Plans to release nuclear wastewater into Hudson River delayed following outcry
Spectrum News, By John Camera Hudson Valley, Apr. 28, 2023
Manna Jo Greene, an Ulster County legislator and environmental director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, does not want to see the proposed release of nuclear wastewater from Indian Point into the Hudson River to go forward.
She says standards that deem the proposed discharge safe are outdated.
“And we’re also looking into whether or not this could impact communities that take their drinking water from the Hudson,” Greene said.
……………………………… For now, the release of about 300,000 gallons of nuclear wastewater has been slated for September, giving more time to determine the best path forward.
The next meeting from the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board will take place June 15. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/hudson-valley/news/2023/04/28/release-of-nuclear-wastewater-into-hudson-pushed-to-fall
What now for Germany’s remaining nuclear waste?
Jens Thurau, 24 Apr 23 https://www.dw.com/en/what-now-for-germanys-remaining-nuclear-waste/a-65420338
Germany has shut down its last nuclear power stations. But the issue isn’t going anywhere, as the country faces the question of what to do with its remaining nuclear waste.
Nuclear energy in Germany has been history since mid-April. At one time, up to 20 nuclear power plants fed electricity into the German grid. But all that is over now. The last three nuclear power plants ended their operations on April 15.
To Germany’s environment minister Steffi Lemke of the Green Party, the date marks a new dawn: “I think we should now put all our energy into pushing forward photovoltaics, wind power storage, energy saving, and energy efficiency, and stop these backward-looking debates,” she said in a recent radio interview.
April 15 also effectively ended a decades-long political dispute in Germany. In light of the tense situation on the energy market due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, there are still voices demanding that nuclear power be extended
The waste issue
And yet, the issue of nuclear energy will linger for Germany for some time yet, as the reactors still have to be dismantled, and the final disposal of the radioactive nuclear waste has not yet been clarified.
Like almost all other countries that have operated, or continue to operate nuclear power plants, Germany has yet to find a place to safely store the spent fuel. Currently, Germany’s nuclear waste is in interim storage at the sites of abandoned power plants, but the law requires that nuclear waste be safely stored in underground repositories for several millennia.
“The interim storage facilities are designed to last for quite some time,” Wolfram König, president of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal (BASE), told DW. “They are supposed to bridge the time until a final repository is available. … What we are looking for is geological depth, a suitable layer of salt, in granite or in clay rock, which will ensure that no radioactive substances reach the surface again for an indefinitely long period of time.”
Location, location, location
That’s a principle that Germany shares with all of the 30 or so countries that still operate, or have operated nuclear power plants in the past: Radioactive waste is to be disposed of underground. But where exactly? For a long time, Gorleben, located in the Wendland region of Lower Saxony, northeastern Germany, was the site most favored by politicians looking for an underground repository for nuclear waste.
But Gorleben became the location of fierce protests against nuclear energy, so politicians decided a few years ago to abandon the site. Now, the search is on throughout Germany, with more than 90 possible sites under consideration. “We can and must assume that the search process in Germany, with the construction of a final repository, will take approximately as long as we have used nuclear energy, namely 60 years,” König said.
Meanwhile, the dismantling of Germany’s 20 or so nuclear power plants that have been built will also take time. That, according to König, is the responsibility of their operators, who estimate it could take between 10 and 15 years.
A worldwide headache
So far, reactors have been shut down in Italy, Kazakhstan, and Lithuania, while other countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Belarus, are building new nuclear plants.
But the permanent, safe storage of radioactive waste is an unresolved issue everywhere.
Finland is furthest along in its planning. In a report by German public broadcaster ARD, Vesa Lakaniemi, administrative head in the municipality of Eurajoki, southern Finland, talked about the construction of the final storage facility for nuclear waste in his town: “Whoever profits from electricity must also take responsibility for the waste. And that’s how it is in Finland.” The estimated construction costs for the Eurajoki repository is €3.5 billion ($3.8 billion).
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there are currently 422 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide, with an average age of about 31 years. The recent “World Nuclear Industry Status Report” said that, despite a few countries building new nuclear power stations, there was no evidence of a “nuclear renaissance.” In 1996, some 17.5% of the world’s energy was produced in nuclear reactors — in 2021 it was below 10%. Nevertheless, the radioactive legacy will keep Germany preoccupied for many years to come.
