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On a snowy day in December 1993, just months after Andy Weber began his diplomatic job at the U.S. Embassy in Almaty, Kazakhstan, he met with a tall, bullet-headed man he knew only as Col. Korbator. "Andy, let's take a walk," the colonel said. As they strolled through a dim apartment courtyard, Korbator handed Weber a piece of paper. Weber unfolded it. On the paper was written:

Finnish authorities dismissed talk Sunday that the Arctic Sea was bearing a cargo of nuclear material, as Russia and NATO joined forces in an international hunt for the missing vessel. Jukka Laaksonen, head of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, said firefighters conducted radiation tests on the ship -- last reported off Cape Verde -- at a port in Finland before it began a voyage full of intrigue.

Finnish officials have rejected claims that a missing Russian-manned freighter was carrying a 'secret nuclear cargo', as mystery surrounding the Arctic Sea's disappearance continues. Russia and NATO joined forces on Sunday in an international hunt for the ship that vanished from the radar after crossing the English Channel in late July. Jukka Laaksonen, Head of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, confirmed reports that firefighters had conducted radiation tests on the Arctic Sea before its departure from Finland.

Cleaning up the environment often creates waste, which in turn must be carefully handled, treated and/or disposed to make sure it doesn't hurt the environment again on the back end. Make sense? Anyway, there are seven cleanup projects under way at the Y-12 National Security Complex that are funded by the Recovery Act, and it's estimated those projects will generate something approaching 3 million cubic feet of waste (of various categories). Here's where the waste will be sent for disposal: * 803,708 cubic feet to Y-12's sanitary landfill. This waste is likely to be uncontaminated demolition rubble and the like. * 1,775,029 cubic feet to the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility. This is the CERCLA landfill just down the road from Y-12, and it's set up to receive low-level and mixed low-level radioactive wastes from Oak Ridge cleanup projects. * 222,376 cubic feet to Nevada Test Site. No details here, but the waste typically sent to Nevada is the hotter low-level waste that doesn't meant the waste-acceptance criteria at the Oak Ridge landfill.

The first shipment of nuclear waste byproduct has been delivered to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the southeastern corner of New Mexico. The Department of Energy said the shipment arrived safely early Friday morning. The DOE estimates that about 30-40 shipments will be sent from a facility in California to WIPP. The waste is a byproduct of the nation's nuclear defense program. It consists of tools, rags, protective clothing, sludge, soil and other materials contaminated with radioactive elements that have atomic numbers greater than uranium. The material arrives by truck in lead-lined casks certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Australia could see a five to tenfold increase of radioactive rail cargo if proposed uranium mines in South and Western Australia go ahead. Green Senator Scott Ludlum says rail cars carrying radioactive material are a concern for rail workers and communities on the line to Darwin. He's calling on communities across Australia to stand up against the expansion of uranium mining.

An accident that caused a fire in a truck carrying hazardous material briefly forced the evacuation of about 100 people in and around the Summers County community of Sandstone. Emergency dispatchers say the truck was involved in a crash with another vehicle early Sunday morning. State Police say the truck was carrying a container with about 32,000 pounds of the radioactive chemical compound called Uranium hexafluoride. After crews found the material's container to be undamaged, residents evacuated to Summers County Middle School were allowed to return to their homes. Dispatchers say no one was seriously injured in the crash.

Nearly 15,000 drums of depleted uranium oxide will be shipped from South Carolina for disposal in Utah under a contract awarded by the Department of Energy. The 14,800 drums of Savannah River Site waste will be disposed of at EnergySolutions Inc.'s facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. The shipments will take place over 14 months, although it was unclear Wednesday when they would start. The announcement, made by the Energy Department in mid-July, comes as EnergySolutions fights an effort to place a moratorium on the disposal of depleted uranium in Utah.

Nearly 15,000 drums of depleted uranium oxide will be shipped from South Carolina for disposal in Utah under a contract awarded by the Department of Energy. The 14,800 drums of Savannah River Site waste will be disposed of at EnergySolutions Inc.'s facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. The shipments will take place over 14 months, although it was unclear Wednesday when they would start. The announcement, made by the Energy Department in mid-July, comes as EnergySolutions fights an effort to place a moratorium on the disposal of depleted uranium in Utah.

Nearly 15,000 drums of depleted uranium oxide will be shipped from South Carolina for disposal in Utah under a contract awarded by the Department of Energy. The 14,800 drums of Savannah River Site waste will be disposed of at EnergySolutions Inc.'s facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. The shipments will take place over 14 months, although it was unclear Wednesday when they would start. The announcement, made by the Energy Department in mid-July, comes as EnergySolutions fights an effort to place a moratorium on the disposal of depleted uranium in Utah.

Authorities are trying to determine how a shipping crate labeled "radioactive" ended up today on a residential street in South L.A. Firefighters found minimal to background-level radiation in the 3-feet-by-3-feet container after they arrived this afternoon at 109th Street between Spring and Main streets. The package was not damaged nor were the contents leaking, said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city Fire Department. Before the radiation level had been determined, five people who had come in contact with the container were rinsed off and the area around it was cordoned off, he said. Humphrey said markings on the container will help investigators determine where it came from and where it should have been sent.

More trains filled with depleted uranium are coming to Utah. Even as state regulators consider a moratorium on new shipments of the radioactive material -- which becomes more hazardous over time -- the U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship another 14,800 barrels of it to the EnergySolutions Inc. disposal site in Tooele County. Part of the $1.6 billion in federal stimulus money for the Savannah River cleanup site in South Carolina will pay for rail cars filled with depleted uranium to be buried in Utah during the next 13 months. "This is exactly the situation we were hoping to prevent by asking the state Radiation Control Board to enact a moratorium on depleted uranium," said Christopher Thomas of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

More trains filled with depleted uranium are coming to Utah. Even as state regulators consider a moratorium on new shipments of the radioactive material -- which becomes more hazardous over time -- the U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship another 14,800 barrels of it to the EnergySolutions Inc. disposal site in Tooele County. Part of the $1.6 billion in federal stimulus money for the Savannah River cleanup site in South Carolina will pay for rail cars filled with depleted uranium to be buried in Utah during the next 13 months. "This is exactly the situation we were hoping to prevent by asking the state Radiation Control Board to enact a moratorium on depleted uranium," said Christopher Thomas of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

More trains filled with depleted uranium are coming to Utah. Even as state regulators consider a moratorium on new shipments of the radioactive material -- which becomes more hazardous over time -- the U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship another 14,800 barrels of it to the EnergySolutions Inc. disposal site in Tooele County. Part of the $1.6 billion in federal stimulus money for the Savannah River cleanup site in South Carolina will pay for rail cars filled with depleted uranium to be buried in Utah during the next 13 months. "This is exactly the situation we were hoping to prevent by asking the state Radiation Control Board to enact a moratorium on depleted uranium," said Christopher Thomas of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

CHINA has started building a railway to a remote desert region known as 'the sea of death", state media said Wednesday, a place once used as a test site for nuclear bombs. The 360-kilometre railroad from the China-Mongolian border to the Lop Nur area in the northwestern region of Xinjiang will help the nation in its quest for resources, the Xinhua news agency reported. It will improve access to potassium salt, an ingredient in some fertiliser products, and will also make it easier to reach important coal reserves in the region, according to the agency. But apart from that, the railroad, expected to be completed in two years, will also help open up one of China's most mysterious areas.

40 year old rusty spent nuclear fuel containers from Russia's abounded submarine base Gremikha were shipped to Murmansk this week. The voyage from Gremikha to Murmansk normally takes one day. This is the same route as the Russian retired submarine K-159 took when it sank northeast of the inlet to the Kola Bay in August 2003. The vessel which is sailing with the highly radioactive spent fuel this week is the 35 year old Serebryanka. The rusty spent nuclear fuel containers have been stored outdoor at Gremikha for 40 years, posing a grave radiation threat. They contain uranium fuel from some of the Soviet Union's first nuclear powered submarines, at that time were based at Gremikha. The submarines reloaded their deadly radioactive spent fuel to the onshore open-air storage site.

Spent nuclear fuel is being moved from a storage pool at the twin-reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to a new above-ground storage facility at the Central Coast facility. Pacific Gas and Electric, operator of the coastal San Luis Obispo County plant, says loading of the used nuclear fuel began Monday night. Eight containers of fuel in a storage pool will be moved during several months to the new interim facility, where they will be anchored to a 7 1/2-foot-thick concrete pad.

