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Activists contest EPA actions on proposed mine - KRDO.com Colorado Springs and Pueblo News, Weather and Sports
ctivists claim that the Environmental Protection Agency is working behind closed doors to draft permit rules for a first-of-its-kind uranium mine in northern Colorado.
An EPA spokesman says the agency has consulted with Powertech USA, which wants to build the mine, but hasn't drafted any policy or rules for the permit.
Attorney Jeff Parsons of the Western Mining Action Project says documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show the EPA is developing rules in violation of federal laws requiring public involvement.
Powertech USA wants to mine uranium about 70 miles north of Denver by injecting a solution underground to dissolve and extract the mineral.
Nukes are necessary, Clean Energy forum hears
Top Obama Administration officials, in Seattle for a Clean Energy Economy forum, touted new "clean" power sources as a wellspring for new American jobs. But there were surprisingly glowing words for nuclear power.
"We're laying a foundation for our economic future: We all believe that a cornerstone of that will be a clean energy economy," said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency boss Lisa Jackson.
But an administration colleague, Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson, praised nuclear energy - even though a collapsing nuclear construction program once threatened to melt down the Northwest's economy.
EPA seeks ex-Santa Susana lab workers for cleanup - San Jose Mercury News
he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the help of former workers at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to identify contamination from nuclear and radiological projects at the site.
The EPA is interested in interviewing former workers for three companies—Atomics International, Rocketdyne and Rockwell—who may know about spills, dumping or other releases of radiological material, the agency said in a news release this week.
The lab was established in 1946 and covers nearly 2,900 acres in eastern Ventura County, just west of the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.
Independent: EPA says Churchrock cleanup delayed
After receiving overwhelming opposition to a cleanup plan for the Northeast Churchrock Mine, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is going back to the local community to try to work through concerns. The Navajo Nation wants complete removal of an estimated 900,000 cubic yards of radium-contaminated soils.
U.S. EPA and former mine operator United Nuclear Corp., a subsidiary of General Electric, have opted for total removal of the most highly radioactive waste to an approved repository, possibly in Idaho, while low-level waste would be moved to the former UNC Mill, a Superfund site that eventually will be turned over to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Legacy Management for lifetime monitoring.
EPA's Secret Plan to Raise Public Radiation Exposure Levels Challenged
Public employees have filed a lawsuit demanding documents related to the U.S. EPA's plans made "in secrecy" to allow public exposure to increased levels of radioactivity following nuclear accidents or attacks.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility under the Freedom of Information Act claims that the agency "wrongfully withheld" comments submitted by EPA and other federal and state agency officials and by representatives of private corporations or trade associations to the EPA Office of Radiation and Indoor Air as it prepared its updated Protective Action Guides.
The radiation guides are protocols for responding to incidents ranging from nuclear power plant accidents to transportation spills to dirty bombs.
Cancer Cluster investigation continues |West Palm Beach News, South Florida Breaking News, Forecast, Video from WPTV
In the late nineties, the State Department of Health looked into a possible cancer cluster in St. Lucie County. There were 28 cases of brain and central nervous system cancers in kids.
No pattern was established. No cluster proven.
As well and soil tests wrap up this week, some sobering facts about providing clusters exist. The centers for Disease Control conducted 108 cancer cluster investigations between 1961 and 1990. None of them found an environmental cause for cancer.
Local and State Health Departments now bear the burden of investigating clusters and there are 1,000 reported in the U.S. every year. Since 1995, only about 50 clusters have been confirmed in the country.
The DEP tests of wells and the counties tests of soil at schools go forward with the knowledge that in only one case, at Southside High School in Elmira New York, have children been victimized by toxic exposure. 20 cases of testicular cancer was documented.The school had been built near an industrial site.
Navajo Yellowcake Woes Continue | Mother Jones
When the EPA evacuates your town for Superfund cleanup, what happens to the people left behind?
