Chernobyl

Great video of Family life in Chernobyl before and after the nuclear accident. Music is "Huns and Dr. Beeker - Ghost Town." Very sad.

Ghosttown

This is footage from the town of Pripyat - a town evacuated and abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. The movie's creator, Elena, has an incredible site with pictures and descriptions about the disaster at www.kiddofspeed.com - I highly recommend it.

Simi Valley Nuclear Disaster

Simi Valley California was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history in 1959, and the amounts of radiation leaked to the environment and atomosphere were more than 240 times that of the accident at 3-Mile Island. The area is beautiful today, but what still remains from many decades ago?

Uranium enrichment facility moves closer to reality

by Ruth Campbell
Midland Reporter-Telegram

Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 3:29 AM CDT

-The $1.5 billion Lea County, N.M., facility, located near Andrews' Waste Control Specialists, should start producing in late 2009.

By Ruth Campbell

Staff Writer

Since its groundbreaking in August 2006, Louisiana Energy Services' uranium enrichment facility near Eunice, N.M., has sprung out of the earth and expectations are the $1.5 billion facility will come on line by late 2009.

Dana Starr, communications specialist for the National Enrichment Facility, as it is called, gave a presentation to Midland Rotary Club members Thursday at Midland Center. The plant will produce enriched uranium, which is needed to make fuel pellets that will be sent off to make electricity.

Pellets are shipped in U.S. Department of Transportation approved containers and have GPS tracking systems.

"We have already sold our first 10 years of production of our plant," Starr said.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued LES a license to build and operate the facility June 23, 2006. It is the first one to be licensed in America the last 30 years, she said, noting that progress is being followed closely by the nuclear industry.

The National Enrichment Facility is the first of its kind in the United States, but will be the fourth in the world. The Eunice plant was modeled after one in the Netherlands.

Enrichment services will be available in late 2009, but construction will continue through 2013.

It is owned by Urenco, a consortium of the British, Dutch and German governments.

Currently, the plant has 197 employees working in design, engineering, licensing, operations, maintenance and construction.

"We have successfully attracted 'nuclear' qualified staff across the organization," Starr said. The company said it would hire as many local people as possible, but that has been difficult.

She said National Enrichment Facility expects to be fully staffed by the end of June with 271 employees. There are currently 1,100 construction workers on site, including craft, management and construction workers.

That will decrease to 400. In addition, there are 235 contractors supporting development of programs, procedures and construction including the security force.

NEF has an annual payroll of $14 million and its subsidiary, ET U.S., or Enrichment Technology U.S., has a payroll of $4.5 million. With 65 employees locally, ET U.S. assembles centrifuges used in the plant.

Salaries for major contractors and subcontractors are $13.3 million a month, Starr said.

Overall, LES has paid $7.7 million in New Mexico state taxes from January through April of this year and made $300,000 in charitable donations to organizations in New Mexico and Texas.

The facility came about through the efforts of longtime U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, who "fought tooth and nail" to bring it to Eunice. Several factors also made the site attractive to LES including the geology with its red-bed clay, community support and tax abatements.

The plant is licensed for 30 years and waste will be stored on site. The company has a memorandum of understanding with Areva, a fuel cycle company that provides services to various U.S. utilities, to remove the uranium hexafluoride -- the active ingredient in the waste -- so the uranium can be put back in the ground, Starr said.

Ruth Campbell can be reached at ruth@mrt.com.

SDSU research: Native American tea has health benefits

SDSU: News At State

South Dakota State University research shows that a Native American tea used in traditional medicine can help knock out upper respiratory infections.

In addition the tea is rich in antioxidants that help protect against cancer and other illnesses.

Professor Fathi Halaweish in SDSU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry said those are among the findings from his analysis of a native tea used by communities of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe of the Lake Traverse Reservation in northeastern South Dakota. Though the tea can be consumed routinely, it is also used specifically to treat sore throats.

“I have tried it personally. It does heal your sore throat,” Halaweish said. “It contains some compounds that specifically target the bacteria that are part of the upper sore throat infection. Our research supports the long history the Native American people have for using the plant in this way.”

Currently the work is funded by the Big Coulee District of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, Halaweish said.

Halaweish focuses a part of his research on discovering new drugs by isolating organic compounds from natural sources. Plants have formed the basis for treatment of diseases in traditional medicine for thousands of years, and continue to play a major role in the primary health care of about 80 percent of the world’s inhabitants, he notes.

“We are looking at the potential of this Native American medicine as a nutraceutical product,” Halaweish said.

That means the Native American medicine would not be marketed as a drug, but as a food product that could have medicinal or health benefits.

Halaweish subjected the tea to a series of tests to detect any antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-diabetic properties. In addition Halaweish did toxicity studies on the cell culture to verify that the herbal tea and the compounds it contains are safe to consume.

Halaweish said he’ll be pleased if the tea proves to be a product that tribal members can produce and market commercially.

“I’m very happy that this will work for the Native American communities, that we can be a part of their vision for marketing some of their Native American plants,” Halaweish said. “This is part of our mission as a land-grant institution, to help out communities in our state.”

Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe community members also use other plants for medicinal purposes. Halaweish said SDSU will continue to study the medicinal properties of herbs used by Native Americans.