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The 1000 Islands could be at risk when radioactive nuclear waste is shipped through the region in September, says Senator Bob Runciman. In an interview Friday, Runciman said radioactive metal from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station will be transported on aging ships on a river that this year has very low water levels. The shipment could be especially dangerous in the narrow passages of the 1000 Islands region west of Brockville, he added. "My main concern is essentially that we have had two groundings (of ships) in the past two weeks, one in our area and one in the Quebec area, and the lake fleet is an aging fleet, with an average age of 40," the senator explained. "Both of the breakdowns in the last couple of weeks have been attributed to mechanical failure." He also said St. Lawrence River water levels remain low, which creates a greater danger when the 1,800 tonnes of nuclear material from radioactive steam generators is transported through the "

"Some research is suspended at a Columbia University center, but experts fear the case could deter people from participating in crucial brain-imaging studies. The suspension of some research at a prominent Columbia University brain-imaging lab because of sloppy practices could have repercussions beyond that laboratory, potentially affecting brain-imaging studies nationwide and raising questions about the safety of participants, research experts said Saturday. The Kreitchman PET Center in Manhattan, part of Columbia University, halted brain-imaging studies after federal authorities reportedly found safety violations that could endanger patients and invalidate research findings. The center has admitted to poor manufacturing processes of radioactive compounds injected in patients and to sub-par record-keeping. Columbia authorities reported the findings of its own internal investigation in a July 6 letter to the Food and Drug Administration. Lab personnel are alleged to have used chemicals that had failed required purity tests when conducting brain scans of people with mental disorders. The scans, called PET scans, produce images of the brain and various neurological processes. » Don't miss a thing. Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox. The chemicals used at the Columbia center were found to have contained impurities at levels well above what is permitted under FDA protocols. The center has halted research using those locally manufactured chemicals; the lab itself remains open, is still conducting other types of research and continues to see patients. Experts disagree on whether the Columbia incident is an anomaly or if such slip-ups are widespread in research labs. But the documented lapses highlight apparent disregard for patient safety that rarely comes to light at major research institutions. No patients were harmed, according to a statement from Columbia University released Saturday. But the practices also include failure to report use of the su

"Official says he headed review of project A member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has disqualified himself from an upcoming key vote on the Yucca Mountain repository, saying he may have a conflict. George Apostolakis, a former nuclear science and engineering professor, disclosed he headed a panel that conducted a review on the nuclear waste project from March 2007 to March 2008 for Sandia National Laboratories, the lead science agency at Yucca Mountain. For that reason, he said in a statement Thursday, "I have concluded that I should recuse myself." The commission is expected to rule this summer whether the Department of Energy should be allowed to terminate licensing for a project it no longer wants to build. A panel of law judges within the NRC has decided that DOE cannot end the Nevada project unilaterally. The commission, which is the nuclear safety agency's ruling body, will determine whether that decision should be upheld or reversed. Apostolakis was one of three commissioners who had been urged to step aside on the Yucca Mountain vote, but for another reason."

"A memorial service was held Friday in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, to mark the third anniversary of a deadly earthquake that killed 15 people and injured more than 2,300 others in and around the prefecture. At the ceremony jointly hosted by the prefecture, the city of Niigata and the village of Kariwa, local residents and relatives of the dead observed a moment of silence at 10:13 a.m., the time when the earthquake struck. In the magnitude 6.8 temblor that originated off the coast, a total of 2,346 people in Niigata, Nagano and Toyama prefectures were injured, some seriously. The quake damaged about 44,000 houses, including 1,331 that were completely destroyed. A total of 3,044 people were forced to live in temporary housing, but all had returned home by last September."

