***************************************************************** 04/07/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.84 ***************************************************************** 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 New York Daily News Prober: I knew in days U.S. 'wrong' on WMD 2 Washington Report: The Mystery of Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destructio 3 Korea Herald: Six-way nuclear talks said unlikely to progress this y 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S. Korea, U.S., Japan Begin Informal Talk 5 [du-list] US Low Intensity Nuclear War vs. the whole world... 6 US: [NukeNet] Secret Bush campaign email: aggressive denial on 7 US: NIRS/Public Citizen intervene against LES uranium enrichment 8 US: Observer: Bush attacks environment 'scare stories' 9 US: New York Daily News Editorials: Protect the health of U.S. troop 10 US: USA Today: Homeland security elusive despite available cash 11 Fw: Pledge of resistance 'Uranium Munitions' 12 Pravda.Ru: Nuclear weapons should not be used against terrorists 13 Daily Times: Pakistan not involved in N-proliferation: UK 14 People's Daily: US satellite once mistook Hakka residence as nuke ba 15 AFP: Brazil has the right to guard its nuclear secrets: top scientis NUCLEAR REACTORS 16 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss Annual Performance Assessment of Peach Botto 17 US: APP.COM: Oyster Creek to spend $10M on security upgrade 18 US: NRC: NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel to Meet April 8 in Oak Harb 19 G2R: Russia`s nuclear plants to widen uranium consumption by nearly 20 US: NRC: Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power Station 21 US: NRC: NRC Announces Review Schedule for Browns Ferry License Rene 22 AU ABC: Iran to begin construction work for heavy water reactor. 23 US: Democrat & Chronicle: NRC praises Ginna for 'good year' 24 moscow times: $47Bln Nuclear Upgrade Planned NUCLEAR SAFETY 25 [DU-WATCH] NY Post article - reprocessed DU signature isotopes 26 [du-list] "unfounded fears of man-made chemicals and their 27 [du-list] Report from Hell - Students back from Iraq 28 [du-list] If you REALLY want to learn UNDENIABLE facts on DU... 29 Seattle Times: Russia finally acknowledging '57 nuclear disaster 30 Pravda.RU: Atomic reactors from decomissioned submarines are reliabl 31 Democracy Now!: U.S. Soldiers Contaminated With Depleted Uranium Spe NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 32 NIRS/Public Citizen intervene against LES uranium enrichment 33 US: Guardian Unlimited: Energy Dept. Threatens No Nuclear Cleanup 34 US: ENS: Formal Hearing on Dry Cask Nuclear Waste Storage Rejected 35 US: Las Vegas RJ: Nuclear waste shipments end 36 Bellona: Russian nuclear officials offered BNFL further cooperation 37 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Why invite inevitable disaster? 38 Pahrump Valley Times: YUCCA MOUNTAIN Transports 'mostly' by rail 39 US: AU ABC ERA: We deeply regret any distress caused by uranium wate 40 US: AU ABC: More uranium mine workers report illnesses » 41 US: AU ABC: Ranger mine reopens despite recent contamination problem 42 PR News: Record Number of LES Supporters File With NRC NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 43 Lamonitor: Features GAO examines how laboratories support missions 44 Oak Ridger: Waste 'monoliths' depart ORNL 45 Oak Ridger: EPA to address concerns 46 Pahrump Valley Times: Nuclear politics OTHER NUCLEAR 47 Google News Alert - nuclear 48 Microorganism Cleans Up Toxic Groundwater ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 New York Daily News Prober: I knew in days U.S. 'wrong' on WMD By JAMES GORDON MEEK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - The CIA's former weapons hunter in Iraq realized within days of arriving in Baghdad last summer that dictator Saddam Hussein was no longer stockpiling a banned arsenal, according to a new report. David Kay, with whom the Bush administration placed its hopes of finding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, sent a startling E-mail to CIA Director George Tenet in early July 2003. "I wrote that it looks as though they did not produce weapons," Kay reveals in an interview with the new Vanity Fair. It wasn't until late January this year that Kay told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "we were almost all wrong" on Iraq. Kay told Vanity Fair, in its 22,000-word opus, "The Path to War," that he was actually ready to come home in mid-December. Tenet said no. "If you resign now, it will appear that we don't know what we're doing and the wheels are coming off," he said Tenet told him. "So I said, 'Fine, I'll wait.'" Vanity Fair's look at the war in Iraq portrays Vice President Cheney as among the lead advocates for war. The veep made at least 10 trips to the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters, said Richard Kerr, a retired CIA official who did an internal review of prewar intelligence. "There was a lot of pressure, no question," Kerr said. The magazine also bolstered the contention from some critics that President Bush was obsessed with Saddam. A former British ambassador recounts a dinner meeting Bush had with Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sept. 20, 2001 - nine days after the terror attacks on America - where Bush pressed for an attack on Iraq. The magazine also details extraordinary pressure on Secretary of State Powell to tie Saddam to the 9/11 attacks. Powell, who on Friday conceded the intelligence in his UN speech making the case for war in Iraq was faulty, refused. Originally published on April 5, 2004 All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P. ***************************************************************** 2 Washington Report: The Mystery of Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” April 2004, page 19 By Andrew I. Killgore Former top U.S. weapons inspector David Kay, shown at his Jan. 28 appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, got it wrong again when he declared that we were all wrong. (AFP photo/Tim Sloan). PERHAPS GREG Thielmann, retired Department of State officer, got it just right. For the past four years, until his recent retirement, Thielmann worked in the Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (BIR), which provides the secretary of state with intelligence analysis independent of other agencies. The May 30, 2003 New York Times quoted him as saying, “The al-Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S., and the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things.” Less than a month later, the BIR’s Christian Westermann was quoted in the same paper’s June 24 edition as saying that he had been pressured to tailor his analysis on Iraq to conform with the Bush administration’s views (that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction). Westermann earlier had clashed with John Bolton, the neocon under secretary of state for arms control and international security, over Bolton’s public assertions last year that Cuba had a biological weapons program. According to the June 25, 2003 New York Times, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), jointly had said that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making biological weapons. The BIR, however—which had not been consulted by CIA/DIA—advised that it was premature to conclude, as President George W. Bush had done, that the trailers were indeed producing biological weapons. One can infer from the fact that CIA/DIA did not consult BIR on a matter of this importance that the dynamic duo expected that BIR would not agree. On a recent television program, David Kay, the former U.N. weapons inspector who recently resigned as the Bush administration’s head hunter for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), described BIR employees as “only” analysts without on-the-ground experience. It was the BIR, however, that got it right. The Jan. 10, 2003 New York Times reported that Dr. Mohamed Elbaradei, head of the U.N.’s regulatory International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), disagreed with President Bush when the latter cited Iraq’s attempts to buy special aluminum tubes as proof that Baghdad was “seeking…nuclear bombs.” Elbaradei indicated that he thought Iraq’s claim that it sought the tubes to make rockets was credible. It would seem, therefore, that Dr. Kay’s recent testimony before Congress that all intelligence services “got it wrong probably” on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was incorrect. At the very least, the IAEA and BIR analyses were correct. Perhaps Bush administration neocons Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary in whose honor the invasion of Iraq is frequently referred to as “Wolfowitz’s War”; Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith; and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff deserve the most credit for conjuring up WMDs and the war on Iraq. Accompanied by Libby, Cheney himself visited the CIA, most likely to ensure that the CIA went along with the administration’s line that Saddam Hussain had WMD. In a February speech at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, CIA director George Tenet claimed that “nobody told us what to say or how to say it.” That may be literally true, but Cheney’s visits must have been a compelling reminder that the administration wanted a finding that Iraq constituted a danger to the United States. Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon also worked to promote the myth of Iraqi WMD. He and his fanatical fellow neocons, obsessed with promoting Israel’s interests, built a “hall-of-mirrors” intelligence unit to which they invited such noisome Zionists as the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Ledeen to “cherry pick” intelligence reports. Having the ear and the ideological support of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney, they designed a “made in hell” Iraq. In their dreams of WMD, the neocons had the enthusiastic support of Ahmad Chalabi, an exile Shi’i Iraqi convicted in Jordan of bilking a bank out of $80 million. Wolfowitz’s favorite Iraqi, Chalabi identified exact locations where WMD would be found. According to at least one news story, however, he was always wrong. The neocon think tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) lived—dare we guess that it still does?—in an ideological “other world.” PNAC ideology mandated that there had to be a change of regime in Iraq—which meant that a reason had to be found to attack Saddam Hussain. In the end, the neocons fabricated the WMD myth. Because they had the support of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, they transformed the myths into truth. But not quite. Andrew I. Killgore, a retired foreign service officer and former ambassador to Qatar, is publisher of the Washington Report. ***************************************************************** 3 Korea Herald: Six-way nuclear talks said unlikely to progress this year (bluelle@heraldm.com) By Choi Soung-ah 2004.04.08 koreaherald.co.kr While much of the world is placing high hopes on multilateral cooperation as the key to resolving Pyongyang's nuclear standoff, an expert on Korean affairs says the six-way talks will not make significant progress this year. Dr. Marcus Noland, a leading expert on issues related to North Korea and the Korean Peninsula, stressed the importance of multilateral action but said the outcome may be stalled, with factors such as the U.S. presidential election and South Korea's political situation taking a toll. Speaking in a lecture yesterday in downtown Seoul, Noland said it is highly unlikely this particular set of talks will generate much of a resolution over the next eight months until America elects a president Nov. 2. "I think it is essential that there be multiparty talks because a permanent solution will only be obtained through a multilateral process," said Noland. "However, I think that the six-party talks are unlikely to make much progress for the remainder of this year both because of the American electoral calendar, the desire of the North Koreans to string the talks out and the current political situation in South Korea, which makes activity on the part of the South Korean government difficult as well." In February, South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia met in Beijing for a second round of discussions to break Pyongyang's nuclear impasse. The talks ended without a concrete outcome but the six nations agreed to establish working groups in the meantime and to convene a third round of negotiations before June. The first round was held last August. Noland, a senior researcher at the Institute for International Economics in the United States and author of a series of books on the Korean Peninsula, also said there has been a significant increase in the number of self-reliant businesses in North Korea in recent years. Compared to just years before, there are many food stands and kiosks along the streets and some are even raising chickens on their apartment balconies, he said. Some 6 to 8 percent of the North Korean population is engaged in some type of entrepreneurship, according to Noland. "There is a significant increase of small economic activities, mainly in Pyongyang and more along the border with China. These are very small street vending types but it is significant that some North Koreans are able to make a living from it," Noland said. Dr. Noland also stressed South Korea's need to establish fiscal reserves in case the North Korean communist regime collapses, as the cost of reunification will be tremendous for Seoul. According to Noland, South Korea will need to raise approximately $600 billion over the next 10 years to maintain the growth rate of the local economy, in case such a scenario occurs. And while more Northerners expected to migrate down south for work than vice-versa, South Koreans will be making investments up north and capital will be diverted from the South to the North, reducing economic growth here. In his recent book "Korea After Kim Jong-il", Noland refers to the metaphor of the 'three legged stool,' to explain policy toward North Korea, involving the United States, former President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" and the current government's policy of engagement with the Stalinist regime. ***************************************************************** 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S. Korea, U.S., Japan Begin Informal Talks on Nuclear Issue Updated Apr.7,2004 14:56 KST As part of ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, senior diplomats from South Korea, the United States, and Japan are set to hold informal talks in the U.S. city of San Francisco on Wednesday. High on the agenda are ways to kick start working-level discussions to proceed with the six-nation dialogue on North Korea's nuclear tension. The United States is hosting unofficial talks involving South Korea and Japan on North Korea's nuclear pursuit. South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Director General Mitoji Yabunaka are in San Francisco for the two-day informal meeting aimed at maintaining the dialogue momentum gained during six-party nuclear negotiations in China late February. The format of the proposed working-level contacts is the key issue to be addressed at the trilateral exchange. As the three sides work to launch the first working-level session within this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said that the lower-level meetings would focus on technical preparations and issues to pave the way for a third round of nuclear talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. Though a fixed timetable has not been set for the new round, the six countries agreed to try to hold the forum by the end of June at the latest. For now, the Chinese spokesman noted that the participants have agreed on the basic principles regarding the lower-level dialogue. Arirang TV ***************************************************************** 5 [du-list] US Low Intensity Nuclear War vs. the whole world... Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:57:57 -0700 ...that persists like forever--US's highest crime yet...let's pray, scream act that it's the last such crime ever. and not because they close the curtain on creation as they're pushing for. we people must turn things around and can only do so together: this is a response to another denier of the ecocidal reality of Depleted Uranium. the deniers of course wont debate, not in earnest, anyway, as they haven't a leg to stand on. then below that is the article, LOW INTENSITY NUCLEAR WAR and other good sites: a friend writes: ....What makes you write "final" comment? I wonder if you want to make your point and then close the case, as if there is no room for learning more about DU? If you have the stomach for viewing photos of what DU does to the next generation, go to http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html http://www.benjaminforiraq.org/contaminazioneitaly.htm Government officials recommend that the topsoil and people be removed from areas where DU has been used. They don't really want people to know that. And I wonder how that can be done. Doug Rokke is a fine source of information, thank you for recognizing that. I respectfully suggest you read more than Fahey, there are many fine articles, well resourced. Why limit yourself to Fahey? For example, http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du_iraq.htm http://www.firethistime.org/guntheressay.htm Check out http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/low_war.html If you view the article at the source, you will see a few pictures. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) convey the illusion (contrary to scientific evidence) that the health risks of depleted uranium can easily be dealt with by cordoning off and "cleaning up" the "affected areas" targeted by the US Air Force's A-10 "anti-tank killers." What they fail to mention is that the radioactive dust has already spread beyond the 72 "identified target sites" in Kosovo. Most of the villages and cities including Pristina, Prizren and Pec lie within less than 20 km. of these sites, confirming that the whole province is contaminated, putting not only "peacekeepers" but the entire civilian population at risk. LOW INTENSITY NUCLEAR WAR by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of "The Globalization of Poverty", second enlarged edition, Common Courage Press, 2001. The death from leukemia of eight Italian peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo sparked an uproar in the Italian Parliament, following the leaking of a secret military document to the Italian newspaper La Republicca. In Portugal, the Defense Ministry was also involved in what amounted to a deliberate camouflage of "the cause of death" of Portuguese peacekeeper Corporal Hugo Paulino. "'Citing "herpes of the brain', the army refused to allow his family to commission a postmortem examination."1 Amidst mounting political pressure, Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas advised NATO Headquarters in November that he was withdrawing Portuguese troops from Kosovo: "They were not, he said, going to become uranium meat". 2 As the number of cancer cases among Balkans "peacekeepers" rises, NATO's cover-up has started to fracture. Several European governments have been obliged to publicly acknowledge the "alleged health risks" of depleted uranium (DU) shells used by the US Air Force in NATO's 78- day war against Yugoslavia. The Western media points to an apparent "split" within the military alliance. In fact there was no "division" or disagreement between Washington and its European allies until the scandal broke through the gilded surface. Italy, Portugal, France and Belgium were fully aware that DU weapons were being used. The health impacts --including mountains of scientific reports-- were known and available to European governments. Italy participated in the scheduling of the A-10 "anti- tank killer" raids (carrying DU shells) out of its Aviano and Gioia del Colle air force bases. The Italian Defense Ministry knew what was happening at military bases under its jurisdiction. Washington's European partners in NATO including Britain, France, Turkey, Greece have DU weapons in their arsenals. Canada is one of the main suppliers of depleted uranium. NATO countries share full responsibility for the use of weapons banned by the Geneva and Hague conventions and the 1945 Nuremberg Charter on war crimes. 3 Since the Gulf War, Washington launched a "cover-up" on the health impacts of DU toxic radiation known as the "Gulf War Syndrome", with the tacit endorsement of its NATO partners. While NATO had until recently denied using DU shells in the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, it now admits that although it did use DU ammunition, the shells "have negligible radioactivityÉand [a]ny resulting debris posing any significant risk dissipates soon after the impact." 4 While casually denying "any connection between illness and exposure to depleted uranium", the Pentagon nonetheless concedes - -in an ambiguous statement-- that "the main danger posed by depleted uranium occurs if it is inhaled." 5 And who inhales the radioactive dust, which has spread across the Land? The shrouded statements from European governments convey the uncomfortable illusion that only peacekeepers "might be at risk", -- i.e. radioactive particles are only inhaled by military personnel and expatriate civilians, as if nobody else in the Balkans were affected. The impacts on local civilians are not mentioned. In docile complicity, a new media consensus has unfolded: the mainstream press concurs without further scrutiny that only "peace- keepers" breathe the air. "But what about everybody else."6 In Kosovo some 2 million civilian men, women and children have been exposed to the radioactive fallout since the beginning of the bombing in March 1999. In the Balkans, more than 20 million people are potentially at risk: "The risk in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans is augmented by the uncertainty of where DU was dropped in whatever form and what winds and surface water movements spread it further. Working the fields, walking about, just being there, touching objects, breathing and drinking water are all risky. A British expert predicted that thousands of people in the Balkans will get sick of DU. The radioactive and toxic DU-oxides don't disintegrate. They are practically permanent." 7 Keep in mind that the heavily armed "peacekeepers" together with United Nations staff and civilian personnel of "humanitarian" organisations entered Kosovo in June 1999. The spread of radioactive dust from DU, however, started on "day one" of the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia. With the exception of NATO Special Forces --who were assisting the KLA on the ground-- NATO military personnel was not present on the battlefield. In other words, there was no radioactive exposure to NATO troops during a "push button" air war, which the Alliance forces waged from the high skies. Yugoslav civilians are, therefore, at much greater risk because they were exposed to radioactive fallout throughout the bombings as well in the wake of the war. Yet the official communiquŽs suggest that only KFOR troops and expatriate civilians "might be at risk" implying that local civilians simply do not matter. Only servicemen and expatriate personnel have been screened for radiation levels. CHILDHOOD CANCERS The first signs of radiation on children, including herpes on the mouth and skin rashes on the back and ankles have been observed in Kosovo.8 In Northern Kosovo --the area least affected by DU shells (see Map at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html) -- 160 people are being treated for cancer.9 The number of leukemia cases in Northern Kosovo has increased by 200 percent since NATO's air campaign, and children have been born with deformities.10 This information regarding civilian victims --which the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has been careful not to reveal--- refutes NATO's main "assumption" that radioactive dust does not spread beyond the target sites, most of which are in the Southwestern and Southern regions close to the Albanian and Macedonian borders. These findings are consistent with those from Iraq, where the use of depleted uranium weapons during the 1991 Gulf War resulted in "increases in childhood cancers and leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, lymphomas, and increases in congenital diseases and deformities in foetuses, along with limb reductional abnormalities and increases in genetic abnormalities throughout Iraq."11 Pedriatic examinations on Iraqi children confirm that: "childhood leukemia has risen 600% in the areas [of Iraq] where DU was used. Stillbirths, births or abortion of fetuses with monstrous abnormalities, and other cancers in children born since [the Gulf War in] 1991 have also been found." 