Japan finds radioactive matter around U.S. ship

: "Japan finds radioactive matter around U.S. ship
Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:55 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Wednesday it found radioactive matter from water samples taken around a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine off its eastern coast, but the amount was small and posed no harm to humans or the environment.

The government is conducting further tests to see if the particles were emitted from the submarine, said an official from the Education Ministry, which also oversees science and technology issues.

Two types of radioactive particles were found from the ocean water samples around the USS Honolulu shortly after it left Yokosuka, a U.S. navy base 45 km (30 miles) south of Tokyo, earlier this month, the official said.

He said he had no information on where the submarine was now. U.S. Navy officials were unavailable for comment. The findings come after a Japanese mayor agreed to hosting a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in June, a proposed deployment that had sparked public worry about safety.

The move was agreed by the Japanese and U.S. governments last October, but the mayor of Yokosuka initially opposed it because of local fears over the first nuclear carrier to be deployed in Japan.

The United States wants the nuclear-powered vessel to replace the USS Kitty Hawk, a diesel-powered aircraft carrier scheduled to be decommissioned in 2008.

Japan is host to about 50,000 U.S. troops, and military bases are often unpopular with local residents, who complain of noise, pollution and crime."

nuclear powered space lab

Central Florida News 13,: "NASA Faces Questions Over Powering of Mars Science Lab

NASA is planning to send a science laboratory to Mars. It will draw its electrical power either from a nuclear generator or solar arrays, and local residents have a chance to weigh in today.
The worry is the potential danger of launching the Mars Science Laboratory with a plutonium-powered generator, which is NASA's preferred method of powering the craft.

Launch of the big Mars rover is set for sometime between September and November 2009 on an Atlas 5 rocket.

Safety studies by NASA and the Department of Energy show there is a 1 in 420 chance of an accident early in the flight resulting in a release of radioactive material over communities near Cape Canaveral Air Force Station"

News - MSN Money

News - MSN Money: "September 22, 2006 03:28 PM ET
Progress Asks to Up Nuclear Plant Output
Associated Press
All Associated Press News

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Progress Energy Inc. subsidiary Progress Energy Florida said Friday it wants state electric regulators to let the company boost power output at its Crystal River nuclear plant, which the company said will save customers money.

The company said increasing the gross output at the plant to 1,080 megawatts would allow it to serve 110,700 more homes.

Raising the amount of electricity generated with nuclear energy can reduce the use of other, more expensive fuels, which could mean more than $2 billion in savings over the next 30 years, Progress Energy said.

The move must be approved by the state Public Service Commission.

The plan is unrelated to the Progress's hopes to build a new nuclear plant in Florida. The company, the second largest electric utility in the state, continues to search for a site for that project.

Progress has about 1.6 million customers in Florida, mostly in the Tampa Bay area and the Orlando suburbs.

Shares of parent Progress Energy rose 16 cents to $43.51 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange."

New York Daily News - City News - Radioactive 'hot spots' threat to city, study sez

New York Daily News - City News - Radioactive 'hot spots' threat to city, study sez: "city, study sez

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - A helicopter survey revealed 80 radioactive "hot spots" in New York City, including a Staten Island park with dangerously high levels of radium, a congressional report disclosed yesterday.

The park, built on a former industrial site, had to be closed as a result of radium detected there, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The GAO did not identify the park, but Brian Feeney of the National Park Service said a 1-acre section of Great Kills Park on Staten Island, part of Gateway National Recreation Area, had been shut down in August 2005 after federal officials discovered old industrial equipment contaminated with radiation.

He said the area was a dense section of marsh grass that was not frequented by visitors and was blocked off merely as a precaution.

Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island) said area residents shouldn't panic, but he stressed the need for more information.

"It is essential for the government to act immediately to fully understand the extent of the contamination," Fossella said.

The GAO report said there were a total of "80 locations with radiological sources that required further investigation to determine their risk."

The locations were discovered during a 2005 helicopter sweep by the Department of Energy, paid for by the city with an $800,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security, to map every radioactive site in the city.

City officials hope that in the event of a radioactive "dirty bomb" attack, they could quickly identify affected areas by comparing new hot spots with those previously identified on the "radiation map" of the five boroughs.

