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Part Three in a Series: Nuclear power stops; its poisonous wastes never do "I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it ... I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation." - Admiral Hyman G. Rickover Father of the Nuclear Navy

Part Three in a Series: Nuclear power stops; its poisonous wastes never do "I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it ... I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation." - Admiral Hyman G. Rickover Father of the Nuclear Navy

The headaches began just after Hermogenes Marrero arrived on Vieques, the small Puerto Rican island where the young U.S. Marine guarded stores of Cold War-era chemical weapons. The retired sergeant, now 57 and terminally ill with cancer and other ailments, blames exposure to toxins released while he was stationed there from 1970 to 1972. By coming forward to support similar claims by island residents, he has become the public face of a new and bitter battle over Vieques, the Navy bombing range-turned-tourist destination off the U.S. territory's east coast. "I've been sick since I left Vieques," said the wheelchair-bound Marrero, who now lives in an apartment cramped with life-support equipment in this small town in northwestern Puerto Rico.

The headaches began just after Hermogenes Marrero arrived on Vieques, the small Puerto Rican island where the young U.S. Marine guarded stores of Cold War-era chemical weapons. The retired sergeant, now 57 and terminally ill with cancer and other ailments, blames exposure to toxins released while he was stationed there from 1970 to 1972. By coming forward to support similar claims by island residents, he has become the public face of a new and bitter battle over Vieques, the Navy bombing range-turned-tourist destination off the U.S. territory's east coast. "I've been sick since I left Vieques," said the wheelchair-bound Marrero, who now lives in an apartment cramped with life-support equipment in this small town in northwestern Puerto Rico.

"Most people would agree with Harvey Hughey's proposal to go nuclear ["Follow the Navy -- Go Nuclear"] if they considered only the short term, 50-year design life of nuclear power plants. In that 50-year period, barring accidents, nuclear power is relatively clean. The picture changes dramatically, however, when the long-term, multi-million-year half-life of uranium and many of its derivatives are taken into account. We still have not solved the storage problems associated with highly radioactive materials, including spent fuel rods, and the Yucca Mountain storage project seems to be a no-go. Those materials are now stored in temporary holding tanks at nuclear plants across the country -- which is a major accident waiting to happen. Neither have we solved the problems associated with decommissioning 50-year old nuclear power plants, all of which are so radioactively contaminated they cannot be recycled or bulldozed into a hole in the ground. The costly protocol is to encapsulate each site under a great dome of concrete that naturally fractures and allows water to penetrate and contaminate streams and aquifers."

Survivors of Britain's cold war atomic bomb tests have received a major boost in their battle for compensation following the discovery of a secret journal written by a senior Royal Navy officer. The observations of the leading medical officer on a British warship ordered into the radioactive fallout of a nuclear bomb test reveal his profound concerns that the crew's health was in grave danger. His on-board journal, disclosed publicly for the first time as evidence in a legal fight for compensation, reveals misgivings that inadequate training and equipment meant the men of HMS Diana were exposed to an "omnipresent" and "dangerous" risk of radioactive poisoning during the 1950s tests. His concerns contradict the government's existing view that Britain's nuclear tests at the height of the cold war had no adverse effects on the servicemen.

I read your Dec. 4 editorial, "The nuclear option," with disappointment. You spoke of a small leak from a navy nuclear submarine and, in the final paragraph, somehow equated this to an "accident." This is hyperbole of the type usually seen only in the sloppiest of political campaigns. The radioactive leak, while unfortunate, likely was no larger than those of cruise ships that release waste from passengers who have undergone medical treatments. It most certainly was a smaller environmental impact than fossil fueled ships that circle the globe spewing and spilling noxious chemicals.

Following Nevada's lead, Clark County and a nonprofit Timbisha Shoshone corporation filed petitions Monday challenging the Department of Energy's license application for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. "In a nutshell, we're challenging DOE's capacity to construct and operate a safe repository," said Irene Navis, Clark County's nuclear waste planning manager. The county submitted 15 contentions to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, she said. All but three deal with safety issues related to DOE's performance assessment of the planned repository and the validity of computer models for the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

TWENTY thousand families living near Devonport Dockyard will be called or sent a text message to warn them in the event of nuclear leaks or other emergencies, under council plans to be announced next year. The ground-breaking emergency notification system, called Informer, is being brought in because the dockyard's siren is not seen as an adequate 21st-century way of warning people living in what has been described as one of the most dangerous areas in Britain. In addition to the dockyard's nuclear facilities, Britain's 14th largest city has a Royal Navy weapons depot, a petrol terminal at Cattedown, a fuel depot at Torpoint and a gas pipeline.

