Thirteen DOE workers contaminated in underground NM nuke dump accident: trace plutonium contamination detected above ground 1/2 mile from exhaust shaft

A nuclear accident has occurred at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Waste Isolation Pilot Plant deep underground near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The WIPP site stores nuclear waste, principally plutonium-239, plutonium-240 and americium-241 contaminated material and equipment from the US nuclear weapons program. On February 26^th, the DOE announced that 13 workers are internally contaminated with americium-241.   The employees were working above ground on February 14 when the contamination allegedly surfaced.  The WIPP site alarm initially went off on February 5 when a “vehicle fire” prompted the evacuation of DOE contract workers from the tunnel network burrowed more than 2000 feet underground in the salt dome formation.  New Mexico State health officials are upset that the federal officials withheld information for days on the radioactive leak. Americium and plutonium contamination has been monitored above ground, more than ½ mile from the waste storage tunnel network exhaust shaft to the surface. Details are still emerging.

The WIPP nuclear waste accident and releases of radioactivity raises serious questions and concerns about the reliability of licensing such facilities. WIPP is licensed for 10,000 years as an "islolation" facility but is now leaking radioactivity to the surface after only 15 years. The casks (TRUPACT) used to transport and geologically store plutonium contaminated materials have apparently failed to meet the quality control and assurance standards they were licensed to, as well.

WIPP has long been targeted for a "Centralized Interim Storage" parking lot dump for commercial high-level radioactive waste (as in Senate Bill 1240), and even for the burial of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel in a so-called "consent-based" geologic repository. This proposed permanent disposal persists, despite the fact that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) acknowledged in 2008 that burial of irradiated nuclear fuel in salt formations is not appropriate. The intense thermal heat could collapse the burial chambers. Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of IEER, and expert witness on behalf of a coalition of dozens of environmental groups, made this point in his testimony to NRC during the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) on Nuclear Waste Confidence (see page 6, 9, 41, etc.) on Dec. 20, 2013. At pages 43-44 of his testimony, Dr. Makhijani quotes an NRC admission from 2010 that: "...no geologic media previously identified as a candidate host, with the exception of salt formations for SNF [spent nuclear fuel], has been ruled out based on technical or scientific information. Salt formations are being considered as hosts only for reprocessed nuclear materials  because heat generating waste, like SNF, exacerbates a process by which salt can rapidly deform. This process could cause problems with keeping drifts stable and open during the operating period of a repository."

Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping (CARD) and Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) have extensive background libraries online regarding WIPP.

Unbowed and unrepentant, "Transform Now Plowshares" sentenced

Unbowed and unrepentant, Sister Megan Rice, Greg Boertije-Obed and Michael Walli of the “Transform Now Plowshares” were sentenced on February 18, 2014 by U.S. District Court Judge Amul Thaper. They are to serve 3 to 5 years in federal prison and pay $53,000 in restitutions for their July 2012 call for disarmament action by cutting through multiple perimeter fences to enter onto the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, splashing their blood and spray painting on a silo containing nuclear weapons grade uranium. 

The protesters against the preparation for thermonuclear annihilation remained resolute in their charge that the production and possession of these weapons of mass destruction is a crime against humanity in violation of international law that includes the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, the Geneva Protocols, the United Nations Charter and U.N Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

In fact, modern civilization has devolved to make real the ancient and cruelest wish of Caligula, “Would that the Roman people had but one neck.”

It was President Richard Nixon who said, “I can go into my office, pick up the phone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” He was describing the minimal effort it takes to initiate a tight chain of command to annihilate entire societies with the “first use” of nuclear weapons. It would be decades after his shamed departure as America’s Chief of State before it was disclosed that Nixon had contemplated using nuclear weapons no less than four times in “the madman” strategy. President Truman had already demonstrated America’s indiscriminate “first use” policy twice with the 1945 atomic bombings on human populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. President Eisenhower contemplated initiating nuclear strikes in 1954 in the Taiwan Straits and against the Soviet Union over Berlin in 1959. President Kennedy considered launching an all out nuclear war in 1962 against the former Soviet Union over Cuba and two other undisclosed lands. President Johnson considered a pre-emptive nuclear attack on China to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. President Reagan would deploy hundreds of first strike nuclear weapons to the European borders of the former Soviet Union entrenching the hair trigger policy of “launch on warning” that precariously persists to this day.

