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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Guardian Unlimited: Japan Delays Sanctioning North Korea
2 AFP: Japan assures it is cool-headed with NKorea ahead of summit wit
3 Guardian Unlimited: Japan and South Korea Hold Talks
4 US: [NukeNet] MIT's Role in Missile Test Fraud
5 Guardian Unlimited: Tactical Bush puts his war with Annan on hold...
6 Herald: Vanunu happy to be new rector
7 AFP: Russia eyes energy card in new game of brinkmanship with West M
8 St. Petersburg Times: Opinion - Wrapping Up 'National Assets' -
9 Guardian Unlimited: Gadhafi Takes Some Credit for Bush's Win
10 St. Petersburg Times: Scientist Says FSB Vindictive
11 Guardian Unlimited: White House Takes Cool Stance Toward Annan
NUCLEAR REACTORS
12 US: Office of the Secretary, U.S. N.R.C. Rulemaking Adjudications
13 [NukeNet] U.S.: China to Lead Way in Nuclear Power
14 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Atomic Safety and Licensing Board grants a
15 US: APP.COM: Oyster Creek gets extension past 2009
16 US: NRC: Licensing Support System Advisory Review Panel
17 US: NRC: Notice of Availability and Draft Report for Comment,
18 US: The News Journal: New damage at Hope Creek
19 US: Portsmouth Herald: Threat to nuke plant revealed
20 US: SF Chronicle: Where is that darn uranium?
21 US: Champlain Channel: NRC Calls Vermont Yankee 'Overall Good'
22 ITAR-TASS: Putin, Khristenko discuss nuclear energy development issu
23 US: Brattleboro Reformer: What a disaster
24 US: Brattleboro Reformer: NRC gets an earful at public hearing
25 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Evacuation drill runs into several snags
NUCLEAR SAFETY
26 US: Guardian Unlimited: Cargo Security Plan Starts to Take Shape
27 US: Daily Press: Have Lessons of the Gulf Been Learned?
28 US: The Daily Press: For Veterans, What's Next?
29 US: Daily Press: 'Danger Dismissed'
30 US: TheDay.com: How Many Submarines?
31 US: Vermont Guardian: Thousands of students stranded in mock nuclear
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
32 US: Bradenton Herald: Toxin tests begin for Tallevast
33 Taipei Times: Tajikistan seeks foreign help for nuclear wastelands
34 YWS: Gov't Aims to Build Low-Radiation Nuclear Waste Site by 2008
35 US: Las Vegas SUN: More efficient handling of nuke waste is urged
36 Gateway To Russia: Putin insists on no more delays in handling nucle
37 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Close the door
38 Xinhua: EU promises rewards for Iranian uranium enrichment suspensio
39 US: Newsday.com: Federal government likely to take over at plant tha
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
40 UC loses nuclear weapons program (4/9)
41 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Revolving door keeps on spinning
OTHER NUCLEAR
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Guardian Unlimited: Japan Delays Sanctioning North Korea
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 17, 2004 12:31 PM
By KENJI HALL
Associated Press Writer
IBUSUKI, Japan (AP) - Japan decided Friday to delay imposing
economic sanctions on North Korea, a move the isolated communist
nation had said it would consider a declaration of war.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan wants to give the
communist state more time to explain the fate of Japanese
nationals abducted by Pyongyang decades ago.
``We will have to see how North Korea responds to demands for
the truth. Once we have that, we would then consider what sort
of sanctions to impose,'' Koizumi said at a news conference
after talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
South Korea is opposed to the sanctions, fearing they could set
back multinational talks aimed at persuading the North to scrap
its nuclear weapons programs.
Tokyo and Seoul have pursued independent contacts with the
North, in addition to participating in three rounds of
six-nation talks also involving the United States, China and
Russia. The talks have produced no breakthroughs.
Koizumi is under growing pressure from the Japanese public to
get tough with Pyongyang.
North Korea has returned five of 13 Japanese citizens it
admitted abducting in the 1970s and 80s. It said the eight
others were dead, but Japan suspects they may be alive,
especially because the North has failed to turn over their
remains.
Twice now the North has turned over remains that Japanese
forensic scientists found were not those of the missing
Japanese, contrary to the North's claims.
Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said Thursday that
economic sanctions are now a ``likely option.'' But he did not
specify when or how Japan would apply sanctions.
North Korea warned on Wednesday that it would consider sanctions
by Japan ``a declaration of war.''
Japan's media urged Tokyo and Seoul not to let Pyongyang divide
them.
``By sticking to their anti-nuclear stance, Japan and South
Korea can drive North Korea to give up its nuclear programs,''
the national Asahi newspaper said in an editorial.
Koizumi and Roh met for two hours Friday at the hot spring
resort of Ibusuki in southern Japan. They last met in July on
South Korea's resort island of Jeju, where they put on a rare
display of friendliness.
Japan ruled Korea as a colony from 1910 until 1945, and
Tokyo-Seoul relations remained bitter for decades. Many South
Koreans have been angered by what they perceive as Japan's
attempts to whitewash its wartime atrocities in school textbooks
and lessons.
Recently, however, freer cultural exchanges, the threat posed by
North Korea and China's emergence as a military and economic
force in Asia have brought the two closer.
Trade is one area Tokyo and Seoul want to expand, and the two
sides have agreed to work out a free-trade deal by 2005.
Japan is now South Korea's third-biggest trading partner, with
two-way shipments valued at $54 billion in 2003.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
2 AFP: Japan assures it is cool-headed with NKorea ahead of summit with South
Friday December 17, 04:00 PM
IBUSUKI, Japan (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
indicated economic sanctions would be a last resort against North
Korea as he headed to a summit with South Korea which urged him
to stay cool-headed.
Koizumi, who will hold a two-day meet with President Roh Moo-Hyun
in the southern Japanese resort of Ibusuki, has come under
growing public pressure to punish North Korea over its abductions
of Japanese people during the Cold War.
Japanese researchers concluded last week that North Korea lied by
presenting the remains of other people in an attempt to prove
that two kidnap victims were dead.
"There have been mounting calls for sanctions against North Korea
over the false remains but we need to continue talking with
Pyongyang even for the purpose of getting to the bottom of the
case," Koizumi told South Korean media in Tokyo ahead of the
summit.
"We will wait and see how North Korea responds and then we will
take our next step," Koizumi said.
The United States, South Korea and China have all called for
Japan to be cautious in dealing with cash-strapped but heavily
armed North Korea, which warned Wednesday that it would consider
sanctions an act of war.
The countries have expressed concern that isolating the
unpredictable state, could further jeopardize stalled six-nation
talks on ending its nuclear weapons program.
South Korea cautioned it was not sure of the North's intentions
in allegedly handing false evidence to a Japanese fact-finding
mission last month.
"I even think it may have been a simple miss or mistake," Roh
told Japan's Mainichi Shimbun newspaper in an interview in Seoul.
"If it was a mistake, it is important that they clear up the
misunderstanding with an appropriate explanation," Roh said.
"If it becomes clear that it was done with evil intent, I think
that sanctions (by Japan) are possible," Roh said.
"Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is reacting carefully and
coolly and that is the appropriate response," Roh said.
North Korea kidnapped Japanese people to train the regime's spies
in Japanese language and culture.
One of the two kidnap victims whose purported ashes North Korea
presented was Megumi Yokota, who was spirited away in 1977 as a
13-year-old schoolgirl and has been at the center of national
sympathy.
"I understand this has been a huge shock to the Japanese people,"
Roh said.
A poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper showed that nearly
three-quarters of Japanese wanted sanctions against North Korea
and 71 percent disapproved of Koizumi's policies toward
Pyongyang.
Japan has already frozen further shipments of food aid to the
North in the row over the ashes.
Koizumi said Japan did not want to go it alone in dealing with
North Korea.
"As we have the six-way talks and the nuclear issue, we will cope
with the situation with comprehensive measures through
consultations with other countries concerned," Koizumi said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said Thursday that
economic sanctions were one option to pressure North Korea to
come clean over the abduction issue, but said "careful analysis"
was required before imposing them.
The families of kidnap victims believe that at least eight
Japanese people who Pyongyang claimed to be dead are still alive
and kept under wraps for security reasons because they may know
secrets about the North.
North Korea has returned five kidnap victims to Japan after
admitting in 2002 to the abductions, a compromise which led to an
aid package and talks on normalising relations.
Copyright © 2004 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
3 Guardian Unlimited: Japan and South Korea Hold Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 17, 2004 10:31 AM
By KENJI HALL
Associated Press Writer
IBUSUKI, Japan (AP) - Japan's prime minister met with the South
Korean president Friday under mounting pressure from the public
to impose sanctions on North Korea, a move Seoul warns could
encourage the North's nuclear ambitions.
The Japanese are angry over North Korea's failure to fully
account for Japanese citizens it kidnapped decades ago and want
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to get tough with Pyongyang.
South Korea is opposed to the sanctions, fearing they could set
back six-nation talks aimed at persuading the isolated communist
nation to scrap its nuclear weapons programs. Pyongyang has said
it would consider sanctions by Japan ``a declaration of war.''
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh
Moo-hyun held two hours of discussions in Ibusuki, on Japan's
southernmost island of Kyushu.
Pyongyang has returned five of 13 Japanese citizens it admitted
to abducting in the 1970s and 80s. It said the eight others were
dead, but Japan suspects they may be alive, especially as the
North has failed to turn over their remains.
Twice now the North has turned over human remains that Japanese
forensic scientists found were not those of the missing
Japanese, contrary to the North's claims.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said Thursday that
economic sanctions are a ``likely option.'' But he did not
specify when Japan would apply sanctions or what the penalties
would be.
The six nations - the United States, China and Russia as well as
Japan and the two Koreas - have made little progress in three
rounds of talks.
North Korea insists on receiving economic aid and security
guarantees in return for ending its nuclear weapons program. It
also wants Washington to abandon its ``hostile'' policy toward
the communist state.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told reporters that
Koizumi would seek Roh's ``understanding for Japan's handling of
the abductions issue.''
Roh said Thursday that he can understand sanctions if North
Korea deliberately turned over the wrong remains. But he also
warned that ``unreasonable hard-line measures'' will led to a
``serious aftermath.''
The South Korean president favors concessions and dialogue over
sanctions to lure Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.
Japan ruled Korea as a colony from 1910 until 1945, and
Tokyo-Seoul relations were bitter for decades as a result.
Recently, however, cultural exchange, the threat posed by North
Korea and China's emergence as a military and economic force in
Asia have brought the two closer.
Trade is one area Tokyo and Seoul want to expand, and the two
sides have agreed to work out a free-trade deal by 2005. Japan
is now South Korea's third-biggest trading partner, with two-way
shipments valued at $54 billion in 2003.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
4 [NukeNet] MIT's Role in Missile Test Fraud
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:29:36 -0800
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4994&method=full
Probably Greatest Threat To Life On Earth:
http://www.heatisonline.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1213-27.htm
Published on Monday, December 13, 2004 by the
Boston Globe
MIT's Role in Missile Test Fraud
by Theodore A. Postol
After more than 3 1/2 years of
foot-dragging, excuses, and violations of federal
regulations, MIT announced last week that it could
not investigate credible evidence of possible
scientific fraud in fundamental National Missile
Defense research being done at MIT's Lincoln
Laboratory. The reason outgoing president Charles
M. Vest gave is that the Pentagon had classified
everything about the investigation.
If the particular allegations of
fraud have merit -- and I believe they do -- MIT
and the Pentagon have been involved in a fraud
that has promoted a weapon system that will have
little or no utility and could cost hundreds of
billions of dollars. Of even greater importance,
millions of lives could be lost if this weapon
system failed to defend our nation from a nuclear
ballistic missile attack.
The allegations of fraud involve
the critically important Integrated Flight Test
1A, or IFT-1A, in June 1997. Its purpose was to
determine if the currently deployed National
Missile Defense could tell the difference between
warheads flying through space and simple balloons
designed to look like warheads. If the IFT-1A
experiment could not demonstrate that the weapon
could perform this task, the weapon could never
have a realistic chance of working in combat.
In May 2000 I sent evidence to
the White House that, despite the claims of
unqualified success by the Pentagon, the IFT-1A
had in fact been a total failure.
Initially, the Pentagon claimed
that the letter I wrote to the White House was
secret. Then the Pentagon reversed itself and
claimed that the experiment was old and
irrelevant, and then it reinforced this claim by
arguing that it now uses a slightly different
sensor that renders the results of the IFT-1A
irrelevant. Finally, after trying for years to
dismiss the relevance of the IFT-1A, the Pentagon
has again reversed itself and claims that the
release of any and all information about it would
cause grave, direct, and immediate harm to the
national security.
In subsequent work, I learned
that the document that had led me to warn the
White House about fraud in the National Missile
defense program had been produced for the Pentagon
by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.
The Lincoln Laboratory report
was written in 1998 for federal agents from the
departments of Justice and Defense. The agents had
come to MIT for help in evaluating evidence they
had collected that indicated researchers at TRW
might have fraudulently tampered with data to make
the IFT-1A test look like a success when it had in
fact failed. Since Lincoln Laboratory had been
deeply involved in early analysis of the IFT-1A,
and has special national status as a federally
funded research and development center, it was in
a unique position to evaluate all the evidence
uncovered by the federal agents.
In April 2001, I began a process
of alerting MIT's then-president Charles M. Vest
and his provost, Robert Brown, that MIT's Lincoln
Laboratory had failed to cooperate with the
federal agents and had withheld critical
information that the sensor in the IFT-1A had not
performed as designed. Since the sensor did not
collect valid data, the experiment was a total
failure and fraud had occurred at TRW. Of even
greater concern, it was clear from documents
created shortly after the IFT-1A in 1997 and
General Accountability Office reports published in
March 2002 that Lincoln Laboratory was fully aware
of the failure of the sensor.
MIT's response during this
period was at first to deny that it had oversight
responsibilities for the report, then, in July
2002, to produce an interim inquiry report,
reviewed by MIT's lawyers, that praised the work
done by Lincoln and concluded: "The good news is
that the management and culture of the Lincoln
Laboratory . . . have created processes to insure
that the nation's trust is protected."
Four months later the
conclusions of the interim inquiry report were
completely reversed and an investigation
recommended. It is this investigation which MIT
now says it cannot pursue because material is
classified. In fact the investigation can be fully
accomplished with material already made public.
The mishandling of this affair
by MIT poses threats to the integrity and
credibility of all university-based research in
this country. MIT's continuing excuses for not
investigating this matter and its attempts to
evade its responsibilities represent a serious
violation of the public trust and the most basic
principles of academic integrity. But of far more
importance than the future of MIT, it does a
disservice to our system of government and
undermines the defense of our country.
Theodore A. Postol is professor
of science, technology, and national security
policy at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
© 2004 Boston Globe
###
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5 Guardian Unlimited: Tactical Bush puts his war with Annan on hold... for now
Simon Tisdall
Friday December 17, 2004
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
The Bush administration has distanced itself for the time being
from congressional demands for the resignation of the UN
secretary-general, Kofi Annan.
But acute US-UN tensions persist over oil-for-food corruption
investigations, UN handling of Iran's nuclear programmes, and
Iraq's US-sponsored elections next month.
US resentment over what officials regard as lack of UN support
for the Iraq polls is barely contained. The issue topped the
agenda in talks yesterday between Mr Annan, the US secretary of
state Colin Powell and his designated successor, Condoleezza
Rice.
The US craves the legitimacy and expertise that only the UN can
give the process. Because of security concerns, only 19 UN
electoral staff are in Iraq, compared with 266 who oversaw
Afghanistan's polls in October.
Mr Annan ordered non-Iraqi UN personnel to leave last year after
a bomb killed his senior envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and
destroyed the UN's Baghdad headquarters.
The US and other security council members have since failed to
provide a promised UN protection force.
The UN is planning a limited expansion of advisory and technical
operations beyond Baghdad before the January 30 polls. But it
believes staff remain at great risk, and insists the conduct and
monitoring of the elections are the responsibility of Iraq's
electoral commission.
American critics suspect Mr Annan has political motives.
Illogically, they blame him for the security council's refusal to
endorse the war. His recent condemnation of the invasion as
illegal infuriated neo-conservatives.
Allegations arising from Saddam Hussein's subversion of the
defunct UN oil-for-food programme have thus become a pretext for
demanding Mr Annan's head.
Given an opportunity on December 2 to support Mr Annan, George
Bush declined. Instead, the president resurrected an old threat -
that US funding, 20% of the UN budget, depended "on a good,
honest appraisal of that which went on [sic]".
But a week later, after 130 countries voiced support for Mr Annan
and the UN general assembly gave him a standing ovation, the
administration backed off.
Eating humble pie on his boss's behalf, ambassador John Danforth
told the UN: "It is important for us, the US, to clarify our
position. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation...
of the secretary-general. No one has cast doubt on [his] personal
integrity. No one. And certainly we don't."
Perhaps Mr Danforth protested too much. In any case, this abrupt
shift may be more about timing than international opinion. And it
followed an embarrassing re minder of past US hypocrisy over
Saddam's regime.
Democratic senator Carl Levin noted that the White House had
contributed "very significantly" to the oil-for-food problems by
turning a blind eye to much more lucrative, long-running, illegal
oil and trade deals between Saddam and US allies such as Jordan
and Turkey.
The New York Times thundered that these backdoor schemes put
oil-for-food scams in the shade. Demands for Mr Annan's head
"seem wildly premature", it said.
This may be more stay of execution than reprieve. Mr Annan
symbolises all that the neo-cons most resent: an international
bureaucracy presuming to set limits on US power.
Meanwhile, Washington is pressing for Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's
International Atomic Energy Agency chief, to stand down. Dr
ElBaradei has not been forgiven for being right about Iraq's
non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Now he is accused of
being soft on Iran. Last week's revelations that the US tapped
his telephone conversations with Iranian diplomats recalled
allegations about US bugging of Mr Annan's office.
If Mr Annan is safe for now, the main reason may be Mr Bush's
purported desire to strengthen his second-term multilateralist
credentials. He is heading for Europe in February where support
for the UN is strong. He aims to mend fences, particularly in
Germany, and rally Nato support in Iraq.
But US-UN attrition is only on hold.
Media
New York Times [http://nytimes.com]
Washington Post [http://washingtonpost.com]
CNN [http://cnn.com]
Government
US government portal [http://www.firstgov.gov/]
White House [http://www.whitehouse.gov/]
Senate [http://www.senate.gov/]
House of Representatives [http://www.house.gov]
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
6 Herald: Vanunu happy to be new rector
Web Issue 2160 December 17 2004
Herald [http://www.sundayherald.com/]
ELEANOR COWIE December 17 2004
THE new rector of Glasgow University, Mordechai Vanunu, last
night said in Israel that he was honoured, and will come to
Scotland to carry out his duties "at the first opportunity".
The former technician is forbidden to leave Israel. He spent 18
years in jail for leaking details of the country's secret atomic
weapons programme.
The Israeli government is to be lobbied by students and
politicians to release the whistleblower to take up his
position. The Students' Representative Council (SRC) is to write
to Jerusalem asking for his immediate release.
Vanunu, 50, the university's 119th rector, polled nearly 300
more votes than the runner-up, John Beattie, the former Scottish
rugby player.
He said: "I am very happy with the honour that has been
bestowed on me by the students of Glasgow University who have
used their democratic vote.
"I intend at the first opportunity to come to Glasgow to carry
out my duties as rector."
He was released from prison in April this year and has been
living in St George's Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem.
John Andrew Murray, SRC president, said: "I think it would be a
good thing to write to the authorities in Israel (as early as
possible) asking if Vanunu could be let out of the country so he
can do the job Glasgow University students elected him to do.
