***************************************************************** 12/07/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.291 ***************************************************************** 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 Washington Times: Tehran's nukes a global threat, Israeli warns - 2 EUbusiness: Iran, EU nuclear talks to begin next week - official 3 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: U.S. officials meet twice with North Korean a 4 YWS: N.K. Possibly 'Bluffing' on Nuclear Weapons: Ruling Party Chair 5 AU ABC: Nuclear watchdog speculates on North Korea's weapons potenti 6 US: [NYTr] Hypothetical WMDs and the Real Ones, in the USA 7 US: BMD = space weapons - Straight Goods 8 US: Steve Weissman | Part II: Nukes, Neo-Cons, and the Bush Who 9 US: [NukeNet] Nuclear under Fire in New Jersey 10 US: Coloradan: Campbell decries partisanship 11 US: Tennessean: TVA details millions in savings from probe - 12 US: Guardian Unlimited: Details of Congress' $388B Bill to Bush 13 US: Vermont Guardian: Congress blocks administrations mini-nukes, bu 14 LA Times: Pakistan and the True WMD Threat NUCLEAR REACTORS 15 US: [NukeNet] Salem 1 springs a leak; Dr Harvin gets award 16 US: Charleston.Net: Nuclear plant shut down after small steam leak 17 Hartlepool Today: Cracks in reactor close power plant 18 Bizchina: 4th nuke plant in pipeline in Guangdong 19 US: Fredericksburg.com: NRC gives preliminary thumbs up to North Ann 20 US: NRC: NRC Staff to Meet with Entergy Operations, Inc. to Discuss 21 US: NRC: NRC Seeks Public Input on North Anna Early Site Permit Appl 22 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 US: [DU-WATCH] US VETERAN ON TRIAL FOR DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION 24 US: [RADFOOD] Food Inspection on the Chopping Block 25 US: heraldtribune.com: Health officials to discuss Tallevast water t 26 US: SFSS: Lettuce, milk found to be contaminated with rocket fuel ch NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 27 [du-list] UK Uranium dumps 28 Las Vegas SUN: Panel says shipping plan lagging for Yucca Mountain p 29 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA INCENTIVE: Deadline passes; bonus in limbo 30 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT: Board raises questions about s 31 Las Vegas SUN: Panel: Yucca transportation plan flawed 32 US: EPA: Investigation Continues at Nuclear Metals Site in Concord, 33 US: Gazetteonline.com: Investigators search for source of perchlorat 34 US: Waste News: Cost to clean sites may reach $250 billion over next 35 News & Star: Meeting on nuclear waste management NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 36 lamonitor.com: LANSCE bowed; not broken OTHER NUCLEAR 37 Wired News: Sunlight to Fuel Hydrogen Future 38 DOS: U.S. Energy Department Funds New Fusion Energy Experiment 39 EUbusiness: Japan offered concessions to EU over pioneering nuclear ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Washington Times: Tehran's nukes a global threat, Israeli warns - December 07, 2004 By Tom Carter Iran's relentless pursuit of a nuclear weapon is the biggest danger facing Israel, the Middle East and the world, a senior foreign-policy adviser to the Israeli government said yesterday. "We have no doubt that Iran is trying to move ahead on building nuclear capability," Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States, said in a luncheon meeting with reporters and editors at The Washington Times yesterday. Since January 2002, when President Bush declared that Iran was part of an "axis of evil," Iran  with Russian help  has been pursuing what it describes as a peaceful nuclear program. But the United States and others suspect that the nation's real goal is to develop nuclear weapons. The United States pushed a hard line on dismantling Iran's nuclear program, but Europe balked. And in late November, the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution on a safeguards agreement with Iran, which includes surveillance cameras. But Mr. Shoval, one of several foreign-policy advisers to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said yesterday he was skeptical of the European "step-by-step" plan. "Iran is formally and ideologically committed to the destruction of Israel, and a nuclear Iran is an immense danger," he said. "Iran is using the express elevator getting to the nuclear bomb." Mr. Shoval said this was not simply an issue for Israel, but one that puts the world at danger. He charged that Iran was "directly" involved in arming and training terrorists who attack Israel. "Once Iran gets their hands on nuclear weapons and the delivery system, everyone in the Middle East will want one. It will be a completely new ballgame and a very dangerous one. If the world looks away from this, it will be a very tough awakening," he said. He said he had no knowledge of any Israeli plan to strike pre-emptively at Iran's nuclear facilities. Mr. Shoval, who served as Israel's ambassador to the United States from 1990 to 1993 and again from 1998 to 2000, was in Washington to discuss Israeli-Palestinian relations at a seminar at the Brookings Institution. He said that he planned to meet with several Bush administration officials in the National Security Council and that he had met with his "old friend" Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a pro-Israel hard-liner who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. Mr. Shoval said the Bush administration has "done the right thing" by refusing to push Israel into negotiations with the Palestinians while terrorist attacks continue. But with the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he said, he is "fairly optimistic" that there is an opportunity to move forward on Israel's plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip and the "road map" peace plan. "We want to see a Palestinian side with a reformed leadership, more transparency, a civilian government, rule of law," he said. "If something like that really develops, it will create the foundation for a viable democratic Palestinian state. If all these things happen, we will have arrived at stage two of the road map, a Palestinian state with provisional borders." He said an Israeli-Egypt prisoner swap on Sunday that sent convicted Israeli spy Azzam Azzam home after eight years "was a positive sign, and we may see more." "Tunis, Morocco, perhaps one of the Gulf states will return to a better relationship [with Israel]," he said. He said pressure from the Europeans  who are expected to offer Mr. Bush help in Iraq and U.S.-European rapprochement if he urges Israel to compromise more  would be counterproductive. More useful, he said, would be if the Arab states used 1 percent or 2 percent of their recent $50 billion to $75 billion oil windfall to help rebuild the Palestinian economy. "International conferences are never good for Israel, and in the foreseeable future, we will not be able to arrive at a permanent peace plan that the Palestinians can live with and we can live with. But this does not mean we cannot move forward," he said. "Hopefully, these guys will say, 'Let's not miss another chance,' and work for Palestinian statehood in one form or another. Today, especially after Arafat, everyone understands [disengagement] is the only game in town." ***************************************************************** 2 EUbusiness: Iran, EU nuclear talks to begin next week - official [http://www.eubusiness.com/] » 07/12/2004 Negotiations between officials from Iran and Britain, France and Germany aimed at building on the Islamic republic's agreement to freeze sensitive nuclear work are to start next week, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday. Iran's top national security official and nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said the first round of the dialogue was likely to involve himself, the foreign ministers of the EU's "big three" -- Britain's Jack Straw, France's Michel Barnier and Germany's Joshka Fischer -- as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Rowhani said the talks would take place sometime next week in "one of Europe's capitals". Officials had already slated December 15 as the approximate starting date. He also said the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, had asked to take part in the meeting. An EU source in Brussels confirmed that a meeting would "in all likelihood" take place Monday or Tuesday, in Brussels or another European capital. "The Iranians have asked for the first meeting of the steering committee (overseeing the nuclear agreement with Iran) to take place at ministerial level" in order to give it "better visibility," the source said. "We do not have a problem with that in principle," added the source, who also confirmed that Solana was slated to take part in the talks. Last week the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors decided Iran should not be referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after Tehran agreed in a deal with the three EU states to suspend its uranium enrichment programme. Iran agreed to the deal amid threats from the United States -- which alleges that the Islamic Republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons -- to send the matter to the Security Council in New York. z In return, Iran was promised considerable and wide-ranging rewards by the European trio who would like the freeze to become permanent. Enrichment has been and remains at the heart of the stand-off. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to low levels, so as to produce fuel for a series of atomic power stations it has yet to build. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) permits enrichment for peaceful purposes. But there are fears that Iran's fuel cycle drive belies an effort to acquire a "strategic option", given that uranium enriched to high levels can produce the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. In return for the suspension, the EU is offering Iran a package of incentives -- due to be hammered out in more detail when negotiations begin -- on trade, security and technology. This is to include supporting Iran's bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), an eventual Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU, addressing Iran's regional security concerns and sharing peaceful nuclear technology. But in tandem the EU also wants the negotiations to produce "objective guarantees" that Iran is not seeking and will not seek to divert its programme in order to make weapons. Iran has pledged to maintain its suspension while the negotiations with the EU are in progress. [Web link: EU relations with Iran] EU relations with Iran Text and Picture Copyright © 2004 AFP. All other copyright © 2004 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is ***************************************************************** 3 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: U.S. officials meet twice with North Korean aides [http://joongangdaily.joins.com] December 8, 2004 KST 11:14 ( December 08, 2004 ¤Ñ U.S. officials met with North Korean representatives in New York twice last week to urge Pyeongyang to return to the multilateral talks established to put a diplomatic end to the North's nuclear arms program, the U.S. State Department said. At a press briefing Monday, Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman of the State Department, said, "There was a meeting in New York on Tuesday, Nov. 30 and Friday, Dec. 3. The purpose was to state to the North Koreans that the United States is ready to resume the six-party talks at an early date and without preconditions and that we want to resolve the nuclear issue diplomatically." Mr. Ereli said the United States had asked for both meetings, but the premise was not to negotiate with the North Koreans, asking journalists not to label the contacts as bilateral talks. "We told the North Koreans that the six-party process is the venue for resolving the nuclear issue and, just as we do publicly, we called on North Korea to follow through on its commitment to continue with the six-party talks," he said. After North Korea's clandestine nuclear weapons program was disclosed in late 2002, the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have been engaged in negotiations over the issue. Officials from the six countries have come together three times for meetings in Beijing, but almost no progress has been reported. A new round, scheduled to take place in September, was canceled when North Korea declared it would not attend. Joseph DeTrani, U.S. envoy on North Korea affairs, represented Washington at the meeting, and Mr. Ereli said he does not know who represented Pyeongyang. In the wake of the two meetings with the North Koreans, Mr. DeTrani left Monday for Beijing. He will also visit Japan and South Korea to discuss plans to revive the stalled talks. by Ser Myo-ja myoja@joongang.co.kr> [http://joongangdaily.joins.com/howtoread.html] ***************************************************************** 4 YWS: N.K. Possibly 'Bluffing' on Nuclear Weapons: Ruling Party Chairman YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE: [http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/] .. 2004/12/07 19:17 KST Lee Bu-young(L), Chairman of the Ruling Uri Party SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Yonhap) -- The head of South Korea's ruling party claimed Tuesday North Korea may not possess any nuclear weapons yet and called on Seoul to take matters into its own hands. "I think the fact that there has never been a country which has developed or tried to possess nuclear weapons while publicly announcing that it is developing the ultimate weapon shows North Korea may be somewhat bluffing about its nuclear weapons," said Lee Bu-young, chairman of the ruling Uri Party. ***************************************************************** 5 AU ABC: Nuclear watchdog speculates on North Korea's weapons potential [http://www.abc.net.au/] This is a transcript from The World Today. The program is broadcast around Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio. The World Today - Tuesday, 7 December , 2004 12:29:16 Reporter: Rafael Epstein ELEANOR HALL: Staying overseas, the world's nuclear watchdog has announced overnight that the North Korean regime has enough nuclear fuel for up to six nuclear weapons. Many North Korea watchers agree with the assessment, but it carries great weight coming from the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el Baradei, who's gone further in his comments than any United States official. As Rafael Epstein reports, Pyongyang is now waiting to see exactly how the new Bush administration will respond. RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Few hard facts emerge from the world's most secretive regime. But for those who watch North Korea, it's created an air of convincing ambiguity. No one knows if they have ready-made nuclear weapons, so no one knows if "diplomatic push came to strategic shove" whether that shove could prompt a pre-emptive nuclear strike from Pyongyang. That ambiguity is becoming more concrete. Respected analysts have made educated guesses that Pyongyang does have enough weapons to deter an attack, and now the world's nuclear watchdog has come close to agreeing. IAEA chief Mohamed el Baradei told the New York Times he believes they have converted fuel rods used in reactors into weapons ready material – a task he believes is not that difficult, and a task he believes but does not know that North Korea has completed. North Korean envoys to the United Nations met last week with US State Department officials, saying they don't want to meet again until they see how US policy develops. Robert Einhorn is a former senior State Department officer who used to be involved in such negotiations. ROBERT EINHORN: The significance is that it's the first time that the agency that's charged with verifying the non-proliferation treaty is stating categorically that it believes North Korea has actually reprocessed the 8,000 spent fuel rods that it took out of storage a little over a year ago. In fact, there's nothing particularly new. Many experts have assumed that North Korea had reprocessed the spent fuel rods and extracted the plutonium. It's simply the first time that the director general of the IAEA has made that assessment. RAFAEL EPSTEIN: It's also something that a government, particularly the United States Government, they haven't gone as far as saying something like that, have they? ROBERT EINHORN: Ah, no, I don't believe so. The US Government has said that it believes North Korea has at least begun reprocessing, but it says it doesn't have any proof that North Korea has completed the reprocessing of all 8,000 rods. RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Some experts have said that North Korea does have a number of weapons. How far is it to go from reprocessing all that fuel to actually making weapons? ROBERT EINHORN: Well, you have to have a workable design for a nuclear weapon, and then there's a certain amount of engineering that's required to fabricate the plutonium pit, to fabricate the firing mechanism and so-forth. Presumably, North Korea has already done plenty of research and development on the firing mechanisms necessary, so it wouldn't take all that long, you know, experts think it's anywhere from a few months to six, eight months to take the plutonium and weaponise it. Whether they've done that or not, nobody really knows. RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Do you think it will have any affect on trying to get North Korea to re-engage with South Korea, China, the US and the others? ROBERT EINHORN: I don't think that will have much of an impact. My own guess is that they will wait until after the inauguration on January 20th to decide whether they want to get back to the table. ELEANOR HALL: Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department official who used to deal with North Korea, speaking to Rafael Epstein. [http://www.abc.net.au] ***************************************************************** 6 [NYTr] Hypothetical WMDs and the Real Ones, in the USA Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 16:30:05 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [The article published on Electronic Iraq at the URL below includes a map showing the USA's active nuclear weapons facilities. -NY Transfer] Electronic Iraq - December 6, 2004 http://electroniciraq.net/news/1741.shtml International Weapons Conventions and Iran, Iraq by Omar Khan In no less than hundreds of articles over the past few weeks, our press has tirelessly reported on Irans uranium enrichment program, or ratherin characteristic shorthandon Irans efforts to develop the capability to make nuclear weapons (Foreign Affairs, 11/24). Early on the morning of the November 29th, however, in Iran Backs Away From a Demand on A-Bomb Fuel, the New York Times announced that a settlement between Iran and Britain, France, and Germany (EU-3) had been reached: Iranians had agreed to suspend all research on uranium enrichment. One hopes that with this agreement, daily scrutiny of hypothetical Iranian weapons might also give way to some observations of actual American weapons being deployed nearby. For by many accounts, the use of unconventional weapons has likely been a US pastime in The War on Terror during even its most recent episodes. Dahr Jamail of Inter Press News Service has recorded Fallujan experiences of poison gas and bombs that exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burnsa trademark of napalm and phosphorus bombs. Though many Americans will no doubt say such claims are dubious, they have reason to: no outside medical personnel or observers have yet been allowed into Fallujah to even allow further discussion of the matter. Less dubious is the continued use of depleted uranium munitions, which as Vishnu Bhagwat, former Indian Chief of Naval Staff, has written amounted in 2003 alone to the equivalent of nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs. But depleted uranium is nothing new, having been used extensively in southern Iraq during the first Gulf War. The Department of Environmental Engineering