

http://science.energy.gov/~/media/ber/berac/powerpoint/Bertsch.ppt



Click to access S0960-9822(15)00988-4.pdf

“The Savannah River Site was constructed during the early 1950s to produce the basic materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons, primarily tritium and plutonium-239,… Five reactors were built to produce these materials. Also built were a number of support facilities including two chemical separations plants, a heavy water extraction plant, a nuclear fuel and target fabrication facility, a tritium extraction facility and waste management facilities.”

http://www.srs.gov/general/about/history1.htm It continues to make tritium to upkeep nuclear weapons, recovers helium 3, and apparently is becoming a dumping ground for world nuclear waste: http://nuclear-news.net/2015/01/02/savannah-river-site-secretly-becoming-worlds-nuclear-dumping-ground/ http://nukewatch.org/activemap/NWC-SRS.html http://www.srs.gov/general/news/factsheets/tf.pdf

The above so-called Chernobyl “study”, which recently made news isn’t really even a study, but a short 3 page “correspondance” with more authors than pages (7 authors), which could lead to a light-bulb joke. It is misleading, and the researcher-research funding is so tainted, that one could imagine that they would even import animals to count. However, if you look carefully, they actually don’t seem to have found much. They misleadingly report tracks to dosage, rather than animals to dosage. (It is worth noting that wolf tracks and large dog tracks are very similar. Tracking, even in snow, is a skill.) Although some of the researchers received funding from the IRSN (French equivalent of the US DOE – NRC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_de_radioprotection_et_de_sûreté_nucléaire and National Geographic for a project to put dosimeters on “wolves”, this is nowhere to be found in their “correspondance”. Did they never do it? Or did they not like the dose findings? Chernobyl Exclusion Zone includes areas that are clean, or relatively so. And, traveling up to 200 km per day, wolves can quickly travel in and out of the 30 km Chernobyl Exclusion zone, anyway. If you wish to see real Chernobyl research please look at this summary of Mousseau and Moller’s 14 years of Chernobyl research: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/biological-consequences-of-nuclear-disasters-from-chernobyl-to-fukushima/

SREL’s Apparent Purpose is to Cut Contractor Cleanup Costs at US Nuclear Sites

“What is SREL? It is a laboratory whose work has saved the tax-payers millions of dollars in remediation costs.“ (p. 10) “Pure and simple: SREL does not cost DOE money, it saves DOE … money.“ (p. 166) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg36143/pdf/CHRG-110hhrg36143.pdf

Don’t believe for a second that the US DOE has an interest in saving taxpayers money. Any money saved is apparently to increase contractor profits. And, the DOE is spending billions to import foreign nuclear waste under the bogus claim of “non-proliferation”. Much of the radioactive waste is taken from Europe, which is supposed to be “friendly”. Thus, for 2016, only, $1.9 billion was requested by the DOE for so-called nuclear nonproliferation activities where the US runs all over the world taking the foreign HEU-spent fuel.

http://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-presents-fy16-budget-request

There you have it again, SREL saved on clean-up costs!





“Cost Effective End States”



http://science.energy.gov/~/media/ber/berac/powerpoint/Bertsch.ppt

Funding of the Chernobyl “Study” also included the UK’s Radioactive Waste Management Ltd: “The Radioactive Waste Management Directorate has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NDA. It will be known as Radioactive Waste Management Limited.“ http://www.nda.gov.uk/2014/04/nda-creates-new-subsidiary/

They say it straight out in the paper, though no one else seems to have looked, certainly not the journalists:

“The inputs of J.T.S. and A.L. to this paper were supported by the TREE project (funded by the Natural Environment Research Council NE/L000393/1, Environment Agency and Radioactive Waste Management Ltd.). Contributions of J.C.B. were supported by the

US Department of Energy Award Number DE-FC09-07SR22506 to the University of Georgia Research Foundation. “Current Biology 25, R811–R826, October 5, 2015 ©2015 The Authors R825 Long-term census data reveal abundant wildlife populations at Chernobyl T.G. Deryabina1, S.V. Kuchmel1, L.L. Nagorskaya2, T.G. Hinton3, J.C. Beasley4, A. Lerebours5, and J.T. Smith 1Polessye State Radioecological Reserve, 7 Tereshkovoi Str., Choiniki, 247618 Gomel Region, Belarus. 2Applied Science Center for Bioresources of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 27 Academicheskaya Str., 220072 Minsk, Belarus. 3Institute of Environmental Radioactivity, Fukushima University, 1 Kanayagawa, Fukushima, 960–1296, Japan. (Previously: Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, Cadarache, France). 4University of Georgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, PO Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29802, USA. 5School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Burnaby Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3QL, UK.” This is an open access article under the CC BY license http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(15)00988-4.pdf (Emphasis added). Belarus’ head of state is Putin’s buddy. Belarus is still severely contaminated from Chernobyl, and is getting a Russian nuclear power station. It is considered an authoritarian state by some, a dictatorship by others. Involvement of Belarus arguably adds to the taint: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/belarus

So too does a researcher at Fukushima from the French Nuclear Research Entity.

“SECTION I: Savannah River Ecology Laboratory – FY13 Overview of Achievements

The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) is a research unit of The University of Georgia (UGA) that has been conducting ecological research on the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina for over 62 years. The overall mission of the Laboratory is to enhance our understanding of the environment by acquiring and communicating knowledge of ecological processes and principles that contribute to sound environmental stewardship. In addition, as directed in the Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), SREL will provide the public with an independent evaluation of the ecological effects of SRS operations on the environment. Toward these goals, SREL conducts fundamental and applied ecological research, as well as education and outreach programs.

The Laboratory’s research mission during the 2013 fiscal year was fulfilled with the publication of 48 journal articles and book chapters by faculty, technical staff, students, and visiting scientists. One book was also authored by SREL faculty and staff members. Additional journal articles and books have been submitted or are in press. Significantly, SREL outreach activities reached over 28,000 people of all ages. Other noteworthy events took place as faculty members, staff, and graduate students received awards for the quality of their research. These are described in Section IX ‘Special Accomplishments’.

The vision, structure, and operations of SREL continue to evolve since changes in funding structure were instituted in FY07. However, the Cooperative Agreement between the University of Georgia’s Research Foundation and the Department of Energy for support of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory was renewed in FY12 and funding received from the DOE and other SRS tenants through this agreement reflects the specific needs of EM and NNSA on the Savannah River Site. The current funding model for SREL is entrepreneurial and interdisciplinary, and seeks to pursue funding strategies that are competitive, responsive to sponsors’ requirements, and based on a diverse and sustainable foundation. This model has required restructuring of research and supporting infrastructure at the laboratory.

Today, a reduced, but robust SREL presence continues to operate on the SRS. Currently, SREL’s total employment is approximately 80 faculty, technicians, students, and support staff. Although the number of employees and level of funding is reduced, SREL continues progress toward stated objectives and does not compromise safety and security. New partnerships and collaborations with the Athens campus (Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, UGA Complex Carbohydrates Center, Odum School of Ecology, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences), other universities (University of South Carolina – Aiken, University of South Carolina – Upstate, Georgia Reagents University) and other agencies (US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration) continue to be explored and developed in order to maximize the use of SREL assets. Graduate student programs have continued with funding provided by DOE, external grants, UGA, or the student’s host university.

During FY13, DOE-SR funding was leveraged to acquire over $400,000.00 in new salary and infrastructure investments from the University of Georgia. In addition, DOE funding has been used to leverage new cost shared faculty positions with main campus UGA units (beginning in FY14 and FY15) that will result in the addition of three new tenure track faculty lines at SREL and a portion of three new tenure track faculty lines on the main UGA campus that will contribute to the SREL mission on the SRS during the coming years.

SREL faculty have responded to the revised funding structure for the laboratory and have sought financial support from multiple external funding agencies, DOE-EM, DOE-NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration), SRNS-ACP (Savannah River Nuclear Solutions-Area Closure Projects), and SRR (Savannah River Remediation) and UGA has provided temporary infrastructure support to SREL. The current Cooperative Agreement with DOE allows SREL/UGA access to the SRS through 30 November 2016

[…]



“Figure 2.1. Overview of funding received by SREL in FY13. Acronyms are as follows: University of Georgia (UGA), Savannah River Site Office of Department of Energy (DOE-SR), all combined sources of funding received from sources external to the Savannah River Site (External), Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Production Facility (NNSA-MOX), Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s Tritium Facility (NNSA-Tritium), Savannah River Nuclear Solutions Area Closures Project (ACP) and Savannah River Remediation (SRR)

“SAVANNAH RIVER ECOLOGY LABORATORY ANNUAL TECHNICAL PROGRESS REPORT OF ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH FOR FY2013, Final: Submitted: May 1, 2014 Supported under Cooperative Agreement DE-FC09-07SR22506 between The University of Georgia and The U.S. Department of Energy for the period of 1 October 2012 – 30 September 2013 Dr. Olin E. Rhodes, Jr. Director Prepared by Savannah River Ecology Laboratory P. O. Drawer E Aiken, SC 29802 http://www.srs.gov/general/pubs/ERsum/er13/13erpdfs/SREL_Annual_Report_FY13.pdf NOTE THAT THIS IS THE FUNDING CODE GIVEN FOR THE STUDY.

Private Contractors Involved in SREL Funding

SRNS Parent Companies

1) Fluor Corporation

2) Newport News Nuclear (NNN), Inc., a subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), which “was formerly known as Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding (NGSB), created on January 28, 2008 by the merger of Northrop Grumman’s two shipbuilding sectors, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and Northrop Grumman Newport News… HII is the sole designer, builder, and refueler of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the United States. It is one of two nuclear-powered submarine builders. 70 percent of the current, active US Navy fleet has been built by HII“. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington_Ingalls_Industries

3) Honeywell International Inc (which owns the Metropolis Illinois Uranium Hexafluoride Facility).

SRR, the liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site, is a consortium led by AECOM, with Bechtel National, CH2M and Babcock & Wilcox. Subcontractors include AREVA, Energy Solutions and URS Professional Solutions.



SREL reports to the ERSD: “The Office of Biological and Environmental Research’s Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) sponsors fundamental scientific research that helps solve intractable environmental problems or otherwise provide breakthrough opportunities for DOE environmental and energy missions, while also contributing to the general advance of relevant areas of science. This web site contains comprehensive information about the projects currently supported by CESD, as well as information on many projects that have been completed. Some of these research projects were formerly in either the Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research (NABIR) or the Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP).” http://ersdprojects.science.doe.gov/ersd/



Click to access SREL_Annual_Report_FY13.pdf

Luring Young Children to the Contaminated Savannah River Nuclear Site?





Vole with Cataract at Chernobyl (Mousseau et.al.). Read it and weep: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/biological-consequences-of-nuclear-disasters-from-chernobyl-to-fukushima/