***************************************************************** 08/20/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.199 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Haaretz: U.S. official: Iran could make nuclear weapons within 4 yea 2 Asia Times: Iran: The babble and the bomb 3 Guardian Unlimited: India President Justifies Nuke Program NUCLEAR REACTORS 4 Japan Times: Kepco admits more pipe inspections missed 5 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th 6 Las Vegas SUN: Officials Grill Operator Over Nuke Mishap 7 Bellona: Second reactor unit at Kola NPP to work 5 years more 8 Bellona: Opinion: A nuclear disaster — How well are we protected? 9 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nuke watchdog questions Congress on NRC's resolve 10 US: Rutland Herald Giuliani: Praise, warning for responders 11 Japan Times: Faulty pipes caused nine other reactor accidents 12 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Union, Entergy avert strike 13 US: NRC: NRC to Conduct Inspections at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating 14 US: NRC: NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Michigan Firm for Failing 15 US: NRC: Subcommittee Meeting on Thermal-Hydraulic Phenomena; Notice NUCLEAR SAFETY 16 US: [progchat_action] Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty 17 US: [RADFOOD] Food Irradiation News 18 UPI: Japan to dismantle Russian submarines - 19 TheStar.com: Nuclear materials a terror threat - Institute NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 20 Las Vegas SUN: DOE says 281 of 293 key Yucca Mountain questions addr 21 Las Vegas RJ: Yucca Mountain license application remains on track 22 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Fight against nuclear dump is top priority 23 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca ads may be misleading about Bush 24 US: Lowell Sun: Hospital opens spigots for town NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 25 Albuquerque Tribune: Lab lags on storing nukes 26 ABQjournal: ABQ Weapons Center Can't Account for Secret Data 27 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats info brouhaha 28 Las Vegas SUN: DOE says it's 79 percent set for application 29 Hanford News: Gigantic tank set at vit plant 30 DenverPost.com: DOE seeks info on Rocky Flats 31 AP Wire: DOE gives two universities grants for nuclear energy techno 32 Courier Journal: Paducah nuclear plant's ditch cleaned up 5 months e 33 Salt Lake Tribune: Classified nuclear document AWOL 34 lamonitor.com: LANL said late on clean-up 35 Daily Camera: Agencies want Flats files OTHER NUCLEAR 36 Google News Alert - nuclear 37 Business Gazette: Going nuclear 38 Bellona: All nuclear powered lighthouses to be removed by 2005 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Haaretz: U.S. official: Iran could make nuclear weapons within 4 years [http://www.haaretz.com] Last Update: 20/08/2004 07:46 By The Associated Press WASHINGTON - Iran has informed British, French and German officials it could produce weapons-grade uranium within a year and a nuclear weapon no more than three years after that, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Thursday. "These Iranian assertions give the lie to their public contention that their nuclear program is entirely civil and peaceful in purpose," Bolton said in an interview. Bolton, who plays a leading role in U.S. efforts to contain the spread of nuclear and other dangerous weapons, said Iran was making veiled threats in an effort to head off UN consideration of sanctions or other forms of punishment. The United States is expected to request UN Security Council action if the International Atomic Energy Agency condemns Iraq at a board of governors meeting Sept. 13 in Vienna. Bolton said the administration was consulting with British, French and German officials, as well as with Russia, Japan and other governments, in preparation for the IAEA meeting. Meanwhile, at a news conference, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, said the Europeans were providing "very good cooperation" on Iran. However, Rice said there was no agreement yet on how to proceed against Iran in an effort to stop its development of nuclear weapons. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., that "what the Iranian government needs to do is to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons." "That's what our priority is when it comes to Iran," McClellan said. "Germany, France and the British are making it very clear to the Iranians, as well." At the State Department, spokesman Adam Ereli dismissed a threat by Iran's defense minister to attack the United States if U.S. troops in Iraq threatened Iran. Ereli said the minister, Ali Shamkhani, was responding to "unwarranted concerns." U.S. troops are in Iraq at Iraq's invitation and as a result of UN resolutions to help support the stability and security of Iraq, he said. "So there is no cause for seeing them as threatening," Ereli said. In an interview with pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Shamkhani was asked how Iran would respond if the United States were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. "We will not sit to wait for what others will do to us," he said. "There are differences of opinion among military commanders [in Iran]. Some commanders believe preventive operations is not a model created by Americans...or is not limited to Americans," he said. "Any nation, if it feels threatened, can resort to them," Shamkhani said. Bolton, in a speech Tuesday, said the Bush administration would keep using diplomacy to try to stop Iran's drive for nuclear weapons, but there was no sign yet that Iran - or North Korea - had decided to follow Libya's lead and abandon its dangerous goal. "The path we are pursuing is the path of diplomacy," Bolton said. He said the administration was working with European and other nations to seek a peaceful end to more than 18 years of a large-scale nuclear program by Iran that poses a "grave threat" in the Middle East and beyond. If diplomacy failed, Bolton suggested organizing an international isolation of Iran or intercepting vessels carrying nuclear technology to Iran. [feedback@haaretz.co.il] © Copyright Haaretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 2 Asia Times: Iran: The babble and the bomb atimes.com/ Middle East By Ehsan Ahrari Western experts have made an art of frightening and wrong predictions about some major issues involving the Muslim and Arab world. The uninitiated should spend some time reading reckless analyses related to the Arab "petro-power" of the 1970s. According to some of those analyses, Arabs should have owned major chunks of the US and European productive sectors merely through purchases, or by investing the billions of dollars they made in that decade though the exercise of oil power. One wonders why Arabs don't own those assets. Yet the same types of wrong-headed scenarios are being offered about a "nuclear" Iran, if it develops nuclear weapons. Let's be clear about one issue. Neither Iran nor North Korea should develop nuclear weapons. We already have too many nuclear powers on this small planet of ours, armed with enough nuclear weapons to blow it up many times over. But what if Iran does develop nuclear weapons? A number of facts and fictions about this issue should be well understood. The first fact is that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons. Second, it aspires to develop such weapons, if not now, then certainly in the foreseeable future - say, within 10 years. Third, Iran is genuinely afraid of a militaristic United States whose military forces are lurking beyond Iran's eastern border in Afghanistan and its western borders in Iraq, and, like North Korea, considers its own nuclear weapons as a source of deterrence to potential US military action against the regime. The US under President George W Bush and his neo-conservative policymakers has every intention of unsheathing the regime-change strategy if he is re-elected in November. The neo-cons' aspirations of global hegemony have encountered a rude awakening in Iraq. However, those ambitions are neither abandoned, nor are they dead. They are undergoing a process of regrouping and rethinking about the future modalities of America's global dominance, but especially in the Middle East, in the event that Bush gets a second term. Under a re-elected Bush, Iran has most to fear about America's potential exercise of regime change, for a variety of reasons. First, there continues to be bad blood between Iran and the US related to the hostage crisis of the late 1970s. Second, after the dismantlement of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran has emerged as a major country that is confronting US hegemony in its immediate neighborhood, and is willing to take on the lone superpower rhetorically. Third, Iran continues to exercise considerable influence in Iraq. As such, it challenges America's dream of establishing its permanent presence in a subservient Iraq by ensuring the creation of a diffident regime. Implanting Western-style democracy in Iraq and in the Middle East is the 21st-century version of the white man's burden of the lone superpower. But Iran remains a force - more symbolically than militarily - against America's desire to impose democratic liberalism on the Muslim Middle East, for Iran's rulers have their own vision for their country and for post-Saddam Iraq: that of continuing with the Islamic republic and preparing ground to ensure that some form of Islamic government is established in Iraq through elections. Because of these intricate reasons for conflict with the United States, there is no wonder fears related to regime survival drive Iran to seek a nuclear-weapons option. And that very same reason serves as just another wrinkle in the continuing - or even escalating - wrangling between Iran and the US. The chief fiction related to Iran's potential development of nuclear weapons is the frequent suggestion that Egypt and Saudi Arabia would also consider developing nuclear weapons. The fact of the matter is that Egypt has no security-related reasons to develop nuclear weapons - even though Israel is a nuclear power, it is at peace with Egypt. It is true that Egypt is not at all happy that Israel not only has nuclear weapons but is also busy developing its naval-based nuclear power, while the US is creating such a fuss about the potential nuclear weapons development by Iran and North Korea. Ideally, Egypt would like to develop nuclear weapons if for no other reasons than just to gain strategic parity with Israel. However, if Egypt were seriously to consider developing nuclear weapons, the US$1.5 billion per year in US assistance to that country would be discontinued instantly. Given its acute economic-development-related problems, Egypt can least afford a potential loss of such substantial assistance. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has no security-related reasons to develop nuclear weapons, even if Iran acquires them. Iran poses no threat to Saudi Arabia, especially considering the significance of the oil kingdom for the economies of Europe and Japan. No Iranian leader in his right mind would consider a harebrained scheme of even fomenting trouble inside Saudi Arabia, much less threatening the regime. Iran has little reason to contemplate the alternative to the current Saudi monarchy: Wahhabi extremists who don't even regard Shi'ites as Muslims. So, regardless of their mutual differences, Saudi Arabia and Iran are likely to get along even if Iran develops nuclear weapons. Besides, developing nuclear weapons is not a realistic option for Saudi Arabia, even if no stringent global nuclear-proliferation regimes were in place. Development of nuclear weapons requires an enormous amount of indigenous technical knowledge, and elaborate supporting infrastructure, which Saudi Arabia is not only sorely lacking, but which would take decades to develop under the best circumstances. No country has, nor can any country hire, expatriate technocrats who can be counted on to make it a nuclear power. Another suggestion floating in the US press is that Saudi Arabia has financed Pakistani nuclear weapons with some sort of secret understanding that it would be transferred, or at least shared, between the two countries. Needless to say, authors of this speculation are persons of the same background who invented the story that Saddam not only had nuclear weapons, but he was capable of launching them toward Britain within the span of 45 minutes. Considering the United States' earnest endeavors to forestall all global attempts related to nuclear proliferation, Pakistan would be wishing death for its own nuclear program by even contemplating a crazy scheme like transferring or sharing its nuclear weapons with Saudi Arabia. As the US waits for the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Union Three (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) to persuade Iran to abandon all aspirations of developing nuclear weapons, it is also becoming fairly certain that Iran has already made a decision to materialize that option. We are currently given two predictions about the date by which Iran would develop nuclear weapons. The Central Intelligence Agency estimates it to be by 2010, while Israel says 2007. Bush is likely to give the international actors time to persuade Iran to come clean regarding its nuclear program until November of this year. If he is re-elected, look for a possible preemptive US unilateral attack or a combined US-Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities by late this year, or early next year. Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst. (Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Guardian Unlimited: India President Justifies Nuke Program From the Associated Press [UP] Friday August 20, 2004 4:16 AM SRINAGAR, India (AP) - India's president on Thursday defended the country's nuclear missile program as necessary to maintain peace during a visit to the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. ``When all around the nation countries have nuclear weapons,'' India cannot just sit and pray, said President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, referring to neighboring Pakistan and China. Security was tightened for Kalam's visit to Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. More than a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Muslim majority Kashmir's independence from predominantly Hindu India or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir. ``Strength respects strength. Whatever we have done in defense is only to defend our freedom,'' Kalam said. ``Our nuclear policy enunciates `no first use.' That means defending the country is the foremost mission.'' Kalam, a former missile scientist, was part of the team that planned India's 1998 nuclear tests. That drew matching tests from Pakistan - and sanctions against both by several other countries. Most of the sanctions have since been lifted. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 4 Japan Times: Kepco admits more pipe inspections missed Thursday, August 19, 2004 Accident-hit Kansai Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has not carried out pipe inspections at 11 designated points at three of its nuclear reactors in Fukui Prefecture, and added that it would immediately shut down the one reactor currently in service. The pipes in question are at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant and the No. 3 reactor at the Oi Nuclear Power Plant, according to Kepco. Operations at the latter two reactors have already been suspended for regular checkups. The revelation comes amid Kepco investigations following the country's deadliest nuclear plant accident Aug. 9 at its Mihama Nuclear Power Plant, when steam from a ruptured pipe killed four people and injured seven others. Kepco, the country's second-largest utility, had not inspected the corroded pipe since the reactor went onstream in 1976. The damaged pipe was found to have been corroded by coolant water to a thickness of only 0.6 mm, compared with its original thickness of 10 mm. Other power companies reported to the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency on Wednesday that they have properly carried out inspections on all pipes at their thermal and nuclear plants. The utility firms have been ordered to check documentation to ensure that inspections on pipes similar to the one that ruptured at Mihama had been carried out properly. With the shutdown of the No. 3 reactor at the Takahama plant, seven of Kepco's 11 nuclear reactors will be out of service. They include the No. 3 reactor involved in the accident at the Mihama plant. Eight of the 11 inspection points that were overlooked involved pipes at the Takahama No. 3 reactor, including the main water pipes. "As we inspected the same points at the Takahama No. 4 reactor, which is the same type, we concluded that the pipes were safe," a Kepco official said. The No. 3 reactor will nevertheless be shut down for inspection to dispel public concern, he said. Kepco President Yosaku Fuji said that even with the immediate shutdown of the Takahama No. 3 reactor, the firm will be able to meet power supply demand from its customers. Given the relatively low temperatures in the western Japan region, Kepco will be able to meet power demand if it receives some electricity supply from other utility firms, he said. The latest revelations bring to 15 the total number of places that Kepco has failed to check, not including locations on the pipe involved in the Mihama accident. Kepco said Monday it failed to inspect supplementary steam pipes at the Mihama No. 3 reactor, the No. 1 reactor at Takahama, and the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Oi plant. Kepco said Friday it will gradually suspend operations of all its nuclear reactors to check pipe safety. The Japan Times: Aug. 19, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 5 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the FR Doc 04-19104 [Federal Register: August 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 161)] [Notices] [Page 51720-51721] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20au04-152] Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of public comment. SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the following proposal for the collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. 