Key Food, Biofuel Crop Sorghum's Genome Deciphered

Comment: We grow Sorghum, another way for Energy!

WASHINGTON - Scientists have deciphered the genetic make-up of sorghum, a drought-tolerant crop and important food and biofuel source, and said the breakthrough could help develop better crops for arid regions.

Sorghum is one of the world's leading cereals, along with corn, wheat, oats and barley, and can thrive in hot, dry conditions other crops cannot tolerate.

An international scientific team, writing in the journal Nature on Wednesday, mapped the genome which includes about 30,000 genes.

They said this new understanding could point to ways of creating even more drought-tolerant types while providing a blueprint for developing, through breeding or genetic engineering, improved forms of other crops such as corn.

Molecular biologist Joachim Messing of Rutgers University in New Jersey, one of the researchers, described in a telephone interview visiting a farm in Mozambique last year.

"You should have seen the maize (corn) growing there, how poorly it did, and then see sorghum just across from it standing tall and green and resistant to disease and drought."

Because sorghum is closely related to corn, the researchers said transferring some of its traits to corn could improve its value as a food and biofuel crop.

A variety called grain sorghum is a food staple in Africa and India. Another variety called sweet sorghum has a stem similar to sugar cane.

Sorghum is a superior biofuel source to corn because the entire plant can be used, not just the grain. Grain sorghum produces the same amount of ethanol per bushel as corn while needing a third less water.

"This is an important step on the road to the development of cost-effective biofuels made from non-food plant fiber," said Anna Palmisano, the U.S. Department of Energy's associate director of science for biological and environmental research.

"Sorghum is an excellent candidate for biofuels production, with its ability to withstand drought and prosper on more marginal land," she said in a statement.

"The fully sequenced genome will be an indispensable tool for researchers seeking to develop plant variants that maximize these benefits."

Annual worldwide production of sorghum, at about 60 million tons, is less than the other major cereal crops.

Ont. mayors want answers over radioactive spill

Thu, January 29, 2009
Pembroke, Petawawa officials say they have a right to know of incidents at Chalk River
By SEAN CHASE, Sun Media

PEMBROKE - Mayor Ed Jacyno is asking why Atomic Energy of Canada did not inform area municipalities after a radioactive spill at Chalk River in December.

In the wake of Sun Media reports that radioactive tritium and contaminated heavy water leaked from the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor, questions are being raised by municipalities living downstream from the nuclear facility.

Jacyno said Wednesday he believes federal regulators require AECL to tell the public that an incident has taken place.

"As we are living downstream, we do expect to get notification," said Jacyno. "We need to know what's going on when there is an occurrance. Why did it occur six weeks after the fact?"

During the incident on Dec. 5, amounts of tritium were released into the air at the NRU reactor.

AECL officials contained another

The NRU, which produces 70 per cent of the world's medical isotopes, was shutdown briefly.

The leak was revealled in an internal report to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) that was obtained by Sun Media.

The nuclear regulator also said another part of the reactor has been leaking water from a 2.4 inch crack in a weld. Technicians have been pumping water into the unit to replace the estimated 7,000 litres a day that has been spewing from the seam.

The CNSC said the water has "a very low level of radioactivity." The water is being dumped into the Ottawa River.

Sitting 16 km south of the Chalk River Laboratories, Petawawa is the first downstream municipality in the vicinity. Mayor Bob Sweet said he is concerned that they were not informed of the spill.

"We should have been made aware of it," said Sweet. "I don't think there was any intent to cover anything up, but I think they had an obligation to tell us."

The internal report stated there was no threat to the health of workers and the tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, released into the air posed no significant danger to the environment.

Jacyno takes AECL at their word that the situation was contained. He noted that the company has maintained good relations with the area and pointed to a protocal in which Chalk River officials meet quarterly with municipal leaders from Pembroke, Petawawa and Pontiac County to keep them apprised of developments at the facility.

The mayor has since fired off a letter to Shaun Cotnam, AECL manager of site and community affairs, seeking an explanation.

"They have been a good neighbour, but we're dealing with a product that could have an impact on those living downstream," he said. "It may have been an oversight, but it's unacceptable."

Report: Time for hard-rock mining companies to pay up

Royalties » Bill's sponsor says no free ride during economic crisis.

By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 01/27/2009 06:56:06 PM MST

Washington » A 137-year-old exemption that allows companies to extract hard-rock minerals from public lands without paying royalties could cost the nation $1.6 billion during the next decade, says a new report by the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining.

To reverse that exemption, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., introduced legislation Tuesday that would treat the mineral-extraction companies the same as coal, oil and gas industries, which pay a percentage royalty for using public lands.

"Given our current economic crisis and the empty state of our national treasury, it is ludicrous to be allowing this outmoded law to continue to exempt these lucrative mining activities from paying a fair return to the American people," Rahall said in a statement.

The Mining Act of 1872, which hasn't been substantially updated since its passage, was written to encourage development in the West and affects 11 states, including Utah, according to Rahall's office. The law allows multinational conglomerates to stake mining claims on federal lands and extract minerals, such as uranium, gold, silver and copper without forking over royalties.

The Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining, which released a nine-page report Tuesday, said the "outdated policies" in the 19th century law subsidize the mining of metals on federal lands.
"In these difficult economic times, it goes without saying:

We can no longer afford to ignore a billion-dollar stream of untapped revenues," said Velma Smith, manager of the Pew push. "It's time for Congress to stop the mining industry's free ride and start treating it like any other business that uses public resources."

But the National Mining Association, a trade group for the industry, counters that Rahall's bill will penalize businesses and hurt the nation more than help it.

"If Congress wouldn't pass this bill when the economy was up and running last year, why would they pass it now that the economy is prostrate with a toe tag?" association spokesman Luke Popovich asked. "Our member companies have just this week announced layoffs and mine closures in the hard-rock West. Raising their costs of doing business is unlikely to stimulate new job creation."

Rahall's legislation is similar to a version that cleared the House in 2007 but never got out of committee in the Senate. The bill would require an 8 percent royalty on production from new hard-rock mines on public lands and a 4 percent royalty on existing mines.

To no one's surprise, Rahall reintroduces mining law reform

Comment: Notice the statement in RED

After three decades of trying, West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall is not about to give up his crusade to bring the "antiquated mining law into the 21st Century."

Author: Dorothy KosichPosted: Wednesday , 28 Jan 2009

RENO, NV -

U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall of West Virginia has reintroduced legislation to reform the 1872 Mining Law.

Rahall's bill easily won the approval of the House during the last congressional session, but was not approved in the Senate.

The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2009 (HR 269) is nearly identical to the previous bill approved by the House in 2007.

It includes an 8% gross royalty on production from future mines on public lands and a 4% gross royalty from mines now operating on federal lands.

It would allows the federal government to withdraw wilderness study areas, area of initial environmental concern, areas in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and imposes strong permitting requirements for mines proposed near national parks, such as the Grand Canyon.

The measure would also end the sales of public lands that contain mineral resources and establish a clean-up fund for abandoned hardrock mines on public lands.

It would also create a community impact assistance account to provide financial assistance for communities impacted by mining, including funds for infrastructure and public services.

HR 269 would also allow for the suspension of mining permits and allow the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to order mines cease operations if serious environmental pollution becomes a crisis.

Mine operators would only be allowed to suspend mining operations for no more than 180 days without seeking the permission of the federal government.

The Secretaries could also deny mining plans of operations or exploration permits.

******The bill also provides for citizen lawsuits against mining or exploration programs. ***********

"I have labored to reform the Mining Law of 1872 for nearly three decades-not just to fight the giveaway of public lands and valuable minerals, and to combat the threats to human health and safety from abandoned mine lands-but because I am a supporter of mining," Rahall said.

"I believe we can no longer expect a viable hardrock mining industry to exist on public domain lands in the future if we do not make corrections to the law today."

Rahall also named Rep. Jim Costa, D-California, to again chair the Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals Resources, which will oversee any hearings on HR 269.

However, National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn said the bill will put "thousands of high-paying mining jobs and mining-dependent communities through the West" at risk.

"These are jobs and operations that play a vital role in rebuilding America, but they cannot shoulder the world's highest royalty and remain competitive in the international markets."

Quinn added that the royalty and other aspects of HR 699 "are duplicative of other U.S. laws and regulations would needlessly jeopardize U.S. metals mining-further increasing our dependence on foreign sources for the metals we will need to rebuild America."

