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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 AFP: IAEA should close the file on Iran's nuclear programme - FM
2 AFP: US says China should remain host of six-party talks
3 Korea Herald: U.S.-N.K. nuclear standoff intensifies ahead of talks 
4 US: Campaign to Chart a New Course in US Nuclear Policy
5 US: Bush "Living In the Past" On Missile Defense
6 US: RGJ: Your turn: Anti-nuclear sentiment lacking in logic
7 US: Grist: Bush campaign tries to trash Kerry's environmental record
8 US: UPI/WT: People Should Have Been Fired - Insight on the News 
9 asahi.com: EDITORIAL:Black market of nukes 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
10 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
11 NZ Business Day: Ruiters to lead Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
12 Daily Yomiuri: Safety of N-plants in doubt 
13 Bellona: Two shutdowns of new reactor in Ukraine
14 US: Rutland Herald: NRC nixes hearing delay; state pushes for fed he
15 US: Rutland Herald: Giuliani: Don't whitewash danger
16 US: Rutland Herald: Yankee strike hinges on issue of health benefits
17 US: Rutland Herald: Yankee manager, employees try to avoid strike
18 US: Fairfield County Weekly: Nuclear Fusion 
19 US: Boston.com: Water in Tewksbury, Westford monitored
20 US: WATE: TVA's new nuclear chief "always looking for the problems"
21 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Union, Entergy reach tentative agreement a
22 US: Brattleboro Reformer: NRC denies extension for hearing
23 US: Lowell Sun: Private well owners in Westford told to test for che
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
24 [du-list] Impact on health by nanoparticles created by
25 [du-list] Government Cover-up on WTC Health Effects? --
26 US: [du-list] Vermont gubernatorial candidate seeks ban of DU
27 US: York Dispatch: TMI health effects: Scientist calls for long-term
28 US: Idaho Statesman: Speak up if you think nuclear testing in '50s a
29 US: SFBV: Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bulle
30 US: Scripps: Energy Department slow to handle worker illness claims
31 US: Elburn Herald: Nuclear device found at accident scene 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
32 DOE: and Interested Parties To Discuss the Processes Used To Develop
33 US: Platts: NRC dismisses three Utah contentions in PFS proceeding
34 LVN: Where will Kerry send nuclear waste?
35 US: The Dispatch: Company appeals clean-up order
36 US: Lowell Sun: Tewksbury water tests continuing
37 KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Experts come up with solutions for
38 Whitehaven News: NEW LIMITS CUT LEVELS OF RADIATION 
39 US: Lowell Sun: Tewksbury forum slated on chemical found in water
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
40 Guardian Unlimited: Sealed Documents on Ex-Nuke Plant Sought
41 DOE: Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee
42 Las Vegas SUN: Wen Ho Lee Reporters Held in Contempt
43 Las Vegas SUN: No Missing Data Found at National Lab
44 Las Vegas SUN: FBI Agent: Ex-Nuke Plant Unsafe for Refuge
45 Guardian Unlimited Audit: Plutonium Program Behind Schedule
46 Rocky Mountain News: Activists rap Flats plan, warn of danger
47 AP Wire: Cleanup at Gaseous Diffusion Plant finished five months ear
48 UPI: FBI agent silenced on Colo. nuke plant - 
49 SF Chronicle: Nuclear data found missing at DOE office in New Mexico
50 DenverPost.com: FBI agent is silenced on Flats
51 WVLT: DOE says Accidents Earlier This Year were "Preventable"
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
52 Nuclear INSecurity; Project Prometheus; ALSO: Re-introducing
53 [du-list] DU in the news - 19th Aug. 04
54 Google News Alert - nuclear
55 Daily Yomiuri: Headwind turned into tailwind 
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 AFP: IAEA should close the file on Iran's nuclear programme - FM

[http://www.spacewar.com/]

TEHRAN (AFP) Aug 19, 2004

 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should close the 
file on allegations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, 
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said on Thursday.

"If the case is not closed, it intensifies the suspicion about 
interference of political motives and pressures within the 
agency. And this is what the Americans are looking for," Kharazi 
asserted on state television.

"To show its independence, IAEA, as a professional, technical and 
non-political organization, should naturally insist on its own 
technical criteria and principles and quickly announce the issues 
have been resolved, if they have been resolved," Kharazi said.

"We hope all the remaining issues are resolved with Iran's 
efforts and cooperation together with the IAEA's officials' 
efforts and there will be no reason Iran's situation becomes 
extraordinary in the agency. And we hope Iran's case is closed," 
he added.

The United States has accused Iran of wantonly flouting 
international calls to curb its nuclear activities, saying Tehran 
is engaged in a "direct challenge" to the IAEA.

Tehran says it is merely trying to generate nuclear energy and 
insists on its right to master the entire nuclear fuel cycle -- 
something that could later be transformed into a weapons 
programme. 

The IAEA board is due to deliver its report on Iran's nuclear 
activities at a meeting at the UN body's Vienna headquarters 
starting on September 13.

  WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 2 AFP: US says China should remain host of six-party talks

WAR.WIRE<br> [http://www.spacewar.com/

WASHINGTON (AFP) Aug 19, 2004

 The United States said Thursday China should remain host of a 
preparatory meeting of the six-party talks aimed at resolving the 
nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.

North Korea claimed this week that the United States had hastily 
proposed to have the working group meeting for the fourth round 
of the six-party talks in New York.

China has been hosting all the working group and plenary meetings 
of the six-party talks, which also include the United States, two 
Koreas, Japan and Russia.

"We're still looking at Beijing as both the host and the chairman 
of the next working group and plenary," Adam Ereli, deputy 
spokesman of the US State Department, told reporters.

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman told the state-run 
Korean Central News Agency on Monday that the US proposal to host 
the meeting was made during a "multilateral exchange of views" in 
New York recently.

"This clearly indicates that the US is, in actuality, not 
interested in making the dialogue fruitful but only seeks to give 
an impression that it makes efforts to solve the issue," the 
North Korean spokesman charged.

Pyongyang had hinted that it might not attend the next 
working-group meeting if Washington kept refusing to reward the 
freezing of North Korean nuclear facilities while toughening 
terms and conditions.

Ereli also said the United States expected the new round of 
six-party talks to be held on schedule.

"As you know, it was agreed at the last round to convene the next 
round before the end of September, and a working group meeting 
before that. That is still the timeline we're working towards," 
he said.

The stand-off over North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons 
erupted in October 2002 when the United States accused Pyongyang 
of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium, 
violating the 1994 nuclear freeze of its separate plutonium 
producing program.

Pyongyang has denied running the uranium-based program, but has 
again fired up its once-mothballed plutonium-based program.

The United States had tabled a plan at the third round of talks 
giving Pyongyang three months to shut down and seal its nuclear 
weapons facilities in return for economic and diplomatic rewards 
and security guarantees.

Pyongyang appears to have rejected the plan outright.

  WAR.WIRE
        
*****************************************************************
 3 Korea Herald: U.S.-N.K. nuclear standoff intensifies ahead of talks   
 
2004.08.20
 
By Choi Soung-ah
      
With no headway in setting a date for the next round of six-party 
talks, North Korea and the United States are locked in a 
psychological war on how to resolve their 22-month long nuclear 
standoff.

 Since the third round of the disarmament talks June 23-26 in 
Beijing, Pyongyang has directed a strong offensive toward 
Washington, declaring that President George W. Bush's 
administration is continuing to pressure it by pointing a finger 
at its human rights laws as well as conducting a joint military 
drill with Seoul.

 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell described North Korea as 
one of the toughest countries in negotiations.

 "Trust me on this one. It is one of the toughest, toughest nuts 
in the negotiating game," he said in an interview posted on the 
official Web site of the U.S. State Department Wednesday.

 "I don't mean that they're nuts. They're quite rational in their 
own world and the way they look at things, but in terms of a 
problem to crack open, a nut to crack open."

 Powell said North Korea is more "troublesome" to deal with than 
Iran, which also has a nuclear program that concerns the United 
States.

 Washington has kept pushing the "Libya model" on North Korea to 
solve the nuclear standoff and stuck to its game-plan, which 
calls for the communist state to renounce all nuclear ambitions 
first before getting any compensation in return.

 While proposing that the North follow Libya's path in 
dismantling its nuclear weapons program, U.S. officials have 
stressed that the reclusive regime will be "surprised at how much 
would be possible" by giving up its nuclear program.

 Washington has called on Kim Jong-il to make the same "strategic 
choice" as Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi, whose government 
scrapped its nuclear program last December in return for a 
security guarantee and more economic aid from the international 
community.

 But Pyongyang has adamantly rejected Washington's suggestion, 
describing it as a "rehash of a dilapidating plan" and accusing 
the United States of unilaterally demanding acceptance of 
"unrealistic proposals."

 The United States, while emphasizing the nuclear issue should be 
resolved through dialogue, has warned that all possible measures 
can be considered to end the standoff.

 The widening drift between North Korea and the United States has 
sparked concern that the next round of six-party talks may not 
take place as expected, although China has signaled Pyongyang has 
not decided to withdraw.

 During the third round of talks in Beijing in late June, South 
and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia 
unanimously agreed to hold another working-level meeting as well 
as the fourth session of the main discussions before the end of 
September.

 "North Korea's latest stalling is dimming the prospects toward a 
possible resolution of the issue in the immediate future, while 
the remaining parties are eager to set a date as soon as possible 
for the fourth round," an official at the South Korean Foreign 
Ministry said.

 The North's Foreign Ministry earlier this week declared that any 
working-level talks are meaningless and accused the United States 
of trying to destroy the basis for the fourth round of six-way 
talks.

 "Since North Korea is usually the one to hold off on the talks, 
it may be possible for the working-level meetings and the main 
six-party talks to be held back to back, as in the third round in 
June," another official said.

 "That would undermine the purpose for the working-level talks, 
since they are aimed at preparing for the main meetings well 
ahead of time."

 North Korea watchers speculate Pyongyang has not yet decided on 
its strategy in the face of the U.S. presidential election in 
November.

 The State Department said Wednesday ton's outlook for the fourth 
six-party talks is unchanged and China is still working to 
convene a new round of discussions to resolve the North Korean 
issue.

 "There have been a number of consultations between the Chinese, 
and - as well as other - and other members of the six-party 
process. Those consultations continue," the Spokesman Adam Ereli 
said.
*****************************************************************
 4 Campaign to Chart a New Course in US Nuclear Policy
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 23:25:49 -0500 (CDT)

 
Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction continue to
pose grave risks to the US, its citizens and the rest of the world.
Citizens have the power to chart a new course for US nuclear policy
by taking action to encourage elected officials to establish policies
that will reduce and eliminate the nuclear threat. The Nuclear Age
Peace Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of its Turn the
Tide Campaign to educate and mobilize concerned citizens who have
a vested interest in making America and the world far safer and
more secure.

Visit the new Take Action Center
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/action/index.htm>  on the Foundation's
website to find a list of actions and background information on the
Campaign. In the Tools section of the Take Action Center, you will
also find valuable resources including Key Congressional Votes
<http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/issues/votes/> , Presidential
Candidates' Positions on Nuclear Policies
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/nuclear-dangers/report-card.ht m>
, Current Legislation <http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/issues/bills/>
, and a Media Guide <http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/dbq/media/> .
You can also Register to Vote <http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/e4/>
and learn How to Write a Press Release
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/action/action-tools/how-to-press-releas
e.htm> . Subscribe <http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/mlm/?ignore_cookie=1>
to the Action Alert Network today and receive periodic Campaign
actions.

Join us today in charting a new course for US nuclear policy!

<http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/action/index.htm>

A Campaign of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
*****************************************************************
 5 Bush "Living In the Past" On Missile Defense
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 09:18:31 -0500 (CDT)

 
===============================
THE DAILY MIS-LEAD

< www.Misleader.org >
===============================

BUSH "LIVING IN THE PAST" ON MISSILE DEFENSE

President Bush this week said that "those who oppose ballistic missile
system[s] really don't understand the threats of the 21st century. They're
living in the past." He then claimed, "We're going to do what's necessary to
protect this country."[1] But a look at the President's push for an unproven
defense system aimed at preventing a Cold War-style attack while he
underfunds counterterrorism/homeland security shows that he is the one whose
policies are wholly outdated. It also shows that, in fact, he is not doing
everything necessary to protect America.

The missile defense system the President is pushing is designed to shoot
down Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) - a weapon experts agree
posed a far greater threat to America during the Cold War. By contrast,
today the threat of 9/11-style terrorism is far greater than that of an
ICBM. A missile defense system does nothing to address that kind of
terrorism. Additionally, nonpartisan congressional auditors this year found
that the missile defense system was wholly unproven.[2]

Despite these facts, the President is pushing to spend billions on the
system, while cutting funding for more pressing national security programs.
Specifically, he is pushing a massive 9% cut to the Nunn-Lugar program[3] -
the government's central effort to protect loose nuclear material and
prevent that material from getting into the hands of terrorists on the
international black market. He has also drastically underfunded basic
homeland security programs, including grants to first responders.[4]

To illustrate just how out of touch the President has been on national
security issues, consider the summer before 9/11: As the White House
received warnings of an imminent terrorist (not ICBM) attack, the Bush
administration threatened to veto an urgent request to shift $800 million
from missile defense into critical counter-terrorism programs.[5]

Sources:

1. "President's Remarks in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania ," The White House,
8/17/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=51063.
2. "Missile defense called unproven," San Francisco Chronicle, 4/24/04,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=51064.
3. "Fact Sheet: GOP Budget and Homeland Security," HouseDemocrats.gov,
03/25/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=51065.
4. "The Bush Record: Homeland Insecurity," Democrats.org,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=51066.
5. "What Went Wrong.," Newsweek, 05/27/02, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1435098&l=51067.

Visit www.Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. -->>

===========================================================

Subscribe to the Daily Mislead! Go to http://www.misleader.org and enter
your e-mail address in the "Receive the Daily Mislead" box in the
top-left corner of the page.

To unsubscribe send an email to latest@daily.misleader.org with only the
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http://daily.misleader.org/unsubscribe/ and follow the instructions
listed there.
*****************************************************************
 6 RGJ: Your turn: Anti-nuclear sentiment lacking in logic
 
[http://www.rgj.com/]

8/18/2004 10:33 pm 

America is being hijacked. The greatest hoax in the history of 
our country is the idea that nuclear energy cannot be safely 
handled. This �idea� has been fed to our public for almost 50 
years and paid for mostly by the oil, gas, and coal industries, 
both domestic and foreign. Oil money is helping support the 
terrorist groups that want to destroy America.

Many of our politicians who accept money from the hydrocarbon 
groups vote against subjects that in effect will kill the 
construction of future nuclear electric power plants. When you 
look at the great value to our society of nuclear plants and look 
at the successful history of our more than 100 operating plants, 
providing about 20 percent of our electricity, there is no logic 
to being against them.

Let�s review why nuclear power is so important:

1. We must become, as much as possible, self-sufficient in the 
area of energy. As yet, no other practical sources of large 
amounts of energy are available to us.

2. Nuclear electric power plants can provide us with the needed 
energy at less than one half the present costs. Think how much 
better our factories will be able to compete with foreign 
companies.

3. Very low electric costs will initiate the use of electric 
cars, trains, and mass transportation systems with a great 
reduction in air pollution. Automobiles will go through a great 
evolution to become more and more acceptable.

4. Reduction of oil purchases will help reduce our large balance 
of payment deficits.

5. Our home heating costs are high because large amounts of 
natural gas are being used to create electricity.

6. Low electric costs may make it practical to pump water from 
areas of over supply to areas needing water (irrigation, 
reclaiming wet lands, reforestation, forest fire suppression, 
flood control, etc.).

7. Nuclear plants do not cause air pollution. Their use will let 
plants and animals live healthier lives and reduce human health 
costs.

8. Nuclear plants will greatly extend the life of hydrocarbon 
products for future use. 

9. Waste heat from nuclear plants near the ocean, will permit the 
distillation of sea water to produce fresh water, a very growing 
need.

The best scientists and nuclear engineers the government can get 
assure us that they can safely store nuclear waste at Yucca 
Mountain. A reprocessing plant is a needed attachment to the 
system to allow reduction of the waste product volume to about 
five percent of present volume and make Yucca Mountain good for 
hundreds of years of storage.

The opposition to nuclear plants and Yucca Mountain is mostly an 
attempt by the hydrocarbon industries to protect their �turf� and 
in so doing, deny us all of the great values that will be derived 
from �going nuclear.�

The construction of these plants should be made by the utility 
companies so that the great reduction in costs will benefit the 
customers and not private companies.

Art Johnston, a Reno resident, is a mechanical engineer who 
worked in the oil industry and was superintendent of technical 
services with Pan American World Airways at the nuclear rocket 
test site in Nevada for five years. 

� Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett 
*****************************************************************
 7 Grist: Bush campaign tries to trash Kerry's environmental record 

 | Muckraker | If at first | 19 Aug 2004 

The dirt on environmental politics and policy 

 If at First You Don't Succeed, Go Negative 

by Amanda Griscom 

19 Aug 2004 

[Bush] The wrestler in chief. Photo: White House.
   	 
Over the past few weeks of Presidential WrestleMania MMIV, the 
Bush campaign has fired off more than a dozen press releases 
about John Kerry's policies on energy, nuclear-waste storage, 
forest and water protections, and other environmental issues -- a 
hodgepodge of smears, exaggerations, and obfuscations intended to 
besmirch Kerry's pro-environment reputation. 

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, says the Bush 
campaign is responding to polls indicating that voters are taking 
the environment seriously in key battleground states. "The 
polling in Nevada is showing that people are voting on the Yucca 
Mountain issue. The polling out of Arizona says voters are very 
concerned about forests and water; Wisconsin polls have shown 
that the mercury issue could hurt [the GOP]," he told Muckraker. 

Hence the Bush campaign's efforts to neutralize the environment 
as an election issue: "They know they can't persuade voters that 
Bush is good on the environment, so they're trying to create 
enough confusion about Kerry's record that people decide it can't 
be the issue that decides their vote," said Pope. 

Kerry strategists agree: "The Bush campaign has got Kerry written 
all over it," said Roger Ballentine, a senior environmental 
strategist for the Kerry campaign. "From Day 1, the goal of the 
Bush campaign has not been to get voters to like their candidate 
and respect his record, but to get people to dislike John Kerry 
even though on this issue Kerry is widely thought to be the 
greenest candidate America has ever seen. They want people to go 
into the voter booth, hold their nose, and pick the lesser of two 
evils." 

Bush campaign spokespeople failed to return Muckraker's repeated 
calls, but a quick glance at the George W. Bush campaign website 
[http://www.georgewbush.com/] confirms that Bush's strategy is 
Kerry-centric. The homepage is a montage of derisive cartoons and 
photographs of the opponent: Here's Kerry playing the "Flip-Flop 
Olympics," there's a "Kerry Gas Tax Calculator," which claims to 
compute how much a 50-cent-per-gallon gas tax would cost 
individuals (a tax, mind you, that Kerry has repeatedly said he 
has no intention of imposing). Not a single image of the 
president himself graces the page.

 The Kerry website [http://www.johnkerry.com/index.html] looks 
remarkably similar -- photos of Kerry abound, only the depictions 
are more flattering. It has only a low-placed and somewhat 
defensive nod to Bush, saying, "The Bush-Cheney campaign is 
running one of the most negative and misleading campaigns ever."

 Full Court Press Release

 A comparison of the two campaigns' press releases is even more 
telling. Thus far in the month of August, the Bush campaign has 
churned out 18 releases dealing with energy and the environment, 
nearly all of them roasting Kerry, with titles along the lines of 
"THE RAW DEAL: John Kerry: 'Brought to You by Special 
Interests.'" [http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=3290] 
The Kerry campaign, meanwhile, has put out a total of six 
releases on energy and the environment. While they all slam 
Bush's rollbacks, at least half of each is devoted to the 
Democratic candidate and his campaign promises. One 
representative headline: "Kerry Pledges to Make Decisions Based 
on Sound Science and Put Public Health and Safety First." 
[http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0810.html] 



				   


  

	
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                Get an email alert each time a new Muckraker 
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Most of the Bush team's environment-related releases rely on one 
of two tired claims -- that Kerry is a flip-flopper, or that 
creating jobs and protecting the environment are incompatible 
goals. An Aug. 6 release 
[http://www.georgewbush.com/KerryMediaCenter/Read.aspx?ID=3186] 
charged that Kerry's plan to raise corporate average fuel-economy 
(CAFE) standards "will eliminate 104,000 jobs." It derided Kerry 
for supporting the McCain-Lieberman bill on global warming, 
asserting, "Climate Stewardship Act Is a Job Killer." And it 
accused the Democratic candidate of having "killed American jobs" 
because he didn't vote for the Bush energy plan.

 These charges have, to put it delicately, little basis in fact. 
The 104,000 figure, for instance, was plucked from a brief and 
informal analysis commissioned by General Motors and drafted 
single-handedly and without peer review by a professor from 
Pennsylvania State University. Team Bush ignores the fact that 
higher CAFE standards have won support even from many members of 
the United Auto Workers union, who agree with more authoritative 
studies showing that tightening fuel-economy standards would in 
fact create jobs.

 Last week, a release 

[http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=3222] criticized 
Kerry for past votes that favored designation of Yucca Mountain 
in Nevada as a repository for high-level nuclear waste. While 
Kerry has voted in favor of a few bills that included procedural 
measures on Yucca, his opposition to the project has been 
consistent, and he has repeatedly pledged that there would be no 
dumping at Yucca during his presidency. "Kerry Voted for 'Screw 
Nevada' Bill," the release proclaimed -- rather bizarrely, as 
Bush staunchly supports the Yucca Mountain dump, which most 
Nevadans oppose.

 Another baffling release 

[http://www.georgewbush.com/KerryMediaCenter/Read.aspx?ID=3202] 
mocked Kerry's position on forest protections (which enviros 
insist has been strong and consistent): "Where does John Kerry 
stand on forest policy? No one really knows, because he's taken 
every side of every important forest issue," read the statement 
by Bush campaign spokesperson Danny Diaz. It hinges on a comment 
Kerry made to The Wall Street Journal that he "like[d] a lot of 
parts" of Bush's Healthy Forests bill, though he didn't in the 
end support it (as if any astute politician should OK a bill 
chockful of objectionable provisions simply because a few parts 
are agreeable).

 The few Bush campaign press releases that do tout the 
president's environmental initiatives, such as this one 
[http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=3210] on his 
national park policy, use angry and defensive language even as 
they try to make a positive point: "John Kerry and his extremist 
allies have issued a torrent of false charges and distortions 
about the president's record on parks."

 Double Negative

 The Kerry campaign insists that it has no interest in joining in 
the mud-slinging. "To our minds, these preposterous screeds work 
to our advantage," Ballentine told Muckraker. "Quite obviously, 
the Bush campaign is shooting itself in the foot with this 
nonsense. Their anti-environment record is too long, too strong, 
and too wrong at this point for greenwashing."

 Mark Longabaugh, senior vice president for political affairs at 
the League of Conservation Voters, concurred: "It's so desperate, 
so rhetorically over the top, that if any voter actually ever 
read one of these things, they'd think, 'These folks need a 
sedative.'"

 But there's a good reason the Bush campaign has resorted to 
negativity. In mid-July, when it tried to tout Bush's 
environmental record in a "fact sheet" 
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/07/20040714-2.html] 
of "Key Bush Environmental Accomplishments," the press ignored 
the list and a number of major environmental organizations issued 
scathing, point-by-point rebuttals.

 Strategically speaking, the negative screeds really aren't about 
the environment anyway, according to Kevin Curtis, a vice 
president at National Environmental Trust: "They are not 
attacking Kerry on the environment, they are attacking him on 
this predetermined theme of 'flip-flop.' They know voters' eyes 
will just glaze over the details and take one message from the 
attacks: Kerry waffles," Curtis said. "It's ruthless, but it's 
effective. These guys have message discipline like nobody's 
business."

 Only time will tell whether voters are tiring of such tactics or 
whether the Bush campaign will, in the end, succeed in muddying 
the waters around what environmentalists say is a clear choice 
between a friend of the environment and a foe. After all, enviros 
argue, Bush never flip-flops on the environment: His support for 
industry at the expense of natural resources and public health 
has been numbingly consistent.

 Muck it up: We welcome rumors, whistleblowing, classified 
documents, or other useful tips on environmental policies, 
Beltway shenanigans, and the people behind them. Please send 'em 
to . 

Grist columnist Amanda Griscom writes Muckraker and Powers That
Be. �Her articles on energy, technology, and the environment
have appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The
New York Times Magazine. 
                                
   webmaster@gristmagazine.com [webmaster@gristmagazine.com] |
� 2004, Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 8 UPI/WT: People Should Have Been Fired - Insight on the News 

Washington Times [http://www.washingtontimes.com] 

Posted August 19, 2004
 By Shaun Waterman 

The man who led the fruitless hunt for weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq told a Senate panel Wednesday that reforming 
the nation's intelligence agencies would not fix their flaws 
unless those individuals responsible for failure were made 
personally accountable.
 
"Intelligence reform without accountability will not achieve the 
objective we all share -- that is avoiding the clearly avoidable 
tragedy of Sept. 11 and the equally avoidable tragedy of a 
botched assessment of Iraq's (weapons of mass destruction) 
capabilities," Dr. David Kay told the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence.
 
The committee held a rare August recess hearing -- one of an 
unprecedented series in both chambers of Congress -- to consider 
calls from the Sept. 11 Commission for a radical restructuring of 
the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies, especially the appointment of 
a new national intelligence chief with the authority to manage 
the nation's spies.
 
Kay told the panel that the U.S. intelligence system was in a 
crisis "so grave that it weakens an essential underpinning of 
both our diplomatic and our national military security 
capabilities and their ability to support U.S. national 
interests."
 
But Kay said that the roots of the crisis did not lie exclusively 
in structural problems. The inaccurate assessments of Iraqi 
unconventional weapons capabilities in particular were, he 
argued, "an overwhelming systemic failure of the Central 
Intelligence Agency."
 
"Until this is taken on board," he continued, "and people and 
organizations are held responsible for this failure, I have a 
real difficulty in seeing how a national intelligence director 
can correct these failings."
 
He said that the most frustrating moment of his failed hunt for 
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was when he 
learned that the nuclear analysts were to get larger performance 
bonuses than the chemical-biological analysts, even though the 
nuclear conclusion -- that Iraq had reconstituted its atomic 
weapons program -- had turned out to be even more drastically 
wrong.
 
Kay said that the record of the nuclear analysis was one of 
"abuse of authority, a failure to use expertise."
 
"There is nothing in that record that ... deserves a performance 
bonus. Nor in fact, quite frankly, was there much that deserved a 
performance bonus in the chemical and biological area.
 
"Instead of holding people responsible," he concluded, "we reward 
them for failure."
 
The final report of the Sept. 11 Commission -- formally known as 
the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United 
States -- has been criticized by relatives of the victims and 
others because it does not allocate responsibility to specific 
individuals, instead focusing on systemic problems like the 
absence of a single leader for the nation's intelligence system.
 
Commission members have said repeatedly that there is plenty of 
blame to go around and that their job was to find out what had 
gone wrong, rather than point fingers.
 
But Kay came down firmly against such an approach Wednesday.
 
He said the reform process would fail to address the real 
problems, "particularly if we continue to say 'Everyone is at 
fault, therefore no one can be held responsible.'"
 
Shaun Waterman is Homeland and National Security Editor for UPI, 
a sister news service of Insight.
 

*****************************************************************
 9 asahi.com: EDITORIAL:Black market of nukes 

Opinion,Editorial        

Japan should close in on shady networks in Asia. 

Alittle over six months ago, it came to light that Abdul Qadeer 
Khan, a high-profile Pakistani nuclear scientist, was running a 
nuclear weapons black market. We are still nowhere close to 
knowing the full extent of nuclear proliferation through this 
network, but it is now clear that Asia has become an ominous 
theater of illegal nuke trade. 

According to Malaysian police, Khan's network had built a factory 
in suburban Kuala Lumpur to produce equipment parts for enriching 
uranium. The operation was revealed when some of those parts were 
about to be sold to Libya. However, trafficking on a grander 
scale could have been in the works. 

Three years ago, Libya obtained materials for uranium enrichment 
from this network. Investigations by the International Atomic 
Energy Agency and others strongly suggest that North Korea was 
involved in this deal. 

In a separate case that had nothing to do with Khan's black 
market, a small Japanese trading company was prosecuted in April 
last year for trying to export to North Korea, via Thailand, 
special electric power source devices that could be used for 
nuclear weapons development. 

Black market crackdowns must be conducted globally if they are to 
be effective at all. Eventually, it will become necessary to 
create an international agreement to reinforce export controls on 
nuclear fission materials and nuclear technology. 

But we cannot just sit idle in the meantime. International 
cooperation is needed for urgent measures, especially in Asia 
where black market dealers have proven active. 

The globalization of the economy is escalating the movement of 
people and goods. Asia is a typical case. But Asia has been 
extremely lax in trade regulations concerning dangerous 
technologies, equipment and other items. 

In many countries, domestic controls on trade in weapons and 
nuclear substances do not necessarily mean the rules are actually 
being observed. In fact, most nations do not even have export 
controls on general-purpose items that can be applied to consumer 
goods-as well as to nuclear weaponry. Black market dealers have 
been taking full advantage of this situation. 

Japan can play a vital role while nations of Asia enforce 
thorough export controls and close in on black market networks. 
With its three-point non-nuclear principle and a de facto ban on 
arms exports, Japan is in a position to insist unequivocally on 
nuclear nonproliferation. Moreover, since Japan has the most 
stringent export control policy in Asia, it can teach its 
know-how to its Asian neighbors. 

Participants of the Japan-ASEAN summit at the end of last year 
agreed on closer cooperation to prevent nuclear proliferation. 
Japan should be able to assist its ASEAN partners in the area of 
personnel training for export control and contraband detection. 
We would like to see this sort of cooperative partnership 
extended to China and South Asia. 

Black market networks trade via third countries to keep the final 
export destinations elusive. In manydeals involving North Korea, 
indirect trade is the usual method used. With the method growing 
increasingly sophisticated, neighboring nations need to exchange 
information closely to keep illegal trade in check. 

The world's nuclear powers have no intention of letting go of 
their nukes. Nuclear proliferation occurs because there is no end 
to other nations and groups aspiring to join the nuclear club. 
The only way to break this vicious cycle is to get the world to 
move toward abolishing all nuclear weapons. This, too, forms the 
nucleus of Japan's nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy. 

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 18(IHT/Asahi: August 19,2004) (08/19) 
*****************************************************************
 10 NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
 
                        FR Doc 04-19090 
[Federal Register: August 19, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 160)] 
[Notices] [Page 51486-51487] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr19au04-81]                         
 
AGENCY HOLDING THE MEETING: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
 
[[Page 51487]] DATE: Week of August 16, 2004.
 
PLACE: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, 
Rockville, Maryland.
 
STATUS: Public and closed.
 
ADDITIONAL MATTER TO BE CONSIDERED: Week of August 16, 2004 
Tuesday, August 17, 2004 9:25 a.m. Affirmative Session (Public 
Meeting) a. Private Fuel Storage (Independent Spent Fuel Storage 
Installation) Docket No. 72-22-ISFSI; b. Final Rule: Medical Use 
of Byproduct Material--Minor Amendments: Extending Expiration 
Date for Subpart J of Part 35; c. FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating 
Co. (Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1); Petitioners' 
Appeal of LBP-04-11.
 
*The schedule of Commission meeting is subject to change on short 
notice. To verify the status of meetings call (recording) (301) 
415- 1292. Contract person for more information: Dave Gamberoni, 
(301) 415- 1651.
 
* * * * * ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: By a vote of 3-0 on August 16, 
the Commission determined pursuant to U.S.C. 552b(e) and 9.107(a) 
of the Commission's rules that ``Affirmation of FirstEnergy 
Nuclear Operating Co.
 
(Davis- Besse Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1); Petitioners' Appeal 
of LBP-04- 11'' be held August 17, and on less than one week's 
notice to the public.
 
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the 
Internet at: 
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-makin 
g/schedule.html] . * * * * * The NRC provides reasonable 
accommodation to individuals with disabilities where appropriate. 
If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in these 
public meetings, or need this meeting notice or the transcript or 
other information from the public meetings in another format 
(e.g. braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability 
Program Coordinator, August Spector, at (301) 415-7080, TDD: 
(301) 415- 2100, or by e-mail at aks@nrc.gov [aks@nrc.gov] . 
Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be 
made on a case-by-case basis.
 
* * * * * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred 
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like 
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the 
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301) 415-1969. In addition, 
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is 
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission 
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic 
message to dkw@nrc.gov [dkw@nrc.gov] . Dated: August 17, 2004.
 
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
 
[FR Doc. 04-19090 Filed 8-17-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M

 
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 11 NZ Business Day: Ruiters to lead Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
 
[http://www.businessday.co.za

By Helmo Preuss 

The Director General of the Department of Trade and Industry 
(DTI), Dr Alistair Ruiters, has been appointed Chairman of the 
Board of Directors of PBMR (Pty) Ltd, the company that was 
established to develop, demonstrate and commercialise the Pebble 
Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project, the company said. 

The project entails the building of a demonstration nuclear 
reactor at Koeberg near Cape Town and a pilot fuel plant at 
Pelindaba near Pretoria. 

In another management change, Jaco Kriek, vice-president Mega 
Projects of the IDC, has been seconded to PBMR (Pty) Ltd to take 
over as Chief Executive Officer from Nic Terblanche, who has been 
appointed as Chief Operating Officer of PBMR (Pty) Ltd. 

Ruiters said following PBMR (Pty) Ltd's successful completion of 
the feasibility phase of the project under the leadership of 
Eskom, it has become time to transform PBMR into a top-flight 
project delivery organisation. 

"Eskom and British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), the other investor in 
the project, both share our confidence in Kriek and Terblanche to 
establish the necessary capacity in PBMR and manage the company 
through the crucial demonstration and commercialisation phase of 
the programme," Ruiters said. 

PBMR technology in South Africa has been under development for 
the past 10 years, while it has worked for more than 20 years in 
Germany. It has also been implemented for lesser periods in other 
parts of the world such as the US and the UK. 

The aim of the South African PBMR is to provide a cheaper form of 
electricity for the two thirds of humanity that have no or 
limited access to electricity. 

The PBMR project started life in 1993 when Eskom's then newly 
appointed research manager, Steve Lennon, commissioned a 
technology scan to assess future energy sources for the utility. 

Last year's black-outs in Europe, Asia and North America 
highlighted the urgent need for more electricity generation 
capacity. Coal is not the answer, given environmental concerns 
about carbon dioxide emissions. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has forecast a 
threefold rise in nuclear power globally to 1 trillion watts by 
2050, a move that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by some 
1.8 billion tons. 

At the end of 2002, there were 441 nuclear power plants operating 
in 30 countries, representing a total capacity of 359 Gigawatts, 
more than 10,000 reactor-years of operating experience, 16% of 
global electricity generation and 7% of global primary energy 
use. 

In at least 16 countries, nuclear power contributes more than 25% 
of the total electricity produced in each of those countries, 
with France and Lithuania producing more than 80% of their total 
electricity from nuclear power. 

China is the latest country to face a severe shortage of 
electricity. Although the Three Gorges Dam will address some of 
this shortage, China also aims to increase its reliance on 
nuclear power from its current 1.4%. 

Chinese officials estimate that by 2020 the country will need 
additional capacity of 32,000 megawatts from the nuclear 
industry, or about 300 PBMRs. 

China currently has nine reactors with a capacity of 6,450 
megawatts with technology supplied by Canada, France, Japan, and 
Russia. 

I-Net Bridge Friday 20 August 2004                                                                                                           

      
 BDFM Publishers (Pty) Ltd disclaims all liability for any loss,
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 12 Daily Yomiuri: Safety of N-plants in doubt 

Shigenobu Hata / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer 

The recent steam blowout from a ruptured pipe at the No. 3 
reactor of Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Mihama Nuclear Power Plant 
in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture, that killed four workers, and the 
failure to inspect cooling pipes at four other nuclear reactors 
KEPCO operates in the prefecture reveal serious laxity in the 
power utility's precautions against accidents. 

The Fukui prefectural police and the central government are 
examining how the Aug. 9 accident occurred, and who was to blame 
for it. 

What is clear is that a lack of crisis management in an area in 
the facility where radioactive materials were not handled was 
behind the accident. 

The Mihamacho plant is a pressurized water reactor (PWR), a 
nuclear reactor in which water coolant in a primary system is 
pumped through the reactor vessel, transferring the heat to a 
steam generator, and a secondary water-cooling system produces 
steam in the steam generator for the turbine generator. There are 
23 PWRs in the nation. 

In the accident at the Mihamacho plant, a crack in a section of 
carbon-steel pipe linked to the main piping of the secondary 
cooling system with a diameter of about 56 centimeters and a 
thickness of 10 millimeters caused a blowout of superheated, 
high-pressure steam. 

A KEPCO senior official said the safety of the reactor was never 
compromised. 

But the official's remark indicates that the company was more 
concerned with monitoring the safety of the primary system and 
neglected to properly check the equipment and software of the 
secondary system. 

The main problem in terms of the plant's equipment and facilities 
is that the ruptured section was part of the main piping system 
of a nuclear power plant. 

"The main piping requires the highest attention since an accident 
in this section can lead to a catastrophe," said Tatsuo Kondo, a 
visiting professor at Tohoku University's Fracture and 
Reliability Research Institute. 

The ruptured section of pipe corroded to a thickness only half 
that of the main section of the secondary cooling system, which 
is 21 millimeters thick. 

Different materials also were used to build the primary and 
secondary systems. The piping for the former is made of stainless 
steel, which is stronger than carbon steel. 

A source close to the power industry said it would cost a fortune 
if stainless steel was used for all piping. 

But measures to strengthen the piping for the secondary system 
need to be seriously considered given that an increasing number 
of nuclear plants in this country are approaching the end of 
their operational lives amid difficulties in building new power 
plants. 

The software used to run the Mihamacho plant also was flawed. 

Under a security system provided for the primary system, a minor 
leak can be located quickly to prevent a small crack in a pipe 
from developing into a blowout. The primary system also is 
equipped with various other detectors. 

But there are few safety features protecting the secondary 
system. 

The No. 3 reactor at the Mihamacho plant automatically shut down 
immediately after the accident only because the steam generator 
detected a lowered water level as the result of the leak. 

Officials at the plant learned of the accident when a fire alarm 
sounded. The disaster could have been prevented if the 
abnormality had been detected earlier with a system to locate 
minor leaks. 

A system to detect abnormalities before a fire alarm is the 
minimum required for the main piping system. 

The method of conducting regular inspection also needs to be 
reviewed. KEPCO's nuclear power plants have been running at a 
capacity of more than 80 percent during the past several years. 

This high operational capability was made by reducing the time 
spent on inspections. The latest accident occurred during 
preparations for a regular inspection. 

Companies cannot be blamed for trying to cut costs. But 
neglecting safety can lead to a catastrophe like the latest one. 

The central government and electric power companies should 
realize that an accident like the Mihamacho one could occur at 
any of the nation's other PWRs. They should review their 
management of the safety of PWRs' secondary systems from scratch.   

Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 13 Bellona: Two shutdowns of new reactor in Ukraine
 
The reactor at Khmelnitsky power station had to be shut down on 
August 8th, less than two hours after it went into operation, 
Interfax news agency reported on August 11th. 

2004-08-19 18:23

"These incidents do not represent any threat to the public or to 
the environment," state nuclear energy company Energoatom said in 
a statement. Energoatom confirmed incidents had occurred at 
Khmelnitsky but said it "saw no cause for concern". "Certain 
media inflated the affair," it said. The K2 Russian-designed VVER 
pressurised water reactor at Khmelnitsky, which has a capacity of 
1,000 megawatts, was brought on stream on August 8th at a 
ceremony attended by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. But it 
ground to a halt almost immediately. 

An official at Ukraine's governmental commission for atomic 
energy said that automatic security systems at the power plant 
had cut off the reactor from the electricity grid. The reactor 
was reconnected to the grid three hours later but had to be 
totally shut down later because of a failure in the cooling 
system caused by a power breakdown, the official added. The 
reactor was restarted on August 9th, only to be stopped again a 
day later, officially to test its shut-down system and cooling 
units, RIA-Novosti reported. 

Energoatom said the incidents had been linked to tests conducted 
after the start up of the reactor. These tests were expected to 
continue until December. The nuclear power plants provide nearly 
50 percent of Ukraine's electrical power.
   
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: 
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no 
[info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no 
[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 
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 14 Rutland Herald: NRC nixes hearing delay; state pushes for fed help
 
August 19, 2004 

By  [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] Herald Staff   
  
The Douglas administration said it will push ahead on seeking a 
formal federal hearing on Vermont Yankee's controversial power 
increase despite a setback Wednesday.

Gov. James Douglas and the state's entire congressional 
delegation had asked federal regulators for more time. If 
additional pertinent information about the condition of the 
nuclear reactor turned up during the current special engineering 
inspection, they said, they wanted it included in the hearing.

David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, 
said the state had anticipated the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
ruling, and had been preparing to file for the hearing on Aug. 
30, the deadline for such a request.

The NRC, in a three-page order released Wednesday, said it 
wouldn't extend the deadline beyond Aug. 30, and that if a 
current special inspection turns up information, there are other 
ways to include the information.

The review of a proposed power increase must be restricted to 
information provided by Entergy Nuclear, the NRC stated.

The NRC has never held a hearing on so-called power uprates, 
which have ranged from minor adjustments in power generation to 
major retooling such as that proposed at Vermont Yankee.

Vermont Yankee is the oldest, and smallest, nuclear plant to 
request such a power increase.

Entergy Nuclear wants to produce another 100 megawatts of power 
from the 32-year-old reactor and has already started the 
retrofitting needed, gambling that it will get federal approval.

Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., the ranking member on the Senate 
committee that oversees the NRC, said in a statement that he is 
not happy with the ruling.

"I am disappointed that the NRC did not grant an extension of the 
hearing deadline," Jeffords said. "However, the NRC has said that 
if the inspection turns up new information, constituents may file 
a late request for a hearing or amend an existing hearing 
request. I expect them to stick to that commitment and give any 
new or revised hearing requests serious consideration."

O'Brien said his department remains unconvinced that it has 
enough information about a key alteration in a backup safety 
system and would pursue the hearing.

The focus of the state's concern currently is a plan to change 
the way Entergy Nuclear calculates the pressure in the reactor's 
containment in the event of an accident � the so-called 
"containment over-pressure."

Some nuclear critics said the calculation is a departure from "we 
don't have enough information to decide that," he said.

"We need more information," O'Brien said. "We don't have a 
comfort level yet."

The state first raised its concerns about the containment 
pressure calculations in December, and received an answer only a 
month ago. That information still didn't answer its questions, 
O'Brien said.

NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said that if new information does 
become known after the inspection, the state has the option of 
using that process later. But Screnci conceded that she doesn't 
know if such a hearing has ever been granted.

The special engineering team is at the Vernon reactor for its 
second week. It will work in the NRC's main office next week, and 
return to Vermont Yankee for the fourth week of its inspection.

O'Brien said he met with members of the inspection team Wednesday 
in Vernon and said he was impressed with team members' knowledge 
and nuclear industry experience.

He said one team member had 37 years of experience and another 
had 20 years, working on a variety of reactors. He said William 
Sherman, the department's nuclear engineer, was working closely 
with the special engineering team.

O'Brien said it was unknown which exact systems the team was 
focusing on, in part to keep Entergy Nuclear engineers on their 
toes.

"But they certainly are paying attention to containment 
over-pressure," he said.

The special engineering inspection was a condition placed on 
state approval of the power increase by the Public Service Board.

Contact Susan Smallheer at  [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] .
   
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 15 Rutland Herald: Giuliani: Don't whitewash danger
 
August 19, 2004 

Editor's note: Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, 
is visiting Brattleboro Thursday on behalf of Entergy Corp., the 
owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Raymond Shadis 
and Peter Alexander of the New England Coalition have written the 
following open letter to Giuliani:

Dear Mr. Giuliani,

The people of the Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts 
counties and towns in the vicinity of Entergy Nuclear Vermont 
Yankee power station live in the increasingly longer and ever 
darker shadow of the region's only viable terrorist target. No 
other industrial operation in the region offers a comparable 
threat to our precious environment and to the well-being of this 
and future generations. Our people are in need of accurate 
information about nuclear accident probabilities and 
consequences. They, and their emergency response officials, need 
more effective and realistic radiological emergency planning, and 
additional emergency response resources.

Instead, Entergy Corp., trading on your high public profile in 
the hours and days following the World Trade Center attacks of 
9/11, invites our civil servants and elected officials to join 
you in a public relations gimmick, an invitation-only dinner 
where you can offer up soothing reassurances; post-dessert. What 
a tragic comedy! Our people need real information so as to 
protect themselves and their beloved environment and Entergy's 
answer is to let them eat cake. Yellowcake, as it were.

Hopefully, given your witness that two planes brought down the 
enormous World Trade Center towers, your script will not include 
assurances that Vermont Yankee structures are terrorist-proof. 
Surely, Entergy has told you that the reactor's spent fuel pool, 
suspended 80 feet above the ground, now holds 2,671 waste nuclear 
fuel assemblies totaling more than 930 tons. Hopefully, you have 
by now read the relevant U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
reports: NUREG/CR-5042 and NUREG-1738, which make it clear that 
the Vermont Yankee Mark I secondary containment does not appear 
to have significant structures to prevent aircraft penetration, 
and which model spent fuel pool accident long-term fatalities for 
a plant identical to Vermont Yankee of more than 25,000 in a 
500-mile radius even with successful evacuation.