1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Revision. 2. The title of the information collection: NRC Form 4, ``Cumulative Occupational Dose History'' and NRC Form 5, ``Occupational Exposure Record for a Monitoring Period''. 3. The form number if applicable: NRC Form 4 (3150-0005); NRC Form 5 (3150-0006). 4. How often the collection is required: NRC Form 4: Occasionally NRC Form 5: Annually. 5. Who will be required or asked to report: NRC licensees who are required to comply with 10 CFR part 20. 6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: NRC Form 4: 24,352 (24,164 from reactor licensees and 188 from materials licensees) and NRC Form 5: 175,456 (161,396 from reactor licensees and 14,060 from materials licensees). 7. The estimated number of annual respondents: NRC Form 4: 239 (104 reactor sites and 135 materials licensees); NRC Form 5: 4,602 (104 reactors and 135 materials licensees, plus an additional 4,363 materials licensees recordkeepers). 8. An estimate of the total number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: NRC Form 4: 12,176 hours or an average of 0.5 hours per response; NRC Form 5: 67,460 hours (57,900 hours for recordkeeping or an average of 0.33 hours per record and 9,560 hours for reporting or an average of 40 hours per licensee). 9. An indication of whether Section 3507(d), Pub. L. 104-13 applies: Not applicable. 10. Abstract: NRC Form 4 is used to record the summary of an individual's cumulative occupational radiation dose up to and including the current year to ensure that the dose does not exceed regulatory limits. NRC Form 5 is used to record and report the results of individual monitoring for occupational radiation exposure during a one-year (calendar year) period to ensure regulatory compliance with annual radiation dose limits. A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC Worldwide Web site: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comm ent/omb/index.html] . The document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days after the signature date of this notice. Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer listed below by September 20, 2004. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of consideration cannot be given to comments received after this date. OMB Desk Officer, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (3150-0005 and 3150-0006), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 20503. Comments can also be submitted by telephone at (202) 395-3087. The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233. [[Page 51721]] Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of August, 2004. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Beth St. Mary, Acting NRC Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer. [FR Doc. 04-19104 Filed 8-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 6 Las Vegas SUN: Officials Grill Operator Over Nuke Mishap By MARI YAMAGUCHI ASSOCIATED PRESS TOKYO (AP) - Officials at a Japanese nuclear plant where four workers died in a recent accident defended themselves Friday against charges of lax safety standards, saying there was no evidence the plant was dangerous before the accident. The Nuclear Safety Commission grilled officials from Kansai Electrical Power Co. in a second day of hearings about the Aug. 9 accident, in which a cooling pipe burst at a plant in Mihama, 200 miles west of Tokyo, spewing boiling water and superheated steam on workers. Kansai Electric has faced heavy criticism after disclosing it had not properly inspected the aging pipe for years despite the tendency of such pipes to erode over time. Company officials, however, said there was no reason to believe the pipe was about to explode. "We had no information that the portion of the pipe was posing an immediate danger," said Kansai Electric executive Yonezo Tsujikura. "So we only planned to include that portion as part of a list for the August inspection." That inspection had been scheduled for Aug. 14 - days after the accident occurred. The company, which operates eight nuclear plants, is being investigated on suspicion of negligence leading to death. At the hearing, commission members raised questions about why the operator was unaware of an imminent danger from the pipe even after learning that the portion of the pipe had not been inspected for nearly three decades. Commission members argued that Kansai had a responsibility to ensure the safety of the plant, but failed to have the proper guidelines in place. "The failure to inspect the part of the pipe near (the sections considered vulnerable) shows you didn't have a system of multilayer safety checks," said Koji Okamoto, a Tokyo University engineering professor and a commission member. Masashi Hirano, a nuclear reactor expert on the panel, also criticized the company for concluding the part of the pipe that ultimately burst was safe because other portions of the same pipe passed inspections. "I don't think you could have assumed that the portion was safe," he said. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on Friday that nine other accidents caused by pipe erosion had been reported in the past 33 years, including one in July at another Kansai Electric plant. No injuries and major damages were reported. Agency officials also said recent safety inspection reports showed Kansai Electric had skipped necessary inspections at 17 locations of cooling pipes at eight nuclear plants, including two that are currently suspended for regular checks. -- ***************************************************************** 7 Bellona: Second reactor unit at Kola NPP to work 5 years more The lifetime of the second reactor unit is prolonged for 5 years more in accordance with the license received by Rosenergoatom concern from the Russian Nuclear Regulatory, ITAR-TASS reported. 2004-08-20 16:35 The works completed at reactor unit no.2 allowed to give grounds for possible prolongation of the unit’s lifetime for 15 years more. The reactor unit should be put in operation on September 18, 2004. Total price tag for the upgrade works at unit no.1 and no.2 is about $200m. 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 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 8 Bellona: Opinion: A nuclear disaster — How well are we protected? MOSCOW—Eighteen years have passed since the day of the Chernobyl catastrophe. As we well know, that tragedy was aggravated by the secrecy imposed by the state to keep information about it from reaching the people—who were denied any chance to take urgent self-protection measures to reduce the ruinous effect of radiation. There are various methods of protection against a nuclear accident. The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant located in St. Petersburg in Northwest Russia seems to employ for that purpose local priests and holy water. In 1991 the plant was sanctified by a group of clergymen led by the rector of the St. Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy, Father Vladimir. Vera Pisareva and Vladimir Chuprov, 2004-08-20 11:57 Here is what USSR Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Andreyev wrote about the catastrophe in his 1990 letter to the Commission on Liquidating the Effects of the Chernobyl Acident held at the Supreme Council of the USSR: “From the first days of the accident, as well as in the following months, the population of the regions affected by the radiation contamination was not receiving reliable information about the radiation situation. Decision No. 423 of September 24, 1987, made by the governmental commission on classifying information pertaining to the issues of the accident at the Chernobyl [Nuclear Power Plant] and of the elimination of its consequences, did not facilitate the organisation of all necessary measures needed to ensure the radiation safety of the population, [and] denied the people the opportunity to take, in time and with their own efforts, measures to protect themselves from ionising radiation. The circumstances mentioned above led in the years of 1986 through 1989 to the significant radiation over-exposure of the population on the territory of the [Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic], [Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Social Republic].” Since then have we become more protected against the impact of such catastrophes? Are there any guarantees that the potential damage inflicted on our health by the operation of radioactively hazardous sites can be compensated for in any way? Or are we still—just as we used to be—held hostage by the irresponsibility of powers that be? Today, ensuring our own safety depends in many ways on the efficiency of the legislation and the active stance of the citizens—in other words, on our own actions. Vadim Kantor/Greenpeace Legal aspects The legal base for managing radiation and environmental safety in the application of atomic energy, the determination of responsibility for infliction of nuclear-related damage, the financial coverage of expenses involved with the elimination of consequences of a nuclear accident, and other relevant issues are provided for in today’s Russia by a dizzyingly comprehensive list of federal laws including: “On the Use of Atomic Energy, ” “On Radiation Safety of the Population, ” “On Funding Especially Radioactively Hazardous Manufactures and Sites, ” “On Special Environmental Programmes of Remediation of Radioactively Contaminated Sections of Territories, ” “On the Administrative Responsibility of Organisations for Violations of the Legislation in the Sphere of Application of Atomic Energy, ” “On the Protection of the Population and Territories from Natural and Technogenic Emergency Situations. ” Besides the federal laws, the following documents are in use: Decree No. 763 of October 15, 1992, “On the measures of social protection of the population residing in territories neighbouring sites of application of atomic energy, ” Decree No. 865 of July 14, 1997, “On the ratification of the Regulation on licensing activities in the sphere of application of atomic energy, ” Decree No. 306 of March 14, 1997, “On the rules of decision-making on the siting and construction of nuclear installations, sources of radiation and storage sites, ”—all issued by the Government of the Russian Federation—as well as other normative and legal acts. But despite this imposing and abundant list of laws and legal acts for managing environmental and radiation safety, the practical question of who will have to evacuate the population in case of a major nuclear accident and how this will be carried out remains unanswered. The Federal Law “On the Use of Atomic Energy”, or FL-170, dictates that the entire burden of responsibility for the safety of a nuclear installation is carried by the operator organisation. In accordance with this law, the operator organisation is responsible for the development and implementation of measures aimed at preventing accidents at the nuclear installation in question and—according to FL-170, Article 35—at “reducing the negative impact [of accidents] on the employees, the population and the environment” Additionally, as required by Article 19 of the Federal Law “On Radiation Safety of the Population,” organisations where the occurrence of a radiation accident is possible must have the following: a list of potential radiation accidents with scenarios describing the development of their consequences; criteria used for making decisions in the conditions of a radiation accident; a plan of measures for the protection of personnel and the population from a radiation accident and its consequences approved by local government authorities; means of providing information and means of eliminating the consequences of a radiation accident, and emergency and evacuation units formed by members of personnel. Should a radiation accident occur on the territory of an organisation dealing with nuclear and radioactive materials, the organisation must: *—ensure the implementation of measures to protection personnel and the population from the radiation accident and its consequences; *—report the radiation accident to the relevant state authority, including the federal bodies of executive power that perform state supervision and control in the sphere of providing radiation safety, as well as bodies of local authority and the population of the territories that bear the risk of increased radiation exposure; *—take measures to provide medical aid to those who suffered in the radiation accident; *—localise the ground zero of the radioactive contamination and prevent the spread of radioactive substances in the environment; *—carry out an analysis and prepare a scenario for the development of the radiation accident and the radiation situation in the conditions of a radiation accident; *—take measures to normalise the radiation situation on the territory of organisations that carry out activities involving use of sources of ionising radiation after the radiation accident is eliminated. It is thus determined by legislation that it is the responsibility of the operator organisation to take measures to reduce the negative effects of an accident on the population and the environment, including doing so in accordance with the plan of measures developed for the protection of its employees and the population from the radiation accident and its consequences. In other words, all issues relevant to who and how will perform the evacuation of the population from the contaminated areas, who will provide the means of protection and other such issues must be detailed in these plans of measures of protection of the population—copies of which must be available both at the radioactively hazardous sites and the bodies of local authority. At the same time, local authorities are also responsible for developing emergency and evacuation measures. Because any accident at a radioactively hazardous site that has led or can lead to human casualties, damage to the health of the population or the well-being of the environment, classifies as an emergency situation, by default, these issues are partially regulated by the Federal Law “On the Protection of the Population and Territories from Natural and Technogenic Emergency Situations” (from here on, FL-68). In accordance with Article 11 of the mentioned law, bodies of local authority must implement the following by their own efforts: *—Organise and carry out emergency and evacuation measures, as well as other urgent measures, and maintain public order during the implementation of such; if experiencing an insufficiency in their efforts or means, request the assistance of bodies of executive power of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation. Vadim Kantor/Greenpeace What to do in case of an accident? The key point in the issues of what to do in case of a radiation accident is the plans of measures of protection of personnel and the population from a radiation accident and its consequences. So what are these plans and who is responsible for developing them? The development of plans of measures for the protection of the population, as follows from the laws mentioned above, falls under the jurisdiction of the bodies of executive power, while the scope and nature of these plans depend on the specific conditions and parameters of an accident. As a rule, the evacuation and protection of the population is specified in these plans as the responsibility of the bodies of local authority on territories subject to their jurisdiction. There is no exhaustive law or federal normative act that would set clear and detailed requirements for the order of development and content of such plans. There is only a mention of this notion in the law “On Radiation Safety of the Population.” As a result, many important parameters of these plans are decided by numerous internal instructions and regulations that inevitably lead to misunderstandings and lack of coordination between various bodies that share responsibilities protecting of the population. For instance, some deputies of the Balakovo Municipality believe that the evacuation of the population residing in Balakovo—a town on the Western bank of the Saratov Reservoir on the Volga River in Central Russia, which is home to Russia’s youngest nuclear power plant that operates four VVER-1000 reactors with a combined 4000-megawatt capacity—is the duty of the management of the Balakovo plant itself as Balakovo is included into the so-called “monitoring zone.” The management of the Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant, however, insists that the plant—or the operator organisation—only have the obligation to maintain the safe operation of the plant and protect its employees in case an accident occurs. Anything else that has to do with the population of Balakovo and the surrounding areas, they say, should be the responsibility of the local authorities. In a situation like this, one has the clear impression that no unified plan at all has been devised and accepted in Balakovo to protect the population, and that local residents are simply defenceless against a radiation accident. Worse problems, however, have been known to arise. It is not uncommon that nuclear industry insiders simply ignore the probability of beyond-design-basis accidents and the necessity to develop measures to protect the population, including evacuation—which, needless to