"NMA supports responsible updates to the General Mining Law to keep U.S. mining strong, but this is the wrong medicine for our economy and crushing news for thousands of families in America's mining community," he concluded.

Energy!!

Energy!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder how much energy this country could save if each and every city were to turn off every other street light on their streets and highways at night.

Take 58 East to West in Danville, for instance. If every other street light were turned off, would we still be capable of driving 58?

Once you hit the county line, are we suddenly incapable of driving with out streetlights?

We have always been told to turn off our lights at home because this helps with energy conservation. I think the cities should practice this effort, too.

There are so many lights burning at night that are not necessary.

We could save countless dollars, oil and uranium use by turning them off.

We are under the threat of mining for uranium in our back yard for the sake of two years of energy with uranium.

We don't seem to learn from our past mistakes. We used fossil fuels and caused serious problems with the environment.

Now we are looking for another easy fix for our energy use by mining uranium.

We, as a people, are like water. We want to take the path of least resistance.

Let's not act like we are going to fix one crisis by starting another one with mining uranium.

I can't believe we can put a man on the moon, 40 years ago but we cannot find a safe alternative energy source TODAY that will not harm theenvironment. (What about solar and wind energy?)

The only thing about uranium that lasts forever is uranium tailings which produce radioactive waste. An accident is not an accident until it happens, then it's too late.

How many times have you done something and said, "If I could only go back again."

How much will your back yard be worth if there is an accident?

It is your back yard if you are reading this paper.

Lets turn off some city lights nation wide before jumping on the uranium for-profit wagon.

Berkeley Bidgood

Forget Nuclear

Comment: Another great article against Nuclear Power, cannot post whole article, too long, please look at whole article, nice Graphs

By Amory B. Lovins, Imran Sheikh, and Alex Markevich

Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy.

There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street.

This non-technical summary article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors. It explains why soaring taxpayer subsidies aren’t attracting investors. Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors—which, however, already outproduce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster.

Most remarkably, comparing all options’ ability to protect the earth’s climate and enhance energy security reveals why nuclear power could never deliver these promised benefits even if it could find free-market buyers—while its carbon-free rivals, which won $71 billion of private investment in 2007 alone, do offer highly effective climate and security solutions, sooner, with greater confidence.

Uncompetitive Costs
The Economist observed in 2001 that “Nuclear power, once claimed to be too cheap to meter, is now too costly to matter”—cheap to run but very expensive to build. Since then, it’s become several-fold costlier to build, and in a few years, as old fuel contracts expire, it is expected to become several-fold costlier to run. Its total cost now markedly exceeds that of other common power plants (coal, gas, big wind farms), let alone the even cheaper competitors described below.

Construction costs worldwide have risen far faster for nuclear than non-nuclear plants, due not just to sharply higher steel, copper, nickel, and cement prices but also to an atrophied global infrastructure for making, building, managing, and operating reactors. The industry’s flagship Finnish project, led by France’s top builder, after 28 months’ construction had gone at least 24 months behind schedule and $2 billion over budget.

Wind, cogeneration, and end-use efficiency already provide electrical services more cheaply than central thermal power plants, whether nuclear- or fossil-fuelled. This cost gap will only widen, since central thermal power plants are largely mature while their competitors continue to improve rapidly. The high costs of conventional fossil-fuelled plants would go even higher if their large carbon emissions had to be captured.

Nuclear power, being the costliest option, delivers less electrical service per dollar than its rivals, so, not surprisingly, it’s also a climate protection loser, surpassing in carbon emissions displaced per dollar only centralized, non-cogenerating combined-cycle power plants burning natural gas8. Firmed windpower and cogeneration are 1.5 times more costeffective than nuclear at displacing CO2. So is efficiency at even an almost unheard-of seven cents per kilowatthour. Efficiency at normally observed costs beats nuclear by a wide margin— for example, by about ten-fold for efficiency costing one cent per kilowatthour.

New nuclear power is so costly that shifting a dollar of spending from nuclear to efficiency protects the climate several-fold more than shifting a dollar of spending from coal to nuclear. Indeed, under plausible assumptions, spending a dollar on new nuclear power instead of on efficient use of electricity has a worse climate effect than spending that dollar on new coal power!

If we’re serious about addressing climate change, we must invest resources wisely to expand
and accelerate climate protection. Because nuclear power is costly and slow to build, buying more of it rather than of its cheaper, swifter rivals will instead reduce and retard climate protection.

All sources of electricity sometimes fail, differing only in why, how often, how much, for how long, and how predictably. Even the most reliable giant power plants are intermittent: they fail unexpectedly in billion-watt chunks, often for long periods. Of all 132 U.S. nuclear plants built (52 percent of the 253 originally ordered), 21 percent were permanently and prematurely closed due to reliability or cost problems, while another 27 percent have completely failed for a year or more at least once.

Nuclear plants have an additional disadvantage: for safety, they must instantly shut down in a power failure, but for nuclear-physics reasons, they can’t then be quickly restarted. During the August 2003 Northeast blackout, nine perfectly operating U.S. nuclear units had to shut down.

Twelve days of painfully slow restart later, their average capacity loss had exceeded 50 percent. For the first three days, just when they were most needed, their output was below 3 percent of normal. The big transmission lines that highly concentrated nuclear plants require are also vulnerable to lightning, ice storms, rifle bullets, and other interruptions. The bigger our power plants and power lines get, the more frequent and widespread regional blackouts will become. Because 98–99 percent of power failures start in the grid, it’s more reliable to bypass the grid by shifting to efficiently used, diverse, dispersed resources sited at or near the customer. Also, a portfolio of many smaller units is unlikely to fail all at once: its diversity makes it especially reliable even if its individual units are not.

The sun doesn’t always shine on a given solar panel, nor does the wind always spin a given turbine. Yet if properly firmed, both windpower, whose global potential is 35 times world electricity use, and solar energy, as much of which falls on the earth’s surface every ~70 minutes as humankind uses each year, can deliver reliable power without significant cost for backup or storage. These variable renewable resources become collectively reliable when diversified in type and location and when integrated with three types of resources: steady renewables (geothermal, small hydro, biomass, etc.), existing fuelled plants, and customer demand response.

Such integration uses weather forecasting to predict the output of variable renewable resources, just as utilities now forecast demand patterns and hydropower output. In general, keeping power supplies reliable despite large wind and solar fractions will require less backup or storage capacity than utilities have already bought to manage big thermal stations’ intermittence. The myth of renewable energy’s unreliability has been debunked both by theory and by practical experience. For example, three north German states in 2007 got upwards of 30% of their electricity from windpower-39% in Schleswig-Holstein, whose goal is 100% by 2020

Please review rest of article at: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php

Anaylsis finds toxins high in contained ash

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
(Published January 28, 2009)

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Duke University scientists have found high levels of arsenic and elevated levels of radium in the sludge waiting to be cleaned up at a massive coal ash spill in Tennessee.

The scientists, working with the United Mountain Defense coal industry watchdog group, sampled sludge trapped in an Emory River inlet below the Kingston Fossil Plant. Some 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash and water breached a holding facility there Dec. 22.

The samples showed levels of radioactive radium in solid ash slightly higher than expected and arsenic in sludge water significantly higher. However, river water tested downstream of the plant was clean.

They say the tests suggest caution will be required in containing the spill as it is cleaned up to prevent "severe health implications" for the area.

Pittsylvania County landfill fined for waste leak

Comment: Sleeper said the small size of the leak is the reason why the county didn’t notify the public of the leak last spring. (Secret leaks, is this the future, is it legal?)

By John CranePublished: January 27, 2009

Pittsylvania County must pay a $1,300 penalty to the state for a leachate leak discovered last spring at its landfill in Dry Fork.

The leak, a violation of the Virginia Waste Management Act and Virginia Solid Waste Management regulations, involved a “very minimal release of leachate,” Marvin Booth III, enforcement representative with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Lynchburg office, said Tuesday. “Leachate” is liquid that has passed through solid waste and contains waste material, according to the DEQ.

“No matter how small it is, we have to address it,” Booth said.

Booth said there was little chance that leachate reached the Banister River watershed. (was the leake check?)

During an unannounced, routine quarterly inspection on March 21, DEQ staff discovered a seep in a waste cell entering the landfill’s storm water conveyance system that drains into a sedimentation pond before potentially discharging into a wetlands area next to the Banister River, according to the order from the Virginia Waste Management Board.

Chemical analysis of seep samples by a county environmental consultant found contamination by “metals and organic constituents,” the state board said.

County investigation revealed that a leachate pump impeller had corroded and it no longer pumped leachate from a waste cell at the landfill. The landfill had no flow meters or hour meters, but the county has since installed them and replaced the leachate pump impeller, Booth said.

County Administrator Dan Sleeper said the amount of water involved in the leak was only enough to fill a coffee cup and that the $1,300 civil charge is the department’s minimum fine. Leachate is pumped to a holding pond and is sent to a treatment plant in Chatham, Sleeper said, adding the leak occurred at a closed facility.

The order from the Virginia Solid Waste Management Board states that procedures during periodic inspections of the pump “were not sufficient to detect failures of this nature.”

The county has since instituted procedures for weekly checks of the leachate flow meters, the board said.

Sleeper said the small size of the leak is the reason why the county didn’t notify the public of the leak last spring.

Let’s put uranium mining to a vote

Comment: Uranium mining should be referendum!!!

Published: January 28, 2009

Let’s put uranium mining to a vote

To the editor:

Uranium mining?! Are you kidding me? Uranium mining?! I don’t see how one can justify the potential risks over the potential rewards. I’ve read that the estimated amount of uranium ore at Coles Hill would equate to two years worth of energy.

Who in their right mind would want to gamble the long-term welfare of an entire region for a paltry two years worth of fuel? No matter how small the risk Virginia Uranium Inc. might promise is involved in mining and milling uranium, it cannot guarantee that there is no risk to it. For me, zero is the only acceptable risk regarding a radioactive substance.

The potential depth and extent of an accidental radiation exposure is a great unknown. If a radiation spill occurs, how large might it be, and how long before it’s detected and contained? As an OB-GYN physician, I can guarantee many pregnant patients from the county will be asking, “Will this uranium mining affect my baby?” All I’ll be able to truthfully answer is, “I hope not.”

I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but many people throughout the 20th century have been damaged by unanticipated or uncontrolled exposure to radioactive substances. Before knowledge of the atomic bomb, I’m sure the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have felt overly threatened if they were told that a single bomb was to be dropped on their cities. There are just too many unknowns concerning radiation exposure.

I have not heard or read anything in favor of this mining save from those who stand to gain financially from it. I feel the issue of uranium mining should be put up to a referendum, rather than made by politicians or several members on a committee or panel. The people of Pittsylvania County should have a direct say on this issue that so strongly affects their livelihood and well-being.

Let’s all remember that our home is Pittsylvania County, not “Coles County.”

RANDOLPH NEAL, M.D.
Danville

Colorado Action Network members made an amazing difference for the environment in this year's Colorado General Assembly

Comment: Virginia is not alone in the uranium fight or in need of green energy, Western US and Canada are fighting the same fight
Notice : General Assembly 2009 of Virginia
The 2009 session of the Virginia General Assembly started Wednesday and is scheduled to end on February 28th. The Virginia League of Conservation Voters Education Fund will continue to keep you up to date on priority legislation throughout the session and occasionally we'll ask you to take a few minutes to contact your legislators. We'll also be updating our online bill chart regularly to let you know which bills the conservation community supports or opposes as the session progresses.

The Web Page: http://capwiz.com/valcvef/issues/bills/

The People of Virginia needs to support the Green Energy Bills in the Virginia General Assembly and we can be successful like Colorado.

So tell all your friends to write or email using the above web page for the green bills!

2008 Session Wraps Up With Big Conservation Gains
Colorado Action Network members made an amazing difference for the environment in this year's Colorado General Assembly. The session wrapped up on May 6th and there is widespread agreement in the environmental community that big gains were made. Here is a quick review:
Comment: review the rest of article at http://www.coloradoactionnetwork.org/

Clean, Renewable Energy
HB 1160 - PASSED - Creates fair and uniform rates for homeowners and businesses for the excess electricity produced by their solar, wind, or geothermal energy systems.
HB 1164 - PASSED - Encourages the Public Utilities Commission to consider large-scale solar power plants as a way to meet our state's energy needs.
HB 1350 - PASSED - Enables local governments to provide lower interest loans to Coloradans making clean energy and efficiency improvements to their homes.
HB 1107, which would have created energy savings for homeowners and businesses, failed to pass due to heavy opposition from the Colorado Rural Electric Association.

And, a major victory on uranium mining:
HB 1161 - PASSED - Protects communities from the harmful impacts of uranium mining.
SB 228 - PASSED - Makes information about prospective mining operations more available to the public.

Canada's Fight
2009/01/02
Fight for Public Involvement in Environmental Assessment Heads To Supreme Court
A long battle over the public’s right to be consulted on large mines and other industrial projects is now heading to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court has decided to allow MiningWatch Canada to appeal the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal on the environmental assessment of the Red Chris mine in northern British Columbia.
http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php

A Man Dies because of the State!

This is outrages! In America, this should NEVER happen! When we all blindly follow the rules (of our government, employer, whomever), people die. They die without our caring. I don't know about you, but I care about this death! There is NO reason why this should have happened except man's inhumanity to man...
LET'S DO BETTER! GV

93-year-old froze to death, owed big utility bill

BAY CITY, Mich. — A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.
Marvin E. Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.

Neighbors discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday.
"Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly," Virani said. "It's not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they're burning."
Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.

A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, Belleman said. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.

The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.

Schur's body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.

"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the newspaper.

Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.

He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.

"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department." (ASSHOLE - emphasis mine! GV)

Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.

Bay City is on Saginaw Bay, just north of the city of Saginaw in central Michigan.
___
Information from: The Bay City Times, http://www.mlive.com/bay-city
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Uranium Mining in Canada – Past and Present

Uranium Mining in Canada – Past and Present

Background notes for a presentation to the Indigenous World Uranium Summit
November 30-December 1, 2006
Window Rock, Arizona
Jamie Kneen, MiningWatch Canada

Historic Mines – underground mines, tailings unconfined at older mines (dumped on land and/or in lakes) and in dry or underwater dams (natural lakes or valleys) at newer mines (1950s and later):1
 Port Radium (Eldorado mine), Northwest Territories
o Pitchblende was discovered at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories in 1930. In 1943, in order to gain control of all sources of uranium in their respective countries, the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States banned all private exploration for, and development of, radioactive materials. The federal government established a Crown corporation, Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited, to oversee Canadian uranium interests.

This company expropriated the uranium mine at Port Radium and was given a monopoly in all uranium prospecting and developing activities.2 The Port Radium site was decommissioned in 1984. Clean-up and reclamation work recently undertaken.

 Rayrock mine, Northwest Territories
o Staked in 1948; development underway by Rayrock Mines Limited in 1955. Production
commenced in 1957 and ceased due to lack of economic reserves in 1959. A small townsite built by the company was in operation during this period. The mine employed 135 men in 1958 and the townsite had 20 families as residents. The Rayrock site was abandoned in 1959.3 Indian and Northern Affairs Canada began the decommissioning and rehabilitation of the Rayrock site including capping of the tailings in 1996. Environmental monitoring of long-term performance of the decommissioned site began in 1998.

 Bancroft, Ontario
1 Details of tailings amounts, disposal, and chemical and radiological characterization are mostly not included here.
2 http://interactive.usask.ca/ski/mining/search/mineral_types/energy/uranium/history_uranium.html 3 Inventory of Radioactive Waste in Canada LLRWMO-GN-TR-99-037. Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office, November 1999 http://www.llrwmo.org/en/programs/ongoing/inventory.pdf

IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 2

o Madawaska Mine/Faraday Mine Discovered and originally staked in 1949 by A.H. Shore of Bancroft. Underground development started in 1954 by Faraday Uranium Mines Ltd. Production started 1957 and lasted until 1964 when contracts to sell uranium expired.
Mining operations were resumed in 1975 by Madawaska Mines Ltd.; the 444m shaft was deepened to 473m. Production began in 1976 and lasted until 1982. Other workings underground include a 50m shaft and three adits. 2,544,716 tons of ore were produced, averaging .1074% U3O8.4 AEC West Ltd. has completed decommissioning activities at the Madawaska site.
o Operations at the Dyno and Bicroft sites ceased in the early 1960s. AEC West is completing rehabilitation activities at the Dyno Mine; Barrick Properties has been carrying out decommissioning activities at the Bicroft Mine.