Any information, useful to our region's planners and 
first-responders that you may have acquired in your brief tenure 
as Entergy's emergency response "expert" could better be 
transmitted in printed or recorded form.

So all kidding aside, you are here to shore up Entergy's 
credibility collapse by the strength of your celebrity. In the 
two years since Entergy purchased Vermont Yankee, area residents 
have been treated to high-handed, patronizing, conflicting 
statements, and deceit sufficient to send public trust 
plummeting. Area officialdom may relish their Entergy dinner, but 
their constituents have lost their appetite for sham.

Mr. Giuliani, you would be well advised to serve small portions, 
but otherwise enjoy your visit to our beautiful region.
   
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*****************************************************************
 16 Rutland Herald: Yankee strike hinges on issue of health benefits
 
August 18, 2004 

By  [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] Herald staff   
  			 
PUTNEY � The Vermont head of the International Brotherhood of 
Electrical Workers was walking around the lawn of the Putney 
Federated Church, his back stained with what looked to be blood, 
a large plastic sword sticking out of his back.

That's George Clain's way of saying that Entergy Nuclear has 
broken promises it made to the union two years ago, when the 
union supported Entergy's purchase of Vermont Yankee from a group 
of Vermont-led utilities.

"This isn't a clown act," Clain said, recalling the weeks he 
spent two years ago during the regulatory hearings before the 
state Public Service Board, supporting the sale. "It hurts 
terribly, and it makes me look foolish," he said of what he calls 
broken promises.

"We were shoulder to shoulder on the purchase," said Clain, 
president of the statewide labor union.

While the company is making millions of dollars in its nuclear 
division, which includes Vermont Yankee and three other plants in 
New York and Massachusetts, it is asking for significant 
concessions from its workers, he said.

Clain came from Burlington to lend his support to the local IBEW 
members, who gathered Tuesday evening during one of U.S. Rep. 
Bernard Sanders' town hall meetings, where about 100 supporters 
turned out for a supper of Japanese noodles and chicken paella, 
salad and salsa.

About a dozen of the members of Local 300, Unit 8 of the IBEW 
found themselves breaking bread, so to speak, with a group of 
anti-nuclear opponents.

Nuclear politics these days make strange bedfellows.

Sanders' signature issue is health care, and that's the issue 
that brought the nuclear union members to Putney: Entergy has 
demanded that its highly skilled technical workers, the people 
who run the plant on a day-to-day basis, kick in a sizable 
increase in their payments for health care.

Corey Daniels of Chesterfield, N.H., an experienced reactor 
control room operator and chairman of the local union, said a 
mediation session slated for today between the union and the 
company would determine whether his union votes to strike 
Thursday.

IBEW's contract with Entergy expires that night.

"I've seen the plant go through a lot of transitions," Daniels 
said. "Thursday, we're making a decision on Entergy's integrity."

Daniels and his other local members were wearing grey T-shirts, 
and the back read: "Best Performance, Worst Compensation."

Daniels said that Vermont Yankee, which is relatively small, has 
the smallest staff of all Entergy's nuclear plants in the 
Northeast. In his mind, he said, it is "carrying" the entire 
Entergy Northeast division, which includes plants such as 
Pilgrim, outside Boston, and Indian Point, outside New York City.

He raised questions about whether the plant can be run safely 
with managers, who would replace some 148 union workers in the 
event of a strike.

While some of the managers are former union members and technical 
workers, Daniels said, that was a long time ago.

"It's not the same plant it was 20 years ago," he said.

Daniels said while the company has said it won't bring in other 
workers from other Entergy plants, who aren't familiar with 
Vermont Yankee, he said he wasn't convinced that would be the 
case.

If IBEW Local 300 does go out on strike, it won't be the first 
time, Daniels said. The local struck Vermont Yankee back in 1979, 
and the strike lasted about a week, he said.

Nationally, there was a strike last year at the Oyster Creek 
reactor in New Jersey, which is owned by another nuclear power 
company, Exelon.

Daniels said the Vermont Yankee story was all too familiar in the 
labor circles: A large national corporation buys a local company, 
then starts cutting compensation, specifically benefits and 
handing out small wage increases.

In the past four weeks of negotiations, he said, the company 
hadn't made any proposed changes in its offer.

While the union is sympathetic to the rising costs of health 
care, he said the company was doing extremely well and was 
tallying "huge profits," so much so that it was buying back 1.5 
million shares of stock for higher dividends for its investors.

"They're going to destroy the team and the unity," that has made 
Vermont Yankee a safe and well-run plant.

"This is a big company that wants to take advantage of 
Vermonters," he said. "We're not going to let it happen in 
Vermont."

Sanders said all Vermonters should be concerned about the "very 
heated" contract talks at Vermont Yankee. It's important that the 
state's only nuclear reactor have well-trained workers, where 
turnover is low.

"I can't think of a place we want that more," he said.

Contact Susan Smallheer at  [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] .
   
� 2004  [http://www.rutlandherald.com/] Privacy 
*****************************************************************
 17 Rutland Herald: Yankee manager, employees try to avoid strike
 
 August 19, 2004
 
 Midnight walkout looms at the nuclear power plant 

By Susan Smallheer [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] Herald 
Staff   
  			 
Both sides in the contract dispute at Vermont Yankee nuclear 
power plant talked with a mediator late into the night Wednesday 
in an effort to avoid a strike by union workers today.

The contract for the 148 members of the International Brotherhood 
of Electrical Workers, Local 300, Unit 8, expires at midnight 
tonight. Members have scheduled a vote this afternoon on whether 
to go on strike.

The IBEW workers include technical people who are vital to 
running the nuclear plant: control room operators as well as 
electricians, mechanics and radiation-protection specialists.

The biggest problem in the contract talks appears to be a demand 
by Entergy Nuclear that its workers shoulder a 10 percent share 
of health insurance cost, up from the current contribution set at 
2 percent.

The union says the company is flush with cash, and that such a 
demand violates promises made by the energy giant two years ago 
when it bought the Vermont reactor.

"They're still talking, still negotiating, which I think is a 
good sign," Entergy spokesman Brian Cosgrove said late Wednesday 
afternoon.

He added late Wednesday night that the discussions were still 
going on, and he remained optimistic.

The two sides have been meeting with Ira Lobel, a private 
mediator, for several weeks.

The union has said the company has made no change in its offer in 
four weeks.

David O'Brien, commissioner of the state Department of Public 
Service, said he was concerned about a potential strike at the 
plant.

"Certainly we're concerned about that, you don't like to see a 
dispute between the work force and the employer," he said.

O'Brien spent Wednesday at the plant, meeting with the special 
NRC engineering inspection team, but he said the issue of the 
strike never came up.

O'Brien said he was taking some comfort in the fact that the two 
sides were continuing to meeting with a mediator.

"Maybe at the 11th hour, we'll get some progress," he said.

Cosgrove said Entergy's lead negotiator in the contract talks, 
plant manager Kevin Bronson, has been on both sides of contract 
negotiations; he was once a member of IBEW as a control room 
operator.

"He's come up through the ranks," Cosgrove said.

Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, said the commission had approved Entergy's strike 
contingency plan � to use current Yankee employees to fill in for 
missing technical workers.

Screnci said strikes at power plants are rare, but not unheard 
of.

There was a lengthy strike at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in 
New Jersey last year. That strike also involved IBEW union 
workers with jobs similar to those at Vermont Yankee. That strike 
lasted 11 weeks from May 22 to Aug. 8, 2003. There was a brief, 
weeklong strike at Vermont Yankee in 1979.

Screnci said the company could only use control room operators 
specifically licensed to operate Vermont Yankee, not any other 
nuclear reactor. Control room operators do not receive generic 
licenses, she said.

Those control room operators have to go through regular testing, 
certification and relicensing for a specific plant, Screnci said. 
While several people at Vermont Yankee hold such licenses, they 
do not work regularly in the control room.

"They don't always do a shift every day," she said, "but they 
need to meet those requirements."

Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com 
[susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] .
   
� 2004 Rutland Herald 
[http://www.rutlandherald.com/] Privacy Policy   | Subscriber 
*****************************************************************
 18 Fairfield County Weekly: Nuclear Fusion 

[http://fairfieldweekly.com/pers/]   

 What do you call it when a powerful politician takes a job doing 
PR for her local nuclear power plant? Not a conflict of interest, 
says Melodie Peters. 

by Carole Bass - August 19, 2004 

  PUBLICITY PHOTO   
  [Feature]   

  State Sen. Melodie Peters was elected to represent neighbors of 
the Millstone nuclear plant. Now she's also paid to represent 
Millstone itself.   

In May, state Sen. Melodie Peters had the "pleasure" of urging 
federal regulators to renew the Millstone nuclear power plant's 
operating license for another 20 years. 

In July, Peters turned her pleasure to profit: Millstone's owner, 
Dominion Inc., hired her as a public relations consultant. 

In essence, Dominion will pay Peters to do what she's been doing 
for free: helping to sell Millstone's license renewal to the 
public. 

For the past 12 years, Democrat Peters has represented the chunk 
of southeastern Connecticut that includes Waterford and the 
Millstone reactors. As co-chair of the legislature's energy 
committee, she spearheaded Connecticut's 1998 electric industry 
restructuring law. That law forced Northeast Utilities to sell 
Millstone--opening the door for Virginia-based Dominion to buy 
it. 

She credits Dominion with turning the place around. Especially 
its disastrous public safety record, lowlights of which included 
harassing whistleblowers and losing highly radioactive spent fuel 
rods. 
zz Peters sees no conflict between her roles as elected 
representative of Millstone's neighbors and paid representative 
of Millstone to those neighbors. 

"As a resident and as a senator, I have always been supportive of 
the relicensing," which would let the two Millstone reactors keep 
running until 2035 and 2045, Peters says. 

"I firmly believe that we need nuclear energy to keep our lights 
on in this state. As long as it's a safely run entity, I'm in 
favor of it." 

Tom Swan, the normally outspoken executive director of the 
watchdog Connecticut Citizen Action Group, is hesitant to 
criticize Peters' move. "We have always been close with Melodie," 
he says. But "it clearly raises flags." 

Peters says Dominion approached her about doing PR work sometime 
"at the end of June, mid-June--I don't really remember." (A 
Dominion spokesman couldn't be reached for comment." Peters 
started work at the beginning of July. 
zzz It's a short-term consulting contract, running through the 
end of the year "and then to be reconsidered," she says. That's 
roughly the same as Peters' remaining time in the Senate, since 
she's not seeking re-election this fall. 

Her work will consist mainly of meeting with community groups 
about the license renewal. But she hasn't done much yet, because 
she's been busy caring for a terminally ill sister. 

Peters won't say how much Dominion is paying her: "I don't 
believe I need to be discussing that with you." 

Before taking the job, she checked with the state Ethics 
Commission. She didn't want to violate the revolving-door 
statute--which she co-wrote--prohibiting ex-legislators from 
lobbying for industries they used to regulate. The Ethics 
Commission told Peters she's fine as long as she doesn't 
represent Dominion in front of any state agencies for a year 
after leaving office. 

That's the letter of the law. Peters also sees no conflict with 
the spirit of the ethics laws, which are supposed to make sure 
that politicians represent the best interests of their 
constituents above those of wealthy corporations. 

Nor is she worried about the appearance of a conflict of 
interest. 
z "I'm so beyond appearances right now," she says. "If people 
don't know me and appreciate me for whom I am--especially after 
the 12 years I've represented the people of my district--then 
I've completely done something wrong. People trust me for being 
the honest, upfront person that I am." 

A t the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public hearing in 
Waterford on May 18, Peters was certainly upfront about where she 
stood. 

"I just simply want to say it's my pleasure to stand here also 
endorsing" Millstone's license renewal, she told the regulators. 

"It's critical not only for the energy needs of the state, it's 
critical for the relationship and the partnership that we've 
created together for this community and it's critical to 
sustaining southeastern Connecticut." 

Besides cranking out roughly half of the state's electricity, she 
said, "there's a host of contributions that [Dominion has] made 
to improve the quality of life in our region." 

Now Dominion is making a contribution to Peters' quality of life 
as well. Use our contact form to write to Carole Bass. 
cbass@newhavenadvocate.com 

Copyright � 1995-2004 New Mass Media. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 19 Boston.com: Water in Tewksbury, Westford monitored
 
Boston Globe    

  Water in Tewksbury, Westford monitored Boston Globe Officials
are monitoring drinking-water supplies in Tewksbury and Westford
where pollutants have been found. In Tewksbury, combined results
of two tests this month on the drinking water originating from
the Merrimack River found 1.84 parts per billion of perchlorate
-- a pollutant found in explosives and some fertilizers. 

August 19, 2004 

Officials are monitoring drinking-water supplies in Tewksbury and 
Westford where pollutants have been found. 

In Tewksbury, combined results of two tests this month on the 
drinking water originating from the Merrimack River found 1.84 
parts per billion of perchlorate -- a pollutant found in 
explosives and some fertilizers. 

Town officials are treating the water to remove the substance and 
will report the results of a follow-up test on Monday. 

In Westford, test sites monitored since mid-July, when town 
officials discovered the Cote Well near Stony Brook School 
contained higher levels of the contaminant than state guidelines 
permit, are indicating more troubles for the town's 
drinking-water supply. 

Last week, the results revealed a nearby storm drain on North 
Street had 40 parts per billion of perchlorate, and a detention 
storm basin across from the drain had 12 parts per billion. 

A stagnant pool of water on an abandoned quarry site off North 
Street tested for 819 parts per billion, according to Elaine 
Major, the town's environmental analyst. 

State guidelines require that there be no more than 1 part per 
billion of the substance in the water supply. When water contains 
more than 18 parts per billion, the public is advised to avoid 
drinking it, according to the state's Department of Environmental 
Protection website. 

As a precaution, officials recommend the use of bottled water to 
prepare formula, ice cubes, and powdered drinks, and the 
discarding of old ice cubes. 

Those who may be most sensitive to the contaminant include 
pregnant women, infants, children up to the age of 12, and 
individuals with hypothyroidism. 

JOYCE PELLINO CRANE  [ /]  � Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper 
*****************************************************************
 20 WATE: TVA's new nuclear chief "always looking for the problems"
  
[http://knoxville.wate.com

August 19, 2004   

CHATTANOOGA (AP) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority's new top 
nuclear power executive says he is results oriented. 

Karl Singer says he's always looking for ways to fix problems. 

Singer directs the utility's 2,900 employees who operate the 
nuclear plants Sequoyah and Watts Bar in Tennessee and Browns 
Ferry in Alabama. 

His office also is overseeing the repair of TVA's oldest reactor, 
the Unit 1 reactor at the Browns Ferry plant. 

Singer was promoted in June to succeed John Scalice who retired. 
Singer has been with TVA for 11 years and used to be in the 
Navy's nuclear submarine program. 

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

[http://www.worldnow.com]     All content � Copyright 2000 -
2004 WorldNow and WATE. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 21 Brattleboro Reformer: Union, Entergy reach tentative agreement at nuclear plant

[http://www.reformer.com/]   

August 19, 2004 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					
 BRATTLEBORO, Vt. - Unionized workers at the Vermont Yankee 
nuclear plant have reached a tentative contract agreement with 
Entergy Nuclear, the owner of the Vernon reactor.

 Entergy public affairs director Brian Cosgrove said Thursday the 
plant's 148 members of the International Brotherhood of 
Electrical Workers still need to ratify the proposal. A vote was 
scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon and was expected to last 
two to three hours, Cosgrove said.

 The current contract is due to expire at midnight today. The 
union has threatened to strike if an agreement could not be 
reached.

 Cosgrove would not discuss the terms of the bargain as it was 
still being discussed among union members.

 "Our union is in the process of going through the education 
process with its membership," Cosgrove said. "It wouldn't be 
timely to discuss the details." 

Health care and wages have been key sticking points in 
negotiations. Union members have said Entergy plans to increase 
workers' health care costs by 500 percent over the next three 
years, and that the salary increase proposed by the company would 
not keep pace with inflation.

 Unionized workers have also expressed concern about Entergy's 
contingency plan if a strike were to occur, saying the nuclear 
plant would be unsafe without them.

 Corey Daniels, chairman of Local 300, Unit 8, did not 
immediately return calls seeking comment.

 The plant employs 500 people.

 The union has gone on strike twice in the last 30 years, once in 
1974 and again in 1979, Cosgrove said. The group represents 
Vermont Yankee electricians, mechanics, radiation protection 
technicians and control room operators.

       Copyright �1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a 
*****************************************************************
 22 Brattleboro Reformer: NRC denies extension for hearing

[http://www.reformer.com/]   

August 19, 2004 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					
By CAROLYN LORI� Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied the 
state's request for a hearing deadline extension in the Entergy 
Nuclear Vermont Yankee "uprate" case.

 The company wants to increase power by 20 percent and has an 
application before the NRC. Parties concerned about the increase 
can apply to intervene before the commission, which the state 
decided to do out of concern about containment overpressure.

 An extension was sought in order to have information from the 
engineering inspection currently being done at the plant by the 
NRC. The inspection will be completed at the end of the month, 
with a report on it completed some time in the fall.

 The NRC gives parties 60 days from when the notice is filed in 
the Federal Register to file a petition for a hearing. The 
current deadline is Aug. 30. 

In an order issued on Wednesday, the commission wrote that it 
would not grant an extension "to allow potential participants to 
review the results of ongoing staff license review-related 
activities [i.e. the engineering inspection] before filing their 
hearing requests and accompanying contentions."

 The order adds that parties may submit amended or new 
contentions based on the inspection findings, so long as they 
comply with late-filing standards.

 Those standards require that the information must not have been 
available before, that it is materially different from 
information previously available and that it is submitted in a 
timely fashion.

 On Aug. 6, Gov. James Douglas wrote a letter to the NRC 
requesting an extension beyond the completion of the engineering 
assessment. Vermont's congressional delegation wrote letters in 
support of the governor's request.

 David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, 
said that while the NRC did not grant the extension, the 
administration was pleased that any new information from the 
inspection would be admissible in additional filings.

 Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., expressed a similar sentiment, 
adding that he expected the NRC "to stick to that commitment and 
give any new or revised hearing requests serious consideration."

 Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., was more critical of the NRC's 
decision.

 "It is unfortunate that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
refused to grant our very reasonable request to extend the public 
hearing deadline on a matter as important as Vermont Yankee's 
up-rate application," said Sanders in a written statement. "This 
decision clearly does not put the interests of the community 
first."

 According to Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman for Region I, it is 
unusual for the commission to grant deadline extensions.

 "We have a very clear process for handling these requests. The 
time period for filing hearing requests is what it is -- it's 60 
days," he said.

 In addition to the state, the New England Coalition, a nuclear 
watchdog group, plans to file a petition to intervene.

 While the coalition plans to intervene on a number of issues, 
the state will focus on containment over pressure.

 Under increased power generation, the water in the torus, a 
doughnut-shaped water tank below the reactor, will be at a higher 
temperature.

 In the event of a loss-of-coolant accident, the core will 
require water to be pumped in from the torus. The increased 
temperature, however, will mean that the water will form steam 
bubbles at the inlet of the pumps, making the pumps less 
efficient and potentially damaging them over time. Without the 
necessary coolant, the core can be exposed, resulting in a 
release of radiation.

 According to plant engineers, the pressure already present in 
the containment tank will prevent the bubbles from forming. This 
is known as taking credit for containment over pressure.

 On Dec. 8, William Sherman, the state nuclear engineer, wrote a 
letter to the NRC voicing his concern on this matter. The federal 
regulator did not respond until June 29 and the department was 
not satisfied with the response.

 At a July 29 meeting of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory 
Panel, O'Brien expressed his frustration with the NRC's letter.

 "I'm disappointed as a public official that this answer is what 
we got. It's not a very straightforward letter. It seems to be 
kind of evasive," said O'Brien.

 On Wednesday O'Brien said the state would file a petition for a 
hearing with the NRC by Aug. 30. 

Copyright �1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a 
*****************************************************************
 23 Lowell Sun: Private well owners in Westford told to test for chemical

August 19, 2004 Lowell, MA                                                                              
 			 								 					
By PETER WARD, Sun Staff

 WESTFORD Unhealthy amounts of the explosive-related chemical 
perchlorate have been found in areas near North Street where 
there has been blasting activity, not far from a public drinking 
well that was closed because of the contaminant.

 As a result, the Board of Health voted Monday to launch a 
campaign to contact households with private wells within a 
half-mile of the area.

 Agents began making phone calls last night.

 Sandy Collins, director of health-care services for the Board of 
Health, conferred with state officials much of yesterday and said 
the plan now is to contact, by phone and mail, 30 to 40 
households, though that doesn't mean their wells are tainted.

 The owners will have a choice to have the wells tested for free 
by the state Department of Environmental Protection, hire a 
certified lab, or not test at all.

 If their wells show high amounts of perchlorate, the DEP may 
expand or modify the areas to be tested, Collins said.                  

 				
 					   						 					   				 				
 					   						

 							
 								   									
 									 									
 									 									
 									 									
 									 


  OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION 8/19/2004 - City gateway 
reopening early - All Lowell first-graders to receive book to 
jump-start school - Board wants manager prioritizing capital 
items - College funding help urged at MCC event - Dracut man 
charged after crash - Garry touts decade-long span of service - 
Lowell man held in rape of girl, 12 - Lowell pair charged in drug 
bust - Mixed reviews on test scores - New middle school campus 
ready to roll - Police Briefs - Suspect surrenders at gunpoint 
after chase - Tewksbury forum slated on chemical found in water - 
Wilmington firm fined for wetlands violation  

 									
 									 								   							 						

 					   				 			

 			

 Officials were focusing on three sites with high test results a 
new highway garage under construction on a hill off North Street, 
a hilltop granite quarry closer to Groton Road, and a retention 
pond down the hill across North Street near Beacon Street.

 Blasting has been extensive at the garage site, but blasting 
halted at the quarry several years ago.

 Tests culled by the Water Department near the hilltop quarry 
showed 819 parts per billion (ppb) of perchlorate. Water in a 
storm drain at the garage site, also on a hill, were 40 ppb. The 
retention pond down the hill from the garage site across North 
Street was measured at 12 ppb.

 The area is about three-quarters of a mile from the town's Cote 
well.

 The results were immediately forwarded to the town manager and 
Board of Health, said Elaine Major, the Water Department's 
environmental analyst.

 There is no federal drinking-water standard for perchlorate, an 
oxidizer in explosives and rocket fuel that is beginning to show 
up across the nation possibly as a result of increased drilling 
for new construction.

 The Water Department on July 16 shut the Cote well, located 
between Groton Road and Stony Brook, after measuring 3.3 ppb and 
about 2.4 ppb at the Nutting Road water-treatment plant, which is 
fed in part by the Cote well.

 Massachusetts this year imposed an interim advisory level of 1 
ppb for sensitive populations, though it isn't deemed a 
drinking-water standard.

