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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: Salon: Pentagon cooked WMD books
2 Las Vegas SUN: Tenet Defends White House on Iraq
3 UK Independent: Tenet attacked over intelligence failures
4 Reuters: Iran Slams U.N. Nuke Resolution, Blames U.S.
5 BBC: Iran slams US nuclear 'bullying' 
6 Las Vegas SUN: Iran to Resume Uranium Enrichmemt
7 Las Vegas SUN: S. Korea Demands N. Korea Dismantle Nukes
8 US: Oppose EPA Proposal to Weaken Rad Waste Standards! [Public
9 Reuters: Nuke watchdog commends Libya to U.N. Security Council      
10 Reuters: Libya Signs Accord on Snap Nuclear Checks                  
11 Hi Pakistan: Cabinet takes up N-issue     --> 
12 Hi Pakistan: Powell denies deal over Khan issue     --> 
13 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan's N-programme under US watch since '70s     --
14 Hindu News: 'Shaheen-II test proves Pak. not rolling back nuke progr
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
15 US: NRC: NRC Announces Opportunity for Hearing on Application to Ren
16 US: NRC: Tennessee Valley Authority, Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Uni
17 US: NRC: Tennessee Valley Authority; Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Uni
18 US: NRC: Workshop To Discuss Combined License Topic 10 (COL-10), 10 
19 AU SMH: Powers tap into China's nuclear energy plans - 
20 US: NYT: Progress for Indian Point, and a Setback for Its Critics
21 Korea Herald: Sweden backs talks on nuclear solution   
22 BBC: Power cuts 'could hit UK by 2006' 
23 UK Times Business: Power failure
24 CBW: Experts warn of hasty nuke plans 
25 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Entergy snares kudos
26 US: UPS: PSEG Nuke Safety Whistleblower to Speak at 3/28 Unplug Sale
27 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Senate panel calls for ISA
28 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Expert raps VY uprate
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
29 Herald: Officers in nuclear submarine crash given reprimands   
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
30 US: [RADMETAL] Oppose EPA Proposal to Weaken Rad Waste Standards!
31 US: FR: Idaho: EPA rule on waste
32 US: NYT: Toxic Dumping Ground Looks to Spread the Pain
33 Las Vegas SUN: Scientists detail Yucca water threat
34 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca official to address failed protection of worker
35 US: WOWT: Waste Site Considered
36 RGJ: Your Turn: Safety is why we oppose Yucca Mountain
37 RGJ: DRI staff say climate might not be stable at Yucca
38 US: Sioux City Journal: Building nuclear waste dump may get Nebraska
39 AU ABC: Minister rejects nuclear waste transport claims 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
40  Savannah River: An Effort on Atomic Waste Is Called a Failure
41 DOE: Office of Science Financial Assistance Program Notice DE-FG01-
42 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Hanford
43 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Group sees new role for Hanford - Museum
44 Seattle Times: A dumping ground? Report raises concerns
45 Tri-City Herald: National park status sought for B Reactor 
46 Tri-City Herald: State Ecology director rebukes DOE 
47 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada to get team for WMD response
48 Paducah Sun: DOE workers tests adds beryllium -
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
49 Google News Alert - nuclear
50 Google News Alert - nuclear
51 Las Vegas SUN: Federal official says West water woes likely to conti
52 NRC: Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes: Meeting 
53 Las Vegas RJ: Reid airs opinions on Democratic ticket 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Salon: Pentagon cooked WMD books
 
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 18:17:57 -0600 (CST)

 
Dear MoveOn member,

Salon.com has just broken a major story detailing how the Pentagon
created a special office to manipulate intelligence data on Iraq
and WMDs.  It's written by Karen Kwiatkowski, a military officer
who watched this unit at work, telling us the inside story in her
own words.

Click here to read the full story:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/  

The Salon story makes it even clearer than before that the Bush
administration deliberately misled us in the run-up to the war in
Iraq a year ago.  The problem was not bad intelligence -- it was
deliberate distortion of the facts.

It's Congress' duty to hold President Bush accountable for misleading
us.  Please call your Senators and Representative now:

  Senator Christopher S. Bond
  Washington, DC: 202-224-5721

  Senator Jim Talent
  Washington, DC: 202-224-6154

  Congressman Kenny C. Hulshof
  Washington, DC: 202-225-2956

Make sure they know you're a constituent, then urge them to:

  "Censure President Bush -- formally reprimand him for misleading us
   about Iraq's WMDs."
   
Give them some reasons why Censure is necessary.  Some good ones include:

- 553 American soldiers have given their lives in Iraq;
- Tens of thousands of our troops remain in harm's way there;
- A year later, we seem to have no exit strategy;
- Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed;
- The President took us to war based on assertions he knew were
     untrue -- for more info, see
     http://www.moveon.org/censure/ad-doc.html ;
- Congress has a constitutional duty to act as a check on the president.

Please let us know you're calling, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmadeall3.html

The new Salon story is important, not only because of its revelations
about how the Pentagon cooked the books on WMDs, but also because
it's the first piece by Salon's new Washington, D.C. bureau.

Strong, independent news sources are more important now than ever,
as traditional media become increasingly concentrated under the
control of just a few corporations, and with major outlets like CBS
nakedly kowtowing to Republican interests.  In this context, Salon's
new Washington, D.C. bureau is a major step forward for all of us.

We hope you'll take a few minutes to read their important article
today.  You can access it at:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/  

Thank you.

Sincerely,

- Carrie, Joan, Noah, Peter, and Wes
  The MoveOn.org team
  Wednesday March 10th, 2004
_______________
*****************************************************************
 2 Las Vegas SUN: Tenet Defends White House on Iraq

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - 

CIA Director George Tenet told skeptical Democrats he believes
policy-makers are entitled to flexibility in how they interpret
and describe intelligence and that it is not his role to
second-guess them in public. 

"At the end of the day, they make policy judgments and they talk
about things differently," Tenet told the Senate Armed Services
Committee on Tuesday. 

He said he has spoken with administration officials privately
when he questioned the accuracy of their public statements, but
disagreed with Democratic assertions that the Bush
administration misrepresented intelligence about Iraq's weapons
to make the case for war. 

Tenet appeared before the panel to present his annual worldwide
threat assessment, but much of the hearing focused on whether he
is responsible for publicly correcting officials who make false
or misleading statements on intelligence. 

Though he generally did not discuss when he had spoken to
administration officials about their intelligence statements,
Tenet said he contacted Cheney after the vice president had said
in an NPR interview in January that trailers seized in Iraq
probably were biological weapons labs. Intelligence agencies now
doubt that was the case. 

Last month, Tenet said in a speech at Georgetown University that
intelligence analysts had not claimed before the war that Iraq
was an imminent threat, although they had described how Saddam
was continuing programs that could have threatened U.S.
interests. 

Democrats allege that the Bush administration misconstrued
intelligence to argue its case for war. Their criticism
intensified after the former chief arms inspector, David Kay,
said in January that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was
unlikely to have had weapons stockpiles or an advanced nuclear
program before the war last year. 

They particularly fault the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
for allegedly presenting a distorted picture of Saddam's weapons
and ties to al-Qaida. 

Some of Tuesday's toughest questioning came from Sen. Edward
Kennedy, D-Mass., who last week chastised Tenet for not coming
forward earlier to "set the record straight." 

"You can't have it both ways, can you, Mr. Tenet?" Kennedy said,
contrasting that speech to Tenet's refusal to describe steps he
took to correct statements made by administration officials. 

Tenet said, "I'm not going to sit here today and tell you what
my interaction was. What I did, what I didn't do," Tenet said.
"When I believed that someone was misconstruing intelligence, I
said something about it. I don't stand up in public and do it." 

When Tenet said policy-makers don't use precisely the same words
as intelligence analysts, Kennedy said, "I'm not talking about
parsing words. We're talking about words that are basically
warmongering." 

Kennedy asked if Tenet believed the administration had
misrepresented facts to justify the war. 

"No, sir, I don't," Tenet said. 

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat, noted a
Jan. 9 interview with the Rocky Mountain News in which Cheney
referred to a Weekly Standard article on links between al-Qaida
and Saddam Hussein. That article was based on a classified
Defense Department assessment that was later retracted by the
Pentagon. 

Tenet said he wasn't aware of Cheney's comments until Monday
night. "I will talk to him about that," he said. 

Levin suggested that Tenet should have been aware earlier of
Cheney's statements. 

"It seems to me there's got to be someone in your office who is
going to say to you, `You know, the vice president said
something which just doesn't have our support." 

Tenet replied, "Sir, it's a fair point." 

Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., sought to fend off
Democrats' insistence that Tenet monitor and correct the
statements of administration officials. 

"In the end, he is not their keeper," he said. 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 3 UK Independent: Tenet attacked over intelligence failures
 
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
 
10 March 2004

George Tenet, the CIA director, rejected charges yesterday from 
senior Democrats that he made no effort to stop the Bush 
administration making false claims about the threat represented 
by Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction. 

During a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr Tenet 
told one of his fiercest critics, Senator Edward Kennedy: "I do 
the intelligence and they [the President and his top officials] 
take the intelligence, assess the risk and make a policy 
judgement." 

Pointing to the CIA's pre-war view that Saddam did not pose an 
imminent threat, the Massachusetts senator cited several 
instances of what he termed war-mongering by Mr Bush, the Defence 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials. "What is your 
responsibility," he asked, "when you hear the President or the 
Secretary of Defence use such overheated rhetoric?" 

With Iraq intelligence set to be an issue in the autumn general 
election campaign, the questioning of Mr Tenet predictably broke 
along party lines. Republicans generally heaped praise on him, 
and Democrats argued that he did not do enough to prevent pre-war 
intelligence being exaggerated. 

They also suggested that the man who theoretically runs the US 
intelligence establishment had been blindsided by a special 
Pentagon intelligence gathering unit, feeding much more 
aggressive assessments directly to Vice-President Dick Cheney. 

Once again Mr Tenet, whom many Republicans would like to make the 
scapegoat for the Iraq WMD fiasco, had to walk a fine line, 
defending the actions of the White House but insisting that the 
CIA had behaved honourably. 

He was challenged by Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat 
on the committee, who listed disparities between the secret 
October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's 
weapons capability and the "scarier" assessment in a White Paper 
published soon afterwards. Mr Levin said that doubts expressed in 
the NIE had been "buried" in the White Paper and a host of 
qualifiers had been omitted on specific issues, from Iraq's 
chemical capabilities to its alleged efforts to buy uranium from 
Africa, and claims that Saddam would give WMDs to terrorists 
plotting attacks on the US. 

He said: "Why was the scepticism left out of the White Paper? Was 
it because of pressure from the Pentagon's Office of Special 
Plans?" 

Whatever the reason, the global credibility of the US had "taken 
a very big hit". There was now less support around the world for 
the US and for the war on terror, he said. 

Mr Bush has appointed a commission to examine pre-war 
intelligence on Iraq. But it will only report in early 2005, 
after the election. Democrats will do their utmost to keep the 
issue in the public eye. Suspicions that the administration 
misled the public over Iraq have helped dent the President's 
popularity. Two polls yesterday showed him trailing John Kerry, 
his probable Democratic opponent in November, by between six and 
eight points.              


UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 4 Reuters: Iran Slams U.N. Nuke Resolution, Blames U.S.

Wed Mar 10, 2004 05:38 AM ET                                                            

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in 
Vienna said Wednesday a draft U.N. nuclear resolution on Iran was 
the result of U.S. "bullying." 

"We expected more from our European colleagues," Pirooz Hosseini 
told reporters, describing the U.S. approach to discussions in 
the U.N. atomic watchdog's governing board as an "act of 
bullying." 

The United States said earlier that a resolution to be submitted 
to the watchdog's board would signal to Iran it would be punished 
if it defied the agency, but stopped short of reporting Tehran to 
the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.                             







*****************************************************************
 5 BBC: Iran slams US nuclear 'bullying' 
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 10 March, 2004
 
[Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant under construction] 
Iran says the world must accept its nuclear status                                                
		
Iran has accused the US of "bullying" the UN's nuclear watchdog 
into drafting a resolution censuring Tehran over its nuclear 
programme. 

Iran's foreign minister warned that Tehran may end co-operation 
with the International Atomic Energy Agency if Europe did not 
resist the US. 

Kamal Kharrazi also insisted Iran would resume its uranium 
enrichment programme after resolving its case with the IAEA. 

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned such a move could prove very 
damaging. 

"Iran has been in breach of its (nuclear non-proliferation) 
obligations for many years and we need to build confidence," Mr 
ElBaradei said. 

"I think suspension is a confidence-building measure and, as I 
said, Iran needs to do everything possible right now to create 
the confidence required." 

We advise the Europeans respect their obligations and to resist 
American pressure               [ src=] Kamal Kharrazi Iranian 
foreign minister        

The IAEA's 35-nation board is meeting in Vienna this week to 
decide how to deal with Iran's failure to fully disclose its 
nuclear activities. 

The IAEA's draft resolution on Iran reportedly compares Iran and 
Libya, saying both countries got nuclear equipment "from the same 
foreign sources". 

However, the body has praised Libya for scrapping its nuclear 
weapons programme. 

Libya praised 

The agency's board of governors passed a resolution "applauding 
the decision by [Libya] on 19 December 2003" to renounce its 
weapons of mass destruction programme. 

For its part, Libya has signed an additional protocol to the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allowing snap inspections 
of its nuclear facilities. 

Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting in Tehran, Mr 
Kharrazi said the analogy between Libya and Iran was "incorrect". 

[Centrifuge]                   The inside of a ga centrifuge 
	 	 	
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2003/nuclear_fuel_cycl 
e/mining/default.stm] 
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/03/nuclear_powers/ht 
ml/default.stm]                                 

"Libya has officially announced that it was pursuing nuclear 
weapons and this is a violation of the NPT, but Iran has not been 
pursuing nuclear weapons and [has] not violated the NPT," he 
said. 

The US has accused Iran of pursuing a clandestine programme to 
develop nuclear weapons and wants the matter brought before the 
UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions on Iran. 

The BBC's Miranda Eeles in Tehran says in the draft, the US has 
reportedly agreed to tone down its criticism in order to win 
European support for a demand that Iran divulge more about its 
nuclear programme. 

Return to production 

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Pirooz Hosseini, said the draft 
was "an act of [American] bullying and putting pressure on the 
others". 

Mr Kharrazi admonished Britain, France and Germany for backing 
the draft - which also praises Iran for its co-operation - after 
they signalled they would block a resolution in return for Iran's 
continued compliance with the IAEA. 

"We advise the Europeans to respect their obligations and to 
resist American pressure, otherwise there is no reason for 
co-operation to continue," he told reporters. 

The foreign minister said Iran intended to resume its uranium 
enrichment programme, which it pledged last October to suspend, 
"when relations with the IAEA are normalised". 

BBC regional analyst Sadeq Saba says much of Iran's threatening 
rhetoric in defending its nuclear programme appears to be for 
internal consumption. 

He says Tehran's more confrontational approach comes after the 
conservatives' victory in parliamentary elections in February 
altered the balance of power. 

Our analyst says the conservatives know that in the eyes of 
ordinary Iranians, the country's nuclear programme is a source of 
power and pride, and they want to show that they do not bow to 
outside pressure. 

*****************************************************************
 6 Las Vegas SUN: Iran to Resume Uranium Enrichmemt

 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI ASSOCIATED PRESS 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - 

Iranian ministers said Wednesday that the country's defense
industries had built low-level nuclear centrifuges, and that
Tehran would resume uranium enrichment once its problems with
the International Atomic Energy Agency were resolves. 

Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told reporters that Iran's
military industries, which also build parts and machinery for
the civil sector, had produced the relatively unsophisticated
P-1 centrifuges. But he said Iran had not been involved in
producing more advanced P-2 models, used in producing
weapons-grade enriched uranium. 

"It is no secret. We have produced P-1, not P-2, contrary to
U.S. allegations," Shamkhani said, when asked if the military
was involved in any nuclear production. 

"It's natural in the world that defense industries produce
civilian parts. We in the defense industries produce parts for
civilian planes, vehicle parts and even television sets," he
said. 

"We have also produced some parts for Iran's nuclear energy
program including P-1," he said. 

Iran has acknowledged having thousands of the less-advanced P-1
centrifuges. 

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, meanwhile said that Iran will
resume uranium enrichment once its problems with the IAEA are
over, and warned European partners it could end nuclear
cooperation if they fail to support Tehran. 

The comments to reporters by both ministers came as a key
meeting of the U.N. atomic agency in Vienna moved closer to
agreement Wednesday, after the United States and key European
powers agreed to praise Tehran's increased openness about its
nuclear programs but criticize it for continuing to hide some
suspicious activities. 

"It's our legitimate right to enrich uranium," Kharrazi said
after a Cabinet meeting in the Iranian capital Tehran. 

"We suspended uranium enrichment voluntarily and temporarily.
Later, when our relations with the IAEA returns to normal, we
will definitely resume (uranium) enrichment," Kharrazi said. 

Undeclared uranium enrichment by Iran was one of the reasons
behind an IAEA probe of Iran's nuclear facilities. The IAEA is
holding a meeting on Iran in Vienna, at which the United States
had insisted that Iran be declared in breach of its
international agreements, including uranium enrichment and
plutonium processing. U.S. officials say those activities point
to a nuclear weapons agenda. 

In the draft, United States compromised with Britain, France and
Germany to tone down criticism of Iran's continued nuclear
secrecy and give some praise of Tehran's willingness to open its
programs to outside perusal. 

Kharrazi also warned that Iran could end nuclear cooperation,
and called on its European partners to resist U.S. pressure at
the Vienna meeting. 

"We recommend the three European countries to remain committed
to their obligations (toward Tehran) and resist U.S. pressures
if they want the project of cooperation between Iran and them to
lead to results," Kharrazi said. 

He warned that Iran would stop cooperating with the three
nations if they fail to support Iran. 

"Cooperation is a two way street. If they don't fulfill their
obligations, there is no reason for us to cooperate," he said. 

The draft made available to The Associated Press noted "with the
most serious concern" that past declarations made by Iran "did
not amount to the correct, complete and final picture of Iran's
past and present nuclear program." 

It criticized Iran for "failing to resolve all questions" about
uranium enrichment, which can be used to make weapons, saying it
"deplores" this lapse. 

Kharrazi accused the IAEA of giving in to U.S. pressure. 

"The U.S. wants to use every opportunity to pressure Iran and
pursues its own strategy. Despite the fact that we have offered
maximum cooperation with the IAEA ... unfortunately, the agency
is sometimes influenced by the U.S., while it should maintain
its technical and professional identity," Kharrazi said. 

The United States insists Iran wants to make nuclear weapons and
wanted the meeting to condemn it for not fully living up to
pledges to reveal all past and present nuclear activities. But
the Europeans wanted to focus on Iranian cooperation that began
after the discovery last year that Tehran had plans to enrich
uranium and secretly conducted other tests with possible weapons
applications over nearly two decades. 

An enrichment program would be necessary for producing nuclear
weapons, which Iran repeatedly has said is not its intent. Low
enriched uranium is used as a fuel for electricity generating in
nuclear power plants. 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 7 Las Vegas SUN: S. Korea Demands N. Korea Dismantle Nukes

By JAE-SUK YOO ASSOCIATED PRESS 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea demanded on Wednesday that
North Korea dismantle not only its nuclear weapons program, but
also its atomic power-generating reactors, saying the communist
North had failed to win trust that it would not use such
reactors to develop weapons. 

For its part, North Korea said it would keep atomic programs for
peaceful purposes, and threatened to strengthen nuclear
deterrent forces, a South Korean news report said. 

The communist North made similar comments last month, shortly
after a second round of six-nation talks aimed at ending
Pyongyang's nuclear programs. The talks ended without a
significant progress. 

"The reckless position of the U.S. will ... have us expand our
nuclear deterrence," the state-run KCNA news agency quoted a
North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. 

"We will keep taking necessary measures at a speeder pace while
the U.S. continues to drag its feet on the nuclear issue," KCNA,
monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, also quoted the
unidentified spokesman as saying. He didn't elaborate. 

The North was willing to scrap its nuclear weapons program if
Washington dropped its "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang, he
said, but even then would maintain "peaceful nuclear
activities." 

Earlier Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon
said a major obstacle at the six-nation talks was the North's
insistence on keeping what it calls a "peaceful nuclear
power-generating program." 

Washington had insisted on a "complete, verifiable and
irreversible dismantling" of all the North's nuclear facilities,
saying the country had previously flouted international treaties
by using a nuclear reactor to develop weapons. 

North Korea is suffering from chronic energy shortages,
especially since the United States and its allies suspended free
fuel oil shipments amid the nuclear standoff. 

"Our position is that North Korea should get rid of all its
nuclear programs and all its nuclear materials," Ban said during
a news conference. 

Ban, who returned Monday from trips to Washington and Tokyo,
said the United States and its allies might tolerate a nuclear
power-generating program in North Korea if it holds up its end
of the deal and rejoins the international Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty. 

"Right now, the international community doesn't have trust in
North Korea," Ban said. 

The treaty is designed to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.
Its members can run nuclear power plants under the monitoring of
the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency. 

Since the nuclear standoff flared in late 2002, North Korea
withdrawn from the treaty, restarted nuclear facilities frozen
under a 1994 deal with Washington and said it has reprocessed
all of its 8,000 spent nuclear for bombmaking. 

North Korea runs a 5-megawatt nuclear power plant and has two
bigger reactors under construction. It insists it will keep
using its reactors for power generation, but the United States
says those reactors could produce bomb materials. 

The nuclear crisis began when the United States accused North
Korea of secretly running a uranium-based nuclear weapons
program in addition to plutonium-based facilities frozen under
the 1994 accord 

Ban also dismissed North Korea's recent demand that Washington
withdraw its 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea and provide
a guarantee that U.S. troops won't invade the communist state.
He called the deployment of U.S. troops in South Korea a
bilateral matter between Seoul and Washington. 

He said other participants in the six-nation nuclear talks - the
United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea - will
provide a joint security guarantee to North Korea once it
eliminates its nuclear facilities. 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 8 Oppose EPA Proposal to Weaken Rad Waste Standards! [Public
 
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 14:11:55 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
*** Apologies for cross-posting ***
!!! A C T I O N    A L E R T !!!

March 10, 2004

Tell the EPA to withdraw its proposal to allow nuclear waste to be
dumped in standard, community landfills or other non-licensed
facilities!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an advance
notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the "management and disposal of
low-activity radioactive waste" that creates the possibility for
dangerous nuclear waste to be disposed in dumps and landfills that are
not licensed for or designed to contain it. This would permit certain
radioactive wastes to be treated as if they were actually
non-radioactive, and therefore exempt from standards designed to isolate
and contain radiation, and prevent forced radiation exposures to the
public.

Tell the EPA to retract this harmful, regressive policy!  The deadline
for submission is midnight on March 17.*  Submit prepared comments to
the EPA via Public Citizen's Web site at this URL:
http://action.citizen.org/pc/issues/alert/?alertid=5325981

(Sample comments are available on this page, which you may send as-is
or modify if you so choose.)

Why would the EPA, the primary federal agency with the stated mission
"to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment,"
actually suggest that we roll back existing regulations on the
management of nuclear waste materials? One major reason that the agency
would suggest that a "non-regulatory approach" for managing nuclear
waste be considered is that such an approach could save the nuclear
industry millions of dollars, since it always costs less money to dump
nuclear waste in a regular community landfill (where your household
trash is sent) than it does to properly store the waste in a licensed
facility. The EPA worked with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) --
the federal agency charged with regulating nuclear reactors, materials,
and wastes, which originated the reckless concept that some nuclear
wastes are "Below Regulatory Concern" -- in developing this proposed
rulemaking. This could explain why the EPA is interested in "partnering"
with nuclear waste generators to find creative ways to ease the
"regulatory burden" on such companies. The NRC has developed a
reputation as an agency that coddles the industry it is supposed to be
regulating. If the EPA works with the NRC on nuclear waste matters, a
move towards deregulation should not be unexpected.

There are several distinct problems with EPA's rulemaking proposal:

(1) It introduces an option to allow mixed radioactive and hazardous
wastes to be dumped in facilities that have permits only for hazardous
wastes. This is unacceptable, since hazardous waste dumps are not
designed to isolate and contain radiation, and there has not been
substantial research into how radioactive and chemical pollutants react
synergistically in the environment and the human body.

(2) It introduces an option to allow radioactive waste (that is not
mixed with hazardous) to go to sites that do not have licenses or
regulations for handling it, such as standard garbage dumps (sometimes
known as "sanitary landfills"), incinerators, or hazardous sites.
Without maintaining specific, stringent regulations at facilities that
can accept radioactive waste, adjacent communities face the hazard of
radioactive contamination, as many existing facilities leak.

