PRESS TV
12/31/2013
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USN sailor scrubs flight deck of USS Ronald Regan |
Their ship was anchored a mile away from the Fukushima Daiichi energy plant, during the initial phase of the disaster. The plaintiffs say they could have taken different precautions and avoided becoming sick and possibly having their lives cut short, if TEPCO had exhibited proper responsibility and notified the US government that there was excessive radiation.
More than 70 military personnel are involved in the lawsuit, but one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, says a thousand times that many people are actually affected.
"This is civil rights environmental lawsuit not only for the victims but for all people impacted by nuclear power," said Attorney Charles Bonner, Co-Counsel for the Plaintiffs. "Seventy thousand first responders are at risk, in fact we're all at risk, the water will reach San Diego in 2015."
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Abe will have tough time selling "smile to beat radiation to Navy |
The attorneys are representing clients like Matthew Bradley, a US Marine active reservist, who worked with Marine helicopters in both administration and maintenance.
He says the Marines worked in the radioactivity for some time until steps were taken to protect them, "It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that they gave us 'paint suits', protective gear, but we were unprotected for several weeks."
Brady added, "I received no protection." His primary role was maintenance administration, but every Marine helps out with every job when there was down time. "So when we transported the contaminated parts to the supply I was in contact with the contaminated parts to replace them."
Another plaintiff, Lindsay Cooper, was a sailor aboard the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. She says the radioactive air had a metallic taste and worries that the flight deck personnel were overexposed. "It went as far as them putting rubber boots on top of our work boots; that was the only preventative for us and the FA elements, the radiation on the deck."
Cooper and others state simply that these sailors were sent in unprepared. The Russians learned during the Chernobyl nuclear power disaster, that the aircraft and crews used to contain the problem would be short lived and they were, the people at least. The heavily contaminated helicopters used during that operation are all parked near Chernobyl forever.
Cooper said of the US aircraft, "When the first helicopter that came back with radiation, the boat really didn't know what do with it. The Navy had never been in a situation like that before where they were exposed to radiation. and they had a high amount of personnel who were going to be exposed. I honestly don't think the navy was ready to handle everything that happened."
"The entire command was concerned, they were doing everything possible to take care of us," Cooper said. That is good, because the Ferris Doctrine blocks current and past members of the US military from suing the government for anything.”
Another attorney in the case, Cabral Bonner, said, "Really what is the core of what we are talking about there is not what the US military should have done, we are talking about the US military responding to an emergency. It is not a military going in thinking, 'we have to be aware of this possible nuclear meltdown' because that wasn't something TEPCO was making known to people. Is TPECO providing their own government with proper information? No, that wasn't provided to people."
Bonner followed that statement by pointing to the obvious breakdown in communication between TEPCO officials and the first responders. "The men and women on board the ship are only as good as the information they are provided with."
Cooper says her ship and crew became world nuclear rejects after that, "No ports would let us in, Japan wouldn't let us in because we had too much radiation, Guam wouldn't let us in, Korea..." As the single mother of a 4-year-old girl named Serenity, she says her biggest worry is that she will eventually develop cancer.
Tokyo’s Mainichi newspaper reports that the deaths related to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima that struck following a catastrophic tsunami on March 11, 2011, have topped 1,600. These fatalities include people who died from radiation effects, fell victim of squalid living conditions and committed suicide. Fukushima became the world’s worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl. Some 52,000 people are still unable to return to their homes in the Fukushima area.
HMV/HMV