1.Managers Warned Against Bungling Los Alamos Lab Construction project 2.Costs Climb for Los Alamos Research Site 3.Project Estimates Go Up and Up, 4.Secretary Chu, NNSA Administrator and the Tennessee Congressional Delegation Join Local Officials in Dedicating Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility at Y-12 5.A recent uranium mining ruling could lead to NM nuke renaissance 6.Need for an Information Repository in the Espaà ±ola Valley as part of NMED Hazardous Waste Permit for LANL 7.Under the Nuclear Shadow 8.Los Alamos scientists write in Physics Today about enabling largest superfund cleanup to date,9. Australian Prime Minister's Russia Meltdown, 10. IAEA Could Acquire Russian Uranium for Fuel Bank, 11. House Members Criticize Proposal to Halt work on Yucca Mountain
---------------------------------------------------------------------1.Managers Warned Against Bungling Los Alamos Lab Construction Project: Thursday, March 25, 2010, Global Security Newswire
Work on a planned nuclear research facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could hit unexpected roadblocks despite growing federal support for the project, the Albuquerque Journal reported Tuesday (see GSN, March 8).
The Energy Department's fiscal 2011 budget proposal includes $225 million for design activities for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement building, more than twice the amount allocated for the site in the current budget cycle. The Obama administration is also presiding over significant nuclear construction initiatives in Tennessee and South Carolina.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) expressed concern at a recent hearing about the federal government's ability to juggle the projects.
"We need to be confident that NNSA has a clear strategy to manage very complex projects concurrently," Dorgan told Thomas D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the semiautonomous Energy Department agency that oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
Of 10 major U.S. nuclear projects, eight overran their original budgets by a total of $45 billion, congressional investigators noted in a report last year. Nine of the initiatives experienced 45 years in combined construction delays, the document said.
Congressional interference complicated some of the projects, but "cost growth and schedule slippage in many of the [Energy Department] projects we reviewed occurred principally because of ineffective project management oversight," the Government Accountability Office report stated.
The original proposal for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility -- intended to fulfill the duties of a World War II-era building at Los Alamos -- was scrapped as the Cold War came to a close. The project was revived in 1999 with an estimated cost between $350 million and $500 million; to date, the initiative has consumed $329 million and could ultimately cost more than $4 billion.
The project was originally slated for completion in 2012 but is now not expected to become operational until 2022 (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, March 23).
Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Steven Chu took part in a Monday dedication ceremony for a new highly enriched uranium storage facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, the National Nuclear Security Administration said (see GSN, March 2).
"Your work matters deeply to the safety and security of our country, and we must ensure you have the tools -- like the Highly Enriched Uranium Material Facility -- to do your jobs," Chu said, according to a press release.
"The Highly Enriched Uranium Material Facility is essential to achieving the [President Barack Obama's] vision. As we reduce our nuclear stockpile and improve security of nuclear material, we now have a modern facility capable of safely storing HEU until it can be downblended," he said.
Construction on the $549 million site began in 2004 and wrapped up four years later.
Design work is in progress on the Uranium Processing Facility, another building planned at Y-12 (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, March 22).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2.Costs Climb for Los Alamos Research Site
Monday, March 8, 2010
The anticipated cost of a planned nuclear research complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has risen from $600 million to $4.5 billion, due in large part to an extended construction period and new plans to reinforce the site against earthquakes, the Los Alamos Monitor reported Thursday (see GSN, Oct. 8, 2009).
The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement building was originally slated for completion in 2012 but is now not expected to become operational until 2022, said Rick Holmes, division leader for the planned facility.
"We made the building stiffer, which increased the amount of concrete. We will replace the soil at the bottom," Holmes said, describing measures taken against possible seismic activity at the site.
The updated design includes tougher cable, vents and structural steel, "so that when the building shakes, it will operate in a known design" in the aftermath of a major earthquake. The facility is intended to remain in use for five decades.
The new site is due to replace an aging Los Alamos facility used for studying plutonium and other radioactive substances. Its capabilities could also include production of plutonium nuclear-weapon cores, Obama administration officials have indicated.
The Energy Department has sought $225 million for work on the site in fiscal 2011, up from $97 million in the current budget cycle (Roger Snodgrass, Los Alamos Monitor, March 4).
