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"Washington Closure Hanford has stopped work at 27 buildings at Hanford as it makes sure they have no beryllium contamination. The 27 buildings are among a couple of hundred under the contractor's control and have not been sampled for beryllium, in some cases because they are new structures. An independent inspection released by the Department of Energy Office of Health, Safety and Security on June 2 found a new sitewide program to prevent chronic beryllium disease at Hanford had shortcomings. As it became clear during the inspection this spring that improvements were needed, DOE Hanford officials instructed the site's environmental cleanup contractors to take actions, such as completing sampling for beryllium at any facility where it is required."

"Disposal has been halted as a precaution at Hanford's landfill for low-level radioactive and chemical waste until more is known about a load disposed there Tuesday afternoon. Workers reported an unpleasant sulfurlike smell and seeing possibly dust or smoke rising from waste being disposed of in the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, said Todd Nelson, spokesman for Washington Closure Hanford. The load had come from cleanup work in a part of B Reactor that's not accessible to the public. The Department of Energy asked that some housekeeping work be done in the historic reactor to get it in top shape as limited tours are offered and the National Park Service considers possible plans for a Manhattan Project National Historical Park."

"R9bn taxpayer-funded nuclear energy plan finally grinds to halt The government has pulled the plug on its ambitious nuclear energy programme after pumping more than R9-billion into it over more than 11 years. Current Font Size: The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Company (PBMR), which was established in 1999 to build small nuclear power reactors, faces imminent closure. In a letter dated July 5, Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan told the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM): "The minister of finance has clearly stated that there will be no further funding for the company, and I would like to reiterate that this position has not changed. "

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will consider the issues raised in a petition for rulemaking (PRM) submitted by Westinghouse Electric Company LLC (petitioner) in the NRC's rulemaking process. The petition was dated November 4, 1999, and was docketed as PRM-50-69. The petitioner requested that Table 1 in 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix G, be amended by removing requirements related to the metal temperature of the closure head flange and vessel flange regions. Specifically, the petitioner requested that footnotes (2) and (6) be removed from Table 1.

EnergySolutions, Inc. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) announced this week that the Oldbury Nuclear Power Station, located near Bristol, England will continue to generate electricity beyond its closure date of December 2008, likely to be around two years. The facility is operated by Magnox North, a company owned by EnergySolutions.

Hanford workers have finished cleaning up a high risk burial ground a mile north of Richland and even closer to the Columbia River. Over the last year they've dug up and hauled away almost 179,000 tons of dirt and debris, some of it contaminated with chemicals or radionuclides, from the 618-7 Burial Ground. Washington Closure Hanford, the Department of Energy contractor assigned the work, researched historical records to try to figure out what might have been disposed of in the burial ground from 1960 to 1973.

The Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe are tired of investigations of the Tuba City Open Dump. They want it cleaned up. Studies since 1999 have indicated the presence of uranium and other metals in the dump and shallow groundwater exceed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standards. The tribes have repeatedly indicated that clean closure - or excavation, removal and off-site disposal of all buried wastes - is the only acceptable option to prevent future contamination.

Savannah River Site's new contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, has recruited six new senior managers who are coming from positions within Fluor Daniel, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell and the U.S. Department of Energy. Rich Slocum, the new vice president of site infrastructure and project support services, previously served as vice president of closure services and infrastructure for Fluor Hanford in Richland, Wash.

Petition for Rulemaking Filed by Scott Portzline, Three Mile Island Alert; Consider Petition in the Rulemaking Process AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Resolution and closure of petition docket. SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the issues raised in a petition for rulemaking submitted by Scott Portzline, on behalf of the Three Mile Island Alert, in the ongoing ``Power Reactor Security Requirements'' rulemaking. The petitioner requested that the NRC regulations governing physical protection of plants and materials be amended to require NRC licensees to post at least one armed guard at each entrance to the ``owner controlled areas'' (OCAs) surrounding all U.S. nuclear power plants. The petitioner stated that this should be accomplished by adding armed site protection officers (SPOs) to the security forces--not by simply moving SPOs from their protected area (PA) posts to the OCA entrances. The petitioner believes that its proposed amendment would provide an additional layer of security that would complement existing measures against radiological sabotage and would be consistent with the long- standing principle of defense-in-depth.

David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists; Consideration of Petition in the Rulemaking Process AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Resolution and closure of petition docket. SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the issues raised in a petition for rulemaking submitted by David Lochbaum, on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the ongoing ``Power Reactor Security Requirements'' rulemaking. The petitioner requested that the NRC amend its regulations to require that licensees implement procedures to ensure that when information becomes known to a licensee about an individual that would prevent that individual from gaining unescorted access to the protected area of a nuclear power plant, the licensee will implement measures to ensure the individual does not enter the protected area, whether escorted, or not; and, when sufficient information is not available to a licensee about an individual to determine whether the criteria for unescorted access are satisfied, the licensee will implement measures to allow that individual to enter the protected area only when escorted at all times by an armed member of the security force who remains in periodic communication with security supervision.

BERLIN, May 22 (Reuters) - German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel will reject an application by EnBW (EBKG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) to extend the life of its Neckarwestheim 1 nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Die Welt cited government sources as saying officials at the ministry believed safety standards at the plant in southern Germany were not good enough for it to stay open beyond its planned closure date of 2009.

