September 28th, 2010 | Environment | Niamh Marnell | Problems continue to plague the Savannah River Site, according to the most recent Defense Facilities Board weekly report. These reports are among the few sources of independent information available to the public.
This week’s report describes a drill to prepare the huge H-Canyon for an earthquake. The Savannah River Site and its legacy of high-level radioactive waste are on one of the most significant earthquake faults in the United States. The Saltstone incident at the bottom of the report is serious because Saltstone is DOE’s solution to remediate low-level liquid radioactive waste from the very dangerous 49 storage tanks connecting to H-Canyon.
Continue reading More Problems Facing New Savannah River Site Manager
September 28th, 2010 | Environment | Niamh Marnell | The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board released more details about a glovebox puncture wound that a contract employee received working on transuranic waste in the huge and decaying F Canyon building at the Savannah River Site. Once used to separate plutonium, the canyon, according to DOE’s website, was deactivated August 2006. On June 14, 2010, a worker received a dose of radiation and the Department of Energy released little information about the incident. Now, several months later, new details are posted on the Defense Facilities Board website. If what happened last June sounds dangerous, it was. DOE has denied DCBureau’s request to interview the injured worker.
Continue reading New Details On Plutonium Exposure Incident at Savannah River Site
 After last month’s launch of X-37B, the U.S. Air Force’s secret space plane, some speculated that it might be a prototype for an orbiting bomber. Others thought it could be a weapons platform used to take out enemy satellite assets. Russian military officials even pressed Moscow to begin work on its own space arsenal. British press insinuated the U.S. was testing new laser weapons systems.
A new report from the Secure World Foundation, however, claims that the space plane will likely be used by the American Military to spy from Earth’s orbit. The pentagon has occasionally used the Space Shuttle to put spy satellites in orbit, but with the shuttle’s retirement in 2010 the X-37B may now serve this purpose.
READ THIS STORY AT WIRED.COM
Continue reading Wired: Report: Secret Space Plane Likely an Orbiting Spy
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