The Human Dimension to Kazakhstan’s Plutonium Mountain
April 24, 2023, Sig Hecker https://nonproliferation.org/the-human-dimension-to-kazakhstans-plutonium-mountain/
The following is an excerpt from the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
As we drove deeper into the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, we found kilometer-long trenches that were clearly the work of professional thieves using industrial earth-moving equipment, rather than hand-dug trenches made by nomad copper-cable-searching amateurs on camelback. Our Kazakh hosts said they could do nothing to stop these operations. In fact, they weren’t sure they had a legal right to stop them from “prospecting” on the site.
It was the sight of these trenches that urged me to convince the three governments that they must cooperate to prevent the theft of nuclear materials and equipment left behind when the Soviets exited the test site in a hurry as their country collapsed.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, the most urgent threat to the rest of the world was no longer the immense nuclear arsenal in the hands of the Russian government but rather the possibility of its nuclear assets—weapons, materials, facilities, and experts—getting out of the hands of the government. As director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, I helped to initiate the US–Russia lab-to-lab nuclear cooperative program in 1992 to mitigate these nuclear threats.
The trilateral US–Russia–Kazakhstan cooperation began in 1999 to secure fissile materials that were left behind by the Soviets at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, which was now in the newly independent country of Kazakhstan. The project was kept in confidence until the presidents of the three countries announced it at the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit in 2012
In Doomed to Cooperate, individuals from the three countries recount their cooperative efforts at Semipalatinsk. Unlike the US–Kazakhstan projects initiated earlier on nuclear test tunnel closures, identifying experiments that left weapons-usable fissile materials (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) at the huge test site—whether in the field, in tunnels, or in containment vessels—required trilateral cooperation. The Russian scientists who conducted these experiments were the only ones who knew what was done and where. It required American nuclear scientists who conducted similar tests in the United States to assess how great a proliferation danger the fissile materials in their current state may constitute. And it required Kazakh scientists and engineers to take measures to remediate the dangers. The project also required the political support of all three countries and the financial support of the American government because it was the only one at the time with the financial means. That support came from the US Cooperative Threat Reduction (or Nunn-Lugar) program.
Continue reading at the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
Maori workers exposed to radiation in cleaning up USA’s failed nuclear reactor in Antarctica
Detour: Antarctica – Kiwis ‘exposed to radiation’ at Antarctic power plant, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/detour-antarctica-kiwis-exposed-to-radiation-at-antarctic-power-plant/NY5WTQ72JF4OFUW4F35ZSUCB6U/ 8 Jan, 2022 By Thomas Bywater, Thomas Bywater is a writer and digital producer for Herald Travel
In a major new Herald podcast series, Detour: Antarctica, Thomas Bywater goes in search of the white continent’s hidden stories. In this accompanying text series, he reveals a few of his discoveries to whet your appetite for the podcast. You can read them all, and experience a very special visual presentation, by clicking here. To follow Detour: Antarctica, visit iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Waitangi Tribunal will consider whether NZ Defence Force personnel were appropriately warned of potential exposure to radiation while working at a decommissioned nuclear reactor in Antarctica.
It’s among a raft of historic claims dating from 1860 to the present day before the Military Veterans Inquiry.
After an initial hearing in 2016, the Waitangi Tribunal last year admitted the Antarctic kaupapa to be considered alongside the other claims.
“It’s been a bloody long journey,” said solicitors Bennion Law, the Wellington firm representing the Antarctic claimants.
Between 1972 and the early 1980s, more than 300 tonnes of radioactive rubble was shipped off the continent via the seasonal resupply link.
Handled by US and New Zealand personnel without properly measuring potential exposure, the submission argues the Crown failed in its duty of care for the largely Māori contingent, including NZ Army Cargo Team One.
“This failure of active protection was and continues to be in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi,” reads the submission.
The rubble came from PM3A, a portable nuclear power unit on Ross Island, belonging to the US Navy. Decommissioned in 1972, its checkered 10-year operating history led it to be known as ‘Nukey Poo’ among base inhabitants. After recording 438 operating errors it was shut off for good.
