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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 US: New York Daily News: Hil takes brass on &G.I.s win
2 Reuters: Iran Denies Nuclear Espionage Arrests
3 Ananova: Straw set for Iran nuclear talks
4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: "Six-party Working-level Talks Unlikely W
5 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: "Kim Jong-il Concludes China Visit"
6 UPI: N. Korea agrees to more nuclear talks -
7 FT: South Korea joins the nuclear rush
8 Reuters: Japan Urges North Korea Action on Nuclear Issue
9 Las Vegas SUN: N. Korea's Kim Agrees to Nuclear Talks
10 US: Should we know about nuke terror security?
11 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Delay name of nuclear game
12 US: Public Citizen: OMB’s Second Draft of Peer Review Bulletin Creat
13 [NYTr] Vanunu leaves prison
14 Vanunu: Ambassador's comment
15 What Israel does not want Mordechai Vanunu to tell
16 Vanunu leaves prison
17 "I AM MORDECHAI VANUNU. I'M PROUD AND HAPPY TO DO WHAT I DID."
18 BBC: Vanunu: Israel's nuclear telltale
19 BBC: 'Proud' Vanunu vows to fight on
20 BBC: Press fears over Vanunu release
21 BAS: Pakistan: It's deja vu all over again
22 BAS: Mordechai Vanunu
NUCLEAR REACTORS
23 US: AP: Fuel Rod Pieces Missing at Vt. Nuke Plant
24 US: SLO Tribune: Diablo dry cask proposal likely headed to Coastal C
25 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: County OKs Diablo nuclear waste plan
26 US: NRC: NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against W.Va. Firm for Failing to
27 US: AP Wire: TVA to meet with NRC to discuss Browns Ferry concerns
28 US: toledo blade: NRC panel to decide if activists get a hearing
29 US: El Diario/LA PRENSA: A company admits it made a mistake
30 US: CNN.com: Fuel rod parts missing from nuclear plant -
31 US: NRC: NRC Names Directors of Communications and Office of Public
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 PRAVDA.Ru: Examination of "Peter the Great" missile cruiser = nuclea
33 US: UPI: U.S. Army troops found radioactive -
34 US: Centre Daily Times: Cancer on agenda Thursday
35 WSWS: Testing of New York guardsmen: first confirmed cases of Iraq w
36 Mos News: Court Rejects Appeal to Re-Examine Kursk Case -
37 ITAR-TASS: Duma remembers nuclear disaster victims
38 US: Gallup Independent: Living in the valley of death - Grandson
39 US: Gallup: Independent: Still paying for the good ol'days
40 US: KATU 2: Hanford workers to wear respirators around some tanks
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
41 US: Letter edited for publication in the Bay View
42 US: deseretnews: Nuclear waste plan for Southern Utah resurfaces
43 US: DenverPost.com - EDITORIALS Recycled water positive step
44 Las Vegas SUN: Plans to guard shipments questioned
45 RGJ: Attend to town’s needs; cut its support for Yucca
46 Scotsman: Sellafield Cuts Radioactive Discharges into Irish Sea
47 Reuters: Sellafield nuclear plant to cut discharges
48 PRN: LES Asks NRC to Assure State Participation in Licensing Process
49 US: Pahrump Valley Times: Beatty town board covers wide scale
50 Las Vegas SUN: Lawmakers call for more comment time on Yucca
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
51 BAS: An NPT for non-members
52 US: Metro Pulse: Nuclear Freeze
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
53 [epa-impact] Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Advisory Commit
54 Tri-City Herald: Some at Hanford will wear air tanks
55 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Insecure about security
56 Oak Ridger: Lab chief wants supercomputer
57 Oak Ridger: Y-12 protesters go before judge
58 Oak Ridger: Through gates of history
59 amarillo.com: Pantex production began in 1942
60 lamonitor.com: Stockpile handling questioned by IG
61 PISJ: Request for new DOE contract proposals delayed
62 Daily Texan Viewpoint: Los Alamos -
OTHER NUCLEAR
63 Google News Alert - nuclear
64 Daily Illini: Retired professor still contributes to the world of nu
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 New York Daily News: Hil takes brass on &G.I.s win
[http://nydailynews.abracat.com/]
By RICHARD SISK in Washington and MAKI BECKER in New York DAILY
NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Richard Myers vowed to
upgrade uranium tests for Iraq G.I.s.
The U.S. military's top general pledged yesterday to shake up the
system to improve the screening and tracking of troops who may
have been exposed to uranium dust in the Iraq war.
"We've got to do a first-class job for our troops," said Gen.
Richard Myers.
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his pledge
when pressed on the issue by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) at a
congressional hearing.
"You're certainly right," the general told Clinton, who demanded
that the military upgrade its methods of "medical tracking and
surveillance" to clear up the backlog in testing returning
troops.
"We need to monitor to make sure we don't overlook things,"
Myers said.
The shortcomings in the system were exposed in a series of
exclusive reports in the Daily News after nine soldiers with the
442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard
came forward saying they were suffering from unexplained
illnesses since their tour in Iraq last year.
An independent test conducted at The News' request found that
four of the men tested positive for depleted uranium, which
because of its heaviness is used to make shells and coat armored
vehicles.
A study by the Army in 1990 linked depleted uranium to "chemical
toxicity causing kidney damage."
The soldiers were heartened to hear that the military's top
brass were finally taking their complaints seriously.
"I think it's great," said Sgt. Agustin Matos, who has tested
positive for depleted uranium. "It's great she [Clinton] is
getting us attention."
But Sgt. Juan Vega said, "I'll believe it when I see it."
Myers seemed taken aback when Clinton told him of the backlog of
hundreds of troops on medical hold at Fort Dix, N.J., awaiting
testing from possible contamination.
"I don't believe I've seen those reports," said Myers, promising
to investigate the backlog.
"Our troops deserve better," Clinton lectured Myers.
At Clinton's urging, Myers said he also would look into methods
of testing used in Japan and Germany that might pick up traces of
depleted uranium that were being missed in the U.S. military's
tests.
Originally published on April 21, 2004
All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P.
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2 Reuters: Iran Denies Nuclear Espionage Arrests
Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:13 PM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's intelligence minister denied Wednesday
a newspaper report that two atomic experts had been arrested for
passing nuclear secrets to foreigners.
The hard-line Ya-Lesarat weekly said Wednesday that Iran's
security agents had arrested two atomic experts for transferring
classified information. It did not say who received the data.
"I strongly deny it. Nobody has been arrested for transferring
classified information," Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi told
reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.
Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to generating
electricity while Washington accuses it of pursuing a covert
program to build atomic arms.
International concern about Iran's nuclear program intensified in
2002 when an exiled opposition group said Iran was hiding a
massive underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a
heavy-water production plant at Arak.
Hoping to allay concerns about its nuclear program, Iran has
signed up to snap U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities and
suspended the assembly of uranium enrichment components.
Enriched uranium can be used to make fuel for power plants or to
make bomb-grade material.
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3 Ananova: Straw set for Iran nuclear talks
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will today hold talks with his
Iranian counterpart on international concerns over the country's
nuclear programmes.
Dr Kamal Kharrazi will meet Mr Straw as part of his tour of
European capitals.
The talks will focus on Iran's co-operation with UN nuclear
inspections as well as escalating violence in Iraq.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "Mr Straw is meeting Dr
Kharrazi to continue a dialogue on bilateral issues and issues of
mutual interest such as Iraq and discussions on Iran's nuclear
armaments.
"Iran and Britain have a mutual interest in a stable, prosperous
and democratic Iraq."
Mr Straw was instrumental in persuading Iran to co-operate with
the UN nuclear agency over inspections of its nuclear programmes.
There is international concern over the country's nuclear
capabilities. That concern escalated last month when Iran resumed
work on a key nuclear programme in apparent breach of its deal
with the UN.
Britain demanded answers after Iran announced a facility to
convert uranium was to be brought into service, despite its
promise to suspend all uranium-enrichment activities.
In a deal with the IAEA struck late last year, Tehran agreed to
suspend uranium enrichment - and all related activities - while
UN inspectors investigated suspicions the country was using a bid
to generate atomic energy as a cover for developing nuclear
weapons.
Story filed: 01:13 Thursday 22nd April 2004 -->
Ananova Ltd.
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4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: "Six-party Working-level Talks Unlikely Within This Month"
Updated Apr.21,2004 14:17 KST
South Korean officials hope that North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il's visit to China will produce tangible results to ease
the nuclear standoff, especially as progress is slow going in
kick starting working-level discussions to proceed with
six-nation nuclear talks.
Government sources say the proposed working group negotiations
among the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia are
unlikely to happen within this month nor early next month.
However, they explain that the lower-level meetings will be able
to convene prior to the third round of the six-nation nuclear
dialogue set before the end of June.
The working negotiations are aimed at fine-tuning details
regarding the nuclear issue so as to achieve a notable outcome
at the six-party forum.
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5 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: "Kim Jong-il Concludes China Visit"
Updated Apr.21,2004 13:37 KST
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was spotted coming out of
a Beijing duck restaurant on Tuesday, 2 kilometers west of
Tian'anmen in Beijing, China. /provided by SBS television.
Still no official confirmation by China about the North Korean
leader's visit to the mainland and the official North Korean
media has been reporting that General Kim Jong-il is very much at
home inspecting local military facilities.
But images of the reclusive leader were caught on camera for the
first time on the third of his four-day trip Tuesday and reports
indicate that he is now on his way back to the North aboard a
special train.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il still travels under tight
security and much secrecy as North Korea's state-run media
outlets and Chinese government officials remain tight-lipped
about the communist leader's trip.
A convoy of black limos with heavily tinted windows was perhaps
the only probable piece of visual evidence of Mr. Kim's stay,
until Tuesday around noon.
The iron veil fell off for the first time, and the elusive Kim
Jong-il was caught on camera leaving a renowned Beijing duck
restaurant with top Chinese officials.
This is Kim's third secret trip since 2000, during which he
reportedly met with Chinese President Hu Jintao and retired
President Jiang Zemin among other senior military officials.
While the details of Kim's mission are likely to be announced
after he returns to North Korea, which has typically been the
case in the past, his tour is widely viewed as a multipurpose
visit.
It's difficult to assess to what extent the nuclear issue was
discussed, but many experts and diplomatic observers seem to
agree that one of his main objectives, was to appeal for economic
aid from "big brother" China to revive the impoverished North
Korean economy. Another topic of discussion was, presumably, ways
to strengthen military exchange between the two allies.
Arirang TV
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6 UPI: N. Korea agrees to more nuclear talks -
(United Press International)
April 21, 2004
Beijing, , Apr. 21 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il
agreed to a third round of six-nation talks aimed at ending his
country's nuclear program, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.
Wednesday, Kim concluded a three-day state visit to Beijing and
released a 10-apge statement written in English in which he said
North Korea will "actively participate" in the talks, the Chinese
state Xinhua news agency reported.
The report did not mention any type of aid demands or other
obstacles to restarting the talks, which began in Beijing in
August last year and resumed in February. Chinese diplomats said
talks could resume by the end of June among China, Japan, Russia,
the United States and the two Koreas.
Kim arrived on an overnight train from northeast China Monday
morning with a 40-person delegation and began meetings
immediately, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said.
Reports said China advised him against demanding compensation
from the United States before agreeing to dismantle his nuclear
program.
*****************************************************************
7 FT: South Korea joins the nuclear rush
By Andrew Ward
Published: April 21 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: April 21 2004
A South Korean consortium has joined the rush of foreign
companies vying for access to China's nuclear power market, as
the country seeks fresh sources of electricity to ease energy
shortages.
Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP), the state-run nuclear power
generator, said this week they had teamed up with other South
Korean investors to compete for contracts to build nuclear power
plants in China and other countries.
China said late last year it would invite foreign companies to
help design and construct four 1,000 megawatt nuclear power
generators in the energy-hungry south and east, at a cost of
about $6bn.
Several companies have been linked with the contracts, including
Electricité de France, Atomic Energy of Canada, US-based
Westinghouse and Framatome ANP, a joint venture between France's
Areva and Siemens of Germany.
Nuclear power currently provides only 1.3 per cent of the
mainland's electricity, compared with 71 per cent from coal. But
China aims to quadruple its nuclear power capacity by 2020, which
would involve constructing several more reactors.
The plans are part of a broader push by China to expand
electricity generating capacity as its power industry strives to
service rapid economic growth.
Many parts of China, including some of its biggest cities and
industrial regions, have suffered power shortages in peak periods
over the past year, with blackouts and electricity rationing
disrupting daily life and slowing economic activity.
The first four planned nuclear plants will be in Sanmen, in the
eastern Zhejiang province, and in Lingdong, in the southern
province of Guangdong - serving two of the most highly
industrialised regions. Construction is expected to start next
year.
KHNP is the latest in a growing list of South Korean companies
seeking to exploit economic growth in neighbouring China. South
Korea was the third largest investor in the mainland during the
first 11 months of last year, behind Hong Kong and Japan. Its
companies ploughed in $4.05bn over the period, nearly 50 per cent
more than in all of 2002, according to the Korea International
Trade Association.
KHNP, part of Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), said it
was awaiting tender information from China before deciding
whether to bid for contracts.
The company's consortium includes Doosan Heavy Industries and
Construction, which builds electricity generators, and other
Kepco units specialising in fuel supply and plant design.
KHNP said it would compete for nuclear power contracts round the
world, not just in China, and recently agreed to conduct a
feasibility study on nuclear power plants in Indonesia.
Nuclear power provides about 40 per cent of South Korea's energy
needs but the industry has only recently started to think about
exporting its technology.
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. "FT" and
"Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy
*****************************************************************
8 Reuters: Japan Urges North Korea Action on Nuclear Issue Wed
Apr 21, 2004 05:53 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan urged North Korea on Wednesday to take
"responsible action" to resolve a dispute over its nuclear arms
ambitions after China and North Korea agreed to continue to push
forward six-way crisis talks.
"We hope that the promise the top leaders of China and North
Korea made will lead to the resolution of the nuclear issue,"
Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said.
Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday that Beijing and
Pyongyang had agreed to continue to push forward six-way talks on
the North Korean nuclear crisis during a visit to China by the
North's leader, Kim Jong-il.
The agreement was reached during a meeting between Kim, who
arrived in Beijing on Monday, and Chinese President and Communist
Party chief Hu Jintao, it said.
"We hope that North Korea will take responsible action to resolve
the nuclear issue," Takashima told reporters.
China has hosted two inconclusive rounds of talks with the two
Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia to resolve the
impasse over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions. The six
parties have agreed to hold another round before July.
In Tokyo on Wednesday, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Yukio
Takeuchi held talks with Charles Kartman, executive director of
the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).
Kartman told Takeuchi that although it was difficult to assess
North Korea's true intention, he believed the reclusive communist
state recognized the usefulness of the six-party talks, Japanese
officials said.
KEDO, the U.S.-led consortium, had been building two light-water
nuclear reactors, which could not be used for weapons programs,
in North Korea, in exchange for a 1994 pledge by Pyongyang to
freeze its own nuclear program.
KEDO's work was suspended on December 1 for a year to try to
persuade North Korea to make good on its offer to abandon its
nuclear weapons program.
*****************************************************************
9 Las Vegas SUN: N. Korea's Kim Agrees to Nuclear Talks
By AUDRA ANG ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING (AP) -
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said during a visit to Beijing
that he wants to end the standoff over the North's nuclear
program though dialogue and is committed to a "nuclear
weapon-free goal," China announced Wednesday.
Kim and Chinese leaders agreed to "jointly pushing forward"
six-nation talks on the North's nuclear program, the official
Xinhua News Agency said. The report, issued after the secretive
Kim left the Chinese capital on Wednesday, was China's first
public confirmation of his three-day visit.
Kim's visit came just days after Vice President Dick Cheney
traveled to Beijing last week and urged Chinese leaders to press
the North to reach a settlement.
During a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Kim said the
North "sticks to the final nuclear-weapon-free goal and its
basic position on seeking a peaceful solution through dialogue
has not changed," Xinhua said. It said the two leaders "agreed
to continue ... jointly pushing forward the six-party talks
process."
Kim also met former President Jiang Zemin, who now heads the
commission that runs China's military; Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice
President Zeng Qinghong and Wu Bangguo, the No. 2 leader of
China's Communist Party.
South Korean media earlier reported that Chinese leaders had
urged Kim to ease his hardline stance against the United States.
The Xinhua account of the meetings didn't mention that.
Washington insists on a "complete, verifiable and irreversible
dismantling" of all the communist North's nuclear facilities.
Pyongyang says it needs a "nuclear deterrent" against a possible
U.S. attack and would give up its nuclear program only in return
for U.S. security guarantees and economic aid.
Chinese media had been silent about Kim's trip although it was
widely reported in South Korean media. Following his departure,
Chinese state television showed him hugging each of the leaders
and kissing some of them on the cheek. In his meeting with Hu,
Kim was dressed in a grey Mao-style tunic, while Hu wore a grey
Western-style suit and red tie.
The last round of six-party talks - involving United States,
China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia - ended in February in
Beijing without no settlement but a pledge to meet again.
China says the parties hope to do so by July, but have been
blocked by unspecified differences, the Chinese government has
said.
On Wednesday, Xinhua said the North "will continue to take a
patient and flexible manner and actively participate in the
six-party talks process, and make its own contributions to the
progress of the talks."
In his meeting with Jiang, "Kim was believed to have expressed a
strong doubt that North Korea would ever get security guarantees
from the United States even if it gives up its nuclear
programs," the South Korean newspaper Munhwa Ilbo reported,
citing unidentified sources in Beijing.
"Jiang was believed to have told Kim that the possibility of the
United States invading North Korea was very slim, thus
indirectly giving him strong advice for North Korea to change
its hard-line stance against the United States," it reported.
During his 15-hour train ride home, Kim was expected to visit
the major industrial centers of Shenyang or Dalian in China's
northeast to study government efforts to boost the economy with
outside investment.
--
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10 Should we know about nuke terror security?
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 16:52:55 -0700
Should we know about nuke terror security?
By Ad Crable
Lancaster New Era
Published: Apr 21, 2004 5:26 PM EST
LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - A federal lawsuit in California could determine
whether Lancaster County residents and officials have more say and knowledge
concerning security at two nearby nuclear plants and radioactive waste
scheduled to be shipped through the county.
Later this summer, a federal appeals court in San Francisco will hear a
lawsuit that challenges the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's refusal to
consider the impact of a terrorist attack on above-ground storage of spent
nuclear fuel at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.
The NRC is being taken to court by the Mothers for Peace anti-nuclear group
and the Sierra Club, which are fighting against the cask storage.
The NRC ruled a terrorist attack on the nuclear plant is so remote that it
doesn't have to hold public hearings, listen to advice from local officials
or determine the environmental impact of a successful assault on the highly
radioactive waste to be stored on the site.
The case has quickly taken on nationwide implications. Attorneys general in
California, Massachusetts, Utah and Washington have joined the fight for
more disclosure of what a terrorist attack could mean for nuclear plants in
their own back yards.
Three Mile Island Alert, a local safe-energy group, is advising Mothers for
Peace and has given the group money.
"This lawsuit is an investment in our future,'' said Eric Epstein, head of
TMI Alert, referring to the quest for more disclosure of terrorism and
waste-storage issues at the TMI nuclear plant in Dauphin County and the
Peach Bottom nuclear plant in York County.
"Our community has a right to participate in decisions that affect our
future. We need to strike a balance between security and a closed system
that excludes input from the general public,'' Epstein said.
In 2001, five months before Sept. 11, TMI Alert sued the U.S. Department of
Energy in an attempt to get the owners of the Peach Bottom nuclear plant to
do a thorough environmental impact statement on the effects of above-ground
waste storage on the surrounding community. The request was denied.
Epstein and others decry what they call a cloak of secrecy that the NRC has
operated under since Sept. 11, 2001.
The public and local governments have a right to know more about how well
nuclear plants are protected and what could happen if a terrorism attack is
successful, they say.
The lawsuit seeking more public disclosure is especially relevant to
Pennsylvania, which has five nuclear plants and is close to a concentration
of nuclear plants in the northeast.
Moreover, when the first national repository for spent fuel opens in Nevada,
presumably in 2010, preliminary shipping routes call for hundreds of trains
and trucks to pass through Lancaster County.
Experts say the lawsuit may determine how much oversight state and local
governments may have in the shipments.
"Many states have nuclear power plants, and many will have shipments of
nuclear waste through their states. We have an obligation to ensure that our
citizens are protected and federal government follows the law,'' said David
Mears, senior assistant attorney general for Washington state.
In the Diablo Canyon case, the NRC cited rules that reserve the authority to
regulate security and radiation health issues to the federal government.
The NRC has said hearings and meetings with officials would only lead to the
possibility of a heightened security risk by revealing details of security
precautions.
But Epstein said the argument does not hold water. He said TMI Alert has
been signing confidentiality agreements with the NRC for 25 years.
In the Diablo Canyon fuel-storage review process, the NRC ruled it did not
have to do an environmental analysis on the fallout from a terrorism attack
because such an attack "was speculative and simply too far removed from the
natural or expected consequences of agency action to require a study.'' But
in a brief filed in the case, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
countered, "licensing any nuclear facility -- whether a reactor, a spent
fuel pool, or a dry cask spent fuel storage facility -- near a community
both makes the community a more likely terrorist target and makes the
consequences of a successful terrorist attack far more devastating to the
community.''
Lockyer maintains that under the National Environmental Policy Act, a court
can require the NRC to conduct an analysis of terror risks posed by a
planned project if there is a substantial question as to whether it would
have a significant effect on the environment, either by making a terrorist
assault more likely or by increasing the consequences of such an attack.
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11 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Delay name of nuclear game
[seattlepi.com]
[OPINION] Thursday, April 22, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
In the summer of 2001, there was a spike in al-Qaida "chatter"
and mounting evidence that a terror strike was imminent. But
without precise details, it was difficult to get the attention of
top policy-makers or of the public -- until it was too late.
Now something similar is happening, in North Korea.
North Korea is potentially more dangerous than the mess in Iraq.
It probably has at least one to three nuclear weapons already, it
is producing both plutonium and uranium, and it is on track to
have close to 10 nuclear weapons by the end of this year.
Yet because President Bush's policy has failed in North Korea,
Washington is determinedly looking the other way. When we next
focus on North Korea, after the election, it could be a nuclear
Wal-Mart.
North Korea not only has genuine nuclear weapons programs, but it
is also the model of a rogue state: It gets its U.S. currency by
printing it. That's right, it counterfeits excellent American
$100 bills.
The latest disclosure, via David Sanger of The New York Times, is
that the father of Pakistan's bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, claims
North Korea showed him three nuclear weapons in 1999. The Bush
administration, after publicizing anything to do with Iraqi WMD,
tried to keep that revelation secret.
Khan's report is unconfirmed. This much is sure: The Bush
administration has invaded a country on far less evidence.
Worse, North Korea is reprocessing enough plutonium to make an
additional half-dozen weapons. It has restarted one nuclear
reactor and will soon replace the fuel rods there, producing
enough plutonium for another weapon. All that activity began
during the Bush administration. North Korea is also continuing a
uranium enrichment program it covertly began in the Clinton
years.
To his credit, Vice President Dick Cheney forthrightly raised
concerns about North Korea's nuclear program during his trip to
Beijing last week. But the administration still has no effective
plan to deal with the crisis.
Soft-liners would like to negotiate a "grand bargain" with North
Korea in which Kim Jong Il would accept "complete, verifiable and
irreversible dismantlement" in exchange for U.S. security
assurances. Such a negotiated deal is the only hope, but to
hard-liners, it sounds suspiciously Clintonian.
Meanwhile, the administration is playing a delaying game with
six-party talks in China and starting working-level talks through
Joseph DeTrani, a former CIA officer and China hand. The DeTrani
channel will be an important step forward, but it's difficult to
imagine a deal that both the Bush and Kim administrations could
agree on -- and in the meantime, North Korea keeps churning out
nukes.
"The administration is just trying to kick this can down the
road," said Jonathan Pollack of the Naval War College. "In a
funny way, I think both we and the North Koreans are waiting for
November."
Resolving this crisis is in the interest of virtually everybody
on the planet, with two exceptions: Bush and Kim. They may have
nothing else in common, except that their fathers also ran their
countries, but they do share an interest in delay.
Bush has his hands full with Iraq and doesn't want attention paid
to the nuclear threat that is substantially worsening on his
watch. Kim figures that he may as well wait to see whether John
Kerry is elected, and he'd also like to finish reprocessing the
plutonium and enriching the uranium.
While the administration has become more reasonable on North
Korea, it still hasn't accepted the unpalatable truth: The only
possible route out of this crisis is a grand bargain. Bush, who
listened way too much to Cheney on Iraq, should reflect on
something Cheney said on his China trip about negotiations over
North Korea's nuclear programs: "Time is not necessarily on our
side." Nicholas D. Kristof is a columnist for the New York Times.
Copyright 2004 New York Times News Service. E-mail:
nicholas@nytimes.com
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA
98119 (206) 448-8000
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com [newmedia@seattlepi.com]
©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy
*****************************************************************
12 Public Citizen: OMB’s Second Draft of Peer Review Bulletin Creates New Problems
April 20, 2004
Potential for Political and Industry Interference with Health,
Safety and Environmental Regulation Remains
WASHINGTON, D.C. In the face of overwhelming opposition from
the scientific, academic and public health communities, the White
House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has dropped its
attempts to impose overt political control over the release of
health and safety information by federal agencies and force
pro-industry domination of scientific review panels. However, in
a revised draft of its peer review proposal, OMB has opened new
potential avenues for political and industry influence that could
threaten public protections.
At a time when the Bush administration has been accused of
widespread suppression and manipulation of scientific
information, OMB is proposing to establish review procedures that
all government agencies must follow before using or disseminating
scientific or technical information. The reach of the proposal is
extremely broad, covering everything from complex research
findings relied upon in the development of new regulations to
factual data displayed on Web sites.
The most welcome change from the previous version of the draft
bulletin is the elimination of a requirement that agencies secure
the permission of the administrator of OMBs Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) before releasing
emergency health and safety information to the public.
OMB also has moderated the express pro-industry slant of the
criteria for selecting members of peer review panels. Under the
new version, not all scientists who receive research funds from
federal agencies would automatically be classified as "biased,"
as they would have been in the original draft bulletin. However,
the bulletin maintains its antipathy toward academic scientists
while exhibiting no comparable skepticism toward scientists
employed by industry, who still are not disqualified for
conflicts based on the interest of their employer in the outcome
of the proceeding on whose panel they serve.
Although these revisions are positive, OMB has made a number of
other changes that create new problems: + In addition to the
national security and foreign affairs exemptions in the original
draft, OIRA now proposes to exempt accounting, budget, financial
and trade-related information from the peer review process. It is
unclear why such important information should be exempt, except
that businesses do not want it covered. + An agency would be
permitted to bypass the bulletins otherwise mandatory
requirements for selecting panelists, producing reports and
involving the public in the review process, if the agency uses an
alternative form of review specifically approved by the
administrator of OIRA. OIRA has again made itself the final
arbiter, with no stated criteria to guide its decision. This
provision appears to create a channel for regulated industries to
go to OIRA for an alternative when they want to avoid an agencys
plan for reviewing particular information. + The definition of
"information" has been broadened to include not only "any
research report, data, finding or other analysis," as in the
original, but also "any communication or representation of
knowledge such as facts or data" that might have a substantial
impact on public policies or private sector decisions. Requiring
peer review of "facts" greatly increases the burden on agency
time and resources and furthers the perception promoted by
industry that every fact is open to interpretation.
"OIRA revealed its intentions in the original draft of the
bulletin when it tried to take control over the release of
information and stack review panels with pro-industry members,"
said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "Now it has given
itself ultimate discretion to approve alternative review
processes. The exemptions for budgetary analyses such as
assessment of the cost of prescription drug coverage and for
trade-related information that industry wants on a fast track,
confirm that the real purpose behind this costly government-wide
process is to stymie the development of needed new health, safety
and environmental protections and give leeway to industry."
*****************************************************************
13 [NYTr] Vanunu leaves prison
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:24:12 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Sent by Michael P (ACTIV-L)
HA'ARETZ (Israel) Wednesday April 21, 2004
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=418032&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Vanunu Leaves Prison
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
Not since the Cold War case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg has world
attention been so riveted - and divided - by allegations of nuclear
espionage.
The story of Mordechai Vanunu has something for everyone - intrigue,
betrayal, secret agents and seduction, an enforced disappearance worthy of
Mission Impossible, whispered revelations and clandestine photos blown
straight onto one of the world's most prestigious front pages, shadowy
trials, pathos and religious epiphany.
Nothing is missing from the epic: buried nuclear stockpiles, elemental
issues of conscience, 12 years in solitary, a nobody-turned-icon, a
defendant silenced with the heavy hand of a policeman clamped over his
mouth, debate bridging oceans, adoration in some quarters of a man seen as
a modern-day saint, vilification in others of a blackguard who sold out
his country and bared its deepest secrets, the nation's most publicly
pilloried traitor.
The story may also have something in it for the State of Israel.
Since 1986, when the Sunday Times of London published Vanunu's detailed
account of an Israel having manufactured as many as 200 atomic bombs, no
Israeli has ever been more vehemently condemned by his government for
having caused mortal - if as yet unspecified - harm to national security.
The intervening 18 years have little altered the picture. An Army Radio
report on Vanunu's imminent release referred to "the man whom Israel views
as perhaps the gravest traitor in its history."
Still, behind closed doors in senior echelons of Israeli government and
defense, there may well be those who believe Vanunu's revelations did
Israel's defense posture an invaluable service.
"Paradoxically, Vanunu actually contributed to the nation's security,"
argues Haaretz defense analyst Reuven Pedatzur, in a reference to Israel's
decades-long official position of "amimut" [usually rendered as
"ambiguity," but actually closer in the original to obtuseness, an
intentional dimness] regarding whether the Jewish state possesses a
nuclear arsenal.
"His revelations strengthened Israel's deterrent picture on the other
side, without us having to pay any price in divulging what we have."
Israel has long feared that official acknowledgement of a non-conventional
weapons programs could lead to imposition of international inspection and
the prospect of forced disarmament.
There are those in the defense and political establishments who were
secretly gladdened by the splash created by the Vanunu-inspired Sunday
Times account of an extensive Israeli nuclear weapons program, Pedatzur
maintains.
"There are people who understand this very well," he says. "Every one with
eyes in his head was glad, everyone who understands strategy and who
followed what was going on in the Arab world after Vanunu."
According to Pedatzur, "The response one would have expected from the Arab
world was one of frenzied outrage. But the response was in fact very
low-key.
"Thus, our deterrent image had been greatly strengthened as a result of
Vanunu's revelations. It only reinforced what the other side already knew.
At the same time, they avoided raising a great outcry, knowing that if
they did so, in Egypt, Syria, and other states, the people would have
turned to their rulers, demanding 'Why don't you do something against
this?'"
As things stand, the leaders have found ways to live relatively
comfortably with the state of affairs, he continues. "They have reconciled
themselves to a nuclear Israel for many years. Thus, absurd as it may
sound, Vanunu contributed to state security."
A number of Israelis have suggested that if it had been Israel's genuine
interest all along to keep Vanunu and his secrets from wide public
attention, it could hardly have done a worse job.
There was no better case in point than Vanunu's release on Wednesday.
In a curious step, the Israeli Government Press Office, which has in
recent years boasted of its efforts to hobble foreign correspondents
deemed overly critical of Israel, bent over backwards at Ashkelon's Shikma
Prison to film inside such insider views as the pre-release Vanunu
adjusting his tie, in views the GPO then flashed live to world news
networks.
GPO Director Danny Seamen was uncharacteristically nonplussed when grilled
by Israel Radio over the aid to foreign coverage. "I'm not the one who
made the decision," he said. "We simply acted as the conduit."
Asked who made the decision, his answer was simple. "Not me."
In recent days, government agencies and the IDF Home Front Command clamped
a long list of restrictions on the nominally freed Vanunu. The
restrictions included a ban on leaving Israel for a full year, a
prohibition against speaking to foreign nationals unless granted prior
permission, restrictions on where Vanunu could sleep and reside, and an
order barring him from internet chats.
Vanunu stressed in his remarks Wednesday that he had no further secrets to
divulge, a position that Pedatzur endorses. "What can he say after 20
years that he has not already said?"
Many observers suggested Wednesday that Israel's official
characterizations of Vanunu as a man who still posed uncommon danger to
state security only heightened international interest in his case.
Even senior Israeli officials who believe Vanunu still possesses sensitive
state secrets say that prosecutors erred when they recommended Vanunu be
released with limitations.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz
argued instead for administrative detention, to make it impossible for the
former Dimona technician to reach a public audience.
Vanunu's attorney Avigdor Feldman said the defense establishment had
brought about a "media-political-security carnival" to accompany Vanunu's
release.
Responding to media accounts of Vanunu as possessing "documents that
describe with astounding detail how Israel manufactures nuclear weapons
'down to the last bolt,'" and material which allegedly revealed what
Jonthan Pollard had secretly passed to his Israeli handlers, Feldman was
adamant that Vanunu had no cards left to show.
"Vanunu was a technician in the nuclear reactor. He was responsible for a
very particular segment of production. He could also go around in several
areas. He did that, and he took pictures. He sat with the Sunday Times
journalist. Whoever takes and reads that yellowing Sunday Times in some
archive will see the drawings and pictures of the way in which nuclear
weapons are made, down to the last bolt."
"He has no further information. Nor does he have any interest in further
information."
Nonetheless, Feldman said, "As a result of a week-long campaign of
official leaks that portrayed Vanunu as seeking the destruction of the
Jewish state" - a campaign Vanunu decried as false in one of his first
statements after leaving prison - "the man who had been the most
closely-guarded, the most classified, the most prohibited from speaking in
the whole country, was turned into the most spoken-about."
BBC - April 21, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3645297.stm BBC
Vanunu speaks: Key quotes
Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in
jail for revealing the country's nuclear secrets.
BBC News - 21 April: During his imprisonment he became a hero for the
peace movement, though Israel still says it fears he could compromise the
country's security.
Upon his release on Wednesday, he spoke to the journalists, supporters and
opponents thronged outside the jail.
Here are excerpts:
I'm not speaking in Hebrew. If Israel doesn't let me speak to foreigners I
am not speaking in Hebrew.
[From prepared statement] I am Mordechai Vanunu, the man behind the Sunday
Times article from 5 October 1986. The article about Israel's nuclear
weapons.
I was kidnapped in Rome, Italy by Israel's spy on 13 September and I was
brought to Israel, arrived at... prison on 7 October. I was here in the
prison from 7 October 1986 until today, 17-and-a-half years in very cruel,
barbaric treatment by Israel's spy [agency] Mossad.
I am not harming Israel. I am not interested in Israel
This prison is guided and controlled by Mossad. The guards are only
obeying orders of Mossad. In this prison you have a Section 7 [run] by the
Mossad.
To all those who are calling me a traitor I am saying I am proud and happy
to do what I did. I am very glad that I succeeded to do what I did... I
don't have any secrets.
All this bullshit, blah blah blah, about secrets, is dead. My case is
dead. The article was published. There are no more secrets. All the
secrets were published and is in the hand of the whole world. All the
world, every state, 180 states received these secrets. I am now ready to
start my life.
I am not harming Israel. I am not interested in Israel. I want to tell you
something very important. I suffered here 18 years because I am a
Christian, because I was baptised into Christianity. If I was a Jew I
wouldn't have all this suffering here in isolation for 18 years. Only
because I was a Christian man.
I didn't say Israel should not exist. But Vanunu Mordechai says we don't
need a Jewish state. Vanunu Mordechai doesn't want to live in Israel and
doesn't need a Jewish state. It's for Jewish people to solve the problems
with the Palestinians...
I said to the Shabak [Shin Bet - internal security services], the Mossad,
you didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy...
Israel doesn't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East
is free from nuclear arms
I want the president of the United States, George Bush, and Tony Blair and
Gerhard Schroeder, Vladimir Putin, all the leaders to do for my release
from Israel, to leave Israel and now this day all those leaders should
deal and speak about Israel's nuclear secrets.
The time has come to end this silence and secret cooperation by the West,
the United States, Canada and all Europe helping Israel and co-operating
with Israel's secrets...
Israel doesn't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East
is free from nuclear arms... My message today to all the world is open the
Dimona reactor for inspections...
All those standing behind me, who supported me, who continued to be my
friend for 18 years - all are heroes...
I am a symbol of the will of freedom. You cannot break the human spirit.
*
To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit:
http://tania.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
=================================================================
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Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
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*****************************************************************
14 Vanunu: Ambassador's comment
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 21:57:25 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.projo.com/ap/ne/1082595138.htm
Providence Journal 04.21.2004 8:52 P.M.
MEDFORD, Mass. (AP) - Israel's ambassador to the United States defended
his country's killing of a Hamas leader over the weekend, saying that
Abdel Aziz Rantisi was a "killer" and killing him would prevent terrorism.
"He wasn't an innocent guy and we decided to take him out. He was a
killer," Daniel Ayalon said in an appearance at the Fletcher School at
Tufts University.
Ayalon said, "Hamas is our al-Qaida."
Rantisi and two bodyguards were killed in a missile strike on his car
Saturday night, three weeks after Israel killed the militant group's
spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Following Rantisi's killing, Hamas
vowed to carry out "100 unique reprisals."
Israeli troops raided a town in the Gaza Strip Wednesday for the second
straight day to stop a barrage of rockets that were fired at nearby
settlements in retaliation for the killing of Rantisi.
Ayalon also said Mordechai Vanunu, who walked out of an Israeli prison
Wednesday, 18 years after exposing Israel's nuclear secrets, should be
happy he's released and keep quiet.
Vanunu, who Israelis consider a traitor, had immediately defied Israeli
restrictions by speaking with international media to demand the Jewish
state open its reactor to international inspection.
"I think the sentence he received was quite reasonable, 18 years. I think
he should count his blessings and be happy he's out of prison," Ayalon
said.
"What happened to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg? They were hanged," he said.
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were the last Americans put to death for
spying. They were executed in 1953 for conspiring to steal U.S. atomic
secrets for the Soviet Union.
Researchers say Israel continues to produce atomic weapons and already has
hundreds of nuclear warheads. But Israel neither confirms nor denies it
has nuclear weapons, and refuses to discuss such allegations.
Vanunu was jailed for leaking details and pictures of Israel's alleged
nuclear weapons program.
*****************************************************************
15 What Israel does not want Mordechai Vanunu to tell
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 09:05:21 -0500 (CDT)
ISRAEL: Washington backs Middle Easts nuclear outlaw
Norm Dixon
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/576/576p12.htm
Every civilised nation has a stake in preventing the spread of weapons
of mass destruction... Were determined to confront those threats at the
source, US President George Bush declared in a February 11 speech.
We will stop these weapons from being acquired or built. Well block
them from being transferred. Well prevent them from ever being used.
One source of these weapons is dangerous and secretive regimes that
build weapons of mass destruction to intimidate their neighbours and
force their influence upon the world.
Arguing for combative new arms control measures that would further
entrench the Wests control over nuclear weapons, Bush casually repeated
the now thoroughly exposed lie that the US-led war against Iraq was
launched because Baghdad refused to disarm or account for ... illegal
weapons and programs.
Bush used the speech to signal that Iran remains in Washingtons
gun-sights, alleging that Tehran is unwilling to abandon a uranium
enrichment program capable of producing material for nuclear weapons.
Bush also demanded that North Korea completely, verifiably and
irreversibly dismantle its nuclear programs.
The February 11 speech marked a new high for hypocrisy and cynicism. It
was prompted by embarrassing revelations that Washingtons closet ally,
Pakistan, has been the worlds leading peddler of nuclear weapons
technology for more than a decade and its customers have included Iran
and North Korea. Until 2003, Washington tolerated the activities of
Pakistans state-sponsored nuclear smuggling and spying rings.
US allies
Washington has never opposed dangerous and secretive regimes
developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to intimidate their
neighbours and force their influence upon the world only those that
are not US allies.
Saddam Husseins Iraq developed and used its chemical weapons arsenal,
and began an effort to build nuclear and biological weapons, while an
ally of the US prior to 1991. Washington began nuclear cooperation with
Iran in 1957 under its Atoms for Peace program and encouraged US
corporations to sell dual use nuclear technology to the US-backed Shah
of Irans dictatorship.
But the most spectacular and under-reported example of Washingtons
support for nuclear proliferation is its dealings with Israel.
[Full article at http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/576/576p12.htm]
*****************************************************************
16 Vanunu leaves prison
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 12:47:10 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=418032&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
HA'ARETZ (Israel) Wednesday
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
Not since the Cold War case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg has world
attention been so riveted - and divided - by allegations of nuclear
espionage.
The story of Mordechai Vanunu has something for everyone - intrigue,
betrayal, secret agents and seduction, an enforced disappearance worthy of
Mission Impossible, whispered revelations and clandestine photos blown
straight onto one of the world's most prestigious front pages, shadowy
trials, pathos and religious epiphany.
Nothing is missing from the epic: buried nuclear stockpiles, elemental
issues of conscience, 12 years in solitary, a nobody-turned-icon, a
defendant silenced with the heavy hand of a policeman clamped over his
mouth, debate bridging oceans, adoration in some quarters of a man seen as
a modern-day saint, vilification in others of a blackguard who sold out
his country and bared its deepest secrets, the nation's most publicly
pilloried traitor.
The story may also have something in it for the State of Israel.
Since 1986, when the Sunday Times of London published Vanunu's detailed
account of an Israel having manufactured as many as 200 atomic bombs, no
Israeli has ever been more vehemently condemned by his government for
having caused mortal - if as yet unspecified - harm to national security.
The intervening 18 years have little altered the picture. An Army Radio
report on Vanunu's imminent release referred to "the man whom Israel views
as perhaps the gravest traitor in its history."
Still, behind closed doors in senior echelons of Israeli government and
defense, there may well be those who believe Vanunu's revelations did
Israel's defense posture an invaluable service.
"Paradoxically, Vanunu actually contributed to the nation's security,"
argues Haaretz defense analyst Reuven Pedatzur, in a reference to Israel's
decades-long official position of "amimut" [usually rendered as
"ambiguity," but actually closer in the original to obtuseness, an
intentional dimness] regarding whether the Jewish state possesses a
nuclear arsenal.
"His revelations strengthened Israel's deterrent picture on the other
side, without us having to pay any price in divulging what we have."
Israel has long feared that official acknowledgement of a non-conventional
weapons programs could lead to imposition of international inspection and
the prospect of forced disarmament.
There are those in the defense and political establishments who were
secretly gladdened by the splash created by the Vanunu-inspired Sunday
Times account of an extensive Israeli nuclear weapons program, Pedatzur
maintains.
"There are people who understand this very well," he says. "Every one with
eyes in his head was glad, everyone who understands strategy and who
followed what was going on in the Arab world after Vanunu."
According to Pedatzur, "The response one would have expected from the Arab
world was one of frenzied outrage. But the response was in fact very
low-key.
"Thus, our deterrent image had been greatly strengthened as a result of
Vanunu's revelations. It only reinforced what the other side already knew.
At the same time, they avoided raising a great outcry, knowing that if
they did so, in Egypt, Syria, and other states, the people would have
turned to their rulers, demanding 'Why don't you do something against
this?'"
As things stand, the leaders have found ways to live relatively
comfortably with the state of affairs, he continues. "They have reconciled
themselves to a nuclear Israel for many years. Thus, absurd as it may
sound, Vanunu contributed to state security."
A number of Israelis have suggested that if it had been Israel's genuine
interest all along to keep Vanunu and his secrets from wide public
attention, it could hardly have done a worse job.
There was no better case in point than Vanunu's release on Wednesday.
In a curious step, the Israeli Government Press Office, which has in
recent years boasted of its efforts to hobble foreign correspondents
deemed overly critical of Israel, bent over backwards at Ashkelon's Shikma
Prison to film inside such insider views as the pre-release Vanunu
adjusting his tie, in views the GPO then flashed live to world news
networks.
GPO Director Danny Seamen was uncharacteristically nonplussed when grilled
by Israel Radio over the aid to foreign coverage. "I'm not the one who
made the decision," he said. "We simply acted as the conduit."
Asked who made the decision, his answer was simple. "Not me."
In recent days, government agencies and the IDF Home Front Command clamped
a long list of restrictions on the nominally freed Vanunu. The
restrictions included a ban on leaving Israel for a full year, a
prohibition against speaking to foreign nationals unless granted prior
permission, restrictions on where Vanunu could sleep and reside, and an
order barring him from internet chats.
Vanunu stressed in his remarks Wednesday that he had no further secrets to
divulge, a position that Pedatzur endorses. "What can he say after 20
years that he has not already said?"
Many observers suggested Wednesday that Israel's official
characterizations of Vanunu as a man who still posed uncommon danger to
state security only heightened international interest in his case.
Even senior Israeli officials who believe Vanunu still possesses sensitive
state secrets say that prosecutors erred when they recommended Vanunu be
released with limitations.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz
argued instead for administrative detention, to make it impossible for the
former Dimona technician to reach a public audience.
Vanunu's attorney Avigdor Feldman said the defense establishment had
brought about a "media-political-security carnival" to accompany Vanunu's
release.
Responding to media accounts of Vanunu as possessing "documents that
describe with astounding detail how Israel manufactures nuclear weapons
'down to the last bolt,'" and material which allegedly revealed what
Jonthan Pollard had secretly passed to his Israeli handlers, Feldman was
adamant that Vanunu had no cards left to show.
"Vanunu was a technician in the nuclear reactor. He was responsible for a
very particular segment of production. He could also go around in several
areas. He did that, and he took pictures. He sat with the Sunday Times
journalist. Whoever takes and reads that yellowing Sunday Times in some
archive will see the drawings and pictures of the way in which nuclear
weapons are made, down to the last bolt."
"He has no further information. Nor does he have any interest in further
information."
Nonetheless, Feldman said, "As a result of a week-long campaign of
official leaks that portrayed Vanunu as seeking the destruction of the
Jewish state" - a campaign Vanunu decried as false in one of his first
statements after leaving prison - "the man who had been the most
closely-guarded, the most classified, the most prohibited from speaking in
the whole country, was turned into the most spoken-about."
==========================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3645297.stm BBC
Vanunu speaks: Key quotes
Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in
jail for revealing the country's nuclear secrets.
BBC News - 21 April: During his imprisonment he became a hero for the
peace movement, though Israel still says it fears he could compromise the
country's security.
Upon his release on Wednesday, he spoke to the journalists, supporters and
opponents thronged outside the jail.
Here are excerpts:
I'm not speaking in Hebrew. If Israel doesn't let me speak to foreigners I
am not speaking in Hebrew.
[From prepared statement] I am Mordechai Vanunu, the man behind the Sunday
Times article from 5 October 1986. The article about Israel's nuclear
weapons.
I was kidnapped in Rome, Italy by Israel's spy on 13 September and I was
brought to Israel, arrived at... prison on 7 October. I was here in the
prison from 7 October 1986 until today, 17-and-a-half years in very cruel,
barbaric treatment by Israel's spy [agency] Mossad.
I am not harming Israel. I am not interested in Israel
This prison is guided and controlled by Mossad. The guards are only
obeying orders of Mossad. In this prison you have a Section 7 [run] by the
Mossad.
To all those who are calling me a traitor I am saying I am proud and happy
to do what I did. I am very glad that I succeeded to do what I did... I
don't have any secrets.
All this bullshit, blah blah blah, about secrets, is dead. My case is
dead. The article was published. There are no more secrets. All the
secrets were published and is in the hand of the whole world. All the
world, every state, 180 states received these secrets. I am now ready to
start my life.
I am not harming Israel. I am not interested in Israel. I want to tell you
something very important. I suffered here 18 years because I am a
Christian, because I was baptised into Christianity. If I was a Jew I
wouldn't have all this suffering here in isolation for 18 years. Only
because I was a Christian man.
I didn't say Israel should not exist. But Vanunu Mordechai says we don't
need a Jewish state. Vanunu Mordechai doesn't want to live in Israel and
doesn't need a Jewish state. It's for Jewish people to solve the problems
with the Palestinians...
I said to the Shabak [Shin Bet - internal security services], the Mossad,
you didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy...
Israel doesn't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East
is free from nuclear arms
I want the president of the United States, George Bush, and Tony Blair and
Gerhard Schroeder, Vladimir Putin, all the leaders to do for my release
from Israel, to leave Israel and now this day all those leaders should
deal and speak about Israel's nuclear secrets.
The time has come to end this silence and secret cooperation by the West,
the United States, Canada and all Europe helping Israel and co-operating
with Israel's secrets...
Israel doesn't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East
is free from nuclear arms... My message today to all the world is open the
Dimona reactor for inspections...
All those standing behind me, who supported me, who continued to be my
friend for 18 years - all are heroes...
I am a symbol of the will of freedom. You cannot break the human spirit.
==============================
*****************************************************************
17 "I AM MORDECHAI VANUNU. I'M PROUD AND HAPPY TO DO WHAT I DID."
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 14:48:38 -0700
Free Mordechai Vanunu - Info & Action Alert #9
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO SUPPORTIVE LISTS
In this Alert:
NEWS RELEASE
ACTION TO TAKE
"I AM MORDECHAI VANUNU. I'M PROUD AND HAPPY TO DO WHAT I DID."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 21, 2004
Contact:
Jack Cohen-Joppa
U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
520-323-8697; call for Israel mobile #s.
With these words to the world, Israel's captive declared his freedom today,
after 18 years of "cruel and barbaric" treatment in prison for telling the
truth about Israel's secret nuclear arsenal
At 11 am, Vanunu walked out the door into Shikma prison's entry yard. A
roar erupted from hundreds of demonstrators outside the locked main
gate. Supporters at the gate were jostled by detractors behind, some
shouting "Kill Vanunu!"
Moving deliberately past the press, surrounded and trailed by assorted
officials and guards, Vanunu walked to the gate. Holding both hands high
with the signs of victory and peace, he stepped up, onto the bars to see
and acknowledge his supporters.
His brothers Asher and Meir, and Meir's young son Luca, had accompanied
Vanunu out the door, and rejoined him as he returned to the forest of
cameras and microphones.
Vanunu made a statement in English. I have no more secrets to tell; I want
to leave Israel but they are restricting me. My treatment was cruel and
barbaric; I was punished hard because I am became a Christian. I am a
symbol of survival of the human spirit of freedom. I don't want to harm
Israel. Open the Dimona reactor for inspection. I want to go to the
United States and marry and have a life.
Vanunu then responded to questions for several minutes as Meir nudged him
to quit repeatedly. Given the extreme restrictions placed on Vanunu's
actions, Meir looked concerned that his brother might talk himself back
into prison.
Asked about being a hero, Vanunu replied, "All those who stood behind me
and who supported me for 18 years are the heroes."
Vanunu made a point to speak of his kidnapping in Italy, and to say that a
photo of the woman reported to be "Cindy" was not the female Mossad agent
who lured him to Rome in September 1986.
And he told the press, "I want President Bush, and Tony Blair, Gerhardt
Schroeder, and Putin to [work] for my release from Israel."
Before getting into a car, Mordechai Vanunu said he was going to St.
George's Anglican Church in Jerusalem to give thanks to God.
- end -
Still to come...
- New address for writing letters of support to Mordechai
=================
2. Action to Take
These restrictions on Vanunu's freedom are intolerable. They
abuse his human rights to the point of endangering his life.
Please vigorously protest these restrictions and express your
concern for Mordechai Vanunu with faxed letters and telephone calls to the
Israeli Embassy in your country.
Washington, DC
Political Department
Tel: (202)364-5581, 5582
Fax: (202)364-5490
Press Office
Tel: (202) 364-5538
Fax: (202) 364-5610
Ottawa, Canada
Tel. (613)567-6450
Fax: (613)237-8865
London, United Kingdom
Tel: 0207 957 9500
Fax: 0207 957 955
E-mail: info-assist@london.mfa.gov.il
=================
If you would like to receive these alerts directly through April, 2004,
please subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to
free_vanunu-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
- END -
*****************************************************************
18 BBC: Vanunu: Israel's nuclear telltale
Last Updated: Tuesday, 20 April, 2004
The spotlight falls back on Israel's secret nuclear weapons
programme on Wednesday, as Mordechai Vanunu, the man who exposed
it, walks from jail after an 18-year sentence. BBC News Online's
Martin Asser looks at the significance of the case.
Mordechai Vanunu's revelations in 1986 appeared to confirm
suspicions about Israel's nuclear arsenal and showed a weapons
programme bigger and more advanced than anyone had previously
thought.
[Vanunu being transported between jail to court ]
Vanunu gets a message to the outside world: "Vanunu M, was
hijacked in Rome..."
He had worked for nine years as a technician at the Dimona
nuclear research centre in the Negev desert - but he left in late
1985 to backpack around the Far East, having become disillusioned
with his work.
Before quitting he surreptitiously snapped two rolls of film at
the top secret nuclear plant, including equipment for extracting
radioactive material for arms production and laboratory models of
thermonuclear devices.
It is not clear whether Vanunu was already set upon blowing the
whistle on Israel's secret nuclear activities, but by the
following year he had joined a group of anti-nuclear Christians
in Sydney, Australia, coincidentally being baptised as an
Anglican.
One of the group, Colombian-born freelance journalist Oscar
Guerrero, persuaded him to follow his conscience and publish the
pictures along with detailed information about the Dimona plant.
It was a decision that led him first to London and the Sunday
Times - then to Rome and kidnapping by Israeli intelligence
service Mossad - then back to Israel and a long jail sentence.
Secret deal
Israel is thought to have begun its quest for weapons of mass
destruction soon after the establishment of the state in 1948.
Faced by a hostile region and vastly outnumbered by its enemies,
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion desired a nuclear deterrent, but
without wanting to upset Israel's friends by introducing
non-conventional weapons into a flashpoint region.
He was a traitor to th country Shimon Peres
So Israel did a secret deal with France to build the Dimona
plant, which is thought to have gone into production to make the
ingredients for nuclear weapons in the 1960s.
Successive governments employed a policy of "nuclear ambiguity"
and have hidden behind the (apparently misleading) formula that
"Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into
the Middle East".
[Sunday Times Vanunu story ]
The 1986 Sunday Times story that lifted the lid off Israel's
nuclear weapons programme
Ever since admitting that the Dimona plant housed a nuclear
reactor rather than a textile factory, Israeli officials have
insisted it is intended for exclusively peaceful purposes.
Israel never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so
Dimona is not subject to international scrutiny - and its
"ambiguity" policy has been accepted by Washington (which has
laws preventing it from supporting proliferating states) at face
value.
It was against this murky backdrop that the Vanunu affair
exploded in 1986.
Stunning revelation
Mordechai Vanunu is a Moroccan Jew born in 1954, whose family
arrived in Israel in 1963. In 1971 he became a sapper in the
Israeli army, having failed in his main ambition to join the air
force.
After military service he was taken on as a trainee at Dimona and
ended up working in the underground Machon 2 facility, which he
claimed was responsible for the production of the bomb components
plutonium, lithium dueteride and beryllium.
I claim that I wanted to te the world about what was happening...
this is not treason, it is informing the world Mordechai Vanunu
Outside his top secret job, Vanunu began studying philosophy at
Ben Gurion university, where he became more and more involved in
politics - espousing pro-Palestinian views and joining the
anti-war movement.
By 1985, he learnt that he was being made redundant, but he had
already decided to leave the plant, taking his infamous
photographs before his departure.
The world was stunned when the Sunday Times published its expose
Revealed: The Secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal on 5 October
1986.
Experts tricked
Editor Andrew Neil described the three-page spread as the
greatest scoop he achieved as head of one of the UK's most
influential papers.
Not only did Vanunu's account expose the sham of the blind-eye
policy towards Israel's nuclear capability by its main ally,
Washington.
[Lathe for making plutonium rods]
Vanunu's pictures showed nuclear weapons making equipment in
close detail
His information, which was verified by experts in the nuclear
field, also indicated that Dimona was capable of producing much
more weapons-grade plutonium than previously thought.
According to him, the plant had been upgraded several times to
increase production of plutonium and in 1985 could make 1.2 kg
per week, enough for up to 12 nuclear warheads a year.
Israel's estimated nuclear capability had to be revised from a
handful of weapons to approximately 100-200 warheads, ranging
from battlefield weapons to warheads that could lay waste whole
cities.
He also recounted stories of how US experts allowed to inspect
the site in the 1960s had been tricked by false walls and
concealed lifts so they did not even realise the six underground
floors at Machon 2 existed.
Hate figure
Before the Sunday Times had even printed its story, Mordechai
Vanunu had been lured away from London and kidnapped in Rome in a
much-publicised Mossad sting.
Drugged and bound, he was shipped back home to face the full
force of Israeli justice.
He may have been hailed as a heroic whistle blower by the
anti-nuclear camp outside Israel, which has campaigned doggedly
on his behalf and even had him nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize, but there have been few tears shed for him by Israelis.
Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres - who ordered his capture,
reportedly on Italian soil so as not to embarrass the
then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - expresses the
prevailing view.
"[Vanunu] was a traitor to this country. I can't go into all the
processes... The fact is that he was brought to trial," Mr Peres
said in a recent BBC interview.
Certainly he has done little to endear himself to the Israeli
public - abandoning Judaism, appearing to endanger national
security and jeopardising ties with Washington, Israel's greatest
supporter.
And his 18 years incarceration - more than half of the time in
solitary confinement - seems if anything to have sharpened his
political views.
"I claim that I wanted to tell the world about what was
happening... this is not treason, it is informing the world,
unlike Israel's policies," he said in a taped prison interview
leaked two days before the release.
Using draconian measures inherited from pre-1948 British
emergency legislation the Israeli judiciary is taking steps to
make sure that Vanunu does not spill any more of Israel's
secrets.
He says he has none, but wants to continue his campaign for
Israel to abandon nuclear arms - so he still has the ability to
cause plenty of embarrassment.
*****************************************************************
19 BBC: 'Proud' Vanunu vows to fight on
Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 April, 2004
[Vanunu emerges from Shikma prison in Ashkelon]
Vanunu said 18 years in jail had not broken his spirit
Mordechai Vanunu has been freed after an 18-year jail sentence
for leaking Israel's atomic weapons secrets.
To jeers and cheers from a crowd at the southern Israeli prison,
he said he was proud of his actions but had suffered "very cruel
and barbaric treatment".
He said: "Israel doesn't need nuclear arms. My message today to
the world is: Open Dimona reactor for inspections."
A Christian convert, Mr Vanunu's first stop was St George's
Anglican cathedral in Jerusalem where he went to pray.
Mr Vanunu had emerged from Shikma prison in Askhelon shortly
after 1200 (0900GMT) looking happy and waving to hundreds of
Israeli and foreign supporters gathered outside the gates.
To those who are calling me traitor, I say I am proud and happy
to do what I did Mordechai Vanunu Vanunu speaks: Key quotes
Free man calm amid chaos
A smaller counter-demonstration by Israelis shouted abuse as he
made Victory-V signs with both hands.
Answering questions in English from reporters, Mr Vanunu said he
was "not totally free" because of the restrictions Israel had
placed on him, including a ban on travel outside the country.
But he said he wanted to go to the United States, get married and
start a family.
He said he had been treated harshly because of his conversion to
Christianity and he no longer had any secrets to publish.
Restrictions
Despite his protestations, the authorities say Mr Vanunu still
possesses information that could jeopardise Israel's security.
"He is a man sentenced to prison for treason and he has
repeatedly said he will go back to his old behaviour... [Israel]
has to take precautions to prevent that from happening," said
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled.
Mr Vanunu is not allowed to have a passport, is forbidden to
approach ports and airports, and has been told not to talk to
foreigners without permission.
[Vanunu speaks outside Shikma prison i Ashkelon] Israel's nuclear
telltale Press fears over release
Mr Peled told the BBC that he was allowed to talk to the
international media, as long as he did not talk about his work at
the Dimona plant.
"We have to strike the correct balance between safeguarding his
personal liberty and looking after Israel's national security
interests," Mr Peled said.
On the basis of the information he gave to the UK's Sunday Times
newspaper in 1986, analysts concluded Israel had scores of
nuclear warheads.
Israel maintains a policy of "strategic ambiguity" about its
supposed nuclear arsenal and it has refused to sign the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty which would open Dimona up to
international scrutiny.
Supporters had gathered outside the jail, waving banners and
calling Vanunu a "hero of peace". But many in Israel see him as a
traitor who has endangered the country.
Israel said it could have placed much tougher post-release
restrictions on Mr Vanunu - and the length of time the current
regime will remain in force depends on his behaviour.
*****************************************************************
20 BBC: Press fears over Vanunu release
Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 April, 2004
[Israeli press graphic]
Israeli fears that the release of nuclear whistleblower Mordechai
Vanunu after 18 years in prison will stir up the debate over its
controversial nuclear weapons programme are reflected in the
country's press.
Most commentators have little sympathy for Mr Vanunu, with some
worrying he could become a rallying point for anti-Israeli
sentiments.
The government also comes under attack for the way it is handling
his release, particularly the decision not to keep him in some
form of administrative detention.
The damage he will contin to do to Israel as a propagandist will
considerably exceed the damage he caused as a spy The Jerusalem
Post
The Jerusalem Post is not optimistic that Mr Vanunu will maintain
a discrete silence.
"We wish we could be as sanguine that Vanunu will disappear from
public view. More likely, he will become a handy tool for
anti-Israel campaigners, particularly if he is allowed to leave
Israel in a year.
"The cumulative damage he will continue to do to Israel as a
propagandist will considerably exceed the damaged he caused as a
spy."
The Post believes that "ostensibly, Vanunu owes his fame to what
he stands for: nuclear disarmament, freedom of information, human
rights. In fact, it is owed mainly to what he stands against. 'I
am against Israel' he is reported to have told the Shin Bet
(Israeli secret service). 'I am against your state'."
'Vanunu circus'
An editorial in Hatzofe condemns the government for "acting in
haste".
"It rejected the recommendation of the heads of Shin Bet to hold
him in administrative detention immediately upon his release. It
preferred, for some reason, to accept the attorney-general's
recommendation to allow him freedom of action with reasonable
restrictions. This recommendation is liable to start a Vanunu
circus."
Leave Vanunu alone. Don turn him into a hero Commentator in
Ha'aretz
Writing in Ha'aretz, commentator Reuven Pedatzur makes a plea for
the media not to give the freed man the oxygen of publicity:
"Leave Vanunu alone. Don't turn him into a cultural hero."
Mr Pedatzur argues that the security lapses which allowed Mr
Vanunu to reveal details of Israel's nuclear programme to
London's Sunday Times have still not been investigated.
"The defence establishment, and particularly the Shin Bet
security service and the Defence Ministry's internal security
department, simply want to avoid the embarrassment and criticism
of Vanunu revealing how he made a laughing stock of the system in
charge of protecting secrets at the Dimona reactor.
"To this day, there has been no serious probe into the failures
of Shin Bet and the internal security department... Everything
could change if Vanunu talks."
Secrets of the dome
An editorial in Ha'aretz also calls for the authorities "to allow
him to live as a free man" or pay the price.
"Any further extraordinary efforts to silence him will only
perpetuate both his mythical status and the campaign that has
grown up around him."
Writing in Ma'ariv, commentator Rafi Man believes the decision to
impose restrictions on Mr Vanunu's freedom after his release "has
nothing to do with secrets. It is about the level of public
debate, at home and mainly abroad, on what is hidden under the
silver dome in the desert near Dimona".
Expressing an opinion, ev on the nuclear issue, is not an offence
Ma'ariv commentator
The Israeli establishment has long sought to maintain an
ambiguity about Israel's nuclear arsenal, and fears that dropping
the veil on the issue could expose Israel to "very harsh
sanctions", Mr Man writes.
"In view of the attempts to scare us with spin, it is important
to reiterate one basic fact: expressing an opinion, even on the
nuclear issue, is not an offence," he concludes.
Failure
However, another commentator writing in Ha'aretz, Aluf Benn,
argues that although he "managed to pierce the cloud of ambiguity
covering Israel's nuclear programme... Vanunu completely failed
to attain his political objective, assuming his intention was to
stir an international outcry that would culminate in demands that
Israel shut down its Dimona operations".
If he opens his mouth, will be tried Yediot Aharanot commentator
"As he walks out of Shikma prison today, Israel's nuclear
programme enjoys an unprecedented level of international
legitimacy, leaders in the West openly justify Israel's nuclear
programme as an insurance policy taken out by a small, vulnerable
country whose hostile neighbours constantly threaten to destroy
it."
A columnist in the top circulation Yediot Aharonot, Itan Haber,
believes that Mr Vanunu has paid his dues and "must be
congratulated on his exit to a new life".
"If Vanunu says nothing about Dimona, nothing will happen to him.
If he opens his mouth on prohibited subjects, he will be tried."
BBC Monitoring [http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk] , based in
Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information
from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet
from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
*****************************************************************
21 BAS: Pakistan: It's deja vu all over again
| Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
[http://www.thebulletin.org]
![]()
solitary
confinement
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
16257/0/054_003_012.pdf] .
Since his imprisonment, the Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu has
attempted to keep the world informed of Vanunu's plight. One avid
Vanunu supporter was former Bulletin editor Sam Day, who was also
once the coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai
Vanunu. In the November 1992 issue, Day wrote the perspective
piece "Vanunu: Israel's Embarrassment
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
14692/0/048_009_013.pdf] ," which garnered inspired reactions
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
14787/0/049_001_036.pdf] from Bulletin readers. When Day didn't
write about Vanunu as a Bulletin contributor (Rotblat Nobel Gives Hope to Free Vanunu
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
15659/0/052_001_009.pdf] ), he continued his Free Vanunu cause
with letters to the editor
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
15047/0/049_008_034.pdf] .
Italian astronomer Paolo Farinella also wrote Bulletin pieces
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
14052/0/047_001_019.pdf] and letters (If He's
Really A Hero...
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
15202/0/050_002_036.pdf] ; And Then There's
Vanunu
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
16435/0/055_001_006.pdf] and Support
Vanunu
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
13415/0/045_006_037.pdf] ) in an attempt to further publicize the
Free Mordechai Vanunu Movement.
Of course, any discussion of Mordechai Vanunu prompts questions
about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, which, despite
Vanunu's revelations, the Israeli government continues to deny
exists. Israeli historian Avner Cohen has examined Israel's
policy of opacity in a number of Bulletin articles, including,
"A Sacred Matter
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
14920/0/049_005_023.pdf] ," "And Then There
was One
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
16371/0/054_005_034.pdf] ," and "The Bomb
that Never Is
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
16805/0/056_003_030.pdf] ."
In addition, the Bulletin reviewed the books Triple Cross: Israel, The Atomic Bomb, and the Man
who Spilled the Secrets
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
14061/0/047_001_028.pdf] , The Samson
Option
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
14460/0/048_002_021.pdf] , and Israel and the
Bomb
[http://www.bulletinarchive.org/scripts/download/article/special/
16474/0/055_001_045.pdf] , each of which provide further details
about the Vanunu case and Israel's nuclear policy.
[http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/photos.html]
*****************************************************************
23 AP: Fuel Rod Pieces Missing at Vt. Nuke Plant
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 08:45:29 -0700
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Missing rods
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 22:48:10 -0400
From: Eric Epstein
To: Roger Herried
Fuel Rod Pieces Missing at Vt. Nuke Plant
Email this Story
Apr 21, 9:12 PM (ET)
By WILSON RING
(AP) A storage pool for expired fuel rods at the Vermont Yankee nuclear
power plant in Vernon, Vt., is...
Full Image
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Two pieces of a highly radioactive fuel rod are
missing from a Vermont nuclear plant, and engineers planned to search onsite
for the nuclear material, officials said Wednesday.
The fuel rod was removed in 1979 from the Vermont Yankee reactor, which is
currently shut down for refueling and maintenance. Remote-control cameras
will be used to search a spent fuel pool on the property, officials said.
"We do not think there is a threat to the public at this point. The great
probability is this material is still somewhere in the pool," said Nuclear
Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan.
But Sheehan said it was possible the spent fuel was mixed in with a shipment
of low-level nuclear waste and ended up at a repository in South Carolina,
or a facility in Washington state. He said it was also possible it was taken
to a nuclear testing facility run by General Electric, which designed the
plant.
The material would be fatal to anyone who came in contact with it without
being properly shielded, Sheehan said. Spent nuclear fuel also could be used
by terrorists to construct so-called dirty bombs that would spread deadly
radiation with conventional explosives.
The NRC is helping plant officials in the search. The rod was part of the
fuel assembly used to power the reactor. One of the missing pieces is about
the size of a pencil. The other piece is about the thickness of a pencil and
17 inches long.
"It would be very difficult to remove this material from the site without
somebody knowing about it," Sheehan said. "It would set off radiation
monitors."
Sheehan cited the heightened awareness of the need to control nuclear
material that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks. "We don't want this
falling into the wrong hands," he said. "This is something we would never
take lightly."
Gov. James Douglas, after speaking Wednesday afternoon with the head of the
NRC, said he was "very concerned" about the missing fuel at the plant, run
by Entergy Nuclear.
"This situation is intolerable," he said in a statement.
In 2002 a Connecticut nuclear plant was fined $288,000 after a similar loss.
That fuel was never accounted for.
Vermont Yankee is located in the southeastern town of Vernon, on the border
with Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
The state's Public Safety Department and Homeland Security Unit also were
notified of the missing fuel.
Google sponsored links
*****************************************************************
24 SLO Tribune: Diablo dry cask proposal likely headed to Coastal Commission
| 04/20/2004 |
San Luis Obispo Tribune
David Sneed
County supervisors Tuesday approved plans to build a highly
radioactive storage facility for highly radioactive waste at
Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, setting the stage for a final
regulatory hearing before the state Coastal Commission.
The board voted 4-1 to issue Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a
coastal development permit to build the above-ground storage
installation. Four appeals of the project had been filed, citing
lack of public access and seismic and terrorism safety questions.
Supervisor Peg Pinard cast the lone "no" vote, saying she wants
the facility moved out from under high-tension power lines and to
a location that is better shielded from the potential of a
terrorist attack from the ocean.
"We are talking about something that is definitely vulnerable
from the air and from the sea," she said.
Rochelle Becker, with the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, said
the group will appeal the project to the Coastal Commission. The
group will challenge assertions by PG&E and federal officials
that the state and local governments are pre-empted by federal
law from regulating nuclear safety.
They cite how Connecticut and Minnesota have been able to limit
the size of spent fuel storage facilities in their states.
The coastal development permit is the last approval PG&E needs
before it can begin building the facility. The federal Nuclear
Regulatory Commission issued its permit March 22.
PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis said the utility was pleased with the
board's vote but was concerned with some last-minute changes
supervisors made to public access provisions in the permit.
In February, the county Planning Commission removed requirements
recommended by its staff that mandate $12 million in coastal
access improvements in Port San Luis. At the request of
Supervisor Shirley Bianchi, the board restored a requirement for
a trail easement along the 12 miles of coast around the plant
owned by PG&E.
That easement will only be accepted after the plant is
decommissioned. This requirement is part of the county's efforts
to establish a coastal trail that runs the length of the county
and will be part of the Pacific Coast Trail.
The storage facility will consist of a series of thick concrete
pads on which huge steel-and-concrete cylinders will be mounted
upright. Each cylinder will contain as many as 32 depleted but
still highly radioactive reactor fuel assemblies. As many as 138
cylinders, or dry casks, can be stored at the site.
Mothers for Peace has sued the NRC in federal court to force the
agency to hold public hearings on the environmental consequences
of a terrorist attack on the dry cask installation.
Many Mothers for Peace activists Tuesday held posters showing
pictures of their children and grandchildren. The purpose was to
remind supervisors that their decision will have consequences
that will likely last for generations, they said.
Conversely, PG&E officials told the board that its review of the
project should be limited to the environmental effects of
excavating and pouring the concrete pad. All other aspects are
regulated by the NRC, said Larry Womack, PG&E vice president of
nuclear generation.
"This is not an NRC hearing," he said.
About SanLuisObispo.com |
*****************************************************************
25 San Luis Obispo Tribune: County OKs Diablo nuclear waste plan
| 04/21/2004 |
Opponents seek showdown before Coastal Commission
AVILA BEACH - By David Sneed
The Tribune
County supervisors Tuesday approved plans to build a storage
facility for highly radioactive waste at Diablo Canyon nuclear
power plant, setting the stage for a final regulatory hearing
before the state Coastal Commission.
The board voted 4-1 to issue Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a
coastal development permit to build the above-ground storage
installation. Four appeals of the project had been filed, citing
lack of public access and seismic and terrorism safety questions.
Supervisor Peg Pinard cast the lone "no" vote, saying she wants
the facility moved out from under high-tension power lines and to
a location that is better shielded from the potential of a
terrorist attack from the ocean.
"We are talking about something that is definitely vulnerable
from the air and from the sea," she said.
Rochelle Becker, with the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, said
the group will appeal the project to the Coastal Commission. The
group will challenge assertions by PG&E and federal officials
that the state and local governments are pre-empted by federal
law from regulating nuclear safety.
Mothers for Peace cites how Connecticut and Minnesota have been
able to limit the size of spent fuel storage facilities in their
states.
The coastal development permit is the last approval PG&E needs
before it can begin building the facility. The federal Nuclear
Regulatory Commission issued its permit March 22.
PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis said the utility was pleased with the
board's vote but was concerned with some last-minute changes
supervisors made to public access provisions in the permit.
In February, the county Planning Commission removed requirements
recommended by its staff that mandate $12 million in coastal
access improvements in Port San Luis. At the request of
Supervisor Shirley Bianchi, the board restored a requirement for
a trail easement along the 12 miles of coast around the plant
owned by PG&E.
That easement will only be accepted after the plant is
decommissioned. This requirement is part of the county's efforts
to establish a coastal trail that runs the length of the county
and will be part of the Pacific Coast Trail.
The storage facility will consist of a series of thick concrete
pads on which huge steel-and-concrete cylinders will be mounted
upright. Each cylinder will contain as many as 32 depleted but
still highly radioactive reactor fuel assemblies. As many as 138
cylinders, or dry casks, can be stored at the site.
Mothers for Peace has sued the NRC in federal court to force the
agency to hold public hearings on the environmental consequences
of a terrorist attack on the dry cask installation.
Many Mothers for Peace activists Tuesday held posters showing
pictures of their children and grandchildren. The purpose was to
remind supervisors that their decision will have consequences
that will likely last for generations, they said.
Conversely, PG&E officials told the board that its review of the
project should be limited to the environmental effects of
excavating and pouring the concrete pad. All other aspects are
regulated by the NRC, said Larry Womack, PG&E vice president of
nuclear generation.
"This is not an NRC hearing," he said.
DAVID SNEED COVERS ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FOR THE TRIBUNE. E-MAIL
STORY IDEAS AND COMMENTS TO HIM AT DSNEED@THETRIBUNENEWS.COM
[DSNEED@THETRIBUNENEWS.COM] .
What's next?
The San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace said it will appeal the
decision to build a storage facility for highly radioactive
waste at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to the Coastal
Commission. The commission will decide whether to hear the case
at a later date.
About SanLuisObispo.com
*****************************************************************
26 NRC: NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against W.Va. Firm for Failing to Maintain Control of
Nuclear Gauge
News Release - Region I - 2004-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region I
No. I-04-021 April 21, 2004
CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330
Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: [opa1@nrc.gov]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $3,000
civil penalty against a West Virginia company for a failure to
maintain control over a portable nuclear gauge. The device,
which contains radioactive material, is used for industrial
purposes such as measuring soil density.
Based on an investigation by the NRCs Office of Investigations,
the agency has determined that a technician for Triad
Engineering, Inc., willfully left the gauge unattended,
unsecured and unlocked for a short period of time in October
2002. The technician was using the gauge at a temporary job site
at West Virginia University, in Morgantown, W. Va., at the time.
The NRC considers the violation to be willful because during an
interview with the NRCs Office of Investigations, the
technician admitted that even though he knew he should not leave
the gauge unattended and unsecured as a result of his past
training and experience, he failed to consider that when he left
the area. The technician also stated that he did not believe
leaving the device unsecured and out of his range of
surveillance would be a problem because it was in his truck and
he only planned to walk about 150 feet away from the vehicle for
about a minute.
Willful violations are serious concerns because the NRCs
regulatory program relies, in part, on the honesty and integrity
of licensees and their employees. As such, willful violations
cannot be tolerated, NRC Region I Administrator Hubert J.
Miller wrote to the company in a letter notifying the company
about the violation.
Triad has informed the NRC that it has implemented several
corrective actions in response to the event. These include
disciplinary action against the technician; conducting safety
talks with all of its technicians regarding the violation and
the importance of maintaining surveillance and control of
gauges; and distributing memos to all of its authorized gauge
users on requirements regarding the use and control of the
devices.
The company has 30 days from receipt of the letter to either pay
the civil penalty or protest its imposition.
Last revised Wednesday, April 21, 2004
*****************************************************************
27 AP Wire: TVA to meet with NRC to discuss Browns Ferry concerns
| 04/21/2004 |
Associated Press
ATHENS, Ala. - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found
possible violations during an inspection at a nuclear reactor the
Tennessee Valley Authority wants to restart at the Browns Ferry
plant near Athens.
TVA officials are scheduled to meet with the NRC in Atlanta on
April 28 to discuss the findings and corrections the public
utility has made.
TVA is working to get Unit 1 at Browns Ferry back on line by
2007, a job estimated to cost $1.8 billion.
Two reactors are currently operating at the plant, but Unit 1 has
been shut down since 1985 because of safety concerns.
The NRC found apparent violations during an inspection on Jan. 29
with weld repairs in the torus, a doughnut-shaped pool around the
reactor that catches hot steam released in an accident.
Inspectors discovered some welds were not repaired because there
were no work orders and no one checked to see if they had been
done, NRC officials said.
TVA has stopped work on them since and analyzed the problems.
Most of the welds were correct, Browns Ferry spokesman Craig
Beasley said.
TVA will have a chance to present its side of the story at the
meeting with the NRC, and the NRC will announce later whether
there will be any penalties, commission spokesman Roger Hannah
said Wednesday.
"TVA initiated a 100 percent review of torus weld repairs, and
the NRC staff say that review and subsequent corrective actions
appear comprehensive enough to resolve the problem," the NRC said
in a statement dated April 19.
Plant officials believe the torus will be operational despite the
problems.
The NRC reported in November it was satisfied with the work at
Unit 1 up to that point.
Ledger-Enquirer.com
*****************************************************************
28 toledo blade: NRC panel to decide if activists get a hearing
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
OAK HARBOR, Ohio - A special Nuclear Regulatory Commission board
has been empaneled to decide whether four activists opposed to
the restart of FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse nuclear plant are
entitled to a hearing.
The agency has established an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
to review the NRC's restart decision of March 8. The board will
decide whether to grant a hearing after reviewing information
from the NRC, FirstEnergy, and others, records show.
Such hearings are "not common," Viktoria Mitlyng, a NRC
spokesman, said.
The petition, written by Terry Lodge, a politically active Toledo
lawyer, calls for a suspension of Davis-Besse's operating license
on the grounds that the NRC failed to enforce its own regulations
for fire protection and some other issues at Davis-Besse. It was
written on behalf of Michael Keegan, of Monroe; Joanne DiRando,
of Maumee; Donna Lueke, of Marblehead, Ohio, and Paul Gunter, of
the Nuclear Information & Resource Service in Washington.
"The issues they've raised are old," Richard Wilkins, a
FirstEnergy spokesman, said yesterday. He said the utility, in a
written response expected to be filed next week, will argue the
case is frivolous and questions whether the individuals have
legal standing to request the appeal.
Mr. Lodge and Mr. Gunter have stated repeatedly they believe the
NRC has skirted several issues, including fire protection.
The NRC, in separate letters to Mr. Lodge and Mr. Gunter on March
4, said an inspection performed by the agency's nuclear reactor
regulation staff found that FirstEnergy "continues to provide
reasonable assurance that the plant can be safely shut down
following anticipated fires in the control room or cable
spreading room." An earlier inspection by NRC officials had
raised some concerns about how the utility might respond to fires
in those areas.
Davis-Besse was shut down more than two years because of a number
of plant design, performance, equipment, and management issues
that arose following the near-rupture of its reactor head. The
corrosion-induced cavity, caused by reactor acid that leaked for
years, was the most dangerous of its kind in U.S. nuclear
history.
© 2004 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N.
Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
29 El Diario/LA PRENSA: A company admits it made a mistake
Otros Titulares
Una compañÃa admite que se equivoco
How often do you hear businesses (or politicians, for that
matter) admit they messed up — and accept responsibility for
their mistakes?
Much too rarely. Yet such candor would go far to improving their
credibility and increasing public trust.
People make mistakes. Just own up to it, for heaven’s sake,
rather than trying to tap dance around the issue with flimsy
excuses and a refusal to admit obvious guilt.
Which is why the response of Exelon Nuclear — the parent
company of AmerGen Energy Co., which runs the Oyster Creek
Nuclear Plant— is refreshing.
AmerGen has agreed to pay a $1 million settlement with the state
to resolve a water-discharge violation two years ago that
resulted in the deaths of thousands of fish.
Much of the money will go to environmental programs — including
the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program, restoration of Barnegat
Bay-area resources and habitat, and the Lighthouse Center in
Waretown, an environmental education facility.
“We take full responsibility for what happened, for the
event,†said Ann Mary Carley, a spokeswoman for Exelon.
“We think the settlement is fair and we are pleased that such a
large portion of the settlement will go to two very worthwhile
environmental groups.â€
The Public Interest Research Group, an environmental advocate, is
pleased with what it called a “landmark settlement.â€
The state attorney general is happy that the $1 million
settlement sends a message to other utilities that they must
comply with their permits.
AmerGen messed up. It admitted it. And it’s paying a sizable
amount.
Don’t do it again. Case closed.
The Press of Atlantic City, N.J. / AP
*****************************************************************
30 CNN.com: Fuel rod parts missing from nuclear plant -
Apr 21, 2004
MONTPELIER, Vermont (AP) -- Two pieces of a highly radioactive
fuel rod are missing from a Vermont nuclear plant, and engineers
planned to search onsite for the nuclear material, officials said
Wednesday.
The fuel rod was removed in 1979 from the Vermont Yankee reactor,
which is currently shut down for refueling and maintenance.
Remote-control cameras will be used to search a spent fuel pool
on the property, officials said.
"We do not think there is a threat to the public at this point.
The great probability is this material is still somewhere in the
pool," said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan.
But Sheehan said it was possible the spent fuel was mixed in with
a shipment of low-level nuclear waste and ended up at a
repository in South Carolina, or a facility in Washington state.
He said it was also possible it was taken to a nuclear testing
facility run by General Electric, which designed the plant.
The material would be fatal to anyone who came in contact with it
without being properly shielded, Sheehan said. Spent nuclear fuel
also could be used by terrorists to construct so-called dirty
bombs that would spread deadly radiation with conventional
explosives.
The NRC is helping plant officials in the search. The rod was
part of the fuel assembly used to power the reactor. One of the
missing pieces is about the size of a pencil. The other piece is
about the thickness of a pencil and 17 inches long.
"It would be very difficult to remove this material from the site
without somebody knowing about it," Sheehan said. "It would set
off radiation monitors."
Sheehan cited the heightened awareness of the need to control
nuclear material that followed the September 11 terror attacks.
"We don't want this falling into the wrong hands," he said. "This
is something we would never take lightly."
Gov. James Douglas, after speaking Wednesday afternoon with the
head of the NRC, said he was "very concerned" about the missing
fuel at the plant, run by Entergy Nuclear.
"This situation is intolerable," he said in a statement.
In 2002 a Connecticut nuclear plant was fined $288,000 after a
similar loss. That fuel was never accounted for.
Vermont Yankee is located in the southeastern town of Vernon, on
the border with Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
The state's Public Safety Department and Homeland Security Unit
also were notified of the missing fuel.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This
*****************************************************************
31 NRC: NRC Names Directors of Communications and Office of Public Affairs
News Release - 2004-04
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov]
No. 04-045 April 21, 2004
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has named William N. Outlaw as
its Director of Communications, a newly created position, and
Eliot B. Brenner as the Director of its Office of Public
Affairs. Both are veteran communications professionals.
Outlaw previously worked as Associate Administrator of Public
Affairs for the Federal Highway Administration, part of the U.S.
Department of Transportation, from April 2002 until last August.
Before that, he served for nine years as the Director of
Communications for The Road Information Program, a non-profit
transportation research group.
In addition, Outlaw has worked as press secretary to the late
U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and as a press officer at
the U.S. Agency for International Development. His journalism
experience includes working as a reporter for the Washington
Times, as a reporter and editor for the Associated Press in
North and South Carolina.
Outlaw holds a bachelors degree in journalism and a masters
degree in mass communications from the University of South
Carolina. He also served in the U.S. Air Force, including a tour
of duty in Vietnam.
Last August, NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz announced the
establishment of the position of Director of Communications. Mr.
Outlaw will report directly to the Chairman and is responsible
for oversight of the offices of Public Affairs and Congressional
Affairs. He will also provide policy and guidance for
communication activities across the agency.
Brenner has worked since early 2001 as a communications
consultant, specializing in aviation issues. Prior to that, he
served for over four years as the Federal Aviation
Administrations Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs, a
position that entailed directing external and internal
communications for that agency during high profile aviation
disasters and air traffic control modernization. In addition, he
has worked as a speechwriter for secretaries of Defense and
Treasury. He spent nearly two decades working for the United
Press International (UPI) news service. During his time with
UPI, he served as Senior National Security Correspondent and
directed its Pentagon coverage of the Gulf War. He also
co-authored a book, Desert Storm: The Weapons of War.
He holds a bachelors degree in journalism from Georgia State
University in Atlanta and attended Oxford College of Emory
University.
Brenner will be responsible for the agencys public affairs
program, which involves interacting with the media and members
of the public on NRC-related issues, issuing press releases and
fact sheets, and providing advice to agency officials, among
other responsibilities.
Last revised Wednesday, April 21, 2004
*****************************************************************
32 PRAVDA.Ru: Examination of "Peter the Great" missile cruiser = nuclear
reactor is OK, discipline is bad -
[http://port.pravda.ru]
04/21/2004 15:18
Many flaws were detected during the examination of Peter the
Great missile cruiser.
The Commission of Russian Navy finished the ship check-up and
pointed at the flaws related to organizing the service on the
ship and personnel military training.
Lenta.ru quoted the source in the Navy that the number of the
ship lodgers are maintained with violating the fleet regulations,
some military posts and offices are maintained contrary to the
regulations either. The only compartment which is a perfect order
is the reactor compartment.
Currently Peter the Great is undergoing one month repair work.
The cruiser commanders have a chance to put everything in order
for this time. Northern Fleet Staff commanders believe that the
flagship should meet the highest demands, RIA-Novosti reported.
Earlier, on March 23 Russian Northern Fleet Chief Commander
Admiral Vladimir Kuroedov stated that "Peter the Great" was in an
extremely bad condition and can explode at any moment. Later the
Admiral said that he had just meant that the ship compartments
needed some repair works.
Some media wrote that the real cause for the Chief Commander"s
statement was Admiral Igor Kasatonov"s testifying in the court
hearings on sinking K-159 submarine. Igor Kasatonov denounced the
Chief Commander in court, and he is an uncle of the cruiser"s
commander Vladimir Kasatonov.
Kuroedov"s statement raised concerns about Russian nuclear
safety, in the West. Probably later the Chief Commander realized
that not only the cruiser commander is responsible for the
problems and the ship, and was quick to say that "his statement
was misinterpreted", Polit.ru reported.
Source: Information agencies
Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Andrey Nesterov)
L1999-2002 "PRAVDA.Ru". When reproducing our materials in
*****************************************************************
33 UPI: U.S. Army troops found radioactive -
(United Press International)
April 19, 2004
WASHINGTON, April 19 (UPI) -- As many as 800 U.S. army soldiers
are awaiting results to determine if they were exposed to
radiation in Iraq, the New York Daily News said Monday.
The demand for tests was sparked by the newspaper's report that
four soldiers from the 442nd Military Police Company are
contaminated with radiation, likely caused by dust from depleted
uranium shells fired by U.S. troops both in the Gulf war and in
the Iraq invasion. The munitions are tipped with depleted uranium
that is dense enough to penerate armor plate, but they also tend
to pulverize on impact, spreading radioactive dust.
However, several independent uranium experts who reviewed early
lab results from Washington's Walter Reed medical facility's
doctors are questioning whether the Army's testing methods are
adequate.
"They are using an instrument that apparently isn't very
accurate," said Glen Lawrence, a professor of biochemistry at
Long Island University.
Leonard Dietz, a retired scientist from the Knolls Atomic
Laboratories who invented one of the instruments for measuring
uranium isotopes, agreed.
"The instruments they used are just not sophisticated enough to
give accurate readings," Dietz said.
Copyright 2004 United Press International
*****************************************************************
34 Centre Daily Times: Cancer on agenda Thursday
| 04/21/2004 | Your Letters
The cancer epidemic we are experiencing in America today is very
real and it is rare for one not to have a relative or friend
touched by this tragedy.
In October 2002, the National Cancer Institute reported that
contrary to earlier reports, breast cancer, lung cancer in women,
melanoma, prostate cancer and colorectal cancer in both genders
are rising.
Then, in January 2003 the European Committee on Radiation Risk, a
group of independent scientists from many countries, including
the United States, who had worked together for five years,
released their report.
They concluded that from 1945 to 1989, there were 61.1 million
cancer deaths, 1.6 million infant deaths and 1.9 million fetal
deaths from internalized radioactivity from weapons tests
fallout, operating nuclear reactors and military use of depleted
uranium in missile cladding.
Nuclear reactors routinely release radioactive gases and liquids,
some gases are radioactive particles and carry the same
cancer-causing pollution as bomb testing fallout carried.
These reach our water and food chain by rainfall and snow and
become part of our daily diet. This becomes internalized and sits
in the body in our bone marrow, bone, tissue and glands,
irradiating the body. This can result in illnesses such as cancer
and heart disease.
This major cause of cancer must be removed in order to stop
epidemic numbers of cancer and other illnesses.
The reactors must be shut down.
People Against Nuclear Pollution and Cancer, a recently organized
group, will hold a public meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the
Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church activity center in
Philipsburg.
Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor emeritus at the University of
Pittsburgh, and Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud, Sierra Club chairwoman,
national subcommittee on nuclear issues, will address the cancer
epidemic and the use of recycled radioactive wastes in household
products.
The American Cancer Society has been invited to send a
representative.
Virginia Southard Philipsburg
About CentreDaily.com
*****************************************************************
35 WSWS: Testing of New York guardsmen: first confirmed cases of Iraq war
depleted uranium exposure
[World Socialist Web Site]
By Joanne Laurier
21 April 2004
[editor@wsws.org]
A group of American soldiers suffering from unexplained illnesses
due to service in the Iraqi war have been diagnosed with
radiation contamination likely caused by dust from depleted
uranium shells fired by US troops.
An investigation funded by the New York Daily News found that
several members of the 442nd Military Police Company, based in
Orangeburg, New York, “almost certainly” inhaled radioactive dust
from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium
(DU).
A nuclear medicine expert and former Army doctor, Dr. Asaf
Durakovic, tested nine men who had been battling serious physical
problems that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.
Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium
in urine samples from four of the soldiers. The men—Sgt. Hector
Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony
Yonnone—are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium
exposure from the war, according to the Daily News report. The
soldiers contacted the newspaper after six of them were denied
testing for DU by Army doctors and the three who were tested
waited months for results. Two in the latter group suspiciously
tested negative.
Dispatched to Iraq a year ago, the unit, made up for the most
part of New York policemen, firefighters and correction officers,
has been providing security for convoys, operating jails and
training Iraqi police.
“These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were
military police not exposed to the heat of battle. Other American
soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium
exposure,” Durakovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served
in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, told the Daily News. Dr. Durakovic
is affiliated to the Uranium Medical Research Centre, an
international association of scientists and physicians—the first
study organization to detect DU in the urine of Canadian, British
and US troops who served in the first Gulf War.
The Army and Pentagon, under pressure from veterans’ groups who
blame DU contamination as a factor in Gulf War Syndrome, have
conducted studies which essentially concluded that DU exposure
does not present a major health risk. Gulf War Syndrome is a term
for a myriad of ailments that afflicts thousands of veterans of
that war. A Pentagon study published in 2000 concluded that DU,
as a heavy metal, “could pose a chemical hazard’ but that Gulf
War veterans “did not experience intakes high enough to affect
their health.” Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said “the
overwhelming conclusion” from the studies of those who work with
uranium is that “it has not produced any increase in cancer.”
Kilpatrick also said that the Pentagon has tested some 1,000
soldiers back from the current war in Iraq and only three have
come up positive for DU—resulting exclusively from depleted
uranium shell shrapnel.
The Army contends that only soldiers who suffer retained DU
shrapnel wounds or who were inside tanks hit by DU shells—forcing
an immediate inhalation of radioactive dust—are at risk. However,
the Pentagon’s Kilpatrick claimed that follow-up studies of
around 70 cases of DU-contaminated veterans from the Gulf War
exhibited no serious health problems.
Gulf War Syndrome
Of the 579,000 American veterans who participated in the Gulf
War, some 251,000 (43 percent) had sought medical treatment from
the Department of Veterans Affairs as of July 1999. Approximately
182,000 (31 percent) filed claims for compensation for medical
disabilities or damage related to illness or injury. The
illnesses included leukemia, lung cancer, chronic kidney and
liver disorders, respiratory ailments, chronic fatigue, skin
spotting and joint pain, according to the Japanese newspaper
Chugoku Shimbun. A large number of the veterans’ offspring suffer
from congenital defects.
In an April 18 article by John Pilger headlined, “This is a war
of liberation and we are the enemy,” the author states that Dr.
Doug Rokke, director of the US Army DU project following the 1991
Gulf invasion, estimates that more than 10,000 American veterans
have since died as a result of the war, many from contamination
illnesses.
After an unusual number of leukemia deaths among Italian soldiers
who served in Kosovo, the European Parliament called for a
moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons in January
2003.
Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly
radioactive isotopes of the element are extracted for use as
nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. In military applications,
depleted uranium is primarily used in armor-piercing munitions
and enhanced armor protection.
Pilger’s article also revealed that during last year’s invasion
of Iraq, “both American and British forces used uranium-tipped
shells, leaving whole areas so ‘hot’ with radiation that only
military teams in full protective clothing can approach them. No
warning or medical help is given to Iraqi civilians; thousands of
children play in these zones. The ‘coalition’ has refused to
allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to send experts to
assess what Rokke describes as ‘a catastrophe.’”
Sgt. Agustin Matos, one of those who tested positive for DU from
the New York company, told the Daily News that since his return
from Iraq he has had constant headaches, fatigue, shortness of
breath, nausea, dizziness, joint pain and excessive urination. A
small lesion on his liver has also been discovered. “Before I
left for Iraq, they tested my eyes and I was fine. Now my
eyesight’s gotten bad on top of everything else,” Matos said.
According to members of the 442nd, the company was so short of
manpower that a commanding officer would order an evacuation only
when a soldier could no longer physically function.
A press release issued by the National Gulf War Resource Center,
an international coalition of advocates and organizations,
stated: “The [NGWRC] is very concerned that veterans returning
from combat in Iraq are being denied testing for exposure to
depleted uranium and potentially other hazards.... The family
members of the 442nd are right to be concerned about proper DU
screening. Both the DoD [Department of Defense] and the VA
[Veterans Administration] have done a poor job testing and
evaluating veterans in the past, and it is hard to ignore the
withholding of information and manipulation of study findings
from the DoD DU Surveillance Program.”
Isaac Zimmerman of the Uranium Medical Research Centre is a
research assistant for Dr. Durakovic and a co-author of many of
the organization’s studies. He told the WSWS: “The 442nd was a
military police unit and I don’t believe they saw active combat.
All of the nine soldiers that we tested were sick. Four tested
positive for DU and six or seven came back with Uranium 236,
which does not exist in nature, and is only produced in a nuclear
reaction process.
“The military is continuing to drop DU. I don’t think anybody
really knows, not even the military, how many tons have been
dropped. One researcher in England estimates some 1,700 tons,
which is a lot more than what the military claims. We have also
tested a number of civilians in Iraq and found that a significant
number are contaminated.
“I’ve heard second hand that the military is now going to test
everyone. But we know from past tests that labs with substandard
methodology were used and therefore the test results were
negative for DU. It is without doubt that the US military would
never ask our organization to conduct DU testing on the soldiers.
The testing of the New York guardsmen was entirely funded by the
Daily News.”
A statement by Dr. Durakovic, posted on the International Action
Organization web site, argued that “[d]ue to the current
proliferation of DU weaponry, the battlefields of the future will
be unlike any battlefields in history. Since the effects of
contamination by uranium cannot be directed or contained,
uranium’s chemical and radiological toxicity will create
environments that are hostile not only to the health of enemy
forces but of one’s own forces as well.
“Due to the delayed health effects from internal contamination of
uranium, injury and death will not always be immediate to the
battle, but will remain lingering threats to ‘survivors’ of the
battle for years and decades into the future. The battlefield
will remain a killing zone long after the cessation of
hostilities. Environmental contamination will linger for
centuries posing an ongoing health threat to the civilians who
reclaim the land and subsequent generations.”
The testing organized by the Daily News on a handful of members
of one company yielded results that point to the fact that
thousands of US troops and a vast percentage of the Iraqi
population are likely to have suffered exposure to depleted
uranium, absorbing it either by inhaling contaminated dust or
ingesting it from contaminated water, food and soil.
See Also: Washington conceals US casualties in Iraq [4 February
2004] More questions on the deaths and illnesses of American
soldiers [10 October 2003] Thousands of US troops evacuated from
Iraq for unexplained medical reasons [9 September 2003] Are
American soldiers in Iraq dying due to depleted uranium? [4
August 2003] Another US war crime: the use of depleted uranium
munitions in Iraq [29 May 2003] Ongoing consequences of the Gulf
War Casualties increase from use of depleted uranium [8 September
1999] Depleted uranium weapons used in Balkan War expected to
cause thousands of fatal cancers [5 August 1999]
Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. Please send e-mail
[editor@wsws.org] .
Copyright 1998-2004 World Socialist Web
*****************************************************************
36 Mos News: Court Rejects Appeal to Re-Examine Kursk Case -
NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
Created: 21.04.2004 18:20 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:35 MSK
The Moscow Garrison Military Court upheld a decision turning down
a proposed reinvestigation into the sinking of Russia’s Kursk
nuclear submarine in the summer of 2000, in an accident that
killed all 118 crewmembers on board, the Russian Information
Agency Novosti reported.
The request to reopen the investigation was forwarded to the
Court earlier by Boris Kuznetsov, a lawyer representing the
families of the Kursk crewmembers.
Kursk had sunk in the Barents Sea during exercises on August 12,
2000, with 118 crew on board. Government officials had said that
an explosion, possibly from a torpedo, caused the disaster. The
submarine — a November class K-159 — was on its way to be
stripped of its nuclear reactors.
Kuznetsov said in his statement in that there were no grounds for
the case to be closed. He appealed to reverse a 2002 decision
dismissing the criminal case.
This is Kuznetsov’s second attempt to launch another
investigation into the tragedy: as MosNews reported earlier, he
filed a petition in December of 2002, which was rejected.
Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com]
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
37 ITAR-TASS: Duma remembers nuclear disaster victims
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]
21.04.2004, 20.47
MOSCOW, April 21 (Itar-Tass) -- The State Duma on Wednesday
adopted a statement in connection with Nuclear Disaster Victims
Commemoration Day.
Eighteen years ago, on April 26, 1986, the world’s worst nuclear
accident occurred at the Chernobyl atomic power plant, the
consequences of which affected millions of Russians.
Deputies said the scale of the tragedy could have been bigger if
it had not been for the courage and selflessness of hundreds of
thousands of clean-up workers.
Russia has adopted several laws on the social protection of
people affected by radiation, and special programmes for dealing
with the aftermath of nuclear accidents and disasters.
It is the duty of the state to guarantee citizens of Russia
affected by the Chernobyl disaster and other nuclear accidents
their legitimate rights, the statement said.
The Duma expressed gratitude to foreign countries, international
organisations and citizens for their assistance in dealing with
the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. It noted with
satisfaction that the United Nations had proclaimed April 26
international commemoration day for the victims of nuclear
accidents and disasters.
The Duma offered sympathies to the families of those next of kin
and friends died from nuclear accidents and disasters.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
38 Gallup Independent: Living in the valley of death - Grandson
of Paddy Martinez recalls uranium days
- April 16, 2004
Martinez picks up a piece of rock with yellow uranium cake on it.
(Photo by Nick Short/Independent) Part One of Two
Kathy Helms Diné Bureau
THOREAU Back in 1950 there were two trails that crossed near
HaystackButte, or "Red Mountain" as it's known in Navajo. Paddy
Martinez usedto take one of those trails to Brock's store to get
groceries. Sometimes he'dfollow the other trail into Grants.
It was on one such occasion at the Greyhound Bus Station in
Grants that Paddynoticed some folks talking to people in the
station, saying, "Have you guysseen this type of rock around here
anywhere?" according to his grandson,Melton Martinez of the
Eastern Agency Uranium Office in Thoreau.
"He just kind of peeked in there and noticed the color of the
rock," Martinezsaid. Then Paddy went back to his home in
Haystack, N.M., and found a similarrock. "He took that rock out
and he took it back to a guy named Gunnersonthe only white person
he could trust. Gunnerson sent it to Santa Fe Railroad.They went
back up in there and they found out that it was uranium. Within a
week,man, there were so many people out here looking for this
stuff!"
The mining companies built roads, blasted mines and underground
tunnels, anderected mills to process uranium ore. They did test
borings to determine thepath of ore beds, then dug open pit- and
shaft mines. The town of Grants wasbooming. Dump trailers hauling
up to 25 tons of ore at a time beat a path betweenStella Dysart
Mine No. 1 and the mill at Ambrosia Lake.
Today pieces of limestone rock containing bits of "yellowcake"
areclearly visible near the steep mountain path followed by Paddy
when he foundthe first ore 54 years ago this month. "If you walk
through there you willfind a lot of uranium exposed. Yellowcake,"
Martinez said.
Haystack was the home of an open pit mine as well as an
underground mine. Whenthe company pulled out, apparently they
didn't fill in all of the bore holes. "Nowwe're seeing big holes
here and there," Martinez said. "These are fromall of the tunnels
that they built underneath. Now it's starting to sink."
There are at least seven holes located around a nearby residence.
One has a deadtree stuck in it and a board thrown across it to
try to keep livestock from fallingin. "When it snowed you could
see steam coming out of it," he said.The family tried dumping
their trash in one of the holes to plug it up. "Itdidn't work. It
just got bigger and bigger," he said.
"When they drill to loosen up the limestone, they will blast and
the dustwill go maybe somewhere around 100 to 200 feet up in the
air. And all of thatdust will travel right into where we're
living. We've been living there eversince our grandfather. ...
This whole area was exposed. After 35 years they reclaimedit and
then they put up a sign saying, 'Danger: Below-Surface
Radiological,'or something like that. Wow! You know? They put a
sign there after 35 years sayingit's dangerous? We lived in it 35
years!"
The now-reclaimed open pit mine is posted with signs warning in
three languagesEnglish, Navajo and Spanish of potential
radioactive hazards. Unfortunately,the symbol for radioactivity
is barely recognizable and the warnings have weatheredto the
point they are almost illegible. The site is well grazed. Cow
pies arevisible within the mine site, which has been fenced off
with barbed wire.
Martinez said some of the locals told him about their livestock
wandering upto the top of Haystack Butte to drink from water
holes where the uranium hadbeen dug. "Most of them died died in
their sleep. They just found theirsheep dead in the morning in
the corral."
At Mariano Lake there was a shaft mine which had been reclaimed
and fenced off. "Theyreseeded the whole area. I think it's like
four or five acres that they fencedoff where the mine used to
sit. After reseeding it, boy that grass got big. Andthese people
that owned the land there decided to use that little piece of
land,so they opened the gate and put their horses in there,"
Martinez said.
"According to those guys, those horses lasted like three years
after that,then they started dying. We figured like maybe there
was something in the grass."
But it wasn't just the animals that suffered."What I've found out
is thatlooking through 11 chapters within this area where mining
has happened, we havesomewhere around 7,000 people with
respiratory problems. According to the censuscount, we only have
12,000 people, so that's well over half with respiratoryproblems.
There's something wrong here," Martinez said.
At 40 years old, Martinez is now the "elder" of the
family."Mymother died of kidney failure. My uncle died of kidney
failure. My father gotto the stage where his kidneys started to
give up. His lungs were already givingup. Two of my sisters, they
can't have babies I'm not sure what's wrong withthem. Two of my
brothers are disabled. One is real bad. He's been in
rehabilitationin Tohatchee. He can't really talk good. He's
abnormal. He's only like 4 feethigh. He's real bad," Martinez
said.
"I lost my mom when she was 60. My dad couldn't walk. Something
happenedto his leg. A big old infection started on the side. He
was only like 42 whenhe started going to the hospital. He spent
most of his time in the hospital 10years straight. They couldn't
figure out what was wrong with his leg and theynever healed it.
At first they thought it was contagious. We seen our
fatherthrough plastic for many years. We couldn't go in with him,
touch him, or nothinglike that. He was just like, alone, for
years and years. Finally they took offthe infected leg. He had
three heart attacks and lived through it," Martinezsaid.
"We lived right there in Haystack. We've been living right by the
minesall our lives, and we've noticed that we've been coming down
with different typesof sickness mainly respiratory problems,
kidney failure, and the sores on theskin the rash. We've been
getting a lot of that.
"We know for a fact now that it's coming off of the mining, and
the morewe do studies on this, we're finding out radiation can
affect," he said.
According to preliminary health figures Martinez has documented,
between Sept.30, 1999, and Oct. 1, 2000, Crownpoint led the
Eastern Agency mining communitiesin number of dialysis patients
(10), followed by Smith Lake with six, and MarianoLake with four.
Standing Rock and Baca each had two, while Church Rock,
Pinedale,and Dalton Pass had one each.
During the same timeframe, Church Rock led the communities in
number of cancercases (144), followed by Crownpoint with 36.
Hydro Resources Inc. (HRI) now plansto introduce in-situ leach
mining in those areas. Among other Eastern communities,Standing
Rock had seven cancer cases, followed by Dalton Pass with six,
MarianoLake and Smith Lake each with five; Baca, four; Pinedale,
two; and Casamero Lake,one.
Crownpoint far outnumbered other communities in respiratory
cases, with a totalof 3,046 reported; followed by Smith Lake at
712; Mariano Lake, 667; StandingRock, 572, Dalton Pass, 427;
Casamero Lake, 426; Baca, 283; Pinedale, 191; ChurchRock, 66; and
Iyanbito, 25.
"It's kind of sad what they did to the people," Martinez said.
April 16, 2004 Selected Stories: Zuni family shocked at photo of
son in Iraq Yah-Ta-Hey man held in death of Zuni man City to
board of convention, vistors center: You're fired! All over but
the shouting for Smith Lake Elementary After blowing millions,
millions more needed to put rez on cyber hwy
Living in the valley of death: Grandson of Paddy Martinez recalls
uranium days Activists upset that boys who tortured dogs are not
charged
the Gallup Independent feedback on this website and the paper in
general. All contents property of the Gallup Independent. Any
duplication or republication requires consent of the Gallup
Independent. Send questions or comments to gallpind@cia-g.com
[gallpind@cia-g.com]
*****************************************************************
39 Gallup: Independent: Still paying for the good ol'days
Ex-workers have health problems
April 17, 2004
Part Two of Two
By Kathy Helms Diné Bureau
THOREAU John W. Hardy and his wife Sarah of Chinle have been
trying to get John's compensation for uranium-related illness for
the last 14 years, ever since the 1990 Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act came into being. Medically, he qualifies.
But when you add up the total amount of time he worked for
Arizona Mining Co. and El Paso Natural Gas, it amounts to only
seven Working Level Months (WLM) not enough to qualify.
Hardy, 78, said he worked over near the Grand Canyon "one whole
summer and through the winter back to the summer. I know we spent
a year there," he says. The last 14 years the couple have spent
searching for records to document Hardy's case.
But Melton Martinez, whose Eastern Navajo Uranium Workers office
has been trying to help, said, "He has a year in El Paso Natural
Gas but they're saying that El Paso Natural Gas did not go mining
until 1954. He worked for them from 1953 all the way into 1956,
and they're not counting that."
Translating for Hardy, Martinez said, "He's got a real bad lung
problem. He hasn't been able to really perform the duties he used
to do, like walking. He's got problems with just even walking, he
says. His breathing problem is pretty strong. They gave him an
oxygen bottle but now he's back to inhalers. He said he qualifies
from the medical, but he doesn't have enough time. And he's
really suffering from what he has done. They're telling us that
he has scarring in the lung, pulmonary fibrosis."
Sarah, her mom, dad and family lived at the mining site. She said
the company built a hut for the miners and their families, "one
long hut with separate rooms that's what they built for them over
at the mining site. They lived right there by the mining site for
over a year. He says they used to blast right nearby,"a
driveway's distance away, Martinez said. "That's how close they
were living and they were blasting and all of the dust used to
come over them." Nobody seemed to mind the dust. After all, it
was a job.
On the road The red rocks dance ahead as the truck rolls down the
rutted dirt road. Martinez is riding shotgun, pointing out
landmarks along the circuitous route that leads from Haystack to
Bluewater and back again ."This is Haystack Road we're on.
There's about 600 people living in this area," he said. "There
were a lot of sheep that were grazing in those areas where mining
had happened."
Haystack, the mountain, lay just ahead. It was named by
Martinez's grandfather, Paddy Martinez, who found the first
uranium there in April 1950. Directly across from Haystack
Mountain is another blip on the landscape a black-tipped mountain
with roads winding back and forth across its great expanse.
"It used to be a volcano. That tip right there at the top, it
used to be a big bowl-like, but now all of those people that
wanted gravel or whatever, they went up in there with heavy
equipment and big trucks and they started destroying it," hauling
it away by the truckload.
When the uranium mining was going on, Martinez said, "they will
blast and the dust will go up like maybe somewhere around 100-200
feet up in the air. And all of that dust will travel right into
where we're living, and we've been living there ever since our
grandfather," Martinez said. Whether gravel hauled from the
volcano was contaminated with radioactive dust is anybody's
guess.
Farther down the road is Martinez's house, situated on 160 acres
of allotted land with the sacred Mount Taylor in the distance. It
was his dad's land, and Grandfather Paddy's before that.
Martinez points to various landmarks along the way. "All of this
is Indian allotments. That's my sister's sheep. My brother's got
a whole bunch of goats. From this corner here is my aunt's land
but she passed away too. All of this is nothing but the kids
living and all of the elders gone."
Though he has been trying to get the Navajo Nation to test water
in the area, because it's allotted land, he said, "the Navajo
EPA, it seems like they're being blocked by that boundary line
the Navajo Reservation line. So they can't really step out of
there. I've been trying to get EPA out here. Finally they got to
Church Rock and they did some testing there. They did 12 wells
and only two of them passed, I heard. Then the other 10 are like
'for livestock only' like we don't eat the livestock ..." he said
sarcastically. "Somebody's going to eat it, no matter what. We
sell it from here, it goes down to market."
Soft, sweet water Just down the road is Martinez's Uncle Harold's
homesite. "My uncle was probably the first person that started
working for Anderson Development. Anderson started coming out
here and they started contracting out all of these mining
companies. They bought trucks. I think they had something like 80
trucks hauling ore. A whole bunch of Navajos worked there."
Martinez worked there too, as a laborer repairing tires, welding,
operating heavy equipment. "At that time I was just learning how
to use them big equipments. And then we'd go on a roadtrip after
those trucks. Wherever they'd break down, we tried to fix their
tires there and get them back on the road the transporters."
On the right-hand side of the road loomed a windmill and water
tank. "This water tastes real good. There's no water like it in
this world. So soft, sweet. It's real good water," Martinez said.
To the best of his knowledge, it's never been tested.
The truck rumbles through a farm gate. "This is private land that
my uncle leases. I think Kerr-McGee or somebody owns this
property, but we're grazing on it. They're leasing it," he said.
Goat Mountain is home to several doghole mines camouflaged amid
the weathered sandstone cliff. "You really can't see yellowcake
because it's mixed with sand," he said. "They used to call this
place Junior Mine, because the guy that owned it, his name is
Junior. He's a Navajo."
Doghole mines came long before those with contemporary square
openings. "Way back in the 50s they weren't really using lumber
and stuff like that to brace the hole that they were digging, so
they made it kind of like round-shaped so the ground would hold
itself. You don't have to put no lumber inside. As they came
closer to modern mining they started making it square and they
started putting posts in there, lumber, mesh wire, stuff like
that. That's how they started making all kinds of tunnels.
"We used to walk into the mines far back," Martinez said as he
climbed toward Junior Mine. "But now it's starting to change. The
mines are starting to fill up with sand." At one time, it was
possible to stand upright and walk into the dogholes. Not
anymore. Junior Mine also has a distinct odor, he said. "I don't
know if you can smell it or not, but it smells like rusted
metal."
Next stop, Wasteland About four to five miles from Goat Mountain
is the haul road leading past a former Kerr-McGee mine site and
Anderson Development to Ambrosia Lake "Ambrosia Lake had a town
here. It was probably somewhere around 200-300 people. They had a
trailer park. They even had a cafe. It's just a ghost town now.
"The thing too that happened, this whole place is dead. Look at
it the whole area became a wasteland. The grass used to grow
thick in here, but now there's nothing. It rains but I don't know
what happened to the grass. All of this area is probably
contaminated off of the mill tailings manmade mountains,"
Martinez said.
He pointed to an area adjacent to the highway intersection across
from the mill site. "All this was where they used to stockpile
the uranium ore higher than those telephone posts mountains of
ore just waiting for shipment. Usually what a company did is if
they hit low-grade uranium, they would just stockpile it until
they hit a real rich bed, and what they would do is mix it to get
more tonnage. There used to be a restaurant right there."
Near one of the mine sites is a power substation. "I'm not sure
what they're going to do with all of this electricity they put
up. They're probably going to leave it here and wait for Bush to
decide when to start mining again," Martinez said. Weekend April
17, 2004 Selected Stories: Couple hit by train, man dies Tribal
council to consider just who is Navajo Still paying for the good
ol' days Man burned to death after fiery wreck on rez School,
tribe try for more native culture
Giant employee still critical, but doing better First Navajo
Nation voting deadline
the Gallup Independent. Send questions or comments to
gallpind@cia-g.com [gallpind@cia-g.com]
*****************************************************************
40 KATU 2: Hanford workers to wear respirators around some tanks
Portland, Oregon
src="http://www.katu.com
4/21/2004
RICHLAND - Workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be
required to wear respirators with air tanks when they work near
some underground tanks that hold radioactive waste.
The requirement was among several changes announced today by CH2M
Hill, the contractor hired to clean up waste that was left over
from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons at
Hanford.
The company has come under fire in recent months amid claims by
workers that vapors from the tanks have sickened them.
The company also is testing several devices aimed at sampling
the air around individual workers, and has created a new,
senior-level position of environmental health director to oversee
the industrial hygiene program.
The company decided to require respirators with air tanks due to
concerns about nitrous oxide vapors from some of the storage
tanks.
The company says it is continuing to study the safety concerns
to see whether additional steps are needed.
The underground tanks hold the most deadly waste -- about 53
million gallons of radioactive liquid, sludge and saltcake. Plans
call for turning much of it into glass logs and burying it at a
nuclear waste repository.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
KATU TV 2153 N.E. Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97232 Main Phone
503-231-4222 News Desk 503-231-4264
*****************************************************************
41 Letter edited for publication in the Bay View
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 14:51:28 -0700
morning-title.gif
Community (94124) fights back to stop conveyance of Shipyard
Tell Redevelopment ‘no conveyance til it’s clean’ Tuesday 6pm Burnett School
On April 1, the San Francisco Chronicle made the shocking announcement that
the Navy and the City had just signed a conveyance agreement to give the
green light to Lennar to start building 1,600 homes on Parcel A of the
Hunters Point Shipyard as early as this summer. Yet Proposition P, passed
in 2000 by an 87 percent voter landslide, calls for the entire Shipyard to
be cleaned to residential standards before any development begins – and the
Shipyard is far from clean.
To win environmental justice, the community is fighting back. Intent on
stopping any conveyance or development, the Community First Coalition is
sending this letter to the Redevelopment Commission. The Commission is
holding a special meeting on the conveyance agreement on Tuesday, April 27,
6 p.m., at Burnett School, 1520 Oakdale Ave., just east of Third Street, in
Hunters Point. Everyone is urged to attend.
Commissioner Ramon E. Romero, President
San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Commission
Dear Commissioner Romero:
On behalf of the Community First Coalition (CFC), a coalition of citizen
groups dedicated to environmental and economic justice for the people of
Bay View Hunters Point and other communities, we request the San Francisco
Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) continue the matter of your Agency’s approval,
on March 31, 2004, of the Conveyance Agreement (CA) between the U.S. Navy
and the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) for the Hunters Point
Shipyard for at least 60 days, but at least until such time as SFRA, as the
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA; Public Resources Code § 21000
et seq.) "lead agency," completes its environmental review of both the CA
and the Lennar/BVHP Disposition Development Agreement (DDA), executed on
December 2, 2003, by the SFRA[1]. Both the CA and DDA are "projects' within
the meaning of CEQA.
Request for Continuance of Conveyance Agreement Pending Environmental Review
The CCSF Redevelopment Commission took discretionary action on December 2,
2003, by approving the DDA for the development of the Hunters Point
Shipyard. Additionally, by and through Mayor Gavin Newsom, CCSF took what
is clearly discretionary action by approving (i.e., entering into) the CA
with the U.S. Navy. The CA sets a specific timetable for giving CCSF a
portion of the Hunters Point Shipyard for residential development (herein
referred to as Parcel A), as well as giving commercial development rights
to Lennar/BVHP, a private, non-governmental organization.
To our knowledge (and please advise us immediately if and how we are
wrong), neither of the discretionary actions involving the CA and DDA
previously described has been subjected to public review or comment, nor
have these actions been subjected to environmental review as required by
CEQA for such projects.
On November 7, 2000, CCSF voters passed, with 87 percent approval,
Proposition P calling upon the U.S. Navy to remediate the entire Hunters
Point Naval Shipyard to residential levels for unrestricted use of the
property. The Navy is required under the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. § 9601 et
seq., and its implementing regulations, 40 CFR Parts 300–311, to take
community acceptance into account in its cleanup decisions.
On July 30, 2001, CCSF's Board of Supervisors (the Board) passed
unanimously a resolution implementing the will of the voters as expressed
by Proposition P. The Board's vote confirmed as the policy of CCSF that the
Navy should clean the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard of toxic and hazardous
contamination to the highest level. Since the voters empowered the Board to
enforce Proposition P, and the Board then proceeded to do so, the Board
clearly has a duty to also vote on the CA.
Both the CA and the DDA must be subjected to all applicable government
approvals, including all required environmental reviews under both CEQA and
its federal counterpart, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
There are a number of additional governmental approvals that must be
obtained prior to the development allowed by the CA and DDA, including
General Plan amendment(s) and redevelopment area mergers.
There are also legal mandates for a subsequent or supplemental
environmental analysis to augment the study done in 1999, which provides no
complete or adequate environmental analysis of the impacts associated with
the development envisioned and allowed by the CA and DDA. The impacts that
are being ignored pose imminent threats of grave if not fatal harm to human
life and safety, as well as the environment.
The impacts and their potentially grave harm must be analyzed by
considering the pertinent documentation from the Navy and the Hunters Point
and San Francisco Fire Departments, particularly in regard to the
residential development being planned for Parcel A under the CA and DDA. It
is common knowledge that this area has been the site of a series of fires
during the summer months of the years 2003, 2002, 2001 and 2000.
The ignition of these fires was fueled by flammable, explosive chemicals
whose presence is documented in the Parcel A Record of Decision and include
petroleum products, pesticides, volatile organic compounds in the air and
soil, and gaseous emissions from the partially capped industrial landfill
on Parcel E, which is immediately adjacent to Parcel A.[2]
The U.S. Navy and Tetra Tech EM Inc. have provided documentation that five
separate fires occurred in upland Parcel A between July and August of 2003
at the exact site where the Lennar/BVHP developers propose to begin the
demolition and deconstruction of existing Parcel A buildings in time for
the proposed construction of 1,600 homes this summer.
As a further example of matters that must be fully investigated and
analyzed to adequately protect human health and safety as well as the
environment, Hunters Point Fire District Run Report #45, dated September
11, 2001, documents that at 3:15 p.m. that day both SFFD and HPFD were
dispatched to Crisp Avenue near Parcel A where they encountered "fire
moving at a rapid speed with flames 15 to 25 feet high." The fire was
observed moving towards the parking lot area of Building 815 in the Parcel
A region of the Shipyard.
According to the email alert sent by the Navy under the Community
Notification Plan, "family dwellings above the fire were threatened. After
deployment of several hundred feet of hose and equipment, the fire was
extinguished at 5pm." HPFD was reactivated to the Building 815 site to
extinguish hot spots over the next two days as verified in fire run reports
#56 and #47. A total of seven fires were responded to in September of 2001.
All occurred in the Parcel A and B regions of the Shipyard.
Further CEQA/NEPA analysis is legally required for the proposed development
of Parcel A given the additional facts that:
1. Parcel A has undergone boundary changes as documented in the
Parcel A FOST Revision 2 dated August 26, 2002, to include sub parcels
N-13a and N-18A. Additionally, in the Draft final FOST dated March 19,
2004, Parcel A boundaries were revised to exclude radiation-impacted
Buildings 813 and 819 situated along Spear Avenue. A NEPA compliant EPA
risk assessment protecting human health is, therefore, a requirement
(morally as well as legally).
2. On August 16, 2000, the Parcel E landfill, adjacent to Parcel A,
was the site of a fire that burned for six hours. Several areas estimated
to be less than five acres continued to burn for several weeks according to
the ATSDR Consultation Summary. The Parcel E landfill has been classified
by ATSDR as a Completed Exposure Pathway, meaning that in assessment of
risk to nearby residents, it could be shown that "exposure to contaminants
could have occurred in the past, is occurring or will occur in the future.”
3. An August 2002 landfill gas survey detected flammable, explosive
methane gas emanating from the Parcel E landfill within 100 feet of Parcel
A in concentrations exceeding 80 percent in air. This represents a
violation of state law mandating that methane gas concentrations be less
than 5 percent in air. A recent decision by the California Integrated Waste
Management Board forbids construction within 1,000 feet of the detection of
methane gas. The Navy publicly acknowledges in the Draft Final FOST that it
was required to use active extraction to remove subsurface methane gas from
beneath laboratories and kennels operated by the University of California
at San Francisco at the boundary of Parcels E and A in January of 2004.
4. The Draft Final Historical Radiological Assessment, released on
February 25, 2004, documents Parcel A to be the site of five MARSSIM Class
1 Radiation-impacted contaminated buildings, including Buildings 816, 821,
813, 819 and FUDs site 815. Parcel A covers approximately 75 acres and is
the site of 61 buildings and 43 foundations, according to the 1995 ROD. The
Navy conducted investigations on nine Parcel A sites only. Additionally,
radiation-impacted buildings on Parcel A have been cleared for unrestricted
use by an outdated cleanup standard that is well below the EPA recommended
level and is currently being challenged in California Superior Court.
5. Parcel A buildings and foundations have been determined to
contain lead and asbestos. Deconstruction of these structures during
development may lead to the release of these toxins into surrounding air
and soil, thus producing pathways for exposure for future Parcel A residents.
6. Proposition P, which contains a Declaration of Policy, passed by
a landslide 87 percent of the CCSF electorate in the November 7, 2000,
municipal election. Proposition P states, in pertinent part: "[T]he
National Contingency Plan, the regulation governing cleanup of a toxic
site, established community acceptance as one of its nine principal
criteria. The Bayview Hunters Point community wants HPS cleaned to a level
enabling the unrestricted use of the property - the highest standard for
cleanup established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
Proposition P was ratified by the CCSF Board of Supervisors on July 30,
2001, and signed by the Mayor on August 10, 2001.
7. The Memorandum of Agreement between the City of San Francisco
and the Navy, signed on November 2, 2000, stipulates that cleanup of Parcel
A and the remaining five shipyard land parcels adhere to strict
health-based preliminary remediation goals to provide total estimates of
carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health hazards under the residential
scenario. The Parcel A Human Health Risk Assessment Report (HHRA) assesses
the probability and magnitude of potential harm to human health from
exposure to threatened and actual releases of hazardous substances on
Parcel A sites. The HHRA and supporting documents do not support the Navy's
contention that the nine sites explored on Parcel A pose no threat to human
health or the environment. The Navy reports hazard indices up to 36 times
greater than health protective standards for children exposed to soil on
Parcel A under a residential scenario; soil lead contamination above
California preliminary remediation goals; hazard indices 100 times greater
than health protective standards for vegetable consumption at numerous
Parcel A sites; and an exceedingly high cancer risk of 2x10-3 at the major
IR site investigated. Studies conducted by the San Francisco Department of
Public Health in 1995 and 1997 identify a high incidence and mortality from
cancer among BVHP residents. The scientific documentation by the Navy of
hazard indices and cancer risks above health protective standards on Parcel
A is in violation of multiple federal, state and local laws and regulations
in addition to violating the terms of the original Conveyance Agreement
signed by Mayor Willie Brown on November 2, 2000. These laws and
regulations include the CERCLA act of 1980 as amended by the SARA act of
1986, NEPA, CEQA and Proposition P.
Executive Order 12898, 59 Fed. Reg. 7629 (1994), Section 1-101, requires
that each federal agency, including the U.S. Navy and U.S. EPA, make
achieving "Environmental Justice" part of its mission by identifying and
addressing any disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental effects of its programs, policies and activities on minority
populations and low-income populations. The BVHP neighborhood is a
predominately African-American community of color that is
disproportionately impacted by existing environmental hazards and has a
disproportionately high number of families with household incomes below the
poverty level compared to the CCSF as a whole.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires CCSF, and the SFRA, in
coordination with the California Environmental Protection Agency,
Department of Toxic Substances Control, to identify and address any
disproportionately high human health, socioeconomic or environmental
impacts of their programs, policies and actions on minority or low-income
populations. CEQA is primarily a public disclosure statutory scheme
allowing the affected community to be informed and members of the public to
voice their opinion, and to have input, about projects that may affect
their environment. CEQA requires a review of the environmental impacts of
overall activities ("the whole of an action" - 14 Cal. Code Regs. §
15378(a)) defined as "projects." (Pub. Res. Code § 21065.) This strong,
broad right of public participation under CEQA has a political component
(i.e., CEQA allows the compilation of a record concerning the approval of
development projects that can be used by the public to vote environmentally
insensitive decision-makers out of office come election day), the violation
or deprivation of which has constitutional ramifications on an affected
community as well as the public at large.
In mandating separate Disposition Development Agreements and “conveyance
agreements” for the development of the shipyard (Parcels A-E), SFRA, as the
lead agency under CEQA, is "piecemealing" the overall activity. CEQA
strongly forbids this kind of “chopping up [of] a proposed project into
bite-size pieces which, individually considered, might be found to have no
significance on the environment.” (Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of
Hanford (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 692, 716, citing Orinda Assn. v. Board of
Supervisors (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 1145, 1171, 1172; see also Bozung v.
LAFCO (1975) 13 Cal.3d at 283-284; Sundstrom v. County of Mendocino (1988)
202 Cal.App.3d 296, 309.)
CEQA provides that a proposed project may have a significant effect on the
environment when the possible effects on the environment are individually
limited but “cumulatively considerable.” (Pub. Res. Code § 21083(b); 13
Cal. Code Regs. § 15065.) “’Cumulatively considerable’ means that the
incremental effects of an individual project are considerable when viewed
in connection with the effects of past projects, the effects of other
current projects, and the effects of probable future projects.” (14 Cal.
Code Regs. § 15065.) In addition to analyzing the direct impacts of a
project, the CEQA lead agency must also consider a project's potentially
significant cumulative impacts.
Recent statutory law has invigorated CEQA's role in ensuring "the fair
treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes with respect to the
development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental
laws, regulations, and policies" (i.e., environmental justice).” (Emphasis
added; see SB 115, Solis; Stats. 99, ch. 690, Gov. Code § 65040.12 and Pub.
Res. Code §§ 72000-720001.)
In conjunction with the regulatory provisions of the federal Clean Air Act
and Division 26 of the Health and Safety Code,[3] CEQA provides an ideal
mechanism for ensuring that Environmental Justice will be addressed in all
activities and projects that may have a significant effect on the environment.
CEQA requires that environmental documents (i.e., an environmental impact
report (EIR) or a negative declaration) be prepared whenever a public
agency proposes to undertake a discretionary activity (which is defined
extremely broadly as the "whole of an action" being engaged in) that may
have a significant effect on the environment. (See Pub. Res. Code §§
21002.1, 21061, 21064, and 21080.1; see also 14 Cal. Code Regs. §15002.)
In enacting CEQA, the Legislature expressly declared a number of important
policies with which activities and documentation must be consistent, and
which must be complied with and enforced, including:
"It is the intent of the Legislature that all agencies of the state
government which regulate activities of private individuals, corporations,
and public agencies which are found to affect the quality of the
environment, shall regulate such activities so that major consideration is
given to preventing environmental damage, while providing a decent home and
satisfying living environment for every Californian." (Pub. Res. Code §
21000(g) (emphasis added).)
It is California policy to "[d]evelop and maintain a high-quality
environment now and in the future, and take all action necessary to
protect, rehabilitate, and enhance the environmental quality of the state."
(Pub. Res. Code § 21001(a) (emphasis added).)
It is the policy of this state to require that public agencies "[t]ake all
action necessary to provide the people of this state with clean air and
water, enjoyment of aesthetic, natural, scenic, and historic environmental
qualities, and freedom from excessive noise." (Pub. Res. Code § 21001(b)
(emphasis added).)
State policy calls for ensuring "that the long-term protection of the
environment, consistent with the provision of a decent home and suitable
living environment for every Californian, shall be the guiding criterion in
public decisions." (Pub. Res. Code § 21001(d) (emphasis added).)
State policy requires "governmental agencies at all levels to develop
standards and procedures necessary to protect environmental quality" (Pub.
Res. Code § 21001(f) (emphasis added).)
California policy requires "governmental agencies at all levels to consider
qualitative factors as well as economic and technical factors and long-term
benefits and costs ..." (Pub. Res. Code § 21001(g) (emphasis added).)
"The interrelationship of policies and practices in the management of
natural resources and waste disposal requires systematic and concerted
efforts by public and private interests to enhance environmental quality
and to control environmental pollution." (Pub. Res. Code § 21000(f).)
"Every citizen has a responsibility to contribute to the preservation and
enhancement of the environment." (Pub. Res. Code § 21000(e).)
The recent enactment of Public Resources Code sections 71110 through 71115,
and Government Code section 65040.12, in conjunction with other statutory
and regulatory requirements, such as the Bay Area Air Quality Management
District State Implementation Plan and EPA regulations, require the SFRA,
as well as other agencies, to infuse Environmental Justice into every
aspect of decision-making. This panoply of statutory authority supplements
the general authority to "do such acts as may be necessary for the proper
execution of the powers and duties granted to, and imposed upon [a public
agency] ." (Health & Saf. Code § 39600.) Further, the rules, regulations
and standards that the SFRA and other agencies adopt must be "consistent
with the state goal of providing a decent home and suitable living
environment for every Californian"[4] (Id. § 39601(c).)
Therefore the two agreements, the CA and DDA, and all associated activities
constituting the "whole of an action" being carried out by the public
agencies involved capable of having an adverse environmental impact (14
Cal. Code Regs. § 15378(a); see also Pub. Res. Code § 21065), must be
subjected to environmental review pursuant to CEQA to ensure that all the
project's adverse, potentially significant impacts on the Bayview Hunters
Point community, as well as the entire region in which the project is
located, are fully and fairly investigated, identified, analyzed, evaluated
and, perhaps most importantly of all, mitigated - while also ensuring that
project alternatives capable of avoiding or reducing the impacts are
considered and, if feasible, adopted.
Request for Commission Members to Recuse Themselves Who Have Appearance of
Conflict of Interest
We respectfully request that all members of the Redevelopment Commission
currently under investigation by any federal or state agency, including the
San Francisco Ethics Commission, recuse themselves from voting on this
matter because of the appearance - if not the actual existence - of
conflicts of interest in dealings with the Lennar/BVHP developers. We are
informed and believe the SFRA has been subjected to questions of conflict
of interest of several of its members - such as Benny Yee, Leroy King and
Darshan Singh - for their dealings with Lennar/BVHP, which is apparently
comprised of Lennar Communities, LNR Partners, Luster Venture and Mariposa
Management. The following excerpt from the SF Chronicle explains the
conflict under investigation:
“Ethics panel eyes redevelopment role in Hunters Point
“SF Chronicle, Monday, March 17, 2003
“San Francisco - The trio whose habit of voting together on controversial
items has tagged them the "Pep Boys" of the San Francisco Redevelopment
Commission - Benny Yee, Leroy King and Darshan Singh - were all hit with
subpoenas from the city's ethics watchdog agency this past week.
“Soon to join the list: City Hall insider Susan Horsfall, who works for the
law firm that represents Lennar Corp. - the developer that won the right to
take over the old Hunters Point shipyard.
“No one at the Ethics Commission is talking, but word among Redevelopment
insiders is that a complaint came in more than a year ago alleging that
Horsfall and the Pep Boys appeared to be a little too close for comfort -
often dining out together after meetings.
“Right around the time, it seems, that the commission - including the Pep
Boys - voted to disregard its consultant's findings and award the rights to
develop the shipyard to Lennar.”
Under these highly unusual circumstances, there would clearly be, at the
very least, an appearance of impropriety to allow these individuals to vote
on pending matters as to which a conflict of interest can be reasonably
inferred. Indeed, we believe any member of the SFRA who has any type of
economic interest in or in regard to Lennar/BVHP (positive or negative,
e.g., the possibility of having to return, refund or pay for benefits
wrongly obtained from the developer, not to mention the cost of having to
go to jail for having requested or obtained such benefits) is required
under the Political Reform Act of 1974, Gov. Code § 81000 et seq., to
recuse him or herself from voting on any project or agreement with the
developer.
Apparently, this did not take place at the SFRA's December 2, 2003,
meeting, however, and we hereby object to and request that all action taken
at that meeting (as well as any subsequent meeting in which the so called
"Pep Boys" participated) be declared null and void and set aside, without
having any force or effect whatever ab initio. Our request is supported by
the strict, express requirements of the Political Reform Act, including the
following prohibition, which the SFRA apparently violated by letting the
Pep Boys vote on matters in which Lennar/BVHP, or any of its associated
entities or individuals, is in any way involved:
"No public official at any level of state or local government shall make,
participate in making or in any way attempt to use his official position to
influence a governmental decision in which he knows or has reason to know
he has a financial interest." (Gov. Code Section 87100 (emphasis added).)
Conclusion
Wherefore, for good cause shown, the Bay View Hunters Point Community First
Coalition respectfully requests the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency
(SFRA) grant its request and continue the matter of your Agency’s approval
of the “conveyance agreement” between the U.S. Navy and the City and County
of San Francisco for the Hunters Point Shipyard, for at least 60 days, but
until such time as the SFRA as the lead agency under the California
Environmental Quality Act completes its environmental review on its
proposed project, including the April 1, 2004, conveyance agreement and the
Lennar/BVHP Disposition Development Agreement executed December 2, 2003, by
the SFRA.
Secondly, we respectfully request that members Benny Yee, Leroy King and
Darshan Singh recuse themselves from participating in these proceedings
because of the appearance of impropriety or actual conflict of interest
involving the project applicant or beneficiary, Lennar/BVHP.
Thirdly, we respectfully request that you declare all actions taken in
which Lennar/BVHP or any of its associated persons or entities have been
involved, and in which Benny Yee, Leroy King and Darshan Singh (aka the Pep
Boys) participated, be declared null and void and immediately set aside,
having no legal force or effect whatever ab initio.
Respectfully Submitted,
Olu Obayemi, Attorney at Law
Counsel for Community First Coalition (CFC)
2710 Telegraph Ave., Suite 260
Oakland, CA 94612
Tel/Fax: (510) 836-0716
E-mail:obayemilaw@yahoo.com
cc: Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Board of
Supervisors, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Ethics Commission Executive
Director Mabel Ng
[1] If you disagree with this CEQA characterization, please advise us
immediately, and please provide the legal authority on which you are
relying. If you don't advise us that you disagree, we will assume that you
agree and will rely on that agreement in taking further action.
[2] Information on these vital subjects is readily available, and we
respectfully request that to the extent it hasn't been done yet, a full
investigation be conducted prior to an further discretionary action
involving the CA and DDA. If such an investigation has been done or
commenced, please consider this our request under the California Public
Records Act for an opportunity to inspect all writings in your possession
concerning such an investigation.
[3] 42 U.S.C. § 7401 et seq. (Public Law 88-206, 77 Stat. 392, December 17,
1963, as last amended by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, P. L.
101-549, November 15, 1990); Health & Saf. Code § section 39000 et seq.
[4] This overlapping of statutory goals and requirements (see Pub. Res.
Code § 21000(g), quoted above) is typical among statutory schemes aimed at
protecting the public health.
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42 deseretnews: Nuclear waste plan for Southern Utah resurfaces
[deseretnews.com]
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
San Juan facility is topic of very informal survey
By Donna Kemp Spangler Deseret Morning News
With the winds of political change blowing around this year's
gubernatorial race, a Washington County commissioner is trying to
revive interest in a high-level nuclear-waste dump in
southeastern Utah.
Commissioner Alan Gardner recently conducted an
unscientific survey of 13 people, and 12 thought the issue of
sending nuclear waste to their neighbors in San Juan County
should be studied further.
"Our whole intent is to bring the issue up in order to
look into the possibility and do a study," Gardner said.
Former Gov. Mike Leavitt and his successor, Gov. Olene
Walker, have been adamantly opposed to any high-level
nuclear-waste facility, including a temporary storage site in
Tooele County on Goshute tribal lands. When San Juan County
approached Leavitt about the possibility of sending the waste
there, Leavitt categorically refused.
Gardner, along with San Juan County Commission Chairman
Lynn Stevens, are trying to revive interest in the proposal,
suggesting a nuclear-waste facility on state school trust lands
could generate huge amounts of money for cash-strapped schools.
In January, Stevens wrote to the School and Institutional
Trust Lands Administration requesting that SITLA take a look at
the proposal.
"SITLA has the opportunity to step forward at this time
and recommend storage of the spent fuel rods in an area that is
much less populated than the Goshute site, and at the same time
be able to receive significant funds for the school trust fund,"
Stevens wrote.
SITLA officials are willing to consider it.
"We understand that before anything could happen to bring
nuclear waste into Utah, it would have to be approved by the
governor and Legislature," SITLA director Kevin Carter said.
"That has been a formidable stumbling block. But if that climate
changes and it is not against the law to do that, we would
certainly be willing to take a look at it on trust lands. Our
board of trustees is interested enough in this potential that
they have asked us to at least be prepared to look at the issue
if it becomes a reality."
San Juan County leaders have wanted a nuclear-waste dump
as long as anyone can remember, years before the Skull Valley
Goshutes began negotiating with nuclear power companies to store
44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on the reservation.
But any proposal to store high-level nuclear waste in Utah
is bound to inflame public passions.
Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, tried to float the idea
during the 2003 legislative session but was hit with a firestorm
of opposition.
"Things hit the fan, and everybody went running," Urquhart
said. "I think there's a problem when there are issues that are
too taboo for policymakers to study. A study hurts nothing, but
maybe this is an issue that can't be studied."
Yet the reality is this, he added: Nuclear waste is likely
to come to Utah at the Goshute Indian Reservation, 75 miles
southwest of Salt Lake City, or pass through the state on its way
to a permanent resting destination at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
"Neither are a wonderful thing to think about," Urquhart
added.
It appears Washington and San Juan counties are trying to
readdress the long-standing position of Walker and Leavitt.
Walker has been firm in her position that no nuclear waste
will come to Utah with radioactivity higher than what the state
currently accepts.
It is anybody's guess how much weight Gardner's survey
will carry. He telephoned people by randomly selecting them from
a voter precinct list hundreds of miles removed from San Juan
County.
After an hour, "I ran out of time, so I quit," he said.
E-mail: donna@desnews.com [donna@desnews.com]
© 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
43 DenverPost.com - EDITORIALS Recycled water positive step
Denver's use of recycled water represents the kind of creative
thinking necessary to cope with a prolonged drought and to
promote long-term conservation.
The drought may ease in time, but the dry climate is a permanent
condition in Colorado. Since clean drinking water is our region's
most precious, limited natural resource, it's silly to pour it
onto sod and machinery, and it makes sense to use recycled water
for such needs.
A dozen Colorado cities now reuse wastewater. Denver Water's
actions are key, though, because it is the state's largest water
provider, supplying 1.1 million customers in the city and most of
its suburbs.
When the valves to the new $75 million treatment plant and 18
miles of pipelines were opened this month, Denver moved water
conservation in Colorado into a new and important era. From now
on, conservation won't be a mere idea but a daily fact. It's a
philosophy the entire Front Range should embrace.
The recycled water isn't clean enough for drinking so it won't be
used for that purpose - in fact, the new network is entirely
separate from the existing drinking-water system. Instead, Xcel
Energy uses it to cool a power plant. City parks will start
watering with it in early May, while the Denver Zoo starts using
it in late May.
By 2011, the $75 million wastewater recycling system will save
17,000 acre-feet a year. Put another way, the network will
conserve enough water to supply 35,000 households.
Most mainstream environmental groups support the project. Their
only criticism is that Denver should have taken this step long
ago. Using recycled water avoids the environmental harm that
otherwise would result from building new dams and reservoirs.
There are dissenters, however, led by environmentalist Adrienne
Anderson, who teaches at the University of Colorado, and a group
she inspired, Mothers and Others for Environmental Safety and
Security. They claim Rocky Flats (the now-defunct nuclear bomb
factory) dumped radioactive wastes at Lowry Landfill near Aurora,
and those materials pollute Denver's recycled water. (The Denver
Post is one of many businesses sharing the costs of cleaning up
the Lowry Superfund site.)
The allegations of radioactive contamination in the recycled
water have been studied extensively by Denver Water, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Metro Wastewater Reclamation
District and the Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment. The tests can detect radionuclides at levels several
thousand times lower than the threshold set by state water
quality standards. But no such materials have been found by the
tests.
Denver Water says it will continue testing the recycled water for
radionuclides and other pollutants. As long as it does so, the
public shouldn't worry about the quality of the recycled water.
The water is clean enough to swim in, so it should be OK for its
intended uses.
The fear that radionuclides might contaminate recycled water is
theoretical and unproven. The need to conserve water and respond
to drought is real and undeniable. The logical policy is to use
recycled water.
Editorials alone express The Denver Post's opinion.
The members of The Post editorial board are William Dean
Singleton, chairman and publisher; Jonathan Wolman, editorial
page editor; Bob Ewegen, deputy editorial page editor; Todd
Engdahl, assistant editorial page editor; Peter G. Chronis, Dan
Haley and Penelope Purdy, editorial writers; Mike Keefe,
cartoonist; Barbara Ellis, news editor; Cohen Peart, letters
editor; Fred Brown and Barrie Hartman, associate members.
All contents Copyright 2004 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
44 Las Vegas SUN: Plans to guard shipments questioned
By Cy Ryan < [cy@lasvegassun.com] > SUN CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- A federal official expressed doubt Monday that
the Energy Department has developed plans to guard against
terrorist attacks on trains or trucks loaded with nuclear waste
bound for Yucca Mountain.
Mark Abkowitz, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board, told the Legislative Committee on High-Level
Radioactive Waste that the review board is to oversee the Energy
Department.
He said he was not sure if the Energy Department has "fully
explored" the new ways terrorists can attack these shipments.
Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, asked Abkowitz if he was
saying the Energy Department has not planned for the "worst-case
scenario."
Abkowitz said, "We don't know."
The Energy Department is supposed to share information with the
review board, which can make suggestions but has no authority
over the department. It reports directly to Congress.
But the Energy Department's J. Gary Lanthrum told the
subcommittee the department will meet or exceed the security
requirements of the Department of Transportation and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. He said the security measures are "not set
in stone" and added he thinks they will be changed by the
scheduled time the nuclear repository is opened in 2010.
"We're still a ways from the first shipment," said Lanthrum,
director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management's
Office of National Transportation.
Lanthrum said in the last 30 years there have been 3,000
shipments of spent fuel and "there has never been a release of
radiation." While there have been accidents involving trucks
carrying the fuel, he said the casks have never been breached.
Abkowitz said the Energy Department can claim a "totally safe
record" but that is "comparing applies to oranges" when talking
about high-level nuclear waste.
The proposed schedule for opening Yucca Mountain by 2010 is
"extremely ambitious," said Abkowitz. He estimated it would take
three to four years to finish the cask design and to produce the
casks in which to haul the radioactive materials.
It will also take time to build a rail line to carry the waste
into Yucca Mountain, Abkowitz said.
He suggested the department may have to use trucks to transport
the first shipments to Yucca Mountain while the rail line is
completed.
Lanthrum said the department is committed to a 2010 opening for
Yucca Mountain. He said the department will accept bids soon for
the "conceptual design" of the rail line and make a final
decision in December 2005.
He said there will be some truck shipments. But the state of
Nevada has not yet designated the preferred highway routes. If
the state doesn't make a decision, then the trucks will most
likely use the interstate freeway system, he said.
Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, asked whether escort vehicles
would provide security for the waste-laden trucks. He said that
would identify the trucks as carrying nuclear materials. But
Lanthrum said there are ways to have escort vehicles without
anybody knowing it.
Lanthrum also told the committee that the Energy Department has
met with manufacturers of casks that would be used to carry the
waste aboard the trains and trucks. He said a new design will be
needed but he added it "was not likely the materials will be
changed." He estimated the cost at $3 million to $5 million per
cask.
After each shipment, there will be required maintenance on each
cask. He said a facility could be set up near Yucca Mountain to
perform this work. Other potential economic benefits to the area
could include construction of rail and truck maintenance
stations, a fuel depot, communication center, a transfer center
facility and possibly a visitor's center, he said.
Neal told Lanthrum that Nevada ought to get the jobs resulting
from the designation of Yucca Mountain. He said he was among
those who believed the state would not be able to stop the dump
but "we ought to get the benefits." He added, "Hopefully you will
not sidetrack Nevada."
There are scoping hearings for the environmental impact
statement on transportation set for May 3-5 in Amargosa Valley,
Goldfield and Caliente. The state has asked for additional
hearings to get the concerns of Nevadans in Las Vegas and Reno.
Lanthrum said the department is seriously considering the
request and a decision will probably come this week.
*****************************************************************
45 RGJ: Attend to town’s needs; cut its support for Yucca
[http://www.rgj.com/] Reno Gazette-Journal]
4/20/2004 11:29 pm
It seems cold-hearted to deny a small rural Nevada town such as
Caliente an economic opportunity. Despite the town’s need and
residents’ belief that Yucca Mountain can help, the state must
stand firm in opposing the project. More vigorous state efforts
to explore commercial and industrial possibilities might help the
town and lessen its obsession with Yucca Mountain.
It’s not entirely unrealistic for a town to weigh the relative
risks and benefits of a decision related to its survival. That’s
why residents and officials encourage building the waste
repository in their own back yard, despite the dangers. They’re
operating true to a pattern characteristic in the development of
nuclear energy and its usage when they envision the promise of
more jobs and commerce through the feds’ nuclear waste dump
plans.
The mayor cites changing attitudes toward the project since it
was proposed in the 1970s. More knowledge, of course, has become
available about the storage of radioactive materials since then.
It makes sense that attitudes toward the plans have changed. But
residents believe — as do many others — that efforts to resist
the project — comprise an uphill battle whose end will be Yucca
Mountain. Caliente’s concern for getting its piece of what could
be an inevitable pie is understandable.
Despite Caliente’s hopes, it is arguable that shipping high-level
radioactive material through town will create the economic
activity it seeks. Alternatively, it is unlikely the project’s
failure would cause the town to die. The way Caliente’s mayor
tells it, however, Yucca Mountain could mean the difference
between continued depression and much-needed economic relief,
especially since preparation for it would be easy with Union
Pacific rails already running through the area.
It is difficult to deprive a place like Caliente of a bit of the
prosperity that cities and metropolitan areas experience. And,
certainly, there are many towns in Nevada that also are
struggling to survive. More attention to their economic needs on
the state level certainly could make a difference.
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com]
*****************************************************************
46 Scotsman: Sellafield Cuts Radioactive Discharges into Irish Sea
[http://www.scotsman.com/]
Wed 21 Apr 2004
By Amanda Brown, Environment Correspondent, PA News
Radioactive discharges of technetium-99 into the Irish Sea from
the Sellafield nuclear plant are to be cut by 90%, it was
announced today.
The move, which follows protests from environment groups about
contamination of shellfish and other marine life, was announced
by pollution watchdog the Environment Agency and the Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive.
The reductions From the plant in Cumbria follow trials to remove
the radioactive material from liquid waste, carried out there
last year.
Since July, British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) has diverted the
waste – known as medium active concentrate – – to high
active storage and treatment plants for incorporation into glass
blocks, a treatment known as vitrification.
The reduction of technetium-99 into the Irish Sea will cut
concentrations in the marine environment, particularly shellfish,
the Environment Agency said.
It said that although the impact of technetium-99 was very low,
its detection in the sea, particularly off the Scandinavian
coast, had caused concern.
It added that the current level of radiation exposure from
Sellafield discharges to the most exposed members of the UK
public was within legal limits and the cut in discharges from the
plant would lead to a reduction in radiation exposure by up to 28
microsieverts per year.
This is about 10% of the radiation exposure from all liquid
discharges.
Environment Agency chief executive Baroness Young said: “This
will result in a substantial reduction in Tc-99 discharges to sea
in line with the Environment Agency requirements and UK
Radioactive Discharges Strategy.
“Furthermore the use of TPP (new treatment process) has allowed
existing stored waste to be effectively treated, which will
advance the future decommissioning of the facility.
“We have achieved this result using robust regulatory powers
and effective partnership working between the Agency, the Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate, Nirex and British Nuclear Fuels
plc.â€
[http://www.scotsman.com/] |
*****************************************************************
47 Reuters: Sellafield nuclear plant to cut discharges
Wed 21 April, 2004 13:47
By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) - A new treatment system now operating at
Sellafield nuclear power plant will dramatically cut the amount
of radioactive waste being released into the Irish Sea, says
operator British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL).
BNFL said discharges of technetium-99 (Tc-99) would be reduced by
90 percent as part of a two billion pound waste treatment
project, helping the plant address international concern about
the effect on marine life.
"It's something our international neighbours will be very pleased
about. For many years we have been looking for means of taking it
out of our discharge stream," a BNFL spokeswoman said.
"We can effectively remove most of the key radioactive material
through various processing plants but this particular one has
always been a bit problematic."
Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik hailed the cut as
"an important victory for Norway".
"The end to the radioactive discharges will mean clean seafood
supplies for all of us in the years to come," he told a news
conference in Oslo.
Norway has found traces of Tc-99 from Sellafield in everything
from lobsters to shellfish along its coasts and Nordic nations
say the impact on marine life has not been properly documented.
Britain insists the level of exposure to humans from the plant is
within legal limits and says the Tc-99 cuts would equate to about
10 percent of the radiation exposure from all liquid discharges.
"Although there is no evidence that the discharge of Tc-99 into
the sea at its current discharge limit is harmful to man or the
environment, it has prompted some concern, particularly in
Scandinavia, because Tc-99 can be detected at very low levels in
coastal waters and in certain shellfish and seaweed," Britain's
environment minister Elliot Morley said.
Ireland and environmental groups have repeatedly called for the
closure of Sellafield, located on England's northwest coast,
claiming it pollutes the Irish Sea with radioactive waste.
Last month the European Union told Britain to clean up the plant,
ordering full safety inspections and giving a June 1 deadline for
the UK government to produce an action plan.
*****************************************************************
48 PRN: LES Asks NRC to Assure State Participation in Licensing Process
[http://www.prnewswire.com/]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Louisiana Energy
Services (LES) today recommended to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) that it allow the New Mexico Environment
Department (NMED) to have an official role in the company's
license application proceedings for the proposed National
Enrichment Facility (NEF) in Eunice, New Mexico.
In papers filed with the NRC responding to the NMED petition
to intervene, LES said it "recognizes the unique and important
role that the State of New Mexico plays as the representative of
its citizens on issues that touch on the public health and safety
of New Mexico's citizens," on questions relating to uranium
byproduct storage and disposal, costs of plant decommissioning,
and the methods used to ensure that the facility workers and the
public are properly protected from radiation.
"We remain strongly committed to working with NMED and
resolving any and all of their concerns on these matters," said
Marshall Cohen, LES Vice President of Communications and
Government Relations. "We are confident that the information in
our license application will fully address the issues they
raised. The State is clearly the most important intervener and
should have a seat at the table."
In its filing, LES also commented on two other NMED issues
relating to waste classification and the project's economic
viability. "Both issues were addressed by the NRC in its February
6th Order setting forth the ground rules and parameters for the
license application proceeding," Cohen said. "While we will work
with NMED to resolve these matters, we expect the existence of
this NRC Order means these issues will not be allowed into the
official proceeding."
"While the NRC will make the final decision on who
participates and on what issues, we will continue to work with
the State of New Mexico on any and all issues they identify,"
Cohen said. "We are confident that both the NRC and the State,
through these proceedings and discussions, will conclude that the
NEF will be safe, compliant with all environmental requirements
and a significant asset to New Mexico and the United States."
LES also said it will be responding with "great vigor" in
opposition to the lone petition filed by anti-nuclear groups.
"These groups have but one purpose-to kill this project," Cohen
said, "and we will strongly oppose their intervention. They have
a very different purpose than the State of New Mexico."
The NEF will provide more than 200 permanent jobs and 400 to
800 short- term construction jobs in Southeast New Mexico. It
will use a proven technology that has been operated safely in
Europe for 30 years.
When the complete license application is approved, the NEF
will introduce the world's most advanced uranium enrichment
technology into the U.S. and provide an alternative, domestic
enrichment supply source to U.S. nuclear energy companies.
LES is a partnership of major nuclear energy companies.
Partners include Urenco, Westinghouse and U.S. energy companies
Duke Power, Entergy and Exelon.
SOURCE Louisiana Energy Services
[http://www.prnewswire.com/media/]
*****************************************************************
49 Pahrump Valley Times: Beatty town board covers wide scale
April 21, 2004
By RICHARD STEPHENS PVT
Hydrologist Tom Buqo addresses the audience at a Beatty Town
Board meeting April 14.
Last week's Beatty Town Advisory Board meeting was something of a
marathon, beginning with reports from hydrologist Tom Buqo on the
county's water resource plan and from Les Bradshaw, director of
the county's department of natural resources and federal
facilities, on nuclear waste transportation issues.
Buqo's presentation covered a wide range of water issues, from
attempts by Las Vegas and by private speculators to acquire rural
water rights, to the possible ground water migration of nuclear
contaminants from the Nevada Test Site.
Buqo listed the particular water problems facing various
communities in the county. In the case of Pahrump, for instance,
he said there is an inadequate water supply for future growth.
According to Buqo, water rights already allocated in Pahrump
exceed the aquifer's annual recharge by something in the
neighborhood of 700 percent.
Under comments received in previous public discussions, someone
had suggested a five-year moratorium on growth and appropriation
of water in Amargosa Valley and Pahrump. Buqo asserted that this
would never happen; that it was not "politically possible"
because the government could not afford to compensate people for
land they purchased but would not be able to build on if they did
not have the water rights. "They have the legal right to draw the
water table down," he said.
Buqo added that growth in Amargosa Valley was difficult to
estimate. He observed that some people who had moved to Pahrump
to get away from Las Vegas were now, because of Pahrump's growth,
moving to Amargosa Valley to get away from Pahrump.
Beatty, on the other hand, has adequate water for projected
growth. Its main water issues are the expense of meeting new,
stricter standards for naturally occurring arsenic in the water
supply and the potential migration of radioactive contaminants
from the test site into the area.
The arsenic level in Beatty's blended water supply was well
below the federal government's previous standard, but, like
thousands of other communities, it now faces the prospect of
costly treatment to meet the new standard.
Buqo said that a previous model developed by the Department of
Energy to predict the possible migration of nuclear contaminants
into Oasis Valley had scared a lot of people and caused a
"knee-jerk reaction."
At the same time, Buqo was highly critical of the Energy
Department's approach to the problem. Instead of "spinning their
wheels" developing hypothetical models, he said they should be
drilling test wells in the proper locations and gathering basic
data.
Buqo said the Energy Department's reaction to the suggestion of
drilling wells downstream from the contamination was, "We're not
chasing plumes," which is exactly what he says the department
should be doing. He said that they don't want to drill wells
where they might find something, because if they do find it, they
have to face the expense of doing something with it.
Buqo had also done some modeling of his own on the possible
dangers of a nuclear waste spill during shipment to Yucca
Mountain. He modeled a scenario in which a truck accident near
Gardnerville caused a crack in a cask allowing a leak of material
producing 2,000 curies of radiation. In his model, 1,000 curies
found their way down the river and eventually into Lake Mead,
rendering that water supply unusable for 29 years. "The chances
of an accident are very low, but the consequences are very high,"
said Buqo.
Bradshaw's presentation on the status of planning for shipments
to Yucca Mountain focused mainly on the proposed rail route. The
government has withdrawn approximately 208,000 acres of land for
two years, giving the government several miles' leeway in placing
the eventual route. Once that route is chosen, the withdrawal
will shrink to a narrow ribbon of land on which the actual
railway will be built.
The county is in the process of identifying people with
property, mineral rights, and other interests in the area of the
withdrawal so that they can help minimize any negative impact to
individuals as well as explore possible economic development.
"In general," said Bradshaw, the Department of Energy people
"have been pretty sensitive to the major issues, such as mining."
Bradshaw said there would probably be truck shipments before the
railway was finished, and there would probably even be some
afterward. The county's position, he said, "is rail only and rail
early."
For comment or questions, please e-mail
[webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com] Copyright © Pahrump Valley
Times, 1997 - 2003
*****************************************************************
50 Las Vegas SUN: Lawmakers call for more comment time on Yucca
Mountain rail plan
Today: April 21, 2004 at 16:36:19 PDT
By ERICA WERNER ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nevada's congressional delegation asked Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham on Wednesday for twice as much time to
comment on a plan to ship the nation's nuclear waste to the
state by train.
The lawmakers also asked Abraham for more public meetings on the
rail proposal, even as the Energy Department said it was adding
two more meetings - for a total of five - in response to Nevada
officials' concerns.
The initial 45-day comment period on the rail plan ends May 24.
Nevada's two senators and three House members asked Abraham in a
letter to extend it to 90 days.
"Ninety days is the minimum time required to allow the public
and affected parties to understand and evaluate the proposed
action and prepare comments," wrote Sens. Harry Reid and John
Ensign and Reps. Jim Gibbons, Jon Porter and Shelley Berkley.
The lawmakers also told Abraham that three meetings on the plan
- May 3 in Amargosa Valley, May 4 in Goldfield and May 5 in
Caliente - were insufficient. Energy Department spokesman Joe
Davis said the department would hold two more meetings, in Las
Vegas and Reno, also in early May, though no dates have been
set.
Davis contended there is sufficient time to comment on the rail
proposal, noting that the initial public comment or "scoping"
period is in advance of publication of an environmental study.
Once that study is completed there will be another public
comment period.
"There will be plenty of time for, and plenty of opportunity
for, the public to comment on the rail line project," Davis
said.
The Energy Department hopes to open the Yucca Mountain dump six
years from now 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The dump, which
Nevada is fighting in court, would hold 77,000 tons of highly
radioactive waste.
To bring waste to the dump, the department plans 3,000 to 3,300
railroad shipments over 24 years from 39 states. Before going to
the dump, the shipments would end up at a rail head near
Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas near the Utah line.
Exact rail line routes to Caliente have not been specified.
--
*****************************************************************
51 BAS: An NPT for non-members
| Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
[http://www.thebulletin.org]
![]()
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr21ap04-91]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Advisory Committee Meetings
AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Planning
Advisory Committee meeting.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is announcing a
two-day meeting of the Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Planning
Advisory Committee (Committee). In this meeting, the Committee will
continue working on making recommendations to the Service and the
Department of Energy on preparation of the Comprehensive Conservation
Plan and associated Environmental Impact Statement (CCP/EIS) for the
Hanford Reach National Monument (Monument). The Committee is focusing
on advice that identifies and reconciles land management issues while
meeting the directives of Presidential Proclamation 7319 that
established the Monument.
DATES: The Committee has scheduled the following meetings:
1. Wednesday, June 16, 2004, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Richland, WA.
2. Thursday, June 17, 2004, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Richland, WA.
ADDRESSES: Both meetings will take place at the Washington State
University Tri-Cities Consolidated Information Center, 2770 University
Drive, Rooms 120 and 120 A, Richland, WA.
Written comments may be submitted to: Mr. Greg Hughes, Designated
Federal Official for the Hanford Reach National Monument Federal
Planning Advisory Committee, Hanford Reach National Monument/Saddle
Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, 3250 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland,
WA, 99352. Copies of the draft meeting agenda can be obtained from the
Designated Federal Official. Comments may also be submitted via e-mail
to hanfordreach@fws.gov or faxed to (509) 375-0196. Additional
information regarding the Monument and the CCP/EIS is available on the
Monument's Internet site at http://hanfordreach.fws.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information concerning the
meetings, contact Mr. Greg Hughes, via telephone at (509) 371-1801, or
fax at (509) 375-0196.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Committee meetings are open to the public.
Verbal comments may be submitted during the course of the meeting.
Written comments may be submitted as described under ADDRESSES.
Dated: April 6, 2004.
David J. Wesley,
Acting Regional Director, Region 1, Portland, Oregon.
[FR Doc. 04-8989 Filed 4-20-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-55-P
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54 Tri-City Herald: Some at Hanford will wear air tanks
This story was published Wednesday, April 21st, 2004
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
Employees working near Hanford's single-shell tanks are being
required to wear scuba-style supplied-air systems, federal
contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group announced Tuesday.
CH2M Hill earlier had prohibited the use of supplied-air
respirators at the tank farms, saying they were unnecessary and
that workers could not see as well and were more likely to trip
when they were worn.
"The health and safety of our workers is our top priority, and we
have taken a number of steps over the last week to further
strengthen our efforts in this area," said Dale Allen, CH2M Hill
Hanford senior vice president, in a prepared statement.
CH2M Hill also is improving personal monitoring for employees and
expanding its industrial hygiene program, according to a company
statement.
Concerns about nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, caused the change
to supplied-air respirators at least temporarily, said CH2M Hill
spokeswoman Joy Turner.
Nitrous oxide is among the chemicals in the vapors that vent into
the air from huge underground tanks holding highly radioactive
waste. Millions of gallons of waste were pumped into 149
single-shell tanks arranged in fields or "farms" during the past
production of plutonium at Hanford.
CH2M Hill has said it knows what chemicals are in the vapors
being released through filters from the tanks. A monitoring
program has prevented any worker's health from being permanently
harmed, according to CH2M Hill.
But workers' concerns about vapors from the tanks have increased
as work has progressed to empty nearly all the liquid waste from
Hanford's leak-prone single-shell tanks and transfer it to
double-shell tanks.
Although the predominant chemical in the vapors is ammonia, the
Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group, warned that
the tanks contain a stew of as many as 1,200 chemicals.
At the first of the year, workers were entering the underground
tank farms with no respiratory protection, although respirators
that filtered air were offered to workers who requested them.
At the end of March, all but essential work at the tank farms was
stopped as 11 workers reported smelling vapors from the tanks in
a two-week period. Workers doing essential work, such as
monitoring, were required to wear respirators.
Safety requirements were increased to supplied-air respirators
Tuesday after CH2M Hill officials looked at data dealing with
nitrous oxide as part of an ongoing review, Turner said. CH2M
Hill has been unable to find any respirators with cartridges able
to filter nitrous oxide from the air.
"We are definitely erring on the side of caution," Turner said.
Workers near single-shell tanks and any newer double-shell tanks
without active ventilation devices operating will be required to
use the supplied-air systems until the contractor gets answers to
its questions about nitrous oxide or finds a system that can
filter the gas.
Work at the tank farms has resumed gradually over the last three
weeks but continues to be limited.
Among other changes, CH2M Hill is creating a new, senior-level
position of environmental health protection to bring additional
expertise to the tank farms. It plans to recruit a national
expert to fill the position and has been conducting interviews.
The industrial hygiene program also will be expanded to include
more personal monitoring of tank farm workers. Previously not all
workers have worn personal monitors.
CH2M Hill is field-testing three new monitors, including a
monitor for organic vapors worn near the face that would give
immediate readings.
Air sampling pumps also are being tested near workers' faces to
give readings every 15 minutes. In addition, ammonia badges are
being considered that would change color as soon as any ammonia
is detected.
The monitors should provide employees greater assurance of
ongoing, real-time monitoring for potential vapors, according to
a statement from CH2M Hill.
As concerns have increased about the exposure of Hanford workers
to tank vapors, several studies or investigations have been
launched. More than 40 workers have reported exposure to vapors
since January 2002.
The state attorney general's office is looking into tank farm
safety with the help of other state agencies. The National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is performing a
technical review of safety procedures at the tank farms. In
addition, the Office of Independent Oversight and Safety
Assurance of the Department of Energy is reviewing safety changes
and improvements at the tank farms.
No results are available.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
55 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Insecure about security
The general public is not alone in being in the dark about
plans to secure nuclear waste if Yucca Mountain opens and
shipments begin from all parts of the country. The U.S. Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board is finding itself in the same
position. This is the board created by the federal government in
1987 to review all Energy Department plans regarding the
disposal of nuclear waste, including plans for packaging and
transporting the waste.
On Monday, Mark Abkowitz, a member of the review board,
attended a meeting held by the Nevada Legislature's Committee on
High-Level Radioactive Waste. In answer to questions, he said he
was not sure if the Energy Department has "fully explored" ways
that terrorists could attack the shipments. Asked whether the
Energy Department had planned for a "worst-case scenario,"
Abkowitz said, "We don't know."
The Energy Department is pushing for a 2010 opening of Yucca
Mountain. An Energy Department representative, J. Gary Lanthrum,
also at the meeting, failed to dispel our apprehensions when he
responded, "We're still a ways from the first shipment," and
that security measures are "not set in stone." Such evasive
answers to life-and-death questions are why Nevada is fighting
so hard against Yucca Mountain.
*****************************************************************
56 Oak Ridger: Lab chief wants supercomputer
Story last updated at 11:37 a.m. on April 21, 2004
VIEW ON COMPETITION: 'We intend to win it.'
By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff
paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com]
Jeff Wadsworth made it quite clear Tuesday that he'd like for
Oak Ridge National Laboratory to house the fastest computer in
the world.
ORNL is currently in the middle of what Wadsworth, the
facility's director, described as an "intense competition" for
the opportunity to build the machine.
"We intend to win it," Wadsworth said during a Lunch with the
League speaking engagement.
Though ORNL teased the media early last week with an advisory
that the announcement could be made "on or about April 15," that
has yet to happen as of this morning. Wadsworth suggested
Tuesday that the winning proposal could be named by the
Department of Energy this week, but there's no guarantee.
"Lots of places want to win that proposal," the lab chief said.
Despite that fact, Wadsworth joked that ORNL has a new computer
facility with space to be filled.
Jeff Wadsworth, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, talks
about what is on the horizon for his facility during Tuesday's
Lunch with the League.
Proposals for the supercomputer effort were submitted earlier
this month. ORNL officials said the new supercomputer is expected
to exceed 100 trillion calculations per second - nearly three
times more powerful than Japan's Earth Simulator, which is
currently ranked as the world's fastest supercomputer.
Much of Wadsworth's Tuesday talk was similar in content to his
recent State of the Laboratory address. He discussed ORNL's role
in various areas of science and also noted the lab's commitment
to the community, including the effort to modernize Oak Ridge
High School.
*****************************************************************
57 Oak Ridger: Y-12 protesters go before judge
Story last updated at 11:05 a.m. on April 21, 2004
JUDGE: 'They just simply don't have a right to violate the
law.'
By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff
paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com]
One of the three people charged this weekend as part of an
anti-nuke demonstration will serve jail time while the other two
only have to pay for their actions.
All three of them appeared Tuesday in Anderson County General
Sessions Court and faced a state charge of obstructing a public
road by standing in the middle of the street to block traffic.
"They're basically of the opinion that they're duty bound and
obligated to do what they do," said General Sessions Division II
Judge Ron Murch. "They say they do it because of the evils of
nuclear weapons.
"I basically told them that they certainly have a right to
express their opinion," the judge continued. "They just simply
don't have a right to violate the law and tie up law enforcement
time and efforts."
Gordon Lee Maham, 77, of Cincinnati, Ohio, will have to pay
court costs and serve five days in the Anderson County Jail,
according to Murch. The judge said Maham's jail time begins
today and is due to a previous charge.
Oak Ridge police officers charged the three people because they
were standing in the middle of Scarboro Road, which runs past
the Y-12 National Security Complex. Anti-nuke demonstrations are
held twice annually at the Y-12 weapons plant.
Also charged during Sunday's protest were Elizabeth Ann
Lentsch, 67, of Washburn, and Kip Goodman Williams, 21, of
Knoxville. They have to pay a $50 fine in addition to court
costs, according to Murch. In all three of the cases, court
costs were around $138 each.
*****************************************************************
58 Oak Ridger: Through gates of history
Story last updated at 11:36 a.m. on April 21, 2004
PUTTING IT TO USE: 'We think that will be a great entrance for
future visitors.'
By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff
[paul.parson@oakridger.com]
Many people have gone to work at the Oak Ridge K-25 site by
going through what's known as K-1028-45.
This gate house is part of K-25's rich history, and it is still
used today as the Portal 4 entry for the site, which is also
referred to as the East Tennessee Technology Park or the
Heritage Center. The gate house is located in the central
portion of the K-25 site.
"This is where people went into the secret area during the
war," said Bill Wilcox, a member of the Oak Ridge Heritage and
Preservation Association.
Marie Moffitt/Staff
Marvin Yarber, a Bechtel Jacobs Co. official who conducts tours
at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, talks about the history of the gate
house known as K-1028-45. Though only a portion of the
multi-structure area is shown, it is one of nine ancillary
buildings that officials are considering preserving.
At least two original turnstiles are still in place, though not
used, along with more modern-day, badge-access entry systems that
are active. One section of the multi-structure area is manned by
security officers, but the rest is essentially used for storage
of materials like an old fax machine or orange traffic cones.
Marvin Yarber, a Bechtel Jacobs Co. official who conducts tours
at the K-25 site, said the gate house is frequently pointed out
to visitors.
K-1028-45 is one of nine ancillary structures - in addition to a
portion of the U-shaped, K-25 building -that officials are
looking at as part of a historical preservation effort.
While all 10 of these structures are scheduled for demolition,
officials have an April 2005 deadline for drafting a preservation
plan that includes funding sources.
Pictured is one of the original turnstiles still in place at
K-1028-45.
Not counting the K-25 building, Wilcox said he feels like
K-1028-45 is a top priority when looking at the other structures
to preserve. Wilcox is just one of several community members
active in the preservation effort.
"We think that will be a great entrance for future visitors,"
said Wilcox. "We want to see that get restored. We can see that
being the place people go in - maybe get a picture badge and get
their ticket to tour the area."
According to officials, the other structures include K-1002, a
cafeteria; K-1003, a dispensary; K-1019-5A, a bus station;
K-1021, a fire house; K-601, identified as a depleted tails
removal building;
K-1024, Filter Test Facility; K-1101, listed as a nitrogen and
air plant building; and K-1008-C, a change house.
Wilcox said the change house also ranks high on his priority list
of facilities to look at preserving.
"That's where a lot of the daily workers went in, changed their
clothes and got ready for their day," Wilcox said.
A good portion of K-1008-C - like the changing facilities, a
dining area and a conference room - is still in use today.
Yarber said the building's decontamination center, which includes
showers and medical-related supplies - can also be used if a
current emergency situation were to arise.
While officials will look at the nine ancillary structures over
the next year, at the heart of all the discussions is the K-25
building, an engineering marvel that covers 40 acres at the K-25
site and is considered a vital part of the Manhattan Project -
the secret effort for developing an atomic bomb during World War
II.
A group of community members are working with the Department of
Energy and other officials on a plan to save a portion of this
mammoth building.
They met most recently Tuesday in a meeting that was not open to
the general public or The Oak Ridger.
Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation
Local Oversight Committee, attended Tuesday's meeting and has
been a longtime supporter of historic preservation efforts.
Some of the Tuesday discussion points, according to Gawarecki,
included the preservation of artifacts and an update on cost
estimates for saving a slice of the K-25 building.
*****************************************************************
59 amarillo.com: Pantex production began in 1942
04/21/04
[Amarillo Globe News]
Plant has long history of manufacture, disassembly of weapons
By JIM McBRIDE jim.mcbride@amarillo.com The Amarillo Globe-News
War Effort: Workers assemble conventional artillery shells at
Pantex during World War II. Women made up more than 60 percent of
the plant's 5,254-member work force. Courtesy Photo
The Pantex Plant played a key role in producing conventional
ordnance during World War II, but later shifted its Cold War
workload to nuclear weapons, an atomic mission that continues
today, a Pantex historian said Tuesday.
The sprawling nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant got
its start in 1942 as an ordnance plant during the early days of
World War II, Kris Mitchell, the plant's historian, told about 20
people during a seminar Tuesday night at Highland Park school.
The plant was built over a nine-month period and began producing
conventional ordnance, including 500-pound bombs and 105 mm
artillery shells, for the war effort. Women took on the dangerous
job of churning out bombs and artillery shells, he said, and made
up more than 60 percent of the plant's 5,254-member work force.
Only a few days after the United States dropped two atomic bombs
on Japan, the plant quickly shut down, Mitchell said, and the
plant site was sold to Texas Tech University in the late 1940s
for a dollar.
In the early days of weapons programs, debate centered on
whether the military or civilians would control the Bomb.
"The civilian contingent won out," Mitchell said.
Eventually, the Atomic Energy Commission - a civilian entity -
was created to oversee nuclear weapons technology. During the
early days of the Cold War, both civilian and military personnel
were stationed at air bases where weapons were kept at the ready.
Civilian personnel maintained control of nuclear components of
atomic bombs, Mitchell said, and military personnel kept the
explosive devices needed to detonate them. In case of war, the
non-nuclear and nuclear components would be assembled in flight.
In 1951, the government reclaimed the plant site to begin
processing high explosives. Contractor Mason &Hanger Silas-Mason
Co. took over the Pantex contract and created new, safer
facilities to assemble nuclear weapons, Mitchell said.
One of the new facilities, the "Gravel Gertie" was named after a
Dick Tracy comic strip character.
"She lived in a gravel pit so they named this facility after
her," Mitchell said.
By the late 1970s, the United States consolidated all weapons
assembly and disassembly functions at Pantex. In 2001, contractor
BWXT Pantex assumed the Pantex contract and now oversees weapons
modifications, dismantlement, component surveillance work and
plutonium storage for the federal government.
Mitchell said he is now in the process of completing a detailed
Pantex history. He also is working on a cultural resource
management plan to ensure Pantex's history and artifacts such as
nuclear weapons transport trains, weapons buildings and old
high-explosive presses will be maintained for historical
purposes.
Jeri Osborne, a Pantex neighbor, asked Mitchell to gather oral
histories from former landowners, several of whom had to sell
their land to the government at cheap prices at the onset of
World War II.
"This is something we've been trying to get for a long time,"
Osborne said of Mitchell's historical review. "We appreciate it."
Mitchell said he plans to incorporate social histories of Pantex
neighbors into a historical narrative.
[http://www.amarillo.com/]
*****************************************************************
60 lamonitor.com: Stockpile handling questioned by IG
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
[http://www.lanl.gov/worldview] [http://www.lac-nm.us]
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
A program to monitor aging nuclear weapons may be missing a few
of its inspections at Los Alamos National Laboratory and two
other national laboratories. A report by the inspector general of
the Department of Energy said the National Nuclear Security
Administration's enhanced surveillance campaign has missed some
of its milestones and risks missing more in the future. "At the
time of our review, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories and the Pantex Plant had not completed critical work
in four of the six major technical elements: pits, canned
sub-assemblies, high-explosives and non-nuclear materials," it
was stated in the IG's report.
Documents indicate that LANL designed five of the seven nuclear
weapons that are subject to certification each year.
Jim Danneskiold, a laboratory spokesman, said aging experiments
are going on here and at LLNL.
"LANL is meeting the currently approved project schedule," he
said. "The LANL alloys were accepted on the first casting." He
said the next milestone is in October and that the lab was
confident it would meet that one, too.
The problems identified by the IG were attributed to "weaknesses
in program planning." The three laboratories "had not adequately
planned for unexpected events that arose, such as safety basis
documents which required updating and other improvements;
essential facilities which were found to be unavailable when
needed; critical equipment failure and a lack of necessary
weapons parts." The report said the problems might impact future
plans on weapons work, including decisions related to locating
and building a modern plutonium pit facility.
In its response, NNSA said while it generally agreed with the
report, "we do not agree with the observation that we are at risk
of missing future milestones."
A NNSA official wrote the top-level milestones were on schedule,
as were "the vast majority of individual milestones" in the
program.
In one example, the IG report faults all three laboratories for
missing major technical milestones, having to do with the
plutonium pits used as the trigger for a nuclear weapon. A LANL
program has been developed to accelerate the aging process in
plutonium by spiking the plutonium used in weapons, Pu-239 with
the isotope Pu-238, which decays 300 times faster, according to a
laboratory announcement in July 2002.
The aging experiments, involving a series of comparisons with
unspiked plutonium, are designed to study the effect of time on
the properties and characteristics of PU-239, as it ages a
virtual 60 years in what is actually four years.
In other criticism that did not specify a laboratory by name, the
IG said, "[P]roject plans had not included sufficient time or
resources to deal with unexpected events that arose such as:
inadequate safety basis documents, unavailable facilities,
equipment failure, or lack of necessary weapons parts."
Stockpile stewardship is the primary mission of NNSA and its
nuclear weapons laboratories. An annual certification process,
involves the secretaries of defense and energy, who are advised
by a Nuclear Weapons Council, the directors of the nuclear
weapons laboratories and the commander of the U.S. Strategic
Command.
If the secretaries are unable to assert a high level of
confidence in one of the weapons systems, the President could
authorize withdrawal from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and
authorize nuclear testing. The possibility of resuming tests has
been prepared for under the Defense Authorization Act, "to
achieve an 18-month test readiness posture."
In his written testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Brooks emphasized,
"We have no plan to resume testing." He called the accelerated
readiness a "prudent hedge" against unanticipated problems in the
stockpile program.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
61 PISJ: Request for new DOE contract proposals delayed
Pocatello Idaho State Journal:
By [dboyd@journalnet.com] - Journal Writer
IDAHO FALLS - The U.S. Department of Energy said Tuesday requests
for proposals in regard to two new contracts will be finalized in
May.
The initial timetable for the RFPs was early April. However, a
number of pertinent issues regarding the new Idaho National
Laboratory and the Idaho Cleanup Project are still under
discussion, said Idaho Department of Energy Media Relations
Director Tim Jackson.
The INL will encompass the current Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory-West.
The laboratory will focus on developing advanced nuclear energy
technologies including national security technology.
The ICP is designed to specialize in safe environmental risk
removal with the aim of protecting the Snake River Aquifer. The
DOE continues to review testimony pertaining to the draft
documents issued February 2004. The draft documents showed a
framework for RFPs and companies and individuals were then
invited to comment.
Although targeting May, DOE officials could not pinpoint an exact
anticipated date for finalizing the proposals. Brad Bugger,
communications director for the Idaho DOE, said the process
demands thorough investigation.
"We're still working on developing requests for proposals,"
Bugger said. "It has taken us longer than expected to address
some comments and suggestions." Bugger said contract awards will
be made in November, with recipients taking control January 31,
2005.
In a presolicitation announcement, DOE officials said the two
contracts represent a shift in philosophy at the Idaho site.
However, incumbent contractors were still encouraged to submit
proposals.
The current INEEL contract expires in September 2004.
After proposals are received, two source evaluation boards will
eventually score the proposals and make a recommendation, Bugger
said. A source selection official will make the final decision
and announcement.
Jackson said numerous potential bidders have expressed serious
interest in the site and the proposals.
"Companies have already relocated to Idaho Falls and opened
offices to work on the bids," Jackson said.
Bugger and Jackson both said it is possible that a company could
bid on contracts for both INL and ICP.
[dboyd@journalnet.com] covers education and natural resource
issues for the Journal. He can be reached at 239-3168 or by
e-mail at [dboyd@journalnet.com.]
Copyright © 2004 Pocatello Idaho State Journal
P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431
*****************************************************************
62 Daily Texan Viewpoint: Los Alamos -
[http://www.dailytexanonline.com]
Opinion | 4/21/2004
At the University, most students neither worry about nor love the
bomb.
But a small, vocal student watchdog group virulently opposes the
UT System's bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory
because of the lab's ongoing nuclear weapons research. Many more
students are, undoubtedly, at least a little uncomfortable with
any University involvement in nuclear weapons.
On the flip side, UT System officials argue that managing the lab
brings enough significant benefits - from increased research
opportunities to a boost in System prestige, which is critical to
those oh-so-important college rankings - to warrant a bid.
Then there's a third opinion that asserts: Even if every college
in the country refused to oversee the labs, the federal
government would not stop researching nuclear weapons, so the
System shouldn't pass up the other benefits of lab management.
All of these stances are valid and at the same time incongruous,
so the question of whether to support the System's bid becomes
one of scope rather than principle. In this respect, the bid
appears misguided.
System officials push speculative benefits: managing the lab
could increase research opportunities; it may allow for closer
collaboration with lab scientists; it might bring more federal
research dollars; and there's a chance it will bolster
recruitment of top-tier scientists and grad students. The only
assured gain for the System comes from prestige.
In many cases, management would not open any new doors for UT
faculty or students, only push them open a little wider.
University researchers can already work at the lab, and we
already attract a number of the best future and current
scientists.
Plus, given all of the experience the University of California
System already has running the lab, it is unlikely that the UT
system has much of a chance of winning - even in spite of the UC
System's recent mismanagement.
The bid, which a visiting professor at the Georgia Institute of
Technology told the Texan is a "vanity bid," will cost an
estimated $6 million. Granted, this money comes from the entire
system, comprising nine different colleges, so it is a relative
drop in the bucket, but that's still $6 million. Given all of the
doubts about the bid and concerns about contributing to the
development of nuclear weapons, we wonder if bolstering the
System's prestige warrants such an expensive gamble.
It appears System officials have taken all this into
consideration and come to a different conclusion than us. "What
the National Lab does, including Los Alamos, ... is
constitutional, legal and ethical, and I don't see any problem
with any of that," board chairman Charles Miller told the Texan.
"It's an issue to discuss broadly and clearly, but as far as I'm
concerned, it's perfectly reasonable to consider doing something
like this."
Fair enough. But with the UT System already known for overseeing
important and socially beneficial institutions, such as the UT
Health Science Centers, it is unfortunate that System officials
cannot find similar ways to improve our standing without all the
costly fallout.
*****************************************************************
63 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 13:53:20 -0700 (PDT)
VANUNU Re-ignites Stormy Debate Over Exposing Israeli Nuclear ...
Voice of America - Washington,DC,USA
The man who revealed many of Israel's nuclear secrets 18 years ago, Mordechai
Vanunu, walked out of jail Wednesday and re-ignited a storm of debate
over his ...
See all stories on this topic:
IRAN Denies Arresting Nuclear Experts
Voice of America - Washington,DC,USA
Iran's intelligence minister is denying a report that Iranian agents have
arrested two nuclear experts for passing nuclear secrets to foreigners.
...
See all stories on this topic:
BUSH: Nuclear-Armed Iran Would Be 'Intolerable'
Reuters - USA
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday a nuclear-armed
Iran would pose an intolerable threat to peace and stability in the Middle
East and a ...
See all stories on this topic:
TVA to Fix Defective Welds at North Alabama Nuclear Plant
WAFF - Huntsville,AL,USA
(Athens-AP) -- TVA's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant was cited for an apparent
safety violation after discovering workers failed to identify or account
for dozens ...
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INDIA, Pakistan to Hold Nuclear Talks in May to Improve Ties
Bloomberg - USA
April 21 (Bloomberg) -- India and Pakistan will hold nuclear- related talks
on May 25 and 26 as part of measures to improve ties between the two South
Asian ...
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NORTH Korea welcomes nuclear talks
Al-Jazeera - Qatar
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has agreed to take part in six-party talks
on the country's nuclear programmes. Speaking at the ...
See all stories on this topic:
COUNTY OKs Diablo nuclear waste plan
Kansas City Star (subscription) - Kansas City,MO,USA
County supervisors Tuesday approved plans to build a storage facility for
highly radioactive waste at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, setting
the stage for ...
SELLAFIELD nuclear plant to cut discharges
Reuters - London,England,UK
LONDON (Reuters) - A new treatment system now operating at Sellafield nuclear
power plant will dramatically cut the amount of radioactive waste being
released ...
See all stories on this topic:
UK: 5 anti-nuclear protesters break into army base
Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem,Israel
Five anti-nuclear protesters were arrested Wednesday after breaking into
a military command center to draw attention to Britain's nuclear arsenal
and mark the ...
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PAKISTAN'S nuclear program non-negotiable: Musharraf
Xinhua - China
ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
Wednesday stressed the country's firm position on developing of nuclear
program, saying ...
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64 Daily Illini: Retired professor still contributes to the world of nuclear science
[http://www.dailyillini.com]
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Wattenberg researched Manhattan project, now studies unseen
particles and Big Bang theory
By Colleen Fisher | Staff writer
Published Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Albert Wattenberg, a retired University physics professor, has
already made a significant contribution to the world of science
in his life. Yet nothing seems to deter him from his desire to
advance his field.
Wattenberg voluntarily taught classes on and off between 1959 to
1986, but his main focus was research.
"I was hired for my research expertise," he said.
Before working at the University, Wattenberg played a dramatic
role in history. He was a researcher on a project during World
War II that later became known as the "Manhattan Project." The
researchers were working to discover whether the nucleus of an
atom could be split in order to create energy.
The project began at Columbia University in New York, but in the
midst of World War II in 1942, it was moved to the University of
Illinois. When Wattenberg's research moved to Champaign, so did
he.
While several hundred people were involved in the research, he
took on a major part.
"I was working with the brains of the project — Enrico Fermi,"
he said.
The research from the project would later be used to assist in
the creation of the atomic bomb — something the researchers were
always aware of.
"Nuclear war was always very frightening and a consideration,"
Wattenberg said. "We worried about it from the very first
stages."
Despite creating the atomic bomb and other weapons for nuclear
warfare, Wattenberg said other research aspects were more
beneficial in today's society.
"Nuclear energy is the most positive outcome of the research,"
he said. "It has an effect on physicists, biologists, chemists —
all the hard sciences."
After the war, Wattenberg accepted a job with Argonne National
Laboratory, operated by the University of Chicago. The laboratory
was just being opened and Wattenberg took an active role in its
establishment. Initially, he worked as a group leader overseeing
others but quickly was promoted.
"Eventually I became the director of all the physics at the
laboratory," he said.
After leaving Argonne National Laboratory, Wattenberg researched
throughout the country at a number of universities, including
Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He
also spoke around the country about his involvement in nuclear
research and the Manhattan project.
He returned to Champaign in 1959 to work as a full professor. He
retired from teaching in 1986 but continued on his nuclear
research in the laboratories, where he could be found three to
four days a week.
"Just because I wasn't being paid anymore, it doesn't stop me
from wanting to do more work," he said.
Currently, Wattenberg is trying to determine why certain unseen
particles have mass and whether those masses played a part in the
creation of the universe.
Donna Guzy, the physics department's staff secretary, said she
wishes more people had his work ethic, which is not common today.
"To be so involved at his age just amazes me," she said.
Guzy still does one-on-one dictation with Wattenberg about the
projects he is working on.
"It's not something that's done anymore," she said. "Can you
imagine all 18 professors wanting to sit down one-on-one and
dictate notes?"
A heart attack in January has kept Wattenberg out of the
laboratory recently, but he is eager to get back on his feet and
back to his current research project.
"My heart attack was an interruption," he said. "As soon as I
can walk well, I will be there again three to four days a week."
©2004 Illini Media Company, all rights reserved.
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