nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Radioactive contamination halts work on SSEN subsea link near Dounreay

 By Iain Grant,  John O’Groat Journal 6th Dec 2024

Work on part of the mainland link of SSEN Transmission’s new high voltage cable between Orkney and Caithness has been suspended because of the presence of radioactive contamination.

The company has been required to have extra monitoring carried out before it resumes work on its new substation near the Dounreay nuclear plant.

A spokesperson said: “We have identified the need for monitoring for radioactivity to be undertaken at the site where the substation will be constructed.

“The monitoring is needed due to the proximity of the site to Dounreay.

“Following the identification of radium contamination at the site, SSEN has stopped work while it acquires an Environmental Scotland authorisation permit. “A permit is needed due to the presence of radium contamination at depths as the planned excavation work is beyond these depths.”……………………..https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/radioactive-contamination-halts-work-on-ssen-subsea-link-nea-368353/

December 10, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

‘The process is broken’: Major oil producing countries kill UN plastics treaty over cap on production

Bulletin, By Joseph Winters | December 5, 2024

What was supposed to be the final round of United Nations negotiations for a global plastics treaty ended without an agreement on Sunday, as delegates failed to reconcile opposing views on whether to impose a cap on plastic production.

Another negotiating session — dubbed INC-5.2 after this week’s INC-5 — will be held in 2025, but it’s unclear how countries will make further progress without a change in the treaty’s consensus-based decision-making process. As it stands, any delegation can essentially veto a proposal they don’t like, even if they’re opposed by most of the rest of the world.

“If it wasn’t for Saudi and Russia we would have reached an agreement here,” one European negotiator told the Financial Times. Those two countries, along with other oil producers like Iran and Kuwait, want the plastics treaty to leave production untouched and focus only on downstream measures: boosting the plastics recycling rate, for example, and cleaning up existing plastic pollution.

Kuwait’s delegation said on Sunday that “we are not here to end plastic itself … but plastic pollution.” That’s the position the plastic industry is taking, as well: Chris Jahn, council secretary for a petrochemical industry consortium called the International Council of Chemical Associations, said it’s “crucial” for the treaty to focus on plastic pollution alone. “With 2.7 billion people globally lacking access to waste collection systems, solutions must prioritize addressing this gap,” he said in a statement.

Dozens of countries — supported by scientists and environmental groups — say that approach is futile while the plastics industry plans to dramatically increase plastic production. “You can talk about waste management all you want, but this is not the silver bullet,” one of the European Union’s delegates said last week. “Mopping the floor when the tap is open is useless.”

Christina Dixon, oceans campaign leader for the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency, attended INC-5 and told Grist the conference made it clear that “consensus isn’t working.” She said countries seem to be recognizing this too, in light of INC-5’s shortcomings and the low probability of finding unanimity on the treaty’s most critical issues.

Last week, one French minister accused a coalition of oil-exporting countries of “continuing obstruction.” Fiji’s negotiator said a “very minority group” was “blocking the process,” and at a press conference over the weekend told delegations holding back the treaty to “please get out.”

Technically, the treaty could move forward without Saudi Arabia, Russia, and their allies, either continuing under the U.N. framework or — a more radical scenario — in a new forum led by a breakaway alliance of countries. ……………………………………………… ……………………………….. more https://thebulletin.org/2024/12/the-process-is-broken-major-oil-producing-countries-kill-un-plastics-treaty-over-cap-on-production/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter12052024&utm_content=ClimateChange_UNPlasticsTreaty_12052024

December 8, 2024 Posted by | environment | Leave a comment

International talks on curbing plastic pollution fail to reach agreement

Chair of talks in Busan says progress has been made but ‘a few critical issues’ are unresolved

Guardian, Agence France-Presse, 2 Dec 24

Negotiators have failed to reach agreement on a landmark treaty to curb plastic pollution, the diplomat chairing the talks has said.

Nearly 200 nations are taking part in a meeting in Busan, South Korea, which is intended to result in a landmark agreement after two years of discussions. A week of talks has failed to resolve deep divisions between “high-ambition” countries seeking a globally binding agreement to limit production and phase out harmful chemicals, and “like-minded” nations who want to focus on waste.