 Perchlorate affects the thyroid gland, which regulates human 
metabolism.

 After retesting, the town on July 21 took the rare step of 
warning pregnant women, children 2 and under and people suffering 
from thyroid problems not to drink water that came from the 
tainted well. Most households are in the Nabnasset neighborhood.

 The Cote well remains closed while the Nutting Road plant was 
cleared of the chemical.

 On Aug. 10, selectmen took water commissioners to task for 
letting a few days lapse between the time they shut the well and 
the time they issued the advisory.

 But the commissioners said they were following state regulations 
and sought not to alarm the public before test results were 
doubly confirmed.

 Nonetheless, water officials agreed to inform selectmen of 
unusual readings, even if the results aren't yet confirmed.

 Officials have been careful not to point fingers as they seek 
the source.

 "Nobody's done anything illegal," Major said. "We're just 
becoming aware of the whole perchlorate issue."

 She said the Maine Drilling and Blasting Co., based in Gardiner, 
Maine, which in August of last year started blasting at the 
garage site, has been cooperative in providing the town with its 
schedule and list of explosive materials.

 Town officials were reportedly refused entry to the quarry, 
owned by Tresca Brothers Sand and Gravel Co.

 New monitoring wells may need to be installed around the Cote 
well to help determine where the perchlorate came from.

 Tests were negative at monitor wells between the Cote well and 
Stony Brook School and between the well and old highway garage on 
Beacon Street.

 Still, because of the vagaries of groundwater's behavior, "it 
may never be definitive as to where it's coming from," Major 
said.

 Peter Ward's e-mail address is pward@lowellsun.com 
[pward@lowellsun.com] .

� 1999-2004 MediaNews Group, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 24 [du-list] Impact on health by nanoparticles created by
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:54:44 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

From  Stefano Montanari

8th ETH - Conference on Combustion Generated Particles

.. extract of our presentation in Zurich. The day
before yesterday,  Swiss TV recorded a long interview with Dr Gatti. It
should be available on the Internet as soon as it is broadcast.

.................................................................................................................................................................

Impact on health by nanoparticles created by high-temperature explosions

Antonietta M. Gatti, Stefano Montanari*

Laboratory of Biomaterials - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia - Italy

*Nanodiagnostics srl - Modena - Italy

Introduction

Combustion processes create a form of particulate pollution that can be 
released into the environment. The size of the particles mostly depends on 
the temperature the process has happened, while their chemistry depends on 
the materials present at combustion. The higher the temperature, the 
smaller those particles are. As a consequence of the explosion of Depleted 
Uranium bombs, the temperature in a certain neighbourhood exceeds 3,000 �C, 
as already described back in 1978 by the researchers working at the US Army 
Base of Eglin (Florida), who discovered the presence of inorganic micro- 
and nano-particles polluting the environment after explosion tests had been 
carried out. Without being able to supply any scientific demonstration, 
they advanced the hypothesis that that kind of pollution could be dangerous 
to humans if inhaled or ingested. Aim of this work has been to verify that 
hypothesis through the detection of that micro- and nano-sized particulate 
matter in sick people who took part in the latest war in former Yugoslavian 
territories and contracted the so-called Balkans Syndrome.

Materials and Methods

Twenty cases of Italian soldiers and 8 cases of civilians living in 
Sarajevo at the time when the war was fought were examined. Those patients 
suffered from Hodgkin�s and non-Hodgkin�s lymphomas or different forms of 
cancer. The samples come to our observation regarded pathologies of the 
lymph nodes, the liver, the kidneys, the stomach and the lungs. Through an 
innovative technique of Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM), 
particles were actually consistently detected in all those patients� 
pathological tissues. An elemental analysis of the particles was carried 
out through a method of Energy Dispersion Spectroscopy (EDS). The 
instrument employed was an ESEM QUANTA (Fei Company - The Netherlands) 
which allows to carry out observations on samples virtually whatever their 
condition is, without wanting metal or carbon coating nor any other form of 
preparation. Such a possibility is particularly important to this kind of 
investigation, as no pollutants or artefacts due to preparation procedures 
can be introduced. The samples checked were either fresh or coming from 
archived cases. In the latter instance, particular processes to eliminate 
the paraffin where they had been embedded were used, in order to observe 
more clearly the morphology and the structure of the biological tissue. The 
fresh samples were examined under ESEM mode (in air and at -5�C), while the 
preserved ones were checked in low vacuum conditions (1-4).

Results

All samples observed showed the presence of micro- and/or nano-foreign 
bodies. No traces of particulate Uranium were ever detected. The particles 
found in the lungs and the stomach, i.e. the organs through which the 
polluting debris enter the organism, were considerably larger in size then 
those detected in the other organs. The chemistry was extremely varied and, 
in many instances, relatively complex: Pb was rather common, but Fe, Co, 
Sb, Zr along with other inorganic elements were present as well.

Discussion

All particles were very small, often nano-sized, and in most cases their 
shape was spherical, thus indicating a formation under high-temperature 
conditions. Such conditions are compatible with those induced by 
high-technology weapons. The temperature above 3,000 �C typical of Depleted 
Uranium (or Tungsten) projectiles is enough to have bomb and mark sublime 
and create an aerosol containing the elements present in the "crucible" of 
the explosion. Those elements can recombine and form new alloys or 
compounds. The particles thus created can stay suspended in the atmosphere 
for hours or even days and be transported by the wind. During that time, 
they can be inhaled by men and animals alike. Then they fall very slowly to 
the ground and deposit on grass, vegetables, fruit, etc. whence they enter 
the alimentary chain. It is also likely that the rain can have those 
particles penetrate the earth and enter springs and subterranean waters.

It has already been demonstrated (5) that particles the size of 100 nm, 
when inhaled, enter the blood flow within 60 seconds and are found in 
internal organs in a matter of minutes.

As the majority of the particles found contained heavy metals, whose 
toxicity and cancerogenicity is already amply described in literature, a 
correlation between their presence in all pathological tissues investigated 
and the onset of the disease is very probable.

The fact that no Uranium was found does not necessarily mean that there 
isn�t any within the organism of the patients. It might have reached 
tissues that showed no pathological features and, for that reason, were not 
sent to our Laboratory.

The evidence of particulate matter in human tissues able of triggering the 
onset of what until now are classified as "cryptogenic" diseases lead to 
set the foundations of a new discipline called "Nanopathology".

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the European Community (Nanopathology 
QLRT-2002-147).

References

1) A.M. Gatti , F. Rivasi Biomaterials 23(11), 2381 ( 2002).

2) A.M. Gatti Biomaterials. 25(3), 385 (2004)

3) A.M Gatti. Transactions of the 28th annual meeting in Biomaterials, 
Tampa (Florida) (2002), p.616.

4) A. M. Gatti, S. Montanari http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/larchivio 
/sindromebalcani.htm 
<http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/larchivio/sindromebalcani.htm>, 8-2-2004

5) A. Nemmar, B. Vanquickenborne, M.F. Hoylaerts, B.Nemery, Circulation, 
105(4), 411 (2002).


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 25 [du-list] Government Cover-up on WTC Health Effects? --
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:54:52 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

  I sent  the nanoparticle conference extract to these interviewee parties.
  We have to expand the concern and cross breed, as it were, for the issue to
go critical now.
(Does anyone know if there was DU  balast in the  WTO planes?)

Bob,
re  quantities.. I think we can only ever estimate. How much reliance can
you put on DoD figures ?
With  all sorts of creative and uncreative accounting, accidental and
deliberate,  they themselves will not know, not to mention all the
unexploded  rounds left lying around.
db

----- Original Message -----
From: "Institute for Public Accuracy" <dcinstitute@igc.org>

Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 8:58 AM
Subject: Government Cover-up on WTC Health Effects? -- Interviews Available


 > Institute for Public Accuracy
 > 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
 > (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
 > ___________________________________________________
 >
 >          PM Thursday, August 19, 2004
 >
 >          Interviews Available:
 >
 >          Government Cover-up on WTC Health Effects?
 >
 > SUZANNE MATTEI, (212) 791-3600 ext 35, cell: (347) 277-1415,
 > suzanne.mattei@sierraclub.org, http://www.sierraclub.org/groundzero
 > Mattei is author of the just-released report "Air Pollution and Deception
 > at Ground Zero." Head of the Sierra Club's New York office, she said
today:
 > "Among our findings in the report are:
 > * "The Bush administration knew the health risks and ignored its own
 > long-standing body of knowledge about the harmful products of incineration
 > and demolition. It should have issued a health warning immediately on that
 > basis.
 > * "This is not a matter of putting a political spin on a few early press
 > releases. What we uncovered was a long-term effort to prevent the public
 > from knowing the health hazards. They looked so as not to find. And when
 > they did find, they either didn't tell us or came up with embarrassingly
 > weak excuses for why we shouldn't be concerned.
 > * "For example, the federal government surveyed EPA's own office employees
 > three months after the attack, found out that they were still sick, but
 > never told the public. It was published in a journal, but the public never
 > knew.
 > * "Many workers at and near Ground Zero did not have proper health and
 > safety protections. And the Bush administration refused to enforce worker
 > safety requirements at Ground Zero."
 >
 > Mattei added: "Based on a review of new national emergency plans, the
 > administration plans to perpetuate its failed policies in any future
 > national disaster anywhere else in the United States."
 >
 > JOEL KUPFERMAN, (212) 334-5551, envjoel@ix.netcom.com,
 > http://www.nyenvirolaw.org
 > Kupferman is the executive director of the New York Environmental Law and
 > Justice Project and counsel to the Uniformed Firefighters Association in
 > New York City. He authored the article "The Public Health Fallout from
 > September 11: Official Deception and Long-Term Damage" and conducted
 > samples and Freedom of Information requests which uncovered many of the
 > problems now gaining attention. He said today: "We are pursuing a lawsuit
 > against the EPA and continue to discover very hazardous situations
downtown."
 >
 > CATE JENKINS, (703) 308-0453, jenkins.cate@epa.gov, [PDF file:
 > http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/PDF/Jenkins-7-4-03-documentary-d2.pdf]
 > Jenkins is a 24-year specialist with the EPA's Hazardous Waste
 > Identification Division. She said today: "On July 15, 2004, I provided the
 > EPA Inspector General with the first documentation that EPA had actually
 > concealed hazardous air data after 9/11. EPA explicitly stated in a series
 > of press releases that tests for asbestos were below a certain specific
 > level, while at the same time having in their possession tests from New
 > York City showing asbestos above this level. EPA only referred to their
own
 > tests, which were questionable to begin with. Yet, EPA had in its
 > possession at the time other data from New York City showing just the
 > opposite, and concealed it from the public. New York City also concealed
 > its data. When New York City finally released the data in 2002, it altered
 > the results in many cases to show lower, non-hazardous levels. This
 > deliberate concealment raises the liability of EPA and New York City from
 > the mere misrepresentation of hazards, to the level of a deliberate,
 > knowing falsification and disregard for public safety. EPA and New York
 > City can no longer hide behind their 'sovereign immunity' defense in
 > litigation brought by those now and in the future suffering permanent
 > disability after the World Trade Center collapse, the living victims of
9/11."
 >
 > JO POLETT, KIMBERLY FLYN, (917) 647-7074, Flynnktm@aol.com,
 > http://www.911ea.org
 > Polett and Flyn work with 9/11 Environmental Action, an organization of
 > downtown New York City residents. Polett lives seven blocks from the World
 > Trade Center site and has been diagnosed with Reactive Airways Disease.
She
 > said today: "For more than two years, we have been working to force the
EPA
 > to clean World Trade Center hazards from indoor spaces in all affected
 > neighborhoods, and to expose the government's misconduct in response to
 > those hazards... To this day, I continue to meet area residents and
workers
 > who have not received proper diagnosis and treatment of illnesses caused
by
 > exposure to WTC dust and smoke. Because the government refused to conduct
 > comprehensive testing inside area buildings following the collapse of the
 > World Trade Center, we will never know the extent and nature of the
 > contaminants to which people were exposed as they heeded false safety
 > assurances and returned to their homes and offices."
 >
 > Flyn said today: "It's a scandal that, to this day, there has never been
an
 > adequate cleanup of the vast majority of indoor spaces in Lower Manhattan.
 > There has never been proper testing in place like Brooklyn where it
 > 'snowed' dust and debris for several days.... We urge the president to
 > order the proper agencies back to take care of unfinished business in New
 > York. In addition, residents of Lower Manhattan, who felt the impact of
the
 > government's negligence first hand, have a very important message for the
 > rest of the country: The Bush administration needs to fix what went wrong
 > in New York right now. If there is another terrorist attack that creates a
 > toxic threat, with dangerous dust and chemicals filling the air and
 > infiltrating buildings, the government needs to make sure that what
 > happened in New York never happens again. The Sierra Club's report is the
 > document that connects all the dots we have.... These lessons must be put
 > into practice in order for the words 'Homeland Security' to mean anything
 > to the people on the ground."
 >
 > For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
 > Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541)
484-9167
 >
 >
 > _________________________________________________________________
 > You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
 >      mediagen@lists.accuracy.org
 > To be removed from the list, send any message to:
 >      mediagen-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org
 >
 > For all list information and functions, including changing
 > your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page:
 >      http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/mediagen




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 26 [du-list] Vermont gubernatorial candidate seeks ban of DU
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:54:40 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Candidate throws hat into ring

By DANIEL BARLOW
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
August 14, 2004

http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2334155,00.html

BRATTLEBORO -- Peter Diamondstone..., a member and
co-founder of the Liberty Union Party, is seeking the
Progressive Party's nomination for governor in the September
primary....

One of the main reasons that Diamondstone is seeking the
governor's seat is access to its "bully pulpit," he said.

With the seat elevating his mouthpiece, Diamondstone said he
would work to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq, withdraw all
aid to Israel, pay reparations to Iraqis and Palestinians
and cease the use of ammunition containing depleted uranium.

These policies are part of his health-care plan, he said,
linking war, terrorism and radiation to the basic
healthiness of humans.

"There are kids being born with hands growing out of their
shoulders and with no arms by the spouses of U.S. troops at
a rate of 10 times the occurrence within the rest of the
population," said Diamondstone, discussing the effect of
depleted uranium on reproduction.

His second goal as governor would be to seize the Vermont
Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon by eminent domain and
then "let the citizens decide how long to keep it open, if
they want to keep it open at all." ...

-- 


Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

NucNews Links and Expanded Archives - http://nucnews.net




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 27 York Dispatch: TMI health effects: Scientist calls for long-term studies

August 19, 2004                                                                                
 			 								 					
By CHARLIE YOUNG The York Dispatch
 
More research needs to be done on the long-term effects of 
radiation exposure due to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island 
-- both for historical purposes and because the nation continues 
to rely on nuclear energy, scientist Joseph Mangano says.

 Mangano, of the Radiation and Public Health Project research 
group, wrote an article in the current Bulletin of the Atomic 
Scientists titled "Three Mile Island: Health Study Meltdown" and 
spoke at the Capitol Rotunda yesterday at the invitation of the 
Three Mile Island Alert safe-energy group.

 "So, 25 years after the accident, the question, 'Did anyone die 
because of Three Mile Island?' remains largely unanswered," he 
wrote.

 Mangano called for continuing research because the effects of 
radiation may take decades to manifest.

 There were some early studies, but he questions why they were 
limited to people living only within 5 or 10 miles of the plant. 
Some data indicates radiation was elevated as far away as Maine. 

While most previous TMI studies have found no links to cancer, 
Mangano said long-term studies eventually changed thinking about 
the effects of low-dose radiation exposure.

�2004 by The York Dispatch Publishing Co., LLC
*****************************************************************
 28 Idaho Statesman: Speak up if you think nuclear testing in '50s and '60s made you sick

Dirk Kempthorne: 

08-19-2004                

Certain Idahoans living with thyroid cancer, as well as other 
illnesses, have an opportunity to put a human face on cold 
statistics, which all too often provide society's only measure of 
the harsh reality cancer victims live with on a daily basis.

It's possible that nuclear weapons testing conducted during the 
1950s and 1960s by the U.S. government in Nevada could be 
responsible for a spike in thyroid cancer in some areas of Idaho. 
As part of a larger effort to document the possible impacts of 
the testing, the National Academy of Science's National Research 
Council is asking people to tell their stories about thyroid 
cancer or other illnesses they may have developed as a result of 
radiation exposure related to the tests.

I urge anyone with a story to tell to come forward. Idaho is 
providing comments on the study, but stark computer models of 
potential nuclear fallout patterns and cancer rate models do 
little to measure the possible human costs of testing. We must 
ensure that Idahoans affected by this Cold War era testing have 
an opportunity to tell their stories.

The National Academy's study will recommend improvements in 
screening, education and referral services for exposed people. 
The National Academy will also review whether the Radiation 
Exposure Compensation Act  a federal law that recognizes 
potential impacts of the testing to those who lived in parts of 
Nevada, Arizona and Utah  should cover additional classes of 
individuals or geographic areas, including areas of Idaho.

A scientific link between the testing and Idaho's elevated 
thyroid cancer rates has not been made to date. And pinpointing a 
specific cause for the heightened cancer rates is further 
complicated because of population movement in and out of the 
potentially affected counties since the testing was conducted. 
Here's what we do know: A 1997 National Cancer Institute (NCI) 
study concluded that residents of four Idaho counties  Gem, 
Blaine, Custer and Lemhi  received some of the nation's highest 
estimated exposure rates to radioactive iodine, a potential cause 
of thyroid cancer, as a result of the Nevada nuclear weapons 
testing.

A separate 1998 study performed by the Cancer Data Registry of 
Idaho, "Thyroid Cancer in Idaho 1970-1996," found an increasing 
trend of thyroid cancer cases on a statewide basis, based on 
current population. The study noted more thyroid cancer cases 
than expected in Blaine, Custer, Elmore and Lincoln counties  
two of the four counties identified in the NCI study. But, again, 
the study was not able to link the trend to a specific cause.

Those with information for the National Academy of Science's 
National Research Council, questions about the study, or 
questions about what types of information will be most useful 
should contact Dr. Isaf Al-Nabulsi:

� Address: National Board of Radiation, 500 5th St. NW, 
Washington, DC 20001.

� Phone: (202) 334-2671.

� Fax: (202) 334-1639.

� E-mail: ialnabul@nas.edu [ialnabul@nas.edu] 

I sincerely hope that you will work with Idaho's congressional 
delegation and myself to ensure that Idahoans' voices are heard 
on this issue.

Dirk Kempthorne is governor of Idaho. 	 		 	     

*****************************************************************
 29 SFBV: Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets

San Francisco Bay View 

- National Black Newspaper of the Year
 
8/18/04 

 [http://www.sfbayview.com] 

A death sentence here and abroad 

by Leuren Moret 

  At an April press conference, a group of New York Army
National Guard vets raised their hands when asked if they have
health problems. The soldiers, all from the 442nd Military
Police Company, are complaining of headaches and fatigue after
what they think is exposure to depleted uranium during their
recent tour in Iraq.

 Photo: www.american freepress.net   


�Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in 
foreign policy.� - Henry Kissinger, quoted in �Kiss the Boys 
Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW�s in Vietnam� 

Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating 
large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and 
environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But 
since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted 
uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. 
government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast 
regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently 
contaminated with radiation. 

And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of 
Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press 
that �Gulf-era veterans� now on medical disability since 1991 
number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that 
same 14-year period. 

This week the American Free Press dropped a �dirty bomb� on the 
Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one 
unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have 
malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that 
unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months. 

Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted 
uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and 
scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause 
of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One 
of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also 
served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Kor�nyi-Both, is in agreement 
with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense�s Deployment 
Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not 
exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect 
causes this time to confuse the issue. 

This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up 
perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential 
administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the 
Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on 
the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that 
DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff. 

Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 
1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear 
physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab 
and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the 
new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as 
�spectacular � and a matter of concern.� 

This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on 
biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate � the 
particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant 
one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the 
DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of 
diseases which are difficult to define. 

In simple words, DU �trashes the body.� When asked if the main 
purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing 
people, Fulk was more specific: �I would say that it is the 
perfect weapon for killing lots of people.� 

Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be 
expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. 
This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals 
treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia 
in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for 
the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this 
phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has 
been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with 
internal DU exposure. 

Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian 
Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf 
War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on 
permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled 
vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who 
served now have medical problems. 

The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been 
increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of 
Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there 
are more disabled vets now than even after World War II. 

They brought it home 

Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the battlefields, 
but they brought it home. DU in the semen of soldiers internally 
contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends. Tragically, 
some women in their 20s and 30s who were sexual partners of 
exposed soldiers developed endometriosis and were forced to have 
hysterectomies because of health problems. 

In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who 
had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of 
their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They 
were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune 
system and blood diseases. In some veterans� families now, the 
only normal or healthy members of the family are the children 
born before the war. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has stated that they do not 
keep records of birth defects occurring in families of veterans. 

How did they hide it? 

Before a new weapons system can be used, it must be fully tested. 
The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons is a 1943 declassified 
document from the Manhattan Project. 

Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed 
poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project 
by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry�s 
father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a 
CIA agent. 

Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which 
recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive 
trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, 
it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from 
the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very 
fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective 
clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating 
the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly. 

They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, 
which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water 
supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust. 

The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, 
and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under 
U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs. 

The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS 
Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU 
weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries. 

Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from 
1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery ranges 
and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are 
contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment. 

Women living around these facilities have reported increases in 
endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and 
cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU 
weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and 
gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of 
the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past 
decade. The military denies that DU is the cause. 

The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as 
they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of low 
level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power 
plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being 
trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 
2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from 
the 2003 war for mental problems only. 

Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating 
returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they 
talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were 
also threatened with jail. 

Reporters have also been prevented access to more than 14,000 
medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly since the 2003 war in 
C-150s from Germany who are brought to Walter Reed Hospital near 
Washington, D.C. 

Dr. Robert Gould, former president of the Bay Area chapter of 
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has contacted three 
medical doctors since February 2004, after I had been invited to 
speak about DU. Dr. Katharine Thomasson, president of the Oregon 
chapter of the PSR, informed me that Dr. Gould had contacted her 
and tried to convince her to cancel her invitation for me to 
speak about DU at Portland State University on April 12. Although 
I was able to do a presentation, Dr. Thomasson told me I could 
only talk about DU in Oregon �and nothing overseas � nothing 
political.� 

Dr. Gould also contacted and discouraged Dr. Ross Wilcox in 
Toronto, Canada, from inviting me to speak to Physicians for 
Global Survival (PGS), the Canadian equivalent of PSR, several 
months later. When that didn�t work, he contacted Dr. Allan 
Connoly, the Canadian national president of PGS, who was able to 
cancel my invitation and nearly succeeded in preventing Dr. 
Wilcox, his own member, from showing photos and presenting 
details on civilians suffering from DU exposure and cancer 
provided to him by doctors in southern Iraq. 

Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of PSR, 
reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to 
lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had 
pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her 
position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her 
last job had been with the CIA. 

How was the truth about DU hidden from military personnel serving 
in successive DU wars? Before his tragic death, Sen. Paul 
Wellstone informed Joyce Riley, R.N., B.S.N., executive director 
of the American Gulf War Veterans Association, that 95 percent of 
Gulf War veterans had been recycled out of the military by 1995. 
Any of those continuing in military service were isolated from 
each other, preventing critical information being transferred to 
new troops. The �next DU war� had already been planned, and those 
planning it wanted �no skunk at the garden party.� 

The US has a dirty (DU) little (CIA) secret 

A new book just published at the American Free Press by Michael 
Collins Piper, �The High Priests of War: The Secret History of 
How America�s Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and 
Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their 
Drive for Global Empire,� details the early plans for a war 
against the Arab world by Henry Kissinger and the neo-cons in the 
late 1960s and early 1970s. That just happens to coincide with 
getting the DU �show on the road� and the oil crisis in the 
Middle East, which caused concern not only to President Nixon. 
The British had been plotting and scheming for control of the oil 
in Iraq for decades since first using poison gas on the Iraqis 
and Kurds in 1912. 

The book details the creation of the neo-cons by their 
�godfather� and Trotsky lover Irving Kristol, who pushed for a 
�war against terrorism� long before 9/11 and was lavishly funded 
for years by the CIA. His son, William Kristol, is one of the 
most influential men in the United States. 

Both are public relations men for the Israeli lobby�s 
neo-conservative network, with strong ties to Rupert Murdoch. 
Kissinger also has ties to this network and the Carlyle Group, 
who, one could say, have facilitated these omnicidal wars 
beginning from the time former President Bush took office. It 
would be easy to say that we are recycling World Wars I and II, 
with the same faces. 

When I asked Vietnam Special Ops Green Beret Capt. John McCarthy, 
who could have devised this omnicidal plan to use DU to destroy 
the genetic code and genetic future of large populations of Arabs 
and Moslems in the Middle East and Central Asia - just 
coincidentally the areas where most of the world�s oil deposits 
are located - he replied: �It has all the handprints of Henry 
Kissinger.� 

In Zbignew Brzezinski�s book �The Grand Chessboard: American 
Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,� the map of the 
Eurasian chessboard includes four regions strategic to U.S. 
foreign policy. The �South� region corresponds precisely to the 
regions now contaminated permanently with radiation from U.S. 
bombs, missiles and bullets made with thousands of tons of DU. 

A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 
tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. 
The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity 
equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed, 
and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere 
from atmospheric testing! 

No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the 
Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry 
Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill from 
Agent Orange, �Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be 
used for foreign policy.� 

Unfortunately, more and more of those soldiers are men and women 
with brown skin. And unfortunately, the DU radioactive dust will 
be carried around the world and deposited in our environments 
just as the �smog of war� from the 1991 Gulf War was found in 
deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii. 

In June 2003, the World Health Organization announced in a press 
release that global cancer rates will increase 50 percent by 
2020. What else do they know that they aren�t telling us? I know 
that depleted uranium is a death sentence � for all of us. We 
will all die in silent ways. 

To learn more 

Sources used in this story that readers are encouraged to 
consult: 

American Free Press four-part series on DU by Christopher Bollyn. 
Part I: �Depleted Uranium: U.S. Commits War Crime Against Iraq, 
Humanity,� www.americanfreepress.net/depleted_uranium.html; Part 
II: �Cancer Epidemic Caused by U.S. WMD: MD Says Depleted Uranium 
Definitively Linked,� 
www.americanfreepress.net/html/cancer_epidemic_.html 

August 2004 World Affairs Journal. Leuren Moret: �Depleted 
Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War,� 
www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm 

August 2004 Coastal Post Online. Carol Sterrit: �Marin Depleted 
Uranium Resolution Heats Up � GI�s Will Come Home To A Slow 
Death,� www.coastalpost.com/04/08/01 

World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, Hamburg, Germany, 
October 16-19, 2004: 
www.worlduraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers/speakers.htm 

International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan. Written opinion 
of Judge Niloufer Baghwat: 
www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar0 
4.htm 

�Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Nuclear War� by Akira 
Tashiro, foreword by Leuren Moret, 
www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html 

Leuren Moret is a geoscientist who has worked around the world on 
radiation issues, educating citizens, the media, members of 
parliaments and Congress and other officials. She became a 
whistleblower in 1991 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab after 
experiencing major science fraud on the Yucca Mountain Project. 
An environmental commissioner in the City of Berkeley, she can be 
reached at leurenmoret@yahoo.com.       

Search sfbayview.com Search WWW   

San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street 
San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415) 
671-0316 Email: [editor@sfbayview.com]   
*****************************************************************
 30 Scripps: Energy Department slow to handle worker illness claims


 By RICHARD POWELSON
 Scripps Howard News Service
 August 19, 2004

 WASHINGTON - 	While 25,000 workers have blamed a serious
illness on their jobs at U.S. weapons plants, only 31 have
received workers compensation under a benefit program Congress
approved four years ago, according to federal records.

	The Energy Department, which manages the program, has blamed
the low number of awards in part on a shortage of physicians
willing to review the claims because of low federal doctor pay.
Only 12 percent of the claims have completed the review process.

	Most of the claims came from nine states where the Energy
Department has or had large weapons plants: Colorado, Idaho,
Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and
Washington. Some factors for the trend remain under study.

	Complaints from frustrated ex-workers, their families and their
representatives in Congress have resulted in passage of House
and Senate bills that differ on whether to try new, faster
options at the Energy Department or to turn the program over to
the Labor Department. The Senate favors the latter.

	Harry Williams, a former 20-year security officer at federal
facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., won compensation after a
six-year battle with the Energy Department over whether his
respiratory and other diseases were related to working around a
variety of hazardous materials and chemicals.

	"Six or seven years to settle these claims, and having to fight
this battle, is just absurd," Williams said in an interview.
"Sick people need a determination ... within a reasonable time -
certainly less than a year."

	Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee was among
Senate supporters who want the Labor Department to handle the
claims. "I recognize that there have been problems," Frist said.
He said he would work on a final plan this year to "help workers
and families receive the benefits they are due as expeditiously
as possible."

	Energy Department officials have addressed the delays by hiring
more physicians to review claims, increasing fees, and reducing
each claims panel from three members to one, department
spokesman Joe Davis said.

	"We have made progress in hiring more doctors and streamlining
what the bureaucrats set up early on," Davis said.

	Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has called the program run by
the Energy Department and a contractor "a disgrace" and "a
terrible performance." About 675 former Iowa workers have filed
worker compensation claims with the Energy Department,. a
federal audit showed.

	The 2000 law passed by Congress assigned the Labor Department
to handle worker claims for three diseases that were most easily
tied to materials or chemicals used at weapons plants. The
department can make lump sum payments up to $150,000 per person,
plus reimbursement for medical bills.

	Labor officials have paid more than 11,000 former workers or
survivors about $868 million, plus about $40 million toward
medical bills, if they worked around radiation, beryllium or
silica and developed certain cancers or respiratory diseases.

	Congress assigned the rest of the health claims not related to
the three diseases to the Energy Department.

	One of the House supporters of keeping the Energy Department
involved, Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said officials have been
making progress in handling "very complicated" claims about
hazardous exposures. Changing departmental administration now
could increase delays for sick workers, he said.

	"You can't just wave a magic wand over it by saying: 'Send it
to the Department of Labor and it will all be better,' " Wamp
said.

	Richard Miller, a policy analyst with the Government
Accountability Project in Washington, formerly worked with two
unions and Congress to pass federal benefits for employees with
workplace diseases.

	Miller favors Labor Department oversight because the Energy
Department has helped few ex-workers.

	"It makes about as much sense," Miller said, "to assign worker
compensation claims processing and management to a weapons
agency as it does assigning nuclear weapons production to a
benefits agency like the Department of Labor."

 
        (Reach Richard Powelson at PowelsonR(at)shns.com)
*****************************************************************
 31 Elburn Herald: Nuclear device found at accident scene 

August 19, 2004

Hazmat teams determined device posed no threat.

by Susan O'Neill

        What started out as a routine accident call in which the 
driver fell asleep and drove off the road on Aug. 12 turned a bit 
more exciting when driver John Cruz told Sugar Grove police 
officer Gary Fineli that there was a nuclear device in his truck. 

        Cruz, a driver for an engineering company in McHenry 
called Schleede-Hampton, was driving west-bound on Galena 
Boulevard at about 7:30 a.m. when his car left the road at the 
curve about a quarter-mile east of Route 47. According to Fineli, 
a witness told him the truck had rolled over three times. 

        "The truck was crushed and mangled," he said. "It is safe 
to say it was totaled."

        While the truck was rolling over, the device was ejected 
from the truck and ended up a few feet away from the vehicle. 
When he approached the device, Fineli saw a placard on it that 
read "radioactive," explained Fineli.

        Cruz didn't know anything about the device, so Fineli 
called the Sugar Grove Fire Department and the Hazard Materials 
teams of Aurora and North 

Aurora, as well as the Illinois Emergency Management Agency 
Division of Nuclear Safety to the scene.

        The device, a moisture density gauge designed to detect 
moisture in the soil, looked like a "fat lunchbox with a long 
handle," said Sugar Grove Police Chief Brad Sauer. Manufactured 
by the Troxler Corporation, the device contained eight micro 
curies of Cesium 37.

        According to the Center for Disease Control, people 
exposed to the material after it has been dispersed into the air, 
water, soil or food have not been exposed to amounts large enough 
to cause health problems. However, if exposed to a large enough 
amount of the material, symptoms could include nausea, vomiting, 
diarrhea, bleeding, coma or even death.

        The Hazmat teams determined that there had been no 
leakage and thus no need for evacuation. The device was 
completely secured and had not been compromised from the 
accident, explained Sauer. A representative of Schleede-Hampton 
took it from the scene of the accident.

        Cruz was taken to Mercy Hospital where he was treated for 
minor injuries, said Sauer. 

        The Illinois State Police were contacted regarding the 
material inside the device. Sauer said they were told that there 
had not been enough of the nuclear material inside the device to 
be considered hazardous material, and so no placards or decals 
were needed to identify the truck as carrying hazardous material. 

        "We were told you could almost run it over with a 
bulldozer and it wouldn't compromise the container," said Sauer. 

        However, when Fineli heard the driver say the word 
"nuclear" and saw the sign on the device that read "radioactive," 
he said he treated it as a serious issue. He added that there is 
a lot of material these days that is carried in trucks or on 
trains that could be dangerous. 

        "I secured the scene and then let the HazMat team take 
over," he said.


*****************************************************************
 32 DOE: and Interested Parties To Discuss the Processes Used To Develop
 
                        FR Doc 04-19015 
[Federal Register: August 19, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 160)] 
[Notices] [Page 51494-51495] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr19au04-83]                         
 
and Review the DOE's Total System Performance Assessment of the 
Proposed Yucca Mountain Repository Site Pursuant to its authority 
under section 5051 of Public Law 100-203, Nuclear Waste Policy 
Amendments Act of 1987, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board will meet in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Monday, September 20, 
2004. The primary focus of the meeting will be an overview of the 
purpose, scope, methodology, criteria, and modeling of the 
Department of Energy's (DOE) Total System Performance Assessment 
(TSPA) of the Yucca Mountain site. Other issues pertinent to a 
proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada are scheduled to 
be discussed, including repository design and DOE activities 
related to seismic issues. The meeting
 
[[Page 51495]] will be open to the public, and opportunities for 
public comment will be provided. The Board is charged by Congress 
with reviewing the technical and scientific validity of 
activities undertaken by the DOE related to nuclear waste 
disposal as stipulated in the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act 
of 1987.
 
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and to continue until 
approximately 5:30 p.m. It will be held at the Atrium Suites 
Hotel (formerly the Crowne Plaza Hotel); 4255 South Paradise 
Road; Las Vegas, NV 89109; (tel.) 702-369-4400; (fax) 
702-369-3770. The meeting will begin with DOE program and project 
updates for fiscal year 2005. The updates will be followed by 
discussions of the repository design that the DOE intends to 
carry forward in a Yucca Mountain license application and of 
activities that the DOE is undertaking related to seismic issues. 
After lunch, the focus will be on the DOE's TSPA for a Yucca 
Mountain repository. The DOE will begin the session with 
presentations on the purpose and scope of TSPA; regulatory 
requirements related to TSPA; the approach and methodology used 
to conduct the TSPA; and the development of TSPA models, 
including changes from the last TSPA. Following these 
presentations, representatives from the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) have been invited to comment on the TSPA process 
and criteria from the NRC's perspective. The Electric Power 
Research Institute also has been asked to present the latest 
version of its TSPA. Changes may be made to this tentative 
meeting agenda. A final agenda detailing meeting times, topics, 
and participants will be available approximately one week before 
the meeting date. Copies of the meeting agenda can be requested 
by telephone or obtained from the Board's Web site at 
http://www.nwtrb.gov 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nwtrb.gov] .
 
Time will be set aside at the end of the day on Monday for public 
comments. Those wanting to speak are encouraged to sign the 
``Public Comment Register'' at the check-in table. A time limit 
may have to be set on individual remarks, but written comments of 
any length may be submitted for the record. Interested parties 
also will have the opportunity to submit questions in writing to 
the Board. As time permits, submitted questions relevant to the 
discussion may be asked by Board members.
 
Transcripts of the meetings will be available on the Board's Web 
site, by e-mail, on computer disk, and on a library-loan basis in 
paper format from Davonya Barnes of the Board's staff, beginning 
on October 18, 2004.
 
A block of rooms has been reserved at the Atrium Suites Hotel for 
meeting participants. When making a reservation, please state 
that you are attending the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board 
meeting. Reservations should be made by September 3, 2004, to 
ensure receiving the meeting rate.
 
For more information, contact Karyn Severson, NWTRB External 
Affairs; 2300 Clarendon Boulevard; Suite 1300; Arlington, VA 
22201- 3367; (tel.) 703-235-4473; (fax) 703-235-4495. Dated: 
August 11, 2004.
 
Karyn D. Severson, Director, External Affairs, Nuclear Waste 
Technical Review Board.
 
[FR Doc. 04-19015 Filed 8-18-04; 8:45 am]

 
*****************************************************************
 33 Platts: NRC dismisses three Utah contentions in PFS proceeding
 
  [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   
 
+ NRC dismissed three contentions that Utah sought to litigate in 
the Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS) proceeding. The commissioners 
issued a decision yesterday affirming an Atomic Safety &Licensing 
Board's ruling on the contentions. 

Utah had argued that PFS' environmental report was deficient 
because it did not address how defective or leaking canisters 
would be repaired. 

Utah also claimed PFS did not quantify certain costs such as 
visual impacts, accidents, and emergency response. 

In the third contention, the state faulted the staff's 
cost-benefit analyses in its environmental impact statement. The 
commissioners disagreed there were any deficiencies in the 
staff's work and said that the licensing board properly concluded 
the contentions should not be admitted for litigation. 


Washington (Platts)--18Aug2004
 
*****************************************************************
 34 LVN: Where will Kerry send nuclear waste?

Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard - Opinion
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
     
August 19, 2004
 						
Editor:

Senator Kerry vows to protect Nevada against the storage of 
nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. This is the message Nevadans 
want to hear. I would like now to hear what Mr. Kerry's plan is 
for this waste. 

There are 49 other states that think this storage facility is a 
fine idea - the "not in my backyard" scenario. Where and what is 
Mr. Kerry telling the people of those other places he plans to 
send the waste to? I imagine it is a safe assumption he does not 
intend the waste to go to Massachusetts. 

Does anyone know of his alternate plan and location of the new 
site? France maybe? This seems like a promise made during an 
election year. Maybe Mr. Kerry will be "against it before he is 
for it."

J.M. Morgan

Fallon

All contents � Copyright 2004 lahontanvalleynews.com
Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard - 562 North
Maine Street - Fallon, NV 89406 			 		   	 
*****************************************************************
 35 The Dispatch: Company appeals clean-up order
 	 	 	 	 	 	
Thursday, August 19, 2004                      

South Valley Newspaper Group  
 							     						 					
Thursday, August 19, 2004

By Carol Holzgrafe [carolh@gilroydispatch.com] 

Morgan Hill - The company responsible for polluting South 
County�s groundwater with a cancer-causing chemical filed an 
appeal that could ultimately relieve the firm from its 
responsibility to provide bottled water for residents with 
contaminated wells and to clean up the polluted soil.

A decision on the appeal will likely not be made for more than a 
year.

David Athey, the state regional water quality control board�s 
project manager for the South Valley contamination, said the Olin 
appeal is in response to a cleanup and abatement order (CAO) the 
regional board imposed in July. Olin was to provide bottled water 
for residents on wells whose water tested at 4 parts per billion 
or more. 

The state set 6 ppb as a health goal in March, and Olin has said 
it thought 4 ppb too stringent a standard.

In the meantime, Olin officials have asked the state water board 
- the regional board�s parent agency - for a stay on the cleanup 
order until the appeal is decided. This could halt any bottled 
water distribution but Athey said he was promised - verbally, but 
not in writing - that that would not happen.

�Rick McClure (of Olin) told me they intend to comply with the 
order until the appeal is decided,� Athey said. 

On the good news side, Athey reported on an advance in 
identifying where a sample of perchlorate comes from. 

�Some scientists are using a strontium nitrate isotope to 
�fingerprint� perchlorate in groundwater,� Athey told the 
Perchlorate Community Advisory Group and several members of the 
public at a meeting last week.

Such fingerprinting could be helpful locally, he said after the 
meeting, because Olin Corp., the source of the chemical south of 
Tennant Avenue, could also be charged with responsibility for 
perchlorate in wells north of Tennant. The City of Morgan Hill 
has had to close several wells north of the former Olin 
Corp./Standard Fusee plant at Tennant and Railroad avenues, 
because of detectable levels of perchlorate.

Olin does not take responsibility for the chemical found north of 
its site, claiming the underground water table flows south. �It�s 
possible that water, at one time, flowed north,� Athey said. 

City Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft said Monday that isotope 
tracking is good news but the city is still a bit unhappy with 
the regional board.

�We continue to be greatly unhappy that the regional board hasn�t 
made (Olin) do any type of sampling to show perchlorate�s 
presence (in wells north of Tennant),� Ashcraft said. 

The city has not performed the tests either. 

�Sampling gets very expensive quickly because to do it right, you 
have to drill monitoring wells,� he said.

Athey was reporting on a recent seminar of groundwater experts, 
the second in two years, where perchlorate was the focus.

�We�ve gained 1,000 percent (knowledge and understanding) over 
last year,� Athey said.

Other positive news was that certification for several small 
wellhead and in-house water treatment systems to remove 
perchlorate from drinking water is on the horizon, with more 
details promised soon.

 The advisory group was formed to communicate with South Valley 
residents what has been discovered and what has been done about 
the groundwater contamination by 40 years of safety flare 
manufacturing. Led by San Martin resident and volunteer, Sylvia 
Hamilton, it also includes representatives from valley water, the 
regional board, local farmers and water experts.

Athey said Olin�s appeal document should be posted on the 
regional board�s Web site soon: www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb3/

Carol Holzgrafe is a reporter working in The Dispatch's Morgan 
Hill bureau.   

*****************************************************************
 36 Lowell Sun: Tewksbury water tests continuing

August 19, 2004 Lowell, MA                                                                              
 			 								 					
Officials: Chemical levels higher than initial tests but appear
to be declining1

By VANESSA HUGHES, Sun Staff

TEWKSBURY Additional tests conducted over the past few days found 
higher amounts of the chemical perchlorate than the levels 
initially detected in the town's water supply.

 Town Manager David Cressman said tests of the water supply 
Saturday, Sunday and Monday found perchlorate levels at 3.21 
parts per billion (ppb), 2.71 ppb and 2.65 ppb, respectively. 

Preliminary results from tests conducted yesterday show levels 
below 2 ppb, he said. 

"The good news is the direction of what we're finding with 
perchlorate in the water system is declining, but it's still 
higher than it was a week ago," he said. 

Officials voluntarily notified the public Friday that trace 
amounts of the chemical were discovered during routine tests on 
Aug. 3. Initial tests revealed 1.12 ppb of perchlorate, which is 
used in such products as rocket fuel, explosives, fireworks and 
some types of fertilizers. 

A second round of testing last week showed levels to be 1.84 ppb.                    

 				
 					   						 					   				 				
 					   						

 							
 								   									
 									 									
 									 									
 									 									
 									 


  OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION 8/19/2004 - City gateway 
reopening early - All Lowell first-graders to receive book to 
jump-start school - Board wants manager prioritizing capital 
items - College funding help urged at MCC event - Dracut man 
charged after crash - Garry touts decade-long span of service - 
Lowell man held in rape of girl, 12 - Lowell pair charged in drug 
bust - Mixed reviews on test scores - New middle school campus 
ready to roll - Police Briefs - Suspect surrenders at gunpoint 
after chase - Tewksbury forum slated on chemical found in water - 
Wilmington firm fined for wetlands violation  

 									
 									 								   							 						

 					   				 			

 			

 Water Department officials have identified the Merrimack River 
as the source of the contamination but do not know how the toxin 
got into the river. 

There is no federal or state drinking water standard for 
perchlorate, but the Department of Environmental Protection has 
set one ppb as a safety guideline for sensitive subpopulations. 

Perchlorate may adversely affect the thyroid gland. Pregnant 
women, nursing women, infants, children up to age 12 and 
individuals with hypothyroidism are advised not to drink town 
water. The general population is not considered at risk unless 
levels exceed 18 ppb.

 Cressman said the town is working with the state Department of 
Public Health to open two outside faucets at Tewksbury Hospital 
in order to make water from hospital wells available to residents 
sensitive to perchlorate contamination. 

In addition, the town is working with the DEP and local 
legislators to set up a public forum for citizens to get answers 
to questions about perchlorate. 

Cressman said he is in consultation with the DEP as they continue 
to test the Merrimack River in an effort to identify possible 
perchlorate sources. Selectmen Chairman Joe Gill noted that the 
contamination is a regional concern.

 "We're all taking water from the same river, and perchlorate is 
running down the river," he said. 

Perchlorate also showed up in a Westford public drinking water 
well last month. The DEP is investigating the source of the 
chemical, found in wells near a blasting location.

 Treatment of perchlorate is an emerging issue, said Mike Walsh 
of Cambridge-based engineering firm CDM, which is working with 
Tewksbury's Water Study Committee on a water management and 
distribution plan. 

Massachusetts just this year began requiring towns to test for 
the chemical in order to gain data to set reasonable water 
quality standards. The town's water treatment plant can reduce 
the chemical by just 50 percent, Walsh said. 

"My understanding is it does not decay. It's a difficult chemical 
to treat," he said. 

Vanessa Hughes' e-mail address is vhughes@lowellsun.com 
[vhughes@lowellsun.com] . 

