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Banned
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A new "effort" to promote construction of new nuclear power plants in the US is an idea whose time is past:
<b>The following 3 articles support my opinion that Chinese demand for nuclear fuel will drive it's price, already on a recent skyrocketing trajectory, to a point, aggravated further by waste disposal, site security, and decontaminating plants at the end of their life cycles, along with decontamination of yet to be built new uranium ore refining/processing sites, to levels that will make it economically uncompetitive.</b>
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/wa...=1&oref=slogin
May 29, 2007
Uranium Windfall Opens Choices for the Energy Dept.
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, May 28 — The government accumulated vast quantities of uranium when prices were very low and no one else wanted it. But now that uranium prices have increased tenfold, the government has a precious commodity — and some tough questions — on its hands.
Furious lobbying has broken out over who should end up with the prize, which will eventually end up as nuclear reactor fuel after being run through an enrichment plant. And though the material’s market value has been estimated at $750 million to $3 billion, one of the companies most vocal in making its case says it deserves the uranium — without paying a cent for it.
Up for grabs is 25 million kilograms of uranium hexafluoride that was incompletely processed at government enrichment plants when prices were very low. The enrichment plants separate uranium 235, a rare type that splits easily, in bombs or reactors, from uranium 238, which does not. When the price of natural uranium was very low, the government, in a cost-saving move, decided to skim off just the uranium 235 that was easiest to obtain.
“In the old days, they left a lot of good stuff behind,” said Julian Steyn, a uranium expert at Energy Resources International, a consulting firm in Washington.
In fact the “tailings” left after enrichment have in some cases more than half the original uranium 235 still in them. In its current form, the material is not attractive to the makers of illicit bombs, because the technology to sort the two types of uranium is cumbersome and found in just a handful of plants around the world.
The lone operating enrichment plant in this country, built by the old Atomic Energy Commission, is in Paducah, Ky. It is run by a subsidiary of USEC, a company formed in the 1990s to privatize the enrichment monopoly that the government had run since the days of the Manhattan Project.
The technology at the plant is outdated, and USEC is struggling to commercialize a more efficient system, using centrifuges, at another plant, in southern Ohio. USEC will not say what it thinks that project will cost, but it has said it does not know how it will raise the money.
USEC is arguing that the government should give it the remaining uranium as a way to ensure that any new enrichment technology that is developed is American owned.
“Essentially, it would be a win-win situation for everybody,” said Elizabeth Stuckle, a spokeswoman for the company, which runs the Paducah plant through a subsidiary, the United States Enrichment Corporation.
That solution would add uranium to the market to tamp down high prices, Ms. Stuckle said, and prolong the life of the Paducah plant and help pay for the centrifuges, whose technology the government owns and licenses to USEC. The government would collect royalties.
USEC officials say the Energy Department could transfer much of the uranium to it with the stroke of a pen. Department officials have signaled that they would appreciate guidance from Congress.
Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill say giving the uranium to USEC would reward a company that has not demonstrated fiscal responsibility.
On Thursday, several senior members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the options.
“There needs to be vigorous oversight of USEC’s request for a bailout, to ensure the taxpayer’s interests are protected,” Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, said in a statement.
Mr. Dingell said Congress should consider “whether we should be allocating this $2 billion or $3 billion to children’s health insurance instead of subsidizing executives who have mismanaged their companies.”
USEC, he said, had “squandered resources on multimillion-dollar golden parachutes, stock buybacks and dividend payments that frequently exceeded their earnings.”
If the uranium is sold, it would be up to Congress to decide what to do with the income. One possibility would be to use the money to offset cleanup costs in the Energy Department’s nuclear complex.
The company denies that it has improperly handled its financial dealings and says its problems stem from the challenge of operating World War II technology that is a heavy user of electricity at a time electric bills have soared.
A Senate aide who has been briefed on the discussions said that the company’s future was uncertain and that if it were sold and broken up, the government would effectively be subsidizing some other entity.
In addition to USEC, a consortium of British, Dutch and German companies has expressed interest in the partly processed uranium for a centrifuge plant that it is building in New Mexico, using the same type of machines that have operated for years in Europe.
Congressional aides say one possibility is that the government would lend the uranium to the consortium, to be “repaid” later, when prices will presumably be lower.
Utilities that are contemplating building nuclear plants would also like some of the uranium, which would please companies that mine uranium. Assured of an adequate uranium supply, energy companies would be more likely to go ahead with constructing reactors, ensuring a long-range market for the mining companies.
There is some sympathy for that view on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers are wary of disposing of the uranium in a way that would push down market prices and discourage investments in new mines.
<h2>The spot price is more than $120 for a pound of yellowcake, the ore form, up from less than $10 earlier in this decade. The spot market is fairly small, with more trading under long-term contracts at lower prices...</h2>
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052801051.html
China Embraces Nuclear Future
Optimism Mixes With Concern as Dozens Of Plants Go Up
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2007; Page D01
YUMEN, China....
