Aldermaston's health & safety practices under 'intense scrutiny'

We are away for a couple of days from Tuesday, so here is something to be getting on with. So our thanks to Jamie Doward writing for Sunday’s Observer who checks out safety measures at Aldermaston for us.

Health and safety practices at the UK's main nuclear weapons base are under intense scrutiny just weeks before it is expected to be granted permission for a multibillion-pound facility to conduct a new generation of radioactive tests.

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire is where the UK's arsenal of nuclear warheads are manufactured and maintained for the Trident submarine fleet. A serious fire in the base's explosives area last month has focused attention on AWE's safety record at a critical time.

An analysis of monthly health and safety records, published by AWE, has prompted the Nuclear Information Service to call for planners to think twice before approving Project Hydrus, a major new research facility that will turn Aldermaston into a global leader in the production of thermonuclear weapons.

Here are some examples of health and safety gone wrong: In July 2007, flooding at Aldermaston's sister plant, AWE Burghfield, "came close to overwhelming" buildings where nuclear warheads were assembled, resulting in Ł5m damage, paid for by the taxpayer, and cessation of live nuclear work at the plant for nine months.

In February 2008, radioactive material taken to London to help the Metropolitan police's "radiological awareness training" was left in the capital overnight.  And in October 2009, a krytron, a trigger device used in nuclear weapons that contain minor radioactive sources, was left in a cupboard outside of its protected area.

Andrew Jupp, director of infrastructure at AWE, said: "Our commitment to be safe, secure and environmentally responsible underpins everything we do at AWE." He also said that in almost 60 years of operation there had never been a radiation emergency at AWE that had affected the public. (23/8/10)

Images: The Register / Greenpeace

U$3 million for a bit of tarmac? We know a man who can do it much cheaper...

We haven’t heard from our friend Annette Cary recently, so here’s one of her recent reports from the Tri-City Herald. Hanford crews are laying 1.8 acres of modified asphalt this week over a tank farm where five underground tanks are suspected of leaking radioactive and hazardous chemical waste. It may look like a parking lot - one larger than a football field and dotted by monitoring stations and risers from underground tanks. But its goal is to keep contaminated soil in the tank farm dry.

"We don't want the situation to get worse," said Dan Parker, project manager of the work for Washington River Protection Solutions. "The barrier will keep rain water and snow melt from entering the soil and carrying contamination towards ground water."

The barrier, being paid for with economic stimulus money, will be the second one built at the Hanford tank farms, where 53 million gallons of waste are stored in groups of underground tanks called "farms." The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.

As much liquid waste as possible has been pumped out of the tanks into newer double-shell tanks and they are not believed to be leaking now. But past leaks or spills at the tank farm are believed to have contributed to an estimated 1 million gallons of waste that have contaminated soil.

Fowler General Construction of Richland has a contract of nearly $3 million for the construction. Work began in February to install monitoring instruments for the barrier and the barrier should be completed by the end of September to meet a proposed legally binding deadline negotiated by DOE and its regulators.(18/8/10)

We're re-visiting Vermont Yankee - best bring your wellies!

Susan Smallheer, writing for the Rutland Herald, brings us this.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it found a low-level safety violation at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor during a recent refueling outage.

The federal regulators said human error was responsible for draining water from the reactor pressure vessel during testing of the emergency core cooling system in May, while the plant was shut down. The error resulted in 2,100 gallons of cooling water being drained off. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that the “green” finding, which means that the incident was of low safety significance. He said the emergency core cooling test is only performed when the plant is shut down.

Vermont Yankee has experienced problems in the past, known in the nuclear industry as “crud bursts,” with led to contamination on the reactor refueling floor, so the test is now done with the reactor head on and steam line plugs in place. Larry Smith, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said the company would not contest the finding. “We accept the finding in the NRC report,” said Smith, who said corrective actions are already in place.

The green finding drew a skeptical response from Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the New England Coalition, an antinuclear group. “The NRC has more green than a St. Patrick’s Day parade,” he said, referring to the NRC’s grading of safety significance into the colors green, white, yellow and red.

He said his experience with the NRC was that it would label safety problems green “if Vermont Yankee fell over and rolled into the Connecticut River as long as it didn’t blow up.”(4/8/10)

511 inspection failures? Not good, Chugoku...

Found on the pages of the Japan Times. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has assigned the lowest grade to the No. 1 and 2 reactors at Chugoku Electric Power Co.'s nuclear power plant in Shimane Prefecture due to the discovery of numerous inspection failures, sources said Thursday. The agency will issue a stern warning to Chugoku Electric and order the Hiroshima-based utility to include measures to prevent a recurrence of the problem in its safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

The agency has already released its evaluations on all but the two Chugoku Electric reactors that were found in March to have 511 inspection failures or devices that needed to be replaced. Agency inspectors also found more than 1,000 cases where results did not meet the levels set out in inspection plans.

The agency assigned the lowest grade of 1 only to the two reactors at Chugoku Electric's Shimane plant as they have "greatly ruined trust in nuclear power generation." Finding "unacceptable" problems at the reactors, the agency also concluded that their maintenance and management system has "grave defects," the sources said.

Three hospitalised in Bahrain Airport scare

Officials recently scrutinised the handling of a radiation scare at Bahrain International Airport, which put three men in hospital, according to a recent report in the Gulf Daily News. Three Nepalese porters were transferring radioactive material from one Gulf Air flight to another when it was thought one of the containers had leaked.

They were taken to Salmaniya Medical Complex (via a Bahrain Airport Services vehicle!) and were isolated until tests showed them free from any radioactive contamination. Authorities said later that wetness on one of the containers of radioactive medical waste turned out to be harmless condensation and that taking the men to hospital was just a precaution.

Interior Ministry officials said they had not been informed about the incident by airport authorities and that the first they heard of it was from the SMC Accident and Emergency Department doctors.

More Yankee Leaks

Anika Clark writing for the Sentinel Source in New Hampshire tries to find an elusive leak in Vermont. Much ado has been made about tritium lately, since Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant officials announced that the radioactive form of hydrogen has contaminated groundwater at its Vernon campus.

But several nuclear engineering professors contacted by The Sentinel said the levels reported at Vermont Yankee aren’t dangerous. The problem, some said, is that it’s leaking at all.

“Personally I wouldn’t panic over this,” said Howard L. Hall, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. But, “clearly there’s something leaking that’s not supposed to leak. ... You still want to go fix that.”

According to a fact sheet from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Exposure to very small amounts of ionizing radiation is thought to minimally increase the risk of developing cancer, and the risk increases as exposure increases.”

Vermont Yankee officials don’t yet know the source of the tritium leak or how much water was contaminated.  What they do know is this: In early January, groundwater contaminated with tritium was discovered at a monitoring well about 30 feet from the Connecticut River.

The tritium level was measured at 17,000 picocuries (units of radioactivity) per liter, or 3,000 picocuries below the drinking water limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Test delays worry remaining 176 workers at Bruce Power (don't worry, we're processing 2 a day!)

Paul Jankowski, writing for the Owen Sound Sun Times, brings us up to date with the events at Bruce Power.

The 195 workers at Bruce Power who are being tested for exposure to alpha radiation are understandably concerned and frustrated with the slow pace of the process, a company spokesman said last week.

"We've had 19 people go through testing (so far). It's urine sampling. It's a slow process and that's the frustrating thing for our workers and for us," John Peevers said. He went on to say that there is only one place accredited by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to do the tests, an Atomic Energy of Canada lab at Chalk River, and it can only process two samples a day.

The discovery of alpha radiation came as a surprise during work on refurbishing Bruce A Unit 1, which the company hopes to return to power generation in 2011. The first hint came during a routine air sample test on Nov. 26, while crews were working on feeder tubes inside the Bruce A Unit 1 nuclear vault. Two days later a similar radiation spike was found. "We initially thought it was cobalt," Peevers said. But the samples were sent out for testing and in December, we find out that it's alpha (radiation), which we weren't expecting.”