 Agnew Lake (north of Espanola, Ontario)
o The mine was operated by Kerr Addison Mines Ltd. between 1977 and early 1983 and produced a total of 855,000 kg of U3O8 from approximately 2.8 million tonnes of ore. The underground mine was developed to over 980 m in depth.5 The site was turned over to the province in the early 1990s.

 Elliot Lake, Ontario
o Uranium discovered in 1953
o The Lacnor Mine operated from 1957 to 1960, producing 2.7 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Nordic Mine operated from 1957 to 1968 and produced 12 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Panel Mine and Mill produced uranium from 1958 to 1961, and then again from 1979 to 1990. It produced 16 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Pronto Mine and Mill processed 2.1 million tonnes of uranium ore between 1955 and 1960, when the mill was converted to process copper. Copper processing continued until 1970. The Pronto Mill produced 4 million tonnes of waste. (Rio Algom)
o The Quirke Mine (1 and 2) and Mill operated from 1956 to 1961, and then from 1968 to 1990. It produced 46 million tonnes of tailings and waste rock. (Rio Algom)
o The Spanish-American mill operated from 1958 to 1959 and dumped 400,000 tonnes of waste in Oliver Lake. (Rio Algom)
o The Milliken and Stanleigh mines and mills produced 20 million tonnes of waste and tailings. The Milliken mill operated from 1958 to 1964, and the Stanleigh mill operated from 1957 to 1960, and again from 1983 to 1996. (Rio Algom)
o Denison Mines Limited operated in Elliot Lake from 1957 to March 1992, producing about 70 million tonnes of waste at the Stanrock (inactive since 1964), Can-Met, and Denison (inactive since 1992) mines.
o By 1976 all 55 miles of the Serpent River system were badly contaminated with acid generating, highly radioactive wastes. An official Ontario report noted that there were no living fish in the entire river located downstream from the mining wastes.
o In 1978 alone, more than 30 tailing dam failures were reported.
o In August 1993, two million litres of contaminated water spilled from a tailings site at Rio Algom’s Stanleigh mine as a result of a power failure. Rio Algom was charged by the Atomic Energy Control Board with one count of failure to provide appropriate training for its employees, and one count of failure to prevent the spill under “reasonably foreseeable

4 http://www.mindat.org/loc-542.html Ref.: Geol. Survey of Canada, Misc Report 39; Rocks & Min.:59:206-210
5 Ontario Geological Survey Open File Report 6185: Report of Activities, 2005 Resident Geologist Program,
Kirkland Lake Regional Resident Geologist Report: Sudbury District, 2006
http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/mndm/mines/ims/pub/roa/roapdfs/ofr6185.pdf

IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 3

circumstances”. The radiologically and chemically contaminated water spilled into McCabe Lake.
 Uranium City, Saskatchewan
o Uranium deposits were first found at Goldfields in the Beaverlodge area north of Lake
Athabasca in 1935-36. In 1944 Eldorado staked mineral claims in the region. In 1946 the Atomic Energy Control Act was passed in the House of Commons to regulate all operations of the industry. Regulation was administered from Ottawa by the Atomic Energy Control Board.
By March 1951 and after further exploration in the area, sufficient ore deposits had been
identified to warrant a mine and mill. Production commenced in May 1953 and exploration activity increased, resulting in further finds and the establishment of as many as 12 uranium mines and three mills in the Beaverlodge area by 1958. Eldorado operated the Beaverlodge mine and mill continuously for 29 years, closing in 1982.
o In 1952 the town of Uranium City was established in the area of Beaverlodge. Buildings from Goldfields were moved to the site.
o In 1955, Gunnar Mines Limited, a private uranium mining company, began production in the Beaverlodge area.
o In 1957, Lorado Uranium Mines Limited, a private company, began production in the
Beaverlodge area. Numerous small mines like Nisto operated in the Beaverlodge area, using Eldorado and Lorado milling facilities.
o In 1960, Lorado Uranium Mines Limited closed.
o In 1964, Gunnar Mines Limited closed due to depletion of ore body. Eldorado was the only uranium production company in Saskatchewan.
o Between 1953 and 1982 Eldorado mines in the Beaverlodge area produced some 45 million lbs of uranium concentrate (U3O8). Production of ore and yellowcake peaked in 1959/60 and 1967/8.
o The Beaverlodge operation was decommissioned in 1985 and is monitored by Cameco.

“Modern” mines: All are in northern Saskatchewan. Open pit and underground operations, some using freezing and remote control mining techniques; tailings in surface dams and mined-out pits using “hydraulic containment” to control groundwater contamination:6

 Cluff Lake (Areva):
o Discovered in 1971
o Mining began in 1980
o Deposits include: OP underground mine (1983-85), Dominique-Janine open pit mine (1989-90) and extension (1994-97), Janine North open pit mine (1990-91), Dominique Peter and Dominique Janine West mines (1998-1999), and West Dominique Janine underground mine (1994-2002)7
o Mill initially separated radioactive components of tailings for storage in concrete barrels, which leaked.
o On March 24, 1998, the AECB (Atomic Energy Control Board) denied a two year licence renewal. Instead, AECB approved an extension to the licence expiring March 31, 1998 for nine months, subject to several conditions. This decision reflects a number of deficiencies identified by AECB at the Cluff Lake site:
 the recent detection of increased radium levels in a lake located next to the tailings
management facility,
6 Ore reserves and details of processing and tailings disposal are not included here.

7 http://www.ir.gov.sk.ca/dbsearch/MinDepositQuery/default.aspx?ID=2153 \

IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 4

 the recent twofold increase in workers’ radiation exposure,
 the insufficience of the tailings management facility’s capacity (by the end of 1996, there was capacity for a production of one more year, while mining is scheduled to continue for ten years),

 Cogema’s inadequate project management capabilities at Cluff Lake.8
o Closed 2002

 Key Lake (Cameco/Areva):
o Discovered in 1975
o Mining began in 1983
o Open pit mines and mill
o Gaertner ore body mined out in 1987
o In September, 2004, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the renewal of the mining operating licence for the Key Lake Operation although the tailings disposal in the Deilmann open pit suffers from periodic sloughing of the pit sidewalls. One million cubic metres of sand have already slumped into the tailings, and another half a million cubic metres may follow. This sloughing not only decreases the capacity of the tailings disposal facility, it moreover distorts the performance of the facility in the long term which is based on the impermeability of the tailings.
o Still operating as mill for McArthur River ore; Deilmann pit to receive tailings

 Rabbit Lake/Collins Bay (Cameco):
o Discovered in 1968
o Mining started in 1975
o Deposits include mined-out original Rabbit Lake open pit and Collins Bay A-, B- and D-zone pits as well as Eagle Point underground (incline access) mine
o In 1989, 2 million litres of radioactive water spilled into Wollaston Lake; the company was charged and eventually pled guilty, attracting a $5000 federal and a $55,000 provincial fine.
o Eagle Point still in operation
o Mill to process half of Cigar Lake ore

 McArthur River (Cameco/Areva):
o Discovered in 1988
o Mining began in 1999
o Ore is frozen and removed by raise boring and boxhole boring remote mining methods and slurried to surface for milling
o On April 7, 2003, Cameco suspended production due to underground flood; resumed operation on July 2, 2003.

 McClean Lake (Areva):
o Discovered in 1979
o Mining began in 1995
o JEB open pit, McClean North & South underground mines, Sue C open pit
o Open pit and underground mines

 Cigar Lake (Cameco/Areva/Idemitsu/KEPCO)
o Discovered in 1981
o Jet boring remote mining method proposed
o Underground flooded October 23, 2006 – production development delayed at least 2 years

8 AECB News Release 98-07 http://www.aecb-ccea.gc.ca/news_rel/9807_e.htm

IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 5

 Midwest (Denison/Areva/OURD):
o Underground test mine – not yet developed
Exploration – a long way from mine development even in previously explored areas; 3-5 years at the earliest
 Athabasca Basin (northern Saskatchewan) – unconformity-type deposits
 Thelon Basin (Northwest Territories/Nunavut) – similar to Athabasca Basin
 Southern British Columbia – uranium-rich sedimentary strata like Wyoming’s
 Labrador and western Newfoundland – lower-grade but substantial deposits
Commissions of Inquiry and Environmental Assessments (EAs)
 Bayda Commission, a.k.a. Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry (Province of Saskatchewan, 1977-1978)  Kitts-Michelin Uranium Project (Province of Newfoundland, 1979)
 Key Lake Board of Inquiry (Province of Saskatchewan, 1979)
 Bates Commission, a.k.a. Royal Commission of Inquiry into Health and Environmental Protection in Uranium Mining in British Columbia (1980)
 Nova Scotia Uranium Inquiry under Mr. Justice McCleave (1985)
 Kiggavik Environmental Assessment Panel (federal, 1989-90)
 Environmental Assessment Panel: Rabbit Lake Uranium Mining (federal, 1993): expansion of the Rabbit Lake mine to include Eagle Point underground mine and A- and D-Zone open pit operations.
 Joint Federal-Provincial Panel on Uranium Mining Developments in Northern Saskatchewan (1991-1997): Environmental Assessment of McArthur River, Cigar Lake, Deilmann Pit (Key Lake),
McClean Lake and Midwest Projects.

Environmental Assessment Issues

McLean Lake Court Case
 On July 22, 1999, ICUC applied to the Federal Court, Trial Division to review the AECB’s decision to licence the grant an operating licence for the JEB Uranium Tailings Facility at the McLean Lake uranium mine without a full environmental assessment.

 On September 23, 2002, Federal Court Judge Campbell ruled that a Judicial Review was necessary for the AECB decision. The operating licence for the JEB nuclear waste facility is quashed; the mine continues to operate without a licence.

 On Nov. 7, 2002, the Federal Court of Appeal granted a stay of the Federal Court decision, allowing the mine to operate legally.

 On June 4, 2004, the Federal Court of Appeals overturned the Federal Court decision.

 On March 24, 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed ICUCEC’s request to appeal the Federal Court of Appeal decision and awarded costs against ICUCEC.
Rabbit Lake/Collins Bay A-zone Decommissioning

 On October 24, 2003, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced its decision to renew the operating licence for Cameco Corporation’s Rabbit Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan. As part of this licence, the company will be allowed to breach the dike that separates the mined-out Collins Bay A-Zone pit from Wollaston Lake itself.

MiningWatch Canada was among the intervenors who demanded an environmental assessment of this decommissioning plan.

IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 6

In fact, no environmental or public consultation information was brought before the Commissioners, although this did not seem to bother them.

 In a public meeting in spring 2003, people in the community of Wollaston Lake told the company in no uncertain terms they did not want the dike breached at all.
The CNSC determined that breaching the dike is not “decommissioning” but rather part of the “ongoing site rehabilitation” and therefore no EA is required, much less meaningful consultation with the affected Athabasca Denesuliné First Nations and accommodation of their interests on Crown lands.
Joint Federal-Provincial Panel on Uranium Mining Developments in Northern Saskatchewan
 Serious weaknesses in Panel process led to two Panel members and several intervenors withdrawing:
o Dr. Annalee Yassi, University of Manitoba occupational and environmental health professor, resigned from the panel on August 15, 1996.
o John Dantouze, vice-chief with the Prince Albert Grand Council, and only aboriginal member of the panel, resigned from the panel on October 1, 1996.
o The Inter-Church Uranium Committee (ICUC) withdrew from the participation in the review process.
o The mayors of four Northern Saskatchewan communities announced on October 1, 1996, that they would not allow the scheduled public hearings to be held in their communities.
Cluff Lake Decommissioning

 On April 15, 2004, Environment Minister David Anderson announced that the decommissioning of the Cluff Lake Uranium Mine and Mill facility does not require further assessment by a review panel or mediator under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The Minister referred the
project, proposed by COGEMA Resources Inc., back to the federal responsible authority, the CNSC, for appropriate action.

Kiggavik Project
 In a March 26, 1990, municipal plebiscite the Baker Lake community voted 90.2% against the proposal.
 The EIS was deemed deficient by the Panel; on July 5, 1990 the proponent asked for “indefinite delay” in proceedings.9

Kitts-Michelin Project
 Brinex (British Newfoundland Exploration) discovered uranium in 1977 and planned an open pit mine at Michelin and an underground mine at Kitts. Brinex submitted a revised EIS in 1979 and the provincial government held public hearings; the Labrador Inuit Association and local people (Inuit and settlers) from Makkovik and Postville expressed strong opposition to the proposal and on May 29, 1980, Premier Brian Peckford announced a moratorium on uranium mining in the Province of Newfoundland, saying the proponent had failed to satisfy the government “it can and will safely and permanently dispose of the waste materials (tailings)” and that its social impact studies were “woefully inadequate”.10

Nova Scotia – A moratorium on uranium exploration, declared in 1984, expired on January 1, 1995.

British Columbia – In 1980, premier Bill Bennett bowed to public pressure and introduced a seven-year moratorium on uranium mining and exploration. It was not renewed.

9 The Gulliver UG (Urangesellschaft) Dossier, http://www.sea-us.org.au/gulliver/ug.html
10 The Gulliver File: Mines, people and land: a global battleground. Roger Moody. Minewatch, London, 1992.

NRC CONSIDERING REQUEST BY VIRGINIA

NRC CONSIDERING REQUEST BY VIRGINIA TO BECOME AN “AGREEMENT STATE”

NRC NEWSU.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001
E-mail: OPA.Resource@nrc.gov
www.nrc.gov

November 18, 2008

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a request from Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to assume part of the NRC’s regulatory authority over certain nuclear materials in the commonwealth. If the request is accepted, Virginia will become the 36th state to sign such an agreement with the NRC.

Under the proposed agreement, the NRC would transfer to Virginia the responsibility for licensing, rulemaking, inspection and enforcement activities for: (1) radioactive materials produced as byproducts from the production or utilization of special nuclear material (SNM--enriched uranium or plutonium); (2) naturally occurring or accelerator-produced byproduct material (NARM); (3) source material (uranium and thorium); and (4) SNM in quantities not sufficient to support a nuclear chain reaction.

If the proposed agreement is approved, it is estimated that there will be 420 total licenses in the Commonwealth of Virginia. NRC would transfer 386 licenses to the commonwealth’s jurisdiction. In addition, the commonwealth would retain regulatory authority for approximately 216 NARM licenses. Approximately 180 of these NARM licenses are dually regulated by Virginia and the NRC.

If the proposed agreement is approved, it is estimated that there will be 420 total Virginia commonwealth licenses. NRC would transfer 386 licenses to the commonwealth’s jurisdiction. In addition, the commonwealth would retain regulatory authority for approximately 216 NARM licenses. Approximately 180 of these NARM licenses are dually regulated by Virginia and the NRC.

By law, NRC would retain jurisdiction over commercial nuclear power plants and federal agencies using certain nuclear material in the state. In addition, NRC would retain authority for the review, evaluation and approval of sealed radioactive materials and devices containing certain nuclear materials within the state.

Before entering into the agreement, NRC must determine that Virginia’s radiation control program is adequate to protect public health and safety, and is compatible with the agency’s own program for regulating the radioactive materials covered in the agreement.

The proposed agreement and the NRC staff’s draft assessment of the Virginia program will be published for public comment soon in the Federal Register, and also will be published for comment thereafter, once a week for four consecutive weeks. Comments should be sent to Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Division of Freedom of Information and Publications Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.

Copies of the proposed agreement, the governor’s request and supporting documents, as well as the NRC staff’s assessment are available through the NRC’s Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRC Public Document Room staff at 301-415-4737 or 1-800-397-4209, or by sending an e-mail message to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov. These documents are also available for public inspection at the NRC Public Document Room at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.

Thirty-five other states have previously signed such agreements with NRC. They are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

More information about the Agreement State program is available on the NRC’s Web site at: http://nrc-stp.ornl.gov/.
NRC news releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html.

The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site.

Canada’s Toxic Mine Tailings Secret Goes to Court

Monday January 19, 2009 09:00 AM

Canada’s Toxic Mine Tailings Secret Goes to Court: Information on toxic pollution from mines being hidden from public

(Toronto, January 19, 2009)

Canada’s Federal Court will be hearing a lawsuit today against the Minister of the Environment for failing to ensure that Canada’s mining industry publicly reports the hundreds of millions of kilograms of toxic pollution it generates each year.

