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Hudson River fish won't be left out of the debate over whether Indian Point should be allowed to operate an extra 20 years. Federal regulators agreed today that the aquatic health of the historic body of water must be included in any environmental review of the nuclear plant's application to continue operating until 2035. Advertisement "For Indian Point, (the staff) did find that for some of these (environmental) areas, the impacts would be small-to-moderate, or in the case of the aquatic species, small-to-large," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., has a long history of problems, including radioactive water leaking from its aging fuel pools and emergency sirens that regularly fail in tests. About a billion fish are also killed each year when the plant sucks water from the Hudson River to cool its enormous condensers.

The Department of Natural Resources is waiting to read next month's draft environmental impact statement for expanding the capacity and life of the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant near Red Wing before it can tell how the project will affect fishing on the Mississippi River. But it already is concerned about more warm water, both in winter and summer. The plant's license to operate one of two reactors will expire in four years, while the other will end in five years. The plant is 7 river miles above Red Wing.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the government can weigh costs against benefits in deciding whether to order power plants to undertake upgrades that would protect fish. The court's 6-3 decision is a defeat for environmentalists who had urged the justices to uphold a favorable federal appeals court ruling. That ruling could have required an estimated 554 power plants to install technology that relies on recycled water to cool machinery.

"An independent engineering firm and its biological experts have told the state Department of Environmental Conservation that Wedgewire and underwater screens technology would be superior to cooling towers for protecting the Hudson River aquatic life near the Indian Point nuclear power plants at Buchanan. Indian Point parent Entergy was required by the DEC to make a filing on the feasibility of cooling towers as well as present alternative technologies of comparable effectiveness to protect aquatic life in the river. In its filing, Entergy asked the DEC to issue a revised draft permit that includes the Wedgewire technology in April. The Enercon study, commissioned by Entergy, concluded that Wedgewire screens would better protect fish eggs and larvae over the 20 year period of a renewed Indian Point license in large part because they can be installed and operational 12 to 15 years sooner than cooling towers. "

Playing with plutonium is not a good idea. But this is exactly what will happen if the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) implements its plan to open the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge for public recreation. For almost four decades the Rocky Flats Plant located about nine miles south of Boulder produced the explosive plutonium "pit" at the core of every warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Major accidents and routine operations released very fine plutonium particles to the environment on and off the site. Because this highly toxic material remains radioactive for a quarter-million years, its presence in the environment poses a permanent danger. Inhaling or otherwise taking such particles into the body can induce cancer, disrupt the immune system or damage genetic material. Children, who would be encouraged to visit the refuge, are especially vulnerable, because they stir up dust, breath in gasps, eat dirt, or may scrape a knee or elbow.

Playing with plutonium is not a good idea. But this is exactly what will happen if the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) implements its plan to open the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge for public recreation. For almost four decades the Rocky Flats Plant located about nine miles south of Boulder produced the explosive plutonium "pit" at the core of every warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Major accidents and routine operations released very fine plutonium particles to the environment on and off the site. Because this highly toxic material remains radioactive for a quarter-million years, its presence in the environment poses a permanent danger. Inhaling or otherwise taking such particles into the body can induce cancer, disrupt the immune system or damage genetic material. Children, who would be encouraged to visit the refuge, are especially vulnerable, because they stir up dust, breath in gasps, eat dirt, or may scrape a knee or elbow.

"A Connecticut River fish caught four miles upstream from the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor this winter tested positive for low levels of strontium-90, a highly dangerous radioactive isotope recently confirmed in soil outside the plant. But the Department of Health said Monday that the fish's strontium-90 was not related to this winter's radioactive leak at Vermont Yankee, and state officials attributed the strontium to atmospheric testing in the 1960s and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 20 years ago, which spread radioactive fallout even as far away as Vermont."

