August 1–15, 2009
August 13, 2009
Complaint leads to meeting on SRS energy park, Augusta Chronicle
A workshop to discuss a proposed 2,700-acre energy park at Savannah River Site will be held next week and was scheduled after an environmental group's complaint that more public involvement was needed in the planning process. In a June 21 letter dated to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Friends of the Earth asked that the department halt development of an environmental assessment that could lead to the land's lease to the SRS Community Reuse Organization for an energy park. The group's primary concern is that the park could become another place that handles or processes nuclear waste, rather than a research center for alternative energy fuels, said Tom Clements, the group's Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2009/08/13/met_544217.shtml
August 11, 2009
Washington state, Energy Department announce deal on Hanford nuclear waste cleanup deadlines, Los Angeles Times
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Washington state and federal officials announced a court-enforceable schedule Tuesday for cleaning up the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, ending more than two years of negotiations that followed dozens of missed deadlines. Southeast Washington's sprawling Hanford nuclear reservation, created as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II, has been a focus of extensive cleanup efforts for two decades. In that time, the pact that governs cleanup has been changed more than 400 times. Washington State sued the Energy Department last November over missed cleanup deadlines, though the two sides settled part of the lawsuit in February. That agreement accelerated cleanup of contaminated groundwater along the neighboring Columbia River, among other things, and both sides said it would shrink the 586-square-mile site to just 75 square miles by 2015. The consent decree that was filed Tuesday morning with the U.S. District Court in Spokane sets new deadlines for the remaining points of contention: emptying underground waste tanks and building a plant to treat that waste.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-hanford-cleanup,1,6578170.story
DOE Press Release: http://www.energy.gov/news2009/7786.htm
August 7, 2009
3 Piketon citizens' board members resign, Chillicothe Gazette
PIKETON - Three members of the citizen board tasked with offering advice to the Department of Energy on its Piketon site submitted their resignations at a meeting Thursday night. Lee Blackburn, Lorry Swain and Andrew Feight resigned at the start of a meeting of the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board (SSAB) at The Ohio State University Endeavor Center in Piketon. In addition, Board member Terry Smith left the meeting in frustration, and two residents who had applied for an open position on the board withdrew their applications. "Overshadowing all is our recognition that the SSAB mission has been obstructed by DOE's failure to abide by federal regulations and guard against conflicts of interest," said Swain, as she read from a letter the trio was submitting to Department of Energy Environmental Management Assistant Secretary Inés Triay. The members expressed concern some members of the board were contractors or employees of the Department of Energy and others were tied to the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI), creating a conflict of interest.
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/article/20090807/NEWS01/908070301/1002
August 7, 2009
Request for Information on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal and Notice of Public Meeting, Federal Register Notice
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff is conducting a public meeting to gather information to assess the effect of a lack of access to low-level waste (LLW) disposal facilities on those who use radioactive sources or materials in conducting research such as universities and hospitals. The purpose of this information gathering is to identify important research that has been impacted and/or stopped because of a lack of disposal options for radioactive sources or materials. This information will be provided to the Commission to inform future Commission decision making. The NRC is planning to host a public meeting on this topic at its Rockville, MD Headquarters on the morning of October 7, 2009.
http://0-edocket.access.gpo.gov.library.colby.edu/2009/E9-18947.htm
August 6, 2009
EnergySolutions' Utah site due trainloads of depleted uranium, Salt Lake Tribune
More trains filled with depleted uranium are coming to Utah. Even as state regulators consider a moratorium on new shipments of the radioactive material -- which becomes more hazardous over time -- the U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship another 14,800 barrels of it to the EnergySolutions Inc. disposal site in Tooele County. Part of the $1.6 billion in federal stimulus money for the Savannah River cleanup site in South Carolina will pay for rail cars filled with depleted uranium to be buried in Utah during the next 13 months. "This is exactly the situation we were hoping to prevent by asking the state Radiation Control Board to enact a moratorium on depleted uranium," said Christopher Thomas of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah. The EnergySolutions site, about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City, has buried 49,000 tons of depleted uranium waste from past cleanups nationwide.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12998854
August 6, 2009
Push is on for mine cleanup funds to go to uranium sites, Salt Lake Tribune
GALLUP, N.M. - The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13007900
August 5, 2009
Energy parks to be focus of meeting, Aiken Standard
Both sides of an ideological divide may be out in force later this month as the idea of "energy parks" at the Savannah River Site is set for discussion and explanation at a public meeting. Calls to arms have already been sent out by both sides of the nuclear argument ahead of a meeting scheduled for Aug. 18 from 1 to 5 p.m. in the North Augusta Municipal Center. The forum is expected to, for the first time, define what the Department of Energy and other SRS stakeholders mean by the term "energy park" and what they hope will occupy such a park. Ideas that vary from nuclear reprocessing facilities, commercial reactors and industrial sites to biomass projects and other renewable energy initiatives have all been part of the speculation since the idea of an energy park was floated some time ago.