Nuclear power plant operators tend only focus on beta and gamma radiation: Alpha is different as it's a larger particle so it's not as penetrating. If it's inhaled or ingested that's the potential hazard.(15/2/10)

Palisades staff seek out suspect Tritium leaks in K-a-l-a-m-a-z-o-o (gedditt?)

Rod Smith reporting for M.Live’s web pages goes to Kalamazoo for this ‘leak’.

A second radioactive leak at the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan has been fixed. "I'm happy to say we have found the source of the leak," said Mark Savage, the public-affairs and communications director for Palisades, "and have repaired that."

The new leak was at a turn in a pipe and was because of the failure of a weld, Savage said. The pipes and welds are stainless steel. "We think it was during original construction," Savage said.

In June, Savage told the Van Buren County Board of Commissioners that tritium levels were rising in monitoring wells. Last year the company found a leak in one of the pipes feeding the storage tanks. It was drained and fixed. Tritium levels diminished after those repairs.

In 2007, Palisades found a level of 22,000 picoCuries per litre of water, 2,000 above the reportable level for drinking water, although none of the monitoring wells are used for drinking water. At 22,000 picoCuries, Palisades had not been required to report the tritium to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission but did so anyway.

Leaks, breakdowns and 'other events' - what next for UK's nuke palnts?

Terry Macalister and Rob Edwards, writing for The Observer recently, bring us this. The scale of safety problems inside Britain's nuclear power stations has been revealed for the first time in a secret report obtained by the Observer that shows more than 1,750 leaks, breakdowns or other "events" over the past seven years. The document, written by the government's chief nuclear inspector, Mike Weightman, and released under the Freedom of Information Act, raises serious questions about the dangers of expanding the industry with a new generation of atomic plants. And it came as the managers of the UK's biggest plant, Sellafield, admitted they had finally halted a radioactive leak many believe has been going on for 50 years.

The report discloses that between 2001-08 there were 1,767 safety incidents across Britain's nuclear plants. About half were subsequently judged by inspectors as serious enough "to have had the potential to challenge a nuclear safety system". They were "across all areas of existing nuclear plant", including Sellafield in Cumbria and Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, says Weightman, chief inspector of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).

In May 2007 a manhole at Dounreay in northern Scotland was found to be contaminated with plutonium. A series of other incidents occurred at Sellafield, including a fault with a trap door meant to provide protection from highly radioactive waste in September 2008, and the contamination of five workers at a plutonium fuel plant in January 2007.

A spokesman for Sellafield confirmed it had successfully halted the seeping of liquid from a crack in one of four waste tanks that used to process effluent before it was discharged into the Irish Sea. Some local residents say it started half a century ago.

Not so much fly fishing - more fly ash down at Oak Ridge

Here's a fishy tale from our good friend Frank Munger who writes for the Knoxville News Sentinel – hi, Frank!!

The fish in the Clinch and Emory rivers exposed to fly ash from the massive spill in December 2008 appear to be generally healthy - so far. That's the early assessment from researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who've been studying the fish since soon after the spill, which dumped more than 5 million cubic yards into the Emory and the embayment adjacent to the Kingston Fossil Plant.

Immediately after the spill, some areas of the waterways were essentially lost because of the enormous amount of fly ash. Those results were largely due to the physical impact of the fly ash, not because of the exposure to contaminants.

Some effects of toxic pollutants associated with the fly ash - such as selenium - may not be easily evaluated in the near term, according to the ORNL information. Selenium is known to cause reproductive problems in fish, especially young fish. In order to look more closely at that, ORNL researchers have started a project at their Aquatic Ecology Lab, where fish embryos and larvae will be exposed to TVA's fly ash and evaluated.

Three strikes and you're out - trouble at Tricastin

With thanks to Angelique Chrisafis, reporting for the Guardian for the following. A nuclear treatment centre next to the Tricastin nuclear plant in Provence run by a subsidiary of Areva, is causing problems for local people. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers. Locals’ homes are plumbed into the local groundwater from the now contaminated wells. After the incident there was a ban on using the groundwater for washing, drinking and watering gardens: however, since the official ban was lifted recently, locals still won’t drink water from their taps.

Here’s a little footnote to this story found thanks to The Guardian. Last week, 100 workers at the Tricastin plant were contaminated with a low dose of radiation last week and it was also reported that there was a further ‘incident’ at this plant on Tuesday – an alarm was accidentally triggered and 120 workers had to be evacuated. The French safety authority, ASN, played down this latest incident.

Is there anywhere in the USA where you can drink the water??

David O Williams writing for the Colorado Independent, brings us another American clean-up report.

Environmentalists and local politicians cheered a Colorado Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety order late Thursday directing Denver-based Cotter Corp. to begin curtailing drinking water contamination from an inactive Jefferson County uranium mine this summer.

Uranium pollution revealed to be more than 13 times state standards was contaminating Ralston Creek, and the state rejected a cleanup plan proposed by Cotter, which owns the Cotter Mill uranium processing facility near Canon City and several uranium mines around the state.

The mining division required Cotter to begin water treatment at its Schwartzwalder uranium mine west of Arvada by July 31. “The mining division took bold and decisive action to protect our drinking water,” Jefferson County Commissioner Kathy Hartman said in a release. “I am pleased to see immediate action to protect Ralston Reservoir.”

“Thousands of people depend on clean water from Ralston Reservoir, and we can’t afford for Cotter to drag its feet cleaning up their mess,” said Matt Garrington, program advocate with Environment Colorado and a Jefferson County resident. “The mining division deserves praise for taking strong action.”Uranium levels at the mine itself exceeded 1,400 times Colorado water quality standards

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Dodgy radioactive water hits south New Jersey's water aquifiers

Thanks to the Associated Press for this one. Radioactive water that leaked from the nation's oldest nuclear power plant has now reached a major underground aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of southern New Jersey, the state's environmental chief said Friday. The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to halt the spread of contaminated water underground, even as it said there was no imminent threat to drinking water supplies.

The department launched a new investigation Friday into the April 2009 spill and said the actions of plant owner Exelon Corp. have not been sufficient to contain water contaminated with tritium.

Tritium is found naturally in tiny amounts and is a product of nuclear fission. It has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts. "There is a problem here," said environmental Commissioner Bob Martin. "I am worried about the continuing spread of the tritium into the groundwater and its gradual moving toward wells in the area. This is not something that can wait. That would be unacceptable."

The tritium leaked from underground pipes at the plant on April 9, 2009, and has been slowly spreading underground at 1 to 3 feet a day. At the current rate, it would be 14 or 15 years before the tainted water reaches the nearest private or commercial drinking water wells. But the mere fact that the radioactive water — at concentrations 50 times higher than those allowed by law — has reached southern New Jersey's main source of drinking water calls for urgent action, Martin said.

Radon found in school

We were going to run a different nugget today, but this came to our attention in a round about way.  So thanks to Gerry Duffy reporting for The Scottish Sun. Here it is in its entirity...

A school was closed after experts found high levels of a killer nuclear gas in classrooms. All four pupils were moved from Cabrach Primary in Moray after the discovery of colourless radon.

Last night one source said of the find: "It's scary to think that so much of this gas was in a school - the parents must be terrified."

The school will be closed until the Easter holidays next month while an underground pump is built to safely release the gas into the atmosphere. Staff and kids will stay at another primary until then

Radon, which is used in nuclear power, occurs naturally in all rocks and soils. Exposure can lead to lung cancer in severe cases. A Moray Council spokesman said: "We are working closely with the Health Protection Agency and Health and Safety Executive to carry out remediation work."

Things get rather dusty in France - 39kg plutonium dusts-worth actually...

Peggy Hollinger, reporting for the Financial Times, reports from France for this one.

