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Priest who protests nukes convicted of trespassing
A jury has convicted a 76-year-old Roman Catholic priest from St. Louis of damaging and trespassing on a nuclear missile silo facility in northeastern Colorado last August.
After the verdict Tuesday, Carl Kabat was immediately sentenced to 137 days in jail, which he has already served since his arrest Aug. 6. He is now free.
Since 1980, Kabat has been protesting nuclear weapons on the anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Authorities say that last summer he went to a Weld County missile silo site, hung banners for his cause, cut a hole in the fence, waited inside and prayed until he was arrested by authorities from Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo.
Kabat acknowledged entering the property and cutting the fence.
Details revealed about radioactive contamination spread by MU researcher - Columbia Missourian
The MU lab out of which a researcher inadvertently spread radioactive material last month has been temporarily suspended from using radioactive material, according a report prepared by Peter Ashbrook, director of Environmental Health and Safety at MU.
The lab in Schlundt Annex, headed by Frank Schmidt, professor of biochemistry, will have its radioactive material privileges reviewed in February by MU’s Radiation Safety Committee, according to the report.
MU lab suspended from using radioactive material - Missouri | State & regional - bnd.com
A lab at the University of Missouri-Columbia has been temporarily suspended from using radioactive material after a researcher inadvertently spread radioactive material on the soles of his shoes.
The Columbia Missourian, citing a report from the school's director of Environmental Health and Safety, also reported that a university committee will review the lab's radioactive material privileges in February.
Frank Schmidt, a professor of biochemistry who heads the lab, told the Missourian that he had no comment about the report, which he had not yet seen.
KOMU.com - Radioactive Material Tracked on Campus - Coverage You Can Count On
An MU researcher accidentally tracked phosphorus from a lab to a few areas across campus.
An unidentified lab researcher accidentally spilled phosphorus-32, a radioactive isotope, at a Schlundt Annex laboratory. The researcher then walked outside, unaware that the chemical spilled onto his or her shoes. Without traveling too far, the researcher realized something was wrong.
"(The worker) called the Environmental Health and Safety Department," MU spokesman Christian Basi said. "They responded right a
Nuclear waste clean upstill needed at Westlake - STLtoday.com
"Nuclear workers honored" (Oct. 31) was a nice article about a celebration of former nuclear plant workers who worked and sacrificed themselves to clean up the nuclear waste sites from the Mallinckrodt chemical plant in the St. Louis area.
There are still nuclear waste sites today in St. Louis that are being cleaned up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The sites are in the downtown St. Louis area, a north St. Louis County site and several St. Louis County sites.
There is one nuclear waste landfill site that is not being cleaned up: The West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton. It is in the flood plain of the Missouri River and near the drinking water intake plants for St. Louis north of Interstate 70 and the city of St. Louis.
Idaho company claims EnergySolutions is sneaky - Salt Lake Tribune
An Idaho company has accused Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. of cutthroat tactics, using two front groups to derail its bid to clean up a Missouri radioactive waste site.
American Ecology Corp. filed a complaint Thursday with the Idaho elections office against Harold Skamser, a veteran lobbyist working for the week-old nonprofit group Citizens for a Clean Idaho. The group is headed by former Utah developer Stephen Loosli, whose new Idaho company, okosphare, is paying Skamser and "fronting for EnergySolutions," American Ecology says in its complaint.
EnergySolutions and the Idahoans deny any ties with one another. But American Ecology President Steve Romano said his company's two-year effort to win approval for slightly radioactive waste has had community and political support until now.
Three more "special exposure cohorts" for EEOICPA | Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground | knoxnews.com
The Labor Dept. today released information on three more employee groups with "special exposure cohort" designations, which should make it easier for them to gain compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.
In statements distributed to the news media, the Labor Dept. said it had notified the employees or their survivors of the designation, which includes a "presumption" that workplace explosure caused their illness if they were diagnosed with any of the 22 specified cancers.
