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Hanford may have found an efficient way to treat several hundred drums of low-level radioactive waste contaminated with hazardous chemicals and PCBs. Perma-Fix Northwest Richland has applied for a modification of its permit that would allow it to treat waste contaminated with PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, at its facility that now treats low-level waste mixed with other chemicals. A public hearing is planned at 6:30 p.m. April 7 at the Washington State Department of Ecology office at 3100 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., the new central Hanford contractor, has 110 cubic yards of waste containing PCBs with no previous plan for its disposal. There is no technology available on the Hanford site to treat the waste, said Dee Millikin, spokeswoman for CH2M Hill.

"It generates radioactive waste; it requires uranium that's dangerous to mine; it's hugely expensive. Here we go again. With the Obama administration's promise of federal loan guarantees to build two new nuclear power plants at a cost of $8.3 billion, the radioactive monster is rising from a long dormancy, pumped to life by the lobbyists for nuke designers, nuke contractors, nuke operators and nuke consultants and their generous spending. Over the last decade, the nuclear industry has spent more than $600 million lobbying the federal government and another $63 million in federal campaign contributions, according to an analysis of public records by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. Today, the industry is using our desperate need for jobs and worries about global warming to further its cause."

"The contractor hired to manage the $14.5 billion addition of two new reactors to Plant Vogtle is negotiating with national labor unions to provide employees. The project, for which limited site work is already under way, is expected to generate up to 3,500 temporary construction jobs and 800 permanent positions after the reactors go online in 2016 and 2017. Gentry Brann, the director of corporate communications for The Shaw Group -- the project's construction manager -- acknowledged that discussions are ongoing but said it would be premature to release details."

"In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several nuclear power plant construction projects experienced major problems related to design and construction quality. Long timelines in the project construction cycles made many utilities going broke. Even before the nuclear renaissance can really take off, one has to examine whether utilities , contractors and designers have gained from the knowledge from the mistakes of the past period with changes in the quality of design and construction methods. Analysis The Southern Co's Vogtle Project Timeline apparently shows a lack of appreciation of lessons learned during the last construction cycle in the United States and during recent international construction to understand the causal factors that have led to construction problems."

"Work has stopped to dig up waste contaminated with plutonium at Hanford after two incidents earlier this month. Problems related to the incidents included hazards not being adequately identified and responsibilities of workers not matching their training or qualifications, said Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staff in a weekly report just released. "Worker and management responses demonstrated a failure to implement lessons learned" from previous problems encountered by other Hanford contractors, the safety board report said. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. has been digging up transuranic waste, typically waste contaminated with plutonium, that was temporarily buried after 1970."

"Stuart Hinnefeld, interim director of NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health ) explained certain gaps in report presentations on the Huntington Pilot/Reduction Pilot Plant (HPP/RPP), as well as informed speculation related to data. This agency functions to handle radiation dose reconstructions for workers (or their survivors) applying for benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICPA). These benefits , in brief, provide compensation to Department of Energy (DOE) employees, its contractors or subcontractors, and atomic weapons workers with radiation induced cancer if the cancer developed after working at a covered facility (of which HPP/RPP is a covered facility) or the cancer is "determined at least as likely as not related to that employment) or the employee fits a Special Exposure Cohort (by working at least 250 days before February 1, 1992 at one or more gaseous diffusion plants or underground nuclear test at Amchitka, Alaska) and developed specified cancers. "

"The U.S. Government Accountability Office says the federal government should soon standardize security procedures at its nuclear facilities, including one near Augusta. Private contractors provide security at the Savannah River Site and five other federal sites that handle nuclear materials. But the GAO says their protocols vary on how to respond to attack or theft. "

"The Department of Energy no longer will automatically seek bids for management of national laboratories, including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and may instead renew agreements with current contractors. In a new policy statement, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that the practice common under the previous presidential administration of routinely opening the lab contracts to competition often did not have the expected benefits of saving money and improving efficiency. Under Chu's leadership, the decision on whether to open management contracts for competition will be decided case by case. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland has been operated by Battelle since 1964, but DOE decided to open the management of the lab to competition in 2007."

"Peace River residents occupied the local Alberta Transportation offices Thursday, protesting the department's decision to take down all private property anti-nuclear signs. The six men have been sitting in the lobby since 11 a.m. and say they will keep sitting there until they get answers. Staff brought them coffee. The move is just one more incident in a heated dispute over a nuclear power proposal for the region. Miles McSween, who sat with the protesters most of the day, said the province has been unfairly targeting anti-nuclear signs and suppressing free speech. Any signs along highways on private land are banned, but government contractors "have had to walk over real estate signs in the ditch to get the anti-nuclear signs," he said."

"Plans for a half billion dollar nuclear weapons parts plant are moving toward a vote of the Kansas City Council. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the council today recommended full council approval of a development agreement. The committee heard from anti nuclear weapon activists, from contractors and school districts, from health advocates and others representing individual viewpoints and groups. The new site for the National Nuclear Security Agency would be Missouri Highway 150 and Botts Road in South Kansas City. The NNSA is a branch of the United States Department of Energy. "

"The old Hanford records vault in Richland is being used for sleuthing these days. Since the federal government approved a program to compensate ill Hanford workers in 2000, a staff that now numbers more than 10 has been assigned to help compile Hanford information. The first step for most applicants for the program is verifying they worked at the Hanford nuclear reservation and then when and where. It's not as easy as it might sound. Hanford seems to have both too many records and, yet, also not enough. Department of Energy and contractor workers have 25,000 boxes of Hanford records stored in Richland near the Federal Building. And another 100,000 boxes are stored in Seattle at the Federal Record Center."

