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Employees of Environmental Assessment Services are living the good life this summer, getting paid to go fishing. To make final plans for the environmental cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation, the Department of Energy and its regulators need to know more about the extent of contamination in the Columbia River. That requires checking hundreds of fish, in part to assess their condition, but chiefly to test for any Hanford chemicals or radionuclides that could harm anyone eating those fish. Someone has to catch the fish. And Environmental Assessment Services of Richland has been given that dirty job. This past week, employees were fishing for sturgeon and walleye.

Unlike most fish stories, this isn't about the one that got away. No fish were getting away Thursday. Department of Energy contractors began a project that will eliminate the entire fish population - tens of thousands of fish - in three ponds near the former K-25 uranium-enrichment plant. It's part of an overall plan to restore and "ecologically enhance" the ponds that were historically contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls and other pollutants.

"Screening and diverting devices that save fish from the Oyster Creek nuclear plant's cooling water intake are "about as good as it can get" in modern techniques, and the reactor's major impact on Barnegat Bay is with the tiny organisms that get sucked in and destroyed, a top state environmental official told a state Senate committee Monday. Fishermen and environmental groups have insisted for years the power plant is reducing numbers of clams and fish in the bay. "Technically, the issue is more entrainment than impingement," said Nancy Wittenberg, an assistant commissioner in the state Department of Environmental Protection, referring to the intake of fish eggs and larvae. A system of fish ladders and chutes - what "I like to call an amusement ride for fish" - screen out and bypass the larger animals, releasing them back into the plant's canal that flows to Oyster Creek, Wittenberg said."

"The Pickering nuclear power plant is killing fish by the millions. Close to one million fish and 62 million fish eggs and larvae die each year when they're sucked into the water intake channel in Lake Ontario, which the plant uses to cool steam condensers. The fish, which include alewife, northern pike, Chinook salmon and rainbow smelt, are killed when they're trapped on intake screens or suffer cold water shock after leaving warmer water that's discharged into the lake."

"Authorities have an environmental mystery on their hands after about 50 fish died near the discharge canal of Oyster Creek Generating Station. The nuclear plant went offline Wednesday for planned maintenance and restarted Saturday night. But the 47 floating fish were found Saturday morning, days after the shutdown and before the startup began. "It is puzzling that there could be a thermal shock this time of year. Usually it happens in the winter," said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Plant spokesman David Benson said Monday, "Our reactor was offline for four days. The discharge canal was at environmental-level temperatures. We found 47 fish over the weekend, mainly bluefish.""

The huge numbers of fish sucked to their death by the cooling system at the Indian Point nuclear plant prove that the system harms the Hudson River environment, a state official has ruled. The finding by J. Jared Snyder, assistant commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, is a victory for plant critics who claim that up to 1.2 billion fish and eggs are killed each year as the plant continuously draws in river water for use as a coolant.

"On Tuesday the Utah Division of Water Rights will hold public hearings on applications by both the Kane County and the San Juan County water conservancy districts to change the diversion points of 53,600 acre-feet of water from the Colorado and San Juan rivers upstream to the Green River. The applications also seek to change the designated use of the water to facilitate operation of a nuclear reactor along the Green River proposed by Blue Castle Holdings, Inc. The nuclear facility and its water consumption would deplete and alter Green River flows already threatened by climate disruption-flows that the survival and recovery of four endangered fish species depend (Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker, bonytail and humpback chub). The reactor further threatens to kill endangered fish caught in water intake structures and to exacerbate regional water contamination by associated uranium mining that is already contributing to the fish's decline in the upper Colorado River basin. Other imperiled species will also potentially be harmed, including the roundtail chub, bluehead sucker and flannelmouth sucker, all of which are subject to conservation agreements between the state and federal governments in order to preclude the need to list them under the Endangered Species Act. "Imposing this massive water withdrawal atop climate change and regional drying would force unacceptable risks on to endangered fish and the Colorado River system," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity, "It's time for the era of pollution- and water-intensive energy development to end. Those old technologies need to be replaced with clean renewables and energy conservation.""