12 COVER-UP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have tacitly accepted NATO-Pentagon assumptions concerning the health impacts of depleted uranium. When UNEP conducted its first assessment of DU radiation in Kosovo in 1999, NATO refused to provide the mission with maps indicating the locations of "affected areas" (points of impact where DU shells had fallen). On the pretext that "there was insufficient data available to comprehensively address the issue of the impacts of depleted uranium ordnance," UNEP produced an inconclusive and noncommittal "desk study" which was appended to the 1999 Balkans Task Force Report (BTF) on the environmental impacts of the War. 13 UNEP's desk study pointed to the "possible use of DU" thereby implying that it was still unsure as to whether DU shells had actually been used. UNEP's evasiveness -claiming lack of sufficient data-- contributed, in the wake of the bombings, to temporarily dissipating public concern. More generally, the UNEP-UNCHS Balkans Task Force report tends to downplay the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe triggered by NATO. Amply documented, the catastrophe was the deliberate result of military planning.14 NATO maps (indicating where DU shells had been targeted) were not required for UNEP and the WHO to conduct an investigation on the health impacts of depleted uranium radiation. A study of this nature - -inevitably requiring a team of medical specialists in pedriatics and cancer working in liaison with experts on toxic radiation-- was never carried out. In fact, UNEP's stated "scientific" assumption precluded from the outset a meaningful assessment of the health impacts. According to UNEP: "the effects of DU are mainly localized in the places DU has been used and the affected areas are likely to be small". 15 See the 1999 desk study, op. cit.) This proposition (which is presented without scientific proof) is shared by UNEP's sister organization, the WHO: "You would have to be very close to a damaged tank and be there within seconds of it being hitÉThese soldiers were very unlikely to have been exposed.'' 16 These statements by UN bodies (quoted by NATO and the Pentagon to justify the use of DU weapons) are part and parcel of the camouflage. They convey the illusion that the health risks to peacekeepers and local civilians can easily be dealt with by cordoning off and "cleaning up" the "targeted areas." The WHO has warned, in this regard, that depleted uranium could affect children playing in these areas "because childrenÉ tend to pick up pieces of dirt or put their toys in their mouth."17 What the WHO fails to acknowledge is that the radioactive dust has already spread beyond the affected areas, implying that children throughout Kosovo are at risk. This tacit complicity of specialized agencies of the UN is yet another symptom of the deterioration of the United Nations system, which now plays an underhand role in covering up NATO war crimes. Since the Gulf War, the WHO has been instrumental in blocking a meaningful investigation of the health impacts of depleted uranium radiation on Iraqi children, claiming "it had no data to conduct an indepth investigation" 18 UNEP AND NATO WORKING HAND IN GLOVE Amidst the public outcry and mounting evidence of cancer among Balkans military personnel, UNEP conducted a second assessment in November 2000 which included field measurements of beta and gamma particle radiations in 11 so-called "affected areas" of Kosovo.19 Despite NATO's earlier refusal to collaborate with UNEP, the two organizations are currently working hand in glove. The composition of the mission was established in consultation with NATO. The representative from Greenpeace (involved in the 1999 study) had been dumped. NATO maps were readily available; the investigation was to focus narrowly on the collection of soil, water samples, etc. in 11 selected sites ("affected areas") out of a total of some 72 sites within Kosovo (see NATO map below, at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html ). The broader health issues were not part of the mission's terms of reference. The two medical researchers dispatched by the WHO in 1999 (as part of the desk study mission) had been replaced with experts from the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (see http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/default.htm) and AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS), a division of the Swiss Defense Procurement Agency. AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS) has actively collaborated in chemical weapons inspections in Iraq. Under the disguise of Swiss neutrality, ACLS constitutes an informal mouthpiece for NATO. ACLS has been on contract with NATO's "Partnership for Peace" financed by the Swiss government's contribution to the PfP.20 Although the November mission was still under UNEP auspices, the Swiss government was funding most of fieldwork with ACLS --a division of the Swiss military-- playing a central role. The mission -- integrated by representatives linked to the Military establishment-- was working on the premise (amply reviewed on ACLS's web page) that DU radioactive dust does not (under any circumstances) travel beyond the "point of release." 21 The results of the report to be published in March 2001 are a foregone conclusion. They focus on radiation levels in the immediate vicinity of the target sites . According to the mission's "back to office report" (January 2001): "É [A]lready at this stage the Team can conclude that at some of the DU locations, the radiation level is slightly higher above normal at very limited spots. It would therefore be an unnecessary risk to the population to be in direct contact with any remnants of DU ammunition or with the spots where these have been found." 22 DOUBLE STANDARDS If radioactivity were confined to so-called "very limited spots", why then have KFOR troops been instructed by their governments "not to eat local produceÉ have drinking water flown in Éand that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles decontaminated."23 According to Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, depleted uranium in Yugoslavia could affect "agricultural areas, places where livestock graze and where crops are grown, thereby introducing the specter of possible contamination of the food chain." (In November 2000, Gulf War veterans affected by DU launched a class action law-suit against the US government). CONTAMINATION OVER A LARGE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA According to NATO sources (communicated to UNEP), some 112 sites in Yugoslavia (of which 72 are in Kosovo) were targeted during the war with depleted uranium antitank shells. Between 30,000 and 50,000 DU shells were fired. Scientific evidence amply confirms that the DU radioactive aerosol spreads from "the point of release" over a large geographical area suggesting that large parts of the province of Kosovo are contaminated. "[R]adioactive derivatives can linger in the air for monthsÉ ''Just one particle in the lungs is enoughÉ a single particle could travel to the lymph nodes, where the radioactivity would lower the body's defenses against lymphomas and leukemia'' 24 According to World renowned radiologist Dr. Rosalie Bertell: When used in war, the depleted uranium (DU) bursts into flame [and] releasing a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before. It can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium dust. It can travel in air tens of kilometres from the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick. This radioactive ceramic can stay deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful alpha particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or fibrosis. The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters into the blood stream. ...It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers which have been initiated by other cancinogens". 25 The targeted sites within Kosovo (see NATO map at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html) although concentrated on the South-western border are scattered throughout the province. Most of the villages and cities including Pristina, Prizren and Pec lie within less than 20 km. of the 72 DU target sites confirming that the entire province is contaminated. NATO WAR CRIMES The bombing of Yugoslavia is best described as a "low intensity nuclear war" using toxic radioactive shells and missiles. Amply documented, the radioactive fall-out potentially puts millions of people at risk throughout the Balkans. In March 1999, NATO launched the air raids invoking broad humanitarian principles and ideals. NATO had "come to the rescue" of ethnic Albanian Kosovars on the grounds they were being massacred by Serb forces. The forensic reports by the FBI and Europol confirm that the massacres did not occur. In a cruel irony, Albanian Kosovar civilians are among the main victims of DU radiation. To maintain the cover-up, NATO is now prepared to reveal a small fraction of the truth. The military Alliance --in liaison with NATO member governments-- wants at all cost to maintain the focus on "peacekeepers" and keep local civilians out of the picture, because if the entire truth gets out, then people might start asking questions such as "how is it that the Kosovar Albanians, the people we were supposed to rescue are now the victims?" In both Bosnia and Kosovo, the UN has been careful not to record cancer cases among civilians. The narrow focus on "peacekeepers" is part of the cover- up. It distracts public opinion from the broader issue of civilian victims. The primary victims of DU weapons are children, making their use a "war crime against children." The use of depleted uranium munitions is only one among several NATO crimes against humanity committed in Iraq and the Balkans According to official records, some 1800 Balkans peacekeepers (Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo) suffer from health ailments related to DU radiation.26. Assuming the same level of risk (as a percentage of population), the numbers of civilians throughout former Yugoslavia affected by DU radiation would be in the tens of thousands. British scientist Roger Coghill suggests, in this regard, that "throughout the Balkan region, there will be an extra 10,150 deaths from cancer because of the use of DU. That will include local people, K-FOR personnel, aid workers, everyone."27 Moreover, according to a report published in Athens during the War, the impacts of depleted uranium are likely to extend beyond the Balkans. Albania, and Macedonia but also Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary face a potential threat to human health as a result of the use of radioactive depleted uranium shells during the 1999 War. While no overall data on civilian deaths have been recorded, partial evidence confirms that a large numbers of civilians have already died as result of DU radiation since the war in Bosnia: "DU radiation and an apparent use of defoliants by US/NATO troops against Serbian land and population [in Bosnia], have caused many birth defects among babies born after the US/NATO bombing and occupation; the magnitude of this problem has stunned Serbian medical experts and panicked the population." 28 A recent account points to several hundred deaths of civilians solely in one Bosnian village: The village is empty, the cemetery full. Soon there will be no more room for the dead. Among refugee families who moved to Bratunac from Hadzici [in the outskirts of Sarajevo] there is a hardly a household not cloaked in mourningÉOn them are fresh wreaths, some with flowers that have not yet wilted. On the crosses the years of death 1998, 1999, 2000 and the grave of a 20 year-old woman at the end of the rows. She died a few days agoÉ No one could even imagine that in only one or two years the part of the cemetery set aside for civilians would be doubly fullÉ It happens often that one of the natives of Hadzici will suddenly die. Or they will go to see the doctor in Belgrade and when they come back their relatives will tell us that they are dying of cancerÉ [C]hief doctor Slavica JovanovicÉconducted an investigation and proved that in 1998 the mortality rate far exceeded the birth rate. She showed that it wasn't just a question of fate but something far more seriousÉ 'Zoran Stankovic, the renowned pathologist from the Military Medical Academy (VMA) determined that over 200 of his patients from this area died of cancer, most probably due to the effects of depleted uranium in dropped NATO bombs five years ago. But someone quickly silenced the public and everything was hushed up. 'You see, our cemetery is full of fresh graves while the people from Vinca [Nuclear Institute] claim that uranium isn't dangerous. What other kind of evidence do you need if people are dying?É' The refugees from Hadzici arrived in Bratunac in a sizeable number. There were almost 5,000 of them. There were 1,000 just in the collective centers. Now, says Zelenovic, 'there are about 600 of them left. And they certainly had nowhere else to go' É Someone dies of cancer every third day; there is no more room in the cemeteries."29 * * * The NATO "Map Of Sites As Being Targeted By Ordnance Containing Depleted Uranium during the 1999 Kosovo Conflict" is attached. The Map can also be consulted at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html Selected photographs of Iraqi children affected by DU radiation attached. Complete list of photos at: http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html. If unable to access the document, go first to http://www.web- light.nl/ and follow the link to "Depleted Uranium" and then to "Extreme Deformities in Iraqi Children". Some of these photographs are by renowned scientist and expert on DU radiation Dr. Siegfried Horst Guenther. * * * ENDNOTES 1 The Independent, London, 4 January 2001. 2 See Felicity Arbutnot, "It Turns out that Depleted Uranium is Bad for NATO" Troops, Emperors Clothes, http://emperors- clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm. 11 October 2000. See also interview with F. Arbutnot. 3 In all, some 17 countries including Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are known to have DU weapons in their arsenal. See Vladimir Zajic, Review of Radioactivity, Military Use, and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium, 1999 at http://vzajic.tripod.com/. See John Catalinotto and Sara Flounders, Is the Israeli Military using Depleted Uranium Weapons against the Palestinians? International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, 2000 4 Agence France Presse, 4 January 20001. 5 United Press International, 5 January 2001. 6 See Felicity Arbutnot, op cit. 7 Piot Bein, "More on Depleted Uranium", Emperors Clothes at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm.11 October 2000. 8 According to Dr. Siegfried Horst Guenther, "Uran Geschosse: Schwergeschîdigte Soldaten, missgebildete Neugeborene, sterbende Kinder, Ahriman Verlag, http://www.ahriman.com/guenther.htm, Freiburg, 2000. See also International Action Center, "Metal of Dishonor, How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers and Civilians with DU Weapons", Second Edition, International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, 2000. 9 Beta News Agency, Belgrade, 13.50 GMT, 10 Jan 2001, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 12 January 2001. 10 Ibid. 11 See Rick McDowell, "Economic Sanctions on Iraq", Z Magazine, November 1997. 12. Carlo Pona, "The Criminal Use of Depleted Uranium", International Tribunal for U.S./NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia, International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, June 10, 2000. See also "Metal of Dishonor", op. cit. 13 See UNEP/UNCHS Balkans Task Force Final Report "The Kosovo Conflict -Consequences for the Environment & Human Settlements" at http://balkans.unep.ch/fry/fry.html; see the "desk study" on "The Potential Effects on Human Health and the Environment of the Possible Use of Depleted Uranium (DU)" at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/du.html; see also "UN considers New Data on Depleted Uranium in Kosovo", UNEP, Geneva, 20 September 2000. 14 See Michel Chossudovsky, NATO Willfully Triggered an Environmental Disaster, at www.emperors-clothes.com. 15 See the 1999 UNEP "desk study", op. cit. 16 According to a toxicologist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer which is a division of the WHO, Associated Press, January 5 2001. 17 According to WHO specialist, quoted in the Boston Globe, January 10, 2001. 18 Boston Globe, June 27 2000, statement of Mark Parkin, an expert with the International Agency for Research on Cancer. 19 See UNEP Press Release at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/missions.html). 20 See AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS) website at http://www.vbs.admin.ch/internet/gr/acls/e/index.htm). 21 Ibid 22 See UNEP Press Release at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/missions.html; see also UNEP, "Advisory Note on Current work on DU by UNEP" at. http://balkans.unep.ch/press/press010111.html. 23. Arbuthot, op cit. 24 According to British radiologist Roger William Coghill, quoted in Associated Press, 5 January 2000. 25 Rosalie Bertell, Email Communication, May 1999. 26 RTBF, Belgian French Language Television, 9 January 2001 27 Calgary Herald, 4 January 2001. 28 Tika Jankovitch, "Chemical/Nuclear Warfare in Bosnia: Eyewitness To Hell" Comments by Jared Israel, Emperors Clothes at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/tika/hell.html., 9 January 2001. 29 Dubravka Vujanovic "Someone Dies of Cancer every Third Day; There is no More Room in the Cemeteries" , Nedelni Telegraf, Belgrade, 10 January 2001. On the same subject see Robert Fisk, "I see 300 Graves that could bear the Headstone: 'Died of Depleted Uranium', The Independent, London, 13 January 2001 (C) Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, January 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to post this text on non- commercial community internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text on commercial internet sites, in printed and/or other forms (including excerpts) contact the author at chossudovsky@v..., fax: 1-514- 4256224, voice box: 1-613-5625800, ext. 1415. Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 19f367.jpg 19f3b8.jpg ---------- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: 19f367.jpg: 00000001,57794b3c,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 19f3b8.jpg: 00000001,57794b3d,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 6 [NukeNet] Secret Bush campaign email: aggressive denial on Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:58:04 -0700 The same attitude is reflected in positions on nuclear power and radioactive waste, such as the Bush Administration mantra, echoing the nuclear power industry verbatin, that high-level radioactive waste transportation is completely safe and "risk-free" (that is, they won't charge any extra for the risks -- they're provided free of charge!). Kevin Kamps, NIRS -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Secret Bush campaign email ...talking points Global Warming Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 22:34:28 EDT From: Skipjack3244@aol.com To: jhicks@chesapeakeclimate.org, dianed@nirs.org, kevin@igc.org http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0404-01.htm Published on Sunday, April 4, 2004 by the Observer/UK Bush Attacks Environment 'Scare Stories' Secret email gives advice on denying climate change by Antony Barnett in New York George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky subject of global warming - deny, and deny aggressively. The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advising them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy. It tells them how global warming has not been proved, air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests are 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are 'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water is cleaner and reaching more people'. The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort to help your members fight back, as well as be aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the following set of talking points on where the environment really stands today,' it states. The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' - goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.' Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming. It gives a list of alleged facts taken from contentious sources. For instance, to back its claim that air quality is improving it cites a report from Pacific Research Institute - an organization that has received $130,000 from Exxon Mobil since 1998. The memo also lifts details from the controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. On the Republicans' claims that deforestation is not a problem, it states: 'About a third of the world is still covered with forests, a level not changed much since World War II. The world's demand for paper can be permanently satisfied by the growth of trees in just five per cent of the world's forests.' The memo's main source for the denial of global warming is Richard Lindzen, a climate-skeptic scientist who has consistently taken money from the fossil fuel industry. His opinion differs substantially from most climate scientists, who say that climate change is happening. But probably the most influential voice behind the memo is Frank Luntz, a Republican Party strategist. In a leaked 2002 memo, Luntz said: 'The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.' Luntz has been roundly criticized in Europe. Last month Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, attacked him for being too close to Exxon. Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace condemned the messages given in the Republican email. He said: 'Bush's spin doctors have been taking their brief from dodgy scientists with an Alice in Wonderland view of the world's environment. They want us to think the air is getting cleaner and that global warming is a myth. This memo shows it is Exxon Mobil driving US policy, when it should be sound science.' The memo has met some resistance from Republican moderates. Republican Mike Castle, who heads a group of 69 moderate House members, senators and governors, says the strategy doesn't address the fact that pollution continues to be a health threat. 'If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting with my constituents, I'd be booed.' Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, who left the Republican Party in 2001 to become an independent partly over its anti-green agenda, called the memo 'outlandish' and an attempt to deceive voters. 'They have a head-in-the-sand approach to it. They're just sloughing off the human health impacts - the premature deaths and asthma attacks caused by power plant pollution,' Jeffords said. Republican House Conference director Greg Cist, who sent the email, said: 'It's up to our members if they want to use it or not. We're not stuffing it down their throats.' He said the memo was spurred by concerns that environmental groups were using myths to try to make the Republicans look bad. 'We wanted to show how the environment has been improving,' Cist said. 'We wanted to provide the other side of the story.' © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 7 NIRS/Public Citizen intervene against LES uranium enrichment Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 18:41:17 -0400
Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) * Public Citizen
Southwest Research and Information Center