"You can take the girl out of Suffolk but you can't take Suffolk out of the girl. Stories inspired by her home county have been floating around former Look East broadcaster Boni Sones's head for years. Now she's sharing them. She spoke to Steven Russell BONI Sones was eight when the bulldozers and cranes came. They changed forever the face of the coast and heathland where she played, scraping away more than 200 acres of scrub and grass to build a nuclear power station. Not that it put paid to youthful pursuits, for the construction site became an unofficial adventure zone for children from the tiny fishing hamlet of Sizewell and the scattered houses around. "As kids, we used to break into the site by burrowing under the fence and climbing the crane and so on. It was just an extension of our playground," she confesses of the early 1960s. Not surprisingly, the magnox reactors had a major impact on the lives of the communities in and around Leiston. "The power station definitely gave a sense of menace," says Boni. "If you think, as eight-year-olds, we were having to practise emergency evacuation procedures . . . It went from being an idyllic childhood to something that had menace in it. I used to think 'Where would we be safe, then, if it blew up?'""

"The state misidentified a town in a public announcement during a drill at the Salem nuclear power plant, the Office of Emergency Management said Thursday. The mistake and a delay in getting instructions out to the public mean the state will have to conduct a second drill in July. The drill tested the state's response to a nuclear disaster May 18. In a mock public notice, the state misidentified a town that was subject to a fish advisory, officials said. The state also took 62 minutes to make all the necessary preparations to direct the public to evacuate, take shelter or consume potassium iodide pills in response to the nuclear accident. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the directions should have been issued within 45 to 50 minutes. Everything else in the biannual drill went smoothly, state officials said."

Greek conservationists from the Greek NGO, Archipelagos, work to protect endangered common dolphins and monk seals and also the region's marine ecosystems from the effects of overfishing, shipping, and the military. Dr Anastasia Miliou, manager and head scientist from Archipelagos Institute of Marine and Environmental Research of the Aegean Sea, based on the Greek island of Samos in the eastern Aegean, explains about seals, uranium deposits and sonar * Digg it * Buzz up * Share on facebook (6) * Tweet this (14) * Guardian Weekly, Friday 30 October 2009 09.00 GMT * Article history Monk seal An endangered monk seal. Photograph: Phil Mislinski/Getty Images The Mediterranean monk seal is the world's rarest and most endangered marine mammal. Its population is less than 450 and one of the most important remaining populations survives in the Aegean region. We are urging fishing communities and authorities to understand that the marine biodiversity needs to be conserved, not only for the sake of productive marine ecosystems or the endangered species, but also for the benefit of human communities, whose livelihood depends on the health and productivity of the seas."

"At first, the Fernald Preserve inspires jokes. "Let's come back and go hiking -- in 500 years," I say, checking out trails marked with radiation monitors. My mom and stepdad make cracks about fish with three eyes and birds with six wings, ha ha. Still, we're a little nervous. Fernald Preserve used to be the site of the factory where uranium was processed for nuclear bombs. From 1951 to 1989, it was known as the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center, a secretive facility in the middle of farm country in southwest Ohio. It produced nearly 70% of all uranium used in America's nuclear weapons"

Work has begun to collect samples of water and other items from the Columbia River to test for evidence of contaminants that might be linked to past production of plutonium at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The 1,200 samples will include river water, soil on islands, sediment in the river and fish along a 120-mile stretch of the river. The data collected will be combined with information from previous samplings to help officials make final decisions on cleaning up the river shore within the nuclear reservation.

Compounds used in medicine are making their way into the Broome County landfill and into the Susquehanna River. Some -- such as the nuclear medicine used for diagnostic imaging and fighting cancer -- are radioactive, and have set off radiation detectors at the landfill. Wastewater treatment plants aren't specifically designed to treat effluent for such substances. While fish downstream of the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Treatment Plant haven't been tested, Bingham-ton University researchers found traces of hormones and drugs -- including antibiotics, estrogen and aspirin products -- in the plant's effluent prior to a new secondary treatment system that went online last year. The area hasn't been tested for drugs since.

