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Two reports from investigative teams have made significant recommendations to the Savannah River Site and its contractors after accidents and the verification of employees' citizenship seemed to be lacking. The Department of Energy and its Office of the Inspector General have released the reports after investigations into activities at SRS. One report was that of a "Type B" investigation into a serious hand and arm injury suffered by a worker in a powerhouse, the other regarding employment verification at SRS. The investigation into the injury came about after a worker suffered first-, second- and third-degree burns on his arms and hands while working in a D-area powerhouse. The electrical burns were determined to have been caused when a metal level the worker was using came into contact with a live breaker.

Two reports from investigative teams have made significant recommendations to the Savannah River Site and its contractors after accidents and the verification of employees' citizenship seemed to be lacking. The Department of Energy and its Office of the Inspector General have released the reports after investigations into activities at SRS. One report was that of a "Type B" investigation into a serious hand and arm injury suffered by a worker in a powerhouse, the other regarding employment verification at SRS. The investigation into the injury came about after a worker suffered first-, second- and third-degree burns on his arms and hands while working in a D-area powerhouse. The electrical burns were determined to have been caused when a metal level the worker was using came into contact with a live breaker.

No injuries and minor damage were reported in a Thursday fire in an inactive cooling tower at the Piketon uranium enrichment plant. Advertisement According to the Department of Energy, the fire was reported at 4:30 p.m. on the east side of the plant. At 5:15 p.m., the fire was said to have no off-site impact. The fire broke out in some decking of the cooling tower, which was being removed after high winds in Saturday's storms damaged the tower. The cooling tower is one of several at the site scheduled to be decontaminated and decommissioned in the coming months with aid from American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds.

"Few people see nuclear power as a cheap option. The capital cost is high, and the ultimate cost, if something goes seriously wrong, could be very large. The UK's nuclear liability law is based on the Paris and Brussels Convention on Nuclear Third Party Liability, which has been in operation since the 1960s. The operator is required to take out the necessary financial security to cover its liabilities and in the UK this is currently set at £140m. Recent amendments, which are not yet in force, are aimed at ensuring that greater compensation is available to a larger number of victims in respect of a broader range of nuclear damage. In particular, it will be possible to claim compensation for certain kinds of loss other than personal injury and property damage, including loss relating to impairment of the environment. The period of operators' liability for personal injury has been increased from 10 to 30 years and, more generally, the limit on operators' liability has been increased to €700 m. That's the situation as summarised recently by Lord Hunt, then energy Minister. However if the worst comes, then even €700m is unlikely to be enough. The cost of just upgrading the emergency containment shelter at Chernobyl in 1997 was $758 m. Quite apart from the loss of life, with estimates of early deaths ranging up to several thousand and beyond, and also lifelong illnesses (e.g. related to immune system damage) for some of those exposed, the total economic costs of the Chernobyl disaster were much larger: e.g. Belarus has estimated its losses over 30 years at US $235 bn, with government spending on Chernobyl amounting to 22.3% of the national budget in 1991, declining gradually to 6.1% in 2002. And 5-7% of government spending in the Ukraine still goes to Chernobyl-related benefits and programmes. www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl"

"New delhi Soumya is just 13, but she knows all about bone marrow transplants, radioactive sources and what exposure to radiation can do to the human body. She has first-hand experience, for her father Ajay Jain had been kept in isolation at the Army Research and Referral Hospital, undergoing treatment for exposure to a radiation source. Jain finally returned home on Thursday, more than a month after he was admitted to Max Hospital in Pitampura, on April 10, with a burn injury on the right side of his posterior. It took him another five days to realise that the piece of metal he had kept in his wallet for months had caused the injury. It turned out to be a piece of radioactive Cobalt-60. "

FirstEnergy Corp. faces disciplinary action because its Davis-Besse operators "failed to recognize the hazard to the station's operations" caused by a June 25 explosion inside the electrical transmission switchyard, according to a letter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent to the utility. The NRC's letter, dated Monday, said operators should have immediately recognized the explosion met federal emergency action level conditions for declaring an alert. The agency said it will allow FirstEnergy to explain in greater detail what happened before deciding whether to proceed with enforcement. The explosion occurred as repairs were being made to electrical equipment. There were no injuries or radiation releases and the nuclear reactor never stopped operating.

