Fishermen Fed Up With Exxon
Alaskan fishers, frustrated by the lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and Exxon's attitude, blockaded oil tanker lanes for three days during September.
The flotilla of 100 boats turned back seven tankers. The protest was called off after a meeting with federal interior secretary Bruce Babbitt and state officials.
In return, the state said it would hear their requests for assistance. Babbitt said he would pressure Exxon to hasten negotiations over damage claims.
The fishers were also angry over reports that the trust fund set up to restore the Alaskan coastline has spent most of the money on administrative costs, legal and travel expenses and even reimbursement to Exxon.
Of the US$202 million disbursed so far, only $45 million has gone to new environmental restoration projects, while almost $40 million has gone back to Exxon to reimburse it for clean-up costs in 1991 and 1992.
Though Exxon has claimed there is no evidence that the 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound is still affecting wildlife, the once-lucrative pink salmon industry has failed for the last two years.
Clean-up ends at Three Mile Island
With a final puff of radioactive steam, the 14-year-long clean-up of Three Mile Island drew to a close in late August.
The last of the tritium-laced steam belched into the atmosphere from the evaporator used to get rid of more than 2 million gallons of contaminated water from the plant's Unit 2 reactor, which was destroyed in the United States' worst commercial nuclear accident in 1979.
Unit 2 will be monitored until it is decommissioned 21 years from now.
Across the US in Washington, a shake-up was promised at the Hanford nuclear reservation — the most polluted nuclear site in the country — after the Department of Energy announced new safety violations.
Hanford, which made plutonium for nuclear weapons for 40 years, has 177 underground tanks filled with "hot" waste. Many of them have leaked or threatened to explode.
Plutonium should be viewed as "a national asset" according to the Energy Department, which is proposing a long-term storage site for tons of the radioactive element that have been taken from dismantled weapons.
Environmentalists say leftover plutonium should be treated as a nuclear waste, but Energy officials say it should be maintained as a fuel for future reactors.
The Energy Department has announced a five-year study in Nevada of nearly half a century of nuclear explosions in the desert. Researchers will examine the effects of some 640 blasts on ground and water surface and soil and plant life at the Nevada test site.
[From Econews, California.]