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3. Project Estimates Go Up and Up, Los Alamos Monitor
By Roger Snodgrass, March 4, 2010
Time and earthquake security are largely responsible for the escalating costs of a large nuclear facility now in design, according to the project leader Wednesday.
"Time is a big driver," said Rick Holmes, division leader for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He noted that the first rough estimates in the range of $600 million were crude estimates for a project expected to be finished in 2012.
The project schedule now stretches out to 2020 for completion and 2022 for occupancy. Estimates still in process place the budget at $4.5 billion and many assume it will be more.
Holmes said addressing the seismic issues at the site have also added significantly to the cost.
"We made the building stiffer, which increased the amount of concrete," he said. "We will replace the soil at the bottom."
In order to put the building on the most solid footing possible, another 50 feet under the building, or 225,000 cubic yards of soil, will be replaced with "lean" concrete, which is concrete without stone. That is in addition to 130,000 cubic yards of structural concrete for the Nuclear Facility itself.
Asked how much the additional concrete would cost, Holmes offered a ballpark, "Tens of millions."
Follow-up seismic studies have projected the possibility of a one in 2,500 year earthquake event at an estimated 7.0 magnitude during the lifespan of the building.
The additional seismic response includes stronger structural steel, ventilation ducts and cable.
Holmes said that is "so that when the building shakes, it will operate in a known design," during and after the event and last for 50 years.
With the rising estimates goes a rising contingency, now tabbed at $700 million on the Department of Energy documents.
After several years of thin sustenance, the Obama Administration is asking Congress for $225 million for CMRR this year. Last year, the project pulled in $97 million. That was enough to substantially complete the smaller of the two buildings, the Radiological Laboratory/Utility Office Building (RLUOB).
These were among the subjects discussed at the semiannual CMRR project update, a court-facilitated compromise between seven non-governmental organizations and the laboratory and its federal sponsors.
The "Interested Parties" are CCNS, Loreto Community, TEWA Women United, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Peace Action New Mexico, Embudo Valley Environmental Monitoring Group and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. The meetings are the result of the 2005 settlement agreement between the Interested Parties, the New Mexico Environment Department, Department of Energy and LANL about a state air emissions permit for the CMRR.
Much of the discussion had to do with what participants associated with the "Interested Parties" thought was
a contradiction between the Obama Administration's non-proliferation goals and the emphatic increase in a nuclear weapons facility.
Roger Snyder, deputy office manager for the National Nuclear Security Administration at Los Alamos pointed to recent statements by Vice President Joseph Biden and NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino as supportive rationale for the policy that has raised portions of the nuclear weapons budget along with spending for nuclear weapons.
"We have to get out of the CMR," Snyder said, referring to the aging Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility, that is sitting on a similar earthquake zone, but without the heavily reinforced security systems.
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4. Secretary Chu, NNSA Administrator and the Tennessee Congressional Delegation Join Local Officials in Dedicating Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility at Y-12
March 22, 2010, OAK RIDGE, Tenn. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today gave the keynote address at a dedication ceremony recognizing the start-up of operations at the nation's new, one of a kind storage facility for weapons-grade uranium. The Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) -- the ultra-secure uranium warehouse at the Y-12 National Security Complex -- replaces multiple aging buildings with a single state-of-the-art storage facility.
Secretary Chu was joined by Representative Zach Wamp from Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District, Representative Lincoln Davis from Tennessee's4th Congressional District, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Admininistrator Thomas P. D'Agostino and local officials from Oak Ridge.
HEUMF will play a major role in helping the NNSA accomplish its full range of nuclear security missions, including protecting the nation's inventory of highly enriched uranium (HEU).
"Your work matters deeply to the safety and security of our country, and we must ensure you have the tools like the Highly Enriched Uranium Material Facility to do your jobs," said Secretary Chu. "The Highly Enriched Uranium Material Facility is essential to achieving the President's vision. As we reduce our nuclear stockpile and improve security of nuclear material, we now have a modern facility capable of safely storing HEU until it can be down-blended."
