How Climate Change Could Impact U.S. Nuclear Waste
Article Summary: How Climate Change Could Impact U.S. Nuclear Waste: A government watchdog is sounding the alarm that climate change could expose and spread contamination from U.S. nuclear waste left over from experiments and waste sites abandoned for decades. As Grist reports, the Government Accountability Office issued a report last month looking at radioactive debris from U.S. Cold War-era experiments in the Marshall Islands, Spain, and Greenland. Per the report, there is concern that rising sea levels in RMI will spread contamination from abandoned testing sites, while nuclear waste frozen in Greenland’s ice could be exposed by the end of the century as ice melts. “The possibility to influence the environment is there, which could further affect the food chain and further affect the people living in the area as well,” Hjalmar Dahl, president of Inuit Circumpolar Council Greenland, told Grist. “I think it is important that the Greenland and U.S. governments have to communicate on this worrying issue and prepare what to do about it.” But in the Marshall Islands, chair of the National Nuclear Commission Ariana Tibon was unimpressed by the report, telling Grist that “what we need now is action and implementation on environmental remediation. We don’t need a communication strategy. If they know that it’s contaminated, why wasn’t the recommendation for next steps on environmental remediation, or what’s possible to return these lands to safe and habitable conditions for these communities?”
Full Story: Grist
To receive climate stories like this in your inbox daily click here to sign up for the Hot News Newsletter from Climate Nexus:
Related Content
