Makah Reservation -- Add eco-disaster cover-ups to corporate austerity and privatization

[Mentifex]

By Wayne Madsen of the Wayne Madsen Report.


Corporations, in league with federal and state
governments, have established a new protocol to
deal with major environmental disasters.
Using the twin weapons of secretive clean-ups
and public relations media blitzes, corporations
have a new weapon to add to their other programs
of austerity and privatization to seize control
of the planet from the people who inhabit it.

With radioactive and toxic debris from the
March 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and
Fukushima nuclear disaster beginning to wash
ashore in large amounts along the coasts of
Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia,
state and federal officials, along with
private contractors, have instituted the
very same protocol for covert clean up
instituted by British Petroleum, the
federal government, and Gulf coast state
governments for the Deepwater Horizon oil
deluge in the Gulf of Mexico. Just as debris
and dead marine life is constantly scooped up
by heavy equipment along the beaches of the Gulf,
often in darkness during the wee hours of
the morning, debris from the Japanese quake
and tsunami are being secured by contractors
and prison labor as soon as beached debris or
large debris items are spotted by observers.

In order to prevent researchers and journalists
from testing the debris for radiation, items
found on the beaches of Washington are transported
to special containers which are then used to
transport the debris to the Hanford nuclear
waste facility in Richland, Washington.
Radiation levels have been found to be high
around areas where debris retrieval from
the beach has been conducted.

There is a major effort underway by the U.S.,
Japanese, and state of Washington governments,
in addition to TEPCO and Fukushima reactors
manufacturer GE, to secure and carry off from
beaches like Shi Shi Beach radioactive debris
from the Japanese quake before environmentalists
and the news media can take readings.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com (WMR) has learned
that prisoners serving time in two local state
prisons in Clallam Bay and Forks, both on the
Olympic Peninsula, are being pressed into service
for beach cleanup.

Sources on the Makah tribal reservation at the
northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula report
that the bulk of debris has been spotted far out
to sea by local fishermen. However, beginning
last year (2012), debris from Japan, including
a bottle of sake and a can of insecticide began
washing ashore on native beaches.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which
participated in disaster relief off the Japanese
east coast following the earthquake and tsunami
of 2011 received a high level of radiation from
the Fukushima reactor. There is currently a
federal class action law suit against the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant operator
Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) by crewmen on
board the carrier who received hazardous
doses of radiation.

In mid-March [2013], the Reagan left the
naval ship yard at Bremerton, Washington for
its home port of San Diego after radioactive
fittings from the ship, including radioactive
potable water pipes, exposed on-deck fittings,
and air conditioning ducts, were removed from
the vessel. The Navy has been in cover-up mode
on the true reasons for the carrier's overhaul
but WMR learned from U.S. Navy ship yard sources
in Bremerton, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, that the radioactive material from
the Reagan was transported by train to the
Hanford nuclear waste site in eastern Washington
for burial.

Less radioactive debris from the Reagan was
transported to the Waste Management, Inc.
Riverbend landfill in McMinnville, Oregon,
according to the Bremerton sources.

The Japanese government has paid $5 million
to the state of Washington and $1 million to
the state of Oregon as compensation for
cleanup of radioactive debris. However,
little of the money is reaching the small
communities that have been affected by the
high levels of radioactive waste. As with
BP's petty contributions to the people of
the Louisiana Gulf, greedy mega-corporations
are more interested in quick compensation
and coverups than in fairness.

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http://www.waynemadsenreport.com