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The carcinogenic effects of radiation exposure are most severe among infants and children. (NEW YORK) - Leukemia death rates in U.S. children near nuclear reactors rose sharply (vs. the national trend) in the past two decades, according to a recent study. The greatest mortality increases occurred near the oldest nuclear plants, while declines were observed near plants that closed permanently in the 1980s and 1990s. The study was published in the most recent issue of the European Journal of Cancer Care. The study updates an analysis conducted in the late 1980s by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). That analysis, mandated by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), is the only attempt federal officials have made to examine cancer rates near U.S. nuclear plants. U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said

April Fool's Day is known as a day for practical jokes designed to embarrass the gullible. But Assembly Member Tom Ammiano's legislative aide Quentin Mecke says the April 1 letter that Ammiano and fellow Assembly Members Fiona Ma and state Sen. Leland Yee sent Mayor Gavin Newsom urging him not to support a proposal to bury a radiologically-contaminated dump beneath a concrete cap on the Hunters Point Shipyard was dead serious. In their letter, Ammiano, Ma, and Lee expressed concern over that fact that federal officials don't want to pay to haul toxic and radioactive dirt off the site before it's used for parkland. They noted that an "estimated 1.5 million tons of toxics and radioactive material still remain" on the site.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; Decision To Evaluate a Petition To Designate a Class of Employees for the Norton Company in Worcester, MA, To Be Included in the Special Exposure Cohort AGENCY: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ACTION: Notice. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: HHS gives notice as required by 42 CFR 83.12(e) of a decision to evaluate a petition to designate a class of employees for the Norton Company in Worcester, Massachusetts, to be included in the Special Exposure Cohort under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. The initial proposed definition for the class being evaluated, subject to revision as warranted by the evaluation, is as follows: Facility: Norton Company. Location: Worcester, Massachusetts.

Taiwan will debate ending an eight- year ban on new nuclear reactors to help curb emissions from electricity generation, potentially pitting President Ma Ying- jeou against critics who say atomic power is too dangerous. "How we're going to deal with nuclear energy is up for discussion," Yeh Huey-ching, head of Taiwan's energy bureau, said on April 7 in Taipei. A two-day state conference on energy starting tomorrow will bring together 205 government officials, scholars, executives and environmentalists and resolutions will be adopted as government policy.

Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants? Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power "our single largest contributor of emissions-free power." It advocates abolishing "cumbersome regulations" so utilities can "secure financing for more plants." And it wants "serious investment" to "find solutions to our nuclear waste problem."

Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants? Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power "our single largest contributor of emissions-free power." It advocates abolishing "cumbersome regulations" so utilities can "secure financing for more plants." And it wants "serious investment" to "find solutions to our nuclear waste problem."

Review of accelerated depreciation, investment tax credit, and production tax credit provisions of Senator Kerry's and Senator Lieberman's American Power Act In May 2010, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) released a discussion version of The American Power Act (henceforth referred to as the "K-L Bill" or the "APA"). The K-L Bill as proposed is a wide-ranging piece of energy legislation that includes a number of new subsidies to nuclear power. This memo evaluates three of those nuclear provisions, describing how they work and estimating their subsidy value to recipients in the nuclear power sector: * 5-year accelerated depreciation period for new nuclear power plants (section 1121). * Investment tax credit (ITC) for nuclear power facilities (section 1122) and the related grants for qualified nuclear power facility expenditures in lieu of tax credits (section 1126). * Modification of credit for production from advanced nuclear power facilities (section 1124). The K-L Bill includes a number of subsidies to nuclear power that were not evaluated in this memo, and as a result this memo should be viewed as one part of a larger picture of how federal subsidies distort US energy markets and fuel choice.1 The values presented

"Elevated levels of the radioactive isotope tritium have been detected in one of the new groundwater monitoring wells at Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant. The release, issued Thursday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of test results taken from a sample of one of the 12 monitoring wells by Pilgrim staff June 21, states that the level falls within federal drinking water limits and does not require public notification but the information is being released because it's an issue of public interest. Six of the 12 monitoring wells were added in May. The monitoring well where the tritium was detected at 11,072 picocuries per liter is located near the condensate storage tank that stores water for use in the nuclear reactor. The Environmental Protection Agency's safe drinking water limit for tritium is 20,000 picocuries per liter."

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and the Pilgrim Watch citizen's group are both appealing a decision by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) to close relicensing proceedings on the Pilgrim Station nuclear plant. Tuesday morning, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan provided staff responses to both appeals filed in opposition to the relicensing.

