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After 10 years of sifting through thousands of pages of classified records and overcoming secrecy obstacles at the nuclear weapons lab, independent investigators have provided the first rough estimates of radioactive and toxic releases from Los Alamos National Laboratory dating back to its earliest operations and the potential health impact of the nation's first atomic bomb blast on ranchers and other nearby residents in New Mexico. Investigators for the Los Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and Assessment (LAHDRA) project released a draft final report in late June that-while far from definitive in its conclusions-said there was persuasive evidence from spotty, decades-old emissions monitoring data that radioactive releases during Los Alamos' early years were so significant that they could dwarf the cumulative releases from all of the Energy Department's other early nuclear weapons production sites. In particular, the researchers said that although the lab did not monitor emissions from many of its earliest plutonium processing facilities, fragmentary records-especially "industrial hygiene," or worker safety, reports from 1955 and 1956-suggest plutonium releases in the late 1940s and early 1950s were much higher than has been acknowledged by the government to date.

"A group of Japanese researchers say that a total of 15,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances is estimated to have been released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea. Researchers at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Kyoto University and other institutes made the calculation of radioactivity released from late March through April. The combined amount of iodine-131 and cesium-137 is more than triple the figure of 4,720 terabecquerels earlier estimated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator. The utility only calculated the radioactivity from substances released from the plant into the sea in April and May. The researchers say the estimated amount of radioactivity includes a large amount that was first released into the air but entered the sea after coming down in the rain. They say they need to determine the total amount of radioactivity released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant in order to accurately assess the impact of the disaster on the sea."

A federal judge ordered the US Justice Department to release significant portions of statements former vice president Dick Cheney made to the FBI about the Valerie Plame case. The judge dismissed objections brought by the previous George W. Bush administration to the release of records about the leak of Plame's name to the media, which compromised her position as a covert CIA officer. The Bush administration had claimed it could withhold the documents because their release could hamper the cooperation of White House officials in future probes. The public interest group that filed the lawsuit in 2008 stressed "the particular urgency to inform the public about the role vice president Cheney played in the leak of Mrs Wilson's covert identity, and the basis for the decision not to prosecute him."

A federal judge ordered the US Justice Department to release significant portions of statements former vice president Dick Cheney made to the FBI about the Valerie Plame case. The judge dismissed objections brought by the previous George W. Bush administration to the release of records about the leak of Plame's name to the media, which compromised her position as a covert CIA officer. The Bush administration had claimed it could withhold the documents because their release could hamper the cooperation of White House officials in future probes. The public interest group that filed the lawsuit in 2008 stressed "the particular urgency to inform the public about the role vice president Cheney played in the leak of Mrs Wilson's covert identity, and the basis for the decision not to prosecute him."

A public health assessment by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded there were "no public health hazards" from airborne releases at the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (also known as the K-25 Site) and the early-era S-50 facility at the Oak Ridge site. The full report is available online and at local libraries. The agency is receiving public comment through Feb. 20. In a release distributed to the news media, the ATSDR said: "The study looked at the atmospheric releases of radioactive and nonradioactive hazardous substances from the K-25/ S-50 facilities between 1944 and 1995 when the facility closed. After evaluating potential chronic and acute exposure to ionizing radiation and uranium releases, ATSDR found those doses were not expected to cause adverse health effects for people living near the ORGDP. The ORGDP is currently known as the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP).

More than 400 million pages of Cold War-era documents could be declassified as the federal government responds to President Barack Obama's order to rethink the way it protects the nation's secrets. Among the changes announced Tuesday by Obama is a requirement that every record be released eventually and that federal agencies review how and why they mark documents classified or deny the release of historical records. A National Declassification Center at the National Archives will be established to assist them and help clear a backlog of the Cold War records by Dec. 31, 2013. Obama also reversed a decision by President George W. Bush that had allowed the intelligence community to block the release of a specific document, even if an interagency panel decided the information wouldn't harm national security.

More than 400 million pages of Cold War-era documents could be declassified as the federal government responds to President Barack Obama's order to rethink the way it protects the nation's secrets. Among the changes announced Tuesday by Obama is a requirement that every record be released eventually and that federal agencies review how and why they mark documents classified or deny the release of historical records. A National Declassification Center at the National Archives will be established to assist them and help clear a backlog of the Cold War records by Dec. 31, 2013. Obama also reversed a decision by President George W. Bush that had allowed the intelligence community to block the release of a specific document, even if an interagency panel decided the information wouldn't harm national security.

