Dear Decommissioning Working Group,

“Massachusetts blocks Holtec from discharging Pilgrim water”

https://www.ans.org/news/2026-09-17/article-8397/massachusetts-blocks-holtec-from-discharging-pilgrim-water/

Massachusetts blocks Holtec from discharging Pilgrim water

Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 10:28PM

Pilgrim, shown here in 2021. (Photo: Holtec)

In 2024, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) denied Holtec International’s application to release treated water into Cape Cod Bay from the Pilgrim nuclear power plant site as decommissioning work continues.

Holtec appealed that decision, and on Tuesday, MassDEP announced that it has dismissed the appeal, leaving Holtec—for now—with fewer options for how to deal with the up to 1.1 million gallons of water it seeks to discharge.

The context: Pilgrim sits on Cape Cod Bay in Plymouth, Mass. It was shut down in May 2019, and ownership transferred from Entergy to Holtec for decontamination and decommissioning a few months later. At the time, Holtec planned to complete its work at the site within eight years.

In 2021, the company announced that it had placed the last of the plant’s fuel in dry storage. By 2022, all high-level waste was in storage. The ongoing decommissioning progress hit a significant roadblock in February 2024, however, when MassDEP denied Holtec’s request to discharge the plant’s treated wastewater into Cape Code Bay. MassDEP’s decision was made against the backdrop of significant public outcry regarding Holtec’s proposal.

The appeal: Holtec appealed MassDEP’s decision on the grounds of jurisdictional authority and technical veracity. To the former point, the company argued that the Atomic Energy Act bars MassDEP from entirely blocking the discharge of treated water from a nuclear power plant.

To the latter point, Holtec essentially rejected MassDEP’s presupposition that the water at issue is “waste,” as defined by the relevant law—in this case, the state’s Ocean Sanctuaries Act, which defines Cape Cod Bay as an ocean sanctuary subject to special environmental protections. One of those protections is a prohibition on “dumping or discharge of commercial, municipal, domestic or industrial wastes.”

The act defines wastes as “any unwanted, discarded, or environmentally harmful solid, liquid, or gaseous materials resulting from commercial, municipal, domestic, or industrial activities.”

Holtec argued that Pilgrim’s water does not fit into this definition, in that “the treated water to be discharged is not environmentally harmful,” the company said. The appeal further emphasized that the concentrations of the detectable pollutants in the released water would be both well within federal standards and actually “well below the concentrations detectable in the receiving waters.”

Nonetheless, on Tuesday, MassDEP announced that it has dismissed Holtec’s appeal and upheld its 2024 determination denying the company’s request to discharge the water at Pilgrim.

Next steps: The future of Pilgrim’s decommissioning is now somewhat uncertain. As Patrick O’Brien, director of government affairs and communications for Holtec, told Boston NPR station WBUR, the yearslong permitting process has already delayed the cleanup schedule, and the new decision may impose a further delay.

O’Brien added that the company is “reviewing the finalized denial and looking at what options may remain available.” MassDEP said its final decision can be appealed to the state’s Superior Court. Another solution advocated for by some in the state is shipping the water to an out-of-state facility.

Depending on the next steps Holtec takes, this regulatory back-and-forth ultimately may become moot. As deliberations continue, the water at the site is slowly evaporating. However, the rate of evaporation at the site has been variable and difficult to calculate thus far, and it is currently unclear how many years it would take for the remaining water at the site to evaporate.

Low Dose Radiation Exposure Study - Ian Farlie

https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/us-million-person-study-on-low-dose-rate-exposures-to-radiation-preliminary-findings/

Dr Ian Fairlie
An independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment.

US Million Person Study on low dose rate exposures to radiation: Preliminary Findings

September 16, 2026

This article requires an extensive introduction, so bear with me.

Current risk estimates for radiation are based by the ICRP principally on the Japanese survivors of the US bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.  This is the Life Span Study (LSS). However it has several shortcomings including that it is based on instantaneous exposures (lasting less than a second) to high blasts of gamma radiation and neutrons.  Other shortcomings were that the studies did not commence until 5 years after the explosions and many unrecorded deaths occurred during the interval. Also the translation of the estimated risks in the acutely-exposed Japanese population to people in different countries exposed to lower doses over lengthier time periods introduces large uncertainties in the LSS risk estimates.