Andre-Claude Lacoste, the head of France’s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), was taken aback when French politicians demanded a public inquiry into the country’s nuclear industry a few weeks ago. He could not understand why his joint letter with two other European regulators demanding design changes to a new-generation EPR reactor being built in France, Finland and soon in the UK, should have prompted a storm in a country traditionally supportive of nuclear power.

The letter came in the wake of a series of recent incidents in France, not least the discovery of 39kg of plutonium dust that had built up over 40 years in fuel-making facilities run by the Atomic Energy Commission, the state nuclear research body. The incidents prompted a call from Greenpeace for the “immediate halt of work on the EPRs in Finland and France”.

France’s independent watchdog insists there is no reason to worry about safety in the country’s nuclear installations. The ASN records roughly 1,000 incidents a year and Mr Lacoste says he does not have the impression that there has been an “unusual accumulation of incidents” this year.

921 nuke warhead detonations cause underground water contamination

Ralph Vartabedian, reporting for the LA Times web pages heads to Nevada for this one.

A sea of ancient water tainted by the Cold War is creeping deep under the volcanic peaks, dry lake-beds and pine forests covering a vast tract of Nevada.

Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and, in some cases, directly into aquifers. When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the USA.

They have successfully pressured federal officials for a fresh environmental assessment of the 1,375-square-mile test site, a step toward a potential demand for monetary compensation, replacement of the lost water or a massive cleanup.

In a study for Nye County, where the nuclear test site lies, it’s estimated that the underground tests polluted 1.6 trillion gallons of water. That is as much water as Nevada is allowed to withdraw from the Colorado River in 16 years - enough to fill a lake 300 miles long, a mile wide and 25 feet deep.

Researcher puts his/her foot in it at Montana State - No? What have you stepped in?

Robert Meeder, reporting for the Komu web pages brings us this cautionary tale: always look where you are walking! A researcher at Montana State University accidentally tracked phosphorus from a lab to a few areas across campus recently.

An unidentified lab researcher accidentally spilled phosphorus-32, a radioactive isotope, at a Schlundt Annex laboratory. The researcher then walked outside, unaware that the chemical spilled onto his or her shoes.

Department workers used Geiger counters to locate radiation patches. Most of the radiation was in a dirt filled area, at a corner outside Schlundt Annex, the biochemistry building. The radioactive dirt will be stored for up to six months before it can be disposed. Most of the researcher's footprints have been sealed with black paint to stop any possible contamination from spreading.

The risk of airborne exposure to phosphorus-32 is minimal, but it is very dangerous if ingested. The MU Environmental Health and Safety Department and biochemistry students and teachers declined interviews. After the cleanup, an investigation will determine if disciplinary action is necessary.

Green Party uncover leaks at Aldermaston

Robert Warlow, reporting for the pages of Newbury Today, goes to Aldermaston for this tale. Campaigners  have called for more transparency after details emerged of a radiation leak at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Aldermaston.

Research by Reading Green Party revealed that radioactive contamination was found in a building at the site on June 29. Although radioactive material is not believed to have spread beyond the site boundary, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and the Environment Agency were informed of the incident, but the details were not disclosed to the press and the public.

The party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Reading East, Rob White, said: “AWE does not appear to have learnt any lessons following the July 2007 flood that crippled the Burghfield nuclear warhead assembly plant. The company’s instinctive reaction was to cover up the incident and this incident appears to be more of the same with it not keeping people informed.” He added: “This creates concerns and we are asking them to be more upfront and honest about what risks are posed to the public.”

AWE spokeswoman Rachel Whybrow said: “This minor event took place during routine decommissioning work in a building on the AWE Aldermaston site. When an internal contamination alarm sounded, monitoring of staff and a survey of the area was carried out, which confirmed the event posed no threat to staff or the wider public.

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I was going to say 'water, water everywhere - best bring your geiger counter'; but I won't...

Mary Manning, reporting for the Las Vegas Sun, brings us this environmental report from the Nevada Test Site.

Scientists have found radioactive tritium from nuclear tests in Nevada contaminating groundwater off the Nevada Test Site for the first time. However, state and federal studies indicated it would leave the nuclear site within 50 years.

A groundwater sample taken in a new well drilled on Air Force land contained tritium at about 12,500 picocuries per litre below the federal Environmental Protection Agency Safe Drinking Water Act limit of 20,000 picocuries per litre. A picocurie is a measure of radiation in liquid.

The Energy Department predicted in February that groundwater contamination would leave the Test Site boundary near Pahute Mesa, in the northwest corner of the sprawling site about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Tritium occurred naturally in lakes, rivers and public water supplies at between 5 and 25 picocuries per liter before nuclear weapons testing began in 1945 in New Mexico. Tritium is formed in nature from cosmic rays striking hydrogen. It is produced in nuclear explosions as well.

Current plans are to drill six more test wells, at a cost of U$ 5m each, on and near Pahute Mesa over the next two to three years, said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which operates the Test Site for the Energy Department.

EPA to search for uranium 'hot spots' in Arizona

Cyndy Cole, reporting on the pages of the Arizona Daily Sun brings us this disturbing environmental tale.

A dump near Tuba City that has been leaching low levels of radioactive waste into the shallow aquifer finally is getting some federal attention, if not an actual cleanup yet.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to fence off a remaining section of an old dump, near two Hopi villages, and test for hot spots of radioactivity close by. This includes one area where the agency says uranium levels in the water exceed what's federally considered safe for drinking water by eight times. Local villagers who believe their downstream springs are threatened have long sought a total excavation of the dump.

Uranium-related waste found in the testing will be removed with heavy equipment beginning in October, and 263 new testing holes will be dug to search for more. "We're looking for a uranium source in the dump," said Leah Butler, project manager for the EPA.

The dump, which operated uncontrolled and unlined from the 1950s to 1997, is located a few miles from a former uranium mill. Altogether, eight test wells at the former Tuba City dump show uranium levels exceeding what the EPA considers safe for drinking water.

Hawaii 5-0 it’s not: more like Hawaii Oh no thanks to ‘migrating’ uranium

Found this via Honolulu’s Star Bulletin web pages

A preliminary study has concluded the public is not at risk from depleted uranium at the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii’s Big Island, the military said.

The Army conducted the study as part of its licensing application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a site-specific environmental radiation - monitoring plan.

According to the report, only three pieces of the radioactive material have been found at Pohakuloa (right) and the remainder, if any, likely fell into cracks in the lava. The July 8 report says, "If any significant quantity of DU was fired at PTA, it is expected to have quickly migrated through the pahoehoe (smooth ropy lava) and a'a basalt (a type of rocky cinder) flows and is no longer detectable at the surface."

The migration theory "made me giggle," said Mike Reimer, a Big Island resident who served 10 years as head of research at the Colorado School of Mines after a 25-year stint on a uranium project with the U.S. Geological Survey. "On the basis of that study, they can't come to that conclusion," Reimer said. "That document they sent to the NRC, I think, was extremely superficial and often contradictory."

Exelon's tritium leaks upset local residents in Illinois

Kim Smith reporting for the Herald News web pages in Chicago, brings us this update on Tritium leaks in Illinois.

Some people are questioning whether or not a $1 million settlement to spend on some environmental projects makes up for the damage caused by numerous tritium leaks discovered on and around nuclear power plants reported through the years.

After the discovery of multiple leaks, Exelon began a company-wide monitoring of the problem and a plant cleanup. Exelon officials say that to date, more than 90% of the tritiated water from Braidwood has been removed. A $1 million settlement was reached in Will County Circuit Court as the result of civil complaints stemming from numerous leaks. The problems at the Braidwood Nuclear Power plant were first reported by Exelon in November 2005. Later, it was revealed that there had been numerous leaks reported over a ten-year span at Braidwood and others at similar facilities at Dresden and Byron

In a press release following the announcement, Exelon's Chief Nuclear Officer Charles Pardee said the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have gone on record stating that the tritium concentration levels were never a public health of safety issue.(19/3/10)

Thinking of going to the 2010 Olympics? Better take a Geiger Counter with you, then.