"I'm pleased he won. Students can use the position of rector
for many different things, and in this case they have chosen
someone which shows we are interested in world politics."
Students said they had voted for Mr Vanunu to show their
support for human rights and opposition to nuclear weapons.
Mr Murray was joined by Peter Hain, leader of the Commons, in
congratulating Mr Vanunu. He said the students had made a "very
wise choice".
Patrick Harvie, the Green MSP, said the students had sent an
important message to the Palestinian people and to the Blair
government. "The message is clear: we will not stand back and
watch the Palestinian people suffer and there is no place in the
world for weapons of mass destruction."
Ann McKechin, MP for Maryhill in Glasgow, said he had "made
such a personal sacrifice over so many years for the cause of
peace" and also called for Mr Hain to put pressure on Israel.
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which had first
approached Mr Vanunu over the election, said it supported Mr
Murray's move.
Sir Muir Russell, university principal, said: "The election of
Mr Vanunu demonstrates the diverse and international concerns of
Glasgow students. It is our hope that he will be able to support
the student body in the way that they desire."
Copyright © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights
[http://www.pressnow.co.uk/]
*****************************************************************
7 AFP: Russia eyes energy card in new game of brinkmanship with West Messenger
Friday December 17, 04:43 AM
---- by Dmitry Zaks, AFP ----
MOSCOW (AFX) - As Yukos crumbles into state hands, speculation
here mounts that Russia plans to wield an old but powerful
Soviet-era weapon -- energy exports -- before the West after
having to lick its wounds in Ukraine.
The Yukos saga unfolded long before Russia drew swords with the
West over Ukraine and its disputed presidential elections, but
analysts see plots of the two dramatic standoffs slowly fold
into one.
A Kremlin-led campaign against Russia's number one oil producer
and Western darling will likely see Yukos's main asset --
pumping as much oil as Texas -- fall into state-controlled hands
Sunday in an auction where the dominant player is Gazprom
despite a court decision in the United States.
It would turn state-controlled Gazprom into a Goliath with the
world's biggest gas and Russia's largest oil exports -- placing
itself alongside Saudi Arabia's Aramco as the globe's most
important energy player.
This immense concentration of energy wealth in Kremlin hands
comes as President Vladimir Putin's administration reels from
the humiliation of backing a pro-Moscow man in Ukraine who won a
fraud-riddled election that was later annulled under the weight
of emotional pro-democracy rallies in the ex-Soviet republic.
Russia will now likely have to deal with a Western-leaning
president in its back yard following a rerun Dec 26 vote and
Kremlin-linked strategists say that Putin's circle is shocked
and indignant.
They and other analysts suggest Russia -- the world's number
two oil exporter after US ally Saudi Arabia -- now sees control
over energy flows as its main weapon against Western
interference in its former domain of power.
'I think the first thing the Russian government learned from
Ukraine is that the nuclear deterrent no longer plays a role,'
said Kremlin-linked political consultant Sergei Markov.
'Because oil and gas guarantee Russia's sovereignty and
interests, of course Russia will move to establish stronger
control over these resources,' Markov said.
The energy sector for Russia 'is increasingly the modern
equivalent of military might,' agreed Christopher Weafer in an
opinion piece published here Thursday.
US-linked analysts see the energy grab as a Kremlin return to a
Soviet-era strategy devised by the KGB amid the Cold War
standoff with the United States and tensions in the oil-rich
Middle East.
'The use of energy as a weapon is an old idea that was first
developed in the 1970s by the KGB,' said Yevgeny Volk, the
Moscow director of the conservative US-based Heritage Foundation
think tank.
'Under these conditions, after the developments in Ukraine, I
would not be surprised that this was the Kremlin's line of
thinking. In a sense, this would only confirm that Moscow was
returning to old socialist ideas.
'And I do think the West is taking this threat into account in
its future dealings with Russia,' he added.
Gazprom's financial adviser Deutsche Bank (Xetra: 514000.DE
[http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=DBKGn.DE&d=t] - news
[http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/n/d/dbkgn.de.html] ) has recommended
that the company also buy up Russia's oil majors Surgutneftegaz
and Sibneft -- in effect rebuilding it into the Soviet-era oil
and gas ministry.
The recommendation created a stir among Russian investors amid
signs that Westerners were no longer welcome in the country's
energy and other strategic markets.
But economists said the potential recreation of a giant Russian
energy ministry would work more as a psychological weapon in
Moscow's game of brinkmanship with the West rather than a
warning that it may cut off supplies.
Such threats have worked with disobedient ex-Soviet republics
-- Gazprom for example cutting off supplies to Belarus before
that republic returned to a more receptive policy toward Moscow
-- but they said Russia would never cut off Western Europe or
the United States.
'At the end of the day, the government does control the
decision making process over sales, but in order to control the
flow of the oil and gas the Russian government did not really
need to take over control of Yuganskneftegaz,' the main Yukos
asset, said Steven Dashevsky of the Aton Capital brokerage.
'That particular level of leverage, deciding which way the oil
will flow or whether it will flow at all, was always in the
hands of the government,' he said.
'It's impossible to envision this scenario because in the Cold
War, when there were more than enough reasons to stop the flow
of gas to Europe, it has never happened ... because the whole
Russian economy hinges on the sales.'
Copyright © 2004 AFP AFX. All rights reserved. Republication or
*****************************************************************
8 St. Petersburg Times: Opinion - Wrapping Up 'National Assets' -
#1030, Friday, December 17, 2004
By Ian Bremmer
Recent developments in Russia all point in one direction: The
Kremlin's energy sector policy has shifted to more aggressive
efforts of direct control. Moves by Gazprom to acquire the Yukos
subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz at auction and increasing pressure on
Russia's oligarchs to play by Kremlin rules suggest that, even if
the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case is unlikely to be repeated,
President Vladimir Putin's government has not finished tightening
its grip on the oil industry - and possibly on other
strategically important areas of the economy.
Even before Gazprom's official declaration of interest in
Yugansk, the natural gas giant was the clear front-runner to
purchase it at the Dec. 19 auction. Despite repeated claims by
CEO Alexei Miller that Gazprom was not interested in Yukos
assets, the announcement of Gazprom's latest intentions was
hardly a surprise. Because Gazprom has close ties with - and is
partly owned by - the government, the authorities can use it to
acquire and control Yugansk.
z Merging Gazprom and Rosneft and buying Yugansk will give the
state a large amount of leverage in the oil sector. The Kremlin
will control more than 50 percent of the new entity, a company
that will produce 1.6 million to 1.7 million barrels of oil per
day. The new firm will be a major integrated energy player
globally. In fact, given Gazprom's acquisitions in nuclear
capacity over the last decade, it won't only be oil and gas that
the Kremlin can use to consolidate power.
The Nov. 19 announcement that 76.8 percent of Yugansk would be
sold at a starting price of $8.65 billion sent a clear signal:
The Kremlin intended to put Yugansk's price within reach of
Russian companies whose prospects looked unlikely when the
Justice Ministry announced in October a $10.4 billion valuation
for the company. It now looks likely that Gazprom will bid for
Yugansk together with Surgutneftegaz, which also has good
relations with the Kremlin. Yet this has not put to rest
speculation that Gazprom will dilute its own ability - and by
extension that of the government - to control Yugansk by
borrowing money on the international market. Yukos' U.S.
bankruptcy declaration and the recent pangs of conscience at some
major banks about lending to Gazprom have further muddied the
political waters. Finally, there has been increasing speculation
of another sort as well, that various foreign companies will bid
for Yugansk. However, the precedent set by other recent foreign
acquisitions of Russian companies makes foreign ownership highly
unlikely.
Energy is not the only economic sector of strategic importance
to the government, as recent events have shown. Those in the
Kremlin most determined to bring scarce and profitable resources
under state control have been pushing for a couple of years to
label other sectors of the economy "strategic assets," with
limits on foreign involvement in their development. Recent legal
pressure applied to Mikhail Fridman's VimpelCom suggests that the
telecoms sector may be next on the government's shopping list and
that Khodorkovsky may not be the only Russian oligarch the
Kremlin intends to bring to heel.
zz In fact, the oligarchs, Russia's robber baron business moguls
who made fortunes buying up key Soviet monopolies at bargain
basement prices in exchange for financial support for Boris
Yeltsin's political agenda, will be the most obvious immediate
losers in this process of state consolidation of "national
assets." The Khodorkovsky case is only the least subtle example
of the Kremlin's determination to reassert its control over
Russia's natural wealth.
As a result, the Kremlin's recent moves produce a heightened
risk of capital flight from Russia, as Russia's wealthiest
businessmen scramble to stow their valuables beyond the Kremlin's
reach.
The Yugansk sale raises issues about the government's commitment
to the rule of law in Russia. Certain elements of the Yukos case
were unique. The case against the company and against
Khodorkovsky was initially politically motivated, and the level
of punishment for Khodorkovsky is unlikely to be repeated. But
the government's use of the courts to assert control over
national assets, despite the passage of legal reform three years
ago, reveals that the state has not decided to curb the excesses
of zealous prosecutors intent on scoring political points with
the Kremlin with high-profile victories over powerful and
politically independent businessmen. Investors should also be
concerned with the disregard for the rights of minority
shareholders in the Yukos case.
Sunday's auction will be a good test case of the government's
willingness to conduct transparent auctions. Industry analysts
fear with good reason that the political undercurrents of the
Yugansk case will push conduct of the auction in the direction of
the bidding around the 2002 privatization of the oil company
Slavneft. Companies will likely have to vault a number of
bureaucratic hurdles to qualify; then they'll be asked to pay a
$1.5 billion deposit. The Slavneft auction was widely criticized
for its lack of transparency and for the political pressure that
led to the disqualification or voluntary withdrawal of several
bidders.
Russia still remains a comparatively attractive place for
foreign direct investment in energy. But risks around Russian
equities remain undervalued by the market. Russia will continue
to attract foreign oil companies because of the potential it
offers to accumulate reserves. Russia still looks more attractive
in that regard than countries in West Africa, the Caspian region
or the Middle East - although Libya has also begun to attract
major energy players over the past year. But investors should
expect that the Kremlin will be carefully watching - and managing
- the efforts of private firms to find a foothold in the Russian
energy sector.
Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and senior fellow at
the World Policy Institute. He is also a columnist for the
Financial Times. He contributed this comment to The St.
Petersburg Times. More opinion stories: Candidates Need to Meet
and Greet | Goodbye, Sweet Liberty | Something to say? Write to
the Opinion Page Editor. E-mail or online form:
www.sptimes.ru/
[Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993-2004
*****************************************************************
9 Guardian Unlimited: Gadhafi Takes Some Credit for Bush's Win
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 17, 2004 12:46 PM
ROME (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says his decision to
abandon nuclear weapons helped President Bush get re-elected.
In an interview airing Friday on Italy's RAI TV, Ghadafi said
the U.S. presidential election was America's way of rewarding
Tripoli for renouncing the nuclear program.
``America was very worried that Libya might get a mass
destruction weapon, so they were very happy about our
decision,'' Gadhafi said on RAI's ``La Storia Siamo Noi''
(``History Is Us'') news show, according to an English-language
transcript provided by the broadcaster.
``It has been a winning hand in the last election,'' he said.
Gadhafi renounced the weapons program last year, a turnaround
that ended Libya's international isolation. In turn, the United
States lifted most of its commercial sanctions, as did the
European Union. The EU also eased an arms embargo.
In the rare interview, Gadhafi said his decision to abandon
weapons of mass destruction was a gesture toward Bush.
``It was Mr. Bush who promised to reward Libya if we got rid of
this program,'' he said. ``The withdrawal of this program was
pro-Mr. Bush.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
10 St. Petersburg Times: Scientist Says FSB Vindictive
#1030, Friday, December 17, 2004
By Vladimir Kovalev
STAFF WRITER St. Petersburg sociologist Olga Tsepilova has
written to newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda asking it to explain
why it printed an article last month accusing her of being a spy.
The article, published Nov. 13, referred to a plan by Tsepilova,
a member of the Academy of Science, to conduct a public opinion
poll in the closed town of Ozyorsk located in the Chelyabinsk
region. The town is contaminated with radioactivity as a result
of the operations of the nearby nuclear fuel reprocessing plant
Mayak, where radioactive materials and nuclear waste are stored.
The article says Tsepilova came to the attention of the Federal
Security Service in May when, in her haste, she forged the
signature of a director of the Sociology Institute where she
works. The signature was on a letter that had to be sent to
Ozyorsk early on the morning of May 12 to complete her
preparations for her trip to conduct the poll.
Tsepilova said the newspaper article is a provocation organized
by the FSB to prevent her conducting the poll, which the paper
described as "another spying scandal." Neither the FSB nor the
editor of Komsomolskaya Pravda could be reached for comment
Thursday.
"The St. Petersburg FSB has switched on to the case," the
article said. "The investigators have found out that Tsepilova
was going to conduct her 'research' together with Ozyorsk-based
organization Planet of Hopes on the topic of ecology and
politics. The sponsors have also been identified. They appear to
be the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization
well known to our special services. NED has never hidden its
friendly relations with the CIA."
Tsepilova said that soon after the FSB became involved she was
summoned to its St. Petersburg headquarters and was told that she
would be visiting investigators more often than she goes to work.
"When they asked me for documents to show how much money I was
paid to organize the research, I provided them," she said
Thursday in a telephone interview.
"I was getting only about 1,600 rubles a month [from Planet of
Hopes] then, which made us think just before the planned trip
what kind of tickets we could buy to go there.
"When FSB officials looked though these financial documents they
asked if the figures are in dollars or in euros and when I said
that this is in rubles they gave them back because they were not
interesting," she said.
Since the first interrogation, Tsepilova said she had noticed
FSB agents monitoring the area around the building where she
lives, especially on days when her friends and colleagues visit.
"It is simpler for them to keep 20 people working around
Tsepilova, rather than be busy with problems like Beslan," the
scientist said. "This may be the reason that people are unafraid
of the FSB because they can't be taken seriously."
In May, the FSB accused Tsepilova of attempting "to collect
unidentified information that could later damage interests of
Russia."
But all that the project intended to do was to find out the
opinions of local people about the state of the environment in
the region so that this information could help authorities to
address the problems, the scientist said.
Once the FSB were certain they had prevented her trip to
Ozyorsk, investigators calmed down and took no action against
her, Tsepilova said.
So she is unsure why the article was printed in November, almost
half a year after the conflict took place.
"Taking into account the recent cases of Valentin Danilov and
Alexander Sutyagin [both of whom were prosecuted by FSB for
spying] we should find out what is going on," she said.
Between 1949 and 1967, almost 188,000 people in the Chelyabinsk
region, where Ozyorsk is located, received dangerous radiation
doses after accidents at the Mayak plant, according to the
regional Radiation and Environmental Safety Department.
"I was very attracted by the idea of conducting research in
Ozyorsk because this is a very bright site for sociologist work,"
Tsepilova said.
"This is a place where several radioactive disasters have
occurred and where ecological risks keep increasing," she said.
"We could have got unique scientific and practical results,
which would have definitely help a region that is in trouble."
More top stories: Bankers Wary Of Yukos Suit | Campaign Aims to
Clean Up Image of Roma | Suspension Bridge Across Neva Opened |
10 Years for Murdering Syrian | Something to say? Write to the
Opinion Page Editor. E-mail or online form:
www.sptimes.ru/
[Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993-2004
*****************************************************************
11 Guardian Unlimited: White House Takes Cool Stance Toward Annan
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 17, 2004 8:16 AM
AP Photo DCGH103
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration, cool to U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan as he copes with calls for his
resignation, has a track record of trying to oust heads of U.N.
agencies.
This week, the administration called on Mohamed ElBaradei, the
Egyptian diplomat who heads the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, to
step down after completing a second term next summer.
And two years ago, the administration was instrumental in the
dismissal of Jose Mauricio Bustani, a Brazilian who was head of
the U.N. chemical weapons regulatory body.
The International Labor Organization ruled last year Bustani was
wrongly dismissed. The administration had accused him of
mismanagement, but his supporters said he was targeted because
he opposed the war with Iraq.
In Annan's case, it is a matter of the administration keeping
its distance while investigators look into charges of corruption
in the Iraqi oil-for-food program. It permitted Iraq under
Saddam Hussein to sell oil - despite an economic embargo -
provided that the proceeds were used for food and medicine for
the hard-pressed Iraqi people.
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., last month called Annan's
resignation ``inevitable,'' especially in light of revelations
that his son, Kojo Annan, received $30,000 a year for more than
five years from a Swiss-based company under investigation in
connection with the U.N. program.
Five House Republicans have called for Annan to resign. One of
them, Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, said beyond that, ``the
question is whether he should be in jail.''
Annan, who was in Washington on Thursday to speak to the Council
on Foreign Relations, met with Secretary of State Colin Powell
and his designated successor, Condoleezza Rice, mostly about
scheduled elections next month in Iraq.
However, the controversy swirling about the U.N. program was
never far from the surface.
Annan's speech was largely about updating the United Nations,
including how it might respond to terror and disease.
But he began it with a calm pledge to support his appointed
investigators, headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman
Paul Volcker.
``We must get to the bottom of these allegations,'' Annan said,
adding that all U.N. staff have been directed to cooperate or
face disciplinary measures, including dismissal.
Asked earlier at a news conference how he felt about Bush not
seeing him, Annan said, ``I don't feel snubbed.'' He added,
``The president and I have met on many occasions, and we also do
talk on the phone.''
Still, Bush last week declined an opportunity to endorse Annan
at a news conference.
``I look forward to a full disclosure of the facts, a good,
honest appraisal of that which went on, and it's important for
the integrity of the organization,'' Bush said.
Powell, meanwhile, did not spring to Annan's defense Thursday,
saying carefully, ``We want to get the truth out, and we want to
see these investigations come to a conclusion so responsibility
and accountability can be assigned. And the world wants to see
the results of these investigations as soon as possible, as
well.''
Ivo Daalder, senior fellow for policy studies at the Brookings
Institution, said the Bush administration has established a
pattern of disdain for the United Nations and other
international institutions and is ``not afraid to use its muscle
to remove people not to our liking.''
Daalder said in an interview that the administration got rid of
Bustani, the director general of the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and is trying to oust ElBaradei
as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency because ``he
had the temerity to disagree with the United States on Iraq -
and worse, was proved right.''
Before the war with Iraq, ElBaradei wanted to pursue weapons
inspections rather than use force against Saddam Hussein.
``This is an administration that, throughout its first four
years and presumably in its next four years, has shown a
remarkable disdain for international inspections,'' Daalder
said.
On the other hand, Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign
and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute, backed
the Bush administration but stopped short of calling for Annan's
resignation.
``Annan is only a symbol,'' she said in an interview. ``This is
about solving the far deeper problem at the U.N.''
``We are the biggest contributor to the U.N. and we pay the
largest part of their salaries,'' she said. ``It is not
unreasonable for us to expect they will be responsive to our
international concerns and they will not try to undermine us at
every turn.''
It is appropriate to try to limit ElBaradei to two terms at the
U.N. nuclear agency, she said. ``I think the administration is
100 per cent right to believe that when these jobs become a
sinecure, the leadership is useless,'' Pletka said.
EDITOR'S NOTE - Barry Schweid is the diplomatic correspondent
for The Associated Press.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
12 Office of the Secretary, U.S. N.R.C. Rulemaking Adjudications
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:22:05 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: vcolley
To: HEARINGDOCKET@nrc.gov
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 12:10 PM
Subject: Office of the Secretary, U.S. N.R.C. Rulemaking Adjudications Staff
Decmeber 17, 2004
Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington
D.C. attn: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff at 301-415-1101.
Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security
(PRESS) Member are from the community and workers that have been effected
by the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant.PRESS/NNWJ.. We feel that we were
not given proper notice of a public meeting for the docket meeting
70-7004.. We want to file a petition to intervene to give us more time to
review the documents that have been pulled from the ADAMS Library because
of nationally security concerns and came unavailable in September..
The reference information for this proceeding is USEC Inc. (American
Centrifuge Plant), Docket number 70-7004. rules.
We are requesting an extension on behalf of all potential interveners, or
to help us to decide whether to intervene. The NRC use to send us meeting
dates but we can't understand why we never received any notice about the
meeting on the (American Centrifuge Plant) until we read it in the paper..
You have been aware that PRESS has been giving input about the plant since
the 80's and have been the main source to release documents about the many
problems at the site including the Plutonium at the Portsmouth Gaseous
Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio in which the EEOICPA compensation bill was
put in place to help sick and dying workers, which I must state is flawed..
We have been on the mailing list for many years of the NRC and other
agency that work on the plants future.
We are asking you to please give us more time for the community to review
the documents and please hold another meeting for the communities input..
Below are a few reason that are input is very important to the health and
safety of the community and workers that are effected by this plant..
Thank you very much for review this request,,
Vina k. Colley PRESS/NNWJ
www.nnwj.com
Marvin's report identifies the source of groundwater contamination as far
as possible with DOE data. Groundwater plumes of radionuclides and toxic
chemicals extend to the east and south of the plant.
In addition to Marvin report contaminants have been found off-site, through
DOE continues dispute it. The plume below the holding pond on the east
side extends to Little Beaver Creek, which has to be considered off-site
since it flows out of the sites boundary. In 1975, average levels of Tc in
surface water in the creek were about 6,800pCi/L. As recently as 1996, TCE
were measured at levels of 110ug/L and 68pCi/L. Tc has been repeatedly
found in local residential monitoring wells. Also recently as 1992,
sediments in Little Beaver Creek, Big Beaver, and Scioto River were found
to have gross beta concentrations that were 5 times above background
according to the DOE documents in addition elevated levels of gross levels
of beta were found in fish tissues from all three rivers. The key problem
with this site and the reason for the lack of environmental date is that
DOE made up rules as the situation arose..Radionuclides are not removed
from the water during the treatment process..It might be possible that the
Tc in the extracted water is dumped directly into the water.
PRESS/NNWJ would like for the agency to come forward if any regulator
over see the radionuclides discharge from the Portsmouth site and if so how
long has this been monitor. We would like to see signs posted in the
creek, and the Scioto River that these place are contaminated..
POTENTIAL COMMUNITY HEALTH THREAT POSED BY
RADIATION IN CREEK
FLOWING FROM PORTSMOUTH GASEOUS DIFFUSION PLANT IN PIKETON, OH. Dr.
Paschenko has collected over 100 samples of water and soil around the
plant, which will be analyzed in SSGRs laboratory in the coming
months. However, in the first stage of analysis, Paschenko discovered
levels of beta activity in samples of foam that were at least 100 times higher than normal
background levels. This foam was collected in a creek that flows from the
plant grounds along border of the community residents. We need to have more
independent studies here to hold the government accountable,The report of
Groundwater Movement at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant by Marilynn
dela Merced, Beat Hintermann and Marvin Resnikoff, for Uranium Enrichment
Project, and PRESS should be looked at before we start pushing for more
dirty jobs for the area..We need to have independent scientists looking at
the problems here to hold the government accountable,
*****************************************************************
13 [NukeNet] U.S.: China to Lead Way in Nuclear Power
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:21:48 -0800
Possible Greatest Threat To Life On Earth:
http://www.heatisonline.org
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=R32CU1VIUWJFYCRBAEZSFEY?type=businessNews&storyID=7121764&pageNumber=1
U.S.: China to Lead Way in Nuclear Energy
Fri Dec 17, 2004 02:48 AM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - Outgoing U.S. Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham said on Friday China
would emerge a leader in nuclear energy and called
for further cooperation between the two countries
in developing alternative sources of power.
But he made no mention of Washington's decision
on the first-ever sale of powerful U.S.-made
nuclear reactors to China.
China's aim to expand its nuclear power
generation capability and moves to embrace the
newest generation of nuclear reactors were very
impressive, he told an audience of students at the
prestigious Tsinghua University.
"China is going to emerge in this century as a
global leader in nuclear energy," he said during a
two-day visit to Beijing.
"We hope we can learn more from your progress in
this area so that it might be possible for us in
America to see an expansion of nuclear energy in
the years ahead," said Abraham, who is due to be
replaced by treasury deputy secretary Samuel
Bodman.
Beijing, struggling with power shortages that
pose a threat to economic growth, has outlined an
ambitious plan to build dozens of reactors over
the next couple of decades and quadruple its
nuclear power capacity to 36,000 megawatts by
2020.
The government hopes nuclear power will account
for about 4 percent of total output by 2020 from
around 1.7 percent.
A senior U.S. official said in October
Washington would likely approve the reactor sale
to China in the next few months.
Approval would be a victory for
Pittsburgh-based, British-owned Westinghouse
Electric Co., which applied in February to build
two of its 1,100 megawatt, next-generation AP1000
reactors in China.
Nils Diaz, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, said at that time the Unite
d States was expected to ask China not to sell the
next-generation nuclear technology to countries
such as Iran and North Korea.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton cleared the
way for U.S. reactor sales to China in 1998 under
a bilateral cooperation pact after Beijing
promised to stop selling to Iran.
But in the past two years, U.S. officials have
said Beijing might be backing away from that
commitment. As recently as April, the
administration imposed sanctions on five Chinese
firms for trading with Iran, which Washington has
accused of developing nuclear weapons, a charge
Tehran denies.
Abraham said it was essential that China and the
United States work together to ensure adequate
global energy supplies given they accounted for a
third of world energy consumption.
Beijing and Washington had agreed in January to
form a U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue to
enhance bilateral cooperation in areas including
energy efficiency and renewable energy, he said.
"We are now preparing to move forward on a
policy level," Abraham said, adding this initially
meant building on the work of international
partnerships to which China and the U.S. already
belong.
Abraham met Chinese vice premier Zeng Peiyan on
Thursday, but no details on the discussions were
available from the U.S. embassy.
Monika Szymurska
Abolition 2000
Outreach and Development Coordinator
215 Lexington Avenue, Suite 1001
New York, NY 10016
e-mail: mszymurska@gracelinks.org
tel: (212) 726-9161
fax: (212) 726-9160
www.gracelinks.org
www.abolition2000.org
www.abolitionnow.org
_______________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
14 Brattleboro Reformer: Atomic Safety and Licensing Board grants a less formal hearing
for VY uprate case
December 17, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has decided
to grant a less formal hearing to intervenors in the Vermont
Yankee uprate case.
Hearings on the issue were held last month in Brattleboro,
during which the New England Coalition and the Vermont Department
of Public Service presented their arguments against the uprate
and pressed the panel for a formal hearing.
The hearing granted is known as a "subpart L" hearing and is
done primarily through the filing of documents. The more formal
procedure that was requested is run more like a trial, with
discovery and cross examination of witnesses.
Although the panel decided on the less formal process it will
hold at least one session in Vermont, where the judges will
question witnesses. According to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the judges may allow the lawyers
representing the intervenors to pose questions as well.
This is the first time that a request from a nuclear plant to
increase power has been challenged. Though the Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board operates under the auspices of the NRC, its panel
members are independent of the agency.
Any decision made by the panel can be appealed to the
three-member commission of the NRC.
Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition, expressed
his disappointment with the panel's decision.
"This is not the best way to develop a record and bring out
information," said Shadis. "But we will brace ourselves and move
on.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a
*****************************************************************
15 APP.COM: Oyster Creek gets extension past 2009
ASBURY PARK PRESS
Published in the Asbury Park Press 12/17/04
By NICHOLAS CLUNN
MANAHAWKIN BUREAU
Federal regulators plan to allow the Oyster Creek nuclear power
plant in Lacey to stay open if an application to renew the
reactor's operating license remains pending when the existing one
expires in 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced
Thursday.
Plant owner AmerGen asked the commission for this special
permission in August after it had missed a deadline that would
have automatically allowed the leeway.
The decision requires AmerGen to submit its license-renewal
application by July 2005, which is when company officials have
said they intend to do so. If AmerGen sticks to this timetable,
the NRC would have 44 months before the end of Oyster Creek's
existing license to review the application.
While regulators have taken 30 months to process most
license-renewal applications, AmerGen officials have said renewal
opponents could prolong the process. The scrutiny surrounding
Oyster Creek, the country's oldest commercial reactor, has been
unprecedented, according to industry observers.
"Because of all the negative pressure, it caused them to get
this exemption so they could better prepare their case." said
Brick Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli, a passionate license-renewal
opponent. "Before we got involved, they thought they had a
cakewalk."
Brian Reid, a Lacey Township Committee member who supports
relicensure, said the NRC would have made an impractical decision
if it had denied Oyster Creek's request.
"If the process is still ongoing, you don't want to shut it
down," he said. "If the paperwork is still going, that means
power is still being generated."
AmerGen needs the NRC to renew Oyster Creek's operating license
for the reactor to stay open beyond the end of its initial
40-year license, which expires in April 2009. All license
renewals are for 20 years.
Without the special permission, AmerGen would have had to cease
operating, at least temporarily, if the NRC had not decided on
the reactor's future when the existing license ran out.
Plant owners who submit license-renewal applications at least
five years before the expiration of their existing ones
automatically receive the go-head to stay open. AmerGen missed
this opportunity, however. It would have had to submit its
application by last April 9.
An ownership change at Oyster Creek delayed the application,
company officials have said. Exelon, an American holding company,
and British Energy had joint ownership of AmerGen until December
2003, when Exelon purchased British Energy's interest.
Reactions pro and con Retired nuclear engineer Frank Kowalczyk of
Stafford said he trusts that AmerGen has made the right decisions
and supports its plan to keep the plant open.
"I believe the company is doing what they should be doing to
meet the requirements," said Kowalczyk, 65.
But Art Wolinsky, a 60-year-old educator from Barnegat, said the
NRC's decision jeopardizes the safety of Ocean County residents.
"How can you say that the oldest nuclear power plant is safe
when there is no barometer to gauge that," he said.
The NRC issued its decision after it found that a temporary
extended operating period would "not have a significant impact on
the quality of the environment," the agency said in a press
release.
The decision exempts Oyster Creek's application from the NRC
"timely renewal" provision, which was established to give
regulators enough notice of a reactor's plan.
Regulations require the NRC to publish environmental assessments
before it issues exemptions. The NRC will print its findings in
the Federal Register and expects to formally issue the exemption
soon after that.
Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or [nclunn@app.com]
*****************************************************************
16 NRC: Licensing Support System Advisory Review Panel
FR Doc 04-27612
[Federal Register: December 17, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 242)]
[Notices] [Page 75570] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr17de04-104]
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of renewal of the Charter of the Licensing Support
Network Advisory Review Panel (LSNARP).
SUMMARY: The Licensing Support System Advisory Review Panel was
established by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a
Federal Advisory Committee in 1989. Its purpose was to provide
advice on the fundamental issues of design and development of an
electronic information management system to be used to store and
retrieve documents relating to the licensing of a geologic
repository for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste, and
on the operation and maintenance of the system. This electronic
information management system was known as the Licensing Support
System (LSS). In November, 1998 the Commission approved
amendments to 10 CFR Part 2 that renamed the Licensing Support
System Advisory Review Panel as the Licensing Support Network
Advisory Review Panel.
Membership on the Panel continues to be drawn from those
interests that will be affected by the use of the LSN, including
the Department of Energy, the NRC, the State of Nevada, the
National Congress of American Indians, affected units of local
governments in Nevada, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, and a
coalition of nuclear industry groups. Federal agencies with
expertise and experience in electronic information management
systems may also participate on the Panel.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that renewal of
the charter for the LSNARP until December 9, 2006 is in the
public interest in connection with duties imposed on the
Commission by law. This action is being taken in accordance with
the Federal Advisory Committee Act after consultation with the
Committee Management Secretariat, General Services
Administration.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Andrew L. Bates, Office of the
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555: Telephone 301-504-1963.
Dated: December 13, 2004.
Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer.
[FR Doc. 04-27612 Filed 12-16-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
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17 NRC: Notice of Availability and Draft Report for Comment,
FR Doc 04-27613
[Federal Register: December 17, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 242)]
[Notices] [Page 75570-75571] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr17de04-105]
``Evaluation of Loss of Offsite Power Events at Nuclear Power
Plants: 1986-2003'' AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
ACTION: Notice of availability of the Office of Nuclear
Regulatory Research draft report entitled, ``Evaluation of Loss
of Offsite Power Events at Nuclear Power Plants: 1986-2003,'' and
request for public comment.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is announcing
the availability of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
draft report entitled, ``Evaluation of Loss of Offsite Power
Events at Nuclear Power Plants: 1986-2003.''
DATES: Comments on this document should be submitted by January
31, 2005. Comments received after that date will be considered to
the extent practicable. To ensure efficient and complete comment
resolution, comments should include references to the section,
page, and line numbers of the document to which the comment
applies, if possible.
ADDRESSES: Members of the public are invited and encouraged to
submit written comments to Michael Lesar, Chief Rules and
Directives Branch, Office of Administration, Mail Stop T-6D59,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Hand-deliver comments attention to Michael Lesar, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on
Federal workdays. Comments may also be sent electronically
NRCREP@nrc.gov [NRCREP@nrc.gov] . This document is available at
the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html]
under Accession No. ML043380322, and at the NRC Public Document
Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Please note that on
October 25, 2004, the NRC terminated public access to ADAMS and
initiated an additional security review of publicly available
documents to ensure that potentially sensitive information is
removed from the ADAMS database accessible through the NRC's Web
site. Interested members of the public may obtain copies of the
referenced documents for review and/or copying by contacting the
Public Document Room pending resumption of public access to
ADAMS. The NRC Public Documents Room is located at NRC
Headquarters in Rockville, MD, and can be contacted at (800)
397-4209, (301) 415-4737 or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov
[pdr@nrc.gov] . FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dale Rasmuson,
Operating Experience Risk Analysis Branch, Office of Nuclear
Regulatory Research, telephone (301) 415-7571, e-mail dmr@nrc.gov
[dmr@nrc.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Draft Report Entitled, ``Evaluation of
Loss of Offsite Power Events at Nuclear Power Plants: 1986-2003''
This report is an update of two previous reports analyzing loss
of offsite power (LOOP) events at U.S. commercial nuclear power
plants. LOOP data over the period 1986-2003 were collected and
analyzed. Frequency and duration estimates for critical and
shutdown operations were generated for five categories of LOOPs:
plant centered, switchyard centered, grid related, severe weather
related, and extreme weather related. Overall, LOOP frequencies
during critical operation have decreased significantly in recent
years, while LOOP durations have increased. Various additional
topics of interest were also addressed. These topics include
potential effects of deregulation, seasonal impacts on LOOP
frequencies, consequential LOOPs and others.
Finally, additional engineering analyses of the LOOP data were
presented.
This information is needed in probabilistic risk assessment
models of U.S. commercial nuclear power plants to accurately
model current risk from LOOP and associated station blackout
scenarios.
The NRC is seeking public comment in order to receive feedback
from the widest range of parties and to ensure that all
information relevant to developing this document is available to
the NRC staff. This document is issued for comment only and is
not intended for interim use. The NRC will review
[[Page 75571]] public comments received on the document,
incorporate suggested changes as necessary, and issue the final
report for use.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 13th day of December, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Charles E. Ader, Director, Division of Risk Analysis and
Applications, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 04-27613 Filed 12-16-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
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18 The News Journal: New damage at Hope Creek
www.delawareonline.com ¦
NRC to meet with plant officials today
By JEFF MONTGOMERY / The News Journal 12/17/2004
In an expanded probe of safety equipment and plant risks, federal
regulators said they plan to ask officials at the Hope Creek
nuclear plant today about a damaged emergency cooling water
injector system discovered after an abrupt shutdown Oct. 10.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission already had planned to meet
with PSEG for talks on wear, damage and vibrations in the much
larger cooling water circulation pump at the 1,100 megawatt
reactor in New Jersey across from Augustine Beach. But commission
staff members this week said the damaged injector system would be
added to topics for review at a meeting with the utility in
Rockville, Md.
Hope Creek and other reactors use high pressure coolant injectors
as emergency cooling water feeds if other reactor systems fail,
including the circulation pump that is to be the main topic of
today's meeting.
PSEG spokesman Skip Sindoni said Thursday he was unable to
provide other information about the commission's focus on the
injector.
z Nuclear power critics have urged the commission to block Hope
Creek's restart until PSEG replaces the circulation pump, citing
reports that the aging and damaged system could suddenly fail,
potentially allowing a rapid escape of pressurized, radioactive
cooling water.
Watchdog groups pointed out that one of the more important
emergency backup systems for the pump - the high pressure coolant
injector, or HPCI - was the one found to be damaged. The injector
can push thousands of gallons of water per minute into the core
in the event of a leak.
"It just shows that the more they look, the more problems they're
going to find," said Norm Cohen, who directs UNPLUG Salem Now, a
group opposed to the restart. "It's another reason why we want
the plant closed down for an extended period of time, so they can
be gone over carefully."
Shutdown spurs probe
The Hope Creek facility is along the Delaware River adjacent to
PSEG's Salem Units 1 and 2 reactors. A steam pipe break forced
the shutdown in October, prompting PSEG to begin a refueling
operation two months ahead of schedule. Since then, there have
been a series of inquiries into plant maintenance problems and
safety practices.
PSEG officials have said if the circulation pump failed, other
safety systems would replace cooling water, protecting the
reactor core from a meltdown. PSEG Nuclear chief A. Christopher
Bakken III also said the reactor would remain offline until the
company is convinced the pump can operate safely, and insisted
that the $7 million to $8 million replacement cost was not a
factor in the decision.
Commission officials said last month that PSEG workers avoided
using the injector during the Oct. 10 shutdown because of a leak
that would have blasted mildly radioactive steam into a turbine
building. Instead, employees used manual controls to keep the
reactor core deep under water while managing an hours-long series
of fluctuations in the core's pressure and water levels.
Other details on the condition of the injector were unavailable
Thursday.
A commission document issued earlier this week listed a series of
questions about the circulation pump, built to pump water faster
than the injector. Regulators want the company to explain a
decision to postpone a major inspection or replacement of the
pump, as well as a second unit, and asked PSEG to report on the
potential for a cooling water release and or other risks if the
cracks worsen or if vibration levels change suddenly.
In one question posed in advance to PSEG, federal officials
asked: "How much time would operators have to recognize [based on
vibration change] and respond to a rapid pump shaft failure?"
A PSEG consultant confirmed last month that the pump's main shaft
has a slight bow, cracks and other problems. The consultant,
Chicago-based Sargent &Lundy, advised the company to have repair
and replacement equipment nearby in the event of a breakdown.
Reach Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or
[jmontgomery@delawareonline.com]
© 2004 delawareonline.com/The News Journal
*****************************************************************
19 Portsmouth Herald: Threat to nuke plant revealed
Fri. December 17, 2004
[PHOTO] Seabrook Station is shown in October.
Rich Beauchesne/File photo Photographer's Name NO EMAIL HERE-->
By Shir Haberman shaberman@seacoastonline.com
PORTSMOUTH - Officials at both the state Bureau of Emergency
Management and Seabrook Station say they are aware of
intelligence information about an alleged Iranian plot to crash
commercial airliners into the N.H. nuclear power plant. However,
spokesmen for both organizations discounted those reports.
