Food Irradiation Plant on the Big Island

Dangerous and Unnecessary

Honolulu Star Bulletin 5/23/97

Green Party— Hawaii Island: Julie Jacobson Co-Chair

Ira Rohter State Co-Chair

Over 75 percent of the food we eat on these tropical islands is imported. Growing our own food, and processing and marketing it ourselves, would bring in $1 billion to local farmers. Since its beginnings in 1992, the Green Party has worked to promote sustainable agriculture and food self-reliance in Hawaii. This means we should adopt intelligent farming practices that discourage the use of dangerous pesticides and polluting chemical fertilizers; support small-scale, diversified crop-producing family farms; and end tax policies and other giveaways that favor big plantations and corporate farming at the expense of smaller growers.

Unfortunately a clique of corporate farmers, agri-business's, and State and county officials are pushing us in the opposite direction, and actively seeking to build a Cobalt-60 powered irradiation facility on the Big Island, to treat fruit for shipment to the Mainland. Mayor Yamashiro is asking initially for $2 million dollars of taxpayers' money to either build such a facility, to promote marketing of irradiated fruit, or to subsidize the irradiation contractor, Isomedix, Inc.

Many small farmers and businesspeople, Native Hawaiians, and concerned citizens testified recently during a marathon 12 1/2 hours session before the Council. They opposed the entire project because of many safety concerns to humans and the environment associated with nuclear fuels and the treatment of food via radiation, potential catastrophic economic costs arising from consumer boycotts in Japan and the U.S., and the fact that its major benefactors are food exporters. The Big Island chapter of the Green Party likewise opposes the irradiation project because it is dangerous and unnecessary. As the Hawaii Organic Association and Maui chapter of the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers state: "Other less toxic, less hazardous and less capital-intensive methods exist for the control of fruit flies and other post-harvest pests that currently limit export of our locally grown fruit."

Food safety questioned. The proponents of food irradiation would have you believe that troubling questions about food safety and nutrition are adequately resolved. Not so! Many reputable physicians and scientists have serious doubts about concluding that irradiated food is safe. The Hawaii Medical Association recently expressed reservations about building an irradiation plant on the Big Island. The February 1997 issue of Environment Hawaii summarizes a host of recent negative studies. Many question the absence of reliable long-term studies of the effects of irradiated food on human health. A seemingly positive report issued by the Federal Drug Administration issued in 1982, cited by pro-irradiation forces, in fact selected only 5 studies (out of 441 irradiation studies) as the basis to conclude that irradiation is safe. Dr. Marcia Van Gemert, a toxicologist who chaired the review, noted recently that the "studies reviewed in the 1982 memo from the FDA were not adequate by 1982 standards, and are even less adequate by 1993 standards to evaluate the safety of any product, especially a food product such as irradiated foods."

Grave threats to our Aina. Many serious accidents have happened in irradiation facilities which have resulted in injury; contamination of land and water; loss of life; and huge clean up costs born by taxpayers. The Hawaii Development Irradiator in Honolulu, operated in the late 1960s, had to be closed when most of its Cobalt 60 strips leaked and caused radioactive contamination of the whole facility and areas surrounding the plant. Contamination lasted 12 years before it was finally cleaned up. Cesium 137 contamination cleanup at the Radiation Sterilizers plant in Decatur, Georgia cost $47 million. Even when operating properly, these plants are allowed to emit 3 to 5 times more radiation than the natural background levels. Issues related to transporting and storing radioactive materials are especially troubling. Cobalt 60, the fuel suggested for a Big Island irradiator, must be stored or used for 120 years before recharging within a nuclear reactor. The reactor that is used to recharge the Cobalt 60 is in Canada. This reactor is overdue for decommissioning and will be closed in the year 2000. There is no guarantee that this nuclear waste will have a "home." One could say that the nuclear industry, including food irradiation, is like a Ponzi scheme where profits are being collected now by a small clique, without any regard for the ultimate costs to be borne by the public at large. An unending series of accidents, cover ups, failures to protect human health, and mushrooming costs for the public typify this industry.

Promoting grassroots democracy. Listening more to citizens and not just powerful special interests, is another core principle of the Green Party. The nuclear industry is facing an increasingly wary public around the world. Hawaii County officials has received over 7,000 letters and postcards from Mainland consumers stating that they will not only boycott irradiated food, but will consider all Hawaii fruit and vegetables as suspect. A consortium of Japanese consumers sent a letter to Mayor Yamashiro stating their plan to boycott Hawaii produce if irradiation is implemented. Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland have banned irradiated fruit. The cat is out of the bag in terms of public opinion on irradiation, and no amount of the wishful thinking or slick marketing (subsidized by taxpayers) will overcome well-informed information.

Despite tremendous efforts by the Yamashiro administration to promote the idea of food irradiation, most advocates have clear vested interests. Many small farmers have questioned whether irradiation will benefit them and feel that there are a myriad of ways $2 million dollars could be used to help them without putting our whole agricultural industry in jeopardy from boycotts. Opposition to irradiation is broad and widespread on the Big Island. Our people simply don't want to take on the health and safety risks. They also intuitively know that, as our island becomes known as a home of one of the pioneering food irradiation facilities, this could scare off our coveted health oriented and eco-tourists we seek to attract.

A few will benefit, but many are at risk. There is no health and safety risk to continuing to use a successful post harvest treatment such as vapor heat. We have already invested $20 million in such facilities. There is no risk to making sound marketing analyses before embarking on agricultural endeavors. There is no risk to developing better systems of marketing our local agricultural products. It is a profound social injustice to force on our people the health, safety, and economic risks of irradiation merely to allow corporate farmers to prosper in the short run and enrich private irradiation companies.

Ka Lahui has taken a position opposing food irradiation. Kanaka Maoli in other groups and as individuals oppose irradiation and have grave concerns, including why Hawaiian Home Lands should be considered for such a facility, as was proposed during the irradiation debates in the late 1980s.

Generations of people all over the world are affected in some way by such deadly radioactive boondoggles. Every part of the process, from miners and residents living near uranium mines, to workers at the reactor treating the cobalt, to the transportation and dockyard workers bringing it to the plant on the Big Island and back again to a storage site for used cobalt, exposes people to life-threatening risks. Spills of nuclear waste may seep into the groundwater or surrounding ocean and leave us all a legacy of cancer, suffering and death. Violence is not just perpetrated by fists, knives or guns. The people of Big Island and Hawaii have the right to be protected from the unwanted risks of the nuclear industry. Tell our politicians to say NO! to the unneeded and dangerous Hilo irradiation plant