Last April, President Obama called for an international effort to secure vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. Next month in Washington, the President will host a first-of-its-kind Nuclear Security Summit that will bring together heads of state from more than 40 countries to work toward a common understanding of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism and agree to effective measures to secure nuclear material, prevent nuclear smuggling, and combat nuclear terrorism.
HEUMF was built to consolidate HEU from locations across the Y-12 National Security Complex into a state-of-the-art facility that will reduce operating costs and is designed to address current and future threats. It is a critical example of how we are leading by example and improving the security of our own nuclear material.
In addition to being a modern facility for receiving, shipping and providing long-term storage, HEUMF is an integral part of NNSA Administrator Tom D'Agostino's plan to move from a Cold War-era nuclear weapons complex to a 21st century national security enterprise. It also is a key part of Y-12's long-range modernization plan.
"HEUMF is an example of what we are trying to accomplish as we work to transform a Cold War nuclear weapons complex into a 21st Century Nuclear Security Enterprise," said NNSA Administrator Thomas P. D'Agostino. "We must invest in the tools and capabilities required to support the full range of nuclear security missions. HEUMF does this."
Now that construction of HEUMF has been completed, the Y-12 National Security Complex has begun consolidating HEU previously stored at multiple locations across the site into HEUMF. Originally scheduled to take 13 months, Y-12 has adopted an accelerated plan to transfer much of the plant's inventory of enriched uranium to the new high-security facility within 90 days which is expected to save about $26 million in security costs.
The largest construction project at Y-12 in more than 40 years, the $549 million building was completed in 2008 and began receiving material for storage at the end of January. HEUMF is a large (approximately 300 ft. by 475 ft.) reinforced concrete structure that will provide storage capacity for thousands of containers of material to be held in specially designed storage racks.
Construction of HEUMF began in 2004. Approximately 91,000 cubic yards of concrete, 5,800 tons of rebar, and 1.5 million linear feet of wiring were used in its construction. HEUMF is one of two facilities whose joint mission will be to accomplish the storage and processing of all enriched uranium in one small, centralized area at Y-12. Design work on the second building the Uranium Processing Facility is under way.
Media contact(s):
NNSA Public Affairs (202) 586-7371
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5. Brave Nuke World: A recent uranium mining ruling could lead to NM nuke renaissance
By: Alexa Schirtzinger 03/17/2010, www.afreporter.com ,SantaFe Reporter
New Mexico's history is littered with nuclear fallout, mostly in the form of long-abandoned uranium mines, contaminated groundwater and class-action lawsuits. But while New Mexico's mining belt still needs cleanup from its mining past, a recent ruling by the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals seems to have green-lighted its mining future.
On March 8, US Appeals Judge David Ebel ruled to uphold a license for uranium mining in northwestern New Mexico. It's a decision that concludes (temporarily, at least) 22 years of legal wrangling between a Navajo community and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The NRC is the government-created agency charged with safely developing nuclear resources while protecting the environment and public health. In 1998, the NRC issued the license to Hydro Resources for a handful of sites close to Navajo Nation land. Some of the sites had been mined in the past and, in certain areas, radioactive contamination levels already exceeded Environmental Protection Agency standards. Outraged that the NRC would allow additional mining in already-contaminated areas, two groups, Eastern Navajo Dinà © Against Uranium Mining and Southwest Research and Information Center, filed the first-ever challenge to the NRC's licensing process.
The court, however, sided with the NRC. In his decision to uphold the license, Judge Ebel writes that the NRC's job is to regulate only what contamination would result from the current Hydro Resources license--not what it would mean when combined with contaminants that are already there.
Lead appeal attorney Eric Jantz of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, which represents ENDAUM and SRIC (two other intervening community members are represented by DNA-People's Legal Services of Window Rock, Ariz.), describes the majority opinion (2-to-1, with a stinging dissent) as disappointing.
"What the NRC did was contrary to its own regulations," Jantz maintains. "The majority passed up the opportunity to watch the watchman, as it were."
Jantz says the plaintiffs are weighing their legal options.
David McIntyre, a spokesman for the NRC, says the agency is "gratified that the court upheld our extensive review and adjudicatory process."
The type of uranium mining Hydro Resources proposes, in-situ leach mining, involves pumping a chemical solution through an underground ore deposit to leach out the uranium. While the in-situ method may eliminate some of the evils of old-style uranium mining, like tailings piles (still-contaminated mining detritus), the NRC itself has admitted in past reports that the new method still "tend[s] to contaminate the groundwater."
For Richard Van Horn, executive vice president of operations at Uranium Resources, Inc. (the parent company of Hydro Resources), the court's ruling is a victory, and he heralds the start of New Mexico's "uranium mining renaissance."
Van Horn, whose company owns approximately one-third of New Mexico's 350 million pounds of known uranium deposits, says such a rebirth would create more than 8,000 jobs in New Mexico alone.
"If we didn't believe in [a renaissance], we wouldn't be here," Van Horn says. "It has to come. In order to address levels of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases and all this kind of stuff, we should see nuclear power taking a bigger and bigger share" of the US energy supply, he says.
Simply put, uranium is the fuel most commonly used by nuclear plants. And support for an overall nuclear energy renaissance can be heard from a variety of sources. In his State of the Union address this January, President Barack Obama lauded the virtues of nuclear power and, in February, awarded $8.3 million in federal loan guarantees for the construction of two new nuclear reactors in Georgia.
Even the typically liberal New Yorker magazine offered a cautious endorsement of nuclear energy in its latest issue.
Skeptics remain unconvinced.
"It's an inherently dangerous way of generating electricity," Chris Shuey, the director of the Uranium Impact Assessment Program at SRIC (a petitioner in the case), tells SFR.
Leaks at a Vermont nuclear plant prompted state senators to order its closure just last month and, in Shuey's view, the same risks--radioactive contaminants, disposal of radioactive waste and exposure--accompany uranium mining.
Santa Fe Institute professor J Doyne Farmer, a former Oppenheimer Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, questions the economics of nuclear power.
"Nuclear power is expensive relative to fossil fuels and, unlike renewables like wind and solar, where prices have been coming down, with nuclear power they've been going up," Farmer explains.
Why should that matter? Because taxpayers are the ones paying the $8 million loan guarantees--as well as insuring nuclear power companies against large-scale accidents.
"Given that the nuclear power business has been heavily supported now for 50 years," Farmer says, "it seems like they should be weaning themselves from that by now if it's really a viable way to make power."
Farmer is currently working on a nuclear energy article for the journal Nature, and he's the keynote speaker at the upcoming Global New Energy Summit, a conference on energy innovations and policy developments (March 21 to 23 at Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino). One theory for the rise of nuclear energy, he says, is its popularity among conservatives--a phenomenon Shuey finds strange.
"We hear over and over about how health care is all this socialism," Shuey says. "We don't hear a concomitant outcry about the socialization of our energy infrastructure, which is what the supporters of nuclear power want. They want the government--and they need the government--to put taxpayer money behind private investment."
To Navajo Larry J King, a former miner in the United Nuclear mine in northeast Church Rock and a petitioner in the case against the NRC, paying taxes to the very industry that's proposing to put a mine next to his house is anathema.
"I worry about it every day," King says. "The majority of the former [mine] workers are experiencing respiratory problems." King is one of them, and he's disinclined to trust that things will be different this time around.
"The [contamination] legacy has to be addressed before we can even think about sitting down with these new companies!" King says. He pauses, sighing.
"Nobody from NRC, nobody from [Washington] DC is gonna listen to some Navajo people," King says. "It seems like they don't care what happens to us out here. It really upsets me."
On March 12, New Mexico's congressional delegation--Democratic Reps. Ben Ray Lujà ¡n, Harry Teague and Martin Heinrich--introduced a bill to make an additional $14.5 million available for cleaning up 137 uranium sites across New Mexico.
The legislation "seeks to reverse the decades of environmental damage caused by uranium mining in New Mexico," Lujà ¡n's communications director, Mark Nicastre, tells SFR in an email, but "it does not address the specific legal questions" of this particular NRC case.
When it comes to the case, Jantz worries about how the Appeals Court decision will impact licensing and oversight of future uranium operations.
"This opinion has signaled to the NRC that it can regulate however it wants, no matter how lax," Jantz says. "If there's a nuclear renaissance, we're going to have the same situation we had in the last uranium boom: millions of acre-feet of contaminated ground and surface water and whole communities of sick people."
