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"A former employee for General Electric has been awarded compensation by state labor officials who agreed that her longstanding lung ailment was a reaction to inhaling and absorbing beryllium at the company's two Rutland-area plants. In a Feb. 19 decision and order issued by the state Department of Labor, Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden awarded Patricia Alexander permanent partial disability benefits, medical benefits and attorneys' fees for a medical condition that Alexander's attorney said has forced the 68-year-old Rutland woman to rely on bottled oxygen to breath and a motorized scooter to get around."

"A Savannah River National Laboratory technician's failure to adequately monitor her gloved hands was the cause of a January incident in which her clothing and skin were contaminated with radiation. The employee was testing vials of plutonium samples when a radiation control officer detected radiation on a hood where the employee was working, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report. The officer then examined the technician and found alpha contamination on the abdomen, lapel and right arm of her lab coat. "When the technician was sent to the decontamination room, additional contamination was found on her personal clothing and on her skin in the vicinity of the lapel," the report said."

"The new senior resident inspector from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission worked for Entergy Nuclear, the owner of Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, until 2006, before he left to become a federal inspector. But a spokesman for the NRC said David Spindler stopped working for Entergy Nuclear in 2006, well beyond the two-year hiatus federal regulations call for. Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC, said there are federal regulations dealing with employees who may face "an appearance of loss of impartiality in the performance of his official duties." He said federal regulations call for a two-year "period of disqualification" from working in matters in which a former employer is involved."

"Here's the staff memo today from ORNL Director Thom Mason, explaining the separation of benefits between ORNL and Y-12. It is followed by a Q&A on the separation, which includes the split up of the pension fund. The change is supposed to take place sometime later this summer, according to the lab. Y-12 has not responded to multiple requests for info. SEPARATION OF BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION"

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday released internal records that show one of its senior employees filed a pair of complaints questioning the agency's own diligence in obtaining Davis-Besse documents from FirstEnergy Corp. in 2005 and 2007. Those records also show the employee, Jim Gavula, was later told by NRC brass that the agency - highly critical of FirstEnergy in the past - believes it did everything within its power to get more cooperation. Mr. Gavula, an NRC employee for 24 years who now helps the agency review technical documents, filed the complaints as a senior reactor inspector in 2006 and 2008. Such records, often kept secret, were authorized by Mr. Gavula to be made public."

Some news outlets are reporting that the meltdown was a level 4 which means it will only have local consequences. Whether this level changes remains to be seen. When this article was first posted a picture was used that turned out to be a fake. This was a clear accident and has been fixed. All information on this article is up to date and will be updated as more information comes in. SEE THIS ARTICLE - Japan nuclear fallout map - HOAX - The problem with the hoax is that the map was consistent with actual jet stream maps but was labeled as official when it was not. Multiple alternative medicine specialists have been quoted as saying that the west coast is likely to get hit.

Federal investigators say the public faces little danger from 25 pounds of radioactive material reported missing from a South Carolina nuclear fuel plant, but at least one expert from a private group said any amount of uranium could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting in Columbia Thursday to discuss results of their months long inspection at the Westinghouse Electric Co. plant. In May, the Monroeville, Pa.-based company told regulators it could not account for about 25 pounds of low-enriched uranium - small, pencil eraser-sized pellets used to make nuclear fuel. The material, which amounts to a container of pellets about the size of a five-pound coffee can, likely never left the plant and was recycled with discarded materials that don't meet quality standards, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said Friday. And even if it had been released, the stable composition of the uranium is such that it couldn't be used as a weapon, like a dirty bomb, he said.

Federal investigators say the public faces little danger from 25 pounds of radioactive material reported missing from a South Carolina nuclear fuel plant, but at least one expert from a private group said any amount of uranium could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting in Columbia Thursday to discuss results of their months long inspection at the Westinghouse Electric Co. plant. In May, the Monroeville, Pa.-based company told regulators it could not account for about 25 pounds of low-enriched uranium - small, pencil eraser-sized pellets used to make nuclear fuel. The material, which amounts to a container of pellets about the size of a five-pound coffee can, likely never left the plant and was recycled with discarded materials that don't meet quality standards, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said Friday. And even if it had been released, the stable composition of the uranium is such that it couldn't be used as a weapon, like a dirty bomb, he said.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced that it's going to begin a major re-evaluation of its responsibilities, including the scientific and techical support, for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. NIOSH also said it would conduct a national search for a new director of the Office of Compensation Analysis and Support as the successor to Larry Elliott, who will take a new role at NIOSH as an associate director in charge of "several high-priority projects" with institute-wide activities. Stuart Hinnefeld, technical program manager, will become interim OCAS director while that search is conducted, the institute said in the announcement.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced that it's going to begin a major re-evaluation of its responsibilities, including the scientific and techical support, for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. NIOSH also said it would conduct a national search for a new director of the Office of Compensation Analysis and Support as the successor to Larry Elliott, who will take a new role at NIOSH as an associate director in charge of "several high-priority projects" with institute-wide activities. Stuart Hinnefeld, technical program manager, will become interim OCAS director while that search is conducted, the institute said in the announcement.

The thinning ranks of men struggling to tame Japan's nuclear emergency are invoking the spirit of the samurai as they ignore personal radiation limits in their battle to avert disaster. Some are so determined to push on with a task they see as vital to saving Japan they are leaving their dosimetres at home so bosses do not know the true level of their exposure to radiation at the crippled plant. As Japan declared the Fukushima Daiichi disaster a level seven emergency -- the worst on an international scale -- engineer Hiroyuki Kohno was heading back into the leaking plant, fully aware that one day it could make him very ill. "My boss phoned me three days ago. He told me: 'The situation over there is much worse than what the media are reporting. It is beyond our imagination. But, will you still come?'," he told AFP. "It was just that. We didn't need to say anything more because we both knew that the situation is really dreadful," the soft-spoken Kohno said, leaving lengthy pauses between his sentences. The two did not discuss financial reward or compensation for the possible long-term health risks, which could include cancer.