FirstEnergy Corp. faces disciplinary action because its Davis-Besse operators "failed to recognize the hazard to the station's operations" caused by a June 25 explosion inside the electrical transmission switchyard, according to a letter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent to the utility. The NRC's letter, dated Monday, said operators should have immediately recognized the explosion met federal emergency action level conditions for declaring an alert. The agency said it will allow FirstEnergy to explain in greater detail what happened before deciding whether to proceed with enforcement. The explosion occurred as repairs were being made to electrical equipment. There were no injuries or radiation releases and the nuclear reactor never stopped operating.

After making plans for more than 20 years, the first ton of radioactive dirt will be removed from the nuclear waste dump in Parks this summer for the much anticipated 3-year, $76 million cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers. The removal of 50,000 tons of nuclear-contaminated soil at what is officially known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area is the last vestige of the nuclear legacy from two former nuclear fuel plants in Apollo and Parks that operated from 1957 to mid-1980s. The plants, owned by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) and later the Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock & Wilcox (B&W), produced nuclear fuel for submarines and power plants as well as a range of nuclear products for the U.S. government and others. Moving on hasn't come quickly or cheaply. Lawsuits for personal injury and contamination, cleanups and government payments to contaminated workers have topped $267 million in more than two decades.

After making plans for more than 20 years, the first ton of radioactive dirt will be removed from the nuclear waste dump in Parks this summer for the much anticipated 3-year, $76 million cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers. The removal of 50,000 tons of nuclear-contaminated soil at what is officially known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area is the last vestige of the nuclear legacy from two former nuclear fuel plants in Apollo and Parks that operated from 1957 to mid-1980s. The plants, owned by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) and later the Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock & Wilcox (B&W), produced nuclear fuel for submarines and power plants as well as a range of nuclear products for the U.S. government and others. Moving on hasn't come quickly or cheaply. Lawsuits for personal injury and contamination, cleanups and government payments to contaminated workers have topped $267 million in more than two decades.

Court hears uranium protesters locked in container Civil action starts over uranium protest in 2000 A civil trial has started in the SA Supreme Court over police treatment of protesters at an outback uranium mine. Ten protesters who were locked in a shipping container at Beverley in South Australia in 2000 are claiming damages from the government for injury and suffering caused by their allegedly false imprisonment. The government has already settled out of court with three other plaintiffs who had been part of the class action. A lawyer for the remaining plaintiffs, Brian Walters, told the court the protesters were given no warning before police beat them with batons, used capsicum spray and locked them in a shipping container with no water or toilet facilities for up to eight hours. They are now suing the state government over their treatment by police.

Court hears uranium protesters locked in container Civil action starts over uranium protest in 2000 A civil trial has started in the SA Supreme Court over police treatment of protesters at an outback uranium mine. Ten protesters who were locked in a shipping container at Beverley in South Australia in 2000 are claiming damages from the government for injury and suffering caused by their allegedly false imprisonment. The government has already settled out of court with three other plaintiffs who had been part of the class action. A lawyer for the remaining plaintiffs, Brian Walters, told the court the protesters were given no warning before police beat them with batons, used capsicum spray and locked them in a shipping container with no water or toilet facilities for up to eight hours. They are now suing the state government over their treatment by police.

Smoke rose on Thursday from the world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan, which was shut down by an earthquake two years ago, but the operator said no-one was injured and there was no radiation leak. The smoke was caused by friction from the brake of a crane in a reactor's turbine room, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said in a statement. "We reported immediately to the fire station and used fire extinguishers and now the smoke has stopped," the statement said. "There were no injuries nor any radiation leak" in the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Tokyo, it said. The company said it would thoroughly investigate.

Smoke rose on Thursday from the world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan, which was shut down by an earthquake two years ago, but the operator said no-one was injured and there was no radiation leak. The smoke was caused by friction from the brake of a crane in a reactor's turbine room, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said in a statement. "We reported immediately to the fire station and used fire extinguishers and now the smoke has stopped," the statement said. "There were no injuries nor any radiation leak" in the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Tokyo, it said. The company said it would thoroughly investigate.

"A judge heard the closing arguments Friday on whether a lawsuit against Lockheed Martin Corp. should be expanded into a class action. Circuit Court Judge Jannette Dunnigan said she will rule at a later date on the request of the four plaintiffs who are asking her to establish a medical monitoring system and to open it up to a class action lawsuit. The case heard Thursday is one of several lawsuits filed against Lockheed claiming personal injury and property damage from the exposure to the chemical beryllium. Lockheed purchased the former Loral American Beryllium plant at 1600 Tallevast Road and the lawsuits claim the corporation is responsible for damages."