http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/070609-energy-parks
August 4, 2009
Hanford waste study delayed over Yucca Mountain, Tri-City Herald
A long-awaited study expected to lead to final decisions on environmental cleanup of much of the Hanford nuclear reservation's waste has been delayed because of Yucca Mountain. The draft Tank Closure & Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement most recently was expected to be released in May. Now the Department of Energy is saying the draft report, expected to be thousands of pages long, will be available by the end of the year. The draft was originally planned to be ready in spring 2007. "It's a very large, complex document that requires a very thorough and focused effort to get it done and done right," said Carrie Meyer, Department of Energy spokeswoman.
http://www.hanfordnews.com/news/2009/story/13808.html
August 4, 2009
US Senate panel moves DOE fossil, nuclear nominees to full Senate, Platts Energy Services
The US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday voted to confirm Department of Energy nominees to head its Office of Fossil Energy and to run the department's civilian nuclear programs. The nominations now move to the full Senate for consideration. Warren Miller, a 25-year veteran of DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, would fill the position of both assistant secretary of nuclear energy and director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Previously, DOE has staffed the two posts with separate officials. Combining the two offices under the direction of one person comes as the Obama administration moves to kill the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
http://www1.platts.com/Nuclear/News/6478760.xml?sub=Nuclear&p=Nuclear/News&
August 4, 2009
Boeing won't need upgraded permit for field lab, Ventura County Star
Boeing can remove contaminated soil from its Santa Susana Field Lab site with an “over the counter” permit from the county of Ventura, instead of one that would require the approval of the county Board of Supervisors, the board decided Tuesday. The board voted 3-2 against a motion from Supervisor Linda Parks that would have required Boeing to obtain a more detailed “discretionary permit” for its grading and clearing work at the former rocket testing site near Simi Valley. There was a partial nuclear meltdown there in 1959 and other polluting activities over the years, when the property was owned by Rocketdyne. Boeing has already applied for a grading permit to remove about 2,700 cubic yards of soil from its portion of the field lab property. Under normal county rules, a simple “ministerial” permit is sufficient for that type of work, and Parks had proposed changing the rules to require a discretionary permit for any grading at the field lab site.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/aug/04/boeing-wont-need-upgraded-permit-for-field-lab/
August 3, 2009
SRS MOX project on schedule, Augusta Chronicle
Construction on one of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s largest and most expensive projects celebrated its second anniversary last week with the announcement that the $4.86 million Mixed Oxide Fuel Plant at Savannah River Site remains on schedule. The MOX facility will use surplus plutonium from dismantled nuclear bombs to make mixed oxide fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. The facility is part of the nation’s effort to make sure plutonium can no longer be used for nuclear weapons, while simultaneously generating electricity for utility customers. Groundbreaking occurred Aug. 1, 2007. Overall design, procurement and construction activities are proceeding on schedule and within budget, according to Energy Department officials.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/latest/lat_700725.shtml?v=0721
August 2, 2009
Radioactive waste dump expansion possible in Utah, Houston Chronicle
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's impending resignation could open the door for a nuclear waste disposal firm to increase the capacity of the country's largest low-level radioactive waste dump by about 78 percent. EnergySolutions Inc. was already on a path to pile up to 9.8 million cubic yards of waste on its mile-square facility in Utah in 2007 when Huntsman threatened to use a regional compact to block its application. Instead, Huntsman and company CEO Steve Creamer signed an agreement in which EnergySolutions withdrew its application and reaffirmed its commitment not to dispose of hotter radioactive waste in the state. In exchange, Huntsman said the company could convert 3.6 million cubic yards of space reserved for uranium mill tailings so it could handle the type of debris that comes from decommissioned nuclear power plants. Huntsman also pledged not to tell the compact to reduce the 5.5 million cubic yards of waste already licensed to the company as long as it didn't seek to expand.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6557950.html
