Group items tagged

Court rules damages paid earlier 'adequate' Twelve victims of radiation poisoning have lost their appeal for 12 million baht in compensation from an engineering and electrical equipment distributor over its reckless storage of radioactive materials. Sonthaya: Right hand crippled SURAPOL PROMSAKA NA SAKOLNAKORN The members of the group claimed Kamol Sukosol Electric Co Ltd was negligent when it stored radioactive materials not properly secured in its car park. This allowed a cylinder of cobalt-60 - a radioactive isotope that can cause cancer - to be stolen from the company property. But the Appeals Court yesterday ruled in the company's favour saying the 640,276 baht in compensation the Civil Court had earlier ordered Kamol Sukosol to pay was sufficient.

Court rules damages paid earlier 'adequate' Twelve victims of radiation poisoning have lost their appeal for 12 million baht in compensation from an engineering and electrical equipment distributor over its reckless storage of radioactive materials. Sonthaya: Right hand crippled SURAPOL PROMSAKA NA SAKOLNAKORN The members of the group claimed Kamol Sukosol Electric Co Ltd was negligent when it stored radioactive materials not properly secured in its car park. This allowed a cylinder of cobalt-60 - a radioactive isotope that can cause cancer - to be stolen from the company property. But the Appeals Court yesterday ruled in the company's favour saying the 640,276 baht in compensation the Civil Court had earlier ordered Kamol Sukosol to pay was sufficient.

"- 10 regions had appealed for say on location of plants - Ruling gives central govt final say on siting Italy's top court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by 10 Italian regions to have a say on the location of any nuclear power plants built, judicial sources said. The ruling by the constitutional court, which had been championed by companies hoping to build the plants and opposed by environmental groups, effectively means the central government will have the final say on the site of the plants. Italy is the only Group of Eight industrialised nation without nuclear power, but the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi aims to relaunch it and have a quarter of all power in the country generated by nuclear plants in the future. Nuclear power was discontinued in Italy nearly 25 years ago after a referendum. Enel (ENEI.MI) and France's EDF (EDF.PA) would like to start building four nuclear power stations in Italy in 2013. Public opinion in Italy has been generally hostile to nuclear energy and local authorities had demanded a say in their approval."

Several members of Colorado's congressional delegation want the federal government to delay a decision on compensation for former Rocky Flats workers until the new administration takes over. Sens. Mark Udall and Ken Salazar and five Colorado members of the House - all Democrats - signed the letter sent Friday to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. Leavitt is considering an appeal of a decision rejecting a special status for former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons workers that would compensate them for cancer or other job-related diseases. Colorado officials say there are several problems with the data and the process and want the government to defer a decision on the appeal.

A nuclear watchdog group has appealed a ruling by federal regulators that clears the way for a 20-year extension of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant's operating license. The appeal, filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Pilgrim Watch president Mary Lampert, argues that a three-member panel misinterpreted legal precedents when it ruled last month that the Plymouth plant's management plan adequately protects against potential radioactive leaks.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected an appeal concerning metal fatigue in reactor water nozzles at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey - another setback for plant opponents. Six local, state and national groups appealed to the four commissioners who oversee the NRC, after an atomic safety panel within the agency rejected their request to add a challenge on the metal fatigue issue. The groups oppose a proposed 20-year license renewal for Oyster Creek. The plant's current license will expire in April, but it can keep operating while the NRC review continues.

In the latest development of a longstanding contract dispute, a federal appeals court reversed and remanded a trio of cases concerning damages owed to nuclear utilities as a result of the government's failure to build a nuclear-waste facility. The appeals court said the damages awarded weren't calculated properly by the court of Federal Claims. As such it voided $42.8 million in damages awarded to PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric utility, $39.8 million to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and $142.8 million to three former New England nuclear-plant operators.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - The sponsor of the Hanford waste initiative hopes the state will appeal court decisions that give the federal government cleanup authority. Heart of America Northwest Executive Director Gerald Pollet says the Energy Department can't be trusted to do the work. A spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, Janelle Guthrie, says there's no decision on an appeal.

Utah is joining the fight to stop EnergySolutions Inc. from burying large volumes of foreign radioactive waste in its Tooele County landfill. The paperwork has not been filed yet, but the state's plans to appeal were revealed in papers filed last week in Washington. Last month U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart ruled that the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste had no authority over EnergySolutions' Utah disposal site. And there has been some question whether the state of Utah, which is a Northwest Compact member, would join an appeal of that ruling. Stewart's ruling, in effect, crimps Utah's power through the compact to control the low-level radioactive waste that goes to EnergySolutions, including the leftovers from cleaning up Italy's dismantled nuclear reactors that the company wants to import. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. aligned the state with the compact. But Huntsman has been nominated to become U.S. ambassador to China and is expected to be replaced soon by Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, whose views on the lawsuit are unknown.