"The cost to remove radioactive dirt and debris from the nuclear waste dump along Route 66 in Parks has skyrocketed from $76 million to $170 million. The increase adds to a growing tally of expenses related to the production of nuclear fuel at the former Nuclear Material and Equipment Corp. in Apollo and Parks from 1957 to the mid-1980s. Lawsuits for personal injury and contamination, the razing and cleanup of two nuclear fuel plants and government payments to contaminated workers have topped $267 million over the last two decades. The Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh, the federal agency charged by Congress to excavate and remove the radiological materials, revised its cost estimates as officials hammer out the details to start digging up the site next year."

For the third consecutive year, US nuclear test victims in the Marshall Islands have been denied compensation, with a claims tribunal saying Saturday that funds were too low to make even a token payment. More than two billion dollars is owed in approved payments for personal injury and other claims arising from the 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States at Bikini and Enewetak atolls from 1946 to 1958. The funding provided by Washington was "manifestly inadequate", said Nuclear Claims Tribunal chairman Gregory Danz.

A gas explosion rocked an outbuilding near Exelon Corp's 1,734-megawatt Quad Cities nuclear power plant in Illinois early Monday, the company said in a release. There were no injuries to plant personnel, no damage to equipment and at no time was there any concern for the health and safety of the public, the company said, adding there was no radiological release.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting a special inspection at the DC Cook Nuclear Power Station to review circumstances around a turbine generator fire and degradation of the fire suppression system. The two-unit plant is operated by American Electric Power and is located in Stevensville, Mich. On Sept. 20, 2008, a malfunction in the Unit 1 turbine generator resulted in a fire and caused the operators to manually shut down the reactor. The turbine generator transforms steam into electricity. All nuclear safety systems functioned as expected and were not affected by the fire which occurred in a building separate from the nuclear reactor. The utility declared an unusual event, the lowest of NRC's four emergency classifications, when the fire could not be extinguished within 15 minutes. The fire was extinguished 25 minutes after it started. There were no injuries and no hazard to the public.

A small fire broke out Friday at a nuclear fuel plant in the village of Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, but did not cause any injuries or environmental damage, said the operator of the plant, which was scolded for delaying the report. The Ibaraki Prefectural Government told Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Co. to promptly report fires to local authorities in the future after learning that the company waited for about 30 minutes to report the fire, prefectural officials said.

In early June, a glass vial of plutonium powder broke at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology lab in Boulder, Colo. More than a dozen researchers were exposed to radiation - and the agency was exposed as a dysfunctional workplace. The plutonium spill was only one of several serious accidents reported at NIST labs in the last couple years. In March, a university researcher was shot in the eye with an infrared laser while placing a slide on a microscope at the agency's headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md. The researcher is under continuing medical care, and NIST said it tightened its laser safety policies as a result. And in June 2006, a contract construction worker sustained near-fatal injuries when a 500-pound steel beam fell on his head while working at the Boulder campus. The worker has a damages claim pending against the agency, although NIST refused to discuss it.

A train derailment in central Oklahoma on Friday sent fireballs into the sky but caused no injuries. Eight cars on the 110-car Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailed, seven of which were carrying either crude oil or ethanol, company spokesman Joe Faust said. He said he didn't know how many of the derailed cars had caught on fire.

During the summer of 1991, the United States military had collected artillery, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, conventional and unconventional munitions, trucks, etc. at Camp Doha in Kuwait. As result of carelessness this weapons depot caught fire with consequent catastrophic explosion resulting in death, injury, illness and extensive environmental contamination from depleted uranium and conventional explosives. Recently the emirate of Kuwait required the United States Department of Defense to remove the contamination.

"Senator McCain would strongly oppose any waste and inefficiency in providing benefits and compensation to eligible claimants. The intent of the legislation should be fulfilled - these workers should be adequately compensated and treated for their injuries and illnesses. The health problems of these individuals are tragic and this program should administer benefits and compensation in an effective and timely manner."

A Sellafield worker is still being treated in hospital for injuries he received at the nuclear plant more than a week ago.

he upcoming anniversaries of the two worst nuclear accidents in history present an opportune time to examine the state of nuclear safety, writes Jason Vaughn for Diplomatic Courier. On 28 March 1979, the worst ever accident at an American nuclear power station took place at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. This coming 28 March will be the 30th anniversary of that event, when a partial meltdown of a reactor there resulted in a "very small off-site release of radioactivity," according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Further, according to the USNRC, there were no casualties, either injurious or fatal, from that event. As life on earth is exposed to a relative amount of radiation throughout time regardless, reports generally show that exposure of radiation to humans never rose above minor "acceptable" levels.