[http://mnglowellsun.healthology.com/] 

[Click here to order Home Subscription] � 1999-2004 MediaNews 
Group, Inc. All rights to republication of special dispatches 
*****************************************************************
 37 KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Experts come up with solutions for
dangerous uranium dumps - OCHA IRIN
 
Friday 20 August 2004   
    
 �  IRIN [david@irin.org.tr] 

Many of the dumps face a real threat from landslides  


OSH, 19 Aug 2004 (IRIN) - Efforts to rehabilitate some 23 uranium 
dumps in southern Kyrgyzstan came to a head on Thursday following 
a meeting of some 15 international organisations, NGOs, local 
authorities and environmental groups in the southern Kyrgyz town 
of Mailu-Suu. 

Organised by the Kyrgyz emergency ministry and the Organization 
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the event 
coincided with a meeting of the Kyrgyz and Uzbek working groups 
on the rehabilitation of mine dumps in the area, a long standing 
legacy of the former Soviet Union. The two groups assessed how 
ongoing activities by specialists from both countries were 
proceeding, with a particular emphasis on safeguarding the 
facilities. 

"Both dialogues are very important in terms of ensuring the 
environmental safety of not only southern Kyrgyzstan but the 
wellbeing of the [entire] Ferghana Valley, a significant part of 
Central Asia," Tilek Akambaev, Mailuu-Suu's mayor, told IRIN, 
noting the majority of dumps fell under his jurisdiction. 

Landslides are the greatest threat to the uranium dumps, 
particularly in the Tectonic, Koi-Tash and Izolit areas around 
the town.

From 1946 to 1968, more than 10,000 mt of uranium ore was 
extracted from the Mailuu-Suu uranium mine and processed at local 
plants in the area. 

According to the Kyrgyz emergency ministry, there are some 2 
million cu metres of radioactive waste currently being stored in 
23 dumps and 13 tailings in the area. 

Strapped by a lack of funds to effectively address the problem, 
following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, local 
authorities had been unable to properly secure the dumps, Ashir 
Abdullaev, an environmental protection official for the 
Mailuu-Suu municipality, told IRIN.

According to international and local experts, the most vulnerable 
dumps are those named respectively No 3, 5 and 7. "The dumps are 
very fragile structures - trenches with a pit filled with clay, 
gravel and sand, covered just with soil," Biymyrza Toktoraliev, a 
Kyrgyz ecology scientist, told IRIN, noting the constant risk of 
landslides and flooding. 

As part of Thursday's coordination meeting, World Bank and 
emergency ministry officials presented a project on mitigating 
the threat of a possible disaster, providing community awareness 
and local involvement in the process, Aleksandr Meleshko, an 
emergency ministry official responsible for the uranium dumps, 
told IRIN. Repair of roads damaged earlier by recent landslides, 
rehabilitation of water supply systems in the suburbs of 
Sary-Biya and Kok-Tash and the involvement of local companies and 
experts in the rehabilitation effort was also discussed.

Earlier in July, the World Bank signed a grant agreement with the 
Bishkek government for implementation of the project worth some 
US $11.7 million. 

But while actual rehabilitation work is not expected to start 
until October of this year, Kyrgyz experts emphasised the need to 
take preventative steps around the landslide-prone Tectonic area 
threatening dump No 3 first. 

[ENDS]

copyright � UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian 
*****************************************************************
 38 Whitehaven News: NEW LIMITS CUT LEVELS OF RADIATION 

  Rex Strong   

PEOPLE will be exposed to less radiation from Sellafield as a 
result of tough new limits on discharges from the site.

From the start of October, BNFL will have to comply with a more 
rigid Environment Agency authorisation controlling discharges not 
only from individual plants but the site as a whole. 

The agency says it will achieve big reductions in Sellafield�s 
radioactive discharge limits and lower the radiological impact 
from discharges. BNFL has to put management systems in place to 
ensure compliance.

Although the current levels of radiation exposure are within 
statutory limits, the new measures will lead to further 
reductions of 35% for liquid discharges and almost 60% for 
gas-eous discharges.

At Sellafield, Dr Rex Strong, head of environmental management, 
said: �It includes a comprehensive system of discharge limits and 
is designed to ensure that even the most exposed members of the 
public receive a further reduction in the already small maximum 
permissible dose from Sellafield�s operations. 

�This further reduction should be seen in the context of 
continuous and progressive reductions in discharges from 
Sellafield over many years.

�While the new authorisation will present further challenges, we 
do not anticipate that it will restrict operational or legacy 
clean-up programmes as they stand at present. 

�We believe our environmental performance will further improve.�

Environment Agency chief executive Barbara Young said: 
�Sellafield is the most significant nuclear site in the UK and I 
am delighted we have been able to complete this review of the 
site authorisation. 

�It has been a massive and complex task, involving us, our fellow 
regulatory bodies and government departments in major technical 
assessments and engagements with stakeholders over the past four 
years.

�It now means we will achieve real and lasting improvements in 
environmental regulation of the site, bringing substantial 
benefits to the public and enhance environmental protection.�

[http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/subscribe]
*****************************************************************
 39 Lowell Sun: Tewksbury forum slated on chemical found in water

August 19, 2004 Lowell, MA                                                                              
 			 								 					
TEWKSBURY The town will host a public forum Monday in conjunction 
with state officials to discuss the recent discovery of 
perchlorate in the drinking water. 

The event begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be held in the Town Hall 
auditorium. 

Local and state officials will be on hand to discuss the recent 
discovery of perchlorate in the water and actions being taken to 
determine the source of the contamination.

 Residents are encouraged to attend and ask questions. 

Representatives from town boards and departments will be joined 
by local legislators and officials from the Department of 
Environmental Protection, the Department of Public Health and the 
attorney general's office. 

The forum will also be broadcast on the local station, channel 
10. 

The town alerted the public on Friday that tests revealed 
perchlorate in water from the Merrimack River. The chemical, 
considered harmful to the thyroid, is used in such products as 
rocket fuel and fireworks.                      

 The town continues to test for the chemical, the source of which 
is under investigation by the state. 

Pregnant women, nursing women, infants, children up to age 12 and 
individuals with hypothyroidism are advised not to drink town 
water.

� 1999-2004 MediaNews Group, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 40 Guardian Unlimited: Sealed Documents on Ex-Nuke Plant Sought
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday August 20, 2004 1:01 AM

By ROBERT WELLER 

Associated Press Writer 

DENVER (AP) - State and federal agencies have asked to see sealed 
files of a grand jury that investigated alleged environmental 
crimes at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant after an 
advocacy group said cleanup plans were dangerously incomplete. 

The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and 
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment requested 
the files from U.S. Attorney John Suthers, spokesmen for the 
agencies said Thursday. 

U.S. attorney's spokesman Jeff Dorschner said Suthers has 
received at least one of the requests, but he did not know when 
Suthers would respond. 

The request came a day after an FBI agent who led a 1989 raid at 
Rocky Flats warned against plans to turn the site, about 10 miles 
west of downtown Denver, into a wildlife refuge, saying it would 
be too dangerous. 

Agent Jon Lipsky said he had been ordered by superiors not to 
comment on his investigation, but he said concerns raised by the 
advocacy group, the Ambushed Grand Jury Citizens' Investigation, 
were valid. 

``I am happy that we are the catalyst and hope they will not 
certify the site as clean until they have gone back and looked at 
the areas we have pointed out to them,'' said Caron Balkany, 
co-author of a book compiled by the group, ``The Ambushed Grand 
Jury.'' 

Jacque Brever, a member of the group and a former employee of 
Rocky Flats, released a report this week accusing federal 
officials of lying about the extent of contamination at the site. 

Brever's report said so much radioactive waste was disposed of 
clandestinely at Rocky Flats that some contaminated areas are not 
part of the cleanup. 

Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons until 
production was shut down after the 1989 raid. A federal grand 
jury investigated allegations of safety violations by the 
contractor and the Department of Energy. 

The grand jury wanted to indict eight, including two 
corporations, but the Justice Department declined. The grand 
jury's report and investigative files remain sealed. 

One of the plant's operators at the time, Rockwell International 
Corp., pleaded guilty to 10 hazardous waste and clean water 
violations in 1992 and paid an $18.5 million fine. 

The Department of Energy plans to convert the site into a 
wildlife refuge after a $7 billion cleanup is complete.          

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 41 DOE: Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee
 
                        FR Doc 04-18993 
[Federal Register: August 19, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 160)] 
[Notices] [Page 51467] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr19au04-60]                         
 
Name: Public meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee on PHS 
Activities and Research at DOE Sites: Oak Ridge Reservation 
Health Effects Subcommittee (ORRHES).
 
Time and Date: 12 p.m.-6:30 p.m., September 14, 2004. Place: Oak 
Ridge Mall, Alpine Meeting Room, 333 East Main Street, Oak Ridge, 
Tennessee.
 
Background: Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed 
in October 1990 and renewed in September 2000 between ATSDR and 
DOE. The MOU delineates the responsibilities and procedures for 
ATSDR's public health activities at DOE sites required under 
sections 104, 105, 107, and 120 of the Comprehensive 
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA 
or ``Superfund''). These activities include health consultations 
and public health assessments at DOE sites listed on, or proposed 
for, the Superfund National Priorities List and at sites that are 
the subject of petitions from the public; and other 
health-related activities such as epidemiologic studies, health 
surveillance, exposure and disease registries, health education, 
substance-specific applied research, emergency response, and 
preparation of toxicological profiles.
 
In addition, under an MOU signed in December 1990 with DOE and 
replaced by an MOU signed in 2000, the Department of Health and 
Human Services (HHS) has been given the responsibility and 
resources for conducting analytic epidemiologic investigations of 
residents of communities in the vicinity of DOE facilities, 
workers at DOE facilities, and other persons potentially exposed 
to radiation or to potential hazards from non-nuclear energy 
production and use.
 
HHS, has delegated program responsibility to CDC. Community 
involvement is a critical part of ATSDR's and CDC's 
energy-related research and activities and input from members of 
the ORRHES is part of these efforts.
 
Purpose: The purpose of this meeting is to address issues that 
are unique to community involvement with the ORRHES, and agency 
updates.
 
Matters to be Discussed: Agenda items will include a presentation 
and discussion on the ORRHES Web site, and updates and 
recommendations from the Public Health Assessment, Communications 
and Outreach, Agenda, Guidelines and Procedures, and the Health 
Education Needs Assessment Workgroups, and agency updates.
 
Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate.
 
Contact Persons for More Information: Marilyn Horton, Designated 
Federal Official and Committee Management Specialist, Division of 
Health Assessment and Consultation, ATSDR, 1600 Clifton Road, NE 
M/S E-32 Atlanta, Georgia 30333, telephone 1-888-42-ATSDR 
(28737), fax (404) 498-1744.
 
The Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, has been 
delegated the authority to sign Federal Register notices 
pertaining to announcements of meetings and other committee 
management activities, for both CDC and ATDSR.
 
Dated: August 13, 2004.
 
Alvin Hall, Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
 
[FR Doc. 04-18993 Filed 8-18-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4163-18-P

 
*****************************************************************
 42 Las Vegas SUN: Wen Ho Lee Reporters Held in Contempt

 By HOPE YEN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - 

A federal judge held five reporters in contempt Wednesday for
refusing to identify their sources for stories about Wen Ho Lee,
a former nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of spying. 

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson imposed a fine of
$500 a day each for Associated Press reporter H. Josef Hebert;
James Risen and Jeff Gerth of The New York Times; Robert Drogin
of the Los Angeles Times; and Pierre Thomas of ABC, who was at
CNN when the stories were done. 

Jackson said the fines would be delayed pending appeals.
Attorneys for the journalists said they would appeal. 

The reporters contend they provided all the relevant information
they could without breaking a commitment to protect their
sources. The sanctions come one week after another federal judge
held a Time magazine reporter in contempt for refusing to
testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA
officer's identity. 

"The threat to First Amendment rights that's going on this
summer is unprecedented," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director
of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. "We
have reporters being subpoenaed. We have judges issuing illegal
prior restraints on the media." 

"All this has to do with secrecy. The government is trying to
keep more and more secrets all the time, and journalists are
working harder to uncover those secrets. Given the terrorism
climate, all this has come to a head," she said. 

Lee is seeking the identity of the sources for his lawsuit
against the departments of Energy and Justice. He alleges the
agencies gave reporters private information on him and suggested
he was a suspect in an investigation into possible theft of
secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 

All but one of 59 counts against Lee eventually were dismissed
and then-President Clinton apologized for Lee's treatment. He
was never charged with espionage. He pleaded guilty to one
felony count of mishandling nuclear weapons information. 

In his order, Jackson rejected the reporters' arguments that Lee
could obtain the information he seeks elsewhere. He said he was
holding the five in contempt because they violated his explicit
order in October to disclose the information. 

"The journalists declined to reveal their confidential sources,"
Jackson wrote. 

Hebert, a 34-year AP veteran, said he was disappointed by
Jackson's ruling. 

"I believe strongly that when a reporter gives a source the
assurance that his or her confidentiality will be protected, he
cannot go back on his word," Hebert said. "To do so would be a
disservice to the source, destroy the reporter's credibility
with future sources and hinder essential newsgathering." 

George Freeman, assistant general counsel for The New York
Times, said: "The Times continues to believe, as we have for
decades, that confidential sources are critical for us to give
the public as broad a perspective as possible on the important
issues of the day." 

Los Angeles Times vice president Martha Goldstein said, "The
ruling seriously jeopardizes the press's ability to report about
our government's actions and the public's right to know." 

During the hearing, Lee's lawyer, Brian Sun, said learning the
identities of the journalists' sources was critical to pursuing
Lee's privacy action against government officials. 

"Although the journalists would posit this as a battle of the
First Amendment, we would submit it's not just that," Sun said.
"It's undisputed that classified information was leaked and
government officials acknowledged there were leaks. (Lee) is
being deprived of crucial information." 

Jackson's 12-page order avoids addressing the question of First
Amendment rights, instead focusing on narrower issues such as
whether the reporters truthfully and fully answered questions
from Lee's attorney in depositions. 

At one point, Jackson calls Gerth's statement in depositions
that he could not recall some of his confidential sources "not
credible." He also rejected an argument from attorneys that the
subpoenas effectively punished reporters for publishing
information they lawfully obtained. 

Lee is "not seeking to 'punish' the journalists for publishing
the information; rather, he seeks an order of contempt because
they will not reveal sources that they have been ordered to
reveal," Jackson wrote. 

Last week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan in Washington held
Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt for failing to
reveal sources as part of the investigation into the leak of the
identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Prosecutors have
subpoenaed at least four other journalists, and Cooper is
appealing. 

"Reporters' ability to quote sources anonymously is a
fundamental and crucial tool in getting important information to
the public," said Stuart Wilk, vice president and associate
editor of The Dallas Morning News and president of the
Associated Press Managing Editors Association. 

"Courts have held repeatedly that journalists can protect their
sources. APME would hope that that principle ultimately will
prevail," he said. 

--- 

On the Net: 

Text of the contempt ruling is available at: 

http://wid.ap.org/documents/courts/040818contempt.pdf
[http://wid.ap.org/documents/courts/040818contempt.pdf] 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 43 Las Vegas SUN: No Missing Data Found at National Lab

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) - An urgent review of computer security at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory turned up no missing classified
items, officials said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ordered
an inventory of "classified removable electronic media" at all
Department of Energy facilities last month after two disks of
secret data were reported missing at Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico. 

The review included the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge,
which has now resumed normal operations, The Knoxville News
Sentinel reported for Thursday editions. 

Walter Perry, a DOE spokesman, said an inventory at Oak Ridge
facilities found no missing computer disks or other media
covered in the inventory. 

Perry said the laboratory was among the first to be cleared by
the DOE to restart classified operations, getting the go-ahead
Aug. 11. The Y-12 warhead-production center received clearance
the next day. 

The weapons plant had been converting its computer operations to
diskless work stations even before the latest DOE security
problem. 

Other reviews at the Oak Ridge complex should be completed in
the next few days, Perry said. 

The DOE has said new training programs and protocols will be set
up to ensure strict accountability for all classified
information. 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 44 Las Vegas SUN: FBI Agent: Ex-Nuke Plant Unsafe for Refuge

 By ROBERT WELLER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DENVER (AP) - An FBI agent who said he was ordered not to
discuss his role in a 15-year investigation of the Rocky Flats
nuclear weapons plant warned Wednesday against creating a
wildlife refuge at the site, saying it would be too dangerous. 

Jon Lipsky, who led a 1989 raid on the plant after being tipped
off about secret illegal burning of radioactive waste, said he
was ordered by superiors to abandon his plans to talk about the
investigation at a news conference. 

The news conference was called to discuss a report written by
former Rocky Flats employee Jacque Brever accusing the
Department of Energy of lying about the extent of contamination
at Rocky Flats, about 10 miles west of downtown Denver. 

The department plans to convert the site into a wildlife refuge
in two years after a $7 billion cleanup is complete. 

Brever's report said so much radioactive waste was disposed of
clandestinely at Rocky Flats that some contaminated areas are
not part of the cleanup. 

"I can tell you that Jacque's report is accurate," said Lipsky,
saying he was speaking as a private citizen. 

FBI spokesman Joe Parris confirmed Lipsky had been told not to
talk about the investigation because he had not followed
standard procedure and asked for permission. Parris said Lipsky
could have faced sanctions had he discussed it. 

Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons until
production was shut down after the 1989 raid. A federal grand
jury investigated allegations of safety violations by the
contractor and the Department of Energy. 

The grand jury wanted to indict eight, including two
corporations, but the Justice Department declined. The grand
jury's report remains sealed. 

One of the plant's operators at the time, Rockwell International
Corp., pleaded guilty to 10 hazardous waste and clean water
violations in 1992 and paid an $18.5 million fine. 

Brever prepared her report for Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who had
asked for a detailed account of her concerns about Rocky Flats. 

Speaking with difficulty because of thyroid cancer she believes
she contracted while working at Rocky Flats, Brever said
employees dumped contaminated waste in a duck pond that is not
listed among the areas being cleaned. 

Energy Department spokeswoman Karen Lutz said officials have
reviewed Brever's report and some of the areas Brever cited have
been cleaned up or will be. Lutz said a cleanup of the duck pond
will begin in the next three weeks. 

"The Department of Energy is very confident that the cleanup of
Rocky Flats is thorough, safe and protective," Lutz said. 

Neils Schonbeck, a professor of biochemistry at Metro State
College in Denver who has studied Rocky Flats since 1988, said
the government's acceptable limit of 50 picocuries in topsoil at
Rocky Flats is far too high. Schonbeck said visitors could stir
up dust and put dangerous levels of plutonium in the air. 

"Even rain can mobilize plutonium" he said. 

--- 

On the Net: 

Fish and Wildlife Service refuge plan:
http://rockyflats.fws.gov/ [http://rockyflats.fws.gov/] 

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center fact sheet:
http://www.rmpjc.org/2002/FlatsCleanup-Facts.html
[http://www.rmpjc.org/2002/FlatsCleanup-Facts.html] 

-- 



*****************************************************************
 45 Guardian Unlimited Audit: Plutonium Program Behind Schedule
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Thursday August 19, 2004 10:46 PM

By H. JOSEF HEBERT 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - A decade-old program to secure plutonium and
other fissionable material at Los Alamos National Laboratory is
years behind schedule, increasing the likelihood of accidents
and workers' exposure to radiation, according to an Energy
Department audit. 

The program to ``stabilize'' fissionable material, including
plutonium, at the government's weapons research lab in New
Mexico was supposed to have been finished two years ago. But it
now is targeted for completion in 2010, with its expected cost
ballooning to at least $183 million, or 75 percent more than the
original price tag. 

The delays and failures to meet milestones outlined for the
program have increased ``the possibility that containers (of
vulnerable radioactive materials) could leak and workers could
be exposed to radiation resulting in serious health
consequences,'' said the report by Gregory Friedman, the
department's inspector general. 

The report noted an incident at Los Alamos last August in which
two workers were exposed to plutonium 238 while examining a
degraded package of contaminated rags. The department fined the
lab $770,000, but it won't have to pay because by law the lab
manager, the University of California, is immune from such
penalties as a department contractor. 

While some progress has been made in recent years in repackaging
and disposing of the radioactive material at Los Alamos,
``stabilization has not been accelerated to the level
anticipated,'' Friedman wrote. He cited a failure to fully fund
the program and management shortcomings. 

Unless the effort is given a higher priority ``radioactive
materials at the laboratory may continue to deteriorate and
negatively impact the safety and health of workers,'' Friedman
wrote Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in a letter dated Aug. 16
and made public Thursday. 

Many of the inspector general's concerns mirror issues raised by
the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent
advisory panel, in a letter to Abraham last February. 

The board urged the department to speed up its processing and
repackaging of thousands of items containing fissionable or
radioactive materials- many of them left over from Cold War-era
nuclear research. 

The accident last August ``should have reinforced the urgency''
of the task at hand, yet neither the department nor Los Alamos
officials have demonstrated ``an appropriate sense of urgency''
about addressing the total inventory of radioactive and
fissionable materials at the site, said the advisory group. 

Its report said that of 5,718 items in need of attention, 1,403
have been dealt with as of Sept. 31, 2003. They include
radiation-contaminated rags, non-weapons grade plutonium oxides,
steel drums of uranium-tainted materials, and items simply
labeled ``excess material'' from weapons-related work, but which
are viewed as low risk. 

And even more items have yet to be inventoried, according to the
inspector general's findings and the advisory board. At least
155 additional containers not considered in the stabilization
plans have since been found, auditors said. 

Responding to the inspector general's report, Michael Kane, an
associate administrator at the National Nuclear Security
Administration, said he ``generally agrees'' with the inspector
general's findings. NNSA is responsible for the Energy
Department's nuclear programs, 

``While the auditors are correct the laboratory is behind
schedule in some areas, they have exceeded scheduled
expectations in other areas,'' Kane wrote in a letter formally
replying to the report. 

Kane also said that while the program has been underfunded in
the past by as much as 40 percent in the late 1990s - funding
has increased each year since 2001 and full funding is
anticipated beginning in 2006. 

Kevin Roark, a spokesman at the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
referred questions about the inspector general's report to the
NNSA. ``The report speaks for itself,'' he said. 

The Energy Department in 1995 ordered nuclear facilities
including Los Alamos to better secure their fissionable and
radiaoctive materials from Cold War-era activities. It directed
the job be completed by 2002, a deadline that was later extended
to 2005 and more recently to 2010. 

^--- 

On the Net: 

Energy Department Inspector General: http://www.ig.doe.gov 

Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov 
  



                    
                    



        
        

      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
 
*****************************************************************
 46 Rocky Mountain News: Activists rap Flats plan, warn of danger

DOE official defends $7 billion cleanup

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
August 19, 2004

More than a decade ago, the company running Rocky Flats nuclear 
weapons plant at the time pleaded guilty to dumping radioactive 
waste on the site. 

On Wednesday, activists affiliated with the grand jury that 
investigated the case said the Department of Energy is relying on 
falsified reports, uncovered back then, to conclude that parts of 
the site are clean. 

