Still dangerous after 30 years - Uranium particles from DU weapons - The Ecologist
▻http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2261643/still_dangerous_after_30_years_uranium_particles_from_du_weapons.html
... two UK studies have now shed more light on the processes that affect DU’s environmental persistence.
The studies were undertaken at the UK’s DU firing ranges. The first, ’The corrosion of depleted uranium in terrestrial and marine environments’ by C. Toque et al, was performed at Kircudbright in Scotland, where DU rounds are fired into the sea.
The second, ’Microanalytical X-ray Imaging of Depleted Uranium Speciation in Environmentally Aged Munitions Residues’ by Daniel E. Crean et al, was carried out at Eskmeals in Cumbria, England. Here DU was fired into hard targets to examine its effectiveness against different types of armour.
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Downplaying of DU concerns unsupported by science
The findings support ICBUW’s view that attempts by the UK and US government to downplay concerns based on the findings from a limited number of contaminated site assessments in the Balkans are not supported by the available science.
ICBUW has long argued that the variability of conditions at different sites requires that each is individually assessed and the risks they may pose to civilians and the environment calculated.
Following its assessments in the Balkans, the UN Environment Programme suggested that intact or fragmentary penetrators in soils may have completely corroded in 25 years.
These new studies suggest that the actual picture may be far more complicated than originally assumed. But more than that, DU emerges as a long term pollutant in the environment whose very decay products serve to increase its persistence.
