This site will close end of May,2008 NEW BLOG AT: http://todays-nuclear-news.blogspot.com/

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Nuclear Items of Interest

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Peace,Shundahai, gregor 

 Corbin's last words. "We are one people. We cannot separate ourselves now.There are many good things to be done for our people and for the world. It is important to let things be good and it is important to teach the younger generation, so that things are not lost."

  

Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 05:44PM by Registered CommenterGregor Gable in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

NEW BLOG UP AND RUNNING

My new blog at http://todays-nuclear-news.blogspot.com/ Nuclear Items of Intrest is up and running. Vist me there.

Peace,gregor

PS This Blog will close at the end of May. 

Posted on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 10:38AM by Registered CommenterGregor Gable in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Group hopes to ease claims process for nuclear workers


By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News 

Monday, April 7, 2008

When Sue Maes saw a government letter addressed to her husband just a few months after he died in 2000, she read it and threw it away.

The letter explained that people who'd sacrificed their health building the nation's nuclear weapons, or their survivors, were going to be compensated by the federal government.

Maes was devastated by her husband's death. She said she was not emotionally ready to consider that his immune system cancer could be related to his work at Rocky Flats, the massive Cold War-era atomic bomb factory northwest of Denver.

After a second letter arrived, she wound up applying for compensation. That was seven years ago, and the widow is still navigating what has become a highly complex and criticized process.

Most recently, government officials informed Maes they had lost her file.

"There are days I think I just can't do this anymore," Maes said. The officials "are not helpful. I thought they were supposed to be helpful."

But help may be on the way for Maes and others.

Nine people from across the country came to Denver recently to create a clearinghouse of information for sick nuclear workers and their survivors. A Denver-based home health care company hosted the ill workers and their advocates, and donated a Web site for the new group, which also hopes to publish a newsletter.

The nonprofit organization is called Cold War Patriots.

"This is going to help so many people," said Terrie Barrie, of Craig. For the past several years, Barrie has tried to help ill workers like her husband, George, who also worked at Rocky Flats.

"It's a wonderful idea to be able to share all this information in one place."

Sick nuclear weapons workers nationwide have complained bitterly about the yearslong process of trying to prove they qualify for federal compensation.

For some, it's meant finding pay stubs from government contractors that no longer exist, medical records from doctors now deceased and proof of exposure to chemicals and radiation so top secret they couldn't even tell their families about them.

"Put bluntly, the average claimant cannot do it successfully," said Maureen Merritt, a New Mexico physician and member of the Cold War Patriots advisory board.

Barrie said the Cold War Patriots hope to point people like Maes to information about the weapons sites that will help them no matter where they are in the process.

"We're really trying to help them build a community of people," said Greg Austin, president of Professional Case Management, the Denver home health care company helping the new group.

Austin said most sick nuclear workers will probably never need the services of his company, which supplies doctor-ordered end-of-life home health care to those who've been approved for medical coverage. But in serving sick weapons workers across the country, Austin said his company recognized a need.

Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 06:49PM by Registered CommenterGregor Gable in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Don't be deceived, there's no such thing as 'clean coal'