 At a news conference, the activists warned that plutonium being 
left buried at Rocky Flats is so dangerous that the government 
should bar humans from the site forever and not open it to the 
public as a wildlife refuge as planned. 

DOE, which oversees Rocky Flats, says it is examining the 
information cited by the activists. The Environmental Protection 
Agency will do the same. 

DOE said it already has considered most of the information, 
spokeswoman Karen Lutz said. She denied the huge weapons plant 
will be dangerous when it is flattened to meadow and opened to 
the public. 

"Every aspect of our cleanup is under a microscope," she said. 

The state health department declined to comment, except to say 
the site will be safe when the $7 billion decontamination is 
complete in 2006. 

The news conference was the latest chapter in a 15-year-old saga, 
which started with an FBI raid on Rocky Flats seeking evidence of 
environmental crimes. 

That investigation led to a grand jury, which wanted to indict 
executives on criminal charges. But the U.S. attorney at the 
time, Mike Norton, settled the case for a fine, leaving the grand 
jury furious and much of the evidence it uncovered forever secret 
under grand jury rules. 

Grand jury foreman Wes McKinley, who spoke at the press 
conference, recently coauthored a book, The Ambushed Grand Jury, 
about the events. 

The star of the press conference was to be FBI agent Jon Lipsky, 
who ran the agency's investigation in 1989. He said, at the last 
minute, he was barred by his bosses from speaking. 

Instead, the lead went to former Rocky Flats worker Jacque 
Brever, a key whistleblower who says someone tried to kill her to 
keep her from testifying before the grand jury. She now has a 
master's degree in environmental science and used that expertise 
to review 16,000 pages of Rocky Flats documents. 

She concluded that the ongoing cleanup is missing significant 
contamination. 

She said the Rocky Flats closure plan does not include complete 
cleanup of four areas: the "duck pond" - a sarcastic moniker for 
a radioactive dump site that contained no ducks, a landfill, the 
hillside next to Building 881, and the East Spray Fields, where 
she says Rocky Flats spewed onto the ground millions of gallons 
of contaminated sewage water. 

Lutz said DOE already has examined three of these sites and is 
cleaning them where necessary. DOE is checking on the fourth to 
determine if it's a landfill that's already been checked, she 
said. 

Brever and Niels Schonbeck, a Metropolitan State College of 
Denver chemistry professor and longtime Rocky Flats activist, 
both pleaded for the entire site to be fenced off forever and 
monitored. 

When it comes to radioactivity, Schonbeck said, science is not 
certain that current limits really are safe. 

Plutonium, which will be left buried at Rocky Flats in amounts 
considered low-level radioactive waste, is so dangerous that 
inhaling just a few millionths of a gram can damage a lung, 
Schonbeck said. 

Over the 250,000 years it will take for the plutonium to degrade, 
buried contamination could come to the surface, Schonbeck said. 

Brever suggested parents should think "if you want to go out to 
Rocky Flats and let your child go out and roll around in the 
dirt." 

Schonbeck also said it's impossible to sample every centimeter of 
the 6,000 acres of Rocky Flats - on the surface and below ground 
- to find and remove every bit of plutonium. 

DOE's Lutz replied that the $7 billion cleanup project has taken 
hundreds of thousands of samples for testing. 

The activists also called for the release of the complete grand 
jury files so its evidence of contamination can be used in the 
cleanup. 

U.S. Attorney John Suthers offered in May to consider releasing 
the documents to regulators, but none has asked for them. 

DOE said it requested the files Wednesday. The EPA said it would 
pursue them. 

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438 

*****************************************************************
 47 AP Wire: Cleanup at Gaseous Diffusion Plant finished five months early

 | 08/19/2004 | 

Associated Press

PADUCAH, Ky. - An $8 million cleanup of a ditch that runs from 
the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant has been completed, five 
months ahead of schedule and within budget, according to the 
Department of Energy. 

More than 23,000 tons of soil were removed from a half-mile 
stretch of the North-South Diversion Ditch, which runs two miles 
from inside the plant fence to the north section of federal land 
at Little Bayou Creek. The job began last September and was 
completed Tuesday. 

For decades, the ditch was a catchall for contaminated runoff and 
a place that some former workers say was a regular dump site for 
barrels of toxic, radioactive waste at the plant. 

Excavation had been delayed for more than two years because of 
disputes over what to do with the contaminated soil and the new 
accelerated-cleanup plan proposed by DOE. The problems were 
resolved a year ago when DOE and state and federal environmental 
regulators signed the agreement. The ditch work is the first 
project completed under the new plan, which has been challenged 
in court by some plant neighbors. 

"This is a triumph of cooperation with our regulators," said Bill 
Murphie, DOE Paducah project manager. 

The ditch was contaminated with wastewater pumped into the ditch 
for 40 years from a central building called C-400, where 
machinery and equipment were cleansed of hazardous chemicals and 
radioactive materials. In 1995, DOE began treating wastewater 
from the building and pumping it around the ditch to stop the 
spread of contaminants. 

Although the sediment mainly contained uranium, heavy metals and 
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), there were traces of most 
hazardous substances involved with the uranium enrichment 
process, including highly radioactive plutonium, neptunium and 
technetium, and trichloroethylene (TCE), a now-banned toxic 
degreaser. 

Murphie said tests showed such tiny amounts of radionuclides and 
TCE that the soil could be safely buried in a government landfill 
north of the plant. The excavated soil was replaced with a layer 
of clay and clean soil, and the area reseeded. 

In early 2000, northern portions of the ditch were sampled amid a 
Justice Department probe into a federal whistleblower lawsuit by 
three plant employees alleging the plant secretly contaminated 
workers and the public. 

The Justice Department has since joined the case, involving 
allegations by some former workers that drums of contaminated 
material were dumped into the ditch for many years. 

The ditch also was a focal point of major groundwater 
contamination discovered in 1998. After a few residential wells 
north of the plant were found to have traces of TCE and 
technetium, the government paid to provide municipal water to 
more than 100 homes. 

--- 

Information from: The Paducah Sun,  [http://www.paducahsun.com] 
 
*****************************************************************
 48 UPI: FBI agent silenced on Colo. nuke plant - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  August 19, 2004 			   

Denver, CO, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- An FBI agent who planned to comment 
on plans to convert a Colorado nuclear arms facility into a 
public park was ordered by superiors not to speak. 

Special agent Jon Lipsky used vacation time to travel from his 
home in California to speak at a Wednesday news conference in 
Denver organized by anti-nuclear activists who oppose plans to 
turn the Rocky Flats area into a wilderness refuge and public 
recreation area but received a call en route ordering him not to 
speak at the event, the Denver Post reported.

 Lipsky investigated environmental crimes committed in the area 
during the 1980s.

 "I received a call from the FBI ordering me not to talk about 
the Rocky Flats case, so I can't tell you what I came here to 
tell you," he said at the news conference but added that he 
supports the activists' efforts to halt the transformation of the 
6,240-acre area north of Arvada. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service is scheduled to take control of the property in 2006.

 "As a father and a fellow human being, I urge you not to allow 
recreation at Rocky Flats. I'm sorry I can't tell you more," 
Lipsky said.                                                                            

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 49 SF Chronicle: Nuclear data found missing at DOE office in New Mexico
 
H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer         

Thursday, August 19, 2004
   
(08-19) 17:04 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- 

An inventory has found another case of missing data involving 
nuclear weapons, this time at the Energy Department's regional 
office in Albuquerque, N.M., the department disclosed Thursday. 

The Energy Department said that an "accounting discrepancy" 
involving three copies of a "controlled removable electronic 
media" -- or CREM -- was found at the regional office as part of 
the nationwide inventory of such devices. 

The inventory was ordered a month ago after two CREM data devices 
were reported missing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also 
in New Mexico. The Albuquerque facility, part of the DOE's 
National Nuclear Security Administration, coordinates activities 
with the Los Alamos weapons lab. 

Bryan Wilkes, an NNSA spokesman, said that the inventory 
discovered three copies of a single CREM unaccounted for. He 
declined to elaborate further except to say the device contained 
information involving nuclear weapons. 

NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said that all classified work 
involving the computer data storage devices has been halted at 
the Albuquerque office, pending completion of the investigation. 

"I am disappointed that we have found another case of lax 
procedures in protecting classified information," said Brooks in 
a statement. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on July 23 ordered that work 
involving CREM -- disks or other removable computer storage 
devices -- be halted at all the government's nuclear weapons 
facilities until inventories of the devices are conducted and new 
security procedures put in place. 

The missing device at the Albuquerque office was discovered as 
part of that inventory, said Wilkes. 

Meanwhile, investigators, despite extensive searches, have yet to 
find the two CREM devices that were reported missing at the Los 
Alamos laboratory in the New Mexico mountains 100 miles north of 
Albuquerque. The investigation into that incident was continuing. 

No one was suggesting that the classified information -- either 
at Los Alamos or in the DOE regional office -- had been stolen or 
that the disappearances involved espionage. However, DOE 
officials have been concerned about lax procedures and security 
involving the handing of such devices. 

"I expect NNSA employees, both federal and contractor, to adhere 
to the highest standards of performance" when using such data in 
removable computer devices, said Brooks. 

Aside from this latest case, the nationwide CREM inventory review 
so far has produced no incidents or discrepancies, said Wilkes. 

Many of the sites including the Savannah River nuclear facility 
in South Carolina, the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the 
Pantex facility in Texas have resumed normal operations, 
according to the department. 

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 at the Los Alamos lab. Almost 
all work at the lab was shut down and 23 employees were suspended 
as a result of the investigation into the security lapses. 

On the Net: 

National Nuclear Security Administration: 
[http://www.nnsa.doe.gov] 

Los Alamos National Laboratory  [http://www.lanl.gov] 

�2004 Associated Press 

*****************************************************************
 50 DenverPost.com: FBI agent is silenced on Flats

Jon Lipsky supports efforts to stop the former nuclear arms
facility from becoming a public recreation area.

By Jim Hughes Denver Post Staff Writer
 			
  Post / Kathryn Scott Osler   

  Anti-nuclear activists held a news conference Wednesday to 
discuss their opposition to Rocky Flats becoming a wilderness 
refuge and public recreation area. FBI Agent Jon Lipsky, who had 
planned to speak, is at center.   

 The FBI ordered a special agent who investigated environmental 
crimes at Rocky Flats in the 1980s not to talk Wednesday at a 
news conference organized by anti-nuclear activists, the agent 
said. 

Jon Lipsky, now assigned to an FBI field office in California, 
took vacation time to travel to Denver, he said. The FBI called 
him en route Tuesday, he said. 

"I received a call from the FBI ordering me not to talk about the 
Rocky Flats case, so I can't tell you what I came here to tell 
you," he said at a news conference in Denver. 

Lipsky said he supported the activists trying to stop the former 
nuclear weapons plant from becoming a wilderness refuge and 
public recreation area. This transformation of Rocky Flats' 6,240 
acres northwest of Arvada could occur after the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service takes control of the property in 2006. 

"As a father and a fellow human being, I urge you not to allow 
recreation at Rocky Flats," Lipsky said. "I'm sorry I can't tell 
you more." 

FBI spokeswoman Monique Kelso said the local field office called 
Lipsky to remind him that discussing cases with the media without 
approval violates FBI policy. 

"It would have been fine if he would have obtained proper 
authority, but he just didn't do that," she said. 

Lipsky, formerly of the FBI office in Denver, led the 
investigation that concluded in 1992 with an $18.5 million plea 
agreement between federal prosecutors and the contractor at the 
plant, Rockwell International Corp. 

The plea bargain was reached after a federal grand jury spent 
nearly three years reviewing evidence. 

The activists who called Wednesday's news conference included two 
who, with Lipsky's cooperation, published a book this spring 
accusing the Justice Department of blocking indictments and 
covering up crimes by contractors and government officials at 
Rocky Flats. 

The book, "The Ambushed Grand Jury," opens with a letter signed 
by Lipsky and addressed to Congress. 

Caron Balkany, a Santa Fe activist and lawyer who interviewed 
Lipsky for the book, said she believes the FBI is trying to 
protect the Justice Department from public scrutiny. 

"I know they did it during the original investigation, they did 
it when we wanted to interview (Lipsky) for the book, and now 
they've done it again," she said. 

Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in 
Denver, said there is no coverup. 

"These allegations are not new," he said. "Based on complaints 
from grand jurors, the Department of Justice (ordered) a complete 
and thorough review." 

That review found no wrongdoing, Dorschner said. 

Balkany and her co-author, grand jury foreman Wes McKinley, are 
leading calls for the release of secret grand jury materials in 
the case. 

In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled that he lacked 
the authority to release the materials. 

Matsch found grand jurors' concerns "serious and substantial," he 
wrote in his order. 

Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or 
jhughes@denverpost.com [jhughes@denverpost.com] .                               
 		   			 		   	 	
                                                                  
--> All contents Copyright 2004 The Denver Post or other 
*****************************************************************
 51 WVLT: DOE says Accidents Earlier This Year were "Preventable"

VOLUNTEER TV Knoxville, TN: 

August 19, 2004   

As the workers were returning to their stations, the DOE was 
focusing it's attention on the release of reports pertaining to a 
chemical spill along a Roane County highway and a fire at the 
East Tennessee technology park earlier this year. 
  
The question, what did the DOE learn from both incidents to 
prevent those potentially dangerous situations from ever 
happening again. 
  
WVLT's Anderson County Bureau Chief, Eric Waddell reports on the 
latest. 

The first accident may 8,  a chemical reaction that caused an 
evacuation of a large section ofRoane County along Highway 58 
corridor. The conclusion of a Department of Energy investigating 
board says the accident should have been "preventable". 
    
Stating that Oak Ridge  DOE management did not act responsibly in 
watching over the work their sub-contractor TOXCO was doing. 
  
"This is a safety issue for us.    With respect to that, we want 
our program run safely," says Walter Perry, Department of Energy. 
  
TOXCO is declining comment at this time. 
   
One week later a spill of Strontium 90 shuts down Tennessee State 
Route 95. 
   
The investigation board charges the storage tank used by 
Bechtel-Jacobs to transport was not adequate for the job. 
  
The board alleges that there was inadequate work control shown by 
Bechtel's subcontractor, The "Safety and Ecology Corporation". 

"We are looking at the reports ourselves today.  We are going to 
be looking at what we judge to be needed and done better," says 
Perry. 
  
Several communities had to launch into emergency plans in 
response to these incidents. 

One of them, the City of Oak Ridge, their city manager tells us 
he is reading the report and is impressed with the detail of the 
investigation. 
  
"Obviously it was very, very thorough.  It brought in all parties 
involved in the issue and evaluated each one of those roles," 
says Jim O'Connor, Oak Ridge  City Manager. 
  
Local Department of Energy officials say that they still have yet 
to put together a complete estimate of what the two accidents 
cost the taxpayer, but they hope to have that total by the end of 
the month. 

The Department of Energy is holding a public meeting on Tuesday 
August 31 to discuss, in depth, their reaction to the report and 
field questions from the community. 

We will continue to follow this story and update you with the 
changes the Department of Energy implements. 
  
Public meeting on DOE report August 31, 6:00 pm American Museum 
of Science & Energy   

[http://www.worldnow.com]     All content � Copyright 2001 -
2004 WorldNow and WVLT VOLUNTEER TV,
*****************************************************************
 52 Nuclear INSecurity; Project Prometheus; ALSO: Re-introducing
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:54:39 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
STOP CASSINI VOLUME II NO. I -- DEDICATED TO BRUCE GAGNON

1) Nuclear INSecurity: This is a joke, right? (oh, how I wish it was!)
2) From Prometheus, we get the gift of fire (in this case, the "Demon Hot 
Atom" -- no wonder eagles peck at his liver)
3) Bruce Gagnon: Trying harder than I ever imagined (after all, he's had to 
put up with me all these years!) (includes comments about Regina Hagen of 
Germany)
4) Rochelle Becker: Working hard on legal issues; needs our time and $$$
5) Carol Rosin and Jonathan Mark: My best friends in the activist movement?


==========================================================
Nuclear INSecurity; Project Prometheus; ALSO: Re-introducing
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:54:39 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
STOP CASSINI VOLUME II NO. I -- DEDICATED TO BRUCE GAGNON

1) Nuclear INSecurity: This is a joke, right? (oh, how I wish it was!)
2) From Prometheus, we get the gift of fire (in this case, the "Demon Hot 
Atom" -- no wonder eagles peck at his liver)
3) Bruce Gagnon: Trying harder than I ever imagined (after all, he's had to 
put up with me all these years!) (includes comments about Regina Hagen of 
Germany)
4) Rochelle Becker: Working hard on legal issues; needs our time and $$$
5) Carol Rosin and Jonathan Mark: My best friends in the activist movement?


==========================================================
1) Nuclear INSecurity: This is a joke, right? (oh, how I wish it was!):
==========================================================

August 18th, 2004

Dear Mr. Hobbs,

Thank you for your email (shown below).  I had a tour of a nuclear power 
plant once, thanks -- once was enough.

You say you've got stuff you can't tell me about.  What, an Uzi or 
two?  Hundreds of cameras all over the place?  Trip-wires with 
claymores?  Big deal!  I doubt it's anything that would stop a well-armed, 
well-trained band of suicidal terrorists and besides, you've never tested 
it against a significant force.  We all know how weak the tests are.

The only reason we haven't had a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear 
power plant is because it's still in planning somewhere, as we speak. 
Probably in a lot of places.  When it (finally) comes, the chance of you 
stopping it will be next to nil.  They'll take into account your Uzis, your 
cameras, your night-vision goggles, your gas masks if you have them, your 
communications systems, your training, how many of you there are, and all 
the other little details.  They might even have inside help.

If I thought for a second the terrorists were as bumbling and incompetent 
as the average nuclear rent-a-cop (based on studies, mind you -- I'm not 
making that up just to insult you), I wouldn't be half as worried as I am.

As for what EXACTLY would happen to a spent fuel pool if a grenade were 
tossed in it, the amount of damage would depend on a lot of things, but a 
criticality event is NOT impossible.  It would depend on the age of the 
fuel, for one thing.  As to what would follow such an event, all bets are off.

But besides that, I'm sure one thing we'd agree on is that no terrorist 
would bother to get there and only drop one grenade -- they'd have a whole 
satchel charge ready, at the very least, and shaped charges for the nearby 
dry casks which are now at many plants.

It sure would be nice if the discussions about nuclear security and other 
nuclear issues were honest and open and complete.  But in the meantime, I 
can research, through public documents, more than enough details to know 
there is a problem too big to be ignored -- and your "secrets" can't hide 
that fact from ANY diligent observer, including the terrorists.

Your pop-guns and pea-shooters are no match for mortars, RPGs, shaped 
charges, or even flechettes made of so-called "depleted" uranium, and 
dropped from airplanes, hang-gliders, or even sight-seeing balloons a mile 
or more above the plant -- radio-controlled or fly-by-wire, take your pick 
(do you actually think any backyard hobbiest couldn't build this 
stuff?).  (Flechettes would be dropped by suicidal terrorists, of course, 
who won't mind being in the deadly, invisible plume a few minutes later.)

Not to mention the gas attack that might precede the direct assault.  There 
are plenty of odorless, colorless, tasteless gasses to do you in before you 
realize anything is wrong.  I know the control room has positive air flow, 
but it would be standing alone in a matter of minutes (and the spent fuel 
pools and dry casks would be completely unguarded).

I doubt you could even stop a home-made armored bulldozer, like what we saw 
in Colorado a few months ago, let alone a stolen tank, like what we saw 
here in San Diego almost ten years ago.  Yet what did it take to get any 
kind of cement snake for vehicles at the entrances, or load-transfers to 
plant-personnel-manned trucks at the perimeter?  It took 9-11, followed by 
several years of indecision and corporate resistance, but even now, not 
enough has been done; not enough CAN be done.

And even if the nuclear power plants were safe from the outside (a 
preposterous assumption), they would still be a threat and a danger on the 
inside, from accidents like what happened in Japan a week ago, or to 
Davis-Besse two years ago, or perhaps a combination of the two.

The terrorist's weapon of choice for tomorrow will be "small" 
lasers.  You're not prepared for that, either, and -- having personally 
programmed laser targeting software (for "civilian" purposes) -- I can 
assure you it's just a matter of time before a laser weapon attack against 
a U.S. military or civilian target occurs.  I'm amazed it hasn't happened 
yet, but it's coming.  And the government will act totally surprised -- 
like it was literally a bolt out of the blue.

I've "cc'd" my Governor (and I hope you'll do the same with your response, 
whatever it is) in the hopes he will realize -- having played a lot of 
"action" roles of both realistic and science fiction varieties so 
presumably he knows the difference -- that what I've written here is not 
only absolutely correct, it's actually only the tip of the iceberg.  You 
will not be able to defend the plants against any sort of serious 
effort.  It's as simple and horrible as that.  You'd need an army.

Thank you again for writing.  I wish you the best of luck, for all our 
sakes, and fully endorse the use of force to protect the plants.  However, 
no private security force can possibly suffice.  I doubt ANY force can stop 
a determined terrorist, let alone an inexpensive and nearly invisible 
force, because you cannot possibly have sufficient firepower, backup, 
situational awareness, and tactical control to secure those plants.  There 
are too many weaknesses.  There are too many access points and possible 
methods of getting past the protective perimeter.   One inexperienced 
nut-case trying to just walk right in?  Yeah, you might be able to stop 
that.  I'm not impressed.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA

P. S.  You should see the made-for-TV movie MELTDOWN (on FX, not SciFi, and 
they tried very hard to be technically accurate) to learn some of the other 
ways the terrorists might get past your perimeter.  Also, see the related 
article shown below your letter to me.

At 09:32 AM 8/14/2004 -0700, Dave Hobbs <dhnso1@yahoo.com> wrote:

>"Don't count on the plant security forces -- they aren't nearly strong 
>enough. These plants are each vulnerable to air strikes, truck bombs, boat 
>bombs, and of course, the well-equipped and well-armed single madman or 
>small group of terrorists. All anyone needs to do is toss a grenade into a 
>Spent Fuel Pool and hundreds of thousands or even MILLIONS could die."
>
>
>As a nuclear security officer I can tell you that the above statement is 
>completely ridiculous you wouldn't get near a spent fuel pool with a 
>grenade, security at these plants is extremely tight, high tech, and well 
>armed.  I can't give you details because it is classified but what you see 
>for security on the scifi channel has nothing on what we are doing at the 
>plant, no one is getting in.  Besides, even if you did throw a grenade 
>into a spent fuel pool nothing significant would happen and no one would 
>die (except the person who threw it) and that would be from getting shot 
>by security.  You should go visit a nuclear plant sometime see if you can 
>even get close to the spent fuel pool even without a grenade.  It won't 
>happen we don't give tours.
>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
Subject: business as usual . .
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 12:49:40 -0700

NYTimes August 6, 2004, Friday

Battle Swirls On Security At A-Plants

By MATTHEW L. WALD  (NYT) words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 15 , Column 1

The nuclear power industry's trade association has hired the company that 
guards half of the nation's civilian reactors to train and manage 
''adversary teams'' that attack the plants in ... The decision, by the 
Nuclear Energy Institute, has drawn the disapproval of a government 
watchdog that has issued several reports...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Project on Govt Oversight - http://www.pogo.org

August 3, 2004

Nuclear Power Plant Lobbyists Shape Post-9/11 Security Tests

For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Stockton or Danielle Brian (202) 347-1122 or email pogo@pogo.org

In a troubling post-9/11 move, the federal government is allowing the 
nuclear industry's leading lobby to develop the teams of mock terrorist 
attackers who evaluate security at nuclear power plants, according to a 
letter released today by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). "This 
is more than a case of the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse. It is not 
an apparent conflict of interest -- but a blatant conflict of interest," 
said POGO's letter from Executive Director, Danielle Brian, to the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The lobby, called the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), in turn hired the 
company with the biggest financial stake in finding no problems at the 
plants, to provide the specialized teams. That company is Wackenhut 
Corporation which is the nation's largest nuclear s ecurity plant provider, 
with contracts to protect roughly half of the plants.