.....Under plans already announced, China intends to spend $50 billion to build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analysts say the country will build 300 more by the middle of the century. That's not much less than the generating power of all the nuclear plants in the world today.......
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Quote:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...aNuke0528.html
China aims to ramp up nuke power by 20-fold
Plan boosts output by the end of 2030
Akihito Teramura
Yomiuri Shimbun
May. 28, 2007 12:00 AM
BEIJING - The Chinese government plans to boost the country's nuclear power generation capability by up to 20 times its current level by the end of 2030, a Chinese official close to the plan said Saturday.
The National Development and Reform Commission, which administers China's energy policy, aims to increase nuclear power generation to between 120 million and 160 million kilowatts, the official said during a speech. He spoke at a strategic energy forum held in Beijing, which was sponsored by the Chinese Construction Ministry.
At present, China has 10 nuclear reactors, which are capable of generating 8 million kilowatts.
China has previously announced that it wanted to increase nuclear power output to 40 million kilowatts by the end of 2020.
To attain its goal under the new plan, China would need to build in excess of 100 nuclear reactors, each capable of generating 1 million kilowatts, over 20 years.
If the plan is realized, China would become the world's largest generator of nuclear power, surpassing Japan, France and the United States.
<b>
However, China's plan to build multiple nuclear plants has prompted fears of intensified international competition for uranium, which is used as fuel for nuclear power generation....</b>
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<b>Read the record of the most experienced private nuclear plant operator, NU of Connecticut:</b>
Quote:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/nuke_no...ase-excessive/
Nov 12, 2005 - Electric Customers Could Get Rebates if CT Judge Deems 456 Percent Increase Excessive
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc...2764.story?col
l=hc-headlines-home
State Questions Nuclear Rate Hike
Electric Customers Could Get Rebates
If Judge Deems 456 Percent Increase Excessive
By GARY LIBOW
Courant Staff Writer
November 12 2005
The state’s consumer counsel Friday questioned whether the 456 percent rate
increase given Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. to decommission the
Haddam Neck plant is justified.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission quietly allowed Connecticut Yankee
to increase its annual decommissioning ratepayer charge from $16.7 million
to $93 million in February. The rate increase was included in customer bills
with little fanfare.
Consumer Counsel Mary Healey said her office, the state Department of Public
Utility Control and attorney general have been fighting the “awfully high”
decommissioning charges, now estimated at approximately $831.3 million.
“Just the order of magnitude raises questions whether it was prudent or
not,” Healey said.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in a telephone interview Friday, said
he considers the performance of Connecticut Yankee’s management “incompetent
and outrageous.” Ratepayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize Connecticut
Yankee’s mismanagement, he said.
An administrative judge is reviewing Connecticut Yankee’s cost estimate to
determine its validity and is expected to make a recommendation to FERC in
December. FERC typically grants the rate increase requests quickly to keep
from burdening the applicant financially while the request is deliberated.
Costs deemed excessive would be rebated.
Connecticut Yankee spokeswoman Kelley Smith said the utility, which had the
burden to prove its rate increase was prudent and justified, cites four
primary causes for the increase.
Smith said the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in increased security and
insurance costs. The Department of Energy’s continued failure to permanently
remove Connecticut Yankee’s spent fuel was likewise costly, she said.
Connecticut Yankee has built concrete casks to house more than 1,000
uranium-laden spent fuels. The utility claims the costs to continue to store
the rods and provide around-the-clock security continues to mount and the
federal government has not taken steps to move the contaminants off-site to
a permanent repository.
Smith also pointed to the negative impact of declines in the financial
markets during 2000-2002 that cut earnings on the decommissioning fund and
termination of the decommissioning contract with Bechtel Nuclear that left
Connecticut Yankee to complete the work itself.
If FERC determines the $93 million decommissioning price isn’t prudent,
Connecticut Yankee would be directed to issue rebates.
Blumenthal, the DPUC and other state consumer watchdogs say Connecticut
Yankee’s lengthy avoidance in measuring levels of potentially cancer-causing
Strontium-90 at its decommissioned plant will cost ratepayers millions of
dollars.
The ratepayers are customers of the nine utility companies, which include
Connecticut Light & Power Co. and United Illuminating Co., that own
Connecticut Yankee.
Strontium-90 is found in nuclear reactor waste, a by-product of the fission
of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency considers Strontium-90 “one of
the more hazardous constituents of nuclear wastes.” Internal exposure to the
chemical similar to calcium is linked to bone cancer, cancer of the soft
tissue, and leukemia, the agency states.
Jim Reinsch, president of Bechtel Nuclear, the firm Connecticut Yankee
contracted in 1999 to decommission the site and later fired, testified under
oath that plant ownership didn’t want to test for contaminants like
Strontium-90.