A draft text released on Sunday afternoon after multiple delays included a wide range of options, making clear the ongoing level of disagreement.

When an open plenary session finally convened late on Sunday night, the chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, said progress had been made but “we must also recognise that a few critical issues still prevent us from reaching a comprehensive agreement”………………………………………………………

While countries have declined to directly name those preventing a deal, public statements and submissions have shown that mostly oil-producing nations including Saudi Arabia and Russia have sought to block production cuts and other ambitious goals………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/01/international-talks-on-curbing-plastic-pollution-fail-to-reach-agreement-busan

December 3, 2024 Posted by | environment | Leave a comment

EDF’s controversial River Severn saltmarshes plan should cease, says County Council leader

By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter,,  Gloucester News Centre 30th Nov 2024

EDF’s controversial plans for saltmarshes linked to Hinkley C nuclear power plant should cease immediately.

That is the view of Gloucestershire County Council’s Conservative leader Stephen Davies (Hardwicke and Severn) who has written to energy, security and net zero secretary Ed Miliband expressing his opposition to the schemes.

Bosses at the French-government owned energy firm have been severely criticised for their environmental improvement plans by residents in Rodley near Westbury-on-Severn and Arlingham on the other side of the river.

Their original plan for Hinkley Point in Somerset was to install an acoustic fish deterrent system to scare fish away from the site as the Bristol Channel is home to numerous species such as eels, herring, salmon and sprats.

However, EDF feel this will no longer be viable and have instead drawn up alternative plans to create salt marshes along the River Severn.

They have identified the two Gloucestershire sites along with Kingston Seymour in Somerset, Littleton Upon Severn in South Gloucestershire as areas for salt marshes.

And they have been in touch with landowners. But villagers strongly oppose the proposals which they fear will destroy the Severn Vale.

Cllr Davies says in the letter, which has not been signed by the other group leaders at GCC, that the authority welcomes the Government’s commitment to delivering net zero.

But he expressed significant concerns regarding the scale of the impact the nuclear power station will have on the migratory fish population in the Severn Estuary special area of conservation which will result from the massive water abstraction at Hickley Point C of 120,000 litres of seawater a second from the Severn for 60 years.

He believes this will be made significantly worse by their intention to remove the required acoustic fish deterrent system at the plant.

And is concerned over the significant impact the emerging salt marsh proposals would have as it would see hundreds of acres of farmland lost.

“This would not only include farmland, but also farms, houses, businesses, roads, footpaths, heritage assets, etc.

“EDF representatives have already confirmed to local residents that they would use compulsory purchase orders in future if need be as well as currently attempting to access privately-owned land for ecological surveys.”

Cllr Davies calls for the acoustic fish deterrent to be installed as originally planned and for appropriate ecological compensation be delivered to address the impact on the Severn Estuary. He is also calling for EDF to be instructed to immediately cease plans to create the new salt marshes along the Severn.

Campaign group Save our Severn Vale do not believe that the proposed location of a saltmarsh in either Rodley or Arlingham is viable from a salinity perspective or compensatory habitat when looking at the species EDF say they want to save………………………….. https://gloucesternewscentre.co.uk/edfs-controversial-river-severn-saltmarshes-plan-should-cease-says-county-council-leader/

December 3, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Just Don’t Mention (or Measure) the Pu (Plutonium)

Cs-134 usually appears (at first) in similar amounts as Cs-137, as both are fission wastes………. With regard impact on human health cesium–134 (Cs-134) is extremely serious along with cesium-137 (Cs-137) the longer lived isotope which also present on Cumbrian beaches

 By mariannewildart, Radiation Free Lakeland 30th Nov 2024, https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2024/11/30/just-dont-mention-or-measure-the-pu-plutonium/
Josh MacAlister MP for Sellafield (sorry Whitehaven and Workington) bigs up the “Good” status of Seascale and “Excellent” status of St Bees bathing water sites.

The bad news is that the criteria for bathing water quality in the UK does not include radioactive pollution – a bad case of the three wise monkeys “see no evil..”

