To the editor:

Hats off and prayers go with the Japanese heroes striving to stabilize the horrific Fukushima nuclear plant disasters.

By sheer mass, the biggest concern is not necessarily the power plants themselves but toxic radioactive waste (spent fuel rods) three floors off the ground amounting to 50, 81, 88, 135, 142, 151 tons in plants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 respectively totaling 647 tons. At ground level there are 1,097 tons. Plant 3 contains Mox (mixed oxides), including plutonium, which has a half life of 250,000 years. Just one gram of alpha-emitting plutonium evenly distributed in the lungs of all humans would give all humans lung cancer. All of this waste needs constant attention and cooling, and is vulnerable to release.

The problem of nuclear waste has not been solved since the 1940s — just pushed down the road. Because of this, the world watches while a handful of heroes attempt to stem the fallout of the arrogance that created a concentration of poison near millions of people that will be toxic for millennia. Please send them your prayers.

John Hurd

Clinton