State Emergency Management spokesman Jim Van Dongen acknowledged
that his boss, Bruce Cheney, the agency’s director, is aware of
the issue, but he added that the agency has not received any
information directly from the federal Department of Homeland
Security.
"There is always that general possibility (of a terrorist attack
on the Seabrook reactor)," said Van Dongen, "but we haven’t
received any information that it’s going to happen tomorrow."
Al Griffith, spokesman for Seabrook Station, said he’s not sure
why this issue is resurfacing now, nearly two years after he
first responded to media inquiries about threats against nuclear
power plants.
"This was part of the information that was shared between
appropriate law enforcement agencies," said Griffith. "What
happens is that whenever we get this type of information we make
a determination in conjunction with law enforcement. In this
case we felt the information did not warrant any further action
on our part."
The New York Sun newspaper reported on Tuesday that U.S. Rep.
Curt Weldon, R-Pa., beginning in February 2003, has held a
series of secret meetings in Paris with a former high-ranking
official in the government of the former shah of Iran. According
to Weldon, his source has correctly predicted a number of
internal developments in Iran, ranging from the current regime’s
atomic weapons programs to its support for international
terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, the newspaper reported in
an article by Eli Lake.
Based on two informants inside the ruling mullahs’ inner circle,
Weldon’s source, whom he code-named "Ali," relayed allegations
to the Pennsylvania lawmaker that an Iranian-backed terrorist
cell is seeking to hijack Canadian airliners and crash them into
an American reactor. The target of the operation was only
identified by Ali as "SEA," leading Weldon to believe it was the
Seabrook reactor.
Ali reportedly told the congressman that the attack was first
planned for between Nov. 23 and Dec. 3, 2003, but was postponed
to take place after this year’s presidential election.
On Aug. 22, 2003, the Toronto Star reported the arrest of 19
people in Canada for immigration violations, who were also
suspected of being connected with a terrorist conspiracy.
According to the newspaper account, one of the men in the
alleged terrorist cell was taking flight lessons and had flown
an airplane directly over an Ontario nuclear power plant.
Griffith, the Seabrook Station spokesman, said that even if the
information is correct - aside from the many security measures
enacted around airports and nuclear power plants since the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -
recent studies have shown that every one of the nation’s active
nuclear power plants could withstand a direct attack using
commercial jetliners.
"(The Electric Power Research Institute) conducted testing on
nuclear containment structures and concluded they would be able
to withstand a 9-11 type of attack," said the Seabrook Station
spokesman. "The issue is a radiation release, and we are
confident the integrity of our reactor could survive that kind
of attack."
Griffith explained that the New Hampshire plant has three
barriers to a radiological release. The first is its double-dome
containment structure, which is unique even within the industry.
The reactor itself is made of solid steel and located
underground, and the radioactive fuel pellets are contained in
steel rods.
Griffin also cited the plant’s internal culture.
"We remain vigilant, prepared and safe," the nuclear plant
spokesman said. "There is also now a level of involvement in
information sharing with law enforcement that did not exist
before 9-11."
Seacoast Online is owned and operated by Seacoast Newspapers.
Copyright © 2004 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved. Please
*****************************************************************
20 SF Chronicle: Where is that darn uranium?
David Lazarus
Friday, December 17, 2004
It's tempting to get in a few licks against Bob Glynn, who
announced the other day that he's stepping down as chief exec of
PG&E Corp.
But Glynn, who made millions while overseeing the bankruptcies of
two of the San Francisco parent company's divisions, will be
sticking around as chairman for another year. So there's no
hurry.
Instead, let's focus today on something else that PG&E would
prefer you didn't think about -- its failed efforts to track down
highly radioactive materials that have been missing for months.
The utility is now preparing to bring in an outside firm to
carefully vacuum a storage pool containing nuclear waste. It's a
last-ditch effort to turn up the missing uranium before finally
calling off the search next month.
John Nelson, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.,
acknowledged to me that the utility -- of which Glynn will also
remain as chairman until the end of 2005 -- may never know for
sure what happened to the missing materials.
"It's possible," he said. "We've found some fragments in the
pool, but we aren't sure those are the fragments we're looking
for."
PG&E has been scouring its mothballed Humboldt Bay nuclear power
plant near Eureka since July in hopes of turning up the missing
materials -- three 18-inch segments of a spent nuclear fuel rod.
Humboldt Bay's storage pool contains about 15,000 fuel rods. Each
rod in turn holds nearly 200 uranium pellets.
The Humboldt Bay plant was shut down in 1976. PG&E is now
preparing to decommission the facility and move all spent fuel
rods from the pool into so- called dry casks for long-term
storage.
The utility realized while conducting an inventory of the pool's
contents this summer that it couldn't account for the whereabouts
of the segments of one rod.
At the time, it blamed the snafu on shoddy record keeping and
said it expected to locate the missing pieces within just a few
weeks.
Now, five months later, PG&E officials are still scratching their
heads.
"The fragments that we've found so far in the pool add up to more
fuel than the amount we're looking for, so it's hard to say if
these are (the missing segments)," Nelson said.
"We've also reached out to all the external repositories that
could have received them," he continued. "None of them said, 'Oh
yeah, here they are. They were sitting in the corner all the
time.' "
PG&E's troubles notwithstanding, this doesn't bode well for the
proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The facility, which still faces licensing and funding hurdles,
has been harshly attacked by critics on environmental grounds.
It's also drawn fire because of the potential danger of
transporting millions of tons of nuclear waste by road and rail
from throughout the country.
"If an established company like PG&E can't keep track of fuel
rods, that does not inspire a lot of confidence in terms of Yucca
Mountain," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction
for Health and Environmental Justice, a San Francisco advocacy
group.
PG&E's Nelson countered that nuclear materials probably won't go
astray at Yucca Mountain because "the level of record keeping and
tracking even the smallest piece of fuel is much more precise now
than it was 40 years ago."
Because Yucca Mountain remains in limbo, though, PG&E is
proceeding with plans to build an above-ground radioactive waste
storage complex at its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San
Luis Obispo.
The utility cleared its final regulatory hurdle last week when
the California Coastal Commission gave its approval in return for
PG&E granting public access to 3 miles of coastline north of the
plant.
The new storage facility will cost $26 million in ratepayer
funds. Nelson said PG&E has no problem assuring customers that
careful records will be kept for all fuel rods stashed there.
In 2000, a Connecticut nuclear plant mislaid a pair of fuel rods
containing uranium and plutonium. The rods were never found and
the plant was subsequently fined $288,000 by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
Earlier this year, a nuclear plant in Vermont said it had lost
two pieces of radioactive waste, but they turned up again a
couple of months later.
PG&E hopes that vacuuming its Humboldt Bay storage pool will give
utility workers a better look at what may be littering the
bottom.
If the missing segments turn up, swell. If not, the utility says
it will keep searching until the end of January and then get off
a report on the failed search to federal authorities.
So, should we be worried?
Nelson says no. "There isn't enough (missing uranium) to make a
nuclear weapon, if that's what you wanted it for," he said.
But what about a so-called dirty bomb intended to contaminate a
populated area?
"It would not release enough radiation to cause significant
radiation- related damage," Nelson replied. "The explosion would
do more damage."
Still, PG&E would like its uranium back, in case anyone knows
where it is.
David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He
also can be seen regularly on KTVU's "Mornings on 2." Send tips
or feedback to dlazarus@sfchronicle.com.
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ |
[http://www.sfgate.com/staff/]
*****************************************************************
21 Champlain Channel: NRC Calls Vermont Yankee 'Overall Good'
[TheChamplainChannel.com]
Hundreds Gather To Hear Study Results
UPDATED: 9:33 AM EST December 17, 2004BRATTLEBORO, Vt. --
Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission came under tough
questioning Thursday night at a public meeting in Brattleboro
about two recent inspection reports at the Vermont Yankee nuclear
plant.
One has to do with an engineering assessment done in response to
a request by the Public Service Board in connection with Vermont
Yankee's request to boost power by 20 percent.
The other report deals with highly radioactive spent fuel that
was reported missing in April and found at the plant in July.
The NRC's Wayne Lanning said the engineering inspection showed
"the plant's overall material position is good."
A former nuclear industry engineer working with the anti-nuclear
New England Coalition said the inspection looked only at a small
percentage of the plant.
The NRC agreed to do a study of the plant. They found eight
violations out of 45 systems checked.
"That's not a very good batting average for a nuclear power
plant," said Yankee skeptic Arnie Gunderson. "We're not talking
about a chocolate company here. We're talking about nuclear
power."
The NRC said those violations are of very low significance when
it comes to safety. They will have to be addressed during the
plant's request for a power upgrade.
[newstips@thechamplainchannel.com] .
Copyright 2004 by TheChamplainChannel.com [planews@ibsys.com] .
*****************************************************************
22 ITAR-TASS: Putin, Khristenko discuss nuclear energy development issues
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]
17.12.2004, 11.26
MOSCOW, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir
Putin held a meeting on Friday with Minister of Industry and
Energy Viktor Khristenko to discuss matters pertaining to issues
of the country’s atomic energy and energy in the whole
development.
The press service of the head of state said the conversation
also dwelt upon certain aspects of the development of the
network infrastructure and effects on the economy of putting
into operation of power generating units of the Kalinin and
Volgodonsk nuclear power plants, as well as possibilities of
attracting additional funds, first of all by means of bank loans
for the energy sector development.
Khristenko pointed out that currently the country’s atomic
energy sector produces 16 percent of the total electricity
output in Russia.
This indicator reaches 30 percent in central regions and in the
Urals, the minister said.
Khristenko said that in accordance with the energy strategy of
the country it is envisaged to bring the share of NPPs in the
electric power production to 22-23 percent by the year 2020. In
the European zone of the country the share may reach 40 percent.
The minister also said that issues of reforming of the Russian
electric power complex will be considered at a meeting of the
government next week.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
23 Brattleboro Reformer: What a disaster
[http://www.reformer.com/]
December 17, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
If Thursday's school bus evacuation drill is any indication, the
area is woefully unprepared to handle a disaster that requires
local students to be whisked away to safety. Despite the advanced
notice and prior warning, little went off as planned.
Students in Windham Southeast and surrounding private schools
were supposed to be evacuated based on the scenario that a deadly
chemical spill had taken place in the Connecticut River. The
scenario was considered a simulation of an evacuation based on a
disaster at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
From the first notification at 9:25 a.m., the students should
have started boarding their buses 20 minutes later. That actually
never happened. The majority of buses didn't arrive at
Brattleboro Union High School until 11:25 a.m. -- a full 100
minutes after the students should have boarded.
Nearly from the start, the practice itself was besieged with
problems.
The scenario called for Vermont Yankee to sound its alarm, but
the plant wouldn't have sounded an alarm for this chemical spill
scenario.
There may have been breakdown in communication at the Department
of Public Safety in Waterbury, a relay point to call for buses
from New Hampshire, where the bus company had apparently grown
tired of waiting and had prior commitments to pick up children
elsewhere.
In addition, the bus companies, faced with trying to reorganize
the fleet for the evacuation, then wanted a student head count
and a tally of how many buses to scramble. It took time to
compile that information and relay it.
Some of the buses headed to Vermont took the wrong route.
And even then, there were too few buses. The school needed 30;
only 20 arrived.
At BUHS, it seemed that students with their own cars were able
to leave the school in time.
Officials admit the plan needs work. "If there are problems like
this, then it's not a viable plan," schools Superintendent Ronald
Stahley told the Associated Press following the drill.
Parents would rather know the practice run went off with nary a
hitch. And thankfully, the drill was just that -- a drill. But it
did little to bolster public confidence in the evacuation drill
-- especially with a controversial power uprate request at
Vermont Yankee.
Lessons can be learned, shortcomings can be bridged, and now
officials will have to fully commit to ensure the next drill --
or worse, the actual thing -- runs smoothly.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc.,
*****************************************************************
24 Brattleboro Reformer: NRC gets an earful at public hearing
December 17, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
Crowd members hold up plates signifying their feelings about the
speaker at a public meeting with Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
held at the Brattleboro Union High School yesterday. Red, yellow,
and green plates were passed out signifying whether crowd members
felt a speaker was lying, fudging the truth, or telling the
truth, respectively. Officials came under tough questioning as
they described two recent inspections at the Vermont Yankee
nuclear plant. (AP Photo/Brattleboro Reformer, Jason R. Henske)
By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- Though there were terse exchanges, heated speeches
and pointed questions, Thursday's meeting on the Nuclear
Regulatory inspections of Vermont Yankee went relatively
smoothly.
More than 500 people packed the auditorium of Brattleboro Union
High School to ask questions and gather information about NRC's
inspections on the fuel reported missing from the plant in April,
as well as its engineering inspection of Vermont Yankee.
Many came wearing anti-nuclear buttons and carrying signs
calling for the shut down of the plant.
Although a minority, employees from the plant also turned out,
several addressing the crowd during the question and answer
period. This was not the case at the March 31 meeting in Vernon,
which was also attended by over 500 people and was recently
characterized by one state official as "raucous and
confrontational."
Not only was Thursday's meeting far from raucous but during the
first 45 minutes of NRC presentation, except for the soft chatter
of a small child, the audience was utterly silent.
The meeting was facilitated by the Vermont State Nuclear
Advisory Panel, whose members were the first to ask questions.
Among their conerns was the methodology used by the NRC to
choose what components were looked at for the engineering
inspections.
According to inspection leader Jeff Jacobson, the inspection
consisted of two phases. The first looked broadly at a variety of
significant plant systems, while the second phase narrowed in on
smaller sample components and operator actions.
Of the 45 components examined closely, eight violations of NRC
regulations were discovered.
Tim Nulty, a citizen member of the panel, asked why the NRC
hadn't gone outside the agency to choose the components that were
looked at.
"Why don't you to go opponents and ask them what should be
looked at?" he asked. "That way we could get some agreement
across the political spectrum."
Jacobson answered it would be logistically problematic, but felt
that most experts in the field would agree with those chosen by
the NRC.
Nulty asked David O'Brien, chairman of the panel, if that
assertion could be tested.
This drew loud applause from the audience.
State nuclear engineer Bill Sherman voiced his support for the
NRC's inspection, which he was closely involved with.
Representatives from several anti-nuclear groups were given 20
minutes to present information and ask questions. Among the
groups represented were the New England Coalition, Nuclear-Free
Vermont and Citizens Awareness Network.
Speaking as an expert consultant for the coalition was
electrical engineer Paul Blanch, who has more than three decades
experience in the nuclear industry.
Blanch and Wayne Lanning, the NRC director of reactor safety,
had a heated exchange about Vermont Yankee's compliance with NRC
regulations.
Blanch insisted that the regulator simply didn't know how the
33-year-old plant complied with or deviated from NRC regulations
and therefore could not possibly assure that the plant was
running safely.
Lanning countered these assertions, saying that the NRC was
completely up to date on the issue.
"We are constantly reviewing it," he told the audience.
Also speaking for the coalition was technical advisor Ray
Shadis. While addressing the NRC and the panel, Shadis held up
two steel rods that were the same size as the segments of fuel
rods thought to be missing from the plant.
He chastised the NRC and Entergy, owners of the plant, for
describing the missing pieces as "pencil-thick."
"These are not pencil thick," declared Shadis, holding up the
two rods.
He went on to ask pointed questions about the scope of the
engineering inspection, saying it was minimal in comparison to
the one performed at Maine Yankee in 1996.
While most of the speakers were against nuclear power, several
spoke up in defense of the industry in general and Vermont Yankee
in particular.
Len Casella, who has worked at the plant for seven years in fire
protection, pointed out that he too had a family living and
working in the 10-mile radius around the plant. "I have as much
or more at stake in the safe running of Vermont Yankee than
anyone else in this room," he said, to the loud applause his
co-workers and supporters.
Also speaking on the plant's behalf was union representative
Corey Daniels, who presented a resolution passed in the fall of
2003 at a AFL-CIO conference. The resolution supported the
continued running of the plant and the approval of dry cask
storage.
In one of the meeting's more surreal moments, Vernon resident Ed
Sprague compared the New England Coalition to the insurgents in
Iraq.
He accused the group of fear-mongering, disrespectful behavior
and went so far as to suggest that they were probably capable of
terrorist acts.
Despite brief contentious moments, most speakers were listened
to without interruption and more than two hours were given to
public comment.
"It's always good to have the public's input," said Sherman, as
the meeting wound to a close, shortly before 10 p.m.
Before the meeting was over, the coalition presented the panel
with a petition asking the members to vote on a two-part
resolution. It called for an independent safety assessment of
Vermont Yankee, as well as verification from Entergy and the NRC
that the plant is in compliance with all applicable regulations.
The panel agreed to take it under consideration.
According to Alexander, the petition was signed by more than 270
people, who he commended for their participation in the process.
"These people care about the future. This is the kind of effort
its takes," he said.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc.,
*****************************************************************
25 Brattleboro Reformer: Evacuation drill runs into several snags
[http://www.reformer.com/]
December 17, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
By JUSTIN MASON Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- Numerous failures, including a shortage of buses,
hampered a large-scale school evacuation drill Thursday morning.
The problems that cropped up during the drill have sent state
and local officials back to the drawing board to revamp portions
of the Vermont Radiological Emergency Response Plan.
Too few school buses from New Hampshire arrived at Brattleboro
Union High School to carry the number of students who would have
had to been taken to an evacuation site.
Windham South East Supervisory Union Superintendent Ronald
Stahley said they needed about 30 buses; about 20 were available.
"If there are problems like this, then it's not a viable plan,"
said Stahley.
Hundreds of students from 17 private and public schools across
the region took place in the mock evacuation, but no one
predicted the colossal problems that stymied evacuation efforts
at Brattleboro Union High School, the largest school in Windham
County, for more than two hours.
The Vermont Emergency Management division monitored the exercise
and, although it still was collecting data about how well it
went, conceded that there weren't enough bus seats for the number
of students at Brattleboro schools.
Apparently, one problem that plagued the drill was a breakdown
in communication between Vermont Emergency Management
headquarters in Waterbury; New Hampshire Emergency Management in
Concord, N.H.; and the Laidlaw transportation terminal in
Swanzey, N.H.
Brattleboro Town Manager Jerry Remillard said the state needed
to contact New Hampshire to release the buses during the drill.
"That part of the process didn't work well," he said. "It took a
lot of time to get the buses out of New Hampshire," Remillard
said.
Around 11 a.m., buses received a call from the Laidlaw
dispatcher, Remillard said, asking drivers to return. He said one
of the drivers had reached the Green Street School, but left
before anyone could complete the drill.
Remillard noted that in the event of a real emergency
evacuation, some of the problems that occurred during the drill
wouldn't have posed an issue.
"In a real situation, we wouldn't have been going over so many
bureaucratic hurdles," he said. "But my concern is that this was
a drill and in some situations [the plan] just plain didn't work.
It was very obvious that some parts of the drill went OK and
other parts were downright embarrassing."
Stevens Goldsmith, an emergency planner with the Vermont
Department of Public Safety, said the buses had been called back
by Laidlaw in New Hampshire because of other commitments. But
during a real emergency, such an occurrence wouldn't have
happened.
"All bets are off in an emergency," he said.
Prior to the drill, BUHS students stood poised at doorways,
clutching coats and books in anticipation of the pending
evacuation. But more than an hour later, nothing had changed.
At about 10:15 a.m., nearly 40 minutes into the drill, an
official reported that the Vermont Emergency Management office
still hadn't contacted officials in New Hampshire. Many of the
buses, departing from the Laidlaw in Swanzey, were kept on
standby until receiving word from Vermont.
It took another 20 minutes for three of the pre-school buses to
arrive, followed shortly thereafter by the middle school buses,
which pulled in, one by one, as the minutes ticked by.
Then the problem came was revealed; 30 buses en route from New
Hampshire had been ordered to turn around. Some that made it
across the Vermont border had used the wrong routes, using Routes
142 and 119, rather than Route 9, where three Brattleboro Police
officers were directing traffic at the roundabout.
By 11:20 a.m., middle school students began filing onto the
buses in a somewhat orderly fashion. In about 10 minutes, all of
the students were loaded and accounted for on the buses.
But for the high school students, still waiting inside the
building, the evacuation took slightly longer. One of the buses
slated for the drill apparently broke down before reaching the
school.
The lengthy drill caused problems with the daily class
schedules, which ran behind for most of the day. "We had to hold
out students in block two classes past when they were dismissed,"
BUHS Principal James Day said.
Day stressed that teachers and students had done a great job
with the evacuation, but was dismayed by the initial outcome. He
said the simulation pointed to several immediate problems in the
plan that would need to be rectified before it could be
considered a success.
"Even with a well publicized drill, we didn't get the proper
amount of buses," he said. "There were a number of things that
didn't go as planned, but I was especially pleased with the
teachers and students who were able to adjust."
Brattleboro Union High School is within a few miles of the
Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and its administrators must
have a plan for how to evacuate the students if there were to be
an emergency.
Duncan Higgins, deputy director of the Emergency Management
division, said the school district wanted to conduct a test of
that plan. Higgins said it was too early, from the state's
perspective, to judge how well the drill went.
An analysis will be conducted after he and others review reports
from everyone involved. A report is expected to be released early
next week.
"The reasons we do drills is to find if there are gaps in the
policies and procedures and take corrective action," Higgins
said. "If we find such gaps we'll make whatever corrections need
to be made."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc.,
*****************************************************************
26 Guardian Unlimited: Cargo Security Plan Starts to Take Shape
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday December 16, 2004 11:01 PM
AP Photo NY884
By LESLIE MILLER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department hasn't
settled on a final plan to keep freight shipping safe from
terrorism, but it has concluded that a top priority is faster
deployment of more sophisticated radiation detectors at
airports, seaports and border crossings.
Officials released a draft cargo security strategy Thursday that
stated its most important objective is to intercept any weapon
of mass destruction at the U.S. border.
Among the other objectives are identifying high-risk cargo by
analyzing data about shipments and requiring mechanical seals on
all containers coming into the United States to prevent
tampering.
Intelligence indicates it's unlikely a terrorist would send a
weapon of mass destruction in a container shipped from overseas,
the paper said.
But the prevalence of smuggling and the horrible consequences of
an attack involving chemical, biological, radiological or
nuclear weapons led the Homeland Security Department to conclude
that it must do more to prevent terrorists from using legitimate
shipments to launch such an attack.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged the
complexity of protecting a system that begins with shipments of
raw materials to factories and ends with customers buying
finished products.
Adding to the challenge: Supplies change hands constantly as
they move by truck, rail and ship through ports, terminals and
border crossings around the globe.
``We need to set standards, we need to identify best practices,
and we need to call upon the companies and the individuals
responsible for cargo security to help us develop that
strategy,'' Ridge told several hundred government and business
representatives convened at Georgetown University to discuss the
draft strategy.
``It's absolutely critical to the parents who must have that
Dancing Elmo doll delivered in time for Christmas,'' he said.
More than 20,000 shipping containers pass through U.S. ports
daily, Ridge said.
Nearly two years after the Homeland Security Department was
formed, only ad hoc measures have been adopted to protect cargo
shipping, Ridge said.
Confusion within the department - especially among Customs and
Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration
and the Coast Guard - has stymied development of a national
cargo security plan.
``During the two years since DHS was established, this has
frequently led to questions of 'who's in charge?''' the draft
strategy noted.
Deputy Secretary James Loy acknowledged the delay, saying,
``This session is already a year late.''
The lack of coordination among government agencies is delaying
the shipment of goods, said some summit participants.
At the Texas border, trucks are stopped by three different
agencies that check the same paperwork, said Maria Luisa
O'Connell, president of the Border Trade Alliance, a nonprofit
that advocates improving cross-border trade.
``They're not talking to each other,'' said Rosa Hakala, vice
president of international supply chain at Home Depot. ``It
translates to a double expense.''
Gary Gilbert, chief security officer for Hutchison Port
Holdings, the world's largest marine terminal operator, said
it's high time that radiation detection equipment is deployed in
ports around the world.
Ports and terminals have been hardened into fortresses against
terrorists, he said, ``but every box that come into our
facilities is a Trojan horse.''
``We've got to move beyond power point here,'' Gilbert said.
On the Net:
Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
27 Daily Press: Have Lessons of the Gulf Been Learned?
[http://dailypress.com/]
HAMPTON ROADS, VA.
December 17, 2004 9:16 PM
The Pentagon's new rules for training and evaluating troops
exposed to depleted uranium aren't being followed in many cases,
troops say.
bevans@dailypress.com 247-4758
Chapter 7: Will it happen again?
By BOB EVANS
[bevans@dailypress.com] 247-4758
When U.S. troops deployed for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, very
few of them had even heard of depleted uranium.
Even fewer received any training about its characteristics or
possible health hazards.
"There was no training for depleted uranium," says Steve
Smithson, assistant director of the American Legion's Veterans
Affairs and Rehabilitation Division.
In the Gulf War, Smithson was in the 1st Marine Division. Since
then, he's been working to help vets with health problems they
think are related to their service.
There are a lot of them. More than a quarter of the 697,000 men
and women who went to the 1991 war have some form of disability
from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a rate nearly three
times higher than those of previous wars.
Government officials deny that any of those veterans are
suffering as a result of inhaling the toxic and mildly
radioactive dust that results from explosions involving depleted
uranium.
But after spending more than $247 million, they also can't say
what's made all those veterans so sick.
Which raises the question: What will happen to the troops from
the latest wars?
The official list from the 1991 conflict still has depleted
uranium weapons as a possible culprit. But it also includes
high-strength bug repellent containing DEET and other chemicals;
experimental pills and shots given to ward off the effects of
diseases; exposure to chemical weapons; and inhalation of high
levels of hydrocarbons from oil-well fires.
Military health officials say the troops who fought in Iraq and
Afghanistan will be spared most of those risks, but they
acknowledge that it'll be years before they'll be able to say
with certainty how much healthier they will be.
Many of the dangers encountered by troops in the 1991 war have
simply been avoided: Different bug sprays and drugs are being
employed to keep people healthy, for instance.
But not all have been replaced, including the use of depleted
uranium weapons. The weapons provide a decisive advantage on the
battlefield because they can slice through the toughest armor
used in opponents' tanks and other hardware. Pentagon officials
say about 150 tons of the slim depleted uranium projectiles were
fired in Operation Iraqi Freedom - about half the amount used in
the Gulf War.
Pentagon officials insist that any dangers to U.S. troops from
the use of depleted uranium weapons will be reduced
significantly as a result of training programs enacted since the
1991 war.
No training was offered for reservists at Fort Eustis
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, has raised
questions about how much of the training has been pushed down
the ranks, particularly when it comes to reserve units.
So do the troops who've gone to fight the latest war.
A key Army environmental and health study says transportation
soldiers are among those who should have special training. Fort
Eustis in Newport News is the home of the Army Transportation
Corps, a post that's sent thousands of active-duty and reserve
troops off to war in the past two years.
It offered no training in depleted uranium to hundreds of
reservists called up to be deployed overseas, and it stopped
giving that training to the regular Army troops at the post in
late 2002, officials there say.
Having any training at all on the dangers of depleted uranium on
the battlefield is a big change from what the soldiers who went
off to fight the 1991 Gulf War experienced, says Michael J.
Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health at the Pentagon.
"The Army has done an excellent job in doing depleted uranium
awareness training," he says. Several years ago, the Army made
questions about depleted uranium part of its "Common Tasks
Manual," a compilation of military knowledge and skills that
makes up an annual quiz each soldier takes before being
certified up to speed in training.
Kilpatrick says one indication this is working is that only
about 1,000 men and women returning home from service in
Operation Iraqi Freedom have asked for testing so far. Only five
have tested positive for exposure to depleted uranium, he says,
and all of them had depleted uranium shrapnel.
More than 250,000 Army soldiers have been to the Iraqi war
theater so far, an Army spokesman says. Navy and Air Force
personnel aren't considered likely for exposure to depleted
uranium from a battlefield, though at least one of the people
who tested positive for depleted uranium from the recent
fighting was in the Air Force, Pentagon officials say.
Critics say the low numbers could result from other factors.
K. Craig Hyams, a medical doctor and consultant to the
Department of Veterans Affairs, says the Pentagon's method of
deciding who needs to be tested is flawed - and probably is part
of the reason that the number of returning service personnel
designated for medical attention isn't higher.
Unless someone has an obvious exposure on the battlefield and
is tested by medical personnel overseas, the military relies on
a four-page questionnaire to identify who's been exposed and who
needs to be tested, Kilpatrick says. Troops are supposed to fill
out the questionnaire, identifying whether they experienced
possible exposures to depleted uranium or other hazards. Each
questionnaire is then supposed to be reviewed by trained medical
personnel.
Hyams points out that the questionnaire depends on the troops
to identify and remember potential hazards. Like any
self-reporting survey, it therefore has inherent flaws.
Additionally, he says, it's handed to troops just as they're
ready to go home from war. It's not a time when troops want to
identify themselves as someone in need of additional attention
from doctors or officers, he says, or set themselves apart from
their buddies.
"When they come home, they're thinking about coming home," he
told a congressional panel. "They don't want to get held up in
medical."
Troops know that if they raise a fuss about possible health
issues when they come back from deployment, it will only delay
the time when they get to be with their loved ones. "So these
are not good periods of time to try to put all your eggs in that
basket to collect information," Hyams testified.
More than two dozen veterans of the war interviewed by the Daily
Press say they weren't questioned or tested for depleted
uranium, even after they'd reported exposures on the forms. They
were from six units and processed back into the country at three
sites.
Steve Robinson is executive director of the Gulf War Resource
Center veterans rights group. He says that while he helped
congressional aides look into the problems of soldiers returning
home from war, some troops said their senior officers
discouraged them from asking for depleted uranium testing. He
says troops returning to Army posts in Georgia, Kentucky and New
Jersey made those complaints.
Members of Congress have warned that one result of the
Pentagon's failure to promptly address health problems with
troops is that the cost of testing and medical care is shifted
from the defense budget to the overburdened VA budget and health
care system.
Anyone who deployed to the Persian Gulf region is eligible for
up to two years of VA care. After the Gulf War, those who left
the military had to prove that their problems were
service-related before they could get that care.
Veterans say foolproof training isn't likely
Thousands of troops have been processed back into the country
through Fort Eustis and Langley Air Force Base since the
fighting began in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Military health officials at each installation say every
returning airman and soldier is given the four-page
post-deployment health questionnaire, which asks for information
about where they saw service, what they did, what part of the
military they're in, their pay grade and other facts.
It's a form that can be fed into a computer, so it involves
mostly "yes," "no" or fill-in-a-circle questions. Troops are
asked about any health complaints, how many times they went to
sick call, and about any drugs that they took while deployed.
Pentagon officials say they plan to archive the completed forms
in case the information is needed later.
Question 14 is a list of 22 possible hazards that the soldier
thinks he or she might have been exposed to. The soldier is
supposed to color in a circle under the heading of "no,"
"sometimes" or "often" for each one.
The list includes "DEET insect repellent applied to skin," "flea
or tick collars," "paints," "radar/microwaves," "loud noises,"
"sand/dust" and other items.
The second-to-last item on the list is "Depleted Uranium (If
yes, explain)."
A 11/2 -inch-long black line comes after "explain" for anyone
who wants to fill it in.
That's the only question that specifically inquires about
depleted uranium, though there's a question that asks, "Were you
in or did you enter or closely inspect any destroyed military
vehicles?" Another asks, "Do you think you were exposed to any
chemical, biological or radiological warfare agents during this
deployment?"
Smithson, who fought in the Persian Gulf War as a Marine, and
Robinson, who spent 20 years in the Army and served as a Ranger,
say the questionnaire's reliance on foolproof training is a
mistake. "Just because the course is there or the information is
there doesn't mean it's being implemented across the board,"
says Smithson of the American Legion.
Kilpatrick says the level of training about depleted uranium
before deployment makes the self-reporting approach to the
problem valid. He says anyone who says on the questionnaire that
they were exposed to depleted uranium "sometimes" or "often" is
questioned thoroughly by trained medical staff. A urine test for
depleted uranium is given when the military examiner thinks that
one is necessary or when someone asks.
Troops back from the war disagree.
Some troops say testing for DU is discouraged
Michael Lemke, 45, of Denver rejoined the Army Reserve after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He'd seen the destruction and
carnage, then saw his former college roommate on television in a
New York Fire Department uniform, going through the rubble.
He'd left the Reserve 13 years earlier, and active duty years
before that, but he knew that he wanted to be part of the
response to terrorism. "I wanted to kick some ass," he says. "I
was mad."
He figured that young troops could use an old sergeant to help
them. So he left his wife, his kids and a secure government job
as an airline baggage safety inspector and finagled his way back
into uniform. When he learned that his Reserve unit wasn't
likely to be called up, he worked his way into another - a
combat support unit accompanying troops during the hottest part
of the war in Iraq. His unit captured the later-notorious Abu
Gharib prison and the railhead in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, he
says.
Racing through - and to - the enemy involved breathing a lot of
smoke from Iraqi tanks and other vehicles hit by depleted
uranium, he says. After suffering some injuries, he was sent to
a hospital in Germany and eventually to a hospital in his home
state of Colorado, at Fort Collins.
At each step, he says, he was told that he had to fill out the
post-deployment questionnaire before he could move forward for
treatment. And at each step, he says, he reported exposure to
depleted uranium weapons and the tanks and other objects they'd
hit.
No one in the military medical system ever asked him about the
exposures, he says, even though he spent a year in the hospital
at Fort Collins, mostly waiting to be discharged with a medical
disability. Usually, no one whom he saw even read the form.
Now he's got breathing problems and wants VA officials to give
him a urine test for depleted uranium.
Other veterans of the war, whether they thought they had
exposure to depleted uranium or not, say that happened to them
too. They simply handed in the forms and went on their way, with
no indication that anyone ever read what they checked or wrote.
Lemke says he's worried that several of his health problems
might be related to depleted uranium exposure. He's constantly
short of breath, "with or without physical exertion," he says.
He quit smoking years ago and says he ran five miles a day
before the war.
Memory loss, heart problems and frequent migraine headaches are
also part of the picture, he says. All are typical of problems
reported by veterans of the Persian Gulf War.
Lemke says he's willing to talk about the Army's failures now
because he's left the service on partial disability and is
beyond the reach of reprisals. He says soldiers whom he lived
with in the hospital at Fort Collins frequently talked about the
military's failure to address their concerns involving exposure
to depleted uranium and other problems.
He says they also talked about how they couldn't take their
worries public, for fear of punishment.
Other troops who deployed - but asked that their names not be
used because they feared retribution before their benefits were
settled - told similar stories to the Daily Press about how
faulty the screening process was when they came home.
Robinson, of the Gulf War Resource Center, says he's talked to
dozens of soldiers who've returned from Afghanistan and Iraq who
say their superiors made it clear that they shouldn't press for
depleted uranium testing.
Those who want to continue their careers go without the tests,
he says. The others are planning to ask for testing once they're
in the VA system.
Few troops are tested, despite reporting exposures
Earlier this year, the GAO briefly looked into how well the
testing program was going. It was part of a wider investigation
into the Pentagon's health screening for deployed troops.
Rep. Robert Filner, D-Calif., asked for the investigation, and
Dan Fahey, a longtime researcher on depleted uranium, sat in on
a September briefing on the topic at the congressman's request.
The agency's final report isn't finished.
Fahey says GAO investigators reported examining records at seven
bases where Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine personnel were
processed back from the war.
After examining 1,126 questionnaires, they found only 32 people
who reported possible exposure to depleted uranium, Fahey says.
Of the 32, only three received testing, the GAO investigators
reported.
An Army Reserve unit processed through Fort Eustis was one of
those the GAO auditors examined, Fahey says, but it was not
identified. Of the 127 people in that unit, three indicated
depleted uranium exposure "sometimes" or "often." The GAO
investigators said one was given depleted uranium testing,
another was referred for additional medical examination but not
necessarily for depleted uranium, while the third was deemed by
the fort's medical personnel to be someone who didn't need
testing.
The GAO investigators said they did not ask why that person, or
any others, weren't tested, Fahey says. In one case, 19 members
of a 146-person Air Force special operations unit reported
depleted uranium exposure, but only one of them was tested.
None of the 270 Marines reported potential exposure, Fahey says,
even though Marine units typically were involved in the type of
combat where the weapons are used extensively.
The Pentagon lists three levels of exposure
Kilpatrick says filling in the "sometimes" or "often" circle on
the questionnaire isn't enough reason to give someone a depleted
uranium test.
The criteria that determines who gets tested and who doesn't
puts exposure risks into three categories:
Level I involves people who were in or on a vehicle struck by a
depleted uranium weapon, or someone who tried to rescue someone
from a vehicle immediately after it had been struck.
Level II involves soldiers who did not wear a respirator when
they spent several hours entering vehicles struck by depleted
uranium or fought fires involving depleted uranium munitions.
Level III involves people who drove through smoke from a fire
involving depleted uranium, entered a vehicle that had been hit
or had "infrequent and short-term exposures."
Kilpatrick says medical personnel trained in depleted uranium
exposure risks should question troops who filled in the
"sometimes" or "often" answer involving depleted uranium
exposure. Those questions should lead to an assessment exposure
levels.
Troops with exposures in Level I and Level II are supposed to be
tested, Kilpatrick says. Tests aren't recommended for Level III
exposures but will be given if someone requests it, he says.
He and other Pentagon officials say it's unlikely that anyone
who wasn't exposed to a lot of the dust is in danger.
But some scientists have found that a single particle of
depleted uranium dust can cause the type of mutations in cells
thought to lead to cancer.
The exposures that Lemke and most troops report fall into Level
III.
Health officials at Langley and Fort Eustis say they're
confident that the post-deployment health form and screening is
working properly. That's in part, they say, because of the
training that people receive before their deployment and in part
because of the care that's given when they return.
Smithson and Robinson, who have served in the military and are
familiar with the training, say they're being too optimistic.
The training is so poor, so out of date and so biased, soldiers
can't be expected to fill in the questionnaires in a meaningful
way, Robinson says.
Smithson says the military isn't likely to emphasize the danger
of the weapons because "they don't - and this is my personal
opinion - want to freak people out."
After the 1991 war and the thousands of undiagnosed illnesses
suffered by its veterans, the Pentagon finally admitted in 1997
that soldiers ordered to clean up battlefield sites were
unnecessarily exposed to potentially dangerous levels of
depleted uranium dust. The admission occurred after Congress
asked the Army Environmental Policy Institute to make a full
report on the issue.
The institute's long report to Congress called for a number of
changes in policies. The recommendations included improved
training "for the wide variety of soldiers and support personnel
who may come in contact with depleted uranium or
depleted-uranium-contaminated equipment."
"At a minimum," it read, "the Army should include armor,
infantry, engineer, ordnance, transportation and medical
personnel in this training."
'I didn't ever think I'd have a need.'
Transportation personnel were identified because they might be
responsible for delivering the ammunition and also could be
expected to be near the front lines where it was used. Pentagon
investigations into possibly hazardous depleted uranium
exposures during the Gulf War include instances where trucks
thought to be carrying depleted uranium munitions caught fire
because of faulty brakes and other reasons. Once the fires
started, the trucks' cargos burned, creating a possible
contamination problem in the air for nearby troops and the truck
crews, the reports read.
