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DOE: Trainloads of nuke waste on way to Utah - Salt Lake Tribune
Trainloads of depleted uranium will soon be on the move, rolling over the objections of critics on their way to a Utah burial site.
A Department of Energy official on Thursday informed U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that 11,000 tons of the low-level radioactive waste -- packed in 14,800 drums -- is ready to be shipped from the Savannah River cleanup in South Carolina.
Rubbish from bomb-making and enrichment, the Savannah River waste will be buried at EnergySolutions Inc.'s specialized landfill in Tooele County. Both state and federal regulators are looking at what measures are needed to make sure shallow disposal sites like EnergySolutions' can safely contain large amounts of DU, as depleted uranium is often called.
The Associated Press: Congressman's spokeswoman: SC waste going to Utah
A spokeswoman for Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah says the Department of Energy has decided it will begin shipping thousands of drums of low-level radioactive waste from South Carolina for disposal in Utah.
Alyson Heyrend says the department informed Matheson's office of its decision Thursday.
Matheson had asked the agency to halt shipments of depleted uranium from the Savannah River Site until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission finalizes rules for how the material should be disposed of.
Depleted uranium is different from other low-level radioactive waste disposed of in Utah because it becomes more radioactive over time.
The regulatory commission isn't expected to finalize its rules until 2012 at the earliest.
DOE: Nevada not an option for Utah-bound depleted uranium - Salt Lake Tribune
A U.S. Department of Energy spokeswoman says Nevada has been ruled out as an alternative disposal site for nearly 15,000 drums of depleted uranium from South Carolina currently scheduled to come to Utah.
DOE spokeswoman Lauren Milone says the Nevada Test Site is being excluded from discussions about the waste because the DOE has agreed to conduct a statewide environmental impact statement before accepting any new waste there.
Milone says doing that would probably take at least a year.
The Savannah River Site waste is expected to begin coming to Utah this month unless the DOE decides to keep it in South Carolina.
DOE contemplating next move on depleted uranium - Salt Lake Tribune
The U.S. Energy Department is trying to decide whether it should start shipping depleted uranium that was originally headed to Utah last fall.
Federal stimulus money is paying for 15,000 barrels of uranium-enrichment waste from the Savannah River Project in South Carolina to be buried in the low-level radioactive waste site operated by EnergySolutions Inc. in Tooele County.
But the Utah Radiation Control Board is months away from determining whether more DU, as the waste is often called, belongs in Utah.
About 49,000 tons is already buried at EnergySolutions, but both state and federal regulators say a deeper technical analysis is necessary. Large amounts of highly concentrated DU becomes increasingly hazardous over the next million years.
OpEdNews - Article: Depleted Uranium, The Emerging Radiation Crisis in Iraq and US Students: Vermont Takes Lead with Divestment
On Oct 24, The Board of Trustees at the University of Vermont adopted a resolution, without fanfare, to divest the University's investment funds from companies involved in the production of depleted uranium weapons (DU), citing the weapon's "indescriminate use" and "broad adverse effects to human health and the environment" 1)
This appears to be the first large University system in the United States to take this step, as reports are increasing out of Iraq suggesting an emerging radiation crisis in areas where these highly radioactive weapons have been used.
Growing concern over humanitarian situation in Fallujah
The fifth anniversary of the second attack on Fallujah by US forces has seen an upsurge in interest in the lingering humanitarian problems resulting from the conflict. Both the US and UNEP have roles to play in clarifying exactly what happened and ICBUW calls on them to accept this responsibility.
19 November 2009 - ICBUW
ICBUW is deeply concerned by press reports of a steep rise in birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, following the two attacks by US forces in 2004. Such stories are sadly familiar to anyone who has followed the history of Iraq after the wars in 1991 and 2003, and it has long been thought that the use of uranium weapons – so-called ‘depleted uranium’ – in both conflicts has played a role in the rise in deformities among newborns.
US drops safety claim for island / World / Home - Morning Star
Residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques celebrated at the weekend after a US agency dropped claims that no health hazards had been caused by decades of US military exercises on and around the island.
Some 7,000 past and current Vieques residents have filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in compensation for illnesses that they say are linked to the use of the island as a bombing range.