Never before have so few had so much power to exterminate so many, so quickly.  Where an obedient German people under the Third Reich brought a captive people to the crematoria, today we as a society are poised to bring unimaginable crematoria to the people of entire countries with a more dispassionate and efficient system of command and control.

The courageous actions and self sacrifice of Rice, Boertije-Obed and Walli to begin nuclear disarmament here in the United States give us the glimmer of hope that there is also a global future beyond nuclear weapons.

Coalition files Petition to NRC to strengthen reactor license extension rules due to significant new revelations on radioactive waste risks

Environmental coalition attorney Diane CurranA Petition for Rulemaking was filed on Feb. 18th by Washington, D.C.-based attorney, Diane Curran (photo, left), as well as Mindy Goldstein of the Emory U. Turner Environmental Law Clinic, to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Petition seeks to re-open the License Renewal GEIS (Generic Environmental Impact Statement), in order to consider new and significant information about irradiated nuclear fuel storage impacts that was generated by the NRC Staff during the Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer proceeding, carried out under NRC's Fukushima "Lessons Learned" activities. Curran and Goldstein filed the Petition on behalf of three dozen environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear.

The filing urges that no reactor license extensions be approved by NRC until the Petition for Rulemaking has been integrated into NRC's safety regulations.

The coalition has issued a press release.

Update on February 27, 2014 by admin

On Feb. 27th, Curran and Goldstein filed a petition for stay of NRC licensing decisions, until the environmental coalition's concerns contained in the Feb. 20th Petition for Rulemaking have been addressed. This would include in old reactor license extension proceedings, such as at Davis-Besse, OH, as well as at proposed new reactor license application proceedings, such as at Fermi 3, MI, in both of which proceedings Beyond Nuclear is intervening, alongside environmental allies. In both proceedings, the environmental coalitions are represented by Toledo-based attorney, Terry Lodge.

Davis-Besse: from Hole in the Head, to Hole in the Containment Wall

NRC file photo of NRC inspector visually examining severe cracking in Davis-Besse's Shield Building wall in Oct., 2011.FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) ran its Davis-Besse atomic reactor to the breaking point in 2002. The Hole-in-the-Head fiasco -- a nearly complete breach of the reactor vessel closure head, or lid -- was the most infamous near-miss to a major reactor accident in the U.S. since the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979.

Now it has been revealed that Davis-Besse has a hole in its Shield Building wall -- an essential component of the radiological containment structures -- that extends up to 12 inches through its 30-inch width, a full 40% way through. Davis-Besse has operated for over two years, at full power, with this potentially fatal flaw in its Shield Building wall.

The gap or air space was discovered last Thursday, and publicly revealed Friday, during the current Davis-Besse steam generator replacement project, which has breached Davis-Besse's Shield Building for an unprecedented fourth time. The previous three breaches include the pre-operational Initial Construction Opening in the 1970s; the 2002-2004 reactor lid replacement project; and the 2011 reactor lid replacement project. Each breach risks further damaging the Shield Building, where severe cracking was discovered in late 2011. In September 2013, FENOC admitted that the severe cracking is growing worse over time.

A very brief Event Notification was posted at NRC's website a full five days after the gap was discovered. 

NRC Region III Staff are holding a Webinar on Davis-Besse's current steam generator replacement project on Thursday, Feb. 20th, from 6 to 7 PM Eastern. The Webinar was scheduled before revelation of the hole in the containment wall. Please pre-register and attend the Webinar. Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste MI have generated a series of sample questions you can put to NRC during the Webinar.

