"GAO: N-weapons sites need a ‘clear vision’ on security"

As reported at Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground blog at the Knoxville News:

"Efforts to reform security activities and cut costs at the nuclear weapons sites in the 2009-2012 timeframe have been among the things blamed for the July 28, 2012 security breach at Y-12. In a new report released today, the Government Accountability Office takes a look at what the National Nuclear Security Administration has done to address security and what it should be doing.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

“After the Y-12 security breach, NNSA took a  number of actions designed to improve its security performance and oversight but did so without first developing a clear vision and path forward for its security program and an implementation strategy, including milestones and responsibilities for carrying them out . . . ”

For the purposes of this evaluation, GAO visited three NNSA sites — Lawrence Livermore, Pantex and the Nevada National Security Site – and contacted the other sites, including Y-12, by telephone, according to the report.

In a May 20 response to the 37-page report, NNSA Administrator Frank G. Klotz noted the GAO’s recommendation that NNSA develop a “road map” for security, and Klotz said such an effort is already under way, with a scheduled completion date of Dec. 31, 2014."

Markey, Burgess Release Report Showing Legal Concerns over Energy Dept.’s Deals with Uranium Enriching Company

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)A new GAO report, requested by U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass., photo left) and U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), finds that the shuttered U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) facility received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of uranium, while ignoring laws and losing taxpayer money.

The report details a pattern of actions by DOE that kept USEC’s facility in Paducah, Kentucky open and subsidized the development of questionable centrifuge technology at its Ohio facility, even as the company was rated as junk bond status, threatened with de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange, and ultimately spiraled into bankruptcy.

USEC was seeking a $2 billion federal taxpayer-backed loan guarantee for its American Centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in Portsmouth (Piketon), Ohio, but the deal fell apart amidst USEC's financial "meltdown," as well as due to technical difficulties with the technology's development.

“Our government has kept this uranium company on life support, wasting money and flouting the law, even though it was clear that it would end up in bankruptcy. This is the kind of government waste that Americans just don’t understand,” said Senator Markey, who is a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. “It’s time to commit this junk technology to the junk bin.”

Some of the uranium involved is associated with supplying replacement tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons.

Sen. Markey has issued a press release, including a summary, and a link to the full 112-page GAO report.

Nuclear Hotseat: Fukushima's Cover-up "Killer Points" w/ Karl Grossman

Karl GrossmanInterview, on Nuclear Hotseat, by host Libbe HaLevy, with award-winning investigative journalist Karl Grossman (photo left), on how the nuclear industry has gamed the media since before Hiroshima, why mainstream media continues to resist coverage of nuclear news, and thoughts on how to start breaking that logjam.

Karl serves as a Beyond Nuclear board member.

Hanford whistleblower: pipe explosion at PFP went unreported to public

As reported by KNDO, a whistleblower at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has revealed that a pipe explosion occurred at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) two weeks ago, but was not publicly reported. The PFP played a role in fabricating the weapons-grade plutonium that was used to incinerate Nagasaki, Japan in August, 1945.

The whistleblower alleged that the contractor in charge is more concerned about schedules and profit margins, than the safety of its workers.

HBO's VICE: "Genetic Passport," about Soviet nuclear weapons testing in Kazakhstan

HBO's investigative report series VICE traveled to Kazakhstan to report on the serious consequences to human health and the human gene pool from nuclear weapons testing by the USSR upwind of inhabited areas. See the reporter's debrief here.