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An environmental group wants state regulators to place a moratorium on allowing any more depleted uranium to be buried in the state. The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah told the Utah Radiation Control Board on Tuesday that the state shouldn't allow the material until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission develops guidelines for how large amounts of it can safely be disposed. Depleted uranium is different from other radioactive waste because it becomes more radioactive over time. EnergySolutions Inc.'s disposal site in Tooele County is licensed to accept only Class A waste, considered the least dangerous type of low-level radioactive waste. The NRC recently decided to continue classifying depleted uranium as Class A waste.

THE United Nations Association Edinburgh has called on the UK government to follow Belgium's lead on banning depleted uranium weapons. Belgium's decision has been praised by European military unions who are concerned about the impact the weapons may have on their members. Opposition to uranium weapons in Belgium has been spearheaded by a group of more than 20 NGOs, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Gari Donn, chair of UNA Edinburgh, said: "Today marks the passage into force of Belgium's 2007 decision to ban the use of uranium in conventional weapons and armour after a series of unanimous parliamentary votes.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct two public workshops in September to solicit public views on major issues for new regulations for land disposal of unique radioactive wastes, including but not limited to significant quantities of depleted uranium. The workshops will be held Sept. 2-3 in Rockville, Md., and Sept. 23-24 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Exact locations and final agendas for the workshops will be announced closer to those dates. The Commission directed the agency staff March 18 to initiate rulemaking to specify a requirement for a site-specific analysis for the disposal of large quantities of depleted uranium, and other unique waste streams, such as reprocessing wastes and the technical requirements for such an analysis. The Commission also directed the staff to develop a guidance document for public comment that outlines the parameters and assumptions to be used in the site-specific analyses. The Commission said the staff should "promptly" conduct a public workshop to discuss issues associated with disposal of depleted uranium and other unique waste streams, potential issues to be considered in rulemaking, and technical parameters of concern in the analysis so that informed decisions can be made in the interim before the rulemaking is final.

President Barack Obama should instruct his administration to fulfill his campaign pledge to clean up the Navy's toxic mess in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and to help the victims of Vieques who suffer from a suite of health problems caused by the military's 50-plus year bombardment of the island. Back in February 2008, candidate Obama wrote a letter to then Governor Anibal Acevedo Vilá and the people of Puerto Rico in which he promised to "actively work" to clean up Vieques and to help those suffering from the health effects of toxic heavy metals, chemicals and radioactivity associated with the Navy's use of Vieques for target practice and live-fire training since World War II.

Three Chinese tourists have bought a 274-kg (604-lb) piece of depleted uranium and brought it home from Kyrgyzstan as a souvenir, the China Daily newspaper reported. The three tourists from the city of Aksu in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region bought "the glittering treasure" for $2,000 at a flea market in Kyrgyzstan, hoping to make money by reselling it in China. Not knowing what they had actually bought, the tourists sliced off a piece of the stone and took it to experts from Beijing's Tsinghua University. After identifying the souvenir as a piece of depleted uranium, the scientists called the police. Local prosecutors decided against filing charges of nuclear trafficking as the men obviously had no idea what they had bought. The three men were taken to a local clinic for medical examination, but doctors found no signs of radiation poisoning.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has turned over thousands of pages of documents that might help explain why it recently decided to classify large quantities of depleted uranium as the least hazardous type of low-level radioactive waste. The NRC's March decision could open the door for more than 1 million tons of depleted uranium to be disposed of in Utah and Texas at private disposal sites in the rural western parts of both states. Depleted uranium is different from other low-level radioactive waste because it becomes more radioactive over time for up to 1 million years.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rushing to meet an April 2 deadline to turn over stacks of internal documents on a recent reclassification of depleted uranium. Advertisement The NRC now considers it the least hazardous type of low-level radioactive waste, even in large quantities. Members of Congress have demanded the documents because they believe the agency's March 18 decision disregards the risk to public health. The change would allow federal facilities and companies around the country to dispose of more than 1 million tons of depleted uranium in Utah and Texas.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Rep. Jim Matheson and other Congress members it will stay true to its commitment to see that depleted uranium can be disposed of safely in Utah and elsewhere. But the agency doesn't detail how it reached its decision to stick to its 1981 system, which treats depleted uranium as "Class A" waste, the standard category for the least hazardous low-level waste. Matheson, of Utah, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., hope to find at least some of those answers in the thousands of pages of documents that they have requested from NRC and that are due next Monday.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says classifying large amounts of depleted uranium as a hotter type of low-level radioactive waste without further study would not provide additional protections to public health, safety or the environment. The NRC's comments come in an April 9 letter to Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Edward Markey, D-Mass. The congressmen have questioned the NRC's March decision to regulate large quantities of depleted uranium as the least hazardous kind of low-level radioactive waste, known as Class A waste. Depleted uranium is different from other waste because it becomes more radioactive over time.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Rep. Jim Matheson and other Congress members it will stay true to its commitment to see that depleted uranium can be disposed of safely in Utah and elsewhere. But the agency doesn't detail how it reached its decision to stick to its 1981 system, which treats depleted uranium as "Class A" waste, the standard category for the least hazardous low-level waste. Matheson, of Utah, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., hope to find at least some of those answers in the thousands of pages of documents that they have requested from NRC and that are due next Monday.