Due to US obligations to the Antarctic Treaty, nuclear waste had to be removed.
Peter Breen, Assistant Base Mechanic at New Zealand’s Scott Base for 1981-82, led the effort to get similar New Zealand stories heard.
He hopes that NZDF personnel involved in the cleanup of Ross Island might get medallic recognition “similar to those who were exposed at Mururoa Atoll”. Sailors were awarded the Special Service Medal Nuclear Testing for observing French bomb sites in the Pacific in 1973, roughly the same time their colleagues were helping clear radioactive material from Antarctica.
A public advisory regarding potential historic radiation exposure at McMurdo Station was published in 2018.
Since 1975 the Waitangi Tribunal has been a permanent commission by the Ministry of Justice to raise Māori claims relating to the Crown’s obligations in the Treaty of Waitangi.
The current Military Veterans’ Kaupapa includes hearings as diverse as the injury of George Nepata while training in Singapore, to the exposure of soldiers to DBP insecticides during the Malayan Emergency.
Commenced in 2014 in the “centenary year of the onset of the First World War” the Māori military veterans inquiry has dragged on to twice the duration of the Great War.
Of the three claimants in the Antarctic veterans’ claim, Edwin (Chaddy) Chadwick, Apiha Papuni and Kelly Tako, only Tako survives.
“We’re obviously concerned with time because we’re losing veterans,” said Bennion Law.
Detour: Antarctica is a New Zealand Herald podcast. You can follow the series on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
France’s radioactive waste management agency Andra wants to increase storage capacity at Cires waste dump
French radioactive waste management agency Andra has applied to the
department of Aube in north-eastern France for environmental permission to
increase the current authorised storage capacity of Cires, the country’s
dedicated disposal facility for very-low-level radioactive waste (VLLW).
World Nuclear News 12th April 2023
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Application-to-raise-capacity-of-French-very-low-l
Shining a light on St Louis’ radioactive waste landfill scandal
ST. LOUIS PREPS FOR “CATASTROPHIC” NUCLEAR EVENT http://armydotmil.com/st-louis-preps-for-catastrophic-nuclear-event/
To offer your help, email: westllakemoms@gmail.com http://armydotmil.com/epa-does-nothing-as-nuclear-waste-calamity-inches-closer/
Nuclear waste abandonment risks the dangers of amnesia
Broad-stroke reassurances from supporters of a proposed deep geological repository for Canada’s nuclear waste have failed to allay important environmental and security concerns.
The Hill Times, BY ERIKA SIMPSON | April 13, 2023
A plan to store Canada’s nuclear waste deep underground in northern Ontario raises serious safety concerns for current and future generations.
In light of this, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO)—which is responsible for developing and implementing the plan—should reconsider other options, such as a rolling stewardship model, which actively plans for retrieval and periodic repackaging of nuclear waste.
From April 4-5, the South Bruce Nuclear Exploration Forum considered the NWMO plan to store all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste in one deep geological repository (DGR). An earlier plan had proposed burying intermediate- and low-level nuclear waste in limestone caverns constructed under the Bruce reactor, but was met with a “no” vote from members of the Saugeen-Ojibway Nation. That led to Bruce Power withdrawing its own proposal in June 2020.
The current proposal for a $23-billion DGR project at Teeswater, Ont., may be constructed 50 km away from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, the world’s largest operating nuclear site that supplies 30 per cent of Ontario’s power. Whether the proposal goes ahead in partnership with a willing host community will be decided by the Governor in Council. Once one of the two remaining possible host communities—either Teeswater or Ignace, Ont.—is selected, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada will continue to lead decades-long consultation processes…………………………..
the broad-stroke reassurances of the DGR proponents have failed to allay concerns.
There are questions about how 700 engineers and construction workers could possibly be housed. I have written about SNC-Lavalin—an engineering company that was prosecuted internationally for corruption—yet remains the leading contractor and possible steward of Canada’s nuclear wastes. Heavily subsidized by Canadian tax dollars, the company is driven by the quest for money, not the quest for nuclear security. Although no questions were publicly asked about SNC-Lavalin, a project officer from the Wastes and Decommissioning Division at CNSC explained each engineering and closure stage could be halted, if deemed necessary.
There are also questions about impacts on future generations. Would the underground nuclear waste containers be monitored, in perpetuity, and what might be safety concerns about situating any such site in the Great Lakes’ water basin, the world’s largest body of fresh water and the drinking water for up to 40 million people? The hydrogeologists and geologists were confident that the DGR concept—possibly the first or fourth underground nuclear waste site in the world—would not be beyond Canada’s engineering and scientific capabilities.
I asked DGR proponents about four U.S. Senators who asked President Joe Biden to raise the issue with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month. I was told this would be a local decision—made by area residents in next year’s referendum—combined somehow with a municipal town council majority decision, and a possible veto by First Nations—and therefore the United States would have nothing to do with it, even though Canada’s federal cabinet would have the final say.
I asked Tiina Jalonen, the senior vice president of development at Posiva Oy about Finland’s proposed used-fuel disposal facility and her government’s plans for “signage.” It could be important to warn our great-great-great-grandchildren to refrain from curiously digging out whatever leaks into rock formations below.
What about the legacy of strikes on nuclear sites, like the Russian assault on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, that has made evident that nuclear power plants and waste disposal sites could become targets in conflict zones? Nobody publicly asked about terrorist threats, and whether the site could become hostage to nefarious bargaining.
What else might go wrong? I asked two fire chiefs, but they had not heard about the fire at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico that shut down the site in 2014 due to a major radiation release that contaminated workers at the surface. I asked a geologist about Germany’s Asse Salt Mine that still leaks water into radioactive containers.
Perhaps continual monitoring and the ‘rolling stewardship’ concept—that actively plans for retrieval and periodic repackaging—would be most effective, because wholesale abandonment could lead to amnesia.
Erika Simpson is an associate professor of international politics at Western University, the author of Nuclear Waste Burial in Canada? The Political Controversy over the Proposal to Construct a Deep Geologic Repository and Nuclear waste: Solution or problem? and the president of the Canadian Peace Research Association.
https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2023/04/13/nuclear-waste-abandonment-risks-the-dangers-of-amnesia/384800/
Ignoring science, environmental protection and international law – G7 endorses Japan’s Fukushima water discharge plans
Greenpeace International, 16 April 2023 https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/59193/science-environmental-protection-international-law-g7-japans-fukushima-water-discharge/
Legacy of Fukushima disaster shows nuclear energy is no solution to energy and climate crisis.
Sapporo, Japan – The nations of the G7 have chosen politics over science and the protection of the marine environment with their decision today to support the Japanese government’s plans to discharge Fukushima radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean.
The 1.3 million cubic meters/tons of radioactive waste water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, currently in tanks, is scheduled to be discharged into the Pacific Ocean this year. Nations in the Asia Pacific region, led by the Pacific Island Forum, have strongly voiced their opposition to the plans.[1] Some of the world’s leading oceanographic institutes and marine scientists have criticised the weakness of the scientific justification applied by TEPCO, the owner of the nuclear plant, warned against using the Pacific Ocean as a dumping ground for radioactive contaminated water, and called for alternatives to discharge to be applied.[2]
“The Japanese government is desperate for international endorsement for its Pacific Ocean radioactive water dump plans. It has failed to protect its own citizens, including the vulnerable fishing communities of Fukushima, as well as nations across the wider Asia Pacific region. The aftermath of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is still strongly felt, and the Japanese government has failed to fully investigate the effects of discharging multiple radionuclides on marine life. The government is obligated under international law to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact assessment, including the impact of transboundary marine pollution, but has failed to do so. Its plans are a violation of the UN Convention Law of the Sea.
The marine environment is under extreme pressure from climate change, overfishing and resource extraction. Yet, the G7 thinks it’s acceptable to endorse plans to deliberately dump nuclear waste into the ocean. Politics inside the G7 at Sapporo just trumped science, environmental protection, and international law,” said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia.