Our own citizen science findings indicate radioactive wastes are a now an insidious and homogeneous part of West Cumbria’s beaches courtesy of the nuclear industry’s routine and accidental discharges to the Irish Sea.

Our own surveys and testing has shown that Caesium 134 is present along with Americium 241. Cs-134 has a short half life of only 2 years which is counter to the already disingenuous claims that the discharges (some very long lived) are “historic..” Cs-134 usually appears (at first) in similar amounts as Cs-137, as both are fission wastes. This implies that this Cs-134 was produced in a nuclear reactor about eight years ago. With regard impact on human health cesium–134 (Cs-134) is extremely serious along with cesium-137 (Cs-137) the longer lived isotope which also present on Cumbrian beaches. In nature, caesium exists only as a non-radioactive (or stable) isotope known as cesium-133. Americium 241 does not exist in nature and is a decay product of Plutonium.

The UK Health Security Agency have stated the risk of the public encountering a radioactive particle is “very low” but this is contested . In reality the ongoing risks are unacceptable and set to increase with new development plans such as proposed new nuclear and a Geological Disposal Facility for heat generating nuclear wastes both of which would cause likely disruption to the fragile Cumbrian Mud Patch through subsidence and induced earthquakes.

Campaigners point out that children and young women of childbearing age are most at risk of health impacts from encountering a radioactive particle. “Inadvertent ingestion of a particle will result in the absorption to blood of a small proportion of the radionuclide content of the particle. The subsequent retention of radionuclides in body organs and tissues presents a potential risk of the development of cancer.” Health risks from radioactive particles on Cumbrian beaches near the Sellafield nuclear site by John D Harrison et al 2023.

December 2, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

  Plans to turn land in Somerset into a saltmarsh should be scrapped.

Plans to flood 1500 acres of farmland along the Severn Estuary to create
saltmarsh won’t be effective in saving fish affected by a nuclear power
station – that’s according to ecosystems expert Dr Mark Everard of the
University of the West of England. EDF is building the station at Hinkley
Point in Somerset and had agreed to install and maintain an acoustic fish
deterrent to prevent fish being sucked into the site’s cooling systems. But
they now say it’s dangerous to build and the technology is untested, and
want to flood farmland instead to create saltmarsh habitats. Dr Everard
says most fish – including migrating salmon – won’t benefit from this, and
the deterrent system is already used effectively worldwide.

 BBC Farming Today 25th Nov 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025cyx

December 1, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

What Project 2025 Would Do to the Environment – and How We Will Respond

The policy playbook from the Heritage Foundation would strip away our rights to clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet.

By Earthjustice November 12, 2024,  https://earthjustice.org/article/what-project-2025-would-do-to-the-environment-and-how-we-will-respond

When Donald Trump takes office for the second time in January, we expect his administration to dramatically dismantle environmental protections. We see the shape of what’s coming not just from battling his first administration, but because of the blueprint laid out in Project 2025.

Project 2025 is 900 pages, and 150 of them are about how to destroy the environment. This deregulatory agenda, written by former Trump government officials and Heritage Foundation staff, would strip away our rights to clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet.

Earthjustice is built for moments like this. We’re the legal arm of the environmental movement, with more than 200 attorneys wielding the power of the law to defend the planet and its people. We filed more lawsuits on behalf of clients against the last Trump administration to protect the environment than any other organization – and we won 85% of our cases.

We’ve shown that we can take on the Trump administration’s worst ideas and win.

We’ve studied the proposed tactics in Project 2025, including undermining government staff who are charged with safeguarding health and environmental protections. We are prepared to defend the environment and communities from what comes next, no matter how long it takes. Here are some of the Project 2025 recommendations we’re most concerned about:

Taking a hatchet to bedrock environmental laws

What Project 2025 says:

  • Gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA): Project 2025 would rewrite the most successful legal tool we have for protecting wildlife in ways that would harm imperiled species. It specifically calls for removing protections from gray wolves and Yellowstone grizzlies.
  • No need for national monuments: Another proposal would repeal the Antiquities Act, which would strip the president of the ability to protect priceless public lands and waters as national monuments.
  • Weaken the Clean Air Act: Project 2025 would nix the part of the law that requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set health-based air quality standards.
  • Less say for communities in environmental decisions: The plan would undermine key portions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which ensures you have a voice in major projects built near you.