Not if King has anything to do with it.
"As long as I'm here, I'm going to fight that," King says. "It's not over."
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March 19, 2010. Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS)
In a little more than two weeks, the New Mexico Environment Department will hold a public hearing about the draft hazardous waste permit for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This is the first time in over 20 years that a formal hearing has been held about the permit. The hearing will begin on Monday, April 5 at 9 am at the Santa Fe Community College, Jemez Rooms. It is currently scheduled to last for two weeks. Most of the parties believe that more time will be needed because of the complexity of the issues, the number of witnesses who will present technical testimony and the amount of public interest in the permit.
The current permit was issued in 1989 and expired in 1999. It has been administratively extended by the Environment Department for the past 11 years. The draft ten-year permit only addresses hazardous waste operations at four technical areas, which include the old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building at TA-3; the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at TA-50; the facility radioactive waste dump, including Area G at TA-54; and the Plutonium Facility at TA-55.
The hazardous waste regulations require LANL to establish an Information Repository. Early drafts of the permit required LANL to establish both a physical and virtual, or electronic, Information Repository. Yet the latest draft of the permit, which will be the subject of the hearing, only requires a virtual repository.
This is an important issue for the downwind community of Espaà ±ola. Many in the Espaà ±ola Valley are working to make sure a physical repository is again required in the permit and that it be located in the Valley. For many it is a matter of restorative justice. It includes education to inform the surrounding communities about the who, what, and where they are impacted by from the operations at LANL; the military and nuclear industry; and how to make comments and decisions that address the issues.
Marian Naranjo, Executive Director of Honor Our Pueblo Existence, which is based at Santa Clara Pueblo, said, "The vision for the Repository is that it will contain permit documents, regulations, and maps, as well as computers, printers and a copier. It will provide a venue for people to become familiar with the complexity of the LANL site. And there will be opportunities for all who are interested to learn more about the permit, the permitting process, the Compliance Order on Consent, and the databases that contain historic and current environmental sampling results."
For more information about the hearing, please visit the New Mexico Environment Department website and search for the LANL permit. www.nmenv.state.nm.us/hwb/lanlperm.html. Also please visit the CCNS website and sign up to receive updates about the hearing. www.nuclearactive.org.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------7. Under the Nuclear Shadow by Arundhati Roy, June 02, 2002
This week as diplomats' families and tourists quickly disappeared, journalists from Europe and America arrived in droves. Most of them stay at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. Many of them call me. Why are you still here, they ask, why haven't you left the city? Isn't nuclear war a real possibility? It is, but where shall I go? If I go away and everything and every one, every friend, every tree, every home, every dog, squirrel and bird that I have known and loved is incinerated, how shall I live on? Who shall I love, and who will love me back? Which society will welcome me and allow me to be the hooligan I am, here, at home?
We've decided we're all staying. We've huddled together, we realize how much we love each other and we think what a shame it would be to die now. Life's normal, only because the macabre has become normal. While we wait for rain, for football, for justice, on TV the old generals and the eager boy anchors talk of first strike and second strike capability, as though they're discussing a family board game. My friends and I discuss Prophecy, the film of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead bodies choking the river, the living stripped of their skin and hair, we remember especially the man who just melted into the steps of the building and we imagine ourselves like that, as stains on staircases.
My husband's writing a book about trees. He has a section on how figs are pollinated, each fig by its own specialized fig wasp. There are nearly 1,000 different species of fig wasps. All the fig wasps will be nuked, and my husband and his book.
A dear friend, who is an activist in the anti-dam movement in the Narmanda Valley, is on indefinite hunger strike. Today is the twelfth day of her fast. She and the others fasting with her are weakening quickly. They are protesting because the government is bulldozing schools, felling forests, uprooting hand pumps, forcing people from their villages. What an act of faith and hope. But to a government comfortable with the notion of a wasted world, what's a wasted value?
Terrorists have the power to trigger a nuclear war. Non-violence is treated with contempt. Displacement, dispossession, starvation, poverty, disease, these are all just funny comic strip items now. Meanwhile, emissaries of the coalition against terror come and go preaching restraint. Tony Blair arrives to preach peace -- and on the side, to sell weapons to both India and Pakistan. The last question every visiting journalist always asks me: à ‚¬Å¾Are you writing another book?
