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New Mexico Levies $54M Against Energy Dept. For Violations At Nuclear Repository
mdsolar notes that New Mexico has asked the US Department of Energy to pay over $54 million in fines stemming from violations that led to the indefinite closure of the nation's only underground nuclear waste repository. The state Environment Department delivered a pair of compliance orders to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, marking the state's largest penalty ever imposed on the agency. Together, the orders outline more than 30 state permit violations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico and at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The orders and the civil penalties that come with them are just the beginning of possible financial sanctions the Energy Department could face in New Mexico. The state says it's continuing to investigate and more fines are possible. The focus has been on a canister of waste from Los Alamos that ruptured in one of WIPP's storage rooms in February. More than 20 workers were contaminated and the facility was forced to close, putting in jeopardy efforts around the country to clean up tons of Cold War-era waste."
Cold war era waste is in all kinds of difficult to manage forms. A system of tight regulation & oversight, including fines for violations, is the best way to deal with it. If there are no fines or violations occurring, then either oversight or regulation is too lax, or both.
It's all a bit of political posturing. The Feds can decide if they will allow Nevada to sue them (Federal Tort Claims Act). Thus, the Feds can essentially dictate whether or not they want to give Nevada some money. Everybody knows this. It's just a game.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why? It was never theirs. Any land ends up belonging to those with the greatest number of ppl. The area claimed by mexico was never theirs. It was owned by native Americans or indian tribes that had 5-10x as many ppl as Mexicans had here. Sadly, the genocide that the Mexicans started in America was continued by the other Europeans that had moved to america.
But to claim that any of this belonged to new Spain or mexico is a joke.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Way off topic, but European diseases such as Smallpox killed Incas. Quoting: "Even before the arrival of Pizarro, smallpox had already devastated the Inca Empire..." And: "... the viruses tore through the continent, killing an estimated 90% of Native Americans."
There is a nuclear disaster area in the United States, the Hanford nuclear site. I've heard about the some of the problems over many years from a manager of one of the departments of the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Wikipedia article mentions some of the problems. Here is one quote:
"Citing the 2014 Hanford Lifecycle Scope Schedule and Cost report, the 2014 estimated cost of the remaining Hanford clean up is $113.6 billion..." [my emphasis] Retrieved Dec. 3, 2014.
Here is another quote from the Hanford Wikipedia article: "From 1944 to 1971, pump systems drew cooling water from the river and, after treating this water for use by the reactors, returned it to the river. Before being released back into the river, the used water was held in large tanks known as retention basin for up to six hours. Longer-lived isotopes were not affected by this retention, and several terabecquerels entered the river every day. These releases were kept secret by the federal government."
What is called cleaning Hanford has now taken more than 50 years. The Wikipedia article is not, at present, completely clear about that fact, apparently because, as the quote above says, the U.S. government managed the information so that it did not get into the news, although much of the information was not actually a secret, but was known to people living in the area.