The lawsuit was filed in Federal Court in late 2007 by Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund) on behalf of MiningWatch Canada and Great Lakes United. The Application for Judicial Review alleges that the Minister broke the law when he directed mining companies to not report huge amounts of pollution sent to tailings ponds and waste rock piles to the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI).

“We are arguing that the Minister has ignored his legal duties under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to provide the public with the full extent of pollutants released by mining companies in Canada,” said Justin Duncan, Staff Lawyer with Ecojustice. “The Canadian public – and especially residents living downstream from mining operations – have the right to scrutinize the environmental and health hazards these mining companies continue to create.”

In stark contrast, for more than ten years the U.S. government has required mining companies to report the amount of pollutants they release under the American equivalent of the NPRI, the U.S. Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). In 2005, in the United States, mining operations represented less than one-half a percent of all industries reporting to the TRI; however, they accounted for 27% of all pollutants released – more than 530 million kilograms of toxic materials.

Pollution in the form of mine tailings and waste rock – the data being withheld from the Canadian public – accounted for more than 97% of the total pollutants reported by the U.S. mining industry.

“Given the enormous amounts of carcinogens and heavy metals like lead and mercury reported in U.S. mine tailings, it is absurd that Canadian mines are being let off the hook and not reporting this massive form of toxic pollution,” said MiningWatch Canada spokesman Jamie Kneen. “Whether you live in Smithers, British Columbia, Voisey’s Bay, Labrador, or anywhere in between, Canadians have a right to know what poisons industry is releasing into our air, water, and soil.”

“There are at least 80 facilities across the country not reporting their tailings and waste rock pollution to the NPRI. If the U.S. figures are any indication, this could be many millions of kilograms of toxic pollution,” said John Jackson, Director of Clean Production and Toxics for Great Lakes United. “But, so long as the Minister of the Environment continues to direct the mining industry to break the law and conceal these figures, we’ll never know.”

OUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK! PEANUT BUTTER!

Folks, this is government permitting, regulation, inspections, etc. at work.

If we can't (in a plant owned by a company in Lynchburg Virginia!) keep a staple of every household in the USA "safe" from contamination from peanut butter, how will we keep people in Virginia safe from uranium mining & milling? THIS IS A MUST READ! GV

Peanut Plant Was Cited for Violations!

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: January 26, 2009

The plant in Georgia that produced peanut butter tainted by salmonella has a history of sanitation lapses and was cited repeatedly in 2006 and 2007 for having dirty surfaces and grease residue and dirt buildup throughout the plant, according to health inspection reports.

The Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Ga. Inspections of the plant in Blakely, Ga., by the State Agriculture Department found areas of rust that could flake into food, gaps in warehouse doors large enough for rodents to get through, unmarked spray bottles and containers and numerous violations of other practices designed to prevent food contamination.

The plant, owned by the Peanut Corporation of America of Lynchburg, Va., has been shut down.
A typical entry from an inspection report, dated Aug. 23, 2007, said: “The food-contact surfaces of re-work kettle in the butter room department were not properly cleaned and sanitized.” Additional entries noted: “The food-contact surfaces of the bulk oil roast transfer belt” in a particular room “were not properly cleaned and sanitized. The food-contact surfaces of pan without wheels in the blanching department were not properly cleaned and sanitized.”

A code violation in the same report observed “clean peanut butter buckets stored uncovered,” while another cited a “wiping cloth” to “cover crack on surge bin.” Tests on samples gathered on the day of that inspection were negative for salmonella.

At a later inspection, on Dec. 14, 2007, no violations were noted, but the report said the plant was “shut down for cleaning.”

The inspection reports were provided by Georgia officials in response to a request made by The New York Times under the state’s open-records act.

State officials said they could not release two recent inspection reports from 2008 because of the continuing investigation into the plant. The state performs the inspections on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration as part of a contractual agreement with the federal agency, the officials said.

Representatives of the Peanut Corporation of America did not respond to requests for comment.

The salmonella outbreak has sickened almost 500 people around the country and is linked to seven deaths. More than 125 products containing peanut butter or peanut paste from the Georgia plant have been recalled

Chatham? Gretna? Hurt? Danville? Will this happen to us?

Promises, promises!

Will this be us?

GV

Roundup residents patiently await town's economic boom

By LORNA THACKERAYOf
The Gazette Staff

ROUNDUP - With years of false starts and disappointing stops about to be buried under the weight of millions of tons of coal dug from the Signal Peak Mine, Musselshell County is gearing for a prosperous future.In some ways, it doesn't seem real. A check with the Roundup Chamber of Commerce showed no surge in new stores on Main Street and no rush to expand by existing businesses. At midday, the streets don't buzz with traffic, and it's still easy to get a table at a local café.There are plenty of "For Sale" signs on most streets, though newcomers could be hard-pressed to find a place to rent as construction continues at the mine and on a railroad spur connecting the mine to a Burlington Northern Santa Fe line at Broadview.Big plans for the coal reserves in the Bull Mountains south of town have been on the board before, and locals could be forgiven a pinch of caution in their outlook.

"We're kind of waiting for that first train to come through," said Jerry Frazer of Rimrock Realty of Roundup. "Everyone's kind of gun-shy."The mining company, which has poured tens of millions of dollars into the project and expects to spend between $400 million and $450 million to get that first train rolling, says it should be on the tracks by late summer or early fall.

As production increases, the permanent work force, now somewhere around 100 strong, will double.

Musselshell County and Roundup won't absorb the full impact of a new population of miners. Many are expected to commute from Yellowstone County. But there will be increased pressure on roads, emergency services, schools, medical services and other amenities that local government is expected to provide.And they are as ready as they can be, County Commission Chairman Larry Lekse said."We've been in the planning stage 20 years," he said. "We've been anticipating and preparing all these years. I think we're right on track.

"New subdivision ordinances have just been adopted for the county, and the city has adjusted its zoning requirements and extended its water and sewer lines. Capital improvement plans have been updated for the city and county, and the school district has applied to the Coal Board for a planning grant. A new housing plan has been completed so Roundup can apply for housing grants.

Starting in the mid-1990s, when the Bull Mountain Land Co. tried to start a major mining project, the county, city, school board and other entities began approaching Montana's Coal Board for money to prepare. They received just under $3.2 million between 1994 and 2007.Coal Board grants have paved Old Divide Road, helped pay for an ambulance barn, provided money for road and emergency services equipment, financed a study for a new water system, helped build new water and sewer lines and built three additional classrooms at the high school.Between the county, city and school district, grant applications for another $2 million are before the Coal Board now.

Until the Legislature finishes its business, no one knows how much money the Coal Board will have available for the coming biennium. In the last biennium, the total was $2 million, and that had to be allocated among applicants from several Montana coal counties, said Ellen Hanpa of the Coal Board staff.

"We probably awarded half to a little more than half of what was requested," she said.The Coal Board is out of money and won't award new grants until summer.

Bills that would increase the amount are before the Legislature, as are alternative proposals for funding impacts of coal development. The city, county and school district have hired a part-time lobbyist to represent their interests in Helena.When the mine starts producing its anticipated 10 million tons a year, taxes should start flowing into county coffers, even with the county's decision to waive half the company's property tax bill for the first five years and gradually bring it back to full payment over five more.

Monty Sealey, executive director of Central Montana Resource Conservation and Development, estimates that the county's taxable valuation could increase from about $7.5 million to $10 million.

But more important, he said, would be income from the 5 percent gross proceeds tax on production. It's only an educated guess, Sealey said, but when the mine starts digging up millions of tons of coal each year, the county's share of the revenue could increase as much as $200,000 a month. That would nearly triple the county's current income, he said."If it goes into production in the fall, it'll be two years before the revenue stream gets here," Sealey said. "That's what the Coal Board is for - to kind of get us through.

"Musselshell County has been judicious in petitions to the Coal Board. Local officials - city, county, school district, hospital - get together periodically to decide which projects take priority."We don't want to be in competition with each other," County Commissioner Sue Olson said.

Applications now before the Coal Board include county staffing increases, $259,000; ambulance purchase, $130,000; Fattig Creek and Majerus Road construction, $585,000; and storm-water main trunk line for Roundup, $390,000.There are other long-term goals that local officials hope coal money will eventually help them complete.

"Our infrastructure is in very tough shape," Lekse said. "We spend a lot of money repairing our courthouse. Our courthouse is not even ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible. The county shop is from the turn of the (20th) century.