Depleted uranium weapons are prone to easy combustion. Once they
start burning, tiny bits of the weapons start turning into
mildly radioactive toxic dust particles that are easily inhaled
and can carry on the wind or drafts of air that accompany a
fire, Army records show. Once inhaled, those particles provide
risk of cancer and other health problems.
At Fort Eustis, most of the troops who have deployed and
returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom are members of Reserve
transportation units.
Interviews with members of the 547th Transportation Battalion -
a Reserve unit from Washington, D.C., and one of the largest
Reserve units to process through Fort Eustis - found that only
one soldier recalled getting any training in depleted uranium -
the commanding officer. Rank-and-file troops, even squad and
platoon leaders, say it didn't happen.
Shannon Goodwin, a Head Start administrator and pastor who
serves as a platoon sergeant in the Reserve unit, says she's
never received training in depleted uranium. While deployed in
Iraq, she was responsible for the safety and training of 32 to
36 soldiers, she says. She's been in the Reserve seven years and
says she'd know what training her platoon received.
Goodwin says her troops could have been asked to transport
depleted uranium weapons while in Iraq, but were never called on
to do it. Mostly, they provided security for convoys carrying
mail and other items.
While in Iraq, they saw plenty of blown-up Iraqi tanks and other
vehicles, but she never got close to them, she says. Many were
left from the 1991 war. "They were off-limits, a safety hazard,"
she says. But no one ever said exactly why.
She says she's never researched or studied depleted uranium and
doesn't know much about it. "I didn't ever think I'd have a
need," Goodwin says. "I never thought I'd be in Iraq, either."
When she got back to Fort Eustis after her 18-month deployment,
Goodwin says, she was handed the health questionnaire and saw
the question about depleted uranium. She says she asked the
medics in the unit what to do, and on their advice, she wrote
"not sure," just in case there might be a problem later.
Other members of the unit reported similar experiences. Sgt.
Awadit Ramdat said he, too, had never been trained about the
hazards of depleted uranium or how to spot where it had been
used.
"I do not know much about it," he says. He says he checked one
of the boxes to indicate possible exposure on the health
questionnaire, just in case.
No one questioned him about it further, he says, other than to
ask whether he ever went into any Iraqi tanks that had been
blown up.
He hadn't gone inside, but "we were close," he says. "The tanks
were right there," no more than 20 to 30 feet away.
Training, at best, consisted of a 15-minute film
Army training materials say people not wearing protective masks
and clothing should stay 160 or more feet away to avoid the dust
from explosions. Army medical personnel are taught to consider
exposures such as Ramdat's inconsequential.
Ramdat and Goodwin say they feel just fine, now that they're
home.
Capt. Malik Freeman, commander of their unit, says his health is
good too. He also says his troops were trained about depleted
uranium before deployment. "They brief you several times about
it," he says, but he acknowledges that "there's not a lot of
time spent on it."
The training mostly involves a 15-minute film, which his unit
saw at Fort Eustis, he says. "Sometimes, soldiers don't
remember. We give them so many briefings."
Those briefings didn't include the dangers of depleted uranium,
at least not at Fort Eustis, officials there say. They say they
didn't offer any training like that to reservists from the 547th
or any other unit that processed through.
"None of those people asked for, or got, any training," says
Betty Bartz, a spokeswoman for Fort Eustis.
Freeman says he wasn't aware any of his troops marked their
health questionnaires in a way that indicated possible exposure
once they'd returned home. In civilian life, he's an agent for
the U.S. Department of Transportation who investigates illegal
transportation of hazardous substances, he says.
His unit spent 11 weeks at Fort Eustis before it could be
deployed, Freeman says. Originally, it was supposed to take only
four weeks, but the Army wasn't satisfied that the unit was
safely ready to go and kept it until it was adequately prepared.
The Army has a long checklist of training, medical and other
requirements that must be met before Reserve troops can be
deployed.
Checking to see whether they had training in depleted uranium
wasn't one of them, says Col. Don Caldwell, who commanded the
Reserve unit responsible for administering that checklist for
deploying Reserve units at Fort Eustis from April 2003 until
July. He says no training in the subject was provided there that
he knew about.
"That was one issue that I don't remember being raised," he says.
Lemke and members of Reserve units deployed from several other
sites say they also didn't receive any training about the
possible hazards of depleted uranium on the battlefield before
or during deployment.
For active-duty Army personnel, depleted uranium is covered in
basic training for all soldiers, says Camille Kenner, a
spokesman for the Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort
Leonard Wood, Mo. For troops who get later specialized training
in battle-damage repair, chemical weapons or Bradley Fighting
vehicles, there's additional training.
She and other Training and Doctrine Command officials say they
have no record of how many troops who participated in Operation
Iraqi Freedom and subsequent operations had depleted uranium
training. They said it wasn't up to them to keep those records.
They referred questions about training in that area to Central
Command, which oversees all troops deployed to the Iraqi and
Afghanistan war theaters. Officials there said they didn't know,
either.
Four years ago, the GAO reported the same problem to Congress
and the Pentagon. It also recommended that the military do a
better job of ensuring that troops receive proper training
before deployment.
Depleted uranium training comes off the list
The watchdog agency found that Army combat infantry troops
deployed to Kosovo, where depleted uranium weapons were used
extensively, often didn't receive training about depleted
uranium's dangers.
Only 65 percent of the troops that it interviewed had that
training, the GAO says, and there was great variation among
units as to whether soldiers had been trained and how
well-versed they were in issues related to the hazards of
depleted uranium.
Active-duty unit commanders can add training to their troops'
plates, even if it isn't required, Kenner says, so it's possible
that many units go beyond the minimum. The Army doesn't keep
track of that, either, she says.
The GAO and several members of Congress have pointed out a
difference between the training and equipment provided to
Reserve units deployed to Iraq and the regular Army units sent
to that battlefield.
Fort Eustis sent a number of Reserve and National Guard units to
Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the 7th Transportation Group,
an active-duty regular Army unit now in the gulf region.
Before the 7th deployed, Capt. Thelonious McLean-Burrell was the
group's training officer, as well as the nuclear, biological and
chemical warfare officer. He says members of his unit have been
going to assignments in the battle zone since the fall of 2002.
Even though Pentagon officials say that all soldiers are
supposed to be tested on their knowledge of depleted uranium
safety issues each year, that has not been a part of the unit's
training since the deployments began, he says.
Before that, it was an annual requirement, he says.
"It came off the list in 2003 and again this year,"
McLean-Burrell says. "I don't expect it to come back on. We're
not fighting any tank battles."
McLean-Burrell and other members of the 7th are now deployed in
Iraq and Kuwait.
Copyright ©2004 Daily Press
*****************************************************************
28 The Daily Press: For Veterans, What's Next?
[http://dailypress.com/]
HAMPTON ROADS, VA.
December 17, 2004 9:16 PM
[bevans@dailypress.com] 247-4758
Chapter 8: Coming home
BY BOB EVANS
[bevans@dailypress.com] 247-4758
After he came home from the 1991 Persian Gulf War as an
honorably discharged vet, Matt Rohman tried to go back to work
as a landscaper, the job that he'd held before joining the Army.
When he enlisted in 1989, he was 24, 200 pounds and a few years
past his glory as a multisport athlete at Tabb High School.
Essentially, friends say, Rohman was a bigger, stronger version
of the linebacker who helped win the 1981 state football
championship.
By the time he came home from the Gulf War, he was down to about
160 pounds. He'd lost his teeth and, seemingly, all his
strength. The Army offered an early honorable discharge and a 20
percent disability for a knee injury that he'd suffered in Iraq,
then sent him home. Months passed, and it only got worse. On
many days, Rohman was too weak to work. An unexplained fatigue
sapped him.
Bobby Kriegbaum, owner of Nature's Way landscaping in York
County, knew Rohman as a hard worker before the war. Kriegbaum,
a retired vet, wanted to help. So he looked the other way when
Rohman wasn't up to par, giving him easy duties or paying him to
stay home or go to doctors.
Unlike many veterans of the Gulf War who came home sick and
without health insurance, Rohman had access to the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs' health system because of his
service-related knee injury.
Those doctor visits didn't stop the onslaught of medical
mysteries, though. Things got worse, and more things went wrong.
The fatigue was followed by severe pains in his joints and head.
His lungs wouldn't draw a full breath. He lost feeling in his
hands and feet.
By 1997, Rohman was so weak, in so much daily pain and so
debilitated by the numbing neuropathy in his hands and feet, he
couldn't work even a few days a week or month. On most days, he
was lucky to be able to get out of bed.
A Williamsburg lawyer, Edgar R. Jones, volunteered to get Rohman
a better VA disability check. After four years of fighting, he
finally convinced the government that Rohman's other ills were
service-related from the war. He won Rohman a 70 percent
disability rating that now yields about $1,200 a month. Jones
and another attorney, Cynthia Thorpe, won Rohman a supplemental
Social Security disability check of about $700 a month.
By then, Rohman had married his high school sweetheart,
Kimberly. He'd planned to ask her out when he got home after the
war, he says. But then he decided to wait until the VA doctors
solved his health problems. He'd never expected it to take so
long. Meanwhile, Kimberly had married someone else, had a
daughter and then got divorced.
'We break a lot of glasses,' veteran's wife says
Rohman eventually decided not to wait for a cure to ask her out,
even though he could hardly walk.
"Personalitywise, he hasn't changed a bit," Kimberly says. He's
still the kind, gentle and good-humored guy she'd dated as a
teenager. The frail body and pain were no reason not to marry
him.
"We break a lot of glasses," she says with a smile, when asked
what it's like. The glasses break because her husband can't feel
how hard he's gripping anything. He either drops them from
squeezing too little or shatters them into bloody shards from
squeezing too tight.
He also has memory problems, typical of Gulf War vets who are
sick and of people who take a lot of medications. "That causes a
lot of discussions between the two of us," she says, closing her
eyes briefly, then glancing at her husband, who grins.
The Rohmans also can't take trips or vacations, or plan big
events with certainty, because Matt can't count on being well
enough to travel or even be able to show up that far in advance.
Kimberly can't work more than a few days a week without hiring a
baby sitter or calling on a relative because Matt can't
physically handle taking care of the kids more often than that.
Sometimes they have to call the relative in anyway, because
there are days when he simply can't handle it.
They had a son nearly two years ago. Jacob, now 22 months, has a
respiratory problem normally associated with premature babies.
But he wasn't born prematurely.
Matt has severe respiratory problems too, but doctors tell him
Jacob's illness isn't inherited.
Health researchers are still looking into whether illnesses
suffered by Gulf War vets are being passed to their offspring.
Some studies say yes, others no. None has looked comprehensively
at enough of the 697,000 who deployed to know for sure.
Rohman says he's now resigned to the likelihood that he'll never
get any better. "I was taking 15 pills a day," he says, but when
he did, "they numbed you, they kept you loopy."
So now he chooses carefully among the bottles and inhalers, in
search of a combination that makes the pains endurable without
losing his family to unconsciousness.
Backlogs are reported at VA, military hospitals
How many men and women like Rohman are out there as a result of
the hazards and toxins of the Gulf War isn't known. How many
there might be as a result of the continuing battles in Iraq
isn't known any better.
Steve Robinson, a retired Army Ranger who heads the Gulf War
Resource Center veterans rights group, says he fears that the
problem will be just as huge in a few years. Talking with
soldiers at posts in Georgia, New Jersey, Kentucky and other
locations that deployed large numbers of armor and ground troops
to the new war indicates a large problem is brewing, he says.
VA and military hospitals in those areas can't keep up with the
backlog, and at congressional hearings, veterans have complained
about being left in "medical hold" for months without getting
treatment. Robinson suspects that the government isn't being
forthcoming about the problem and that the numbers of troops
with undiagnosed illnesses will become apparent in only another
year or two.
Steve Smithson, who handles similar issues for the American
Legion, says he's heard and seen the same thing. Smithson, a
Marine in the 1991 Gulf War, says he doesn't expect the
illnesses from the more recent fighting to be as widespread but
cautions that there'll be different illnesses and problems to
unravel. "It's a different war," he says.
Besides, he says, there are more troops with obvious physical
and psychological injuries this time.
Michael Kilpatrick, the Pentagon's deputy director of health for
deployed troops, says 20,000 people had been evacuated for
health reasons from the Iraqi theater of war as of October.
About 80 percent of them had noncombat injuries, illnesses or
health complaints. Others were injured, treated and sent back to
their units.
That's not a full count of troops with war-related health
problems, he says. It doesn't include those who came back home
with their units but realized later they needed treatment. VA
hospitals are reporting many veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom
have checked in for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
None of the troops officially listed as medical evacuees is ill
as a result of exposure to depleted uranium, Kilpatrick says.
But he can't say how many of those cases have diagnoses or fit
into the pattern of fatigue, muscle weakness, pain and other
symptoms similar to those exhibited after the Gulf War.
About 5,789 troops were being held in medical units as of Oct.
22, he says, which indicates their health problems are
unresolved. That could mean there's a diagnosis but treatment
hasn't happened yet. The number changes every day as ill or
injured people come into that status and well people leave. "To
look at numbers of people in that category, that's still a work
in progress," Kilpatrick says. About 9,000 others have been in
and out of that status.
Most of the troops held in medical units for treatment have
diagnoses and are getting treatment, he says.
For the others, the lack of a diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean
there's another wave of sick soldiers coming like the one from
the 1991 war, he says.
The inability to diagnose an illness is common in civilian and
military medical practice. In about 75 percent of those cases,
there's never a diagnosis, he says. The symptoms just go away.
The rest of the time, doctors order more tests, evaluations and
specialists, he says. That's why reservists coming back from the
war can go into medical hold for up to a year. That's about how
long it takes to make sure that every case is evaluated and
treated to the best of the military medical system's ability. At
year's end, a medical board decides whether the person is
disabled and can't return to duty. For regular Army, Navy,
Marine and Air Force personnel, it can mean the end of their
careers.
For reservists, the time in medical hold allows them to get
medical care so they're healthy and able when they return to
civilian life, he says.
Matt Rohman was 27 when he returned home from his war. Now he's
40. His hair is overrun with gray, and on a good day, he walks
like a man more than twice his age.
When Rohman gets sick, there are days of anxious waiting to see
whether the symptoms will go away. If they do, he knows that the
problem was a cold or the flu. If they don't, it could mean that
another health problem has erupted, another disability he must
endure.
Earlier this year, his bowels shut down, and his stomach lining
became inflamed. No one's sure why or how it happened or what it
means. They just gave him more pills.
"Digestive problems" joined the parade of ills on his medical
chart.
As more problems get added to that list, more possible causes
emerge.
Soldiers used to cook with toxin containing C-4
In Iraq, Rohman and his unit used C-4 plastic explosive for
months after the war was over to blow up enemy tanks, trucks and
munitions. The essential ingredient in C-4 is a chemical called
RDX, a well-known toxin that affects the brain. Until July,
Rohman didn't know that the C-4 he slapped on tanks, slept on
and worked with for months in the Iraqi desert might explain his
neurological problems.
The Army used to teach soldiers to use C-4 to heat meals in the
field, scientific research papers indicate.
Scientists have known since 1972 that inhaling fumes from C-4,
or ingesting it in even small quantities, could cause violent
seizures and neurological damage. "These acute exposures to RDX
result in confusion, hyperactivity, muscle twitching and
ultimately seizures," a scientific report read.
Those problems are usually short-lived, research found. The
effect of lower, but frequent, doses on humans isn't well known.
Experiments to find out what low doses might do caused lab
animals to exhibit amnesia, disorientation, insomnia,
restlessness and irritability, all signs of effects on the brain
and central nervous system, the report read. It says RDX is on
the federal Environmental Protection Agency's list of suspected
carcinogens too.
The modern battlefield is filled with new dangers and new
toxins, making conventional bullets and bombs less significant
hazards than many of the newer weapons and tools that we've
given our troops to win the war, Robinson says.
"I'm an Army Ranger. I'm all for things that kill and give me a
combat edge," he says. But the changes in warfare demand a new
response from the military, he says, to do a better job of
evaluating troops before they go to war, collecting data while
they're there and testing them thoroughly when they're done,
whether they exhibit severe problems or not.
He compares the care and attention given to a warplane on an
aircraft carrier - after each flight, it's examined,
double-checked and evaluated - with the lack of care given a
soldier. He and others are lobbying Congress to guarantee
soldiers a higher level of care.
In the meantime, anyone expecting a cure for Gulf War ills
anytime soon will be disappointed, says Kay Reid of the Hampton
VA Medical Center.
There isn't one.
"We're going to treat you based on what we know," she says, "but
we do not know all the answers yet."
How long will it take? After more than 40 years of research, VA
is still finding out things about Agent Orange, a plant-killing
chemical used in Vietnam that made veterans of that war sick,
she says. Just last year, type II diabetes was added to the list
of problems officially associated with its use.
Rohman and his wife say they doubt that anything beneficial will
come from the depleted uranium testing or the doctors at VA.
After serving as a human guinea pig for years, they say, Matt
Rohman doesn't have more to offer.
"I don't think they'll do anything more for him," Kimberly says.
"It's all been done."
Copyright ©2004 Daily Press
*****************************************************************
29 Daily Press: 'Danger Dismissed'
[http://dailypress.com/]
HAMPTON ROADS, VA. December 17, 2004 9:16 PM
Will we vote for clean water?
Letters to the editor: Are members of Congress lost in space?
There's that old saying: If you don't want to know the answer,
don't ask the question.
Even though the U.S. government has spent more than $247 million
trying to determine why so many veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf
War are sick, you get the feeling the Pentagon doesn't really
want to know the truth about one critical part of the arsenal in
that war: depleted uranium.
How dangerous is it, really?
How much of the illness afflicting Gulf War vets can be
attributed to depleted uranium?
"Danger Dismissed," a six-day series on depleted uranium by Daily
Press staff reporter Bob Evans, made clear that the military does
not believe the vets' problems are a result of exposure to
depleted uranium. Veterans such as Matt Rohman of York County,
who was a bull of a man when he went to war, but who today
suffers horribly: numbness in his hands and feet, joint pain,
migraine headaches, sleeplessness, asthma, fatigue.
Why is he so sick?
Why are so many of the men and women who fought in the war sick?
The figures are astounding: Of the 697,000 U.S. men and women who
went to war, more than one-fourth have a disability for which
they are compensated by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
That's a rate nearly three times higher than for previous wars.
These vets were exposed to a buffet of chemicals and medicines
and dangerous materials, some of which were intended to protect
them from other threats. They were exposed at different levels,
under different circumstances. No one suggests that trying to
figure out what made them sick would be easy. But it's easy to
understand why the U.S. military might not want to look too
deeply into the effects of exposure to depleted uranium: It's the
best weapon ever made for destroying tanks.
But when depleted uranium hits a hard target, the result is
burning pieces of microscopic dust. And there's a link between
inhaling that dust and cancer.
How many vets inhaled the dust? The military shows no interest in
using the most sophisticated test for measuring exposure.
What level of exposure is acceptable? The military appears too
comfortable with standards that might be flawed.
Shouldn't there be greater research in the whole area of
detection and health effects, given the importance of this
weapon? Research dollars are starting to dry up.
Shouldn't there be aggressive training of U.S. troops, so they'll
know the risks of depleted uranium and how to protect themselves
in situations where exposure is possible? Apparently training can
be labeled, at best, haphazard.
