San Diego sailor angered over Japan radiation exposure

[bananas]

Source: KGTV

A San Diego sailor says she is suing Japan and the Tokyo Electric Power Company for radiation exposure.

Lindsay Cooper, 23, was stationed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan when it was sent to aid those in Japan affected by a devastating tsunami last year.

The world watched in awe as plumes from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant hung in the air last March. The same plumes which sent radioactive debris onto the Ronald Reagan, with roughly 5,500 sailors on board.

“The debris and the teddy bears and the pictures that you saw in the water, that was real,” Cooper told 10News. “The radiation … we couldn’t see that. We could only trust what our command was telling us.”

<snip>

Read more: http://www.10news.com/news/san-diego-sailor-angered-over-japan-radiation-exposure12292012

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Video news story interviews Lindsey Cooper and Paul Garner.

[proverbialwisdom]

1. Excellent related news aggregating here.

Links to lawsuit PDF and more: http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/12/lawsuit-by-us-sailors-against-tepco.html

Links to BBC article and more: http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/12/bbc-tepco-sued-by-eight-us-soldiers.html

[bananas]

4. Thanks - those are good articles. nt

[Tempest]

2. It won't fly.

The Japanese government isn't responsible for the actions of her commanding officers.

[newfie11]

3. I find it hard to believe the navy didn't know what the rad reading was.

I understand her anger and agree but I also wonder why the Navy wasn't monitoring the fallout. It's my understanding those ships have the ability to do that.

[mainer]

5. Shouldn't the lawsuit be against the US Navy for exposing them?

The Japanese government was busy dealing with a major catastrophe that was exposing many of its country's citizens to radiation; it's not as if they INTENTIONALLY exposed US sailors.

[Wernothelpless]

6. Just after 9-11 ....

My 17 year old nephew from Austin Texas was all filled with testosterone and wanted to enlist in the military ...

I put a piece of paper in front of him and said, "Sign it, this paper states that I (the military) can do anything I want to do to you. I can send you anywhere in the world, expose you to any toxic substance, radiate you, and use you for a Guinea pig if I choose. Sign this piece of paper and sign all your rights away, because when you join the military you sign all your rights as an individual away. They can do anything they want to you, including rape, and there is NOTHING you can do about any of it" ...

He looked at me in utter disbelief ....

Happy to say my nephew lives in San Luis Obispo today and he has NEVER been enlisted in the military ...

[Divine Discontent]

7. good job

my good friend at the time also got in his mind that he wanted to be one of the elite members of the mil. He was super fit and had a strong threshold for pain and was very determined to join up! I got him with religious line of commentary about Jesus wouldn't want him being part of an organized military troop that gets orders to take out whoever, wherever they're told. I said if he could live with that, and having possibly hundreds of kills to his name, go for it. Thankfully, he listened, also. I'm glad you did that for your nephew. You are really giving them right to send you wherever, and you could easily get a lifelong illness, like my brother got from a sand war.

[newfie11]

8. That's a great idea. Nt

[rdking647]

9. the lawyer filing the suit should be disbarred and fined for wasting the courts time

he filed a lawsuit in a US court against a japanese company that has no assets/business relationship in the US.

[proverbialwisdom]

10. Not according to this source.

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/earthquake-disaster-in-japan/us-sailors-sue-japanese-utility-over-radiation-exposure-1.202197

US sailors sue Japanese utility over radiation exposure

ByMatthew M. Burke
Stars and Stripes

Published: December 27, 2012

INFORMATIVE ARTICLE.

The sailors also want TEPCO, which has an office in Washington, D.C.,.

“We just want the facts,” Garner said. “Their approach since the beginning has been to deny ... the truth will come out.”

[avebury]

11. It does not take a rocket scientist to

realize that if you go into an area like Fukushima with endangered nuclear power plants that there is a high probability that you will be exposed to radiation poisoning. Of course the US Government/military knew that, as would the Japanese. And if a sailor didn't realize it then she was either stupid or naive. Depending upon how much was released into the air or ocean currents makes it possible that Fukushima could have a negative impact on other parts of the planet. Just like the US using weapons with depleted uranium has caused issues in the Middle East that can impact other parts of the world as the pulverized particles hits the air currents.

Edit to add: If the US Military/Government actually tried to tell the sailors that there was no danger then the sailors were stupid to buy into that.

[PerceptionManagement]

13. She didn't have a choice. The big grey boat took her there.

But I bet big grey boats have devices to check for radiation. It begs the question why the big grey boat stayed under the nuclear cloud.

[avebury]

14. Radiation poisoning is not a great

concern to the military industrial complex behind the big grey boat given the use of depleted uranium weapons. US military personnel have routinely been exposed to radiation poisoning in the middle east since as early as the 1st Gulf War.

[Papanui54]

12. USS Reagan

That carrier is nuclear powered. They have a department that operates and maintains the nuclear power plant, and a division in that department that performs radiation surveys. You can bet that they were continuously doing air samples for radioactive contamination, smears for surface contamination and radiation surveys for dose rates. And i'll bet that information was shared with many government and nuclear industry personnel that were tracking the plume. In fact much of that information was available online, in real time, during the event.

If they used seawater for decontamination I suspect that the carrier went out of the plume and the water was below the lower level of detection of the instruments used by the ships personnel.

Although I think this lawsuit is frivolous, I wonder if the ships command spent much time communicating what the hazards were and what they were doing to mitigate and monitor. The person who is mentioned in the article was a Aviation Bosum's Mate, not one of the rates that would get much training in radiation or contamination.