at the University of Baghdad has accordingly measured radiation levels in and near the city of Basra to range from hundreds to thousands of times the normal levels. Dr. Jawad Kadhim Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center in Basra, has theorized that depleted uranium may be a reason that the death rate from cancers in Basra has now reached 19 times that of 1988. It was also in Basra that a previous study led by Dr. Alim Yacoup found the incidence of leukaemia among children to have doubled between 1990 and 1999. Perhaps it is such reports that have led Dr. Asaf Durakovic, the nuclear-medicine expert of the VeteransAdministration, to characterize DU as a threat to humanity. According to an oft cited August 2002 UN report, the use of DU munitions breaches the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the Genocide Convention, the Convention against Torture, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Returning once more to Iran, one is reminded of the adage that history is indeed written by the victors: while the New York Times writes of Irans long history of concealment in its relation to international weapons conventions, there is little need for such concealment by United States Government for its violations of such conventions as they go almost entirely unreported. This double standard at work in the application of such conventions is emphasized by a closer look at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the basis for the present attention on Iran. Article 4(1) says that Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes; Article 4(2) says that All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, it goes on, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world. It would seem that the United States, rather than Iran, would be bound by the terms of the treaty, which obligate itas a signer to the Treatyto undertake to facilitate the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials, and so forth to Iran, one such developing country of the world. According to the aforementioned New York Times article, like all other coverage of the standoff in this country, such an exchange was of course not a right, much less a possibility. That right was instead Irans demand, one that last week came in two letters to the International Atomic Energy Agency from Iran's atomic energy agency, whose hard-liners oppose any concessions to outsiders. But as these hard-liners, like other Iranians, have apparently conceded to their US and European watch dogs, the question arises with regard to Iraq, where any comparable watch dogs can be found to concede to. Principle two of the Nuremburg Tribunal tells us that the fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law. A dying hope of Iraqis today would not be so ambitious as to imagine respite in the face of our longstanding war crimes, but instead an interruption of the silence that sanctions them. [Omar Khan is a writer and editor in Oakland. He is writing regular analysis, 'Covering Iraq', for Dahr Jamail's website. 'Covering Iraq' provides analysis and discussion of US mainstream news in light of Dahr Jamail's reports and photographs from Occupied Iraq. Its intent is to identify unreported news from Iraq and to make a broader audience aware of events there. 'Covering Iraq' encourages your comments, reactions, and participation.] * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 7 BMD = space weapons - Straight Goods Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:37:21 -0600 (CST) http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature3.cfm?REF=882 BMD = Space weapons Former Disarmament Ambassador warns against participating in Ballistic Missile Defense plan. Dateline: Monday, December 06, 2004 by the Honourable Douglas Roche The Canadian government must not be fooled by US President Bush's assurance that the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system does not imply the weaponization of space. This assurance given to Prime Minister Martin during the President's visit to Canada this week has as much credibility as President Bush's previous assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The website of the Missile Defence Agency contains a clear statement of the intention to eventually include space-based interceptors in its arsenal. This program, currently called the Space-Based Interceptor Test Bed, was granted $10 million by Congress for 2005. More money will be sought in 2006 for additional experiments. By 2008, the US intends to deploy a test bed of space-based kinetic-energy kill vehicles to destroy high-speed collision test targets in space. Despite the President's verbal assurance, space-based missile defence is a real program with a real budget. The plan is for the Missile Defence Agency to orbit three to six interceptors for testing in 2012. Because kinetic-energy kill vehicles designed to intercept missiles could also function as anti-satellite weapons, other countries will feel compelled to develop means to counter these US space weapons.... whole article at: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature3.cfm?REF=882 Penney Kome, author and journalist http://penneykome.ca Editor, Straight Goods, http://straightgoods.com ***************************************************************** 8 Steve Weissman | Part II: Nukes, Neo-Cons, and the Bush Who Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 01:27:44 -0600 (CST) The TO Overview William Rivers Pitt: 'This Is a Scandal That Will Not Go Away' http://www.truthout.org/overview.htm _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 12.02 Steve Weissman | Part II: Nukes, Neo-Cons, and the Bush Who Cried Wolf http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204A.shtml U.S. Torture at Guantanamo 'Increasingly Repressive' http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204B.shtml Abu Ghraib: U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204C.shtml U.S. Troops Still Dying in Ramadi http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204D.shtml UN Weighs the Widest Reforms in Its History http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204E.shtml David Ignatius | The Langley Lobotomy http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204F.shtml EPA Tests Find Rocket Fuel in Nation's Milk, Lettuce http://www.truthout.org/environment.shtml Asia Irritated over U.S. Indifference to Dollar Fall http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204H.shtml Pentagon Using Misleading Information as Military Tool http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204I.shtml What Happened to Iraq's Oil Money? http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204J.shtml Bush Thanks Canadian Demonstrators for 'Five-fingered Salute' http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204K.shtml NOW with Bill Moyers | Eliot Spitzer: "The Sheriff of Wall Street" http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204L.shtml Alberto Gonzales: Worse Than Ashcroft http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204W.shtml Kerry Team Seeks to Join Ohio Recount Fight http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204X.shtml Nationwide Voting Errors Tallied, More than 30,000 Complaints Lodged http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204Y.shtml Ukraine Parliament Brings Down Government over Election Fight http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120204Z.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 12.01 EPA Looking at Human Testing http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104A.shtml Poll: Americans Want Roe v. Wade Upheld http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104B.shtml Ian H. Solomon | Validate the Vote http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104C.shtml Ukraine: Where Democracy Refuses to Die http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104D.shtml Debate on Iraq Vote Mirrors Divisions http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104E.shtml Gutierrez Fought for Open Trade at Kellogg http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104F.shtml 169 Whales, Dolphins Die in South Pacific http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104G.shtml Jean-Marcel Bouguereau | Looking Like the Polish Spring http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104H.shtml Police, Fire Departments See Shortages across USA http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104I.shtml Embassy Sounds Alarm over Growing Dangers in Iraq http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104J.shtml Activists Crawl through Web to Untangle U.S. Secrecy http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104K.shtml Neocons Join the Lynch Mob for 'Arrogant' Rumsfeld http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104L.shtml Campuses Allowed to Bar Military Recruiters http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104U.shtml Pentagon: 'They Hate Our Policies, Not Our Freedom' http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104V.shtml Ridge to Announce Resignation http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104W.shtml Rumsfeld Sued for Alleged War Crimes http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104X.shtml U.S. Death Toll in Iraq for November Approaches Record http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104Y.shtml Red Cross Finds Torture at Guantanamo http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120104Z.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 11.30 Marjorie Cohn | Setting the Conditions for War Crimes http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004A.shtml Ukraine President Says New Vote Possible http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004B.shtml Remembering Vietnam on the Euphrates http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004C.shtml Every Enlistee First a Warrior http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004D.shtml American Unions Face Four More Years http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004E.shtml James Fallows | A Paper Ballot, Please http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004F.shtml How Team Bush Fights Global Warming http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004G.shtml French Hostages' Fate Rests on 'Spy Inquiry' http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004H.shtml Feds Target Journalists on CIA Leak http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004I.shtml Checkpoints Take Toll on Palestinians, Israeli Army http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004J.shtml Dr. James J. Zogby | Arabs Want Reform, but Not U.S. Help http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004K.shtml Gay Minister to Face Jury of Methodist Peers http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004L.shtml 'Vast Borrowing' Needed for Bush to Privatize Social Security http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004V.shtml Norman Solomon | News Media in the 60th Year of the Nuclear Age http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004W.shtml Corporate PACs Favored Republicans 10-to-1 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004X.shtml Jesse Jackson Joins Critics of Ohio Vote http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml GOP Looks to Break up 9th Circuit http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Z.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 11.29 Iran Digs 'Secret Tunnel' for Nuclear Fuel http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904A.shtml Ukraine: Could the Orange Revolution Be Just a Mirage in the Snow? http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904B.shtml Pakistani Soldiers Abandon Search for bin Laden http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904C.shtml Shiites Reject Delay of Iraqi Election http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904D.shtml Bush and GOP-led Congress Still Not Together on 9/11 Reforms http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904E.shtml Carlos Villarreal | In the Gonzales Debate, Identity Politics Meets the Right Wing http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904F.shtml Critics: Bush Unlikely to Change Ocean Policies http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904G.shtml Philippe Martin | Dollar Plunge, Specter of the Crash http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904H.shtml High Court Cases Show 2 Sides of Conservatism http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904I.shtml Howard Fineman | Rove Unleashed http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904J.shtml Evangelicals to Bush: Payback Time http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904K.shtml Blair's Government Knew in Advance of African Oil Coup http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904L.shtml Bill Moyers Leaves PBS in the Middle of a Rebalancing Act http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904V.shtml Alabama Vote Opens Old Racial Wounds http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904W.shtml Momentum Builds for New Vote in Ukraine http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904X.shtml LA Times | Chipping Away at Roe vs. Wade http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904Y.shtml Senate GOP Set to Go 'Nuclear' Over Judges http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112904Z.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 11.28 U.S. Campaign Behind the Turmoil in Kiev http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804A.shtml U.S. Troops Brace for More Losses in Iraq http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804B.shtml U.S. Lacks Reliable Data on Iran Arms http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804C.shtml U.S. Offensives in Iraq Create Surge of Detainees http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804D.shtml House GOP Spurns Cooperation http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804E.shtml Molly Ivins | A Few Political Developments http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804F.shtml Boston Globe | Coal's Global Goal http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804G.shtml Armelle Thorval | Elisabeth II, Tony Blair's Ventriloquist Dummy http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804H.shtml Critics Tackle Ohio Vote http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804I.shtml Jim Lobe | Watch Out for 'Dirty Wars' in Latin America http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804J.shtml Economic 'Armageddon' Predicted http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804K.shtml Naomi Klein | Smoking While Iraq Burns http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804L.shtml Ship Spills 30,000 Gallons of Oil Near Philadelphia http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804V.shtml Halliburton 'Loses' Millions in Government Property in Iraq http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804W.shtml 'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804X.shtml 15 Parties in Iraq Ask for Vote to be Delayed http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804Y.shtml Ukrainian MPs Reject Poll Result http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112804Z.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 11.27 European Envoys Head for Ukraine http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704A.shtml Iran Fails to Fulfill Nuclear Pledge http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704B.shtml Sunni Politicians Feeling Harassed by Iraqi Rebels, U.S. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704C.shtml James A. Nickel | Following the Ukrainian Lead http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704D.shtml Congress Seeks to Curb International Court http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704E.shtml Sidney Blumenthal | Counterinaugural at the Clinton Library http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704F.shtml U.S. and Other Wealthy Nations Threaten Environment Treaty http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704G.shtml Patrick Jarreau | Americaniphobic Nervousness http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704H.shtml Marines Offered up to $30,000 to Reenlist http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704I.shtml Abbas: I Can Stop Attacks on Israel http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704J.shtml More Voting Questions Raised http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704K.shtml John W. Dean | Does Bush Now Have Political Capital to Spend? http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704L.shtml Senator Robert Byrd | A Thanksgiving Prayer in a Time of War http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704U.shtml Workers Suffer in Sweat Shops to Make Our Toys http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704V.shtml Two More Top CIA Officers Leave http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704W.shtml Justice Scalia Rejects Separation of Church and State http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704X.shtml Crowds Blockade Ukraine Government http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704Y.shtml Four Killed in Baghdad's Green Zone http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704Z.