Why we’re prepared:

  • Defending endangered species: The Trump administration went after both Yellowstone grizzlies and the Endangered Species Act itself. Both times, Earthjustice went straight to court. One of our cases spared the grizzlies from planned trophy hunts, and the Biden administration subsequently reversed some damaging changes to the ESA.
  • Defending national monuments: When the Trump administration gutted Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, Earthjustice immediately sued. Protections for the monuments have now been restored. We also helped defend the monuments from a later legal challenge by the state of Utah that attacked the Antiquities Act itself.
  • Defending NEPA: This summer, when 21 state attorneys-general sued to block important updates to NEPA, we intervened to fight back. The updates will ensure that critical infrastructure needed for the clean energy transition is built quickly and equitably and is resilient to climate change.

More mining and fossil fuel development on public lands

What Project 2025 says:

  • Prioritize oil and gas: Project 2025 tells the agencies that manage federal lands and waters to maximize corporate oil and gas extraction. It calls for approving more pipelines like Keystone XL and Dakota Access.
  • Willow? Make it bigger: The agenda explicitly aims to expand the Willow Project, which is already the largest proposed oil and gas undertaking on U.S. public lands.
  • Target iconic landscapes: The project also calls for drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and mining in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters wilderness, among other irreplaceable natural treasure

Why we’re prepared:

  • Fighting on all fronts: Under the Trump administration, Earthjustice challenged an aggressive extractive agenda at every turn. Our victories included winning protections for 128 million acres of ocean and hundreds of thousands of acres of sage-grouse habitat threatened by oil and gas development.
  • We’ve defended many of the places Project 2025 targets:
  • Undermining science and the regulation of toxic chemicals
  • What Project 2025 says:
  • Trust the chemical companies: Project 2025 tells the EPA to be more open to industry science and to stop funding major research into toxic chemical exposure.
  • Make it harder to regulate chemicals: The plan calls for the EPA to meet an absurdly high standard of proof that a chemical is hazardous before deciding to regulate it. This would give chemical companies greater freedom to put toxic substances into our air, water, and products.
  • Forever chemicals are fine: Project 2025 would walk back the determination that PFAS — the “forever chemicals” linked to reproductive harms, developmental delays, and increased risk of cancer — are a hazardous substance.

Why we’re prepared:

Ending government efforts to address the climate crisis

What Project 2025 says:

  • The plan’s authors are climate skeptics: The document refers pointedly to “the perceived threat of climate change.”
  • Climate solutions? Don’t need ‘em: Project 2025 calls for undoing many of the clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate solutions bill in history. It also supports Congressional efforts to repeal the law entirely.
  • Shut down climate research: The plan would get rid of more than a dozen government offices and agencies that study climate change.

Why we’re prepared:

  • Confronting government with climate reality: We have fought every administration in recent decades to include climate change impacts in various decisions. Earlier this century, we joined in a suit that became a landmark Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, which found that carbon emissions are air pollutants and consequently the EPA must set limits on such pollution. We will defend the necessity to combat climate change — but further delays will hurt us all. An analysis from Energy Innovation found that enacting Project 2025 would increase carbon emissions by 2.7 billion tons by 2030 — equivalent to the annual emissions of India. These policies would cost households $32 billion in higher energy costs, result in 1.7 million lost jobs, and decrease the U.S. GDP $320 billion per year by 2030.
  • Fighting for science: Earthjustice has previously defended the critical role of scientific experts within the government. In 2020, we won a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s illegal decision to remove independent science advisors from the EPA.

Eliminating environmental justice programs

What Project 2025 says:

  • Environmental justice is not the government’s problem: Project 2025 questions whether the government should address the ways that communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed to dangerous pollution.
  • Get rid of staff who work on these issues: The plan calls for disbanding offices with the Department of Justice and the EPA that focus on environmental justice.