When Strontium-90 was found in 2001 to have “severely contaminated” the
nuclear plant’s groundwater, Reinsch testified Bechtel informed Connecticut
Yankee of the urgent need for extensive groundwater characterization and
monitoring.
“CY would not own up to its responsibilities to determine the extent of
groundwater contamination and then develop a cost effective means to address
it and would not accept Bechtel’s recommendations for doing so,” Reinsch
stated.
Bechtel sued Connecticut Yankee for $93.5 million, accusing the utility of
grossly understating the levels of groundwater contamination making it
impossible for Bechtel to complete the job on schedule and within budget.
Connecticut Yankee counter-sued Bechtel, accusing the company of delaying
the decommissioning and failing to abide by the terms of its contract.
Bechtel, which was fired in 2003, is seeking $90 million from Connecticut
Yankee for unlawful termination.
Blumenthal said Connecticut Yankee has a moral and potentially legal
responsibility to identify contamination.
“It seems like a see no-evil, hear no-evil avoidance of responsibility,”
Blumenthal said Friday. Connecticut Yankee “had a very profound moral
responsibility to disclose any such problems, which it failed to do.”
In its 2001 groundwater report to the state Department of Environmental
Protection, Connecticut Yankee reported tests for “gamma emitting”
radionuclides and tritium were good.
Strontium does not emit gamma radionuclides, just beta, according to Haddam
resident Ed Schwing, a former member of the Citizens Decommissioning
Advisory Committee.
Connecticut Yankee stated in the 2001 report it would perform quarterly
groundwater sampling from 20 monitoring wells, with analysis including
tritium, boron and “gamma spectroscopy.”
DEP in 2001 requested that Connecticut Yankee conduct more extensive
sampling, including hard to detect radionuclides such as Strontium, Schwing
said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also urged Connecticut Yankee to
test more comprehensively, he said.
“Connecticut Yankee neglected the groundwater contamination issue until they were forced to do it, but kept on dragging their feet,” Schwing charges.
Mike Firsick, a DEP health physicist, said the state in 2001 told
Connecticut Yankee” to test the site for possible strontium contamination.
“Typically, if you don’t look for it, you don’t have a problem with it,”
Firsick said Friday. “I wanted [testing] to be all inclusive. Since they
were decommissioning, I wanted to make sure they would check for everything.
It was for the purpose of being thorough and complete.”
Firsick said DEP continues to closely monitor Connecticut Yankee.
“I think we have the origin of groundwater contamination well-bounded,” he
said. “There is a through review of the groundwater monitoring, reports
quarterly.”
When Connecticut Yankee states the decommissioning is completed, Firsick
said DEP plans to test the site for 18 months to ensure the environment
isn’t contaminated.
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Quote:
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/steinbergjulaug98.htm
Nuclear Contamination In Connecticut
Dangerous practices at the Millstone nuclear power plants
By Michael Steinberg
The end of 1997 brought a flurry of media reports in Connecticut about radioactive contamination from the state’s notorious nuclear power plants. The Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant, located about 20 miles up the Connecticut River from Long Island Sound, has been the focus of much of the attention. But the Millstone nuclear plants, located just west of New London on the Sound, have had reports of similar problems as well.
<h3>The Connecticut Yankee plant was permanently shut down at the end of 1996 after 29 years of operation.</h3> All three Millstone plants were shut down by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) after years of consistently dangerous practices. They are currently rated as worst in the nation by the NRC, and cannot be restarted without approval by the agency’s commissioners. All four plants are owned and operated by Northeast Utilities (NU), New England’s largest electrical utility. The Millstone plants comprise New England’s largest electrical generating station. Because of problems at these plants, NU is struggling for its life. Repairs at Millstone and the cost of buying replacement power cost the company over $1 billion, and forced it to post a $51.7 million loss for the third quarter of 1997.
In the fall of 1996 two workers at the shut down Connecticut Yankee plant entered an area that NU had declared decontaminated of radioactivity. Because the company was confident the area wasn’t hot, it didn’t bother to test it for radioactivity before sending the two people in. But when the two emerged they set off radiation alarms and were found to be severely contaminated. This incident forced the NRC to investigate and eventually slap NU with a hefty fine. But the story just kept getting hotter.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal hired nuclear expert John Joosten in April 1997 to investigate Connecticut Yankee’s radiological track record. Blumenthal didn’t want rate payers or the state to get stuck with decommissioning costs for the plant that were due to NU mismanagement.
Joosten’s findings were a bombshell. He revealed that in 1979, and again in 1989, NU had operated the Connecticut Yankee plant with badly damaged nuclear fuel rods. Joosten contended that the large amounts of radiation released through the cracked rods had spread contamination through the plant and beyond. Joosten also found that other unsafe practices at the plant had caused contamination of the site’s soil, parking lots, wetlands, roof septic system, silt in its discharge canal, water wells, and a shooting range three-quarters of a mile away. NU documents also reported the movement of radiologically untested materials around and off the plant site.