Greenpeace East Asia analysis has detailed the failures of liquid waste processing technology at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the environmental threats posed by the releases.[3] There is no prospect of an end to the nuclear crisis at the plant as current decommissioning plans are not feasible. Furthermore, the report finds the nuclear fuel debris in the reactors cannot be completely removed and will continue to contaminate the ground water over many decades.[4] Claims that the discharges will take 30 years is inaccurate as in reality, it will continue into the next century. Viable alternatives to discharge, specifically long term storage and processing, have been ignored by the Japanese government.[3]
The Japanese government’s attempt to normalise the Fukushima nuclear disaster is directly linked to its overall energy policy objective of increasing the operation of nuclear reactors again after the 2011 disaster. 54 reactors were available in 2011 compared to only ten reactors in 2022, generating 7.9% of the nation’s electricity in FY21 compared to 29% in 2010.[5] Meanwhile, five of the other six G7 governments led by France, the US and the UK are also aggressively promoting nuclear power development.
The idea that the nuclear industry is capable of delivering a safe and sustainable energy future is delusional and a dangerous distraction from the only viable energy solution to the climate emergency which is 100% renewable energy. The global growth of low cost renewable energy has been phenomenal – but it has to be much faster and at an even greater scale if carbon emissions are to be reduced by 2030. Approval for nuclear waste dumping and nuclear energy expansion sound like the 1970’s but we have no time for such distractions. We are in a race to save the climate in the 21st century, and only renewables can deliver this,” said Shaun Burnie.
Nuclear storage dump opponents sweep into Theddlethorpe parish council
Residents have organised against storage plans
The Lincolnite, By Daniel Jaines Local Democracy Reporter 13 Apr 23
Candidates opposing a nuclear storage dump have surged to power in Theddlethorpe in a demonstration of local opposition.
Eight of the ten seats on two Theddlethorpe Parish Councils – St Helen’s and All Saints – have been filled uncontested by people against to Nuclear Waste Service’s plans for a Geological Disposal Facility in the village.
Nearby residents were in uproar after it was announced last year that the Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal could become the entry point for a nuclear storage facility to dispose of around 10% of the UK’s nuclear waste.
The new councillors, who will automatically become councillors after the May 4 local elections, are all part of Theddlethorpe Residents Association.
Members Brian Swift and Andrew Spink formed it after their application to join the parish councils were rejected in 2021.
Mr Swift said: “We were both turned down, but shortly after this we got together with a few neighbours and formed the Theddlethorpe Residents Association with the aim to give the parish a collective voice and to counter the PC’s negative stance.”
Since its inception, the residents association has garnered more than 120 members and holds regular events.
However, Mr Swift said the anti-GDF sentiment of the members would not mean other views would be unwelcome.
“Despite the fact that the majority of the councillors are now anti-GDF ,we are keen to stress that all points of view are welcome. Our priorities are to carry out the parish council’s functions to the best of our ability and to do our utmost to see that the village thrives and continues to be the friendly, united place we all call home,” he said………………………. more https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2023/04/nuclear-storage-dump-opponents-sweep-into-theddlethorpe-parish-council/—
34,200 tons of radioactive sewage sludge kept in Kanto area 12 yrs after Fukushima disaster.
April 10, 2023 (Mainichi Japan)
TOKYO — A total of some 34,200 metric tons of sewage sludge contaminated with radioactive substances emanating from the Fukushima nuclear disaster is still kept in temporary storage by major local bodies in the Kanto region, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned.
The massive tainted waste — a year’s worth of ordinary burned sludge ash generated in Tokyo’s 23 wards — has partially been kept as incinerated ash. Due to difficulties in obtaining local understanding for landfill disposal of radioactive waste in harbors, forests and mountains, some of the waste has nowhere to go even 12 years on since the onset of the disaster.
The finding came after the Mainichi queried major local governments in five prefectures in the Kanto region and other sources about radioactively contaminated sewage sludge accumulated in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station meltdown.
In May 2011, two months after the disaster, radioactive cesium was detected in the sewage sludge in Fukushima Prefecture. This prompted inspections of sewage in other local bodies in the Kanto region, and authorities took measures, such as keeping highly contaminated sludge within their local sewage facilities.
Of these, the Mainichi Shimbun interviewed 15 local bodies — Tokyo and six other Kanto region prefectures, their capital cities, and government-designated major cities in the region — between December 2022 and March 2023, regarding the status of their treatment of sewage sludge in which radioactive substances were detected.
