The nation’s top stock market regulator is investigating SCANA Corp.’s failed nuclear construction project, piling onto the growing stack of legal challenges and criminal probes now dogging South Carolina’s largest company.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the stock market, has asked SCANA for documents tied to its effort to expand the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station north of Columbia. The company disclosed the investigation to its investors Tuesday.
Cayce-based SCANA, which owns South Carolina Electric & Gas, said the SEC’s subpoena was connected to “an investigation they are conducting relating to the new nuclear project.” The SEC declined to comment on the probe or its focus.
The state-owned power company Santee Cooper, meantime, hasn’t received a subpoena from the SEC, spokeswoman Mollie Gore said. Santee Cooper owned a minority stake in the project, which cost some $9 billion before it was abandoned in July.
The SEC inquiry is one of several investigations into the project, which was once heralded as the beginning of an American nuclear renaissance with a pair of new reactors in Fairfield County.
SCANA and Santee Cooper have already received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Columbia, and the State Law Enforcement Division has opened a criminal inquiry into potential fraud surrounding the project. The state Legislature has formed two panels looking into what went wrong……..
The plunge has inspired at least three shareholders to sue SCANA, accusing the company and its executives of breaking securities laws by hiding the project’s problems from investors. The allegations have focused in part on the so-called Bechtel report, a highly critical audit that questioned the reactors’ viability in 2016.
And while legal challenges have piled up for SCANA, the SEC has already been involved on the edges of the V.C. Summer project.
Recent news means we should change our perspective on nuclear weapons Independent UK , Robert Forsyth, 8 Oct 17Caroline Lucas spelled out on Saturday 7 October what the PM should now do about nuclear weapons. To which I would add that the PM’s first and immediate action should be to rescind her statement that she is prepared to carry out pre-emptive nuclear strikes.
Such an action, or even the threat of doing so, is in contravention of Nuremberg and Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and a 1996 ruling by the International Court of Justice and therefore places our Trident submarine commanding officers in an impossible position as to whether they should carry out such an order, bearing in mind they are not absolved of responsibility by the military chain of command. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/recent-news-means-we-should-change-our-perspective-on-nuclear-weapons-a7988846.html
5minutes 5th Oct 2017 [Machine Translation] Luxembourg and Austria filed a complaint against thebillions of euros of aid granted to the Hinkley Point C power plant.
OnThursday, the case will be examined before the Court of Justice of the
European Union. After years of negotiations, Britain and the French
electricity giant, EDF, finally signed a contract a year ago for the
construction of the power plant. A Chinese company is also participating in
the billions project.
The project is controversial because of the public
subsidies of billions granted to the project. It is for this reason that
Luxembourg and Austria filed a complaint before the Court of Justice of the
European Union: this form of state aid would undermine the rules of
competitiveness.
Thursday is the first hearing on this issue. The experts
believe that a judgment at first instance is not to wait for two months. As
for the final decision on the question of the subsidy principle for nuclear
power plants, it should be made no later than early 2019. http://5minutes.rtl.lu/monde/europe/1082666.html
New nuclear lawsuit goes after SCANA officials’ bonuses, The State, BY JOHN MONK jmonk@thestate.com, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 A new lawsuit filed this week in state court by a SCANA stockholder names 12 top SCANA officials and seeks to recover more than $21 million in bonuses top executives got during the 10 years that a now-failed nuclear project was under construction.
This is the first of some half-dozen lawsuits filed against SCANA to date that names individual top SCANA executives and board members as defendants. It seeks to hold them individually responsible for “willfully violating their fiduciary duties,” or failing to act in the best financial interests of the company.
The lawsuit is also the first of the lawsuits filed by a stockholder. The others have been filed by SCANA customers, ratepayers who allege their monthly bills were unlawfully inflated by the company to pay for the bungled nuclear project.
“While driving SCANA to the brink of financial disaster, the Board (of directors) simultaneously rewarded SCANA executives with millions of dollars of bonus compensation, based upon their performance related to the (nuclear) project and other short-term performance metrics …,” the lawsuit alleges.
Three top SCANA officials – CEO Kevin Marsh, executive vice president Jimmy Addison, and executive vice president Steven Byrne – “totally failed to perform their duties owed to the company and its shareholders,” the lawsuit said……….
DEFENDANTS
Defendants in the lawsuit are:
▪ Kevin Marsh, SCANA board chair and CEO since 2011. He also served as president of SCANA’s principal subsidiary, SCE&G, from 2006-11.
▪ Gregory Afliff, a SCANA director since 2015. Afliff, a Virginia resident, is a certified public accountant.
▪ James Bennett, a SCANA director since 1997. Bennett, a Richland County resident, is chair of the board’s compensation committee, and an area executive for First Citizens Bank & Trust.
▪ John Cecil, SCANA director since 2003, a former president of Biltmore Farms and a North Carolina resident.
▪ Sharon Decker, SCANA director from 2005-13 and from 2015 to the present who serves on the nuclear oversight and compensations committees. A North Carolina resident, she is chief operating officer of Tryon Equestrian Partners.
▪ Maybank Hagood, SCANA director since 1999. A Charleston County resident, he is head of Southern Diversified Distributors.
▪ Lynn Miller, a SCANA director since 1997. A resident of Virginia, she is an environmental consultant.
▪ James Roquemore, a SCANA director since 2007. He is chair of the board’s nuclear oversight committee and sits on the compensation committee. An Orangeburg County resident, he is general manager of a company that produces and markets turf grass and sod.
▪ Maceo Sloan, a SCANA director since 1997. He is a member of the compensation and nuclear oversight committees. A North Carolina resident, he is president of a financial holding company in Durham.
▪ Alfredo Trujillo, a SCANA director since 2013. A member of the nuclear oversight committee, Trujillo is an investment advisor and president of the Georgia Tech Foundation.
▪ Jimmy Addison, SCANA executive vice president and SCE&G president. A Lexington County resident, he is responsible for nuclear financing.
Scana Says S.C. Is Seeking Criminal Probe of Nuclear Project, Bloomberg, By Jim Polson and Mark Chediak, 26 September 2017,
Cost recovery for project ‘constitutionally suspect;’ A.G.
Utility owner intends to cooperate with all government probes
South Carolina’s attorney general called for a criminal probe into Scana Corp.’s handling of the canceled V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project, adding that it may not be entitled to charge customers for the plant.
Attorney General Alan Wilson was joined by state legislators in calling on the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to open a probe, Scana said Tuesday in a filing. Separately, Wilson questioned the state law that allows utilities to recover the costs of unfinished or abandoned power plants. Scana said it will fully cooperate “with any potential government investigation.”…..https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-26/scana-says-s-c-is-seeking-criminal-probe-of-nuclear-project
It is the second time a court has ruled against Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. in a suit filed by residents forced to abandon their homes when three reactor cores melted following the deadly 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out their cooling systems.
The triple meltdown spewed massive amounts of radioactive material into the air.
The Chiba District Court awarded ¥376 million to 42 of the 45 plaintiffs who fled Fukushima Prefecture for Chiba Prefecture and filed the suit in March 2013, seeking around ¥2.8 billion in damages from the government and Tepco.
The focal point of the Chiba case was whether the government and Tepco were able to foresee the huge tsunami that hit the seaside plant on March 11, 2011, and take preventive measures beforehand. Conflicting claims were made by the parties regarding the government’s long-term earthquake assessment, which was made public in 2002.
The assessment, made by the earthquake research promotion unit, predicted a 20 percent chance of a magnitude 8 earthquake occurring along the Japan Trench in the Pacific Ocean, including the area off Fukushima, within 30 years.
Based on the assessment, the plaintiffs argued that, with the plant standing on ground roughly 10 meters above sea level, a tsunami higher than that level striking the plant could have been predicted.
They claimed the disaster was therefore preventable by placing emergency generators on higher ground, and that the government should have made Tepco take such measures by exercising its regulatory powers.
The government and Tepco, for their part, claimed the assessment was not established knowledge, and that even if they had foreseen a tsunami higher than the elevation of the plant and taken measures against it, they cannot be held liable as the actual tsunami was much higher, at around 15.5 meters.
The government also argued that it obtained regulatory powers to force Tepco to take anti-flooding measures only after a legislative change following the disaster.
In Friday’s ruling, the court found the state not liable, saying that while the government indeed has such powers, not exercising them was not too unreasonable.
The Chiba case is among around 30 similar lawsuits brought by groups of people forced to evacuate by the nuclear disaster.
In March, the Maebashi District Court in Gunma recognized negligence on the part of not just Tepco, but also the government, saying they were able to foresee a tsunami high enough to inundate the plant.
At the time, it was the first such ruling issued among around 30 similar suits and the first to rule in favor of plaintiffs.
The Maebashi court acknowledged the state had regulatory authority over Tepco even before 3/11, noting that “failing to exercise it is strikingly irrational and illegal.”
But because the court awarded to 62 of 137 plaintiffs a total of ¥38.55 million in damages — far less than the ¥1.5 billion sought in total — many of the plaintiffs have appealed the district court decision.
