***************************************************************** 03/16/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.65 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [EMMAS] Whistleblower: US tried to plant WMDs, failed: used 2 KRT Wire: Iraqi exile group fed news media false information 3 AP Wire: A Vindicated Hans Blix Returns to U.S. 4 US: SF Chronicle: BERKELEY / Taking U.S. press to task over Iraq war 5 US: Brown and White: Weapons inspector Hans Blix to speak Tuesday - 6 Las Vegas SUN: Iran Allowing Unfettered Nuke Inspections 7 Mike Whitney: the Case for a Nuclear Iran 8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: FM Ban Draws Clear Line Between Impeachme 9 Xinhuanet: IAEA chief hopes inspectors could return to DPRK 10 US: BEllona: USA afraid of nuclear responsibility 11 US: Ledger: FIU Environmental Funds Withheld 12 US: Daily Press: Senator holds to WMD link 13 US: [DU-WATCH] WMD: US Provided Weapons-Grade Uranium To 43 14 IPS-English ENVIRONMENT: Nuclear Threat Worries Greens 15 NYT: Pakistani’s Nuclear Earnings - $100 Million 16 UPI: U.S. display not to embarrass Libya - 17 BBC: US displays 'Libyan nuclear secrets' 18 Las Vegas SUN: Powell Seeks Answers on Pakistan Nukes 19 Miami Herald: Libya paid millions to scientist, U.S. says 20 AxisofLogic: The Bush-Saudi-Pakistan Nuke Connection 21 CNN.com: Japan plans major defense review - 22 ITAR-TASS: Russia offers best world nuclear technologies to China 23 US: NRO: Stopping China and Pakistan in their nuclear tracks. 24 AFP: Libya upset over US calling disarmament a "victory" for Washing NUCLEAR REACTORS 25 US: [NukeNet] letter to editor, Glou County Times 26 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Power boost meets with mixed reaction from 27 US: AJC: New power plants not the best option 28 US: Las Vegas SUN: Training for Nuclear Plant Guards Off 29 US: North County Times: San Onofre's temporary workers live a nomadi 30 Bellona: Funding of floating NPP to be determined this year 31 Bellona: Malfunction at Kola nuclear power plant 32 US: AP Wire: Sierra Club alleges terrorism risks at Diablo Canyon nu 33 Toronto Star: Clarington mayor pushes for new nuclear reactors 34 US: Las Vegas SUN: Ohio Nuclear Plant Running Again 35 ITAR-TASS: Russia to contest tender to build nuclear power plant in 36 Asahi Shimbun: Plutonium for reactors OK'd 37 US: NRC: In the Matter of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, (Da NUCLEAR SAFETY 38 US: Fw: Implications of the Use of U.S. Depleted Uranium PLEASE 39 US: Gov't Can't Guarantee Nuke Weapons Plants Safety From Terrorists 40 [DU-WATCH] IAEA finds Kuwaiti tomatoes and water courses 41 US: [DU-WATCH] Some info on veterans disabilities 42 [DU-WATCH] Radiation & Scientific Obfuscation 43 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find 44 US: Las Vegas RJ: Witnesses detail exposure to dust 45 Indian Express: DRDO hits upon wonder berry to fight radiation 46 US: NRC: NRC Suspends License of a Missouri Industrial Testing Compa NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 47 Moscow Times: 12% of Top Producer of Nuclear Fuel Sold 48 US: Daily Yomiuri: Pluthermal projects still face obstacles 49 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: DOE can't mask its indifferenc 50 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca workers discuss safety lapses at hearing 51 RGJ: Energy Department acknowledges workers` exposure 52 US: KRT Wire: Energy Officials Seek Alternate Cleanup Plan for Tenne 53 Planet Ark: Russian nuclear warheads help to power US 54 Japan Times: Protesters slam Kepco MOX plan 55 US: Niagara Falls Reporter: MOUNTAIN VIEWS: STATE DUMPS MORE TOXIC W 56 US: Public Citizen: Public Citizen Warns Against Proposal to Dump 57 KLAS: Reid Blasts DOE on Yucca Safety 58 Belfast Telegraph: Murphy says no to Sellafield meeting date NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 59 DOE: National Energy Technology Laboratory; Notification of Plans fo 60 DOE: Notice of Availability of the Final Environmental Assessment 61 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board Chairs 62 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Fernald 63 Seattle Times: Editorials &Opinion - Cleaning up Hanford 64 Sun News: Group wants hearings on nuclear shipment 65 KTVB: Carbon-14 found near irradiated beryllium at INEEL waste site 66 Oak Ridger: Uranium shipments set to begin this month 67 AZOM: Remote-Controlled System That Permanently Closes Waste Package 68 PISJ: INEEL seeks comments on beryllium waste plan OTHER NUCLEAR 69 Google News Alert - nuclear 70 EcoDefenxe: Russian Nuclear Watch #1(20) ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [EMMAS] Whistleblower: US tried to plant WMDs, failed: used Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:05:32 -0600 (CST) US tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblowerUS tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblower Daily Times Monitor of Pakistan http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-8-2003_pg1_9 According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration's assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to "plant" WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by "friendly fire", the Environmentalists Against War report. Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com, "Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense." The information that is being leaked out is information "obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the DoD and/or the CIA. "According to Ms Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq," reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides "Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence". Al Martin is a retired Lt Commander (US Navy), the author of a memoir called "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider," and is considered one of America's foremost experts on corporate and government fraud. Ms Rogers reports that this particular covert operation team was manned by former military personnel and "the unit was paid through the Department of Agriculture in order to hide it, which is also very commonplace". According to Al Martin Raw.com, "the Agriculture Department has often been used as a paymaster on behalf of the CIA, DIA, NSA and others". According to the Al Martin Raw.com story, another aspect of Ms Rogers' report concerns a covert operation which was to locate the assets of Saddam Hussein and his family, including cash, gold bullion, jewelry and assorted valuable antiquities. The problem became evident when "the operation in Iraq involved 100 people, all of whom apparently are now dead, having succumbed to so-called 'friendly fire'. The scope of this operation included the penetration of the Central Bank of Iraq, other large commercial banks in Baghdad, the Iraqi National Museum and certain presidential palaces where monies and bullion were secreted." "They identified about $2 billion in cash, another $150 million in Euros, in physical banknotes, and about another $100 million in sundry foreign currencies ranging from Yen to British Pounds," reports Al Martin. "These people died, mostly in the same place in Baghdad, supposedly from a stray cruise missile or a combination of missiles and bombs that went astray," Martin continues. "There were supposedly 76 who died there and the other 24 died through a variety of 'friendly fire', 'mistaken identity' and some of them-their whereabouts are simply unknown." Ms Rogers' story sounds like an updated 21st-century version of Treasure Island meets Ali Baba and the Bush Cabal Thieves, writes Martin. "This was a contingent of CIA/ DoD operatives, but it was really the CIA that bungled it," Ms Rogers said. "They were relying on the CIA's ability to organise an effort to seize these assets and to be able to extract these assets because the CIA claimed it had resources on the ground within the Iraqi army and the Iraqi government who had been paid. That turned out to be completely bogus. As usual." "CIA people were supposed to be handling it," Martin continues. "They had a special 'black' aircraft to fly it out. But none of that happened because the regular US Army showed up, stumbled onto it and everyone involved had to scramble. These new Iraqi "asset seizures" go directly to the New US Ruling Junta. The US Viceroy in Iraq Paul Bremer is reportedly drinking Saddam's $2000 a bottle Napoleon-era brandy, smoking his expensive Davidoff cigars and he has even furnished his office with Saddam's Napoleon-era furniture. g/n ***************************************************************** 2 KRT Wire: Iraqi exile group fed news media false information | 03/15/2004 | [Ahmed Chalabi in 2003.] PAULINE LUBENS / San Jose Mercury News Ahmed Chalabi in 2003. By JONATHAN S. LANDAY and TISH WELLS Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - The former Iraqi exile group that gave the Bush administration exaggerated and fabricated intelligence on Iraq also fed much of the same information to leading newspapers, news agencies and magazines in the United States, Britain and Australia. A June 26, 2002, letter from the Iraqi National Congress to the Senate Appropriations Committee listed 108 articles based on information provided by the INC's Information Collection Program, a U.S.-funded effort to collect intelligence in Iraq. The assertions in the articles reinforced President Bush's claims that Saddam Hussein should be ousted because he was in league with Osama bin Laden, was developing nuclear weapons and was hiding biological and chemical weapons. Feeding the information to the news media, as well as to selected administration officials and members of Congress, helped foster an impression that there were multiple sources of intelligence on Iraq's illicit weapons programs and links to bin Laden. In fact, many of the allegations came from the same half-dozen defectors, weren't confirmed by other intelligence and were hotly disputed by intelligence professionals at the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department. Nevertheless, U.S. officials and others who supported a pre-emptive invasion quoted the allegations in statements and interviews without running afoul of restrictions on classified information or doubts about the defectors' reliability. Other Iraqi groups made similar allegations about Iraq's links to terrorism and hidden weapons that also found their way into official administration statements and into news reports, including several by Knight Ridder. Knight Ridder, which obtained a copy of the INC letter, reviewed all of the articles in what the document called a "summary of ICP product cited in major English language news outlets worldwide (October 2001-May 2002)." The articles made numerous assertions that so far haven't been substantiated 11 months after Baghdad fell, including charges that: + Saddam collaborated for years with bin Laden and was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials said there is no evidence of operational ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, and no evidence of an Iraqi hand in the attacks. + Iraq trained Islamic extremists in the same hijacking techniques used in the Sept. 11 strikes and prepared them for operations against Iraq's neighbors and possibly the United States. Two senior U.S. officials said that so far no evidence has been found to substantiate the charge. + Iraq had mobile biological warfare facilities disguised as yogurt and milk trucks and hid banned weapons production and storage facilities beneath a hospital, fake lead-lined wells and Saddam's palaces. No such facilities or vehicles have been found so far. + Iraq held 80 Kuwaitis captured in the 1991 Gulf War in a secret underground prison in 2000. No Kuwaiti prisoners have been found so far. + Iraq could launch toxin-armed Scud missiles at Israel that could kill 100,000 people and was aggressively developing nuclear weapons. No Iraq Scud missiles have been found yet. + Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, missing since the 1991 Gulf war, was seen alive in Baghdad in 1998. The case remains unresolved, but the Navy last week said there was no evidence that Speicher was ever held in captivity. According to the letter, publications in which the articles appeared included The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly, The Times of London, The Sunday Times of London, The Sunday Age of Melbourne, Australia, and two Knight Ridder newspapers, The Kansas City Star and The Philadelphia Daily News. The Associated Press and others also wrote stories based on INC-provided materials. Other U.S. and international news media picked up some of the articles. By mid-January 2002, polls showed that a solid majority of Americans favored military force to oust Saddam. Many of the stories noted that the information they contained couldn't be independently verified. In at least one case, the INC made a defector available to a journalist before his information had been fully reviewed by U.S. intelligence officials. The defector, an engineer, Adnan Ihsan al Haideri, claimed in a Dec. 20, 2001, New York Times article by Judith Miller that there were biological, nuclear and chemical warfare facilities under private villas, the Saddam Hussein Hospital and fake water wells around Baghdad. Senior U.S. officials said U.S. arms inspectors have found no fake wells or a laboratory under the hospital. Some secret rooms have been located under villas, mosques and palaces, but the officials, who asked not to be identified, said they weren't among locations that al Haideri claimed to know about. Several requests to The New York Times to speak to Miller were not answered. INC leader Ahmad Chalabi and other officials have insisted that the group screened all defectors as thoroughly as they could. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that virtually all of the defectors' information was marginal or useless, and that some of the defectors were fabricators or embellished the threat from Saddam. Many of the articles relied on interviews with the same defectors, who appeared to change facts with each telling. For instance, one defector first appeared in several stories as an Iraqi army former captain, but a later story said he was a major. Another defector told one interviewer that the aircraft fuselage on which Islamic extremists received training in hijacking belonged to a Boeing 707 and was quoted in a later story as saying that it came from a Russian-made Tupolev. Intelligence debriefers look for such differences when trying to determine the reliability of defectors, who sometimes exaggerate their importance or try to tell interviewers what they think the interviewers want to hear. The Information Collection Program (ICP) was financed out of the more than $18 million that Congress approved for the Iraqi National Congress, led by Chalabi, now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, between 1999 and 2003. The group remains on the Pentagon's payroll. The INC letter said that it fed ICP information to Arab and Western news media and to two officials in the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, the leading invasion advocates. The information bypassed U.S. intelligence channels and reached the recipients even after CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI officers questioned the accuracy of the materials or the motives of those who supplied them. Some of the information, such as the charge that Iraq ran a terrorist training camp in Salman Pak, found its way into administration statements, including a Sept. 12, 2002, White House paper. The CIA and the State Department had long viewed the INC as unreliable. Some articles cited in the INC letter were based on transcripts the INC provided. An article in The Kansas City Star, for example, quoted an unidentified INC member as saying he had information that Speicher was seen alive in Baghdad in 1998. A March 17, 2002, Sunday Times of London article on Saddam's alleged illicit weapons was based on a 3,000-page transcript of the preliminary INC debriefing of al Haideri. The article also reported claims in a videotaped interview made by unnamed Iraqi opposition officials with a second defector that Saddam had mobile biological warfare laboratories disguised as milk and yogurt trucks. Such vehicles have yet to be found. Marie Colvin, a co-author of the article, said the INC insisted to her that all defectors were scrutinized as fully as possible before being passed on, and that it was up to reporters to decide how to use their information. "I believe they acted in good faith," she said. "Over seven years, I would not say there was a story I was fooled on." Many articles quoted defectors as saying that Saddam was training extremists from throughout the Muslim world at Salman Pak, outside Baghdad. "We certainly have found nothing to substantiate that," said a senior U.S. official. Instead, he said, U.S. intelligence analysts believe that Iraqi counterterrorism units practiced anti-hijacking techniques on an aircraft fuselage at the site. An Oct. 12, 2001, Washington Post opinion piece by columnist Jim Hoagland quoted an INC-supplied defector, Sabah Khalifa Khodada Alami, as saying that Salman Pak offered hijacking and assassination courses. The article, which urged the Bush administration to examine possible Iraqi complicity in Sept. 11, said Alami was a former military instructor and ex-army captain whom the INC tracked down to Fort Worth, Texas, where he settled in May 2001 as a refugee. Hoagland's column said the defector should not be automatically believed. Hoagland said he wrote it to call attention to "the difficulties that two defectors had in receiving an evaluation from the CIA." In a Nov. 11 story in the Observer of London by David Rose, Alami was quoted as saying that "the method used on 11 September perfectly coincides with the training I saw at the camp." The article said Alami was assigned to Salman Pak between 1994 and 1995. However, a Nov. 8, 2001, New York Times article said Alami worked at Salman Pak for eight years. The Oct. 12, 2001, Washington Post piece also cited an INC claim that an unnamed former Iraqi intelligence officer claimed that "Islamists" were trained at Salman Pak on a U.S.-made Boeing 707. In a later article, which appeared to be based on an interview with the same man, the aircraft was identified as an old Russian-made Tupolev. That defector complained in The Washington Post column that CIA interrogators in Ankara had treated him "dismissively" earlier that week. The Nov. 8, 2001, New York Times article featured an interview in an unidentified Middle East country that was arranged by the INC with an unidentified Iraqi lieutenant general who said he'd been interviewed by the CIA in Ankara the previous month. He and an unidentified Iraqi intelligence service sergeant claimed they worked at Salman Pak for several years and that trainees were being prepared for attacks on neighboring countries and possibly the United States. The unnamed lieutenant general appears to have been the defector of the same rank, code-named Abu Zeinab, who was featured in the Nov. 11, 2001, Observer article. The newspaper said the defector was interviewed by telephone, and that it was also given details of an interview that two London-based INC activists had conducted with Abu Zeinab at a safe house in Ankara, Turkey. Abu Zeinab claimed that trainees were instructed in hijacking aircraft. The defector's full name, Abu Zeinab al Qurairy, was revealed in a February 2002 article in Vanity Fair magazine that was also written by Rose, who declined to comment. The defector said the Islamists at Salman Pak pledged to obey orders to carry out suicide attacks and that those who flunked training were "used as targets in live-ammunition exercises." Al Qurairy said in one exercise, students had to land helicopters on a speeding train and then hijack it. A list of the 108 articles that the Iraqi National Congress says were based on information it supplied to news media is available on the web at [http://www.krwashington.com] . ***************************************************************** 3 AP Wire: A Vindicated Hans Blix Returns to U.S. | 03/16/2004 | DAFNA LINZER Associated Press NEW YORK - President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have lost credibility, the world isn't safer now that Saddam Hussein is out of power and it was clear 10 months ago that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to Hans Blix, the former U.N. weapons inspector who returned to New York on the one-year anniversary of the war. Blix, who was often vilified by supporters and opponents of an invasion in the run-up to the Iraq war, left his post at the United Nations last June at a time when many held out hope that biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons could be found by U.S. troops in Iraq. But dozens of search teams over the last year have came up empty handed and much of the initial resources devoted to the hunt have since been reallocated. In an address Monday at New York University, Blix said the United States should have known months ago that there were no weapons to be found. "By May I knew there was nothing because the Americans had interrogated so many Iraqis by then and even offered money and still they found nothing." On a speaking tour for his new book "Disarming Iraq," Blix offered some tough assessments of American accomplishments in Iraq and suggested that the United States was motivated to go to war because of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It was a reaction to 9/11 that we have to strike some theoretical, hypothetical links between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists. That was wrong. There wasn't anything," he said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show. And he disagreed that the war had made the world a safer place. "Sorry to say it doesn't look that way. If the message was to terrorists that we are willing to take you on, then that has not succeeded. In Iraq, it has bred a lot of terrorism and a lot of hatred to the Western world," he told an audience of 1,200 at NYU. "Disarmament by war and democracy by occupation are difficult prospects." He was especially critical of the United States and Britain for claiming the war was meant to uphold U.N. resolutions when the rest of the Security Council refused to back the conflict and he said Bush and Blair "oversold" what they knew. "The moral of this story was clearly a loss of credibility for the leaders of this war and that they didn't think the council mattered, that was a mistake," Blix said. Referring to passages from his book, the 75-year-old Swede identified Vice President Dick Cheney as his No. 1 opponent inside the Bush administration. In a meeting with Mr. Cheney in October 2002, Blix said he was told the United States 'was ready to discredit inspections in favor of disarmament,' unless Blix's teams were able to find weapons the White House insisted were in Iraq. Blix's return to the United States, after nine months in Sweden working on the book, was triumphant compared to his quiet departure last June, which was marred by a U.S. refusal to let his inspectors back into Iraq. Blix spent Monday appearing on TV talk shows and signing copies of his book, which came out this week in the United States. At NYU, he was introduced by faculty members as a "real-life hero," "unbiased and critical," and his comments drew rounds of thunderous applause during his two hour appearance. It was a striking contrast to the contentious appearances he made in the U.N. Security Council in the months leading up to the war. At that time, he was often criticized as pro-Iraqi or anti-American because his teams were coming up empty and refusing to blame Saddam for their failures. Blix said he had been convinced for years that the Iraqis were hiding weapons of mass destruction but began having doubts when intelligence provided by the United States and other countries wasn't producing results. He blamed an over-reliance on defectors and a refusal on the part of the White House to consider the possibility that the intelligence was wrong. ***************************************************************** 4 SF Chronicle: BERKELEY / Taking U.S. press to task over Iraq war 3-day public conference in Berkeley will examine the media's performance in coverage of Bush's justifications + BERKELEY Taking U.S. press to task over Iraq war 3-day public conference in Berkeley will examine the media's performance in coverage of Bush's justifications Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer [cburress@sfchronicle.com] Tuesday, March 16, 2004 One of the most serious charges lodged against the American press in recent times -- that it played lapdog instead of watch dog in covering Bush administration justifications for attacking Iraq -- will receive an extraordinary airing in Berkeley over the next three days. On the hot seat at the event, billed by UC Berkeley as an "in-depth postmortem of Iraq war coverage," will be some of the nation's leading war reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, National Public Radio and the New Yorker among others. Also addressing the public conference will be Hans Blix, the United Nations' former chief arms inspector in Iraq, and former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose wife was outed as a CIA agent after he publicly challenged administration claims of an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program. Sparking potential fireworks will be outspoken critics of U.S. coverage, including Michael Massing, a Columbia Journalism Review contributing editor who sharply attacked coverage by the New York Times and others in a New York Review of Books cover story on Feb. 26. Adding to the volatile mix will be foreign journalists from Al-Jazeera, Le Monde and elsewhere whose coverage sharply diverged from that of the U.S. media. The focus of the conference, titled "The Media at War," will include "whether the media did a good enough job in really debating the issues outside the narrow confines of the American discussion" and the influence of patriotism on American coverage, said Orville Schell, dean of the UC Berkeley journalism school. The journalism school is a chief sponsor of the program along with the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center and the chancellor's office. The Chronicle is one of the co-sponsors, and Chronicle Editor Phil Bronstein will introduce an international panel of journalists, including New York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns, at Zellerbach Hall at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. "It is unprecedented," said Human Rights Center director Eric Stover, who developed the idea for the conference with Schell. In addition to several panel discussions and lectures, the gathering will include two days of conflict-coverage training for 20 journalists selected for special fellowships by the Western Knight Center. Nearly all nations' news media exhibit patriotic bias, Schell said, but the U.S. press bears a special responsibility because of its influence. "We are not a national media," he said. "We are a global media. We are watched and read all around the world. I think we, above all other countries, need to view ourselves as journalists as something of a stateless people, and I don't think we always do a very good job of this." The Berkeley gathering follows a rising chorus of criticism. On Tuesday, the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland released an extensive examination called "Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction," which concluded that the press did not adequately examine government claims on Iraqi weapons. An article in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review by freelancer Chris Mooney examined editorials in six large U.S. papers and concluded, "None of the papers, in fact, held the Bush administration to an adequate standard of proof." Event schedule The conference begins at 7:30 p.m. tonight with a panel of five Los Angeles Times journalists at Sibley Auditorium. The appearance by Hans Blix with CNN producer Christiane Amanpour at Zellerbach Hall on Wednesday night is sold out but will be available later with the rest of the conference via Webcast, Orville Schell said. Joe Wilson will speak at noon Wednesday, and the New York Times' Judith Miller will appear at noon Thursday, both at the Lipman Room in Barrows Hall. Most of the events are free, except the Blix appearance and the Thursday night panel at Zellerbach Hall, which cost $10. More information about the schedule is available at http://journalism. berkeley.edu/conf/mediaatwar/index.html E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com [cburress@sfchronicle.com] . ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ ***************************************************************** 5 Brown and White: Weapons inspector Hans Blix to speak Tuesday - Tuesday, March 16, 2004 Lehigh News First [http://www.lehigh.edu] By Usmaan Sleemi News Writer Online 3/15/2004 Hans Blix, former head of the U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq, will speak at Lehigh on Tuesday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Zoellner Arts Center. The lecture is sponsored by the Visiting Lectures Committee and was originally proposed earlier in the school year. Neal Hoffman, president of the College Republicans said the former weapons inspector brings a unique viewpoint to the Lehigh community. “He is someone who has been out there in the world,” he said. The event is concurrent with the release of Blix’s book, “Disarming Iraq”. In the book, released a year after the start of the war in Iraq, the former weapons inspector describes meetings with President Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Kofi Annan and other noteworthy leaders. Blix also conveys the pressure and drama of the months leading up to the military invasion of Iraq. “Disarming Iraq” addresses a wide array of questions including what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the war, whether Iraq possessed significant weaponry, and why the U.S. and Britain couldn’t secure backing of other member states of the Security Council. Under Blix’s guidance, a team of inspectors searched former weapons facilities in Iraq and reported their observations to the United Nations. Their observations fed global uncertainty as to whether or not Iraq was armed with weapons of mass destruction. In 2000, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, asked Blix to head the U.N.’s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. He retired last June. Blix is currently the chairman of the newly formed International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction. Blix was a member of Sweden’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly from 1961 until 1981, and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva from 1962 to 1978. His most prominent role came in 1981, when he was named Directory General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). According to the BBC, during that time, Iraq managed to successfully hide an advanced nuclear weapons development program from the IAEA. The program was only discovered in 1991 after the first Gulf War. Blix served as Director General of the IAEA until 1997. Born in 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden, Blix studied at the University of Uppsala and Columbia University in New York. He also has a law degree from Cambridge University in England. Copyright © 2004 The Brown and White ***************************************************************** 6 Las Vegas SUN: Iran Allowing Unfettered Nuke Inspections By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON ASSOCIATED PRESS TOKYO (AP) - Iran's top nuclear negotiator confirmed Tuesday that Tehran would allow international nuclear inspections to resume unconditionally later this month. Iran had said Saturday that it was indefinitely shutting out IAEA inspectors, after the agency's 35-nation governing board adopted a resolution that said it "deplores" recent discoveries of uranium enrichment equipment and other suspicious activities that Iran had failed to reveal. But the head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Monday that Iran was ready to allow inspectors back into the country starting March 27. Hasan Rowhani, on a three-day visit in Japan, backed that Tuesday. "It is certain. And it will be without any conditions," Rowhani, who also heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said at a news conference in Tokyo. Tehran insists its nuclear activities are for the generation of electricity, but Washington suspects it has a secret program to build nuclear weapons and had called for even harsher language in the agency's resolution. Asked about the allegations, Rowhani said: "The United States has made many groundless statements." He reaffirmed Iran's claim that it only wants to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Washington should present to the IAEA any evidence it has to back its suspicions, and inspectors will go and check it, Rowhani said. Rowhani met with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi later Tuesday. Most of the 2 1/2-hour meeting was devoted to the latest development on nuclear inspections, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. Last month, Japan closed an estimated $2 billion deal with the Iranian government to develop the Azadegan oil field, believed to be one of the largest in the Middle East. The United States had opposed because it fears the money could go to nuclear proliferation. -- ***************************************************************** 7 Mike Whitney: the Case for a Nuclear Iran home [http://www.counterpunch.org/] / subscribe March 16, 2004 If We're Not Going to Abolish Them All... By MIKE WHITNEY "America operates a rigorous double standard with respect to nuclear weapons issues, rather like confirmed alcoholics complaining about teenage drinking." Dan Plesch, arms control expert Iran should be allowed to purchase or manufacture nuclear weapons without the interference of the United States. The flagrant hostility directed at Iran from the Bush Administration suggests that its survival is as threatened as any country on earth. If ever there was a case for the use of "nuclear deterrents" to evade "imminent" danger, this is it. In any event, the decision should be made after a calm and reasoned deliberation on the facts. The verdict should not be affected by the hysteria that issues from Washington like bilge from a sinking ship. Consider for a moment Iran's present predicament. The Bush Administration has telegraphed its animosity towards Iran in unambiguous language, listing it in the now infamous "Axis of Evil". The US has kept up its verbal assaults while at the same time engaging in an open campaign to enlist the UN's support to condemn Iran's shadowy nuclear activities. The US is pushing to have the Security Council insert a "trigger" mechanism in a resolution that will allow the US to take military action against Iran for "failure in compliance". Sound familiar? Again, the Bush Administration is looking for the UN imprimatur to vindicate its plans for aggression. So far, the UN is resisting, calling the US approach "unbalanced." There is also a history of US antagonism towards Iran that can't be ignored. In 1952 the US took the extraordinary step of deposing the democratically elected (but left of center) Mossedeq Government in a CIA coup carried out by Kermit Roosevelt. This led to 25 years of brutal rule by the American puppet, the Shah. The US assisted the Shah in the training of his security "Gestapo", the Savak, and supplied him with sufficient weaponry to keep the populace in a continual state of terror. When a coalition of fundamentalist groups finally toppled the Shah, President Jimmie Carter appealed to the Iranian Military to reinstate the deposed tyrant rather than allow the more popular Ayatolla Khomenni take charge. Carter's efforts failed, (but not for lack of trying) and the popular mandate of the Iranian people succeeded. (Whether or not the US approved of the Ayatolla is entirely irrelevant. The simple fact is he was the popular choice at the time and, therefore, his rise to power was much more consistent with basic American values of representative government than the Shah.) The US stubbornly refused to extradite the criminal Shah back to Iran where he would have stood trial as he deserved. Compare this to the Bush Administration's insistence that the Taliban extradite bin Laden after 9-11 without any tangible proof of his guilt. As Bush said, "We don't need to know if he is innocent or guilty. We know he's guilty." The hesitation of the Taliban was used as Bush's justification for initiating the war. Look, how different the approach was when Iran requested the extradition of a ruthless despot who had been terrorizing the Iranian public for 25 years. The refusal to return the Shah was a brazen and immoral act. Nations not only have the right, but the duty to hold their leaders accountable for the crimes perpetrated against their own people. It is not within America's purview to arbitrarily determine how justice is best served in another sovereign nation. It only goes to prove that duplicity is rarely confused for justice. The US has continued its hostility towards Iran in myriad ways. It helped facilitate Saddam's aggression in the eight year war that took over one million Iranian lives. The war left suffering and devastation on a massive scale on both sides, and yet, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, summarized the administration's policy when he opined, "I hope they kill each other." (We should note that the chemical weapons (precursors) used by Iraq against Iran were provided by both the US and Britain to Saddam. Their mutual culpability is not in question) And, of course, ever since Iran took control of their own resources (oil and natural gas) the US has maintained strict sanctions against the country. Control of one's own resources is the one unpardonable crime. Presently, the US has just unseated the Saddam regime without any proof of proscribed weapons, and is looking to destabilize the current Iranian government. President Bush has referred to this as "strengthening the forces of democracy in the region," which translates into "unyielding covert activity to promote social unrest." There are 130,000 American servicemen next door in Iraq and no one can be entirely certain what "imaginary" provocation might send them marching towards Tehran. No one should harbor any illusions about the intentions of the Bush Administration regarding Iran. It is more than likely that a UN resolution with a "trigger mechanism" would be put to good use by the "loose cannons" in Washington. Iran provides a case where nuclear deterrents might be of some practical value. There's no doubt that Mr Bush would keep his legions in check if they were faced with an adversary who could actually defend themselves. Some may remember how contrite Bush was when he needed to retrieve his spy plane that went down over China. Apologies are meted out to the strong not the worthy. It's the same with nuclear weapons; bullies wither. Whether or not Iran should be able to procure or manufacture nuclear weapons should be determined in an evenhanded manner. A simple series of questions will prove this point. Has Iran violated the territorial integrity or sovereignty of any of its neighbors? Has Iran toppled the leadership of any foreign state and replaced it with people of its own choosing? Has Iran trained the security apparatus of any other country in the brutal methods of repression and state terror? Has Iran actively engaged in the ousting of foreign governments to insure its access to its resources? Has Iran levied debilitating sanctions against other countries as a form of punishment and coercion? Has Iran ever held foreign nationals against their will in a prison camp setting in clear violation of international law and all accepted conventions of human rights? These are the criteria that should be used to determine whether a state is responsible enough to have nuclear weapons. (if any state at all!) Needless to say, other states would perform quite miserably on such a test. Those are precisely the countries that should be required to disarm. Realistically, however, Iran will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. The ongoing charade is merely designed to undermine Iran's defenses while the plans go forward to steal its resources. The process of disarming one's victim is common to any "mugging". This is no different. When the farce is over, the UN will assume an air of surprise and indignation; a role it plays with considerable skill. The clock is ticking for Iran. The Bush Administration will not be derailed on its way to secure the seductive resources of the Caspian Basin. To the contrary, it seems all but inevitable. When reflecting on Iran's fragile situation we should recall Tony Blair's ominous warning about Iraq, that it was only "a test case." We should stop the quibbling over who can or can't have nuclear weapons. No nation has the right to put humanity's neck in the noose and then, toy with its survival. That, in itself, is the height of depravity. Abolish all nuclear weapons. Mike Whitney can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com [fergiewhitney@msn.com] Weekend Edition Features for March 12 / 14, 2004 [http://www.counterpunch.org/] ***************************************************************** 8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: FM Ban Draws Clear Line Between Impeachment and Nuclear Updated Mar.16,2004 11:04 KST South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-moon said that he hoped North Korea would not use the impeachment issue as an excuse for stalling six-nation talks to deal with its nuclear ambitions. Minister Ban also gave more assurances that Seoul's foreign policies remained intact despite the domestic political situation. In his first regular press briefing following parliamentary impeachment decision against President Roh Moo-hyun, foreign minister Ban drew a clear line on Monday between the impeachment and North Korean nuclear issue. "If North Korea uses the impeachment as an excuse to be reluctant or to try avoiding six-party talks, we'll have to question its commitment to seeking a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue." Ban said. These remarks came after a North Korean delegation failed to show up for cross-border economic talks that were initially slated to open Monday in the South, citing political instability. Minister Ban stressed the current political situation will spell no change to the government's commitment toward continued six-nation nuclear talks. To this end, Minister Ban added he will dispatch his deputy Lee Soo-hyuck to Beijing, China from Tuesday through Wednesday to discuss arranging working group meetings with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The minister noted the need for at least two of these meetings to take place hopefully sometime next month before the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China, and Russia gather for an anticipated third round of nuclear negotiations. The foreign ministry has made it clear that despite the political turmoil, Seoul's foreign policies remain unwavering amid hopes for a sense of normalcy to return in state affairs as soon as possible. Arirang TV ***************************************************************** 9 Xinhuanet: IAEA chief hopes inspectors could return to DPRK www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-03-16 12:26:24 WASHINGTON, March 15 (Xinhuanet) -- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that he hoped United Nations inspectors could return to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as early as possible to verify whether DPRK's nuclear programs are dedicated for peaceful purposes. "I would like to see the agency going back "to the DPRK as early as possible and to make sure that the DPRK again has a program that is absolutely dedicated for peaceful purposes, ElBaradei told reporters after a meeting with some US lawmakers. If that were to happen under international verification, the DPRK would be able to join the international community as a full-fledged member and I hope that will happen soon, he said. ElBaradei, who arrived here Sunday for a four-day visit, suggested that the DPRK may have acquired some uranium enrichment equipment through a black market network. In response to US suspension of fuel supply, the DPRK withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in January last year andlater expelled IAEA inspectors who were responsible for verifying the nuclear facilities located in Yongbyon. Pyongyang has repeatedly denied allegations that it has a clandestine uranium enrichment program. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 BEllona: USA afraid of nuclear responsibility The USA still has not signed the paragraph concerning responsibility for the possible damage during aid programs. 2004-03-16 11:56 Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign policy committee of the Lower House of the Russian parliament, told recently RBC Daily about that. The CTR program allocated $6.5 billion in total to secure weapons of mass destruction since 1992. The USA still has not signed the paragraph regarding responsibility for technogenic accidents in Russia due to the possible US fault during implementation of such programs as Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR) and the Multi-Lateral Environmental Protect in the Russian Federation agreement (MNEPR). It is stated in the MNEPR agreement that deliberate damage caused by an individual during implementation of this program stipulates certain responsibility. According to Kosachev, this principle is civilised and used in international relations. Almost all countries signed it. The USA, however, does not like this principle and they insist on the rules used since 1992 in the CTR program, when the US responsibility was not determined. Both programs are extremely profitable for Russia, as it does not have resources to eliminate excessive nuclear and chemical weapons itself. ”If we do not find a legal solution, we might not get this money” Konstantin Kosachev added. Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 11 Ledger: FIU Environmental Funds Withheld Lakeland, Polk County, Florida Lakeland, Florida | March 16, 2004 The federal government is withholding $7 million from a prominent Florida International University environmental research center because of questions over past spending. Federal auditors last year questioned at least $4.5 million in expenses charged to $38 million in Energy Department grants for nuclear waste cleanup research between 1993 and 2000, according to the university and state auditors. The Energy Department has confirmed the ongoing investigation but won't comment further. Now, the agency has frozen payments for related research at the Hemispheric Center for Environmental Technology until the audit is finished, spokesman Tom Welch said. Last modified: March 16. 2004 12:00AM Copyright 2004 The Ledger ***************************************************************** 12 Daily Press: Senator holds to WMD link [http://dailypress.com/] HAMPTON ROADS, VA. March 16, 2004 11:37 PM Va.'s Warner says weapons hunt should continue By David Lerman Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Before the Iraq war began, Virginia's senior senator was nothing if not confident. There was, he said, no reason to doubt that Iraq continued to possess mass stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. "When we go in, a lot of smoking guns will be uncovered," promised Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, about a month before the war's launch. One year later, there is still no evidence that Iraq possessed the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction alleged by the United States in its public presentation to the United Nations Security Council. But unlike some of his colleagues from both political parties, Warner remains unwilling to endorse the conclusion that many say is now obvious: that Iraq, in fact, had destroyed whatever illegal weapons it had long before the U.S. invasion. In an interview last week, Warner insisted - as he has repeatedly - that the weapons inspectors should be allowed to complete their work before lawmakers draw conclusions. "Trying to pass any final judgment would be misleading and unfair to the American public," he said. "I worked this question as hard as any senator. I'm not going to participate in any judgment." Part of the reluctance can be explained by Warner's basic nature. He exudes an almost theatrical courtliness that his supporters view as patrician charm and his detractors see as arrogance. He is generally loath to criticize in public. As a GOP committee chairman under a Republican White House, Warner could also feel pressure to support President Bush on a fundamental decision: whether to take the country to war. "It's obvious there are no significant stocks of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Iraq," said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The reluctance of people to accept that is based mainly on a political calculation: that to acknowledge that the intelligence was wrong is too much to ask for in an election year." Some conservatives dismiss charges of political motivations, saying there are substantive reasons for taking a cautious approach to any investigation. "I don't think it's an unreasonable position on the part of the senator," said Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for national security affairs at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "I find it hard to believe they were duped and it was a total mirage. There is wisdom in making sure we run this issue into the ground. It wasn't just the United States that believed there were weapons of mass destruction." Warner has long dismissed politics as the basis for his policy stands. A political centrist, he is not easily pigeonholed ideologically and has not been afraid to stray from the party line, as he does on such issues as gun control. Even on the sensitive matter of Iraq intelligence, Warner now wonders openly about the potential loss of credibility the United States may suffer around the world if, in the end, the intelligence used to justify the war proves wrong. "We have, as a nation, nevertheless suffered some degree of loss of credibility," he said at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee last month. "It's debatable. I think it's going to be recoverable in the end." But Warner has served as a stalwart defender of the Bush administration from the origins of the war to its politically troubling aftermath. As early as September 2002 - about six months before the war began - Warner took to the Senate floor to warn of the "clear and growing threat that Saddam Hussein poses to the United States." Citing a classified "sobering, thorough assessment" by the heads of the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency, Warner expressed no doubts about the quality of the intelligence or the need for prompt action. "Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver these weapons represents a present threat and an immediate challenge to the international community," Warner said. The senator's support for the administration was on display again last week, when his committee grilled CIA Director George Tenet about the accuracy of Iraq intelligence - and whether the White House used it properly. Democrats used Tenet's annual appearance before the committee to unleash a barrage of attacks, claiming the CIA misjudged the threat and failed to alert senior officials that they were exaggerating the actual evidence. Warner again defended the administration. "I see no evidence of exaggeration or manipulation in your replies," he told Tenet. Yet Warner also made clear he was not about to fault the policymakers. "All of the policymakers were conscientiously reflecting their opinion on what the intelligence told them," he said in an interview. While no illegal weapons have been found in Iraq, Warner noted, there was evidence of ongoing chemical and biological research programs and an attempt to rebuild a nuclear weapons program in 2001. "It's a damned important issue," he said of the weapons of mass destruction. "But did we do the right thing? The answer to that is yes. There's no question in my judgment the president did the right thing at the right time." David Lerman can be reached at (202) 824-8224 or by e-mail at dlerman@tribune.com [dlerman@tribune.com] Copyright ©2004 Daily Press ***************************************************************** 13 [DU-WATCH] WMD: US Provided Weapons-Grade Uranium To 43 Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:37:01 -0600 (CST) we gotta recover that word, "proliferation" from these who spread death around the world, certain death to engulf the world if we don't begin spreading life and truth and actively rebuild the hope they death-wishers snuff, real tangibles upon which we real human beings can climb out of their hellish abyss, the bottom end of disparity that fuels their astronaut launch into their glittering materialist faux heaven. For Real Life, N: Rick Rozoff wrote: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/544522.cms The Times Of India Press Trust Of India March 8, 2004 US gave uranium to 43 nations WASHINGTON: The U.S. has given weapons-grade uranium to 43 countries including Pakistan since the 1950s under the Atoms for Peace programme and is making little effort to get them back, a government department reported. The Department of Energy said in a report that among the countries which have refused to return the material are Pakistan , Iran, Israel, Mexico, Jamaica and South Africa. The reasons for declining vary. Some of the bomb-grade uranium is in use at research universities and institutions that do not want to give it up. Jon Wolfsthal, who ran the recovery programme from 1995 to 1997, said one important reason why so little uranium has been returned is that "we are charging these countries $5,000 kilogram to get it back." The fee structure was set up in 1996, to help pay for the programme. ***************************************************************** 14 IPS-English ENVIRONMENT: Nuclear Threat Worries Greens Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 14:13:41 -0800 ROMAIPS EU IP ENVIRONMENT: Nuclear Threat Worries Greens By Stefania Bianchi BRUSSELS, Mar 16 (IPS) - Environment groups are calling on Swedish authorities to make nuclear power plants safer against terrorist attacks. A group of nine Swedish and Danish non-governmental organisations (NGOs) reject claims that Swedish nuclear power plants are secure enough to withstand airplane crashes. The NGOs are FMKK (the Swedish anti-nuclear movement), Friends of the Earth Sweden, The Danish Ecological Council, Friends of the Earth Denmark, The Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature, The Danish Organisation for Renewable Energy, Nature and Youth, Eco-net, and Copenhagen's Environmental and Energy Office. Swedes are among the most pro-nuclear people in the European Union (EU). Nuclear power accounts for about half the electricity generated in Sweden. The country has 11 reactors at four locations - Barsebäck (1), Forsmark (3), Oskarshamn (3) and Ringhals (4). A report released last month by Sweden's Nuclear Safety Inquiry Commission had declared that ”no further measures are necessary at the Swedish nuclear power plants in order to protect them against terrorist attacks.” But FMKK chairman Kjell Andersson told IPS ”we don't believe that any of the Swedish reactors are safe when it comes to terrorist attacks, with or without the use of airplanes.” Niels Henrik Hooge from Barsebäckoffensiv said something ”urgently has to be done” to prevent an accident which could have ”catastrophic” proportions.. ”The plants need real enhancements like extra reactor roofs or tall steel concrete pillars around them,” he told IPS. ”There are probably other possibilities that no one has thought of, and this is something that the experts have to look in to on a sound scientific basis.” The NGOs say the terrorist attack in Madrid Mar. 11 which killed some 200 people has strengthened their appeal. ”How could it not?” said Hooge. ”This is the first major terrorist attack in an EU country.” Andersson said Scandinavian countries could be potential targets for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. ”Remember, for example, that Denmark is part of the coalition behind the Iraq war,” she told IPS. Hooge is particularly concerned about the safety of the Barsebäck 2 power plant located just 20km from Copenhagen and close to Kastrup international airport. He is calling for the power plant to be closed down ”as quickly as possible”. Because of Barsebaeck 2's close vicinity to the Danish metropolitan area, the NGOs say assessments of the Swedish nuclear power stations ”are important not only to the Swedish but also to the Danish population.” The report by the commission has not been publicly released. The NGOs are now demanding publication of the report so they can ”evaluate whether some reactors are more at risk than others.” Andersson is also questioning the validity of the report. ”The analyses are exclusively made by people within the established controlling systemàpeople from independent research institutes and the international expert community are not welcome.” The NGOs say the report is in ”sharp conflict with estimates in practically all other countries that have developed nuclear power programmes” where extra safety measures have taken potential terrorist attacks into account. The German Radiation Protection Agency has asked for closure of five of the oldest nuclear power reactors because it says they could not withstand an airplane crash, some of them not even from a small aircraft. The NGOs point out that these German reactors are the same age or newer than many of the Swedish reactors. The commission report says it is ”not necessary to require additional measures to protect the plants against acts of terror involving the use of aircraft as weapons.” The report says the current safety status of the plants is satisfactory. It says ”the first line of defence must be measures to ensure that aircraft and material of similar destructive capacity does not fall into the hands of terrorists.” It says plant managements are in continuous touch with police authorities over the perceived level of threat. ***** +Swedish Nuclear Regulatory Authority (www.ski.se) (END/IPS/EU/IP/SB/SS/04) = 03161812 ORP020 NNNN ***************************************************************** 15 NYT: Pakistani’s Nuclear Earnings - $100 Million Doug Mills/The New York Times High-speed centrifuges from Libya on display yesterday at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: March 16, 2004 [O] AK RIDGE, Tenn., March 15 — The Bush administration said Monday that the clandestine network created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, netted $100 million for the technology it sold to Libya alone, and for the first time officials displayed a carefully selected sample of the type of equipment that the network sold to arm Libya, Iran and North Korea. Under extraordinary security — guards with automatic weapons stationed every few yards — officials showed reporters the most basic of the high-speed centrifuges that Dr. Khan marketed to countries seeking to enrich uranium for bomb fuel. Many of the centrifuges, flown out of Libya and stored here at one of America's first nuclear weapons laboratories, were still in their original packing crates. But the most critical components shipped out of Tripoli — including 4,000 more advanced centrifuges and the drawings Dr. Khan sold showing how to turn the uranium into crude warheads — were kept out of view. So were labels and other evidence that would link specific products to Pakistan, Germany, Malaysia and a dozen other countries where Dr. Khan's network of suppliers and manufacturers operated over the past decade. North Korea and Iran are believed to have purchased essentially the same package of technology that Libya obtained after negotiating with Dr. Khan in the mid-1990's. The event here on Monday was part of a weeklong effort by the administration to trumpet what it views as one of its biggest foreign-policy accomplishments growing out of the invasion of Iraq a year ago. "We've had a huge success here," said Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, who is in charge of overseeing the American nuclear stockpile. Surrounded by the cache of nuclear equipment, Mr. Abraham argued that the decision announced in December by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to disarm completely and rapidly came because of "the resolve that we and others conveyed in Iraq, which has forced countries to make a choice." Mr. Abraham said that virtually all of the 55,000 pounds of nuclear gear already brought out of Libya, which appears headed to a lifting of most American economic sanctions next month, now rests here, behind barbed-wire fences in the hills of eastern Tennessee. The equipment, he said, was "the largest recovery, by weight, ever conducted under U.S nonproliferation efforts" but was "just the tip of the iceberg" because a shipload of Libyan equipment is currently sailing to the United States. Such work, he said, "spells out our commitment to winning the war against terrorism." Libya never began to produce enriched uranium, though experts here said that if assembled, the equipment that the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other nations have recovered could have produced enough fuel to make up to 10 nuclear weapons a year. Libya had obtained a bit less than half of the 10,000 centrifuges it hoped to operate, before determining that the program was not worth the diplomatic cost. "The program was much more advanced than we assessed," Robert Joseph, who heads counterproliferation efforts in the National Security Council, said here. "It was much larger than we assessed." The $100 million estimate was nearly twice as high as the highest previous estimate of what Libya paid for its nuclear technology. That figure does not include what Iran and North Korea or other customers of the Khan network that the officials declined to identify Monday, citing continuing investigations, paid to the network of suppliers. On Saturday, Iran announced a freeze on inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to protest the terms of a resolution that chided the country for failing to cooperate fully with inspectors. On Monday, the head of the agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in Washington that Iran had changed its position and would allow the inspections to resume on March 27. The $100 million figure does, however, explain how a government scientist like Mr. Khan could afford a lavish lifestyle, in Pakistan, in homes around the world and at his hotel in Mali. One official noted that given the relatively small number of principal players in the Khan network — maybe a dozen people in all — it "made it a very lucrative trade." "The network's financial dealings were deliberately complex and we do not yet have a complete picture," said Jim Wilkinson, a deputy national security adviser who made the trip here. "The developing picture, however, indicates that the Khan network received at least $100 million for supplying technology, equipment and know-how" to Libya, he said. "It was truly one-stop shopping." Under a tent in a parking lot of the heavily guarded complex here, officials set up a display of dozens of large wooden packing crates that contained Libya's disassembled nuclear program, as well as small number of items that they had declassified. Among them were four aluminum centrifuges, called P-1's, the nomenclature for the first generation of Pakistani centrifuges based on a design that Dr. Khan stole from Europe and used to make the uranium for the first Pakistani nuclear weapons. Gleaming, the aluminum tubes stood more than six feet tall, with three pipes coming out the top of each. The centrifuges, basically hollow metal tubes, spin at the speed of sound to separate uranium 235 — which is used as the main ingredient for bombs — from unneeded uranium 238. In front of the display lay a six-foot-long piece of cascade piping — the line that in an operating plant would tie the centrifuges together. A set of thousands of centrifuges, called a cascade, concentrates the rare U-235 isotope to make potent bomb fuel. Each centrifuge in a cascade makes the uranium a little more enriched in the U-235 isotope. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 16 UPI: U.S. display not to embarrass Libya - (United Press International) March 16, 2004 WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- Government officials said Tuesday the Bush administration didn't intend to embarrass Libya by displaying nuclear components it received from the Arab country. The Treasury Department took journalists Monday to a display of the components at Oak Ridge, Tenn., causing some to say the show was an embarrassment for Libya. The critics said the Arab press was already criticizing Libya for cowing under U.S. pressure and the display would further embarrass Libyan leaders. "This is not a design to embarrass anyone. It was simply designed to demonstrate the kind of materials that are involved here," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. "And anybody who sort of thinks that this is sending a message of seeking to cow anyone is really misreading it." Ereli told a briefing in Washington that Libya's decision to give up the components was the result of "a very cooperative process, and it is a process that is being led by, initiated by, and supported by Libya and the international community." ***************************************************************** 17 BBC: US displays 'Libyan nuclear secrets' Last Updated: Tuesday, 16 March, 2004 By Rob Watson BBC, Oak Ridge [Oak Ridge Nuclear Physics Centre in the 1950s] The Oak Ridge centre made the uranium for the bomb of 1945 It is one of the best protected and most secretive installations in the US. It is outside the town of Oak Ridge, in an attractive valley amid the green hills of eastern Tennessee. The facility itself is known simply as Y12. I was one of a planeload of journalists flown from Washington by the White House to visit Y12. The purpose was to show us material from Libya's nuclear weapons programme sent to the US for evaluation and destruction. 'Think security' Security is intense - and it is hardly surprising. This is where the uranium for America's nuclear arsenal is processed - and where they made the uranium for the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. As you enter the complex there's a sign that says: "Think Security, Live Security". And then there was a verbal warning. An official climbed on our bus to tell us we could not film or record anything other than at the event location. The event location turned out to be decidedly bizarre - a large white marquee tent had been set up in the middle of a parking lot ringed closely by heavily armed guards. Inside the tent were some 48 crates, which contained material sent by the Libyans, we were told. Most of the crates were sealed, but 12 tubes were on display - which, we were told, were centrifuges used for making weapons grade uranium. Our tour guide was the US Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, who said what we were seeing only represented a fraction of the 50,000 pounds of equipment the Libyans had sent. Another 500 tons is on the way in the next day or so. The rest of the material was classified, he said. Abandoned The centrifuges themselves were nothing special to look out. To the untrained eye they look just like the piping you might find in any industrial facility. But Mr Abraham insisted Libya had all the components needed to make a nuclear weapon. None of the various officials could tell us how far away Libya was from making such a weapon. [Control room of Libya's Tajura Nuclear Reactor research facility ] Libya revealed the extent of its nuclear programme late last year Interestingly, one official said he believed Libya was closer to making one than Iraq was this time last year. We were also treated to detailed explanations of who was behind Libya's nuclear programme - and how it came to be abandoned. One senior official said almost all of Libya's nuclear know-how had come from the network run by the top nuclear scientist AQ Khan. It was lucrative work - the official said the Libyans paid the network some $100m for its services. The US claims the programme was abandoned for two main reasons. Firstly, US and British intelligence agencies found out about it - and even intercepted a boatload of material. Secondly, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had seen the build up of US-led forces in the Persian Gulf - and was worried he might be next. The Libyans were the subject of much praise for what was repeatedly described as their active co-operation in dismantling their weapons programmes since Colonel Gaddafi's decision to abandon them last December. Flying journalists to Oak Ridge has been dismissed by many as a propaganda and publicity stunt in a week in which the Bush administration is marking - and defending - the start of the war in Iraq. Maybe. But officials here insist the Libyan disarmament is still on a remarkable scale - and it is an event that few would have predicted before last year's march to war. ***************************************************************** 18 Las Vegas SUN: Powell Seeks Answers on Pakistan Nukes By GEORGE GEDDA ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday he will ask Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week whether Pakistani officials aided rogue scientist A.Q. Khan in leaking nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Powell also waded into the growing U.S. political dispute over American companies sending jobs overseas, asking India to help create more jobs in the United States by opening its markets to more U.S. exports. But he said that was not a precondition for the continued outsourcing of American jobs to India. "There is no quid pro quo here," Powell told reporters after discussing the sticky subject with Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha. On Pakistan, Powell said he would ask Pakistan's president about the black market nuclear network headed by Khan. "We can't be satisfied until this entire network is gone, branch and root," Powell said. He later met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Seeking to cut costs, companies from the United States and other Western countries have hired about 170,000 workers in India for jobs such as payroll accounting, telemarketing and customer support services. Powell said that despite job losses in the United States, outsourcing will continue. "These kinds of dislocations will take place and we have to minimize these dislocations and provide more opportunities for workers," he said. Sinha said the two sides agreed to discuss the situation further. "We will not allow this or any other issue to create any misunderstanding between us," Sinha said. Powell said the U.S. response should not be to prevent American firms from exporting jobs but to train young Americans in skills needed by the rest of the world. Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for helping it become the first Islamic country with nuclear weapons, appeared on television seven weeks ago and disclosed his role in selling nuclear secrets to foreign governments. He said he was solely responsible - an assertion that has been greeted with widespread disbelief. Musharraf has told U.S. officials that the Pakistani government was not in league with Khan's black market operation. But Powell said he wondered whether individual officials collaborated with Khan. The question, he said, is "who else was involved in that network, was involved within past Pakistani governments or anything that might be taking place of a continuing nature." Musharraf fueled suspicion about complicity of Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies in Khan's operation when he pardoned the scientist 24 hours after his confession. The White House then that Pakistani officials had broken up the network. As for U.S. relations with India, Sinha said ties have never been better in more than 50 years of Indian independence. The most obvious breakthrough was a U.S.-Indian agreement reached in January to increase technology cooperation, permitting U.S. exports of sensitive civil nuclear and civilian space equipment. In return, India agreed to strengthen its own controls on the export of sensitive technology to other countries. Powell took a break from his official talks here in late afternoon when he fielded questions from Indian teenagers for a program to be aired on ND-TV, a local station. One questioner drew applause from his peers when he suggested that the United States was being hypocritical in continuing to possess nuclear weapons while demanding that other nations foreswear such armaments. Powell said the U.S. arsenal has diminished sharply since his days as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990's when the country's nuclear repository numbered 28,000 weapons. "I hope for the day when no one has nuclear weapons because no one has a need for them," Powell said. "But they can't all suddenly go away unfortunately because there is still the requirement for a deterrent." -- ***************************************************************** 19 Miami Herald: Libya paid millions to scientist, U.S. says | 03/16/2004 | NUCLEAR ARMS BY MATT KELLEY Associated Press OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - Libya paid at least $100 million for the nuclear weapons equipment it got from a Pakistani scientist's underground network, a White House official said Monday. U.S. officials displayed some of the equipment for the first time, claiming its seizure as a victory in the fight against weapons of mass destruction. Libya bought the gear -- including a design for a nuclear warhead and centrifuges to separate weapons-grade uranium -- from a network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. ''The Khan network's finances were deliberately complex, and we do not have a complete picture,'' said Jim Wilkinson, a spokesman for the National Security Council. ``The developing picture, however, indicates that the Khan network received at least $100 million for supplying technology, equipment and know-how.'' Monday's display included a dozen of the aluminum casings that would have enclosed high-speed centrifuges to separate weapons fuel from ordinary uranium hexafluoride gas. Guards armed with M-4 assault rifles flanked the display and encircled the tent where officials showed off the haul. The equipment was part of a shipment of 55,000 pounds of gear the United States flew out of Libya in January, after leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to give up his country's nuclear weapons program. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, admitted this year he sold such equipment to Libya, Iran and North Korea. However, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pardoned him. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the 50 crates of equipment represented a breakthrough in the fight against the spread of nuclear weapons. ''All of the ingredients were available for a weapons program,'' Abraham said. ``Happily, this equipment is no longer in Libya.'' The Bush administration is trumpeting its success in Libya as it faces criticism for not finding any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ***************************************************************** 20 AxisofLogic: The Bush-Saudi-Pakistan Nuke Connection [http://www.axisoflogic.com By Jerry Politex Mar 16, 2004, 08:59 March 15, 2004-Now that nuclear and/or terrorism experts have begin discussing the likelyhood of a terrorist nuclear event taking place in this country within the decade, the follow-up question will be what administration will be blamed if it should happen. Another way of looking at it is to consider where we are now and what the present administration is doing to prevent future nuclear catestrophe. On this count, the BushAdmin is not looking good. A New York Times editorial recently (03.14.04) opined: "At a time when the United States is trying desperately to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of rogue nations and terrorist groups, it is disheartening to learn of the government's pathetically weak efforts to recover bomb-grade uranium from research reactors around the world." While Bush in mid-February attempted to get ahead of the curve of such negative press by calling upon nations to help halt nuclear proliferation as news of Pakistani Kahn's black marketing of muclear secrets broke, his administration's agreement with Pakistan to pardon Kahn suggested that, once more, Bush actions speak louder than Bush words. Right now, Bush is taking great pains to keep this subject under wraps until after the election, but world events and his own political needs have created a conflict within his administration. Last week Paul Wolfowitz, who may very well be our next Sec. of State if Bush were to win the election, told an interviewer that there is a de facto quid pro quo between the BushAdmin and Masharraf: you help us capture the Taliban (meaning: Bin Laden) and we'll not make waves about your political need to pardon your nuke "hero," Dr. A. Q. Kahn, who has been selling nuclear secrets to "rogue nations" (Iran, N. Korea, Libyaa) for years. The stories behind this story are many, but what observers, such as the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof (03.10.04), are wondering is why the BushAdmin is doing so little to stem the tide of nuclear proliferation and why it has sent mixed signals to the world's nuke players since it came into power in 2001. Numerous reports have confirmed that the BushAdmin put a blanket over various government probes of the Saudis from day one, and Greg Palast has reported that a connection between Bush halting a probe of Kahn and Saudi interests exist. Ronald Motley, a lawyer who is presently suing a number of Saudis in connection with 9/11, believes: "The president's ties to the Saudi kingdom are personal as well as political: his father, George H.W. Bush, was until recently a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, an investment firm that counted bin Laden family members among its investors until October 2001. James Baker, whom Bush recently sent abroad seeking help to reduce Iraq's debt, is still a senior counselor for the Carlyle Group, and Baker's Houston-based law firm, Baker Botts, is representing the Saudi defense minister in Motley's case....Back in October 2002, news articles reported ''administration officials'' saying that the government was considering asking the courts to dismiss the suit."