That question mocks me. Another book? Right now when it looks as though all the music, the art, the architecture, the literature, the whole of human civilization means nothing to the monsters who run the world. What kind of book should I write? For now, just for now, for just a while pointlessness is my biggest enemy. That's what nuclear bombs do, whether they're used or not. They violate everything that is humane, they alter the meaning of life.
Why do we tolerate them? Why do we tolerate the men who use nuclear weapons to blackmail the entire human race?
(from: Peace Action, New Mexico )----------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Los Alamos scientists write in Physics Today about enabling largest superfund cleanup to date
Two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have published a feature article in the September issue of Physics Today about the scientific understanding that helped the U.S. government clean up waste at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production complex years ahead of schedule and save taxpayers billions of dollars. Los Alamos scientists David L. Clark and David R. Janecky together with Leonard J. Lane of L.J. Lane Consulting in Tucson, Arizona, wrote about the chemical and physical interactions of radioactive compounds, how these interact with the environment, and how best to manage them.
The authors detailed how good science clarified the scope of the most extensive cleanup in the history of Superfund legislation.
Rocky Flats was a U.S. Department of Energy site located about 16 miles northwest of downtown Denver. From 1952 to 1989, the Rocky Flats Plant made components for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal using various radioactive and hazardous materials, including plutonium, uranium, and various cleaning solvents and degreasers. Closed in 1993, after nearly 40 years of nuclear weapons production work, the plant left a legacy of contaminated facilities, soils, and water.
At the beginning of the cleanup effort, modeling results didn't match the field measurements, which exasperated the remediation team and led to public mistrust. To make sense of the data-model disparity, a team of 10 experts, including 3 from Los Alamos, were invited to the site and provided technical expertise and advice on actinide behavior and mobility in the air, water, and soil. Clark and Janecky worked on the project for its entire 10-year duration.
The group provided independent advice on the use of state-of-the-art technologies to study the contamination levels and nature of compounds in the soil, building materials, and water. Such technologies as X-ray absorption near-edge structure, extended X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy, and ultrafiltration led to a conclusion that the models being used were inappropriate.
Los Alamos researchers and Rocky Flats personnel used these techniques to determine the oxidation state of the site's waste plutonium. Plutonium in the fourth oxidation state tends to have a high affinity to bind with minerals and organic materials. The X-ray absorption studies demonstrated that the largest source of plutonium in the environment was a highly insoluble oxide form, indicating the largest threat to environmental transport would be the dispersal of particles by wind and surface water.
"Just because a compound is insoluble doesn't mean it's immobile -- getting everyone to that common understanding was a major milestone," says Clark.
"From the beginning, we committed to communicating thoroughly the scientific details of plutonium transport to all the stakeholder groups," explained Janecky.
Armed with this new knowledge, remediation experts could focus on the effort to control surface water and wind erosion processes that posed the greatest risk to human health.
"Once the contractor, Kaiser-Hill, DOE, EPA, the state of Colorado, and the concerned citizens groups reached this common understanding of the technical issues, the groups were able to come together and reach a long-sought-after agreement on how to proceed with the cleanup," Clark said.
This understanding in turn allowed the site contractors to rapidly adopt a soil-erosion and sediment transport model rather than a model based on water transport.
The new understanding and integrated models provided the scientific basis for how to best negotiate a cleanup agreement and settle on an allowable standard of 50 picocuries per gram of soil. In 1996 the maximum allowable radionuclide action level was 651 picocuries per gram. A curie is a measure of the amount of radiation emitted by a radionuclide.
In 2002, armed with the improved understanding of the contamination and the behavior of plutonium found in the soils, the DOE, Colorado Department of Public Health, and EPA released a series of reports that formed the basis for the new maximum surface-soil action level.
Rocky Flats is now a wildlife refuge scheduled to partially open in 2007, and expected to be in full operation in 2012. The refuge will have hiking trails, interpretive signs, and limited hunting.