"July 16, 1945 marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age. On that day, the United States conducted the first explosive test of an atomic device. The test was code-named Trinity and took place at the Alamogordo Test Range in New Mexico's Jornada del Muerto Desert. The bomb itself was code-named "The Gadget." The Trinity test used a plutonium implosion device, the same type of weapon that would be used on the city of Nagasaki just three and a half weeks later. It had the explosive force of 20 kilotons of TNT. The names associated with the test deserve reflection. "The Gadget," something so simple and innocuous, was exploded in a desert whose name in Spanish means "Journey of Death." Plutonium, the explosive force in the bomb, was named for Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. The isotope of plutonium that was used in the bomb, plutonium-239, is one of the most deadly radioactive materials on the planet. It existed only in minute quantities on Earth before the US began creating it for use in its bombs by the fissioning of uranium-238. "

"Riverkeeper has petitioned the state Department of Environmental Conservation urging the agency to uphold its decision not to grant certification to Entergy on the grounds that its Indian Point nuclear power plant does not meet state water quality standards. Entergy needs that certification as part of its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew the plant's licenses for another 20 years. Riverkeeper's petition supports DEC's decision that continued operation of the power plant would violate state clean water standards and continued use of the once-through cooling system would lead to ongoing harmful impacts to the Hudson River's ecology and aquatic species, said staff attorney Deborah Brancato."

"Bill Wilcox is not eating his sandwich. Bow-tied and bespectacled, he's the most dapper man in the room. Waiters come and go, the tinkle of iced teas being refilled adding a musicality to the lunchtime noise at the Flatwater Grill perched at the edge of Melton Lake. Wilcox, 87, squints down at the chicken salad on white toast, but what swims before his eyes is a city of mud, a city erected almost overnight. A secret city. In the summer of 1939, Albert Einstein penned a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was crucial, he said, to be the first to make use of a new discovery: If you bombard uranium with particles, the nucleus splits and creates a huge amount of energy. Einstein and his fellow physicists were persuasive. Things got going fast."

"Terrie Barrie of ANWAG (Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups) passes along a letter from Glenn Podonsky of the Dept. of Energy, responding to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, on issues pertaining to GAO's recommended reforms of the sick nuclear workers compensation program, and some follow-up info. Here is a link to the letter that responds to the senator's June 25 correspondence. Cantwell, and fellow U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, subsequently announced that a new online database had been made available for worker at Hanford and other sites to help them get exposure information needed for compensation claims."

"The Dept. of Energy announced late today that it had issued a series of safety and security violations against Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge since 1998. The security violations pertain to a 2007 incident in which Roy Lynn Oakley was arrested and later convicted of stealing and attempting to sell classified equipment from the uranium-enrichment operation at K-25. BJC was fined $562,500 for the security violations associated with those events. Even though DOE said it was unlikely any sensitive information or materials ended up in foreign hands, the agency said it was levying the fine "to help prevent future breaches of security.""

"Opponents of the New Mexico oil industry would have you believe that life in New Mexico hangs by a thread due to the potential disasters tied to oil exploration, development and production. Further, they insist that state government must intensify the rules on drilling or the water, air and land of New Mexico will be ruined for generations. Not true. There was a time when New Mexico was very contaminated, and it has taken decades for that terrible pollution to abate. Many New Mexicans were sickened by this pollution and the human damage remains to this day. This pollution was not by oil; rather, it was plutonium. No one seems to remember this."

"Thousands of feet under a hot patch of sand and brush is buried a deposit of uranium so rich it could revive a hardscrabble New Mexico town pocked with vacant lots and shuttered buildings. The mining industry and those residents of the area who are eager for an influx of jobs see the plateau around Mount Taylor near the town of Grants in the northwest corner of New Mexico as an irresistible opportunity for economic gain. "It's what we need, it's what's going to fuel the future," said Star Gonzales, director of the Grants chamber of commerce. "They will be good paying jobs.""

"Disposal has been halted as a precaution at Hanford's landfill for low-level radioactive and chemical waste until more is known about a load disposed there Tuesday afternoon. Workers reported an unpleasant sulfurlike smell and seeing possibly dust or smoke rising from waste being disposed of in the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, said Todd Nelson, spokesman for Washington Closure Hanford. The load had come from cleanup work in a part of B Reactor that's not accessible to the public. The Department of Energy asked that some housekeeping work be done in the historic reactor to get it in top shape as limited tours are offered and the National Park Service considers possible plans for a Manhattan Project National Historical Park."

"Resource will help workers more accurately determine chemical exposure level, get compensation faster Thursday, July 15,2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) announced that a new online database is available for former Hanford workers whose health has been adversely affected on the jobsite to help them determine the extent of their exposure to toxic chemicals and get more information about related illnesses. Compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy, the online database, called the Site Exposure Matrix (SEM), is available to former nuclear weapons facilities employees covered by Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICP). After its May 10 announcement of the database's planned launch, DOE released the SEMs for 48 nuclear sites quickly but did not immediately release others, including one for the Hanford site. On June 25, 2010, Senators Cantwell and Murray sent a letter to DOE and the Department of Labor requesting the speedy release of a Site Exposure Matrix for Hanford. Within days, DOE responded that it has approved the release of the Hanford SEM along with matrices for 20 other sites."

"An Iranian who claimed he was "abducted" by US spies last year denied upon his arrival in Tehran Thursday that he was a nuclear scientist, but said he was questioned by Israelis during his captivity. Shahram Amiri, who vanished from Saudi Arabia in June 2009 while on a pilgrimage, arrived in Tehran on Thursday after surfacing in Iran's Interest Section in Washington two days ago. Immediately after his arrival he told reporters that he was just a "simple researcher", refuting earlier claims by Iranian officials that he was a nuclear scientist. "I had nothing to do with Natanz and Fordo sites," Amiri said referring to Iran's two uranium enrichment plants."

"Israel's nuclear program has been implicated in an investigation conducted in the United States by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), according to a report published on Wednesday by the researchers of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Dimona nuclear power plant The nuclear power plant in Dimona. Photo by: Archive The investigation began in spring 2010 when the BIS charged Pelogy, a U.S. based company and its Belgian affiliate, with violating U.S. export administration regulations by attempting to export controlled goods to Israel, India, China and South Africa. "

"The majority of Russians (60 percent) are against further nuclear disarmament, with numbers in favor dropping significantly since the end of the Soviet era, the Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said on Thursday. Half of Russians believe the country needs nuclear weapons to assure its security in case of war, according to VTsIOM's latest survey. A quarter said nuclear weapons should be preserved to demonstrate Russia's political power, with only 4 percent saying the stockpile is needed to counter U.S. military potential."

"The coalition government will reconsider the nation's nuclear power plans, it said Thursday, surprising the nuclear industry, but added targets for first power generation by 2018 remain intact. The nuclear plan issued by the previous Labour government was widely consulted on by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, but the new coalition government says it wants to look at it again in the autumn to see if it is sustainable. "We have decided to take a further look at the Appraisal of Sustainability of our draft Energy Policy Statements to make sure that they are fit for purpose," Energy Minister Charles Hendry said in a statement Thursday."

"Turkey's parliament approved legislation opening the way for Russia to build the country's first nuclear power plant. The measure approved in the Ankara assembly today guarantees to buy power from the planned reactor at Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast at 12.35 cents per kilowatt hour plus sales tax, the state news agency Anatolia reported. "

"Uranium emissions that possibly exceeded the action level at Cameco's Port Hope Conversion Facility has the federal nuclear regulator asking for more emissions information from the company. According to a Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) media release, the CNSC feels further improvements to Cameco's uranium dioxide (UO2) plant in-house stack sampling system and preventative maintenance program are needed after uranium emissions at the plant on June 29 potentially exceeded the action level. Based on a Cameco report, the CNSC determined the UO2 plant uranium emission rate was 7.21 gU/h (grams of uranium emissions per hour). Although this rate is well below the licensed limit of 150 gU/h, it is above the plant's action level of 7 gU/h."

"Bruce Power is seeking a licence from the Nuclear Safety Commission to transport 1760 tonnes of radioactive steel through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, passing Cornwall Ontario, on its way overseas. If this plan is approved the 16 used steam generators are going to be shipped to Sweden going through both Canadian and American waters. The transportation of radioactive materials through Canadian waters has some citizens and politicians concerned. Mike Bradley (the Mayor of Sarnia) and Elizabeth May (leader of the Green Party) are both critical of the plan. If the shipment is approved it would set a precedent for transporting radioactive materials through the Great Lakes, and it could create a rubber stamp for these kinds of shipments in the future without public notice or approval. Although a disaster is unlikely, according to environmentalists, a disaster could be truly devastating. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River represent 20% of the worlds fresh drinking water, drinking water for more than 40 million people. Supporters of Nuclear Energy claim that even if there was a disaster, the damage would be minimal."