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| | | published Wednesday, January 27, 2010 | 4623 Views :: 7 Comments |
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability a national network of organizations working to address issues of nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup
http://www.ananuclear.org
for further information, contact:
Nickolas Roth 914-673-6666
Susan Gordon 505-577-8438
or local contacts listed at end of advisory
for immediate release Wednesday, January 27, 2010
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY FY 2011
NUCLEAR WEAPONS BUDGET REQUEST
The FY 2011 budget request will be released on Monday, February 1,
2010. The Obama administration has laid out an aggressive
nonproliferation agenda that includes deep reductions in nuclear
stockpiles, ratification of a nuclear test ban, and decreased
prominence for nuclear weapons in US defense policy. Despite this
agenda, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) budget request will ask
Congress to significantly increase nuclear weapons activities,
including funding for construction of new facilities that will expand
U.S. warhead production capacity. The DOE request will not reflect
recent independent scientific conclusions that existing nuclear weapons
can be reliably maintained for decades under current, well-established
programs.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a
national network representing communities downwind and downstream from
U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, is concerned that increased funding
for nuclear energy and weapons research and production will rob
precious resources for needed environmental cleanup and clean,
sustainable energy solutions.
Items of interest:
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| | | published Friday, January 22, 2010 | 1035 Views :: 1 Comments |
Beyond Nuclear Bulletin
January 21, 2010
“The Hidden and Not-So-Hidden Costs
of Entergy’s Vermont Yankee”
Background:
Despite assuring the State of Vermont for more than a year that it had
no buried pipes carrying radioactivity, Entergy Nuclear’s Vermont
Yankee reactor has revealed it is leaking radioactive tritium, almost
certainly from underground pipes that it now admits do exist. In fact,
Vermont Yankee has even announced the discovery of “highly radioactive
water,” 50 times more radioactive than would be allowed in drinking
water by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Nuclear expert Arnie
Gundersen has made clear that Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee has indeed
lied about the existence of buried pipes over the course of many months.
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| | | published Monday, November 09, 2009 | 2126 Views :: 2 Comments |
Seventy Nine Truckloads from Huntington’s Nickel Plant Buried
Once Radioactivity Released, You Can’t Put This 'Genie' Back in Bottle; Former Worker Alleges Plutonium Contamination
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Editor’s
Note: Vina Colley, a former worker at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion
Plant, has been one of the most outspoken workers suffering cancer and
other illnesses from their years working at the facility near
Portsmouth, Ohio. Although the interview is in a Q and A format, it
should be noted that Ms. Colley often had to stop speaking to get her
breath. Occasionally, her thoughts were completed by a member of the
clean up panel.
HNN: You worked as an electrician at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant?
VINA COLLEY: As a Second Class Electrician I worked in every building on the plant site and many of the buildings off site.
HNN: Right now, like other employees , you suffer from multiple aliments attributed to your years at the plant.
VINA
COLLEY: I have 57% lung impairment due to the chronic bronchitis. A low
immune system where I had to take gamma glammas? Before. Memory lapses.
Home oxygen. Three tumors, a total hysterectomy and skin cancer.
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| | | published Saturday, October 24, 2009 | 1511 Views :: 1 Comments |
PLUTONIUM AND PEOPLE DON’T MIX
WHY THE ROCKY FLATS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
SHOULD REMAIN CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC
by LeRoy Moore, PhD, Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center, October 13, 2009
Soon after completion in 2005 of the “cleanup” of the site of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb plant near Denver, the Department of Energy (DOE) transferred about three-fourths of the nearly 10 square mile Rocky Flats site to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to operate as a wildlife refuge. FWS had already decided to open the future refuge for public recreation. This paper elaborates three reasons why this decision should be reversed:
• The site is contaminated with an unknown quantity of plutonium and americium.
• Standards for permissible exposure to plutonium and americium adopted for the site provide inadequate protection for potential visitors to the refuge because the standards are based on a flawed method of risk assessment and a truncated view of the toxicity of these materials.
• In addition, those responsible for the Rocky Flats “cleanup” did not consider some crucial data regarding environmental conditions at the site.
• Together, these points add up to a great weight of uncertainty that underscores the need for caution. The conclusion to this paper looks at alternatives for dealing with the refuge, including a visionary approach for nuclear guardianship.
To read full paper, click here
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| | | published Friday, September 04, 2009 | 1279 Views :: 0 Comments |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 4, 2009
Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.920.7118, jay@nukewatch.org
Santa Fe, NM – Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NWNM) has discovered Los Alamos National Laboratory viewgraphs showing that the U.S. nuclear weapons labs want to leverage “stockpile modernization” through formal Safeguards attached to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty during Senate ratification. This modernization would include “large changes” made to existing nuclear weapons refurbished during existing Life Extension Programs, and/or complete “replacement designs” as early as 2015. Congress has rejected funding a new-design “Reliable Replacement Warhead” (RRW) for the last two years, but the labs have clearly not given up. Moreover, there is a danger that the Obama Administration might concede to some form of RRW in order to win the Congressional supermajority of 67 needed to ratify the CTBT. Further, Obama has just reappointed a formerly strong proponent of RRW to again head up the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
A decade ago, under President Clinton, the Senate rejected CTBT ratification. This last April, while declaring that a world free of nuclear weapons is a long term U.S. national security goal, President Obama pledged, “my Administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” The Treaty’s declared purpose has always been to cut off the advancement of nuclear weapons. But the American labs, now endowed with supercomputer simulated testing, obviously believe that a ban to physical tests no longer blocks the deployment of new nuclear weapons designs. In contrast, they now even seek to enshrine the capability for major modifications and possible new-designs in CTBT Safeguards.
Ratification of the CTBT by the U.S. will be viewed internationally as a concrete sign of America’s commitment to fulfilling the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty’s mandate for nuclear disarmament. CTBT ratification before the May 2010 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations would be a diplomatic victory, if the Obama Administration can win the necessary Senate votes. Ironically, possible CTBT Safeguards enshrining new or heavily modified U.S. weapons designs could derail the strengthening of the global nonproliferation regime by demonstrating to other countries that the U.S. is not really serious about nuclear disarmament.
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| | | published Thursday, June 25, 2009 | 1643 Views :: 1 Comments |
Oppose Additional F-22s Paid for with Environmental Cleanup Funds
June 23, 2009
Dear Representative:
Please support any amendment to the FY10 defense authorization bill, H.R. 2647, to eliminate funds for advance procurement of 12 F-22 Raptor fighter jets and restore the money for environmental cleanup.
Defense Secretary Gates requested four additional F-22 fighters in the FY09 Supplemental Appropriations Act, completing the fleet at 187 planes and ending production. Money to purchase those final four aircraft has already been appropriated. We oppose the additional twelve aircraft sought by the Committee in the FY10 defense authorization at a cost of $369 million for FY10.
The funds for F-22s were taken from money intended for cleanup of nuclear weapons sites, and we believe this is unwise. More than six decades of U.S. nuclear weapons research, testing, and production activities have left dozens of Department of Energy sites contaminated by radioactive and hazardous waste. The contamination threatens workers, communities, and the environment,
including major water supplies. Cleaning up that contamination should remain a priority for Congress and the administration. Inadequate funding in 2010 can lead to missing legally obligated cleanup milestones, allows contamination to spread, and can result in additional spending to pay fines and penalties. Funding shortfalls in one year also require additional spending in future years.
If you would like your organization to sign onto the letter, email nroth@ananuclear.org with your name, title, organization's name, and state.
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2009 Fact Sheet Complex Transformation Wrong Policy, Wrong Priority, Wrong Direction | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 1016 Views :: 0 Comments |
The “Complex Transformation” (formerly Complex 2030) plan ignores U.S. disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and threatens to derail diplomatic efforts to stem nuclear weapons development by other nations. It also would create serious environmental and health risks for communities downwind and downstream of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Complex final5.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Nuclear Weapons Forever | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 562 Views :: 0 Comments |
Life Extension Program
In the late-1980’s the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Rocky Flats Plant, which produced plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, was shut down after a raid by the FBI. Eventually, the plant was shuttered, disrupting the U.S. capacity for producing new warheads.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: LEP2 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Plutonium "Triggers" for Nuclear Bombs | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 533 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits — carefully fabricated spheres of metal — and high explosives are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. The U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver until 1989, when the FBI raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes, effectively ending industrial-scale plutonium pit production.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Pits5 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Permanently Ending Nuclear Testing | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 476 Views :: 2 Comments |
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) prohibits countries from conducting nuclear weapon explosions and establishes an extensive verification system through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). U.S. ratification of the CTBT would be a key component in repairing an already damaged non-proliferation regime.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: CTBT Fact Sheet 2009.pdf
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