Many people who get cancer get it only years after exposure to
the cancer-causing substance. Will there be an epidemic of cancer
among Gulf War vets in another 30 years? That's when the first of
the lung cancers are likely to show up. Forms of lymphoma and
leukemia would be evident right about now, but we wouldn't know
it because the government hasn't been willing to fund the studies
to find out. Shouldn't that be a top priority?
We live in a world where depleted uranium weapons may well be
used again. They give U.S. forces an incredible advantage on the
battlefield. But at what cost?
A better understanding of the health effects of depleted uranium
would bring nothing but benefits. For the vets who are sick, even
if their sickness isn't caused by depleted uranium - because then
doctors could focus on other possible causes. For the men and
women in the military today, because a better assessment of the
danger would allow for their better protection. And for the
credibility of the Defense Department, which has a sad history of
dismissing the dangers its troops face.
What's needed is more study, more understanding of the effects of
depleted uranium. The military shouldn't be afraid to ask the
questions - over and over - until there are answers that satisfy
all reasonable doubts.
Copyright ©2004 Daily Press
*****************************************************************
30 TheDay.com: How Many Submarines?
Friday, Dec 17, 2004
Pentagon report skews the number on the safe side, but looming
over everything is the cost of the Iraq conflict.
Published on 12/17/2004
The fact that a classified Pentagon report favors the idea of
maintaining a fleet of 45 to 50 submarines is encouraging to the
coalition fighting to keep open the Navy's submarine base in
Groton. But what is desirable and what the country can afford
don't necessarily intersect in this case. The report points to a
strong sentiment in the Defense Department to maintain a robust
submarine presence, but the Navy has to measure this desire
against its likely shipbuilding budgets, and the new Virginia
class of submarines is costing, at more than $2 billion a boat,
more than anyone expected. Treading the line between these two
points of view is the authoritative outlook of Adm. Vern Clark,
who favors a fleet of 40 submarines.
z If that number prevails, it's the one that would be plugged
into the 2005 Base Closing and Realignment considerations when
the Pentagon prepares its recommendations. The Pentagon study
skews the number on the safe side, which is cause for optimism
around here.
The Groton base and Electric Boat's shipyard in Groton can
survive with 40, but as Robert Hamilton, The Day's military
reporter pointed out in an op-ed article Sunday, any dip below
that figure over the 25-year period places the base in jeopardy,
and by extension, EB. Weighing heavily on these considerations
are the increasing costs of the conflict in Iraq, which is the
800-pound gorilla in the corner in all military acquisitions
today and in the 2005 BRAC.
The higher numbers reflect the preference of theater commanders
for the submarine, which can carry out a variety of intelligence
and combat functions well. All the services appreciate the value
of the submarine. But the thorny problem is fitting the
Virginia-class subs into the budgets. Adm. Clark thinks a
40-submarine fleet can be maintained by extending the life of
some older Los Angeles-class submarines, but the cost of
refitting and refueling them might be prohibitively steep.
The Center for Defense Information suggests scrapping the
program and developing a more affordable boat, but that idea
doesn't take into account the hefty up-front costs of designing
and bringing into production a new submarine. The Virginia,
remember, was an attempt to replace its predecessor, the Seawolf,
with a cheaper submarine. It didn't work that way.
Militating against weighing cost alone is the importance of
maintaining the size submarine fleet the services need to protect
the country and sustaining the industrial base to keep it afloat.
The Navy must revisit whether dividing the work on new submarines
between EB Northrop Grumman Newport News is the most
cost-efficient way of doing that, or whether it is adding
unnecessarily to the costs.
The national interest, apart from local economic interests,
would seem to support maintaining two nuclear shipyards and the
East Coast submarine bases and a fleet of at least 40 submarines.
Budget fallout from the war in Iraq shouldn't force the Navy into
making shortsighted decisions regarding that need. The problem
will be finding the ingenuity to squeeze those imperatives into a
budget containing many other competing needs.
This is the difficult task confronting, among others,
Connecticut's congressional delegation.
The Day Publishing Company
1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
31 Vermont Guardian: Thousands of students stranded in mock nuclear safety drill
+ [http://www.vermontguardian.com
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian
BRATTLEBORO The first-ever evacuation drill designed to test
plans to shuttle 1,500 schoolchildren out of Brattleboro in the
event of an emergency deteriorated into chaos Thursday after
nearly 40 buses simply failed to arrive.
During the drill New Hampshire emergency management officials
inexplicably turned back 38 buses after bus drivers had taken the
wrong road en route to local schools. That left some 1,500
students stranded for more than an hour in second-period classes
at Brattleboro high and middle schools as they waited for buses
that never arrived.
At approximately 11 a.m., though still nine buses short of the 30
needed for an evacuation, students were led from the school and
took turns filing on and off 21 buses parked in the driveway.
The scene outside the school was chaotic. Teachers leading groups
of students were confused about which buses to board. Students
who had become separated from their classes stood puzzled in the
middle of the sidewalk in front of the buses, asking strangers
with walkie-talkies where they should go.
I have no idea whats going on, one boy muttered to himself as
students and teachers bustled past him.
I feel safe. The alarm didnt go off, commented another boy.
Brattleboro middle and high schools are in the midst of a massive
renovation and construction project, which appeared to add to
Thursdays confusion. Alarms sounded in older parts of the high
school building, teachers reported.
At the middle school a staff member had to go from classroom to
classroom to verbally inform teachers it was time to evacuate.
A group of infants from the high school child-care center was
taken outside into the freezing temperatures, where they waited a
few minutes before returning to the school when their bus failed
to appear. Superintendent Ron Stahley said the babies should not
have been taken outside until they were assured that a bus was
waiting for them.
At Green Street school, meanwhile, buses pulled away from the
school just as bewildered elementary schoolchildren filed out to
board them after dispatchers in New Hampshire ordered the buses
to return.
Local responders said the problem arose after Vermont Emergency
Management officials in Waterbury failed to quickly inform their
counterparts at New Hampshire Emergency Management in Concord
about the number of buses needed.
New Hampshire emergency management spokesman Jim Van Dongen said
Concord received a call from Waterbury at 10:25 a.m. requesting
42 buses. Concord relayed that information to the Laidlaw bus
terminal in Swanzey at 10:32 a.m., Van Dongen said.
Laidlaw dispatched 41 buses and drivers, Van Dongen said.
"Our involvement in New Hampshire was fairly minimal," he added.
"It was basically Vermont¹s drill. The buses come out of Swanzey
and the request for them comes through our office."
Van Dongen said it was Laidlaw's decision to recall the buses,
apparently out of concern that they would not be back in time for
their regular routes.
VEM spokesman Duncan Higgins refused to acknowledge any problems
with the exercise, saying only that the agency was reviewing the
response. Were still in the process of trying to put all the
information together, he said.
Emergency officials in Brattleboro said they were dismayed with
the drill.
I was kind of disappointed, to say the least, said Stahley.
It totally changed my thinking, said Jerry Remillard, town
manager and chief emergency response official for Brattleboro.
Ive got to admit I was one of the ones opposed to actually
implementing and trying some of these scenarios. I can tell you
its not going to be like that anymore.
The drill was Vermonts first attempt to test the emergency plans
to evacuate more than 3,000 children from schools and preschools
within the emergency the planning zone surrounding the Vermont
Yankee nuclear power plant.
Emergency responders were mobilized at 9:30 a.m. after a report
of a freight train carrying poisonous gas that derailed into the
Connecticut River west of Route 142.Two cars had broken off of
the train and fallen into the river, they were advised.
Stahley said things went pretty much as planned until the buses
from New Hampshire, already late leaving Swanzey, inexplicably
took Route 119 toward Brattleboro instead of Route 9, where
police had been deployed to direct traffic.
Had the emergency been real, the buses could have been stuck in
traffic along Route 119 as Hinsdale, NH residents attempted to
leave, Remillard noted.
After New Hampshire officials recalled the buses, emergency
officials on the ground in Brattleboro were forced to retool
their plans. Laidlaw, the school bus company that contracts with
area schools, reportedly pulled mechanics into service as
drivers, and one Laidlaw bus broke down.
Wyatt Andrews, 17, a junior at BUHS, said he was in the school
parking lot, where students with permission were allowed to
evacuate to their cars. If there was actually something that
happened, kids would have been backing up and running into each
other and getting in accidents, he said. Id rather walk to
Bellows Falls. It would probably be faster.
Under the emergency plan, residents of the emergency planning
zone would be evacuated to a decontamination center at Bellows
Falls high school in the event of a radiological emergency.
Posted December 17, 2004 Send us your news tips, a letter to the
editor or general comments.
[http://www.vermontguardian.com/privacy-policy.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
©2004 Vermont Guardian |
*****************************************************************
32 Bradenton Herald: Toxin tests begin for Tallevast
| 12/17/2004 |
[Arthur Bryant, lifelong Tallevast resident, has blood drawn
by phlebotomist Hazel Cook for beryllium testing at the Mt.
Tabor Church in Tallevast.]
TIFFANY TOMPKINS-CONDIE-The Herald
Arthur Bryant, lifelong Tallevast resident, has blood drawn by
phlebotomist Hazel Cook for beryllium testing at the Mt. Tabor
Church in Tallevast.
Initial round of blood samples will detect levels of exposure to
beryllium
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - One by one they rolled up their sleeves and stuck
out their arms.
Some were residents of Tallevast. Others were former employees
of the defunct Loral American Beryllium Company.
By noon Thursday, 94 people had blood drawn for a test to
determine whether their exposure to beryllium dust has led to
allergic reactions to the toxic metal.
Health workers packed the vials of blood for overnight shipment
to National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, a
leader in beryllium disease diagnosis.
For Tallevast residents and workers who test positive, more
tests will be necessary to check for beryllium disease, a
chronic respiratory condition that can be fatal if not treated.
The $60,000 testing program funded through Manatee County is the
first of its kind, said Dr. Gladys Branic, director of the local
health department. While medical screening programs for
beryllium workers are common, she said, this is the first time a
community near a plant has been screened.
Tallevast residents learned just one year ago that toxins had
escaped the American Beryllium plant into their yards.
Environmental regulators knew about the hazardous waste site
since 2000, but neither Lockheed Martin - then-owner of the
beryllium plant - nor the state informed residents of the
contamination until November 2003.
Tallevast residents believe their exposure to potentially
cancer-causing solvents that leaked from the plant may be the
cause of the many cancers and other illnesses prevalent among
their families.
Dr. Billy Ward, a Tallevast dentist and resident tested
Thursday, said the county's screening program helped restore
community's trust in officials.
"There is a perception of apathy in Tallevast when it comes to
the way some of the entities have been reporting to us," Ward
said. "The blood tests will help to dispel that perception."
Ward guessed that it would take years before Tallevast residents
know the full impact of living for decades on top of possibly
contaminated land.
"We can't afford to wait years to learn where we are going in
terms of our health," Ward said.
Helen Heathington, a member of FOCUS, a Tallevast citizens'
group, said the testing program is a positive step.
"They are doing a good job getting people in and out,"
Heathington said. "I am satisfied that everyone is getting
tested who should be tested. That's bringing us a little peace
of mind."
The beryllium screening program is open to Tallevast residents
who lived within a quarter of a mile of the plant while it was
open from 1961 to 1996.
Current Manatee residents who worked at American Beryllium in
1968 or from Jan. 1, 1980 to Dec. 31, 1989 - the years the plant
had contracts with the U.S. Department of Energy - could also
have the blood test free of charge.
Employees from those periods who have positive blood tests may
qualify for medical benefits and perhaps compensation through a
federal program to aid beryllium workers made ill because of
their exposure to the toxic metal.
Robert Whitcher, who worked at American Beryllium as a machinist
for 13 years, said the free program was the only way he could
have had the expensive test.
Only a handful of specialty labs across the nation offer the
beryllium blood test, which costs $210 to $600.
Whitcher said he was impressed with Branic's team.
"They are really good," said Whitcher, 67, pointing at the
health workers who were drawing blood. "I didn't even feel it
when they put the needle in my arm."
Branic plans a second round of beryllium blood tests in January.
State health officials are seeking federal funding to expand the
testing program to former American Beryllium workers outside of
Manatee County.
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Sarasota, promised Tuesday to help
Tallevast and workers there by researching local and federal
funding options to make sure all workers are given free tests.
She said Thursday that she is working with three area real
estate companies to find potential land for a new Tallevast
community and is studying other communities' relocation efforts
for ideas. She said she wants to enlist the help of commercial
developers, county officials and Lockheed Martin in a plan to
relocate the town.
The historical Tallevast community is the middle of an expanding
industrial area surrounding Sarasota-Bradenton International
Airport.
Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached
at 745-7049 or at dwright@bradentonherald.com
[dwright@bradentonherald.com] .
*****************************************************************
33 Taipei Times: Tajikistan seeks foreign help for nuclear wastelands
[http://www.taipeitimes.com]
AFP , DUSHANBE
Friday, Dec 17, 2004,Page 5
The former Soviet republic of Tajik-istan, where Josef Stalin's
empire once mined uranium to create its first nuclear bomb, is on
the brink of ecological catastrophe with millions of tonnes of
nuclear waste polluting its land.
Contaminated soil is "open to wind and rain" and nuclear waste
"is dispersed over dozens, if not hundreds, of kilo-meters
around," said Saulius Smalys, the pan-European Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) environment advisor
in Dushanbe.
The first Soviet nuclear bomb was tested on Aug. 29, 1949, on a
field in Kazakhstan, but the uranium used to make it was
extracted in northern Tajikistan.
"After the Soviet era uranium extraction in northern Tajikistan,
some 50 million tonnes of radioactive waste still remain. If
earthquakes, landslides or other cataclysms were to intensify,
the contamination may spread," Smalys warned.
"Extraction was done manually, with sieves. The technology was
so primitive that most of uranium bioxides remained in the waste
dump," he said.
Stalin, who had launched an arms race with the US over the
bomb's creation, ceaselessly prodded Tajiks on to speed up
uranium extraction. Nuclear waste -- the rocks still containing
some uranium -- were left in the field without care for
ecological concerns.
Nowadays, the radiation levels now in abandoned mines exceed the
norm by scores, while hundreds of Tajiks continue to live on
polluted territories, with mine entrances still yawning wide open
for the wind to carry contamination far away. According to the
OSCE, cancer levels in the north of Tajikistan are 250 percent
higher than in other regions.
"Some mines are in inundated areas, near rivers, and radioactive
waste may reach the Syrdaria river with rains," Smalys said.
This would prove a catastrophe to the fertile Fergana valley
along the great Syrdaria river, with its 10 million inhabitants.
The OSCE plans to aid Tajikistan in working out a technical
project to decontaminate the area and is calling on sponsors such
as the International Atomic Energy Agency and NATO for funds.
"First of all the mines must be covered with 3 meters of gravel
and clay," Smalys said.
Tajikistan would require "hun-dreds of millions of dollars" to
decontaminate about 10 abandoned mines, said Djabor Salomov,
vice-director of the Tajik Academy of Sciences' nuclear security
agency.
"The waste-littered places are not safe. Locals search for
cables and irradiated metals in the dumps to sell or use at
home," the state environment committee's councillor Djalil
Buzurukov said.
"We have no funds to monitor the contaminated territories. The
mines are a legacy of the past and a menace for our future,"
Buzurukov said. This story has been viewed 235 times. +
Copyright © 1999-2004 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
34 YWS: Gov't Aims to Build Low-Radiation Nuclear Waste Site by 2008
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE [http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/] ..
2004/12/17 15:04 KST
(2nd LD)
Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Lee Hee-beom
SEOUL, Dec. 17 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean government is aiming
to build a low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste site by
2008, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Lee Hee-beom said
Friday.
Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the Atomic Energy
Commission, Lee said Seoul will adopt a two-step policy of first
selecting a storage area for the country's low- and
intermediate-level radioactive waste before deciding how and
where to store high-level waste.
[http://english.yna.co.kr/Engservices/
*****************************************************************
35 Las Vegas SUN: More efficient handling of nuke waste is urged
By Benjamin Grove < [grove@lasvegassun.com] > LAS VEGAS SUN
WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain managers need a better overall
plan for handling high-level nuclear waste after it is hauled to
the proposed repository, a project watchdog panel said.
The nation's most highly radioactive waste would be shipped
from sites nationwide to Yucca for permanent storage under the
Energy Department plan.
But the department does not have an "integrated" plan to
efficiently deal with the waste when it arrives, Nuclear Waste
Technical Review Board chairman John Garrick said in an
interview. The board was commissioned by Congress to conduct
technical oversight of Yucca.
Nuclear reactor waste generates heat as it decays, which may
affect the tunnel rock inside Yucca. Some waste likely would be
stored temporarily at the Yucca surface facility after it
arrives as workers sort it based on when it was removed from its
reactor, and how long it has been cooling in pools or dry cask
containers. Workers will sort waste and place it in the tunnels
based on how "hot' it is.
It's also possible that once the waste arrives at Yucca it will
have to be stored temporarily in an on-site storage container,
then re-loaded into a permanent storage container, Garrick said.
Under current plans, highly radioactive waste could be handled
up to four times before it is finally sealed away forever inside
Yucca's underground tunnels, Garrick noted in a Nov. 30 letter
to the Energy Department's Yucca director Margaret Chu.
The Energy Department needs a plan to minimize waste handling
and to devise a more efficient system, the Garrick wrote.
"We are concerned that right now their act isn't quite together
on integrated systems," Garrick said.
More analysis is needed to "identify possible safety and
operational concerns, and optimize the system," Garrick's letter
said.
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said department
officials were reviewing the letter and offered no response to
it.
On an unrelated subject, the letter also cautioned the
department to further consider the effects of molten rock, or
magma, on the waste containers. Yucca critics have long said
that volcanic activity was a possible threat, but the risk has
been dismissed by many project supporters as an extremely remote
possibility.
An early study conducted by the Electric Power Research
Institute indicated that samples of a nickel-based metal called
Alloy 22 -- a material likely to be used for waste containers --
held up well when exposed to magma.
But the chemical compositions of magma at Yucca would vary
widely and more research is needed to know if the waste
canisters could survive a flow of molten rock in the Yucca
tunnels, the board noted in its letter.
*****************************************************************
36 Gateway To Russia: Putin insists on no more delays in handling nuclear waste,
pollution -
[http://www.gateway2russia.com]
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said at a meeting of the
State Council presidium that today "issues connected with the
disposal of spent nuclear reactors on Russian Navy ships and
clearing up territories polluted as a result of industrial and
defence-related activity remain acute".
"Resolving all of these problems became necessary a long time
ago and should not be postponed," Putin stressed.
"We should use effectively both our own resources and
opportunities for international cooperation," the head of state
said.
In his words, "Russia stays in constant and close contact with
international structures, and first and foremost the IAEA".
The president also said that Russia was open "to broad
cooperation with foreign partners both on a bilateral and
multilateral basis".
Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
BBC Monitoring
[http://www.gateway2russia.com/subscr.php]
© Copyright Gateway to Russia 2003
*****************************************************************
37 Salt Lake Tribune: Close the door
[http://www.sltrib.com]
Article Last Updated: 12/17/2004 02:49:23 AM
The question is not who will own Envirocare. The question is
whether anyone would want to buy it, for an estimated $500
million, if the state of Utah had already slammed the door on
the possibility that it could accept hotter and longer-lasting
classes of nuclear waste.
The fact that Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman had been tipped off to
the impending sale of the Tooele County waste facility makes
even the slightest waffling on his campaign promise to ban more
dangerous classifications of radioactive waste that much more
worrisome.
While Huntsman is emphatic in repeating his position that he
will not allow the state to house the more threatening kinds of
nuclear dregs, there was word from his camp this week that he
saw no urgent need to turn that candidate's promise into a
governor's order once he takes office Jan. 3.
