![]() A windmill-shaped museum pays tribute to turn-of-the-century Dutch ancestors.īut the most eye-watering landmarks of Nederland are the giant oil refineries obscuring the horizon, coughing out a gray, sinister fog. Lowing Herefords munch and ruminate in back yards until ready for the oven. Its most exotic avenues are driveways paved with seashells from the Gulf. It is a small town with a limited sense of local color. Nederland is tucked in the southeastern crook of the Longhorn State, a half-hour’s drive from the Gulf of Mexico but within mosquito-flying distance of the bogs and bayous. And a private investigator discovered two fresh dents in the rear of her car: telltale marks of a hit-and-run.Įven in the dead of winter it can be a steamy 80° in Nederland, Texas, a bottom-line speck on the map best known as the hometown of the late Tex (“Hillbilly Heaven”) Ritter. But the union official was not satisfied. Her death was ruled an accident the police decided she was asleep at the wheel. Waiting at a Holiday Inn 30 miles away were a union official and a New York Times reporter who had just flown from Washington D.C. On the seat beside her lay a manila folder with apparent proof that records were being falsified at the plutonium plant where she worked. ![]() In the early evening darkness of Wednesday, November 13th, 1974, Karen Silkwood was on an environmental mission of another sort. She was like that, poking her opinions where they weren’t welcome. A couple years back she had fired off a round of angry letters when sheep ranchers staged rabbit roundups, clubbing to death the furry army that had sprung up on the prairie. Every few miles a big-boned rabbit, mangled and broken, littered the roadside. The Oklahoma fields lay flattened under the crude brushmarks of the wind, the grass unable to snap back to attention. She was alone that chilly autumn night, driving her tiny three-door Honda through long stretches of prairie. “It might not come out in time,” he said.She was 28, a slight woman, dark hair pushing past slender shoulders, haunting beauty nurtured in a smallchild look. Circuit’s opinion on the case, said Edwards, a Carter pick. Lodge should consider his next steps “without regard” to the D.C. Bush appointee, asked Lodge whether he had considered how to challenge any new NRC approvals for the project. The company is not yet enriching uranium and is still working to install equipment for the demonstration project, he said. The project’s license has been extended once before, said Brad Fagg, a partner at the firm Morgan Lewis, representing American Centrifuge. “You could dismiss on jurisdiction today,” replied Eric Michel, a senior attorney at NRC.Īttorneys for both the commission and American Centrifuge said they did not yet know for sure whether DOE planned to move forward with the current demonstration project or planned to alter it enough to require a new NEPA analysis. “If we thought there wasn’t jurisdiction, we don’t have to mootness first,” said Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama pick. The judges also questioned whether the case could be dismissed as moot, since the three-year license is set to expire at the end of November. In briefing before the court, the challengers warned of the risks of nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorism, as well as the environmental risks of nuclear development. In this short demonstration project, the uranium is nearly 20 percent enriched and is “very attractive for sabotage,” Lodge told the D.C. The groups are challenging NRC’s decision to finalize an environmental assessment under NEPA for the enrichment project and later amend American Centrifuge’s existing license for uranium enrichment for a longer-term project. “They said their standards for granting intervention are strict by design.” “What the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has done is created an adversary proceeding,” Lodge said. The groups are suing to block the company from creating a more energy dense uranium fuel to test its potential commercial viability in advanced nuclear reactors. Lodge argued that the public had not had an adequate chance to comment on NRC’s approval for the company to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium in Ohio under a three-year Department of Energy contract. ![]() “But,” the judge added, “that is not what you have done.”
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