"Musselshell County Sheriff Woody Weitzeil said his department of seven is stretching to keep pace with an increase in activity around the county.

"If I could get up to nine officers, we'd be good," he said. "I could use about two or three new patrol cars. When we start getting tax money, that will give us what we need.

"Weitzeil said he especially needs a new jail to replace the one built a century ago."It's wore out," the sheriff said. "We're just squeaking by, waiting for someone to come and tell us to close it up.

"For Roundup, one crucial element to continued growth is obtaining a new water supply.

Roundup is a founding partner in the Central Montana Regional Water Authority, a group of towns from Hobson to Melstone hoping to replace their mineral-laden supplies with better-quality water from a deep well near Utica. It will involve a 225-mile pipeline and cost more than $100 million.Sealey said the project is proceeding in fits and starts.

"What we're really working on is getting a couple of studies done needed for federal authorization," he said. "They should be done in the spring and then we can move on.

"He's hoping there may be some funding in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package.

Published on Monday, January 26, 2009.Last modified on 1/26/2009 at 12:31 am
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

The Deepest Cuts State Budgets in Crisis

Send an e-mail to David A. Fahrenthold" Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 26, 2009; Page B01

One in a series of reports exploring the impact of budget cuts being contemplated by elected officials in Maryland and Virginia.

The state of Virginia has eliminated more than one-fifth of its air-pollution inspectors -- who police everything from massive power plants to neighborhood dry cleaners -- as part of its attempt to make up a budget shortfall estimated at $3 billion or more, officials said.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) wants to cut about $12 million this fiscal year from the $420 million budget of the state secretary of natural resources, who oversees state parks, Chesapeake Bay restoration and anti-pollution efforts.

Under Kaine's plan, some of the cutbacks would come through deferring maintenance, eliminating training and replacing quarterly surveys of state-park visitors with annual ones. Kaine also proposed cutting 43 positions.

One small section of the secretary's domain -- the air-enforcement division of the Department of Environmental Quality -- has already made serious cuts. A spokesman for the department said 14 of the roughly 54 inspector positions had been eliminated.

No inspectors were laid off, department spokesman Bill Hayden said. He said most had left the department through voluntary early retirement programs and a handful were moved to other jobs.

Air inspectors oversee about 5,000 sites statewide, checking their paperwork and the emissions from smokestacks and exhaust. At power plants, those emissions can include soot and the building blocks of smog. At dry cleaners, they can include cleaning chemicals that irritate lungs.

State officials said the inspectors will still be able to check Virginia's largest air polluters, about 500 power plants and factories, as often as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules require. That's once every two years for the very largest, and once every five years for the rest.

But officials said that the rest of the sites would be checked much less often.
Jerome Brooks, who oversees the air compliance division, said that in previous years, inspectors were able to check 1,400 sites a year.

This year, he said, they will check fewer than 800.

He said they would try to target sites with a history of violations and those that draw complaints from neighbors.

"If [polluters] are out of compliance, we may or may not find it as quickly or easily as we once did," said L. Preston Bryant Jr., state secretary of natural resources.

S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said the loss of inspectors could embolden Virginia's polluters to bend or break rules.

"This is akin to having pollution-control cops on the beat. When sources of air pollution know that their facilities are being inspected, they will . . . do a better job" of controlling emissions, Becker said.

Becker said he fears other states will also lay off inspectors this year as the national recession cuts into the tax revenue that makes up state budgets. Becker said it is too early to know how many jobs might be lost nationwide.

Two jobs were also lost from the Department of Environmental Quality office in charge of policing water polluters, Hayden said, although he said this was also done without layoffs.

In Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) released his proposed budget last week and actually added money for the oversight of power plants.

The state's Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund, a new program that funnels money into efforts to stop pollution on farms and in suburban neighborhoods, did not fare as well.

The fund, which draws from a tax on fuel and car rentals, was heavily raided this fiscal year. As the state's budget tightened, $25 million was shifted into the state's general accounts. Only about $9.6 million was left.

For the next fiscal year, O'Malley proposed taking money from the trust fund again, this time about $6.5 million. The rest of the fund, projected to be about $25 million, will be spent on the Chesapeake, according to state officials.

O'Malley "has made a huge commitment to bay restoration here," said Mark Hoffman of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "He could have very easily said, 'We'll continue to take $25 million.' "

Senate panel OKs bill encouraging wind-farm leasing off Va.

By Dave ForsterThe Virginian-Pilot© January 26, 2009
RICHMOND

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission would get the authority to lease underwater land for an offshore wind farm under a bill that passed a Senate committee today.

State Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, is sponsoring the bill, SB1350. The legislation also directs the Marine Resources Commission to study whether there is suitable land off Virginia’s coast to support a commercial offshore wind farm, and if there is, to try to lease it for development.

The legislation would pave the way for wind energy production in Virginia, especially off southern Virginia Beach, where some of the most ideal spots appear to be near False Cape State Park and the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Wagner said.

“There would be no one to have to look at it,” Wagner said of the soaring windmills typical of such projects.

Anti-Uranium Mining Mogul Posts Milestone

We have finally figured it out...... the birthday boy is...........Gregg Vickrey!!!!!!

Everyone congratulate Gregg on his 29th +++ birthday........today is his day!!!

Radiation Exposure

Comment: FYI!

URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/radiationexposure.html

Radiation is energy that travels in the form of waves or high-speed particles. It occurs naturally in sunlight and sound waves. Man-made radiation is used in X-rays, nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants and cancer treatment.

If you are exposed to small amounts of radiation over a long time, it raises your risk of cancer.

It can also cause mutations in your genes, which you could pass on to any children you have after the exposure.

A lot of radiation over a short period, such as from a radiation emergency, can cause burns or radiation sickness. Symptoms of radiation sickness include nausea, weakness, hair loss, skin burns and reduced organ function.

If the exposure is large enough, it can cause premature aging or even death. You may be able to take medicine to reduce the radioactive material in your body.

Environmental Protection Agency

Uranium(Environmental Protection Agency) - http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/uranium.html

Bill limiting uranium mining reintroduced in U.S. House

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Environmental groups are re-introducing legislation to put a little more than 1 million acres of federal land on the Colorado Plateau off-limits to most new uranium mining.

The measure would not impact existing claims where miners have proven they have viable deposits, but is a response to renewed uranium mining interest in the region, spurred by rising prices.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, reintroduced the legislation Thursday, along with U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor of Arizona.The bill would limit exploration north and south of the Grand Canyon, including in the Kaibab National Forest near Tusayan, in House Rock Valley, and near Kanab Creek. The measure is supported by the Grand Canyon Trust, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club.

At the same time, the environmental groups are also asking the new interior secretary, Ken Salazar, to put in place temporary measures they requested last year that would temporarily ban uranium mining until the House and Senate could vote on Grijalva's bill.

"The easiest course of action would be for the Obama administration to do a mineral withdrawal," said Taylor McKinnon, of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Last year a House divided committee chaired by Grijalva passed a measure directing former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to put these lands off limits.

Kempthorne declined, calling the committee's direction possibly illegal without a full vote of the House and Senate.

The groups filed suit in response.

Uranium mining’s legacy

Gallup Independent By Kathy HelmsDiné Bureau

GRANTS — Data reviewed by an independent team of scientists and engineers contracted by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the remediation system at Homestake Mining Co.’s uranium mill site has raised a number of issues.

William Thompson, senior hydrologist for Environmental Quality Management Inc. of Cincinnati, said the Remedial System Evaluation team looked at what Homestake was doing right, and what it might be doing wrong in its cleanup of the Superfund site.

With regard to the tailings pile, water is injected to flush contaminants out of the rock strata, then collected and drained in wells. “The question is, how effective is this process,” Thompson told a group of concerned residents during a community meeting conducted Wednesday evening in Grants by EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department.

"The information that we’ve gotten and have seen from their reports indicate that they have calculated almost half a million pounds of contaminants have been removed from the large tailings pile to date. We don’t know how many pounds are ultimately there.”

Thompson explained that Homestake utilizes a system of wells and trenches to emplace water of better quality. About 1,200 gallons per minute of water is taken from the San Andres aquifer to help them isolate the most contaminated water in the immediate vicinity of the tailings pile.

“The injection is operated in conjunction with a series of extraction wells to allow them to establish a balance between the migration of the water and the contaminants throughout the system. That’s in the Alluvial aquifer. In the Chinle aquifers they’re doing an injection program and a pumping program as well,” he said, which is expected to continue until 2017.

