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Plush new building for UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)

A government agency is moving into a plush 53,000 sq ft building at the
Harwell Science Campus. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will
have a new office space after Vale of White Horse District Council granted
permission for the building in June. It will be occupied by the NDA but has
been designed to provide flexibility. In addition to workspaces, the
planning consent also includes breakout areas inside and outside of the
building for staff and visitors, enhanced landscaping and tree planting, as
well as car and cycle parking on site.

Oxford Mail 11th Aug 2023

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23714472.new-office-space-occupied-harwell-science-campus/

August 14, 2023 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Chinese UN mission releases working paper on Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater issue, urging Japan to discharge in responsible manner

By Global TimesP Aug 09, 2023  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1295954.shtml

Chinese UN mission releases working paper on Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater issue, urging Japan to discharge in responsible manner

China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations (UN) and Other International Organizations in Vienna has submitted the working paper on the disposal of nuclear-contaminated water of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to the First Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The disposal of nuclear-contaminated water from Fukushima concerns the global marine environment and public health. There is no precedent for artificially discharging nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean and no internationally recognized disposal standards. 

The international community should attach great importance to Japan’s ocean discharge of the nuclear-contaminated water and urge Japan to dispose of the contaminated water in a responsible manner, according to the working paper released on Wednesday.

The working paper pointed out that Japan had previously discussed five ways to dispose of the contaminated water, namely injection into the ground, discharge into the ocean, vapor release, release as hydrogen gas into the atmosphere, and underground burial. However, Japan did not conduct a thorough study of all disposal options and insisted on choosing ocean dumping, which was the lowest cost option, thus transferring the risk of nuclear contamination.

If the so-called ”treated-water” is really safe and harmless, why does Japan not dispose of it within its own territory or use it for industrial and agricultural purposes? The working paper pointed out. 

The paper noted that Japan fails to prove the long-term effectiveness and reliability of the purification equipment for treating the contaminated water. According to the data released by Japan, nearly 70 percent of the nuclear-contaminated water treated by Japan’s ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) still fails to meet the discharge standard and needs to be purified again. 

Japan has failed to prove the authenticity and accuracy of the data on contaminated water. Fukushima power plant operator TEPCO has repeatedly concealed and falsified nuclear-contaminated water related data in recent years. The IAEA conducted its review and assessment solely based on the data and information provided by Japan, and carried out inter-laboratory comparative analyses of only a small number of nuclear-contaminated water samples collected by Japanese officials, read the working paper.

According to general international law and the provisions of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Japan has the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment. The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972 (the London Convention) prohibits the dumping of radioactive waste into the sea by means of man-made structures at sea. Japan’s discharging of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea by means of submarine pipelines is in violation of the relevant provisions of the London Convention.

Japan has failed to demonstrate the perfection of the monitoring program. Tokyo  must not start discharging until the long-term monitoring mechanism is established, and must stop discharging water once anomalies are detected in the data on the discharge of nuclear contaminated water.

The Chinese UN mission stressed that Japan should not confuse the concept of nuclear-contaminated wastewater with the wastewater from the normal operation of nuclear power plants.

The working paper warned Japan of not making use of IAEA’s comprehensive assessment report on the disposal of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water as ”shield” or ”greenlight” for the dumping plan. 

In addition, the paper urged Japan to fully respond to the concerns of China and the international community, and dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a responsible manner in line with its obligations under international law, stop pushing through the dumping plan, fully consult with stakeholders including neighboring countries, make sure to handle the nuclear contaminated water in a science-based, safe and transparent way, and subject itself to rigorous international oversight

August 12, 2023 Posted by | oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

Final Hearing on the Chalk River Megadump – Thursday, August 10, Commission hearing, 9am to 12 noon

Gordon Edwards, 9 Aug 23

Thursday, August 10, from 9 am to noon – CNSC will be conducting its final public hearings on the planned “megadump” at Chalk River — a gigantic mound of radioactive and non-radioactive toxic wastes, five to seven stories high, about one kilometre from the Ottawa River. About two-thirds of the radionuclides in the listed radioactive inventory have half-lives in excess of 5000 years.  To tune in to the live webcast, visit http://cnsc.isilive.ca

Thursday’s hearings will be for the sole purpose of allowing the Algonquin communities of Kebaowek and Kitigan-Zibi to make their final presentations to the Commissioners.  The Chalk River site is situiated on the unceded territory of 11 Algonquin communities. The Commission will not allow the Algonquin representatives to appear in person, they must make their case by zoom.  The Indigenous leaders are explicitly forbidden from introducing any new evidence, they are asked to simply summarize the evidence that has already been presented to the CNSC.

