Sludge Watch ==> Nuclear Radioactive Waste Land Applied with Sewage Sludge - Children with Cancer

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

ADMIN: This story is a shocker.  Nuclear plant staff  in Florida washed 
radioactive wastes into the plant's sewage tank and the material is 
described as being spread on farmfields, and some was sent to the muncipal 
sewage treatment plant (and likely then spread on farmland).  Many children 
suffer with brain cancer in the area.

That is why the Senator Florez bill that would require testing of every 
truckload of sludge is so important.  That is why sludge cannot be 
considered 'clean'...because it isn't tested for all contaminants (this 
would be impossible).

This is another reason why all food grown on sludged farm land should be 
labelled as 'sludge-grown' food at the grocery store (there is such a Bill 
pending Federally).  The public and the environment need protection from 
this irresponsible waste disposal practice.

Industrial wastes and sewage sludge must not be used as 'fertilizer'.  This 
is not 'nightsoil'...it is a cocktail of undisclosed industrial contaminants 
mixed with fecal waste.


washingtonpost.com
Attorney: Nuke Waste Put Community at Risk

By JILL BARTON
The Associated Press
Friday, August 12, 2005; 8:00 AM



WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- An attorney claims that errors one of Florida's 
biggest electric utilities made in handling nuclear waste caused brain 
cancer in at least two children and may have put an entire community at 
risk.

Attorney Nancy La Vista said the illnesses stem from Florida Power & Light's 
daily shipments of thousands of gallons of radioactive sludge from a St. 
Lucie nuclear plant to undocumented locations in the late 1970s.

One of the boys, 11-year-old Zachary Finestone, was diagnosed with brain 
cancer in March 2000. The other boy, Ashton Lowe, had brain cancer when he 
died in May 2001 at age 13. La Vista is representing their families in civil 
lawsuits that could begin early next year.

"Our cancer experts say these children were exposed to radiation," she said. 
"The community needs to be concerned."

FPL has acknowledged that it mistakenly shipped radioactive waste to 
farmland about 10 miles west of the nuclear plant on two occasions. But 
those shipments were reported when FPL discovered the problem in September 
1982, a decade before the boys were born, said FPL spokeswoman Rachel Scott.

The utility immediately cleaned up the site, removing 6 inches of soil from 
a contaminated 20-by-30-foot area. Scott said tests by state and federal 
authorities have shown no health threat at the site or in the surrounding 
air, soil or water.

"It's a very sad situation when families are dealing with cancer, but 
there's absolutely no validity to the claim that it has anything to do with 
the plant," Scott said.

The mistaken shipments to the farm can be traced to a plumbing mix-up in 
1977 or 1978, La Vista said. At the time, workers believed a sink at the 
plant drained to a tank designated for radioactive waste and used it to 
clean highly radioactive items. But the sink instead drained into the 
plant's sewage disposal system.

The potentially radioactive sewage went into a septic tank, where it was 
pumped out at least daily from 1977 to 1980 and taken to the Fort Pierce 
Sewage Treatment, according to documents. Radioactive sludge that drained 
from the same sink was also dumped at the farm as fertilizer in January and 
June 1982.

La Vista said no records exist detailing the handling or monitoring of the 
nuclear waste hauled to the municipal facility and that loads of the nuclear 
sludge could have been dumped at other unidentified sites during the 
three-year period.

She said the frequent shipments also likely sent radioactive material into 
the air, water and ground.

But Scott said that tests conducted after 1980 would have revealed 
contamination that had built up in previous years.

State health officials previously reviewed a potential cluster of childhood 
cancers in St. Lucie County, where both boys had lived, after discovering 29 
cases of brain and central nervous system cancer from 1981 to 1997. Health 
Department officials tested soil, air and water for 500 chemicals at the 
homes of the affected children and their pregnant mothers, but found no 
pattern.

But La Vista said other tests showed unusually high levels of radioactive 
strontium in the boys' baby teeth.

St. Lucie County is located roughly 120 miles north of Miami.