In the Chiba suit, the 45 plaintiffs, including four who evacuated voluntarily, sought ¥20 million each in compensation for their evacuations and the loss of their hometowns, jobs and personal relationships because their lives were uprooted.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, causing multiple meltdowns and hydrogen blasts at the nuclear plant.
As of the end of August 2017, around 55,000 people who lived in Fukushima Prefecture at the time of the disaster remained at the locations where they evacuated, both within and outside the prefecture.
Whistleblower helps secure $2 million settlement over contract rigging at Hanford,Thomas Clouse , The Spokesman Review, Sept. 22, 2017 A whistleblower has been paid $470,000 out of a $2 million settlement after successfully challenging what she and government prosecutors say was a shell company at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The subcontractor charged with setting up the shell company, Federal Engineers & Constructors, worked under the huge, three-headed joint venture Washington Closure Hanford (WCH), which between 2005 and 2016 received a multibillion-dollar contract from the U.S. Department of Energy to operate the site. The contract paid for cleanup following decades of plutonium production.
WCH was comprised of engineering powerhouses AECOM, Bechtel National and CH2M Hill, which were required as part of the contract to funnel a percentage of those funds to small, disadvantaged and women-owned businesses.
In 2009, Federal Engineers & Constructors awarded a $2 million contract to Sage Tec. Sage Tec, however, was owned by Laura Shikashio – the wife of former company vice president Larry Burdge. “Ms. Shikashio knowingly misrepresented Sage Tec to be a qualified disadvantaged small business in order to be eligible for” the contract, court records state.
Federal prosecutors wrote that Sage Tec should not have received the contract and instead “was a pass-through front company for FE&C, which performed substantially all of the work on WCH’s improperly awarded subcontracts,” court records state………
A conservative-leaning court just issued a surprise ruling on climate change and coal mining
In a rebuke to Trump, the federal court said greenhouse gas emissions need to be considered in lease approvals. Vox by Umair IrfanLate last week, a federal court knocked down plans to expand coal mining in the Western US, adding to a growing body of rulings against the Trump administration’s efforts to push climate change off the agenda.
The surprising decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which has jurisdiction in Colorado, Kansas, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, told the Bureau of Land Management to redo its math on greenhouse gas emissions from coal leases and sent the approval of these leases back to a lower court.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, federal agencies have to consider how a given proposal both affects climate change and is affected by climate change.
The 10th Circuit is the highest court to rule on climate change accounting so far, and its opinion undercuts President Donald Trump’s efforts to resuscitate the dying US coal industry.
“It’s reaffirming what a lot of people already knew: Government has to take a hard look at what their environmental impacts are,” said Sam Kalen, a law professor at the University of Wyoming. “Cases like this are sending signal that regardless of what the administration wants to do, the law says you have to take a look at these issues.”
In March, President Trump lifted President Barack Obama’s moratorium on coal leasing and stopped a comprehensive review of federal coal policy, with the goal of spurring more coal mining.
At issue are four proposed leases in the Powder River Basin, a 14-million-acre region spanning Wyoming and Montana containing 40 percent of US coal deposits and responsible for 13 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Sierra Club, one of the groups joining the lawsuit against BLM………
This is of particular interest to Australia. The Australian government touts Finland as the great model for acceptance of nuclear waste dump. But in fact, the model adopted by Finland, (by a poorly informed public) was taken from the one refused by Sweden – where a much more informed community used a much more democratic process to study the waste dump issue. See “When haste makes risky waste: Public involvement in radioactive and nuclear waste management in Sweden and Finland” http://bellona.org/…/radioactive-waste…/2016-08-21710
The Environmental Court’s main licensing hearing about a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark – September 5 to October 27http://www.mkg.se/en/the-environmental-court-s-main-licensing-hearing-about-a-final-repository-for-spent-nuclear-fuel-in#.WbJtaWAl7II.facebookThe Environmental Court’s main hearing concerning the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company SKB’s license application for a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark, Sweden, began September 5, at Quality Hotel Nacka in Stockholm. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, SSNC, and the Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review, MKG, are working together during the main hearing. Follow and get updates during and after the main hearing from the Twitter account of the director of MKG, Johan Swahn, and MKG’s Facebook.
On September 5, the Environmental Court’s main hearing concerning the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company SKB’s license application for a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark, Sweden, began at Quality Hotel Nacka in Stockholm. The main hearing will be in progress for five weeks, between September 5 and October 27. The first two weeks take place in Stockholm. Then, there will be a break for two weeks. The third week will take place in Oskarhamn (were the interim storage Clab is located and were the Waste Company wants to build an encapsulation facility, Clink) and the fourth week will take place in Östhammar (nearby the selected site for the final repository). After another break for one week, the main hearing will be concluded in Stockholm.
The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, SSNC, and the Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review, MKG, are working together during the main hearing. The organisations will bring their statements, which fundamentally are:
The chosen solution for a final repository will not be safe since there is a large risk of the malfunction of the barrier system of copper and clay – the licence application should be denied or rejected!
There is a large risk that the copper canisters will break down within 1 000 years – a possible scenario is that it might be a contaminated, uninhabitable, forbidden zone in Forsmark!
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, SSM, is aware of the large problems with the license application, but still wants to give an OK to continue towards a Government decision and afterwards ensure that the copper canister will function as intended – this is unaccepted and legal questionable!
There is an alternative method, the use of very deep boreholes – that might be environmentally safer, entails less risks for human intrusion, and is most likely a less expensive solution for final disposal!
The nature existing on the suggested site in Forsmark is of high value (there is a number of red-listed species and species protected by the Habitats Directive’s appendix 4) – this, in itself, constitutes a reason to reject the license application!
Follow and get updates during and after the main hearing at the director of MKG’s Twitter (@jswahn) and at MKG:s Facebook (mostly written in Swedish but can be translated directly on the website).
Bradly Keck, who was assistant director of health physics at IU Health in Indianapolis, is alleging job discrimination in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana.
He has named IUPUI and the Indiana University Board of Trustees in his filing.
According to his lawsuit, there was a highly radioactive nuclear spill on Jan. 11. Keck blames two female technicians, one a student and the other an employee, for contaminating the lab.
Keck and another co-worker began assisting the co-worker performing cleanup. Keck addressed the contamination of the technicians by scanning them with a meter and found them contaminated with radioactive isotopes.
He ordered them to go to a women’s locker room, remove their clothes and shower individually.
He claims that failure to remove the contamination could have resulted in serious health risks. Each showered between two and four times.
Keck again ran the meter over contaminated areas of their skin. He told them to go back into the shower where he washed their calves to remove any remaining contamination, he says.
He provided them with clean lab scrubs.His lawsuit alleges that the women thanked him as did his supervisor. He alleges that the director of environment health and safety said, “That’s emergency response. You trade a little nudity for safety.”
However, he was suspended pending an investigation. On Jan. 25, he notified the university that he was alleging sex discrimination. He was fired Jan. 31.
Keck is asking that he be reinstated to his job and be paid compensatory damages.
Indiana University has not responded to the lawsuit.
Tepco faces another $5bn US suit over Fukushima nuclear disaster, Business Live, 24 AUGUST 2017 – 14:54 AGENCY STAFF TOKYO —Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) said on Thursday it faces another US lawsuit over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, with the latest one demanding at least $5bn in compensation.
A total of 157 US residents who were supporting Fukushima victims at the time filed the class action suit in a California district court earlier this month against the utility and a US company…….
The plaintiffs, who joined aid efforts along with US troops shortly after the disaster, claim they were exposed to radiation because of the improper design, construction and maintenance of the plant.
They were seeking $5bn to cover the cost of medical tests and treatment needed to recover from the disaster, Tepco said in a statement.
They are also demanding compensation for physical, mental and economic damage but no further details such as a sum of money or the identities of the claimants were available.
It was the second multi-plaintiff suit filed against the utility in a US court following one by more than 200 individuals in 2013.
Navy Families Sue Fukushima Operators for Wrongful Death, Courthouse News, BIANCA BRUNO August 22, 2017SAN DIEGO (CN)— Families of five Navy service members who died after responding to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown have sued Tokyo Electric Power Co., blaming the deaths on radiation illnesses contracted from the March 2011 disaster.
The families wish to join a lawsuit from 152 other members or survivors of members of the 7th Fleet who performed humanitarian response from March 11, 2011 until March 14, when the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier was moved away from Fukushima due to detection of nuclear radiation in the air and on helicopters returning to the ship.
The new plaintiffs want to join in the third amended complaint Cooper, et al. v. TEPCO, et al., originally filed in the same court in 2012. They say it is only recently that they discovered the extent of the injuries, real and/or expected, due to exposure to radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
The federal lawsuit was filed Friday and made available Monday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California. They sued General Electric in addition to Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO.
SAN DIEGO (CN) — Families of five Navy service members who died after responding to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown have sued Tokyo Electric Power Co., blaming the deaths on radiation illnesses contracted from the March 2011 disaster.
The families wish to join a lawsuit from 152 other members or survivors of members of the 7th Fleet who performed humanitarian response from March 11, 2011 until March 14, when the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier was moved away from Fukushima due to detection of nuclear radiation in the air and on helicopters returning to the ship.
The new plaintiffs want to join in the third amended complaint Cooper, et al. v. TEPCO, et al., originally filed in the same court in 2012. They say it is only recently that they discovered the extent of the injuries, real and/or expected, due to exposure to radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
The federal lawsuit was filed Friday and made available Monday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California. They sued General Electric in addition to Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO.
The Navy servicemen and -women want a $5 billion survivor fund for medical expenses.
They say General Electric designed defective the GE Boiling Water Reactors at Fukushima, which was run by TEPCO, Japan’s largest electric utility. The 7th Fleet’s Operation Tomodachi provided humanitarian relief after the tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster. The sailors say they will need medical monitoring for life, payment of medical bills, and health monitoring for their children, including for possible radiation-induced birth defects.
“These harms include, but are not limited to, the following: illnesses such as leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removals, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, thyroid illnesses, stomach ailments, birth defects, death, and a host of other complaints unusual in such young adults and victims,” the complaint states…….
The families say the prime minister of Japan has effectively admitted the negligence of TEPCO. “This negligence was underscored on December 12, 2013, by admission of the former Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, who was in office when the Fukushima disaster took place. It was at that time that he admitted, for the first time: ‘People think it was March 12th (2011) but the first meltdown occurred 5 hours after the earthquake.’
“Unaware of either the meltdown or any potentially harmful radioactive release, the U.S. Sailor First Responders arrived off the coast of Fukushima during the afternoon of March 12, 2011 in order to carry out their mission of providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami disaster. At no time did this mission include, nor expand into a response to a meltdown or a nuclear emergency at the FNPP. Rather, plaintiffs were carrying out their mission to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Japan by coming to their aid by delivering clean water, blankets, food, and other aspects of providing other humanitarian relief to the inhabitants of Fukushima Prefecture.”
The plaintiffs claim that though the nuclear meltdown was induced by a natural disaster, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission found in July 2012 that the meltdown was manmade because GE and TEPCO did not take adequate precautions for earthquakes and tsunamis.
BNEF 18th Aug 2017,In the basement of a three-story house in a leafy neighborhood in Tokyo,
about 40 lawyers crowded together, plotting against Japan’s massive
nuclear power industry. The host was 73-year-old Hiroyuki Kawai, one of
Japan’s most colorful litigators. The end game? To close all of the
country’s 42 reactors for good, a result that would be a major blow to
the future of atomic energy across the world.
For the staunch anti-nuclear activist, the risk of a meltdown outweighs the benefits of the relatively
clean source of power. Kawai is propelling the anti-nuclear movement
forward with a 22 trillion yen ($171 billion) shareholder lawsuit against
the company, among the largest in damages ever sought.
It’s been three weeks since the V. C. Summer nuclear plant shutdown and former workers are seeking legal action. A New York-based employment firm is responding and investigating. A federal law was violated and they’re using that as a their claim to get legal justice.
It’s called the WARN Act, which stands for Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification. It requires employers of more than 100 workers to provide 60 day advance notice of mass layoffs. In response, Attorney Jack Raisner and his partners filed lawsuits against both Westinghouse and SCANA at the beginning of August.
At this point, complaints have been filed and the Outten and Golden firm is waiting for an answer. Attorney Raisner says they can’t guarantee an outcome but they feel confident something will come out of the case. If the plaintiffs win, all employees will receive up to eight weeks of lost pay, plus benefits. The process could take as little as a few months or up to several years.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved amendments to its requirements for medical uses of radioactive materials. A final rule, approved Aug. 17, modifies 10 CFR Part 35 and makes conforming changes to Parts 30 and 32. The rule will be published in the coming months in the Federal Register after the NRC staff makes certain revisions directed by the Commission.
The changes will amend the definition of medical events associated with permanent implant brachytherapy; update training and experience requirements for authorized users, medical physicists, radiation safety officers, and nuclear pharmacists; address a petition the NRC received seeking to recognize the qualifications of board certified physicists and radiation safety officers not specifically named on a license; change requirements for measuring molybdenum contamination and reporting generator tests that exceed allowed concentration levels; allow associate radiation safety officers to be named on a medical license; and make several minor clarifications.
While implementing the current regulations, NRC staff, stakeholders, and NRC’s Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes identified the need for the revisions. A proposed rule appeared in the July 21, 2014, Federal Register for 120 days of public comment. The final rule takes those comments into consideration and provides responses to them.
nuclear-news 