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Our Waste Experts |
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Past and Present |
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 The Department of Energy (DOE) has produced radioactive materials for nuclear bombs; designed, built, and tested nuclear weapons; and developed reactor and other technologies with little concern for the environmental harm those activities cause. The inevitable result is that all DOE sites are polluted. Nevertheless, DOE remains far more interested in protecting its pollution-causing activities than in correcting the harm they have already done.
DOE is not meeting its legal and ethical responsibility to clean up the legacy of more than 60 years of radioactive and toxic contamination. Instead, DOE is promoting nuclear activities that will create additional pollution and threaten the health of future generations. Currently, water near some DOE facilities, such as Paducah, KY, and Pantex, TX, remains unfit to drink. Some of the nation’s major water sources, including the Columbia River, Snake River Aquifer, and Ogallala Aquifer, are threatened.
After declaring the Yucca Mountain project dead, the Obama Administration called for a "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future" to determine what should be done with US high level nuclear waste. The Blue Ribbon Commission has issued its draft report. A final report will be issued in January |
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| | | published Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | 176 Views :: 0 Comments |
For Immediate Release: May 16th, 2012 Contact: Katherine Fuchs , Alliance for Nuclear Accountability - kfuchs@ananuclear.org, 414-324-4228 Aaron Albright, Rep. George Miller’s office – aaron.albright@mail.house.gov, (202) 226-0853 This week, the full House will debate two important amendments to last week’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) related to nuclear safety: one offered by Representatives Miller (CA), Visclosky (IN), and Sanchez (CA) to strike NDAA provisions that would erode safety standards and weaken oversight, and another offered by Rep. Smith (WA) that would strike provisions removing nuclear weapons from the Secretary of Energy’s jurisdiction. The Miller et al. amendment would protect the “adequate protection standard” that has guided nuclear safety oversight for more than a quarter century, ensure that nuclear oversight agencies retain a “transactional” oversight model, and prevent new layers of bureaucracy from undermining technical experts. TheSmith amendment would preserve the authority of the Secretary of Energy over the National Nuclear Security Administration.
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| | | published Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | 196 Views :: 0 Comments |
In the following op-ed, ANA Director Susan Gordon argues that Rep. Martin Heinrich is not acting in New Mexico's best interest when advocating for funding a new plutonium facility at Los Alamos. Gordon states that what New Mexico really needs is funding to clean up Los Alamos' legacy of radioactive and toxic waste.
May 16, 2012
By Susan Gordon
From the Albuquerque Journal
More than a decade late and 10 times more expensive than originally forecast, the new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement mega-building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is a textbook example of how Congress misspends the taxpayers’ dollars.
The main mission for the facility originally would have been to support expanded production of plutonium pits – the fissile cores of nuclear weapons. Today, however, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear weapons complex, has determined that it does not need the new CMRR.
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| | | published Tuesday, May 01, 2012 | 403 Views :: 1 Comments |
Hanford Challenge Decries Appalling Lack of Oversight, demands
Immediate Stand Down and Complete Investigation
Immediate Release - April 30, 2012 Contact: Tom Carpenter (206) 419-5829 Richland, WA: The Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General released a report today that revealed a disturbing breakdown in Hanford’s quality program that allowed radioactive waste processing vessels to be installed without required documentation proving their integrity. This means that the Department of Energy is unable to prove the safety of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP). The IG also found a critical lack of oversight on the DOE’s part, and a failure to collect the repayment of a $15 million assessment against Bechtel, the contractor, when DOE discovered a defective vessel.
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| | | published Monday, April 23, 2012 | 370 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following op-ed was written by ANA board member Ralph Hutchison. Ralph explains the financial and safety reasons why the federal government should stop its rush to build a new uranium processing facility at the Y-12 National Nuclear Security Site.
April 21, 2012
By Ralph Hutchison From the Knoxville News Sentinal
On April 2, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board released highly critical report about the design plans for the Uranium Processing Facility planned for the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge. The Safety Board's report, coupled with findings of the General Accounting Office, make a strong case for putting a hold on funding construction of the UPF.
Why should we care? Well, there is a lot of money at stake, for one thing. But some other important things are at stake as well. The Safety Board's report said two things that should give all of us pause.
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| | | published Wednesday, April 11, 2012 | 430 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article quotes ANA Nonproliferation Policy Director Tom Clements talking about proliferation concerns related to new uranium enrichment technologies being licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
April 5, 2012
By Elaine M. Grossman From the Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON -- A Nuclear Regulatory Commission response to a proposal that the agency demand a proliferation assessment for each new materials-processing facility license application has been delayed until next fall (see GSN, Jan. 12, 2011).
