Trump tightens control of independent agency overseeing nuclear safety
Geoff Brumfiel, NPR. May 9, 2025
The Trump administration has tightened its control over the independent agency responsible for overseeing America’s nuclear reactors, and it is considering an executive order that could further erode its autonomy, two U.S. officials who declined to speak publicly because they feared retribution told NPR.
Going forward, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must send new rules regarding reactor safety to the White House, where they will be reviewed and possibly edited. That is a radical departure for the watchdog agency, which historically has been among the most independent in the government. The new procedures for White House review have been in the works for months, but they were just recently finalized and are now in full effect.
NPR has also seen a draft of an executive order “ordering the reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.” The draft calls for reducing the size of the NRC’s staff, conducting a “wholesale revision” of its regulations in coordination with the White House and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team, shortening the time to review reactor designs and possibly loosening the current, strict standards for radiation exposure.
“It’s the end of the independence of the agency,” says Allison Macfarlane, director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia in Canada who was nominated by President Obama to serve as Chair of the NRC from 2012 to 2014. Macfarlane believes the changes will make Americans less safe.
“If you aren’t independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident, frankly,” Macfarlane says.
The draft executive order was marked pre-decisional and deliberative. It was one of several draft orders seen by NPR that appeared to be aimed at promoting the nuclear industry. Other draft orders called for the construction of small modular nuclear reactors at military bases, and for the development of advanced nuclear fuels. Axios first reported on the existence of the executive orders.
It remains unclear which, if any, will be signed by President Trump.
In a statement, the NRC said it was working with the White House “as part of our commitment to make NRC regulatory processes more efficient. We have no additional details at this time.”
“The President of the United States is the head of the executive branch,” a spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget wrote to NPR in an email. “The President issued an independent agencies executive order which aligns with the president’s power given to him by the constitution. This idea has been talked about for nearly 40 years and should not be a surprise.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Going nuclear
The NRC has been working to respond to the new law, but it has historically operated largely outside the purview of the White House. That began to change with an executive order signed by the president in February that called for independent agencies to begin reporting directly to the White House Office of Management and Budget………………………………………………………..
Only after the rule is finalized will the commissioners’ votes be made public. It was not immediately clear how the public would know whether the White House had changed a safety rule for a nuclear reactor.
Some questioned what the White House could gain from reviewing abstruse rules for nuclear safety.
“Who has the technical knowledge to actually do a substantive review?” asks Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit that has been critical of the nuclear industry. “To have political appointees meddling in these technical decisions is just a recipe for confusion and chaos.” https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5392382/trump-nuclear-regulatory-commission-watchdog-safety-radiation
Trump administration considers orders expediting nuclear plant construction, NYT reports.
By Reuters, May 10, 2025,
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-administration-considers-orders-expediting-nuclear-plant-construction-nyt-2025-05-09/
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering several executive orders to expedite the construction of nuclear power plants, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing drafts it has reviewed.
Why Is US Congress Silent on the Manmade Nightmare It Is Enabling in Gaza? -Bernie Sanders
With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.
Bernie Sanders, May 08, 2025 , https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-silent-gaza
I want to say a few words about an issue that people all over the world are thinking about—are appalled by—but for some strange reason gets very little discussion here in the nation’s capital or in the halls of Congress. And that is the horrific humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza.
Thursday marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel.
Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities.
There is no ambiguity here: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon. Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.”
Starving children to death as a weapon of war is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death.
What is going on in Gaza is a war crime, committed openly and in broad daylight, and continuing every single day.
There are 2.2 million people who live in Gaza. Today, these people are trapped. The borders are sealed. And Israel has pushed the population into an ever-smaller area.
With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.
Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink, wash with, or cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza.
Most of the bakeries in Gaza have now shut down, having run out of fuel and flour. The few remaining community kitchens are also shutting down. Most people are now surviving on scarce canned goods, often a single can of beans or some lentils, shared between a family once a day.
The United Nations reports that more than 2 million people out of a population of 2.2 million face severe food shortages.
The starvation hits children hardest. At least 65,000 children now show symptoms of malnutrition, and dozens have already starved to death.
Malnutrition rates increased 80% in March, the last month for which data is available, after Netanyahu began the siege, but the situation has severely deteriorated since then.
UNICEF reported Wednesday that “the situation is getting worse every day,” and that they are treating about 10,000 children for severe malnutrition.
Without adequate nutrition or access to clean water, many children will die of easily preventable diseases, killed by something as simple as diarrhea.
For the tens of thousands of injured people in Gaza, particularly the countless burn victims from Israeli bombing, their wounds cannot heal without adequate food and clean water. Left to fester, infections will kill many who should have survived.
With no infant formula, and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death. Those that survive will bear the scars of their suffering for the rest of their lives.
And with little medicine available, easily treatable illnesses and chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease can be a death sentence in Gaza.
What is going on there is not some terrible earthquake, it is not a hurricane, it is not a storm. What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare. And nothing can justify this.
What is happening in Gaza will be a permanent stain on the world’s collective conscience. History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this atrocity.
There is no doubt that Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this terrible war with its barbaric October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages.
The International Criminal Court was right to indict Yahya Sinwar and other leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities.
Clearly, Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas.
But Netanyahu’s extremist government has not just waged war against Hamas. Instead, they have waged an all-out barbaric war of annihilation against the Palestinian people.
They have intentionally made life unlivable in Gaza.
Israel, up to now, has killed more than 52,000 people and injured more than 118,000—60% of whom are women, children, and the elderly. More than 15,000 children have been killed.
Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment has damaged or destroyed two-thirds of all structures in Gaza, including 92% of the housing units. Most of the population now is living in tents or other makeshift structures.
The healthcare system in Gaza has been essentially destroyed. Most of the territory’s hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed.
Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90% of water and sanitation facilities. Most of the roads have been destroyed.
Gaza’s education system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, as has every single one of Gaza’s 12 universities.
And there has been no electricity in Gaza for 18 months.
Given this reality, nobody should have any doubts that Netanyahu is a war criminal. Just like his counterparts in Hamas, he has a massive amount of innocent blood on his hands.
And now Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have a new plan: to indefinitely reoccupy all of Gaza, flatten the few buildings that are still standing, and force the entire population of 2.2 million people into a single tiny area, where hired U.S. security contractors will distribute rations to the survivors.
Israeli officials are quite open about the goal here: to force Palestinians to leave for other countries “in line with President [Donald] Trump’s vision for Gaza,” as one Israeli official said this week.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said this week that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed,” and that its population will “leave in great numbers.”
For many in Netanyahu’s extremist government, this has been the plan all along: It’s called ethnic cleansing.
This would be a terrible tragedy, no matter where or why it was happening. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the United States government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster.
Last year alone, the United States provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved $12 billion more in bombs and weapons.
And for months, Trump has offered blanket support for Netanyahu. More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinians will be pushed out, and that the U.S. will redevelop it into what Trump calls “the Riviera of the Middle East,” a playground for billionaires.
This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death. And the U.S. president is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people.
Given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate: Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza? You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s war and starving children in Gaza is a good idea. I’d love to hear it.
But we are not having that debate. And let me suggest to you why I think we are not having that debate.
That is because we have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to set the agenda here in Washington.
In the last election cycle, AIPAC’s PAC and Super PAC spent nearly $127 million combined.
And the fact is that, if you are a member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu’s war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you’re defeated.
One might think that in a democracy there would be a vigorous debate on an issue of such consequence. But because of our corrupt campaign finance system, people are literally afraid to stand up. If they do, suddenly you will have all kinds of ads coming in to your district to defeat you.
Sadly, I must confess, that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu’s war crimes, but will do or say very little publicly about it.
History will not forgive our complicity in this nightmare. The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu’s destruction of the Palestinian people. We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu’s war machine. We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza—not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there—but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people.
‘It’s deceitful’: Critics slam owners of TMI Unit 2 for not reporting fire at plant
Penn Live, By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com, May. 08, 2025
Accidents can happen.
But when they happen at a nuclear power plant, who gets told, and when?
That’s a question that some neighbors of the still-shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power stations are asking after recent disclosures about a small fire at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor building this winter.
The owners of Unit 2 – the scene of the notorious March 1979 partial meltdown – have received a “non-cited violation” from federal regulators for the fire that broke out at its reactor building on Feb. 11.
The fire got its first public disclosure through a May 2 posting on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s public library.
No one was hurt in the incident, in which a partition surrounding a worksite at the crippled plant’s ongoing deconstruction ignited.
And according to the NRC’s inspection report, there were no releases of radiation associated with it.
Overall, and importantly, the inspection report concludes, the incident itself was one of “very low safety significance.”
But the fact the fire was not publicly reported in real time is raising some alarm bells with some of the plant’s critics.
Neither plant owners TMI-2 Solutions nor federal or state regulators put out a real-time public notice about the incident.
It also wasn’t briefed at a March meeting of a community advisory panel established specifically “to enhance open communication, public involvement and education about the… decommissioning project,” according to two people who attended that session.
“It’s not only tone-deaf. It’s deceitful, because they know how the public feels about it,” said Joyce Corradi, a Lower Swatara Township resident who 45 years ago was a founding member of Concerned Mothers’ and Women, a grassroots group concerned about the accident.
To be clear, TMI-2 Solutions wasn’t exactly hiding the situation.
The company did make same-day courtesy calls to “appropriate stakeholders” including the NRC, the state Department of Environmental Protection …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
“Constellation Energy does not own Three Mile Island Unit 2, but anything that happens at Unit 1 can be influenced by accidents at Unit 2,” Stilp said.
“The best solution is not to restart Unit 1, so that there will never be a chance that a nuclear incident will occur there.”
And the lack of full public disclosure infuriated others.
“It undermines confidence in their ability to communicate during a (bigger) incident or accident,” said Eric Epstein, longtime leader of Three Mile Island Alert.
“This is how we had the (1979) accident in the first place,” said Corradi, who co-founded the women’s group after the partial meltdown. “A lack of checking out the details and doing things safely.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Stakes of Donald Trump’s Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
First, the United States, faithful to Trump’s Art of the Deal technique, threatened Iran while trying to placate it. International relations are not governed by the same rules as business. Giving in to threats is a sign of weakness that the Iranians could not accept in these negotiations.
by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 29 April 2025
The general public is completely unaware of the real stakes in the negotiations between Washington and Tehran. This article presents a situation in which lies have been piling up over three decades, making any progress particularly difficult. Contrary to popular belief, the nuclear issue in Iran is not whether Tehran will acquire an atomic bomb, but whether it will be able to help Palestine without resorting to weapons.
month and a half ago, I announced that even before concluding peace in Ukraine, President Donald Trump would open negotiations with Iran [1]. As usual, commentators steeped in Joe Biden’s ideology showered me with sarcasm, while my colleagues, specialists in international affairs, noted my observations [2].
The difference between the two lay in their understanding of the negotiations in Ukraine. For the former, it was Donald Trump’s revenge against Volodymyr Zelensky, or a genuflection before Vladimir Putin. For the latter, it was, on the contrary, a desire for peace with Russia in order to devote US resources to its economic recovery.
It follows that the two sides approach the Iranian issue differently. For the former, it is a matter of continuing the chaos that began during the first term with the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement (JCPOA). Conversely, for the latter, it is a desire for peace with Iran, given that it is the only regional power that supports the resistance to Israel.
In early March 2024, President Donald Trump sent a letter to the leader of the Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The existence of this document was mentioned by the author himself during his speech to Congress on March 4, and then debated in the press. According to Sky News Arabia, which read this document, Donald Trump called for negotiations, while specifying: “If you reject the outstretched hand and choose the path of escalation and support for terrorist organizations, I warn you of a swift and determined response […] I am writing this letter with the aim of opening new horizons for our relations, away from the years of conflict, misunderstandings and unnecessary confrontations that we have witnessed in recent decades […] The time has come to leave hostility behind and open a new page of cooperation and mutual respect.” A historic opportunity presents itself to us today […] We will not stand idly by in the face of your regime’s threats against our people or our allies […] If you are willing to negotiate, so are we. But if you continue to ignore the world’s demands, history will testify that you missed a great opportunity.”
Simultaneously, the United States and the United Kingdom launched several attacks against Ansar Allah in Yemen. Unlike previous attacks, these did not target hidden military targets, but rather political targets scattered among the civilian population. They therefore killed leaders of the movement and many other collateral victims, which constitutes war crimes.
It should be recalled that Ansar Allah, pejoratively referred to by Westerners as the “Houthi family gang” or “the Houthis,” attacks Israeli ships in the Red Sea in order to force Tel Aviv to agree to allow humanitarian aid to pass through to Gaza.
Washington and London, believing that this was hampering international trade, and having failed to obtain approval from the Security Council, resumed the war. They initially targeted military objectives and quickly realized that these, buried deep within the country, could not be significantly affected.
Donald Trump’s letter only arrived in Tehran on March 12, and the Iranian response was slow in coming. It is important to understand that while Tehran was flattered by Washington’s secret handwritten approach, it could not accept several aspects of its behavior.
• First, the United States, faithful to Trump’s Art of the Deal technique, threatened Iran while trying to placate it. International relations are not governed by the same rules as business. Giving in to threats is a sign of weakness that the Iranians could not accept in these negotiations. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei commented on March 28: “The enmity of the United States and Israel has always existed. They threaten to attack us, which we believe is not very likely, but if they commit a misdeed, they will certainly receive a strong blow in return.” If the enemies think they can instigate sedition in the country, the Iranian nation itself will respond to them.” President Donald Trump further emphasized this on March 30, telling NBC News: “If they don’t reach an agreement, there will be bombing. It will be bombing like they’ve never seen before.”
According to the United Nations Charter (Article 2, paragraph 4), “members of the Organization shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
The negotiations were therefore compromised before they even began.
• Moreover, massacring the leaders of Ansar Allah was a gratuitous war crime: General Qassem Soleimani, by reorganizing the “Axis of Resistance,” had given Iran’s former proxies their complete freedom. Tehran currently has no influence, other than ideological, over Ansar Allah. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani therefore raised these points at the United Nations [3].
• Finally, and most importantly, Donald Trump, by accumulating contradictory signals, did not allow the Iranians to assess his relations with Israel. Does he support the project of a binational state in Palestine (the one promoted by the United Nations)? Or of a Jewish state in Palestine (“Zionism”)? Or that of a “Greater Israel” (“Revisionist Zionism”)? No one knows for sure.
Ultimately, Iran sent a secret response to the secret letter from the United States, and negotiations were able to begin, but only indirectly. That is, the two delegations did not speak directly to each other, but only through a mediator. In this way, Tehran responded to the invitation, but expressed its disapproval of the manner in which it was convened.
ntervening directly, France and the United Kingdom convened a closed-door meeting of the Security Council. Paris and London wished to address several outstanding issues. As nothing has been leaked, it is unclear whether President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer wanted to clarify what had caused all other attempts at negotiations to fail or, on the contrary, to obscure what could have been further obscured…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.voltairenet.org/article222165.html
80 years on, US still embattled in senseless Cold War with Russia
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 7 May 25, https://theaimn.net/80-years-on-us-still-embattled-in-a-cold-war-with-russia/#google_vignette
May 8 marks 80 years since Victory in Europe Day. That victory kicked off the 46 year long Cold War against our great WWII ally Soviet Union (now Russia).
Sadly, the 1991 end of the Soviet Union simply transferred the Cold War into a cool war against Russia which has since gone cold again.
We’ve spent the last 34 years ever expanding the Cold War NATO alliance to Russia’s borders to keep them out of the European political economy and guarantee a yearly trillion dollar defense budget to prop up American capitalism. What good is the world’s largest military if you do not have a monstrous enemy to justify it?
That could have been avoided except for arguably the worst vice presidential pick in American history.
Every American today knows who Harry Truman was but few have a clue about his predecessor. Henry Wallace was a 20th century American visionary shoved out of the vice presidency in 1944, denying him the presidency upon the death of FDR, and changing America and the world for the worse.
Henry Wallace has been largely written out of the American Story told to succeeding generations of Americans by the protectors of the American Super Power Myth.
Born in 1888 to an affluent Iowa Republican farm family, Wallace increased family wealth with his Hi-Bred Corn Company. But the Depression turned Wallace into a zealous champion of the common man, landing him the Secretary of Agriculture post in FDR’s first term. Possibly the most effective New Dealer, Wallace championed the broken American farmer using curtailed production and price supports to ameliorate rampant rural poverty. His unbridled Bernie Sanders like democratic socialism of the 30’s garnered him FDR’s reverence and the 1940 third term vice presidency.
Wallace transformed the vice presidency for the good, long before Dick Cheney transformed it for evil. FDR made him what journalists tabbed the ‘Assistant President’ in his role mobilizing war production during WWII and championing FDR’s vision for a truly peaceful post WWII world working in partnership with critical war ally Russia for a peaceful Europe and ending European colonialism in Asia and Africa.
In 1942 he gave his famous “Common Man” speech, declaring the 20th century must celebrate the common man, not just, as Time publisher Henry Luce postured, the American Century. In 1943, he joined with the black community following the Detroit race riot, arguing “We cannot crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home.”
His near FDR like popularity made him a lock for VP again on the ’44 Democratic ticket. But with FDR fading mentally and physically, party leaders saw opportunity to dump him. His peace proclivities threatened their continuation of a war economy to combat their imaginary new Hitler in the form of Joseph Stalin.
They closed the late night convention session on the brink of re nominating Wallace for a second term. That garnered time to make deals with the other candidates to move the pliant Harry Truman from last to first in the final VP tally.
Three months into term four FDR died thrusting Truman into the White House. This set the stage for the Cold War due to Truman’s capitulation to the neo-conservatives of his day such as Jimmy Byrnes and Jimmy Forestall who demanded a fresh enemy to keep the emerging Military-Industrial Complex in business. A Wallace presidency would have sidelined these anti Russian hardliners. The chance for a truly peaceful post WWII world was irrevocably lost.
The post WWII neocons won out over Wallace, but undaunted he launched a 3rd party progressive campaign in 1948 to unseat Truman. McCarthyite red smears and personal attacks on his progressive philosophy doomed him to just 3% of the ’48 vote, ending his career. Also ended was any opportunity for America to retreat from senseless Cold War.
That leaves us to ponder if today’s new Cold War will rage on for another 80 years.
Ohio EPA launches limited Luckey water testing after independent report shows high radiation in wells.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, now under sharp scrutiny, will begin targeted water sampling in the village of Luckey on Wednesday, May 7. The move comes in response to independent testing conducted by The Toledo Blade, which uncovered elevated levels of radioactive contaminants in residential wells surrounding a former Cold War-era nuclear materials site.
The Ohio EPA said it will collect samples from Eastwood Local School buildings, Pemberville Public Library branches, and the Pemberville water treatment plants. The agency stated that certified laboratories will perform radiological analyses using “standard protocols,” though it has not clarified whether that includes specific isotope detection or testing for beta-emitting radionuclides.
Of the 38 samples tested for gamma radiation, 19 revealed bismuth-214 levels at least 10 times higher than the background thresholds established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The presence of bismuth-214 strongly indicates the presence of radon-222, a radioactive gas known to increase cancer risk. Some wells also tested positive for radium-226, radon-222, alpha and beta radiation, beryllium, and mercury.
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Beryllium, used at the Luckey site in the 1950s, was a focal point. Of 14 wells tested for it and other metals, multiple locations showed concerning levels. Several samples were also retested to look for specific contamination types.
Katie Boyer, spokesperson for the Ohio EPA, told investigative journalist Jason Salley during an earlier investigation into drinking water concerns in Pike County, that “Ohio public water systems are not required to monitor for gross beta radiation unless they are located near a known contamination source or are at risk of contamination. If initial tests show low or no beta radiation, no further testing is necessary. Gross beta monitoring is very rare in public water systems.”
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This admission has further fueled public concern, given that Luckey sits adjacent to a federally managed cleanup site under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). Critics argue that limited testing of public buildings, rather than the private wells identified in The Blade’s report, leaves gaps in understanding potential exposure risks.
In response to the Ohio EPA’s vague testing plan, the Appalachian Press and Public Affairs Report (APPA Report) submitted a formal request to the agency, pressing for clarity on whether the upcoming analyses will include beta emitters or man-made radionuclides. As of publication, the agency has not responded.
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Sampling will begin at 1 p.m. on Wednesday at Basic Park in Luckey. Amy Klei, chief of Ohio EPA’s Division of Drinking and Ground Waters, will be available to address media questions about the scope and intent of the testing.
While state officials move forward with limited action, residents and environmental watchdogs continue to demand transparency and accountability, warning that failure to address the full scope of potential contamination could have long-term public health consequences.
Durbin successor must not be co opted by the Israel Lobby.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 5 May 25
My outgoing senator Dick Durbin spent his entire 29 year Senate career beholding to the Israel Lobby. In the past 25 years alone he’s received $1,131,900 in campaign cash to ignore Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, transformed into genocide after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. His support for a 2 state solution (Palestinian statehood) is worthless virtue signaling as he’s done nothing of substance to achieve that goal along with making America the 148th nation out of 193 to recognize Palestinian statehood.
We need to replace Durbin with a principled candidate not ensnared by Israel Lobby money. Alas, the 5 Illinois House members mentioned as possible successors are all in the tank to remain mum on truly promoting Palestinian statehood and seeking end to US enabling Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL 8) $269,530
Nikki Budzinski (D-IL 13) $187660
Darin LaHood (R-IL 16) $112,687
Robin Kelly (D-IL 2) $187,272
Lauren Underwood (D-IL 14) $ 75,593,
Tho not mentioned as a possible candidate, we of peace should encourage Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL 3) to seek Durbin’s open seat next year.
Her take from the Israel Lobby since her election in November 2022? Zero, nada, zilch.
That allowed Ramirez to push back against US billions funding the Israeli genocide, saying this in March, 2024: “The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. Gazans are starving. Over 1.5 million people have been displaced. Hostilities between the U.S. and Iran are escalating. And just this morning, The New York Times reported that one-fifth of the hostages still in captivity since the start of the conflict have likely died. We must change course. Under no circumstances could I have voted for today’s H.R. 7217 to provide $17.6 billion in unconditioned military funding for Israel. The supplemental funding proposed, which includes no humanitarian aid for Gaza, supports weapons of war and destruction that further jeopardize Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians. Each U.S.-made or funded bomb dropped in Gaza further jeopardizes the chances of long-lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now: I will only support actions that bring us closer to peace.”
Come on Krishnamoorthi, Budzinski, LaHood, Kelly, Underwood, either drop accepting Israel Lobby money to ignore the genocidal ethnic cleaning of Gaza, or drop any consideration of replacing the Lobby’s million dollar Senator Dick Durbin.
Senator Strangelove
Like the ghost of Armageddon Future, former Senator Jon Kyl keeps reappearing in nuclear debates, writes William Hartung
A primary responsibility of the government is, of course, to keep us safe. Given that obligation, you might think that the Washington establishment would be hard at work trying to prevent the ultimate catastrophe—a nuclear war. But you would be wrong.
A small, hardworking contingent of elected officials is indeed trying to roll back the nuclear arms race and make it harder for such world-ending weaponry ever to be used again, including stalwarts like Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and other members of the Congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group. But they face ever stiffer headwinds from a resurgent network of nuclear hawks who want to build more kinds of nuclear weapons and ever more of them. And mind you, that would all be in addition to the Pentagon’s current plans for spending up to $2 trillion over the next three decades to create a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, stoking a dangerous new nuclear arms race.
There are many drivers of this push for a larger, more dangerous arsenal—from the misguided notion that more nuclear weapons will make us safer to an entrenched network of companies, governmental institutions, members of Congress, and policy pundits who will profit (directly or indirectly) from an accelerated nuclear arms race. One indicator of the current state of affairs is the resurgence of former Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who spent 18 years in Congress opposing even the most modest efforts to control nuclear weapons before he went on to work as a lobbyist and policy advocate for the nuclear weapons complex.
His continuing prominence in debates over nuclear policy—evidenced most recently by his position as vice chair of a congressionally appointed commission that sought to legitimize an across-the-board nuclear buildup—is a testament to our historical amnesia about the risks posed by nuclear weapons.
Senator Strangelove
Republican Jon Kyl was elected to the Senate from Arizona in 1995 and served in that body until 2013, plus a brief stint in late 2018 to fill out the term of the late Sen. John McCain.
One of Kyl’s signature accomplishments in his early years in office was his role in lobbying fellow Republican senators to vote against ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which went down to a 51 to 48 Senate defeat in October 1999. That treaty banned explosive nuclear testing and included monitoring and verification procedures meant to ensure that its members met their obligations. Had it been widely adopted, it might have slowed the spread of nuclear weapons, now possessed by nine countries, and prevented a return to the days when aboveground testing spread cancer-causing radiation to downwind communities.
The defeat of the CTBT marked the beginning of a decades-long process of dismantling the global nuclear arms control system, launched by the December 2001 withdrawal of President George W. Bush’s administration from the Nixon-era Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. That treaty was designed to prevent a “defense-offense” nuclear arms race in which one side’s pursuit of anti-missile defenses sparks the other side to build more—and ever more capable—nuclear-armed missiles. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty an “epic mistake” that fueled a new nuclear arms race. Kyl argued otherwise, claiming the withdrawal removed “a straitjacket from our national security.”
The end of the ABM treaty created the worst of both worlds—an incentive for adversaries to build up their nuclear arsenals coupled with an abject failure to develop weaponry that could actually defend the United States in the event of a real-world nuclear attack………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
There is another way. Even as Washington, Moscow, and Beijing continue the production of a new generation of nuclear weapons—such weaponry is also possessed by France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom—a growing number of nations have gone on record against any further nuclear arms race and in favor of eliminating such weapons altogether. In fact, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has now been ratified by 73 countries.
As Beatrice Fihn, former director of the Nobel-prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, pointed out in a recent essay in The New York Times, there are numerous examples of how collective action has transformed “seemingly impossible situations.” She cited the impact of the antinuclear movement of the 1980s in reversing a superpower nuclear arms race and setting the stage for sharp reductions in the numbers of such weapons, as well as a successful international effort to bring the nuclear ban treaty into existence. She noted that a crucial first step in bringing the potentially catastrophic nuclear arms race under control would involve changing the way we talk about such weapons, especially debunking the myth that they are somehow “magical tools” that make us all more secure. She also emphasized the importance of driving home that this planet’s growing nuclear arsenals are evidence that all too many of those in power are acquiescing in a reckless strategy “based on threatening to commit global collective suicide.”
The next few years will be crucial in determining whether ever growing numbers of nuclear weapons remain entrenched in this country’s budgets and its global strategy for decades to come or whether common sense can carry the day and spark the reduction and eventual elimination of such instruments of mass devastation. A vigorous public debate on the risks of an accelerated nuclear arms race would be a necessary first step toward pulling the world back from the brink of Armageddon.
William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the author most recently of “Pathways to Pentagon Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles.” This article first appeared on Tom Dispatch and on Common Dreams, whose content is available through a Creative Commons license. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/05/04/senator-strangelove/
Niagara County New York Radiation Disaster -discovered in 2024
, https://thewaynefocus.blogspot.com/2024/09/niagara-county-new-york-radiation.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawKBMSNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFDTTNHRFd0N0pwdkx2OTA0AR6FccTj8LP8Wpr9m0agp5nEln7TFC3Ld6AcVDU4Y4iWAAUTRe5z2YA7yZTtHQ_aem_xv_Ij8_zSCXoSMWjxV-mbw
Regarding the Niagara County, New York Radioactivity Contamination Disaster Discovered in 2024 as a result of surreptitious shipments of high, medium and low grade radioactive materials from Niagara County, New York to Van Buren Charter Township, Wayne County, Michigan Notes from September 19, 2024
Simplified Timeline of the Van Buren Charter Township Nuclear Waste Disaster Gleaned from newspaper reports, personal interviews, discussion and official remarks
1. Decision is made to create Fusion Atomic Bomb
2 For this timeline a bomb will be manufactured at the Hanford, Washington Nuclear Reservation a. This bomb will ultimately be delivered to Nagasaki for atmospheric explosion .
3. The work commences at the Hanford Reservation creating enormous amounts of radioactive waste. The waste was likely composed of but not limited to : a. Radioactive Soil b. Radioactive Water c. Radioactive Powdered Chemicals d. Radioactive Liquid Chemicals e. Radioactive wood, metal, ceramic, cloth and other radioactive materials
4. The liquid waste was deposited regularly in gigantic storage tanks a. The liquid waste burned through the containing steel and contaminated large areas b. That issue is still being addressed c. The materials are making their way towards the Columbia River
5. The solid waste was collected in many instances into giant piles a. Eventually it was decided to bury most of the solid waste b. The groundwater flow picked up radiation and other toxic chemicals from the buried materials and began their own migration towards the Columbia River c. This contamination is still being dealt with.
6. It was decided either immediately following the end of World War 2 or in the 1950’s that getting rid of the radioactive materials left over from the frenetic activity surrounding the creation of the Nagasaki Atomic Weapon would be a good course of action a A series of steps to neutralize or prepare the material to be buried without it contaminating ground waters, the Earth or the air was put together b. A contract was let out and a contractor selected to deal with the materials c. Either by rapid truck transport, as is happening in the present situation between Lewiston, New York and the Charter Township of Van Buren, Michigan, or train shipments by a presently unknown carrier over a presently unknown route, the materials were taken from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State and transported 2,514 miles to a new site in Lewiston, New York d. The material was deposited on the ground in an unknown manner. Indications are that it was an open dump.
7. The contractor began preparations to treat the materials. Indications were that the intent was to reduce overall radioactivity in some manner, but primarily, the work would center on making the materials easier to handle and somewhat inert by suspending them in glass and other materials for burial. a. At some point, apparently a year after the deposition of the materials in Lewiston, NY, the Federal Government abruptly changed the manner in which the work was to be done. Because of the high levels of radioactivity in the materials special buildings had to be erected, special clothing had to be provided to workers, workers could only be exposed to the materials for specific amounts of time and specialized ventilation and atmospheric equipment and filters would need to be installed b. Upon receipt of these new requirements and having completed a brief study of the impact on profits to the enterprise the contractor left. The work was abandoned. c. The radioactive materials that had been transported to Lewiston, NY from the nuclear reservation at Hanford, WA were left to the elements for at least one year, maybe two and possibly longer d. A decision was made at some unspecified time to bury the materials at the place where they were deposited. e. Due to the arrangements of the materials they were either laid out in a large area and then bulldozed into piles or had been deposited in piles initially. They were apparently buried without any sort of underground barrier. f. From a crude visual observation of the present state of the materials it appears they were buried on the surface in gigantic piles. Some have settled into the earth while others appear to have retained their mounding shape.
8. In 2016 after considerable wrangling and the realization that cancers and other dread diseases were spiking in the area and due to action by the Tuscarora nation and approximately 300 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency in New York or whatever organization had been caring for the materials for nearly a century, it was decided, after local public hearings, that the United States Army Corps of Engineers would remove all of the materials to another location.
9. One of the primary driving forces behind moving the materials, along with higher rates of cancer, other diseases, probable birth defects and possible birth mortality, was that the materials were burning their way to the Niagara River.
10. At this point, due to ionization and the natural dispersal of these unnatural elements, an area many times larger than the original point of delivery now existed. The materials had exited the property lines and have contaminated an enormous area around where they had been dropped off. Parallel and Interesting Points of Interest in a Somewhat Linear Timeline of Events in Some Order These may or may not figure in the final Niagara County, New York Contamination Disaster of 2016 :
(1.)A landfill was built abutting the nuclear waste dump in Lewiston, NY. a. The landfill was used for depositing materials from across Niagara County and perhaps elsewhere
(2) A driver for a paving company in Canada rolled his truck over a. The driver was subsequently fired by his brothers b. The driver started his own paving company c. At one point someone said to him, ‘You know, we sure could use someone to carry away all this waste when were done with the work.’ d. The driver began a waste hauling service e. The driver’s waste hauling service was successful and the driver opened or took control of a dump f. The driver became a successful businessman and the dump expanded g. The driver’s company became well known in the area h. The company purchased or controlled several area dumps (landfills) and they expanded
(3) During the course of all this there was a separate issue with the Love Canal and another location where chemicals were deposited in an irresponsible and unprofessional manner leading to health impacts across that area. The Love Canal is also in Niagara County
(4)At this point the timeline is murky and breaks up but these facts occurred : a. Along with the materials being collected and removed from the Lewiston Nuclear Storage Site that are being moved now against common sense there were even more hazardous and radioactive materials moved to Van Buren Charter Township, MI without telling any of the residents. b. It is not clear if the Michigan Governor know this, but certainly, it would have been the business of the State of Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy to be alerted or informed that the material was on the way. The words ‘alerted’ and ‘informed’ are used loosely here because according the processes of the State of Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy moving or depositing or releasing into the atmosphere, into the Earth or into the waters of the Great Lakes water system it is a simple manner not only to gain approval but to continue dumping and polluting in amounts of many tens of thousands of tons for a small fee, which may be deferred or excused according to the sentiments of the Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy employee assigned to the work. c. Niagara County and other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States of Army Corps of Engineers, the New York State department of the environment, local elected officials, state elected officials and possibly federal elected officials became aware of a widespread problem involving radioactivity across Niagara County. d. Many, many miles of State, County and local roads apparently have been paved with radioactive materials. e. The radioactive materials used in the paving were used in various ways, sometimes as a substrate, sometimes as a binder and sometimes included in the surface paving materials. It is likely that in some cases it was used in all three preparations and/or other situations f. Radioactive materials have been encountered in commercial parking lots, residential driveways, aggregate placement under foundations for private homes and at least one large cemetery had been covered in it from a depth of two to more feet. g. In one case a large deposit of radioactive material that was discovered near a large commercial construction project was noted by authorities. They could not determine where it came from. In a wicked denouement, that actually has not been resolved, upon return to the site the material had been removed by unknown persons for unknown reasons. So – they found a large amount of highly radioactive material near to a construction site, recorded the fact, went back at some undetermined time and found that the material was gone. h. Finely grained black sand with very high radioactivity levels was removed from several private residential sites.
(5) The waste disposal company (the dump and landfill operator) took over the collection business of Republic Waste in at least most of the areas in Niagara County, NY, if not all of them.
(6) Republic Waste has a dump located nearby the Niagara Nuclear Site in Lewiston, New York.
(7). The landfill owner died
(8). The company still exists and remains the largest and richest waste handling company in northwestern New York and eastern Ontario.
(9.) A decision was made unbeknownst to the local inhabitants in Michigan, to move the materials that have now placed the Columbia River and the Niagara River in jeopardy of further contamination by radioactive nuclear materials and other toxic waste to bury this material in the watershed of the Huron River and very close to Ford Lake and so, repeat the pattern of mismanagement of the materials and place even more Americans in peril while enriching private corporations. We also seen and are experiencing deflecting the responsibility from poorly run Federal and State organizations and departments ostensibly in place to protect the health and well being of Americans, but, which, instead, have seen to their own diverse interests and need.
(10.) Federal Michigan Elected Representatives point to the State Michigan Elected Representatives as the core to the solution of these co-occurring disasters while State Michigan Elected Representatives point to the Federal Michigan Elected Representatives to solve the problem.
(11. ) New York elected at all levels remain mute and do not remark nor comment on these disasters, the original one being clearly in there area of influence and duty in New York State.
(12.) Both Governor Whitmer of Michigan and Governor Hochul of New have been silent on the issue. We see no comments either supporting the resolution of these two disasters or mitigating the destruction clearly raging in Niagara County, New York nor the current assault on the heavily populated area in southeastern Michigan where this poisonous, dangerous and poorly managed material is being dumped to the peril of individuals, seniors, families, children and businesses in the local area, county and region. Possible Conclusions or Inference, including Possible Actions to take regarding the Niagara County, New York Contamination Disaster so as not to exacerbate the Van Buren Charter Township Waste Disaster now occurring – 1. There seems to be a very dangerous situation that has occurred with the infrastructure in Niagara County, New York. The roads will need to be checked. 2. Wherever the substrate came from that supply line needs to be discontinued. 3. The company that supplied the radioactive material needs to be discovered and their area of activity made known. 4. Was nuclear material to be used for paving also transported to Ontario across national borders without notification or was it imported from Canada into New York where it was used to pave roads, parking lots, cover at least one cemetery and be used for foundation preparations for homes, business and driveways? 5. I feel that an inspection of the garbage trucks and paving trucks in the area would be in order to ensure that they are not contaminated with radioactivity 6. I feel that MICares in Michigan should be alerted to the fact that this material has been passing into our environment for at least the past two to three years if not longer. 7. I feel that medical monitoring for the affected people in Niagara County, New York is in order 8. I feel that a radioactive survey of all the roadways, building sites, homes, commercial sites that have been built in the area since at least the 1960’s should be performed in Niagara County. This should include a review of all cemeteries and any locations that the paving/dump company owner provided services to, whether for profit or charitable purposes – with special attention to churches, elementary schools, high schools, private and public parks, hospitals and other locations. Thank you for your time and attention.
Updates on Palisades: Zombie reactor & “SMR” new builds
These so-called “Small Modular Reactors” are not small. At 300 Megawatts-electric each, their construction and operation would nearly double the zombie reactor’s 800 MW-e on the tiny site. They would each be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Fermi 1 reactor in southeastern Michigan, which on October 5, 1966 had a partial core meltdown, and “We Almost Lost Detroit,”
April 30, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/updates-on-palisades-zombie-reactor-smr-new-builds/
Holtec and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) zealous and reckless push for restart of the 60-year old zombie reactor, as well as “Small Modular Reactor” new builds, at the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Michigan, has continued non-stop recently. So too has Beyond Nuclear’s resistance to the unprecedented, unneeded, very dangerous, and insanely costly schemes, alongside our environmental allies in the area.
On April 29, 2025, the five Commissioners of the NRC held an Affirmation Session, and unanimously approved Palisades’ license transfer from previous owner Entergy, to new owner Holtec. Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future (MSEF) had petitioned to intervene against it, and requested a hearing. The coalition has opposed Holtec’s takeover at Palisades from the get-go in 2020-2021. But NRC staff, the NRC Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB), and the NRC Commissioners, have blown us off at every twist and turn. And still we persist, with no intention to slow down or give up!
Quite to the contrary, we continue our watchdogging, speaking environmental truth to nuclear power (or greed-driven corruption, anyway), sometimes on an intense daily basis.
Also on April 29, several environmental watchdogs attended an NRC-Holtec technical meeting, the latest of countless such meetings related to the nuclear nightmare of the restart scheme, which began three years ago this month. Representatives from Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago spoke out strongly against safety shortcuts regarding the potential for loss of power to operate vital safety and cooling systems at Palisades, due to the risk of an “open phase” flaw in the electrical systems. This problem dates back decades and has yet to be resolved.
The day before, on April 28, representatives from Beyond Nuclear and Don’t Waste Michigan spoke out at yet another NRC-Holtec technical meeting, regarding environmental review of the company’s scheme to add two SMR-300s, frighteningly close to the Van Buren State Park campground.
Kraig Schultz of MSEF-Shoreline Chapter in Grand Haven, MI made an audio recording of the April 28 meeting. Listen to it here.
These so-called “Small Modular Reactors” are not small. At 300 Megawatts-electric each, their construction and operation would nearly double the zombie reactor’s 800 MW-e on the tiny site. They would each be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Fermi 1 reactor in southeastern Michigan, which on October 5, 1966 had a partial core meltdown, and “We Almost Lost Detroit,” in the words of John G. Fuller’s iconic 1975 book title, and Gil Scott-Heron’s 1977 song title. They would also be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Big Rock Point reactor in northwest Michigan, which despite supposedly not having had a disaster, nonetheless shockingly released more than three million Curies of hazardous radioactivity into the environment.
The juxtaposition of the restarted zombie reactor, and the “SMR” new builds, would represent both extremes on the risk spectrum: breakdown phase risks, and break-in phase risks. Chornobyl Unit 4 in Ukraine in 1986, Three Mile Island Unit 2 in Pennsylvania in 1979, and Fermi Unit 1 in Michigan in 1966 are examples of break-in phase reactor disasters and catastrophes.
In addition to the decades-long electrical risks at Palisades mentioned above, there are multiple pathways to reactor core meltdown related to vital safety systems already pushed to the brink of breakdown. Palisades’ original owner, Consumers Energy (previously Consumers Power), listed them in a presentation to the Michigan Public Service Commission in spring 2006: “Reactor vessel head replacement; Steam generator replacement; Reactor vessel embrittlement concerns; …Containment coatings and sump strainers.”
None of these vital safety repairs or replacements have ever been performed, not by Consumers Energy in 2006, Palisades’ next owner Entergy from 2007 to 2022, nor by Holtec since 2022. Why not? Because the complicit NRC has not required it.
The Japanese Parliament concluded in 2012 that the root cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, which began on March 11, 2011, was collusion, between the company (Tokyo Electric), the safety regulatory agency, and government officials. Such collusion exists in spades at Palisades. And thus people and other living things live in deepening peril, downwind, downstream, up the food chain, and down the generations.
Regarding the needed “Steam generator replacement,” Holtec has no intention of doing so, despite giving the $510 million job some lip service in a secretive, smoking gun 2022 document Beyond Nuclear obtained from the State of Michigan via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Holtec’s rookie error (it has never operated a reactor) of neglecting steam generator maintenance from 2022 to 2024 has led to accelerated corrosion and degradation of exceedingly thin steam generator tubes in shockingly high numbers. It did not implement a chemically-preservative wet lay up, as repeatedly and publicly recommended by our coalition’s expert witness, Arnie Gundersen. The company has applied to NRC for a License Amendment Request (LAR) that represents mere BAND-AID fixes on the steam generator tubes. Our environmental coalition — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania — has every intention of petitioning to intervene, and requesting a hearing, in opposition to the LAR, by the fast-approaching deadline in June.
Speaking of LARs, our coalition has challenged four others. The NRC staff opposed our challenges, as did Holtec. The ASLB ruled against all of our contentions, in rapid fire fashion. We have appealed those rulings to the NRC Commissioners. If and when the Commissioners reject our contentions as well, we will appeal to the federal courts.
We still have a number of live new and amended contentions regarding NRC’s Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact. The ASLB has ordered another round of oral argument pre-hearings, scheduled for May 15, regarding them. As on Feb. 12, 2025, at our first round of oral argument pre-hearings on the four LARs mentioned above, our coalition’s legal counsel, Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, and Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will represent us before the ASLB yet again on May 15.
Yet another of numerous NRC public meetings regarding Palisades’ restart status was held in Benton Harbor, MI on April 23, 2025. Watchdogs attended and spoke out.
And, following the money, as reported by producer Chrystal Blair at Public News Service on April 25 (the eve of the annual commemoration of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Holtec the third installment of loan guarantees, this time for $47 million.
The second installment, awarded on March 17, was for $57 million.
The first installment, in early 2025, was for $38 million.
DOE announced on September 30, 2024 the final approval for $1.52 billion in loan guarantees for Holtec toward the zombie reactor restart. Holtec need not pay the money back. If Holtec defaults on repaying the loans, U.S. taxpayers will be left holding the bag.
See Beyond Nuclear radioactive waste specialist Kevin Kamps’ breakdown of bailouts at Palisades.
Blair quoted Kamps:
“A recent analysis by Dave Lochbaum, who is retired from the Nuclear Safety Program at Union of Concerned Scientists, placed Palisades at something like 84th out of 105 reactors in the country,” Kamps pointed out. “His analysis was they’re more like in the bottom rung of the industry, actually.”
[Palisades is ranked 81st out of 106 reactors, actually.]
Here is that Lochbaum analysis, as well as his chronicle of events (including mishaps) at Palisades, some quite serious, over six decades.
Lochbaum also authored a backgrounder in 2010, about Palisades’ problem-plagued Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM) seal leaks, the worst in industry. CRDM seal leaks are yet another potential pathway to reactor core meltdown.
Blair also reported:
Punkin Shananaquet, a member of Michigan’s Indigenous community, emphasized for many Native people, the issue is not just about public safety, it is about honoring the sacredness of the land and water and educating the next generation about protecting the earth.
“We just can’t be pushed through the corporate world because they have no spirit,” Shananaquet contended. “We have spirit. We are the ones with the feelings for this place.”
Shananaquet, and her family, graced and honored the World Tree Peace Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan at its grand opening, on Indigenous Peoples Day (October 12, formerly Columbus Day), 1996. Kamps co-founded the World Tree, and co-directed it till 1999, when he began a new job, at Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), in Washington, DC, as nuclear waste specialist there for eight years, before joining Beyond Nuclear. The World Tree focused on watch-dogging Palisades, as well as the Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant 30 miles south of Palisades, and various undertakings for the Chornobyl Children’s Project.
And regarding the very significant safety problem of “Containment coatings and sump strainers” mentioned above, NRC and Holtec held a related meeting last week. Don’t Waste MI attended and spoke out. In an emergency, containment coatings could dissolve into a viscous sludge with the consistency of Elmer’s Glue, clogging sump strainers. This could block coolant flow needed to prevent a reactor core meltdown. This pathway to meltdown at Palisades has been known about for a quarter-century, yet nothing meaningful has been done to address it — just NRC allowing Palisades’ three owners during those 25 years to kick the can down the road.
Last but not least, on April 12, 2025, the St. Joe-Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium reported that Holtec had transferred highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, from the indoor wet storage pool at Palisades, into outdoor dry cask storage.
Although such transfers ultimately represent an increase in safety — pools are vulnerable to mega-catastrophic fires, that could release unthinkable amounts of hazardous radioactivity into the environment — such transfers must be done very carefully, including with emergency preparedness measures in place. (It should be kept in mind, however, that the widespread quality assurance violations associated with Holtec’s dry cask storage containers’ fabrication call into question their structural integrity, even in on-site storage; see a summary of whistleblower allegations about this, here.)
Such emergency preparedness was not in place when Holtec undertook these irradiated nuclear fuel transfers. Palisades’ previous owner, Entergy, requested a waiver and exemption from emergency preparedness, as it permanently shutdown the reactor several years ago, and entered it into the decommissioning status phase.
Although Holtec has requested that NRC approve re-establishing emergency preparedness and planning, in order to restart the reactor and operate Palisades again, such NRC approval is not yet finalized.
The danger comes from moving such heavy loads as loaded highly radioactive waste containers over the vulnerable pool. The inadvertent drop of such a heavy load could damage the pool, and drain away vital cooling water.
Palisades had a near miss under its original owner, Consumers Energy, in October 2005, with just such a heavy load drop scenario.
See the April, 2006 NIRS backgrounder on this incident, prepared by Kevin Kamps, here.
See the related March, 2006 environmental coalition press release, here.
See the March, 2006 front page, above the fold Detroit Free Press coverage of the serious near-miss, here.
Holtec’s scheming, and NRC’s complicity, have continued apace for three years. So too has our resistance. It will only intensify in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Holtec has stood by its schedule to restart the Palisades zombie reactor by October 2025, and to fire up its proposed “SMR”-300s by 2030. We will resist these schemes at every opportunity, to the best of our ability.
To learn more about the past three years of this nuclear nightmare, and our resistance to it, see our chronicle of web posts (arranged backwards, newest posts at the top).
NUKE WASTE DUMP: Ojibwe Country once again targeted
May 1, 2025, Beyond Nuclear
JUST SAY NO TO NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPING IN NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO!
Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, presented “Water Is Life, Nuclear Waste Is Toxic” at the annual meeting of Environment North, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Superior, April 23, 2025.
Environment North is the lead local grassroots organization resisting the Canadian federal Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO, dominated by the nuclear industry, such as Ontario Power Generation) designation of the Ignace-Wabigoon Lake Ojibway First Nation area as the national radioactive waste dump.
A number of Ojibway First Nation Bands have also passed resolutions opposing the scheme, which would require long-distance, high-risk transportation of highly radioactive waste, from some two-dozen reactors to the east in Canada, on the Great Lakes, Saint Lawrence, and Atlantic.
See local coverage on April 22, 2025, quoting Kamps, by the Chronicle-Journal newspaper, here.
Watch a video recording of Kamps’ April 23, 2025 presentation, here. (Note that you can turn on the subtitles under Settings, to complement the audio.)
See Kevin’s slideshow presentation, here.
Listen to the audio recording, here, of Kamps being interviewed by host Scot Kyle, on the podcast “Wiley Koyote” on April 24, 2025. It was broadcast live on CILU Radio, 102.7 FM, as part of the Paradigm Shift Cafe, from the campus of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Environment North’s Graham Saunders was also interviewed.
See Environment North’s press release about Kevin’s presentation, here.
See Environment North’s flier for Kevin’s presentation, here…………………………………………………………………………… https://beyondnuclear.org/nuke-waste-dump-ojibwe-country-once-again-targeted/
Kingston Fossil Plant and Oakridge Nuclear Facility – an unholy alliance of radioactive pollution,
While no one was killed by the 2008 coal ash spill itself, dozens of workers have died from illnesses that emerged during or after the cleanup. Hundreds of other workers are sick from respiratory, cardiac, neurological, and blood disorders, as well as cancers.
The apparent mixing of fossil fuel and nuclear waste streams underscores the long relationship between the Kingston and Oak Ridge facilities.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, so much cesium-137 and mercury was released into the Clinch from Oak Ridge that the Department of Energy, or DOE, said that the river and its feeder stream “served as pipelines for contaminants.” Yet TVA and its contractors, with the blessing of both state and federal regulators, classified all 4 million tons of material they recovered from the Emory as “non-hazardous.”
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis confirms that the ash that was left in the river was “found to be commingled with contamination from the Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation site.
For nearly a century, both Oak Ridge and TVA treated their waste with less care than most families treat household garbage. It was often dumped into unlined, and sometimes unmarked, pits that continue to leak into waterways. For decades, Oak Ridge served as the Southeast’s burial ground for nuclear waste. It was stored within watersheds and floodplains that fed the Clinch River. But exactly where and how this waste was buried has been notoriously hard to track.
A Legacy of Contamination, How the Kingston coal ash spill unearthed a nuclear nightmare, Grist By Austyn Gaffney on Dec 
15, 2020 This story was published in partnership with the Daily Yonder.
In 2009, App Thacker was hired to run a dredge along the Emory River in eastern Tennessee. Picture an
industrialized fleet modeled after Huck Finn’s raft: Nicknamed Adelyn, Kylee, and Shirley, the blue, flat-bottomed boats used mechanical arms called cutterheads to dig up riverbeds and siphon the excavated sediment into shoreline canals. The largest dredge, a two-story behemoth called the Sandpiper, had pipes wide enough to swallow a push lawnmower. Smaller dredges like Thacker’s scuttled behind it, scooping up excess muck like fish skimming a whale’s corpse. They all had the same directive: Remove the thick grey sludge that clogged the Emory.
The sludge was coal ash, the waste leftover when coal is burned to generate electricity. Twelve years ago this month, more than a billion gallons of wet ash burst from a holding pond monitored by the region’s major utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA. Thacker, a heavy machinery operator with Knoxville’s 917 union, became one of hundreds of people that TVA contractors hired to clean up the spill. For about four years, Thacker spent every afternoon driving 35 miles from his home to arrive in time for his 5 p.m. shift, just as the makeshift overhead lights illuminating the canals of ash flicked on.
Dredging at night was hard work. The pump inside the dredge clogged repeatedly, so Thacker took off his shirt and entered water up to his armpits to remove rocks, tree limbs, tires, and other debris, sometimes in below-freezing temperatures. Soon, ringworm-like sores crested along his arms, interwoven with his fading red and blue tattoos. Thacker’s supervisors gave him a cream for the skin lesions, and he began wearing long black cow-birthing gloves while he unclogged pumps. While Thacker knew that the water was contaminated — that was the point of the dredging — he felt relatively safe. After all, TVA was one of the oldest and most respected employers in the state, with a sterling reputation for worker safety.
Then, one night, the dredging stopped.
Sometime between December 2009 and January 2010, roughly halfway through the final, 500-foot-wide section of the Emory designated for cleanup, operators turned off the pumps that sucked the ash from the river. For a multi-billion dollar remediation project, this order was unprecedented. The dredges had been operating 24/7 in an effort to clean up the disaster area as quickly as possible, removing roughly 3,000 cubic yards of material — almost enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool — each day. But official reports from TVA show that the dredging of the Emory encountered unusually high levels of contamination: Sediment samples showed that mercury levels were three times higher in the river than they were in coal ash from the holding pond that caused the disaster.
Then there was the nuclear waste. Continue reading
Ohio EPA slams DOE’s sloppy radiation sampling plan for Piketon plant demolition
Investigative Team April 30, 2025 , https://appareport.com/2025/04/30/ohio-epa-slams-does-sloppy-radiation-sampling-plan-for-piketon-plant-demolition/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=jetpack_social&fbclid=IwY2xjawKA6SFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR53xTzNJzPFjzVPspqmkVKeF7uYVgoFo-3JyRvLAWnkr4ofz6UTULG0jmZ6Bw_aem_Pf0iP9VXjHpnvVMH91GcuQ
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has raised serious concerns about the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) plans to demolish a key structure at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, flagging gaps in how contaminants and radiation will be tested before the teardown begins.
In a letter dated April 29, the Ohio EPA responded to the DOE’s proposed Materials of Construction Sampling and Analysis Plan for the X-330 Process Building—a massive uranium enrichment facility used during the Cold War. The building is scheduled for demolition as part of the long-term decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the Piketon site, but state regulators say the current plan lacks clarity and thoroughness.
One of the EPA’s primary concerns is DOE’s proposal to use composite samples to test for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), metals, PCBs, hexavalent chromium, and asbestos. Regulators questioned why composite samples—where multiple samples are blended into one—would be acceptable for VOC testing, since that can dilute concentrations and mask localized contamination.
n another comment, EPA noted that roof samples are currently clustered in the center of the building, suggesting that such grouping could fail to capture the full range of possible contaminants across the massive structure’s roof.
Most notably, Ohio EPA is demanding more transparency about future radiological sampling, which has not yet been fully described. According to DOE’s plan, further testing is needed to define the “radiological source term”—essentially, the type and amount of radioactive materials that could end up in the demolition debris. EPA officials asked whether a separate radiological sampling and analysis plan will be submitted, and emphasized the importance of establishing the building as “criticality incredible,” meaning it poses no risk of a nuclear chain reaction.
The letter was issued under the authority of a legally binding 2010 agreement between the state and DOE, known as the Director’s Final Findings and Orders, which governs how the contaminated site must be cleaned up.
The exchange highlights ongoing tensions between state regulators and federal agencies over how to safely dismantle one of the most contaminated Cold War legacy sites in the country. Local residents and activists have long raised concerns about cancer clusters, radioactive leaks, and environmental mismanagement at the Piketon plant.
The DOE has not yet publicly responded to the EPA’s letter.
LANL Plans to Begin Venting Large Quantities of Radioactive Tritium On or After June 2nd
May 1st, 2025, https://nuclearactive.org/
During the early days of the pandemic, on March 10, 2020, LANL mailed a notice to people on the facility mailing list about the proposed venting of radioactive tritium into the air from four metal containers stored at Area G. LANL’s request provided information about its plan to seek temporary authorization to vent from the New Mexico Environment Department, specifically from the Hazardous Waste Bureau. UTF-820200310 Resubmit Temp Authorization FTWC Venting LA-UR-20-22103
Use of the facility mailing list is a notification process for people who want to know about the LANL plans. The public may sign up on the Hazardous Bureau’s website in order to receive a mailed written notice. https://www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/lanl-permit/ , scroll down to LANL Hazardous Waste Facility Permit Mailing List and follow the instructions.
OR
Please notify Siona Briley by email at siona.briley@env.nm.gov , or by postal mail at Siona Briley, New Mexico Environment Department-Hazardous Waste Bureau, 2905 Rodeo Park East, Bldg. 1, Santa Fe, NM 87505. Please include your name, email (preferred communication method to save resources) or postal mailing address, and organization, if any.
Five years later, on April 9th, 2025, the public received email notification from LANL’s Electronic Public Reading Room that the proposed venting would be done on or after June 2, 2025.
Importantly, the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Act provide regulatory distinctions between a mailing to those on facility mailing list and those who receive an email through the Electronic Public Reading Room.
CCNS is on both notice lists. We received both the March 10th, 2020 Facility Mailing List notice and the April 9th, 2025 Electronic Public Reading Room notice.
The Environment Department is reviewing the request to determine whether to grant or deny it. Once the decision is made, people on the Facility Mailing List will receive notice through the mail. Parties will then have thirty days to appeal the decision to the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board. https://www.env.nm.gov/opf/environmental-improvement-board/
CCNS and the Communities for Clean Water < https://www.ccwnewmexico.org/general-2 > urge the Environment Department to require LANL to host hybrid public meetings now in frontline communities before making a decision for the following reasons:
it has been five years since the first notice;
many aspects of the proposal have changed, including the significant reduction in the amount of tritium from 100,000 curies five years ago to 30,000 curies today;
LANL has not publicly provided the technical reasons for the change;
LANL provided a list of 53 alternatives to the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite multiple requests from Tewa Women United, neither federal agency has provided the alternatives list; and
five years is typically a regulatory time period for review of proposed or on-going activities.
It is time for action!
Please communicate with your family and friends and encourage them to sign the Action Network on-line petition directed to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Environment Department Secretary James Kenney requesting denial of LANL’s request.
Online Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-deny-lanls-request-to-release-radioactive-tritium-into-the-air
Nuclear Watch New Mexico Fact Sheet: https://nukewatch.org/why-nmed-should-deny-lanls-request-for-tritium-releases
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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