***************************************************************** 08/05/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.186 ***************************************************************** 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 US: A Climate-Destabilization Compendium 2 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Pentagon to review Yee inquiry 3 Asia Times: Whistleblower explodes 9-11 Commission Report 4 Xinhuanet: NPC official on Stevens' China tour NUCLEAR REACTORS 5 US: NRC establishes secret security around n-power plants 6 US: Grossly Rigged Security "Tests" At Nuke Plants OKed By NRC 7 US: Nuke Power Plant Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed 8 US: [NukeNet] Nuke Power Plant Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed 9 UK Times: BE stands firm on rescue deal terms 10 US: Las Vegas SUN: Gov't to End Public Nuclear Updates 11 Hindustan Times: China to supply equipment to Pak for nuke plant 12 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Nuclear plants vulnerable to attack 13 US: Las Vegas RJ: Nevadans worry NRC biased about repository 14 US: SLOT: PG&E asks for rate increases to make upgrades to Diablo Ca 15 US: toledoblade.com: Door to power-rate boost opened 16 US: Mos News: Russia Admits N Korea Nuclear Problem, Denies Involvem 17 Scotsman.com: Shareholders Unhappy at British Energy Deal 18 US: Ohio News Now: Davis-Besse focusing on fuse in shutdown probe 19 US: ThisisLondon: British Energy chief lays down law 20 US: NRC: FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, Davis-Besse Nuclear 21 US: NRC: Entergy Operations, Inc., Waterford Steam Electric Station, 22 US: NRC: Florida Power and Light Co.; Notice of Consideration of Iss NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford worker exposed to unsafe rad 24 US: Las Vegas SUN: DOE failed to alert workers to disease risk 25 US: Tri-City Herald: Radiation exposure investigated 26 US: Bradenton Herald: 130 file for beryllium exposure claims 27 AFP: Canada and Russia in 24 million dollar deal to decomission 28 US: Paducah Sun: House blocks help for sick workers 29 US: Paducah Sun: Articles ignore key facts about program for nuclear 30 US: Navajo Times: Radiation law middlemen face crackdown NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 31 US: Alert! Take action on High-Level Waste 32 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nevada won't budge on accepting radioactive waste 33 US: Deseret news: Utah's nuclear waste regulations hits snag 34 RGJ: Nevada asks nuclear regulators whether Yucca dump getting 35 US: T Blade: Problem triggers shutdown of reactor; workers not at fa 36 US: heraldtribune.com: Flotilla to draw attention to plutonium shipm 37 US: WQAD: UIUC to decommission research reactor 38 KVBC: Yucca Mountain Fight NUCLEAR WEAPONS 39 Japan Today: Hiroshima mayor lashes out at U.S. on 59th anniversary 40 Hiroshima: "I was screaming 'Let me die'" US DEPT. OF ENERGY 41 Seattle Times: Hanford worker suffers radiation exposure 42 UPI: Los Alamos missing data probe widens - 43 LANL warned lax culture must change 44 Hanford News: Lightning strikes ignite 1,500-acre Hanford fire 45 ABQjournal: Four More Suspended in LANL Probe 46 Tri-Valley Herald: Los Alamos scientists asked to bear down 47 NBC Newschannel 6: IDAHO ACCELERATOR CENTER DEDICATED 48 KTVB.COM: INEEL workers inject grout into landfill to protect aquife 49 Oak Ridger: Safety prompts DOE reorganization 50 Oak Ridger: Waste road a possibility 51 lamonitor.com: Lab's investigation continues OTHER NUCLEAR 52 [du-list] DU in the news - 5th Aug. 04 53 [du-list] Nanoscience and nanotechnology - Nanopathology 54 Google News Alert - nuclear 55 AFP: Ireland wants wind power to provide 13 percent of energy by 201 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 A Climate-Destabilization Compendium Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 22:44:23 -0500 (CDT) Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Proclaiming Total Emancipation and Working Towards Democracy. From: Andy Caffrey Date: August 1, 2004 5:34:21 AM GMT+07:00 Subject: NRDC: New Science on Global Warming http://nrdc.org/globalWarming/fgwscience.asp A Climate-Destabilization Compendium Global Warming: In Depth: Index New Science on Global Warming A summary of recent findings on the changing global climate. In recent years, scientists have added considerably to the large body of evidence that shows human activity is changing the global climate, raising temperatures and affecting ecosystems around the world. Here we summarize the most significant findings of the last few years. Study of the global climate is one of our most complex scientific endeavors. Yet we now know more than we ever have about humankind's impact on earth's temperature. The news isn't good. Global average temperatures have increased by 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century -- warming faster than any time in the last 1,000 years. As a result, the 1990s was the hottest decade in the last 1,000 years. Today, most mainstream scientists and scientific bodies agree that heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) -- mainly from the burning of fossil fuels in cars, power plants, factories, and homes -- have caused temperatures to rise around the globe. Because emissions of heat-trapping gases are expected to increase, scientists predict temperatures to rise dramatically over the next century, resulting in serious harm to life on our planet. Below are some of the landmark scientific findings released over the last few years that outline humankind's impact on earth's climate. Given this growing body of evidence, we must act now to reduce pollution from cars and power plants. Our health and the health of our planet depend on it. Satellite Data Confirms Climate Change Nature 2004 429:7 (May 2004) Scientists at the University of Washington and the Air Resources Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that satellite measurements of lower atmospheric temperatures show as much global warming as surface temperature measurements when the data are analyzed correctly. The team made the discovery using a new technique for separating the signals originating from the lower and upper atmosphere. Previous efforts to measure temperature trends using satellites suggested that the lower atmosphere is warming more slowly than the earth's surface and have been repeatedly cited by global warming skeptics. The new study found that the upper atmosphere is cooling apparently due to increased heat trapping in the lower atmosphere and stratospheric ozone depletion. * For more information: Nature website, "Climate Change" study. Inside the Greenhouse: The Impacts of CO2 and Climate Change on Public Health in the Inner City Harvard Medical School (April 2004) A new report from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School shows that residents of the inner city are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and global warming. The most direct threat is from heat waves. Exposure to excessive heat caused over 8,000 deaths in the United States between 1979 and 1999, and the incidence of heat waves is expected to double by the middle of this century if heat-trapping pollution is not curtailed. Higher temperatures also elevate the level of ozone smog in urban areas, which contributes to excess mortality and triggers more asthma attacks. In addition, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, the primary heat-trapping pollutant that causes global warming, has been shown to increase the formation of allergenic pollen, which may increase the incidence of asthma and respiratory allergies. * For more information: Full report Climatology: Threatened Loss of the Greenland Ice-Sheet Nature 2004 428: 616 (April 2004) Unless heat-trapping emissions are reduced substantially, Greenland is likely to warm by at least 3 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, enough to trigger the complete and irreversible meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, reported scientists in the April 8 issue of Nature. The Greenland ice sheet is second in size only to Antarctica, and its complete meltdown could raise the global average sea level by 7 meters (23 feet). While the complete collapse of the Greenland ice sheet could take as long as 1,000 years, that process could become inevitable by the end of this century. * For more information: Nature website, "Greenland Ice-Sheet" study. NOAA 2003 Climate Report National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (January 2004) The most recent data show that 2003 tied 2002 as the second hottest year on record, following 1998. The five hottest years have all occurred since 1997 and the 10 hottest since 1990. Extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1500 deaths in India during 2003. * For more information: Full report Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb Scientific American (March 2004) In the face of clear evidence that the earth's energy balance has already been altered by pollution, Dr. James Hansen remains optimistic about our ability to prevent dangerous global warming if we act now. The Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote in the March issue of Scientific American that global warming can be controlled if we begin earnestly to improve our energy efficiency and increase our use of renewable energy sources. Any delay would be dangerous, Hansen argues, because an additional warming of merely one degree Celsius could be enough to trigger the eventual disintegration of ice sheets in Greenland and parts of Antarctica. * For more information: Scientific American website Global Warming: The Imperatives for Action from the Science of Climate Change Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to the U.K. Government; Address to the AAAS (February 2004) Sir David King, the chief scientific adviser to the British Government, sounded a similar note of urgency when he delivered a plenary address at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Seattle on Feb 13. The British government has committed to reducing its emissions of heat-trapping gases by 60 percent from 1990 levels by mid-century and is urging other industrialized countries to adopt the same goal. Sir David emphasized that the international community needs to work together immediately, not only to stabilize the level of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, but also to develop alternative technologies in order to move away from our dependence on fossil fuels. In his article published in the January 9, 2004, issue of Science Sir David brings optimism by pointing out that reducing carbon emissions "does not necessarily make us poorer. Between 1990 and 2000, Great Britain's economy grew by 30 percent, employment increased by 4.8 percent, and our greenhouse gas emissions intensity fell by 30 percent." However, he stressed that delaying action will only make it "more disruptive and more expensive" to deal with global warming. * For more information: British Embassy website The Effects of Climate Change on Water Resources in the West Climatic Change 62 (1-3): 1-11 (January 2004) As the West Goes Dry Science 2004 303: 1124-1127 (February 2004) The American West will have more wintertime floods and summertime droughts if the climate continues to warm, according to scientists reporting in the January issue of the journal Climatic Change. Over the past 50 years, total snow accumulation in some locations in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington has dropped by 60 percent while spring melt is occurring earlier, with spring runoff in streams throughout California's Sierra Nevada running as much as three weeks earlier than it did in 1948. Researchers predict that over the next 50 years, precipitation over the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada will fall more as rain than snow in winter, leading to a further decrease in snow accumulation by 30 percent to 40 percent and an increased risk of wintertime floods. Throughout the West, higher temperatures will decrease snowpack and cause spring runoff to start 30 to 40 days earlier than it does today. A smaller snow reservoir and earlier spring runoff mean that there will be less water to last through the summer. According to an article published in the February 20, 2004, issue of Science, drier summers are predicted to cause farmland values to drop by more than 15 percent in California. Fire danger is also expected to soar, doubling the mean area burned over the next 80 years. * For more information: Climatic Change website, article abstract; Science Magazine website, article abstract Extinction Risk from Climate Change Nature 2004 427:145-148 (January 2004) This study, the first comprehensive assessment of the extinction risk from global warming, found that more than 1 million species could be committed to extinction by 2050 if global warming pollution is not curtailed. This ranks global warming alongside direct habitat destruction as the greatest threats to global biodiversity. The 19-member research team featured expertise on ecosystems in five diverse regions: Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert; Amazonia; Europe; South Africa's Cape Floristic Region; and Queensland, Australia. The scientists used information on the climate tolerances of species and the well-known relationship between species diversity and habitat area to project the effects of global warming under various assumptions. Their mid-range estimates indicated that 24 percent of existing species would eventually become extinct due to climate change projected to occur by 2050. Fortunately this risk could be significantly reduced by acting soon to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, according to the study. * For more information: Nature website, abstract of "Extinction Risk" study Modern Global Climate Change Science 2003 302: 1719-1723 (December 2003) Two prominent U.S. government scientists, Dr. Thomas Karl of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, published a paper in the December 5th issue of Science concluding that human influences are the dominant factor in recent global warming and that "in the absence of climate mitigation policies . . . the likely result is more frequent heat waves, droughts, extreme precipitation events and related impacts [such as] wildfires, heat stress, vegetation changes and sea-level rise." * For more information: Abstract | Full Text Human Impacts on Climate American Geophysical Union (December 2003) The American Geophysical Union, the largest scientific organization of earth scientists, issued a new position statement on December 16th, concluding that "Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century." The drafting committee for this consensus statement included John Christy, whose work to measure atmospheric temperatures using satellites is often cited by global warming naysayers. * For more information: Full statement on climate change Offsetting the Radiative Benefit of Ocean Iron Fertilization by Enhancing N2O Emissions Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 30, no. 24, 2249 (December 2003) In recent years, researchers have been looking for ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it somewhere where it cannot contribute to global warming. One hypothesis has been that "fertilizing" the ocean with extra iron would stimulate phytoplankton in the ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Adding iron to the ocean will not reduce global warming, however, according to a paper by Xin Jin and Nicolas Gruber in the December 15, 2003, issue of Geophysical Research Letters. As phytoplankton remove extra carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in response to iron fertilization, they also release nitrous oxide, a much more powerful greenhouse gas, which offsets any benefits from absorbing carbon dioxide. * For more information: Geophysical Research Letters website An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security U.S. Department of Defense (October 2003) This Defense Department study, obtained by the media in February 2004, looked at the impact of abrupt climate change on national security. Abrupt climate change is a worst-case scenario, which scientists consider a plausible, though uncertain, consequence of global warming. It draws heavily from a National Academy of Sciences report published in 2002 which said the likelihood of crossing a threshold that triggers abrupt climate change grows when the climate is pushed hardest by rapid loading of the atmosphere with heat-trapping pollution. The authors of the report ordered by the Pentagon say that such a scenario could lead to global food and water shortages that would drive widespread migrations and border conflicts worldwide. While scientists believe this extreme scenario has a low probability, the serious economic, health, and environmental effects expected from mainstream mid-range global warming forecasts are much more certain and fully support prompt action to cut heat-trapping emissions. The very high consequences that would result from the scenarios reported to the Pentagon reinforce the importance of action now to reduce these emissions. * For more information: Report on Environmental Media Services website Fingerprints of Global Warming on Wild Animals and Plants A Globally Coherent Fingerprint of Climate Change Impacts Across Natural Systems Nature v. 421: 37-42; 57-60 (January 2003) The relatively small global warming that has occurred to date has already changed the habits or forced significant shifts in the range of many species of birds, insects, fish and plants, according to the authors of these two studies published in the prominent scientific journal Nature . Such altered habits and forced moves -- to everything from English butterflies, California Starfish, Estonian birds, and Alpine herbs, could seriously disrupt a wide array of ecosystems, the studies' authors said. On average, the species' geographic ranges have shifted toward the poles at a rate of 4 miles per decade and the species' spring events have shifted earlier by 2 days per decade. The breadth of data covered in the reports allowed the authors to express their findings with a far greater certainty than they could have a decade ago, they said. The news is especially alarming considering such shifts have occurred with an average increase of only 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century. "If we're already seeing such dramatic changes [among species], it's really pretty frightening to think what we might see in the next 100 years," Dr. Terry L. Root, a Stanford University ecologist and lead author of one of the reports, told The New York Times. Scientists predict average global temperatures during the 21st century could jump as much as 10 degrees if we do not cut emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. The studies provide the latest compelling evidence that we must cut emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide to avoid widespread ecological disruption. They were conducted by researchers at Stanford, Wesleyan and the University of Texas, among others. * For more information: Nature website, abstract of "Fingerprints" study; abstract of "Globally Coherent" study Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses National Snow and Ice Data Center Satellite Spies on Doomed Antarctic Ice Shelf British Antarctic Survey (March 2002) Scientists say the dramatic disintegration of a Rhode Island-sized ice chunk off the Antarctic Peninsula earlier this year is most likely the result of global warming. "With the disappearance of ice shelves that have existed for thousands of years, you rather rapidly run out of other explanations," Dr. Theodore A. Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told The New York Times after the Larsen B shelf collapsed. ("Large Ice Shelf in Antarctica Disintegrates at Great Speed," March 20, 2002.) Scambos and other researchers said it was the first time in thousands of years that the east coast of Antarctica had seen such sharp rises in temperature and dramatic ice loss. Over the last 50 years, average temperatures in the Antarctica Peninsula have risen by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius), four times the global average. The unprecedented warming has led to a pattern of ice shelve loss on the eastern side of the Peninsula not seen in 12,000 years, researchers said. Scientists said they were also shocked by the speed with which the Larsen B shelf disintegrated -- 1,200 square miles (3,000 square kilometers) in 35 days. * For more information: Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses (NSIDC website); Satellite Spies on Doomed Antarctic Ice Shelf (BAS website) Other recent studies found cooling in central Antarctica, including a January 13, 2002 report in Nature (Peter T. Doran) and the January 18, 2002 issue of Science Magazine (Slawek Tulaczyk). Critics have used these studies to claim global warming is not taking place. However, the authors of the Science and Nature studies reject such claims. Variations in temperature will exist across any large landmass. The researchers add that their data shows only that the effects of global warming on Antarctica may prove harder to forecast than anticipated. Doran told the San Francisco Chronicle that, contrary to the insinuations, "global warming is real and happening right now." ("Media Goofed on Antarctic Data," February 4, 2002.) Climate of 2001 - Annual Review National Climate Data Center WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2001 World Meteorological Organization (December 2001) Both these scientific bodies found earth's temperature for 2001 to be the second hottest on record. In addition, nine of the 10 warmest years since measurements were first kept in 1860 have occurred since 1990, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO also found that temperatures are currently rising three times as fast as in the early 20th century. The agency attributed much of the warming to heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels. "There are skeptics on everything, but certainly the evidence we have today shows we do have global warming, and that most of this is due to human action," Ken Davidson, the director of the WMO's climate program told The New York Times after the release of the report. The hottest year on record, according to the organizations, was 1998, when average global temperatures were 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Average temperature for 2001 was 57.8 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center. * For more information: NCDC website; WMO website Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions National Academy of Sciences (June 2001) This report was requested by President Bush to determine whether mankind's actions were causing global warming. The answer was a resounding 'yes.' The blue ribbon panel found that "greenhouse gases are accumulating in earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." "Temperatures are, in fact, rising," the report adds. The unanimous 11-member panel, which included previous skeptics about global warming, said increasing temperatures posed a problem to humans and ecosystems around the globe. They also said the problem was getting worse. In addition, the panel stated scientific confidence was "higher today than it was 10 or even 5 years ago" that increased greenhouse gas concentrations were to blame for earth's one degree temperature increase over the last 50 years. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rise are expected to continue through the 21st century, the group said, and national policy decisions made now will influence the extent of the damage suffered by humans and ecosystems later in this century. * For more information: Full study Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (January and February 2001) This United Nations-sanctioned panel of hundreds of scientists released two landmark reports on climate change at the beginning of 2001. The first, known as the Working Group I Report on the scientific basis of climate change, states unequivocally that pollution (mainly from the burning of fossil fuels) causes climate change. "Emissions of greenhouse gases...due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate," the study says. Global warming has caused sea levels to rise, ocean heat content to increase, and snow cover and ice extent to decrease, according to the study. This and other evidence led the panel to conclude that "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." The report also predicts that earth's average temperature could rise by 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years. That increase would mark the most rapid change in 10 millennia. It would also be as much as 60 percent higher than the IPCC predicted less than six years ago. The study found that warming in the 20th century was most likely the greatest of the last 1,000 years, and that the 1990s was the hottest decade of the last millennium. The second report, "Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," is the most comprehensive look yet at the existing and long-term effects of global warming. It predicts that rising temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels could cause large-scale and irreversible climate changes. Those changes include altered ocean currents, slowed circulation of warm water in the North Atlantic and a vast reduction of mountain glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet. The study also warns of savage floods, disrupted water supplies, droughts, violent storms and the spread of cholera and malaria as temperatures rise over the next century. Poor countries, particularly those in Latin America, Africa and Asia would bear most of the burden of extreme climate changes, which would further widen the gap between poor nations and rich ones, the report concludes. "Most of earth's people will be on the losing side," IPCC Co-Chair and Harvard environmental scientist James McCarthy said of the study's findings. * For more information: IPCC website Climate Change Impacts on the United States National Assessment Synthesis Team (December 2000) This study, ordered by Congress in 1990, offers the first comprehensive assessment of how human-induced global warming will affect the United States. The forecast is gloomy. "Increasingly, there will be significant climate-related changes that will effect each one of us," the study states. According to the report, if we don't curb our emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, temperatures will rise between 5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. That increase will cause, for example, alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains to disappear, sugar maple trees to vanish in the Northeast, and greater risk from storm surges in the Southeast. Rising temperatures will also exacerbate water shortages (especially in the West) and cause New York City to steam in the summer like Atlanta does now. Other likely impacts: coastal erosion, destructive storm surges and the disappearance of barrier islands, all due to rising sea levels. * For more information: Full study Climate Extremes: Observations Modeling and Impacts Science v. 289: 2068-2074 (September 2000) Extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heat waves and heavy rainfall are expected to increase over the next 100 years, according to a team of scientists from the National Climatic Data Center. Lead author David Easterling notes that these changes will continue to increase with the rise of "ever greater amounts of GHGs in the atmosphere." Easterling and his colleagues reached their conclusion after reviewing hundreds of studies that used data and climate models to examine past and future changes in climate extremes. The report found that such extreme events will cause sharply increased financial losses in the United States and are likely to lead to the extinction of more plant and animal species. * For more information: Extreme Weather Events to Continue and Likely Increase; Effects on Society More Intense (NOAA website) Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1,000 Years Science v. 289:270-277 (July 2000) Humans are the dominant force behind the sharp global warming trend seen in the 20th century, according to this analysis of the climate over the last 1,000 years. The report found that natural factors like volcanic eruptions and fluctuations in sunshine, which were powerful influences on temperatures in past centuries, can account for only 25 percent of the warming since 1900. The rest of the warming was caused by human activity, particularly rising levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, according to the study's author, Texas A&M geologist Thomas J. Crowley. Crowley notes that "natural variability plays only a subsidiary role in the 20th century warming and that the most parsimonious explanation for most of the warming is that it is due to the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gases" (GHGs). The study presents the most direct link to date between people and the 1.1 degree Fahrenheit rise in average global temperatures over the last 100 years. * For more information: Full study ============================================================================= == Last revised 6/22/04 ) Natural Resources Defense Council ***************************************************************** 2 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Pentagon to review Yee inquiry [seattlepi.com] Thursday, August 5, 2004 Inspector general to examine court-martial of Army chaplain By MIKE BARBER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER The Defense Department's watchdog is starting an investigation into the Army's criminal inquiry and court-martial of Capt. James J. Yee, a Muslim chaplain from Fort Lewis who was accused last year of participating in a possible espionage ring. Spurred on by requests from members of Congress, the investigation by the department's inspector general will begin this fall and focus on the Army's treatment of Yee. The chaplain spent 76 days in a Navy brig without a hearing. The Army suspected him of being part of a possible Muslim espionage ring at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, a prison camp where suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members are held. Although the Army's case against Yee dwindled and finally collapsed in March, the West Point graduate submitted his resignation from the service Monday. Yee said his professional and personal reputation had been irreparably damaged by the "unfounded allegations." He cited continuing frustrations since his return to Fort Lewis, including the failure of the Army to apologize. If accepted by the Army, Yee's resignation would be effective in January. An Army gag order prevents Yee from telling his side of the story publicly, but Eugene Fidell, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and expert in military justice who represents Yee, said: "Speaking for Chaplain Yee, he is very grateful to the congressmen. I was not aware this was coming. It is yet another opportunity for the military to apologize." The investigation by Defense Department Inspector General Joseph Schmitz was started after a June 4 letter from Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., whose district encompasses Fort Lewis, and Reps. James Honda, D-Calif., Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and Vic Snyder, D-Ark. "It is important that this matter is investigated, and that any improprieties surrounding this case are resolved," Smith said in a statement yesterday. Honda said the letter was written in response to allegations that the Army had denied Yee "the military courtesies commensurate with his rank and targeted him because of his religious affiliation with Islam. "I have grave concerns about the government's track record of unsubstantiated charges -- most notably in the case of Wen Ho Lee -- and Chaplain Yee's case raises serious questions about the way the military administers justice," Honda said. Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was accused of 60 counts of spying, which the government was forced to drop. Lee, like Yee, is a Chinese American. Fidell believes a review of the military justice system is overdue. Although Congress has a lot with which to deal, "there are certainly enough troublesome military justice cases, Chaplain Yee's among them, that somewhere relatively high up on the agenda there ought to be a serious look at the military justice system," Fidell said. "I'm not saying it's utterly misconceived, but that's not to say it's perfect, and Congress has a responsibility to check it out periodically," Fidell said. Yee was arrested Sept. 10 and accused of carrying what were purported to be classified documents from Guantanamo. He was held in solitary confinement for 76 days in a Navy brig in South Carolina while the Army pondered a range of charges from treason to mishandling classified documents. Spying charges were never filed. Instead, the Army filed lesser charges of failing to obey orders by mishandling classified materials and wrongfully transporting them in improper containers. In November, the government tacked on a charge of making a false statement and non-criminal charges of storing pornography on his government computer and committing adultery with a female officer. The government's case unraveled, however, as Yee's hearings were repeatedly postponed while prosecutors grew uncertain that Yee even had classified materials when he left Guantanamo. In March, the Army dropped the criminal charges. A reprimand against Yee for the non-criminal charges was overturned. P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or mikebarber@seattlepi.com [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com [newmedia@seattlepi.com] ***************************************************************** 3 Asia Times: Whistleblower explodes 9-11 Commission Report atimes.com By Ritt Goldstein time taking aim at the 9-11 Commission itself. Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who has in effect been silenced by the bureau and the US Justice Department, said in an open letter to commission chairman Thomas Kean that the FBI had suffered from a litany of errors and cover-ups of those errors, which had been reported to the 9-11 Commission by Edmonds and others, yet the commission report "contains zero information regarding these systemic problems that led us to our failure in preventing the [September 11, 2001] terrorist attacks". "In your report, there are no references to individuals responsible for hindering past and current investigations, or those who are willing to compromise our security and our lives for their career advancement and security," wrote Edmonds, a 33-year-old Turkish-American whose services as a translator were terminated by the FBI after she claimed vast wrongdoing within the bureau's translation unit. Edmonds' open letter, while skirting around certain issues that she is prohibited by gag orders from revealing, is chilling in its revelations that, contrary to public claims by the administration of President George W Bush, the FBI was in possession months before September 2001 of intelligence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization was planning a major attack on the United States, using airplanes as a weapon. These revelations are not new, though the open letter is remarkable in its specificity and naming of names. Previously, while being careful not to violate the legal silencing measures imposed on her by the FBI, the courts and the Justice Department, she has leveled damning criticisms in the media of her former employers and what she has termed the Bush administration's "anti-transparency, anti-accountability and their corrupt attitudes". "But that aside," she told radio interviewer Jim Hogue in April, "we are not made of only one branch of government. We are supposed to have a system of checks and balances. And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system? They should be counteracting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent. And they are just an audience, just watching it happen." That interview took place before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon which the United States issued its final report on the September 11 attacks. Despite hours of testimony to the commission about what she knew of FBI failures leading up to the attacks, nearly nothing of this was mentioned in the report. "While FBI agents from various field offices were desperately seeking leads and suspects, and completely depending on FBI HQ and its language units to provide them with needed translated information, hundreds of translators were being told by their administrative supervisors not to translate and to let the work pile up," Edmonds wrote in her letter. "I provided your investigators with a detailed and specific account of this issue and the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this. "Today, almost three years after [September 11], and more than two years since this information has been confirmed and made available to our government, the administrators in charge of language departments of the FBI remain in their positions and in charge of the information front lines of the FBI's counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence efforts. Your report has omitted any reference to this most serious issue ..." Specific charges made by Edmonds included the case of a Turkish translator, whom she named, and who "for months ... blocked all-important information related to ... semi-legit organizations and the individuals she and her husband associated with ... [The translator] and several FBI targets of investigation hastily left the United States in 2002, and the case still remains uninvestigated criminally. Not only does the supervisor facilitating these criminal conducts remain in a supervisory position, he has been promoted to supervising Arabic-language units of the FBI's counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence investigations." Edmonds also spoke of a translator put in charge of sensitive operations who not only could not speak English well enough to pass FBI proficiency tests, but he also could not speak the languages he was in charge of translating. Despite the fact that his case was made public on CBS television's 60 Minutes, and "after admitting that [he] was not qualified to perform the task of translating sensitive intelligence and investigation of terrorist activities, the FBI still keeps him in charge of translating highly sensitive documents and leads," Edmonds revealed. But while Edmonds' letter delivered a cascade of specific allegations, perhaps the most explosive charge she makes concerns information the bureau was said to have received four months prior to September 2001, information warning of the September 11 plan. While both President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have repeatedly denied that there was any indication that airplanes would be used as a terror weapon, Edmonds revealed that in April 2001 the bureau had information that bin Laden was "planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting four to five major cities"; "the attack was going to involve airplanes"; some of those involved were already "in the United States"; and the attack would be "in a few months". Edmonds states that the information came from "a long-term FBI informant/asset" and that it was sent to the "special agent in charge of counter-terrorism" in Washington. She also charges that after September 11 "the agents and translators were told to 'keep quiet' regarding this issue". Further to that, she writes, "The Phoenix Memo, received months prior to the [September 11] attacks, specifically warned FBI HQ of pilot training and their possible link to terrorist activities against the United States. Four months prior to the terrorist attacks the Iranian asset provided the FBI with specific information regarding the 'use of airplanes', 'major US cities as targets', and 'Osama bin Laden issuing the order' ... "All this information went to the same place: FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, and the FBI Washington Field Office, in Washington DC. Yet your report claims that not having a central place where all intelligence could be gathered as one of the main factors in our intelligence failure. Why did your report choose to exclude the information regarding the Iranian asset and [translator] Behrooz Sarshar from its timeline of missed opportunities? Why was this significant incident not mentioned, despite the public confirmation by the FBI, witnesses provided to your investigators, and briefings you received directly? Why did you surprise even [FBI] director [Robert] Mueller by refraining from asking him questions regarding this significant incident and lapse during your hearing ... ?" Given the sweeping nature of Edmonds' knowledge of intelligence failures in the lead-up to September 11, it is probably not surprising that the US government has used its legal clout to try to shut her up. In what the July 29 New York Times termed "an unusually broad veil of secrecy", the Justice Department ordered the details surrounding Edmonds' allegations a matter of "state secrets". On May 13, Attorney General John Ashcroft had signed an order forbidding her to testify in a case brought by the families of September 11 victims, invoking rarely used "state secrets" authority. Edmonds was also broadly prohibited from discussing the facts surrounding her assertions. It is unclear what personal consequences this latest whistleblowing may have for Edmonds. But notably, none of her prior revelations have been determined erroneous; rather, they have increasingly been found accurate. A July 21 letter from FBI director Mueller to Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, notes that an inspector general's report found her whistleblowing "a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services". Mueller's letter also noted that, based upon the report's findings, a new FBI determination to pursue "discipline of FBI employees" and "additional investigation" of Edmonds' allegations had yet to be made. Mueller's July 21 letter, of which Asia Times Online obtained a copy, also pointedly outlined that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) "noted that Ms Edmonds, as a contract employee, did not qualify for 'whistleblower' protection". With her open letter to the 9-11 Commission providing what can only be termed a damning mantra of revelation, on six separate occasions within the text Edmonds identically questioned how huge budget increases and the creation of an insulated "intelligence czar" could alleviate "systemic and departmental" problems. Mueller's letter to Hatch outlined that the "OIG criticized the FBI's failure to adequately pursue Ms Edmonds' allegations of espionage" regarding the above-mentioned translator who "hastily left the United States in 2002". Again, the OIG's report is known to have criticized the bureau's conduct regarding its pursuit of Edmonds' claim of ongoing espionage, with Edmonds presently revealing that "hundreds of pages of top-secret sensitive intelligence documents" were taken outside the bureau to "unknown recipients" by her co-worker in question. Edmonds described the FBI's perspective upon this as being "that it would not look good for the bureau if this security breach and espionage case was investigated and made public", concurrently citing the blemish that the last FBI spy scandal had left, that of Robert Hanssen. Her letter is particularly noteworthy for its specific naming of those involved in the wrongdoing she cites, and in providing corroboration of her account, including such by those within the government. Notably, two key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Iowa Republican Charles Grassley and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, had requested the OIG's investigation of Edmonds' FBI allegations in 2002, Grassley terming her "very credible". On July 9, the two senators jointly wrote to Ashcroft, Mueller and Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine requesting that the OIG's pertinent reports be made publicly available. The senators' letter specified three OIG reports: one on Sibel Edmonds, another on the FBI translation program, and a third upon whether information "obtained by the FBI and other federal law-enforcement agencies" preceding September 11 "was not acted upon, or not acted on in the most effective and efficient manner". The senators requested that these documents either be declassified or made available to the public via summary. Asia Times Online has obtained a copy of this letter in which the senators highlight that they are seeking "to understand how important clues were overlooked", and that the information in question is significant to both the "public interest" and "congressional oversight". Leahy and Grassley emphasized that they "fear that the designation of information as classified in some cases serves to protect the executive branch against embarrassing revelations and full accountability". They also observe that a failure to provide the OIG's findings "could damage the public's confidence not only in the government's ability to protect the nation, but also in the government's ability to police itself". Again, from what has emerged from the classified OIG action, none of Edmonds' accounts of FBI wrongdoing appear to have been found erroneous. In what critics of the Bush administration have long seen as a contrast, a March 22 Washington Post op-ed piece by Condoleezza Rice stated: "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists." And according to an April interview Edmonds gave to the United Kingdom's Independent newspaper, she termed Rice's claim "an outrageous lie", saying, "I saw papers that show the US knew al-Qaeda would attack cities with airplanes," referring to the April information she has now written of. Of particular note is that Edmonds did provide several hours of secret testimony to the 9-11 Commission. Cutting to what she perceives as part of the US government's shortcomings, in her present letter Edmonds strongly emphasizes an "unspoken policy of 'protecting certain foreign business relations' ... 'safeguarding certain diplomatic relations'", as substantively contributing to the general lack of candor she charges. On July 22, 2002, Sibel Edmonds launched a civil suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against the Justice Department. The suit cited an FBI release of information that she was the "subject of a security review", that she had been retaliated against by the bureau for her whistleblowing activity, and that there had been "interference" with her ability to obtain future employment as well as a wrongful "termination" of her FBI services. Asia Times Online has obtained a copy of the court's recent decision, and in its presentation of the case's "Factual Background" - beyond the allegations Edmonds widely made - it notes that Edmonds asserted that "the safety and security of the Plaintiff (Edmonds) and her family has been jeopardized and that a foreign country has targeted Plaintiff's sister to be interrogated 'and taken/arrested by force'". It also notes that on May 8, 2002, Senator Grassley wrote to Mueller regarding what he perceived as the gravity of Edmonds' charges, urging Mueller to "emphasize to [FBI] officials ... that retaliation against current or former FBI employees is not acceptable, especially when retaliation endangers a person's family member". On July 6 the court decided Edmonds' case, finding that "the plaintiff's case must be dismissed, albeit with great consternation, in the interests of national security", doing so as Ashcroft invoked the seldom-used "state secrets privilege", in effect precluding a trial. (For the full text of Sibel Edmonds' open letter to 9-11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean, please click here.) Ritt Goldstein is an American investigative political journalist based in Stockholm. (Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [content@atimes.com] for information on our sales ***************************************************************** 4 Xinhuanet: NPC official on Stevens' China tour www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-08-05 18:12:53 BEIJING, Aug. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- President pro tempore of the US Senate Ted Stevens' China tour is a significant event in the exchanges between the two congresses, said Jiang Enzhu, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Foreign Affairs Committee. The visit bodes well for regular contact and dialogue between the two congresses and will promote the Sino-US relations, Jiang said during an interview with Xinhua after Stevens' delegation left Beijing Wednesday for Gansu Province and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China. The exchange program was initiated by China's top legislature and the US Senate at the end of 2003. China reacted positively after the US Senate approved the proposal advanced by Stevens and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to establish an exchange programwith the NPC, Jiang said. Sheng Huaren, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, wentto Hawaii on Jan. 1 to meet with Stevens, and the two agreed to set up an exchange group, with Sheng as chairman of the Chinese group and Stevens as chairman of the US one. The United States stressed repeatedly that the US Senate established such programs with only a few nations, Jiang said. The NPC and the House of Representatives set up a similar program in 1999. The exchange mechanism between the NPC and the USSenate was another important step forward in the progress of exchanges and cooperation between the two nations. Chinese leaders attached great importance to Stevens' China tour, which was the highest US congressional delegation to China in seven years. During Stevens' stay in Beijing, President Hu Jintao, Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao met or held talks with his delegation. Sheng presided over three working talks jointly with Stevens. Stevens' delegation consists of such important members as Fristand the committee chairmen of funds allocation, intelligence, energy, agriculture and commerce. Stevens himself used to fight against Japan with the Chinese people during the anti-Japanese war,and Frist led a delegation to China in April, 2003 when severe acute respiratory syndrome was rampant. The meetings and talks involved a series of problems of common concern, and were undertaken in a friendly, frank and concrete atmosphere, Jiang said. Mutual understanding was enhanced through discussions of both shared viewpoints and disputes, he said. The two sides exchanged views extensively on the Sino-US relations, international and regional affairs, Sino-US trade and economic relations and other issues of shared concern, such as theTaiwan issue. The two sides spoke positively of the 25-year progress of bilateral ties, stressing that China and the United States are among the world's most influential nations, and the development ofbilateral ties is conducive not only to the interests of the two peoples, but also to the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large, Jiang said. China stressed that the Taiwan issue is the most important, most sensitive issue in Sino-US relations, as it concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and concerns the fundamental interest of the Chinese people. China will try its best to solve the Taiwan issue peacefully, but will never tolerate Taiwan independence or allow anyone to split Taiwan from China through any measures. China urged the United States to honor its promises on the Taiwan issue, adhere to the one-China policy, observe the three Sino-US joint communiques, oppose Taiwan independence, and not send wrong signals to the Taiwan authorities. The United States reiterated the stands taken by President George W. Bush and the US Administration on the issue. China also expressed its standpoint on the constitutional system of Hong Kong, stressing that Hong Kong affairs are internalones. The United States appreciated the introduction by the Chinese side on relevant policies in Hong Kong, saying that the information helped them understand more about Hong Kong, the NPC official said. The two sides exchanged views on the trade and economic relations of the two nations. They both agreed that trade and economic cooperation between the two nations played an important role in bilateral ties, and the two nations should properly deal with possible disputes and friction in friendly and cooperative ways. They also exchanged views on issues including the Korean nuclear issue, the Iraq issue, anti-terrorism, non-proliferation and the situations in the Middle East and Africa. They held that consultations and cooperation in these fields should be strengthened, Jiang said. The two sides achieved consensus on future operation of the exchange mechanism. They agreed to undertake regular exchanges andmake efforts to promote the multi-level exchanges between the NPC and the US Congress and take concrete steps to enrich the content of the exchange program. The two sides agreed that Sheng Huaren will lead a delegation to visit the United States at a proper time next year for the second round of the working talks, according to Jiang. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 NRC establishes secret security around n-power plants Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 14:57:17 -0700 Here is complete AP wire story on NRC establishing secret security around nuclear stations. PLEASE POST. Paul, NIRS http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040804/ap_on_go_ot/nuclear_security_2 U.S. Government - AP ap120.gif Nuclear Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed Wed Aug 4, 5:52 PM ET my161.gif Add U.S. Government - AP to My Yahoo! By MALIA RULON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The government will no longer reveal security gaps discovered at nuclear power plants, hoping to prevent terrorists from using the information, regulators said Wednesday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the change in policy during its first public meeting on power plant safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It drew barbs from critics who said the secrecy would erode public confidence in the agency. Until now, the NRC has provided regular public updates on vulnerabilities its inspectors found at the country's 103 nuclear power reactors, such as broken fences or weaknesses in training programs. "We need to blacken some of our processes so that our adversaries won't have that information," said Roy Zimmerman, director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, which was created after the attacks. NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said commissioners voted to take the step March 29, but kept it quiet as agency staff worked to implement the plan. The vote itself was revealed Wednesday and had nothing to do with this week's warnings that terrorists had surveyed U.S. financial institutions, Burnell said. "We deliberated for many months on finding the balance between the NRC's commitment to openness and the concern that sensitive information might be misused by those who wish us harm," commission Chairman Nils Diaz said in a written statement. Michele Boyd, a lobbyist for the consumer group Public Citizen, said they had not struck that balance. "The public has zero confidence in NRC and making this information completely out of the public, not available, does not bring any more confidence," Boyd told the commission. "The commission could have come up with more creative ways of making the information public." Peter Stockton, senior investigator with the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan research group, said, "Some of it seems reasonable, but there's no form of outside oversight." Zimmerman of the NRC said the agency is considering providing general information on security vulnerabilities that would not include plant names or other details. Protection at the nation's nuclear power reactors located at 64 sites in 31 states has been ratcheted up since the Sept. 11 attacks. The commission has long been guarded about revealing specifics of the security efforts. But that has not stopped accusations of inadequate guard training and other security lapses. Congressional investigations have found problems such as a guard falling asleep on the job and lost keys to sensitive areas. Reports from the Energy Department's inspector general noted other problems, such as guards being warned of upcoming security exercises and inconsistent training from site to site. Nuclear activists have expressed concern about the adequacy of guard training, fire protection, the security of pools containing spent nuclear fuel, and planning for different kinds of attacks. "The vulnerabilities at a lot of the reactors in this country have not been addressed," said Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "Here we are nearly three years from the attacks and I don't see anything they've done except extending the perimeters of these facilities." In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, operators at the nation's nuclear power plants posted more guards, added security patrols and reduced access to the installations' most sensitive areas. Military planes at nearby bases stood ready to intercept any suspicious aircraft, the Coast Guard patrolled the Great Lakes near power plants to keep ships away, and many facilities enlisted the help of National Guard troops. Some critics have said nothing short of military occupation of the plants will provide adequate safety. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) said in May that the possibility of creating a federal police force to guard nuclear plants was being seriously discussed. Paul Gunter, a nuclear expert at the watchdog group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said he's worried that plants since 1992 have been allowed to delay implementation of fire protection equipment for control room cables. "Our major concern is that the NRC really has to stop protecting the nuclear power industry from the cost of security and really start protecting it from the clear and present danger of terrorism," Gunter said Attachment Converted: ap120.gif: 00000001,755112e1,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: my1613.gif: 00000001,755112e2,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 6 Grossly Rigged Security "Tests" At Nuke Plants OKed By NRC Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 02:07:46 -0400 Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has focused on security issues at nuclear plants for more than 20 years, said allowing Wackenhut to test security at plants where it is the security contractor was like letting athletes conduct their own drug tests. Mr. Floyd said that for the tests at the civilian reactors, Wackenhut employees had signed nondisclosure agreements and were subject to dismissal if they violated them. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/politics/06nukes.html Battle Swirls on Security at A-Plants By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: August 6, 2004 ASHINGTON, Aug. 5 - The nuclear power industry's trade association has hired the company that guards half of the nation's civilian reactors to train and manage "adversary teams'' that attack the plants in drills. The decision, by the Nuclear Energy Institute, has drawn the disapproval of a government watchdog that has issued several reports in recent years critical of security at nuclear power and weapons plants. Advertisement "It is not an apparent conflict of interest, but a blatant conflict of interest," Danielle Brian, executive director of that group, the Project on Government Oversight, said of the company's dual roles in a letter to the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The added responsibilities of the company, the Wackenhut Corporation, were posted on the trade association's Web site in June but were little noticed until recently. They have led Peter D. H. Stockton, a security adviser to the secretary of energy in the Clinton administration and now the security expert for Ms. Brian's group, to complain that the attackers' trainers should be hired by the regulatory commission. "This is a governmental function," Mr. Stockton said. The industry group defended its decision, saying uniform selection and training by Wackenhut, which already performs attacking and defending roles at nuclear weapons plants, would improve standardization of security tests. And, said Stephen D. Floyd, the association's vice president for regulatory affairs, while grading the tests is a government function, playing attacker is not. "These folks are nothing more than players," Mr. Floyd said. At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Roy P. Zimmerman, director of the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, said the companies that operate the reactors, and the commission itself, would be looking for any sign of cheating and that the choice of Wackenhut was not a problem for his agency. "Tapping that pool of experience is not a surprise to us," Mr. Zimmerman said. Eleven months ago, the Government Accountability Office, then called the General Accounting Office, issued a report that said attackers in security exercises were often undertrained and underarmed, while the defenders were unrealistically overstaffed. The attacking team in those exercises sometimes included guard trainers or off-duty guards from the plant being tested, or guards borrowed from other plants. Mr. Floyd acknowledged that until now, most of the attackers had had training only in defense. In contrast, he said, Wackenhut, a subsidiary of Group 4 Securicor, a leading security services company based in Britain, is providing two trainers with extensive expertise in "hand-to-hand combat, urban assault, terrorist training, small arms and munitions" - the skills required, he said, to see if the defenders can withstand an attack of the kind envisioned by the regulatory commission. But Wackenhut has had problems in running drills at weapons plants. In January, the inspector general of the Energy Department said that at Oak Ridge, Tenn., where the government stores weapons-grade uranium, Wackenhut attackers had told Wackenhut defenders which buildings were to be attacked, the targets at those buildings and whether a diversionary tactic would be used. The inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, said the internal leaks raised doubts about the value of the tests. Mr. Floyd said that for the tests at the civilian reactors, Wackenhut employees had signed nondisclosure agreements and were subject to dismissal if they violated them. Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has focused on security issues at nuclear plants for more than 20 years, said allowing Wackenhut to test security at plants where it is the security contractor was like letting athletes conduct their own drug tests. Mr. Markey said public confidence would be undermined both by that step and by the commission's decision, announced Wednesday, to keep reactor-security lapses secret so as not to alert terrorists to them. The commission recently decided to step up the pace of "force on force" tests, and plans to conduct one every three years at each plant starting this fall. The adversaries use weapons that resemble laser tag guns. ***************************************************************** 7 Nuke Power Plant Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 14:18:31 -0400 While a number of salient issues are touched on in the article below nothing is said about the obvious, insidious fact that the nuclear industry, NRC and media [by way of omission] say nothing about the fact that a terrorist act or acts vastly worse than Chernobyl can be perpetrated relatively easily with a relative handful of attackers- be that on foot, from water and/or air. See: http://www.tmia.com & http://www.pogo.org as well as three excellant articles in the January/February 2002 "Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists": http://www.thebulletin.org John Kerry [ http://www.johnkerry.com ] mentioned in his acceptence speech on Thursday night, July 29, 2004 [no specifics] the need for increased security at nuke power plants around the country [ he said nothing about Canadian or other NPPs which also threaten the USA with falllout]. The only security is abolition of NPPs and securing as is best possible the spent nuclear fuel. Nothing else will suffice. -Bill Smirnow ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Gunter To: Paul Gunter Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 11:39 AM Subject: NRC establishes secret security around n-power plants Here is complete AP wire story on NRC establishing secret security around nuclear stations. PLEASE POST. Paul, NIRS http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040804/ap_on_go_ot/nuclear_security_2 U.S. Government - AP Nuclear Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed Wed Aug 4, 5:52 PM ET Add U.S. Government - AP to My Yahoo! By MALIA RULON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The government will no longer reveal security gaps discovered at nuclear power plants, hoping to prevent terrorists from using the information, regulators said Wednesday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the change in policy during its first public meeting on power plant safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It drew barbs from critics who said the secrecy would erode public confidence in the agency. Until now, the NRC has provided regular public updates on vulnerabilities its inspectors found at the country's 103 nuclear power reactors, such as broken fences or weaknesses in training programs. "We need to blacken some of our processes so that our adversaries won't have that information," said Roy Zimmerman, director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, which was created after the attacks. NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said commissioners voted to take the step March 29, but kept it quiet as agency staff worked to implement the plan. The vote itself was revealed Wednesday and had nothing to do with this week's warnings that terrorists had surveyed U.S. financial institutions, Burnell said. "We deliberated for many months on finding the balance between the NRC's commitment to openness and the concern that sensitive information might be misused by those who wish us harm," commission Chairman Nils Diaz said in a written statement. Michele Boyd, a lobbyist for the consumer group Public Citizen, said they had not struck that balance. "The public has zero confidence in NRC and making this information completely out of the public, not available, does not bring any more confidence," Boyd told the commission. "The commission could have come up with more creative ways of making the information public." Peter Stockton, senior investigator with the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan research group, said, "Some of it seems reasonable, but there's no form of outside oversight." Zimmerman of the NRC said the agency is considering providing general information on security vulnerabilities that would not include plant names or other details. Protection at the nation's nuclear power reactors - located at 64 sites in 31 states - has been ratcheted up since the Sept. 11 attacks. The commission has long been guarded about revealing specifics of the security efforts. But that has not stopped accusations of inadequate guard training and other security lapses. Congressional investigations have found problems such as a guard falling asleep on the job and lost keys to sensitive areas. Reports from the Energy Department's inspector general noted other problems, such as guards being warned of upcoming security exercises and inconsistent training from site to site. Nuclear activists have expressed concern about the adequacy of guard training, fire protection, the security of pools containing spent nuclear fuel, and planning for different kinds of attacks. "The vulnerabilities at a lot of the reactors in this country have not been addressed," said Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "Here we are nearly three years from the attacks and I don't see anything they've done except extending the perimeters of these facilities." In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, operators at the nation's nuclear power plants posted more guards, added security patrols and reduced access to the installations' most sensitive areas. Military planes at nearby bases stood ready to intercept any suspicious aircraft, the Coast Guard patrolled the Great Lakes near power plants to keep ships away, and many facilities enlisted the help of National Guard troops. Some critics have said nothing short of military occupation of the plants will provide adequate safety. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) said in May that the possibility of creating a federal police force to guard nuclear plants was being seriously discussed. Paul Gunter, a nuclear expert at the watchdog group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said he's worried that plants since 1992 have been allowed to delay implementation of fire protection equipment for control room cables. "Our major concern is that the NRC really has to stop protecting the nuclear power industry from the cost of security and really start protecting it from the clear and present danger of terrorism," Gunter said ***************************************************************** 8 [NukeNet] Nuke Power Plant Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 14:57:32 -0700 While a number of salient issues are touched on in the article below nothing is said about the obvious, insidious fact that the nuclear industry, NRC and media [by way of omission] say nothing about the fact that a terrorist act or acts vastly worse than Chernobyl can be perpetrated relatively easily with a relative handful of attackers- be that on foot, from water and/or air. See: http://www.tmia.com & http://www.pogo.org as well as three excellant articles in the January/February 2002 "Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists": http://www.thebulletin.org John Kerry [ http://www.johnkerry.com ] mentioned in his acceptence speech on Thursday night, July 29, 2004 [no specifics] the need for increased security at nuke power plants around the country [ he said nothing about Canadian or other NPPs which also threaten the USA with falllout]. The only security is abolition of NPPs and securing as is best possible the spent nuclear fuel. Nothing else will suffice. -Bill Smirnow ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Gunter To: Paul Gunter Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 11:39 AM Subject: NRC establishes secret security around n-power plants Here is complete AP wire story on NRC establishing secret security around nuclear stations. PLEASE POST. Paul, NIRS http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040804/ap_on_go_ot/nuclear_security_2 U.S. Government - AP Nuclear Safety Lapses Won't Be Revealed Wed Aug 4, 5:52 PM ET Add U.S. Government - AP to My Yahoo! By MALIA RULON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The government will no longer reveal security gaps discovered at nuclear power plants, hoping to prevent terrorists from using the information, regulators said Wednesday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the change in policy during its first public meeting on power plant safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It drew barbs from critics who said the secrecy would erode public confidence in the agency. Until now, the NRC has provided regular public updates on vulnerabilities its inspectors found at the country's 103 nuclear power reactors, such as broken fences or weaknesses in training programs. "We need to blacken some of our processes so that our adversaries won't have that information," said Roy Zimmerman, director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, which was created after the attacks. NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said commissioners voted to take the step March 29, but kept it quiet as agency staff worked to implement the plan. The vote itself was revealed Wednesday and had nothing to do with this week's warnings that terrorists had surveyed U.S. financial institutions, Burnell said. "We deliberated for many months on finding the balance between the NRC's commitment to openness and the concern that sensitive information might be misused by those who wish us harm," commission Chairman Nils Diaz said in a written statement. Michele Boyd, a lobbyist for the consumer group Public Citizen, said they had not struck that balance. "The public has zero confidence in NRC and making this information completely out of the public, not available, does not bring any more confidence," Boyd told the commission. "The commission could have come up with more creative ways of making the information public." Peter Stockton, senior investigator with the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan research group, said, "Some of it seems reasonable, but there's no form of outside oversight." Zimmerman of the NRC said the agency is considering providing general information on security vulnerabilities that would not include plant names or other details. Protection at the nation's nuclear power reactors - located at 64 sites in 31 states - has been ratcheted up since the Sept. 11 attacks. The commission has long been guarded about revealing specifics of the security efforts. But that has not stopped accusations of inadequate guard training and other security lapses. Congressional investigations have found problems such as a guard falling asleep on the job and lost keys to sensitive areas. Reports from the Energy Department's inspector general noted other problems, such as guards being warned of upcoming security exercises and inconsistent training from site to site. Nuclear activists have expressed concern about the adequacy of guard training, fire protection, the security of pools containing spent nuclear fuel, and planning for different kinds of attacks. "The vulnerabilities at a lot of the reactors in this country have not been addressed," said Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "Here we are nearly three years from the attacks and I don't see anything they've done except extending the perimeters of these facilities." In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, operators at the nation's nuclear power plants posted more guards, added security patrols and reduced access to the installations' most sensitive areas. Military planes at nearby bases stood ready to intercept any suspicious aircraft, the Coast Guard patrolled the Great Lakes near power plants to keep ships away, and many facilities enlisted the help of National Guard troops. Some critics have said nothing short of military occupation of the plants will provide adequate safety. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) said in May that the possibility of creating a federal police force to guard nuclear plants was being seriously discussed. Paul Gunter, a nuclear expert at the watchdog group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said he's worried that plants since 1992 have been allowed to delay implementation of fire protection equipment for control room cables. "Our major concern is that the NRC really has to stop protecting the nuclear power industry from the cost of security and really start protecting it from the clear and present danger of terrorism," Gunter said _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 9 UK Times: BE stands firm on rescue deal terms [http://www.timesonline.co.uk] August 06, 2004 By Angela Jameson and Gillian Harris BRITISH ENERGY ruled out changes to terms of its proposed restructuring plan yesterday, in the face of questioning from shareholders. Adrian Montague, chairman of the troubled nuclear group, said the terms of the government-backed rescue deal were binding and the plan could not be altered. “The restructuring agreements we entered into with creditors BNFL and the Government are binding,” he said. “We do not have any choice whether we wish to give effect to them or not. There’s simply no other viable course open to us.” Only 53 of the company’s 230,000 shareholders turned up at the annual meeting in Edinburgh to question the directors. There were representatives from Polygon Investments, which owns a 5.6 per cent stake in the nuclear power company and is pressing for shareholders to get a larger share of the equity. With placards that read: “Shareholders want a deal not a steal” and “No delisting without shareholder vote”, the protesters urged shareholders going into the meeting to join the battle to get a better deal for investors. However, in a polite two-hour meeting Mr Montague told shareholders: “We all have to recognise that last October the company was kept alive by the Government and its creditors because we had committed ourselves to the restructuring plan. Although this is still a bitter pill to swallow, I am satisfied we could not have achieved more for shareholders when these arrangements were concluded last October.” Alan Lyon, of Polygon, said the binding agreement on restrucuturing would expire in late January and called on the board to commit to not extending or modifying it. But Mr Montague said it was impossible to tell the situation of the company in January and the priority would be the company’s survival. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,8543,00.html] ***************************************************************** 10 Las Vegas SUN: Gov't to End Public Nuclear Updates By MALIA RULON ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Citing a need to keep information from terrorists, regulators said Wednesday the government will no longer reveal security gaps discovered at nuclear power plants or the subsequent enforcement actions taken against plant operators. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the change in policy during its first public meeting on power plant safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It drew barbs from critics who said the secrecy would erode public confidence in the agency. Until now, the NRC has provided regular public updates on vulnerabilities its inspectors found at the country's 103 nuclear power reactors, such as broken fences or weaknesses in training programs. "We need to blacken some of our processes so that our adversaries won't have that information," said Roy Zimmerman, director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, which was created after the attacks. NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said commissioners voted to take the step March 29, but kept it quiet as agency staff worked to implement the plan. The vote itself was revealed Wednesday and had nothing to do with this week's warnings that terrorists had surveyed U.S. financial institutions, Burnell said. "We deliberated for many months on finding the balance between the NRC's commitment to openness and the concern that sensitive information might be misused by those who wish us harm," commission Chairman Nils Diaz said in a written statement. Michele Boyd, a lobbyist for the consumer group Public Citizen, said the NRC had not struck that balance. "The public has zero confidence in NRC and making this information completely out of the public, not available, does not bring any more confidence," Boyd told the commission. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a longtime critic of the nuclear industry, said the policy will "further deepen public skepticism of the commission's performance and calls into question whether the commission is doing what it must do to keep nuclear reactors safe from terrorist attacks." Zimmerman of the NRC said the agency is considering providing general information on security vulnerabilities that would not include plant names or other details. Protection at the nation's nuclear power reactors - located at 64 sites in 31 states - has been boosted since the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, the commission has been guarded about revealing specifics of the security efforts. That has not stopped accusations of inadequate guard training and other security lapses. Congressional investigations have found problems such as a guard falling asleep on the job and falsification of security logs. Reports from the Energy Department's inspector general noted other problems at sites run by that agency, such as guards being warned of upcoming security exercises and inconsistent training from site to site. Nuclear activists expressed concerns at the meeting about the adequacy of guard training, fire protection, the security of pools containing spent nuclear fuel, and planning for different kinds of attacks. They also raised concerns about the agency's plans to allow the security firm Wackenhut Corp. to run mock terrorist attacks on the plants, nearly half of which are protected by Wackenhut security guards. "When you have Wackenhut test Wackenhut, nobody is going to believe those results," said Peter Stockton, senior investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, a research group. NRC's Zimmerman said the agency would closely monitor the exercises to make sure no information about the timing or methods of the mock attacks is leaked to plant personnel. In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, operators at the nation's nuclear power plants posted more guards, added security patrols and reduced access to the installations' most sensitive areas. Military planes at nearby bases stood ready to intercept any suspicious aircraft; the Coast Guard patrolled the Great Lakes near power plants to keep ships away; and many facilities enlisted the help of National Guard troops. Some critics say more needs to be done. "The vulnerabilities at a lot of the reactors in this country have not been addressed," said Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "Here we are nearly three years from the attacks and I don't see anything they've done except extending the perimeters of these facilities." NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner disputed that assessment, saying the agency has aggressively pushed plant owners to, among other things, sharply upgrade security programs and training; conduct more realistic tests of plant defenses; and communicate better with the intelligence community, law enforcement and emergency response agencies. The energy sector contributed $3.7 million, more than half of which came directly from nuclear and electric power companies, to Democrats during the 2004 election cycle. Republicans got $9.2 million from energy sources, including $2.7 million from power companies. --- On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: [http://www.nrc.gov] -- ***************************************************************** 11 Hindustan Times: China to supply equipment to Pak for nuke plant Thursday, August 5, 2004 | Updated: 18:42 IST [http://www.hindustantimes.com Press Trust of India Beijing, China will supply to Pakistan key equipment for the second phase of the Chashma nuclear power station, state media reported today. The plant will be constructed on the banks of the Indus River, around 170 miles south of Islamabad, next to the first plant that China helped build. The UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed the operation of the power station to be safe and accords with international standards, Deputy General Manager of China National Nuclear Corporation, Huang Junguo, said yesterday. The project would be worth about USD 600 million and take at least six years to complete, analysts said. The first Chashma nuclear power plant was built in 1999 and connected to the national power grid in early 2000. Pakistan has promised that all apparatus and technology used in nuclear construction will be restricted to "peaceful uses", the report said. In addition, Islamabad has agreed not to transfer such technology to any third party, it said. Pakistan built its first nuclear power station in 1972 in Karachi with Canadian help. The United States has repeatedly urged China to halt nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, but both Beijing and Islamabad deny they are working together for military purposes. Western countries, under US pressure, have halted nuclear cooperation with Pakistan amid suspicions Islamabad was developing nuclear weapons clandestinely. [http://www.hindustantimes.com] ***************************************************************** 12 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Nuclear plants vulnerable to attack [seattlepi.com] [OPINION] Thursday, August 5, 2004 ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. GUEST COLUMNIST Editor's note: In the third of four excerpts from "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Highjacking Our Democracy" -- being published this week on this page -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. points out the threat of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility. During his 2002 State of the Union Address, President Bush warned that al-Qaida terrorists possess diagrams of U.S. nuclear facilities. The most vulnerable one happens to be in my back yard. I live in Mount Kisco, N.Y., 11 miles downwind of Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which is 24 miles north of New York City. On Sept. 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston passed within a few thousand feet of Indian Point as it followed the Hudson River down to Tower II of the World Trade Center. No nuclear facility in America is closer to such a densely populated metropolitan area. Neither the Natural Resources Defense Council nor Hudson Riverkeeper have ever taken a stand against nuclear power, but following the terror attacks, the communities surrounding Indian Point inundated our offices with phone calls and letters. The outcry prompted us to study Indian Point in light of the risks of terrorist attack. Contrary to the public perception aggressively promoted by the industry, terrorists would not have to puncture the containment dome to cause a serious accident or meltdown. Nuclear plants such as Indian Point are vulnerable at half a dozen points, some of them virtually impossible to shield from determined attackers. Worst of all, terrorists could attack the plant's spent fuel pools, which house more than 1,500 tons of high-level radioactive waste accumulated over 30 years. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a significant loss of water within the spent fuel pools could provoke a fuel-assembly fire that could release up to 100 percent of a pool's store of Cesium-137 -- up to 20 times the amount released at Chernobyl. You would think that nuclear plants would be among the most secure facilities on Earth. The opposite is true. Indian Point and other nuclear power plants near Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., are virtually unprotected against terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. Federal law absolves nuclear power plant operators from any legal duty to protect their plants from attacks "by enemies of the United States." So who shoulders this burden? New York Gov. George Pataki tells us that it is the federal government. But try to find a federal agency that will take responsibility -- not the NRC, not the Department of Homeland Security and not the Pentagon. Nuclear plants are required to show that they can protect themselves from attacks by small groups of vandals. And the NRC periodically conducts mock attacks. In an internal report by Entergy Nuclear, the plant's Mississippi-based owner, obtained by Riverkeeper in December 2002, Indian Point's security guards acknowledged that the robust security force portrayed by Entergy is a deception. A recent Riverkeeper lawsuit against the NRC before the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals exposed "gaps" in plant security for the first time. The FAA, for example, has refused to declare a no-fly zone over the plant. Defenses against a marine attack are weak. Last summer we were cavorting back and forth in front of Indian Point in the Riverkeeper boat to test its defenses, when two guards finally approached us in a whaler. When we asked whether they were armed, they sheepishly told us no, and explained that they would need to radio back for directions if there were an attack. Also alarming is the absence of a workable evacuation plan. In August 2002, Pataki commissioned a consulting firm headed by James Lee Witt, former Federal Emergency Management Agency director, to assess Indian Point's Emergency Response Plan. Witt's 550-page report criticized virtually every component of the plan. Despite numerous requests by Riverkeeper and local politicians, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has refused to meet with local leaders or to take any position on the issue or to investigate the matter. Last July, FEMA and Homeland Security issued a determination that the emergency evacuation plan for Indian Point "would be adequate in protecting public health and safety in the event of a release." Entergy rakes in approximately $1 million a day from the electricity produced by Indian Point, and has shared its profits generously with the president and his party. Entergy is a major player within the Nuclear Energy Institute. Entergy President Donald Hintz is chairman of the NEI's board of directors. Contributions from companies and organizations on NEI's 2001 members' roster total $29.2 million in soft money from 1991 to June 30, 2001, with 63 percent going to Republicans. NEI itself contributed $643,202 during the same period. NEI also spent nearly $10.8 million lobbying Congress and the executive branch from January 1996 through June 30, 2001. These have been great investments; NEI met with Energy Department officials 19 times -- while the Cheney task force was at work. This year on April 8, in her testimony before the 9/11 commission, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice swore under oath to the nation that the administration was doing everything in its power to "harden terrorist targets" in the United States. But this simply isn't true. Coming tomorrow: Kennedy exposes how King Coal has raped Appalachia and explains the consequences for the region, the nation and the world. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate. Back to [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 ©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy ***************************************************************** 13 Las Vegas RJ: Nevadans worry NRC biased about repository Thursday, August 05, 2004 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials are troubled by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission attorney who spoke in defense of the Energy Department at a hearing last week on the Yucca Mountain Project. NRC lawyers and staff members are required to act in an impartial manner as they prepare to weigh a license application to build a nuclear waste repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But NRC staff attorney Mitzi Young crossed the line in favor of the Energy Department, said Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects. Loux sent a letter Tuesday to NRC General Counsel Karen Cyr, asking her to investigate whether agency staffers are being pressured to tilt in favor of the project. "Any small hope the state of Nevada had that the NRC staff would be an independent evaluator of the DOE's license application in the Yucca Mountain proceeding vanished" Loux said, when Young made her presentation to a three-judge panel hearing the agency's first repository dispute July 27. Young told the administrative judges that, in the view of NRC staff, Nevada failed to make a case when it charged the department violated requirements for an online database of Yucca Mountain technical documents. Young said the Energy Department's efforts to build the database were satisfactory and met "good faith" standards. Young's comments appeared to take the judges by surprise. Judge Thomas Moore said it appeared contrary to her view last year. Moore and Judges Alan Rosenthal and Alex Karlin indicated Nevada had a legitimate complaint. A decision is pending. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 14 SLOT: PG&E asks for rate increases to make upgrades to Diablo Canyon plant San Luis Obispo Tribune | 08/04/2004 | Cynthia Neff The Tribune Pacific Gas and Electric Co. says it must have a 2 percent rate increase to pay for a more than $700 million in critical upgrades to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant -- or the utility may be forced to close the plant as early as 2013 The utility has asked the California Public Utilities Commission if it can apply a nearly 2 percent rate increase to fund the replacement of eight steam generators, which would be installed in 2008 and 2009. The generators now in the plant can operate only until 2014 at the latest, said PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis. "That would mean the plant wouldn't be able to operate," Lewis said. The generators help produce power from water heated by nuclear fission. They boil water, which creates steam that spins the turbine generator to create electricity. The commission has scheduled hearings Sept. 20-Oct. 1 in San Francisco on the costs and benefits of PG&E's proposal. The commission will prepare an environmental document to release next spring on the upgrading project and is slated to make a decision in fall 2005. If the commission gives the go-ahead, PG&E would provide the capital for the project and then ratepayers would pay back the millions of dollars, starting in 2008. Rates would increase nearly 2 percent, Lewis said, and then decrease over time. The rate increase would be the first significant request PG&E has asked to put on its customers for Diablo Canyon since 1999, when the commission changed the way the utility pays for its projects. Before then, PG&E made money from Diablo Canyon based on how much electricity it produced there, on a kilowatt-per-hour basis. In 1999, the commission started requiring PG&E to seek approvals for rate changes. The utility will spend $1 billion through 2009 to replace major components of the plant, Greg Reuger, head of PG&E's nuclear power division, said in a previous interview. At $706 million, the most expensive upgrade is installation of the eight new steam generators. The improvements would make the power plant operational for another 20 years. Construction on the plant began in the early 1960s at a total cost of $5.8 billion. The power plant began operating in 1985. Diablo Canyon is licensed to operate through 2025.Commercial nuclear plants are initially licensed for 40 years and can apply for a 20-year extension. Officials at the plant have said they are studying whether to apply for the license renewal but have not made any decision because the current license won't expire for another 20 years. Diablo Canyon supplies power for 2 million northern and central California homes. Subhead Meanwhile, a San Francisco-based law firm filed briefs Tuesday with the Public Utilities Commission that ask the commission to include additional issues in their evaluation of PG&E's request. The statements were filed on behalf of the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Greenpeace and Environment California. The testimony asks the commission to consider three issues, including: • The potential costs associated with seismic retrofits; • Replacement of other aging plant components. David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who advised environmental opponents of the plant, said the utility has underestimated the non-fuel operation and maintenance costs, and capital expenditures. • Post-Sept. 11, 2001, security enhancements. U.S. nuclear power plants are vulnerable to sophisticated terrorist attacks, said Dr. Gordon Thompson of the Institute for Resources and Security Studies, in his statement to the commission. He estimated an overall additional cost of providing enhanced defense at the plant at more than $247 million. That estimate is in addition to operating and maintenance expenses and capital expenses PG&E is incurring. z In one of the three testimonies, Lochbaum says PG&E has focused too narrowly in its application on the steam generators as the only equipment that might adversely effect plant performance. "Without a serious analysis of aging-related degradation, together with its associated repair and/or replacement costs as well as associated power replacement costs, PG&E's application is deficient," he added. Lewis said the utility regularly identifies equipment that might need to be replaced and can submit a "general rate case" every three years that itemizes upgrades and expenses for the commission's review. He added that the issues raised in the testimonies have already been addressed by PG&E. For example, a performance analysis completed after the San Simeon Earthquake confirmed the plant is strong enough to withstand a 7.5-magnitude quake from the Hosgri fault. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission supported the utility's review, he said. Also, the utility has spent millions of dollars since the terrorist attacks to increase security at the plant, he said, in accordance with mandates from the NRC. Project opponents are unconvinced. Rochelle Becker of Mothers for Peace said it would not be any more costly in the long run to replace the aging plant entirely, with a kind of plant that doesn't "create daily doses of radioactive waste." Such a move would provide jobs, boost the local economy and reduce the production of radioactive fuel. "If you want to think in long run instead of short, there is no downside to replacing this power source," she said. "If you're thinking in the short run, you're not thinking about your kids." ***************************************************************** 15 toledoblade.com: Door to power-rate boost opened Thursday, August 05, 2004 FirstEnergy given guideline for passing along fuel costs Under yesterday's commission action, a rate freeze approved in June may not be as solid as it first appeared. ( THE BLADE/DIANE HIRES ) By JIM PROVANCE [jprovance@theblade.com] BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU COLUMBUS - FirstEnergy Corp. customers' electricity bills could rise if the utility's fuel costs climb, under a decision yesterday by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. The commission voted 3-0 with two members absent to rethink part of its June ruling requiring the parent of Toledo Edison to seek competitive bids by Dec. 1 from electricity suppliers to serve customers in FirstEnergy's territory in 2006. If the auction fails to produce a lower price for consumers, FirstEnergy's current rates would be locked in for three more years through 2008, including billions in surcharges to help the utility recover investments in nuclear power plants and other spending. Under yesterday's revised plan, that rate freeze may not be as solid as it first appeared. The original ruling allowed automatic increases for FirstEnergy only for higher taxes. The revised ruling allows the utility to apply for PUCO permission to pass on higher fuel costs as well. "With the price of fuel for energy going up both in coal and gas, it makes it more difficult," said Commissioner Judy Jones, of Toledo. "People need to understand that there are some real increases that we really don't have any control over." Ohio Consumers' Counsel Janine Migden-Ostrander said she would request a rehearing on the fuel-cost issue. She said she fears the company might include in a rate-increase application the higher fuel costs associated with the closing of the Davis Besse plant last year. "We would be opposed to any increase whatsoever," she said. "The rates in FirstEnergy's service territory are high enough. Customers are suffering enough." She also expressed disappointment that the PUCO did not appear to factor out FirstEnergy's special contracts with large industrial users from the base price against which potential suppliers would compete at auction. The concern is that those lower rates would lower FirstEnergy's average bid price as well as increase the total electricity load that any competitor would have to guarantee it could supply. The PUCO order, however, indicated that the commission plans to hire a consultant to watch over FirstEnergy's auction on the PUCO's behalf. Ultimately, the consultant will establish the parameters of the auction. FirstEnergy had asked the commission to reconsider its June ruling and hadn't decided yesterday whether it was happy with the results. "We're looking at all the components to see how they all fit together," said spokesman Mark Durbin. "We got the ability to adjust for fuel cost increases. However, we don't have that ability for distribution reliability improvements. Environmental improvements weren't factored in." The auction would be the first real test in Ohio of whether the competitive electricity market that the General Assembly envisioned when it deregulated part of the industry in 1999 has emerged. "I'm becoming more optimistic," said Chairman Alan Schriber, who previously had expressed skepticism that a market had developed sufficiently. Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496. © 2004 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 16 Mos News: Russia Admits N Korea Nuclear Problem, Denies Involvement - MOSNEWS.COM Sergei Ivanov / Frame from NTV Channel Created: 05.08.2004 14:07 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:04 MSK MosNews Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Thursday that the North Korean Nuclear problem really existed, but denied allegations that Russia was involved in this problem’s creation, the Interfax news agency reports. “We know who was really involved in creation of the North Korean nuclear problem. The problem is truly very serious, but the statement of Russia’s involvement in its creation is a myth,” the minister told reporters in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. Ivanov called groundless the allegations that Russia was involved in missile and nuclear technologies’ proliferation. “Today it is North Korea, tomorrow Iran will re-surface again, and the next day it will be Sudan, but all these accusations are groundless,” he said. “I can say with all responsibility that Russia has never supplied anything illegal or forbidden to other countries, including North Korea” Ivanov said. The minister also added that there were no facts to prove the accusations. “If there were such facts, they would have been presented already, creating a great international scandal,” Ivanov said. Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov is currently in Kyrgyzstan on a working visit. On Thursday Ivanov is scheduled to meet Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev and on Friday he will be watching the second stage of the Rubezh-2004 counter-terrorist exercises. Washington has criticised Russia for supplying Iran with nuclear technology, which Moscow and Tehran say is for peaceful purposes. Russia has also been criticised by human rights groups for selling warplanes to Sudan. The latest allegations were particularly serious because missiles based on submarines or warships could be positioned close to their targets before being launched, giving them greater range than land-based weaponry. SEE ALSO 04.08.2004 09:55 MSK, MOSNEWS.COM Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com] Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 17 Scotsman.com: Shareholders Unhappy at British Energy Deal Thu 5 Aug 2004 By Louise Gray, PA News British Energy bosses stood firm today in the face of shareholder protests over the future of the troubled company. The nuclear group faced questions from disgruntled shareholders at the AGM over planned Government-backed restructuring, agreed last year to save the company from administration. Shareholders claimed the plan, which gives them the choice of accepting 2.5% of the restructured group with options to secure another 5% – or nothing at all, is “unfair”. But at the meeting in Edinburgh, chairman Adrian Montague insisted the deal was the only viable course for the survival of the company and the best return for shareholders. He said: “Although this is still a bitter pill to swallow, I am satisfied we could not have achieved more for shareholders when these arrangements were concluded last October.” ***************************************************************** 18 Ohio News Now: Davis-Besse focusing on fuse in shutdown probe ONN. August 5, 2004 OAK HARBOR, Ohio -- Workers trying to determine what caused the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant to unexpectedly shut down were focusing on a fuse, a plant spokesman said Thursday. Plant staff suspect a fuse in the control rod drive system may have caused the emergency shutdown Wednesday, said Richard Wilkins, a Davis-Besse spokesman. He said that if the fuse is to blame, workers could easily fix the problem and have the plant running early next week. The plant shut down during testing, marking the first problem for the plant since it resumed generating electricity at full capacity in April after being idled for two years. Plant officials say the problem likely was not caused by an employee or a procedural error. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Jan Strasma in Chicago, said a routine surveillance test was being conducted on one of four reactor trip circuit breakers. He said the circuit breaker shuts down the reactor as a safety precaution. David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said such events occur about four or five times a year nationwide at plants like Davis-Besse. "Davis-Besse is in a fish bowl, so the event gets a little more attention," he said. The plant along Lake Erie in northern Ohio was closed for two years after inspectors found corrosion on the reactor. Leaking boric acid almost had eaten through a 6-inch-thick steel cap, forcing the plant to undergo $600 million in repairs and review its operations. Improving the workers' attitudes toward safety was one of the requirements FirstEnergy had to document before it was allowed to end the shutdown. ___ On the Net: FirstEnergy Corp.: http://www.firstenergycorp.com Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 19 ThisisLondon: British Energy chief lays down law [http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ 5 August 2004 BRITISH Energy chairman Adrian Montague told shareholders today' they had 'no other viable course' than to accept the controversial rescue package that all but wipes out their ownership of the nuclear generator. He said the restructuring, which puts BE in the hands of its lenders and bondholders, was the only alternative to administration. He told shareholders attending the company's annual meeting in Edinburgh: 'The restructuring agreements we entered into with creditors, BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels PLC) and the government are binding.' 'We do not have a choice whether we wish to give effect to them or not. There's simply no other viable course open to us. We entered into these binding agreements in October 2003 - in return for keeping the company afloat - when no other viable option was available,' he said. His remarks echo comments he made yesterday in a letter to the Financial Times. Hedge fund Polygon, which recently upped its stake to 5.6%, is leading a campaign to force the company to ditch the plan and improve the terms for shareholders. Under the plan agreed with creditors last October, bondholders are set to take hold of 97.5% of the company's share capital. The hedge fund says the plan fails to recognise that wholesale electricity prices have risen sharply since the agreement was signed, and is pressing for shareholders to retain 30% of the company. ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, Davis-Besse Nuclear Power FR Doc 04-17852 [Federal Register: August 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 150)] [Notices] [Page 47469-47470] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05au04-101] Station, Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering amending an exemption from (1) Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 50, Appendix K, section I.D.1, which requires that accident evaluations use the combination of emergency core cooling system (ECCS) subsystems assumed to be operative ``after the most damaging single failure of ECCS equipment has taken place;'' and (2) requirements of 50.46(a)(1)(ii), for Facility Operating License No. NPF-3, issued to FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC or the licensee), for operation of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station (DBNPS), located in Ottawa County, Ohio. Therefore, as required by 10 CFR 51.21, the NRC is issuing this environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact. Environmental Assessment Identification of the Proposed Action The original exemption issued on May 5, 2000, exempted the licensee from the single-failure requirement for the two systems for preventing boric acid precipitation during the long-term cooling phase following a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). Additionally, the action exempted the licensee from the calculation requirements of 50.46(b)(5) and Appendix K, section I.A.4 for the second or backup system for preventing boric acid precipitation. The proposed action would amend the existing exemption by approving a new system to prevent boric acid precipitation. This new system would become the primary system and the current primary system would become the backup system. The current backup system would no longer be credited as part of the licensing basis, although it would remain as a third option procedurally. As such, the part of the existing exemption related to the calculation requirements of 50.46(b)(5) and Appendix K, section I.A.4 would be removed from the exemption as it only applied to the current backup system and is no longer needed. The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's application dated February 13, 2004. The Need for the Proposed Action The proposed action provides a new active means of preventing boric acid precipitation within the reactor vessel core region following a LOCA. The new system has fewer vulnerabilities and meets calculation requirements without an exemption, unlike the system to be removed from the licensing basis. Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action and concludes that the proposed amended exemption would continue to satisfy the underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46 and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K. Additionally, the proposed action does not involve radioactive wastes, release of radioactive material into the atmosphere, solid radioactive waste, or liquid effluents released to the environment. The DBNPS systems were evaluated in the Final Environmental Statement (FES) dated October 1975 (NUREG 75/097). The proposed amended exemption will not involve any change in the waste treatment systems described in the FES. The proposed action will not significantly increase the probability or consequences of accidents. No changes are being made in the types of effluents that may be released off site. There is no significant increase in the amount of any effluent released off site. There is no significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure. Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. With regard to potential non-radiological impacts, the proposed action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It does not affect non-radiological plant effluents and has no other environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant non- radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant environmental impacts associated with the proposed action. Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action'' alternative). Denial of the application would result in no change in current environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of the proposed action and the alternative action are similar. Alternative Use of Resources The action does not involve the use of any different resources than those previously considered in the Final Environmental Statement for DBNPS, NUREG 75/097, dated October 1975. Agencies and Persons Consulted On May 25, 2004, the staff consulted with the Ohio State official, C. O'Claire of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, regarding the environmental impact of the proposed action. The State official had no comments. [[Page 47470]] Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the environmental assessment, the NRC concludes that the proposed action will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed action. For further details with respect to the proposed action, see the licensee's letter dated February 13, 2004 (ADAMS ML040490242), and the existing exemption approved by NRC letter dated May 5, 2000 (ADAMS ML003712264). Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the NRC Web site, 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] . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415- 4737, or send an e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of July, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Jon B. Hopkins, Senior Project Manager, Project Directorate III, Section 2, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-17852 Filed 8-4-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 21 NRC: Entergy Operations, Inc., Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit FR Doc 04-17853 [Federal Register: August 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 150)] [Notices] [Page 47465-47467] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05au04-99] No. 3; Exemption 1.0 Background Entergy Operations, Inc. (Entergy or the licensee) is the holder of Facility Operating License No. NPF-38 which authorizes operation of Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit 3 (Waterford 3). The license provides, among other things, that the facility is subject to all rules, regulations, and orders of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) now or hereafter in effect. The facility consists of a pressurized water reactor located in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. 2.0 Request/Action Pursuant to title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) section 50.12, ``Specific Exemptions,'' Entergy, in a letter dated April 30, 2004, as supplemented by letter dated June 8, 2004, requested an exemption to 10 CFR 50.46, ``Acceptance Criteria for Emergency Core Cooling Systems for Light-Water Nuclear Power Reactors'', and Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50, ``ECCS Evaluation Models.'' The regulation in 10 CFR 50.46 contains acceptance criteria for the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) for reactors fueled with zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\ cladding. Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 requires that the Baker-Just equation be used to predict the rates of energy release, hydrogen concentration, and cladding oxidation from the metal-water reaction. This exemption request relates solely to the specific types of cladding material specified in these regulations. As written, the regulations presume the use of zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\ fuel rod [[Page 47466]] cladding. Thus, an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.46 and Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 is needed to irradiate lead test assemblies (LTAs) comprised of a developmental alloy (Optimized ZIRLO\TM\) at Waterford 3. 3.0 Discussion 3.1 Material Evaluation 3.1.1 Fuel Mechanical Design Tin is a solid solution strengthener and [alpha]-phase stabilizer present entirely in the base [alpha]-phase zirconium crystalline structure. Potential impacts of a reduced tin content on material properties include: (1) A reduced tensile strength; (2) an increased thermal creep rate; (3) an increased irradiation growth rate; (4) a reduced [alpha] [rtarr][alpha]+[beta] phase transition temperature; and (5) an improved corrosion resistance. The stated reduction in tin content of Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ will not affect the size, shape, or distribution of any second-phase or inter-metallic precipitates nor the overall microstructure of this developmental zirconium alloy. With a consistent microstructure, Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ will exhibit many material characteristics similar to those of the licensed ZIRLO\TM\. In response to a Request for Additional Information (RAI), Entergy provided details of the planned post-irradiation examinations of the LTAs. Measured parameters include rod profilometry, rod wear, assembly and rod growth, assembly bow, grid cell dimensions, and oxide thickness. As a result of these post-irradiation examinations, any negative aspects of the low tin alloy's performance, including the potential impacts of a reduced tin content identified above, will be identified and resolved. Furthermore, significant deviations from model predictions will be reconciled. The fuel rod burnup and fuel duty experienced by the LTAs in Waterford 3 will remain well within the operating experience base and applicable licensed limits for ZIRLO\TM\. Utilizing currently-approved fuel performance and fuel mechanical design models and methods, Entergy and Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Westinghouse) will perform cycle-specific reload evaluations to ensure that the LTAs satisfy design criteria. Based upon LTA irradiation experience of similar low tin versions of ZIRLO\TM\, expected performance due to similar material properties, and an extensive LTA post-irradiation examination program aimed at qualifying model predictions, the NRC staff finds the LTA mechanical design acceptable for Waterford 3. 3.1.2 Core Physics and Safety Analysis The Waterford 3 exemption request relates solely to the specific types of cladding material specified in the regulations. Due to similar material properties, any impact of Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ on the safety analysis models and methods is expected to be minimal. Utilizing currently-approved core physics, core thermal-hydraulics, and non-loss- of-coolant accident (LOCA) safety analysis models and methods, Entergy and Westinghouse will perform cycle-specific reload evaluations to ensure that the LTAs satisfy design criteria. Fuel management guidelines will require that LTAs be placed in non- limiting core locations. In response to an RAI, Entergy described how power-peaking margins would be used to ensure that LTAs will not be limiting. Based upon the use of approved models and methods, expected material performance, and the placement of LTAs in non-limiting core locations, the NRC staff finds that the irradiation of up to four LTAs in Waterford 3 will not result in unsafe operation or violation of specified acceptable fuel design limits. Furthermore, in the event of a design-basis accident, these LTAs will not promote consequences beyond those currently analyzed. Based upon results of metal-water reaction tests and ring-compression tests, which ensure the applicability of ECCS models and acceptance criteria and the use of approved LOCA models to ensure that the LTAs satisfy 10 CFR 50.46 acceptance criteria, the NRC staff considers the LTAs acceptable for use at Waterford 3 as proposed by Entergy. 3.2 Regulatory Evaluation Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the Commission may, upon application by any interested person or upon its own initiative, grant exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR Part 50 if: (1) The exemptions are authorized by law, will not present an undue risk to public health or safety, and are consistent with the common defense and security; and (2) special circumstances are present. 3.2.1 10 CFR 50.46 The underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46 is to establish acceptance criteria for ECCS performance. The applicability of the ECCS acceptance criteria has been demonstrated by Westinghouse. Ring-compression tests performed by Westinghouse on Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ (documented in Appendix B of Addendum 1 to WCAP-12610-P-A) demonstrate an acceptable retention of ductility up to 10 CFR 50.46 limits of 2200 [deg]F and 17 percent Equivalent Cladding Reacted. Utilizing currently approved LOCA models and methods, Westinghouse will perform cycle-specific reload evaluations to ensure that the LTAs satisfy 10 CFR 50.46 acceptance criteria. Therefore, granting the proposed exemption will not defeat the underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46. 3.2.2 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix K Paragraph I.A.5 of Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 states that the rates of energy, hydrogen concentration, and cladding oxidation from the metal-water reaction shall be calculated using the Baker-Just equation. Since the Baker-Just equation presumes the use of zircaloy clad fuel, strict application of the rule would not permit use of the equation for the LTA cladding for determining acceptable fuel performance. Metal-water reaction tests performed by Westinghouse on Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ (documented in Appendix B of Addendum 1 to WCAP- 12610-P-A) demonstrate conservative reaction rates relative to the Baker-Just equation. Therefore, granting the proposed exemption will not defeat the underlying purpose of Appendix K, Paragraph I.A.5. 3.2.3 Special Circumstances In summary, the NRC staff reviewed the licensee's request of proposed exemption to allow up to four LTAs containing fuel rods fabricated with Optimized ZIRLO\TM\. Based on the NRC staff's evaluation, as set forth above, the NRC staff considers that granting the proposed exemption will not defeat the underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46 or Appendix K to 10 CFR Part 50. Accordingly, special circumstances, are present pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2)(ii). 3.2.4 Other Standards in 10 CFR 50.12 The staff examined the rest of the licensee's rationale to support the exemption request, and concluded that the use of Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ would satisfy 10 CFR 50.12(a) as follows: (1) The requested exemption is authorized by law: No law precludes the activities covered by this exemption request. The Commission, based on technical reasons set forth in rulemaking records, specified the specific cladding materials identified in 10 CFR 50.46 and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K. Cladding materials are not specified by statute. (2) The requested exemption does not present an undue risk to the public [[Page 47467]] health and safety as stated by the licensee: The LTA reload evaluation will ensure that these acceptance criteria [in the Commission's regulations] are met following the insertion of LTAs containing Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ material. Fuel assemblies using Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ cladding will be evaluated using NRC-approved analytical methods and plant specific models to address the changes in the cladding material properties. The safety analysis for Waterford 3 is supported by the applicable Technical Specifications. The Waterford 3 reload cores containing Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ cladding are required to be operated in accordance with the operating limits specified in the Technical Specifications. The LTAs utilizing Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ cladding will be placed in non- limiting core locations. Thus, the granting of this exemption request will not pose an undue risk to public health and safety. The NRC staff has evaluated these considerations as set forth in Section 3.1 of this exemption. For the reasons set forth in that section, the NRC staff concludes that Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ may be used as a cladding material for no more than four LTAs to be placed in non- limiting core locations during Waterford 3's next refueling outage, and that an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.46 and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K does not pose an undue risk to the public health and safety. (3) The requested exemption will not endanger the common defense and security: The common defense and security are not affected and, therefore, not endangered by this exemption. 4.0 Conclusion Accordingly, the Commission has determined that, pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a), the Exemption is authorized by law, will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety, and is consistent with the common defense and security. Also, special circumstances are present. Therefore, the Commission hereby grants Entergy an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.46 and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K, to allow the use of Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ as a cladding material in four LTAs in the capacity described in their April 30, 2004, submittal, as supplemented by letter dated June 8, 2004, up to a lead rod average burnup of 60,000 MWD/MTU. Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the Commission has determined that the granting of this exemption will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment (69 FR 31848 dated June 7, 2004). This exemption is effective upon issuance. Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 28th day of July, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. James E. Lyons, Deputy Director, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-17853 Filed 8-4-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 22 NRC: Florida Power and Light Co.; Notice of Consideration of Issuance FR Doc 04-17854 [Federal Register: August 5, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 150)] [Notices] [Page 47467-47469] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05au04-100] of Amendment to Facility Operating License, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering issuance of an amendment to Facility Operating License No. DPR-41, issued to Florida Power and Light (the licensee), for operation of the Turkey Point Unit 4 located in Miami-Dade County. The proposed amendment would revise Technical Specifications (TSs) 3/4.1.3.1, 3/4.1.3.2 and 3/4.1.3.5 to allow the use of an alternate method of determining rod position for the control rod F-8 with the rod position indicator, until repairs can be conducted at the next outage which is scheduled for spring 2005. The reason for the exigency is due to the unanticipated failure of the Turkey Point Unit 4 Analog Rod Position Indication for control rod F-8 in Shutdown Bank B, which was last declared inoperable on July 26, 2004, at 8:47 a.m. Additionally, there is a concern regarding excessive wear due to exercising the movable incore detectors every 8 hours (90 times per month) to comply with the compensatory actions required by the current Action Statement a. of TS 3.1.3.2. Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act) and the Commission's regulations. Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.91(a)(6) for amendments to be granted under exigent circumstances, the NRC staff must determine that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. Under the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 50.92, this means that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated; or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10 CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented below: 1. Will operation of the facility in accordance with this proposed change involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated? No. The proposed change provides an alternative method for verifying rod position of one shutdown rod. The proposed change meets the intent of the current specification in that it ensures verification of position of the control rod once every eight (8) hours. The proposed change provides only an alternative method of monitoring shutdown rod position and does not change the assumption or results of any previously evaluated accident. Therefore, operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendment would not involve a significant increase in the probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated. 2. Will operation of the facility in accordance with this proposed change create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated? No. As described above, the proposed change provides only an alternative method of determining the position of one shutdown rod. No new accident initiators are introduced by the proposed alternative manner of performing rod position verification. The proposed change does not affect the reactor protection system or the reactor control system. Hence, no new failure modes are created that would cause a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated. Therefore, operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendments would not create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any previously evaluated. 3. Will operation of the facility in accordance with this proposed change involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety? No. The bases of Specification 3.1.3.2 state that the operability of the rod position indicators is required to determine control rod positions and thereby ensure compliance with the control rod alignment and insertion limits. The proposed change does not alter the requirement to determine rod position but provides an alternative method for determining the position of the affected rod. As a result, the initial conditions of the accident analysis are preserved and the consequences of previously analyzed accidents are unaffected. Therefore, operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed amendments [[Page 47468]] would not involve a significant reduction in the margin of safety. The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR 50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to determine that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed determination. Any comments received within 14 days after the date of publication of this notice will be considered in making any final determination. Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the expiration of the 14-day notice period. However, should circumstances change during the notice period, such that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example, in derating or shutdown of the facility, the Commission may issue the license amendment before the expiration of the 14-day notice period, provided that its final determination is that the amendment involves no significant hazards consideration. The final determination will consider all public and State comments received. Should the Commission take this action, it will publish in the Federal Register a notice of issuance. The Commission expects that the need to take this action will occur very infrequently. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to intervene is discussed below. Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating license and any person whose interest may be affected by this proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested persons should consult a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File Area 01F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/ [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/] reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/. If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order. As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with particular reference to the following general requirements: (1) The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property, financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The petition must also identify the specific contentions which the petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding. Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner/requestor is aware and on which the petitioner/requestor intends to rely to establish those facts or expert opinion. The petitioner/requestor must provide sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven, would entitle the petitioner/ requestor to relief. A petitioner/requestor who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party. Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the conduct of the hearing. If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final determination on the issue of no significant hazards consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration, the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the final determination is that the amendment request involves a significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take place before the issuance of any amendment. Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 2.309(a)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV [HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV] ; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed to the [[Page 47469]] Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101, verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov [OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov] . A copy of the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to M. S. Ross, Managing Attorney, Florida Power & Light Company, P.O. Box 14000, Juno Beach, FL 33408-0420, attorney for the licensee. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendment dated July 28, 2004, which is available for public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site 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] . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415- 4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 30th day of July 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Eva A. Brown, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 04-17854 Filed 8-4-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 23 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford worker exposed to unsafe radiation levels [seattlepi.com] Thursday, August 5, 2004 By LISA STIFFLER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER At least one Hanford worker was recently exposed to unsafe radiation levels after key safety measures were ignored during a cleanup project in an underground waste area, the contractor coordinating the work said yesterday. Five or more workers encountered unexpectedly high levels of radiation during the incident July 22, according to CH2M Hill Hanford Group. The workers were not wearing protective lead gloves, and when the radiation was detected, work was not stopped so shielding devices could be put in place, CH2M Hill officials said. A technician also lacked the proper device -- called a "black widow" -- to accurately read the amount of radiation being given off, the officials said. CH2M Hill, which is in charge of work around the 177 buried storage tanks, voluntarily stopped all work on the project after the incident and is investigating. The company has been criticized recently for its safety practices in state and federal reports. "They need adult supervision out there," said Tom Carpenter, director of the nuclear oversight program for the Government Accountability Project, a local watchdog group. "Reports criticizing them for safety ... just haven't sunk in. Workers don't count for much out there." CH2M Hill is one of the major contractors responsible for the multibillion-dollar cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, a U.S. Department of Energy site and former site of weapons-grade plutonium production. CH2M Hill officials said they're taking steps to understand what went wrong and to prevent future incidents. "It's accurate to say we were very concerned," Senior Vice President Dale Allen said. There could have been better planning for the work and a better response when radiation was detected, he said. The exposure occurred as workers were removing a 30-foot-long thermometer device from a concrete vault. As the pipe thermometer was nearly out of the vault, a technician began reading radiation levels beyond his instrument's detection range. Workers continued removing the device, which was bagged in a protective material. At least five workers were potentially exposed. They were wearing respirators, anti-contamination clothes, boots, gloves and face shields, but not protective lead gloves. According to personal measuring devices, or dosimeters, one worker received an exposure to his hand of 15 to 50 rem. CH2M Hill has an annual limit of a 15-rem dose for workers. Allen said none of the workers received a more dangerous "whole body dose" that exceeded safety guidelines. The investigation will reconstruct what happened to confirm the exposures. The worker with the hand exposure suffered no immediate health effects, Allen said, but because he exceeded safety limits, he will not be assigned to jobs where he could have more exposure. P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattlepi.com [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com [newmedia@seattlepi.com] ©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy ***************************************************************** 24 Las Vegas SUN: DOE failed to alert workers to disease risk Feds knew of silica dangers in Yucca tunnels for years By Suzanne Struglinski < [suzanne@lasvegassun.com] > (c) 2004 LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department was warned of the dangers of silica at Yucca Mountain years before it told workers of the threat, department documents show. Memos and e-mails sent over several years show that key managers were told there was silica dust, which can lead to the fatal lung disease silicosis, in the mountain's tunnels during and after the main tunnel of the proposed nuclear waste repository was dug. The documents, which are public and part of the department's material supporting its license application to build the repository, show that the department failed to follow up on plans to protect workers. And, the documents show, the department waited almost three years to notify workers after being warned that it needed to do so. "The Department of Energy sent their workers into that mountain knowing full well of the presence of silica and knowing full well that exposure to silica can cause death," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. " DOE also knew that exposure is 100 percent preventable, but did nothing that would have protected these workers." Reid held a Senate subcommittee field hearing in Las Vegas earlier this year. Workers now ill from their time in the mountain talked about their experiences. "The fact that the DOE withheld this information from the workers at the Yucca Mountain site is completely irresponsible and further proves the reckless fashion in which this project is being handled," Reid said. The Energy Department did not respond to several requests for comment. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called the attitude shown in the document "the height of arrogance." "Rather than just a case of negligence or carelessness, these documents indicate that DOE knew its actions were wrong and that workers should have been told years earlier about the dangers created by tunneling work without proper protection," she said. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said the Energy Department chose to "ignore the danger and put their employees at risk in order to keep the Yucca Mountain Project on schedule." "If the Department of Energy has such blatant disregard for the life, health and safety of their own employees, how can we trust they will protect the health and safety of the American public by storing 77,000 tons of high level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain?" he said. Several Energy Department contractors are facing a class-action lawsuit filed in District Court earlier this year. The lawsuit is led by former Yucca Mountain employee Gene Griego, who worked at Yucca Mountain from 1993 to 2002, during the research phase, and was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease last year. The department said it created its screening program after employees, like Griego, raised concerns about their exposure in September 2003. It acknowledged worker protections were not strongly enforced during times workers could be exposed, and documents show it knew of the potential health risk to the workers but still did not notify them until this year. An April 2001 memo shows the department knew the severity of keeping the exposure a secret as well as the importance of getting workers tests for disease. "An issue concerning silica exposures will become more visible as time goes by," according to an April 4, 2001, memo labeled "sensitive" from department Industrial Hygienist Phillip Boehme to Suzanne Mellington, assistant manager of the office of project execution. "Workers in the early days of Yucca Mountain were exposed to silica without respiratory protection. It is advisable to medically monitor them through the rest of their lives." He recommended that "all exposed employees from the early years must be identified" and contacted, even if they no longer work for the department. Boehme even said the program "may become newsworthy" and "illnesses may become subject of lawsuits, even class action." "We should begin a coordinated effort," he wrote. "Lawsuits, public affairs and medical surveillance will be shared problems." Three different memos, two from 2001 and one from 2002, from Wilbert Townsend, an engineering specialist, show raised silica levels long after the drilling stopped and that the limits the department was using were outdated or lab reports were wrong. On Feb. 13, 2002, Townsend monitored levels inside the mountain and found that people working in certain areas at that time would be overexposed in about four hours without appropriate protection. "This is still dangerous," said attorney Joe Egan. "This is years after the digging." After examining the documents, Egan, of Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch and Cynkar, one of the law firms representing Griego and the other plaintiffs in the class-action suit, said he has found similar ones showing the department delayed getting the message to workers. "These show they anticipated it, yet still did not have the courtesy to tell these people they should be going to the doctor," Egan said. "DOE (the Energy Department) actually set up procedures and requirements but the contractors said no." Egan also represents the state in its battle against the Yucca project, but the state is not a party to the silicosis case. The documents essentially paint a chronology of the Energy Department's knowledge of the problems with silica and show that the department was slow to act despite warnings. Glenn Milligan, manager of the Safety and Health Complication Department, sent a letter to project manager Carl Gertz outlining a silica sampling plan for the project in July 1992, four months before the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issued a nationwide alert about silicosis to any workers involved in rock drilling. However, an evaluation of training and tunnel operations from July 18, 1994, to Aug. 12, 1994, found there was no safety training for supervisors who specifically worked with the tunnel boring machine. The project also had problems equipping workers with safety equipment to protect against silicosis. In August 1994 Wendy Dixon, the project's assistant manager for environment, safety and health, wrote Daniel Koss, the technical project officer for the site characterization office, that those working in the tunnel "must use appropriate respiratory protection" and the appropriate sampling should occur to monitor the exposure. Margaret Chu, the project's current director, told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in February that dust masks were available but more advanced respiratory protection was not available -- or their use enforced -- until 1996. In March 1996 Dixon told L. Dale Foust, technical project officer for the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, that disposable respirators did not satisfy the required protection needed, so a better plan and stronger respirators were needed. The documents also show a pattern of warnings, concerns and issues with silica: + On April 15, 1996, four Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors were denied access to the site after a complaint. + In May 1996, Dixon's name appears on an "informal memorandum" sent from Russell Baumeister, a safety and occupational health specialist on the project, saying certain activities like tunnel drilling and mining, labeled "dust producers," should be shut down for at least two hours prior to a visit by members of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. "Visitors exposed to these operations may exceed the exposure levels for silica," Baumeister wrote. "Visitors should have the capability to don respirators during their visit." + A May 1996 memo from Robert Hull, a health and safety coordinator, said that silica levels in at least six of the 10 researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory who visited the site that month exceeded the enforcement levels. Hull recommended the employees be given respiratory protection and said the lab should perform its own monitoring. + A Sept. 5, 1996, "informal memorandum" from Dr. Fred Kissell of the department's Pittsburgh Research Center wrote that it was "not feasible to clean up the entire tunnel." "There are too many sources of dust, the cost is unreasonable and the implementation time it too long," Kissell wrote. "It has been suggested that new ventilation lines be established to remove dusty air from the alcoves. This many help a little but suffers from cost and implementation time problems." + J. Davitt McAteer, assistant secretary for mine safety and health, wrote the department in October 1996 after an assessment had been done in April 1996. "If (the Mine Safety and Health Administration) had inspected the Yucca Mountain project as a regular mine, the 10 Compliance Assistance Visit notices given to the Department of Energy representatives would have been citations and a time limit for abatement would have been set," McAteer wrote. ***************************************************************** 25 Tri-City Herald: Radiation exposure investigated This story was published Thursday, August 5th, 2004 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Hanford officials are investigating an incident in which a worker received a radiation dose to his hand that exceeded administratively set limits. Although the higher legal limit was not exceeded, both the Department of Energy and contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group consider it a potentially serious incident, Dale Allen, senior vice president for CH2M Hill, said Wednesday. The goal is to prevent recurrences that could harm workers, said John Swailes, assistant manager for the tank farms project for DOE's Office of River Protection. On July 22, a worker in the tank farms received a radiation dose to his hand of 15 to 25 rem, Allen said. The exact dose was not released to protect the worker's medical privacy. The federal legal limit is 50 rem per year to an extremity, such as a hand or foot. However, DOE sets a more conservative limit of 15 rem yearly that should be exceeded only with administrative permission for rare and unusual circumstances. Planning for the work was not done correctly, and it should have stopped as soon as it became apparent that equipment was more contaminated with radioactive waste than expected, Allen said. Hanford has 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in underground tanks arranged in fields, or "farms." The waste was generated during plutonium production for the nation's nuclear weapons program in World War II and the Cold War. Work was being done to decommission an underground vault that once served one of the tank farms. Workers were pulling a 36-foot-long device used for measuring the temperature out of an auxiliary or scrub tank with a crane. Only the tip extended into the underground tank. The tank had a 10,000-gallon capacity and was not one of the main underground tanks, some of which can hold 1 million gallons. As workers pulled out the bottom 2 inches of the thermocouple, radiation measurements shot up. Workers were unsure whether to stop work because of the reading or continue work since the equipment then would be left hanging, Allen said. They decided to finish the job, a decision they should not have had to make, Allen said. Characterizing contamination in the scrub tanks, such as the one being decommissioned, is difficult, Allen said. Because of the uncertainty, a work plan should have been created that assumed potentially high levels of contamination, he said. The original work plan evidently called for protection with lead gloves. Because only low-levels of radiation were expected, those gloves were not worn, Allen said. All workers were wearing appropriate dosimeters, he said. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 26 Bradenton Herald: 130 file for beryllium exposure claims | 08/05/2004 | I M A G E S A N D R E L A T E D C O N T E N T [Joseph Bivona, a former American Beryllium Co. employee, files a claim on Wednesday. Bivona has MS, and his wife Cindy, also a former employee of the company, died of cancer in 1994.] TIFFANY TOMPKINS-CONDIE-The Herald Joseph Bivona, a former American Beryllium Co. employee, files a claim on Wednesday. Bivona has MS, and his wife Cindy, also a former employee of the company, died of cancer in 1994. DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer MANATEE - Federal officials collected at least 130 compensation claims from former nuclear weapons workers during a two-day visit to Bradenton that ended Wednesday. Most of those claims came from former employees of the American Beryllium Co. in Tallevast. Some were filed by family members of former workers who have died. All applicants share a common concern: Could their exposure to beryllium, known to cause severe respiratory illnesses, have compromised their health? Some, like Lee Hatt, a process engineer who said he worked on top-secret projects at the Tallevast plant between 1980 and 1991, already know the answer. Hatt, who never smoked in his life, now has a smoker's cough and constant respiratory problems he said is linked to his work with beryllium. Researchers have found beryllium exposure can cause both short-term, or acute, respiratory illnesses as well as long-term, or chronic, beryllium disease or berylliosis. Berylliosis can be treated with corticosteroid therapy such as prednisone, but for some, the disease can be fatal. z Larry Richmond of St. Petersburg, who filed his claim Wednesday, already lost half of his right lung and his spleen, and his immune system is compromised. Hatt said his symptoms began around 1985 and became progressively worse over the years. He said he saw no connection with his work during the years he worked for the Tallevast company. Now he thinks his constant contact with beryllium may have compromised his health. z He and other workers have told the Herald that it was nearly impossible to escape the fumes and dust. The company tried to salvage as much of the beryllium dust as possible, Hatt said. The metal is so expensive that a 12-inch by 12-inch block cost $75,000. Hatt worked on several different projects including the manufacture of core parts for nuclear reactors and some aspects of the Star Wars technology that the Reagan administration saw as essential to the defense of the United States. Hatt's wife, Judy, also worked at American Beryllium in 1985. She filed her claim for compensation through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program on Wednesday. She was very pleased with representatives from the Labor Department District One Office in Jacksonville and the Savannah River Resource Center who helped her file her claim. "They did a great job," Judy Hatt said. "They were real nice and went out of their way to go over everything to make sure we understood." Larry Williams, director of operations at the Jacksonville office, said American Beryllium workers and others under contract for Department of Energy projects deserve special treatment. "We know the stereotype of the federal employee, that we don't do much," Williams said. "We try to break that mold with this program because these people have had problems in the past and have not received the attention they deserve." Williams said he instructed his staff to spend as much time as necessary to make sure applicants understood the compensation program and their rights. Former employees of American Beryllium and other Department of Energy employers or contractors can still file claims by telephone, even though Williams' team has left town. Williams emphasized that his office and the Savannah Resource Center are there to serve former nuclear workers who have either come down with radiation-related cancers, chronic silicosis or beryllium diseases. Because the Tallevast company was a beryllium manufacturer, former employees may be eligible for medical coverage and a possible lump-sum compensation of $150,000 if they have berylliosis or chronic beryllium disease. Those who filed claims can expect a letter soon from a claims examiner who will verify their employment and instruct them on what to do next. The first step in receiving compensation is to have a special blood test for beryllium sensitivity. Only five laboratories in the United States can perform the test. Claim applicants will be given information they can pass on to their primary care physicians who can order a test kit, have the blood drawn locally and ship it to the laboratory. Applicants must cover the cost of the beryllium sensitivity test, which runs about $259. If the test is conducted after the claim is filed and the results show the applicant has beryllium sensitivity, the test fee will be reimbursed. The applicant will then receive lifetime medical coverage for beryllium disease treatments. Claim applicants who can provide pulmonary function tests, biopsies and MRI reports that show they have chronic beryllium disease will be eligible for lump sum compensation payments up to $150,000. The compensation program passed by Congress covers only beryllium sensitivity and chronic beryllium disease even though exposure is known to cause cancer. Treatment of cancers that stem from beryllium exposure is not covered. Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached at 745-7049 or at [dwright@bradentonherald.com] . ***************************************************************** 27 AFP: Canada and Russia in 24 million dollar deal to decomission nuclear subs WAR.WIRE [http://www.spacewar.com/] OTTAWA (AFP) Aug 04, 2004 Canada said Wednesday it had signed a 24 million dollar deal (18 million US dollars) to help Russia dismantle nuclear submarines, under a scheme devised to keep radioactive material out of the hands of terrorists. "Spent nuclear fuel in Russian submarine reactors presents an international security risk and an environmental threat to the Arctic and Barents Sea," said Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew The deal is part of the Group of Eight industrialised nations Global Partnership, which provides 20 billion dollars in funding to target vulnerable stocks of radioactive material in post-Soviet Russia. Russia currently has 56 retired nuclear submarines in the Barents Sea region awaiting disposal. Canada will help dispose of three Victor class submarines at first and over the next three years sign three new deals to provide a total of 116 million dollars to decommision 12 submarines. Britain, Norway, Germany and the United States have already made contributions to dispose of Russian nuclear submarines. WAR.WIRE ***************************************************************** 28 Paducah Sun: House blocks help for sick workers FADING HOPES [http://www.paducahsun.com/] Paducah, Kentucky Thursday, August 05, 2004 FADING HOPES For ailing nuclear workers trapped in the Department of Energy's noncompensation program, the light at the end of the tunnel is fading to black. The workers' hopes for a congressional rescue were lifted in June when the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to the defense spending bill that would move the program from DOE to the Labor Department. But key leaders in the House and officials in the Bush administration are standing by DOE, despite overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of sick workers seeking help through the energy agency will never receive compensation. Sen. Jim Bunning authored the Senate amendment, which attracted support from influential senators who had previously opposed putting the Labor Department in charge of compensating nuclear workers suffering from illnesses linked to exposure to toxic substances. The Senate vote was an important legislative breakthrough for workers and former workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and dozens of other federal installations around the country. First District Congressman Ed Whitfield and other critics of the slow-moving DOE program have been trying for two years to transfer oversight of the compensation system to the Labor Department. Labor officials administer a remarkably successful compensation program for workers with cancer and other illnesses related to exposure to radiation or beryllium and silicon. Since 2001 the department has processed more than 50,000 claims and paid out $900 million in health benefits and lump-sum compensation. The labor program has paid $154 million to workers and former workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. More than 23,000 claims are pending in the DOE-administered program. Over the past four years, the program has processed about 300 claims and provided modest compensation to all of 10 workers. The taxpayers' bill for this bureaucratic nightmare is $95 million — the amount Congress has appropriated to DOE to run the compensation system. Richard Miller, a policy analyst for the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, says DOE is spending about $10,000 per claim. The Labor Department processes workers' claims at the cost of $817 per case, Miller says. Energy department officials have repeatedly promised to speed up the compensation process. The DOE program has paid nine claims in the past four months. That is a considerable improvement over the one claim paid in the previous three years, but this success rate offers little hope to the thousands of sick workers still waiting in line. It's clear the only way to eliminate the massive backlog of cases is to move the program to the Labor Department, which is authorized to pay claims from a $1.7 billion federal fund. The Energy Department program relies on insurance companies or self-insured employers to pay workers' compensation. If insurers contest the claims, DOE cannot compel them to pay. This means workers with serious illnesses can wait for years to have their claims approved and still end up with nothing. Five years ago, the federal government accepted responsibility for exposing workers at nuclear installations to dangerous materials such as highly radioactive plutonium. Bill Richardson, who headed DOE during the Clinton administration, promised employees and former employees of the Paducah enrichment plant that the government would be working for them, not against them. House leaders and Bush administration officials need to deliver on that promise for workers caught in the dysfunctional DOE compensation program. The workers compensated by the Labor Department have seen the federal government at its best. It's unacceptable for the government to allow another group of Cold War-era workers to languish in a program that has been accurately described as a cruel hoax. ***************************************************************** 29 Paducah Sun: Articles ignore key facts about program for nuclear workers [http://www.paducahsun.com/] Paducah, Kentucky Thursday, August 05, 2004 Editorial EDITOR: I have been disturbed by NBC television reports and by Mr. Joe Walker's article in the Business section. These reports seem to ignore the facts of the disability benefits received by sick people who have worked in the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The law passed by Congress, which has resulted in the payout of $154,000,000 over three years, does not specify that the illness for which compensation is paid be caused by exposure to high levels (or any level) of radiation or to toxic materials. The only requirement is that the person worked for the PGDP and developed one of the specified illnesses. They could have worked in the purchasing office outside the plant, in any office or maybe some area far from any process area. Therefore, to assume that the illnesses were caused by plant exposure is just that, an assumption, and to state that they were caused by such exposure is probably far from the truth. This congressional action was, like many appropriations, a boon to the economy of a congressional district. Congressmen trade with each other to get dollars for their districts. Undoubtedly, the Worker Health Screening Program has identified illnesses and cancer that would not otherwise been known. However, even with these additional findings, the level of such illnesses in the plant worker population appears to be no more than that of the general population. (A recommendation for an epidemiology study was not followed.) There is another side to worker benefits — worker's compensation. This is a program usually paid through insurance companies and financed by insurance premiums paid by the companies operating in a particular industry. A claim for workmen's compensation must show that the injury or illness is a result of the occupational exposure. If the cause/effect relationship can be shown, the claim is approved even if the company says it was the employee's fault or that it was done on purpose. If this normal worker's compensation principle is applied to the thousands of claims that the Labor Department wants to take over from the DOE, then very few would be expected to be paid. In summary, sick workers were and are being paid for working in the plant, not because such work made them ill. A claim for workmen's compensation normally requires evidence of a cause-effect relationship. Richard C. Baker Paducah ***************************************************************** 30 Navajo Times: Radiation law middlemen face crackdown Window Rock, AZ Thursday, August 05, 2004 Window Rock, Arizona By Bill Donovan Special to the Times WINDOW ROCK - For years, Navajo and non-Navajo consultants have profited from helping Navajo families apply for cash payoffs through the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. But no more. "It was just getting out of hand," said Larry Martinez, director of the Navajo Nation's Office of Navajo Uranium Workers in Shiprock. In recent weeks, Navajo officials and the federal government have cracked down on people who did not have the credentials but who convinced Navajo families that they could get them through the mass of paperwork required to get the $150,000 in compensation. The money is provided to miners or their families who worked in uranium mines on the reservation in the 1940s and 1950s when no precautions were taken - and no warnings given - to protect them from exposure to radiation. The law has always limited who could help the families - attorneys or someone from an organization, such as the uranium office, who has the background - but Martinez said this was ignored until recently when the crackdown occurred. What happened is that a large number of individuals - how many is still unknown - began helping the families fill out the forms, doing the paperwork from their homes and charging whatever they thought the market could bear. Under the law, said Martinez, people who helped with the paperwork were allowed 10 percent of the original $100,000 provided to families and 2 percent of the money provided in the amendments approved in 2000. The amendments gave families an extra $50,000 to bring the total to $150,000. And the law prohibited collection of any fees until the claim had been approved and the family received the money. Martinez said his staff discovered that families were being told to pay $300 to get the paperwork started and then $100 a month. They also discovered cases where the wrong forms were filled out which severely reduced the amount the families would receive. There were also cases where not all of the proper certification was provided that proved the person actually worked in an uranium mine or failed to show that he worked for long enough. In those cases, the request would be denied. "The bad thing about that is that you only get three chances to get it approved," said Martinez, and having it denied for lack of proper paperwork time after time could get the request denied for good, resulting in the family getting no money. The Navajo government's uranium office helps families with the paperwork for free but many go outside thinking it will be faster or they will get more attention. But Martinez said his staff is careful about submitting the documents to Washington, D.C., making sure that it complies with the law and meets the requirements. "There is enough money in the RECA fund to last to 2011," he said. Navajo Times. Window Rock, AZ. 86515 ***************************************************************** 31 Alert! Take action on High-Level Waste Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 14:57:25 -0700 Dear Colleagues, We are seeking national and local groups to sign-on to this letter to Congress which opposes reclassifying and abandoning highly radioactive nuclear waste in leaking underground tanks in South Carolina. With debate on the defense authorization bill completed in the House and Senate, it is time to contact Members of the House-Senate conference committee. An action alert on this issue is posted on the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability website at www.ananuclear.org/action.html Please circulate this announcement to any groups who might be interested in supporting this effort. We will not be using individual names, only groups and organizations, including the city and state you are located in. Individuals: You can help by taking the actions described at the bottom of this Alert! Send your name, group name, city and state to Barb Sullivan with the Center for Health, Environment and Justice at barbaras@chej.org or 703-237-2249, ext. 10 by August 20. Thanks for your help! Michael Mariotte, NIRS LETTER August 24, 2004 Dear Senator/Representative: During the Conference Committee considerations for the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Authorization bill, we urge you to oppose Senate Section 3116, providing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the authority to reclassify and abandon millions of gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste in leaking underground storage tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. Approximately 37 million gallons of highly radioactive waste remain in 51 large and failing tanks in South Carolina. Section 3116 gives the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) the authority in South Carolina to reclassify high-level waste as low-level waste simply by covering the waste with a thick layer of grout. The highly radioactive waste would then be abandoned in the aging corroding tanks that were never designed for permanent disposal and are already leaking. Given the proximity to the Savannah River and the underlying water table, the radioactive waste in the tanks represents a serious threat to communities surrounding SRS and downstream in Georgia and South Carolina. Section 3116 also establishes a dangerous precedent providing DOE with leverage to pressure Idaho, Washington, and New York to accept reduced cleanup at their high-level waste tanks, which are also old, rusting and in many cases leaking, posing grave risks to the Columbia River, Snake River Aquifer and Great Lakes. The DOE lacks a mandate to move forward with their reclassification plan. When Section 3116 was voted on in the Senate, it drew a tie vote surviving by only the narrowest of margins. The House did not approve of a similar measure in its Defense Authorization bill and the House, in the Energy & Water Development appropriations, explicitly rejected state-specific solutions of the kind present in Section 3116. It should be noted that Section 3116 is a direct legislative reversal of a Federal District Court case that was decided in the summer of 2003. An appeal to that case is currently pending before a United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Section 3116 would partially interfere with that pending case prior to the Court of Appeals having an opportunity to rule on the matter. The affirmation by both the House and the Senate to have the National Academies of Science (NAS) examine the high-level waste issue in detail is a safer course of action, considering the serious nature of the threat. Nor would the NAS study in any way interfere with the current legal matter under review in the Court of Appeals. Cleanup of the all of the high-level waste tanks must continue uninterrupted with full funding. We urge support for Senate Section 3120 to fully fund $350 million for ongoing cleanup of the high-level radioactive waste tanks in Idaho, Washington, and South Carolina. Again, we urge you to strike Senate Section 3116 providing DOE with the ability to reclassify high-level nuclear waste in South Carolina and to support Senate Section 3120 providing full funding for ongoing cleanup of the waste tanks in South Carolina, Idaho and Washington. We hope that you will do all you can to spare the residents of communities next to DOE nuclear weapons complex sites from facing the risks of these inadequate cleanup policies and to stop such ill-advised plans from being adopted at other DOE cleanup sites. Sincerely, On Monday, August 9th, call both Presidential Candidates at: Bush Campaign - 703-647-2700 Kerry Campaign - 202-712-3000 NIRS encourages everyone to join the BE SAFE Campaigns Nuclear Days of Action and participate in the National Call-In Day on MONDAY August 9th, the 59th Anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. We call on presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry to protect our children and our future by reducing and eliminating our nuclear weapons stockpile and clean up the radioactive and toxic contamination from nuclear weapons production instead of the current path of pursuing a provocative nuclear weapons program to develop bunker busters and mini-nukes, and return to fullscale nuclear weapons testing. Dont forget! You can support NIRS and help us meet our $100,000 matching challenge grant by contributing online at: https://secure.campagne.com/Donation/donate.aspx?id=58 This is the NIRS E-Mail Alert list. You are on this list because you signed up on our website, at a NIRS table at a concert, on a petition, or directly to NIRS. Your name and address are never sold, rented, or traded with anyone for any reason. For address changes or to unsubscribe, just send an e-mail to nirsnet@nirs.org. If you have friends or colleagues who would like to be on this list, have them send a note to nirsnet@nirs.org Thank you! Michael Mariotte, Nuclear Information and Resource Service ***************************************************************** 32 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada won't budge on accepting radioactive waste from Ohio plant Today: August 05, 2004 at 10:22:41 PDT By KEN RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada won't budge from plans to sue the Energy Department if the agency signals plans to ship radioactive waste to the state from a former uranium processing plant in Ohio. "Under no circumstances will we negotiate," Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval said Wednesday, after an Energy Department lawyer proposed talks about disposal of powdery waste now stored in concrete silos in Fernald, Ohio. "We are prepared to immediately file a lawsuit in federal court in Las Vegas if they give us 45 day notice," Sandoval said. He was referring to a departmental promise to give the state such notice before beginning shipments from Fernald, 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati, to the federal Nevada Test Site, 80 miles north of Las Vegas. An Energy Department official did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment on a July 28 letter from department lawyer Lee Lieberman Otis to Sandoval. The six-page letter downplays Nevada's argument that the Fernald wastes must be disposed of at a facility administered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and offers to "set our legal differences aside" on the plan to move the waste to Nevada. The Nevada Test Site, home to most of the nation's nuclear testing, is managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration, a branch of the Energy Department. In a brief response sent Monday, Sandoval complained that state lawyers were not present when Energy Department officials met recently with Nevada Department of Environmental Protection officials about the Fernald waste disposal plan. He said he intends to send a longer reply to Otis and might suggest the Energy Department apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to store the Fernald waste at the Nevada Test Site. Such a licensing process could delay by months or years plans by a government contractor to complete the $4 billion-plus Fernald cleanup by the end of 2006. The contractor, Fluor Fernald, had planned to begin shipments in June. Ohio's attorney general has also threatened to sue the Energy Department if the waste is moved out of three concrete silos to temporary storage at the 1,050-acre Fernald site. --- On the Net: Fernald: http://www.fernald.gov [http://www.fernald.gov] Nevada Test Site: http://www.nv.doe.gov/nts [http://www.nv.doe.gov/nts] -- ***************************************************************** 33 Deseret news: Utah's nuclear waste regulations hits snag [deseretnews.com] Thursday, August 5, 2004 Federal government has sole authority, court says By Angie Welling Deseret Morning News The federal government alone, not individual states, has complete authority to license and regulate the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The decision from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest in a series of setbacks to the state's battle to keep spent nuclear fuel out of Utah. The state had sought to overturn a July 2002 decision that struck down a series of laws passed between 1998 and 2001 that strictly regulated, or at least heavily taxed, the presence of nuclear waste. The statutes, shepherded through by former Gov. Mike Leavitt, were specifically designed to block the storage of 40,000 tons of nuclear waste on tribal lands owned by the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes in the west desert. In agreeing with U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell that the laws conflict with existing federal law, the appeals court also noted the sensitive nature of the issue. "In holding the Utah statutes pre-empted, we do not denigrate the serious concerns of Utah's citizens and lawmakers regarding spent nuclear fuel, a matter which presents complex technological, economic and political challenges to those seeking effective solutions," the unanimous ruling states. "However, in the matter of nuclear safety, Congress has determined that it is the federal government and not the states that must address the problem." No decision had been made Wednesday night about a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Amanda Covington, spokeswoman for Gov. Olene Walker. "We're in the process of reviewing the ruling and determining the next steps," Covington said. "However, it's important to recognize that we'll continue to oppose the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah." A spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, the consortium of nuclear power facilities that has leased land from the Goshutes, said the decision makes clear that the proper place for the state to raise its concerns about the proposed facility is with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "This decision affirms the fact that there is a legal process for raising issues and concerns about a project like this," spokeswoman Sue Martin said. "The state has been participating in that process for the past seven years, so they have had seven years worth of opportunities to raise their concerns and have them addressed." The ruling will not have an immediate impact on PFS' attempts to bring nuclear waste to Utah. A hearing on the issue is scheduled to begin Monday before the three-member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The licensing board, which is appointed by the regulatory commission, will discuss the potential risks posed if a military aircraft were to crash into the site. The confidential hearing will continue throughout much of the month, and a decision from the board is not expected until early 2005, said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the state Department of Environmental Quality. From there, the board will make a recommendation on the approval or disapproval of PFS' application to the NRC. Depending on the recommendation, either the state or PFS could appeal the decision to the entire NRC and then, possibly, to federal court. Wednesday's ruling is the second appellate loss the state has suffered this year. In February, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., shot down the state's argument that the NRC lacked jurisdiction to license private waste facilities under the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The state made the same argument before the 10th Circuit, which agreed with the D.C. court and cited its ruling in the Wednesday decision. E-mail: awelling@desnews.com [awelling@desnews.com] © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 34 RGJ: Nevada asks nuclear regulators whether Yucca dump getting preferred handling [http://www.rgj.com/] [online@rgj.com] ASSOCIATED PRESS 8/4/2004 11:16 pm Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects: [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] Nuclear Regulatory Commission: [http://www.nrc.gov] Yucca Mountain project: [http://www.ymp.gov ] LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada is accusing Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff of favoring the Energy Department in a dispute about whether the department followed commission policy in submitting documents about a national nuclear waste repository. The state’s top anti-Yucca Mountain administrator cites a commission lawyer’s comment at a July 27 hearing that NRC staff was making a “hard sell” on behalf of the Energy Department. In a Tuesday letter, Bob Loux, chief of the state’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, asks Karen Cyr, Nuclear Regulatory Commission general counsel, to investigate whether NRC staff had been instructed or lobbied by higher-ups “to advocate in favor of the Yucca Mountain applicant.” NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said Wednesday the commission was taking the request under advisement. Loux insisted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should have a neutral role judging the Energy Department’s plan to entomb the nation’s most radioactive waste beneath a desert ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The commission will be asked to issue an operating license for the Energy Department to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Congress approved the Yucca site in 2002. The Energy Department plans to seek a repository operating license from the NRC by the end of the year. Licensing is expected to take several years, and the government wants to begin accepting spent nuclear fuel from 39 states in 2010. The dispute that prompted the July 27 hearing stems from Nevada’s claim the Energy Department did not meet a June 30 deadline for making public millions of pages of documents underpinning its application. The Energy Department certified that it met the deadline. If the state’s contention is upheld, it could delay the project. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] ***************************************************************** 35 T Blade: Problem triggers shutdown of reactor; workers not at fault, FirstEnergy suggests toledoblade.com Thursday, August 05, 2004 DAVIS-BESSE The automatic shutdown occurred without incident at 10:24 a.m. as workers were performing routine tests on reactor trip circuit breakers. ( THE BLADE ) By [thenry@theblade.com] BLADE STAFF WRITER Davis-Besse is expected to remain idle for days as officials look for the source of a problem that caused the nuclear plant's reactor to automatically shut itself down yesterday morning. FirstEnergy Corp. has all but ruled out faulty procedures or human error, saying the problem likely is equipment-related. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not ruled out anything. "We're not at that point yet," Jan Strasma, NRC spokesman, said when asked if procedures or human error could be dismissed. Such unexpected shutdowns - known as reactor "trips" - occur when computerized safety systems detect something out of kilter. The systems automatically insert boron-filled control rods into the reactor core, shutting down the plant. Davis-Besse generates 7 percent of the electricity FirstEnergy provides to its 4.4 million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The company lists itself on promotional literature as the nation's fifth-largest electric utility. Richard Wilkins, a company spokesman, said FirstEnergy hopes the anticipated cooler temperatures of the next few days will allow it to meet all needs for power by itself. It has suppliers contracted to provide electricity whenever it can't, he said. Davis-Besse generates 935 megawatts of electricity, of which 883 are put out on the electric grid. The rest is used to power the plant. The automatic shutdown occurred without incident at 10:24 a.m. as workers were performing routine tests on reactor trip circuit breakers. Such tests are done once every three weeks in some part of the plant. The particular valve tested yesterday likely was last checked about three months ago, Mr. Strasma said. FirstEnergy officials emerged from a lengthy meeting yesterday afternoon convinced that workers doing the test had not strayed from the established procedure and that the procedure itself was adequate, Mr. Wilkins said. "The initial investigation seems to have eliminated human error as the cause, so they're looking at equipment issues," Mr. Wilkins said. All equipment potentially involved in an automatic shutdown, from control drive motors to circuit breakers themselves, will be the first examined, he said. The utility, figuring the task of identifying and fixing the problem will take several days, has scheduled some routine maintenance activities that can only be done when the plant is off-line, Mr. Wilkins said. The company is keeping the plant in "hot standby" to save time on the restart process, he said. Barring a major complication, the NRC is unlikely to put restart authorization on hold, Mr. Strasma said. Two of the agency's three residents inspectors assigned to Davis-Besse are monitoring the company's investigation at the plant. The third resident inspector was at the agency's Midwest regional office near Chicago yesterday, he said. Davis-Besse was idled for more than two years after its former reactor head nearly burst. The degrading of the material was caused by the worst corrosion build-up of its kind in U.S. nuclear history, a condition the NRC blamed on apathy and neglect. The plant has had a fairly smooth run after addressing numerous equipment, management, and performance issues cited by the agency. It remained online for 131 days after working through its initial kinks after gaining the NRC's restart authorization March 8. It had to temporarily scale back from full power for a few days in early July because of an unexplained "burp" of radioactive gases as employees replaced one of two reactor-coolant filters. The NRC has said the March 8 restart ended the nuclear industry's worst safety failure since one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear complex in Pennsylvania experienced a partial meltdown in 1979. Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079. © 2004 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 36 heraldtribune.com: Flotilla to draw attention to plutonium shipment Southwest Florida's Information Leader Thursday, August 5, 2004 By BRUCE SMITH Associated Press Writer CHARLESTON, S.C. -- A small flotilla of boats will take to the waters of Charleston Harbor on Saturday as demonstrators draw attention to the dangers of shipping weapons-grade plutonium around the world. The Nuclear Free Flotilla will consist of small boats, canoes and kayaks, said Merrill Chapman of a local group called Citizens Against Plutonium. More than a dozen vessels are expected this weekend in a trial run. More boats from along the East Coast are expected later this year when a shipment of plutonium arrives in Charleston and is loaded on a ship for France, she said. The local group, along with Greenpeace, wants a full environmental impact statement on Department of Energy plans to ship the 330 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium overseas for processing. The shipment is the first in a long-range plan to neutralize 34 metric tons of plutonium and make it useless for nuclear weapons by converting it into fuel for commercial reactors. Building a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, plant at the Savannah River Site to process such material will cost $4 billion and create 500 jobs for 20 years. But construction has been delayed until at least next year. The plutonium powder, which critics say could make 50 dirty bombs, will be shipped to France for processing and returned for use in a commercial reactor test run next year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a preliminary finding in favor of allowing Duke Power to test the new fuel at its Catawba Nuclear Station on Lake Wylie. Tom Clements of Greenpeace says the shipment, which he said is expected next month, makes an inviting target for terrorists. "We have not had the ability to comment on the vulnerability of these containers and what would happen in case of an accident or an attack or if they were dropped on the dock here at the Naval Weapons Station," he said. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for the shipment was issued in June. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a certificate approving the containers in which the plutonium will be transported. The plutonium will be shipped from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, loaded on a ship for France and then transported by truck to a reactor in the south of France. The federal government has said in filings that while "the likelihood of an attempted act of sabotage or terrorism occurring is not precisely knowable ... the chance of success of any such attempt was judged to be very low." Another flotilla of boats is expected to meet the shipment when it gets to France, Chapman said. She said the idea of the flotillas is not to disrupt the shipment, but bring public attention to the dangers of shipping plutonium through commerce. "Our city welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists a year," she said. "If the seafood industry is devastated due to a nuclear accident, or our coastline is littered with no swimming signs due to contamination, tourists will find another vacation spot and our city will be economically decimated," she said. ***************************************************************** 37 WQAD: UIUC to decommission research reactor August 5, 2004 URBANA, Ill. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says it will decommission a nuclear reactor built on the campus 35 years ago.The one-point-five megawatt reactor on the north side of the campus has been unused since 1998, but for years it was used in a variety of research projects, ranging from biophysics to earth science. Nuclear engineering professor Barclay Jones says the decommissioning -- which will remove all radioactive material from the building -- could take several years to complete.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will oversee the process. Spokesman Jan Strasma (STRAHS'-muh) says N-R-C inspectors will visit the campus from time to time to monitor the work.University officials say the reactor has been in a safe storage mode for the past six years, which means it has been kept in a condition that allows radioactivity to decay. Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This [http://www.worldnow.com] All content © Copyright 2001 - 2004 WorldNow and WQAD. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 38 KVBC: Yucca Mountain Fight August 6, 2004 Nevada leaders say regulators are favoring the Energy Department in a dispute over Yucca Mountain documents. The head of the State's efforts to block the national nuclear waste storage site is making the accusation. Bob Loux says Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is pushing employees to side with the DOE. The dispute is over documents the energy department was supposed to make public about the nuclear waste dump. Nevada says the DOE did not meet the June 30th deadline to release the documents. Lawyers for the Energy Department say they did. The DOE needs the approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to move forward with Yucca Mountain. Nevada leaders say the NRC should be impartial in deciding the future of the project. Yucca mountain is an issue local groups say should play a role in this November's election. The Sierra Club and local unions will announce today they are teaming up. The groups are launching an effort to educate Nevada voters about the Yucca Mountain plan. [http://www.worldnow.com] All content © Copyright 2000 - 2004 WorldNow and KVBC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Japan Today: Hiroshima mayor lashes out at U.S. on 59th anniversary of atomic bombing [http://www.japantoday.com] The egocentric worldview of the U.S. government is reaching extremes. Ignoring the United Nations and international law, the United States has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and more usable. View All / Discuss It (13) August 6, 2004 By Shinya Ajima Hiroshima observes the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing Friday morning in this image taken from TV Asahi. Hiroshima on Friday morning marked the 59th anniversary of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city. An estimated 40,000 people attended the ceremony that started at 8 a.m. at the Peace Memorial Park in the downtown part of the western Japan city that was devastated in the world's first nuclear attack Aug 6, 1945, three days before the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Read More / Discuss It... (17) Two Americans nabbed for drug-smuggling by military mail ***************************************************************** 40 Hiroshima: "I was screaming 'Let me die'" Vancouver - canada.com network Burnaby Now August 5, 2004 CREDIT: Photo submitted This is the first picture of Kinuko and David Laskey, taken in Japan, after they met on a streetcar in Hiroshima. David was in Japan with the Canadian Army Special Force during the Korean War. This Friday's commemoration of the 59th anniversary of Hiroshima takes place at the National Nikkei Heritage Centre at 6688 Southoaks Cres. in Burnaby. Kinuko Laskey will be honored for her years of activism. It was early, only shortly after 8 a.m., when Kinuko Laskey saw the thin, white vapor trail of an American B29 bomber in the blue sky above Hiroshima. When nothing happened, Kinuko - who was working at the Hiroshima Communications Hospital as a 16-year-old student nurse - relaxed, thinking that the plane had passed too far for a bomb to hit near her. The war in the Pacific had been raging for several years, sparked by the 1941 invasion at Pearl Harbor, and Japan had been hit by conventional bombs many times. But what was about to come, and what would ultimately lead to Japan's surrender, was unlike anything the world had ever seen before. "I was standing by the window," Laskey recalls. "I saw the white line, so high. I was glad, I thought it was not going to attack us." Seconds later, a flash of orange light blasted her; the glass in the window shattered towards her, driving dozens of pieces of glass into her body. Her body was bounced around "like a ball, up and down, side to side, for so long." The hospital was just 1.4 kilometres from the epicentre of the explosion of the world's first atom bomb attack. She recalls a few disconnected moments in the shocked fog after the initial blast: her reflection in a mirror, with a face "busted open like a watermelon," her pigtails scorched and standing up like horns on her head; blood everywhere, people moving in silence around the dead bodies. She eventually made her way out to the front of the hospital and then drifted in and out of consciousness. "I would wake up once in a while, and try to see the blue sky, and then pass out again, I don't know how long - three days," she said. Finally, she awoke, only to discover that someone had thought she was dead and put her in a pit of bodies set aside for cremation. She pulled herself out from amongst the bloodied corpses and crawled to the hospital. A doctor recognized her and brought her in. The hospital staff removed the glass - her young body was "like a pincushion" from all the shards - and performed surgery on her face. Without anesthetic, the treatment was excruciating. "I was screaming 'let me die' ... they did the best they could," she said. To try and find her way home to her mother, she crawled to Hiroshima station a mile away through the wreckage. Once there, she learned the station was too badly damaged for trains to operate; she would have to go another two more miles to the next station. She would occasionally pass out, then start again. Eventually a man picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the depot, where she got on a train packed with people. When she finally got home, her mother told her it had been 15 or 16 days since the blast; they still did not know whether her father had survived. He owned a book shop in Hiroshima close to the centre of the blast; they later learned he had not made it. A brother who had been in Nagasaki had headed for home immediately after the bombing - and therefore narrowly escaped the bombing that killed some 50,000 people there a few days later. What followed for Laskey was radiation sickness, a year of physical recovery with only her mother to nurse her and, later, surgeries to correct the damage. Perhaps worse was the emotional torment. "I was so angry. I hated everybody for what happened. I missed my father so much. Everything was gone, everything was taken away." A few years later, on a streetcar in the slowly re-built Hiroshima, she met her future husband, a Canadian soldier in Korea named David Laskey who was based in Japan at the time. "When I met him I was very confused, I thought 'what am I going to do?' ... those days it was very hard (being from different ethnic backgrounds)." An aunt helped the pair to marry. David was 21 and Kinuko, 22. The couple eventually returned to Winnipeg and David's family. Though anti-Japanese sentiment was still strong in North America, his parents were welcoming, she says. Sadly, there were plenty of people who weren't as receptive to the young Japanese woman new to Canada and still, in many ways, recovering from the bombing of Hiroshima. "Once I went to the department (store) and I wanted to see something, and I asked (the clerk) 'Can I see that piece.' She looked at my face and she said 'I don't speak to Japanese.'" The Laskeys eventually came to Vancouver and Kinuko settled into Canadian life. At first, she recalls, her husband could spot her in a crowd by looking for her dark hair. "Now it's not like that," she says with a laugh. "It's everyone here, all different kinds of people." Though she says she tried to be an "every day woman" and have a normal life raising her daughter, her experience in Hiroshima was a constant reminder of the dangers the world faced. "I dream all the time, it's a picture of it, and I tried not to talk about it, or think about it, but I have to tell people," she said. In fact, Laskey's husband first heard the whole story of her experience when she went to the U.S. Senate Proposed Nuclear Freeze and Reduction Forum in Washington, D.C. in 1982. She has since spoken at dozens of conferences, commemorations and events throughout Canada and the U.S. She has participated in historical documentaries about the bombing, and helped found the Canadian Society of Atomic Bomb Survivors. This Friday, she'll speak and be honoured for her activism at 'Remembering Hiroshima: An Inter-Cultural Commemoration and Concert' sponsored by the Vancouver City Peace and Justice Committee, the World Peace Forum Society and StopWar.ca, on the 59th anniversary of the bombing. At 75, she'd no doubt enjoy a quiet retirement with her husband, working on and teaching her beloved stained glass art, but there's a new generation that doesn't know the story. "I want people to understand, but sometimes it's very hard to understand if you don't have (an experience) like I do, if you can only talk about someone else's experience," she said. "I think for the young generation, it's important now. They have to learn about what is right and wrong. We have to always keep talking about it," she said. "A lot of people don't know anything about it. Some people have forgotten about it, and some people think nothing like that could happen again. "The history - it doesn't matter how old it gets. You can't change it, but you can always make it better. She says when she watches the news and sees the conflicts going on around the world, she's terrified. "It's very upsetting, we won't have a world. "Some people say to their enemies - 'you asked for it,'" she said. "But I was only 16. I didn't ask for it. I lost my father, I lost my uncles, I lost my aunties, I lost everything. I didn't ask for it." This Friday's commemoration of the 59th anniversary of Hiroshima takes place at the National Nikkei Heritage Centre at 6688 Southoaks Cres. in Burnaby. Kinuko Laskey will be honored for her years of activism. The reception begins at 7 p.m., Aug. 6, followed by a tribute to Laskey, a message of peace, a concert of music, and will close with a lantern lighting ceremony at 9:45 p.m. Admission is free. Call 604-715-4816. © Burnaby Now 2004 Search canada.com About Us Advertise Site Map Privacy [http://www.canwestglobal.com/privacy.html] Terms FAQ Our Copyright © CanWest Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 41 Seattle Times: Hanford worker suffers radiation exposure Thursday, August 05, 2004 - Page updated at 12:15 A.M. By Sandi Doughton Seattle Times staff reporter A Hanford worker was exposed to high levels of radiation after handling a radioactive piece of equipment without lead-lined gloves for protection, the first significant nuclear exposure at the facility in years. Though officials say the worker should not suffer any health effects, the July 22 accident came just days after a federal report criticized oversight and monitoring of the Hanford cleanup and warned that some workers didn't have adequate safety gear. A senior vice president at CH2M Hill, the contractor in charge of the $2 billion-a-year cleanup at the sprawling nuclear-weapons complex, yesterday blamed faulty planning for putting the worker in a dangerous situation while he was helping decommission a vault that once held radioactive waste. Dale Allen also said a supervisor should have stopped the work as soon as dangerous radiation levels were detected, but said the company had no plans to discipline him. "We didn't expect to see such a high level," Allen said. "We didn't require leaded gloves, and we believe that to be a mistake." There was no radiation released to the air, and no risk to the general public, said Al Conklin, health physics supervisor for the Washington Department of Health. "It happened right up-wind of one of our air samplers and we didn't see anything." Tom Carpenter, of the Hanford watchdog group Government Accountability Project, said the incident reflects a tendency to put speed ahead of safety. "It seems like the people in charge of safety are just being ignored and there's apparently no consequence for supervisors who do so." Last month's report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health also warned that hazardous vapors from waste tanks could pose a significant health risk to workers. The state and the Department of Energy's Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance have also issued stinging rebukes of the cleanup program's safety precautions this year. The Department of Energy owns the Hanford site, which for decades produced plutonium for nuclear bombs. About 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 massive underground tanks. A work force of about 500 people is transferring waste from leaking tanks to more secure double-hulled tanks, with the goal of eventually converting the waste into a stable, glass-like material. In the early morning hours of July 22, a small group of workers was removing a 36-foot instrument called a thermocouple from a 10,000-gallon tank housed inside a concrete vault, Allen said. The tank didn't appear to contain any liquid or solid waste, but had in the past. When a crane had nearly lifted the thermocouple free, radiation detectors swung into the red, reaching their maximum readings. All of the workers were dressed in protective gear, including non-lead-lined gloves, and were wearing respirators, Allen said, but the man who was guiding the thermocouple got a blast of radiation to his hands that measured 22 rem — well above DOE's permissible limit of 15 rem a year. A rem is a unit that links the amount of radiation absorbed by human tissue to biological damage. When a radiation monitor maxes out, or "pegs," standard procedure is to back away immediately, said Conklin, the Washington Department of Health official. But in this case, the CH2M Hill supervisor opted to finish lifting the thermocouple out and load it onto a trailer. "It would have been better to just have left it hanging there and backed away and come back with leaded gloves and different radiation controls," Allen conceded. "There was some confusion on the job site and we're not trying to affix blame to anybody." Instead, he said, the company plans to use the incident as a lesson to bolster its planning and safety efforts. CH2M Hill did not identify the worker. And none of his co-workers received a significant dose of radiation, said John Swailes, the DOE assistant manager overseeing the tank-farm cleanup. Because he has already exceeded the maximum radiation dose for the year, the exposed worker will be assigned to tasks that don't involve any radiation exposure, Allen said. Federal regulations allow exposures of up to 50 rem a year, but DOE sets its own standards lower as a way to ensure workers aren't put in danger, Swailes said. Carpenter said CH2M Hill should face a stiff penalty for what he views as negligence. "You don't lightly pull something out of these tanks without really good precautions, and you stop when you run into danger." And neither DOE nor the contractor notified the public of the incident, Carpenter said. Allen and Swailes said there's no legal requirement to announce nuclear exposures, but CH2M Hill promptly notified DOE and state agencies. Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 42 UPI: Los Alamos missing data probe widens - (United Press International) August 05, 2004 Los Alamos, NM, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico placed four more employees on leave as the investigation into two missing classified computer disks expands. Some 23 lab employees are now on investigative leave, laboratory director Pete Nanos said Wednesday at a news conference with officials from the University of California, which runs the nuclear research facility. Work at Los Alamos has been shut down since July 16 following the July 7 discovery the disks were missing. The shutdown could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by the time operations resume, but Nanos described the cost as "an investment" that will ultimately result in a more efficient, safe and secure laboratory, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Nanos put 15 workers, including an associate director, on paid investigative leave July 22 for their roles and responsibilities in the missing disks. Four others were put on leave for their involvement in a July 14 laser accident that injured the eye of a 20-year-old intern. The lab, on New Mexico's high desert, was founded in 1943 to build the first atomic bomb. [UPI Perspectives] ***************************************************************** 43 LANL warned lax culture must change Thu Aug 5, 2004 4:52 pm [http://www.santafenewmexican.com DIANA HEIL | The New Mexican LOS ALAMOS -- Top officials at the University of California issued a warning to Los Alamos National Laboratory employees Wednesday, saying the university will not seek to manage the lab in the future unless lab workers can ensure "the mistakes of the past are in the past." "It would sadden us greatly not to continue this work. On the other hand, we need to be sure that the culture has changed," said Gerald Parsky, chairman of the university's board of regents. The university has one year left on its contract, which it has held for 60 years, before the U.S. Department of Energy opens the lab's management to a competitive bid for the first time. When university officials met with employees Wednesday, they expressed confidence in the lab's scientific work while also telling employees that they're responsible for helping the university demonstrate security has improved. With the contract soon to be up for grabs, the university cannot afford another black eye. Since July 15, the Los Alamos lab ceased most work because of another bout of security breaches -- the disappearance of two computer disks loaded with classified information. The goal is to revamp the practices of the lab over the next two months so all scientific activities can begin again in October without security risks. Drastic measures and tough talk are part of the process. This month, the lab suspended four more employees in connection to the investigation of two missing computer disks, lab Director Pete Nanos said Wednesday. In July, 15 employees were stripped of their badges and placed on paid leave as part of an investigation into the missing disks. Some had access to a safe where classified information is stored. Four other employees were put on leave following a laser accident that caused a student intern to suffer a retinal lesion. The outcome of the investigations should be determined -- along with discipline -- by the end of August. Wednesday, three UC officials met with employees to gauge the "scientific temperature" of the lab. Robert Dynes, a physicist and president of the University of California, said he told employees: "It's my concern that the science in this laboratory is being overwhelmed by the incidents that have occurred. This balance of science and security at a national laboratory like Los Alamos is important, and a culture of science -- of good science -- doesn't tolerate sloppiness or lax procedures." Employees are expected to show up for work as usual even as the lab has put most scientific endeavors on hold. The shutdown comes at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to lab officials. But Dynes emphasized that "a careful and well-managed laboratory" will be a much more productive laboratory. During the work slowdown, some projects could be shifted to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, if necessary, said Bob Foley, University of California vice president for laboratory management. When asked whether senior officials at the lab and university will be held responsible for their actions, Nanos said, "Clearly, I hold myself accountable as the leader of the laboratory for the ultimate result." Nanos said he misread some of the signals. He thought the security lapses stemmed from antiquated infrastructure and processes rather than human behavior -- and the lab was already focused on fixing the infrastructure. Now, from paper pushers to physicists, the lab is trying to instill security-sensitive attitudes in employees, he said. Foley, on the other hand, spread blame around. "Nobody, nobody in this world does science and technology better than the University of California," he said, but over the past few years, people have grown overly comfortable. Oversight from U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and help in financing has been "great for the state and great for Los Alamos and also engendered a bit of a comfort level down here. People get a little complacent down here." Foley said the University of California and the Department of Energy fell into complacency. The university has asked a group of industry and military representatives to come to Los Alamos in September to take a broad look at the lab and advise Nanos and university officials on future actions. Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican ***************************************************************** 44 Hanford News: Lightning strikes ignite 1,500-acre Hanford fire Home [http://www.hanfordnews.com] This story was published Wednesday, August 4th, 2004 By the Herald staff About 1,500 to 1,800 acres on the Hanford nuclear reservation burned Monday night in a fire started by lightning strikes. The blaze started as two fires reported about 4:30 p.m. Monday. One was about 75 acres and the other was about 25 acres. They burned together and were under control by 11 p.m., said Geoff Tyree, spokesman for Hanford contractor Fluor Hanford. The fire was in the area of the old Hanford town site, which residents were required to leave during World War II to allow development of the reservation to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. The fire was stopped before it reached the shell of the old high school there or the foundation of the pump house, said Tyree. No historical structures were damaged. The area contains no plutonium production or waste storage facilities. Firefighters had received a "red flag" warning from the National Weather Service on Monday afternoon and were on alert to respond quickly, Tyree said. The Hanford Fire Department fought the fire with help from firefighters from Kennewick, Richland and Benton County fire districts 1, 2 and 4. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also provided support. © 2004 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 ABQjournal: Four More Suspended in LANL Probe [http://www.abqjournal.com August 4, 2004 Four More Suspended in LANL Probe By Leslie Hoffman The Associated Press LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Four more Los Alamos National Laboratory workers have been put on paid leave in a widening probe into two missing computer disks containing classified information, officials said Wednesday. Lab Director Pete Nanos made the announcement during a daylong visit from leaders of the University of California, which manages the lab for the federal government. Nanos' action brings to 23 the number of workers put on paid leave. Last month, he suspended 19 workers — 15 in connection with the missing disks and four others as part of a probe into an intern's serious eye injury from a laser. The workers were stripped of their badges until the inquiries are complete. Before Nanos' announcement Wednesday, he and UC leaders held an "all-hands" meeting at which UC President Robert C. Dines said he told the 12,000-strong work force: "I need you to help me help you." Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 46 Tri-Valley Herald: Los Alamos scientists asked to bear down 8/5/2004 Employees' aid sought in fixing problems at lab, keeping UC in charge By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER In an "eyeball-to-eyeball" talk, top University of California leaders asked scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory for help Wednesday in fixing the lab and keeping the university in charge. "I don't think there was any denial in that room," said university President Robert Dynes. "I said, 'I want you to help me to help you. Get it?' And I had a lot of nodding in that room." As the U.S. Energy Department draws up a call for bids on running the lab, two incidents -- the disappearance of two disks of classified weapons-related data and an eye-damaging laser accident -- have undercut the University of California's viability after having been Los Alamos' manager for more than 60 years. Lab director Pete Nanos, a former admiral, had berated lab staff for "almost suicidal denial" and implied that Los Alamos' problems were the failings of staff, not management. He threatened to scrap most of the lab staff, if necessary, and originally put 19 scientists and managers on investigative leave. The total is now 23. Lab employees who felt federal safety and security rules were silly should resign, he said, and save him the trouble of firing them. Dozens of lab scientists asked for retirement literature during the next few days. Dynes and university Board of Regents chairman Gerald Parsky carried a different message to Los Alamos this week -- that the university prized science as much as security and, with help of lab staff, aimed to get Los Alamos back on its feet. "The good cops have arrived," a Los Alamos scientist said. "The us-versus-them attitude is almost eradicated." Dynes acknowledged to reporters that he was worried the latest crisis would trigger a brain drain at Los Alamos. After more than 30 years of watching the university run two nuclear weapons labs, Dynes said, he is convinced no one can do a better job. "It's been over six decades, and I would like to see it continue," he said. "I would like to do anything I can to help them." Asked by reporters about the earlier staff vs. management divide, Dynes said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, if you listen to my words, I did not say staff, I said staff and lab management." By the end of this month, the lab and the university will have finished their investigation into the missing disks and the laser accident, and will order disciplinary action, Nanos said. Some of the 23 now on investigative leave may be found faultless and allowed back to work. Others will face reprimands up to suspension or firing. "I have no indication at this point whether criminal charges will be filed by some other (law-enforcement) agency," Nanos said. Lab managers and the Energy Department gradually are approving a return to regular work for Los Alamos, which has been in a two-week security standdown. Most of the lab's business operations are up, to be followed by scientific divisions performing unclassified work. Core weapons divisions could remain down for as long as two months, leaving Los Alamos' primary work idled as a dozen potential competitors line up to challenge the university for the lab's operating contract. "Independent of competition, there are lots of things we need to do," said UC vice president for lab management Robert Foley. Nevertheless, he said, "Nobody, nobody in this world does science and technology better than the University of California. Now over the past few years there's been a comfort level here ... people get a little more complacent." Regents chairman Parsky said fixing the lab's management, safety and security problems is "extremely important to us." "We need to be confident they have been addressed in order to be confident in bidding on the contract," he said. "We are pleased with the fact that the Department of Energy will be side by side with the director in the decision that the lab is prepared to take on incremental work." Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 47 NBC Newschannel 6: IDAHO ACCELERATOR CENTER DEDICATED Where News Comes First [http://www.nbcnews6.com Aug 4, 2004 Business and government leaders were on hand today as the ISU Idaho Accelerator Center was officially dedicated. The $1.8-million expansion will help the center continue its role in Homeland Security research. The center will begin testing accelerators, with help from the INEEL, to scan cargo containers for nuclear materials. The expansion also includes additional office and accelerator space for Positron Systems, Inc. Positron will use the new facilities to conduct non-destructive structural testing of items like airplane wings, bridges, and plastic heart valves. Officials say today's dedication puts Idaho on the science and technology map and will help bring more high-paying jobs to East Idaho. Mayor Roger Chase, Pocatello: "One is just the research center capabilities that will help the students at ISU, and also will bring some nationally recognized scientists and researchers to the community. Second, construction opportunity to develop new kinds of jobs in Pocatello will really add a lot to the community." Roger Madsen, Department of Commerce and Labor: "So this is an issue way beyond Pocatello, Bannock County - this is truly a statewide issue." The expansion is funded by $1-million approved by the governor's office, $400,000 from the INEEL settlement fund, and $400,000 from the Pocatello Development Authority. ©Copyright 2004 Oregon Trail Broadcasting KPVI ***************************************************************** 48 KTVB.COM: INEEL workers inject grout into landfill to protect aquifer 03:26 PM MDT on Thursday, August 5, 2004 Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- Beryllium blocks buried at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory are being stabilized to prevent water contamination. Workers at the Idaho Falls laboratory are injecting a wax-like grout into the landfill to keep the blocks from getting wet. They can corrode and release radioactive material when they come into contact with moisture. The Department of Energy says the work will help protect the Snake River Plain Aquifer. The beryllium blocks were buried between 1970 and 1993. They became radioactive after being used as reflectors in the laboratory's nuclear reactors. ©2004 Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 49 Oak Ridger: Safety prompts DOE reorganization Story last updated at 11:16 a.m. on August 5, 2004 BOYD: 'I have reassigned some senior managers to different positions in order to get some very strong safety and health folks in certain divisions.' By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com] An emphasis on oversight and assessment in the areas of safety and health seems to be at the heart of a just-launched restructuring effort within the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office. Gerald Boyd, DOE's Oak Ridge manager, said the initiative will be conducted in a manner that ensures no loss of jobs, position grades or salary within the local work force. "It's still in the working stages," he said in a phone interview Wednesday. "It will probably be a couple of weeks before we finalize it. Then, it will have to go through an approval process in Washington, D.C." Over the last year and a half, Boyd said there's been a push to improve safety in the local DOE realm. However, he admitted that a number of accidents this year served as "clear examples" that more needs to be done. The incidents included a chemical spill on a public road, a forklift that slid down an embankment and overturned in a creek, and a 2,000-pound hoist that fell and landed just a few feet from a couple of workers. "Certainly those incidents caused me a lot of concern about whether or not we were achieving a better safety performance at the pace we ought to be achieving it," Boyd said. The DOE chief unveiled his initial restructuring plans to federal employees earlier this week. "I have reassigned some senior managers to different positions in order to get some very strong safety and health folks in certain divisions," Boyd said in the Wednesday interview. Though he preferred not to identify any of those managers by name, Boyd said at least three people have been shifted into the DOE divisions that oversee Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the local environmental cleanup programs, and one that provides policy and guidance on safety and health. "(It's) to make sure I've got a strong safety advocate in each one of those three programs," Boyd said. "I'm asking those three people to work as a team to help us move safety performance to the next level." Boyd said the three employees in question will also serve as the core of a safety attainment board that some Oak Ridge managers recommended be formed. The DOE chief said a secondary reason for the Oak Ridge restructuring effort is to get a "stronger focus on what our job is in supporting the nuclear energy program." In discussing DOE's work in this area, Boyd cited the federal agency's involvement with USEC Inc. and the company's gas centrifuge - or uranium enrichment - efforts as an example. Boyd also hopes the restructuring effort creates a better alignment between emergency management and security operations on DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation. ***************************************************************** 50 Oak Ridger: Waste road a possibility Story last updated at 12:19 p.m. on August 5, 2004 By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com [paul.parson@oakridger.com] Though details are sketchy, a haul road could be developed that would specifically be used to get Department of Energy-related waste from its current resting place to an Oak Ridge disposal site. "It's being contemplated," said Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co. "Some preliminary assessments are being done to determine the best route and the best method for doing it." Bechtel Jacobs is under contract to oversee the DOE's local cleanup efforts, and the company would supervise the road project under that deal. If the plan comes to fruition, subcontracts would be awarded for the work, according to Hill. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee - an environmental watchdog group, said the road plan should be evaluated under the National Environmental Policy Act and that some type of environmental assessment needs to be drafted. NEPA is essentially a mandate that requires a federal agency to protect the environment. Hill said the plan will require regulatory approval and noted that there will be some form of public involvement. Looking at the big picture, while there are still a lot of issues that need to be resolved with the road plan, Hill said a primary goal is to "transport the waste without getting on public roads. That would be any waste from the sites." Locally, a good portion of the environmental cleanup effort is happening at the Oak Ridge K-25 site - a World War II-era complex that was used to enrich uranium through a gaseous diffusion process. Work is also taking place in the Melton Valley area of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In May, a material known as strontium 90 leaked onto Highway 95 from a truck that was carrying radioactive waste from a cleanup project in Melton Valley to the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, located on Bear Creek Road near the Y-12 National Security Complex. Strontium 90 is a byproduct of the fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors. Highway 95 - a well-traveled public road - had to be closed for a couple of days following the incident. The estimated cost of the emergency response, cleanup and recovery for the leak was reportedly in the ballpark of $1 million or more. DOE launched high-level investigations - known as "Type B" - to examine the Highway 95 incident as well as a May chemical fire on federal property just outside the fence of the Oak Ridge K-25 site. Gerald Boyd, manager of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office, said Wednesday afternoon that he has the reports from both of those investigations in his possession. And, he hopes to have the documents released and a public meeting scheduled to discuss them within the next three weeks. ***************************************************************** 51 lamonitor.com: Lab's investigation continues The Online News Source for Los Alamos [http://www.lac-nm.us] ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor Four more employees of Los Alamos National Laboratory have been placed on investigative leave in the unsolved mystery of two missing classified computer disks, bringing the total number of workers now in limbo to 23. Lab Director G. Peter Nanos said Wednesday that the lab's investigation would be finished by the end of this week and that a review board would consider disciplinary actions by the end of the month. Nineteen individuals, including four people implicated in a laser accident involving a student intern, had previously been barred from the laboratory while on paid leave. Fulfilling a pledge made at a University of California Board of Regents meeting July 14, UC President Robert C. Dynes and board Chairman Gerald L. Parsky visited the laboratory Wednesday. They spoke to a standing-room-only all-hands meeting of laboratory employees, followed by a press conference. Along with them Vice President for Laboratory Affairs S. Robert Foley announced a number of measures that UC is taking to address the safety and security crisis at the laboratory. On the continuing suspended activities at the laboratory, Nanos said the resumption of work would take place in three phases, based on the levels of risk related to each. On level one, mostly office and administrative functions, he said, three-quarters of those work groups are now standing again. Criteria for standing up levels two and three are being developed under close cooperation with the Department of Energy. A fourth level, level zero, includes essential defense work. "We are not standing back from any responsibility this lab has with respect to national security," he said. Nanos estimated it would take another couple of months and repeated an earlier rough estimate that it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars of lost time. "This is a serious exercise and a serious investment by DOE," he said. "A careful and well-managed laboratory is always a more productive laboratory," Dynes added. Parsky said he considers the joint recertification process by both the lab and DOE to be relevant to the regent's decision on competing for laboratory's management contract. "We want to be able to say the mistakes of the past have been addressed," Parsky said. While some observers have suggested the university's chances were dealt a fatal blow by another round of high-profile problems at the laboratory, both Parsky and Dynes indicated their determination to stay the course. "I will do everything I can," Dynes said. "I would like to see it continue." Dynes said he told the employees, "I need you to help me to help you." z Parsky said his message to the employees was that they hold their future in their own hands, and it would "sadden us greatly not to continue this great work." The officials agreed they thought the message was getting through to the work force. "The realization of the importance of these issues has really taken root in this laboratory," Nanos said. He also acknowledged his own responsibility. "I recognize that in my own administration of the laboratory that I missed some of the signals." Foley said UC has established a blue ribbon panel composed of distinguished military and nuclear weapons experts who will review the actions taken and to be taken by the laboratory. Demonstrating the advantages of having more than one weapons laboratory in its stable, Foley also said he has called upon Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to assemble a team of management and security specialists to provide advice and additional support for LANL's own efforts. Some LANL work, he said, will be shifted to LLNL. "We are not close to tapping the full potential of the University of California," he said. "How else can we help?" © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 52 [du-list] DU in the news - 5th Aug. 04 Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 14:56:37 -0700 RADIOACTIVE armour ruled out for new tanks Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia The government has ruled out equipping the Army's new Abrams tanks with nearly invulnerable depleted uranium armour, but what type of armour they will carry ... <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/04/1091557902426.html> NUKE vessels may enter Aussie waters The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia ... Senator Cherry also asked if environmentally harmful devices such as weapons which used depleted uranium would be permitted in the training area. ... <http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/04/1091557906982.html> COMPUTER game center offers edgy look, daily access Indianapolis Star - Indianapolis,IN,USA ... There are 12 Xbox stations (two players each) carved out of what the owners jokingly claim are depleted uranium storage barrels (cleaned, of course, with ... <http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/167464-8058-016.html> HUNTER Lovins, thinker on sustainability, answers Grist's ... Grist Magazine - Seattle,WA,USA ... In the name of access to oil (Halliburton's), we are scattering depleted uranium shells all around that country, and sowing the seeds of hatred with which our ... <http://www.gristmagazine.com/interactivist/lovins080204.asp> 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 5fe1f.jpg 5fe50.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: 5fe1f.jpg: 00000001,497467b3,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 5fe50.jpg: 00000001,497467b4,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 53 [du-list] Nanoscience and nanotechnology - Nanopathology Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 14:57:03 -0700 6649d.jpg Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Nanopathology Start a new message 664b0.jpg Brief message from Nanodiagnostics David Broatch, 5 Aug 2004 12:28 Stephano Montanari has asked me to forward this item after I asked for a response to the recent publicity given to the "Final Report". This is not a response to that report, but a general statement directed to the general public. Dr Gatti’s article... Like many scientific discoveries becoming technology, nanotechnology has been welcomed as something miraculous, capable of solving innumerable problems and, eventually, making our life easier. But, again like in most technologies, if it’s true that old problems are indeed solved, it is as true that new problems arise, which we did not expect, in some cases we are not prepared to face or, even worse, we don’t want to see. The objects produced through the nanotechnological and other novel processes have a size close to that of some proteins, prionic aggregates, or viruses and are or may be considerably smaller than a cell. The EC Project Nanopathology QLRT-2001-147, of which I am the international coordinator and that deals with the pathologies caused by micro- and nanoparticles, showed that those particles are not entirely safe. Thanks to an innovative diagnostic technique, we could demonstrate that micro- and nanoparticles are released unawares by high-temperature industrial processes and that "dust", often neither biocompatible nor biodegradable, when inhaled or ingested, can easily and quickly negotiate the so-called physiological barriers and reach virtually any tissue or organ. There, if the exposure is chronic or particularly intense, they accumulate and, as soon as certain threshold concentrations are exceeded, they behave like any foreign body, producing an inflammatory reaction that becomes a pathology which, in some instances, can be extremely severe. Not few forms of cancer may have this origin. The problem is that those particles may be smaller than the cell membrane sensors, are not recognized and can reach the interior of a cell where they interfere with the DNA. The same phenomenon as briefly described above occurs with soldiers and civilians involved in the Gulf war and in the Balkans war. When the DU bombs hit their mark, they induce a temperature above 3,000 °C and a great quantity of heath, enough to have the target, or part of it, sublime, i.e. become a gas. In a short time that "vapour" solidifies again in the form of very tiny particles that, being extremely light, stay suspended in the atmosphere for hours or even days and are transported by the wind even relatively far from their origin. While those micro- and nanoparticles float in the air, all people, friends or foes, soldiers or civilians, men or beasts, can inhale them; but eventually those small objects fall to the ground, on grass, fruits and vegetables, where they become food for men and animals. Their chemistry is very peculiar, as in many instances we find alloys that do not exist in any handbook, for they are the accidental aggregation of the metals present in the bulk of the mark vaporized. In the now fair number of cases checked, we found those particles to be detectable in all the diseased tissues coming from dead or sick civilians or soldiers, mainly Italian, but also of other nationalities (we are now starting to work with the French, but have already seen cases from Canadians, Bosnians, etc.). All the till now unexplained pathologies (e.g. atypical pneumonias like in Iraq, August 2003, or odd infections like in Afghanistan, May 2002, among many others) find an easy explanation when looked at in the light of this new science. It may be interesting to observe that those particles are present in the sperm of some of the subjects we checked, adherent to the spermatozoa. In an entirely different field, industrial procedures involving nanothechnologies produce nano-sized dust which, when dealt with or disposed of in a non appropriate way, could be the responsible of cancerous pathologies. At a very important American company producing semiconductors, more than 3,000 workers out of 20,000 developed a cancer, and it would be very interesting to see if nanoparticles, for example of Silicon, can be found at the interface between healthy and pathological tissue, a technically easy investigation when the new technique is employed. But pathologies linked to micro- and nano-sized inorganic debris, be they inhaled or ingested, are much more wide-spread then most people expect. Food, drugs, cosmetics, environment (specially in factories) can all be polluted and be the cause of severe diseases. In many cases, comparatively simple and not particularly expensive measures can be enough to prevent their trigger, the first being information. For more information, please see www.nanopathology.net or contact stefano.montanari29@tin.it or call +39 348 2931249. Dr Antonietta M. Gatti Nanodiagnostics Viale Argiolas, 70 41100 Modena Italy Kind Regards, David Broatch, Environmental Futures Research efr@xtra.co.nz http://www.eco-expo.org/EFR_Consulting.htm Reply to this message | Complain about this message 664c1.jpg © Copyright: The Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Society 2003 664d1.jpg664e1.jpg 664f0.jpg 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 66509.jpg 66544.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: 6649d.jpg: 00000001,799ff432,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 664b0.jpg: 00000001,799ff433,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 664c1.jpg: 00000001,799ff434,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 664d1.jpg: 00000001,799ff435,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 664e1.jpg: 00000001,799ff436,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 664f0.jpg: 00000001,1ff43f3a,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 66509.jpg: 00000001,1ff43f3b,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 66544.jpg: 00000001,1ff43f3c,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 54 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 15:53:28 -0700 (PDT) CORRECTION: Nuclear Security Story Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA ... 4 story about security at nuclear power plants, The Associated Press erroneously reported in the headline that regulators will stop revealing nuclear plant ... See all stories on this topic: RUSSIA denies it helped North Korea to develop nuclear missiles ... Belfast Telegraph (subscription) - Belfast,Nothern Ireland,UK ... scorn yesterday on claims that Moscow has helped North Korea develop two new ballistic missile systems capable of hitting mainland America with nuclear warheads ... See all stories on this topic: AUSTRALIAN FM to visit DPRK on nuclear issue Xinhua - China ... Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) later this month to urge Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program ... See all stories on this topic: DOWNER to visit North Korea for nuclear talks Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia Australia's diplomatic relationship with North Korea should help facilitate talks on how to ease nuclear tensions in the region, Foreign Minister Alexander ... See all stories on this topic: A fight against nuclear weapons The Hindu - Chennai,India ... World War II. "Although 59 years have passed since the Hiroshima tragedy, nuclear weapons still exist in our world. Moreover, we ... See all stories on this topic: UTAH Loses Nuclear Legal Battle with Goshutes KSL-TV - Salt Lake City,UT,USA ... web reading. Utah has lost a major legal battle to block a nuclear waste repository from being built in Tooele County. The 10th ... See all stories on this topic: PAKISTAN'S nuclear program to be improved: Musharraf Xinhua - China ... Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that necessary steps would be takento further improve, upgrade and refine Pakistan's nuclear program ... See all stories on this topic: MUSHARRAF says nuclear programme to be further improved PakTribune.com - Pakistan RAWALPINDI, August 5 (Online): President General Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan's nuclear programme was a vital national asset and necessary steps ... NUCLEAR Dump Dispute WIBW - Topeka,KS,USA A possible settlement will be discussed Monday by Kansas and other states in a compact that is suing Nebraska for refusing to host a regional nuclear waste dump ... See all stories on this topic: RUSSIA Admits N Korea Nuclear Problem, Denies Involvement MOSNEWS - Russia Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Thursday that the North Korean Nuclear problem really existed, but denied allegations that Russia was involved ... 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/ ***************************************************************** 55 AFP: Ireland wants wind power to provide 13 percent of energy by 2010 TERRA.WIRE [http://www.terradaily.com/] DUBLIN (AFP) Aug 04, 2004 Ireland wants wind power to provide 13 percent of its energy needs by 2010, Environment Minister Martin Cullen said on Wednesday, unveiling a plan that could see wind farms constructed in environmentally sensitive areas. Cullen said the plan would "bolster the Government's national climate change strategy and reduce our dependency on dirty fossil fuels". "Ireland has a very challenging national climate change target," he said. "We must reduce our dependency on oil to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions." He said the government guidelines challenged preconceptions about where wind farms should be located. "There has been a perception that designating an area for natural heritage reasons or due to the presence of rare birds will prevent any wind farm developments proposals going ahead there." "The guidelines show how these impacts can be mitigated by prospective applicants and planning authorities working together and agreeing on measures to avoid or minimise potential adverse effects." Cullen was speaking at a wind farm at Carnsore Point in the southeast of the country. Carnsore saw the emergence of Ireland's first major anti-nuclear protests in the late 1970s. Ireland has no nuclear power stations but 25 years ago the government-owned Electricity Supply Board had planned to build four reactors with a combined output of 3,000 megawatts on Carnsore. TERRA.WIRE ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************