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"A federal class action claims that leaks from two nuclear processing plants poisoned dozens of people in the Kiskiminetas Valley and killed 10 of them. More than 35 named plaintiffs claim that Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, B&W Technical Services and Atlantic Richfield Co. "sought to prevent details about their operations from reaching workers, [the class] or surrounding community" though the defendants were "aware of the fact that they were releasing toxic and radioactive materials into the air, water and soil." The plants at issue are in the Borough of Apollo and Parks Township. The class claims the plants' operators "opted not to take sufficient remedial measures to eliminate or abate emissions and releases." This led to a "casual attitude towards environmental and health safety, even though they were aware of the health risks posed to by such releases," according to the 53-page complaint."

The sale of Erwin-based Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., to NOG-Erwin Holdings, Inc. (NOG), a newly-formed subsidiary of the Lynchburg, Va.-based Babcock & Wilcox Company, was finalized the last day of 2008. Jud Simmons, public affairs manager for the Babcock & Wilcox Company, confirmed during a Friday telephone interview that the transaction was finalized Dec. 31, although he said a formal announcement of the deal was not expected to be made until Monday. License Transfer Approved

The sale of Nuclear Fuel Services to a Virginia-based company could be finalized before the new year, said Tony Treadway, spokesman for the Erwin firm said Monday. NFS' sale to Lynchburg, Va.-based Babcock & Wilcox Co., a subsidiary of McDermott International Inc., and its affiliate Nuclear Operations Group, was announced in August. The sale of the 50-year-old industrial institution should be closed by Dec. 31 or Jan. 1, Treadway said, adding that he could not provide further details about what changes will be made at the company.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials on Tuesday will offer a public performance review outlining activities at Babcock & Wilcox. The NRC's reviews of the company have been behind closed doors for three years, but the restrictions that closed the review to the public were lifted last year.

The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W), a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE: MDR), announced today that an affiliate of B&W has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. (NFS) of Erwin, Tenn., a provider of specialty nuclear fuels and related services. The acquisition supports B&W's strategic goal of being a leading provider of nuclear manufacturing and service businesses for government and commercial markets.

One largely unnoticed example is gaining big national attention thanks to a hefty $27.5M USD settlement awarded to the 250 plaintiffs who suffered disease and death due to poor regulation and flaws in the technology. The story begins in Apollo and Parks Township in Armstrong county Pennsylvania, back in the late 1950s. The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., eager to profit at the booming trend to exploit nuclear energy, jumped at the chance of opening new facilities to process nuclear fuel. In 1959 they opened two new plants in the respective townships, which processed both uranium and plutonium fuels.

* £50m sale 'good value for taxpayers', says Mandelson * Opposition warns against further decommissioning levies Dounreay nuclear power station. It was shut in 1993 but its safety and decommissioning will now fall into the hands of private firm Babcock. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod The body responsible for decommissioning and cleaning up Britain's fleet of nuclear power stations was sold today in the latest privatisation of part of the UK's nuclear industry. UKAEA, the commercial arm of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, has been bought by Babcock International Group for £50m. Business secretary Lord Mandelson claimed the deal "generates good value for taxpayers", but opposition politicians have previously voiced concerns over the sale.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission manned Incident Response Centers in Atlanta and Rockville, Md., Wednesday night, dispatched its resident inspector and called in criticality safety experts to monitor an alert declared at B&W Nuclear Operations Group in Lynchburg, Va. An alert is the lowest level of NRC emergency classifications for fuel facilities such as B&W. The NRC staff continued to monitor the incident, which began at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday until its successful resolution at 12:35 a.m. Thursday. B&W staff activated the facility's Emergency Operations Center after identifying a potential criticality issue in the Uranium Recovery area. A criticality can occur when highly enriched uranium comes together in sufficient quantity or in a container of correct shape to initiate a chain reaction resulting in either a "burst" or a sustained release of radiation.

A trace of uranium found in a container of oil Wednesday night prompted several hours of concern at the Babcock & Wilcox facility on Mt. Athos Road. The company notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it had found uranium in an unexpected location and began emergency procedures around 7:45 p.m., according to an NRC event report. At 12:35 a.m. today B&W said the situation was safe. Roger Hannah, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said a B&W employee saw traces of uranium in a container of oil. The oil had been used in a saw that cuts fuel components.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold its annual public meeting with Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Operations Group officials at 6 p.m., Sept. 28 at Lynchburg City Hall. The public meeting will include a report on the NRC's performance review of B&W's operations from June 2008 through June 2009. The performance review examined safety and the handling of nuclear materials at B&W's Mt. Athos Road facility in Campbell County. The NRC investigation concluded that B&W operates safely. NRC officials will be present to answer questions from people who attend.

Perhaps, in retrospect, the day John Fees left Central Virginia and headed to Houston to take the reins of McDermott International will be one of the red-letter days in the region's business history. Fees, you may remember, was the long-time president of B&W, the nuclear services company owned by McDermott. He took with him to Texas an in-depth knowledge of the skills, work ethic and abilities of the 2,500 people B&W employs in the region, and that's paying off in major ways for Lynchburg. Last week at a news conference in Washington at the National Press Club, Fees and his top lieutenants announced the company was undertaking a brand-new nuclear initiative that would have a major presence in Lynchburg.

