The 21% reduction in the Portsmouth work forces comes concurrently with a petition by Neighbors for an Ohio Valley Alternative (NOVA) to move clean-up responsibilities at the former sites of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon, Ohio from Department of Energy (DOE) contractors to control by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In a release the NOVA advocacy group alleges gross misconduct and mismanagement at the former nuclear sites by public/private owner United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) and the Department of Energy (DOE).
"The distressed communities of Piketon, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky, home to closed uranium enrichment plants and Superfund toxic waste dumps, face a crisis of nuclear cleanup, grotesquely mismanaged by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors", said NOVA.
"Billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted, with whistleblowers suppressed, criminal acts unprosecuted, conflicts of interest tolerated, job opportunities lost, corruption encouraged, and the "national security" apparatus abused".
In a posting at Ecowatch, an environmental news service, Geoffrey Sea writes, United States Enrichment Corporation has been moving contaminated equipment from the Piketon site to Paducah, under the rubric of “spare parts”.
(Editor’s Note: Among previous Piketon allegations have been the shipping of plutonium to Piketon from Paducah at the X-705 structure. http://www.remedyspot.com/showthread.php/4512-Plutonium-Contamination-at-Piketon-Plant-%28Ohio%29. After that 1999 allegation, documentation has circulated concerning alleged alteration of dosimeter readings which calculate worker radiation exposure.)
USEC announced its intention to close the Paducah enrichment facility, but did not count on a DOE contract provision to return the facility in “safe” condition. Power down funds are not included in the federal budget.
At the community meeting, Terra Hays testified her husband became ill after working for 23 months removing and packaging contaminated materials at the Kentucky site, where Hays stated over 19,000 worker compensation claims have been filed. They relate to cleaning solidified uranium and transuranic radioactive residue from pipes. Additional solidification would likely occur after shut down, since process materials remain in gaseous form while powered, but solidify when heat is shut off.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky may sue the federal government to compel clean up of the site, according to Sea, citing the Governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, and its Attorney General. Whistle blowers and the National Resources Defense Council have sued contractors over past waste handling fraud and legal violations.
The NOVA petition warns of future plans to go ahead with a planned "gigantic" nuclear waste dumps stating that the Kentucky and Ohio sites “were improperly used for waste storage in the past. Gigantic new radioactive waste landfills are planned against community opposition, and fake "citizen advisory boards" and "community reuse organizations" represent the interests of corporate contractors, not our communities".
http://ecowatch.com/2013/kentuckys-nuclear-future-melts-down-to-lawsuits
Sea, in a NOVA blog, suggests that a recently signed national security order signed by President Obama relates to protecting Russian weapons grade uranium assets should the United States Enrichment Corporation falls into bankruptcy and the Russian uranium, along with technology encased in uranium centrifuges become subject to seizure by USEC creditor’s such as J. P. Morgan Bank.
“The "national nuclear emergency" in this case is that the rogue state of J.P. Morgan might acquire tons of stuff that used to be encased in Russian nuclear weapons. Duck and cover!”, Sea wrote.
Originally, President Clinton issued the relevant part of the order in the year 2000 which reads:
“Government of the Russian Federation assets directly related to the implementation of the HEU Agreements currently may be subject to attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process, thereby jeopardizing the full implementation of the HEU Agreements to the detriment of U.S. foreign policy”.
For a full interpretation of the USEC /American Centrifuge financial meltdown, visit: