ALERT! Radioactive Core Leak At La Salle, IL Nuclear During Restart

If you live down wind from the La Salle nuclear plant in Illinois you should be concerned.

Multiple systems failures have occurred over the last few days. On Friday we alerted that vigilance was required; on Saturday during restart, there was a radioactive core leak into primary containment.

The system that serves as a backup for Saturday's failure failed just a few days before. That is a chain of failures which should cause concern. The fact that they happened under the watch full eye of a Special Inspection announced on Friday by the NRC is even more troubling.

But it gets worse, the leaking part which failed on Saturday apparently had the same failure in 2011. That time they blamed a manufacturing defect in some welds; the fix was to patch it with another weld. Seems like that patch might not have held up well.

Given the totality of what has happened at La Salle in the last few days, it remains clear to us the Chicago was at risk of becoming a glow in the dark city. A Maximum Alert condition maybe warranted, as there is not telling what else will fail as they once again try to restart this rattle trap of a nuclear pile. Unfortunately, the most dangerous period for a reactor is when humans are mucking around with it. Here's hoping the third restart will be a charm.

BUY IT NOW!: H7N9 Pandemic Will Spark Run On CHG.

CHG forms an invisible barrier on the skin and kills the influenza virus for multiple HOURS after washing with it. (see the item links below)

The current H7N9 Bird Flu fear mongering may have some basis in fact, as evidenced by Congress' new taxation and massive over-funding of the Flu Vaccine Injury Trust Fund.

As such, we have identified  Chlorhexidine Gluconate (CHG)  as the most unobtrusive and cost effective bird flu risk mitigation item to purchase before the pandemic panic begins. CHG has been around for nearly 60 years and is used as a surgical scrub, and infection control agent. It is also used in some dental rinses / mouth washes.

CHG is strongly attracted to the skin and mucous membranes. In essence, CHG forms an invisible glove that kills encapsulated viruses and a broad spectrum of bacteria and fungi. It once required a prescription, but now is available over the counter. Outside of the medical industry, it is used by police and other first responders as a line of defense against picking up infections on the job.

Given the limited existing market for CHG, it will very quickly become unavailable  once a concerned general public becomes aware of the product and the significant advantages it offers during a Flu pandemic.

Below we have listed several Amazon links to purchase  Chlorohexidine Gluconate; the most common medical name-brand being Hibiclens. If you purchase through the links below we receive an advertising credit from Amazon, which helps offset website costs.

We have also listed veterinary sources for  Chlorhexidine Gluconate. Based on the large number of dog deaths reported in China, we suspect that pets may be come a significant vector for the spread of H7N9 flu. Dogs (especially the nose and paw pads)  may be exposed to the virus from bird droppings, other animal markings, and or direct contact with other dogs . If you have ever purchased a pet shampoo from your veterinarian it likely contained CHG. The gallon sized vet products shown below typical are used at 2 teaspoons per gallon of water as a shampoo; vets also use the product to clean and disinfect their examination rooms.

As always, it is wise to seek advice from one's doctor and/or vet prior to using any medicinal product.

Medical Chlorhexidine Gluconate




Veterinary Chlorhexidine Gluconate

Insidious Federal Funding Foretells Forced Flawed FLU Inoculations

The Congress is seeking to significantly over-fund the Federal Flu Vaccine Injury Trust fund. This "trust fund" is essential the equivalent of workmen's comp for people who are seriously injured by a flu vaccine, and can prove it. The Congress is enacting legislation that will place a 75 cent tax on every flu shot given.

There are 3 plausible reasons for Congress and the CDC to place such a large tax on each Flu Shot:

1. Congress seeks to discourage the poor from getting Flu shots by raising the price of the shot 
2. Congress wishes to over-fund the Flu Vaccine so they can play accounting tricks and appear to lower the deficit (much like is done with the loans against the Social Security Fund)
3. Congress/CDC expects a major Flu epidemic and believes that vaccine will have significant dangerous side effects. Obviously this will result in people being forced into taking a potential dangerous shot.

Given the current drum beat hysteria about the  H7N9 bird flu, we suspect it is likely that the Federal government believes it will at some point declare a public health emergency and will likely force a known, flawed, dangerous FLU vaccine on the civilian herd in a decision with will be rationalized as the  "lesser of evils". 

This type of planning is very similar to the recent massive governmental orders for potassium iodide pills as perpetration for further nuclear failures at Fukushima. It is also smacks the same type of planning shown by the insanely massive orders for hollow point ammunition order by the Government.

H/T to the Drudge Report for the initial story

La Salle Nuclear ALERT! Systems Failures Continue, VIGILANCE REQUIRED.

UPDATE:  "NRC Begins Special Inspection at La Salle Nuclear Plant" 
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It would be wise for people down wind of La Salle nuclear plant in Illinois to remain vigilant.
More information has come forth from the NRC event report pages concerning the initial emergency at La Salle and the subsequent restart attempts.

NRC  Event Number: 48966 indicates that a primary reactor water level control for Unit 1 became inoperable after the initial emergency shutdown on 4/17/13. Apparently La Salle was unsure whether or not they needed to report this to the NRC. It is just another indicator how close La Salle nuclear came to taking out Chicago.

NRC  Event Number: 48969 indicates that during a restart attempt on 4/25/13, La Salle Unit 2 experienced another leak requiring the reactor to be SCRAMed again. Statistically the most dangerous time for a reactor is when humans are mucking with it. Given the failures which we believe nearly took out Chicago, and the reported failure on the restart of Unit 2; we would not want to be anywhere down wind of La Salle during their next attempt at restart.

It may be that the NRC shares our concern regarding La Salle, as we can find no information that the NRC has  de-staffed its Incident Response Center.

ALERT! Radioactive Rain @ 40 Times Greater Than Background Radiation

Update:4/29/13:  Good news, we were not able to detect any indications of long half life radiation on this sample.
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We noticed a step function increase in our LIVE Outdoor Radiation Monitor and decided to take a surface swipe off of our SUV. That swipe returned approximately 40x greater than background radiation.

The reading is unusually high.  Given the surface winds and the overhead low we have some concern that there may be contamination from the La Salle nuclear plant. However, given the position of the jet stream we primarily suspect Fukushima.

We are doing long term testing of this sample in our lead cave to see if the decay curves show any long half life radiation.

The Horror- Chick-fil-A Executes Carrot & Raisin Salad Death Sentence on April 29, 2013

The Horror-
 "Carrot & Raisin Salad will be removed from the Chick-fil-A menu on April 29, 2013"

ALERT! La Salle Nuclear Plant Nearly Took Out Chicago !

UPDATE: 4/26/13 Failures continue at La Salle, NRC opens special investigation.
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UPDATE: We have been made aware of at least one UNCONFIRMED report of a radiation alarm occurring down wind of this incident. See this link
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Chicago almost became a glowing radioactive sister city to Fukushima.



Yesterday we broke the story  of  the La Salle Nuclear plant having to perform a Fukushima style direct-to-atmosphere venting of the primary nuclear containment  due to a lightening strike. As we indicated at the time, the amount of radioactivity released is unknown because the radiation monitors were not on a backup power supply.

Today in a follow on NRC event report, we find out that failures in the emergency cooling system resulted in the last ditch cooling attempt of directly venting the radioactive drywell to the atmosphere. The severity of those failures are underreported in the NRC event report, because it reads no different than if it the failures had been discovered during testing instead of being found out in the midst of a real life emergency resulting in the last ditch cooling effort of venting.

We explain the situation in more detail in the video, but gist of the analysis is as follows.

1. Lightning took out power to both reactors.
2. Backup generators kicked on, but powering everything would overload them
3. The systems which measure how much radiation is being vented from the plant did not have power.
4. The reactors lost cooling capability.
5. Automatic emergency cooling kicked in.
6. The automated emergency cooling on Unit 2 was failing.
7. As a last ditch effort, Unit 2 primary containment was vented to the atmosphere.
8. The venting cooled and dropped the pressure in Unit 2 enough to compensate for the failing cooling.
9. The camel was down to its last failing straw and only fractured its back; had it broken, Chicago would be aglow.
10. Radioactive contamination did occur.

Radioactive Rain Inside Our Basement- ARRRGH!

Our live indoor radiation monitor was indicating unusually elevated and climbing radiation levels inside of our house, a search for the source turned up radioactive rain water leaking into our basement. ARRRGH!

We had this crack fixed a few years back and it had not leaked, supposedly it has a lifetime warranty against leaks, we'll see. In the meantime, this is why you don't want radioactive rain water leaking into your house.

The indoor Geiger counter is located in the middle of the house, on the first floor, above an HVAC air intake. The HVAC system has been off all day. We have kept our windows closed because of the radioactive rainfall, but it does no good when the radioactive rain flows into your basement.