(3) The EPA's "non-regulatory approach" to managing waste by
"partnering" with nuclear waste generators works to protect industry,
not the public. EPA's notice of proposed rulemaking does not describe
how nuclear fuel cycle radiation will be isolated and contained from the
environment and human contact for its entire hazardous lifetime.
Further, the notice does not explain how the newly suggested approaches
for managing waste will serve to further the EPA's mission "to protect
human health and to safeguard the natural environment," whereas it is
clearly noted that simplification and reduction of the "regulatory
burden" are desired goals. No regulatory barriers are described that
would prevent the nuclear wastes at issue from going to recycling
facilities and contaminating the recycling streams which feed the
production of everyday household items like cookware, toys, cars, and
furniture. No barriers are described that would keep commercial projects
such as roads, bridges and buildings free of this contamination.

(4) The EPA's proposal merges with, and would facilitate, the NRC's own
rulemaking to deregulate and release radioactive waste materials from
control, a process ironically called "Control of Solids." The two
agencies are working to redefine radioactive materials/waste, using
industry-friendly science that plays down health and environmental
concerns, so that waste which has heretofore been regulated and
contained can be released to unlicensed landfills, incinerators or even
recyclers, where it would have routine contact with the public and the
environment.

Two other agency-based campaigns of regulatory rollback will also
increase the risk of forced radiation exposures to the public:

1.The NRC and the Department of Transportation have recently finalized
new transport regulations that will exempt various levels of hundreds of
radionuclides from regulatory control during transit. Any wastes that do
not require regulation, labeling, manifesting, or other controls during
transport will be easier for waste generators to get rid of, after the
wastes leave the point of production. Considering heightened terrorist
concerns in a post-9/11 world, it is particularly disturbing that
additional unregulated materials could be on roads, rails, barges and
aircraft, providing further fuel for dirty bombs.

2.The Department of Energy is in the midst of a Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement to address the release of radioactive
metals from its sites.

Right now, it is important that you send your comments to the EPA so
that the agency terminates any plans to foster deregulation of
"low-activity" radioactive wastes, and dump them in landfills. Submit
comment to the NRC here:
http://action.citizen.org/pc/issues/alert/?alertid=5325981

Public Citizen's full comments to the EPA will be posted soon on our
"Radioactive Recycling" Web site:
http://snipurl.com/50ba

* The EPA comment period may be extended, per requests from Public
Citizen and other groups.  We will notify you in this eventuality.

___________________

Joseph P. Malherek

Policy Analyst
Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
PUBLIC CITIZEN
215 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, DC  20003
Phone: 202-454-5109
Fax: 202-547-7392
E-mail: jmalherek@citizen.org 

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 9 Reuters: Nuke watchdog commends Libya to U.N. Security Council           
         
Wed Mar 10, 2004 07:05 AM ET                                                            

VIENNA (Reuters) - The governing board of the U.N.
nuclear watchdog passed a resolution on Wednesday that praises
Libya for dismantling its secret nuclear weapons programme and
commends Tripoli to the Security Council. 

Diplomats said the resolution noted Libya's past nuclear
activities had put it in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) but applauded its current disarmament moves. 

Although the Security Council has the power to impose economic
sanctions, the resolution reports Libya to the Council purely
for informational purposes and does not call for any punitive
measures. 

The text of the resolution begins by "applauding the decision by
(Libya) on December 19, 2003" to renounce its weapons of mass
destruction programmes. 

It also requests IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei "to report the
matter to the Security Council... commending" the North African
state. The resolution says the report is "for informational
purposes only". 

The move marks the latest stage of Libya's international
rehabilitation following the surprise December announcement to
give up banned weapons and cooperate with the United States and
Britain to disarm. 

Later on Wednesday, Libya was expected to sign the IAEA's
Additional Protocol permitting snap inspections under the
nuclear NPT. 		 		

   [http://www.reuters.com]
*****************************************************************
 10 Reuters: Libya Signs Accord on Snap Nuclear Checks                                       Wed Mar

10, 2004 08:31 AM ET                                                            

By Mark Trevelyan and Louis Charbonneau 

VIENNA (Reuters) - Libya took a fresh stride toward
international rehabilitation Wednesday by signing an agreement
allowing the U.N. atomic watchdog to conduct snap inspections of
nuclear facilities. 

"This is a step by Libya to be clean of all nuclear weapons and
weapons of mass destruction," Scientific Research Minister
Maatoug Mohammed Maatoug said after signing the accord with
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency. 

ElBaradei told reporters: "Libya's decision could be, and should
be, a first step toward an Africa and Middle East free from
weapons of mass destruction and at peace." 

Earlier, the IAEA's governing board passed a resolution praising
Libya for dismantling its secret nuclear weapons program and
commending Tripoli to the Security Council. 

Diplomats said the resolution noted Libya's past nuclear
activities had put it in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) but applauded its current disarmament moves. 

The moves marked significant fresh steps by Libya -- long
branded as a rogue state for sponsoring attacks like the 1988
Lockerbie airline bombing -- to reintegrate itself into the
international community. 

Tripoli made the surprise announcement last December it was
abandoning all WMD programs and would cooperate with the IAEA,
the United States and Britain to dismantle them. 

Saturday, Libya dispatched a shipload to the United States
containing all the equipment believed to remain from its nuclear
weapons program, along with longer-range missiles and launchers. 
Monday, the IAEA supervised an airlift from Tripoli to Russia of
80 percent enriched uranium from a reactor near the capital. The
agency said the metal was almost pure enough to be used in a
nuclear weapon. 

Asked if there would be further shipments of uranium or
nuclear-related equipment, Maatoug told reporters: "There's
nothing still to be removed." 

Under the additional protocol, IAEA inspectors can obtain
short-notice access to any declared or undeclared sites where
nuclear material may be present, in order to check for evidence
of banned weapons activity. 

In recognition of Libya's efforts, the Bush administration
announced last month it would allow U.S. oil firms to begin
negotiating to resume operations, long banned under U.S.
sanctions. 

It also eased restrictions on American travel to Libya and
decided to let the North African country establish a diplomatic
presence in Washington following a U.S. decision to base several
of its own diplomats in Tripoli. 		 		

*****************************************************************
 11 Hi Pakistan: Cabinet takes up N-issue     --> 
 
March 10 2004     
    
ISLAMABAD, March 9: The defence committee of the cabinet 
discussed on Tuesday the nuclear proliferation activities carried 
out by some Pakistani scientists and the ongoing operation 
against Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in the tribal areas. 

The meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah 
Khan Jamali to discuss national defence, taking cognizance of 
international, regional and national developments and took some 
policy decisions. The committee was briefed about the successful 
test of Shaheen II missile. 

A briefing was also given about the investigations conducted by 
Lt-Gen Khalid Kidwai of the Strategic Planning Division after 
Islamabad received a letter from the International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA) pointing fingers at some Pakistani nuclear 
scientists. 
					     							 				 				   				 				
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 12 Hi Pakistan: Powell denies deal over Khan issue     --> 
 
March 10 2004     
    
WASHINGTON, March 9: US Secretary of State Colin Powell described 
Dr A.Q. Khan on Tuesday as "the biggest nuclear proliferator 
ever" but rejected allegation that the United States let him off 
the hook to please Pakistan. 

In two separate television and radio interviews, Mr Powell 
defended President Pervez Musharraf's decision to pardon Dr Khan 
as a move that allowed the US to learn as much as it could about 
his network. 

"There are questions about why the United States didn't come down 
harder on Pakistan for the actions of Dr Khan, arguably the 
biggest nuclear proliferator ever? Did the US administration just 
ignore this, as some contend," Mr Powell was asked. 

"No, we didn't ignore it at all. He was, perhaps, the biggest 
proliferator ever. He is not any more. And the US provided 
information and intelligence to President Musharraf as to the 
nature of Dr Khan's activities, and we worked with President 
Musharraf to make sure that all of these activities became public 
and were taken into account, and action was taken." 

"And what President Musharraf did was confront Dr Khan and his 
associates, interrogate them, get the information, cause Dr Khan 
to go on public television and acknowledge what he had been doing 
over these years, and we are getting a steady stream of 
information as to the nature of that network; and the network's 
being pulled up. And you can see the results already in places 
like Libya and in other countries," said Mr Powell. 

Dr Khan is a very prominent figure in Pakistan who is considered 
a national hero because he helped Pakistan develop its nuclear 
weapons some years ago, said Mr Powell while explaining why 
President Musharraf had to pardon him. 

"And so President Musharraf, having destroyed the Khan network 
and causing Dr Khan to acknowledge his efforts, has decided that 
he had to offer to Dr Khan a conditional amnesty, conditional 
meaning that it can be taken away," he added. 

"So we continue to get information. Our goal was to destroy the 
network, and the network is destroyed and all elements of that 
network are being ripped up; all of its roots and branches are 
being pulled up and cut down. And what ultimately happens to Dr 
Khan is a matter for the Pakistanis to decide." 

Rejecting the suggestion that the US was too mild in dealing with 
Pakistan on this issue, Mr Powell said: "We came down very, very 
firmly with the Pakistanis on the need for them to help us and to 
help themselves totally pull up that network, and that's what the 
Pakistanis have done." 
					     							 				 				   				 				
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 13 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan's N-programme under US watch since '70s     --> 
 
March 10 2004     
    
ISLAMABAD: The United States was trying as far back as the 1970s, 
when Pakistan's nuclear programme was in its infancy, to apply 
pressure on China, France, Germany, South Africa, Niger, Canada 
and others to dry up the supply lines to Islamabad, official 
documents reveal. 

A July 14, 1977 secret US memorandum titled "Nuclear Safeguards - 
Pakistan, South Africa, China" details the steps taken by Canada, 
France, Germany and Niger, on US prodding, to stop the 
development of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. 

The memorandum said: "The primary matter of concern with regard 
to Pakistan then, is not safeguards, which seem likely to be 
required by both South Africa and the FRG (Federal Republic of 
Germany) but the availability of fuel fabrication services. 

By constraining Pakistani access to nuclear fuel services 
wherever possible, pressure can be built up to encourage Pakistan 
to adopt and follow responsible nuclear non-proliferation 
policies, including cancellation or indefinite deferral of its 
reprocessing project." 

According to the same document, Pakistan did not seem to have an 
immediate need for supplies of South African uranium because it 
concluded an arrangement with Niger for the supply of uranium 
concentrate. 

"In addition to raw uranium yellow-cake, however, Pakistan needs 
fuel fabrication services to replace assistance formerly supplied 
by Canada, which terminated nuclear cooperation with Pakistan 
pending agreement to apply more stringent safeguards and to 
cancel the planned reprocessing plant being purchased from 
France," the secret memorandum said. 

"Pakistan has also asked the French to provide fuel fabrication 
services, but the French have refused, apparently reflecting 
their heightened concern about nuclear proliferation..." the 
document revealed. 

A 1979 document regarding a briefing of the International Atomic 
Energy Agency director-general Eklund about Pakistan's sensitive 
nuclear activities also quotes a US diplomat as detailing the 
steps taken to starve supplies to Pakistan's nuclear programme. 
"We had been in contact with other suppliers and had met with 
some success in closing off sales of centrifuge components," the 
official said. 

In the same briefing, the IAEA director-general passed on 
documents received by the nuclear watchdog from Pakistan to the 
US and "wondered if effective economic pressure could be exerted 
on Pakistanis given their access to Muslim oil money." 

Among one of the strategies devised during the meeting, the 
document shows, was to manoeuvre the "responsible countries of 
the world to put enough pressure on Pakistan to stop the 
programme." 

Cancellation of the proposed French sale of Mirage aircraft to 
Pakistan and economic pressures were discussed as possible ways 
to mount such pressure. During discussions, the document shows, 
the IAEA director- general said "he thought (French President) 
Giscard, who had brought about several changes in French 
non-proliferation policy in the past two years might agree to 
pressure Pakistan." 

A January 10, 1984 memorandum from the then US assistant 
secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Paul 
Wolfowitz, to deputy secretary of state Kenneth Dam, details the 
reasons which led China to give an assurance that it would not 
facilitate proliferation of explosive nuclear devices. 

Paul Wolfowitz, currently deputy secretary of defence in the Bush 
administration, observed in the memorandum: "Zhao intends to make 
a statement on non-proliferation in his toast at the state 
dinner, January 10. This statement together with the 
clarifications of Chinese negotiators resolve the concern which 
arose from past Chinese assistance to Pakistan." 

As Pakistan was progressing towards its attainment of nuclear 
deterrence, documents show that multinational companies were 
reluctant to repair some of the technical faults in the nuclear 
power plants in Karachi and Islamabad, while at the same time 
apparently sharing information with US operatives about their 
observations, during visits for maintenance. 

According to a US department of defence document, "At Kanupp 
(Karachi) both turbine and generator control instruments are 
badly in need of maintenance or replacement. Because they were 
originally provided by Hitachi, Pakistan sought Hitachi's help 
and the later sent two technicians to have a look at the 
equipment." 

Finally, however, because of the potential for applications to 
nuclear weapons production, Pakistan's failure to sign the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in a Hitachi spokesman's 
words "the desire not to become the next Toshiba vis-a-vis the 
United States," Hitachi refused to assist in maintenance of the 
equipment, the document revealed. 

During the first week of last month, CIA's director, George 
Tenet, said the US spy agency had deep knowledge of the 
activities Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. He said that "with the help of 
the British, we pieced together the picture of the network, 
revealing its subsidiaries, scientists, front companies, agents, 
finances and manufacturing plants on three continents. Our spies 
penetrated the network through a series of daring operations over 
several years." 

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected next 
week to hold talks with Pakistani officials on a number of issues 
including non-proliferation and the Proliferation Security 
Initiative, aimed at blocking dual use technologies which could 
be used in WMD programmes. 

Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 14 Hindu News: 'Shaheen-II test proves Pak. not rolling back nuke programme' 

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 : 1735 Hrs
 
Islamabad, March 10 (PTI): The test-firing of 2,000 km range
nuclear-capable Shaheen II ballistic missile proved that
Pakistan is not rolling back its nuclear and missile programme
following admission by its top scientist A Q Khan, that he
transferred sensitive technology to other nations, a top Army
official has said. 

Yesterday's test by Pakistan, which is facing international
pressure following Khan's confession, proves that there is no
rollback of the nuclear programme as alleged by some, Vice-Chief
of the Army Staff Gen Mohammad Yousaf told State-run PTV. 

The test was of "great importance" because it was Pakistan's
first experiment of a two-stage missile compared to previous
one-stage missiles. 

Describing the missile test as a demonstration of a "full-speed
roll forward" of the country's nuclear programme, Gen. Yousuf
said it was the first time that the experiment of "separation"
of the first and second stages was carried out in Pakistan and
"it was successful in all respects". 

Meanwhile, Samar Mubarakmund, Chairman of Pakistan's National
Engineering and Science Commission, said the missile covered a
distance of 1800 km and hit the target in 15 minutes. 

Several Naval ships were sent to the area of target to witness
the impact, he was quoted as saying by 'The News'. 

Officials said that the missile range was restricted to cover
the territorial limits of Pakistan coast. 

Mubarakmund was also quoted by 'Dawn' as saying that the missile
had impacted somewhere in the Arabian Sea. 

Copyright � 2004, The Hindu.
*****************************************************************
 15 NRC: NRC Announces Opportunity for Hearing on Application to Renew Browns Ferry, Units 1, 2 and 3
Operating Licenses

News Release - 2004-03
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION   
  Office of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200   
  Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
  No. 04-032     March 10, 2004   
  

opportunity to request a hearing on an application from the
Tennessee Valley Authority to renew the operating licenses for
Units 1, 2 and 3 of the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant for an
additional 20 years beyond the period specified in the current
license. 

The Browns Ferry plant is located near Decatur, Alabama, and the
current operating licenses for Units 1, 2 and 3 expire on
December 20, 2013, June 28, 2014, and July 2, 2016,
respectively. 

NRC staff have determined that the Tennessee Valley Authority
has submitted sufficient information for the agency to formally
docket, or file, the application. Docketing the application
does not preclude requesting additional information as the
review proceeds, nor does it indicate whether the Commission
will grant or deny the application. 

The deadline for requesting participation in the hearing is May
9 (60 days after publication of a Federal Register Notice on
March 10). By that date, petitions must be filed by anyone whose
interest may be affected by the license renewal, and who wishes
to participate as a party in the proceeding. A request for a
hearing and a petition for leave to intervene must be filed with
the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemaking
and Adjudications Staff. They may also be delivered to the NRC
Public Document Room at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland. 

Copies of the petition should also be sent to: 

-- Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and by fax, 301-415-3725,
or e-mail, OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov [OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov] ; 

-- Secretary of the Commission by fax, 301-415-1101, or e-mail to
 hearingdocket@nrc.gov [hearingdocket@nrc.gov] and 

-- Mr. J.A. Scalice, Chief Nuclear Officer and Executive Vice
President, Tennessee Valley Authority, 6 A Lookout Place, 1101
Market Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402-2801. 

Additional information about the opportunity for a hearing may
be found in the Federal Register Notice. A copy of the license
renewal application is available on the NRC web site at this
address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati
ons/browns-ferry.html. The document is also available for
inspection at the NRCs Public Document Room in Rockville,
Maryland, and at the Athens-Limestone Public Library, at 405 E.
South Street, Athens, AL 35611. 

For further information, contact Jimi Yerokun, License Renewal
Project Manager, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs,
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Mail Stop O11-F1, Washington, DC 20555; telephone
301-415-2292.   



  


 	Last revised Wednesday, March 10, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 16 NRC: Tennessee Valley Authority, Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 
 
                         FR Doc 04-5339 
[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] 
[Notices] [Page 11462-11464] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-104]                         
 
2, and 3; Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact 
Statement and Conduct Scoping Process Tennessee Valley Authority 
(TVA) has submitted an application for renewal of Facility 
Operating Licenses, DPR-33, DPR-52, and DPR-68 for an additional 
20 years of operation at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 
2, and 3. The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant (BFN) is located in 
Limestone County, Alabama, 16 km (10 mi) southwest of Athens, 
Alabama. The operating licenses for Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, 
Units 1, 2, and 3 expire on December 20, 2013, June 28, 2014, and 
July 2, 2016, respectively. The application for renewal was 
received on January 6, 2004, pursuant to 10 CFR part 54. A notice 
of receipt and availability of the application, which included 
the environmental report (ER), was published in the Federal 
Register on January 13, 2004, (69 FR 2012). A notice of 
acceptance for docketing and notice of opportunity for hearing 
regarding renewal of the facility operating license is also 
published in the Federal Register today. The purpose of this 
notice is to inform the public that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) will be preparing an environmental impact 
statement (EIS) in support of the review of the license renewal 
application and to provide the public an opportunity to 
participate in the environmental scoping process, as defined in 
10 CFR 51.29. In addition, as outlined in 36 CFR 800.8, 
``Coordination with the National Environmental Policy Act,'' the 
NRC plans to coordinate compliance with section 106 of the 
National Historic Preservation Act in meeting the requirements of 
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
 
In accordance with 10 CFR 51.53(c) and 10 CFR 54.23, TVA 
submitted the ER as part of the application. The ER was prepared 
pursuant to 10 CFR part 51 and is available for public inspection 
at the NRC Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint 
North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, 
or from the Publicly Available Records component of NRC's 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS 
is accessible at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
, which provides access through the NRC's Electronic Reading Room 
link. Persons who do not have
 
[[Page 11463]] access to ADAMS, or who encounter problems in 
accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the 
NRC's PDR Reference staff at 1- 800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or 
by e-mail to  [pdr@nrc.gov] . The application may also be viewed 
on the Internet at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/lice 
nsing/renewal/applications/browns-ferry.html] . In addition, the 
Athens-Limestone Public Library, 405 East South Street, Athens, 
Alabama, has agreed to make the ER available for public 
inspection.
 
This notice advises the public that the NRC intends to gather the 
information necessary to prepare a plant-specific supplement to 
the Commission's ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) 
for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants,'' (NUREG-1437) in support 
of the review of the application for renewal of the BFN operating 
licenses for an additional 20 years. Possible alternatives to the 
proposed action (license renewal) include no action and 
reasonable alternative energy sources. The NRC is required by 10 
CFR 51.95 to prepare a supplement to the GEIS in connection with 
the renewal of an operating license.
 
This notice is being published in accordance with the National 
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the NRC's regulations found 
in 10 CFR part 51.
 
The NRC will first conduct a scoping process for the supplement 
to the GEIS and, as soon as practicable thereafter, will prepare 
a draft supplement to the GEIS for public comment. Participation 
in the scoping process by members of the public and local, State, 
Tribal, and Federal government agencies is encouraged. The 
scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS will be used to 
accomplish the following: a. Define the proposed action which is 
to be the subject of the supplement to the GEIS.
 
b. Determine the scope of the supplement to the GEIS and identify 
the significant issues to be analyzed in depth.
 
c. Identify and eliminate from detailed study those issues that 
are peripheral or that are not significant.
 
d. Identify any environmental assessments and other EISs that are 
being or will be prepared that are related to, but are not part 
of the scope of the supplement to the GEIS being considered.
 
e. Identify other environmental review and consultation 
requirements related to the proposed action.
 
f. Indicate the relationship between the timing of the 
preparation of the environmental analyses and the Commission's 
tentative planning and decision-making schedule.
 
g. Identify any cooperating agencies and, as appropriate, 
allocate assignments for preparation and schedules for completing 
the supplement to the GEIS to the NRC and any cooperating 
agencies.
 
h. Describe how the supplement to the GEIS will be prepared, and 
include any contractor assistance to be used.
 
The NRC invites the following entities to participate in the 
scoping: a. The applicant, TVA. b. Any Federal agency that has 
jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to any 
environmental impact involved, or that is authorized to develop 
and enforce relevant environmental standards.
 
c. Affected State and local government agencies, including those 
authorized to develop and enforce relevant environmental 
standards.
 
d. Any affected Indian tribe. e. Any person who requests or has 
requested an opportunity to participate in the scoping process.
 
f. Any person who intends to petition for leave to intervene. In 
accordance with 10 CFR 51.26, the scoping process for an EIS may 
include a public scoping meeting to help identify significant 
issues related to a proposed activity and to determine the scope 
of issues to be addressed in an EIS. The NRC has decided to hold 
public meetings for the license renewal supplement to the GEIS. 
The scoping meetings will be held at the Athens State University, 
Student Center Cafeteria Ballroom, 300 North Beaty Street, 
Athens, Alabama, on Thursday, April 1, 2004. There will be two 
sessions to accommodate interested parties. The first session 
will convene at 1:30 p.m. and will continue until 4:30 p.m., as 
necessary. The second session will convene at 7 p.m. with a 
repeat of the overview portions of the meeting and will continue 
until 10 p.m., as necessary. Both meetings will be transcribed 
and will include: (1) An overview by the NRC staff of the NEPA 
environmental review process, the proposed scope of the 
supplement to the GEIS, and the proposed review schedule; and (2) 
the opportunity for interested government agencies, 
organizations, and individuals to submit comments or suggestions 
on the environmental issues or the proposed scope of the 
supplement to the GEIS. Additionally, the NRC staff will host 
informal discussions one hour before the start of each session at 
the Athens State University, Student Center Cafeteria Ballroom. 
No formal comments on the proposed scope of the supplement to the 
GEIS will be accepted during the informal discussions. To be 
considered, comments must be provided either at the transcribed 
public meetings or in writing, as discussed below. Persons may 
register to attend or present oral comments at the meetings on 
the scope of the NEPA review by contacting Dr.
 
Michael Masnik, by telephone at 1-800-368-5642, extension 1191, 
or by Internet to the NRC at  [BrownsFerryEIS@nrc.gov]  no later 
than March 24, 2004. Members of the public may also register to 
speak at the meeting within 15 minutes of the start of each 
session. Individual oral comments may be limited by the time 
available, depending on the number of persons who register. 
Members of the public who have not registered may also have an 
opportunity to speak, if time permits. Public comments will be 
considered in the scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS. 
Dr. Masnik will need to be contacted no later than March 24, 
2004, if special equipment or accommodations are needed to attend 
or present information at the public meeting, so that the NRC 
staff can determine whether the request can be accommodated.
 
Members of the public may send written comments on the 
environmental scope of the BFN license renewal review to the 
Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative 
Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and should cite 
the publication date and page number of this Federal Register 
notice. Comments may also be delivered to the NRC, Room T-6D59, 
Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 
from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. during Federal workdays. To be 
considered in the scoping process, written comments should be 
postmarked by no later than 60 days from today's date. Electronic 
comments may be sent by the Internet to the NRC at  [ 
BrownsFerryEIS@nrc.gov]  and should be sent no later than 60 days 
from today's date to be considered in the scoping process. 
Comments will be available electronically and accessible through 
ADAMS at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
.
 
Participation in the scoping process for the supplement to the 
GEIS does not entitle participants to become parties to the 
proceeding to which the supplement to the GEIS relates. Notice of 
opportunity for a hearing regarding the renewal application is 
the subject of a separate notice published today in the Federal 
Register. Matters related to
 
[[Page 11464]] participation in any hearing are outside the scope 
of matters to be discussed at this public meeting.
 
At the conclusion of the scoping process, the NRC will prepare a 
concise summary of the determination and conclusions reached, 
including the significant issues identified, and will send a copy 
of the summary to each participant in the scoping process. The 
summary will also be available for inspection in ADAMS at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
.
 
The staff will then prepare and issue for comment the draft 
supplement to the GEIS, which will be the subject of separate 
notices and separate public meetings. Copies will be available 
for public inspection at the above-mentioned addresses, and one 
copy per request will be provided free of charge. After receipt 
and consideration of the comments, the NRC will prepare a final 
supplement to the GEIS, which will also be available for public 
inspection.
 
Information about the proposed action, the supplement to the 
GEIS, and the scoping process may be obtained from Dr. Masnik at 
the aforementioned telephone number or e-mail address.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 4th day of March, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental 
Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, 
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. 04-5339 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 17 NRC: Tennessee Valley Authority; Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 
 
                         FR Doc 04-5340 
[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] 
[Notices] [Page 11460-11462] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-103]                         
 
2 and 3; Notice of Acceptance for Docketing of the Application 
and Notice of Opportunity for Hearing Regarding Renewal of 
Facility Operating License Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, and DPR-68 for an 
Additional 20- Year Period The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC or the Commission) is considering application for the 
renewal of Operating License Nos. DPR- 33, DPR-52, and DPR-68, 
which authorize the Tennessee Valley
 
[[Page 11461]] Authority (TVA) to operate the Browns Ferry 
Nuclear Plant at 3293 megawatts thermal for Unit 1, 3458 
megawatts thermal for Unit 2, and 3458 megawatts thermal for Unit 
3. The renewed licenses would authorize the applicant to operate 
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3 for an additional 20 
years beyond the period specified in the current licenses. The 
current operating license for the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 
1 expires on December 20, 2013, the current operating license for 
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 2 expires on June 28, 2014, and 
the current operating license for Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 
3 expires on July 2, 2016.
 
On January 6, 2004, the Commission's staff received an 
application from TVA filed pursuant to 10 CFR part 54, to renew 
the Operating License Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, and DPR-68 for Browns 
Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, respectively. A notice of 
receipt and availability of the license renewal application, 
``TVA; Notice of Receipt and Availability of Application for 
Renewal of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, Facility 
Operating License Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, and DPR-68 for Additional 
20-Year Period,'' was published in the Federal Register on 
January 13, 2004 (69 FR 2012).
 
The Commission's staff has determined that TVA has submitted 
sufficient information in accordance with 10 CFR 54.19, 54.21, 
54.22, 54.23, and 51.53(c) that is acceptable for docketing. The 
current Docket Nos. 50-259, 50-260, and 50-296 for Operating 
License Nos. DPR- 33, DPR-52, and DPR-68, respectively, will be 
retained. The docketing of the renewal application does not 
preclude requesting additional information as the review 
proceeds, nor does it predict whether the Commission will grant 
or deny the application.
 
Before issuance of each requested renewed license, the NRC will 
have made the findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 
as amended (the Act), and the Commission's rules and regulations.
 
In accordance with 10 CFR 54.29, the NRC will issue a renewed 
license on the basis of its review if it finds that actions have 
been identified and have been or will be taken with respect to: 
(1) Managing the effects of aging during the period of extended 
operation on the functionality of structures and components that 
have been identified as requiring aging management review, and 
(2) time-limited aging analyses that have been identified as 
requiring review, such that there is reasonable assurance that 
the activities authorized by the renewed licenses will continue 
to be conducted in accordance with the current licensing basis 
(CLB), and that any changes made to the plant's CLB comply with 
the Act and the Commission's regulations.
 
Additionally, in accordance with 10 CFR 51.95(c), the NRC will 
prepare an environmental impact statement that is a supplement to 
the Commission's NUREG-1437, ``Generic Environmental Impact 
Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Power Plants,'' dated 
May 1996.
 
Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.26, and as part of the environmental 
scoping process, the staff intends to hold a public scoping 
meeting. Detailed information regarding this meeting is included 
in a Federal Register notice also published today.
 
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this Federal 
Register notice, the applicant may file a request for a hearing, 
and any person whose interest may be affected by this proceeding 
and who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding must 
file a written request for a hearing and a petition for leave to 
intervene with respect to the renewal of the licenses. Requests 
for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene shall be 
filed in accordance with the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for 
Domestic Licensing Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested 
persons should consult a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is 
available at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located 
at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 
Rockville, Maryland 20852 and is accessible from the Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public 
Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
.
 
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems 
in accessing the documents located in ADAMS should contact the 
NRC's PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, or by email at  [ 
pdr@nrc.gov] . If a request for a hearing or a petition for leave 
to intervene is filed within the 60-day period, the Commission or 
a presiding officer designated by the Commission or by the Chief 
Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 
Panel will rule on the request and/or petition; and the Secretary 
or the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and 
Licensing Board will issue a notice of a hearing or an 
appropriate order. In the event that no request for a hearing or 
petition for leave to intervene is filed within the 60-day 
period, the NRC may, upon completion of its evaluations and upon 
making the findings required under 10 CFR parts 51 and 54, renew 
the licenses without further notice.
 
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene 
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner 
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the 
results of the proceeding, taking into consideration the limited 
scope of matters that may be considered pursuant to 10 CFR parts 
51 and 54. The petition must specifically explain the reasons why 
intervention should be permitted with particular reference to the 
following factors: (1) The nature of the requestor's/petitioner's 
right under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (2) the 
nature and extent of the requestor's/ petitioner's property, 
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (3) the 
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in 
the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The 
petition must also set forth the specific contentions which the 
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
 
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue 
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the 
requestor/petitioner shall provide a brief explanation of the 
bases of each contention and a concise statement of the alleged 
facts or the expert opinion that supports the contention on which 
the requestor/ petitioner intends to rely in proving the 
contention at the hearing. The requestor/petitioner must also 
provide references to those specific sources and documents of 
which the requestor/petitioner is aware and on which the 
requestor/petitioner intends to rely to establish those facts or 
expert opinion. The requestor/petitioner must provide sufficient 
information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the 
applicant on a material issue of law or fact.\1\ Contentions 
shall be limited to matters within the scope of the action under 
consideration. The contention must be one that, if proven, would 
entitle the requestor/ petitioner to relief. A 
requestor/petitioner who fails to satisfy these requirements with 
respect to at least one contention will not be permitted to 
participate as a party.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- \1\ To the extent that the application contains 
attachments and supporting documents that are not publicly 
available because they are asserted to contain safeguards or 
proprietary information, petitioners desiring access to this 
information should contact the applicant or applicant's counsel 
to discuss the need for a protective order.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- Each contention shall be given a separate numeric or 
alpha designation within one of the following groups:
 
[[Page 11462]] 1. Technical--primarily concerns/issues relating 
to technical health and safety matters discussed or referenced in 
the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plants Units 1, 2 and 3 license renewal 
application.
 
2. Environmental--primarily concerns/issues relating to matters 
discussed or referenced in the Environmental Report for the 
license renewal application.
 
3. Miscellaneous--does not fall into one of the categories 
outlined above.
 
As specified in 10 CFR 2.309, if two or more 
requestors/petitioners seek to co-sponsor a contention, the 
requestors/petitioners shall jointly designate a representative 
who shall have the authority to act for the 
requestors/petitioners with respect to that contention.
 
If a requestor/petitioner seeks to adopt the contention of 
another sponsoring requestor/petitioner, the requestor/petitioner 
who seeks to adopt the contention must either agree that the 
sponsoring requestor/ petitioner shall act as the representative 
with respect to that contention, or jointly designate with the 
sponsoring requestor/ petitioner a representative who shall have 
the authority to act for the requestors/petitioners with respect 
to that contention.
 
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, 
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to 
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the 
conduct of the hearing, including the opportunity to participate 
fully in the conduct of the hearing. A request for a hearing or a 
petition for leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class 
mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, 
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the 
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attention: Rulemaking 
and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of 
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,  [ 
hearingdocket@nrc.gov] ; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed 
to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and 
Adjudications Staff at 301- 415-1101, verification number is 
301-415-1966. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for 
leave to intervene must also be sent to the Office of the General 
Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, and it is requested that copies be transmitted either 
by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail 
to  [OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov] . A copy of the request for hearing 
and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the 
attorney for the licensee.
 
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be 
entertained absent a determination by the Commission, the 
presiding officer or the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that 
the petition, request and/or contentions should be granted based 
on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 
2.309(a)(1)(i)-(viii). Detailed information about the license 
renewal process can be found under the Nuclear Reactors icon at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/lice 
nsing/renewal.html] on the NRC's Web page. Copies of the 
application to renew the operating licenses for Browns Ferry 
Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, are available for public 
inspection at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint 
North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, 
20855-2738, and at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/lice 
nsing/renewal/applications/brownsferry.html] the NRC's Web page 
while the application is under review. The NRC maintains an 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), which 
provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. These 
documents may be accessed through the NRC's Public Electronic 
Reading Room on the Internet at 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
under ADAMS accession number ML040060355. Persons who do not have 
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the 
documents located in ADAMS, may contact the NRC Public Document 
Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by 
e-mail to  [ pdr@nrc.gov] . The staff has verified that a copy of 
the license renewal application is also available to local 
residents near the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant at the 
Athens-Limestone Public Library, at 405 E.
 
South Street, Athens, Alabama 35611.
 
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this the 4th day of March, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental 
Impacts, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of 
Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. 04-5340 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 18 NRC: Workshop To Discuss Combined License Topic 10 (COL-10), 10 CFR 
 
                         FR Doc 04-5341 
[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] 
[Notices] [Page 11464-11465] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-105]                         
 
Part 52 Subpart C Emergency Planning Inspections, Tests, 
Analyses, and Acceptance Criteria (ITAAC) AGENCY: Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of April 27, 2004, public workshop.
 
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is holding a 
workshop on April 27, 2004, to solicit comments on draft proposed 
emergency planning inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance 
criteria (ITAAC). The NRC staff, in consultation with the 
Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management 
Agency (DHS/FEMA), crafted the draft proposed EP ITAAC, which 
addresses 15 of the 16 EP planning standards in title 10 of Code 
of Federal Regulations part 50, Sec. 50.47(b), and 
NUREG-0654/FEMA-REP-1, Rev. 1, ``Criteria for Preparation and 
Evaluation of Radiological Emergency Response Plans and 
Preparedness in Support of Nuclear Power Plants'' (NUREG-0654).
 
(The excluded planning standard, 50.47(b)(13), pertains to the 
development of general plans for recovery and reentry, and was 
determined to not be applicable to EP ITAAC). The draft proposed 
EP ITAAC are available for public inspection in the Agencywide 
Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), Accession No. ML 
033010440, and as described below. The NRC staff has scheduled 
the public workshop to discuss the draft proposed EP ITAAC issues 
and to solicit stakeholder comments on the staff's draft 
proposal. This workshop will be transcribed. To allow for timely 
registration on the day of the meeting, it is recommended that 
guests pre-register for the workshop. To pre-register for the 
workshop, contact Mr. Raj Anand (information provided below) and 
provide the following information: name, organization, phone 
number, and country of citizenship.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Raj K. Anand, New, Research 
and Test Reactors Program, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001. Mr. Anand can be reached by telephone 
at 301-415-1146, or by e-mail at rka@nrc.gov [rka@nrc.gov] . 
Questions regarding the public meeting process should be directed 
to Mr. Francis (Chip) Cameron, Office of the General Counsel, 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by 
telephone 301-415-1642, or by e-mail at fxc@nrc.gov [fxc@nrc.gov] 
 
DATES: The workshop will be held on April 27, 2004, from 10:30 
a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Written comments on the NRC staff's draft 
proposed EP ITAAC should be submitted by May 27, 2004. Comments 
received after this date will be considered if it is practical to 
do so, but the Commission is able to assure consideration only 
for comments received on or before this date.
 
 
ADDRESSES: The workshop will be held at the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission offices in the Two White Flint North Auditorium, 11545 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The NRC staff's draft proposed EP ITAAC are available for public 
inspection in the Agencywide Document Access and Management 
System (ADAMS) in the NRC Public Document Room, located at One 
White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Public File Area O-1F21, 
Rockville, Maryland. The information is also available 
electronically from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) 
component of ADAMS (ADAMS Accession No. ML033010440). ADAMS is 
accessible from the NRC's Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
(Public Electronic Reading Room). For more information, contact 
the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 
800-397-4209, 202-634-3273, or by email at

 
pdr@nrc.gov [ pdr@nrc.gov] . In addition, the draft proposed EP 
ITAAC and additional associated documentation can be found on 
NRC's Web site under the Combined Licenses discussion on the 
following Web page: http://www@nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/ [ 
<A HREF=] "> http://www@nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/ 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www@nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/ 
]  licensing-process.html. 
">http://www@nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/ [<A HREF=] 
">http://www@nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/ 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www@nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/ 
]  licensing-process.html. licensing-process.html. and Directives 
Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of 
Administration, Mail Stop T-6D59, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001. Comments may also be hand-delivered to 
the NRC at 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between the 
hours of 7:45 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays, or 
submitted electronically by e-mail at nrcrep@nrc.gov 
[nrcrep@nrc.gov] . All comments received by the Commission, 
including those made by Federal, State, and local agencies, 
Indian tribes, or other interested persons, will be made 
available at the Commission's PDR in Rockville, Maryland, or 
electronically from the PARS component of NRC's document system 
(ADAMS).
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 1989, the NRC established new 
alternatives for nuclear plant licensing under title 10 of the 
Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 52, which describe, 
among other things, a process for issuing a combined construction 
and operating license, referred to as a combined license (COL). A 
COL authorizes construction and, with conditions, operation of a 
nuclear power plant. A COL application must describe the license 
conditions (i.e., inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance 
criteria, referred to as ITAAC) that are necessary to ensure that 
the plant has been properly constructed and will operate safely. 
After issuing a COL, the NRC would verify that the licensee 
completed the required ITAAC before initial loading of fuel into 
the plant. The NRC would publish notices of the successful 
completion of the ITAAC. Following successful completion of all 
ITAAC, and not less than 180 days before the date scheduled for 
initial loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor, the NRC would 
publish in the Federal Register a notice of intended operation.
 
 
[[Page 11465]] The notice would provide that any person whose 
interest may be affected by operation of the plant may, within 60 
days, request that the Commission hold a hearing on whether the 
facility as constructed complies, or on completion will comply, 
with the acceptance criteria of the COL. A request for a hearing 
must show, prima facie, that (1) one or more of the acceptance 
criteria in the COL have not been, or will not be met, and (2) 
the specific operational consequences of non- conformance that 
would be contrary to providing reasonable assurance of adequate 
protection of the public health and safety.
 
The development of EP ITAAC is part of an NRC effort to develop 
guidance related to the structure and content of prospective COL 
applications, which would be submitted under subpart C of 10 CFR 
part 52. The draft proposed EP ITAAC reflect the current 
collective efforts of NRC and FEMA staff to provide this 
guidance, while incorporating various lessons learned from 
previous design certification reviews under subpart B of 10 CFR 
part 52.
 
The staff proposes to discuss the following issues with 
interested stakeholders: 1. The draft proposed EP ITAAC contain 
high-level generic acceptance criteria. These criteria were 
adapted from those found in NUREG-0654. It is expected that a COL 
applicant will be able to provide more detailed EP ITAAC that are 
site-specific at the COL application stage. Such detailed EP 
ITAAC would satisfy the intent of the proposed generic EP ITAAC. 
Among the questions the staff will address with the interested 
stakeholders is whether it is necessary to capture guidance 
related to providing detailed EP ITAAC and, if so, what the best 
way is to capture such guidance.
 
2. The offsite acceptance criteria in the draft proposed EP ITAAC 
assume State and local government participation. If State and 
local officials terminate or limit their cooperation between the 
time of COL issuance and fuel loading, the draft proposed EP 
ITAAC may no longer be valid. In that case, the EP ITAAC 
incorporated in the license under 10 CFR 52.97(b)(1) would have 
to be changed by a license amendment, in accordance with 10 CFR 
52.97(b)(2)(i). The staff will discuss with stakeholders the 
feasibility of developing offsite EP ITAAC, that cover both 
possibilities (i.e., assuming State and local government 
participation, as well as non-participation).
 
3. The draft proposed EP ITAAC contain references to emergency 
plans. The staff attempted to distinguish those issues which 
should be resolved prior to issuance of a COL from those which 
can be resolved only after issuance of a COL. For example, the 
emergency plans and the EP ITAAC would be reviewed and approved 
prior to granting a COL, while compliance with the ITAAC would be 
assessed post-licensing, using the ITAAC to verify the 
implementation of the emergency plans. The staff will discuss 
stakeholder views on the need for clarification of the draft 
proposed EP ITAAC, in order to separate those issues which should 
be resolved prior to issuance of a COL from those which can be 
resolved only after the COL is issued.
 
4. Compliance with some of the ITAAC in the draft proposed EP 
ITAAC could be assessed concurrently. Discussions with 
stakeholders will include this concurrent review and its 
implications.
 
An agenda for the workshop will be developed and made available 
prior to the April 27, 2004, public workshop. In order to assure 
a diversity of viewpoints, the NRC is inviting stakeholders from 
the nuclear power industry, representatives from citizens groups, 
and State and local agencies to sit in a round table discussion. 
Although the focus of the public workshop will be on the round 
table discussion, there will be opportunities for members of the 
audience to offer comments and ask questions at the workshop.
 
Prior to the workshop, questions relating to the staff's draft 
proposed EP ITAAC can be directed to Mr. Raj Anand. Questions 
related to the public meeting process should be directed to Mr. 
Francis Cameron. Contact information for Messrs. Anand and 
Cameron is provided above.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 4th day of March, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
James E. Lyons, Program Director, New, Research and Test Reactors 
Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of 
Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. 04-5341 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 19 AU SMH: Powers tap into China's nuclear energy plans - 

BusinessNews - www.smh.com.au [Sydney Morning Herald Online]  
  
By Chris Buckley in Beijing
March 11, 2004
 		 	   	   		
China plans to significantly expand its nuclear power in the 
coming decades, and the Bush administration has been courting the 
country's top officials on behalf of US companies seeking a 
starring role in that expansion. 

The US is competing with France, Russia and, in a minor way, 
Canada, to build four 1000-megawatt plants that energy executives 
say will signify China's coming of age as a nuclear energy 
provider, and offer crucial relief to makers of nuclear 
technology starved for new orders in their home countries. 

"China is the country most likely to have robust growth in 
nuclear power in the next 10 years," said Ron Sinard, who 
oversees plant development for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a 
Washington organisation that represents the US industry. "Looking 
at the market over the next decade, it's probably the biggest 
piece of the pie." 

The call for tenders may be issued as early as this month, 
nuclear industry executives said. The winner is likely to have an 
advantage in subsequent bids for 20 or more nuclear plants that 
may be built by 2020. 

China has eight nuclear power plants that generate a total of 
6200MW; by 2020, nuclear power could provide China with 32,000MW. 
Even if all the proposed plants are built, nuclear power would 
supply China with only about 4 per cent of its energy needs by 
2020, with the bulk of electricity coming from coal-fired 
stations and, to a lesser extent, hydroelectric projects like the 
Three Gorges Dam. 

It's not the first time China has publicised plans for expanding 
nuclear energy. Similar plans were announced in the early 1990s 
but were abandoned because of a slowing economy and a temporary 
glut in electricity. Energy industry executives and analysts 
agreed that this time the Chinese government, alarmed by the 
country's voracious appetite for electricity and growing 
dependence on imported oil and natural gas, is determined to 
expand its nuclear energy resources. 

Power shortages that disrupted industrial production and life 
across two dozen provinces last year revived interest in nuclear 
power. Last year, electricity demand rose 15 per cent to 1.9 
trillion kilowatt hours, and tens of thousands of factories in 
China's booming eastern provinces were forced to cancel 
production because of power cuts. Similar power shortages are 
expected this year and next. The chairman of China's electricity 
regulation commission, Chai Songyue, said that China would face a 
shortfall of 20 million kWh this year. 

Stronger government support for nuclear energy is reinforced by 
enthusiastic promises of investment for China's power companies. 

The booming coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Guangdong are the 
first in line for nuclear power stations, partly because coal 
mines and dams are far away, making energy delivery expensive. 

In choosing among rival bids, China will be making choices not 
only on which technology it will use but also on geopolitical 
allegiances, environmental safety and China's gaping trade 
surplus with the United States. 

"The stakes are huge. These are big contracts with a lot of 
implications," said Jean-Christophe Delvallet, China 
representative of French energy company EDR. 

France, Canada and Russia have been lobbying Beijing to favour 
power plant designs and equipment from their countries. 

The New York Times 	 	

Copyright  � 2004. The Sydney Morning Herald
*****************************************************************
 20 NYT: Progress for Indian Point, and a Setback for Its Critics
 
 By MAREK FUCHS

Published: March 10, 2004

[I] n a setback and rebuke to opponents of the Indian Point 
nuclear plant in Westchester County, the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission has pronounced the plant's two active reactors fit and 
has moved to reduce their level of oversight to standard from 
heightened.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission, which oversees the 
nation's nuclear plants, said yesterday that an issue that had 
remained a concern until the end of 2003 - faulty construction of 
a control-room wall at Indian Point 2 - had been resolved, paving 
the way for the reactor to get the commission's highest rating, 
which means the lowest level of inspection. 

"It's a sea change for them," Mr. Sheehan said of the reactor, 
which received poor performance ratings before and after Entergy 
Corporation, a Louisiana company, purchased it from Consolidated 
Edison in 2001. Indian Point 3 still exceeded a threshold for the 
number of unplanned shutdowns in 2003, said Mr. Sheehan, "but 
they are getting close to where they should be." 

He added, "While certainly milestones, this doesn't mean the 
plants are without issues." 

The commission sent Entergy an assessment letter last week, 
spelling out the company's accomplishments in 2003 but pointing 
out areas of continued concern, like maintenance backlogs. Mr. 
Sheehan added that additional strides have been made since the 
end of 2003. 

Reaction from local officials and plant opponents was swift and 
unfavorable. Richard Brodsky, a state assemblyman from 
Westchester who has long fought to close the plant, said it was 
irresponsible to move to less oversight so soon after the 
assessment letter, which said Indian Point's overall performance 
was improving, "albeit slowly." 

"The N.R.C. is being an apologist, not a regulator," said Mr. 
Brodsky. "It's what happens when an industry captures a 
government." The commission arrives at its overall rating through 
color-coded ratings in a range of performance and inspection 
categories. Mr. Brodsky said that such a focus on multiple small 
issues obscured the broader picture. 

"There's a term for it in psychology that's called circular 
insanity,'' he said. "It happens when you are trapped in 
assumptions and standards that are completely inside the circle 
and you never explain whether the circle is nutty." 

Alex Matthiessen, executive director of Riverkeeper, an 
environmental group opposed to the plant, said: "They gave a 
clean bill of health while saying the facility has a number of 
serious problems. And that doesn't, by the way, acknowledge the 
chance of sabotage, attack or the lack of an escape plan." 

In addition to concerns over plant operations, opponents point to 
the fact that one of the airplanes that struck the World Trade 
Center on 9/11 had flown by the plant. And public officials have 
little confidence in evacuation plans for the communities around 
Indian Point should an attack or accident occur. 

To Entergy, though, the commission's opinions were gratifying 
evidence that their long-term plan to turn the problematic plant 
around was working. "We knew we had to address some of the issues 
we became aware of during our due diligence," said Jim Steets, a 
company spokesman, who said that hundreds of millions of dollars 
had been invested in improvements. "This is a good indication 
that we've been effective." 

Asked whether the ratings were a finger in the eye of the plant's 
vocal opponents, Mr. Steets said: "It's certainly a vindication, 
in a sense. Some criticized Indian Point, either prematurely or 
without information." 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 21 Korea Herald: Sweden backs talks on nuclear solution   
 
2004.03.11
 
By Seo Hyun-jin
        
    
      The Swedish leader supported yesterday a diplomatic
solution to the ongoing standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear
ambitions as well as Seoul's engagement policy toward the
isolationist North, the presidential office said. 

Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson conveyed the message during
a summit meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun in Seoul, which
marked the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic
ties between the two countries. The anniversary falls today.

 The two leaders discussed the North Korean nuclear issue and
measures to improve bilateral ties, especially in the economic
fields. 