The new hot spots would be detected by choppers outfitted with radiationsniffing gear.

New York is the only U.S. city to have had an aerial radiation survey conducted. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said yesterday the Bush administration was dropping the ball by not funding similar checks for other cities.

"This is a program that could save lives ... but is instead being shrugged at by the very people who are charged with protecting us," Schumer said.

But officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration - which hunts for terror weapons within the U.S. - said in a letter to the GAO that helicopter surveys to detect "low-intensity" sites are unreliable.

That means there could be hundreds more radioactive sites in New York besides the 80 identified already.

With Greg Smith


Originally published on September 22, 2006"

Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/24/2006 | Monica Yant Kinney | Hard to ignore radioactive slag

Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/24/2006 | Monica Yant Kinney | Hard to ignore radioactive slag: "Monica Yant Kinney | Hard to ignore radioactive slag
By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist

First, we learn that children were exposed to mercury at a toxic day-care center in Franklin Township. Now, a nearby factory wants to skip town and leave South Jersey a pile of radioactive waste perfect for games of King of the Mountain.

Sometimes, I'd rather not believe what I read.

It's hard enough knowing that just living in New Jersey could give you cancer. Now I see a known polluter is trying to blackmail the Garden State in a radioactive version of Deal or No Deal.

Let us leave our mess, on our terms, the company says. Make us stay and clean it up, and we'll have no choice but to file for bankruptcy and stick taxpayers with the bill.

Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. is a middle-age company with a modern-day dilemma.

For more than 40 years, the metal-making factory in Newfield, Gloucester County, has thrown its trash out back, creating a six-acre, 35-foot-high pile of radioactive rock called slag.

Shieldalloy recently stopped production in these parts so a sister company can do it more cheaply in Brazil. Fair enough, except unlike homeowners, metal manufacturers can't just lock up the place and walk away.

Thousand-year payment plan

Shieldalloy has to answer to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (because it used ore containing radioactive uranium and thorium) and the state Department of Environmental Protection (because the factory is also a Superfund site, with chromium in the groundwater and soil).

The company has spent more than 20 years and a tidy sum trying to clean up its chemical mess under the state's watchful eye. This time, Shieldalloy would prefer to cut costs and corners, and run.

"Statistically," Shieldalloy spokesman Michael Turner tells me, "it would be more dangerous to move this material because the trucks may get into an accident in a highway."

Plus, he says, the cost of scrubbing the site so it could be redeveloped "would put us out of business."

Rather than spend $30 million to $58 million to haul 50,000 tons of slag to a special dump in Utah, the company proposes spending just $5 million to tamp down the radioactive rock, cover it with soil and grass, and build a fence. Shieldalloy estimates monitoring costs at $19,000 a year for the next 1,000 years.

Yes, it really thinks that's enough to cover any and all problems on the pile until 3010. That's because the company can't imagine any problems.

Sure, Shieldalloy's proposal leaves locals in the lurch. But think of the benefits for a firm bolting for Brazil.

"All you need to do," Turner says, "is pay someone to make sure the cap is in place and mow the grass."

Slag for sale

Sorry to be such a dunce, but if 50,000 tons of radioactive waste is "innocuous," as Shieldalloy and the NRC assert, what's the dispute?

Jill Lapoti of the state DEP poses another question in response: "If it's innocuous, why would it cost all that money to clean up?"

The DEP wants the site cleaned and the ground cleared. Period. New Jersey has precious little developable land left. Even six acres has value.

Ah, but so does radioactive slag, says Turner. If only the government didn't make it so hard to sell it.

"Frankly, we would give it away," he says, but even willing takers don't want the hassle.

In another irony, Turner tells me that if Shieldalloy is forced to spend every cent it has shipping slag out West, "we'd actually be taking space that could be used for things that are much, much more radioactive."

So really, when you think about it, the pile of slag is good for the earth?

Hardly, sniffs Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, who reminds her industrial foes that "there's no safe level of radiation."

"The earth moves," D'Arrigo points out. "It's a living organism. To expect to be able to inject poison into it and have it stay still is unrealistic."
Contact Monica Yant Kinney at 856-779-3914 or myant@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney.
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