***************************************************************** 05/07/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.110 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Chicago Sun-Times: Blair taps defender of Iraq intel to lead Britain 2 AFP: US lawmakers accuse Iran of "deception" in hiding nuclear arms 3 AFP: Iran heading 'in right direction' on nuclear cooperation - IAEA 4 AFP: Russia vows to cooperate with Iran despite US call 5 AFP: Iran confident it will escape censure by UN nuclear watchdog 6 BBC: Koreas progress on defence talks 7 KoreaTimes: Seoul, Pyongyang Agree to Hold Defense Talks 8 US: Reuters: Senate Panel Clears $422.2 Billion Defense Bill 9 AFP: Soviet arsenals a ticking time bomb - analysts 10 Hi Pakistan: Embassies show interest in law on nuclear controls NUCLEAR REACTORS 11 Chilling website documenting (w/pix) Chernobyl catastrophe 12 AFP: Turkey still pursuing nuclear power plant project - minister 13 US: projo.com: Yankee site found unsuitable for radwaste in 1991 14 US: JS Online: Group seeks to block sale of nuclear plant 15 Turks.US: Turkey is working on plans to develop nuclear energy 16 Daily Star: Rooppur nuclear project 17 India Financial Express: REL, NTPC To Go Nuclear 18 US: NRC: NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel to Meet May 13 in Ohio 19 US: NRC: Meeting to Discuss Results of a Special Inspection at D.C. 20 US: NRC: RC Begins Special Inspection of Shutdown at Dresden Nuclear NUCLEAR SAFETY 21 US: [DU-WATCH] Plutonium Files: How the US secretly fed 22 [du-list] CADU News 17 23 US: [NukeNet] New Security Weighed for Nuclear Sites & Provision 24 [DU-WATCH] : Around 1,361 Were Iraqis Killed in April 25 [du-list] The Truth About Depleted Uranium Weaponry: The Only 26 [DU-WATCH] Brussells Tribunal audio, DU news and Young Peace 27 [DU-WATCH] "Murky Facts On Sick G.I.s" 28 [DU-WATCH] DU: An Eternal Damnation 29 UN Nuclear Watchdog Warns Of Radiation Risk Of Angioplasty 30 The Herald: Setback for plans to dismantle nuclear submarines 31 BBC: Doctors 'cause radiation burns' 32 US: Bradenton Herald: Not knowing is worst part 33 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast residents fear chemical contaminatio 34 US: NRC: Finding of No Significant Impact and Notice of Availability 35 Japan Times: Nuclear plant exposure levels raise eyebrows 36 US: NRC: NRC Proposes $7,500 Fine Against New Jersey Firm for Failin NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 37 US: [du-list] Graham amendment on DOD auth bill 38 US: NRC: jointly seeking proposed changes to the International Atomi 39 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Plan to use trust lands for N-waste reappears 40 Las Vegas RJ: Views contrast on Yucca shipments 41 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yucca fight can be won 42 US: Guardian Unlimited: Provision Would Change Nuclear Waste Law 43 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: Guinn gives 'Mr. Nuke' a rewar 44 US: U.S. Newswire: U.S.DOE Statement on Nuclear Waste Accelerated 45 US: CorpWatch.org: Mothers' Day Gathering Against Nuclear Waste NUCLEAR WEAPONS 46 Scoop: Brash nuke position more bizarre by the day US DEPT. OF ENERGY 47 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Idaho 48 Guardian Unlimited: New Security Weighed for Nuclear Sites 49 Seattle Times: Health fears have workers at Hanford seeking answers 50 Tri-City Herald: Air monitors being added at vit plant 51 Tennessean: Offer lung screening to more Oak Ridge workers, doctor s 52 The State: SAVANNAH RIVER SITE 53 SF Chronicle: LIVERMORE LAB / Livermore Lab safety problems reported 54 Tri-Valley Herald: Scientist claims lab releases not seen 55 U.S. Newswire: Energy Secretary Abraham Certifies Savannah River 56 Daytona Beach News-Journal: Doctor says Oak Ridge workers should get 57 U.S. Newswire: Statement of POGO on DOE's Nuclear Security 58 Newswise: HEALTH -- Environmental respiration risks . . . 59 KTVB.COM: Bush abandons plan to privatize security at INEEL 60 Oak Ridger: Optimism on DOE payments drops further 61 Oak Ridger: He came to innovate, he stayed to contribute 62 PRN: As Energy Dept. Calls for Improved Security at Nuclear OTHER NUCLEAR 63 Google News Alert - nuclear 64 [du-list] Fw: Kiss this County Legislator! and follow suite!! 65 Daily Yomiuri: Clean energy source developed ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Chicago Sun-Times: Blair taps defender of Iraq intel to lead Britain's spy agency May 7, 2004 BY ROBERT BARR LONDON -- The author of a disputed British intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that laid out the case for war was chosen Thursday to head Britain's MI6 spy agency. Opposition politicians said John Scarlett should not have been appointed while a government inquiry is probing why Iraq did not have the fearsome chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs cited as a cause for war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the appointment. ''He is someone who is a fine public servant who has served Conservative and Labor governments over many, many years ... and I think it's very unfortunate if [the appointment] becomes a matter of political comment in any way,'' Blair said. But Michael Howard, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said Scarlett, as chairman of the government's Joint Intelligence Committee, was a key figure in an apparent intelligence failure that is the subject of a government inquiry. Scarlett supported Blair's testimony about WMD. ''John Scarlett is clearly at the heart of the investigation which is currently being carried out. In my view the appointment of John Scarlett at this time is inappropriate,'' Howard said. Scarlett graduated from Oxford University in 1970 and worked at MI6 until leaving for the Joint Intelligence Committee post in 2001. He speaks Russian and has served in Paris, Moscow and Kenya. MI6, or the Secret Intelligence Service, has some 2,000 employees. Scarlett will be only the fourth director to be publicly identified; their predecessors were known as ''C,'' in tribute to Capt. Mansfield Cumming, who founded the service in 1911. AP [http://www.telegraph.co.uk] Copyright 2004, Digital Chicago Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: US lawmakers accuse Iran of "deception" in hiding nuclear arms program http://www.spacewar.com WASHINGTON (AFP) May 07, 2004 The US House of Representatives passed a resolution Thursday accusing Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program and systematically trying to hide it. Despite Iran's assurances to the contrary to the International Atomic Energy Agency, "It is abundantly clear that Iran remains committed to a nuclear weapons program," said the resolution passed by a 376 to three vote. It called on Europe, Japan and Russia to break off trade and energy ties with Iran until Tehran ends its nuclear ambitions. The resolution said that once Iran's uranium enrichment facilities are operational, it will have sufficient capacity to produce enough nuclear material for 25 to 40 nuclear weapons a year. "Iran has engaged in a systematic campaign of deception and manipulation to hide its true intentions and keep its large-scale nuclear efforts a secret," said Republican Representative Dan Burton of Indiana. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: Iran heading 'in right direction' on nuclear cooperation - IAEA [http://www.spacewar.com/] PARIS (AFP) May 06, 2004 Iran is making progress towards full cooperation with the international nuclear watchdog IAEA, its head Mohamed ElBaradei said Thursday, but warned the world would not wait forever for results. "Overall I think we are moving in the right direction," the IAEA director general told a French parliamentary hearing during a visit to Paris. "But Iran also has to understand that the world is not going to wait forever for them to come clean," ElBaradei said. "There is also the credibility of the verification, and people are getting a bit impatient." Iran reiterated Wednesday that it would stick to its commitments to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its nuclear program, to ensure that it was not harboring a covert weapons program. With IAEA inspectors due to report on Tehran's activities by the end of May, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, pledged: "We will fulfill our commitments on the nuclear program." ElBaradei said cooperation had improved since October, when Iran gave the IAEA what it said was a complete declaration of its nuclear activities, but the dossier was later found to have significant omissions. He also recalled Tehran's suspension of inspections in March "after a resolution by our board of governors which they did not like." The IAEA resolution condemned Iran for failing to report crucial technologies such as designs for sophisticated centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium. "Iran's political situation is very complex," ElBaradei noted. "There are the hardliners, the moderates, those who would like to see cooperation with the West and those who are not necessarily keen on that." Tehran vigorously denies US and Israeli charges that it is seeking nuclear weapons, and is pressing for its dossier to be taken off the top of the IAEA's agenda during the June meeting -- something that most diplomats say is highly unlikely. ElBaradei was to meet later Thursday with French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier. Barnier's predecessor Dominique de Villepin was one of a trio of EU foreign ministers who last year negotiated an agreement with Tehran under which Iran would allow a tougher IAEA probe to ensure it was not developing weapons. In return, they dangled a carrot of peaceful nuclear assistance. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 4 AFP: Russia vows to cooperate with Iran despite US call [http://www.spacewar.com/] MOSCOW (AFP) May 07, 2004 Russia's atomic energy agency Friday rejected a call by the US House of Representatives for it to interrupt its nuclear ties with Iran until Tehran drops its alleged nuclear arms ambitions. "We see no reason why we should end our nuclear energy cooperation with Iran," ITAR-TASS quoted top atomic energy agency spokesman Nikolai Shingrayov as saying. "Moscow will fulfill its obligations to Tehran to the end," he said, adding that a top Iranian delegation will visit Moscow to discuss the ongoing project Wednesday. US lawmakers Thursday accused Iran of "deception" and of hiding its nuclear arms program, calling on the European Union and Russia to drop its ties with a nation once labeled as part of an "axis of evil" by US President George W. Bush. Russia has faced intense pressure over its construction of the Bushehr reactor -- the Islamic state's first nuclear reactor that Washington fears will help Iran develop a nuclear bomb. Iran in December signed up to an agreement with the IAEA providing for surprise UN inspections of its nuclear sites to fend off US accusations that it is preparing a nuclear weapons program. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: Iran confident it will escape censure by UN nuclear watchdog [http://www.spacewar.com/] TEHRAN (AFP) May 07, 2004 Iran said it was confident Friday that it would escape censure by the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) next month, despite renewed criticism of its nuclear programme in Washington. "We are certain that there will be no condemnation of Iran during the next meeting because we are cooperating and respecting our commitments in the most clear and transparent way," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said. "There is no reason to be worried about the fate of the dossier," he told the official IRNA news agency. Iran expressed similar confidence before the IAEA board's last meeting in March. But that did not stop the watchdog's governors issuing a resolution condemning the Islamic authorities here for failing to report crucial technologies such as designs for sophisticated centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium. As the clock ticks away to the June meeting, the Islamic republic's critics in the United States have stepped up criticism of a nuclear programme which they say can have no legitimate civil purpose in a gas-rich country like Iran. The US House of Representatives passed a resolution Thursday accusing Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme and systematically trying to hide it. Despite Iran's assurances to the contrary to the IAEA, "it is abundantly clear that Iran remains committed to a nuclear weapons programme," said the resolution passed by a 376 to three vote. Speaking in Paris Thursday, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran was "moving in the right direction". "But Iran also has to understand that the world is not going to wait forever for them to come clean," the IAEA chief told French MPs. "There is also the credibility of the verification, and people are getting a bit impatient." A formal condemnation from the IAEA board of governors could see Iran's file referred to the UN Security Council. Iran wants its file taken off the top of the board's agenda. Diplomats say such a move is unlikely. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 6 BBC: Koreas progress on defence talks Last Updated: Friday, 7 May, 2004 By Charles Scanlon BBC correspondent in Seoul [South Korean troops patrol the border] South Korea says the North is responding to reconciliation moves North Korea has agreed to hold high-level defence talks with South Korea in an attempt to ease military tension. The agreement came as a convoy of South Korean trucks went through the heavily- fortified border, carrying aid for victims of last month's train disaster. A blast aboard two trains wrecked the town of Ryongchon, killing 170 people. North Korea has been happy to talk about aid and economic issues in the past but it has shrugged off appeals to discuss controversial security issues. Now, after four days of difficult talks in Pyongyang, the North Korean military appears to have dropped its objections. A joint statement said officers from the two sides would meet to discuss reducing military tension. Naval clashes in recent years have seen casualties on both sides. The south claims the north is gradually responding to its policy of reconciliation. Overwhelming response Twenty South Korean trucks earlier crossed the heavily-fortified border to deliver aid for disaster victims. The convoy was loaded with supplies to rebuild schools after last month's train explosion which devastated the town of Ryongchon. North Korea will also keep the trucks, which were handed over just a few kilometres north of the border. South Korea has offered $25m in aid to the north. Red Cross officials say the response to the disaster from the South Korean public has been overwhelming. There is also growing support for food aid and other assistance, despite suspicions the north is increasing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. ***************************************************************** 7 KoreaTimes: Seoul, Pyongyang Agree to Hold Defense Talks Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation To Discuss Easing Tension Along Their Border By Joint Press Corps and Yoo Dong-ho Staff Reporter PYONYANG - South and North Korea on Friday agreed to hold general-level military talks as early as this month. The agreement came during a last-minute consultation between the two sides during the final day of the 14th inter-Korean ministerial dialogue here. The dramatic concord saved the dialogue from becoming a total failure but there is still doubt whether the military talks will take place because both sides have yet to fix the date. ``Our military authorities have given their consent to holding the meeting,'' Kwon Ho-ung, the North's top negotiator for the talks, told his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Se-hyun, in an extra round of meetings between the two top negotiators. The two Koreas agreed to hold the military talks aimed at reducing tensions in the West Sea during their February meeting but it has not taken place yet due to the North's resistance. The three-point joint press statement summing up four days of tedious negotiations stated that both sides ``agreed to hold a high-level military meeting and continue to discuss issues raised in the future.'' ``Though the exact timeframe for the defense talks has yet to be agreed upon, it will likely be around middle of this month,'' Jeong said at a press conference after returning to Seoul. The South's point man on the North remained upbeat about the talks by saying, ``Now inter-Korean coordination reached an `irreversible stage' as infrastructure has been set up for joint economic projects as well as a thaw in military tension.'' During this week's talks, South Korea has called for the general-level military dialogue, agreed at the previous Cabinet-level North-South talks, on tensions over poorly marked inter-Korean maritime borders in the West Sea. A series of deadly skirmishes have occurred over the last several years when northern fishing boats regularly crossed the Northern Limit Line into southern waters to catch crabs around this time of year and caused gun battles in 1999 and 2002. The two sides came to the view that the 10th round of cross border family reunions should be staged around June 20, Jeong said. However they reached no arrangement on setting up liaison offices in Seoul and Pyongyang for further social-cultural exchange. The talks earlier reached an impasse with the two sides wrangling over military issues right down the line. The North's negotiators demanded a halt to joint Seoul-Washington military drills while the south's counterpart didn't move a budge from its stance to continue the ``defense-oriented'' joint military exercises. Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to hold the next round of Cabinet-level talks in Seoul on August 3-6. The South's five-member delegation, led by Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, returned home on a chartered flight from Pyongyang. The two Koreas are technically at war, with no peace treaty signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. yoodh@koreatimes.co.kr 05-07-2004 17:41 Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun, left, shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Kwon Ho-Ung at the beginning of the last day of the 14th inter-Korean ministerial talks at Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang, Friday. / Korea Times ***************************************************************** 8 Reuters: Senate Panel Clears $422.2 Billion Defense Bill Fri May 7, 2004 11:33 AM ET By Vicki Allen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee approved a $422.2 billion bill authorizing next year's defense programs, up 3.4 percent or $21 billion from this year, the committee said on Friday. The Senate bill largely tracks President Bush's request for the Pentagon and the Energy Department's nuclear weapons programs, committee aides said, but calls for boosting funds for weapons procurement to $76.5 billion, $1.8 billion above Bush's request. Responding to demands for better force protection in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bill calls for $925 million above Bush's request for additional armored vehicles, for a total of $1.05 billion. It also adds $107.4 million for the Army and Marine Corps for equipment such as night vision devices and automatic weapons. The House of Representatives Armed Services Committee also is working on its bill, and both the full Senate and House are expected to debate the measure later this month. The House bill is expected to call for increasing the Army by 30,000 troops and the Marines by 9,000, despite the administration's opposition to permanent force increases. While the Senate bill follows the administration's policy on that, the issue of whether U.S. forces have become too stretched by Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to spark major floor debate. Congress later will consider the appropriations bills that actually fund the Pentagon programs. The Senate committee's bill authorizes $10.2 billion to continue the administration's effort to field a ballistic missile defense system. It calls for $3.4 billion to buy 22 F/A Raptor aircraft, $2.9 billion for 42 F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft, and $1 billion for 11 C-120J and four KC-130J aircraft. The Joint Strike Fighter would get $4.6 billion, including an additional $15 million to assess the potential for a vertical landing variant. The bill authorizes $6.7 billion to buy seven ships, including three DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, a Virginia class submarine, an LPD-17 San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, and two T-AKE auxiliary cargo and ammunition ships. It authorized $1.5 billion in research and development funds for the DD (X) destroyer, including $221 million for detail design and advance construction of the lead ship. ***************************************************************** 9 AFP: Soviet arsenals a ticking time bomb - analysts [http://www.spacewar.com/] KIEV (AFP) May 07, 2004 Former Soviet republics still hold on to millions of tonnes of aging armaments, a dangerous inheritance from the Cold War, as proven yet again by this week's deadly explosion at a military base in southeastern Ukraine. Blasts and fire raged for the second day Friday at the armaments depot as local residents scrambled for cover. Five people have been confirmed dead, and scores have been injured, many losing their homes. The base stored old arms that were pulled back by the Soviet Union from East Germany after it completed its reunification with West Germany in 1990. Ukraine's public prosecutor accused officers overseeing the site of negligence. It was the second such incident in just a few months. Defense Minister Evhen Marchuk initially denied that a blast had occurred, before eye witnesses told reporters about the disaster and footage of it appeared on the news, according to reports. Some 60 percent of the armaments were kept in the open air and all stored in a single heap -- against strict regulations that say they should be separated by a wall, embankment or other defense shield in case of just such an accident. According to respected military expert Serhei Zhurets, Ukraine "has two million tonnes of Soviet-era armaments, some of which are no longer in functioning order and are waiting to be destroyed. But there is not enough money to do this." In all, Ukraine inherited 184 munitions arms depots, much of it equipment that was pulled back from Warsaw Pact nations after the bloc's collapse. Ukraine has returned all of its nuclear warheads to Russia after the Soviet Union's collapse under a deal that the United States helped broker and insisted upon, fearing instability in independent Ukraine. But the safe upkeep of the massive load of arms here is still prompting fears in the West, mindful of Ukraine's reputation for corruption in a nation where a quarter of the population lives below the official poverty line. In March, Defense Minister Marchuk admitted that several hundred Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles remained unaccounted for in Ukraine. He said this must only be a case of bad bookkeeping and categorically dismissed the possibility of the missiles being stolen, even though Ukraine has been accused in recent years of delivering arms to nations like Iraq on the black market. According to some analysts, contraband armaments in the region are also seeping in from the Transdnestr, a separatist and largely lawless region of eastern Moldova that has one of the largest munitions dumps in the former Soviet Union. But the situation is not much safer in Russia itself, which has been hit by several military catastrophes in recent years. The most dramatic was the August 2000 Kursk nuclear submarine disaster that claimed the lives of 118 seamen and was followed with horror across the world as its crew suffocated on the bed of the Barents Sea. Last summer, a fire at a military base in the Siberian region of Buryatia killed two people, prompting the evacuation of several thousand. Russia also has up to 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons that it does not have the cash to eliminate despite signing an international agreement to do so within years. Analysts and media report that arms are regularly stolen and re-sold by Russian officers, who receive miserly pay. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 10 Hi Pakistan: Embassies show interest in law on nuclear controls --> May 08 2004 ISLAMABAD: Foreign embassies in Islamabad have shown an unusual interest in Pakistan’s new proposed law on tightening control over nuclear and biological weapons and their delivery systems. On Wednesday, the cabinet approved the draft law for enactment by the Parliament at an early date. It is likely to be promulgated through an ordinance so that it comes into force at once. Several embassies tried to get a copy of the five-page law for their own examination and sending it to their countries for scrutiny. Their leaders may raise objections and bring them to Pakistan’s knowledge, if they found any shortcomings or lacunae in the draft law. The foreign missions’ interest reflects the world focus on Pakistan in the context of its nuclear nonproliferation measures to tighten export control, underscoring Islamabad’s declared policy not to transfer nuclear technology. The draft law shows Pakistan’s commitment to prevent proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons and missiles capable of delivering such weapons. The foreign countries’ interest in similar laws framed by Pakistan gets added significance in the wake of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s confession that he proliferated nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The dust over the episode has largely settled as far as Pakistan is concerned. There are fears that others especially the United States may use Dr Khan’s admission against Pakistan at the time of its own choosing. Pakistan has put in place a foolproof command and control system, fully controlled by the Pakistan Army and supervised by President General Pervez Musharraf himself. Pakistan continues to make anti-proliferation laws to put at rest international misplaced apprehensions and propaganda and to show that Islamabad is sincerely adhering to its nonproliferation policy. Pakistan, being non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, had opposed the recent UN resolution when it had come up before the world body for approval. Pakistan agreed to vote for it after the resolution was appropriately changed, allaying Islamabad’s concerns. The violators of the new proposed law will be sentenced to a term extending 14 years and fined up to Rs5 million or both, and on conviction the offenders’ property and assets, wherever they may be, will be forfeited to the government. Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Chilling website documenting (w/pix) Chernobyl catastrophe Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 13:11:44 -0500 (CDT) I haven't seen or read a more compelling reminder of the horrors of things nuclear since "Threads" (http://www.emptyworld.info/film_threads.html) in the early 1980s. ------------------------------------------------------------ From: B Ally b.ally@thing.net I came across a site about Chernobyl you might be interested in seeing. A young girl rides her motorcycle into the area occasionally and has posted pictures and commentary about what's there. I'm sure nothing like these photographs exists anywhere, at least not on any official site. By the way, did you know that the reactor is due to be encased in a new shell? The one poured after the meltdown is deteriorating. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.679 / Virus Database: 441 - Release Date: 5/7/04 ***************************************************************** 12 AFP: Turkey still pursuing nuclear power plant project - minister [http://www.spacewar.com/] ANKARA (AFP) May 07, 2004 Turkish Energy Minister Himli Guler said Friday that his ministry was working on plans to build a nuclear power plant, an idea dropped by a previous government four years ago amid heavy criticism from environmentalists. "We are continuing technical studies on nuclear power plants and will soon hold talks with countries which build these plants," Guler was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as telling reporters. "We have come to the point of tender specifications," Guler added. A spokesman for the energy ministry said that plans for a nuclear power plant were still at an early stage, adding that tender specifications would not be tendered soon. "We have collected elements that would allow us to draw up the specifications...There is still no decision on the possible location of the plant," the spokesman said on condition of anonymity. But he added that the site near Akkuyu bay on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, chosen at the time of Ankara's previous attempt to adopt nuclear energy, was among options being looked at. The Akkuyu project -- which drew bids from Westinghouse of the United States, AECL of Canada and NPI of France -- was dropped in July 200O amid financial difficulties and protests from environmentalists both at home and in neighbouring Greece and Cyprus. Opponents say the proposed site was only 25 kilometres (15 miles) from a seismic faultline. Criticism to Akkuyu grew after a strong earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, rocked the neighboring province of Adana in 1998, killing more than 140 people. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 13 projo.com: Yankee site found unsuitable for radwaste in 1991 | Providence, R.I. | AP's The Wire 05.07.2004 8:37 P.M. By DAVID GRAM Associated Press Writer MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant's Vernon property, where the plant's owners want to store highly radioactive waste in concrete and steel casks, was found unsuitable for less radioactive waste more than a decade ago. Battelle, a Columbus, Ohio-based research firm, was hired by the state to do site studies of the Vernon property and other possible locations around Vermont for disposal of low-level radioactive waste. Battelle had been hired by the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Authority to study possible waste sites in Vermont for material that did not include the highly radioactive spent fuel rods from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. In a November 1991 report, Battelle recommended that the Vernon location was so unsuitable as a place to store low-level waste, "that the authority suspend further characterization at this site and consider other alternatives." The Ohio company found that groundwater was near the surface of the land it was studying in Vernon; that groundwater in the area appeared to flow to the adjacent Connecticut River through springs and "seeps" on the riverbank south of the Vermont Yankee site; and that the enough of the site would be classified as a federal wetland that there wouldn't be room left to store low-level waste, among other problems. State Auditor of Accounts Elizabeth Ready, who was chairwoman of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee in the early 1990s, sought to bring the Battelle study to the attention of the Public Service Board in a letter she sent to the board this week. "Based in part on this study, the General Assembly turned down Vernon as a suitable site to store low-level radioactive waste," Ready wrote to the board. "How can it now be suitable to store high-level nuclear waste?" Vermont ended up joining in Maine and Texas in a multi-state compact to ship low-level waste for disposal in Texas. No Texas site has yet opened to take the waste. Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said Friday there was a difference between permanent disposal and temporary storage of radioactive waste. "My understanding was that was for disposal of low-level waste," he said of the Battelle study. "The high-level waste would be in temporary storage on a concrete pad." Ready and other critics of Vermont Yankee have noted that the plant's spent fuel pool was meant for temporary storage of high-level radioactive waste and has had the material in storage for up to 31 years - Vermont Yankee began operations 32 years ago. "The word `temporary' seems to have taken on a nontraditional meaning," Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington and chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, said recently. Ready said Friday, "I think we need to re-examine this whole issue of what we count as temporary storage of this waste." Williams said the federal government is scheduled to begin taking high-level waste from commercial reactors to a permanent disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in 2010. There are widespread doubts about how firm that date is. Ready said there currently are six pending law suits aimed at keeping the Yucca Mountain site from opening. Providence Journal newsroom at (401) 277-7303. © Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 JS Online: Group seeks to block sale of nuclear plant Deal would be costly for consumers, it says By THOMAS CONTENT tcontent@journalsentinel.com Posted: May 6, 2004 Customers First, the state's largest energy coalition, will ask the state Public Service Commission to block the sale of the Kewaunee nuclear plant to a Virginia utility. Photo/Elizabeth Flores Owners of the Kewaunee nuclear plant plan to sell it to Dominion Resources Inc., a Virginia utility, for $220 million. Photo/Gary Porter Nuclear control operator Chuck Brinkman tests alarm systems in the central control room of the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant in this June 2001 file photo. All activities in the plant are monitored from the room. Owners WPS Resources Corp. and Alliant Energy Corp. plan to sell the plant. The group says sale of the plant would be costly for customers and could lead to the sale of other Wisconsin power plants. The opposition comes six months after Kewaunee's owners, Green Bay-based WPS Resources Corp. and Madison-based Alliant Energy Corp., said they planned to sell the plant to Dominion Resources Inc. for $220 million. Although Kewaunee provides a low-cost source of energy, the utilities want to sell the plant because of the increased costs and risks from tighter regulation of the nuclear power industry. "It's just too big a risk for a small company like ours," said Larry Weyers, chairman, president and chief executive of WPS. Under the deal, Dominion would continue selling electricity to WPS and Wisconsin Power &Light, a unit of Alliant, until the plant's operating license expires in 2013. Customers First says that Wisconsin ratepayers paid for Kewaunee over the years, and their rates could increase once the contract to buy power from Dominion expires. "If the sale is approved, Wisconsin will lose jurisdiction over the plant and, if the plant is relicensed, Wisconsin customers will lose their right to low-cost power from Kewaunee after 2013," the group said in a statement scheduled to be released today. "Dominion will sell the power at whatever the market will bear. The profits will flow to Virginia and no longer help keep Wisconsin rates down." The coalition includes the Madison-based utility Madison Gas &Electric Co., a former part-owner of the plant, as well as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, municipal utilities and customer and environmental groups. The group's chief complaint centers on the loss of control and oversight the state PSC would have if the sale of the plant is approved. "Once you establish the sale of a power plant without putting in the regulatory safeguards, that opens the door for the sale of other plants," said Nino Amato, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition of Energy Consumers, which represents the state's large manufacturers, a group that belongs to Customers First. "The Public Service Commission is at a crossroads," Amato said. Low rates through 2013 Kewaunee's owners say the agreement to sell the plant will guarantee customers low rates through 2013. They note that state regulators will continue to maintain oversight of power supply contracts the Wisconsin utilities have negotiated with Dominion. Members of Customers First said no utility in the state has ever sold a plant that was paid for by Wisconsin electric customers and over which the state enjoys considerable oversight. Opponents also compare the case to Wisconsin Energy's proposal several years ago to shift all of its power plants from its regulated subsidiary - We Energies - to a non-regulated company. When customers and others balked, the state's largest utility ended up revising its plan, and now only the power plants being built in the next several years will not be part of the regulated utility. "This is a piecemeal version" of what Wisconsin Energy sought in 2000, said Lee Cullen, a Customers First lawyer. "From a Wisconsin public interest point of view, it's worse because . . . the (Wisconsin Energy) plants would still have remained under the Wisconsin energy umbrella. In this proposal this key resource is sold to an out-of-state energy conglomerate which is not even a public utility." Under federal regulation The plant would be regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission following the sale, WPS' Weyers said, adding that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would continue to provide significant oversight of the plant. WPS argued just a few years ago that Kewaunee was a core part of its portfolio, and that replacing its steam generators was a worthwhile expense for its customers to pay. Costs and uncertainties associated with nuclear power plants have increased since a new enforcement initiative was put in place by the NRC. Inspections intensified after problems surfaced at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo, Ohio, where operators found a six-inch hole in the reactor's lid - a problem that kept that plant closed for nearly two years. WPS spent $25 million four years ago to upgrade the policies, procedures and training manuals at Kewaunee, Weyers said. Plant owners also paid $120 million to replace steam generators in 2001. "Every time you take a plant down for maintenance and you open it up, you're not too sure what you're going to find," Weyers said. "We've had some extended outages because of what we found with these steam generators in the last six or seven years." The PSC is expected to make a decision on the sale later this year. A public hearing on the proposal is planned next month in Manitowoc. From the May 7, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel © Copyright 2004 Produced by Journal Interactive ***************************************************************** 15 Turks.US: Turkey is working on plans to develop nuclear energy [http://www.turks.us] Friday, May 07 2004 @ 09:25 PM Friday, May 07 2004 @ 07:17 AM Central Daylight Time Contributed by: Admin [http://www.turks.us/index.php?topic=International] Turkey is working on plans to develop nuclear energy and intends to discuss the proposal soon with companies from nuclear energy-producing countries, Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said on Friday. He told reporters officials had reached the stage of preparing tender specifications and were looking at possible locations for a nuclear power station, including Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast. "Our preference is for the private sector to do this, but if necessary we will," Guler said, noting that tenders for a nuclear power station had been opened twice before but were unsuccessful. The previous government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit put plans to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant on hold in July 2000 to wait for the country's finances to stabilise. Turkey's treasury had refused to provide financing guarantees for the multi-billion dollar Akkuyu project, arguing that the country's IMF accord at that time forbade such large guarantees. Ankara currently has a $19 billion loan deal with the IMF which ends in February 2005. The project had also faced environmentalist opposition focusing on concerns that the planned site lay too close to active earthquake fault lines and that it might deter tourists from visiting Turkey's Mediterranean coastline. Copyright © 2002 Turks.US ***************************************************************** 16 Daily Star: Rooppur nuclear project Web Edition Vol. 4 Num 333 Vol. 4 Num 333 Sat. May 08, 2004 Letters to Editor A citizen, Dhaka This Project was planned in 1960-61, but it was not implemented. At the moment there is no need to implement it because we have enough gas to support energy generation . Moreover, the cost of per unit electricity from a nuclear plant is more than double the cost from a thermal plant. Again, nuclear businesses is very dangerous. I urge the government to install a 200 MW combined cycle thermal power plant as the gas network is going to the northern region. There is a pilot project in Cox's Bazar since 1975, which is useless and fruitless. I humbly request the minister of finance and planning and also the minister of science, information and communication technology to look into these matters. ***************************************************************** 17 India Financial Express: REL, NTPC To Go Nuclear + --> [http://www.financialexpress.com/] Saturday, May 08, 2004 --> both examining the possibilities of forming jv with nuclear power corporation Anupama Airy New Delhi, May 7 The country’s largest private sector group, Reliance, and the public sector power major National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), are planning to diversify into nuclear generation. Both are separately examining the possibility of forming a joint venture with Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) for putting up nuclear power capacities in the country. At present, both the companies are tightlipped about their plans. On being contacted, NTPC chairman and managing director, CP Jain refused to comment but agreed that the corporation was examining the proposal to get into a joint venture with NPC. A Reliance spokesman, too, declined to comment but did not deny it either. Sources in the government disclosed that discussions on NTPC’s entry into nuclear generation had already taken place at the highest level of decision-making. At a recent meeting with NTPC brass, the power ministry had asked it to make a foray into the field of nuclear generation as part of its larger plan to become an important utility for the country. In response NTPC had told the power ministry that it was examining the proposal for a joint venture with NPC for setting up power projects using nuclear fuel. Sources said the Reliance group, through Reliance Energy, is also looking at forming a joint venture with NPC, as is currently required under the law. At present, entire nuclear generation in the country is done by NPC, which is under the control of the Department of Atomic Energy India. No new capacities can come without the active participation of the corporation. It is significant to note here that despite being the cheapest option and the fact that India is sitting on a 30,000 to 40,000 tonne of surplus heavy water, generation from nuclear power stations has been declining every year and is showing negative growth. According to official figures, nuclear generation capacity in the country declined by 8.3 per cent, from 19.32 billion units (BU) in 2002-03 to 17.72 BU in 2003-04. For 2004-05, the generation target set by the government is 15.44 BUs, a fall of 12.9 per cent. URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=5867 4 [http://www.icra.org/labelv02.html] © 2001: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 18 NRC: NRC Davis-Besse Oversight Panel to Meet May 13 in Ohio News Release - Region III - 2004-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-04-030 May 6, 2004 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Davis-Besse oversight panel will meet with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company officials on Thursday, May 13, in Port Clinton, Ohio, to review recent operating performance and NRC inspection activities at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant. The plant resumed operation in March after a two-year shutdown to replace the reactor vessel head and make other safety system and staff performance improvements. The meeting will be held at 3 p.m. in the Lower Level of the Ottawa County Courthouse, 315 Madison Street, Port Clinton. The public is invited to observe the business portion of the meeting and will have an opportunity to make comments and ask questions of the NRC staff before the meeting is adjourned. The staff will also be available after the meeting for informal discussions with the public. The utility will discuss operating experience over the past month, and the NRC staff will review recent inspection findings, including the around-the-clock inspections which were performed during the plants startup activities. A transcript of the oversight panel meeting will be posted in several weeks on the NRC's web site - http://www.nrc.gov. Select "Davis-Besse/Reactor Vessel Head Degradation" from the Key Topics menu. The NRC oversight panel includes NRC managers and staff from offices in Lisle, Illinois; Rockville, Maryland; and the Davis-Besse site. Documents on the Davis-Besse corrosion issue, including further details on NRC's oversight panel activities, are posted on the NRC's web site. Last revised Friday, May 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 19 NRC: Meeting to Discuss Results of a Special Inspection at D.C. Cook News Release - Region III - 2004-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-04-031 May 6, 2004 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of American Electric Power Company on Wednesday, May 12, to discuss the results of a special inspection conducted to review performance at D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Station. The two-reactor facility is located near Bridgman, Michigan. The meeting will be held at 1 p.m. at the Lincoln Charter Township Hall, 2055 W. John Beers Road, in Stevensville. The public is invited to observe the meeting, and NRC officials will be available before the conclusion of the meeting to answer questions from the public. The special inspection results from a decline in two safety performance indicators related to four unplanned plant shutdowns over the past 15 months, with two involving the loss of the normal heat removal path. This led to the performance indicators going from green, or being of very low safety significance to white, which means low to moderate safety significance. The special inspection reviewed the causes for the decline in performance and the plants corrective actions. The May 12 meeting will focus on the results of the review. The report of the teams findings will be publicly available from the Region III Office of Public Affairs and on the NRCs web site: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html  use Docket Number 05000315 or 05000316. The report is expected to be issued in June. Assistance in using the web reading room is available by calling the NRC Public Document Room at 800-397-4209. Last revised Friday, May 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: RC Begins Special Inspection of Shutdown at Dresden Nuclear Plant News Release - Region III - 2004-32 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-04-032 May 6, 2004 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has dispatched a special inspection team to review the circumstances surrounding the automatic reactor shutdown Wednesday at Unit 3 of the Dresden Nuclear Power Station. The two-reactor facility, operated by Exelon Generation Company, is located near Morris, Illinois. The Unit 3 reactor shut down automatically when the plant lost its offsite electrical power. Emergency diesel generators started to supply power to plant safety systems. There was no safety threat to plant workers, the general public, or the environment associated with the shutdown, said NRC Regional Administrator James Caldwell. The NRCs resident inspectors were in the plants control room to monitor the reactor operators response to the shutdown, he added. The NRCs four-member inspection team will review the causes of the loss of offsite power and how the plant staff and equipment responded to the power loss. The second Dresden unit was shut down at the time for unrelated maintenance. It was not affected by the Unit 3 loss of power. The utilitys preliminary investigation has determined that the power loss occurred when a circuit breaker opened unexpectedly, cutting off the outside power sources. At the time, plant workers were restoring normal electrical power connections following maintenance work. Power was restored to the plant after about 2˝ hours. Unit 3 remains shut down while the cause of the power loss is fully investigated and necessary repairs are made. The report of the special inspection will be publicly available about a month following the completion of the inspection. It may be obtained from the Region III Office of Public Affairs or from the NRCs online document library: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html - use docket number 05000249 to locate Dresden 3 documents. Assistance in using the online document library is available by calling the NRC Public Document Room at 800-397-4209. Last revised Friday, May 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 21 [DU-WATCH] Plutonium Files: How the US secretly fed Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 23:59:00 -0500 (CDT) scroll to the bottom for today's headlines and dem now's other in-depth stories such as this: Wednesday, May 5th, 2004 Plutonium Files: How the U.S. Secretly Fed Radioactivity to Thousands of Americans http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/05/1357230 Denver-based journalist Eileen Welsome reveals how as a reporter for the tiny Albuquerque Tribune (circulation 35,000) she uncovered one of the country's great Cold War secrets: the U.S. government had knowingly exposed thousands of human Guinea pigs with radiation poisoning including 18 Americans who had plutonium injected directly into their bloodstream. In a Massachusetts school, seventy-three disabled children were spoon-fed oatmeal laced with radioactive isotopes. In an upstate New York hospital, an eighteen-year-old woman believing she was being treated for a pituitary disorder, was injected with plutonium. At a Tennessee clinic, 829 pregnant women were served "vitamin cocktails" containing radioactive iron, as part of their regular treatment. No these are not acts of terrorism by common criminals. These are just some of the secret human radiation experiments that the U.S. government conducted on unsuspecting Americans for decades as part of its atom bomb program. In a gruesome plot that spanned 30 years, doctors and scientists working with the US atomic weapons program, exposed thousands of unwilling and unknowing Americans to radiation poisoning to study its effects. For years, the experiments by the U.S. government and the identities of their human guinea pigs were covered up. Then after a six-year investigation, investigative reporter Eileen Welsome uncovered the names of 18 people who were injected with plutonium in the 1940s without their knowledge by federal government scientists. In 1993, she published her finding in The Albuquerque Tribune and later received the Pulitzer Prize for her work. Another six years later, Welsome published "The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War." The book gives a detailed account of the unspeakable scientific trials conducted by the U.S. government that reduced thousands of American men, women, and even children to nameless specimens. * Eileen Welsome, Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and author of "The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War." Headlines for May 5, 2004 - Pentagon: 25 Prisoners Have Died In U.S. Custody - State Department Delays Release of Human Rights Report - Senators Criticize Pentagon Secrecy Over Iraq Prison Abuse - 138,000 Troops To Stay in Iraq until End of 2005 - Disney Blocks Distribution of New Michael Moore Film - Senate Blocks Overtime Law Changes --Rep. Maxine Waters Calls on Congress Not To Recognize New Haitian Government --U.S. Assassinates Two Shiite Clerics Organizing Nonviolent Resistance ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. 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Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 22 [du-list] CADU News 17 Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 14:31:54 -0700 CADU NEWS ISSUE 17 –Spring 2004 Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick St, Ancoats, Manchester M4 7HR Tel/Fax: +44 (0)161 273 8293 email: info@cadu.org.uk website http//: www.cadu.org.uk MoD Forced to Pay Pension for DU Contamination A former soldier has become the first veteran to win a war pension appeal after suffering depleted uranium poisoning during the Gulf War, it has emerged.Kenny Duncan took the Ministry of Defence to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal Service over his claim that he suffered depleted uranium poisoning during active service in Iraq. The father of three, from Clackmannanshire, served with the Royal Corps of Transport as a specialist tank transporter during the first Gulf War in 1991.Part of his job was to move Iraqi tanks destroyed by depleted uranium shells. Mr Duncan's case relied on blood tests carried out by Dr Albrecht Schott, a German biochemist, which revealed chromosome aberrations caused by ionising radiation. The tribunal found that Mr Duncan’s exposure to the uranium was attributable to his service in the Gulf. Dr Schott's research formed part of a study of 16 British veterans of conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo, which found that they had 14 times the usual level of chromosome abnormalities in their genes, raising fears that they will pass cancers and genetic illnesses to their offspring. Kenny Duncan believes that his children's health problems are linked to his service in the Gulf war. All three were born with deformed toes and low immune systems. When he retired from the army in 1993, due to ill health, Duncan received only a half-pension. The PATS decision means that his pension will now be reassessed. Duncan said: “It is just a huge relief to have someone in authority say that you have been poisoned by this stuff and that you are not telling lies. It is now time for the [defence ministry] to tell us what went wrong... I doubt that I will benefit much financially from this, but it wasn't about the money, it was about the principle of the thing.” His wife Mandy said: 'It's scandalous that while we are suffering with the consequences of what the Government has done, politicians are just thinking about money.' New Campaigning and Information Pack Available from CADU A new campaigning pack and information pack will soon be available from CADU. The pack has a comprehensive information section about DU weapons, petitions, campaigning postcards, and advice on how to take effective action against DU. To put in an order contact the CADU office. Affiliates to CADU will be able to order the pack at the specially discounted rates of Ł2.50 (+50p P+P) . WHO Scientists’ Report into DU Cancer Dangers Suppressed An expert report by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed. Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards. “Our study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population,” Baverstock told the Scottish Sunday Herald. “There is increasing scientific evidence the radioactivity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed.” Baverstock was the WHO’s top expert on radiation and health for 11 years until he retired in May last year. While he was a member of staff, WHO refused to give him permission to publish the study, which was co-authored by Professor Carmel Mothersill from McMaster University in Canada and Dr Mike Thorne, a radiation consultant . Baverstock suspects that WHO was leaned on by a more powerful pro-nuclear UN body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “I believe our study was censored and suppressed by the WHO because they didn’t like its conclusions. Previous experience suggests that WHO officials were bowing to pressure from the IAEA, whose remit is to promote nuclear power,” he said. Gulf War Vets Babies 50% more likely to have Birth Defects A major Ministry of Defence-funded survey study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf war are 50 per cent more likely to have physical abnormalities. They also found a 40 per cent increased risk of miscarriage among women whose partners served in the Gulf. Increased risks of genital, urinary and renal abnormalities and deformed limbs, bones and muscles were found in the Ministry of Defence-funded survey. Of 13,191 pregnancies among the partners of male Gulf veterans, 686, or 5.2 per cent, had some form of physical abnormality, compared with 342, or 3.5 per cent, of the 9,758 non-Gulf pregnancies. The survey didn’t find increased risks of other types of birth defects nor stillbirths among veteran pregnancies. Female veterans were also found to be at no greater risk of miscarriage. The MoD have been hawking this study as the definitive study into pregnancy outcomes among veterans for some time so it was difficult for them to downplay it. Although they still tried: An MoD spokesman said: “It is important to note the researchers have cautioned that the findings may be susceptible to recall bias, and that it is a comparison with a control group in which miscarriage may have been under-reported.” Extensive recall bias in remembering your own children’s birth deformities seems a little far-fetched! Similar evidence was found in US research from a Veterans Administration study, published within the last year, that shows children of Gulf War vets have twice the normal rate of birth defects. A US study released this month shows women who served in the first Gulf War suffered three times the normal rate of miscarriages in the period just after the conflict. MoD Issues DU Warning Card to Troops The MoD has issued a card to all troops serving in Iraq in areas where DU has been used. The card reads: [front]“DU Information Card (introduced 03.03) F Med 1018 You have been deployed to a theatre where Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions have been used. DU is a weakly radioactive heavy metal, whch has the potential to cause ill health. You may have been exposed to dust containing DU during your deployment. [back]Further Information You are eligible for a urine test to measure uranium. If you wish to know more about having this test, you should consult your unit medical officer on return to your home base. Your medical officer can provie information about the health effects of DU. Information is also available on the MOD [Ministry of Defense] web site: www.uk/issues/depleted_uranium/index.htm” It is good to see the MoD deviating from their normal line that DU poses no health risks and taking some responsibility towards serving soldiers, if only to cover their own backs. Yet the card raises many questions: Why is DU still being used if they know it to be a danger? What about Iraqi citizens, who are not being issued with cards nor offered tests? Why aren’t all troops given inexpensive urine tests considering many won’t know the risks? The British military is definitely increasingly being caught on the back foot about its use of DU weapons. Scottish Anger at DU Contamination DU is still contaminating the military firing range near Kirkcudbright in the south of Scotland, according to an unpublished MoD survey, reports the Sunday Herald (11 April 2004). Since 1982 over 90 shells have been misfired or have malfunctioned and scattered fragments of DU across the ground. Despite searches, some of the fragments have never been recovered. “Higher levels of contamination have sometimes been found at points where malfunctioning DU rounds or fragments landed on the range, but this has been removed when MoD clean-up levels were exceeded,” the report states. Other areas were less contaminated, but fenced off “as a matter of good practice”. But, the report adds: “Some projectiles and fragments have not been recovered... There are also a small number of areas where it would be advantageous to carry out further intrusive investigations to investigate some apparently anomalous monitoring results.” Local concern about the risks was highlighted when peace activists took to the streets to hand out cards that are deliberately designed to mimic those handed to troops in Iraq. “The focus of our action on April 16 is to highlight the hypocrisy of the MoD issuing warning cards to our troops, but not to the civilians they supposedly protect”. Political Heat Rises in the US as Soldiers Test Positive for DU Four soldiers in the US have tested positive for DU, leading to hundreds of troops referring themselves for tests and political questions being asked about troop safety and testing. After the recent news that British troops had tested positive for DU (see CADU News 16) a newspaper in the US paid to have 9 soldiers who had been staying in a contaminated area tested for DU and were experiencing unexplained ill-health. Four of the nine, three of whom were Puerto Rican, tested positive in tests carried out by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, of the Uranium Medical Research Center. The army said that only three soldiers of a 1000 tested had returned positive results, causing doubts about the accuracy of their tests. The soldiers had repeatedly tried and failed to get DU tests through the army. The soldiers were from the New York National Guard and had been staying in Samawah, the scene of previous heavy fighting. “There’d been a lot of fighting in Samawah before we got there,” said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, one of the soldiers who tested positive. “The place was dusty as hell, and the sandstorms were hitting uspretty good.” He said, “I got sick instantly in June. My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach.” Since then up to 800 G.I.s have handed in their 24-hour urine samples, and hundreds more are waiting for appointments. But several independent uranium experts who reviewed one of the first official lab results that military doctors provided to a soldier last week 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. “The instruments they used are just not sophisticated enough to give accurate readings,” agreed Leonard Dietz, who invented one of the instruments for measuring uranium isotopes. Sen.Hillary Clinton took up the issue with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Myers vowed to upgrade uranium tests for G.I.s and 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. However in a Pentagon memo from Army Assistant Surgeon General Richard Ursone he was found to state “performance of routine screening laboratory, radiologic and electrocardiographic tests in this setting is extremely low yield and is discouraged.” Even if giving those tests is “supported by evidence-based medicine, they may be deferred if the soldier is without symptoms and the laboratory tests will delay release from active duty.” Dutch Troops Moved Belatedly from Same Contaminated Area When Dutch troops arrived in the same army base in Samawah that the DU contaminated US soldiers had been staying in, they measured unacceptably high levels of radioactivity. Sgt. Juan Vega, senior medic with the US 442nd, told the New York-based Daily News “the Dutch swept the area around the train depot with Geiger counters and their medics confided to [me] they had found high radiation levels”. The Dutch were ordered instead to pitch camp in the desert. Yet troop transfer from the area was delayed by three weeks, while the new camp was under construction leading to unnecessary exposure to DU for Dutch troops. Iraqis at Risk of DU Contaminated Scrap Metal Numerous eyewitness reports from respected sources have arrived saying that tanks and armoured vehicles hit by DU ammunition are being smelted down in Iraq. The contaminated metal is being recycled in a huge smelting facility near Basra, in southern Iraq, under the auspices of the British Army and being turned into prefabricated bridges, litter bins and even pots and pans according to the Independent Newspaper correspondent Robert Fisk. Children have also been reported collecting parts from the tanks to raise extra money for their families. This practice obviously puts Iraqis at risk both while collecting the metal and using any objects it is turned into. Professor Malcolm Hooper, Emeritus Professor at the University of Sunderland and a Government Advisor on Gulf War illnesses says: “Taiwan springs to mind, where radioactive material was used in building structures and deaths and illnesses were so great, they had to be demolished. I would be very unhappy about using these materials, it would be a disaster for workers, a disaster for those living in the vicinity and it would be a real toxic brew also containing mercury, cadmium and numerous other lethal pollutants.” If the UK and US militaries had cleaned up all risk areas and removed all destroyed vehicles this could have been avoided. The British Government claimed that it was putting up safety signs to keep locals away although observers in Iraq say this has often not been the case. Jo Wilding, who is currently in Iraq running a circus for Iraqi street children said, “There is a huge tank cemetery near Daura where all the burnt-out military hardware has been dumped, and there are children working there, cutting pieces off the tanks for a small amount of money, and there are no warnings at all. I asked one of the boys if he’d been told anything at all about the dangers, and he said some British journalists told him it might be dangerous, but he had no other source.” In response to a Parliamentary question Adam Ingram, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, replied: “There is no known legitimate operational smelting plant in the Basra region. A small number of illegal mobile smelting plants used for smuggled copper and aluminium have been found and closed down. There is no evidence they had been used to smelt tanks. Military vehicles known to have been hit by DU munitions within the southern sector of Iraq controlled by the British military have been clearly marked. Arrangements are currently being negotiated with the US for a contractor to collect and store these military vehicles. US Miltary Searching for Replacement to DU It would appear the US Department of Defense is not as confident about its use of DU in weapons as it likes to imply. According to a company, Liquidmetal Technologies, it is working hard with them to develop a replacement for DU. The company’s website (www.liquidmetal.com) claims: “Awarded a series of multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts by the Department of Defense, Liquidmetal alloys’ technology is currently being developed for use as a Kinetic Energy Penetrator (KEP) rod. The KEP, the key component of the highly effective armor piercing ammunition system, currently utilizes Depleted Uranium (DU) because of its density and self-sharpening behavior. Ballistic tests conducted by the Army have proven that the Liquidmetal® tungsten composite KEP exhibits self-sharpening similar to the DU KEP. As a result, the Department of Defense is working closely with Liquidmetal Technologies to develop a new class of effective and environmentally benign KEP rods.” (Emphasis added) The US military has always been particularly belligerent about its use of DU weapons but it seems activist pressure is getting to them too! Gulf War Syndrome Legal Case Collapses An eight-year, multimillion pound legal battle by more than 2,000 veterans for compensation for Gulf War Syndrome has collapsed after legal aid was withdrawn. This does not mean that the veterans were not sick but rather that a specific cause would have to be proved. To succeed in their claim against the MoD the veterans would have to produce scientific evidence not only that their illness was caused by their service in the 1991 Gulf war, but also that the MoD had been negligent. In a reversal of pension awards the burden of proof would be on them as claimants to prove their case. In the face of the collapse there has been a growing call from top QCs and politicians for an independent inquiry into the illnesses suffered by veterans. Lord Morris of Manchester said he would deliver a letter to the prime minister calling for an inquiry and ex gratia payments to veterans. The collapse of the legal battle means that “the government can no longer pass the buck to the courts”, said Mr Paul Tyler, MP. “The fact that the legal case has petered out in no way implies that the illnesses have petered out - far from it.” Alliant Techsytems Gets New DU Order Nukewatch, in the States, reports that Alliant Techsystems, outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, the nation’s biggest assembler of uranium munitions, announced this week that it was awarded new contracts for 120-millimetre battle tank ammunition for the M1A1 main battle tanks. The contract is worth $38 million. As Alliant has removed all references to uranium or depleted uranium in its public notices, web pages and press releases, it can only be inferred at this point that the newest contracts are for uranium weapons. The tanks have always used DU ammunition in the past. [see: www.nukewatch.com] Isotope Analysis Shows Exposure To Depleted Uranium In Gulf War Veterans U.S. Veterans who were exposed to DU during the 1991 Gulf War have continued to excrete it in their urine for 6-8 years after their exposure, according to a new study published in the journal Health Physics. The study indicates that soldiers may absorb DU uranium particles through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination, said Roberto Gwiazda, lead author of the study. Using isotope analysis of urine, similar to new tests available in the UK, it was revealing that DU was present in the urine of a significant number of soldiers without embedded shrapnel but with potential exposure through inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination. DU in Sardinia Activists in Sardinia, Italy, have called for an immediate halt to all DU testing at the Salto di Quirra test range and the U.S. military base of La Maddalena following what they describe as “a series of anomalies”. They claim there are higher than average rates of cancer and birth deformities in the area and that the military activity is causing “irreversible damage to the image of our island and a risk to the already fragile economy”. Protests have also followed the death of Sardinian Corporal Major Valery Melis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Melis served as a Peacekeeper in Bosnia and Macedonia. The army consistently denied him care and medical costs up to his death. More than 20 men are thought to have died from illnesses linked to their service in the Balkans, where DU was used in the 1990s. Japanese Hostage was Anti-DU Campaigner One of the 3 Japanese hostages, kidnapped in Iraq in dramatic fashion in April, was there because of his anger at the US/UK use of DU weapons. Noriaki Imai, 18, had gone to investigate their effects in Iraq. Japanese DU activists worked tirelessly for his release launching an international campaign to explain the hostages good intentions and antiwar stance. New Reports on DU Investigations of environmental impacts from the deployment of depleted uranium munitions by Dr. Hari Sharma -Examination of environmental DU contamination in air and soil through analysis of residents’ tissue of Basra, Iraq. Available from the Military Toxics Project at: tara@miltoxproj.org.t. Audio reports from the recent MIT seminar “Depleted Uranium Weapons: Toxic Contaminant or Necessary Technology?” can be downloaded at: http://web.mit.edu/tac/www/recentforums.html DU Protests in Warwickshire The protesters staged a demonstration outside DM Kineton arms depot protesting against the storage of weapons containing DU - which could lead to widespread radioactive contamination if there was a serious accident or terrorist attack. Long Itchington resident Richard Williams was part of the 15- strong group, who called themselves the Warwickshire Weapons Inspectors. He said: “We succeeded in getting our message across, but we didn’t have any joy in our attempts to get into the base itself. “We want people to be aware of what is really going on here. These weapons could cause a major contamination of this densely-populated region if there was an accident. This could lead to mass evacuation, and the sealing-off of a large area of the Midlands for decades, even centuries - as has happened in Chernobyl.” EC to probe DU pollution SNP Shadow Minister for Europe Neil MacCormick MEP raised concerns in the European Parliament last month and the commission have now agreed to look into possible pollution stemming from the firing from Dundrennan range. The MEP had claimed in the European Parliament that depleted uranium shells littering the seabed in the Solway Firth breach international law. He said that dumping low-level radioactive waste in the sea was illegal, even if there was no conclusive evidence that it is harmful. Child Victims of War Child Victims of War is raising money to have the urine of Iraqi children tested for DU. To find out more contact them at: 17 Anstey Street, Easton, Bristol, BS5 6DG, UK or on Tel: 44 (0)20 8567 4237/ (0)117 902 6534. info@childvictimsofwar.org www.childvictimsofwar.org 'Friendly Fire' Newsletter 1 ICBUW The first edition of the newletter of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons is now available online prior to the next meeting of the coalition in Brussels in May. Full of original material ‘Friendly Fire’ can be found at: www.bandepleteduranium.org Plans to Dump Low Level Radioactive Waste in Landfills The government is examining plans to relax safety limits to allow low-level radioactive waste from civil and military nuclear plants to be dumped in landfill sites around the country.Contaminated metal and other materials from reactors and related facilities could also be recycled into household products, such as food containers and furniture. Radioactive rubble could be used to build roads, or used in other major construction projects. Materials contaminated by twice today’s legal limit of plutonium and up to 250 times today’s legal limit of radioactive tritium could be disposed of along with ordinary rubbish, or reused in consumer goods. ACTION: Please contact Defra and the Government to tell them this is unacceptable, - before it’s too late. Subscribe to CADU News - by affiliating to CADU Affiliation rates (including a paper copy of CADU News four times a year) are Ł8 per year (unwaged/student) Ł10 per year (waged) and Ł30 (groups), but please consider donating more than this if possible. Please send a cheque or a request for a standing order to: CADU, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick St, Manchester M4 7HR ********************************************************************************************* The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 7HR Tel./Fax.: +44 (0)161 273 8293 E-Mail info@cadu.org.uk Website: http://www.cadu.org.uk Affiliation costs to CADU are Ł8 a year unwaged/student and Ł10 a year waged. For this you will receive campaigning materials and CADU's quarterly newsletter. Our newsletter is also available free of charge by E-Mail (send us a message with 'Subscribe CADU News' as the subject). Please send your cheque draft or postal order in Ł sterling to the address above. ********************************************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************* The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 7HR Tel./Fax.: +44 (0)161 273 8293 E-Mail info@cadu.org.uk Website: http://www.cadu.org.uk Affiliation costs to CADU are Ł8 a year unwaged/student and Ł10 a year waged. For this you will receive campaigning materials and CADU's quarterly newsletter. Our newsletter is also available free of charge by E-Mail (send us a message with 'Subscribe CADU News' as the subject). Please send your cheque draft or postal order in Ł sterling to the address above. ********************************************************************************************* To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 3602e.jpg 3616a.jpg ---------- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: 3602e.jpg: 00000001,5d949ea3,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 3616a.jpg: 00000001,5d949ea4,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 23 [NukeNet] New Security Weighed for Nuclear Sites & Provision Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 14:32:00 -0700 Videos: http://www.envirovideo.com [Space weaponization/nuclearization, NPPs, renewables] Mothersalert: http://www.mothersalert.org http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Security.html New Security Weighed for Nuclear Sites By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 7, 2004 Filed at 11:43 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department for the first time is looking at creating a federal police force to guard nuclear weapons facilities and plans to remove weapons-usable nuclear materials from some sites to protect against terrorists. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Friday that consolidation of nuclear material to fewer sites is ``one of the surest ways'' to increase protection of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium from terrorists. Advertisement In a speech prepared for security personnel at the Savannah River nuclear site in South Carolina, Abraham said that the possibility of replacing private guards with a federal security force at Energy Department weapons sites is being seriously discussed. He also said he is considering creating an elite security unit to guard high-priority facilities. ``Because the stakes are so high everything is on the table,'' Abraham said. Currently private guards protect federal nuclear research laboratory and other facilities that are part of the vast nuclear weapons complex, including facilities holding plutonium and highly enriched uranium used in nuclear warheads. The Energy Department has been under growing criticism from some members of Congress and public interest watchdog groups for failing to adequately improve security to meet the increased threats made apparent by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and on the Pentagon. Next week, a House committee has scheduled another hearing into reports of security shortcomings in the department's effort to protect nuclear material. Recently congressional auditors said that the security upgrades ordered at the Energy Department sites after the Sept. 11 attacks may not be fully in place for another five years. The department hopes to finish them by the end of 2006. A private watchdog group also has produced a number of ``whistleblowers'' who claim that the private guards at weapons facilities have poor training and morale. Abraham announced what he called ``sweeping new initiatives'' to improve security in the nuclear weapons complex. The Energy Department develops nuclear weapons and maintains the nation's stockpile. ``Simply put (these materials) must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands,'' said Abraham. Abraham acknowledged ``security lapses'' at some facilities such as lost keys for secure areas. While calling such incidents rare, he said ``they are unacceptable'' and that failure to address such problems would not be tolerated. Abraham also said he would: --Provide new, more consistent training and more simulated attacks to test guards. --Speed recruitment of technical personnel to deal with cyber security and new security technologies. --Examine where nuclear weapons material might be consolidated within sites and remove it from sites where security is difficult. Last month, lawmakers at a congressional hearing urged the department to consolidate weapon-grade material. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said it ``should be immediately obvious'' that too many facilities are holding nuclear material. Abraham said the department will consolidate these materials in fewer places and won't rule out moving plutonium and other weapons-usable material from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Lab officials oppose such a move on grounds they need the material for research. He said that a program already is underway to transport plutonium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Nevada Test Site, and he announced that within three years weapons-usable uranium now at the Sandia National Laboratory will be moved to a permanent storage site. Both facilities are in New Mexico. He noted the department also is building a central facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee to consolidate highly enriched uranium within that sprawling site. Sensitive nuclear material also is kept by the department at the Pantex Weapons plant in Texas, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and facilities in Idaho and Nevada. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Waste.html Provision Would Change Nuclear Waste Law By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 7, 2004 Filed at 12:54 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate committee has approved changes in the law that will allow the Energy Department to avoid removing thousands of gallons of highly radioactive sludge from tanks at a federal nuclear site in South Carolina. Energy Department officials expressed hope the breakthrough might also help them reach agreement with Washington and Idaho officials on the treatment of millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste kept at DOE facilities in those states. Advertisement The Senate Armed Services Committee agreed to put the change in a defense bill, despite objections from Washington's two senators, who are not on the panel. The provision was sought by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who said the change -- limited to waste at the Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C., was needed to implement an agreement reached between the Energy Department and the state. The provision was approved late Thursday during a closed committee meeting where the defense legislation was being crafted. The decision was made public Friday. The Energy Department has been stymied in an attempt to reclassify some of the 90 million gallons of radioactive waste kept in tanks at federal facilities in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina so it would not have to ship it to a special high-level waste repository. The department claims the residual sludge, the byproduct of Cold War bomb-making, is too expensive to extract. Instead, the government says, it can be diluted by covering it with grout so it can be left in place as less radioactive ``low level'' waste. After a federal judge in Idaho last year ruled that reclassifying such sludge as low-level waste violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the department began pushing members of Congress to change the law. Graham's provision limits the change in the law to waste at the Savannah River site where 34 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste is being kept in tanks. He said the agreement with DOE would allow the sludge lining the bottom and sides of the tank to remain in place and be covered by grout, saving $16 billion in cleanup costs and shortening the cleanup time by 23 years. The provision, Graham said, still ``allows South Carolina and DOE to define high level waste in a very reasonable manner. ... There's nothing going to be left behind ... that will not be secured through environmental remediating to protect South Carolina.'' But state officials in Idaho and Washington oppose any changes in the law unless they are assured the states will have a final say in how the waste will be handled. The changes put into the defense bill ``would minimize the role of (state) regulators in overseeing decisions regarding this waste's disposal,'' argued Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington in a letter to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Armed Services Committee chairman. They said it would give the Energy Department the go-ahead ``to define what constitutes cleanup.'' Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow earlier this week said the department would not force legislative language onto states and that negotiations on a way to resolve the impasse over how the sludge should be treated were continuing with Idaho and Washington officials. ``We wouldn't make a decision without involving the states,'' said McSlarrow. There are 34 million gallons of waste in underground tanks at the Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C.; 53 million gallons in tanks at the Hanford site near Richland, Wash.; and 900,000 gallons in tanks at the INEEL facility in Idaho. The waste has been described as a ``witches brew of radioactivity'' left over from years of reprocessing to make plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Geoffrey Fettus, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the suit that led to the Idaho court decision, said the cleanup changes sought by the Energy Department and pushed by Graham ``would create nuclear waste cesspools'' and a ``legacy of radioactive pollution'' at the defense sites. _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 24 [DU-WATCH] : Around 1,361 Were Iraqis Killed in April Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 00:10:36 -0500 (CDT) We dont do body counts General Tommy Franks, US Central Command http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4039785,00.html http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ In those ones, there is not a word on the consequences of last Wars on the healtly of the Earth - of course that's include Humanity - I mean the consequences of DU, but also CO2 quantity ? pollution by the U.S.A.F. plane for example, a proud contribution to the global warming and also few other chemicals poisining our atmosphere, an other proud contribution on the way to the extinction of the Humanity. Alain Copyright 2004 For fair use only/ pour usage iquitable seulement ***************************************************************** 25 [du-list] The Truth About Depleted Uranium Weaponry: The Only Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 19:17:04 -0700 The Truth About Depleted Uranium Weaponry: The Only Thing Depleting is Human Life By Vincent L. Guarisco May 5, 2004, 18:41 Axis of Logic http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_7217.shtml ''The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.'' ~~Michael Parenti, political scientist and author Ever notice how crafty the inventors of modern weaponry working for the Pentagon are -- giving their weapons misleading names that deliberately give the opposite impression of the actual intended use? None is more Orwellian, nor more ghoulish, than "Depleted Uranium," or its even less intrusive acronym -- "DU." Since the early 80's, the all-too-aware world has sounded the alarm about depleted uranium, from a full-blown international outcry to United Nations warnings transmitted through blood-stained pages of the Geneva and Nuremberg conventions to the echos of wooden mallets feverishly slamming down in the world court at the Hague. The message is very clear - the radiation level in depleted uranium is NOT depleted, in fact, it won't be depleted to any safe degree for about two billion years. In retrospect, that's a long time to beg for forgiveness, not only for what we have done, but for what we continue to do on multiple battlefields. Fact - only approximately 14 percent of Americans at best understand the full matrix surrounding depleted uranium. Listen up - depleted uranium is a deadly weapon of mass destruction that has been banned by virtually every nation on the planet. Its illegal use by the United States breaks all existing international treaties, conventions, protocols, and articles of war. It was first introduced into our arsenal around 1983 under the leadership directives of then President George H. W. Bush, and used in the first Gulf War in Iraq to the tune of 350 tons of exploded poison. The main difference between father Bush and his son is that junior unleashed his radioactive arsenal mainly in Iraqi urban centers and civilian neighborhoods, rather than in desert battlefields. Untold thousands of Iraqi people, U.S. soldiers, and coalition troops will pay the price for generations in chronic illness, widespread cancers, long-term disabilities and genetic birth defects. Last year, the Christian Science Monitor sent reporters into Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. In his May 15, 2003 report, (http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html) staff writer Scott Peterson tells of seeing children playing on top of a damaged tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad -- a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, Peterson pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. The families who survived the tragic decade of sanctions, and the recent shock-and-awe bombing campaign of Baghdad may not survive the radiated aftermath of this continued military sacrilege. The highly toxic "Highway of Death" in 1991 after Desert Storm was only a warm-up session compared to what is happening in Iraq during Enduring Freedom under George W. Bush. DU was introduced into our arsenal under the pretension that by incorporating this radioactive concoction into our munitions, it somehow makes them more armor piercing. Even if this is true, what they (the marketing department) forget to mention is that DU is perhaps the most lethal time-released agent ever to be unleashed on mankind except for maybe one exception -- its kin -- the Atom Bomb. Its poisonous effectiveness continues to take life long after the tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, Bradley vehicles, unmanned drones and troops have long gone, put simply, DU is a prolonged latent kiss of death that genetically keeps on embracing for generations to come. It's a fact that other nations will forever hold us responsible for what our government has done in our name, they fully understand that we are willing participants who supply the needed funds that build these weapons; ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for war crimes committed against humanity! This will not soon be forgotten or forgiven. Because I'm the offspring of an Atomic Veteran, and have witnessed what can happen to loved ones exposed to radiation, I hereby claim my right to rename DU --"Death Unlimited." May this horrible name always serve as a subliminal reminder whenever you hear others fraudulently attempting to reference it otherwise. The documented track record associated with DU is a hideous reality, a carcinogenic killer causing birth defects, lung disease, kidney disease, leukemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, bone cancer, and neurological disabilities, etc. When DU munitions explode, it becomes an atomized dust devil that fills the air with a blanket of radioactive poison, which travels in the wind and is easily inhaled and ingested. Then it enters the soil polluting ground water and infecting the food chain. Eventually, the uranium extends past its immediate epicenter impacting the surrounding environment. This stuff is nothing to play with. What is most astonishing is that most Americans have never even heard of DU, and few (14%) fully understand what it is, where its being used, and who is being targeted by its usage. DU is one of the Pentagon's best-kept secrets, its most widely-used genocidal weapon for wiping out entire populations quietly and covertly. Sara Flanders, co-director of the International Action Center and coordinator of the DU Education Project, writes ( http://www.coastalpost.com/03/09/11.htm ) that the Pentagon "continues to assert that there are no 'known' health problems associated with DU. But Army training manuals require anyone who comes within 75 feet of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain to wear respiratory and skin protection." Although the Bush Pentagon denies publicly that DU weapons can cause sickness, it's own internal reports warn that the radiation and heavy metal of DU weapons could cause kidney, lung and liver damage and increased rates of cancer. Flanders says the Pentagon continues to deny health problems associated with DU. But Army training manuals require anyone who comes within 75 feet of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain to wear respiratory and skin protection. Who comes up with this crazy stuff? Was DU conceived somewhere deep some murky hushed corridor of the Project for a New American century (PNAC)? Or perhaps it came from some other think tank that funded a secret scientific lab deep in the belly of the Atomic energy weapons program? What was the dialogue? Did they say---gee, let's invent a quiet nuclear weapon that can surreptitiously be deployed inside conventional weaponry to progressively eliminate our enemies (and their families) long after we are gone to help reduce future risks of blowback, retribution and revenge? They had to entertain the idea that every plan has a degree of downside -- surely they knew that by using these weapons in battle our own troops would be exposed too, in fact, even more so because they store, transport, handle and load these DU munitions into the very guns that fire them. So why do they continue with this knowing full well the danger to our own troops? Do they purposely shorten the lifespan of our soldiers to shave several costly years off healthcare and pension plans? What are we to think about all this? Are they premeditated murderers? According to Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist who led the first clean-up of depleted uranium after the Gulf War, "Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity." (Listen to Rokke's interview on the subject at http://traprockpeace.org/RokkePressConf23July03.html ) Rokke's own crew -- 100 employees -- was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy," Rokke said. However, after performing clean-up operations in the desert (mistakenly without protective gear), 30 staff members died, and most others -- including Rokke himself --developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems. "We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," Rokke said. Unbelievable? Think again. Or better yet---ask the more than 150,000 Gulf War Vets who have filed claims after previously serving in Iraq's toxic wastelands during the first Gulf War. After doing so, they were shamelessly denied their benefits by the risk management boys who said that Gulf War Syndrome was a figment of their imagination. Heck, the masters treat their dogs better then them! Is it any wonder that Uncle Sam took away their M-16's before they returned home? With arms in hand, I would love to know which way those same gun barrels would point after receiving such crap in the VA after serving so valiantly. Conspiracy theory? Everyone can't be wrong, so answer me this---why in Sam-Hell does the Pentagon continue to use these weapons even though there is an overwhelming abundance of scientific data from around the globe to back these claims? George W. Bush justifies his continued carnage with a convenient "Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator who gassed his own people and threatened his neighbors..." But Admiral Gene LaRocque, who fought the Cold War as a commander of a nuclear-armed carrier task force in Europe and served as a war planner in the Pentagon, says war has become a "spectator sport" for most Americans. LaRocque said: "I had been in thirteen battle engagements, had sunk a submarine, and was the first man ashore in the landing at Roi. In that four years, I thought, What a hell of a waste of a man's life. I lost a lot of friends. I had the task of telling my roommate's parents about our last days together. You lose limbs, sight, part of your life-for what? Old men send young men to war. Flag, banners, and patriotic sayings... "We've institutionalized militarism. This came out of World War Two... It gave us the National Security Council. It gave us the CIA, that is able to spy on you and me this very moment. For the first time in the history of man, a country has divided up the world into military districts.... You could argue World War Two had to be fought. Hitler had to be stopped. Unfortunately, we translate it unchanged to the situation today... "I hate it when they say, "He gave his life for his country." Nobody gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take it away from them. They don't die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them." Are George Bush and his Pentagon guilty of war crimes against the people of Iraq? By unleashing this most deadly of weapons of mass destruction, are they demonstrating reckless disregard for the health and safety of American troops? You be the judge. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 26 [DU-WATCH] Brussells Tribunal audio, DU news and Young Peace Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 00:47:30 -0500 (CDT) http://www.traprockpeace.org/brussells_tribunal.html * Brussells Tribunal on the Project for the New American Century - Here Hans Von Sponeck, Sara Flounders and Michel Collon on the building of the US empire under the PNAC, with questions by prosecution and defense. http://www.traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_army_policy.html In response to sick US soldiers who have tested positive for depleted9 uranium exposure, US Army reiterates9 its inadequate testing policy. British soldiers in Iraq, on the other hand, in Iraq are issued DU warning cards, advising them of possible DU exposure, that it poses risks to health, and that they may request urine testing. And what about the Iraqi9s exposed to DU over the long term? Finally some good news - http://www.traprockpeace.org/peace_makers_04/ See wonderful young peace makers - 14 honored at 5th Annual Peace Makers Award Ceremony Charles Jenks, attorney at law President of the Core Group Traprock Peace Center 103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342 413-773-1633; Fax 413-773-7507 charles@mtdata.com http://traprockpeace.org [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 27 [DU-WATCH] "Murky Facts On Sick G.I.s" Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 00:55:02 -0500 (CDT) New York Daily News, May 6, 2004 Murky Facts On Sick G.I.s By Juan Gonzalez No soldier from a New York Army National Guard unit that returned from Iraq last month has so far tested positive for depleted uranium, Pentagon doctors claimed this week. "None of the samples processed have measurable amounts of DU," said Lt. Col. Mark Melanson of the Army's Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Aberdeen, Md. The test results are preliminary, Melanson said, and he is still waiting for complete written reports on each soldier whose tests have been analyzed. In total, 56 soldiers from the442nd Military Police Company submitted urine samples last month at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington or Fort Dix, N.J., and the bulk have not yet been analyzed, Melanson said. Even if some soldiers do show traces in their bodies, Melanson said, "There are safe levels of depleted uranium intake. An individual could [safely] breathe in up to a gram per year every year for 50 years." "That's total nonsense," said Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves and a former head of nuclear medicine at a veterans hospital. Durakovic and a team of scientists tested nine soldiers from the 442nd at the request of the Daily News and concluded that four of them were contaminated with depleted uranium. The four, Durakovic said, had "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured from depleted uranium. The first batch of soldiers tested by the Army includes the nine Durakovic screened. "Their equipment is not able to accurately measure certain uranium isotopes," said Durakovic, who has reviewed the Army's preliminary lab reports. Durakovic was the first Army doctor to discover that a group of soldiers from the 1991 Persian Gulf War had been contaminated with depleted uranium. He has since become an expert on depleted uranium and an opponent of its use in warfare. Melanson is using a "faulty approach" that assumes radiation is spread out evenly over the whole body, Durakovic said. "Depleted uranium dust that is inhaled gets transferred from the lungs to the regional lymph nodes, where they can bombard a small number of cells in their immediate vicinity with intense alpha radiation," Durakovic said. Melanson's claim of a depleted uranium safety level also was questioned by Richard Leggett, a senior researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. "There's a lot of uncertainty in where the hazard really starts with depleted uranium," Leggett said. "Nobody knows for sure." Since depleted uranium is an extremely heavy metal, its "chemical toxicity" is an even bigger problem than its radioactivity, Leggett said. "All I know is I'm still sick and the Army can't tell me why," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, one of the soldiers caught in the crossfire of the experts. Ramos and others have suffered from chronic fatigue, migraine headaches, urinary problems, severe joint pain and other unexplained ailments since last summer when they were stationed in the Iraqi town of Samawah. "The Army says I'm negative and Dr. Durakovic says I'm positive, so now I want a third, independent test done," Ramos said. The soldiers say the Army agreed to test them only after The News started reporting on their plight. In a memo last week that specifically cited the publicity around the 442nd, Lt. Gen. James Peake of Army medical headquarters reminded all medical commanders of the existing depleted uranium monitoring policy. "If ... a patient expresses a valid concern about potential exposure to DU and requests a urine bioassay, then one should be ordered," Peake said. "It's been the policy for quite some time, but some people didn't take it seriously enough," admitted Col. Dallas Hack, head of preventive medicine at Walter Reed. Still, the Pentagon's existing policy is not nearly as careful about depleted uranium as is Britain's. Every British soldier dispatched to Iraq is handed a wallet-sized card by the Defense Ministry that states: "You have been deployed to a theater where depleted uranium munitions have been used. DU is a weakly radioactive heavy metal, which has the potential to cause ill health. You may have been exposed to dust containing DU during your deployment." The back of the card advises each soldier: "You are eligible for a urine test to measure for uranium. ... Consult your unit medical officer on return to your home base." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 28 [DU-WATCH] DU: An Eternal Damnation Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 01:15:45 -0500 (CDT) One half-life of u238 puts us beyond human time, as the sun is predicted to follow the development pattern of a main-sequence star. 10 half-lives will reduce the radioactivity of all extant u238 to about 0.1% of its current levels, but 45 billion years is not a pragmatic choice for a timeframe. The earth is predicted to be devoid of life long, long before then. I have pasted a couple of items on this below. 10,000 years may provide an outer bound for time frames. 1% of that will do nicely for estimating harm to our near generations. I expect that the US, UK, Australia and others in the "coalition of the willing" (doesn't sound so good now that CACI contractors are validating Stanley Milgram's old findings again, does it folks?) will be gone long before then, as well. Even the third Reich was only for 1000 years. But I have spent too much time reading about DU and not enough reading Nostradamus to know for sure whether we are likely to be here more than 10 years, in which case we need not worry much about long-term, low-level radiation at all. I have no doubt there are fruit loops in the US administration who privately comfort themselves with the imminent Rapture (Why can't I believe? Why am I stuck with a second-rate opiate like email?) but so far, all the florid millenialists of Anno Domini history have been mundanely disappointed, and none so sorely affected as the trusting victims of their hoaxes, scams and obsessions. Really, we need look no further than the simple fact that, while a near-obsessive standard of cleanliness is applied toward radioactive contamination in developed nations, war zones in other countries are given all the respect accorded filthy pissoirs by their sodden visitors. We are talking here about a short fraction of our own lives. Arithmetic is no use in comparing this number to estimates of miscarriages, abortions and short-lived monstrosities attributable to DU ordnance. The estimated political half-life of radioactive remnants of war I pray will become a matter of overriding concern to politicians who should really know better than to hang on to the coat-tails of a clown like Shrubby Bush. http://cse.cosm.sc.edu/hses/StarEvol/pages/main.htm "Our Sun is thought to have a main sequence life span of approximately 10 billion years. So, how long will our Sun continue to emit the heat and light necessary to sustain life on Earth? While it is not known exactly how old our Sun is, we do know that the oldest known rocks on Earth are known to be at least 4 billion years old, based on radioactive dating. If we assume that the Earth formed at about the same time as the Sun (approximately 4.5 billion years ago), our best estimates are that the Sun will continue to support life on Earth for another 5 billion years." (I forgot to paste the link to this one - 120 lashes with a wet noodle for me!) What will happen to life on Earth when the Sun becomes a red giant? Hi I am a novelist from Norway and I have some questions concerning the death of the sun. My questions: If the Sun became a red giant will the Earth still be able to support life here? Jagadheep: No, the Earth will not be able to support life if the Sun becomes a giant star. Giant stars have large radii as their name implies. When the Sun becomes a giant star, it may become so large as to engulf Earth, in which case the planet will be destroyed. Even if this does not happen, the sun will expand so far out that the temperatures on Earth will become extremely high so that all oceans will evaporate away, and there will be no water left on Earth. So, no life which depends on water will be able to survive. When the sun starts expanding in about 5 billion years, what will be the first signs of this process? Karen: The Sun is a relatively low mass star and as such its death will be relatively mundane (at least by Astronomical standards). The Sun's luminosity and radius have been increasing since it started life and will continue to gradually increase in this manner for another 4.5 billion years or so. When the hydrogen in the core is all used up energy generation will stop there, however it will continue in a thin shell around the core. It is this which makes the Sun expand since it heats up the outer layers more. Funnilly enough this makes the very outer layer cooler so that sun will actually redden as well as becoming brighter and expanding. I suspect that this reddening might be the first signs the the Sun has left the Main Sequence. How long will it take from the process starts til the earth is engulfed, or at least uninhabitable? Timescales are difficult in evolutionary models of stars. It's not clear quite what'll happen to the Earth either. It could be engulfed by the Sun, or it might get pushed out into a larger orbit and freeze as the Sun expands. The Sun will be a Red Giant for a few million years. By then I think it's safe to say that the Earth will be uninhabitable. Will the earth catch fire while humans still live here or will the planet simply dry out? I think that the temperature would kill life before anything caught on fire. It would only need to be 100F or so all the time for humans to be wiped out (we don't survive long in the desert, right). Is it probable that life on earth will survive that long, or will asteroids wipe us out before then? Probability wise, it's likely that the Human Race will have been killed off by the time the Sun leaves the Main Sequence. I don't think that any species in history has dominated the Earth for that long. Of course we could be the first.... April 2001, Jagadheep D. Pandian (more by Jagadheep D. Pandian), Karen Masters (more by Karen Masters) Related questions: Is the Sun expanding? Will it ever explode? Can supernovae hinder the formation of life in galaxies? Will the sun go supernova in six years and destroy Earth (as seen on Yahoo)? ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 29 UN Nuclear Watchdog Warns Of Radiation Risk Of Angioplasty Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 12:00:23 -0400 UN NUCLEAR WATCHDOG WARNS OF RADIATION RISK OF ANGIOPLASTY New York, May 7 2004 12:00PM Radiation from a common medical procedure known as angioplasty and other interventional heart procedures can cause relatively rare but severe and painful injuries and increase the probability of radiation-induced cancer, especially in small children, the United Nations nuclear watchdog warned today. “Most cardiologists have no idea the procedures they perform can cause severe and extremely painful radiation injuries,” Professor of Radiological Physics at the University of Texas Louis Wagner told a two-day meeting at the International Atomic Energy Agency <"http://www.iaea.or.at/"> (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna. “If a severe radiation burn is caused, more often than not it is then misdiagnosed,” Dr. Wagner said. “A gut-wrenching guess is about one patient per 10,000 receives a severe radiation injury.” Cardiologists from 25 countries attending the meeting ending today were briefed by experts about simple but very effective ways to help prevent, recognize and treat radiation burns, among them ensuring that unnecessary body parts, such as a patient’s arm or breast, are not inadvertently exposed to the X-ray beam. Doctors use angioplasty instead of open-heart surgery to unblock clogged arteries; the procedure involves passing a catheter through the blood vessel to open the blocked artery under fluoroscopic guidance using X-rays. Historically cardiologists have not been trained in radiation protection, and as accessibility to the technology has increased, so has the chances of erythema, or radiation burns from the X-rays used, IAEA Radiation Safety Specialist Madan Rehani said. Depending on the severity of the radiation dose, hair loss could occur or the rash can develop into a painfully sore ulcer, which requires surgical intervention such as skin grafts. “There is also a definite increase in the probability of radiation-induced cancer particularly when such procedures are performed on small children,” Dr. Rehani said. “It is important doctors recognize the symptoms of an X-ray injury,” Dr. Wagner added. Usually a rash will appear a few days or weeks at the exact spot where the X-Ray beam was most directed. “There have been many cases where a patient is told to apply a cream or that it is only an allergic reaction. Doctors are confused and befuddled because the progression of an X-ray injury is not understood,” he said. 2004-05-07 00:00:00.000 ________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml ***************************************************************** 30 The Herald: Setback for plans to dismantle nuclear submarines Web Issue 2000 May 07 2004 ROB CRILLY Environment Correspondent May 07 2004 PLANS to dismantle Britain's fleet of nuclear submarines suffered a setback yesterday when a public consultation rejected all four commercial bids to manage the radioactive waste. It also said any work to cut up nuclear reactor compartments should not be conducted near centres of population. The consultation was carried out for the Ministry of Defence by Lancaster University into Britain's 27 nuclear-powered submarines. Eleven already have been taken out of service and four are stored afloat at the Rosyth yard in Fife. The consultation asked local people what they thought about the work being done at Rosyth and three other sites around the UK. The vast majority of respondents said the work should not be carried out near population centres, possibly ruling out Rosyth and Devonport, in Plymouth. The report recommends that the MoD considers sites elsewhere for storage of intact reactor compartments. However, it does not rule out storing them at Rosyth from its seven submarines, as long as an alternative site is found for vessels decommissioned in future. If accepted by the MoD, the recommendations effectively would rule out all four existing applications to dispose of the waste without extensive modifications. Two companies propose cutting up reactor compartments at Rosyth before storing the waste elsewhere. Dounreay is among potential storage sites. The MoD is expected to make a decision on the bids by August next year. www.theherald.co.uk Copyright © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights [http://www.pressnow.co.uk/] :: About Us :: Terms of Use ***************************************************************** 31 BBC: Doctors 'cause radiation burns' Last Updated: Friday, 7 May, 2004 By Bethany Bell BBC correspondent in Vienna [Chest x-ray] Patients receive radiation doses up to 1,000 times that of a chest X-ray Experts at the UN's nuclear agency have warned that patients worldwide are suffering from radiation burns because doctors have not been properly trained. Cardiologists meeting in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency have been learning ways to prevent burns. Experts say heart patients are at risk during procedures such as angioplasty, in which a tube is passed through blood vessels to open blocked arteries. This procedure and others like it require constant X-ray monitoring. That results in radiation exposure that is around 1,000 times more than a standard chest X-ray. Lewis Wagner, professor of radiological physics at the University of Texas, says most cardiologists have no idea the procedures they perform can cause severe and extremely painful radiation injuries. There are no worldwide statistics on the number of such burns, but about one case a month is turning up in courts in the United States. The doctors gave a rough estimate of one severe burn in 10,000 procedures. Around a million angioplasty procedures are performed worldwide every year. ***************************************************************** 32 Bradenton Herald: Not knowing is worst part | 05/07/2004 | DANA SANCHEZ Herald Staff Writer TALLEVAST - Many families living in this small community of 85 homes have been touched by cancer, residents say. "We have a lot of health problems in common for such a small community," said Wanda Washington, Tallevast resident of 45 years. Tallevast is one of Manatee's oldest communities. Today's residents trace their roots to about 15 core families who moved here in the early 1900s. The American Beryllium Co. plant, which operated in the heart of the community almost 40 years, provided employment for many Tallevast men. "American Beryllium was an important part of people's lives," said Beverly Bradley, who has lived all her life across the street from the plant. "We always accepted whoever was in that building. Nobody thought it would have somebody who could hurt the community." Lockheed Martin Corp., a government contractor, bought the plant in 1997. Testing of groundwater since then has revealed toxic chemical contamination under the plant. Lockheed Martin has pledged to clean up the contamination. The extent of the contamination is unknown, but residents fear it could have spread to groundwater across the street and into their wells. "So many people have died of cancer, and we don't know why," said Beatrice Ziegler, 68, who was born in Tallevast and raised four children here. "We want a healthy place to live." Beryllium, old neighbor Tallevast residents were on well water until about 1985. Most switched to county water in the ensuing years, but about 12 residences are still on wells. Washington still uses well water but not for consumption. Most of the area's wells were shallow, she said, maybe 16 to 20 feet. "I wouldn't have known if I was drinking something contaminated, but it tasted bad," she said. "And it got worse." As a girl, Bradley, now 49, remembers using the plant as a short cut to the community center. She remembers jumping over an open cement drainage ditch that carried water away from the plant. "I remember the green algae in the ditch," she said. "It was nasty-looking. It went from the building to the road. Nobody thought much of it." That drainage ditch carried beryllium, said Bradley's father, Clarence Byers, who worked nine years at the plant as a clerk in the parts department. "It ran down a ditch 20 feet away from where kids played," he said. As a maintenance worker at American Beryllium, Charlie Ziegler handled beryllium for 21 years. Every day at noon, he emptied beryllium powder from tanks into containers, which were shipped away for recycling. The fine metal powder looked like charcoal, Ziegler said. In 1972 or 1973, OSHA came in and imposed a better vacuuming system, Ziegler recalls. "Anywhere in that building, you were exposed to it at all times, because it was a fine dust," he said. When he first went to work at the plant, Ziegler didn't know what beryllium was. Then he learned it was a poisonous metal. But the pay was good, he said. Union wages kept him there. International American Trade Union pays Byers' and Ziegler's pension. "If I had to recall it, I wouldn't work there again," Ziegler said. Washington remembers hearing how beryllium was stored on top of the building. The plastic containers had holes in them, and on windy days, it would blow all over the community, she said. "This problem dates way back when I was a child," Washington said. "It's really scary. A lot of the illnesses could take years before you feel the effect." Health problems Tallevast resident Deidre Smith, 44, drank well water until she was 15. She was not aware of pollution until recently. "My uncle died of cancer, and he worked there," Smith said. "My mom, Leola Smith, died of breast cancer last May 24. I had two brothers who worked there." Smith is fatalistic about her future. "It doesn't make me scared living here," Smith said. "God's got my time. I think most people think that." Bradley has endured health problems of her own. She suffered three miscarriages, two stillbirths and has a skin condition on her hands that has not responded to medicine. And she has questions: Did authorities know about contamination at American Beryllium? Was the contamination the result of neglect or was it unintentional? "It's kind of hard to judge when you don't know," Bradley said. Tallevast residents plan to find out. FOCUS, a community group formed by Tallevast residents, surveyed the community in the past three weeks. Residents were asked to document illnesses they and their family members have suffered. The results still must be tabulated. Bradley remembers exactly where she was the day she found out she was pregnant with her first child. She was fishing in a pond at the beryllium plant. American Beryllium benefited the community for many years, she said. It kept the men working close to home and reduced the need for them to seek employment far away. "It's shocking that all these years, you had a company that benefited the community, only to find out it may not have benefited the community so much after all," Bradley said. Many families have been hurt, Washington said. "We'll be able to verify that, once all the health studies are done," she said. "Right now, we're trying to find out what's the extent of the contamination, how much damage is already done, and what do we need to do to clean it up." ***************************************************************** 33 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast residents fear chemical contamination | 05/07/2004 | ALEX DIAZ-The Herald Tallevast resident Charlie Ziegler, left, and Clarence Byers used to work for American Beryllium. Ziegler says knowing what he knows now, he would not have taken the job. Industrial site leaked solvents, heavy metals KEVIN O'HORAN Herald Staff Writer Potential cancer-causing chemicals leaked from an industrial site in Tallevast sometime over the past four decades - a revelation that has residents fearing for their health and questioning corporate responsibility. Those who live near the former American Beryllium Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road want to know if solvents and metals that leaked from the site have poisoned their drinking water and yards. They want to know why Lockheed Martin Corp. - the company that now owns the plant and discovered the leak - waited months to sound the alarm. "I fear for myself; I fear for my children," said Wanda Washington, a lifelong resident of the little community in southern Manatee County. The community has been shaken by the cadre of cleanup crews, regulators and health professionals now probing the area's soil, the water and even the residents for signs of trouble. Already, the list of chemicals found by Lockheed's testing on and around the site is daunting: trichloroethylene, beryllium, chromium, vinyl chloride, dichloroethane, petroleum and more. The materials have been linked to cancer, respiratory problems, kidney ailments and more, according to federal health officials. More troubling still is the finding - again, by Lockheed's testing - that many of the chemicals have moved farther off-site. Some trickled into groundwater still tapped as a drinking source by a dozen or so homes; others may have been carted off in dirt used to level area yards after an excavation of years past. No one knows just how much has moved, or when. No one can say for sure how much of a threat the contamination poses to residents. "I'm not sure we could answer that question," said Mike Zavosky, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's office in Tampa. "We are looking at this very closely." Soup of toxins The plant first fired up in 1961 as Visioneering Company Inc. For three-plus decades, under various ownership and various names, the facility churned out high-tech electronics gear. Part of that process involved piping a stream of used process water to treatment and holding ponds on the east end of the five-acre property. DEP regulators say they have no records of any spill occurring at the plant. But Lockheed officials, who bought the plant in 1997 as part of a larger corporate acquisition and shut it down, found that sometime during the plant's life, the concrete that lines the ponds cracked. The water that slipped through contained the soup of toxins now spilling across the area. Beryllium and chromium, metals used in the production process, washed out with the liquid and into the soil beneath the sumps, Lockheed found in an investigation sparked when the company tried to sell the plant. Trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, spilled to the soil, then seeped into the groundwater below. Other similar compounds, including dichloroethane, followed the same path. Still more appeared as the first wave of chemicals began to break down. The metals stayed in the soil at the site, tests have shown. Tests of soil excavated have not been done so far. "We've got a list of four sites that stated they got soil from American Beryllium from an excavation project," said Meredith Davis, Lockheed's senior manager of corporate affairs. The solvents moved more readily, flowing with the natural groundwater movement to the northeast. In Lockheed's latest findings - submitted to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in December 2003 - the contamination extends to the north for some 100 feet and roughly 200 feet to the east, flowing under Tallevast Road and 17th Street East and under all or parts of 10 homesteads. The leak itself may have occurred for years; uncovering it definitely took years. The process started when aerospace giant Lockheed took control of the property in a 1997 deal to acquire the holdings of Loral American Beryllium Corp., which then owned the Tallevast site. Lockheed was more interested in other Loral holdings and shut the doors at the plant in 1997. "We never operated the facility at all," Davis said. Two years after buying it, the company put the Tallevast site on the market. By 2000, they found a buyer in Wire Pro International - WPI Inc., a New Jersey-based cable producer. As part of the sale, Lockheed agreed to test the property for pollution and clean up any found, Davis said. They found it. Beryllium was discovered in the soil around the ponds, at nearly three times what the state considers acceptable. Petroleum was found at 50 times what the state calls for. And residues of trichloroethylene turned up. "The beryllium made sense, because that was the treatment area for what was coming out of the facility," Davis said. "That wasn't a surprise. The surprise was that the liner had cracked." Contaminated water Lockheed worked out a cleanup plan with DEP. Company crews scooped out 500 tons of tainted soil from the sump area in 2001, then capped it to keep rain from washing through. They also sunk wells on the site that year to check whether toxins had reached the groundwater, which can rise to just five feet from the surface in some areas, officials say. In quarterly reports filed with DEP, Lockheed noted the wells showed no signs of the beryllium. But they did uncover solvents, most notably trichloroethylene at up to 4,300 parts per billion - or more than 1,000 times what Florida statutes allow in drinking water. Late in 2002, the company dropped more testing wells into the ground, this time outside the property lines to see how far the contamination had moved and how severe the level of toxins in the water. By early 2003, it had results. Trichloroethylene and a host of related compounds - primarily those that form when the parent chemical breaks down - had drifted with the groundwater. And Lockheed went back to DEP to update the site cleanup plan. "Lockheed Martin has been very good to work with," said Michael Gonsalves, DEP's waste cleanup supervisor in Tampa. "They've walked through every step of the project with us." Residents last to know Residents, though, say they knew none of this. They had hints and suspicions, wondering among themselves each time another monitoring well was sunk into the ground, and questioning openly when Lockheed recently presented and then took back a gift of two trailer offices. No one at Lockheed had spread the word in the community. No one had told residents to stop using well water. No one had warned people like Clarence Byers, a 75-year-old Tallevast resident who worked at American Beryllium for nine years, that the three truckloads of dirt his former employer gave him to raise up the level of his back yard might be contaminated. No one in the community learned about the problem until last year, when residents actually approached the company. "That was our delay," Davis said. "There's no rationale for it." As a lifelong Tallevast resident, Washington is among those pressing the company for answers. What she's heard so far has done little to ease her fears about using the groundwater that still flows from a well to her home. "I've been told that we shouldn't be using it for anything," she said, "not even to bathe in." Other alarming accounts permeate the community. Beverly Bradley, who has lived all her 49 years here, wonders if there's a connection between the releases and her three miscarriages, two stillbirths and the patches of discolored skin on her hands. The number of cancer incidents in the community, residents say, has spiked in recent years. The stories have prompted DEP to request a study by the Florida Department of Health's Manatee office, Gonsalves said, in part using data collected from a survey by FOCUS, a community activist group. But it will be months before the results come in, and even then they might not be decisive. "It would have to be 'fingerprinted' that the chemicals came from that specific site," said Zavosky, the DEP spokesman. Fingerprinting is identifying that the chemical came from that plant. Lockheed to clean up As that unfolds, Lockheed officials say they will do what it takes to clean the site, to make sure it and the surrounding community are safe. That's not just a company promise, DEP's Gonsalves noted, it's Florida law, even when a company buys into a site already tainted by spills. "If it's not clearly stated otherwise in the sales contract, then, yes, they do" assume liability, he said. "You buy it, you own it." For Lockheed, that means finding the extent of the contamination and cleaning it up, including finding any of the homes that received possibly tainted soil, Davis said. It also means finding out how many homes still have wells that dip into the groundwater, she added, and testing the water there. Lockheed will gather samples from homes still connected to wells, then split those samples, sending one each to their lab of choice and a lab chosen by FOCUS. Any dirty water that turns up means shutting down the well and hooking the home into the county's water supply lines - all at Lockheed's expense. The company plans to take care of any contamination and any resultant situations. "Loral doesn't exist any more," Davis said. "When we purchased the company, we obviously assumed all of their liabilities. "We're just going to clean it up." ***************************************************************** 34 NRC: Finding of No Significant Impact and Notice of Availability of FR Doc E4-1035 [Federal Register: May 7, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 89)] [Notices] [Page 25616-25617] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07my04-96] the Environmental Assessment Addressing License Renewal, Cabot Corporation, Boyertown, PA AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Elaine Brummett, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop T8-A33, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-6606 and e-mail esb@nrc.gov [esb@nrc.gov] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the issuance of an amendment for the renewal of Source Material License SMB-920 for the Cabot Corporation (through its subsidiary, Cabot Supermetals (CSM)) for continued operations. The facility uses ore containing source material (uranium and thorium) to produce tanalium and niobium at the Boyertown, Pennsylvania site. All the processes in the plant and most of the radiological procedures have remained unchanged, except for the detailed procedures for monitoring and analyzing radiological conditions. Also, Cabot has modified the radiation safety programs in order to strengthen and improve the levels of management and the employee involvement. The licensee's revised application for license renewal was received electronically on March 24, 2004, and the CSM transmittal letter was dated March 29, 2004. The original application was previously noticed in the Federal Register on June 5, 2002 (67 FR 38679), with an opportunity to provide written comments or to request a hearing. II. Summary of the Environmental Assessment The EA was prepared to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with continued operation of the Boyertown facility. In the conduct of its evaluation, the NRC considered the following: (1) The CSM revised application; (2) information contained in prior [[Page 25617]] environmental evaluations of the facility; (3) information in the Cabot environmental monitoring reports; (4) information derived from the NRC site visits and inspections of the site; and (5) from communications with CSM, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the State Historic Preservation Office, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In preparing the EA, the NRC evaluated the potential impacts to cultural resources, threatened and endangered species, ambient air quality, surface waters, and groundwater at the Boyertown site. Additionally, the NRC evaluated the potential impacts to members of the public from the plant activities, including the potential radiological impacts. The results of the staff's evaluation are documented in an EA which is available electronically for public inspection or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS). The safety aspects of the Boyertown operations are discussed separately in a Safety Evaluation Report that will accompany the agency's final licensing action on CSM's request to renew Source Materials License SMB-920. III. Finding of No Significant Impact Pursuant to 10 CFR part 51, the NRC has prepared the EA, summarized above. The NRC staff has concluded that current operation and the proposed licensing action of continued operation of the Cabot facility will not have a significant impact on the environment. The proposed NRC approval of the action, when combined with known effects on resource areas at the site, is not anticipated to result in any cumulative impacts. Therefore, the NRC staff has concluded that there will be no significant environmental impacts on the quality of the human environment and, accordingly, the staff has determined that preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement is not warranted. IV. Further Information The EA for this proposed action, as well as the licensee's request, as revised, are available electronically for public inspection in the NRC's Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] . The ADAMS Accession Numbers for the licensee's revised application is: ML040860628 and ML040860633, March 23, 2004 (Form 313 dated February 6, 2004), and ML040930203, March 29, 2004. The ADAMS Accession Number for the EA is: ML041030379, April 12, 2004. Most of the documents referenced in the EA are also available through ADAMS. Documents can also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's Public Document Room, O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1 (800) 397-4209, or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of April, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Elaine Brummett, Project Manager, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. E4-1035 Filed 5-6-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 35 Japan Times: Nuclear plant exposure levels raise eyebrows Saturday, May 8, 2004 Nuclear plant workers in Japan have suffered the world's highest collective radiation exposure for four consecutive years, prompting the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to consider improvements, it was learned Friday. Sources said the agency is studying ways to bolster maintenance procedures, including an analysis of service procedures used at reactors in other countries. It hopes to come up with improvements by 2005, in time for the next meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety. Japan's situation was criticized in April 2002, when the convention held its last meeting. Japan's average collective radiation count for workers per light-water reactor was 1.55 man-sieverts in fiscal 2002, said the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. The count is 1.31 man-Sv in the U.S., one man-Sv in Germany and 0.97 man-Sv in France. The Czech Republic recorded the lowest, at 0.2 man-Sv. The man-Sv unit represents the collective annual exposure of all workers needed to maintain each reactor. An organization official said a large number of workers are involved in servicing nuclear plants in Japan, and so the exposure per person is low. The Japan Times: May 8, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 36 NRC: NRC Proposes $7,500 Fine Against New Jersey 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-04-027 May 7, 2004 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $7,500 civil penalty against a Wayne, N.J., company for a failure to maintain control over a gauge that uses a radioactive source to measure the thickness of material. The device emits radiation, which both penetrates and is reflected by the material to be measured. Detectors then assess the amount of radiation that passes through or is reflected to determine the thickness. On January 3, a representative of the Onyx Greentree Landfill in Kersey, Pa., informed the NRC that a radioactive source, containing 150 millicuries of americium-241, had been found in a shipment of waste from Totowa, N.J. Based on information provided by a consultant to the landfill, the NRC traced the radioactive material to a nuclear gauge that the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation, based in Wayne, N.J., had obtained in the past. On January 14, the NRC conducted an inspection at the companys facility. Subsequently, the company sent the agency a letter on February 5 in which it described the events that led to the loss of the device and corrective actions it had taken to prevent a recurrence. Saint-Gobain reported that the gauge had been mistakenly discarded in the normal trash after being disassembled. Based on the information developed during the inspection as well as the companys response, the NRC has proposed a $7,500 fine against the firm for failing to maintain control of the gauge. Although the gauges source was in the shielded condition at the time it was discovered at the landfill, this violation is of concern to the NRC because (1) the failure to control the gauge resulted in the loss of radioactive material in the public domain; and (2) such sources can result in substantial unintended radiation dose to an individual if the source is removed from the shielded position, NRC Region I Administration Hubert J. Miller wrote in a letter to the company regarding the enforcement action. Saint-Gobain has informed the NRC that it has implemented several corrective actions in response to the event. These include recovery of the source from the landfill; shipping the source back to the manufacturer for proper disposal; inventorying all radioactive sources located at its facility; and providing training for all employees involved with work in the areas of the radioactive devices. The company has 30 days from receipt of the letter to either pay the civil penalty or protest its imposition. Last revised Friday, May 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 37 [du-list] Graham amendment on DOD auth bill Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 14:31:59 -0700 Senate committee clears DOE to reclassify S.C. nuclear waste Michael Burnham, Environment & Energy Daily reporter The Energy Department would be able to reclassify high-level waste left in storage tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to language added last night to the FY '05 Defense authorization bill. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) added the DOE-crafted provision to the defense spending bill during a closed-door markup by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The provision, which is opposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups, would essentially amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and allow nuclear waste to remain in tanks after radionuclides are removed. Under an early draft of the rider, which was leaked to the press last week, the Energy Department would have been allowed to keep almost 100 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste in state-approved tanks at nuclear facilities in South Carolina, Washington and Idaho, instead of moving the material to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in southwest Nevada. The committee, however, ultimately passed a draft of the rider that would affect only nuclear waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Neither Graham nor his spokesman could be reached for comment last night. The legislation would trump a July 2003 decision by the U.S. District Court in Boise, Idaho, which nullified a federal plan that allowed the Energy Department to reclassify high-level waste left in storage tanks after some liquid material was removed. Democratic committee lawmakers and senators from states with DOE nuclear facilities mounted significant opposition toward Graham's rider in recent days. The pressure appeared great enough to pare back the rider's scope to just South Carolina, but not enough to defeat it. Yesterday afternoon, Idaho Sens. Larry Craig (R) and Mike Crapo (R) sent a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) urging the committee to add language that would treat waste at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory as high-level waste, in accordance with treatment and closure plans approved by the state of Idaho. "Further, we ask that the committee encourage the Department of Energy to continue working with the governor of Idaho and officials of the state of Idaho to clarify and resolve the final classification and disposal path of all materials in Idaho currently managed as high-level radioactive waste," concluded the letter, which was also signed by Idaho Reps. Mike Simpson (R) and Butch Otter (R). Washington Sens. Maria Cantwell (D) and Patty Murray (D) were also among those against the rider. The senators, whose state is home to the Hanford Nuclear Facility, sent a letter to the committee Wednesday in anticipation of the markup. While both Idaho and Washington were cut from the bill that passed, Cantwell vowed to press members of the full Senate to oppose the Graham amendment. The body is expected to vote on the DOD bill later this month. "This legislation turns 30 years of law on its head for one region of the country without a single legislative hearing in the traditional committee of jurisdiction, just to overturn a court ruling this administration doesn't like," Cantwell said. President Bush's FY '05 budget proposal would allow DOE to withhold from states $350 million that is earmarked for cleaning up waste at the sites in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina. Agency officials have vowed that the money will not be spent until a workable solution to the waste reclassification impasse is resolved, whether it be accomplished in the court or Congress. The agency is challenging the Idaho court decision in San Francisco's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. NRDC is the respondent in the case, and six states -- Idaho, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina and Washington -- have filed an amicus brief with the appeals court. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee's ranking member, offered an amendment last night that would have forced DOE to loosen its hold on the $350 million and clean up radioactive waste in tanks at the three sites. The amendment failed along party lines, a Democratic aide said. Cantwell charged that the rider will allow the Bush administration to continue to use the $350 million to "coerce states into agreeing with its nuclear waste reclassification plans. "Unfortunately, we have no choice but to address this issue on the Senate floor," Cantwell added. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Yahoo! Domains - Claim yours for only $14.70 http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1wmxD/DREIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 38 NRC: jointly seeking proposed changes to the International Atomic FR Doc 04-10473 [Federal Register: May 7, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 89)] [Notices] [Page 25656-25657] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07my04-115] Energy Agency (IAEA) Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (referred to as TS-R-1). The proposed changes that are submitted by the U.S. and other IAEA member states and International Organizations might necessitate subsequent domestic compatibility rulemakings by both DOT and NRC. DATES: Proposals will be accepted June 7, 2004. Proposals received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, however we are only able to assure consideration only for proposals received on or before this date. ADDRESSES: You may submit proposed changes identified by the docket number (RSPA-04-16964 (Notice No. 04-3)) by any of the following methods: Web site: http://dms.dot.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://dms.dot.gov] . Follow the instructions for submitting comments on the DOT electronic docket site. Fax: 1-202-493-2251. Mail: Docket Management System; U.S. Department of Transportation, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Nassif Building, Room PL-402, Washington, DC 20590-001. Hand Delivery: To the Docket Management System; Room PL- 402 on the plaza level of the Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays. Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.regulations.gov] . Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Instructions: All submissions must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) for this notice. For detailed instructions on submitting proposals and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the Public Participation heading of the Supplementary Information section of this document. Note that all proposals received will be posted without change to http://dms.dot.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://dms.dot.gov] including any personal information provided. Please see the Privacy Act heading under Supplementary Information. Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or proposals received, go to http://dms.dot.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://dms.dot.gov] at any time or to the Docket Management System (see ADDRESSES). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Rick Boyle, Office of Hazardous Material Technology, U.S. Department of Transportation, Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington DC, 20590-0001; (202) 366-2993; rick.boyle@rspa.dot.gov [rick.boyle@rspa.dot.gov] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Background The IAEA periodically revises its Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material to reflect new information and accumulated experience. The DOT is the U.S. competent authority before the IAEA for radioactive material transportation matters. The NRC provides technical support to the DOT in this regard, particularly with regard to Type B and fissile packages. The IAEA recently initiated the review cycle for the 2007 edition of its regulations. The IAEA's review process calls for Member States and International Organizations to provide proposed changes to the IAEA by July 15, 2004. The objective is publication of revised regulations in 2007, nominally [[Page 25657]] to become effective worldwide in 2009. To assure opportunity for public involvement in the international regulatory development process, the DOT and the NRC are soliciting proposals for changes to the IAEA Regulations at this time. This information will assist the DOT and the NRC in having a full range of views as the agencies develop the proposed changes the U.S. will submit to the IAEA. II. Public Participation Proposed changes should identify the docket number (RSPA-04-16964 (Notice No. 04-3)) and if by mail proposed changes are to be submitted in two copies. Persons wishing to receive confirmation of receipt of their proposals should include a self-addressed stamped postcard. Internet users may access all proposals received by the U.S. Department of Transportation at http://dms.dot.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://dms.dot.gov] . Proposed changes must be submitted in writing (electronic file on disk in Microsoft Word format preferred) and are to include: Name; Address; Telephone no.; E-mail address; Objective of change/regulatory problem (e.g., a description of the problem being addressed and its consequences); Justification for change (e.g., the proposed change maintains safety in transport, is risk-informed, and is effective and efficient (e.g., does not impose an undue burden on shippers or carriers)); Paragraphs of the current regulations (TS-R-1) affected (existing text, and proposed new text); and Modification of or additional guidance material (existing text, and proposed new text); and reference(s) and/or reference material as needed. The DOT and the NRC will review the proposed changes and rationales. Based in part on the information received, the U.S. will propose changes to be submitted to the IAEA by July 15, 2004. Proposals for changes from all Member States and International Organizations will be considered at an IAEA Review Panel Meeting to be convened by IAEA on September 27-October 1, 2004, in Vienna, Austria. Prior to that meeting, the DOT and the NRC anticipate holding a public meeting to solicit comment on all (including U.S.) proposed changes submitted to the IAEA. III. Privacy Act Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all proposed changes received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the proposed change (or signing the proposed change, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published on April 11, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 70; Pages 19477-78) or may visit http://dms.dot.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://dms.dot.gov] . Issued in Washington, DC on May 4, 2004. Robert A. McGuire, Associate Administrator for Hazardous Materials Safety. [FR Doc. 04-10473 Filed 5-6-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4910-60-P ***************************************************************** 39 Salt Lake Tribune: Plan to use trust lands for N-waste reappears May 07, 2004 By Judy Fahys Plan B, the proposal to use school trust lands for a lucrative nuclear reactor-rod disposal site, is nosing into public view again -- this time with Washington County leaders backing the San Juan County commission. Today the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) plans to discuss Plan B, even though state elected leaders have a long history of scorning the idea. Prompted by letters from leaders in Utah's southern corners, the board has put the multibillion-dollar proposal on the agenda for its monthly meeting. "It is not the kind of thing the [schools trust] administration would initiate," said SITLA spokesman Dave Heberston, from Kanab, where the meeting is being held. "We would need to know that the governor's office and the Legislature were behind such an initiative before we would go forward." San Juan County Commissioner Ty Lewis pointed out the prevailing sentiment in the Capitol could change soon with new leadership. More than a decade ago, former Gov. Mike Leavitt flatly rejected his county's request to explore a state-sponsored waste site. "We think there's a place in San Juan County to put it," said Lewis, who has previously estimated the waste could be an economic boon to his job-starved area. Lewis noted that much of the uranium extracted for reactor rods came from southeastern Utah mines anyhow, and he is convinced returning it there would be safe. "If SITLA is truly committed to generating the highest revenue off its lands for the schoolkids, then there's nothing out there better than that" high-level nuclear waste, he added. SITLA invited a group of pro-waste consultants to make its case to its executive board last year. Then it heard from the Nuclear Opposition coalition, Leavitt's group to block a nuclear waste storage project proposed by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and a utility consortium called Private Fuel Storage (PFS). That's as far as SITLA got. Last month, the Washington County Commission piped up for San Juan County's idea. "Wherever these spent [reactor fuel] rods end up, there is going to be a huge paycheck," the commissioners' letter said. Washington County Commissioner Alan D. Gardner said Thursday that putting the state in charge of the waste would get the deadly reactor discards away from the populated Wasatch Front Dianne Nielson, director of the state's Department of Environmental Quality and a leader in the state's fight against high-level waste, noted longstanding opposition to the idea by Leavitt and his successor, Gov. Olene Walker, as well as lawmakers. "The probability is pretty unlikely for a Plan B solution," she said. The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) also wrote to SITLA Thursday to question the wisdom of the counties' request. "There are better ways to meet rural economic development needs and the needs of our schoolchildren," said HEAL Director Jason Groenewold. "> Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune ***************************************************************** 40 Las Vegas RJ: Views contrast on Yucca shipments Friday, May 07, 2004 Officials in some states not alarmed by prospect of moving nuclear waste by barge or in casks By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Officials in the South and in the Northeast who are experienced in handling nuclear waste aren't as alarmed as counterparts in Nevada at the prospect of shipping highly radioactive material to Yucca Mountain, a study panel was told on Thursday. Representatives from those regions said they don't think it is necessary to conduct new full-scale tests for casks that will be used to ship spent nuclear fuel to the proposed repository. However, they said their states will support new tests if they will serve to assure the public that nuclear waste can be shipped safely. "We understand this is a political issue," said Christopher Wells, senior policy analyst for the Southern States Energy Board, a consortium that advises 16 governors on nuclear power matters. States in the two regions also might not oppose moving nuclear waste by barge from water-accessible power plants to rail cars destined for Nevada, the officials said during presentations to a National Academy of Sciences panel studying waste transportation. The views from officials in those parts of the country contrast with Nevada leaders who have insisted the government conduct extensive full-scale tests of casks that will be utilized in a Yucca Mountain shipping campaign. Nevada officials and environmental groups also have raised alarms at potential accident dangers of shipping radioactive waste over water. There is opposition in the Midwest to having nuclear waste travel on the Great Lakes, the study panel was told. But Edward Wilds Jr., radiation division director for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, told the academy there might be more comfort with the idea in the East, where nuclear material has been barged on the Connecticut River and down the Atlantic coast. Wells said Mississippi, Alabama and Florida also are looking at a barge proposal the Department of Energy is considering as part of its Yucca Mountain campaign. Wells said states in the South have worked with the Department of Energy to accept nuclear waste from foreign reactors and to ship mixed radioactive material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. "It is our experience from all the campaigns that both sides have to perform extra-regulatory duties," he said. "The Energy Department has to go above and beyond to satisfy the states, and the states have to go above and beyond to satisfy the public." Devoting attention to a public perception of risk from nuclear waste "is something that has to be done," Wells said. "But as the shipments become routine, the issue seems to fade away." Wilds spoke to the academy board on behalf of a Council of State Governments energy task force. On the issue of cask testing, Wilds said energy advisers to governors in the Northeast "have a lot of comfort with modeling," the system utilizing computer programs to evaluate cask designs. "There are a lot of major things built without full-scale testing," Wilds said, including the nuclear-powered Seawolf submarine assembled in Connecticut. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has come out in support of full-scale cask testing but still is considering what type of tests to conduct. Marvin Resnikoff, a Nevada-hired technical consultant, told the study panel full-scale cask tests performed at Sandia National Laboratories in the late 1970s have grown outdated. "There are new casks that are being used," Resnikoff said. "Programs should be benchmarked by these new tests." Resnikoff said Nevada advocates new tests that would determine how much stress casks could withstand before they fail. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 41 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yucca fight can be won LAS VEGAS SUN At a public meeting Wednesday in rural Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, maps on display showed a proposed 319-mile rail line running between the city and Yucca Mountain. The approximately 100 people attending seemed to agree: The federal plan to permanently bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste under the mountain will prevail. The sentiment that carried the night in Caliente, of course, is not consistent with how most Nevadans feel about Yucca Mountain. Overwhelmingly, Nevadans understand the danger a nuclear waste dump represents and support the state's fight against it. Many people in the Caliente area, including the city's mayor, however, are more focused on new local jobs than on any danger associated with radioactive contamination. The new rail line, serviced by a new depot, would receive spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste from around the country and carry the deadly cargo the rest of the way to Yucca Mountain. This would mean workers. We would hope that as the proposal to build a new rail line at Caliente moves forward -- more public hearings will be held and an environmental impact statement must be completed -- the sense of inevitability expressed Wednesday in Caliente will be drowned out. Yucca Mountain is far from being a done deal. The state government, financially assisted by many counties, cities, businesses and individual residents, is waging a legal battle against Yucca Mountain that has an excellent chance of being won. There are too many valid safety and technical points in the state's case to believe that Yucca Mountain is inevitable. The latest shocker is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency which will decide whether to give the Energy Department a license to operate Yucca Mountain. The commission is saying it doesn't believe that the casks carrying the deadly waste during transportation to Yucca need to be tested to determine their breaking point. Nevada has all along supported full cask testing, for the safety of people along the transportation routes. We hope people in the Caliente area who say Yucca Mountain is inevitable think long and hard about what could be rolling past their houses if the rail line is built. ***************************************************************** 42 Guardian Unlimited: Provision Would Change Nuclear Waste Law [UP] Friday May 7, 2004 10:31 PM By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate committee has approved changes in the law that will allow the Energy Department to avoid removing thousands of gallons of highly radioactive sludge from tanks at a federal nuclear site in South Carolina. Energy Department officials expressed hope the breakthrough might also help them reach agreement with Washington and Idaho officials on the treatment of millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste kept at DOE facilities in those states. The Senate Armed Services Committee agreed to put the change in a defense bill, despite objections from Washington's two senators, who are not on the panel. The provision was sought by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who said the change - limited to waste at the Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C., was needed to implement an agreement reached between the Energy Department and the state. The provision was approved late Thursday during a closed committee meeting where the defense legislation was being crafted. The decision was made public Friday. The Energy Department has been stymied in an attempt to reclassify some of the 90 million gallons of radioactive waste kept in tanks at federal facilities in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina so it would not have to ship it to a special high-level waste repository. The department claims the residual sludge, the byproduct of Cold War bomb-making, is too expensive to extract. Instead, the government says, it can be diluted by covering it with grout so it can be left in place as less radioactive ``low level'' waste. After a federal judge in Idaho last year ruled that reclassifying such sludge as low-level waste violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the department began pushing members of Congress to change the law. Graham's provision limits the change in the law to waste at the Savannah River site where 34 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste is being kept in tanks. He said the agreement with DOE would allow the sludge lining the bottom and sides of the tank to remain in place and be covered by grout, saving $16 billion in cleanup costs and shortening the cleanup time by 23 years. The provision, Graham said, still ``allows South Carolina and DOE to define high level waste in a very reasonable manner. ... There's nothing going to be left behind ... that will not be secured through environmental remediating to protect South Carolina.'' But state officials in Idaho and Washington oppose any changes in the law unless they are assured the states will have a final say in how the waste will be handled. The changes put into the defense bill ``would minimize the role of (state) regulators in overseeing decisions regarding this waste's disposal,'' argued Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington in a letter to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Armed Services Committee chairman. They said it would give the Energy Department the go-ahead ``to define what constitutes cleanup.'' Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said the change in the law, once it is approved by Congress and the agreement with South Carolina is signed, will ensure continued cleanup of the waste tanks at Savannah River. The department had threatened to withhold some cleanup funds after the court put its plans for dealing with the sludge into limbo. McSlarrow said negotiations were continuing with Idaho and Washington ``so that we can devise a solution that will work for these other states as well.'' He has said the department would make no decision to change the law beyond South Carolina without involving the states. There are 34 million gallons of waste in underground tanks at the Savannah River site; 53 million gallons in tanks at the Hanford site near Richland, Wash.; and 900,000 gallons in tanks at the INEEL facility in Idaho. The waste has been described as a ``witches brew of radioactivity'' left over from years of reprocessing to make plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Geoffrey Fettus, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the suit that led to the Idaho court decision, said the cleanup changes sought by the Energy Department and pushed by Graham ``would create nuclear waste cesspools'' and a ``legacy of radioactive pollution'' at the defense sites. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 43 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: Guinn gives 'Mr. Nuke' a reward Today: May 07, 2004 at 11:18:04 PDT Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at [german@lasvegassun.com] or (702) 259-4067. No one has fought harder against the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain than Gov. Kenny Guinn. But the Republican governor slipped up this week when he appointed Ace Robison, a leading Yucca Mountain advocate -- or "Mr. Nuke," as the Nevada opposition forces call him -- to a plum position on the Colorado River Commission. The appointment comes on the heels of a weekend attempt by Yucca Mountain supporters at the Republican Party's state convention to win approval for a platform resolution urging Nevada officials to seek economic benefits for the nearby dump. The failed effort was seen as a sign of weakness on the part of the state in its high-stakes battle with the nuclear industry and the Energy Department. Guinn played a big role in shooting down the resolution. But then he turned around and put a hired gun of the industry on one of the state's most important commissions, which created still another impression that opposition is weakening. What was the governor thinking? Through his consulting firm, Robison, a heavyweight within GOP circles, is regarded as one of the nuclear industry's biggest political operatives and purveyors of disinformation in Nevada in the Yucca Mountain fight. He gets big bucks to undermine the state's opposition. And now Guinn, the leader of the opposition, has given Robison legitimacy in the fight by placing him in the mainstream of state government. Just last week Bob Loux, the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog, said he believes Robison's consulting firm has been receiving $250,000 a year from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's Washington-based lobbying arm. Robison, once a top aide to former Sen. Paul Laxalt and a ranking Energy Department official, did not dispute that claim. His firm also is paid by Lincoln and Esmeralda counties roughly $300,000 a year in consulting fees out of federally mandated Yucca Mountain oversight funds provided by the nuclear industry. By no small surprise, opposition to the dump is weakest in those counties, which support Robison's stance of negotiating for benefits. In 1998 Rick Nielsen, the executive director of Citizen Alert, an environmental group opposed to Yucca Mountain, described Robison's consulting company as "the nuclear power industry's paid public relations firm in Nevada." Citizen Alert's current leader, Peggy Maze Johnson, said that's still the case today. Johnson said she's flabbergasted over Robison's appointment. "How can you be totally against the governor on Yucca Mountain and get a prestigious assignment like this?" she asked. "You reward people for help they've given you. Ace Robison has not given this governor or this state any help." Robison, a fourth generation Nevadan, acknowledged that he's been on the industry's payroll the last 10 years to provide advice on what he calls "Nevada feelings and attitudes regarding Yucca Mountain." But he said he wasn't happy about being branded a traitor to Nevada. "When I last heard, there was no muzzle on being an American citizen," he said. "This litmus test that has to do with the nuclear waste issue is just an unfortunate thing. There ought to be room for disagreement without being disagreeable." Guinn aides said Robison, with his vast government experience, is perfectly suited to sit on the Colorado River Commission and won't be able to use that seat to harm the state's position in the Yucca Mountain fight. A cynic, however, would argue that the state's position was harmed the very day Guinn appointed "Mr. Nuke" to the commission. ***************************************************************** 44 U.S. Newswire: U.S.DOE Statement on Nuclear Waste Accelerated Cleanup Action by Senate Armed Services Committee [http://www.usnewswire.com/index.html] 5/7/2004 3:02:00 PM To: National Desk and Energy Reporter Contact: Joe Davis of the U.S. Department of Energy, 202-586-4940 WASHINGTON, May 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following statement was released by Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow today reacting to action taking by the Senate Armed Services Committee to ensure continued cleanup of Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear waste storage tanks in South Carolina: "The Department of Energy is very pleased with the action taken yesterday by the Senate Armed Services Committee to clarify the Secretary's authority to proceed with accelerated cleanup of the tank farms at the Savannah River Site. We particularly appreciate the leadership of Senator Wayne Allard and Senator Lindsey Graham on this matter. "For several months, we have also engaged in good faith negotiations with officials and members of the congressional delegation from the states of Idaho and Washington to arrive at a legislative solution that will allow us to move forward with cleanup in all of those states. We have also been working with officials and members of the congressional delegation of New Mexico, which has important equities in this issue as well. We have several important issues to resolve and we look forward to continuing our discussions so that we can devise a solution that will work for these other states as well." A lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a court ruling in its favor has created very serious obstacles to continuation of the cleanup of nuclear waste storage tanks which, if left uncorrected, will result in liquid nuclear waste being left in fifty-year old storage tanks for substantially longer -- perhaps decades -- than would occur under current cleanup plans, thereby significantly increasing the risk of leaks. [http://www.usnewswire.com/] ***************************************************************** 45 CorpWatch.org: Mothers' Day Gathering Against Nuclear Waste Source: Shundahai Network Posted: May 7, 2004 This past year the U.S. Government has made moves to resume full scale nuclear weapons testing, to open the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Newe Sogobia, the Western Shoshone Nation, and to move forward with the world's largest "temporary" high-level nuclear waste dump on Goshute Shoshone land in Utah. Newe Sogobia is already the most bombed nation on earth. Since 1951 over 1000 full scale nuclear weapons explosions have shook the desert here. Sub-critical nuclear weapons testing continue and the Nevada Test Site has become the nation's largest low-level nuclear waste dump. The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is located in the heart of Western Shoshone land. It is mired in conflict. It has been proven time and again to be scientifically infeasible, and is in serious violation of international law- to the point of seriously violating standing international human rights agreements signed by the United States. On a related note, a tragedy is playing out under the shadow of the world's largest proposed "temporary" high-level nuclear waste dump. This is located on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation, 45 miles upwind of Salt Lake City, Utah. This project is linked to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Project on Western Shoshone lands in Nevada. Both proposed dumps exploit us all. Western Shoshone people suffer from the Yucca Mountain dump. Traditional Goshute-Shoshone people are struggling every day to survive against the Skull Valley project. This is no joke. People are suffering and need help. Enough is enough! It's time to Stop the Madness! We invite you to join us, May 7th-10th, 2004 to join with our Western Shoshone and Goshute Shoshone hosts- and friends from around the world- to wise up, rise up, honor and resist! We will gather together against U.S. Nuclear policies at the upcoming Mothers Day Gathering For All Life in Nevada Together we will build community and take direct action for nuclear abolition! During this weekend, we will support the Mothers Day Gathering for All Life across from the main entrance to the NTS. This will be a weekend of Ceremony, Education, Planning and Nonviolent Direct Action to challenge the Test Site's existence and "Reclaim the Land for All Life." Friday May 7th, will include registration, basic orientation, informal socializing, and entertainment for arriving campers. Saturday, May 8th, will be dedicated to presentations by Indigenous activists who struggle for the land. It will feature ceremonies, workshops, and training's for building an honorable, multicultural community. Shoshone hosts will lead us in a sunset candlelight vigil to the gates of the Nevada Test Site. The celebration will continue into the evening with ceremonies and a concert to honor indigenous peoples. On Sunday, May 9th workshops, training's, and planning sessions will prepare us to "Stop the Madness!" An evening Raffle will be held to raise money for Western Shoshone resistance. Early morning on Monday May 10th, Corbin Harney, Western Shoshone Spiritual Leader, will lead Sunrise Ceremony on reclaimed Test Site land, kicking off a day of nonviolent resistance to the US policies of bold-face hypocrisy and genocide on indigenous lands. These events are being organized with the guidance of the Western Shoshone National Council and have a strict policy prohibiting alcohol, drugs, and weapons. Please be respectful of our Western Shoshone hosts and their traditional customs. There will be daily sunrise ceremonies and sweat lodges open to all. To pre-register please call 801-533-0128 or 1-800-471-4737 and we will send you a registration form and Participant's Information Packet. For more information: www.shundahai.org [http://www.shundahai.org] CorpWatch 1611 Telegraph Avenue., #702 Oakland, CA 94612 USA Tel: 510-271-8080 URL: http://www.corpwatch.org [http://www.corpwatch.org] Email: corpwatch@corpwatch.org [corpwatch@corpwatch.org] --> ***************************************************************** 46 Scoop: Brash nuke position more bizarre by the day [http://www.scoop.co.nz/] Friday, 7 May 2004, 4:30 pm Press Release: New Zealand Government Hon Phil Goff Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade National's position on changing New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation becomes more bizarre by the day, says Foreign Minister Phil Goff. "Don Brash is now saying (TV3) that he would personally prefer that nuclear-powered ships didn't visit New Zealand. He even went as far (Linda Clark, RNZ) as noting he had been a 'peacenik and a conscientious objector'," said Mr Goff. "None of this, however, squares with his promise to an American Congressional delegation in Auckland in January that a National Government would repeal the nuclear ban 'before lunch'. "Dr Brash refuses to debate this issue in public with me. He won't even show up in the House when a question on the nuclear issue appears on the order paper. "What's more, when challenged by Linda Clark to deny that he made the comment to the US delegation, he replied: 'I am not willing to say'. "Dr Brash's credibility on this issue is nil. If he is prepared to make promises in private, totally contrary to what he assures the New Zealand electorate in public, what trust should people place in the genuineness of other pledges such as on tax and superannuation? "As a politician, he is saying things quite contrary to his fundamentally-held beliefs on these issues over 10 years when Governor of the Reserve Bank. "National is clearly in panic mode over Dr Brash being caught out in his comments on the nuclear-free ban. Murray McCully was even dispatched to ask officials what record had been kept of the meeting. "It's not credible to believe Dr Brash when he says first 'what I said to them precisely, I simply do not recall. It's more than four months ago,' then 'I am not willing to discuss a private conversation I had with them', and finally, when challenged to deny he said he would remove the ban before lunch, 'I am not willing to say'. "Dr Brash is not only offside with the large majority of New Zealanders on the nuclear and Iraq war issues, he is increasingly looking like a politician whose word simply cannot be trusted," Mr Goff said. ENDS Home Page [http://www.scoop.co.nz/welcome.htm] | Parliament ***************************************************************** 47 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Idaho FR Doc 04-10446 [Federal Register: May 7, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 89)] [Notices] [Page 25569-25570] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07my04-48] National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of open meeting. SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Tuesday, May 18, 2004, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.Wednesday, May 19, 2004, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Opportunities for public participation will be held Wednesday, May 19, from 11:45 to 12 noon and 3 to 3:15 p.m. Additional time may be made available for public comment during the presentations. These times are subject to change as the meeting progresses, depending on the extent of comment offered. Please check with the meeting facilitator to confirm these times. ADDRESSES: Willard Arts Center, 498 ``A'' Street,Idaho Falls, ID 83402. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Peggy Hinman, INEEL CABAdministrator, North Wind, Inc., P.O. Box 51174, Idaho Falls, ID 83405, Phone (208) 557-7885, or visit the Board's Internet home page at http://www.ida.net/users/cab [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.ida.net/users/cab] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of future use, cleanup levels, waste disposition and cleanup priorities at the INEEL. Tentative Agenda Optional tour providing an overall orientation to the site and an opportunity to visit the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project before it goes radioactive. Please contact Ms. Peggy Hinman, listed above, if you would like to participate. Tuesday, May 18 8 a.m.--Welcome and Introductions 8:45 a.m.--Welcome to New Members 9:30 a.m.--Orientation to the INEEL SSAB 11:15 a.m.--Agenda Priority Setting for the Next 12 Months 12:15 p.m.--Public Participation 1:30 p.m.--Election of New INEEL Officers 2 p.m.--Agenda Priority Setting for the Next 12 Months (continued) 3 p.m.--Orientation to the INEEL SSAB (continued) 4:15 p.m.--Member and Committee Reports 4:45 p.m.--Orientation to the INEEL SSAB (continued) 5:45 p.m.--Election of New INEEL SSAB officers (continued) 6 p.m.--Adjourn [[Page 25570]] Wednesday, May 19 8 a.m.--Agenda Priority Setting for the New Annual Work Plan 8:30 a.m.--Environmental Management (EM) Program Status of INEEL 9:30 a.m.--Potential Impacts of INEEL Mission on the Cleanup Program 10:45 a.m.--Potential Impacts of INEEL Mission on the Cleanup Program (continued) 11:30 a.m.--Member and Committee Reports 11:45 a.m.--Public Participation 1 p.m.--Calcine Treatment 1:45 p.m.--Election of New INEEL SSAB Officers (continued) 2:15 p.m.--Results of the Final Report on the Glovebox Excavator Method Project 2:45 p.m.--Orientation to the INEEL SSAB (continued) 3 p.m.--Public Participation 3:15 p.m.--Agenda Priority Setting for the Next 12 Months (continued) 4 p.m.--Status of Annual Work Plan; Topics for July Meeting; Committee Schedule 4:25 p.m.--Action Items; Meeting Evaluation for May Meeting; Success Stories 5 p.m.--Adjourn Public Participation: This meeting is open to the public. Written statements may be filed with the Board facilitator either before or after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral presentations pertaining to agenda items should contact the Board Chair at the address or telephone number listed above. Request must be received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provision will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. The Deputy Designated Federal Officer, Richard Provencher, Assistant Manager for Environmental Management, Idaho Operations Office, U.S. Department of Energy, is empowered to conduct the meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of business. Every individual wishing to make public comment will be provided equal time to present their comments. This Federal Register notice is being published less than 15 days prior to the meeting date due to programmatic issues that had to be resolved prior to the meeting date. Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public review and copying at the Freedom of Information Public Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday except Federal holidays. Minutes will also be available by writing to Ms. Peggy Hinman,INEEL CAB Administrator, at the address and phone number listed above. Issued at Washington, DC, on May 3, 2004. Rachel Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. 04-10446 Filed 5-6-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 48 Guardian Unlimited: New Security Weighed for Nuclear Sites [Guardian Unlimited] From the Associated Press [UP] Friday May 7, 2004 10:46 PM By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - After a rash of security lapses, the Energy Department is looking to create an elite force of federal guards to protect plutonium and weapons-usable uranium from terrorists, while also preparing plans to move some of the material to more secure areas. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Friday outlined a sweeping set of proposals to increase security at nearly a dozen government facilities that hold highly radioactive material that could be used to fashion a crude nuclear device. These materials ``must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands,'' declared Abraham in a speech to security guards participating in a skills competition at the department's Savannah River complex near Aiken, S.C. Abraham cited ``poor performance'' in mock security exercises at some weapons sites and other lapses - such as lost keys to secure areas - and shortcomings in training to buttress his call for new security measures. Although rare, he said, such lapses are unacceptable. A Department audit recently found guards at one facility cheating in mock tests by obtaining advance information about an assault during a test. Another investigation found guards inadequately trained in such basic tasks as using a shotgun. For the first time, the Energy Department is closely looking at creating a federal police force to guard nuclear weapons facilities and establish a specially trained ``elite'' force to protect areas with the most sensitive nuclear weapons material, Abraham reported. The sites, including federal weapons labs and other facilities such as the Savannah River complex where Abraham spoke, now are guarded by private contractors. The number of guards is classified. Abraham said the department was also moving toward consolidation of nuclear material because some facilities holding weapons-usable material may never be able to meet the most stringent security requirements being demanded in light of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The department acknowledged for the first time Friday that plutonium used for weapons-related research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California may have to be moved. Abraham said he expected to make a decision on that by early next year as part of a broad review on the needs of the nuclear weapons complex over the next 20 years. Consolidation is ``one of the surest ways'' to increase protection of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, he said. ``Because the stakes are so high everything is on the table,'' Abraham said. Livermore lab officials have opposed removing the plutonium, arguing that it is needed for a number of research programs related to maintaining the nation's stockpile of nuclear warheads. But, said Abraham, ``over the long term we should look for a better solution'' and suggested that some of the work at Livermore might be shifted elsewhere so the plutonium could be move to a more secure, remote location. Some members of Congress and an independent watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, have argued for some time that Livermore, nestled in a suburban, residential setting 40 miles from San Francisco, is ill-suited for having plutonium on site. Abraham also said that highly enriched weapons-suitable uranium now at the Sandia National Laboratory near Albuquerque, N.M., will be removed within three years as a research reactor there is closed down. The department previously announced plans to transfer plutonium at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also in New Mexico, to the Nevada Test Site where better security conditions exist. He noted the department also is building a central facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee to consolidate highly enriched uranium within that sprawling site and disclosed that the government may ``downblend'' as much as 100 tons of the uranium there so it can't be used for a nuclear weapon. Critics of DOE security programs reacted cautiously. Danielle Brian, POGO's executive director, praised Abraham's initiatives, but added that the department ``and its contractors have a long history of stonewalling security reforms.'' ``He's outlined the most important things that need to be done,'' she said. ``But we still need to see them happen.'' Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., accused the department of ``recycling initiatives made public years ago'' and long advocated by watchdog groups and members of Congress. ``The secretary should be implementing bold changes that address these (security) problems,'' not promising to consider reforms, said Markey. --- On the Net: Energy Department www.energy.gov Project on Government Oversight www.pogo.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 49 Seattle Times: Health fears have workers at Hanford seeking answers Friday, May 07, 2004 - Page updated at 08:27 A.M. By Seattle Times staff reporter R. Phil Williams talks about working conditions at the Hanford vitrification construction project. RICHLAND — Rocky Fandrich first noticed the smells in March. A rank rotten-egg odor that occasionally wafted in on the spring breeze. Then there were metalliclike tastes in his mouth, nose bleeds and, some days, a feeling of profound fatigue as he ended a 10-hour shift helping to build a $5.78 billion plant to treat Hanford's chemical and radioactive wastes. A half-dozen other workers at the 68-acre Hanford job site managed by Bechtel National also told The Seattle Times of odors and medical problems. They join an expanding number of Hanford workers who fear that vapors vented from 177 tanks containing more than 50 million gallons of radioactive and chemical wastes may be posing short-term and long-term health risks that include cancer. These wastes, a fraction of which already have leaked into the ground, are the toxic legacy of the U.S. Cold War effort to build nuclear weapons. Contract officials say they have yet to detect harmful levels of vapors and have made worker safety a top priority. But at the tank farms, dozens of workers in the past two years have sought medical care because of exposure from vapors. And the contractor, CH2M Hill, last month decided to invest in expanded chemical monitoring and to require use of respirators with supplied air for close-in duty. Hanford's history The 586-square-mile Hanford site was acquired by the U.S. government in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project that built World War II atom bombs. Plutonium production continued there until 1988. For years, health concerns have been raised by those who worked at Hanford or lived nearby. The Bechtel construction site for the waste-treatment plant is located about 1,500 feet east of the closest venting tank. March weather-gauge readings analyzed by The Seattle Times indicated that at least 45 percent of the time prevailing winds blew from the tank farm toward the Bechtel construction site. Bechtel officials have not required workers to wear any special protective gear. But Bechtel recently decided to install a new network of chemical monitors on the site. Those monitors will test for ammonia, nitrous oxides, volatile organic compounds and also include a portable infrared unit to test for 150 other chemicals. "We have thought that we were protected by distance and have no evidence of any harmful tank vapors," said John Britton a Bechtel spokesman. "But we are taking employee concerns seriously." Waste very hazardous The waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation is among the most hazardous in the world and includes a complex melange of liquids, thick slurries and saltlike cakes. The waste-treatment project managed by Bechtel broke ground in October 2001. Employing more than 1,500 workers, this is the largest federal construction project in the United States and is expected to take 10 years to complete. STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Inside the Hanford vitrification pretreatment facility, a carpenter constructs scaffolding. The pretreatment separates the high-level radioactive waste from the low-activity waste, which is located now in tank farms near the facility. The project uses massive amounts of concrete and rebar to build thick-walled facilities that will sort high-level radioactive wastes from low-level wastes. The wastes will be blended with glass to produce stabilized materials, a process known as vitrification. Stuffed inside stainless-steel canisters, these materials could then be safely stored for thousands of years, say scientists. Bechtel workers said they have no complaints about the pay or the pace of the work. Some said they often have slow periods that should allow them ample time to catch their breath, even in a 10-hour day. But last month, some 30 workers who attended an evening meeting in Kennewick said they feared that the chemical vapors from the tank farms might be creating serious health risks. "We just don't know what we're being exposed to," said Fandrich, an ironworker who has complained of fatigue that included a brief lapse into sleep while driving home from the job. "I want to know what's going on, and whether this is going to mess with my life." Another six workers, who declined to be identified by name, spoke of foul, at times fruity, odors that appear to occasionally float in from the tank farm. They described symptoms that included bloody noses, headaches, chest pains and severe fatigue that sometimes made it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Several said that the fatigue symptoms eased if they got a few days away from the job, and then returned as they went back to work. "I kind of describe it like having flu pains, just sore and drained and no motivation," said one worker. "It's a big thing, and people have left the job and gone to others because of it," said one ironworker. Problems started in March Most of the workers said the health problems started in March. That was roughly the same time that the tank farm, which employs more than 800 workers, had a series of incidents while transferring liquid wastes from single-shelled tanks to more secure double-hulled tanks. The transfers stir up the chemicals and can sometimes increase the venting of vapors. By March 24, at least 10 tank-farm workers had been exposed to vapors, with six seeking medical evaluation, according to Tom Carpenter, a Seattle-based representative of the Government Accountability Project. Carpenter has researched worker safety at Hanford for years and has helped to spur state and federal investigations of the safety concerns of the tank-farm employees. "What we have seen is everything from nose bleeds to reduced lung capacity," Carpenter said. "And of course the long-term fear is cancer." Dale Allen, a senior vice president of CH2M Hill, said that none of the tank-farm monitoring indicated any hazardous releases of vapors above federal regulatory levels. But by March 25, worker concerns had prompted CH2M Hill to issue a temporary stop-work order and then change policies to require respirators. Allen said his company already has some chemical monitors that test for ammonia in the tank farm. But CH2M Hill will install new monitors to test for nitrogen oxides as well. Some workers have urged that the company also install chemical filters to the venting system in addition to the radiation filters already in place. Allen said that would be a difficult task. "It's not a matter of costs but would be technically very challenging," he said. Communication an issue The March problems at the tank farm were not conveyed to the Bechtel workers until days later. That lack of communication was a sensitive issue among the workers. "When everything can blow toward us, we have a right to know what is happening," said one worker. "It's our lives, and we have the right to make a decision on whether we stay and finish out the day, or go." "That's a legitimate concern," said Bechtel's Britton. "I'm not sure how we are going to address that, but we are going to have to figure something out." Seattle Times staff reporter Justin Mayo contributed to this report. Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 50 Tri-City Herald: Air monitors being added at vit plant This story was published Friday, May 7th, 2004 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Air monitors are being installed at the vitrification plant construction project at Hanford after some workers have become worried about possible vapors from nearby tanks of high level radioactive waste. Following reports of workers having nosebleeds and other symptoms at the tank farms west and northwest of the construction project, seven workers at the vit plant reported nose bleeds, according to Bechtel National, the contractor building the massive plant. "We are responding to questions from employees asking, 'Are they safe?' " said Jim Betts, project manager at the vit plant for Bechtel. "We are taking it seriously to prove nothing is coming across the fence lines." About a quarter mile separates the fence line of the closest farm, or field, of underground waste tanks and the fence line of the 65-acre site of the Waste Treatment Plant. The plant is being built to vitrify the waste, or turn it into glasslike logs for stable, long-term disposal. Those tanks, directly west in the AP Tank Farm, have had no reports of vapors that have caused symptoms in tank farm workers. But about 1 1/4 miles to the northwest are the AZ and AY Tank Farms where eight workers reported smelling fumes on March 16. A monitor detected elevated readings of vapors at the inlet filter of one of the tanks. A few inches away, no reading could be detected. But some workers reportedly smelled vapors 10 feet from the filter. Officials at CH2M Hill Hanford, the contractor operating the tank farms, believe the main component of the vapors is ammonia, which can be smelled at low levels. The vapor concern is primarily over chemicals in the tank left over from the production of plutonium at Hanford during World War II and the Cold War, rather than radioactive particles. However, until the contractor learns more about potential health effects of the chemical vapors that vent from tanks through filters to the air, it's requiring workers to wear scuba-style supplied air respirators when they enter the tank farms. The Government Accountability Project, or GAP, is warning that the tanks contain a stew of as many as 1,200 chemicals that vary from tank to tank. After a GAP meeting advertised with fliers at the vitrification construction site in April, the watchdog group identified at least a dozen workers with concerns. Some had nosebleeds, headaches or had detected a rotten egg smell at the vitrification plant, said Tom Carpenter, an attorney with GAP. Most of the incidents were traced back to March when tank farm workers were reporting smelling vapors, Carpenter said. "When a whole bunch of people come to us complaining, there is something to it," he said. None of the seven workers reporting nosebleeds to Bechtel National reported to the first aid station at the construction site at the time of their symptoms, said John Britton, spokesman for Bechtel National. The station, which has several exam rooms, sees about 50 to 70 of the 1,700 workers at the site each day. "There is nothing we can put a finger on," Britton said. "We can't put it in a time frame." The nosebleeds occurred over the first four months of the year and not all happened while workers were at the vit plant construction project, other Bechtel officials said. Carpenter believes that as newer double-shell tanks nearest the vit plant site are being filled with waste from older, leak-prone single shell tanks, vapors are more likely to be released and carried by the wind toward the vit plant. There were no transfers of waste to the AP Tank Farm during March, said Dale Allen, senior vice president of CH2M Hill. "I frankly do not believe there is any reason to be concerned (at the vit plant)," he said. Several offices and work staging areas are between the tank farms and the vit construction project, but no workers there have reported odors or symptoms, he said. While GAP believes the vapors could travel to the vit plant in a plume, Bechtel officials believe the wind would disperse any vapors venting from tanks. "There is a huge dilution volume between them and us," said Clay Davis, manager of safety assurance at the construction project. In addition to adding monitors at the vitrification plant, Bechtel also is increasing communication with workers at the plant, Britton said. In the past workers may have heard of incidents at the tank farms when emergency vehicles passed near the vit plant or they heard about potential vapor exposures on the radio on the way home from work. Bechtel will try to alleviate some of the worker's concerns by getting information to them before they hear about potential tank farm problems from the media. The new monitoring system includes 15 monitors of four types. The electronic monitors will check for five gases plus organic vapors that have been associated with the tank farms, Davis said. Those monitors can give automatic data reports of readings. Those will be backed up with 10 passive stations that can warn of oxides of nitrogen and ammonia, both of which have been detected in tank vapors. Another monitor will measure organic and some inorganic chemicals in the air at levels below one part per million and analyze them. Industrial sites normally have measurements at three to five parts per million, Davis said. The last monitor will be taken to areas where workers report suspicious odors. It can identify and measure 150 chemicals. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 51 Tennessean: Offer lung screening to more Oak Ridge workers, doctor says Friday, 05/07/04 Search [http://tennessean.com By NANCY ZUCKERBROD Associated Press WASHINGTON — A doctor hired by the government to study health risks associated with nuclear weapons plants has told the Energy Department it should expand a lung cancer screening program to include thousands of workers in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Dr. Steven Markowitz, an expert in occupational medicine, said he recently recommended that the Energy Department offer the program to past and present workers at the Y-12 weapons plant and the Oak Ridge National Lab because of their exposure to lung cancer carcinogens. Rick Jones, deputy assistant secretary for health at the Energy Department, said yesterday the agency was considering the recommendation. The lung cancer screening initiative is open to people who have worked at the now-shuttered uranium plant in Oak Ridge, known as K-25, as well as to uranium workers in Ohio and Kentucky. However, the program is not available to workers at the Y-12 weapons plant or the research lab. The Energy Department is launching a medical monitoring program for former workers from those facilities, but it hasn't outlined the details. Current workers at those sites get medical exams, but those don't include the special lung cancer test. The test involves viewing patients' lungs with a three-dimensional CAT-scan, rather than a two-dimensional chest X-ray. The scan helps doctors detect lung cancer in its earliest, most curable stages, Markowitz said. Jones said agency officials want to examine whether the benefits outweigh the risks, since CAT-scans expose patients to low levels of radiation. Tennessee lawmakers have sought health monitoring for former Y-12 and research lab workers. However, the lawmakers have not insisted that the special lung cancer screening program be part of that effort. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a heart-lung surgeon before joining the Senate from Tennessee, said this week that he planned to study the issue. However, he said a general problem with relying on CAT-scan technology is that it often identifies nodules as cancerous that are actually benign, which can lead to unnecessary surgeries. The screening program is offered to current and former uranium enrichment plant workers. Markowitz said that of the roughly 4,400 screened, 31 have been found to have cancerous growths. ''They wouldn't have been detected with an X-ray,'' Markowitz said. He said another 15 people underwent biopsies for suspicious nodules that turned out to be benign. © Copyright 2004 The Tennessean A Gannett Co. ***************************************************************** 52 The State: SAVANNAH RIVER SITE 05/07/2 A brief history • 1950: Government says it will build new production plants in Aiken and Barnwell counties. It soon is learned the plants will produce components for nuclear weapons. • 1953: The first SRS reactor is ready to produce weapons materials. Three others are ready within the next year. • 1956: Construction of the basic plant, on a 310-square-mile site, is complete. The sites production reactors make plutonium 239 and tritium for use in nuclear weapons. • 1972: SRS is designated a National Environmental Research Park • 1981: SRS begins cleaning up nuclear and hazardous waste after decades of weapons production activities. • 1988: Final production reactors shut down. Within a year, SRS is listed as Superfund cleanup site. • 1996: Defense Waste Processing Facility begins turning deadly, high-level nuclear waste into glass for eventual disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nev. • 2000: The federal government designates SRS as the site of its mixed oxide fuel plant, which will turn excess weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. • 2002: S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges, unhappy with federal plans, sues the DOE to stop plutonium shipments from the Rocky Flats, Colo., nuclear complex to SRS. Hodges later loses the suit. • Today: The site now employs slightly fewer than 13,000, down from about 25,000 a bit more than a decade ago. Since the late 1980s, scientists have worked to clean up hazardous and nuclear waste left by decades of weapons production. The government is now disposing of 37 million gallons of liquid high-level nuclear waste from 49 aging tanks. The site also has continued to recycle tritium for nuclear weapons to keep it from getting stale. A new tritium production facility is being built at the site. SOURCE: SAVANNAH RIVER SITE. TheStateOnline ***************************************************************** 53 SF Chronicle: LIVERMORE LAB / Livermore Lab safety problems reported U.S. probe finds ventilation flaws at plutonium building [http://sfgate.com] Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer [kdavidson@sfchronicle.com] Friday, May 7, 2004 Federal investigators have found significant deficiencies in safety procedures at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, saying lab employees and the public face increased risks, including the possibility of a radioactive fire that could burn for days. Investigators for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in Washington, D.C., a congressionally mandated advisory group to the U.S. Department of Energy, say recent changes by the lab to its safety plan are flawed and not as reliable as systems that were previously used. In a five-page report dated March 17, the safety board investigators cite flaws in the lab's safety plan for Building 332, the lab's plutonium building. The ventilation system, for example, is supposed to prevent radioactive material from escaping during an accident. But now, changes to the previously reliable ventilation system have downgraded it enough to raise concerns about public safety, says a letter from safety board Chairman John Conway to the Energy Department. The April 12 letter, addressed to Linton Brooks, the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration administrator, accompanies the investigators' report. Both documents are posted on a federal Web site -- www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/llnl/sir_20040412_ll.pdf [http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/llnl/sir_20040412_ll.pdf] . The charges are firmly denied by Joe Sefcik, program leader for Livermore's nuclear materials technology program, which includes the plutonium building. "There is no hazard. . . . Even if anything goes wrong, we will be in a 'fail safe' condition," Sefcik said late Thursday. "We've gone to a level of safety that is unique in the (U.S.) nuclear weapons complex." Livermore officials submitted their new safety procedures in October to the Livermore office of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the nation's nuclear weapons complexes. But the investigators say the following features of the plutonium building were downgraded by recent changes: -- The emergency power system. -- Ventilation systems linked to gloves that allow workers to work with plutonium inside sealed chambers. -- Other parts of the building ventilation system. -- Parts of the fire detection and suppression system. "Some components of these systems (e.g. the uninterruptible power supply) have been further downgraded to nonsafety-level" -- in other words, made unsafe in the event of a power failure, says the report by two investigators identified only by their first initials and surnames, F. Bamdad and D. Kupferer. Bamdad and Kupferer's full names could not be determined late Thursday. The report says parts of Livermore's new plan are unrealistic and inconsistent with other Livermore safety procedures. Also, Livermore probably underestimates the amount of radioactive material that would escape into the environment, the report notes. In addition, the safety plan naively assumes a fire would last no longer than two hours. "In reality, such an event could continue for days," Bamdad and Kupferer wrote. During a fire, even radioactive particles that were initially trapped within the building eventually would leak outside as the building faced subtle physical stresses such as temperature changes because of day-night cycles and "wind impact on the building." In a severe accident, "it is conceivable that the spread of contamination throughout the facility could jeopardize the facility's recovery and future use" -- that is, force its abandonment, they add. They note that some aspects of the safety plan are poorly defined. Sefcik says, however, that the lab is safer partly because they've beefed up its power supply, which helps keep certain safety mechanisms -- such as the ventilation system -- working no matter what. The lab normally gets power from two outside sources: PG and (via a special cable) a public utility in Washington state. If those sources fail, then the lab has three diesel generators that can provide power, Sefcik said. Even if all five power sources fail, other modifications ensure safety. For example, in case of fire, the heat would melt certain links in the ventilation system, causing the ventilators to shut automatically. Result: Lacking access to fresh air, the fire would suffocate. "There are 200 of us that work in this facility every day," Sefcik said. "If it wasn't safe, none of us would work there." E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com [kdavidson@sfchronicle.com] . ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ ***************************************************************** 54 Tri-Valley Herald: Scientist claims lab releases not seen 5/7/2004 By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER LIVERMORE -- By testing water, grass and leaves harvested close to Lawrence Livermore nuclear-weapons lab, a scientist has found hints that the lab is lofting a garden variety of unreported nuclear byproducts into the neighborhood. Physicist Norm Buske stressed that his tests don't show a clear human health threat to people living in Livermore, but they do suggest gaps in a monitoring network supposed to alert the public to lab radioactive releases, he said. "We're not saying everybody move away or take cover," said Buske, director of The RadioActivist Campaign, a Belfair, Wash., nonprofit hired by Livermore's Citizens Monitoring and Technical Assistance Fund for the tests. "What we suggest is the public takes action before something goes seriously wrong." Even for fairly radioactive elements that decay away in -- strontium-90, cesium-137 and americium-241 -- the reported quantities of radioactivity are in the trillionths of curies, not far above the limits of reliable detection for small numbers of samples. But Buske is "very confident" most or all of these nuclear byproducts are coming from Livermore operations, unseen by lab and state environmental tests of air, water and soil. "Our results suggest there are, and continue to be, releases to the environment around the lab. They're not reporting them and so their monitoring system is not working," Buske said. The lab's off-site tests look mostly at gross radioactivity, tritium and plutonium, but not the dozens of other byproducts of nuclear research. "They're blind to everything else," Buske said. Livermore's sister lab, Los Alamos in New Mexico, does more sweeping off-site tests for strontium, cesium and americium. Livermore environmental officials suggest some of Buske's results may be ghost detections that vanish in statistical error. Others look like they could be everyday fallout from open-air nuclear tests that ended almost 40 years ago. Anything else should be captured by air monitors sitting at the lab fence line, sniffing the air 24 hours a day, said Gretchen Gallegos, a lab environmental scientist and head of air-emissions compliance. "We expect we should be able to detect anything of significance that comes out of this lab," Gallegos said. "It's all within the global fallout levels," said Bert Heffner, a lab spokesman. "The laboratory has very little effect on the surrounding environment. We believe that protection of our employees and the public is our first priority and will continue to be so." Marylia Kelley, head of a Livermore-based watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs, said the tests show the need for strong monitoring by the lab. Buske was shoring up his results with extra testing Thursday. "These results tell the community that there are likely ongoing releases that the laboratory's monitoring program is not finding," she said. "It points to needed improvements and the value of independent monitoring." Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 55 U.S. Newswire: Energy Secretary Abraham Certifies Savannah River Technology Center As New Department of Energy National Laboratory 5/7/2004 2:15:00 PM To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: Joe Davis, 202-586-4940, or Chris Kielich, 202-586-5806, both of the U.S. Department of Energy AIKEN, S.C., May 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today certified the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC), located at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Savannah River Site, as the Savannah River National Laboratory. Secretary Abraham was joined by Governor Mark Sanford, Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressmen Gresham Barrett (S.C.) and Max Burns (Ga.) at the certification event at the Savannah River Site. "President Bush and I are proud of the scientific and technical work ongoing at the Department of Energy's national laboratories," Secretary Abraham said. "And today, we are even more proud to designate this new laboratory and make it a full partner in the critical missions performed by DOE facilities." The SRTC began operations in 1951 to provide research and development support for the department's nuclear facilities complex and national defense. As in the past, the Savannah River National Laboratory's work will continue on waste processing, environmental remediation, non-proliferation technologies and national security projects. Today, the laboratory has an annual operating budget of $132 million, with the majority of resources devoted to projects supporting the department's Office of Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Administration. Other projects include work for the U.S. Army, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Westinghouse Savannah River Company operates the Savannah River National Laboratory, employing more than 750 individuals including chemists, material scientists, mechanical, metallurgical, nuclear, electrical and chemical engineers. http://www.usnewswire.com/ [http://www.usnewswire.com/] /© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ ***************************************************************** 56 Daytona Beach News-Journal: Doctor says Oak Ridge workers should get cancer screening [http://www.news-journalonline.com] Associated Press Last update: 07 May 2004 WASHINGTON -- A doctor hired by the government to study health risks associated with nuclear weapons plants has told the Energy Department it should expand a lung cancer screening program to include thousands of workers in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Dr. Steven Markowitz, an expert in occupational medicine, said he recently recommended that the Energy Department offer the program to past and present workers at the Y-12 weapons plant and the Oak Ridge National Lab because of their exposure to lung cancer carcinogens. Rick Jones, deputy assistant secretary for health at the Energy Department, said Thursday the agency was considering the recommendation. The lung cancer screening initiative is open to people who have worked at the now-shuttered uranium plant in Oak Ridge, known as K-25, as well as uranium workers in Ohio and Kentucky. However, the program is not available to workers at the Y-12 weapons plant or the research lab. The Energy Department is launching a medical monitoring program for former workers from those facilities, but it hasn't outlined the details. Current workers at those sites get medical exams, but those don't include the special lung cancer test. The test involves viewing patients' lungs with a three-dimensional CAT-scan, rather than a two-dimensional chest X-ray. The scan helps doctors detect lung cancer in its earliest, most curable stages, Markowitz said. Jones said agency officials want to examine whether the benefits outweigh the risks, since CAT-scans expose patients to low levels of radiation. "The department takes its worker protection very seriously, particularly radiation exposure," he said. Markowitz said additional studies are needed to prove CAT-scan screening lowers lung cancer death rates. However, he said it makes sense to use the technology for the Oak Ridge workers since existing studies show they are at a higher risk than others of getting lung cancer. "We have sufficient knowledge to justify using this test ... in a group that's at high risk for developing lung cancer," Markowitz said. A study Markowitz conducted for the Energy Department found that Oak Ridge workers have been exposed to asbestos, radiation and beryllium, all of which cause lung cancer. "We're not an ice cream factory," said Bubba Scarbrough, president of the workers' union, which is seeking the lung cancer screening initiative. "We don't work in the regular world. We work in ultra-hazardous conditions." Lawmakers from Kentucky and Ohio pushed for the lung cancer screening program for uranium enrichment workers several years ago and subsequently fought for its continued funding. It would cost about $3 million to create a medical monitoring program that includes the lung cancer screening initiative for the Oak Ridge workers. Tennessee lawmakers have sought health monitoring for former Y-12 and research lab workers. However, the lawmakers have not insisted that the special lung cancer screening program be part of that effort. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a heart-lung surgeon before joining the Senate from Tennessee, said this week he plans to study the issue. However, he said a general problem with relying on CAT-scan technology is that it often identifies nodules as cancerous that are actually benign, which can lead to unnecessary surgeries. The screening program is offered to both current and former uranium enrichment plant workers. Markowitz said of the roughly 4,400 screened so far, 31 have been found to have cancerous growths. "They wouldn't have been detected with an X-ray," Markowitz said. He said another 15 people underwent biopsies for suspicious nodules that turned out to be benign. ------ On the Net: Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do [http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do] 2004 News-Journal Corporation ***************************************************************** 57 U.S. Newswire: Statement of POGO on DOE's Nuclear Security Announcement 5/7/2004 2:34:00 PM To: National Desk Contact: Danielle Brian or Beth Daley, 202-347-1122 or WASHINGTON, May 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today, Department of Energy Secretary Abraham announced improvements to security at the nation's nuclear weapons complex, many following the recommendations that POGO has been urging since its 2001 report "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security at Risk." In making the announcement, Secretary Abraham called for "a change in our management culture" to "accept, analyze and respond to criticisms and concerns from outside the Department as well as from employees...without fear of retribution." Danielle Brian, Executive Director of POGO, lauded the announcement saying: "Today Secretary Abraham has articulated the most important priorities for addressing homeland security vulnerabilities posed by the nation's nuclear weapons complex. The agency and its contractors, however, have a long history of stonewalling security reforms. We look forward to ensuring the Department implements Abraham's initiatives." Among the most significant changes that POGO has recommended: -- CONSOLIDATION OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS. Plutonium and/or highly enriched uranium will be consolidated from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia Pulse Reactor Facility in New Mexico, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The Department will also consider removing special nuclear materials from Lawrence Livermore, a facility which POGO believes has serious vulnerabilities and poses a more devastating risk to the heavily- populated San Francisco Bay Area. His announcement is significant in the face of recent plans by Livermore to double the capacity of the facility to store plutonium. -- DESIGN BASIS THREAT. POGO was the first to report that DOE's Design Basis Threat fell far short of national intelligence recommendations for what government facilities should protect against. Security Abraham has instructed the Department to examine whether the DBT should be more vigorous. -- CYBER-SECURITY. DOE will move to a media-less environment as POGO had recommended, making it impossible for anyone in the complex to walk out the door with a diskette of downloaded classified information without proper security procedures. -- DOWN-BLENDING OF 100 TONS OF TERRORIST-ATTRACTIVE HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM. Secretary Abraham has shown extraordinary leadership in proposing a study to assess the down-blending of large quantities of highly enriched uranium, as much as 100 tons, which would be most attractive to a terrorist intent upon building an Improvised Nuclear Device. This is the first time the Administration has recommended down-blending of U.S. nuclear materials, although it has made efforts to immobilize similar materials worldwide. POGO's 2001 report identified the need to dispose of the large quantities of nuclear materials which are no longer used yet make the nation's homeland security more vulnerable. -- BETTER TRAINING AND TREATMENT OF THE GUARD FORCE. In the age of outsourcing, the DOE is considering federalizing part or all of its guard force. POGO has brought forward a steady stream of whistleblowers and disclosures concerning the poor working conditions and training of the guard force. POGO investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. Founded in 1981, POGO is a politically-independent, nonprofit watchdog that strives to promote a government that is accountable to the citizenry. http://www.usnewswire.com/ [http://www.usnewswire.com/] /© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ ***************************************************************** 58 Newswise: HEALTH -- Environmental respiration risks . . . Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory Released: Thu 06-May-2004, 12:50 ET Story Tips from the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, May 2004 RESPIRATION COMBUSTION AIRBORNE ENGINE FUEL EFFICIENCY CESIUM STRONTIUM Little is known about the toxicological effects of inhaling airborne ultrafine particles, but that may soon change because of research by a team led by Mengdawn Cheng of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Of particular interest is the interaction of human tissue and particles 1 to 100 nanometers in size that are byproducts of exhaust from internal combustion engines and other sources -- including new manmade nanophase materials. Cheng’s team is developing instruments and techniques to more accurately measure these nanoparticles and model cells to understand biological responses to exposure. Through better exposure characterization, researchers hope to perform risk analyses from which safety standards can be established. Collaborators include Wright Patterson and Elgin Air Force bases, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Rice University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute. The research is funded by the departments of Energy and Defense. ] CHEMISTRY -- Sophisticated separations . . . A one-step process to separate cesium and strontium from caustic waste could possibly lead to significant savings in processing, transportation and storage of some 34 million gallons of nuclear waste at the Savannah River Site. Laetitia Delmau of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Chemical Sciences Division is developing a process concept that involves adding crown ether and carboxylic acid to the solvent used in the caustic-side solvent extraction (CSSX) process. The CSSX process was developed at ORNL to remove cesium from alkaline nitrate waste and will be used at the Savannah River Site to reduce the volume of high-level waste. This waste was generated over the last 50-plus years in the production of materials for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. If Delmau’s new approach proves feasible it would extend the CSSX capabilities by enabling the process to remove cesium and strontium in one step. This could possibly lead to additional cost savings and waste volume reduction. Ultimately, researchers hope to develop a process to extract uranium, neptunium and plutonium as well. The project is funded by the DOE Environmental Management Science Program. © 2004 Newswise. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 59 KTVB.COM: Bush abandons plan to privatize security at INEEL IDAHO FALLS -- A labor group reports that the Bush administration has abandoned plans to turn security at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory over to a private contractor. Federal officials at the eastern Idaho site did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Service Employees International Union says the Energy Department will leave security with the 200-person force already on staff at the site. Last winter, the government announced it would give security to a native Alaskan company with no experience in nuclear facility protection. The no-bid contract was quickly criticized by the state's congressional delegation. [http://www.ktvb.com ©2004 Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 60 Oak Ridger: Optimism on DOE payments drops further Story last updated at 11:48 a.m. on May 7, 2004 BRADSHAW: 'It is becoming clear to me that DOE is not in the business of making payments like that ... I have less confidence than I have had in the past.' By: Stan Mitchell | Oak Ridger Staff [stan.mitchell@oakridger.com] In a dramatic announcement, Oak Ridge Mayor David Bradshaw said he is now less confident the city will gain annual financial payments from the Department of Energy. "It is becoming clear to me that DOE is not in the business of making payments like that," Bradshaw said. "I have less confidence than I have had in the past that we will achieve that." This follows another letdown statement in March where Bradshaw said from Washington, D.C., that he was "much more neutral" about his confidence in gaining money from DOE. Instead, the Oak Ridge mayor said he now sees the city getting financial assistance from DOE for specific projects. "What I have more confidence in is that working with our federal legislators, that on a project-by-project basis, we're going to find areas where they can provide support," Bradshaw said. "What that may do is help us provide better service or better facilities or a better education system, but it's not going to be revenue that flows into the general fund and can be spent on whatever Council chooses. "And that is a difference from where we initially started out," he said. As evidence of this, Bradshaw pointed out Los Alamos, N.M. "The community that is the best at obtaining funding directly from DOE is Los Alamos," he said. "And even with the strength of (U.S.) Sen. (Pete) Domenici, they are struggling mightily to maintain that." It's not clear yet how the announcement will be greeted by members of City Council, who will discuss the issue in a work session at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Central Services Complex. On a brighter note, Bradshaw said there is also the opportunity for DOE to build more private buildings on government land, such as the one at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He said if three or four more buildings were built on federal facilities, the city could gain more than $2 million per year in additional property tax revenue. "What's clear is, DOE is trying to eliminate those (annual funding) programs and they certainly aren't looking at starting new ones," Bradshaw said. "But on a project-by-project basis, such as new infrastructure to the west end, such as new programs at the high school that are regional in nature, we may have some opportunity for success. And I think we will have some success." ***************************************************************** 61 Oak Ridger: He came to innovate, he stayed to contribute Story last updated at 11:10 a.m. on May 6, 2004 By: Dick Smyser | Editor's License Department of Energy officials said at the time - late fall, 1983 - that the persuasive presentation of Kenneth Jarmolow helped them decide that Martin Marietta Energy Systems should be the new prime contractor for DOE's Oak Ridge Operations. Martin Marietta was chosen from three finalists - Westinghouse and Rockwell International the other two - for the contract for which 64 firms had earlier considered bidding. Jarmolow, Martin Marietta had told DOE, would be their Oak Ridge president. Jarmolow assumed that role the following spring and served four years as manager for operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12, Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant and the gaseous diffusion plant at Paducah, Ky. For most of the previous 40 years, Union Carbide Nuclear Division had been the contractor, the Paducah plant, built only in the 1950s, excepted. Local expectations were high for Martin and Jarmolow. Carbide had opted not to seek renewal of its contract and community leaders saw the opportunity to get pledges of broader economic and civic support from the new contractor. Thus the so-called "Volume Four" of the new agreement with DOE in which Martin promised a renewed effort for technology transfer - the movement of plant and laboratory innovations into private industry. Martin pledged also to increase ties between Oak Ridge Operations and the University of Tennessee. Both efforts intensified promptly under Jarmolow. In one of his first actions the post of vice president for technology transfer was established. Created also was the Tennessee Innovation Center at newly developed Commerce Park off South Illinois Avenue. Also newly created was the post of chief corporate medical doctor, a reflection of Jarmolow's concern for employee's' health. Another innovation, according to Gordon Fee, who later would hold Jarmolow's position, were radio telephones in the cars of top executives. Upgrading high level communications was a Jarmolow priority. (Fee tells of Jarmolow's curiosity, on hearing on his own car radio, guard references to flowers. Fee checked and learned that this flower talk was guard code for the top brass: Fee was "Violet," Clyde Hopkins "Buttercup" and Jarmolow "Daisy.") The new contractor was also committed to increased participation in civic activities. Both during his tenure as Martin president and then later in retirement, Jarmolow set a personal example: member of the board of the Methodist Medical Center; board member also of the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association and Planned Parenthood. For all of these, he was an aggressive and effective fund-raiser. During his term as the chief plant official here some of the first evidences of environmental problems in the plant areas - the so-called "World War II and Cold War Legacy" - made news, most of it negative. Though these problems all had their origins in earlier years, he and other top officials at the time shouldered responsibility and were targets of criticism. The biggest negative of Jarmolow's four years as Martin president, however, was the longest strike in local plant operations history - 4,100 members of the Atomic Trades and Labor Council off the job at Y-12 and ORNL from June to October 1987, the chief issue flexibility in job assignments. Tempering animosities stirred by the emerging environmental concerns and the strike were instances in which Jarmolow assisted employees with personal problems. Legal matters, medical concerns - he would listen and often not just suggest but make arrangements for expert professional consultation, sometimes in distant cities. Among his specific personal efforts to enhance the community was a trip to California, in Martin Marietta's corporate jet, to urge Guilford Glazer, then owner of the Downtown Business District, to enhance Oak Ridge's retail establishment. Accompanying him were then-Mayor Roy Pruett, the late Eugene Joyce, legal and political leader, and Tom Hill, then publisher of The Oak Ridger and, with Joyce, a leader in industrial and commercial promotion. Hill and Fee both speak of Jarmolow's personal drive for new knowledge - his focus, his intensity like about tennis, as his many tennis opponents will attest. Even on the court, and especially with one of his most frequent tennis companions, Alvin M. Weinberg, former director of ORNL, between sets and sometimes between serves, Jarmolow would be asking questions, provoking discussion, often about involved scientific issues. Under his direction it became a Martin corporate rule that top plant executives live in Oak Ridge, a policy from which the Oak Ridge community has benefited greatly. Ken and Shirley Jarmolow have been contributing, creative citizens for 20 years, give or take a few weeks each year for travel to New York for concerts and the theater. Also for trips abroad, like one year to Sydney for the Australian Open, tennis of course. - RDS ***************************************************************** 62 PRN: As Energy Dept. Calls for Improved Security at Nuclear Facilities, Nation's Largest Security Officers Union Says Security Improvements at Nuclear Power Plants Also Must be Considered > [http://www.prnewswire.com/] [ Lax Security Reported at Both Privately Owned Nuclear Plants and DOE Nuclear Facilities Protected by Largest Supplier of Private Guards, Wackenhut WASHINGTON, May 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Applauding the U.S. Energy Department's new initiative to improve security at nuclear weapons facilities, the nation's largest union of private security officers called for the government to go a step further and conduct a comprehensive review of security at the nation's privately owned nuclear power plants, which also have been criticized for lax security. The single largest supplier of private security guards to both types of nuclear facilities is a private firm -- Wackenhut -- that has overseen frightening security lapses, presided over training cutbacks, or tolerated lax security measures at multiple nuclear power plants and DOE nuclear weapons facilities throughout the U.S. The incidents are detailed in a report by the union released April 8, titled "Homeland Insecurity: How the Wackenhut Corporation is Compromising America's Nuclear Security." The report is available online at http://www.EyeonWackenhut.com [http://www.EyeonWackenhut.com] . "Nuclear plants are just as sensitive as weapons facilities, and they're often guarded by the same private company," said Stephen Lerner, Director of the Building Services Division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation's largest union of private security officers. "The security problems at Wackenhut-guarded nuclear facilities of all kinds are well-documented. A review of security at nuclear power plants should be on the table as well. We cannot afford vulnerabilities at any sites where nuclear material is present." Since 2001, security problems at nuclear facilities guarded by Wackenhut have been cited in at least six separate reports issued by the DOE Inspector General. Wackenhut, DOE's largest private security contractor, provides security at four DOE nuclear facilities. Wackenhut provides security for thirty nuclear power plants, fully 70% of the plants that contract out their security. The U.S. Department of Energy announced a major new initiative earlier today to improve security at its sensitive facilities, especially those that house nuclear material. According to an official DOE news release, the initiative would expand the capabilities of DOE security personnel, including possibly federalizing some security units currently managed by contractors; consolidate sensitive nuclear material into fewer locations; enhance protections of classified computer information; upgrade security systems at key facilities; and make managers more receptive to security concerns. The security concerns raised by DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham in his announcement today echo closely many of the same concerns raised last month by Members of Congress, as well as SEIU, in its report on Wackenhut's nuclear security record. These concerns include: * The need to better address security lapses; * Ensuring a better-trained, more prepared guard force; and * Making a change in "management culture" that allows security officers to raise safety concerns without fear of retribution. On April 6, Sen. Richard Durbin wrote a letter to Secretary Abraham raising similar concerns about Wackenhut's security record, and Rep. Ed Markey raised concerns in post-hearing questions submitted to Abraham on April 1. Also in April there were calls for hearings in two different Congressional committees on Wackenhut's security record at nuclear facilities, and Wackenhut officials from the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility were called to a closed-door hearing of the House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on March 4, after reports that Wackenhut had been caught cheating on security drills at the site. SEIU's report details how Wackenhut: * Cut back on guard training at nuclear weapons labs; * Cheated on government security drills designed to test guards' ability to repel a simulated terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant; * Maintained lax security procedures at a nuclear power plant less than 40 miles from New York City; * Forced its guards at nuclear plants to work excessive hours, limiting their professional effectiveness; * Ignored security concerns raised by guards at nuclear facilities and illegally punished the guards who raised them; * Poorly maintained weapons inventories; and * Falsified weapons tests and drug screening of its security guards. The report was prepared by SEIU as part of its national program to improve security standards and public accountability throughout the U.S. private security industry. More than 50,000 private security officers and public safety personnel are members of SEIU. SEIU does not represent any security officers or other workers at Department of Energy nuclear facilities. Just last week, south Florida papers reported that six Wackenhut security guards and their supervisor were removed from duty by the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant in South Florida after a plant audit found they took shortcuts during patrols. The episode was the fourth security incident involving Wackenhut personnel at the St. Lucie Plant since 2000. SOURCE Service Employees International Union Web Site: http://www.seiu.org [http://www.seiu.org] http://www.EyeonWackenhut.com [http://www.EyeonWackenhut.com] Copyright © 1996-2004 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights ***************************************************************** 63 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 13:33:38 -0700 (PDT) KERRY Campaign Statement on Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's ... U.S. Newswire (press release) - Washington,DC,USA More than two and a half years after the 9/11 attacks, the Energy Department is finally getting around to taking steps to protect nuclear facilities. ... See all stories on this topic: US Department of Energy Statement on Nuclear Waste Accelerated ... U.S. Newswire (press release) - Washington,DC,USA ... Natural Resources Defense Council and a court ruling in its favor has created very serious obstacles to continuation of the cleanup of nuclear waste storage ... See all stories on this topic: KHARRAZI: Iran's nuclear program fully transparent Payvand - Iran Tehran, May 7, IRNA-- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi described in Copenhagen Thursday Tehran's nuclear program as "completely transparent" and said ... See all stories on this topic: TURKEY looks to build nuclear power station NTV MSNBC - Turkey ... Resources Minister, announced on Friday that Turkey was preparing to hold discussions with variious consortiums for the construction of a nuclear power station ... See all stories on this topic: PENN State senior wins American Nuclear Society award Penn State Live - PA,USA -- Josh Potteiger, a Penn State senior, was awarded the Pittsburgh Local Section Undergraduate Scholarship Award by the American Nuclear Society. ... MOTHERS ' Day Gathering Against Nuclear Waste CorpWatch.com - USA This past year the US Government has made moves to resume full scale nuclear weapons testing, to open the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Newe Sogobia ... See all stories on this topic: NEW Security Weighed for Nuclear Sites Elko Daily Free Press - Elko County,NV,USA WASHINGTON - The Energy Department for the first time is looking at creating a federal police force to guard nuclear weapons facilities and plans to remove ... See all stories on this topic: JAPANESE Nuclear Workers Face Highest Exposure, Kyodo Says Bloomberg - USA May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Nuclear plant workers in Japan remain exposed to more radiation than workers in any other major country with similar facilities, Kyodo ... See all stories on this topic: NATS' nuclear paper off to Washington Otago Daily Times - Dunedin,New Zealand Wellington: The United States embassy in Wellington is sending the National Party's nuclear policy discussion document to Washington and says it will be "read ... See all stories on this topic: UK should consider nuclear future, say Directors Environmental Data Interactive - UK The UK should consider a greater reliance on nuclear energy rather than expect to meet future needs through renewable sources, a report from the Institute of ... This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 64 [du-list] Fw: Kiss this County Legislator! and follow suite!! Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 14:31:57 -0700 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michele Riddell" To: "Rosemary 0836" ; "aardvark" ; ; ; "angela" ; "Helena Baldyga" ; "barbara" ; ; ; ; ; "Ben Chitty NY/VVAW" ; "Phyllis Coelho" ; "Colleen" ; "Manuela Dobos" ; "Doris" ; "STUDENTS AGAINST EMPIRE" ; "carole ferraro" ; "pat ferre ferre" ; ; "Paul Frazier" ; "Linda Griggs" ; "HVAN" ; ; ; "Ellen Mosen James" ; "Judith Karpova" ; "nada khader" ; "Roman Kossak" ; ; "lia" ; "Ethel Michelson" ; "Gretel Munroe" ; ; "Peace Action Network" ; "Orange" ; "Tula OrangeCP&J" ; ; "Patty Salone" ; ; "sue" ; ; ; "Terry" ; "Tara Thornton" ; ; "Amy Trompetter" ; "Joel Tyner" ; "Albany upperhudson" ; "Rich Vandenhevel" ; "veterans for peace" ; "Julie Wegener" ; "WIB-Woodstock" ; ; "philip ziebold" Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 2:03 PM Subject: Kiss this County Legislator! and follow suite!! > Directing the Criminal Justice/Public Safety committee > to study the issue of labeling Depleted Uranium > shipments as "Radioactive" to protect our Emergency > Responders in case of an accident during transport. > > Sponsored by: Legislator Susan Zimet > > Whereas unmarked radioactive ammunition shipments are > currently allowed by a special Department of > Transportation (DOT) exemption, allowing explosives > and radioactive material to be shipped with only an > "Explosive" placard. > > Whereas the DOT exemption, DOT-E9649, was first > applied for in 1986 by the Military Traffic Management > Command (MTMC). > > Whereas, DOT-E 9649 has been renewed every few years > by the DOT and the MTMC, and could be renewed again on > June 30.2004. > > Whereas, DU munitions are uniquely hazardous material, > consisting of a radioactive penetrator which breaks > down into small particles when burned, > > Whereas, in a highway or railway fire, DU munitions > can possibly spread radioactive material downwind for > a great distance. > > Whereas, first responders (local police and > firefighters) would have no idea that the shipment > contains potentially harmful radioactive materials. > > Be it resolved that the question to ask the US DOT to > not provide an exemption on appropriate labeling be > refereed to the Criminal Justice/Public Safety > Committee for a thorough review, > > And be it further resolved that Art Synder, Director > of Emergency Communications/Emergency Management make > all the appropriate contacts to State and Federal > Agencies to understand the issue. > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs > http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 65 Daily Yomiuri: Clean energy source developed Saga U.'s ocean thermal power generation project drawing attention Itsuki Iwata Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Editor Saga University's study on ocean thermal energy conversion for power generation is attracting attention as a new clean-energy technology ahead of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. The cycle of the power generation system is as follows: A mixture of water and ammonia is vaporized by seawater near the ocean surface, which is warmed by sunlight; the steam is used to power turbines; the used steam is condensed into liquid by cold seawater drawn from more than 800 meters below the ocean surface. The energy sources in the cycle--the sun and the sea--are unlimited. Conventional thermal power plants and nuclear power plants both vaporize water, but the key to ocean thermal energy is the addition of ammonia to the water. The reason for this is that the boiling point of water is 100 C, far above the temperature of warm seawater, which is 30 C at most, and thus unable to generate steam from a heat exchanger. But by adding ammonia, the boiling point of which is minus 33 C, to the seawater, researchers at the university were able to generate steam from seawater using a thermal energy converter, for which they developed titanium heat exchangers that have slightly curved blades. Using these high-efficiency heat exchangers, the researchers succeeded in vaporizing seawater at around 30 C. An experimental plant was completed in Imari, Saga Prefecture, last spring, and the researchers are testing various combinations of cold and warm water at different artificially created temperatures. The results have been promising. A combination of water at 32 C and 10 C generated 52 kilowatts of electricity, that at 29 C and 8 C produced 30 kilowatts, and that at 28 C and 8 C yielded 26 kilowatts. The regulation requiring central government permission for the construction and operation of a power plant, mandated under the Electric Utility Law, was waived for the research plant, which in November was designated a special zone for intellectual activities. As the regulation was relaxed, the researchers hope to bring an experimental 30-kilowatt power generator online in autumn. Prof. Haruo Uehara, a former president of the university who has been studying ocean thermal energy conversion for many years, said, "Even after deducting the electric power consumed for pumping up and circulating seawater, I expect the net output will be about 80 percent." A huge amount of seawater needs to be pumped up to the surface of the ocean in ocean thermal energy conversion generation. The total amount of cold and warm water pumped will be thousands of tons per hour in a plant with an output capacity of 1,000 kilowatts. After passing through the heat exchangers, 1-2 percent of warm seawater is vaporized by piping it into a vacuum tank, which also desalinates it. This by-product has attracted the attention of Saudi Arabia and other countries with vast deserts, and in March a Japanese firm that had been licensed by the university to use its patent and a Saudi Arabian company set up a joint venture in the country. Beneficial as the production of fresh water will be, a more important side benefit of the system, when put into practical use, is expected to be the production of hydrogen, which will be in high demand as fuel cell-powered cars become common. The plant produces both the electricity and freshwater required to produce hydrogen through electrolysis. In addition, the freshwater produced by the plant is close to purified water in terms of quality. Pure water lengthens the life of the fluorocarbon-resin films used in electrolysis, which deteriorate rapidly if water containing impurities, such as river water, is used. However, the researchers have not been able to find a way to efficiently produce hydrogen. The system, however, has its cons as well as its pros. Water from the ocean depths is rich in minerals, and some scientists are worried about the wisdom of discharging it near the ocean surface. While some scientists predict that doing so would create new fishing grounds, others are concerned it may adversely affect the environment. This controversy poses a hurdle for practical use of the power generation system. The most likely locations for the power plants will be in southern ocean areas where the temperature of the surface of the sea is high, and countries such as India and Palau will conduct experiments in collaboration with Saga University. Despite the need for warm water, the researchers say it is theoretically possible to operate the system near Japan, provided a differential in water temperature of around 15 C can be achieved. It is expected that Japan will put the system into practical use as soon as possible, as the nation is being urged to cap its emissions of greenhouse gases before the Kyoto Protocol goes into effect. Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************