(NYT, 03.14.04) A forthcoming book by Craig Unger, "House of Bush, House of Saud," goes even further: "Not only does [the book] pose disturbing questions about Saudi involvement in 9-11 -- wittingly or unwittingly -- it presents a believable case that the Bush administration's relationship with the royal house of Saud precipitated this catastrophe," writes reviewer John Freeman in the 03.14.04 Orlando Sentinel. "Unger argues, $1.4 billion flowed from the House of Saud to the Bush family and their interests. So how much influence does this $1.4 billion buy? Unger makes a compelling case that it kept our eyes off the rising extremism in Saudi Arabia. And yet, the incoming Bush administration didn't steer away from Saudis." To some, such financial connections, both governmental and private, could account for Bush's unwillingness to continue government probes of the Saudis in 2001, but what about the apparant quid pro quo arrangement between the BushAdmin and Musharruf? This week the Times of India (03.13.04) reported that "in the past fortnight by the British and French foreign ministers, next week's visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Musharraf's sudden visit to Riyadh at the weekend have triggered speculation that the pressure is on Musharraf to let foreign troops in." Why would Mashurraf go to Saudi Arabia to consult with Saudi officials about the Bin Laden-Kahn quid pro quo? A possible answer is that the hasty visit had something to do with a nuclear deal reportedly struck by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia last October: "Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have concluded a secret agreement on "nuclear cooperation" that will provide the Saudis with nuclear-weapons technology in exchange for cheap oil, according to a ranking Pakistani insider....Saudi officials also are still chafing over a closed meeting -- later well publicized -- of the U.S. Defense Policy Board in 2002, where an expert explained, with a 16-slide Powerpoint presentation, why and how the United States should seize and occupy oil fields in the country's Eastern Province.... www.GlobalSecurity.org [http://www.GlobalSecurity.org] , a well-connected defense Internet site, found in a recent survey that Saudi Arabia has the infrastructure to exploit such nuclear exports very quickly." (Wash. Times, 10.22.03) Given this scenario, Masharraf's visit to Saudi Arabia was likely meant to convince the Saudis to put pressure upon Bush to back off his pressure on Masharraf to allow military access into Norther Pakistan to hunt down and capture Bin Laden prior to the November election. Will this force Bush to cut the Saudis and the Pakistanis more nuclear slack? One way or the other, the danger of nuclear proliferation appears to be taking a back seat to Bush's political expediency at the expense of our national security. As Kristof writes in the above-mentioned "A Nuclear 9/11": "A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb (a pipsqueak in weapons terms) is smuggled into Manhattan and explodes at Grand Central. Some 500,000 people are killed, and the U.S. suffers $1 trillion in direct economic damage. That scenario, cited in a report last year from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, could be a glimpse of our future. We urgently need to control nuclear materials to forestall that threat, but in this war on proliferation, we're now slipping backward. President Bush (after ignoring the issue before 9/11) now forcefully says the right things -- but still doesn't do enough." --Jerry Politex, http://bushwatch.org/bush.htm#editorial [http://bushwatch.org/bush.htm#editorial] ***************************************************************** 21 CNN.com: Japan plans major defense review - Mar 15, 2004 [http://www.cnn.com/] TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Keen to boost its military capabilities and global security profile, Japan is undertaking the most drastic review of its forces in five decades -- a move analysts say will involve both pain and gain for domestic firms. Under a new National Defense Program Outline to be unveiled this year, Japan will realign its troops and overhaul its armaments to respond more quickly to terrorist, guerrilla and missile attacks involving nuclear and biochemical arms. The September 11 attacks on the United States, missile threats from North Korea and concerns about regional rival China are the driving forces behind Japan's decision to review its armed forces for the first time in nine years. "In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of other threats, Japan has started to refocus its strategy," said Lance Gatling, an independent defense expert and aerospace consultant in Tokyo. Japan also wants to realign its military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, to enable it to participate more actively in overseas non-combat missions, defense ministry officials said. In a move likely to be contentious, the government is set to delete from the new outline a 1976 "basic defense plan" limiting Japan to a "minimum" defense capability in order "not to cause instability in neighboring areas by creating a power vacuum." "That's a major shift in Japan's defense policy. Japan is moving to a stage that is a far cry from where the Self-Defense Forces have been," said independent defense analyst Haruo Fujii. Japan's pacifist constitution has been interpreted as allowing a military, but only for self-defense. The government has been stretching that restriction, most recently with a decision to send up to 1,000 soldiers to help rebuild Iraq. The new outline will call for cuts in equipment aimed at defending against a traditional land invasion and replacing it with gear needed to fend off missile and terror attacks. The number of "regular" ground troops may be raised from the current 145,000 to 150,000 by shifting about 5,000 of Japan's 15,000 "reserve" troops to the main contingent to respond better to terrorist or guerrilla attacks, defense ministry sources said. The number of army tanks and artillery pieces is likely to be cut by 30 percent, while the number of strategic aircraft including fighter jets and P3C patrol planes could also be reduced. "It is natural that we should make those changes because we do believe that the possibility of our country being invaded by a foreign country is very slim today," one of the sources said. Japan recently decided to buy a missile defense system from the United States. Experts say the system, to be partially deployed in 2007 and fully operational by 2011, will cost up to one trillion yen ($9 billion) over the next 10 years. "Within the Defense Agency (ministry), the watchword of late has been 'get prepared to do without more fighters, warships and tanks' because the focus of the Defense Agency is going toward long-range surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance assets," Gatling said. Japan will also need to buy mobile and satellite communication systems as well as long-range aircraft to realize its ambition to take part more actively in international operations such as United Nations peacekeeping, he added. Buy Japanese? Some Japanese officials say the defense budget -- about 4.95 trillion yen annually -- could snowball over time. According to "The Military Balance 2002-2003," published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Japan was the world's fourth-biggest defense spender after the United States, Russia and China. The Military Balance put U.S. defense spending in 2002/03 at $322.36 billion, Russia at $63.68 billion, China at $46.04 billion and Japan at $39.51 billion. "It would cost a huge amount of money to procure hardware capable of dealing with attacks using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons," another defense ministry official said. The defense ministry spends about $14-1$6 billion each year to buy military hardware, about 90 percent of which comes from Japanese companies. Defense experts including Gatling said the ministry was becoming more lenient towards spending on information technology. The budget for information technology upgrades to be approved this month is roughly the same as the $1.45 billion outlay for the missile defense scheme in the next fiscal year beginning in April. High-tech firms such as Fujitsu Ltd, NEC Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd would likely benefit most from the new-look military focusing on information technology, while cuts in traditional weaponry could hurt domestic arms makers, analysts said. The government, however, will try to ensure such damage is offset -- for example by having Japanese companies produce part of the missile defense system under license from U.S. firms. Some 60 percent of total contracts go to six major Japanese defense contractors. Most of the remaining 10 percent goes to U.S. contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp, Raytheon Co and Boeing Co. Copyright 2004 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not ***************************************************************** 22 ITAR-TASS: Russia offers best world nuclear technologies to China [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 16.03.2004, 19.40 BEIJING, March 16 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia offers to China the best nuclear technologies that exist in the world at present, deputy chief of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency Vladimir Asmolov said speaking on the construction project of two reactors that Russia is planning to build for the second phase of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in eastern China. The reactor that is being built at the Tianwan nuclear power plant is the best Russian reactor operating at Russian nuclear power plants and being built by Russian specialists abroad --- in China, India and Iran, Asmolov told Itar-Tass before the opening of the exhibition “Atomic energy industry. China – 2004.” He noted that the Russian reactor VVER-1000 “is first equipped by modern security means and the crash management system including a trap for serious breakdowns.” The Russian specialist also stressed that the reactor with the increased capacity --- VVER-1500 is being built, and this theme is already being discussed with Chinese colleagues. At present the main task is to build and commission such reactor at the Leningrad nuclear power plant, Asmolov emphasized. All countries that intend to develop the atomic energy industry in the next 50 years plan to use more powerful reactors than reactors VVER-1000. According to him this factor caused Russia’s loss in the tender for the construction of a new reactor in Finland. Thus at the exhibition “we offer to our Chinese colleagues to familiarize with a new absolutely revolutionary project that will embody all the best experience that we accumulated in the construction of reactors,” Asmolov pointed out. The delegation of Russian nuclear engineers will leave for Lianyungang after the talks with the leadership of the Committee for defence science, technologies and defence industry on Thursday. The Chinese atomic energy industry is managed by the committee. The construction of the first reactor of the Tianwan nuclear power plant will be finished this year near Lianyungang. The second reactor will be commissioned in 2005. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 23 NRO: Stopping China and Pakistan in their nuclear tracks. Henry Sokolski on China, Pakistan &Nuclear Technology on National Review Online [author@nationalreview.com] March 16, 2004, 8:42 a.m. Proliferation Pass By Henry Sokolski You'd think that after the illicit Pakistani nuclear sales to North Korea, Iran, and Libya, the U.S. and its allies would want to boost the rules on nuclear exports, especially for nuclear goods bound for Islamabad. But if you knew what Chinese, French, Japanese, and U.S. reactor vendors and energy officials were up to, you'd realize you were wrong. Westinghouse in the U.S., Japan's Mitsubishi, and the French firm Areva are so eager to sell China nuclear-power plants that they and their governments are turning a blind eye to an even more troubling nuclear export — a Chinese deal to sell Islamabad a large reactor. This sale, revealed in the press last week, defies the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines — rules China says it wants to adhere to and that President Bush is anxious to bolster. Saying nothing to protest this sale to Islamabad would confirm that the worst proliferators, such as Pakistan, can not only go Scot-free for their proliferating past, but also receive more nuclear technology without having to follow the rules. It's one deal that should be killed and could be if U.S. and allied officials made their own reactor sales to China contingent on Beijing renouncing its nuclear-reactor pledge to Pakistan. Backers of the civilian nuclear industry, of course, see things differently. Pakistan and China, they note, are already nuclear-weapons states and China now says it will place its proposed reactor to Pakistan under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Besides, the U.S. government has spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars helping Westinghouse on its AP 1000 reactor design to make sure Beijing gets the reactors it needs. What nonproliferation concerns, they ask, could warrant blocking the sale? There are three. First, the U.S. and its allies can hardly sell China reactors and say nothing about Beijing's Pakistani reactor deal without making a hash of the NSG's guidelines and President Bush's own most recent nonproliferation proposals. On February 11, 2004, President Bush announced a series of initiatives that would put real teeth and backbone into the NSG. Under this organization's rules, no member is supposed to supply nuclear goods to any state unless the recipient is willing to open all of its nuclear facilities to full-scope IAEA inspections. President Bush not only backs this rule, but wants to toughen it by requiring NSG members to cut off nuclear sales to states that have refused to adopt the IAEA's latest, most stringent additional inspections protocol. Pakistan, of course, has refused to allow the IAEA to inspect all but a handful of its nuclear facilities. China, meanwhile, proudly announced in January that it intends to become a member of the NSG (a step that U.S. officials undoubtedly encouraged China to take in anticipation of U.S. nuclear sales to it). China's pledge to sell Pakistan a large reactor, then, could hardly be more obnoxious: It makes a mockery of the NSG, China's candidacy to become a member, President Bush's nonproliferation initiative, and nuclear restraint in general. Second, letting these reactor sales proceed can only persuade Pakistani officials they are off the hook for behavior that has distinguished them as the worst nuclear proliferator since the advent of nuclear energy. Pakistan, in fact, has been cutting nuclear weapons deals with Libya, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea for a decade or more. A recent Central Intelligence Agency report leaked to the press pegs Pakistan's first nuclear dealings with North Korea to information exchanges that began in 1991. U.S. officials clearly would like to learn more from Pakistan's proliferation mastermind Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Unfortunately, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who recently pardoned Khan for selling Pakistan's nuclear crown jewels, has kept U.S. officials from interviewing him. So far, the White House has put up with this. If, on top of this, the U.S. and its allies do nothing to block China's reactor sale to Pakistan, Islamabad will have reason to conclude that they are forgiven and need not cooperate any further. Third, doing nothing to block China from selling Pakistan a new reactor will make it much more difficult to restrain nuclear sales to other nations. Pakistan, after all, needs another reactor like Iran needs its nuclear power plant at Bushehr and its uranium enrichment plants. Well-informed Pakistani critics have pointed out that the $700 million reactor and its proposed location at Chashma raises major safety and economic concerns. Unfortunately, Islamabad has so far ignored the critics. If Washington says nothing, it will only suggest Islamabad is right. This will set a horrendous precedent. Is there any country less qualified financially or in need of buying such a reactor, more able to convert the reactor's fresh or spent fuel quickly into bomb material, or freer of legal constraints to proliferate? (Pakistan, unlike most nations, has never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.) If we let this sale go without protest, how will we and our allies be able to say no to anyone else? Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to visit Islamabad before the end of this week. The urgent topic of Pakistan's nuclear-proliferation exports is sure to be on his agenda. To this he needs to add stopping Pakistan's planned reactor import from China. Certainly, Washington won't impress the Pakistanis about blocking the bomb's further spread if it lets this one go. — Henry Sokolski directs the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center [http://www.npec-web.org/] in Washington, D.C., and is editor with Patrick Clawson of Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions (U.S. Army War College, 2004). ***************************************************************** 24 AFP: Libya upset over US calling disarmament a "victory" for Washington WASHINGTON (AFP) Mar 16, 2004 Libya is upset the United States has portrayed its nuclear disarmament as a victory in US nonproliferation efforts, saying it should be recognized as the fruit of international cooperation, an official close to the UN watchdog said Tuesday. On Monday, US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had taken reporters on a tour of Libyan nuclear arms materials and equipment being housed in the US state of Tennessee and claimed their handover was an "important victory" in US nonproliferation efforts. "Libya was quite unhappy with this dog and pony show because it hurts them domestically (and) in the Arab world," said the Vienna-based official close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is headquartered in the Austrian capital. "It looks like unilateral US disarmament of Libya, and Libya wants it recognized as disarmament under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and IAEA auspices," the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters in Washington. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei began a four-day visit to Washington Sunday during which he will meet US President George W. Bush to discuss how to improve the fight against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Abraham had said on his media tour of nonclassified materials from Libya -- including centrifuge parts required for uranium enrichment -- at the Department of Energy's Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that "all of the ingredients were available for a weapons program to be developed" by Tripoli. Abraham said Bush's "nonproliferation policy gives regimes a choice: They can choose to pursue weapons of mass destruction at their peril and at great cost, or they can choose to disarm, renounce terrorism and get on a path to better relations with the United States and the international community." "The success of our mission in Libya underscores the success of this administration's broader nonproliferation efforts around the world," Abraham said. US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said at a regular news briefing in Washington Tuesday that it "would be an incorrect impression" to think the demonstration in Oak Ridge was to show that Libya's disarmament was strictly a US affair. He said "the United States, along with Britain and the (IAEA) ... have had a great deal of cooperation and help in working with Libya to help Libya follow through on its stated desire to get rid of those programs in a comprehensive and verifiable way." He said it was "a very cooperative and multilateral" effort and that the demonstration at Oak Ridge was not meant "to cow anyone." Libya earlier this month in Vienna signed an agreement allowing IAEA inspectors to carry out surprise inspections at its nuclear facilities as part of its pledge to give up its weapons programs and end its international isolation. The same day the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors voted to inform the UN Security Council that Tripoli had, in the past, violated its non-proliferation commitments but was now cooperating with the IAEA. An IAEA resolution thanked Libya "for its active cooperation with the agency" since December 19, when Libya agreed with the United States and Britain to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs. The IAEA is verifying, as mandated by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the nuclear part of the disarmament. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 25 [NukeNet] letter to editor, Glou County Times Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 14:20:42 -0800 The following letter was published yesterday in the Gloucester County Times. Keep the letters coming! Norm Date: 03/10/04 To the Editor, Gloucester County Times: In the article about the recent UNPLUG Salem Campaign briefing on safety culture problems at PSEG's nukes, a briefing that I attended, PSEG spokesperson Skip Sidoni said: "the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses a color coded grid to rate the 18 indicators on each unit. We're green on all our indicators&the plant itself is healthy." Sidoni's statement is incorrect. First of all, the NRC has given PSEG a WHITE finding for (quoting from the NRC website) "INEFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF CORRECTIVE ACTIONS FAILED TO PREVENT A RECURRENCE OF EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATOR TURBOCHARGER FAILURE. Failure to identify the cause and prevent recurrence of the emergency diesel generator (EDG) turbocharger failures was a performance deficiency. This finding is greater than minor because it adversely affected the equipment performance attribute of the mitigating systems cornerstone objective.... On May 1, 2003, the finding was determined to be a violation of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVI. The significance of the finding was also determined to be White." The March 3, 2004 NRC Annual Assessment Letter continued this White finding. This White finding is just one example of poor safety culture at PSEG. Secondly, with the NRC currently conducting investigations relating to serous safety allegations raised by former and current PSEG employees, including interviewing senior PSEG management, and, with the NRC sending a letter to PSEG CEO Ferland requiring PSEG to fix its poor Safety Conscious Work Environment, for Sidoni to say that all is well at PSEG's nuclear plants is just more public relations nonsense from PSEG. The NRC is holding a public meeting on March 18th, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn, exit 10 off of I295. And the UNPLUG Salem Campaign will be holding a rally on 3/28 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM on the Salem Nuke Access Road in Lower Alloways Township, featuring a presentation by a PSEG Safety Whistleblower and a large number of nuclear power experts. I urge the public to attend both of these meetings to learn for themselves what is going on at PSEGs nuclear plants. Sincerely, Frieda Berryhill -- Coalition for Peace and Justice (http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org); and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign (http://www.unplugsalem.org); 321 Barr Ave., Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8583/37; ncohen12@comcast.net. The Coalition for Peace and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action (http://www.peace-action.org). "You can say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" (Lennon). "Don't be late for your life" (Mary Chapin Carpenter). _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://chrome.nocdirect.com/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 26 Brattleboro Reformer: Power boost meets with mixed reaction from residents March 16, 2004 Brattleboro, VT By JUSTIN MASON Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- Local activists and officials expressed differing reactions to the conditional approval by the state Public Service Board to authorize Entergy Nuclear to increase Vermont Yankee's output by 20 percent. Vernon selectboard member and Yankee senior engineer Michael Ball said the uprate will benefit both the state, town and the plant. "It's a great thing for the town and a great thing for Yankee," he said. Although he hadn't spoken with other members of the selectboard, Ball was fairly certain they would be in favor of the decision. By next year, the town could be reaping the financial benefits from the uprate, he said. "We're looking forward to that coming to our town," he said. Ball said increasing the plant output wouldn't likely affect the plant's safety. He said extensive testing would be conducted by the plant during the increase in order to determine if there were any burgeoning problems that needed to be addressed. "The plant is still going to be as safe as it was before," he said. Ball said plant officials have worked hard to ensure that the plant would be able to withstand the additional capacity. He added they would continue to take great precautions to prevent any safety hazards. "A lot of people have put in thousands of hours during the review process," he said. "It's something that you don't do lightly." Judith Davidson, a former Dummerston selectman and member of Nuclear Free Vermont, was dismayed by the PSB's decision. "I'm disappointed that the Public Service Board approved the uprate," she said. "But I'm very glad that they have an independent safety assessment." Davidson hopes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn't conduct a "paper and pencil application" review of the plant, but instead conducts an assessment like the one done at Maine Yankee in 1996. During that review, a team of NRC engineers physically assessed the plant "from top to bottom" and consulted with a group of civilian experts, she said. "That was a very important piece of the whole plan," she said. "So that (town residents) could have access to the results." Davidson said she was still concerned over testimony by industry whistleblower Paul Blanch at the PSB's hearing in January. Blanch reported that net suction pumps at the plant could fail as a result of the uprate, which could trigger a cooling accident. "I have some serious concerns with parts of their uprate plan," Davidson said. "Many engineers question if they can do it." Derrik Jordan of the Vermont chapter of the Citizen's Awareness Network was also pleased that the PSB included a review order in their decision. "It sounded like (they) listened the public and responded to some of the citizen's concerns," he said. "That's good to hear." But Jordan said the NRC might not be independent enough to conduct an unbiased review. "We're concerned that the NRC is the nuclear industry's lapdog, not the watchdog," he said. Jordan hopes an aggressive assessment will help put to rest community fears about the plant or expose any of its shortcomings. "The depth and the scope of their evaluation is what we are concerned about," he said. Citizen's Action Network member Ned Childs thinks any review of Yankee conducted by the NRC would be a farce. If there is a review of the plant, it should be conducted by a non-partisan group, he said. "I don't think the NRC can provide an independent assessment," he said. "I don't think NRC is capable of acting as an independent auditor." Letting the NRC review the plant's safety was like letting "the fox watch the hen house," Childs said. "They have never shut down a nuclear power plant," he said. Childs doesn't believe there is any reason for the plant to increase energy output and thinks the public service board bowed to pressure from plant officials who will likely appeal the public service board's review condition, he said. Rather than waiting for NRC to review the plant, Childs thinks Gov. Jim Douglas should order an independent safety assessment. "That is the very least we could hope for," he said. ***************************************************************** 27 AJC: New power plants not the best option [http://www.ajc.com] By RITA KILPATRICK Published on: 03/16/2004 Georgia Public Service Commissioner Stan Wise's guest column, "Environmental lobby's effort backfires" (@issue, March 11), contained several misleading statements. Yes, air pollution has been reduced over the past 30 years. This is largely because of stronger clean-air laws passed by intelligent, forward-thinking elected officials armed with the latest public health science and the support of the "environmental lobby." The reckless support of nuclear power by Wise, an elected public official, shows a lack of historic understanding of power generation and electric power rates in our state. The last nuclear plant to be completed in Georgia, Plant Vogtle, cost more than $8.4 billion to build, causing the largest rate increase in Georgia history. Supporting greater efficiency in the way we use electric power would go a long way toward slowing the rush to build more polluting power plants and unsightly transmission lines. This summer Georgia Power Co. plans to come before the PSC again asking for a rate increase. It would be a step in the right direction if the commission required the company to support energy efficiency programs that will save consumers money, create jobs and protect the environment. One of the most surprising parts of Wise's misguided column was his criticism of a state-specific renewable energy accreditation standard for "green power" developed over a two-year period by Georgia residents, companies and government agencies. The Georgia-developed accreditation standard received a Good Housekeeping-like seal of approval called "Green E." One of the criteria in the "Green E" standard is to require new renewable generation sources such as wind, solar and biomass. This protects consumers from a power company taking a power source that has been providing electricity for years and repackaging it as something new and clean while charging well-meaning ratepayers a higher price. Unfortunately, this is exactly what Wise was prepared to support. Fortunately, some other PSC commissioners stood up for consumers when the environmental lobby pointed out the company's failure to follow the agreed upon "Green E" standard for Georgia. Rita Kilpatrick is the Georgia policy director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. © 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution [http://www.ajc.com/] ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas SUN: Training for Nuclear Plant Guards Off By TED BRIDIS ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Nuclear weapons plants have eliminated or reduced training for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the government unable to guarantee the plants can be adequately defended, the Energy Department's internal watchdog said Tuesday. One plant has reduced training hours by 40 percent, and some plants conduct tactical training only in classrooms, according to a report from the department's inspector general. Some contractors fear that injuries among guards during training exercises could reduce bonus payments from the government, the report said. Guards typically receive 320 hours of training. Only one of 10 plants surveyed, Hanford, Wash., trains guards in the basic use of a shotgun, according to the report. None of the plants teaches guards how to rappel down buildings or cliffs because of concerns that guards might be injured. The report noted that one guard died rappelling in 1995. "Inconsistent training methods may increase the risk that the department's protective forces will not be able to safely respond to security incidents or will use excessive levels of force," said the report prepared by Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman's office. It said changes in training weren't coordinated. At some plants training was deemed too dangerous; other plants continued to offer the same exercises. Investigators interviewed instructors who "could not understand how personnel at one site could deem a practice acceptable while others would refuse to administer the block of training using prescribed levels of force." The National Nuclear Security Administration, which protects nuclear plants, acknowledged in a letter responding to the inspector general that training for guards has suffered because of overtime demands at weapons plants. It promised to review training to make sure it was adequate. The criticisms were the latest leveled against the government's ability to protect nuclear facilities, long considered prime targets for espionage and terrorist attacks. The inspector general complained in January that security guards who repelled four simulated terrorist attacks at the Y-12 weapons plant in Tennessee had been tipped in advance. The plant processes parts for nuclear weapons and maintains vast supplies of bomb-grade uranium. That earlier report determined that at least two guards defending the mock attacks had been allowed to look at computer simulations one day before the attacks, and it also uncovered more evidence of cheating during mock attacks against U.S. nuclear plants over the past two decades. The newest report said some of the nation's weapons plants aren't adequately training guards how to use handcuffs, fight hand-to-hand or defend against terrorists in vehicles. In some cases, mock fighting during exercises is performed in slow motion to avoid injuries. "Defense tactics training should be as realistic as possible," the inspector general's report said. "Anything less may rob the trainee of the exposure to the levels of force, panic, and confusion that are usually present during an actual attack and increase the possibility of an inappropriate response in high stress situations." At some weapons plants, for example, instructors used wooden mock-ups or removed windshields from the vehicles of mock terrorists for safety. But experts said that prevents guards from learning how glass affects gunfire or the visibility of a target inside. The report said all 10 weapons plants surveyed have reduced guard training in at least two important areas. The plants were the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; the Nevada Test Site near Nellis Air Force Base; the Oak Ridge Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver; the Hanford Site; Sandia National Laboratories in California; the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. --- On the Net: Inspector General's report: [http://www.ig.doe.gov/pdf/ig-0641.pdf] -- ***************************************************************** 29 North County Times: San Onofre's temporary workers live a nomadic lifestyle North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County News modified Monday, March 15, 2004 10:41 PM PST Shelly Baker of Texas walks her mother's dog, Sweetie, through San Onofre's on-site campground with her son Cale and daughter McKenna in tow. Jamie Scott Lytle [http://www.nctimes.com/forms/photo_services/linkorder.php?des= Jamie Scott Lytle Shelly Baker of Texas walks her mother`s dog, Sweetie, through San Onofre`s on-site campground with her son Cale and daughter McKenna in tow. ` ] Visit our Photo Gallery [http://www.nctimes.com/news/photogallery/] Reactor buildings loom behind the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station's camp ground Monday. Jamie Scott Lytle Order a copy of this photo [http://www.nctimes.com/forms/photo_services/linkorder.php?des= Jamie Scott Lytle Reactor buildings loom behind the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station`s camp ground Monday. ` ] Visit our Photo Gallery [http://www.nctimes.com/news/photogallery/] By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer SAN ONOFRE --- After 36 days on the job, most of San Onofre's "nuclear nomads" are ready to move on. "It's just part of construction life to be on the road," said Don Myers, a pipefitter from Arizona. "If you're not on the road, you're not working." Myers is one of about 1,000 temporary workers hired by Southern California Edison ---- San Onofre's majority owner and operator ---- to help refuel and perform routine maintenance on the plant's Unit 2 reactor. Each of San Onofre's two 1,100-megawatt reactors must be shut down every two years to replace spent uranium fuel rods and to inspect the hundreds of pumps and pipes that help the plant generate electricity. For 45 days, temporary workers will toil alongside many of Edison's 2,000 permanent employees to get the plant refueled, repaired and running again. Myers said he has worked refueling outages at San Onofre for the last 26 years, adding that he even helped build the Unit 2 reactor before it went online in 1983. He and many "travelers" like him have learned to shrug off the incredulous looks they get when they tell people what they do for a living ---- traveling to nuclear power plants across the nation to help with repairs and refueling. "I ain't afraid of no zoomies," Myers said, using the industry slang for radiation. On Monday morning, Myers worked to hitch his truck to the back of a large, brown recreational vehicle before hitting the road. Like many travelers, he stays in San Onofre's on-site campground while he works 12-hour shifts. The campground can accommodate up to 300 RVs and camper trailers, giving workers a free place to stay only a few minutes from the job site. If not for the twin reactor domes on the horizon, the campground could be anywhere in the United States. Row after row of campers sit side by side, their owners either inside sleeping or outside in lawn chairs. Larry Tomplait, a pipefitter from Beaumont, Texas, was getting ready to leave Monday for another outage in Callaway, Mo. Tomplait worked 37 years at a chemical plant in Texas before becoming a traveler about three years ago. Now Tomplait and his wife, Nancy, spend a few months each year on the road, driving their fifth-wheel truck and trailer to power plants in Mississippi and Georgia. The way they see it, it's a good way to see the country and bring in some money at the same time. Plus, refueling outages tend to be scheduled toward the beginning or end of each year. "It leaves all my summer open for my eight grandchildren at home," Larry Tomplait explained. Like Myers, Tomplait was unconcerned about working in an environment where radiation is everpresent. He said Edison has done a good job of making sure it protects its temporary workers. "I find this was probably one of the safest jobs I've ever done in my life," Tomplait said. "I feel safer on a job like this than I would in an oil refinery. They really emphasize safety. They don't rush into a job. Making a mistake is not an option here." Temporary workers are all trained. Edison requires each to undergo skill tests, a criminal background test, an interview and psychiatric evaluation before they can work an outage. Many of the jobs at San Onofre during a refueling outage do not involve any radiation exposure. Many workers spend their shifts working on the plant's external electrical components or steam lines located outside the containment dome. However, for those who do have to go "in the can" --- the name workers use for the plant's gigantic concrete containment dome --- radiation levels are closely monitored. A small sensor worn by each worker who enters the dome constantly measures and records radiation levels. All plants must record radiation exposure in the same way, logging cumulative exposure in one central database. The sensor allows the industry to make sure that no worker receives a dose of radiation higher than 5,000 millirems each year, an amount considered safe by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The average chest X-ray exposes a person to about 10 millirems of radiation, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Bob Corbett, supervisor of health physics at San Onofre, said local workers are seldom exposed to even one-fifth the maximum amount of allowable radiation. Usually, workers do not receive more than 400 millirems in one year. Despite the public's perception that working at a nuclear power plant is dangerous, he said there is little risk if safety procedures are followed. "If people follow the safety steps like they're supposed to, there's really no danger here," he said. Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com [psisson@nctimes.com] . webmaster@nctimes.com [webmaster@nctimes.com] © 1997-2004 North County Times - Lee Enterprises [http://www.lee.net] editor@nctimes.com [editor@nctimes.com] ***************************************************************** 30 Bellona: Funding of floating NPP to be determined this year The Russian Federal Atomic Agency, former Russian Minatom, intends to make a final decision on construction of the floating NPP in Severodvinsk. 2004-03-15 21:01 The former Russian Nuclear Minister Alexander Rumyantsev told journalists about it on January 29th, PRIME-TASS reported. He said the financing of the floating NPP's construction would be determined this year. The Russian federal budget or the credits from China, India or Indonesia, which are interested in the low capacity floating NPP project, could finance the construction. The legislation of these countries requires that at least one nuclear unit should already operate in Russia. The approximate price of the plant is $150m. Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 31 Bellona: Malfunction at Kola nuclear power plant The second unit at the Kola NPP suffered a minor incident on March 14th, TV Murman reported. 2004-03-16 17:10 One of the turbo-generators was taken off the grid due to some faults in the cooling system. However, it did not influence the reactor’s operation on the whole. It took seven hours to repair the cooling system and then the turbo-generator was put back in operation. The radiation levels around the nuclear plant remained normal, TV Murman reported. Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 32 AP Wire: Sierra Club alleges terrorism risks at Diablo Canyon nuke plant | 03/16/2004 | TERENCE CHEA Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO - The Sierra Club has sued the Bush administration, alleging that the federal government has failed to address security risks at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant off the Central California coast. The lawsuit charges that the Bush administration and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have refused to hold hearings on terrorism risks posed by a proposed storage facility for radioactive waste at the San Luis Obispo complex. "The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, caused petitioners to be gravely concerned that the siting and design of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant makes it a vulnerable and attractive target for acts of malice or insanity," according to the lawsuit. The Sierra Club, along with the activist group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, filed the complaint Monday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Built in 1985, the Diablo Canyon facility is owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which has applied for a license to store spent radioactive fuel in dry casks onsite because spent-fuel pools will be full within three years. Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the agency hasn't seen the lawsuit and wouldn't comment on it directly. But the agency has said previously that a licensing hearing isn't the appropriate venue for addressing national security concerns, he said. Dricks said that the agency believes the Diablo Canyon facility is secure, adding that it has passed tests involving a mock attack force attempting to invade the facility. "Pacific Gas & Electric is meeting the agency's requirements for the physical protection of that site, and they have demonstrated their ability to do so through our numerous inspections," Dricks said. Some experts have complained that the Bush administration hasn't done enough to ensure security at the nation's nuclear plants since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and other state and local officials have criticized the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for not holding hearings on vulnerabilities at the Diablo Canyon facility, and have urged the agency to do so. Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, said that "while the specific points of vulnerability should remain confidential, public debate on this issue is essential." ON THE NET Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/ [http://www.sierraclub.org/] Mothers for Peace: http://www.mothersforpeace.org/ [http://www.mothersforpeace.org/] U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/ [http://www.nrc.gov/] ***************************************************************** 33 Toronto Star: Clarington mayor pushes for new nuclear reactors TheStar.com - Tue. Mar. 16, 2004. | Updated at 07:00 AM Ideal location, John Mutton says Coal-fired plants being phased out STAN JOSEY STAFF REPORTER John Mutton wants to put a little more light in your life. Mutton is mayor of Clarington, the GTA's most easterly municipality, and the home of one of two nuclear power stations east of Toronto. He's working hard to make his municipality the "Energy Capital of Ontario." Still smarting after Clarington was knocked out of the race for the proposed International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), by a reluctant Canadian government, Mutton now is on a quest to locate one or more of the new-generation Advanced Candu Reactors beside the Darlington nuclear plant on the shores of Lake Ontario. "We heard that our name was being mentioned in Ottawa as a possible site for the new Candus, and we ran with it," Mutton said in an interview after a lobbying trip to the Canadian Nuclear Association annual meeting in Ottawa. There is a lot of controversy about how Ontario will meet its future power needs. The divide is wide between those who think nuclear is the answer and those pushing conservation and alternative power sources, such as solar and wind. Canada's nuclear communities, such as Pickering, Clarington, Kincardine, in Ontario and others outside the province, believe nuclear is the choice to meet Ontario's future power needs. They are excited by an offer from Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL) to locate eight of its latest generation power plants in Ontario at a cost of $12 billion. But the offer came around Christmas, at a time when the province was still reeling over the massive cost overruns in the refurbishment of one of four of Ontario's oldest CANDU generators at Pickering. At least two task forces have been assigned to advise the province on what technologies should be used to power Ontario in the future. That hasn't deterred Mutton and his Clarington crew. They've spent years travelling the world trying to secure a piece of science fiction, in the form of the ITER project. "Our experience with ITER would make us an ideal location for the new CANDUs," Mutton says. "We have the knowledge, the university, and the ideal site to locate the next generation of nuclear power station next to our Darlington station." The Liberal government's commitment during the last election campaign to phase out Ontario's coal-fired generating stations by 2007 has created pressure to quickly find alternative sources for about 7 megawatts of power. "We want to be part of the solution," says Suzanne McCrimmon, economic development officer for the local board of trade. "I think we are working together with the city to become the energy capital of Ontario." Mutton has been quietly meeting with federal and provincial officials and representatives of Atomic Energy Canada Limited, pushing his municipality as a site to install one or more new-generation Candu reactors. He says the local economic benefits would be enormous. Earlier this year the Electricity Conservation and Supply Task Force, charged with recommending "an affordable, reliable and environmentally acceptable" source of electric power to 2020, said "new nukes" would likely be part of the equation. But the task force also stressed that the biggest impact should come from conservation by consumers. The power options might be clarified further when former federal cabinet Minister John Manley completes his report on the future of Ontario Power Generation, expected later this month. AECL is keen on Clarington and will make a presentation to the local community on its new advanced CANDUs next week. " But nuclear critics argue that the design of the new advanced Candu reactor is not completed, and it has not received regulatory approvals by either the Canadian or U.S. governments. ***************************************************************** 34 Las Vegas SUN: Ohio Nuclear Plant Running Again ASSOCIATED PRESS OAK HARBOR, Ohio (AP) - The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant started generating electricity Tuesday for the first time since it was shut down more than two years ago, when inspectors found that acid had eaten nearly all the way through a steel lid on the reactor. The plant was restarted early in the morning and by afternoon was running at 21 percent of full power, producing about 120 megawatts of electricity, said plant spokesman Richard Wilkins. A return to full power should take 10 to 14 days. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave operator FirstEnergy Corp. permission a week ago to restart the reactor. After the plant was shut down in February 2002 for routine maintenance, inspectors found that boric acid from leaking cooling water had eaten nearly all the way through the 6-inch-thick steel cap. The damage led to a review of 68 similar plants nationwide. Both FirstEnergy and regulators were blamed for missing warning signs and allowing the leak to go unnoticed for years. The Akron-based utility spent $600 million on repairs and buying replacement power. -- ***************************************************************** 35 ITAR-TASS: Russia to contest tender to build nuclear power plant in China [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 16.03.2004, 15.09 BEIJING, March 16 (Itar-Tass) - Enterprises of the Russian nuclear industry are getting ready for the tender to build the second section of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in Eastern China. “Precisely for this purpose, we are taking part now in the Atomic Industry, China-2004 Exhibition,” official of the Russian Power Machinery Concern Mikhail Pogosyan told Itar-Tass here on Tuesday. This concern, which had supplied equipment for the two 1,000-megawatt generating units of the first section of the Tianwan nuclear power plant, is ready to offer for the Chinese side’s choice both the same kind of machinery and even more powerful ones – up to 1,500 megawatts each. Moreover, the concern and some other Russian enterprises, subordinated to the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, will take part in all the tenders, linked with the Chinese program to build nuclear power plants up to 2020. Deputy Head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency Vladimir Asmolov, Russian Ambassador to China Igor Rogachyov, and the ambassadors to China of the countries taking part in the exhibition, attended on Tuesday the opening of the “Atomic Industry, China-2004” display in Beijing. Twenty atomic industry enterprises are representing Russia at the exhibition. China, America, Britain, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and several other countries are also displaying their goods in the Chinese capital. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 Asahi Shimbun: Plutonium for reactors OK'd asahi.com: The Fukui governor gives his blessing to shelved MOX fuel program. FUKUI-Knocking down the last barrier to the resumption of the stalled program, Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa signaled Monday he was ready to green light the use of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel in light-water nuclear reactors. The fuel would make use of spent uranium piling up at nuclear plants around the country to fire up the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Takahama power plant. Kansai Electric's MOX plan was suspended in December 1999 after the supplier, British Nuclear Fuels, was found earlier that year to have fabricated inspection data on the fuel it had produced for those reactors. Speaking at a news conference Monday, Nishikawa said, ``Kansai Electric has made improvements (in ensuring fuel quality) and taken the necessary steps (in going ahead with the use of MOX).'' Last year, the power company submitted to the central and prefectural governments, as well as the town administration, its plan for preventing another scandal. On Thursday, the government's Nuclear Safety Commission gave the go-ahead. All that remained was to get the approval of the town and the prefectural government hosting the reactors. On Friday, Takahama Mayor Riichi Imai indicated he would approve the go-ahead plan. Nishikawa will officially inform the power company this week of the prefectural government's decision to allow the use of MOX, removing the last obstacle to Kansai Electric's plans for a 2007 start-up. Recycling plutonium, a byproduct of spent uranium, for use in light-water nuclear reactors is a major national project. There is a pressing need to make use of the spent uranium fuel accumulating at nuclear power plants around the country. However, only French and British companies are at present producing the MOX fuel. Critics of the MOX plan point to its riskiness. First, there is the security problem of transporting plutonium products from Europe by sea, followed by the difficulties of using the fuel in regular reactors. The Takahama plant will be the first in the country to use the mixed fuel. However, the Federation of Electric Power Companies in 1997 announced a plan to introduce MOX in 16 to 18 nuclear reactors by 2010. Even as recently as the end of last year, officials said the federation had not changed its policy. Yosaku Fuji, the federation chairman and president of Kansai Electric, has stressed that the MOX project is ``indispensable to Japan, which is poor in natural resources.'' So far, only Kansai Electric and the Kyushu Electric Power Co. have tangible plans to use MOX. But Shikoku Electric Power Co. wants to begin negotiating with local officials on the issue sometime this year. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Co., the largest power company in Japan, has its hands full with keeping its existing reactors in operation following a string of scandals stemming from its attempt to hide trouble at the reactors. Its MOX program was sent back to the drawing board in September 2002.(IHT/Asahi: March 16,2004) (03/16) + Asahi Shimbun English-language Publication + Online Media Kit [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction ***************************************************************** 37 NRC: In the Matter of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, (Davis- FR Doc 04-5849 [Federal Register: March 16, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 51)] [Notices] [Page 12357-12360] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16mr04-116] Besse Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1); Confirmatory Order Modifying License (Effective Immediately) I. FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC, or the Licensee) is the holder of Facility Operating License No. NPF-3 issued on April 22, 1977, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) pursuant to 10 CFR Part 50. The license authorizes the operation of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1 (Davis-Besse), in accordance with conditions specified therein. The facility is located on the Licensee's site in Ottawa County, Ohio. II. The discovery of circumferential cracking in some of the control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles that penetrate the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) head at Oconee Nuclear Station, Unit 3, in February 2001, and Oconee Nuclear Station, Unit 2, in April 2001, raised concerns about the potential safety implications and prevalence of cracking in RPV head penetration nozzles in pressurized-water reactors (PWRs). In response to these concerns, the NRC issued NRC Bulletin 2001-01 on August 3, 2001. The bulletin required all PWR operators to report to the NRC on the structural integrity of the CRDM nozzles, including their plans to ensure that future inspections would verify structural integrity of the reactor vessel boundary. Davis-Besse was shut down on February 16, 2002, when it began its 13th refueling outage, which included an inspection of CRDM nozzles. On March 6, 2002, FENOC employees discovered a cavity in the RPV head. The cavity was the result of corrosion caused by long-term leakage of reactor coolant, which contains boric acid, from small cracks in one of the CRDM nozzles. The NRC staff subsequently determined that FENOC's failure to properly implement its boric acid corrosion control and corrective action programs was a performance deficiency that allowed reactor coolant system pressure boundary leakage to occur undetected for a prolonged time, resulting in RPV upper head degradation. The NRC determined that the Licensee's performance deficiency had high safety significance, in the Red range, as documented in a letter to the Licensee dated May 29, 2003 (ADAMS Accession No. ML031490778). The NRC took a series of actions in response to the discovery of the cavity in the Davis-Besse RPV head. An Augmented Inspection Team was sent to Davis-Besse on March 12, 2002, to collect facts regarding the conditions that led to the head degradation. Additionally, the NRC issued a Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL) to the Licensee on March 13, 2002 (ML020730225), confirming the Licensee's agreement that NRC approval is required for restart of Davis-Besse. The CAL also documented a number of [[Page 12358]] actions that the Licensee must implement before restart. By letter dated April 29, 2002 (ML021190661), the NRC informed FENOC that its corrective actions at Davis-Besse would receive enhanced NRC oversight, as described in NRC Inspection Manual Chapter 0350, ``Oversight of Operating Reactor Facilities in a Shutdown Condition With Performance Problems.'' That enhanced monitoring began on May 3, 2002, and included the creation of a panel to provide the required oversight during the plant shutdown and during and after any future restart until a determination is made that the plant is ready for return to the NRC's normal reactor oversight process. By letter dated April 18, 2002 (ML021130029), ``Confirmatory Action Letter Response--Root Cause Analysis Report,'' the Licensee submitted to the NRC its technical root cause analysis report for the RPV head degradation, as revised by letter dated September 23, 2002 (ML022750125), ``Revision 1 to Root Cause Analysis Report Regarding Reactor Pressure Vessel Head Degradation.'' The Licensee concluded that the probable cause of the degradation was primary water stress corrosion cracking of the nozzle. The physical factors that caused corrosion of the RPV head were the CRDM nozzle leakage associated with through-wall cracking, followed by boric acid corrosion of the RPV low- alloy steel. The Licensee further concluded that the large-scale corrosion occurred as a result of a failure to detect and arrest the leakage until advanced symptoms had appeared. The Licensee submitted to the NRC its nontechnical root cause analysis by letter dated August 21, 2002 (ML022750405), ``Management and Human Performance Root Cause Analysis Report on Failure to Identify Reactor Pressure Vessel Head Degradation.'' In this analysis, the Licensee concluded that ``there was a lack of sensitivity to nuclear safety and the focus was to justify existing conditions. The overall conclusion is that Management ineffectively implemented processes and thus failed to detect and address plant problems as opportunities arose.'' The Licensee identified a number of root causes for the failure to identify boric acid corrosion of the RPV head, including: 1. Less-than-adequate nuclear safety focus--A production focus established by management, combined with minimum action to meet regulatory requirements, resulted in acceptance of degraded conditions on the RPV head and other components affected by boric acid. 2. Less-than-adequate implementation of the corrective action program, as indicated by the following: a. Addressing symptoms rather than causes b. Low categorization of conditions c. Less-than-adequate cause determinations d. Less-than-adequate corrective actions e. Less-than-adequate trending 3. Less-than-adequate analyses of safety implications--Failure to integrate and apply key industry information and site knowledge/ experience, effectively use vendor expertise, and compare new information to baseline knowledge led to less-than-adequate analyses and decisionmaking with respect to the nuclear safety implications of boric acid on the reactor vessel head and in the containment. 4. Less-than-adequate compliance with the boric acid corrosion control and inservice test programs--Contrary to these programs, boric acid was not completely removed from the RPV head. The affected areas were not inspected for corrosion and leakage from nozzles and the sources of the leakage were not determined. As documented in NRC Inspection Report No. 50-346/02-15 (ML030380037), dated February 6, 2003, the NRC concluded that the Licensee's management and human performance initial root cause analyses were not sufficiently broad to identify potential contributors in the engineering and corporate support areas and were not developed in an integrated manner to identify potentially systemic issues. Additional analyses were performed by the Licensee, including assessments in the areas of operations, engineering, oversight, and corporate support, and were evaluated by the NRC, as documented in NRC Inspection Report No. 50-346/02-18 (ML032050528), dated July 24, 2003. Following review of the additional FENOC analyses, the NRC concluded that the Licensee's overall nontechnical root cause assessment was of appropriate depth and breadth to develop actions to correct and prevent recurrence of the management and human performance deficiencies associated with the RPV head degradation. Corrective actions taken by the Licensee included the development of a Return-to-Service Plan, which described FENOC's actions for Davis- Besse's safe and reliable return to service. The Return-to-Service Plan was initially submitted to the NRC on May 21, 2002 (ML021430429), and has been revised several times, most recently on April 6, 2003 (ML031000739). The NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel established a Restart Checklist, which lists the essential issues requiring disposition prior to restart. The Restart Checklist was originally issued on August 16, 2002 (ML022310034), and has been revised as necessary by the Oversight Panel based on the results of NRC inspections and the Licensee's assessments. The Restart Checklist addresses those issues necessary to resolve the causes of the RPV head degradation so that the Licensee can safely restart and operate the plant. For example, issues requiring resolution before the Oversight Panel can consider a recommendation for restart include (1) the adequacy of safety-significant structures, systems, and components inside containment, (2) the adequacy of safety- significant programs, such as the corrective action program, self- assessment programs, and the boric acid corrosion management program, and (3) the adequacy of organizational effectiveness and human performance, including the effectiveness of corrective actions. While the Restart Checklist establishes those essential actions necessary for safe restart and operation, a key element in preventing recurrence of a safety-significant event such as the RPV head degradation is effective Licensee self-assessment. Given the magnitude, scope, and duration of problems found at Davis-Besse, and that the Licensee's own self-assessments were not effective in preventing risk- significant performance deficiencies, additional assurance that the Licensee's self-assessment programs remain effective is essential. III. To address the issues identified above and ensure sustained safe performance in plant operation, the Licensee developed the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station Operational Improvement Plan--Operating Cycle 14, which was submitted to the NRC by letter dated November 23, 2003, ``Integrated Report to Support Restart of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station and Request for Restart Approval'' (ML033360251) and most recently revised on January 27, 2004 (ML040280597). The Operational Improvement Plan provides for a managed transition from the Return-to- Service Plan to normal plant operations and refueling outages. The purpose of the Operational Improvement Plan is to ensure that improvements realized during the extended outage remain in place and are further built upon to improve performance in the future. On November 12, December 3, and December 10, 2003, the Licensee met [[Page 12359]] with the NRC staff regarding the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station Operational Improvement Plan for Operating Cycle 14. Among other long- term corrective actions, the Operational Improvement Plan focuses on Licensee initiatives to measure and sustain achievements in the areas of management and human performance at Davis-Besse. The Operational Improvement Plan contains a number of key improvement initiatives, including continuing actions in the areas of operations, engineering, safety culture, and corrective actions. As assurance that the Operational Improvement Plan initiatives are sufficient to ensure the continued integrity of the reactor coolant system and correction of the underlying management and organizational problems which led to the RPV head degradation, the Licensee also committed to the following actions. By letters dated March 31 (ML030930451) and November 14, 2003 (ML033220323), FENOC committed to conduct certain inspections every refueling outage for leakage from the RPV upper head and from pressure-retaining components above the RPV head. These include the CRDM flanges. In addition, by letter dated July 30, 2003 (ML032160384), FENOC committed to conduct similar inspections of the reactor vessel underside incore monitoring instrumentation nozzles, including during the Cycle 14 midcycle outage. As noted in the NRC staff assessment (ML032510339), the midcycle inspection will help to assure prompt identification of any significant reactor coolant system pressure boundary leakage should it develop. The midcycle outage activities will provide additional confirmation of the material status of the reactor coolant system. Notwithstanding the corrective actions completed to address the CAL and Restart Checklist and planned by the Licensee in the Operational Improvement Plan, the NRC requires additional measures with respect to independent assessments and midcycle inspections to provide reasonable assurance that the long-term corrective actions remain effective for those conditions that resulted in risk-significant performance deficiencies. During the course of the extended shutdown of Davis-Besse beginning in February 2002, FENOC conducted a number of thorough evaluations and self-assessments. Examples include the evaluation of system design, the assessment of the completeness and accuracy of docketed information, the evaluation of operational performance deficiencies during the normal operating pressure test, and the evaluation of the failure to comply with technical specification requirements during testing of the steam and feedwater rupture control system. However, Licensee assessments of operational performance prior to both the normal operating pressure test and the NRC's Restart Readiness Assessment Team Inspection in December 2003 failed to identify a number of deficiencies. NRC inspections also discovered problems that were not originally found by the Licensee, most notably in safety culture, in the corrective action program, and in the quality of engineering calculations and analyses. These issues indicated weaknesses in the Licensee's ability to assess, find, and correct conditions adverse to quality. In addition, on November 23, 2003, the Licensee concluded that the plant, programs, and personnel were ready to support safe operation, subject to completion of a few, well-defined work activities prior to restart, and requested the NRC schedule a meeting as stated in the CAL, and then provide approval for restart. A meeting was originally scheduled for December 18, 2003, to discuss restart. However, due to self-revealing equipment and operational problems and issues from the NRC Restart Readiness Assessment and the Management and Human Performance inspection teams, the meeting was delayed. Given the Licensee's previous conclusion that it was ready to support safe operation, these problems were additional evidence of inadequate self-assessment. Since then, the NRC recognizes that FENOC has implemented significant corrective actions resulting in improved performance and self-assessment capability. Nevertheless, considering the problems noted above and going forward, the NRC requires independent outside assessments to ensure continued effective Licensee self-assessments and sustained safe performance in the areas of operations, engineering and corrective actions at Davis-Besse. On February 26, 2004, the Licensee executed a consent form in which it committed to implement the conditions in Section IV below with respect to future independent assessments of operations, safety culture, corrective actions, and engineering at Davis-Besse, and inspections of the reactor coolant system pressure boundary during a midcycle outage. The independent assessments will provide important confirmation of the effectiveness of the Licensee's self-assessments and long-term improvement actions. The reactor coolant system pressure boundary inspections will assure prompt identification of any leakage should it develop. The Licensee further agreed that this Order would be effective upon issuance and waived its right to a hearing. I find that the Licensee's commitments, as set forth in Section IV, are acceptable and necessary and conclude that with these commitments, plant safety is reasonably assured. In view of the foregoing, I have determined that public health and safety require that the Licensee's commitments be confirmed by this Order. Based on the above, this Order is immediately effective upon issuance. IV. Accordingly, pursuant to Sections 103, 161b, 161i, 161o, 182 and 186 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 2.202 and 10 CFR Part 50, it is hereby ordered, effective immediately, that License No. NPF-3 is modified as follows: 1. FENOC shall contract with independent outside organizations to conduct comprehensive assessments of the Davis-Besse operations performance, organizational safety culture, including safety conscious work environment, the corrective action program implementation, and the engineering program effectiveness. Ninety days prior to the assessments, FENOC shall inform the Regional Administrator, NRC Region III, in writing, of the identity of its outside assessment organizations, including the qualifications of the assessors, and the scope and depth of the assessment plans. These outside independent assessments at Davis-Besse shall be completed before the end of the 4th calendar quarter of 2004 and annually thereafter for 5 years. Within 45 days of completion of the assessments, the Licensee shall submit by letter to the Regional Administrator, NRC Region III, all assessment results and any action plans necessary to address issues raised by the assessment results. 2. FENOC shall conduct a visual examination of the reactor pressure vessel upper head bare metal surface, including the head-to-penetration interfaces; the reactor pressure vessel lower head bare metal surface, including the head-to-penetration interfaces; and the control rod drive mechanism flanges, using VT-2 qualified personnel and procedures during the Cycle 14 midcycle outage. The results and evaluation of the inspections will be reported by letter to the Regional Administrator, NRC Region [[Page 12360]] III, prior to restart from the midcycle outage, and any evidence of reactor coolant leakage found during the inspections will be reported by telephone within 24 hours of discovery to the Regional Administrator, NRC Region III, or designee. If the Licensee determines that submittals made in accordance with these conditions contain proprietary information as defined by 10 CFR 2.390, the Licensee shall also provide a nonproprietary version in accordance with 10 CFR 2.390(b)(1)(ii). The Regional Administrator, NRC Region III, may, in writing, relax or rescind any of the above conditions upon demonstration by the Licensee of good cause. V. Any person adversely affected by this Confirmatory Order, other than the Licensee, may request a hearing within 20 days of its issuance. Where good cause is shown, consideration will be given to extending the time to request a hearing. A request for extension of time in which to request a hearing must be made in writing to the Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, and must include a statement of good cause for the extension. Any request for a hearing shall be submitted to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ATTN: Chief, Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, Washington, DC 20555. Copies of the hearing request shall also be sent to the Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, to the Assistant General Counsel for Materials Litigation and Enforcement at the same address, to the Regional Administrator for NRC Region III, 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Illinois 60532-4351, and to the Licensee. If a person requests a hearing, that person shall set forth with particularity the manner in which his interest is adversely affected by this Order and shall address the criteria set forth in 10 CFR 2.309(d). If a hearing is requested by a person whose interest is adversely affected, the Commission will issue an Order designating the time and place of any hearing. If a hearing is held, the issue to be considered at such hearing shall be whether this Confirmatory Order should be sustained. An answer or a request for hearing shall not stay the immediate effectiveness of this Order. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dated this 8th day of March, 2004. J.E. Dyer, Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-5849 Filed 3-15-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 38 Fw: Implications of the Use of U.S. Depleted Uranium PLEASE Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 14:20:35 -0800 ----- Original Message ----- From: Janie Rezner To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 10:21 PM Subject: Fw: Implications of the Use of U.S. Depleted Uranium PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY, ESPECIALLY TO YOUR U.S. FRIENDS Subject: Implications of the Use of U.S. Depleted Uranium - DON NORDIN The Implications of the Use of U.S. Depleted Uranium Weapons in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq (Don Nordin's interview with Leuren Moret) Hello, this is Don Nordin. You're listening to the Monday Brownbagger (Vancouver Cooperative Radio - 102.7 fm) of February 23, 2004 and I will have on the line in a moment a guest from Berkeley. Her name is Leuren Moret. She is an independent scientist and international expert on radiation and public health issues. She is on the organizing committee of the World Committee on Radiation Risk, an organization of independent radiation specialists, including members of the Radiation Committee in the EU parliament, the European Committee on Radiation Risk. She is an environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley. Ms. Moret earned her BS in geology at U.C. Davis in 1968 and her MA in Near Eastern studies from U.C. Berkeley in 1978. She has completed all but her dissertation for a PhD in the geosciences at U.C. Davis. She has traveled and conducted scientific research in 42 countries. She wrote a scientific report on depleted uranium for the United Nations sub commission investigating the illegality of depleted uranium munitions. Marian Falk, a former Manhattan Project scientist and retired insider at the Livermore Lab, who is an expert on radioactive fallout and rainout, has trained her on radiation issues. (Don) So let's get into it. I'll ask you to tell the folks what depleted uranium is. (Leuren) Depleted uranium basically is the radioactive trash from the nuclear weapons and the nuclear power plant programs, and three isotopes of uranium occur in nature, so when it is mined those three isotopes are extracted from the ore. The DU is about 99.9% U-238, 0.72% U-235 that is the fissionable isotope used in nuclear bombs and reactor fuel, and there's just a trace of U-234 left in a tenth of a percent of the remainder. So what they do is they make a gas out of it, and they extract half a percent of the U-235 and what is left, which is 99.95% of what they mine, is called depleted uranium because it is depleted in U-235. It does not mean that it is depleted in radioactivity; it's actually very radioactive. (Don) What kind of a half-life do these constituents of the depleted uranium have? (Leuren) The half life of U-238, which is the majority of what we're talking about, is 4.5 billion years and it's actually a component of meteorites, planets, stars, space dust and it is distributed throughout the earth at about 2.4 parts per million, and because it is radioactive, it releases tiny amounts of heat over time and that is why we have a liquid or molten interior in the earth. It's from the decay of U-238. (Don) Do you have any idea of how much depleted uranium the U.S. has in its national inventory? (Leuren) Yes, the U.S. has about a million tons of depleted uranium. Most of it is stored in canisters as uranium hexafluoride, and it's just really an environmental problem. There is no place to dispose of it so in 1974, against the advice of the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense began testing and manufacturing weapons made out of DU and the first system was manufactured by Hughes Aircraft. It was called the Phalanx System developed by the Navy and within six months of the Navy testing it, they had sold it to 14 branches of the U.S. military and other countries. We have now sold DU weapons systems to 29 countries. (Don) In what kind of weapons is this DU used? (Leuren) Well, depleted uranium is made in every caliber [and used in projectiles] for handguns, tanks, cannons, all the way up to large bombs weighing more than 5,000 lbs [and also used in the body of] the Warthog airplane. So everything from handguns to bombs practically has...many have conventional weapons for ammunition but they also have them in depleted uranium. A lot of systems are interchangeable. You can put a DU warhead in a bomb or a conventional warhead in the same bomb. (Don) Did I hear you say they're using depleted uranium in the actual airplanes themselves? (Leuren) Oh, yeah. The US Air Force and the US Army are the largest users of depleted uranium. For instance, [DU is] very, very frequently used in the A-10 Warthog, but other [military] planes, and weapons systems carried by many planes, have DU. (Don) Now why would they use it in the construction of an airplane itself? (Leuren) Oh, depleted uranium or uranium metal is nearly twice as dense as lead and so instead of using larger amounts of a dense material like lead, they can use smaller amounts of depleted uranium as ballast in planes, so they use it in commercial planes and in military planes as ballast along the wings and the tail to balance the plane. [It's] very similar to the lead lugs they put on tires when we go and get our tires balanced. (Don) Well, I guess, anyway, the DU being in the wings and tail wouldn't be of any significant threat to the occupants of the plane itself. (Leuren) It's not to the occupants of the plane; it is to crash site investigators when a plane crashes. There was depleted uranium in whatever hit the Pentagon on 9-11 and I'm the only journalist in the world who even wrote an article about it. The German science journal Nature picked up my article and actually wrote its own [article] based on the interviews I did. It's used in golf clubs`it's used in many, many surprising things and because there is so much of it, which the Department of Energy has, they're trying to find ways to dispose of it. And there are proposals now to put it inside building blocks to construct buildings with. So if this continues we'll be living in radioactive buildings and then the terrible thing is that when the aluminum from planes or the metal from planes is recycled, the DU is not removed, so the metal that is re-manufactured will contain radioactive DU mixed in with it. (Don) Now, of this one million tons of depleted uranium in the United States`how is that stored? (Leuren) Oh, it's stored at, for instance, Oakridge, Tennessee. There's a big nuclear weapons lab facility there and it's stored as uranium hexafluoride gas in huge drums, and they're just stacked outside on top of each other. It's also stored at Portsmouth, Ohio and other locations--Hanford in Washington State. (Don) So the storage issue itself must be quite problematic. (Leuren) It's very problematic and the canisters that it's stored in, the big drums, are subject to corrosion on the outside and the barrels that are stored closest to the ground and subjected to moisture and heat and bacterial action corrode faster. (Don) Now, in the bombs that were dropped on Iraq and Afghanistan, what percentage of depleted uranium would be typically used in those bombs? (Leuren) That's a classified piece of information, but I would suspect that much of [the bombs' weight] is the depleted uranium ballast, and because it's so dense and heavy, as it falls there's a lot of kinetic energy [produced] and when it hits the ground or when a uranium shell hits a target, that kinetic energy is converted into heat. So when the bomb hits the ground, you can actually identify depleted uranium bombs because the uranium is very hot. Probably some of it is liquid or molten and there is a shower of tiny pieces of depleted uranium that are on fire. It splutters all over the place and at least 70% is aerosolized into particles and fumes and dust of radioactive depleted uranium oxides that are smaller than bacteria or viruses. These [particles] are hundreds and thousands of times smaller than blood cells, so it's inhaled by anyone in the contaminated areas, both enemy and our own soldiers. And [those particles] go directly into the bloodstream and are distributed like fairy dust throughout the body. And it's insoluble so the body cannot excrete it and it just destroys a person's body over time. (Don) So it's likely that practically all the individuals, let's say in Baghdad including the U.S. Marines, are contaminated with depleted uranium now. (Leuren) Anyone within 