Wackenhut has a strong incentive to discourage the mock terrorists it hires 
from mounting a realistic security test. Earlier this year, the Department 
of Energy's Inspector General found that Wackenhut managers had been 
cheating on such force-on-force exercises for two decades at the Y-12 
nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, TN. According to NEI: "The Wackenhut 
contract employees selected for the exercises must meet NRC requirements. 
The NRC has the authority to determine and ensure that the force-on-force 
exercises meet the level of attack against which the industry must defend" 
(see http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?docid=1203).

According to POGO's conversations with NRC officials, the agency claims it 
cannot afford to pay for the security testing so has turned to the nuclear 
industry organization NEI to fund the tests. NEI has aggressively lobbied 
against legislation aimed at improving security at the power plants and ran 
a series of misleading advertisements claiming the plants were 
well-protected post-9/11.

Wackenhut is a subsidiary of a Danish-British conglomerate. As Brian notes, 
the Congress has barred foreign firms from operating security at U.S. 
airports. Full text of the letter follows bellow. An inside story appeared 
in the Wall Street Journal today on the topic.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

==========================================================
2) From Prometheus, we get the gift of fire (in this case, the "Demon Hot 
Atom" -- no wonder eagles peck at his liver):
==========================================================

The letter was postmarked from a city with a large NASA/JPL facility a 
little ways north of here.  My wife asked if I knew anyone from there.

"Not yet." I replied.

Inside, there was an August 5th, 2004 press release (04-260) from NASA HQ, 
with a little blue post-it note attached to it.  The note read as follows:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Hoffman,

May I suggest you begin opposing this now, well BEFORE it can get anywhere 
near a launch pad?

Thank you.

Anon.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

According to the press release, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear 
Security Administration -- Naval Reactors (NR) has entered into a 
"memorandum of understanding" with NASA.

By so doing, DOE NNSA Deputy Administrator for Naval Reactors, Admiral 
Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, U.S. Navy, and his counterpart at NASA (Sean 
O'Keefe) continue to destroy the American values of protecting Earth and 
space for future generations, of protecting democracy, and of respecting 
science.

They are calling it NASA's "Vision for Space Exploration."  It's a cover 
for the weaponization of space.

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) is supposed to become the first NASA 
space probe to use "a nuclear-reactor energy source for exploring our solar 
system."  The reactor provides electricity for ion-drive propulsion, and 
for "scientific" experiments.  It's called Prometheus.

According to NASA, Prometheus "will have multiple safety features including 
a design that will prevent criticality while the vehicle is still near 
Earth."  Starting the reactor after it gets out of Earth orbit does nothing 
to prevent its later return to Earth from miscalculations or on-board 
explosions, for example.

In reality, JIMO will be an opener for a more terrestrially-aimed use of 
Prometheus to follow, namely, to supply power needed for space-based 
weapons systems.

The Navy's record with nuclear power has not been good.  Reactor accidents 
are actually quite common in naval vessels.  When they happen, the Navy 
immediately dismisses them as not being a reactor accident, because the 
loss of the reactor was a secondary event, not the initiating event.  Never 
mind all the billions of Curies that are released into the ocean when it 
happens!

More than 1% of all US reactor-powered submarines have failed 
catastrophically (two out of 190).  Russia has a 2% or 3% failure rate -- 
perhaps greater.  These are just the accidents we know about.

In a real shooting war, where the "boomers" and other submarines and 
surface reactor-powered vessels are attacked with nuclear missiles or 
nuclear speed-boats, or nuclear one-man submarines, or even nuclear mines, 
the catastrophe from the spent nuclear reactor fuel being blown to 
smithereens would be incalculable.

The people who propose, order, design, build and run these ships are each 
looking only at a small part of the picture -- "We don't have to refuel for 
25 years!" sounds great, but it really is meaningless since the fuel supply 
is only a small part of the BIG PICTURE, which incudes the potential 
ecological damage to "third parties" such as unborn generations of children 
on both sides of, and not involved in, the conflict.

Another "BIG PICTURE" question the military eggheads ignore is: What are we 
going to do with all the waste?!?

Space warfare could result in complete destruction of the "near Earth 
environment" in just one or two attacks (or retaliations, or mistakes)!

Imagine if, every time the cowboys of the Wild West shot a bullet, that 
bullet kept spinning around the Earth for 25,000 or even 1 million years!

That's how it is with Space Debris.  NASA is responsible for creating 
hundreds of thousands of significant pieces of junk up there.  They track 
the 10,000 largest pieces, each traveling in a different orbit at an 
average speed of about 18,000 miles per hour.  But the rest are too small 
to track (less than about four inches).  A lentil-sized grain of space 
debris can destroy a space station.

Instead of worrying about THAT, NASA is afraid that without nuclear power, 
it has only a "limited" ability to explore the solar system, according to 
their "memorandum of understanding" with the nuclear navy.

The near-forever bullet is also not a bad analogy for how it is with 
nuclear waste here on Earth.  The waste isn't going away -- it decays of 
millions of years.  It won't be shot into space (except disguised as 
"exploration").  It won't be buried safely underground -- it can't 
be.  (Yucca Mountain is a scientific disaster!)

So the Navy ignores it.  NASA ignores is.  The DOE ignores it.  The nuclear 
industry ignores it.  Sean O'Keefe and Frank Bowman ignore it.  For the 
media, the connection is too distant -- they can't see that it is direct 
and close.  So they too ignore it.

Thank goodness "Anon." is not ignoring it, and nor should we!

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA

Disingenuous NASA web page about Prometheus:
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/prometheus.htm


============================================================
3) Bruce Gagnon: Trying harder than I ever imagined (after all, he's had to 
put up with me all these years!) (includes comments about Regina Hagen of 
Germany)
============================================================

For many years -- since 1997, a few months after I met him -- I've written 
that I thought Bruce Gagnon must be an infiltrator.  That I didn't think 
anyone could possibly be as misguided as he seemed to be, hurt the feelings 
of so many other activists, be so imprecise, fall for government/industry 
tricks, etc., without being on the "inside" -- i.e., without purposefully 
trying to dominate and then destroy a movement.

Recently I watched the movie Arsenal of Hypocrisy featuring Bruce Gagnon, 
co-written by Gagnon, and directed, produced, and co-written by Randy 
Atkins.   (Readers may recall my publishing information about the existence 
of the movie some months ago.)  After communicating with Mr. Atkins, it was 
clear that no matter what Bruce was/is, Randy was "in the clear."  I didn't 
need to see his film to learn that.

I did need to see his film to learn the realities of Bruce Gagnon and I'm 
sorry it's taken so long.

While none of us are above suspicion, I no longer think there is any 
possibility Mr. Gagnon is a infiltrator, a spy, or anything but a sincere, 
dedicated activist.  I'm sorry that I could not see the truth sooner and I 
apologize for any disruption to our mutual goals that this may have 
caused.  I'm sorry I couldn't see that his failures were those of a 
sincere, but human, activist.  His flaws, however serious, have certainly 
been no worse than mine have been, over the years.

His goal, unfortunately, is way too grand to be attained, and his apparent 
efforts to lump the nuclear issue in almost as an afterthought to the 
weapons in space issue is still very, very troublesome to this author, but 
now, only because I wish he could be persuaded to fight the nuclear issue 
first and foremost.   Succeeding would solve most of the space weapons 
problem anyway (since nuclear options are necessary for the enormous power 
required), but it wouldn't offend those who realize that America is simply 
not going to give up space superiority.  So we must make sure that it is 
done safely -- which is the same problem we are having with nuclear 
submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear bombs and bomb-making 
equipment, uranium weapons, etc. etc. etc..  They inflict the hell of war 
on unborn noncombatants and other living things.

Yes, Gagnon (and others) are right -- war has become too violent.  Too much 
of an ecological disaster. Too many innocents get killed.  War was never a 
very good idea anyway, but the reality is that there will be war.  We must 
remove the lasting damage that radiation weapons cause and we must create a 
stigma against them that would prevent their use by "civilized" 
nations.  I'm certain that the first step in stopping war altogether is to 
stop killing uninvolved innocent people.  All nuclear weapons are the 
antithesis of that basic principle.  All nations must renounce them.

We can demand environmentally sound rules be established and followed, not 
only in times of peace, but even in time of war.  The military swears it's 
impossible to prosecute a war with ANY shackles on, but Abu Ghraib proved 
otherwise, as did Mi Lai before it, and who-knows-how-many-other events in 
between.  If our military had been given a green light to do whatever they 
wanted, they'd have nuked Russia long ago -- and Vietnam and Iraq, too, 
just to name a few countries on their "hit list" -- we can't let that 
thinking rule.  For one thing, the payback would almost surely be 
nuclear.  Indeed, by using uranium munitions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and 
Iraq, we are almost guaranteeing a nuclear response, possibly against our 
nuclear power plants (see related document in this email)).  We should 
demand that the truth about the dangers to the health of unborn generations 
of children be told to the public.

In Arsenal of Hypocrisy, Gagnon looks back proudly on the fact that NASA 
raised the flyby height of Cassini, supposedly in response to activist's 
concerns.  But, I believe the height was raised specifically to suffocate 
Gagnon's own voice and that of others. For example, the flyby height was 
raised above 1000 km in the last few weeks to suffocate the international 
voice, such as that of Regina Hagen (whom I also will assume, from here on 
in, could not possibly be an infiltrator).  In terms of hitting the debris 
field around Earth and then crashing into Earth, there was an added safety 
factor in raising the height.  But, it did little for trajectory 
miscalculations or malfunctions that might have occurred even just a few 
hours before the flyby, when the probe was 100s of thousands of miles away 
from Earth.  Any miscalculation, miscommunication, or hardware failure 
could have sent the probe tumbling to Earth.  Raising the flyby height did 
little for stopping the next flyby, and the next and the next.  In fact, 
Gagnon's endorsement of NASA's game helps enable NASA's next flyby, as long 
as it's above 1000 km.  I do hope that Mr. Gagnon will learn not to fall 
for such obvious "tricks" in the future.

But all in all, his goals are very important and I wish him all the luck in 
the Universe, and hope I can be of some help in achieving those goals.

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA

Bruce Gagnon is a co-founder and current secretary of Global Network 
Against Nukes and Weapons In Space:
http://www.space4peace.org/

=========================================================
4) Rochelle Becker: Working hard on legal issues; needs our time and $$$:
=========================================================

I went to hear Rochelle Becker speak last week in San Diego (prior to 
watching the Arsenal of Hypocrisy video).

Becker impressed me a great deal.  We haven't seen eye-to-eye in the past, 
so for me, it was an epiphany -- I want to support her efforts in any way I 
can.

Becker is a spokesperson for the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Mothers for Peace, a 
globally respected organization nearly 30 years old.  One wonders how many 
nukes California would have were it not for Mothers for Peace.  A 
dozen?  Twenty?  God only knows.  In reality, California has four operating 
nuclear reactors.

I think all four of California's reactors could be shut down with NO 
disruption of power, except due to political forces and greed.  But in the 
long run, so does Becker.  And that "long run" might only be a year or 
two.  In the meantime, Ms Becker believes there's a good chance we can get 
TWO of them shut down -- the energy loss for California would be low enough 
that it could be absorbed by relatively minor conservation efforts and/or 
new natural gas turbines -- a good tradeoff, to be sure.  Over time we can 
build renewable energy solutions.

The Mothers For Peace are actively involved in several lawsuits to improve 
safety at California's nuclear power plants, or get them shut down.  The 
lawsuits that Becker thinks may help us close California's reactors involve 
plans to replace the steam generators.

California's reactors are aging rapidly.  Each needs to have their "steam 
generators" replaced, which are comprised of thousands of tubes which 
transfer the heat from the highly pressurized Primary Coolant to the 
Secondary Coolant.  The new steam generators will have to be manufactured 
outside the United States (thus, no inspections!) because no one in the 
U.S. manufactures steam generators for nuclear power plants.  The cost will 
be at least $1 billion for San Onofre's reactors alone, and probably closer 
to $2 billion, if not more, when all the other parts are inspected and 
various other corroded and worn pipes, pumps, valves and vessels are found 
and replaced.

Co-owner SDG&E and the cities which have invested in San Onofre have taken 
the easy way out of the dilemma and simply refused to pay for the 
work.  But SCE, the majority holder, wants to go ahead with it anyway, 
which will cost SCE customers dearly, since they'll be the ones who will 
end up footing the whole bill.

And what if a vital part is NOT replaced, and fails ten years down the 
road?  Then, we ALL will "foot the bill" for an accident!

They never expected to have to replace the steam generators in the life of 
the reactors.  They expected to be able to just plug up tubes as they 
failed (a standard industry practice) but too many tubes have needed to be 
plugged up to continue simply plugging up more and more of them.  The 
efficiency and safety (the ability to draw off heat is a safety factor) 
both decline as more and more tubes are plugged up.  The NRC has picked a 
number, more or less out of a hat, and decided not to allow a greater 
percentage of steam generator tubes than that to be plugged up.  All of 
California's reactors (and many others) are approaching that number.

As we are learning from events in Japan and here at home, things wear much 
faster in nuclear power plants than the nuclear industry or the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission ever expects.

This upgrade will require EXPOSING THE REACTOR because they'll have to CUT 
A HOLE IN THE DOME.  Cutting a hole in the dome is likely to weaken the 
structure permanently, as well as allowing additional access for terrorists 
during the time the hole remains open, which would probably be many months 
as it is chipped apart and then sealed up afterwards.

Who knows how many Davis-Besse type corrosion failures there might be 
waiting for us?  San Onofre had at least one serious pipe break this 
year.  It wasn't as bad as Japan's recent accident, but that was pure 
luck.  The whole plant is obviously under-inspected (or there wouldn't be 
an ongoing litany of events).  We are in constant danger of a catastrophic 
failure.

San Onofre can, and should, be shut down.

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA

Here's the URL for the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace:
http://www.mothersforpeace.org/

========================================================
5) Carol Rosin and Jonathan Mark: My best friends in the activist movement?:
========================================================

I thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce Carol Rosin and Jonathan 
Mark in this newsletter.  Dr. Rosin is a highly experienced former space 
industry "insider" -- a whistleblower.  She was a co-founder of Gagnon's GN 
group, more than 15 years ago.   She was one of the first people to try to 
publicize one of the core issues regarding the militarization of space, 
which is this:  Space is already militarized.  It is now becoming 
WEAPONIZED -- a much greater worry for all.

Rosin has stuck with me year after year, trying to help me "see the light" 
about Gagnon (and herself).  Gagnon doesn't know it, in fact, but Rosin is 
probably HIS best friend in the activist community, too!  She tried so hard 
to warn me that I was wrong.  Only Jonathan Mark tried as hard ( 
http://www.FlybyNews.com ).  Bless them both for their efforts -- I wish 
they had succeeded.  I wish I had listened.

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA


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 53 [du-list] DU in the news - 19th Aug. 04
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:57:49 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
GODS of War, Gods of Greed and Profiteers of Misery
Axis of Logic - Boston,MA,United States
... centers were destroyed. Bridges and roads were carpet bombed, fertile
lands were poisoned by depleted uranium. Mesopotamia's history ...
<<http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_11049.shtml>http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_11049.shtml>

THE Californian's Community News - 8/18/04
North County Times - Escondido,CA,USA
... captain and Gulf War veteran Joyce Riley, alleges medical experimentation
on US military personnel and their exposure to Agent Orange and depleted
uranium. ...
<<http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/08/18/news/community/21_24_168_17_04.txt>http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/08/18/news/community/21_24_168_17_04.txt>

Sunday Express, August 15, 2004 SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8, 522
words SURVEILLANCE ON SCOTTISH SHEEP EVEN 18 YEARS AFTER
CHERNOBYL EXCLUSIVE By Tom Martin MORE than a dozen areas
in Scotland are still secretly under curfew because of
fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A total of 14
farms, with 30,000 sheep, are being monitored for...



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 54 Google News Alert - nuclear
 
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:00:14 -0700 (PDT)

 
N Korea nuclear talks vital for world - Australia
Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand
HONG KONG: Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday
it was important for the world to ensure North Korea abandons its nuclear
ambitions and ...
<http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3008494a12,00.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3008494a12,00.html>

US: Iran Says Can Have Nuclear Weapons in 3 Years
Reuters - USA
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior US official said on Thursday Iran has conceded
to European powers it could build nuclear weapons in three years as Washington
...
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6023212>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml%3Ftype%3DworldNews%26storyID%3D6023212>

TEHRAN vows to defend nuclear plants
The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
By Anton La Guardia. Iran has warned America and Israel that it is ready
to launch pre-emptive strikes to stop them from attacking its nuclear
plants. ...
<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/19/1092889276182.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/19/1092889276182.html>

KOREA'S nuclear threat
Cincinnati Post - Cincinnati,OH,USA
... North Korea is beginning to make nuclear weapons and has shown a willingness
to export them to terrorists -- a deadly combination. ...
<http://www.cincypost.com/2004/08/19/hall081904.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.cincypost.com/2004/08/19/hall081904.html>

TVA'S new nuclear chief "always looking for the problems"
WATE - Knoxville,TN,USA
CHATTANOOGA (AP) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority's new top nuclear power
executive says he is results oriented. Karl Singer says ...
<http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=2196968>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp%3FS%3D2196968>

UNION, Entergy reach tentative agreement at nuclear plant
Brattleboro Reformer - Brattleboro,VT,USA
- Unionized workers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant have reached a
tentative contract agreement with Entergy Nuclear, the owner of the Vernon
reactor. ...
<http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~32651~2345643,00.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~32651~2345643,00.html>

NEW law adds more security for nuclear plants
News 10 Now - Syracuse,NY,USA
Since the events of September 11, 2001, there has been an increase in security
at all nuclear plants in the country. Now in New ...
<http://news10now.com/content/all_news/?ArID=26297&SecID=83>

DAY-CARE Centers Near Nuclear Power Plant To Get Potassium Iodide ...
WRAL.com - Raleigh,NC,USA
WAKE COUNTY, NC -- Day-care centers close to the Shearon Harris Nuclear
Power Plant are getting some help from the state in case of an attack
or accident at a ...
<http://www.wral.com/news/3665748/detail.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.wral.com/news/3665748/detail.html>

US WW-II wrecked ship a nuclear timebomb! :
123Bharath.com - India
Scientists have revealed that a World War II American cargo ship, which
broke up on a sandbank, could cause one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions
ever. ...
<http://www.123bharath.com/india-news/index.php?action=fullnews&id=9332>

REPORTERS found in contempt in nuclear
Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA
... in contempt five reporters who refused to disclose confidential sources
used in reporting on Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory
scientist who ...
<http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/19/reporters_found_in_contempt_in_nuclear>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&num=30&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/19/reporters_found_in_contempt_in_nuclear>

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 55 Daily Yomiuri: Headwind turned into tailwind 

Yomiuri Shimbun 

The 100-meter-tall wind turbines that have sprouted up all over 
the Shimokita Peninsula in Aomori Prefecture are turning the area 
into a major supplier of green electricity. 

The peninsula is an ideal location for wind farms. In summer, a 
chilly northeasterly wind called Yamase blows in off the Pacific 
Ocean, while in winter the area is buffeted by westerly winds 
skimming in off the Sea of Japan. 

The wind farms exploit a feature of weather on the peninsula that 
has long been a bane of farmers. Besides lowering the 
temperature, the winds cause mist and fog, cutting the number of 
hours of sunlight for crops. 

The association with environmentally friendly power is being 
welcomed in the area--the northernmost tip of Honshu--which 
frequently is referred to as Japan's "atomic peninsula." 
Rokkashomura in the peninsula, where Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.'s 
nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant is located, may host the 
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a project aimed 
at developing fusion energy. 

Rokkashomura Mayor Kenji Furukawa welcomes the wind farms. "With 
more and more clean energy-producing wind turbines being built 
here, our village's public image is bound to improve," he said. 

According to the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development 
Organization, 102 wind turbines went into operation in 
Yokohamamachi, Higashidorimura and Rokkashomura in November 2001 
and November 2003. Funding for the turbines came from five 
private businesses, including a trading firm and a machine 
manufacturer. 

There are now 108 working turbines on the peninsula, capable of 
generating 154,650 kilowatts. This is enough power to meet the 
demand of about 89,000 typical households and accounts for about 
23 percent of the electricity generated by wind power in the 
country as a whole. 

Aomori Prefecture's 124 turbines produce 161,525 kilowatts out of 
a national total of 677,695 kilowatts--more than any other 
prefecture. Hokkaido's 187 turbines come in second with 159,435 
kilowatts. 

Most of the power generated at wind farms in Aomori Prefecture is 
bought by Tohoku Electric Power Co. and is supplied to homes and 
factories. 

According to a plan currently being implemented, a further 44 
turbines are set to come on stream in the four towns and villages 
in the peninsula by October 2006. This will add to the area's 
total electricity-generating capability equivalent to the typical 
consumption of about 45,000 households. 

A limited liability nonprofit organization, Shimin Furyoku 
Hatsuden Oma (Omamachi community wind power), is using donations 
from the local community to build a wind turbine in Omamachi able 
to produce 1,000 kilowatts, which it hopes to start running in 
February 2006. 

"The biggest attraction of the location is that it's somewhere 
where the wind is strong all year round," said Toshio Tomioka, a 
director of the organization. 

Because there are no high mountains to shelter the peninsula from 
the winds, it easily meets the criterion of having an average 
wind speed above about 22 kph to make generating electricity 
using wind power a profitable line of business. 

It also is relatively inexpensive to transport the fins for the 
turbines--which are made in Europe and can be over 30 meters 
long--to the wind farms from Mutsu-Ogawara Port in Rokkashomura, 
a core facility of the Mutsu-Ogawara Industrial Park.   

Copyright 2004 The Yomiuri Shimbun 
    
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