Tribes protest nuclear waste plan
Tribes protest nuclear waste plan By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
TAIPEI TIMES May 24, 2009 Led by a royal descendant of an ancient line of Aboriginal Paiwan kings, residents and environmentalists yesterday staged a parade in Daren Township (達仁), Taitung County, to protest Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) plan to build a storage facility for nuclear waste there………………Opposed to the plan, more than 100 Paiwan and Puyuma Aborigines and environmentalists rallied outside a local elementary school yesterday morning, where they were blessed by Paiwan elders in a traditional ritual before they departed. The demonstrators then carried a cross on a two-hour march to the site selected for the facility.After arriving at the site, the demonstrators erected the cross and made a smoke signal to inform their ancestral spirits of their determination to defend their ancestral homeland………………………..“This region has long been a traditional domain of the Tacupul Kingdom, and it’s the job of all descendants of Tacupul to defend it,” said Sauljaljuy Ruvaniyaw, a member of the Ruvaniyaw family — the royal family of the Tacupul Kingdom that ruled in Daren and its neighboring areas hundreds of years ago………………….The rally and the march are only the beginning of the mobilization against the nuclear waste dumping ground, Ruvaniyaw said.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans The Local : 22 May 09 12:31 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090522-19443.htmlThe Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) announced Friday they will take on a large operation to test radiation-exposure levels of both current and former workers at the atomic waste depot Asse near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. With this health monitoring programme, we want to find out if the cases of cancer and leukaemia of former Asse workers had anything to do with the radiation exposure of their work,” BfS spokesman Werner Nording said in a statement on the authority’s website…………………….Officials are now trying to determine what to do about dangerous nuclear waste which has been stored at the increasingly unstable site since 1978.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans – The Local
Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged
- Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged New American by Steven J. DuBord Wednesday, 20 May 2009 As part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, “the Energy Department has begun releasing more than $6 billion in stimulus money to clean up 18 nuclear sites from New York to California, more than doubling the typical yearly funding for the program,” a May 18 Washington Post story recounts.
- The sites were involved in Cold War-era nuclear weapons production, and the cleanup will deal with radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. But it is another type of waste that is causing a concerned reaction and prompting “sharply worded warnings from some government officials and lawmakers who say the stimulus funding is ripe for abuse.”
The Washington Post points out that “contractors helped shape the stimulus package and are lined up to get the work, including many that have been cited for serious safety violations and costly mistakes.” The cleanup program “has long been plagued by cost overruns and delays and is designated by the Government Accountability Office as ‘at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.’ Over the past two years, estimated cleanup costs at all 22 sites have escalated from $180 billion to $240 billion, according to the Energy Department.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1136
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Fox13now David Wells Senior Web Producer
May 18, 2009 SALT LAKE CITY – A federal judge has removed a major roadlock for EnergySolutions in its quest to to import Italian nuclear waste. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart has ruled that a compact of several states doesn’t have the authority to ban foreign imports. Many Utahns, including Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, have spoken out against the company’s plan to bring 1,600 tons of Italian nuclear waste to its facility in Utah’s west desert.
Utah Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R) and Jim Matheson (D) are co-sponsors of a national bill that could block imports of nuclear waste. FOX 13’s Katy Carlyle has more. http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-judge-compact-of-states-cant-block-foreign,0,7394556.story
Soviet-Era Uranium Waste Sites Now Threaten Central Asia
Soviet-Era Uranium Waste Sites Now Threaten Central Asia Georgian Daily 19 may Paul goble Storage sites for uranium tailings that were built in Soviet times in Tajikistan are now leaking radiation into the surrounding atmosphere and ground water supplies, undermining the health and well-being of the people of a republic and a broader region that lack the resources to clean up a problem that it did nothing to create………………………..
The impact of the release of radioactive materials on the health of the population is already clear. Not only are the numbers of people suffering from cancer increasing, but the age of onset of cancers is falling, with many local people showing signs of cancer when they are only 15 or 16 years old, something almost unheard of earlier.
Moreover, medical officials from Dushanbe say that the overall health statistics for the areas around the uranium tailings sites are chilling: The number of stillborn children has increased as have the number of newborns with congenital defects. Some 85 percent of women in the region suffer from anemia, as do more than 64 percent of newborns…………………………..he amount of radioactive leavings is enormous, more than 450 million tons.
As a result, Ferghana.ru concludes sadly, the prospects are not good. “The elites have left the area forever because they know that the supplies of uranium are practically exhausted and that sooner or later all the factories and combines involved with the production of nuclear fuel will stop.”
In the end, the news service suggests, the local population will stand alon, facing “only the ruins of nuclear processing and mountains of ecological problems.”
georgiandaily.com – Soviet-Era Uranium Waste Sites Now Threaten Central Asia
Lawsuit targets risks of nuclear waste
Lawuit targets risks of nuclear waste Coakley seeks debate on Pilgrim license renewal The Boston Globe By Robert Knox 17 may 09 State Attorney General Martha Coakley is asking a federal court to force nuclear energy regulators to consider risks to public safety caused by storing nuclear waste at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant before deciding whether to extend the facility’s license for 20 years.
Coakley joined with officials from New York and Connecticut to file suit in a federal appeals court in New York. The lawsuit asks the court to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open debate on license extensions for plants such as Pilgrim to the potential threat posed by terrorists and accidents to used nuclear fuel stored inside the plants.
“The risk of a spent-fuel pool catching on fire by accident or due to intentional sabotage is neither remote nor speculative,” the lawsuit, filed May 6, states.
Village’s fury over radioactive waste plan
Village’s fury over radioactive waste plan
Whitehaven News By Andrew Clarke
13 May 2009
CONTROVERSIAL proposals to bury radioactive waste in Keekle have met with opposition from councillors. French-owned company Sita UK plans to drill 24 exploratory boreholes at Keekle Head to see if the area is suitable for disposing of very low-level radioactive waste.
However, councillors from Frizington, which neighbours the potential site, have voiced their concerns.
“We have had enough rubbish dumped on us,” said parish council chairman Peter Connolly.
“We unanimously agree that we don’t want the proliferation of any waste, in particular low-level nuclear waste.”
Coun Tim Knowles gave Cumbria County Council’s view to the parish council meeting, held on Monday.
“The council is strongly against the dispersal of nuclear waste that I believe these boreholes relate to
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout The Guardian by Terry Macalister and Helen Carter 12 may 09 Environmentalists say controls on 369 farms highlight danger of plans to build nuclear plants around UK Nearly 370 farms in Britain are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident 23 years ago, the government has admitted……………………………..
Critics of the nuclear industry expressed alarm at the latest numbers, which they believed would increase public unease about the highly toxic and long-term impact of radioactivity.
David Lowry, a member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates, said the figures demonstrated the “unforgiving hazards” of radioactivity dispersed into the environment, whether from Chernobyl in Ukraine, thousands of miles away and 23 years ago, or over decades from the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland, as revealed by the Guardian last month…………………………
…………Revelations about the continuing impact of the Chernobyl accident come weeks after three different sites were bought in auction by EDF and other power companies for building new atomic plants in Britain.
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato
Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato TriCity Herald by Rick Larson, 11 May 09 A piece of President Obama’s budget that hasn’t drawn as much attention as other high-profile programs would finally bury the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada.Scrapping Yucca Mountain will leave a $13.5 billion hole in the ground, which is how much the Department of Energy has spent on the project since 1983, and it leaves unanswered the question of what to do with waste from nuclear power plants. It’s a question the nation has struggled with for some 30 years………………………………
Scrapping Yucca Mountain isn’t as simple, however, as just walking away from a massive hole in the ground. The problem of what to do with the 55,000 tons of used nuclear fuel sitting in 39 states in “temporary” storage at nuclear power plants — including the Energy Northwest plant at Hanford — remains.
And lawmakers from states with nuclear plants are getting angry, threatening to stop or reduce their payments to the federal government for nuclear waste management until a solution for nuclear waste emerges. The New York Times reported in April that at least four states — Maine, South Carolina, Michigan and Minnesota — were considering measures.
All of this comes as nuclear power plants are being promoted as potential sources of clean and reliable base power……………………
Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato – Ask the Editors | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable
Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable
Times and Transcript Friday May 8th, 2009 Premier Shawn Graham, Energy Minister Jack Keir and every other politician of whatever stripe in New Brunswick need to be told and to clearly understand that New Brunswickers do not want and will not accept a national nuclear waste dump in this province no matter how deep underground, how many jobs it creates or how many glib assurances are given about its safety………………
……..There is no reason why the province should “take one for Canada” on this issue. The province is simply an unsuitable location. It is geographically small, well populated and though not without environmental issues, still relatively environmentally healthy. To leave the door open to nuclear waste flies in the face of the premier’s own “green” policies and initiatives.
Bureaucratic talk of “process”is misleading. It can be the best process in the world, but it will make no difference if the outcome is unacceptable. This is a time-honoured way to try to keep people quiet or co-opt them and move things along until it is too late for the public to stop a project. There is no reason for New Brunswick to play along.
These efforts also highlight the increasingly clear fact that nuclear power (and our premier is working hard towards a second reactor even though the first continues to be costly, its refit is well behind schedule and it will cause power rates to rise again) is not a cost effective energy answer. The underground waste dump is expected to cost from $16-24 billion just to build. That massive amount must be included in any calculation on the costs of nuclear power. And expect the cost to rise substantially by the time any decision is made.
New Brunswickers have correctly and overwhelmingly rejected uranium mines, even if the government hasn’t. They will reject a national nuclear waste dump too.
timestranscript.com – Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable – Breaking News, New Brunswick, Canada
Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces
Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces registan Net 10 May 09 “……………………Recently, three Chinese tourists from Xinjiang bought a 600-lb piece of “glittering treasure” at a flea market in Kyrgyzstan. Upon sending a piece of it to a lab at Tsinghua University in Beijing, they discovered it was an enormous hunk of depleted uranium…………..
……………last year a train bound for Iran from Kyrgyzstan was stopped at the border with Uzbekistan when sensors at the border crossing detected high amounts of radiation emanating from an empty car. While the train was isolated and eventually returned to Kyrgyzstan for decontamination, the question remains: how did so much Cesium-137 go undetected in Kyrgyzstan, or through two supposedly secure border checkpoints in Kazakhstan, only being stopped in Uzbekistan? Indeed, Kyrgyzstan seems to be at the center of many nuclear security lapses in the region…
………………Tracking nuclear waste products is just as important as tracking enriched uranium (something the international community still does poorly).
State Sues Over Nuclear Waste
State Sues Over Nuclear Waste
3WCASX-TV NEWS Montpelier, Vermont – May 5, 2009
The state of Vermont is suing the federal government over nuclear waste at Vermont Yankee.
Highly-radioactive spent fuel from the reactor is stored at the nuclear plant in Vernon. The safety of spent fuel is governed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but it is not one of the factors the NRC will review as it considers whether to grant Vermont Yankee a license extension. The state wants to change that and is joining a federal lawsuit to force the NRC to consider spent fuel safety in the relicensing process.
State Sues Over Nuclear Waste – WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-
Project to move 15 million tons of radioactive waste begins
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/02/business/z6edbd99928ffa519882575a6006f16a6.txt
Project to move 15 million tons of radioactive waste begins KSLTV 4 May 09 “…………………..They’re finally moving 16 million tons of radioactive dirt away from the town of Moab.
The radioactive dirt is going into big boxes, the boxes onto rail cars: a project that will cost about $1 billion. “You cannot put a price on the image and reputation of the state,” said Gov. Jon Huntsman. “The fact that 50 years ago, during the height of the Cold War, the decision was to make this dump 3 miles out of town, nobody would have thought twice about it. And today, it seems absolutely ludicrous that ever would have been done.”
Moab has been trying to get rid of it almost ever since the uranium mill that produced it shut down 25 years ago. “It’s sitting in the flood plain of the Colorado River and draining into the river,” explained Bill Hedden, executive director of Grand County Trust.
Questions with nuclear plant
Questions with nuclear plant
Mountain Home News Diana Hooley April 29, 2009 – “The promoters for the proposed nuclear power plant have used the promise of jobs and money to strike an emotional chord in a down economy.But who are these people really and can they deliver the goods or are they just salesmen preying on people’s needs?……………………..Idaho and Elmore County land is being auctioned off potentially to out of state utility companies for the energy needs of out of state localities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles area.
Why would Elmore County ever be willing to give up control over its land and water to this group of developers? For the promise of jobs — not the assurance — just the promise………………………
With all the excitement about jobs and money, forgotten is the possibility that though the economy will fluctuate and the job market will get better, the nuclear waste will be stored on site in perpetuity.
This toxic waste will be something the children of Elmore County citizens, and their children, will have to live with for a long time.
Storing waste on that piece of property is a terrible risk. The soil and rock are porous and the ground slopes directly to the river. Any leak of toxic materials will run off.
1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium railed through densely populated Germany – to France?
1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium railed through densely populated Germany – to France?
Sydney Indymedia April 29th, 2009 By Diet Simon, adapting Cecile Lecomte’s report A 25-car train half a kilometre long has just carried 1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium through the most densely populated region of Germany – destination unknown, presumably France.
The train left Germany’s only uranium enrichment plant at Gronau (52° 12′, 160 km south of Hamburg) in the night from 27 to 28 April.Usually trains from the German-Dutch-British-owned enrichment plant close to the city of Münster and the Dutch border have taken depleted uranium to Rotterdam for shipment to Russia, where it’s been dumped in the open air.
The Urenco company is extremely secretive about the transports. This time journalists were told by federal police that the train headed for Duisburg and on to France.That would have taken the dangerous cargo through the densely populated Ruhr and Rhineland areas – if the police information is correct…………….
…….The train from Gronau was held up by two hours because a female French activist who lives in Germany, 27-year-old Cécile Lecomte, had abseiled over the tracks from a road overpass. She and other climbers have made such a name for themselves in disrupting nuclear transports that police now always have climbing specialists along on the trains to take the protesters down……….
………….”The aim is to reveal the secret atomic transports from the Gronau uranium enrichment plant and to draw people’s attention to the policy of Urenco,” she writes. ………………………..“Radioactivity knows no borders. What kind of an end to atomic power is it if Gronau is expanded, thereby supporting the construction of new nuclear plants – such as the EPR in Flamanville, France – by supplying the product to power stations all over the globe.
“The waste is carted right across Europe in secret transports. That is no solution to the nuclear waste problem. On the contrary, the population is exposed to ever more dangers, the environment is polluted ever more…..”………………….’
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
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
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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