Although the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) states that hazardous materials cannot be stored or disposed of on Indigenous land without the free, prior, informed consent of the Indigenous people whose land is affected, and although the Government of Canada acknowledges that it has a duty to consult with Indigenous Peoples, the Algonquins were not brought into the process until after all the major decisions had been made, including the site for the megadump (euphemistically called a Near Surface Disposal Facility NSDF).Keboawek Ashinbeg Nation, and Kitigan-Zibi Nation, do not consent to the project. They particularly object to the siting of these very long-lived highly toxic wastes so close to the Ottawa River.

All the key decisions about this project were made by a consortium of multinational corporations headed by SNC-Lavalin — a Quebec-based company that the Prime Minister has been eager to protect from criminal prosecution in the past. SNC-Lavalin was banned for 10 years from bidding on any international projects funded by the World Bank because of a proven record of fraudulent practices in many countries. In Quebec, SNC-Lavalin corporate executives went to jail for fraudulent practices connected with a “Super-Hospital” and a major Bridge, and for an elaborate corporate scheme to funnel illegal donations to political parties while hiding the true facts in its duplicitous corporate ledgers using an elaborate coding system. 

The consortium, operating under the name “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL)”, was originally hired under the Harper administration but with a premature renewal of their contract by the Trudeau administration. CNL has been receiving close to a billion dollars a year in taxpayers money since the consortium was hired.

All Canadians should be concerned that long-lived human-made post-fission wastes are about to be permanently “disposed of” (i.e.placed in a gigantic glorified landfill) without the consent of the Indigenous people or of the 174 municipalities (including the City of Montreal) that have strongly objected to the project. Apparenlty, the convenience of the nuclear promoters with the complicity of a captured nuclear regulator over-rules the wishes of Canadian citizens or the long-term protection of a major river from unnecessary ultimate contamination. 

August 9, 2023 Posted by | Canada, wastes | 1 Comment

Niger’s 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste

Uranium tailings in Niger are blowing in the wind and poisoning the water

By Linda Pentz Gunter

Note: In late July, a military coup ousted Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum. Since then, those who have declared themselves in charge have announced a halt to uranium exports to France. France relies on Niger for around 17% of the uranium that fuels its troubled commercial reactor fleet (with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan the main suppliers). Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European countries have been wrestling with their uncomfortable dependence on Russian-sourced uranium supplies. The Russian mercenary group, Wagner, already has a strong presence in Africa, and one that is now growing.

The grey mountain looms, mirage-like, on the horizon of the uranium mining town of Arlit in Niger. (Picture below is of Kyrgyzstan’s mountain of uranium tailings, not Niger’s – but the same type)

This lethal legacy has been confirmed by the independent French radiological research laboratory — Commission de Recherche et d’Information Indépendantes sur la Radioactivité — known in international circles simply as CRIIRAD. The lab, and its director, Bruno Chareyron, have been studying the situation around uranium mines in Niger for years. In 2009 his lab measured the radioactive levels of the wastes at 450,000 Becquerels per kilogram.

In a recent video, CRIIRAD describes the waste pile— mostly radioactive sludges — as “a sword of Damocles hanging over the drinking water supply for more than 100,000 people.” (You can watch the video below, in French with English subtitles. If you understand French, you can also listen to the CRIIRAD podcast episodes on this topic on Spotify.)

Under its subsidiary, Cominak, Orano exploited mines near Arlit for 40 years. Much of the uranium extracted was used as fuel for reactors in France and other countries in the European Union.

As part of the extraction process, radon gas was released into the air along with fine radioactive dusts, inhaled by the uranium mine workers and local residents. Radioactively contaminated materials ended up in workers’ homes, used to fashion furniture and utensils and even as construction materials for the homes themselves. And yet, no effort was made by Orano to contain this waste. Instead, as the Radio France International report says, “it was simply dumped on the ground.”

Some workers who were treated in the local Areva-run hospital were told their illnesses had nothing whatever to do with the uranium mines.

Diners along the Seine, sitting under their Parisian fairy lights, rarely if ever thought about the workers in Arlit who helped turn those lights on, and who suffered all the negative health consequences while enjoying none of the financial gain. Niger remains one of the world’s poorest countries.

Niger is yet another example of colonialism, its people burdened effectively with a radioactive smallpox blanket. It’s a story and a pattern that repeats itself across the world where people of color toil in uranium mines or other foreign-imposed government or corporate methods of exploitation, working to benefit white western customers thousands of miles away.

And it’s an exploitation that could now be prolonged at Orano’s only remaining uranium mine in Niger — Somair. Earlier this year, Orano and the then Niger government signed an agreement to extend operations at Somair until 2040, 11 years longer than its originally projected closure date. That agreement may now be in doubt under the current political uncertainty brought about by the July coup.