1,000 miles of Iraq; anyone within 1,000 miles of Afghanistan is potentially contaminated now. It's not just the people [living] in the country. Anyone going to Iraq or Afghanistan now will become contaminated. There's no way to escape it. (Don) Now, for the average soldier over there, what types of reactions would this likely be causing in the body? (Leuren) In the first Gulf War they used an estimated 340 or 350 tons of DU and the amount used is increasing every year. So there were terrible effects from that [which people know as] the Gulf War Syndrome. In Afghanistan a thousand tons were used, three times as much. The entire country, the water supplies, the infrastructure were bombed, and now in last March and April they used at least 2,200 tons, which is eight to ten times more than what they used in Gulf War One, and like Afghanistan, they bombed the whole country, the towns, the cities, the villages, the water supplies, the whole infrastructure of the country. So civilians and soldiers will be experiencing skin rashes, which is the heavy metal effect; they will have dental problems, respiratory problems. It's causing heart damage and brain damage. The effects will be much more severe and much faster now than what we know of in Afghanistan or the first Gulf War in 1991. In Kuwait, which is downwind [of Iraq], and DU was used in Kuwait, doctors are reporting three times the number of congenital heart problems with newborn babies. Those are the birth defects. Gulf War soldiers who served in 1991 had normal babies before the Gulf War. [In a study of 251 Gulf War veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs, it was determined that 67% of the babies born to soldiers after the Gulf War had severe birth defects]. They were born without brains, without eyes, [with] organs missing, without legs or arms, or they had terrible radiation related blood diseases for instance. (Don) How many years is this effect likely to go on? (Leuren) It will be forever. The half life of depleted uranium is 4 and a half billion years, but even worse, over time as the Uranium-238 decays, it transforms four times into much more radioactive daughter products or daughter isotopes and they are more radioactive than uranium-238 by millions and billions of times, so the level of radioactivity will increase over time, and that's why we call depleted uranium the Trojan Horse of Nuclear War. Depleted uranium is a nuclear weapon and it is a weapon of mass destruction under the U.S. government definition of WMDs. (Don) Now you have done some comparison, I believe, as to the radiation effects from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in relation to the radiation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Would you like to talk about that? (Leuren) Yes. In October 16 to 19, 2003 there was a very, very excellent and very important world conference on depleted uranium weapons held in Hamburg, Germany. Two hundred people from 20 countries and five continents attended [including] scientific, medical, legal experts, organizers, and activists and there were also Iraqi medical doctors and scientists there. And I've never been to a conference like that. It was very, very interesting, very informative and sometimes difficult to have all of the affected parties involved. But some of the talks presented very important facts, and a Japanese physicist, professor Yagasaki from Okinawa, presented one of them. He had calculated the atomicity equivalent of the Nagasaki bomb to depleted uranium, and the atomicity means the number of radioactive atoms. So he calculated that 800 tons of depleted uranium is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. So [the total atomicity], roughly estimating the amount of depleted uranium weapons used in Afghanistan and Iraq and former Yugoslavia, is approximately equivalent to 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. In all of the testing by the nuclear states during the Cold War, the [atomicity] equivalent of only 40,000 [Nagasaki] bombs was [produced], so this is roughly ten times the amount of radiation that was released during nuclear weapons testing. This is just an absolutely horrendous amount of radiation. The U.S. has staged a nuclear war in Iraq and in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the northern half of India all the way through Turkey and Iran and the Russian oil-rich states, the Caspian oil region, and half of Egypt, Israel and the Saudi Arabian peninsula. These areas are now all contaminated. (Don) There are measurable signs of depleted uranium in those countries? (Leuren) There was before. There was in the Saudi Arabian peninsula, Kuwait, Hungary, Greece--this was all reported after the 1991 bombing. Over time, [with] these very dry climates, the extreme dust storms and wind storms transport the radioactive material. The dust, as atmospheric dust, [is] scattered all over Europe. It's transported across the Atlantic to North Carolina and the southern United States coastal areas, the Caribbean, and these dust storms carry sand all over Europe. I've lived in England in the 1960s and 70s, and sometimes Sahara dust was on our windshields in the morning in the streets. It's known from mediaeval times. (Don) So it seems to me that, especially now and in future years, not so future either, with the lowering of our quality of food and of our immune system, that even in the fringe areas and areas around the world where there's not so much of this dust, that DU is going to have an effect on [the number of] cancer deaths. (Leuren) Well I am a geoscientist, so I study the earth and earth processes. [I do] research at U.C. Davis--I haven't finished my dissertation yet, but my research has been on atmospheric dust. I was studying the ice record, glaciers on the top of the Andes and Greenland and Antarctica and on top of the Himalayas, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, and [the study of] these ice records on glaciers are like the study of tree rings. They have an annual record of the dust transported around the world and also atmospheric gases, and the radiation released each year is preserved in each layer of ice. So we know from volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, that the dust from volcanoes, the volcanic dust and ash, is globally mixed throughout the entire atmosphere in one year. So whatever they have been bombing with is, in one year, globally mixed throughout the entire atmosphere. And right now the world is in a global cancer epidemic and other radiation related diseases, which is a result of the Cold War weapons testing. We've added ten times as much radiation to the Middle East and Central Asia. Much of it will remain in the area recycling through the waters, the dust, the food, and the air. It's inescapable. But a lot of it will also be transported throughout the world. And remember that cancer starts with a single atom of uranium, a single alpha particle or gamma ray released from one atom under the right conditions. So it doesn't just affect humans, it affects all life. Everything will mutate, will be affected, if it's exposed under the right conditions. (Don) Well, the question that comes to mind is: Do the people who are waging war against the world in the United States and those that are releasing depleted uranium to be used in these weapons, realize the effects of depleted uranium on the environment and on people? (Leuren) Of course. The United States has since spent 300 billion dollars-that's a conservative estimate up to 1995-on nuclear weapons development. I worked at two nuclear weapons laboratories: The Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and the Lawrence Livermore Lab. This entire time they have conducted detailed and very extensive studies on the biological effects of radiation. They absolutely know everything about the impact on the environment and on human health of what they are doing, and when I worked at Livermore from 1989 to '91, [before] I finally walked out one day and became a whistleblower, I watched teams of radiation experts leaving that lab monthly, weekly, yearly traveling to radioactive contaminated sites all over the world, taking collections of plant materials and living materials like the fish out of the rivers or the lagoons. [They also studied] the human guinea pigs, people at Chernobyl, at the Pacific Islands where nuclear weapons were tested and even Americans [in the] the nuclear weapons program and the nuclear power plant program. They have special laboratories at Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab and Livermore. They have special units with instruments to measure the radiation and samples, freezers to keep the samples in, and in the labs that I've worked in, there are charts with defective sperm on the walls. I remember walking by them every day. They know everything. (Don) So if they know the effects of depleted uranium on people, does that not then make them the highest type of war criminals? (Leuren) These are the highest types of war criminals. These people have developed weapons of mass destruction knowing full well what the health and environmental effects are, and they have spent tremendous amounts of money and effort to hide this from not just the American people, but from the global community. They have constructed a huge and a very connected apparatus of scientists, scientific journals, medical professionals, academic institutions, secret radiation labs, and nuclear weapons laboratories. We have over 550 national laboratories in the United States-I think the number has been reduced maybe to 250, but there were over 3,500 facilities in the United States, which functioned as part of the nuclear weapons complex. There's no way that they don't know everything and the international nuclear-I call them the nuclear Mafia-has mostly been controlled by the United States. It's all to hide the health and environmental effects. (Don) They seem not to be only the highest types of criminals, but they seem to be insane. I mean only an insane... (Leuren) It's a culture of insanity! You're absolutely right. I worked at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab. I saw people go to work every day. Their friends were dying of cancer. Some of them had cancer. You know that a nuclear weapons lab paycheck is about 30 to 40% more than scientists would make in a private sector academia. So people get addicted to that money and their wives die of brain cancer. Their children die of leukemia and they still go to work every day. (Don) Yeah, George W.'s son and progeny are going to be affected for all time. (Leuren) George Bush Jr., our president now, he and all of his siblings have learning disabilities as a result of being exposed to nuclear weapons testing fallout during the Cold War. And his toddler sister died of leukemia when she was just a couple of years old. His whole family has been affected by nuclear weapons testing. This is the insanity of it. They do it anyway. (Don) Yeah, it doesn't bode very well to be ruled by people that are brain cell deficient, that's for sure. (Leuren) Well, it's had a tremendous effect on the I.Q. and the learning ability of all American children. The SAT scores, the average SAT scores for the entire population of 18 year-olds, teenagers in their last year of high school when they are given the SAT tests, declined from 475 which was the average score for 20 years before bomb testing started and it started in about 1946. By 1963 the SAT scores for children born that year, [those children] exposed in utero to the radiation and receiving brain damage, [declined nationwide] to 425. As soon as the test ban treaty was signed between the U.S. and Russia in 1963, SAT scores started going up again. But what the United States did was sacrifice an entire generation of children to test nuclear weapons. The same thing is happening now because of nuclear power plants and one out of twelve children have learning disabilities in the U.S. What cost is that to our society? (Don) Hasn't Baghdad, and maybe even the whole country of Iraq, been made virtually an area that is not suitable for living in now? (Leuren) Oh, and the regions within a thousand miles. The Middle East and Central Asia are radioactive. People shouldn't be living there; nothing should be living there. And I began to read--I couldn't believe it--when I started researching it, I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what had happened. I couldn't believe they were using depleted uranium in the amounts they were using. And when that Japanese professor calculated the atomicity equivalent of Nagasaki bombs, I started making maps of the areas contaminated and when I saw the map with circles drawn around Afghanistan and Iraq with a one thousand mile radius, I knew there was a deeper purpose. But I still couldn't understand why they'd used it. No other country has used it. The U.S. broke a 46-year taboo in 1991 and used it. No other countries have used it since then. There has to be a reason, and I began to read The Grand Chessboard by Brzezinski. Anyway he, Zbigniew Brzezinski--it's called The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperative--wrote it in 1998 but it's a blueprint, absolutely, for U.S. foreign policy being carried out in Central Asia and the Middle East. And they have basically bombed the major oil rich regions in the Eurasian area. This is not going to stop. It's going to continue. Call-In Portion of Interview (Caller #1) Listening to your guest. Great topic. Good guest! I've just got a few things to say. I was just thinking about this. I think you are absolutely right when you say that the people who are doing these kind of things to humanity, there is no other reason: they must either just be insane or incredibly sinister and perhaps another reason exists that maybe we don't really think about. Has anyone ever thought that maybe these leaders, these mad bombers and serial killers such as George W. Bush and his father-what about the theory that these people are really reptilians from another dimension or planet perhaps who have invaded our human areas and who are carrying out their own agenda? (Don) Well I don't know if I'd like to degrade the reptilian race by saying they're reptilians. (Laugh) (Caller #1) OK. I don't know what other reason exists other than I didn't realize people are [so] completely sinister and I throw in a guy like George W. Bush, of course. But I'll just hang up now and listen to your comments and perhaps your guest's comments. Thank you. (Caller #2) Well, I'd just like to discuss for example Helen Caldicott, who has been active in struggling against nuclear weapons proliferation, and there are groups out there struggling against radiation and all different types of organizations fighting to reduce the amount of damage done through militarism and international aggression and so on. But there seems to be a real lack of democratic decision-making processes within these organizations. (Don) That's for sure. (Caller #2) Yeah. There is very little in the way of public involvement and there is virtually no democratic decision-making that is taking place just based on the empirical information relevant to the decisions to be made, rather than the persuasive, coercive influence of leadership elements and PR firms, advertising agencies, media organizations, and different groups within these organizations. I wonder if maybe she could speak to that, if there is any organization she's aware of that are more democratic? (Caller #3) I just had a question for Leuren. I was wondering which countries in Europe would be safe from contamination? Where would it be safe to visit? (Don) I think she's said that basically the whole world is contaminated but it's just to a lesser degree. I would imagine that there's a gradual [reduction] of radioactivity away from the central bombing areas, but we'll go back to Leuren. (Leuren) In terms of less contaminated areas, I would think Europe would be OK. Turkey is in the region of potential contamination and, if you are going for short visits, you have a better chance of not becoming contaminated. Of course there is no safe level of radiation exposure, but the people living in these regions, chronically exposed 24 hours a day to air borne [and] water borne [radiation], and [to] food contaminated with radiation, will be the most affected. It's just everywhere. It's really, I think, the greatest tragedy that humanity has faced. So I feel terrible about people who went to Iraq as human shields, to media who were there-they're all contaminated. And when I was in Japan last summer I met the human shield people from Japan-they're sick with depleted uranium exposure and over time it just continues to act in the body. So people really need to think about where they are going and be aware of the potential risk. Now the other question the gentleman had about this need for openness and democracy in the decision-making process [concerning] the nuclear weapons program, nuclear power plants, and now the DU, because it's all the same-it's alpha, beta, or gamma exposure internally whether it's coming out of nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, or depleted uranium or the radioactive weapons. The problem is that the secrecy has allowed these programs to be developed when they do tremendous harm to human health and all species, as well as the impact on the environment. And right now the United States is gearing up for a nuclear war. We now have nuclear weapons spending at the highest level ever-even [than] during the Cold War. It's higher now than during the Cold War and the United States has no enemies. This is causing other countries to also increase nuclear weapons development and what I was shocked to discover in my research is that Japan and Germany are now tied in second place. They have passed Russia in nuclear weapons development. And the deeper purpose for all of this is to play nuclear blackmail and to frighten other countries into developing their nuclear weapons and thinking they need them. For instance, India is afraid of Pakistan. Pakistan is afraid of India. Japan is afraid of North Korea. North Korea is afraid of South Korea. So everyone is developing nuclear weapons and what's really happening is the US is manipulating these countries rimming China to develop nuclear weapons programs and we are enticing them to be our nuclear partners with China as a common and the real enemy. (Don) I have so many more questions to ask you. One of the ones I wanted to ask is, what about the groundwater? Is that going to be contaminated for all time and how far away [from the areas of conflict] would it be contaminated? (Leuren) The groundwater is contaminated of course. Over time, as the leftover bullets and ammunition that did not burn degrade and weather with the heat, and [with] the cold and seasonal changes-rain, snow, and the wind-[depleted uranium contamination] migrates into the groundwater. So there's just a constant new supply of depleted uranium oxides and metal which will be released into the air and migrate through the ground into the groundwater. A study that the United Nations Environmental Program released last March 2003 reported that 25% of the bare metal, uranium bullets and weapons in the soil in Yugoslavia, had dissolved since 1998. So if 25% of the munitions buried in the ground dissolved in four or five years in a wet climate, it will be slower in desert areas, but it's going to continue contaminating groundwater, soil, food and air. (Don) And I think-you have mentioned that these particles go down into very fine sizes, so [I would imagine] there's no way they can be filtered out of the water. (Leuren) There's no way to filter it out. It goes through all gas masks. It goes through all filters. These particles are a tenth of a micron or smaller. A red blood cell is seven microns and a white blood cell is about ten microns, so they are much, much smaller than even blood cells. (Don) Before we wrap it up, I would like you to give us contacts on the website where people can find more information. (Leuren) People can go to an excellent website: http://www.mindfully.org and just do a Google search on my name, Moret. They can also go to: http://www.traprockpeace.org That's the Traprock Peace Center in Connecticut. They have an excellent website. Lots of people get a lot of good information from it and they have a lot of information on depleted uranium. Those are probably the two best websites that I know of. There's a letter to Congressman McDermott that I wrote. They could do a Google search on "letter to McDermott". He's a Congressman from Seattle, Washington who has introduced a bill in Congress, and I wrote him a letter with a lot of details. The attachments and the references are also on the website with a letter. That's on the mindfully.org website, and then [there's] my testimony for the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan of December 13, 2003, which is also on the mindfully.org website. That [testimony] has fourteen questions that the prosecutor sent me to answer, and there are questions like: What does the U.S. government know about DU? (My answer was twelve pages long). What is the connection between depleted uranium and fourth generation nuclear weapons? And then, what are the environmental and human effects? (Don) What I think has to happen is [that] some organizations in Vancouver have to get together and bring you into Vancouver for a large meeting. (Don asks remaining callers to give comments only) (Caller #4) Well I was wondering about the possibility of certain plants being used to decontaminate the human body and [the] possible development of bacteria that might be used for that purpose also? (Don) I was asking for comments. We don't have time for questions now. (Caller #4) Well my comment is that it is one big inhumane, parasitic, military-industrial, ecocidal and social atrocity. (Don) Thank you. ` Last comment of Leuren Moret: (Leuren) I would like to read a quote from Henry Kissinger. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy". This is what the elite believe about our military. I am now working with an international group of scientists and radiation experts. We are forming a World Committee on Radiation Risks comprised of honest researchers to help citizens, elected officials, affected populations and individuals to learn the truth about radiation, and to work toward an international moratorium on depleted uranium and other radioactive weapons. So watch for us. The European Committee on Radiation Risk, within the European Parliament, has just published an excellent report on low-level radiation and you can get it at: http://www.euradcom.org And now the citizens of the world, the scientists of the world, the radiation experts of the world--we have to all work together and it's not hopeless. But people need good information. ======================================================================= ***************************************************************** 39 Gov't Can't Guarantee Nuke Weapons Plants Safety From Terrorists Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 22:10:37 -0500 The report said all 10 weapons plants surveyed have reduced guard training in at least two important areas. http://www.nytimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Weapons-Plant-Security.html Training for Nuclear Plant Guards Off By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: March 16, 2004 Filed at 8:17 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nuclear weapons plants have eliminated or reduced training for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the government unable to guarantee the plants can be adequately defended, the Energy Department's internal watchdog said Tuesday. One plant has reduced training hours by 40 percent, and some plants conduct tactical training only in classrooms, according to a report from the department's inspector general. Advertisement Some contractors fear that injuries among guards during training exercises could reduce bonus payments from the government, the report said. Guards typically receive 320 hours of training. Only one of 10 plants surveyed, Hanford, Wash., trains guards in the basic use of a shotgun, according to the report. None of the plants teaches guards how to rappel down buildings or cliffs because of concerns that guards might be injured. The report noted that one guard died rappelling in 1995. ``Inconsistent training methods may increase the risk that the department's protective forces will not be able to safely respond to security incidents or will use excessive levels of force,'' said the report prepared by Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman's office. It said changes in training weren't coordinated. At some plants training was deemed too dangerous; other plants continued to offer the same exercises. Investigators interviewed instructors who ``could not understand how personnel at one site could deem a practice acceptable while others would refuse to administer the block of training using prescribed levels of force.'' The National Nuclear Security Administration, which protects nuclear plants, acknowledged in a letter responding to the inspector general that training for guards has suffered because of overtime demands at weapons plants. It promised to review training to make sure it was adequate. Energy Department spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto said Tuesday the agency already has increased its budget request in fiscal 2005 for security and safeguards by more than $150 million over this year, hired more security guards and set up a new office to oversee security training. The criticisms were the latest leveled against the government's ability to protect nuclear facilities, long considered prime targets for espionage and terrorist attacks. The inspector general complained in January that security guards who repelled four simulated terrorist attacks at the Y-12 weapons plant in Tennessee had been tipped in advance. The plant processes parts for nuclear weapons and maintains vast supplies of bomb-grade uranium. That earlier report determined that at least two guards defending the mock attacks had been allowed to look at computer simulations one day before the attacks, and it also uncovered more evidence of cheating during mock attacks against U.S. nuclear plants over the past two decades. The newest report said some of the nation's weapons plants aren't adequately training guards how to use handcuffs, fight hand-to-hand or defend against terrorists in vehicles. In some cases, mock fighting during exercises is performed in slow motion to avoid injuries. ``Defense tactics training should be as realistic as possible,'' the inspector general's report said. ``Anything less may rob the trainee of the exposure to the levels of force, panic, and confusion that are usually present during an actual attack and increase the possibility of an inappropriate response in high stress situations.'' At some weapons plants, for example, instructors used wooden mock-ups or removed windshields from the vehicles of mock terrorists for safety. But experts said that prevents guards from learning how glass affects gunfire or the visibility of a target inside. The report said all 10 weapons plants surveyed have reduced guard training in at least two important areas. The plants were the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; the Nevada Test Site near Nellis Air Force Base; the Oak Ridge Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver; the Hanford Site; Sandia National Laboratories in California; the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. ^------ On the Net: Inspector General's report: http://www.ig.doe.gov/pdf/ig-0641.pdf ***************************************************************** 40 [DU-WATCH] IAEA finds Kuwaiti tomatoes and water courses Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:32:02 -0600 (CST) Ovservations on the IAEA report: Radiological Conditions in Areas of Kuwait with Residues of Depleted Uranium The ratio of mass fraction of the uranium isotopes of 238U and 235U is the number used to give the signature of the uranium species. Depleted uranium has a mass fraction ratio of 238U/235U of 138 or higher. Plus or minus considerations for mass spectrometer errors may lead some scientists to increase the number to 141 to be conservative. It depends on the detection limits and reliability of the equipment and procedure used. Above these ratios of 238/235 the material is definitively DU. The IAEA's report uses a peculiar format not normal for environmental assessments. The IAEA presents the ratio data in reverse: 235U/238U. Using the IAEA approach, any mass fraction ratio less than 0.0072 is DU. Yet, the report consistently concludes that the water, soil and garden vegetable samples with 235U/238U ratios of less than 0.0072 are natural uranium, which presents normally in standard geological values in Kuwaiti soil. What is amiss? For example, according to the IAEA, the Military Hospital at Al Sabhan has a mass fraction ratio of 0.0038 of 235U/238U. 0.0038 ratio oif 235U/238U converts into a 263.15 ratio of 238U/235U indicating very high concentrations of almost pure depleted uranium in the sample. Kuwaiti tomates and cucumbers are also contaminated with DU. The Al Abdali and Al Wafra farms have DU ratios of 192.3 and 263.1 for tomatoes and cucumbers, respectively. There are many examples like this in the report. The findings of DU in vegetables is scientifically so significant it should have been realeased to the press accomapnied by a public safety warning for Kuwait. No one has shown this effect before ... garden vegetables uptake. It is a dramatic finding revealing very efficient migration of DU particles and the permanent presence and endemic occurrence of DU in the living environment 13 years after the conflict. IAEA's other findings of DU in top soil core samples at all sampled strata (depthes) years after the US placed 2 feet (1/2 meter) of soil on the site tells us: (1) either there was no remediation, or (2) the remediation used contaminated soil, or (3) the density of the DU particles combined with natural forces returns the material to the surface. It is also very interesting to note that IAEA rejected the Kuwaiti Radiation Protection Divisions, Health Ministry numbers, which consistently showed ratios of isotopes of very high concentrations of DU in soil and water. I recommend those of you who know this science or have friends or associates who understand it to check my calculations. The IAEA report is a scientific lie. Stay tuned there's more. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 41 [DU-WATCH] Some info on veterans disabilities Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:12:53 -0600 (CST) It seems that knee injuries are the leading cause of disability among gulf war veterans: By Tom Nugent One in four of U.S. service personnel who participated in the nine-month Operation Desert Storm is now officially classified as "disabled," according to Department of Veterans Affairs figures obtained by FedBuzz. The percentage of Gulf War veterans granted disabled status -- 26 percent -- is now higher than for any modern U.S. combat experience and is two and one half times the disability rate from the 10-year-long Vietnam War, according to VA sources. VA Public Information Officer Jim Benson told FedBuzz that more than 183,000 veterans have been granted "disability status for one or more conditions" resulting from Operation Desert Storm between August of 1990 and April of 1991. Benson said that another 36,782 disability claims by Gulf War vets are now pending and are being evaluated. About 700,000 members of the U.S. Armed Forces took part in the nine-month military campaign that decided the outcome of the Gulf War. The cost of the disabilities: $1 billion annually. The revelations come in the midst of a continuing controversy over the cause and scope of sickness and injury to Gulf War veterans. While VA has not recognized what some experts call a "Gulf War Syndrome," pressure builds on the government to determine whether or not chemicals from Iraqi sources harmed large numbers of troops. However, one VA official has told Congress that the largest number of service-connected conditions claimed by disabled Gulf War veterans deal with knee problems. VA's Benson speculated on several reasons for a Gulf disability rate that in comparison to other wars might surprise the public. "So many things have changed," he said. "Number one, we have a much greater ability now to assess combat and theater-related injuries. Number two, we have a much greater communications ability as far as communicating the availability of benefits to the veteran population at large." According to the latest VA data, 183,037 -- or 26 percent -- of the 700,000 troops who served in Operation Desert Storm now receive disability compensation from the VA. The disability-rate for World War II was 8.6 percent -- while the rate for the Korean conflict ran even lower, at 5 percent. The rate for the ten-year-long Vietnam War, where 58,000 U.S. soldiers died and many others were injured or developed war-related illnesses, was 9.6 percent. By comparison, fewer than 150 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Gulf War, which lasted about six months. VA, which is currently paying annual benefits of more than $1 billion to compensate the 183,000 disabled vets, has gone to "great lengths" to help Gulf War veterans, said Benson. But neither VA nor the U.S. Department of Defense has concluded what various veterans lobbying groups are seeking -- the recognition of a specific, diagnosable disease that could be defined as "Gulf War Syndrome." Added Benson: "We're trying to get the word out to the vets about the many efforts that are being made on their behalf. But what's made it difficult is that so many people have a variety of symptoms. So far, we haven't been able to group all of them into a single illness." During recent congressional testimony, VA Under Secretary for Benefits Joseph Thompson told a subcommittee of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that the "number of disabilities per veteran" in the Gulf War was higher than the number of disabilities in any earlier American war. According to Under Secretary Thompson, the disabled Gulf War veterans averaged 3.2 disabilities each -- compared to 1.79 each for World War II disabled; 2.01 each for Korean conflict disabled, and 2.76 each for Vietnam War disabled. Thompson also noted during his testimony last October that the most prevalent cause of disability during the Gulf War was "injury to the knee," followed by injuries to the skeleton. Thompson's list of a dozen different types of injury made no reference to "Gulf War Syndrome," or to "undiagnosed illnesses" of any kind. Since the Gulf War ended in late 1991, VA has reported that disabilities from "undiagnosed illness" account for only a few thousand of the 183,000 total Gulf War disabilities. During the same period, health researchers at VA have repeatedly announced that they cannot find verifiable evidence of any specific medical condition known as "Gulf War Syndrome." Describing the injuries and illnesses that have been documented as major causes of disability, Thompson told Congress: "With respect to the prevalence of service-connected conditions among Gulf War veterans, the number-one service-connected condition claimed is impairment of the knee, followed by skeletal system disability, lumbar-sacral strain, arthritis due to trauma, scars, hearing loss, hypertension, inter-vertebral disc syndrome, tendinitis and osteoarthritis." As the Gulf War Syndrome controversy grows, the stream of Gulf War vets seeking disability status continues to pour into VA. "There have been huge changes in communications technologies," said Benson, pointing to the Internet and other tools as a reason for heightened awareness of benefits among veterans. "There's no doubt that veterans know a lot more today about how to access the support system at VA." ONLINE RESOURCES: For "Gulflink," the website operated by the U.S. Department of Defense Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses: Gulflink. For the Veterans Affairs website: Veterans Affairs For the National Gulf War Resource Center website (a private, comprehensive listing of information resources and links to support groups): National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. http://www.fedbuzz.com/defense/articles/gulf.html -- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), June 02, 2000 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 42 [DU-WATCH] Radiation & Scientific Obfuscation Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:29:19 -0600 (CST) Here's an item worth reading. Cheers, Robert http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/328/7430/19#48116 Radiation Semantics & Scientific Obfuscation8 January 2004 Lynn H. Ehrle, Senior Policy Analyst, National Association for Public Health Policy(US) 8888 Mayflower Dr., Plymouth, MI 48170 Send response to journal: Re: Radiation Semantics & Scientific Obfuscation After reading radiation research for over 30 years I have discovered one universal principle--PRACTITIONERS ACROSS RADIATION DISCIPLINES SPEAK IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. Not only that but radiation research is highly susceptible to scientific obfuscation. Interviews with over 50 medical physicists and radiologists have revealed little agreement on low dose risk, and its definition is all over the map. The Per Hall et al paper(3 Jan.)claims "existing data are based mostly on high doses of ionizing radiation(>1Gy), therefore little is known about the effects of low doses of radiation or a threshold value." Actually, there is a large body of literature on the subject, particularly if you define low dose as anything under 1Gy[100rad). The conventional wisdom has held that the benefit from diagnostic and therapeutic X ray procedures always exceeds the risk and some practitioners even preach The Hormesis Thesis(small doses are beneficial). Independent scientists have long disputed these claims and have presented scientific evidence that there is no safe dose(threshold), whereas others proclaim that radiation is a weak carcinogen. This latter proposition does not hold up under the glare of the historical record. Within a year of Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X ray in 1895, laboratories popped up in every major city, advertising cures for every manner of illness, and despite medicine's conservative reputation and the admonition "to, first do no harm," physicians embraced "the ray" with reckless abandon. Even though over 100 deaths of radiologists and patients were recorded in those early years and unusual illnesses began to present, few medical histories appeared in the early journals. Denial was the order of the day. Out of the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War and nuclear power emerged, and-- scientific obfuscation. In the U.S., Great Britain, and France, huge amounts of money began to flow to academic research centers and the nuclear industry was able to extract government subsidies for power plant construction Radiation research, much of it related to the weapons program, was often relegated to RESTRICTED DATA files. Then came the human radiation experiments and above ground atomic tests, always under the rubric of "national security," a justification for avoiding the Nuremberg requirement for informed consent. In 1958, Alice Stewart presented the first human radiation data, the Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancer, demonstrating excess cancers and leukemias in children before age 10, whose mothers had received in utero X ray(1). Her work was roundly criticized at the time, in part because it was a retrospective study, but the critics would have a hard time with the prospective study, by Brian MacMahon, whose work four years later supported Stewart's Oxford Survey. Since those early studies much has transpired and new evidence of genomic instability and the bystander effect has added to our understanding of radiation's powerful mutagenic effects at low dose. A recent study,authored by 15 cancer rssearchers, concludes there is good epidemiological data supporting cancer risk in humans from acute exposures of10-50mSv and protracted exposure in the 50- 100mSv range(3). It is now time to address the profusion of terms and equations that litter the radiation landscape, making it difficult if not virtually impossible for members of the broader medical community, not to mention informed citizens, to traverse the journal entries. Excess relative risk(ERR), excess absolute risk(EAR), sievert, rem, gray, and rem; relative biological effectiveness(RBE), single radiation track, dose rate effectiveness factor(DREF), internal organ dose, skin dose. The need for clarity is self-evident. As to the claim by Sanjay Prabhu that BMJ is "sensationalizing" the issue--nonsense! This journal is acting in the highest interest of public discourse, with open dialog and effective peer review, the very anthesis of the closed shop approach we so often encounter at conferences and in many journals. References 1. Stewart Am, Webb JW, Hewitt D, 1958. A survey of childhood malignancies. Brit Med J 2:1495-1508. 