After decades of uranium mining turned the tiny town of Church Rock, New Mexico, into a Superfund site, in August the EPA moved seven resident Navajo families to Gallup apartments, where they'll wait for five months while the EPA scrubs their town of radioactive waste. But as the EPA hauls away the uranium tailings and radium-infused topsoils that have been permanent fixtures since mining ceased in the 1980s, Church Rock's remaining residents are asking why they have been left behind. In 1979, the largest spill of radioactive waste in US history occurred in Church Rock when 94 million gallons of mine waste were accidentally released into a stream. Children swam in open pit mines and the community drank water from local wells as recently as the '90s. (Now they haul in drinking water.) Cancer rates and livestock deaths remain higher than they should be. As for the families who remain, Church Rock evacuee and local activist Teddy Nez says the agency "drew an imaginary line in the sand" that excludes a residential area half a mile west of the Superfund site.
Rialto officials say Superfund listing a win in perchlorate fight - San Bernardino County Sun
A 160-acre site in the northern area of the city known for introducing a perchlorate plume into the local ground water supply has been added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund National Priorities List.
When the listing was announced Wednesday, officials declared it as a landmark victory for Rialto residents.
"This is a very victorious day for the city of Rialto, after spending $28 million to try to get these guys to do the right thing," Councilman Ed Scott said.
The Superfund designation represents a commitment by the EPA to clean the site while making it eligible for government funding, said Wayne Praskins, Superfund project manager.
The EPA has been developing an initial cleanup proposal that should be ready at the beginning of the year, Praskins said Friday.
It will cost between $10 million and $15 million to construct the facilities needed to conduct a cleanup at the site, and $1 million per year to operate them, Praskins said.
azdailysun: Tuba dump finally getting feds' attention
The EPA will drill test holes looking for uranium-contaminated waste that villagers fear is a threat to their downstream springs.
A dump near Tuba City that has been leaching low levels of radioactive waste into the shallow aquifer finally is getting some federal attention, if not an actual cleanup yet.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to fence off a remaining section of an old dump, near two Hopi villages, and test for hot spots of radioactivity close by. This includes one area where the agency says uranium levels in the water exceed what's federally considered safe for drinking water by eight times.
Local villagers who believe their downstream springs are threatened have long sought a total excavation of the dump.
Uranium-related waste found in the testing will be removed with heavy equipment beginning in October, and 263 new testing holes will be dug to search for more.
EPA re-evaluates rocket fuel chemical's effect on children - Las Vegas Sun
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to re-evaluate the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate, once made near Lake Mead, because of its potential health impacts on infants and children.
Under the Bush administration, the EPA made a preliminary decision not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water. In the 1990s scientists discovered perchlorate from two chemical plants in Henderson in Las Vegas Wash and Lake Mead waters. Lake Mead supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas Valley's drinking water.
EPA to oversee contaminated Navajo soil cleanup
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached an agreement with United Nuclear Corp. and its parent company, General Electric Co., to clean up soil near the most badly contaminated former uranium mine on the Navajo Nation.
Rain and flash floods carry the radium-contaminated soil from the abandoned Northeast Church Rock Mine near Gallup, N.M., down an arroyo where children play and livestock graze.
Long-term exposure to such soil can lead to cataracts, fractured teeth and cancer, according to the EPA.
Under the agreement announced this week, United Nuclear will remove 3 to 13 feet of soil from the arroyo and surrounding areas and bring in clean dirt. The company also will regrade a uranium waste pile so that it drains back to the mine instead of where people live.
The Associated Press: EPA writing rules for hardrock mine cleanups
The Environmental Protection Agency, complying with a court order, will develop a rule to guarantee companies that mine everything from copper to uranium will pay for needed environmental cleanup, not taxpayers.
The announcement on Monday comes in the wake of a federal judge's order in February requiring the EPA to close loopholes that allow some companies to get out of paying for such costly cleanups when they file bankruptcy.
The agency said it will develop similar financial responsibility requirements for other types of operations but started with hardrock mining because of the size of the operations, the amount of waste and the number of mining sites on its Superfund's national priorities list.
EPA throws Obama’s vow of “Openness” on bureaucratic toxic waste dump
As with most presidential campaign promises, Barack Obama’s pledge of government openness isn’t lasting long.
A top gauleiter at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appears to be indulging in the same type of cover-ups that Democrats on the 2008 campaign trail so ardently accused the Bush Administration of conducting.
Al McGartland, director of the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics, has chastised the authors of an EPA study that knocked gaping holes of logic in the agency’s decision to label life-sustaining carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Native American Times - “The Navajo Nation is going to greatly benefit from that,” she said.
“The Navajo Nation is going to greatly benefit from that,” she said.
Among other programs the Navajo EPA is working on with federal funding is:
• Drinking Water – $3 million for phase 1 for Sweetwater-to-Shiprock drinking water.
This will serve 93 homes without piped water near three unregulated water sources that have been contaminated with uranium, 845 homes served by public water systems that exceed the arsenic drinking water standard, and 982 homes with inadequate water supply.
• Waste Water – $9.7 million through the global Interagency Agreement through HIS.
• Tribal Drinking Water Set Aside Funding Projects:
Dennehotso New Water System – $2 million from U.S. EPA and $2 million from HUD to construct a new 50-mile water system to serve 102 homes without piped water, near 2 unregulated water sources contaminated with Uranium.
• Water Hauling Feasibility Study/Pilot Project to serve 4,000 homes without piped water.
USEPA is expected to soon provide funding to the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources to develop a water hauling feasibility study and pilot project to serve residents in uranium-impacted areas, and to develop safe water hauling guidelines and conduct outreach.
• Black Falls Water Line Extension – U.S. EPA provided $830,000 to construct a water line and safe water hauling point to serves 40 homes without piped water near four unregulated water sources contaminated with uranium.
• Clean Water Act/Wastewater Tribal Set Aside Projects:
$1.75 million award – $1 million will be in a direct grant to NTUA's Stimulus proposal submitted for Window Rock Wastewater Treatment plant upgrades; $752,867 into inter-agency agreement with IHS to fund other wastewater treatment facility projects.
Navajo homes razed - uranium contamination
The federal government plans to spend as much as $3 million a year to demolish and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Navajo counterpart are focusing on homes, sheds and other buildings within a half-mile to a mile from a significant mine or waste pile. They plan to assess 500 structures over five years and rebuild those that are too badly contaminated.
FR: EPA: Evaluation of WIPP compliance
Intent To Evaluate Whether the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Continues To Comply With the Disposal Regulations and Compliance Criteria AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ACTION: Notice of availability; official opening of public comment period. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intends to evaluate and recertify whether or not the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continues to comply with EPA's environmental radiation protection standards for the disposal of radioactive waste. Pursuant to the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act (LWA), as amended, the U.S.
Independent: Churchrock Mine cleanup plan available
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released its proposed cleanup plan for the Northeast Churchrock Mine, kicking off a 30-day public comment period.
Two public meetings to discuss the cleanup alternatives will be held at Pinedale Chapter House on June 23 and July 7. Both are scheduled 6-8 p.m.
EPA’s preference for addressing potential exposure risks from radium- and uranium-contaminated soils is to move all the contaminated waste material from the mine to an existing disposal cell at the United Nuclear Corp. mill site or to a newly constructed cell at the UNC mill facility. Any cell would be lined and capped and would receive long-term monitoring.
Associated Press: EPA to rebuild uranium-contaminated Navajo homes
The federal government plans to spend up to $3 million a year to demolish and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Navajo counterpart are focusing on homes, sheds and other buildings within a half-mile to a mile from a significant mine or waste pile. They plan to assess 500 structures over five years and rebuild those that are too badly contaminated.
Gallup Independent: Churchrock cleanup begins: URI assessment looks for radiation hot spots
Uranium Resources Inc. and Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency began a weeklong assessment Monday of Section 17 in Churchrock where its subsidiary, Hydro Resources Inc., has proposed in situ mining of uranium.
Rick Van Horn, chief operating officer for URI/HRI, said Tuesday that the two entities are looking at what the radiation values are and how they impact the air, soils, and water in the area of Section 17.
As part of the field work, background levels will be established under the review of Navajo EPA. “We have people that are looking over our shoulders providing oversight on-site, real time, and that will be part of the data set that we collect,” Van Horn said.
Independen: Court: Mine on Indian Country land: 10th Circuit Court ruling means EPA permit required
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has upheld a 2007 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior decision that Hydro Resources Inc.’s Churchrock Section 8 mine site is located in “Indian Country.”
HRI challenged the decision last May before the Court of Appeals. The decision means that HRI will have to obtain an underground injection control permit from EPA rather than the New Mexico Environment Department before it can move forward with its plans for in-situ leach uranium mining in Section 8.
Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Churchrock Chapter, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Southwest Research Information Center and Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining all participated in the matter, filing comments on the proposed determination in 2006.
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