Imouraren in northern Niger, with potentially 200,000 tonnes of uranium deposits, is still also potentially within Orano’s sights, although what would become the world’s biggest uranium mine has been on hold for some time, even before the current coup.

Meanwhile, in Arlit, many live without electricity at all. Or even running water. That water, according to Chareyron, has already been contaminated by the 40 years of waste discharges from the mines —chemicals and heavy metals along with radioactive uranium and its daughter products such as radium and polonium— which have migrated into groundwater. Absent other alternatives, local populations are obligated to keep drinking it.

According to the Radio France International report, “Orano’s Niger subsidiary, Cominak, said that it will cover the radioactive mud with a two-metre layer of clay and rocks to contain the radiation.” But, even though it is a necessary first step to prevent further dispersal into the air, the measure will scarcely be an enduring barrier, given the wastes will be dangerous to human health for hundreds of thousands of years. 

But while it is dangerous for Arlit locals to wash their hands in their radioactively contaminated water supply, has Cominak washed its hands of them? In the two years since the mines closed, nothing has happened to safeguard the waste piles. 

Almoustapha Alhacen, a former mine worker who heads the local NGO, Aghir’n Man and collaborates with CRIIRAD, told Chareyron that the reason given for inaction is lack of financing.

In reality, the problem is an even bigger one than miserly corporate inaction. Worldwide, points out Chareyron, authorities have yet to figure out how to confine lethal radioactive waste safely over the longterm. The simple answer is that, when it comes to radioactive waste, no one really knows what to do.

August 8, 2023 Posted by | Niger, Uranium, wastes | Leave a comment

The nuclear arms race’s legacy: Toxic contamination, staggering cleanup costs and a culture of government secrecy

Advocates for a full Hanford cleanup warn that without such a commitment, the site will become a “national sacrifice zone,” a place abandoned in the name of national security.

By William J. Kinsella, 6 Aug 23,  https://japantoday.com/category/features/opinions/the-nuclear-arms-race’s-legacy-at-home-toxic-contamination-staggering-cleanup-costs-and-a-culture-of-government-secrecy

RALEIGH, North Carolina

Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” has focused new attention on the legacies of the Manhattan Project – the World War II program to develop nuclear weapons. As the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, approach, it’s a timely moment to look further at dilemmas wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb.

The Manhattan Project spawned a trinity of interconnected legacies. It initiated a global arms race that threatens the survival of humanity and the planet as we know it. It also led to widespread public health and environmental damage from nuclear weapons production and testing. And it generated a culture of governmental secrecy with troubling political consequences.

As a researcher examining communication in science, technology, energy and environmental contexts, I’ve studied these legacies of nuclear weapons production. From 2000 to 2005, I also served on a citizen advisory board that provides input to federal and state officials on a massive environmental cleanup program at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state that continues today.

Hanford is less well known than Los Alamos, New Mexico, where scientists designed the first atomic weapons, but it was also crucial to the Manhattan Project. There, an enormous, secret industrial facility produced the plutonium fuel for the Trinity test on July 16, 1945, and the bomb that incinerated Nagasaki a few weeks later. (The Hiroshima bomb was fueled by uranium produced in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at another of the principal Manhattan Project sites.)

Later, workers at Hanford made most of the plutonium used in the U.S. nuclear arsenal throughout the Cold War. In the process, Hanford became one of the most contaminated places on Earth. Total cleanup costs are projected to reach up to US$640 billion, and the job won’t be completed for decades, if ever.

Victims of nuclear tests

Nuclear weapons production and testing have harmed public health and the environment in multiple ways. For example, a new study released in preprint form in July 2023 while awaiting scientific peer review finds that fallout from the Trinity nuclear test reached 46 U.S. states and parts of Canada and Mexico.

Dozens of families who lived near the site – many of them Hispanic or Indigenous – were unknowingly exposed to radioactive contamination. So far, they have not been included in the federal program to compensate uranium miners and “downwinders” who developed radiation-linked illnesses after exposure to later atmospheric nuclear tests.

On July 27, 2023, however, the U.S. Senate voted to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and expand it to communities near the Trinity test site in New Mexico. A companion bill is under consideration in the House of Representatives.

The largest above-ground U.S. tests, along with tests conducted underwater, took place in the Pacific islands. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and other nations conducted their own testing programs. Globally through 2017, nuclear-armed nations exploded 528 weapons above ground or underwater, and an additional 1,528 underground.

Estimating how many people have suffered health effects from these tests is notoriously difficult. So is accounting for disruptions to communities that were displaced by these experiments.

Polluted soil and water

Nuclear weapons production has also exposed many people, communities and ecosystems to radiological and toxic chemical pollution. Here, Hanford offers troubling lessons.

