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Notice of Renewal of Certificates of Compliance GDP-1 and GDP-2 for the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, Paducah and Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plants, Paducah, KY and Portsmouth, OH ACTION: Notice and issuance of a Director's Decision renewing the Certificates of Compliance for the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) allowing continued operation of the gaseous diffusion plants (GDPs), at Paducah, KY, and Portsmouth, OH.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

Job-starved southern Ohioans are being promised a shiny new nuclear plant. But the announcement has come with a cruel reminder, and the scent of a desperate hoax. Using the gargantuan corpse of the shuttered Portsmouth-Piketon uranium enrichment plant as his backdrop, U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) punctuated his enthusiastic endorsement the new nuke by proclaiming that, with his support, the US government has paid thousands of Ohio workers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the health damage they suffered from being irradiated while working there. What was he thinking?

)I have lost a lot of sleep lately thinking about the nuclear train that is headed to Utah. During that time I have tried to think of something that I could do to help reverse the path that we are now on. The only thing that I could think of is to tell you my story and hopefully it will only be one of many, many Utahans putting a voice this issue. I know the effects of past radiation policies. I lost my father to leukemia after the nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's that blanketed Utah. This has affected my entire life since I was 12 years old. I also fought my own battle with cancer in 1995. Ironically, it was radiation that saved me then BUT oh what a price I have paid! I was never really afraid of hell until I faced the effects of going through that treatment. The effects still linger even after 14 years. If I had known the true short-term and long-term effects of radiation treatment then, I would not have gone through with having the treatment. We should be asking what Utah gets out of the Energy Solutions deal to become the nuclear dumping ground for the world. How can we place short term gains and profits by gambling the entire future of Utah?

)I have lost a lot of sleep lately thinking about the nuclear train that is headed to Utah. During that time I have tried to think of something that I could do to help reverse the path that we are now on. The only thing that I could think of is to tell you my story and hopefully it will only be one of many, many Utahans putting a voice this issue. I know the effects of past radiation policies. I lost my father to leukemia after the nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's that blanketed Utah. This has affected my entire life since I was 12 years old. I also fought my own battle with cancer in 1995. Ironically, it was radiation that saved me then BUT oh what a price I have paid! I was never really afraid of hell until I faced the effects of going through that treatment. The effects still linger even after 14 years. If I had known the true short-term and long-term effects of radiation treatment then, I would not have gone through with having the treatment. We should be asking what Utah gets out of the Energy Solutions deal to become the nuclear dumping ground for the world. How can we place short term gains and profits by gambling the entire future of Utah?

"Buried Remains of Huntington Pilot Plant Still Classified Portsmouth, OH (HNN) - Members of the Site Specific Decontamination & Decommissioning Subcommittee heard a proposal for "asset recovery" from various parcels of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. "Shall we try to preserve an asset," asked William Murphie, Manager of the Department of Energy's Portsmouth / Paducah Project Office. He referred to possible construction of a melting facility to recover metals such as nickel, copper, steel and aluminum from contaminated buildings and equipment. As explained, the contaminated items would be melted into ingots and stored on site at Piketon until final disposition decisions are made. One option would be a recycling use of the materials --- which would contain traces of radiological metals such as uranium --- for use only at Department of Energy facilities. "

The senators say increasing the annual investment in DOE nuclear cleanup sites would create 10,000 jobs at "shovel-ready" projects in New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho and Washington and provide new land for energy parks, or coalitions of regional energy experts to develop advanced energy research and technology. At the Mound Site, the 306-acre site is about 95 percent complete, but short $10 million to clean up one acre and allow the city to take ownership.

I just completed reading your excellent editorial "Nuclear Waste - Radioactivity In The Backyard" [Monday] and said to myself: "Oh, no! Please tell me that Polk County will not be considered to be the dumping ground for nuclear waste in Florida." Those who say "It has to be in somebody's backyard" are unanimously those whose backyards are not being considered for garbage dumps - whether it's commercial, household or even nuclear.

Officials say they are running out of money to build world's most efficient centrifuges at a cost of $3.5 billion. The company building the multi-billion-dollar American Centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in the south central Ohio community of Piketon has applied to the Energy Department for federal loan guarantees amidst spiraling costs. A spokeswoman for USEC Inc. declined to specify the size of the loan guarantee the Bethesda, Md., company is seeking, but the department has been authorized by Congress to issue up to $2 billion in loan guarantees for advanced facilities on the "front end" of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment plants.

A longtime lobbyist against the nuclear power industry while living in New Jersey, Springdale resident Kathleen Kavarra Corr said she has been a little jolted by recent rumors of nuclear power generation and waste storage in Utah. Advertisement "My initial reaction is 'oh geez,'" Corr said Wednesday, after a meeting on the subject in Springdale. "Why would they head down that road when we have so much sun and wind?" Corr and the majority of the audience at the event, a meeting hosted by the environmental advocacy group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah - HEAL Utah - said they were hoping the state could find alternatives to the nuclear future some have envisioned.

Nuclear, coal, natural gas - they're all just different ways of heating water. But oh, those differences. As Luminant and anti-nuclear activists duke it out during the next few years over Luminant's proposed expansion of its Comanche Peak nuclear plant, the jargon of nuclear power isn't likely to penetrate the public consciousness without help. In the interest of general enlightenment, here's the first of an occasional series we might call Nuclear Power 101. Today's topic: Catching up with nuclear reactor designs.

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week released a request for proposals (RFP) for a contractor to perform Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Operations at the two DUF6 conversion facilities at Piketon and Paducah, Kentucky. The procurement will be for a single contractor to be awarded two cost-plus-award-fee contracts. The contract period will be for five years with a total estimated cost for the two contracts of $350-450 million. These facilities will convert DOE's inventory of DUF6, located at the Portsmouth and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plants, into a stable chemical form that will be acceptable for transportation, reuse or disposal. The contractor will also provide cylinder surveillance and maintenance of the DUF6, low-enrichment uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and natural assay UF6 as well as empty the cylinders that store the DUF6 in a safe and environmentally acceptable manner. The contracts are expected to be awarded in 2010

"The long and drawn-out process of gathering environmental and regulatory information for a building permit occupy plans for a nuclear power plant that could be in the future at the site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon. The plant shut down in 2001 after nearly 50 years of turning out weapons-grade uranium. The loss of 900 jobs was felt throughout the southern Ohio communities surrounding the plant. It's been just over a year now since officials from four of the nation's biggest energy companies came together and announced formation of an alliance to pursue the development of America's first clean energy park at the site, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. "

"A cracked containment lid at a nuclear power plant in Ohio needs replacing, and a new one will be installed in 2011, plant officials say. FirstEnergy Corp. has purchased a replacement lid for the Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo, Ohio, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Monday. The plant has been closed since Feb. 28 for work to repair cracks in its lid. Such cracks can allow radioactive coolant into the facilities containment building, the newspaper said."

"Accelerated clean-up work at the Department of Energy's Piketon site is moving along well, officials said, following a $118.2 million infusion in federal stimulus money designed to speed up the process of decontamination and decommissioning, environmental remediation and waste management of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The removal of contaminated groundwater from a plume on the east side of the plant is moving along better than planned, DOE Project Manager Bill Murphie said at a public open house Thursday evening. "We've seen a cost savings there, and because of that, we've been able to do more groundwater removal than we initially thought with the (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) money," Murphie said."