As part of the program to clean up the groundwater Homestake generates water that needs to be treated. The most contaminated water from the Alluvial aquifer and some water from the large tailings pile is taken through a water treatment system frequently termed “reverse osmosis,” though a little more complex, to remove contaminants, Thompson said.

Homestake then reinjects that water in close proximity to the large tailings pile to isolate the contamination. Evaporation ponds also are used. “Not only do they use the ponds themselves to evaporate water, but water is sprayed into the atmosphere and allowed to evaporate that way.”

A third treatment component is an irrigation system.

After reviewing data on these processes and making a site visit, the team came up with a series of issues. One is that work on the tailings pile contaminant reduction might not be completed by the target date of 2012.

A more difficult question, he said, is how did the Chinle aquifer become contaminated.

While the Alluvial aquifer was contaminated principally by direct infiltration, the Upper, Middle and Lower Chinle aquifers were contaminated when contaminants in the Alluvial aquifer migrated to points where they came into contact with the Chinle.

There was contamination in the Alluvial aquifer and it was able to be drawn down into the Chinle aquifer,” Thompson said. “As a second mechanism of contamination of the Chinle aquifer, there are a lot of wells that are in operation at the site by the residences in the area and those can serve as conduits from which the contamination can migrate downward from the Alluvial aquifer to the Chinle aquifer.”

While residents may have reasons to keep those wells operating, Homestake is going to have to evaluate a program that is going to allow a balance, he said.
“The easy answer, which you don’t want to hear, is turn it all off. Take away that driving force. I know that’s not something that anybody wants to do, and I’m not saying specifically that it has to be done, but it’s going to have to be very carefully considered as part of their remedial program.”

Resident John Block questioned whether there had been any effort made to try to understand what might be concentrated in the soil that’s being irrigated with water from the treatment process. “You did indicate there is a contamination level of some kind in the liquid they’re applying. I’m wondering if you keep applying it for say, 25, 30, 40 years, does the uranium or other materials in there at a low level slowly concentrate into the soil and actually become a cumulative hazard of some kind?”

Thompson said that, too, was identified as an issue. “The question is what is the accumulation of metals.” He said the information they reviewed showed that currently the concentrations do not present a potential health risk, however, “we recommend that Homestake undertake the necessary studies to better understand what that concentration is, and if necessary, implement a remedial program for soils contaminated as a result of that process.”

Johnnie Head, a resident of Murray Acres, told agency representatives, “I think what you’re not facing is the only way you’re going to cure the problem is to move that tailings pile and get it out of there, because it’s going to continue to seep and contaminate and spread, and that’s just a fact.

“And the other thing that I really don’t understand — and I realize I don’t have a degree — but I do not understand how you can in good conscience set our standard of water above what should be good drinking water — even what it was when you first said it was bad; and now we’re going to have a higher level of contamination. How can you in good conscience do that?

“The standards are being raised to suit something that you can’t seem to think you can bring it down to where it should be. I don’t understand why we should feel better about that.”

Alan Cox of Homestake said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission set the background standards about three years ago and the other agencies agreed to the change. “In relationship to the objective that we ought to be cleaning the site up to where there’s drinking water standard water in the ground downgradient from the site when we are done at the end of the day, it’s not appropriate,” he said.

Water monitoring samples upgradient from Homestake “show that that water is above drinking water standards, whether you want to talk about federal drinking water standards or state drinking water standards, and that’s one of the things that’s so contentious here. People downgradient of the site have the expectation that they should have drinking water standard groundwater,” he said.

Milton Head told the group that when EPA first announced in 1975 that there was contamination in the Alluvial aquifer, there were no monitoring wells to develop background data.

“So, let’s go from there. They tell us in ’75 that we’ve got this pollution that’s halfway into Broadview Acres, it’s into a portion of Murray acres, and it’s clear across the site. In our discussions with NMED and EPA at that time, we suggested some options,” he said, including that monitoring wells be put in ahead of the contaminant plumes to develop background data.
“We’ve asked for it hundreds of times since, and even today we don’t have monitoring wells to develop background data ahead of the plume down there close to Milan. They’ve never put one in.”

Laura Watchempino from the Pueblo of Acoma Haiku Water Office asked whether the construction of Homestake’s wells was investigated to determine whether those might also be spreading the contamination.

“The other thing you mentioned was other aquifers besides the Alluvial aquifer that was contaminated. Nobody has mentioned any water samples or studies done on the San Andres aquifer that is being used, or is proposed to be used for part of this remediation. ... I think it’s really critical that samples be taken right now to see what background we can get from that before it’s used as part of the remediation.”

Chris Shuey of Southwest Research Information Center took issue with Thompson’s statement that the contaminant plume is getting smaller. “There are several thousand acres now that have contaminant plumes under them, and that’s hugely different from 1961 and 1975. So, in fact, it has gotten bigger. It has gotten huge; and it keeps getting huge.”

He also questioned Thompson’s statement that the remediation system is preventing contaminant plumes from reaching residences, stating that a report from the Environment Department issued in June stated that 18 of 24 residential wells in the Alluvial aquifer exceed safe standards for uranium. One out of two Upper Chinle wells also exceed, as do six out of 10 Middle Chinle wells, three out of 13 Lower Chinle wells, and one out of three San Andres wells.

“We don’t want contamination to reach the San Andres. We don’t want to have to wait until you get monitoring data that says, ‘Oh, it’s contaminated’. We want to prevent contamination.

"That’s a hallmark of our water quality act.”

Raul Grijalva looks to prohibit uranium mining near Grand Canyon

10:55 AM MST on Friday, January 23, 2009
Fox 11 News

Federal lawmakers have not given up the fight to prevent uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

Thursday, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) Arizona, re-introduced legislation to prevent mining for uranium and other minerals on approximately one million acres near the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2009 will withdraw the lands near the Grand Canyon from mineral exploration under the 1872 Mining Act. This Act currently allows companies or private citizens to stake claims for minerals such as uranium in close proximity to Grand Canyon National Park.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, Congressman Ed Pastor and Congressman Maurice Hinchey are original co-sponsors of the bill.

Environmental Problems and Violations Accumulate for Uranium Mining and Processing

Information from Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction :http://www.nunnglow.com/

While the uranium mining industry insists that the in-situ leaching process for extracting uranium is environmentally safe, mining violations and associated fines imposed by mining regulatory agencies continue to accumulate. To avoid violations, some mining companies request more lax environmental standards. Significant problems also occur with uranium processing and transportation. Here are some recent examples:
Uranium Mine (Power Resources, Inc.) to pay $1.4 million settlement. http:www.trib.com/articles/2008/07/10/news/breaking/doc4876424160775926209366.txt.

Cameco Resources agrees to pay $50,000 fine for deficienies identified during abandoned drill hole inspection at Smith Ranch ISL site.
See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopwy.html#SMITHR.

According to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality records, 51 requests for “amended restoration tables to make them higher” have been granted out of 80 uranium mining production areas.
See http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/goliad_county/story/323434.html.

Strathmore pays $18,000 fine for numerous violations connected to exploration activities at Sky ISL project site (Wyoming).
See http://www.wise-uranium.org/upusawy.html#SKY.

The Cotter Corp. uranium mill has been cited by the state for radioactive contamination at the adjacent Shadow Hills Golf Club.
See http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/uranium-mill-cited-for-new-contamination/.

$50,000 penalty imposed on Cameco's subsidiary Crow Butte Resources for violations at ISL uranium mine (Nebraska).
See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopusa.html#CROWBCD080523.

Wyoming DEQ issues Notice of Violation to Cameco Resources for deficienies identified during abandoned drill hole inspection.
See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopwy.html#SMITHR.

Cameco Resources Reaches Settlement with Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. See http://www.cameco.com/media_gateway/news_releases/2008/news_release.php?id=236.

Wyoming Model In Situ Uranium Mine Under Scrutiny for an Alarming Volume of Environmental Violations.
See http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/wyoming-deq-sanctions-uranium-mine.html.

WISE Uranium Reports Cogema Seeks Approval for Groundwater Restoration. See http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/wise-uranium-reports-cogema-seeks-approval-for-groundwater-restoration.html

Probe finds uranium mine violations.
See http://www.nunnglow.com/probe-finds-uranium-mine-violations.html