People Died at Three Mile Island
People Died at Three Mile Island counter punch 25 March 09 By HARVEY WASSERMANPeople died–and are still dying–at Three Mile Island.As the thirtieth anniversary of America’s most infamous industrial accident approaches, we mourn the deaths that accompanied the biggest string of lies ever told in US industrial history.As news of the accident poured into the global media, the public was assured there were no radiation releases.That quickly proved to be false.The public was then told the releases were controlled and done purposely to alleviate pressure on the core. Both those assertions were false. The public was told the releases were “insignificant.”But stack monitors were saturated and unusable, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later told Congress it did not know—and STILL does not know—how much radiation was released at Three Mile Island, or where it went…………………………………..The state of Pennsylvania hid the health impacts, including deletion of cancers from the public record, abolition of the state’s tumor registry, misrepresentation of the impacts it could not hide (including an apparent tripling of the infant death rate in nearby Harrisburg) and much more.
The federal government did nothing to track the health histories of the region’s residents.
In fact, the most reliable studies were conducted by local residents like Jane Lee and Mary Osborne, who went door-to-door in neighborhoods where the fallout was thought to be worst. Their surveys showed very substantial plagues of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, respiratory problems, hair loss, rashes, lesions and much more. ……………………….Data unearthed by radiologist Dr. Ernest Sternglass of the University of Pittsburgh, and statisticians Jay Gould (now deceased) and Joe Mangano of New York have led to strong assertions of major public health impacts. On-going work by Sternglass and Mangano clearly indicates that “normal” reactor radiation releases of far less magnitude that those at TMI continue to have catastrophic impacts on local populations. ………………….while the nuclear power industry continues to assert that “no one died at Three Mile Island,” it refuses to allow an open judicial hearing on the hundreds of cases still pending.
As the pushers of the “nuclear renaissance” demand massive tax- and rate-payer subsidies to build yet another generation of reactors, they cynically stonewall the obvious death toll that continues to mount at the site of an accident that happened thirty years ago. The “see no evil” mantra continues to define all official approaches to the victims of this horrific disaster.
Low-level waste emerges as hurdle for new nuclear reactors
The New York Times By KATHERINE LING, Greenwire
Published: March 16, 2009
While President Obama’s plan to find alternatives to storing high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev., is grabbing headlines, another problem has begun threatening license applications for new reactors.
What can be done with low-level nuclear waste?
There are dwindling places to put low-level nuclear waste — contaminated resins, filters, wood, paper, plastics, pipes, structural steel and pressure vessels that can be hazardous for up to 500 years. And nuclear-power opponent groups are filing and winning legal fights to force utilities to present disposal plans for low-level waste before they can build a new reactor.
“I’m going to argue low-level waste is a bigger issue than high-level waste right now,” Edward Sproat, then-director of the Energy Department’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, warned at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event last fall.
……………… the low-level waste problem is already affecting reactor applications.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy this month won a legal contention from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board against Southern Nuclear Operating’s Vogtle reactor license application for Georgia. The same contention has already been granted in reviews of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bellefonte application in Alabama; Unistar’s Calvert Cliffs, Md., application; and Dominion Power’s North Anna application in Virginia.
Advocacy groups plan to similarly contest Progress Energy’s Levy County, Fla., application and have already filed against Detroit Edison’s Fermi application.
Sara Barczak, program director for the Southern Alliance, said the focus on low-level waste represents a significant shift for regulators and utilities. “I think most people, when they see ‘low level,’ they say, ‘Oh, low level of radioactivity,’ but the definition of low level is so broad,” she said.
U.S. low-level waste comes from a wide range of places, including hospitals and laboratories, but the greatest — and most toxic — volume is produced by the Energy Department and the 104 commercial nuclear reactors.
Toxic for up to 100 years, Class A waste has just three storage options — sites at Clive, Utah; Richland, Wash.; and Barnwell, S.C. Only Richland and Barnwell accept Class B waste, which is toxic for up to 300 years, and Class C, toxic up to 500 years.
But there is another complication: Barnwell closed its gates to all states but Connecticut, New Jersey and South Carolina last summer. And Richland only accepts waste from 11 states in the Northwest and Rocky Mountain compacts.
That means 36 states with reactors, hospitals and other industry with radioactive materials have no place to send much of their waste.
……………………………..”The nuclear industry has really been hiding their head in the sand about the waste for all issues,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the nonprofit Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which opposes nuclear power…………………….
Court papers reveal nuclear feud at Turkey Point
Court papers reveal nuclear feud at Turkey PointThe top nuclear operator at Turkey Point resigned after a huge outage because he felt his bosses were demanding an unsafe restart.
Miami Herald BY JOHN DORSCHNER 13 march 09
At 1:09 one afternoon last year, 90 metal rods slid into the cores of the two nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, part of an automatic shutdown that had been triggered by a utility worker’s blunder moments earlier at a substation miles away. A million customers lost power.
Florida Power & Light executives ordered that the reactors be back online within 12 hours, according to court documents. The plant’s top nuclear operator, David Hoffman, said that would be dangerous. When FPL executives disagreed with him, he walked out at 8 p.m., refusing to participate in actions he felt were unsafe
At 11:49 that night, Feb. 26, 2008, he submitted a heated resignation letter, blasting FPL for constantly putting cost savings ahead of safety and creating a horrible morale problem. ”People are not valued and are treated like equipment and numbers,” Hoffman wrote.
Hoffman’s charge offers a rare insight into safety complaints made by nuclear workers, who are often forbidden by contract from saying anything negative about their bosses. The information came to light because FPL is suing him for the return of a bonus, and he’s charging in a countersuit that the utility is improperly trying to silence his complaints about safety.
The information is being revealed at a crucial time as FPL is planning to build two new reactors at Turkey Point, part of a national resurgence of more than 20 new plants planned to reduce dependence on foreign oil and the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Court papers reveal nuclear feud at Turkey Point – Front Page – MiamiHerald.com
Lawmakers nix Arizona ‘power park’ proposal | proposal
Lawmakers nix Arizona ‘power park’ proposal
Yma Sun March 12, 2009PHOENIX – State lawmakers killed a proposal Wednesday to create a new level of government to set up “power parks” around the state for new solar, wind and nuclear power plants……………………….Rep. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, said he might have voted for it had the special benefits been limited to solar and wind plants. But he did not want to encourage more nuclear power plants in Arizona until the problems with dealing with radioactive waste have been worked out.
Lawmakers nix Arizona ‘power park’ proposal | proposal, arizona, lawmakers – News – YumaSun
Fermi 3 opposition takes legal action to block new nuclear reactor
Fermi 3 opposition takes legal action to block new nuclear reactor By Eartha Jane Melzer 3/11/09 5A coalition of environmental groups is asking federal regulators to put the brakes on the proposed expansion of the Fermi nuclear power plant in Monroe County on the grounds that it is unnecessary and poses threats to the environment and human health.Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don’t Waste Michigan and the Sierra Club, are all representing locals who live within 50 miles of Fermi and therefore have legal standing to intervene in the reactor permitting process……………..
And spent fuel from the plant will be kept on site — perhaps forever, since the Obama administration has withdrawn support for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada. The presence of nuclear waste so close to the water supply for tens of million of people represents a threat to security and the environment, the groups contend………………………..
…………………..Environmental epidemiologist Robert Wahl of the department’s Environmental Health Division explained that while the state compiles data from clinicians on cancer cases in the state it does not have the resources to evaluate that data for trends and relies on citizens to alert the department when worrying cancer trends appear. Wahl said he would use Michigan Messenger’s reporting on Monroe County cancer rates as a starting point for analysis of cancer trends there.
Michigan Messenger » Fermi 3 opposition takes legal action to block new nuclear reactor
McAuliffe fired up about green energy, not so much on nuclear
McAuliffe fired up about green energy, not so much on nuclear The News and Advance By Ray Reed
Published: March 11, 2009
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe announced the energy phase of the business model he’d use for governing Virginia on Wednesday, showing enthusiasm for new, green energy but little for existing sources such as coal and nuclear power……………………..
he said, there are questions about how to handle the waste from used fuel.
“But beyond all that is the pure economics” of nuclear power, McAuliffe said. “The average cost of a nuclear plant is $16 billion. The application fee for a license is $25 million,” he said.
“Dominion Power and the others are not going to be building new plants now, and you couldn’t find the financing if you wanted to build one.”
McAuliffe fired up about green energy, not so much on nuclear | Lynchburg News Advance
Silence clause aims to keep Turkey Point workers quiet
Silence clause aims to keep Turkey Point workers quiet Miami Herald BY JOHN DORSCHNER 13 March 09
Licensed nuclear operators at Turkey Point sit at control panels staring at meters that generally don’t do much. For this, they can earn up to $150,000 a year, including plentiful overtime, plus another $50,000 or so in bonuses. So why complain about their bosses at Florida Power & Light?
”The work atmosphere there is horrible,” says Thomas Saporito, a Turkey Point worker who was fired in 1988 but has stayed in touch with many workers since then. “No one wants to work at the plant because of the retaliatory atmosphere there. People are afraid to make complaints about safety.”
Nuclear operator complaints generally are made public only in public documents, such as lawsuits involving overtime or bonuses. Virtually all operators are reluctant to talk to journalists.
One reason is that many signed bonus agreements in which they promise not to say anything bad: ”The employee shall not, at any time in the future and in any way . . . make any statements that may be derogatory or detrimental to the company’s good name,” was the way it was phrased in the contract of David Hoffman.
Silence clause aims to keep Turkey Point workers quiet – Business – MiamiHerald.com
Truth short-lived at EnergySolutions
Truth short-lived at EnergySolutions
Deseret News By Vanessa Pierce March 10, 2009 If truth were a type of nuclear waste, it might have a very short half-life. At times, anyway, it seems to decay faster in the hands of Energy-Solutions.
Take, for instance, the proclamation CEO Steve Creamer made to this newspaper in 2005 when asked what he would ask in return for giving up his company’s push to bring hotter classes of waste to Utah: “Not a thing. . . . We’re not going to be back asking for anything else. We’re happy.”
Two weeks later, the company quietly announced plans to double the size of its commercial radioactive waste dump—already the country’s largest. How long did it take for truth to decay in that instance? Two weeks.
Sometimes the truth at Energy?Solutions takes a little longer to decay. The company now wants to bring the world’s nuclear waste to Utah. But eight years ago, the state of Utah was given the company’s promise by then-Vice President Ken Alkema “that it will not take out-of-country wastes.” Not only has the company reneged on that commitment, apparently, it reneged on its word that same year.
Company spokeswoman Jill Sigal announced last week on RadioWest that EnergySolutions has been accepting “internationally generated material at Clive for over eight years.”
Do the math and you realize that EnergySolutions has been accepting foreign waste since 2001 — the same year the company informed the state that it would not be accepting such waste streams.
But even though it can be hard to determine how long the truth will last at EnergySolutions, we’re now being asked to take the company’s word that foreign nuclear waste is harmless, will take up the tiniest portion of its dump site and bring us billions.
Future Dim for Nuclear Waste Repository
Future Dim for Nuclear Waste Repository
The New York Times By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: March 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s proposed budget cuts off most money for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, a decision that fulfills a campaign promise and wins the president political points in Nevada — but raises new questions about what to do with radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear power plants.
The decision could cost the federal government additional billions in payments to the utility industry, and if it holds up, it would mean that most of the $10.4 billion spent since 1983 to find a place to put nuclear waste was wasted.
A final decision to abandon the repository would leave the nation with no solution to a problem it has struggled with for half a century.
Lawyers are predicting tens of billions of dollars in damage suits from utilities that must pay to store their wastes instead of having the government bury them, with the figure rising by about a half-billion dollars for each year of additional delay.
The courts have already awarded the companies about $1 billion, because the government signed contracts obligating it to begin taking the waste in 1998, but seems unlikely to do so for years. The nuclear industry says it may demand the return of the $22 billion that it has paid to the Energy Department to establish a repository, but that the government has not yet spent.
The spent fuel that emerges from nuclear power plants has been accumulating for decades in steel-lined pools or giant steel-and-concrete casks near the reactors……………………….. Scientific concerns have since emerged, including the realization that water flows through Yucca Mountain a lot faster than initially believed. That raises the prospect that the nuclear waste would leach over time, polluting the water table. The scientific merit of the site has not been established by independent judges……………… Opponents of nuclear power contend that the nation’s failure to find a permanent repository for the waste is a reason to shut down nuclear reactors and forget about building more.
Abandonment of the Yucca Mountain depository would be a blow for the nuclear industry, which is hoping to begin work on new reactors for the first time in 30 years.
Washington Century: Safe investments
Washington Century: Safe investments
Seattle.pi.com March 8, 2009 The legacy of dangerous waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has defied resolution for decades.
The federal government must meet its responsibility to the public, the land and the environment. The state’s responsibility is to hold the feds to their promises and their larger moral obligations to a region that gave unselfishly to the atomic efforts judged necessary by the nation’s leadership during World War II.
…………………. The Bush administration’s dangerous pro-nuclear agendas on both electrical power and weapons were problems, even as Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman tried to maintain a decent commitment to cleaning up waste at Hanford.
The signs are more encouraging with President Barack Obama. As Murray noted recently, the federal stimulus bill gave a good boost to an environmental management account that has traditionally helped Hanford.
No one should fool themselves about the likelihood of smooth, steady progress on remediating the huge amounts of waste that threaten workers and the environment, especially the Columbia River. The nation has done a remarkably poor job of addressing even the most blatant human consequences of nuclear weapons testing and production even in this country. As Seattle author Holly Barker says, it’s been even worse for those who were abroad, including Marshall Island residents, some of whom some now live here. They were essentially treated as human guinea pigs, and still have little help in dealing with the consequences.
Solving Hanford’s waste problems cannot be separated from larger decisions. Society may well continue to create troubles faster than a cleanup resolves them, from Hanford to Pakistan. The allure of nuclear reactors continues to grip many, despite the decades of failure to secure waste permanently from natural or terrorist forces.
EnergySolutions clarifies controversial remarks
EnergySolutions clarifies controversial remarks
March 9th, 2009 @ 8:53am
By Mary Richards
SALT LAKE CITY — EnergySolutions is on the defensive after its top company official made some claims about the safety of its radioactive waste.
A group fighting EnergySolutions, Healthy Environment Alliance (HEAL) of Utah, is asking state officials to look into claims about the company’s nuclear waste.
HEAL Utah says EnergySolutions is making public claims that imply the waste is safer than it really is. For example, a state senator asked EnergySolutions CEO Steve Creamer if the company’s nuclear waste was safe enough to use in a garden. He said it probably was. …………………… The Salt Lake Tribune reports a lobbyist suggested the waste is safe enough to eat. HEAL Utah’s executive director, Vanessa Pierce, says Creamer told the Deseret News that in 100 years the EnergySolutions site would be clean enough for people to build homes and grow potatoes there.
“We feel that it’s dangerous for the company to be downplaying the danger of the waste they take in such a flippant way,” Pierce said.
She says she has asked the state’s radiation control board to take up the issue at its meeting tomorrow.
“We just felt like it was time to have the state speak up and say look, you can’t grow food at a nuclear waste dump site, even 100 years from now,” she said.
Radioactive waste to be kept above ground at Diablo Canyon
Radioactive waste to be kept above ground at Diablo Canyon
KSBY-TV
March 6, 2009
Reported by: Kelly Bush
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will have to keep its radioactive waste in above ground containers, at least for now.
…………. he proposed Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada is no longer an option.
At a hearing Thursday, Chu said the waste can stay at power plants while the Obama administration comes up with another plan.
Last August PG&E won a lawsuit against the Department of Energy. The court ruled the company should get back more than $200 million it spent on storage while waiting for the Nevada facility to be completed.
Suddenly, progress on renewable energy
Las Vegas Sun Scot Rutledge, Mar 9, 2009
In just the past few weeks, Nevada has made staggering progress toward realizing a vision for a clean energy economy. We took giant steps forward toward creating high-quality, green jobs and revitalizing our economy by tapping into our abundant solar, wind and geothermal power.
First, we heard that NV Energy canceled plans for a dirty coal plant in White Pine County, and that it announced plans for at least one solar-powered plant here in Southern Nevada. Now, we hear that LS Power has indefinitely postponed another White Pine County dirty coal plant, saying this sort of power plant doesn’t make sense in today’s economic and political climate. In just a few short weeks, our state looked away from a past of dirty coal plants — one of the largest contributors to global warming — and toward a future of clean, renewable energy.
Also, Sen. Harry Reid announced plans for a bill to speed up the process of transmitting renewable energy from our remote rural areas — where it will be generated — to the cities that need it most. This is the missing link in making Nevada one of the world’s renewable energy leaders, and Sen. Reid should be commended for the vision he has established here in Nevada, and nationally, of a clean energy economy
At a time when unemployment is skyrocketing and our financial situation seems so dire in Nevada, we have an opportunity looking at us straight in the face: a clean energy economy that creates thousands of green jobs that can’t be exported overseas, reduces our greenhouse emissions and cuts our dependence on foreign oil. Thanks to Sen. Reid, NV Energy, LS Power and many other forward-thinking community leaders and businesses who are looking to a bright, green future.
roadblock to nuclear power
The anti-carbon president creates a massive road block to nuclear power and carbon reduction Dallas Morning News Andrew Smith 7 March 09 President Obama’s budget nearly eliminates funding for the planned nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Without a storage facility, spent fuel created at each nuclear plant will stay in “temporary” storage at the plant that created it — probably for decades to come. This state of affairs doesn’t necessarily prevent the construction of new nuclear plants, but it certainly reduces the odds of such construction — possibly to the vanishing point.
Waste Texas
Waste Texas The Texas Observer 7 March 09 Peggy Pryor grew up the poor daughter of a roughneck, maligned as “oilfield trash,” but she prides herself on having good horse sense. For more than a decade, this feisty West Texas woman has seen something terribly wrong with plans to turn a former ranch near her hometown into the final resting place for massive amounts of radioactive and hazardous waste. Not too many years ago, Pryor could be found raising hell trying to stop the dump. These days, she’s more or less resigned to the inevitable.
“I still protest every once in a while,” she says. But in the end, “I don’t think I did anything other than scream and yell, and cause them to have a little headache.”
The corporation Pryor tried to fight, Waste Control Specialists LLC, owned by Dallas billionaire and major Republican donor Harold Simmons, has spent the last 20 years pulling political, business, and regulatory strings to do what no other company in the nation has been able to do in three decades: license and build a new radioactive waste dump. Waste Control has lobbied successfully for a change in state law to privatize radioactive waste disposal, muscled out more experienced competitors, beaten back environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists, and—perhaps most remarkably—turned the majority of Andrews’ citizens into the dump’s fiercest boosters.
The company now has in hand—a technicality or two notwithstanding—two licenses to bury about 60 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste at a site near the Texas-New Mexico line 30 miles west of Andrews. Much of the waste will be radioactive for millions of years; projected profits have been estimated in the billions…………………………..Waste Control prevailed. In 2003, after several failed attempts, the company finally convinced the Texas Legislature, lubricated by campaign contributions and a team of lobbyists, to change state law to allow a private outfit to handle radioactive waste. With that accomplished, Waste Control spent the next five years navigating an environmental and safety review by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that Waste Control President Rod Baltzer calls “one of the most rigorous reviews in the history of mankind.”That process is now almost complete. Andrews is on its way to becoming the nation’s preeminent radioactive waste destination. Still, the company is chafing at the limitations imposed by the disposal licenses.
For Pryor, the idea of letting a for-profit company handle, transport, and bury waste that will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years is crazy at best. State engineers and geologists largely agree. (See “Good to Glow,” April 4, 2008) They’ve publicly predicted the landfill will contaminate groundwater and pose unacceptable risks to residents. At least three state experts have quit the environmental commission in the past two years to protest what they see as politically motivated fast-tracking of Waste Control’s licenses.
1 This Month
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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