The Vermont Supreme Court has upheld a 2008 Environmental Court decision to allow Entergy Vermont Yankee to release thermal discharge water into the Connecticut River that is expected to raise the temperature of the river by one degree. And while environmental groups that argued against the release say the decision will adversely affect aquatic life, Entergy officials celebrated the decision by the state's high court. "We are very pleased with this decision," Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said after the Supreme Court issued its ruling Friday. "Vermont Yankee is a responsible steward of the river and this small leeway granted on temperature limit will help ensure the plant's reliability output during the warmer summer months for the region's electric consumers." Yankee plans on releasing the warmer water into the river this summer, Williams said. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources first granted Yankee a permit to increase the temperature of the Connecticut River near the plant by one degree in 2004.

The Vermont Supreme Court has upheld a 2008 Environmental Court decision to allow Entergy Vermont Yankee to release thermal discharge water into the Connecticut River that is expected to raise the temperature of the river by one degree. And while environmental groups that argued against the release say the decision will adversely affect aquatic life, Entergy officials celebrated the decision by the state's high court. "We are very pleased with this decision," Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said after the Supreme Court issued its ruling Friday. "Vermont Yankee is a responsible steward of the river and this small leeway granted on temperature limit will help ensure the plant's reliability output during the warmer summer months for the region's electric consumers." Yankee plans on releasing the warmer water into the river this summer, Williams said. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources first granted Yankee a permit to increase the temperature of the Connecticut River near the plant by one degree in 2004.

A coalition of environmental groups that opposed the relicensing of the Oyster Creek Generating Station issued a statement accusing the power plant's owners of not taking corrective action that may have prevented leakage of tritium last spring. The coalition was also critical of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when it referenced the recent release of Oyster Creek's root cause analysis report of a tritium leak that occurred in April, eight days after the power plant was relicensed by the NRC to operate for another 20 years. A more recent incident of tritium leakage took place Aug. 25. The root cause analysis report, which was released in a redacted form, was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear. In addition, NRC released e-mail exchanges surrounding the coalition's inquiries regarding buried pipes.

A coalition of environmental groups that opposed the relicensing of the Oyster Creek Generating Station issued a statement accusing the power plant's owners of not taking corrective action that may have prevented leakage of tritium last spring. The coalition was also critical of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when it referenced the recent release of Oyster Creek's root cause analysis report of a tritium leak that occurred in April, eight days after the power plant was relicensed by the NRC to operate for another 20 years. A more recent incident of tritium leakage took place Aug. 25. The root cause analysis report, which was released in a redacted form, was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear. In addition, NRC released e-mail exchanges surrounding the coalition's inquiries regarding buried pipes.

"Resource will help workers more accurately determine chemical exposure level, get compensation faster Thursday, July 15,2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) announced that a new online database is available for former Hanford workers whose health has been adversely affected on the jobsite to help them determine the extent of their exposure to toxic chemicals and get more information about related illnesses. Compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy, the online database, called the Site Exposure Matrix (SEM), is available to former nuclear weapons facilities employees covered by Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICP). After its May 10 announcement of the database's planned launch, DOE released the SEMs for 48 nuclear sites quickly but did not immediately release others, including one for the Hanford site. On June 25, 2010, Senators Cantwell and Murray sent a letter to DOE and the Department of Labor requesting the speedy release of a Site Exposure Matrix for Hanford. Within days, DOE responded that it has approved the release of the Hanford SEM along with matrices for 20 other sites."

In the context of disposal of radioactive waste, a performance assessment is a quantitative evaluation of potential releases of radioactivity from a disposal facility into the environment, and assessment of the resultant radiological doses. The term performance assessment can refer to the process, model, or collection of models used to estimate future doses to human receptors. Typically, a performance assessment is conducted to demonstrate whether a disposal facility has met its performance objectives. In general, a performance assessment considers the following factors: * Selected scenario (specific features and processes at the disposal facility and in the surrounding area, such as the location of the potential release, location and general characteristics of the receptors, and applicable transport pathways through which radionuclides might reach the environment and pose a threat to the selected receptor groups) * Performance of the cask or other engineered barrier system used to store low-level waste, limit the influx of water, and reduce the release of radionuclides * Release and migration of radionuclides through the engineered barrier system and geosphere (those deep-underground portions of the disposal facility where human contact is generally not assumed to occur) * Radiological dose(s) to the selected receptor group(s)

The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan released a preliminary calculation Monday saying that the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been releasing up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials per hour at some point after a massive quake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan on March 11. The disclosure prompted the government to consider raising the accident's severity level to 7, the worst on an international scale, from the current 5, government sources said. The level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale has only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. The current provisional evaluation of 5 is at the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979. According to an evaluation by the INES, level 7 accidents correspond with a release into the external environment radioactive materials equal to more than tens of thousands terabecquerels of radioactive iodine 131. One terabecquerel equals 1 trillion becquerels. Haruki Madarame, chairman of the commission, which is a government panel, said it has estimated that the release of 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials per hour continued for several hours.

"A new report released today by Beyond Nuclear - Leak First, Fix Later: Uncontrolled and Unmonitored Releases from Nuclear Power Plants - finds that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is ignoring its oversight and enforcement responsibilities at the nation's increasingly leaky, uninspected and unmaintained nuclear power plants. The report shows that despite agency efforts initiated in 1979 to prevent uncontrolled radioactive releases to groundwater, the NRC is capitulating to an industry decision to take almost three more years before announcing an action plan. One reactor operator has committed to complete proactive corrective actions by the end of 2010 to prevent recurring radioactive leaks, raising concern over why the rest of the industry needs so much more time. "The NRC has relinquished its oversight of leaking reactors to an industry where profits have been more important than public health," said report author, Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project for Beyond Nuclear, a national organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland. "Instead of enforcing its regulations to prevent leaks, NRC is entrusting the nuclear industry with 'voluntarily' corrective actions that won't be announced for years to come.""

"The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that it soon will release to the public a large portion of a greatly enhanced version of its Site Exposure Matrices website. The new version will contain more data and provide additional ways to look for information regarding toxic substances at U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilities covered under Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. This more robust version of the SEM can be made public as a result of an Energy Department decision to release the more detailed information on 48 of the 116 Energy Department weapons facilities, as well as for all uranium mines, mills and ore buying stations. The enhanced system is expected to be available online at http://www.sem.dol.gov within the next month. The Departments of Labor and Energy are working together to release the remaining 68 Part E sites within the coming year. "I am proud to announce the new and expanded version of the SEM website," said Shelby Hallmark, director of the Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs. "We have been working with the Department of Energy to make as much of it available to the public as that department felt could be done without risking national security. For this first group of sites, the public now will be able to access online the same type of data our claims examiners use to evaluate possible exposures and causal links to specific illnesses.""

"The Labor Department has released more information on toxic substances at many of the government's historic nuclear weapons facilities, and that info is expected to make it easier for sick nuclear workers and their families and advocates to research claims for compensation under EEOICPA (Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act). What's being termed an "enhanced" Site Exposure Matrices website is available by clicking here. The Alliance for Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups issued a press release saying it was "encouraged" by the release of the exposure data, which has been used to rule on some of the claims under Part E of the program. The group is pushing for an independent oversight board to evaluate the accuracy of aspects of the proram, including the Site Exposure Matrices."

Plan to Radically Hike Post-Accident Radiation in Food & Water Sparks Hot Dissent Washington, DC - A plan awaiting approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after "radiological incidents" is drawing vigorous objections from agency experts, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At issue is the acceptable level of public health risk following a radiation release, whether an accidental spill or a "dirty bomb" attack. The radiation arm of EPA, called the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air (ORIA), has prepared an update of the 1992 "Protective Action Guides" (PAG) governing radiation protection decisions for both short-term and long-term cleanup standards. Other divisions within EPA contend the ORIA plan geometrically raises allowable exposure to the public. For example, as Charles Openchowski of EPA's Office of General Counsel wrote in a January 23, 2009 e-mail to ORIA: "[T]his guidance would allow cleanup levels that exceed MCLs [Maximum Contamination Limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act] by a factor of 100, 1000, and in two instances 7 million and there is nothing to prevent those levels from being the final cleanup achieved (i.e., it's not confined to immediate response of emergency phase)."

"Bruce Power is investigating what caused a "small spill" of radioactive heavy water, which forced workers to evacuate Unit 6 about 3 a.m. Monday. Workers were conducting maintenance at that Bruce B reactor, which has been down for planned service and inspections since May 14, when a spill occurred, Bruce Power reported in a news release Monday. An alarm sounded after the equivalent of a "barrel" of the reactor moderator water spilled, Bruce Power spokesman John Peevers said in an interview Tuesday. The spill occurred "as part of" maintenance activities according to a news release posted to Bruce Power's website. "The spill was immediately isolated and routed to a collection tank," the release said. All workers were allowed to return a few hours later, Peevers added. "

