The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "nuclear waste dump" ...
-
Blighted Homeland
During the Cold War, the federal government, seeking to increase its nuclear arsenal, mined uranium on a Navajo reservation that spanned parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, with 3.9 million tons of uranium ore chiseled and blasted from the mountains between 1944 to 1986. Fifty years after a medical journal noted an almost complete lack of cancer on the reservation, that mining left a mark that still persists today. The L.A. Times finds that "groundwater is contaminated, gray mine wastes cascade down hillsides and erosion exposes once-buried radiation at reclaimed mines and illegal dump sites." Some Navajos have suffered from lung and breast cancer, attributable to the harsh conditions created by the mining. Now uranium is once again rising in price, and mining companies are preparing to move in again, this time with new technology. But still with environmental consequences.
Tags: Uranium; uranium mining; Navajo reservation; cancer rates; Cold War; environmental effects of mining
-
Fallout
SF Weekly reports on the Hunters Point Shipyard, which is being turned over to the city of San Francisco in 2002. The shipyard used to house the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, which handled -- or mishandled, as SF Weekly discovered -- "nearly every kind of radioactive material known to man." The investigation found that tons of radioactive materials had been dumped into San Francisco Bay, radioactive fuel had been burned, discharging its smoke into the atmosphere, radioactive scrap metal was sold to private companies and unsuitable radioactive containers were dumped at a site 30 miles from the city. At the time the series was published the Navy had promised to release a study of the site, but had not. Following the first two parts, the third part of Davis' "Fallout" series on radiological materials buried at Hunters Point, the San Francisco Navy shipyard. This installment shows that a supposedly exhaustive 634-page Navy report fails to tell the real history of radiation at the shipyard.
Tags: CD-ROM; U.S. Navy; Hunters Point Shipyard; Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory; radioactive dumping; pollution; hazardous waste; nuclear experiments; toxic materials; environment; clean-up San Francisco bay; veterans; Cold War
-
Nuclear Waste Is Good for You
The Texas Observer looks at a paradoxical effort of the state of Texas to sell a nuclear dump to the public school students of Sierra Blanca. The story details how the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority has led students on tours of nuclear plants and dumps in order to convince them that "a nuclear waste dump in their town will be safe and beneficial." The report points to financial benefits received by various entities in Sierra Blanca as part of the promotional process for the projected waste dumpsite.
Tags: radiation hazard; power plants; energy; schools; students; George W. Bush; Sierra Blanca School
-
DOE wants Yucca
The Las Vegas Sun investigates a Department of Energy study that says Nevada's Yucca Mountains are a suitable site for a one-of-a-kind dumping ground for nuclear power plant waste. The Sun discovered that the DOE has a strong bias toward building the repository in Nevada, "regardless of scientific findings."
Tags: Department of Energy; Yucca Mountains; DOE; nuclear power; repository; dump
-
"In the Valley of the Shadow"
This article examines the crisis facing the Goshute tribe of New Mexico, whose paltry government-allotted land lies surrounded by Superfund sites, toxic waste dumps, polluted factories, chemical weapons manufacturers and soon - quite possibly - "virtually the entire stock of high-level radioactive waste that has been produced by America's 128 commercial nuclear power plants." In the face of heated opposition from Utah lawmakers, environmentalists and "anybody without a vested interest in the project," the biggest proponents of a nuclear waste dump on their land are the Goshute Indians themselves.
Tags: Skull Valley; Teddy Bears; Salt Lake City; Utah; Leon Bear; Department of Energy; environment
-
Ward Valley backers say Garamendi abused post; Garamendi is known to take the gloves off; GAO hits holdup on Ward Valley; Nuclear waste dump seen as less risky now; Nuclear dump 'fact' file assailed
This series of stories examines that although universities and hospitals have no inexpensive way to dispose of radioactive by-products, an effort to build a dump to store the low-level nuclear waste had taken nearly three-decades to do so in California's Mojave Desert. Federal law had required southwestern states to build a dump.
Tags: nuclear waste; dumps; California
-
Proposed Ward Valley nuclear waste dump: How it's effecting breast cancer politics
This article investigates the repercussions on politics concerning breast cancer on the proposal to house a nuclear waste dump in California.
Tags: cancer; nuclear waste dump U.S. Ecology U.S. Department of the Interior Native Americans protest
-
Senator's silence on nuclear dump has many fuming
This article focuses on California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, one responsible for many cancer organizations, etc. The report investigates why the senator did not protest a proposed nuclear waste dump in Ward Valley, CA.
Tags: cancer; activism; Sen. Feinstein; nuclear waste dump; 1994 Desert Protection Act U.S. Senate Cancer Coalition
-
Weirder than Roswell: Dumping Nuclear Waste in New Mexico's Desert
Weinberg profiles the debate over the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, an underground site slated to become a nuclear waste storage facility. Critics argue the site is geologically unstable, while the federal government (specifically the Department of Energy) insists it is safe.
Tags: None
-
Oak Ridge contamination even worse than feared
The story reveals that K-25, one of three major installations on the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation. Uranium was processed into nuclear weapons fuel at K-25 for more than four decades. Today, more than 50 workers have health problems they believe are related to the K-25 complex. It is a kaleidoscope of contamination, where radioactivity and poisonous substances taint buildings, and ponds and burial grounds where wastes were dumped. Underground water carries some contaminants off site, as does Poplar Creek, which weaves through k-25 and empties into the Clinch River.
Tags: None