A staff recommendation on the matter had been widely expected by this spring, potentially followed by a vote on the prospective rule change by the agency’s five presidentially appointed commissioners. However, that outlook has changed.
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| | | published Monday, April 09, 2012 | 413 Views :: 2 Comments |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 4, 2012
Santa Fe, NM - In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Nuclear Watch New Mexico on March 28, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has released the Performance Evaluation Reports for its eight nuclear weapons sites.* These reports are the government’s scorecard for awarding tens of millions of dollars to nuclear weapons contractors, and were previously available to the public until 2009. However, since that time the NNSA has withheld them in a general move toward less contractor accountability. We sought to help reverse that wrong direction through our litigation.
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| | | published Monday, April 02, 2012 | 546 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article quotes Tom Clements, ANA's Nonproliferation Policy Director, discussing cleaning up nuclear waste in South Carolina.
March 29, 2012
By Sammy Fretwell From The State
Two Savannah River Site storage tanks that contained deadly high-level waste have been cleaned out after decades of work, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday.
The cleanup marks the first of underground storage tanks at SRS in 15 years and the first nationally since 2007, said Thomas D’Agostino, a deputy undersecretary with the DOE.
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| | | published Wednesday, February 15, 2012 | 1441 Views :: 3 Comments |
In the following op-ed, ANA member Marylia Kelley argues that the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons programs are eating up more than their fair share of the federal budget in austere times.
February 15, 2012
By Marylia Kelley
From the San Francisco Chronicle
While most federal agencies are being placed on an austerity diet, the Obama administration's 2013 budget for nuclear weapons activities is more than last year's appropriation and 20 percent higher than President Reagan's largest nuclear weapons budget at the height of the Cold War, adjusted for inflation. If fully funded, Obama's budget will be the biggest nuclear weapons budget in our nation's history.
President Obama firmly declared "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons" in his 2009 Prague address. The world, including me, cheered. But, Mr. President, this is not a budget that implements our solemn commitment.
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| | | published Tuesday, February 14, 2012 | 941 Views :: 1 Comments |
The following analysis of how President Obama's FY 13 budget request will impact Kentucky includes quotes from ANA member Don Hancock regarding Cold War nuclear waste cleanup in Paducah and around the country.
Feb. 13, 2012
By James R. Carroll From the Louisville Courier-Journal
At the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, continued operations to clean up decades of chemical and radiological contamination from nuclear weapons work would be funded at $132.2 million, about the same amount as in the current year.
Most environmental cleanup projects overseen by the Department of Energy at nuclear facilities are being funded at roughly the same levels as the current budget, said Don Hancock, nuclear waste program director with the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the organizations that belongs to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.
The Paducah plant’s facility to convert depleted uranium into a more stable state was behind schedule in 2011, but is now operating.
Hancock said the Energy Department is not asking enough for cleanup at Paducah and other sites.
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| | | published Monday, February 13, 2012 | 1600 Views :: 0 Comments |
for further information, contact: Susan Gordon (505) 473-1670 Katherine Fuchs (202) 544-0217 Tom Clements (803) 834-3084 for immediate release, Monday, February 13,2012
Full Press Release
The Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons spending proposal released today maintains “budget-busting nuclear weapons overkill,” according to an analysis by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA). At the same time, ANA says it under funds some programs to clean up the radioactive and toxic legacy from the Cold War. Despite ending spending for a controversial plutonium production plant, the budget request seeks nearly a third of a billion dollars in additional funding for nuclear weapons programs. Yet, it may not allow DOE to meet all its environmental obligations. ANA praised the decision to defer construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Lab for at least five years. “The runaway costs for an unneeded plutonium bomb plant combined with plans to build it on an earthquake fault line finally forced DOE to stop this facility,” said Susan Gordon, director of ANA. At the same time, she noted, the budget accelerates construction of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to manufacture other nuclear weapons components. “Instead, the UPF should be downsized and refocused on dismantling warheads and down-blending uranium,” Ms. Gordon explained.
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GTCC Resources |
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The Department of Energy is seeking comments to determine the scope of the planned Environmental Impact Statement dealing with the "Disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) Low-Level Radioactive Waste."
Watch this space and this page for resources helpful in composing your own comments.
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