2. MacMahon B,1962. Prenatal x-ray exposure and child-hood cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 28:1173-1191. 3. Brenner DJ, Doll R, Goodhead DT, Preston DL, Ron E, et al, 2003. Cancer risks attributable to low doses of ionizing radiation:assessing what we really know, 2003. Proc Natl Acad Sci 100:13761-13766. Competing interests: None declared [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 43 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding FR Doc 04-5857 [Federal Register: March 16, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 51)] [Notices] [Page 12360-12361] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16mr04-117] of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Pfizer Inc., Terre Haute, IN AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Peter J. Lee, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region III, 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Illinois 60532-4351; telephone (630) 829-9870; or by e-mail at [pjl2@nrc.gov] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the issuance of a license amendment Material License No. 13-10179-01 issued to Pfizer Inc. (the licensee), to terminate its license and authorize release of its Terra Haute, Indiana, facility for unrestricted use. The NRC staff has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this licensing action in accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. The amendment will be issued following the publication of this Notice. II. EA Summary The purpose of the proposed action is to terminate Pfizer Inc.'s license and release its Terra Haute, Indiana, facility for unrestricted use. The NRC authorized Pfizer Inc. to utilize labeled compounds of H-3 and C-14 for research and development on July 17, 1964. On September 25, 2003, Pfizer Inc. submitted a license amendment request to terminate its license and release its Terra Haute facility for unrestricted use. Pfizer Inc. has conducted surveys of the facility and provided information to the NRC to demonstrate that the site meets the license termination criteria in subpart E of 10 CFR part 20 for unrestricted release. The staff has examined Pfizer Inc.'s request and the information that the licensee has provided in support of its request, including the surveys performed by Pfizer Inc. to demonstrate compliance with 10 CFR 20.1402, ``Radiological Criteria for Unrestricted Use,'' in order to ensure that the NRC's decision is protective of the public health and safety and the environment. III. Finding of No Significant Impact The staff has prepared the EA (summarized above) in support of Pfizer Inc.'s proposed license amendment to terminate its license and release the Terre Haute facility for unrestricted use. Based on its review, the staff has determined that the affected environment and the environmental impacts associated with the decommissioning of Pfizer Inc.'s facility are bound by the impacts evaluated by the ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on Radiological Criteria for License Termination of NRC-Licensed Nuclear Facilities'' (NUREG-1496). Additionally, no non-radiological impacts were identified. The staff also finds that the proposed release for unrestricted use of the Pfizer Inc. facility is in compliance with the 10 CFR 20.1402, and finds no other activities in the area that could result in cumulative impacts. On the basis of the EA, the staff has concluded that the environmental impacts from the proposed action would not be significant. Accordingly, the staff has determined that a FONSI is appropriate, and has determined that the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement is not warranted. IV. Further Information In accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the NRC's ``Rules of Practice,'' Pfizer Inc.'s request, the EA summarized above, and the documents related to this proposed action are available electronically for public inspection and copying from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site 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] . These documents include Pfizer Inc.'s letter dated September 25, 2003, with enclosures (Accession No. ML040090414); and the EA summarized above (Accession No. ML040560303). These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, [[Page 12361]] MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Lisle, Illinois, this 25th day of February, 2004. Christopher G. Miller, Chief, Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, RIII. [FR Doc. 04-5857 Filed 3-15-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 44 Las Vegas RJ: Witnesses detail exposure to dust Tuesday, March 16, 2004 Reid, others hear workers' testimony about Yucca tunneling By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Photos by Cariño Casas [ccasas@reviewjournal.com] . Industrial hygienist Michael Taylor holds up a painters mask Monday during a U.S. Senate field hearing at the Clark County Government Center. The mask was the type first issued to protect workers from toxic dust during excavation of the exploratory tunnel for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project. Gene Griego, a former Yucca Mountain tunnel supervisor, testifies Monday at a U.S. Senate field hearing. U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., speaks during a hearing Monday at the Clark County Government Center on workers exposed to silica dust inside the Yucca Mountain exploratory tunnel. While Yucca Mountain contractors forged ahead at a record-setting pace in 1995 to drill an exploratory tunnel at the planned nuclear waste site, workers behind the giant boring machine were inhaling dangerous levels of toxic dust. But when an industrial hygienist tried to alert managers to the problem, it took them three months to equip workers with respirators to protect them from dust laced with silica and other harmful fibrous minerals. Six months later, they found the required gear, though better than painters masks, was inadequate. Details on how thousands of workers were potentially exposed to toxic dust during excavation of the five-mile tunnel at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, were explained during a U.S. Senate field hearing at the Clark County Government Center that jarred the emotions of one witness Monday. Many questions, however, remain unanswered as the Department of Energy proceeds with its own "lessons learned" review of the tunneling. Some of the workers are suffering from an assortment of degenerative lung ailments they claim were caused by the dust. "I can't imagine what we have here," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who presided over the hearing held by the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. "Thousands have been exposed but we don't know how many are going to get sick." One witness, Michael Taylor, a veteran industrial hygienist who works on the Yucca Mountain Project for the Los Alamos, N.M., national laboratory, said he first became aware of high levels of harmful, silica dust after air sampling was conducted in the tunnel at the request of a federal geologist. The samples, collected during a week in December 1995, showed that nine out of 11 exceeded the so-called action level and two exceeded the threshold for workers breathing in toxic, silica dust. "Employees, management and supervision were notified of the results in writing," he stated. This occurred about the same time that the 25-foot-diameter tunnel boring machine, the Yucca Mucker, set a world record by excavating 716 feet in five days. Officials under the direction of then Yucca Mountain Project Manager Wes Barnes proclaimed they were nearly a mile ahead of schedule to breakthrough at the south end of the five-mile loop in 1997. Nevertheless, in January 1996, DOE's contractors did not have a written, silica protection program in place, and the sampling and monitoring program in the tunnel "was less than adequate." "Workers received little or no information about the silica or fibrous mineral hazards or protective measures," Taylor said, noting that he spoke only as a health and safety professional and not as a representative of the Los Alamos lab or the Yucca Mountain Project. It wasn't until about March 1996 that respirators, which are more effective than painters masks, were issued to scientists and workers. Taylor said he has seen 47 health-and-safety professionals come and go on the Yucca Mountain Project. "Many of them became frustrated with the lack of progress and ineffectiveness" of the health and safety program, he said. "I say this to demonstrate what a challenge it was to be a safety and health professional at Yucca Mountain." When asked after the hearing why it took three months after high dust levels were recorded to upgrade the workers' protective gear, Taylor said, "I can't talk about that." When the question was posed to Gene Runkle, DOE's senior safety adviser for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Runkle responded, saying, "I was not there and we have not finished the lessons learned review." Later, a DOE spokesman, Allen Benson, said it will take about six weeks to complete the review and report preliminary findings. "The final assessment will be factored into future contracts we write to make certain that appropriate safety measures will be part of future contracts," Benson said. During the hearing, Gene Griego, a former tunnel supervisor who works for the Los Alamos national laboratory, said he filed a lawsuit last week alleging that Yucca Mountain Project contractors raced to complete the tunnel during the mid-1990s, deliberately exposing him and his co-workers to toxic dust that caused, in his case, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Griego described how water normally used for dust control "was limited because scientists thought their experiments would be compromised if there was unlimited water use." He paused during his testimony to compose himself before stating to Reid, "I hope out of our meeting today that DOE and its contractors are held accountable for their actions." Another sick tunnel worker, Jeff Dean, said, "It is my opinion that the general attitude among the tunnel supervisors was focused on production. If you brought up an issue such as dust, you weren't considered a team player. ... Respira- tors would slow down production and everybody knew of the tremendous pressure the DOE was faced with." Reid, the only senator in attendance, thanked Griego for his testimony, saying, "We all know how difficult it is." He later said he thought what had occurred was "criminal" and that the hearing served as an indictment against the Energy Department and its contractors. "The sad part about it is there is no price anyone can put on the health of one of these sick workers," Reid said. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 45 Indian Express: DRDO hits upon wonder berry to fight radiation [http://www.indianexpress.com NEW DELHI, MARCH 16: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), from churning out missile technology and nuclear payloads, has now set sight on a wonderdrug to take on the harmful effects of nuclear radiation. The plant at root of the matter is a wild berry called Seabuckthorn. The DRDO says the plant, found in the snowy peaks of Ladakh, is helpful in treating claims wounds, ulcers and high cholestrol and can be used for protection against ‘‘nuclear terrorism’’. Seabuckthorn was proclaimed as ‘‘wonder plant’’ or ‘‘Sanjivani Butti’’ by the research scientists of the organisation who had gathered at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences, at the Timarpur branch of DRDO. Apart from developing edibles with the plant, experts said it has a potential of being used in as many as 200 products including medicines for treatment of memory loss, cholestrol, ulcers, cancers and as an anti-microbial to prevent drug resistance. Presently, however, DRDO is researching its potential radioprotection application and therapeutic value as a ‘‘Nutraceutical’’ (combination of nutrient and pharmaceutical). DRDO, under the Charak programme, is evaluating the efficacy of a number of drugs, including seabuckthorn for radioprotection against lethal ionising radiation during a nuclear attack. ‘‘The berry has shown potential of protection against the lethal 60 Co (Cobalt) gamma radiation. Since the plant has a safety record in Tibetan, European, Chinese and Russian systems of medicine, the radioactive formulations developed from this plant are likely to find widespread applications in radioprotection as well,’’ said a paper submitted by the Division of Radiopharmaceuticals and Radiation Biology at Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology. The radioprotection properties have been attributed to the berry’s ability to scavenge radiation-induced free radicals. The plant’s immuno-stimulatory action is also said to prevent damage to the cells. The berry finds a mention in the eighth century Tibetan medical book Siu Yidian. The book devotes 30 chapters to the medicine about its use in cold, treatment of lung disorder, stomach-related diseases and in improving blood circulation. The seabuckthorn is rich in all vitamins — A, B1, B2, C, E, K is also considered to be the powerhouse of at least 100 nutrients. [http://www.expressindia.com/about] | © 2004: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. ***************************************************************** 46 NRC: NRC Suspends License of a Missouri Industrial Testing Company News Release - Region III - 2004-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-04-012 March 16, 2004 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] in Kansas City, Missouri, for deliberately violating safety requirements and providing inaccurate information to the agency. KTL Roudebush Testing holds an NRC license to possess and use radioactive material for radiography, which uses sealed radiation sources to make x-ray-like images of heavy metal objects like pumps, valves, and pipes. An NRC inspection and followup investigation by the agencys Office of Investigations found numerous violations of NRC safety requirements. The Order, issued March 11, required the company to stop immediately all work involving NRC-licensed radioactive materials and to place the materials in secure storage. An NRC inspector on March 12 confirmed through direct observation that the materials were placed in storage, as required. The Order resulted from NRCs concerns about the companys willingness to comply with NRCs requirements and to conduct its activities in a manner that protects the health and safety of workers and the public. In addition to suspending licensed activities, the Order also directs the company to explain why its license should not be revoked and, if the license continues, how the company would ensure compliance with NRC requirements in the future. The NRC Office of Investigations completed its report in February and -- with NRC inspections last year -- identified nine deliberate violations of NRC requirements: + Conducting radiography without a second qualified individual being present as required; + Permitting individuals to act as radiographers assistants without completing required training; + Permitting a person to act as a radiographers assistant without wearing required radiation measuring devices; + Failing to properly inspect and maintain radiography equipment; + Providing inaccurate and incomplete information to the NRC on the required quarterly inspections of radiography equipment; + Providing other inaccurate and incomplete information and failing to comply with an NRC subpoena; + And three transportation-related violations - failing to properly secure radiography equipment during shipment, failing to properly cover the equipment fittings to protect them during shipment, and transporting radiography equipment without required safety documentation. The company must submit an answer to the NRC Order by March 31 and may request a hearing. After reviewing the response, the NRC will determine if further action is necessary to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. The letter notifying KTL Roudebush Testing of the Order and the Order will be available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/enforcement/actions /materials/ and may also be obtained from the NRC Office of Public Affairs. Last revised Tuesday, March 16, 2004 ***************************************************************** 47 Moscow Times: 12% of Top Producer of Nuclear Fuel Sold themoscowtimes.com Wednesday, Mar. 17, 2004. Page 6 Bloomberg A group of investors bought a 12 percent stake in Russia's largest producer of nuclear fuel for $15.8 million, amid concern among asset managers that the price gains for the country's biggest stocks may be slowing. Moscow region-based Machine Engineering Plant's managers sold the stock via CentreInvest Securities to more than 10 investors over the past six weeks, Dan Rapoport, managing director of the brokerage, said in a telephone interview. The price per share rose to $125 from $75 during the sale. Russia-dedicated foreign investors bought more than half the stake, he said. Fund managers seeking to boost their Russian assets are buying shares in small, rarely traded stocks on concern that further gains in the country's most traded stocks may be limited. Machine Engineering may benefit from surging demand for nuclear fuel as countries such as Iran, China and India build atomic reactors. Machine Engineering's shares jumped $31, or 25 percent, to $156 on the RTS at 2:24 p.m. in Moscow, as 200 shares changed hands. That valued the company $207.4 million. Machine Engineering supplies fuel to 11 countries including China, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and Ukraine, according to CentreInvest. The nuclear fuel producer is 76 percent controlled by state-owned TVEL, Russia's monopoly nuclear fuel exporter, with management and employees owning the rest. Management sold the 12 percent stake, Rapoport said. TVEL's stake means its decisions can not be blocked at shareholders meeting for Machine Engineering, under Russian law. Machine Engineering's 2003 profit probably will more than double to $65.2 million from $28 million, based on Russian accounting standards, said Anastasia Andronova, an analyst at CentreInvest. Sales probably rose 54 percent to $220 million from $143 million, she said. The fuel producer does not report results to international or U.S. accounting standards and does not disclose information on its orders. © Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 Daily Yomiuri: Pluthermal projects still face obstacles Yomiuri Shimbun The nation's pluthermal projects, under which plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel will be used in conventional nuclear reactors, finally have advanced after a lengthy delay following the Fukui governor's endorsement of a project in Takahamacho. Gov. Issei Nishikawa officially announced his approval Monday for Kansai Electric Power Co. to implement its pluthermal projects in the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors of the Takahama nuclear power plant. The pluthermal project is certain to decrease the nation's reliance on overseas producers for nuclear fuel. "As Japan lacks a sufficient supply of natural resources, this system will help secure a stable source of energy," an official of the Federation of Electric Power Companies said. Even though the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry supports the pluthermal project, the plan still faces many obstacles before it is implemented nationwide. One of the main obstacles is Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s preoccupation with the aftermath of a scandal in which it covered up defects with its reactors. The nation's 11 electric power companies plan to implement pluthermal projects in 16 to 18 reactors, which is about one-third of the total number of reactors in the country, by fiscal 2010. The ministry increased subsidies in fiscal 2003 to local governments that have agreed to permit pluthermal projects in their regions. These projects are essential in the long run to maintain the nation's energy sources. Following the Fukui prefectural government's approval, Kansai Electric will start the project in 2007. Kyushu Electric Power Co. also has decided to implement pluthermal projects in fiscal 2008. Electric power companies have renewed their expectations that pluthermal projects will restart soon. However, such moves remain deadlocked in TEPCO, which relies on nuclear power plants as much as Kansai Electric. Used nuclear fuel has taken up 78 percent of the Takahama plant's storage capacity, while the figure has reached 68 percent at TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. Therefore, TEPCO also should implement pluthermal projects as soon as possible, but preparations for such projects have been delayed. A reprocessing plant being constructed in Rokkashomura, Aomori Prefecture, is scheduled to start operations in July 2006. However, the Aomori prefectural government has not approved the production of MOX fuel in the prefecture, which restricts the plant from being able to supply MOX fuel to the Takahama plant. Additionally, the price of MOX fuel is predicted to be higher than ordinary uranium fuel. Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 49 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: DOE can't mask its indifference Today: March 16, 2004 at 11:21:29 PST Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at [german@lasvegassun.com] or (702) 259-4067. With its long history of lies and deception, it was hard to imagine that the Department of Energy could sink any lower in its treatment of Nevadans. That was until we heard Senate testimony in Las Vegas Monday on how the DOE allowed thousands of scientists, technicians and miners to be exposed to toxic dust, such as silica, with nothing but a store-bought paper mask during tunneling operations at the Yucca Mountain Project. Such a callous attitude toward the well-being of its own workers doesn't exactly instill confidence in the DOE's ability to protect all Nevadans from the dangers of transporting high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and storing it underground there. This issue may not stop Nevada from becoming the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground, but it certainly brings into focus why people like Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who conducted the hearing, are fighting so hard to keep out the deadly waste. It is a good fight because the DOE has proven over the years that it simply can't be trusted. Monday's hearing was emotional for Reid, whose late father contracted the lung disease silicosis after being exposed to silica while mining in Searchlight, and for former Yucca Mountain workers, such as Gene Griego and Jeffrey Dean, who also developed the illness, which causes coughing and shortness of breath. Griego, who last week filed suit against several DOE contractors, fought to hold back tears as he testified that he had six of the eight symptoms of silicosis. The DOE field test coordinator said he had uncovered evidence the federal agency sent the workers unprotected into the tunneling operations between 1994 and 1996 so that deadlines for studying and building the Yucca Mountain Project could be met. Dean, a conveyor operator assigned to the Yucca Mountain tunnel boring machine, described how he would be caked with dust at the end of his shift each day and how he developed silicosis and other lung diseases. He said he naively trusted his employers not to put him in a work environment dangerous to his health. Amazingly, testimony also revealed the DOE's own scientists warned there were high amounts of silica and other dangerous minerals at Yucca Mountain long before the tunneling started. And it was no secret that silica can cause silicosis. One expert described silicosis as an "ancient disease" discovered by the Greeks and Egyptians in the 1st century. The illness has been well documented among miners in this country. So there was no excuse in this high-tech information age for the DOE and its contractors not to have protected the Yucca Mountain workers. All of this, Reid said, was preventable. Even at the hearing, Gene Runkle, a senior DOE safety adviser, though he testified that tough protective measures now are in place, appeared insensitive to the plight of workers exposed to the toxic dust. Reid chastised Runkle for not even acknowledging the suffering of Griego and Dean, who sat a few feet away from Runkle. Runkle's snub was a disgusting display of arrogance of the sort we have come to expect from the DOE, a cold-hearted agency that cares more about appeasing the mighty nuclear industry than protecting its own workers and everyone who lives here. Once again the DOE has managed to give Nevadans reason to fight harder against Yucca Mountain. ***************************************************************** 50 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca workers discuss safety lapses at hearing Today: March 16, 2004 at 11:21:30 PST By Kirsten Searer Jeffrey Dean's pockets filled with dust each day he spent drilling the tunnel inside Yucca Mountain. At the end of the week, he would blast his work clothes with an air hose to clean them. Yet they still were so dusty that his wife told him to take them elsewhere. "So I started washing them myself at the Laundromat," Dean testified Monday. "Until the manager noticed all the dirt and asked me not to come back." The problem, experts said Monday, was the dirt that Dean and others cleaned off their clothes and breathed in for years may have been toxic. On Monday Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., held a congressional subcommittee hearing to talk about the 2,400 Yucca Mountain workers who were exposed to dust that potentially could cause silicosis, a chronic lung disease. "They went grinding through that mountain, five miles," Reid said at the hearing. "They didn't even think about doing anything for the safety of those people until they were three miles in." Gene Griego, a Los Alamos National Laboratory technician who started work in the Yucca Mountain tunnel in 1993, has since developed a lung disease. He has sued the Energy Department in a class action lawsuit over silica exposure. On Monday he held up reports that noted there were potentially toxic levels of silica in the air -- reports he said the Energy Department covered up or ignored. Contractors were running on a schedule, Griego said, and safety was not the priority. "The Department of Energy and its contractors intentionally exposed its workers and the public to hazardous substances," he said. He testified that, even when workers complained about the dust, managers told them to hurry up so they could meet government deadlines. As he talked about the situation, his voice sometimes faltered. "I guess it just hit me that there were a lot of lives destroyed by this," he said after the hearing. The inspector general's office is now investigating charges that the Energy Department covered up evidence that workers were being exposed to silica but did nothing about it. At the hearing, Gene Runkle, a senior safety adviser for the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, admitted there were potentially dangerous levels of silica between 1993 and 1997. And, Runkle said, workers did not consistently use respiratory masks between 1992 and 1996. But workers have worn masks since 1996, he said. Typically, miners spray down dust with water, but scientists on the site wanted workers to limit water so it wouldn't affect their studies, Runkle said. Contractors tried to compensate for that by installing air filtration systems, he said. Workers knew better than to file complaints, said Michael Taylor, an industrial hygiene and occupational safety technician who still works at the site. "I don't know how many complaints project workers filed about dust levels in the tunnel, but I would bet there weren't many because you did not stick around long if you complained," he said. Even when workers were initially given masks, they were the flimsy ones that people can buy at a hardware store, he said. Safe workers would need much more high-tech masks, he said, holding up a mask that looked similar to a gas mask. The worst part about silicosis is that it is entirely preventable, said James Weeks, a certified industrial hygienist and consultant who has examined the project. "Any case of silicosis in our time results from a failure somewhere," Weeks said. All a worker needs is the proper respiratory mask, good ventilation and, potentially, some water to hose down dirt on a project, he said. After the hearing Runkle said he hoped to convey that the Energy Department was taking the charges seriously and has striven to create safe working conditions now. He said the Energy Department is waiting for the results of the inspector general's investigation. It also is looking at who made safety decisions, how they were made and ways to protect workers, he said. Reid said he hoped to hold the Energy Department and its contractors accountable. The investigation might even lead to criminal charges, he said. He also said this case is another reason he doesn't think the Energy Department can set up a safe nuclear waste depository at the Yucca Mountain site. "How in the world can we trust these folks?" he asked. Questions or problems? Click here. ***************************************************************** 51 RGJ: Energy Department acknowledges workers` exposure Reno Gazette-Journal] ASSOCIATED PRESS 3/15/2004 11:46 pm LAS VEGAS — Workers drilling the first tunnel at the nation’s nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert were exposed to dangerous levels of silica and other cancer-causing dusts in the 1990s, an Energy Department official acknowledged Monday. Dust masks and respirators weren’t mandatory, and not all Yucca Mountain project workers used them, said Gene Runkle, the senior Yucca Mountain safety adviser for the federal Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., collected testimony Monday in Las Vegas from Runkle, two former tunnel workers in ill health, two industrial hygienists and a physician. The senator, the son of a miner who died of lung disease, then accused the federal agency of sacrificing workers’ health in its haste to dig the first 5-mile tunnel at Yucca Mountain. “DOE ignored the threat,” Reid said after cutting off comments from Runkle and concluding the Las Vegas field hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on energy and water. “What has taken place here is just absolutely wrong.” Runkle later defended efforts by project administrators and engineers to “balance operations and the safety requirements at the time.” “There were safety processes in place and they were taken into account,” he said, adding that safety standards became stricter over time. Runkle heads a silicosis and lung disease screening program the Energy Department created in January for current and former tunnel workers. He appeared Monday on behalf of Margaret Chu, chief of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and the Bush administration’s top Yucca Mountain official. A mandatory respirator protection program began in March 1996, the same year work was stopped for two weeks — from Aug. 20 to Sept. 13 — due to high dust levels at the site, Runkle said. “We have recognized that we exceeded some of the regulatory limits in the 1990s,” Runkle said. Tunneling began in 1992 at the Yucca Mountain site. The Bush administration and Congress in 2002 picked the site as the nation’s nuclear waste dump. The Energy Department plans to drill another 150 miles of tunnels and entomb 77,000 tons of the nation’s most radioactive waste 1,000 feet underground beginning in 2010. Reid and other Nevada officials are fighting the Energy Department plan, claiming the Energy Department can’t spend 38 years moving spent reactor fuel from more than 100 sites in 39 states to Nevada without a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack. The senator said he intended to use Monday’s testimony to demonstrate the Energy Department had a history of being driven more by deadlines than by safety. Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang, director of the Nevada Cancer Institute in Las Vegas, and industrial hygienists Michael Taylor and James Weeks focused mostly on the effects of silica, a mineral that exists naturally in desert soils and in the rocks at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Long-term exposure to inhaled silica long has been known to cause silicosis, a chronic and progressive lung disease with symptoms including coughing and shortness of breath. Gene Griego, 52, a former tunnel worker now being treated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Jeffrey Dean, a former Yucca Mountain miner diagnosed with a similar lung ailment, said workers also faced a threat from exposure to airborne specks of erionite and mordenite, two carcinogenic minerals. “We left the air monitoring and sampling to the health and safety professionals,” Dean said. Griego filed a lawsuit last week seeking class action status for former tunnel workers and accusing Energy Department Yucca Mountain contractors of deliberately exposing employees to toxic dust. ***************************************************************** 52 KRT Wire: Energy Officials Seek Alternate Cleanup Plan for Tennessee Nuclear Waste | 03/16/2004 | By Frank Munger, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Mar. 15--OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - After a long courtship, the government has fallen out of love with "in situ vitrification." The U.S. Department of Energy wanted to use ISV, a melting technique, to turn old pits of nuclear waste into glass. The idea was to permanently seal the radioactive gunk and keep it from migrating into local waterways. But, when the estimated cost reached $55 million -- double the original estimate -- DOE began shopping for other environmental technologies. "We need to cut costs where we can," said Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge. Money, however, isn't the only issue, at least not according to Bechtel Jacobs. The federal contractor said standing water in the waste trenches raised safety concerns about using the melting technology here. A water buildup caused an explosion in a 1996 test, but since then, Oak Ridge officials repeatedly said improved ISV techniques could overcome the problem. In late 2002, a Bechtel Jacobs manager said two old trenches near Oak Ridge National Laboratory were "perfect candidates for ISV." A further review, after the cost estimates grew, apparently convinced officials that ISV wasn't worth the risk. DOE now plans to use grout injections to stabilize two waste trenches with concrete and stem the leakage. "After taking a hard look at it, we feel that grouting is equally protective. It will do just as good a job of isolating the radioactivity -- at a much lower cost," said Bob Sleeman, an environmental manager in DOE's Oak Ridge office. The cost of grouting trenches is estimated at $14 million. That's a projected savings of more than $40 million. The trenches are located in waste burial grounds a couple of miles from ORNL. The waste area is partly to blame for radioactive discharges reaching the Clinch River and downstream reservoirs. The old trenches are about the length of a football field. They were used for waste disposal in the 1960s. Each of the trenches received about 9.5 million gallons of liquid nuclear waste. Both were backfilled and covered with asphalt in 1966. AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc. was the only company to bid on the ISV project, and officials said the lack of competition was disappointing. Sleeman said DOE hoped multiple bidders would help drive down the costs. If the revised project uses grouting instead of ISV, there should be plenty of competition, he said. The change in strategy has raised questions. Skeptics have suggested DOE and Bechtel Jacobs are reacting more to tight budgets than concern for the environment. Bechtel Jacobs is under tremendous pressure to cut cleanup costs to meet the terms of its new five-year contract with DOE. Before altering the nuclear project, DOE must get approval of state and federal regulators. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concurred with DOE on the earlier ISV plan, which was included in a legally binding "record of decision." That document would have to be amended or superseded by another action. John Owsley, the state's environmental oversight chief in Oak Ridge, said state officials don't want to waste taxpayer money. But a new approach must still protect human health and environment, he said. "We will consider it," Owsley said. Leo Thompson, who heads AMEC's Geomelt Division, said his company tried to work with Bechtel Jacobs to reduce the cost of the project. The company's original bid in October 2003 was $39.8 million, Thompson said. A few months later, at Bechtel Jacobs' request, AMEC scaled down its proposal and reduced the bid to $32.4 million, he said. The $55 million figure used by Oak Ridge officials apparently included costs tied to Bechtel Jacobs' administration of the project. Thompson said he hopes the public understands that grouting the trenches at a lower cost won't provide the same level of treatment offered by AMEC. He said grout would not reach some areas outside the trenches where radioactivity already has spread. The melting technique would have encapsulated 4,800 cubic yards of soil and waste, Thompson said. The grouting will only address about 2,000 cubic yards, he said. Both the state and DOE said the goal is to seal the trenches for 200 to 300 years, enough time for most radioactive products there to decay significantly and reduce the potential hazards. Thompson noted that some of the nuclear contaminants, such as plutonium and uranium, would be radioactive for much longer than that. Everyone agreed that ISV is a more permanent solution, but the official record of decision only deals with the short-lived radioactive materials. Sleeman said saving money was the main reason for changing the Oak Ridge project. But it was not done just to help Bechtel Jacobs meet terms of its new contract, he said. "I don't think the contract is the biggest factor," the DOE official said. Hill said Bechtel Jacobs would not pocket any cost savings. He also said the revised project would not sacrifice safety or environmental quality. Grouting, he said, "has been deemed the best overall approach in terms of cost, effectiveness and safety." ----- To see more of The Knoxville News-Sentinel or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.knoxnews.com [http://www.knoxnews.com] . © 2004, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn. Distributed by Knight ***************************************************************** 53 Planet Ark: Russian nuclear warheads help to power US USA: March 16, 2004 LOS ANGELES - Few Americans realize that uranium once intended to destroy their civilization is now helping to keep it very much alive by powering televisions, microwaving dinners and chilling beer. Uranium extracted from Russian nuclear warheads helps supply about 10 percent of U.S. electricity, according to USEC Inc. (USU.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , which has charge of the "Megatons to Megawatts" project that has helped Russia reap profits from previously loss-making nuclear disarmament. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company purchases uranium taken from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads under a 1993 U.S.