The entire article can be viewed at http://www.aip.org/pt/
More information about the Rocky Flats cleanup can be found in the latest issue of Actinide Research Quarterly at http://arq.lanl.gov
Photo available at http://www.lanl.gov/news/albums/Aerials/1995aerial.jpg
Photo available at http://www.lanl.gov/news/albums/Aerials/2005aerial.jpg
CAPTION: Aerial photos taken in 1995 (labeled as such) and photos taken in 2005 show the reconfigured Rocky Flats Environmental Site after buildings and pavement were removed 10 years later.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.
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9.Australian prime minister's Russia meltdown
Media release: March 19, 2010
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is dismayed at moves by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd to open the door to uranium sales to Russia.
The Government response to Report 94 of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties could see Australia supplying uranium to a nuclear weapons state whose nuclear security is poor, whose facilities are off-limits to international inspectors, and whose record on disarmament is woeful.
"If these recommendations are adopted, Australia would effectively be relinquishing responsibility for supplying the raw ingredient for bomb fuel to a nuclear weapons state with an acknowledged lack of transparency in its civil/military arrangements," said ICAN spokesperson Dr Bill Williams.
Williams noted the government's position is out of step with 75 per cent of Australians who agree that nuclear disarmament should be a top priority for the Australian government according to a Lowy Institute Poll from 2009.
"The clear wishes of the Australian public are poorly served by an Australian government opening the door to uranium sales to nuclear weapons states."
"In rejecting JSCOT's recommendation not to sell to Russia, the government is relying on the under-equipped, under-funded International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, which has acknowledged that Russia's military sites are off-limits to IAEA inspectors."
"This is incompatible with Mr Rudd's expressed desire for a nuclear weapons free world. Australia should not be selling uranium to states which are non-compliant with their international treaty commitments to get rid of their nuclear weapons - we are simply throwing fuel on the fire," said Williams.
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10. IAEA Could Acquire Russian Uranium for Fuel Bank, Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency last week discussed finalizing a transfer of 120 metric tons of Russian low-enriched uranium to the agency for operating a planned nuclear fuel enrichment center, the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National reported yesterday (see GSN, March 12).
The fuel bank would enable countries to purchase nuclear power plant fuel on an apolitical basis as an alternative to developing fuel production capabilities that could also generate nuclear-weapon material. The U.N. nuclear watchdog's 35-nation governing board last year backed creation of the facility, which Moscow has proposed to establish at its Angarsk complex in Siberia.
Planning of the fuel bank is in its "final stages," and the sides could soon sign off on the uranium transfer, IAEA Deputy Director General Yury Sokolov said yesterday.
"After the signature, it will take about six months for it to be fully established," Sokolov said. "Russia will deliver the amount of fuel to the port, and at that moment it will become the agency's. The agency will make other arrangements to take this fuel to fuel fabrication (plants)."
Moscow last week indicated it hoped to supply an initial quantity of uranium for the fuel bank by the end of 2010 (see GSN, March 9; Chris Stanton, The National, March 15).
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11.House Members Criticize Proposal to Halt Work on Yucca Mountain
Thursday, March 25, 2010
WASHINGTON -- A powerful panel of lawmakers yesterday charged the Obama administration with putting politics before science in deciding to shutter the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site (see GSN, March 24).
The absence of a long-term repository "will affect not only our energy portfolio for the future but also the cleanup of radioactive waste at [U.S. Energy Department] sites and disposal from military operations," according to Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), vice chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee.
The Arizona lawmaker is overseeing the panel's work on the administration's fiscal 2011 budget request. The subcommittee has the first say on the Energy Department's proposed spending plan.
Ranking Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen (N.J.) said: "The administration has unilaterally halted a program ... established on sound science and has done so with absolutely zero consultation with Congress."
"From where I'm sitting the scientific consensus hasn't changed one bit nor has the expressed will of Congress or this subcommittee," he added. "It's politics that's changed and that's causing the administration to throw away the work of decades, adding to the cynicism that politics trumps sound science."
The government since 1983 has spent billions of dollars to prepare the underground facility, which would store spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste roughly 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress settled on Yucca Mountain in 1987 and in 2002 then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and President George W. Bush recommended the site as suitable for a geologic repository.
