***************************************************************** 01/18/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.14 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 SF Chronicle: New signs of North Korean nuke push 2 CourierPress: John Blair 'can't sit on sideline' if he feels public' 3 Global Nuclear WMDs 4 ALJ: Israel answers to no one on nuclear weapons 5 PTI: 'Pak fuelled Iran, Libya, N Korea nuke programmes' 6 Observer Revealed: how Pakistan fuels nuclear arms race 7 The Hindu: Pak's N-proliferation no surprise - Sergei Ivanov NUCLEAR REACTORS 8 US: Patriot-News: More sirens coming to area around TMI 9 US: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Power Plant 10 US: JS Online: Nuclear questions might set off sparks 11 US: Beacon Journal: Davis-Besse plant suffers new setback 12 US: Philadelphia Inquirer: Peco's deeper ties to Fumo 13 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 3 walkout looms 14 US: York Daily Record: New sirens for TMI - 15 AU ABC: Thousands march in Paris anti-nuclear protest 16 US: CounterPunch: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant 17 US: NYT: Indian Pt. Talks Falter on Eve of Strike Deadline NUCLEAR SAFETY 18 [du-list] Fwd: the history of DU in Iraq, war crimes and more 19 US: [du-list] Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium 20 US: [du-list] Tennessee - Construction of uranium-related 21 [du-list] Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium 22 US: Mortality Amoung Felmale Nuclear Weapons Workers 23 Bellona: 11-year-old leaking radiation source found in University of 24 US: Newton Kansan: Woman's leukemia linked to radiation 25 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Support citizens first NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 26 US: Deseret news: N-energy powers universe 27 CNSC: CNSC Announces Decision to Amend the Waste Facility licenses 28 US: Deseret news: 300 years for cleanup? 29 Jon Porter: Statement On Nevada's Legal Fight To Stop Yucca Mountain 30 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Appeals court hears arguments on Goshute N-wa NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY OTHER NUCLEAR 31 Google News Alert - nuclear 32 Bush's New Space Program Criticized Over Costs & Nuclear Fears 33 Google News Alert - nuclear 34 STLtoday: Nuclear power may get us to Mars faster ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 SF Chronicle: New signs of North Korean nuke push Saturday, January 17, 2004 [San Francisco Chronicle] Washington -- A private American delegation that visited a North Korean nuclear complex last week saw evidence of a renewed nuclear program and was told by a top North Korean official, "Time is not on the U.S. side," a member of the group said Friday. Charles "Jack" Pritchard, a former U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, said the delegation that went to the Yongbyon facility was shown an empty holding pond that was said to have once contained up to 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The North Koreans told their guests that they had moved the rods to a reprocessing center, the first step in producing fuel for a nuclear bomb. The empty pond could corroborate North Korean assertions that the rods -- which would contain enough plutonium to make five or six nuclear weapons -- were reprocessed last June. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Pritchard said Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's vice minister of foreign affairs, had told the delegation that "time is not on the U.S. side," suggesting that North Korea sees any American delay in resolving the crisis as an opportunity to further its nuclear program. "Are they bluffing?" Pritchard asked. "I don't think so." Pritchard also said North Korean officials had made "cryptic references" to Libya, which recently renounced its nuclear programs, and Iran, which Washington accuses of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. The delegation's five-day visit, which was not coordinated with the Bush administration, provided a rare glimpse into the psyche of one of the world's most isolated and enigmatic regimes. Specialists said perhaps the most significant news Pritchard brought back was that the North Koreans were willing to negotiate with the United States in six-party talks. Another round of talks is expected next month. "There's still hope for the negotiations to succeed," said Jon Wolfsthal, a former U.S. monitor at the Yongbyon facility who is now deputy director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "North Korea could have a nuclear bomb. ... This is the biggest threat to security facing the United States ... ." Pritchard would not confirm reports that the delegation had been shown a substance that the North Koreans said was weapons-grade plutonium, saying only that another member of the delegation, Siegfried Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, would testify on that subject to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. Despite Hecker's planned testimony, much about what the team saw will remain a matter of speculation, as it was not allowed to carry the equipment necessary to test North Korean claims about nuclear materials. Even as they showed evidence of restarting their plutonium program, Pritchard said, North Korean officials denied that they had a secret program to produce enriched uranium, renouncing an assertion that U.S. officials said North Korea had made in October 2002. The communist regime has long asked for increased economic assistance and normalized relations with the United States in exchange for giving up its nuclear program. Publicly, the Bush administration has shown a tough, no-nonsense stance toward North Korea, a country President Bush called part of an "axis of evil." But quietly, the United States has resumed food aid to the country in recent weeks. North Korea signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1985, agreeing not to produce nuclear weapons. But it delayed entry to international inspectors, and by the early 1990s specialists were convinced the country had the capability of producing plutonium for a nuclear weapon. In 1994 North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium program in exchange for US energy assistance. The Bush administration declared that deal dead when intelligence agencies found evidence that North Korea had secretly been developing a program to produce highly enriched uranium, another route to a nuclear bomb. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle ***************************************************************** 2 CourierPress: John Blair 'can't sit on sideline' if he feels public's health at stake Saturday, Jan 17 Environmentally friendly By MARK WILSON Courier &Press staff writer + 464-7417 or mwilson@evansville.net January 18, 2004 The ceiling tiles have been removed to prevent water damage from a leaky roof awaiting repair, and when the heat kicks on the sound of flapping insulation on the heating ducts is startling. It's a far cry from the gleaming office buildings going up Downtown, but from this modest red brick building at the corner of Adams and Evans avenues - bought for $1 at a county tax sale - John Blair and Valley Watch have spent the last 27 years defending public health and the environment in the lower Ohio River valley. The inside is a dimly lit clutter of comfortable furniture, plants, memorabilia, the tools of his chosen trade, photography, and stacks of documents and reports. Like those reports, Blair's mind is full of facts and figures - information like how, according to a 2001 toxic release inventory by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, just two of Southwestern Indiana's industries, PSI Energy's Gibson Station power plant and Alcoa Warrick Operations, combine to emit more toxic chemicals into the air than all of Los Angeles County, Calif. Blair's ability to not only know that kind of information but also to connect it to issues of public health and economic development have earned him a reputation locally and nationally. When area native Lisa LaBudde returned here six years ago she brought back with her an interest in environmental issues, but she didn't know where to make a connection to express those concerns locally. It didn't take long for LaBudde, a CPA by trade and owner of Golden Raintree Books in New Harmony, Ind., to make the connection with Valley Watch and Blair. "What better person to get that from than John because he is more aware of what is going on than anybody," she said. "I think what he does for our community is invaluable. We need to be educated as well as informed and he is the front leader of the environmental organizations (in the area) willing to do that. "He runs into quite a bit of criticism in this area but his reputation nationally is very, very strong and very positive. There are people who are involved in national pursuits that talk to him on a regular basis." LaBudde now serves as Valley Watch's treasurer. Not everybody agrees with Blair, especially industries who have found themselves in Valley Watch's sights. However, even opponents have difficulty faulting his passion. "I think regardless of whether you agree with his tactics or the specifics of his viewpoint, you have to appreciate his commitment. At least he is out there doing it," said Sally Rideout Lambert, a former state legislator and economic development official now working as spokeswoman for Alcoa Warrick Operations. Blair is "a rare breed," said Eric Uram, a regional representative for the Sierra Club Midwest Regional Office in Madison, Wis., who has worked with Blair through the Clean Air Network, a coalition dedicated to reducing air pollution. "John certainly is well-respected among the activist community. He has done things and gone places other folks have not," Uram said. "For somebody to persevere as long as John has is rare." Persevering has not been easy for Blair, 57, a husband and father of two grown children who manages to carve out a living as a freelance photographer in his spare time. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for his photography. He acknowledges that his life has been dogged by controversy. After speaking to him even a short time, however, there is no need to ask whether he would do any of it again. The only question is why. "Do I have a choice? Once I'm informed about an issue I can't just ignore it. This is serious stuff," Blair said. "These issues are of such importance that I can't sit on the sideline." Like most activists, there were moments that crystallized Blair's resolve. "Shortly after I moved here in 1974, I realized that it was impossible to take a decent aerial photograph," he said. "The air quality was just awful. There was this haze in the air." In January 1979, the same year that he formed Valley Watch with former Evansville resident Tom Zeller, Blair began publishing an alternative newspaper called Ohio Valley Environment. Advertiser-supported, the newspaper printed 17,000 issues a month until March 1982, providing an alternative view of issues affecting public health and the environment. During an interview for an article about a polluting aluminum smelting business in Spencer County, Ind., Blair said the manager flatly told him: "Well, young man, laws are made by the weak to hinder the strong." Maybe he doesn't know the effect that he had, but the man might as well have put a match to a powder keg. "When I came to the reality of what I was dealing with, the morality and mentality of these polluters, I knew I had to fight them with their own tactics," Blair said. "That is probably why some people might see me as a radical." That isn't how Blair sees himself though. "I think of myself as conservative, really," he said, "which freaks people out. I think being conservative means conservation, of the commonwealth, anyway." Born in the small town of Winchester, Ind., Blair grew up in a family that moved around often. However, in 1974 Evansville became his adopted hometown. He has turned down job offers in other places, most painfully in Hawaii. "For some reason I didn't want to leave Evansville. I felt comfortable here," he said. "Without hesitation I turned it down." He began his professional career in banking, after having earned an undergraduate degree in economics and public policy from Indiana University. It was almost by accident that Blair discovered his calling as a photographer, after purchasing a camera for a vacation while living and working as a banker in Indianapolis in August 1970. He learned his skills from the man who sold him the camera, United Press International bureau chief and photographer Jim Schweicker. His first subject happened to be his lunch date the day he bought the camera. "The first person I shot a picture of, I married. How cool is that?" he said. Together, John and Mary Blair have raised a son and daughter - Will, 21, who is in the Navy and also interested in photography, and Stephanie, 23, who has Down syndrome. "My biggest goal for my children, before I had children, was to make them independent. It was clear on Stephanie's birth that it was likely she would never be independent. That was a very, very big awakening. She kind of turned the world upside down. It changed the way I went about what I do," Blair said. "It brought to me a knowledge of people who are incapable of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. That is how I thought about things at the time, that whole Rush Limbaugh philosophy. It became clear to me that there are people in our society that don't have the resources or abilities to do things on their own without assistance from society. There are a lot of people who need other people''s assistance." Blair worked briefly as a newspaper photographer in Bloomington, Ind., before he and Mary married in November 1971 and moved to Phoenix, Ariz., where he worked as a mortgage lender. "It was a beautiful place but it was being destroyed by development. I didn't want to work with the people responsible for that," he said. Moving back to Indiana, Blair earned a degree in photojournalism at Ball State University and went to work as a freelance photographer for UPI syndicated news service in Indianapolis. "Working for UPI at $5 a picture, it was pretty hard to make a living," he said. During this time he moved to Evansville, where he taught journalism and photography at the University of Evansville for two years before starting his own photography business and taking up employment as a freelancer for UPI again. In 1977, he was called to Indianapolis to cover a dramatic apartment complex standoff during which an armed man held a mortgage banker hostage. Blair ultimately received a Pulitzer Prize for his starkly realized black and white photograph of Anthony Kiritsis parading the terrified lender, Richard Hall, through an apartment lobby with the trigger of a 12-gauge shotgun wired to the banker's neck, the gun also bound to Kiritsis. The picture received national attention, but at first it was attributed to Blair's mentor, Schweicker. Ultimately, Blair's use of a strobe flash and vertical framing proved him the photographer and in 1978 the prize was awarded to him instead. It was during this time that Blair was becoming involved with environmental issues such as plans to create a nuclear waste dump in Hoosier National Forest and then the ill-fated plans to build the Marble Hill nuclear reactor, a battle which lasted from 1981 to 1984. Spurred on by these successes, Blair and Valley Watch took up the fight to keep out Union Carbide when the chemical company announced in December 1985, just weeks after its deathly chemical release in Bhopal, India, that it wanted to build a PCB-removal facility in Henderson County, Ky. When a groundbreaking ceremony with state and local dignitaries was announced for Dec. 19, 1985, Blair came up with a simple plan that embodied his philosophy of "active, nonviolent civil disobedience." He plotted to silently steal the shovels and deposit them at the John James Audubon museum. It didn't quite work that way. "I knew where the shovels were. There were eight of them. I scooped them up and they clanged and banged. All these people were looking at me. I thought, 'I'm busted,'" he recalled. "I took off running and I yelled out 'Democracy will work fellas!' I kept running and they tackled me." The incident was captured by several television news crews that Blair had tipped off. "I bet Channel 25 ran me stealing those shovels 100 times. It was the best footage they had," he said. The plant was built anyway, but closed down in February 1999. Since then Blair and Valley Watch have gone on to more successfully fight against other industries with dubious pollution records seeking to locate in the area. They have successfully drawn attention to the hazards of the synthetic fuel industry and taken up the public health issues entwined with the Tri-State's large number of coal-burning power plants, emitters of potentially hazardous air pollution such as mercury and particulate matter and significant contributors to the region's ozone and smog problem. "It takes a toll. I've lived as a poor man for 25 years after winning a Pulitzer Prize. I've had a very understanding family over the years that have subscribed to what I believe in even though they may not be involved in what I do," he said. "They haven't put demands on me ever to not do that. It's real clear they are supportive. That's been good." It has, said Blair, been an emotional roller coaster. ***************************************************************** 3 Global Nuclear WMDs Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 02:18:03 -0500 The USA and Russia each have 2,000 to 2,500 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert right now. There have almost been accidental nuclear wars several times in the past. There can be an accidental nuclear war anytime. It is totally preventable and holds the citizens of every country on earth besides those of Russia and the USA with a metaphorical nuclear pistol at their temples 24/7/365. All nuclear weapons need to be permenantly removed from hair trigger alert status. The induction of nuclear winter would follow such an exchange, be that accidental or intentional, in which the living will envy the dead. Nuclear winter: http://www.mothersalert.org/nuclearwinter.html http://www.mothersalert.org/nuclearwinter2.html http://www.thebulletin.org http://snipurl.com/3wc3 http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/nd02nu kenote.html Global nuclear stockpiles, 1945-2002 The five major nuclear powers currently have more than 20,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenals, as shown in the table below. But this does not include a number of intact Russian nuclear warheads of indeterminate status-possibly as many as 10,000. Of the more than 30,000 intact warheads belonging to the world's eight nuclear weapon states, the vast majority (96 percent) are in U.S. or Russian stockpiles. About 17,500 of these warheads are considered operational. The rest are in reserve or retired and awaiting dismantlement. We estimate that since 1945, more than 128,000 nuclear warheads have been built worldwide-all but 2 percent of them by the United States (55 percent) and the Soviet Union or Russia (43 percent). Since the Cold War ended, more and more warheads in U.S. and Russian stockpiles are being moved from operational status into various reserve, inactive, or contingency categories. The destruction of warheads is not required under current arms control agreements. For example, the 2002 Moscow Treaty (the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty) contains no verification provisions and completely ignores non-operational and non-strategic warheads. The result is that stockpiles are more opaque and more difficult to describe with precision. The United States has produced some 70,000 warheads since 1945, of which, 60,000 have been dismantled (more than 12,000 of them since 1990). The U.S. arsenal contains approximately 10,600 intact warheads. Of this number, nearly 8,000 are considered active or operational. In addition, several hundred warheads await disassembly at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, including the W56 and W79 warheads, around 36 B53 bombs, and some excess non-strategic B61 bombs. These warheads should have been dismantled by 2000, but for various reasons, the schedule has been extended. As detailed in the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the plan is to reduce the number of "operationally deployed strategic warheads" to 1,700- 2,200 by the end of 2012. With the possible exception of the Minuteman III W62, there will be no further dismantlement of warheads beyond those specified in the 1994 NPR. The reduction of operationally deployed warheads will be accomplished by transferring warheads from active delivery vehicles to either a "responsive force" or to "inactive reserve." An example of inactive reserve warheads are those that do not have limited life components, such as tritium. Any additional disassembly before 2014, according to the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, would compete with planned refurbishments of the nine warhead types in the enduring stockpile. If current plans are fulfilled, by 2012 we estimate that the United States will have approximately 10,000 intact warheads-essentially the same number as today. Russia has not released information about the size of its stockpile. We estimate that since 1949 the Soviet Union/Russia has produced about 55,000 nuclear warheads, and that about 30,000 warheads existed in 1990-1991. The U.S. Defense Department and CIA estimate that Russia dismantled slightly more than 1,000 warheads per year during the 1990s, so that its remaining stockpile of intact warheads may be around 18,600. Only around 8,600 of these are thought to be operational. As many as 10,000 nuclear warheads are believed to be in non-operational status: in reserve for possible redeployment or retired and awaiting dismantlement. The Moscow Treaty limits Russia's operationally deployed strategic warheads to no more than 2,200 by 2012, but because of limited resources and funding, it is unlikely that Russia will be able to sustain that many. Russia had pressed for a limit of 1,500 warheads, and if significant numbers of warheads are not refurbished and returned to operational forces, the stockpile could shrink to as few as 1,000 strategic warheads and no more than 1,000 tactical warheads over the next 10 years. Britain is estimated to have produced approximately 1,200 warheads since 1953. Its current stockpile is thought to consist of some 200 strategic and "sub-strategic" warheads on Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). The government declared in July 1998 that there would "be fewer than 200 operationally available warheads," of which 48 warheads would be on patrol at any given time on a single SSBN. The British arsenal peaked in the 1970s at 350 warheads. France maintains approximately 350 warheads, down from 540 in 1992. France has produced more than 1,260 nuclear warheads since 1964. It has dismantled its land-based ballistic missiles and retired its nuclear bombs for delivery by naval-strike aircraft. The M51 sea-launched ballistic missile scheduled for deployment in 2010 was initially slated to carry an entirely new warhead (the TNO, or tête nucléaire océanique), but will instead be equipped with a more robust version of an existing design (probably the TN-75). China is estimated to have an arsenal of around 400 nuclear warheads, down from 435 in 1993. China is thought to have produced some 600 nuclear warheads since 1964, and U.S. intelligence and defense agencies predict that over the next 15 yea rs China may increase the number of warheads on primarily U.S-targeted missiles from 20 to between 75-100. India and Pakistan, the world's two newest declared nuclear powers, have fewer than 100 nuclear warheads between them, most of which are not yet operationally deployed. We estimate that India has produced enough fissile material for 45-95 nuclear warheads but may have assembled only 30-35, and that Pakistan has produced fissile material sufficient for 30-52 weapons and assembled 24-48 warheads. Both countries are thought to be increasing their stockpiles. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied possession of nuclear weapons, although U.S. intelligence reports for many years have labeled Israel a de facto nuclear power. Some unofficial reports estimate Israel's arsenal to have as many as 200 warheads, the first of which reportedly was assembled in 1967. Year U.S. Russia U.K. France China Total 1945 6 6 1946 11 11 1947 32 32 1948 110 110 1949 235 1 236 1950 369 5 374 1951 640 25 665 1952 1,005 50 1,055 1953 1,436 120 1 1,557 1954 2,063 150 5 2,218 1955 3,057 200 10 3,267 1956 4,618 426 15 5,059 1957 6,444 660 20 7,124 1958 9,822 869 22 10,713 1959 15,468 1,060 25 16,553 1960 20,434 1,605 30 22,069 1961 24,111 2,471 50 26,632 1962 27,297 3,322 205 30,824 1963 29,249 4,238 280 33,767 1964 30,751 5,221 310 4 1 36,287 1965 31,642 6,129 310 32 5 38,118 1966 31,700 7,089 270 36 20 39,115 1967 30,893 8,339 270 36 25 39,563 1968 28,884 9,399 280 36 35 38,634 1969 26,910 10,538 308 36 50 37,842 1970 26,119 11,643 280 36 75 38,153 1971 26,365 13,092 220 45 100 39,822 1972 27,296 14,478 220 70 130 42,194 1973 28,335 15,915 275 116 150 44,791 1974 28,170 17,385 325 145 170 46,195 1975 27,052 19,055 350 188 185 46,830 1976 25,956 21,205 350 212 190 47,913 1977 25,099 23,044 350 228 200 48,920 1978 24,243 25,393 350 235 220 50,441 1979 24,107 27,935 350 235 235 52,862 1980 23,764 30,062 350 250 280 54,706 1981 23,031 32,049 350 274 330 56,034 1982 22,937 33,952 335 274 360 57,858 1983 23,154 35,804 320 279 380 59,937 1984 23,228 37,431 270 280 415 61,624 1985 23,135 39,197 300 360 425 63,417 1986 23,254 40,723 300 355 425 65,057 1987 23,490 38,859 300 420 415 63,484 1988 23,077 37,333 300 410 430 61,550 1989 22,174 35,805 300 410 435 59,124 1990 21,211 33,417 300 505 430 55,863 1991 18,306 28,595 300 540 435 48,176 1992 13,731 25,155 300 540 435 40,161 1993 11,536 22,101 300 525 435 34,897 1994 11,012 18,399 250 510 400 30,571 1995 10,953 14,978 300 500 400 27,131 1996 10,886 12,085 300 450 400 24,121 1997 10,829 11,264 260 450 400 23,203 1998 10,763 10,764 260 450 400 22,637 1999 10,698 10,451 185 450 400 22,184 2000 10,615 10,201 185 470 400 21,871 2001 10,491 9,126 200 350 400 20,567 2002 10,600 8,600 200 350 400 20,150 Nuclear Notebook is prepared by Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Hans M. Kristensen of the Nautilus Institute. Inquiries should be directed to NRDC, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20005; 202-289-6868. ©2002 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 4 ALJ: Israel answers to no one on nuclear weapons The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 01/18/2004 ] MIDDLE EAST ARMS By Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer Jerusalem -- The White House celebrated news last month that Libya will dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and that Iran will permit snap inspections of its nuclear program. But the biggest nuclear power in the Middle East, the state that runs the most secretive WMD program in the world, has signaled no intention of disarming or even slowing down. In fact, Israel has declined to discuss -- or even disclose -- its weapons systems for nearly 50 years, and it remained characteristically silent after December's developments in Tripoli and Tehran. Washington, too, has had nothing to say about Israel's weapons, despite an increasingly compelling reason for raising the issue -- namely, that Syria and Iran, with Egypt's backing, say they will not disarm unless Israel does. For the Bush administration to pressure Israel to declare the existence of its weapons of mass destruction and outline the contingencies for their use would, at the very least, remove a glaring double standard in its high-minded proclamations on the subject. It certainly would reassure moderate Arab states, where Israel is usually viewed as Goliath, not David. Just as important, it would rob so-called "rogues" -- states, groups or individuals -- of one of their main rallying cries for recruiting followers to sow bloodshed and calamity against the West: Washington conveniently ignores Israel's defiance of international disarmament efforts. But pressure to disarm, either from Washington or from inside Israel, is unlikely. Since the inception of its nuclear weapons program in the mid-1950s, Israel has hewed to a policy of neither confirming nor denying its arsenal's existence. Few doubt, however, that it possesses such weapons. According to the Federation of American Scientists and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, it has at least 200 nuclear warheads. If true, that would make Israel the world's No. 5 nuclear power, surpassing Britain. In addition, a 1993 report by the Office of Technology Assessment states that Israel has "undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities" and is "generally reported as having an undeclared offensive biological warfare program." Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore is not subject to inspections and the threat of sanctions by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Its efforts to disguise its activities have gone beyond an unwillingness to enter the international anti-proliferation regime. In the early 1960s, it actively deceived U.S. scientists inspecting its Dimona nuclear facility, building a fake control room to an underground uranium processing facility, according to "The Samson Option," an account of Israel's nuclear weapons program by Seymour M. Hersh. Criticism rolls off On the issue of WMD programs, international criticism has never troubled Israel. Israelis say the weapons are safe in their hands because they are not bent on destroying their neighbors. Syria and Iran, meanwhile, have sought mass-destruction weapons partly to counter Israel's, putting the region's security on a more wobbly foundation. Israel's policy of neither confirming nor denying the existence of its arsenal has served it well, from the government's perspective. As former Prime Minister Shimon Peres has put it, "The suspicion and fog surrounding this issue are constructive." On the one hand, the perception that it is a member of the nuclear club has provided Israel with a high level of deterrence in the Arab world. On the other hand, Israel's silence has enabled it to become the region's pre-eminent military power while avoiding a direct collision with U.S. policy on weapons proliferation. Such a collision might jeopardize portions of Israel's aid from Washington, which exceeds $3 billion annually. This official posture of ambiguity "has enabled Israel for decades to enjoy the best of both worlds," said Shai Feldman, director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. Does secrecy work? Whether the policy suits a new era and the perils that Israel faces is another matter. Does the veil around Israel's WMD undermine or encourage what the Israeli government says it wants -- a Middle East free of doomsday weapons? In recent speeches, Israeli military officials have acknowledged that the country faces no threat on its "eastern front." Brig. Gen. Eival Giladi even boasted last month that the next time Syria and Israel clash in a war, the army will reach Damascus with the same speed that American troops drove to Baghdad last spring. There is widespread agreement, too, that the strategic equation of the Middle East has been transformed by Moammar Gadhafi's about-face, Saddam Hussein's ouster in Iraq and the decision by Iran's mullahs to permit stricter inspections. Indeed, membership in the nuclear club appears to be losing value due to the financial costs and risks of outside intervention. Stand fast, poll says Still, Israeli leaders are skeptical, Feldman says. To them, Gadhafi's turnabout, like Iran's, reveals the weakness of international inspections and safeguards. Although both Tehran and Tripoli are signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and subject to its sanctions, evidence shows that both made significant advances toward development of WMD that went undetected for years. For all of its military strength, Israel also remains profoundly anxious. Influential Israelis believe Sept. 11 ushered in a rising global tide of hate aimed at Jews and the Jewish state. Against this background, only one in four Israelis believe that their country should give up its nuclear arsenal as part of a regional disarmament campaign, according to a survey published last week by Israel's state broadcaster. Under these circumstances, any serious talk of relinquishing germs, gases and nukes is probably unrealistic. If recent news accounts about a famed nuclear whistle-blower are any indication, even acknowledging what the world assumes to be true appears premature, too. Last month, Israel's domestic intelligence agency was said to be considering how to silence Mordechai Vanunu, who is scheduled for release from prison in April. Vanunu, a nuclear technician, was sentenced to 18 years for espionage after giving dozens of pictures and a description of alleged weapons from Dimona to London's Sunday Times in 1986. He had been lured from London to Rome by a female Israeli spy and taken to Tel Aviv for trial. The disclosures led to a sharp upward revision of the number of nuclear warheads in Israel. Authorities are now said to be afraid that Vanunu could become a leader in a campaign to pressure Israel to dismantle its WMD program. The options under consideration for muzzling Vanunu include barring him from traveling overseas or speaking in public after he is released. Craig Nelson is a Middle East-based free-lance journalist on assignment for Cox Newspapers. © 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ***************************************************************** 5 PTI: 'Pak fuelled Iran, Libya, N Korea nuke programmes' Sunday, 18 January , 2004, 18:12 London: The Clandestine nuclear weapons programmes of Iran, Libya and North Korea were all fuelled by the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta in north Pakistan, a leading London weekly reported on Sunday. "Dramatic evidence from Iran and now Libya reveals a clandestine and sophisticated network, stretching from North Korea, Malaysia and China to Russia, Germany and Dubai. Yet one country more than any other stands accused of easing this proliferation. In the network of illegal radioactive trade, all roads point to Pakistan. More precisely, they lead to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta in north Pakistan," The Observer stated in a special report. Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered as father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb is implicated in the proliferation of weapons in Iran, according to the report. During India's first nuclear test, he was working in Holland for an Anglo-Dutch-German nuclear engineering consortium called Urenco. Through his work there, Khan became aware of secret blueprints for two types of uranium enrichment centrifuges: one based on rotors made of aluminium and another based on a highly-strengthened alloy of steel. According to the report, Khan went on to steal the blueprints and a list of Urenco suppliers. With the blessing of the then Pakistani government, he established the Khan Research Laboratories near Islamabad and, with the help of the Chinese, went on to secretly develop the countrys bomb. Khan, who once said that all Western countries are enemies of Islam, had fundamentalist sympathies and is known as the godfather of the Islamic bomb. Evidence has now emerged from Iran and Libya that Khan's programme may be the source of the greatest level of nuclear weapons proliferation since the Cold War, the report said. UN inspectors who have recently visited a number of facilities in Libya discovered large amounts of aluminium centrifuge parts that had all the hallmarks of the Urenco designs stolen by Khan. Pakistan used these to enrich uranium before later turning to the more complex steel centrifuges. It is believed that rogue scientists from Pakistan, motivated by million dollar payouts, were helped by German middlemen and Sri Lankan businessmen based in Dubai. The middlemen are believed to have secured items for Iran from European, Asian and North American companies, Observer said. Till the end of last year the Pakistan furiously denied any of its nuclear technology had been exported. But it now accepts that certain individuals might have violated Pakistani laws for personal gain. Last month, Pakistan announced it was questioning four of its scientists over the sale of nuclear secrets, including Abdul Khan, but Western officials fear little will come out. South Korean spies reportedly discovered the transactions in 2002 and that summer US spy satellites photographed Pakistani cargo planes loading missile parts in North Korea. Pakistan has denied such a deal, but pressure is mounting for Musharraf to clamp down. Reports have also emerged of Pakistani nuclear scientists visiting Burma. It is clear that the extent of the black market in nuclear weapons technology is only just beginning to emerge, the report said. © Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved. See ***************************************************************** 6 Observer Revealed: how Pakistan fuels nuclear arms race [Guardian Unlimited] [UP] Antony Barnett investigates the illegal global market in nuclear equipment and expertise and how the weapons programmes of Iran, Libya and North Korea all lead back to Pakistan Sunday January 18, 2004 The Austrian village of Seibersdorf is so anonymous that cab drivers from nearby Vienna have difficulty finding it. But it is home to a laboratory complex whose scientists have the power to start a war or keep the peace. Hunched over electron microscopes and mass spectrometers, they are the world's nuclear detectives, analysing minute fragments of radioactive matter collected by UN inspectors in places such as Iran and Libya. Testing particles as small as one-hundredth of the width of a human hair, they can spot the secret yet indelible signs of a nuclear programme. It was in Seibersdorf last summer that a scientist analysing dust taken from a cotton swipe used inside facilities in Iran discovered evidence of highly-enriched uranium - the key component of an atomic bomb. It was the first hint of a programme that had remained hidden for 18 years. Like DNA from a crime scene, analysis of these particles also provides vital clues to the source of any nuclear material. Each radioactive isotope has its own signature. Scientists at Seibersdorf work for the UN's nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Authority. They are just one part of a nuclear police force that is at the forefront of a war against a growing black market in nuclear material, equipment and atomic know-how. The battle involves rogue scientists selling their technical knowledge, nations desperate to join the nuclear weapon states and middlemen turn ing a quick buck by trading equipment and material. Dramatic evidence from Iran and now Libya reveals a clandestine and sophisticated network stretching from North Korea, Malaysia and China to Russia, Germany and Dubai. Yet one country more than any other stands accused of easing this proliferation. In the network of illegal radioactive trade, all roads point to Pakistan. More precisely, they lead to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta in north Pakistan. Uranium 235 is the holy grail in bomb-making. It is a specific radioactive isotope whose atoms can split in two, releasing the huge amount of fissile energy vital to an atomic weapon. One way of acquiring it is to obtain uranium ore from the ground - which has minute amounts of uranium-235 - then 'enrich' it using thousands of centrifuges. This involves putting unrefined uranium into a tube and spinning it at twice the speed of sound to expel any impurities. By doing this, the amount of uranium-235 becomes more concentrated. While this process may not sound too complicated, it requires a feat of supreme technical engineering involving a number of complex components. In particular, the rotors of the centrifuge spin so fast they need to be made of extremely strong material and be perfectly balanced. In the mid-Seventies, these engineering problems were faced by a Pakistani metallurgist, Abdul Qadeer Khan. An ardent nationalist, he had just seen India test its first nuclear bomb. At the time he was working in Holland for an Anglo-Dutch-German nuclear engineering consortium called Urenco. Through his work there, Khan became aware of secret blueprints for two types of uranium enrichment centrifuges: one based on rotors made of aluminium and another based on a highly-strengthened alloy of steel. Khan went on to steal the blueprints and a list of Urenco suppliers. With the blessing of the then Pakistani government, he established the Khan Research Laboratories near Islamabad and, with the help of the Chinese, went on to secretly develop the country's atomic bomb. When, in 1998, Pakistan tested its first nuclear bomb in the desert of Baluchistan, Khan became a hero in his home country as the 'father of the Pakistani nuclear programme'. He once said: 'All Western countries are not only the enemies of Pakistan but in fact of Islam.' His fundamentalist sympathies mean that it is perhaps no surprise that he is also known as the 'godfather of the Islamic bomb'. Evidence has now emerged from Iran and Libya that Khan's programme in Pakistan may be the source of the greatest level of nuclear weapons proliferation since the Cold War. The Observer has learnt that UN inspectors who have recently visited a number of facilities in Libya discovered large amounts of aluminium centrifuge parts that had 'all the hallmarks of the Urenco designs' stolen by Khan. Pakistan used these to enrich uranium before later turning to the more complex steel centrifuges. A Vienna-based diplomat familiar with the Libyan inspections said: 'The big surprise was that components found were almost off-the-shelf turnkey equipment. It was as if somebody had been shopping at Ikea and just needed to put the bits together.' The diplomat said this was unlike Iraq's secret nuclear programme, which required large teams of scientists to deal with research issues and solve mechanical problems. He said: 'The worry is that if a country like Libya - with little industrial infrastructure and a small population - could lay its hands on this equipment, then a large country might be able to set up a weapons programme at a very fast pace indeed.' Libyan authorities have been helping the IAEA to piece together the 'cartel' of middlemen feeding this clandestine network of nuclear know-how and equipment. They have been helped by the US seizure of a German-registered ship in the Suez Canal last October destined for Libya with thousands of parts - believed to be Malaysian-made but based on Pakistani designs - for aluminium centrifuges. The UN inspectors uncovered evidence that many of the same middlemen were responsible for arming Libya and Iran. Last November, Iran finally admitted to a vast, secret procurement network that acquired thousands of sensitive parts and tools from numerous countries over an 18-year period. It is believed that rogue scientists from Pakistan, motivated by million-dollar payouts, were helped by German middlemen and Sri Lankan businessmen based in Dubai. The middlemen are believed to have secured items for Iran from European, Asian and North American companies. Until the end of last year the Pakistani government furiously denied that any of its nuclear technology had been 'exported'. However, it now accepts that 'certain individuals might have violated Pakistani laws for personal gain'. Last month Pakistan announced it was questioning four of its scientists over the sale of nuclear secrets, including Abdul Khan, but Western officials fear little will come of this inquiry. The political sensitivity of 'arresting' a national hero such as Khan would inflame Islamic sentiment and backfire on both the US and President Pervez Musharraf, who is an important ally in the war on terrorism. Yet while the 'rogue scientist' theory is helpful to all parties in explaining how Pakistani equipment has ended up in Libya and Iran, an added complication is the role played by North Korea. US intelligence claims that the Pakistani government, through the Khan laboratories, struck a deal which swapped Pakistani nuclear centrifuge technology for North Korean long-range missiles. South Korean intelligence agents were reported to have discovered the transactions in 2002 and that summer US spy satellites photographed Pakistani cargo planes loading missile parts in North Korea. Pakistan has denied such a deal, but pressure is mounting for Musharraf to clamp down. Reports have also emerged of Pakistani nuclear scientists visiting Burma. It is clear that the extent of the black market in nuclear weapons technology is only just beginning to emerge. As one of the scientists in Seibersdorf said: 'This year looks like being a busy one.' Special reports Pakistan War in Afghanistan Attack on America Kashmir World news guide 20.12.2001: Pakistan India [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 7 The Hindu: Pak's N-proliferation no surprise - Sergei Ivanov Sunday, January 18, 2004 : 1100 Hrs Moscow, Jan. 18 (PTI): Moscow was aware of transfer of nuclear technology by Pakistan to other countries and is to closely interact with New Delhi to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and their falling in the wrong hands, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, has said. "I would leave for my namesake (Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov) to make any public statement on this as the investigations are under way. At least it was neither unexpected nor a surprise for me," Ivanov said commenting on recent media reports of Pakistani scientists proliferating nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran. Ivanov, who begins his three-day visit to New Delhi tomorrow, said proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has posed a threat and issues of regional and global security would be high on his agenda during his parleys with the Indian leadership. "The proliferation of WMD is one of the most dangerous threats and both Russia and India have a common views on this. We cannot let the WMD-nuclear, chemical or biological, fall into the hands of rogue or I would say 'irresponsible' States and terrorists," Ivanov told Moscow-based Indian journalists here in an interview. Besides parleys with Defence Minister George Fernandes, Ivanov is scheduled to hold talks with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra on a wide range of issues including defence and security of the two nations in the changing world scenario. Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 8 Patriot-News: More sirens coming to area around TMI Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 19:12:38 -0800 More sirens coming to area around TMI Growth makes some alerts hard to hear Saturday, January 17, 2004 BY GARRY LENTON Of The Patriot-News Fourteen sirens will be added to the emergency warning system around Three Mile Island in the next six months. AmerGen, owner of TMI, will spend $730,000 to upgrade the warning system after an acoustic test showed it wasn't loud enough in some areas. >From Our Advertiser There are 79 sirens within a 10-mile radius of the nuclear plant. When the project is completed, there will be 93 sirens. Six sirens will be replaced with louder ones, said Ralph DeSantis, a spokesman for AmerGen. Attribute the need for new sirens on regional growth. Increased vehicle traffic and vegetation have combined to raise the level of background noise and diminish the reach of the sirens. First installed in 1982, the sirens are there to warn the public of an emergency at the plant. A single three-minute blast means residents should go indoors and tune radios or televisions to emergency broadcast stations for more information. A list of those stations is in telephone books. Middletown Mayor Robert Reid welcomed news of the improvement. The borough has had no problems hearing the sirens, but Reid said it could be a problem elsewhere. "Anything that can help us, as far as a warning system is concerned, is a plus for the communities," he said. York County will get eight of the new sirens, and three sirens will be replaced. Dauphin County will get five new sirens and one replacement. The remainder will be installed in Lancaster County. The sirens must be audible at a minimum rate of 60 decibels -- the volume of a normal conversation -- throughout the 10-mile area around the plant, DeSantis said. The warning system is also used for other emergencies, such as weather events and chemical spills. York County used its sirens for a tornado, DeSantis said. The sirens are controlled by each county's emergency management agency. AmerGen is seeking locations for the sirens close to fire stations. But some will have to go on private property. For that, the company must obtain the permission of the owner, DeSantis said. Work is expected to begin immediately and be completed by late summer. GARRY LENTON: 255-8264 or glenton@patriot-news.com » Send This Page | » Print This Page Copyright 2004 The Patriot-News. Used with permission. t- ***************************************************************** 9 Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Power Plant Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 11:50:38 -0600 (CST) http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair01172004.html Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Power Plant By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR These are desperate days for Entergy, the big Arkansas-based power conglomerate that owns the frail Indian Point nuclear plant, located on the east bank of the Hudson River outside Buchanan, New York-just 22 miles from Manhattan. First, a scathing report by a nuclear engineer fingered Indian Point as one of five worst nuclear plants in the United States and predicted that its emergency cooling system "is virtually certain to fail." This damning disclosure was hotly followed by the release of a study conducted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which ominously concluded that the chances of a reactor meltdown increase by nearly a factor of 100 at Indian Point because the plant's drainage pits (also known as containment sumps) are "almost certain" to be blocked with debris during an accident. "The NRC has known about the containment sump problem at Indian Point since September 1996, but currently plans to fix it only by March 2007," says David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists who. "The NRC cannot take more than a decade to fix a safety problem that places millions of Americans at undue risk." Entergy and the NRC both downplayed the meltdown scenario and defended the leisurely pace of the planned repairs, which won't start until 2007. Entergy says that there's no rush to fix the problems with the emergency system because a breakdown isn't likely in the first place. But that's flirting with almost certain disaster. Entergy and the NRC are staking the lives of millions on odds of a single water pipe not breaking under pressure. The problem is that these very kinds of pipes have corroded and been breached at other nuclear plants featuring similar pressurized water design. At the Davis-Bessie plant near Toledo, Ohio, a vessel head on one of the cooling water pipes had been nearly corroded away by acid and was dangerously close to rupturing. The cooling water in these pipes is kept at a pressure of 2,200 pounds per square inch. If a pipe breaks, the 500-degree water would blow off as steam, tearing off plant insulation and coatings. The escaped water will pour into the plant's basement, where sump pumps are meant to draw the water back into the reactor core. But the Los Alamos tests showed that the cooling water would collect debris along the way that will clog up the mesh screens on the pipes leading back into the reactor. If this happens, the cooling of the reactor fuel would stop, the radioactive core would start to melt and the plant will belch a radioactive plume that will threaten millions downwind. All this would happen very fast. The Indian Point 2 reactor would exhaust all of its cooling water in less than 23 minutes, while the number 3 reactor would consume all of its water in only 14 minutes. Try getting a nuclear plumber that quickly. Yes, it sounds trite, but that's essentially what Entergy proposes as its quick fix to the meltdown scenario. Jim Steets, Entergy's spokesman on Indian Point matters, told the New York Times last month that the company was training its workers to scour the plant for flaking paint and potential debris and that if an accident occurred they would pump the water into the core more slowly, a plan that would buy plant managers and executives a few more minutes to flee the scene. Where people would go and how they would get there in the event of a nuclear meltdown or other radioactive release at Indian Point is unclear. In September 2002, New York Governor George Pataki commissioned a report on Indian Point's evacuation plan. He picked James Lee Witt, the former Rose Law Firm attorney who served as head of FEMA during the Clinton administration, to oversee the investigation. At the time, Pataki said that he would support closure of the plant if Witt's report revealed that communities near the plant could not be safely evacuated. Witt submitted his report on January 10, 2003. While somewhat timid and cautious, Witt concluded that Entergy's off-site evacuation plans for Indian Point were woefully inadequate. Witt wrote: "It is our conclusion that the current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to overcome their combined weight and protect the people from an unacceptable dose of radiation in the event of a release from Indian Point, especially if the release is faster or larger than the design basis release." In the end, Witt concluded that it was not possible to fix the evacuation plan, given the problems at the plant, the density of the nearby communities and looming security threats. This sobering scenario was followed by news that a review of the company's security record revealed that Entergy, in cahoots with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, faked a test designed to determine whether the plant is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. In an August letter, the NRC assured members of Congress that Entergy had developed a "strong defensive strategy and capability" for the plant and passed with flying colors a so-called "force-on-force" test, a mock assault. In turns out, however, that the NRC gave Entergy officials months of advance warning about the test and then, as the Indian Point team cribbed for the exam, dumbed down the assault to ensure that they would pass. Most assessments by the CIA and other intelligence agencies suggest that an assault on a nuclear plant would require a squad-sized force of between 12 and 14 attackers, who would assault the plant by night, armed with explosives, machine guns with armor-penetrating bullets, and rocket-propelled grenades. This isn't the attack that was repelled by the Entergy security team. Instead, Entergy's men battled off a squad of 4 mock terrorists, armed only with hunting rifles, who assaulted the plant in broad daylight. Moreover, the attacking squad weren't former Delta Force operatives trained in terrorist tactics, but security officers from a nearby nuclear plant who assault the plant from only one point after crossing open fields in plain view of Indian Point's security guards. Just to make sure that there were no surprises, the Entergy security team, which consisted largely of guards hired only for the test, was warned that a mock attack would take place sometime within the next hour. Even under these rigged conditions, Entergy barely passed the security test. Environmentalists and anti-nuke activists living near the plant hoped this would be the final straw for the aging reactor. They marshaled their evidence of safety violations, inept evacuation plans and lax security and headed off to offices of the most powerful Democrat in America, Hillary Clinton. But Hillary has remained about reserved as Pataki on Indian Point, issuing robotic requests for more studies but refusing to call for the plant's closure. Not that her words mean much. Last month, she pledged to filibuster the nomination of Utah governor Mike Leavitt for director of the EPA. She ended up voting to confirm his nomination. Of course, Hillary's ties to Entergy are almost primal. The Little Rock-based Entergy Corporation, which once employed John Huang, the infamous conduit to the Lippo Group, was one of Bill Clinton's main political sponsors, shoveling more than $100,000 into his political coffers from 1992 to 1996. The more plaintive the cries for Indian Point's closure, the more money Entergy spreads around to politicians with reputation for flexibility in these matters. Already this year, Entergy's New York Political Action Committee-ENPAC New York-has doled out more than $25,000 to New York politicians alone. Everyone got into the act from Pataki and Clinton to Democratic congressman Eliot Engel to lowlier footsoldiers for the nuclear plant, including two state assemblymen, commissioners from Westchester and Orange counties, Bronx Borough president Adolfo Carrion and state comptroller Alan Hevesi, whose election campaign was endorsed by the Sierra Club. Political money isn't the only tool in Entergy's bag of tricks. In late October, community activists in the Bronx reported that emissaries from Entergy were canvassing black and Hispanic neighborhoods in New York City and Westchester County with an ominous warning: if Indian Point closes, air quality in urban areas will deteriorate and more blacks and Hispanics will develop respiratory illnesses. The Entergy reps told people that new coal-fired power plants would be built in their neighborhoods and urged them to sign a petition. "In recent years, nearly all proposals for new power plants in New York state have been in or adjacent to areas with high concentrations of people of African descent and Latinos," a memo handed out at the door warns. There is, naturally, much truth to this claim. and Entergy is in a unique position to know. since throughout the southeast it has targeted its power plants in black neighborhoods, where it has heralded them as bringing economic engines for impoverished communities. The canvassers also carried cellphones as they went from door to door. They hit the speed dial number of a local legislator, handed the phone to the resident and then prompted them on how to express their concerns about the possible closure of Indian Point. The petition drive, which discreetly by-passed the 13 predominately white districts in Westchester County, was run by a group calling itself by the lofty-sounding name: the Campaign for Affordable Energy, Environmental & Economic Justice. The group was supposedly based in Manhattan. In fact, it was created and wholly funded by Entergy. "This is a sham front group fabricated by the nuclear industry to scare black and low income people," says Susan Tolchin, a staffer for Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, who supports closing the Indian Point plant. "It's an outrageous and disgusting attempt to exploit the minority community for corporate greed." Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature. ***************************************************************** 10 JS Online: Nuclear questions might set off sparks License renewals, sale of plant are debated By THOMAS CONTENT tcontent@journalsentinel.com Posted: Jan. 17, 2004 Questions about nuclear power are higher on Wisconsin's energy agenda than at any time since the state's first nuclear plants were built decades ago. The Kewaunee nuclear power plant may be sold to Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Va. Proponents and opponents of nuclear power are gearing up for controversial decisions that must be made beginning this year by state and federal regulators concerning Wisconsin's two nuclear power plants. The Point Beach and Kewaunee nuclear power plants - situated not far from one another on Lake Michigan - supply about one-fourth of Wisconsin's electricity needs. The plants have been a relatively inexpensive source of power for ratepayers, excluding tax subsidies given to the nuclear industry. But as the end of the plants' 40-year licenses to operate nears, opponents of nuclear power continue to raise concerns about the risks of relying on it, including the potential for accidents and the storage of spent nuclear fuel at or outside reactors on the shore of Lake Michigan. The questions being posed: Should the Legislature overturn Wisconsin's moratorium on new nuclear plants? Should the Point Beach plant be permitted to operate for an additional 20 years? And should the Kewaunee plant, now owned by two Wisconsin utilities, be sold to an out-of-state energy company? For those in the energy industry, these are questions that weren't being asked six months ago, when the most hotly debated controversies were Wisconsin Energy Corp.'s proposed Oak Creek coal plants and American Transmission Co.'s planned Wausau-to-Duluth power line. Just as state energy regulators were giving those projects the go-ahead, nuclear issues were coming to the fore. Wisconsin Energy Corp. and Nuclear Management Co., the nuclear operating company co-owned by several upper Midwest utilities, plan to apply next month for a 20-year renewal of the federal licenses for Point Beach. The licenses for the two reactors are to expire in 2010 and 2013. The utility contends that consumers will save hundreds of millions of dollars by keeping the plant running until the 2030s, rather than closing it and having to build more coal plants or buy power on the open market. Abdoo makes pitch Even before the formal application is filed, the state's largest utility began courting customer groups to support its plan. Wisconsin Energy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Abdoo and other top executives made their case this month to the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, a coalition of big energy users. The group endorsed license renewal, although it will monitor the case to ensure that it's economical, group President Nino Amato said. "This was not an easy decision. Everyone struggled with this," Amato said. "In many ways, Wisconsin can be proud of the fact that we built two nuclear plants on time and under budget compared to what happened elsewhere in the country." His group doesn't support lifting Wisconsin's ban on new nuclear plants but sees extending the life of Point Beach as a solid choice, given the alternatives. Wisconsin Energy has said that its energy forecasting models show new coal plants would be needed to replace Point Beach if the license isn't renewed. While it's true that Wisconsin avoided overbuilding nuclear plants, which Illinois did, nuclear power carries other risks, says Charlie Higley, executive director of the Citizens' Utility Board. "Although some would argue that we should keep running the Wisconsin reactors as long as possible and take advantage that our rates haven't been that high because of nuclear power," he said, "that's putting us in greater jeopardy of having a serious accident - or of having additional waste problems beyond the ones we already have." The Point Beach and Kewaunee plants both have been accident-free. The only blemish: an explosion of a dry-cask storage container at Point Beach during a welding procedure in 1996. No one was hurt. Recently, a more aggressive inspection regimen by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission revealed a series of serious safety violations at Point Beach. Nuclear Management, the Hudson-based company that operates the plant, has revamped the management team and launched a plantwide "excellence plan" to help improve operations. $22 million in fees In evaluating the question of license renewal, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will spend 21/2 years reviewing all aspects of the plant, including the structural integrity of the plant and its reactors, and their ability to perform for another two decades. But other questions remain. The state Public Service Commission must decide whether We Energies' customers should pay for the utility's $22 million in application, technical and other fees associated with license renewal. And if the Yucca Mountain permanent storage site for radioactive waste doesn't open on time in Nevada, both Point Beach and Kewaunee might need state approval to store additional waste at their plants. The Kewaunee nuclear plant, less than half the size of Point Beach, may pose an even bigger controversy, some energy observers predict. Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay and Wisconsin Power &Light Co. of Madison announced in November their intent to sell the plant to Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Va. The deal is designed to help both companies avoid the uncertainties associated with owning an aging nuclear plant in an era of aggressive federal oversight and uncertain capital costs. Among the costs on the horizon: The plant has capacity to store spent fuel through 2009 and will need to expand that to continue operating even until its current license expires in 2014. Ratepayers may benefit For ratepayers, Wisconsin Public Service and Wisconsin Power &Light, the $220 million sale to Dominion would provide certainty - and perhaps some rate relief in the short term, as the utilities contend that a portion of decommissioning funds they will retain could be used to ease customers' rates. Decommissioning is the expensive and time-consuming process of shutting down an aged nuclear power plant and securing it against radiation release. But customer groups, including Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group and Citizens' Utility Board, worry about the long-term effects of the sale. "Once you start selling off your generation to out-of-state buyers, you lose control," the energy group's Amato said, adding: "In light of everything that's happened with Enron and in California," customer groups are skeptical that Dominion will be invested in the community or the state "except to reap as much profit as they can." Wisconsin Public Service, the majority owner of the plant, said it agreed to the sale only after reviewing four offers and receiving assurances from Dominion that the jobs of Kewaunee employees would be preserved. Also, Dominion pledged to continuing selling power back to the two utilities until the plant's license expires in 2014. Opponents worry that the power could be sold on the open market after that, leaving Wisconsin with the drawbacks from nuclear power - particularly nuclear waste. Wisconsin Power &Light spokesman Chris Schoenherr noted that the state's fragile transmission grid would make it hard to sell Kewaunee's power outside Wisconsin. Opponents also worry that the Kewaunee plant would be expanded by building a second reactor. The plant was originally designed for two reactors, but only one was built. No such plans have been announced by Dominion officials. To build a new reactor would require overturning Wisconsin's moratorium on construction of new nuclear plants. From the Jan. 18, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Copyright 2004, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights ***************************************************************** 11 Beacon Journal: Davis-Besse plant suffers new setback 01/17/2004 | FirstEnergy Corp. said its Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, idled for almost two years by reactor damage, won't reopen before February because of a pump leak at a steam generator. The Akron utility put off a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection that would've begun Monday as workers replaced seals on two backup pumps. The pumps aren't part of the reactor. The delayed inspection may begin in early February. One of the pumps began leaking steam after FirstEnergy warmed up the reactor for tests. Crews have replaced the seals on two other pumps and have returned the heat to operating level. Also this week, FirstEnergy hired a new plant operations manager at Davis-Besse and four other supervisors. Suspect indicted in securities fraud A two-count indictment has been filed against Michael P. Keating, 44, of Woodstock, Md., charging him with conspiracy and securities fraud, Gregory A. White, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio announced Friday. Keating is a former registered licensed sales representative in Maryland. The indictment charges that Keating participated in a fraudulent scheme with co-conspirator Andrew P. Bodnar and others, and defrauded investors in Ohio and Maryland of millions of dollars. Bodnar has been sentenced to 135 months in jail for his participation in the scheme. KeyCorp reports decline in earnings KeyCorp on Friday posted a 4 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings, saying drops in commercial loans and securities more than offset growth in commercial lease financing and home equity lending. Still, the results were ahead of analysts' estimates. KeyCorp reported earnings of $234 million, or 55 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, compared with earnings of $245 million, or 57 cents per share, a year earlier. Earnings for the full year totaled $903 million, down from $976 million in 2002. Federated to close two stores in Ohio Federated Department Stores Inc. plans to close five underperforming Rich's-Macy's and Lazarus-Macy's stores in four states, including one each in the Columbus suburbs of Westerville and Oxford. The Cincinnati-based department-store chain said Friday that 369 employees will lose their jobs. It also reiterated its plans to close the Lazarus-Macy's store in Heath, east of Columbus, in April. Home Depot plans to modernize stores Home Depot said Friday that it will spend $3.7 billion in 2004 to modernize its stores, upgrade its Web site and open 175 new stores -- down from the 200 openings in each of the past three years. It also raised its estimate of earnings growth for fiscal 2003. The world's largest home improvement retailer also reported its 2003 earnings per share would rise 17 percent to 19 percent, compared to a previous estimate of 15 percent to 17 percent growth. Huntington reports good fourth quarter Huntington Bancshares said on Friday that earnings in the fourth quarter jumped 35 percent, driven by strong growth in loans and deposits. The bank, which has offices in Ohio, said earnings totaled $93.2 million, or 40 cents a share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, compared with earnings of $69.2 million, or 29 cents a share a year ago. ***************************************************************** 12 Philadelphia Inquirer: Peco's deeper ties to Fumo | 01/18/2004 | [inquirer.com - The inquirer home page] The utility has given millions to a 2d nonprofit tied to him. His allies have gotten grants. By Mario F. Cattabiani Inquirer Staff Writer If you're a Peco Energy Co. customer, every time you flick on a light, you are routing money to a little-known South Philadelphia nonprofit group controlled by close aides and allies of State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo's. For the average customer, it's only 3 cents a month. But it adds up quickly: about $1.7 million each year for the Delaware Valley Regional Economic Development Fund to spend as it sees fit. Fumo secured the Peco money in the 1998 electric-rate restructuring talks that opened the industry to competition. Since then, the nonprofit has, virtually unnoticed, redirected about $4 million in low-interest loans and grants to a small circle of recipients, all in Philadelphia and most with unmistakable links to the powerful Democrat. Howard Cain and Jeremy Newberg, two consultants on Fumo's state Senate payroll, operate nonprofits that received $850,000 in loans from Delaware Valley. Both are also paid by their nonprofit groups. The largest loan - $1.35 million - went to a private child-welfare agency to relocate into new Philadelphia offices. The entire relocation, from design to financial plan, was put together by a company run by James W. Eastwood, president of the Delaware Valley fund and a longtime friend of Fumo's. Lance Haver, an anti-Peco consumer advocate and Fumo ally in the deregulation talks, received $250,000 to start a fish and basil farm that is gasping for economic survival. The company has fewer employees today than when it got the funding. State audits and IRS disclosures show that the Delaware Valley group has spent the money on some laudable efforts: renovating a homeless shelter in North Philadelphia; a Center City charter school; and a South Philadelphia produce market. "We are fairly proud of the portfolio projects we put together," said Randy Albright, a state budget analyst for Fumo and a member of the Delaware Valley board. "We think each of those projects individually stands on its own and many of which may not have happened without our support." But the projects are clouded by "what looks like insider dealings between friends," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which studies the influence of money on politics. "Even with nonprofits, you need some sense of independence that the money is being given out on the merits of the projects and not because of political connections," Noble said. "It's corrosive to the process and lacks a sense of fairness." It is another example of Fumo's mastery when it comes to creative, some say inappropriate, ways of funding projects in and around his district. The Delaware Valley fund is similar to another Fumo-backed nonprofit, Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, which has received nearly $30 million in secret donations, more than half from Peco. The utility says that money, too, was arranged by Fumo during the deregulation talks. But, unlike the money to Citizens Alliance, Peco's arrangement with Delaware Valley was disclosed as part of the public settlement. Delaware Valley describes itself as a "regional" fund, but all the money went for projects in the city - even though most of Peco's 1.5 million customers who bankroll the fund through their power usage live outside Philadelphia. That irks State Rep. Jacqueline Crahalla (R., Montgomery). "We are paying toward this and we should see some of it," said Crahalla, a freshman. "It shouldn't just be in the hands of a few with ties to one man." • In 1998, during the final settlement talks that allowed customers to shop for the best electric buys, Peco and other Pennsylvania power providers agreed to take a sliver of their sales and devote it to alternative-energy projects. Four nonprofits were created to make loans and grants for projects such as solar power and wind farms. Fumo, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, arranged a similar deal of his own. For every 200 kilowatt hours it sold, Peco would send a penny to the Delaware Valley group for economic development projects. "Vinnie Kilowatt" - the City Paper dubbed Fumo in 1999 for masterminding the deal. The state Public Utility Commission requires Delaware Valley to submit financial audits twice a year, but it has no direct oversight of the fund. And, unlike other funds created by the settlement, Delaware Valley's bylaws and board members are not subject to commission approval. The nonprofit's six-member board is filled with people close to Fumo. Two are members of his Senate staff. Three, including Eastwood, are officials in First Penn Bank, which Fumo controls as its chairman and largest individual shareholder. Of the board members, only Albright would comment for this article. In many cases, Albright said, groups approach the fund as their last resort. "They are coming to us because if they don't get help they don't know where else to go. If they could receive conventional bank financing, they wouldn't be coming to us." Fumo, who describes himself as Peco's staunchest critic, filed suit over the deregulation plans and became part of the settlement talks, which cut Peco rates initially by 8 percent. For its part, Peco won the right to impose a surcharge to recover $5 billion to pay for its unprofitable nuclear-power plants. Through a spokesman, Fumo declined comment for this article; he also has not discussed any of the millions that have flowed to other nonprofits run by his allies and staffers. Peco will send checks to Delaware Valley through 2006, totaling an estimated $11 million. So far, the group has received $7.2 million. Michael Wood, a Peco spokesman, said company officials did not know how the money was spent. "We only have an obligation to fund the group" as approved by the Public Utility Commission, he said. Now, because of media inquiries, the electric giant is reviewing where the money is going. "Since there is public interest in the funding, management thought it would be helpful to see what's being reported," Wood said. "It's out of curiosity." • Lance Haver is a longtime Philadelphia-area consumer advocate who once derided those who took money from Peco. Like Fumo, Haver participated in the deregulation talks, aligning himself with the senator. So, Haver knew where to turn when he needed seed money for his start-up company. Delaware Valley gave Phoenix Foods Inc., a South Philadelphia fish and basil farm, a $125,000 loan and invested another $125,000 for a 10 percent ownership stake in 2001. Haver founded the company as a socioeconomic experiment based on an unusual business model: grow basil and raise tilapia, known for its flaky fillets, in the same watery environment, with the workers owning a third of the business. When he approached prospective investors with the idea, some showed interest, at least until talk turned to "creating living-wage jobs in poor neighborhoods," Haver said. "Then everyone left the table except for the Delaware Valley fund." As a participant in the settlement talks, Haver was among those who approved the restructuring deal that included the nonprofit's funding. He said he supported using ratepayer money for economic development but he never envisioned reaching out to Fumo for help. "It was a good, decent, honorable thing for Fumo to try," said Haver, who gave up ownership in the company four months ago when he became Philadelphia's consumer advocate. The business is now struggling to survive, mainly because of difficulty obtaining a steady supply of natural gas, which is used to heat the greenhouses. In all, the Delaware Valley fund has awarded $4.15 million in loans and grants to 11 groups, records show. Most of it - $3.4 million - has gone to projects run by Fumo aides or others with direct ties to members of the Delaware Valley's board, and a campaign contributor. The Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship Training Fund of Philadelphia received a $100,000 grant to expand its computer-training program. The union's political action committee has contributed nearly $275,000 to the senator's campaign account over the last two years alone. Politics also connects Howard Cain to Fumo. For 20 years, Cain has worked in some capacity for Fumo. He is paid $80,000 a year as a Fumo aide and $60,000 annually to run the Ship Recycling Research Institute. The institute is the brainchild of Cain, who hopes to make the Philadelphia Naval Business Center a hub for "ship recycling" - the process of scrapping obsolete maritime vessels. Cain described the group - created in 2001 - as a cross between a think tank and a matchmaker, trying to pair the Navy with coastal communities that want to sink decommissioned ships for artificial reefs. "What appears to the Navy as a liability - rusting ships - is an asset for other communities," he said. The institute has yet to make any deals, but Cain expects to announce one this year. It could create 80 new jobs, he added. The Delaware River Port Authority, where Fumo is an alternate member, has agreed to back the loan. If the institute defaults, DRPA toll and fare payers will be liable for the money. Asked whether his long ties as a Fumo operative helped land the loan, Cain said: "If I had come in with some kind of harebrain scheme, I would never have gotten the money. "If you know Vince, you know the one thing he is hard-nosed about is money." Like Cain, Jeremy Newberg needed money for a project and turned to his boss. Over the last seven years, Jefferson Square Community Development Corp. has cobbled together a mix of public and private financing to build 93 units of affordable housing in Fumo's district. A year and a half ago, the group was looking for money to buy seven properties that were needed before construction could begin. Newberg, executive director of Jefferson Square, approached two of the development's biggest cheerleaders, Fumo and City Councilman Frank DiCicco. "I said: 'We have a need, do you have a funding source?' " Newberg recalled. The Delaware Valley fund provided a $350,000, 2 percent loan. "I wish more elected officials were as focused on housing and neighborhood revitalization in their districts as Senator Fumo has been," Newberg said. "If we had this type of leadership elsewhere, the state would be in much better shape and wouldn't be losing population." Capital Access Inc., which Newberg owns, is paid $65,000 a year by the state as Fumo's community-development consultant. His firm also is paid $45,000 a year by Jefferson Square as its project manager. • Tabor Children's Services had for years rented property in the city's Germantown section. But four years ago, the agency that administers foster-care and other child-service programs decided to look for new office space. It hired Granary Associates, a Philadelphia architecture and development firm, to oversee the entire $2.2 million project from arranging the financing to redesigning the East Armat Street property. More than half of the money - $1.35 million - came from a Delaware Valley loan. Eastwood, president of Delaware Valley, is also president of Granary Associates and the limited partnership that owns the new building, which Tabor leases. Albright said Eastwood recused himself from voting on that loan. Eastwood did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Groups with ties to Dominic Sabatini, treasurer of the Delaware Valley board and a longtime Fumo ally, also got money. Citizens Acting Together Can Help, a mental health service agency based in South Philadelphia, used $600,000 it received in loans and grants to renovate a 25-bed homeless shelter at Eighth and Girard. The building is owned by North Philadelphia Health Systems, whose chairman is Sabatini. Sabatini, who until recently was president of Penn's Landing Corp., also is a board member of Lights of Liberty, a nighttime sound and light show in Independence National Historical Park. The group received a $100,000 loan from the fund in 2002. From an investment standpoint, funding a new group of local tech entrepreneurs was the worst move to date. In early 2000, Delaware Valley gave $1 million to ePhiladelphia, which was created as an incubator for start-ups that could not land conventional financing elsewhere. But the seed money came as the tech bubble was about to burst. "There just wasn't any interest," said Joseph Barone, former president of ePhiladelphia, which made one loan for $100,000. The recipient, an employment agency, was not even a tech company. It later filed for bankruptcy; all but $7,000 of the loan was lost. EPhiladelphia returned its unspent $900,000 to the Delaware Valley fund and disbanded. "In the end, it didn't turn out so well," Albright said. "... If every project was successful, you'd have to ask the question of why a public entity needed to be involved in the first place." Contact staff writer Mario F. Cattabiani at 717-787-5990 or mcattabiani@phillynews.com. Staff writers Craig R. McCoy and Elisa Ung contributed to this article. ***************************************************************** 13 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 3 walkout looms By DAVID SCHEPP THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: January 17, 2004) NEW ROCHELLE — With today's midnight strike deadline nearing, union negotiators yesterday said the likelihood of a walkout at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant is now greater than ever, given the lack of progress in contract talks. "If things remain the same, we're going to take our work force out on the street come (tonight) at midnight," said Manny Hellen, president of Local 1-2 Utility Workers Union of America. Speaking to reporters in a cramped hotel room downtown, Hellen said, "Our medical package, our health benefits package, our wages are unfortunately going in the opposite direction." He also restated the union's recently adopted position that the plant be shut down if union workers walk off the job. Hellen said that management doesn't have the training or the experience to properly operate the plant. "Our expertise is what continues to make this a safe facility," he said. Public officials, including Gov. George Pataki and Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, have called for the facility to close in the event of strike. Officials at Entergy Corp., the plant's owner, reiterated their stance yesterday that if the workers strike, company officials and non-union workers are capable of keeping the 980-megawatt reactor operating. "We have a contingency plan that we prepared beginning probably a year ago," said Entergy Nuclear Northeast spokesman Jim Steets. "These are contingency plans that address all the critical issues in the event of a strike," Steets said. Entergy also owns the neighboring Indian Point 2 reactor, which employs 282 workers employed under a separate contact that ends in June, which means workers there would remain on the job. Entergy has been working to consolidate the two operations into one, with standard rules, training and practices. Union and company officials are at odds over wages, medical and pension benefits and work rules, although neither side would discuss the specifics of their demands. If the plant's 276 union workers walk off the job and onto the picket line at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, it would mark the first time that workers at Indian Point 3 have gone on strike. That's because prior to the sale of the nuclear power plant to New Orleans-based Entergy in 2001, the plant was owned by the New York Power Authority, a state agency. Indian Point 3 employees were prevented from striking under New York's Taylor Law, which prohibits public employees from striking and levies penalties for violation against the union and the workers involved. Until last week, talks between Entergy and the union team, led by Hellen, included efforts to reconcile differences between the separate contracts that govern workers at both Indian Point plants. Hellen expressed hope yesterday that may still happen. But he noted that the union negotiators "were thrown a curve ball" late Thursday, when the company unveiled its latest offer for health benefits. "It's an unacceptable, far inferior package that we refuse to bring back to our membership for ratification," Hellen said. Entergy spokesman Steets labeled the offer "fair" and said the health-care plan was similar to the one that management now has. While union and company officials remain at loggerheads, other groups have expressed concern about the safety of the plant if union workers strike, including Riverkeeper, an environmental group that has consistently called for the immediate closing of the nuclear facility. Riverkeeper spokesman Kyle Rabin said the organization isn't getting involved with the labor negotiations, but added that striking workers present a safety issue for all parties. "There are numerous safety concerns at the plant, and to lose this group of employees would only complicate matters," Rabin said. David Schepp Copyright 2004 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 14 York Daily Record: New sirens for TMI - [ydr.com] The upgrades will make it easier for those living near the nuclear plant to hear warnings in case of emergency. By SEAN ADKINS Daily Record staff Saturday, January 17, 2004 AmerGen Energy will invest $730,000 in a project to upgrade its emergency siren system around Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Dauphin County. The plan calls for the addition of eight new sirens in York County, five in Dauphin County and one in Lancaster County. The new equipment would boost York County’s emergency siren complement from 34 to 42. Overall, the number of sirens within 10 miles of TMI will increase from 79 to 93. A portion of the project’s funds will be spent to replace three emergency sirens in York County, one in Dauphin County and two in Lancaster County. The upgrades are designed to boost the sirens’ power so that the equipment can be heard by all residents who live within 10 miles of the nuclear power plant. The new sirens and the upgrades will boost the alert system’s acoustic capacity by 20 percent, said Ralph DeSantis, spokesman for AmerGen Energy. The replacement sirens will be in place soon, and the project is slated to be finished by late summer, he said. Plant officials will spend some of that time obtaining right-of-way approvals to install the poles that will hold the new equipment. The company has identified the sites for the new poles, DeSantis said. Last May, AmerGen carried out a series of acoustic monitoring tests around the plant. Plant officials studied those tests and various engineering analyses in combination with area topographical maps to better track the performance of TMI’s alert system, he said. The investigation found that spots existed where the sound from some sirens did not carry as well as the company would have preferred. The study pointed out where some dead spots might be and where new sirens might go, said Mike Fetrow, deputy director of the York County Department of Emergency Services. AmerGen will install its new sirens in the general area of these sites, DeSantis said. TMI’s original siren system went online in 1982 and the company monitors its operation on a regular basis. Since that time, increases in population, traffic and other changes such as taller trees have affected sound coverage, DeSantis said. With all the new residents and new homes, this project puts sirens closer to them, Fetrow said. As of third quarter 2003, the plant’s siren system scored a 99 percent reliability rating, exceeding the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissions requirement of 90 percent, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC. “Of course we would like to see 100 percent,” he said. “Overall, they have had good success with their alert notification system.” The rating means that TMI’s commission status in regards to its alert notification system is green — or, that the plant meets federal safety requirements. Essentially, the NRC will perform baseline inspections of TMI’s safety system with no additional oversight, Sheehan said. But if a power plant’s rating dipped below 94 percent, its performance indicator would shift from green to white. The NRC would perform additional inspections to make sure the siren system functioned within limits, Sheehan said. “We don’t require plants to put in new sirens,” Sheehan said. “But if a plant is having acoustical problems, it is in their best interest to address that problem or a performance indicator could change.” Rep. Bruce Smith, R-Dillsburg, said the new sirens are good news for the people who live around TMI. “The more sirens the better, and the sooner the better,” he said. Reach Sean Adkins at 771-2047 or sadkins@ydr.com. Copyright © York Daily Record 2004 122 S. George St., P.O. Box 15122 York, PA 17405, (717) 771-2000 ***************************************************************** 15 AU ABC: Thousands march in Paris anti-nuclear protest . 18/01/2004. ABC News Online Update: Sunday, January 18, 2004. 9:28am (AEDT) Up to 15,000 anti-nuclear protesters have marched in Paris against a new generation of nuclear reactors, accusing police of stirring trouble by allowing a separate rally against a ban on religious headscarves in schools. The main target of the nuclear protests is the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPWR), the first of which is to be built in Finland by a consortium including the French state-owned Areva group and German engineering giant Siemens at a cost of three billion euros. France, which is one of the most nuclear energy-dependent countries in the world, is expected to give the reactors the green light in the near future to begin replacing some of the 58 plants that produce 80 per cent of the country's electricity and are nearing the end of service. "It is in fact a veritable revival of nuclear energy which is unfolding before us," said Stephane Lhomme, a spokesman for the group End Nuclear Network, which organised the demonstration. He criticised police for allowing another rally to be held, beginning at the same place and at nearly the same time, by the Party of French Muslims (PMF) to protest government plans to ban the Islamic headscarf and other "conspicuous" religious insignia from schools. "We have been preparing for our demonstration for three months and we announced what route we plan to take," Mr Lhomme said. "We are convinced that the Interior Ministry is looking for trouble." The Interior Ministry oversees police in French cities. The demonstrators, who organisers say numbered more than 15,000, but police say was under 6,000, built a pyramid of tin cans in the square denouncing what they called the "radioactive waste scandal left for future generations". -- AFP © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 16 CounterPunch: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant Jeffrey St. Clair: Bad Days at Indian Point January 17 / 18, 2003 Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Power Plant By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR These are desperate days for Entergy, the big Arkansas-based power conglomerate that owns the frail Indian Point nuclear plant, located on the east bank of the Hudson River outside Buchanan, New York-just 22 miles from Manhattan. First, a scathing report by a nuclear engineer fingered Indian Point as one of five worst nuclear plants in the United States and predicted that its emergency cooling system "is virtually certain to fail." This damning disclosure was hotly followed by the release of a study conducted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which ominously concluded that the chances of a reactor meltdown increase by nearly a factor of 100 at Indian Point because the plant's drainage pits (also known as containment sumps) are "almost certain" to be blocked with debris during an accident. "The NRC has known about the containment sump problem at Indian Point since September 1996, but currently plans to fix it only by March 2007," says David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists who. "The NRC cannot take more than a decade to fix a safety problem that places millions of Americans at undue risk." Entergy and the NRC both downplayed the meltdown scenario and defended the leisurely pace of the planned repairs, which won't start until 2007. Entergy says that there's no rush to fix the problems with the emergency system because a breakdown isn't likely in the first place. But that's flirting with almost certain disaster. Entergy and the NRC are staking the lives of millions on odds of a single water pipe not breaking under pressure. The problem is that these very kinds of pipes have corroded and been breached at other nuclear plants featuring similar pressurized water design. At the Davis-Bessie plant near Toledo, Ohio, a vessel head on one of the cooling water pipes had been nearly corroded away by acid and was dangerously close to rupturing. The cooling water in these pipes is kept at a pressure of 2,200 pounds per square inch. If a pipe breaks, the 500-degree water would blow off as steam, tearing off plant insulation and coatings. The escaped water will pour into the plant's basement, where sump pumps are meant to draw the water back into the reactor core. But the Los Alamos tests showed that the cooling water would collect debris along the way that will clog up the mesh screens on the pipes leading back into the reactor. If this happens, the cooling of the reactor fuel would stop, the radioactive core would start to melt and the plant will belch a radioactive plume that will threaten millions downwind. All this would happen very fast. The Indian Point 2 reactor would exhaust all of its cooling water in less than 23 minutes, while the number 3 reactor would consume all of its water in only 14 minutes. Try getting a nuclear plumber that quickly. Yes, it sounds trite, but that's essentially what Entergy proposes as its quick fix to the meltdown scenario. Jim Steets, Entergy's spokesman on Indian Point matters, told the New York Times last month that the company was training its workers to scour the plant for flaking paint and potential debris and that if an accident occurred they would pump the water into the core more slowly, a plan that would buy plant managers and executives a few more minutes to flee the scene. Where people would go and how they would get there in the event of a nuclear meltdown or other radioactive release at Indian Point is unclear. In September 2002, New York Governor George Pataki commissioned a report on Indian Point's evacuation plan. He picked James Lee Witt, the former Rose Law Firm attorney who served as head of FEMA during the Clinton administration, to oversee the investigation. At the time, Pataki said that he would support closure of the plant if Witt's report revealed that communities near the plant could not be safely evacuated. Witt submitted his report on January 10, 2003. While somewhat timid and cautious, Witt concluded that Entergy's off-site evacuation plans for Indian Point were woefully inadequate. Witt wrote: "It is our conclusion that the current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to overcome their combined weight and protect the people from an unacceptable dose of radiation in the event of a release from Indian Point, especially if the release is faster or larger than the design basis release." In the end, Witt concluded that it was not possible to fix the evacuation plan, given the problems at the plant, the density of the nearby communities and looming security threats. This sobering scenario was followed by news that a review of the company's security record revealed that Entergy, in cahoots with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, faked a test designed to determine whether the plant is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. In an August letter, the NRC assured members of Congress that Entergy had developed a "strong defensive strategy and capability" for the plant and passed with flying colors a so-called "force-on-force" test, a mock assault. In turns out, however, that the NRC gave Entergy officials months of advance warning about the test and then, as the Indian Point team cribbed for the exam, dumbed down the assault to ensure that they would pass. Most assessments by the CIA and other intelligence agencies suggest that an assault on a nuclear plant would require a squad-sized force of between 12 and 14 attackers, who would assault the plant by night, armed with explosives, machine guns with armor-penetrating bullets, and rocket-propelled grenades. This isn't the attack that was repelled by the Entergy security team. Instead, Entergy's men battled off a squad of 4 mock terrorists, armed only with hunting rifles, who assaulted the plant in broad daylight. Moreover, the attacking squad weren't former Delta Force operatives trained in terrorist tactics, but security officers from a nearby nuclear plant who assault the plant from only one point after crossing open fields in plain view of Indian Point's security guards. Just to make sure that there were no surprises, the Entergy security team, which consisted largely of guards hired only for the test, was warned that a mock attack would take place sometime within the next hour. Even under these rigged conditions, Entergy barely passed the security test. Environmentalists and anti-nuke activists living near the plant hoped this would be the final straw for the aging reactor. They marshaled their evidence of safety violations, inept evacuation plans and lax security and headed off to offices of the most powerful Democrat in America, Hillary Clinton. But Hillary has remained about reserved as Pataki on Indian Point, issuing robotic requests for more studies but refusing to call for the plant's closure. Not that her words mean much. Last month, she pledged to filibuster the nomination of Utah governor Mike Leavitt for director of the EPA. She ended up voting to confirm his nomination. Of course, Hillary's ties to Entergy are almost primal. The Little Rock-based Entergy Corporation, which once employed John Huang, the infamous conduit to the Lippo Group, was one of Bill Clinton's main political sponsors, shoveling more than $100,000 into his political coffers from 1992 to 1996. The more plaintive the cries for Indian Point's closure, the more money Entergy spreads around to politicians with reputation for flexibility in these matters. Already this year, Entergy's New York Political Action Committee-ENPAC New York-has doled out more than $25,000 to New York politicians alone. Everyone got into the act from Pataki and Clinton to Democratic congressman Eliot Engel to lowlier footsoldiers for the nuclear plant, including two state assemblymen, commissioners from Westchester and Orange counties, Bronx Borough president Adolfo Carrion and state comptroller Alan Hevesi, whose election campaign was endorsed by the Sierra Club. Political money isn't the only tool in Entergy's bag of tricks. In late October, community activists in the Bronx reported that emissaries from Entergy were canvassing black and Hispanic neighborhoods in New York City and Westchester County with an ominous warning: if Indian Point closes, air quality in urban areas will deteriorate and more blacks and Hispanics will develop respiratory illnesses. The Entergy reps told people that new coal-fired power plants would be built in their neighborhoods and urged them to sign a petition. "In recent years, nearly all proposals for new power plants in New York state have been in or adjacent to areas with high concentrations of people of African descent and Latinos," a memo handed out at the door warns. There is, naturally, much truth to this claim. and Entergy is in a unique position to know. since throughout the southeast it has targeted its power plants in black neighborhoods, where it has heralded them as bringing economic engines for impoverished communities. The canvassers also carried cellphones as they went from door to door. They hit the speed dial number of a local legislator, handed the phone to the resident and then prompted them on how to express their concerns about the possible closure of Indian Point. The petition drive, which discreetly by-passed the 13 predominately white districts in Westchester County, was run by a group calling itself by the lofty-sounding name: the Campaign for Affordable Energy, Environmental & Economic Justice. The group was supposedly based in Manhattan. In fact, it was created and wholly funded by Entergy. "This is a sham front group fabricated by the nuclear industry to scare black and low income people," says Susan Tolchin, a staffer for Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, who supports closing the Indian Point plant. "It's an outrageous and disgusting attempt to exploit the minority community for corporate greed." Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature. ***************************************************************** 17 NYT: Indian Pt. Talks Falter on Eve of Strike Deadline By DEBRA WEST Published: January 17, 2004 [N] egotiations between the union for workers at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant in Westchester County and its owners broke down last night, increasing the likelihood of a strike tonight, the union's president said. Manny Hellen, the president of Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America, said a federal mediator had been called in to bring both sides back to the negotiating table. Entergy, Indian Point's owner, "unfortunately has proven to be an arrogant union-busting company that doesn't care about the work force, the community or the safety of Indian Point," Mr. Hellen said in a telephone call from the Ramada Plaza Hotel in New Rochelle, where round-the-clock talks had been taking place since Monday. He said union representatives had walked out of the bargaining session because of disagreement over health benefits. Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, said he expected talks to begin again this morning with a mediator present. "A federal mediator would be welcome," he said. "An awful lot has been accomplished to this point. Our goals will be to agree to terms that are acceptable to everyone." The contract for the 276 union workers at Indian Point 3 will expire at 11:59 tonight. It covers technicians, control room operators, maintenance crews and other workers, but does not include the plant's security staff or workers at the Indian Point 2 reactor. The union has said it will go on strike if a new agreement is not reached by the deadline. Until Entergy bought Indian Point 3 in 2000 and Indian Point 2 in 2001, the plants were owned and run by two separate entities, each with its own pay scale, rules and workplace culture. The company is seeking to meld two separate work forces into one, Mr. Steets said. Con Edison owned Indian Point 2, and the New York Power Authority owned Indian Point 3. State law had prevented workers at Indian Point 3 from striking, but workers at Indian Point 2 went on strike against Con Edison for nine weeks in 1983. The plant, in Buchanan, 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, remained open. Mr. Hellen said workplace conditions in 1983 should not be compared with today's. "The N.R.C.'s requirements are much stricter now than they were 21 years ago," he said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission studied Entergy's contingency plans to see how the company would handle emergencies, security, maintenance and testing of equipment during a strike and found them acceptable, said Neil A. Sheehan, a commission spokesman. It verified the qualifications of the people who will run the control room, he said. Entergy will staff the control room with licensed operators who are either managers who have come up through the ranks at Indian Point 3 or operators from the adjacent Indian Point 2. The N.R.C. will increase the number of inspectors on site if the workers go on strike, and if problems occur, it can impose any action, including closing the plant. Although some local politicians have said the plant should shut down if there is a strike, Gov. George E. Pataki has not joined the call. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home| ***************************************************************** 18 [du-list] Fwd: the history of DU in Iraq, war crimes and more Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 19:15:34 -0800 "carol wolman" wrote: Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 11:38:51 -0500 From: et@n... When `right' isn't quite right Pauline Rigby From Green Left Weekly, January 14, 2004. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/566/566p9.htm ...Weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq, yet the country is today contaminated forever, because weapons of mass destruction have been used against it. Thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste were dumped on Iraq during Gulf Wars I and II and during the intervening years when bombing continued through the use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition. DU is a waste product of the process that produces enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. Much like natural uranium, it is both toxic and radioactive. This radioactive waste - with a half-life of 4.5 billion years - has been incorporated into missiles and bombs by the United States. The weapons burn and oxidise into microscopic particles that are ingested and inhaled, irradiating the victim from the inside. DU-coated munitions were first used by the US against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. The contamination of Iraq with DU has been described as the equivalent of the unleashing of 13 Hiroshima-type bombs on the country. Horrific birth defects and cancers and the numerous symptoms that result from radioactive warfare, afflict friend and foe alike and are discussed by Dr Asaf Durakovic in the October edition of the Croatian Medical Journal. Ten thousand US Gulf War I veterans have died and 250,000 are sick, according to former US Major Dr Doug Rokke. He was part of a team charged with cleaning up uranium contaminated equipment after the war, for its shipment back to the United States and now has 5000 times the normal amount of uranium in his body. He is sick and members of this team have died from radiation poisoning. Rokke has the same rashes and multiple radiation afflictions as those exhibited by Australian Gulf War veterans. John Howard's (the Australian PM) sense of justice in agreeing with a trial for Saddam Hussein "where the full measure of what he did is spelt out in detail" calls to mind the International War Crimes Tribunal held in New York 1991-1992 and presided over by 17 countries. The tribunal dealt with US war crimes against Iraq (). It charged President George Bush senior, Vice-President Dan Quayle, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, General Norman Schwarzkopf (commander of the US-led forces in the Persian Gulf) and General Colin Powell, among others, with crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the First Protocol thereto and other agreements and customary law. All those who were charged were found guilty but they have never acknowledged their guilt, nor been punished in any way. It seems that justice has been selective and uranium weapons of mass destruction were again used in Kosova during the NATO bombing. Cancer rates are up in the local population and also among the United Nations peacekeepers from many countries who were sent in at the close of hostilities. Spanish and Italian peacekeepers have died of leukaemia and Portugal withdrew its personnel to stop any more becoming "radioactive meat". The contamination and death that has been visited on Afghanistan with radioactive weapons has resulted in the highest amount of uranium contamination ever recorded in humans. Testing was carried out during 2002 by the UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Centre). During 2003, the International War Crimes Tribunal held in Japan addressed US war crimes in Afghanistan. Presentations by US scientist Leuren Moret in both June and November, dealt with the vexed issue of "illegal" uranium weapons. Uranium weapons are illegal under international law. US attorney Karen Parker is currently the chief delegate for International Education Development - Humanitarian Law Project, accredited by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and an expert witness in armed conflict law who testifies regularly at the UN. According to Parker, uranium weapons fail the four rules derived from the whole of humanitarian law regarding weapons - the "territorial" test (weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle); the "temporal" test (weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict); the "humaneness" test (weapons may not be unduly inhumane); the "environmental" test (weapons may not have an unduly negative affect on the natural environment). Uranium weapons cannot be contained on the legal battlefield, nor within the timeframe of the battle. The radioactive particles will drift around the globe, contaminating air, water and soil and the living tissue of plants and animals for 4.5 billion years. The chromosomal damage exhibited by babies born after the conflict attests to the inhumanity of the weapons. Australia is now seriously addressing the possibility of purchasing from the US the JASSM (Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile). This is a 4400kg, all-weather, precision strike cruise missile with a DU coated warhead. Who will Australia be aiming these missiles at? Indonesia? New Zealand? Will the missiles be test fired on Australian soil; or off the Australian coast? Each one costs $544,000 and will contaminate the area where it is fired, forever! Acquisition of the JASSM will move Australia from the traditional idea of "defence" towards the dangerous concept of pre-emptive strike. So John Howard is right to take a stand against countries that possess weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to use them. He is also right to suggest that Saddam Hussein should stand trial "where the full measure of what he did is spelt out in detail". But justice should not be selective, it should also inform our own country's behaviour. [Pauline Rigby is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Queensland investigating the nuclear industry and its impact on communities. She is a member of the Queensland Peace Network and headed the Australian delegation to the World Uranium Weapons Conference, held October 16-10 in Hamburg, Germany.] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- End forwarded message --- To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 19 [du-list] Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 19:15:37 -0800 Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium in Gulf War veterans By Tim Stephens Posted January 17, 2004, UC Santa Cruz Currents http://currents.ucsc.edu/03-04/01-19/uranium.html U.S. veterans who were exposed to depleted uranium during the 1991 Gulf War have continued to excrete the potentially harmful chemical in their urine for years after their exposure, according to a new study published in the journal Health Physics. These 30mm munitions (jackets and penetrators) are made with depleted uranium. Photo courtesy of the United Nations Environment Program The study indicates that soldiers may absorb depleted uranium particles through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination, said Roberto Gwiazda, an environmental toxicologist at UCSC and lead author of the study. Fine particles of depleted uranium are created when munitions made with the material strike a target. The new study did not address the health effects of exposure to depleted uranium, a subject of ongoing debate, but focused on a technique for detecting past exposure. Low concentrations of uranium in the urine are normal due to ingestion of naturally occuring uranium in food and water. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the enrichment process used to make nuclear fuel, in which one isotope of uranium (235U) is extracted, leaving behind material depleted in that isotope. Depleted uranium is still weakly radioactive and, like other heavy metals, can be toxic in high doses. Because of its high density and other properties, it has been used in armor-piercing ammunition and in armor for fighting vehicles. Gwiazda and Donald Smith, professor of environmental toxicology, developed a sensitive analytical technique to detect depleted uranium in urine samples. By measuring the relative abundances of different isotopes of uranium in the urine samples, the researchers were able to distinguish between natural and depleted uranium. "This is the only unambiguous way to determine past exposure and uptake of depleted uranium," Gwiazda said. The analysis of samples from Gulf War veterans was performed in collaboration with the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Depleted Uranium Follow-up Program, which is assessing, treating, and monitoring veterans who may have been exposed to depleted uranium during the war. The researchers applied their technique to three different groups of Gulf War veterans. The first group of soldiers had shrapnel in their bodies as a result of "friendly fire" incidents in which their tanks or armored vehicles were hit by munitions containing depleted uranium. The second group consisted of soldiers who did not have shrapnel in them but were involved in the friendly fire incidents to different degrees, either because they were in the vehicles that were hit or because they participated in recovery operations. The third group was a reference group and consisted of soldiers who participated in the war but not in combat operations. As expected, the soldiers with embedded shrapnel had high concentrations of uranium in their urine, and the isotope analysis showed that it was depleted uranium, presumably being released into their bodies from the shrapnel. A more striking finding was the presence of depleted uranium in the urine of a significant number of soldiers in the second group, without embedded shrapnel but with potential exposure through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination. The uranium concentrations detected in this group were, on average, six times higher than in the reference group, but were still within the normal range for the U.S. population. Nevertheless, Gwiazda said, it was remarkable that the signature of depleted uranium could still be detected so many years after the exposure. "These samples were taken six to eight years later," he said. The Veterans Affairs (VA) monitoring program has not reported any findings of clinically significant health effects related to exposure to depleted uranium, even in the highly exposed soldiers with embedded shrapnel. Any health effects of exposure to depleted uranium may not be detectable without studying a large number of exposed individuals. The technique developed at UCSC could be used to screen a large number of people to identify those with past exposure to depleted uranium. In addition to possible health effects in soldiers exposed during combat, concerns about depleted uranium include environmental contamination of battlefield sites. Civilian populations may be exposed through contact with depleted uranium fragments and dust left in the soil or with contaminated military equipment left behind after a conflict. "We don't know if that kind of exposure will have any health effects. But now we have a technique that enables us to detect past exposure to depleted uranium," Gwiazda said. The paper was published in the January issue of Health Physics. The authors include Katherine Squibb and Melissa McDiarmid of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in addition to Gwiazda and Smith. -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ See also http://nucnews.net - NucNews Links and Archives To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 20 [du-list] Tennessee - Construction of uranium-related Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 19:15:38 -0800 Tennessee - Construction of uranium-related facilities may start in July OFFICIAL: 'Safe and timely shipment of the cylinders is a high priority in this community.' By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com 12:15 p.m. on January 16, 2004 http://www.oakridger.com/stories/011604/new_20040116053.shtml "Ship them out of here." That's what needs to be done with the stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, according to Norman Mulvenon. He's a member of two local environmental watchdog groups - the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee and the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board. And, shipping the material out of town is just what the Department of Energy plans to do. But, before that happens, the federal agency has to wrap up all the legal loose ends for a proposed plan to construct depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky. The federal agency held a public hearing Thursday evening in Oak Ridge on two draft environmental impact statements pertaining to the facilities. A final version of the document is expected to be released in June, with a record of decision to follow. Construction is set to begin by the end of July Cylinder haulers are used to transfer depleted uranium hexafluouride cylinders between storage yards at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, according to officials. Depleted uranium hexafluoride is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, where uranium was ultimately processed into nuclear reactor fuel and weapons-grade material. The growing amount of this material has been a national concern for decades. There are 4,800 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride currently stored at K-25. Current plans are for the cylinders to be shipped to Ohio. Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup contractor, will be responsible for all off-site shipments of K-25's cylinders, according to Chuck Jenkins, a Bechtel Jacobs spokesman. "Safe and timely shipment of the cylinders is a high priority in this community," said Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight Committee. Gawarecki said the shipments are a multi-state issue, adding that emergency management officials should be notified and consulted about the material coming through their states. The new facilities will convert the depleted uranium hexafluoride to a more stable chemical form for use or disposal. -- Posted for educational and research purposes only, ~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~ See also http://nucnews.net - NucNews Links and Archives To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 21 [du-list] Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 17:59:13 -0800 Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:13:40 -0500 From: et@nucnews.net Subject: Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium in Gulf War veterans Isotope analysis shows exposure to depleted uranium in Gulf War veterans By Tim Stephens Posted January 17, 2004, UC Santa Cruz Currents http://currents.ucsc.edu/03-04/01-19/uranium.html U.S. veterans who were exposed to depleted uranium during the 1991 Gulf War have continued to excrete the potentially harmful chemical in their urine for years after their exposure, according to a new study published in the journal Health Physics. The study indicates that soldiers may absorb depleted uranium particles through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination, said Roberto Gwiazda, an environmental toxicologist at UCSC and lead author of the study. Fine particles of depleted uranium are created when munitions made with the material strike a target. The new study did not address the health effects of exposure to depleted uranium, a subject of ongoing debate, but focused on a technique for detecting past exposure. Low concentrations of uranium in the urine are normal due to ingestion of naturally occuring uranium in food and water. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the enrichment process used to make nuclear fuel, in which one isotope of uranium (235U) is extracted, leaving behind material depleted in that isotope. Depleted uranium is still weakly radioactive and, like other heavy metals, can be toxic in high doses. Because of its high density and other properties, it has been used in armor-piercing ammunition and in armor for fighting vehicles. Gwiazda and Donald Smith, professor of environmental toxicology, developed a sensitive analytical technique to detect depleted uranium in urine samples. By measuring the relative abundances of different isotopes of uranium in the urine samples, the researchers were able to distinguish between natural and depleted uranium. "This is the only unambiguous way to determine past exposure and uptake of depleted uranium," Gwiazda said. The analysis of samples from Gulf War veterans was performed in collaboration with the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Depleted Uranium Follow-up Program, which is assessing, treating, and monitoring veterans who may have been exposed to depleted uranium during the war. The researchers applied their technique to three different groups of Gulf War veterans. The first group of soldiers had shrapnel in their bodies as a result of "friendly fire" incidents in which their tanks or armored vehicles were hit by munitions containing depleted uranium. The second group consisted of soldiers who did not have shrapnel in them but were involved in the friendly fire incidents to different degrees, either because they were in the vehicles that were hit or because they participated in recovery operations. The third group was a reference group and consisted of soldiers who participated in the war but not in combat operations. As expected, the soldiers with embedded shrapnel had high concentrations of uranium in their urine, and the isotope analysis showed that it was depleted uranium, presumably being released into their bodies from the shrapnel. A more striking finding was the presence of depleted uranium in the urine of a significant number of soldiers in the second group, without embedded shrapnel but with potential exposure through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination. The uranium concentrations detected in this group were, on average, six times higher than in the reference group, but were still within the normal range for the U.S. population. Nevertheless, Gwiazda said, it was remarkable that the signature of depleted uranium could still be detected so many years after the exposure. "These samples were taken six to eight years later," he said. The Veterans Affairs (VA) monitoring program has not reported any findings of clinically significant health effects related to exposure to depleted uranium, even in the highly exposed soldiers with embedded shrapnel. Any health effects of exposure to depleted uranium may not be detectable without studying a large number of exposed individuals. The technique developed at UCSC could be used to screen a large number of people to identify those with past exposure to depleted uranium. In addition to possible health effects in soldiers exposed during combat, concerns about depleted uranium include environmental contamination of battlefield sites. Civilian populations may be exposed through contact with depleted uranium fragments and dust left in the soil or with contaminated military equipment left behind after a conflict. "We don't know if that kind of exposure will have any health effects. But now we have a technique that enables us to detect past exposure to depleted uranium," Gwiazda said. The paper was published in the January issue of Health Physics. The authors include Katherine Squibb and Melissa McDiarmid of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in addition to Gwiazda and Smith. To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 2a69f7.jpg 2a6ba1.jpg ---------- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: 2a69f7.jpg: 00000001,5b7edc11,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 2a6ba1.jpg: 00000001,5b7edc12,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 22 Mortality Amoung Felmale Nuclear Weapons Workers Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 17:59:19 -0800 Study of the Mortality Among Female Nuclear Weapons Workers* * Mortality Among Female Nuclear Weapons Workers * Grantee: State University of New York (Gregg Wilkinson, Ph.D.) Award Period: 1994-2000 Summary: Although 80,000 female workers have been employed at DOE facilities over the years, the small numbers of female workers at any one facility has limited their inclusion in previous health studies. Female workers from 12 DOE plants were combined in this cohort mortality study. Risk estimates were developed for exposure to ionizing radiation or to chemical hazards. A strong healthy worker effect was demonstrated for all causes of death among these workers. For the entire pooled cohort, mortality from mental disorders, diseases of the genitourinary system, and from ill-defined conditions was higher than expected. External ionizing radiation exposure in these workers appeared to be associated with increased relative risk for leukemia and suggestively associated with increased relative risks for all cancers combined and for breast cancer. Manuscript: Wilkinson GS, Trieff, N, Graham, R [2000]. Study of mortality among female nuclear weapons workers. Buffalo, NY: Department of Social and Preventative Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Buffalo, State University of New York; (DHHS Grant Numbers: 1R01 OHO3274, R01/CCR214546, R01/CCR61 2934-01, Final Report.) Available from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health/Health-Related Energy Research Branch, Cincinnati, OH, 447 pg. PDF version available (1053KB) Significance: The first multisite mortality study of women workers at DOE facilities. * Mortality Among Female Nuclear Weapons Workers * Grantee: State University of New York (Gregg Wilkinson, Ph.D.) Award Period: 1994-2000 Summary: Although 80,000 female workers have been employed at DOE facilities over the years, the small numbers of female workers at any one facility has limited their inclusion in previous health studies. Female workers from 12 DOE plants were combined in this cohort mortality study. Risk estimates were developed for exposure to ionizing radiation or to chemical hazards. A strong healthy worker effect was demonstrated for all causes of death among these workers. For the entire pooled cohort, mortality from mental disorders, diseases of the genitourinary system, and from ill-defined conditions was higher than expected. External ionizing radiation exposure in these workers appeared to be associated with increased relative risk for leukemia and suggestively associated with increased relative risks for all cancers combined and for breast cancer. Manuscript: Wilkinson GS, Trieff, N, Graham, R [2000]. Study of mortality among female nuclear weapons workers. Buffalo, NY: Department of Social and Preventative Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Buffalo, State University of New York; (DHHS Grant Numbers: 1R01 OHO3274, R01/CCR214546, R01/CCR61 2934-01, Final Report.) Available from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health/Health-Related Energy Research Branch, Cincinnati, OH, 447 pg. PDF version available (1053KB) Significance: The first multisite mortality study of women workers at DOE facilities. ***************************************************************** 23 Bellona: 11-year-old leaking radiation source found in University of Oslo Science Department basement A container leaking possibly cancer-causing radioactive neutrons has for the past 11-years been stored—without protection, security measures or permission from Norwegian radiation officials—in the basement of one of the University of Oslo’s scientific research buildings, Bellona has learned. The basement storage room at the University of Oslo where the container of 11-year-old neutron-leaking material was found. Fredrik Arff Erik Martiniussen, 2004-01-17 15:55 It remained unknown Friday what radioactive element the source was, but Universitas, Oslo University’s newspaper, which originally broke the story, said the container housing the strong radiation source had been stored in this condition of neglect since 1992. The container was discovered and removed to the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology. or IFE, in Kjeller, near Oslo, before Christmas. Conjecture would suggest that the source contained strontium 90 or a caesium isotope, both of which are common in university laboratory use as sources of power, said a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, in a telephone interview with Bellona Web Saturday. The basement room where the container of radioactive material had been stored was, according to local media, unlocked and always accessible to student, staff and cleaning personnel. By Friday, authorities had not released any figures on how many neutrons the container was emitting and precisely how dangerous these emissions were or what sort of health problems they could have caused over their 11-year sabbatical in the University science department basement. It was only after a radiation inspection last November that the University of Oslo’s Department of Geosciences was instructed to remove the radioactive source. The Norwegian daily Aftenposten reports that the Department never had ordered any inspection to find out how dangerous the neutron source was. Students and staff had never been warned about the possible risks associated with the container. As yet, there is no information on how the neutron source ended up in the university’s basement, and who, in anyone, has the original permit for use. Illegal storage The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, or NRPA, Norway’s nuclear regulatory agency, did say that a permit—which the University does not have—is required for storing radiation sources of such strength. NRPA’s Ole Reistad said his agency had never been notified about the University’s radiation source. This implies that the box of neutron-emitting material may have been stored there illegally. “The University has a general permit for use and handling of radioactive sources. This permit specifies clearly how the sources should be stored and handled,” Reistad tolds Bellona Web in an interview Friday. He confirmed that the source found in the University’s basement had never been accounted for. Both Bellona and the NRPA are considering filing criminal charges against the university for not reporting the source. Trond Bø, chief of the radioactive waste department at the IFE in Kjeller, where the source now is stored, told Aftenposten that the container did not have closing devices, meaning it had been leaking neutrons for the 11 years of its storage in the university basement.. He emphasised that neutron leakage can cause damage to human reproduction and thus children of those who may have had exposure to the source, as well as increasing risks of cancer for those exposed to the box. At Kjeller, the neutron source has been submergedin a deep pool and all those its vicinity must take special precautionary measures, said Bø. The story that let the cat out of the bag To find out more about the discovery of 11-year-old the neutron-emitting container that was stored basically in the open, read, in Norwegian, the Oslo University student paper article that broke the story. More inspections and control needed—more sources likely astray This is not the first incident of the unauthorised storage of a radioactive source in Norway. In February 2003, a radiation source was found on a building site in the in the town of Sandefjord. This was a so-called caesium source weighing 15 kg. Such sources are usually associated with industrial applications. The source in Sandefjord both had a serial number and a known owner, but no one could explain how and why it had ended up at the building site. According to NRPA it is likely that more sources surprise radiation sources will appear in years to come. “We have, of course, a register of the sources at the NRPA, but this is manually based and not very accessible,” Reistad said. “It is very likely there are more sources that have gone astray.” Bellona is now advocating stricter control on Norwegian radiation sources. Several thousand radiation sources are in use every day, for instance in offshore industry. Sources like the one found at the university add to this number. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 24 Newton Kansan: Woman's leukemia linked to radiation 01/17/04 Toni Gough has never been to war and doesn't have military training, but she can tell you about the effects of nuclear radiation and government testing. "My doctor said that since my leukemia wasn't genetic, it most likely was caused by my being exposed to extremely large amounts of radiation," Newton resident Toni Gough said. She discovered she was exposed when the U.S. government performed above-ground nuclear tests in Nevada in the 1950s. Wendy Nugent/Newton Kansan By Marathana Furches Newton Kansan Toni Gough has never been to war and doesn't have military training, but she can tell you about the effects of nuclear radiation and government testing. After Gough was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in 2002, her doctor discovered she didn't have the correct genetic make-up for the disease. Gough later discovered her cancer was caused by a relative of a different sort -- Uncle Sam. The U.S. government performed above-ground nuclear testing in Nevada from Jan. 21, 1951, through Oct. 31, 1958, and from June 30 through July 31, 1962. "I just can't understand why the government did this. It bothers me that they knew, after the bombs were dropped in Japan, that radiation caused cancers and they still did testing in the United States," Gough said. "Who knew they were doing testing in Nevada?" Gough didn't make the connection to her childhood home until she contacted family members and informed them of her situation. "My doctor said that since my leukemia wasn't genetic, it most likely was caused by my being exposed to extremely large amounts of radiation. But my husband and I couldn't figure out when or where that could have happened," Gough said. When an aunt heard of Gough's plight, she wrote back and told her niece that she had cancer, it was caused by nuclear testing and Gough should look into it and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program. Gough lived in Gila County, Ariz., from the time she was 2 until she was in junior high. She doesn't know whether her family was aware of the testing at the time. "I was only 2 when we moved there and didn't really pay attention to things like that when I was young," Gough said. While in Gila County, Gough's younger brother died at the age of 2. Doctors ruled out a birth defect as a cause of death. Gough believes there is a strong possibility the radiation could have had an adverse affect on her brother while he was still a fetus. "It bothers me I never got the chance to know my brother, and that our government may have had a part in it," Gough said. So Gough contacted the government and got the paperwork to apply for compensation through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The act provides "compassionate payments to individuals who contracted certain cancers and other serious diseases as a result of their exposure to radiation released during above-ground nuclear weapons tests or as a result of their exposure to radiation during employment in underground uranium mines," according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The Department of Justice divides claimants into five categories: uranium miners, uranium millers, ore transporters, downwinders and onsite participants. Gough is classified as a downwinder. Downwinders lived in areas affected by the nuclear testing in 10 counties in Utah -- Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington and Wayne -- and five counties in Arizona -- Apache, Coconino, Gila, Navajo and Yavapai. The Nevada counties include Eureka, Lander, Lincoln, Nye, White Pine and "that portion of Clark County that consists of townships 13 through 16 at ranges 63 through 71," according to the Department of Justice. That portion of Clark County does not include Las Vegas. Gough said she wants others who may be suffering from cancer that may have been a result of government testing to know about the compensation act. "We're nomadic creatures and we move a lot, and I suspect there are people everywhere who don't even know about it," Gough said. "There are a lot of cancer patients, and I wonder how many came here from somewhere else or who have family somewhere else." After about eight months, Gough received notice in December that she would be getting a compensation check in the amount of $50,000. She expects it to arrive later this month. "Of course I'm thankful for the money, but I would rather not have the compensation than the leukemia," Gough said. "It's affected my life in a way that can never be changed. It's like our government said, 'Oh, we're sorry, here's a check.'" So far, the Department of Justice has approved more than $710 million in claims under the Radiation Exposure Compensation System. Almost $352 million of that has been approved for so-called downwinders. By the time she learned of her compensation, Gough had relapsed for the second time and now is back in treatment. She's scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant in St. Louis within the next six to eight weeks. "It's either the transplant or death for sure," Gough said. As for the $50,000, Gough said she plans to put it in the bank to help cover costs at home. She hasn't been able to work because of the disease. Luckily, she said, all of her medical costs have been covered by insurance. Though she's a little self-conscious about her lack of hair, Gough said keeping positive has been a big part of her battle. "Part of your cure is being positive, and if you're not positive it can be detrimental," Gough said. For more information on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, log on to www.usdoj.gov and do a search for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Office: 121 W. 6th Newton Kansas, 67114 Phone:(316) 283-1500 © Copyright 1998 - 2004 by The Newton Kansan ***************************************************************** 25 Salt Lake Tribune: Support citizens first January 18, 2004 At a town meeting Jan. 10, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop said he would do anything to support the military even if it means put so many Americans at risk during four decades of nuclear testing. Bishop said, "We'll find a way to do it without harming citizens." Is he aware of the overwhelming evidence showing how many underground tests did indeed leak? As Utahns are well aware, the military does not have a very good record when it comes to safety and nuclear testing. The U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment in 1988 concluded that 126 underground tests conducted in Nevada since 1970 leaked into the atmosphere. Despite government attempts to build in safeguards, the OTA stated, "There can never be 100 percent confidence that a test will not release radioactive material." I urge Rep. Bishop to support citizens first, before blindly supporting the military. We've sacrificed enough for nuclear testing. M.L. Dickson Salt Lake City Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune ***************************************************************** 26 Deseret news: N-energy powers universe [deseretnews.com] Friday, January 16, 2004 I think it's great that the Utah/Nevada border is moving east and adding the Utah part of Wendover to Nevada. Why not do the same for the proposed Goshute nuclear waste storage facility? Actually, my preference is to send the radioactive waste to those people in southern Utah who are actively working to do something useful with the unwanted material. Methods for accelerated radioactive decay promise to extract huge amounts of energy in a short time that otherwise would be radiated into space over a period of many years. Whoever invented nuclear energy is probably disgusted with humans who fail to recognize that nuclear energy is what powers the universe. Wallace Haynes West Valley City © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 27 CNSC: CNSC Announces Decision to Amend the Waste Facility licenses @ Point Lepreau CANADIAN NUCLEAR SAFETY COMMISSION NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CCNMatthews 04-02 JANUARY 13, 2004 - 14:10 ET Operating Licences for the Point Lepreau Solid Radioactive Waste Management Facility OTTAWA, ONTARIO--CNSC Announces Decision to Amend the Waste Facility Operating Licences for the Point Lepreau Solid Radioactive Waste Management Facility Following a public hearing on September 25, 2003 and November 26, 2003, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced today its decision to amend the existing Waste Facility Operating Licences for the Point Lepreau Solid Radioactive Waste Management Facility (SRWMF) located at Point Lepreau, New Brunswick. The amendments permit the construction of additional radioactive waste storage structures at the SRWMF. The operating licences remain valid until July 31, 2009. During the public hearing, the Commission considered written submissions and oral presentations from New Brunswick Power Corporation (NB Power), CNSC staff and intervenors. The Commission concluded that NB Power is qualified to operate the facility and will make adequate provision for the protection of the environment, the health and safety of persons, and the maintenance of national security and measures required to implement international obligations to which Canada has agreed. A Record of Proceedings, including the Reasons for Decision and transcripts of the hearing, are available on the CNSC web-site at www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca, or by contacting the CNSC. The CNSC regulates the use of nuclear energy and materials to protect health, safety, security and the environment and to respect Canada's international commitments on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. -30- FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Sunni Locatelli Commission Secretariat (613) 995-0360 1-800-668-5894 media@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca ***************************************************************** 28 Deseret news: 300 years for cleanup? [deseretnews.com] Saturday, January 17, 2004 By John Heilprin Associated Press WASHINGTON — Removing unexploded munitions and hazardous waste found so far on 15 million acres of shutdown U.S. military ranges could take more than 300 years, congressional auditors say. In a report to Congress, the General Accounting Office said the Defense Department has yet to assess three-fifths of the 2,307 potentially contaminated sites identified as of September 2002 and has finished cleaning up only 1 percent of them. Some of the areas have been redeveloped for homes and parks. The report, obtained by The Associated Press before its release, said the Pentagon "does not yet have a complete and viable plan" to guide its remaining cleanups. Assessments of the sites not yet examined in detail for possible explosive hazards, chemical warfare material and chronic health and environmental hazards won't be completed until 2012, the GAO said. The department's latest estimate for the cleanups is anywhere from $8 billion to $35 billion. That's an increase from its previous estimate, little more than a year ago, of up to $20 billion. At the current rate of annual spending — $106 million on average during the Bush administration — the cleanup "could take from 75 to 330 years to complete," the auditors said. Defense officials say they have spent $25 billion over the past two decades on environmental restoration at more than 29,500 military sites, including ordnance testing and training ranges. But the officials say they don't have a breakdown on how much of that was devoted to munitions cleanups. In recent years about 5 percent of the cleanup budget has been devoted to sites once associated with munitions. Those sites represent at least 39 million acres in the United States where firing has resulted in either known or possible contamination. They include actively used military installations, ranges being shut down and former defense training areas. Many have been redeveloped into parks, farms, schools and residential areas. For example, 8,810 acres along Morro Bay near San Luis Obispo, Calif., are now occupied by homes, farms, parks and a wildlife refuge. In September 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency used military data to tally 126 incidents of civilians exposed to unexploded ordnance over the 83 previous years. The tally included 65 fatalities and 131 injuries. Reps. John Dingell of Michigan and Hilda Solis of California, two Democrats who requested the GAO report on the 15 million acres of closed military ranges, called the results troubling. Defense officials are "failing miserably to meet the challenge of cleaning up its legacy of contamination," Dingell said. Of the 2,307 sites identified two years ago, Pentagon officials said 362 required no cleanups based on an initial cursory evaluation. Of the 558 sites it has examined in more detail, it concluded that cleanups were needed in only 15 percent of them, the GAO said. Solis said she's upset that analyses of the remaining 1,387 sites won't be completed until eight years from now. "It is almost as if they don't care, and what is more troubling is, they do not even have a plan for cleaning up the known areas," she said. Pentagon officials had no immediate comment. In a December response to GAO, Philip Grone, an assistant deputy defense secretary for environmental issues, said he agreed with the auditors' recommendation that Pentagon officials needed to work with Congress to develop budget proposals that would allow the department to finish cleanups "in a timely manner." But there could be many more such sites with contamination, according to the GAO. Though the Navy and Air Force examined their sites, the Army had only looked at 14 percent of its installations, or 105 ranges, as of last year, the GAO said. Moreover, among 9,181 formerly used defense sites with ranges that were transferred to private ownership, 1,691 have known or suspected contaminants. The GAO said the Army Corps of Engineers expects to add at least 75 more. A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Army plans to add at least 500 more sites later. The biggest contaminants that have been found are TNT, RDX and HMX explosives, perchlorate used in rocket fuels and white phosphorus. TNT and RDX are possible human carcinogens; HMX causes potential liver and central nervous system damage, animal studies suggest; perchlorate can cause thyroid disorders; white phosphorus can damage reproductivity, the liver, heart and kidney. In September 2002, the GAO estimated that more than one in three of the former defense sites that had been declared environmentally clean by the Army Corps of Engineers still contained unexploded weapons and other hazardous materials. © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 29 Jon Porter: Statement On Nevada's Legal Fight To Stop Yucca Mountain FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 14, 2003 Washington D.C. – Representative Jon Porter (R-NV) had this to say about Nevada’s legal fight to stop the proposed repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain: “Today is a pivotal day for the State of Nevada. For the first time in 20-years, the Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be held accountable for actions taken in the Yucca Mountain project. It is clear these agencies have not followed the intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and today the D.C. Court of Appeals will hear the six legal challenges filed by the State of Nevada as required by law. I am pleased to be here today, with our Attorney General Brian Sandoval and our world-class legal team, headed up by Mr. Joseph Egan. We could not ask for a more competent and capable group of men and women, than the one comprised by the State of Nevada. For over two decades, the Yucca Mountain project has been of intense personal interest to me and all Nevadans. We know the Department of Energy bent the rules in order to find the site suitable. The political expediency that has plagued Congress for the past twenty years will not prevail in the halls of justice. I hope today will mark the beginning of the end to this ill thought-out scheme.” ***************************************************************** 30 Salt Lake Tribune: Appeals court hears arguments on Goshute N-waste January 17, 2004 By Christopher Smith The Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission went before a federal appeals court here Friday trying to shoot down one of Utah's last legal arguments against a proposed nuclear waste dump: that Congress never gave the NRC the authority to license privately run spent-fuel storage sites. The state is seeking to overturn a 2002 ruling by the federal agency that it does have the right to issue a license to Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of nuclear power companies that plans to build an interim storage facility on Utah's Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. The plan has been vigorously fought by the state because of fears about the safety of the proposal and its effect on the state's image. The high-level radioactive waste would be transported from nuclear reactors around the country to the $3.1 billion Utah facility for above-ground storage until a permanent repository for the waste opens at Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada. State lawyers contend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed by Congress in 1982 never explicitly granted the NRC the authority to license "away from reactor" (AFR) spent-fuel storage sites operated by private entities, such as the PFS-Goshute proposal. Yet before Brigham Young University law professor Tom Lee could outline his argument on the state's behalf, he was interrupted by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Justice Merrick Garland with what the judge acknowledged was a "harsh question." Is the state saying that before the 1982 law was passed, Garland asked Lee, "a private party could take spent nuclear fuel and throw it out on the desert, call it an AFR and no one could regulate it?" In response, Lee noted some discrepancies with the Department of Energy's authority over private waste before the 1982 law but reiterated the state's argument that "any authority the NRC did have [over private sites] was at best implicit." While the NRC has acknowledged such authority may not be specifically spelled out in the law, the agency argued Congress also didn't exclude federal regulatory oversight of privately owned off-site facilities. "If Congress had in fact intended to prohibit, disallow or exclude such facilities, it most likely would have done so in clear and explicit terms," said NRC attorney Grace Kim. "Regardless of how you read the language, there is no such prohibition." Justice Stephen Williams added that if Utah's argument is correct and Congress had indeed intended that the NRC have no authority to license a private nuclear fuel storage dump, then "there's a terribly easy way for Congress to do that. " Lawmakers could have added language to the 1982 law that specified nothing in the law should be construed as regulating private fuel storage operations, Williams said, noting the law contains no such disclaimers. After the approximately 45-minute oral arguments before the three-judge panel, Lee declined to speculate how the court had responded to the state's arguments, but said he was "pleased with how informed the judges were; they had a strong grasp of the issues and asked thoughtful questions." The D.C. Circuit Court's eventual ruling on whether the NRC does have authority to license the PFS-Goshute site may influence the outcome of another appeal by the state under consideration by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. In that case, the state is attempting to overturn a district court ruling that a package of anti-dump laws passed to block the PFS-Goshute project were unconstitutional. In August, Lee argued before the 10th Circuit that PFS could not challenge the state laws since they have no legal right to the NRC license they are seeking, the same theory the state put forth to the D.C. Court Friday. "The two cases are linked, we believe," Lee said. "We believe the only way to reach the 10th Circuit decision is to decide the question before this court first, but we do not know if that is going to happen." Neither the D.C. Circuit nor the 10th Circuit have indicated when rulings on the two Utah waste dump appeals will be handed down. csmith@sltrib.com Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune ***************************************************************** 31 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:58:19 -0800 ISRAEL answers to no one on nuclear weapons Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA ... The White House celebrated news last month that Libya will dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and that Iran will permit snap inspections of its nuclear ... US probing Pakistan ’ s role in nuclear sale Indian Express, India ... looking into whether the Pakistani government was involved in a plot by a South African businessman to export trigger devices that could be used for nuclear ... US Officials Try to Trace Illegal Sale of Nuclear Technology - New York Times Israeli arrested in Denver for shipping nuclear-related parts to ... LIBYA'S black market deals shock nuclear inspectors Guardian, UK ... Gadafy of Libya has been buying complete sets of uranium enrichment centrifuges on the international black market as the central element in his secret nuclear ... NOBEL laureate Ebadi rejects US suggestions of Iranian nuclear ... CBC News, Canada MUMBAI (AP) - Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi on Saturday ridiculed US suggestions that her native Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. "Iran . . . ... NOBEL laureate Ebadi rejects US suggestions of Iranian nuclear ... Canoe.ca, Canada By NEELESH MISRA. MUMBAI (AP) - Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi on Saturday ridiculed US suggestions that her native Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. ... WRESTLING: Her goals include state berth and nuclear career Southgate News Herald, MI ... she was a ninth-grader because her father was working as a government subcontractor on the Rocky Flats Closure Project, which is a cleanup of a former nuclear ... This once-a-day News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=682e52ddd0720101 Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 32 Bush's New Space Program Criticized Over Costs & Nuclear Fears Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:36:32 -0600 (CST) Bush's New Space Program Criticized Over Costs & Nuclear Fears President Bush called on Wednesday for a massive expansion of U.S. presence in space. He called for the establishment of a permanent base on the moon and for astronauts to travel to Mars and beyond. He said the ambitious project would eventually establish "a human presence across our solar system." The Washington Post estimated the project will cost at least $170 billion over the next 16 years. The Pentagon and private companies will also collaborate with NASA on the venture. Fiscal conservatives who have previous expansions of the space program are expected to back the plan because it will expand U.S. military supremacy in space. The Pentagon has been discussing a military base as far back as 1959 when it proposed to put 150 rockets on the moon. The Global Resource Action Center for the Environment warned on Wednesday that the Bush initiative "will create a new arms race to the heavens." Among the private companies that will benefit from the space program may include Halliburton and Shell Oil. According to a 2001 article in Petroleum News, NASA has been working with Halliburton, Shell, Baker-Hughes and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in identifying drilling technologies on Mars. The Washington Post is also reporting that the roots of the space proposal was based largely in Bush's 2004 re-election bid. The paper reports the idea came up when presidential advisors were searching "for a bold goal that would help unify the nation before Bush's reelection race and portray him as visionary." Headlines from DemocracyNow.org = = = Related story: Thursday, January 15th, 2004 Flashback: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. On The U.S. Space Program Listen to: || Help Printer-friendly version Email to a friend Purchase Video/CD Today on MLK's 75th birthday, we look back to August 16, 1967 when Dr. King said "If our nation can spend $35 billion a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam and $20 billion to put a man on the moon it can spend billion of dollars to put God's children on their two feet right here on earth." When President Bush announced his ambitious space plans yesterday, we at Democracy Now! decided to look back through the Martin Luther King archives to find out what he said about the space program in the 1960s. After hours of research, we tracked down a clip recorded on August 16, 1967 at the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta, Georgia. King said: "If our nation can spend $35 billion a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam and $20 billion to put a man on the moon it can spend billion of dollars to put God's children on their two feet right here on earth." Listen to an excerpt of President Bush announcement of his space plans and King's "response." Read the transcript for King's full speech, "Where Do We Go From Here?", . http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/15/1748227 Headlines From http://www.democracynow.org Watch, listen, or read online www.DemcoracyNow.org = = = = STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON? = = = = Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated) = = = = Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace) And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general) ANTI-SPAM EMAIL NOTE: For email "info" and "map" don't work. Email instead to m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes) at economicdemocracy.org ***************************************************************** 33 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 15:55:49 -0800 STRIKE Averted at NY Nuclear Power Pla ABC News 18 — Negotiators averted a strike early Sunday at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant, reaching tentative agreement on a new contract for control room ... EIGHT quizzed in nuclear probe The Australian, Australia PAKISTANI authorities have started questioning eight officials associated with the country's premier nuclear facility amid a probe into the alleged leaking of ... SOURCES: Nuclear scientists questioned in Pakistan CNN International, Europe ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan authorities are questioning three former army officers and four people working on the country's nuclear program ... MUSHARRAF vows to defend nuclear program, eliminate extremism Pakistan Link, CA ISLAMABAD : President General Pervez Musharraf Saturday declared in the parliament to defend and further strengthen the country’s nuclear program and to root ... President wants Jihad against extremism: - Pakistani Newspaper Musharraf vows to strengthen N - capability . - Hi Pakistan World News > Settle Kashmir issue to end cross-border terror: ... PAKISTAN holds scientists over sale of nuclear secrets Independent, UK Pakistan has widened its investigation into the country's biggest nuclear weapons laboratory amid allegations that nuclear secrets have been sold to Iran ... PAK top nuclear scientist's aide held Sify, India Islamabad: Continuing investigation into allegations of nuclear proliferation, Pakistani security agencies have detained a senior aide to top nuclear scientist ... HOW Pakistan fuels nuclear arms race Guardian, UK Hunched over electron microscopes and mass spectrometers, they are the world's nuclear detectives, analysing minute fragments of radioactive matter collected ... MORE nuclear scientists taken into custody for debriefing PakTribune.com, Pakistan ISLAMABAD, January 19 (Online): The close aides to eminent nuclear scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and senior officials of Qadeer Khan Research Laboratories ... NUCLEAR questions might set off sparks Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI Questions about nuclear power are higher on Wisconsin's energy agenda than at any time since the state's first nuclear plants were built decades ago. ... DPRK warns US not to waste time in resolving nuclear crisis EastDay.com, China Officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)warned that any delay in resolving the nuclear crisis will only give Pyongyang more time tobuild a ... This once-a-day News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=682e52ddd0720101 Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 34 STLtoday: Nuclear power may get us to Mars faster By ELI KINTISCH Post-Dispatch 01/17/2004 As scientists mull President George W. Bush's bold new space proposal, nuclear power stands out as one of NASA's best understood and most controversial options for powering the next generation of spacecraft. Included in Bush's space initiative, still vague in the details, is a call for "new power generation (and) propulsion" systems for a ship the President has called the Crew Exploration Vehicle. In his speech last week, Bush called for the development and testing of the new ship by 2008, with a manned mission to follow by 2014. "You look at what's possible in that time frame . . . nuclear power makes sense," said Kathy McCarthy, director of nuclear science and engineering at Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The laboratory conducts research for the Department of Energy, which last year renewed efforts with NASA to study nuclear power in space. Critics fear that any use of radioactive materials for space flight could lead to accidents. "We're playing Russian roulette with some deadly stuff here," said Bruce Gagnon, co-ordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, based in Maine. The group has protested previous launches of NASA rockets carrying radioactive materials, including the launch of Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Several spacecraft containing radioactive material have crashed. In 1978, a Soviet surveillance satellite called Cosmos 954 crashed into an area in Northwest Canada. No environmental or health effects were detected. The Soviet Union paid the Canadian government $3 million for the cleanup. In 1996, the Mars 96 probe, carrying roughly half a pound of Plutonium, malfunctioned and failed to escape Earth orbit, crashing in South America. To opponents, such accidents are proof enough that NASA should be investing in new kinds of propulsion or power systems instead of trying to create new nuclear-powered systems. "The more of them you develop, the more of them you launch, the more of a chance of accidents," said Gagnon. Over the decades, NASA has investigated many advanced propulsion systems for travel beyond earth orbit, most of which have never been proven to work. These range from systems that would use sails to harness the so-called solar wind, to schemes that utilize a mysterious substance called antimatter, of which NASA says two-billionths of a gram are produced worldwide each year. By contrast, atomic energy is well understood at least here on earth, where the Washington D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute says nuclear power plants supply one-fifth of American power needs. John Martinell, a program manager in the strategic planning office at INEEL, said nuclear power would be available "in more near term than some of the other options." Others feel conventional chemical propellants will play a role in Bush's new plans. "We're going to be pretty dependent on solid or liquid rocket fuel" for any missions to the Moon or Mars along the President's time scale, said John Douglass, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association. John Pike, former director of the space policy project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that a form of atomic power called nuclear thermal energy is roughly twice as efficient as the burning of conventional rocket fuel. "What it means is that you need half as much mass in orbit, half as much propellant," said Pike. Through the end of the 1990s, more than $10 billion had been spent on developing nuclear propulsion for space, according to the Federation of American Scientists, though NASA official Al Newhouse says the figure was considerably less. President George H. Bush supported such research, but the Clinton administration halted that work. Last year, NASA unveiled Project Prometheus, a renewed effort to develop nuclear power for space. As a centerpiece of the project, which was initially budgeted for $3 billion over five years, the agency is planning a mission called the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. Slated to launch in 2011 or later, JIMO would send a craft powered by a nuclear reactor to moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa, each thought to contain water. Last year NASA awarded study contracts for the mission to Boeing, Northrup Grumman Space Technology, and Lockheed Martin. According to Joseph Mills, Boeing vice president and project manager on JIMO, the greater source of energy would allow the craft to tour the moons over a period of years, conducting in-depth science experiments. Previous probes have made relatively modest observations as they have flown by Jupiter's system, unable to tour the moons freely on their own power. Nuclear power plants work by heating steam to turn turbines, generating electricity. JIMO would use nuclear electric power, a newer technology in which heat converters more directly turn heat from the reactor into electricity, which in turn would power thrusters. Much smaller versions of the thrusters are used on run-of-the-mill communication satellites. Previous NASA probes have used small samples of radioactive isotopes to generate heat and electricity. These include Voyager, which is currently leaving the solar system. Cassini, heading towards Saturn, contains 72 pounds of plutonium. When Cassini was launched in 1997, activists protested, fearing that the deadly material could be spread into the atmosphere if there were mishaps. NASA said that the material was securely contained. Newhouse, director of Project Prometheus, said that safety measures would prevent a possible spread of radioactive material. JIMO will be launched with the reactor off, he said, driven into orbit by some other kind of propulsion. The craft then will travel in a distant "nuclear-safe" orbit around the Earth, meaning that the craft would take centuries to fall into the atmosphere if there were an accident. Even then, said Newhouse, nuclear fuel would be shielded to prevent escape. One U.S. spacecraft, the SNAP-10 experimental nuclear reactor, was launched in 1965, and sits indefinitely in a deep orbit far from the Earth. But critics are unconvinced. University City activist Kay Drey said any nuclear reactor launched into orbit is a concern. "It could get close to Earth, there could be an accident, it could come down to Earth," said Drey, a board member of the Washington D.C.-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Atomic power in space also has its foes among rocket scientists. "A nuclear engine of large size sounds very scary to me," said Corin Segal, Executive Director of the Institute for Future Space Transportation in Florida. Reporter Eli Kintisch covers science and technology for the Post-Dispatch. Reporter Eli Kintisch E-mail: ekintisch@post-dispatch.com Phone: 314-340-8250 ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************