-Russian nonproliferation agreement. The treaty was designed to lower the risk of the Russian uranium falling into the wrong hands and posing a security risk. The highly enriched mineral from the warheads is diluted in Russia prior to shipment to the United States. USEC then sells the uranium to operators of nuclear plants that supply about 20 percent of electricity in the United States. The company is the world's leading supplier of uranium to nuclear power plants. The U.S. government created USEC in the early 1990s as part of its restructuring of its uranium enrichment operation. Privatization was completed in 1998. USEC sells the grade of uranium used in power plants, known as low enriched uranium, in both the United States and overseas. Sales of its Russian material are limited to the United States. Chief Executive William Timbers said about half of the uranium used by U.S. nuclear plants currently comes from Russian warheads. The program is scheduled to run for 20 years. During the first decade, about 8,000 nuclear warheads were dismantled with the uranium extracted and used in U.S. power plants. PROFITABLE DISARMAMENT "It has transformed the prior loss-making process of nuclear disarmament into an economically effective one," Valeriy Govorukhin, Russia's deputy minister of atomic energy, said in an interview earlier this year. "For Russia, this contract has not only contributed to an increase in international security, but has also been an important source for economic growth," he added. USEC had 2003 revenue of $1.46 billion. It reported a modest profit of $10.7 million last year, compared with a 2002 loss of $3.3 million, and its stock has been climbing during the last 12 months. The company's shares were trading around $8.10 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, near the upper end of its 52-week range of $5.20 to $9. Timbers said additional Russian uranium would probably be available when the program is due to end, raising the possibility it could be extended. Such a move would depend on the U.S. and Russian governments because the program was signed at a presidential level. With power plants' demand for this uranium roughly equal to the supply, the United States would have to return to a method of electricity generation that has been out of favor for more than 20 years to justify expanding the U.S.-Russian program or developing similar ones. "If there are to be more similar programs with other countries, there needs to be an expansion of demand (for uranium)," Timbers said. "We need additional nuclear power plants." SAFETY CONCERNS Nuclear power fell out of favor partly due to safety concerns following an accident in 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. Nearly 200,000 people fled their homes and local schools were temporarily closed after operator error resulted in parts of the core beginning to melt and traces of radioactive iodine were detected in nearby communities. Massive cost overruns at the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire contributed to the bankruptcy of utility Public Service Company of New Hampshire in 1988, further dampening enthusiasm for embarking on such projects. Sentiment has begun to change, however, as the United States seeks ways to meet growing demand for electricity amid increasing environmental concerns about the greenhouse gases emitted by the leading source, coal-fired power plants. Nuclear plants emit virtually no greenhouse gases. "New ground is being broken, activity is going on," Timbers said, noting newer designs for nuclear power plants are simpler in design and had lower construction costs. U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recently pointed to the development of new "meltdown-proof and proliferation-resistant" nuclear plants as one of the keys to meeting the nation's growing demand for energy. If the Bush administration's dream becomes a reality, then America's energy future could become increasingly dependent on a legacy from an era when their very existence appeared to be threatened - massive stockpiles of Cold War nuclear weapons. Story by Nigel Hunt REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 54 Japan Times: Protesters slam Kepco MOX plan Wednesday, March 17, 2004 Staff report OSAKA -- Antinuclear protesters on Tuesday called on Kansai Electric Power Co. not to restart its mixed-plutonium uranium oxide (MOX) program and demanded a public hearing before the utility signs any contracts with a French firm to manufacture the fuel. On Monday, Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa indicated he would allow the utility to use the controversial fuel at the nuclear plant in Takahama. "It has been reported that Kepco is about to conclude a contract with Cogema to manufacture nuclear fuel," said Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action Kyoto. "We call on Kepco to hold a public hearing into the matter in Fukui and in the Kansai region before any such contracts are signed." Kepco officials have denied media reports that the utility will soon sign a contract with Cogema to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from Japan into MOX fuel, but have refused to comment on the details of their contacts with Cogema. Kepco has said it wants to restart its MOX program by 2007. Antinuclear activists are especially concerned about a possible agreement with Cogema because, in addition to reprocessing spent fuel from commercial reactors, it is heavily involved in France's nuclear weapons program. While the fuel from Japan would not be reprocessed at the same Cogema facility that makes atomic weapons fuel, activists question the propriety of the deal. "We are concerned about Kepco doing business with a company like Cogema, which is at the center of France's nuclear weapons program and will profit from the deal," Smith said. The Japan Times: March 17, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 55 Niagara Falls Reporter: MOUNTAIN VIEWS: STATE DUMPS MORE TOXIC WASTE ON US HUDSON RIVER PCBs ARE JUST PILING ON By John Hanchette OLEAN -- About 35 years ago, in the late 1960s, I bought a roomy old house on Pletcher Road in the Town of Lewiston. It was the original Pletcher farmhouse built in the 19th century. The rural land around it seemed abundant and gentle. The soil was rich. The air was fresh. The lawn was huge and good for touch football. An abandoned orchard out back still produced fruit, huge English walnut trees dropped annual bounty, and a small pond just right for hockey during winter freezings pleased me, my kids and the nimble family black lab assigned to play defense for both sides. The well-regarded Lewiston-Porter High School was nearby, almost within walking distance. The couple I sold the house to in 1977 turned it into a successful bed-and-breakfast. Pletcher Road is now a typical crowded suburban street, with new houses cheek-by-jowl, toys in the driveways and busy traffic. But to this day, that peaceful old farmhouse remains my favorite of all the dwellings I have ever lived in. I carry its picture in my wallet. The only misgivings I ever harbored about the area centered on a former federal property about a mile down the road toward Model City -- a dump site rumored to harbor ample toxic wastes and radioactive leavings of the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb. The health authorities frequently assured one and all that nothing harmful was present. Not to worry, they routinely counseled -- only harmless levels of normal "background radiation" had ever been measured. Still, every once in awhile one would notice helmeted and visored men in heavy white or yellow protective gear wielding Geiger counters and taking spot-check radiation measurements near the site. Those misgivings have apparently blossomed and multiplied in northern Niagara County in recent years. If you are reading this on day of publication -- Tuesday, March 16 -- then be aware a 6 p.m. meeting in the Lew-Port High School auditorium is expected to be overflowing, raucous and key in determining the future health, welfare and peace of mind of thousands of Niagarans who want to know just what kind of hideous substances will be buried beneath the neighboring earth. The state's Department of Environmental Conservation is receiving public commentary on a hazardous waste "siting plan," which would formally list 700-plus Model City acres managed by the huge Chemical Waste Management conglomerate just off Balmer Road as the only government-approved toxic waste disposal location in the entire Northeast. Local residents can be forgiven for believing the impact hearing is the obvious child of outrage. The DEC's original brilliant idea was to hold public commentary meetings on the controversial site plan in places like New Paltz and Long Island and other locations hundreds of miles away -- eschewing the obvious duty to let residents in the towns of Porter and Lewiston learn what's up and have their say. Only a pre-Christmas outcry by the Sierra Club and a local activist group called Residents for Responsible Government forced tonight's commentary session. The Residents for Responsible Government are set to raise hell about several provisions of the siting plan that they consider dangerous, misleading, unhealthy and unfair: + It pretends to meet federal environmental requirements for "geographical dispersion" of hazardous waste facilities, but the alternative disposal sites mentioned are either closed, shut down by health authorities, or licensed only for the limited use of on-site owners. + It makes no mention of health concerns or consequences. + It flouts federal and state environmental law language requiring "equitable distribution" of toxic waste disposal sites by leaving the Chemical Waste Management acreage the only such licensed location in not only New York State but the entire Northeast. + It leaves in place the current odious circumstance of northern Niagara County being the only government-approved spot on the map that receives hazardous toxic waste from 30 states and Canada. Sierra Club official Charles Lamb, of nearby Youngstown, believes the real bombshell set to go off at the impact hearing is a prospect not even mentioned in the 50-page siting plan: Is CWM's Model City acreage the intended dumping ground for 650 tons of poisonous PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) to be dredged from the upper Hudson River? CWM has refrained from commenting on the destination of the huge volume of the toxic river bottom removal, but Lamb thinks as many as 176,000 truckloads of the dredged material may be headed our way if the siting is approved. He writes in the "Trailblazer" Sierra Club newsletter that the DEC -- in its see-no-evil impact statement -- is ignoring results that would be disastrous: "There is no concern whatsoever about putting toxic wastes on top of already contaminated areas and the unknown dangers this may pose." PCBs -- usually found as an oily substance -- were for decades used by utilities and manufacturing firms as a coolant and very efficient insulator. But in recent years scientists have found them carcinogenic to lab animals, and studies of people in Japan and Taiwan who unknowingly ingested the contaminant showed higher cancer mortality and increased frequency of lung infections. The "New England Journal of Medicine" reported eight years ago that children whose mothers ate substantial quantities of Great Lakes fish contaminated with PCBs exhibited more behavioral problems and lower intelligence than those whose mothers did not. The Environmental Protection Agency lists PCBs as "probably human carcinogens" and ranks them among the top 10 percent of chemicals toxic to human health. The federal government banned PCBs in 1977 as an unacceptable pollutant and gave the EPA policing and cleanup powers. But before it did, the mammoth General Electric Co. -- for three decades between 1947 and 1977 -- dumped almost 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the bed of the upper Hudson River along a 41-mile stretch north of Albany. Sediment drifts. In 1983 the EPA designated 200 miles of the upper Hudson an official federal toxic Superfund site. Three years ago the EPA ordered GE to dredge the gunk from the waterway and pay for its removal -- a long, complicated job that may cost GE more than half-a-billion dollars. Just the math is astounding. In all, GE will have to complete removal of almost 2.7 million cubic yards of sediment. This amounts to about 40 football fields 30 feet deep. Lewiston and Porter residents are understandably concerned this may end up in their backyards. While CWM is mum, members of Residents for Responsible Government report conversations with truckers who say they have already been unofficially told by the company there may be chances to bid on such lucrative hauling contracts, and who have been scoping out the Model City site. Niagara County has long been a national dumping ground for toxic wastes. Its residents are now paying the balloon mortgage on citizen lethargy combined with government secrecy. The CWM site is part of a 7,500-acre expanse that was top secret during World War II. The federal government -- through the Army -- purchased the acreage in 1942 from mostly farmers, some willing and some who had to be kicked off their land, to build the old Army TNT plant for wartime purposes. After the Army stopped making TNT, the site was used to test rocket fuel, store chemical weapons and as a dump for radioactive, biological and chemical wastes. It was formally known as the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. The land is just north of the Tuscarora Indian Reservation. Much of it is swampy and unsuited to burial of waste -- even non-toxic waste. Even state and federal government officials are nervous about seeking to learn the measure of previous folly, for to dig it up to catalog what's there is to unearth anew a Pandora's box of health hazards. Gradually the property was divided and transferred or sold to other government agencies, citizens, municipalities and private waste removal businesses -- including CWM. Some of the stuff buried there is downright insulting to Niagarans. For instance, after the still-untraced anthrax letter bombs (which killed several people) were mailed to politicians and celebrities in the months following Sept. 11, the desk used by NBC television news anchor Tom Brokaw -- an anthrax addressee -- was pulverized and shipped to the CWM site for burial. Brokaw was never infected with the deadly microbe, and his desk tested clean, but it was disposed of just in case. To those who thought of Niagara County first in getting rid of this questionable artifact -- thanks a lot. And somewhere on the former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works site are the remains of lab animals used in dubious University of Rochester radiation experiments involving plutonium, one of the most toxic elements known to man. Federal records show a huge cache of radioactive radium-226 -- residues from the processing of pitchblende ore -- is buried only 2,500 yards from Lew-Port High School, where the site plan meeting takes place. The last time I glimpsed my Pletcher Road house as an owner was shortly after Christmas of 1976 when my oldest son and I drove away in my car. I was headed to Florida to start a new job. He was headed for the airport to return to college. The old farmhouse was pristine in its mantle of snow, winter night air and clear frosty moonlight. The house resembled a Christmas card. At the end of the driveway, I idled the car. My son and I cried silently in recognition we would live there no more. Were I still a resident of Pletcher Road, I would be crying anew. Then I would be protesting against this plan like all the furies of hell. John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can be contacted via e-mail at [Hanchette6@aol.com] Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com March 16 2004 ***************************************************************** 56 Public Citizen: Public Citizen Warns Against Proposal to Dump Nuclear Waste into Community Landfills March 15, 2004 Forcing Radiation Exposure on Public Sets Dangerous Precedent WASHINGTON, D.C.  Public Citizen today asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw its proposal to allow nuclear waste to be dumped in standard community landfills or other non-licensed facilities. The EPA is considering a plan to allow "low-activity" radioactive waste to be disposed in dumps and landfills that are not licensed for or designed to contain it. This proposal, on which the EPA is now seeking comment, would permit certain radioactive wastes to be treated as if they were non-radioactive and exempted from standards designed to isolate and contain radiation and prevent the public from being exposed to radiation. The EPA teamed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to formulate the deregulatory rulemaking. Having the ability to dump nuclear waste in a regular community landfill would save the nuclear industry millions of dollars, since it costs less money to send nuclear waste to a regular community landfill - where your household trash is sent - than it does to properly store the waste in a licensed facility. "Low-activity" radioactive waste does not mean that the waste doesnt pose a hazard to human health or the environment," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizens Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Its ludicrous for the EPA, whose stated mission is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment, to suggest that we roll back existing regulations on the management of nuclear waste materials." There are several problems with EPAs proposal: + 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 when mixed together in the environment and the human body. + It would allow radioactive waste to go to sites such as standard garbage dumps, incinerators or hazardous waste sites that do not have licenses or regulations for handling it or maintaining it safely. + The EPAs notice does not identify regulatory barriers that would prevent the nuclear wastes from going to recycling facilities and contaminating the recycling streams that feed the production of everyday household items like cookware, toys, cars and furniture. No restrictions are described that would keep commercial materials and projects such as roads, bridges and buildings free of this contamination. "The EPAs non-regulatory approach to managing waste by partnering with nuclear waste generators works to protect industry, not the public," said David Ritter, policy analyst with Public Citizen. "Unfortunately, the real motivation behind the EPAs proposal is to coddle nuclear waste producers. The whole idea should be dumped." Whether the EPA proceeds with the plan may depend on the nature and volume of the comments it receives. If the EPA decides to move forward with the proposal, it will draft a rule after the comment period ends on May 17. ***************************************************************** 57 KLAS: Reid Blasts DOE on Yucca Safety March 16, 2004 Ed Lowder, Photojournalist Gene Griego and Jeffrey Dean say they were exposed to toxic levels of a silica dust and microscopic fibers called erionite, while drilling five miles into Yucca Mountain. More>> Edward Lawrence, Reporter (Mar. 15) -- For the first time the Department of Energy and Senator Harry Reid faced off in person over the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain. The Senator moved a subcommittee hearing on appropriations from Washington, D.C. to the Clark County Commission chambers. "Senator, if I could make... If I want you to answer a question... I will answer it. Thank you." The Senate subcommittee hearing lasted about two hours, but provided a very public light on dangers that spent years in the shadows. Gene Griego and Jeffrey Dean say they were exposed to toxic levels of a silica dust and microscopic fibers -- called erionite -- while drilling five miles into Yucca Mountain. Gene Griego, whistleblower; "It was like a fog all the time. Can hardly see." In the attached video clip you can see how much dust is kicked up from drilling in the government video that shows the miners wearing the correct protection. Something former workers say wasn't given to them while working at Yucca for four years and three miles into the project. Griego testified that the DOE and sub-contractors knew the dust produced by the drills was deadly. Gene Griego; "What do you think was the base motivation for the Department of Energy and sub-contractors? Collect their bonuses for making schedules. That's it money? That's what it all comes down too." During the hearing Gene Runkle, a DOE safety advisor, acknowledged there were problems, but said the proper safety programs were in place. "Respiratory protection was made available to Yucca workers. However between 1992 and 1996 requirements for it's use were not consistently applied." Runkle then went on to explain the medical program the department implemented for sick workers. Senator Harry Reid; "You've set up a screening process now to take care of people. What about the years of neglect to these people. You breezed through that like it doesn't exist." After the testimony finished Runkle danced around Eyewitness News questions about safety procedures early on in the project. "We had engineering controls that were in place addressing the dry mining activities," Runkle said. Clearly they were not enough for Gene Griego who paused his testimony because of his lung condition. He'll live with that, the rest of his life. The DOE says there are now 2,400 workers who may have been exposed to deadly and debilitating lung problems. That number is up from an original estimate of 1,500 people. Former Yucca Mt. Worker Suing former tunnel worker at Yucca Mountain is suing the Department of Energy contractors. The DOE itself was not named as a party to the lawsuit, and has not commented. More>> [http://www.worldnow.com] All content © Copyright 2000 - 2004 WorldNow and KLAS. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 58 Belfast Telegraph: Murphy says no to Sellafield meeting date [http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk 16 March 2004 THE Secretary of State has refused to meet Down councillors to discuss the risk of a September 11 terrorist style attack on the Sellafield Nuclear Reprocessing Plant. The Downpatrick-based council had written to Paul Murphy asking him to attend a public meeting in the Down area to reassure residents that Northern Ireland will not be at risk if the plant in Cumbria is attacked. Councillors are worried that the close proximity of the plant across the Irish Sea from the Lecale coastline would lead to death on a massive scale if terrorists attacked. Mr Murphy has told the council it would not be appropriate for him to attend to discuss emergency measures after an incident at Sellafield since Patricia Hewitt, as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has responsibility for the issue. "As you will probably know, the UK has well tried and tested emergency planning arrangements for dealing with the consequences of an emergency at a UK civil nuclear site," Mr Murphy told the council by letter. "Pre-prepared plans would be used or adapted by responding organisations. These organisations would gather at a pre-designated off-site facility which would be established as a decision-making centre where organisations could receive and pass on information." © 2004 Independent News and Media (NI) a division of Independent News &media (UK) Ltd ***************************************************************** 59 DOE: National Energy Technology Laboratory; Notification of Plans for FR Doc 04-5881 [Federal Register: March 16, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 51)] [Notices] [Page 12305-12306] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16mr04-32] a Public Hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Low-Emission Boiler System Proof-of-Concept Project AGENCY: National Energy Technology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of public hearing. SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality NEPA regulations (40 CFR parts 1500-1508), and the DOE Regulations Implementing NEPA (10 CFR part 1021), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (the Draft EIS) for the Low-Emission Boiler System Proof-of-Concept Project in Logan County, IL, and scheduled a public hearing in Elkhart, IL, to receive comments on the Draft EIS. The Draft EIS (DOE/EIS-0284) has been distributed to members of Congress, Federal and state regulatory agencies, state and local government officials, national stakeholders, and other interested persons and organizations. Copies of the Draft EIS have been made available at the Elkhart Public Library for public review, and the Draft EIS is also available for review at the following Internet site: http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa/docs/deis/deis.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa/docs/deis/deis. html] . DATES: DOE invites members of Congress; State, local, and tribal governments; other Federal agencies; and the general public to provide comments on the Draft EIS. The comment period on the Draft EIS runs through April 19, 2004; DOE will consider all comments received by that date in preparing a Final EIS. Comments received after April 19, 2004, will be considered to the extent practicable. Written, oral, fax, or e- mail comments will be considered (see ADDRESSES). DOE will conduct a public hearing on March 30, 2004, to provide an opportunity for the public to present comments on the draft document, ask questions, and discuss concerns with DOE officials regarding the Draft EIS. The date, time, and location for the public hearing are as follows: March 30, 2004, 7 p.m.-9 p.m., Elkhart Grade School, 206 South Gillett Street, Elkhart, IL. DOE officials will be available beginning at 5 p.m. on the day of the meeting for informal discussions on the project and the NEPA process. Displays and other forms of information about the proposed Low-Emission Boiler System Proof-of-Concept Project will be available. ADDRESSES: A copy of the Draft EIS may be obtained upon request by writing to Lloyd Lorenzi, U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, P.O. Box 10940, Pittsburgh, PA, 15236; by telephone (412) 386-6159; by facsimile (412) 386-4822; or by e-mail lorenzi@netl.doe.gov [lorenzi@netl.doe.gov] ). Comments concerning the Draft EIS can be submitted by the means described above or by leaving a message at toll-free number 1-800-276- 9851. Specific information regarding the public hearing can also be obtained from the DOE contact noted above. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information on the Low- Emission Boiler System Proof-of-Concept Project or the NEPA process for this Project, please contact Mr. Lloyd Lorenzi at the address provided above. For general information on the DOE NEPA process, contact Ms. Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance (EH- 42), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585-0119; telephone 202-586-4600 or leave a message at 1-800-472-2756. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Draft EIS evaluates the potential environmental impacts of the Low-Emission Boiler System project that was proposed by Babcock Power, Inc., to demonstrate reliable and economical technologies for meeting the environmental performance requirements of coal-fired power generation. DOE's proposed action is to provide cost-shared funding of approximately $30 million (about 23.5% of the total cost) for the proposed project. The Department of Agriculture, Rural Utilities Service, is participating as a cooperating agency in the preparation of this EIS, and may provide financing for a portion of the proposed project. The project would involve constructing and operating a 91 megawatt-electric coal-fired generating plant on property owned by Turris Coal Company adjacent to its existing mining operations near Elkhart, IL. The plant would be owned and operated by Corn Belt Energy Corporation. The Draft EIS also evaluates the environmental impacts of a no- action alternative under which DOE would not provide cost-shared funding. Alternative sites and technologies that were considered in developing the proposed project are also presented. The Draft EIS analyzes potential impacts on air quality, aesthetics and land use, surface water and groundwater, solid waste, traffic and transportation, ecological and cultural resources, noise, socioeconomics, environmental justice, and other resources. Public Hearing Process: DOE will conduct a public hearing at the Elkhart Grade School, 206 South Gillett Street, Elkhart, IL, on March 30, 2004, at 7 p.m. In addition, the public is invited to an informal session at this location beginning at 5 p.m. to learn more about the proposed Low-Emission Boiler System project. Displays and other information about the project will be available, and DOE personnel will be present to discuss the proposed project and the NEPA process. The formal hearing will begin at 7 p.m. DOE invites people who wish to speak at this public hearing to contact Mr. Lloyd Lorenzi, either by phone, fax, e-mail, or in writing (see ADDRESSES in this notice). People who do not arrange in advance to speak may register at the [[Page 12306]] meeting and will be provided opportunities to speak following previously scheduled speakers. Speakers will be requested to limit their initial comments to about five minutes. Speakers who need more than five minutes should indicate the length of time desired in their request. Depending on the number of speakers, DOE may need to limit speakers to five minutes initially but will provide additional opportunities as time permits. Speakers may also provide written materials to supplement their presentations. Oral and written comments will be given equal consideration. DOE will begin the meeting with an overview of the proposed Low- Emission Boiler System Project. The meeting will not be conducted as an evidentiary hearing, and speakers will not be cross-examined. However, speakers may be asked questions to help ensure that DOE fully understands their comments or suggestions. A presiding officer will establish the order of speakers and provide any additional procedures necessary to conduct the meeting. Issued in Pittsburgh, PA, on March 8, 2004. Lloyd Lorenzi, Jr., NEPA Compliance Officer, National Energy Technology Laboratory. [FR Doc. 04-5881 Filed 3-15-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 60 DOE: Notice of Availability of the Final Environmental Assessment FR Doc 04-5882 [Federal Register: March 16, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 51)] [Notices] [Page 12306] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16mr04-33] Addendum for Waste Disposition Activities at the Paducah Site, Paducah, KY AGENCY: Oak Ridge Operations Office, Department of Energy (DOE). ACTION: Notice of availability. SUMMARY: The Department of Energy announces the availability of the Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Environmental Assessment Addendum (EA Addendum) for Waste Disposition Activities at the Paducah Site (DOE/EA-1339A). The EA Addendum has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 as amended (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.); Council on Environmental Quality regulations implementing NEPA, 40 CFR parts 1500-1508; and, DOE NEPA Implementing Procedures, 10 CFR part 1021. The U.S. Department of Energy has completed an Environmental Assessment Addendum (DOE/EA-1339A) for the disposition of additional waste currently located at the Paducah Site, Paducah, Kentucky. This EA Addendum follows the original EA (DOE/EA-1339), completed November 5, 2002, which analyzed continued waste management operations including disposition of waste from the Paducah Site. The EA Addendum analyzes transportation of additional waste for disposal at various locations in the United States. Based on the results of the impact analysis reported in the EA Addendum, DOE has determined that the proposed action is not a major federal action that would significantly affect the quality of the human environment within the context of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). Therefore, preparation of an environmental impact statement was not necessary, and DOE is issuing this Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI). ADDRESSES: Copies of the EA may be obtained from: U.S. Department of Energy, Paducah Site Office, Attn: Mr. Greg Bazzell, P.O. Box 1410, Paducah, KY 42001, by fax (1-270-441-6801), or electronically bazzellga@oro.doe.gov [bazzellga@oro.doe.gov] ). The EA is available for review at the U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Information Center, Barkley Centre, 115 Memorial Drive, in Paducah, Kentucky. The EA is also available at the U.S. Department of Energy Information Center at 475 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. For general information on the DOE NEPA process, please contact: Ms. Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance (EH-42), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585, telephone 202-586-4600, or leave a message at 1- 800-472-2756. Issued in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on March 8, 2004. James L. Elmore, Alternate Oak Ridge Operations, National Environmental Policy Act, Compliance Officer. [FR Doc. 04-5882 Filed 3-15-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 61 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board Chairs FR Doc 04-5883 [Federal Register: March 16, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 51)] [Notices] [Page 12306-12307] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16mr04-34] Meeting AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of open meeting. SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EMSSAB) Chairs Meeting. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. No. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Wednesday, April 21, 2004, 8:15 a.m.-5:15 p.m. Thursday, April 22, 2004, 8:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. ADDRESSES: Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Room 1E-245, Forrestal Building, Washington, DC 20585. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jay Vivari, Program Management Specialist (EM-30.1), Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586-5143. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the EM SSAB is to make recommendations to DOE and its regulators in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities. Tentative Agenda Wednesday, April 21 8:15 a.m. Welcome; Introductions; Meeting Expectations (Waisley; Schoener) 8:45 a.m. Round Robin on Sites' Key Issues, e.g. Risk-Based End States; Structure of the CABs; Future of CABs at Closure Sites, etc. (Preparation for A/S Roberson Meeting) 9:45 a.m. Break 10 a.m. Discussion with Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Jessie Roberson; includes two minutes for expression of concerns from each site 10:45 a.m. Board's Discussion following Roberson Dialogue 11:45 a.m. Public Comment Period Noon Lunch 1 p.m. Presentation on Risk-Based End States (RBES): Status at Headquarters; Reports on RBES from each site; Discussion on Public Participation in RBES; Paths Forward 2:30 p.m. Break 2:45 p.m. Resume and complete discussion on RBES 3:15 p.m. Presentation on EM's FY `05 Budget Request to Congress, Including High Level Waste Funding Issues; Discussion 4:15 p.m. Discussion on Possible End-of-Meeting Work Product 4:45 p.m. Public Comment Period 5 p.m. Wrap Up and Conclusion to Day One 5:15 p.m. Adjourn Thursday, April 22, 2004 8:15 a.m. Welcome; Day One Recap; Day Two Expectations [[Page 12307]] 8:30 a.m. Presentation on Responsibility for Long Term Stewardship (LTS) at Closure Sites vs. Responsibility for LTS at Sites with On- Going Missions; Discussion 9:45 a.m. Break 10 a.m. Presentation on TRU Waste and WIPP by EM; Discussion 10:45 a.m. Presentation on EM Headquarters Reorganization; Discussion 11 a.m. Discussion of Possible SSAB Workshop Topics, Dates, Locations; Initial Planning for Next Meeting 11:45 a.m. Public Comment Period Noon Meeting Evaluation 12:15 p.m. Adjourn 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 Jay Vivari at the address above or by telephone at (202) 586-5143. Requests must be received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provision will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. The 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 a maximum of five minutes to present their comments at the end of the meeting. Minutes: 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 calling Jay Vivari at (202) 586-5143. Issued at Washington, DC, on March 10, 2004. Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. 04-5883 Filed 3-15-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 62 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Fernald FR Doc 04-5884 [Federal Register: March 16, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 51)] [Notices] [Page 12307] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16mr04-35] 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), Fernald. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. No. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Tuesday, April 6, 2004, 6 p.m.-9 p.m. ADDRESSES: Fernald Closure Project Site, 7400 Willey Road, Trailer 214, Hamilton, OH 45253. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Doug Sarno, The Perspectives Group, Inc., 1055 North Fairfax Street, Suite 204, Alexandria, VA 22314, at (703) 837-1197, or e-mail; djsarno@theperspectivesgroup.com [djsarno@theperspectivesgroup.com] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities. Tentative Agenda 6 p.m. Call to Order 6-8 p.m. Tour of Silos Project Area 8-8:30 p.m. Chair's Remarks, Ex Officio Announcements and Updates 8:30-8:45 p.m. Update on Stewardship Issues 8:45-9 p.m. Public Comment 9 p.m. Adjourn Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. Written statements may be filed with the Board chair either before or after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements pertaining to agenda items should contact the Board chair at the address or telephone number listed below. 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, Gary Stegner, Public Affairs Office, Ohio Field Office, U.S. Department of Energy, 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 a maximum of five minutes 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 the Fernald Citizens' Advisory Board, c/o Phoenix Environmental Corporation, MS-76, Post Office Box 538704, Cincinnati, OH 43253-8704, or by calling the Advisory Board at (513) 648-6478. Issued at Washington, DC, on March 11, 2004. Rachel Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. 04-5884 Filed 3-15-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 63 Seattle Times: Editorials &Opinion - Cleaning up Hanford Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. As federal officials craft a final plan governing waste disposal at the Hanford nuclear reservation, they should heed the state's reasonable request to reconsider some fine but important points. Chief among the state's concerns is that Department of Energy officials seem willing to add more waste when major Hanford areas still don't comply with state and federal hazardous-waste requirements. Energy's final solid-waste environmental-impact statement also signals federal officials might be angling to consider less-strenuous cleanup of contaminated groundwater. Monday, federal officials signaled they were considering these and other concerns expressed in a March 9 letter from Ecology Director Linda Hoffman before issuing their specific plan. The state's position is reasonable. Ecology consistently has acknowledged that Hanford, with its unique capabilities, might have an important role in the nation's cleanup of Cold War-era defense wastes from other states. However, the state is not willing to take any post-1992-generated waste from ongoing nuclear defense or research. Years in the making, Energy's environmental-impact statement has incorporated several state requests but the final plan should incorporate more. For instance, the statement includes a commitment to bury waste only in lined trenches starting in 2006. Hoffman argues persuasively Energy shouldn't wait but rather stop the practice right away and improve other waste-management practices. The Energy Department should embrace the state's sensible and responsible requests. Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company More Editorial ***************************************************************** 64 Sun News: Group wants hearings on nuclear shipment | 03/16/2004 | By Bruce Smith The Associated Press CHARLESTON - Local residents and Greenpeace on Monday called for hearings on a Department of Energy plan to ship 330 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium through Charleston to France for processing. "We want a full hearing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the [export] license, and we also want a full environmental impact statement so the public can comment," said Tom Clements, a nuclear materials expert working for Greenpeace International. The shipments are part of a long-range plan to neutralize 34 metric tons of plutonium and make it useless for nuclear weapons by converting it into fuel for commercial reactors. Building a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, plant at the Savannah River Site to process such material will cost $4 billion and create 500 jobs for 20 years. Construction has been delayed until at least next year. The 300 pounds of plutonium powder, which critics say could make 50 nuclear weapons, will be shipped to France for processing and then returned for use in a commercial reactor test run next year. The Energy Department applied for an export license last fall to ship the material from the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico to Charleston and then by a special armed and escorted ship to France. Clements said the shipment could pose a danger in an accident and could make a target for terrorists. "We believe the local community needs to be made aware of the DOE's plan, and we have many questions about the safety precautions," said Marcella Guerriero, a local resident. Instead of a more extensive environmental impact statement, the Department of Energy compiled a supplement to an earlier study on plutonium disposition at the Savannah River Site, Clements said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the export license request from the Department of Energy and the request from Greenpeace, said Sue Gagner, a spokeswoman for the commission. Earlier, when the Department of Energy applied for the license, spokesman Joe Davis rejected suggestions the shipments posed a terrorist risk. ***************************************************************** 65 KTVB: Carbon-14 found near irradiated beryllium at INEEL waste site Idaho News POCATELLO -- Officials at Idaho's nuclear site found Carbon-14 contamination near buried blocks of irradiated beryllium. Carbon-14 contamination found at the INEEL could seep into the Snake River Plain aquifer. They're proposing to use grout to reduce the possibility of contamination in the Snake River Plain aquifer. The beryllium was used in three test reactors at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. It was buried in 14 different locations at the Subsurface Disposal Area in 1976, 1977 and 1993. I-N-E-E-L spokesman Bruce Byrum said the contamination has not reached the aquifer, but there is a risk. Officials propose grouting around the buried four-foot high bricks to isolate the contamination. They would inject a slurry-like mixture into the soil to prevent rain and snow from further corroding the bricks. Byrum says the process would immediately reduce the risk until officials research a remediation plan for the entire disposal area. [http://www.ktvb.com ***************************************************************** 66 Oak Ridger: Uranium shipments set to begin this month Story last updated at 11:38 a.m. on March 16, 2004 By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com] Up to 2,900 depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders are expected to be shipped out of Oak Ridge to Piketon, Ohio, by Sept. 30 - the end of the current fiscal year. It's part of an agreement the Department of Energy has reached with Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency. Beginning later this month, the cylinders will be loaded onto trucks for highway transport from the Oak Ridge K-25 site to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. "We are confident of the safety of these shipments and have worked closely with the states of Ohio and Tennessee and the commonwealth of Kentucky to plan this effort," said Gerald Boyd, manager of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office. In addition, shipments of the remaining stockpile of cylinders - around 3,000 - are expected to occur in FY 2005 under a separate agreement with Ohio, according to DOE officials. Depleted uranium hexafluoride is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, where uranium is ultimately processed into nuclear reactor fuel and weapons-grade material. While DOE's shipment figures add up to around 6,000 cylinders, some officials previously told The Oak Ridger there were around 4,800 cylinders that were actually filled with depleted uranium hexafluoride at K-25. While DOE won't confirm the transportation route, Oak Ridge Turnpike reportedly won't be used. Based on K-25's location, the cylinders could possibly be transported off the federal government's Oak Ridge Reservation via Bear Creek Road, which runs past the Y-12 National Security Complex; Bethel Valley Road, beside Oak Ridge National Laboratory; or state Highway 58 to Interstate 40 east. Officials said the shipment route for the cylinders has been coordinated with respective environmental, emergency management and radiological health organizations in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. In addition, contingency plans for these shipments have been developed, and DOE staff has conducted training of more than 500 emergency response personnel along the route. DOE and the participating states plan to monitor and track the shipments between the K-25 and Portsmouth sites. According to a DOE document, the cylinders will not be in transport for more than 10 consecutive hours. Transportation of the cylinders is being managed by Bechtel Jacobs Co., which oversees cleanup work for DOE in Oak Ridge. ***************************************************************** 67 AZOM: Remote-Controlled System That Permanently Closes Waste Packages of Spent Nuclear Fuel [AZoM Home - Metals Ceramics, Polymers, Composites] The U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory [http://www.inel.gov/] is designing a prototype remote-controlled system that will permanently close the waste packages of spent nuclear fuel before final disposal in the proposed federal repository being studied at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The INEEL will also build and test the system at the Idaho laboratory. Federal law designated Yucca Mountain as the site to be studied for licensing as the national repository for commercial and government spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. If the repository is licensed, INEEL's Waste Package Closure System will be a key element of the facility's operation. The INEEL-designed closure system will be used to demonstrate the operations and equipment, and may be used in the operator training facility. The prototype will be constructed and operated at the INEEL. Philip Wheatley, Yucca Mountain relationship manager, said the project takes advantage of INEEL's established expertise. "The INEEL has been designated as the DOE lead lab for Nuclear Energy Technology. We have a proven history of spent fuel canister welding process development. This expertise will help the Yucca Mountain Project and help meet the nation's need for the safe storage of nuclear waste," Wheatley said. Wheatley added that other areas of expertise -- in particular, robotics, hot cell operations and design, systems engineering and automated welding developed by the Laboratory in receiving, handling, storing and transporting spent nuclear fuel -- made the INEEL attractive to the Yucca Mountain Project team. In developing the waste package system, INEEL engineers faced a number of technical challenges. The waste package is two containers, one nested within the other, with three lids. The package can be various diameters and heights. INEEL engineers are integrating off-the-shelf equipment in the design of the closure system. However, the team has had to develop new or modified equipment for some parts of the operation, for instance, a tool to remotely purge and fill the inner container with helium. The task becomes more challenging and complex because the high radiation fields require the entire operation to be done remotely. As designed, a cart will move a waste package into the processing cell where all the operations occur. Three separate lids will be installed and welded onto the container using two weld torches rotating around the container on tracks. All the welds undergo one or more inspections visually, ultrasonically, with eddy current, or by a combination of these methods. The inner container will be filled with helium (to prevent corrosion), sealed and leak tested. Stress mitigation on the welds will be performed on the outer lid followed by another set of inspections. Once the waste package closure is complete, it is ready for placement in the repository. Wheatley noted the INEEL is working on a number of other repository-related projects, including support in preparing the license application, analysis of criticality events, surface facility design, verification and validation of software for modeling the repository and preparing a corrective management plan for systems. "The waste package closure project will be a significant piece of work for the next three or four years," Wheatley said. "This work allows the INEEL to apply some of our core competencies to help meet the nation's nuclear technology development mission. Engineering and other capabilities used for Yucca Mountain will contribute to future reactor development work." For more nucleur information [http://www.azom.com/SearchResults.asp?IndKeyWord=Nuclear] Posted 16th March 2004 AZoM" - Metals, Ceramics, Polymers, Composites, An Engineers Resource...Copyright © 2004 by AZoM".com Pty.Ltd ***************************************************************** 68 PISJ: INEEL seeks comments on beryllium waste plan Pocatello Idaho State Journal: By Emily Jones [ejones@journalnet.com] - Journal Writer POCATELLO - Officials at Idaho's nuclear site are accepting public comment on a plan to grout buried blocks of beryllium to reduce the possibility of contamination in the Snake River Plain aquifer. The beryllium was used in three test reactors at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and was buried in 14 different locations at the Subsurface Disposal Area in 1976, 1977 and 1993. During routine monitoring in 2002, officials discovered Carbon-14 contamination near the blocks. Scientists believe the contamination occurred when surface water from rain and snow soaked through the ground and corroded the beryllium blocks, creating Carbon-14. INEEL spokesman Bruce Byrum said the contamination has not reached the aquifer, but there is a risk. INEEL officials propose grouting around the 4-feet high bricks underground to isolate the contamination. The process would include injecting a slurry-like mixture into the soil. The process would reduce risk until officials complete an investigation and remediation plan for the entire Subsurface Disposal Area. "This is a step to reduce the risk immediately," Byrum said. Snake River Alliance Executive Director Jeremy Maxand said the beryllium blocks are an example of the dangers associated with buried waste at the Subsurface Disposal Area. "Ultimately, our position is that we want to see all the buried waste removed," he said. Maxand said his group is still researching the proposal. "We support any action that will stop contamination of the Snake River aquifer," he said. Remarks Public comments on an INEEL proposal to stop contamination from beryllium bricks at the site's Subsurface Disposal Area will be accepted until April 13. Comments can be made on the Web at http://cleanup.inel.gov, or by mail to: Jeff Perry, Department of Energy, P.O. Box 1625, Mail Stop 1222, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-1222. Copyright © 2004 Pocatello Idaho State Journal P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431 ***************************************************************** 69 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 14:22:29 -0800 (PST) GUARD Training at US Nuclear Weapons Plants 'Inadequate' Scotland on Sunday - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK Nuclear weapons plants have axed or reduced training for guards responsible for repelling terrorist attacks, leaving the US government unable to guarantee ... See all stories on this topic: OHIO Nuclear Plant Running Again Kansas City Star - Kansas City,MO,USA OAK HARBOR, Ohio - The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant started generating electricity Tuesday for the first time since it was shut down more than two years ago ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR shipment protested Charleston Post Courier (subscription) - Charleston,SC,USA Some local environmentalists have joined forces with Greenpeace International to protest a proposed shipment of nuclear material through Charleston Harbor. ... See all stories on this topic: WESTERN Governors Concerned About Nuclear Waste Containers The New Mexico Channel.com - Albuquerque,NM,USA Bill Richardson joined seven other Western governors this week in asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reconsider its decision to relax packaging ... See all stories on this topic: LIBYA Disappointed by Nuclear Show, Official Says Wired News - USA WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington offended Libya with its display of the north African nation's dismantled nuclear weapons, an official close to the United ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN says it will allow nuclear inspections Hindustan Times - New Delhi,India Iran's top nuclear negotiator on Tuesday said Tehran will allow international nuclear inspections to resume unconditionally later this month -- the first ... See all stories on this topic: SH. Rashid dismisses involvement of Musharraf in nuclear ... PakTribune.com - Pakistan ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed Tuesday dismissed charges of involvement of the President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in nuclear proliferation. ... US Discusses Depth of Khan's Nuclear Network Los Angeles Times (subscription) - Los Angeles,CA,USA ... Khan, stretched across several continents, had active training programs and received $100 million from Libya for equipment and technology to make nuclear ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR Team Plans to Resume Inspections Los Angeles Times (subscription) - Los Angeles,CA,USA Iran will allow the resumption of nuclear inspections this month, ending the freeze it ordered to protest a tough resolution on its atomic program, the UN's ... See all stories on this topic: POWELL Trip to Focus on Pakistan Nuclear Issue Los Angeles Times (subscription) - Los Angeles,CA,USA ... Monday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell pledged to press Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on whether officials in his government helped spread nuclear ... See all stories on this topic: This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 70 EcoDefenxe: Russian Nuclear Watch #1(20) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 05:47:46 +0300 Russian Nuclear Watch * February - March 2004 * N 1-2 (20) CONTENTS PARLIAMENTARIAN KOSARIKOV WANTS RUSSIAN ISLANDS TO BECOME RADIOACTIVE DUMP SITES RUSSIA NEEDS ENVIRONMENTALLY CLEAN ENERGY AND AN IMMEDIATE DECOMMISSIONING OF ITS OLD NPPs RUSSIAN-KAZAKHSTAN URANIUM COOPERATION IMPORT OF NOTHING RUSSIA SUGGESTED BULGARIA TO FINISH BELENE NPP WHAT WAS NOT TOLD OVER DURING LAST MEETING OF MINATOM BOARD SEISMIC ACTIVITY FOUND AT THE PROPOSED NUCLEAR PLANT CONSTRUCTION SITE NEAR ARKHANGELSK _______________________________________________ PARLIAMENTARIAN KOSARIKOV WANTS RUSSIAN ISLANDS TO BECOME RADIOACTIVE DUMP SITES An elected official dreams of earning profit on dumping Asian radiocative waste imported to Russia - to Simushir Island in Far East, and Novaya Zemlya in the North. In the middle of February, Alexandr Kosarikov, deputy chairman of the Russian state parliament (Duma) environmental committee, shared with Russian citizens his opinion regarding the misunderstading that Russia has not yet received "any gram" of nuclear waste from abroad. So is to say, nuclear waste is surely imported, but only from countries that have NPPs built in Soviet times, similar to the ones Russia currently has. For unknown reason such waste, or as experts say, spent nuclear fuel, is not considered by Minatom officials as a foreign one. However, logic does not always accompany statements of those officials heading Russian nuclear industry. Let's go back to Kosarikov. At the time when laws permitting to import nuclear waste to Russia were passing through the Duma, the deputy wasn't trying to oppose environmentalists and was even visited by some of them in his cabinet. He was trying to convince activists he is against the idea of importing foreign waste. At the same time, Kosarikov is a member of 'United Russia', a party almost unanimously voted for turning the country into a global dump for radioactive garbage under the reason this garbage contains many valuable radioactive elements. By the way, some valuable elements can be found in toxic, biological, and even household waste, so one may wonder why Russian parliamentarians hasn't hit upon the idea of importing them from other countries. What's interesting is that in his interview to REGNUM news-agency Kosarikov publicly supported import of foreign nuclear waste to Russia, but not to "mainland". In his opinion, radioactive elements, so valuable that other countries want to get rid of them, should cover belonging to Russia islands. "First of all, import of spent nuclear fuel to non-continental part of Russia only should be legislated. We have islands already significantly damaged:", says parliamentary Kosarikov. This is quite similar to past statements of ex-parliamentarian Sergey Shasurin, who was arrested in Moscow on March 15 in connection to several criminal cases. Since 1998, mr. Shashurin was lobbying Russian government for construction of a dump site for radioactive waste on Simushir island (group of Kuril Islands in Russian Far East). According to documents obtained by Ecodefense, Asia ôat ôrading - Japan-based company interested in exporting radioactive waste from Taiwan, Japan and other Asian countries to the Far East of Russia for disposal - promised to Shashurin great financial support for this lobbying. If implemented, the project of disposal site may bring to its organizers nearly $10 billion. Shashurin has been working jointly with Kosarikov for many years in the Duma' environmental committee. Now Kosarikov seems to join the relay-race and foresses success: "Now I have handed a report to Minatom, and if a political decision is taken, importing of nuclear waste to non-continental part of Russia can be arranged in about 2-3 years". Another interesting part of the interview is about "why foreign waste still not in Russia". Kosarikov insist "waste is not imported" because "mechanism of importing spent nuclear fuel is not provided in the law". Does that mean nuclear waste from Bulgaria and Ukraine entered Russian territory illegally? Unfortunately, mr. Kosarikov refused to comment this misunderstanding to Russian Nuclear Watch. One more statement of parliamentarian deserves a special attention: "For instance, I and other people who used to work for Minatom (I've been involved in the system for 25 years) understand that to import spent nuclear fuel from other countries to continental part of Russia, to the heart of the country is to increase risks: in a railway accident release of substances creates a 'dirty bomb', e.g. contaminates the area so heavily that cleaning up and rehabilitation may turn to be as expensive as it was in Chernobyl area. And it may impact people's health, too". It's amazing that a person supporting import of nuclear waste to Russia, clearly understand all the threat the project presents and speak it out publicly. Here it is, a mentality of a conqueror of vast expances and atomic power - no matter how dangerous it is if far away from Moscow. _______________________________________________ RUSSIA NEEDS ENVIRONMENTALLY CLEAN ENERGY AND AN IMMEDIATE DECOMMISSIONING OF ITS OLD NPPs Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol may bring funds needed for this purpose. Russian and Danish environmental organizations has initiated activities aimed to promotion of renewable energy in the regions of Russia. For Russia, just as for any industrially developed country, energy sector is probably the most important in strategic sense industry. Economic development requires stable energy supply. And it doesn't necessarily increase even if Gross Internal Production grows in double. Sound governmental policy toward ecologization of energy sector can simultaneously stabilize energy consumption while ensuring economic development. Denmark, where economic growth in late 1980s - beginning 1990s was not followed by increasing in energy consumption, provides an excellent exapmle. Presently, Russian energy industry has a range of problems, in particular those able to prevent further effective development of the country. Capacities are worked out and demand replacement or reconstruction. The problem tends to be extremely urgent in the nuclear sector of the industry, as it's not possible to shut a NNP down by simply pressing a button and this way solve the problem of old and dangerous reactors. For the next decade nuclear units will present threat and consume lots of energy and, therefore, will still demand investments that are never going to be repaid. But at the same time, no one probably wants a new Chernobyl which would not only destroy many lives but also push economical development of Russia far backward, and that means old reactors must be decommissioned. The sooner it' s done, the sooner we will have one of the most urgent problems of the energy sector solved and ensure its sustainable and environmentally sound development. Russia currently has 30 nuclear reactors operating at 10 NPPs that provide about 14% of national energy consumption. Dangerous units, having their resource worked or about worked out, are located at Bilibinsk, Kola, Leningrad, Novovoronezh NPPs and produce about 5-6% of Russian energy. By 2010 there will be 19 such reactors producing nearly 60% of energy consumed in Russia. The strategy of Minatom and Gosatomnadzor (GAN - a nuclear regulatory body) to prolong lifetime of old nuclear units is a seriuos mistake that must be corrected as soon as possible. It's practically impossible to upgrade old reactors to meet international safety standards since their design was projected long before Chernobyl, while the reactor safety improvements have been developed and implemented already after the worsest nuclear catastrophe in the human history took place. A safe alternative is obviously necessary to solve the problem. From environmental point of view, the most suitable decision is renewable resources (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal) development. But efforts of environmentalists only are insufficient for that, unfortunately, it's impossible to implement this idea without governmental participation and support. In experts community there is a vision of renewable energy as not suitable for Russia due to its insufficient potential. Although, according to the International Energy Agency, on the present stage of economic development renewable resourses can meet about 30% of energy demand in Russia, though, being now supplying about 1% only. Moreover, another 20% of energy in Russia can be saved through simple energy effiency technologies as well as well-estimated governmental policy regarding industrial consumers. Concerning household consumption, there is also a great potential of energy saving to be used if we have a sound promoting campaign organized on the national level. This way, development of environmnetal technologies in the field of renewable energy resources and energy effiency in the energy sector appears to be capable of providing about a half of Russian needs in electricity and heat. And what is no less important, this can help to abandon dangerous nuclear reactors and guarantee avoidance of serious nuclear accidents in future. An example of development in this direction is Germany, a country that is already decommissioning its NPPs that supply about 30% of national energy demand. At the same time a govermental subsidy program is working for those willing to produce energy using renewable resources. In accordance with governmental program of renewable energy development, by 2020-2025 energy demands that will arise due to closure of all German NPPs may be covered by environmentally clean energy resources. Another exapmle is Danmark, a world leader in environmentally clean energy development. About 14% of energy demand in Danmark are covered by renewable resources. In 1985, under the public pressure, Danmark adopted a final decision to ban nuclear energy and invest in environmentally clean energy. In result, today Danmark gets the same percent of its energy demand from renewable resources as Russia gets from its dangerous NPPs. Now environmental organizations of Russia and Danmark started activities on replicating this experience. For instance, Ecodefense! group runs projects focused on promotion of renewable energy and raising authorities' and businessmen' interest in it in Ekaterinburg, Voronezh, Kaliningrad and other regions. In January 2004, a group of Danish experts visited the mentioned regions in order to provide consulting assistance to Russian environmentalists. A scheme proposed by environmentalists includes a very important link that must not be forgotten, that's funds needed to achieve such a progress. It's clear that environmentally clean development of the Russian energy sector can lead to production of more energy to export. But that will hardly be enough for large-scale reconstruction of the industry. Environmentalists suppose that funds needed to develop environmentally clean energy use and for decommissioning of dangerous NPPs may be raised using the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. According to the Western experts, ratification of the document, aimed to solve a climate change problem, could bring to the Russian budget up to $10 billions from trading óï2 emissions limits and up to another $10 billions through other mechanisms considered under this document. Drawing back from academic research on climate change and scientific discussion on reasons for climate convulsions, there are many positive and pragmatical arguments for ratification, from reducing Russian own emissions that will make an extremely positive effect to the environment and health of present and next generations of Russians, to attracting investments for large-scale development of Russian energy sector and its improvement in environmental terms. Unfortunately, Russia has still been refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in spite of the international community urging to join this UN environmental initiative. Hopefully, in future the Russian government will revise its approach to one of the most important international environmental and economic treaties and decide to join. It would be not very bright to miss possibly the only chance, in the visible future, to ensure rapid and environmentally clean development of the Russian energy industry. _______________________________________________ RUSSIAN-KAZAKHSTAN URANIUM COOPERATION Moscow and Astana carry on cooperating in the field of uranium mining and enrichment. Particularly, Moscow allocated a $1.35 million loan for a Russian-Kirghiz-Kazakhstan joint venture, ZAO 'Zarechnoye' (Chimkent, Kazakhstan) dealing with uranium mining. In the end of January, Nikolay Tanaev, director of venture, has discussed the details of the project during his meeting with Alexandr Rumyantsev, a head of the Russian Ministry of atomic power (Minatom). According to Minatom, business plan of industrial exploration of a uranium deposit in Kazakhstan by ZAO 'Zarechnoe' is already developed, and a documentation for a commercial credit is prepared. As estimated, construction of the first stage of a 500 tones of uranium per year capacity will take 2 years and $14.4-14.6 million. According to Minatom, the second emission of the joint venture shares is already registered. Finally the shares are divided between: ZAO NAK 'Kazatomprom' - 45%, OAO 'TVEL' - 20%, OAO 'Techsnabexport' - 15%, OAO 'Atompredmetzoloto' - 10%, OAO 'Kara-Baltinsky Mining Complex' - 10%. Deposit volume is currently estimated at 19,000 tones of uranium. It's planned that after uranium is mined and primarily processed, the material will be used in Kazakhstan to produce uranium concentrate to be then delivered for further reprocessing to Chepetsk Mechanical Plant (Glazov, Russia) owned by 'TVEL' corporation. Exploration of the deposit will start with a uranium mine construction in 2004. Total investment of $14 million will be undertaken by the Russian side. Industrial mining is supposed to begin by the end of 2005. Exploitation period is estimated as 25 years, while investments are belived to be repaid in 7 years. These figures clearly demonstrate economic estimates do not take into account environmental damage that uranium mining will cause. Minatom seems to hope that by taking one of the dirtiest sectors of nuclear fuel cycle out of Russia it will avoid further expenses on rehabilitation of contaminated areas. Minatom will then sell fuel to foreign partners, while leaving countless radiocative waste in Kazakhstan. It's long known that Kazakhstan already has serious problems with radioactive waste. Two years ago nuclear industry was even trying to lobby in the Parliament a law permitting import of foreign radioactive waste for further dumping insisting this will help to find funds to dispose own radioactive waste. The law did, fortunately, not go through. But the industry keeps running its activity leading to increasing of waste amount in Kazakhstan. No doubt radioactive waste in Kazakhstan will soon rapidly increase, while nuclear lobbists will again start demanding permission for foreign waste import in order to make money for disposing own one. At the same time, Minatom will estimate its billions and may even send Russian radioactive waste to be reposited in Kazakhstan with an exclusevely charitable mission, - to help raise funds to solve the "environmental problems" Minatom itself has created. It's getting to be a shame to be a Russian citizen when Russian government is destroying the environment and health of not only own citizens, it now came down to radioactive genocide toward the neighboring countries. It is even worse than declared war, since a war makes any sane person feel disgust; violence and murder are obvious and bare in a war time. Uranium mining is a hidden war that kills slowly and silently. But nobody of officials seems to care about those who will pay with their health and, finally, lives for well-being of Minatom officials and their colleagues in Kazakhstan anymore. _______________________________________________ IMPORT OF NOTHING Minister of atomic energy of the Russian Federation, Alexandr Rumyantsev, has finally found a proper answer to slanderers blaming his department in turning the country into an international nuclear dumping site. As he told to ITAR-TASS agency on January 7, in a new year Russia will most probably not sign any new contract for import and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. At least because it does not negotiate such imports with anybody, "Weekly Magazine" added. In fact, Rumyantsev has repeatedly made official statements of straight contrary nature. So, in April 2002, he said Minatom is about to sign a contact on spent nuclear fuel exports from British reactors. But it was soon discovered by activists from Ecodefense, Russian anti-nuclear group, that competent British bodies has never heard of this. (In the end of the last year some proposals were received in Great Britain, though, immediately responded with a pollite refuse). The same story was with Japan; the minister promised a soon signing while Japan side said it has never received such proposals. In general, two and a half years after scandalous amendments to the bill on environmental protection were approved (2001) and so nuclear waste import was permitted, no new contract on export of spent nuclear fuel has been signed. Russia accepted waste from ex-Soviet republics and Eastern Europe only, reprocessing of those was arranged by agreements dated back to Soviet times. However, this flow is getting shallow; Ukrain has stated its intention to stop importing its spent fuel to Russia in the nearest future; Bulgaria is also examining possibilities of swithing to direct disposal of spent fuel. Even Hungary which was going to sign an agreement to import 1,500 tones of spent nuclear fuel in September, seems to change its mind. So one might believe the minister for this time. If only he didn't explain the situation by another plot against Russia which "is not allowed to this extremely profitable market already divided between USA, France and other countries". This explanation contains no more truth than announcements of contracts with Great Britain and Japan do. USA is really preventing any reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel seeing it as a way to produce weapon materials. Reprocessing of spent fuel in France and Great Britain is an unprofitable industry: capacities are underloaded due to breakdown of the Western nuclear industry. "An extremely profitable market" exists in imagination of Minatom administration only. It comes out like in 2000-2001 the public opinion was ignored absolutely in vain. Actually, independent experts were aware of this already at that time but feared that under the coverage of 'reprocessing' spent nuclear fuel will be exported to Russia for a permanent disposition (dumping). "Nuclear" amendments made it possible. Although, nobody has used this service for the years gone. Perhaps, not only Europe went nuts about clean environment, but careless for the environment Eastern Asia too, fear to offer their waste to a country where the most important governmental decisions are mindless and words of the Parliament members can mean nothing. _______________________________________________ RUSSIA SUGGESTED BULGARIA TO FINISH BELENE NPP AND PROMISED HELP Russia has suggested Bulgaria to complete construction of the 2nd Bulgarian NPP in Belene, Bulgarian minister of energy stated. Representatives of Russian ministry of atomic energy and 'Atomenergoproject' company visited Sofia in order to present its project of the NPP construction. Construction was suspended in 1990. In late 2002, Bulgarian government decided to resume the Belene NPP project designed long ago by USSR. Construction started in 1980s, but was suspended in 1990 due to lack of funds and environmentalists' protests. The Bulgarian ministry of energy statement says that Russian side would like to complete the construction using equipment already delivered to the construction site. Sofia, though, has not decided yet whether it's going to construct a new NPP or complete the old one for which a reactor of 1,000 MW capacity (VVER-1000) was delivered from Soviet Union. Earlier in January, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) suggested to construct a new NPP instead of completing the old one. Presently, Bulgaria has an operating NPP in Kozloduy. Under European Commission pressure Bulgaria closed two of six reactor of this plant last year. Bulgaria hopes to join EU in 2007 and agreed to close two more reactor of Kozloduy NPP by 2006. EU considers Soviet-designed reactors can not be upgraded to modern safety standard at acceptable costs. As Milko Kovachev, Bulgarian minister of energy, told the Russian delegation, Bulgaria would like a new NPP to start operating by 2008-2010. However, given the initial stage on which the Belene project is being developed, these dates seem to be unrealistic. According to the officials, the complition of Belene NPP will cost $1 billion. Investments already made are also calculated as $1 billion. It's not yet clear how to deal with a problem of seismic instability in Belene area; earlier this problem was one of reasons to freeze the construction. Participation of the Russian Minatom in the construction of the Bulgarian NPP does not bode anything good in terms of profit to the Russians neither. If Russian nuclear industry wins a contract, Russia will likely propose loan for the NPP construction. This is a term characterizing all contracts Minatom has been signed for the last decade. In such case, Russian taxpayers will lose approximately $1 billion under the very unclear prospectives of repaying the loan. In eccense, Russia will construct the NPP at its own expenses, while Bulgaria will then make money on it and send nuclear waste to its creditors for repayment of a loan. _______________________________________________ WHAT WAS NOT TOLD OVER DURING LAST IN 2003 MEETING OF MINATOM BOARD 'Atomstroyexport' turnover in 2004 is forecasted as $1,1 billion The Russian Minatom Board chaired by its minister Alexandr Rumyantsev has reviewed the process of fulfilment of its contracts on the construction nuclear power plants abroad. According to the ministry press center, Vladimir Generalov, head of nuclear units construction department, and Evgeny Reshetnikov, first vice-director of OAO 'Atomstroyexport', spoke to the Board. They reported on progress in nuclear plants construction in Iran, India, and China. Both stressed that turnover of 'Atomstroyexport' is growing. As Reshetnikov put it, construction turnover in 2003 was about $900 millions. For 2004 it's expected to increase up to $1,1 billion. First foreign nuclear reactor built by Russians to be launched this year will be in China. It may start up by April with commercial production of electricity starting by late 2004. That's what was discussed, now let's look into what wasn't said there. Minatom Board has not discussed such issues as economic disadvantage of the foreign NPP construction projects. Russia invested about $5 billion from the state budget into these projects and up to this moment has not received anything back. Many Russian citizens naively believe these projects helps Russia to earn money but it's far off from reality. Today, many international NPP construction projects are carried with loans provided by a constructing side (government through the export credit agencies). Thus, plants in India and China are being constructed at the expenses of Russian taxpayers, while the loans will begin to be repayed not earlier that in 15-20 years. One can hardly say what situation would be in China, India or Russia in 20 years and if the money is ever back. But Minatom is not interested in this aspect of international deals, and neither are its partners. At last, all participants win, except for Russian taxpayers. It's their money that go to China, India and Iran while social programs are reduced and some Russian citizens don't get their wages for a half a year or more sometimes. According to Bulat Nigmatullin, former deputy minister at Minatom resigned in 2002, contract of Russian nuclear industry in China for construction of nuclear unit that ends up this year is "totally out of economic sense". _______________________________________________ SEISMIC ACTIVITY FOUND AT THE PROPOSED NUCLEAR PLANT CONSTRUCTION SITE NEAR ARKHANGELSK High seismic activity has been registered nearby Rikasikha village in Arkhangelsk region, North-West of Russia, where local authorities wants new nuclear plant to be built. Felix Yudakhin, director of Instutute for Environmental Problems of the North, doctor of geo-mineralogy, professor, member of Russian Academy of Science, reported about it at press-conference in February. Results of research conducted in 2003 by the Institute show the seismic activity presenting a certain threat to the NPP planned to construct near Rikasikha. "Although research has not been completed yet, the fact of seismic activity in this area may be stated with absolute confidence", said Yudakhin. Preliminary monitoring has also indicated loose soil at the site which will also complicate the construction. Local authorities struggling for federal funds to start nuclear plant construction are ignoring statements of scientific community so far. Scientists sent their report on seismic activity to several state agencies, deeply hoping Moscow will react in more responsible way. No answer so far. _______________________________________________ Published by Ecodefense, Russian branch of NIRS-WISE Post address: Ecodefense Nizhegorodskaya 70/2-5 109052 Moscow, Russia e-mail: ecodefense@online.ru WWW http://www.antiatom.ru Editor: Vladimir Sliviak Translator: Galina Ragouzina Re-prints with reference greatly welcommed ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************