The US Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has now admitted that it must "modify" its earlier research on Vieques, which had purported to show that there had been no health risks generated.
Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah - Middle East, World - The Independent
Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects.
In September this year, say campaigners, 170 children were born at Fallujah General Hospital, 24 per cent of whom died within seven days. Three-quarters of these exhibited deformities, including "children born with two heads, no heads, a single eye in their foreheads, or missing limbs". The comparable data for August 2002 – before the invasion – records 530 births, of whom six died and only one of whom was deformed.
The Associated Press: US health agency to take 'fresh look' at Vieques
A U.S. agency has overturned its 2003 research that said no health hazards were caused by decades of military exercises on Vieques, a bombing range-turned-tourist destination off Puerto Rico's east coast.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Friday it intends to "modify" some of its earlier research on Vieques, where the U.S. and its allies trained for conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq.
The agency, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used its own studies to conclude in 2003 that there was essentially no health risk from the bombing range — a conclusion widely criticized by academics and residents on the 18-mile-long island of less than 10,000 people.
Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja | World news | guardian.co.uk
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
Depleted uranium - Salt Lake Tribune
DU: Depleted uranium, a unique waste that will become more and more radioactive until, roughly, the year 1002009. The acronym also gives sound guidance for where depleted uranium should be buried: deep underground.
But a lack of deep, underground storage space and a growing need to find permanent storage for 1.4 million tons of DU is "clearly driving" federal regulators to erroneously steer the materials to shallow burial sites like EnergySolutions' low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Utah.
That's the contention of Kansas State University Geologist Charles G. Oviatt and a pair of Brigham Young University scientists, geologist Steve Nelson and climatologist Summer Rupper. In a letter to the NRC, which is gathering input in the early stages of a three-year review of DU disposal issues, they cite a "programmatic failure" by the agency to properly plan for deep disposal of depleted uranium.
Radiation board requires safety report on depleted uranium - Salt Lake Tribune
EnergySolutions won't be able to bring more depleted uranium to Utah until the company proves the waste can be safely disposed in Tooele County for the long run.
That's what the Utah Radiation Control Board decided Tuesday by sticking to principles it adopted last month, even after the company threatened legal action.
The limit on DU, as depleted uranium is often called, does not go into effect for several months, and that leaves open a window for EnergySolutions to bring up to 15,000 drums of it from a government cleanup in South Carolina. But board members said their action Tuesday actually gets the safeguard in place sooner than originally expected.
EnergySolutions sent its attorney to the board meeting Tuesday to warn of potential legal consequences if the board did not backtrack on actions taken at its October meeting.
Scientists: Nuke panel owes Utahns an apology - Salt Lake Tribune
Three scientists say federal nuclear regulators owe Utahns an apology -- and a policy change -- for allowing shallow burial of depleted uranium, including the 49,000 tons already at EnergySolutions Inc.'s landfill in Tooele County.
Geologist Stephen T. Nelson and climatologist Summer B. Rupper, both of Brigham Young University, and Kansas State University geologist Charles G. Oviatt, say it is "absurd" for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deem depleted uranium safe for surface disposal.
The uranium enrichment waste gets increasingly hazardous for a million years, and that's too long to reasonably ensure the safety of any shallow landfills, especially one like the Tooele County site that is underwater a few hundred of every several thousand years. Those wet cycles could spread long-lived radioactive material throughout the Great Salt Lake basin, the scientists say.
LETTER: What will U.S. do about depleted uranium? - Medford, MA - Medford Transcript
The UN Day for the Prevention of the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict is Nov. 6 and is the International Day of Action in the campaign to ban depleted uranium (DU) weapons which are anti-tank shells.
However, the impact of a fired shell with a tank puts a cloud of radioactive and chemically toxic DU oxide particles in the air that can be inhaled or ingested. As its half-life — DU is radioactive — is over 4 million years — once in the environment, it is here to stay.
DU anti-tank shells have been used by the U.S. and the U.K. since 1991. During the First Gulf War in 1991, 320 tons of DU was dumped on Iraq, Kuwait and a little on Saudi Arabia. They have been used in the Balkans Wars of the 1990s and also in Iraq in 2003 where they were used in urban areas.
