nuclear-news

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

Uranium miller wants to cease monitoring toxic waste area

Cotter asks to stop testing impoundment pond due to dangerous conditions – The Denver Post, by Bruce Finley, 4 Aug 11 Cotter Corp. managers of a uranium mill have asked state regulators to let them stop testing the acidity of a leaking toxic- and radioactive- waste impoundment pond — saying conditions have become too dangerous for workers…..

The Cotter efforts to reduce monitoring affect Colorado’s oversight of the cleanup because state regulators rely on company data instead of conducting independent tests.

Cotter is in the process of dismantling its shuttered uranium mill, located south of the Arkansas River near Cañon City.

With state permission, the company has been moving 90,000 gallons of radioactive sludge and solvents into the impoundment, although regulators know the impoundment is leaking. Liquid waste is mixed with a material resembling cat litter that renders it more solid….

Workers at the mill, built in 1958 with federal support, processed uranium for weapons and power plants. Cotter dumped waste in 11 unlined ponds, leading to contamination of groundwater, which spread to Cañon City.

Federal Environmental Protection Agency officials in 1984 declared the mill and surrounding area a Superfund environmental disaster — then entrusted state authorities with supervising the cleanup...Cotter asks to stop testing impoundment pond due to dangerous conditions – The Denver Post

August 5, 2011 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Fears of radioactive rice in Japan

Japanese rice crops threatened by radiation. Smart Planet, By David Worthington | August 1, 2011,  Local authorities in Japan are working to determine whether the country’s traditional staple crop is contaminated with unsafe levels of radioactive cesium. Continue reading →

August 4, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a comment

Widespread radiation contamination being monitered by Japanese civilians

Shinzo Kimura, the radiation expert who quit the Health Ministry. Mr. Kimura has since done extensive testing to see if Mrs. Okoshi’s readings were right. He says they are — and that is bad news.

Doubting Assurances, Japanese Find Radioactivity on Their Own,  NYTimes.com, 1 August 11,   “……. starting in April, Mrs. Okoshi began using her dosimeter to check nearby forest roads and rice paddies. What she found was startling. Near one sewage ditch, the meter beeped wildly, and the screen read 67 microsieverts per hour, a potentially harmful level. Mrs. Okoshi and a cousin who lives nearby worked up the courage to confront elected officials, who did not respond, confirming their worry that the government was not doing its job.

With her simple yet bold act, Mrs. Okoshi joined the small but growing number of Japanese who have decided to step in as the government fumbles its reaction to the widespread contamination, which leaders acknowledge is much worse than originally announced. Continue reading →

August 1, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan | 1 Comment

Environmental impacts of uranium mining in Colorado for DOE study

DOE opens large-scale review of uranium mining, By Matthew Beaudin, Editor of the Telluride Daily Planet, July 31, 2011 The U.S. Department of Energy will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the environmental impacts of uranium mining and milling in southwestern  Colorado after much prodding from environmental groups.

Until now, the DOE reviewed the mining operations piecemeal rather than addressing the cumulative impacts of increased production in the region, which it made possible in 2008 with the renewal of its leasing program in the Uravan Mineral Belt, awarding or renewing 31 leases for mining-related activities over 25,000 acres between Naturita and Moab, Utah.
News : DOE opens large-scale review of uranium mining (Montrose, CO)

August 1, 2011 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Fish killed by nuclear plant’s hot water release

Oyster Creek nuclear plant pump shuts down, resulting in fish kill, July 29, 2011, By Eliot Caroom/The Star-Ledger Pumps that cool water as it leaves the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant shut down yesterday evening, causing a rise in water temperature and a fish kill in a canal, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said today.

Electricity stopped due to a problem with the Jersey Central Power & Light grid, and the pumps shut down at 8:05 p.m., the a spokesman for the NRC said.

“Oyster Creek reduced reactor power to control discharge water temperatures, but a fish kill was subsequently identified in the canal,” said spokesman Neil Sheehan in an email.  Exelon said in a statement that 300 fish were lost due to the temperature rise…..Oyster Creek nuclear plant pump shuts down, resulting in fish kill | NJ.com

July 30, 2011 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

The radiation danger in seafoods

even at those low quantities the radioactive elements may pose a danger when concentrated in seafood,…..fish have been known to accumulate as much as 100 times the amount of pollutants in the environment,

Japan Scientists Say Sea Radiation Tests May Miss Seafood Threat, SF Gate,July 26 (Bloomberg) –– Japan’s government has to release more data from ocean radiation tests to accurately assess the contamination threat to seafood, according to a statement by the Oceanographic Society of Japan. Continue reading →

July 28, 2011 Posted by | Japan, oceans | 1 Comment

High radiation levels 150 km from Fukushima nuclear plant

High levels of radioactivity found extensively, NHK World, 21 July 11, Japan’s science ministry says air above the ground about 150 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is as radioactive as areas 50 kilometers from the source of radioactivity.

The ministry on Wednesday released a map showing radiation levels at locations one meter above the ground in Miyagi Prefecture, north of Fukushima, based on the results of an aerial survey from June 22nd through 30th.
Radioactivity levels are highlighted in different colors.Some parts of Kurihara City, about 150 kilometers north of the plant are light blue, indicating that the air there was 0.2 to 0.5 microsieverts per hour.

That’s similar to areas close to the crippled plant, such as Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture, about 50 kilometers from the radioactive source.

July 21, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan | 1 Comment

Continued radioactive contamination of beef from Northern Japan

Japanese beef contamination widens, The Age, 16 July 11, MORE beef from cattle in Japan that ate straw tainted by radiation has found its way into the food supply, deepening concern about the safety of meat as the country struggles to contain the spread of the contamination.

Cattle at the farm in Asakawa, about 60 kilometres from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear station, were fed with rice straw containing 97,000 becquerels of caesium per kilogram, compared with the government standard of 300 becquerels, said Hidenori Ohtani at the livestock division of the Fukushima prefectural government.

The farm shipped 42 cattle in the past three months to slaughterhouses in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Miyagi prefectures, which were processed into meat and sold to distributors, he said.

The discovery comes a week after the Tokyo metropolitan government said it detected beef tainted by radiation for the first time, underlining the severity of contamination caused by the stricken station in Fukushima, site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Japan’s government might restrict beef shipments from all of Fukushima prefecture after the finding, Kyodo News has reported…..
http://www.theage.com.au/world/japanese-beef-contamination-widens-20110715-1hhye.html

 

July 16, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011, environment, Japan | Leave a comment

Safecast – citizen scientists monitor Japan’s radiation levels

Safecast took its first reading on April 16. Today, it has about 50 regular volunteers who collect data from their homes or while driving, build devices or assist in other ways. Those using vehicles equipped with Geiger counters cover an area that Franken estimates to be about 620 miles long by 185 miles wide. To date, they’ve collected 251,000 data points from their drives and fixed reporting stations, and have received about 60,000 more from other sources, including people with their own Geiger counters.

Japan’s citizen scientists map radiation, DIY-style, World Blog, By Miranda Leitsinger, Senior Writer and Editor, msnbc.com  13 July 11, With the Japanese government only providing spotty information about the radiation leaking from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in the early days after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a group of tech-minded citizen scientists set out to fill in the “black holes” in the knowledge base. Continue reading →

July 13, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan, technology | 2 Comments

USA’s Aerial Radiological Survey – testing radiation levels in the atmosphere

Now You Know: That Thing in the Sky is Testing for Radiation, Seattlest 13 July 11  If you’ve recently spied a startlingly low-flying beast in the sky, don’t worry–it’s not Google trying to get a more recent photo of your back yard, and it’s not a search party looking for bad guys in your neighborhood. It’s just trying to get a read on how much radiation you might exposed to.

Yesterday, the Washington State Department of Health launched the Aerial Radiological Survey for King and Piece Counties. The survey, which is being conducted by a helicopter that flies in a grid pattern at about 300 feet above the ground, will last until July 28. It is being funded by the Department of Homeland Security, and can “detect the presence of radioactive materials that emit gamma radiation such as cesium and radioactive iodine.” The goal of the project is to establish a radiation baseline–that is, how much radiation each area is exposed to right now, in a time of normal levels.

The project, says the DOH, has been in the works since 2009. But, we imagine, since the Fukushima nuclear disaster across the pond in Japan, the information being gathered is more critical than they could have predicted. Having a baseline for what is “normal” will be massively helpful in the future, when determining what is dangerous, and what is abnormal….http://seattlest.com/2011/07/12/now_you_know_that_thing_in_the_sky.php

— 

July 13, 2011 Posted by | environment, technology, USA | 1 Comment

Wildfires in Nevada nuclear bomb test areas

Lightning sparked blazes at nuclear test areas, BY TREVON MILLIARD, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL,  Jul. 9, 2011, Wildland firefighters battled more than just the usual Nevada brush blaze this week. They had to contend with the possibility of radiation.