"They shared the view that a peaceful resolution of the North
Korean nuclear issue through dialogue is essential for the
maintenance of peace and stability not only in Northeast Asia,
but globally," the post-summit joint press release said. 

*****************************************************************
 22 BBC: Power cuts 'could hit UK by 2006' 
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 10 March, 2004
 
[Electricity pylon]                             

The UK is increasingly reliant on imported gas for electricity                                                                 

The UK could be hit by electricity supply problems within two 
years, an expert who advises the government on energy policy has 
said. 

Dieter Helm told BBC Two's 'If... The Lights Go Out' the UK had a 
"clapped out" power generation system and was too dependent on 
imported gas. 

A committee of MPs has also warned of possible problems with the 
network. 

But the Department of Trade &Industry said new capacity was being 
created by reopening mothballed power stations. 

Government policy was focused on the safe, secure and affordable 
supply of electricity, the DTI said. 

'Insufficient investment' 

Mr Helm's concerns have been echoed the cross-party Trade and 
Industry Committee, which said much of Britain's power network 
was nearing the end of its 40-year lifespan. 
	
GAS SUPPLY NETWORK 		  		  

"There is a danger that there is currently insufficient 
investment in the network to replace in a planned and orderly way 
equipment which is reaching the end of its life," the report 
said. 

"Simply to maintain present performance levels, capital 
expenditure by the network owners would have to double," it said. 

London and Birmingham both suffered power blackouts within the 
space of a week last summer, raising questions about the UK 
system's reliability. 

The BBC's 'If... The Lights Go Out' programme asks if the UK is 
becoming too reliant on imported gas supplies and examines what 
could happen should terrorists attack a vital pipeline. 

Luck running out? 

Gas consumption in the UK has soared by 66% since 1992 to 113bn 
cubic metres a year, according to figures from industry regulator 
Ofgem. 

Meanwhile, electricity generation using gas has jumped from just 
1.7% of total consumption in 1990 to 29.7% in 2002. 

GAS IMPORTS BY PIPELINE, 2002                   UK: 4.7 bcm, o 
which:

3.6 bcm from Norway 
1.1 bcm from the Netherlands 

        Germany: 81.7 bcm       Italy: 52.5 bcm         France: 32.7 bcm        Source:
BP 
bcm: billion cubic metres   	

Mr Helm accuses the government of having no insurance against 
power cuts. 

He highlights the decline of North Sea gas and the condition of 
the UK's power stations as causes for concern. 

The UK's coal power stations are due for replacement and most 
nuclear generators are set to close in the next decade. 

Mr Helm says that without new policy initiatives the UK's luck 
will run out and there could be supply problems by 2006. 

Defending its strategy, the DTI pointed out that the government 
had a "statutory responsibility to ensure security of energy 
supplies". 

And it said the market-driven approach to deliver energy supplies 
was working. 

Since privatisation, it said, there had never been an occasion 
when supply had not been sufficient to meet demand. 

'If... The Lights Go Out' was broadcast on BBC Two on Wednesday, 
10 March 2004. 
*****************************************************************
 23 UK Times Business: Power failure
      			 			   
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

March 10, 2004                         

ANALYSIS

The troubles in UK electricity generation highlighted by MPs this 
morning reflect Government rather than corporate blunders. Sally 
Patten, Deputy Business News Editor, reports 
  		 		
"Few looked forward to the coming of spring more than the 
managers charged with supplying us with electricity. 

"For them, the coming of March meant not just daffodils and 
longer days but the end of the annual period of greatest blackout 
danger, the 'vulnerable weeks', as they are known in the sector, 
of January and February. 

"Britain received notice of the vulnerability of its electricity 
infrastructure last summer through power cuts in London and 
Birmingham. In the capital alone 1,800 overland trains and 60 per 
cent of London Underground services were affected. 

"Winter blackouts, likely to be caused by a surge in demand 
prompted by a cold snap, could have far more serious 
consequences. 

"It was against a backdrop of such fears that MPs today said 
there was a 'pressing need' for investment in the country's 
electricity network. 

"The Trade and Industry Select Committee said: 'There is a danger 
that there is currently insufficient investment in the network to 
replace in a planned and orderly way equipment which is reaching 
the end of its life. 

"'Simply to maintain present performance levels, capital 
expenditure by the network owners would have to double.' 

"While many observers might see the network's plight as a failure 
of privatisation, the committee focused its calls for reform on 
Ofgem, the sector watchdog, rather than on electricity companies. 

"'The regulator's concern to reduce costs to consumers should now 
be tempered by a greater emphasis on ensuring that electricity 
network owners have the financial resources necessary to secure a 
viable long-term electricity supply,' this morning's report said. 

"The story of the electricity sector since privatisation is one 
that demonstrates the benefits which can be achieved through 
switching power from state to plcs. 

"In private hands, electricity bills have plunged in real terms 
while, largely because of improved industrial relations, the 
sector has avoided the widespread blackouts of the 1970s. 

"It is only where the Government has intervened that the sector 
has floundered. 

"The overhaul of the wholesale power market in 2001, for 
instance, while bringing a short term benefit to consumers 
through a 40 per cent slide in prices, created long term 
problems. 

"Lower returns made many power stations uneconomic, prompting 
many plants to be mothballed, accelerating the collapse of 
British Energy, the nuclear generator, and deterring investment 
from the sector. Generators have been left with only limited 
ability to respond to a rise in demand likely to accompany a 
return to higher economic growth. 

"The Government's determination to curb emissions of greenhouse 
gases well beyond the level needed to meet international 
commitments, meanwhile, threatens to leave the country truly 
vulnerable to blackouts. 

"The Institution of Civil Engineers believes that emissions 
constraints will force coal-powered generators to close within 15 
years, with only one nuclear plant scheduled to remain open after 
2020. The UK will be left dependent on gas sourced from often 
unstable countries and wind farms which the Royal Academy of 
Engineering said today produce electricity at twice the price of 
conventional sources. 

"There can be little doubt that the Government has been well 
meaning in its drive for green energy but, as the adage goes, the 
road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

"The risk is that we progress along it without electric light and 
heat in the winter, air-conditioning in the summer and with only 
intermittent support from train and Tube services all year 
round."                         

[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,549,00.html]           
Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
 24 CBW: Experts warn of hasty nuke plans 

 By Zhu Boru (China Business Weekly)
 Updated: 2004-03-10 15:19 

Experts warn that power shortages should not be the excuse for 
the hasty launching of new nuclear power projects, as the nation 
decides to speed up the development of its nuclear power sector 
in order to meet increased demand. 

"The decision indicates a fundamental change in the country's 
development strategy of its nuclear power industry," Han Wenke, 
vice-director of the Energy Research Institute of the National 
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told China Business 
Weekly last week. [ hspace=0 src=] 

In Januray, the NDRC announced, in a long-term development plan, 
that the country's installation capacity of nuclear power plants 
is expected to reach 36 million kilowatt hours in 2020. The 
current figure is 8.7 million kilowatt hours. 

Experts estimate that will account for 4 to 5 per cent of the 
country's total power installation capacity by then, whereas the 
current proportion is 1.3 per cent. 

It is the first time that China has set a clear-cut goal for its 
nuclear power industry, said Han. 

The government has preferred moderate development strategies for 
the nuclear power industry, although China became a nuclear power 
as early as in the 1960s. 

Expansion work on existing nuclear power plants in the country's 
most power-hungry provinces - East China's Zhejiang, Jiangsu and 
Fujian - is expected to start in 2005 or 2006. These plants will 
have a total generating capacity of 13 million kilowatt hours by 
2010. 

The country's severe power shortage has forced the government to 
revise its nuclear power policies, according to Han. 

China will face a shortfall of more than 20 million kilowatt 
hours in electricity supply this year, Chai Songyue, chairman of 
the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, was quoted as 
saying. 

[ hspace=5 src=] According to the China Electricity Industry 
Association, the nation's power generation capacity will grow by 
9 per cent this year, while electricity consumption will increase 
by 12 per cent, reaching 2.09 trillion kilowatt hours this year. 

China's fast-growing economy began to suffer from severe power 
shortages last year, when some 22 provinces, autonomous regions 
and municipalities had to cut off electricity at peak times. 

But the NDRC nuclear power policy is a long-term strategy, and 
provincial governments striving to get approval to launch nuclear 
power plants should be aware the aid is too slow in coming to 
solve the problem, warned Han. 

It usually takes four to five years to complete the construction 
of a nuclear power plant before it starts operation. Moreover, at 
least two years has to be spent on the feasibility studies, Han 
explained. 

As a result, hydraulic power and thermal power will continue to 
be major contributors to China's power supply in the coming 
years, he said. 

Central China's Hubei and Hunan provinces, and Southwest China's 
Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, have either 
reportedly presented their proposals to the NDRC or or decided on 
the location of nuclear power plants. 

No nuclear power plants have been built in China's inland 
provinces to date. 

Taking a long-term perspective, nuclear power is the proper 
approach to dealing with power shortages and rationalizing the 
structure of energy consumption, Pan Ziqiang, an academician of 
the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said. 

China still relies heavily on thermal power, which accounts for 
70 per cent of the total electricity generation each year, but 
its coal reserves will run out in the coming decades. Meanwhile, 
China has become a net importer of oil since 1993, he said. 

The excessive dependence on imports and limited reserves leaves 
the country in a precarious position in terms of energy 
consumption, suggests Pan. 

Many developed countries survived the global energy crisis in the 
1970s by developing nuclear power and thus became less dependent 
on declining coal and oil reserves, he said. 

Currently, the total investment in a nuclear power plant is 
double that of a thermal power plant, leading to higher 
electricity prices, said Han. 

But the price of nuclear electricity is expected to lower 
gradually as the industry develops into a mass-scaled economy 
with lower costs, he said. 

However, the price of thermal power will rise because the process 
to get rid of sulphur from coal increases the cost of coal. 

Sulphur causes air pollution when coal is burned and processing 
is increasingly required to ensure environmental protection. 

Moreover, China has advanced nuclear technologies that can secure 
the operation of nuclear power plants and in particular, the 
processing of nuclear waste, Han added. 

However, Han cautioned against overoptimistic views of the 
sector's development. 

China is not rich in nuclear resources, and the trade volume of 
nuclear resources, which is strictly in line with international 
rules, is quite limited due to security concerns, he said. 

Meanwhile, it will be quite dangerous for China, with its 
enormous power demand, to rely heavily on nuclear power, Han 
said. 

China's total electricity generation capacity, currently 350 
million kilowatts, is expected to reach 800 million to 900 
million kilowatts by 2020, according to official statistics. 

The United States has not built new nuclear power plants for many 
years, as the country's more-than-100 plants could be threats to 
its national security if they are targets of military attacks, he 
said. 

For inland provinces with relatively rich natural resources, it 
would currently be more economical to use thermal or hydraulic 
power, he suggests. 

China's existing nuclear power plants are all located in East and 
South China's coastal areas, areas with a more developed economy, 
but lacking in natural resources. 

chinadaily.com.cn
*****************************************************************
 25 JOURNAL NEWS: Entergy snares kudos

(Original publication: March 10, 2004) 

"Good news" and "Indian Point" seldom seem compatible in the
same sentence, not with a stream of stories detailing plant
safety and security woes, environmental shortcomings and
continuing efforts to send the facilities to the scrapheap of
power generation. Government regulators, however, have a more
elastic view of the nuclear monolith on the Hudson River. 

In its year-end assessment of the plants in Buchanan, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave its highest safety rating �
"green" � to Indian Point 2 and 3, putting them in league with
the best-run nuclear power plants in the nation. The NRC praised
owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast for improving conditions,
particularly at Indian Point 2, the least safe and poorest run
of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants when Entergy bought
Indian Point in 2001. 

Entergy has pumped more than $500 million into equipment and
training improvements at the plants. The attention helped bring
Indian Point 2 back from rock bottom, which it struck on Feb.
15, 2000. That's when a tube rupture in the reactor's steam
generator triggered the spill of 20,000 gallons of contaminated
water inside the plant and the release of a small amount of
radioactive steam into the atmosphere. 

"It is a positive step for them," said Brian Holian, deputy
director of the NRC's division of reactors projects for the
Northeast region. "It is a milestone, but they still have a lot
on their plate." 

Indeed they do. Questions remain over a host of safety concerns,
including an extensive backlog in repairs. Additionally, the NRC
has just opened an investigation into a whistleblower's
allegations that Indian Point 2 suffers from critical flaws in
its electrical writing, and that Entergy has concealed the
flaws. Moreover, the top-safety rating does not address critics'
well-founded security and environmental concerns, related issues
surrounding emergency evacuations and whether Indian Point, as
configured, should long endure on the Hudson. Those issues
require extended debate and discussion. But given the
alternative, it is encouraging to know that the NRC thinks
Entergy has Indian Point on the right track for safety. 

  Home [http://www.thejournalnews.com] -Business
  
  Copyright 2004 The Journal News, a Gannett Co
*****************************************************************
 26 UPS: PSEG Nuke Safety Whistleblower to Speak at 3/28 Unplug Salem Campaign Rally
 
  CLOSE THE SALEM NUKES NOW The UNPLUG SALEM Campaign 321 Barr 
Ave., Linwood NJ 08221 609-601-8583/601-8537;  
[ncohen12@comcast.net] [http://www.unplugsalem.org/] 

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 

REVISED AND UPDATED: 

For Immediate Release and Community Calendars: 

A whistleblower who has provided the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) with detailed information on safety culture 
problems at all three of PSEG's nuclear power plants will be the 
featured speaker at the upcoming UNPLUG Salem Protest to be held 
Sunday, March 28th, 2-4 pm, on the access road leading to 
Artificial Island, in Lower Alloways township.  Rain location 
will be the Salem Quaker Meetinghouse, on route 49 in downtown 
Salem. 

This will be the first time that the PSEG whistleblower will be 
speaking in public. He will describe the reasons why he decided 
to go to the NRC with his safety concerns, and will discuss those 
concerns in detail on March 28th. 

The protest will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the meltdown 
at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant outside of Harrisburg, Pa. 
The rally is entitled: No TMI on the Delaware. 

In addition to the whistleblower, there will be a large number of 
other expert speakers, including: Dave Lochbaum, nuclear safety 
engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists; Joe Mangano, 
chief researcher for the Radiation and Public Health Project; Jim 
Riccio of Greenpeace; Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and 
Resource Service; Tony Totah, marine biologist for Clean Ocean 
Action; Jane Nogaki, Pesticide Coordinator for the NJ 
Environmental Federation; Dr. Judith Johnsrud of Three Mile 
Island Alert; and Ray Shadis of the New England Coalition. 

Also speaking will be Frieda Berryhill, who has opposed nuclear 
power from before the Salem Nukes were built; Norm Cohen of the 
UNPLUG Salem Campaign;  Grace Costanzo of the Jersey Shore 
Nuclear Watch; and Roy Cannon and Matt Ahearn of the Delaware and 
New Jersey Greens. 

Entertainment will be provided by the Eco-Chorale, and the 
protest will be powered by solar power provided by LBI Solar. The 
NRC's annual assessment letters, dated March 3rd 2004, continue 
to point out the NRC's concerns with the poor safety culture at 
both of the Salem Nukes and the Hope Creek Nuke:

"Cross-cutting issues involved instances of ineffective, untimely 
problem solving and corrective actions (and) numerous inspection 
findings which indicate that weaknesses continue." Commented Norm 
Cohen, UNPLUG Salem Campaign Coordinator, "For the last three 
years we've been saying that the safety environment at PSEG's 
nuclear plants is dangerous.  Now we have concrete proof. Close 
those dangerous nuclear plants down now!" Please join us on March 
28th to make sure that Salem and Hope Creek do not become our own 
TMI on the Delaware. 

CONTACT: Norm Cohen - 609-601-8583 
*****************************************************************
 27 Brattleboro Reformer: Senate panel calls for ISA

[http://www.reformer.com/] March 10, 2004 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					
By CAROLYN LORI� Reformer Staff

MONTPELIER -- The Senate Finance Committee will send a resolution 
to the Senate floor calling for an independent safety assessment 
(ISA) of Vermont Yankee.

 The panel is calling for the assessment to be done prior to the 
20 percent power increase requested by the plant's owner, Entergy 
Nuclear of Louisiana.

 Committee member, Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, said that when 
the uprate was initially proposed he did not consider it 
problematic.

 "But when you look at the facts, it's an unprecedented request. 
It took me a long time to appreciate the enormity of what is 
being asked of this plant," he said.

 Although other nuclear power plants in the country have 
increased power, no other plant has done so by 20 percent all at 
once. The Clinton Power Station in Illinois, which had an uprate 
of 20 percent, did so in two phases. In addition to doing the 
increase more slowly, the plant is newer than Vermont Yankee. 

According to opponents of the uprate, including the New England 
Coalition and the Connecticut River Watershed Council, Vermont 
Yankee, built in the early 1970s, does not meet today's safety 
standards and cannot handle the proposed increase.

 At a forum held in the State House (that was not related to the 
Senate Finance Committee vote) Peter Alexander, executive 
director of the coalition, said the uprate "increases the risks. 
It increases the consequences."

 MacDonald said that the resolution, which will only be voted on 
in Senate, will be open for debate on Thursday, but because of a 
backlog may not be discussed until later in the week or next 
week.                           
 		   			 		   	 	
*****************************************************************
 28 Brattleboro Reformer: Expert raps VY uprate
 
[http://www.reformer.com/] March 10, 2004 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					
By CAROLYN LORI� Reformer Staff

MONTPELIER -- Speaking at a public forum on Entergy Nuclear's 
proposed "uprate," industry whistleblower Arnie Gundersen started 
his talk at the State House by saying that he was "pro-nuclear 
and pro-safety."

 That said, Gundersen launched into a detailed account of why he 
believes a 20 percent uprate at the Vermont Yankee plant is a 
dangerous proposition.

 According to Gundersen, the main problem has to do with net 
positive suction, that is the ability of the emergency pumps to 
suction water into the core in the event of an accident. Because 
the uprate would increase the temperature of the water, it would 
flash to steam, rendering the pumps useless.

 In order to compensate for this, Gundersen said, Entergy's plan 
is to increase the pressure in the container, which will push the 
water into the pumps and prevent it from turning to steam.

 The problem with this plan is that the pressure could cause a 
valve on the container to blow open, releasing radiation, said 
Gundersen. 

Again, Entergy has addressed this, by calling for the valve to be 
closed manually -- a plan Gundersen considers inadequate.

 While Gundersen is pro-nuclear and does not advocate closing the 
plant before its license expires in 2012, he did serve as an 
expert witness for the New England Coalition in its role as 
intervener in Entergy's uprate process.

 "This thing scares me," said Gundersen to the audience that over 
the course of the talk included over 20 legislators.

 The forum was sponsored by members of the Windham County 
delegation, including Reps. Richard Marek, D-Newfane; Steve 
Darrow, D-Dummerston; Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham; David Deen, 
D-Westminister; Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro and Michael 
Obuchowski, D-Bellows Falls.

 Although Entergy was invited to join the discussion, a 
representative did not attend. According to Vermont Yankee 
spokesperson Rob Williams, the company believes the issue has 
already "received a thorough airing through the established 
channels."

 Williams added that Entergy provided the coalition with 
thousands of pages of documents and that a number of public 
meetings have been held concerning the uprate.

 "We question the value of this ad hoc forum one week before the 
(Public Service Board) decision," said Williams.

 Rep. Darrow said that he was disappointed by Entergy's absence.

 "I was looking forward to Entergy's presentation. We gave them 
the opportunity to step up to the plate and give us their side. 
Evidently they are afraid of being in the same room as a 
knowledgeable, pro-nuclear person like Mr. Gundersen," he said.

 Darrow added that he believes an independent safety assessment 
similar to what was done at Maine Yankee in 1997 needs to be done 
before there is an uprate.

 According to Gundersen, the review done by the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) during the uprate process is 
substantially different from an independent safety assessment 
(ISA).

 "An ISA would have 20 or so guys from the NRC at Vermont Yankee 
for three or four months. It's very thorough and hands on," 
Gunderson said.

 There was sharp criticism aimed at Entergy for "perverting" the 
term independent safety assessment.

 Peter Alexander, executive director of the New England 
Coalition, accused Entergy of purposefully misusing the term 
"independent safety assessment" as a way of manipulating the 
public.

 "It shows a pattern of deception," he said.

 Neil Sheehan, spokesperson for NRC Region I, said the term can 
be used to mean a variety of things and did not consider 
Entergy's use of it to be deceptive.

 Gundersen, however, challenged that claim, reiterating that the 
term has a very specific use within the industry.

 Similar to Paul Blanch, another whistleblower who served as an 
expert witness for the coalition, Gundersen believes the NRC to 
be under the control of the industry.

 "NRC -- the letters stand for 'nobody really cares,'" he said.

 As the forum was in progress, the Senate Finance Committee voted 
to send a resolution to the Senate floor calling for an 
independent safety assessment, similar to the one performed at 
Maine Yankee.

 In addition to Darrow, Reps. Milkey, Partridge and Marek 
expressed support for an ISA.

 "I think it's clear that at the very least, we need an ISA done 
by people with no vested interest. It's the very least we can do 
to protect the safety of Vermonters," said Partridge.                           
 		   			 		   	 	
*****************************************************************
 29 Herald: Officers in nuclear submarine crash given reprimands   
 
Web Issue 1958     March 10 2004      

  IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent     March 10 2004   
    
  TWO senior officers yesterday were reprimanded for negligence 
for allowing a Royal Navy nuclear submarine to crash into the 
seabed during an exercise to identify the skippers of the future.

 Commander Robert Fancy and Commander Ian McGhie both pleaded 
guilty at court-martial to contributing to the accident in 
November, 2002, when HMS Trafalgar ran aground close to Skye, 
causing �5m worth of damage to her hull and injuring three 
sailors.

 The �300m submarine was travelling 50 metres below the surface 
at more than 14 knots when it changed direction and struck rocks 
at Fladda Chuain, a small but well-charted islet.

 Commander Fancy had responsibility for navigation, while 
Commander McGhie was "teacher" in charge of the "Perisher" 
qualifying course for nuclear boat commanders and responsible for 
assessing the candidates under examination. Lieutenant-Commander 
Tim Green, a Perisher student, was navigating when the crash 
happened. He was not prosecuted, but has received an 
administrative censure.

 The court-martial, at Portsmouth naval base, heard how the 
students were denied the use of the submarine's usual inertial 
navigation and global positioning systems to test their ability 
to dead-reckon course, speed and location.

 Lieutenant-Commander Alison Towler, the naval prosecutor, said 
that Commanders Fancy and McGhie had failed in their 
responsibility and supervisory roles to ensure that 
Lieutenant-Commander Green's navigational calculations were 
accurate and safe.

 She said: "Lieutenant-Commander Green was struggling on the 
Perisher course. His chart work was untidy. This alone should 
have put Commander Fancy on notice that all was not well, 
encouraging him to pay more attention to the navigational 
aspects."

 Commander Fancy, who is now the skipper of HMS Triumph and 
commander of the Devonport flotilla of nuclear hunter-killer 
boats, was severely reprimanded and Commander McGhie, who was 
removed from his "teacher" post and has in a staff job at the 
Ministry of Defence, was reprimanded.

 Safety procedures on Perisher courses have been revised.
   
  Copyright � Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights
*****************************************************************
 30 [RADMETAL] Oppose EPA Proposal to Weaken Rad Waste Standards!
 
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 11:26:27 -0600 (CST)

 
*** Apologies for cross-posting ***
!!! A C T I O N    A L E R T !!!

March 10, 2004

Tell the EPA to withdraw its proposal to allow nuclear waste to be
dumped in standard, community landfills or other non-licensed
facilities!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an advance
notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the "management and disposal of
low-activity radioactive waste" that creates the possibility for
dangerous nuclear waste to be disposed in dumps and landfills that are
not licensed for or designed to contain it. This would permit certain
radioactive wastes to be treated as if they were actually
non-radioactive, and therefore exempt from standards designed to isolate
and contain radiation, and prevent forced radiation exposures to the
public.

Tell the EPA to retract this harmful, regressive policy!  The deadline
for submission is midnight on March 17.*  Submit prepared comments to
the EPA via Public Citizen's Web site at this URL:
http://action.citizen.org/pc/issues/alert/?alertid=5325981

(Sample comments are available on this page, which you may send as-is
or modify if you so choose.)