U.S. Rep. Edward Markey is using a fire last week at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth to turn up the heat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Markey sent a letter to the federal agency on Friday, posing a long list of questions about the Oct. 29 fire in an outbuilding at the plant property that the plant operator says was contained to one room.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that an NRC licensing panel has ruled in favor of Entergy Nuclear Operations and dismissed the Pilgrim Watch citizen's group's contention that the aging management plan for the buried pipes and tanks that contain radioactively contaminated water at the Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant is inadequate. The initial decision will become final by Tuesday, Dec. 9., pending an appeal to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board by Pilgrim Watch or any other party. An appeal must be filed within 15 days.

Entergy Corp. has received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to spin off its Pilgrim nuclear power plant and four other plants. The agency's approval of the license transfer for the power plants took effect on Monday. The plants would be owned by a new public company, Enexus Energy Corp., and operated by a new joint venture known as EquaGen Nuclear LLC and owned by Enexus and Entergy.

National Youth Conference on Nuclear Abolition Boston, MA, August 14-17, 2008

DUXBURY - In the rare moments when Mary Lampert wonders if her crusade against the Pilgrim Nuclear Station is worth all the time and effort, she looks out her upstairs window at the plant's square metal reactor building in the distance across Duxbury Bay.

AMESBURY - All four northbound lanes of Interstate 495 were shut down, and residents on nearby Hunt Road were evacuated early yesterday morning when a pickup truck carrying radioactive medical materials rolled over on the highway. About 4:40 a.m., a Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck carrying a medical grade, radioactive isotope used in diagnostic imaging and treatment of diseases such as cancer, crashed near Route 150 (exit 54). The material was being transported in small packages in the back of the truck when the truck rolled over and the packages spilled onto the roadway.

The operator of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant has asked federal regulators for a six-month extension for an approval to spin off the Plymouth plant and four other power plants into a new company. Michael Kansler, the president of plant owner Entergy Corp.'s nuclear division, wrote a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month, asking the agency for a six-month extension of the spinoff's approval from July 28 to next January. The agency approved Entergy's spinoff last July, but that approval is only effective for one year. Kansler, in his May 15 letter, said the company is still trying to get the approvals it needs for the spinoff from state regulators in New York and Vermont. Kansler said the company is actively engaged in settlement negotiations with the New York Public Service Commission, and company officials are optimistic that the Vermont Public Service Board will grant an approval as well.

Attorney General Martha Coakley and her counterparts in New York and Connecticut are appealing a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision that could impact the relicensing of Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant. Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut officials have filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York challenging the NRC's ruling that there was no "new and significant information" on the risks of severe accidents in the spent fuel pools at nuclear plants, including Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee, caused by terrorist attack, human error, equipment malfunction, or natural disaster. In 2006, Massachusetts filed a petition claiming that new and significant information on these risks to Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee, both owned by Entergy Nuclear Operations, and should be part of the relicensing process for each nuclear power plant.

The right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government continued its campaign to pull Taiwan back into the past Wednesday with a concerted campaign to reverse a previous multi-partisan consensus on a "nuclear free" energy policy and gain endorsement from a high-profile National Energy Conference for a new wave of construction of nuclear power plants. Although Premier Liu Chao-shiuan supervised the absurd listing of nuclear power as a "clean alternative energy" in a "sustainable energy action program" last June, both President Ma Ying-jeou and Liu shied away from direct mention of "nuclear power" in their addresses to Taiwan's third public-private NEC.

"The Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth could be leaking radioactive substances and should be required to perform more extensive testing to monitor the situation, Gov. Deval Patrick said. In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Patrick also calls for a stay on further consideration of relicensing the plant or approving a proposed spin-off of the plant by its owner, Entergy Corp. Patrick is the most recent New England governor to ask the federal commission to take action against a local plant. Buried piping at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant - also owned by Entergy Corp. - has been leaking radioactive tritium that state health officials said Wednesday has reached the Connecticut River. Governors in Vermont and New Hampshire have called for an investigation by the NRC. But the difference between the Yankee and Pilgrim plants is that officials at the Vermont facility agree there's a leak. Their monitoring wells detected tritium levels that exceed federal standards for drinking water."

"The reviews were not too good Tuesday night as Nuclear Advisory Committee members gave their feedback on the open house format instituted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review of the annual safety assessment of Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant. Rather than give a presentation reviewing the results of the assessment for 2009, the NRC held a question and answer session for the public during an open house held at Hilton Garden Inn. Plymouth Nuclear Advisory Committee Chairman Jeff Berger and member Richard Rothstein were disappointed by the format. They agreed that one person's question asked of the NRC team could give others a greater understanding of an issue they might not otherwise know to ask about. All in all, Berger said he considered it to be a poor educational experience. "I don't like the format because it puts people at a disadvantage," Berger said. "It makes a difference when you hear questions asked of other people." Rothstein added, "I prefer they go back to the previous format.""