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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Jun 20, 2005 19:31:31 GMT -4
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 20, 2005 21:08:14 GMT -4
I'm not sure what your point is, all I see are pictures that would be normal procedure with any chemical cleanup, the only difference being that they have radioactive warnings as well, which is appropriate since DU is mildly radioctive. It's also toxic, as are all heavy metals, and you'd see the same sort of procedures in cleaning a factory that was dealing in mercury or lead products so what is so unusual?
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Jun 20, 2005 22:19:22 GMT -4
A worker wearing overalls and a respirator is nothing out of the ordinary and is a very common sight in industry and construction. I know because I work in the construction business. Uranium is just one of countless substances that can be dangerous when inhaled. You will see people dressed like this any time they work around paints and solvents, when sandblasting, or when performing asbestos abatement, for just a few examples. What we see in these pictures in a very typical scene and there is nothing here to imply DU is any more dangerous than wall paint.
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Post by snakeriverrufus on Jun 22, 2005 15:22:11 GMT -4
Again?
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Post by Glom on Jun 23, 2005 13:17:28 GMT -4
In light of this, I've added to the war page.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Jun 23, 2005 14:17:22 GMT -4
In light of this, I've added to the war page.That page is good reading; well done. I haven't had much of a chance to look at the rest of your site yet, but I'll give it a good look as soon as time permits.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 24, 2005 4:19:19 GMT -4
Glom. If you feel capable of daring to try and put your head into the GLP mess, you might find this thread interesting
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Post by JayUtah on Jun 24, 2005 12:19:36 GMT -4
The issue here is workplace liability. These days it is quite fashionable to sue your employer over the alleged effects of some hazardous condition that exists in your workplace. Employers retaliate by requiring extensive -- even absurd -- levels of individual protection. Technically before I step into my supercomputer machine rooms I'm supposed to don a lab coat, ear protection, eye protection, and (if anyone is working in the overhead space) a hard hat. Even if the most miniscule hazard exists, American businesses protect themselves by protecting their employees.
The cleanup company, ATK, is one of my clients. They routinely work with all manner of hazardous materials and in hazardous conditions. They are a munitions company. I can attest to the degree to which they require protection for their employees, even if the danger is perceived to be slight.
Further, the NRC documents relating to the decommissioning of this plant list a host of materials used on-site which qualify as radioactive hazards, not including depleted uranium (e.g., barium and cesium isotopes). The photos show radiation warning signs but do not describe which materials are radioactive. The building obviously contained depleted uranium, but also likely included other materials considered far more hazardous. It seems to be the assumption of the web site which redacted and excerpted this information that the protective equipment shown was intended to protect against depleted uranium; there is no such presumption in the photographs themselves.
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Post by sts60 on Jun 26, 2005 12:15:58 GMT -4
Heck, in the county where I live we get a full hazmat response when some kid breaks a mercury thermometer in a school. The whole place gets evacuated, and IIRC the "glowworms" who clean it up are wearing Class A suits - the airtight "bubble" gear with SCBA.
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Post by JayUtah on Jun 26, 2005 16:22:41 GMT -4
The same for cleaning up pigeon poop.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 26, 2005 23:50:54 GMT -4
There ws a program here last night that had lot of stuff in it tat I thought was intriguing.
Some thoughts.
The Immediate Decay Product of U-238 is Thorium-234 which is a Beta/Gamma producer with a halflife of 24.1 days. How serious could that be to person's health when inside the body?
They claimed ( there is some support from a news release from the US State dept) that the DU shells and rounds are contminated with U-236 (I didn't find a huge amount about 236 except that it is produced from 235 via neutron absorbtion.) Could such contaminates cause medical problems.
Is 100 times Background radiation levels considered high? How abut 20,000x?
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Nov 2, 2005 13:46:54 GMT -4
Some people in Australia have made a movie about the stuff. rense.com/general68/du.htm. I say where's there's smoke, there's fire. Why on earth would people lie about DU being dangerous? The coverup must be exposed.
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Post by JayUtah on Nov 2, 2005 15:16:18 GMT -4
I say where's there's smoke, there's fire.
No, where there's smoke there's smoke. Unless you believe that accusations are no different than proof.
Why on earth would people lie about DU being dangerous?
Well, let's stay on the path for minute. I don't argue that people must necessarily be lying in order simply to be mistaken about DU. You seem to want to pare down the problem to two possibilities: the DU advocates are completely correct in everything they claim, or they are deliberately lying.
There is the middle ground, and that's that they don't understand the DU issue and they are acting -- so they really believe -- conscientiously based on wrong or misleading information. There are plenty of people who simply see DU as a nebulous issue on which they have a strong opinion.
So your question of "why would they lie" is a leading question. Instead, why would they be wrong? Why would they prefer one side of the story to another, regardless of evidence? For the same reasons we have activists on both sides of nearly every other issue that faces us: some people just like being mad and having issues -- the Kyle's Mom Syndrome; others just like exerting control over other people; and still others just hate all forms of authority and will contradict them no matter what is said.
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Post by nomuse on Nov 2, 2005 15:37:44 GMT -4
Based on what I've read so far, I'd EAT a marble-sized lump of Du -- as long as it was smoothly polished or given a thin teflon coating so as to not scratch my insides on the trip through. But then, I have a somewhat fatalist veiwpoint -- protect yourself from what you can, not what you could.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Nov 2, 2005 15:42:41 GMT -4
The main perceived hazard with DU is what's left of it in the form of the oxide particles formed when DU penetator munitions hit anything solid, eg Iraqi tanks.
This fine particulate dust may slightly increase the risk of cancers for anyone inhaling it: inhaling enough to suffer from the toxicity seems unlikely.
The coalition made some efforts to clean up after DU was used: something of a novelty, given that these munitions were conceived during the Cold War, when the prospect of anyone being in a position to worry about DU contamination seemed distinctly unlikely.
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