Cree Nation stand against uranium mining in Quebec
many concerned groups and individuals are now joining the Crees in urging the Quebec government to conduct an independent and comprehensive assessment of the long-term environmental, social and ethical challenges presented by the uranium industry
When the mining is done and the profits have been taken, these tailings will be left behind in my people’s backyard, where we have lived for thousands of years, and where we hunt, fish and trap, raise our children and bury our dead.
It is indisputable that these uranium tailings will remain radioactive and highly toxic for hundreds of thousands of years.
The Cree Nation will not be intimidated or silenced
Quebec should support Cree moratorium on uranium mining http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Opinion+Quebec+should+support+Cree+moratorium+uranium+mining/7695600/story.html By Matthew Coon Come, Montreal Gazette December 13, 2012 This summer, my people, the James Bay Cree Nation, enacted a permanent moratorium on uranium exploration, mining, milling and waste emplacement in our territory on the east shore of James Bay, Eeyou Istchee. I was
mandated to take all necessary steps to ensure full recognition of our stand. Continue reading
How objective is the International Atomic Energy Agency? Regulatory capture?
The Anti-Lynas movement: Are we being unreasonable? – Jeyakumar Devaraj, The Malaysian Insider , 13 Dec 12 Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj is a PSM central committee member and MP for Sungai Siput.”……..The IAEA is fully behind the drive to build nuclear reactors. They say that these are safe. That we have the technology to ensure that nothing goes wrong. But we have had accidents inSellafield (UK), the Three Miles Reactor (USA), Chernobyl (USSR), and this was the worst until Fukushima (Japan) occurred! How safe are they really? But the IAEA is still all for Malaysia embarking on building 2 nuclear reactors – at a cost of more than RM 20 billion! How objective is the IAEA? Continue reading
Danville/Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce oppose uranium mining
Chamber of Commerce Takes Stance on Uranium Mining http://www.wset.com/story/20340605/danville Dec 13, 201 By Tola Adamson Danville, VA– The Danville/Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce has now taken their stance on uranium mining.
They released a statement on Tuesday saying they believe the moratorium on uranium mining and milling should not be lifted.Their decision came after the board of directors read studies and went to the public forums.
The Chamber said they did consider the possible economic benefits. However, the board said there are still unanswered questions about safety. They are also concerned it could negatively effect businesses.
“The Chamber is a pro-business, pro- economic development organization,” Chamber president Laurie Moran said. “We wanted to make sure we protected the jobs that were here as well as the future jobs that might come here.” In the statement the Chamber also said they
oppose the development of a uranium permitting program and anything that would help end the ban.
Global uranium mining industry is in a dismal state
Uranium miners still struggling to emerge from shadow of Fukushima Canada.com. BY PETER KOVEN, FINANCIAL POST DECEMBER 12, 2012 Following the Fukushima nuclear facility disaster in March 2011, uranium miners were quick to rationalize that the fundamentals of their business were unlikely to change and the world still needed more nuclear power.
They were wrong, to put it kindly.
The recovery in Japan has been slower than we expected More than 21 months after Fukushima, the uranium business is still stuck in a rut. Uranium’s spot price has plummeted to nearly US$40 a pound (compared to a high topping US$135 in 2007), and there has been minimal activity in the spot market. Utilities are well-supplied with uranium for the foreseeable future, and, thanks to Fukushima, the outlook for demand growth is not nearly as healthy as it was a couple of years ago Now the question on everyone’s mind is whether things will finally start to turn around in 2013? Continue reading
Nuclear weapons proliferation risk from Thorium reactors
just 1.6 tonnes of thorium metal would be enough to produce 8kg of uranium-233 which is the minimum amount required for a nuclear weapon.
”Small-scale chemical reprocessing of irradiated thorium can create an isotope of uranium – uranium-233 – that could be used in nuclear weapons. If nothing else, this raises a serious proliferation concern.”
Thorium: Proliferation warnings on nuclear ‘wonder-fuel’ , Phys Org, December 5, 2012Thorium is being touted as an ideal fuel for a new generation of nuclear power plants, but in a piece in this week’s Nature, researchers suggest it may not be as benign as portrayed.
The element thorium, which many regard as a potential nuclear “wonder-fuel”, could be a greater proliferation threat than previously thought, scientists have warned. Continue reading
USA’s abandoned uranium mines – need for federal funded cleanup
Congressmen press uranium mine cleanups http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/congressmen-press-uranium-mine-cleanups 06 Dec 2012, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Two members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are pushing for a House vote on legislation that would free up federal funding to clean up abandoned uranium mines.
U.S. Reps. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., and Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., say House
approval is needed to get the bill to the president’s desk. Pearce and
Lujan spelled out their request in a letter to House leaders on
Wednesday.
The legislation was introduced by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. The
Senate has already voted unanimously in favor of the bill.
Under the Abandoned Mine Land program, the federal government collects
revenue from coal companies to fund abandoned mine cleanup. Each state receives a share of the money, but the program currently restricts the
ability of states to use the money for cleaning up
Let’s bust the nuclear spin about Thorium
THORIUM REACTORS? http://fairewinds.org/demystifying, 8 Dec 12 by Peggy Conte
The latest nuclear power industry proposals focus on smaller reactors and the possibility of thorium fueled reactors. As the nuclear industry explores other fission products, Fairewinds Energy Education has been peppered with hundreds of questions regarding the feasibility and safety of thorium reactors that the nuclear industry is touting as a newer safer form of nuclear power.
The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is being sold as a “market based environmental solution” and advertised by the nuclear industry as cheaper than coal. Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) use a molten salt mixture as the primary coolant, and sometimes the molten salt is even mixed directly with thorium in the reactor fuel.
Since Fairewinds has received so many questions regarding Thorium Reactors, let’s look at the facts about Thorium: Continue reading
Church rock uranium radiation disaster – never ending tragedy
The Curse of the Yellow Powder, Bacon’s Rebellion, by Rose Jenkins December 2, 2012 Is it possible to restore a landscape damaged by uranium? Ask the Navajo in New Mexico.
This fall, near Teddy Nez’s house on the Navajo reservation near Gallup, N.M., men in earth-moving equipment were scraping away the topsoil, up to three feet deep, which had been contaminated by radioactivity from abandoned uranium mines. In earlier phases of this project, starting in 2007, crews had torn out 100-year-old junipers and piñon pines and had clawed earth away from the remainingtrees, which weakened them, even after replacement soil was trucked in. The machines had flayed hillsides, whose cover of flowering shrubs and fragrant herbs has yet to grow back. “It looks like a B-52 hit it,” Nez told me, recalling an image from his service in Vietnam.
On our way to his house, Nez pointed out a notch in a bank of yellow grassland at the head of an arroyo. That’s where the Church Rock uranium mill tailings dam broke in 1979, releasing over 1,000 tons of radioactive wastes and millions of gallons of highly acidic water into the Puerco River, an intermittent stream that flows toward the Colorado River. The Church Rock dam failure was the largest radioactive release in U.S. history, by volume — larger than the Three Mile Island disaster the same year.
Nez’s house was upstream of the breached dam but the ground around it was contaminated by dust drifting off of the mountainous piles of waste rock from two nearby uranium mines, which have been out of production for almost 30 years. Nez believes that the continuous exposure has made him and his family sick. His whole family suffers from respiratory problems, he says — himself, his five children, and his seven grandchildren.
For years, he and his neighbors fought for a clean-up, he says, but nothing happened. Finally, in 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) informed them that their situation was an emergency. Radiation levels at Nez’s home measured up to ten times higher than normal background levels for the area……
what I saw in Navajo country made me wonder how much you can really clean up after uranium, if contaminants get into the soil, the water, the air, the plants, the animals……http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/12/the-curse-of-the-yellow-powder.html
Cameco and AREVA ‘s deal with indigenous people, to silence criticism of uranium mining
The agreement would prohibit Pinehouse from criticizing the companies now or in the future, a measure that amounts to an indefinite “gag order”
- Pinehouse promises to “fully support” Cameco and Areva’s current, proposed and future projects in public, to investors, to regulators and with other groups. Pine-house leaders must make reasonable efforts to ensure community members “do not say or do anything that interferes with or delays” the companies’ operations.
- Pinehouse agrees to not make any future financial requests or claims against the companies.
Uranium firms offer deal to Sask. community Agreement sparks opposition By Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix November 27, 2012 An offer by uranium giants Cameco Corp. and Areva could soon deliver jobs, cash payments and other benefits to the northern community of Pinehouse, but some residents worry it’s a thinly veiled attempt to buy their silence. Continue reading
What uranium mining and milling have done to Navajo lands
The Curse of the Yellow Powder, Bacon’s Rebellion, by Rose Jenkins December 2, 2012 Is it possible to restore a landscape damaged by uranium? Ask the Navajo in New Mexico. “……There are 520 abandoned uranium mines in the Navajo Nation. Navajo territory extends over 27,000 square miles in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. In this sparsely populated desert, approximately 30% of the population is not connected to a public water supply, so people drink from the sources available, including springs and private wells.
Out of approximately 375 Navajo water sources tested by various agencies, according to data compiled by SRIC, more than a quarter contain excess levels of contaminants that could derive from uranium operations — including arsenic in 17% and uranium in 10%.
In response, the EPA shut down three of the most contaminated sources. The agency is also working with local partners, including SRIC,to publicize warnings about hazardous water sources and to provide safe drinking water for thousands of homes. That addresses people’s immediate needs, but it doesn’t resolve the underlying problem — the polluted groundwater.
