EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.
"An Old Nuclear Problem Creeps Back"
Green (NYT), 06/08/2010"A nuclear reactor where a hidden leak caused near-catastrophic corrosion in 2002 has experienced a second bout of the same problem."
"Atomic Waste Gets 'Temporary' Home"
Wall St. Journal, 06/03/2010"Three months after the U.S. cancelled a plan to build a vast nuclear-waste repository in Nevada, the country's ad hoc atomic-storage policy is becoming clear in places like Wiscasset, Maine."
"N.M. Salt Beds Could Become Nation's Nuclear Dump"
NPR, 05/13/2010"For 11 years, the federal government has been burying nuclear waste in New Mexican salt beds at a place called WIPP, or the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. It's waste from making atomic weapons. But now the government is looking for a place to put thousands of tons of spent fuel from reactors. These salt beds could be the place."
"Texas Dump Might Get Other States' Radioactive Waste"
Austin American-Statesman, 05/10/2010"A commission run jointly by Texas and Vermont, with a membership made up mostly of Gov. Rick Perry's appointees, could decide this summer to make Texas the potential resting place for radioactive waste from 36 states."
"Japan Reactivates Monju Nuclear Reactor"
BBC News, 05/07/2010"Japan's Atomic Energy Agency says it has restarted a controversial nuclear reactor, more than 14 years after its operations were suspended."
"Stimulus Workers Confront Legacy of Contamination at Nuclear Sites"
ProPublica, 05/04/2010The $2 billion in federal stimulus money was welcomed in southeastern Washington, where the government has been working for decades to clean up the Hanford nuclear complex. But newly hired workers on the project may be facing dangers because of inadequate training and precautions for the threat of deadly beryllium dust.
"There's No 'Plan B' for Nuclear Waste, So It Stays Local"
Press of Atlantic City, 04/26/2010"Twenty concrete vaults sit side-by-side, like self-storage containers, next to the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. These concrete tombs hold fuel cells, each containing 12-foot rods of enriched uranium. The rods are toxic and radioactive and were never intended to be stored here indefinitely, among Ocean County's 560,000 residents."
"Critics Challenge Safety of New Reactor Design"
NYTimes, 04/22/2010"As Southern Company and its partners, armed with federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion, move toward construction of two new reactors at a site near Augusta, Ga., opponents are taking aim at the design details." A new engineering study funded by several anti-nuclear groups says corrosion in the reactor's containment could vent radioactivity to the atmosphere in the event of an accident. Westinghouse, the reactor's maker disputed the study.
"Has Trust Leaked Away With the Tritium?"
NYTimes, 04/21/2010"A panel of experts convened on Tuesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss how the agency should approach tritium leaks at reactors suggested that the biggest risk that nuclear operators faced was the erosion of public trust."
"In Vermont, Nuke Power Faces a Test"
USA TODAY, 04/16/2010"Vermont Yankee is one of more than two dozen aging U.S. reactors that have leaked radioactive tritium from underground pipes. Its case has cast a pall on the revival of nuclear power and revived the anti-nuclear movement."
"Nuclear Ambitions Pose Company Risk, Public Costs"
Reuters, 04/14/2010"European investors and consumers take note: plans by power companies to cut carbon emissions with a new range of nuclear power stations are a big gamble for companies and joe public will have to foot the bill."
"Obama, World Leaders Work to Stop Nuclear Spread"
AP, 04/12/2010"President Barack Obama and presidents, prime ministers and other top officials from 47 countries start work Monday on a battle plan to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands."
"U.S. Sued Over Nuclear Waste Fees"
NYTimes, 04/06/2010"Sixteen utilities and a trade association sued the Energy Department on Monday to halt the government’s collection of nuclear waste disposal fees, arguing that the country no longer had a disposal plan after ruling out Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a repository."
"New York Denies Indian Point a Water Permit"
NYTimes, 04/05/2010"In a major victory for environmental advocates, New York State has ruled that outmoded cooling technology at the Indian Point nuclear power plant kills so many Hudson River fish, and consumes and contaminates so much water, that it violates the federal Clean Water Act."
"Second Radioactive Substance at Vermont Yankee"
AP, 03/31/2010"Test results have confirmed the presence of another, more dangerous, radioactive substance in the soil at Vermont's only nuclear power plant, officials said Tuesday, five days after announcing they had found and stopped tritium leaks at Vermont Yankee."

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