say, affects the very protection measures that would be needed for the population should an accident occur. For example, during public debate over the issue of constructing a plutonium fuel manufacturer, representatives of the Siberian Chemical Combine, one of Russia’s five gaseous diffusion plants used in uranium enrichment, were constantly making references to the minimal chance of a beyond-design-basis accident at the plant. This means that, from the point of view of the plant’s management, there is apparently no need to develop any plans or measures to protect the population from beyond-design-basis accidents originating at the plant. The director of the Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant seems to favour the same policy through the statements he has repeatedly made at his press conferences: No evacuation scenarios have been developed in any plans because even beyond-design-basis accidents would not lead to such levels of contamination in the area where evacuation would be necessary. Where will the money come from? Russian nuclear legislation makes virtually no mention of how local authorities are supposed to procure the money needed to implement their plans to protect the population in case a radiation accident takes place. The single source of funding mentioned—and which only indirectly relates to the issue at hand—is determined by Article 11 of FL-68. In accordance with this clause, local authorities must with their own efforts create their own reserves of financial and material for dealing with emergencies. From what these such reserves should be accumulated or even how the frequently penniless executive bodies in small local communities are supposed to obtain such funds at all is not specified. Legislation is equally vague on the issue of who is responsible for funding the creation of the necessary infrastructure or for paying for measures to realise the plans of population protection. In the former case, the creation of an evacuation system is meant. For instance, Balakovo has long been divided by a bitter dispute about who is supposed to build a second bridge connecting the island part of the city with the shore-land for cases should an evacuation of the island’s population of 70,000 ever be required. The only two-lane bridge that exists in the city is too old and unusable for evacuation operations in the conditions of a radiation accident. In the latter case, issues remain equally hazy as to who provides funding to, for instance, public training and education for cases of radiation accidents. This endless story of fruitless debate and authorities passing the buck to each other overshadows the troubling truth: No such system for training the population to deal with a radiation catastrophe is in place. “Hit the deck!” Article 20 of FL-68 provides for the preparation of the population for emergency situations, including broad distribution of information regarding protection of the population and territories from emergency situations. Here is one example of what this article says: “The preparation of the population for acting in emergency situations is carried out in organisations, including educational institutions, as well as in places of residence. Local bodies of authority participate (along with other bodies of authority and organisations) in dissemination of information pertaining to the protection of the population and territories from emergency situations, for which they can employ the media.” Additionally, in accordance with Article 11 of the same law, bodies of local authority use their own efforts to educate the population about the means of protection and proper actions to take in situations of emergency. It is worth noting that FL-68 does not specify in any way the obligatory nature of the preparation of the population and dissemination of information in the sphere of protection from emergency situations by executive bodies. At the same time, Article 19 of FL-68 does obligate the citizens of the Russian Federation “to learn the main means of protection of the population and territories from emergency situations, techniques of applying first medical aid, [and] rules of using collective and individual means of protection, [and] to constantly improve one’s knowledge and practical skills in the mentioned sphere.” To gain a fair idea of where exactly matters stand with the preparation of the population for proper response to a radiation accident on territories located immediately inside the zone of potential impact of a nuclear hazardous site, or how exactly Article 11 of FL-68 is implemented locally, one need only have a look at the closed nuclear city of Zheleznogorsk, operating one of Russia’s remaining three plutonium production reactors, and located in the Krasnoyarsk region in Russia’s Central Siberia. Zheleznogorsk’s is one of the 10 closed territorial administrative formations, or ZATOs, in its Russian abbreviation. These closed cities, once the pride of the Soviet scientific community with a combined population of about 2 million, have hit hard times since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Krasnoyarsk regional branches of the Ministry of Emergency Situations carry out nuclear accident simulations only on the territory of Zhelesnogorsk. Supplements containing potassium iodide necessary as a prophylactic means against radiation impact used to be distributed through the management of local enterprises and organisations operating inside the closed city. The last time such supplements were made available, however, was 10 years ago. Even as the country was struggling through the transition period in the early 1990s, the Zheleznogorsk ZATO had a working system of civil defence. Each city block had its own bomb shelter with readily available means of protection. Today, this system is derelict. The bomb shelters were sold off to newly formed businesses. The stocks of gas masks and other protection means still exist, but where exactly they could be found in an emergency is a mystery for Zheleznogorsk’s residents. In earlier times, the population’s training for nuclear-related emergencies was carried out at the work places. Such simulations and instructions were scheduled beforehand. Today, simulations only take place at the Zheleznogorsk nuclear enterprise—which operated the plutoniu reactor and also stores spent nuclear fuel at the RT-2 facility—and only for its employees. Training alarms do take place as well, but mostly they concern management level employees. Each of the main enterprises of the closed city has a so-called “propaganda corner”—visual agitation aids that demonstrate means of nuclear safety—as well as alarm and evacuation systems. All of these, however, were produced and arranged a long time ago, and new enterprises that have appeared in Zheleznogorsk can boast of no such level of preparation. Similarly, memos and leaflets used to be distributed among the city’s population describing rules and regulations to follow in case of a nuclear accident. But as with other examples, none of this is done in these days, and younger generations know little about what to do should an accident occur. In the case of Balakovo, the 30-kilometre “sanitary zone” around the Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant is home to around 250,000 people. Of these, 206,000 live in the city of Balakovo. The city itself does sometimes conduct small-scale simulations wit representatives of the Emergency Situations Ministry that include drills based on a radiation-accident scenario. These drills, however, are carried out with almost no participation of the population as they only involve those who work in the fire-fighting, medical emergency and other similar services. The residents of the city are not familiar with any means of individual protection, and it is unknown if the city has any at all at its disposal. No one makes any information available about what to do and what means of protection to use in a nuclear emergency through lectures, instructions or other educational aids. No memos or leaflets were ever published for mass distribution in the city. In fact, the issue of possible evacuation scenario in case of a nuclear accident has never even been taken into consideration because, again, in the words of the nuclear plant’s director, even beyond-design-basis accidents will not lead to a contamination of the region on a level that could be deemed dangerous. The situation described applies to practically the whole Russian population, including the country’s major cities. Hardly can a citizen be found in Russia who can readily and clearly describe how to get to the nearest bomb shelter or explain how to take potassium iodide in case a cloud carrying radioactive fallout from the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant, North of Moscow, for instance, or from the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, west of St. Petersburg, should cover the skies over either city. Such a careless approach to the probability of a catastrophic accident has its predictable impact on the measures taken to prepare the citizens to respond properly, train them to use ways of protection, and follow necessary steps in the conditions of a radiation accident, as well as on the maintenance necessary to keep available the necessary means of protection of the population and the territories. Who will pay for damages? Even more problematic is Russian legislation’s codes on liability issues on paying for nuclear-related damages inflicted on the environment and issues on the health and property of citizens, as well as of responsibility to compensate families for deaths caused by a radiation accident. On the one hand, all responsibility for the compensation of nuclear-related damages lies only with the operator organisation (Article 53 of FL-170). In accordance with this clause, the operator of a nuclear installation is prohibited from obtaining an operating license if the operator organisation does not provide financial guarantees of being capable to pay damages inflicted on third persons. On the other hand, such guarantees may both follow from the operator organisation itself—which proves the capability of the enterprise to pay for all possible consequences out of its own financial reserves—and be vouched for by the state or by other organisations that have taken on the payment obligations, for instance, by a bank or by an insurance company. The operator organisation, in particular, must have the financial provisions for the minimum payout. Accordingly, compensation for damages inflicted by radiation impact where such damages exceed the limit set for the operator organisation is provided for by the Government of the Russian Federation. Because no lower limits are established by the legislation for the operator organisations as a ceiling of payments for damages and harm incurred by radiation impact, the result is significant leeway that can be used by the operator organisation to manoeuvre and avoid liability—obviously, to the detriment of the public interest. Due to the specifics of nuclear accidents, damages resulting from such accidents may only reveal themselves after a long period of time, thus estimations of the payment ceilings are of a quite approximate nature as they are based only on the experience gained from similar catastrophes in the past. At the moment, such issues are, again, only regulated by departmental rules applicable within particular ministries or governmental bodies that estimate and calculate possible damages and lower limits at their own discretion. The weak normative base in this sphere renders purely nominal quite a number of provisions regarding the civil and legal nuclear-related liability. The mechanism of realizing one’s rights in this field is unclear. All known cases of lawsuits filed by third persons demanding compensation for damages inflicted on them as a result of the activities of nuclear sites are only precedential, and the amounts ruled in favour of the plaintiffs are clearly depreciated. An example of such disparagement is the case decided for the plaintiffs regarding compensation of damages suffered as a result of a 1993 explosion at the Siberian Chemical Combine near Tomsk. Experts have noted that preventing arbitrary treatment of legislation and norms in the sphere of nuclear-related liability requires a separate law—a law that would be comparable with the international provisions like the 1957 Paris Convention and the 1963 Vienna Convention. First of all, such legislation would significantly increase the amounts of compensatory payments to victims of nuclear and radiation accidents. Secondly—and most importantly—this would give one to hope that the state has finally decided to put some serious thought into such liability issues. As it now stands, Russian citizens cannot count on real compensations in case of a radiation accident. Conclusions 1. All provisions regarding the preparation of the population for actions in case of a nuclear accident and issues of civil and legal responsibility for compensation of nuclear-related damages and its financial security are not sufficiently clear or detailed, their language is frequently chaotic or moot, thus they are mainly of a nominal nature. 2. There exists no mechanism for the realization of the norms of protection of the population in case of a nuclear accident. 3. Many articles in existing laws are merely references to other laws, creating confusing legislative redundancies and giving the nuclear industry loopholes to avoid responsibility as in the above mentioned 1993 explosion at the Siberian Chemical Combine. 4. The financial security backing adopted liability laws is insufficient or simply non-existent, as is clearly demonstrated, in particular, by the unsolved issues of funding needed for the programmes and measures aimed at the protection of the population from nuclear accidents and for the insurance of both civil and legal responsibility of operator organisations and obligatory gratis insurance of a person from the risks of radiation impact. Recommendations Practice shows that while the citizens remain inactive and offer no real impact on the situation at hand it is hard to expect the powers that be to show any awareness regarding the issues of providing safety to the population and protection from potential radiation-related harm. The only way to reach any breakthrough in the existing quandary is by consistently prompting to the relevant structures to remember their responsibilities to the population—who they supposedly serve—and to public organisations. This could be done on the basis of the existing legislation and without waiting for new laws to be adopted. According to Article 18 of FL-68, citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to “appeal in person, as well as extend to state bodies and bodies of local authority individual and collective statements pertinent to the issues of protection of the population and territories from emergency situations.” Furthermore, according to Article 61 of FL-170, “a refusal to provide information, intentional distortion or concealment of information pertinent to the issues of safety in the application of atomic energy” classifies as a violation of the given law and incurs “disciplinary, administrative or criminal punitive measures.” Based on the mentioned laws, it would be advisable for organisations and citizens—particularly the population residing near radioactively hazardous sites—to request information on the following issues: 1. From the management of the nearby nuclear power plant or other radioactively hazardous site: *—What is the worst-case scenario of a nuclear accident with a release of radiation and a radioactive fallout in the area of your place of residence? *—Does the enterprise have a plan of measures for protection of the population for a worst-case-scenario radioactive accident that includes a radioactive fallout, a plan of evacuation of the population? *—Has this plan been agreed upon and approved by the bodies of local authority? *—What are the financial guarantees of compensation of potential damages and harm inflicted by radiation impact? *—From what sources will the nuclear-related damages be compensated? *—What are the estimated amounts of damage compensations—depending on the scope of damage? 2. From the bodies of local authority: *—What plan of measures do you have to protect the population from a nuclear accident and its consequences? *—Has this plan been agreed upon and approved by the management of the nuclear site in question? *—What actions do I personally take in case of a nuclear accident, including where and how do I obtain means of individual protection? *—Do the local authorities have financial and material reserves to protect the population from a nuclear accident, including what is the current situation with these reserves? *—What are the sources of accumulating the reserves needed to finance the plan of protection of the population from nuclear accidents? *—Is the existing infrastructure of the area where I live ready to provide the protection and/or evacuation of the population in case of a nuclear accident? *—What measures do the local authorities undertake to improve this infrastructure? *—How often, where and using what methods are the educational measures carried out to train the population in ways of protection and proper response in case of an accident at a radioactively hazardous site? *—Where and how can I obtain special literature or various instructions aimed to help me find out about: actions to take in an emergency situation; main ways of protection during a nuclear accident; performing first aid on those who suffered in an emergency situation or a nuclear accident; rules of using collective and individual means of protection. Finally, the Government of the Russian Federation and the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation have to be prompted to action by appeals and proposals to improve and systemise the nuclear-related legislation in the interests of safety of the population, as well as by public demands to bring such legislation as close as possible to international standards. Vera Pisareva and Vladimir Chuprov work in the Moscow branch of Greenpeace-Russia. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Anna Vinogradova and Anatoly Mamayev for their help in the preparation of this article. The present article was published in Bellona’s Russian-lnaguageEcology and Rights magazine (see(www.ecopravo.info [http://www.ecopravo.info] ). 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 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 9 Las Vegas SUN: Nuke watchdog questions Congress on NRC's resolve By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevada wants Congress to step in to make the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Energy Department give the Yucca Mountain project a thorough review before any license application is submitted. Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, sent a letter to Senate Energy and Natural Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., Tuesday questioning the commission's commitment to "hold DOE's feet to the fire." The department told the commission late last month that it would finish giving the staff all of the information it has on the remaining scientific and technical questions on the nuclear waste storage project planned at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by the end of the month. Any additional information would be contained in the license application set to be delivered to the commission in December, the department said. This bothers Nevada officials, who contend the commission's policy says all 293 remaining questions need to be closed before the department can submit a license application. "NRC, on whose independent expert review so much depends, has so far given no sign that it will enforce its agreement with DOE," Loux wrote. "I write to you because I don't believe it will do so without some expression of congressional concern." Loux said that while Congress debated the Yucca Mountain resolution in 2002, the commission said they "will hold DOE's feet to the fire" on answering the key technical issues, and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the work "must be done" before finishing the application. "By shortcutting necessary and agreed-upon pre-licensing steps, DOE and NRC are pressing a greater burden on the NRC staff safety reviewers, who will have a limited time under the law to review DOE's application," Loux wrote. Yucca Mountain project spokesman Allen Benson said the department will address all of the remaining questions before submitting the license application to the commission. "If the NRC has any questions or requires further information, we will respond," Benson said. ***************************************************************** 10 Rutland Herald Giuliani: Praise, warning for responders August 20, 2004 By [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] Herald staff Former N.Y. mayor Rudy Giuliani (right) speaks with Tom Van Essen, former New York City fire commisioner, Thursday night before Giuliani addresses Vermont emergency first responders on behalf of Entergy Nuclear. BRATTLEBORO — Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani brought a warning to Vermont emergency first responders as well as praise. Giuliani said there was no doubt in his mind that another serious attack on the United States would be attempted, and he said it could just as easily be small town America, rather than another large city. "The risk of another attack is a very great one," Giuliani said, who said that the risk to individuals was small nonetheless. And he urged the local first responders in small local communities to see the value of their work, despite the distance. The town of Shanksville, Pa., where the fourth hijacked airliner crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, was a tiny town, Giuliani said, with only one fire truck in a small fire station. "The biggest city and the smallest towns, both had to be prepared," he said. Giuliani spoke on behalf of Entergy Nuclear, the owner of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which is considered the most serious terrorist target in the state. Giuliani spoke only in passing about the work he was doing on behalf of Entergy Nuclear and Vermont Yankee, as well as Entergy's fleet of reactors in the Northeast. He instead focused on his experiences as mayor on Sept. 11, 2001, and the aftermath on his city of 8.1 million people. About 170 people attended the dinner and talk by Giuliani held at the Quality Inn near Entergy Nuclear's corporate offices. Giuliani Partners was hired by Entergy Nuclear last year to help device emergency plans for its Indian Point reactor north of New York City. The former Republican mayor and federal prosecutor, who has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate if Vice President Dick Cheney leaves the Bush ticket, said that while nuclear power plant posed a significant issue in the age of terrorism, he said he was impressed with the openness and willingness by Entergy to spend money to improve security at the plant. He said that the nuclear industry was already well regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and that Entergy since buying Vermont Yankee had spent significant amounts of money to improve its security, and would spent more in the future. But he said there were limits to preparing for emergencies and evacuations. There is no way a city the size of New York could be evacuated, he said, only parts of it. About two dozen anti-nuclear protesters stood on the opposite side of Route 5 from the motel holding signs about the dangers of nuclear power and the ineffectiveness of emergency planning in the region. "Rudy profiting off 9-11, Shame on You," one sign read. "Yankee is Al Qaida's Nuclear Weapon," read another. "Evacuate Now, Evacuate What," several signs said. "I think Vermont Yankee is unsafe, I think Rudy Giuliani is evil: he closed so many homeless shelters in New York City that children had no place to live," said Wendy Luebbert, 28, of Putney, who brought her two daughters, Jaden, 2, and Dakota, 4, to the peaceful protest. Several of the protesters said that the money Entergy Nuclear had spent on bringing Giuliani to Vermont for an inspiration talk to first responders could have been better spent on improved emergency planning and a test of the evacuation plan for Vermont Yankee. Audrey Garfield of Brattleboro said she felt Giuliani was profiting from his September 11, 2001, experience in an unacceptable way. "He is now using a horrid experience to make money and a name for himself," she said. "Entergy is again more interested in profits, not safety. The amount of money they spent today should have been used to make our community safer. We need a more realistic evacuation plan." Giuliani told the group he wasn't offended by the protesters, and he said by comparison with New York City protesters they were quiet and well behaved. Giuliani spoke for about 30 minutes and then took questions from the audience. True to form, many asked Giuliani technical first-responder questions: how did he decide to move the emergency operations center; what radio channels did New York emergency crews use to communicate with each other; and how the city handled the influx of volunteers who poured into the city eager to help. The former New York City mayor posted for pictures with local officials and groups of firefighters and Vermont State Police troopers. Brattleboro Fire Chief David Emery, who sports a Fire Department of New York pin in his suit lapel, ate dinner with the mayor and came away impressed with what he said was a down to earth manner. Giuliani came with an entourage of aides and assistants and security akin to a president. Because of thunderstorms threatened his return flight, a press conference was restricted to two questions Entergy handed out free copies of Giuliani's book "Leadership," as well as a small survival kit. Inside was one tool Giuliani was probably familiar with: boxcutters, like the ones that the terrorists used to take over the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Centers. Contact Susan Smallheer at [susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com] . © 2004 [http://www.rutlandherald.com/] ***************************************************************** 11 Japan Times: Faulty pipes caused nine other reactor accidents Friday, August 20, 2004 Simmons Nine accidents similar to the steam pipe rupture that killed four workers at a nuclear power plant last week have occurred at other reactors, a safety panel revealed Thursday. The findings were reported by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency at a meeting of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy. The committee held its second round of discussions looking into the cause of the Aug. 9 accident at the No. 3 reactor at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture. An aging pipe in a turbine facility at the reactor burst, showering workers with superheated steam. In addition to the four fatalities, 11 other workers were injured. There was no radiation leakage. According to the nuclear safety agency, there have been nine incidents at nuclear reactors involving pipes eroded by coolant water, just as in the Mihama accident. It reported there were another seven pipe accidents at thermal reactors. In the Mihama accident, the faulty pipe section, which had not been inspected since the reactor started up in 1976, had worn as thin as 0.6 mm. It was also reported that pipes had not been properly inspected at 17 areas in six of Kepco's nuclear reactors. The Japan Times: Aug. 20, 2004 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 12 Brattleboro Reformer: Union, Entergy avert strike [http://www.reformer.com/] August 20, 2004 Brattleboro, VT By CAROLYN LORIÉ Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO --There are no picket lines outside Vermont Yankee this morning. One hundred forty eight plant workers belonging to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ratified a new three-year contract Thursday afternoon. The vote averted a strike that was to begin Thursday at midnight, when the current contract expired. Workers authorized a strike on Aug. 4, after weeks of negotiations failed to yield an agreement between the two sides. Thursday's vote followed an all-day session between management and the union's negotiating team on Wednesday. According to Corey Daniels, IBEW Local 300, Unit 8 chairman, talks began at 9 a.m. and ended at 11:30 p.m. While he would not divulge exact numbers, Daniels said the vote was accepted by a "solid majority." He described the approval of the negotiating team as "reluctant." "The contract isn't necessarily what we're unhappy with. The overall package does not reflect the workers' worth in relation to the company's success," he said. Entergy Corp., which purchased Vermont Yankee two years ago, reported strong earnings recently and expects to have a net cash flow of $2 billion in 2004. Among the union's major complaints was the company's plans to increase employee contribution to health-care costs by 500 percent over three years. There was also concern about pay raises that the union said would not keep pace with inflation. Ultimately, union members agreed to increase their share of health-care costs by 400 percent. Salaries will increase by 3 percent the first year of the contract, then 314 percent and 312 percent the next two years, respectively. Jay Thayer, site vice president of Vermont Yankee, released a written statement Thursday, after the two sides reached the tentative agreement. "Entergy appreciates the hard work and extra effort of both sides to ensure we have a contract proposal. This is what we have been striving for throughout the negotiation process. Our goal is to have a contract that is acceptable to our union workers and will allow us to go forward operating Vermont Yankee safely and efficiently for the benefit of our customers," read the statement. Prior to Wednesday's meeting, union members had taken to the streets to protest Entergy's offers. On Tuesday Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., spoke briefly with union representatives prior to a talk he gave in Putney. Sanders, who is not a supporter of nuclear power, voiced his support for their efforts. On Thursday, shortly after the contract was ratified, Daniels expressed his gratitude to Sanders and other politicians who stood by the union. Brian Cosgrove, director of public affairs for Vermont Yankee, credited the negotiators with having averted the strike. "It's a tribute to the hard work that the negotiating teams of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers put into the process. We're very pleased with the outcome," said Cosgrove. While Daniels said that the union was completely satisfied with the overall package, he lauded local management at the plant. "There's a mutual respect that trumps any distrust of the company as a whole," he said. "We look forward to working with the company, as always, to make Vermont Yankee a better place," said Daniels, shortly after the vote was taken. Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a ***************************************************************** 13 NRC: NRC to Conduct Inspections at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station News Release - Region IV - 2004-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV No. IV-04-035 August 20, 2004 CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will begin a special inspection to evaluate problems related to a system that may be used to supply water for emergency cooling in the unlikely event of an accident at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. The plant, located near Wintersburg, Ariz., is operated by Arizona Public Service Co. On July 29, operators at Palo Verde discovered air trapped in a section of piping that could interfere with the performance of pumps needed to supply water for emergency core cooling and containment spray during some accident conditions. Although the licensee took actions which address the immediate safety concern it is important for the NRC to independently assess that these actions are acceptable for the long-term and that there are no potential generic issues for other nuclear plants, said NRC Region IV Administrator Bruce S. Mallett. The NRC staff has decided to conduct a special inspection to evaluate the adequacy of the licensees response to the situation, including its extent, its root cause and corrective actions. The NRCs Special Inspection Team, consisting of the resident inspector from the Grand Gulf nuclear plant and the senior resident inspector at Waterford 3, as well as a headquarters specialist, will begin its review Monday. The team will issue an inspection report about 30 days after their inspection is completed. The report will be available on the agencys web site and through its Electronic Reading Room at: http://www.nrc.gov as an Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS) document. Help in using ADAMS is available through the NRC Public Document Room at 301-415-4737, or 1-800-397-4209. Concurrently, the NRC also is conducting a follow-up to its augmented inspection of the shutdown of all three reactors at the site on June 14, following an electrical grid disturbance. An NRC Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) determined that the licensees response to the event was generally acceptable, although complicated by a number of equipment failures, procedure issues, and human performance issues. A number of issues were identified as requiring corrective actions and assessment, which an AIT follow-up team will review. A report on the first teams findings is available through ADAMS. The AIT follow-up team will report to the site no later than Sept 7. and issue a report within 45 days of the completion of work. It will be made available through ADAMS. Last revised Friday, August 20, 2004 ***************************************************************** 14 NRC: NRC Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Michigan Firm for Failing to Adequately Secure Nuclear Gauge News Release - Region III - 2004-04 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-04-045 August 20, 2004 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] against Imaging Subsurface, Inc., of Novi, Mich., for failing to adequately secure a portable nuclear gauge while it was being transported to temporary job sites. The company uses the portable gauges, which contain sealed radiation sources, to measure soil conditions at road construction sites and other construction locations. An NRC inspection in April found that the company was not properly securing the portable gauge while it was transported in an open bed truck. NRC regulations require that the gauge be transported in a locked and shielded position and that it be adequately secured to prevent theft or loss during shipping, said Regional Administrator James Caldwell. He added that, in this instance, the violation did not result in the loss of the gauge or a direct safety hazard to company employees or the general public. In addition to the violation for which the $3,000 fine was proposed, the NRC inspection also identified two additional violations: Failing to have required shipping documents readily available while the gauge was being transported and failing to lock a second gauge or its container while in storage. No fine was proposed for these violations. The company took steps to correct the violations before the NRC inspection was completed. The company has until Sept. 16 to pay the fine or to protest it. If the fine is protested and subsequently imposed by the NRC staff, the company may request a hearing. Last revised Friday, August 20, 2004 ***************************************************************** 15 NRC: Subcommittee Meeting on Thermal-Hydraulic Phenomena; Notice of FR Doc 04-19103 [Federal Register: August 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 161)] [Notices] [Page 51721] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20au04-153] Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Thermal-Hydraulic Phenomena will hold a meeting on September 22-23, 2004, Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Wednesday and Thursday, September 22-23, 2004--8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of business each day The Subcommittee will review the staff's final safety evaluation report on the industry guidelines related to resolution of GSI-191, ``Assessment of Debris Accumulation on PWR Sump Performance.'' The Subcommittee will also review the final staff resolution of GSI-185, ``Control of Recriticality Following Small-Break LOCAs in PWRs.'' The Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee. Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, Mr. Ralph Caruso (Telephone: 301-415-8065) five days prior to the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Electronic recordings will be permitted. Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged to contact the above named individual at least two working days prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes to the agenda. Dated: August 12, 2004. Marvin D. Sykes, Acting Associate Director for Technical Support, ACRS/ACNW. [FR Doc. 04-19103 Filed 8-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 16 [progchat_action] Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 12:14:24 -0500 (CDT) *Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets* *A death sentence here and abroad* *by Leuren Moret* *"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. GIs raise hands *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 / 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 Korinyi-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. * 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-Tribunal10mar04.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./ -- SFBayView to the source: http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes. http://www.duckdaotsu.org http://lists.igc.org/mailman/listinfo/duckdaotsu a proud mediachannel.org affiliate International Progressive Publications Network support: http://tinyurl.com/qjwm sustain: http://tinyurl.com/32jrw ***************************************************************** 17 [RADFOOD] Food Irradiation News Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:04:10 -0500 (CDT) 1. New Issue of Food Alert -- http://www.citizen.org/documents/FoodAlertJulyAug2004.pdf In this Issue: -- Serving of Rad-Beef in School Lunches Restricted -- Polish Family Farmers Rally Against Smithfield -- Rad-Lunch Restrictions Advance in CA -- New Reading: Smithfield Exposi, Healthy Foods 2. Press Release Public Citizen Repeats Call for Correct Information on Irradiated Food in School Lunch Program Letter to Dept. of Agriculture Lists Multiple Errors in Promotional Materials WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is still misleading consumers with incorrect information posted on its Web site and in its publicity materials about irradiated meat in the National School Lunch Program, despite repeated efforts by Public Citizen to fix the factual errors, according to a letter sent today by the consumer advocacy group to the Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at USDA. This is Public Citizen's fourth attempt to persuade the government to provide accurate information in its materials for states and school districts regarding irradiated beef, which became available in January 2004 through the National School Lunch Program. Food service directors and school officials in each district can choose whether to purchase irradiated ground beef for their schools. "Even though the USDA has opened the door to permitting irradiated food in the National School Lunch Program, we believe that parents and students deserve to have all of the information on the technology so that they can make an informed choice," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's food program. "Parents and school officials reading these materials - which are riddled in errors - would be unable to make an informed choice because they aren't being told the facts." Among Public Citizen's concerns: -- The agency's "Irradiated Commodity Beef: Frequently Asked Questions" Web page notes that "Nearly two dozen supermarket chains now provide irradiated meat for their customers in some 30 states across the country." However, when Public Citizen recently called 15 major national supermarket chains that previously sold irradiated beef, all of them said they had stopped carrying the product. -- The site also notes that "Two major restaurant chains offer irradiated meat products in 145 establishments in the Upper Midwestern States." Public Citizen assumes this refers to Dairy Queen and Embers America, the two chains that advertised using it last year. On Aug. 5, 2004, Public Citizen called the corporate headquarters for both companies and was informed by their officials that they no longer offer irradiated meat products in their restaurants. -- According to the "Public Relations Tool Kit" for schools that is linked to the USDA site, "The most common irradiation procedure in use today involves electronic beams using ordinary electricity, not radioactive materials." However, the company that used the e-beam technology to irradiate food, SureBeam, went bankrupt in January and is no longer in business. Instead, the USDA has selected Qualipaq Meats to be the sole vendor of irradiated meat to the National School Lunch Program. Qualipaq Meats is using an irradiation firm that treats its meat with the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 * not electronic beams. -- The materials cite a pilot program carried out last year in Minnesota as an example of a "model procedure" on how to disseminate information on irradiated foods to parents and students. But the program was mired in controversy and its end result was that none of the three school districts selected for the pilot project even chose to offer irradiated beef to their students. These errors also may lull readers into a false security about irradiation because they gloss over the controversy surrounding irradiated food and don't provide concerns about the long-term health effects of consuming it. "We urge the USDA to correct its materials and provide the truth, not marketing gimmicks designed to trick consumers into believing that irradiated food is a widespread and common consumer product," said Hauter. "Given that the National School Lunch Program feeds our nation's most vulnerable children, it is vital that meals served at school are healthy, nutritious and safe - and that parents know what their children are eating." Public Citizen has written the USDA three times previously, twice in 2003 - on March 18 and April 17 - and once earlier this year on July 1, requesting that their materials present a fair and accurate overview of irradiation. Each time, the organization has offered suggestions on how to develop materials that will present both sides of the issue of irradiation. Although a USDA representative has twice met with consumer groups, including Public Citizen, so far none of their input has been included in the materials. To read Public Citizen's letter to Undersecretary Bost, please go to http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/schoollunch/articles.cfm?ID=12196. To read the publicity materials provided by the USDA, please go to http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/foodsafety/rpts/FAQs_Irradiation.pdf. ### Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org. ******************** If you would like to be removed from the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe radfood" in the message. If you would like to be added to the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "subscribe radfood" in the message. To learn more about food irradiation, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/ Questions about the radfood list can be directed to RADFOOD-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG -Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program ***************************************************************** 18 UPI: Japan to dismantle Russian submarines - (United Press International) August 20, 2004 Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Japan plans a second project to help Russia dismantle its nuclear submarines in early 2005, after completing the breakdown of a first submarine this autumn. In October, Japan will finish the dismantlement of a Victor-III multipurpose submarine at a dockyard near Vladivostok in Russia's far eastern coastal region, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Friday. Spent nuclear fuel has already been removed and the vessel has been cut up. Dismantled in the second project will be a Victor-I class multipurpose submarine, also moored near Vladivostok, the paper said. Both countries surveyed the submarine in July. About 40 retired Russian nuclear submarines, a legacy from the Cold War era, have been left to rust, still containing their nuclear reactors. Japan agreed in October 1993 to help dismantle the nuclear vessels, following an incident in which nuclear fuel leaked into the sea and its traces were later found in the Sea of Japan. Japan has so far provided Russia with aid totaling about $230 million, some of which was used to build a facility in Vladivostok to dispose of low-level radioactive waste. [UPI Perspectives] ***************************************************************** 19 TheStar.com: Nuclear materials a terror threat - Institute Fri. Aug. 20, 2004. | Updated at 03:13 AM Theft risk at labs, firms, MPPs told Slim but real chance of misuse ROB FERGUSON QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU Terrorists would have easy pickings at hundreds of Ontario university labs and businesses with radioactive materials on hand, warns the Radiation Safety Institute of Canada. The danger is not so much an explosive device but that materials could be placed on subways and in shopping malls to spook the public, Fergal Nolan, chief executive of the Toronto-based institute, told a legislative committee updating Ontario's Emergency Management Act. "You don't need a bomb to create terror and panic," he said in an interview later, acknowledging the odds of the scenario he described are slim. "But what were the odds on crashing two planes into the twin towers in New York?" Nolan told MPPs that Ontario companies are among the world's biggest manufacturers of radioactive materials for medical use  chemicals, gases and devices that in the wrong hands could cause harm. "People need to worry about the accessibility of nuclear materials to the general population." Some materials could find their way into a "dirty bomb" that would not involve an atomic explosion but send dangerous radioactive particles into the air, said Nolan, whose independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1980 and pays its bills through consulting contracts and teaching courses to governments and businesses. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is doing safety audits at 40 universities because "there is a lot of concern," added Nolan, noting a recent New York Times story on U.S. government fears over security levels at nuclear reactors on university campuses, some of which use weapons-grade uranium. Nolan also said regulations allowing Ontario workers to be exposed to 50 units of radiation per day  as opposed to the limit of 20 units per day for federally regulated workers  have been "out of whack with international standards for 14 years." Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All ***************************************************************** 20 Las Vegas SUN: DOE says 281 of 293 key Yucca Mountain questions addressed Today: August 20, 2004 at 14:28:45 PDT ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Energy Department has responses for 281 of 293 key technical questions posed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada, department managers said. Officials told NRC managers Thursday in Rockville, Md., that they remain on track to submit a license application in December to open and operate the Yucca Mountain repository. Nevada and its lawyers say the license application process should stop until the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency set a new radiation standard for the repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They point to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling July 9 that a 10,000-year EPA standard violated the law, since the National Academy of Sciences called for a much longer time frame. Margaret Chu, chief of the Yucca Mountain project, told the NRC it was crucial to move forward with licensing to meet the goal of opening the repository in 2010. Joseph Ziegler, director of the office of license application and strategy, said that as of Aug. 11, project scientists had addressed all but 12 key questions posed by the NRC. Energy Department officials say the 10,000-year EPA standard is not officially invalid until appeals end. Parties to the case have until Monday to seek a rehearing, and Congress or other court actions could also leave the standard in place. Budget questions, a pending decision from an NRC administrative court and the possibility of further action on a recent federal appellate court case also could affect the project. --- On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov [http://www.nrc.gov] Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] ***************************************************************** 21 Las Vegas RJ: Yucca Mountain license application remains on track Friday, August 20, 2004 Despite recent ruling on safety requirements, DOE to submit application by December By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Despite uncertainty about whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can even accept a license application for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Energy Department officials on Thursday said they still plan to submit the application by December. NRC officials have asked lawyers to research whether the agency can accept the application in the wake of last month's ruling by a federal appeals court that Yucca Mountain's safety requirements should extend well beyond 10,000 years. If the Energy Department follows through with a license application in December, the NRC will have 90 days to decide if it should docket, or begin reviewing, the application. "It's DOE's decision to make about when to submit the license application," said Bill Reamer, NRC's director of the division of high level waste repository safety. "When the license application is submitted we'll make our docketing decision." During a joint meeting Thursday with Energy Department officials, Reamer and other NRC staffers did not ask questions about the effect of the court ruling on the license application. On July 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the federal government's designation of Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for the permanent storage of 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste. But the court also struck down the EPA safety standard of 10,000 years for Yucca Mountain, saying it disregarded recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences. Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, acknowledged that any change in health standards by the Environmental Protection Agency would require adjustments to the license application. But, Chu said, the license application is still on schedule. "The progress we are making in license application preparation, waste acceptance planning and transportation supports our long-standing goal of beginning repository operation and waste acceptance in 2010," Chu said. Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Nevada is prepared to go to court to block the NRC from accepting the license application. "The absurdity of this situation is that the Department of Energy plans to submit a license application predicated on a standard of 10,000 years, which we know is invalid," Loux said. "We don't know what the standard will be in the future, but it won't be 10,000 years." As of Aug. 11, the department had completed 281 of 293 responses to the NRC regarding key technical issues in the license application, said Joseph Ziegler, director of the office of license application and strategy. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 22 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Fight against nuclear dump is top priority Letter writer Francy Johnson may not care about Yucca Mountain ("Yucca hardly state's top issue," Aug. 12), but a majority of Nevadans do. She said that she would rather see high-level nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain, "in the middle of nowhere," rather than San Diego, the Great Lakes or New York City. These locations were never considered. Why weren't Washington and Texas considered? They were politically eliminated prior to the 1987 legislation that singled out Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Johnson said, "The people who work at Yucca Mountain are not worried about the effects of nuclear waste ..." Well, why should they be? There is no nuclear waste there yet and they get paid very well. She doubts that John Kerry will keep his word about stopping Yucca Mountain if he gets elected president. I don't know if Kerry would keep his word, but I do know that President Bush didn't keep his. Finally, she said, "When all is said and done, the waste will be here anyhow" so let's focus on more important issues. This is the same defeatist bilge Nevadans have heard for years. But it's far from being certain. A federal appeals court has agreed that the radiation standard being used by the Energy Department (which states that Yucca Mountain must be built to safely contain the waste for 10,000 years) is woefully insufficient. The court ruled a much longer standard is required, and this may be impossible to achieve. Yes, there are other issues. But fighting Yucca Mountain should remain a top priority. FRANK PERNA ***************************************************************** 23 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca ads may be misleading about Bush By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The facts cited in a new ad running in the state saying President Bush misled Nevadans on his position on the Yucca Mountain project may actually be misleading viewers. An ad sponsored by political action group Moveon.org, designed to help Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, pushes his position to stop the nuclear waste storage project at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and accuses Bush of breaking a promise to Gov. Kenny Guinn. A new Moveon.org ad says: "It's coming to Nevada. Radioactive waste, headed for Yucca Mountain. Why? Because in 2000, George Bush misled Nevada. That's right. After promising Governor Guinn he would veto legislation making Yucca Mountain a nuclear dump. George Bush personally approved the disposal of radioactive waste in Nevada. John Kerry's fighting to stop Yucca Mountain." Bush never told Guinn he would veto the overall project. In a letter he had promised that he would veto temporary storage of nuclear waste at the site while the scientific details were still being worked out. Bush promised to make his decision on "sound science." Yucca Mountain has become a campaign issue in Nevada because Bush approved Yucca Mountain in 2002. Democrats have accused him of breaking that promise. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said he would stop the project if he's elected. In a Sept. 28, 2000, letter sent in response to a letter from Gov. Kenny Guinn, Bush said "I would veto legislation that would provide for the temporary storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain." Bush also told Guinn, "As president, I would not sign legislation that would send nuclear waste to any proposed site -- either on a permanent or temporary basis -- unless it has been deemed scientifically safe." In the Moveon.org fact sheet backing up their ad, the group lists a Sept. 29, 2000, Las Vegas Sun article as a reference point on Bush's stance, but the story's headline is "Bush says he'd veto Yucca as interim site," and the fact sheet includes the quote from Bush saying he would veto interim storage. A spokeswoman for Moveon.org did not know why a distinction was not made in the ad between interim storage and the overall project, but said she would check with the ad agency. Calls seeking comment were not returned. ***************************************************************** 24 Lowell Sun: Hospital opens spigots for town August 20, 2004 Lowell, MA By VANESSA HUGHES, Sun Staff TEWKSBURY Residents may get their drinking water from two Tewksbury Hospital wells while the town works to eliminate perchlorate contamination in its water supply. The Department of Public Health has agreed to allow residents free access to the state hospital's well water, Town Manager David Cressman said. The hospital yesterday set up water faucets at two locations where residents may fill up their own containers. The water is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the town's water emergency is over. "We're delighted to help out the town. Tewksbury Hospital has had its own wells, and its pristine water. The water does not come from the Merrimack River," said Donna Rheaume, a DPH spokeswoman. The first site is located at the old farm stand building at the intersection of East and Livingston streets. The faucet is on the right-hand side of the building. The second spot is at the garage building on the hospital campus at the junction of Park and Service roads and directly across from the baseball field. Residents may access this area from the intersection of East and Chandler streets or directly from Chandler Street. Rheaume said there is no limit on the amount of water residents may take. She said the town is assisting by putting up signs to help residents find the water spigots and providing people to monitor them. The town, in conjunction with the Department of Environmental Protection and the DPH, will also host a public forum Monday to answer residents' questions about the perchlorate. The forum begins at 7:30 p.m. and will now be held at the Tewksbury Memorial High School auditorium to accommodate the large crowd expected. The forum had initially been announced at another location. The contamination, which came from the Merrimack River, was announced last Friday. Perchlorate, which is found in a variety of sources including rocket fuel, explosives and fireworks, affects the function of the thyroid gland. Pregnant women, nursing women, infants, children up to 12 years old and those with hypothyroidism are advised not to drink town water or to cook with it. Cressman said the town continues to test the water daily and has expanded testing both within the water plant and outside of the plant. He said the town is also exploring improvements at the water treatment plant. Vanessa Hughes' e-mail address is [vhughes@lowellsun.com] . © 1999-2004 MediaNews Group, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 Albuquerque Tribune: Lab lags on storing nukes August 20, 2004 By Sue Vorenberg [svorenberg@abqtrib.com] Tribune Reporter Los Alamos National Laboratory is behind schedule in plans to deal with aging nuclear research materials, the Department of Energy Inspector General's Office says. The lab was supposed to move the materials - such as plutonium metals, oxides and residues - from nonstandard containers into acceptable long-term storage by 2002 as part of a 1994 agreement with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. That date has been pushed back twice since then, to 2005 and then to 2010, at a cost of $78 million. Plans still are not on track, which could further delay the timeline and cost even more, according to an IG report released Thursday. "If the stabilization of fissionable materials is not completed, radioactive materials at Los Alamos may further deteriorate and continue to negatively impact the safety and health of workers," the report said. Officials worry that if the material - mostly from early research at the lab in the 1940s and 1950s - remains in nonstandard containers, such as metal cans commonly used at that time, it could leak and expose workers to radiation, causing serious health problems, the report said. Part of the problem has been that DOE hasn't given Los Alamos proper funding to complete the actions. From 1997 through 2000, the lab got only 58 percent of the money it requested for the project. In 2001 and 2002 it got only 78 percent of the requested funding, the report said. Procedures also have slowed the lab down, it added. "Los Alamos missed milestones towards its 2010 goal, in part, because it had not made full use of available project management tools. . . . We found that many of Los Alamos' work packages lacked milestones and clearly defined statements of work," the report said. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the lab, generally agreed with the report's conclusions. Michael Kane, NNSA associate administrator, said in a letter to the IG's office that DOE has scheduled full funding of the program so it can be completed in 2010. He added that in some areas, more progress has been made than was recorded in the report. "While the auditors are correct that the laboratory is behind schedule in some areas, they have exceeded schedule expectations in other areas," Kane's letter said. The report recommended that Los Alamos make better use of project management tools, reach an agreement with the nuclear safety board for a scheduled completion date and add milestones into its schedule to keep the plan on track. Kane's letter said NNSA plans to use the recommendations. Print this [http://www.abqtrib.com/print/index.cfm] ***************************************************************** 26 ABQjournal: ABQ Weapons Center Can't Account for Secret Data Friday, August 20, 2004 Albuquerque Journal--> John Fleck--> By John Fleck [jfleck@abqJournal.com] Journal Staff Writer Government officials said Thursday they can't account for three copies of a classified document at a federal nuclear weapons center in Albuquerque. They stopped short of calling the copies "missing," instead describing the problem as "an accounting discrepancy." But officials said the FBI has been called in. The problem, at the National Nuclear Security Administration's Albuquerque Service Center, was found during an audit of computer disks used to hold nuclear weapons secrets, according to NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes. The Service Center, on Kirtland Air Force Base, provides business services for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, including purchasing, human resources and contract management. "We do have a case open and agents are involved in the investigation," said Bill Elwell, spokesman for the FBI's Albuquerque office. The discovery came during a nationwide audit of classified materials triggered last month by a similar case involving classified information at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "I am disappointed that we have found another case of lax procedures in protecting classified information," NNSA administrator Linton Brooks said in a statement. The discovery in July that two computer disks containing classified information were allegedly missing at Los Alamos National Laboratory triggered a massive scandal, shutting down lab operations amid criticism of a "cowboy culture" at Los Alamos that ignored security and safety rules. One possibility under investigation in the Los Alamos case is that the "missing" disks never existed and that the problem was caused by a faulty accounting system. In response to the Los Alamos problems, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ordered a nationwide shutdown of work involving classified materials on floppy disks and other removable computer storage devices. The subsequent audit identified the Albuquerque classified document "accounting discrepancy," Wilkes said. Officials would not say what the document contained or how long the "accounting discrepancy" had existed. Elwell said his agency was called Monday. The Service Center is relatively new, created in December 2002 as the replacement for the much larger Albuquerque Operations Office. At its peak, the old Operations Office employed as many as 1,300 people. Current employment at the Service Center is 470. Copyright 2004 Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 27 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats info brouhaha DOE, activists split over U.S. attorney's role on documents By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News August 20, 2004 Three months after the U.S. attorney said he would consider allowing Rocky Flats cleanup officials to see secret grand jury records on illegal dumping, no one has asked to review them. The Department of Energy, which oversees the former nuclear weapons plant, said Wednesday it requested the files. But its letter only asks U.S. Attorney John Suthers to decide if any of the files are relevant and provide only those documents to the DOE and regulators. DOE's letter was sent the same day activists renewed their call for the 12-year-old files to be opened to the public. They say Rocky Flats can't be cleaned up without knowledge of the dumping detailed in the grand jury probe. "I don't know when U.S. attorneys became Superfund managers and how they are supposed to know what a relevant document is," said Caron Balkany, who co-authored a recent book about the grand jury investigation with the grand jury foreman. The state health department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency both said Thursday they have only discussed making requests and only for certain documents. In May, Suthers offered the three agencies the opportunity to ask for grand jury files needed in the cleanup. He said he would then seek a federal judge's order to provide them to the regulators only. DOE is the agency grand jury members accused of dumping waste and lying about it for decades while in charge of the nuclear weapons plant. It's also the agency responsible for finding contamination and cleaning it up today. DOE officials were never indicted because Mike Norton, the U.S. attorney at the time in 1992, disagreed with the grand jury's recommendation. Balkany said Suthers could release certain grand jury files on his own - DOE documents seized by the FBI that detail where radioactive waste was buried on the site. But Suthers' spokesman Jeff Dorschner said Thursday that all such files have been returned to the DOE. He said what remains sealed is largely grand jury testimony, which is subject to the secrecy rule. DOE is certain there's nothing new in the grand jury files, even though it hasn't seen what's in them, Rocky Flats spokeswoman Karen Lutz said. "DOE is confident that an extensive and thorough evaluation (of Rocky Flats) has been conducted," she said. "There's no evidence of gaps in the information." DOE and its contractor on the $7 billion cleanup have pored over more than 100,000 documents to find contamination, she said. EPA Assistant Regional Manager Max Dodson said he wants prosecutors' help in narrowing the search through 65 boxes of grand jury files before it makes a request. "To go through, page by page, an entire room full of documents probably would take many months," he said. "No, I don't want to look at all the documents. I don't have the time," he said. Steve Gunderson, the state health department's lead regulator of Rocky Flats, believes a judge reading grand jury secrecy rules would deny a blanket request for all the files. "The problem is looking at 65 boxes," he said. "It's pretty hard to tell what, if anything, is valuable there, if we can't get a list of the documents." imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438 2004 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Privacy ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas SUN: DOE says it's 79 percent set for application Officials: On track to submit Yucca paperwork to NRC By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Energy Department has completed 79 percent of its work on the Yucca Mountain project's license application and is on track to submit the document in December, department officials told Nuclear Regulatory Commission managers Thursday. Lingering budget questions, a pending decision from the agency's administrative court and further action from the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit all could affect the project, but the department insists it is moving ahead. Margaret Chu, the head of the Yucca Mountain project, emphasized that the U.S. Court of Appeals' July 9 decision did not reject any of the project's science or the administration's recommendation that the federal nuclear waste repository should be placed at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The court said the 10,000-year radiation standard established by the Environmental Protection Agency violated the law since the National Academy of Sciences called for a much longer time frame. Chu said it is "crucial to fulfill the intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and continue to move forward in the licensing phase." She said the department remains committed to protecting public health and safety and that it will make sure the repository meets the appropriate standards. Nevada attorneys and other critics of the program believe the license application process should not move forward because of the court's decision, but the rule is not officially thrown out until the appeals process ends. Parties to the case have until Monday to file a request for a rehearing, but other court actions or decisions could leave the standard in place, as could an act of Congress. Margaret Federline, deputy director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Security said the commission is still preparing to review an application and it is up to the Energy Department to decide "whether and when to submit a license application." She said the commission will review the document objectively. The agency is developing review teams that will take up different aspects of the project. The department is also waiting to hear from the commission's administrative court, which will determine if the millions of documents it made public in June satisfy the license rules. If the court sides with Nevada, the project could be delayed, the state's lawyers say, because the department would have to make more documents available and it will throw the project off schedule. ***************************************************************** 29 Hanford News: Gigantic tank set at vit plant [http://www.hanfordnews.com] This story was published Thursday, August 19th, 2004 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Hanford workers slowly lifted more than 275 tons of stainless steel higher than a five-story building Wednesday, then neatly lowered the load into place at the Waste Treatment Plant with less than 3 feet of clearance on each side. The massive tanks needed at the waste treatment, or vitrification, plant under construction were too massive to ship to the site of the federal government's largest construction project. The problem was solved by building them outside the walls of the plant under construction, then lifting them into place with a 300-foot-tall red crane bought for the tank lift. The third of four tanks was lifted Wednesday over the partially built walls of the pretreatment facility, the largest of many buildings planned at the vitrification plant. The first two tanks were lifted earlier this month. The work is being done seven months ahead of schedule. "This project is continuing on time, on budget, and it's going to work," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. She watched workers - in Hanford construction lingo - "fly" the tank into the pretreatment plant. The progress helps to show the rest of the state and the nation that the federal government is serious about cleaning up Hanford, she said. And it also helps the Washington congressional delegation convince Congress to send $2 billion a year to the Eastern Washington desert for the cleanup project, she said. Plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program was made at Hanford during World War II and the Cold War. Among its legacy of nuclear waste is 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in underground tanks. The vitrification plant is being built to turn much of that waste into glass logs. Logs encasing the highest-level radioactive waste would be sent to Yucca Mountain, Nev., under Department of Energy plans. Murray said she has supported opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository despite pressure from Democratic colleagues. Presidential candidate John Kerry has pledged to Nevada voters that he will not allow nuclear waste to be sent to Yucca Mountain if he's elected. "I think it's very irresponsible to make a statement like this with no solution," said U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who also was at Hanford for the tank lift. Not opening Yucca Mountain would slow cleanup at Hanford, Hastings and Murray agreed. It also could lead to the additional expense of building storage for glass logs produced at the vitrification plant until a permanent repository is picked and ready. Work started on the plant in 2001. Contractor Bechtel National expects to have construction and testing done in 2011. Building is well under way on the three main facilities. Waste will be piped from underground tanks into the Pretreatment Facility. The four tanks like the one lifted into the pretreatment building Wednesday will be the first stop for waste at the plant. At the pretreatment facility, solids will be separated from the waste to be sent to the High-Level Waste Vitrification Facility. Liquids can be treated at the Low-Activity Waste Vitrification Facility. The four tanks will be in black cells - areas too radioactive for humans to ever enter once radioactive waste is pumped into the tanks. That means construction must be near-perfect. Subcontractor Chicago Bridge and Iron welded nearly 15 miles of welds into each of the tanks. The welds were inspected using an X-ray photography process that meets stringent nuclear quality assurance standards. Building the tanks, each with a capacity of 375,000 gallons, took about 18 months. About two years' time on the entire vit project was saved by building the tanks outside the pretreatment building while its 8-inch-thick foundation was poured and work started on its 120-foot-high walls. The building will have a footprint the size of four football fields. Months of planning were required to move the first tank into the building earlier this month, said Ken Hollenbach, construction site manager. The third tank was moved with a Lampson crawler trailer to the side of the pretreatment building Tuesday. Welds were cut from the shipping skirt, or ring, it was built on to move it onto its permanent ring in the pretreatment plant. The crane was ready to start lifting about noon. Crews on a catwalk at the top of the pretreatment building served as spotters to monitor the tank's 3-foot clearance on each side of the cell. "The operator of the crane is really blind," because of his position at the base of the building's wall, Hollenbach said. "It's all radio communication." Workers expected to be able to unhook the crane from the tank by day's end. One of the next steps will be lifting in prebuilt piping modules. A crisscross of pipes will carry air for air-driven pumps that continuously mix waste, for instrument lines and to carry radioactive waste. The last of the four tanks should be in place by month's end. "It's a big milestone for us getting those (tanks) set," Hollenbach said. "It has taken years of planning and preparation." The rest of the tanks needed at the vitrification plant will be smaller and can be trucked or barged up the Columbia River. © 2004 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 30 DenverPost.com: DOE seeks info on Rocky Flats Published: Friday, August 20, 2004 By Joey Bunch Denver Post Staff Writer State and federal regulators are testing the claims of critics who say secret grand jury evidence from the early 1990s proves that Rocky Flats is too dangerous to become a wildlife refuge. Frazer Lockhart, the U.S. Department of Energy's manager for the former nuclear weapons plant, sent a letter Thursday to U.S. Attorney John Suthers requesting information from the three-year investigation into environmental claims against Rocky Flats, located between Golden and Boulder. Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Denver, said Suthers will consider the request, but he does not have a timetable to respond. But, Dorschner added, Suthers "has reiterated previously that he believes he doesn't have any information unknown by regulators." The request followed a news conference Wednesday by activists who earlier this year published a book, "The Ambushed Grand Jury." The book reiterated critics' accusations that the U.S. Justice Department covered up crimes by government officials and contractors at Rocky Flats, specifically that so much radioactive waste was disposed of clandestinely at Rocky Flats and not included in the cleanup. A raid by federal agents in 1989 closed Rocky Flats after 47 years of making plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads. The federal grand jury was disbanded after an $18.5 million plea agreement in 1992 between prosecutors and Rockwell International, the plant's contractor. This week, former Rocky Flats worker Jacque Brever released a report claiming nuclear waste is still hidden at the 6,240-acre site. The site is slated to become a national wildlife refuge once the $7.3 billion cleanup is finished in two years. Brever is co-founder of the advocacy group United to Keep Rocky Flats Closed. She could not be reached for comment Thursday. Steve Gunderson, Rocky Flats project coordinator for the state health department, said Brever's report "wasn't anything earth-shatteringly new." Erin Hamby, a Rocky Flats working group coordinator with the Rocky Mountain Peace &Justice Center in Boulder, said she was pleased that regulators were taking the grand jury's work seriously. "That's what we wanted in the first place, to have the documents released and reviewed," she said. But critics won't be satisfied, Hamby said, if the findings are released only to regulators. "We need independent review," she said. "We deserve public review." Federal procedures prevent public release of grand jury records. Lockhart stated in his letter - sent on behalf of the Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state health department - that any grand jury information that supports hidden problems at Rocky Flats should be made available to those charged with the cleanup. Karen Lutz, the Department of Energy's spokeswoman for Rocky Flats, said officials are not out to discredit critics, but merely to ensure thoroughness. "What we're saying, from the DOE's perspective, is that an extensive and thorough evaluation has been done on that site," she said. Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1240 or jbunch@denverpost.com [jbunch@denverpost.com] . All contents Copyright 2004 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 31 AP Wire: DOE gives two universities grants for nuclear energy technology | 08/20/2004 | Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. - Two South Carolina universities have been given Energy Department grants to continue research and programs in nuclear engineering, the federal agency said Friday. South Carolina State University will receive $250,000 to help the historically black school give more minorities engineering degrees. The grant will ensure a new generation of nuclear engineers and scientists are diverse, the Energy Department said. The University of South Carolina will receive $72,000 to continue research at the school. ***************************************************************** 32 Courier Journal: Paducah nuclear plant's ditch cleaned up 5 months early [http://www.courier-journal.com Friday, August 20, 2004 Associated Press PADUCAH, Ky. An $8million cleanup of a ditch that runs from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant has been completed, five months ahead of schedule and within budget, the Department of Energy said. 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 toxic, radioactive waste at the plant. Excavation was delayed for more than two years because of disputes about what to do with the contaminated soil and the new accelerated-cleanup plan the Energy Department proposed. The problems were resolved a year ago when the department and state and federal environmental regulators signed an 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, the Energy Department's Paducah project manager. The ditch was contaminated with wastewater pumped into it for 40 years from a central building called C-400, where machinery and equipment were cleansed of hazardous chemicals and radioactive materials. In 1995, the Energy Department began treating wastewater from the building and pumping it around the ditch to stop the contamination. 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 investigation into a federal whistle-blower lawsuit by three employees alleging that the plant secretly contaminated workers and the public. Copyright 2004 The Courier-Journal. Use of this ***************************************************************** 33 Salt Lake Tribune: Classified nuclear document AWOL [http://www.sltrib.com] Updated: 08/20/2004 02:28:58 AM loss follows the disappearance of computer disks from another facility By Chris Metinko Knight Ridder News Service WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Nearly a month after two computer disks containing classified information turned up missing at Los Alamos Laboratory, an inventory at one of the offices for the head of security at all national nuclear sites revealed a similar problem. During an inventory at National Nuclear Security Administration offices in Albuquerque, N.M., a technical support organization discovered three electronic copies of a classified document are missing. Bryan Wilkes with the NNSA said the missing material is actually three copies on one item, not three separate documents. Regardless, managers ordered an immediate investigation and the FBI has been asked for assistance. Linton Brooks, head of the NNSA, asked the Department of Energy's office of Security and Safety Performance Assessment to conduct its own investigation. The security agency is an independent office that reports directly to the Energy secretary. All classified operations involving computer disks and other portable electronic storage at the NNSA Service Center are shut down. The inventory was conducted in response to an order by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who ordered all DOE facilities to stand down while a complete accounting is done for all classified computer disks and similar portable devices. Abraham has also ordered training and security procedure reviews after the disks at Los Alamos were found to be missing in July. ''I am disappointed that we have found another case of lax procedures in protecting classified information,'' Brooks said in a statement. ''I expect NNSA employees, both federal and contractor, to adhere to the highest standards of performance.'' The NNSA is an agency within the Energy Department responsible for enhancing the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 34 lamonitor.com: LANL said late on clean-up The Online News Source for Los Alamos [http://www.lanl.gov/worldview] [http://www.lac-nm.us] ROGER SNODGRASS, [roger@lamonitor.com] , Monitor Assistant Editor Los Alamos National Laboratory is running years behind a decade-old commitment to stabilize nuclear materials at the facility, according to an IG report. The problem is said due largely to the lack of funds from the Department of Energy. A new report by the DOE Office of Inspector General said the department promised a national safety board in 1995 it would get the materials under control by 2002, but according to the lab's most recent execution plan, the materials will not be stabilized until 2010. In 1994, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent federal agency that makes recommendations to the Secretaries of Energy and Defense on issues of health and safety at the nation's nuclear facilities, called attention to the problem of nuclear materials left in the weapons manufacturing pipeline several years after nuclear pit production ceased in 1988. "There are thousands of containers of plutonium-bearing liquids and solids at the Rocky Flats Plant, the Hanford Site, the Savannah River Site and the Los Alamos National Laboratory," DNFSB observed in its1994 recommendation. Having seen little progress at Los Alamos by 2000, the Board issued a reminder on tasks that remained throughout the nuclear complex. "More than one tonne (1,000 kilograms, or 2,200 pounds) of plutonium metal and oxide at the Los Alamos National laboratory was recently declared in excess to the needs to the defense program," DNFSB stated. The board also called attention to another tonne of plutonium in the form of residues Saying that high risks items had been processed and newly created residues were being properly handled, the board wrote, "little work is being done at this time to take care of legacy residues." Only Los Alamos, in the entire nuclear weapons complex, has failed to reach an agreement with the DNSFB on an appropriate clean-up plan, the IG audit said. The Inspector General notes that budget shortfalls have affected LANL's clean-up schedules for fissionable materials, but also says the laboratory did not make "full use of available tools to effectively manage the project." Notably, getting the job done was not included in the laboratory's contract with DOE. Los Alamos received only 58 percent of the funding it requested for the stabilization project during Fiscal Years 1997 through 2000, and 78 percent of its request in 2001 and 2002. By extending the schedule until 2010, the audit report said, the job will cost an extra $78 million, and even that date is not certain because interim milestones and project tasks have been missed in the mean time. In DNFSB's formal recommendation on the subject in 2000, the board made clear that lack of funding was not an excuse, because the Atomic Energy Act specifically calls for the Secretary of Energy to advise the President and Congress of financial needs to satisfy safety enhancements recommended by the board. As customary in the Inspector General reports, blameworthy individuals at LANL or DOE were not identified. The laboratory declined to comment, referring questions to the National Nuclear Security Administration which overseas the nuclear complex for DOE. A top management official of the National Nuclear Security Administration commented formally in the report that significantly more items had been stabilized by December 2003 than were indicated. The comment was incorporated into the report, which explained the difficulty encountered by the auditors: "Los Alamos' project documents were incomplete and could not be reconciled." [http://www.dncu.org/] [http://www.lanb.com/] © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 35 Daily Camera: Agencies want Flats files thedailycamera.com Move follows advocacy group's report on cleanup By Robert Weller, Associated Press August 20, 2004 DENVER — State and federal agencies are in the process of asking to see the 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 for the site were dangerously incomplete. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will request 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. Dorschner did not know when Suthers would respond. The request came one day after an FBI agent who led a 1989 raid at Rocky Flats warned against turning the site into a wildlife refuge, as planned, 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. 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 Rocky Flats. 