Finally the LSS only covered ~80,000 people. A better, larger study covering ~300,000 workers – was the INWORKS study of nuclear industry workers in the US, UK and France which found radiation risks higher than the risks observed by the Life Span Study but broadly similar to it. (It is explained that the phrase “broadly similar to” means that the uncertainty ranges of the two studies overlapped.) The INWORKS study has been examined and discussed by me previously  -see https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/important-new-bmj-article-increases-our-perception-of-radiation-risks/

A third, even larger, study – the US Million Person Study- has been underway in the US for several years. For its history, see – Boice Jr JD., André Bouville, Lawrence T. Dauer, Ashley P. Golden, Richard Wakeford (2022) Introduction to the special issue on the US Million Person Study of health effects from low-level exposure to radiation. International Journal of Radiation Biology, Volume 98, 2022 – Issue 4.

The quantitative results of this US study have not yet been published formally, it seems, in any academic scientific article. However, rather strangely,  an article containing its preliminary findings has been  just published in the UK magazine of the UK Society for Radiological Protection.  See https://srp-uk.org/professional-resources/radiation-protection-today

I say “rather strangely”,  but perhaps it’s unsurprising for a US study to first release in the UK controversial findings on radiation risks, given the US President’s recent attacks on internationally-accepted cornerstones of radiation protection, such as the linear no threshold model of radiation risks and ALARA.

The US Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects (https://www.millionpersonstudy.org/) is the largest radiation occupational epidemiologic study that I’m aware of. It eventually will cover about a million US nuclear workers and military veterans etc. It is examining cancer and non-cancer morbidity (cases) and mortality (deaths) after exposures to low rates of radiation. It includes nuclear industry workers who predominately received about 300 mGy over their working lives. In other words, it is not a low level study but a low rate study. It includes workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Mound Nuclear Facility, Rocky Flats plant, civilian nuclear utilities, industrial radiographers, medical radiation radiographers, and workers at military nuclear weapons test sites.

Early findings based on ~ 600,000 US workers and US military veterans include the following

• an association between occupational radiation exposures and Parkinson’s disease
• a low risk of lung cancer
• a risk of leukemia (excluding chronic lymphocytic leukemia)
• some evidence of increases in all solid cancers and
• evidence that chromosomal damage could be detected 65 years after veteran exposure to fallout from nuclear weapons testing.

These findings are unsurprising and fit in with evidence elsewhere , especially the INWORKS studies.  What is significant is that the study runs directly contrary to the views of the US President and can be viewed as a direct riposte to them. So far, no collective quantitative risk estimates from this study have been published in the US.

The Million Person Study continues at large US DoE facilities including Hanford and Oak Ridge, and US Navy personnel, including nuclear submarine sailors and naval shipyard workers. interestingly, is also re-examining the US radium dial workers from the 1920s and 1930s. The ongoing Million Person Study also covers

• safe and secure cleanup of historically contaminated US nuclear sites
• protection from radiation exposures during space travel
• the development of new forms of nuclear power designs and
• resilience preparation for response to emergency radiological incidents.

The SRPS article was written by two US academics, Dr Nicole Martinez and Dr Laurence Dauer. They conclude– somewhat courageously given the US President’s outspoken views –

“A better understanding of potential impacts of radiological exposure enables more informed decisions which in turn can support a more sustainable and prosperous future. See www.millionpersonstudy.org”

Uranium mines pose first test for cultural landscape designation | AP News

https://apnews.com/article/uranium-mining-mount-taylor-traditional-cultural-property-8bf3cc46117a507cd0a966a3041e0e39

Uranium mines pose first test for state-recognized Mount Taylor cultural landscape in New Mexico

The western slope of Mount Taylor is capped with snow on Nov. 25, 2025, in Cibola County, N.M. (Bella Davis/New Mexico In Depth via AP) License this photo

By  BELLA DAVIS/New Mexico In Depth
Updated 2:31 AM GMT+8, September 16, 2026

For Native communities in northwest New Mexico’s Grants mineral belt, one of the central concerns with the idea of resumed uranium mining is the potential harm to Mount Taylor. That concern led the state to designate Mount Taylor as a traditional cultural property nearly two decades ago. But as uranium mining companies hoping to operate within the area move through the state permitting process, state regulators still can’t say what role the designation will play in their decisions.

Mount Taylor is sacred to the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the pueblos of Laguna, Acoma and Zuni.

“We have, and other peoples have, a really millennia-long relationship with the mountain,” June Lorenzo (Laguna/Diné) told the Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee during a meeting in the Laguna Pueblo village of Paguate on Friday. “It’s part of our vocabulary. It features largely in our creation stories.”

It’s not only the mountain that’s important, but also the surrounding landscape, said Lorenzo, a former tribal court judge who’s done academic research and advocacy work on legacy uranium issues.

The five tribes undertook a legal fight in the late 2000s in an effort to protect Mount Taylor from extraction, resulting in the state designation of 400,000 acres as a traditional cultural property. At the time, Lorenzo said, the tribes were accused of using the process to try to acquire the land, but that’s a misunderstanding of their relationships with Mount Taylor. Besides, the designation didn’t actually transfer ownership to them.

“None of us want to own—we will never own the mountain,” she said. “It’s like a relative.”

The designation is meant to give tribes a stronger voice in decisions about mining and other development, but because New Mexico hasn’t permitted a uranium mine since the designation took effect, it’s never been tested.

Two proposed underground uranium mines — Roca Honda and La Jara Mesa — would fall within the state-designated acreage.

Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, asked state regulators whether they can deny a permit based on concerns about cultural sites.

“I don’t have an answer to that question. We have yet to get to that stage of how impacts to the (traditional cultural property) will be mitigated,” said David “D.J.” Ennis, program manager of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department’s Mining Act Reclamation Program.

Ennis said the department is partnering with the U.S. Forest Service to evaluate the issue.

Energy Fuels, the top producer of uranium in the U.S., proposes having dewatering well pads used to remove groundwater from the mine and ventilation shafts on about 30 acres of the designated land.

In response to tribal input, the company revised previous iterations of its plan to remove “significant disturbance” from the area, including a mine shaft, said Nick Martin, environmental manager at Energy Fuels.

Steinborn seemed to be unconvinced.

“We have tremendous concern for cultural sites, not to mention the environmental issues and the worker safety issues,” he told Martin and two other Energy Fuels representatives.

How do they plan to mitigate impacts to the area, the state senator asked.

Martin mentioned independent engagement with tribes and a review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires federal agencies to consider how projects they carry out or permit will affect historic properties.

Sen. Angel Charley (Laguna/Zuni/Diné), a Democrat who grew up in Laguna Pueblo and lives in nearby Acoma Pueblo, pushed back on that, noting the Trump administration is trying to weaken Section 106.

That includes a proposal to make tribal consultation no longer required.

As Friday’s meeting wrapped up, New Mexico In Depth asked Misael Cabrera, senior vice president of regulatory affairs at Energy Fuels, to respond to the concern Charley — who has called for a moratorium on uranium mining — raised about Section 106.

“Sometimes politicians deregulate, other times politicians re-regulate,” Cabrera said. “Irrespective of what those folks do, we want to make sure that we’re being good neighbors for the communities that we’re in. Why? Because it makes business sense. If the people around you are always fighting you, it makes things harder.”

He pointed to an agreement Energy Fuels and the Navajo Nation signed in January 2025 that allows the company to transport uranium ore through Navajo lands. In exchange, the company agreed to more protections than what’s legally required and to haul away up to 10,000 tons of waste from abandoned uranium mines spread across the Navajo Nation, according to a press release.

The agreement came after the Navajo Nation and the Havasupai Tribe condemned Energy Fuels in 2024 for moving ore across their lands without their permission.

“One of the things that folks don’t understand when I say middle ground, some might ask, ‘Well, why can’t you just leave? Why can’t you just leave that place alone?’ It’s because these projects, they actually don’t start making money until like year five, after you’ve started producing,” Cabrera said. “And until then, we actually work on borrowed money. We borrow money from shareholders. … So we’ve got to analyze all of that in our decisions.”

___

This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

Front page piece LATimes this morning, beach erosion at SANO danger to nuke waste, mentions the Scripps Symposium

Front page headline piece in LATimes this morning about San Onofre nuclear waste.  https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-09-12/as-coast-begins-to-crumble-clock-ticks-on-moving-san-onofres-radioactive-waste

If lots of you (I already did) send in LTE, they may publish one or two.   letters@LATimes.com

They mention the Lawrence Foundation symposium at Scripps, quote James Day, Greg Jaczko

As the coast begins to crumble, the clock ticks on moving San Onofre’s radioactive waste

A view of decommissioning work around San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station reactor containment domes in San Clemente on Aug. 21. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

By Blanca Begert
Staff Writer 
Photography by Allen J. Schaben

Sept. 12, 2026 3 AM PT

See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred 

• Storm-driven erosion exposes vulnerability of California coast, reviving questions about keeping 3.6 million pounds of radioactive waste just 100 feet from the Pacific at decommissioned San Onofre nuclear power plant.
• Utility officials say seawalls and a steel canister storage system can withstand tsunamis, quakes and rising seas for decades, even as scientists warn of hazards of storing nuclear waste indefinitely in a seismically active area next to the ocean.
• With Yucca Mountain effectively canceled, federal officials promote new ‘campus’ storage sites in Utah and other states, promising jobs and consent-based siting while communities debate becoming America’s long-term nuclear waste repository.

As parts of the Southern California coastline crumbled into the sea, slammed by intense waves and flooding in recent days, oceanographer Kim McCoy had one thing on his mind: the nuclear waste set in concrete on the beach near San Clemente at the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant.

“Rising sea levels, storm waves, El Niño which increases wave height ... these could wash away a section of the walkway that protects the San Onofre seawall, and the waste canisters are just 100 feet away from that,” the former wave dynamics researcher and longtime advocate against beach storage of nuclear waste said.

Most experts agree the risk of erosion damaging the nuclear waste storage system is extremely low in the near term. The plant’s owner, Southern California Edison, has promised the California Coastal Commission to move the waste to higher elevation on-site if modeling shows sea level rise and erosion will start to pose a challenge.

But the recent waves, fueled by Hurricane Marie far away in the Pacific, resurfaced the issue of the ultimate fate of the highly radioactive spent fuel that used to power the reactors.

“At the moment, it is under control, I think it’s essential to say that,” said James Day, a geology professor at UC San Diego. “But geologically we must be thinking long term. The waste lasts for hundreds, if not thousands of generations.”

1

2

3
1. Rows of round concrete vaults, each holding a canister of used nuclear fuel, sit underground at the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation at the former San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. 2. Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) where dry cask storage of used nuclear fuel is stored horizontally at the decommissioning San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. 3. A photograph above the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station hangs on the wall of a conference room at the facility.

Seen from Interstate 5, the twin domes of San Onofre look like they’re part of an operating facility. Red lights flash at the top of each sphere, visible from afar, among the chaparral and military buildings of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

But go behind the security checkpoint and you see a demolition site. Trailers and tents now sit where acres of office buildings, steam turbines, diesel generators, control rooms, cooling pools and water treatment plants have been knocked down and hauled away, since a scandal involving faulty steam generators shut down the plant in 2013.

Most of the rubble, which is only mildly radioactive or not at all, has already been sent to sites in Utah, Texas and Arizona.

The distinctive twin domes that once housed the reactor cores will start coming down early next year. But the 3.6 million pounds of high-level waste will stay in the coastal community indefinitely.

How much of a safety hazard that is depends on whom you ask.

“San Onofre is sitting on some fairly young rocks in a seismically active region,” Day said at a recent symposium at the Scripps Seaside Forum in La Jolla, hosted by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation. “This is not the sort of place you would leave nuclear waste.”

Others noted that collapse of beach slopes could make the site more vulnerable to tsunamis. They spoke of the corrosive effects of the ocean air on the steel canisters that hold the waste.


Manuel Camargo, principal manager, strategic planning, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, talks about nuclear waste storage with a model of a nuclear fuel assembly in the background on Aug. 21 in San Clemente. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“They could be doing more monitoring,” Greg Jaczko, former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said of Edison. The utility tracks air temperature and radioactivity, checks canisters for cracks on the outside and inspects test canisters that mimic the active waste ones for signs of degradation.

Edison says its system will be safe for decades to come.

“The maximum credible tsunami here would not even overtake the seawall,” said Manuel Camargo, principal manager of decommissioning for Edison, standing on the concrete pad that holds the steel waste storage canisters. “The maximum credible earthquake, somewhere around a 7.0 magnitude, would produce something about half of what this system is designed to withstand.”

As he spoke, just in front of the plant, surfers were catching waves. He pointed out where Edison is bolstering a path below the seawall. Based on state data from the California Ocean Protection Council, the seawall would not be inundated before 2050, Camargo said. “It’s an extremely robust system.”

Rows of round concrete vaults, each holding a canister of used nuclear fuel. The system, built into the bluff above the Pacific Ocean, holds dozens of canisters of radioactive waste and is designed to withstand fire, flood and tsunami.

Yet despite confidence in its protective measures, even the utility wants the waste out of there as soon as possible. Because this status quo is expensive.

From 1982 through 2014, Edison customers, like many ratepayers around the country, paid into a federal fund for a promised permanent nuclear waste storage site. But plans for a deep geological repository beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada crumbled in the face of local opposition in 2011.

Utilities around the U.S. now sue the federal government every year to recoup their storage expenses because the Department of Energy has not come through on its promise. The lawsuits cost taxpayers $2 million a day, according to Camargo.

“It’s so safe that it’s almost a problem,” Camargo said. “It’s not a priority to a lot of folks to move it.”

2

3
1. A caution: radioactive material sign is posted as Kevin Sheek, senior advisor for Emergency Planning, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, gives a tour of the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) . 2. An estimated 5,000 rail cars wait to be loaded to haul away dismantled plant materials. 3. The plant is located on an 84-acre site on the Pacific coast within the boundaries of the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County.

Camargo, like so many in the nuclear power industry, is hanging his hopes on a new idea. The Trump administration’s Department of Energy wants to create “campuses” in several states to store waste and, in exchange, give local jurisdictions funding to develop different aspects of the nuclear cycle — such as fuel creation, power generation and potentially fuel recycling.

The administration wants to address the fact that waste is sitting at 80 reactor sites around the country. It also needs places for waste from new reactors it wants to build. Several states including California have bans on new nuclear power until there is permanent federal storage. Some state leaders are trying to make an exception for small modular reactors such as the one the Port of Long Beach wants to build on a floating barge offshore.

rjohnson

Save The Date: TMI Forum Sept. 9, 2026

Save The Date:

-

Wed. September 9, 2026, 7-8:30 PM ET

&

THREE MILE ISLAND:
LEGACY & RESISTANCE TO REOPENING 

A PUBLIC FORUM

Wednesday September 9, 2026, 7-8:30 PM Eastern time

Three Mile Island was the site of the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history. Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 and has been shuttered ever since. People in central Pennsylvania still face lingering health effects from the reactor meltdown, and are now organizing to stop the re-0pening of Unit 1.

The announced restart of Three Mile Island Unit-1 is aimed to serve just one client: Microsoft, and has been met with unabashed enthusiasm by Governor Shapiro and the PA legislature. This deal was cooked up in dark in board rooms and political parlors with the backing of Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.

SPEAKERS

Eric Epstein is the spokesperson and Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, founded in 1977. He first joined the Lancaster-based Susquehanna Valley Alliance (SVA) in 1982, working to prevent the illegal dumping of 700,000 gallons of radioactive water into the Susquehanna River. Eric has litigated at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other regulatory bodies, written numerous professional papers, and provided testimony regarding utility rates, electric power competition and radioactive waste isolation.

Patricia Longenecker is a retired teacher and healthcare professional who has lived on a family homestead near TMI since 1974.  She has been an active member of Three Mile Island Alert for over four decades. She will discuss the powerful contributions of women and mothers who have tirelessly exposed the risks to children and other vulnerable groups following the massive TMI radiation release.

Aaron Datesman is a researcher and inventor based in Washington, DC, who led a recent biomedical study of residents exposed to radiation from the TMI meltdown who are still at risk. He has held technical positions at Argonne National Laboratory, the US Department of Energy, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the University of Virginia. His recent book, with Doug Brugge, Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change challenges the claim that low-level ionizing radiation released by nuclear power reactors is not dangerous, and demonstrates that there is no such thing as low-risk exposure. 

Moderator: Joseph M Hunt is an activist with the Clamshell Alliance  and Massachusetts Peace Action, a development economist with 30 years’ experience in Asia and Africa working on public health and food security programs, and a retired instructor in Harvard's graduate sustainability degree program.

REGISTRATION LINK WILL AVAILABLE BY AUGUST 11th

ACCESSIBILITY: Live captioning will be available.
​​​​​​​If you have accessibility questions, reply to your registration email to confirm your requirements or request more information.

QUESTIONS?
Contact us at info@clamshellalliance.com

New Mexico bans new uranium mining and calls for addressing the toxic legacy of uranium mining

From World Nuclear News, September 7, 2026

New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard has issued an executive order banning the leasing of state lands for new uranium mining and related activities, and directing the State Land Office "to focus on cleaning up legacy uranium sites and calls on the uranium industry and the federal government to prioritise, fund and meaningfully address the legacy problems caused by uranium production". The order does not restrict the Land Office from re-issuing existing permits, rights-of-way or business leases related to "existing mineral leases with valid existing rights”. 

https://gizmodo.com/a-defunct-nuclear-site-had-a-meltdown-in-1959-a-new-study-shows-its-still-causing-health-problems-2000802866

A Defunct Nuclear Site Had a Meltdown in 1959. A New Study Shows It’s Still Causing Health Problems

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California. © U.S. Department of Energy via Wikimedia Commons

Researchers found elevated reports of autoimmune and endocrine disorders among people living within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of the Santa Susana field Laboratory.

By Ellyn LapointePublished August 26, 2026, 12:00 am ET

Reading time 3 minutes
​​​​​​​

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County, California, is one of the most contaminated sites in the state. During its nearly 60 years of operation, the nuclear reactor and rocket testing site experienced several accidents—including a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959—that polluted the soil and groundwater with radioactive and chemical waste.

Since the SFFL was declared a superfund site in 1989, researchers have been working to understand the risk it poses to public health. Previous investigations focused on cancer incidence among residents living within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of the site, but a study published today in the journal Risk Analysis took a broader look, surveying people living as far as 15 miles (24 km) away and looking beyond cancer to other chronic illnesses commonly associated with contaminant exposure.

The findings suggest that people living closest to this superfund site may experience higher rates of autoimmune, endocrine, and metabolic disorders.

Not your typical superfund site

Affluent Ventura County is an unusual setting for a superfund site (an area designated by the EPA as being particularly polluted and dangerous). These toxic areas are disproportionately located near lower-income communities and minority populations. In this way, SFFL offers a unique research opportunity. A team led by Jenna Blyler of the University of California’s Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability surveyed people living near SSFL to investigate several unanswered questions.

First, they wanted to know whether health risks extended beyond the diseases and geographic range examined in previous studies and whether those risks increased with proximity to the site. They also examined how residents perceive and respond to environmental health risks and whether their behavior matched theoretical predictions about risk perception and protective action.

The researchers surveyed 475 residents living within 15 miles (24 km) of the SSFL. Of the population sampled, 56% earned $100,000 or more annually. More than a third of residents reported at least one diagnosis since moving into their current residence. While this is on par with the national rate of 38%, chronic illness is normally much less common in high-income communities.

According to the study, 18% of surveyed residents living within 5 miles (8 km) of SSFL reported autoimmune diagnoses, compared with just 4% of those living 11 to 15 miles (18 to 24 km) away. This trend showed up in metabolic and endocrine disorders as well, with 15% of residents within close range of the facility reporting a diagnosis compared to just 2% of those farther away.

While this suggests that some illnesses may be more common the closer people live to the SFFL, it will require more research to confirm this, Blyler told Gizmodo in an email. She noted that her study relied on self-reported diagnoses that were not medically verified and did not capture the frequency or recurrence of individual diagnoses.

Surprising risk responses

The study also revealed some surprising trends in residents’ behavior. For example, risk research generally suggests that people who feel more capable of dealing with a threat are more likely to take protective action. In this study, however, people who felt more threatened by contamination were more likely to report taking precautions.

Cost is usually a barrier to protective action, but here, people who saw protection as more expensive were more likely to take precautions. Interestingly, proximity to the SSFL had no effect on protective action, but personal experience with illness did.

Understanding the public health hazards associated with this site and how the surrounding community responds to them will become increasingly important as the world warms. Research has shown that the spread of contaminants at the SSFL has been exacerbated by drought and wildfires, which are becoming more prevalent.

Blyler’s next study investigates how perceived proximity to an environmental hazard influences individual and community-level protective actions. “It may be that people in wealthier and more influential communities have the resources, access, or preference to advocate for protection at a broader level of society, rather than acting only to protect themselves individually,” she said.

Climate meltdown: Lessons from a summer of nuclear shutdowns

by Zia Weise With help from Benjamin Storrow, Sara Schonhardt and Zack Colman in the U.S., Brian Dabbs in Singapore, Mike Blanchfield in Canada, Alexandre Léchenet and Nicolas Camut in France, and Charlie Cooper in the United Kingdom. CLIMATE MELTDOWN: Nuclear power is buzzing. Nations worldwide are pouring money into an atomic renaissance to confront rising temperatures and exploding electricity demand. But climate change showed this summer how those plans could be at risk. Nuclear plants across Europe were forced to halt or curtail generation in August as heat waves and drought plunged river levels to record lows, depriving reactors of cooling water. Bulgaria’s sole nuclear plant throttled supply. Romania blew up a rock to keep the water flowing but was eventually forced to shutter both of its reactors. Hungary narrowly avoided shutting down its only nuclear plant, which provides half the country’s electricity, but slashed production by three-quarters. In France, a record number of reactors had to halt or cut output. That prompted some governments and companies to question whether their multibillion-euro plans to build new plants should be adjusted to account for the rising threats of climate-related disasters. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar is reconsidering expansion plans, citing a cooling system that he said is unfit to deal with global warming. Romania’s energy ministry told POLITICO in a statement that the country isn’t backtracking on its nuclear ambitions, but that events this summer “reinforces the importance of ensuring that future projects are appropriately assessed against a broad range of climate, hydrological, environmental and energy-system conditions.” The impacts come as nuclear power's popularity is resurging. Wars, data centers and climate change are driving the rebound. A coalition of European Union countries wants to boost generation 50 percent by midcentury. In the U.S., the Trump administration aims to quadruple it over the same period, in part to account for the explosion of energy-intensive infrastructure for AI. Europe, the fastest-warming continent, is particularly exposed to climate risks because many of its reactors were built along inland rivers or depend on cooling ponds that are vulnerable to drought. “The temperature increases within Europe have been among the highest in the world,” said Brent Wanner, head of the power sector unit at the International Energy Agency. “So Europe would see some of these impacts first.” In Europe, South Asia and some areas of the U.S. (such as Arizona and Texas), the biggest threats are drought and rising water temperatures. In coastal North America and other parts of Asia, it's hurricanes and typhoons, which can damage power lines. And then there's jellyfish, which thrive in warming waters and clogged pumping systems at a French plant last month. It was the second year in a row it happened — on the same day. Despite this summer’s problems, leaders so far say the promise of nuclear power is too big to abandon. “Anyone who truly wants to protect the climate cannot be anti-nuclear,” Magyar said when he inspected Hungary’s vulnerable plant in late August. Read the full story here. HELLO AND WELCOME TO SURGE: I’m Zia Weise, senior climate reporter in POLITICO’s Brussels newsroom, bringing you the third edition of Surge. If you’re wondering how Europe’s nuclear reactors are doing now, most of them are back at full capacity after some much-needed rain in late August. The jellyfish, though, are still at it — they brought another French plant to its knees last week. Send tips and feedback, but please no jellyfish recipes, to zweise@politico.eu. UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen says the world is expected to surpass the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target. | Rafiq Maqbool/AP SPEAKING OF ADAPTATION: A U.N. report out Wednesday underscores the grid-reliability threats of a warming world. The U.N. Environment Programme finally said the quiet part out loud in a report Wednesday: The world is going to miss its goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — and not only does that mean we'll need more power, the power will be harder to get. It warns that the new best-case scenario of peaking warming at 1.8 degrees Celsius risks overstraining power grids as the world faces sharply rising electricity demand from data centers, electric cars and a growing need for air conditioning. Rising temperatures could triple the amount of power needed for keeping people cool, going from 5,000 terawatt-hours in 2002 to as much as 18,000 TWh by 2050. And the aforementioned heat waves, drought and other climate extremes could strain supplies further. The report suggests scaling renewable power to 60-70 percent of global electricity generation by 2030 — up from around 32 percent in 2024. The cost of holding warming at 1.8 degrees is around $2.4 trillion annually. —Sara Schonhardt NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: The good news for climate action: Renewable energy is booming. The bad news: so are fossil fuels. Bottom line: Adding clean tech to the globe’s energy systems won’t be enough to drastically curb planet-heating emissions as electricity demand soars, according to a new report from consulting firm McKinsey. It’s no longer a given that efficiency improvements and plummeting costs for renewables will offset the world’s energy appetite. McKinsey said that “demand came from sources that earlier outlooks did not fully anticipate," such as energy-hungry artificial intelligence and higher air conditioning usage in Asia. The paradox: While policymakers have focused on increasing electrification and clean energy deployment, the size of the energy pie is growing. That has made those contributions relatively smaller. “Against this backdrop, and despite resilient renewables growth in some regions, expectations that oil demand is set to peak before 2030 warrant scrutiny. In fact, the entire system is growing, building all fuel and power industries in parallel,” the report said. The findings are relevant for the United Nations climate talks in Turkey, known as COP31, in November. Officials will focus on a plan to increase global electrification to 35 percent of total energy consumption by 2035, though that pact will sit outside the official negotiations. The question is whether that target will help reduce emissions, given the rise of fossil fuels. The report identifies a clear gap for renewables. Low carbon technologies like solar and wind are attracting as much investment as fossil fuels for the first time. But money is lagging for storage, transmission and other infrastructure to support it. — Zack Colman GREEN RUSH: The U.S. was the world’s largest recipient of foreign investments in renewable energy between 2020 and June of this year, amounting to nearly $200 billion, according to BloombergNEF. Foreign cash accounted for 49 percent of total dollars going to American renewables, with more than half of those international investments coming from the European Union. (Domestic and foreign investments amounted to $399 billion over that time — see the chart below.) Sara Schonhardt/POLITICO Much of the foreign money has gone toward solar projects, with investments growing as the price of panels fell. Solar was also buoyed by challenges related to permitting wind energy projects. Boomerang: Trump’s efforts to kill green subsidies have helped propel the investment rush as companies try to qualify for tax credits before they expire. Despite their disappearance, booming electricity demand could make America an attractive market for clean energy investors. “The fundamentals outside of the policy environment in the U.S. are extremely strong for renewable energy, especially when you look at load growth,” said Meredith Annex, head of clean power research at BloombergNEF. “I would imagine that investors will continue to look for wherever they're going to get their return, and if that's the U.S., it's the U.S.” —Sara Schonhardt A message from AFPM: The United States has the strongest fuel refining, petrochemical manufacturing and midstream energy industries in the world, backed by the most talented and innovative workforce. We produce more gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and refined products than any other country — more than we consume, and enough to export to our allies. Our petrochemical industry benefits from an abundance of affordable U.S. natural gas liquids and is able to keep critical materials flowing to manufacturers here and thousands of miles away. Refineries, petrochemical facilities and energy pipelines are strategic national assets, essential to our economy, national security and modern life. American-made fuels power transportation, manufacturing and supply chains. Our petrochemicals are the building blocks for modern medicine, the homes we live in, the vehicles we drive and technologies shaping our future. Learn more about how We Make Progress. Our open tabs STEP GINGERLY: U.S. House Republicans are divided over how to address the backlash around data centers ahead of midterm elections, report Amelia Davidson and Kelsey Brugger — just as President Donald Trump is doubling down on his support for them. DATA CENTER SPEED BUMP: A judge blocked the approval of the first data center on U.S. public lands Tuesday, saying the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management’s move to switch a solar farm to a data center failed to prove the projects would have similar environmental footprints. The order may be more of a speed bump than a roadblock, writes Alex Guillén. ANDY'S TEST: British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised to ease the cost of living for citizens facing what he says are the highest energy bills in Europe. But his options are limited amid an energy crunch stemming from the war in Iran. Charlie Cooper has the details. TAX BIG OIL?: The EU’s green transition chief is proposing a tax on fossil fuel profits, more joint debt and a bigger budget to manage the costs of coping with climate change, Zia Weise reports. Those ideas aren’t likely to be embraced by all countries in the 27-member bloc, but they come as a summer of extreme weather took a toll on many of its economies. That’s all for today. Thanks for reading! Did someone forward Surge to you? Sign up here if you're in the U.S. or here if you're in the EU.