The newly designated special exposure cohorts were:
AmerenUE asks NRC to suspend Callaway new nuclear license review
AmerenUE has asked the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend its review of the company's July 2008 application for a combined construction permit-operating license to build a new nuclear unit at its Callaway plant in Missouri. In a June 23 letter to NRC released on Friday, Adam Heflin, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, said "we have determined that it is in AmerenUE's best interests to suspend the review" of the COL application and requested "that the NRC staff suspend all activities" related to the review. AmerenUE announced in April that it was dropping plans to build a 1,600-MW Areva US-EPR reactor at Callaway because the company did not think Missouri state lawmakers would be able to overturn the state's ban on recovering costs on construction work in progress. AmerenUE spokesman Mike Cleary said June 26 that NRC's review of the COL continued after that decision while AmerenUE "looked at its options," but it is now deemed "prudent" to suspend the review.
Fulton Sun: Safety system concern at nuclear plant
A special investigation is underway to find the reason behind the failure of a piece of a safety system last month at the Callaway Nuclear Plant.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that a team of inspectors is looking into a problem that was found with a secondary feedwater pump at the plant May 25 that has raised concern about that backup safety precaution.
"In routine testing that pump didn't start automatically, but we did determine that it could have been started manually," Ameren UE spokesman Mike Cleary said. "It was technically inoperable and we don't know when it failed between the previous test on May 4 and May 25.
FR: NRC: release of contaminated building back into public use
Notice of Environmental Assessment Related to the Issuance of a License Amendment to Byproduct Material License No. 24-32439-01, for the Unrestricted Release of a Pharmacia Corporation Building in St. Louis, MO AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Issuance of environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact for license amendment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Katie Streit, Health Physicist, Materials Control, ISFSI, and Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials and Safety, Region III, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2443 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Illinois 60532; telephone: (630) 829-9621; fax number: (630) 515-1259; or by email at Katherine.Streit@nrc.gov.
Former worker says AmerenUE, NRC dropped inquiry - News Wires - CNBC.com
A former AmerenUE engineer is accusing the utility and the federal agency that regulates nuclear power of failing to adequately investigate a 2003 incident that led to a two-hour unplanned shutdown at the Callaway reactor.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation found that control room operators delayed a move to insert control rods — equipment required to keep the reactor shut down — since the error occurred just before a scheduled shutdown for maintenance. The NRC called the delay "not prudent," but noted it did not threaten human safety.
After discovering the problem four years after it occurred during a routine review and alerting plant managers, nuclear engineer Lawrence Criscione claimed retaliation by his supervisors, including a negative performance review and the loss of his operators' license.
Criscione was paid more than $500,000 in a confidential settlement in exchange for his resignation in 2008 and an agreement to not pursue any future legal claims against the St. Louis-based utility, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
A ghost of nuclear’s future in Finland? | Business News | STLtoday
It’s been a month since AmerenUE declared that it was suspending plans to build a second nuclear plant in Missouri after efforts to repeal the state’s ban on construction work in progress (CWIP) failed.
Backers of the legislation said Missourians missed a golden opportunity to secure its low-carbon future, and wean the state off its coal addiction (one that could be significantly more expensive if Congress follows through on climate change legislation).
AmerenUE had decided whether to go through with plans to build another nuclear plant. In case it did, the plant design it chose was Areva NP’s Evolutinary Power Reactor, EPR for short. (Areva was an owner of UniStar Nuclear, which had contracted with AmerenUE to help prepare the construction and operating license that was submitted to federal regulators last summer.)
Nuclear plants face huge price tag | courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal
A ghost from the U.S. nuclear industry's early years has reappeared.
It is not public apprehension about safety or disposal issues, but the staggering cost of building nuclear reactors.
A wave of reactors now in the works is intended to solve at least part of the nation's energy problems as it attempts to shift away from fossil fuels. But cost is likely to plague every upcoming nuclear project.
Last month in Missouri the first of the next-generation reactors was put on hold because of its $6 billion price tag.
Whether or not AmerenUE's Missouri reactor was a casualty of the current economic climate, the legal fight in several states shows how big the cost hurdle will be.
Some states have altered laws so that consumers will begin footing the bill now, even before construction begins. Missouri did not.