The viability of a new generation of small nuclear power reactors, hailed by industry and several political leaders Wednesday, could be postponed by the realities of budgets and economics. Federal regulators say they are in no position to start reviewing plans for a new, smaller nuclear reactor like the one rolled out Wednesday by Babcock & Wilcox, a global company with facilities in Euclid and Barberton. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission even recently told the company to wait, as the agency confirmed to The Plain Dealer on Wednesday. The NRC simply lacks the money and staff to start reviewing prospective plans, especially when it has proposals for larger reactors that utility companies have committed to installing. Babcock & Wilcox's proposed "mPower" reactor, which could bring jobs to Ohio, has no committed user or site.

Babcock and Wilcox, the Tennessee Valley Authority and a consortium of municipal and cooperative utilities have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the construction of a fleet of B&W's modular, 125-MW nuclear reactors in the US, B&W said Wednesday. B&W also said that it has received a letter of intent from TVA stating the federal utility will "begin the process of evaluating a potential lead plant site" for the B&W mPower reactor. The company added that it has assembled a "global team of potential future customers to support the development of the reactor" to ensure it meets customer and regulatory requirements in North America, Europe and elsewhere.

The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) plans to deploy the B&W mPowerTM reactor - a scalable, modular, passively safe, advanced light water reactor system. The B&W mPower reactor, with its scalable, modular design, has the capacity to provide 125 MWe to 750 MWe or more for a five-year operating cycle without refueling, and is designed to produce clean, near-zero emission operations. A newly formed entity, B&W Modular Nuclear Energy, LLC, will lead the development, licensing and delivery of B&W mPower reactor projects. Features of the B&W mPower reactor include:

Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group, Inc. (B&W TSG), a major operating unit of The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W), has signed a memorandum of understanding with USEC Inc. to form a joint venture that will provide integrated manufacturing and assembly of centrifuge machines for USEC's American Centrifuge Plant. The joint venture will also provide spare parts and other maintenance support services for centrifuge machines at the American Centrifuge Plant under a long-term service agreement. The total value of the joint venture's activities is expected to exceed $1 billion. B&W is a major operating subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc.

The U.S. Enrichment Corp. and Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services today announced plans to form a joint venture known as American Centrifuge Manufacturing LLC, which will become the lead organization in production of machines for the new uranium-enrichment plant at Piketon, Ohio. According to Elizabeth Stuckle, the USEC spokeswoman at headquarters in Maryland, the partnership will be a 55/45 pecentage arrangement with USEC holding 55 percent of the newly formed company that will manage the manufacturing program that ultimately will produce 11,500 machines -- and perhaps more if there's an expanded enrichment facility. "This means all manufacturing suppliers who are manufacturing parts for the American Centrifiuge plant will report up through this joint venture," Stuckle said. B&W Technnical Services Clinch River has been a manufacturer of components for the centrifuges under a contract with USEC since 2007. Now the partnership will be managing that work as well as other manufacturing activities for the AC100 machines in West Virginia, etc..

If one judges by the number of requested permits, nuclear power is coming back in the United States. Companies now are asking regulators to let them build about 30 reactors for generating electricity, far more than were put into operation in the past two decades. That bodes well for one factory in Mount Vernon, Ind. Courtesy of Babcock & Wilcox Co. Courtesy of Babcock & Wilcox Co. Babcock & Wilcox came to Southwestern Indiana in the early 1960s and soon began building many of the components used in nuclear power plants. Among the factory's main products are the large pressure vessels in which uranium atoms are split to release energy. The plant's customers include both private companies and the government

McDermott International Inc.'s Babcock & Wilcox unit agreed to pay $52.5 million to settle a lawsuit over claims that two Pennsylvania nuclear processing plants caused personal injuries and property damage. The settlement, pending court approval, would end a lawsuit that began in 1994 and had been delayed for years by Babcock & Wilcox's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2000. A trial set for January was postponed while the parties pursued settlement negotiations, according to court papers filed yesterday. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Pittsburgh, contended that Babcock & Wilcox plants in Apollo and Parks Township, Pennsylvania, exposed people to toxic levels of radiation. BP Plc's Atlantic Richfield, which had also been sued, settled in 2008 for $27.5 million. The Babcock & Wilcox settlement was filed yesterday.

Babcock & Wilcox today announced that its parent company, McDermott International, is planning to separate its operating subsidiaries -- B&W and J. Ray McDermott -- into "two independent, publicly traded companies." B&W has mutliple Oak Ridge interests, co-managing the Y-12 site in partnership with Bechtel National, and working a manufacturing contractor for USEC's American Centrifuge Project.

Babcock & Wilcox today announced that its parent company, McDermott International, is planning to separate its operating subsidiaries -- B&W and J. Ray McDermott -- into "two independent, publicly traded companies." B&W has mutliple Oak Ridge interests, co-managing the Y-12 site in partnership with Bechtel National, and working a manufacturing contractor for USEC's American Centrifuge Project.