In a September 16, 1997 press release, Attorney General Blumenthal declared, “What we have is a nuclear management nightmare of Northeast Utilities’ own making. The goal is no longer to decommission a nuclear power plant, but rather to decontaminate a nuclear waste dump.”
The previous July NU had declared a landfill on the edge of the plant site a radioactive zone. Levels of two radioactive substances, Cobalt 60 and Cesium 137, were found to be three and six times, respectively, above federal limits. The wooded area was then fenced off and radiation warning signs were posted. But for years it had been accessomgible to the public. NU was unable to explain how the hot stuff got there.
Cobalt 60 remains dangerously radioactive for over 50 years, Cesium 137 for 300. October brought revelations of more Cobalt 60 found in contaminated soil transported from the plant—this time in 1989 to the playground of a day care center operated by the spouse of a plant employee. Governor John Rowland promised that children enrolled at the day care center at that time would be tested for radiation. But over a month later none of the families had even been contacted.
It emerged that during the 1980s and into the 1990s NU had been giving away soil, asphalt, and concrete blocks from the Connecticut Yankee site to local residents. Federal law required NU to test these materials for contamination before they left the plant site. But NU was not able to document that it had done so.....
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<b>The history and legacy of nuclear processing plants and contamination and cleanup:</b>
Quote:
http://www.enquirer.com/fernald/stor...6_fernald.html
Fernald workers' safety threatened
BY MIKE GALLAGHER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Radiation contamination. Sabotage. Missing and misplaced uranium. These are not make-believe scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie. They are among the real-life incidents that have occurred <b>at the Fernald nuclear cleanup site</b> since Jan. 1, 1993.
While U.S. Department of Energy officials say they are working to improve safety at the site, federal reports and other documents obtained by The Enquirer reveal a pattern of life-threatening mistakes by the company hired to clean up the former uranium processing plant.
Internal reports prepared by the cleanup contractor - Fluor Daniel of Irvine, Calif., and its subsidiary, Fernald Environmental Restoration Management Co. (FERMCO) - reveal that numerous safety rules and procedures were being overlooked or didn't exist. The documents also say there is a shortage of trained safety analysts at the site.
A six-month Enquirer investigation into Fernald has revealed more than 1,000 serious safety-related problems since Jan. 1, 1993, when FERMCO began work at the site. These include:
Seven ''criticality'' incidents, where drums of radioactive waste were stored too closely together, were caused by ''management problems'' or ''personnel error.'' Energy Department officials say the incidents could have led to explosions of nuclear material.
Almost 80 cases of workers being exposed to radiation between Jan. 8, 1993 and Oct. 10, 1995.
Fernald workers - including several handling nuclear materials - were found high on cocaine or marijuana or drunk on alcohol, but later allowed to return to work if they promised to attend substance abuse classes.
Intentional sabotage of electrical circuit breakers that could have resulted in explosions or the spread of radiation. The incidents led to FBI investigations.
Someone purposely hiding surgical gloves filled with radioactive material in a personnel radiation monitor where it endangered other workers.
Repeated failure of radiation alarms - designed to warn workers of possible exposure - due to power outages or dead batteries.
Missing or misplaced containers of uranium.
Radioactive material being shipped off-site in mislabeled drums that, in at least one case, resulted in a man being exposed to radiation.
Numerous cases of ''counterfeit'' or substandard bolts being used to hold together radioactive-containment equipment, cranes and lifts.
''Both management and line workers come to work daily fearing that they may be carried out of here with radiation poisoning or, worse yet, that a catastrophic incident could kill thousands of their fellow workers and area residents because of some stupid mistake,'' said one FERMCO senior management official who asked for anonymity, saying he would be fired if identified.
That fear is echoed by others who work at the 1,050-acre site 18 miles northwest of downtown Cincinnati.
''A couple of my buddies were contaminated last year when they were working on installing some new (pump) lines, because their bosses told them the old lines had been flushed and they hadn't been,'' one FERMCO worker said, also requesting anonymity. ''Something bad happens here pretty regularly.''
Energy Department officials, including Fernald Area Director Jack Craig, acknowledge that the site's safety record was dismal under FERMCO for the first two years (1993-94), but ''improvements are being made.
''I would certainly not characterize our safety record right now as excellent, but it is improving and we are working with FERMCO officials to fix the problems that currently exist,'' Mr. Craig said. ''We've instituted many programs and changes to deal with these problems.''
Mr. Craig also conceded that part of the safety problems at Fernald could be chalked up to Fluor Daniel - FERMCO being relative newcomers to the nuclear cleanup business....
....FERMCO President Don Ofte touted the safety record at Fernald, which includes about 4 million worker - hours without an employee being injured seriously enough to miss a work day. FERMCO has averaged 1.96 work days lost for every 200,000 employee - hours worked at the plant. That compares to 3.8 days for every 200,000 worker - hours at Energy Department sites nationwide. However, Mr. Ofte acknowledged the statistics on safe work hours do not take into account the 1,000 serious incidents reported to the Energy Department. ''They're called near misses, and we urge our people to overreport because we want to find out about these things.''