"Bechtel Jacobs Co., a partnership of Bechtel National and Jacobs Engineering (reportedly a 60/40 arrangement), has been the Dept. of Energy's environmental manager in Oak Ridge since 1998 -- when DOE established the cleanup role as part of its contract reform effort. That contracting relationship is coming to an end, with DOE's announced plan to have a new contractor in place July 1, 2011. A request for proposals on the contract is expected to be issued soon by DOE's Oak Ridge office. So, what happens to Bechtel Jacobs?"

"After reading Sen. Mike Crapo's glowing endorsement of nuclear energy, I feel inspired to remind your readers why no U.S. nuclear power plants have been built in the past 25 years. To begin with, the enormous financial cost to build a reactor is exceeded only by the cost of decommissioning it once it has depleted its 40- to 60-year life span. Regardless of whatever laws Congress may pass to: (1) subsidize nuclear power plant construction (2) remove standard liability requirements from nuclear construction contractors or (3) force long-lived toxic and radioactive wastes onto less populated states, the fact still remains that nuclear energy is not cheap, clean or safe. The primary reason nuclear power is being considered at this time is that it carries with it a "scale of economy" that translates into jobs, tax money and economic boon for specific, well-lobbied industries. This all seems so needless in light of life-friendly, alternative energy production technologies that do not place toxic-waste storage burdens, large-scale contamination issues and a mess of other problems and risks onto the environment and future generations. "

"Civil engineering contractor and construction company Civcon reports that it is nearing the completion of construction at the Mine Waste Solutions (MWS) tailings recovery operation, near Stilfontein, in the North West province. Canadian miner First Uranium contracted Civcon to complete the earthworks, reinforcing, concrete laying and formwork at the operation. The project experienced a slight delay as the North West province had "unexpectedly" withdrawn environmental authorisation for the facility in January, also disrupting plans it had been working on to secure the necessary financing. However, First Uranium reported in February that the environmental authorisation had been reinstated and that it could now concentrate on the process of securing the necessary financing for the construction of this tailings storage facility and begin the ramp-up for future production."

"Savannah River Site officials emphasized their efforts to improve safety during a meeting Thursday of the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council. "The federal staff as well as the contractors are all working hard to reverse what we were seeing as a negative trend in those agency statistics, given the number of incidents in late 2009," said Karen Guevara, assistant manager for closure at SRS. "Together we believe we are restoring the credibility in the site's safety posture, and most importantly, are better able today to ensure all our Savannah River Site employees return home healthy and free of injury at the end of every work day.""

"George Lobsenz's article in yesterday's issue of The Energy Daily correctly pointed out that the Department of Energy's decision to provide the contractors who run the nuclear weapons labs with major relief from federal oversight was done "Without any prior public review or comment." DOE's decision was made public after POGO released a March 16 memo from Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman. Lobsenz's story also smartly references the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) analysis which concluded that DOE needs more independent federal oversight, not less. "

"The Department of Energy has been given the green light to move full speed ahead with its shutdown plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program. A federal appeals court late Monday dismissed a request to freeze termination activities until later this year, after judges have weighed lawsuits challenging the shutdown. The order clears the way for the DOE to resume dismantling the Nevada waste repository program that the Obama administration wants to shelve. Remaining federal employees were given pre-layoff notices earlier this year, and the DOE was scheduled to issue a termination letter to the project's management contractor. "We welcome the court's decision," DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said. "It means the court agreed that the department can proceed with winding down the Yucca project responsibly while the litigation proceeds so as not to needlessly waste taxpayer money." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the repository's leading opponent, said the DOE "will resume shutting down the Yucca Mountain Project almost immediately.""

"The U.S. Energy Department has rescinded an order that would have nearly tripled the amount of plutonium in high-level waste converted to glass at Savannah River Site. * Comment (1) * E-mail * Bookmark and Share Advertisement "The Office of Environmental Management has decided not to move forward at this time with its February decision to direct contractors to start planning for higher concentrations of plutonium in waste canisters at the Savannah River Site," said Jen Stutsman, a spokeswoman at the department's Washington headquarters. The SRS-based Defense Waste Processing Facility uses a process called vitrification to convert liquid radioactive waste into a solid glass form suitable for long-term storage and permanent disposal. Plutonium is among many materials in the 36 million gallons of waste left behind at SRS by decades of nuclear weapons production."

"A peace group says the government and its contractors are starting work on a big project at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant before it's fully approved and before some environmental impacts have been assessed. In a statement released Wednesday, the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance said the Department of Energy should halt all site preparation and preliminary construction activities for the Uranium Processing Facility - a proposed multi-billion-dollar production facility at Y-12. "DOE is getting the cart way out in front of the horse," Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of OREPA, said by e-mail. The final Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement required for construction of UPF has not yet been issued, and a Record of Decision is not expected for several months."

"USEC Inc. reported a net loss of $9.7 million in the first quarter, due largely to a decline in enrichment services compared to the same quarter in 2009, but the company is maintaining a positive front - at least in its public statements - on the American Centrifuge Project. The new enrichment facility is based at Piketon, Ohio, but the project has a significant impact on Oak Ridge, where much of the advanced centrifuge equipment is being manufactured. Hundreds lost their jobs last year when the project was scaled back, but about 300 people are still employed in Oak Ridge, either directly for USEC or its manufacturing contractor, B&W. USEC is still hoping to get about $2 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy, which initially rejected the company's application and then agreed to work with USEC cooperatively to resolve some technology issues. In a prepared statement, USEC CEO John K. Welch said the plan is to update the application this summer after gaining data from operation of the new AC100 machines, which are running in a commercial configuration at Piketon."