"65 years ago, US army general Leslie Groves came to Tonawanda, the year was 1940. The spring of that year I was fishing at the foot of Sheridan Dr. with my Dad. It was Blue Pike Run time. I was 8 years old and old enough to experience wars realities and fears. All one needed for fishing gear was a bamboo pole a feather and a hook. An hours fishing would fill a large basket and would feed many families / (Sadly here in 2009 those days are over.) Air raid wardens came every night with flashlights in hand so as to ensure peoples lights were turned off."

The Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Ocean County will pay a $67,859 fine for killing more than 5,000 fish during two unplanned shutdowns. The Environmental Protection Department assessed the fine after reviewing the incidents, which happened in 2006 and 2007. A plant spokesman says the company has a responsibility to take care of the environment. Environmentalists say the fine is a slap on the wrist compared to a $1 million settlement for a fish kill in 2002.

"Sitting in Bill Richardson's office while he was Secretary of Energy under President Clinton was an opportunity that my colleagues and I from Standing for Truth About Radiation had worked hard to obtain. We wanted Richardson to not only close the research reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, but also to shut down the Millstone plant in Waterford, Connecticut, which we asserted had been killing enormous amounts of fish with its water intake system for cooling. Local groups had been charging Millstone with destroying millions of pounds of local fish and with pumping superheated water back into the Long Island Sound, the temperatures of which had negatively impacted fish and shellfish habitat for decades. Richardson, like any DOE Secretary before or after him, wasn't all that interested in closing Millstone. Everywhere we went, government officials like Richardson invoked the figure "20 percent." Twenty percent of domestic power in the US is derived from nuclear energy. The clean and safe source of power."

CBC News has learned that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly "reclassified" as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland. Environmentalists say the process amounts to a "hidden subsidy" to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat.

A BAN on seafood coming from an area near the Dounreay nuclear site is to stay in place, following a Food Standards Agency review. The restriction, preventing the removal of fish and shellfish from a 2km exclusion zone, was imposed in 1997 after the discovery of radioactive particles on the seabed. The order, under the Food and Environment Protection Act, was to ensure any seafood contaminated by irradiated nuclear fuel did not enter the food chain. Last year, Dounreay began work using remotely operated vehicles to remove the worst of the particles that have caused concern for more than quarter of a century. Up to £25 million will be spent on covering an area the size of 60 football pitches and on monitoring up to the 2020s.

Critics of a proposal to divert nearly 30,000 acre feet of water from the Green River for use at Utah's first nuclear-power plant say it would threaten already endangered fish and rare plants. The protest by the Center for Biological Diversity, filed with the Utah State Engineer's Office, raises concerns over the Kane County Water Conservancy District's application to change the nature of the water's use and its diversion point. Specifically, the center questions "how the water diversion will be consistent with the need to protect river flows and habitat conditions critical for the survival of imperiled plants and animals in the vicinity of the power plant's footprint, including endangered fish," according to a news release from the group.

Entergy Northeast, the company that owns and operates the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, may consider cost-benefit analysis with reviewing technology at the plant. The issue at hand was environmentalist organizations' call for the plant to convert to a closed-cycle cooling system, which they maintain would draw far fewer fish into the system and reduce the fish kill by over 95 percent. The Riverkeeper group fought for the closed cooling system. Hudson Riverkeeper and organization President Alex Matthiessen said they are pleased that the court "agreed that EPA is not required to use cost-benefit analysis and left it up to EPA on remand to decide to what extent, if any, cost benefit analysis should be used in regulating cooling water intake structures."

"The people of Haripur, West Bengal, are angry. A nuclear power plant they don't want is being thrust on them and their land is being taken away to locate it. The ruling Left Front has for long sought a nuclear power plant for the state. The locals sought the help of the Trinamool Congress to stymie the state government. But now the Congress is also in the picture. It is being asked hard questions and it doesn't know what to do. Though not much is known about the proposed power plant, Haripur is expected to have six nuclear reactors each of 1650 MW- a total installed capacity of 10,000 MW of electricity. It is located in the coastal area of Contai, East Midnapur district, roughly 170 km away from Kolkata. Its 80,000 strong population is engaged mostly in farming and fishing. A minimum of 1000 acres of land will have to be acquired for the proposed plant in the first phase alone The Junput fishing harbor will fall in this zone. Naba Dutta, an activist and general secretary of Nagarik Mancha, claims that according to S K Jain, chairman, Site Selection Committee and chairman of National Power Corporation, an area of two square kilometers will be required to locate the plant and a buffer zone with a radius of 1.6 km would have to be created around it."