Why would the EPA, the primary federal agency with the stated mission
"to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment,"
actually suggest that we roll back existing regulations on the
management of nuclear waste materials? One major reason that the agency
would suggest that a "non-regulatory approach" for managing nuclear
waste be considered is that such an approach could save the nuclear
industry millions of dollars, since it always costs less money to dump
nuclear waste in a regular community landfill (where your household
trash is sent) than it does to properly store the waste in a licensed
facility. The EPA worked with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) --
the federal agency charged with regulating nuclear reactors, materials,
and wastes, which originated the reckless concept that some nuclear
wastes are "Below Regulatory Concern" -- in developing this proposed
rulemaking. This could explain why the EPA is interested in "partnering"
with nuclear waste generators to find creative ways to ease the
"regulatory burden" on such companies. The NRC has developed a
reputation as an agency that coddles the industry it is supposed to be
regulating. If the EPA works with the NRC on nuclear waste matters, a
move towards deregulation should not be unexpected.

There are several distinct problems with EPA's rulemaking proposal:

(1) It introduces an option to allow mixed radioactive and hazardous
wastes to be dumped in facilities that have permits only for hazardous
wastes. This is unacceptable, since hazardous waste dumps are not
designed to isolate and contain radiation, and there has not been
substantial research into how radioactive and chemical pollutants react
synergistically in the environment and the human body.

(2) It introduces an option to allow radioactive waste (that is not
mixed with hazardous) to go to sites that do not have licenses or
regulations for handling it, such as standard garbage dumps (sometimes
known as "sanitary landfills"), incinerators, or hazardous sites.
Without maintaining specific, stringent regulations at facilities that
can accept radioactive waste, adjacent communities face the hazard of
radioactive contamination, as many existing facilities leak.

(3) The EPA's "non-regulatory approach" to managing waste by
"partnering" with nuclear waste generators works to protect industry,
not the public. EPA's notice of proposed rulemaking does not describe
how nuclear fuel cycle radiation will be isolated and contained from the
environment and human contact for its entire hazardous lifetime.
Further, the notice does not explain how the newly suggested approaches
for managing waste will serve to further the EPA's mission "to protect
human health and to safeguard the natural environment," whereas it is
clearly noted that simplification and reduction of the "regulatory
burden" are desired goals. No regulatory barriers are described that
would prevent the nuclear wastes at issue from going to recycling
facilities and contaminating the recycling streams which feed the
production of everyday household items like cookware, toys, cars, and
furniture. No barriers are described that would keep commercial projects
such as roads, bridges and buildings free of this contamination.

(4) The EPA's proposal merges with, and would facilitate, the NRC's own
rulemaking to deregulate and release radioactive waste materials from
control, a process ironically called "Control of Solids." The two
agencies are working to redefine radioactive materials/waste, using
industry-friendly science that plays down health and environmental
concerns, so that waste which has heretofore been regulated and
contained can be released to unlicensed landfills, incinerators or even
recyclers, where it would have routine contact with the public and the
environment.

Two other agency-based campaigns of regulatory rollback will also
increase the risk of forced radiation exposures to the public:

1.The NRC and the Department of Transportation have recently finalized
new transport regulations that will exempt various levels of hundreds of
radionuclides from regulatory control during transit. Any wastes that do
not require regulation, labeling, manifesting, or other controls during
transport will be easier for waste generators to get rid of, after the
wastes leave the point of production. Considering heightened terrorist
concerns in a post-9/11 world, it is particularly disturbing that
additional unregulated materials could be on roads, rails, barges and
aircraft, providing further fuel for dirty bombs.

2.The Department of Energy is in the midst of a Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement to address the release of radioactive
metals from its sites.

Right now, it is important that you send your comments to the EPA so
that the agency terminates any plans to foster deregulation of
"low-activity" radioactive wastes, and dump them in landfills. Submit
comment to the NRC here:
http://action.citizen.org/pc/issues/alert/?alertid=5325981

Public Citizen's full comments to the EPA will be posted soon on our
"Radioactive Recycling" Web site:
http://snipurl.com/50ba

* The EPA comment period may be extended, per requests from Public
Citizen and other groups.  We will notify you in this eventuality.

**********
If you would like to be removed from the RADMETAL ListServ, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe radmetal" in the message.

Questions about the RADMETAL ListServ can be directed to RADMETAL-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG.

To learn more about this and other Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program campaigns, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/

-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
*****************************************************************
 31 FR: Idaho: EPA rule on waste
                         FR Doc 04-5368 

[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] [Rules 
and Regulations] [Page 11322-11326] From the Federal Register 
Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-16]                         

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 40 CFR Part 271 [FRL-7634-3]
 
Idaho: Final Authorization of State Hazardous Waste Management 
Program Revision AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 
ACTION: Final rule.

SUMMARY: Idaho applied to the United States Environmental 
Protection Agency (EPA) for final authorization of changes to its 
hazardous waste program under the Resource Conservation and 
Recovery Act (RCRA). On August 1, 2003, EPA published a proposed 
rule to authorize the changes and opened a public comment period. 
The comment period closed on September 15, 2003. Today, EPA has 
decided that these revisions to the Idaho hazardous waste 
management program satisfy all of the requirements necessary to 
qualify for final authorization and is authorizing these 
revisions to Idaho's authorized hazardous waste management 
program in today's final rule.

EFFECTIVE DATE: Final authorization for the revisions to the 
hazardous waste program in Idaho shall be effective at 1 p.m. 
e.s.t. on March 10, 2004.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff Hunt, WCM-122, U.S. EPA 
Region 10, Office of Waste and Chemicals Management, 1200 Sixth 
Avenue, Mail Stop WCM-122, Seattle, Washington, 98101, phone 
(206) 553-0256.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

A. Why Are Revisions to State Programs Necessary?

    States which have received final authorization from EPA under 
RCRA section 3006(b), 42 U.S.C. 6926(b), must maintain a 
hazardous waste program that is equivalent to and consistent with 
the Federal program. States are required to have enforcement 
authority which is adequate to enforce compliance with the 
requirements of the hazardous waste program. Under RCRA section 
3009, States are not allowed to impose any requirements which are 
less stringent than the Federal program. Changes to State 
programs may be necessary when Federal or State statutory or 
regulatory authority is modified or when certain other changes 
occur. Most commonly, States must change their programs because 
of changes to EPA's regulations in title 40 of the Code of 
Federal Regulations (CFR) parts 124, 260 through 266, 268, 270, 
273 and 279.

    Idaho's hazardous waste management program received final 
authorization effective on April 9, 1990 (55 FR 11015, March 29, 
1990). EPA also granted authorization for revisions to Idaho's 
program effective on June 5, 1992 (57 FR 11580, April 6, 1992), 
on August 10, 1992 (57 FR 24757, June 11, 1992), on June 11, 1995 
(60 FR 18549, April 12, 1995), on January 19, 1999 (63 FR 56086, 
October 21, 1998), and most recently on July 1, 2002 (67 FR 
44069, July 1, 2002).

    Today's final rule addresses a program revision application 
that Idaho submitted to EPA on June 6, 2003, in accordance with 
40 CFR 271.21, seeking authorization of changes to the State 
program. On August 1, 2003, EPA published a proposed rule 
announcing its intent to grant Idaho final authorization for 
revisions to Idaho's hazardous waste program and provided a 
period of time for the receipt of public comments. The proposed 
rule can be found at 68 FR 45192.

B. What Were the Comments to EPA's Proposed Rule?

    EPA received one adverse comment letter during the comment 
period on the proposed rule. The comment letter was submitted by 
the Environmental Defense Institute, Keep Yellowstone Nuclear 
Free and David B. McCoy, collectively the commentors. EPA has 
taken into consideration the comments relating to the 
authorization of revisions to the Idaho hazardous waste 
management program in taking today's action. The issues raised by 
the commentors for purposes of this revision authorization and 
EPA's responses follow below.

    The commentors raised issues in the following areas: (1) The 
commentors asserted that EPA is obligated to delay issuing a 
final rule for authorization of these revisions to the Idaho 
hazardous waste management program until completion of an EPA 
Office of Inspector General (IG) investigation based on a 
petition submitted to the Office of Inspector General on August 
8, 2000; (2) the commentors asserted that Idaho's intent to move 
forward with the closure plan for two high level radioactive 
waste (HLW) and mixed waste tanks at the Idaho National 
Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) violates the 
recent U.S. District Court ruling in Natural Resources Defense 
Council, et al. v. Spencer Abraham (NRDC v. Abraham), Case No. 
01-CV-413 (July 3, 2003) and requires EPA intervention to ensure 
enforcement of the applicable law, in particular with respect to 
RCRA ``mixed waste;'' (3) the commentors asserted that the Tank 
Farm Facility (TFF) ``closure plan is in violation of RCRA since 
the DOE/ID has no INEEL RCRA Part B Permit;'' and (4) the 
commentors asserted that the Waste Calcine Facility (WCF) at the 
INEEL was improperly closed under RCRA because the facility 
closed with RCRA mixed waste and HLW in place. While these 
comments focused on a single facility in Idaho and the decisions 
made by DEQ regarding that facility, the commentors, both in the 
comment letter and in the numerous attachments thereto, implied 
that DEQ's actions at this facility had program-wide 
implications.

    In preparing its response to these comments, EPA reviewed, 
among other documents, the comments and their attachments, the 
available files on the particular permits and units, including 
the WCF and the TFF, and the recent ruling in NRDC v. Abraham, as 
well as the joint amicus brief submitted by the States of Idaho, 
Washington, Oregon and South Carolina, and the Memorandum of 
Points and Authorities filed on March 6, 2003 by the United 
States Department of Justice on behalf of the Department of 
Energy. The administrative record compiled for this final rule 
can be located by contacting the individual listed in the For 
Further Information Contact section of this rule.

    With respect to the first comment on the proposed rule, EPA 
does not agree that it is obligated to delay this action until 
completion of an IG investigation.\1\ The revisions to authorized 
hazardous waste programs are addressed in the regulations at 40 
CFR 271.21. Program revisions are approved or disapproved by the 
Administrator based on the requirements of 40 CFR part 271 and 
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as amended, (Act). 
See 40 CFR 271.21(b)(2). The Administrator has the discretion, 
among other things, to decline to approve a program revision as 
well as to withdraw approval of an authorized state program for 
cause. For purposes of today's action, EPA has determined, based 
on the administrative

[[Page 11323]]

record, that authorizing these revisions to Idaho's hazardous 
waste management program meets the requirements for authorization 
and continues to ensure that the authorized program in Idaho can 
meet the requirements for permitting, enforcement, and 
environmental protection at the INEEL facility and throughout the 
State of Idaho. The revisions in today's final rule include the 
rules in Idaho that add all delegable federal hazardous waste 
rules promulgated between July 1, 1998, and July 1, 2001 (with 
the exception of parts of the post closure rule), to the already 
existing hazardous waste program.

    \1\ Nor did the IG reach such a conclusion in the Final 
Evaluation Report ``Review of EPA's Response to Petition Seeking 
Withdrawal of Authorization for Idaho's Hazardous Waste 
Program,'' Report No. 2004-P-00006, February 5, 2004. The IG did 
conclude that ``Region 10 generally relied on appropriate 
regulatory requirements and standards in reaching its conclusion 
that evidence did not exist to commence proceedings to withdraw 
the State of Idaho's authority to run its RCRA Hazardous Waste 
program.''

    EPA does not agree with the second assertion made by the 
commentors. The commentors asserted that Idaho's intent to move 
forward with the closure plan for HLW tanks at the INEEL violated 
the recent U.S. District Court ruling in NRDC v. Abraham, Case 
No. 01-CV-413 (July 3, 2003), and requires EPA intervention to 
ensure enforcement of the applicable law, in particular with 
respect to RCRA ``mixed waste.'' The tanks which are of issue are 
tanks WM-182 and WM-183 located within the TFF at the INEEL. The 
tanks are subject to RCRA and the Department of Energy's (DOE) 
authority under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), as DOE maintains, or 
to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), as the District Court 
concluded. The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of DOE, has 
appealed the NRDC v. Abraham decision to the Ninth Circuit Court 
of Appeals.

    The commentors failed to distinguish the RCRA ``mixed waste'' 
authority and its application to the tanks from those radioactive 
solid waste issues which may be the subject of the NWPA or the 
AEA. The State of Idaho joined the States of Oregon, South 
Carolina and Washington in an amicus brief to the Court to 
discuss the complex issues involved in the case of NRDC v. 
Abraham. The joint brief argued from the States' perspective that 
the DOE had to apply the definition of HLW under the NWPA to 
determine whether radioactive solid waste met the definition of 
HLW. The ruling, which the United States appealed, held that DOE 
did not have discretion to dispose of HLW in other than the type 
of repository required by the NWPA and that a DOE order, which 
set a DOE policy to make decisions on how to classify 
radiological waste, conflicted with the NWPA and was invalid.

    The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ) 
explained to the commentors by letter dated July 29, 2003, that 
the ruling might have implications for how DOE addresses the HLW 
in the tanks:

    Judge Winmill's decision did not issue any form of injunctive 
relief but advised instead that DOE should not take actions 
inconsistent with the decision. It may be possible for DOE to 
proceed with its planned RCRA closure at Tanks WM-182 and WM-183 
without violating any part of Judge Winmill's order (e.g. if no 
HLW as defined by the NWPA is contained in the tanks). If on the 
other- hand, it is apparent that DOE will be unable to complete a 
portion of the RCRA closure plan due to the legal constraints of 
the NWPA, the Department will ask DOE to submit an amendment to 
the plan that provides for complete RCRA closure, while meeting 
other appropriate legal requirements. In the interim, nothing in 
Judge Winmill's decision prevents DOE from moving forward with 
the emptying and cleaning of other tanks and other closure 
activities.

It is clear that Idaho understands the difference between the 
state's authority over RCRA ``mixed waste,'' the hazardous waste 
component of which is addressed by the RCRA-authorized hazardous 
waste program in Idaho, and ``HLW,'' the radiological component 
of which may be subject to the AEA, as DOE maintains, or to the 
NWPA, as the District Court concluded. Idaho is carrying out its 
responsibilities under the authorized hazardous waste program for 
``mixed waste.'' EPA's direct intervention in this matter, which 
the commentors request, is not called for at this time.

    The commentors' third assertion was that the closure of two 
HLW tanks at INEEL is in violation of RCRA since the DOE/ID has 
no INEEL RCRA Part B Permit. EPA does not agree that the closure 
of the first two of eleven Tank Farm Facility (TFF) tanks without 
a permit violates RCRA. Interim status units are allowed to close 
pursuant to a closure plan approved in accordance with the 
Federal regulations at 40 CFR part 265 subpart G, incorporated by 
reference and authorized in the Idaho hazardous waste program at 
IDAPA 58.01.05.009.

    The commentors' final assertion was that the WCF at the INEEL 
facility improperly closed under RCRA because the facility closed 
with RCRA mixed waste and HLW in place rendering the facility a 
``permanent disposal site'' for high-level radioactive waste and 
mixed hazardous transuranic waste. The WCF was closed in 
accordance with a closure plan approved by IDEQ pursuant to 40 
CFR part 265 subpart G. The WCF closure plan called for capping 
the WCF with a concrete cap. A draft partial post-closure permit 
for the WCF was provided to the public for review and comment on 
May 23, 2003, and a final partial post-closure permit was issued 
for WCF and became effective on October 16, 2003. The concrete 
cap was a component of the post-closure permit. The commentors' 
allegation relates to the policy challenged in NRDC v. Abraham. 
The resolution of this issue does not reside in the RCRA statute 
or regulations and cannot be resolved in this authorization. 
Regardless of the ultimate resolution of the DOE policy 
challenged in NRDC v. Abraham, the comment on the WCF is 
insufficient as a basis upon which to decide the merits of 
authorizing this revision to the Idaho program. The revision and 
the program as a whole meet the requirements for authorization.

C. What Decisions Have We Made in This Rule?

    EPA has made a final determination that Idaho's revisions to 
the Idaho authorized hazardous waste program meet all of the 
statutory and regulatory requirements established by RCRA for 
authorization. Therefore, EPA is authorizing the revisions to the 
Idaho hazardous waste program and authorizing the State of Idaho 
to operate its hazardous waste program as described in the 
revision authorization application. Idaho's authorized program 
will be responsible for carrying out the aspects of the RCRA 
program described in its revised program application, subject to 
the limitations of RCRA, including the Hazardous and Solid Waste 
Amendments of 1984 (HSWA).

    New Federal requirements and prohibitions imposed by Federal 
regulations that EPA promulgates under the authority of HSWA are 
implemented by EPA and take effect in States with authorized 
programs before such programs are authorized for the 
requirements. Thus, EPA will implement those HSWA requirements 
and prohibitions in Idaho, including issuing permits or portions 
of permits, until the State is authorized to do so.

D. What Will Be the Effect of Today's Action?

    The effect of today's action is that a facility in Idaho 
subject to RCRA must comply with the authorized State program 
requirements and with any applicable Federally-issued 
requirement, such as, for example, the federal HSWA provisions 
for which the State is not authorized, and RCRA requirements that 
are not supplanted by authorized State-issued requirements, in 
order to comply with RCRA. Idaho has enforcement responsibilities 
under its State hazardous waste program for violations of its 
currently authorized program and will have enforcement 
responsibilities for the revisions which are the subject of this 
final rule. EPA continues to have independent [[Page 11324]] 
enforcement authority under RCRA sections 3007, 3008, 3013, and 
7003, which include, among others, authority to:

     Conduct inspections; require monitoring, tests, analyses or 
reports;

     Enforce RCRA requirements, including State program 
requirements that are authorized by EPA and any applicable 
federally-issued statutes and regulations; suspend, modify or 
revoke permits; and

     Take enforcement actions regardless of whether the State has 
taken its own actions.

    This final action approving these revisions will not impose 
additional requirements on the regulated community because the 
regulations for which Idaho's program is being authorized are 
already effective under State law.

E. What Rules Are We Authorizing With Today's Action?

    On June 6, 2003, Idaho submitted a complete program revision 
application, seeking authorization for all delegable Federal 
hazardous waste regulations codified as of July 1, 2001, as 
incorporated by reference in IDAPA 58.01.05.(002)-(016) and 
58.01.05.997, except specific portions of the post closure rule 
noted in the paragraphs below.\2\ EPA has determined that the 
revisions to Idaho's hazardous waste program satisfy all of the 
requirements necessary for final authorization, and EPA is 
authorizing the state's changes.

    \2\ Sections of the Federal hazardous waste program are not 
delegable to the states. These sections are 40 CFR part 262, 
subparts E, F, & H; 40 CFR 268.5; 40 CFR 268.42(b); 40 CFR 
268.44(a)-(g); and 40 CFR 268.6. Authority for implementing the 
provisions contained in these sections remains with EPA.

    In this final rule, Idaho is receiving partial authorization 
for the Post Closure Rule promulgated on October 22, 1998 (63 FR 
56710). Idaho is not receiving authorization for 40 CFR 
270.1(c)(7), Enforceable documents for post-closure care; 40 CFR 
265.121, Post- closure requirements for facilities that obtain 
enforceable documents in lieu of post-closure permits; 40 CFR 
265.110(c), and 40 CFR 265.118(c)(4). These provisions are 
described in the Post Closure rule preamble at 63 FR 56712 
section a., Post-closure care under alternatives to permits.

    Idaho is not receiving authorization for the clause ``* * * 
or in an enforceable document (as defined in 270.1(c)(7))'' in 
the following sections which are incorporated by reference into 
Idaho's hazardous waste program: 40 CFR 264.90(e), 264.90(f), 
264.110(c), 264.112(b)(8), 264.112(c)(2)(iv), 264.118(b)(4), 
264.118(d)(2)(iv), 264.140(d), 265.90(f), 265.110(d), 
265.112(b)(8), 265.118(c)(5), 265.140(d), 270.1(c) introduction, 
and 270.28.

F. Who Handles Permits After This Authorization Takes Effect?

    Idaho will issue permits for all the provisions for which it 
is authorized and will administer the permits it issues. All 
permits or portions of permits issued by EPA prior to final 
authorization of this revision will continue to be administered 
by EPA until the effective date of the issuance, re-issuance 
after modification, or denial of a State RCRA permit or until the 
permit otherwise expires or is revoked, and until EPA takes 
action on its permit or portion of permit. HSWA provisions for 
which the State is not authorized will continue in effect under 
the EPA-issued permit or portion of permit. EPA will continue to 
issue permits or portions of permits for HSWA requirements for 
which Idaho is not yet authorized.

G. What Is Codification and Is EPA Codifying Idaho's Hazardous 
Waste Program as Authorized in This Rule?

    Codification is the process of placing the State's statutes 
and regulations that comprise the State's authorized hazardous 
waste program into the Code of Federal Regulations. EPA does this 
by referencing the authorized State's authorized rules in 40 CFR 
part 272. EPA is reserving the amendment of 40 CFR part 272, 
subpart F for codification of Idaho's program at a later date.

H. How Does Today's Action Affect Indian Country (18 U.S.C. 
Section 1151) in Idaho?

    EPA's decision to authorize the Idaho hazardous waste program 
does not include any land that is, or becomes after the date of 
this authorization, ``Indian Country,'' as defined in 18 U.S.C. 
1151. This includes: (1) All lands within the exterior boundaries 
of Indian reservations within or abutting the State of Idaho; (2) 
any land held in trust by the U.S. for an Indian tribe; and (3) 
any other land, whether on or off an Indian reservation that 
qualifies as Indian country. Therefore, this action has no effect 
on Indian country. EPA retains jurisdiction over ``Indian 
Country'' as defined in 18 U.S.C. 1151.

I. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

1. Executive Order 12866

    Under Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4,1993), 
the Agency must determine whether the regulatory action is 
``significant'', and therefore subject to OMB review and the 
requirements of the Executive Order. The Order defines 
``significant regulatory action'' as one that is likely to result 
in a rule that may: (1) Have an annual effect on the economy of 
$100 million or more, or adversely affect in a material way, the 
economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, 
jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local 
or tribal governments or communities; (2) create a serious 
inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or 
planned by another agency; (3) materially alter the budgetary 
impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs, or 
the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or (4) raise 
novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the 
President's priorities, or the principles set forth in the 
Executive Order. It has been determined that this final rule is 
not a ``significant regulatory action'' under the terms of 
Executive Order 12866 and is therefore not subject to OMB review.

2. Paperwork Reduction Act

    The Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501, et seq., is 
intended to minimize the reporting and record-keeping burden on 
the regulated community, as well as to minimize the cost of 
Federal information collection and dissemination. In general, the 
Act requires that information requests and record-keeping 
requirements affecting ten or more non-Federal respondents be 
approved by OPM. Since this final rule does not establish or 
modify any information or record-keeping requirements for the 
regulated community, it is not subject to the provisions of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act.

3. Regulatory Flexibility

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), as amended by the Small 
Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA), 5 U.S.C. 
601 et seq., generally requires federal agencies to prepare a 
regulatory flexibility analysis of any rule subject to notice and 
comment rulemaking requirements under the Administrative 
Procedure Act or any other statute unless the agency certifies 
that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a 
substantial number of small entities. Small entities include 
small businesses, small organizations, and small governmental 
jurisdictions. For purposes of assessing the impacts of today's 
rule on small entities, small entity is defined as: (1) A small 
business, as codified in the Small Business Size Regulations at 
13 CFR

[[Page 11325]]

part 121; (2) a small governmental jurisdiction that is a 
government of a city, county, town, school district or special 
district with a population of less than 50,000; and (3) a small 
organization that is any not-for-profit enterprise which is 
independently owned and operated and is not dominant in its 
field. EPA has determined that this action will not have a 
significant impact on small entities because the final rule will 
only have the effect of authorizing pre-existing requirements 
under State law. After considering the economic impacts of 
today's proposed rule, I certify that this action will not have a 
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small 
entities.

4. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act

    Title II of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) of 1995 
(Pub. L. 104-4) establishes requirements for Federal agencies to 
assess the effects of their regulatory actions on State, local 
and tribal governments and the private sector. Under section 202 
of the UMRA, EPA generally must prepare a written statement, 
including a cost-benefit analysis, for proposed and final rules 
with ``Federal mandates'' that may result in expenditures to 
State, local and tribal governments, in the aggregate, or to the 
private sector, of $100 million or more in any year. Before 
promulgating an EPA rule for which a written statement is needed, 
Section 205 of the UMRA generally requires EPA to identify and 
consider a reasonable number of regulatory alternatives and adopt 
the least costly, most cost-effective or least burdensome 
alternative that achieves the objectives of the rule. The 
provisions of section 205 do not apply when they are inconsistent 
with applicable law. Moreover, section 205 allows EPA to adopt an 
alternative other than the least costly, most cost-effective or 
least burdensome alternative if the Administrator publishes with 
the final rule an explanation why the alternative was not 
adopted. Before EPA establishes any regulatory requirements that 
may significantly or uniquely affect small governments, including 
tribal governments, it must have developed under section 203 of 
the UMRA a small government agency plan. The plan must provide 
for notifying potentially affected small governments, enabling 
officials of affected small governments to have meaningful and 
timely input in the development of EPA regulatory proposals with 
significant Federal intergovernmental mandates, and informing, 
educating, and advising small governments on compliance with the 
regulatory requirements.

    This rule contains no Federal mandates (under the regulatory 
provisions of Title II of the UMRA) for State, local or tribal 
governments or the private sector. It imposes no new enforceable 
duty on any State, local or tribal governments or the private 
sector. Similarly, EPA has also determined that this rule 
contains no regulatory requirements that might significantly or 
uniquely affect small government entities. Thus, the requirements 
of section 203 of the UMRA do not apply to this rule.

5. Executive Order 13132: Federalism

    Executive Order 13132, entitled ``Federalism'' (64 FR 43255, 
August 10, 1999), requires EPA to develop an accountable process 
to ensure ``meaningful and timely input by State and local 
officials in the development of regulatory policies that have 
federalism implications.'' ``Policies that have federalism 
implications'' is defined in the Executive Order to include 
regulations that have ``substantial direct effects on the States, 
on the relationship between the national government and the 
States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities 
among various levels of government.''

    This rule does not have federalism implications. It will not 
have substantial direct effects on the States, on the 
relationship between the national government and the States, or 
on the distribution of power and responsibilities among various 
levels of government, as specified in Executive Order 13132. This 
rule addresses the authorization of pre- existing State rules. 
Thus, Executive Order 13132 does not apply to this rule.

6. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With 
Indian Tribal Governments

    Executive Order 13175, entitled ``Consultation and 
Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments'' (65 FR 67249, 
November 9, 2000), requires EPA to develop an accountable process 
to ensure ``meaningful and timely input by tribal officials in 
the development of regulatory policies that have tribal 
implications.'' This rule does not have tribal implications, as 
specified in Executive Order 13175. Thus, Executive Order 13175 
does not apply to this rule.

7. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From 
Environmental Health and Safety Risks

    Executive Order 13045 applies to any rule that: (1) is 
determined to be ``economically significant'' as defined under 
Executive Order 12866, and (2) concerns an environmental health 
or safety risk that EPA has reason to believe may have a 
disproportionate effect on children. If the regulatory action 
meets both criteria, the Agency must evaluate the environmental 
health or safety effects of the planned rule on children, and 
explain why the planned regulation is preferable to other 
potentially effective and reasonably feasible alternatives 
considered by the Agency.

    This rule is not subject to Executive Order 13045 because it 
is not economically significant as defined in Executive Order 
12866 and because the Agency does not have reason to believe the 
environmental health or safety risks addressed by this action 
present a disproportionate risk to children.

8. Executive Order 13211: Actions That Significantly Affect 
Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use

    This rule is not subject to Executive Order 13211, ``Actions 
Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, 
Distribution, or Use'' (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001) because it is 
not a ``significant regulatory action'' as defined under 
Executive Order 12866.

9. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act

    Section 12(d) of the National Technology Transfer and 
Advancement Act of 1995 (``NTTAA''), Public Law No. 104-113, 
12(d) (15 U.S.C. 272) directs EPA to use voluntary consensus 
standards in its regulatory activities unless to do so would be 
inconsistent with applicable law or otherwise impractical. 
Voluntary consensus standards are technical standards (e.g., 
materials specifications, test methods, sampling procedures, and 
business practices) that are developed or adopted by voluntary 
consensus bodies. The NTTAA directs EPA to provide Congress, 
through the OMB, explanations when the Agency decides not to use 
available and applicable voluntary consensus standards. This rule 
does not involve ``technical standards'' as defined by the NTTAA. 
Therefore, EPA is not considering the use of any voluntary 
consensus standards.

10. Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions To Address 
Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low Income 
Populations

    To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, and 
consistent with the principles set forth in the report on the 
National Performance Review, each Federal agency must make 
achieving environmental justice part of its mission by 
identifying and addressing, as [[Page 11326]] appropriate, 
disproportionately high and adverse human health and 
environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities 
on minority populations and low-income populations in the United 
States and its territories and possessions, the District of 
Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Commonwealth 
of the Mariana Islands. Because this rule addresses authorizing 
pre-existing State rules and there are no anticipated significant 
adverse human health or environmental effects, the rule is not 
subject to Executive Order 12898.

11. Congressional Review Act

    The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 et seq., as added 
by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 
1996, generally provides that before a rule may take effect, the 
agency promulgating the rule must submit a rule report, which 
includes a copy of the rule, to each House of the Congress and to 
the Comptroller General of the United States. EPA will submit a 
report containing this rule and other required information to the 
U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the 
Comptroller General of the United States prior to publication of 
the rule in the Federal Register. A major rule cannot take effect 
until 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. This 
action is not a ``major rule'' as defined by 5. U.S.C. 804(2). 
This rule will be effective on the date the rule is published in 
the Federal Register. List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 271

    Environmental protection, Administrative practice and 
procedure, Confidential business information, Hazardous waste, 
Hazardous waste transportation, Indian lands, Intergovernmental 
relations, Penalties, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

    Authority: This action is issued under the authority of 
sections 2002(a), 3006 and 7004(b) of the Solid Waste Disposal 
Act as amended 42 U.S.C. 6912(a), 6926, 6974(b).

    Dated: March 3, 2004. L. John Iani, Regional Administrator, 
Region 10. [FR Doc. 04-5368 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 
6560-50-P
 
*****************************************************************
 32 NYT: Toxic Dumping Ground Looks to Spread the Pain
 
Dan Cappellazzo for The New York Times Richard D'Angelo, a drum 
supervisor who has been with Chemical Waste Management for 19 
years, taking notes in the drum and solid-waste storage area of 
the site.   

 By ANTHONY DePALMA

Published: March 10, 2004

[M] ODEL CITY, N.Y. - The trucks roll in way before sunrise, when 
few lights are on and almost no one is awake. But people around 
here, even those who cannot hear the trucks grinding past with 
their toxic cargo, say they are always aware of where the convoy 
is going. 

The trucks come here, as they have for decades, to dump the stuff 
almost no one wants in this place that almost no one seems to 
care about. There are 20, 30, sometimes 40 loads a day, enough to 
build a mound 110 feet tall right in the middle of what 
old-timers remember was an orchard of sweet Niagara County 
peaches. 

Now, where those trees once quivered in breezes from Lake 
Ontario, the 710-acre Chemical Waste Management landfill towers 
above every building for miles. People here do not like to say so 
but they have the distinction of having the only hazardous waste 
landfill left in the Northeastern United States, a sprawling 
toxic stockyard of acids, chemicals and other hazards, including 
the desk Tom Brokaw was using when his office was contaminated 
with anthrax. 

For a long time, residents have hoped that state environmental 
officials would recognize how unfair it is to keep asking them to 
be the toxic dumping ground for the whole region. They have 
waited 16 years for the New York Department of Environmental 
Conservation to comply with a legislative order to spread the 
burden throughout the state. Finally, last November, a draft 
report was released, and they were disappointed again. 

The 50-page draft left locals feeling certain the state wants 
them to keep the dump and the toxic trucks for some time to come. 
Not only that, but there could be more - lots more - on the way. 

"I guess what they're telling us is 'You have it, nobody else 
wants it, so you're going to have to keep it,' " said Merton K. 
Wiepert, supervisor of the town of Porter, where Model City and 
part of the landfill are situated. "And that's not fair."

Environmental experts say that the state's inactivity was 
prompted not by cold feet but by the cold reality of handling 
hazardous wastes today. More than a decade of consolidation has 
left just a handful of commercial hazardous waste landfills in 
the country, which, they say, is not necessarily a bad thing. 
Those that remain are big, well financed and easier for 
regulators to watch. 

But after Love Canal - 10 miles south of here - focused attention 
on the danger of chemical dumping in the early 1980's, it has 
become nearly impossible to find a community willing to accept 
even a well-designed and environmentally sound landfill. 

That often leaves expanding existing landfills the easiest 
option. 

"New York is thrilled not to have to look for another site," said 
Michael B. Gerrard, an environmental lawyer in New York. "I'm not 
a bit surprised that the department hasn't come up with an 
alternative."

Federal officials say the Model City landfill is generally well 
run, and they consider the thick layer of clay beneath it to be 
well suited for containing toxic waste over the long haul. 

State officials also welcome the landfill, which accepts waste 
from more than 2,000 manufacturers through the Northeast and 
eases the way for New York to export some of its wastes to other 
states. Michael Fraser, spokesman for the Department of 
Environmental Conservation, defended the new draft plan, saying 
it was never intended to select alternative sites. 

"The task at D.E.C.," Mr. Fraser said, "was to prepare a siting 
plan to establish a framework to guide the state agencies," which 
would have to approve new landfills. He declined to make further 
comment.

For some of the 25,000 people who live in this flatland of family 
farms and gracious homes near the Niagara River, the plan is 
proof the state has written them off. 

"People here are so defeated," said Amy Witryol, a retired bank 
executive in nearby Lewiston. "No matter what we do, it seems the 
government is not going to try to help us."

The federal government itself bequeathed a legacy even more 
menacing. 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 33 Las Vegas SUN: Scientists detail Yucca water threat

More water will travel through mountain than thought, panel is
told

 By Launce Rake < [lrake@lasvegassun.com] >

 Reports issued Tuesday to an independent federal review board
could spell troubling news for backers of a nuclear waste dump
at Yucca Mountain.

 Scientists told the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
that the climate at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas, has been and will again be cooler and wetter than it is
today, providing more water to corrode metal canisters holding
the highly radioactive waste.

 Another scientist told the board's panel on the natural systems
at Yucca Mountain that old Energy Department models of the rate
that water seeps through the mountain's rock were inadequate,
meaning that much more water may penetrate the mountain than
once thought.

 The issues discussed Tuesday shed light on potentially
problematic issues for the Energy Department, which plans to
begin storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain by
2010. The Energy Department plans to submit a license
application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December
that would allow the agency to move forward with the plan to
dump the waste.

 The Energy Department is trying to answer hundreds of technical
questions raised by the NRC before submitting the license
application.

 The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is charged with
analyzing the Energy Department's scientific and technical
activities related to the Yucca Mountain program.

 The Energy Department's long-standing flow models said water
traveled a millimeter or less through the rock. At the review
board's panel discussion, Alan L. Flint, a research hydrologist
with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the flow could be 5
millimeters to 80 millimeters in some locations.

 Flint said the government's early models showed a high degree
of lateral movement of the water. That model would indicate that
much of the water flowed off Yucca Mountain.

 But Flint, referring to numerous studies, said evidence now
shows much of the water can move vertically through fractures or
fissures in the rock.

 Robert Loux, executive director for the Nevada Agency for
Nuclear Projects, said the research presented Tuesday backs
long-standing concerns among scientists and Nevada policymakers.

 "The state has always believed that the infiltration of ground
water is the big problem," Loux said. "The Energy Department
knows it has a big problem with ground water and how to manage
it, and that's the big problem with Yucca Mountain."

 Steve Frishman, technical policy coordinator for the Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the Energy Department "vastly
underestimated" the flow through the rock.

 "It's a model that we had been telling them for years is
wrong," he said. "The fracture flow is very important to the
system. ... We're looking at something that was a millimeter or
less a year to a minimum of 5 millimeters to as high as 80
millimeters a year.

 "If they had known in 1987 that the more correct hydrologic
flow included fractured flow, they probably would never have
continued with this site," Frishman said.

 The Energy Department now has the tough job of finding ways to
reduce the movement of water through Yucca Mountain and must
also address the possible flow of radioactive particles into the
ground water if and when the storage canisters leak, Frishman
said. Engineering a solution is difficult because the time frame
to deal with is in the tens or hundreds of thousands of years,
he said.

 "No matter how you tweak the model, you can't make the mountain
better than what it is," Frishman said. "As soon as you lose the
metal container, the mountain takes over."

 Another issue that the federal government has to handle is the
weather -- or more precisely, the long-term climate change that
some scientists now believe is inevitable.

 Saxon Sharpe, a climatologist with the Desert Research
Institute in Reno, looked at the climate 500,000 years in the
past and in the future, and found broad cycles corresponding to
the movement of the solar system.

 One implication of those cycles is that the earth generally is
moving from an intermediary stage to a colder, wetter glacial
stage, which means more water falling on and moving through
Yucca Mountain.

 "The last 400,000 years encompassed higher, sometimes much
higher, effective moisture relative to today," Sharpe said.
"Climate is cyclical."

 The cooler, wetter period that the earth is entering should
last more than 75,000 years, she said.

 Sharpe discounted global warming as a counteragent to the
long-term trend because fossil fuels, the suspected trigger for
global warming, will eventually run out. One model, she said,
shows the man-made effects on the climate dissipating after
10,000 years.

 "There is a lot of controversy in terms of whom you talk to
about long-term climate, but I would argue that the past is the
key to the future," Sharpe told the panel.

 Irene Navis, planning manager for Clark County's Nuclear Waste
Division, said the reports Tuesday reinforced suspicions that
earlier studies on the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a waste
site were "inadequate."

 "We are watching carefully the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
handling of the key technical issues to be sure that the
technical matters such as how fast water travels through the
repository are properly handled," she said. "One of the things
we need to be sure of is if we have addressed all the variables."

 Yucca Project spokesman Allen Benson said the department's
performance assessment models took into account water on small
areas of the waste containers.

 "That employs as conservative an approach as possible," he said.

 As for Sharpe's studies, Benson said the department has
incorporated her studies and even referenced her work in the
performance models.

 Overall he said thousands of tests have been conducted during
the 20 years of research on the program and most of the study
had been on hydrology and geology of the site. About 450 bore
holes have been drilled into the mountain for the tests.

 

*****************************************************************
 34 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca official to address failed protection of workers

Today: March 10, 2004 at 11:23:52 PST 

By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com 
[suzanne@lasvegassun.com] >

 WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain Project's top official, two
former workers and a cancer specialist and experts in worker
safety will address the Energy Department's failure to protect
employees from silica exposure at a Senate hearing in Las Vegas
next week.

 Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the top Democrat on the Senate
appropriations subcommittee that funds the Energy Department,
announced the witnesses today for Monday's hearing. He called
for the hearing after the department admitted last month that it
knew silica, which can cause the lung disease silicosis, existed
at Yucca Mountain, but officials did not require workers digging
a tunnel or mining rock there to wear protective gear to protect
against silica.

 Workers dug a tunnel at Yucca as part of the department's
research to study the site's ability to store nuclear waste. It
plans to open a federal repository there in 2010.

 Gene Griego, a former Yucca Mountain worker who suffers from
chronic lung problems and has documented 25 other workers who
have silicosis or symptoms, will testify at the hearing as well
as Jeff Dean, another former mine worker with silicosis who was
assured dust levels were safe, according to Reid's office.

 Margart Chu, the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management director, who oversees the entire project, will
also testify. She sent a letter to Reid last month saying the
department did not take safety precautions when workers were
digging.

 Also scheduled to provide testimony are Dr. Nick Vogelzang,
director of the Nevada Cancer Institute who has experience with
silicosis, Mike Taylor, an industrial hygienist who specializes
in providing clean and healthy industrial work environments and
was responsible for monitoring work conditions at Yucca and Jim
Weeks, a silicosis specialist and consultant for the United Mine
Workers.

 "I believe the information we know now is just the tip of the
iceberg and there is much more to come," Reid said. "It appears
that DOE knowingly exposed these workers to a health hazard, and
I want to hear Dr. Chu's explanation for how this could have
happened."

 The public hearing is set for 10 a.m. on March 15 in the
Commission Chambers at the Clark County Government Building, 500
S. Grand Central Parkway. 



*****************************************************************
 35 WOWT: Waste Site Considered
      
Lawsuit settlement option                                                                                                                                                               

Governor Mike Johanns is considering the merits of a low-level 
nuclear waste site in Nebraska to settle a lawsuit over the site 
that was never built.

North Platte State Senator Don Pederson says, "He's interested in 
a substitute site being located in Nebraska." 

Many settlement options have been discussed, said Johanns' 
spokeswoman Terri Teuber.

"It would be premature to talk about any specifics because there 
are none," she said.

Johanns said when the court ruled against the state in 2002 that 
he believed it would be possible to build a safe site in 
Nebraska.

"After all, we are generating waste in this state," he said at 
the time.

The option of locating a site in Nebraska could be used by the 
attorney general to settle a lawsuit threatening a $151-million 
judgment against the state, Pederson said.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln ruled in 2002 that 
former Governor Ben Nelson, now a U.S. senator, engaged in a 
politically motivated and orchestrated plot to keep the dump from 
being built in Nebraska.

The site was to hold waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, 
Louisiana and Oklahoma but it was never built and the legal 
battles began.
 											   				     	 						
Gray MidAmerica TV Interactive Media, LLC                                               
*****************************************************************
 36 RGJ: Your Turn: Safety is why we oppose Yucca Mountain
 
Reno Gazette-Journal] [online@rgj.com]        

SPECIAL TO THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
3/9/2004 10:19 pm 	

Nevada�s opposition to the Department of Energy�s plan putting 
the country�s highly radioactive nuclear waste at Nevada�s Yucca 
Mountain is summed up in one word: safety. After 20 years of 
DOE�s relentless march toward Yucca Mountain, disregarding 
science and laws, Nevada knows it can protect its citizens and 
its waters from radioactive contamination only by stopping the 
project. 

The technical issues are complicated and contentious, but one 
thing is beyond dispute. The federal agencies that are supposed 
to protect us � the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets 
an overall radiation dose limit for people; the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, which sets the construction and operation 
licensing rules; and, most important, DOE itself � have crafted 
safety standards and criteria specifically for Yucca Mountain 
that are significantly more lax than those that apply to any 
other possible nuclear waste repository in America. 

For example, for repositories other than Yucca Mountain, EPA�s 
regulation prescribes radiation dose limits at a radius of 5 
kilometers from the repository. For Yucca Mountain, EPA stretched 
the distance to 18 kilometers toward contaminated groundwater 
flow � thus permitting substantial dilution before applying the 
EPA dose limit. 

At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, waste repositories must 
have specific performance requirements for both geologic 
characteristics of the site and the metal waste containers. NRC 
has entirely dropped all specific geologic requirements in its 
regulation for Yucca Mountain, so DOE has the option to rely 
totally on the waste container. In reactor licensing, NRC does 
not permit relying on one barrier alone � it requires multiple 
barriers. But DOE badly needed this flexibility.

DOE had found that Yucca Mountain could not meet the department�s 
own geologic criteria. The site is far more permeable to water 
flow than DOE imagined. To �fix� this before Secretary Spencer 
Abraham�s formal selection of the site in 2002, DOE adopted a new 
Yucca Mountain-specific regulation, one with no geologic criteria 
whatsoever. DOE�s old regulation is still on the books, but it 
applies to any repository other than Yucca Mountain. The DOE plan 
is to circumvent geology and gain approval that DOE�s �miracle 
metal� waste packages would last thousands of years.

Here DOE may have outsmarted itself. Its story couldn�t get by 
the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board�s scientists, the 
majority of whom were appointed by President Bush. Last November 
the board unanimously concluded that �widespread corrosion of the 
waste packages is likely� early on, and that �once started, such 
corrosion is likely to propagate rapidly.� This conclusion sent 
DOE reeling. DOE knows that once the packages leak, their 
radioactive contents would drip down to the moving water table 
below. This acts as a conveyer belt to Amargosa Valley, supplying 
80 percent of Nevada�s dairy products. 

We have time to rethink the country�s overall approach to nuclear 
waste management. The urgent task is to get existing spent fuel 
bundles out of water pools adjacent to reactors and into �dry 
casks� � large, reinforced, air-cooled concrete vessels, 
NRC-approved for safety and security. 

This can be done with all but the hottest, most recently 
withdrawn spent fuel (which will always stay at the reactors). 
More than a dozen power reactor sites already use these casks. In 
its obsession with Yucca Mountain, DOE has disregarded 
accelerating this important effort.

I�ve emphasized the safety threat to Nevada. But the rest of the 
country is getting a raw deal, too. Under DOE�s incompetent 
management, Yucca Mountain has become a bloated, near-$100 
billion bonanza for favored contractors and energy bureaucrats. 
We need a fundamentally new approach.

Bob Loux is executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear 
Projects.       

� Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a  [http://www.gannett.com]
*****************************************************************
 37 RGJ: DRI staff say climate might not be stable at Yucca
 
Reno Gazette-Journal] [online@rgj.com]        

ASSOCIATED PRESS 3/10/2004 12:56 am      

LAS VEGAS � It was wet 10,000 years ago in the Nevada desert near 
where the federal government plans to bury the nation�s nuclear 
waste, and climate changes could make it wetter again in about 
600 years, scientists told a federal panel Tuesday.

But a geologist and climatologist said they could not predict how 
wet it could get at the arid Yucca Mountain site during the more 
than 10,000 years the nation�s nuclear waste is expected to 
remain radioactive there.

�There�s going to be a change in the amount of water delivered to 
Yucca Mountain,� said Eric McDonald, a Reno-based Desert Research 
Institute geologist and professor, after briefing a Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review panel studying the natural systems of the Yucca 
Mountain plan. �The question is what that means.�

Changes in precipitation, seepage and possible migration of 
radiation-contaminated water is key to the Energy Department plan 
to license, build and entomb the nation�s most highly radioactive 
waste.

The Bush administration and Congress picked the site 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas in 2002, and the Department of Energy 
plans by the end of this year to seek an operating license from 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

DOE planners insist the project will meet safety standards � 
including Environmental Protection Agency limits on the amount of 
radioactivity released from the site for the next 10,000 years.

�If we had any indication that it would not be a safe system, 
then we would not be going forward,� said J. Russell Dyer, the 
senior Yucca Mountain planner attending the science panel.

Project engineers expect that, over millennia, water seeping into 
mined tunnels will degrade metal alloy casks containing nuclear 
material 1,000 feet underground, he said.

But project planners also expect the mountain�s ancient volcanic 
rock will isolate the radioactivity and its geology will filter 
contaminated water before it reaches the water table.

The EPA has set a radiation exposure limit of 15 millirems per 
year � about the same as a single chest X-ray � measured 11 miles 
from the repository for up to 10,000 years.

Nevada is mounting legal challenges to the Energy Department 
plan, and state lawyers in January told the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia that the EPA was lax in setting the 
radiation standard.

Steve Frishman, a state technical analyst on the Yucca project, 
said data presented to the technical board this week could be 
crucial for the Energy Department if the court rules the EPA 
standard is deficient.

The five-member federal panel of scientists will report to the 
11-member Technical Review Board, which could release its 
findings within months to Congress and the Energy Department.

A similar panel last year faulted the DOE plan to use metal alloy 
casks to contain waste in a high-temperature repository.

Paul Craig, a physicist and engineering professor at the 
University of California-Davis, quit the board in January saying 
the dump was poorly designed and could leak radioactivity. 
Margaret Chu, the Energy Department�s Yucca project chief, 
rejected the board�s findings as inconsistent with continuing DOE 
studies.    

Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a  [http://www.gannett.com] 
*****************************************************************
 38 Sioux City Journal: Building nuclear waste dump may get Nebraska out of bind
 
[http://www.siouxcityjournal.com
           
Wednesday, March 10, 2004                 
	   	 
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Gov. Mike Johanns wants to settle the 
low-level nuclear waste lawsuit by offering to build a dump in 
Nebraska, a state senator said Tuesday.

"He's interested in a substitute site being located in Nebraska," 
said Sen. Don Pederson of North Platte following a meeting of the 
Legislature's budget-writing Appropriations Committee.

Many settlement options have been discussed, said Johanns' 
spokeswoman Terri Teuber.                                

"It would be premature to talk about any specifics because there 
are none," she said.

Johanns said when the court ruled against the state in 2002 that 
he believed it would be possible to build a safe site in 
Nebraska.

"After all, we are generating waste in this state," he said at 
the time.

The option of locating a site in Nebraska could be used by the 
attorney general to settle the lawsuit to avoid paying a $151 
million judgment against the state, Pederson said.

Attorney General Jon Bruning did not immediately return a message 
left at his home late Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln ruled in 2002 that 
former Gov. Ben Nelson, now a U.S. senator, engaged in a 
politically motivated and orchestrated plot to keep the dump from 
being built in Nebraska.

The dump was to hold waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, 
Louisiana and Oklahoma -- which joined in 1983 to form the 
Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.

Last month Nebraska lost its appeal of the lower court ruling. 
The state is currently appealing that decision to the full 8th 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bruning has said that the state is looking at settlement options.

Pederson said he does not know if discussion of an alternate site 
is part of the attorney general's settlement talks.

"I'm not saying he's doing it, but it could be done," Pederson 
said.

The other states in the Central Interstate compact voted in 1987 
to put the dump in Nebraska.

The proposed location of the site in Boyd County divided 
communities, destroyed friendships and created family feuds that 
last to this day.

Lincoln Sen. Chris Beutler said he couldn't imagine that Johanns 
would want to put the state through the site location process 
again.

Nebraska officials argued that they refused to license the dump 
because of concerns about possible pollution and a high-water 
table at the proposed site in Boyd County, near the South Dakota 
border.

Utilities that generate radioactive waste filed the lawsuit, 
accusing Nebraska officials of acting in bad faith by not 
licensing the facility in 1998. Other states in the waste compact 
later joined the lawsuit.                                

[http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/terms.html]   
*****************************************************************
 39 AU ABC: Minister rejects nuclear waste transport claims 

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
[http://abc.net.au/]

Wednesday, 10 March 2004 

A Federal Government Minister has rejected claims by three German 
farmers in Australia to talk to people along the route for low 
level nuclear waste be taken from Lucas Heights to a repository 
at Woomera in South Australia. 

They will be in Broken Hill on Friday and say there are common 
concerns in Germany and Australia about accidents and 
contamination of land. 

Science Minister Peter McGauran says they have no evidence to 
support their claims that the transportation of waste is 
dangerous and had an undesirable impact on their communities. 

He says there have been no accidents in Germany involving the 
transport of nuclear waste and the same is true in Australia. [ 
more news ] Last Updated: 1:18:00 PM (AEDT)                  

[http://www.abc.net.au
*****************************************************************
 40  Savannah River: An Effort on Atomic Waste Is Called a Failure
 
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 01:43:57 -0500

 


As one example of the problems cited by the
institute, based here, its report says the amount
of radioactive cesium that the Energy Department
now plans to leave behind in a single tank is five
times as large as the amount it planned two years
ago to leave in all 51 tanks combined.

  http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/politics/11DUMP.html

An Effort on Atomic Waste Is Called a Failure
By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: March 11, 2004


ASHINGTON, March 10 - A multibillion-dollar
program to deal with millions of gallons of
high-level radioactive waste at a nuclear weapons
plant in South Carolina is failing because
technicians cannot get the waste out of the tanks
where it has been stored for the last
half-century, an influential environmental group
says.

     Advertisement


The failure raises the likelihood that the wastes
will cause further contamination of the Savannah
River, which separates South Carolina from
Georgia, and underground water supplies, says a
report due to be issued Thursday by the group, the
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

The Energy Department, however, maintains that all
is going according to plan, despite the fact that
a factory built to package the wastes in glass has
produced nearly a third of the packages and that
they contain only about 3 percent of the
radioactivity at most.

The wastes are left over from production of
plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons. For
years the wastes were poured into giant
underground tanks and mixed with chemicals to
reduce the acidity and protect the tank walls. The
result is that the tanks now hold a mixture of
sludges, salts and liquids.

The Energy Department's intention was to
concentrate the radioactive components and mix
them with molten glass. The material would then be
shaped into logs that would be carefully sealed in
stainless steel containers so they could be buried
deep beneath the earth at Yucca Mountain, near Las
Vegas, and remain isolated for 10,000 years. The
remaining, less radioactive material was to be
left behind at the South Carolina plant after
being mixed with cement, into a mixture called
"saltcrete" that would keep it from spreading.

But the chemical process chosen to wash the most
radioactive material out of the tanks also created
benzene, an explosive gas, and had to be scrapped.
The Energy Department is still working on a
replacement process.

As one example of the problems cited by the
institute, based here, its report says the amount
of radioactive cesium that the Energy Department
now plans to leave behind in a single tank is five
times as large as the amount it planned two years
ago to leave in all 51 tanks combined.

A different environmental group, the Natural
Resources Defense Council, won a suit against the
Energy Department in a federal court in Idaho last
year over the department's plan to leave large
amounts of radioactive material not only in South
Carolina but in Idaho and Washington State as
well. The department has appealed.

The new report's principal author, Arjun
Makhijani, president of the institute, said the
Energy Department was turning the South Carolina
plant, the Savannah River Site, into a "de facto
high-level radioactive waste dump."

But Charles Hansen, assistant manager for waste
disposal at Savannah River, said in a telephone
interview that the glass factory there was dealing
with waste from the oldest, most leak-prone tanks
first and that these had less radioactivity in
them than the newer tanks.

Jessie Roberson, the assistant secretary of energy
for environmental management, said no tanks would
be considered closed until outside regulators had
concluded that the amount of radioactive material
remaining inside did not pose a threat. She said
plans were to remove 95 percent of the
radioactivity.

The Savannah River Site has already leaked
radioactive isotopes and chemical poisons into the
water, although contamination remains well below
the levels allowed by federal drinking water
standards.

*****************************************************************
 41 DOE: Office of Science Financial Assistance Program Notice DE-FG01-
 
                         FR Doc 04-5359 
[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] 
[Notices] [Page 11409-11411] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-59]                         
 
04ER04-17; Innovative Technologies for In Vivo Targeted 
Radiopharmaceutical Dose Delivery and Deposition AGENCY: 
Department of Energy (DOE).
 
ACTION: Notice inviting grant applications.
 
SUMMARY: The Office of Biological and Environmental Research 
(OBER) of the Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy 
(DOE), hereby announce its interest in receiving grant 
applications to support one specific research area within the 
Medical Applications Program: Innovative Technologies for In Vivo 
Targeted Radiopharmaceutical Dose Delivery and Deposition. The 
emphasis will be on the therapeutic use of ionizing radiation. 
The specific goals include: (1) development of radiochemical 
methodologies for labeling the targeting molecules with and for 
site-specific delivery of therapeutic dose levels of 
radioactivity, and (2) development of 
radiobiology-based-microdosimetry techniques to accurately 
measure and predict the potential therapeutic use, dose and dose 
rate delivery of ionizing radiation.
 
Applicants are encouraged to propose innovative methodologies and 
technologies to label biological ligands with therapeutic level 
radioactivity, ensure in vivo delivery of intact 
radioisotopically labeled molecules to specific tumor cell types, 
and develop novel microdosimetry paradigms. Applications for 
clinical trials using already developed compounds and techniques 
will not be considered.
 
 
DATES: Before preparing a formal application, potential 
applicants are encouraged to submit a brief preapplication. All 
preapplications referencing Program Notice DE-FG01-04ER04-17, 
should be received by DOE by 4:30 p.m., eastern time, April 12, 
2004. A response encouraging or discouraging the submission of a 
formal application will be communicated by electronic mail within 
approximately 2 weeks.
 
Formal applications submitted in response to this notice must be 
received by 4:30 p.m., eastern time, June 15, 2004, to be 
accepted for merit review and be considered for award in Fiscal 
Year 2004 or early 2005.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Preapplications referencing Program Notice 
DE-FG01-04ER04- 17, are to be sent, if possible, by e-mail or fax 
to Ms. Sharon Betson [sharon.betson@science.doe.gov] ; fax: 
301-903-0567). Preapplications will also be accepted if mailed to 
the following address: Ms.
 
Sharon Betson, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, 
SC-73, 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-1290.
 
Formal applications referencing Program Notice DE-FG01-04ER04-17, 
must be sent electronically by an authorized institutional 
business official through DOE's Industry Interactive Procurement 
System (IIPS) at: 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://e-center.doe.gov/] . IIPS provides 
for the posting of solicitations and receipt of applications in a 
paperless environment via the Internet. In order to submit 
applications through IIPS, your business official will need to 
register at the IIPS website.
 
IIPS offers the option of using multiple files, please limit 
submissions to one volume and one file if possible, with a 
maximum of no more than four PDF files. The Office of Science 
will include attachments as part of this notice that provide the 
appropriate forms in PDF fillable format that are to be submitted 
through IIPS. Color images should be submitted in IIPS as a 
separate file in PDF format and identified as such. These images 
should be kept to a minimum due to the limitations of reproducing 
them. They should be numbered and referred to in the body of the 
technical scientific grant application as Color image 1, Color 
image 2, etc. Questions regarding the operation of IIPS may be e- 
mailed to the IIPS Help Desk at:  [HelpDesk@pr.doe.gov] , or you 
may call the help desk at: (800) 683-0751. Further information on 
the use of IIPS by the Office of Science is available at: 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/gr 
ants.html] .
 
If you are unable to submit an application through IIPS, please 
contact the Grants and Contracts Division, Office of Science at: 
(301) 903-5212 or (301) 903-3604, in order to gain assistance for 
submission through IIPS or to receive special approval and 
instructions on how to submit printed applications.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Prem C. Srivastava, Ph.D., 
Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Medical Sciences 
Division, SC- 73, U.S. Department of Energy, 19901 Germantown 
Road, Germantown, MD 20874-1290, telephone: (301) 903-4071, fax: 
(301) 903-0567, e-mail:  [ prem.srivastava@science.doe.gov] . The 
full text of Program Notice DE- FG01-04ER04-17 is available via 
the Internet using the following Web site address: 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/gr 
ants.html] .
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The BER Medical Applications Program 
supports directed nuclear medicine technology research in the 
areas of radiopharmaceutical development, molecular nuclear 
medicine and advanced biomedical imaging to promote the use of 
radioisotopes for non-invasive diagnosis and therapy.
 
The early BER programs focused on understanding the physical, 
chemical and biologic consequences of radionuclide decay in the 
human body. Those studies led to much of the basic information 
that is still used today to describe the therapeutic effects of 
targeted radionuclides. DOE continued to fund projects and 
develop technologies for therapeutic effect and use of radiation 
that generated much of the current knowledge in radioisotope 
chemistry, identification of targeting agents, methods for 
chemical coupling of isotopes to targeting agents, scanning and 
imaging techniques, mathematical modeling and internal radiation 
dosimetry. This research has formed the basis for many current 
cancer targeted radionuclide therapy modalities in various stages 
of development.
 
Current themes have developed about radiation's main molecular 
targets, absorbed energy doses and resultant radiation damage.
 
This has led to the development of defined absorbed doses (Gy, 
Sv) that dominate our predictions about tumor destruction and 
normal tissue damage. Most radiobiology has been focused on 
radiation damage induced by high dose rate gamma and neutron 
exposures. Targeting with electrons, alpha and beta emitters 
employed at intermediate to low dose rate intensities requires a 
much better understanding of radiation damage to cells, and new 
paradigms need to be addressed to understand how best to use 
radioisotopes for selective destruction of solid tumors as 
compared to normal tissue. The recent emphasis on targeted 
radiopharmaceutical therapy agents against many forms of cancer 
has brought about an increase in the need for reliable and 
clinically meaningful, patient- specific internal dose 
calculations. The ability to link radiation dose to observed 
biological effect of radiation is complicated by a number of 
factors, including the heterogeneity of the activity distribution 
within normal organ tissue or within tumors, the range of the 
particles delivering the therapeutic dose, the total dose 
received, the dose rate at which the dose is delivered, (which 
depends on
 
[[Page 11410]] the radionuclide half-life), and the 
radiosensitivity of the tumor cells.
 
Basic research in molecular biology has provided new insights to 
the molecular basis of human disease and its potential molecular 
targets. DOE's current Molecular Nuclear Medicine Program 
encourages development of new technologies for molecular delivery 
of radioisotopes to disease target sites with a high degree of 
precision, recognition, and target selectivity. The availability 
of new technology for high resolution imaging of small animals 
should facilitate the evaluation of the biological effects of 
ionizing radiation.
 
This notice is to solicit grant applications for developing 
innovative technologies for in vivo targeted radiopharmaceutical 
dose delivery and improved radiotoxic dose deposition in the 
target as compared to normal tissue. A well integrated team 
effort by scientists from overlapping disciplines of 
radiochemistry, radiopharmaceutical chemistry, cellular and 
molecular radiobiology, radiation oncology, targeted radiation 
therapy, microdosimetry and modeling will be important. 
Methodological approaches and sensitive technologies that can be 
adapted to deliver, deposit, measure and predict therapeutic 
levels of radiation dose to the target sites are sought. It will 
be important for each application to address also the following 
objectives: 1. Radiolabeling of targeting molecules at 
therapeutic dose levels of radioactivity.
 
2. Considerations of radiochemical and in vivo biological 
viability (activity, stability, target specificity, and 
selectivity) of the molecule, against sensitivity to structural 
perturbations in the molecule as a result of radiolabeling.
 
3. Radiopharmaceutical delivery of intact radioisotopically 
labeled molecules to tumor cells in therapeutic dose amounts.
 
4. Innovative measurement techniques for evaluating biological 
effects of therapeutic radiation at low dose rates in vivo at the 
molecular, cellular and metabolic levels.
 
5. Modeling and microdosimetry methods for understanding the 
biological effects of radiation at the cellular and subcellular 
level for guiding predictions about optimum radiation dose, 
radiation dose rate, and resultant tumor destruction and normal 
tissue damage.
 
6. Measurement techniques for accurately assessing the success of 
tumor targeting in vivo.
 
7. The research plan will support BER Medical Applications long 
term performance goals in scientific advancement by providing 
innovative radiopharmaceutical methodologies or technologies for 
use in solid tumor cell destruction. Applicants should note that 
only a methodology or a technology offering promise for intended 
use, and not the experimental data resulting from the proposed 
research will be considered an accomplishment and will contribute 
to the measures of performance.
 
Program Funding It is anticipated that up to $2 million will be 
available for multiple awards starting Fiscal Year 2004 to Fiscal 
Year 2005, contingent upon the availability of appropriated funds 
and the scientific merit of the submitted applications. Previous 
awards have ranged from $200,000 to $400,000 per year (direct 
plus indirect costs) with terms lasting up to three years. Award 
sizes of approximately $400,000-$500,000 are anticipated for new, 
well integrated, multidisciplinary research grants. Applications 
may request project support up to three years, with out-year 
support contingent on the availability of appropriated funds, 
satisfactory progress in the research proposed, and programmatic 
needs.
 
Preapplications A brief preapplication should be submitted. The 
cover sheet of the preapplication should list the title of the 
project, the institution, and the principal investigator's name, 
address, telephone, fax, and e- mail address. The preapplication 
should not exceed two pages (in addition to the cover sheet). It 
should identify and describe the research objectives, the methods 
proposed for accomplishment of the research, and the key members 
of the scientific team responsible for this effort. 
Preapplications will be evaluated relative to the scope and 
objectives of this solicitation.
 
Merit Review Applications will be subjected to scientific merit 
review (peer review) and will be evaluated against the following 
evaluation criteria listed in descending order of importance as 
codified at 10 CFR 605.10(d): 1. Scientific and/or technical 
merit of the project; 2. Appropriateness of the proposed approach 
and methods; 3. Competency of the research team and adequacy of 
available resources; 4. Justification of the proposed budget. The 
evaluation will include program policy factors such as the 
relevance of the proposed research to the terms of the 
announcement and the agency's programmatic needs. It should be 
noted that external peer reviewers are selected on the basis of 
their scientific expertise and the absence of 
conflict-of-interest issues. Non-Federal reviewers may be used, 
and submission of an application constitutes agreement that this 
review process is acceptable to the investigator(s) and the 
submitting institution.
 
Submission Information Information about the development, 
submission of applications, eligibility, limitations, evaluation, 
the selection process, and other policies and procedures may be 
found in 10 CFR part 605, and in the Application Guide for the 
Office of Science Financial Assistance Program. Electronic access 
to the Guide and required forms is made available via the World 
Wide Web at: 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/gr 
ants.html] . DOE is under no obligation to pay for any costs 
associated with the preparation or submission of applications if 
an award is not made. In addition, in response to this notice, 
the project description must be 25 pages or less, exclusive of 
attachments, and the application must contain a table of 
contents, an abstract or project summary, letters of intent from 
collaborators (if any), and short curriculum vitae, consistent 
with National Institutes of Health guidelines. Block 15 of the SC 
grant face page (form DOE F4650.2) should list the PI's phone 
number, fax number, and e-mail address.
 
DOE policy requires that potential applicants adhere to 10 CFR 
part 745 ``Protection of Human Subjects'' or such later revision 
of those guidelines as may be published in the Federal Register. 
The Office of Science as part of its grant regulations requires 
at 10 CFR 605.11(b) that a recipient receiving a grant and 
performing research involving recombinant DNA molecules and/or 
organisms and viruses containing recombinant DNA molecules shall 
comply with NIH ``Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant 
DNA Molecules,'' which is available via the World Wide Web at: 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.niehs.nih.gov/odhsb/biosafe/nih 
/rdna-apr98.pdf] (59 FR 34496, July 5, 1994) or such later 
revision of those guidelines as may be published in the Federal 
Register.
 
The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number for this 
program is 81.049, and the solicitation control number is ERFAP 
10 CFR part 605.
 
 
[[Page 11411]] Issued in Washington, DC, March 3, 2004.
 
Martin Rubinstein, Acting Director, Grants and Contracts 
Division, Office of Science.
 
[FR Doc. 04-5359 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 42 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Hanford
 
                         FR Doc 04-5362 
[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] 
[Notices] [Page 11411] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-60]                         
 
AGENCY: Department of Energy ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental 
Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Hanford. The 
Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) 
requires that public notice of these meeting be announced in the 
Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Thursday, April 1, 2004, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday, April 2, 
2004, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: Red Lion Hotel Richland, Hanford House, 802 George 
Washington Way, Richland, WA, Phone: (509) 946-7611, Fax: (509) 
943- 8564.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Yvonne Sherman, Public 
Involvement Program Manager, Department of Energy Richland 
Operations Office, 825 Jadwin, MSIN A7-75, Richland, WA, 99352; 
Phone: (509) 376-6216; Fax: (509) 376-1563.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of 
the Board is to make recommendations to DOE and its regulators in 
the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and 
related activities.
 
Tentative Agenda Thursday, April 1, 2004 Risk Base End States K 
Basins Sludge Path Forward Tank C-106 Final Hanford Solid 
Waste-EIS Friday, April 2, 2004 Budget '05, '06 and out years 
Plutonium Finishing Plant update 300 Area update River Corridor 
Contract Committee Updates Public Participation: The meeting is 
open to the public.
 
Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or 
after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements 
pertaining to agenda items should contact Yvonne Sherman's office 
at the address or telephone number listed above. Requests must be 
received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provision 
will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. The 
Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to conduct the 
meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of 
business. Each individual wishing to make public comment will be 
provided equal time to present their comments.
 
Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public 
review and copying at the Freedom of Information Public Reading 
Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., 
Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday-Friday, 
except Federal holidays. Minutes will also be available by 
writing to Yvonne Sherman, Department of Energy Richland 
Operation Office, 825 Jadwin, MSIN A7-75, Richland, WA 99352, or 
by calling her at (509) 376-1563.
 
Issued at Washington, DC, on March 5, 2004.
 
Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-5362 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 43 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Group sees new role for Hanford - Museum
 	 	 	 	 	 
  [seattlepi.com]     

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 

 The idea of turning the B Reactor into an 'interpretive atomic
heritage site' is gaining attention in Congress 

By CHARLES POPE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a lot of things 
to a lot of people, including an engineering marvel that helped 
the United States win the Cold War and a monument of 
environmental neglect that left behind one of the most polluted 
places on Earth. 

Sen. Maria Cantwell and a growing legion of civic leaders from 
the Tri-Cities, lawmakers and preservationists are working to 
give Hanford yet another attribute -- museum. 

Implausible as it seems, the idea of turning Hanford's B Reactor 
into an "interpretive atomic heritage site" is gaining attention 
in Congress. Cantwell is asking for federal money to study the 
idea with the goal of eventually making the reactor a national 
historic site and turning it over to the National Park Service. 

The money also would be used to study weapons facilities in New 
Mexico and Tennessee that formed the backbone of the famed 
Manhattan Project. 

Senate aides and the National Park Service estimate it would cost 
$850,000 to survey the three sites. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., 
whose district includes Hanford, has sponsored a similar bill in 
the House. 

"I believe it is tremendously important for the citizens of our 
nation to learn about the important functions the various 
Manhattan Project sites served in defending our nation, from 
World War II through the Cold War -- including the Hanford 
Nuclear Reservation, in my home state of Washington," Cantwell 
told the Senate Energy Committee yesterday. 

Supporters say the nation is duty bound to preserve these 
one-of-a-kind artifacts. 

The B Reactor was the first plutonium-production reactor in the 
world. Plutonium created within this reactor fueled the first 
atomic explosion in the Alamogordo Desert July 16, 1945, and it 
formed the core of the bomb that exploded over Nagasaki on Aug. 
9, 1945. Built in less than a year, the B Reactor operated from 
1944 to 1968. Fuel for the reactor was loaded in September 1944 
under the personal charge of physicist Enrico Fermi. It has been 
designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. 

"It is critical that our nation reflect on both the Manhattan 
Project's unprecedented engineering achievements, such as B 
Reactor, as well as the human and environmental costs of such 
initiative, which changed the course of world history," Del 
Ballard, president of the B Reactor Museum Association, said in a 
statement submitted to the committee. 

The Park Service is ambivalent about adding more to its 
portfolio. 

"While we agree that it is wholly appropriate to study ways to 
preserve the sites where the nuclear age began, we are concerned 
about the feasibility for management of these sites by the 
National Park Service, as the sites involve extremely large 
facilities with tremendous potential costs of maintenance and 
possible issues about safety in some of the buildings," P. Daniel 
Smith, a senior Park Service official, told the committee. 

The Energy Department poses a problem as well. While the 
department supports the concept, department officials say a final 
decision must come by next year. If no answer is provided, the B 
Reactor will be swallowed up in the aggressive cleanup that, 
among other things, calls for encasing each of Hanford's nine 
reactors in a concrete cocoon to shield the public and the 
environment from its dangers. 

"The Department of Energy has several significant first-of-a-kind 
facilities from the Manhattan Project that are threatened to be 
demolished as early as 2005 unless there is an organization to 
serve as a long-term steward for the properties," a report by the 
Atomic Heritage Foundation warned. The foundation is leading the 
campaign to preserve the sites. 

The idea, sponsors say, is to create a string of Manhattan 
Project historic sites similar to those honoring Civil War 
battlefields, offering tours of reactors and other significant 
facilities as well as opportunities to interpret the history. In 
addition to the B Reactor, the study will look at the merits of 
adding the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the town of Los 
Alamos in New Mexico; the Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile 
Range in New Mexico where the first atomic bomb was detonated; 
and the Oak Ridge Laboratory in Tennessee. 

"The Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort in World War II to 
develop an atomic weapon ahead of the Nazis, was one of the most 
significant undertakings in American and world history," said 
Ballard, of the museum association. 

"Yet the history of this huge endeavor has been largely invisible 
to the American public because of the secrecy and security 
applied," he said. 

Cantwell, along with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and New Mexico's 
two senators, Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, argue that the 
history of the Manhattan Project is just as significant as other 
national historical sites that have been added to the Park 
Service's inventory in recent years. They include the World War 
II Memorial under construction on the National Mall in Washington 
and the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Park 
in California. 

President Bush also signed into law in 2002 the Bainbridge Island 
Japanese-American Memorial Study Act that requires the Department 
of Interior to determine whether Eagledale ferry dock on 
Bainbridge Island should be designated a national historic site. 
Eagledale served as a point of departure for members of the 
Japanese American community, on their way to internment camps 
during World War II. 

"I believe preservation of the B Reactor would help tell the 
story of the Manhattan Project and serve as a useful educational 
tool -- especially for those generations who didn't live through 
World War II or the Cold War.... It represents a unique part of 
Central Washington's history and our nation's history that should 
not be forgotten," Hastings told the committee. 

Exhibits focusing on the nation's nuclear legacy have touched off 
strong opinions. 

The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in 1995 was forced to 
withdraw an exhibit of the Boeing B-29 Bomber Enola Gay, which 
dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, after critics criticized 
the mention of the effects of the bombing. 

The exhibit came back only last year when the Smithsonian opened 
a new aviation museum in Virginia. The display was met by 
protesters who complained that the exhibit made no mention of the 
230,000 Japanese killed in Hiroshima and later in Nagasaki. P-I 
Washington correspondent Charles Pope can be reached at 
202-263-6461 or charliepope@seattlepi.com                 

  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
[newmedia@seattlepi.com] 
�1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
 44 Seattle Times: A dumping ground? Report raises concerns
               
Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
 			 			 			 			
By Shannon Dininny The Associated Press                                            

YAKIMA � State officials remain concerned the Hanford nuclear 
reservation will become a radioactive-waste dump, despite changes 
to an environmental-impact statement for handling solid waste at 
the Central Washington site. 

The state Department of Ecology expressed those concerns 
yesterday in a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy, which 
manages the site. 

The letter was the first response the state has made to the final 
environmental-impact statement released early last month. 

In the letter, Ecology Director Linda Hoffman acknowledged that 
the final environmental statement for solid waste addressed 
several concerns the state raised about earlier drafts, such as 
burying waste in lined trenches in the future. 

"Nonetheless, we have continuing concerns about Hanford becoming 
a national dumping ground for large volumes of radioactive and 
hazardous wastes, offsetting the progress on cleanup," Hoffman 
wrote in the letter. 

Energy Department spokeswoman Colleen Clark said federal 
officials continue to discuss issues of concern with the state. 
The environmental report, while complete, only offers preferred 
alternatives for treating and disposing of waste. Final decisions 
will not be made until a record of decision is released sometime 
after mid-March, she said. 

The equivalent of about 75,000 55-gallon barrels of radioactive 
waste are buried at Hanford. The material can take thousands of 
years or more to decay to safe levels. The state and federal 
governments recently agreed on a long-term cleanup schedule. 

In the meantime, the federal government started shipping 
radioactive and hazardous waste from other sites to Hanford for 
packaging before sending the materials to a New Mexico plant for 
disposal. Hanford now accepts and disposes of lower-level waste 
from other nuclear plants around the country. 

The state, Indian tribes and environmental groups have raised 
concerns that highly radioactive and hazardous waste will be 
shipped from other states and buried at Hanford. 
 
The state has a lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court, 
contending that the Energy Department failed to adequately study 
the effects of trucking in the waste and failed to involve the 
public in making that decision. 

A judge has temporarily banned out-of-state shipments of waste to 
Hanford until the case is resolved. 

In the letter, Hoffman said the Energy Department should limit 
waste that is shipped to Hanford to Cold War-era waste generated 
by weapons-production or nuclear-research activities before 1992. 

"Many Washington residents may be willing to accept some off-site 
wastes to help clean up this nation's remaining Cold War 
contamination, but most are not willing to keep Hanford open to 
off-site wastes from continuing nuclear-weapon and research 
operations," Hoffman wrote. 

An initiative likely to go before voters this fall would block 
the federal government from sending radioactive waste from other 
states to Hanford until all the existing waste at the site is 
cleaned up. 

The measure has been endorsed by environmental groups, the state 
Democratic Party and the League of Women Voters. 

The state also said the Energy Department should immediately end 
permanent disposal of waste in unlined trenches, rather than wait 
until 2006 as proposed in the environmental statement, and 
install a system to detect hazardous-waste leaks from unlined 
burial grounds. 

Further, labeling ground water as irreversibly contaminated might 
be used as a basis to allow further contamination or forgo 
cleanup, the letter said. 

For 40 years, the 586-square-mile reservation in south-central 
Washington made plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons, 
beginning with the top-secret Manhattan Project to build an 
atomic bomb. 

Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. 

Cleanup costs are expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion, 
with the work to be finished by 2035. 

Copyright � 2004 The Seattle Times Company More local news 
*****************************************************************
 45 Tri-City Herald: National park status sought for B Reactor 

This story was published Wednesday, March 10th, 2004 

By Les Blumenthal Herald Washington, D.C., bureau 

WASHINGTON -- The B Reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation, 
which produced plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, 
should be studied along with other Manhattan Project historic 
sites for inclusion in the National Park system, a Senate 
subcommittee was told Tuesday. 

"We are left with these irreplaceable relics of the Manhattan 
Project -- such as the B Reactor -- which are incredibly 
important in understanding the engineering achievements that 
propelled this country into the nuclear age, with all the 
complicated moral issues it poses for the possessors of such 
technology," said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. 

Cantwell introduced legislation that would authorize a study of 
whether the B Reactor, along with the Los Alamos Laboratory and 
the town of Los Alamos in New Mexico, the Trinity Test Site in 
New Mexico, the Oak Ridge Laboratory in Tennessee and other sites 
should be managed as a historical park by the National Park 
Service. 

A bill similar to Cantwell's has been introduced in the House by 
U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. 

"Preservation of the B Reactor would help tell the story of the 
Manhattan Project and serve as a useful educational tool -- 
especially to those generations who didn't live through World War 
II and the Cold War," Hastings said in a statement to the Senate 
Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

As part of the effort, a large swath of a remote part of Central 
Washington near the town of Hanford was cordoned off and tens of 
thousands of workers brought in to build the reactors and 
processing facilities that supplied plutonium for the nation's 
nuclear arsenal through the Cold War. 

Only months after Enrico Fermi first demonstrated a controlled 
nuclear reaction was possible, ground was broken on the B 
Reactor. Eleven months later, the reactor was producing plutonium 
for the war effort. 

The B Reactor was the world's first full-scale plutonium 
production reactor. It produced plutonium for the world's first 
nuclear explosion, called the Trinity test, and for the bomb 
dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. Within days, the Japanese 
surrendered, ending World War II. 

The B Reactor operated until 1968, when it was decommissioned. 

"The B Reactor was the first of an eventual nine reactors that 
remain on the banks of the Columbia River, a potent reminder of 
both the war effort and the costs that Americans bore in the name 
of freedom," Cantwell said in testifying before the National 
Parks Subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee. 

A Tri-City group, the B Reactor Museum Association, has been 
working to turn the reactor into a museum. Cantwell said its 
inclusion in the national park system would ensure its 
preservation. 

While the National Park Service does not oppose the study, P. 
Daniel Smith, special assistant to the agency's director, said in 
written testimony there were concerns about the Manhattan Project 
sites becoming national historic parks. 

"While we agree that it is wholly appropriate to study ways to 
preserve the sites where the nuclear age began, we are concerned 
about the feasibility for management of these sites by the 
National Park Service, as the sites involve extremely large 
facilities with tremendous potential costs of maintenance and 
possible issues about safety in some of the buildings," Smith 
said. 

The Bush administration wants to devote increased resources to 
reducing the backlog of maintenance at existing park service 
sites, and the agency was making an effort to "curtail taking on 
new responsibilities," Smith said. 

"For this reason, we believe the study should focus on evaluating 
alternatives for preservation and interpretation, including what, 
if any, role might best be played by the National Park Service or 
other partners." 

Del Ballard, president of the B Reactor Museum Association, said 
in written testimony that the Department of Energy has indicated 
it did not have the funds to pay for turning the reactor into a 
museum. 

"Their position is that if a long-term operating partner is not 
identified the facility will not be preserved," Ballard said. 

The Energy Department, which is in charge of the reservation, is 
spending billions of dollars cleaning up the sometimes dangerous 
legacy of more than 50 years of nuclear weapons production. 

� 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 46 Tri-City Herald: State Ecology director rebukes DOE 

This story was published Wednesday, March 10th, 2004 

By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

The Washington Department of Ecology is concerned Hanford could 
become a national dumping ground for large quantities of 
radioactive and hazardous waste, the agency's director said 
Tuesday. 

The state agency still is reviewing a recent environmental study 
on burial of nuclear waste at Hanford. But its director, Linda 
Hoffman, was concerned enough to send a letter Tuesday to DOE 
Assistant Secretary Jessie Roberson asking for a discussion on 
handling of wastes at Hanford. 

At issue is the federal agency's proposal to send radioactive and 
hazardous waste to Hanford while extensive work remains undone to 
clean up contamination from World War II and Cold War production 
of plutonium at Hanford. 

"The public legitimately questions why USDOE should be allowed to 
aggravate the problem by adding more waste to a problem 
facility," Hoffman wrote. 

The state also wants to limit shipments into Hanford to waste 
generated during the Cold War. Hoffman's agency believes 
Washington residents do not want to accept waste produced since 
1991 during nuclear weapons production or research. 

The state's stand reflects portions of Initiative 297, which 
likely will go to voters. It seeks to prevent any waste from 
being sent to Hanford by blocking construction of new trenches 
and treatment facilities until Hanford's own wastes are treated 
and cleaned up. 

"The great majority of (Hanford's) highly and long-lived 
radioactive wastes are slated for disposal in specialized 
facilities outside of Washington," Hoffman wrote. 

Hanford's waste totals 405 million curies of radioactivity. In 
the worst-case scenario, 8.3 million curies could be brought to 
the site, according to the environmental report. But plans call 
for sending waste with 374 million curies elsewhere for burial. 

The estimated physical amount of imported waste destined for 
burial at Hanford varies from 27,000 cubic yards to 468,000 cubic 
yards of low-level waste, some of it mixed with hazardous waste, 
such as heavy metals. 

The environmental report also raised state concerns that DOE may 
skimp on efforts to clean up plumes of radioactive and hazardous 
waste beneath Hanford, according to Hoffman's letter. The report 
refers to "irreversible and irretrievable commitment of ground 
water," which the state interpreted to mean DOE may forgo efforts 
to remove radioactive contamination from ground water. 

Hoffman asked for a meeting to discuss ways to minimize ground 
water degradation now rather than waiting for analysis to show 
contamination will exceed allowable standards where waste would 
be buried. The state wants a system installed to detect leaks and 
migration of hazardous wastes from unlined burial grounds. 

The new environmental study was an improvement on earlier drafts, 
Hoffman wrote. The preferred plan listed in the report would end 
disposal of wastes in unlined trenches when new lined trenches 
are ready by the end of 2006. 

"Nonetheless, we have continuing concerns about Hanford becoming 
a national dumping ground for large volumes of radioactive and 
hazardous wastes, offsetting the progress on cleanup," Hoffman 
wrote. 

The state will address some deficiencies in the report by 
imposing additional conditions in state permits DOE needs for 
disposal and waste management facilities, she said. 

Other topics she would like to discuss with DOE include 
continuing to speed the retrieval of buried barrels of 
contaminated debris and their treatment and shipment to New 
Mexico. 

She also mentioned the need to "redouble efforts to protect and 
enhance worker safety in the face of accelerated waste movement, 
treatment and disposal." 

The environmental report on burying solid waste at Hanford is 
complete, but decisions based on it still are being made, said 
DOE spokeswoman Colleen Clark in Richland. The soonest any 
decisions could be issued is mid-March. 

"DOE continues to talk with the state about its concerns," Clark 
said. 

� 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 47 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada to get team for WMD response
 
By Jen Lawson 
<lawson@lasvegassun.com [lawson@lasvegassun.com] > and Suzanne
Struglinski 
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com [suzanne@lasvegassun.com] >

Nevada will get a federal team to help first responders react to 
a terrorist attacked, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

 "This is an absolutely fantastic asset for our citizens and for 
those that visit us ... Nevada desperately needed this," said 
Jerry Bussell, homeland security adviser to Gov. Kenny Guinn.

 The 22-member team, made up of Army and Air National Guard 
members, will bring in $40 million worth of training and 
equipment at no cost to the state, Bussell said.

 Bussell said he will recommend to Guinn that the team be based 
in Las Vegas.

 Nevada is one of 12 states that will each receive a new Weapons 
of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Team as part of requirement in 
a defense bill passed last year. Nevada's congressional 
delegation wrote to the department in October stressing the need 
for such a team in Las Vegas due to high tourism levels and the 
city's appeal as a terrorist target.

 The teams will help local first responders to determine the 
nature of an attack, and will provide medical and technical 
advice as well as help guide back-up teams of state and federal 
responders. Each team is under the control of the governor of the 
state in which it is based and is on call around the clock.

 The teams are able to set up mobile labs, decontamination 
centers, command centers and satellite communications systems in 
under two hours, officials said.

 In Nevada's case that will mean instead of waiting more than 24 
hours for a state lab to identify a foreign material, the state 
will be able to rely on the new unit to analyze it at the scene.

 Nationally there already were 32 of these teams in 12 states.

 Existing teams responded in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, and 
have responded to suspected anthrax discoveries and suspected 
ricin discoveries. Teams have also worked to secure high-profile 
events such as the Olympics and the Super Bowl.

 Nevada's local emergency responders have been training with the 
National Guard's 91st Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support 
Team based in Arizona.

 It will take 18 to 24 months for Nevada authorities to form the 
team and train its members. Until then, Nevada may still call 
upon Arizona or the two other closest states that have a team, 
California or Idaho, if an attack occurs.

 The Defense Department made the Nevada designation in response 
to a May 2003 letter signed by all five members of Nevada's 
congressional delegation.

 Members of the delegation noted that Las Vegas is a potential 
terrorist target and has a constant influx of visitors. The 
delegation asked for the team because the possibility that Nevada 
could be attacked has put the state's emergency workers "under 
enormous strain," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.

*****************************************************************
 48 Paducah Sun: DOE workers tests adds beryllium -
 
 Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
 
Tuesday, March 9, 2004
 
The Department of Energy plans to include 3,000 screenings for 
the element, and they must be done by the end of 2005.14 
 
The Department of Energy has agreed to look for beryllium of 
current and former Paducah uranium enrichment workers by the end 
of 2005. 

Roughly 7,000 people have worked at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion 
Plant since it opened 52 years ago. Of those, about 2,000 have 
died and 2,000 have been screened for work-related diseases. That 
leaves 3,000 who need screening, said Sylvia Kieding, 
Denver-based medical surveillance program director for Paper, 
Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International. 

"We've got a year and a half and 3,000 people that we'd like to 
reach," she said Monday at an advisory committee meeting in 
Paducah. Kieding said letters will be sent to as many of the 
3,000 as can be identified. Testing will be expanded this spring 
to thousands of former plant construction workers. 

The union and Queens College of New York run the program for the 
Energy Department, which funds the tests. Starting in 2006, DOE 
will limit testing to people newly retired or who have new 
symptoms. Local union leaders want to continue the current 
program, partly because there is still much uncertainty about 
worker exposure to beryllium, a strong, lightweight but highly 
toxic metal. They say at least 380 people at Paducah and its 
closed companion plant at Piketon, Ohio, need beryllium testing. 

A separate program run by the Department of Labor pays $150,000 
each to workers with chronic beryllium disease, which can cause 
serious or even fatal lung problems. Out of 212 cases filed, the 
Labor Department has paid $5.85 million to 39 diseased workers. 
Five more cases have been approved for payment, and 50 have been 
denied, said the program's Brady White. 

"Whether it's legislatively or through the national program, we 
must seek additional funding to continue beryllium testing," said 
Jim Key, environmental, safety and health representative for PACE 
Local 5-550 in Paducah. 

Until now, DOE beryllium screening has been limited to people 
with work history of possible exposure. The Energy Department has 
agreed to make the test universal because some of those exposed 
didn't work in areas of known beryllium use, said Mark Griffon, 
health physicist for the DOE testing program. 

Beryllium screening is done through a blood test that can have 
false positive (abnormal results that really are normal) or false 
negative (normal results that are really abnormal). Key said 
research by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and 
Health shows that false negatives far outweigh false positives. 

Beryllium wasn�t known to be at the Paducah plant until 1999, 
when Griffon found an old DOE memo mentioning its use during the 
Cold War. The next year, DOE admitted that beryllium was used in 
secretly making and dismantling nuclear weapons parts. 

Questions about the disease increased in January, when 
unexpectedly high levels of beryllium dust were found in the 
machine shop at Piketon. The dust was near equipment used to 
machine the ends of aluminum compressor blades that push uranium 
gas through miles of piping. Before that discovery, the Energy 
Department had said beryllium was never used at Piketon. 

Compressor blades at Paducah haven�t been tested, but DOE 
officials agree that a more thorough beryllium check is needed. 
Key said the union wants to test the gas stream because the same 
company supplied blades at Piketon and Paducah. DOE has never 
responded to two Freedom of Information requests � one filed four 
years ago and another more than a year ago � about beryllium at 
the plant, he said. 

Former Paducah worker Harold Hargan of Mounds, Ill., said that 
more than 30 years ago, he and others dissolved the blades and 
fed the metallic solution into the stream to lessen acidity 
during uranium recovery work. The practice was to save the cost 
of buying commercial aluminum nitrate, he said. 

Hargan, a key witness in an ongoing whistleblowers' lawsuit 
against former plant contractors, said medical tests show he was 
exposed to beryllium. "According to my records, it was absolutely 
in the plant (enrichment) process." 

Nearly 700 samples were taken last May and June in 11 areas of 
the Paducah plant with known or suspected beryllium history. 
Notable areas were the machine shop, cleaning building and a 
closed smelter. Aside from testing the gas stream, the union 
wants some of those areas retested, Key said, adding, "Any and 
all aluminum products are suspect." 



Contacts: 

Department of Labor Paducah claims office, 534-0599. 

Department of Energy health screenings, 442-3668. 

*****************************************************************
 49 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 11:31:40 -0800 (PST)

 
POWERS tap into China's nuclear energy plans
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
China plans to significantly expand its nuclear power in the coming decades,
and the Bush administration has been courting the country's top officials
on ...
<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/10/1078594427073.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/10/1078594427073.html>

MARSHALL Islanders demand more US compensation for nuclear tests
Xinhua - China
... March 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The Marshall Islands has stepped up accusations
against the United States of providing woefully inadequate compensation
for the nuclear ...
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/10/content_1358168.htm>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/10/content_1358168.htm>

IRAN clashes with US over nuclear policy
Guardian - UK
Iran reignited its war of words with the US today, accusing Washington
of trying to "bully" the UN's nuclear watchdog into taking a tougher stance
on Tehran's ...
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1166396,00.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1166396,00.html>

HOW to thwart a nuclear black market
Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA
... February brought news that we should all pay attention to, especially
those of us who live near the two most important nuclear-target cities
in America: New ...
<http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpbay103701753mar10,0,6014295.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpbay103701753mar10,0,6014295.story%3Fcoll%3Dny-viewpoints-headlines>

IRAN 'to revive nuclear activity'
BBC News - London,England,UK
Iran has said it intends to resume developing nuclear material once its
problems with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog (IAEA) are resolved.
...
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3497518.stm>

NUCLEAR reactor put into operation
China Daily - Beijing,China
The No 2 reactor of the second phase project at the Qinshan Nuclear Power
Plant -- independently designed and built by China -- joined the nation's
electrical ...
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-03/10/content_313620.htm>

AUST nuclear export to Iran 'misused': Downer
ABC Online - Australia
... medical research. He says the breach occurred despite strong messages
to Iran about the pursuit of sensitive nuclear technologies. "We ...
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1063212.htm>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1063212.htm>

MISSILE test dispels nuclear rollback fears
Gulf News - Dubai,United Arab Emirates
Pakistan yesterday successfully test-fired its longest-range Shaheen-II
ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and hitting targets
up to 2,000 ...
<http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=113326>
See all stories on this topic:
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SWEDEN backs talks on nuclear solution
Korea Herald - Seoul,South Korea
The Swedish leader supported yesterday a diplomatic solution to the ongoing
standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions as well as Seoul's engagement
policy ...
<http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/03/11/200403110004.asp>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=google&num=30&newsclusterurl=http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/03/11/200403110004.asp>

MINISTER rejects nuclear waste transport claims
ABC Online - Australia
A Federal Government Minister has rejected claims by three German farmers
in Australia to talk to people along the route for low level nuclear waste
be taken ...
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1062871.htm>

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 50 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 13:18:27 -0800 (PST)

 
ANOTHER nuclear power generating unit in E. China begins ... 
Xinhua - China
2 generating unit of the second-phase project of Qinshan Nuclear Power
Plant, located in Haiyan County in east China's Zhejiang Province, began
trial operation ...
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/11/content_1358328.htm>
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IRAN tells UN nuclear watchdog to resist US bullying
New Zealand Herald - Auckland,New Zealand
VIENNA - Iran has accused the United States of bullying UN members into
criticising its nuclear programme and says this could "complicate" future
cooperation ...
<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3554088&thesection=news&thesubsection=world>
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 51 Las Vegas SUN: Federal official says West water woes likely to continue

Today: March 10, 2004 at 7:35:40 PST 

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Although the West's drought is easing slightly,
communities will continue to face water challenges because of
booming populations and endangered species protection, an
Interior Department official said. 

Testifying before a Senate committee examining water issues in
the West, Bennett Raley, assistant secretary for water and
science, said Tuesday that Nevada and other states will be
called upon to address water supply issues even after the
current five-year drought ends. 

"The new paradigm of this century is water supply issues will no
longer be driven by droughts," Raley said at the hearing in
Washington, D.C. "We will have conflict in normal years, and
that conflict will affect economies of national importance. The
demands for water in many basins of the West exceed the
available supply even in normal years." 

Like much of the West, Nevada is entering its fifth year of
drought. 

The Southern Nevada Water Authority envisions tapping its
surface water rights from the Virgin and Muddy rivers, which
could include building a $1 billion-plus pipeline or allowing
the authority to draw the equivalent water from Lake Mead. The
concept was among items discussed at a meeting last week of the
Colorado River basin states. 

Interior Department attorneys are reviewing whether such an
arrangement would be legal under a 1922 compact governing the
Colorado River. 

Since the drought began in 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 75
feet, or about 40 percent of its storage capacity, the lowest
since 1968, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric
Administration. 

The drought has not hit the Colorado River basin states as hard
as other areas, largely because of the river's two reservoirs at
Lake Mead and Lake Powell in Utah. But Nevada is beginning to
feel the pinch of the drought. 

This year, the Department of Interior denied southern Nevada's
request to draw 335,312 acre feet from Lake Mead. Instead, it
granted the state 317,700 acre feet, said SNWA spokesman Vince
Alberta. An acre foot of water is enough to supply a family of
four for a year. 

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., whose home state farmers depend on
the Rio Grande River, pointed to climate studies that predict 70
percent less snowfall in 50 years. By some estimates, snowpacks
contribute up to 80 percent of Western water supplies. 

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 52 NRC: Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes: Meeting 
 
                         FR Doc 04-5338 
[Federal Register: March 10, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 47)] 
[Notices] [Page 11465-11466] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10mr04-106]                         
 
Notice AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice 
of meeting.
 
SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will convene a 
teleconference meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Medical 
Uses of Isotopes (ACMUI) on March 22, 2004. The topics of 
discussion will be training and experience (T) issues associated 
with 10 CFR 35.300, other T issues as necessary, and the dose 
reconstruction associated with the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital 
case.
 
DATES: The teleconference meeting will be held on Monday, March 
22, 2004, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Public 
Participation: Any member of the public who wishes to participate 
in the teleconference discussion may contact Angela R. Williamson 
using the contact information below.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Angela R. Williamson, telephone 
(301) 415-5030; e-mail  [arw@nrc.gov]  of the Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
 
Conduct of the Meeting Manuel D. Cerqueira, M.D., will chair the 
meeting. Dr. Cerqueira will conduct the meeting in a manner that 
will facilitate the orderly conduct of business. The following 
procedures apply to public participation in the meeting: 1. 
Persons who wish to provide a written statement should submit a 
reproducible copy to Angela Williamson, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Two White Flint North, Mail Stop T8F5, Washington, DC 
20555-0001. Hard copy submittals must be postmarked by March 17, 
2004. Electronic submittals must be submitted by March 17, 2004. 
Any submittal must pertain to the topic on the agenda for the 
meeting.
 
2. Questions from members of the public will be permitted during 
the meeting, at the discretion of the Chairman.
 
3. The transcript and written comments will be available for 
inspection on NRC's Web site ( 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] ) and at the NRC 
Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 
20852-2738, telephone (800) 397-4209, on or about April 1, 2004. 
Minutes of the meeting will be available on or about May 3, 2004.
 
This meeting will be held in accordance with the Atomic Energy 
Act of 1954, as amended (primarily Section 161a); the Federal 
Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App); and the Commission's 
regulations in Title 10, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, part 
7.
 
[[Page 11466]] Dated: March 4, 2004.
 
Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-5338 Filed 3-9-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
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 53 Las Vegas RJ: Reid airs opinions on Democratic ticket 
 
Wednesday, March 10, 2004

By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- After meeting Tuesday with the man chosen to lead
the selection process for a Democratic vice presidential
candidate, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said he could support Sen.
John Edwards, D-N.C., to be the running mate of likely
presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
 
 But Reid added there are other candidates he could support. He
declined to say who they are.
 
 Reid, who is the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, met
privately with Jim Johnson, the vice president of a merchant
banking firm whom Kerry has tapped to direct the search for a
running mate.
 
 "I gave him my sincere, honest opinion of a number of people he
brought up and I brought up a suggestion or two I had heard of,"
Reid said.
 
 Though he declined to disclose other names, Reid acknowledged
that Edwards was one of the candidates mentioned. 
"He would be acceptable to me," Reid said.
 
 Edwards was considered Kerry's chief rival before dropping out
of the presidential race last week. Edwards finished third in
the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Feb. 14 behind Kerry and
former Gov. Howard Dean, D-Vt.
 
 Reid declined to endorse a candidate before the Nevada
caucuses, noting he had to work with both Edwards and Kerry in
the Senate.
 
 But on Tuesday, Reid said he supports Kerry as the Democratic
standard bearer.
 
 "He's the nominee," Reid said. "I've been in touch with him the
last week or so. We've had one personal meeting."
 
 Reid, who is seeking re-election to a fourth term this year,
said Kerry's name on the ballot should help Democratic
candidates in Nevada.
 
 "He's somebody that's been with us all the way on nuclear
waste, every step of the way," said Reid, referring to the
state's opposition to a proposed nuclear waste repository at
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
    
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