Energy Department records obtained by The Enquirer reveal that most of the safety violations and problems that have occurred at Fernald since Jan. 1, 1993 have been identified by the government as the fault of FERMCO management.
According to the records, those management problems include failure to adequately train workers, failure to properly maintain safety equipment and ignoring or failing to follow Energy Department rules to prevent explosions or radiation contamination.
But while Fluor Daniel - FERMCO officials say they work incessantly to keep Fernald safe for workers, their reports reveal serious safety problems.
For example, in November 1995, Fluor Daniel - FERMCO prepared a blue-ribbon committee report after reviewing work and procedures at Fernald, including that of the company's Safety Analysis Group, which oversees safety procedures at the site.
According to a report of that committee obtained by The Enquirer:
''The Safety Analysis Group operates as a group of independent individuals without effective communication among themselves, other departments or projects, or the external environment. Insufficient effort is being expended to seek lessons learned from others, either internal or external. There is a shortage of staff with broad experience in safety analysis work.
''The Safety Analysis Group's procedures may be inadequate to cover all aspects of the current work, and there appears to be a lack of consistent approach to performing safety analysis.''
Lee Tashjian Jr., Fluor Daniel's vice president of corporate relations, declined to comment on the problems identified in his company's report. Mr. Ofte also declined to comment about the report's findings.
Mr. Craig said he was ''concerned'' about the report and was working to improve safety conditions at Fernald. Repeated requests by The Enquirer to interview Fluor Chairman and CEO Les McCraw were denied.
Fluor Daniel, an international construction and design company, was awarded the $2.2 billion government contract to clean up Fernald in December 1992. It marked the first, site-wide nuclear cleanup contract the company has received since it entered the field.
Fluor Daniel created a subsidiary, FERMCO (Fernald Environmental Restoration Management Co.), to perform the cleanup.
Fluor Daniel had won an earlier Energy Department contract to clean up material at the government's Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, but that project was postponed indefinitely in 1993 because of a change in priorities by Energy Department officials.
Life-threatening incidents
Any safety violation on a nuclear cleanup site ''is one violation too many'' and could result in death not only for the violator, but coworkers and possibly area residents as well, said Thomas Grumbly, the Energy Department's Acting Undersecretary and former Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, during a Nov. 27, 1995 telephone interview with The Enquirer.
Mr. Craig said nuclear site safety ''should be the No. 1 priority of everyone working there. The margin for error is very small. We consider every safety-related incident a serious one.'' Repeated requests to interview Energy Department Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary and Mr. Grumbly during the past three weeks were denied.
While acknowledging the impact any safety problem can have on a nuclear site, Energy Department officials, including Mr. Craig, say incidents of criticality and radiation contamination are feared the most because of the immediate threat to human life.
A review of the more than 1,000 incidents at Fernald detailed in Energy Department reports, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigation records and FERMCO internal documents, showed 78 contamination incidents have occurred at the site since Jan. 8, 1993.
Criticality incidents arise when storage drums containing radioactive waste are placed too closely together, said Gary Stegner, the Energy Department's Fernald spokesman.
Despite being stored in protective containers, some radiation always will escape. If too many sources of that radiation are close to each other, a nuclear chain reaction can occur, possibly resulting in an explosion, according to Mr. Craig and Mr. Stegner.
Seven times between Sept. 22, 1993 and June 13, 1995, members of the Energy Department's Nuclear Criticality Safety Team reported criticality incidents at Fernald. The most recent incident occurred when approximately 40 55-gallon drums were moved to Building 77 and stored in a configuration that violated posted safety rules.
Another incident occurred Oct. 7, 1994, when FERMCO workers placed other drums filled with low-level waste between drums containing ''enriched - restricted'' nuclear material. Drums also were placed too closely to the area's radiation detection alarm, rendering it inoperable, according to an Energy Department report.
Criticality incidents continued to occur despite repeated warnings and violation notices issued by the Energy Department after every incident, beginning with the first one on Sept. 22, 1993.
Workers contaminated
Radiation contamination of workers has been, and continues to be, a major concern, Fluor Daniel - FERMCO and Energy Department officials agree.
While government investigators determined that most of the incidents were the result of ''management problems,'' the workers themselves sometimes were at fault.
In an Oct. 10, 1995 incident, an employee of a subcontractor was splashed with radioactive ''green salt'' (uranium tetra-fluoride) after unzipping her protective clothing because she was uncomfortable.
The woman zipped up her clothing and delayed reporting the incident for more than an hour, despite Energy Department rules that require immediate notification.