Why we’re prepared:

  • An environmental justice first: In 2021, after years of pushing by Earthjustice and our partners, the Justice Department opened its first-ever environmental justice investigation, looking into whether an Alabama county was managing sewage in a way that disproportionately harmed Black communities.
  • Raising our voice: We helped advocate for billions of dollars of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to go to the communities that need it most.

What You Can Do

November 29, 2024 Posted by | environment, legal, USA | Leave a comment

Thornbury MP fights for Hinkley Point environmental protections

Claire Young is rallying to preserve essential environmental protections.

Lewis Clarke, 21 Nov 24

An MP has joined South Gloucestershire Council in calling on the Secretary
of State for Energy, Security, and Net Zero to block plans to remove
important environmental protections from the Hinkley Point C project.

In a letter to Ed Milliband, Thornbury & Yate MP Claire Young has expressed her
concern about proposals to remove Acoustic Fish Deterrent measures from the
project – warning that millions of fish, and connected wildlife, could be
affected by the plans. This is not the first time removing this
environmental mitigation tool has been proposed, with a similar push to do
so being blocked back in 2022 due to the impact it would have on local fish
stocks.

 Bristol Live 21st Nov 2024, https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/thornbury-mp-fights-hinkley-point-9686572

November 25, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Call to Action! Stop LANL Tritium Venting and Protect the Most Vulnerable

https://nuclearactive.org/call-to-action-stop-lanl-tritium-venting-and-protect-the-most-vulnerable/ November 21st, 2024

On Monday, Tewa Women United released two independent scientific reports about the harm that would be done to public health and the environment should Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) be allowed to vent radioactive tritium from four Flanged Tritium Waste Containers stored at LANL’s Area G radioactive and hazardous waste dump.  

It is another important step taken by Tewa Women United to hold LANL and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accountable to the law.

The two new reports reveal that the proposed venting of tritium, a form of radioactive hydrogen, into the environment would not meet the current EPA or Department of Energy (DOE) regulations.

Tewa Women United collaborated with German scientist Bernd Franke, a Director of the Institute für Energie und Umweliforschung (IFEU), and Dr. Arjun Makhijani from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The first report, Review of LANL Radiation Dose Assessment for the Venting of Flanged Tritium Waste Containers (FTWC) at TA-54 at LANL, authored by Franke, contains results from computer models used to assess the possible range of radiation doses to the public across various weather scenarios.

Dr. Makhijani stated, “According to the EPA regulatory radiation standards, Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 61 Subpart H, require[s that] the radiation dose to ‘any member of the public’ should be less than 10 millirem per year.” Dr. Makhijani noted, “EPA allowed LANL to ignore children and infants in its dose calculations.”

Further, the second report, authored by Dr. Makhijani and titled Out of Order:  An evaluation of the regulatory aspects of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposal to vent tritium from waste containers, similarly assessed LANL’s compliance with the Clean Air Act regulations and DOE Order 458.1 to keep public exposure to “as low as reasonably achieveable.”

Over the past four years DOE and EPA have ignored repeated requests from Tewa Women United to release their 53 alternatives to the proposed venting.

Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez, member of Pueblo de San Ildefonso and one of Tewa Women United’s co-founders, said, “Tritium makes water, our sacred source of life, radioactive. We were shocked to learn that LANL’s compliance calculations did not take infants and other children into account.

Talavi Cook, the Environmental Justice Program Manager at Tewa Women United, explained:  “…Tewa Women United believes … radiation protection should extend to pregnant women due to fetuses comprising of 70% – 90% water; pregnant members of the public are not currently protected by the Clean Air Act or any other radiation protection regulation….  It is a matter of simple environmental justice for future generations.”

For more information, please visit https://tewawomenunited.org/2024/11/press-release-new-report-reveals-lanl-tritium-venting-could-have-triple-the-radiation-exposure-to-infants-compared-to-adults

November 23, 2024 Posted by | environment, radiation | Leave a comment

Somerset church would ‘become’ island if ‘ham-fisted’ Hinkley saltmarsh plans go-ahead

Sunday 17th November 

 Somerset church would ‘become’ island if ‘ham-fisted’ Hinkley saltmarsh
plans go-ahead. Steve Bridger (Yatton, Independent), a local councillor for
the village on North Somerset Council, told a full meeting of the council
on November 12 that the plan was “ham-fisted.”

