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The public gets a chance to weigh in on Xcel Energy's plan to increase the output of its Monticello nuclear power plant. The state Public Utilities Commission will hold a hearing at 7 p.m. at the Monticello Community Center. Xcel wants to increase the plant's capacity to 656 megawatts from 585 by 2011.

MONTICELLO (AP) - Utah health officials are taking a closer look at cancer rates among residents of Monticello. Some are occurring at twice the normal rate, possibly because of a uranium mill near the southeastern Utah town. State officials say Monticello residents had higher-than-normal rates of lung and bronchial cancer. Epidemiologist John Contreras says it's "plausible" that there's a connection between cancer and dust and contaminated soils from the defunct mill.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region III office in Lisle, Ill., activated its Incident Response Center today to monitor an unusual event declared at the Monticello Nuclear Power Plant. The plant, operated by Xcel Energy, is located in Monticello, Minn. The unusual event was declared at 10:30 a.m. when a contractor struck a power line, which resulted in a loss of power to non-safety equipment. The contractor was taken to an area hospital and pronounced dead, according to local authorities. The loss of power affected equipment necessary to provide cooling water to the reactor. Around 11:30 a.m. the plant restored the equipment necessary to provide cooling water support to the reactor in a shutdown condition.

"For nearly 20 years, Monticello was a Uranium boomtown. It started in I941 when the government opened a Uranium Mill in town to feed the Manhattan Project. The Vanadium Corporation of America mill produced the "yellowcake" that Robert Oppenheimer and his team would use to create the first atomic bombs. The mill paid good wages and the workers felt patriotic. Fritz Pipkin remembers his dad working in the mill. "I feel like my father was a hero," he said. "It was no different than the soldiers in Germany or Japan. They gave their lives to create this product that was used for the Manhattan project and the bombs that ended the war." Pipkin also remembers playing in the piles of radioactive tailings at the mill. "As kids we'd go on down the canyon right here and we'd camp out and drink from the water that came through the tailings ponds. Nobody knew of any danger. It's a wonder kids in Monticello don't glow in the dark from all the hours we spent down here on these tailings piles.""

MONTICELLO - Cancer victims and their families here have launched a new phase of their campaign for recognition of the cruel legacy left by a government uranium mill. Steve Young, organizer of the Monticello Victims of Mill Tailings Exposure, encouraged his neighbors to push the federal government for a long-term program that would help pay for cancer screening and expenses related to the old mill.

Months of planning at the Monticello nuclear plant will be put into practice soon when spent nuclear fuel is moved to a new storage facility. Radioactive fuel rods will be moved in a process designed for safety and security from inside the plant to the above-ground storage.

Xcel Energy says a monitoring well at its nuclear power plant in Monticello detected a radioactive element at higher levels than allowed under one of the company's permits. The monitoring well showed levels of tritium, a mildly radioactive type of hydrogen, that were below the Environmental Protection Agency's drinking water standards. But the amount exceeded what is allowed under Xcel's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. In reporting the incident to state and federal regulators on Thursday, Xcel said no elevated levels were detected in any other monitoring wells. The company also says there's no indication tritium has been released off the power plant site. Officials are investigating the source of the tritium.

Westinghouse Electric Company today announced that it has been awarded a contract to design, fabricate and install a new steam dryer for Xcel Energy's Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, a single-unit GE-designed Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) located 40 miles northwest of St. Paul, Minn. To execute this project, Westinghouse will employ its global BWR engineering workforce at multiple locations, as well as at Toshiba Corporation, Westinghouse's majority owner, in Japan.

For nearly 40 years, Minnesota has been getting much of its electricity from two nuclear power plants: one in Monticello and twin reactors at Prairie Island, 50 miles southeast of the Twin Cities. Power plants like these were initially licensed for forty years. The Monticello plant has been granted a license extension through 2030. And now, Xcel Energy is asking the government for permission to extend the life of its Prairie Island plant, increase the amount of power it generates, and store more nuclear waste on site.

A man working at Xcel Energy's nuclear generating plant in Monticello was injured and later died after the vehicle he was operating touched a high-voltage power line Wednesday morning, according to the Wright County Sheriff's Office.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the request of Nuclear Management Company, LLC (the licensee), to withdraw its March 31, 2008 (Agencywide Document Access and Management System Accession No. ML081010189) application, as supplemented by letters dated May 20, May 28, May 30, June 3, June 5, June 12, and June 25, 2008 (Accession Nos. ML081430494, ML081490639, ML081550504, ML081550640, ML081570467, ML081640435, and ML081770562) for proposed amendment to Renewed Facility Operating License No. DPR-22 for the Monticello Nuclear Generation Plant, located in Wright County, Minnesota.

Balloons representing more than 500 local residents who have battled cancer in recent years were released after a presentation by the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) about cancer rates in the Monticello area.

Well, it has been a long, expensive, painful wait - about half a lifetime for many of us in southeast Utah. But on April 30, 2008, the Dennison Mill on White Mesa (six miles south of Blanding) officially began milling uranium ore. It is the first time that has happened in the United States in decades.