***************************************************************** 04/14/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.90 ***************************************************************** 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 [NYTr] More Reports on US Hiding WMDs in Iraq 2 AFP: Pakistani revelations on N. Korean nuclear bombs "unclear" - SK 3 New York Times: Cheney Presses Beijing on North Korea 4 Hi Pakistan: Dr Khan's information exposes N. Korea --> 5 US: Cato: Believe Richard Clarke? 6 US: Durango Herald: Physicians can change nuclear views 7 Reuters: Mexico Backs Brazil in Nuclear Inspections Dispute 8 The Hindu: N-tests showed NDA's bold stand, cliams BJP 9 AU ABC: China pushes US vice president for support on Taiwan 10 Hi Pakistan: N-plan not financed by Muslim states: Benazir --> 11 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan proposes changes in draft: UN resolution on no 12 UPI: Bhutto on Pakistan nuclear history 13 Guardian Unlimited: Israel Whistleblower to Face Restrictions NUCLEAR REACTORS 14 US: NRC: [Docket Nos. 50-327 and 50-328] Sequoyah 1 & 2 15 Interfax: Russian nuclear power sector may need $47 bln by 2020 16 US: Hi Pakistan: Re-emergence of US nuclear industry - By David Teat 17 ITAR-TASS: Russian atomic energy industry needs larger investments 18 SMN: Bulgaria: Lighting Up NUCLEAR SAFETY 19 [gulflink] Iraq: DU contamination in the field 20 US: Thom Hartmann Radio Interview with Leuren Moret on DU - April 15 21 US: Gallup Independent: Dinι Prez: Until you find a cure for cancer, 22 US: NRC: Standard Review Plan, Chapter 18.0, ``Human Factors NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 23 NRC: RC Approves Restart of Second Stage in Uranium Hexafluoride Pro 24 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Colorado River is ranked most endangered by g 25 US: the desert sun: Colorado River tops endangered list 26 US: New York Times: Pollution Study Favors Regulation 27 US: thespectrum: Endangered waters - Nitrates, rocket fuel and urani 28 Las Vegas RJ: Auditors find flaws in Yucca documents 29 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca licensing process could be delayed 30 US: Times Argus: Marshfield water problems elude solution 31 US: LA Times: Threats to Colorado River Cited 32 Pahrump Valley Times: Faculty exposed to Yucca Mountain 33 Pahrump Valley Times: Nuke waste transport hearings scheduled 34 US: Deseretnews: Goshute leader should testify, magistrate says 35 US: KOB TV: DOE cuts funding to WIPP isolation facility 36 US: Deseret news: Colorado tops list of rivers in danger 37 US: Rocky Mountain News: Colorado River labeled most endangered in U 38 US: Guardian Unlimited: Shoot it at the sun. Send it to Earth's core NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 39 Tri-City Herald: Tri-City DOE professionals unionize 40 Oak Ridger: EPA, ATSDR disagreement spurs forum 41 Tri-Valley Herald: U.S. nuke program criticized OTHER NUCLEAR 42 Google News Alert - nuclear ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] More Reports on US Hiding WMDs in Iraq Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 11:09:00 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [This is the original Mehr story, with more details. It sounds a little hokey and hard to believe, it also completely overblows the impact of the "9/11 scandal" in the US, where very few people are aware of all the bizarre 'coincidences' that would be required for the attacks to be completed successfully. But for what it's worth...] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0413-02.htm Published on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 by the Mehr News Agency (Tehran, Iran) New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq BASRA -- Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed. Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bush's public opinion rating as the election approaches. Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country. An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor's Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Iraqi officials including forces loyal to the Iraqi Governing Council stationed in southern Iraq have been forbidden from inspecting or supervising the transportation of these consignments. He went on to say that the occupation forces have ordered Iraqi officials to forward any questions on the issue to the coalition forces. Even the officials of the international relief organizations have informed the Iraqi officials that they would only accept responsibility for relief shipments which have been registered and managed by their organizations. The Iraqi source also confirmed the report about suspicious trucks with fake Saudi and Jordanian license plates entering Iraq at night last week, stressing that the Saudi and Jordanian border guards did not attempt to inspect the trucks but simply delivered them to the U.S. and British forces stationed on Iraq's borders. However, the source expressed ignorance whether the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan were aware of such movements. A professor of physics at Baghdad University also told the MNA correspondent that a group of his colleagues who are highly specialized in military, chemical and biological fields have been either bribed or threatened during the last weeks to provide written information on what they know about various programs and research centers and the possible storage of WMD equipment. The professor also said these people have been openly asked to confirm or deny the existence of research or related WMD equipment. A large number of these scientists, who are believed to be under the surveillance of U.S. intelligence operatives, have claimed that if they refuse to comply with this request, they may be killed or arrested on charges of concealing the truth if these weapons are found by the Bush administration in the future. He said that the Iraqi scientists believe their lives would be in danger if they decline to cooperate with the occupation forces, especially when they recall that senior U.S. officer Michael Peterson once said, "Iraqi scientists are at any case a threat to the U.S. administration, whether they talk or not." A source close to the Iraqi Governing Council said, "In the meantime, many suspect containers disguised as fuel supplies have been moved about by some units of the U.S. special forces. The move has been carried out under heavy security measures. Also, there are unofficial reports that the containers held biological and bacteriological toxins in liquid form. It is possible that the news about the discovery of the WMDs would be announced later." He also said that such mixtures had been used by the Saddam regime in the 1990s. The source added that some provocative actions such as the closure of Al-Hawza periodical by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, the secret meetings between his envoys with some extremist groups who have no relations with the Iraqi Governing Council, the sudden upsurge in violence in central and southern Iraq, a number of activities which have stoked up the wrath of the prominent Shia clerics, and finally, the spate of kidnappings and the baseless charges against the Iranian charge d'affaires in Baghdad are providing the necessary smokescreen for the transportation of the WMD to their intended locations. He said they are quite aware that the White House in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has directly tasked the Defense Department to hide these weapons. Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bush's public opinion rating as the election approaches. Copyright 2004 Mehr News Agency * To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://tania.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: Pakistani revelations on N. Korean nuclear bombs "unclear" - SKorea FM [http://www.spacewar.com/] SEOUL (AFP) Apr 14, 2004 Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon confirmed Wednesday that South Korea had received information from Pakistan concerning North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities but the contents were unclear. Ban's remarks followed a US news report that Pakistan had told the United States and Asian allies that a top Pakistani nuclear scientist had been shown three nuclear devices at a secret underground nuclear plant in North Korea. "We have recently received related information, but the contents are still unclear in substance and partially vague in terms of circumstances," Ban told a weekly briefing. "We are making additional efforts to verify it." South Korea, the United States and Japan were "in close consultation" on information supplied by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan who had been involved in North Korea's nuclear weapons drive, Ban said. Ban said Seoul was asking additional questions which have yet to be answered by the Pakistani side. South Korea still sticks to its established evaluation of North Korea's nuclear capabilities -- that Pyongyang may possess enough plutonium for producing one or two nuclear bombs, he said. The New York Times quoted US and Asian officials briefed by Pakistan as saying Tuesday that Khan had told investigators that North Korea had shown him three nuclear devices at a secret underground nuclear plant five years ago. The United States has accused North Korea of pursuing uranium-enriched nuclear weapons and says it has an intelligence assessment that Pyongyang has produced one or two plutonium-based nuclear weapons. North Korea has been locked in a standoff with the United States over Washington's demand for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear programs. North Korea, which denies running an enriched-uranium program, said it will freeze its nuclar weapons drive only in return for rewards from the United States. China has hosted six-party talks involving the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and North Korea to ease the nuclear standoff. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 3 New York Times: Cheney Presses Beijing on North Korea By JOSEPH KAHN Published: April 14, 2004 [B] EIJING, April 14 — Vice President Dick Cheney presented Chinese leaders with new evidence about the scope of North Korea's nuclear program and warned that "time is not necessarily on our side" in continuing negotiations, a senior Bush administration official said today. Mr. Cheney told President Hu Jintao and other top leaders that the United States remained committed to six-nation talks that have met twice under Chinese auspices, so far without tangible progress, to find a solution to the nuclear standoff. But he stressed that the talks must show "real results" soon, without setting a timetable. "It is important to stay engaged and to make progress," the senior official said. "But we need to keep in mind that we need results and that they are developing nuclear weapons as we deliberate." The discussions about North Korea were held during Mr. Cheney's three-day visit to China, his first as vice president. The two sides also addressed China's tense relations with Taiwan, its large trade surplus with the United States, and American concerns about human rights abuses here. American officials emphasized that they had held talks about China's wireless encryption standards and its poor enforcement of intellectual property rights, among the top concerns of American companies that do business here. Chinese leaders told Mr. Cheney that they plan to send Huang Ju, an executive vice prime minister, to the United States later this year to discuss currency policy, another sore point in bilateral ties. The visit was the most extensive exchange between the Bush administration and top Chinese leaders since the Communist Party handed power to Mr. Hu in late 2002. Mr. Cheney first came to China with former President Gerald R. Ford in 1975, but had not visited during the decade-long economic boom that has transformed the economy and the urban contours of Beijing. Today Mr. Cheney and Mr. Hu had two hours of talks over lunch in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Mr. Cheney also met Jiang Zemin, Mr. Hu's predecessor as president and Communist Party chief who remains China's top military official. He discussed economic issues with Wen Jiabao, the prime minister. Vice President Zeng Qinghong, who is thought to exercise extensive behind-the-scenes influence in the ruling party, was the host for Mr. Cheney at a dinner Tuesday night at the Great Hall of the People. Before leaving Beijing for Shanghai this afternoon, Mr. Cheney praised what he called the professionalism of the new leadership and talked of "shared concerns and strategic interests." But he said "it would be a mistake for us to underestimate the extent of the differences" between the two countries. "I did not come here expecting to alter Chinese policy," Mr. Cheney said. "I did come to make clear our views and share perspectives, and I think we achieved that." On North Korea, Mr. Cheney "brought to the attention" of Chinese leaders a report in The New York Times on Tuesday about the North's nuclear program, the senior official said. That report quoted Bush administration and Asian officials as saying that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who has acknowledged selling weapons technology around the world, claims to have seen three nuclear devices in North Korea five years ago. Although American officials had estimated that North Korea could have two or more nuclear devices, Dr. Khan's report, if true, would be the only first-hand validation that the North has a small arsenal. Chinese officials have raised doubts that the North, its neighbor and one-time ally, has working nuclear weapons. Beijing has cited faulty intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as one reason that it is opposed to taking precipitous action against North Korea. Mr. Cheney told his Chinese counterparts that Dr. Khan's confession also shows that North Korea has been pursuing two ways of making nuclear bombs — through plutonium and enriched uranium. That is another subject of dispute between China and the United States. "What is new is what we have learned about their capability," the senior administration official said. The official implied that China, which exercises considerable influence over North Korea, needs to achieve a breakthrough in coming talks to forestall sanctions against the North. China is expected to act as host at a third round of negotiations before the end of June, and may convene a working group to search for common ground before then. China's main concern during Mr. Cheney's visit was Taiwan, which it claims as its territory, and the recent narrow re-election of President Chen Shui-bian, whom Beijing views as determined to formally establish Taiwan as an independent nation. Though Chinese officials pressed Mr. Cheney to reduce American arms sales to Taiwan as a way of restraining Mr. Chen, Mr. Cheney rejected those demands and stuck closely to established American policy. "We are going to assist Taiwan to acquire the capability to defend itself," the senior administration official said, adding that China had "significantly increased" its own military deployments against Taiwan in recent years. The official said Mr. Cheney did not make a "formal offer" to act as an intermediary between China and Taiwan, but did stress the importance of opening a dialogue soon "to eliminate miscalculations and avoid a confrontation that is not in anyone's interest." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 4 Hi Pakistan: Dr Khan's information exposes N. Korea --> April 15 2004 WASHINGTON: The United States said on Tuesday that the information it had received from scientist Dr A.Q. Khan had enabled it to expose North Korea's claims that it did not have a nuclear weapons programme. "We would note that Mr Khan has admitted to assisting North Korea's enrichment programme, and his admissions have put the lie to North Korea's denials," the state department's spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing. The spokesman, however, said he could not comment on a report published in the New York Times on Tuesday that Dr Khan had visited an underground nuclear weapons site in North Korea. "As far as specific visits and information about Mr Khan, I think that would have to come from him or the Pakistani government. There are things about US intelligence in there that, again, I can't get into," he said. Mr Boucher said US authorities were working very closely with Pakistan to "dismantle the A.Q. Khan network. That's been our primary goal, as Secretary Powell stated during his visit there... been working very hard with them to do that." Asked if the US was getting everything it wanted from Dr Khan, the spokesman said: "I don't think I can quite make that judgment at this point." Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Cato: Believe Richard Clarke? [The Cato Institute] April 14, 2004 by Doug Bandow Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a syndicated columnist. The ever nastier fight between former terrorism chief Richard Clarke and manifold Bush officials has taken on a "he said, she said" quality. It's hard to know who to believe. But having routinely undercut his credibility elsewhere, President George W. Bush should bear the burden of proof vis-a-vis Clarke. While Clarke was making his case before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, was telling the House Ways and Means Committee that he shared estimates of the burgeoning cost of the proposed Medicare drug bill with administration officials last summer. Yet former Medicare administrator Thomas Scully threatened to fire Foster if the latter released the estimates to Congress. "We can't let that get out," Foster said Scully told him. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has reluctantly ordered an investigation, but that's not nearly enough. Scully has denied the charge, saying that his threat to fire Foster was made in jest. But Scully admits that he ordered Foster to stonewall Congress at one point because, Scully believed, Democrats would use the estimates for political advantage. The political advantage of non-disclosure accrued to the administration, however: Foster warned that the legislation would cost an extra $100 billion to $200 billion over its first 10 years, an increase of between 25 percent and 50 percent. Had Congress learned the truth, legislators would have killed the proposal, which passed by just five votes. Indeed, Republican conservatives, many of whom voted yea only under enormous administration pressure, were particularly insistent on limiting costs. "I think a lot of people probably would have reconsidered because we said the $400 billion was our top of the line," explains Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C. Even so, only blatant intimidation allowed the GOP leadership to eke out a narrow victory. Then came the administration's January admission, just weeks after the bill's passage, that the legislation would cost at least one-third more than expected, $434 billion instead of $395 billion. Although the GOP Congress voted in 1997 to prevent the Clinton administration from hindering legislators' access to the Medicare actuary, Bush administration officials disclaimed any responsibility for alerting Congress to changing cost figures. Last year, Scully said that the Medicare actuary worked for the executive branch and that he, Scully, would release cost estimates "if I feel like it." Which he obviously didn't. Once the revised number emerged, Thompson said nothing: "I did not tell them because it was not my responsibility." Apparently his only responsibility was winning votes by hoodwinking the people's elected representatives. The president has said nothing about this scandal so far. Equally serious is the weapons of mass destruction fiasco. The president, vice president, secretary of state and secretary of defense painted a veritable arsenal of horrors. Nuclear weapons programs, anthrax, biotoxins, chemical weapons, nerve agents, smallpox, biological weapons trailers, unmanned aerial vehicles, long-range ballistic missiles and more were being developed and deployed for use against America. Said President Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And this threat was direct, imminent, significant, urgent, gathering and mounting. Indeed, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world." Of course, none of these claims were true. And administration officials had reason to know, or at least suspect, that many of them were false. Observed John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman of the New Republic, "Unbeknownst to the public, the administration faced equally serious opposition within its own intelligence agencies." The CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Air Force, State Department's intelligence bureau, Department of Energy, and International Atomic Energy Agency criticized various administration claims. The top-secret National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq included some 40 caveats, which were left out of the public version. Moreover, the United Nations inspectors actively traversing Iraq found nothing. At no point has the president or his advisers accepted responsibility. At worst, they appear to be conscious liars. At best they seem deceitful and manipulative. That doesn't mean that Clarke is right and the administration is wrong. But it does mean people are understandably suspicious of administration excuses. Indeed, it's why President Bush's trustworthiness ratings have fallen. The president and administration officials have no one to blame but themselves. Instead of attempting to trash Clarke's reputation, the president should work to rehabilitate his own. A verbal acknowledgement of responsibility for past misstatements would be nice. Firing someone would be even better. Trust, once squandered, is hard to regain. That is why the administration risks losing its high-stakes showdown with Clarke -- and the election in November. 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20001-5403 Phone (202) 842-0200 Fax (202) 842-3490 All Rights Reserved © 2004 Cato Institute All Rights Reserved © 2002 Cato Institute --> ***************************************************************** 6 Durango Herald: Physicians can change nuclear views [http://www.durangoherald.com] Wednesday, April 14, 2004 April 14, 2004 By Dale Rodebaugh Herald Staff Writer The health-care community has the credibility to confront politicians and banish the threat of nuclear weapons, nuclear war and nuclear waste, a pediatrician-turned-advocate said Tuesday. "We're on the edge of a precipice," Helen Caldicott told 80 physicians, nurses and community members in a talk at Mercy Medical Center. "The introduction of a nuclear winter would end life on Earth." Caldicott, president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute in Washington and Nobel Prize nominee, grounded attendees with a 30-minute physics lesson in which she went over the characteristics and effects of uranium, radium and plutonium. One pound of plutonium, she said, uniformly distributed, could kill every human on Earth. The world almost got rid of nuclear weapons in the 1980s, Caldicott said. Eighty percent of U.S. citizens supported the Nuclear Weapons Freeze, and President Reagan and Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev almost reached agreement on such a pact. But the deal fell through, leaving the world as President John F. Kennedy noted earlier with the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over its head. The United States holds the fate of the world in its hands, Caldicott said. She urged people in the health-care field to join the effort to end the reliance on and threat of nuclear power. "We have the credibility to take on politicians," Caldicott said. "This is the ultimate issue of global preventive medicine." Caldicott also talked about the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, inter-governmental close calls with nuclear disaster and existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons that could wipe out civilization. The realization of what the development of atomic power wrought, Caldicott said, led J. Robert Oppenheimer, credited as the father of the atomic bomb, to say: "I've become Death, the shatterer of worlds. I've known sin and have been sinning ever since." Caldicott, 65, graduated from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961. She began her anti-nuclear activism in 1971 with a warning to the Australian public about the potential consequences of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons by the French in the South Pacific. In 1975, Caldicott moved to the United States and became an associate at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston and an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She revived the group Physicians for Social Responsibility in 1978 - redirecting its efforts to the health risks posed by nuclear power. Her books include Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (1984) and If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992). Caldicott said heroes the world over - honored by public statues - have been people who killed. In primitive times, the killer instinct was useful because it drove men to fight the mastodon and saber-toothed tiger and preserve their civilization. But the modern world must outgrow such a mentality, she said. Great literature, music and art, too, pay homage to war, she said. Caldicott quoted Albert Einstein: "The splitting of the atom changed everything except men's mode of thinking." Reach Staff Writer Dale Rodebaugh here . Contents copyright © , the Durango Herald. All rights reserved. Home | Search | News | ***************************************************************** 7 Reuters: Mexico Backs Brazil in Nuclear Inspections Dispute Tue Apr 13, 2004 07:07 PM ET By Axel Bugge BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Mexico offered support on Tuesday for Brazil, which is resisting U.S. pressure to sign a protocol allowing surprise, intrusive inspections of nuclear facilities. In an unusual show of support from a country which often sides with the United States on security issues, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said that Brazil clearly renounced any non-peaceful nuclear ambitions. Brazil has signed the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which declared Latin America free of nuclear weapons, he said. "Brazil is a signatory, it has ratified it, and as such it seems to us that both the government and the country has given its word and no further action is necessary in respect to this issue," Derbez said during a trip to Brasilia. Brazil is preparing to start enriching uranium for nuclear power this year, making it one of a small group of countries to master such technology. The move drew attention after reports that Brazil had denied inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to the plant. Washington wants Brazil to sign the protocol to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would allow for more intrusive inspections of the plant. Brazil has said it does not want to put its proprietary research at risk. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Brasilia was "extremely happy" to have Mexico's support. "We expect from our friends that they have confidence in us," he said. Brazil and Mexico are Latin America's largest countries. Although they sometimes jostle for regional clout, they were united by their common opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Some Brazilian officials have bristled at the idea of it signing the protocol because there has been a failure to differentiate it from Iran, which the United States says has nuclear ambitions. Brazil's constitution bans it from producing the bomb. A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia said the pressure to sign the protocol should be seen in the overall context of President Bush's administration calling on all countries to sign it. The Bush administration wants countries to sign the protocol as part of its drive to ensure nuclear materials never fall into the hands of militants. The European Union also wants Brazil to sign the protocol. The issue could heat up in coming days with a visit to Brazil by U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. ***************************************************************** 8 The Hindu: N-tests showed NDA's bold stand, cliams BJP Wednesday, April 14, 2004 : 1810 Hrs + [http://www.hindu.com Chennai, April 14. (PTI): Justifying the Vajpayee-led NDA Government's decision to go in for Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998, BJP Tamil Nadu Secretary H Raja, today said it only showed the Central Government's "bold stand" when the security of the country was at stake. He told newsmen here that a move to conduct a nuclear test was dropped in between during the Narasimha Rao Government because of a "warning" by the U.S. However, Vajpayee Government went ahead with the test in 1998. "This only shows the attitudinal difference," he said. Raja's reaction comes in the wake of Congress remarks that credit for nuclear tests should go to it and not to the BJP. On the issue of alleged personal attack on AICC chief Sonia Gandhi on the foreign origin issue, Raja denied that it was a personal attack. "Even according to her affidavit filed by her along with her nomination, she has mentioned that she owns a residence in Italy. According to Italian law dual citizenship is possible," he said. Arguing that while Gandhi could become the Leader of the Opposition but should not become Prime Minister, he said defence and intelligence heads met the Prime Minister everyday and appraised him of the latest situation on their fronts. "They do not meet the Leader of the Opposition, but only the Prime Minister. Whenever there is a change of Prime Minister, secret files are handed over only to the successor and not to anyone else," he said. Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 9 AU ABC: China pushes US vice president for support on Taiwan Last updated: 14/04/2004 10:51:06 PM AEST China has sought to enlist United States support for its stance on Taiwan during talks with the visiting US vice president, Dick Cheney. Mr Cheney met on Wednesday with China's three top leaders - the president, Hu Jintao, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and the military chief, Jiang Zemin. Mr Hu told Mr Cheney that China hopes the US can observe its commitment to adhere to the "one-China" policy. He said the US should oppose any attempts by Taiwanese leaders to change the status quo. Mr Jiang told the US vice president the Taiwan issue is pivotal for the development of ties between America and China. China considers Taiwan part of its territory waiting to be reunified, by force if necessary, since the two sides split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. Washington recongises the one-China policy, but has said it will defend Taiwan if the island comes under attack from China. Mr Cheney also used the talks to press China for more support to end the North Korean nuclear crisis. Following the talks, a senior US official said time is not necessarily on America's side and the US government thinks it is important to move forward aggressively. China has played host at the two rounds of six-party talks on North Korea in Beijing and has been credited with bringing Pyongyang to the table. ABC Asia Pacifc TV / Radio Australia ***************************************************************** 10 Hi Pakistan: N-plan not financed by Muslim states: Benazir --> April 15 2004 WASHINGTON, April 13: Pakistan's nuclear bomb never had an Islamic character, says the country's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto whose father first coined the term, 'Islamic bomb'. "As far as I recall he did not call it an Islamic bomb when he launched the nuclear programme in 1974," said Ms Bhutto in a letter to a US news agency, United Press International. He called it an Islamic bomb some time in 1978 or 1979 from the death cell. It was here that he wrote for the first time that the Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations had a nuclear bomb and that he had made one for the Islamic world," she writes. Bhutto was invited by UPI to comment on some of the issues circulating in the US media about Pakistan's nuclear programme. The report sent to her for comments alleged that Libyan and Iranian governments had financed Pakistan's nuclear programme, offering hundreds of millions of dollars. The report also claimed that senior Pakistani military and civilian officials had pocketed some of the money offered for the programme while some was used for making the bomb as well. Ms Bhutto tackles all these issues with the knowledge allowed to a prime minister and convincingly answers some of the allegations, particularly those levelled against her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Throughout the letter, she emphasizes that Pakistan's bomb was never an Islamic bomb and that no Muslim country financed the country's nuclear programme. Her long letter trails the history of the bomb from the day her father decided to respond to India's first nuclear test in 1974 and covers some of the events she saw or noticed both as prime minister and a leader of the opposition. "I would disagree with the conclusion that Muslim countries funded the nuclear programme during my father's tenure. Pakistan did acquire nuclear capability. Is it really relevant how Pakistan did that now that it has it," asks Ms Bhutto. She said that in 1989, some scientists of the former Soviet Union did approach her government offering to sell uranium to Pakistan but the government turned down the offer. She refused to confirm a media report that Gen (retd) Aslam Beg had informed Nawaz Sharif, when he was the prime minister, of a deal to sell nuclear technology to Iran for an additional $12 billion. She said she did not know anything about this deal because she was not in the government then. Ms Bhutto said that in 1979 "a junior former bureaucrat from the ministry of information" told the British Panorama television show that the Libyans had funded Pakistan's nuclear programme. "That was untrue and the source, as a ministry of information junior officer, had no access to the nuclear committee or its programme," she said. "I understood that this was deliberately leaked by Gen Ziaul Huq because they wanted to turn the United States off the Bhutto family by citing Libyan connections." She said her father did indeed get a lot of financial support from the Muslim countries but this was unconnected to the nuclear programme. Z.A. Bhutto, she said, started Pakistan's nuclear programme after India's 1974 test with an aim to "maintain parity with India by making a bomb too". "As far as I recall he did not call it an Islamic Bomb (in 1974). At no time did my father seek financing of the bomb from any Muslim country or shared with them that he wished to make a nuclear bomb. He called it an Islamic bomb some time in 1978 or 1979 from the death cell. It was here that he wrote for the first time that the Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations had a nuclear bomb and that he had made one for the Islamic world." Ms Bhutto recalled that Col. Qadhafi attended the 1974 Islamic Summit her father had hosted in Lahore but that Libyan leader was never asked to "financially support the nuclear programme nor taken into confidence about it." Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Hi Pakistan: Pakistan proposes changes in draft: UN resolution on non-proliferation April 15 2004 ISLAMABAD, April 13: Pakistan has bilaterally conveyed its reservations on the UN draft resolution on non-proliferation to all the five permanent members of the Security Council and proposed certain amendments to that , informed sources told Dawn on Tuesday. The draft was presented to the UN Security Council by the United States on March 24. It requires all 191 member states to enact criminal and other laws as well as measures to prevent terrorists and other non-state actors from trafficking in and acquiring nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, related materials and missiles and other unmanned systems of delivery. The permanent members - China, France, US, UK and Russia, referred to as P-5 - are currently holding informal consultations with the 10 elected (E-10) members of the Security Council. UN watchers say the US wants that the resolution is adopted by the end of this month. Pakistan as a current member of the UNSC has been taking keen interest in the resolution that can have serious ramifications for it as it is a declared but internationally unrecognized nuclear power. Pakistan's reservations to the draft relate to the language, parts of the text and certain definitions, including that of non-state actors and terrorist organizations. Senior Pakistani diplomats took up the issue with the US officials at a meeting held in London last month, Dawn learnt through diplomatic sources. Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, Munir Akram, and its ambassador to the US, Jehangir Ashraf Qazi, also attended the meeting. The proposed amendments include, for example, changing the phrase 'calls upon all member states' to 'requests all member states' in the section of the draft that pertains to making national laws that will make it a criminal act if non-state actors get involved in the provision of the weapons of mass destruction and related materials. According to informed sources, the P-5 representatives have told Pakistan that they will 'look into' its specific concerns and suggestions. While most countries in the E-10 support the objectives of the resolution, they favour a much wider debate. China too has advocated that a broader membership of the UN be involved in the ongoing debate. Some states have expressed concerns that the approaches proposed in the draft are discriminatory and inflammatory, and will exacerbate the proliferation and security situation rather than alleviate it. They have been critical of the fact that the draft resolution refers only to prevention of proliferation, and is silent on ending deployment of existing weapons and on the obligations for disarmament. Another serious concern is that the draft is being presented as a UN Charter Chapter VII resolution which makes its application mandatory for all UN members. Some states fear that it can open the door for a unilateral use of force by certain states to enforce the resolution in specific situations without having to return to the Security Council for any additional authorization. In this context, the UN members outside the P-5 group have emphasized that there ought to be clarity that the resolution does not imply a mandate for use of force and instead encourages resolution of the proliferation issue through peaceful means and in accordance with international law. A key question being raised is whether the resolution will become effective retrospectively or at a future date, diplomatic sources said. Objections to the draft are not limited to nuances of the expression employed. Some UN members have questioned the very propriety of the Security Council as the forum to legislate on this issue. "The overarching question is whether the UNSC should be legislating on everything and if such a resolution would undermine the international disarmament treaty regime," a senior diplomat said. The justification given by the sponsors of the draft is that the spread of the WMDs poses a serious and imminent threat to international peace and security. Some E-10 countries have argued that since the UNSC is not an equitable body, the matter is better left to multilateral forums that allow a broader debate. Critics point out that the P-5 by virtue of their veto power will themselves be immune to any controls, liabilities and punitive measures. A prime example cited in this context is the censoring of pages by the P-5 in the 4,600-page dossier submitted by the Iraqi government to the Security Council on Dec 3, 2002, containing full declaration of its chemical, biological and nuclear programme. The dossier named all the countries, entities and individuals who made supplies for the Iraqi programme. However, all the pages that contained information about the 82 European countries with details of the companies involved in a proliferation network were blacked out by the P-5 from the copies circulated to the E-10. A discussion paper circulated by Sweden last month raises ideological and legal questions as to whether it is within the ambit of the Security Council to be making an international law or negotiating an international agreement. "The draft resolution more resembles a multilateral treaty than a UNSC resolution and Sweden is of the opinion that multilateral treaties should be negotiated at a multilateral forum, such as the UNGA, by all states concerned," it argues. Disarmament experts say that the First Committee of the UN General Assembly and the Conference on Disarmament based in Geneva are the two main multilateral bodies that have the mandate to legislate on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. They believe these bodies are more equitable forums as these allow wider debate and normally work by consensus. In this particular case the First Committee, which is the inter-government committee with full UN membership, is considered to be a more appropriate and democratic forum to evolve consensus on such a resolution. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 UPI: Bhutto on Pakistan nuclear history United Press International: Exclusive: By Anwar Iqbal UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst Published 4/13/2004 5:47 PM WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- Pakistan's nuclear bomb never had an Islamic character, said the country's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto whose father used the term "Islamic bomb" from his death cell. In an exclusive written response to United Press International's questions, Benazir Bhutto provided this and other information on Pakistan's nuclear arms development. Pakistan's nuclear program, launched in 1974 soon after India's first nuclear test, has been controversial from the very beginning. Since the then two superpowers -- the United States and the former Soviet Union -- were opposed to Pakistan having a nuclear bomb, Pakistani leaders had to use all the overt and covert means available to them. This led them to numerous underground dealers who provided them with the equipment needed for making the bomb. The Pakistanis were also unusually lucky because the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, making Pakistan a much sort-after ally in the West whose leaders wanted to fight the Soviets. This forced the United States to ignore Pakistan's nuclear program, although various sanctions were imposed in 1990, months after the Soviets left Afghanistan. More sanctions were imposed in May 1998, when Pakistan tested its nuclear devices followed by similar tests by India. The United States might have tightened the sanctions further but Pakistan got lucky again. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Washington and New York, the U.S. administration once again needed the country to fight al-Qaida and other militant networks. Despite the administration's soft position, the U.S. media have always strongly opposed Pakistan's nuclear program, often calling it an Islamic bomb. The term was coined by the media but also adopted by Bhutto's father and former prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was later hanged by military ruler Gen. Zia ul-Haq on a murder charge. "As far as I recall, he did not call it an Islamic bomb" when he launched the nuclear program, said Bhutto in a letter to UPI. "He called it an Islamic bomb sometime in 1978 or 1979 from the death cell. It was here that he wrote for the first time that the Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations had a nuclear bomb, and that he had made one for the Islamic world," she wrote. Bhutto was invited by UPI to comment on some of the issues raised by the media about Pakistan's nuclear program. The reports claim that Libyan and Iranian governments had financed Pakistan's nuclear program, offering hundreds of millions of dollars. They also claimed that senior Pakistani military and civilian officials had pocketed some of the money offered for the program while some was used for making the bomb as well. Benazir Bhutto tackled all these issues with the knowledge gained as a prime minister and tried to answer some of the allegations, particularly those leveled against her father. Throughout the letter, she emphasized that Pakistan's bomb was never an Islamic bomb and that no Muslim country financed the country's nuclear program. "I would disagree with the conclusion that Muslim countries funded the nuclear program during my father's tenure. Pakistan did acquire nuclear capability. Is it really relevant how Pakistan did that now that it has it?" asked the former prime minister. She, however, appreciates the desire in the West, particularly in the United States, to trace the money trail because "deterrence lies in ensuring that powerful people know they can be called to account for illicitly dealing with nuclear exports." "Ultimately, when the dust dies down, I predict it will be seen that the same elements that destabilized my governments and supported al-Qaida exported nuclear technology," she claimed. She said that in 1989, some scientists of the former Soviet Union did approach her government offering to sell uranium to Pakistan but the government turned down the offer. She refused to confirm a media report that Pakistan's former army chief, Gen. (retired) Aslam Beg, had informed Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister, of a deal to sell nuclear technology to Iran for an additional $12 billion. She said she did not know anything about this deal because she was not in the government then. She also refused to comment on another report that some senior military officials were trying to negotiate a deal between Sharif and Iran, saying that all these reports refer to a period when she was not in power. Bhutto said that in 1979 "a junior former bureaucrat from the Ministry of Information" told the British Panorama television show that the Libyans had funded Pakistan's nuclear program. "That was untrue and the source, as a Ministry of Information junior officer, had no access to the nuclear committee or its program," she said. Bhutto recalled that Col. Moammar Gadhafi attended the 1974 Islamic Summit her father had hosted in Lahore but that Libyan leader was never asked to "financially support the nuclear program nor taken into confidence about it." She also dismissed media reports as speculative that Gadhafi had visited the Canadian-built reactor in Karachi. She said the project in Karachi started in the 1960s. "Munir Ahmed Khan was indeed the long-term chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and considered by many as the real 'father' of Pakistan's bomb," said Bhutto. Munir was the predecessor of A.Q. Khan who confessed on Feb. 6 to selling nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. She was also asked to comment on a report that Mohammed Beg, who claimed to be a senior official in her father's government, had revealed that Gadhafi "supervised transfers of suitcases filled with U.S. dollars to Pakistan on Pakistan Airlines flights." "Mohammed Beg was never a confidante of my father. I do not even recall him, and I can recall the small group of people that could call on my father," said Benazir Bhutto. She also rejected the suggestion that Z.A. Bhutto had renamed the Lahore stadium after Gadhafi because he had financed Pakistan's nuclear program. Similarly, she also disagreed with the suggestion that another Pakistani city, Lyallpur, was renamed Faislabad because the late Saudi King Faisal had financed the nuclear program. She said although the city was renamed by Gen. Zia, "I doubt that Zia renamed the city because he was getting money in suitcases from the Saudi King on planes." She said she did not know if the late shah of Iran had given $500 million to Pakistan to suppress an insurgency along Iran's border but said even if the money was given, it was not used for financing Pakistan's nuclear program, as some reports had suggested. Bhutto visited Libya during her first term as prime minister, between 1988 and 1990. "Col. Gaddafi did not ask me to help Libya with the bomb," she said. According to her account, in July 2000, the current Musharraf government published advertisement in Pakistani newspapers, inviting tenders for sale of nuclear-related products. She said as prime minister she had sanctioned the purchase of ballistic missile technology from North Korea during her second term 1994-96, but declined to approve a budget to locally develop the technology because of her policy of "keeping parity with India and not develop(ing) longer ranged missiles than theirs." Bhutto said that after Pakistan detonated nuclear devices in May 1998, it came under great financial pressure. "If any swap (of nuclear technology for money) took place, it would be sometime after May 1998 when Pakistan no longer had money to make payments." "After Pakistan's financial crisis in May 1998, there were hawks who argued that Pakistan could earn money selling nuclear technology," she said. Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: Israel Whistleblower to Face Restrictions Wednesday April 14, 2004 11:46 AM By PETER ENAV Associated Press Writer JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu will be barred from leaving the country and face a series of other restrictions when he is released from prison next week, an Israeli official said Wednesday. Vanunu is due to be freed from a prison in southern Israel on April 21 after serving an 18-year sentence for treason and espionage. Israel's Mossad spy agency captured him in Europe in 1986 after he disclosed details and photos of Israel's top-secret nuclear plant and the country's reputed nuclear weapons arsenal to the Sunday Times of London. The security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities have decided to impose a package of restrictions recommended by the Shin Bet security service. Israeli security officials have said Vanunu may still have sensitive information about Israel's nuclear program and fear he might reveal it upon release. The restrictions will bar Vanunu from leaving Israel, from approaching border terminals and foreign embassies, and communicating with foreigners, including foreign residents of Israel. The restrictions on foreign contact apply to face-to-face meetings, telephone conversations and standard or electronic mail, the official said. The official said Vanunu also would be barred from discussing his work at Israel's nuclear plant or the circumstances of his capture. Vanunu will be allowed to live anywhere he chooses inside Israel, the official said, but would require police permission to travel in the country. The package of restrictions will be re-evaluated after six months, the official said, and might be eased if Vanunu fulfills his obligations. The official said Interior Minister Avraham Poraz and the head of the army's home command both approved the package of restrictions, based on emergency regulations dating back to 1945. A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry declined to comment. The security official said Vanunu has been asked to sign a statement that he would abide by the restrictions, but so far has failed to do so. He was unable to say if a refusal to sign would delay Vanunu's release. Vanunu, who was a technician at the nuclear plant in the desert town of Dimona, served more than a decade in solitary confinement after being convicted in an Israeli court. He has become a hero of anti-nuclear weapons activists during his years in prison. Vanunu, who has converted to Christianity, has said he wanted to leave Israel after his release and move to the United States to live with a Minnesota family that adopted him in the mistaken belief he would be granted American citizenship. Based partly on photographs that Vanunu provided the British newspaper, it is widely believed Israel has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons. The CIA recently estimated Israel has 200-400 nuclear weapons. Israel has an official policy of ``nuclear ambiguity,'' saying only that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 14 NRC: [Docket Nos. 50-327 and 50-328] Sequoyah 1 & 2 FR Doc 04-8421 [Federal Register: April 14, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 72)] [Notices] [Page 19880-19882] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr14ap04-116] Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendments to Facility Operating License, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering issuance of amendments to Facility Operating License No. DPR-77 and Facility Operating License No. DPR-79 issued to Tennessee Valley Authority (the licensee) for operation of the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, located in Hamilton County, Tennessee. The proposed amendments would allow both trains of control room air-conditioning system (CRACS) to be inoperable for up to 7 days provided control room temperatures are verified every 4 hours to be less than or equal to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. If this temperature limit cannot be maintained or if both CRACS trains are inoperable for more than 7 days, requirements of Technical Specification Section (TS) 3.0.3 will be required. Before issuance of the proposed license amendments, the Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations. The Commission has made a proposed determination that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. Under the Commission's regulations in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 50.92, this means that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendments would not (1) involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated; or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10 CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated? No. The proposed change will allow the use of alternate cooling methods in the event both trains of the CRACS are inoperable. The CRACS is used to maintain an acceptable environment for control room equipment and personnel during normal and emergency conditions. This system does not have the potential to create a design basis accident as it only provides control room cooling and does not directly mitigate postulated accidents. Temporary cooling devices will be designed in accordance with appropriate design controls, sized to ensure adequate cooling capability, and located such that safety- related features would not be prevented from performing their safety function. Since the CRACS does not contribute to the initiators of postulated accidents, the probability of an accident is not significantly increased by the proposed change. The CRACS does ensure a suitable environment for safety-related equipment and personnel during an accident. The temperature limit placed on the proposed action ensures that the control room temperature will remain at acceptable levels to support plant evolutions in response to postulated accidents. Safety functions that are necessary to maintain acceptable offsite dose limits will not be degraded by the proposed change. Alternate cooling methods that will maintain the control room well within the equipment temperature limits will ensure these safety functions. With the control room cooling requirements satisfied, the offsite dose impact is not affected. Therefore, the proposed change does not involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated. 2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated? No. The proposed change will continue to ensure that the control room temperatures will not exceed operability limits for equipment or personnel. The temperature control functions for the control room are not postulated to create an accident and since the proposed change continues to maintain acceptable temperatures, there are no new accident initiators created. The alternate cooling methods to be used will utilize appropriate design, sizing, and location considerations. Implementation of temporary cooling methods will be designed such that safety-related features would not be prevented from performing their safety function and in compliance with 10 CFR 50.59 requirements. Plant will comply with applicable TS requirements. Therefore, the proposed change does not create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any previously evaluated. [[Page 19881]] 3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety? No. The proposed change will continue to maintain control room temperatures at acceptable levels to ensure the availability of equipment necessary for safety functions. Sufficient margin to temperature limits will be maintained to ensure response to accident conditions can be managed adequately and temperatures will remain at acceptable levels to complete necessary accident mitigation actions. Plant components and their setpoints will not be altered by the proposed change that would impact the ability to respond to accident conditions. The installation of temporary cooling devices will be designed such that safety-related features would not be prevented from performing their safety function. Therefore, the proposed change does not involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety. The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR 50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to determine that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed determination. Any comments received on or before May 14, 2004, will be considered in making any final determination. Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendments until the expiration of the 30-day comment period. However, should circumstances change during the notice period such that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example, in derating or shutdown of the facility, the Commission may issue the license amendments before the expiration of the 30-day comment period, provided that its final determination is that the amendments involve no significant hazards consideration. The final determination will consider all public and State comments received. Should the Commission take this action, it will publish in the Federal Register a notice of issuance. Should the Commission make a final No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, any hearing will take place after issuance. The Commission expects that the need to take this action will occur very infrequently. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to intervene is discussed below. Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to issuance of the amendments to the subject facility operating licenses and any person whose interest may be affected by this proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested persons should consult a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File Area 01F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/] reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/. If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order. As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with particular reference to the following general requirements: (1) The name, address, and telephone number of the requestor or petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property, financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in the proceeding on the petitioner's interest. The petition must also identify the specific contentions which the petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding. Each contention shall be given a separate numeric or alpha designation within one of the following groups, and all like subject matters shall be grouped together: 1. Technical--primarily concerns issues relating to technical and/ or health and safety matters discussed or referenced in the applicant's safety analysis for the application (including issues related to emergency planning and physical security to the extent such matters are discussed or referenced in the application). 2. Environmental--primarily concerns issues relating to matters discussed or referenced in the Environmental Report for the applications. 3. Miscellaneous--does not fall into one of the categories outlined above. As specified in 10 CFR 2.309, if two or more requestors/petitioners seek to co-sponsor a contention or propose substantially the same contention, the requestors/petitioners will be required to jointly designate a single representative who shall have the authority to act for the requestors/petitioners with respect to that contention within ten (10) days after admission of such contention. Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the hearing. The petitioner must also provide references to those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish those facts or expert opinion. Petitioner must provide sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the applicant on a material issue of law or fact.\1\ Contentions shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendments under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven, would entitle the petitioner to [[Page 19882]] relief. A petitioner/requestor who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- \1\ To the extent that the applications contain attachments and supporting documents that are not publically available because they are asserted to contain safeguards or proprietary information, petitions desiring access to this information should contact applicant's counsel and discuss the need for protective order. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Nontimely requests and or/petitions and contentions will not be entertained absent a determination by the Commission, the presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that the petition, request and or the contentions should be granted based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 2.309(a)(1)(i)-(viii). Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the conduct of the hearing. If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final determination on the issue of no significant hazards consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration, the Commission may issue the amendments and make them immediately effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing held would take place after issuance of the amendments. If the final determination is that the amendment request involves a significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take place before the issuance of any amendment. A request for a hearing or a petition for leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, [Hearingdocket@nrc.gov] ; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101, verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to [ OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov] . A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the attorney for the licensee. Attorney for the Licensee: General Counsel, Tennessee Valley Authority, 400 West Summit Hill Drive, ET 11A, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendments dated March 23, 2004, which is available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, File Public Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1- 800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 8th day of April 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Michael L. Marshall, Jr., Senior Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-8421 Filed 4-13-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 15 Interfax: Russian nuclear power sector may need $47 bln by 2020 Updated: Apr 14 2004 3:28PM Interfax.com MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax) - Russia's nuclear power industry could need 1.5 trillion rubles ($47 billion) in investments between 2003 and 2020 under an optimistic development scenario, and 1.1 trillion rubles ($35 billion) for moderate development. Russia's nuclear industry will be developing mainly due to the construction of increased capacity units of the VVER-1500 type, regular BN-600 units, and by developing low-capacity nuclear plants, such as floating types, Rosenergoatom's Deputy General Director Mikhail Rogov told a meeting of the Federation Council's defense and security committee on Tuesday. © 1991-2004 Interfax All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 16 Hi Pakistan: Re-emergence of US nuclear industry - By David Teather --> April 15 2004 NEW YORK: Twenty-five years after the United States suffered its worst nuclear accident, the moribund atomic energy industry has begun to show signs of life. A consortium of seven of the biggest companies in the business, including a division of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), now says it intends to apply for the first licence to build a commercial nuclear plant in the US since the near disaster at Three Mile Island. The consortium has not yet said where it intends to construct the plant, only that it will spend millions of dollars on developing the plans, at the invitation of the government. A series of mechanical malfunctions and human errors led to a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979, causing it to spew plumes of radioactive gas into the atmosphere. For five days there were fears of catastrophe. The accident and the anxiety it caused, plus the soaring costs of tighter safety regulations and the availability of cheap, clean natural gas were enough to halt the industry in its tracks. The final orders for new nuclear-fired plants were placed in December of that year. None ordered after 1973 was built. Government officials say there was no effect on the health of local people from the Three Mile accident. The courts agreed: a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of 2,000 people was dismissed in 1996. But doubts remain. Recent data from the Radiation and Public Health Project, a non-profit organization, suggests otherwise. The group claims infant mortality in the local area increased by 47 per cent in the two years after the accident. It also says that, 25 years on, cancer-related deaths among children under 10 are 30 per cent higher than the national average. Still, broader sentiment appears to have changed as America's thirst for energy continues to increase. A number of factors are working in the nuclear industry's favour. Power blackouts such as the one that blanketed the north-eastern US last summer, concerns about greenhouse gases from coal-fired plants and the shortage of natural gas that is pushing prices higher have combined to rehabilitate nuclear power. The costs of operating nuclear power plants have fallen. According to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the industry's future will depend upon its ability to argue that nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse emissions, is necessary to fight global warming. "The principal motivation to reconsider the nuclear option is that nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel resources does not impair air quality and does not release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere," said Professor John Deutch, of the MIT. There are 103 commercial reactors still operating in the US, generating about 20 per cent of the nation's electricity. The US accounts for almost a quarter of the 435 nuclear power reactors in the world. The fleet of reactors in the US is aging, however, and many are now applying for licences to extend their lives. By the end of this year, a third of the existing plants, built to last for 40 years, will have applied for licences to continue operating for another 20. The consortium put together to apply for the new plant is made up of Exelon Nuclear, the largest operator in the US, with 17 reactors; Entergy Nuclear, the second largest US operator; Constellation Energy; the Southern Company, and EDF International North America, a unit of Electricite de France. General Electric and Westinghouse Electric, a unit of BNFL, are the associated manufacturers. So far, all they have committed to is spending tens of millions of dollars of their own money as well as cash from the government to design a plant. They hope to submit an application by 2008 and have a decision from the nuclear regulatory commission by 2010. "To protect consumers against spiking energy prices and for our own national security, we need to maintain fuel diversity in the energy industry," said Chris Crane, president and chief nuclear officer of Exelon Nuclear. "Nuclear energy is safe, reliable and non- carbon emitting. We must keep the nuclear option open for the future." The licensing system was streamlined in 1992 to allow new plant to be built more quickly, but it has yet to be tested. A number of utilities have applied for "early site permits", part of the department of energy's programme to breathe new life into the industry. Applicant companies have 20 years to decide whether they want to build. The Bush administration's stalled energy bill provides incentives for nuclear power and seeks the extension of liability against lawsuits in case of accidents. The administration is eager to lessen America's reliance on other countries for its energy needs, particularly nations in the Middle East. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 ITAR-TASS: Russian atomic energy industry needs larger investments [ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia] 13.04.2004, 23.52 MOSCOW, April 13 (Itar-Tass) -- Investments in the atomic energy industry should at least double for meeting the industry’s ambitious tasks, General Director of the Rosenergoatom Russian Atomic Energy Concern Mikhail Rogov said at a Tuesday session of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee. He said the current rates of investments in the atomic energy industry slowed down the industry’s development and were enough for generating only 200 billion kilowatt/hours of electricity a year by 2010 instead of 300 billions planned. It is necessary to invest 7 billion rubles a year in the construction of new units of Russian nuclear power plants and the modernization of existent nuclear power plant units for increasing the output of nuclear power plants to 230 billion kilowatt/hours a year, Rogov said. Yet only 3.5 billion rubles a year have been invested in Russian nuclear power plants since 2000, he said. The atomic energy industry is the most dynamic economic branch. The output of nuclear power plants has increased by 40% over the past five years. The average growth rates made 7.5% a year. Last year Russian nuclear power plants generated 148.6 billion kilowatt/hours of electricity. The year-to-year growth made 8.8 billion kilowatt/hours or 6.3%. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 18 SMN: Bulgaria: Lighting Up novinite.com Google Sofia Morning News For the Record: 14 April 2004, Wednesday. The Oxford Business Group The resignation of Bulgaria's privatisation chief last week seems to have come at an important moment in the country's troubled sell off story. With the Varna shipyards finally officially handed over, and major developments in privatisation within the energy sector now on the cards, it seems an unfortunate time to have to leave. Yet, after around a year in post, Bulgarian Privatisation Agency CEO Iliya Vasilev bowed out April 8, citing personal reasons. His replacement is his former deputy, Stanislav Ananiev, who becomes acting chief of the agency. The move came only a few days after a ceremony in Varna finally handed over the keys to the shipyard to the Bulyard Shipbuilding Industry company. This consortium had won the tender for a 75% stake in the yards last October, a victory that had itself come nearly five years after the government had begun the sell off procedure. Deputy Prime Minister Nikolay Vassilev was at the hand-over ceremony, where he referred to the considerable problems the shipyard sell off had faced. Redundancies had also been many at the yard, which over its history had launched if not 1000 ships, then at least 800. Vassilev said that he was now confident that the yard faced a brighter future. Yet such optimism was quickly dashed by the yard's new CEO, Zlatko Bakalov. He told the assembled dignitaries that currently the shipyard had no cash at all, a serious problem for a yard costing Lv1.5m a month to run. This, he said, was why the yard was not able to build ships anymore, but was simply acting as a dockyard. He then added that the yard didn't even own a single computer. Bakalov then went on to pin his hopes on the new owners, who are to invest around $1.2m in the short term. The yard also faces a major shake up, with experts from The Netherlands due to arrive soon and conduct a survey of what needs to be done, Bakalov added. Bulyard is committed to invest some $17.7m in the yard over the next three years, according to the terms of their winning $16.66m bid for 75% of the shipyard's equity. It was therefore a highly sweetened bid, with Bulyard also making commitments to expand the yard and the number of people working there. How this arrangement will stand once the Dutch experts have made their assessment is, however, another question. Meanwhile though, steps are also being taken to gear up the country's power stations for sell off. Early April saw a meeting between Energy and Energy Resources Minister Milko Kovachev and officials of the parliamentary committee on energy, at which the idea of establishing an electric power consolidation company was mooted. This would be similar to the Bank Consolidation Company used in the sale of Bulgaria's state banks, and would effectively mean the bypassing of the Privatisation Agency - a move favoured in order to circumvent political frictions, the Sofia Echo reported April 9. The company would be charged with the privatisation of several thermal power stations - such as the Varna, Maritsa Iztok 2, Bobov Dol and Rousse plants - and would also tackle the sale of the controversial Kozloduy nuclear power station. Several factors lie behind the decision to set up such a company, not the least of which is that it will be able to direct finances received from the sell offs into investment in the national power network. The sums necessary to bring Bulgaria's electricity distribution grid up to scratch are quite considerable, requiring a central body with a high degree of funding. In addition, come 2007, the electricity market will be completely liberalised, placing increased pressure on the energy market. The fear is that if there is no body to shoulder the risk, electricity prices may shoot up. The other part of the plan is to split the National Electricity Company in two. One branch will be in charge of transmission and overseas sales, while the other will deal with public supply. Regarding electricity exports, the hope is that a consolidated body will be able to represent abroad all of the electricity companies in the newly liberalised market, something more cost efficient than having each power company representing itself overseas. Bulgaria currently has a leading position in the regional electricity export market, a status which it is understandably anxious to maintain. The hope is that the consolidated body will be able to leave domestic power companies alone to concentrate on selling to local customers and on improving their plants. With such a structure in place, it may also make the electricity market in general more interesting to investors, reducing risks and boosting much-needed investment in the national grid.[ All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2004 - Copyright Novinite.com (thebulgariannews.com also) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also ***************************************************************** 19 [gulflink] Iraq: DU contamination in the field Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:55:28 -0500 (CDT) From: Kirt Love To: Gulflink Subject: [gulflink] Warning - DU contamination in the field UMRC Information Bulletin http://www.umrc.net/UMRC_bulletin_07_Feb_2004.asp February 6, 2004 Warning of uranium contamination risks to NGO staff, Coalition forces, foreign contract personnel and civilians in Iraq February 6, 2004 - Recently completed laboratory analyses show two members of Uranium Medical Research Centre's (UMRC) field investigation team are contaminated with Depleted Uranium (DU). The two field staff, one from Canada and the other, Beirut, toured Iraq for thirteen days in October 2003; five months after the cessation of Operation Iraqi Freedom's aerial bombing and ground force campaign. Using mass spectrometry, UMRC's partner laboratory in Germany measured DU in both team members' urine samples. The UMRC team surveyed US and British controlled combat areas and bomb-sites in southern Iraq, including Baghdad, An Nasiriyah, As Suweiriah and Al Basra (details can be found at UMRC.net, Abu Khasib to Al Ah'qaf: Field Investigation Report). The conditions responsible for the team's DU contamination are considered to be inhalation of resuspended ultra-fine soil and dust particles saturated with uranium and airborne uranium oxides and metallic particulate. Uranium was used in anti-tank penetrators, suppression ordnance and bunker-defeat warheads deployed during the 26 days of Operation Iraqi Freedom by both US and UK forces. The contamination of UMRC's team members occurring over a two-week period, many months after the main conflict, represents a risk to civilians, non-governmental organisations' staff, Coalition armed forces and foreign contractors and diplomatic staff. In 1997, UMRC was the first study group to detect DU in the urine of Canadian, British and US troops who served in Gulf War I. The urinary excretion of battlefield uranium was identified six years following exposure. In January 2004, the US Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it had detected DU in the urine of US forces who are not retaining DU shrapnel, in 2000, eight years after Desert Storm. In 2001 and again in 2002, UMRC measured high concentrations of artificial uranium containing the synthetic isotope, 236U, in Afghan civilians exposed to the detonation plumes of bombs deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom. In November 2003, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) released a formal statement to the Guardian disclaiming UMRC's Operation Telic findings of high levels of radioactivity in British-led battlefields. The MOD stated unequivocally that battlefield uranium residues remain stable inside defeated Iraqi tanks and cannot be made biologically available to humans. Since then, the MOD has found unusually high concentrations of uranium excreted in the urine of its 1st Armoured Division troops who served in Basra (September 2003, UK DU Oversight Board Meeting minutes, Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit, UK Ministry of Defence). The MOD's recent findings in its troops now deployed back to Germany, coupled with the contamination of UMRC's staff demonstrate the need to initiate immediate solutions to protect exposed civilians and foreign personnel in Iraq. Preliminary results of UMRC's laboratory analysis of field samples of civilian urine, soils and water samples indicate uranium contamination in several Iraqi cities and battlefields. Details of UMRC's findings from US and British controlled battlefields and bombsites will be released later this month (February 2004). UMRC has offered its assistance to the United Nation's Environment Program (UNEP) to guide UNEP's post-conflict study team to radiologically contaminated bombsites and battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. UMRC urges UNEP to undertake immediate studies and lead the implementation of a radiation protection program for Iraqi and Afghan civilians as well as a supervised environmental clean-up program, as early as possible. For information: T Weyman Iraq Field Team Lead Info@UMRC.net gulflink@yahoogroups.com is a service of http://www.gulflink.org. Hosted by: The Desert Storm Battle Registry A Gulf War Veteran advocacy group! Messages posted to this service are the opinions of the senders, and do not necessarily represent that of the group or DSBR. Any advertisements posted at the bottom are not necessarily endorsements of DSBR and affiliates. ***************************************************************** 20 Thom Hartmann Radio Interview with Leuren Moret on DU - April 15 11AM-noon PST Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 20:21:14 -0700 (PDT) April 15 – 11AM to noon Pacific Standard Time (California) Interview with Leuren Moret on depleted uranium on the Thom Hartmann radio program by local station, internet radio or satellite radio. Go to this website to find out how to listen. http://www.thomhartmann.com/showlisten.shtml ====================================================== RECENT ARTICLE: http://www.awakenedwoman.com/moret_nuclear.htm Awakened Woman e-Magazine War on Iraq is a Nuclear War And the fallout is coming this way, says independent scientist Leuren Moret by Stephanie Hiller April 10, 2004 In May, 2003, the United States dumped 2,200 tons of depleted uranium on Iraq, according to reliable sources, and it's logical to assume that more depleted uranium is being employed in the current attacks on Faluja that began April 8 to put down Iraqi resistance to the American presence there. According to independent geoscientist Leuren Moret, the war on Iraq - like the war on Afghanistan - is a nuclear war. "Depleted uranium is a nuclear weapon and it is a weapon of mass destruction under the U. S. government's definition of weapons of mass destruction," Moret says. The Pentagon has repeatedly denied that DU is harmful, despite the symptoms of half the returning veterans from the first Persian Gulf Wars who are now disabled. But researchers have shown that the Pentagon has been fully aware of the consequences of what is called "low level radiation" since 1943, when depleted uranium was first suggested for development as a military weapon under the Manhattan Project. On Sunday, April 6, the New York Daily News reported that nine soldiers who returned from Iraq last summer had symptoms typical of DU poisoning. The News arranged for them to be tested by Asaf Duracovic, a former Colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and one of the world's foremost experts on the medical effects of radioactive weaponry. Depleted uranium was found in the urine of four of the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict Recently completed laboratory analyses show two members of Uranium Medical Research Centre's (UMRC) field investigation team are contaminated with Depleted Uranium (DU). The two field staff, one from Canada and the other, Beirut, toured Iraq for thirteen days in October 2003; five months after the cessation of Operation Iraqi Freedom's aerial bombing and ground force campaign. Using mass spectrometry, UMRC's partner laboratory in Germany measured DU in both team members' urine samples. (Please see http://www.umrc.net/UMRC_bulletin_07_Feb_2004.asp) If short-term visitors and soldiers have been so affected, what of the people, living near bomb sites, breathing the air every day, drinking the water? What of the children who play in these sites and collect pieces of exploded material to sell so their families can eat? Using figures developed by Japanese physicist, Professor Yagasaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, and explained in his presentation at the World Conference on Depleted Uranium Weapons held in Hamburg last October, the radioactivity of 2,200 tons (or 440,000 pounds) of depleted uranium together with some 1,000 tons used in Afghanistan, is the atomicity equivalent of 400,00 Nagasaki bombs. Depleted uranium is cheap and plentiful. When uranium is processed for fission bombs or fuel rods for use in power plants, only U-235, about half a percent of the total, is used. Most of what's left over is U-238, so-called "depleted" uranium. The US has over a million tons of the stuff, and storage is becoming a serious problem. Though less radioactive than U-235, DU is still highly radioactive internally, and chemically toxic as well. "There is no allowable level of risk," says Moret. Nearly twice as dense as lead, DU is used in tanks and airplanes, as well as bullets, handguns, cannons, all the way up to large bombs weighing more than 5,000 pounds. It's not dangerous until it blows up. Depleted uranium is pyrophoric. Relatively innocuous as a metal alloy used in planes, tanks, missiles, bullets and rounds, when depleted uranium burns, it releases a radioactive gas. Larger particles may settle to the ground, but winds blowing across the desert may carry the fine particles to locations in a 1000-mile radius from the explosion. As a result, areas as far west as Egypt and as far east as India are likely to be contaminated. "The U.S. has staged a nuclear war in the Middle East, from Iraq and Central Asia, to the northern half of India. Half of Egypt, Israel, the Saudi Arabian peninsula, Turkey, Iran, the Russian oil-rich states, the Caspian oil region, and northern are now, or will be, all contaminated." Depleted uranium - U-238 - has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. It's effects will be with us forever. It is in the soil, in the groundwater, in food, but the worst of all, it is in the air. When inhaled, it enters directly into the bloodstream. One uranium particle behaves in the