Ted Jeory and David Jarvis, reporting for yesterday’s Sunday Express, bring us this (if true) rather scary Olympic tale.

Thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste is to be buried in a “nuclear bunker” next to the Olympic stadium under construction in London. Contaminated soil found around old industrial works on the site will be sealed in a radiation -proof concrete container just 400 yards from the athletics track and 250 yards from Stratford International rail station. The massive bunker, the size of half a football pitch, will be built under an approach ramp to a bridge across the River Lee inside the Olympic Park and next to a site where new homes will be built after the 2012 games

A total of 7,300 tonnes of toxic soil will be buried in the “disposal cell” between the stadium, the station and the River Lee which drains into the Thames. It will be lined with a plastic membrane and capped with 4ft of clay.

Liberal Democrat Olympic spokesman Don Foster MP called on the Olympic Delivery Authority to reveal scientific proof that the site would be safe for future generations.

A report from radiological consultants Nuvia told the ODA the overall risk to site workers and future visitors was “negligible” and within safety standards. But it warned any future housing “would need to be designed to minimise radon intrusion”. And it added: “Water should not be abstracted from below the disposal site to water vegetables, etc.”

Perhaps we should put this one under 'Environmental Stuff You Didn't Know'

Linda Gunter, writing for the Ventura County Star web pages brings us something we definitely didn’t know and I bet you didn’t, either.

July 16, 1979, just 14 weeks after the Three Mile Island reactor accident, and 34 years to the day after the Trinity atomic test, the small community of Church Rock, N.M., became the scene of another nuclear tragedy.

90 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste and 1,100 tons of solid mill wastes burst through a broken dam wall at the Church Rock uranium mill facility, creating a flood of deadly effluents that permanently contaminated the Rio Puerco River.

Five weeks after the spill occurred, the mine and mill operator, United Nuclear Corp., were back in business at Church Rock as if nothing had happened.  Why is the Church Rock spill - that washed into gullies, contaminated fields and the animals that grazed there, and made drinking water deadly - so anonymous in the annals of our nuclear history? Perhaps the answer lies in where it took place and whom it affected.

Church Rock was a small farming community of Native Americans, mainly Navajo, eking out a subsistence living off the arid South-Western land. Nearby, several-hundred-million gallons of liquid uranium mill tailings were sitting in a pond waiting for evaporation to leave behind solid tailings for storage. The long-term effects of this enormous level of radioactive contamination are not yet known, given that health effects resulting from radiation exposure can take decades to appear and can affect future generations.

New cleanup deadlines for Hanford waste in place

Annette Cary reporting for the Tri-City Herald brings us up to date with the cleanup at Hanford.

The Department of Energy and its regulators have agreed to new legally binding environmental cleanup deadlines for radioactive waste that has been temporarily buried at central Hanford since 1970. The proposed new package would allow more time for some work but also add new deadlines DOE must meet. They include a final cleanup deadline for some of the most difficult-to-handle solid waste, which Hanford now lacks the capabilities to prepare for disposal.

The cleanup of Hanford along the Columbia River has become a top priority; money and resources have shifted to work along the river, making it more difficult for DOE to meet deadlines for a more central Hanford cleanup. In addition, some of the work in central Hanford is technically challenging.

The set of changes covers drums, boxes and cans of debris suspected of containing plutonium that DOE temporarily buried in central Hanford. Then Congress said transuranic waste - typically waste containing plutonium - must be sent to a national repository. But until the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico opened, the waste was buried for later retrieval.(30/4/10)

Duck & cover - those 'muddy' wasps have left radioactive nests laying around Hanford

Shanon Dininny, reporting for the Associated Press brings you, my fellow wasp haters, a tale to chill the blood! If workers cleaning up the nation's most contaminated nuclear site at Hanford didn't have enough to worry about, now they've got to deal with radioactive wasp nests.

Mud dauber wasps built the nests, which have been largely abandoned by their flighty owners, in holes at south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation in 2003. That's when workers finished covering cleaned-up waste sites with fresh topsoil, native plants and straw to help the plants grow — inadvertently creating perfect ground cover for the insects to build their nests. Nearby cleanup work also provided a steady supply of mud, which the wasps used as building material.

Today, the nests, which could number in the thousands, are "fairly highly contaminated" with radioactive isotopes, such as cesium and cobalt, but don't pose a significant threat to workers digging them up. "You don't know what you're going to run into, and this is probably one of the more unusual situations," said Todd Nelson, spokesman for Washington Closure Hanford, the contractor hired to clean up the area under the oversight of the U.S. Department of Energy.

The wasps largely built their nests in a 75-acre area around H reactor, pulling the mud from the bottom of a storage basin that once held irradiated nuclear fuel. (15/06/10)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Vermont Yankee...

Terri Hallenbeck, writing for the Burlington Free Press, has some more bad news from the troubled Vermont Yankee site. It was reported Friday afternoon that the radioactive isotope strontium has been located in the soil near where tritium had been discovered leaking at the Vernon nuclear power plant in January.

Strontium-90 was discovered in soil that had been excavated from the area of the leak, Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith said. It was noted in an analysis the company received Monday from a soil sample taken March 17, he said. The state Health Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission were notified Thursday, he said.

“This is the worst,” Gundersen said. “This is the most harmful, the hardest-to-detect and the most soluble. The existence of strontium-90 will increase the cost of eventual decommissioning of the plant.” Along with tritium, Vermont Yankee has acknowledged the discovery of cobalt-690, cesium-137, manganese-54 and zinc-65

The state Health Department noted the strontium discovery in its updates on the tritium leak Friday. The department emphasized that the strontium has been found in the soil but not in groundwater or in drinking water.(28/5/10)

There's plutonium in them thar hills!

LeRoy Moore, reporting for the Daily Camera’s web pages, tells a chilling environmental tale. The most contentious issue regarding the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) plan to open the refuge for hiking, biking, picnicking, school field trips and other activities. Before public access is allowed at the refuge, the surface soil needs to be sampled for plutonium content. This type of sampling, which has never been done at the Rocky Flats site, will demonstrate whether or not plutonium is present in breathable particles - its most dangerous form.

Newcomers to the Denver-Boulder area may not be aware that for almost four decades the Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory located about eight miles south of Boulder produced the explosive plutonium "pit" at the core of every nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal. Routine operations as well as major fires and accidents released very fine particles of plutonium to the environment both on and off the plant site.

Inhaling or ingesting plutonium or taking tiny particles into the body through an open wound can result in cancer, disruption of the immune system, or harm to the gene pool. Because plutonium has a half-life of 24,110 years, its presence in the environment in particles so small they can attach to dust poses a permanent danger.

Production was halted in 1989 after the FBI raided the plant to collect evidence of environmental lawbreaking. Plutonium pit production ended permanently in 1992 when the Rocky Flats mission was changed from production to cleanup of a badly contaminated site.

Shuffling off to Buffalo? Remember to take a mop and bucket...

Robert J McCarthy, writing for the Buffalo News web pages, shuffles off with mop and bucket to Lewiston for this one. About 50 people gathered outside a World War II radioactive waste dump in the Town of Lewiston on Saturday morning as part of an ongoing protest against the federal government’s failure to clean up the site. Organized by the Niagara Watershed Alliance, the protesters rallied at the Niagara Falls Storage site, which began as the Army’s 7,500-acre Lake Ontario Ordnance Works and was the site of Manhattan Project research during World War II.

The idea was to call attention to the lack of action by the federal government and to call on authorities to seek local input on an eventual cleanup plan, said Vincent Agnello, Alliance secretary.  “Our ultimate goal is to have a clean community,” Agnello said. “This stuff should not be sitting on the shores of Lake Ontario.”

The Niagara Falls Storage Site is a 191-acre parcel in the Town of Lewiston owned by the Department of Energy. It contains a 10-acre “interim waste containment structure” where some radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project is buried.

The dispute between some members of the public and federal regulators over input into the investigation has been going on for several years. The volunteer Restoration Advisory Board for the site has questioned federal regulators about how they’ve handled the investigation and some of their results. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of the cleanup, has said it believes the site is not leaking.(24/5/10)

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Not a very good start to Earth Day, Oyster Creek

Todd B Bates brings us this environmental tale. Exelon is investigating whether a storage tank or piping may be the "leak source" responsible for an elevated level of radioactive tritium found in water at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant , according to a federal official.

Exelon owns the plant, which received a 20-year license renewal from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week. Workers detected 102,000 picocuries of tritium per litre - five times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard for drinking water - in water in a concrete vault. A picocurie (in case you didn’t know) is a measure of radioactivity.

"Based on sampling and analysis of ground water monitoring wells in the vicinity, Exelon is investigating the potential that the leak source may be the condensate storage tank or associated piping," according to Neil A. Sheehan, an NRC spokesman.

There's plenty of fish in the sea - but not at Dounreay

Just in case you were thinking about a spot of fishing in Scotland, John Ross, reporting for the Scotsman has this cautionary (fishy) tale.

A ban on seafood coming from an area near the Dounreay nuclear site is to stay in place, following a Food Standards Agency review. The restriction, preventing the removal of fish and shellfish from a 2km exclusion zone, was imposed in 1997 after the discovery of radioactive particles on the seabed.

The order, under the Food and Environment Protection Act, was to ensure any seafood contaminated by irradiated nuclear fuel did not enter the food chain.

Last year, Dounreay began work using remotely operated vehicles to remove the worst of the particles that have caused concern for more than quarter of a century. Up to Ł25 million will be spent on covering an area the size of 60 football pitches and on monitoring up to the 2020s.

The FSA examined the existing ban in light of the work, but concluded that the restricted area should remain in place while the work on the seabed is going on and be reviewed once it is complete. The agency said that, with the restrictions in place, the risk to food safety remains extremely small.

Erm, we've just spilt some Tritium - but, not to worry, it didn't go anywhere

Kim Janssen, writing for Chicago Breaking News, brings us a rather non-story – but worrying nevertheless.  A radioactive leak at Exelon's Dresden nuclear power plant has been contained and isn't a risk to public health, authorities said recently. Leaked tritium  (a radioactive by-product of nuclear reaction that can cause cancer and birth defects) was found Saturday during routine tests at the Grundy County plant, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The leak is not believed to have left the 1,700-acre plant site. Exelon officials said leaked tritium has not entered the public water supply. But the company hasn't found the cause or source of the leak, which was discovered in a monitoring well and storm sewers at the 37-year-old plant, the oldest privately-financed nuclear reactor in the United States and not far from the Kankakee and Des Plaines Rivers.

Workers were digging in the "general area" where a waste pipe is believed to have failed and are testing other wells at the plant, Exelon spokeswoman Krista Lopykinski said. "There's no danger to public or staff safety.”

But Paul Gunther, of anti-nuclear campaign group Beyond Nuclear, said Exelon has a history of "trivializing uncontrolled and unmonitored" tritium leaks. "Where is that contaminated water going to be 10 years from now?" Gunther said. "Groundwater can move and its movement is hard to predict.

Workers fear reprisals for speaking out at San Onofre

Yet another tale they didn’t really want you to know, this time courtesy of The Santa Maria Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Workers at the San Onofre nuclear power plant fear retaliation if they report a safety concern, according to a leaked internal company memo.

The plant, in northwest San Diego County, has been under increased scrutiny by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for safety problems. Over the last two years, the plant operated by Southern California Edison has increased training, changed top managers and replaced a contractor.

A survey of workers conducted by a commission inspector shows workers fear for their jobs if they report safety issues. The findings were included in a Feb. 3 company memo leaked this week to the environmental group San Clemente Green. According to the memo, the commission received 63 allegations of safety concerns at the plant between 2008 and 2009, and 25 of the people making the allegations feared retaliation. San Onofre workers report safety violations 10 times more often than the industry average, the memo states.

Ross Ridenoure, chief nuclear officer, said the plant is working on improving the safety culture, and company surveys show progress. "We have zero tolerance for any type of retaliation," he said.

Similar allegations have previously been leveled at plant officials. In November, two plant workers filed federal whistle-blower complaints against the plant, saying managers retaliated against them after they disciplined an employee who violated regulations while welding a nuclear waste canister. Ridenoure would not comment on pending litigation. Gary Headrick, a founder of San Clemente Green, said a plant manager leaked the memo. Headrick said it was important to shed light on the issue because the plant is scheduled to restart a reactor that he believes may have been rushed back into service.(26/2/10)

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Navajo reservation due for major clean-up

This emotive story comes courtesy of Ginger Richardson, reporting for The Arizona Republic and found on the azcentral web pages. The U.S. government will spend tens of millions of dollars to assess and clean up uranium contamination across the vast Navajo Reservation, but the effort is unlikely to erase decades of frustration over what has been characterized as a slow and sporadic federal response.

The exploration scarred the three-state Navajo Reservation's landscape and resulted in what tribal officials call a public-health tragedy on the reservation. The premature deaths of Navajo miners, cancer clusters and passed-on genetic defects are all thought to be the result of prolonged uranium exposure.

Today, the Navajos say the new federal response effort, which includes testing of water sources and the review of hundreds of homes and buildings for radioactive materials, is a "good step forward." But they also have grave concerns about the proposal, which is short on specifics in several key areas.

"It's a significant step, but there's still a long road ahead of us," said Steve Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas waste buried near Mexican border

Here’s something from deep in the heart of Texas, courtesy of Enrique Rangel writing for the Lubbock Online web pages.  Starting next year, residents of Andrews County and south-eastern New Mexico will live with nuclear waste buried in their large but sparsely populated area.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality agreed to let Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists dispose of radioactive waste in a dumping site 3.5 miles from the Texas-New Mexico border and 30 miles from the town of Andrews, the county seat.

"We're very pleased. We're very excited," Rod Baltzer, president of Waste Control Specialists told reporters after the commission voted 2-1 to authorise his company to dispose of the nuclear waste.

Andrews Mayor Bob Zap said after the hearing that he and other residents in the community of 9,652 were supportive of the company.

"Our town, from the very beginning, looked at this and asked questions. ... We studied it. We worked closely with them. "We're really supportive of everything that's being done and supportive of the way WCS has handled it and will continue to handle it. We don't have any questions or doubts."

$1.8m for tank cleaning/hose removal? That's cheap...

Hello again to our old friend Annette Cary, reporting for the Tri-City Herald. Today, she  gets the shovels out.  Hanford workers have finished removing 11 obsolete transfer lines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste in the Hanford tank farms.

The flexible lines were used to transfer waste from leak-prone single-shell tanks into sturdier double-shell tanks, but the lines were past their design life. Some were buried in shallow trenches and others were above ground and covered with shielding to protect workers from radiation.

"Removal of these lines allows workers to focus on retrieving the sludge-like waste remaining in the single-shell tanks without these obstacles and interferences," Stacy Charboneau, DOE assistant manager for the tank farms, said in a statement. It also reduces risk to workers and the environment.

Washington River Protection Solutions committed to the Department of Energy and the Washington State Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator, to remove the six lines in the U Tank Farm when the new tank farm contractor began work a year ago.

Because the work was done for less money than budgeted and some additional money was appropriated by Congress, five more lines in the C Tank farms also were removed. The total cost was $1.8 million.

Three strikes and you're out - trouble at Tricastin

With thanks to Angelique Chrisafis, reporting for the Guardian for the following. A nuclear treatment centre next to the Tricastin nuclear plant in Provence run by a subsidiary of Areva, is causing problems for local people. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers. Locals’ homes are plumbed into the local groundwater from the now contaminated wells. After the incident there was a ban on using the groundwater for washing, drinking and watering gardens: however, since the official ban was lifted recently, locals still won’t drink water from their taps.

