world’s nations – support a ban on nuclear weapons.
PSR-LA is working to educate and motivate physicians, policymakers and the public to join in this
campaign and demand sensible measures to protect public health from nuclear threats, such as taking
weapons off of “prompt launch” status (hair-trigger alert) and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty. Click here to read about these and other specific steps to reduce nuclear dangers.
Of course, the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons can also be measured in terms of the
resources diverted from local communities that would be better spent on human needs. Los Angeles
County spent $$1,785,041,517.60 tax dollars on nuclear weapons in 2014, and has pledged up to a
trillion dollars over the three decades to “modernize” nuclear weapons and facilities. Major scientific
challenges facing us – including how to break our addiction to fossil fuel, stop global warming, dismantle
useless and dangerous nuclear weapons, and clean up the toxic legacy of the Cold War—receive lower
priority.
PSR-LA advocates for reduced spending on nuclear weapons, including Rep. Ed Markey’s Smarter
Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) legislation, expected to be reintroduced this year, to cut
$100 billion over the next decade from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget. PSR-LA physicians have and
will continue to meet with Congressional leaders from Southern California on this and other nuclear
weapons budget considerations.
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power threatens public health in numerous ways. Uranium mining causes suffer severe health
impacts such as tuberculosis and lung cancer among miners who are often indigenous peoples.
Harmful radionuclides are routinely released in nuclear reactor operations.
Unresolved safety issues mean accidents can, do, and will occur. The 1989 Chernobyl accident
released 400 times the radiation as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and many scientists believe the
ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan has already dwarfed Chernobyl. Nuclear
reactors are also vulnerable to terrorist attack, and to natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes,
and tornadoes, all of which are expected to increase with climate change.
Radioactive waste is extremely dangerous. For example, Plutonium-239, if inhaled in quantities as
small as a millionth of an ounce, will cause cancer with 100 percent statistical certainty and is toxic to
humans for as much as half a million years. The accumulation of high-level radioactive waste in spent
fuel pools is an ongoing and serious safety threat at nuclear power plants throughout the country. There
is no credible, long-term solution for storing highly toxic radioactive waste, which must be isolated from
the environment for longer than civilization has even existed. The national storage center at Yucca
Mountain was cancelled because the site was not a safe or even large enough.
Perhaps most importantly, nuclear power is inextricably tied to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The technology needed to enrich uranium for a reactor is the same that is used to enrich it for a bomb.
Each operating nuclear power plant produces enough plutonium a year to create 100 nuclear bombs.
It is simply not possible to have both nuclear disarmament and nuclear power without increasing
proliferation risks.
PSR-LA advocates for policies that enhance security and safety measures at nuclear reactors,
especially those in earthquake risk areas such as San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS)
and Diablo Canyon. Though SONGS is now closed, at least 1,600 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel
remain at the site in overcrowded pools. Should a violent earthquake, terrorist attack, or any event that
causes extended power failure occur, water could drain out and cause exposed fuel rods to self-ignite,
releasing vast amounts of lethal radiation. Recently, the plant operators decided they will use a thin
walled dry cask system to expedite the removal of the rods, ignoring the demands of the community for
a thicker and safer design that is use currently in Europe.
PSR-LA also advocates that the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant be shut down until PG&E can prove the
reactors can withstand potential earthquakes on nearby faults, which were recently discovered to be
capable of creating ground movement larger than they were designed to withstand. A reactor
accident at Diablo Canyon could impact tens of thousands in Central California and potentially millions
in Southern California should southerly winds prevail.
In California, thankfully, the 1976 Nuclear Safeguards Act prohibits the building of new nuclear reactors
until there is a solution to the storage of highly radioactive waste. Nationwide, until the permanent
isolation of radioactive waste from the environment has been demonstrated, PSR-LA advocates that
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) not be able to grant licenses for new nuclear reactors or
renew existing licenses. In 2012, federal courts forced the NRC to justify that all the radioactive wastes
generated by U.S. reactors can be safely stored onsite before it could issue or new licenses. The NRC
responded in a draft “waste confidence rule” which PSR-LA joined others in critiquing in December
2013.
Cleaning Up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory
PSR-LA has been involved in efforts to clean up the radioactive and chemical contamination at the
Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), formerly known as Rocketdyne, for over 30 years. We are a
founding member of the Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition, and currently serve as the coordinator of the
SSFL Work Group.
SSFL is a former nuclear reactor and rocket testing facility located 30 miles from Los Angeles, in the
hills between the San Fernando and Simi valleys. It was established in the late 40s for rocket testing
and in 1949, was chosen for nuclear testing that was too dangerous to do in a populated area. (Since
then, population has dramatically increased, with half a million people currently living within 10 miles of
the site.)
Nuclear work continued until 1989, when it was stopped due to pressure from PSR-LA, community
members, and other advocates. Rocket engine testing and other aerospace work continued until 2006.
Over the decades, SSFL housed 10 nuclear reactors, a “Hot Lab” to cut up irradiated reactor fuel from
around the country, plutonium and uranium-carbide fuel fabrication facilities, and a sodium burn pit in
which open-air burning of contaminated reactor components took place. One of the reactors, the
Sodium Reactor Experiment, experienced a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959, and two other reactors
experienced accidents with fuel damage as well. Over 30,000 rocket engine tests took place at SSFL,
with numerous toxic spills and releases.
These activities left the site highly polluted with nuclear and chemical contaminants that pose a threat
to public health. Contaminants of concern include dangerous radionuclides such as cesium-137,
strontium-90, and plutonium 239 and toxic chemicals trichloroethylene, perchlorate, heavy metals,
dioxins, PCBs, and more – all of which can cause cancer and other illnesses. SSFL has groundwater,
surface water, and soil contamination, and scores of violations of NPDES permit limits for surface water
discharges leaving the site. Contamination continues to migrate from the site and has been found in
numerous offsite locations.
Several studies indicate increases cancers associated with proximity to SSFL. An extensive, multi-year
epidemiological study by the UCLA School of Public Health found significant increases in death rates
among the most exposed workers from cancers of the lung, lymph, and blood systems. A study for the
U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR), Professor Hal Morgenstern found
rates for key cancers in members of the nearby public increased the closer the person lived to SSFL.
Click here to view these and other studies.
In 2010, community members and cleanup advocates celebrated a tremendous victory when the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA, which operated key parts of the site, finally agreed to a
cleanup to background levels of contaminants. The Boeing Company, which owns the largest portion
of the site, refused to sign the agreement.
Today, there is great concern that DOE and NASA may break their cleanup commitments and that
Boeing’s proposed weak cleanup will leave much of the contamination onsite. A 2014 report, “Inside
Job – How Boeing Fixers Captured Regulators and Derailed a Nuclear and Chemical Cleanup in LA’s
Backyard” by Consumer Watchdog details the unraveling of the cleanup.
Another area of concern is the disposal of radioactive debris from SSFL. In 2013, PSR-LA joined with
other advocates in a lawsuit against the state Department of Toxic Substances Control to prevent the
disposal of low level radioactive waste in facilities that are not licensed to it, many of which are located
in low-income communities of color. A preliminary injunction was issued later that year and on January
5, 2015 the Sacramento Superior Court of California denied Boeing’s motion to summarily grant
judgment.
PSR-LA continues to fight for the 2010 cleanup agreements to be enforced and for Boeing to fully clean
up its portion of the site. To learn more about the SSFL cleanup, contact Denise Duffield and visit
www.ssflworkgroup.org for information about past and future meetings.