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ t r u t h o u t | 11.26 Jacqueline Keeler | Thanksgiving: A Native American View http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604A.shtml Susan Lenfestey | Even for a Liberal, There's Comfort to be Found http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604B.shtml James Carroll | America's Heartfelt Holiday http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604C.shtml Christopher D. Cook | Thanksgiving's Hidden Costs http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604D.shtml Christian Welch | Thoughts on Thanksgiving from Austin http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604E.shtml Ukraine Supreme Court Stops Certification of Election http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604F.shtml EU, Iran Clash over Terms of Nuclear Freeze http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604G.shtml Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604H.shtml Saul Landau | Fallujah: The 21st Century Guernica http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604I.shtml Fallujah Leaders Were Local, Not Foreign http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604J.shtml Ralph G. Neas | Fundamental Flaws Put Our Voting System at Risk http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604K.shtml Lack of Money Slows Cleanup of Hundreds of Superfund Sites http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604L.shtml Pierre Lacoste | The Politicization of Intelligence http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604M.shtml FDA Scientist Faces Retaliation for VIOXX Whistleblowing http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604N.shtml Max Castro | Bush Again: Tightening the Noose http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604O.shtml FBI Interviews Halliburton Whistleblower http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604Q.shtml Leonard Steinhorn | Scrooge's Nightmare http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112604R.shtml Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@news.truthout.org Or go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ ***************************************************************** 9 [NukeNet] Nuclear under Fire in New Jersey Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 14:49:41 -0800 Nuclear under Fire in New Jersey Dec 06 - NJBIZ Power plants that provide half the state's electricity find themselves under fire Harkness says Oyster Creek has long been a good neighbor and provider of jobs. New Jersey's two nuclear-power plants are under attack. Not by terrorists, but by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which demands an improved maintenance regime at one site, and politicians and grass-roots groups that oppose extending the license at the other. New Jersey has a great deal at stake in these battles. The two facilities provide electricity to half the state and employ a total of 2,250 people. Nuclear-fueled power is far cheaper than gas- or oil-fired electricity, and last year became cheaper than coal-fired power as well (see box). Replacing either plant would require a massive investment. But both facilities are generating intense controversy. At the nuclear power station in Salem County, operators shut the site's Hope Creek unit on October 10 when a ruptured pipe leaked low-level radioactivity into the turbine building (NJBIZ, October 18). Hope Creek remains shut for refueling. The NRC is focusing special oversight on all three generating units at the Salem site, which is run by the nuclear power subsidiary of Newark's PSEG. The move follows complaints that the station-whose Hope Creek and Salem 1 and 2 units make it the country's second-largest generator of nuclear energy-has deferred needed maintenance, failed to correct long-standing problems and ignored employees who have come forward with safety concerns. Meanwhile, the Oyster Creek plant in Ocean County is seeking a 20- year extension of a federal license that's set to expire in 2009. Built in 1969, Oyster Creek is owned by AmerGen Energy, a unit of Chicago's Exelon, and is the longest-running nuclear plant in the country Opposing its bid for a license extension are 17 Ocean County towns, and political leaders that include U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-4th District), state Senator Robert Singer (R- Lakewood) and Brick Mayor Joseph Scarpelli. Such resistance creates head-scratching among the plant's managers. "If nuclear-power plants go away, they'll be replaced with a higher-cost mm power supply or plants that aren't as environmentally sound," says Ernie Harkness, vice president for special projects at Oyster Creek. Harkness says the plant produced $46.5 million in taxes, payroll and other economic benefits last year, an impact that jumps to $247.7 million when the sale of electric power is factored in. "The people who are working here are your fathers, your children's coaches; they're in your neighborhoods," says Harkness. "You have a plant that's been a great neighbor for years." At Salem, PSEG Nuclear president Chris Bakken says his company is promoting a more open workplace that encourages employees to raise concerns. Bakken says Salem is devoting 100,000 manpower hours to reducing its maintenance backlog. "We'll focus on fixing the problem, not fixing the blame," he says. PSEG Nuclear plans to spend $800 million over the next five years on Salem improvements like replacing control rod drive mechanisms that have malfunctioned. While the outlays are double what a nuclear facility typically spends on upkeep, PSEG Nuclear says it could take two years to fix the current problems and regain its workers' trust. The Hope Creek refueling will last 45 to 55 days, compared with the usual outage of 25 to 35 days. "It's not a money issue," says Bakken. "Our goal going forward is to achieve excellence. We look forward to a better performing plant in the future." POWER FOR NEARLY 4 MILLION HOMES NUCLEAR AND COAL PLANTS RUN CHEAPER Tauro, Paula Gotsch and Scarpelli want to replace Oyster Creek with wind or solar power. Such promises don't reassure critics like the Unplug Salem Campaign, a coalition of more than 100 local, regional and national groups that has collected over 25,000 signatures on petitions that call for shutting and decommissioning the Salem I and 2 units. The petitions raise issues ranging from fire safety to fish kills and radioactive waste. Oyster Creek critics express similar concerns. Since January, Brick homemaker Janet Tauro has worked with township mayor Scarpelli to fight the license-extension request. Tauro is particularly concerned about the lack of an evacuation route in the event of a radiation leak at the aging plant. "You wouldn't be able to get out in time," she says. "There's one road in and one road out, and that's Route 9"-a highway that's mostly two lanes in Ocean County. Other opponents of extending the license include the Asbury Park Press, which last June accused the NRC of rubber-stamping such applications-30 plants have received extensions so far-and called for a statewide campaign to close Oyster Creek when its license expires in 2009. Scarpelli demanded a closing after a study last January found an elevated level of the radioactive substance strontium 90, which has been linked to bone cancer and leukemia, in the baby teeth of Brick children. The study was prepared by Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project, a New York City-based research group. Mangano speculates that the strontium 90 level was higher in Brick than in Lacey, where Oyster Creek is located, because plant emissions wafted to Brick on the wind. Oyster Creek owner AmerGen dismisses the study as scare tactics and junk science. AmerGen says strontium 90 comes from fallout left in the atmosphere by nuclear bomb tests, not from nuclear power plants. According to AmerGen, a 1990 study by the National Institutes of Health found no connection between cancer rates and people's proximity to nuclear plants. The cooling tower at Salem, the nation's second-largest nuclear generating facility. Oyster Creek spent $1 million in fines and plant improvements two years ago after a refueling outage caused temperatures in nearby Barnegat Bay to drop, killing 5,000 fish. The company now promises to replenish the bay with 50,000 fish next spring. But critics want Oyster Creek to replace its cooling system, which pumps more than 1 billion gallons of water into and out of the plant each day, with an $80 million closed-cycle system that AmerGen says would make the plant too costly to run. AmerGen plans to formally ask for a license extension next July; the NRC is likely to review the application for 24 to 30 months. To prepare for an extension, Oyster Creek is inspecting 160,000 pieces of equipment, including pipes, valves and emergency diesel generators. AmerGen says it has spent more than $1.5 billion to upgrade the plant through measures like reinforcing the containment structure and replacing air compressors and emergency cooling pipes. The company has spent another $20 million in response to post-9/ 11 federal directives that call for improved security. Investments include a new security building, new fencing around the complex and new detection gear. The plant currently budgets $4 million to $5 million for security guards. The NRC is not the only watchdog with an eye on Oyster Creek. The plant also falls under the purview of the state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Nuclear Engineering, which monitors the level of radioactivity around nuclear facilities. State Assemblyman John McKeon, a West Orange Democrat who chairs the environmental and solid waste committee, plans a fact-finding hearing on the plant next month. "We will be taking testimony from industry, labor and environmental groups and residents on their views and opinions on the plant," McKeon says. "It's not to do anything but to take information and understand the issues." Nonetheless, the session is certain to generate plenty of electricity. "If nuclear-power plants go away, they'll be replaced with a higher-cost power supply or plants that arent as environmentally sound." Ernie Harkness Vice president for special projects, Oyster Creek TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS More than a dozen U.S. nuclear plants have been shut and decommissioned over the past 30 years, leaving 103 plants running in 31 states. In the Northeast, decommissioned plants include Shoreham, which closed its doors on Long Island in 1987, and Maine Yankee, which provided 25% of Maine's power before it was shut in 1997. Both facilities had encountered strong public opposition. Full decommissioning can take decades from the time a plant stops operating. The process includes decontaminating or dismantling buildings and hauling the parts to a low-level waste facility. Spent nuclear fuel must be placed in dry storage, where it is to be held until a controversial high-level waste depository is built at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The last step involves reducing any radioactivity that remains at the site to harmless levels through a final decontamination. email jnelson@njbiz.com Copyright Snowden Publications, Inc. -- Coalition for Peace and Justice UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982 ncohen12@comcast.net; www.unplugsalem.org _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 10 Coloradan: Campbell decries partisanship News - Tuesday, December 7, 2004 Senate losing champion of Indian causes By Faith Bremner Gannett News Service [Gannett News Service] [Photo] Bill Clark/Gannett News Service RETIRING: Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., speaks with a reporter in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington last month. Ben Nighthorse Campbell + Born: April 13, 1933, Auburn, Calif. + Family: Married to Linda, 38 years; two grown children; three grandchildren. + Education: Bachelor's degree from San Jose State University, 1957; attended Meiji University, Japan, 1960-1964. + Career: Air Force, 1951-1953; truck driver; rancher; horse trainer; jewelry designer. + Politics: Colorado House of Representatives, 1982-1986; U.S. House of Representatives, 1987-1993; Senate, 1993-2005. He changed from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 1995. + Notable legislation: Campbell sponsored and got passed bills that created the National Museum of the American Indian; changed the name of the Custer Battlefield Monument to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument; overhauled tribal probate law; and established a program that helps Indian tribes recover and consolidate lands taken from them by the federal government. His bills also created the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area in Colorado and created a matching grant program to help local governments buy bulletproof vests for police. + Bet you didn't know: Campbell was captain of the 1964 U.S. Olympic judo team. Four years ago, Campbell, a former trucker, helped drive the national Christmas tree from Colorado to Washington. + What's next: He will return to designing and making jewelry and is working on a deal to license his name to an outdoor equipment manufacturer. He's considering offers to work for a law firm as a consultant to Indian tribes. He won't rule out a run for Colorado governor in two years. WASHINGTON -- The Senate will lose its only American Indian member, and Colorado will lose one of its more colorful politicians when Ben Nighthorse Campbell retires this month. The Harley-Davidson riding, pony-tailed Democrat-turned-Republican who once appeared on the Senate floor wearing buckskins and a feather bonnet said his biggest frustration as he leaves office is the increasing partisanship that has made it harder for moderates like himself to find a middle ground. "It looks to me like America little by little is becoming balkanized, and that's really dangerous," Campbell said as he took a break from packing up his office after 18 years in Washington. "People put either their religious views or tribal views ahead of the national fabric." He blames the increasingly bitter partisanship on what he calls "100 percenters" -- groups such as environmentalists, evangelical Christians and gun rights advocates who have strong, black-or-white positions. "What that means is if you're not with them 100 percent of the time, they trash you," Campbell said. "There's no middle ground." Some days, he won praise from environmentalists, like when he was one of only three Republicans to vote against Yucca Mountain, Nev., the nation's nuclear waste dump. Other days, he infuriated them, like when he wrote legislation that created the $500 million Animas-La Plata water project in southwest Colorado. Conservationists consider it a waste of money and water. "His record is mixed, but primarily Senator Campbell was not the champion of the environment that a lot of his constituents hoped he would be," said Pete Kolbenschlag, Western Slope field director for the Colorado Environmental Coalition. Had Campbell sought a third term, he probably would have faced the evangelicals' wrath. He was one of only six Republicans to vote against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage sponsored by Colorado's junior Republican senator, Wayne Allard, and Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who represents Larimer County. Campbell, a Catholic who personally opposes same-sex marriage, supported a federal law in 1996 that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. But Campbell said he voted against the amendment because it would have written discrimination into the Constitution. Campbell's abiding passion during his career in the House and the Senate has been his support of Indian issues. Campbell is one of 44 chiefs of Montana's Northern Cheyenne Nation. In 1997, he became the first Indian ever to chair the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over all federal Indian programs. Campbell used this platform to strengthen tribes' authority over their lands and people, to help tribes diversify their economies, bring more non-Indian businesses onto their reservations and improve education for Indian children. "Every native person thought he was our private senator," said Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and president of the Morning Star Institute, a group that lobbies to protect property rights and religious freedom for Indians. Campbell said he's most proud of his work to establish the $219 million National Museum of the American Indian. Campbell spoke at the opening ceremony in his buckskins and a feather bonnet and then went back to work on the Senate floor with permission to break the suit-and-tie rule. "That was a big, important one for me," Campbell said of the museum, which was 15 years in the making. "I shouldn't say 'me' because it's staff that does all the work. "I never give them enough credit." Two former staffers, however, made Campbell's life difficult earlier this year when one of them alleged he had been forced to kick back $2,000 of a raise to Campbell's former chief of staff. Campbell said he asked for the Senate ethics committee to investigate, and the committee turned the matter over to the Justice Department. Campbell said he has not talked to anyone from the Justice Department and has no idea how the investigation is going. "I've been told they might not get it done for six months to a year after I'm out," he said. Originally published Tuesday, December 7, 2004 Copyright ©2004 The Fort Collins Coloradoan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Tennessean: TVA details millions in savings from probe - Tuesday, 12/07/04 [http://tennessean.com/ By NAOMI SNYDER Staff Writer The TVA inspector general saved the federal utility some $4.8 million from April through September after investigating and cataloging a string of waste, missed opportunity and fraud, according to the latest semi-annual report of the independent investigative body. The report released yesterday is part of a regular summary given by Inspector General Richard Moore to the U.S. Congress twice per year. Nine people were indicted as a result of investigations, three were convicted, and 25 people were referred to federal and local authorities for prosecution. The savings climbed to more than $7 million during the period as TVA continued to use the results of previous investigations to shave expenses, the report said. • Indictments included one for a janitorial supervisor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant who worked with a telemarketer to purchase more than $290,000 in products at five to 10 times their normal retail price, in exchange for $14,000 in gift cards to places such as Wal-Mart and Circuit City, according to the inspector general's office. • One woman used her TVA travel card to take $14,000 in cash advances, which she used to purchase $3,000 in airline tickets for personal travel, the report said. The report recommended improvements in TVA's travel card program. • One Browns Ferry contractor overbilled TVA some $602,611 for various expenses. The inspector general did not release the contractor's name. • An environmental joint agency task force settled for $400,000 with an Indiana truck trailer manufacturer after accusing the company of dumping some 120,000 gallons of a ''caustic solution'' into a Scott County, Tenn., waterway, which gave two children chemical burns. Further details were not available from the inspector general yesterday. • An investigation into coal shipments found quality problems with train loads of coal, which is the largest source of power generation for the Tennessee Valley. TVA negotiated a settlement with an unnamed contractor, saving more than $442,000, while penalizing the contractor for $14,037. • TVA spent $6.5 million on hospitality, or entertainment, for employees and customers in fiscal 2003, according to a previously released audit. The inspector general's office recommended changes to control costs. TVA spokesman Gil Francis said the inspector general's office is an independent agency that helps TVA become more effective. He said one or two TVA employees had engaged in inappropriate behavior, and there had been consequences for that. In other news, the inspector general noted in the report that he had created a new position of assistant inspector general for administration and government relations, to help the agency keep in touch with Congress. Ronald Wise was hired, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Alabama. Moore also is a former assistant U.S. attorney from southern Alabama. TOP | HOME [http://www.tennessean.com/] | LOCAL NEWS © Copyright 2004 The Tennessean A Gannett Co. ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: Details of Congress' $388B Bill to Bush From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday December 7, 2004 9:46 PM AP Photo CADP104 By ALAN FRAM Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress sent President Bush a $388 billion legislative package Tuesday that covers the spending of every federal agency but the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Bush is expected to sign the bill before midnight Wednesday, when a temporary measure expires. Congress passed the package Nov. 20. Lawmakers delayed sending it to the White House until they overturned language that would have made it easier for some members of Congress and their aides to enter Internal Revenue Service offices and see income tax returns. Here are highlights of the bill. The figures do not include effects of an across-the-board cut of at least 0.8 percent imposed on programs throughout the bill, part of a last-minute deal to pay for some of the measure's increases. -Education: $59.7 billion, $1.4 billion over last year and $300 million below President Bush's request. Aid to low-income school districts $12.8 billion, $500 million below Bush but $500 million more than last year. Grants for improving teacher quality $1.5 billion, 0.7 percent over last year. Aid for disabled students $11.8 billion, 5.4 percent over last year. -Transportation: Overall $59 billion, $1.1 billion over last year and $1 billion more than Bush requested. Highway construction gets $34.7 billion, $1 billion over last year and over Bush's proposal. Federal Aviation Administration gets $10.4 billion, $100 million over last year. Amtrak gets $1.2 billion, the same as last year. -Foreign aid: $19.5 billion, $2 billion over last year and $1.8 billion below Bush's request. Total $2.9 billion for fighting AIDS in poor countries, $100 million more than Bush wanted. Child survival and health nearly $1.6 billion, $274 million below last year. Military aid $4.8 billion, $221 million over last year. -State Department: $8.3 billion, a $554 million cut from 2004. Embassy security would grow by 17 percent to $612 million. -Land and cultural programs: The Interior Department will get $9.9 billion, nearly $100 million less than Bush wanted and 0.4 percent more than 2004. National parks operating money goes up 6 percent, but money for buying park lands remains nearly two-thirds below the peak of three years ago. The Indian Health Service grows by $100 million to $3 billion. The National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities both got more than 10 percent less than Bush wanted. -Labor Department: Gets $15.4 billion, 0.7 percent over last year. Job training for workers who lose jobs to foreign competition get nearly $1.5 billion, 1.7 percent over last year. Job Corps gets $1.6 billion, 1.2 percent over last year. Occupational Safety and Health Administration gets $468 million, 2.4 percent over last year. -Health and social programs: Maternal and child health gets $896 million, 0.7 percent over last year. AIDS programs get almost $2.1 billion, 1.2 percent over last year. National Institutes of Health get $28.5 billion, 3.1 percent over last year, one of its smallest increases in years. Energy assistance for low income families $2.2 billion, 4 percent over last year. -Veterans: Veterans' health care programs will get $30.3 billion, $1.9 billion over last year and $1.2 billion more than Bush wanted. The bill ignores Bush's requests to increase some fees veterans pay for benefits. Construction for veterans' hospitals and other facilities will grow to $459 million, the same as Bush's request and $188 million more than last year. -Housing, urban affairs: $37.3 billion, 1.6 percent below last year and 1.4 percent over Bush's request. Vouchers to help low-income people pay rent will get $14.9 billion, $700 million over last year. Housing assistance for AIDS patients down $11 million to $284 million. Community development grants $4.7 billion, down $212 million from last year. -Agriculture, food: Animal and plant inspections $820 million, up $98 million from 2004. Food safety and inspections $824 million, $44 million more than last year. Agriculture conservation $1 billion, down $27 million from 2004. Overseas food aid $1.5 billion, $30 million over 2004. Food and Drug Administration $1.5 billion, $76 million over 2004. -Commerce Department: $6.6 billion, 10 percent over last year. Most of the increase is for the Census Bureau as it prepares for the 2010 census, and for oceanic and atmospheric programs. -Justice Department: $20.9 billion, $1 billion over last year. FBI gets $5.2 billion, almost a 14 percent increase over last year. Aid to state and local law enforcement agencies is $1.3 billion, $90 million below last year. -Environmental Protection Agency: $8.1 billion, 3.3 percent below last year but 3.8 percent over Bush. Clean water fund for states $1.1 billion, or $250 million below last year. Superfund hazardous waste cleanups get $1.2 billion, or 0.7 percent over last year. -National Aeronautics and Space Administration: $16.2 billion, or 5.3 percent over last year. NASA is given flexibility over how to allocate money among the space station, space shuttle and Bush's goal of exploring the moon and Mars. -National Science Foundation: $5.5 billion, 1 percent below last year. Research receives nearly $4.3 billion, about the same as last year. -Energy, water projects: $4.7 billion for dredging, other water projects, $124 million over last year and nearly $600 million more than Bush wanted. $577 million to continue preparing nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., the same as 2004. -Corporation for National and Community Service, $578 million, $3 million less than last year and $64 million below Bush. Will support 70,000 Americorps volunteers, 5,000 fewer than last year. -Internal Revenue Service: $10.3 billion, $134 million over last year and $356 million below Bush's request. -Postal Service: Bill includes $507 million for equipment to detect biohazards and to build a postal facility in Washington, D.C., to irradiate mail to destroy possible biological contamination. -Congress: $3.6 billion, $43 million over last year. Capitol Police get $232 million, $13 million over last year. No funds provided for continuing construction of Capitol Visitors' Center, which is running well over budget and has money left over from previous years. -The White House and White House agencies: $770 million, $4 million less than Bush wanted and $12 million below last year. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 13 Vermont Guardian: Congress blocks administrations mini-nukes, bunker buster December 7, 2004 Headlines | WASHINGTON Congress has blocked a Bush administration plan to build new kinds of nuclear weapons that could blur the line between conventional and unconventional warfare. Despite White House objections, House and Senate conferees have decided against approving $27.6 million for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. More commonly known as the bunker buster, it is designed to destroy facilities buried deep underground. The bunker buster was initially included in the $388-billion omnibus spending bill. Congressional representatives also eliminated $9 million for research on new weapons designs, a program that could have funded new, lower-yield nuclear weapons so-called mini-nukes for use as tactical battlefield weapons. In separate action, Congress denied the Bush administration the $30 million it requested to shorten the lead time needed to resume nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. The White House had made new weapons a top priority since it began pushing them two years ago, arguing that they are integral to its strategy of preemptive military strikes. Advocates argue that smaller nuclear arms could be used for conventional purposes. Opponents say new nuclear weapons could spark another arms race and make countries that have not yet crossed the nuclear threshold more determined to acquire such weapons and the ability to deliver them. Daryl Kimball, director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said that the congressional rejections demonstrate that both Democrats and Republicans are convinced the United States does not need new nuclear weapons capabilities. Revolt brewing in UN General Assembly NEW YORK The 191-member United Nations General Assembly is threatening to derail several mostly Western European and U.S.-inspired resolutions that condemn human rights violations. A key committee of the General Assembly, which is largely ignored as a policymaking body, has twice refused to take action on resolutions against Belarus and Sudan, and has taken a similar stance on a resolution criticizing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. The moves signal what some observers call a backlash against U.S. abuse of the world body and international law. The three rejections reportedly will be ratified by the General Assembly, which represents the views of the overwhelming majority of the member states. On Nov. 23, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth lashed out, challenging the utility of the General Assembly. One wonders if there cant be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? And what is it all about? he asked. The answer came both from UN diplomats and U.S. academics, who blame the United States for what appears to be a growing revolt on human rights issues. The resolution against Sudan, co-sponsored by the 25-member European Union and the United States, got only 74 votes compared with 91 against. It expressed grave concern at some of the continued atrocities in the Darfur region, including forced displacement and arbitrary executions, forced disappearances, torture and other degrading punishment. Speaking on behalf of the African Group, the representative of South Africa told delegates, Our vote is not an attempt to condone human rights violations. It is a vote to counter the double standards [on human rights] by the European Union. According to Naseer Aruri, chancellor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, The United States, it seems, is paying a heavy price for its contemptuous treatment of the United Nations and for its own transgressions of civil liberties, at home and abroad. Although the General Assembly represents 191 states, the 15-member Security Council increasingly has taken on the role of final arbiter on issues ranging from war and peace to child soldiers and sexual violence. For example, the U.S. recently voted against a resolution condemning mercenaries, arguing that the issue should be handled by the UN Security Council rather than a committee of the Assembly. But resentment has been growing against the idea that major decisions should be made by the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council the United States, Britain, France, China, and Russia. Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, argues that the General Assembly must now invoke its own Uniting for Peace Resolution which superseded Security Council action in 1950 on the crisis in South Korea against the Bush administration and sanction it for international legal nihilism. Otherwise, the United Nations will go the same way the League of Nations did in the late 1930s, when it failed to act against [dictators such as] Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, and Stalin, Boyle added. Nevertheless, Amnesty International is extremely concerned that a key committee of the General Assembly has decided that a human rights situation as grave as Sudan is not worthy of its consideration. As a global body, the General Assembly must at the very least express its condemnation of human rights abuses committed by all sides to the conflict and make recommendations to stop these abuses, said AIs Yvonne Terlington. Vermont station auctions Etheridge guitar for breast cancer research MONTPELIER Vermont radio station The Point is giving listeners the chance to bid on a guitar autographed by Melissa Etheridge Wednesday (Dec. 8) to benefit breast cancer research. The Ovation Celebrity six-string acoustic guitar will be auctioned over the airwaves Wednesday, with all proceeds from the winning bid going to the Susan G Komen Foundation. Earlier this year, Grammy winner Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery. The opening bid will be announced at 6:30 a.m. The auction closes at 6:30 p.m. Those interested in bidding should call 1-877-FMPOINT. This is the third auction the station has held this week for charity. On Monday and Tuesday, the Point auctioned off guitars signed by Bob Weir and Rickie Lee Jones, raising $1,500 for the Points Coalition for the Homeless. Posted December 7, 2004 Vermont Guardian Store Locations [http://www.vermontguardian.com/paper-locator.shtml] Last [http://www.vermontguardian.com/site-search.shtml] Northern Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382 (toll-free) ©2004 Vermont Guardian | ***************************************************************** 14 LA Times: Pakistan and the True WMD Threat [Los Angeles Times - latimes.com] December 7, 2004 Robert Scheer: If it had been even a primitive nuclear weapon that hit the World Trade Center three years ago, hundreds of thousands of people would have died instead of fewer than 3,000, and the free society we enjoy almost certainly would have been a casualty as well. In the shock of that moment, the administration probably would have created a national network of detention camps for suspected terrorists, and military retaliation might have included the launch of nuclear missiles with the capability of killing millions. All of which is exactly why it was so terrifying to read in an investigative article in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday that our "allies" in Pakistan, who have done so much to spread nuclear weapons technology in recent years, are still capable of doing so. "Senior investigators said they were especially worried that dangerous elements of the illicit network of manufacturers and suppliers would remain undetected and capable of resuming operations once international pressures eased," The Times reported. The article dissected the inability of investigators worldwide to fully penetrate the illicit nuclear weapons bazaar, which was run until last year by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Khan is currently under the protection of Pakistan's military dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, the same man who pardoned Khan and refuses to allow foreign investigators to speak with him. Yet it was Musharraf whom President Bush spent the weekend praising and accommodating. As The Times article made clear, what "officials call the world's worst case of nuclear proliferation"  in which sophisticated nuclear technology was supplied to Libya, Iran and other rogue nations  never would have been possible without the support of the Pakistani military. This is the same complex and powerful organization that made Pakistan a dictatorship in a 1999 coup by Musharraf. Yet within two years of this coup, Bush dropped U.S. sanctions against Pakistan, showing clear disregard for international nonproliferation restraints. The rationale then and now was Pakistan's alleged support in the "war on terrorism" after 9/11. And despite the exposure of the Khan black market ring, nothing has changed: In a White House meeting Friday, Bush honored Musharraf  who since seizing power has purged his country's Supreme Court and rewritten its constitution  as a "courageous leader." The administration again hastened to explain that Musharraf was vital in the three-year effort to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," as Bush frequently has proclaimed. How embarrassing then, when hours later Musharraf conceded in a Washington Post interview that Bin Laden's trail had grown completely cold but that the arch-terrorist is still very much alive and functioning. Musharraf complained that attempts to pin down Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operatives had been seriously undermined by what he politely called "voids" in U.S. troop commitments to the area, which are equal to a mere 15% of the U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. strategy instead has been to rely on Pakistan's military to trap Bin Laden, a dependence that Bush administration officials have cited while refusing to pressure for access to Khan. Musharraf complains that calls for international access to Khan show "a lack of trust" in Pakistan, but his real problem is the scientist's enormous popularity as the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb program. Khan "has been a hero for the masses," said the general who has survived several assassination attempts and faces the possibility of a revolt if he tilts too far toward the West. Meanwhile, Bush is so eager to cater to Musharraf that he is even championing the dictator as key to the creation of a democratic Palestinian state "that is truly free. One that's got an independent judiciary; one that's got a civil society; one that's got the capacity to fight off the terrorists; one that allows for dissent; one in which people can vote. And President Musharraf can play a big role in helping achieve that objective." What balderdash. None of those conditions of a free society exist in Pakistan, nor are they likely any time soon in U.S.-occupied Iraq. Yet while we chase the chimera of democratizing the Islamic world through the use of force, the true cost of this crusade can be measured by our indifference to our original justification of the Iraq invasion: stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And there's no margin for error here. Next time the terrorists could take Manhattan and a whole lot more. Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 15 [NukeNet] Salem 1 springs a leak; Dr Harvin gets award Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 14:49:54 -0800 December 07, 2004 Salem nuclear reactor springs water leak By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115 Federal officials say no one was hurt when cooling equipment at the Salem Nuclear Generating Station sprang a water leak on Sunday. The leak sprang from a heat exchanger in the station's Salem 1 nuclear reactor at 10:15 a.m. The equipment removes heat from the plant's reactor core and helps reduce the temperature of the reactor's coolant system. A spokesman from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the leak was so minor there was no significant radiation threat to plant workers in a nearby control room. "We don't think there was a significant risk involved here," said NRC spokesman Neal Sheehan. Plant workers stopped the leak by tightening some seals on the equipment. The Public Service Enterprise Group, the Newark-based company that owns the facility, has drawn criticism, citations and calls for corrective action from federal regulators and independent consultants on numerous issues. Most of the problems involve repair backlogs and workers being reluctant to report maintenance problems. Currently, all three reactors at the 292-acre facility have been shut down. The Salem 1 and Salem 2 reactors were shut down Friday because of the Athos I oil spill on the Delaware River. The station's Hope Creek reactor was shut down following a steam leak Oct. 10. The facility has come under heightened NRC scrutiny since that time. Nuclear watchdog groups have called for the station to be shut down until all its equipment problems and work environment issues can be addressed. Meanwhile, a former facility employee who said she was terminated for raising safety concerns will receive the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest. The award is given out by the Washington, D.C.-based, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers to individuals who take professional and personal risks to help the general public. Dr Kymn Harvin, a former organizational manager at the Salem facility, has filed a civil lawsuit against PSEG under New Jersey's whistleblower law. She said she was fired for refusing to be silent about employee safety concerns. PSEG said Harvin was terminated due to a company reorganization. The Salem Nuclear Generating Station houses three reactors on two adjacent facilities. Approximately 1,800 employees work at the site, which provides electricity for about 60 percent of PSEG's 2 million customers. To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press: JMontes@pressofac.com (from Dr Harvin) I am delighted to inform you that I received word today that I am the recipient of the 2004 Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest for my nuclear safety advocacy. I am honored to receive this prestigious award given infrequently by the international standard-setting IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). I will let you know the date/place of the award ceremony. To learn more about the award and past recipients: http://radburn.rutgers.edu/andrews/projects/ssit/awards.html I am humbled, grateful for your support and interest, and honored to be in such great company. Nancy Kymn Harvin, Ph.D. LEADERS WORTH FOLLOWING cell: 267 312 1252 -- Coalition for Peace and Justice UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982 ncohen12@comcast.net; www.unplugsalem.org _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 16 Charleston.Net: Nuclear plant shut down after small steam leak 12/07/04 Officials: Rupture in 'non-nuclear' area and posed no danger; cause unknown BY KYLE STOCK Of The Post and Courier Staff Scana Corp. shut down its nuclear power plant in the Midlands Monday, immediately after discovering a small steam leak. The rupture was in a "non-nuclear" portion of the V.C. Summer plant in Jenkinsville and presented no danger to workers or nearby residents, Scana officials said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a federal body that keeps inspectors at the facility full-time, said it was too early tell what caused the leak, and whether the incident raised flags about the facility's condition. "We're sort of piecing it back together," said Roger Hannah, a regional spokesman for the NRC based in Atlanta. "It's not an immediate safety issue, because they took the plant offline. But we want to make sure that we understand the situation completely before we make any assessment of whether it was a significant safety issue or not." A plant worker discovered the leak shortly after midnight Sunday and Scana initiated a rapid shutdown of the facility shortly thereafter. Officials are unsure how long it will take to repair the leak, but they estimate the plant will be up and running in a few days, according to company spokeswoman Mary Green Brush. Small leaks and ruptures are becoming more common at U.S. nuclear plants, most of which are approaching the end of an initial 40-year period during which they are permitted to operate. Santee Cooper owns one-third of the V.C. Summer plant. Scana is in charge of operating the facility. The plant generates about 20 percent of Scana's power on average. The Jenkinsville plant has had several such incidents in recent years, including a radioactive coolant leak in March and a potentially more dangerous leak in 2000. Copyright © 2004, The Post and Courier, All Rights Reserved. [webmaster@postandcourier.com] ***************************************************************** 17 Hartlepool Today: Cracks in reactor close power plant [http://www.lumleyc.co.uk] CRACKS in a nuclear reactor core have led to the temporary closure of Hartlepool's power station. The splits were found in graphite bricks during a routine maintenance shut-down earlier this year and the reactor has been shut down ever since. The fault means British Energy, which own the Hartlepool site, will carry out checks on its seven other advanced gas-cooled reactors around the country. And bosses admit they are not yet aware of a technique to eliminate the problem. A report has been sent to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate which will decide when or if operations can re-start. If the independent regulator is not satisfied the Tees Road plant is safe it will have the power to close it permanently. However, a spokesman for British Energy said he expected the plant to re-open some time this month. He said: "What's understood to happen is that we will get split cracks on the graphite. What's different here is that this type of cracking hasn't been seen before. "That doesn't mean that is anything particularly major, it means the company now has to produce a revised safety case. "We have presented this to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate who will take the findings into consideration and we are waiting for a reply." The cracks were discovered during maintenance in around May this year. Two of the bricks in the section were found to have abnormal cracks. An inspectorate spokesman said there is no time limit on returning the report. And British Energy says there are no safety implications on or off the site and the graphite bricks are not leaking. Councillor Geoff Lilley, the independent representative for the Greatham ward, today said the public should be made more aware. He added: "People need things like this explaining to them at the time they happen, not months down the line. The second reactor at Hartlepool has been closed since September for maintenance on iron pipe work and generator transformers for both reactors. The Mail revealed yesterday how security fears had arisen at the plant amid claims armed men roam the site unchecked. 07 December 2004 « Previous Page Next » [Disclaimer] All rights reserved © 2004 Johnston Press New ***************************************************************** 18 Bizchina: 4th nuke plant in pipeline in Guangdong Home>News Center> By Zheng Caixiong (Busines Weekly) Updated: 2004-12-07 14:11 South China's Guangdong Province is planning to construct its fourth nuclear power plant to help ease the power shortage in the nation's prosperous Pearl River Delta region. The province is now busy selecting a site from four candidate places in Huilai County and Lufeng City in its eastern coastal part. The electricity shortage in Guangdong Province this year is expected to exceed 3 million kilowatt hours or more than 10 per cent, due to its rapid economic growth. And the situation would last several years in the future in Guangdong which lacks sufficient coal, crude oil and other energies to sustain its economic growth. Guangdong has to purchase electricity from bordering Hong Kong and China's southwestern provinces. A 40-person instruction group consisting of nuclear experts, designers and government officials have recently reconnoitred the four places and they will soon decide on the construction site, according to an executive from Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd. "All the sites have their advantages," Yu Jiechun, an executive from Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd, said. In addition to their good geographical location, all the four sites have enough fresh water supplies and enjoy advanced land and water transportation facilities, said Yu. He believed construction of the new nuclear power plant would begin before 2010, and will contribute to Guangdong's rapid economic development. But Yu refused to give more details on the new nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, Guangdong is speeding up the preparation work for construction of the country's biggest nuclear power plant in its coastal city of Yangjiang. The nuclear reactor of the Yangjiang plant will officially begin construction before 2006, said Yu. And the infrastructural facility construction for the project has already been well under way on the construction site in Shahuai in Yangdong County. Located in the western coastal area of Guangdong Province, Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant will include six generating units. Each has an installed production capacity of 1 million kilowatts. The first two generating units will be able to start operating before 2010, while the whole six generating units will come on stream in 15 to 20 years. The project will be able to annually generate electricity of more than 45 billion kilowatt hours when all the six generating units start operation. Covering an area of 472,485 square metres, construction of the nuclear power plant is estimated to cost more than US$8 billion. It is, so far, the largest nuclear power plant on the Chinese mainland. Guangdong will have an installed nuclear power production capacity of more than 12 million kilowatts after the Yangjiang plant starts full commercial operations. And Guangdong's nuclear electricity will be able to represent more than 20 per cent of the province's total. Currently fuel power accounts for the lion's share of Guangdong's electricity industry while nuclear power accounts for less than 10 per cent. Yu said Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant is of great significance to Guangdong's economic growth, especially to economic construction of the western area of the Pearl River Delta region. And the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant will also help strengthen Guangdong's status as China's biggest nuclear power industrial production base. By 2012, Guangdong will have an installed production capacity of nuclear power reaching eight million kilowatts, becoming the biggest nuclear production base in China. Guangdong will be able to generate more than 50 per cent of the country's total nuclear electricity in 2012. The country's other nuclear power production bases include Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, both in the eastern coastal areas. Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, China's first nuclear power plant, started operations in 1991. China has planned to have an installed nuclear power production capacity of more than 36 million kilowatts by 2020. Now Guangdong has already two nuclear plants in operation. Daya Bay and Ling'ao nuclear power stations have a total installed capacity of four generating units, with 1 million kilowatts each. The two power plants that are situated in eastern part of the Pearl River Delta started commercial operation in 1994 and 1995 respectively. Most of the equipment and technologies of the Daya Bay and Ling'ao nuclear power plants, including the nuclear reactors, were imported from France, one of the world's giants in nuclear power industry. And the US$4-billion Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant which has two 900,000-kilowatt generating units is also one of the largest Sino-foreign joint ventures on the Chinese mainland. Guangdong Province holds 75 per cent of the stakes while its partner Hong Kong Nuclear Power Investment Corp Ltd has the remaining 25 per cent. ***************************************************************** 19 Fredericksburg.com: NRC gives preliminary thumbs up to North Anna site permit Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004 The Free Lance-Star The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today said there are no environmental reasons to prevent an early site permit for the North Anna nuclear power station. MINERAL (AP) _ Federal regulators have reached a preliminary conclusion that there are no environmental reasons to prevent an early site permit for the North Anna nuclear power station. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended in a statement issued Tuesday that the permit should be issued. “The staff’s preliminary conclusions include a finding that there are no environmentally preferable or obviously superior sites, and that any adverse environmental impacts from site preparation and preliminary construction activities at North Anna could be redressed,” the NRC wrote. The commission has scheduled a Jan. 19 public meeting for comment on the draft environmental impact statement. Dominion energy company has a green light to test a new licensing process that could lead to one or more new reactors at the Louisa County site. Dominion maintains, however, it has no plans add another reactor at its North Anna station. Dominion applied to the NRC last September for an early site permit that would allow it to build one or more new reactors on the shore of Lake Anna within 20 years. The company said it wants to have the option to add a reactor should market conditions make it desirable to expand its energy production. Dominion is the parent company of Dominion Virginia Power. Date published: 12/7/2004 Fredericksburg.com, 605 William Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401 Comments? Send us Feedback, Phone: 540-368-5055 To contact all other newspaper departments, please call 540-374-5000. Copyright 2004, The Free Lance-Star Publishing Co. of Fredericksburg, Va. ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: NRC Staff to Meet with Entergy Operations, Inc. to Discuss Arkansas Nuclear One License Renewal Inspections News Release - Region IV - 2004-04 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV No. IV-04-045 December 7, 2004 CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials will meet with Entergy Operations, Inc., management on Tuesday, Dec. 14, in Russellville, Ark., to discuss the results of the agencys inspections of the Arkansas Nuclear One license renewal program for Unit 2. The plant, which is located near Russellville, is operated by Entergy Operations. The meeting will be held in the Reeves E. Ritchie Training Center Auditorium at the junction of Hwy. 64 West and Hwy. 333 South from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. It will be open to the public for observation, and NRC officials will be available for comments and questions from the public before the meeting adjourns. A report on the inspections will be issued approximately 45 days after the meeting and will be available to the public. The meeting will give the NRC the opportunity to discuss the results of its inspection findings with Entergy officials and answer any questions members of the public may have about the license renewal process, NRC Region IV Administrator Bruce S. Mallet said. The inspections were conducted to verify that programs are in place to identify and manage the effects of aging on the plants systems, structures and components during the 20 additional years of operation should the NRC approve the license renewal application for Unit 2. The NRC held a public meeting in Russellville on Nov. 18 to explain how the license renewal process works and describe opportunities for public participation. The NRC received the license renewal application for Unit 2 on Oct. 15, 2003. If approved, it would extend the operating license for Unit 2 to July 17, 2038. NRC has approved an extension of the operating license for Unit 1 until May 20, 2034. An electronic copy of the license renewal application is available on the NRC web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati ons/ano-2.html. In addition, copies of the license renewal application are available at the Arkansas Technical Universitys library, 305 West Q St., Russellville. Last revised Tuesday, December 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 21 NRC: NRC Seeks Public Input on North Anna Early Site Permit Application; Meeting to be held Jan. 19 News Release - 2004-15 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: [opa@nrc.gov] No. 04-152 December 7, 2004 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on its preliminary conclusion that environmental impacts would not prevent issuing an Early Site Permit (ESP) for the North Anna site in Louisa County, Va., about 40 miles northwest of Richmond. The preliminary conclusion is contained in NUREG-1811, Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for an Early Site Permit at the North Anna ESP Site. The draft EIS is open for public comment until March 1, 2005, and will also be the subject of a public meeting Jan. 19, 2005, in Mineral, Va. The ESP process allows an applicant to address site-related issues, such as environmental impacts, for possible future construction and operation of a nuclear power plant at the site. The North Anna application was filed Sep. 25, 2003, by Dominion Nuclear North Anna, LLC. If approved, the permit would give Dominion up to 20 years to decide whether to build one or more nuclear plants on the site and to file an application with the NRC for approval to begin construction. The NRC staffs preliminary recommendation is that a permit should be issued. The staffs conclusion is based on its independent review of a report submitted by Dominion, taking into account consultations with federal, state, tribal and local agencies and consideration of comments received during the public scoping process. The staffs preliminary conclusions include a finding that there are no environmentally preferable or obviously superior sites, and that any adverse environmental impacts from possible site preparation and preliminary construction activities at North Anna could be redressed. On Wednesday, Jan. 19, the NRC staff will hold a meeting to obtain comments on the draft EIS at the Louisa County Middle School, 1009 Davis Highway, Mineral, VA. The meeting, which will be transcribed, begins at 7:00 p.m. and will conclude no later than 10:00 p.m. In addition, the NRC staff will host an informal discussion one hour prior to the meeting. NRC staff members will answer questions and explain the ESP process during this informal session, but no official comments on the EIS will be accepted then. For planning purposes, anyone interested in attending or presenting oral comments at the Jan. 19 meeting is encouraged to pre-register no later than Jan. 14, by contacting Alicia Williamson of the NRC by telephone at (800) 368-5642, extension 1878, or by e-mail at [NorthAnna_ESP@nrc.gov] . Interested persons may also register to speak within 15 minutes of the start of the meeting. Time for individual comments at the meetings may be limited to accommodate all speakers. Written comments on the draft EIS will also be considered by NRC staff. Comments should be submitted either by mail (postmarked by March 1, 2005) to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by e-mail (sent no later than March 1, 2005) to [NorthAnna_ESP@nrc.gov] . The draft EIS and related documents are available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md. It will also be available on the NRCs Web site at two locations: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/docs4comment .html and http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/esp/north-anna.html. In addition, the Louisa County Library, 881 Davis Highway in Mineral, has agreed to make the draft EIS available for public inspection. At the conclusion of the public comment period on March 1, 2005, the NRC staff will consider and address the comments provided, then issue a final EIS on the environmental acceptability of an ESP at North Anna later in 2005. Last revised Tuesday, December 07, 2004 ***************************************************************** 22 NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting FR Doc 04-26899 [Federal Register: December 7, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 234)] [Notices] [Page 70712] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07de04-120] Agency Holding the Meeting: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Date: Weeks of December 6, 13, 20, 27, January 3, 10, 2004. Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Status: Public and Closed. Matters To Be Considered: Week of December 6, 2004 Tuesday, December 7, 2004 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Program (Public Meeting) (Contact: Corenthis Kelley, (301) 415-7380). This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] . Wednesday, December 8, 2004 12:55 p.m. Affirmation Session (Public Meeting) (Tentative) a. Motion to Quash OI Subpoena (Tentative) b. Duke Energy Corp. (Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2); Intervenor's Motion for Reconsideration of CLI-04-29 (Tentative) c. SECY-04-0180--Hydro Resources, Inc. (Rio Rancho, New Mexico) Review of LBP-04-3 (Financial Assurance) (Tentative) d. SECY-04-0190--Final Rule: Security Requirements for Portable Gauges Containing Byproduct Material (RIN 3150-AH06) (Tentative) e. SECY-04-0208--Louisiana Energy Services, L.P. (National Enrichment Facility) (Tentative) f. SECY-04-0212--Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., (Millstone Nuclear Power Station, Units 2 and 3), Docket Nos. 50-336-LR & 50-423- LR; LBP-04-15, 60 NRC 81, LBP-04-22 (Tentative) 1 p.m. Briefing on Status of Davis Besse Lessons Learned Task Force Recommendations (Public Meeting) (Contact: John Jolicoeur, (301) 415- 1724) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] . Thursday, December 9, 2004 2 p.m. Briefing on Reactor Safety and Licensing Activities (Public Meeting) (Contact: Steve Koenick, 301-415-1239). This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] . Week of December 13, 2004--Tentative Tuesday, December 14, 2004 1 p.m. Briefing on Emergency Preparedness Program Initiatives (Public Meeting) (Contact: Nader Mamish, (301) 415-1086). This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] . Week of December 20, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of December 20, 2004. Week of December 27, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of December 27, 2004. Week of January 3, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of January 3, 2005. Week of January 10, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of January 10, 2005. *The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on short notice. To verify the status of meetings call (recording)--(301) 415- 1292. Contact person for more information: Dave Gamberoni, (301) 415- 1651. * * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the Internet at: http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-makin g/schedule.html] . * * * * * The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from the public meetings in another format (e.g., braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program Coordinator, August Spector, at (301) 415-7080, TDD: (301) 415- 2100, or by e-mail at aks@nrc.gov [aks@nrc.gov] . Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis. * * * * * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition, distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic message to dkw@nrc.gov [dkw@nrc.gov] . Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary. [FR Doc. 04-26899 Filed 12-3-04; 9:27 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M ***************************************************************** 23 [DU-WATCH] US VETERAN ON TRIAL FOR DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 01:27:51 -0600 (CST) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 2, 2004 Contact: Veterans For Peace, 408-646-7251 DECORATED COMBAT VETERAN ON TRIAL FOR DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION Republican National Convention Protest Trial Begins December 13, 2004 Civil Rights Advocates Say Dennis Kyne was falsely arrested and is being maliciously prosecuted. December 13, marks the continuation of a unique legal battle over the public's right to free speech: specifically, whether individuals have the right to assemble in public places and express themselves. Anti-war demonstrators over the past few months have focused their protests on corporations which they view as directly profiting from the most recent war on Iraq. In sharp contrast to this, Dennis Kyne was arrested at the world famous New York City Public Library. Thousands of protesters were arrested at the demonstrations in New York City. A a motion for dismisall was denied and working with the District Attorney, the city of New York is seeking an unprecedented legal penalty through the criminal justice system: punishment for expression against the current administration in a public place. The implications of this penalty are of grave concern to both protesters and civil rights groups, who worry that this case could set a dangerous legal precedent that would deeply discourage people from exercising their First Amendment rights. The threat of punishment could effectively stifle public protest of governments unscrupulous or illegal actions. U.S. citizens have a right to engage in protest to expose civic leaders who are not representing the citizens. If the city of New York wants to avoid public outrage, it should stop behaving outrageously - instead of trying to stifle criticism by charging protesters for free speech," said Seth Beddo a witness to the arrrest of Dennis Kyne Though the city of New York claims it spent over $100,000 in security costs, protesters assert that these costs were unnecessary, because prior to the demonstration organizers engaged in a cooperative dialogue with local law enforcement authorities to ensure a non-violent, non-destructive week of protest. Indeed, no physical damage or violence was present during the August demonstrations. And there is no evidence to support the claim that Dennis Kyne, by himself, was acting out of line. Kyne's Defense attorney Lewis Olvier stated, "It looks like the Republican National Convention actually paid for the Pier 57 to be assembled and ready for incarcerating the opposition." Organizers from Veterans For Peace and the Counter Recruitment Coaliton, with allies from civil rights organizations and community members, are organizing a press conference in support of Dennis Kyne and of free speech. All supporters of free speech and freedom of expression are asked to visit the courthouse on December 13th, 2204 at 9:30 AM to express solidarity and support for Dennis Kyne. Donations: PO Box 720254, San Jose, CA 95172 ===== Dennis Kyne Support the Truth www.denniskyne.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 24 [RADFOOD] Food Inspection on the Chopping Block Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 00:49:30 -0600 (CST) Take Action to Protect State Food Inspection! This alert is for residents of Oregon, but as states across the country continue to struggle with budget problems, eveyone should all keep an eye out for similar situations in their states. In an attempt to solve their budget shortfall, the Oregon state legislature is considering a massive cut in the budget of the state Department of Agriculture's food inspection program. The department's Food Safety Division conducts inspections on facilities other than those that are inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They are responsible for inspecting more than 9,000 food processing, dairy, shellfish and retail grocery establishments throughout the state. State inspection is an important protection for consumers, and it can't be done without funding. Oregon residents need to let their state legislators know that they don't want budget cuts to reduce this critical public health function of state government. To write to your state legislator, go to: http://www.leg.state.or.us/writelegsltr/ Write your own message or copy and paste this: I strongly urge you not to cut the budget for food inspection in Oregon. State food inspection is a critical safeguard in our food system, which protects the public's health from food-borne illness and other problems. Our food and our health should not be sacrificed because of budget concerns! *** Audrey Hill Organizer Public Citizen 215 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20003 (202) 454-5185 www.safelunch.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 ***************************************************************** 25 heraldtribune.com: Health officials to discuss Tallevast water test results Southwest Florida's Information Leader Tuesday, December 7, 2004 If you go: Health officials will answer questions and discuss the public health assessment process done recently in the Tallevast community at a meeting Wednesday. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church Meeting Hall, 1703 Tallevast Road. By DEBI SPRINGER debi.springer@heraldtribune.com TALLEVAST -- County health officials will reveal the results from indoor air, soil, vegetable and drinking water tests done by the state at a meeting Wednesday night. The state Department of Health assessment team will also discuss beryllium sensitivity testing, said Randy Merchant, environmental administrator for the state department of health. "We know that's a large piece that people are concerned about," Merchant said. The indoor air, soil, vegetable and drinking water testing was requested by residents after ground water tests in the community showed high amounts of chemicals. In particular, Trichloroethylene (TCE) was found at ground-water concentrations more than 10,000 times the state standard near some residents' yards. TCE is a cleaning solvent that can be ingested by drinking tainted water. Over time and with high enough concentrations, ingestion of TCE has been linked to kidney and liver cancer. Breathing in TCE vapors, which most often occur at the workplace, can cause headaches, nausea and dizziness. Long-term exposure can permanently damage the nervous system, causing depression, anxiety, short-term memory loss, difficulty in thinking and other personality changes. This summer, the state health assessment team tested two ears of corn and five oranges from two yards in Tallevast. The department sent letters to the residents whose fruits and vegetables they tested for 48 different metals, and said they didn't find any. Last modified: December 07. 2004 6:32AM ***************************************************************** 26 SFSS: Lettuce, milk found to be contaminated with rocket fuel chemical South Florida Sun-Sentinel [Sun-Sentinel.com] By Glenn Singer and Neil Santaniello Staff Writers Posted December 7 2004 Government scientists have found potentially unhealthy levels of a rocket fuel chemical in more than 90 percent of the milk and lettuce sampled nationwide -- including iceberg and romaine varieties harvested in Palm Beach County -- according to data posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Web site. The chemical, perchlorate, the explosive component in solid rocket propellant, gunpowder and fireworks, is being studied because it could be contaminating water supplies and causing harm to unborn babies, infants and children. It can affect the thyroid gland's ability to produce developmental hormones. "There is a potential for lowered IQ, mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech and motor skill deficits," said Bill Walker, a vice president of the Environmental Working Group of Oakland, Calif. Nobody knows, though, how serious the risk is -- or at what level perchlorate becomes dangerous. And there are no federal safety regulations to limit the levels found in water used for drinking or irrigation. While some high perchlorate levels elsewhere have been traced to leaks at defense operations, the source of the chemical here remains unknown. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said the chemical should not exceed one part per billion in drinking water. That's about one drop in a 15,000-gallon swimming pool. But other researchers have said as many as 60 parts per billion are safe, and the Department of Defense has contended that 200-300 parts per billion are safe for healthy adults. The levels that government scientists found in 217 of the 232 samples -- reaching as high as 71.6 parts per billion in an iceberg lettuce sample from Belle Glade -- are not considered to be dangerous for an adult, Walker said. He said, though, that the levels found in the survey should concern nursing mothers as well as parents of infants and young children. In the iceberg lettuce category, for example, the average level of perchlorate in samples from California, Arizona, New Jersey and Florida was 7.76 parts per billion. In Romaine lettuce from those states and Texas, the average level was 11.9 parts per billion. The FDA also tested 104 samples of low-fat and whole milk, mostly bought at retail stores in 13 states, but not Florida. The average concentration of perchlorate was 5.76 parts per billion. Palm Beach County agricultural officials expressed surprise at the perchlorate findings in romaine and iceberg lettuce from Belle Glade. "This all just came out of the blue for us ... We're concerned," said Ed Hamilton, vice president for A. Duda & Sons, Inc., which grows more than 1,500 acres of lettuce in the Belle Glade area. Hamilton said Florida growers most likely will investigate the reported contamination further, but said his company had no plans to keep any of its lettuce out of the market. "We'll do our absolute best to assure we're putting out a safe product," Hamilton said. The Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association said consumers should not overreact and avoid lettuce. Only one sample from Belle Glade registered unusually high for the chemical, and federal officials have not set dietary tolerances for perchlorate, association spokesman Ray Gilmer said. "This is one sample that raised eyebrows," he said. "I think a lot more sampling has to be done before we know what this really means. Right now growers are just relying on experts at the federal government to tell us what the science means." Hamilton said the 71.6 parts per billion in a snippet of Belle Glade lettuce is so high it seems like a mistake. "It is so glaringly out of line with all the other samples, it makes you wonder if there is not a problem with it," Hamilton said. Gilmer called the EPA and FDA perchlorate work "prudent." But he said the Environmental Working Group, which trumpeted the results last week, was out to alarm people without enough supporting science. "What the Environmental Working Group has done is scare a lot people, but we're used to that from them," Gilmer said. Dairy Farmers Inc. in Maitland said the state dairy industry is monitoring the issue, and that people need to keep the contamination in perspective. Milk levels were so low you'd have to drink 25,000 glasses a day as an adult for it to pose a potential health threat, council spokeswoman Allison Didier said. The FDA has not advised a change in milk consumption, and "We're not expecting a [major] sales impact," Didier said. Farmers harvested 2,900 acres of lettuce from Belle Glade in 2003, all grown in the area's nutrient-rich muck, said Art Kirstein, agricultural economic development coordinator for the Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service. The main lettuce shipping season has begun, but was delayed about a month by the hurricanes, Kirstein said. Lettuce in the Glades generally is grown from October through May, he said. Glenn Singer can be reached at gsinger@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6612. Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel [http://www.sun-sentinel.com] ***************************************************************** 27 [du-list] UK Uranium dumps Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:11:11 -0700 Ministers break promises over nuclear waste http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1293988,00.html Paul Brown and Rob Evans Tuesday August 31, 2004 The Guardian Nuclear waste from overseas power stations has been sealed in concrete and buried in several miles of trenches in breach of official government policy, the Guardian can reveal. Ministers have repeatedly promised that nuclear waste from abroad will not be buried in British soil to make good a pledge that Britain will not become a nuclear waste dump for countries such as Japan, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. But it has now emerged that more than 10,000 cubic metres of foreign nuclear waste is buried at Drigg in Cumbria because it is too expensive to transport it back to the countries that produced it. If the waste was buried side by side the trench would stretch for more than 10 kilometres. It is part of an ever-increasing mountain of waste stored at more than 20 nuclear sites in Britain. Government advisers have warned that up to 20,000 million cubic metres of this waste will pile up in the coming years - and there is no way of disposing of nearly all of it. The government is currently spending £1.3bn and is planning to increase this to £2bn a year for the next 40 years to try to solve the mounting problems. The Guardian has learned from Department of Trade and Industry consultation documents and key advisers that the government is to announce a change in its official policy and start charging foreign governments for the service of storing their waste and subsequently disposing of it in concrete bunkers. Until now, the government has insisted that all the waste would be sent back but it now sees retaining foreign nuclear detritus as a money-spinning venture. Allowing Britain to become a dump for foreign waste would also remove another problem - the threat of terrorists hijacking the nuclear material while it was being transported from Britain to other countries. For decades, thousands of tonnes of spent fuel, containing plutonium and uranium, have been imported into Britain from nine countries which have contracts with the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd to have it reprocessed. Two BNFL plants at Sellafield in Cumbria dissolve the fuel in acid and extract the plutonium and uranium so that it can be returned to those countries either for storage or reuse in nuclear stations. In practice not even this has happened and the plutonium and uranium remain at Sellafield under guard. In addition there is 405 cubic metres of high level waste and 3,383 cubic metres of intermediate level waste belonging to foreign countries stored at Sellafield. The UK has more than 10,000 cubic metres of high level waste of its own and another 250,000 tonnes of intermediate level waste. Once packaged into containers suitable for disposal the waste can be 10 times as bulky. Britain's own waste is in a series of deteriorating buildings at Sellafield and at least 19 other sites around the UK. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for the environment, said of the Guardian revelations: "This is a disgrace. We have enough dangerous nuclear waste of our own without scooping in other countries' waste. "The Treasury and Depart ment of Trade and Industry do not mind endangering the environment as they attempt to reduce the horrendous amount of taxpayer's money that the nuclear industry generates. This government cannot be trusted to tell the truth, look after the environment or deal with the nuclear industry in any sort of sensible way." Blake Lee-Harwood, campaigns director of Greenpeace, said: "It is absolutely shocking that the government is reneging on one of its key promises [that nuclear waste] would all be returned to its country of origin. "This bodes ill for the future imports of spent fuel and the planned return of other wastes." The government set up an expert committee of radioactive waste management to advise on what to do about the problem of nuclear waste. Due to report by 2006, the committee has been first try ing to discover exactly how much waste there is in Britain and will then consider how to get rid of the plutonium and uranium that has been produced from reprocessing. The committee chairman, Gordon MacKerron, admitted: "It has always seemed to me unlikely that all the foreign wastes would be returned." Laurence Williams, the chief health and safety inspector of Britain's nuclear sites, said his task was making sure the existing wastes stored round Britain were kept in a safe state. "The mind boggles that scientists and technicians who did all these complex tasks like building nine nuclear power stations in 11 years, and ... built hydrogen bombs and reprocessing plants, could at the same time have chucked highly active waste into silos with no thought how to get it out," he said. "This is what we now have to do, and it is no easy task." The Guardian has applied under the "open government" code for details of contracts between the British and Italian governments, but the DTI, which is responsible for BNFL, has refused to release anything. The DTI claims that disclosure of the "sensitive" information would embarrass the Italian government and create diplomatic tension between London and Rome. Nuclear waste is divided into three categories - high level, intermediate level and low level based on the level and type of radioactivity. Of most concern is the high level waste. It is so radioactive that it produces heat and has been kept in liquid form in tanks for up to 50 years at Sellafield before being turned into glass blocks for storage. The government admits that a quarter of this type of waste belongs to foreign governments. Intermediate level waste is not heat-producing and can be packaged in concrete for safety. Both these types need to be isolated from human contact for up to 200,000 years. The low level waste is by far the greatest volume and includes everything from gloves and overalls to large pieces of equipment and concrete. The only place to store this in Britain is Drigg, which will be full by 2050. Government advisers estimate that there will be enough low-level waste produced in the next 50 years to fill 15 Drigg dumps. The DTI was unable to comment on the disposal of foreign waste yesterday. Special report The nuclear industry Graphics The Mox ships' journey around the world (pdf) Nuclear map of Britain US nuclear map Useful links British Energy Department of Trade and Industry British Nuclear Fuels Ltd Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Greenpeace HSE nuclear glossary UK atomic energy authority National Radiological Protection Board Friends of the Earth World Nuclear Association World Nuclear Transport Institute To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 19de22.jpg 19de75.jpg ---------- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ * * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: * du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Attachment Converted: 19de221.jpg: 00000001,1116884c,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: 19de751.jpg: 00000001,1116884d,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas SUN: Panel says shipping plan lagging for Yucca Mountain project Today: December 07, 2004 at 10:19:16 PST ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - An independent review panel is raising questions about whether the Energy Department will cut corners on safety in plans to ship thousands of tons of nuclear waste to a proposed national nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The government has yet to develop "a safe, secure and efficient transportation system" for nuclear waste transport to Yucca Mountain, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board said in a three-page letter to the Energy Department. "We're looking at the letter," Energy Department and Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson said Tuesday in Las Vegas. Yucca managers say shipping will be done safely, but say transportation planning has been underfunded while they concentrate on repository design and a license application. The independent panel, based in Washington, D.C., said it feared budget constraints or a rush to meet deadlines might compromise safety in plans to move 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive material across 44 states to Nevada later this decade. The department has yet to decide matters of cask design, truck and rail acquisition and waste handling "to ensure that the transportation system will operate successfully," the board said. The panel also said the Energy Department should focus more on a backup plan to ship waste through Nevada by truck if a proposed cross-state railroad line cannot be built in time. The department has proposed building a 319-mile rail route to ship waste from a railhead at Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, to the Yucca Mountain repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department announced last month that it would miss a self-imposed Dec. 31 deadline to submit a Yucca Mountain license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. With license review expected to take up to four years, the department has not said whether postponing its license application will push back its plan to open the Yucca Mountain repository in 2010. Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant hired by the state of Nevada, which opposes the Yucca plan, said officials in states across which waste would travel are trying to gauge the Energy Department's shipping program. States are particularly concerned whether DOE will have enough money to help them with emergency planning and how that money will be distributed, Halstead said. Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International Company, a waste shipping firm, characterized the technical board letter as a road map for the Energy Department to follow. Planning "is not behind yet, but they need to begin the process next year, and with a funding stream, I believe they will be able to do that," said Edlow, who heads the U.S. Transport Council, a coalition of nuclear waste shipping concerns. The Technical Review Board was created by Congress to evaluate the Yucca Mountain program. It meets several times a year to explore project segments and report its conclusions to federal lawmakers and the Energy Department. --- On the Net: Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board: http://www.nwtrb.gov [http://www.nwtrb.gov] Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov [http://www.ymp.gov] U.S. Transport Council: http://www.ustransportcouncil.org [http://www.ustransportcouncil.org] Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste [http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste] --- Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com [http://www.lvrj.com] -- ***************************************************************** 29 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA INCENTIVE: Deadline passes; bonus in limbo Friday, December 03, 2004 Contractor probably will receive portion of award despite delay By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is evaluating whether a major Yucca Mountain contractor should be paid part of a $15.3 million incentive fee even though the nuclear waste project is being delayed, department officials said. Bechtel SAIC Co. LLC, the repository management firm, did not meet a Nov. 30 deadline in its contract to hand in a completed license application for the Nevada radioactive waste repository, a DOE spokesman confirmed. The announcement came as little surprise since DOE disclosed last week that Yucca Mountain licensing would be delayed into 2005. Bechtel SAIC, working under a $1.8 billion contract signed in November 2000, would have qualified for a $15.3 million "performance-based incentive" if it met the Nov. 30 deadline and performed work to completeness and quality standards. DOE officials now are examining the company's contract to determine whether Bechtel should be paid any part of the incentive despite the delays. John Arthur, Yucca Mountain deputy director, said last week that some of the causes of delay were not the company's fault. U.S. Court of Appeals judges in July threw out a radiation safety regulation that might require the repository to be redesigned. Bechtel SAIC "will get paid -- it is just how much and in what time frame," Arthur said. The company employs 1,400 people in Southern Nevada. But others say the project also was being slowed by flaws in supporting documents for the 5,000-page license application. Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said this week officials continue to review the award fee, and some determination would be made soon. DOE officials conducting the contract review are focusing in part on work Bechtel SAIC performed to produce a "modified draft" of the license application, a source said. The draft was given to the Energy Department early in November, and might provide a basis for some compensation. A spokeswoman for Bechtel SAIC referred questions to the Energy Department. The possibility of a Bechtel SAIC payment drew fresh criticism from Yucca Mountain opponents. Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said a repository license application shouldn't be considered complete until the Environmental Protection Agency resolves the court's ruling this summer on the radiation standards. "They can't hand in anything that is close to a final license application until there is a standard," Loux said. "Anything other than that is just a sweetheart deal." Bechtel SAIC gave the Energy Department an initial draft application by a contract deadline of July 26, qualifying for an $11 million award. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 30 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT: Board raises questions about shipping Tuesday, December 07, 2004 plans DOE's progress comes under fire By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- A Yucca Mountain review board has raised questions about the Energy Department's progress in planning to ship thousands of tons of nuclear waste to a proposed Nevada repository. With the department still clinging to a goal of opening a burial site in 2010, it has yet to put in place a comprehensive organization "that can develop a safe, secure and efficient transportation system," according to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The panel said it feared that budget constraints or a rush to meet deadlines may compromise safety planning as the department organizes to move 77,000 tons of highly radioactive material across 44 states to Nevada later this decade. Judging from presentations so far, DOE has yet to pull together complex matters of cask design, truck and rail acquisition and waste onloading and offloading "to ensure that the transportation system will operate successfully," the board said in a three-page letter sent Wednesday to the Energy Department. A board member was not available for interview on Monday, but a staff adviser said the letter was written before the Energy Department announced on Nov. 22 that a Yucca license application will be delayed into 2005. A growing number of industry officials and scientists believe the DOE goal of having a repository open by 2010 will slide as well. "It's fair to say the board is concerned given the 2010 schedule that there is an awful lot to do, but if the schedule is relaxed, the board would be less concerned," the adviser said. "The important thing is to do it and do it right." DOE officials will review the letter before commenting on it, spokesman Allen Benson said. Yucca managers have acknowledged the transportation planning has been underfunded to this point as they concentrate on preparing a repository design and a license application. Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant hired by the state of Nevada, said the board's views echo concerns of officials in a number of states who are trying to gauge how DOE will shape its shipping program. States are particularly concerned whether DOE will have enough money to help them with emergency planning and how that money will be distributed, Halstead said. Talking about nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain "is like talking about the Iraqi elections," Halstead said. "Everybody hopes they will be successful, but anybody who is an objective observer has to be filled with trepidation." Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International Company, a waste shipping firm, said the technical board laid out a road map for DOE to follow. "I must say nothing jumped out at me that seems to be a showstopper or anything that is not already being contemplated," said Edlow, who heads the U.S. Transport Council, a coalition of nuclear waste shipping concerns. On transportation planning, DOE "is not behind yet, but they need to begin the process next year, and with a funding stream, I believe they will be able to do that," Edlow said. "They need to involve the private sector more." The technical review board is an independent body created by Congress to evaluate the Yucca program. It meets several times a year to explore project segments, reporting its conclusions to federal lawmakers and the Energy Department. Among its recommendations, the panel said DOE should focus more attention on a backup plan to ship waste through Nevada by truck in case a repository railroad line cannot be built in time. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 31 Las Vegas SUN: Panel: Yucca transportation plan flawed Congressionally appointed watchdog group concerned about schedule, budget setbacks By Benjamin Grove SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department lacks a "detailed strategic plan" for transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, a congressionally appointed Yucca watchdog group said. For example, the department needs more focus on how waste would be shipped on rail or roads inside Nevada once it is hauled to the state from nuclear sites nationwide, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board said. In a Dec. 1 letter to Energy Department Yucca chief Margaret Chu, the panel wrote that the department has no "overarching implementation organization" to develop a safe and efficient waste shipping program. "It is important for the DOE (Energy Department) to develop specific logistical plans that identify the entity that is responsible for each system component and the key interactions required of each involved entity," the board wrote. An Energy Department spokesman was not available for comment this morning. The department has begun organizing itself to plan for a massive shipping campaign for the federal plan to construct a national high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The plan calls for shipments of up to 77,000 tons of radioactive material made over several decades by road and rail from the nation's active and closed nuclear power plants and U.S. defense waste sites. Critics say the plan invites the risk of accidents and terrorist attack. But industry leaders say both scenarios are highly unlikely. They point to a long safety record. The nuclear energy industry has made 3,000 shipments of used nuclear fuel since 1964, and no fuel has leaked, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a top industry lobby group. There is plenty of time to begin transportation planning and to do it right, said Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International Co., a waste shipping company. The Energy Department is well aware of all the steps it needs to take, said Edlow, leader of the U.S. Transport Council, established in April 2002 to better represent waste shippers in Washington. The board's letter didn't reveal anything new, Edlow said. "The department can now begin the process of putting in place all they pieces they need," Edlow said. "The timing becomes tighter the longer you wait. They need to begin now. But I wouldn't say they are behind." Still, the board, established by Congress in 1987 to conduct independent analysis of the Yucca plan, is concerned that schedule and budget setbacks could "compromise" transportation planning. Yucca has long been plagued by delays, some created by budget cuts that are orchestrated in part by incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a member of the Appropriations Committee. The board is concerned that the department could "overlook" technical transportation issues in a rush to meet a self-imposed 2010 project opening deadline, according to the letter. The board said the department's approach to assessing security risks to waste shipments is "appropriate," but has a few flaws. For instance, tribal groups may not be represented as the department is deliberating routes, the board said. And the board cautioned the department to handle waste route planning with state and regional governments "carefully and diligently." The department needs to better identify the technical issues involved in selecting routes and apply "sound methods" to address the issues, the board said. The board also noted that the Energy Department needs to do a better job of communicating its transportation plan -- and the perceived risks -- to the public. ***************************************************************** 32 EPA: Investigation Continues at Nuclear Metals Site in Concord, Mass. [http://www.epa.gov/] EPA New England Press Releases Contact: Dave Deegan, public affairs office, 1617-918-1017 For Immediate Release: Dec. 7, 2004; Release # am04-12-06 BOSTON The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given approval for the consultant working on the Nuclear Metals Inc. Site in Concord, Mass. to begin work this week to excavate buried drums from an area of the site. Fact Sheet [http://yosemite.epa.gov/r1/npl_pad.nsf/51dc4f173ceef51d85256adf0 04c7ec8/7b6349f1a22ffdf3852569e5006ca840?OpenDocument&Highlight=0 ,nuclear] Superfund in New England The drum excavation will take place in an area adjacent to the cooling water pond, located behind the former Starmet facility. The drum disposal area is being investigated by the consultant, de maximis, inc. as part of an extensive study, called a Remedial Investigation, which has been underway at the site since October. The study includes: + locating and characterizing the contents of buried drums and metal debris in two areas at the site; + investigating and characterizing the make-up of site septic tanks and leach fields, storm drains, transformer areas and an underground storage tank area; + characterization and survey of site buildings and contents to evaluate remedial needs and estimate those costs; + investigating site soils, sediment, surface water, groundwater, wetlands and bog; + characterizing the content of residual soil contamination associated with the former holding basin; + describing site-related human health and ecological risks; and, + developing clean-up alternatives. Previous investigations found the drum disposal area contained about 60 buried drums. To more thoroughly characterize the contents of the drums and determine the extent of contamination in the soil surrounding them, the drums will be excavated and stockpiled on-site in secure containers. The contents of the drums will be sampled and samples will be sent to a laboratory for analysis. Soil surrounding the drums will also be sampled. Once the contents of the drums are confirmed, an evaluation of disposal options will be performed. During this phase of the investigation, workers will initially be using Level B or supplied air and protective equipment, and the air around the work area as well at the perimeter of the property will be monitored to ensure contamination is not being released or migrating off-site. After the drums are excavated, which is expect to take less than two weeks, the excavated area will be sampled and backfilled. The larger investigation of the entire property will continue through spring 2005. The drum disposal area is one of 17 areas being investigated by de maximis, inc. as part of an agreement reached between EPA and the responsible parties at Nuclear Metals in June 2003. According to the agreement, a study of the site will be completed and used to evaluate cleanup options. Specifically, the agreement calls for the responsible parties to pay for the Remedial Investigations/ Feasibility Study and Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analyses. According to the agreement, these studies will cost about $8 million, and can be increased to a cap of $10 million. From 1958 to the present, the site was used by various operators as a specialized research and metal manufacturing facility licensed to possess low-level radioactive substances. Site operators used depleted uranium, beryllium and other hazardous substances at the site. From 1958 to 1985, wastes contaminated with depleted uranium were disposed of in an unlined holding basin. EPA has also identified other areas on the site that were used to dispose of manufacturing wastes, building materials and laboratory equipment. The current site owner/operator, Starmet (formerly Nuclear Metals, Inc.), manufactured depleted uranium munitions for the U.S. Army at the site from the 1970s until 1999. In 2003, EPA entered into an agreement with the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Energy, Whittaker Corp., MONY Life Insurance Co. and Textron Inc. to conduct extensive studies at the site to develop cleanup options. The Nuclear Metals Inc. site was added to the National Priority List in June 2001, making it a Superfund site. The EPA list is made up of the country s most serious hazardous waste sites identified for possible long-term cleanup. Additional information can be found at www.nmisite.org [http://www.nmisite.org] Click icon for EPA disclaimer. [http://www.epa.gov/epahome/exitepa.htm] or www.epa.gov/ne/superfund/sites/nmi. METADATA 1. TITLE: Investigation Continues at Nuclear Metals Site in Concord, Mass. 2. ABSTRACT: BOSTON The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given approval for the consultant working on the Nuclear Metals Inc. Site in Concord, Mass. to begin work this week to excavate buried drums from an area of the site. 3. PURPOSE: Public Information 4. ORIGINATOR: Regional Administrator's Office 5. PUBLICATION DATE: 6. ACCESS CONSTRAINTS: N/A 7. AVAILABILITY: N/A a. Distributor: b. Order Process: c. Technical Prerequisites: d. Automated Linkage: e. Downloadable Files: 8. COVERAGE: N/A 9. TIME PERIOD OF COVERAGE: N/A 10. POINT OF CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Amy Miller Office of the Regional Administrator EPA New England 1 Congress Street, Suite 1100 (RAA) Boston, MA 02114-2023 (617) 918-1042 11. RESPONSIBLE PARTY: Amy Miller, EPA Press Office, (617) 918-1042 Office of the Regional Administrator 12. DATE OF CREATION: 12/7/04 13. AGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION: N/A 14. EXPIRATION DATE: 1/7/05 ***************************************************************** 33 Gazetteonline.com: Investigators search for source of perchlorate Cedar Rapids: By Zack Kucharski The Gazette Tuesday, December 07, 2004, 5:48:26 PM HILLS -- Scientists are making what could be their final effort to find the source of perchlorate contamination in this Johnson County town. The compound -- typically found in munitions, rocket fuel and fireworks -- has been found in highest concentrations near the city's park. The underground contamination plume has spread eastward. Scientists with the Environmental Protection Agency will spend the week in this town, about five miles south of Iowa City, collecting a series of soil and water samples. Scientists are also using a special ground penetrable radar system and magnetometer to try and locate a possible source underground. While this may be the last effort to identify the source, the EPA will continue monitoring levels and providing bottled water to some Hills residences, said Craig Smith, senior policy coordinator of the superfund division of the Environmental Protection Agency. The town, about five miles south of Iowa City, is currently reviewing options for a permanent water supply, he said. All local content copyright © 2004 by Gazette Communications [http://www.gazettecommunications.com/] 500 3rd Ave SE - PO Box 511 - Cedar Rapids, IA 52406 ***************************************************************** 34 Waste News: Cost to clean sites may reach $250 billion over next 30 years, EPA says [Wastenews.com Dec. 7 -- The federal government estimates that as many as 350,000 contaminated sites may require cleanup during the next 30 years, and the cost could reach $250 billion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency´s estimates are contained in a recently released report, "Cleaning Up the Nation´s Waste Sites: Markets and Technology Trends." Property owners and potentially responsible parties should pay for the bulk of the cleanup. The EPA provides money for certain Superfund projects only when a potentially responsible party cannot be located. The new EPA report looks at cleanup projects that are part of Superfund, brownfields and underground storage tank programs and properties owned by the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies. The EPA estimates that underground storage tank cleanups will constitute nearly 45 percent of the cleanup projects during the next three decades. However, because the contamination is generally small in size, the projects will make up less than 8 percent of the money invested in cleanups. By contrast, Department of Energy and Department of Defense cleanup sites are small in number. Each will constitute only about 2 percent of the total number of projects. However, because the sites are large and contaminated with difficult-to-handle waste related to nuclear development, unexploded ordnance and perchlorate, the Defense and Energy Department sites each will make up about 16 percent of the money spent on cleanups. The last time the EPA compiled a similar report forecasting the scope and cost of future cleanup projects was 1996. The new report is available online at www.clu-in.org/market. Entire contents copyright 2004 by Crain Communications Inc. webmaster@wastenews.com [webmaster@wastenews.com] ***************************************************************** 35 News & Star: Meeting on nuclear waste management 07/12/2004 PEOPLE are being asked for their views on the future storage of nuclear waste at a public meeting being held at Blackbeck, near Sellafield, tonight. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) is carrying out an extensive consultation into what the UK should do with its intermediate and high-level radioactive waste, not just in the short term but for thousands of years to come. It is holding a meeting at Taylor's Blackbeck Inn at Blackbeck, from 7-9pm tonight, to give people chance to speak about their concerns, such as safety, security and public health. All views will be taken into account when the final decisions are made about how the waste should be managed. nw evening mail [http://www.nwemail.co.uk/] | cumberland news [http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/] | times and star [http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/] | whitehaven news [http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/] ***************************************************************** 36 lamonitor.com: LANSCE bowed; not broken 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 The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is approaching a geriatric crisis, the Department of Energy Inspector General reported last week. "The ability of LANSCE to provide needed research capabilities in the future is uncertain," Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman wrote in his cover letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. LANSCE, which celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this year, is suffering from aging equipment, although not from lack of demand. The facility provides a beam of pulsed protons and spallation neutrons (particles expelled from a nucleus bombarded by protons) for defense and civilian research activities. A spokesperson for Los Alamos National Laboratory said the facility has been a workhorse for stockpile stewardship, especially in the last couple of years, fulfilling a crucial role for the weapons complex. James Danneskiold said current demands for LANSCE's science mission is also very high. The facility accommodated a thousand users during the last run cycle and $50 million in research, half for defense and half for other users, like the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. "For several years it's been oversubscribed," Danneskiold said. "We have to turn away half the people who apply to use it." But there are wear-and-tear issues affecting the center's reliability, the IG said. Parts are wearing out or out of date and some can't be replaced easily. Some of those that can be replaced need lengthy advance notices. As an example, the IG's audit cited the strain on a component called a radio-frequency power source. Specified to have a useful life of about 35,000 hours, the 44 that are needed to operate have been used over100,000 hours. Only 11 spares are available, the audit said, which means operations might have to terminate for want of one of these components within the next two years. Similarly large transformers are approaching the end of their lives and would require long delays for procuring replacements. Compounding the problem, the audit said deferred maintenance costs have accumulated to more than $42 million, including expenses to replace a target assembly and remediating a work area. While funds have been identified for maintenance, the audit said they were inadequate to sustain reliable operations. The accumulated deficiencies have caused the overall reliability of the beam to decline to 77 percent, which the IG said is 8 percent below the national average for similar accelerators. Danneskiold said the lab had made an agreement with the NNSA to operate LANSC at a 75 percent level for 2003-2004, actually exceeding the agreement. He said there is a $138 million plan to extend the facilities lifespan. "At 30 yrs of age LANSCE is ready for refurbishment," Danneskiold said. The IG's report places some responsibility for the deterioration at LANSCE with NNSA's failure to map out a comprehensive plan that takes into account other neutron scattering facilities in Europe and in Illinois and a new facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee scheduled to come on line in FY2006. The report also questioned LANL's support for the facility. "LANSCE is a critical tool needed for our science based nuclear deterrence mission," LANL Director G. Peter Nanos said in a formal response. "The unique capabilities address weapons program issues and synergistically provide significant scientific benefit to the nation. We must not only ensure that LANSCE is refurbished to remain viable for the future, we must develop increased capability to address emerging stewardship missions." Researchers at LANSCE have reported a number of major accomplishments in the past year, including a new diamond-hard material made of zirconium glass, and a new high-temperature superconducting material made from a barium copper silicate compound. Earlier this year, laboratory officials announced that LANSCE was developing a source of ultra-cold neutrons that would be very useful to physicists studying fundamental properties and constants of nature. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Wired News: Sunlight to Fuel Hydrogen Future By John Gartner 02:00 AM Dec. 07, 2004 PT The photovoltaic cell is old news. The latest way to exploit the sun is through tiny materials that can directly convert sunlight into large amounts of hydrogen. Hydrogen Solar [http://www.hydrogensolar.com] of Guilford, England, and Altair Nanotechnologies are building a hydrogen-generation system that captures sunlight and uses the energy to break water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The company's current project is a fuel station in Las Vegas that will soon be dispensing hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen Solar CEO David Auty said his company's Tandem Cell technology uses two solar cells that together capture sunlight from every part of the ultraviolet spectrum. The interaction of photons with a semiconductor material causes a photoelectrochemical reaction that excites electrons and causes water molecules to break up into hydrogen and oxygen, according to Auty. Auty said Tandem Cells are coated with a layer containing metal oxide particles that are less than 30 nanometers thick and can convert sunlight energy into hydrogen with 8 percent efficiency. Auty said that while other researchers view 10 percent efficiency as cost-competitive with fossil fuels, his technology can compete today. Auty hopes to have a working demonstration system in early 20051. He said they are currently able to produce a few kilograms of hydrogen per day at the Hydrogen Solar laboratory using cells that are approximately 10 square inches. Hydrogen Solar is creating consumer and industrial applications that extend research performed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Geneva, according to Auty. He said a system on a home's garage roof that is 10 percent efficient could provide enough hydrogen for a fuel-cell car to drive 11,000 miles per year. "The market will have a niche in the home, as people will be able to install their own systems and run their vehicles using the hydrogen produced during daylight hours," he said. Auty is not assuming that the United States will shift from fossil fuels to the hydrogen economy by 2020, as touted by the Bush administration, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and many scientists. "You can't put all of your eggs in one basket," Auty said, so his company is developing products that will compete in the current industrial hydrogen market. Hydrogen Solar is one of several organizations pursuing photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. In October, the Department of Energy awarded [http://www.energy.gov/engine/doe/files/dynamic/1992004113051_pro jects.pdf] (.pdf) $10 million in research grants to four groups also working on producing hydrogen from sunlight -- GE Global Research, the University of California at Santa Barbara, MVSystems and Midwest Optoelectronics. Caltech University professor of chemistry Nathan Lewis, who is working with GE on hydrogen research, said integrated systems that convert solar energy photoelectrochemically are more efficient than splitting water through the more extensively researched electrolysis technique. Lewis said electrolysis requires two stages. Photovoltaic, nuclear, wind or coal energy systems generate electricity, and then a metal-based catalyst uses the electricity to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Electrolysis requires using "very expensive materials such as platinum and palladium that won't scale at current costs," according to Lewis. Nanotech-based photoelectrochemical materials could lower the cost of hydrogen production "somewhere between a factor of 4 and 10," Lewis said. Lewis is researching metal oxide materials that can be applied to tarps or roofs in very thin coatings. He said covering an area 57,600 square miles2 in the sunny southwest United States with such thin materials that convert sunlight with 10 percent efficiency could provide all of the domestic energy needs for buildings and transportation. While that number may not sound large (just 1.7 percent of the U.S. surface area), it is 10 times the size of all the rooftops in the country, he said. "Visible light has enough energy to split water," said John Turner, a principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Lab [http://www.nrel.gov] who is working on identifying and developing nanomaterials for photoelectrochemically creating hydrogen. Turner's group is using computer modeling to identify materials with the necessary properties for efficiently capturing light across the entire spectrum while remaining stable. Photoelectrochemical reactions require the materials to be continually immersed in water, so they are susceptible to corrosion, Turner said. Some of the early materials Turner's team tested were effective for less than one day because of corrosion. "It's a question of stability" in selecting the optimal materials, he said. The researchers are testing metal oxides as well as organic compounds, according to Turner. Turner said it's important to turn up the heat on hydrogen research now. "In 2030 we're not going to have enough oil, natural gas and coal to meet our energy needs ... and hydrogen is the best carrier" for an alternative fuel. Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 38 DOS: U.S. Energy Department Funds New Fusion Energy Experiment U.S. Dept. of State"[http://www.state.gov] U.S. researchers have begun a novel experiment that will test whether nature's way of confining high-temperature gas might lead to a new source of energy for the world, according to a December 6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) press release. The Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX), sponsored by the Department of Energy Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, is the United States' newest approach to nuclear fusion. Fusion energy is advantageous because its hydrogen fuel is practically limitless and the resulting energy would be clean and, unlike fossil fuels, would not contribute to global warming. The term dipole refers to uneven distribution of magnetic or electrical characteristics in a substance so that it acts as though it has two equal but opposite poles or charges, separated by a small distance. The LDX confines high-temperature ionized gas, called plasma, using strong magnetic fields from a half-ton superconducting ring inside a huge vessel reminiscent of a spaceship. X-ray spectroscopy and visible photography have recorded spectacular images of the hot, confined plasma and of the dynamics of matter confined by strong magnetic force fields. Fusion energy is the energy source of the sun and stars. Scientists will use the LDX experiment to conduct basic studies of confined high-temperature matter and investigate whether the plasma may someday be used to produce fusion energy on Earth. Text of the MIT press release follows: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press release, December 6, 2004 MIT, Columbia begin new energy experiment Half-ton levitating ring is key to work CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT and Columbia University students and researchers have begun operation of a novel experiment that confines high-temperature ionized gas, called plasma, using the strong magnetic fields from a half-ton superconducting ring inside a huge vessel reminiscent of a spaceship. The experiment, the first of its kind, will test whether nature's way of confining high-temperature gas might lead to a new source of energy for the world. First results from the Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) were presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society the week of Nov. 15. Scientists and students described more than 100 plasma discharges created within the new device, each lasting from 5 to 10 seconds. X-ray spectroscopy and visible photography recorded spectacular images of the hot, confined plasma and of the dynamics of matter confined by strong magnetic force fields. A dedication for LDX, the United States' newest approach to nuclear fusion, was held in late October. Fusion energy is advantageous because its hydrogen fuel is practically limitless and the resulting energy would be clean and would not contribute to global warming as does the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists using the LDX experiment will conduct basic studies of confined high-temperature matter and investigate whether the plasma may someday be used to produce fusion energy on Earth. Fusion energy is the energy source of the sun and stars. At high temperature and pressure, light elements like hydrogen are fused together to make heavier elements, such as helium, in a process that releases large amounts of energy. Powerful magnets, such as the ring in LDX, provide the magnetic fields needed to initiate, sustain and control the plasma in which fusion occurs. Because the shape of the magnetic force fields determines the properties of the confined plasma, several different fusion research experiments are under way throughout the world, including a second experiment at MIT, the Alcator C-Mod, and the HBT-EP experiment at Columbia University. LDX tackles fusion with a unique approach, taking its cue from nature. The primary confining fields are created by a powerful superconducting ring about the size of a truck tire and weighing more than a half-ton that will ultimately be levitated within a large vacuum chamber. A second superconducting magnet located above the vacuum chamber provides the force necessary to support the weight of the floating coil. The resulting force field resembles the fields of the magnetized planets, such as Earth and Jupiter. Satellites have observed how these fields can confine plasma at hundreds of millions of degrees. The LDX research team is led by Jay Kesner, senior scientist at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) (who earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1970), and Michael Mauel, a professor of applied physics at Columbia University (who earned his degrees from MIT, S.B. 1978, S.M. 1979, Sc.D. 1983). Kesner and Mauel's colleagues on the experiment include five graduate students (Alex Boxer, Jennifer Ellsworth, Ishtak Karim and Scott Mahar of MIT and Eugenio Oritz of Columbia) and two undergraduates (Austin Roach and Michelle Zimmermann of MIT). The team also includes Columbia scientists Darren Garnier and Alex Hansen, as well as Rick Lations, Phil Michael, Joseph Minervini, Don Strahan and Alex Zhukovsky of the PSFC. The work is sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences. POLICY ISSUES | STATE DEPT. [http://www.state.gov] [http://usinfo.state.gov/about/private.htm] ***************************************************************** 39 EUbusiness: Japan offered concessions to EU over pioneering nuclear project : report http://www.eubusiness.com 07/12/2004 Japan offered concessions to European firms in a bid to win a pioneering multibillion-dollar nuclear energy project which is also sought by France, a report said Tuesday. The European Union, whose bid is backed by Russia and China, has threatened to go it alone on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactorunless it seals a deal with Japan, which is supported by the United States and South Korea. The project aims to emulate the sun's nuclear fusion to generate inexhaustible supplies of energy. The eventual host of ITER was due to finance 50 percent of the construction cost, with the other five partners each covering 10 percent. But Japan proposed to allocate 20 percent of the construction cost to European companies if Japan's bid won and to let the EU host an ITER headquarters with a European project chief, the Mainichi Shimbun reported. The newspaper, quoting government sources, said the "drastic compromise" was offered by Japan in September, triggering a European counter-offer revealed in November. The budget for ITER is projected to be 10 billion euros (13 billion dollars) over the next 30 years, including 4.7 billion euros to build the reactor. The EU wants to build the reactor at Cadarache in southern France, while Japan has proposed its northern town of Rokkasho-mura for the facility which is not expected to generate energy before 2050. The European Union has mulled a scenario of offering Japan a new international scientific computing centre as compensation if Japan did not host ITER. [Web link: ITER - International Fusion Energy Organisation] ITER - International Fusion Energy Organisation Text and Picture Copyright © 2004 AFP. All other copyright © 2004 ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************