The discovery of radium-contaminated soil has forced the closure of the ballfields in Great Kills Park. The startling find means that the park's five ballfields, located between Bay Terrace and Fieldway Avenue, will not be available all spring for league play, the National Park Service announced yesterday. Although officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services believe the risk of significant exposure is very low, the fields will be closed until a secondary survey can be conducted, the National Park Service said.

Two small areas of radioactive contamination have been detected during a survey of grazing land adjacent to the former nuclear research site at Dounreay. They were excavated and removed to the site for analysis. One was identified as a 'minor' particle of fast reactor fuel and the other as soil contaminated with radioactivity. The finds were 5-30cm below the surface and covered by vegetation, indicating they are most likely to be historic in origin. Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is carrying out an investigation. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has been informed. The field where the contamination was detected forms part of a 44-hectare site zoned for the construction of a disposal facility for low-level waste from the decommissioning and closure of the site.Previously, this area was earmarked for construction of the European Demonstration Reprocessing Plant. The survey is to establish a baseline of radioactivity levels prior to the start of construction of the low level waste facility. The survey is due for completion by the end of August.

New technology is providing information on how contaminated ground water from the Hanford nuclear reservation may be entering the Columbia River. A study for the Department of Energy of where ground water seeps into the river and what contaminants it contains won't be completed until the end of the year. But already there is evidence showing ground water enters the Columbia River in upwellings away from its shores, said Larry Hulstrom, Washington Closure Hanford project lead for the Columbia River investigation. It's generally been assumed that ground water enters the river in seeps and springs within the first 6 feet of its banks. But some of the ground water may become trapped below a hard layer in the ground and only seeps into deep areas of the river, rather than at its shores. "We've never had the technology available to determine if it was upwelling further beyond 6 feet," Hulstrom said.

Some 50,000 anti-nuclear protestors demonstrated in Berlin on Saturday against Germany possibly reversing a decision to abandon atomic energy and extending the life of its nuclear power plants. The marchers, backed by 400 tractors, demanded that Germany stick to its commitment to close all nuclear plants by 2020 and also called for the closure of a radioactive dump at Gorleben in eastern Germany. The police refused to give an estimate of the crowd but organisers - ranging from the Greens to members of the Protestant church - put the figure at 50,000 people, marching from the Berlin train station to the Brandenburg Gate.

The Department of Energy plans to start work today to excavate the historic landfills that hold day-to-day trash generated by more than 50,000 Hanford workers and their families during World War II. Unlike most other environmental cleanup at the Hanford nuclear reservation, this trash will be checked for historical significance as it is unearthed. "Information collected from the waste sites will be used to construct a social history of Hanford workers," said Tom Marceau, cultural resources supervisor for Washington Closure Hanford, a DOE cleanup contractor.

A new era has begun at the Savannah River Site, as we face the challenge of safely and aggressively dispositioning radioactive liquid waste. Years from now, we'll remember this as the time SRS aggressively began using state-of-the-art technology to rid the site of its legacy high-level liquid radioactive waste at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago. Time will show how accelerating tank closure produced real progress, to the safety and benefit of local citizens and taxpayers. My company, Savannah River Remediation, officially took over the liquid waste contract at SRS on July 1. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded the contract late last year, replacing Washington Savannah River Company. We know the challenge. Our employees have safely and efficiently dispositioned radioactive waste, setting industry standards. Now, we're going to step that performance up a notch. Here's just a sampling of what we'll be doing:

The Belarusian government's report on the possible environmental impact of its future nuclear power plant does not address key issues, Russian environmental activist Andrei Ozharovsky said in an interview with BelaPAN. "It is a sloppy, incomplete and misleading report," Mr. Ozharovsky said. "The document gives the impression that it is not the result of an unbiased assessment but just the parroting of some campaign slogans provided to the Belarusian authors by Russia`s Rosatom nuclear energy corporation." "The 130-page report does not assess the impact of nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel management," he said. "Neither does it assess the plant's impact following its closure." The report was under discussion at a meeting held at the Belarusian environmental protection ministry on Friday. Mr. Ozharovsky, coordinator of the Moscow-based Ecozashchita (Eco Protection) group, took part in the discussion of the ministry's Public Coordination Environmental Council.

On the 64th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the focus of Burlington's Nuclear Disarmament Day observance wasn't limited to abolishing weapons. Doing away with nuclear power - as produced by the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which supplies about one-third of Vermont's electrical power needs - was also on demonstrators' wish list. Advertisement Jody Williams, Brattleboro native and 1997 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to ban land mines, tied the two nuclear threads together in a brief speech at a lunch-hour rally in front of City Hall. She opened with a memory of her Aug. 6, 2006, visit to Hiroshima, praised President Barack Obama's call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and then urged that Vermont Yankee - whose owners are seeking to continue its operation for two decades after its scheduled closure in 2012 - be shut down.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announces official Yucca Mountain closure. What does it mean for the nuclear industry? The writing has been on the wall for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository ever since Steven Chu took control of the Department of Energy earlier this year. In March, YMNWR was cut out of the energy stimulus package, and now after a long-term campaign to rid his state of the project many call "the failed $100 billion dinosaur in the desert," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that all application funding has been cut for the project, meaning that it will likely never be resuscitated.