News Release

For Immediate Release:                  Contact: Michael Mariotte, NIRS, 202-328-0002
April 6, 2004                                   Don Hancock, SRIC, 505-262-1862
                                                Wenonah Hauter, Public Citizen, 202-454-5150

Groups Petition Government to Participate in Licensing Hearing
for New Mexico Nuclear Plant

Washington, D.C. - Citing serious inconsistencies and deficiencies in the application for a nuclear plant in southeastern New Mexico, including the lack of a concrete disposal plan for nuclear waste, Public Citizen and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) today jointly petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to participate in the forthcoming licensing proceeding for the proposed facility.

        A license for the plant--a uranium enrichment facility that would produce fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors--is sought by a multinational group of energy companies called Louisiana Energy Services (LES), which is dominated by the European consortium Urenco.  The plant, dubbed the “National Enrichment Facility” (NEF), would produce fuel for nuclear power reactors, and would be located near Eunice, N.M., close to the Texas border.

        “The license application presented by LES is replete with inaccuracies and blatant omissions,” said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program.  “We intend to call LES to task on these deficiencies.”

        The groups represent their members living near the site of the proposed facility.  The residents are concerned with the myriad shortcomings, misrepresentations, and unlawful aspects of the application, including LES’s lack of a concrete strategy to dispose of its hazardous and radioactive waste.  Public Citizen and NIRS also cited problems with the NEF application in its treatment of water resources, national security and nuclear proliferation issues, the need for the facility, and the cost of decommissioning the plant when it has ceased operation.  Participation in the licensing proceeding will allow the groups the opportunity to formally raise their concerns about the plant to the NRC’s licensing board.

        “It is essential that these contentions be heard before the NRC even considers granting LES a license,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS.  “Our members in New Mexico--and the public at-large--deserve a licensing hearing in which LES’s plans come under strict scrutiny.”

        This is LES’s third attempt to secure a site for its nuclear plant.  The company withdrew its application to build a similar plant in Louisiana after nearly a decade of intense citizen opposition.  LES made another attempt to locate the plant in Tennessee, but was again expelled by local opponents before it had a chance to submit an application to the NRC.  Citizens were concerned about the company’s misleading statements and lack of a clear plan for the disposal of its waste.

        “Many New Mexicans are very pleased that NIRS and Public Citizen are bringing national exposure to the licensing proceeding and that they are raising very important contentions,” said Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program at the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center.  “New Mexico has suffered for decades from the deadly effects of uranium mining and milling, and we don’t need additional uranium production facilities.”

        The NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will determine whether the contentions presented by NIRS and Public Citizen are admissible in the licensing proceeding for the NEF.  If admitted, the groups will participate as a party in the proceeding.

        “My clients have presented a compelling case to be admitted as a party in the licensing hearing,” said Lindsay Lovejoy, an attorney in Santa Fe, N.M., representing the groups.  “The process would, no doubt, benefit from their inclusion.”

        To view the petition to intervene in the licensing proceeding and the supporting contentions, please go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/lescontention.pdf. The petition is also available in .html format at http://www.nirs.org

        For a corporate profile on Urenco, please go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/urenco.pdf.

###

Public Citizen is a national consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.  For more information, please go to www.citizen.org.

Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is the information and networking center for citizens and environmental organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation, and sustainable energy issues.  For more information, please go to www.nirs.org.

Southwest Information and Research Center is based in Albuquerque, N.M., and works to protect natural resources, promote citizen participation, and ensure environmental and social justice now and for future generations.  For more information, please go to www.sric.org.


This is the NIRS E-Mail Alert list. You are on this list because you signed up on our website, at a NIRS table at a concert, on a petition, or directly to NIRS. Your name and address are never sold, rented, or traded with anyone for any reason.