Lightning sparked two fires Tuesday within the Nevada National Security Site, the former nuclear test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. By Friday, the fires had consumed more than 6,000 acres, with the smaller blaze fully contained and the larger only 25 percent contained.

Crews have not only been watching winds and weather, but are monitoring radiation levels in the air, making certain the flames don’t stir up remnants of decades-old detonations. One of the fires is “several miles” from the location of an above-ground test, a safe distance according to Dante Pistone, a spokesman at the test site’s operations center…….

From 1951 until 1992, there were 928 nuclear tests involving 1,021 detonations at the test site. Of these, 100 were above ground and could be affected by disturbances such as wildfires…….http://www.lvrj.com/news/lightning-sparked-blazes-at-nuclear-test-areas-125260084.html?ref=084—

July 9, 2011 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Uranium mining gets an unlikely enemy, American hunters!

Elk, not uranium, Salt Lake Tribune, John Pollard Co-chair, Utah Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, 7 July  Sportsmen from Utah and across the American West know about the prized elk hunting near the Grand Canyon. Field and Stream magazine named its “monster elk” among the nation’s top hunts on public lands.

These elk, and our hunting and fishing heritage, survive thanks to volunteer labor, an uncontaminated water supply and public access. Now we can add to that list Ken Salazar. The secretary of the Interior has signaled his intention to halt new uranium mining on these public lands near the Grand Canyon for another 20 years.

Let’s hope that is the case. Uranium can be found elsewhere; the “monster elk” cannot, http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/52146664-82/elk-public-uranium-canyon.html.csp

—

July 9, 2011 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

More radiation problems predicted for Japan

Specifically, Mr. Kosako said the government set a relatively high ceiling for acceptable radiation in school yards, so that only 17 schools exceeded that limit. If the government had set the lower ceiling he had advocated, thousands of schools would have required a full cleanup. With Mr. Kan’s ruling party struggling to gain parliamentary approval for a special budget, the costlier option didn’t get traction, he said.

“When taking these steps, the only concern for the current government is prolonging its own life,” Mr. Kosako said……

He said he is especially concerned with contamination of the ocean by the large amounts radioactive material from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors dumped into surrounding waters.

Radiation Expert Predicts More Threats, WSJ By YUKA HAYASHI, 2 July 11, Tokyo

In his first media interview since resigning his post in protest in April, Toshiso Kosako, one of the country’s leading experts on radiation safety, said Mr. Kan’s government has been slow to test for dangers in the sea and to fish, and has understated certain radiation threats to minimize clean-up costs. In his post, Mr. Kosako’s role was to advise the prime minister on radiation safety.

And while there have been scattered reports of food contamination—of tea leaves and spinach, for example—Mr. Kosako predicted there will be broader discoveries later this year, especially as rice, Japan’s staple, is harvested. Continue reading →

July 2, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a comment

Radioactive tritium leaking from 75% of USA’s nuclear plants

 

 

The leaks sometimes go undiscovered for years, the AP found. Many of the pipes or tanks have been patched, and contaminated soil and water have been removed in some places. But leaks are often discovered later from other nearby piping, tanks or vaults. Mistakes and defective material have contributed to some leaks. However, corrosion – from decades of use and deterioration – is the main cause. And, safety engineers say, the rash of leaks suggest nuclear operators are hard put to maintain the decades-old systems.

Nearly 50 US Nuclear Power Plants Are Leaking Tritium, Somewhere around 75 per cent of US nuclear power plants have been found leaking the radioactive element Tritium into the ground to various extents. Corroded piping buried underground seems to be the main problem, and a problem that can affect groundwater if ignored., GIZMODO y Adrian Covert on June 22, 2011  Continue reading →

June 22, 2011 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Oceans give a warning of the planet’s ecology in danger

These symptoms, moreover, could be the harbinger of wider disruptions in the interlocking web of biological and chemical interactions that scientists now call the Earth system….

 we are also probably the last generation that has enough time to deal with the problems,

Oceans in distress, mass extinctions. The Age, Marlowe Hood ,  June 21, 2011 Pollution and global warming are pushing the world’s oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years, a consortium of scientists warn.

Dying coral reefs, biodiversity ravaged by invasive species, expanding open-water “dead zones,” toxic algae blooms, the massive depletion of big fish stocks — all are accellerating, they said on Monday in a report compiled during an April meeting in Oxford of 27 of the world’s top ocean experts. Continue reading →

June 21, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, oceans | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »