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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 BBC: Iraq 'ended nuclear aims in 1991'
2 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., N. Korean Discuss Nuclear Impasse
3 US: Atomic testing in desert spurs fresh public fears
4 US: [shundahaialerts] Rebecca Solnit on Nuclear Wars and
5 US: KRT Wire: Bush right behind Kerry on Southwest tour
6 BBC: Israel puts Iran in its sights
7 Hi Pakistan: Kharazi takes flak over nuclear dossier -->
8 Hi Pakistan: UN links Iran uranium particles to Pakistan -->
NUCLEAR REACTORS
9 US: [progchat_action] Nuclear Fire Hazard
10 [progchat_action] Rust and Neglect at Japan Atom Plant
11 US: Entergy Workers Struggle for a Contract
12 US: Comparing Japan's ill-fated Mihama NPP with San Onofre's NPPs
13 US: [NukeNet] Japan NPP: What If Evacuation Was Needed? Japanese
14 US: [NukeNet] Coalition Demands Solution for Nuclear Reactor
15 [NukeNet] Mihama-3 emergency procedures etc
16 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear plant admits inspection failure
17 US: NRC: New NRC Senior Resident Inspector Assigned to Limerick Gene
18 US: NRC: NRC Assigns New Senior Resident Inspector to Susquehanna St
19 US: DECATUR DAILY: Nuclear technology still must have care, caution
20 US: NRC: Notice of Consideration of Amendment Request to Decommissio
21 US: AFP: Nuclear plant never checked burst pipe
22 Las Vegas SUN: Japan Scrutinizes Nuclear Safety
23 Mainichi Interactive: KEPCO aware that pipes at nuke plant could wea
24 Mainichi Interactive: Sitting on the job proved fatal factor in nuke
25 Daily Yomiuri: Mihama safety checks lax
26 Daily Yomiuri: Pipe eroded faster than at other KEPCO reactors
27 Times of India: What was she doing at Kalpakkam?
28 Japan Times: Pipes eluded nuclear plant regs
29 Japan Times: Blind spots of inspection
30 US: TheDay.com: Sen. Peters Helps Power Interests Fool Public
31 US: North Adams Transcript: Activists fear Yankee Rowe is terror tar
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 US: [NYTr] Pennsylvania to Distribute Potass.Iodide Near Nukes
33 US: [NYTr] Terror! FDA OKs anti-Radiation Attack Drugs
34 US: [NukeNet] fire in DU machining bay
35 US: Wired News: Nukes Still Take Toll on Worker
36 [du-list] Announcing: German film exposes current radioactive
37 [du-list] Help the Children of Iraq -- One Child at a Time.
38 US: [du-list] Cancer Factories: America's Tragic Quest for Uranium
39 US: Guardian Unlimited: Feds Investigate Conn. Nuclear Engineer
40 US: Wired News: Nukes Still Take Toll on Workers
41 US: PRESS RELEASE: Protect yourself from the harmful effects of radi
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
42 US: [EMMAS] The Wild, Wild Wars in the West
43 MoJo: The Wild, Wild Wars in the West
44 US: Lincoln Journal Star: Tribe had offered land for nuke waste faci
45 Las Vegas RJ: 'No nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain'
46 US: Las Vegas RJ: Nuclear fuel costs repaid
47 Las Vegas RJ: Lawsuit gets Jan. 10 hearing
48 RGJ: Kerry rallies Democrats over nuclear waste dump
49 US: Daily Herald: Exelon to get money for waste storage
50 US: Lowell Sun: Water-test results could be in tomorrow
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
51 US: [progchat_action] An American Hiroshima
52 [EMMAS] Hiroshima Cover-up
53 Mos News: Japan Angered At Russia’s Nuke Tests -
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
54 Risk-Based proposal for Piketon from Vina and Elisa
55 DOE: Office of Nonproliferation Policy; Proposed Subsequent
56 Albuquerque Tribune: Report: Labs lack disaster plan
57 Seattle Times: Hanford reactor nearing its final end
58 AP Wire: Los Alamos Lab Has Documentation Troubles
59 toledoblade.com: Fermi II shut down to fix diesel generator
60 U.S. Newswire: DOE Completes First Global Threat Reduction
61 Rocky Mountain News: There's no pay in Colorado's dirt
62 lamonitor.com: Domenici backs lab
63 Texas City Sun: Nuke lab employees frustrated
64 Tri-Valley Herald: Lab receives clean bill of health
65 Daily Camera: Rocky Flats samples may be on hold
OTHER NUCLEAR
66 Google News Alert - nuclear
67 Google News Alert - nuclear
68 The Sunflower - August 2004 - Issue 87
69 [du-list] DU in the news 10 and 11 Aug. 04
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 BBC: Iraq 'ended nuclear aims in 1991'
Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 August, 2004
[Weapons inspectors in Iraq]
No banned weapons have been found despite intensive searches
The head of Iraq's nuclear programme under Saddam Hussein has
said Iraq destroyed its nuclear weapons programme in 1991 and
never restarted it.
Jafar Dhia Jafar told the BBC sanctions and inspections worked in
stopping the reconstitution of the programme.
He also said Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes
were destroyed after the first Gulf War and never reactivated.
Mr Jafar ran Iraq's nuclear programme for nearly 25 years.
One of the most powerful arguments in the case for war on Iraq
was the US and UK's claim Saddam Hussein was trying to restart
his nuclear programme.
Equipment 'destroyed'
But Mr Jafar, whom the former Iraqi leader originally asked to
build the country's nuclear bomb, said all nuclear development
stopped in July 1991, under the orders of Saddam Hussein.
[Jafar Dhia Jafar]
The was no capability - there was no chemical or biological or
any of what are called weapons of mass destruction Jafar Dhia
Jafar
He said he was probably a few years away from producing a nuclear
bomb.
However, Iraq would not have had the resources under the
sanctions regime to continue the programme, he said in his first
broadcast interview - aired on BBC's Newsnight programme on
Wednesday night.
He added the Iraqi leader had hoped that UN sanctions would be
lifted soon, adding that Iraq's strategic aims became ineffective
when the US and UK became its adversaries.
"We had orders to hand over the equipment to the Republican
guards," Mr Jafar said.
"And they had orders to destroy the equipment that we handed over
to them."
Exaggeration
He said that everything was destroyed, such that the programme
could not be restarted at the time - and that it never restarted.
Similarly, the country's chemical and biological weapons
programmes were stopped and never reactivated, he said.
"There was no capability," he said. "There was no chemical or
biological or any of what are called weapons of mass
destruction." Some materials were never accounted for, giving
weapons inspectors reason to believe that there were still some
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But Mr Jafar said that production figures were exaggerated, and
the inspectors' estimates merely reflected the difference between
existing materials and the inflated figures.
"That doesn't mean the material actually exists," he said.
Not coming clean
However, inspectors claim that it was the evasive behaviour of Mr
Jafar himself and his failure to come clean about the programme
that led them to believe that Iraq had to be hiding something.
Mr Jafar also says the British government's assertion that Iraq
tried to purchase uranium from Niger is false.
He said Iraq already had a supply of uranium purchased there in
the 1980s.
"We had 500 tons of yellow cake [uranium] in Baghdad so why would
we get more?" he said.
He says he was approached by US intelligence to defect, but was
never tempted.
He thought it was important for Iraq to have a nuclear deterrent
and tried to achieve this aim for patriotic reasons, he said.
He remained in Iraq, fleeing to Syria just two days before
Baghdad fell to coalition forces last year.
*****************************************************************
2 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., N. Korean Discuss Nuclear Impasse
From the Associated Press [UP]
Thursday August 12, 2004 12:31 AM
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - In a series of informal meetings that included an
intimate dinner, senior U.S. and North Korea officials discussed
how to resolve a long-standing impasse over the communist
country's nuclear weapons, the two sides and diplomatic sources
said Wednesday.
The talks produced no apparent breakthrough, but both sides
called them useful.
Often, these diplomatic dinners are more productive than formal
meetings, though in this case it was not known whether there was
any progress. The Asian diplomatic sources said the atmosphere
was good.
The discussions between Li Gun, deputy head of U.S. affairs at
North Korea's Foreign Ministry, and Joseph DeTrani, the U.S.
special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, took place ahead
of a new round of six-party talks on the nuclear standoff
expected to be held in Beijing by the end of September.
Li said it was ``obvious and natural'' that he would talk to
DeTrani since they were in the same room for 1 days at the
conference, which began Tuesday morning.
When DeTrani was told that Li said they had talked, and was asked
how the discussions went, he replied: ``We had very good
meetings.'' He then left, refusing to answer any more questions.
The U.S. State Department said DeTrani did not schedule any
bilateral meetings with participants at the Conference on
Northeast Asian Security. The conference was organized by the
National Committee on American Foreign Policy, a nonpartisan
organization that invites scholars, diplomats, and experts to
focus on key issues and conflicts involving U.S. interests.
But Li and DeTrani not only met informally during the conference,
they dined together Tuesday night with South Korea's ambassador
to the United States, Han Sung-joo, and the U.S. State
Department's director of policy planning, Mitchell Reiss, the
sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said last week that the
United States would like to convene a working party meeting of
the participants in the six-party talks as soon as possible to
prepare for the next session.
DeTrani and Li have represented their countries at the working
party meetings. Besides the United States and North Korea, the
other participants in the talks are South Korea, China, Japan and
Russia.
Li and Yang Xi Yu, director of the Korean peninsula office in
China's Foreign Ministry, insisted that there was no bargaining,
negotiations or decisions about the six-party talks at the
conference.
Asked what he saw as the next step in the six-party talks, Li
said, ``They have voted to have the fourth round of six-party
talks and we are working on it.''
During this week's conference, he said, ``We talked about issues,
but this is not negotiations, but only exchange of views.''
``The opportunity has been useful and every party has explained
their original positions. We ... introduced our original
positions,'' Li said. ``It was cordial. We exchanged (views) in a
frank manner and it was businesslike.''
Little progress has been made in the three sessions of six-party
talks so far.
At the most recent meeting in June, the United States proposed a
three-month preparation period during which the North would
freeze work on its nuclear program, submit a list of all nuclear
activities and remove key weapons ingredients.
North Korea offered to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for
energy, the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions and removal from
Washington's list of countries that sponsor terrorism, saying the
freeze would be a step toward eventual dismantling.
But the U.S. proposal required the North to go further, helping
to dismantle facilities and allowing outside monitoring. Under
the plan, some benefits would be withheld to ensure the North
cooperates.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
3 Atomic testing in desert spurs fresh public fears
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:36:34 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/9347328.htm
Posted on Sun, Aug. 08, 2004
Atomic testing in desert spurs fresh public fears
*JUDITH GRAHAM*
*Knight Ridder Tribune News Service*
*SALT LAKE CITY - *Fifty years ago, Karen Turner Martin would toddle
outside with her family to watch brightly colored remnants of atomic
bomb mushroom clouds drift over the red rocks of southern Utah.
Children from that time and place, including Martin, never have
forgotten their awe at those Cold War atomic tests just over the
border in Nevada. Nor have they recovered from the shock of betrayal
years later, when they learned the government knew the tests were
dangerous but told people they were safe.
Today these so-called downwinders - named for the winds that carried
atomic debris from the Nevada Test Site to other areas in the 1950s
and 1960s - still are searching for a full accounting of how many
people were subjected to fallout and what happened to their health.
It isn't just a matter of setting the historical record straight.
To this day, people exposed to fallout during atomic tests are
developing cancer and other illnesses they believe were caused by
radioactive elements.
Martin, 53 and a mother of five, is among them. Doctors recently
found a tumor on her thyroid, and she's having a biopsy in a few
weeks.
New nuclear plans
Meanwhile, the Bush administration's plans to spend millions of
dollars upgrading the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas is
provoking deja vu and anxiety among downwinders. The administration
has also budgeted millions of dollars to design "bunker buster"
nuclear bombs and light-yield new nuclear weapons. The 2004 federal
budget appropriated $25 million for improving readiness at the site,
but officials say there are no plans to test new weapons.
"Before this country spends another red bloody dime on nuclear
weapons, it needs to take care of all the citizens who became
unknowing victims"
during the Cold War, Martin said this past week, days after former
President Bill Clinton warned of the dangers of new nuclear weapons
in a speech at the Democratic National Convention.
However distant, the prospect of renewed nuclear testing evokes
such passion here that it has become an issue in Utah's 2nd
Congressional District race. The Republican Party has identified
the contest as its best chance nationwide at grabbing a House seat
from the Democrats.
*Warring candidates*
The race pits Rep. Jim Matheson, the only Democratic member of
Utah's delegation, against Republican John Swallow, a lawyer and
former state legislator. Matheson is the son of former Utah Gov.
Scott Matheson, a downwinder who died in 1990 at age 61 of multiple
myeloma, a form of cancer. Matheson and his family believe his
father's exposure to radiation from atomic tests was the cause.
In Utah recently, Matheson called on the federal government to
recognize that far more people were affected by nuclear tests than
previously recognized and to expand its compensation program.
Swallow, whose Web site says he is committed to "conservative ideals"
and national defense, could not be reached for comment.
The United States conducted about 100 above-ground nuclear tests
in Nevada in the 1950s and the 1960s. Underground tests continued
over the next decades, stopping in 1992.
To date, the compensation program has paid $775 million in claims
filed by downwinders, uranium miners, uranium millers, ore haulers
and workers who participated in above-ground atomic tests. Funding
sometimes has been problematic, and the program expects a $72 million
shortfall next year, according to government estimates.
*Payment limitations*
Especially disconcerting to many is how the program defines who is
eligible for payments. To qualify, a person must have lived in
southern Utah, northwestern Arizona or eastern Nevada - only 21
counties are covered - during the period of above-ground testing
and subsequently have contracted leukemia or thyroid, brain, ovarian,
pancreatic, breast, lung or liver cancers, among other illnesses.
Recognizing the issue, Utah's legislature voted unanimously this
year to request that Congress grant payments to residents across
the entire state who were exposed to atomic tests and later became
ill.
Though cancer has been the focus of nuclear testing compensation
for downwinders, recent research argues that the potential health
effects are much broader and should be considered for compensation
as well, said Lynn Anspaugh, a professor of radiobiology at the
University of Utah. He cited a June article in the journal Radiation
Research by Japanese researchers who followed survivors of the
atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Friday marked
the 59th anniversary of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
*****************************************************************
4 [shundahaialerts] Rebecca Solnit on Nuclear Wars and
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:25 -0700
>From Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone Grandmother, and land rights defender.
FYI Recent piece by Rebecca Solnit. As for the Western Shoshone Bush’s
new “distribution” will not stop Western Shoshone from asserting our rights
and seeking recognition of those rights in international and domestic legal
forums, the political arena, the media and the public eye. Western
Shoshone lands are not for sale.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit on nuclear Nevada
>From Tom Dispatch
a project of the Nation Institute
compiled and edited
by Tom Engelhardt
www.tomdispatch.com
As part 2 of Tomdispatch's Hiroshima-Nagasaki week of nuclear posts, I
offer Rebecca Solnit's latest tale from the Wild West where, unbelievably
enough, the government suffered a genuine setback in its domestic nuclear
wars. Solnit started covering those land and nuclear "wars" in Nevada, that
"hole in public consciousness" as she calls it, back in 1989 (and wrote
about them in her second book, Savage Dreams). She's still on the job. As
I've done before, I urge all of you to consider picking up Solnit's most
recent book, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, a tiny
paperback that certainly changed the way I look at our world and could do
the same for you. Tom
Meanwhile Back at the Ranch:
The Wild, Wild Wars in the West
By Rebecca Solnit
In July, the Feds handed down to Nevada its bitterest defeat and sweetest
victory in ages; the former, a termination of thousands of years of Western
Shoshone history; the latter, a reprieve from an apocalyptic future as the
world's biggest -- and maybe dumbest -- nuclear waste dump. In one
three-day period, Nevada's past got cancelled while its future was
salvaged. But this Indian war and these nuclear politics are just part of a
panoply of glaringly weird things going on in the state; there's a gold
rush, a water war, and vast military operations, just for starters, and all
of them are ecological bad news.
Nevada's invisibility may be as alarming as the apocalyptic dimensions of
its plight. The state is a truly peculiar place, a hole in public
consciousness. Where else could you set off a thousand nuclear bombs
unhindered -- from 1951 to 1991 at the Nevada Test Site -- while even most
antinuclear activists were arguing about nuclear war as a terrible
possibility rather than an ongoing regional catastrophe? Once nuclear
testing went underground in 1963, and American babies stopped having
fallout-induced radioactive milk teeth, Nevada fell off the map even as the
nuke-a-month program continued unimpeded for almost three more decades.
Western Shoshone Showdown
Across the U.S., the contemporary Indian wars are invisible in part because
most non-Native Americans believe they all happened in the picturesque
past, in part because they're fought by other means, in part because the
mainstream media don't give a damn. One of the most egregious of them has
been the ongoing battle between the Western Shoshone and the federal
government for title to most of Nevada. It began in 1848 when the U.S.
government claimed the Southwest from Mexico, heated up in the post--World
War II era when the Shoshone went to court to protect their rights, and may
have ended July 7, when President Bush signed into effect the Western
Shoshone Distribution Bill.
That bill dishes out money the government set aside a few decades ago as
payment for much of eastern and southern Nevada. The area had looked so
worthless to the bureaucrats of the nineteenth century that they drew up a
treaty letting the Western Shoshone, unlike most indigenous nations, retain
title to their lands. The bureaucrats of the twentieth century realized
that the best way to seize title to Nevada was to pretend that the land had
already been taken -- back when it was more affordable. Of course, you have
to overlook the fact that, as Western Shoshone bumper stickers say of their
homeland, "Newe Sogobia is not for sale." The price set was $26 million or
15 cents an acre, discount prices even for the 1870s. (With interest, the
sum to be disbursed is now $145 million.)
Reasonably enough, the Western Shoshone point out that they never offered
their land for sale and many of them refuse to take the money. The
disbursement was made against their strenuous opposition. (Others believe
that $30,000 per person is the best they'll ever get and are willing to
settle up.) The case matters in part because Western Shoshone
"traditionalists" have strenuously opposed mining, military operations --
20% of all military-controlled land is in Nevada -- and nuclear activities
on their land. Though environmentalists sometimes decry their
cattle-grazing as destructive to the desert, they look like far better
stewards of Nevada's arid lands than the federal government ever has been.
They have deep roots in the past and are interested in the long-term future
of the place. Then there's the simple matter of justice: the Western
Shoshone are being stripped of their birthright and their rights just as
surely as any Palestinian on the wrong side of Israel's Great Wall of
Intolerance or the Iraqis whose resources have been redistributed to
various American corporations.
The corporations reaping twenty-first century profits from the great
Shoshone land grab and already engaged in a gold rush in the heartland of
Shoshone territory aren't even American in most cases. An 1872 mining law
allows virtually anyone to acquire public land for pennies in order to mine
it; the Toronto-based Barrick Corporation, for instance, paid less than
$10,000 for land containing an estimated $8 billion in gold. Unfortunately,
we're not talking about the gold nuggets in pretty engravings of the
Forty-Niners. Barrick and the other mega-corporations are mining
microscopic gold, dispersed throughout the subterranean rock along the
Carlin Trend in northeastern Nevada, enough gold to make the state the
world's third most productive gold-mining region.
To get it, you dig up huge hunks of the landscape, pulverize them, and then
run a cyanide solution through the resultant heaps, which pulls the gold
out. It takes about a hundred tons of ore to produce an ounce of gold.
Western Shoshone activist Carrie Dann (whose ranchlands and family cemetery
have been ravaged by gold-mining) suggests that whenever Americans buy gold
jewelry, they should get the slag that goes with it as well -- a splendid,
many-ton toxic heap for a keepsake with every ring and ornament. It's toxic
because grinding up the bedrock releases other heavy metals in the ground,
which is why Nevada -- with less than 1% of the nation's population -- was,
until a court changed the measurement standards in 2001, tops in the
release of toxic substances. Its annual half-billion tons of toxics amounts
to 10% of the nation's total, and a soaring 88.7% of its mercury releases;
to say nothing of the applied cyanide, which at least is an organic
compound that breaks down under the right circumstances. Mercury is forever.
Water Wars
The environmental price of gold is pretty high, and that's not even
counting groundwater. But groundwater counts too. Much of the Carlin Trend
gold is underneath the water table, so the mines pump out vast quantities
of groundwater in this driest state in the union and discard it. They are,
in other words, mining water as well as gold, and as recent attempts around
the world to privatize water -- by Bechtel in Bolivia, for example --
demonstrate, pure water is getting more and more valuable. The elderly
Western Shoshone activist and mystic Corbin Harney had a vision about water
scarcity long ago and has made it a focus of his work ever since. In
Nevada's gold-rush districts, water is being contaminated or dispersed into
nearby waterways, where it will run away, never to return. According to
Great Basin Mine Watch, Nevada mines wasted enough water in 2001 to serve a
city of half a million people.
It takes thousands of years to recharge an aquifer. To drain one, or even
drop the water table, creates "drawdown," the drying up of surface waters
that would otherwise feed agriculture, rural communities, and wildlife.
That's one of the reasons why environmentalists and rural citizens are up
in arms about the latest plans to suck out the water under White Pine,
Lincoln, and Nye counties, as well as rural Clark County for the benefit of
urban Clark County (aka Las Vegas). This conflict is already being compared
to the Los Angeles vs. Owens Valley water war immortalized in Roman
Polanski's movie Chinatown. What Polanski's movie didn't show is the dry
lake bed breeding dust storms, the habitat drying up, the ecological
disaster Los Angeles lawns and carwashes demanded (and Mono Lake activists
partially reversed in recent years).
Currently, Las Vegas gets most of its water from the Colorado River. In
1900, the city's population was in the single digits; it had only made it
to about half-a-million when I started swinging through in the 1980s to
protest the nuclear testing taking place 60 miles to the north; the city
now has 1.4 million people, almost two-thirds of the state's population,
and 5,000 new Vegans arrive every month -- which is why the entire Nevada
congressional delegation is behind the water grab. That's where the votes are.
Even the usually environmentally respectable Senator Harry Reid is so
behind the bill to start building the two-hundred-mile Lincoln-to-Vegas
pipeline that he's threatening to attach it to some larger piece of
legislation bound to pass. "They have enough water for the existing
population," says Jan Gilbert, a longtime state activist. "They don't for
this explosive growth."
Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, struck
a different note when she said, "The notion that we have a finite supply of
water, and when that finite supply is gone you stop growing, is in the
past." Welcome to Nevada, driest state in the union, where water is
infinite; you can wait until the late twentieth century to make things
happen in the nineteenth century; gold is cheap; and the future is
radioactively bright. Or was. Not all the news is bad.
Repealing the Apocalypse
Once again, it was the water that was the problem, only this time it wasn't
a shortage. Yucca Mountain, it turned out, was all wet, and a truly lunatic
place to put seventy-seven thousand tons of high-level nuclear waste.
The government created the nuclear power industry with a promise to reactor
operators that the essential crisis of the industry, the dangerous,
exceedingly long-lived waste it produces, would be taken off their hands.
In all the subsequent decades of nuclear power production, spent fuel rods
have been piling up in "cooling ponds" onsite, while the operators waited
for the government to make good on its promise to get rid of the stuff
(mostly located in the population-heavy, resource-light East). Three New
England reactors are already suing the government for failing to come up
with a dump.
For more than two decades, the Department of Energy (DOE) has done
everything it can to create one of the most scientifically dubious
dumpsites imaginable, at Yucca Mountain, about ninety miles north of Vegas
on the northern edges of the Nevada Test Site, where all those nuclear
bombs were detonated (and will be again if Bush has his way).
The initial plan was to compare sites in three western states and choose
the safest one, but two of the states -- Texas and Washington -- had the
political clout to get out of the competition. So the "comparative study"
never studied anyplace but Yucca Mountain, and yet the longer it was
studied the less suitable it seemed even for the mandated 10,000 years it
was supposed to keep us and the waste apart (forget the quarter million
years the stuff would actually remain dangerous). Somehow, this never
seemed to stop plans from proceeding. For a lot of geologists, the fact
that Yucca Mountain had, in geological terms, recent volcanic activity and
has very contemporary seismic activity might be grounds enough for doubt.
But the DOE officials just kept lowering the standards, fudging the facts,
firing the dissenters, while spending nearly $100 billion to try to make it
happen -- the cost of a nice, short foreign war these days.
Nevada itself has fine activists who have stood up to some of the
atrocities, and the state itself has vociferously fought the federal plan
to make it into what might have been the world's largest nuclear waste
dump. And for now, this time, on this issue, they won, which is no mean
feat. The Yucca Mountain plan was nicknamed early on the "Screw Nevada"
bill, and the feckless plans to send the stuff across the country from the
mostly eastern nuclear reactors is popularly known as "Mobile Chernobyl."
(Click here to see how close the stuff gets to your house -- and within
half a mile of fifty million other Americans.)
Easterners imagine that the Wiley Coyote landscape of Nevada means true
inert dryness, and the New York Times has seldom been able to resist
coupling the adjectives "sterile, empty, barren, and useless" to any
description of the place. But underneath it is a surprisingly high water
table that could rise further in a changed climate, and flowing through the
mountain's billion fissures is rainfall which leaches out the chemicals in
the rock, making a brew capable of eating through almost any metal,
including pretty much every metal proposed for nuclear-waste containment.
Originally, the rock itself was supposed to isolate the stuff. When it
turned out that wet Yucca Mountain was uniquely unsuited for the task, the
idea was that the metal containers would isolate the waste. When it turned
out that the leaching would eat them away, the plan switched to little
titanium umbrellas on top of each cask -- so we'd gone from protection by
the thick mantle of the earth to parasols in a couple of decades of study.
And they call it science.
The state's Nuclear Projects Office (which means anti-dump) geologist,
Steve Frischman, told me long ago that they picked 10,000 years as the
period during which the waste must be isolated because you can at least
pretend to estimate geological and climate changes over ten millennia;
beyond that, it's the utter unknown -- Nevada could be a rainforest; its
ancient lake beds could refill; and God knows who's going to look after the
stuff then. The Western Shoshone? Among the more surreal aspects of the
whole Yucca Project have been the many schemes to create warning labels for
the waste that would make sense to unknown civilizations of the deep future.
But surprisingly, on July 9, two days after the Western Shoshone
Disbursement Bill was signed by Bush, a federal appeals court ruled that
the standards for Yucca Mountain were wrong: the Environmental Protection
Agency should have accepted a ruling by the National Academy of Sciences
that the safety standard should be not 10,000 years but the point of peak
radiation -- which could be 300,000 years away, long after the metal
containment casks have corroded into irrelevancy. Joe Egan, an attorney for
the state of Nevada, told the Las Vegas Sun that this means "the department
will have to apply a standard that all their own evidence says they can't
meet."
This could mean the death of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, though
the decision could also be appealed in the next few weeks and the
Department of Energy is rushing to get the place licensed by December in
what might be a last hurrah for the Bush Administration. Senator Kerry has
taken a strong stand against Yucca (while Edwards, from nuke-plant
intensive North Carolina, has waffled).
This is startlingly good news for Nevada. Scientists have always said that
Yucca Mountain was a disaster-in-the-making, even leaving aside those 50
million Americans living within half a mile of the shipment routes the
Yucca-bound nuclear waste would travel on for decades to come, or the 90 to
500 estimated accidents of unknown scale that statistics suggest would take
place en route over the years. (Who needs terrorist dirty bombs when our
own tax dollars can supply them?)
When you consider the human rights abuses, the squandering of resources for
the benefit of the few, and the lunatic decisions being made for the
long-term future of the state, the war in Iraq looks a little like a decoy
from troubles at home, or a parallel universe with all the same
ingredients. Except that there's almost no opposition to Nevada's impending
catastrophes -- outside of Nevada. But you can bring back another
perspective from Iraq too. One is that Goliath doesn't always win: the
David of local activists and the Nevada State government has been fighting
Yucca for decades, and this round Goliath lost. Another is that if you're
tenacious enough, what looks like defeat can change, and the Western
Shoshone have patience and commitment on their side.
Rebecca Solnit's 1994 book Savage Dreams dealt at length with the Western
Shoshone land wars and with nuclear testing in Nevada. Her most recent book
is Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
Copyright C2004 Rebecca Solnit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SHUNDAHAI NETWORK--Dedicated to Breaking the Nuclear Chain
Shundahai is a Newe (Western Shoshone) word meaning "Peace and Harmony
with all Creation"
Shundahai Network
PO Box 1115
Salt Lake City, UT 84110
Office: 801.533.0128
Fax: 801.533.0129
mailto:Shundahai@shundahai.org
http://www.Shundahai.org
========================================================
It's in our back yard... it's in our front yard. This nuclear contamination
is shortening all life. We are going to have to unite as a people and say
no more! We, the people, are going to have to put our thoughts together to
save our planet here. We only have One Water...One Air...One Mother Earth."
Corbin Harney -Newe (Western Shoshone) Spiritual leader, Founder & Chairman
of the Board of The Shundahai Network
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*****************************************************************
5 KRT Wire: Bush right behind Kerry on Southwest tour
| 08/11/2004 |
By WILLIAM DOUGLAS
Knight Ridder Newspapers
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The road to the White House has taken a sharp
turn this year to the Southwest, where changing demographics,
fast growth and shifting political sensibilities could make the
region decisive in November.
President Bush swooped into New Mexico and Arizona on Wednesday
just days after Democratic nominee John Kerry's campaign train
roared through on his way to Nevada, where Bush follows Thursday.
Polls show all three states could go either way. Arizona has 10
electoral votes, New Mexico and Arizona five each. In a close
election like the one in 2000, any one of them could make the
difference, so the land of high desert and hot peppers is getting
more attention in this presidential campaign than ever before.
The political landscape of the Southwestern states has shifted
dramatically, in large part to an influx of new residents from
costly and overcrowded California, from the harsh winters of the
Midwest and from impoverished Mexican villages. Arizona's
population alone grew by 40 percent in the 1990s, and the pace
hasn't slackened. The newcomers have brought their political
allegiances with them, political analysts say.
In 2000, former Vice President Al Gore won New Mexico by a mere
366 votes. Bush won Arizona handily, by 51-45 percent, but two
years later Democrat Janet Napolitano was elected governor, which
persuaded Democrats that Kerry has a shot at victory there too.
Bush won Nevada similarly in 2000, 50-46 percent, but then he
decided to make that state's Yucca Mountain the permanent
repository of the nation's deadly nuclear waste. Kerry opposes
that, which could tip that state to the Democrat this time.
Colorado, too, is a swing state this year, even though Bush won
it 51-42 percent last time, because of many of the same social
changes that are affecting its neighbors.
"I think the big surprise is we've got four states we're
competing in right now. We can win any one of them." Kerry
strategist Tad Devine said.
In Albuquerque, N.M., on Wednesday, Bush attacked Kerry on the
economy, accused him of conflicting positions on the war in Iraq
and said the Massachusetts senator had erred by suggesting a
timeline for reducing troop strength there.
"I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war," the
president told supporters. "I'm not going to be sending mixed
signals."
Wednesday's trip was Bush's third visit to the state this year.
Vice President Dick Cheney also has passed through, though his
visit last month stirred controversy when his campaign required
attendees to a rally to sign a loyalty pledge as the price of
admission.
The numbers in New Mexico seem to tilt in Kerry's favor:
Fifty-two percent of voters are registered Democrats and only 32
percent are Republicans. Even so, that doesn't spell a slam-dunk
for Kerry.
"If a Democrat is painted as too liberal or out of touch, a
Republican can win," said Brian Sanderoff, an independent New
Mexico political analyst.
Carrie McCarthy, a marketing director in an art gallery on a
trendy Santa Fe, N.M. street, agreed.
"Santa Fe is a little pocket of surface liberalism," said
McCarthy, a Kerry supporter who moved to New Mexico from Chicago
four years ago. "The city was a hippie hideaway for a long time.
But with the influx of wealthy second-home people, it's not as
liberal as it used to be."
The president used a talk-show-style campaign event in
Albuquerque to trumpet his Southwest roots and take a veiled dig
at Kerry's Massachusetts background.
"We're right on the other side of the New Mexico border; we've
spent a lot of time in this state," Bush said of himself and his
wife, Laura. "We don't have to have a tour guide to figure out
how to get around. We don't need somebody to explain to us how
the people of New Mexico think."
Kerry was in nearby Nevada, campaigning before an audience of
senior citizens in Henderson, Nev., where he called for allowing
drugs to be imported from Canada.
Bush will visit Nevada on Thursday.
Bush's campaign officials said they weren't shadowing Kerry, but
several Southwestern analysts said it was no coincidence that, in
this region, the president's campaign schedule mirrored Kerry's.
"These candidates need to get out in the states and get the free
local media coverage," said Pat Kenney, the chairman of Arizona
State University's political science department. "Bush seems to
be trailing Kerry around so as not to let him get unanswered
local media coverage."
Both campaigns are eyeing the Hispanic vote, which could be huge.
New Mexico's population is 42 percent Hispanic, and Arizona's is
25 percent, though voter registration trails those percentages.
Polls show Kerry ahead with Hispanics nationally by a 2-to-1
margin. Bush received 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000 and
his campaign has been working to attract more. Some of his TV ads
run exclusively in Spanish, and Bush occasionally drops Spanish
phrases on the stump.
"The president made inroads, but I don't think it was as
significant as they thought it would be," said Adrian Pantoja, an
Arizona State University political scientist who specializes in
Hispanic issues. "Will they continue to make further inroads? It
remains to be seen. Are the Republican initiatives resonating
with Hispanic voters? The answer is we don't know."
Looking for another edge, Kerry's campaign has begun cultivating
the Southwest's Native American population, which traditionally
has voted in low numbers.
Native Americans have stayed away from the polls in part because
of their distrust in the federal government, ignorance of the
voting process and difficulty in registering to vote, election
officials and tribal leaders said. In New Mexico, for example,
voter registration forms have a section in which an applicant can
draw a map to his or her home to help election officials locate
it.
Kerry hopes to take advantage of voter-registration efforts aimed
at Native Americans by groups such as Moving America Forward, an
organization formed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who's
also a Democrat.
"The greatest difficulty is distrust of the government," said
Amber Carillo, a Native American coordinator for the group.
Larry Perez, a Taos Pueblo Indian who recently moved back to New
Mexico from Florida, filled out a registration form and vowed to
hold his nose and vote in November.
"I don't want Bush back there, but I don't like Kerry. I wish
there were someone else running because I don't think he (Kerry)
can win," Perez said.
(Staff writer Thomas Fitzgerald contributed to this report from
Henderson, Nev., with Kerry.)
*****************************************************************
6 BBC: Israel puts Iran in its sights
Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 August, 2004
[The BBC's James Reynolds]
By James Reynolds BBC correspondent in Jerusalem
Israel's defence establishment is looking east with concern.
[Aerial view of Natanz facility (Image: DigitalGlobe)]
Some fear Iran is using its Natanz facility to develop nuclear
weapons (Image: DigitalGlobe)
This summer, some here warn that Iran may become a nuclear power,
perhaps within the next three or four years.
The Jewish state wants the world to act. If diplomacy fails,
Israel warns that it knows how to work alone.
"Israel has many, many capabilities," says Danny Yatom, a former
head of Mossad, Israel's international intelligence agency.
"And in the past Israel has carried out long-range military
operations, like when we bombed the nuclear facility of Iraq [in
1981]. And since then one can imagine that we've improved our
capabilities."
Tackling growing hostility
In public, most Israeli politicians choose to speak delicately
about Iran and nuclear weapons, taking care to avoid talking
directly of Israel's own never-discussed nuclear capabilities.
"Of course we have to develop our defensive capacities - passive,
active, reactive," says Ephraim Sneh, who is a Labour member of
parliament and a former deputy defence minister.
[Map showing location of Israel, Iran and Iraq]
"We have to strengthen all our defence shields against possible
Iranian attack. But we don't have plans to attack Iran. I can
tell you this for sure. It's not on the agenda."
There is one small corner where a handful of Israelis try to
avoid the growing hostility between Israel and Iran - that is in
Israel Radio's Persian service.
Every evening, from a small studio in Jerusalem, Menashe Amir
presents the evening news in Persian. His broadcast goes out
directly to Iran.
In his office, over a cup of Iranian tea, we discuss the two
enemy countries, and the chance that they may choose to attack
one another.
"You know, instead of being afraid, I think it's our duty, my
duty, to do all my efforts to prevent a war between the two
countries, to bring peace," he says.
"And that's exactly our message to our Iranian listeners."
For most ordinary Israelis the threat from a nuclear Iran is more
a distant worry than an immediate concern.
The fear of being killed by a suicide bomber is more real than
the thought of generals swapping bombs and missiles with Israel's
enemy in the east.
'Obvious' timing
Some think there is a simple political reason for the current
debate about Iran - a battle for military funding.
"What happened now is that Israel's intelligence leaders
presented their assessment to the Knesset and it gained headlines
in the Israeli press because now the battle on the budget is
underway," says Yiftah Shapir, an analyst at the Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies.
We will know how to defe ourselves Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz,
on the outcome if Iran attacks
"The timing is obviously attached to the budget. I don't think
there is a single general in the whole world who has enough -
enough budget, enough equipment, and the enemy is always bigger
and stronger."
And Israel is a country that never runs out of enemies.
For years, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was seen as the main existential
threat to the Jewish state. But that place has now been taken by
Iraq's neighbour.
A few months ago a man born in Tehran was a guest on Israel
Radio's Persian service.
The guest had spent his early childhood in Iran before coming to
Israel and joining the army. And he is now Israel's defence
minister.
What if Iran attacks, Shaul Mofaz was asked. The minister
answered: "We will know how to defend ourselves."
*****************************************************************
7 Hi Pakistan: Kharazi takes flak over nuclear dossier -->
August 12 2004
TEHRAN: Iran’s conservative-controlled parliament on Tuesday put
the heat on Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi for his alleged
mishandling of Iran’s nuclear dossier. "Why did we surrender to
the demands of the Europeans and the West?" asked Akbar Alami, a
member of the Majlis foreign policy and national security
commission, in a debate carried live on state radio.
"I have even heard that one member of our delegation to the Paris
negotiations told the Europeans that Iran would guarantee that it
would not leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if the
Westerners did not take our case to the United Nations Security
Council," he added. "These sort of approaches undermine Iran’s
sovereignty." He was referring to talks last month between Iran
and EU’s "big three" - France, Germany and Britain - during which
the Europeans continued their effort to have Iran renounce its
work on the sensitive nuclear fuel cycle.
Iran, however, has stood by its right to enrich uranium,
insisting that is legal under the NPT if for peaceful purposes.
Pending the completion an IAEA probe, Iran has nevertheless
agreed to suspend enrichment and has signed the additional
protocol to the NPT that allows reinforced UN inspections.
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Hi Pakistan: UN links Iran uranium particles to Pakistan -->
August 12 2004
VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog has linked highly enriched
uranium particles found in Iran to Pakistan, which fits Tehran’s
explanation they came from equipment bought on the black market,
a Western diplomat said on Tuesday.
Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed solely at generating
electricity and that particles of enriched uranium, including
some bomb-grade samples, which UN inspectors have found in the
country were not produced in Iran. While the finding by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) appears to strengthen
Iran’s case against Washington’s charge that Tehran is trying to
build a nuclear bomb, diplomats warned the finding was far from
conclusive.
US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that the enriched
uranium question was only one of several troubling issues which
also included Iran’s failure to abide by agreements and cooperate
with the IAEA. "Obviously we think Iran has a weapons programme,
we think the evidence points to that," he said. "What’s troubling
is that there are not clear, consistent answers that are provided
in an open and transparent way, and that’s what we’re looking
for."
A Western diplomat told Reuters the IAEA had matched
contamination from uranium enriched to 54 per cent to a sample
from Pakistan. "The IAEA has tentatively concluded that at least
one instance of the 54 per cent contamination matches a sample
provided by Pakistan," he said, confirming a report on Tuesday by
Jane’s Defence Weekly.
The IAEA declined to comment, saying its latest findings would be
presented in a report ahead of its September 13 Board of
Governors meeting.
Washington has been pressing the 35-nation board to report Iran
to the UN Security Council for hiding its uranium enrichment
programme from the IAEA for nearly two decades. State Department
spokesman Ereli said other troubling issues included Iran’s
centrifuge programme and experiments with plutonium-separation
and polonium-210, which can be used to initiate a chain reaction
in a nuclear bomb.
Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
9 [progchat_action] Nuclear Fire Hazard
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:38:52 -0500 (CDT)
Fire Hazard
By Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive August 9, 2004
On June 16, the commission charged with investigating the events
of September 11 announced that Al Qaeda's early attack plans had
included "unidentified nuclear power plants." You might think the
Bush Administration would respond by doing all it could to prevent
a terrorist-triggered disaster at these plants.
Think again. The Bush Administration is actually relaxing the fire
safeguards there.
Instead of insisting that the plants have heat-protected mechanical
systems in place that will shut down reactors automatically in case
of fire, which is the current standard, the Bush Administration
would actually let the power companies rely on workers to run through
the plants and try to turn off the reactors by hand while parts of
the facilities are engulfed in flames.
"The result could be catastrophic," says a March 3 letter from Rep.
Ed Markey (D-MA), and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), to Nils J. Diaz,
chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). "This would
assign reactor personnel the duty of rushing directly to the shutdown
equipment located throughout the reactor complex to shut down the
reactors manually, and would potentially take place in station areas
affected by smoke, fire, and radiation and possibly under attack
by terrorists."
Inside the NRC, the idea of people dodging flames and possibly high
radiation areas to try to avert a meltown has raised some eyebrows.
In a September 2003 meeting, one member of a panel on reactor fire
safety repeatedly pointed out that relying on humans to do work in
dangerous conditions and under stress was asking for trouble. It's
difficult to prepare operators, said Dana Powers, a member of the
Fire Protection Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Reactor
Safeguards. "How do you do that?" he asked. "How do you simulate
smoke, light, fire, ringing bells, fire engines, crazy people running
around?"
So why is the NRC proposing to relax the fire safety standard?
Amazingly, because many nuclear power plants have not been abiding
by current regulations to put up proven fire barriers. Rather than
demanding better fire safeguards or insisting that nuclear power
companies at least abide by the current ones, the NRC wants to let
them off the hook. It's as if car drivers were regularly going 90
mph, so the government raised the speed limit to 90.
"It appears that after discovering that many reactor licensees were
out of compliance with the automatic safe-shutdown fire regulations,
the commission has decided to gut these regulations rather than
force nuclear power plant operators to comply with them," says the
Markey and Dingell letter. The NRC made its decision, according to
Markey, "at the behest of the nuclear industry."
Current regulations require plants to maintain two sets of electrical
circuitry that enable the reactor to shut down automatically in an
emergency. These cables either must be encased in proven fire-retardant
materials or must be separated by a distance of 20 feet with no
combustible materials in between. That way, if one electrical system
burns up, the plant can turn itself off, even if the fire is so
destructive that no staff members are left to do that work.
The NRC introduced a proposed rule change on November 26, 2003, the
Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It said that, instead of putting in
fire barriers, nuclear plants could rely on personnel to turn the
plant off by hand in the event of a fire that threatens the reactor.
The rule change may go into effect as early as next spring.
The rulemaking started after the NRC met with the Nuclear Energy
Institute (NEI), an industry group, which admitted that many of its
members did not have the required safeguards in place. "NEI indicated
that the use of unapproved operator manual actions in the event of
a fire is pervasive throughout the industry," noted William D.
Travers, then the NRC's executive director for operations, in
describing the proposed rule to the commissioners. (Procedures for
shutting down a reactor by hand are called "operator manual actions.")
Faced with resistance from industry, the NRC found itself in a
predicament. "A concerted enforcement effort," wrote Travers,
"creates a prospect of significant resource expenditure without
clear safety benefits." He warned that the NRC could be flooded
with requests for exemptions from the rules.
Fires are not uncommon at nuclear power plants. "Typical nuclear
power plants will have three to four significant fires over their
operating lifetime," says a 1990 NRC document. "Fires are a significant
contributor to the overall core damage frequency."
Fire itself will not blow up a reactor, say critics and industry
representatives alike. But if the electrical cabling burns and the
pumps that cool the reactor core become disabled, the core could
begin to overheat, and the reactor could melt down. Millions of
people could then be exposed to radiation.
Shearon Harris nuclear power plant sits about twenty-two miles south
of Raleigh, North Carolina, in one of the fastest growing population
centers in the United States. So I give Progress Energy, the company
that runs the plant, a call. "Fire protection is such a mundane
issue,"
says Rick Kimble, manager of general communications for the company.
And he suggests that I shouldn't worry about fires at nuclear
reactors because the facilities, built of concrete and rebar, are
unlikely to burn and are designed to shut down automatically.
Nevertheless, he sets up a meeting with me at the plant's visitors
center, a common field-trip destination for local school groups.
He says I'll be able to see "images of the plant, basics of how the
plant works, cutouts showing the amount of concrete and steel rebar."
He even recommends a hotel. I tell him I will make a plane reservation
now that I have a confirmed meeting with him.
But the following week, several days before I am scheduled to fly
out, Kimble calls to say that our meeting is cancelled. No one from
the plant will meet with me. And, unlike the school kids, I am not
welcome at the Shearon Harris visitors center. Fire prevention,
says Kimble, is an industry-wide issue. "We don't think we should
be singled out," Kimble explains. Anyhow, he says, "there would not
be a catastrophic fire in a nuclear plant." That's because nuclear
fuel is not flammable. Even if there was a meltdown, it would be
contained, says Kimble.
"That's a ludicrous statement," replies David Lochbaum, nuclear
safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Browns Ferry
was also made out of concrete and steel."
One day in 1975, some workers were checking a seal on the secondary
containment building at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama.
They accidentally started a fire. The fire "was in the insulating
material around the cables. It was in a cable tray," says Craig
Beasely, a communications specialist at the plant. The fire began
in a part of the plant Beasely calls "the cable spreader room,"
which he defines as "the place where the cables come together." The
fire lasted "about seven hours," says Beasely. Some of the cables
that caught fire, he confirms, "did control some cooling" to the
reactor core.
"Temperatures as high as 15000F caused damage to more than 1600
cables routed in 117 conduits and twenty-six cable trays," says a
draft report by the Sandia and Brookhaven Laboratories. "Of those,
628 cables were safety related, and their damage caused the loss
of a significant number of plant safety systems."
A 1976 paper by the Union of Concerned Scientists was entitled
"Browns Ferry: The Regulatory Failure." Observing that the fire
rendered all safety equipment inoperative and that thick smoke,
loss of control over the reactor, and "inadequate breathing
apparatuses" interfered with the operators' attempts to save the
plant, the paper sums up the event in these words: "TVA nuclear
engineers stated privately to the authors that a potentially
catastrophic radiation release from Browns Ferry was avoided by
'sheer luck.' "
Company protests to the contrary, Shearon Harris merits attention.
The most recent NRC fire inspection describes more than 100 manual
action shutdown procedures that, in case of fire, would send personnel
out to turn off the plant and prevent a meltdown. "We've not seen
any numbers higher than that," says Paul Gunter, director of the
Reactor Watchdog Project for the D.C.-based Nuclear Information and
Resource Service.
The NRC's 2002 Triennial Fire Inspection of Shearon Harris describes
some of these operator manual actions. One, the NRC says, involves
"excessive challenges to operators," including "exposure to smoke
that would leak past the door and to the fire brigade who would be
opening the door, entering the narrow [15 inches wide] energized
electrical cabinet, and using a metal screwdriver inside the cabinet
and seven feet above the floor with poor visibility and poor labeling.
. . . Operators may not be able to start the auxiliary feedwater
pump."
Jim Warren, executive director of the Durham-based NC WARN (North
Carolina Waste Awareness Reduction Network), characterizes the
procedure this way: "Get the step ladder and go up in the closet
in the darkness, and hope you don't fry yourself."
The inspection noted that one operator "may be required to complete
as many as thirty-nine manual actions." The inspection found nine
fire safety violations altogether. In a March 2004 presentation the
government made at an annual assessment meeting on the Shearon
Harris reactor, the NRC described these "fire protection issues"
as "potential significant findings."
Nevertheless, the NRC inspection did not come down hard on Shearon
Harris. "The finding was of very low safety significance because
of the low fire initiation frequency," it said. That is, the NRC
doesn't think a fire is likely.
Kimble says the reactor has dealt with the violations. "We have
made corrections, done everything that has been suggested by the
NRC," he says. But Warren is not so sure. "Absent any evidence from
Progress [Energy], either in person or documented, that they have
corrected those problems, I'm left to assume that they're still
there," he says.
Papers released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request
reveal that some fire violations at Shearon Harris have gone on for
years, either without correction or with corrections that the NRC
later determined were inappropriate.
In April, the plant informed the NRC that the fire barriers were
missing entirely from cables that power twenty-one valves used to
control the flow of cooling water to the reactor core. The plant
informed the NRC that it would take two years to fix the problem.
The violations date back to 2002.
So I keep my plane ticket. I decide to get a look at the cooling
tower and a feel for the evacuation zone, the ten-mile radius
surrounding Shearon Harris.
I drive in a downpour, on an afternoon when tornadoes lift the roofs
in nearby towns, to the hotel Kimble suggested.
The hotel sits in Apex, a town with the slogan "the peak of good
living," though there are no mountains, or even hills, in sight.
Warren and I drive around the zone, seeking a view of the reactor.
We pull over at Jordan Lake, where we get a glimpse of the tower,
its feet in the trees and its head in the clouds. Aesthetically,
it's a graceful structure, a triumph of modern design out in the
woods. "That cooling tower is over 600-feet tall," says Warren.
Jordan Lake is a popular weekend destination for people in the
Triangle region. Below the parking lot where we stand is a dam. The
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls the inflow and outflow of
water, says Francis Ferrell, a Corps engineer who wanders out to
the parking lot to meet us. "We actually have a contingency plan"
in case of a nuclear emergency, he says. "We're supposed to go out
on the lake and tell people," obtain geiger counters after a
rendezvous on Highway 64, and report back measurements. "I think
our boss is trying to get that taken out of our job descriptions,"
he says. "That would be fine with me."
We drive to the other side of Shearon Harris to the front entrance,
where we get out and walk on the road, stopping short of the "Private
Property" signs. But the guards notice us, jump into their truck,
and drive up to inform us that we can't stand there, that we need
to cross the highway. The guards are armed. When Warren tells them
I am a reporter, they tell me to call the PR office. Then they sit
in their truck, watching, until we turn the car around and leave.
"At least we know they're paying attention," says Warren.
A 2003 study put out by Orange County, North Carolina, which is
near Shearon Harris, determined that "total evacuation [of the
six-county region along the Interstate 40/85 corridor] would take
5.8 days, assuming that all interstate lanes would be directed for
outbound traffic."
"I reconcile myself that I may lose everything," says Judy Hogan,
a writer, teacher, and activist who lives in Moncure, just a few
miles from the plant. "For a while, I was keeping my unpublished
books on disks in the trunk of my car because that would be my
biggest loss." Now that she owns a truck, she keeps the disks in a
briefcase in her bedroom. In that room, Hogan also has a tone alert
radio, which she says Progress Energy gave to her because she lives
within five miles of the plant. The radio, she says, will sound an
alarm for bad weather, as well as for nuclear emergencies.
In 2003, partly in response to anxieties about terrorism at nuclear
power plants, the state of North Carolina made potassium iodide
(KI) available to people living near nuclear reactors. Hogan went
to the local school to get them. She digs out her foil-wrapped pills
(each person gets two) from her purse.
Two information sheets accompany the pills. One of these describes
potassium iodide as "an over-the-counter medication that can protect
one part of the body - the thyroid - if a person is exposed to
radioactive iodine released during a nuclear power plant emergency."
The sheet says to take one tablet per twenty-four hour period, and
it adds an admonitory note: "Remember . . . taking KI is not a
substitute for evacuation. Leave the area immediately if you are
instructed to do so.
Do not take KI unless public health officials tell you to take it."
The other sheet is entitled, "Frequently Asked Questions About a
Radioactive Emergency." It begins, "Radiation is a form of energy
that is present all around us. Different types of radiation exist,
some of which have more energy than others."
Kimble is right. Fire safety is an industry-wide issue. And Shearon
Harris is not the only plant with a long list of violations.
For instance, in Hutchinson Island in Florida, a March 2003 Fire
Protection Baseline Inspection of the St. Lucie Power Station found
that "many local manual operator actions were used in place of the
required physical protection of cables for equipment relied on for
SSD [safe shutdown] during a fire, without obtaining NRC approval
for these deviations from the approved fire protection program.
This condition applied to all areas that were inspected."
Rachel Scott, nuclear communications manager for Florida Power and
Light, says that this inspection "pointed up an industry-wide"
practice, where reactors "have been implementing manual actions"
against NRC regulations. So, says Scott, the NRC decided "to allow
the licensees to substitute manual actions, as long as the manual
actions were feasible."
The NRC, says Scott, "did determine that the manual actions" at St.
Lucie Station "were feasible," meaning "that they could serve safe
shutdown." Scott says the plant has not put in fire barriers or
separated the cables, but is instead waiting for the new regulation
to take effect.
At another Florida reactor, this one in Citrus County, a Triennial
Fire Protection Baseline Inspection in July 2002 discovered, according
to a "Briefing Summary," that not only did the Crystal River plant
use "a significant number of local manual actions" instead of
automatic shutdown, but that the plant's fire plan neglected to
give adequate consideration to some of the practical difficulties
of shutting a nuclear power plant down by hand. The omissions
included, in the NRC's words:
* Complexity of the new local manual actions.
* The number of manual actions and time available for completion.
* Availability of instruments to detect system/component mal-operations.
* Human performance under high stress.
* Effects of products of combustion on operator performance.
* Available manpower, timing, and feasibility of local manual
actions.
Mac Harris, communications supervisor for the Crystal River site,
which is run by Progress Energy, says that the above problems
eventually received a green, non-cited violation. "Green is considered
very low safety significance," he says. The Crystal River Plant,
he says, "dealt with the identified issues" by making "some revisions
in the fire protection plan," a process it completed in May.
The Nuclear Information and Resource Service obtained these records,
and those from Shearon Harris, through a Freedom of Information Act
request.
The records of fire safety violations are still coming in, says
Gunter.
"I'm told that when we're done, the stack will be ten feet tall,"
he says. "That's how widespread the noncompliances are."
A March press release by Markey's office provided "a partial list
of reactors that are out of compliance with NRC fire protection
regulations." Here are the reactors:
Arizona: Palo Verde Units 1,2,3
Arkansas: Arkansas Nuclear One Units 1,2
California: Diablo Canyon Units 1,2
Florida: Crystal River, St. Lucie, Turkey Point 3,4
Louisiana: River Bend
Mississippi: Grand Gulf
Nebraska: Fort Calhoun
New Jersey: Oyster Creek
North Carolina: Shearon Harris 1, McGuire Units 1,2
Ohio: Davis-Besse
Pennsylvania: Beaver Valley 2
Tennessee: Sequoyah Units 1,2, Watts Bar
Texas: Comanche Peak 1,2
At Davis-Besse, the Ohio nuclear reactor with a history of safety
troubles that sits twenty-five miles from Toledo, fire protection
is a problem.
Phil Qualls, an NRC senior fire protection engineer, sent an e-mail
to Dennis Kubicki, a former colleague who had worked on a report
on safety at Davis-Besse. Qualls said he went over that 1991 report,
and that it contains "some pretty outrageous stuff. Things like .
. . complete manual actions" instead of the fire barriers required
by law, "and a variety of fire protection issues." He warns Kubicki,
"your name is on this document. The s___could hit the fan hard and
you may hear questions about it (or the s___ may be soft and you
never hear about it, too)."
The report, which identifies Kubicki as a "principal contributor,"
declares numerous fire issues at Davis-Besse "acceptable." For
instance, previous safety inspectors had expressed concern that a
manual action might cause reactor cooling problems because of delays
in getting the equipment to work. The report determines that these
problems "are not safety significant as long as no unrecoverable
plant condition will occur." It defines "unrecoverable plant
condition" as "the loss of any shutdown function(s) for such a
duration as to ultimately cause the reactor coolant level to fall
below the top of the reactor core and lead to a subsequent breach
of the fuel cladding." In other words, as long as the reactor does
not reach a point where it threatens to melt down, no problem.
"It's a big caveat to say, 'as long as no unrecoverable plant
condition will occur,' " says Gunter of the Nuclear Information and
Resource Service. "How do they know?"
Gunter blames the NRC for what he says is a dangerous regulatory
change.
The government agency, he says, is "more interested in protecting
the financial interest of the industry than in protecting those
electrical cables."
For its part, the NRC says it is doing all it can to keep the
reactors safe. "The prescriptive rules" requiring physical fire
barriers "didn't allow for flexibility," says John Hannon, NRC
branch chief in the office of nuclear reactor regulation - the part
of the NRC that is responsible for fire protection programs. "The
rules were so inflexible they [the plants] sometimes had trouble
meeting them." So, he says, even from the day the rules were written,
the NRC gave out exemptions "for alternative means of shutting the
plant down that were safe and reliable. Many of these were operator
manual actions."
Then, in the 1990s, as the NRC inspected plants to make sure they
had adequate fire protections, the commission discovered "a lot of
plants were using manual actions and had not come to us for
exemptions," Hannon says. So the NRC decided it was "prudent for
us to initiate a rule making for that, to codify acceptance criteria
to make it clear" what is acceptable.
The NRC claims that all of this can be done safely. "We're seeking
the health and safety of the public," says Hannon. "We don't want
a plant damage event to occur that would cause a radioactive release."
The NRC, he says, takes "fires very seriously." And he says the new
rule will be an improvement on the status quo. "If we leave it the
way it is now, we have plants out there that wouldn't meet the
criteria," he says.
"Rather than bring the industry into conformance with the code, the
NRC brought the code into conformance with the industry," says
Gunter.
Jerry Brown worked as a consultant to the nuclear industry for
twenty-two years, until 1998. His specialty was fire and radiation
penetration seals, critical safety components to nuclear reactors.
To exchange old rules "for new regulations to say that we don't
need these redundant shutdown systems is criminal," he says. "You
could have a runaway reactor with no ability to shut it down." Brown
blames the NRC, which he says has a history of treating "fire safety
in such a negligent way."
Brown, who says he is "absolutely" concerned about terrorism in
connection with fires at a nuclear plant, gives a grim warning. "A
nuclear power plant can kill a million people," he says. "There are
more fire barriers in a nursing home than in a nuclear power plant.
That doesn't make sense to me."
- 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/19488/
NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for research and educational
purposes.
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10 [progchat_action] Rust and Neglect at Japan Atom Plant
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 19:47:48 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/international/asia/11japan.html?th
Rust and Neglect Cited at Japan Atom Plant
N.Y. Times
By JAMES BROOKE
Published: August 11, 2004
OKYO, Wednesday, Aug. 11 - A section of steam pipe that blew out Monday,
killing four workers at a Japanese nuclear power plant, had not been
inspected in 28 years and had corroded from nearly half an inch to a
thickness little greater than metal foil, authorities said Tuesday.
Advertisement
"To put it bluntly, it was extremely thin," Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's
minister of the economy, trade and industry, said Tuesday after touring the
power plant, in Mihama, about 200 miles west of here. "It looked terrible,
even in the layman's view."
Although the carbon steel pipe carried 300-degree steam at high pressure, it
had not been inspected since the power plant opened in 1976. In April 2003,
Nihon Arm, a maintenance subcontractor, informed the Kansai Electric Power
Company, the plant owner, that there could be a problem. Last November, the
power company scheduled an ultrasound inspection for Saturday.
"We thought we could postpone the checks until this month," Akira Kokado,
the deputy plant manager, told reporters at Mihama. "We had never expected
such rapid corrosion."
But on Monday, four days before the scheduled shutdown for the inspection,
superheated steam blew a two-foot-wide hole in the pipe, scalding four
workmen to death and injuring five others seriously. The steam that escaped
was not in contact with the nuclear reactor, and no nuclear contamination
has been reported.
Initial measurements showed that the steam had corroded the affected section
of pipe from its original thickness of 0.4 inches to 0.06 inches, less than
one-third the minimum safety standard. Kansai Electric said in a statement
that the pipe "showed large-scale corrosion."
"We conducted visual inspections but never made ultrasonic tests, which can
measure the thickness of a steel pipe," said Haruo Nakano, a Kansai Electric
spokesman.
In response, Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency ordered ultrasound
inspections at four other power companies that own nuclear plants with the
same type of pressurized water reactors. The inspections will involve nearly
half of Japan's 52 nuclear power plants.
The Kyodo news agency reported Wednesday that corrosion problems had
prompted operators in recent years to replace the steam pipes at 16 plants
of a design similar to that of the plant at Mihama.
With television news helicopters swarming over the Mihama plant on Monday,
government officials were quick to promise that a full investigation would
take place.
"We must put all our effort into determining the cause of the accident and
to ensuring safety," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tuesday. He added
that the government would respond "resolutely, after confirming the facts."
On Tuesday, the police opened an investigation to determine why 221 workers
were in the reactor facility at the time of the accident. The subcontractor
has said they were moving in equipment and testing materials in preparation
for a shutdown on Friday and subsequent inspection.
Kyodo reported that investigators believed that the company might have
neglected safety standards by allowing workers to prepare for an annual
inspection while the plant was still running. But government leaders also
tried to bolster flagging public support for nuclear power.
"Nuclear power has a significant impact in our lives," Mr. Koizumi said
Tuesday. "We have to pay close attention so that our lives won't be affected
by this accident."
Japan planned to build an additional 11 reactors in this decade, increasing
the nation's reliance on domestic nuclear power to 40 percent of its
electricity needs. Already slowed by local opposition, that program may now
be stalled by the accident, the most deadly in the history of nuclear power
in Japan.
"In Japan it's virtually impossible to build new nuclear facilities now,"
Asahi Shimbun, a liberal newspaper, said in an editorial on Tuesday. "But
facilities are wearing out, and there are worries about increasing problems
with corroding pipes, rupturing valves and the reactor core."
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a business daily, worried that the accident could
undermine public support in Japan for nuclear power.
"We must find the cause of the accident and urgently come up with measures
to prevent such an accident from happening again," the newspaper
editorialized. "This accident seriously damaged public confidence in nuclear
safety."
Yomiuri Shimbun, a conservative newspaper, warned, "Care must be taken not
to overemphasize the dangers involved in the operation of nuclear power
stations, which could lead to an overreaction."
Japan has the world's third-largest nuclear power industry, after the United
States and France.
Mainichi Shimbun, a liberal newspaper, said further expansion of nuclear
power in Japan was now in play. It said in an editorial, "As we investigate
the cause of the accident, the outcome could determine the course of Japan's
nuclear energy policy."
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11 Entergy Workers Struggle for a Contract
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:31:28 -0500 (CDT)
Dear CWA Member,
Last week I wrote to you about the urgent need to strengthen the
collective bargaining process. The very next day I received an
appeal for help from Utility Workers who have been struggling
for two years to gain a contract at the Entergy
Corporation-owned Pilgrim Station nuclear facility in
Massachusetts.
I am forwarding this appeal to you and I urge you to take action
today and let the Entergy Corporation know that CWA members
stand in solidarity with our brother and sister Utility Workers.
Click on the link below to send a message or to learn more.
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/cwa_entergy/
In Unity,
Morty Bahr, President
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Begin Forwarded Message - - - - - - -
- - - - - -
Murray Williams has worked for Entergy Corp. as a senior
engineer at Pilgrim Station nuclear facility for more than 20
years. He said he decided to form a union with the Utility
Workers Union of America (UWUA) after retirement benefits began
to decrease substantially and rampant favoritism reduced morale
and productivity.
Williams and 150 of his co-workers voted to form a union in a
National Labor Relations Board election in August 2002. Yet
Williams, who is a member of the negotiating committee, is still
waiting after more than two years for the company to negotiate a
first contract with him and his co-workers. Click on the link
below to send a message of support.
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/cwa_entergy/
We are asking you right now to click the link below to send a
message telling the members of Entergy's board of directors to
demand that the company not interfere with workers' free choice
and immediately negotiate a fair contract:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/cwa_entergy/
According to workers at Entergy, when employees such as Murray
began to form a union at Entergy, the company forced them to
attend mandatory, one-sided anti-union meetings, sent
anti-worker literature home and threatened that if workers
formed a union the company would no longer be "financially
viable." Despite all these tactics, Murray and his co-workers
voted to form a union, but two years later, even though Entergy
has withheld raises and bonuses, the members are holding firm to
win a first contract. Take action right now by clicking below to
urge Entergy Corp. to honor the decision of its workers and
negotiate a first contract:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/cwa_entergy/
Together we will win.
*****************************************************************
12 Comparing Japan's ill-fated Mihama NPP with San Onofre's NPPs
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:14 -0700
August 11th, 2004
North County Times
To The Editor:
Regarding the recent Back Page articles about the deadly reactor accident
in Japan, local citizens should be informed of the fact that both San
Onofre's operating reactors in San Clemente, California and the Mihama
Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture in Japan, which suffered an
explosive steam leak two days ago, are all Pressurized Water Reactors
between two and three decades old.
They all are probably made with substantially similar welding materials,
pipe materials, pipe thicknesses, etc. etc.. They all probably suffer
fairly similar rates of wear and tear, depending on how often they've been
SCRAMed, what temperature they run at, what pressure they run at, how much
time they've spent at operating temperature, and the quality of the metals
and welds they are made with.
Have all parts of all pipes at San Onofre's two aging ("geriatric")
reactors been inspected with Ultra-Sound, including all secondary loops? I
sincerely doubt it -- and I wouldn't trust the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission or Southern California Edison to tell us, since it's a security
issue (you can use a MUCH smaller charge to blow a hole in a thin-walled,
old and embrittled, corroded pipe than in a thick, ductile new pipe).
San Onofre's reactors are slightly larger than the ill-fated Mihama NPP,
and probably run hotter and under more pressure. Therefore, they would age
faster, all other things being equal. The two operating San Onofre
reactors are just a few years younger than the Mihama NPP. That might
mean we have a few years before a similar accident -- or worse -- is
inevitable here. But that's just guesswork at this point. It is
reasonable to assume we haven't got any time at all.
How much longer can we wait? And why bother waiting at all, when cleaner
energy solutions are abundant and ready to be tapped by modern
technology? In the short term, natural gas powered turbines (a remarkably
clean energy source, all things considered) can replace ALL of San Onofre's
energy output, safely and quickly. In fact, proven conservation efforts
ALONE could do so! So why -- dear God, why do we wait?
In one or two years, massive off-shore wind farms can be built, out of
sight and unobtrusive, along with dozens of other energy solutions which
have already proven themselves technologically, and only await public
policy decisions that encourage government and private investment.
Just recently Southern California Edison workers snapped off a bolt on the
earthquake restraints for the new and dangerous dry casks storage system,
which wouldn't have happened if they understood the strengths of the
materials they were working with (or perhaps, if they did not assume the
bolts were as strong as designed). (See NRC notification, below.)
California has been lucky so far, but luck -- good or bad -- ALWAYS changes
eventually. It's time to get smart about our energy choices, instead.
For additional urgent questions about San Onofre, please visit the
following web site:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/index.htm
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad CA
Additional items included in this email:
1) JAPAN TIMES: Japan to probe nuclear accident
2) BOLT FAILURE: Power Reactor Event Number: 40897; Facility: SAN ONOFRE
=========================================================
JAPAN TIMES: Japan to probe nuclear accident:
=========================================================
Japan to probe nuclear accident
8d48b18.jpg
The plant was automatically shut down after the accident.