After setting off the radiation detectors that all employees are required to use when leaving a ''hot'' site, the woman was treated for what was described in the report as an ''acute and excessive'' dose of radiation. She later was fired for violating the safety rules.
Her medical condition - like that of every person who received some level of contamination at Fernald - was not disclosed in the government reports. The government does not require such information in the reports. Medical information about employees does not have to be disclosed under the federal Freedom of Information Act, and therefore was not available to The Enquirer.
On March 30, 1993, another worker, despite wearing protective clothing, contaminated his hair with radioactive dirt while working under a tank to repair a leak. The worker apparently inadvertently brushed his head against the contaminated tank.
On several occasions, workers were contaminated because they were not made to wear protective clothing while working at known radioactive sites.
For example, on Aug. 4, 1995, a worker who was told to paint areas of the boiler plant and Building 12 stepped in some wet paint. The sticky paint allowed radioactive dust to build up on the soles of his boots. He told Energy Department investigators that FERMCO officials never warned him of the dangers, according to the reports.
In another case, on March 1, 1993, a subcontractor worker welding outside Plant 9 had his boots and coveralls contaminated, despite wearing protective clothing over them, because he was working on his hands and knees in radioactive soil.
Energy Department records also blame FERMCO management for the contamination of a worker on Dec. 7, 1994. Employees digging a trench with a backhoe uncovered a sealed 5-gallon drum. One worker was directed to open the drum with a shovel. It was later determined the drum and its contents were radioactive.
Some contamination incidents remain a mystery.
On March 5, 1993, a worker's clothes were contaminated with radiation after he said he simply spread salt on icy walkways around buildings that were considered non-contaminated areas.
Other safety problems
Energy Department and FERMCO records also reveal hundreds of other safety-related incidents at Fernald.
Among the most serious, according to the records, were at least three incidents of missing or misplaced uranium or deadly hydrofluoric gas.
The most recent occurred May 26, 1995, when a worker discovered canisters of hydrofluoric gas in a trash area near Building 71. FERMCO officials said they did not know how the canisters got there.
Other incidents include a missing container of 167 pounds of slightly enriched uranium. Workers discovered the uranium missing on Sept. 30, 1994. The container was found two months later in another building.
Fernald also has had incidents of sabotage that were so serious, the Energy Department's Mr. Craig said, that the FBI became involved.
FBI agents were called to the site on Dec. 13 and 16, 1994, when workers found some circuit breakers that had been purposely disabled or damaged. The circuit breakers are designed to prevent electrical overloads that could lead to explosions, fires or the spread of radioactive contamination.
''This was obviously sabotage,'' Mr. Craig said. ''Those incidents posed very serious problems for every worker here. The FBI was called, but unfortunately they were not able to find the person or people responsible. I really don't know if the people who did it are still working here or not. The incidents did stop after the FBI came a second time.''
Another suspected case of sabotage occurred Aug. 12, 1994, when someone put surgical gloves filled with radioactive material inside the arm wells of a Personnel Contamination Monitor that workers were required to use. The monitor's alarm went off when a man used it. The man was not contaminated, but a check of the machine found the surgical gloves. Investigators never found the culprit....
....Another potentially life-threatening situation that Energy Department and FERMCO investigators have uncovered is thousands of ''counterfeit'' or substandard fasteners and bolts being used to hold together tanks containing radioactive materials, cranes, lifts, and other structures.
Energy Department investigators say such bolts don't meet the government's stringent design specifications, and are brought on-site by contractors or subcontractors.
A review of Energy Department records did not reveal any investigation that led to criminal or civil penalties against a contractor or subcontractor for supplying inferior bolts.
But records show Energy Department inspectors discovered such bolts in use on five occasions in 1995: March 24, May 4, June 28, Aug. 15 and Oct. 3.
Mr. Craig said inspectors ''are working continuously to detect counterfeit materials because of the serious consequences'' if they should fail or break. He also said that when counterfeit bolts or materials are found, ''we have them removed immediately.''
FERMCO spokesman Jack Hoopes said the company takes the problem of counterfeit materials ''very seriously'' and works with the Energy Department to try to halt their use...
Published Feb. 12, 1996.
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/us/20park.html
Nuclear Site Nears End of Its Conversion to a Park
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG
Published: September 20, 2006
FERNALD, Ohio, Sept. 19 - In about two weeks, the
final trainload of radioactive waste is to leave
<b>the Fernald nuclear site.</b>
The train will carry 5,800 tons of contaminated
soil in 60 railcars, just like the 196 trains
before it, which have run for seven years to a
Utah dump from this scarred, cratered patch of
land in the hills of southern Ohio.
"I never thought I'd live to see this day," said
Johnny Reising, who directs activity at the site
for the Department of Energy.
This fall, the site will open to the public as a
natural, undeveloped park following a 13-year,
$4.4-billion cleanup. That is actually a bargain.
Experts had originally estimated that cleanup
would cost $12 billion and take until 2025.
