April 23, 2012 - Bloomberg News -
Republicans Push Spending to Dump Waste in Reid Back Yard - A proposed nuclear waste dump outside Las Vegas that the U.S. Senate’s top Democrat has spent years trying to kill is back on the congressional agenda as Republicans are pushing for it in spending bills. House Republicans want to provide $25 million to revive the Yucca Mountain site in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s home state of Nevada, one of the thousands of spending line items that lawmakers began considering last week. The waste site proposal illustrates the parties’ divergent visions for dividing as much as $1.047 trillion Congress can allocate for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. "There are different priorities on each side of the rotunda," Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said last week in an interview. "Then, of course, we’re in a presidential campaign year, and there are going to be differences, whether it comes to individual projects or overall spending. So all of these things together make it more challenging."
April 23, 2012 - Grand Junction Sentinel - Naturally occurring radioactivity part of Western Slope life - Coloradans are subjected to, on average, four times more naturally occurring radiation than the average American. It is the price of living in a mountainous and geologically rich region, but the full impact of that background radiation on residents’ health is poorly understood. Aside from an increased risk of skin cancer because of higher elevations and a heightened but avoidable lung-cancer risk from radon seeping from uranium-rich soils, it appears the higher-than-average background radiation levels in Colorado, and Mesa County in particular, are still lower than what would be deemed hazardous. Some experts even believe the low levels may have beneficial effects, up to a point, but it is notoriously difficult to fully isolate the effects of something as ubiquitous as background radiation from the hundreds of other factors that affect human health. Whatever the impacts, it is clear people in this region live surrounded by heightened — and ancient — levels of radiation. When Grand Junction’s Climax Uranium Mill closed its doors for the final time in 1970, it left a lingering legacy of radiation in the community. But it was not the first do so.
April 23, 2012 - Michigan Radio - A Return To 'Safety First' For Michigan Nuclear Plant - The Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan had five unplanned shutdowns last year. It's one of the area's biggest employers, and its safety record is one of the worst in the country. Now it's trying to prove to federal regulators that it can meet their standards. On the shores of Lake Michigan, the Palisades Power Plant is tucked in between tall sand dunes in Covert Township, Mich., at the southern edge of Van Buren State Park. Kathy Wagaman, who heads the chamber of commerce in South Haven, 7 miles north of Palisades, said she remembers spending summer days at the state park, playing football, swimming and sailing with no real concerns about the plant. "Back in the '80s and early '90s — actually, up until 9/11 — we all used to swim in front of it because the water was warm," she said. Wagaman said the nuclear plant is one of the largest employers in Van Buren County, with about 700 workers on any given day. In fact, the Palisades plant is the county's largest taxpayer. "They've been a very good neighbor," she said, "and I just feel confident that they're taking good care of this."
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