Don't be deceived, there's no such thing as 'clean coal' Cherise Udell Article Last Updated: 05/03/2008 08:55:22 AM MDT Let's be real: "Clean coal" is a marketing slogan not a technological reality. Coal does currently provide us with a reliable source of electricity but at an astronomical price that is hidden from us consumers. Maybe you pay for it with your child's asthma. Maybe you paid for it with your father's heart attack or your grandmother's stroke that took her speech away. Maybe you lost a baby to SIDS on a particularly bad air day. Emissions from coal-fired power plants are a leading cause of smog, acid rain, global warming, air toxins - and premature deaths. The EPA estimates that over 30,000 Americans are dying prematurely each year due to emissions from power plants, the majority of which are coal-powered. This doesn't even address the high mortality rates associated with the mining process. Thus, coal kills more people annually than homicides (16,000 in 2000) or AIDS (14,000) and nearly as many as traffic accidents (42,000). So when coal industry advocates like Joe Lucas, vice president of communications for the American Coalition for Clean Coal, and Bountiful resident Bruce Taylor, co-owner of the proposed coal plant in Sevier County, say "cleaner coal," what exactly do they mean? According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a typical coal plant annually generates: * 3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), Advertisement the primary human cause of global warming, * 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), * 500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death, * 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), equal to what would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, * 720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and places additional stress on people with heart disease, * 220 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone, * 170 pounds of mercury, an extremely potent neurotoxin; just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe for human consumption. The Great Salt Lake is already heavily contaminated with mercury. * 225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who regularly drink water containing 50 parts per billion, * 114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium. None of these numbers sounds "clean" to me. So, does coal advocate Lucas consider a "clean" coal plant to produce only 7,000 pounds of annual sulfur dioxide emissions instead of 10,000 pounds? Does he consider 2 million tons of carbon dioxide instead of 3.7 million tons to be "clean" or how about 120 pounds of mercury instead of 170 pounds? Does "clean" coal only cause 20,000 premature deaths annually as compared to 30,000? The reality is coal is dirty and will likely remain so. If the American Coalition for Clean Coal is determined to funnel much-needed tax monies away from the development of real energy solutions that are sustainable and life-giving rather than life-taking, then I want to know exactly what is meant by clean. Please do not try to manipulate me with deceptive advertising, green-washing or in this case, clean-washing. Lucas and others in the energy sector must choose between investing in antiquated pulverized coal technology, desperately trying to make it "cleaner" or investing in innovative, renewable and truly clean energy technologies that will position the United States as a leader in the new global economy of the 21st century. You can guess which choice will be better in the long run for our pocketbook, our economy and our health. For more information about the high costs of coal check out: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean energy/fossil fuels/ --- * CHERISE UDELL is the founder of Utah Moms for Clean Air and a mother of two daughters.
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 12:51PM by Registered CommenterGregor Gable in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Why a brand-spanking new NTS EIS is desperately needed

Hello All,
I wanted to forward this news update to you so that you can spread the word and participate with your comments.  Thanks!
Karin Tobin

_______________________________________
Speak now or for the next five years hold your peace. 
 
The NNSA has issued its 'Draft Supplement Analysis for the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada.'  The document, released on April 17, is the NNSA’s periodic report on the Nevada Test Site’s Environmental Impact Statement that was completed in 1996.  Per NEPA, the NNSA must review the 1996 EIS every five years to determine if it is still applicable to current conditions.   The NNSA’s draft report is the basis for citizens’ comments submitted at public meetings or in writing or email through the end of May.  After the NNSA finishes reviewing comments submitted at public meetings and in writing the agency will 'determine whether the existing environmental impact statement should be supplemented, a new environmental impact statement should be prepared, or no further [NEPA] documentation is required.' 
 
In the likely event that neither the mainstream media or even Western activists groups have given you a heads up about why a brand-spanking new NTS EIS is desperately needed, let's take a few pointers from Robert Loux of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects who wrote in his September 2007 letter to Stephen Mellington of the NNSA <<http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2007/pdf/nv070911nnsa.pdf>>
‘Since 1996...baseline conditions have changed markedly.  It is difficult to see how the...Supplemental Analyses can possibly represent today's known baseline conditions, or how federal officials, using this outdated information, can make informed decisions on future uses and management of the NTS at the landscape.' 
 
The core of Loux's concern - as it should be because of his position with the State of Nevada - is over a dispute with the State of Nevada on land issues.  Loux contends that current and proposed uses of the NTS should be part of formal consultations with the Department of Interior per language in a 2005 report by the U.S. House of Representatives.  The actual ‘uses’ of the Nevada Test Site have changed since 1996.  After the 1996 NTS EIS was finalized, a number of new ‘uses’ were initiated.  They include: an ongoing subcritical testing program announced in November 1996; various Congressional decisions since 1996 regarding readiness for resumption of underground nuclear testing; and large scale, open air explosive detonations, such as Divine Strake, at locations not previously evaluated and designated for such activities.   Loux writes that there is a need for new environmental baselines using data from environmental impacts from subcritical and other testing at NTS since 1996 and that a new site-wide EIS is needed not only for Nevada land issues but also to assess the impacts to humans and the environment. 
 