I asked the EPA if there was any chance the groundwater could ever be treated enough to be safe to drink.
“Our first goal is to make sure people are not being exposed to contaminated groundwater,” Rusty Harris-Bishop, an EPA spokesperson, told me………
In Yellow Dirt, journalist Judy Pasternak describes how thoroughly the leavings of uranium operations infiltrated Navajo people’s lives. Pregnant women drank water from lakes left by pit mines. Families built foundations and stucco walls out of the sandy mine wastes. Children played on tailings piles. Livestock grazed around the mouths of unreclaimed mines (and still do, according to a recentNew York Times article). Pasternak chronicles case after case of lung cancer, stomach cancer, children with deformities — death after death.
The Navajo decided that they have reason enough to be done with uranium extraction, at least while so many problems remain. In 2005, the tribe passed the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act, banning uranium mining and milling on their lands. The act states as its purpose: “to ensure that no further damage to the culture, society and economy of the Navajo Nation occurs because of uranium mining… [and] processing, until all adverse environmental, economic and human health impacts from past uranium mining and processing have been eliminated or substantially reduced.”……” http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/12/the-curse-of-the-yellow-powder.html
The cost of cleaning up after uranium mining and milling
The Curse of the Yellow Powder, Bacon’s Rebellion, by Rose Jenkins December 2, 2012 Is it possible to restore a landscape damaged by uranium? Ask the Navajo in New Mexico. “…….The Navajo Nation was the fourth uranium clean-up site I visited in the West.
In Cañon City, Colo., where a uranium mill shut down last year, the state of Colorado has estimated that a clean-up will cost $43 million, but it allowed the Cotter Corporation, which is responsible, to put up less than half of that amount in surety bonds, according to the Denver Post. Unless plans change, groundwater below the site will stay contaminated, leaving many private wells unusable.
Elsewhere in Colorado, the clean-up of uranium mills after the companies went bankrupt has cost taxpayers $950 million, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. At one of these sites, in Uravan, Colo., both the mill and the town around it were dismantled, buried, and permanently fenced off. That clean-up, or eradication, cost taxpayers $120 million.
The Atlas Mill, in Moab, Utah, which closed in 1984, is one of a few sites where tailings are being relocated, because contamination from them was leaching into the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for Los Angeles and other cities. A suitable repository was located just 30 miles away—but the clean-up will still cost taxpayers a solid $1 billion…….” http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/12/the-curse-of-the-yellow-powder.html
Lynas to meet more opposition to rare earths processing in Malaysia
They will continue to pursue the judicial review cases to get the court to revoke the temporary licence given to Lynas on the grounds that Lynas still has no safe solution to tackle their radioactive waste,’
Lynas plant on line, protests to continue, SMH December 1, 2012 Glenda Kwek A MALAYSIAN environment group says it plans to continue campaigning for the closure of Lynas’ controversial rare-earths processing plant, as the Australian miner announced it had started production. Continue reading
Uranium mining a threat to agriculture in Virginia
Farm lobby wants Virginia uranium ban to stay, PilotOnline.com By Steve Szkotak The Associated Press November 29, 2012 RICHMOND The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation is backing the continuation of the state’s 30-year ban on uranium mining, concluding that the mining and milling of the radioactive ore is a threat to Virginia’s multibillion dollar agricultural industry. Continue reading
Depleted uranium’s radioactive dust – the forgotten pollutant
The problem is, when DU armor piercing projectiles penetrate their targets, they become incendiary spewing radioactive dust
The Toxic Legacy of Depleted Uranium Weapons 11-26-2012, EcoWatch, By Paul E McGinniss “……… how many of us know about the current manufacturing and active use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons? DU (Uranium 238) is a radioactive waste by-product of the uranium enrichment process. It results from making fuel for nuclear reactors and the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.
In a frightening adaptation of the “Cradle to Cradle” philosophy in manufacturing, which seeks to use waste in the manufacturing process to create other “useful” products, militaries around the world have come up with the “brilliant” idea of taking DU and making “conventional” weapons with it.
According to BanDepletedUranium.org, approximately 20 countries are thought to have DU weapons in their arsenals. Nations known to have produced these weapons include UK, U.S., France, Russia, China and Pakistan.
DU is well liked by armed forces Continue reading
Call for General Electric to remove uranium processing facility from populated area
“The question is, is this the right kind of operation that should be in the middle of people’s backyards?”
Councillor asks uranium plant to shut down Facility on Lansdowne has been quietly processing nuclear fuel for decades Toronto NOW, 23 Nov 12 By BEN SPURR Amid mounting concerns from his west downtown community, a city councillor is asking controversial uranium plant on Lansdowne Ave. to pack up and move out of his ward.
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