"I remember touring the site in the 80's and
thinking, 'My golly, how are we ever going to
clean this up?' " said Graham Mitchell, who
oversaw the site for the Ohio Environmental
Protection Agency for 21 years until he retired
this month.
From the time it opened in 1951 until it closed in
1989, the Feed Materials Production Center in
Fernald enriched 500 million pounds of uranium, 67
percent of all the uranium used in the nation's
cold war nuclear weapons program.
The center also created 1.5 billion pounds of
radioactive waste, Mr. Reising said. It operated
in obscurity until 1985, when neighbors discovered
that the plant's waste had polluted their air,
soil and drinking water.
The neighbors sued, and the resulting news
coverage prompted similar revelations at nuclear
facilities around the country.
The site originally included a leaky silo filled
with highly radioactive uranium sludge. At the
time it was the largest concentration of poisonous
radon gas in the world, Mr. Reising said.
Officials at the Fernald center dumped radioactive
waste into pits just 20 yards from a creek that
sits directly atop the Great Miami Aquifer, one of
the biggest and cleanest aquifers east of the
Mississippi, Mr. Mitchell said.
Rainwater carried uranium into the creek, where it
sank and contaminated 225 acres, or about 0.062
percent of the aquifer, according to figures on
the Web site of the Fernald Citizens Advisory
Board, which represented the center's neighbors
through the cleanup process.
When the Department of Energy ran out of room to
bury waste at the 1,050-acre Fernald site,
officials ordered it packed into 100,000 metal
drums, which were left outside, exposed to the
elements. Accidental releases covered 11 square
miles of surrounding farmland in radioactive dust.
"When we first visited the site, I saw workers
walking around in short-sleeve shirts, and their
arms were covered with radioactive yellowcake,"
said Lisa Crawford, president of Fresh, a citizen'
s group that fought for cleanup at Fernald.
The original plan called for moving all the
radioactive waste from Fernald to Nevada. Citizens
and regulators gradually decided the plan was so
expensive that it might never happen. "It took us
years to realize how much dirt we were actually
talking about," said Jim Bierer, chairman of the
citizens board.
In the final compromise, the federal government
agreed to move 1.3 million tons of the most
contaminated waste to storage sites in Texas,
Nevada and Arizona. Citizens agreed to place the
rest - 4.7 million tons - in a landfill at
Fernald.
Today, the waste site resembles a long, fat worm.
Filled with uranium-laced soil, building parts and
shreds of clothing, the landfill is 30 feet deep,
with another 65 feet above ground, and is
three-quarters of a mile long.
The landfill's outer wall of rock, plastic and
clay is nine feet thick and sits 30 feet above the
aquifer. It is designed to last at least 1,000
years.
At its peak, the cleanup effort employed 2,000
workers, as many people as worked at the center
during the height of uranium production, Mr.
Reising said.
The Department of Energy spent $216 million on
buildings just to clean the site. When the
buildings were no longer needed, each one had to
be demolished, decontaminated and placed in the
landfill. The department also built a pumping
system to suck contaminated water out of the
aquifer and purify it. That process will continue
until the entire aquifer is clean, in about 2023,
Mr. Reising said.
When the site opens as a park, the landfill will
be off-limits to the public. The remaining 930
acres will include hardwood forest, prairie and
wetlands intended to recreate the area's natural
environment before European settlers arrived in
the early 1800's, Mr. Reising said.
Native bird species not seen in the area for
decades, including bobolinks and dickcissels, have
been spotted at Fernald, as have endangered
species including the Indiana brown bat and Sloan'
s crayfish. Deer wander the roads, and great blue
herons stand motionless in ponds.
Humans have started to return, too. For decades,
home values around Fernald stagnated because no
one wanted to live near a nuclear waste dump, Mr.
Bierer said.
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Quote:
http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2004nn/0406nn/040604nn.htm
Senate agrees to pave over nuclear dump
Plan to entomb waste defeated; other states may have to settle
Friday, June 4, 2004
(AP)
http://web.archive.org/web/200412010...learsludge.ap/
WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday agreed to ease cleanup requirements for tanks holding millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste from Cold War-era bomb making.
Senate critics said the change would leave poisonous sludge in underground tanks and risk contamination of groundwater.
An attempt to block the change failed by the narrowest of margins. Senators voted 48-48 on an amendment offered by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that would have stripped the provision from a defense authorization bill.
The provision allows the Energy Department to reclassify radioactive sludge in 51 tanks at a South Carolina nuclear site so it can be left in place and covered by concrete, instead of being entombed in the Nevada desert.
While the plan has been approved by South Carolina officials, it brought sharp criticism from officials in Washington and Idaho who feared the change would put intense pressure on them to agree to a similar cleanup plan at nuclear sites in their states.
The proposal also left South Carolina's two senators sharply divided.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who had put the provision into the defense bill, said it will quicken waste cleanup at the Savannah River nuclear complex near Aiken, South Carolina, by 23 years and save $16 billion. He rejected claims the waste would harm the environment.
Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., said the sludge accounts for more than half of the radioactivity in the tanks of liquid waste and endangers future generations. It's "not harmless sludge we can pour sand over and cover with concrete" as the Energy Department proposes, said Hollings.
The Savannah River tanks contain 34 million gallons of liquid waste. Sludge accounts for about 1 percent of the waste volume.
While supporters of the measure insisted it would apply only to waste at the Savannah River site, opponents said the change in nuclear waste policy would create a "clear precedent" that could force other states -- mainly Washington and Idaho where there also are defense waste tanks -- to accept less safe cleanup plans.
Cantwell, who led the push to kill the measure, accused the administration of trying to "sneak" the change in cleanup requirements through Congress by tacking it onto a defense measure in closed-door proceedings without hearings.
In an interview, Cantwell said she hasn't given up on getting the provision defeated. "I don't think the issue is over. ... It's too significant of an issue," she said. "We have more amendments." Since the House bill doesn't contain a similar measure, the issue is also likely to come up in final negotiations by a conference.
Graham's provision was put into the $447 billion defense bill during consideration by the Armed Services Committee without hearings. The House panel refused to include the changes in its version of the defense bill and, instead, called on the National Academy of Sciences to examine the Energy Department cleanup proposal.
The White House is trying "to blackmail my state to accept a lower cleanup standard," declared Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
The tanks of nuclear waste are left over from decades of producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. A 1982 law requires that all waste from such reprocessing must be buried at a central repository planned for Nevada.
But the Energy Department argues that the residual sludge should be considered low-level waste and should not have to be removed. Instead, the department wants to cover the sludge with cement-like grout, saying that would be protective for hundreds of years.
Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said Thursday the proposed treatment of the sludge is a "scientifically sound plan to empty, clean, stabilize and dispose of nuclear waste" in the tanks. He maintained it was "fully protective" of the environment.
Last year a federal judge, acting on a lawsuit by environmentalists, ruled that such an approach violates the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. To get around the ruling, the department wants to get the law changed.
There are 177 tanks with 53 million gallons of waste at the Hanford nuclear site near Richland, Wash., and 900,000 gallons in tanks at the INEEL facility near Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Environmentalists blasted the Senate action.
It's "a cruel trick that allows the Bush administration to leave a legacy of radioactive pollution that could endanger drinking water for millions of Americans," said Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed the lawsuit that successfully challenged the Energy Department plan.
Robert Pregulman, executive director of the Public Interest Research Group in Washington state, said the legislation marks another attempt by the Energy Department "to weasel out of its obligation to properly clean up the radioactive mess it created at Hanford and other sites around the country."
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Nuclear Waste Plan Survives in Senate
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Friday, June 4, 2004; Page A11
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jun3.html
The Senate yesterday narrowly blocked a challenge to an Energy Department plan to leave some radioactive waste from Cold War bombmaking operations buried in the ground at nuclear weapons sites.
By a 48 to 48 tie vote that closely followed party lines, the Senate rejected an amendment to the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill that would have prevented South Carolina from moving ahead with such a cleanup plan at the Savannah River weapons site.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) warned that the Energy Department is trying to set a precedent that would undo a long-standing environmental policy that requires high-level wastes to be removed from sites and stored at a federal depository in Nevada.
"This is the latest crescendo of an administration that is trying to rewrite environmental law," Cantwell said. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in her state was once the main factory for making weapons-grade plutonium. It now stores about two-thirds of the country's high-level radioactive waste.
A federal court in Idaho last year ruled against an Energy Department effort to leave some of the material in huge tanks...
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Senate Backs Redefinition of Atom Waste
June 4, 2004
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/04/politics/04nuke.html
WASHINGTON, June 3 - The Senate voted Thursday to give the Energy Department the authority to reclassify nuclear waste so it could be left in aging tanks, some of them already leaking, rather than be pumped out for disposal elsewhere.
The vote would reverse a decision last July by a federal district court judge in Idaho who had ruled, in a suit brought by environmentalists and backed by several states, that the high-level radioactive material must be buried deep beneath the ground.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, had inserted language drafted by the Energy Department into a military authorization bill that would let the department reclassify wastes so they could be kept in the storage tanks at the Savannah River Site in his state.
But Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, where the largest volume of nuclear waste is stored, proposed an amendment that would have deleted the Graham language from the bill. She argued that it would set a precedent for her state and Idaho, where there are similar wastes. Some of the tanks in Washington are leaking, while those in Idaho and South Carolina are not.
Adding the amendment to a military bill in wartime, and doing so at a closed committee session, amounted to "a sneaky process behind closed doors," she said. The idea should have gone through the energy committee and should have been considered in open hearings, she argued.....
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Last edited by host; 05-28-2007 at 08:56 PM..
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05-28-2007, 04:45 PM