He said: “Landowners
who would be directly impacted by the proposals were sent letters in
September, completely out of the blue, with a rather threatening tone
talking about compulsory purchase of their land.” When Somerset’s new
nuclear power station was granted planning permission, it was told to
install speakers to scare off fish from getting sucked into its cooling
systems.

But EDF now says this would be “dangerous to install,” and
wants to compensate for the 44 tonnes of fish expected to die each year by
creating 340 hectares of saltmarsh along the Severn. Peter Burden
(Portishead South, Conservative) told the council chamber: “It is crazy,
chairman, to destroy habitat to mitigate for killing fish.”

 West Somerset Free Press 17th Nov 2024, https://www.wsfp.co.uk/news/somerset-church-would-become-island-if-ham-fisted-hinkley-saltmarsh-plans-go-ahead-739509

November 22, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

‘The sixth great extinction is happening’, conservation expert warns. ‘Window of time to save climate is closing’

 Dr Goodall says taking action to slow down the warming of our planet is
more urgent than ever. “We still have a window of time to start slowing
down climate change and loss of biodiversity,” Dr Goodall says. “But
it’s a window that’s closing.” Destruction of forests, and other wild
places, she points out, is intrinsically linked to the climate crisis.
“So much has changed in my lifetime,” she says, recalling that in the
forests of Tanzania where she began studying chimps more than 60 years ago,
“you used to be able to set your calendar by the timing of the two rainy
seasons”. “Now, sometimes it rains in the dry season, and sometimes
it’s dry in the wet season. It means the trees are fruiting at the wrong
time, which upsets the chimpanzees, and also the insects and the birds.”

 BBC 17th Nov 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93qvqx5y01o

November 19, 2024 Posted by | climate change, environment | Leave a comment

Leaked tritium reached the Mississippi

    by beyondnuclearinternational,  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/11/17/leaked-tritium-reached-the-mississippi/

False assurances by Xcel Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have now been retracted by the regulator, reports John LaForge

In April, I reported on false assurances made by Xcel Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding the November 2022 leak from the Monticello, Minnesota nuclear reactor of some 829,000 gallons of cooling water containing a huge concentration of radioactive tritium (technically, 5.2 million picocuries per liter).

In eye-opening remarks at the Monticello Community Center on May 15, NRC Senior Environmental Project Manager, Stephen J. Koenick, apologized for the commission staff’s often-repeated claims that leaked tritium from the 53-year-old reactor had not reached the Mississippi River — drinking water source for 20 million people, including the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.

In his underreported apology, Koenick said, “I would like to take a moment to address and clarify some miscommunication regarding the presence of detectable tritium in the Mississippi River. I know we … reported there were no indication[s] of [a] tritium leak [which] made it to the Mississippi. 

“However, … in our Draft Environmental Impact Statement, we … conclude there were some very low concentrations of tritium in the Mississippi River.” Koenick went on to say, “So we apologize for this miscommunication.”

The weekly  Monticello Times reported on the vanishingly rare public confession and its crucial admission that radioactive tritium from the massive 2022 leak had contaminated the Mississippi. The paper published a report on the front-page on Jun. 6, under the headline: “NRC apologizes, changes its stance on tritium leak: Now says low concentrations got into Mississippi River.”

What Koenick meant by “miscommunication” were false assurances made to the press that no tritium had been found by Xcel’s testing of the river. On Mar. 18, 2023, NRC spokesperson Viktoria Mitlyng even told the press, “There is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.” 

As recently as May 7, 2024, NRC presenters at a separate NRC-sponsored public hearing, also held in Monticello, said that Xcel had found “no detectable levels” of tritium in the river.

Tritium is the radioactive form of hydrogen. It cannot be removed by any kind of filtering and contaminates huge volumes of regular water that it contacts. Tritium is a danger to health if taken internally, by drinking or breathing, because it moves like water to every part of the body, and because it crosses the placenta where it endangers the fetus and causes birth abnormalities and problem pregnancies.