Indian Point is taking its case on cooling towers to court. The nuclear plant's owners are battling the state Department of Environmental Conservation to determine whether they must construct special towers to cool Hudson River water used to produce electricity. Advertisement The cost to build the concrete towers has been estimated as high as $1.5 billion. Company officials say studies on fish in the river that they've done for more than two decades - under the supervision of the state agency - don't make the environmental case for such a large-scale change.

Work has begun to collect about 1,200 samples to check for possible contaminants, a process that will help drive the final decisions on cleaning up Hanford along the Columbia River. Workers are collecting samples of river water, soil on Hanford islands, sediment from the river and fish to test for evidence of contaminants that might be linked to the past production of plutonium at Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program. "After the sampling we'll know where and what the contaminants are and who or what might be exposed to them," said Jamie Zeisloft, the Department of Energy project lead.

Thousands of Chagos islanders have had the right to return to their homeland in the Indian Ocean overturned by a House of Lords judgement. The former residents, evicted from the British overseas territory between 1967 and 1971, hoped their heritage could be rebuilt around a new tourist industry and fishing. But the largest Chagos island of Diego Garcia, which the UK leased to the US for a military air base remains an issue of contention.

For a newly hatched striped bass in the Hudson River, a clutch of trout eggs in Lake Michigan or a baby salmon in San Francisco Bay, drifting a little too close to a power plant can mean a quick and turbulent death. Sucked in with enormous volumes of water, battered against the sides of pipes and heated by steam, the small fry of the aquatic world are being sacrificed in large numbers each year to the cooling systems of power plants around the country.

State officials and environmental groups have reached an agreement with the Millstone nuclear power complex to expedite plans aimed at reducing the facility's effect on Long Island Sound. Virginia-based Dominion, Millstone's owner, agreed Monday to immediately begin studying technologies and measures that would better protect fish and other sea creatures from Millstone's water-based system for cooling its reactors.

ENVIRONMENT * There is no "safe" amount of radiation. Each new exposure can lead to the risk of cancer and harm the body's immune system. Radiation also can lead to spontaneous abortion, mental retardation, heart disease and leukemia. * Increased reliance on nuclear power plants threatens the water supply. Reactors must be near large bodies of water to create steam to power their turbines and cool fuel rods. Water at higher temperatures may be returned to streams, causing thermal pollution and stressing fish and other aquatic life. * If droughts become more common in the Southeast, nuclear plants will compete for water with other important uses. COST * Building a nuclear reactor is expensive, costing up to $6 billion. By comparison, the state budget totals $7 billion a year. * There are no guarantees. The regulatory process required to get a license to build and operate a nuclear plant is lengthy and expensive, and can end in rejection. * Because the risks are so high, power companies must pay more in interest on loans needed to build the plants. To cover that cost, consumers will see their power bills increase as the plants are being built. In a sense, consumers assume the risk. SAFETY * Regardless of new designs, safety procedures and rigorous staff training, there always is the risk of a catastrophic accident. * Opponents cite a 1982 congressional report that estimated a meltdown of one Duke Energy reactor could injure 88,000 people and cost more than $100 billion in 1980 dollars. Today, those figures would be higher because of the area's booming population and inflation. SECURITY * Nuclear plants could be a prime target for terrorists. An attack could injure thousands near a plant. * Technology used to run the plants could be stolen and used to make nuclear weapons. DISPOSAL * Scientists agree the best option is to bury "spent" nuclear fuel deep inside a mountain. But opposition to using tunnels in Nevada's Yucc

Professor Emeritus John C. Ringle ("U.S. would benefit from nuclear power, "Opinion, Aug. 21) asserts, "France, Great Britain, Japan and Russia derive great benefit from reprocessing, " and concludes, "We [The US] should be doing the same." Advertisement I write from London, England. I cannot speak for France, Japan or Russia, but can enlighten your readers that the chemical separation of plutonium from uranium and fission products in irradiated nuclear fuel through the process called nuclear reprocessing has not proved a great benefit to Britain. It has resulted in significant radiological pollution of the Irish Sea, angering our neighbors, Ireland, for several decades, as well as Nordic neighbors, Norway, concerned over radiological pollution of their pristine fishing waters.