body like a tiny nuclear bomb, sending out alpha and beta particles and gamma rays to adjacent cells. These are permanently damaging to the cells and chromosomes and lead to a host of deadly diseases, including cancer and leukemia. They also cause mutations of the genetic material that will show up in subsequent generations as terrible birth deformities, weakened health, and infertility. Moret says the fallout from these foreign wars is headed our way. Spread by powerful desert winds, the fallout will be carried certainly as far as Britain (where dust storms from the Middle East commonly leave residual dust) and then across the Atlantic Ocean. It will also travel across Asia and the Pacific Ocean and be slowly and silently deposited across the North American continent. American citizens have already been exposed to radiation from a variety of sources including malfunctioning nuclear power plants, the disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, above-ground bomb tests conducted from 1957 to 1963, and the enormous existing pile of depleted uranium, about 1 million tons, poorly stored in the United States. Radiation has caused the geometric rise of cancers in the US - 1 in 3 Americans compared to 1 in 20 before the second World War. It is also responsible for the rise in autism, learning disabilities, chronic immune deficiency disorders (chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein-Barr and so forth), higher rates of infant mortality and the general weakening of the public's health. Leuren Moret was formerly employed at the Lawrence Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, and the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab. Since walking out on her job to become a whistleblower at Livermore in 1991, she has devoted her time to the study of the effects of nuclear radiation. She has worked with scientists like Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Marian Fulk, Dr. Asaf Durakovic of the Uranium Medical Research Center, Dr. Doug Rokke of Traprock Peace Center and many others. Her testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan held December 13-14, 2003, in Tokyo was largely responsible for the unanimous verdict on depleted uranium, and that the President Bush and the United States is guilty of war crimes against that country. Leuren Moret will be interviewed by Janie Rezner on her show, Women's Voices, this Monday, April 12, at 7 pm Pacific Daylight Savings time. You can listen to the interview via the internet. Visit www.kzyx.org MORE INFORMATION http://www.mindfully.org http://www.traprockpeace.org http://www.umrc.net http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers.htm The European Committee on Radiation Risk, within the European Parliament, has just published an excellent report on low-level radiation at __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html ***************************************************************** 21 Gallup Independent: Dinι Prez: Until you find a cure for cancer, ..no more uranium mining in my land - April 13, 2004 By Kathy Helms Dinι Bureau The committee also is looking at whether other classes of individuals should be considered under a compensation program. FORT DEFIANCE  On July 10, 2000, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendment of 2000 was enacted, providing expanded coverage to individuals who developed one of the diseases related to radiation exposure from the federal government's atmospheric nuclear weapons program or as a result of employment in the uranium production industry. On Nov. 2, 2002, the 21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations AuthorizationAct made changes to RECA that included re-inserting a "downwinder" area,clarifying medical eligibility criteria, providing an alternative radiation exposurestandard for uranium miners, and correcting drafting errors contained in the2000 Amendments. The final rule on RECA legislation was published March 23 in the Federal Register.But before it becomes effective next week, on April 22, there is movement onceagain to change the law. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. "made history by being the firstNative American president ever to come before the National Academy of Sciencesto testify on behalf of the Navajo people" recently in Washington, accordingto Cora Phillips of the president's office. Phillips said the president toldthe committee, "Until you find a cure for cancer, there will be no moreuranium mining in my land, Navajoland." The Navajo Nation president expressed the same sentiment last November and onother occasions. Phillips said, "He has steadfastly maintained that position.Not only is he in opposition to the uranium mining, he wants to go full forcewith the RECA reform." This would be the second round of RECA reform, but the Navajo Nation and thosewho work closely with downwinders and uranium workers believe that reform effortis overdue. "There are still weaknesses in the legislation that need tobe addressed. So this is what Navajo Nation's interests are to continuously upgradethose services to where cultural factors are not a barricading factor, becauseright now it is," Phillips said. RECA legislation is more in accordance with the American social structure, ratherthan the indigenous cultural parameters of the Navajos unique social structure,according to Phillips. "There is a big difference in what's out there insuburbia America vs. a rural isolated setting on Navajo. The social structuresare different, but that's not being acknowledged," she said. "We arehoping that the cultural factors are going to be acknowledged rather than overlookingit." Phillips said President Shirley and long-time advocate for radiation victims,Phil Harrison, made some very strong statements and the committee showed deepinterest right away "because the questions just started flying left andright. They both did an excellent job in responding to the questions. "Their3 to 5 minute presentations stretched to 30 minutes, "that's how strongthe interest was," she said. On May 18, the National Academies' National Research Council will be in WindowRock to look at how the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) canimprove its services for persons exposed to radiation and how the agency couldimprove its medical screening and public education programs. The National ResearchCouncil has been asked by Congress to advise HRSA on the most recent scientificevidence associating radiation exposure with cancer and other diseases. The committee also is looking at whether other classes of individuals or additionalgeographic areas should be considered under a compensation program for peopleexposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests. The committee willhold a public meeting from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Navajo Nation EducationCenter, where it hopes to hear from a variety of concerned citizens on issuesrelevant to its study. Harrison, whose father is a deceased uranium miner and whose uncles, grandmotherand grandfather all died of cancer, formed the Navajo Uranium Radiation VictimsCommittee and has spent years trying to get compensation for uranium workersand widows. Harrison does not receive compensation for his advocacy role. At a congressional hearing held in Shiprock in 1990, Harrison said, "Aftermany years of frustration, hardships, pain and suffering, we are entitled tobe recognized and compensated for our losses. The compensation cannot replaceour loved ones but will relieve and remedy our burdens. But our work cannot cease.We have yet to address our land, water, livestock and food cycles that are contaminated." More than a decade later, Harrison is still waging the same war. But he is hopefulthat the Washington trip has kicked off a crusade that will lead to round twoof the RECA amendment. "The trip was really good, the right connectionswere made, the response was tremendous," he said. Results of the trip willbe presented today before the Navajo Health and Human Services Committee andat a meeting later this month in Shiprock, tentatively set for 9 a.m.-3 p.m.April 30. Harrison said one of the things that is being looked at is what kind of changescan be made to Department of Justice (DOJ) rules and regulations. "Whatcan they do to ease the burdens on the clients, the uranium workers and downwinders?" Presently,he said, only a few victims are being compensated. Harrison wants to see thatfigure jump to more than 50 percent. He, Phillips and others are working on a draft of the proposed changes to presentto DOJ. "We're also going to see that the key congressional people thatwere involved with the past movement, if they can support the proposed changes," Harrisonsaid. "For the hearing that's going to be held here in Window Rock, we have tofind presenters from the uranium workers, from the uranium workers' families,and from the downwinders. The committee has their own agenda. I think for us,we have to look and find the people and help them establish their oral and writtentestimony," he said. "The other thing that we're doing right now isto see if we can get the medical doctors and the scientific people involved.We'll probably have a panel of radiation victims, a panel of medical and scientificexperts, and a panel of leadership presentation. "The main problem that we see in this thing is how do you do the translations?How do you carry on to where that the thousands of people that are going to attendwill understand what's happening? What we're saying is, 'Let the committee havetheir hearing,' and then afterward we'll translate so that people can understand.That's the thing we need to work out with the committee, because the audienceis going to be the Navajo elderlies, who are all the uranium workers. They donot understand English," he said. Likewise, the panel does not understandNavajo. "So we're going to try and figure out the logistics of it and seehow this is going to be done." Harrison and Phillips said President Shirley will be sending out invitationsto congressional staff, including Congressmen Rick Renzi, Tom Udall, Utah's JimMatheson, and Rhode Island's Patrick Kennedy, who spent time in Monument Valleytouring radioactive mines. In addition, Sen. Carmen Fernandez of Guam, whichhas been impacted by nuclear testing, also will be sending a delegation becausethey, too, want to be included in RECA, Phillips said. Among the changes Harrison hopes to see is: inclusion of Post 71 workers in RECAlegislation, an easing of the requirements for downwinders and an extension ofthe downwind fallout coverage to San Juan-, McKinley-, and Montezuma counties. "Theother thing is to pursue an increase for the downwinders, from $50,000 to $150,000with medical benefits for cancer cases," he said. Also, a big question remains regarding the threshold of working level exposure. "Wehave people that are exposed to two working levels and they have lung disease.How do you explain that? Chances are that if no changes are made, these men withlung disease are not going to be compensated. They're going to be without medicalbenefits," Harrison said. Also at issue is streamlining the payment processto nine months instead of 12 to 36 months." Tuesday April 13, 2004 Selected Stories: Historic Log Cabin Lodge Saved - Some parts OKd to burn Please send the Gallup Independent feedback on this website and the paper in general. All contents property of the Gallup Independent. Send questions or comments to gallpind@cia-g.com [gallpind@cia-g.com] ***************************************************************** 22 NRC: Standard Review Plan, Chapter 18.0, ``Human Factors FR Doc 04-8420 [Federal Register: April 14, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 72)] [Notices] [Page 19882-19883] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr14ap04-117] Engineering,'' and Associated Documents: Availability of NUREG Documents AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of availability. SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is announcing the completion and availability of three NUREG documents: (1) NUREG-0800, Standard Review Plan, Chapter 18.0, ``Human Factors Engineering,'' Rev. 1, dated February 2004; (2) NUREG-0711, Human Factors Engineering Program Review Model, Rev. 2, dated February 2004; and (3) NUREG-1764, Guidance for the Review of Changes to Human Actions: Final Report, dated February 2004. ADDRESSES: Copies of these NUREG documents may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, P.O. Box 37082, Washington, DC 20402-9328; http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs [http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs] ; 202-512-1800 or The National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161-0002; http://www.ntis.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.ntis.gov] ; 1-800-533-6847 or, locally, 703-805-6000. Copies of these documents are also available for inspection and/or copying for a fee in the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. As of November 1, 1999, you may also electronically access NUREG-series publications and other NRC records at NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html] . A free single copy of these NUREG documents, to the extent of supply, may be requested by writing to Office of the Chief Information Officer, Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Printing and Graphics Branch, Washington, DC 20555-0001; facsimile: 301-415-2289; e-mail: DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov [DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov] . Some publications in the NUREG series that are posted at NRC's Web site address http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/indexnum.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/indexnum.htm l] are updated regularly and may differ from the last printed version. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: James P. Bongarra, Jr., Division of Inspection Program Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Telephone: 301-415-1046. E-mail: JXB@nrc.gov [JXB@nrc.gov] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On December 31, 2002 (67 FR 79948--79950), NRC announced the availability of the three NUREG documents, and requested comments on them. The NRC staff considered all of the comments, including constructive suggestions to improve the documents, in the preparation of the revised NUREG documents. The final versions of the three NUREG documents are now available for use by applicants, licensees, NRC reviewers, and other NRC staff. The new revisions of the three NUREGs supersede previous version of those documents. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act In accordance with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Act of 1996, the NRC has determined that this action is not a major rule and has verified this determination with the Office of Information and Regulatory [[Page 19883]] Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 4th day of March, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. William D. Beckner, Chief, Reactor Operations Branch, Division of Inspection Program Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-8420 Filed 4-13-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 23 NRC: RC Approves Restart of Second Stage in Uranium Hexafluoride Process at Honeywell Plant in Illinois News Release - 2004-32 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II No. II-04-032 April 14, 2004 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov [opa2@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff informed officials of the Honeywell International, Inc. uranium hexafluoride processing plant in Metropolis, Illinois, on April 14 that the agency has no objection to the restart of the second stage of a three-stage process leading to resumption of production at the facility. On March 27, the NRC staff authorized the company to resume ore preparation, the first stage in a process that has been shut down since a December 22 release of uranium hexafluoride to the environment outside the plant. The April 14 authorization allows resumption of the production of uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), called green salt. NRC inspectors continue to review company preparations to resume the fluorination process which culminates in production of the final product, uranium hexafluoride (UF6). The NRC sent the company a Confirmatory Action Letter following the December 22 release which stated that Honeywell would discuss with the NRC both the results of its own investigation and proposed corrective actions prior to restarting the processes involved in the incident. Based on NRC inspectors reviews of corrective actions and observation of work activities, the agency is satisfied that the companys actions have been adequate to allow the safe restart of ore preparation and uranium tetrafluoride. NRC inspectors will continue to observe ore preparation and production of uranium tetrafluoride, along with the companys activities related to preparation for resumption of the final stage of the process. Upon further inspection and review, NRC officials will make decisions on restarting the final stage of the process. As previously announced, the NRC has scheduled another public meeting in Metropolis for April 21 to further discuss the companys improvement efforts and NRC inspection and review. The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Second Floor large Courtroom at the Massac County Courthouse at 1 Superman Square. NRC officials will be available at the conclusion of that meeting to answer questions from interested observers. NRC officials said a decision on restart of the third and final manufacturing process may be made prior to the meeting. Last revised Wednesday, April 14, 2004 ***************************************************************** 24 Salt Lake Tribune: Colorado River is ranked most endangered by group April 14, 2004 By Judy Fahys The Colorado, polluted by uranium milling, toxic chemicals and human waste, is the nation's most endangered river, the environmental group American Rivers planned to announce today. After being on the group's top-10 list four times previously, the Colorado River was singled out this year not because there might be water shortages but because there is too much contamination. The "most-endangered" designation will encourage government and citizens to act swiftly to address the growing pollution threat to a resource used by 25 million people, said Eric Eckl, a spokesman for the Washington D.C.-based environmental group. "We believe the people who hold the fate of the Colorado River in their hands are more likely to make the right decisions if they know the American people are paying attention," he said. American Rivers identified three major threats to the Colorado: * The 12-million-ton uranium waste pile from the river's banks outside of Moab. Because the tailings release uranium, ammonia and other pollutants into an area of the river prized for its endangered fish habitat and for recreation, many Utah leaders and environmentalists have pushed for the waste's removal, instead of the cheapest of the five solutions the Department of Energy is currently considering, capping the waste in place. * The area below Hoover Dam has the nation's highest concentration of people using septic tanks, which, as they become overloaded, leach nitrates into the river that are blamed for depleting the oxygen in infants' blood and for certain types of cancer. Charlie Cassens, a spokesman for Lake Havasu City, Ariz., said contamination prompted the city's 50,000 residents to endorse phasing out the septic systems in favor of a sewer system. * A Cold War missile-fuel plant site in Henderson, Nev., which releases 400 pounds of ammonia perchlorate daily. An ingredient of rocket fuel blamed for hormone disruption in humans, perchlorate has been found in high concentrations in Lake Mead and in trace amounts on leafy vegetables irrigated with Colorado River water. American Rivers said Congress should toughen clean water controls and clean up the site. This year the Snake was the only other Western river on the group's top-10 list, which was developed in collaboration with environmental groups. The Colorado River made the list previously because of the Glen Canyon Dam's impacts and the endless fight over rights to its water. Bill Hedden of the Grand Canyon Trust applauded the shift in focus this year. "Every time we dump junk into it, someone else has to deal with it downstream," he said. "We haven't thought much about the quality of the water so many people are drinking and putting on crops," he said. Sarah Fields, a Moab environmental activist, noted that the Energy Department is set to announce its decision on the Atlas tailings next month. Like American Rivers, she opposes capping the tailings in place instead of moving them. "It's obvious the river will impact the [current] tailings impoundment through flooding or if the riverbed meanders," she said. fahys@sltrib.comEndangered [fahys@sltrib.comEndangered] rivers The following is a list of the 10 most endangered U.S. rivers for 2004, according to the conservationist group American Rivers. No. Name of River State(s) 1. Colorado Colo., Utah, Ariz., Nev., Calif. 2. Big Sunflower Miss. 3. Snake Wyo., Idaho, Ore., Wash. 4. Tennessee Tenn., Ala., Miss., Ky. 5. Allegheny, Monongahela W.Va., Pa., N.Y. 6. Spokane Idaho, Wyo. 7. Housatonic Mass., Conn. 8. Peace Fla. 9. Big Darby Creek Ohio 10. Mississippi 10 different states Source: American Rivers.org The Salt Lake Tribune Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune ***************************************************************** 25 the desert sun: Colorado River tops endangered list [http://www.thedesertsun.com] Report on American waterways in peril to be released today By Benjamin Spillman The Desert Sun April 14th, 2004 The Colorado River, one of the world’s most utilized water ways, is also America’s most endangered, according to a report scheduled for release today. The environmental group American Rivers included the Colorado as number one on its 2004 list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers. The designation is meant to attract attention to the river that supplies drinking and irrigation water to as many as 25 million people across the west, including the Coachella Valley. The group wants the federal government to shift its attention from mediating disputes over water supply from the river to reducing the threat of pollution in the water. "It is probably one of the most, if not the most, influential waterways in the world," said Charlie Cassens, a spokesman for the river town Lake Havasu City, Ariz. "The water quality that is on the river has kind of gotten lost in the noise." According to American Rivers, the quality of water in the Colorado is threatened by three main contaminants: nitrates, the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate and radioactive mill waste stored in an impoundment near Moab, Utah. Below Hoover Dam, river communities like Lake Havasu City are booming and nitrates from overflowing septic system are an increasing problem. Cassens said Lake Havasu City residents recently voted to spend up to $463 million to install a city sewer system and eliminate the use of septic tanks in the area. The community also built a new $26 million drinking water treatment plant with the capacity to include treatment for chemicals like perchlorate, a contaminant that seeps into the river from a defense plant near Las Vegas, and chromium 6, a plume of which is within 125 feet of the river near Needles. "It is a system we hope we never have to use," said Cassens, of the chemical treatment capacity. American Rivers said the report comes as the federal government is making decisions that will affect the fate of water quality in the Colorado River. The Department of Energy is expected to finalize plans for keeping the radioactive waste from the river in Utah. Also in 2004, lawmakers are expected to consider proposals that could exempt the Department of Defense and defense contractors from perchlorate cleanup responsibilities. On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California board of directors called proposed exemptions, "bad public policy." Metropolitan imports river water to the Los Angeles area via the Colorado River Aqueduct. Along the way, some of the water is spilled into percolation ponds in the Coachella Valley where it is used to replenish the groundwater supply. Coachella Valley farmers also use the river for irrigation and the waterway also supplies replenishment water to the Salton Sea in the form of irrigation runoff. Locally, perchlorate has appeared in trace amounts in at least one well within the Coachella Valley Water District. That well has since been closed. The Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians near Thermal have also distributed bottled water to some tribal members served by a well they say tested positive for perchlorate. "Although the Department of Defense believes the proposed exemptions are necessary to maintain military readiness, there are ways to maintain that readiness without jeopardizing water quality," said Ronald Gastelum, Metropolitan’s CEO. Benjamin Spillman can be reached at 778-4643 or by . ***************************************************************** 26 New York Times: Pollution Study Favors Regulation By BARNABY J. FEDER Published: April 14, 2004 [R] egulation is more effective than relying on voluntary programs to reduce air pollution, according to the authors of a new review of the environmental record of the nation's 100 largest electric power companies. The report, to be released today, was sponsored by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, which includes environmental, investor and business groups; the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group; and the Public Service Enterprise Group, the parent of New Jersey's largest utility. It focuses on data collected by the federal government from the utility industry covering 1991 to 2002. The data showed progress in reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, two federally regulated pollutants that contribute to smog and acid rain and are associated with increased risk of heart and lung disease. But unregulated carbon dioxide emissions, which most scientists say are raising the temperature of the atmosphere and contributing to more violent weather, rose substantially in the 1990's. Utilities generate roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide for each kilowatt of power produced that they did in 1991, according to the report. "Voluntary programs don't work at all in the utility sector," said David G. Hawkins, a former assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who now directs the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Mr. Hawkins said that the 35 percent decline in sulfur dioxide emissions and the 28 percent decline in nitrogen compounds since 1990 were limited victories given the E.P.A.'s estimates that roughly 30,000 people are still dying prematurely each year from exposure to particulate forms of the two chemicals emitted by power plants. American Electric Power, the nation's largest utility and the owner of numerous coal-fired plants, was the largest producer of air pollutants, while Exelon, the fourth-largest utility and a major operator of nuclear power plants, had far lower emissions. For example, American Electric generated 70 percent more power in 2002 than Exelon and emitted 15 times more carbon dioxide. American Electric, which has advocated relying on voluntary efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, argued yesterday against drawing broad regulatory lessons from such different pollutants. Power plants generate almost 70 percent of the sulfur dioxide air pollution, and reasonably priced technology exists to cut such emissions, so imposing regulations like caps on the industry makes sense, said John M. McManus, vice president for environmental services at the company, based in Columbus, Ohio. But, he said, utilities represent a third of the carbon dioxide emissions; no technology exists to capture carbon dioxide from its smokestacks at a reasonable cost; and other air pollutants are far more potent contributors to global warming. Thus, Mr. McManus said, it was sound policy to not focus on power plants in considering what to do about greenhouse gases. The report, titled "Benchmarking Air Emissions," is available at www.nrdc.org. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 27 thespectrum: Endangered waters - Nitrates, rocket fuel and uranium contaminate river http://www.thespectrum.com Wednesday, April 14, 2004 By Hillary Gubler hgubler@thespectrum.com The Glen Canyon Dam, upper left, stores water from the Colorado River to form Lake Powell in southeastern Utah. The American Rivers organization designated the Colorado River as the nation's most endangered due to nitrate, rocket fuel and uranium contamination. [Photo + For the American Rivers organization report, visit [http://www.thespectrum.com/news/extras/colorado.pdf] ST. GEORGE -- The Colorado River was designated as the most endangered river according to a report released today by the American Rivers organization. The report indicated three major sources of pollution, which contaminate the groundwater and enter into the 15,000-mile Colorado River. Those pollutants seep into the river through overloaded septic systems, rocket fuel and uranium mill waste. Bill Hedden, the Grand Canyon Trust representative who helped produce the report for American Rivers, said the main concern for Southern Utah residents is the uranium waste, which produces 110,000 gallons of radioactive groundwater. The uranium waste occurs upstream from Lake Powell in Moab, while the other two sources of pollution occur downstream from Lake Powell -- a potential water source for Southern Utah. However, Ron Thompson, Washington County Water Conservancy District manager, said he did not think the pollution would affect bringing a future water pipeline from Lake Powell to Washington County. "Things are going into effect to correct the problem," Thompson said. "The river (has been) used and reused many times." One way to get rid of the river's uranium pollution is to leave it where it is, but place a cap over it to confine the uranium seepage. Another option would be to move the uranium away from the river. Either way, the Department of Energy, which has the responsibility of cleaning up the river, is supposed to have its plan established by the end of 2004. Hedden said moving the uranium away from the river would be the safest, most cost-effective method. Members of the Grand Canyon Trust want the Department of Energy to choose that option and build a specialized pipeline, making the uranium seepage travel 4,000 feet deep, into a salt formation below the river water level. Because the river clean-up is a government-funded project, residents can impact the decision making. To voice their opinion or concern about the river, residents can contact their United State representatives and senators. Originally published Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Copyright ©2004 The Spectrum. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas RJ: Auditors find flaws in Yucca documents Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Discovery could snarl DOE's license bid By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Auditors said Tuesday they discovered flaws and shortcomings in technical documents the Energy Department is preparing for the Yucca Mountain Project, a finding that could complicate the department's bid to license a nuclear waste repository. Evaluators from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission spent three weeks in Las Vegas between November and January reviewing how DOE and its contractors are pulling together pieces of a repository license application. A 29-page NRC inspection report concluded that unless DOE changes procedures, regulators won't have information they need to weigh the application. "This could result in the NRC issuing a large volume of requests for additional information in some areas," the auditors said. In turn, that could delay Yucca Mountain licensing, they said. DOE has set a goal to have a repository opened in 2010, while some experts outside the department have said that is overambitious. DOE expects to send the NRC its license paperwork in December, including more than 3 million pages of documentation to back up its claim that Yucca Mountain could safely store 77,000 tons of radioactive spent fuel and nuclear waste. But after examining analysis model reports for three segments of the project, auditors said they found parts of DOE's work were unclear. In some other areas, the explanations were clear but background documents were lacking, they said. Inspectors examined documentation for studies on how waste canisters will corrode over time and on how radioactive particles in the waste material will disintegrate. They also reviewed analyses on how long it may take repository tunnels to collapse. Based on the pattern of flaws they found, investigators concluded other DOE analysis reports may have similar problems. DOE is preparing more than 120 analysis model reports detailing how it believes the repository will perform. The NRC team also confirmed that DOE and Bechtel SAIC, the project's managing contractor, have not been able to eliminate repeat mistakes by their quality assurance workers. Despite their criticism, auditors also said they found the technical information "much improved" over what DOE put forward in a 2001 repository performance assessment. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 29 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca licensing process could be delayed NRC criticizes DOE's documentation By Suzanne Struglinski < [suzanne@lasvegassun.com] > SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- A nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain could be delayed if the Energy Department does not provide better documentation of its technical analysis, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. After reviewing three reports intended to be included with the department's license application, a commission team concluded in a 30-page report that the license process could take longer than the expected four years if the department does not improve how it submits information. The department anticipates submitting its license application for the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by the end of this year. The commission has three years, with a possible fourth year if approved by Congress, to review the application to determine if the department can build the repository. "If DOE (the Energy Department) continues to use their existing policies, procedures, methods and practices at the same level of implementation and rigor, the staff's review of the license application could be significantly extended because of the need for a large volume of requests for additional information in some areas," Martin Virgilio, director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, wrote to the project's top official, Margaret Chu. "This could, as a consequence, prevent NRC from making a timely decision regarding issuance of a construction authorization," Virgilio wrote. That could push back the Energy Department's plan of having the repository open by 2010. The department maintains it will meet its December deadline to submit the application. It aims to open the site by 2010. "We will provide the NRC with all of the information needed to evaluate our license application," Yucca Mountain Project spokesman Allen Benson said in an e-mail. "There is nothing in the report which questions the underlying soundness of our science." The Energy Department had planned for a three-year NRC review of the repository and expects to build the facility in 18 months to two years. If the department meets its schedule, the site would open by 2010. However, lawsuits, the lack of funding and the licensing process could all delay the timetable. When it reviews the license application, the commission needs to understand the department's technical explanations and determine it has given enough information to justify that explanation, according to the report. C. William Reamer, director of the commission's High Level Waste Repository Safety Division, who approved the report, emphasized the report's findings do not determine the adequacy of the department's documents to get a license. The license itself will be reviewed as a whole once submitted. The report says the Energy Department has improved the way information is compiled and submitted, but more changes need to be made or else the process will go on longer. "The ball is in DOE's court," Reamer said. The report found that in some cases, the department did not explain clearly enough how it reached a conclusion and in other instances the department had a clear explanation of an answer but not enough information to support it. The commission has questioned the department's information documentation process before but this is the first time it has said the review process could go longer. "Those who want to see nuclear waste buried at Yucca Mountain claim that the opponents of the dump are to blame for delaying the project, but it is clear that DOE's own actions are the real culprit," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "This report is a shot across the bow to DOE that says unless things change significantly, NRC will have no choice but to demand the materials needed to fully evaluate a license application for the site." Nevada attorneys will question the quality of the Energy Department's information during the licensing process, which will have administrative court hearings. Joe Egan, of Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch and Cynkar, the Virginia law firm hired by the state to handle Yucca legal issues, said it is clear from the missing information that the department is "not used to the NRC culture." "It's like when you're in school, if you read a book and do a book report and it's only half a page, it doesn't mean you don't know the book, but you may not know it," Egan said. He said some of the information the commission would want to see may not exist because the right work cannot or has not been done. Bob Loux, executive director of the state Office of Nuclear Projects, said this reports asks the department "Where is the meat on the bone?" and plainly says the department has not done an adequate job in its technical documentation. ***************************************************************** 30 Times Argus: Marshfield water problems elude solution [http://www.timesargus.com] April 14, 2004 --> By Sky Barsch TIMES ARGUS STAFF MARSHFIELD - It has been a year since village residents were told not to drink their water because it contained high levels of uranium, but a solution still remains elusive. For now, about 150 residents in homes hooked up to the uranium-tainted well continue to drink bottled water that they can pick up during one specified hour each week. Meanwhile the 200 or so who are on the old system, which is served by a spring, are being required to boil their water before drinking. Village resident D. Justin Willey, one of the residents who must boil his water, said describing the situation as an "inconvenience" is an understatement. He is hooked up to the spring that feeds his home water, which he can't drink or use to brush his teeth. The water is okay for other uses, including shaving and laundry. "How many times do you remember?" Willey asked. "You're shaving and this and that, and you get up and brush your teeth, then you rinse your mouth out. You have to have a bottle of water in every section of the house." Willey is concerned the spring feeds e-coli contaminated water to his home, because the spring system has a history of fecal coliform contamination. Marshfield trustee Arthur Gilman said some components of an old spring system were contaminated with e-coli, but those components are not being used any more. Ground water always has the possibility of containing e-coli, he said, which is why until the spring undergoes more testing residents are under an order to boil their water before drinking it. Marshfield village officials are working with the engineering firm Forcier Aldrich & Associates to determine what to do next. Gilman said the trustees are leaning towards going back on the spring system. "The trustees have voted to pursue revamping hitching up the old spring as the whole source," Gilman said. "We're trying to have the spring approved as a sole source.... The one that we're going to go back to does not have history of e-coli." Right now, he said, the spring is only allowed to be used under emergency conditions. To have the whole village on the spring, officials need to find a way to have on hand two days worth of water in case of an emergency. That means routing a pipe a mile and a half to the reservoir, which will easily cost upwards of $100,000, Gilman said. He hopes much of that can be paid for through grants instead of through a local bond. While officials hoped the pipe could be installed this year, it looks as though it won't happen until 2005, Gilman said. Gilman said the trustees are not pursuing continuing using the well because it is too costly to dispose of the filtered uranium. In the 1990s, the state encouraged the village of Marshfield to find a new source of water because the gravity spring system it used wasn't meeting the demands of residents and showed levels of contamination. The town built a new well source system, which it began using in 2001, but the well turned out to be a problem for a different reason, this time because of uranium contamination. Gilman said this well and new pipes for the town cost $1.8 million. He could not estimate how much the well alone cost. The state Water Supply Division sent a letter to Marshfield village residents in February 2003 that said the water supply showed it had a level of 69 micrograms of uranium per liter. That is more than twice the federal limit of 30 micrograms per liter set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and three times the stricter limit of 20 micrograms per liter set by the state. Municipalities with uranium levels exceeding the state standards are required to install filtration equipment, similar to a water softener, to remove the uranium; or they must find alternative water sources. Uranium is a radioactive element that occurs naturally in the environment. In areas where it occurs in rock and soil, it can contaminate groundwater wells. A fact sheet from state says that most ingested uranium is safely eliminated from the body. However, a small amount is absorbed and carried through the bloodstream into the kidneys. The Vermont Department of Health says elevated levels of uranium in drinking water can cause kidney damage and increase a person's life-time risk of cancer. To remedy the uranium problem, the state recommended Marshfield consider three options: Find another source of drinking water, filter the uranium from the current system, or create a blend of the spring source with the well source, to bring the uranium concentration levels down. Filtering the uranium would prove to be costly, as disposing of low-level radioactive waste is no easy task, so the village is now turning back to the springs as a solution. Gilman says blending the water would be difficult too, because even a half-and-half blend would still contain too much uranium to meet state standards. Contact Sky Barsch at sky.barsch@timesargus.com or 479-0191, ext. 1153. ***************************************************************** 31 LA Times: Threats to Colorado River Cited [Los Angeles Times - latimes.com] April 14, 2004 [*] Uranium, perchlorate and sewage endanger the waterway, a report says. It is a key source of drinking water for Southern California. By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer The Colorado River, a major source of drinking water for Southern California, is the nation's most threatened waterway, according to the group American Rivers, which annually compiles a list of the nation's 10 most endangered rivers. The environmental group cites several risks to the Colorado, including radioactive waste from an abandoned uranium mine beside the river in southern Utah; chemical contamination from perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket fuel; and overburdened sewage systems in fast-growing river communities along the California-Arizona border. The report says that water quality issues have been overshadowed by a long-running debate over water allocation from the river. But the group charges that increasing amounts of pollutants discharged into the river, along with dropping water levels, mean the Colorado River could pose a health threat to the millions of people who rely on it for drinking water. "The Colorado River is at a crucial crossroads," said Eric Eckl, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based American Rivers. "You have three problems, all coming to a head in the next 12 months. We want to alert the entire country to the situation along the Colorado." Bill Hedden, executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust, a conservation group that monitors the region surrounding the river in southern Utah and northern Arizona, said it was about time that water quality became a topic of public debate. "Instead if a sky-is-falling report, this is focused on front-burner decisions that need to be made to deal with these problems," he said. In the case of the uranium mine near Moab, Utah, the Department of Energy is drafting a plan to clean up 12 million tons of radioactive material piled along the riverbank. Some of that material has been seeping into the groundwater, which, in turn, flows into the river. At issue is how the radioactive waste will be disposed of. In its report, American Rivers maintains that unless the material is moved well away from the river, a major flood could inundate the site and wash tons of waste into the river. One remedy being examined by the Department of Energy, however, would enclose the waste in a man-made cavern in a nearby salt deposit, a solution that agency officials believe would be cost-effective and safe. The American Rivers report suggests that the mine site is responsible for gradually increasing levels of radioactivity measured hundreds of miles downstream. But Don Metzler, the Department of Energy's project manager for the mine cleanup, said naturally occurring uranium found in soil and rock causes higher measurements. Metzler, a hydrogeologist, said the federal agency monitored the river water about a mile downstream of the site and had not measured any radioactivity associated with the mine. But even if there were only small amounts of contamination, he said, the mine waste needed to be stabilized. "There is some uranium that discharges into the Colorado River, and as far as I'm concerned, that's unacceptable," Metzler said. "We're working on a plan right now." Officials of the Metropolitan Water District, the agency that imports Southern California's share of the river's water, have been concerned about the mine waste for several years. But they said Tuesday they had not detected rising levels of radioactivity. The presence of perchlorate in the river stems from a rocket fuel plant in Henderson, Nev. The Department of Defense is seeking exemptions from an array of federal environmental laws for the plant, and Eckl of American Rivers said a broad implementation of any exemptions could preclude removing perchlorate from the facility. The MWD's board of directors on Tuesday came out in opposition to the proposed exemptions, calling them bad public policy. "Although the Department of Defense believes that the proposed exemptions are necessary to maintain military readiness, there are ways to maintain that readiness without jeopardizing water quality," MWD Chief Executive Ronald R. Gastelum said. The endangered rivers report also says that the Colorado River below Hoover Dam has a major concentration of septic-tank owners living near its banks. The overloaded system, it says, allows human waste to seep into groundwater and the river. "This is gravity: Septic tanks are above the river, waste drains into the river," said Robert Glennon, a professor of law at the University of Arizona who recently wrote a book about the relationship between groundwater and surface water. "You just can't have that many septic tanks and that many [septic tank] leaching fields that close to the river." The report says that the Bush administration has slashed the budget of a federal program that provides funding for local communities to upgrade sewage treatment and water purification plants. Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 32 Pahrump Valley Times: Faculty exposed to Yucca Mountain April 14, 2004 By BREANNE HUBBARD PVT BREANNE HUBBARD / PVT Robert Vallely, senior instructor at Bechtel SAIC Co. uses a PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate how a nuclear plant works to a roomful of teachers on Monday. Teachers practiced what they preach in the classroom earlier this week when they attended courses to gain educational credits. On the official day of their spring break, Nye County science, math and social studies teachers from all grade levels were invited to attend the Science, Society and America's Nuclear Waste workshop Monday and Tuesday, hosted by the Department of Energy as an addition to the Clark County Continuing Education curriculum. The workshop kicked off Monday morning at 7:30 at the Pahrump School District office and lasted until 5 p.m. Tuesday's workshop was a tour of Yucca Mountain that started at 8 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. The classroom workshop was broadcasted via satellite to the Tonopah School District Office for those who wanted to attend, but couldn't make it to Pahrump. The purpose of the workshop, according to the manager of Yucca Mountain Information Center John Pawlak, is to keep the teachers "better informed" on nuclear waste and the possibility of a repository at Yucca Mountain. Once the teachers gathered information over the two-day period, they would have new information to take back to the classroom and share with students. Each teacher was given curriculum material, as well as handouts that provide lessons and projects for students to work. The goal is to give students a better understanding of what could happen in their own backyards in the next five years - if Yucca Mountain becomes a repository. The only snag the workshop encountered was the date. Since Monday was the start of spring break, a majority of teachers went out of town and weren't able to attend. "Naturally it's hard because people go on vacation. But we don't want to infringe on the children's education," Pawlak said. The Clark County School District has held night courses during school days for their teachers. That has been looked at in Nye County, but Pawlak isn't certain if that would work well in a rural environment. According to Pawlak, people that travel in and out of town would find difficulty staying throughout the evening. Although the workshop failed to fill the room, it wasn't a total bust. Ten to 15 teachers came and went throughout the seminars to grab materials and listen to guest speakers. Allen Benson, manager of communications in the DOE's office of repository development, opened up the workshop at 7:45 a.m. with an overview of the project. In his presentation, Benson addressed energy source statistics, the locations of other nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, alternative concepts for waste disposal, Congress's legal obligation and potential transportation scenarios. Dr. Abraham VanLuik, the policy advisor for the Energy Department, followed with an overview on science and performance assessment. His presentation was accompanied by safety features on CD-ROM and documents about Yucca Mountain's potential laboratory in DVD format. Other speakers were Ron Green, Hal Nelson, Robert Vallely, Max Powell and Dr. Maryla Wasiolek from Bechtel SAIC Co. Each speaker covered a variety of topics, ranging from environmental programs, to how a nuclear plant works, to transportation and radiation issues. Richard Arnold, the executive director for the Las Vegas Indian Center made an appearance to discuss cultural activities and Native American artifacts. The DOE follows the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that states, under the Indian Religious Freedom and the National Historic Preservation acts, that any Native American artifacts found at the test site will be preserved. "We're very respectful of all the artifacts of Native Americans," Pawlak said. The hottest topic for the workshop was nuclear transportation. While most speakers referred to the topic in their speeches, senior public relations specialist of Bechtel, Max Powell, discussed the issue in depth. Pawlak said dialogue on transportation is important because a majority of citizens are concerned with the route DOE will choose to transport the waste to Yucca Mountain. Railroad routes and hauling by truck have been considered. "Changes are happening," Pawlak said. The visit to Yucca Mountain on Tuesday consisted of an all-day tour. Teachers became familiar with the geology and hydrology of Yucca Mountain, as well as how a repository might operate. The workshop might become an annual event in Nye County, depending on demand, Pawlak said. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com [webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com] Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2003 ***************************************************************** 33 Pahrump Valley Times: Nuke waste transport hearings scheduled April 14, 2004 The U.S. Department of Energy will hold three public hearings in rural Nevada on the decision to ship nuclear waste by rail from Caliente, including one in Amargosa Valley. A public hearing is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 3 at the Longstreet Inn and Casino on Highway 373 in Amargosa Valley. The next night, the hearings move to the Goldfield Community Center, while the Energy Department will hold a public scoping meeting in Caliente May 5. The department published a record of decision in the Federal Register this week to announce plans to build a rail line 319 miles from the Union Pacific tracks at Caliente, west to Tonopah, then roughly parallel to U.S. Highway 95 south to Yucca Mountain, going around the Nellis Air Force Training Range. The Yucca Mountain repository is scheduled to open in 2010. It will hold 77,000 metric tons of high level nuclear waste from 127 different sites around the country. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com [webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com] Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2003 ***************************************************************** 34 Deseretnews: Goshute leader should testify, magistrate says [deseretnews.com] Wednesday, April 14, 2004 IRS looking into tax liability of company owned by the tribe By Doug Smeath Deseret Morning News A federal magistrate judge has recommended that the leader of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes be required to turn in documents and testify in an IRS investigation of a company related to the tribe. The IRS investigation is just one of a series of legal wranglings involving the tribe, though tribal chairman Leon D. Bear is not accused of any criminal wrongdoing in this case, nor is anyone else connected with the tribe. The IRS is looking into the tax liability of Starlike Properties Inc., a company owned by the Goshute band, which has made national news in its controversial bid to raise money by allowing spent nuclear fuel to be stored on its Tooele County reservation. The IRS is looking into a 1998 Starlike tax filing claiming a financial loss on a currency investment. In February, Bear and his attorney, Joseph Thibodeau, went before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Nuffer to explain why Bear and the tribe did not comply with an IRS summons seeking a host of documents related to Starlike. The summons also sought Bear's testimony, which he refused to give. Among their contentions, they argued that the IRS overstepped its bounds by seeking information from a sovereign Indian tribe and that the summons' timing was suspiciously close to the federal government's filing of criminal charges against Bear, alleging such things as theft and bank fraud. Dissident members of the tribe who oppose Bear's efforts to secure a fuel-storage contract were also charged with similar but unrelated crimes on the same day Bear was charged. Though the IRS probe and the criminal charges are not directly related to the nuclear storage question, they have pointed to conflict brewing within the tiny tribe and have raised questions for some people inside and outside the tribe about Bear's leadership. And Thibodeau also sees a connection, worrying that the IRS summons for testimony by Bear could set Bear up for potentially making a self-incriminating statement in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "It's always been troubling, from the very beginning, that the government is simultaneously proceeding to charge someone with criminal wrongdoing" and trying to compel testimony on an unrelated but similar matter, Thibodeau said after giving the recommendation a cursory review Tuesday. He said the testimony sought "is inevitably and inextricably" connected to Bear's criminal charges, although the court proceedings on the two issues are separate. Bear's charges do not mention any activity related to Starlike but instead accuse him of filing false tax returns and stealing money from the tribe's bank accounts. In Nuffer's recommendation, which was filed Monday, he concludes that the IRS met the obligations necessary in obtaining a summons. He also wrote that while Bear may be legitimately concerned about self-incrimination, established law allows a person to invoke the Fifth Amendment on a question-by-question, document-by-document basis. The amendment, he writes, does not allow someone to "refuse to answer questions or to produce documents on the basis of a general claim of constitutional privilege." He also concludes that Bear has not shown any connection between the civil tax investigation and the criminal charges, refuting Bear's arguments that the government is trying "to put pressure on Mr. Bear in the criminal case." The recommendation is not legally binding but provides U.S. District Judge Dee Benson with an analysis of the issues presented by both sides. Bear has 10 days from the time his attorney received the recommendation to file any objections. Benson will then issue an order, either requiring Bear to comply with the summons or denying the IRS' motion seeking such an order. Thibodeau said he had just received the recommendation Tuesday morning and that he and Bear would make a decision on whether to file any objections after giving it a more in-depth reading. W. Carl Hankla, the attorney from the U.S. Department of Justice who argued this case before Nuffer, said he had not yet seen the recommendation and could make no comment. E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com [dsmeath@desnews.com] © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 35 KOB TV: DOE cuts funding to WIPP isolation facility (Carlsbad-AP) – Layoff notices have been given to the staff of aNew Mexico nuclear watchdog group that oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The U.S. Department of Energy has cut funding for the Environmental Evaluation Group, which will shut down in two weeks if no new money is found. Congressman Tom Udall says it appears the DOE is trying to kill the group. The head of the DOE’s Carlsbad office, Paul Detwiler, says the department is merely trying to get the EEG to stop overspending. Sixteen EEG employees in Carlsbad and Albuquerque will be out of their jobs April 30th unless the DOE provides additional money. WIPP, which is near Carlsbad, is an underground waste dump for defense-related nuclear waste. (Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) src="http://www.kobtv.com/kobtvimgs/ads/banners/nmtrade.gif" © 2004 KOB-TV, a division of Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. LLC All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 36 Deseret news: Colorado tops list of rivers in danger [deseretnews.com] Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Radioactive tailings near Moab blamed By Lee Davidson Deseret Morning News WASHINGTON — National environmental groups are declaring the Colorado "America's Most Endangered River," mostly because they say 110,000 gallons of contaminated water seep into it daily through radioactive uranium tailings near Moab. A pond is on top of uranium tailings at the old Atlas Minerals site near Moab in 1998. In the background is the Colorado. Environmentalists are worried that the tailings may be capped in place instead of being removed. Ravell Call, Deseret Morning News "The Colorado River is not yet the most polluted river in the country, but it could become so if the current problems are allowed to fester," said Rebecca R. Wodder, president of the environmental group American Rivers. It and partner groups — ranging from the Sierra Club to the Grand Canyon Trust and Friends of the Earth — each year release a list of America's most endangered rivers. They plan to formally release it this morning at the National Press Club. The groups explained in advance that they put the Colorado atop this year's list largely out of worry that the Energy Department may not remove tailings from the old Atlas uranium mill site adjacent to the river and instead cap them in place. "Someday a big flood like those that raged through these canyons in the 19th century is going to lift that pile into the river and irradiate Canyonlands National Park. It is pure folly not to move this pile away from the flood plain of the Colorado River," said John Weisheit with the environmental group Colorado Riverkeeper. Bill Hedden, with the Grand Canyon Trust, added, "As long as this material remains on the riverbank, it poisons the river every day and threatens water supplies with catastrophic failure." The Energy Department is scheduled to release next month a draft environmental impact statement that will identify a preferred option for handling the tailings. Utah politicians have vociferously opposed capping it on site — the cheapest alternative — as have California politicians worried about radiation in their downstream drinking water. About 13,000 tons of uranium tailings are on 130 acres at the Atlas site. Interim remediation by the Energy Department now includes dewatering the tailings and pumping contaminated groundwater to an evaporation pond on top of the pile. However, environmental groups say an estimated 110,000 gallons of contaminated water still seep into the river from the unlined pond every day — with contaminants including uranium, radium, ammonia, cadmium, arsenic, selenium and other heavy metals. "Because this pile is so large and because we are so few in this remote region, they may be thinking they can save millions of dollars and justify their actions to stabilize this pile in place next to the river," Weisheit said. "Well, they would be wrong to think this way. Losing this pile to a big flood or the river's migration could affect Los Angeles as much as it would affect us here in rural Utah." Sarah Fields, coordinator of the Nuclear Waste Committee of the Sierra Club Glen Canyon Group, said, "For thousands of years this tailings pile will remain toxic and radioactive to humans and animal life. In the scale of hundreds of years, it is inevitable that a catastrophic flood will consume this pile and devastate the down-river environment." The environmental groups say the Colorado is also threatened — but not so dramatically — from human waste reaching it from boom towns in California and Arizona. They say fast-growing areas there have the largest concentration of people in America that use septic tanks. They say overloaded systems are allowing high levels of nitrates to seep into the river and efforts to upgrade wastewater systems there are hampered by lack of federal support. Also, the groups say that toxic ammonium perchlorate is trickling into the river from a former military facility near Henderson, Nev. Deseret Morning News graphic "Our tests last year found that perchlorate levels in winter lettuce irrigated by the Colorado were four times higher than the EPA's recommended safe dose for a glass of drinking water," said Bill Walker, vice president of the Environmental Working Group. "The cropland irrigated by the river produces most of the lettuce and other produce sold nationwide during the winter months," he said, "which means that perchlorate is not just a local or regional problem but a concern for every American." Wodder with American Rivers said, "The problems identified here all require immediate action, but those should be just the first steps towards a comprehensive restoration effort." She added, "We call on the nation's leaders to take the next step and develop a binding cleanup plan to ensure that the Colorado River can meet the many demands placed on it for generations to come." E-mail: lee@desnews.com [lee@desnews.com] © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 37 Rocky Mountain News: Colorado River labeled most endangered in U.S. By Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News April 14, 2004 The Colorado River was designated Tuesday as the nation's Most Endangered River for 2004 by American Rivers, a Washington, D.C., conservation group. American Rivers and nine other environmental groups cited radioactive, human and toxic waste seeping or being dumped into the river after it leaves Colorado, according to the report. "The Colorado River is not yet the most polluted river in the country, but it could become so if the current problems are allowed to fester," Rebecca R. Wodder, president of American Rivers, wrote in a public statement. One of the chief concerns is the Atlas Uranium Mill located on the banks of the Colorado River near Moab that leaks 60,000 gallons of radioactive waste into the groundwater, which in turn seeps into the river daily, according to American Rivers. The mill was built in 1956 and shut down in 1984. During operation, the mill dumped 13 million tons of radioactive tailings and other mill wastes in an unlined 130-acre, 110-foot deep "bathtub" near the river. Problems downstream include human waste reaching the river from towns in California and Arizona where people use septic tanks that overflow, allowing nitrates to seep into the ground water and into the river. In Henderson, Nev., the toxic chemical ammonium perchlorate is getting into the river from a former military facility, the group said. "The problems identified here all require immediate action, but those should be just the first steps toward a comprehensive restoration effort," Wodder said. Chris Treese, spokesman for the Colorado River Water Conservation District in Glenwood Springs, said he is skeptical of the list. "Each year, American Rivers comes out with a different list and get their ink in the press and that's about all that comes of it, " he said."I think this annual list is a cheap lobbying effort because it's different rivers every year but nothing is ever done to fix the problems," Treese said. ***************************************************************** 38 Guardian Unlimited: Shoot it at the sun. Send it to Earth's core. What to do with nuclear waste? Government advisers consider 14 ways of getting rid of the troublesome legacy Paul Brown, environment correspondent Wednesday April 14, 2004 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Firing nuclear waste into the sun, placing it in Antarctic ice sheets so it sinks by its own heat to the bedrock, or putting it under Earth's crust so it is sucked to the molten core. These are three of the 14 options the government's advisers are considering to get rid of the UK's troublesome nuclear waste legacy. All options are technically possible and many are potentially hazardous - either to current generations or those yet unborn. Most also have political drawbacks and are expensive, around £50bn and counting, yet it is a problem the government has decided it must solve. Last year it appointed a committee on radioactive waste management to re-examine all possibilities to find a publicly acceptable solution to the nuclear waste problem - something that successive governments have failed to do for 50 years. The committee's options, seen by the Guardian, range from the exotic to the well established. And most have their difficulties. For example, firing waste into the sun or into outer space may permanently rid Earth of the problem but the possibility of rocket failure may make this seem too much of a gamble. The Antarctica solution, allowing heat producing waste to bury itself in the ice, runs into the difficulty that the interna tionally agreed Antarctic Treaty bans such activity. The last pristine continent is supposed to be untouched by nuclear material. Sub-seabed disposal, where waste is placed in a pre-dug hole or dropped in specially built penetrators to bury itself in the soft seabed, may be the best technical option. Even if the packages eventually rot and the radioactivity escapes it will be diluted by the sea water. But sea dumping is banned. Some of the other ideas, such as placing it deep in the ground either to lose it in the Earth's mantle or in deep stratas where it would remain, have been tried by Russians and Americans. The Swedes are successfully using a deep depository but so far the UK has proved short of suitable geological formations. Exporting nuclear waste is also against government policy and likely to draw international protests. All of the ideas remain on the table and none is yet a frontrunner. The present policy, by default, is storage but with a government committed to safeguarding the environment for future generations this may be ruled out as an option too. Nuclear waste stays dangerous for 250,000 years and even the best constructed concrete bunker is likely to need upgrading every 100 years or so. A report to the committee says: "Fifty years of experience has proved the pursuit of 'the best' in the long term management of radioactive waste to be an illusory concept. The UK is currently engaged in a process, the success of which would be the identification of 'the acceptable', at a level which would allow the government to proceed with confidence." Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment, who is due to meet members of the government committee this week, was dismissive of the 14 ideas: "We thought all these madcap schemes had been junked donkey's years ago. The only sensible solution is to store it where it rightfully belongs - in above ground custom built concrete stores at the site of origin." The government's estimates it will soon have 500,000 tonnes of higher level nuclear waste it has no home for, even if it never builds another nuclear power station. The even higher volume of low level waste is sent to a waste dump at Drigg, near Sellafield, in Cumbria, for disposal in especially engineered trenches. Meanwhile the more pressing problem is the more dangerous wastes. These are stored all over the country in naval dockyards, at a dozen nuclear power stations, former experimental sites like Harwell, Oxfordshire, or Dounreay, Highlands. But by far the largest stores and the most dangerous high level heat producing liquid wastes are at Sellafield, Cumbria, where Britain's major nuclear facilities were developed. And it was Sellafield that was the scene of the previous government's last big failed attempt to solve the nuclear waste problem on the eve of the election in 1997. John Gummer, in his last act as John Major's environment secretary, refused planning permission for a laboratory to test the suitability of the area for disposal of nuclear waste in granite. Mr Gummer ruled that the science on which the planning application was based was flawed. It was this decision that left the Blair government with a vacuum where its nuclear waste disposal policy was concerned. The committee was originally charged with finding a way forward for nuclear waste disposal by the end of next year, but the committee has pleaded for an extension to the middle of 2006 before it can produce a final report. guardian.co.uk/nuclear Guardian Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 39 Tri-City Herald: Tri-City DOE professionals unionize This story was published Wednesday, April 14th, 2004 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Engineers and other professionals in the Department of Energy's Tri-City offices overseeing cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation have voted 105-29 to join the American Federation of Government Employees. "People are nervous about the future of their jobs along with not feeling valued by management," said Guy Schein, president of AFGE, Local 788, in a statement. The mail-in vote count was announced Tuesday evening. The conduct of the election may be appealed for five days. Then the Federal Labor Relations Authority must certify the election. If results are upheld, Local 788 will bargain for all employees covered by organized labor at the Office of River Protection and the Richland offices. About 100 nonprofessional employees already were unionized, but now Local 788 will represent about 300 employees. Professionals include mostly engineers, but also attorneys, accountants and others with a specialized degree. "Over the last 60 years, the pros never felt the need to unionize and join the non-pros," Schein said in a statement. "The fact that they decided to do it now is a clear indicator on how management is treating its employees." DOE had no comment on the vote Tuesday night. DOE professionals are concerned that studies to contract out work and budget restrictions could mean fewer DOE jobs in Richland. The proposed 2005 budget could mean cuts of 10 percent of the jobs in the Richland office, plus additional cuts in the Office of River Protection, Schein said. "Fear of a RIF (reduction in force) actually was driving a lot of these people to vote," Schein said. In addition, DOE headquarters has been conducting studies to see if work could be contracted out to save money. As of October, the four accountant and accountant technician positions responsible for day-to-day work at the two Hanford DOE offices will be reduced to one part-time position, said John Sellards, spokesman for Local 788. DOE is expected next to study contracting out engineering work, Sellards said. DOE would present a proposal to compete with private employers that likely would result in fewer jobs even if DOE decided to continue to directly employ the engineers, he said. A minimum of 30 percent of workers' signatures is required to hold a vote. Within a couple of weeks professionals had collected signatures of about half the eligible workers, even though signatures cannot be collected on work time or in a work area, Sellards said. "AFGE didn't have to do anything as far as formal organizing," Schein said. "The pros decided enough was enough, and they made it happen themselves to join us." No decision has been made about whether professionals will be phased into the existing agreement for nonprofessionals or negotiate separately. A federal union cannot bargain over salaries and benefits. It can bargain over working conditions, such as bonuses and schedules, and can represent employees in formal discussions with supervisors and management. If employees are laid off, the union can make sure that management follows rules. The union does not have the power to stop studies on contracting out work, but could have a say in how the studies are conducted, Sellards said. The votes were counted Tuesday by the Federal Labor Relations Authority in San Francisco. Of 214 employees eligible to vote, 143 cast ballots. A handful of ballots were voided or challenged and not counted in the total. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 40 Oak Ridger: EPA, ATSDR disagreement spurs forum Story last updated at 11:51 a.m. on April 14, 2004 PRESENTATION: Agencies should address differences of opinion on Y-12 related document that's available at several public libraries. By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com] KINGSTON - It's doubtful, according to one official, that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry are going to completely concur on a health assessment pertaining to uranium releases from Oak Ridge's weapons plant. "That's a given," Jerry Pereira, branch chief for Community Involvement with ATSDR, told Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee members Tuesday afternoon. However, what's important is that the public gets an opportunity to hear both sides of the story, according to several subcommittee members. The subcommittee essentially serves as an advisory group to ATSDR - a federal public health agency involved with hazardous waste issues. Neither the health assessment nor EPA's concerns over the document were on the agenda for Tuesday's subcommittee meeting in Kingston. But, discussion on the issue quickly surfaced and lasted for well over an hour. Ultimately, the subcommittee voted to schedule a public forum for June 7 in Oak Ridge, with a time and specific location to be determined at a later date. At the forum, the public should get a chance to learn more about the document and hear the differences of opinion between EPA and ATSDR. Released recently, the "final version" 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." In other words, people could've been or were exposed, but the estimated doses weren't at levels expected to cause adverse health effects. EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air indicated 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. Various people affiliated with the Health Effects Subcommittee have tried to get EPA officials to address the agency's concerns with the group. Though EPA was initially scheduled to talk to the subcommittee on Tuesday, officials postponed the presentation and cited the Kingston location of the meeting as the reason. The health assessment focuses heavily on the Scarboro neighborhood, located just over a ridge from Y-12. Some people were concerned that an issue so important to Oak Ridge shouldn't be discussed in Kingston. Copies of the health assessment on Y-12 uranium releases are available at the Oak Ridge, Harriman, Kingston and Rockwood public libraries in addition to the ATSDR field office, located at 197 S. Tulane Ave. in Oak Ridge. ***************************************************************** 41 Tri-Valley Herald: U.S. nuke program criticized 4/14/2004 Report says Livermore lab is a key figure in wasteful spending By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER A federal plan hatched in 1995 for maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal without explosive testing is failing in several of its original goals while doubling in cost, a new report says. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that advocates nuclear disarmament, says the Bush administration's weapons-research plans continue wasteful nuclear spending from the Clinton years while shortchanging funds for curbing the spread of nuclear arms. An NRDC report issued Tuesday singles out Lawrence Livermore lab's National Ignition Facility as second only in waste to a plan to spend an average of nearly $3 billion on supercomputers at every weapons lab by 2009. Livermore's stadium-sized laser has jumped in cost from $1.1 billion in 1997 to $3.5 billion, while related research projects will bring its cost by NRDC estimates to at least $5 billion by 2008. The laser won't have the ability to perform its most valuable experiments for weapons research until at least 2010. Meanwhile, the NRDC report notes, multibillion-dollar upgrades for every major U.S. thermonuclear bomb design are proceeding without the data from the laser's fusion experiments that weapons scientists and government experts claimed were essential in the 1990s. Arguments for NIF and other expensive experimental and computational machines are coming under new scrutiny as the machines hit delays, cost overruns and technical obstacles, apparently without impairing the ability of scientists to prolong the working life of 1970s- and '80s-vintage weapons. Yet the costs of those facilities -- and new ones -- have soared in recent years, without examination of their continued justification, the NRDC says. "This whole thing has been running on auto-pilot, and it's time Congress stepped in and said, 'What is going on?' It's time someone said the emperor has no clothes," said Christopher Paine, a senior NRDC nuclear weapons analyst and lead author of the report. The Bush administration is seeking $6.8 billion in 2005 for the National Nuclear Security Administration to maintain the arsenal and study new nuclear weapons, a growth of 31 percent over the last Clinton budget and twice the original annual budgets of a decade ago for the same programs, known as "stockpile stewardship." The president's weapons-research budget also is more than 12 times the $540 million that the president is asking for securing nuclear materials and expertise in Russia and elsewhere, including Iraq, NRDC's report says. The president has identified terrorist use of a nuclear weapon inside the United States as the greatest security threat to the nation. Sen. Dianne Feinstein offered a bill last week to force the Bush administration to give those efforts more money and higher priority in a presidential-level task force. "I am deeply concerned that the Bush administration's efforts do not adequately address the seriousness of the issue," said Feinstein, D-Calif. "We must do everything in our power to prevent terrorists from ever getting their hands on nuclear material and developing nuclear weapons." The NRDC's report says billions of dollars could be saved for counterterrorism and nonproliferation by examining the number of nuclear weapons that the United States requires for deterrence and cutting the weapons budget appropriately. Beyond the risk of undermining U.S. efforts to discourage nuclear-weapons work in other nations, the NRDC report says, "an agency that has so egregiously mismanaged U.S. taxpayers' investment in stewardship of existing weapons has no business shopping for exotic new warheads to foist on an unsuspecting public." Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 42 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:37:04 -0700 (PDT) NUCLEAR crisis, alliance to top Cheney agenda Joongang Ilbo - Seoul,South Korea Fresh from talks with Chinese leaders on the North Korean nuclear issue, US Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to arrive in Seoul today on a two-day visit ... See all stories on this topic: FRENCH nuclear plant evacuated in bomb alert Expatica - Netherlands SAINT-LO, France, April 14 (AFP) - A bomb hoax forced the evacuation of around 100 staff members from a French nuclear power plant in the northern town of ... See all stories on this topic: N. Korea Had Nuclear Bombs 5 Years Ago Free Internet Press - New York,NY,United States ... sighting of Pyongyang's atomic arsenal, Abdul Qadeer Khan - the father of Pakistan's uranium weapons program - told investigators he saw three nuclear bombs in ... See all stories on this topic: EXCLUSIVE: Bhutto on Pakistan nuclear history United Press International - USA WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- Pakistan's nuclear bomb never had an Islamic character, said the country's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto whose father used ... See all stories on this topic: INDIAN Nuclear Scientists Split Bananas The Learning Channel - USA April 14, 2004 — Indian nuclear scientists say they have unpeeled one of the great mysteries of the soft-drinks world: how to extract juice from bananas ... See all stories on this topic: HEAD of UN Nuclear Agency Hopeful Iran Will Stop Building Nuclear ... Payvand - Iran The head of the UN nuclear agency says he is hopeful that Iran will stay faithful to its pledge to stop building nuclear centrifuges. ... See all stories on this topic: ANALYSTS See Profound Perils in a Nuclear-Armed Iran Newhouse News Service (NNS) - USA ... and terror, the Middle East is sliding toward a new crisis: As soon as this summer, Iran could be unstoppably on its way to producing nuclear material for its ... CHENEY Urges China to Increase Efforts on N. Korea Nuclear ... Voice of America - Washington,DC,USA ... Dick Cheney has told Chinese officials it is important to move more aggressively in efforts to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs. ... See all stories on this topic: ISRAEL nuclear whistleblower to face restrictions upon release ... CBC News - Canada JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu will be barred from leaving the country and faces a series of other restrictions when he is ... See all stories on this topic: CHINA set to join nuclear export control group Daily Times - Pakistan SHANGHAI: China is set to join a multilateral group which controls the export of nuclear materials and technology, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. ... See all stories on this topic: This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 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. 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