Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: Survey finds depleted uranium in training area

Survey finds depleted uranium in training area
By Greg Small - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Aug 21, 2007 8:06:18 EDT
 
HONOLULU — A military contractor confirmed the presence of depleted
uranium at the Army’s Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island, the Army
said.
The Army has said it did not use depleted uranium at the training range.
Earlier state tests found radiation levels in the air near the Pohakuloa
training range to be “normal.”
The Army said last year it also found depleted uranium at an Oahu post,
Schofield Barracks, in remnants of training rounds used in the 1960s. That
announcement came after years of Army denials it used depleted uranium in
the islands.
The Army said in a news release Monday it currently does not use depleted
uranium in training munitions.
Cabrera Services, the contractor, conducted an aerial survey for depleted
uranium Thursday through Saturday.
The contractor’s study sought to determine if a 1960s-era weapon which was
capable of firing depleted uranium rounds, the Davy Crockett gun, had ever
been fired at Pohakuloa.
The contractor also took soil samples from Pohakuloa, which have been sent
to a lab for analysis.
The Army said it will coordinate with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
and the state to determine what steps will be taken.
Big Island peace activist Jim Albertini said the news confirmed his
suspicions.
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Albertini, who heads the Malu Aina Center
for Nonviolent Education and Action in Kurtistown.
Albertini said his group detected heightened radiation levels at the edge
of Pohakuloa as wind was coming off the firing range May 29.
He called on the Army to suspend all live-fire training in Hawaii because
of the risk exercises could disturb any depleted uranium in the soil and
release contaminated particles into the air.
U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii officials did not immediately return a phone
call seeking comment.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of radioactive enriched uranium and has
been used by the military in bullets and other weapons designed to pierce
armor. Some researchers suspect exposure to depleted uranium may have
caused chronic fatigue and other symptoms in veterans of the first Gulf
War, but there is no conclusive evidence it has.
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The statement about heightened radiation levels is totally false.
Leuren Moret, a total phony, claims to be an expert in radiation, yet
never has been trained, educated or worked in the field.  She worked
at two DOE research laboratories, but that does not make her an
expert.  At the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, she was a graduate
student in Geology, but she dropped out of that doctoral program and
never attained the degree.  At the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, she
was a Senior Scientific Technologist in the Center for Applied
Scientific Computing .. basically a glorified lab assistant in the
computer lab!  She also worked there less than one year.  She is the
one who made these measurements.  An expert in radiation, a retired
Health Physicist Blaine Howard, made a detailed analysis of the Gamma
Scout Meter and found that for Moret to have detected DU with that
meter that it would have required a 7800 gram sample in close
proximity to the meter.  That, of course, is completely impossible if
you are trying to measure DU in the air.  If you look at the UN
Environmental Programme Report from Boznia-Herzegovina, you will see
the type of air sampling device that this professional international
team used to do its sampling.  A photo is on page 12
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/BiH_DU_report.pdf
 .  This
report is an excellent way to learn that the anti-DU crusade is
misleading the public all over the world and really does not have a
clue what it is insisting is true.  I welcome the Peace Activist's
contacting me, but I am sure he won't.  They only post to their own
lists where they can carefully control the content; they dare not
venture out in the open and actually tell you how to get in touch with
them and ask them hard questions.  To me, that is the coward's way and
perhaps worthy of the sounds of a chicken as accompaniment.
Roger Helbig
rwhelbig at gee mail dot com