May 7, 2012 - Orange County Register -
Nothing radioactive in crash with 1 dead, 1 injured - A truck carrying containers marked as containing radioactive material crashed into a tree off the I-605 near Los Alamitos on Sunday night, killing one person and sending another to a hospital trauma center, according to law enforcement agencies. Orange County Fire Authority hazardous-material specialists investigated the containers, which turned out to be construction-equipment vaults, and discovered that they did not contain radioactive material, said Capt. Marc Stone. ADVERTISEMENT The slow lane of the southbound freeway was closed near the Katella Avenue/Willow St. off-ramp but has since reopened, according to California Highway Patrol. The accident involved one vehicle, a truck with a camper, which went down into a ditch before striking a tree, according to CHP dispatch records. The injured person was transported to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, but the condition is unknown, Stone said.
May 7, 2012 - Eastern Arizona Courier - State Legislature endorses Arizona as dumping ground for nuclear waste: Safford area one of five potential locations - If the Republican-controlled Arizona State Legislature has its way, the state could become the nation's dumping ground for nuclear waste. The debate on what to do with America's spent nuclear fuel has been ongoing since the 1980s. The United States Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982, which instructed the Department of Energy to locate, build and operate a permanent underground disposal facility for the nation's nuclear fuel. In 2002, Congress approved President George W. Bush's decision to build the site under Yucca Mountain, which is in Nevada about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In 2008, the DOE announced it was raising the project's budget from $57.5 billion to $96 billion. President Barack Obama and his administration rejected the use of the site in the 2010 United States Federal Budget by eliminating all funding except what is needed to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commiss-ion. The decision was made, according to Democrats, because of the skyrocketing price tag and a laundry list of scientific, technical, public health, legal and safety problems. While Democrats said the site was initially chosen for political reasons, Republicans cite the political affiliation between President Obama and Nevada Senator Harry Reid (D) as the primary reason for its demise. Some states subsequently filed lawsuits seeking to force the federal government to honor the license application of the NWPA and insist the site be opened to accept nuclear waste. In the meantime, President Obama created the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to recommend alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
May 7, 2012 - Vancouver Columbian - Expose deal to import foreign waste.- The May 3 Columbian story reported "Radioactive waste might be imported" and transported to an incineration facility in Richland, near the Hanford nuclear reservation. A couple of weeks ago I saw a story saying that there was property going to be leased and after a little research I realized the land was part of Hanford. Now I see we are going to be trucking radioactive material across the country from Mexico and burning it here in the Northwest. The people who are worried about the coal dust coming off of loaded trains running through our county have been moot on this. What the heck? We cannot produce our own nuclear energy or dispose of it and properly handle our own waste but we will accept being contaminated by Mexico’s waste?
May 7, 2012 - Los Angeles Daily News - Region faces rolling blackouts if San Onofre not back online - Rolling blackouts could be a reality this summer if an intense heatwave hits and businesses and residents don't cut enough energy usage, according to a Southern California Edison official. SCE is grappling with the fact that its San Onofre nuclear power plant is still offline, Veronica Gutierrez, a spokeswoman for the Rosemead-based utility, said. "We could have rolling blackouts if we had a heatwave and conservation efforts aren't enough," she said. "Let's say we get one of the units at San Onofre back up this summer. If it's a normal summer we may not have any issues. But if something happened somewhere else in the system, like a fire that damages transmission lines ... that could start rolling blackouts." Both units at San Onofre were shut down in January and will stay out of commission until regulatory investigators can determine the cause of excessive wear on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water at the facility. The plant supplies 2,200 megawatts of power - enough to power 1.4 million average-sized homes. Gutierrez said SCE is addressing the problem on four fronts - transmission, generation, conservation and outreach. "We have a transmission line running from Cerritos to Huntington Beach that will be upgraded in June," she said. "That will help shore up power for south Orange County and also help our voltage flow to import more power to San Diego."