A chilling reminder of the Cold War with Russia is being removed from the majority of homes in a west Highland village. At the height of the tension, the Royal Navy established a berth for nuclear submarines in Broadford Bay, Skye, and therefore had to consider the consequences to the population should there have been any incident causing a radioactive leak into the local environment. One of the precautions taken was to issue everyone living within 1.25 miles of the berth with anti-radiation potassium iodate tablets (Pits) that would help prevent contamination of the thyroid gland.

AN INVESTIGATION has been launched after hundreds of litres of radioactive coolant spilled from a Devonport-based nuclear submarine. The liquid escaped into the River Tamar after an incident involving HMS Trafalgar. The Royal Navy has confirmed up to 280 litres of water, likely to have been contaminated with tritium, poured from a burst hose as it was being pumped from the submarine in the early hours of Friday. The submarine was alongside at Devonport, after undergoing routine maintenance.

Radioactive liquid spilled into a river during maintenance work on a nuclear submarine, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The Royal Navy said up to 280 litres (62 gallons) of contaminated water spilled from a ruptured hose as it was used to pump out coolant from HMS Trafalgar at the Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth. The incident happened shortly after midnight on Friday and the contaminated liquid spilled into the River Tamar. An MoD spokesman said: "During a standard operation to transfer primary coolant from HMS Trafalgar to an effluent tank on the jetty, a hose ruptured, resulting in a leak of the coolant. A maximum of 280 litres of coolant were discharged from the hose on to the submarine casing, jetty and into the river Tamar.

However, in nuclear reactors such as the one inside HMS Trafalgar it is simply an unwanted by-product of the reaction. As cooling water passes through the core it becomes contaminated with tritium. It is this contaminated water that was mistakenly released. In normal circumstances that water would have been stored and treated until the radioactivity of the tritium had been sufficiently reduced. Then the Royal Navy would have legally released it into the estuary.

India's navy was supposed to lease the brand-new Russian nuclear submarine that suffered an accident over the weekend which killed 20 people, news reports said Monday. An Indian naval spokesman would not comment Monday on leasing this or any submarine from Russia - but his boss has said previously that India was interested. The Akula-class sub was undergoing trials in the Sea of Japan when its fire-extinguishing system activated in error, spewing Freon gas that suffocated the victims and injured 21 others.

The state reported it had completed distribution of $30 million in federal funds to assist economic development in eastern Idaho Oct. 9, as part of a broad-ranging agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy, the state and the U.S. Navy over spent nuclear fuel stored at DOE's Idaho site.

Three U.S. military missile crew members have been punished for sleeping while on duty with classified components, officials said. Two Navy first lieutenants and a captain fell asleep on July 12 while in control of a classified electronic part that contained old launch codes for intercontinental nuclear missiles at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, The Air Force Times reported Friday.

All of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard should be cleaned to residential standards - mandated by Proposition P that passed in the year 2000 by the City and County of San Francisco. Eighty seven percent of the constituents of San Francisco voted for Proposition P. Unfortunately, we have had Mayors Gavin Newsom, Willie L.Brown, and Diane Feinstein - that think the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard should be capped. Well, we must speak out - and speak out now. Dubious forces are planning to handover the whole Shipyard to Lennar and forcing the U.S. Navy to cap the whole area.

The Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast, was on the agenda when the Russian government yesterday discussed the country's military industrial complex. The yard, one of the biggest in Russia, has proved unable to cope with three major ongoing construction projects. Sevmash, one of two major shipyards in Russia's northern engineering capital of Severodvinsk, has become a headache for the Russian government. Not only has the plant ended up in trouble because of its delays and cost overruns with the aircraft carrier "Admiral Gorshkov", which is to be sold to the Indian Navy. Sevmash is also significantly behind schedules with the nuclear-powered submarine "Yuri Dolgorukii" - the first of Russia's fourth generation submarines.

Clean-up of radioactive waste from the former Naval Air Station-Alameda will enter a more intensive phase in coming weeks as workers under the auspices of the U.S. Navy begin excavating and removing soil and storm drains contaminated by decades of sloppy disposal of cadmium, radium-226, PCBs and other toxic compounds. Work is expected to commence in mid June.

A Royal Navy veteran from Dundee is suing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the radiation he was exposed to during atomic bomb testing. John Gilchrist, 72, was involved in two tests at the Montebello Islands off north western Australia in 1956.

Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Orlando, spoke today before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Health and Environment, advocating for a full environmental cleanup of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The island served as a bombing range and military exercise ground for the Navy until the base was shut down in 2003, following protests from Puerto Ricans and their supporters on the island and the mainland. Speaking to the HispanoSphere today, Rep. Grayson said he took it upon himself to bring up the subject of Vieques in that agency's hearing because he wants to keep a spotlight on the issue. Many Puerto Ricans live in his Orlando district, Grayson said, and because the island does not have voting members in Congress he feels he should speak for those U.S. territory citizens as well. "In a sense, I am the Congressman for Puerto Rico," Grayson said.