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We will quit if uranium mine opens, say doctors
DOCTORS at the only Aboriginal medical service in Alice Springs have threatened to leave if the Federal Government allows a Canadian company to mine uranium near the town.
Protesters will press Northern Territory MPs to stop their support when Parliament sits in Central Australia tomorrow. They say it threatens the town's future and could set a precedent for other urban centres.
Closing of incinerator delayed » Knoxville News Sentinel
Mercury-laden waste pushes shutdown date to Nov. 30
OAK RIDGE - The last waste to be burned at the federal government's 20-year-old toxic waste incinerator is apparently proving to be some of the most difficult.
The Department of Energy and its environmental manager have again delayed the permanent closure of the Oak Ridge incinerator, citing the need for more time to process mercury-laden
The Associated Press: EPA: Uranium from polluted mine in Nev. wells
Peggy Pauly lives in a robin-egg blue, two-story house not far from acres of onion fields that make the northern Nevada air smell sweet at harvest time.
But she can look through the window from her kitchen table, just past her backyard with its swingset and pet llama, and see an ominous sign on a neighboring fence: "Danger: Uranium Mine."
For almost a decade, people who make their homes in this rural community in the Mason Valley 65 miles southeast of Reno have blamed that enormous abandoned mine for the high levels of uranium in their water wells.
Radioactive waste contaminating Canadian water supply: Report
Nuclear facilities and power plants are contaminating local Canadian food and water with radioactive waste that increases risks of cancer and birth defects, says a new report to be released on Friday.
The report, Tritium on Tap, produced by the Sierra Club of Canada, warned that radioactive emissions from various nuclear plants across the country have more than doubled over the past decade. The figures were based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which measured pollution coming from the plants.
Although Canadian guidelines have suggested that the existing levels of tritium in the water are safe, the report cites recent peer-reviewed studies, including a recent review by the UK’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, that suggest the opposite.
Cancer testing effort returns | chillicothegazette.com | Chillicothe Gazette
Nobody has to convince Edna Brackey how important the mobile Early Cancer Detection Program discontinued at the end of 2006 really was.
"I really owe eight years of a very enjoyable life to this program," said Brackey, who will turn 90 next summer, during a ceremony Thursday announcing the resumption of the testing program for current and former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers
Brackey, like many who develop lung cancer, had no visible early symptoms of the disease, although she did have a prior problem with a cancer in her mouth. Due to the testing program that was in place in Piketon in 2001, however, a very small cancerous mass in her lung was detected with the free CT scan.
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.
Sick worker advocates seek rules changes | knoxnews.com
According to info distributed by the Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups, ANWAG and the action groups at Linde Ceramics are petitioning NIOSH and the Dept. of Labor to make rules changes in the administration of the sick nuclear worker compensation program.
"Congress never intended this program to develop into the ongoing and overwhelming burden it has become for sickened nuclear weapons workers or their survivors," Terrie Barrie of ANWAG said in a statement. "Congress was well aware when they passed EEOICPA that the Department of Energy did not keep adequate exposure records, particularly for chemicals and heavy metals. Yet, DOL requires claimants to provide proof of exposure where none exists. It is long past due to return this program to the original intent of the law."
Ventura County Reporter - Boeing blocks lab cleanup
Boeing’s filing of a federal complaint on Friday the 13th against the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control over cleaning up the monstrously polluted Santa Susana Field Lab was no tardy Halloween trick. The move attempts to gut state Senate Bill 990, which was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007, to ensure that the 2,850-acre site is cleaned up to the highest standards.
Invalidating SB 990 would save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars. The state’s stringent cleanup levels would be relaxed, saving Boeing on the amount of soil and groundwater contamination that would have to be removed from the site and sent to a dump.
Nuclear waste bill passes house, threatens Energy Solutions' controversial plans for Utah
t's a hot issue in Utah, and its final outcome may be decided in Washington. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted a bill through that would block any import of foreign nuclear waste into the United States. Support for the measure was largely by Democrats, with only four House Republicans voting "yea."
The bill will likely face a more difficult battle in the Senate. If passed, it would thwart waste treatment company Energy Solutions' plans to import 20,000 tons of Italian nuclear waste and bury some of it (about 1600 tons, according to the company) in Utah's soil.
Gordon foreign waste ban to get committee vote on The Murfreesboro Post
Tomorrow (Nov. 19), the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee will consider Congressman Bart Gordon’s bill concerning foreign radioactive waste. Gordon’s bipartisan legislation, the Radioactive Import Deterrence (RID) Act, H.R. 515, would prevent foreign-generated radioactive waste from being processed in Tennessee and disposed in the U.S.
The full committee markup of the RID Act will begin at 8:30 a.m. CST. A live webcast can be viewed on the E&C’s website when the hearing begins http://energycommerce.house.gov/.
Tomorrow’s markup comes after the E&C’s Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment held a legislative hearing on October 16 and passed the RID Act on November 3.
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Background:
Peace activists push 'Alternative 6' for Y-12 | knoxnews.com
The debate over nuclear weapons in the 21st century continued tonight with about 100 people in attendance. This time the forum was held at the New Hope Center, near the entrance to the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, and the topic was modernization of Y-12 and the proposed construction of a new production facility with broad capabilities at the Oak Ridge plant.
If there's a price tag for world peace and security, several speakers passionately argued, it's surely not between $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion. That's the estimated cost range of the Uranium Processing Facility, which the National Nuclear Security Administration wants to build at Y-12 to replace antiquated operations -- some of which date back to the World War II Manhattan Project -- for making and dismantling warhead parts.
The Taxpayer Shouldn't be Burned Again in LANL's Inadequate Fire Protection Program - POGO Blog
As usual, last week there was an interesting article in the Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor. In “Pu Work Curtailed Because Of Fire Sprinkler Issues,” the Monitor’s Todd Jacobson reported that “Los Alamos National Laboratory [LANL] curtailed programmatic work in the lab’s Plutonium Facility, putting the facility in 'standby mode' for a month from early October to Nov. 5 because of concerns about the adequacy of fire sprinkler coverage.”
On the bright side, the problem that 13 of 100 areas (130 sprinklers) in the facility were not adequately covered by the sprinkler system was discovered before there was a fire in one of those areas. On the not-so-bright side, two weeks ago, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) found that the facility would be vulnerable to a catastrophic fire in the case of a severe earthquake. However, it does not take an earthquake to start a fire in a glove box that could spread.
Duke Energy won't do more MOX tests - Augusta Chronicle
Duke Energy says first two tests were sufficient, denies waning interest
Duke Energy, which has been testing French-made mixed-oxide nuclear fuels in its Catawba 1 reactor to gauge the suitability of similar fuels to be made at Savannah River Site, has exercised an option not to conduct a third 18-month testing cycle.
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"It was used for two operating cycles and we made a decision that an additional cycle is not required," said Rita Sipe, a nuclear media relations spokeswoman for Duke Energy.
The reason, she said, is that the first two cycles provided sufficient data that will be analyzed as part of the evaluation process for MOX, which is made by blending plutonium from dismantled nuclear bombs with conventional reactor fuels.
Kansas City News - As Honeywell closes its 60-year-old site, workers are dealing with the fatal aftereffects - page 1
Tony Ross' bat connected, sending the softball rocketing to the fence. While the outfielders scrambled after what should have been a home run, Ross stopped at second, doubled over and gasped for breath. Then he sat down on the base.
The two teams playing were made up of machinists, custodians and guards from the late shift at the Bannister Federal Complex in south Kansas City. They had met, as usual, around midnight on the baseball diamond at the nearby Hickman Mills High School to play until four or five in the morning.
St. Petersburg Times - Green Victory as Nuclear Waste Shipments are Halted
Environmentalists from the international pressure group Greenpeace are trumpeting their biggest success in years after German-Dutch company URENCO announced on Monday that it is ending the practice of sending spent nuclear fuel to Russia for reprocessing and storage.
Radioactive loads on board foreign ships had been arriving at the port of St. Petersburg every month for a decade to be sent by rail to factories in Siberia and the Urals.
Environmentalists feared that transporting such loads through the city presented a major threat to public health and environmental security.
In 1999, they failed in their attempts to have the importing of spent nuclear fuel from abroad into Russia banned.
In December 2000, the State Duma voted overwhelmingly to adopt the practice of importing irradiated fuel from other countries.
Deseret News | Suit challenges Utah company mining near Grand Canyon
A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park.
The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine.
"The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."
Nuclear disposal put in doubt by recovered Swedish galleon | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The plan to use copper for sealing nuclear waste underground has being thrown into disarray by corrosion in artefacts from the Vasa
Plans for nuclear waste disposal could be thrown into confusion tomorrow at a summit because of new evidence of corrosion in materials traditionally used for burial procedures.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) says it will keep careful watch on a meeting organised by the Swedish National Council for Nuclear Waste, which will look at potential problems with copper, designated for an important role in sealing radioactive waste underground.
S.C. waste coming to Oak Ridge » Knoxville News Sentinel
The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina is using a wealth of Recovery Act funding to accelerate cleanup activities and reduce its Cold War stockpile of radioactive waste.
Some of that waste, containing radioactive tritium and other contaminants, is coming to Oak Ridge for treatment and packaging before being shipped west to Nevada or Utah for disposal. Two local facilities owned by Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. - Diversified Scientific Services Inc. near Kingston and Materials & Energy Corp. in Oak Ridge - have been hired to treat the so-called mixed waste, which contains both radioactive elements and hazardous chemicals.
The FINANCIAL - Boeing Seeks Review of California Site Cleanup Law
In its filing, Boeing says the recent state law changes the normal cleanup process applied throughout the state by imposing “irrational and arbitrary requirements” on Santa Susana.
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.
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