The facility as of 2007 was intended to hold 135,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, with an opening date in 2020. More than 75,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel are already stored around the country at the plants that produced the material, according to Energy Department reports.
The Obama administration this month submitted a request with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to withdraw the license application for the nuclear waste disposal site. The motion states the Energy Department "does not intend to ever refile an application to construct a permanent geologic repository for spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain."
The department zeroed the account for the repository in its $28.4 billion budget unveiled last month.
President Barack Obama has said there are too many questions about whether storing waste at Yucca Mountain is safe and made a campaign promise to stop the project.
The location has proven highly unpopular in Nevada and with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents the state and faces a tough re-election fight this fall.
"The white elephant sitting in the room back there is we all know why it's closing," subcommittee member Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said yesterday. "Nobody wants to say it but we all know why it's closing and it has nothing to do with science or anything else. It's just the reality and I get it. It's going to close."
There is no schedule yet for a ruling on the request but it could occur before the end of the year, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said told Global Security Newswire today by e-mail.
The House panel's comments came just two days after a group of influential House members introduced a resolution aimed at blocking the Energy Department's efforts to scuttle the long-planned disposal site.
The bipartisan "resolution of disapproval" would ask the department to stop using federal funds to terminate the project. It would also order the department to maintain all records relating to the proposed dump.
"I will do all I can to make sure some funding goes to defend the Yucca Mountain license application this year," House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.) said in a statement.
A resolution of disapproval is not legally binding but could be cited in lawsuits filed against the government for canceling the project. Congress could also decide to reinstate $115 million in dropped Yucca funding.
Frelinghuysen yesterday grilled Energy Secretary Steven Chu over whether he had the legal authority to carry out the department's planned moves on shuttering the nuclear waste disposal site.
Specifically, the fiscal 2011 budget blueprint calls for eliminating the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office. That office was established in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and oversees the Yucca project.
Dissolving the office would require an amendment to that legislation by Congress, the New Jersey lawmaker asserted.
Chu said the department's legal counsel had given him a green light to close the office. He said his staff would work with Frelinghuysen to clear up any possible legal entanglements.
The ranking member also inquired if Chu could legally restructure the work force assigned to Yucca. Chu replied that any moves would be made after delivery of the NRC decision.
The secretary said that unforeseen complications had contributed to the White House's decision to halt the project.
As an example, he cited the requirement for a titanium shield to prevent leakage of radioactive waste, which was not include in the budget plan and would have cost more than $5 billion. In addition, the requirement for the site's longevity was extended from 10,000 years to 1 million years, Chu told lawmakers.
Simpson said his main complaint was the White House's decision to withdraw the license application "with prejudice," which would prevent a future administration or Congress from picking up the same application.
The Idaho lawmaker said any future application for the site would need to be altered in some way, such as size, and could prove more costly and time-consuming.
Even if the license application is withdrawn and never resubmitted there would be a cost associated with an "orderly closeout," according to Burnell. "We don't know how much that would be at this point," he said.
For the existing application, Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office said it has spent about $10.5 billion on the project, local governments have spent about $530 million and the commission has devoted about $450 million, Burnell told GSN.
"A new application for a different disposal site could lead to at least similar costs but if the existing application is resubmitted, it's possible some of the sunk cost could be recovered," he said.
The White House asked to withdraw the Yucca application with prejudice because it wanted to "give a very clear signal that this administration does not intend to proceed" with the site, according to Chu.
Simpson asked if the department planned to blow up the Yucca site or possibly cover it with cement.
Chu replied: "None of the above."
Meanwhile, the 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future -- co-chaired by former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser -- will hold its first meetings this week to review alternative means to manage U.S. nuclear waste, including interim storage, reprocessing and different geologic formations for a final repository. That commission must produce a draft report in about 18 months.
Chu said he told the commission not to consider Yucca Mountain as an alternative site.
"It was our intent that Yucca Mountain should be considered," Pastor said, citing the congressional language that established the commission. "But I guess that's a political battle that will have to be fought somewhere else."
When asked what would happen to the Energy Department's proposed fiscal 2011 budget if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected the administration's license withdrawal, Chu responded: "Good question. I think we're going to have to reboot there, wouldn't we? If they deny our request we'll have to reassess where we are."
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