For address changes or to unsubscribe, just send an e-mail to nirsnet@nirs.org. If you have friends or colleagues who would like to be on this list, have them send a note to nirsnet@nirs.org ***************************************************************** 8 Observer: Bush attacks environment 'scare stories' [Guardian Unlimited] [UP] Secret email gives advice on denying climate change Antony Barnett in New York Sunday April 4, 2004 The Observer George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky subject of global warming - deny, and deny aggressively. The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advising them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy. It tells them how global warming has not been proved, air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests are 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are 'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water is cleaner and reaching more people'. The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort to help your members fight back, as well as be aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the following set of talking points on where the environment really stands today,' it states. The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' - goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.' Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming. It gives a list of alleged facts taken from contentious sources. For instance, to back its claim that air quality is improving it cites a report from Pacific Research Institute - an organisation that has received $130,000 from Exxon Mobil since 1998. The memo also lifts details from the controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. On the Republicans' claims that deforestation is not a problem, it states: 'About a third of the world is still covered with forests, a level not changed much since World War II. The world's demand for paper can be permanently satisfied by the growth of trees in just five per cent of the world's forests.' The memo's main source for the denial of global warming is Richard Lindzen, a climate-sceptic scientist who has consistently taken money from the fossil fuel industry. His opinion differs substantially from most climate scientists, who say that climate change is happening. But probably the most influential voice behind the memo is Frank Luntz, a Republican Party strategist. In a leaked 2002 memo, Luntz said: 'The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.' Luntz has been roundly criticised in Europe. Last month Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, attacked him for being too close to Exxon. Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace condemned the messages given in the Republican email. He said: 'Bush's spin doctors have been taking their brief from dodgy scientists with an Alice in Wonderland view of the world's environment. They want us to think the air is getting cleaner and that global warming is a myth. This memo shows it is Exxon Mobil driving US policy, when it should be sound science.' The memo has met some resistance from Republican moderates. Republican Mike Castle, who heads a group of 69 moderate House members, senators and governors, says the strategy doesn't address the fact that pollution continues to be a health threat. 'If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting with my constituents, I'd be booed.' Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, who left the Republican Party in 2001 to become an independent partly over its anti-green agenda, called the memo 'outlandish' and an attempt to deceive voters. 'They have a head-in-the-sand approach to it. They're just sloughing off the human health impacts - the premature deaths and asthma attacks caused by power plant pollution,' Jeffords said. Republican House Conference director Greg Cist, who sent the email, said: 'It's up to our members if they want to use it or not. We're not stuffing it down their throats.' He said the memo was spurred by concerns that environmental groups were using myths to try to make the Republicans look bad. 'We wanted to show how the environment has been improving,' Cist said. 'We wanted to provide the other side of the story.' [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 9 New York Daily News Editorials: Protect the health of U.S. troops Sgt. Agustin Matos, Sgt. Hector Vega, Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone, veterans of the war in Iraq, have tested positive for exposure to depleted uranium. They know this because the Daily News arranged for medical screening that, by all rights, the military should have provided on their return to the U.S. Matos, Vega, Ramos and Yonnone are members of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard, a unit made up mostly of the city's Finest, Bravest and Boldest. They served in Iraq, knowing they might come home wounded, or not at all. In other words, the troops of the 442nd kept their end of the bargain while the brass did not. The military shipped them stateside from Samawah, site of fierce fighting, without fully testing for exposure to hidden hazards, depleted uranium being among them. Depleted uranium, a heavy metal that emits weak levels of radiation, is a valuable weapon. The military uses it both to harden tank armor and to add punch to artillery shells. A depleted uranium round will slice through an enemy vehicle because the metal is self-sharpening. It can also ignite on impact, adding to its lethal qualities. Problem is, exploded shells and damaged tanks spew depleted uranium dust. While no one knows precisely how toxic the material is, it's definitely not something you want to ingest. According to the World Health Organization, long-term exposure to uranium may damage kidneys and lungs, but some G.I.s have lived with fragments in their bodies without apparent health consequences. The News' Juan Gonzalez had tests done on nine soldiers' urine after they complained about headaches, shortness of breath, kidney stones and loss of bladder control. The samples provided by Matos, Vega, Ramos and Yonnone came back positive. There is as yet no certainty that any of the ailments have anything to do with depleted uranium, or with service in Iraq. What is clear, though, is that the military should have tested everyone in the 442nd, as is now underway, long before Gonzalez brought to light the danger. You pay, they don't There you are, gnawing on a pencil end, punching numbers into a calculator or stuffing receipts into a shoebox so you can lug your disorganization down to the accountant's office, where someone who grasps the mysteries of the United States tax code can help you get your return in the mail by midnight on April 15. You are not alone. Millions of wage earners are suffering that torture as they settle up with the government. So, it was galling to read a General Accounting Office report showing that 61% of American-owned corporations and 71% of those controlled by foreign interests pay no income tax. Zilch. Nada. And 94% of U.S. corporations paid taxes that amount to less than 5% on their total incomes. Average taxpayers would turn backflips at being taxed at that rate. But that's not going to happen because average taxpayers don't get to dive through corporate loopholes. Average taxpayers have to settle for itemizing as many small deductions as they can. And middle-class earners in growing numbers are being denied that full privilege as they fall prey to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Enacted in 1966, when 155 very wealthy taxpayers claimed enough deductions to wipe out their tax bills (just like corporations today), the AMT limited writeoffs for those who earned the biggest bucks. Since then, however, incomes have risen with inflation and millions of taxpayers earning as little as $75,000 are getting hammered. It's the old story. The little guy takes it on the chin while big players trip the light fantastic in their Ferragamos. Congress has shied away from reforming the AMT because the cost would be huge. But there is an obvious to get the job done: Close corporate loopholes. Rush to judgment Parents are shelling out big bucks for tutors. Kids are forgoing spring vacation to brush up on schoolwork. All over town, "struggling" third-graders are readying for the must-pass tests that will determine whether they advance to Grade 4. One cannot help but think that if these kids had been adequately educated, and parented, all along, there would not be such a frenzy. And that is the point of the abolition of social promotion: consistency in schooling, diligence and parental guidance. Put all that in place, and there will be no need for panic in the future. Originally published on April 7, 2004 All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P. ***************************************************************** 10 USA Today: Homeland security elusive despite available cash Posted 4/6/2004 7:33 PM By Frank Oliveri, Gannett News Service WASHINGTON — Communities throughout the country remain vulnerable to terrorist attacks, despite $8.3 billion in federal grant money set aside since 2002 for local homeland security needs. The reason: Bureaucratic red tape has overwhelmed many cities and towns, leaving them unable to qualify for their share of the money. "There are a lot of requirements that come from the federal government, and at the local level they are overwhelmed already with budget cuts," said retired Marine Maj. Gen. Jerry Humble, homeland security director for Tennessee. State and local homeland security officials across the nation say they haven't gotten all the money they need to hire and train rescue and fire officials, law enforcement officers, hazardous materials teams and other first responders. "We need to remember this is a huge amount of money coming out to the states," said Suzanne Mencer, director of the Office of Domestic Preparedness. (Related table: Homeland Security funding available to states) Many communities have little experience writing grant applications and many have been slow to develop required security strategies. Some use outdated accounting systems that can't cope with federal purchasing requirements. "There is so much homeland security money thrown at us that staying with present methods of accounting isn't realistic," said Doug Aton, civil defense director for Hawaii's Honolulu County. "What is needed is funding for a grants administrator. For us, the bottleneck is logistical." As a result, emergency equipment sits in storage in many states because money needed to train people on it hasn't arrived. In other cases, newly trained first responders are still waiting for their equipment. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have set aside $8.3 billion in grant money since 2002. California, New York, Texas and Florida have received more than $2 billion of that. But the picture changes when the money is portrayed in per capita terms. On that measure, New York ranks 39th in the amount of homeland security grant money allocated in 2004. California, Florida and Texas rank even lower. Washington, D.C., leads the country with $93.29 allocated per capita this year. Wyoming is next at $45.22, followed by Vermont and Alaska. Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledge there is some frustration among states with how money is shared. They note that lawmakers have introduced legislation in Congress to change the formula used to distribute the grant money. The change would send more money to states with larger populations. And homeland security officials have created a task force that will work until mid-May to streamline the flow of money to the states. Josh Filler, director of state and local government coordination at the Homeland Security Department, said he has held conference calls with state and local officials to educate them on expediting grant applications. "The system of moving money is not conducive to speed," Filler said. "We need to take a hard look at that." Financing critical needs The grant money helps the 50 states and five territories pay for anti-terrorism strategies, expand and train first-responder teams, and draft agreements in which individual states and communities agree to help each other in the event of a terrorist attack. States, counties and cities have up to two years to qualify for the money. Department officials require states to turn over at least 80% of the federal money to municipalities. They would like the money to get where it needs to go within 60 days Communities have put the money to good use. Washington County, Utah, for example, has received $2 million for radios, breathing gear, hazardous material suits and training, said Dean Cox, the county's director of emergency services.But Cox said his county is still waiting for equipment it was supposed to get in 2003. Utah officials pay their counties' homeland security expenses up front, then wait for reimbursement from the federal government. The strategy has allowed counties to get money more quickly, but it hasn't solved other problems. "This money hit nationwide and vendors simply weren't able to fill the orders," Cox said. "We just last week received mobile mounts for our laptops. This is a work in progress." Cox said his first responders aren't equipped to handle a major accident or a terrorist attack. That's a serious problem for Washington County, where nuclear waste may soon be trucked on its way to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Rail cars already carry acids and fuels across the county. "At the end of June, I will have 27 (fire) technicians," Cox said. "I hope we will have equipment for them." Several states still haven't used grant money allocated in 2002 and 2003. Grant money set aside in 2004 is virtually untouched. "My God, I've seen military organizations take years to get up and running," he said. To qualify for the federal grant money, each state must develop an anti-terrorism strategy. Humble created a plan that groups large cities with smaller communities in numbered districts. If terrorists strike one of the cities, the surrounding cities and towns in that district also would respond. The plan also avoids duplicating equipment and first-responder teams. Each district, for example, would include only one community with a hazardous materials response team, Humble said. "We don't plan on putting all our eggs in one basket," he said. USATODAY.com partners: USA © Copyright 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Fw: Pledge of resistance 'Uranium Munitions' Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 17:57:15 -0700 ----- Original Message ----- From: Barbara To: lewallen@mcn.org ; Jonathan ; mesquites@juno.com ; Matt&Martha ; John Barimo ; Suesun Barimo Cc: Greg Krouse ; carol wolman ; Zack ; Tom Cahill Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 1:14 PM Subject: Pledge of resistance 'Uranium Munitions' Greetings from Philo, CA, Could you please add your signature at the end of this pledge and forward it along. If you are number 50 would you please send a copy to me before forwarding at babs@mcn.org thank you. Peace & Love, Barbara The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance An Action Proposal Submitted to All People by Barbara Stephens and John Lewallen With Annotated Analysis by John Lewallen Please accept this humble offering from our winter's work. We look forward to being in groups with you to lovingly work for an end to war on Earth. We're proposing a worldwide campaign of nonviolent resistance to the use of uranium munitions. Please sign and circulate the URANIUM MUNITIONS PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE: "I WILL NOT USE, NOR ORDER THE USE OF, URANIUM MUNITIONS." We believe the strategy of person-by-person nonviolent resistance is the best way to speed the end of uranium munition use on Earth. It's something each of us can do now to start out. Organized, it could be a powerful way of encouraging nonviolent noncooperation with war itself. Many other strategies--legal, political, ecucational--are urgently needed to counter the Big Institutional Lie that uranium munitions are no big problem. With Major Doug Rokke, I IMPLORE YOU TO ACT! Below, John Lewallen has tried to summarize the amazing set of factors that today have made uranium the state-of-the-art deep-penetration munition metal for U.S. armed forces worldwide, dooming U.S. troops using it to a highly toxic and mutagenic battlefield environment filled with uranium vapor, which has been known as a chemical and radiological warfare agent since 1943. This means that, based on what happened to Gulf War 1991 vets, at least one out of three soldiers sent to Iraq today will be disabled within ten years by the toxins encountered there. The strategy of nonviolent resistance is required because the fastest conceivable effective ban on uranium munitions is several years away at best. The absolute Pentagon commitment to a weapon that is creating millions of human casualties worldwide by poisoning the environment with uranium oxide particles has created a Big Institutional Lie with tentacles everywhere, all focused on one thing: keep using uranium munitions! Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now! --by John Lewallen 1. 1. John Lewallen, Philo, CA 2. Barbara Stephens Philo, CA 3. Carol Wolman, MD, Mendocino, CA ***************************************************************** 12 Pravda.Ru: Nuclear weapons should not be used against terrorists [PRAVDA.RU] Last update:04/08/2004 09:10 MSK 14:33 2004-04-07 A series of noteworthy remarks have been made by Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in the course of his address at the Center for Defense Information in the American capital. Thus, replying to a question about the expediency of using nuclear weapons in the struggle against terrorism, Ivanov said: "Honestly speaking, traditional weapons are quite enough against terrorists." The use of nuclear weapons against terrorists, according to the minister, may drastically lower the threshold of their employment. "We can let the genie out of the bottle," Ivanov added. In commenting on an issue which has been particularly pressing in the recent period - leakage of military-purpose nuclear materials - the Russian minister said: "I can speak with certainty about weapons-grade nuclear materials - plutonium and uranium. I state with full responsibility that there cannot be any leakage of such materials from Russia," Ivanov said. "What is more, there is not a single example of even one gram of military-grade plutonium or uranium being left unaccounted-for," the Russian minister added. Ivanov believes that Iraq's territory has become the center for attracting terrorist groupings from all over the Arab East. "Iraq's territory occupied by US and allied troops, including those that joined NATO the other day, has become a focus of attraction for members of terrorist groupings from all over the Arab East, a genuine magnet for extremists of all hues," the Russian minister said. This happened because there was no real coalition-based coordination of stabilization measures, reckons the head of Russia's defense department. He believes that the world is still threatened by large-scale terrorist attacks. "There are many examples when terrorists, including those who fought in Chechnya, have instructions ready at hand on how to make poisons and toxic agents. Unfortunately, this is a result of globalization: now one can see in the Internet how to make dangerous devices." Characteristically, the Russian minister believes, future potential conflicts will somehow or other be connected with the economy, in particular, with access to some or other resources. "So one of the tasks of the Armed Forces of Russia is to protect our economic interests. We have started holding appropriate exercises," he said. According to him, the first such training exercise took place on the Baltic in 2002. "Also in 2002, we held water and ground exercises in Sakhalin. I may note that large American investments are there. We therefore train our troops to protect not only Russian interests," Ivanov said. © RIAN Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials ***************************************************************** 13 Daily Times: Pakistan not involved in N-proliferation: UK Thursday, April 08, 2004 LONDON: The British government told the House of Lords on Tuesday that there was no proof of the Pakistani government’s involvement in proliferating nuclear technology to other states. “There is no proof that President Pervez Musharraf allowed those things to happen. He says that he was ignorant of what was going on. Dr AQ Khan has also said the government did not know what was going on,” British State Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Office Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean said during a debate on the alleged transfer of nuclear technology by Pakistan. She said this in reply to Lord Lamount of Lerwick’s question as to “what action they propose to take in response to the selling of military nuclear technology by Pakistani officials to certain states”. She also told the house that Pakistan was still continuing its investigations into the transfer of nuclear technology. She said the British government “has discussed this matter in some detail with the Pakistanis who are continuing their investigations into the issue of the transfer of nuclear technology to other states”. However, she said, “Any specific action taken against individuals involved is a matter for the Pakistani government to pursue.” She also told the house, “The question of how President Musharraf decided to deal with this issue is a matter for him as the president of Pakistan dealing with a very particular issue which has arisen in relation to Pakistan.” —APP Daily Times - All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 14 People's Daily: US satellite once mistook Hakka residence as nuke base (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 07, 2004 The old residence of Hakkas, a minority nationality in Nanjing County of South China's Fujian Province, built completely with immature soil, has stood rock firm for several centuries and is therefore dubbed "the world's eighth wonder" by UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization). "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" issue January disclosed that US surveillance satellite once created a ridiculous story. The old residence of Hakkas, a minority nationality in Nanjing County of South China's Fujian Province, built completely with immature soil, has stood rock firm for several centuries and is therefore dubbed "the world's eighth wonder" by UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization). "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" issue January disclosed that US surveillance satellite once created a ridiculous story. One day in 1985, the then US President Ronald Reagan read a report from the intelligence bureau under the Department of National Defense. "We are not joking here to use 'group'. The group nuclear base is likely to be a fact. According to our report through the KH22 satellite hovering, there are over 1, 500 unidentified huge mushroom-like buildings in Fujian Province of China, which are extremely similar to nuclear equipment. New penetrative satellite can observe through high buildings, but failed in front of the 1, 500 high-rises, in which China's sophistication of nuclear research can be seen. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the nature of the buildings." One day in December 1985 it was snowing in Beijing. A couple from US New York Institute of Photography paid a special visit to China to take photos. The film slide they made received praises from the fans, who couldn't imagine that the real objective of the couple's trip was not to enjoy China's beautiful landscape, but was aimed at the Hakka buildings suspected as nuclear bases. The two persons were received by the Federation of Literature and Art in Zhangzhou City of Fujian Province on December 18. They went to see Hakka residences in Nanjing County 50 kilometers from Zhangzhou, where they took photos. Back in the United States, the husband delivered a "South China Investigation Report" to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), explaining why the buildings were mistaken as ones for special purposes: their peculiar round and square exterior presented through bird's-eye view. The suspicion finally vanished into thin air. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 15 AFP: Brazil has the right to guard its nuclear secrets: top scientist WAR.WIRE RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) Apr 07, 2004 Brazil's uranium enrichment process is not secret, but Brazil has "technical solutions" that it has the right to keep confidential, one of the country's top nuclear scientist told AFP Tuesday. The Washington Post newspaper reported over the weekend that the International Atomic Energy Agency and Brazil were at an impasse over inspections of the uranium processing plant in Resende, near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, which denies it has imposed any restrictions on inspectors, maintains the plant will produce low-enriched uranium for use in power plants, not the highly enriched material used in nuclear weapons. "There are no conceptual secrets," said scientist Luis Pinguelli Rosa, currently president of Brazil's national electricity concern, Electrobras. "But there are advanced technological solutions that Brazil has the right to guard," he said. Those "technological solutions" include equipment setup and materials used, he added. Pinguelli insisted that Brazi's program was peaceful, and that Brazil uses an ultracentrifugation process used in Europe, while the United States and Russia use the different gas diffusion process. "There is in no way a need for a further 'intrusion' (of the inspectors) to check the uranium enrichment," Pinguelli said. It comes down to a "matter of principles" for Brazil to stand up to the "imperial position" of the United States, he added. Brazil is a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as the Tlateloco treaty which bans nuclear weapons in Latin America. Also, the Brazilian Constitution clearly prohibited atomic weapons, he said. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 16 NRC: NRC to Discuss Annual Performance Assessment of Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant News Release - Region I - 2004-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-04-019 April 7, 2004 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Exelon Generation Company on Wednesday, April 14, to discuss the results of the agencys annual assessment of safety performance at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant. Exelon operates the twin-reactor plant, which is located near Delta, Pa. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Peach Bottom Inn, 6085 Delta Road in Delta. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the plants safety performance, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe operation of the facility. The performance period to be discussed is January 1 to December 31, 2003. In addition, NRC staff will provide a brief overview of how the agencys Reactor Oversight Process works. A letter sent from the NRC Region I Office to plant officials addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/pb_2003q4.pdf [PDF Icon] . Overall, the Peach Bottom plant operated safely and met all cornerstone objectives during the period. (Cornerstones are program areas where NRC measures plant safety performance.) As a result of having only green inspection findings and performance indicators at the end of the fourth quarter of 2003, Peach Bottom Unit 3 will receive baseline-level inspections through Sept. 30, 2005. However, based on a white, or low to moderate safety, inspection finding, Peach Bottom Unit 2 will receive some additional oversight. The inspection finding, which was finalized earlier this year, was related to a deficient maintenance procedure and inadequate corrective actions involving an emergency diesel generator. Unit 2 will also be the subject of a supplemental inspection, planned for September, due to a white Performance Indicator in the third quarter of last year. That indicator tracks the number of unplanned scrams, or shutdowns, per 7,000 critical hours. In addition, the NRC staff has identified a substantive cross-cutting issue at the Peach Bottom plant in the area of problem identification and resolution and involving corrective action for known equipment problems. The issue is based on one white inspection finding and five green, or very low safety, inspection findings in which corrective action for a known equipment problem was either insufficient or delayed in implementation. The issue will be evaluated through the NRC baseline inspection program during the current assessment period, particularly in the periodic case reviews associated with problem identification and resolution inspection efforts. During the first two quarters of 2003, there was a white inspection finding affecting both Peach Bottom units in the area of emergency preparedness. However, the NRC conducted a supplemental inspection because of this finding in June 2003 and determined that the companys response was acceptable. With regard to security issues, the NRC has issued several orders and threat advisories to enhance security capabilities and improve guard force readiness since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The agency has also conducted inspections to review the implementation of these requirements and has monitored the action of plant operators in response to changing threat conditions. The NRC will continue security inspections during 2004. Current performance information for Peach Bottom Unit 2 is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/PB2/pb2_chart.html. Current performance information for Peach Bottom Unit 3 is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/PB3/pb3_chart.html. Last revised Wednesday, April 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 17 APP.COM: Oyster Creek to spend $10M on security upgrade ASBURY PARK PRESS Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/06/04 By NICHOLAS CLUNN MANAHAWKIN BUREAU LACEY -- The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will spend $10 million this year on guard towers, razor-wire fences, more potent weapons for guards and other security measures to better protect the Route 9 facility from terrorists. Plant owner AmerGen also will invest in assault rifles and armor-piercing bullets for its guards, who had been restricted to handguns, rifles and shotguns before state lawmakers decided in September to allow them to use more powerful weapons. The investment is the first major security upgrade since measures taken right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said plant spokeswoman Gina Scala. Similar steps to thwart intruders are being taken at all 103 commercial nuclear power plants in the country. The plants have been identified as prominent targets for terrorists. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has mandated that all plants have adequate defenses against terrorism by October. Federal law enforcement agencies and intelligent experts conduct twice-yearly reviews on how assailants would most likely attempt to breach plant security, according to the commission. AmerGen plans to install seven guard towers and surround the plant perimeter with razor wire. It also wants to build a deceleration lane on Route 9, which would improve traffic flow entering and leaving the plant, said township Mayor John C. Parker. Guards will have AR-15s and ammunition clips each loaded with 30 shots, he said. Dum-dum, or hollow-nose, ammunition that can pierce body armor is now permissible. Parker said that he regrets that land around the 650-megawatt reactor will soon resemble security outside federal prisons but that he realizes improved security is paramount. Parker added he hopes the additions make residents feel safer. "People are worried about security," he said. "That's what everyone is talking about today." Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com Asbury Park Press ***************************************************************** 18 NRC: NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel to Meet April 8 in Oak Harbor, OH News Release - Region III - 2004-02 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-04-020 April 6, 2004 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Davis-Besse oversight panel will hold two meetings on Thursday, April 8, in Oak Harbor, Ohio, to review the status of recent activities at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. The plant, which has been shut down since February 16, 2002, due to the corrosion damage to the reactor vessel head, received NRC approval to restart the plant on March 8. The plant is operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company. The meetings will be held in the Oak Harbor High School Auditorium, at 11661 West State Route 163, in Oak Harbor. The first meeting will begin at 1 p.m. (EDT), when the NRC oversight panel, set up to monitor the activities associated with the plant's recovery from problems which led to the reactor vessel head corrosion, will meet with utility officials. The meeting will focus on completed restart activities and future assessment activities at the plant. The public is invited to observe the business portion of the meeting and will have an opportunity to make comments and ask questions of the NRC staff before the meeting is adjourned. The second meeting will begin at 6 p.m. (EDT) for the oversight panel to update the public on NRC's activities and observations of the plant's restart activities. The public will be invited to ask questions and make comments. The transcripts of both oversight panel meetings will be posted in several weeks on the NRC's web site - http://www.nrc.gov. Select "Davis-Besse" from the Key Topics menu. The NRC oversight panel includes NRC management and staff from its Region III office in Lisle, Illinois; the NRC Headquarters office in Rockville, Maryland; and the NRC Resident Inspector Office at the Davis-Besse site. Documents on the Davis-Besse corrosion issue, including further details on NRC's oversight panel activities, are posted on the NRC's web site. Last revised Wednesday, April 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 19 G2R: Russia`s nuclear plants to widen uranium consumption by nearly 2 fold to 8,500 tons by 2020. - Gateway To Russia - News From Russia's nuclear plants will widen uranium consumption by nearly 2 fold to 8,500 tons by 2020, Grigory Mashkovtsev, rep. from Russian Academy of Science, said over the St. Petersburg Forum: Russian Fuel &Energy Complex: Regional Aspects. G. Mashkovtsev said the nuclear plant output will widen 2 fold - from 150 bln kWh to 300 bln kWh by 2020 under the RF Energy Strategy. So they will need around 8,500 tons of natural uranium on year while today's consumption is 4,600 tons on year. With the fuel rod array and other product export taken into account, around 16,000 - 17,000 tons of uranium will be required by 2020. Currently, Russia has only a single uranium maker - Priargunskoe with the annual capacity of 6,800 tons of uranium. Russian-Kazakh joint venture Zarechnoe was established in 2003. The capacity is around 1,000 tons of uranium. Russia has 545,000 tons of uranium in explored reserves. However the balance reserves account for no more than 25% reserves, G. Mashkovtsev said. © Copyright Gateway to Russia 2003 ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power Station, FR Doc E4-766 [Federal Register: April 7, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 67)] [Notices] [Page 18409-18410] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07ap04-87] Units 2 and 3; Notice of Intent To Prepare An Environmental Impact Statement and Conduct Scoping Process Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (DNC) has submitted applications for renewal of Facility Operating Licenses, DPR-65 and NPF-49 for an additional 20 years of operation at the Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3 (MPS). MPS is located on the north shore of Long Island Sound in Waterford, Connecticut, approximately 40 miles southeast of Hartford, Connecticut. The operating licenses for MPS, Units 2 and 3, expire on July 31, 2015, and November 25, 2025, respectively. The applications for renewal were received on January 22, 2004, pursuant to 10 CFR Part 54. A notice of receipt and availability of the applications, which included the environmental report (ER), was published in the Federal Register on February 3, 2004, (69 FR 5197). A notice of acceptance for docketing of the applications for renewal of the facility operating license was published in the Federal Register on March 12, 2004, (69 FR 11897). The purpose of this notice is to inform the public that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) in support of the review of the license renewal applications and to provide the public an opportunity to participate in the environmental scoping process, as defined in 10 CFR 51.29. In addition, as outlined in 36 CFR 800.8, ``Coordination with the National Environmental Policy Act,'' the NRC plans to coordinate compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act in meeting the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). In accordance with 10 CFR 51.53(c) and 10 CFR 54.23, DNC submitted the ER as part of the applications. The ER was prepared pursuant to 10 CFR Part 51 and is available for public inspection at the NRC Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland 20852, or from the Publicly Available Records component of NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html , which provides access through the NRC's Electronic Reading Room link. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS, or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, or 301- 415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. The applications may also be viewed on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati ons/millstone.html. In addition, the Waterford Public Library, located at 49 Rope Ferry Road, Waterford, Connecticut 06385, and the Thames River Campus Library at Three Rivers Community College, 574 New London Turnpike, Norwich, Connecticut 06360, have agreed to make the ER available for public inspection. This notice advises the public that the NRC intends to gather the information necessary to prepare a plant-specific supplement to the Commission's ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants,'' (NUREG-1437) in support of the review of the applications for renewal of the MPS operating licenses for an additional 20 years. Possible alternatives to the proposed action (license renewal) include no action and reasonable alternative energy sources. The NRC is required by 10 CFR 51.95 to prepare a supplement to the GEIS in connection with the renewal of an operating license. This notice is being published in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the NRC's regulations found in 10 CFR part 51. The NRC will first conduct a scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS and, as soon as practicable thereafter, will prepare a draft supplement to the GEIS for public comment. Participation in the scoping process by members of the public and local, State, Tribal, and Federal government agencies is encouraged. The scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS will be used to accomplish the following: [[Page 18410]] a. Define the proposed action which is to be the subject of the supplement to the GEIS. b. Determine the scope of the supplement to the GEIS and identify the significant issues to be analyzed in depth. c. Identify and eliminate from detailed study those issues that are peripheral or that are not significant. d. Identify any environmental assessments and other EISs that are being or will be prepared that are related to, but are not part of the scope of the supplement to the GEIS being considered. e. Identify other environmental review and consultation requirements related to the proposed action. f. Indicate the relationship between the timing of the preparation of the environmental analyses and the Commission's tentative planning and decision-making schedule. g. Identify any cooperating agencies and, as appropriate, allocate assignments for preparation and schedules for completing the supplement to the GEIS to the NRC and any cooperating agencies. h. Describe how the supplement to the GEIS will be prepared, and include any contractor assistance to be used. The NRC invites the following entities to participate in scoping: a. The applicant, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. b. Any Federal agency that has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to any environmental impact involved, or that is authorized to develop and enforce relevant environmental standards. c. Affected State and local government agencies, including those authorized to develop and enforce relevant environmental standards. d. Any affected Indian tribe. e. Any person who requests or has requested an opportunity to participate in the scoping process. f. Any person who has petitioned or intends to petition for leave to intervene. In accordance with 10 CFR 51.26, the scoping process for an EIS may include a public scoping meeting to help identify significant issues related to a proposed activity and to determine the scope of issues to be addressed in an EIS. The NRC has decided to hold public meetings for the MPS license renewal supplement to the GEIS. The scoping meetings will be held at the Waterford Town Hall Auditorium, 15 Rope Ferry Road in Waterford, Connecticut, on Tuesday, May 18, 2004. There will be two sessions to accommodate interested parties. The first session will convene at 1:30 p.m. and will continue until 4:30 p.m., as necessary. The second session will convene at 7 p.m. with a repeat of the overview portions of the meeting and will continue until 10 p.m., as necessary. Both meetings will be transcribed and will include: (1) An overview by the NRC staff of the NEPA environmental review process, the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS, and the proposed review schedule; and (2) the opportunity for interested government agencies, organizations, and individuals to submit comments or suggestions on the environmental issues or the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS. Additionally, the NRC staff will host informal discussions one hour before the start of each session at the Waterford Town Hall Auditorium. No formal comments on the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS will be accepted during the informal discussions. To be considered, comments must be provided either at the transcribed public meetings or in writing, as discussed below. Persons may register to attend or present oral comments at the meetings on the scope of the NEPA review by contacting Mr. Richard L. Emch, Jr., by telephone at 1- 800-368-5642, extension 1590, or by Internet to the NRC at MillstoneEIS@nrc.gov no later than May 14, 2004. Members of the public may also register to speak at the meeting within 15 minutes of the start of each session. Individual oral comments may be limited by the time available, depending on the number of persons who register. Members of the public who have not registered may also have an opportunity to speak, if time permits. Public comments will be considered in the scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS. Mr. Emch will need to be contacted no later than May 10, 2004, if special equipment or accommodations are needed to attend or present information at the public meeting, so that the NRC staff can determine whether the request can be accommodated. Members of the public may send written comments on the environmental scope of the MPS license renewal review to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page number of this Federal Register notice. Comments may also be delivered to the NRC, Room T-6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. during Federal workdays. To be considered in the scoping process, written comments should be postmarked by June 4, 2004. Electronic comments may be sent by the Internet to the NRC at MillstoneEIS@nrc.gov and should be sent no later than June 4, 2004, to be considered in the scoping process. Comments will be available electronically and accessible through ADAMS at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Participation in the scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS does not entitle participants to become parties to the proceeding to which the supplement to the GEIS relates. Notice of opportunity for a hearing regarding the renewal applications was the subject of the aforementioned Federal Register notice (69 FR 11897). Matters related to participation in any hearing are outside the scope of matters to be discussed at this public meeting. At the conclusion of the scoping process, the NRC will prepare a concise summary of the determination and conclusions reached, including the significant issues identified, and will send a copy of the summary to each participant in the scoping process. The summary will also be available for inspection in ADAMS at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. The staff will then prepare and issue for comment the draft supplement to the GEIS, which will be the subject of separate notices and separate public meetings. Copies will be available for public inspection at the above-mentioned addresses, and one copy per request will be provided free of charge. After receipt and consideration of the comments, the NRC will prepare a final supplement to the GEIS, which will also be available for public inspection. Information about the proposed action, the supplement to the GEIS, and the scoping process may be obtained from Mr. Emch at the aforementioned telephone number or e-mail address. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 31st day of March 2004. For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission. K. Steven West, Acting Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E4-766 Filed 4-6-04; 8:45 a.m.] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 21 NRC: NRC Announces Review Schedule for Browns Ferry License Renewal Application News Release - 2003-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-039 April 6, 2004 The NRC has set a definitive schedule for reviewing the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) application to renew, for an additional 20 years each, the operating licenses for Units 1, 2 and 3 of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant. The NRC staff determined that a 36-month schedule (28 months if no hearing is involved) was necessary due to the complexity and uniqueness of the application, which involves a reactor that has been inactive for 19 years. Despite the complex issues involved, the Browns Ferry schedule is only six months longer than the standard schedule. The application was received on January 6, and a Federal Register notice providing the public an opportunity to request a hearing was published on March 10. The Browns Ferry plant is located near Decatur, Alabama, and the current operating licenses for Units 1, 2 and 3 expire on December 20, 2013; June 28, 2014; and July 2, 2016, respectively. The letter to TVA management setting out the schedule is available electronically through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html, by entering accession number ML040910016. Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC's Public Document Room at 800/397-4209 or 301/415-4737. For further information, contact Jimi Yerokun, License Renewal Project Manager, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop O11-F1, Washington, DC 20555; telephone 301/415-2292. Last revised Tuesday, April 06, 2004 ***************************************************************** 22 AU ABC: Iran to begin construction work for heavy water reactor. 07/04/2004. ABC News Online "Australian Broadcasting Corporation www.abc.net.au Iran is to start work in June on constructing a heavy water reactor that could be used as part of a fuel cycle to produce bomb-grade plutonium, diplomats said in Vienna. "Iran is to announce soon that it will be beginning work in June on a heavy water research reactor in Arak," 200 kilometres south-west of Tehran, a diplomat close to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei returned to Vienna on Wednesday from Tehran, where he had hammered out an agreement for Iran to adhere to a timetable to finally answer charges it is trying secretly to develop nuclear weapons. The reactor to be built at Arak would not be in violation of safeguards which the IAEA enforces under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the diplomat said. But he said it could send a bad political signal at a time the international community is calling on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA in proving its nuclear program is strictly peaceful, as Tehran claims. "This is not an accident," the diplomat said, referring to the fact that construction is to begin in June, the same month the IAEA will hold a board of governors meeting on Iran. Iran has said the Arak reactor would be for research and the production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial use. Iran told the IAEA, according to an agency report last November, that "it had tried to acquire a reactor from abroad to replace" a 30-year-old research reactor in Tehran. But due to sanctions, Iran was not able to buy a new reactor, and so wanted to build one of its own. The diplomat said, however, that the heavy water reactor, which would run on natural uranium, could produce depleted uranium which could then be reprocessed into plutonium. -- AFP © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 23 Democrat & Chronicle: NRC praises Ginna for 'good year' democratandchronicle.com [Rochester, NY] [Rochester, NY] [2002] [Rochester, NY] Inspectors find plant operated safely, siren system was repaired. By Todd Grady Staff Writer (April 7, 2004)  The Robert E. Ginna nuclear power station received high marks in 2003 from the federal regulatory commission that oversees the nations 103 nuclear reactors. The stations owner, Rochester Gas and Electric Corp., met with NRC officials Tuesday at the Ontario Golf Club to discuss Ginnas annual performance assessment. In summary, we think it was a good year for Ginna station, Jim Trapp, a branch chief for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said during the meeting. The NRC found 15 instances of very low safety significance that require no additional oversight. In addition, the agency will continue to review fire resistivity of a cable tunnel escape hatch. The NRC also found that measures taken to fix the plants emergency siren feedback system were adequate. The assessments findings were based on 5,982 hours of inspection at the Ontario, Wayne County, plant during 2003. The NRC was able to conclude the nations longest serving nuclear power plant operated safely throughout the assessment period. Ginna employs about 440 RG workers. The NRC took more time than usual inspecting the Ginna plant because RG has asked the agency to extend the plants operating license until 2029. RG has agreed to sell Ginna to Baltimore-based Constellation Generation Group pending the license renewal and approval of various regulatory bodies, including the NRC. RG hopes to complete the sale by the end of June. Robert Mecredy, vice president of nuclear operations for RG, assured the NRC that Constellation would not jeopardize safety at the plant to cut costs. Ginna produces about 480 megawatts of electricity. One of the things I have observed with Constellation is that they are focused on safety, both nuclear safety and personnel safety, and recognize the economic performance only comes with safe operation, he said. Ginna was taken offline for a fall refueling when RG replaced the plants reactors vessel head and two circulating water pump motors. The plant also tripped during last Augusts blackout, as designed, Mecredy said. TGRADY@DemocratandChronicle.com For more on the assessment, visit www.nrc.gov. ***************************************************************** 24 moscow times: $47Bln Nuclear Upgrade Planned Thursday, Apr. 8, 2004. Page 5 Rosenergoatom, the state-owned nuclear power monopoly, may invest as much as $47 billion by 2020 to boost output, the Nuclear Energy Ministry said on its web site, citing Yevgeny Sharov, the company's deputy head of planning. Rosenergoatom plans to almost double production capacity to as much as 42,000 megawatts by 2020 from 22,000 megawatts, Sharov said at a conference in St. Petersburg. The company aims to raise annual output to as much as 300 million megawatt-hours from 148.6 million megawatt-hours produced in 2003. Rosenergoatom plans to raise production at a time when Russia is moving to break up Unified Energy Systems, which provides 70 percent of Russia's electricity. Rosenergoatom will invest at least 1.1 trillion rubles ($38.6 billion) by 2020, with capacity rising to at least 32,000 megawatts and annual production reaching at least 230 million megawatt-hours, Sharov said. © Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 [DU-WATCH] NY Post article - reprocessed DU signature isotopes Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 23:36:34 -0500 (CDT) "If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict." http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html Poisoned? Shocking report reveals local troops may be victims of america's high-tech weapons By JUAN GONZALEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Army Sgt. Hector Vega at his Bronx home. Augustin Matos with his daughter Samantha Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found. They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. "I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach." A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers. If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq last Easter, the unit's members have been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month. "These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing that was funded by The News. "Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the first doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare. Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has been used by the U.S. and British military for more than 15 years in some artillery shells and as armor plating for tanks. It is twice as heavy as lead. Because of its density, "It is the superior heavy metal for armor to protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said. The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of depleted uranium shells in Iraq last year, Kilpatrick said. No figures have yet been released for how much the Marines fired. Kilpatrick said about 1,000 G.I.s back from the war have been tested by the Pentagon for depleted uranium and only three have come up positive - all as a result of shrapnel from DU shells. But the test results for the New York guardsmen - four of nine positives for DU - suggest the potential for more extensive radiation exposure among coalition troops and Iraqi civilians. Several Army studies in recent years have concluded that the low- level radiation emitted when shells containing DU explode poses no significant dangers. But some independent scientists and a few of the -Army's own reports indicate otherwise. As a result, depleted uranium weapons have sparked increasing controversy around the world. In January 2003, the -European Parliament called for a moratorium on their use after reports of an unusual number of leukemia deaths among Italian soldiers who served in Kosovo, where DU weapons were used. I keep getting weaker. What is happening to me? The Army says that only soldiers wounded by depleted uranium shrapnel or who are inside tanks during an explosion face measurable radiation exposure. But as far back as 1979, Leonard Dietz, a physicist at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory upstate, discovered that DU-contaminated dust could travel for long distances. Dietz, who pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes, accidentally discovered that air filters with which he was experimenting had collected radioactive dust from a National Lead Industries Plant that was producing DU 26 miles away. His discovery led to a shutdown of the plant. "The contamination was so heavy that they had to remove the topsoil from 52 properties around the plant," Dietz said. All humans have at least tiny amounts of natural uranium in their bodies because it is found in water and in the food supply, Dietz said. But natural uranium is quickly and harmlessly excreted by the body. Uranium oxide dust, which lodges in the lungs once inhaled and is not very soluble, can emit radiation to the body for years. "Anybody, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a permanent dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time," said Dietz, who retired in 1983 after 33 years as nuclear physicist. "In the long run ... veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major problem." Critics of DU have noted that the Army's view of its dangers has changed over time. Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, a 1990 Army report noted that depleted uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage." It was during the Gulf War that U.S. A-10 Warthog "tank buster" planes and Abrams tanks first used DU artillery on a mass scale. The Pentagon says it fired about 320 tons of DU in that war and that smaller amounts were also used in the Serbian province of Kosovo. In the Gulf War, Army brass did not warn soldiers about any risks from exploding DU shells. An unknown number of G.I.s were exposed by shrapnel, inhalation or handling battlefield debris. Some veterans groups blame DU contamination as a factor in Gulf War syndrome, the term for a host of ailments that afflicted thousands of vets from that war. Under pressure from veterans groups, the Pentagon commissioned several new studies. One of those, published in 2000, concluded that DU, as a heavy metal, "could pose a chemical hazard" but that Gulf War veterans "did not experience intakes high enough to affect their health." Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said Army followup studies of 70 DU-contaminated Gulf War veterans have not shown serious health effects. "For any heavy metal, there is no such thing as safe," Kilpatrick said. "There is an issue of chemical toxicity, and for DU it is raised as radiological toxicity as well." But he said "the overwhelming conclusion" from studies of those who work with uranium "show it has not produced any increase in cancers." Several European studies, however, have linked DU to chromosome damage and birth defects in mice. Many scientists say we still don't know enough about the long-range effects of low-level radiation on the body to say any amount is safe. Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, has called for identifying where DU was used and is urging a cleanup of all contaminated areas. "A large number of American soldiers [in Iraq] may have had significant exposure to uranium oxide dust," said Dr. Thomas Fasey, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center and an expert on depleted uranium. "And the health impact is worrisome for the future." As for the soldiers of the 442nd, they're sick, frustrated and confused. They say when they arrived in Iraq no one warned them about depleted uranium and no one gave them dust masks. Experts behind News probe As part of the investigation by the Daily News, Dr. Asaf Duracovic, a nuclear medicine expert who has conducted extensive research on depleted uranium, examined the nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police in late December and collected urine specimens from each. Another member of his team, Prof. Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt who specializes in analyzing uranium isotopes, performed repeated tests on the samples over a week-long - period. He used a state-of-the art procedure called multiple collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Only about 100 laboratories worldwide have the same capability to identify and measure various uranium isotopes in minute quantities, Gerdes said. Gerdes concluded that four of the men had depleted uranium in their bodies. Depleted uranium, which does not occur in nature, is created as a waste product of uranium enrichment when some of the highly radioactive isotopes in natural uranium, U-235 and U-234, are extracted. Several of the men, according to Duracovic, also had minute traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that is produced only in a nuclear reaction process. "These men were almost certainly exposed to radioactive weapons on the battlefield," Duracovic said. He and Gerdes plan to issue a scientific paper on their study of the soldiers at the annual meeting of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine in Finland this year. When DU shells explode, they permanently contaminate their target and the area immediately around it with low-level radioactivity. Originally published on April 3, 2004 [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/ ***************************************************************** 26 [du-list] "unfounded fears of man-made chemicals and their Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:57:55 -0700 Interesting item re sources of funding for "Health Watch"posted at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/02/285283.html in response to posting there re Dr Gatti DU testing. Wessely leads a group of U.K. doctors, mostly but not exclusively psychiatrists, who have colloquially become known as the "Wessely School". Wessely is now Professor of Epidemiological and Liaison Psychiatry at Guys, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine, London and the Institute of Psychiatry, where he is Director of both the C.F.S. Research Unit and the Gulf War Illness Research Unit. He is well-known for his strongly-held beliefs that neither M.E. nor Gulf War Syndrome exists, and that such patients are mentally, not physically ill. . . . Wessely's beliefs, however, have flooded the U.K. literature; he is adviser to the U.K. Government and to the Ministry of Defence and his wife (psychiatrist Dr Clare Garada) is Senior Policy Adviser to the Department of Health. . . . It is the case that some of those doctors have been funded by sources with links to the same industry which manufactures the chemicals which may be contributing to the rise in incidence of chemically-induced M.E./I.C.D.-C.F.S. [I.C.D. - International Classification of Diseases]. They have also been funded by the insurance industry and by private interests such as The Linbury Trust which belongs to the Sainsbury (supermarket) family. . . . Since 1996, David Sainsbury (now Lord Sainsbury of Turville) had donated £7,000,000 to the U.K. Labour Party. He is currently Minister for Science; as such he has responsibility for the Office of Science and Technology and the Chemical and Biotechnology industries, as well as all the Research Councils, including the Medical Research Council (M.R.C.). . . . The Office of Science and Technology monitors all government funding of research grants and controls official science policy and it is "policy" which determines the research which is funded. "The Department funds research to support policy". (Hansard, 11th May 2000). . . . Since 1988, psychiatrists of the "Wessely School" have been funded not only by the M.R.C. but by Wellcome Training Fellowships in Clinical Epidemiology; . . . by the Wellcome Trust; by I.C.I. Pharmaceuticals; by Pfizer U.K.; by Duphar Pharmaceuticals; by The Linbury Trust; by the Medical Policy Group of the Department of Social Security; by the Department of Health, . . . and by the United States Department of Defense. extlink.gif http://www.alor.org/Britain/OnTargetBritainJune2003.htm Wessely is also policy advisor to the industry funded American Council for Science and Health, and also a member of HealthWatch (a UK affiliate of ACSH). The American Council on Science and Health has received funds from food processing and beverage corporations including Burger King, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, NutraSweet and Nestlé USA, as well as chemical, oil and pharmaceutical companies such as Monsanto, Dow USA, Exxon, Union Carbide and others. Its executive director, portrayed in the mass media as an independent scientist, defends petrochemical companies, the nutritional values of fast foods, and the safety of saccharin, pesticides and growth hormones for dairy cows. She claims that the U.S. government spends far too much on investigating unproven health risks such as dioxin and pesticides because of the public's "unfounded fears of man-made chemicals and their perception of these chemicals as carcinogens."(FN6) The American Council on Science and Health is one of many corporate front groups which allow industry-funded experts to pose as independent scientists to promote corporate causes. Chemical and nuclear industry front groups with scientific sounding names publish pamphlets that are 'peer reviewed' by industry scientists rather than papers in established academic journals.(FN7) Megalli and Friedman point out: "Contrary to their names, these groups often disregard compelling scientific evidence to further their viewpoints, arguing that pesticides are not harmful, saccharin is not carcinogenic, or that global warming is a myth. By sounding scientific, they seek to manipulate the public's trust."(FN8) extlink.gif http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/PR.html To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ---------- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: extlink.gif: 00000001,6746b365,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: extlink1.gif: 00000001,6746b366,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 27 [du-list] Report from Hell - Students back from Iraq Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:57:58 -0700 RE: DU - Special Note: CAN's East Coast Regional Conference 'condemned' the use of DU by resolution on the vote of delegates from 21 campus organizations. More research was called for in the context of remediation and reparations, not to show that DU is harmful. *** Students Mike Hoffman, returning Gulf War II veteran, and Khury Petersen-Smith, RIT student and CAN representative on recently returned delegation to Iraq, spoke to delegates from over 20 campus organizations at the Campus Antiwar Network Northeast Regional Conference at Hunter College, New York on April 3. Hear and download their riveting presentations and see conference photos at http://www.traprockpeace.org/can_northeast_3april04.html Visit the CAN website - and PLEASE NOTE the new address - at http://www.campusantiwar.net For more information on CAN's rich history (with more photos and audio), visit http://traprockpeace.org/student_activism.html Charles Jenks, attorney at law President of the Core Group Traprock Peace Center 103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342 413-773-1633; Fax 413-773-7507 charles@mtdata.com http://traprockpeace.org To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 28 [du-list] If you REALLY want to learn UNDENIABLE facts on DU... Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:58:00 -0700 great bibliography http://www.antenna.nl/%7ewise/uranium/dlit.html Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ---------- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ***************************************************************** 29 Seattle Times: Russia finally acknowledging '57 nuclear disaster Wednesday, April 07, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. By Mark McDonald Knight Ridder Newspapers KARABOLKA, Russia — One of the world's ghastliest nuclear accidents happened just upwind of here, in a secret atomic city that didn't have a name and never appeared on any maps. An explosion of radioactive sludge sent up a toxic plume that contaminated a quarter-million people. This was the Soviet Union, 1957, but only now are the voices of the victims being heard. Communist authorities responded to the accident with a global cover-up and a scorched-earth cleanup. Even as they evacuated entire Russian communities, they were sending 1,500 ethnic Tatar farmers into the hot zones to do the dirty work. Children were pressed into service, too, from fourth-graders on up. Many of the "young liquidators," as the children came to be known, died from radiation-related diseases soon after the explosion, which few people know about even today. They came down with afflictions they couldn't have imagined, illnesses they couldn't even pronounce. Finally, however, the surviving liquidators are starting to win victories in the Russian courts. It's taken nearly half a century for Moscow to admit any sort of responsibility for the disaster, but three Karabolka residents recently won absurdly small but perhaps precedent-setting judgments that give them reparations of $8 a month, plus an annual stay at a Russian spa. The children and grandchildren of the liquidators inherited a sad array of congenital health problems. They, too, have begun filing damage claims. The Karabolka farmers never were told about the dangers of the explosion at the secret nuclear lab called Mayak ("The Lighthouse"). Authorities told the villagers the cleanup was necessary because crude oil somehow had seeped into their fields and groundwater. The Karabolka children helped with the nuclear triage alongside their parents. Week after week they dug potatoes and carrots out of the ground with their bare hands, then buried the contaminated crops in deep pits. They cleaned bricks that were covered in radioactive soot. They buried dead cattle, filled in poisoned wells and dismantled clapboard houses. "Our hands were bleeding. Everybody was vomiting," said Glasha Ismagilova, a 57-year-old paramedic who was an 11-year-old tomboy at the time. "My vomit was very green. The doctor looked at it and said I had eaten too many peas, and he sent me back to work. But of course I hadn't eaten any peas at all." The explosion wouldn't be the only nuclear disaster to befall the area. People living along the nearby Techa River now are suing for the damage caused by decades of Mayak engineers dumping radioactive waste into the water. That practice, which began in the late 1940s, ended only recently. Environmental experts have called the Techa district the most polluted place on earth. Radiation levels once reached the rough equivalent of four Chernobyl accidents. Glasha Ismagilova, one of the young liquidators in Karabolka, spoke calmly about her own various illnesses, about the new 3-inch tumor on her liver and the painful crumbling of her knees and hips. She's a strong, plainspoken woman, but the tears started to come when she remembered borrowing her mother's orange sundress on that morning 47 years ago when the Mayak cleanup began. She wanted to look nice that day because she thought she and her fourth-grade class were headed off on a special field trip. They were headed, of course, to their doom. "We were treated like laboratory rabbits," she said. "This was a horrible crime by the state. What kind of monsters would assign children to do such work?" The secret Mayak lab, hidden in the closed city now known as Ozersk, was the epicenter of the Soviet nuclear-weapons program. A heavily guarded city of some 80,000, Ozersk is still operating full-bore, and it's still off-limits to nonresidents. Sept. 29 arrived hot and hazy that year, another muggy Sunday in the southern Urals, another typical workday down on the collective farm. But then in midafternoon, 70 tons of superheated atomic waste blew the lid off its concrete storage vault. The ground in neighboring Karabolka, 12 miles away, shook so badly that one resident said "the teacups were flying." A strange cloud, black and low, was coming their way. The cloud was gone the next morning — it rained during the night — but a few days later a squad of Red Army soldiers arrived to seal off the Tatar half of Karabolka. The initial cleanup lasted throughout the fall of '57, then began again in the spring of 1958 when the winter snows receded. Once again, the kids were taken out of school and put to work. Almost all of them were Muslims, the children of ethnic Tatar and Bashkir families that had lived in the area for centuries. A couple hundred Russian families lived across town. "But when we got there, not a single soul was left in Russian Karabolka," Ismagilova said. "They had all been evacuated and resettled." Today, only 520 destitute villagers remain from an original population of 2,900. "Almost all the people here were liquidators, but they're too old and sick to press their claims," she said, the tears coming again. "They did the state's dirty work 45 years ago and now they have no money. Not even enough for bread. They have no future." Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company More nation &world ***************************************************************** 30 Pravda.RU: Atomic reactors from decomissioned submarines are reliably guarded [PRAVDA.RU] Last update:04/08/2004 09:10 MSK 14:26 2004-04-07 The fact of receiving financial aid by Russia for scrapping military atomic reactors does not mean that they are poorly guarded, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a meeting with reporters in the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "The fact that we receive with gratitude aid from different countries for scrapping atomic reactors from the decommissioned submarines does not mean that the reactors are poorly guarded. "The problem is that Russia, regrettably, is paying for near-sighted policy of the cold war times. We have built too many submarines, too many reactors - we don't need so many and they should be scrapped', Ivanov said. "To create a nuclear-based sophisticated system is cheaper than to scrap it," the Russian minister added. In his words, the funds that Russia gets from the international programs are channeled precisely for waste utilization. In equal measure this also refers to the chemical weapons large stocks of which piled up during the cold war times. © RIAN Pravda.RU:Russia Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials ***************************************************************** 31 Democracy Now!: U.S. Soldiers Contaminated With Depleted Uranium Speak Out Monday, April 5th, 2004 A special investigation by Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News has found four of nine soldiers of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard returning from Iraq tested positive for depleted uranium contamination. They are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. After repeatedly being denied testing for depleted uranium from Army doctors, the soldiers contacted The News who paid to have them tested as part of their investigation. Testing for uranium isotopes in 24 hours' worth of urine samples can cost as much as $1,000 each. In a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive, three of the contaminated soldiers speak out. Army officials at Fort Dix and Walter Reed Army Medical Center are now rushing to test all returning members of the 442nd. More than a dozen members are back in the U.S. but the rest of the company, mostly comprised of New York City cops, firefighters and correction officers, is not due to return from Iraq until later this month. After learning of The News' investigation, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) blasted Pentagon officials yesterday for not properly screening soldiers returning from Iraq. Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she will write to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld demanding answers and soon will introduce legislation to require health screenings for all returning troops. Depleted Uranium is considered to be the most effective anti-tank weapon ever devised. It is made from nuclear waste left over from the making nuclear weapons and fuel. The public first became aware the US military was using DU weapons during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But it had been used as far back as the 1973 Yom Kippur war in Israel. Amid growing controversy in Europe and Japan, the European Parliament called last year for a moratorium on its use. + Sgt. Herbert Reed, assistant deputy warden at Rikers Island with 442nd military police company of New York Army National Guard. He did not test positive for depleted uranium, but has uranium 236, a uranium isotope not found in nature. + Sgt. Agustin Matos, was deployed in Iraq with the 442nd Military Police. He is among the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. + Sgt. Hector Vega, among the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. + Dr. Asaf Durakovic, colonel in army reserves who served in first Gulf War. He is one of the first doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare. He tested the nine men at the request of the Daily News. + Leonard Dietz, retired physicist from Knolls Atomic Laboratory in upstate New York. Pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes. ***************************************************************** 32 NIRS/Public Citizen intervene against LES uranium enrichment Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 17:57:13 -0700 Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) * Public Citizen Southwest Research and Information Center News Release For Immediate Release: Contact: Michael Mariotte, NIRS, 202-328-0002 April 6, 2004 Don Hancock, SRIC, 505-262-1862 Wenonah Hauter, Public Citizen, 202-454-5150 Groups Petition Government to Participate in Licensing Hearing for New Mexico Nuclear Plant Washington, D.C. - Citing serious inconsistencies and deficiencies in the application for a nuclear plant in southeastern New Mexico, including the lack of a concrete disposal plan for nuclear waste, Public Citizen and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) today jointly petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to participate in the forthcoming licensing proceeding for the proposed facility. A license for the plant--a uranium enrichment facility that would produce fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors--is sought by a multinational group of energy companies called Louisiana Energy Services (LES), which is dominated by the European consortium Urenco. The plant, dubbed the "National Enrichment Facility" (NEF), would produce fuel for nuclear power reactors, and would be located near Eunice, N.M., close to the Texas border. "The license application presented by LES is replete with inaccuracies and blatant omissions," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "We intend to call LES to task on these deficiencies." The groups represent their members living near the site of the proposed facility. The residents are concerned with the myriad shortcomings, misrepresentations, and unlawful aspects of the application, including LES's lack of a concrete strategy to dispose of its hazardous and radioactive waste. Public Citizen and NIRS also cited problems with the NEF application in its treatment of water resources, national security and nuclear proliferation issues, the need for the facility, and the cost of decommissioning the plant when it has ceased operation. Participation in the licensing proceeding will allow the groups the opportunity to formally raise their concerns about the plant to the NRC's licensing board. "It is essential that these contentions be heard before the NRC even considers granting LES a license," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS. "Our members in New Mexico--and the public at-large--deserve a licensing hearing in which LES's plans come under strict scrutiny." This is LES's third attempt to secure a site for its nuclear plant. The company withdrew its application to build a similar plant in Louisiana after nearly a decade of intense citizen opposition. LES made another attempt to locate the plant in Tennessee, but was again expelled by local opponents before it had a chance to submit an application to the NRC. Citizens were concerned about the company's misleading statements and lack of a clear plan for the disposal of its waste. "Many New Mexicans are very pleased that NIRS and Public Citizen are bringing national exposure to the licensing proceeding and that they are raising very important contentions," said Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program at the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center. "New Mexico has suffered for decades from the deadly effects of uranium mining and milling, and we don't need additional uranium production facilities." The NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will determine whether the contentions presented by NIRS and Public Citizen are admissible in the licensing proceeding for the NEF. If admitted, the groups will participate as a party in the proceeding. "My clients have presented a compelling case to be admitted as a party in the licensing hearing," said Lindsay Lovejoy, an attorney in Santa Fe, N.M., representing the groups. "The process would, no doubt, benefit from their inclusion." To view the petition to intervene in the licensing proceeding and the supporting contentions, please go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/lescontention.pdf. The petition is also available in .html format at http://www.nirs.org For a corporate profile on Urenco, please go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/urenco.pdf. ### Public Citizen is a national consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please go to www.citizen.org. Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is the information and networking center for citizens and environmental organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation, and sustainable energy issues. For more information, please go to www.nirs.org. Southwest Information and Research Center is based in Albuquerque, N.M., and works to protect natural resources, promote citizen participation, and ensure environmental and social justice now and for future generations. For more information, please go to www.sric.org. This is the NIRS E-Mail Alert list. You are on this list because you signed up on our website, at a NIRS table at a concert, on a petition, or directly to NIRS. Your name and address are never sold, rented, or traded with anyone for any reason. For address changes or to unsubscribe, just send an e-mail to nirsnet@nirs.org. If you have friends or colleagues who would like to be on this list, have them send a note to nirsnet@nirs.org ***************************************************************** 33 Guardian Unlimited: Energy Dept. Threatens No Nuclear Cleanup Wednesday April 7, 2004 11:31 PM By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department is threatening to withhold $350 million that was to pay for disposal of some of the most dangerous radioactive waste from Cold War bomb-making. First, it says, Congress and state officials must accept a cleanup plan already rejected in court. The issue has pitted a half dozen states against the Bush administration - raising concern that some of the millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste that are supposed to be solidified and buried by the government may, in fact, remain in place. ``I will not allow DOE to hold this work hostage, or to hold this budget hostage,'' Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, told the head of the Energy Department cleanup effort at a recent hearing. On Capitol Hill and in the states facing the cleanup task, critics are accusing the department of trying to force states to accept less stringent cleanup standards to save money and finish the job more quickly. The department argues that some of the waste has a low enough level of radioactivity that it can be covered with cement ground and left in place. Last year, a federal judge in Idaho said the Energy Department's plan to reclassify some of the waste in the tanks as ``low level'' and not remove it for burial violated the law. He said Congress specifically said all the waste, the byproduct of plutonium production during the Cold War, has to be treated as ``high-level'' waste and must be buried in a central facility, probably the planned site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The cleanup at sites in Washington, Idaho, South Carolina and New York is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars and take decades. But the head of the cleanup program, Jessie Roberson, told congressional committees recently that the department has no plans to spend the $350 million earmarked for next fiscal year - and probably won't even ask Congress for it - unless it is allowed to reclassify some of the radioactive waste to make disposal easier and cheaper. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., reminded her that some people have characterized the department's strategy as ``blackmail'' in an attempt to get the federal nuclear waste law changed and circumvent the federal court ruling. The Energy Department is appealing that court case, but would prefer Congress change the law. ``They didn't get their way in court, so now they want the law changed,'' Murray said in an interview. ``Everyone is for accelerated cleanup as long as it's done in a way that protects workers' safety and we don't cut corners.'' The waste, some in leaking tanks, has been described as a ``witch's brew of radioactivity'' left over from nuclear reprocessing. Often only haphazard records were kept as to what actually was being poured into the tanks, according to cleanup engineers. Dealing with this material is at the core of a much broader waste cleanup effort that the Energy Department says will cost $273 billion. The high-level waste include 53 million gallons in tanks at the department's Hanford site near Richland, Wash., 34 million gallons at its Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C., and 900,000 gallons at its INEEL facility in Idaho. Also to be tackled are 600,000 gallons of waste left over from a short-lived civilian reprocessing program near West Valley, N.Y. Roberson told lawmakers recently the department wants to ``aggressively reduce risks'' posed by the tanks but that the Idaho court decision ``makes it difficult, if not impossible'' to proceed with cleanup. As for the $350 million earmarked for dealing with the tanks in the fiscal year beginning in October, Roberson said, ``These funds will be requested only if the legal uncertainties are satisfactorily resolved.'' ``That's extortion,'' complained Susan Gordon, a Seattle activist and national director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability who has closely followed the Hanford and Idaho cleanup issues. She called the reclassification of the waste a ruse to ``fence areas off'' and leave more of the radioactive material behind. But Roberson argued a change in the law is overdue. ``Historically we've taken a simplistic approach to managing (such) waste,'' she maintained. The tank waste has been classified as ``high level'' because of its origin and not its composition, she argued, and Congress should change that to allow quicker and cheaper cleanup without reduced safety. Geoffrey Fettus, the lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council who brought the successful lawsuit challenging the cleanup plan, said there's nothing in the judge's order that prevents the Energy Department from spending the $350 million once Congress appropriates it. ``The judge's decision merely bars DOE from abandoning the waste in the tanks by calling it incidental waste,'' he said in an interview. Tom Cochran, also of the NRDC, said the DOE wants to leave in the tanks material ``that in some cases is more radioactive than the material they propose to take out'' and call it low-level waste by averaging its radioactivity with benign grout that will be poured on top. That's ``phony science,'' said Cochran. Six states have joined in urging the appeals court to uphold the judge's decision. Along with the four states where waste is located, Oregon joined because Hanford lies just across the Columbia River, and New Mexico joined because officials there are concerned a reclassification of the tank waste would result in more of it being shipped to a government repository near Carlsbad. ^--- On the Net: Energy Department: www.energy.gov Alliance for Nuclear Accountability: http://www.ananuclear.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 34 ENS: Formal Hearing on Dry Cask Nuclear Waste Storage Rejected Environment News Service (ENS) WASHINGTON, DC, April 5, 2004 (ENS) - The pleas of residents and officials throughout the New York City area for a formal adjudicatory hearing on a plan to place Indian Point Nuclear Plant's spent reactor fuel in dry cask storage have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The commission said it has received received "a large number of letters" requesting an adjudicatory hearing, but has decided that its regular public information meetings will be sufficient and an adjudicatory hearing is not necessary. Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy group that wants Indian Point shut down permanently, warns that above ground dry cask storage of 1,275 tons of spent nuclear fuel, classified as high-level radioactive waste, at the power plant would be a tempting target for terrorists. Twenty million people live within a 50 mile radius of Indian Point's reactors which are located in northern Westchester County adjacent to the Hudson River, 24 miles north of Manhattan. A large radioactive release triggered by a terrorist attack on or accident at the facility could have devastating health and economic consequences, rendering much of the Hudson River Valley, including New York City, uninhabitable, Riverkeeper warns. [Indian Point] The Indian Point nuclear power plant is on the Hudson River in Westchester County, New York. (Photo courtesy NRC) When nuclear fuel can no longer sustain power production for economic or other reasons, the spent fuel is removed from the reactor and placed in a spent fuel pool. There the hot radioactive spent fuel is cooled for at least one year, and generally five years, before being put into dry casks, the NRC says. The need for alternative storage space has increased as spent fuel pools reach their capacity, and a permanent geological repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada is still not operational. Dry casks, which are heavily shielded containers used to store radioactive material, are currently being used for interim storage in 24 of the 103 operating U.S. nuclear power plants, and their use is expected to grow in the near future. In a letter dated December 29, 2003, Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., which operates Indian Point, notified the NRC of its intent to store spent nuclear fuel in dry casks on the Indian Point site in Westchester County. The NRC wrote in its formal response to the petitioners for a adjudicatory hearing that the dry cask storage design that Entergy plans to use at Indian Point has been reviewed and approved by the NRC through the regular rulemaking process, which included a chance for public comment. NRC's approval of a cask design is provided in a Certificate of Compliance. Entergy will be required to perform evaluations to ensure that the use of the specific dry cask storage system conforms to the Certificate of Compliance and the existing license requirements for Indian Point. Entergy’s evaluations will be subject to NRC inspection. But Riverkeeper is not satisfied that the storage containers, as designed, are sufficient to prevent the release of radiation in the event of a terrorist attack. "Nuclear watchdogs - as well as government and industry officials - contend that the casks are poorly made, unreliable, and vulnerable to terrorist acts," the groups says. [casks] Dry cask spent nuclear fuel storage (Photo courtesy U.S. Energy Department) In its letter of response, the NRC assures the residents and official petitioners that the commission will perform inspections during construction, preoperational testing, and operational activities to ensure that all safety requirements are met for operation of a dry cask storage facility at Indian Point. "We understand that residents and local elected officials have questions and concerns," about the dry cask storage facility, the NRC wrote. During the Annual Assessment meeting with Entergy on April 27, the commission plans to provide an overview of NRC licensing and oversight of dry cask storage systems. After the April 27, 2004 meeting, the NRC plans to hold a separate public meeting in the vicinity of Indian Point to discuss the NRC’s role in the this part of thegeneral licensing process, dry cask storage system technical reviews, and inspection of storage activities. But the public meeting was originally planned for the NRC's regional headquarters in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, 156 miles from Buchanan, New York where Indian Point is located, and Riverkeeper says that only by public pressure was the information meeting even brought to the the vicinity of the plant so that residents of the area could easily attend. NRC says the intent of this public meeting is to provide information about the commission’s oversight, including a discussion of the technical requirements for dry cask storage, and the nature of site specific assessments to be completed by Entergy to demonstrate the dry cask storage system meets all requirements. Still, Riverkeeper says a formal hearing process is needed. "While the informal public meeting that the NRC is planning will allow for public statements and will feature a Q session, a formal hearing process will create an official record of individual comments and will ultimately result in a much more sound system of storing spent fuel at Indian Point," the advocacy group said. That type of formal hearing was rejected by the commission. [pool] Spent nuclear fuel is stored underwater in pools to cool. (Photo courtesy U.S. Energy Department) When spent nuclear fuel has sat underwater in a spent fuel storage pool long enough to have burned off some of its radioactivity, it is removed from the pool and placed inside stainless-steel casks. Those casks are then sealed, filled with an inert gas and transported to an outdoor concrete pad, where they are placed inside specially designed vaults made of steel reinforced concrete. Convective air flow through vents at the top and bottom of the vaults helps ensure that the fuel remains properly cooled. With cask some designs, the steel cylinders containing the fuel are placed vertically in a concrete vault; other designs orient the cylinders horizontally. The concrete vaults provide the radiation shielding. Other cask designs orient the steel cylinder vertically on a concrete pad at a dry cask storage site and use both metal and concrete outer cylinders for radiation shielding. The commission says that dry spent fuel storage in casks is "safe and environmentally sound." Over the last 20 years, there have been no radiation releases which have affected the public, no radioactive contamination, and no known or suspected attempts to sabotage spent fuel casks, the NRC says. Spent fuel is currently kept in dry storage at independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) located at 24 power plant sites, one decommissioned power plant site at Fort St. Vrain, two plants in the process of decommissioning - Rancho Seco and Trojan - and at an interim storage facility operated by the Department of Energy located at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho. One additional ISFSI, the General Electric-Morris Operation in Illinois, is licensed for wet storage of spent fuel. The NRC says the casks are "robust structures designed to withstand events potentially more damaging than earthquakes, such as cask drops, tip-overs, tornadoes, and wind-driven projectiles." To view a map of the 24 power plants with dry cask storage go to: http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/locations.html ***************************************************************** 35 Las Vegas RJ: Nuclear waste shipments end Wednesday, April 07, 2004 Last of 232 cylinders sent to Nevada Test Site from Oak Ridge lab THE ASSOCIATED PRESS OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- A U.S. Department of Energy contractor has finished shipping tons of solidified low-level radioactive waste from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Nevada for disposal, officials announced Tuesday. Since 2000, Bechtel Jacobs, the department's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, has trucked 232 cylinders weighing 10 tons apiece and filled with the waste and cement to the government's Nevada Test Site. Government officials reported all the shipments arrived safely. The project cost $14 million, DOE spokesman Walter Perry said. The lab had stored about 185,000 gallons of low-level waste from research reactors and other nuclear operations in tanks. Some of the waste dated back to the activities in the World War II Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bomb. The shipment is just part of DOE's overall cleanup project in Oak Ridge that includes tearing down huge buildings that housed uranium-processing operations and disposing of more waste and equipment. The cleanup is expected to be completed by 2016. "This is an important milestone in our efforts to accelerate closure by the removal of legacy waste from the Oak Ridge Reservation," said Stephen McCracken, a DOE assistant manager in Oak Ridge. In 1988, Oak Ridge workers began solidifying the waste by mixing it with cement in 800-gallon cylinders. The cylinders, or monoliths as they were called, were placed in concrete shipping casks. Bechtel Jacobs, its subcontractor WESKEM and the lab's National Transportation Research Center designed a trailer to carry the heavy monoliths one by one. Contractors in January started shipping to Nevada more nuclear waste that was processed at a new plant in Oak Ridge built specifically to solidify and package radioactive liquids drawn from sludge storage tanks. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 36 Bellona: Russian nuclear officials offered BNFL further cooperation Former Russian Nuclear Ministry can enrich uranium, nuclear materials shipment, produce nuclear fuel and teach RW and SNF safe handling etc. 2004-04-07 08:39 On February 3 in Moscow Minister of Atomic Energy Alexander Rumyantsev met British Nuclear Fuels Ltd’s, or BNFL, Chief Executive Michael Parker, ITAR-TASS reported. The parties discussed the current cooperation between Minatom’s companies and BNFL in the field of nuclear fuel cycle, reactor installation, nuclear safety improvement, nuclear plant upgrades and enhancement of performance. Russia was also presented by TVEL, Tekhsnabexport and Rosenergoatom companies. The particular issues discussed included interaction between TVEL and BNFL regarding fabrication of fresh nuclear fuel and its components; Tekhsnabexport talked over exports of the Russian uranium enrichment services and nuclear material shipments to foreign customers under the agreement between Tekhsnabexport and BNFL where BNFL secures transportation and logistics services for deliveries of the Russina uranium products under contracts with European and Japanese customers, Nuclear.ru reported. In context of the U.K. program of rendering assistance to Russia to enhance nuclear power plant safety (Nuclear Safety Program – NSP) and cooperation between Rosenergoatom and BNFL the issued were discussed regarding improvement of nuclear safety of reactor installations, upgrades and performance improvement of nuclear power plants, in particular, upgrades of diagnostics and monitoring systems, control and protection systems, radwaste management, increase of load factor, transfer of BNFL’s experience in decommissioning of nuclear power units, and personnel training in accordance with the international quality standards, Nuclear.ru reported. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 37 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Why invite inevitable disaster? Today: April 07, 2004 at 9:11:18 PDT LAS VEGAS SUN In a few years trains loaded with nuclear waste will be creeping past homes all over the country. That is, if the Energy Department prevails in its plan to permanently bury the waste in Nevada. Under this plan, trains will set forth from every region, with their destination being Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. For years the Energy Department was coy on the transportation issue, not wanting to fully commit itself to trains, which are somewhat safer but a lot more expensive than trucks. On Monday, however, the department formally announced that if Yucca Mountain is approved, trains will play the greater role in moving the waste from 127 storage sites around the country. This may have been meant to assuage safety concerns. But the sheer numbers that the Energy Department cited should be enough to awaken this country to the danger -- there will be 3,300 rail shipments over a 24-year-period. Even assuming these numbers have not been understated (and assuming that the Energy Department is even being truthful, given the cost of rail transport), that is a lot of years and a lot of shipments. Accidents would be inevitable. The vulnerability of trains to routine accidents (let alone terrorism) was made crystal clear at last month's meeting of the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington. The board announced its determination that a catastrophic derailment in North Dakota in January 2002 was caused by fractured connector bars, which hold sections of track together. Five tank cars carrying anhydrous ammonia, a poisonous gas, ruptured and the whole area of about 11,600 residents was threatened by vapors. One resident was killed and 300 were injured. The Energy Department also announced Monday that not all of the waste storage sites in the country are accessible by rail, so there will need to be 1,079 shipments by truck. A few hours after the department's announcement a truck in Kentucky loaded with sodium hydrosulfite, a poisonous industrial chemical, "collided with a car and burned through the night," according to an Associated Press report. A sparsely populated area within a one-mile radius of the truck was evacuated. These kinds of accidents are fairly regular occurrences on our nation's highways and railroads. Nuclear shipments, no matter how much thought is put into them, cannot be made immune to human error and the failings of infrastructure. This being known, the country should insist that the waste remain where it is until a safer, saner storage plan can be adopted. We hope the nation's residents begin voicing their concerns now, rather than waiting until the day they see train cars emblazoned with the radiation warning symbol gliding past their windows. By then it will be too late to prevent the inevitable. ***************************************************************** 38 Pahrump Valley Times: YUCCA MOUNTAIN Transports 'mostly' by rail April 7, 2004 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY CLARIFIES NUKE WASTE CONVEYANCE By STEVE TETREAULT PVT WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - The Department of Energy announced Monday it has formalized a decision to ship most nuclear waste by railroad across the country and through rural Nevada to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. The decision marks an early milestone as the government shapes a plan to move 77,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and government radioactive waste from 39 states to be buried in Nevada starting in 2010. "It means we now are going to go forward with transportation planning based on rail," said Allen Benson, spokesman for DOE's Office of Repository Development in Las Vegas. DOE planning also envisions construction of a Nevada railroad along a 330-mile corridor from Caliente to the Yucca repository. That segment also took a step forward with the department's announcement of public scoping meetings in May. At the same time, the announcement also opened the government to fresh criticism from Nevada's elected leaders. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said DOE "is grasping at straws in its haste to ram the project through. "The agency doesn't even know if it can build an entirely new rail line, yet says that's what it intends to do," Reid said. "There is absolutely no way that they can safely transport nuclear waste regardless of how they want to do it." Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said DOE's plan to move ahead while a half dozen lawsuits against the project are pending in federal court "is indicative of the department's arrogance." Outside Nevada, nuclear waste shipping routes across railroad networks in key parts of the country won't be specified for several more years, DOE officials have said. Even under the "mostly rail" scenario DOE has decided to adopt an estimated 1,079 nuclear waste shipments that over 24 years will be sent to Nevada by truck because some nuclear utilities do not have access to rail, according to the government. While DOE managers have said for months they were leaning toward a rail plan, an official designation was greeted by the nuclear industry as a step forward for a key element of the Yucca Mountain Project. "We see this as an important building block, another encouraging sign that (the department) is serious about implementing a national transportation program," said David Blee, spokesman for the U.S. Transport Council, an association of nuclear waste shipping firms. Nevada leaders also have been waiting for the transportation decision, for different reasons. They said the rail designation opens up a new segment of the Yucca program to formal scrutiny and possibly more lawsuits. Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said once a formal record of decision is issued later this week he intends to meet with the state's lawyers to determine if any legal actions will be taken. In comments to the Bureau of Land Management about withdrawing public land for the Caliente rail corridor, state officials raised questions about what they view as DOE's reluctance to follow the National Environmental Policy Act in forming a transportation strategy. "I personally remain of the belief that in the end this is going to be 100 percent truck," Loux said about DOE's strategy to ship the waste mostly by rail instead of by heavy haul trucks. "Rail," he said, "will be too costly and take too much time to build, and there are logistical problems in the rail plan itself that will be too difficult to manage and overcome." Benson said formal notification of the "mostly rail" strategy will be published by Thursday in the Federal Register, along with a notice that the department plans to develop an environmental impact study of the rail corridor through rural Nevada. The Federal Register notice will kick off a 45-day public comment period that will include scoping meetings in Amargosa Valley, Goldfield and Caliente. No meetings are scheduled in Clark County. Benson said the sessions were scheduled for locations along the rural Nevada corridor. Among topics up for discussion at the scoping meetings is whether the Nevada railroad should be used to transport commercial goods when it is not being used for nuclear waste, DOE said. Reid and Ensign charged DOE was moving ahead prematurely as questions mount about a strategy that includes building a rail line across rugged terrain and at costs estimated by the state to top $1 billion. DOE officials confirmed last week they have analyzed a backup plan if a railroad can't be built on time for a planned 2010 repository opening. That plan envisions shipping nuclear waste by rail to Caliente, then trucking the material to the Yucca site. (Las Vegas Review-Journal staff writer Keith Rogers contributed to this story.) webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2003 ***************************************************************** 39 AU ABC ERA: We deeply regret any distress caused by uranium water leak » ABC Darwin Presenter: Julia Christensen Wednesday, 7 April 2004 The Ranger Uranium Mine near Jabiru is fully operational again, two weeks after processing water contaminated fresh water supplies forcing the mine to suspend operations. It's now being reported 24 employees and contractors have reported symptoms of contamination - twice the figure that was previously being quoted. "As people have come back to work and talked to our doctor and the counselling service we have provided they have recalled minor symptoms that they incurred at the time ... and we've obviously been logging those and recording them and discussing them with the individuals because we want to get a comprehensive picture of what has happened," says ERA Chief Executive Harry Kenyon-Slanley. Mr Kenyon-Slanley says the symptoms have been very mild and has defended the way the company dealt with the health concerns. "I don't think it's been a slap-dash manner, what we've been doing is we have been working very closely with them, medical support and we've offered them counselling. "What we've also done is I've written to all staff and contractors yesterday to state that we will be offering any support that they need and we're closing the loop on all the possible symptoms they might have incurred," he says. Mr Kenyon-Slanley says they have also contacted Perth based contractor Paul McDonald, who has spoken out about his experience of drinking the contaminated water, and put him in touch with medical support and counselling services ERA was offering. "I think in these sort of situations you can always do better but we are comfortable with the level of the medical support that we've offered - I've written to everybody yesterday including Mr McDonald to say that we deeply regret the incident, we will offer all medical support that is necessary for as long as it is necessary to everyone," he says. Mr McDonald says this support includes covering travel costs for affected employees as well. Hear Harry Kenyon-Slanley talking to Julia Christensen ***************************************************************** 40 AU ABC: More uranium mine workers report illnesses » Wednesday, 7 April 2004 The operator of the Ranger uranium mine says new reports of illness from contaminated drinking water at the site have surfaced. The company says the extra cases came to light after the company's exhaustive reporting process. Energy Resources of Australia admitted last night that 24 employees had reported illness, double the original number. Chief executive Harry Kenyon-Slaney says some workers have just returned from leave and reported their symptoms in the last few days. "We deeply regret the incident," he said. "We will offer all medical support that is necessary for as long as it is necessary for everyone, and we have been working very closely with them over the last few days." The company has sent a letter to all employees apologising for the incident. ABC CENTRAL AUSTRALIA ***************************************************************** 41 AU ABC: Ranger mine reopens despite recent contamination problem "Australian Broadcasting Corporation PM - Wednesday, 7 April , 2004 18:29:14 Reporter: Anne Barker MARK COLVIN: Why has the Ranger Uranium Mine reopened as normal just two weeks after a number of its workers got sick from radioactive water? The company's owner, Energy Resources Australia (ERA), has now revealed that 24 workers, not the original 12, suffered symptoms after drinking or showering in uranium-contaminated water last month. But with three separate investigations still underway, management is yet to pinpoint who was responsible for the faulty water connection. Anne Barker reports. ANNE BARKER: Two weeks ago workers at the ranger mine clocked off the nightshift and stepped into the showers. Some drank water from the mine's regular drinking supply. A short time later many were complaining of itchy skin, nausea and headaches and before long the alarm bells were ringing. Investigations since then have tried to determine how the mine's drinking water could be contaminated with uranium at 400 times the legal limit. Hayden Stephens is a partner at the legal firm Slater and Gordon, which has offered advice to some of the men affected. HAYDEN STEPHENS: The men in question have suffered some minor symptoms of dizziness and lethargy and migraine since the incident, but of major concern to each of them is the potential for far more serious consequences. The men very much have, at this point in time, been kept in the dark and our first task in representing the men will be to call upon the Ranger Uranium Mine to declare and provide details in relation to their own investigations. This itself has caused extreme stress on the part of the men and their families because they simply just do not know at this point what precisely they were exposed to and the potential for harm. ANNE BARKER: What sort of legal