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The Department of Veterans Affairs yesterday apologized repeatedly for a prostate-cancer program that gave incorrect radiation doses to veterans for six years at its main Philadelphia hospital. At the same time, officials from the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and the Veterans Health Administration mounted a vigorous defense against charges by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they had apparently violated eight regulations in the medical use of radioactive materials. In a hearing that was often pointed, VA officials also withdrew their own previous estimates of the number of patients who were affected, asserting that the mistakes were far less common than previously believed.

The Department of Veterans Affairs yesterday apologized repeatedly for a prostate-cancer program that gave incorrect radiation doses to veterans for six years at its main Philadelphia hospital. At the same time, officials from the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and the Veterans Health Administration mounted a vigorous defense against charges by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they had apparently violated eight regulations in the medical use of radioactive materials. In a hearing that was often pointed, VA officials also withdrew their own previous estimates of the number of patients who were affected, asserting that the mistakes were far less common than previously believed.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on its evaluation of the environmental impacts of issuing a Combined License (COL) for a third nuclear reactor at the North Anna site in Louisa County, Va., about 40 miles northwest of Richmond. The preliminary evaluation is contained in NUREG-1917, "Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Combined License for North Anna Nuclear Power Station Unit 3." The draft report supplements the EIS developed for an Early Site Permit (ESP) at North Anna. The staff issued the North Anna ESP in November 2007, resolving many environmental issues related to the impacts of a potential additional reactor at the site. The latest evaluation focuses on additional environmental impact information contained in Dominion's COL application. The NRC staff also considered public input gathered during an earlier comment period, including at a public meeting on April 16, 2008. The NRC will discuss the latest evaluation in a public meeting Tuesday, Feb. 3 in Mineral, Va., and will accept written comments until March 20.

"A $437,000 study being conducted by the city of Virginia Beach, Va. will examine what might happen to the water quality in Lake Gaston and Kerr Lake if a proposed uranium mine in Chatham, Va. were struck by a Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) storm. "The state is attempting to get a study going through the National Academy of Science," said Virginia Beach Director of Public Works Thomas Leahy. "But that study will not look at site specific issues or do any modeling of possible catastrophic events." Leahy said the study being conducted by Virginia Beach is designed to supplement the work of the National Academy of Science by looking at what would happen if a major storm flooded the proposed uranium mining site and washed radioactive materials downstream."

Civil Disobedience in Lake Anna, VA is only the beginning of the end of the dirty, lethal nuclear power plant push in the US. What follows is a compilation of information about resistance efforts at North Anna Nuclear Power Plant in VA. Thinking about this bold action certainly gives one pause to consider... What might it actually *take* to stop the increased toxic, radioactive poisoning and contamination of America? Deep down in my gut, I strongly suspect heartfelt letters and petitions addressed to corporate and federal nukers alone just ain't gonna cut it. The NRC is going gung-ho in re-licensing these reactors way past their "useful" [sic] lives, and there are no indications at all that all 34 new reactor applications, with many more on the horizon, given the proper financing... won't also be slid on through.

It and the Veterans Affairs Department papered over cancer treatment errors. When news broke of the bungled radiation treatments given to prostate cancer patients at the Philadelphia VA hospital, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was quick to deflect responsibility. The agency said it learned of the problems only in May 2008 and then moved "aggressively and decisively" to correct them. The Department of Veterans Affairs took a similar line. Testifying before a Senate committee in June, acting VA Undersecretary for Health Gerald Cross expressed regret that "this problem went undetected for nearly six years." But the NRC's own records tell a different story. Documents readily accessible on its Web site show it knew of Dr. Gary Kao's pattern of errors in 2003, saw it recur in 2005, and did nothing about it until 2008. Far from "undetected," this problem was papered over by the two agencies. The veterans with the greatest grievance are therefore those treated after 2005. They had no way of knowing what the NRC had learned not once, but twice: that Kao, despite his good intentions, had no business implanting radioactive seeds in anyone.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission manned Incident Response Centers in Atlanta and Rockville, Md., Wednesday night, dispatched its resident inspector and called in criticality safety experts to monitor an alert declared at B&W Nuclear Operations Group in Lynchburg, Va. An alert is the lowest level of NRC emergency classifications for fuel facilities such as B&W. The NRC staff continued to monitor the incident, which began at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday until its successful resolution at 12:35 a.m. Thursday. B&W staff activated the facility's Emergency Operations Center after identifying a potential criticality issue in the Uranium Recovery area. A criticality can occur when highly enriched uranium comes together in sufficient quantity or in a container of correct shape to initiate a chain reaction resulting in either a "burst" or a sustained release of radiation.

"The prostate cancer program at the Veterans Affairs Department's medical center in Philadelphia, where 97 patients were given an incorrect radiation dose, went four years without a peer review or quality assessment, the agency's internal watchdog said Monday. The inspector general for the Veterans Affairs Department also found that computer problems kept several patients under treatment for cancer from receiving a check to make sure they received the correct dose. The inspector general recommended that standardized procedures be implemented throughout the VA. It also said the agency should follow-up to ensure patients who received too low of a dose receive appropriate care."

"On March 31, retired Sgt. Hermogenes Marrero was told during a visit to the Veterans Affairs (VA) outpatient clinic in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, that he didn't have cancer - or at least, his official VA computer file no longer showed any record of cancer. But Marrero was not relieved. He had been diagnosed twice before with colon cancer and suffers today from a dozen other illnesses, including Lou Gehrig's disease, failing vision, a lung condition that keeps him on oxygen around the clock, not to mention tumors throughout his body. The terminally ill and wheelchair-bound, 57-year-old veteran immediately suspected that the U.S. government had manipulated his medical record."

"A study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia is moving forward. Officials say Virginia Tech's Center for Coal and Energy Research has signed a contract with the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council for the study. The first phase of the study will focuses on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining. The study's fieldwork will begin this summer and last through the fall of 2011. Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit in Pittsylvania County. The company will pay for the first phase of the study through Virginia Tech. Before uranium could be mined in Virginia, the General Assembly would have to lift a ban that has been in place since 1982. The study is a first step to lifting that ban. "

Nuclear power plants are being pushed as part of climate-change legislation. But the focus should be on renewable power sources, which are getting cheaper and don't produce radioactive waste. As the Senate debates climate legislation that could reinvent the country's energy infrastructure, it is richly ironic that lawmakers who consider themselves rock-ribbed fiscal conservatives are among the strongest backers of nuclear plants -- a vastly expensive, inefficient and dangerous source of energy that requires massive taxpayer bailouts. Senate Republicans and many moderate Democrats are seeking to lard up prospective climate and energy bills with billions of dollars in loan guarantees and other subsidies for nuclear power, even though it makes no sense as a solution to climate change and is a terrible option from an economic, environmental and national-security standpoint. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose bipartisan effort to restructure the cap-and-trade climate bill (which Republicans like to deride as "cap and tax") offers its only hope of passage in the Senate this year, signaled their intent to add more nuclear pork to the bill in a recent Op-Ed article. Meanwhile, Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) recently introduced their own alternative climate bill calling for up to $100 billion in clean-energy loan guarantees, most of which would end up going to nuclear plants.

Nuclear power plants are being pushed as part of climate-change legislation. But the focus should be on renewable power sources, which are getting cheaper and don't produce radioactive waste. As the Senate debates climate legislation that could reinvent the country's energy infrastructure, it is richly ironic that lawmakers who consider themselves rock-ribbed fiscal conservatives are among the strongest backers of nuclear plants -- a vastly expensive, inefficient and dangerous source of energy that requires massive taxpayer bailouts. Senate Republicans and many moderate Democrats are seeking to lard up prospective climate and energy bills with billions of dollars in loan guarantees and other subsidies for nuclear power, even though it makes no sense as a solution to climate change and is a terrible option from an economic, environmental and national-security standpoint. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose bipartisan effort to restructure the cap-and-trade climate bill (which Republicans like to deride as "cap and tax") offers its only hope of passage in the Senate this year, signaled their intent to add more nuclear pork to the bill in a recent Op-Ed article. Meanwhile, Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) recently introduced their own alternative climate bill calling for up to $100 billion in clean-energy loan guarantees, most of which would end up going to nuclear plants.

Washington » A 137-year-old exemption that allows companies to extract hard-rock minerals from public lands without paying royalties could cost the nation $1.6 billion during the next decade, says a new report by the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining. To reverse that exemption, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., introduced legislation Tuesday that would treat the mineral-extraction companies the same as coal, oil and gas industries, which pay a percentage royalty for using public lands. "Given our current economic crisis and the empty state of our national treasury, it is ludicrous to be allowing this outmoded law to continue to exempt these lucrative mining activities from paying a fair return to the American people," Rahall said in a statement.

Members of a state commission preparing to oversee a study of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County were urged by area residents last night to make sure the study fully addresses the health effects related to mining the nuclear fuel. Residents also vowed to fight any legislative attempt to use the study to overturn a 27-year-old statewide moratorium on uranium mining. "This subject is near and dear to our hearts -- it affects our loved ones, our land, our water," said Jack Dunavant, chairman of Southside Concerned Citizens, at Chatham High School before a crowd of about 450, most of whom were opposed to uranium mining. "If Richmond tries to shove this down our throat, we will fight to the bitter end, till the last man falls."

The sale of Erwin-based Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., to NOG-Erwin Holdings, Inc. (NOG), a newly-formed subsidiary of the Lynchburg, Va.-based Babcock & Wilcox Company, was finalized the last day of 2008. Jud Simmons, public affairs manager for the Babcock & Wilcox Company, confirmed during a Friday telephone interview that the transaction was finalized Dec. 31, although he said a formal announcement of the deal was not expected to be made until Monday. License Transfer Approved

The sale of Nuclear Fuel Services to a Virginia-based company could be finalized before the new year, said Tony Treadway, spokesman for the Erwin firm said Monday. NFS' sale to Lynchburg, Va.-based Babcock & Wilcox Co., a subsidiary of McDermott International Inc., and its affiliate Nuclear Operations Group, was announced in August. The sale of the 50-year-old industrial institution should be closed by Dec. 31 or Jan. 1, Treadway said, adding that he could not provide further details about what changes will be made at the company.

A state commission approved a study Thursday to examine the impact of mining a rich uranium ore deposit in Virginia believed to be the largest untapped trove of uranium in North America. The unanimous vote by the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission could be the first step toward ending a 1980s moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia. The study will center on a deposit in rural Southside Virginia that contains 119 million pounds of uranium ore valued between $8 billion and $10 billion.

Many federal agencies that gather scientific information have pretty lousy policies when it comes to disclosing their findings to the public, says a new study issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Released at the just-ended annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Roanoke, Va. (last SEJ '08 item -- I promise), the study was more than a year in the making. It involved interviewing federal scientists, filing Freedom of Information Act requests and checking agency Web sites for policies and practices on to making public scientific findings funded at taxpayers' expense.

Bechtel SAIC Corp. LLC was recently ousted as longtime manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear waste depository project at Yucca Mountain located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The unexpected move comes at a time of great uncertainty for the project with the presidential elections and likely change of top Energy Department officials. The most recent price for the depository is $90 billion, or $19 billion more than last year's estimate. Mounting federal debt makes the undertaking, whose history stretches back to 1978, costly given the economy's struggles. San Francisco-based Bechtel and SAIC of San Diego lost their bid to keep the job they had held since 2001. TRW Environmental Safety Systems of Fairfax, Va., served as manager before them. Bechtel is also construction manager for McCarran International Airport's f $3.8 billion capital improvement program.

ERWIN - As Nuclear Fuel Services proceeds with plans to improve safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released previously withheld documents detailing incidents at the plant over a three-year period. Earlier this month, the NRC released 58 event notification reports between 2004 and 2007. Twenty-four of the documents pertain to NFS, and 34 were associated with BWXT in Lynchburg, Va.

Two of the main architects of Senate global warming legislation today will unveil a section for the bill intended to promote nuclear energy, which could open the floodgates for a myriad of potentially controversial proposals from both parties when floor debate starts next month. Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., will unveil a new nuclear title that will be offered to a bill the two authored with Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, which is aimed at reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade program. Lieberman and Warner will offer it as an amendment because Boxer has not favored language singling out nuclear energy. But all three senators suggested today they may not be at odds on at least this initial framework of a nuclear section. "We're not going to lose Sen. Boxer," Warner said to reporters after an event with Boxer, Lieberman and religious leaders promoting their bill, which will be on the Senate floor as early as June 2. "I think it will be relatively non controversial," Lieberman added.

Flagstaff, Az. - Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, announced Thursday that the House Committee on Natural Resources, chaired by Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., introduced an emergency resolution to prevent uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park.