Reports from Iraq indicate increased rates of cancer, especially in children, and increased rates of birth defects that may be due to DU exposure. DU has been found to cause mutations in humans and laboratory animals and cancers including leukemia in laboratory rodents.
Pentagon Dirty Bombers: Depleted Uranium in the USA | The Public Record
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold hearings tomorrow and Wednesday in Hawaii on an application by the US Army for a permit to have depleted uranium at its Pohakuloa Training Area, a vast stretch of flat land in what’s called the “saddle” between the sacred mountains of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island, and at the Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu.
In fact, what the Army is asking for is a permit to leave in place the DU left over from years of test firing of M101 mortar “spotting rounds,” that each contained close to half a pound of depleted uranium (DU). The Army, which originally denied that any DU weapons had been used at either location, now says that as many as 2000 rounds of M101 DU mortars might have been fired at Pohakuloa alone.
Outrageous Thought of the Day: Nuclear Hypocrisy | The Public Record
How absurd is it that we have the government on the one hand pulling back from using a hollowed out mountain in Nevada to store nuclear waste because of a fear (legitimate I grant) that hundreds or thousands of years hence, some earthquake or other catastrophe could cause the stored waste to leak into the water table, while on the other hand we have this same government deliberately taking some of the most dangerous waste–the actual uranium from the used fuel rods–and putting it into bombs, shells and bullets to be splattered and burned all across the landscape?
Radioactive waste shipments to Utah site facing year delay - Salt Lake Tribune
Drums of radioactive cleanup waste in South Carolina are ready for loading onto rail cars for the journey to a Tooele County disposal site.
But now those plans could be delayed more than a year, after the state Radiation Control Board voted Tuesday to allow more depleted uranium (DU) only after EnergySolutions Inc. submits a report confirming its extra steps to safeguard the waste will work.
The move was a victory for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) which has sought at least a temporary moratorium on DU, as the uranium-enrichment waste is called.
Uranium reprieve - Salt Lake Tribune
It's the waste disposal equivalent of a last-minute call from the governor, a radioactive reprieve.
The trains were to start arriving in Utah this month, carrying 15,000 drums containing 11,000 metric tons of depleted uranium to EnergySolutions' low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Tooele County. Now, the Department of Energy has announced the shipments won't start leaving the yard at DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina until December.
The delay will buy time for Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to convince the DOE to put the transfer on hold until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes an ongoing review of depleted uranium disposal. Matheson has a solid argument.
Depleted uranium shipments delayed - Salt Lake Tribune
U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson is applauding reports that a South Carolina cleanup site is delaying its shipment of depleted uranium by at least two months.
On Tuesday, a Department of Energy official in South Carolina said 15,000 drums of depleted uranium (DU) from the Savannah River Cleanup site won't start shipping to the EnergySolutions site in Utah until December.
Savannah River Site spokesman Jim Giusti told The Associated Press Tuesday that crews are preparing 11,000 tons of waste to load onto rail cars bound for the disposal facility 80 miles west of Salt Lake City through next summer.
The delay buys the Utah Democratic congressman time to try to persuade the U.S. Energy Department to suspend shipments until the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes its pending review of disposing depleted uranium (DU) safely.
Guv rejects call for immediate N-waste ban - Salt Lake Tribune
Gov. Gary Herbert rebuffed a challenge Friday from an environmental group to impose an immediate moratorium on shipments of depleted uranium to Utah.
"I'm not prepared to that," Herbert told The Tribune in an interview.
While he said the issue is worth further exploration, the governor said, "I don't want to respond with a knee-jerk reaction. We want to study the pros and cons."
Herbert on Thursday had said during a news conference that he worries about depleted uranium coming to Utah because of its long period of radioactivity.
"It's forever," he said. "And the thing that causes most of us concern with depleted uranium is it gets hotter over time."
Those comments and the state Radiation Control Board's rejection earlier this week of a proposed moratorium, prompted the group HEAL Utah on Friday to challenge the governor to action.
HEAL Executive Director Vanessa Pierce publicly released a letter to Herbert urging him to recognize the proposed shipments of thousands of tons of depleted uranium to the EnergySolutions' landfill in Tooele County as a "clear and present danger" to the health and well being of Utahns.
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