State attorneys officially filed notice of their appeal of a federal court ruling which said EnergySolutions Inc. falls outside the regulatory purview of the Northwest Interstate Compact. The appeal of the May ruling had been anticipated for weeks, in light of U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart's decision that dealt a blow to the state and compact's efforts to block EnergySolutions' plan to import low-level radioactive waste from Italy. The waste, intended for disposal at the company's 439-acre facility in Tooele County's west desert, would occupy 4.3 acres of the total site and is no more "hot" than waste the site currently accepts, company officials have said. Still, vehement opposition by the state, watchdog groups and the compact led to the federal court battle that played out this year in a set of two separate rulings by Stewart, delivering victory to EnergySolutions on both fronts.

Paris - An appeals court in Paris Friday rejected a demand for compensation by 12 former soldiers who said they had contracted fatal cancers when they took part in French atomic weapons testing between 1960 and 1996, French media reported. The court ruled the cases of 11 of the soldiers were invalid because their alleged radiation contamination took place before January 1, 1976, the threshold year fixed by law. Regarding the case of the twelfth soldier, which dated from 1983, the judge ruled that the appeals court was not the correct venue. The case should have been heard by court competent to rule on workplace accidents, the judge said. Only five of the 12 soldiers were on hand to hear the verdict. The other seven had died of their ailments, which included cancer of the skin, thyroid and kidney and leukemia. An estimated 150,000 civilians and ex-soldiers who took part in the 210 above-ground nuclear weapons tests France carried out in Algeria and Polynesia were potentially affected by Friday's ruling. Defence Minister Herve Morin admitted in March that several hundred people may have developed cancers as a result of radiation from the tests. He proposed a compensation plan offering 10 million euros to the victims in 2009.

An eight-state radioactive-waste-management entity plans to appeal a federal court ruling that said a company can dispose of foreign nuclear waste at its facility in the western Utah desert. A judge last month ruled against the Northwest Compact, which includes Utah and seven other states. The compact's executive director, Mike Garner, said officials decided Monday to take the case to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. wants to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would be disposed of in Utah.

"The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from the indigious people of the Marshall Islands over whether they can sue the federal government again for blowing up and irradiating the land during nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s. The high court on Monday turned away the appeal from the people of Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll, both part of the Marshall Islands. The United States detonated 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, then a U.S. protectorate under the United Nations. The blasts were equal to exploding 1.6 Hiroshima atomic bombs a day for 12 years. The federal government agreed to pay the people of Enewetak $385 million and the people of Bikini $563 million for the loss of their land. But only a token amount has been paid so far."

"The Department of Energy on Thursday served notice that it will appeal a decision that could delay plans to officiallly kill the Yucca Mountain project, a proposed nuclear waste facility just outside Las Vegas that was axed by President Obama shortly after taking office. The department challenges an order by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this week that a federal appeals court rule on legal issues involving the shut-down, including whether the department had the authority to pull the plug on the controversial project."

"A New Mexico-based uranium producer plans to move forward with a mining operation in the western part of the state after that a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that its land is not part of Indian Country. The full 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in a 6-5 decision that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency erred when it determined that a parcel of land near the Navajo community of Church Rock was Indian land. The decision means that Hydro Resources Inc. can seek an underground injection control permit from the state of New Mexico rather than the EPA, which has permitting authority on tribal lands."

"A federal appeals court has upheld the convictions of two former nuclear plant workers in Ohio who were found guilty of helping to cover up the worst corrosion ever found at a U.S. reactor. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati found no reason to overturn the convictions of Andrew Siemaszko and David Geisen. Both were sentenced to probation and fined for misleading regulators in 2001 to delay a safety inspection at the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie. Inspectors later found an acid leak that nearly ate through the reactor's 6-inch-thick steel cap. The plant operated by FirstEnergy Corp. was shut down from early 2002 until 2004."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is disputing an industry critic's assertion that an appeal by NRC staff of a quasi-judicial review panel's determination on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant represents a "turf war." NRC staff reviewing Vermont Yankee's request for a 20-year license extension have appealed a ruling by an oversight panel, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, that questioned the staff's review of the issue of metal fatigue at the Vernon reactor.

An activist group has decided to appeal federal regulators' approval of a radioactive waste storage plan at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo. Mothers for Peace suffered a setback in October when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected their argument that there hadn't been sufficient study of whether planned storage casks for used nuclear fuel rods could survive a terrorist attack at the PG&E plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that an NRC licensing panel has ruled in favor of Entergy Nuclear Operations and dismissed the Pilgrim Watch citizen's group's contention that the aging management plan for the buried pipes and tanks that contain radioactively contaminated water at the Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant is inadequate. The initial decision will become final by Tuesday, Dec. 9., pending an appeal to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board by Pilgrim Watch or any other party. An appeal must be filed within 15 days.

Before a nuclear plant is allowed to run for an additional 20 years, federal regulators should make sure local emergency plans have kept up with the communities' needs. That's the basis of an appeal Eric Epstein, a nuclear watchdog and activist from Harrisburg, has filed with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday threw out a Washington state law barring the federal government from adding radioactive waste to the Hanford nuclear disposal site until existing contamination is cleaned up. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law pre-empts the state from halting waste disposal at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a 586-square-mile (1,520-square-km) site along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington.