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"Consultant Craig Holmes acknowledged a mining company did not return test mining sites to baseline uranium levels after testing, which is a common practice. Holmes, who is an independent consultant hired to make sure Uranium Energy Corp. follows procedures, spent eight hours on the witness stand on Tuesday during the second day of testimony in the state contested case hearing over uranium mining in Goliad. Holmes was questioned on three main points: uranium level baseline, bore holes not being plugged within the 48 hours required after drilling, and his credibility. Holmes said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was notified of the violations involving the bore holes."

"Every five years or so the United Nations hosts a foreign minister level conference to review the implementation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). This year, Iranian strongman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to join the party. He delivered, on the first morning of the review conference last week, his customary condemnation of Israel and of the United States while defending his country's nuclear program. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke later the same day, accusing Iran of being the only country attending the UN review conference that is acting with impunity when held to account by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Security Council. Iran, she said, is consistently violating its obligations under the NPT. That was a good start, but then she rhetorically crouched into a defensive position."

"epco's litany of deliberate violations of the most elementary safety standards, enabled by the collusion of one government after another, is a graphic demonstration of the intolerable danger posed by the capitalist economic order itself, reports Mike Head. A huge explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan following a major earthquake and tsunami The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan's nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades epitomise the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety. Tepco is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan's electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, persecution of whistle-blowers, suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism."

Two reports from investigative teams have made significant recommendations to the Savannah River Site and its contractors after accidents and the verification of employees' citizenship seemed to be lacking. The Department of Energy and its Office of the Inspector General have released the reports after investigations into activities at SRS. One report was that of a "Type B" investigation into a serious hand and arm injury suffered by a worker in a powerhouse, the other regarding employment verification at SRS. The investigation into the injury came about after a worker suffered first-, second- and third-degree burns on his arms and hands while working in a D-area powerhouse. The electrical burns were determined to have been caused when a metal level the worker was using came into contact with a live breaker.

Two reports from investigative teams have made significant recommendations to the Savannah River Site and its contractors after accidents and the verification of employees' citizenship seemed to be lacking. The Department of Energy and its Office of the Inspector General have released the reports after investigations into activities at SRS. One report was that of a "Type B" investigation into a serious hand and arm injury suffered by a worker in a powerhouse, the other regarding employment verification at SRS. The investigation into the injury came about after a worker suffered first-, second- and third-degree burns on his arms and hands while working in a D-area powerhouse. The electrical burns were determined to have been caused when a metal level the worker was using came into contact with a live breaker.

The nuclear plant at Three Mile Island will get closer scrutiny from federal regulators for the next 12 months, following a lapse in security procedures that occurred last summer. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded that the security issue was of moderate to serious significance. The problem was discovered and reported by AmerGen Energy, the operator of the plant,

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $9,600 fine against Source Production and Equipment Co., Inc. (SPEC) in St. Rose, Louisiana, for failing to comply with NRC safety requirements regarding the use of a specific shipping package for transporting radioactive material.

The Project On Government Oversight has obtained hundreds of pages of internal NRC documents from an NRC Inspector General investigation into then-Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield. The documents outline, among other things, how he disregarded advice from NRC's General Counsel and voted on two matters that "could have potentially" financially benefitted three companies-Shaw Group, Westinghouse, and General Electric-during the time he was directly involved in employment negotiations with those companies. The IG investigation found that in the two months before accepting a job created for him at the Shaw Group, Commissioner Merrifield voted both to approve China's purchase of AP 1000 reactors (in which the Shaw Group had a financial interest) and to change criteria of emergency cooling systems that would directly benefit Westinghouse (of which the Shaw Group owned a 20 percent interest). The IG referred the case to the Department of Justice.

The Project On Government Oversight has obtained hundreds of pages of internal NRC documents from an NRC Inspector General investigation into then-Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield. The documents outline, among other things, how he disregarded advice from NRC's General Counsel and voted on two matters that "could have potentially" financially benefitted three companies-Shaw Group, Westinghouse, and General Electric-during the time he was directly involved in employment negotiations with those companies. The IG investigation found that in the two months before accepting a job created for him at the Shaw Group, Commissioner Merrifield voted both to approve China's purchase of AP 1000 reactors (in which the Shaw Group had a financial interest) and to change criteria of emergency cooling systems that would directly benefit Westinghouse (of which the Shaw Group owned a 20 percent interest). The IG referred the case to the Department of Justice.

"A $1 million agreement between Exelon, the Illinois Attorney General and the State's Attorneys of Will, Ogle and Grundy Counties has officially resolved the environmental consequences of radioactive tritium leaks into the groundwater beneath the Braidwood, Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants. Just about half of that is already earmarked for environmental projects in and around the areas of the affected plants. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan made the announcement late last week, stating that Exelon will pay more than $1 million to resolve three separate civil complaints that she and the State's Attorneys filed jointly, including civil penalties totaling $628,000 and $548,000 to fund several Supplemental Environmental Projects in and around the communities where the power plants are located."

"The maximum radiation dose that might have been received by a child due to a leak of tritiated water at Vermont Yankee was .000072 percent of the average annual dose received from natural sources, according to a document submitted by Entergy, which owns and operates the nuclear power plant in Vernon, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to the report, consumption over a one-year period of fish from the Connecticut River or vegetables, beef and milk raised with river water would have resulted in a one-year dose of .00026 millirems. The average daily dose to humans from natural sources is 360 millirems. Entergy's dose calculations have been verified to be accurate and are "a small fraction of the regulatory requirement of 3 mrem per year," according to a Ground Water Monitoring Inspection Report released by the NRC on Thursday. "