"State water board regulators are mulling a plan to stop power companies from vacuuming the ocean for water to cool their machinery. Environmentalists said the practice destroys too much sea life, while utility advocates said the impact is minimal. Banning the practice would cost too much, jeopardize the reliability of the electricity grid and slow the state's transition to clean energy, supporters of the practice said. Screens prevent larger animals from entering the plants, but fish can die while trapped against these barriers. Anything smaller than the openings in the screens, including millions of tiny fish larvae, can enter the power plants and also die. Federal rules ban new operations from drawing in seawater for so-called "once-through" cooling systems. State regulators now want to apply this rule to the 19 existing plants from Eureka to San Diego. The board's proposal would give owners a dozen years to comply and contains special provisions for nuclear-plant safety issues. In most cases, plants would have to replace seawater pipes with massive cooling towers that recycle water or use air-cooling platforms. "

"When it come to Indian Point's long-term ability to generate electricity here, the latest score is sturgeons 1, plant officials 0. Indian Point's operations are harming the endangered prehistoric fish enough that the nuclear plant must change the way it uses the Hudson River to meet New York's water quality standards, Albany regulators said late today. The 23-page draft decision was sent by state Department of Environmental Conservation staff in an April 2 letter to officials of Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Indian Point. A copy of the document was obtained by The Journal News. The letter cites the federal Clean Water Act of 1972 and states that biological data shows that the two working plants in Buchanan have harmed shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon by trapping them against screens or killing them as they are drawn in with the 2.5 billion gallons of river water Indian Point uses to cool its daily operations. The company is seeking to extend its operation until 2035."

"State water board regulators have released a plan to stop power companies from using ocean water to cool their machinery. Environmentalists say the practice destroys too much sea life, but utility advocates argue the impact is minimal. Screens prevent larger animals from entering the plants, but fish can die while trapped against these barriers. Anything smaller than the openings in the screens, including millions of tiny fish larvae, can enter the power plants and also die. Federal rules discourage new operations from drawing in seawater for such cooling systems. The draft plan released Tuesday proposes that existing plants from Eureka to San Diego reduce the use of ocean water by 93 percent. The board is expected to vote on the new policy on May 4. Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and the gas-fired power plant in Morro Bay use once-through cooling systems in their operations."

"It will take another three years for state water officials to determine whether nuclear power plants like the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are required to install dozens of cooling towers so as to avoid using ocean water for cooling. Following an all-day hearing Tuesday, board members with the state Water Quality Control Board unanimously passed new regulations for the state's 19 coastal power plants. The regulations require plants using ocean water for cooling to reduce their intake by more than 90 percent in order to dramatically reduce the amount of fish and fish eggs that are taken from the Pacific Ocean and killed in the process of generating electricity. However, reducing water intake requires the use of evaporative cooling towers that expose hot water to cool air in a continuous loop. Closed cooling tower systems are estimated to use only about 5 percent as much water at the "once through" systems currently used by most plants."

"Atsuko Ogasawara's family rejected offers of some ¥160 million for their property on the northern tip of Honshu during a two-decade bid to prevent construction of a nuclear plant. The result: Their fenced-in house is little more than a stone's throw from a facility that opens in 2014. News photo Subsidized: A fishing boat is moored last month in Oma, Aomori Prefecture. BLOOMBERG PHOTO The family's protest illustrates the challenges facing opponents when they go up against the nuclear industry, a pillar of Japanese energy policy since the late 1960s. Ogasawara says her mother faced harassment that included letters from local authorities and neighbors pressuring her to sell, unidentified men following her and anonymous phone calls that included a threat to sabotage the family's fishing boat."