Xcel has applied for a second operating license extension for the Monticello jalopy which, if granted, would allow the reactor, one of the three oldest in the country, to run until the age of 80. Over 3,000 public comments have been sent to the NRC regarding its Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the 80-year-risk — most of them voicing alarmed opposition.

While studying the NRC’s Draft EIS, Nukewatch’s Lindsay Potter discovered an extremely odd coincidence.

As with any environmental impact study, the NRC has to establish a formal calendar for information-gathering. The data collection time-frame for the Monticello draft officially ended on August 18, 2023.

According to Xcel Energy and NRC documents, August 18 was the very same day that radioactive tritium contamination in Xcel’s groundwater tests near the Mississippi River exceeded the federal EPA drinking water limit. (Technically 20,000 picocuries per liter.)

Curiously, high and rapidly increasing levels of tritium  (from the plume created by the major 2022 leak) was detected in a monitoring well near the river, beginning July 27, 2023. Then, tests over the following three weeks show the concentration of tritium grew five-fold, the documents show, until on August 18 when the tritium concentration exceeded the United States EPA’s drinking water allowable max.

As a result of the NRC’s data collection cut-off date, the Draft EIS omits the critical time-frame immediately after August 18, when tritium levels were above permitted limits and still increasing.

Likewise, Xcel’s “2023 Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report” submitted to the NRC, fails to provide precise data on groundwater monitoring tests results following Aug. 18, 2023, noting in general terms only that tests done after Aug. 18, 2023 found no unsafe levels of contamination.

Based on past “miscommunications,” readers can decide whether such public assurances are reliable.

John LaForge is a co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental watchdog group in Wisconsin, edits the group’s quarterly newsletter, and with Arianne Peterson co-edited Nuclear Heartland, Revised Edition: A guide to the 450 land-based missiles of the United States.

This article first appeared on Southside Pride and is republished with permission of the author.

November 18, 2024 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

North Somerset Council says no to ‘crazy’ EDF salt marsh plan

Chard and Ilminster News, By John Wimperis, 15 Nov 24

NORTH Somerset Council is set to urge the government to block “crazy” plans to flood hundreds of acres of farmland near Kingston Seymour.

Power company EDF wants to turn a huge swath of farmland by the village into a salt marsh to make up for fish killed at Hinkley Point C.

But councillors are calling for EDF to drop the plan and instead invest in biodiversity in ways the area wants and needs. 

“It is crazy, chairman, to destroy habitat to mitigate for killing fish,” Peter Burden, Conservative Portishead South, told a full council meeting November 12.

Burden tabled a motion, amended by Annemieke Waite (Winford, Green), for the council to urge the government to insist that EDF obey the original planning conditions.

Councillors voted to pass the resolution unanimously.

Steve Bridger (Yatton, Independent), a local councillor for the village on North Somerset Council, described the EDF plan as “ham-fisted.”

Farmers and businesses dismayed

Farmers and local businesses have expressed dismay at the plans. Third generation young farmer Sophie Cole, whose entire farm could be affected, said in September: “No amount of money can compensate me for the loss of my livelihood and exciting plans for the future.” 

When Somerset’s new nuclear power station was granted planning permission, it was told to install speakers to scare off fish from getting sucked into its cooling systems.

But EDF now says this would be “dangerous to install,” and wants to compensate for the 44 tonnes of fish expected to die each year by creating 340 hectares of saltmarsh along the Severn……………………..

Mr Burden said any changes to sea defences should be dealt with in the same way as other shoreline changes.

“I think we should ask for serious amounts of cash to be put into proper nature conservation and environment improvements in the wider area, not set up a completely new scheme by an organisation that’s interested in making power,” he said.

Involving central government

The council resolution sees it commit to continue working with the Environment Agency and local communities to develop a strategy to protect residents and the natural habitat, and to write to Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband, as the secretaries of state responsible for local government and energy, to urge them to enforce the original planning conditions on EDF, and not let them swap them for creating salt marshes……….. https://www.chardandilminsternews.co.uk/news/24725089.north-somerset-council-says-no-crazy-edf-salt-marsh-plan/

November 16, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Farmers slam ‘crazy’ plans to flood 1,500 acres to save fish from a power plant.