It emerged that the Yokohama Municipal Government, south of Tokyo, had kept approximately 26,600 tons of radioactively contaminated waste within its sewage facilities as incinerated sludge ash as of the end of February 2023, while the Kawasaki Municipal Government, also in Kanagawa Prefecture, had kept 3,435 tons of such waste inside its port areas in the same form…………………………………………..
In the Kanto region alone, a total of some 4,180 tons of radioactive sewage requiring the central government’s treatment remains in Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures, according to the Ministry of the Environment and other sources. The national government plans to place this waste under long-term management by setting up treatment facilities in state-owned forests and other sites in accordance with the special measures law on radioactive contamination response. However, the plan remains up in the air as the candidate sites have not been finalized due to protests from local residents and other factors.
Meanwhile, Tokyo, Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures responded to the survey that they have finished disposing of all radioactive sewage sludge under their control. The cities of Mito, Saitama and Chiba also answered the same. Based on the peak amount of radioactive sludge kept by these local bodies, it is estimated that they had disposed of at least some 120,000 tons of such waste.
(Japanese original by Kazuhiro Igarashi and Kaoru Watanabe, Tokyo Regional News Department)https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230408/p2a/00m/0na/013000c
Concern over funding ‘stigma’ from Theddlethorpe nuclear storage
Only a ‘handful’ of applications made
By Daniel Jaines Local Democracy Reporter , The Lincolnite, 12 April 23
There are concerns that community groups in Theddlethorpe are not applying for a share of nearly £1million due to of the money’s links with a potential nuclear storage dump.
Only a handful of applications from Theddlethorpe community groups have been received for the grants.
The money is being made available due to Nuclear Waste Services exploring a potential for the area to host a Geological Disposal Facility.
The money is set to be handed out over the next 15-20 years — with £1million a year allocated while local studies are carried out, and £2.5million a year while drilling boreholes and further exploring the geology of the area.
Lincolnshire County Council’s Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee were told on Tuesday that few groups had come forward to claim it.
Councillor Matthew Boles said: “It would strike me that the reason there’s a very small uptake in applying for these grants is that the local residents have attached stigma to it.
“They might feel that if they apply for this money they’re somehow supporting and are in favour of it.”
However, council officers said they didn’t believe this was the case.
Councillor Martin Griggs and some others also worried that the £1m budget would be difficult to match after the first year.
Councillors also raised concerns about any strings being attached to the bids and a lack of detailed information around infrastructure needs and the 4,000 jobs NWS has said the GDF works could create over its lifetime………………………….
Councillors were told that Lincolnshire County Council had challenged the jobs figures and called for a more localised report……………… https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2023/04/concern-over-funding-stigma-from-theddlethorpe-nuclear-storage/
Nuclear disasters could leave a lasting legacy of contaminants in glaciers
Emerging research is suggesting that radioactive particles are being stored within glaciers
University of Plymouth Alan Williams, April 2019
Nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima are known to have had an immediate impact on their surrounding environments and the people living within them.
But emerging research is suggesting the legacy of these events and international weapons testing could be felt for much longer as radioactive particles are being stored within glaciers.
The first results from this collaborative international research project were presented at the 2019 General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), taking place in Vienna from April 7-12, 2019………………………………………
The EGU presentation combined studies into the presence of fallout radionuclides (FRNs), a product of nuclear accidents and weapons testing, within ice surface sediments – or cryoconite – across multiple sites in the Arctic (Sweden, Greenland and Svalbard), Iceland, the European Alps, the Caucasus, British Columbia, and Antarctica.
The levels of some FRNs found in these sites are orders of magnitude higher than those detected in many other (non-glaciated) environments, raising important questions around the role of glaciers, and specifically cryoconite and its interaction with meltwater, in the accumulation of anthropogenic atmospheric contaminants.
The research also demonstrates that the presence of FRNs in cryoconite is not restricted to sites closest to large source areas such as Chernobyl, highlighting the global reach of nuclear events and other sources of atmospherically-transported contaminants.
The widespread occurrence of concentrated FRNs in glacier catchments, and the impacts on downstream water and environmental quality, including uptake of FRNs into flora and fauna, are the focus of current and future research efforts.