Here’s a little footnote to this story found thanks to The Guardian. Last week, 100 workers at the Tricastin plant were contaminated with a low dose of radiation last week and it was also reported that there was a further ‘incident’ at this plant on Tuesday – an alarm was accidentally triggered and 120 workers had to be evacuated. The French safety authority, ASN, played down this latest incident.

Radioactive materials released to landfills

According to a recent report released by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, radioactive materials are being released from nuclear weapons facilities to regular landfills and could get into commercial recycling streams.

Diane D’Arrigo, NIRS’ Radioactive Waste Project Director, said "People around regular trash landfills will be shocked to learn that radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons production is ending up there, either directly released by DOE or via brokers and processors.  Just as ominous, the DOE allows and encourages sale and donation of some radioactively contaminated materials."

And, just in case you were thinking about moving to Tennessee (well, you might) the report found that the State of Tennessee is a leader in licensing processors that can release radioactive materials for the nuclear waste generators. "Tennessee is serving as a funnel to bring in nuclear weapons and power waste from around the country to disperse into the landfills and recycling without public knowledge," D'Arrigo said

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Level 2 alert at Dungeness - only 2? - that's not much to worry about, now, is it?

Those nice people at Reuters bring us another of those ‘non-event’ tales we all know and love: this time, though, it’s from right here in the UK.  An incident in late June at the Dungeness B power station has been provisionally rated at level two on the seven-tier International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the EDF-owned operating company said on Tuesday.

While connecting new fuel to a fuel plug unit on June 29, a piece of rubber was found to have become trapped, threatening the integrity of the connection.

"The coupling did not fail, there was no plant damage, no staff were injured and there was no release of radioactivity," plant operator British Energy said in a statement. "There was no impact on the safety of our workforce or the public at large and there was no damage to the plant. Both units continue to operate as normal."

Operations in the fuel building at the power station in southeast England ceased immediately and foam was injected under the fuel assembly as a precaution. A subsequent review confirmed that the foam used was not permitted under the rules.The load has since been secured by fitting clamps and plant engineers are working on a plan to return the fuel handling equipment to full service safely. British Energy is investigating the cause of the event with UK nuclear safety authorities.

5,304 fish killed at Oyster Creek plant (who counted those?)

With thanks to Tristan J Schweiger, writing for the APP web pages. A total of 5,304 fish were killed as a result of the unplanned shutdown of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, New Jersey, a company official confirmed recently.

Operators manually shut down Oyster Creek's reactor after one of the three pumps that feed water into the reactor tripped, according to a report on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Web site.

A final root cause will likely take several weeks to determine.  Elaine Makatura, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the determination of whether to impose any fines on the operator would be made after the cause of the incident is known.

800 people being tested for contamination

Up to 800 people are being examined for contamination after a leak of radioactive material at a nuclear plant in northeast Spain last November, the nuclear watchdog said on recently.

The Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) said it had so far examined 579 out of between 700 and 800 people who had been through the Asco I nuclear plant in Tarragona since the leak and none had   been contaminated. The CSN said it was considering sanctions against the plant's operators for not providing it with enough information about the leak, which it considered to be more serious than originally classified.

The CSN was not advised until April 4 of the leak, which occurred during refuelling at the 1,000 megawatt Endesa-owned Plant and was first made public by environmental group Greenpeace on April 5. CSN confirmed this shortly afterwards and sent inspectors to the site. In a statement the CSN said it had raised its rating of the leak to 2 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES)

US students may have been exposed to radiation on campus

Found on a blog spot called Driven News, this is written by NY Scribe.

Students, faculty and administrators at New York University, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, SUNY at Stony Brook and over a dozen universities in the United States may have been exposed to cancer causing radiation, beryllium, plutonium, silica and other highly toxic substances while attending school or working at universities holding contracts with the Department of Energy from 1941 through the present. 

The universities on a list from Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act  (EEOICPA) website provided by the Office of Health, Safety and Security were listed as “Atomic Weapons Employers”, “Beryllium Vendors” and  “Weapons Research and Development Facilities” doing work such as  “nuclear research involving plutonium and uranium” at the universities’ laboratories.   

Over 400 contaminated DOE sites, or their contractors and subcontractors, are listed by the EEOICPA. Persons at listed DOE sites may be compensated for their exposure to toxic and radioactive substances in the course of their work and research but if the exposed person is already deceased, surviving relatives could be entitled to monetary compensation

Any person who worked or studied at the university sites listed, during the specified time periods, are entitled to a free medical screening, medical benefits and lump sum payments from $150,000 to $400,000 dollars if they have cancers or other illnesses presumed to be caused by their exposure to carcinogenic and radioactive substances when the DOE was working on early nuclear weapons creation and testing at many American colleges; including several in the New York area.(24/2/10)

EPA investigates buried waste at Camp Lejeune

Here’s something that may have passed you by, thanks to the Chicago Sun Times: The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether cancer-causing radioactive material was buried in the 1980s near a rifle range at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the Marine Corps' primary base on the Atlantic Ocean.

A recently recovered Navy document dated 1981 said the material included 160 pounds of soil and two animal carcasses laced with strontium-90, an isotope that causes cancer. The document said the dirt, carcasses and other materials containing strontium-90 originated at a naval research lab near the base and were buried in a remote area.

According to the paperwork, the waste was later recovered, ''safely stored'' and was awaiting shipment to an approved disposal site in South Carolina

Hanford cleanup nears completion

This is a follow-up on a story we ran earlier this year, regarding the massive cleanup operation in Richmond. Annette Cary reporting for the Tri-City Herald continues with this report.  Hanford workers digging up the final trench at a burial ground north of Richmond are finding huge stainless steel tanks (one with radioactive powder inside) measuring around 10x 8 ft., and approximately 100 drums of potentially flammable zircaloy chips. They also found processing equipment and pipes. 

Workers have about 60 percent of the trench dug up, which Washington Closure expected might have different materials. The approximately 500-foot-long trench has been called the thoria trench (a reference to a white, powdery oxide of radioactive thorium that's sometimes used in gas mantles for lanterns). At Hanford thorium was used in a program to research a new type of nuclear weapon

.

The zircaloy, a metal alloy of zirconium and a small amount of beryllium, has been in pieces large enough so far not to present a fire danger: the drums have been well marked with a sticker that indicated it contained beryllium

450kg of uranium ore found in Brasil rainforest

We found this little gem on the pages of RIA Novosti - Police in the north Brazilian state of Amapa have unearthed a cache with 450 kg of enriched uranium ore, a dangerous mineral used for nuclear arms production.

The operation to seize radioactive material was a result of four-month work by investigators, who found a bag of pitchblende on Friday in a remote area of tropical rainforest.

Pitchblende, or uraninite, is an extremely radioactive mineral used as a major component for the production of fuel for nuclear power plants and nuclear arms. An investigation is underway.

Brazil's nuclear capabilities are considered the most advanced in Latin America. The country runs its sole nuclear power plant, Angra, with two reactors, and a third is under construction.(25/1/10)

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How we gonna clear this up, then?

The following gem was found via the North Texas Star-Telegram web pages. Spokane, Washington State: Workers are trying to determine how to clean up one of the worst radioactive waste leaks in years at the Hanford nuclear reservation, officials said.

No workers were contaminated during this accident, and the spill was contained within a tiny area, posing no threat to the public, officials said.

The leak was estimated at 50 to 100 gallons, although officials are not yet sure how big it was, Delmar Noyes of the federal Energy Department told reporters during a conference call. The spill area has been capped to prevent the waste from becoming airborne. A plan to safely dispose of the spill is being developed."The release to the environment of this waste material is not acceptable," Noyes said.

Contaminated water shuts down plant in Florida

Our thanks to Donna Wright, reporting for the Bradenton Herald’s web pages.

A broken pipe caused the accidental release of contaminated water in Tallevast, Florida, over the weekend, Lockheed Martin Corp. said this week. The alarm system that should have been triggered by the leak and shut down the system failed to go off.

Local residents want answers: For months residents’ groups have been repeatedly asking for a detailed safety response plan should an accident occur.

While a safety plan is under development, Lockheed has repeatedly said that its systems are designed to protect the community and pose no risk. All that changed Sunday when the water treatment system failed and waste water from the most contaminated source of the plume spilling out of a storage tank. The water treatment system pumps contaminated groundwater from the source area of the toxic plume stemming from an old beryllium (illustrated here and Be, 4 on the Periodic Table) plant and into storage tanks where it’s sent through to a treatment system prior to being discharged into the county sewage system.

For now, the treatment centre is shut down whilst investigations continue.

Getting careless down in Boulder, Colorado

Found on the World Net Daily web pages. A glass bottle of plutonium powder that probably cracked when a federal employee tapped it up against a piece of marble later fell apart, releasing the radioactive material into a Boulder, Colorado lab, according to a new federal report on the June 9 spill.

The report on the accident at the National Institute of Standards and Technology campus also confirmed the substance that makes up a key component of a nuclear bomb trigger was obtained without managers' approval. When the powder spilled the worker washed his hands at a sink connected to the municipal sewer system and left the lab, thus spreading the contamination. Boulder City officials have complained to Congress about the mis-management of the spill and possible contamination.

Take your geigers to Spain

As our thoughts turn to what to pack for our Summer hols (bucket and spade, bikini, Geiger counter) here’s a little gem courtesy of Expatica’s web pages in Spain.

Two ditches containing radioactive material dug 42 years ago during the clean-up operation after two US air force planes collided midair in 1966, spilling their nuclear payloads over southern Spain have been found, according to Teresa Mendizábal of the government-run environmental studies agency Ciemat.

"Two ditches have appeared, each 1,000 cubic metres in size, which have radioactive material that the US army left behind at the last moment and which appear in confidential reports of the [US] Department of Energy," said Mendizábal.


The US army said then that it had cleaned up the sites, claiming to have shipped 1.6 million tons of radioactive soil to the United States. Mendizábal said that while hundreds of US soldiers camped at the sites during the clean-up operation, they had left nuclear waste behind.

Delhi University possible source of cobalt 60 incident - allegedly...

This report, found on the pages of the Straits Times, links up with the one we ran in our 'No Particular Place To Go' section about Indian workers being affected by cobalt-60 recently. Delhi University, blamed for dumping radioactive material that killed a man this week, buried 20 kilograms of other waste in a pit on campus, an academic claimed in a report published on Friday.

Ramesh Chandra, a professor in the chemistry department, told the Times of India that his counterparts in the physics faculty had buried radioactive waste two decades ago after using the material in experiments.

'Instead of handling over the hazardous material... for proper disposal, they just buried it,' he said. 'Though it's been 20 years the buried isotopes of substances like uranium could still be active.' On Thursday, police blamed the university for dumping an irradiation machine containing radioactive cobalt-60 which ended up in scrapyard in New Delhi, where the waste killed a 35-year-old worker and put seven others in hospital.

The Asian Age newspaper reported that India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board had suspended the university's right to handle radioactive material on Thursday evening. The university imported the gamma irradiation machine in 1980 but stopped using it in 1985 and sold it at auction in February.

Vice-chancellor professor Deepak Pental told reporters on Thursday that the university 'takes moral responsibility and was apologetic for the damages caused.' He said the 'mistake' was underestimating the radioactivity of the machine. A three-member committee has been set up to investigate. (3/5/10)

Ontario residents want proof of contamination

Residents of Port Hope, Ontario, home to two nuclear industries, held up their own self-funded research today as proof their lives are being threatened by uranium contamination.

After their pleas for federal government study and research went nowhere, the community of about 16,000 raised the C$11,000 that was needed to send some test samples overseas for analysis.

The group now says the worst fears have been confirmed and the results show their picturesque town is being plagued by an invisible killer — uranium contamination. Faye More, chairwoman of the Port Hope Community Health Concerns Committee, said Port Hope was home to two nuclear industries that have been there for decades operating without a buffer zone from the people, emitting uranium to air and to water every day.

Port Hope is also the site of the largest cleanup of radioactive soil in North American history and is currently home to the Cameco (TSX:CCO) uranium refinery.

EPA fines Energy Dept $1.1m over 'violations'

Richland, Washington:  The Environmental Protection Agency fined the federal Energy Department $1.1 million over violations of an agreement to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation, America's most polluted nuclear site.  The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. 

This fine involved operations at a landfill that is the primary repository for contaminated soils, debris and other hazardous and radioactive waste from cleanup operations across the site. 

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Hanford Nuclear awaits clean-up

This little environmental gem comes via Tacoma’s News Tribune web pages. Residents of Washington State once counted on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation being cleaned up in their lifetimes. Due to serious lack of funding it’s looking like not even their great-grandchildren will live to see the day.

The cleanup project long ago veered from the 30-year timeline laid out in 1989 when the federal government committed itself to remedying the toxic legacy of Cold War nuclear production.  President Bush has proposed the lowest level of nuclear cleanup funding since 1997. His budget would put the biggest cleanup challenge on pace for completion somewhere around 2150.

Some of the double-wall tanks due for cleaning are past their design life; none of them is built to last another 150 years. They will eventually fail, and when they do, the leaking waste will join the plume of contaminated groundwater headed toward the Columbia River. Nice one, George…

Handford, Part 2

Our thanks go to Annette Cary writing for the Tri-City Herald web site for this one. Plans are being developed to start cleaning up Hanford's 13-square-mile ‘BC controlled area,’ which is spotted with radioactive caesium 137 and strontium 90 even though none of the work to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program was done there.

Just south of the BC cribs and trenches 50 million gallons of liquid waste contaminated with radioactive salts were discharged during the Cold War. Animals attracted to the salts spread the waste across miles of the Hanford desert.

Matt McCormick, Department of Energy assistant manager for central Hanford cleanup, said "This area has a large spread of contamination on the surface with the ability to move around with our winds,"

An engineering analysis concluded that the surface soil in contaminated spots should be dug up and hauled to a lined landfill for low-level radioactive waste a few miles to the west. Work to dig up an estimated 237,000 cubic yards of dirt could begin later this year.

Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink around Oak Ridge

This comes from our friend, Frank Munger (hi, Frank!) reporting for the Knoxnews web pages. Resident Bailey Johnson (pictured) has always savoured the sweet taste of well water, shunning whenever possible the chemically treated city stuff. Now Johnson and his family members drink bottled water. It's delivered free of charge - courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy - to their farm on the Clinch River.

The sudden change is because of concern that hazardous waste from DOE's Oak Ridge property on the other side of the Clinch could be moving in their direction, perhaps using cracks or fissures in underground rock formations to travel beneath the waterway.

That's mostly conjecture or theory at this point. However, there's enough circumstantial evidence, including radioactive contaminants found in "sentry" monitoring wells on the DOE side of the river and some anomalies in residential well-water samples on the other side, to get the attention of environmental regulators. It's prompted the DOE to not only provide bottled water to residents in the short term but to pay for commercial water lines to be extended to about a dozen other residences in the Jones Road area.

John Owsley, the state official responsible for overseeing DOE's environmental activities in Oak Ridge, said nothing found to date indicates there's an immediate health threat for local residents, but he said the issue is top priority for his office.

Okay, Geiger, where did you stash that mercury?

Dean Kirby writing for the Manchester Evening News brings us this little gem.

A Manchester University laboratory at the centre of a radiation scare has been closed. Four workers have been moved out of two rooms in the Rutherford Building after tests revealed the `likely presence' of mercury under floorboards.

In September the university launched an investigation into claims contamination from lab experiments by Ernest Rutherford a century ago had caused the death of two lecturers.