More.

Update on February 20, 2014 by admin

Here are the questions that Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps asked of the NRC Staff during the Webinar.

WKSU has reported on this story, quoting an NRC official as saying: “It may be a bit premature to speculate on where this ends up with regard to license renewal, but suffice it to say that we are evaluating not only the number of times the shield building has been cut, but also the issues that have arisen each time the shield building was cut.”

Update on March 5, 2014 by admin

In a Feb. 26th article entitled "Chernobyl, Fukushima...Davis-Besse? Northwest Ohio Nuclear Plant Still Causing Problems with No End in Sight," the Cleveland Scene's Sam Allard quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps at length, including:

"[Davis-Besse is] a poster child for coming very, very close to major disaster. And it's all about the company's bottom line. They put more tubes in just to generate more heat to generate more electricity to generate more money. That's it."

DOE signs $6.5 billion federal loan guarantee for Vogtle 3 & 4

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) will sign an agreement with Southern Co. and Oglethorpe Power for a $6.5 billion loan guarantee that puts federal taxpayers on the hook if the Vogtle 3 & 4 new reactor project defaults on its loan repayments. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will speak at the proposed new reactor construction site at 2 PM Eastern today, Thursday, Feb. 20th (you can listen to his address by calling 1-800-282-1696).

President Obama gave the Vogtle 3 & 4 federal loan guarantee offer (for a total of $8.3 billion) the highest profile possible, by announcing it himself at a press event in Feb. 2010. Despite this, it has taken over four years for the project proponents to sign on the dotted line, given their reluctance to put any of their own "skin in the game," in the form of credit subsidy fees. The nuclear loan guarantee program was authorized in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, and $22.5 billion was approved by Congress and George W. Bush for new nuclear facilities on Dec. 23, 2007 ($18.5 billion for new reactors, $4 billion for new uranium enrichment).

The $8.3 billion Vogtle 3 & 4 federal loan guarantee is 15 times bigger than the infamous Solyndra solar loan guarantee, which defaulted on its loan repayment, a $585 million loss to the U.S. Treasury. But the Vogtle 3 & 4 loan guarantee is at much higher financial risk of default than was the Solyndra solar project!

Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter blasted the deal in a Common Dreams interview. Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) also blasted the deal in a press release. Harvey Wasserman has penned an essay entitled "Obama's Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America's Energy Future."

Please contact President Obama and Energy Secretary Moniz, registering your disapproval of this $6.5 billion nuclear loan guarantee, and urging them not to grant the remaining $1.8 billion nuclear loan guarantee to project partner MEAG for Vogtle 3 & 4. Also urge them to withdraw any further nuclear loan guarantee offers, with the remaining $10.2 billion authorized for new reactors, and $4 billion authorized for new uranium enrichment.

But the federal nuclear loan guarantees, and even the CWIP charges which are gouging Georgia ratepayers, are not the only subsidies benefitting this proposed new reactor project. If Vogtle 3 & 4 do get built and operated, the George W. Bush DOE also obligated U.S. taxpayers to ultimate liability for the risks and costs of the high-level radioactive waste they would generate. DOE hastily signed the contract in the last days of the Bush administration, despite the fact that federal courts are awarding $500 million per year in damages to nuclear utilities for DOE's breach of contract for failing to begin taking title to irradiated nuclear fuel in 1998 under the contractual agreements signed in the mid-1980s. The hastily signed contacts were exposed by D.C. attorney Diane Curran, IEER President Arjun Makhijani, and Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps in a March 24, 2010 press conference based on a FOIA Request.

Update on February 20, 2014 by admin

Since when did Georgia Power/Southern Company take over communications for DOE?! When Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps phoned into the teleconference call audio broadcast of the DOE-Southern Co. "loan guarantee signing ceremony," at the toll-free number listed above, a Georgia Power (not a DOE) public relations official answered the call and patched him through!