Nuclear Threat Around the World

When Walt Kelly declared:

“WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US”

he wasn't speaking of nuclear power plants constructed in flood plains, on fault lines, areas threatened by wildfires or tsunamis, but our willingness to believe Nuclear Industry assurances that those plants could somehow be made safe continues to unravel and provides an interesting parallel.



Los Alamos, New Mexico:
Firefighters beat back flames on nuclear lab property
By Zelie Pollon
SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) - A raging wildfire in Los Alamos on Monday briefly entered the property of the nation's preeminent nuclear facility, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a vast complex that houses research laboratories and a plutonium facility.

Thousands flee as fire nears town, Los Alamos nuke lab
Mandatory evacuations ordered; first atomic bomb was built at complex
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Thousands of residents calmly fled Monday from the mesa-top town that's home to the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, ahead of an approaching wildfire that sent up towering plumes of smoke, rained down ash and sparked a spot fire on lab property where scientists 50 years ago conducted underground tests of radioactive explosives.

From Nuclear Power Industry News
Emergency Status Unchanged as Secondary Flood Berm Collapses at Neb. Nuclear Plant
Nuclear Street News Team

A water-filled berm at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant deflated Sunday, the Omaha Public Power District reported. Apparently punctured by heavy equipment operating nearby, the berm was among several barriers protecting plant buildings from extreme flood conditions on the adjacent Missouri River.

"This was an additional, a secondary, level of protection that we had put up," OPPD spokesman Mike Jones told CNN. "The plant remains protected to the level it would have been if the aqua berm had not been added."

The plant remained under an unusual event declaration, the lowest of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's four-tiered emergency classification system. The plant's 500-megawatt Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor has been out of operation since refueling in April. Downstream, the power district's Cooper nuclear plant also remains under an usual event declaration and is still operating.

River levels at Fort Calhoun recently stood at 1,006 feet above sea level and are not expected to exceed 1,008 feet above sea level – six feet below the maximum flood level anticipated in the plant's design. A number of flood control measures have been taken at both plants, including sandbag barriers and extra diesel shipments for emergency generators.


Added flood protection at Nebraska nuclear plant fails
Officials remain confident plant can sustain flood's onslaught
By Lynda Waddington

A concerning situation near Omaha, Neb. took a new twist early Sunday when a temporary levee protecting the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station failed, forcing the facility to turn briefly to emergency generated power.

Two Nebraska nuclear stations — Cooper near Brownville and Calhoun near Blair (19 miles north of Omaha) — are coping with ongoing Missouri River flooding. Although Cooper was built above the flood plain, Calhoun was not. As a result, Cooper continues to operate, while Calhoun, which shut down for refueling in April, remains offline.

“Some mechanical equipment tore the side of the dam,” Victor Dricks, Region 4 spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told The Iowa Independent Monday by phone. “As a result, the plant switched to emergency power for a period of a about 12 hours.”

NRC inspectors were onsite when the incident occurred, and flood waters rushed auxiliary and other buildings at the site. The power supply was cut because water infiltrated the plant’s main electrical transformers. Power has since been switched away from emergency generators and to an off-site power supply.

Keeping power at the plant is critical since the reactor core has been refueled and spent fuel remains in a cooling pool. Dricks said the failure of the dam did not adversely impact either the core or the cooling pool. Dry cask storage of spent fuel has long been exposed to the flood waters and, as Dricks told The Iowa Independent last week, poses no risk.


Nebraska Residents in No Danger After Floods Hit Nuke Plant: Waters Breach Berm at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station


Japan:

15 Fukushima residents’ urine contaminated with radiation
From ANI

Tokyo: Over three millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 residents living near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, especially in the village of Litate and the town of Kawamata.
Both the places are about 30 to 40 kilometres away from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which has been releasing radioactive material into the environment after being severely hit by the March 11 earthquake-cum-tsunami.

Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University, said that people need to stop eating contaminated vegetables or other products to avoid being affected by it.

"But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas," The Japanese Times quoted him, as saying.

Kamada teamed up with doctors, including few belonging to Watari Hospital in the city of Fukushima, to conduct two rounds of tests on each resident in early and late May by taking urine samples from 15 people between 4 and 77.

Radioactive cesium was found both times in each resident.

Fukushima starts internal radiation checks
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Fukushima Prefecture began checking the internal radiation dose levels of selected residents Monday, the first step in its plan to examine the health of all its 2 million residents amid the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.