The company orchestrating one of the largest moving projects in Lancaster County history wants to talk to the public. Representatives from the France-based AREVA Inc. are scheduling meetings for the week of June 8 at the Conoy Township building, Columbia High School and Solanco High School to present information and answer questions about the company's plans to move two 510-ton steam generators through Lancaster County. The journey will begin in Port Deposit, Md., and end when the generators are delivered to the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in Dauphin County. The 70-mile move is expected to take about 20 days as 26-axle truck-and-trailer rigs hauling the generators creep along at about 3 mph. Overhead utility wires will have to be moved, temporary bridge bypasses will have to be built and traffic will have to be stopped. AREVA officials recognize the impact of the move on Lancaster County's roads and communities will be massive and so they want to "come talk about what impacts there might be and how we can minimize those impacts," said Denise Woernle, AREVA's manager of corporate communications.

Ships carrying nuclear waste from Italy are unlikely to unload their cargo in Charleston - if federal regulators allow the European refuse to be buried in the United States, officials with a nuclear services company say. Energy Solutions Inc. believes other ports will work better than Charleston, said Jill Sigal, the company's vice president for government relations. The company has previously said in federal documents that it intends to bring the material through either Charleston or New Orleans, but never said which port it preferred. Sigal declined to say whether that means New Orleans is the preferred site. "It's extremely, extremely unlikely that Charleston would be the port of entry," Sigal said. "We have some other ports for a variety of reasons that might (be) better." Earlier this month, a federal judge upheld the nuclear services company's bid to import 20,000 tons of Italian low-level waste. The next step is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision on whether to approve the permit.

A VESSEL carrying a major shipment of recycled nuclear fuel is expected to arrive in Japan as soon as Monday after its 70-day trip from France, local media reported. The convoy, which left Cherbourg in March to deliver the MOX fuel - a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium - is expected to arrive in the central port of Omaezaki to unload part of the shipment, Kyodo News reported. The business daily Nikkei in a similar report said that the convoy was due to arrive at the port 'as soon as Monday.' The Pacific Heron, a specially adapted ship with a British police team on board to head off possible hijackers, is then expected to unload fuel at two other ports adjacent to nuclear plants in southwestern Japan, the reports said.

On a 2-2 vote, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was unable to reach a decision on the staff's recommendation to issue a final rule expanding the number and type of radioactive sources covered under the National Source Tracking System (NSTS). "I appreciate the effort Commissioner Lyons has dedicated to the successful implementation of the current National Source Tracking System and the diligent work the NRC staff did to prepare a draft final rule to further expand it," Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko said. "Although the Commission did not approve the expansion of this system today, I look forward to working with my fellow Commissioners to continue to improve on this important piece of our radioactive source security efforts." The final rule would have expanded the NSTS to include Category 3 sources, requiring additional licensees to report information on the manufacture, transfer, receipt, disassembly and disposal of these radioactive sources to the NSTS. These sources include fixed industrial gauges (level gauges, conveyor gauges, thickness gauges, blast furnace gauges, dredger gauges, and pipe gauges); well-logging devices; medium and low-dose-range brachytherapy; and certain radiography devices. Additional details on the proposal can be found on NRC's Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/secys/2009/.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking input from "potential parties" before proceeding with EnergySolutions' application for a license to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy. The order was sent to today to the parties, including those who petitioned for a public hearing on the license application, following last week's ruling by a Federal Court that determine that the Northwest Compact has no authority to restrict out-of-region waste sent to the EnergySolutions landfill at Clive, Utah. The NRC had held the license proceedings in abeyance pending that ruling, and now is asking parties for their views on how the commission should proceed. They have until June 19 to file their views with the commission. The filings should be no longer than 15 pages, the order said. The potential parties include the Utah attorney general, the U.S. State Department, the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and others.

An armed cargo ship carrying recycled nuclear fuel from France reached Japan on Monday. Environmental group Greenpeace says the ship's load of plutonium would be enough to make 225 nuclear weapons. A small group of local residents and anti-nuclear activists protested at the ship's arrival. "Using the mixed oxide, MOX fuel at the nuclear plant here is suicidal," said local activist Yoshika Shiratori in Omoaezaki fishing port on Japan's Pacific coast. "Once a big earthquake hits, there is no doubt this entire bay, the Pacific Ocean and all the seas around Japan would become contaminated," he told the AFP news agency.