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| | | published Thursday, January 12, 2012 | 297 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article quotes ANA Director Susan Gordon as she analyses cleanup agreements made between Los Alamos National Laboratory and the State of New Mexico.
LANL’s new cleanup agreement: a bold step in the wrong direction?
Jan. 11, 2012
By Wren Abbott
From the Santa Fe Reporter
A new agreement between the state Environment Department and Los Alamos National Laboratory would accelerate shipments of radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad (pictured)—but would also leave more than half the waste on the hill indefinitely.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is trumpeting a new radioactive waste cleanup agreement that would allow it to leave half of its radioactive waste in place indefinitely—and defy federal environmental protection guidelines.
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| | | published Monday, January 09, 2012 | 379 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article on Los Alamos National Laboratory's ever-changing cleanup schedule quotes ANA Director Susan Gordon and ANA member Scott Kovac giving their perspectives on Los Alamos' remediation plans.
January 6, 2012
By Mark Oswald and John Fleck
From the Albuquerque Journal
POJOAQUE — Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday committed to moving the equivalent of 17,000 drums of radioactive waste that have been stored above ground for decades off lab property by 2014.
But lab officials also said they can’t meet their commitment to clean up other lab hazardous waste by 2015.
Moving the waste drums — which caused consternation and gained international press attention during last summer’s Las Conchas Fire as flames headed toward Los Alamos — is a top state priority.
But the longer-term cleanup goal, established in a 2005 agreement known as a “consent order,” has been suspect for some time because of a shortfall in federal money for lab cleanup work.
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| | | published Thursday, January 05, 2012 | 257 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article quotes ANA member Scott Kovac of Nuclear Watch New Mexico as he comments on the Department of Energy's opacity regarding contracting at national laboratories.
Jan 5, 2012
By John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
Federal officials this week awarded a Bechtel-University of California team $83.7 million for its management of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2011, plus a one-year extension of its lab management contract as a bonus, but refused to release the performance evaluation report on which the decisions were based.
The one-year extension means the current team will be in charge at Los Alamos through 2017.
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| | | published Monday, December 19, 2011 | 724 Views :: 0 Comments |
ANA member Tom Carpenter and 2011 whistleblower awardee Dr. Walt Tamosaitis were interviewed on the Rachel Maddow show on December 15th. They discussed problems at the Waste Treatment Plant which is supposed to process millions of gallons of nuclear waste currently leaking underground in Washington State.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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| | | published Monday, December 12, 2011 | 865 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article discusses the Hanford, WA nuclear waste treatment plant that ANA has long been concerned about. The article examines retaliation against Walt Tamosaitis, a whistleblower who ANA recognized at our 2011 DC Days awards reception. The piece also quotes ANA member, Tom Carpenter, a long-time Hanford watchdog.
December 11, 2011
By Shannon Dininny
From the Associated Press
The federal government says a one-of-a-kind plant that will convert radioactive waste into a stable and storable substance that resembles glass will cost hundreds of millions of dollars more and may take longer to build, adding to a string of delays and skyrocketing price tag for the project.
In addition, several workers at southeast Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation have raised concerns about the safety of the plant's design — and complained they've been retaliated against for voicing their issues.
The turmoil has some in the Pacific Northwest uneasy about the plant's long-term viability and fearful that a frustrated Congress could balk at paying more money for a project long considered the cornerstone of cleanup at the highly contaminated site.
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| | | published Monday, December 05, 2011 | 754 Views :: 0 Comments |
Dec. 2, 2011
By William Hartung
From the Huffington Post
Your government is slated to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade to purchase, maintain and operate our massive nuclear arsenal. The costs include everything from new nuclear bombers, submarines and bomb factories to the huge but unknown costs of deploying and maintaining thousands of nuclear weapons.
It's an outrage that we are spending this kind of money on these outmoded and unnecessary systems at a time when deficit reduction is the order of the day. It is equally outrageous that our government will not tell us exactly how much we're spending on them -- and may not even be keeping track.
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| | | published Friday, November 18, 2011 | 816 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nov 18, 2011
By John Fleck
From the Albuquerque Journal
Members of a federal safety panel meeting in Santa Fe on Thursday expressed impatience with federal efforts to reduce nuclear safety risks at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“We’re a little frustrated,” said Peter Winokur, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Winokur’s comments came during a public hearing at the convention center probing nuclear safety at the lab’s current facilities, emergency preparedness and plans for new buildings at the nuclear weapons design and manufacturing center.
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| | | published Thursday, November 17, 2011 | 640 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nov 17, 2011From the Albuquerque Journal
Facing intense budget pressure, the U.S. Department of Energy should consider the equivalent of the military’s base closure process for its sprawling research lab complex, an internal agency review has recommended.
Two of those labs are in New Mexico, where the Department’s nuclear weapons program is a major employer.
The Department of Energy spends more money in New Mexico than any other state – $4.1 billion in 2010, the most recent year for which numbers are available. That money supports some 20,000 workers at Los Alamos and Sandia labs, where U.S. nuclear weapons are designed, manufactured and maintained.
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| | | published Sunday, November 13, 2011 | 650 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nov 13, 2011From the Albuquerque Journal
LOS ALAMOS – From the fourth floor of the newest building on Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium row, geophysicist Terry Wallace can see the Pajarito Fault three miles away.
The fault’s forested stair step, created in a series of earthquakes over the past million years, defines the base of the mountains rising to the west. It has also come to play a defining role in discussions of the major buildings along Pajarito Road, home to the lab’s main nuclear facilities. To the north, the lab’s Plutonium Facility is in the midst of a major retrofit because of concerns about earthquake safety. The work will not be done until 2020.
Up the road, lab officials are struggling to move out as quickly as they can from the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building, an old nuclear lab not designed to modern earthquake standards. Below Wallace’s vantage point is the site of what lab officials hope will become, in the next decade, a major new plutonium lab.
Questions about earthquake safety surround all of the projects.
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| | | published Friday, November 11, 2011 | 379 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nov. 11, 2011
By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
Hanford official Joe Franco has been named to lead the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for the Department of Energy.
Franco, the DOE assistant manager for the Hanford river corridor, will become manager for the DOE Carlsbad Field Office.
The office oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, the nation's repository for transuranic waste generated during the research and production of nuclear weapons. It's where Hanford's transuranic waste, typically debris contaminated with plutonium, is sent for disposal in rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation 2,150 feet below ground.
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