U.S. government ordered to remove deadly nuclear substance from South Carolina, BY EMILY BOHATCH ebohatch@thestate.com, October 26, 2018
South Carolina officials celebrated a victory Friday after a U.S. court ruled the federal government must remove a metric ton of plutonium from the state, according to a statement from the S.C. Attorney General’s Office.
Managers at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico have reported a rock fall in an area of the underground facility that is off-limits to employees. CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP)— Managers at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico have reported a rock fall in an area of the underground facility that is off-limits to employees.
The U.S. Energy Department says the fall happened Wednesday evening. Workers heard a loud thud while doing inspections underground so they left the area and all work was stopped.
Officials said there were no injuries.
Rock falls are not uncommon in areas where crews have been unable to perform regular maintenance to shore up the walls and ceilings of the salt caverns that have been excavated for disposal of radioactive waste.
This week’s rock fall happened in a disposal room that does not contain any waste. A team is planning an inspection before operations resume at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Army Corps of Engineers: $500 million Parks Township nuclear waste removal project is a ‘go’, TRIB LIVE,
MARY ANN THOMAS| Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, The Army Corps of Engineers released test results and announced to residents Wednesday it is ready to resume the $500 million cleanup of the nuclear waste dump in Parks Township.
The 44-acre dump, officially known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area, is off Route 66 near Kiskimere Street. It was owned in the 1960s by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) which had plants in Apollo and Parks Township that produced nuclear fuels for Navy submarines, power plants and other government programs.
About 80 people attended the public meeting Wednesday at the Parks Township volunteer fire hall.
It featured a review of the project, which stalled seven years ago amid environmental test results.
The recent slowdown was an almost 18-month delay over a contract bid protest from the four bidders that didn’t win the $350 million contract to excavate the nuclear waste dump.
But the Army Corps reviewed the bids and recently lifted a stop-order on the federal contract that had been awarded to Jacobs Field Services to clean up the nuclear waste dump. …….
the recent groundwater tests show that beryllium, a metal used by the nuclear plants and buried on site found its way into the underground coal mines, which lie beneath the site.
By: Leo Shane III WASHINGTON — An appeals court will force Veterans Affairs officials to identify how many troops may have been exposed to radioactive debris from a 1966 plane crash, a move that supporters hope will be the precursor to a class-action lawsuit against the department for overdue benefits.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims made the unusual ruling demanding the records’ release six weeks after VA lawyers argued the information is nearly impossible to obtain, given aging and missing military records from the accident.
But the court, by a 6-3 ruling, gave the department 30 days to determine the number of military personnel assigned to the accident clean-up, the number of veterans who have applied for benefits connected to the event, and the number who have been denied compensation. That information will be used to decide how a lawsuit on the benefits denial may proceed.
Veterans involved in the accident have been unsuccessfully petitioning VA on their case since the mid-1970s, after a host of strange cancers and other illnesses began appearing among individuals involved.
In January 1966, seven airmen were killed and four more injured when a B-52 crashed into a KC-135 during a refueling mission off the coast of Spain. The B-52 was carrying four nuclear weapons at the time of the accident, and two of them exploded near the town of Palomares, spreading radioactive plutonium over hundreds of acres.
U.S. officials quickly ordered military personnel into the area to collect contaminated debris, crops and soil in an effort to repair the damage. But veterans involved in that cleanup say they were given no protective clothing or respiratory devices, and told very little about the potential long-term health effects from exposure to the nuclear material.
Earlier this year, the appeals court ruled in a separate case that veterans can file suit against the Department of Veterans Affairs as a class rather than individuals, in limited circumstances.
Since then, legal experts have been monitoring a host of lawsuits before the court to see which could be the first class recognized, a move which will set important precedents for future legal cases.
The three judges who argued against the records request in the Palomares lawsuit said the move would effectively force VA to justify the need for a class-action lawsuit against itself, and that the majority ignored concerns that Defense Department records for the incident may not exist.
But the majority opinion noted that no final decision on whether to recognize a class of Palomares has been made, and data on the denied benefits is the sole property of VA, inaccessible in any way for outsiders.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit have contended that more than 1,600 veterans should be eligible for disability benefits related to the toxic exposure, but VA thus far has denied their requests because not enough scientific evidence exists to classify all of the health problems as service-related illnesses.
Smith aims to scrap Trump’s nuclear weapons policy, Defense News , By: Joe Gould, 13 Nov 18WASHINGTON —Rep. Adam Smith — set to become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee in the new Congress — and other Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday they hope to use their party’s takeover of the House to check the Trump administration’s expansive policies toward nuclear weapons.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear weapons group, Smith said he wants to see a redo of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, to continue multilateral nuclear pacts and to advance a no-first-use policy toward nuclear weapons for the United States.
Smith also reiterated he wants a ban on a new low-yield submarine-launched nuclear weapon, a version of the W76-1 warhead for the Navy’s Trident II D5 ballistic missile, dubbed the W76-2. He introduced a bill to that effect in September.
It’s a tall order. In the House, where Democrats have picked up 34 to 40 seats, Smith’s ambitious proposals are likelier to become part of the next annual defense policy bill. However, those proposals would have a rougher road in negotiations with the GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee; on the Senate floor, where GOP holds a majority; and in the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump wields the veto pen.
U.S. Advanced Nuclear Technology Projects to Receive $18 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, NOVEMBER 13, 2018 ,DOE AWARDS $18 MILLION FOR U.S. ADVANCED NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced funding selections for eleven domestic advanced nuclear technology projects. These projects, located across six states, will receive varying amounts for a total of approximately $18 million in funding, with project values totaling approximately $25 million. The projects are cost-shared and will allow industry-led teams, including participants from federal agencies, public and private laboratories, institutions of higher education, and other domestic entities, to advance the state of U.S. commercial nuclear capability…….https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/us-advanced-nuclear-technology-projects-receive-18-million-us-department-energy
Fasken executive: High level nuclear storage could threaten area’s oil industry mrt, By Mella McEwen, MRT.com/Midland Reporter-Telegram, November 14, 2018Two applications for sites to serve as interim storage locations for high level nuclear waste in Andrews County and in Lea and Eddy counties, New Mexico, are drawing concern about the risks they pose.
“There is as much nuclear radiation in one cask as was released in Chernobyl in 1986, and they want to eventually bring 20,000 casks here,” said Tommy Taylor, director of oil and gas development for Fasken Oil and Ranch. “One cask has as much radiation as the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki.”
Taylor addressed the Midland chapter, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists Wednesday in an effort to raise
awareness of the impact the sites could have, not just on Permian Basin communities but on the region’s oil and gas industry.
The Permian Basin is the No. 1 oil producing region in the U.S. It has changed the geopolitical environment around the world,” he said. “This region is too important to U.S. security to allow this.”
SIPES member Stephen Robichaud agreed, pointing out that a serious leak from one of the casks could shut in 100 percent of the nation’s oil and gas production as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, a main source of water for the middle of the country.
Beyond the environmental impact, “we’re talking about monetary damages in the many trillions of dollars. The impact could be enormous,” Robichaud said……..
The applications are for interim storage sites, which Taylor said is between 40 and 100 years.
An attorney involved in hiring a consultant to study problems at a failed $9 billion nuclear expansion project Wednesday defended deleting items from that critical report.
Atlanta-based attorney George Wenick testified during Day 10 of S.C. Public Service Commission hearings into the failed effort by SCE&G, a SCANA subsidiary, to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County. The commission also is considering SCE&G’s future electric rates and a proposal by Dominion Energy to buy SCE&G’s parent, SCANA.
The report by the San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., completed in February 2016, showed SCE&G knew the project was troubled long before it collapsed……
SCANA chief executive Jimmy Addison last week testified he never had read the damning Bechtel report and never intends to, calling it “history.” But, he added, he wished it had been disclosed to the Public Service Commission and the public in 2015.
At stake is who will pay for the failed nuclear project — SCE&G’s customers, SCANA’s shareholders or both — and how big the future power bills will be for SCE&G’s roughly 730,000 electric customers.
SCE&G increased the electric rates for its typical residential customer by about $27 a month to pay for the nuclear project before it pulled the plug on the unfinished reactors in July 2017. Subsequently, the PSC cut SCE&G’s nuclear-related rates temporarily.
Utility consultant: SCE&G ignored ‘stop signs’ about failed nuclear project, Greenville News,Tom Barton, The State Nov. 13, 2018SCE&G ignored numerous warning signs before walking away from a failed $9 billion nuclear expansion project, an industry consultant told the S.C. Public Service Commission on Monday.
“Let me be blunt: You have a utility that bet the farm and lost,” Scott Rubin, an independent utility consultant and attorney from Pennsylvania, testified Monday on behalf of AARP South Carolina. “By the end of this year, customers will have paid $2.2 billion for absolutely nothing — not a single watt of electricity.”
Rubin’s testimony came on the eighth day of PSC hearings into the failed effort by SCE&G, a SCANA subsidiary, to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County. The commission also is considering SCE&G’s future electric rates and a proposal by Richmond-based Dominion Energy to buy its parent, Cayce-based SCANA.
Beyond Nuclear 11th Nov 2018, As members of Three Mile Island Alert, a watchdog group, we are resolutely
opposed to the present attempts by utilities in Pennsylvania and Ohio to
secure huge subsidies to keep their aging and financially failing nuclear
power plants operational well beyond their “expiration dates”.
Such a decision would have national implications. The diversion of billions of
dollars into nuclear subsidies would distort markets and state regulatory
decisions and result in lower investment in renewable resources and energy
efficiency.
This in turn would prolong the uneconomic existence of a
resource that is not clean energy.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, in its new report, argues that the trajectories of existing renewable energy
and efficiency standards are insufficient to prevent a dangerous increase
in CO2 emissions, and that a price on carbon could serve to better mitigate
carbon emissions as long as nuclear reactors remain operational.
This latter requirement is roundly contradicted by reports over the last several
years that show that, even in Pennsylvania, a state with one of the highest
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rates, GHG reduction goals can be met under
the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan targets through
planned power plant retirements. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/11/11/no-nuclear-bailouts-for-pennsylvania-and-ohio/
2,000 people agree: DOE plan for Hanford tank waste is not good, Tri City Herald, BY ANNETTE CARY, acary@tricityherald.com – 14 Nov 18, RICHLAND, WA
More than 2,000 people submitted comments or signed petitions critical of a proposal for closing Hanford’s underground radioactive waste storage tanks, according to a coalition of environmental and Hanford watchdog groups.
The Department of Energy sought comments on a draft evaluation that concluded no significant threat to the environment would be posed by its plan to close an initial group of Hanford tanks.
The 16 single-shell tanks that make up the group called the C Tank Farm have been emptiedof about 96 percent of the radioactive and hazardous chemical waste they once held. The waste was left from the past processing of irradiated uranium fuel to remove plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
DOE has proposed stabilizing the tanks, which still hold about 64,000 gallons of nuclear waste, by filling them with concrete-like grout and leaving them in the ground in central Hanford…….
Hanford Challenge, Columbia Riverkeeper and the Nuclear Resources Defense Council submitted comments jointly, challenging the legality of reclassifying the waste as low level waste and calling the proposal not protective of human health and the environment.
The proposal must be withdrawn, they said.
DOE has said it is committed to an open, transparent process and will consider comments from states, tribal nations and the public before making a final determination.
The public comment period on the draft evaluation closed last week, but there will be other chances for public comment before a final decision is made.
DOE has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a technical review and a public meeting will be held with DOE and NRC, likely in early 2019.
DOE could issue a final evaluation and determination, including a response to the NRC
review and public comments, in the spring.
Additional regulatory steps would be needed before grouting the C Farm Tanks would be allowed to proceed. A separate public comment period would be required to modify DOE’s dangerous waste permit issued by the Department of Ecology.
Work underway on massive fans for nuclear waste repositoryhttps://apnews.com/2cefc1ad7dd34f22a8dd7e1ee86aaabcCARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) 14 Nov 18— The U.S. Energy Department says a New York-based company is building several massive fans to be used in a new multimillion-dollar ventilation system for the federal government’s only underground nuclear waste repository.
Officials say the six fans being made by the Encorus Group will significantly increase the amount of air in the underground portion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico.
Each fan will stand 20 feet tall and weigh 44,000 pounds.
Construction of the ventilation system is expected to wrap up in early 2021. he ventilation overhaul was prompted by a radiation release in 2014 that contaminated portions of the repository and forced its closure for nearly three years. The release resulted from an inappropriately packed drum of waste that came from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Nuclear fallout: $15.5 billion in compensation and counting
They built our atomic bombs; now they’re dying of cancer
Nearly 33,500 former nuclear site workers died due to radiation exposure- report
Nuclear Fallout: This story produced in partnership with ProPublica and the Santa Fe New Mexican. (Richly illustrated with photographs, videos, charts, documents interactive map) Wave 3, By Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik|November 12, 2018 LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO (InvestigateTV)– Clear, plastic water bottles, with the caps all slightly twisted open, fill a small refrigerator under Gilbert Mondragon’s kitchen counter. The lids all loosened by his 4- and 6-year old daughters because, at just 38, Mondragon suffers from limited mobility and strength. He blames his conditions on years of exposure to chemicals and radiation at the facility that produced the world’s first atomic bomb: Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Gilbert Mondragon, 38, pulls the cap off a plastic water bottle that had been twisted open by his young daughters. He hasn’t the strength for those simple tasks anymore and blames his 20-year career at the Los Alamos National Lab. He quit this year because of his serious lung issues, which he suspects were caused by exposures at the nuclear facility. (InvestigateTV/Andy Miller)
Mondragon is hardly alone in his thinking; there are thousands more nuclear weapons workers who are sick or dead. The government too recognizes that workers have been harmed; the Department of Labor administers programs to compensate “the men and women who sacrificed so much for our country’s national security.”
But InvestigateTV found workers with medical issues struggling to get compensated from a program that has ballooned ten times original cost estimates. More than 6,000 workers from Los Alamos alone have filed to get money for their medical problems, with around 53 percent of claims approved.
The Los Alamos lab, the top-secret site for bomb design in 1943, has had numerous safety violations and evidence of improper monitoring, federal inspection reports show. Continue reading →
Nuclear watchdog group causes stir with call to financially support existing nuclear plants, “Hard choices” are needed in the face of dire climate projections, Union of Concerned Scientists says. Think Progress MARK HAND, NOV 9, 2018 The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) surprised environmental advocates and energy officials on Thursday when it called for keeping existing nuclear power plants open for as long as safely possible to provide a wider window for transitioning to renewable energy resources…….
Among the critics of the UCS report, Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Obama administration, said nuclear reactors “are a bad bet for a climate strategy.”
Jaczko, who has major concerns with the safety of nuclear power, noted that nuclear power was the cornerstone of Japan’s strategy to cut carbon emissions. But then the Fukushima accident occurred in 2011 and “wiped out all their greenhouse gas progress,” he said Friday in a statement.
According to Jaczko, the UCS report does not reflect the reality that renewable energy resources are getting cheaper faster than expected and in some cases are the least expensive source of electricity.
“In contrast, nuclear has only gotten more expensive,” he said. “New nuclear is a financial boondoggle.”
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