FR: NIOSH: contanmination cohort petition for workers at Tyson's Farm Mo
Final Effect of Designation of a Class of Employees for Addition to the Special Exposure Cohort AGENCY: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ACTION: Notice. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: HHS gives notice concerning the final effect of the HHS decision to designate a class of employees at Tyson Valley Powder Farm near Eureka, Missouri, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On March 31, 2009, as provided for under 42 U.S.C. 7384q(b), the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: All Atomic Weapons Employer (AWE) employees who worked at Tyson Valley Powder Farm near Eureka, Missouri, from February 13, 1946 through June 30, 1948, for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the SEC.
TheStar.com | 85,000 radioactive baby teeth. Now that we have your attention...
Forgotten about for 50 years, an odd stash yields clues about above-ground nuclear tests and cancer
They were locked away in an ammunition bunker near St. Louis, Mo., in dozens of cardboard boxes. Each was in its own manila envelope, with an index card identifying the donor. These 85,000 baby teeth were collected in the late 1950s and early 1960s to study the effects of radioactive fallout in the environment.
The fallout came from hundreds of above-ground nuclear tests in America and other parts of the world. The radioactive isotope Strontium-90, one of the by-products of the bombs, spread into the atmosphere, fell onto the land, was ingested by dairy cows and passed into the milk supply. Strontium-90, like calcium, was concentrated in children's teeth in detectable amounts.
In 1958 scientists in St. Louis began a campaign to collect baby teeth to study the link between above-ground testing and human exposure. The undisputed link between the tests and a radioactive element in baby teeth provided much of the impetus for the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, which outlawed above-ground nuclear weapons-testing.
CWIP bill died from a lack of candor - STLtoday.com
AmerenUE's plan to build a second nuclear power plant in Callaway County may be in jeopardy. But if so, it won't have been CWIP that killed it.
CWIP, of course, stands for construction work in progress. It refers to a state law that prohibits utilities from passing along costs of building new power plants until they start generating electricity.
AmerenUE spent much of the last year, including the first four months of the Missouri Legislature's session, arguing that building a second nuclear plant in Callaway County — estimated to cost $9 billion — would be too expensive without up-front financing from ratepayers.
Foes fear accidental release of toxic dust from landfill - STLtoday.com
Opponents of plans to put a cover over two piles containing radioactive waste at the West Lake landfill are worried that some preparatory work there could release contaminated material.
The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to trim vegetation there to get a more accurate reading of the site's surface.
"There will be no disturbance of the waste material," said Dan Wall, federal project manager of the site. He said workers will not pull up roots.
But Kay Drey, a longtime environmental activist, said the work would loosen some radioactive material and contaminated dust would leave the site.
A Setback in the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com
A Missouri utility said Thursday that it was suspending its efforts to build a new nuclear reactor, making its proposed plant, Callaway 2, the first of the “nuclear renaissance” reactors to fall by the wayside.
The industry has been looking forward to its first construction start in 30 years. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 17 companies have filed applications to build 26 reactors.
Ameren calls off push for 2nd nuclear plant in Missouri - STLtoday.com
AmerenUE CEO Tom Voss said the company is suspending its efforts to build a second nuclear plant in Missouri because of the failure of legislation it was pushing in the General Assembly.
At a news conference at Ameren’s St. Louis headquarters this morning, Voss said he had asked lawmakers to withdraw from consideration the bill the company had been pushing to repeal the state’s construction work in progress law. If passed, the bill would have allowed the utility to charge consumers for some costs of the proposed $6 billion-plus facility before it were up and running. Critics, including consumer groups and large industrial companies, said the bill would have led to huge price hikes and would have gutted the consumer protections available to the Public Service Commission.
Unfettered Letters: Kansas City nuclear plant
The Star’s story “$500 million Honeywell project gets final OK” (4/7, Business) neglected to mention a crucial detail regarding plans to close the existing government-owned Kansas City plant and construct a $600 million privately developed industrial park to produce parts for nuclear weapons.
The General Services and National Nuclear Security Administrations, the two federal agencies involved in the complex $1.2 billion, 20-year lease-back scheme, are being sued by a coalition of regional and national organizations and local citizens because they have pursued this project without first meeting their obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In similar cases, courts have told government agencies they must start all over again because they decided upon a course of action before doing appropriate NEPA review.
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