action are they contemplating? HAYDEN STEPHENS: At this point in time we are in the initial stages of looking at potential courses of action, but I must say that my major priority at this stage is to ensure that the men are receiving treatment that they need, that the mine and the authorities within the mine are cooperating with efforts in sharing information. In terms of what potential courses of action flow from that, I'm sure at the appropriate time I'll advise the men, but at this stage I must say my concern is for their health. ANNE BARKER: Initial investigations so far have found the mine's processing water had been wrongly connected to pipes used for drinking and showering - a connection management has only today conceded may have been in place for many months, and not just the hours leading up to the contamination scare. But it's yet to spell out exactly who was responsible or how such a thing could happen in the first place, leaving workers and environmentalists like Peter Robertson, from the Territory's Environment Centre, asking why the mine has been allowed to reopen when investigations are still ongoing. PETER ROBERTSON: We are just as perplexed and astonished as anybody, I think, I mean it really does show that the mining industry has too much power in our society. I mean it's able to dictate to governments, you know, when it will and will not operate, effectively. It undermines any confidence that the public can have in both the regulation of the mine and the mine itself. ANNE BARKER: But Arthur Johnston, the Supervising Scientist appointed to oversee the ranger mine, says he's more than satisfied that proper measures are in place to allow the mine to reopen, even before investigations are complete. ARTHUR JOHNSTON: So far what we've done is really establish in the investigation the primary cause of the incident, and secondly the issues that have led up to that, the conditions that led up to that accident occurring. Having established that and having ensured that measures are now in place to prevent it occurring again, and of course to ensure that the water quality on site is now good, then we really ought to say it was appropriate for the mill to start up again. MARK COLVIN: Anne Barker prepared that report. That was Arthur Johnston, the supervising scientist at ERA, speaking to Anne Barker. ***************************************************************** 42 PR News: Record Number of LES Supporters File With NRC HOBBS, N.M., April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- A record number of supporters have signed up to participate in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license proceeding on behalf of Louisiana Energy Services (LES) proposed National Enrichment Facility (NEF) in Lea County, New Mexico. Lea County Commission Chairman Harry Teague said that "Some 54 people, including educators, scientists, businessmen, community organizations, minority groups, elected officials and others have taken the time and made the effort to request limited appearance participation in this vital proceeding to show their support for the NEF. "We know," Teague said, "that national anti-nuclear groups are trying to kill this project by intervening in the process, despite the fact that these organizations have never been to Lea County nor talked with the people here about the facility. Our community is strongly in favor of the enrichment plant, many of us have seen exactly how it will be built and operated, and we want it here. We will do all we can, in the NRC process, to make sure our community's strong support for the facility is heard." A limited appearance is one way to participate in the NRC license process. A petition for limited appearance means one can: * Make an oral or written statement of position on the issues but may not otherwise participate in the proceedings. * A limited appearance may be made at any session of the hearing or at any pre-hearing conference subject to such limits and conditions as may be imposed by the NRC Hearing Board. Commissioner Teague said that "the strong showing for limited appearances is a continuation of powerful public support that has been demonstrated to the NRC at their two public meetings in Eunice, New Mexico in the last 6 months." "We are overwhelmed and appreciate the support we have received in Lea County," said Marshall Cohen, LES Vice President of Communications and Government. "Our partnership with Lea County citizens and their participation in the NRC process will be instrumental in the success of our facility." The NEF will provide more than 200 permanent jobs and 400 to 800 short-term construction jobs in Southeast New Mexico. When the license application is approved, the NEF will introduce the world's most advanced uranium enrichment technology into the U.S. and provide an alternative, domestic enrichment supply source to U.S. nuclear energy companies. LES is a partnership of major nuclear energy companies. Partners include Urenco, Westinghouse and U.S. energy companies Duke Power, Entergy and Exelon. SOURCE Louisiana Energy Services Copyright © 1996-2004 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 43 Lamonitor: Features GAO examines how laboratories support missions The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor The General Accounting Office has issued a new assessment of contractor performance in mission support activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The GAO study, headed by Robin M. Nazarro, director for natural resources and environment, expands the discussion to include the responsibilities of the National Nuclear Security Administration, DOE's nuclear program manager, and the University of California, which administers the laboratories under a contract with NNSA. A UC letter, responding to the report, accepted the positive parts of the evaluation, and emphasized on-going, aggressive efforts that are only in their second year of implementation. The 38-page report reviews a number of well-publicized problems at the two laboratories in recent years, including business operations at LANL and emergency management and planning at LLNL, but reserves most of its criticism for delays and quality issues relating to safety documentation at nuclear facilities. GAO found that part of the problem is that, although current senior management at both laboratories supports the effort, there has been a long history of emphasizing mission over mission support. The tendency has been shared by NNSA, as well, and the report notes that the federal overseer "has often failed to detect problems when they existed." While acknowledging the reputation of the two laboratories in producing "world-class science," the report takes all the parties to task for a recent history of poor performance in three areas of mission support - project management, facility construction and maintenance, and nuclear safety. Adequate measures have been taken to correct issues previously identified in the first two areas, the report said, but UC-run nuclear weapons labs have not submitted complete documentation for their safety analyses. The laboratories were required to submit the documents by April, last year, affirming that they could meet "new and enhanced safety requirements." "The Los Alamos laboratory initially reported that it had met the deadline for providing assurance," said the report, "but later disclosed to NNSA that some radioactive sites were not included in the original analyses submitted to NNSA." In December 2003, the report said, NNSA rejected seven of the 12 safety analyses and asked for revisions. LLNL failed to get approval on five of its nine required analyses. The University of California responded to the study in a letter dated Feb. 13, 2004, saying they agreed "with GAO's view that substantial progress had been made in correcting identified deficiencies in mission support areas." Writing to NNSA Administrator Linton F. Brooks, Vice President for Laboratory Management S. Robert Foley said the revised documentation is on schedule and in accordance with an agreement with the site office managers at both locations. Much of the report covers issues dating back to 2001, when the UC management contract was extended, and is based on problems identified by NNSA at the time. GAO staff also reviewed government studies and interviewed officials at the laboratories, NNSA and UC. Along with detailing the steps that have been taken to improve performance, the GAO study, which was prepared at the request of Congress, also discusses "challenges to sustaining" those improvements. The report expressed concerns that, in the midst of problems partly stemming from a lack of oversight, a new oversight policy proposed by NNSA in August 2003, "would rely more on contractor oversight and self-assessment and less on NNSA's direct oversight." An official NNSA response from Michael C. Kane, associate administrator for management and administration, dated Feb. 23, 2004, responded to that issue by noting the strong backing given the proposal by the University of California. Foley's letter said the university "fully supports" the plan. "This will require the University, and all other NNSA contractors, to have robust assurance systems that can be used to hold ourselves accountable for performance and to allow NNSA to focus oversight activities on those areas with the most risk," he wrote. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 Oak Ridger: Waste 'monoliths' depart ORNL Story last updated at 12:07 p.m. on April 7, 2004 LOC CHIEF: 'This is one more bad waste stream off the reservation.' By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com The federal government's cleanup contractor has successfully removed more than 200 storage units containing solidified low-level radioactive waste from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. According to the Department of Energy, the operation involved about 185,000 gallons of liquid low-level radioactive waste generated by research and development activities at ORNL since operations began in 1943. Beginning in 1988, the waste was mixed with cement and solidified in what came to be known as "monoliths" - large cylinders around 6.5 feet high and 6.5 feet in diameter, with each one containing about 800 gallons of waste.  Bechtel Jacobs Co. A final check is made on a non-radioactive concrete cask containing a 'monolith' of solidified waste at Oak Ridge National Laboratory before beginning its journey to Nevada for disposal. Bechtel Jacobs Co. and its subcontractor, WESKEM, in conjunction with ORNL's National Transportation Research Center, developed and tested a special trailer to haul the monoliths, which weigh approximately 10 tons each. The monoliths were stored in non-radioactive concrete casks that were also used as shipping casks.  Shipments of the solidified waste began in 2000 and, since then, 232 monoliths have been "transported safely and without incident" to the Nevada Test Site for disposal, according to Steve McCracken, DOE's Oak Ridge cleanup chief. The Nevada Test Site is located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "Our DOE team and our contractors have worked very hard over the past few years to make this happen," McCracken said. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs, said removal of the solidified waste was a big accomplishment in the Oak Ridge cleanup effort the company oversees for the federal government. He described the waste removal as a major ongoing project on DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, was pleased to hear about the completion of the waste shipments. "This is one more bad waste stream off the reservation," said Gawarecki, whose organization closely monitors DOE's local cleanup work. "It's great to see the progress." Before the shipments began, the Local Oversight Committee and the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board were both pushing for the acceptance of the waste at the Nevada Test Site. Gawarecki said representatives of these Oak Ridge stakeholder groups even went to Nevada to meet with their counterparts, state officials and DOE representatives. ***************************************************************** 45 Oak Ridger: EPA to address concerns Story last updated at 11:29 a.m. on April 7, 2004 SCIENTIST: 'We did not underestimate the doses.' By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff Though it's been well publicized that the Environmental Protection Agency has concerns about a public health assessment on uranium releases from Oak Ridge's nuclear weapons plant, the federal organization has yet to address the issue publicly. That could all change when the Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee meets April 13. Consisting of around 20 community members, the subcommittee essentially serves as an advisory group to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry - a federal public health agency involved with hazardous waste issues. "It will just be interesting to listen to what they (EPA) have to say" said Kowetha Davidson, chair of the Health Effects Subcommittee. ATSDR's public health assessment states that past and current off-site exposures to uranium released from the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant pose "no apparent health hazard." What this means is people could've been or were exposed, but the estimated doses weren't at levels expected to cause adverse health effects. The health assessment focuses heavily on the Scarboro neighborhood, located just over a ridge from the weapons plant now known as the Y-12 National Security Complex. EPA Region 4, which serves Tennessee and seven other states in the Southeast, and the agency's Office of Radiation and Indoor Aircommented separately on the document before the final version was recently released. Region 4 agreed there are "no apparent adverse health effects," but took issue with the "dose or risk criteria" ATSDR used for assessing potential long-term chronic cancer risks. However, the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air indicated that it did not agree with ATSDR's final conclusion regarding past uranium exposures - voicing concern over health evaluation criteria used by ATSDR and suggesting the health assessment underestimated some radiation doses, among other things. Jack Hanley, an environmental health scientist with ATSDR, defended the conclusions noted in the health assessment. "We did not underestimate the doses," Hanley said this week. "Those doses are so low that they are below the ATSDR comparison value and below EPA's cleanup level. Therefore, ATSDR's cancer comparison value of 5,000 millirem over seven years is not an issue." A millirem is a unit of radiation exposure. To put this into context, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, exposure from a full set of chest X-rays is about 6 millirem. To come to its conclusions, ATSDR reviewed and evaluated data collected during various studies, including one by Florida A University and the Department of Energy. Released in 1998, the study indicated the Scarboro neighborhood contained elevated levels of contaminants in the soil. In addition, the public health assessment considered community concerns such as exposures through playing in East Fork Poplar Creek, inhaling dust or particles containing uranium, eating vegetables grown in the area, eating fish from East Fork Poplar Creek and consuming meat or milk from cows raised in the creek's floodplain. In a letter dated Nov. 21, 2003, Davidson invited a representative from EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air to a Dec. 2, 2003, subcommittee meeting to discuss the difference of opinions. Elizabeth Cotsworth, director of the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, responded in a letter dated Jan. 9, 2004, that there wasn't enough time following the receipt of Davidson's letter to arrange for a representative to attend the Health Effects Subcommittee meeting. Some subcommittee members have voiced concern EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air has refused to address its comments formally or informally with Health Effects Subcommittee. However, Frank Marcinowski, director of the Radiation Protection Division in EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, said Tuesday that's not the case. "We've already had teleconferences and individual phone calls with ATSDR and members of the committee," he said. In fact, Marcinowski said the Thanksgiving holiday contributed to EPA not being able to send someone to the Dec. 2 meeting. He also acknowledged EPA has received requests to address the subcommittee, but declined to say if it was those requests or concerns voiced by one particular subcommittee member that caused them to schedule the upcoming visit. "Now just seemed like the time when we could coordinate everybody's schedules to get down there," he said. EPA's one-hour portion of the Health Effects Subcommittee meeting is scheduled to begin at 12:45 p.m. April 13 at the Kingston Community Center, 201 Patton Ferry Road in Kingston. The meeting is open to the public. Though the Y-12 uranium releases are an important Oak Ridge issue, Davidson said the location subcommittee meeting was determined before officials knew the EPA was going to speak. The reason for the Kingston location, according to Davidson, is because the subcommittee will be discussing a document pertaining to the release of radionuclides from a DOE facility, which traveled from White Oak Creek to the Clinch River in Roane County. ***************************************************************** 46 Pahrump Valley Times: Nuclear politics April 7, 2004 I attended the recent railroad subcommittee field hearing in Las Vegas and it was politics at its best or worst. First, the hearing wasn't really necessary at this time. The Department of Energy (DOE) has only announced their preference for the Caliente corridor. I think it would have been wise to wait after DOE makes their Record of Decision on the mode and specific corridor and then perhaps hold a hearing, where DOE could give the committee more detailed information about their transportation program plans. It was almost a staged event. I get a kick out of some people too. Mr. Cloobeck is a bright businessman with some political aspirations perhaps, but if he was really worried about the repository at Yucca Mountain, why is he moving ambitiously forward with an impressive multi-million dollar timeshare project on the famed Las Vegas strip? I shake my head. We need to applaud the DOE when they do something right and I just don't see any type of recognition from our elected officials. Our leaders don't want the waste shipped through Las Vegas, so DOE announces a preference for a rural route, keeping the shipment out of Las Vegas. But it's the same old thing: criticize, criticize, criticize - and it's never constructive. It's time our elected officials be constructive and establish a serious dialogue with the federal government and private industry aimed at making this $58 billion project benefit all Nevadans. BILL VASCONI webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2003 ***************************************************************** 47 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:20:33 -0700 (PDT) IRAN Already a Member of World ’ s Nuclear Club Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran ... National Security, Hassan Rowhani, announced on Sunday that the international community should soon accept Iran as a member of the world’s nuclear club and ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN Has Right to Civilian Nuclear Program: Arab Official Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran KUWAIT (IRNA) -- Iran has the right to use nuclear energy peacefully, head of the Arab delegations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mahmud ... See all stories on this topic: ENERGY Dept. Threatens No Nuclear Cleanup Miami Herald - Miami,FL,USA ... Murray, D-Wash., reminded her that some people have characterized the department's strategy as "blackmail" in an attempt to get the federal nuclear waste law ... S. Korea, US, Japan Begin Informal Talks on Nuclear Issue Chosun Ilbo - South Korea High on the agenda are ways to kick start working-level discussions to proceed with the six-nation dialogue on North Korea's nuclear tension. ... See all stories on this topic: BRAZIL has the right to guard its nuclear secrets: top scientist SpaceDaily - USA ... process is not secret, but Brazil has "technical solutions" that it has the right to keep confidential, one of the country's top nuclear scientist told AFP ... See all stories on this topic: US satellite once mistook Hakka residence as nuclear base People's Daily - China ... We are not joking here to use 'group'. The group nuclear base is likely to be a fact. According to our report through the KH22 ... FOR Pakistan it ’ s nuclear ‘ déjà vu all over again ’ Daily Times - Pakistan WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s denials of any nuclear wrongdoing, according to one expert, may once again get it out of trouble, as they have done in the past. ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR Fuels Firm May Be Interested in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Cleanup ... Miami Herald - Miami,FL,USA The company is showing renewed interest in the nuclear cleanup, the biggest in Oak Ridge history, after spurning an involvement some months back. ... See all stories on this topic: TALK of replacement of USS Kitty Hawk by nuclear carrier spurs ... Pacific Stars and Stripes - Naha,Japan ... Many news sources in Japan interpreted that as meaning a nuclear-powered carrier. Alarmed by those reports, an anti-nuclear citizens ... 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/ ***************************************************************** 48 Microorganism Cleans Up Toxic Groundwater Summary A microorganism too small to see with the naked eye may be the answer to one of the U.S. Department of Energy's largest environmental problems: hundreds of billions of gallons of groundwater contaminated with uranium and other toxic chemicals—the byproducts of nuclear bombs made during the Cold War. Earthpulse -----> + "nationalgeographic.com" John Roach for National Geographic News April 7, 2004 THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES — --> A microorganism too small to see with the naked eye may be the answer to one of the U.S. Department of Energy's largest environmental problems: hundreds of billions of gallons of groundwater contaminated with uranium and other toxic chemicals. The microorganism, called Geobacter sulferreducens, has a unique metabolism—it passes electrons onto metals to get energy from its food in the same way that we humans breathe in oxygen to break down our food. In the electron transfer process, the microorganism changes the metals from their dissolved, or soluble, form to a solid, or insoluble, form. This causes the metal to fall out of the groundwater. Read the full story >> [Uranium disposal containers stacked underground] Researchers believe a tiny microorganism may help the U.S. Department of Energy to clean up uranium that has leaked into groundwater. Above: a radioactive waste storage facility. Photograph by Emory Kristof, copyright National Geographic Society Mount Everest Expeditions, crossheads in plain s. --> "Basically what that allows us to do is to take uranium dispersed in a large area, filter it out from the water, and capture it in a discreet zone so that it is easy to excavate or otherwise extract," said Derek Lovley, a microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1987, Lovley discovered that Geobacter uses iron oxide—essentially rust—to survive. He has since found some 30 different species of the organism and learned they can be coaxed to "breathe" all kinds of metals. Working with the U.S. Department of Energy, Lovley and his colleagues are in the third year of a project designed to coax Geobacter to thrive on uranium in contaminated groundwater. Teresa Fryberger, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Remediation Sciences Division, said approaches like Geobacter to cleanup contaminated groundwater are needed to overcome the limitations of current technologies. Currently the department pumps contaminated groundwater to the surface, treats it to remove contaminants, and then re-injects it to the ground. "In most cases it cannot completely remove the contamination and is not capable of resolving groundwater contamination problems such as those resulting from uranium contamination at many DOE [Department of Energy] sites," Fryberger said. Uranium Contamination The problem of uranium-contaminated groundwater dates back to the Cold War when mines and mills throughout the United States produced millions of tons of uranium oxide, or yellowcake, to build nuclear bombs. When the mills shut down in the 1970s, radioactive wastes were left behind. Today this waste is seeping into and contaminating the nation's groundwater. People who drink the water are at risk of kidney damage and cancer. "Within the DOE complex, uranium contamination of soils and groundwater is widespread because it was mined, milled, refined, purified, enriched, fabricated, and reprocessed with each step typically taking place at a different location," Fryberger said. According to Lovley, exact figures on the extent of uranium-contaminated groundwater are difficult to come by, but he said, "It's massive." "To try to clean up all existing uranium contaminated sites with current technology—the non-biological things—it would basically bankrupt the country," Lovley said. "The costs are too much. That's why we're looking for simpler and cheaper methods." Is Geobacter the cheap and simple answer? The researchers are testing the microorganism at an abandoned uranium mining and mill site near the town of Rifle in western Colorado. Field Tests Geobacter are naturally present in the groundwater at the Rifle site, but they thrive mostly on iron oxide and their populations are relatively small. From previous work Lovley and his colleagues know that Geobacter's favorite food is acetate—essentially vinegar. When acetate is abundant, Geobacter populations explode. So the researchers drilled a few pipes into the ground at the Rifle test site and let the acetate slowly drip into the groundwater to encourage a population explosion. According to the scientists' theory, if the population explodes, the microbes will exhaust the iron oxide supply and turn their attention to the dissolved uranium. To test this hypothesis, the researchers drilled a series of wells downstream from where they dripped the acetate and periodically took water samples. By the end of the 2003 field session, the scientists had refined their technique to the point of removing about 90 percent of the uranium from the groundwater. Instead of digging down and removing the solid uranium, the scientists allow the solid, immobile form to stay in the ground. "As long as we stabilize these uranium-contaminated environments that are near a river, as long as it won't be carried to the river, people are going to be very happy," Lovley said. To ramp up the technology, Lovley and his team are now developing a computer model that describes the way the microbes respond to different conditions in the environment. The team also recently sequenced the genome of Geobacter sulferreducens, which has provided insight to the way the microbe functions. Fryberger, the DOE research director, said that she and her colleagues are "excited about Dr. Lovley's results from the old Rifle site. This work has shown that microbial immobilization of uranium can be accomplished outside of the laboratory." One question for the Department of Energy going forward is the long-term stability of the immobilized uranium created by the microbial interactions. Another concern raised by Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland, is the long-term effect of wide-scale applications of the microbes. "We are not attending to unforeseen consequences of long-term changes in the organisms and what damage that might cause to the ecosystems," Makhijani said. For more microbe news, scroll down for related stories and links. News Home Search at nationalgeographic.com : --> Write the Editor | Masthead| nationalgeographic.com E-mail 2004 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************