Possible Emergency Radioactive Release @ La Salle, IL Nuclear Plant

According to NRC  Event Number: 48939, An emergency was declared at the La Salle Nuclear plant in Marseilles, IL. A lightning strike during a thunderstorm took out all station power, resulting into both nuclear generators going into emergency shutdown and  "primary containment vent and purge valves were opened to vent the Unit 2 containment".  Five hours later Unit 1 was also vented but   that venting "was being performed through the Standby Gas Treatment system which is a filtered system

We can not estimate how much radioactivity was released because  "Due to the loss of offsite power, the Station Vent Stack Wide Range Gas Monitor (WRGM) and the Standby Gas Treatment Wide Range Gas Monitor (VGWRGM) also lost power"

Apparently the radioactive release monitors don't get emergency backup power;  which is convenient from the nuclear plant's perspective of not being able to measure and then having to report radioactive releases that happen under such conditions. But, it is disconcerting for anyone downwind.

Our check of weather conditions indicated the winds were blowing East at 20-30 mph. The on going thunderstorm also muddles the situation as the Terrestrial Gamma Rays produced by thunderstorms can result in the fissioning of any radioactive materials released during such a emergency venting event.

"Day Of The Sun" Bombing: Celebrating Kim IL Sung at the Boston Marathon

UPDATE: So the North Koreans had motive and opportunity, but it was the Chechens. And now the war drums from North Korea seem to have gone silent. So have the North Koreans changed, or is it a change in what the Media presents?




No one mentions North Korea in relation to the Boston Marathon Bombing, even though they made a direct threat on the day of the bombing-

"Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now," North Korea's state news agency KCNA said on Monday, noting actions would "start immediately."

Consider that North Korea had their own international Pyongyang Marathon the day before the Boston Marathon. The North Korean's are celebrating one of their faux high holy days- The Day Of The Sun- the birthday of their founding father Kim IL Sung on April 15th. One of their most important days of their year.

Its obvious that the North Korean's have the motive; but do they have the opportunity?
Well it just so happens that the only "China Town" in New England is in Boston and it is less than one mile away from the finish line. So unfortunately for the good people of China Town, it might make the place for an inconspicuous North Korean agent to try and meld in.

With all of these obvious connections, one would think that the Boston Marathon would have had greater vigilance; may be they have their focus in the wrong direction. It would seem as if they are still hunting to pin this bombing on Richard Jewell (the hero of the Atlanta Olympic bombing)

One key final aspect that puts this situation in the corner of a skilled special forces infiltrator is that the improvised explosive device apparently was made with local materials, but yet had sophistication in both in timing and directionality. Note that it was a low order explosive; that the blast was directional and aimed low (few windows were broken, and little shrapnel when vertical).

So does this guarantee that the North Korean's are responsible, NO; but it does mean that the authorities in Boston should have been actively considering the threat given how obvious the potential was. It is also telling that given the obvious threat potential that no one else is even mentioning the North Korean's as being the actor; maybe the payback is just to risky?

BTW, where was the missile launch that was expected on The Day Of The Sun? Maybe they had other things in mind?

[SpOT'd] Tactical Biowarfare: North Korea's Red Squirts Brigade (STEC) O104:H4

 (SpOT'd) Speculation O' The day

Our wild speculation of the day is that there will be another Outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O104:H4 and that it will (again) come at the hands of North Korea. Think of it as Montezuma's revenge but only more bloody, deadly, and purposefully delivered.  Call it  Kim Jong's ILL's revenge, if you will

The nature of such instances are often self limiting (hence tactical) but they do result in massive media awareness; have large financial affects on Agri-commerce; and are difficult to publicly tie back to the cause.

Of course this is all wild speculation based on tenuous connections, but it does not hurt to make sure that your raw foods are throughly washed/cooked and that one keeps one's hands washed as needed.

New & Improved: Live streaming INDOOR & OUTDOOR radiation detectors (Alpha,Beta,Gamma)

We have made three major upgrades to our live airborne radiation monitoring system.

1. We have increased the sensitivity our radiation monitoring system by switching to "pancake" style sensors.
2. We added an indoor Geiger counter for comparison purposes.
3. We have added the ability to detect ALPHA particles in both the Outdoor and Indoor units.

More information is available at our dedicated livestreaming radiation monitoring page.

We have embedded the stream below for your convenience.
Please note that it may take a full minute for the stream to load AFTER the commercial has played.
During that "loading" phase the embed may appear black or state "OFFLINE", the stream should appear shortly afterwards.

Watch live streaming video from potrblog at livestream.com