8d48b47.gif
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Japan
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is this?
TOKYO, Japan -- Japanese government officials are promising an
investigation into the country's deadliest nuclear power accident.
A steam leak at a nuclear power plant northwest of Tokyo killed four
workers and injured seven others on Monday.
Those who died were exposed to steam as hot as 200 Celsius (392
Fahrenheit), officials said.
Japanese officials said the leak from one of the reactors at the Mihama
Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture was not radioactive, Kyodo news
agency reported.
Plant officials say ultrasound scanning might have detected the weakness in
the pipes, but no such tests had ever been carried out in the 28-year-old
facility.
The Japanese government has vowed to quickly find out what happened with
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promising a thorough investigation.
"We must put all our effort into determining the cause of the accident and
to ensuring safety," Koizumi said, according to The Associated Press.
He added that the government would respond "resolutely, after confirming
the facts."
Energy officials said no danger was posed to the surrounding area and no
evacuation order was issued for the plant, which lies 320 kilometers (200
miles) northwest of Tokyo.
The accident struck at around 3:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) just after some workers
had entered the facility to take measurements ahead of a scheduled shutdown
for maintenance, NHK reported.
The 826,000-kilowatt pressurized-water reactor, which began service in
1976, was automatically shut down after the accident.
Japan depends on nuclear power for about one-third of its electricity. The
Mihama plant was the first nuclear plant built by Kansai Electric Power Co.
Inc.
"We are now investigating the cause," a Kansai Electric official told a
news conference.
The accident was the worst since 1999, when a radiation leak at a
fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura killed two workers and affected
hundreds of others, according to The Associated Press.
That accident was caused by two workers who tried to save time by mixing
excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized
tanks.
A string of safety problems since has undermined public faith in nuclear
energy and left Japan's program in limbo.
Copyright 2004 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated
Press contributed to this report.
=========================================================
BOLT FAILURE: Power Reactor Event Number: 40897; Facility: SAN ONOFRE:
=========================================================
ADVANCED HORIZONTAL STORAGE MODULE BOLT FAILURE
"On July 24, 2004, at about 1000 PDT, SCE [Southern California Edison]
personnel were tightening two seismic restraint bolts on Advanced Horizontal
Storage Module (AHSM) Number 10 at the Unit 1 ISFSI [Independent Fuel
Storage Installation] when one of the bolts failed. SCE had placed the
storage canister into AHSM No. 10 on July 18, 2004 and was tightening the
restraint as specified in the final safety analysis report, after the module
had reached thermal equilibrium.
"SCE plans to replace the failed bolt with another bolt manufactured
under the same Certificate of Compliance and will tighten the seismic
restraints within the period allowed by the FSAR (one week from initial
placement of the storage canister). SCE's evaluation of the failed bolt is
ongoing.
"SCE has notified the NRC resident inspectors about this occurrence
and will provide them with a copy of this report."
=========================================================
Authorship notes:
=========================================================
This email was written by Russell D. Hoffman from 100% recycled electrons.
*************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
** (800) 551-2726
** (760) 720-7261
** Fax: (760) 720-7394
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
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*************************************************
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13 [NukeNet] Japan NPP: What If Evacuation Was Needed? Japanese
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:53:57 -0700
and there was no order for the 11,500 residents
of Mihama to evacuate.
Does anyone know what, if any plans exist for an
attempted evacuation from a Japanese NPP
accident/radiation release? Have any web sites
and/or other sources pertaining to this?
The second story belows refers to the
possibility of Japan shutting down it's commercial
reactors. Can they do this & still have enough
electricity to keep things running? If so, for how
long can they be shut down? Permenantly? A shorter
period of time? Any references?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1280551,00.html
Nuclear plant admits inspection failure
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Wednesday August 11, 2004
The Guardian
Japan's nuclear energy industry faced fresh
criticism yesterday after it emerged that a
severely corroded cooling pipe that caused
Monday's fatal accident at a nuclear power plant
had not been properly inspected for 28 years
despite warnings that it posed a safety threat.
Four workers died and seven others were injured
when the pipe, carrying super-heated water, sprung
a leak, sending scalding hot steam into a turbine
building inside the number three reactor at Mihama
nuclear power plant on the Japan Sea coast.
The admission by the plant's operator, Kansai
Electric Power, came as pressure mounted on the
government to improve safety in an industry hit by
a series of accidents and attempted cover-ups in
the past several years.
Although sections of the pipe had been inspected
in 1996, a Kansai Electric official said a
maintenance subcontractor had looked at it in
April 2003 and said it was in need of a thorough
inspection. But the check was put off until this
coming Saturday.
"We thought we could delay the checks until this
month," the plant's deputy manager, Akira Kokado,
told reporters. "We never expected such rapid
corrosion."
He admitted that an ultrasound inspection would
probably have uncovered the extent of the
corrosion.
The thickness of the pipe wall had shrunk from
10mm when it was installed in 1976 to 1.5mm at the
time of the accident, he said.
Local police are investigating Kansai Electric on
suspicion of negligence resulting in death and
believe the 11 affected workers were part of a
group of 200 hired specifically to prepare the
plant for this weekend's inspections.
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The four dead - named yesterday as Hiroya
Takatori, 26, Kazutoshi Nakagawa, 41, Tom oki
Iseki, 30, and Eiji Taoka, 46 - suffered severe
burns and heart and lung damage.
"The ones who died had stark white faces," said
Yoshihiro Sugiura, a doctor who treated them at
nearby Tsuruga city hospital. "This shows that
they had been rapidly exposed to heat."
No radioactive material was involved in the
accident, however, and there was no order for the
11,500 residents of Mihama to evacuate.
The government said it expected Kansai Electric to
carry out a thorough inquiry into the accident and
to release its findings in full.
But the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said
the accident should not be allowed to jeopardise
the future of Japan's nuclear power industry.
Nevertheless, the accident, the worst since two
workers died at a uranium reprocessing plant in
September 1999, has raised doubts about the safety
of Japan's 52 nuclear power plants, many of which
were built more than 30 years ago.
The country relies on nuclear power for 34% of its
energy.
Some independent analysts said the accident could
force the government to shut down its nuclear
reactors for inspections.
``If the accident proves to have originated in a
critical system, the implications of the Aug. 9
non-radioactive steam leak will prove deep and
immediate, forcing the government to order another
round of safety inspections,'' said Strategic
Forecasting Inc, a U.S.-based consulting group.
``Early indications are that the bursting pipe
that released the steam was already through 28
years of its 30-year lifespan, raising the
possibility that similar pipes on all plants might
have to be replaced,'' it said in a report.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-japan-accident.html
Japan Nuke Accident Highlights Laxity, Aging
Plants
By REUTERS
Published: August 10, 2004
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TOKYO (Reuters) - An accident at a Japanese
nuclear plant that killed four workers occurred in
an area that was to be inspected this week for the
first time in 28 years, and months after a warning
of potential problems, the plant's operator said
on Tuesday.
The admission by Kansai Electric Power Co. is
likely to further dent public confidence in
Japan's nuclear policy, raising questions about
the condition of some of Japan's aging plants and
management's apparent laxity on safety matters.
Four workers were killed in Japan's deadliest
nuclear industry accident on Monday when
super-heated steam escaped from a ruptured pipe in
a building housing turbines for a reactor at the
Mihama nuclear power plant, 320 kmwest of Tokyo.
There was no radiation leak, but the accident
raised further concerns about Japan's nuclear
safety record.
``The pipe was to have been checked at an upcoming
regular inspection,'' said a Kansai Electric
official.
He said the pipe had not been checked since 1976
because it was not on an inspection list --
something Kansai Electric was notified of in
November by a maintenance sub-contractor.
Some independent analysts said the accident could
force the government to shut down its nuclear
reactors for inspections.
``If the accident proves to have originated in a
critical system, the implications of the Aug. 9
non-radioactive steam leak will prove deep and
immediate, forcing the government to order another
round of safety inspections,'' said Strategic
Forecasting Inc, a U.S.-based consulting group.
``Early indications are that the bursting pipe
that released the steam was already through 28
years of its 30-year lifespan, raising the
possibility that similar pipes on all plants might
have to be replaced,'' it said in a report.
The authorities have so far simply told power
companies to check whether inspections on reactors
that are of the same design as the Mihama plant
have been carried out properly.
An official at the Nuclear and Industry Safety
Agency said the regulator had not ordered
utilities to carry out physical inspections, which
could require that plants halt operations.
Kouji Yamashita, a government nuclear safety
inspector, said there were 22 other nuclear power
generators in Japan of the same design as the
Mihama reactor, 10 run by Kansai Electric, the
remainder operated by four other firms.
WIDER PROBLEMS
Kyodo news agency said police were investigating
whether the company neglected safety standards by
letting more than 200 workers prepare for an
annual inspection while the reactor, which was in
a separate building, was still running.
A police spokesman said investigations were
continuing.
Members of the public were critical of the
company.
``Maybe they didn't do enough on crisis management
... and there weren't enough steps taken against
dangers,'' said Motoyoshi Sakai, a 22-year-old
student working part-time for a private television
broadcaster in Tokyo.
Juro Ikeyama, an author on nuclear issues,
including a history of the anti-nuclear movement
in Japan, thought the accident could uncover
similar problems elsewhere.
``Management has been really lax,'' he said.
``It turns out the pipe was probably really
corroded, and the fact that it happened here
suggests the same kind of thing could happen
elsewhere,'' he said.
Japan depends on nuclear power for a third of its
energy requirements and has 52 nuclear reactors.
It imports virtually all of its oil, mostly from
the volatile Middle East.
Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa apologized to
victims, but added: ``We must not undermine trust
in nuclear energy policy.''
Tokyo Electric Power Co, the world's biggest
private utility, was forced to close all its 17
nuclear power reactors temporarily by April 2003
after admitting it had falsified safety documents
for more than a decade.
A number of towns have held referendums in the
past few years and voted against the construction
of nuclear plants.
But not everyone is opposed.
``There are limits to thermal and water power
generation so nuclear power generation is
needed,'' said Tetsuyuki Matsuda, a 58-year-old
company employee in Tokyo.
The worst previous incident at a Japanese nuclear
facility was at a uranium processing plant in
Tokaimura, north of Tokyo, in September 1999, when
an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction was
triggered by three poorly trained workers who used
buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a tub.
The resulting release of radiation killed two
workers and forced the evacuation of thousands of
nearby residents.
The only previous fatal accident at a Japanese
nuclear power plant was in 1967, in a fire at a
plant in Ibaraki prefecture just north of Tokyo.
There was no radiation leak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/international/asia/10CND-JAPA.html
Corrosion Cited in Burst at Japanese Nuclear Plant
By JAMES BROOKE
Published: August 10, 2004
Kyodo, via Associated Press
Steam billowed from the No. 3
reactor of the plant in Mihama, Japan, Monday
after a pipe burst. It was the country's worst
nuclear accident.
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OKYO, Aug. 10 - A steam pipe that blew out Monday,
killing four workers at a Japanese nuclear power
plant, had not been inspected in 28 years and had
corroded from nearly half an inch to a thickness
little greater than metal foil, the authorities
said today.
"To put it bluntly, it was extremely thin - it
looked terrible even in the layman's view,"
Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's minister of economy,
trade and industry, told reporters today after
touring the power plant in Mihama, about 200 miles
west of here.
Although the carbon steel pipe carried 300-degree
steam at high pressure, it had not been inspected
since the power plant opened in 1976. In April
2003, Nihon Arm, a maintenance subcontractor,
informed Kansai Electric Power Co., the plant
owner, that there could be a problem. Last
November, the power company scheduled an
ultrasound inspection for Aug. 14.
"We thought we could postpone the checks until
this month," Akira Kokado, the deputy plant
manager, told reporters at Mihama. "We had never
expected such rapid corrosion."
The police opened an investigation today to
determine why 221 workers were in the reactor
facility at the time of the accident. The
subcontractor has said the workers were preparing
for Friday's inspection shutdown.
On Monday, four days before the scheduled
shutdown, superheated steam blew a two-foot wide
hole in the pipe, scalding four workmen to death
and injuring five others seriously. The steam that
escaped was not in contact with the nuclear
reactor and no nuclear contamination has been
reported.
Initial measurements showed that the steam had
corroded the pipe from .4 inches to .06 inches,
less than one-third the minimum safety standard.
Kansai Electric said in a statement today that the
pipe showed "large-scale corrosion."
"We conducted visual inspections, but never made
ultrasonic tests, which can measure the thickness
of a steel pipe," Haruo Nakano, a Kansai Electric
spokesman, told reporters.
In response to the accident, Japan's Nuclear and
Industry Safety Agency ordered four other power
companies that own nuclear plants with the same
type of pressurized water reactors to conduct
ultrasound inspections of their pipes. The
inspections are to involve nearly half of the
country's 52 nuclear power plants.
After television news helicopters swarmed over the
plant on Monday, government officials jumped today
to assure the public that a full investigation
will take place.
"We must put all our effort into determining the
cause of the accident and to ensuring safety,"
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said. He added
that the government would respond "resolutely,
after confirming the facts."
But government leaders also tried to bolster
flagging public support for nuclear power.
"Nuclear power has a significant impact in our
lives," Mr. Koizumi told reporters today. "We have
to pay close attention so that our lives won't be
affected by this accident."
Mr. Nakagawa, the industry minister, said, "We
must not undermine trust in nuclear energy
policy."
The government has planned to build an additional
11 reactors this decade, increasing the nation's
reliance on home-based nuclear power to 40 percent
of electricity needs. Already slowed by local
opposition, this program may now be stalled.
"In Japan, it's virtually impossible to build new
nuclear facilities now," Asahi Shimbun, a liberal
newspaper, said in an editorial today. "But
facilities are wearing out, and there are worries
about increasing problems with corroding pipes,
rupturing valves and the reactor core."
The Nihon Keizai, a business daily, worried that
the accident could undermine public support in
Japan for nuclear power.
"We must find the cause of the accident and
urgently come up with measures to prevent such an
accident from happening again," the newspaper
editorialized. "This accident seriously damaged
public confidence in nuclear safety and our
nuclear measures."
The Yomiuri, a conservative newspaper, warned:
"Care must be taken not to overemphasize the
dangers involved in the operation of nuclear power
stations, which could lead to an overreaction.
Operations at other nuclear power plants must not
be undermined."
Japan has the world's third-largest nuclear power
industry, after the United States and France.
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14 [NukeNet] Coalition Demands Solution for Nuclear Reactor
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:18 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Emma McGregor-Mento"
To: ;
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 2:23 PM
Subject: [abolition-caucus] Coalition Demands
Solution for Nuclear Reactor Vulnerability to
Terrorist Attack
***please forward widely***
***apologies for cross-posting***
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Coalition Demands Solution for Nuclear Reactor
Vulnerability to
Terrorist Attacks
For Immediate Release
August 10, 2004
Contact:
Brendan Hoffman
(202) 454-5130
Public Citizen
Deb Katz
(413) 339-5781
Citizens Awareness Network
Dr. Gordon Thompson
(617) 491-5177
Institute for Resource & Security Studies
Paul Gunter
(202) 328-0002
Nuclear Information & Resource Service
Today, a coalition of 45 national, regional, and
local environmental,
public interest, and nuclear watchdog
organizations petitioned the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to hold
emergency enforcement
hearings on a significant structural vulnerability
to terrorism existing
at 32 U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors
located in 15 states.
"Nuclear reactors are pre-deployed weapons of mass
destruction," said
Deb Katz, executive director of Citizens Awareness
Network, a regional
group and one of the petition's authors. "It is
the NRC's job to
protect our health and safety and assure public
confidence in the
regulatory process. Presently NRC's efforts are
inadequate."
The petition spotlights the General Electric Mark
I and Mark II boiling
water reactor (BWR) designs, 24 Mark I and 8 Mark
II reactors, where
large inventories of highly radioactive waste
used reactor fuel rods
are currently stored in densely packed elevated
storage ponds, above
and outside the primary containment structure.
The roof top nuclear
waste storage ponds are vulnerable to a variety of
attacks from above,
below, and on three sides of the reactor designs.
"The structural vulnerability at these reactors
can no longer be
quietly tolerated," said Paul Gunter, director of
the Reactor Watchdog
Project with Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear
Information and Resource
Service (NIRS). "NRC must stop protecting the
nuclear industry from
the cost of security and assess the true cost of
protecting these
reactors against terrorism."
An NRC study issued in October 2000 entitled
"Technical Study on
Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk at Decommissioning
Nuclear Power
Reactors," specifically identifies the structural
vulnerabilities of
Mark I and II BWRs to aircraft penetration. "Mark
I and Mark II
secondary containments generally do not appear to
have any significant
structures that might reduce the likelihood of
aircraft penetration,"
said the report.[1]The publicly available
government report additionally
stated that the public health consequences of a
nuclear fuel fire caused
by the loss of cooling water in the storage pond
could result in tens of
thousands of deaths up to 500 miles from the
damaged facility.
The nuclear security coalition's emergency
petition comes on the
heels of congressional appropriators urging NRC to
take "immediate
steps" to upgrade fuel pool safety and security
and that the NRC
conduct further analyses of pool vulnerabilities,
focusing on certain
types of terrorist attacks. The committee gave
NRC 90 days to report
back. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks
NRC has ignored
structural vulnerabilities and consequences of a
successful attack on
reactor fuel pools, instead describing them as
"well engineered"
and "robust" structures despite pre-September 11th
findings to the
contrary.
"Nuclear plant security is an extremely urgent
issue right now,"
said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's
Critical Mass Energy
and Environment Program. "The Bush
Administration continues to hype
the terrorist threat while neglecting its duty to
take concrete steps to
make the public safer. The danger these fuel pools
pose is a prime
example of that."
The petition requests that the NRC take immediate
action to address
these structural vulnerabilities to acts of
terrorism in the nation's
defenses. These actions include:
- Empowering an independent review of Mark I and
II spent fuel pool
vulnerabilities;
- Developing a comprehensive plan for addressing
the danger presented
by the Mark I and II fuel pools, including
alternative storage options
for spent fuel as well as improvements in security
and emergency
response;
- Establishing an open, democratic process which
allows local
communities and the public to be involved in the
evaluation of the risk
reduction measures;
- Issuing a "Demand for Information" to Mark I and
II operators,
requiring them to provide the data necessary to
conduct the emergency
review.
The request for process that is open, democratic,
and inclusive of the
public and affected communities is central to the
coalition's
petition. Since September 11, 2001, NRC has
unilaterally neglected
input from the public interest groups, affected
communities and other
government agencies, and instead allied itself
with nuclear reactor
owners. NRC's response to the 9-11 attacks has
been characterized by
secrecy, superficial improvements and public
relations.
To read the petition, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/BWRpetition.pdf.
To read the annex
to the petition, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/BWRpetitionannex.pdf.
--------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
[1] "Transmittal of Technical Study on Spent Fuel
Pool Accident Risk
at Decommissioning Nuclear Power Stations," U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, January 18, 2001, Section 3.5.2
'Aircraft Crashes,' page
-3-23. ADAMS Accession # ML010180413.
**********
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To learn more about this and other Public Citizen
Critical Mass Energy and
Environment Program campaigns, visit our website
at
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/
-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and
Environment Program
Emma McGregor-Mento
Outreach and Development Coordinator
Abolition 2000
215 Lexington Avenue, Suite 1001
New York, NY 10016
Ph: 212-726-9161 x17
Fax: 212-726-9160
http://www.gracelinks.org
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15 [NukeNet] Mihama-3 emergency procedures etc
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:01 -0700
Bill Smirnow asked some interesting question on the Abolition 2000 and Nuke
Net mailing lists. In answering his questions CNIC decided to take the
opportunity to provide a little more insight into the place of the Mihama-3
reactor in the Japanese electricity network.
However, we will respond to his first question first: "...what, if any
plans exist for an attempted evacuation from a Japanese NPP
accident/radiation release?"
A Nuclear Disaster Law was enacted in June 2000 in response to the
criticality accident at JCO Ltd's uranium processing plant in Tokai
Village, Ibaraki Prefecture. Under this law nuclear business operators are
mandated to report when a radiation level over 5 micro sieverts per hour is
measured at the boundary of their nuclear facilities. When radiation
exceeds 500 micro sieverts per hour the Prime Minister will automatically
declare a state of emergency and issue evacuation orders. This law requires
the establishment of a Nuclear Disaster Response Headquarters headed by the
Prime Minister and a local Off-Site Disaster Response Headquarters.
An article about this law and a nuclear disaster drill sponsored by Ibaraki
Prefecture and Tokai Village was printed in CNIC's Nuke Info Tokyo No. 86
(Nov/Dec 2001, pp. 1-6). A PDF version of this article can be accessed from
the following page:
http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/index.html
(Note that some of the pictures might not be viewable on old versions of
Adobe Acrobat Reader.)
Thankfully in this case an evacuation wasn't necessary. People who read the
above article will see that Japan's nuclear disaster response system is not
fool proof and does not guarantee the safety of the citizens.
Bill's second question was as follows: "The second story belows refers to
the possibility of Japan shutting down it's commercial reactors. Can they
do this & still have enough electricity to keep things running?..."
At this stage the government has said that the pipes in the secondary
cooling systems of all of this type of Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
should be inspected (owned by Kansai, Shikoku, Kyushu and Hokkaido Electric
Power Companies). However it has not demanded that all commercial reactors
be shut down, or even that all PWRs be shut down. CNIC believes that if all
of Japan's 52 nuclear reactors were shut down immediately for inspections,
there would probably be a power shortfall. We might get by on some days,
but in this season it would be difficult to sustain a sudden shutdown like
that.
What if only the 23 PWRs were shut down? In that case there would be enough
electricity, but distribution would be a problem. The problem revolves
around the fact that Eastern Japan runs on 60 Hertz power supply, whereas
Western Japan is 50 Hertz. The maximum amount that can be transferred from
one to the other is 900,000 MW.
The Mihama Nuclear Power Plant is owned by Kansai Electric Power Company
(KEPCO). It is located on the Japan Sea Coast and comes under the Western
Japan region. All KEPCO's nuclear reactors are PWR, so one would expect
that they would be looking for power from other companies. There are some
Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) in Western Japan, but the majority are PWR, so
there would most likely be a large demand for power to be transferred from
the East, where most of the BWR reactors are. If the demand were to exceed
900,000, then there would be a short fall in supply.
However, if there was time to prepare for the shutdown and appropriate
conservation measures were taken it could be a different matter. For
example, in the context of the shutdown of all 17 of Tokyo Electric Power
Company's reactors we argued that Tokyo could survive a summer without
nuclear power:
http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit96/nit96articles/nit96tepco.html
CNIC and others have developed alternative energy scenarios that show that
Japan can do away with nuclear energy and also meet or exceed its Kyoto
Protocol commitments for the reduction of CO2 emissions. One such scenario
was produced by Citizens' Open Model Project for Alternative and
Sustainable Scenarios (http://www.isep.or.jp/shimin-enecho/). (Their home
page claims that an English version is coming soon, but for the time being
they only have a Japanese version. Anyone wanting details of their scenario
would do best to contact them by email.)
Nevertheless, we aren't able to say with confidence that peak electricity
demand could be met if there were a sudden shutdown of all reactors, or
even of all PWR reactors. But what is the priority here - meeting the peak
electricity demand of a society that consumes way beyond what it should do,
or preventing a nuclear accident? We'll leave the reader to ponder that
question.
Philip White and Hideyuki Ban
CNIC
A list of all Japan's commercial reactors can be found at the following page:
http://cnic.jp/english/data/nucreactors.html
Unfortunately we don't have an English list of all the accidents at these
reactors.
Philip White
--
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
1-58-15-3F, Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku,Tokyo, Japan
Phone: +81-3-5330-9520 Fax: +81-3-5330-9530
_/_/_/_/
_/_/_/
_/_/ cnic-jp@nifty.com
_/ http://cnic.jp/english/
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16 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear plant admits inspection failure
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Wednesday August 11, 2004
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
Japan's nuclear energy industry faced fresh criticism yesterday
after it emerged that a severely corroded cooling pipe that
caused Monday's fatal accident at a nuclear power plant had not
been properly inspected for 28 years despite warnings that it
posed a safety threat.
Four workers died and seven others were injured when the pipe,
carrying super-heated water, sprung a leak, sending scalding hot
steam into a turbine building inside the number three reactor at
Mihama nuclear power plant on the Japan Sea coast.
The admission by the plant's operator, Kansai Electric Power,
came as pressure mounted on the government to improve safety in
an industry hit by a series of accidents and attempted cover-ups
in the past several years.
Although sections of the pipe had been inspected in 1996, a
Kansai Electric official said a maintenance subcontractor had
looked at it in April 2003 and said it was in need of a thorough
inspection. But the check was put off until this coming Saturday.
"We thought we could delay the checks until this month," the
plant's deputy manager, Akira Kokado, told reporters. "We never
expected such rapid corrosion."
He admitted that an ultrasound inspection would probably have
uncovered the extent of the corrosion.
The thickness of the pipe wall had shrunk from 10mm when it was
installed in 1976 to 1.5mm at the time of the accident, he said.
Local police are investigating Kansai Electric on suspicion of
negligence resulting in death and believe the 11 affected workers
were part of a group of 200 hired specifically to prepare the
plant for this weekend's inspections.
The four dead - named yesterday as Hiroya Takatori, 26, Kazutoshi
Nakagawa, 41, Tom oki Iseki, 30, and Eiji Taoka, 46 - suffered
severe burns and heart and lung damage.
"The ones who died had stark white faces," said Yoshihiro
Sugiura, a doctor who treated them at nearby Tsuruga city
hospital. "This shows that they had been rapidly exposed to
heat."
No radioactive material was involved in the accident, however,
and there was no order for the 11,500 residents of Mihama to
evacuate.
The government said it expected Kansai Electric to carry out a
thorough inquiry into the accident and to release its findings in
full.
But the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said the accident
should not be allowed to jeopardise the future of Japan's nuclear
power industry.
Nevertheless, the accident, the worst since two workers died at a
uranium reprocessing plant in September 1999, has raised doubts
about the safety of Japan's 52 nuclear power plants, many of
which were built more than 30 years ago.
The country relies on nuclear power for 34% of its energy.
Special report Japan
News guide Japan: guide to best news websites
Useful links Japan Today
[http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=home] Japan Information
Network [http://jin.jcic.or.jp/jd/] Asahi.com
[http://www.asahi.com/english/english.html] Daily Yomuiri
[http://www3.yomiuri.co.jp/index-e.htm] Far Eastern Economic
Review [http://www.feer.com/] Fuji News Network
[http://www.fnn-news.com/en/index.html] Japan Times
[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/] Kyodo News
[http://home.kyodo.co.jp/]
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: New NRC Senior Resident Inspector Assigned to Limerick Generating Station
News Release - Region I - 2004-03
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-04-038
August 11, 2004 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A.
Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail:
[opa1@nrc.gov]
Samuel L. Hansell has been assigned as the new Nuclear
Regulatory Commission senior resident inspector at the Limerick
Generating Station in Sanatoga, Pa. He joins NRC Resident
Inspector Blake Welling at the two-unit site. Hansell replaces
Arthur Burritt, who was reassigned to the NRC Regional Office in
King of Prussia.
NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins said, Sam
Hansells extensive experience and commitment to safety will
help the NRC in its mission to ensure that Limerick continues to
meet the high standards we insist upon for reactor operation in
the United States.
Hansell first joined the NRC in April 1990 as a licensed
operator examiner in Region I. In 1998, he was assigned as a
resident inspector at Limerick. The following year he was
promoted to senior resident inspector at the Susquehanna Steam
Electric Station in Berwick, Pa.
Prior to joining the agency, Hansell worked for PSEG as a
reactor operator and senior reactor operator at Hope Creek
nuclear plant in Hancocks Bridge, N.J., and in the operations
department with Public Service Enterprise Group.
Hansell is a graduate of Thomas Edison State College in Trenton,
N.J., where he earned a bachelors degree in nuclear engineering
technology.
Each U.S. commercial nuclear plant has at least two NRC resident
inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the
facility, conducting inspections, monitoring major work projects
and interacting with plant workers and the public.
The Limerick resident inspectors can be reached at 610/327-1344.
Last revised Wednesday, August 11, 2004
*****************************************************************
18 NRC: NRC Assigns New Senior Resident Inspector to Susquehanna Steam Electric Station
News Release - Region I - 2004-03
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-04-039
August 11, 2004 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A.
Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov
[opa1@nrc.gov]
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in King of Prussia, Pa.,
have selected Alan J. Blamey as the NRC senior resident
inspector at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station. He joins
NRC Resident Inspector Frederick Jaxheimer at the two-unit site,
in Berwick, Pa. Blamey replaces Sam Hansell who was reassigned
as the senior resident inspector at the Limerick Generating
Station in Sanatoga, Pa.
Alan Blameys experience coupled with his commitment to safety
will help the NRC in its mission to ensure that Susquehanna
continues to meet the high standards we insist upon for reactor
operation in the United States, said Region I Administrator
Samuel J. Collins.
Blamey first joined the NRC in September 1997 as a reactor
engineer in the Region I Office. He was assigned as an NRC
resident inspector at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in
July 1998. In June 2001, he was promoted to senior operations
engineer in the Regional Office.
Prior to joining the NRC, Blamey worked as a technical engineer
and NRC-licensed senior reactor operator at Quad Cities Nuclear
Power Station, located near Moline, Ill. He held various
leadership positions in engineering and operations during his
thirteen years with Commonwealth Edison.
Blamey is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, where he
earned a bachelors degree in nuclear engineering with a minor
in mathematics.
Each U.S. commercial nuclear plant has at least two NRC resident
inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the
facility, conducting inspections, monitoring major work projects
and interacting with plant workers and the public. The
Susquehanna resident inspectors can be reached at 570/542-2134.
Last revised Wednesday, August 11, 2004
*****************************************************************
19 DECATUR DAILY: Nuclear technology still must have care, caution
http://www.decaturdaily.com
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2004
EDITORIAL
A deadly accident at a nuclear plant in Japan should reiterate
lessons learned by the Tennessee Valley Authority and the U.S.
Government years ago.
Four workers died Monday and another seven sustained serious
injuries when 300-degree boiling water and steam exploded from a
nuclear plant 200 miles west of Tokyo.
The lessons:
Lawmakers should use care in their insistence that TVA break even
in its sale of nuclear energy. And, the United States should
liberally evaluate foreign requests to develop innovative
nuclear-energy plants.
The roots of the first lesson are buried in Japan's recent
history. In 2002, an investigation revealed that Japan's largest
private utility lied about the appearance of cracks in its
reactors over the previous two decades.
Why? Economic pressure.
The company that owns the plant that ruptured Monday felt
pressure to turn a profit, also. This pressure contributed to its
failure to discover that 28 years of erosion had reduced a pipe
wall to 15 percent of its original thickness.
Despite having been around for more than three decades, nuclear
power remains experimental. The history of the Browns Ferry Plant
is a testament to the limits of our understanding about the
energy source.
TVA's safety efforts deserve a separate line item as the
authority seeks to match its expenditures with its revenue. Ford
Motor Co. balanced the risk posed to consumers of its Pinto
against its own profits, a decision that left many dead. We
cannot afford for TVA to maintain similar balance sheets.
Lawmakers should welcome TVA expenditures that increase our
understanding of how to safely harness nuclear power.
Advances in nuclear safety benefit not just those in the fall-out
range of Browns Ferry, but energy consumers worldwide.
Japan is bidding to host a $12 billion International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor that would be the world's
first large-scale nuclear fusion plant. The United States is one
of the sponsors of the project.
Irresponsible approval of foreign efforts to generate
fusion-produced power could create a worldwide catastrophe. When,
however, the United States has an opportunity to learn from
carefully monitored efforts that do not put our citizens at risk,
it should respond with enthusiasm.
The world needs to go forward with nuclear reactors, but do so
with great care and caution. Copyright 1999 THE DECATUR DAILY.
THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala.
35609 (256) 353-4612 webmaster@decaturdaily.com
[webmaster@decaturdaily.com]
www.decaturdaily.com
*****************************************************************
20 NRC: Notice of Consideration of Amendment Request to Decommission
FR Doc 04-18312
[Federal Register: August 11, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 154)]
[Notices] [Page 48899-48900] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr11au04-119]
Northern States Power Company D.B.A. Xcel Energy Pathfinder Site
at Sioux Falls, SD, and Opportunity To Provide Comments and
Request a Hearing; Correction AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice of a license amendment request and opportunity to
provide public comments and request a hearing. Notice of public
meeting; correction.
SUMMARY: This document corrects a notice appearing in the Federal
Register on August 4, 2004 (69 FR 47185), to request the
decommission of Northern States Power Company D.B.A. Xcel Energy
Pathfinder Site at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and opportunity to
provide comments and request a hearing. This action is necessary
to add contact information that was previously omitted.
EFFECTIVE DATE: August 11, 2004.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Chad Glenn, Project Manager,
Decommissioning Directorate, Division of Waste Management and
Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555- 0001; telephone (301) 415-6722; fax (301) 415-5398; or
e-mail at
cjg1@nrc.gov [ cjg1@nrc.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On page 47186, center column, the
fourth complete paragraph, remove ``[Insert Contact and Contact
Information]'' and insert ``Bruce Colt, Xcel Energy, Suite 2900,
800 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, NM 55402''.
[[Page 48900]] Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 5th day of
August 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Chad Glenn, Project Manager, Office of Nuclear Material Safety
and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 04-18312 Filed 8-10-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
21 AFP: Nuclear plant never checked burst pipe
[http://www.spacedaily.com/]
MIHAMA, (UPI) FUKUI, Japan, Aug. 10 , 2004 -
The ruptured pipe that caused four deaths at a Japanese nuclear
power plant Monday had never been inspected in 28 years, the
Mainichi Shimbun said Tuesday.
The accident, in the secondary system of the Mihama Nuclear Power
Plant's No.3 reactor, killed four people and left seven badly
burned when high-pressure steam began gushing out of the pipe.
Inspections after the accident revealed that the thickness of the
pipe at its thinnest section had worn down to just 0.06 inch from
0.4 inches, less than half that required for minimum safety.
The plant's operator, the Kansai Electric Power Company, was
alerted last November about the section but did not implement
safety measures, the paper said.
The company's guidelines listed the ruptured section among parts
to be included in main inspections. But ultrasonic inspections to
determine the thickness of the pipe had not been carried out even
once since operations began in December 1976, the paper added.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by United Press
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property rights owned by United Press International. As a
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content of this section without the prior written consent of by
United Press International.
SPACE DAILY YESTERDAY
AFP NEWS WIRE
+ August 11, 2004
[ ] The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public
domain, are Copyright 1995-2004 - SpaceDaily. AFP Wire Stories
are copyright Agence France-Presse [http://www.afp.com/] ESA
Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency
*****************************************************************
22 Las Vegas SUN: Japan Scrutinizes Nuclear Safety
By MARI YAMAGUCHI ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO (AP) -
The Japanese government deepened its investigation Wednesday
into a deadly nuclear power plant accident amid calls for an
overhaul of safety standards at reactors.
About 30 investigators swept through the plant in Mihama, 200
miles west of Tokyo, collecting evidence and questioning
officials of operator Kansai Electric Power.
The company is being investigated on suspicion of negligence
after announcing on Tuesday that the cooling pipe that caused
the accident had not been properly checked, despite a warning of
danger from inspectors last year.
The pipe exploded on Monday, spewing workers with boiling water
and superheated steam. Four workers were burned to death, and
seven others were injured, two seriously.
The accident, the deadliest ever at a Japanese nuclear plant,
triggered calls for tighter safety measures at reactors.
Seishiro Nukaga, a senior ruling Liberal Democratic Party
lawmaker who is heading the party's nuclear committee, urged
nuclear plants nationwide to re-inspect their facilities.
"We must conduct a thorough investigation of the accident and
find out the cause," he said. "In the meantime, we also should
check all the nuclear plants nationwide."
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency ordered Kansai Electric
and four other utility companies with similar plants Tuesday to
review inspection records and check for the possibility of
erosion in cooling pipes.
"We told the utility companies to check as soon as possible and
come back with their reports," said agency official Koichi
Shiraga.
Separately, the government's nuclear accident investigative
committee was scheduled to hold its first meeting later
Wednesday in at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, to
discuss the accident.
The Nihon Keizai newspaper on Wednesday called for a major
overhaul of safety standards.
"Why did such a significant erosion occur and why was it
overlooked? Wasn't there a lack of safety concerns and
negligence?" the paper asked in an editorial. "It is necessary
to review safety control and management."
A Kyodo News service survey, released late Tuesday, showed pipes
in 17 nuclear power plant reactors in Japan had been replaced or
are scheduled to be replaced because of similar corrosion.
Though there was no radiation leak in Mihama, the accident
rekindled concerns about the safety of the country's 52
reactors. It also raised questions about plans to build 11
reactors by 2010.
Proponents say nuclear power eases Japan's dependence on foreign
oil, more than 80 percent of which comes from the Middle East.
They say nuclear energy is also better for the environment
because it does not emit greenhouse gases.
Detractors say this offers little comfort to worried citizens.
--
*****************************************************************
23 Mainichi Interactive: KEPCO aware that pipes at nuke plant could wear thin
The operator of a nuclear reactor in Fukui Prefecture, where a
fatal accident occurred on Monday, had been aware for at least a
decade that pipes in the nuclear power plants' turbine buildings
could wear thin even on straight sections such as the ruptured
part, company officials revealed on Wednesday.
The Osaka-based Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) decided last
November that thorough examinations needed to be conducted on
such sections. However, it continued operating the plant without
implementing any safety measures ahead of tests scheduled for
this coming Saturday.
The revelations have called into question the company's
inappropriate measures to ensure safety at its nuclear power
plants.
The fatal accident, centered in the secondary system of Mihama
Nuclear Power Plant's No. 3 reactor, occurred when the pipe
ruptured, sending scalding steam gushing out into the facility.
Four people were killed and seven others were injured, four
seriously, in the accident.
Inspections carried out after the accident showed that the
thickness of the pipe had worn down from 10 millimeters to just
1.4 millimeters at the thinnest section. The minimum thickness to
maintain proper safety is reportedly 4.7 millimeters.
Officials at the company said it was easy for pipes to wear thin
at bends and valve exits, where friction occurred. Because of
this, inspections had been carried out mainly on those sections.
The part of the pipe that ruptured and caused the accident was on
a straight section, but its inside diameter is smaller than other
sections because a water flow measurement instrument called an
"orifice" is situated nearby.
Moreover, as water tends to eddy immediately after an orifice,
these parts are prone to wearing thin, company officials said.
In 1986, a pipe at a U.S. nuclear power plant also ruptured near
an orifice. Consequently, in 1990 the national government
instructed nuclear power plant operators in Japan to designate
straight sections of pipes near orifices as "main inspection"
parts along with parts of pipes at bends and where there are
valves.
KEPCO also failed to designate for a main inspection a straight
section of another pipe in the turbine building near where an
orifice is situated. The size of the pipe, the water temperature
and pressure inside it are similar to those in the ruptured part.
Boiling water, about 140 degrees Celsius and some 9.2 atms, flows
inside the section.
Government regulators are closely inspecting this section as it
may reveal the cause of Monday's deadly accident.
If this section that was not designated as a main inspection part
ruptures, it could lead to a major disaster.
In a related development, the government's Nuclear and Industrial
Safety Agency instructed power suppliers to examine all pipes
inside turbine systems at not only pressurized water reactors
like the Mihama reactors but also at boiling-water reactors and
thermal power plants.
After receiving reports from all power suppliers across the
country, the agency has vowed to work out specific measures to
prevent similar accidents at power plants. (Mainichi Shimbun,
Japan, Aug. 11, 2004)
Related stories:
Pipe that caused nuke accident wasn't inspected in 28 years
[http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200408/10/20040810p2a00m0
dm005000c.html]
4 workers die in nuclear plant accident
[http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200408/09/20040809p2a00m0
dm010003c.html]
© 2004 The Mainichi Newspapers Co.
*****************************************************************
24 Mainichi Interactive: Sitting on the job proved fatal factor in nuke accident
FUKUI -- The four technicians who died in an industrial accident
at the Mihama nuclear plant were unable to flee the scene quickly
because they were performing their work sitting in chairs while
the survivors were standing, sources said.
Mainichi Shimbun
KEPCO President Fuji prostrates himself on the floor at the
funeral of a victim.
Workers dispatched from a technical measurement firm, Kiuchi
Keisoku in Osaka, were setting devices for nuclear plant
inspections that were slated to begin on Saturday.
The fatal accident, centered in the secondary system of Mihama
Nuclear Power Plant's No. 3 reactor, occurred on Monday when a
pipe ruptured, sending high-pressure steam gushing out into the
facility.
A 29-year-old worker was setting the devices in an office at the
facility, sitting on a chair close to wall from where the steam
burst through. Three of his colleagues were also apparently
sitting on chairs as they worked before the steam filled the
room, the sources said.
Meanwhile, other workers who were standing or walking managed to
leave the area immediately.
But the 200 degree Centigrade steam soon filled the space, and
several of them suffered burns when they fell while fleeing, the
sources said.
"The area was filled with steam by the time I noticed that
something had happened," one of the survivors was quoted as
saying at hospital.
The office is on the second floor of a steam turbine structure.
Because the structure is not directly related to the facility's
nuclear power generation, those who work there are required to
wear only normal working clothes and helmets, the sources said.
Yosaku Fuji, president of the plant's operator, Kansai Electric
Power Co. (KEPCO), attended funeral services for three of the
four workers Tuesday, where bereaved relatives of one victim
angrily told him he should look at the scalded face of the victim
in his coffin.
When he visited the home of the 29-year-old worker in Obama,
Fukui Prefecture, Fuji threw himself on the floor at the entrance
to the house.
"I will do everything I can to avoid this kind of accident
happening again. I don't know how to apologize to you," the
president said before the colleagues, friends and relatives of
the victim. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Aug. 11, 2004)
© 2004 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the
*****************************************************************
25 Daily Yomiuri: Mihama safety checks lax
Yomiuri Shimbun
It is now clear that three opportunities were missed to prevent
the pipe blowout that killed four workers at Mihama Nuclear Power
Plant in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture, on Monday.
The three opportunities over the past 13 years were missed
because Kansai Electric Power Co., which runs the plant,
effectively left all decision-making regarding safety checks to
its safety inspection subcontractors.
As a result, the omission of the cooling pipe that caused the
accident from a list of about 5,800 items to be checked was not
detected until November last year.
Behind this fatal lapse in safety was KEPCO's judgement that the
pipe in question was relatively unlikely to cause an accident
compared to the other massive, highly sophisticated systems that
make up the nuclear power station.
This complacent attitude toward checking the pipe led plant
management to defer decision making about safety to its
subcontractors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., and Nihon Arm
Co.
The first missed opportunity was in 1991 when KEPCO drew up
guidelines for managing the secondary system in the plant. KEPCO
then asked MHI, which manufactured the cooling pipes, to produce
a list of the places to be checked on the basis of the
guidelines.
KEPCO drew up the guidelines following the accident at Surry
Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia in 1986. Then, in a similar
incident to Monday's accident in Mihamacho, four people died when
a 46-centimeter pipe burst, releasing 114,000 liters of boiling
water and steam.
Although the part of the pipe that burst Monday ought originally
to have been included in the list, MHI left it off the list of
about 5,800 major inspection items that it produced.
Five years later, in 1996, Osaka-based Nihon Arm took over the
contract to carry out safety checks on the secondary system.
Since Nihon Arm was taking on responsibility for checking the
safety of a nuclear power plant--a job in which even the
slightest error cannot be allowed--one would have expected the
handover from MHI to Nihon Arm to have involved a detailed review
of the list. But once again, no one noticed the omission of the
part of the pipe that was to fail.
The omission finally came to light in April last year, when Nihon
Arm double-checked the list of major inspection items after
changing the system it used to input safety inspection data.
By this time, there was already evidence that the pipe was on the
verge of fracturing, and in November the subcontractor stressed
to KEPCO the importance of further inspections.
But for some reason--possibly because cooling pipes with the same
structure at another KEPCO nuclear facility in the prefecture had
been inspected and found to be safe--KEPCO did not carry out an
emergency inspection.
As a result, the inspection was postponed until this month, when
a regular check was scheduled to take place.
===
Failure to double-check
KEPCO decided on its actual inspection schedule on the basis of
the MHI and Nihon Arm lists. However, there was no system in
place for double-checking the lists drawn up by the
subcontractors. This failure to check the lists in turn led to
the failure to check the pipe that burst on Monday.
Nevertheless, Ikuo Morinaka, who heads KEPCO's atomic energy
department, insisted the firm had had "absolutely no intention of
neglecting safety measures."
Government regulations governing secondary systems in reactors
are less stringent than rules for primary systems, which carry
highly radioactive material. The secondary-system pipe that blew
on Monday was made of cheap carbon steel.
Together with the other problems, this suggests that in several
areas, including safety management and the legal framework for
nuclear power stations, regulations have been notably lax.
According to KEPCO, it is possible that turbulence created by an
orifice flowmeter--a disc-shaped device that measures the flow of
cooling water--eroded the inner wall of the pipe, leading to the
pressurized steam blowout.
Orifice flowmeters are in widespread use in oil pipelines,
chemical plants and gas manufacturing facilities. It is not
uncommon for the devices to cause turbulence in the flow of
liquid or gas inside pipes, but usually this does not lead to
problems.
One major manufacturer of such devices cast doubt on this
analysis, however. "If the flowmeter was the sole cause of the
accident then there would be blowouts all over the nation given
how common these devices are," a spokesman for the company said.
However, in the case of large structures such as rockets and
nuclear reactors, which operate under extreme conditions, the
turbulence caused by flowmeters has the potential to cause major
accidents.
The accident at Surry Nuclear Power Station was caused by
turbulence in a cooling pipe section due to sudden changes in the
speed of water flowing inside the pipe.
The explosion shortly after launch of the National Space
Development Agency of Japan's H-2 rocket in 1999 was put down to
a phenomenon widely known among experts in which bubbles formed
in the engine.
The only way to prevent this kind of accident recurring in a
nuclear facility is to put in place a thorough safety regime
based on regular checks and frequent replacement of parts.
However, a nuclear power plant capable of producing 1 million
kilowatts of power contains about 30,000 valves and about 10,000
gauges among many other instruments that need checking. In such a
plant, the total number of inspection items is about 10 million,
and the total length of piping that needs checking is about 170
kilometers.
Can we really be sure that there are no other safety checks being
overlooked in giant facilities such as these? The only way to be
sure is to check the entire facility once again, from the
smallest component up.
Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun
*****************************************************************
26 Daily Yomiuri: Pipe eroded faster than at other KEPCO reactors
Yomiuri Shimbun
The cooling pipe that burst at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant's No.3
reactor in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture, eroded far faster than
similar pipes at other reactors, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned
Wednesday.
The erosion caused a pressurized steam blowout Monday that killed
four workers and injured seven others.
The erosion may have been caused by both a chemical reaction and
by disturbances in the flow of cooling water caused by a
flowmeter installed in the pipe.
As defects in the pipe material itself cannot be ruled out, the
police will ask a metallurgist to examine the pieces of the pipe
in an attempt to determine the cause of the rapid erosion. The
Fukui prefectural police are investigating the incident on
suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death and
injury.
According to Kansai Electric Power Co., the thickness of the wall
of the pipe had not been inspected since the plant started
operation in 1976 because it was not included on the inspection
list. KEPCO said that the wall of the pipe was originally
10-millimeters thick, but an inspection after the fatal blowout
revealed it was as thin as 1.4 millimeters in some places.
In two cases, KEPCO has replaced cooling pipes after confirming
that the walls of the pipes had been severely eroded.
At the No. 1 reactor of the Oi Nuclear Power Plant in the
prefecture, the cooling pipe had a wall 20 millimeters thick when
originally installed, but this was found to have been eroded to
15.1 millimeters in last year's routine inspection.
At the No. 3 reactor at Takahama Nuclear Power Plant, a routine
inspection in 1998 revealed that after 13 years in operation, the
wall of a cooling pipe had eroded from 10 millimeters to 6.91
millimeters.
The installation of the flowmeter in the pipe reduced the pipe's
effective inner diameter causing a distortion in the water flow
that may have eroded the pipe faster than in the other two cases.
Pipe erosion is known to take place faster in places where water
flows at an extremely fast rate and where it is aerated.
Tatsuo Kondo, a member of the Nuclear Safety Commission, said
that water flowing through the pipe at the point where it burst
was extremely turbulent. Kondo, who also is a visiting professor
at Tohoku University's graduate school, suspects the broken pipe
eroded more rapidly because of the high speed and high
temperature of the water passing through the pipe at that point.
Prof. Shuji Hattori of Fukui University said that water flow is
accelerated and aeration increased when a nuclear reactor starts
up or stops. He said that pressure caused by air bubbles could
have been a cause of the erosion along with chemical erosion.
===
2 other pipes not inspected
Similar cooling pipes at the No. 1 reactor at Mihama plant and
the No. 4 reactor at Takahama plant also were omitted from an
inspection list, it was learned Tuesday.
In response to the failure, the Economy, Trade and Industry
Ministry's Nuclear and Safety Industrial Agency has launched an
inspection into the case.
Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun
*****************************************************************
27 Times of India: What was she doing at Kalpakkam?
[http://www.indiatimes.com]
MAN MOHAN
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2004 05:38:20 AM
NEW DELHI: About a month before a serious radiation exposure
accident happened at the Kalpa-kkam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu
on January 21, 2003, a young woman had been caught trying to
breach the security by befriending a Russian scientist engaged
in maintenance work there.
In her late-20s and identified as Rogers Sonia Pamela in her
Australian passport, she was suspected to be working for a
western spy organisation, highly placed sources in a central
intelligence agency disclosed on Tuesday.
However, following pressure from "unknown quarters", New Delhi
had to release her. After her interrogation in Chennai, she was
put on the first flight to Singapore. Also, before claiming
"diplomatic immunity", she had tried to get away by posing as a
journalist.
In December 2002, Pamela, nearly six-foot-tall and athletically
built, had checked into a hotel, Mamallapuram Annexe, in
Mahablipuram and started keeping an eye on the Russian
scientists staying there. Soon, sources said, she zeroed in on a
62-year-old scientist, Chagounov Valeri (Passport no. 1621517)
and moved to a room (room number 512 on third floor) next to
his.
One day, Pamela found Valeri, who was a heavy drinker, on the
terrace. She approached him and started a conversation.
Immediately, the intelligence officials, responsible for foreign
scientists' security, confronted her. She tried to confuse them
with her glib talk, but the intelligence men would have none of
it. They forced themselves into her room and began searching it.
Pamela's search had yielded two passports, an Australian and
another issued by a western nation. The Indian intelligence
agencies believe that both passports were fake.
She was later taken to Chennai for further interrogation, before
being sent to Singapore. It is also believed that she also had
someone else staying closeby as a "backup." As for Valeri, he
was sent home within 24 hours.
India has detected an increase in spyingspecially from
American, Chinese and Pakistani agenciesafter the May 1998
Pokhran nuclear tests.
Some years ago, despite being forewarned, a helicopter from a US
aircraft carrierdocked off Chennai on its way to the
Middle-Easthad flown over the Kalpakkam complex and taken
pictures.
The Kalpakkam complex also houses the Madras Atomic Power
Station, BARC facilities (some of them highly classified) and a
fast breeder reactor.
Copyright © 2004 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. |
*****************************************************************
28 Japan Times: Pipes eluded nuclear plant regs
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Faulty section that killed went legally unchecked since '76
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency will revise regulations
on coolant water pipes at nuclear plants and write a guideline in
the wake of Japan's deadliest atomic plant accident, agency
officials said Wednesday.
[News photo]
Kansai Electric Power Co. President Yosaku Fuji apologizes
Tuesday night to the father of Hiroya Takatori, one of four
workers scalded to death Monday when a corroded steam pipe burst
at Kepco's Mihama nuclear plant Fukui Prefecture, at the victim's
wake.
Currently, there is no guideline or standard on how, which parts
and how frequently the pipes for the so-called secondary coolant
water must be checked. Nuclear plant operators are only required
to report to the government the results of annual inspections.
In Monday's accident at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui
Prefecture, four workers were killed and seven were injured by
superheated steam escaping from a ruptured pipe. The plant's
operator, Kansai Electric Power Co., failed to inspect the pipe
during the 27 years since the reactor began service in December
1976.
The safety agency, part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry, said it will set up a panel of experts to discuss
whether the government's oversight was appropriate and what kind
of rules are needed to ensure proper management of the pipes.
But it has yet to decide whether the common guideline is to be
compiled as legislation or as an industrial standard, the agency
said.
By design, pressurized water in the secondary loop that goes
through the steam generator to activate the turbine is not
radioactive because it does not mix with water from the primary
system that runs through the reactor.
As a result, water pipes on the secondary loop currently fall
under the same regulations as pipes in thermal power plants,
according to the agency.
With no common guideline set by the government, each power
company carries out inspections under its own rules and the
government only receives reports on annual inspections.
Kepco was, therefore, not legally required to inspect the
corroded pipe in Monday's accident.
Having failed to fully assess the state of similar nuclear
reactors in the country so far, the government is now gathering
information on the 23 other pressurized-water reactors. Most of
the pipes at these reactors have already been, or are scheduled
to be, replaced.
It was found after Monday's accident that the carbon steel pipe
that burst had been corroded by the pressurized coolant water to
a thickness of only 1.4 mm, compared to the original 10 mm.
Kepco admitted Tuesday that despite being notified in November
of the need for inspections by a subcontractor that services the
plant, it had still not checked the pipe.
Sources said Wednesday that a Kepco employee at the Mihama plant
allegedly followed a manual blindly even after seeing signs of
trouble and delayed notifying the fire department by more than 10
minutes.
The fire alarm of the plant's No. 3 reactor went off at 3:22
p.m. Monday, but Kepco alerted the fire department 13 minute
later at 3:35 p.m., according to Kepco and other sources.
Kepco allegedly failed to notify the fire department after the
alarm signaling abnormalities went off and the turbine
automatically shut down, the sources said.
According to the Kepco manual, when a fire alarm is activated,
employees are supposed to identify the location and magnitude of
the fire before contacting the appropriate agencies.
Although the turbine facility was filled with steam, the
employee followed the manual instead of calling the fire
department, because he thought it was a false alarm, the sources
said.
Meanwhile, Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of the Social Democratic
Party, visited Mihama on Wednesday to meet with Kepco President
Yosaku Fuji and demand an end to nuclear power development.
Monju decision on hold FUKUI (Kyodo) Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa
suggested Wednesday the prefectural government might
significantly delay its decision on whether to retool the
trouble-plagued Monju fast-breeder reactor.
Asked how long it would take to reach a decision, Nishikawa
replied, "We won't know it until problems (concerning Monday's
accident) are resolved." On Monday, there was a fatal accident at
Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in the prefecture.
The governor also suggested that his government would request a
suspension of the pluthermal nuclear power project at Takahama
Nuclear Power Plant.
Both the Mihama and Takahama plants are owned by Kansai Electric
Power Co., based in Osaka.
Fukui Prefecture has 15 nuclear power reactors, the largest
number of the nation's 47 prefectures.
Pluthermal, or plutonium-thermal power generation, is designed
to use mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel, which allows natural
resource-scarce Japan to make use of spent fuel at nuclear
reactors for power generation as well as to unload a growing
volume of spent nuclear fuel.
The Japan Times: Aug. 12, 2004 (C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
29 Japan Times: Blind spots of inspection
Thursday, August 12, 2004
EDITORIAL
The nuclear plant accident that occurred Monday in Mihama, Fukui
Prefecture, is a shocking reminder that the nation's nuclear
safety inspection system is flawed. Four maintenance workers in a
building housing steam turbines were killed and seven others were
injured, some critically, when high-temperature steam blew off
from a ruptured condenser pipe. In terms of the number of deaths,
it was the worst accident in the history of the nation's nuclear
power program.
This is the second time in Japan that a nuclear accident has
claimed the lives of workers. In 1999, two men died of radiation
exposure at a nuclear-fuel reprocessing facility in Tokaimura,
Ibaraki Prefecture. At the time, residents in the vicinity were
ordered to evacuate to avoid possible exposure to radiation.
Fortunately, no radiation leaks occurred this time because the
pipe that ruptured is not directly connected to the reactor. The
cause of the damage has yet to be determined. A thorough
investigation is required, all the more because similar accidents
could occur in other light-water nuclear plants or in thermal
power plants that likewise generate electricity by steam
turbines.
According to the Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), the pipe in
question -- which carries high-pressure, high-temperature water
from the turbine to the steam generator -- is about 56
centimeters in diameter and is made of carbon steel with a
designed thickness of about 10 millimeters. Company officials say
the workers were exposed to superhot steam released from a broken
section of the pipe.
An inspection by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, an
affiliate of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, reveals
that the steel of the damaged part has thinned to approximately
1.4 millimeters. The agency believes this may have been caused by
the gradual abrasion of the steel due to high-pressure,
high-temperature water flows, as well as by certain weaknesses in
the structure and quality of the piping.
Even more disturbing is the fact that the condenser pipe had
never been inspected since the reactor went into operation in
December 1976. In 1986, it should be noted, a similar steam-pipe
accident occurred at a nuclear plant at Surry, in the U.S. state
of Virginia, killing four workers.
The problem seems to be that equipment in the steam-generating
secondary system, unlike those in the primary loop that recycles
water through the reactor core, is not subject to regular
inspection under existing laws. In other words, secondary-loop
equipment is left to voluntary inspection by individual
operators.
According to KEPCO, secondary equipment such as condenser piping
is visually inspected every day. As for detailed items that do
not permit such cursory inspection, such as pipe thickness,
one-fourth are checked every 10 years. So it takes 40 years to
complete a full round of inspections.
On Tuesday, the company acknowledged that it should have
conducted a detailed inspection of the pipe much earlier, saying
it was informed of a potential problem by a maintenance
contractor last November. Police are reportedly looking for
evidence of professional negligence resulting in death and
injury.
KEPCO, the nation's second-largest power supplier, has had a
nuclear accident before. In February 1991, a broken
steam-generator tube at the No. 2 reactor in Mihama -- Monday's
tragedy occurred at No. 3 -- caused massive leaks of radioactive
water from the primary coolant system.
Monday's accident proves yet again that Japan's aging nuclear
plants face a host of technical problems. Of the 52 commercial
reactors now in operation, 20 went on stream in the 1970s. In the
case of pressurized-water reactors -- the same type as those at
the Mihama plant -- it has been revealed that stress corrosion
cracks have developed in steam generators and reactor-container
covers. As for boiling-water reactors, similar cracks have been
found in reactor shrouds and recycling pipes.
Power companies, as well as the government, are at pains to
extend reactor service life to 60 years from the original 30 to
40 years. What's more, under the so-called "pluthermal (plutonium
thermal) project," these plants are expected to start burning
plutonium recovered from spent nuclear fuel.
It would be wrong to make light of the latest incident just
because it did not cause radiation leaks. With or without
radiation exposure, safety remains a blind spot of sorts in
Japan's nuclear power industry. What is needed is a fundamental
review of the inspection system, including the rule that doesn't
require a full-dress plant inspection until after 30 years of
operation.
The Japan Times: Aug. 12, 2004 (C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
30 TheDay.com: Sen. Peters Helps Power Interests Fool Public
Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004
Published on 8/11/2004
Letters To The Editor:
State Sen. Melodie Peters' promotion of Millstone nuclear plant's
relicensing application is another example of how the public is
hoodwinked into acceptance of a technology that is harmful to all
living things and that profits the corporate world at the expense
of the tax and rate payers.
Dominion Inc. obtained these nuclear reactors at bargain-basement
prices after deregulation sponsored by Ms. Peters, et al,
passing on $5.3 billion in debt to ratepayers, thereby letting
Northeast Utilities, the previous owner, off the financial hook.
These debt cancellation charges appear now in our monthly
electricity bills and will do so for decades.
Take a look at your homeowners, business and auto insurance
policies and note the exclusionary clause relieving the insurance
company of liability for radiation-related contamination to your
property. This was achieved by the nuclear industry's lobbying
Congress to pass the Price-Anderson Act limiting industry
liability for nuclear accidents.
Sen. Peters' contention that we need nuclear energy to keep our
lights on in this state is not borne out by the history of these
plants.
Connecticut's four nuclear reactors were closed for long periods
in the 1990s. No brownouts or restrictions occurred. License
extension til 2035 and 2045 for Millstone 2 and 3 respectively
means an additional 20 years of routine emissions, radioactive
materials released to air and water to adversely affect the
health of our exposed public.
We need a sustainable energy economy, primarily solar-based built
on a foundation of conservation and efficiency. There are
cost-effective and innovative solutions available for a
clean-energy future that will create business opportunities, jobs
and a healthier environment.
What is lacking is the political will to break the stranglehold
that the nuclear and fossil fuel corporations have constructed
for their own gain without consideration for the planet and its
inhabitants.
Peter Bowman New Haven
The writer is a coordinator for Don't Waste Connecticut.
442-2200 | © 1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
31 North Adams Transcript: Activists fear Yankee Rowe is terror target
August 11, 2004 North Adams, MA
Susan Bush/North Adams Transcript
Citizens Awareness Network Executive Director Deb Katz speaks
about nuclear reactor dangers from the steps of the Greenfield
District Courthouse Tuesday during a press event held by CAN.
The chart provides information about Mark I spent fuel storage
plant located a Vernon, VT.
By Susan Bush
North Adams Transcript
GREENFIELD -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should force
nuclear power plant owners to improve safety and security at the
Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant and active reactor sites across
the country, said Deb Katz, the executive director of the
Citizen's Awareness Network.
Spent nuclear fuel rods are currently in dry-cask storage at
Yankee Rowe and Katz believes the casks could be targeted by
terrorists. Definitive steps could be taken to make the casks
less attractive as targets, Katz said on Tuesday.
"They could move the casks farther apart, by 12 feet, and they
should camouflage it," she said. "The way it's all sitting there,
it might as well have a sign that says 'hit me.'"
The dry-storage casks should have additional steel
reinforcements and quantities of dirt placed around them for
protection as well, Katz said.
The remarks were made just before Katz announced that a coalition
of national, regional, and local environmental groups as well as
public interest and nuclear "watchdog" agencies have petitioned
the NRC to conduct emergency hearings about structural issues
involving 32 commercial nuclear reactor sites located in 15
states. Katz spoke before a group of about eight people from
outside the Greenfield District Court in Greenfield.
The petition focuses on Mark I and Mark II boiling water reactor
designs manufactured by General Electric. The Mark I design is
currently used at Vermont Yankee spent fuel storage pools and
Katz claimed that a January 2001 NRC report identifies concerns
about both designs. The Vermont Yankee facility is in Vernon, Vt.
Katz said the network and other groups are very concerned that
terrorists may have already zeroed in on nuclear reactor sites as
attack targets.
Katz posted a quote from the "Transmittal of Technical Study on
Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk at Decommissioning Nuclear Power
Stations" report at the press conference. The report discusses
the vulnerabilities of the Mark I and II designs, Katz said.
"Mark I and Mark II secondary containments generally do not
appear to have any significant structures that might reduce the
likelihood of aircraft penetration, although a crash into 1 of 4
of a BWR [boiling water reactor] secondary containment may be
less likely to penetrate because other structures are in the way
of the aircraft," according to the posted quote.
In other words, the Mark I and II BWRs are susceptible to
aircraft damage.
Among the 43 groups supporting the petition are Greenpeace, the
Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Kids Against Pollution,
the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, and Earth Care.
Additional groups have expressed interest in the action, Katz
said.
Katz said that for the NRC to ignore the risks is
"unacceptable."
"No community in this country signed on to be a terrorist
target," she said.
According to Katz, an accident or attack at any of the New
England region's nuclear reactor sites would create nuclear
disaster conditions affecting communities within 500 square miles
of the facilities.
Katz said the network does not advocate shipping spent fuel to a
federal Department of Energy-proposed nuclear dump at Yucca
Mountain, Nev., and added "we do not want to create another
terrorist target."
The petition calls for an independent review of the Mark I and
II spent fuel pool weaknesses, establishment of a "comprehensive
plan" to deal with the risks posed by the fuel pools that include
alternative storage options and improved security, a "demand for
information" to the operators of the two designs, and creation of
"an open, democratic process which allows local communities and
the public to be involved in the evaluation of risk reduction
measures."
Katz said that the facilities could be made safer by creating
"low-density fuel pools," and "hardened dry-cask storage," which
means storing spent fuel rods in double-walled canisters.
Prior to the conference, Katz spoke about the tritium discovered
at and around the Yankee Rowe site. Yankee officials have
acknowledged that the radioactive isotope has been detected in
groundwater at and around the Rowe facility and recently
announced that wells are being drilled so that the amount of
tritium contamination can be measured.
Katz said that Yankee officials are dealing with the tritium
because "the state Department of Environmental Protection forced
them to do it."
The NRC is not providing the public with necessary information
about the risks of nuclear reactors, nuclear power, or spent
fuel, and is not forcing the operators of nuclear facilities to
secure the sites against accident or attack, Katz said.
"The public has a right to know what is happening in the post
9/11 era," she said. "The NRC is downplaying all this to everyone
and letting the nuclear corporations off the hook."
The elimination of public participation under the guise of
necessary secrecy since Sept. 11 2001 is generating a "meltdown
of democracy," she said.
"The NRC is backtracking on its own reports and is offering
hollow assurances," Katz said. "They are treating the public as
the enemy. Our concern is that the sites are underprotected and
the NRC is using public relations rather than protecting our
health and safety. That is unacceptable."
Yankee Rowe is being decommissioned and the reactor has been
dismantled.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a
*****************************************************************
32 [NYTr] Pennsylvania to Distribute Potass.Iodide Near Nukes
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:57:18 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
WNEP-TV.com (Pennsylvania) - August 9, 2004
http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=2150882&nav=5ka4Pfv9
Potassium Iodide Pills to be Distributed
By Jon Meyer
Pennsylvania is again preparing for the worst and making sure people
living near nuclear power plants are ready in case of an attack. The
state will pass out anti-radiation pills later this week. They will be
available to those living near the power plants state wide, including
the one in Luzerne County.
It's the second time free potassium iodide pills will be made available
to those who live within ten miles of the nuclear power stations. The
pills are meant to protect people against thyroid cancer in case there
is a nuclear emergency.
Two years ago, hundreds of people lined up in Berwick to get the
potassium iodide pills. The state was responding to the terrorist
attacks of September 11th, 2001. The pills provide temporary protection
of the thyroid gland and are meant to be taken during an evacuation.
Christina Brennan moved to Newport Township near Nanticoke after that
distribution. The mother of two lives within ten miles of the nuclear
plant and wants the pills, even though she tries not to think of the worst.
"Considering what's going on in the world today but what can you do.
There's danger everywhere you go," she said. But Brennan does want to
prepare.
This week's distribution of the pills is meant for newcomers and those
in the area who passed up the last opportunity, or the people who got
the pills but lost them.
"It makes us feel safe. If, God forbid, something happens then our kids,
we are protected," added Brennan.
The Newport Township Municipal building is one of the places where pills
will be available this week. Some of those who lined up to get them
before said it's comforting to have them around, just in case.
"We have them hanging on the refrigerator in case it comes really fast
and we don't know what to do. We go to the fridge, get the pills, take
them, get the older people and make the escape," said Phyllis Carlo of
Newport Township. She knows terrorism too well. She lost her son,
Michael, a firefighter, in the attack on the World Trade Center in New
York City. She got the pills two years ago, looking out for her family here.
"We have a couple relatives. We wanted to be prepared. We got them,
never had to use them, hopefully never do," she added.
If you live near the nuclear plant and have the pills, you don't need to
replace them. The state said they're good through 2007. That's when we
could see another distribution of pills in this area.
You can pick up pills at the following locations:
Newport Township Municipal Building
2 Center Street
Wanamie, PA 18364
Wednesday, August 11, noon - 7:00 p.m.
Conyngham Township Municipal Building
10 Pond Hill Road
Mocanaqua, PA 18655
Thursday, August 12, noon - 7:00 p.m.
Butler Township Municipal Building
415 West Butler Drive
Drums, PA 18222
Friday, August 13, noon - 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 14, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Columbia County State Health Center
1123 C Old Berwick Road
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
Wednesday, August 11 - Friday, August 13, 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 14, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
After August 14, potassium iodide pills will be available during regular
business hours through the County Municipal Health Departments and State
Health Centers.
*
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33 [NYTr] Terror! FDA OKs anti-Radiation Attack Drugs
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:17:31 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Reuters - August 11, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5942852
FDA OKs Drugs to Counter Radiation Attack
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on
Wednesday approved two drugs to treat people who are exposed to
plutonium or two other types of radioactive materials that could be used
in a terror attack, opening the way for mass distribution of the drugs.
The FDA's action means the injectable drugs, which also treat americium
or curium contamination, would be available by prescription --
presumably for anyone who wanted them even before an attack took place,
agency officials said.
"The approval of these two drugs is another example of FDA's readiness
and commitment to protecting Americans against all terrorist threats,"
said Acting FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford.
Both drugs -- penetrate calcium trisodium injection (Ca-DTPA) and
penetrate zinc trisodium injection (Zn-DTPA) -- have been available for
decades for use in contamination emergencies, the FDA said.
The FDA considered the two drugs, made by Germany's Hameln
Pharmaceuticals GmBH, investigational prior to the approval, which
limited the amount available.
In September 2003 the agency announced the medicines could safely
decontaminate patients with certain kinds of radiation exposure and
encouraged companies to step forward to make them.
Wednesday's approval provides for that manufacturer. It could also help
make the drug easier to get by allowing the government to stockpile it
or for a patient to get it through a prescription -- even before the
contamination occurred, FDA officials said.
The FDA said the decision was part of the agency's efforts to encourage
the development of treatments in case of an attack.
If absorbed by the body certain radioactive particles can cause cancer,
bone tumors and other severe problems, even years after exposure.
Radiation contamination could occur from industrial accidents or terror
attacks through so-called "dirty bombs." People could absorb radioactive
particles by ingestion, breathing or through open wounds, the agency
said.
Plutonium is a by-product of reactors at nuclear power plants.
Americium, a man-made radioactive metal, is often used commercially for
a number of devices, including medical diagnostics. Curium, another
synthetic, also results from nuclear reactors.
(c) Copyright Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.
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34 [NukeNet] fire in DU machining bay
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:03 -0700
General Information or Other Event Number: 40931
Rep Org: TENNESSEE DIV OF RAD HEALTH
Licensee: AEROJET ORDNANCE TENNESSEE INC
Region: 1
City: JONESBORO State: TN
County:
License #: S-90009
Agreement: Y
Docket:
NRC Notified By: BILLY FREEMAN
HQ OPS Officer: BILL GOTT Notification Date: 08/06/2004
Notification Time: 15:11 [ET]
Event Date: 08/04/2004
Event Time: 13:00 [EDT]
Last Update Date: 08/06/2004
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY
10 CFR Section:
AGREEMENT STATE
Person (Organization):
MOHAMED SHANBAKY (R1)
TOM ESSIG (NMSS)
Event Text
AGREEMENT STATE REPORT
"Event description: The licensee called to report a fire in the depleted
uranium (DU) machining bay. The fire spread into the ventilation duct and
filter housing. The fire was contained inside the ventilation duct and
filter housing. The fire blistered the paint on the ventilation ducting and
Torit filter housing and breached the ventilation system filters (bag and
HEPA). A minor release to the environment occurred through the stack.
Visible smoke was observed coming through the stack for a 6 - 8 minute
period until the ventilation blast gate was closed. Air sample data
indicated the uranium in air concentration in the machining area was 2%
DAC. The air effluent concentration through the stack was 15% of the
effluent limit. Personnel were evacuated from the DU machining area and
from the office areas. Production at the grinder will not restart until the
cause of the fire is known and corrective actions can be taken to prevent
reoccurrence. A written report will be submitted to the Division.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/en.html
_______________________________________________________________________
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35 Wired News: Nukes Still Take Toll on Worker
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:58:45 -0700
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/index.htm
("What's News")
Wired News -
Nukes
Still Take Toll on Workers - John Gartner
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36 [du-list] Announcing: German film exposes current radioactive
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:16 -0700
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_iraq.html
"The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children"
exposes current radioactive warfare in Iraq.
Veterans, military families, activists and interested individuals can now
order an English version of a documentary film produced for German
television by Freider Wagner and Valentin Thurn.
This stunning new video, has just been released by Ochoa-Wagner Produktion
in 2004 in Germany and is available through Traprock Peace Center.
"The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children" exposes the use
and impact of radioactive weapons during the current war against Iraq. The
story is told by citizens of many nations and opens with comments by two
British veterans, Kenny Duncan and Jenny Moore, describing their exposure to
radioactive, so-called Œdepleted¹ uranium (DU), weapons and the congenital
abnormalities of their children.
Dr. Siegwart-Horst Günther, a former colleague of Albert Schweitzer, and
Tedd Weyman traveled to Iraq, from Germany and Canada respectively, to
assess uranium contamination in Iraq.
Weyman led the investigative team that gathered samples for analysis for the
Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC). He discusses startling findings of
the 2003 field investigations in Iraq. "The human and environmental samples
have been found to contain depleted uranium and abnormally high levels of
the artificial transuranic isotope, 236U. ... Viewers will see in the film,
evidence of a new class of uranium weapons." These include "bunker defeat"
bombs.
As an M.D., Dr. Günther is especially interested in the health effects that
can be caused by such contamination. At a hospital in Basra, Dr. Jenan
Hassan revealed an on-going health catastrophe--a ten-fold increase in
cancers and a twenty-fold increase in congenital deformities. The grisly
realities of the cancer ward provide an appropriate alarm that could help to
stop the use of these weapons unless it can be shown they will not harm
civilians for generations to come.
Dr. Duracovic, founder of the Uranium Medical Research Centre, and formerly
a Colonel in the U.S. Army, says that the Canadian government wasted a
million dollars on tests provided to Canadian veterans, using faulty
methodology that looked for uranium in the hair, where uranium will not
accumulate.
LINKS
To purchase "The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children"
(VHS NTSC format) go to
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_iraq.html
The purchase price is $25.00 for non-commercial, non-institutional use and
includes normal shipping - first class mail within the US. (If you require
expedited shipping, please call Traprock at 413-773-7427 as the shipping
rates will vary.)
For an exclusive article on this film by Tedd Weyman, leader of Uranium
Medical Research Centre investigative team that gathered samples for
analysis, go to http://www.traprockpeace.org/tedd_weyman_10aug04.html
For further description of the film see a summary of "The Doctors ... " by
Sunny Miller. http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_iraq.html
Thanks to Marion Küpker for alerting us to this resource. She was a convener
of the World Uranium Weapons Conference 2003
-http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de
Sunny Miller, Executive Director,
Charles Jenks, attorney at law
President of the Core Group
Traprock Peace Center
103A Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
413-773-1633; Fax 413-773-7507
charles@mtdata.com
http://traprockpeace.org
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37 [du-list] Help the Children of Iraq -- One Child at a Time.
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:53:58 -0700
Help the Children of Iraq -- One Child at a Time.
Voice4Change
Uniting Our Voices
http://www.voice4change.org
August 10th, 2004
Help the Children of Iraq -- One Child at a Time.
You remember Isra. Her image was displayed around the world in at least
nine languages
before the war, an eloquent reminder that the first victims of war are innocent
civilians, especially children. Isra was severely injured in a US military
assault back
in 1999.
Cole Miller, a freelance writer in Los Angeles who made the poster, and
Alan Pogue (of
Austin, Texas), the photographer who took the photo of Isra, traveled to
the Middle East
in March of last year and worked to get her out of Iraq and bring her to
the United
States for medical care and a prosthetic arm. They successfully brought an
Iraqi woman
named Um Haider and her injured son Mostafa to the United States (you can
view CNN and
Los Angeles ABC affiliate coverage about Um Haider and Mostafa by visiting
www.nomorevictims.org.) But as the bombs
rained down on Baghdad, they were unable to get
Isra out, and she was left behind. Now it's her turn.
Alan and Cole are traveling to Basra to complete that mission, and they
need your help.
Miller and Pogue left on Monday, August 9th for Basra to bring Isra to
Shriners Hospital
in Houston, Texas, where she will receive medical treatment and a
prosthetic arm. While
in Basra, they will gather the medical records of other injured children in
order to
facilitate similar medical relief initiatives in other communities around
the United
States.
It's all happening -- now.
Your donation today can help provide medical relief for Isra and other
children.
Together we can help relieve the suffering of children who have been harmed
in Bush's
war. We can confront the arrogance and brutality of the Bush
admininistration with our
active compassion for those whose lives have been shattered by
violence. And we can
demonstrate that Americans have more than bombs and brutality to offer the
world.
To make an online tax-deductible contribution to help Isra and other
children, click
here:
http://www.voice4change.org/isra.asp
If you prefer to send a check, make the check payable to
IHC-No More Victims and send to
P.O. Box 923
Malibu, CA 02965
For updates on Cole and Alans Journey to Basra view their journal at:
http://nomorevictims.org/journal.shtml
Another world is possible, and you can make a difference by helping the
children of Iraq
-- one child at a time.
Warm Regards,
Voice4Change.org
http://www.voice4change.org
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38 [du-list] Cancer Factories: America's Tragic Quest for Uranium
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 20:01:02 -0700
Robert,
I did a search at the NEMJ.. nothing there this century..
More old stuff from the last millenium at Mass. med. may still
be interesting towards an historical primer of early nuclear fascism
and professional imperialism.....
extract follows..
(Contributions in Medical Studies. No. 37.) By Howard Ball. 188 pp.
Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1993. $49.95. ISBN 0-313-27566-1.
Cancer Factories traces the effect of our government's conscious policy
decision to promote nuclear self-sufficiency at the expense of U.S. uranium
miners immediately after World War II and throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The Atomic Energy Commission was responsible for crafting this policy and
for overseeing every aspect of it, including health and safety
considerations. The entire process took place in the context of grave
concern about national security, in utter secrecy, and without the remotest
shred of accountability. The result was predictably grim: an epidemic of
lung cancer among Mormon and Native American workers otherwise at very low
risk. . . . [Full Text
of this Article]
Requires registration and subscription.
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39 Guardian Unlimited: Feds Investigate Conn. Nuclear Engineer
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday August 11, 2004 10:46 PM
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
CROMWELL, Conn. (AP) - A Connecticut nuclear engineer said he's
become enmeshed in a federal terrorism probe - targeted for
supporting a militant Islamic Web site when all he may have done
is offer to help humanitarian efforts in a war-torn region.
Syed R. Maswood, 41, a Bangladesh immigrant who became an
American citizen in 1997, said his home has been raided and he
has been detained and searched three times while traveling on
business recently.
Though he hasn't been charged with any crimes, he's also been
placed on a U.S. no-fly list - a watch list including suspected
terrorists, he said.
Maswood, a father of three who has donated to several GOP
campaigns and keeps a picture of President Bush in his living
room, believes he's being singled out because he is Muslim.
``I believe in this country,'' he said. ``I believe in the
system. I believe in the fairness of the law. I want to know,
what did I do wrong?''
Maswood confirmed he is the unnamed Connecticut resident
mentioned last week in a federal affidavit charging a British
national with supporting terrorism. He said federal agents raided
his home March 17, seizing computer equipment and financial
records.
Investigators discovered the resident's e-mail address among
files used to maintain a Web site that funneled money and
equipment to terrorists, according to the affidavit, unsealed
Friday in New Haven as part of an international terrorism probe.
From his home, Maswood runs North American Technical Services,
which exports radiation detection instruments, water treatment
devices and environmental equipment to Middle East and Asian
governments. He said he's had difficulties doing business through
the government since Sept. 11, 2001.
U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor would not confirm Maswood is the
Connecticut resident mentioned in the affidavit.
``We go out of our way in any case not to identify anybody until
they've been charged,'' O'Connor said. ``Unfortunately, there's
only one way to search a house and that's in public.''
Federal agents last week charged British computer specialist
Babar Ahmad with running a fund-raising site for Islamic
militants. While dissecting Ahmad's computer files, investigators
say they discovered an e-mail seeking help getting money to
Islamic rebels in Chechnya.
Maswood said investigators traced an e-mail to him, but added
that he's never offered to aid Chechen rebel leaders. He said he
may have asked how he could help the humanitarian effort in the
area.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents also discovered
Maswood donated more than $10,000 to the Benevolence
International Foundation, an Illinois-based charity accused of
supporting terrorism.
Maswood said the charity is one of many he has supported for
humanitarian purposes, including Christian relief efforts. He
said investigators seized evidence of those donations during the
raid.
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Benevolence International
had been given IRS tax-exempt status.
``If you're claiming that BIF was a terrorist organization, why
did the IRS issue them a tax ID number and allow them to solicit
donations from all over the country?'' Maswood asked.
Last week, a federal law enforcement official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said investigators are going through
e-mail addresses uncovered in the Ahmad case, trying to determine
who wanted to provide humanitarian aid and who wanted to support
terrorism.
``We have known Sayed as a very charitable person,'' said Ahmad
Tansheet of the Muslim Civil Rights Center in Illinois. ``His
only crime was to give charity to an Islamic organization.''
For now, Maswood said the investigation has made him seem guilty
to many in Cromwell, a small Hartford suburb. Though he hasn't
been named, federal investigators confirmed a search warrant was
executed in Cromwell.
In a town of 13,000 people, Maswood said, that effectively
identified him.
``I come from a very oppressive country,'' said Maswood's wife,
Awatef, who was born in Tunisia and became a U.S. citizen in
2000. ``I used to come back to the U.S. and feel relief. I'm
home. This is a free country. What kind of America is this?''
Maswood has sent O'Connor several letters asserting his innocence
and characterizing the probe as a witch hunt.
``It's character assassination,'' he said. ``You label them, you
destroy their reputation, then later on you may or may not find
something.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
40 Wired News: Nukes Still Take Toll on Workers
By John Gartner
02:00 AM Aug. 11, 2004 PT
Workers who toiled for the Department of Energy at nuclear
weapons sites during the Cold War unknowingly faced a domestic
enemy that continues to cause serious health problems --
beryllium.
Click thumbnails for full-size image: [Glen Bell, a 56-year old
machinist (seated with glasses) who works for the DOE in Oak
Ridge, TN, was diagnosed with CBD in 1993. Originally
misdiagnosed with asthma, he now spends at least one week a year
in the hospital for treatment of the disease. In this photo, he
meets with a Beryllium victims support group.]
+ Feds Answer Calls for Nuke Safety
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+ Nuke Plants Aging Disgracefully
+ Check yourself into Med-Tech
[*] Today's Top 5 Stories
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The DOE is launching a nationwide initiative in October to bring
critical information to hundreds of thousands of blue- and
white-collar workers who were exposed to the metal at plants
that produced nuclear weapons. Beryllium, which can cause
potentially fatal lung diseases and cancers, is a light and
strong metal used to make triggers and other nuclear warhead
components. It continues to be used in a number of industries,
including aerospace, computers and consumer electronics.
In 2000, the U.S. government acknowledged that many DOE workers
did not know they were being exposed to beryllium and dangerous
levels of radiation. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program Act of 2000
[http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/laws/titlexxxvi.pdf] (PDF) states
that "a large number of nuclear weapons workers ... were put at
risk without their knowledge and consent."
While the majority of workers were unaffected by exposure to
beryllium, a small percentage have become seriously ill or have
died. Exposure to beryllium can cause chronic beryllium disease,
or CBD, a condition that often takes 20 or more years to show
itself. CBD damages the lungs, causing shortness of breath,
fatigue, cough and weight loss. It also increases the chances of
developing lung cancer. According to the National Jewish Medical
and Research Center
[http://www.nationaljewish.org/medfacts/beryllium_medfact.html]
, CBD will affect 2 to 6 percent of workers exposed to
beryllium, but some tasks put the risk at nearer 20 percent.
Glenn Bell, a 56-year-old machinist who works for the DOE in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, was diagnosed with CBD in 1993. He was
originally misdiagnosed with asthma, and now spends at least one
week a year in the hospital getting treated for the disease.
"Some days I can barely get out of bed because I'm so short of
breath," said Bell, who missed 100 days of work in 2003 because
of the illness.
Bell said when he was hired in 1968 "we were told you could eat
the stuff and it wouldn't hurt you." Despite the presence of
beryllium dust throughout the workplace, Bell said workers were
encouraged to eat and drink at their machines.
More than 200 of Bell's co-workers have been diagnosed with CBD,
prompting him to start a victim's support group. In 2000, Bell
and a "ragamuffin group" of CBD sufferers went to Washington,
D.C., to lobby Congress for the compensation act that would
eventually become law. "We were sick, and we didn't have a lot
of money, but we went and crashed on someone's front lawn (near
D.C.) so that we could be heard."
The DOE has set up resource centers
[http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/resource_centers.html] near 10 of
the largest nuclear weapons facilities, where former workers can
get free CBD screenings and receive information.
In October, the DOE will broaden its effort into a nationwide
initiative to identify potential claimants because it is not
reaching enough former workers around the country, according to
documents on the DOE website. The Nationwide Medical Screening
Program will consolidate the individual resource centers into a
single program that standardizes the forms and establishes a
toll-free number for individuals who would like to be tested.
Mark Hoover, a senior research physical scientist at the
National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety
[http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/homepage.html] , said that in 1949,
the DOE adopted a safety recommendation for handling beryllium
from the Atomic Energy Commission, based on its use during the
development of the atomic bomb.
The AEC recommended that the concentration of beryllium in the
air should not exceed 2 micrograms per cubic meter.
"That limit has proved not to be protective enough" of workers,
said Hoover, who has been studying beryllium in the workplace
since 1980. Hoover said the reported cases of CBD dropped
dramatically after 1949, but beginning in the late 1970s, there
was a marked increase in workers who became ill from beryllium.
The decades of delay between exposure and contracting the
disease caused the DOE to underestimate the potential harm,
Hoover said.
Hoover said the DOE is being more proactive in attempting to
prevent workers from contracting CBD. In 1998 the DOE lowered the
permissible amount of beryllium in its facilities to 0.2
micrograms per cubic meter. To further reduce the incidence of
CBD, Hoover said, "it would be prudent to set the amount as low
as possible."
In 2001 the DOE and the Department of Labor began to search for
people who worked for the DOE weapons program, its contractors
and subcontractors, so they could be tested and apply for
compensation. The Department of Labor identified 362 government
and contracting facilities where former workers may be eligible
for compensation, according to spokeswoman Dolline Hatchett.
The 2000 compensation act provides workers who contracted CBD or
cancers due to exposure from radiation with a payment of $150,000
and reimbursement of their medical expenses. The government so
far has paid out more than $900 million for 11,539 claims, but
because the number of potentially injured workers is unknown, the
total compensation could be much higher, according to Hatchett.
When asked for the breakdown between beryllium and
radiation-induced illnesses, Hatchett said the Department of
Labor does not differentiate claim types in its data collection.
The claims paid thus far represent only a fraction of the total
number of potential claimants, as the government has yet to reach
many former workers who may have relocated or retired, according
to Dr. Laura Welch, medical director for the Center to Protect
Workers Rights, a group supported by labor unions to identify
safety hazards. Welch said fewer than half the construction
workers who worked at a DOE site in Hanford, Washington, knew
they were exposed to beryllium when the DOE contacted them.
Welch said the likelihood of contracting the disease is related
to length and level of exposure. "In jobs where workers have
inhaled the most beryllium -- such as machinists in beryllium
operations -- 10 to 14 percent of the workers have gotten CBD,"
she said.
Machinist Bell said the compensation process can be arduous. His
claim was denied the first time, but after he filed a Freedom of
Information Act request to obtain his medical records, he won his
case.
"I know of two people who died waiting for their claims to be
paid," Bell said. Some workers decline to be screened because a
positive result would hurt their chances for promotion by making
them ineligible to assume duties in areas where beryllium is
present.
*****************************************************************
41 PRESS RELEASE: Protect yourself from the harmful effects of radiation
or radioactive exposure with this new information
[http://www.ambosmedios.com]
WunZhang (Traditional Chinese [http://www.wunzhang.com] ) 
[http://www.wunzhang.com]
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August 11, 2004
Protect yourself from the harmful effects of radiation or
radioactive exposure with this new information
Just released - The world’s only alternative medicine manual on
how to detoxify and rebuild the body after excessive radiation
or radioactive exposure.
(PRWEB) August 11, 2004 -- Top Shape Publishing LLC, has
recently released a new book addressing the national security
and health issue on how to detoxify your body of the effects
from radiation and radioactive exposure.
Just recently there was another accident at a Japanese nuclear
power plant in Mihama that didn't involve radiation, but killed
four people and brings to light this on-going but unresolved
concern. Now there is finally a plan of action.
Thousands of people are continually exposed to the dangers of
excessive radiation every year. There are cancer patients who
undergo radiation therapy, medical workers who deal with nuclear
medicine, power plant workers, Gulf War veterans and military
personnel who become exposed to depleted uranium, uranium miners
and workers at plutonium processing facilities, scientists who
do radioactive lab research and residents who live near old
atomic testing grounds or active nuclear energy facilities.
“How to Neutralize the Harmful Effects of Radiation or
Radioactive Exposure” is the first book of its kind that not
only reviews the typical health results of radiation toxicity
and sickness in layman’s terms, but focuses on the various ways
by which you can eliminate radioactive particles from your body
and start healing yourself from the damaging effects of
radiation exposure.
Author William Bodri says, “I wanted to write a book, as my own
national contribution, that addressed a security concern that
everyone seemed to be ignoring, which is the emergency
detoxification of radioactive exposure. Scan the internet and
most of what you find simply focuses on telling you that
radiation is bad for you. Well, we don’t need more studies
telling us what we already know. While most of the radiation
research is focused in that direction what we really need are
alternative and naturopathic protocols you can use to help
protect yourself or heal yourself from excessive radiation or
radioactive exposure. Unfortunately, as one researcher told me,
there's no funds for that type of research as there's no demand,
meaning we're not thinking ahead in terms of real national
concerns. We say we want to send astronauts to Mars and they
also need this sort of information. Every little bit helps when
it comes to adjunct naturopathic therapies, and if the hospitals
and government stockpiles of potassium iodine or Prussian Blue
run out in an emergency, this the very sort of information the
public will be screaming for and it's what health care workers
need to know.”
Delving into options as diverse as seaweeds, chlorella,
spirulina, teas, thiol compounds, amino acids, shark
alkyglycerols and dozens of other natural substances that have
been used at Nagasaki or Chernobyl, studied for their
radioprotective effects or used in other incidents of radiation
sickness and exposure, the book also focuses on various proven
natural means that can help neutralize radioactive compounds and
rebuild the body’s blood, gastrointestinal and immune system
after exposure to radiation.
How to Neutralize the Harmful Effects of Radiation or
Radioactive Exposure
By William Bodri
www.RadiationDetox.com [http://www.RadiationDetox.com]
# # #
Email this story to a colleague
Printer Friendly Version
CONTACT INFORMATION
William Bodri
Top Shape Publishing, LLC
Visit Our Site [http://www.RadiationDetox.com]
718-539-2811
Email us Here
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42 [EMMAS] The Wild, Wild Wars in the West
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 23:12:57 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0811-13.htm
Published on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 by TomDispatch.com
The Wild, Wild Wars in the West
by Rebecca Solnit
In July, the Feds handed down to Nevada its bitterest defeat and sweetest
victory in ages; the former, a termination of thousands of years of Western
Shoshone history; the latter, a reprieve from an apocalyptic future as the
world's biggest -- and maybe dumbest -- nuclear waste dump. In one three-day
period, Nevada's past got cancelled while its future was salvaged. But this
Indian war and these nuclear politics are just part of a panoply of glaringly
weird things going on in the state; there's a gold rush, a water war, and vast
military operations, just for starters, and all of them are ecological bad
news.
Nevada's invisibility may be as alarming as the apocalyptic dimensions of its
plight. The state is a truly peculiar place, a hole in public consciousness.
Where else could you set off a thousand nuclear bombs unhindered -- from 1951
to 1991 at the Nevada Test Site -- while even most antinuclear activists were
arguing about nuclear war as a terrible possibility rather than an ongoing
regional catastrophe? Once nuclear testing went underground in 1963, and
American babies stopped having fallout-induced radioactive milk teeth, Nevada
fell off the map even as the nuke-a-month program continued unimpeded for
almost three more decades.
Western Shoshone Showdown
Across the U.S., the contemporary Indian wars are invisible in part because
most non-Native Americans believe they all happened in the picturesque past, in
part because they're fought by other means, in part because the mainstream
media don't give a damn. One of the most egregious of them has been the ongoing
battle between the Western Shoshone and the federal government for title to
most of Nevada. It began in 1848 when the U.S. government claimed the Southwest
from Mexico, heated up in the post--World War II era when the Shoshone went to
court to protect their rights, and may have ended July 7, when President Bush
signed into effect the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill.
That bill dishes out money the government set aside a few decades ago as
payment for much of eastern and southern Nevada. The area had looked so
worthless to the bureaucrats of the nineteenth century that they drew up a
treaty letting the Western Shoshone, unlike most indigenous nations, retain
title to their lands. The bureaucrats of the twentieth century realized that
the best way to seize title to Nevada was to pretend that the land had already
been taken -- back when it was more affordable. Of course, you have to overlook
the fact that, as Western Shoshone bumper stickers say of their homeland, "Newe
Sogobia is not for sale." The price set was $26 million or 15 cents an acre,
discount prices even for the 1870s. (With interest, the sum to be disbursed is
now $145 million.)
Reasonably enough, the Western Shoshone point out that they never offered their
land for sale and many of them refuse to take the money. The disbursement was
made against their strenuous opposition. (Others believe that $30,000 per
person is the best they'll ever get and are willing to settle up.) The case
matters in part because Western Shoshone "traditionalists" have strenuously
opposed mining, military operations -- 20% of all military-controlled land is
in Nevada -- and nuclear activities on their land. Though environmentalists
sometimes decry their cattle-grazing as destructive to the desert, they look
like far better stewards of Nevada's arid lands than the federal government
ever has been. They have deep roots in the past and are interested in the long-
term future of the place. Then there's the simple matter of justice: the
Western Shoshone are being stripped of their birthright and their rights just
as surely as any Palestinian on the wrong side of Israel's Great Wall of
Intolerance or the Iraqis whose resources have been redistributed to various
American corporations.
The corporations reaping twenty-first century profits from the great Shoshone
land grab and already engaged in a gold rush in the heartland of Shoshone
territory aren't even American in most cases. An 1872 mining law allows
virtually anyone to acquire public land for pennies in order to mine it; the
Toronto-based Barrick Corporation, for instance, paid less than $10,000 for
land containing an estimated $8 billion in gold. Unfortunately, we're not
talking about the gold nuggets in pretty engravings of the Forty-Niners.
Barrick and the other mega-corporations are mining microscopic gold, dispersed
throughout the subterranean rock along the Carlin Trend in northeastern Nevada,
enough gold to make the state the world's third most productive gold-mining
region.
To get it, you dig up huge hunks of the landscape, pulverize them, and then run
a cyanide solution through the resultant heaps, which pulls the gold out. It
takes about a hundred tons of ore to produce an ounce of gold. Western Shoshone
activist Carrie Dann (whose ranchlands and family cemetery have been ravaged by
gold-mining) suggests that whenever Americans buy gold jewelry, they should get
the slag that goes with it as well -- a splendid, many-ton toxic heap for a
keepsake with every ring and ornament. It's toxic because grinding up the
bedrock releases other heavy metals in the ground, which is why Nevada -- with
less than 1% of the nation's population -- was, until a court changed the
measurement standards in 2001, tops in the release of toxic substances. Its
annual half-billion tons of toxics amounts to 10% of the nation's total, and a
soaring 88.7% of its mercury releases; to say nothing of the applied cyanide,
which at least is an organic compound that breaks down under the right
circumstances. Mercury is forever.
Water Wars
The environmental price of gold is pretty high, and that's not even counting
groundwater. But groundwater counts too. Much of the Carlin Trend gold is
underneath the water table, so the mines pump out vast quantities of
groundwater in this driest state in the union and discard it. They are, in
other words, mining water as well as gold, and as recent attempts around the
world to privatize water -- by Bechtel in Bolivia, for example -- demonstrate,
pure water is getting more and more valuable. The elderly Western Shoshone
activist and mystic Corbin Harney had a vision about water scarcity long ago
and has made it a focus of his work ever since. In Nevada's gold-rush
districts, water is being contaminated or dispersed into nearby waterways,
where it will run away, never to return. According to Great Basin Mine Watch,
Nevada mines wasted enough water in 2001 to serve a city of half a million
people.
It takes thousands of years to recharge an aquifer. To drain one, or even drop
the water table, creates "drawdown," the drying up of surface waters that would
otherwise feed agriculture, rural communities, and wildlife. That's one of the
reasons why environmentalists and rural citizens are up in arms about the
latest plans to suck out the water under White Pine, Lincoln, and Nye counties,
as well as rural Clark County for the benefit of urban Clark County (aka Las
Vegas). This conflict is already being compared to the Los Angeles vs. Owens
Valley water war immortalized in Roman Polanski's movie Chinatown. What
Polanski's movie didn't show is the dry lake bed breeding dust storms, the
habitat drying up, the ecological disaster Los Angeles lawns and carwashes
demanded (and Mono Lake activists partially reversed in recent years).
Currently, Las Vegas gets most of its water from the Colorado River. In 1900,
the city's population was in the single digits; it had only made it to about
half-a-million when I started swinging through in the 1980s to protest the
nuclear testing taking place 60 miles to the north; the city now has 1.4
million people, almost two-thirds of the state's population, and 5,000 new
Vegans arrive every month -- which is why the entire Nevada congressional
delegation is behind the water grab. That's where the votes are.
Even the usually environmentally respectable Senator Harry Reid is so behind
the bill to start building the two-hundred-mile Lincoln-to-Vegas pipeline that
he's threatening to attach it to some larger piece of legislation bound to
pass. "They have enough water for the existing population," says Jan Gilbert, a
longtime state activist. "They don't for this explosive growth."
Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, struck a
different note when she said, "The notion that we have a finite supply of
water, and when that finite supply is gone you stop growing, is in the past."
Welcome to Nevada, driest state in the union, where water is infinite; you can
wait until the late twentieth century to make things happen in the nineteenth
century; gold is cheap; and the future is radioactively bright. Or was. Not all
the news is bad.
Repealing the Apocalypse
Once again, it was the water that was the problem, only this time it wasn't a
shortage. Yucca Mountain, it turned out, was all wet, and a truly lunatic place
to put seventy-seven thousand tons of high-level nuclear waste.
The government created the nuclear power industry with a promise to reactor
operators that the essential crisis of the industry, the dangerous, exceedingly
long-lived waste it produces, would be taken off their hands. In all the
subsequent decades of nuclear power production, spent fuel rods have been
piling up in "cooling ponds" onsite, while the operators waited for the
government to make good on its promise to get rid of the stuff (mostly located
in the population-heavy, resource-light East). Three New England reactors are
already suing the government for failing to come up with a dump.
For more than two decades, the Department of Energy (DOE) has done everything
it can to create one of the most scientifically dubious dumpsites imaginable,
at Yucca Mountain, about ninety miles north of Vegas on the northern edges of
the Nevada Test Site, where all those nuclear bombs were detonated (and will be
again if Bush has his way).
The initial plan was to compare sites in three western states and choose the
safest one, but two of the states -- Texas and Washington -- had the political
clout to get out of the competition. So the "comparative study" never studied
anyplace but Yucca Mountain, and yet the longer it was studied the less
suitable it seemed even for the mandated 10,000 years it was supposed to keep
us and the waste apart (forget the quarter million years the stuff would
actually remain dangerous). Somehow, this never seemed to stop plans from
proceeding. For a lot of geologists, the fact that Yucca Mountain had, in
geological terms, recent volcanic activity and has very contemporary seismic
activity might be grounds enough for doubt. But the DOE officials just kept
lowering the standards, fudging the facts, firing the dissenters, while
spending nearly $100 billion to try to make it happen -- the cost of a nice,
short foreign war these days.
Nevada itself has fine activists who have stood up to some of the atrocities,
and the state itself has vociferously fought the federal plan to make it into
what might have been the world's largest nuclear waste dump. And for now, this
time, on this issue, they won, which is no mean feat. The Yucca Mountain plan
was nicknamed early on the "Screw Nevada" bill, and the feckless plans to send
the stuff across the country from the mostly eastern nuclear reactors is
popularly known as "Mobile Chernobyl." (Click here to see how close the stuff
gets to your house -- and within half a mile of fifty million other Americans.)
Easterners imagine that the Wiley Coyote landscape of Nevada means true inert
dryness, and the New York Times has seldom been able to resist coupling the
adjectives "sterile, empty, barren, and useless" to any description of the
place. But underneath it is a surprisingly high water table that could rise
further in a changed climate, and flowing through the mountain's billion
fissures is rainfall which leaches out the chemicals in the rock, making a brew
capable of eating through almost any metal, including pretty much every metal
proposed for nuclear-waste containment.
Originally, the rock itself was supposed to isolate the stuff. When it turned
out that wet Yucca Mountain was uniquely unsuited for the task, the idea was
that the metal containers would isolate the waste. When it turned out that the
leaching would eat them away, the plan switched to little titanium umbrellas on
top of each cask -- so we'd gone from protection by the thick mantle of the
earth to parasols in a couple of decades of study. And they call it science.
The state's Nuclear Projects Office (which means anti-dump) geologist, Steve
Frischman, told me long ago that they picked 10,000 years as the period during
which the waste must be isolated because you can at least pretend to estimate
geological and climate changes over ten millennia; beyond that, it's the utter
unknown -- Nevada could be a rainforest; its ancient lake beds could refill;
and God knows who's going to look after the stuff then. The Western Shoshone?
Among the more surreal aspects of the whole Yucca Project have been the many
schemes to create warning labels for the waste that would make sense to unknown
civilizations of the deep future.
But surprisingly, on July 9, two days after the Western Shoshone Disbursement
Bill was signed by Bush, a federal appeals court ruled that the standards for
Yucca Mountain were wrong: the Environmental Protection Agency should have
accepted a ruling by the National Academy of Sciences that the safety standard
should be not 10,000 years but the point of peak radiation -- which could be
300,000 years away, long after the metal containment casks have corroded into
irrelevancy. Joe Egan, an attorney for the state of Nevada, told the Las Vegas
Sun that this means "the department will have to apply a standard that all
their own evidence says they can't meet."
This could mean the death of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, though the
decision could also be appealed in the next few weeks and the Department of
Energy is rushing to get the place licensed by December in what might be a last
hurrah for the Bush Administration. Senator Kerry has taken a strong stand
against Yucca (while Edwards, from nuke-plant intensive North Carolina, has
waffled).
This is startlingly good news for Nevada. Scientists have always said that
Yucca Mountain was a disaster-in-the-making, even leaving aside those 50
million Americans living within half a mile of the shipment routes the Yucca-
bound nuclear waste would travel on for decades to come, or the 90 to 500
estimated accidents of unknown scale that statistics suggest would take place
en route over the years. (Who needs terrorist dirty bombs when our own tax
dollars can supply them?)
When you consider the human rights abuses, the squandering of resources for the
benefit of the few, and the lunatic decisions being made for the long-term
future of the state, the war in Iraq looks a little like a decoy from troubles
at home, or a parallel universe with all the same ingredients. Except that
there's almost no opposition to Nevada's impending catastrophes -- outside of
Nevada. But you can bring back another perspective from Iraq too. One is that
Goliath doesn't always win: the David of local activists and the Nevada State
government has been fighting Yucca for decades, and this round Goliath lost.
Another is that if you're tenacious enough, what looks like defeat can change,
and the Western Shoshone have patience and commitment on their side.
Rebecca Solnit's 1994 book 'Savage Dreams' dealt at length with the Western
Shoshone land wars and with nuclear testing in Nevada. Her most recent book
is 'Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities'.
Copyright C2004 Rebecca Solnit
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43 MoJo: The Wild, Wild Wars in the West
[MotherJones.com] [Mother Jones] [News]
There's a panoply of glaringly weird things going on in Nevada.
But who would know? The state exists as a hole in public
consciousness.
By Rebecca Solnit
August 11, 2004
In July, the Feds handed down to Nevada its bitterest defeat and
sweetest victory in ages; the former, a termination of thousands
of years of Western Shoshone history; the latter, a reprieve from
an apocalyptic future as the world's biggest -- and maybe dumbest
-- nuclear waste dump. In one three-day period, Nevada's past got
cancelled while its future was salvaged. But this Indian war and
these nuclear politics are just part of a panoply of glaringly
weird things going on in the state; there's a gold rush, a water
war, and vast military operations, just for starters, and all of
them are ecological bad news.
Nevada's invisibility may be as alarming as the apocalyptic
dimensions of its plight. The state is a truly peculiar place, a
hole in public consciousness. Where else could you set off a
thousand nuclear bombs unhindered -- from 1951 to 1991 at the
Nevada Test Site -- while even most antinuclear activists were
arguing about nuclear war as a terrible possibility rather than
an ongoing regional catastrophe? Once nuclear testing went
underground in 1963, and American babies stopped having
fallout-induced radioactive milk teeth, Nevada fell off the map
even as the nuke-a-month program continued unimpeded for almost
three more decades.
Western Shoshone Showdown
Across the U.S., the contemporary Indian wars are invisible in
part because most non-Native Americans believe they all happened
in the picturesque past, in part because they're fought by other
means, in part because the mainstream media don't give a damn.
One of the most egregious of them has been the ongoing battle
between the Western Shoshone and the federal government for title
to most of Nevada. It began in 1848 when the U.S. government
claimed the Southwest from Mexico, heated up in the post--World
War II era when the Shoshone went to court to protect their
rights, and may have ended July 7, when President Bush signed
into effect the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill.
That bill dishes out money the government set aside a few decades
ago as payment for much of eastern and southern Nevada. The area
had looked so worthless to the bureaucrats of the nineteenth
century that they drew up a treaty letting the Western Shoshone,
unlike most indigenous nations, retain title to their lands. The
bureaucrats of the twentieth century realized that the best way
to seize title to Nevada was to pretend that the land had already
been taken -- back when it was more affordable. Of course, you
have to overlook the fact that, as Western Shoshone bumper
stickers say of their homeland, "Newe Sogobia is not for sale."
The price set was $26 million or 15 cents an acre, discount
prices even for the 1870s. (With interest, the sum to be
disbursed is now $145 million.)
Reasonably enough, the Western Shoshone point out that they never
offered their land for sale and many of them refuse to take the
money. The disbursement was made against their strenuous
opposition. (Others believe that $30,000 per person is the best
they'll ever get and are willing to settle up.) The case matters
in part because Western Shoshone "traditionalists" have
strenuously opposed mining, military operations -- 20% of all
military-controlled land is in Nevada -- and nuclear activities
on their land. Though environmentalists sometimes decry their
cattle-grazing as destructive to the desert, they look like far
better stewards of Nevada's arid lands than the federal
government ever has been. They have deep roots in the past and
are interested in the long-term future of the place. Then there's
the simple matter of justice: the Western Shoshone are being
stripped of their birthright and their rights just as surely as
any Palestinian on the wrong side of Israel's Great Wall of
Intolerance or the Iraqis whose resources have been redistributed
to various American corporations.
The corporations reaping twenty-first century profits from the
great Shoshone land grab and already engaged in a gold rush in
the heartland of Shoshone territory aren't even American in most
cases. An 1872 mining law allows virtually anyone to acquire
public land for pennies in order to mine it; the Toronto-based
Barrick Corporation, for instance, paid less than $10,000 for
land containing an estimated $8 billion in gold. Unfortunately,
we're not talking about the gold nuggets in pretty engravings of
the Forty-Niners. Barrick and the other mega-corporations are
mining microscopic gold, dispersed throughout the subterranean
rock along the Carlin Trend in northeastern Nevada, enough gold
to make the state the world's third most productive gold-mining
region.
To get it, you dig up huge hunks of the landscape, pulverize
them, and then run a cyanide solution through the resultant
heaps, which pulls the gold out. It takes about a hundred tons of
ore to produce an ounce of gold. Western Shoshone activist Carrie
Dann (whose ranchlands and family cemetery have been ravaged by
gold-mining) suggests that whenever Americans buy gold jewelry,
they should get the slag that goes with it as well -- a splendid,
many-ton toxic heap for a keepsake with every ring and ornament.
It's toxic because grinding up the bedrock releases other heavy
metals in the ground, which is why Nevada -- with less than 1% of
the nation's population -- was, until a court changed the
measurement standards in 2001, tops in the release of toxic
substances. Its annual half-billion tons of toxics amounts to 10%
of the nation's total, and a soaring 88.7% of its mercury
releases; to say nothing of the applied cyanide, which at least
is an organic compound that breaks down under the right
circumstances. Mercury is forever.
Water Wars
The environmental price of gold is pretty high, and that's not
even counting groundwater. But groundwater counts too. Much of
the Carlin Trend gold is underneath the water table, so the mines
pump out vast quantities of groundwater in this driest state in
the union and discard it. They are, in other words, mining water
as well as gold, and as recent attempts around the world to
privatize water -- by Bechtel in Bolivia, for example --
demonstrate, pure water is getting more and more valuable. The
elderly Western Shoshone activist and mystic Corbin Harney had a
vision about water scarcity long ago and has made it a focus of
his work ever since. In Nevada's gold-rush districts, water is
being contaminated or dispersed into nearby waterways, where it
will run away, never to return. According to Great Basin Mine
Watch, Nevada mines wasted enough water in 2001 to serve a city
of half a million people.
It takes thousands of years to recharge an aquifer. To drain one,
or even drop the water table, creates "drawdown," the drying up
of surface waters that would otherwise feed agriculture, rural
communities, and wildlife. That's one of the reasons why
environmentalists and rural citizens are up in arms about the
latest plans to suck out the water under White Pine, Lincoln, and
Nye counties, as well as rural Clark County for the benefit of
urban Clark County (aka Las Vegas). This conflict is already
being compared to the Los Angeles vs. Owens Valley water war
immortalized in Roman Polanski's movie Chinatown. What Polanski's
movie didn't show is the dry lake bed breeding dust storms, the
habitat drying up, the ecological disaster Los Angeles lawns and
carwashes demanded (and Mono Lake activists partially reversed in
recent years).
Currently, Las Vegas gets most of its water from the Colorado
River. In 1900, the city's population was in the single digits;
it had only made it to about half-a-million when I started
swinging through in the 1980s to protest the nuclear testing
taking place 60 miles to the north; the city now has 1.4 million
people, almost two-thirds of the state's population, and 5,000
new Vegans arrive every month -- which is why the entire Nevada
congressional delegation is behind the water grab. That's where
the votes are.
Even the usually environmentally respectable Senator Harry Reid
is so behind the bill to start building the two-hundred-mile
Lincoln-to-Vegas pipeline that he's threatening to attach it to
some larger piece of legislation bound to pass. "They have enough
water for the existing population," says Jan Gilbert, a longtime
state activist. "They don't for this explosive growth."
Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water
Authority, struck a different note when she said, "The notion
that we have a finite supply of water, and when that finite
supply is gone you stop growing, is in the past." Welcome to
Nevada, driest state in the union, where water is infinite; you
can wait until the late twentieth century to make things happen
in the nineteenth century; gold is cheap; and the future is
radioactively bright. Or was. Not all the news is bad.
Repealing the Apocalypse
Once again, it was the water that was the problem, only this time
it wasn't a shortage. Yucca Mountain, it turned out, was all wet,
and a truly lunatic place to put seventy-seven thousand tons of
high-level nuclear waste.
The government created the nuclear power industry with a promise
to reactor operators that the essential crisis of the industry,
the dangerous, exceedingly long-lived waste it produces, would be
taken off their hands. In all the subsequent decades of nuclear
power production, spent fuel rods have been piling up in "cooling
ponds" onsite, while the operators waited for the government to
make good on its promise to get rid of the stuff (mostly located
in the population-heavy, resource-light East). Three New England
reactors are already suing the government for failing to come up
with a dump.
For more than two decades, the Department of Energy (DOE) has
done everything it can to create one of the most scientifically
dubious dumpsites imaginable, at Yucca Mountain, about ninety
miles north of Vegas on the northern edges of the Nevada Test
Site, where all those nuclear bombs were detonated (and will be
again if Bush has his way).
The initial plan was to compare sites in three western states and
choose the safest one, but two of the states -- Texas and
Washington -- had the political clout to get out of the
competition. So the "comparative study" never studied anyplace
but Yucca Mountain, and yet the longer it was studied the less
suitable it seemed even for the mandated 10,000 years it was
supposed to keep us and the waste apart (forget the quarter
million years the stuff would actually remain dangerous).
Somehow, this never seemed to stop plans from proceeding. For a
lot of geologists, the fact that Yucca Mountain had, in
geological terms, recent volcanic activity and has very
contemporary seismic activity might be grounds enough for doubt.
But the DOE officials just kept lowering the standards, fudging
the facts, firing the dissenters, while spending nearly $100
billion to try to make it happen -- the cost of a nice, short
foreign war these days.
Nevada itself has fine activists who have stood up to some of the
atrocities, and the state itself has vociferously fought the
federal plan to make it into what might have been the world's
largest nuclear waste dump. And for now, this time, on this
issue, they won, which is no mean feat. The Yucca Mountain plan
was nicknamed early on the "Screw Nevada" bill, and the feckless
plans to send the stuff across the country from the mostly
eastern nuclear reactors is popularly known as "Mobile
Chernobyl." (Click here
[http://www.citizenalert.org/yuccanew/map-2.htm] to see how
close the stuff gets to your house -- and within half a mile of
fifty million other Americans.)
Easterners imagine that the Wiley Coyote landscape of Nevada
means true inert dryness, and the New York Times has seldom been
able to resist coupling the adjectives "sterile, empty, barren,
and useless" to any description of the place. But underneath it
is a surprisingly high water table that could rise further in a
changed climate, and flowing through the mountain's billion
fissures is rainfall which leaches out the chemicals in the rock,
making a brew capable of eating through almost any metal,
including pretty much every metal proposed for nuclear-waste
containment.
Originally, the rock itself was supposed to isolate the stuff.
When it turned out that wet Yucca Mountain was uniquely unsuited
for the task, the idea was that the metal containers would
isolate the waste. When it turned out that the leaching would eat
them away, the plan switched to little titanium umbrellas on top
of each cask -- so we'd gone from protection by the thick mantle
of the earth to parasols in a couple of decades of study. And
they call it science.
The state's Nuclear Projects Office (which means anti-dump)
geologist, Steve Frischman, told me long ago that they picked
10,000 years as the period during which the waste must be
isolated because you can at least pretend to estimate geological
and climate changes over ten millennia; beyond that, it's the
utter unknown -- Nevada could be a rainforest; its ancient lake
beds could refill; and God knows who's going to look after the
stuff then. The Western Shoshone? Among the more surreal aspects
of the whole Yucca Project have been the many schemes to create
warning labels for the waste that would make sense to unknown
civilizations of the deep future.
But surprisingly, on July 9, two days after the Western Shoshone
Disbursement Bill was signed by Bush, a federal appeals court
ruled that the standards for Yucca Mountain were wrong: the
Environmental Protection Agency should have accepted a ruling by
the National Academy of Sciences that the safety standard should
be not 10,000 years but the point of peak radiation -- which
could be 300,000 years away, long after the metal containment
casks have corroded into irrelevancy. Joe Egan, an attorney for
the state of Nevada, told the Las Vegas Sun that this means "the
department will have to apply a standard that all their own
evidence says they can't meet."
This could mean the death of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
dump, though the decision could also be appealed in the next few
weeks and the Department of Energy is rushing to get the place
licensed by December in what might be a last hurrah for the Bush
Administration. Senator Kerry has taken a strong stand against
Yucca (while Edwards, from nuke-plant intensive North Carolina,
has waffled).
This is startlingly good news for Nevada. Scientists have always
said that Yucca Mountain was a disaster-in-the-making, even
leaving aside those 50 million Americans living within half a
mile of the shipment routes the Yucca-bound nuclear waste would
travel on for decades to come, or the 90 to 500 estimated
accidents of unknown scale that statistics suggest would take
place en route over the years. (Who needs terrorist dirty bombs
when our own tax dollars can supply them?)
When you consider the human rights abuses, the squandering of
resources for the benefit of the few, and the lunatic decisions
being made for the long-term future of the state, the war in Iraq
looks a little like a decoy from troubles at home, or a parallel
universe with all the same ingredients. Except that there's
almost no opposition to Nevada's impending catastrophes --
outside of Nevada. But you can bring back another perspective
from Iraq too. One is that Goliath doesn't always win: the David
of local activists and the Nevada State government has been
fighting Yucca for decades, and this round Goliath lost. Another
is that if you're tenacious enough, what looks like defeat can
change, and the Western Shoshone have patience and commitment on
their side.
Copyright C2004 Rebecca Solnit [.] What do you think?
[backtalk@motherjones.com?subject=Backtalk: The Wild, Wild Wars
in the West]
Rebecca Solnit's 1994 book Savage Dreams
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520220668/nationbooks08]
dealt at length with the Western Shoshone land wars and with
nuclear testing in Nevada. Her most recent book is Hope in the
Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560255773/nationbooks08]
This article, which first appeared at Tomdispatch.com
[http://www.tomdispatch.com] , is the second of three nuclear
posts appearing this week at that site.
[http://www.motherjones.com/about/admin/index.html] , the
Investigative Fund of Mother Jones
[http://www.motherjones.com/about/philanthropy/index.html] , and
gifts from generous readers like you.
© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress
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44 Lincoln Journal Star: Tribe had offered land for nuke waste facility
[http://www.journalstar.com]
by don walton
The Ponca Tribe offered to help settle the radioactive waste
judgment against Nebraska by making land available for
construction of a storage facility.
The big eye-opener in Tuesday's disclosure by tribal chairman
Mark Peniska: It would have been the same Boyd County land that
touched off a two-decade battle that spread from northeast
Nebraska into the courts.
"The Poncas are the poorest tribe in Nebraska," Peniska said.
"We're kind of bare bones."
No reservation.
No casinos.
So the tribe went to Gov. Mike Johanns and Attorney General Jon
Bruning to suggest a settlement proposal under which the Poncas
could have earned $1 million a year for 30 years, Peniska said.
"Our backs are against the wall," said Ed Zendejas, general
counsel for the tribe.
"We need to have some kind of economic development."
Here's what the Poncas had in mind, Zendejas said: Since the
tribe has authority to place land in trust in Knox and Boyd
counties, it would acquire the previously designated waste site,
place the land in trust and lease the site to US Ecology, the
regional waste site developer.
The tribe would apply to the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to license the facility, bypassing state regulatory
authority.
Under that scenario, Peniska said, the dispute between Nebraska
and the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission
might have been settled in a manner that assisted a struggling
Native tribe that counts 800 members in Nebraska.
Peniska said he was disappointed by Monday's news that the state
had reached a settlement that pays $140.5 million to the regional
compact and releases Nebraska from its obligation to host a
storage facility.
Meanwhile, the state said it will continue to look to the
possibility of an agreement with Texas to accept low-level waste
from Nebraska and compact members.
The agreement settled a $151million U.S. District Court judgment
against the state for allegedly acting in bad faith in
stonewalling licensure of the Boyd County site.
Johanns said Tuesday he was uncomfortable with the Ponca plan.
"It was championed with the thought of being able to skirt some
of the regulatory requirements because they are a sovereign
nation," the governor said. "There was no way I could be
comfortable with that notion," he said, especially in view of the
fact that Nebraska's problems arose because "the regulatory
process had been abused."
Johanns said he "could envision spending another $100 million and
getting another eight years down the road" by restarting the
process in Nebraska.
"I felt the tests at the Boyd County site were very, very dated
and the site had been so poisoned by the process that it's hard
to imagine you would get anything done there.
"I was looking for something that was a complete resolution of
all issues," the governor said.
Peniska said his comments were not intended to be critical of
Johanns.
"I am not attacking the governor," he said. "I just think
information should be given that there were some other very good
options."
The Poncas would be an ideal steward of the low-level radioactive
waste facility, he suggested.
"As caretakers of Mother Earth, we would be responsible and
accountable to the earth," Peniska said.
"We are members of a sovereign nation and citizens of this state.
We have responsibility in both areas, and I think this was a
valid offer to make."
Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or dwalton@;journalstar.com.
Copyright © 2004, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. This
content may not be archived or used for commercial purposes
without written permission from the Lincoln Journal Star. 926 P
Street Lincoln NE 68508 402 475-4200 •
[feedback@journalstar.com]
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45 Las Vegas RJ: 'No nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain'
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Kerry pledges panel of experts will study issue By ERIN NEFF and
KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife,
Teresa Heinz Kerry, wave to a partisan crowd as confetti falls
Tuesday night at the Thomas &Mack Center. Kerry gave a 30-minute
speech to more than 12,000 people.
Photo by [JLocher@reviewjournal.com] .
Kyra Stenroos, 7, shows her support for John Kerry at the Thomas
&Mack Center on the UNLV campus. Earlier Tuesday, Kerry pledged
that, if he is elected, "there's going to be no nuclear waste at
Yucca Mountain."
Photo by Isaac Brekken/Review-Journal.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry urged the Bush
administration Tuesday to halt the licensing process for the
Yucca Mountain Project, telling an audience he would establish a
blue-ribbon panel of experts to recommend how to best store and
dispose of the nation's nuclear waste.
At a Las Vegas middle school, Kerry reaffirmed a pledge he made
in May when he visited Las Vegas that, if he is elected,
"there's going to be no nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain."
He repeated the message at an evening rally before an estimated
crowd of more than 12,000 people at the Thomas &Mack Center,
where he touched on themes he has been taking to battleground
states across the country. His half-hour speech highlighted his
plans to help the middle class, implement a renewable energy
policy and increase financial help for college students.
Earlier, at Cadwallader Middle School, he offered details for
the first time about what he would do as president to ensure
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would not
become home to the nation's most lethal nuclear waste.
He received a warm reception from the 75 people who were
screened and selected by the campaign to be at the event, which
was closed to the public. But nuclear industry backers and other
officials scoffed at his strategy, saying it could backfire on
him and that he was playing the issue for votes.
Kerry proposed leaving the waste at 139 sites across the
country, where it could be guarded by those who already are
supposed to be protecting nuclear plants against terrorist
attacks.
His strategy would initiate a National Academy of Sciences study
to examine geologic disposal as opposed other options such as
long-term on-site storage or some other technology.
And Kerry likened his proposed blue-ribbon panel to the
Manhattan Project, whose work led to creation of the first
nuclear weaponry. He suggested his panel would have a "reverse"
mission.
"We need a Manhattan Project that learns how to tame the
negative consequences of that power of the atom, and we need to
bring the world together to do it," Kerry said. "If we did a
better job of showing that we want to do that, rather than going
down the road of creating the next new nuclear weapon for bunker
busting purposes, we'd do a lot better job of sending a message
to Iran and to North Korea and to the rest of the world that the
United States is serious about living in a non-nuclear world."
Nuclear industry officials were critical of Kerry's call to
President Bush to hold off on a license application.
"Instead of taking action to move this federal project forward
after 20 years and $8 billion of peer-review science, John Kerry
is digging a hole for himself among some 30 states that are
awaiting opening of a federal repository," said Angelina Howard,
executive vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the
nuclear industry's lobbying arm.
Howard noted that Yucca Mountain "is the most studied piece of
land on the planet" and that studies on how to dispose of the
nation's spent nuclear fuel and where to put it have eclipsed
five presidents, including eight years of the Clinton
administration.
"It's necessary and appropriate that the Energy Department
continue with its preparation of the license application, which
will then undergo rigorous independent reviews and evidentiary
hearings before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Howard said
by telephone. "If it doesn't stand the test of the NRC, it
wouldn't go forward."
But Nevada's lead nuclear waste lawyer, Joe Egan, said it would
be simple for a victorious Kerry to halt the license
application.
"Just tell the secretary of energy not to submit it," Egan said.
Even if the Bush administration manages to meet its target date
to submit an application in December after the election, which
Egan doubts can be done, then he said Kerry could instruct his
energy secretary to withdraw the application.
Robert List, a former Nevada governor who is a Nuclear Energy
Institute consultant, said there is nothing innovative about
Kerry's plan for derailing the Yucca Mountain Project. Two
decades of studies point to deep, geologic storage "as the
safest and best way to do it," List said.
"The bottom line is he's clearly playing politics to get
Nevada's electoral votes. He's trying to turn a scientific
decision into a political one and I think the people of Nevada
will see right through it."
The White House referred calls about Kerry's comments to the
Bush-Cheney campaign. The Department of Energy did not return
calls.
Tracey Schmitt, regional spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney
campaign, also said Kerry was playing politics.
"That's political rhetoric 80-something days from an election,"
Schmitt said. "President Bush has always said the decision
should be based on science, not politics. We need to keep
science at the center of the debate."
Asked about the proposals Kerry made, Schmitt said, "This is an
issue that has been researched for over 20 years."
Kerry discussed portions of that research, referencing reports
by the General Accounting Office, independent scientists and the
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, all suggesting scientific
flaws in the Yucca Mountain Project.
"If that ain't scary, I don't know what is," Kerry said after
quoting from one GAO report.
He expressed concern about seismic activity, untested
transportation canisters and the potential for contamination of
the water supply in Nye County's Amargosa Valley.
Kerry worked to appeal Nevada's issue to a national audience as
he looked out at national press traveling with him.
"This is not just a Nevada issue," Kerry said. "This is not just
about Yucca Mountain. This is about America."
Kerry said the Bush administration "has pursued a relentless,
purposeful policy to push the science no matter what the science
says."
He said the country "deserves a president who believes in
science. It's not just the science of Yucca Mountain, it's the
science of global warming, it's the science of stem-cell
research and the possibility of the future."
Prior to the event, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Kerry has been
on Nevada's side whenever the issue was critical, recounting the
statement Bush issued during the 2000 campaign that a decision
on Yucca Mountain would be based on "sound science, not
politics." Democrats have long criticized that statement as
empty rhetoric.
Reid also defended Kerry on the six votes he has taken over the
past 16 years that were different than his own on Yucca
Mountain, including Kerry's 1987 vote for the so-called "Screw
Nevada" bill. The appropriations bill had language added in
conference committee to narrow repository study to Yucca
Mountain only, from a list of three sites.
"President Bush and his people are of course saying anything
that they can, because Bush has been a total flop," Reid said.
"He misled the people of Nevada, and he lied to the people of
Nevada."
Kerry also addressed the Bush-Cheney accusations about his Yucca
Mountain record. Kerry said he has voted with Nevada "when it
has counted on real votes."
Kerry voted against interim storage in the 1990s and voted in
2002 to sustain Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of Bush's designation of
Yucca as the repository.
National Academy of Sciences officials who deal with Yucca
Mountain issues could not be reached late Tuesday for comment on
Kerry's plan.
Candice Trummell, vice chairwoman of the Nye County Commission,
said she was dismayed the Kerry camp didn't allow her to listen
to his talk Tuesday afternoon.
"The entire event was orchestrated to keep other voices out and
only hear one side of the story," Trummell said.
The Nye County Commission passed a resolution last month that
was more supportive of the Yucca Mountain Project.
"My concern, of course, is Yucca Mountain is in Nye County, not
Clark County and the first responders are going to come from Nye
County," she said.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
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46 Las Vegas RJ: Nuclear fuel costs repaid
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Reactor operator gets $80 million for above-ground storage
expenses By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The government has reached a settlement with the
nation's largest nuclear plant operator, agreeing to pay Exelon
Corp. for keeping used nuclear fuel at its power reactors until
the radioactive material can be shipped to the Yucca Mountain
repository.
Announcing the deal on Tuesday, Exelon said it will receive $80
million for costs already spent to install above-ground storage
containers at three of its utility sites and for other
alterations to expand waste capacities.
The company said it will continue to receive annual payments
until the Energy Department takes ownership of spent fuel
generated at 10 reactor locations and moves it to a repository
it is working to develop at Yucca Mountain.
Assuming DOE meets a 2010 target for opening a Nevada
repository, the reimbursements would total about $300 million,
officials said.
Nevada officials began studying the deal for impacts to their
campaign against the Yucca Mountain Project.
Joe Egan, the state's Virginia-based nuclear waste attorney,
said at first blush the numbers suggest the Energy Department
inflated the costs of on-site storage in a final environmental
impact statement it issued two years ago. The study concluded it
would be preferable to build a repository instead of keeping
waste at reactor sites.
The state is laying groundwork for a new challenge to the
environmental study. Egan said the state may cite the Exelon
settlement to build an argument it could be economical to keep
the nuclear waste on-site while exploring alternatives to a
Nevada repository the Energy Department estimates will cost $58
billion.
Based on the settlement, Egan estimated it would cost $206
million a year to maintain on-site storage at the nation's 103
commercial reactors.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist if you take that
(settlement) number and parlay it to all the nation's plants,
you could get an annuity that is relatively small compared to
the total cost of Yucca," he said. "This shows that there is
absolutely no rush to do this the wrong way."
But Exelon officials said completion of the Yucca project is
key to the settlement. The deal is open-ended; so if the
repository is delayed, the company will continue to get paid and
taxpayer costs will escalate.
"This agreement is not in any way, shape or form a substitute
for permanent storage at Yucca Mountain," company spokesman
Craig Nesbit said. "This is not what this is, and it cannot be
taken that way."
For its part, Exelon will drop lawsuits charging DOE with
breach of contract for failing to meet deadlines to open a
repository and begin taking away its nuclear waste. Some 65
lawsuits have been filed against the department by utilities
echoing the charge.
Angelina Howard of the Nuclear Energy Institute said the Exelon
settlement is "hugely significant," because it will raise the
profile of the Yucca Mountain Project among taxpayers.
"Taxpayers in every state, including those who do not receive
electricity supplies from nuclear power plants, are now
officially paying the costs of the government's failure to meet
its obligations," Howard said.
Exelon operates the largest array of nuclear power plants in
the United States, with 17 reactors at 10 utility sites.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
47 Las Vegas RJ: Lawsuit gets Jan. 10 hearing
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials will be in court on Jan. 10, when
a trio of federal judges is scheduled to hear the state's case
to gain easier access to federal money to challenge the Yucca
Mountain Project.
Attorneys filed a lawsuit on March 17 that alleged the
Department of Energy was shortchanging the state on money to
monitor the proposed nuclear waste repository.
DOE officials said they were limited to giving Nevada only as
much as Congress designates each year.
The U.S. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments for Jan.
10.
The three judges will be A. Raymond Randolph, who was appointed
by the first President Bush, and David Tatel and Merrick
Garland, who were appointed by President Clinton.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
48 RGJ: Kerry rallies Democrats over nuclear waste dump
[http://www.rgj.com/]
GOP says candidate flip-flopped on Nevada’s most significant
issue
[adamon@rgj.com] RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
8/10/2004 11:36 pm
[RALLY: U.S. Sen. John Kerry greets supporters Tuesday at the
Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. - Joe Cavaretta/ASSOCIATED
PRESS]
[] /ASSOCIATED PRESS
RALLY: U.S. Sen. John Kerry greets supporters Tuesday at the
Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.
LAS VEGAS — Speaking to a cheering crowd in a Las Vegas
auditorium, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry promised
more grants for college students, health care for every child,
never to cut Social Security benefits and delivered a pointed vow
to kill plans to ship the nation’s most radioactive waste to
Yucca Mountain.
His speech offered no plans for paying for those promises, for
which the Republican Party has long criticized him.
The senator from Massachusetts seized on Yucca Mountain as a
significant issue in Nevada, considered a battleground state in
the race for the presidency.
State Democrats never miss an opportunity to criticize President
Bush’s support of the project and were disappointed when Bush
didn’t address it in his Reno speech earlier this summer.
“My votes show you this is not an election campaign promise. When
I’m president of the United States, I’ll tell you about Yucca
Mountain: Not on my watch,” Kerry shouted to a roaring crowd at
the Thomas and Mack Center at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas.
“Look at my record. I don’t come to people during a race and say
one thing and do another afterwards. You can take this to the
bank.”
Nevada recently won a key court decision in its fight against
Yucca Mountain. A federal court ruled the government’s safety
standards fell short of those set by the National Academy of
Sciences.
Kerry vowed to veto any legislation that would allow the project
to continue without conforming to the NAS’s guidelines for
radiation protection.
“And I’ll tell you what else, if they try to change the standards
on radiation at the EPA and they send it to my desk, veto pen,
done, out,” Kerry said.
Republicans have called Kerry a “flip-flopper” on Yucca Mountain,
pointing to his 1987 vote for the “Screw Nevada Bill,” which
allowed the government to focus solely on Nevada for the waste
site.
“John Kerry continues to mislead voters about his record on Yucca
Mountain,” said U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. “His voting record
until 1997 is one of supporting the repository and he voted to
make Nevada the sole repository site for waste. It is clear that
John Kerry is someone who will say anything to anyone if he
thinks it will win him votes, and his selection of John Edwards
is further evidence of this.”
Democrats point to Kerry’s strong record of voting against the
project, including his 2002 vote to sustain Gov. Kenny Guinn’s
veto of the Yucca Mountain site.
Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said she didn’t know if
Bush planned to address Yucca Mountain when he visits Las Vegas
on Thursday or whether Vice President Dick Cheney will discuss it
when he visits Elko on Saturday.
With sleeves rolled up, Kerry wandered the stage like a college
professor, speaking without notes and often reminding the crowd
of more than 13,000 to quiet down and listen to him.
“This is important,” he repeated several times before explaining
his vision for homeland security. “There is a better way for the
United States of America to make itself safe.”
Kerry said he would build an international coalition to stabilize
Iraq, to “take the target off of American troops, get the hand
out of the American taxpayer’s pocket and get our troops home.”
He reminded the crowd of his service in the Vietnam War, saying
he would bring that experience to the position of commander in
chief.
Carissa Snedecker of Silver Springs said she’s heard much of
Kerry’s speech before, but said she still was inspired by it.
“It is his usual speech and I’ve heard versions of it,” she said.
“But he’s right about so much.”
Snedecker, who has helped organize rural Democrats this year, was
among several Northern Nevadans who were introduced to Kerry
after his speech.
Washoe County Democrats have been waiting for Kerry, who has made
three campaign stops in Las Vegas, to visit the northern part of
the state. Snedecker said Kerry mentioned the campaign would try
to send Edwards.
Kerry is scheduled to speak to senior citizens today in Henderson
before traveling to Los Angeles.
Schmitt criticized Kerry’s remarks in Las Vegas, saying they
“signal his belief in big government.”
“John Kerry should explain why he does not believe in the
president’s positive agenda that has resulted in Nevada having
the lowest unemployment rate in the nation and over 50,000 new
jobs in the last year,” Schmitt said.
Rosary Fitzgerald, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno,
said Kerry’s pledge to improve funding for college was key. She
attended the speech while home in Las Vegas for the summer.
“I only go to UNR because I have a Pell grant and because I
became a Trio Scholar, which is government subsidized,” she said.
“I like that he didn’t have campaign promises and that he had an
actual plan.”
Kerry cautioned that his offer of tuition assistance “isn’t a
freebie.” In exchange, college students must mentor at-risk kids,
work as volunteers and take jobs as schoolteachers.
Kerry’s promise to be “believer in science” and extend stem cell
research to find cures for debilitating diseases struck Stacey
Varrette, whose husband is recovering from surgery to remove a
brain tumor.
“You never know, it may help him,” said Varrette, a Las Vegas
teacher.
She and her husband, John, brought their 8-year-old son, Chris,
to hear Kerry’s speech.
“I wanted him to come so he could experience this,” John Varrette
said.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com]
*****************************************************************
49 Daily Herald: Exelon to get money for waste storage
[http://www.dailyherald.com]
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
By Anna Marie Kukec Daily Herald Business Writer
Exelon Corp., which owns Warrenville-based Exelon Nuclear,
Tuesday settled with the federal government for roughly $300
million for reimbursement of the company's storage costs for used
nuclear fuel.
The first payment of $80 million is expected in the next few
weeks. Exelon then will be paid more annually as it incurs
storage expenses until the federal government opens its
nationwide nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The government's plan is already six years behind schedule but
could open by 2010.
The Warrenville division oversees 17 working nuclear plants
nationwide, including 11 in Illinois. Three of four non-operating
nuclear plants also are in Illinois.
"The bottom line was the federal government was unable to fulfill
its contract," said Exelon Nuclear spokesman Craig Nesbit.
That contract was part of the federal law called Nuclear Waste
Policy Act of 1982. It said the federal government would build a
permanent nationwide disposal facility for high-level radioactive
waste and spent nuclear fuel by 1998.
Spent nuclear fuel is radioactive uranium used in the reactor to
generate heat and energy for about five years. Afterward, the
fuel is removed and must be safely stored for several years to
cool down, said Nesbit.
Since 1982, the nuclear industry has paid between $20 billion and
$25 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund to help build that
national depository, Nesbit said.
The government was suppose to start accepting spent nuclear fuel
for disposal in January 1998, but the project has been stalled,
said Department of Energy spokesman Joseph Davis.
"The DOE will begin construction of Yucca Mountain once the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides whether or not to grant a
license," said Davis. "Our goal is to begin operations in 2010."
Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, can accept
and store about 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and
other nuclear wastes, as set by Congress. Yucca Mountain can hold
more, so Congress can change that limit, Davis said.
Nesbit said that Exelon's dispute began in 1998 when Peach Bottom
Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, then owned by Peco Energy
Co., wanted to start getting reimbursed for the waste storage
from the Department of Energy. Peco was acquired by Exelon in
2000 and Exelon continued to pursue the matter.
Peach Bottom settled, but the government intended to pay out of
the Nuclear Waste Fund, which upset the nuclear industry since it
paid money into that fund solely to build the national nuclear
waste depository, Nesbit said.
In 2002, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decided the government
should pay, but from another fund. After two years of
negotiations, the reimbursements included all of Exelon's plants
and payments authorized through the federal Judgement Fund -
money from taxpayers.
Tuesday's settlement shows the federal government's failure to
meet its contractual obligations, which will cost taxpayers
millions of dollars, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the
Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C.
"The agreement means that taxpayers in every state, including
those who do not receive electricity supplies from nuclear power
plants, are now officially paying the cost of the federal
government's failure to meet its obligations," Kerekes said. "The
government's willingness to enter into this settlement is the
fair thing to do."
Daily Herald, Paddock Publications, Inc.
*****************************************************************
50 Lowell Sun: Water-test results could be in tomorrow
August 11, 2004 Lowell, MA
Residents, selectmen question delayed notification of potential
health hazard
By MARIE DONOVAN, Sun Correspondent
WESTFORD The Water Department may have water-sample testing
results back as soon as tomorrow to determine the source of
elevated perchlorate levels that caused the temporary closing of
the town's Cote well last month, department Environmental Analyst
Elaine Major told selectmen yesterday evening.
The department sent test samples from an area surrounding the
new highway garage off North Street to a testing lab after
surface water at a nearby detention pond tested positive for
perchlorate, Major said.
The average perchlorate level found in the Cote well testing was
2.4 parts per billion, compared with the state recommended level
of no more than 1 part per billion. It is a potential health
hazard for people with hypothyroidism, pregnant women, infants
and children under 12, Major said.
She said the department notified the town about the elevated
perchlorate levels and took the Cote well off-line well in
advance of the state Department of Environmental
Protection-approved timeline for compliance, but one resident
said last night that he felt it wasn't soon enough.
"I have a neighbor who has a thyroid condition, and she's very
alarmed by this," David Brody said.
The state does not require immediate notification of moderately
high perchlorate levels due to the sometimes inaccuracy of the
testing, Water Commissioner Leslie Thomas said yesterday.
Major said a Boxboro condominium complex is still using a water
supply that tested positive for about 10 parts per billion of
perchlorate contaminants.
Thomas said "a false negative" is "very easy to have."
Selectmen Chairman Bob Jefferies and Brody said yesterday that
they would prefer that the department notify residents
immediately when it has future information about any potentially
dangerous levels of compounds, whether or not the hazard is
confirmed.
"We should have complete transparency on this," Jefferies said.
Brody said the DEP should allow immediate notification, even if
it doesn't require it.
"There's nothing I could find in the regulations that prohibits
it," he said.
Perchlorate is a component in blasting caps and fireworks,
Thomas said. If the North Road area is determined to be the
source for the contamination, the next step will be to determine
what materials may have contributed to it, Major said.
In other business yesterday, selectmen put off a decision on
whether to purchase the 12-acre Tzikopoulos Land parcel or to
allow another group to do so until next week. Selectmen would use
the parcel for either preservation or limited development
purposes.
Nancy Rosinski of the Westford Land Preservation Foundation said
her citizen advocate group would consider purchasing the parcel,
located off Tyngsboro Road, to convert it as a limited
development, with just enough housing to break even on purchase
and engineering costs.
Also yesterday, Jonathan Epstein of the Massachusetts Department
of Health-contracted North East Medical Services presented the
town with the Automated External Defibrillators HeartSafe
Certificate Award for various departments' work with
advanced-care lifesaving measures.
Chelmsford and Marblehead join Westford as the top communities
in the region in interdepartmental community coordination of
lifesaving programs, incorporating safety plans at area golf
courses and houses of worship, among other places, Epstein said.
The Westford Rotary Club and numerous other local groups
contributed funds to the town to purchase defibrillator units.
© 1999-2004 MediaNews Group, Inc.
[http://www.lowellsun.com
*****************************************************************
51 [progchat_action] An American Hiroshima
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:36:30 -0500 (CDT)
August 11, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
An American Hiroshima
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ASPEN, Colo. -- If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller
than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the
fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.
It would vaporize or destroy the theater district, Madison Square
Garden, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie
Hall (along with me and my building). The blast would partly destroy a
much larger area, including the United Nations. On a weekday some
500,000 people would be killed.
Could this happen?
Unfortunately, it could - and many experts believe that such an attack,
somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment
of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here
last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear
terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government
hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it.
Graham Allison, a Harvard professor whose terrifying new book, "Nuclear
Terrorism," offers the example cited above, notes that he did not pluck
it from thin air. He writes that on Oct. 11, 2001, exactly a month after
9/11, aides told President Bush that a C.I.A. source code-named
Dragonfire had reported that Al Qaeda had obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear
weapon and smuggled it into New York City.
The C.I.A. found the report plausible. The weapon had supposedly been
stolen from Russia, which indeed has many 10-kiloton weapons. Russia is
reported to have lost some of its nuclear materials, and Al Qaeda has
mounted a determined effort to get or make such a weapon. And the C.I.A.
had picked up Al Qaeda chatter about an "American Hiroshima."
President Bush dispatched nuclear experts to New York to search for the
weapon and sent Dick Cheney and other officials out of town to ensure
the continuity of government in case a weapon exploded in Washington
instead. But to avoid panic, the White House told no one in New York
City, not even Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Dragonfire's report was wrong, but similar reports - that Al Qaeda has
its hands on a nuclear weapon from the former Soviet Union - have
regularly surfaced in the intelligence community, even though such a
report has never been confirmed. We do know several troubling things: Al
Qaeda negotiated for a $1.5 million purchase of uranium (apparently of
South African origin) from a retired Sudanese cabinet minister; its
envoys traveled repeatedly to Central Asia to buy weapons-grade nuclear
materials; and Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, boasted,
"We sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other Central Asian
states, and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase [nuclear]
bombs."
Professor Allison offers a standing bet at 51-to-49 odds that, barring
radical new antiproliferation steps, a terrorist nuclear strike will
occur somewhere in the world in the next 10 years. So I took his bet. If
there is no such nuclear attack by August 2014, he owes me $5.10. If
there is an attack, I owe him $4.90.
I took the bet because I don't think the odds of nuclear terror are
quite as great as he does. If I were guessing wildly, I would say a 20
percent risk over 10 years. In any case, if I lose the bet, then I'll
probably be vaporized and won't have much use for money.
Unfortunately, plenty of smart people think I've made a bad bet. William
Perry, the former secretary of defense, says there is an even chance of
a nuclear terror strike within this decade - that is, in the next six years.
"We're racing toward unprecedented catastrophe," Mr. Perry warns. "This
is preventable, but we're not doing the things that could prevent it."
That is what I find baffling: an utter failure of the political process.
The Bush administration responded aggressively on military fronts after
9/11, and in November 2003, Mr. Bush observed, "The greatest threat of
our age is nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of
terrorists, and the dictators who aid them." But the White House has
insisted on tackling the most peripheral elements of the W.M.D. threat,
like Iraq, while largely ignoring the central threat, nuclear
proliferation. The upshot is that the risk that a nuclear explosion will
devastate an American city is greater now than it was during the cold
war, and it's growing.
In my next column, I'll explain how we can reduce the risk of an
American Hiroshima.
--
copyright
2004 The New York Times
to the source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/opinion/11kris.html?th
NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107,
this material is distributed without profit to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this
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52 [EMMAS] Hiroshima Cover-up
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 23:37:27 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0810-01.htm
Published on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department's Timesman Won a Pulitzer
by Amy Goodman and David Goodman
Governments lie.
-- I. F. Stone, Journalist
At the dawn of the nuclear age, an independent Australian journalist named
Wilfred Burchett traveled to Japan to cover the aftermath of the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima. The only problem was that General Douglas MacArthur had declared
southern Japan off-limits, barring the press. Over 200,000 people died in the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but no Western journalist witnessed
the aftermath and told the story. The world's media obediently crowded onto the
USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the surrender of the Japanese.
Wilfred Burchett decided to strike out on his own. He was determined to see for
himself what this nuclear bomb had done, to understand what this vaunted new
weapon was all about. So he boarded a train and traveled for thirty hours to
the city of Hiroshima in defiance of General MacArthur's orders.
Burchett emerged from the train into a nightmare world. The devastation that
confronted him was unlike any he had ever seen during the war. The city of
Hiroshima, with a population of 350,000, had been razed. Multistory buildings
were reduced to charred posts. He saw people's shadows seared into walls and
sidewalks. He met people with their skin melting off. In the hospital, he saw
patients with purple skin hemorrhages, gangrene, fever, and rapid hair loss.
Burchett was among the first to witness and describe radiation sickness.
Burchett sat down on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His
dispatch began: "In Hiroshima, thirty days after the first atomic bomb
destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously
and horribly-people who were uninjured in the cataclysm from an unknown
something which I can only describe as the atomic plague."
He continued, tapping out the words that still haunt to this day: "Hiroshima
does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller has
passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as
dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the
world."
Burchett's article, headlined THE ATOMIC PLAGUE, was published on September 5,
1945, in the London Daily Express. The story caused a worldwide sensation.
Burchett's candid reaction to the horror shocked readers. "In this first
testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening
desolation in four years of war. It makes a blitzed Pacific island seem like an
Eden. The damage is far greater than photographs can show.
"When you arrive in Hiroshima you can look around for twenty-five and perhaps
thirty square miles. You can see hardly a building. It gives you an empty
feeling in the stomach to see such man-made destruction."
Burchett's searing independent reportage was a public relations fiasco for the
U.S. military. General MacArthur had gone to pains to restrict journalists'
access to the bombed cities, and his military censors were sanitizing and even
killing dispatches that described the horror. The official narrative of the
atomic bombings downplayed civilian casualties and categorically dismissed
reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation. Reporters whose
dispatches convicted with this version of events found themselves silenced:
George Weller of the Chicago Daily News slipped into Nagasaki and wrote a
25,000-word story on the nightmare that he found there. Then he made a crucial
error: He submitted the piece to military censors. His newspaper never even
received his story. As Weller later summarized his experience with MacArthur's
censors, "They won."
U.S. authorities responded in time-honored fashion to Burchett's revelations:
They attacked the messenger. General MacArthur ordered him expelled from Japan
(the order was later rescinded), and his camera with photos of Hiroshima
mysteriously vanished while he was in the hospital. U.S. officials accused
Burchett of being influenced by Japanese propaganda. They scoffed at the notion
of an atomic sickness. The U.S. military issued a press release right after the
Hiroshima bombing that downplayed human casualties, instead emphasizing that
the bombed area was the site of valuable industrial and military targets.
Four days after Burchett's story splashed across front pages around the world,
Major General Leslie R. Groves, director of the atomic bomb project, invited a
select group of thirty reporters to New Mexico. Foremost among this group was
William L. Laurence, the Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for The New
York Times. Groves took the reporters to the site of the first atomic test. His
intent was to demonstrate that no atomic radiation lingered at the site. Groves
trusted Laurence to convey the military's line; the general was not
disappointed.
Laurence's front-page story, U.S. ATOM BOMB SITE BELIES TOKYO TALES: TESTS ON
NEW MEXICO RANGE CONFIRM THAT BLAST, AND NOT RADIATION, TOOK TOLL, ran on
September 12, 1945, following a three-day delay to clear military
censors. "This historic ground in New Mexico, scene of the first atomic
explosion on earth and cradle of a new era in civilization, gave the most
effective answer today to Japanese propaganda that radiations [sic] were
responsible for deaths even after the day of the explosion, Aug. 6, and that
persons entering Hiroshima had contracted mysterious maladies due to persistent
radioactivity," the article began.3 Laurence said unapologetically that the
Army tour was intended "to give the lie to these claims."
Laurence quoted General Groves: "The Japanese claim that people died from
radiation. If this is true, the number was very small."
Laurence then went on to offer his own remarkable editorial on what
happened: "The Japanese are still continuing their propaganda aimed at creating
the impression that we won the war unfairly, and thus attempting to create
sympathy for themselves and milder terms . . . Thus, at the beginning, the
Japanese described 'symptoms' that did not ring true."
But Laurence knew better. He had observed the first atomic bomb test on July
16, 1945, and he withheld what he knew about radioactive fallout across the
southwestern desert that poisoned local residents and livestock. He kept mum
about the spiking Geiger counters all around the test site.
William L. Laurence went on to write a series of ten articles for the Times
that served as a glowing tribute to the ingenuity and technical achievements of
the nuclear program. Throughout these and other reports, he downplayed and
denied the human impact of the bombing. Laurence won the Pulitzer Prize for his
reporting.
It turns out that William L. Laurence was not only receiving a salary from The
New York Times. He was also on the payroll of the War Department. In March
1945, General Leslie Groves had held a secret meeting at The New York Times
with Laurence to offer him a job writing press releases for the Manhattan
Project, the U.S. program to develop atomic weapons. The intent, according to
the Times, was "to explain the intricacies of the atomic bomb's operating
principles in laymen's language." Laurence also helped write statements on the
bomb for President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
Laurence eagerly accepted the offer, "his scientific curiosity and patriotic
zeal perhaps blinding him to the notion that he was at the same time
compromising his journalistic independence," as essayist Harold Evans wrote in
a history of war reporting. Evans recounted: "After the bombing, the brilliant
but bullying Groves continually suppressed or distorted the effects of
radiation. He dismissed reports of Japanese deaths as 'hoax or propaganda.' The
Times' Laurence weighed in, too, after Burchett's reports, and parroted the
government line." Indeed, numerous press releases issued by the military after
the Hiroshima bombing-which in the absence of eyewitness accounts were often
reproduced verbatim by U.S. newspapers-were written by none other than
Laurence.
"Mine has been the honor, unique in the history of journalism, of preparing the
War Department's official press release for worldwide distribution," boasted
Laurence in his memoirs, Dawn Over Zero. "No greater honor could have come to
any newspaperman, or anyone else for that matter."
"Atomic Bill" Laurence revered atomic weapons. He had been crusading for an
American nuclear program in articles as far back as 1929. His dual status as
government agent and reporter earned him an unprecedented level of access to
American military officials-he even flew in the squadron of planes that dropped
the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. His reports on the atomic bomb and its use had a
hagiographic tone, laced with descriptions that conveyed almost religious awe.
In Laurence's article about the bombing of Nagasaki (it was withheld by
military censors until a month after the bombing), he described the detonation
over Nagasaki that incinerated 100,000 people. Laurence waxed: "Awe-struck, we
watched it shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from
outer space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed skyward through the white
clouds. . . . It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before
our incredulous eyes."
Laurence later recounted his impressions of the atomic bomb: "Being close to it
and watching it as it was being fashioned into a living thing, so exquisitely
shaped that any sculptor would be proud to have created it, one . . . felt
oneself in the presence of the supranatural."
Laurence was good at keeping his master's secrets-from suppressing the reports
of deadly radioactivity in New Mexico to denying them in Japan. The Times was
also good at keeping secrets, only revealing Laurence's dual status as
government spokesman and reporter on August 7, the day after the Hiroshima
bombing-and four months after Laurence began working for the Pentagon. As
Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell wrote in their excellent book Hiroshima in
America: Fifty Years of Denial, "Here was the nation's leading science
reporter, severely compromised, not only unable but disinclined to reveal all
he knew about the potential hazards of the most important scientific discovery
of his time."
Radiation: Now You See It, Now You Don't
A curious twist to this story concerns another New York Times journalist who
reported on Hiroshima; his name, believe it or not, was William Lawrence (his
byline was W.H. Lawrence). He has long been confused with William L. Laurence.
(Even Wilfred Burchett confuses the two men in his memoirs and his 1983 book,
Shadows of Hiroshima.) Unlike the War Department's Pulitzer Prize winner, W.H.
Lawrence visited and reported on Hiroshima on the same day as Burchett.
(William L. Laurence, after flying in the squadron of planes that bombed
Nagasaki, was subsequently called back to the United States by the Times and
did not visit the bombed cities.)
W.H. Lawrence's original dispatch from Hiroshima was published on September 5,
1945. He reported matter-of-factly about the deadly effects of radiation, and
wrote that Japanese doctors worried that "all who had been in Hiroshima that
day would die as a result of the bomb's lingering effects." He described
how "persons who had been only slightly injured on the day of the blast lost 86
percent of their white blood corpuscles, developed temperatures of 104 degrees
Fahrenheit, their hair began to drop out, they lost their appetites, vomited
blood and finally died."
Oddly enough, W.H. Lawrence contradicted himself one week later in an article
headlined NO RADIOACTIVITY IN HIROSHIMA RUIN. For this article, the Pentagon's
spin machine had swung into high gear in response to Burchett's horrifying
account of "atomic plague." W.H. Lawrence reported that Brigadier General T. F.
Farrell, chief of the War Department's atomic bomb mission to
Hiroshima, "denied categorically that [the bomb] produced a dangerous,
lingering radioactivity." Lawrence's dispatch quotes only Farrell; the reporter
never mentions his eyewitness account of people dying from radiation sickness
that he wrote the previous week.
The conflicting accounts of Wilfred Burchett and William L. Laurence might be
ancient history were it not for a modern twist. On October 23, 2003, The New
York Times published an article about a controversy over a Pulitzer Prize
awarded in 1932 to Times reporter Walter Duranty. A former correspondent in the
Soviet Union, Duranty had denied the existence of a famine that had killed
millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933. The Pulitzer Board had launched two
inquiries to consider stripping Duranty of his prize. The Times "regretted the
lapses" of its reporter and had published a signed editorial saying that
Duranty's work was "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."
Current Times executive editor Bill Keller decried Duranty's "credulous,
uncritical parroting of propaganda."
On November 21, 2003, the Pulitzer Board decided against rescinding Duranty's
award, concluding that there was "no clear and convincing evidence of
deliberate deception" in the articles that won the prize.
As an apologist for Joseph Stalin, Duranty is easy pickings. What about
the "deliberate deception" of William L. Laurence in denying the lethal effects
of radioactivity? And what of the fact that the Pulitzer Board knowingly
awarded the top journalism prize to the Pentagon's paid publicist, who denied
the suffering of millions of Japanese? Do the Pulitzer Board and the Times
approve of "uncritical parroting of propaganda"-as long as it is from the
United States?
It is long overdue that the prize for Hiroshima's apologist be stripped.
Amy Goodman is host of the national radio and TV show "Democracy Now!." This is
an excerpt from her new national bestselling book The Exception to the Rulers:
Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them,
written with her brother journalist David, exposes the reporting of Times
correspondent William L. Laurence
#################################################################
" Social and economic well-being will become a reality only through the
zeal, courage, the non-compromising determination of intelligent
minorities, and not through the mass." Emma Goldman
To SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE to the emmasdance list send email to
with the message subscribe/unsubscribe emmasdance. [No subject is
needed.]
"If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution." Emma Goldman
#################################################################
*****************************************************************
53 Mos News: Japan Angered At Russia’s Nuke Tests -
- MOSNEWS.COM
Created: 11.08.2004 17:01 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:06 MSK
MosNews
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki mayors expressed anger Wednesday over
Russia’s reported sub-critical nuclear tests, Japan’s Kyodo news
agency reported.
“I feel strong anger,” the news agency quoted Hiroshima Mayor
Tadatoshi Akiba in a written message to Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
“If the report is true, it will betray the wish of atomic bomb
victims and others around the world hoping for the elimination of
nuclear weapons.”
Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito said in another released comment, “It
seems Russia is showing off its possession of nuclear weapons and
this tramples down the wish for termination of nuclear arms of
Nagasaki citizens as well as people around the world.”
Russia has conducted a series of “sub-critical” nuclear tests
this year at its Arctic testing ground Novoya Zemlya, the
country’s Chief of Atomic Energy agency had said Monday.
“Such experiments are conducted every year to verify the
integrity of nuclear warheads,” Chief of Atomic Energy Agency
Alexander Rumyantsev was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.
Under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) allows
five recognized members of the nuclear club to conduct
’sub-critical’ tests from time to time to verify their nuclear
arsenals and virtually develop new generations of the deadly
weapons.
The United States has not ratified the treaty, and India,
Pakistan and Israel, unlike Russia, have refused to sign it.
Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com]
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
Designed by kB "Gazeta.Ru" [http://design.gazeta.ru/]
*****************************************************************
54 Risk-Based proposal for Piketon from Vina and Elisa
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:05 -0700
This relates to the DOE's Risk-Based end state (RBES) proposal at the
Portsmouth facility at Piketon, Ohio and 17 similar sites - proposals that
would reduce cleanup costs by renegotiating requirements for the level of
clean up of the legacy of radioactive contamination left behind at former
uranium enrichment plants. "Realistic Cleanup Criteria" does not include
returning the land to the condition that they found it.
The RBES draft that I read for the existing Piketon facility proposed
changing the level of clean up, renegotiating site boundaries, excluded
streams that run past contaminated landfills as they travel off site, and
allowed self-imposed maximum contaminant level standards on site to be
adjusted based on their ability to meet those standards.
There is a website that follows if you would like to review the report this
was taken from:
"DOE is pursuing an ccelerated, risk-based cleanup strategy at the plants
that it believes
will reduce cleanup costs. According to DOE officials, an accelerated,
risk-based strategy will accelerate time frames for cleanup, and
establish "realistic cleanup criteria" in DOE's regulatory cleanup
agreements.Despite DOE efforts to reduce costs, we found that based on
current projected costs and revenues, the Fund will be insufficient to
cover the cleanup activities at the three plants. Specifically, our
Baseline model demonstrated that by 2044, the most likely time frame for
completing cleanup of the plants, costs will have exceeded revenues by
$3.5 billion to $5.7 billion (in 2004 dollars). Importantly, we also
found that the Fund would be insufficient irrespective of which model we
used, including models that estimated the final decommissioning at the
plants under (1) accelerated time frames, (2) deferred time frames, or
(3) baseline time frames, and with additional revenues from federal
government contributions as authorized under current law."
Judging from the current situation, it makes sense to me that there should
be a requirement to secure a clean-up fund in advance on behalf of
Piketon/Portsmouth and surrounding communities as part of any NRC
consideration for licensing USEC's proposed uranium enrichment facility,
American Centrifuge.
The date for the NRC's next public meeting has not been set yet, but is
expected to be at the end of the summer. There will be opportunity for
public comment. You can go to the NRC website to request notification of
future meetings: http://www.nrc.gov/
To request notification for future Bechtel Jacobs/DOE meetings (responsible
for cleanup of the Piketon facility on cold standby) contact Sandra
Childers at: y84@bechteljacobs.org
The second, updated draft of the US DOE's RBES document can be requested
from Sandra, or viewed on line at:
http://www.bechteljacobs.com/ports_reports.shtml
(Deadline for written public comment is September 1, 2004)
Elisa
GAO-04-692
July 2, 2004
Summary
Decontaminating and decommissioning the nation's uranium enrichment
plants, which are contaminated with hazardous materials, will cost
billions of dollars and could span decades. In 1992, the Energy Policy
Act created the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning
Fund (Fund) to pay for the plants' cleanup and to reimburse licensees of
active uranium and thorium processing sites for part of their cleanup
costs. This report discusses (1) what DOE has done to reduce the cleanup
costs authorized by the Fund, and (2) the extent to which the Fund is
sufficient to cover authorized activities.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has taken steps to reduce cleanup costs
by taking actions that address recommendations made by the National
Academy of Sciences and by pursuing an accelerated, risk-based cleanup
strategy at the plants. In some cases, however, DOE has only partially
addressed the Academy's recommendations. For example, one recommendation
suggested that DOE develop three plans--namely, headquarters level,
plant-complex level, and site level--that address and integrate the
decontamination and decommissioning of the facilities. Only one plant
has developed a plan, however. Additionally, DOE is pursuing an
accelerated, risk-based cleanup strategy at the plants that it believes
will reduce cleanup costs. According to DOE officials, an accelerated,
risk-based strategy will accelerate time frames for cleanup, and
establish "realistic cleanup criteria" in DOE's regulatory cleanup
agreements. Despite DOE efforts to reduce costs, we found that based on
current projected costs and revenues, the Fund will be insufficient to
cover the cleanup activities at the three plants. Specifically, our
Baseline model demonstrated that by 2044, the most likely time frame for
completing cleanup of the plants, costs will have exceeded revenues by
$3.5 billion to $5.7 billion (in 2004 dollars). Importantly, we also
found that the Fund would be insufficient irrespective of which model we
used, including models that estimated the final decommissioning at the
plants under (1) accelerated time frames, (2) deferred time frames, or
(3) baseline time frames, and with additional revenues from federal
government contributions as authorized under current law. Because the
Paducah and Portsmouth plants are now estimated to cease operations by
2010 and 2006, respectively, extending the Fund by an additional 3 years
would give DOE an opportunity to develop plans, including more precise
cost estimates, for the cleanup of these plants and to better determine
if further Fund extensions will be necessary.
to download the entire report, go to
http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-04-692
and click on the report number
*****************************************************************
55 DOE: Office of Nonproliferation Policy; Proposed Subsequent
FR Doc 04-18366
[Federal Register: August 11, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 154)]
[Notices] [Page 48851] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr11au04-53]
Arrangement AGENCY: Department of Energy.
ACTION: Subsequent arrangement.
SUMMARY: This notice has been issued under the authority of
Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (42
U.S.C. 2160). The Department is providing notice of a proposed
``subsequent arrangement'' under the Agreement for Cooperation
Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy between the United States
and Canada and Agreement for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of
Nuclear Energy between the United States and the European Atomic
Energy Community (EURATOM).
This subsequent arrangement concerns the retransfer of 147,929 kg
of U.S.-origin natural uranium hexafluoride, 100,000 kg of which
is uranium, from Cameco Corporation, Port Hope, Ontario, Canada,
to Eurodif SA, Velizy France. The material, which is now located
at Cameco Corp., Port Hope, Ontario, will be transferred to
Eurodif for enrichment. Upon completion of the enrichment, the
material will be used at Electricite de France, Delegation aux
Combustibles as reactor fuel. Cameco Corp. originally obtained
the uranium hexafluoride under Export License Number XSOU-8744.
In accordance with Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954,
as amended, we have determined that this subsequent arrangement
is not inimical to the common defense and security.
This subsequent arrangement will take effect no sooner than
August 26, 2004.
Dated: August 5, 2004.
For the Department of Energy.
Kurt Siemon, Acting Director, Office of Nonproliferation Policy.
[FR Doc. 04-18366 Filed 8-10-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
*****************************************************************
56 Albuquerque Tribune: Report: Labs lack disaster plan
[http://www.abqtrib.com]
By [mkelly@abqtrib.com] Tribune Reporter
A second damaging report in as many days has been issued against
Department of Energy nuclear labs.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and
three other labs were faulted by the department's inspector
general for not having adequate continuity planning to keep
operations going in the event of an emergency or a disaster.
The report says the directive to develop plans was issued in
1998 to ensure the entire DOE lab system would continue to
function in the event of serious accidents, technical failure,
attacks or other emergencies.
The inspector general examined five labs. None met all of the
six prime elements - Los Alamos met three and Sandia met only
one, the report said.
None of the labs had identified essential functions that would
have to be maintained and none had practiced a continuity plan.
The report pointed to the example of the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire
which burned onto Los Alamos Lab property: Employees had to enter
a fire zone to continue operations of a radioactive waste
treatment facility. After the fire, the report said, a plan was
developed for the shutdown or continued safe operation of the
plant in an emergency.
Sandia fared worst among the five labs. In addition to the two
functions all the labs failed to have, Sandia also had no
relocation plan, lacked protection for vital records and
databases, and had no succession orders for key positions, the
report said.
The inspector general said lab management at all facilities
generally concurred with the report's findings. The report
faulted in part the department itself for not providing clear
guidelines for developing the procedures. The report recommended
a comprehensive program to address the weaknesses it identified.
[http://www.abqtrib.com/print/index.cfm]
© The Albuquerque Tribune.
*****************************************************************
57 Seattle Times: Hanford reactor nearing its final end
Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
By The Associated Press
RICHLAND — Workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation have begun
draining sodium from the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), a
one-of-a-kind reactor that local groups had been hoping to save
from demolition so it could be restarted.
"This is just another step in the deactivation process we've been
engaged in for some time," said Colleen Clark, spokeswoman for
the U.S. Department of Energy's Richland Operations office. "The
focus is on doing it safely and on schedule."
The FFTF was built to test advanced nuclear fuels. It operated
from 1982 until 1992 and was used for research, to produce
medical and industrial isotopes, and to make tritium.
The Energy Department ordered the facility shut down permanently
in 1993, unable to justify the $100 million operating budget. The
department later agreed to try to find another use for it.
In January 2001, the Clinton administration ordered FFTF shut
down for good. When the Bush administration took office, it also
tried and failed to come up with a mission for the reactor and,
in December 2001, ordered FFTF decommissioned.
With the focus at Hanford on cleaning up decades of waste left
from plutonium production for the nation's nuclear-weapons
arsenal, watchdog groups had opposed any new activities that
might produce waste at the site.
Proponents of saving the reactor had pushed for its
commercialization for a number of activities, including the
production of medical isotopes.
One company, Mirari Medical, had proposed buying the reactor, but
the Energy Department turned down the latest proposal Friday,
said John Deichman, Mirari Medical chief executive.
By late afternoon Monday, 15,000 of the 150,000 gallons of liquid
sodium in the reactor's primary cooling loops had been drained.
Earlier this year, the secondary cooling loops were drained.
Once the sodium is drained, restarting the reactor would be
prohibitively expensive.
"The sodium drain has given us no option to go forward," said
Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver, who had fought for a
restart.
A Monday night meeting that drew 70 supporters of restarting the
reactor was gloomy.
"This is the most advanced, most safe, most efficient and, in my
opinion, most beautiful nuclear reactor in the world," said Wanda
Munn, a retired engineer who spent nearly 20 years working at
FFTF. "This is a tragedy."
The Energy Department has requested bid proposals from small
businesses for the estimated $500 million cleanup and closure of
the reactor. The agency also will be seeking public comment on
whether the reactor should be left standing or torn down and what
should happen to its waste.
The sodium being drained from the reactor is being stored as a
solid in steel canisters at the site. The Energy Department plans
to have it processed into a caustic substance that can be reused
in turning other Hanford waste into glass for permanent disposal.
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
58 AP Wire: Los Alamos Lab Has Documentation Troubles
| 08/11/2004 |
[http://www.sanluisobispo.com
Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Los Alamos National Laboratory has failed to
properly keep track of several computers that handle classified
information, an Energy Department report says.
The department's Inspector General's Office, in a follow-up to a
2003 preliminary report, identified continuing problems that
"undermine confidence" in the ability of Los Alamos to ensure
classified computers are properly managed and "safeguarded from
loss or theft."
The latest report, issued Tuesday, said eight classified desktop
computers were not listed in the property management system and
three were not assigned property numbers or added to the system.
It also said the lab's Office of Security Inquiries was not told
about a missing computer processing unit used in classified
operations. The processing unit was scheduled to be destroyed,
but there was no record of its destruction.
The Inspector General's Office also cited a list of classified
desktop and laptop computers that didn't match actual classified
equipment. Inspectors checked 14 of 65 laptop computers and found
two with property numbers that didn't match paperwork as well as
a laptop that didn't belong on the list.
Concerns over security and safety at the nuclear weapons lab came
to a head in July, after two computer disks containing classified
information were reported missing. Almost all work at the lab was
shut down, 23 employees have been suspended and the future of the
61-year-old facility has been cast in doubt.
The DOE investigation was performed before problems with the
missing disks surfaced. It recommended Los Alamos improve its
property management system, properly report missing classified
materials and investigate incidents, maintain an accurate central
listing of classified computers and verify that property numbers
match numbers on paperwork.
Lab spokesman Kevin Roark said Los Alamos has developed a plan
for addressing "accounting discrepancies" identified in the
report.
"The problem brought forward by the IG report we consider ...
well on its way to a solution," Roark said.
The latest report raises concerns about the effectiveness of
security changes the lab is focusing on, said Pete Stockton, a
senior investigator for the Washington, D.C.-based Project on
Government Oversight, a watchdog group.
The report shows Los Alamos is not serious about fixing problems,
he said.
"It's unbelievable," Stockton said. "When you've got classified
computers, you really need to keep track of those suckers."
*****************************************************************
59 toledoblade.com: Fermi II shut down to fix diesel generator
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
By TOM HENRY [thenry@theblade.com] BLADE STAFF WRITER
Fermi II on Monday became the second area nuclear plant to be
shut down for unexpected repairs in the past week.
Detroit Edison Co. had to shut down Fermi II in northern Monroe
County because repairs to one of four emergency diesel generators
could not be completed within seven days.
On Aug. 4, FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse nuclear plant in
Ottawa County shut down automatically because of a bad fuse.
Davis-Besse was restarting Sunday night about the same time
operators at Fermi II had started taking that plant out of
service.
By Monday night, Davis-Besse was back at full power and the
temporary shutdown of Fermi II had been completed.
Fermi II had a 334-day run of continuous operation, the
second-longest in the plant's history, until Friday. That's when
Detroit Edison found an air-intake problem in a blower of one of
the diesels that was taken out of service Aug. 2 for routine
maintenance.
So it made plans to shut down the plant Sunday night, John
Austerberry, utility spokesman, said.
Diesels at nuclear plants provide electricity to keep safety
systems operable when a plant loses power or shuts down, as Fermi
II and other nuclear and coal-fired plants did during last
August's blackout.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows one diesel generator to
be taken out of service at a time when Fermi II operates, but
only for seven days. The utility would have had to complete the
fix on a problematic air intake blower by 2 a.m. Monday to avoid
the mandatory shutdown.
The utility hopes to finish the job and have Fermi II back in
service within a few days.
Yesterday, several groups that together call themselves the
Nuclear Security Coalition formally petitioned the NRC to
question the vulnerability of 32 nuclear plants in 15 states that
have boiling-water reactors, including Fermi II.
The coalition claims the radioactive spent fuel pools in plants
with Mark I and Mark II containment designs are above
ground, making them more vulnerable to a terrorist attack by air.
The groups are calling for spent fuel to be removed from pools,
drained, and put into dry storage casks. Detroit Edison declines
as a matter of policy to discuss its plant design because of
security concerns, Mr. Austerberry said. A senior utility
official told the Monroe County Chamber of Commerce in 2002 that
some of Fermi II's spent fuel would likely be moved into dry
storage vaults within a decade to ensure the long-term viability
of the plant.
Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.
© 2004 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N.
Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
60 U.S. Newswire: DOE Completes First Global Threat Reduction
Initiative Shipment Returning Nuclear Fuel to the United States;
New Program Will Be Vital to Nonproliferation Efforts Worldwide,
Abraham Says
8/11/2004 12:30:00 PM
To: National Desk, Energy Reporter
Contact: Jeanne Lopatto of U.S. Department of Energy,
202-586-4940; or Bryan Wilkes of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, 202-586-7371
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In another step in the
Bush administration's efforts under the Department of Energy's
(DOE) new Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), a shipment
of spent nuclear fuel from three research reactors in Germany was
completed on August 5.
The shipment, the first such shipment since the establishment of
the GTRI, contained 126 spent nuclear fuel assemblies of U.S.
origin composed of highly-enriched and low-enriched uranium and
took place in the framework of the existing Foreign Research
Reactor (FRR) Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Acceptance Program. This
program, which supports the return of U.S.-origin spent nuclear
fuel from foreign research reactors to the United States, was
integrated as a key element into the new GTRI.
One of the key missions of the GTRI program is to convert
reactors worldwide to low-enriched uranium nuclear fuel. The
assemblies are stored at DOE's interim management site, the
Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, until final
disposition arrangements are made.
"By accepting this material, particularly highly-enriched uranium
that could be used in nuclear weapons if it falls into the hands
of terrorist groups, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative plays
a key role in removing this material from international civilian
commerce," Secretary Abraham said. "This program is vital to our
nonproliferation efforts worldwide and I welcome the support of
these efforts by Germany, a close partner of the U.S. in the
effort to address the threat of proliferation. It also encourages
conversion of reactors from HEU fuels to low- enriched uranium
fuel by accepting fuel from reactors that convert to LEU."
The Global Threat Reduction Initiative, announced by Secretary
Abraham in May, supports the Bush Administration's goal of
identifying, securing and disposing of nuclear and radioactive
materials and equipment around the world that may pose a threat
to the United States and its allies.
In the 1950's under the Atoms for Peace program, the U.S.
provided reactor fuel to further other countries' research into
peaceful uses of atomic energy, with the provision that the
resulting spent fuel would be returned to the U.S. Recovering the
fuel is now a major nonproliferation effort of the National
Nuclear Security Administration, the semi-autonomous agency of
the DOE that administers GTRI.
http://www.usnewswire.com/ [http://www.usnewswire.com/]
/© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
*****************************************************************
61 Rocky Mountain News: There's no pay in Colorado's dirt
Mining executives score state's policies, potential at low end
By Gargi Chakrabarty, Rocky Mountain News
August 11, 2004
A combination of poor geology and strict government regulations
makes Colorado an unattractive destination for new mining
dollars.
This was underscored in a recent survey of executives by the
Fraser Institute of Canada, in which Colorado ranked 49th among
53 areas for investment in exploration and development of new
mines.
Chile was No. 1, followed by Nevada.
"If Colorado ranks low on the survey, it means that mining
executives are putting their money elsewhere and creating jobs
and prosperity elsewhere," said Fred McMahon, director of the
center for trade and globalization studies at the Fraser
Institute.
"A low score means that mining executives prefer to leave
minerals in the ground rather than spend money on mining them at
a particular place," McMahon said. "They don't want to worry
about a jurisdiction that they can't depend on."
To arrive at the overall investment attractiveness, the survey
ranked the areas in two categories:
• Their mineral potential, which measured their mineral
resources based on geology. Colorado ranked 43rd in this
category.
• Their policy potential, which measured the effects of
government policies such as land use and permits in attracting
investment. Colorado ranked 46th in this category.
In previous years, Colorado had ranked slightly higher. In the
2001 survey, it stood 38th among 45, and in 2002, it ranked 32nd
among 47.
Colorado reflects a national trend of declining exploration
investment.
About $2.3 billion was spent worldwide on mineral exploration in
2003. The U.S. captured 7 percent of the total - down from 10
percent in 2000, the National Mining Association reports.
Stuart Sanderson of the Colorado Mining Association acknowledges
that new investment appears to have fallen in Colorado but says
much of it is because of misperceptions by the mining community.
Those grew after the government established strict environmental
controls in the wake of the Summitville mining disaster in the
early 1990s.
Galactic Resources Ltd., a Canadian gold mining company, had
started operations in 1984 at the site in the San Luis Valley.
Nine years later, its mining led to a huge environmental
disaster. Federal agencies had to rush emergency teams to the
site, where an earthen dam was holding back huge amounts of
cyanide- laced water.
Vegetation at the site had been killed by sulfuric acid, a
byproduct of the operation. And cyanide had leaked into
tributaries of the Alamosa River, killing fish in most of the
river.
Five counties have banned the use of cyanide, a highly toxic
chemical used in gold and other metals mining. The industry has
challenged the ban in civil courts.
In addition, a moratorium on mining patents imposed by the
Clinton administration in 1995 stymied new investment. The
patents allowed mining companies to lease federal lands at $5
per acre if they proved they could develop a profitable mine on
the property.
The state's mining industry has some attributes that are still
attractive to mining companies.
Colorado's regulatory process - such as the issue of new mining
permits - is efficient and timely, Sanderson said. And the state
has unmined, rich deposits of high-quality molybdenum, uranium
and copper.
"Our experience at Cashin (in Montrose County) has been very
good. We have had good cooperation from federal and state
agencies to gain the permits to do drilling," said Gary
Parkison, vice president of Constellation Copper Corp., which
started a project in Cashin last year. "We really don't have any
issues at this point."
In fact, the value of non-fuel minerals stood at $702 million in
2003, up 11.6 percent from the previous year. The bulk of
production came from older mines.
Last year's new exploration projects include:
• Cashin Copper, Montrose County. Constellation Copper Corp.
conducted drilling in late 2003 in western Colorado near the
Utah border. The company expects to start commercial mining in
seven years.
The Cashin deposit is considered to be a satellite of the Lisbon
Valley deposit in Grand County, Utah.
• JD-9 Mine, Montrose County. A small amount of uranium ore was
mined last year. Cotter Corp. opened the mine and produced
roughly 3,000 tons of high-grade uranium ore. Cotter is
considering another uranium mine in the vicinity.
• Consolidated Caribou Project, Boulder County. Calais Resources
conducted exploration drilling in late 2003. Several previously
untested gold-bearing veins were encountered in the drilling,
the Colorado Geological Survey states.
A study by Calais Resources in 1998 indicated combined
re-sources of 1.4 million tons of ore containing 424,500 ounces
of gold and 11.7 million ounces of silver.
chakrabartyg@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2976
The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
62 lamonitor.com: Domenici backs lab
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
[http://www.lanl.gov/worldview]
[http://www.lac-nm.us]
ROGER SNODGRASS, [roger@lamonitor.com] , Monitor Assistant
Editor
After meeting with Los Alamos National Laboratory Direct G.
Peter Nanos and his top staff for about an hour on Monday, Sen.
Pete Domenici, R-N.M., gave a strong endorsement to the
laboratory in its current crisis and approved its plan for
resuming full operations.
"The last group will come in about two months from now,"
Domenici said, noting that some work had already resumed and
more would come back on line all along.
"We'll be back on the path, top of the heap and the best there
is," he said.
Speaking directly to employees Domenici expressed his confidence
that, "This is the preeminent lab in the United States. It was
and still is."
Domenici said, "I want every employee to take it upon themselves
to change the culture and to focus on restoring the reputation of
the lab as the best example of scientific research, and not the
weakest link in our security chain." He called on the workforce
to, "Get back on schedule and performance."
Nanos suspended all activities at the laboratory on July 16,
after the loss of two computer drives from the Weapons Physics
directorate and an intern was reported injured in a laser
accident. A few days later, Domenici wrote an open letter to the
community of Los Alamos, comparing the security incident to "the
straw that broke the camel's back," and saying, "It will take
years to re-establish Los Alamos' reputation."
During a recent visit to Los Alamos, UC Vice-President Robert S.
Foley told the press that there was plenty of blame to go around
for the state of the laboratory. He cited the generous treatment
of the laboratory by Domenici and the N.M congressional
delegation as having possibly fostered a spirit of complacency
among the employees.
"I haven't heard many people blame me for what's happened,"
Domenici said on Monday. "I don't think that it's my problem if
they (the laboratory employees) have been lax in those rules."
He did acknowledge a weakness in one area.
"Some people say Domenici is a sucker for big science," he said.
"And they may be right."
He was asked about the significance of the news that broke over
the weekend that Lockheed-Martin, manager of Sandia National
Laboratories, does not plan to bid on the LANL contract.
"The question is will we get good bidding and will they make good
partnerships as they bid," Domenici said,. "Even
(Lockheed-Martin) might reconsider. I'm more concerned about UC."
In response to LANL's problems, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.,
introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate to fire UC as LANL's
contract manager and proscribe them from bidding in the upcoming
competition, even as a subcontractor.
Certain that UC would bid, Domenici said, "His bill can't be
adopted by the U.S. Senate. It's too far-fetched. It's not going
to happen."
Nanos had no news to report on the continuing investigation and
disciplinary actions related to the security and safety
incidents, but said they are still on schedule to be wrapped up
by the end of the month.
He said he was upbeat.
"The vast majority of laboratory employees are getting he
message," he said.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
63 Texas City Sun: Nuke lab employees frustrated
[daniel.huron@texascitysun.com]
Texas City Sun
Published August 11, 2004
Joe Vytovak, Dolores McDonald and other former employees
of a Texas City Chemical lab involved in the extraction of
uranium for nuclear weapons are still waiting for what they say
is owed to them.
Vytovak’s attempts to receive compensation from the
United States Department of Labor’s Energy Employees Occupational
Illness Compensation Plan have, thus far, been denied.
In 1957, he was working at the Texas City lab — located
on property now owned by BP Petroleum — when he was diagnosed
with cancer.
There’s little doubt in his mind the radioactive
materials caused his illness, but under the legislation, only
those who worked at the facility during the production of such
materials and have been diagnosed with cancer qualify.
Officially, the Texas City Chemical lab stopped
production in 1956.
Vytovak contends uranium was still being gathered in
1957.
“The law has a problem. It was not written correctly,”
said Peter Tyler, a spokesman for U.S. Congressman Nick Lampson,
D-Beaumont. Lampson was involved in the compensation plan’s
passage in 2000.
The law doesn’t cover employees who worked past the
official operational days of the plant, Tyler said.
“Just because there wasn’t an operation, doesn’t mean
there was no exposure,” he said.
The legislation also doesn’t cover former employees’
families, he said.
McDonald’s husband Aubrey worked in the lab from 1956 to
1957 and died in 1985.
The plan allows family members to apply for compensation
on the deceased’s behalf.
McDonald applied in the program’s first year, but has yet
to receive notification of whether her claim has been approved.
An applicant first sends an application to the Department
of Labor’s district office in Denver.
Once employment and medical information has been
approved, the applicant’s information is sent to the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati.
At NIOSH, tests are preformed to determine the amount of
radiation the applicant could have received while employed.
The results of the NIOSH test are then sent back to the
district office, where a mathematical formula is used to
determine the probability of causation or likelihood cancer was
caused by working at a radioactive facility. The formula takes
into account the probability other forces besides radiation could
have caused the cancer.
If the probability is greater than 50 percent, the
applicant qualifies.
The numbers are not encouraging, said Kevin Peterson of
the U.S. Department of Labor.
Out of the 94 claims the Denver office has received
concerning former employees of the Texas City lab, 71 have been
denied, Peterson said. Nineteen cases have been referred to
NIOSH, he said. Eleven are currently pending.
Peterson said more than $12 million dollars in
compensation has been paid out to former employees of nuclear
facilities in Texas since the program’s inception.
Most of those who qualified were from the Panhandle, he
said.
Tyler said Lampson and others in Congress are working to
revise the plan to include employees who may have been exposed to
radioactive materials after a facility officially ceased
production.
Attempts are being made to bring NIOSH officials to Texas
City to meet the former lab employees and perform a thorough
inspection of the site, said Galveston County Precinct 3
Commissioner Stephen Holmes.
The majority of applicants who have qualified for
compensation worked at facilities that had received a total
evaluation, said Nick Simon of the Buzbee Law Firm in
Friendswood.
Those who are denied can either reapply or file for
compensation in federal court, Peterson said.
The plan was set up to avoid a slew of lawsuits, he said.
Daniel R. Huron is the community reporter for the Texas
City Sun. He can be reached at (409) 945-3441, ext. 36 or by
e-mail at daniel.huron@texascitysun.com.
Letters: Send your commentary to The Sun.
[newsroom@texascitysun.com] : Have a tip for our staff?
Subscribe: Get The Sun delivered to your door or mailbox.
© 2004 Texas City Sun. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
64 Tri-Valley Herald: Lab receives clean bill of health
8/11/2004
Fed agency says Lawrence Livermore poses 'no apparent public
health hazard'
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Living next to a nuclear-weapons lab that occasionally releases
hazardous chemicals to the groundwater, radioactive gas to the
air and bits of plutonium in water is not dangerous, according to
a federal toxics agency.
In the first study of all potential lab releases that is to be
presented this evening, the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry concluded that Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, a Superfund site, poses "no apparent public health
hazard" to its neighbors.
At least three members of a panel assembled to guide the agency's
health studies were drawing up resignations Tuesday, saying the
reports are scientifically flawed.
"They have come to conclusions that are not supported by the
available data and good science," said Marylia Kelley, executive
director of a Livermore-based watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs.
"They're doing actual harm to the community, because they're
saying no followup in necessary when, in many cases, it's
warranted."
Kelley and representatives of Physicians for Social
Responsibility and the Western States Legal Foundation followed
the studies since the mid-1990s, sometimes hiring scientists to
challenge the findings. The three groups are critical of
Livermore's weapons work and its environmental impacts.
Kelley says the agency could have recommended more stringent
handling practices at the lab's tritium facility, more frequent
changes of the air filters venting the plutonium facility or, as
one agency peer reviewer suggested, testing of urine or other
biological samples from local residents.
But health assessor Mark Evans, the geologist who headed the
studies, said his agency's policy is not to advise other federal
agencies how to do their job, especially when he has concluded
that none of the lab's releases were at levels shown to cause
cancer or other health problems.
The worst of those releases were two massive, accidental releases
in 1965 and 1970 of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen used
in nuclear
weapons and related research. Hundreds of thousands of curies
escaped, enough to illuminate 25,000 exit signs of old
tritium-fueled kind.
But calculations by Evans and his team showed that even if the
lab's neighbors were outside doing calisthenics at the time of
the releases and getting half their food from backyard gardens
exposed to the tritium, the average person would have received
radiation doses less than the agency's standard of 100 millirem
per year.
That's a little less than a third of the radiation that average
U.S. residents receive annually from natural and manmade sources,
such as chest X-rays. In the worst case, a person could have
received up to 140 millirem per year. A millirem is a measure of
radiation effects on biological tissue.
"If you breathe in tritium gas, you almost get no absorption,"
Evans said. "The truth is that tritium is a very poor source of
ionizing radiation."
Bert Hefner, a spokesman for the lab's environmental monitoring
programs, called the study scientifically sound and unprecedented
in its examination of multiple contaminants.
"This is the first time that it's all been brought together in a
complete and public assessment of the risks," he said. "The fact
they found none makes us feel good."
In decades past, Livermore lab sent wastewater containing
plutonium into the city's sewage plant, with the highest levels
in the 1960s. The city harvested dried sludges from its
wastewater and handled it as fertilizer, using it on its own tree
plantings and giving it away to residents.
City officials have maintained that no sludges were sent to its
Big Trees Park, but federal, state and lab sampling of the park's
soil in the 1990s showed specks of plutonium in multiple places,
including a baseball diamond close to a school.
The toxics agency concluded the municipal wastewater sludges, not
airborne releases directly from the lab, were the likely source.
Plutonium also has left the lab in minuscule amounts through
rainwater runoff.
If Livermore residents just outside the lab's fence used the
tainted sludges as fertilizer and had their children playing in
its dust at the same time one of the tritium clouds passed by,
Evans concluded that the cumulative dose would be about 75
millirem a year, less than his agency's 100 millirem standard.
Kelley challenges the use of the standard. It was adopted by the
International Committee on Radiation Protection. The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency uses 15 mrem per year threshold
for assessing health risk.
"What they did was they went shopping for the agency with the
highest allowable limit and used that," Kelley said. "It gives
people a false sense of security. The average citizen would not
know that if ATSDR had simply used the EPA's limit, there would
have been a potential exposure."
The three groups plan to resign so their involvement in the
studies is not misconstrued as an endorsement of the agency's
reports, Kelley said.
"We're at the point where we're feeling used," she said.
ATSDR sent a uniformed public-health officer to Livermore for its
environmental data in the early 1990s. Evans said the agency has
pored over hundreds of thousands of environmental test results
for soil, air and water.
The resignations won't have much impact, he said, because tonight
is the final meeting of the project.
"There's not much to resign from," he said. "I'm sure our
findings contradict their beliefs. They're kind of focusing on
the uncertainties, and you'll always have that."
Evans will present the report 7 p.m. at the rear of Fire Station
No. 6, 4550 East Livermore Ave.
Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
65 Daily Camera: Rocky Flats samples may be on hold
Mailing address: Broomfield Enterprise 1006 Depot Hill Road,
Suite G Broomfield, CO 80020
By Todd Neff, For the Enterprise August 11, 2004
A Rocky Flats cleanup oversight group might not take additional
soil samples from the former nuclear weapons plant site, saying
the process could be too expensive and repetitive.
The U.S. Department of Energy and its main clean-up contractor,
Kaiser-Hill Co., plan to complete the $7.2 billion clean-up
effort by December 2006. At that point, all but 1,000 acres of
the roughly 6,300-acre site will be turned over to the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service to create the Rocky Flats National Wildlife
Refuge.
A group of Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments members
began work Monday to determine how to best "validate what they
said they'll do, they will do," as former Broomfield City
Councilman Hank Stovall put it.
Led by representatives from the City and County of Broomfield,
the Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments is investigating
how to independently verify that the site meets agreed-upon
clean-up standards.
Independent verification has helped in the past. It led to a
drastic lowering of soil radioactivity clean-up thresholds across
the Rocky Flats site. Stovall, who leads the independent
verification committee, took part in the previous effort, as
well.
Over the years, government samples haven't shown much
contamination in Rocky Flats "buffer zones," but some have
questioned the results.
An early draft of the committee's independent verification plans
said additional "measurements and/or samples will be collected at
selected locations and analyzed to confirm the accuracy and
adequacy of the data presented in the documents and plans." But
representatives from local governments now agree that additional
sampling — a time-consuming and expensive process — would not be
merited unless a consultant hired by the coalition showed them to
be necessary.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment are regulating the
cleanup.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is making its own plans to make
sure the prospective wildlife refuge is clean.
The service expects to receive the results of tissue analyses
from about two dozen deer within the next couple of months, said
Andrew Todd, a contaminant biologist with the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
The deer had been culled to test for chronic wasting disease. But
the Fish and Wildlife Service has sent off the animals' remnants
to test for isotopes of plutonium, americium and uranium.
Todd also said the Fish and Wildlife Service is considering
taking soil samples on prospective trail routes as well as other
measures to ensure that "what we're taking isn't a lemon."
The Fish and Wildlife Service seeks to create up to 19 miles of
trails in the site's former buffer zone, although it has not
finalized plans for the future refuge.
[http://www.scripps.com] Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera
*****************************************************************
66 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 07:16:38 -0700 (PDT)
JAPAN Scrutinizes Nuclear Safety
Atlanta Journal Constitution (subscription) - Atlanta,GA,USA
TOKYO (AP)--The Japanese government deepened its investigation Wednesday
into a deadly nuclear power plant accident amid calls for an overhaul
of safety ...
See all stories on this topic:
PART of Iran nuclear story holds up, envoys say
Seattle Times - Seattle,WA,USA
... agency appear to strengthen Iran's claim it has not enriched uranium
domestically and weaken US arguments that the country is hiding a nuclear-weapons
program ...
See all stories on this topic:
IRAN Vows to Pursue Nuclear Technology Despite Sanctions Threat
Voice of America - Washington,DC,USA
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami says his country will not give up its
pursuit of peaceful nuclear technology, even if it faces sanctions from
the United ...
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US Settles Nuclear Case Over Burial Of Waste
New York Times - New York,NY,USA
... 10 - The federal government promised on Tuesday to pay at least $300
million in damages to the Exelon Corporation, for its failure to accept
nuclear waste for ...
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KERRY opposes nuclear waste site in Nevada
Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) - Minneapolis,MN,USA
John Kerry vowed Tuesday not to send nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain
and accused President Bush of breaking a similar promise he made four
years ago. ...
See all stories on this topic:
INFORMAL five-nation talks on DPRK nuclear issue helpful: Chinese ...
Xinhua - China
... Exchanges conducted in various forms and through different channels
help a great deal to solve sensitive regional and other issues such as
the nuclear issue of ...
See all stories on this topic:
HUNTING nuclear waste dumped in Moscow
International Herald Tribune - Paris,France
... Avram works beside a disquieting legacy of the early years of the nuclear
arms race, a large radioactive waste site inside a city of 11 million
people. ...
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GOVERNMENT And Majlis Unanimous On Nuclear Program: Majlis Speaker
Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran
TEHRAN (MNA) -– Majlis speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said here Tuesday
that the government and the Majlis share common views on the issue of
nuclear energy. ...
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N.KOREA Nuclear Talks Not Yet on Horizon -Seoul
Reuters - USA
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea on Wednesday saw no new round of working-level
talks on North Korea's nuclear crisis in sight, but said the six parties
involved ...
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JAPAN tries to restore faith in nuclear power industry
The Globe and Mail - Canada
Tokyo -- The Japanese government worked to shore up public confidence in
the nuclear power industry yesterday, a day after the country's deadliest
reactor ...
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67 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 15:38:09 -0700 (PDT)
JAPAN to strengthen inspection on nuclear plant operator
Xinhua - China
¡¡TOKYO, Aug. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
said Wednesday it will inspect Kansai Electric Power Co. ...
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US, Iran Spar Verbally Over Tehran's Nuclear Program
Radio Free Europe - Prague,Czech Republic
11 August 2004 --The United States is renewing accusations that Iran has
a secret nuclear weapons program, calling it a threat to stability when
combined with ...
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KERRY Vows to Scrap Nevada Nuclear Waste Repository
Environment News Service (subscription) - USA
LAS VEGAS, Nevada, August 11, 2004 (ENS) - The plan to bury much of the
nation's nuclear waste beneath Nevada's Yucca Mountain should be abandoned,
Democratic ...
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MAJLIS Forwards Draft Plan On Continuing Nuclear Program
Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran
TEHRAN (IRNA) -- A draft plan proposed by 238 MPs to continue the country’s
nuclear program was submitted to the Majlis Presiding Board on Wednesday.
...
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PAKISTAN for minimum nuclear deterrence: Musharraf
Hindustan Times - New Delhi,India
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said his country would
maintain a minimum nuclear deterrence and made it clear that the nuclear
programme was ...
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UKRAINE Approves New Nuclear Reactor
Voice of America - Washington,DC,USA
Ukraine has licensed a new controversial nuclear reactor on the country's
western border with Poland. The State Nuclear Regulatory ...
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FEDS Investigating Conn. Nuclear Engineer
Kansas City Star (subscription) - Kansas City,MO,USA
CROMWELL, Conn. - A Connecticut nuclear engineer said he's become enmeshed
in a federal terrorism probe - targeted for supporting a militant Islamic
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68 The Sunflower - August 2004 - Issue 87
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:37:19 -0500 (CDT)
The Sunflower is a monthly e-newsletter providing educational
information on nuclear weapons abolition and other issues relating to
global security.
Download the complete PDF Version
To receive our free monthly e-newsletter subscribe at
http://www.wagingpeace.org/subscribe/
* Perspectives
* Sadako and the Shakuhachi
by David Krieger
* International Ju-Jitsu: Using United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1540 to Advance Nuclear Disarmament
by Alyn Ware
* Take Action
* Sadako Peace Day
* National Events Commemorating the 59th Anniversary of
the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
* Books not Bombs Youth Convergence
* Nuclear Policy Research Institute Symposium on Nuclear
Power and Children's Health
* Proliferation
*
Senior Diplomat Identifies US Firm Among Nuclear Black Market
* Israel 's Nuclear Ambiguity
* More Back and Forth on Iran
* Nuclear Legacy
* Bockscar Pilot Passes Away
* Plutonium Cancer Risk May Be Higher Than Thought
* New DoE Sick Worker Resource Facility in Livermore
* Nuclear Laboratories
* Los Alamos National Laboratory Shuts Down.Again
* Non-Proliferation
* US Changes Position on FMCT
* Missiles and Missile Defense
* US and Israel Conduct Test of Joint Missile Defense
System
* US Expanding Missile Defense Alliance and Program
* Ukraine Missing Missiles
* Missile Defense at the Olympics
* Nuclear Energy and Waste
* Columbia Generating Station Emergency Shutdown
* Vermont Yankee Nuclear Reactor, Part Deux
* Russian Nuclear Facilities Burdened, Vulnerable and
Unpopular
* Federal Audit Finds Hanford Cleanup Not Working
* Nuclear Insanity
* Missing Nuclear Weapon Found?
* John Bolton: US Won't Be Fooled Again By North Korea
* Foundation News
* Foundation President Speaks in Europe
* Foundation Staff Member Returns from Libya
* Resources
* The Sovereignty Revolution by Alan Cranston
* Rebuilding Iraq : Resource, Security, Governance,
Essential Services and Oversight Issues
* Nuclear Nonproliferation: DOE Needs to Take Action to
Further Reduce the Use of Weapons-Usable Uranium in Civilian Research
Reactors
* A BASIC Guide to Missile Defense and Weaponization of
Space
* Middle East Educational Wall Poster - Second Edition
* Looking for a Demarcation Between Nuclear Transparency
and Nuclear Secrecy
* US Nuclear Policy After the Cold War
* Quotable
* Reverend Jesse Jackson
* Sam Nunn
* General Charles W. Sweeney
* John Kenneth Galbraith
* British Prime Minister Tony Blair
* Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani
* Staff Sergeant A.J. Dean
* US President George W. Bush
* Former US President Bill Clinton
* United Nations General Assembly
* Editorial Team
* Luke Brothers
* David Krieger
* Carah Ong
Perspectives
Sadako and the Shakuhachi | Top
by David Krieger
We remember Hiroshima not for the past, but for the future. We remember
Hiroshima so that its past will not become our future. Hiroshima is best
remembered with the plaintiff sounds of the bamboo flute, the
Shakuhachi. It conjures up the devastation, the destruction, the
encompassing emptiness of that day. The Shakuhachi reveals the tear in
the fabric of humanity that was ripped open by the bomb.
Nuclear weapons are not weapons at all. They are a symbol of an
imploding human spirit. They are a fire that consumes the crisp air of
decency. They are a crossroads where science joined hands with evil and
apathy. They are a triumph of academic certainty wrapped in the
convoluted lie of deterrence. They are Einstein's regret. They are many
things, but not weapons -- not instruments of war, but of genocide and
perhaps of omnicide.
Those who gather to retell and listen to the story of Hiroshima and of
Sadako are a community, a community committed to a human future. We may
not know one another, but we are a community. And we are part of a
greater community gathered throughout the world to commemorate this day,
seeking to turn Hiroshima to Hope.
If we succeed, Sadako of a thousand cranes will be remembered by new
generations. She will be remembered long after the names and spirits of
those who made and used the bomb will have faded into the haunting
sounds of the Shakuhachi.
International Ju-Jitsu: Using United Nations Security Council Resolution
1540 to Advance Nuclear Disarmament | Top
by Alyn Ware
Introduction: Ju-Jitsu and Resolution 1540
In the 16th Century Shirobei Akiyama, a Japanese man studying medicine
in China , noticed that in a heavy blizzard branches of most strong
trees broke while the elastic branches of the willow tree bent and
efficiently freed themselves from the snow. He thus developed a martial
art called Ju-Jitsu , which aims not to neutralize power with power but
rationally absorb an attack and convert that energy to the opponent's
own detriment.
On April 28, 2004 , the United Nations Security Council adopted
Resolution 1540
requiring
all States to take measures to prevent non-State actors from acquiring
or developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and to prevent
the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in
general.
Critics of the resolution fear that it provides a mandate for the
powerful countries that already possess nuclear weapons, particularly
the permanent members of the Security Council (P5), to impose pressure
or even use force to prevent other States and non-State actors to
acquire such weapons themselves (see United Nations Security Council
Unanimously Passes WMD Resolution
, The Sunflower, May 2004).
While there are definitely problems with the resolution, peace activists
would be well advised to adopt the Ju-Jitsu approach and utilize the
political momentum for action required by the UN resolution to move
their governments to strengthen the norms and controls not only against
the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, but also against
those possessed and deployed by the P5.
Thankfully, last minute changes in the resolution, made at the
insistence of non-P5 Security Council members, provide political
opportunities to do just this.
To read the full article, please visit:
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/07/00_ware_ju-jitsu.htm.
To view the entire Sunflower, visit:
http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/resrources/sunflower
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69 [du-list] DU in the news 10 and 11 Aug. 04
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:54:21 -0700
PROTECT yourself from the harmful effects of radiation or ...
PR Web (press release) - Ferndale,WA,USA
... who deal with nuclear medicine, power plant workers, Gulf War veterans
and military personnel who become exposed to depleted uranium, uranium
miners and ...
<http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/8/prweb148374.htm>
GULF war vaccine still a problem
Telegraph.co.uk - London,England,UK
... That has been attributed to a variety of causes including radioactive
dust from depleted uranium munitions, Iraqi chemical weapons, organophosphate
pesticides ...
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/11/ngulf11.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/11/ixportal.html>
ABC News Repeats Smuggling Stunt
American Daily - Stow,OH,USA
... ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross told viewers of "Primetime Thursday"
that he had slipped fifteen pounds of depleted uranium past government
screeners. ...
<http://www.americandaily.com/article/2750>
WAR Crimes Tribunal on Iraq The case against Bush
Workers World - USA
... Testimonies will describe the use of prohibited weapons, including
cluster bombs and depleted uranium. The tribunal will expose ...
<http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/tribunal0812.php>
SHOULD Pak Army help Qaraqosh rule? - By Aslam Effandi
Hi Pakistan - Lahore,Pakistan
... During the Gulf War, the US dropped 100,000 depleted uranium bombs
on Iraqi civilians; these bombs were equivalent to one atomic bomb. ...
<http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en70503&F_catID=&f_type=source>
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