Dr Clason said:
“Research into the impact of nuclear accidents has previously focussed on their effects on human and ecosystem health in non-glaciated areas. But evidence is mounting that cryoconite on glaciers can efficiently accumulate radionuclides to potentially hazardous levels. Very high concentrations of radionuclides have been found in several recent field studies, but their precise impact is yet to be established. Our collaborative work is beginning to address this because it is clearly important for the pro-glacial environment and downstream communities to understand any unseen threats they might face in the future.”
Law to ban high-level nuclear waste storage facility effective June
“New Mexico can’t just be the convenient sacrifice zone for the country’s contamination,”
Proponents call the ban an ‘important first step’ to limit impacts from radioactive waste
Source New Mexico, BY: DANIELLE PROKOP – APRIL 10, 2023
A state ban on high-level nuclear waste will go into effect in June, blocking a private company’s ability to build a contentious storage facility in southern New Mexico.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 53 into law March 17. The bill did not have the votes for an emergency enaction, so it goes into effect June 15.
The new law has two provisions.
The first expands the scope and duties for a task force to consult state agencies on nuclear disposal and investigate its impacts on New Mexico.
The second bans storage of high-level nuclear waste. The ban is in effect until two conditions are met – the state agrees to open a facility to handle waste, and the federal government has adopted a permanent underground storage site for nuclear waste.
“We do need a permanent solution. But New Mexico can’t just be the convenient sacrifice zone for the country’s contamination,” said Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces) in an interview.
High level radioactive waste is extremely toxic. Some types will remain highly radioactive for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. Short doses of exposure can be fatal. If radioactive waste leaches into the groundwater or soils, it can move through the food chain.
The state ban would include regulations on Holtec International’s plans for an underground facility for spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors and other high-level radioactive waste from across the country.
At its peak, Holtec projected the facility could hold 176,600 metric tons of waste aboveground on more than 1,000 acres between Hobbs and Carlsbad.
“This bill is another major obstacle that will prevent this site from ever receiving any nuclear waste,” said Don Hancock, Nuclear Waste Safety program director and administrator at the nonprofit Southwest Research and Information Center.
The region already hosts the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, an underground site that stores clothes, tools, rags and other items contaminated with radioactive waste. The new law does not impact WIPP……………………………………
Kayleigh Warren, a member of Santa Clara Pueblo and a health and justice coordinator at the nonprofit Tewa Women United, called the four-page bill “an important first step.”
“It’s a way our state can start to communicate to the rest of our county that we’ve done our part,” Warren said. “We’re not interested in being a sacrifice zone for the country’s waste anymore.
Tewa Women United protests the impacts of toxins from Los Alamos National Laboratory on water and land in the Española valley and surrounding Pueblos. Looking forward, a key issue is how tribal governments will participate on the task force.
Native Americans are disproportionately vulnerable from uranium mining on the Navajo Nation or exposed at higher rates to radiation in water supplies.
“I want to see how our voices become part of these conversations moving forward,” Warren said. https://sourcenm.com/2023/04/10/law-to-ban-high-level-nuclear-waste-storage-facility-effective-june/
More warheads, more nuclear waste to New Mexico. Santa Fe fearful, as Carlsbad leaders support efforts
“legacy waste” from past programs still waiting for disposal at Los Alamos was being disregarded in favor of the new streams the NNSA intended to generate.
“It’s heart-wrenching when you hear the young people concerned with manufacturing bombs.”
Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus 6 Apr 23,
Two meetings on nuclear waste were held in New Mexico this week, on different sides of the state with very different reactions from attendees.
On Tuesday, a townhall-style meeting was held in Santa Fe which more than 300 persons attended and about 200 participated online.
Most expressed fears and concerns that a federal plan to transport surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad would endanger local communities along the transportation routes.
The next night at a meeting at the city golf course in Carlsbad, about 30 business leaders, elected officials and invited guests took a much warmer tone with the federal government and its plans for New Mexico and the nearby WIPP site.
Under the federally proposed plan, surplus plutonium would move via truck from the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico for processing, then to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for additional preparation before finally heading to WIPP for disposal.
By then, the 34 metric tons of plutonium set for disposal would meet characterization standards for transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste, meaning the program would not result in any waste of a higher radioactivity than that which the repository was intended to store.