If New Zealand signed up to a ban on depleted uranium, it could scuttle any sale of the moth-balled Skyhawk jets. Former British Royal Navy commander Robert Green, who emigrated to New Zealand in 1999, urged Parliament's foreign affairs, defence and trade select committee today to encourage the Government to ban using depleted uranium. He said Belgium had taken a precautionary approach and he recommended New Zealand follow its lead until all the evidence was in.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been given more time to provide U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson and Edward J. Markey the memos, reports and other decision documents on the disposal of depleted uranium. Alyson Heyrend, spokeswoman for the Utah Democrat, said agency staff was scrambling to pull together thousands of pages covered under the information request made two weeks ago. The documents were due Thursday. "We think they are trying in good faith to meet the request," she said. Matheson and the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee chairman, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote to the NRC March 19, demanding to know what's behind the NRC's decision to keep depleted uranium in the lowest-hazard category for radioactive waste. It's a regulatory status that one commission member calls a "loophole." The congressmen want to know who and what influenced the NRC's thinking.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is being granted an extension to turn over stacks of documents that might explain why it recently decided to classify large quantities of depleted uranium as the least hazardous type of low-level radioactive waste. The NRC's March decision could open the door for more than 1 million tons of depleted uranium to be disposed of in Utah and Texas.

Lately, many may have heard the affable radio jingles for nuclear energy as a clean and reliable candidate to supplant the U.S.'s reliance on foreign fossil fuels. This is sheer, malignant propaganda. Nuclear energy, along with its requisite mining, is not only unsustainable to a high degree, but is, in all aspects, violently rapacious as it dissolves the planet's fecundity and ultimately encumbers the creation of life for generations to come. It is imperative that nuclear is removed from the lexicon of domestic energy policy and that we consider alternative energy options while significantly reducing consumption levels.

A southeastern New Mexico site near Hobbs has been chosen for a $93 million depleted uranium deconversion and fluorine extraction plant. Steve Laflin, president and chief executive officer of Idaho Falls, Idaho-based International Isotopes Inc., said groundbreaking is expected in 2011 on the 600-acre site about 15 miles west of Hobbs in Lea County.

The first day on the job, EnergySolutions' mouthpieces learn the company line -- the one about how benign the dirt and concrete and metal out at Clive is. Company public relations managers like to say broccoli puts off more radiation than the stuff out at the nuclear dump. You could eat it with a spoon. Even company president Steve Creamer gets in on the spin: "So, I could use this in my grow boxes?," Draper Republican Sen. Howard Stephenson asked extra innocently, doing his best customer testimonial on KTKK's Red Meat Radio show last month. "You probably could," Creamer said. (The "in 100 years" part of that sentence was silent or assumed.)

"Vieques is a small island with a big problem. And the Obama administration is fighting to keep it that way. A municipality of Puerto Rico just a few miles east of the main island, Vieques has the lamentable distinction of being the venue of six decades of training exercises and weapons testing by the U.S. Navy. Starting around the outbreak of World War II, our military has tested all manner of munitions there, from napalm to depleted uranium to Agent Orange. It has also released immense quantities of jet fuel, flame retardant, and other toxic substances. The place is contaminated. Not surprisingly, Vieques's 9000 residents -- American citizens by birth -- are a sickly bunch. Cancer rates are 30% higher than they are on Puerto Rico's main island. In the case of diabetes, that figure is 41%; for hypertension, nearly 400%. And roughly 80% of residents test positive for heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic in their hair."

"SFU researcher finds children in Basrah have four times the rate of leukemia as those in Kuwait A Simon Fraser University researcher will concentrate his search for potential causes of childhood leukemia in southern Iraq, where the rate of the blood cancer in some areas is now four times that of neighbouring Kuwait. Tim Takaro and his associates from the University of Washington, Mustansiriya University in Baghdad and Basrah University say in a newly published study that the rate of leukemia in children under 15 from Basrah rose to 8.5 cases per 100,000 from three per 100,000 over the 15-year study period. The rate in nearby Kuwait is two per 100,000. The intensity and duration of armed conflict in Basrah has presented researchers with a natural laboratory in which to conduct their search for the causes of childhood leukemia, Takaro said."

"Doctors and parents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are blaming a sharp increase in the number of birth defects on the highly sophisticated weapons U.S. troops have used in the city during the war. The BBC reported Thursday the staggering statistic from doctors in the city that the number of heart defects found in newborn babies is 13 times the number of similar birth defects in Europe. U.S. troops carried out a major offensive in the city in 2004. Military spokesman Michael Kilpatrick told the news organization it takes public health concerns "very seriously.""

"Gov. Gary Herbert is scheduled to meet Monday with the U.S. Department of Energy to discuss upcoming shipments of depleted uranium. The governor's office isn't saying much about what Herbert plans to talk about in Washington, D.C. with Inés Triay, the DOE's assistant secretary for environmental management. But the meeting comes just after the DOE's two-month deadline passed for the state to finalize its strategy for beefing up the EnergySolutions landfill in Tooele County for more depleted uranium. "The discussion [Monday] will focus on the status of the first shipment, which has already arrived in Utah but is being held in temporary storage, and the future of any future shipments of depleted uranium to Utah," said Angie Welling, spokeswoman for the Republican governor. During a Dec. 17 phone conversation, Herbert and the DOE agreed that a trainload of depleted uranium from the government cleanup at Savannah River, S.C., would come to Utah but not be buried for two months. "