"There were demands last night for the release from prison of the man known as the Israeli nuclear whistleblower after it emerged he was being held in solitary confinement in the same section of prison as some of Israel's most notorious criminals. Mordechai Vanunu, who spent 18 years in jail for revealing details of Israel's nuclear arsenal in 1986, was sent back to prison for three months in May after being found guilty of unauthorised meetings with foreign nationals. Vanunu, who became a cause celebre for human rights activists around the world and was elected rector of the University of Glasgow in absentia, is being held in Ayalon Prison in central Israel. Amnesty International is calling for Vanunu's immediate release and his brother, Meir, contacted the Sunday Herald to express fears over Vanunu's wellbeing after being the first person to visit him in seven weeks. In an email, Meir Vanunu said: "I found him to be all right in general, but it was a depressing experience. The disturbing main fact is he is held in the hardest prison section there is in all Israeli prisons. It has the most notorious criminals in the country, well known hard murder cases and so on. Of course, there is no justification for doing this to Mordechai and it is only a continuous vindictiveness and harassment by the secret services and not serving any so-called 'security' interests.""

"A federal class action claims that leaks from two nuclear processing plants poisoned dozens of people in the Kiskiminetas Valley and killed 10 of them. More than 35 named plaintiffs claim that Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, B&W Technical Services and Atlantic Richfield Co. "sought to prevent details about their operations from reaching workers, [the class] or surrounding community" though the defendants were "aware of the fact that they were releasing toxic and radioactive materials into the air, water and soil." The plants at issue are in the Borough of Apollo and Parks Township. The class claims the plants' operators "opted not to take sufficient remedial measures to eliminate or abate emissions and releases." This led to a "casual attitude towards environmental and health safety, even though they were aware of the health risks posed to by such releases," according to the 53-page complaint."

Jan. 21 -- On Jan. 15, in his second to last full day in office, outgoing EPA Acting Administrator Marcus Peacock signed off on new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) for radioactive releases. They would permit radioactive concentrations in drinking water hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of times higher than EPA's longstanding standards. Because it takes a few days after approval for such matters to be published in the Federal Register and be official, publication wasn't achieved before the Inauguration. Unless the Obama acts quickly, however, they will be published in the next few days. The Committee to Bridge the Gap (CBG) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) today called on the new Obama Administration to pull back the PAGs before they are published in the Federal Register. Read the CBG-PEER news release. A detailed report by Committee to Bridge the Gap reveals, radionuclide by radionuclide, the astronomical concentrations of radioactive contamination in drinking water proposed, which are orders of magnitude higher than EPA's longstanding drinking water limits. Scores of organizations and individuals in October sent a letter to then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson strenuously objecting to plans to greatly increase permissible public exposures from a wide range of events resulting in release of radioactivity. The last-minute Bush Administration action would publish for public review and comment only about a third of the actual PAG text (see pre-publication draft here). The full, unexpurgated internal confidential EPA draft can be read here. Both were initially obtained by the trade publication Inside EPA. Previous correspondence criticizing the related Dept. of Homeland Security's "Dirty Bomb" Protective Action Guides - Relaxed Cleanup Standards can be viewed here and here. For more information, contact Dan Hirsch at 831-336-8003 or email: contact.cbg@gmail.com

Radioactive materials from nuclear weapons production sites are being dumped into regular landfills, and are available for recycling and resale. The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) has tracked the Department of Energy's (DOE) release of radioactive scrap, concrete, equipment, asphalt, chemicals, soil, and more, to unaware and unprepared recipients such as landfills, commercial businesses, and recreation areas. Under the current system, the DOE releases contaminated materials directly, sells them at auctions or through exchanges, or sends the materials to processors who can release them from radioactive controls. The recycling of these materials-for reuse in the production of everyday household and personal items such as zippers, toys, furniture, and automobiles, or to build roads, schools, and playgrounds-is increasingly common. The NIRS report, "Out of Control on Purpose: DOE's Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products," tracks the laws, methods, and justifications used by the DOE to expedite the mandatory cleanup of the environmental legacy being created by the nation's nuclear weapons program and government-sponsored nuclear energy research. One of the largest and most technically complex environmental cleanup programs in the world, the effort includes cleanup of 114 sites across the country to be completed by the end of 2008.

Vermont lawmakers are still worried about the state Department of Health's decision to change the way radiation from Vermont Yankee is measured. A special legislative panel heard testimony Thursday as it weighs whether to force the Health Department to revisit the way it now calculates the releases. Advertisement William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Health Department, says the Vernon nuclear plant releases 30 percent more radiation now than it did before boosting its power production by 20 percent in 2006. The releases are still within state limits, however. Rep. Richard Marek, D-Newfane, says the panel may require the Health Department to go through the regulatory process some lawmakers say was ignored last year.