But the program would see waste traveling through New Mexico, and especially the northern portion of the state, multiple times.
That’s a problem for Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen, who moderated the Tuesday meeting at the Santa Fe Convention Center with the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) – the agency devising the plan – and argued it could burden her community with the risk of exposure.
At the same time, the NNSA also was planning to ramp up the production of plutonium pits, the triggers for nuclear warheads, at Los Alamos and Savannah River site, hoping to produce up to 80 pits a year by 2030.
Some of the waste from that program would also be destined for WIPP as it’s the only deep geological repository in the U.S. for nuclear waste.
“People feel betrayed,” Hansen said in an interview with the Carlsbad Current-Argus, arguing the two NNSA programs marked an “expansion” of WIPP’s operations beyond what New Mexico originally agreed to when the facility was developed.
She said “legacy waste” from past programs still waiting for disposal at Los Alamos was being disregarded in favor of the new streams the NNSA intended to generate.
“They still feel frustrated that the legacy waste at LANL has not been cleaned up and new waste is being generated and also going to WIPP,” Hansen said of attendees at the Santa Fe meeting. “It’s heart-wrenching when you hear the young people concerned with manufacturing bombs.”
Jack Volpato, chair of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force, commended the NNSA and the WIPP project at the Wednesday meeting in Carlsbad for supporting the local community, its workforce and economy in the decades since the site was opened……………………………………………………………………………
Hansen, the Santa Fe County commissioner, said the NNSA’s plans were extraneous to WIPP’s original mission and what should be its primary purpose: to get nuclear waste “off the hill” in Los Alamos.
That’s the only true benefit to the people of New Mexico who host the WIPP site, she said.
“It’s a complete expansion of WIPP’s mission to be putting new and generated waste,” Hansen said. “It’s insanity to move surplus plutonium around the country. We don’t want to continue being left behind. Waste from all over the country has been coming here.”………………………………………………… https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/2023/04/06/nuclear-waste-new-mexico-santa-fe-carlsbad-nuke-plutonium-department-energy-bombs-nuke-warhead/70080266007/
NMED’s Permit Allows LANL Loopholes for Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility
April 6th, 2023, http://nuclearactive.org/
It’s time to break the silence about the permitting of the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since 1963, the Facility has handled, treated and stored radioactive and hazardous liquid waste generated at the Plutonium Facility, where the triggers, or plutonium pits, for nuclear weapons are fabricated.
The New Mexico Environment Department has refused to regulate the Facility under the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Act even though the law regulates hazardous materials “from cradle to grave.”
In May 2022, for the first time, the Environment Department did permit the Facility, but under a less strict law – the New Mexico Water Quality Act. It is ground water discharge permit, DP-1132.
This permit provides many loopholes and is totally inappropriate for the Facility and for the construction and operation of two new radioactive liquid waste treatment facilities, all without any public process as required by the Hazardous Waste Act.
Under the Water Quality Act permit, the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration need only submit the plans and specifications to the Environment Department for review. Unlike the Hazardous Waste Act, there is no requirement for advance public notice, no public review and comment, and no opportunity for a public hearing.
Another loophole in the Water Quality Act is that it omits the seismic analyses for the new facilities built on volcanic tuff in a seismic zone on the eastern slope of an active volcano, above a sole source regional drinking water aquifer and the Rio Grande.
Again, in contrast to the Hazardous Waste Act, this permit omits analyses of the seismic vulnerability and risk in Los Alamos County and the surrounding counties from Taos to Bernalillo.
Our concerns are not unfounded. Recall that the proposed Nuclear Facility, as part of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project, was eventually canceled because of the increasing cost to address the unresolved threats of seismic action within the Pajarito Fault System
CCNS and Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE) have challenged the issuance of DP-1132 before the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission. The filings are available at: https://www.env.nm.gov/opf/docketed-matters/ , scroll down to WQCC 22-21: Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Honor Our Pueblo Existence’s Petition for Review of NMED Ground Water Discharge Permit DP-1132.
Break the silence and express your concerns to the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission at its May 9th meeting. https://www.env.nm.gov/events-calendar/?trumbaEmbed=date%3D20230501%26index%3D0
Stay tuned to nuclearactive.org and our social media channels.
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