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, eight miles south of Boulder, 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 in two years after a $7 billion cleanup is complete. Max Dodson, assistant regional director of the EPA, said the agency's decision to seek the grand jury files was prompted in part by the report from the Ambushed Grand Jury Citizens' Investigation. On Thursday, he said the request for the files had not been made yet, but added, "We fully intend to do so." State health department spokesman Steve Gunderson said his agency is reviewing the group's report and wants to see relevant grand jury files as well. "I am happy that we are the catalyst and hope they will not certify the site as clean until 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." Karen Lutz of the Department of Energy said the agency thinks it has the information it needs to complete the cleanup but wants to see any grand jury documents deemed relevant by the U.S. Attorney. A court order would be required for Suthers to release the documents to the agencies. [http://www.scripps.com] Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera and the E.W. Scripps Company. All rights reserved. Any copying, ***************************************************************** 36 Google News Alert - nuclear Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 15:37:55 -0700 (PDT) IRAN threatens to attack Israeli nuclear plants Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem,Israel Iran threatened Friday to attack Israel's nuclear installations. Israel ominously warned that it "knows how to defend itself." Tensions ... See all stories on this topic: WEST stepping up propaganda campaign against Iran’s nuclear ... Tehran Times - Tehran,Iran Western and Zionist officials and their allies have intensified their disinformation campaign targeting Iran’s civilian nuclear program in order to influence ... See all stories on this topic: NUCLEAR data reported missing from government office Indianapolis Star - Indianapolis,IN,USA WASHINGTON -- An inventory has found another case of missing data involving nuclear weapons, this time at the Energy Department's regional office in Albuquerque ... See all stories on this topic: NORTH Korea resists US nuclear incentives International Herald Tribune - Paris,France HONG KONG North Korea shows no sign of accepting US incentives to give up its nuclear weapons programs, Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said in ... See all stories on this topic: TVA'S new nuclear chief says he's `always looking for the problems ... Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - Columbus,GA,USA - The Tennessee Valley Authority's new top nuclear power executive says he works with an attitude that "the glass is always half empty rather than half full.". ... See all stories on this topic: UNION OKs Contract at Vt. Nuclear Plant San Jose Mercury News (subscription) - San Jose,CA,USA - Unionized workers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant on Thursday accepted a three-year contract with reactor owner Entergy Nuclear, the company said. ... See all stories on this topic: IRAN'S nuclear race South Australia Advertiser - Adelaide,South Australia,Australia IRAN has informed British, French and German officials it could produce weapons-grade uranium within a year and a nuclear weapon within three years after that ... See all stories on this topic: PLANT operators grilled by safety panel probing Japanese nuclear ... WAVY-TV - Portsmouth,VA,USA TOKYO The operators of a Japanese nuclear plant say there was no evidence of danger at the plant before a deadly explosion this month. ... See all stories on this topic: INDIA turning nuclear for peace: Kalam Deepika - India Srinagar, Aug 20 (UNI) President APJ Abdul Kalam has said India's joining the select group of nuclear power nations is based on the policy of 'strength ... See all stories on this topic: CAMPUS nuclear reactors International Herald Tribune - Paris,France While experts worry that loosely guarded nuclear materials in foreign countries might fall into the hands of terrorists, six civilian research reactors at ... This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remove this News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts/remove?s=92d1672a1b037a07&hl=en Create another News Alert: http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en Try Google News: http://news.google.com/ ***************************************************************** 37 Business Gazette: Going nuclear by Steve Monroe Staff Writer Aug. 20, 2004 Laurie DeWitt/The Gazette Ricardo Martinez, with items from the Princeton (N.J.) Plasma Physics Laboratory, where his company dismantled and removed an electron accelerator. Ricardo Martinez's multimillion-dollar business cleans up dangerous waste In these days of terrorist alerts and threats, Ricardo Martinez and his company, Project Enhancement Corp. of Germantown, are working to protect some of America's most potentially lethal targets: its nuclear facilities. "Some of PEC's work involves the protection of nuclear materials and nuclear facilities," said Martinez, who has a top secret clearance. "We have conducted analyses to determine the vulnerability to terrorist attack on a number of [Department of Energy] facilities. We are currently working with the National Nuclear Safety Administration to develop a next-generation, computerized three-dimensional vulnerability analysis and training tool." All in a day's work for Martinez, whose company, which focuses on cleaning up radioactive facilities, has grossed about $35 million in its five-year history, including about $9.5 million in 2003. PEC is listed at No. 372 among the nation's top 500 Hispanic-owned businesses for 2004 by Hispanic Business magazine, up from No. 419 in 2003. And Martinez is looking forward to even better days, as Project Enhancement partners with large and small companies in the multibillion-dollar nuclear waste and cleanup industry. Business Gazette Editor Steve Monroe talked to Martinez recently about his plans to grow his business, his experiences with the U.S. Small Business Administration and the challenges he faces as a Hispanic businessman. Most of your work is for the Department of Energy? Yes, prior to starting my business I was in the Department of Energy, doing, essentially, this type of work, and so I decided to start my own business after a short stint with another company. So we're primarily a DOE contractor, and most of our work is within the area of cleanup, and we provide some specialty services to the DOE, like project management, engineering, design work, radiological calculations. A lot of the work we're involved in deals with the dismantling and cleanup of nuclear buildings that present a risk to the public, and to workers, and because they present a risk, they wind up costing the government millions of dollars, just sitting there doing nothing. And so what we've made a business of is going in, helping the DOE and bigger contractors figure out ways to safely take the facilities down. And stuff that could get into the air? Could get into the air or somebody could just walk off with stuff. Because there's residue and things in these buildings you have to take care of, you either package them up and send them to a storage facility, because there's still some value, some strategic value from the standpoint of the United States, or they're so hazardous and toxic that they have to be packaged in big packaging systems and sent to places like a waste isolation plant, or Yucca Mountain [in Nevada], places that are very remote, away from the public. When you say nuclear buildings, do you mean where nuclear experiments are done or nuclear weapons were made? All of the above. You have laboratories where experiments were made. You have processing facilities that took the raw materials, and made material that could then be sent to other facilities to make components. The facilities that we have been involved in cleaning up have been wartime materials facilities. What are some other projects you are doing right now? Right now we still support the client that gave me my first contract, Fluor Corp. [of Aliso Viejo, Calif.], one of the largest architectural engineering firms in the world. Fluor has been and continues to be PEC's largest client. PEC's very first contract, for $25,000, was with Fluor. We're supporting a number of projects for them in Washington state. Over the past five years, PEC has done close to around $10 million with Fluor. What types of projects? The first facility that I was involved in the cleanup of there was called Purex. We helped to shut that facility down, and in that facility the material that went in the first atomic bomb was made. And since then a lot of atomic bombs have been made from the material that was purified in that facility. Now that facility, where while it was operating used to cost $100 million a year, it now costs about $700,000 a year because we helped to shut that down. It's called the Hanford site, one of the DOE's bigger sites. There are about a dozen sites around the country. The facilities we work at are for the most part in places like Richland , Wash.; Aiken, S.C.; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Denver, Colo. When you say shut them down, what do you mean? Taking out spent rods or something? What we do is the planning that it takes to safely shut down a facility. It means taking out material, safely shutting down processing systems. In the DOE they have a term, deactivation, which means anything that's making the facility unsafe, make it safe. We call it cheap to keep while it's asleep ... so that at a later date you can demolish it when you have enough money to do that, but you've taken the hazard and the risk down, so you don't have to have an army of guards to protect it. z The next step would be to help the DOE figure out how to demolish it. You can't just go in there with bulldozers, because even though you've cleaned it up and it's at a lower risk, you still wind up with materials in there that if they got into the environment would be a real problem. So figuring out safe ways to remove asbestos, residual plutonium, other kinds of materials, is a real big job. Has the SBA 8(a) program [which helps socially and economically disadvantaged businesses] been beneficial for you? If so, how? Although we just recently received our first 8(a) award about two weeks ago after having been in the program for more than four years, it has benefited us in a number of ways. Because 8(a) companies can be awarded up to $3 million noncompetitively per contract, it is usually easier for a client to justify giving us work noncompetitively than for non-8(a)s, even if the award is not an 8(a). Roughly 60 percent of our work is won outside of the competitive realm ... this is true for most small businesses in our industry ... so the easier it is for a client to get to you the more likely it is you will get work. Nevertheless, I have never been awarded a contract simply because of my 8(a) status. One still has to earn the work. Another big advantage in the 8(a) program is the ability to team with a large business in the mentor/protégé program. This relationship can be quite beneficial to a small company in that the experience and resources of the mentor can be accessed to help gain advantage on competitive contracts outside the technical and financial reach of the protégé. The large company can benefit by gaining access to small business and 8(a) set-aside contracts. Recently these set-asides have become quite large, some approaching $100 million per year. You said you and Fluor are submitting an application to the SBA for a mentor/protégé agreement. What will that do for you and Fluor? The mentor/protege program is designed to assist 8(a) companies in essentially graduating from the program. A lot of 8(a) companies rely on that work [8a contracts]. We haven't done that, but the business that we are trying to branch into, it would be challenging to get in, to say the least. Right now we're 45 people; a lot of the businesses we're going up against are 3,400 people. So what we anticipate with Fluor, in teaming with them, they do a lot of this type of work, and they're looking for a small business to come in and do planning work, demolition work. So what I expect out of it is the ability to do work for Fluor, but also to team with Fluor. Once complete, PEC and Fluor will be able to team and joint venture on a number of large projects currently being contemplated by the DOE. In the meantime, we are growing our business at Hanford, where Fluor is the site prime contractor. Most of the work this team will pursue is in the DOE cleanup program, but we are also talking about opportunities outside of the DOE. What contracts have you won recently? Of significance is the work we won last month to provide technical services to the Office of Corporate Assessment in DOE's Office of Environmental Health and Safety. We teamed with a very well known and high-caliber company named Parallax, and were awarded a $7.5 million contract. Parallax [of Germantown], which is a black woman-owned, and 8(a) graduate company, is a leader In the area of DOE environmental health and safety and nuclear facility operations with more than 200 employees. In the last three months, PEC has also won contracts with the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and additional contracts with Fluor Hanford Co. All in all, I expect our company to grow about 20 percent this year. What's the most challenging type of project you do? I think the most challenging thing, the biggest thing we've had in terms of doing the work, is going out and getting qualified individuals. You don't just hire anyone -- you have to have some history and a performance history. [For example], in the company we probably have 15 people who have top clearances. I remember a job we had out at Hanford, a job for 20 people, to do safety and health oversight. The government client came to us and said, "Okay, you just won the contract and we want you to start next week, but we want you to be staffed up." And there were 20 people that in one week we had to go out, interview, and place on the job. We were able to do that but it was very, very hard to do. How did you get to the DOE here in the first place? Where are you from originally? I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My dad is a retired sergeant major. The first six years of my life I lived in Puerto Rico, and I didn't become bilingual until I was 8 -- I learned English from going to class on Army bases. It was kind of tough; it took me a while because my mom insisted we speak Spanish at home. I lived at Army bases in Kentucky, the Canal Zone, Germany, New York and then Virginia. I finished high school in Northern Virginia [where his parents were living] and went to Virginia Tech. I got an engineering degree, and when I got out of school I worked for a power company in North Carolina, working with industrial-type customers, showing them how to reduce energy consumption. I did that for three years and got a little homesick. We had our first child, and we wanted to be closer to the family [in the Washington, D.C., area] so they could see her grow up. So I got a job with the government in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, designing heating and cooling suits for soldiers in that environment. I did that a couple of years, working at Fort Belvoir. Then I did quite a bit of explosives development ... I was basically a lab rat. Then I heard about the DOE starting a new organization called environmental management here in Maryland, in Germantown, and came here to work for the DOE. When I started the company, PEC was originally envisioned to be a small consulting company providing services to the DOE. The DOE headquarters in Germantown and Washington, D.C., we felt that the most advantageous location was next to DOE headquarters. From here we can know what is happening across the United States. As a Hispanic businessman, were there special challenges going into business for yourself, and as a result any special strategies you had to develop? I have to say I was very fortunate to be raised in the United States. I guess I can imagine an individual that wasn't raised in the United States and didn't understand the differences in the culture and ways of doing business. For example, I can explain my business to my mother and my father, and they understand it, but I can tell that there are things that culturally they're not connecting with. It's not a matter of being more educated or smarter or anything -- it's just the way you think of things. From my standpoint what was very helpful was having worked with the DOE. And I chose the DOE as my market: I know how the people think and operate, and I know the government procurement system, too. Nevertheless, I think minority businesses in general, particularly in a business that's very highly technical, there are very few minorities in the nuclear industry. So when they hear your name or they see you or they know about you, you do have an obstacle to overcome and you have something to prove basically, so you have to prove it all the time. People don't take it for granted that you can achieve something -- you have to actually do it and demonstrate it. And you have started to help other businesses as well? In the last two years I've tried to reach out to help other small businesses. Right now I have a small company here that shares office space with us and they're trying to break into the government way of doing business. So as a point of trying to give back to the community, we've been helping them. And it turns out that they are so good, that they end up helping us, too. It's one of those things where, you almost have to, I believe that for small businesses, especially minority businesses to succeed, there's got to be more teaming, more looking out for each other along the way, because there's more stacked up against you. ***************************************************************** 38 Bellona: All nuclear powered lighthouses to be removed by 2005 Murmansk authorities are removing lighthouses run on radioactive strontium-90 batteries and replacing them with modern solar energy lighthouses, NTV reported. 2004-08-20 15:16 The strontium batteries will be transported with helicopters to the storage facility in Murmansk and then further by railway to the Mayak reprocessing plant in the South Ural. All the strontium lighthouses (about 500) along the coast of the Kola Peninsula are to be removed this year before polar night comes. The radioactive lighthouses could pose a major security threat if falling in the hands of terrorists. Norwegian authorities are financing the new solar lighthouses. The price of each solar panel lighthouse is about $34,200. 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 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************