Starting in 1944, workers at the remote site in eastern Washington state irradiated uranium fuel in reactors and then dissolved it in acid to extract its plutonium content. Hanford’s nine reactors, located along the Columbia River to provide a source of cooling water, discharged water contaminated with radioactive and hazardous chemicals into the river through 1987, when the last operating reactor was shut down.

Extracting plutonium from the irradiated fuel, an activity called reprocessing, generated 56 million gallons of liquid waste laced with radioactive and chemical poisons. The wastes were stored in underground tanks designed to last 25 years, based on an assumption that a disposal solution would be developed later.

Seventy-eight years after the first tank was built, that solution remains elusive. A project to vitrify, or embed tank wastes in glass for permanent disposal, has been mired in technical, managerial and political difficulties, and repeatedly threatened with cancellation.

Now, officials are considering mixing some radioactive sludges with concrete grout and shipping them elsewhere for disposal – or perhaps leaving them in the tanks. Critics regard those proposals as risky compromises. Meanwhile, an estimated 1 million gallons of liquid waste have leaked from some tanks into the ground, threatening the Columbia River, a backbone of the Pacific Northwest’s economy and ecology.

Radioactive trash still litters parts of Hanford. Irradiated bodies of laboratory animals were buried there. The site houses radioactive debris ranging from medical waste to propulsion reactors from decommissioned submarines and parts of the reactor that partially melted down at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. Advocates for a full Hanford cleanup warn that without such a commitment, the site will become a “national sacrifice zone,” a place abandoned in the name of national security.

A culture of secrecy

As the movie “Oppenheimer” shows, government secrecy has shrouded nuclear weapons activities from their inception. Clearly, the science and technology of those weapons have dangerous potential and require careful safeguarding. But as I’ve argued previously, the principle of secrecy quickly expanded more broadly. Here again, Hanford provides an example.

Hanford’s reactor fuel was sometimes reprocessed before its most-highly radioactive isotopes had time to decay. In the 1940s and 1950s, managers knowingly released toxic gases into the air, contaminating farmlands and pastures downwind. Some releases supported an effort to monitor Soviet nuclear progress. By tracking deliberate emissions from Hanford, scientists learned better how to spot and evaluate Soviet nuclear tests.

In the mid-1980s, local residents grew suspicious about an apparent excess of illnesses and deaths in their community. Initially, strict secrecy – reinforced by the region’s economic dependence on the Hanford site – made it hard for concerned citizens to get information.

Once the curtain of secrecy was partially lifted under pressure from area residents and journalists, public outrage prompted two major health effects studies that engendered fierce controversy. By the close of the decade, more than 3,500 “downwinders” had filed lawsuits related to illnesses they attributed to Hanford. A judge finally dismissed the case in 2016 after awarding limited compensation to a handful of plaintiffs, leaving a bitter legacy of legal disputes and personal anguish.

Cautionary legacies

Currently active atomic weapons facilities also have seen their share of nuclear and toxic chemical contamination. Among them, Los Alamos National Laboratory – home to Oppenheimer’s original compound, and now a site for both military and civilian research – has contended with groundwater pollution, workplace hazards related to the toxic metal beryllium, and gaps in emergency planning and worker safety procedures.

As Nolan’s film recounts, J. Robert Oppenheimer and many other Manhattan Project scientists had deep concerns about how their work might create unprecedented dangers. Looking at the legacies of the Trinity test, I wonder whether any of them imagined the scale and scope of those outcomes.

August 8, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

UK’s Radioactive Waste Management holds meetings in Lincolnshire, seeking a location for nuclear waste dump

 Geologists and nuclear scientists will be speaking about nuclear waste
disposal as part of a consultation. A former gas terminal in Theddlethorpe,
near Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, was identified as a potential location
for an underground disposal site.

Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), a
government agency, is looking at the suitability of possible sites across
the country. The discussion sessions will take place at venues in
Lincolnshire. The events aim to give people an opportunity to find out what
is involved in geological disposal and the process of finding a potential
site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in the area, according to the
agency.

The GDF would see waste being stored under up to 1,000m of solid
rock until its radioactivity had naturally decayed.

” The sessions will feature a model of what
the GDF could look like as well as items including fuel rods, geological
rock samples, maps and information boards. The events take place on 4
August at Louth Town FC in Louth from 17:00 BST to 20:00, on 5 August at
Mablethorpe Community Hall from 11:00 to 14:00, on 8 August at Gayton Le
Marsh Village Hall from 17:00 to 20:00, on 9 August at Legbourne Village
Hall from 17:00 to 20:00 and on 11 August at St Mary’s Church Hall,
Mablethorpe from 17:00 to 20:00.

 BBC 4th Aug 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-66397202

August 6, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Sellafield seeks partners for £4.8bn nuclear decommissioning works

 Sellafield seeks partners for £4.8bn decommissioning works. The plant is
looking for up to five partners for the works, which are spread across four
Lots and include remediation, decommissioning and demolition works.

The contract would last for 15 years between 2025 and 2040. The work is being
tendered via the Decommissioning and Nuclear Waste Partners (DNWP)
framework, and has an estimated value which ranges from £3.8bn to a
maximum of £4.6bn. The tender document calls for contractors to be able to
provide a “full suite of expertise and support to deliver decommissioning
activities and projects, including asset care”. The Lots include works in
high security areas, a retrieval partner and an integrated nuclear waste
partner.

 New Civil Engineer 1st Aug 2023

Sellafield seeks partners for £4.8bn decommissioning works

August 5, 2023 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

Now, not in 15 years’: Call for public vote on Theddlethorpe nuclear waste dump

Campaigners say the area is stuck in limbo. Campaigners are
calling for an immediate public vote on the proposed nuclear waste storage
facility at Theddlethorpe after it was taken off a council agenda last
week.

East Lindsey District Council had been due to discuss whether to move
forward with a public test of support on an underground storage facility.
However this was cancelled as the council sought legal advice, triggering
criticism from both residents and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local
Authorities (NFLA).

The Lincolnite 24th July 2023

‘Now, not in 15 years’: Call for public vote on Theddlethorpe nuclear waste dump

July 28, 2023 Posted by | politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Failed Fukushima System Should Cancel Wastewater Ocean Dumping

The global ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste adopted in 1993 applies only to barrels. It has allowed Britain and France to pump billions of gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Irish Sea and the North Sea respectively, for decades.

BY JOHN LAFORGE, 25 July 23  https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/25/failed-fukushima-system-should-cancel-wastewater-ocean-dumping/

From the Fukushima-Daiichi triple-reactor meltdown wreckage, Japan’s government and “Tepco,” the owner, are rushing plans to pump 1.37 million tons (about 3 billion pounds) of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.

Their record is poor. Their lies are documented. This is not safe, at all.

To keep the three meltdowns’ wasted fuel from melting again, Tepco continuously pours cold water over 880 tons of “corium,” the red-hot rubblized fuel amassed somewhere under three devastated reactors. “That water leaks into a maze of basements and trenches beneath the reactors and mixes with groundwater flowing into the complex,” Reuters reported Sep. 3, 2013.

Most of this water is collected and put through Tepco’s jerry-rigged mechanism dubbed ALPS, for Advanced Liquid Processing System, which it turns out hasn’t processed much of anything.

Tepco, Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and much of the media endlessly repeat that ALPS removes over 62 radioactive materials from the ever-expanding volume of wastewater. Reports regularly claim the planned dumping is routine, safe, and manageable.

This unverified PR loop has fooled a lot of people, but the ALPS is a fraud. As early as 2013, the filter system stalled and the IAEA reported that April that ALPS had not “accomplished the expected result of removing some radionuclides,” Reuters reported.

In September 2018, the ALPS was revealed to have drastically failed, forcing Tepco to issue a public apology and a promise to re-filter huge volumes of the waste.

According to Reuters, Oct. 11, 2018, documents on a government committee’s website show that 84 percent of water held at Fukushima contains concentrations of radioactive materials higher than legal limits allow to be dumped.

Among the deadly isotopes still in the waste are cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60, ruthenium, carbon-14, tritium, iodine-129, plutonium isotopes, and more than 54 more.

In a June 14, 2023 op/ed for the China Daily, Shaun Burnie, the Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia, reported that the ALPS “has been a spectacular failure,” and noted:

“About 70 percent or 931,600 cubic meters of the wastewater needs to be processed again (and probably many more times) by the ALPS to bring the radioactive concentration levels below the regulatory limit for discharge. Tepco has succeeded in reducing the concentration levels of strontium, iodine, and plutonium in only 0.2 percent of the total volume of the wastewater, and it still requires further processing. But no secondary processing has taken place in the past nearly three years. Neither Tepco nor the Japanese government has said how many times the wastewater needs to be processed, how long it will take to do so, or whether the efforts will ever be successful. … none of these issues has been resolved.”

Tepco says it will re-filter more than 70 percent of the wastewater through ALPS again, a process that itself leaves massive amounts of highly radioactive sludge that must be kept out of the environment for centuries.

Hoping to slow the rush to dump, Professor Ryota Koyama from Fukushima University, said in an interview with China Media Group last May, “If the Japanese government or the Tokyo Electric Power Co. really wants to discharge contaminated water into the sea, they need to explain in more detail whether the nuclides have really been removed.”

International law governing state-sponsored or corporate pollution of the seven seas is relatively useless in challenging Tepco’s outrageous transfer of private industrial poison into the public commons. The global ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste adopted in 1993 applies only to barrels. It has allowed Britain and France to pump billions of gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Irish Sea and the North Sea respectively, for decades.

July 27, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

Not in our backyard: Securing a referendum over Canada’s plan for a nuclear waste dump.

In the UK, Nuclear Waste Services continues to investigate the
suitability of locating a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) at one (or
perhaps two) of four sites in West Cumbria and East Lincolnshire.

In Canada, the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation is also looking for a
site for a Deep Geological Repository (DGR), focusing upon Ignace and South
Bruce, both in Ontario. The names may be different, but the intention and
impact will be the same for the sites selected will receive their
respective nation’s high-level radioactive waste which will be disposed of
beneath the sea or below ground.

In the UK and in Canada, local people have
mobilised in opposition to the plans. Aware that British and Canadian
nuclear agencies, and supportive politicians, are in contact to exchange
knowledge and experience, the UK/Ireland NFLAs, working in partnership with
Northwatch in Canada, arranged an online meeting between campaigners in our
two nations. We intend this to be an ongoing dialogue.

NFLA 25th July 2023

Click to access A382-NB268%E2%80%93Not-in-our-Backyard-Securing-a-referendum-over-Canadas-plan-for-a-nuclear-waste-dump%E2%80%93July-20-23.pdf

July 27, 2023 Posted by | politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

USA government – more money, $19 billion, grant for making deadly plutonium

Senate appropriators boost funding for plutonium, uranium production facilities, By Dan Parsons, 21 Jul 23

Nearly $19 billion is included in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s 2024 spending bill for National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear-weapon programs, with funding boosts for planned facilities that will process plutonium and uranium for refurbished…………… (Subscribers only) https://www.exchangemonitor.com/senate-appropriators-boost-funding-for-plutonium-uranium-production-facilities/

July 23, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | 1 Comment

Feds digging up nuclear waste in Los Alamos for disposal at Carlsbad-area repository

Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 21 Jul 23, https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/2023/07/21/feds-digging-up-nuclear-waste-in-los-alamos-for-disposal-at-carlsbad-area-repository/70426843007/

Workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory dug up buried nuclear waste they planned to dispose of at the federal repository near Carlsbad, amid pressure from State officials that the facility prioritize New Mexico waste.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos Field Office and the lab’s cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B) Los Alamos announced Tuesday they began exhuming corrugated metal pipes containing transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste and preparing them for shipment.

At the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, TRU waste is disposed of via burial in a salt deposit about 2,000 feet underground, trucked into the site from DOE facilities throughout the country.

TRU waste is made up of irradiated clothing, equipment and other debris from nuclear research and development activities around the U.S.

Before it can be shipped to WIPP, the pipes must be cut using hydraulic sheers, allowing them to be loaded into waste boxes for shipment and disposal.

The pipes weight about 10,000 to 14,000 pounds, and measure about 20 feet long. They are cut into five pieces, with each piece loaded into a box.

It’s occurring at portion of the lab known as Dome 375, and the waste came from Los Alamos’ former radioactive liquid waste treatment facility operating during the Cold War at Technical Area 21 (TA-21).

There were 158 pipes in total transferred from TA-21, records show, containing cemented waste.

They were buried in 1986, where the waste sat until recently when worked began preparing it for final disposal.

The DOE hoped to finish digging up and preparing the pipes for disposal by spring 2024.

More: No progress to report on nuclear waste site aside from Carlsbad-area repository, feds say

July 22, 2023 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

To the Pacific islands, the West’s support for Japan’s Fukushima nuclear waste ocean dumping is hypocrisy

Having been used for nuclear tests and dumping by the US and France, the Pacific islands deeply oppose Japan’s plan and see it as a ‘nuclear legacy’ issueThat the likes of Australia and the US support Japan’s plan just ups the region’s geopolitical stakes – and gives China a trump card

Kalinga Seneviratne, SCMP, 18 Jul 23

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Mariano Grossi, after travelling to Tokyo earlier this month to present a report endorsing Japan’s approach to discharging Fukushima’s treated nuclear waste water into the Pacific, has been trying to convince Japan’s sceptical Pacific neighbours of the authenticity of the report’s findings.

The IAEA, which has opened the door for Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to dump about 1.3 million tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean, insists the controlled, gradual release would have a “negligible radiological impact on people and the environment”.

But the small island nations of the Pacific remain deeply concerned about Japan’s intention to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. They see this as not merely a nuclear safety issue but a “nuclear legacy issue” – the Pacific has been used as a nuclear weapon testing and dumping site since the end of the second world war………………….(Subscribers only) more https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3228154/pacific-islands-wests-support-japans-fukushima-nuclear-waste-ocean-dumping-hypocrisy

July 21, 2023 Posted by | OCEANIA, oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

US turning Ukraine into ‘burial ground’ for lethal waste – Russian envoy

Rt.com 19 Jul 23

Undetonated cluster bombs will make normal life “impossible” in parts of Ukraine, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov has said.

The US is using the Ukrainian battlefield as a dump site for its outdated weapons, Russia’s ambassador to Washington has said, warning that the country will become a graveyard for “lethal waste.”

After the White House claimed it has no plans to replenish the Pentagon’s stockpiles of controversial cluster bombs, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said the US is “plunging lower and lower in terms of observing elementary moral principles, cynically dumping the lethal waste on Ukraine.”

“Washington wants to use [Ukraine] to dispose of its old weapons, turning the once rich and fertile part of the USSR into a ‘burial ground’ where it will be simply impossible to live,” he said. “Unexploded US submunitions will remain in this territory, as well as piles of scorched metal of the German-made Leopards and other Western materiel.”

In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was asked whether President Joe Biden would continue supplying 155-millimeter cluster bombs to Ukraine. Though he stopped short of a direct answer, Sullivan said the administration is working to build up production capacity for standard 155mm artillery shells and is not looking to replenish its cluster munition stocks. …….

The decision to provide cluster bombs was controversial even for US allies, as more than 120 nations have agreed to ban the weapons due to their tendency to leave behind undetonated submunitions. The unexploded ordnance can remain live in former conflict zones for decades, posing a danger to anyone unfortunate enough to stumble across them.

While NBC’s Chuck Todd pressed Sullivan on whether the US should continue to provide “barbaric weapons” to Kiev, the senior official insisted on America’s “moral authority,” saying the White House would continue to “give Ukraine what it needs in order to not be defenseless in the face of a Russian onslaught.”

Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms transfers to Ukraine, arguing they will only prolong the conflict and do little to deter its military aims. It has singled out weapons such as cluster munitions and depleted uranium rounds as especially problematic, noting they are likely to harm non-combatants in the region long after the fighting is over. https://www.rt.com/russia/579875-us-cluster-bombs-ukraine-graveyard/

July 21, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, wastes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Safety lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory

By Searchlight New Mexico

by Alicia Inez Guzmán, Searchlight New Mexico https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2023/07/17/safety-lapses-at-los-alamos-national-laboratory/

In a windowless corridor of PF-4, the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium processing facility, the deputy director of weapons stood among a cluster of journalists and National Nuclear Security Administration officials, all clad in anti-contamination lab coats and booties, safety goggles and dosimeters.

“It’s not that scary,” said Robert Webster, during a rare media tour of several rooms brimming with glove boxes, some almost as old as the Cold War-era building itself, others newly installed. “You just have to be careful.”

In these highly classified rooms, each task is the sum of its many protocols, a meticulous choreography that was palpable on a recent morning — June 22 — even in the absence of workers. The respirators, protective clothing, ventilation systems and dosimeters — fail-safes aimed, according to officials, at reducing or detecting the risk of exposure — are routine and required controls at “the plant,” as PF-4 is popularly known. Here, no task can be taken for granted and no movement unintended. 

Five years ago, LANL began embarking on a controversial mission — to produce an annual quota of plutonium pits, the triggers for nuclear weapons. Matt Johnson, head of the lab’s Pit Technologies division, characterized it as “probably one of the safest places in New Mexico.” 

A recent NNSA investigation portrays another version of the plant, a place cited for its  “significant lack of attention or carelessness” in protecting workers and the public, as a Preliminary Notice of Violation read. Released on May 18, the findings detailed four “nuclear safety events” that took place over a five-month period in 2021, including one glove box breach, two floods, and an instance in which too much fissionable material was placed in one area. 

The NNSA, as a result, withheld nearly $1.5 million from its 2021 contract award to Triad National Security, the organization that manages and operates the lab. (The NNSA, nonetheless, refrained from exacting additional civil penalties, which could have totalled an extra half a million dollars.)

Its 11-page report revealed an environment in which workers were either too underqualified to perform certain tasks or overburdened by too many tasks to perform them well. Another problem stemmed from faulty equipment, which had presented problems since 1990 and had not been replaced under Triad’s tenure, despite multiple requests. 

The report emphasized that Triad routinely focused on “human errors rather than on the conditions that make those errors more likely.”

That particular oversight, in part, led to water entering a ventilation system for multiple rooms and glove boxes — the windowed, stainless-steel containers where radioactive materials are handled. According to the NNSA, it amounted to a violation of “criticality safety requirements.” Water has long been known to enhance fission and, in certain circumstances, cause plutonium to go critical, sending out a blast of blue light and radiation.

The four nuclear safety events cited by the NNSA represented only a small fraction of the many “process deviations” and compliance concerns around handling nuclear materials that have beset the plant since May 2018. That’s the same year the lab was recommended as one of two sites in the country to produce plutonium pits for nuclear warheads. 

In an attempt to understand a fuller picture of risks at the plant, Searchlight New Mexico culled through the last five years of weekly reports by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB), a federal watchdog that oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and makes recommendations to the Department of Energy. An analysis like this has never been conducted before, according to the DNFSB.

Searchlight counted at least 100 process deviations at the plant during that period: a mix of safety incidents, emergency events and protocol violations. The examples were wide ranging —  from construction accidents and small fires, to floods and worker contamination. Not all had the potential to be catastrophic, but at a facility like PF-4, the consequences can be much higher than in other workplaces. 

In 2019, one worker was nearly felled by a 320-pound toxic nuclear waste container and, in 2020, another inhaled plutonium oxide powder — the most dangerous form of plutonium. There was a broken finger, a mysterious head injury and several instances in which containers of toxic waste were backlogged, up to 80 at one point, in a single storage room. The all-important protective gloves inside the glove boxes have on occasion become separated from their ports in the box wall; they’ve also torn on sharp objects or been worn down by tools or overuse. The DNFSB called glove box glove failures and floods “repeat events” — serious incidents they attribute to “poor conduct of operations.” Records show at least 20 such incidents in the last five years that resulted in several instances of skin contamination, though only 2 reports indicated an “uptake” — an absorption of plutonium into the body. 

“NNSA is investing billions of dollars in production-related infrastructure at Los Alamos,” a DNFSB spokesperson wrote in an email to Searchlight, “and the Board is continuing to urge commensurate investment in the safety infrastructure needed to ensure workers and the public are adequately protected from potential accidents at PF-4.” 

In the June 2020 glove box breach, the worker underwent chelation therapy for significant radiation — on hair, skin and by inhalation — when he “pulled out of the glovebox gloves after weighing and packaging plutonium-238 oxide powder.” As a soluble form of plutonium, oxide powder can begin to circulate in the bloodstream almost immediately and eventually end up in the liver and bones, according to reports. Fourteen other workers were also exposed in that same incident. 

Searchlight found other incidents that could be considered outliers. In July 2021, for example, a 4.2 magnitude earthquake hit some 30 miles northwest of the lab, located within the Pajarito Fault System. 

The plant’s new glove boxes have been built to withstand an earthquake, according to the DNFSB. But, there are “a large number of existing gloveboxes that do not meet current seismic standards,” the agency’s email to Searchlight made clear. 

The worst possible scenario would be a cataclysmic earthquake that triggers a fire at the plant. For almost two decades, the DNFSB has argued that the building’s “passive confinement system” — essentially its capacity to prevent a release of radioactive material from leaking out and reaching the public — is insufficient. After years of back and forth on the matter, and piecemeal enhancements to the plant, the NNSA, in 2022, deemed significant upgrades, including to the ventilation system, were unnecessary — despite DNFSB’s strong recommendations to the contrary. 

Another one-off event occurred in February 2019, when two electricians were “inadvertently locked inside a caged storage location” for 40 minutes. “​​During this time,” the DNFSB reported, “the workers would have been unable to properly respond to alarms associated with a nuclear criticality, an airborne radioactive material release, fire, or other emergency situations requiring egress.” 

When asked about a recent spate of glove box and other safety matters at the plant, the lab responded with the following statement:

“PF-4 is one of the safest places in the country as a result of the many redundant safety and security measures in place to protect our workforce, the environment, and the community. We have ongoing programs to ensure the safe handling of materials at TA-55. In the case of glove box breaches, training and controls identified the breaches and allowed us to address them immediately. Employees’ personal protective equipment and the facility and room ventilation systems help keep workers safe at all times.”

Searchlight produced the interactive graphics in this story to help visualize the DNFSB reports. Searchlight’s counts are based on the findings of site inspectors and confirmed by the DNFSB. While there could be many reasons behind an incident, site inspectors categorized the events according to a complex set of procedures. The number of reported incidents in 2022 rose by 33 percent compared to the previous year. In 2022, Triad commenced round-the-clock operations.

Noah Raess contributed to the reporting of this story. 

Safety Report Graph:
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/christian.marquez/viz/Safety_Reports/Dashboard1

Searchlight New Mexico is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to investigative reporting in New Mexico. 

July 19, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, safety, USA | Leave a comment

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