Loux is right on the money about a lot of things especially Divine Strake.  The ‘additional use’ of the NTS for activities such as Divine Strake was NOT addressed in the 1996 NTS EIS.  The DTRA and NNSA, if you recall, insisted that Divine Strake, the cancelled mega-conventional-explosive experiment, was addressed in that 1996 EIS and that is why we got three-in-a-row sham Environmental Assessments.  
 
Insisting on a new environmental impact statement for the NTS will be the ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure for our future worries, woes and, quite possibly, cancers.  The NTS EIS supplement analysis states that DTRA is still pushing ahead and describes DTRA’s Hard Target Defeat Program as an ongoing multi-year effort to evaluate 'alternative capabilities’ using ground and air munitions against tunnels, bunkers and buildings representing different geographic scenarios.  The analysis states, 'Tests have been conducted using conventional military munitions in NTS Areas 12 and 16.  This is the only activity currently associated with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Hard Target Defeat Program.'  [page 61]   Reading between the lines, it is clear that this ‘ongoing’ DTRA program over the next five years will result in more high explosives testing at the NTS at DTRA’s favorite testing areas, such as Area 16 where Divine Strake was proposed, which were NOT adequately tested for soil contamination in 1996.  This should be a major source of worries for downwinders.  Why?  DTRA and NNSA will, as they did before, justify any and all future open-air high explosive testing without the need for a new NTS EIS, which means there will be NO data on the level of contamination of soils related to these tests.  Future use of these Areas [12 and 16] is folly without adequate testing of the soils, which received fallout from Shots Coulomb B, Shasta, Kepler and a number of others.  Even tests a fraction of the size of Divine Strake can loft that still ‘hot’ radioactivity into St. George, Utah, or Las Vegas, NV.  And ‘that’ radioactivity is not as innocuous as ‘eating a banana’ and ‘watching TV’ as one St. George-based pro-Divine Strake commenter once wrote.  ‘That’ radioactivity will create a new generation of downwinders.
 
The process for a new NTS EIS will include scoping meetings, public written/oral comment frameworks and a full discussion of how activities such as subcritical and nuclear simulation testing – and more - relates to the mission of the NTS.  This process will be the perfect occasion to bring up the fact that subcritical and nuclear simulation testing at the NTS violates the spirit of test-ban treaties and sends the wrong message – ‘do as I say not what I do’ – to the world community about our non-proliferation efforts. It will also be an occasion to repeat over and over again that the NTS activities – all of them – violate the treaty with the Western Shoshone nation.  It will also be an occasion to remind the NNSA that their radiation monitoring network, called CEMP, is of third-world quality and doesn’t do nearly a good-enough job at ensuring the safety of people in St. George and Las Vegas and beyond of lofting radiation from the NTS in emergency situations especially large events such as earthquakes or tornadoes.
 
It is imperative that citizens go to these public meetings and submit comments to insist that the 1996 NTS EIS does not adequately assess the environmental impacts of future NTS activities over the next 5 years AND why it is not valid AND that a new site wide EIS needs to be prepared. 
 
The public meetings, which appear to be Divine Strake-style poster shows, are in Pahrump on May 5, Las Vegas on May 6 and St. George on May 7.  Times and location can be found here: http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/newsreleases/NTS_Draft_SA_Public_Meetings.pdf 
Also, public comments will be accepted through May 30, 2008 to the address in the above document or to nts-sa@nv.doe.gov or hand delivered at the meetings.
 
The final supplemental analysis, which will include the NNSA's final action determination, will be issued on Sept. 30, 2008. 
 
Links:
 
September 11, 2007
State of Nevada - Letter from Bob Loux to Steve Mellington requesting that DOE prepare a new site-wide EIS for the Nevada Test Site
 
Draft Supplement Analysis for the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada

 

Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 12:47PM by Registered CommenterGregor Gable in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint
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