April 11, 2012 - Click Lancashire -
Wildlife thriving after nuclear disaster - Radiation from the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents may not have been as harmful to wildlife as previously thought. New research by Professor Jim Smith, of the University of Portsmouth, and colleagues from the University of the West of England has cast doubt on earlier studies on the impact on birds of the catastrophic nuclear accident at Chernobyl in April 1986. Their findings, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, are likely to also apply to wildlife at Fukushima in Japan following its nuclear disaster in 2011 and represent an important step forward in clarifying the debate on the biological effects of radiation. Professor Smith, an environmental physicist at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: “I wasn’t really surprised by these findings – there have been many high profile findings on the radiation damage to wildlife at Chernobyl but it’s very difficult to see significant damage and we are not convinced by some of the claims. “We can’t rule out some effect on wildlife of the radiation, but wildlife populations in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl have recovered and are actually doing well and even better than before because the human population has been removed.”
April 11, 2012 - National Journal - Power Struggle at Watchdog Agency Could Undermine Nuclear-Plant Safety - Until the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan and a very public internal feud late last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was a fairly obscure federal agency with primary responsibility for regulating the nation’s 104 nuclear power plants. But when the other four NRC commissioners—two Democrats and two Republicans—ganged up on Chairman Gregory Jaczko last year, accusing the Democratic appointee of bullying and intimidating his fellow commissioners and agency staff, the backwater agency based about 15 miles outside of Washington was suddenly in the spotlight with a good old-fashioned, inside-the-Beltway melodrama. Six months later, things have settled down at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., at least on the surface, but the bitterness caused by the controversy still seems to linger and many lawmakers overseeing the agency continue to raise questions about whether NRC is functioning effectively at a critical time for the nuclear industry. In a recent interview with National Journal, Jaczko spoke calmly about the debacle. Sitting in his office on the top floor of the agency’s headquarters, the embattled chairman’s words were measured. Reiterating what he has now said many times about the blowup, Jaczko argued that disagreements at an independent commission like NRC are the sign of “a healthy culture.” “If people wanted everyone who agreed, then they’d save the money and they’d just have one person in charge,” Jaczko said.