Farmers and locals say their ‘lives will be destroyed’ by ‘crazy’ plans to
flood 1,500 acres – to compensate for fish lost to a nuclear power plant.
EDF Energy wants the land – much of it used for agriculture and businesses
like camping and tourism – to create a saltmarsh habitat.

Hinkley Point C is currently being built and will ingest 44 tonnes of fish a year – and EDF
wants to mitigate that loss and the wider environmental impact of the site.
It wants to compensate the death of the fish and its carbon footprint by
creating the saltmarsh at one of four sites along the River Severn in
Somerset. Plans are currently focused on Kingston Seymour, between Clevedon
and Weston-super-Mare, where landowners have received letters and documents
from EDF.

SWNS 10th Nov 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1IDkPWZ46g

November 13, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

The Guardian view on Trump’s planet-wrecking plans: the UK government’s resolve will be tested

9 Nov 24, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/08/the-guardian-view-on-trumps-planet-wrecking-plans-the-uk-governments-resolve-will-be-tested

The new president’s disruptive policies will challenge Sir Keir Starmer’s green goals. But with strong leadership he could enhance Britain’s global influence.

Donald Trump’s electoral earthquake in America will complicate Sir Keir Starmer’s plans. Nowhere will the shock of Mr Trump’s win be more intensely felt than in environmental policy. His stance on climate – advocating a US exit from the Paris climate agreement and rallying behind “drill baby drill” – is more disruptive than constructive. This should concentrate Sir Keir’s mind as he heads to Cop29, the UN’s annual climate summit, in Baku, Azerbaijan.

At last year’s conference, world leaders agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels in a just and orderly manner for the first time. Mr Trump, however, dismisses the climate crisis as a hoax. With this year likely to be the hottest on record, the devastating effects of global heating are undeniable, as extreme weather batters the planet. Mr Trump may ignore the facts, but the trail of climate-related chaos and destruction speaks for itself.

This ought to steel the prime minister’s resolve. Mr Trump’s plan to give the US an advantage in world trade through tariffs will complicate Labour’s goals of greening the economy, producing zero-carbon electricity, and cutting energy prices. The worst move Sir Keir could make would be to listen to rightwing voices arguing that if other nations are dropping green commitments, so should Britain. That would be a serious misstep, as leadership on climate not only reduces Britain’s carbon emissions but builds strategic alliances around the globe.

Mr Trump’s trade war threatens to disrupt supply chains, hike costs, jeopardise Britain’s green transition and stall its growth. His push for higher Nato defence spending could, in the UK, divert public funds from environmental initiatives. But this misses the point: Britain’s growth will be turbocharged by embracing green energy, leveraging its strengths in areas like offshore wind. Plus, most voters see a green shift as a path to lower energy costs and a stronger economy – a cause Sir Keir would be smart to champion.

The prime minister should double down on the plans of his energy secretary, Ed Miliband, rather than waver in the face of Trumpian pressure that prioritises short-term gains over a cleaner future. Mr Trump’s stance may also soften. He wants to gut Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and eliminate its clean tech subsidies. Yet most investment under the act has flowed to red and swing states in America’s south and midwest that voted for Mr Trump. Republican leaders in those states have vowed to protect these projects.

https://380a821190a37d89fff615ebb3836a1e.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

The profits of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla would gain under Mr Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Mr Musk was $26bn richer the day after Mr Trump won. That reveals how the world’s richest person’s wealth is tied to political forces undermining green protections. Once a critic, Mr Musk now cosies up to Mr Trump. The quid pro quo is clear: Mr Trump, who once mocked electric cars, pandered to Mr Musk, telling a rally in August: “I’m for electric cars … because Elon [Musk] endorsed me.”

Mr Trump’s absence from future Cop meetings would be a mixed blessing. On one hand, he would hinder proceedings rather than help them. But having Mr Trump in the room might be preferable to him causing trouble from the outside. With some European leaders backing off green leadership due to domestic challenges, and others likely to follow Mr Trump’s lead, Sir Keir has a chance to step up on the world stage. This is a popular position at home. It would also be welcomed by his embattled counterparts on the continent – and beyond.

November 11, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »