 |
|
|
| | | published Tuesday, September 13, 2011 | 491 Views :: 0 Comments |
September 13, 2011
By Jamie Satterfield
From the Knoxville News Sentinal
Faced with prison, a 84-year-old priest refused Monday to seek absolution.
"I would like to recommit myself to resistance to injustice," William Bichsel told U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton.
It was resistance to what the Tacoma, Wash., priest deemed the injustice of U.S. nuclear weapons policies that landed Bichsel before Guyton.
He and 11 other peace activists were convicted earlier this year of trespassing on federal property when, last year, they intentionally crossed the "blue line" separating state and federal property at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Friday, September 09, 2011 | 502 Views :: 0 Comments |
Sept. 9, 2011
The Western Governors' Association (WGA) has compiled a white paper on nuclear waste transportation and storage. This white paper will be presented at the Sept. 13th Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future meeting in Denver, Co.
Highlights from the WGA white paper include:
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Friday, September 09, 2011 | 728 Views :: 0 Comments |
Sep 08, 2011
By Nickolas Roth
From the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation's Nukes of Hazard Blog
The search for federal budget savings was apparent as the Senate Appropriations Committee released its version of the fiscal year 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill on September 7. While the Committee recommended $7.19 billion for nuclear weapons programs, approximately $250 million more than the fiscal year 2011 enacted level and over $800 million more than the fiscal year 2010 enacted level, it made major strides in addressing some excessive and wasteful nuclear weapons programs.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Tuesday, September 06, 2011 | 637 Views :: 0 Comments |
Y-12 mercury project plagued by problems
September 5, 2011
By Frank Munger From the Knoxville News' Atomic City Underground blog
OAK RIDGE — Most of the Recovery Act-funded cleanup projects at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant have been completed successfully, with some coming in well ahead of schedule and under budget. Over the past couple of years, workers have taken down dirty and dilapidated buildings, removed hazardous materials and, in one memorable case, made a decades-old scrap yard disappear.
The jury is still out, however, on a project that's supposed to reduce the amount of mercury pollution — a legacy of the plant's Cold War work on thermonuclear weapons — that's entering East Fork Poplar Creek.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Wednesday, August 24, 2011 | 647 Views :: 2 Comments |
August 24, 2011
By Frank Munger
From the Knoxville News
OAK RIDGE — The state is using a new discharge permit at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant as a way to spur cleanup actions and reduce the amount of mercury — a toxic legacy of Cold War operations — that's entering the East Fork Poplar Creek.
Because Y-12 has long been out of compliance with water-quality standards for mercury and cannot realistically achieve compliance within the five-year term of the new permit, the state is requiring completion of five projects — some of which are already under way — to guarantee the Oak Ridge plant makes environmental progress.
Federal officials, however, aren't happy with the tactic, arguing that it's "inappropriate" to use a permit under the Clean Water Act to enforce cleanup projects that are the purview of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act — commonly known as Superfund.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Monday, August 15, 2011 | 848 Views :: 1 Comments |
August 14, 2011
By Frank Munger From the Knoxville News' Atomic City Underground blog
The Department of Energy is apparently on the verge of shifting funds (reported to be $20 million) from the agency's Recovery Act pool of money to build a new security fence at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. The fence would segregate old, surplus facilities from the highest-security zone at Y-12 and make it easier to bring in workers without top security clearance to do the demolition work.
Michael Koentop, a spokesman in Oak Ridge office, confirmed that the security fence would segregate about 70 acres and include Beta-4 and Alpha-5 -- two of the original Y-12 facilities that also are key areas of mercury contamination, which is a focus of future cleanup efforts. He would not confirm the funding level for the project.
Koentop said the money for the project would come from savings on previous Recovery Act cleanup projects at Y-12.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Wednesday, August 10, 2011 | 465 Views :: 0 Comments |
Aug. 10, 2011
By Frank Munger From the Knoxville News' Atomic City Underground blog
It's never a good thing in the nuclear industry when the boss is raising concerns about your "radiological control practices." Even more so when a safety board takes notice. That's the situation at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge.
According to a June 24 report by on-site staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, federal overseers at Y-12 raised a number of issues over a two-month period. The report said the Y-12 Site Office had identified five instances in which RWPs (radiological work permits) had not been used appropriately. Those included instances where permits weren't used at all for work that required them, work done with an expired permit, and work in which the permit's requirements -- such as using the proper protective equipments -- weren't followed.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Tuesday, August 09, 2011 | 569 Views :: 2 Comments |
Aug. 7, 2011
By Frank MungerFrom the Knoxville News - Atomic City Underground Blog
In a meeting last month with top state officials, including Gov. Bill Haslam and Bob Martineau, the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, DOE environmental chief John Eschenberg said Oak Ridge has the "highest risk profile" of any Department of Energy cleanup site. And, he added, "Mercury (associated with discharges from Cold War production of thermonuclear weapons) is our No. 1 environmental threat on this site, and then you look at that in close proximity to the residents. Oak Ridge is a high-risk site."
His comments, of course, were all in the context of competing with other sites to acquire the needed funding to get the Oak Ridge job done. Oak Ridge, he said, is unique among the DOE cleanup sites and that should be emphasized.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Friday, July 15, 2011 | 510 Views :: 0 Comments |
Gerald Pollet, Counterpunch July 11, 2011
Radiation levels in
rainwater collected in Portland, Oregon on March 25, 2011 were 86.8
pCi/L for Iodine 131 (I131), amongst the highest recorded in the US
after Fukushima. Rain in Olympia had even higher levels of radioactive
Iodine. The Portland result was not posted by EPA until April 4.
The maximum level of Iodine 131in rain in Olympia, WA was 125 pCi/L on March 24, which was not posted by EPA until April 4.
Highest levels in rainwater in California were collected March 22, 2011 in Richmond, CA with levels of 138 pCi/L.
The Drinking Water Standard is just 3 pCi/L
(picoCuries per Liter, which is a very small measurement). Thus, people
drinking undiluted rainwater n Portland would have consumed and been
exposed to Iodine 131 at levels nearly 30 times the DWS, and 41 times
the standard in Olympia. There are no results for Seattle or Bellingham
areas. The DWS is set at a level based on drinking 2L/day resulting in a
4 mrem per year dose, which is a 1 in 10,000 lifetime risk of fatal
cancer in adults, if consumed daily over 30 years. Children are 3 to 10
times more susceptible to develop cancer from the same does, especially
because Iodine concentrates in young thyroids. Of course, Iodine 131 may
cause non-cancerous health conditions.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Monday, July 11, 2011 | 882 Views :: 0 Comments |
July 11, 2011
BY Tony Rutherford
From the Huntington News
HUNTINGTON, WV (HNN) – Depending upon your degree of ‘trust’ in government agencies, the revelations about dangers at the former Huntington uranium processing plant and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant either border on disrespect or symbolize how the truth slowly ebbs out exposing even the best planned cover up.
Actually, Piketon, Ohio, atomic plant workers such as Owen Thompson and Vina Colley joined the ranks of whistleblowers long ago which eventually led to the unraveling of decades of denial.
Thompson had a special security clearance. He worked in the “E Area” of the huge diffusion facility. Between 1978-1979, he just followed order by driving a hay wagon to some already dug trenches. When the contents were dumped, he saw a green goo. Thompson also observed that the wagons , trucks and other tools were entombed.
|
| read more.. |
|
|
 |
|