Concerns have been raised since then that four other people have contracted cancer after working in the building where Rutherford (seen pictured here with Hans Geiger) the Nobel Prize-winning chemist and pioneering nuclear physicist, carried out experiments using radioactive materials, such as radon and polonium, in 1908.

A spokesman said: "Measurements in one of the rooms have indicated the likely presence of mercury under the floor, but it is important to stress that these levels were well below the legal workplace exposure limits."

Tritium found in groundwater in Vermont - you might want to fix that..

Anika Clark writing for the Sentinel Source in New Hampshire tries to find an elusive leak in Vermont. Much ado has been made about tritium lately, since Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant officials announced that the radioactive form of hydrogen has contaminated groundwater at its Vernon campus.

But several nuclear engineering professors contacted by The Sentinel said the levels reported at Vermont Yankee aren’t dangerous. The problem, some said, is that it’s leaking at all.

“Personally I wouldn’t panic over this,” said Howard L. Hall, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. But, “clearly there’s something leaking that’s not supposed to leak. ... You still want to go fix that.”

According to a fact sheet from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Exposure to very small amounts of ionizing radiation is thought to minimally increase the risk of developing cancer, and the risk increases as exposure increases.”

Vermont Yankee officials don’t yet know the source of the tritium leak or how much water was contaminated.  What they do know is this: In early January, groundwater contaminated with tritium was discovered at a monitoring well about 30 feet from the Connecticut River.

Oak Ridge Lab evacuation due to 'operational emergency' (the lowest level rating)

The following comes courtesy of John Huotari, reporting for the Oakridger web pages in Tennessee.

More trouble for the folks at Oak Ridge: following on from the dropped nuclear warheads incident back in April, four of six people have been "cleared" in a medical evaluation after an Oak Ridge National Laboratory building was evacuated on Monday morning. A subsequent operational emergency that had been declared was later terminated.

Monday's emergency at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility was due to elevated readings on radiological detection equipment during routine checks; an operational emergency is the lowest level of emergency, and does not involve a significant release of hazardous materials.

About 30 people were evacuated: six employees, including the four that have been cleared, were being evaluated to check for radiological contamination associated with accelerator (pictured) operations inside the Holifield facility.

Okay - who dropped the warheads?

Our thanks a second time around to Frank Munger and the Knoxnews web pages for yet another little gem featuring the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In separate incidents barely a week apart in April, nuclear warhead parts were dropped at the complex, but a plant spokesman said there was no threat of a nuclear explosion.

“There was no danger to the public,” Bill Wilburn said. “There was never any danger of explosion. There was nothing associated with this work that could cause an explosion.”

Both of the drops occurred at Y-12’s Assembly/Disassembly Building, where workers build and dismantle warhead components containing enriched uranium.

According to a report: “The part fell approximately seven inches onto an inspection stand causing minor damage to the part,” “Neither the visible nor audible loss-of-vacuum alarms activated during this event.” In other words, there were no criticality concerns…

Transuranic waste drum put in waste

The following comes from Kyle Marksteiner, reporting for the Current-Argus web pages recently.  A transuranic waste drum with prohibited levels of liquid has been removed from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant 27 miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico, and returned to Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The drum, packaged with other drums in a standard waste box, was shipped to Carlsbad in May and was nine rows back at the underground repository when the mistake was discovered. The drum had been tagged as not conforming to the standards required for shipment to WIPP, but it was mistakenly placed in the waste box and shipped anyway.

An official letter contained the following conclusion: “Even though the drum was identified to have a prohibited amount of liquid, this condition was indirectly and subsequently remediated when it was overpacked with three other drums for container integrity issues," and noting that the total amount of liquid in the container was less than 1% which made it compliant with WIPP's permits.

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Officials take to the skies to search for radioactive waste

Annette Cary and the Tri-City Herald take to the air for this one.  A helicopter was scheduled to fly low over the centre of Hanford last week looking for hot spots where animals have spread radioactive contamination in hundreds of places among the sagebrush.

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. will be conducting an aerial radiological survey of the "BC controlled area," 13.7 square miles that have had little human intrusion.

But it is just south of the BC cribs and trenches that 50 million gallons of liquid waste contaminated with radioactive salts were discharged during the Cold War. Animals attracted to the salts spread the waste across miles of the Hanford desert.

During the 10 days that a specially equipped helicopter for aerial radiological surveys will be at Hanford, it also will survey one of Hanford's other unusual contaminated areas - a vernal lake that was at Hanford long before the U.S. government started making plutonium for its nuclear weapons programme. Although no radiological work was done at West Lake near Gable Mountain, contaminated ground water rose to fill the lake during the Cold War and left behind slightly radioactive salts.

The helicopter, which has pods of equipment mounted on each side, will do work in a few days that would take crews walking the rugged shrub steppe land with hand instruments six to eight months.

Scottish beach contaminated by nuclear waste

Chris Haslam, writing for The Times online web pages this week, brings us a cautionary tale should you be considering a holiday by the sea in Scotland. A beach contaminated by nuclear waste is a “radioactive minefield” that should be closed immediately, say worried locals.

Sandside beach, an attractive bay two miles west of the decommissioned fast-breeder reactor at Dounreay, is a popular stopping off site for tourists on the Highland coastal route – but campaigners say that thousands of tiny but potentially lethal radioactive fuel particles have contaminated the sand.

The Dounreay Particles Advisory Group (DPAG) has estimated that 5,000 particles have been accidentally discharged from the reactor’s crumbling storage shafts, with many being washed ashore at Sandside and the popular surf spots at Dunnet Bay and Murkle, east of Thurso.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) says that just 27 particles were found on Sandside beach in 2007, eight of which were large enough to pose a significant health risk. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is required to scan the beach for particles every month and say the risk is minimal.

Radioactive pollution at all-time high in Scotland

Once again, here at anythingradioactive, we prove that we are on the ball when it comes to bringing you up-to-date news reports and items on all things nuclear.

Here is a classic case in point with the following found on the pages of Scotland’s Sunday Herald web pages, written by Rob Edwards. Radioactive pollution of a Scottish military firing range by depleted uranium (DU) has risen to the highest level for more than 10 years, according to a survey for the Ministry of Defence.

Soil on parts of the Kirkcudbright Training Area on the Solway coast is so contaminated that it breaches agreed safety limits, more so as the contamination is spreading, due to the corrosion of fragments from shells misfired in the past.

Scottish Environment Minister, Michael Russell said: "The Scottish government was not adequately consulted on the test firing of DU shells at Kirkcudbright," he said. "I have stated in the past that I am strongly opposed to the testing of such weapons on Scottish soil and this remains the case."

More than 6000 DU shells were fired at the range near Dundrennan in Dumfries and Galloway between 1982 and 2004. Controversy flared again last month when the MoD test-fired another 20 DU rounds over two days.

Vietnamese workers 'too confident''

Twenty-eight Vietnamese labourers who worked in an area close to where radioactive material went missing at a Vung Tau construction site last week, tested negative for radioactive contamination.

Director of Radiation Safety Centre under the Da Lat Nuclear Research Institute, Hoang Van Nguyen, said the workers’ blood samples were now being tested further using more advanced equipment.

The results, which would tell whether the missing material caused chromosome abnormalities in the individuals, would be announced in 14 days, he said, adding that the company had yet to determine how the material had gone missing from the test equipment.

He said that workers, however, may have been “too confident” in handling the equipment.

Bulgarian plant reports rupture

Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant recently reported a rupture in a heating device which caused a leak of radioactive solution into a pipeline in its turbine hall. A spokesman said the spill had caused no contamination – well, that’s okay then!

Duke Power declares "unusual event"

Let’s start 2007 with something that won’t tax your brains this bleary morning: Duke Power Co. declared an "unusual event" at its Oconee, South Carolina, nuclear station back in Oct ’04, because of a decrease in the water level of the plant's spent fuel pool. The incident didn't threaten public safety and no increase in radiation levels was observed.

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