That lack of urgency, together with the failure of a two-year
legislative task force to make any real recommendations, all
looks particularly derelict in view of Wednesday's announcement
that Envirocare owner Khosrow Semnani is selling his business to
a group that includes Utahns who have long been in the
waste-handling business and the New York investment firm Lindsay
Goldberg &Bessemer.
That firm says it seeks companies that achieve “substantial
growth and profit improvement.”
A proper regulatory review of the pending license transfers
would establish whether the firm's profitability - and thus its
ability to properly close and maintain the site once it is full
- depends on allowing it to start accepting the hotter wastes
that Utah politicians claim to be against but don't bother to
formally ban.
The class A waste that Envirocare now accepts is relatively
benign compared to the class B and C wastes, which are hundreds
of times more radioactive and can remain so for many hundreds of
years.
Envirocare has a preliminary permit from the state to store B
and C waste, but only if the governor and Legislature
specifically approve, which, so far, they have not.
Anti-nuclear activists wish Huntsman would immediately
formalize a decision to block Envirocare's B license approval.
One of Huntsman's top staffers, though, said this week that no
such action was necessary and might even complicate the matter
further.
It's not clear how such an order from the new governor would
make the situation any cloudier, any more likely to be dragged
into court, than it already is.
Quite the contrary. Quick action by the governor and the
Legislature to limit nuclear waste storage in Utah to the
current class A is needed, not only for the peace of mind of
Utahns, but for the due diligence needs of the Fifth Avenue firm
that plans to buy Envirocare.
Anything less requires forthright explanation.
© Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
38 Xinhua: EU promises rewards for Iranian uranium enrichment suspension
www.xinhuanet.com
[http://www.alibaba.com/]
www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-17 21:25:29
BRUSSELS, Dec. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- European Union (EU) leaders
Friday expressed their readiness to explore ways of further
developing political and economic cooperation with Iran
providing Iran maintains full suspension of all uranium
enrichment programs.
The "Presidency Conclusions" issued during the second day of
the ongoing EU summit here said the European Council (the EU
leaders at the summit) welcomed the agreement reached Nov. 15
between Iran and the EU's "big three" -- France, Germany and
Britain -- on suspension of Iran's nuclear fuel program.
The council also supported further efforts towards reaching
agreement with Iran on long-term enrichment suspension.
It said the EU will explore ways of further developing
political and economic cooperation with Iran if Iran addresses
other EU areas of concern, notably the fight against terrorism,
human rights and Iran's approach to the Middle East peace
process.
Under the agreement struck last month in Paris with the EU
"bigthree", Iran pledged to suspend all enrichment activities in
return for trade, technology and security rewards.
Iran's pledge has not impressed the United States which
chargesthat Iran is using the Paris agreement to gain time to
secretly develop nuclear weapons and would like to see Tehran
brought before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
39 Newsday.com: Federal government likely to take over at plant that produced
nuclear fuel rods, saving Verizon millions
[December 17, 2004]
BY DAN FAGIN STAFF WRITER
The federal government will almost certainly take over the
cleanup of a Hicksville factory that produced nuclear fuel rods
for federal weapons reactors from 1952 to 1966, two legislators
announced yesterday.
The switch will save Verizon Corp., the current owner, tens of
millions of dollars, and possibly much more. But it also will
lead to a "more comprehensive cleanup," said U.S. Sen. Charles
Schumer (D-N.Y.).
"It's the federal government that created this mess, and it's the
federal government that should clean it up," said Schumer, who
announced the planned switch yesterday at a news conference with
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) in front of the old Sylvania Electric
Products plant, just south of Cantiague Park.
Government studies repeatedly have found that the low-level
radioactive contamination at Sylvania doesn't threaten nearby
residents, and state Health Department investigators recently
concluded that cancer rates in adjacent neighborhoods aren't
unusually high.
Still, the Sylvania site has been a flash point of community
concern for years, and some longtime residents have filed a
$1.6-billion lawsuit against Verizon claiming unsafe practices at
Sylvania during the 1950s and 1960s exposed them to dangerous
levels of radiation.
That suit is pending in U.S. District Court in Central Islip.
Lawyers Andrew Carboy and Frank Floriani, who are representing
the residents, declined to comment yesterday.
Schumer and King said they inserted language authorizing the
cleanup transfer into the omnibus appropriations bill President
George W. Bush signed last week. The provision requires the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers to assess the Sylvania site and recommend
a cleanup strategy to the Department of Energy.
Because earlier studies have all found contamination, Schumer
said it's virtually certain the Energy Department will agree to
take over the cleanup.
The department already is spending billions cleaning up dozens
of old radioactive sites around the country, most of them in much
worse shape than the Sylvania plant.
Since 2000, Verizon has spent millions studying the site,
testing its groundwater, and removing and replacing some
radioactive soil under the supervision of state environmental
regulators.
Verizon won't say how much it has spent, but spokesman Peter
Thonis said the Hicksville site represents "the largest portion"
of $156 million the company is spending on cleanups at several of
its properties.
"We do believe the federal government has the responsibility to
assume the remaining cleanup of the site and should reimburse for
certain costs associated with past remediation," Thonis said.
Verizon took control of the property in 2000 when it merged with
GTE, which had acquired Sylvania Electric Products in 1996.
Schumer and King said they don't think Verizon should be
reimbursed. But they said the government should pay future costs,
because the fuel rod production was done for the government under
close federal supervision.
Copyright © 2004, [http://www.newsday.com]
*****************************************************************
40 UC loses nuclear weapons program (4/9)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 21:00:25 -0600 (CST)
http://www.sfbayview.com/100604/nuclearweapons100604.shtml
UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons program
Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over
Part 4
by Leuren Moret
A controlled society
Hunters Point environmental justice activist Lynne Brown (left)
leads a toxic tour to the Hunters Point Shipyard, still heavily
contaminated with radioactive pollution, a probable contributing
cause of Bay View Hunters Points astounding infant death rate a
rate over twice as high as San Franciscos citywide rate. Thats the
topic of Too young to die, the story that dominates the front page
of Sundays Chronicle. Photo: Communities for a Better Environment,
www.cbecal.org
SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.), a Pentagon-connected
company involved in voting machines (Sequoia, Diebold etc.),
controlling the internet (Network Solutions) and training foreign
militaries, also had contracts to develop information systems for
the Pentagon, FBI and IRS.
Police can now legally stop a person on the street, ask their name,
type it into a palm pilot and come up with detailed personal
information in a few seconds. An Associated Press story on Sept.
9, 2004, Conn. City Uses Scanners to Nab Criminals, revealed that
police in New Haven, Conn., are now driving around in police cars
with infrared scanners, connected to databases, which they are using
on license plates to hunt for criminals, tax delinquents and parking
ticket violators. Some of the $25,000 scanners were paid for in one
month from collected revenues.
A military project of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency in the Department of Defense, the backbone of the internet
was developed at the Livermore Lab, and the real purpose of the
internet is now being revealed:
The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more
controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite,
unrestrained by traditional values, wrote Zbigniew Brzezinski,
member of the Council on Foreign Relations, founding member of the
Trilateral Commission and National Security Advisor to five presidents,
in his 1971 book Between Two Ages. Soon it will be possible to
assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain
up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information
about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous
retrieval by the authorities.
The association of Admiral Inman, the Bush crime syndicate, Texas
oil companies and the Carlyle Group with the University of Texas
(UT) explained why an advanced fourth generation nuclear weapons
research program is at UT. And it explained why the University of
Texas is so eager to take over the nuclear weapons labs. But this
takeover resembles Inmans involvement with a stealth takeover of
the Mars program, transferring it from the management and control
of the Jet Propulsion Lab to NASA.
The NASA Deep Space Program was started at the Jet Propulsion Lab
(JPL) at Cal Tech to do space exploration more efficiently with
lower costs. Criticism of NASA/JPL Mars mission failure problems
in the Thomas Young Report released on March 28, 2000, revealed
that the supposedly public space program had been hijacked into
secrecy and that the military was calling the shots.
NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin on March 29, 2000, revealed at JPL
the day after release of the report just who was in control and the
existence of a JPL Oversight Committee that nobody at JPL knew
existed: Id also like to acknowledge Admiral Inman, head of the JPL
Oversight Committee at Cal Tech. He couldnt be here today, but I
talked to him by phone. His commitment to the team here is also
unwavering. And I thank him for that.
Goldin was there to address beleaguered personnel, scientists and
engineers of the nations premier center for unmanned planetary
exploration, and to somehow advise them of the new political and
engineering realities, while simultaneously exhorting them to
continue to new heights but now under more stringent NASA management.
The real question is what was Admiral Inman doing as chair of a
committee in a private university overseeing all civilian unmanned
exploration of the planet Mars without the knowledge of anyone at
JPL?
In two years, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman took over the space program,
and in another year from now he will have succeeded in taking over
the nuclear weapons program. When Newsweek called him a superstar
in the intelligence community, it was for good reason.
A Naval officer I interviewed later replied when I asked him if he
knew Inman, Oh yeah, hes one of the players.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible
government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility
to the people, said Theodore Roosevelt on April 19, 1906. To destroy
this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between
corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the
statesmanship of today.
Depopulation: fourth generation nuclear weapons and depleted uranium
The development of fourth generation nuclear weapons is now underway,
with the U.S. in first place, Germany and Japan tied for second
place, followed by Russia and other nuclear and non-nuclear states.
As an expert witness on the environmental and health effects of
depleted uranium (DU) weaponry for the International Criminal
Tribunal for Afghanistan, held in Japan in 2003, I discovered that
there was a connection between the use of depleted uranium by the
U.S. since 1991- in the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia -
and fourth generation nuclear weapons.
The iron triangle that ties politics to the military and big
corporations exists between the Carlyle Group, President George
H.W. Bush (1989-1993), the introduction in 1991 of depleted uranium
weaponry, and the program at the University of Texas for development
of fourth generation nuclear weapons. Frank Carlucci, former chairman
of the Carlyle Group (1989-2003), sat on the board of directors of
General Dynamics (1991-97), which is one of the main manufacturers
of DU weaponry in the U.S.
International scientists Drs. Andre Gsponer, Jean-Pierre Hurni, and
B. Vitali, watch-dogging nuclear weapons developments globally,
presented a paper which identified the use of DU weaponry as a way
to test the radiobiological effects of the new nuclear weapons now
under development: It is shown that the radiological burden due to
the battlefield use of circa 400 tons of depleted-uranium munitions
in Iraq (and of about 40 tons in Yugoslavia) is comparable to that
arising from the hypothetical use of more than 600 kt (respectively
60 kt) of high-explosive equivalent pure-fusion fourth-generation
nuclear weapons (Fourth International Conference of the Yugoslav
Nuclear Society, Belgrade, Sept. 30-Oct. 4, 2002).
The use of weapons in war are most effective when the weapons do
not kill, but create long-term health and environmental consequences
in soldiers and the civilian population, such as lingering illnesses
which slowly destroy the health of the environment and the people,
causing a decline in the productivity of a nation and the economy.
The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam is a good example of an environmental
disaster with lingering and long-term health effects on a population,
as well as causing trans-boundary contamination.
Depleted uranium is a permanent terrain contaminant with a half-life
of 4.5 billion years, forms immense volumes of nano-sized particles
- smaller than bacteria or viruses - which are lofted permanently
as components of atmospheric dust, traveling around the world until
they are rained or snowed out of the air. There is no possible
protective clothing, air filters that will filter out the tiniest
particles or treatment for internal exposure to this form of poison
radioactive gas.
DU was proposed as a military poison gas weapon in 1943 under the
Manhattan Project. Even worse, uranium targets the DNA, and the
Master Code (histone) which controls the expression of the DNA, and
slowly destroys the genetic future of exposed populations (see
Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War).
In federal law U.S. Code, Title 50, Chapter 40, Sec. 2302 - weapons
of mass destruction are defined: The term weapon of mass destruction
means any weapon or device that is intended, or has the capability,
to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of
people through the release, dissemination, or impact of - (A) toxic
or poisonous chemicals or their precursors; (B) a disease organism;
or (C) radiation or radioactivity
The U.S. has staged four nuclear wars since 1991 (see Washingtons
Secret Nuclear War) using illegal DU dirty bombs, dirty missiles
and dirty bullets as radiological weapons (see Depleted uranium:
Dirty bombs) and released an amount of radiation into the atmosphere
which is at least 10 times more radiation than the equivalent of
40,000 Hiroshima bombs, the amount released during atmospheric
testing. In June 2003, the World Health Organization predicted in
a press release that cancer will increase 50 percent globally by
the year 2020, a result which can have only an environmental cause.
Already, medical and scientific journals are reporting mysterious
increases in infant mortality in 20 regions of Europe (Lancet,
January 2004), the UK (Guardian, August 2004) and the U.S. (New
Scientist, February 2004). Infant mortality should be decreasing
now, as a trend continuing for more than a century due to improved
education and prenatal care. Instead, it is increasing in the U.S.
for the first time in 45 years, with no identified cause.
For radiation specialists, infant mortality is the most sensitive
indicator of radioactive pollution, a response researchers have
identified as a result of exposure to low level radiation from
atmospheric testing and nuclear power plant accidents, releases and
startups.
The story that dominates the front page of Sundays San Francisco
Chronicle, Too young to die, reports that the infant mortality rate
in Bay View Hunters Point is more than twice as high as the rate
for all of San Francisco. Especially hard hit are the parts of this
traditionally Black neighborhood closest to the Hunters Point
Shipyard, headquarters of the secret Naval Radiological Defense
Laboratory from World War II until 1969. The Shipyard remains heavily
contaminated with radioactive pollution.
The global pollution from thousands of tons of DU in nano-size
particles, traveling around the earth and being deposited in the
global environment, will have a devastating long-term effect. Not
only will it cause illnesses and genetic mutations in the future
generations of those internally exposed, but it will have a
depopulating effect long proposed by the U.S. military.
DU is the perfect weapon, delivering nanoparticles of poison,
radiation and particulate pollution - the real killer directly
into living cells where they cause the cells to go haywire and
dysfunctional. As Marion Fulk, former Manhattan Project scientist
and a Livermore Lab retired nuclear physical chemist, puts it,
Particulates are screwing up the strings (Master Code) that pull
the puppet (the DNA).
If the development and escalation of technological wars between
nation-states continues, radiological warfare may be an increasingly
used strategy contributing to the extermination of large numbers
of people, and an expedient way to empty out troublesome political
centers in regions containing desired resources. It may be preferred
over various biological alternatives now under intense development
by the U.S. government.
References for Part 4
Conn. City Uses Scanners to Nab Criminals by Diane Scarponi,
Associated Press, Sept. 9, 2004,
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040909/ap_on_re_us/scanning_for_scofflaws.
Summary of Thomas Young Report released on March 28, 2000,
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/news71.html.
When the Best Must Do Even Better, remarks by NASA Administrator
Dan Goldin at JPL on March 29, 2000,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/ftp/Goldin/00text/jpl_remarks.txt.
International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan,
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm,
http://afghan-tribunal.3005.net/english/.
Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons: The Physical Principles of
Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial Confinement Fusion, and the Quest
for Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons by Andre Gsponer and J.-P.
Hurni, 1999, http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/INESAPTR1.html.
A comparison of delayed radiobiological effects of depleted-uranium
munitions versus fourth-generation nuclear weapons by A. Gsponer,
J.-P. Hurni, and B. Vitale, Fourth International Conference of the
Yugoslav Nuclear Society, Belgrade, Sept. 30-Oct. 4, 2002,
http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0210071.
Letter to Congressman McDermott from Leuren Moret Feb. 21, 2003,
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm.
Preferential Staining of Nucleic Acid-Containing Structures For
Electron Microscopy by Huxley and Zubay, Journal of Biophysical and
Biochemical Cytology (J. Cell Biol.) 11 (2): 273, November 1961,
http://www.jcb.org/cgi/reprint/11/2/273.pdf.
Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War by Leuren Moret,
World Affairs Journal, August 2004,
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm.
Washingtons Secret Nuclear War by Shaheen Chughtai, Al-Jazeera,
Sept. 14, 2004,
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B2E2DF9B-1E0C-43F4-BBF6-074C1367E27C.htm.
Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets - A
death sentence here and abroad by Leuren Moret, San Francisco Bay
View, Aug. 18, 2004,
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.
Global cancer rates could increase by 50% to 15 million by 2020,
World Health Organization (WHO) press release, April 3, 2003,
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/pr27/en/print.html.
Sudden unexplained infant death in 20 regions in Europe: case control
study by R.G. Carpenter et al, Lancet, Jan. 17, 2004, Vol. 363,
p.185-191.
Rise in stillbirths prompts inquiry by John Carvel, The Guardian,
Aug. 20, 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1287041,00.html.
US infant deaths rise for first time in 45 years by Shaoni Bhattacharya,
New Scientist, Feb 12, 2003,
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99994675.
Three Mile Island: Health study meltdown by Joseph Mangano, Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientist, September-October 2004, Vol. 60, No. 5,
pp. 30-35, http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/so04/so04mangano.html.
Smart dust, roboflies, microbugs: UC is spying on you by Leuren
Moret, San Francisco Bay View, Feb. 26, 2003,
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Berkeley-Library-Classified22feb03.htm.
Too young to die, Part 1: Lifes toll by Erin McCormick, San Francisco
Chronicle, Oct. 3, 2004, p. A1,
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/03/MNINFANTMO.DTL.
To read Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series, go to
http://www.sfbayview.com/091504/ucregents091504.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/092204/nuclearweapons092204.shtml and
http://www.sfbayview.com/092904/nuclearweapons2092904.shtml. The
rest of this expos will appear in the Bay View in the coming weeks.
Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who worked at the Livermore nuclear
weapons lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991, has survived
13 years of retaliation from the Livermore Lab and the University
of California and has lived firsthand the experiences of Karen
Silkwood. A radiation specialist, she works around the world educating
citizens, the media and lawmakers about the impact of radiation
globally on the health of the public and the environment. She
assisted with Al-Jazeeras recent report on depleted uranium weapons
which quickly became one of the most read articles produced by the
website. DU: Washingtons Secret Nuclear War can be read at
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Secret-Nuclear-War14sep04.htm. She
is an independent scientist, an environmental commissioner for the
City of Berkeley, and can be reached at leurenmoret@yahoo.com
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41 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Revolving door keeps on spinning
LAS VEGAS SUN
This week the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America, the lobbying arm for the nation's top drug makers,
announced that Rep. Billy Tauzin would be the group's president.
The Louisiana Republican, who is retiring from Congress, will be
heading an industry group that isn't held in high regard by the
public, due mainly to the skyrocketing cost of prescription
drugs and recent concerns about the safety of some drugs. "This
industry understands that it's got a problem," Tauzin told The
New York Times in an interview. "It has to earn the trust and
confidence of consumers again."
Now that's rich -- and ironic. If drug makers truly were
wanting to gain back the trust of the public, the last person
they would have hired is a consummate Washington insider like
Tauzin. It was Tauzin, with the support of the Bush
administration and House Republican leaders, who shielded these
companies when legislation was drafted to create a prescription
drug benefit for Medicare recipients. Democrats and many
Republicans in Congress wanted to give the federal government
the ability to negotiate with drug companies to set prices for
the new program, which would have resulted in lower prices for
consumers. But Tauzin, a principal author of the drug benefit
bill and chairman of the House committee that regulated drug
makers, did their bidding instead of the public's and made sure
the pro-consumer provision went nowhere. The net result is that
seniors wil l pay higher prices for drugs, thanks in large part
to Tauzin.
Tauzin's reward was receiving the plum job in the drug
industry's lobbying group. He won't say how much he's being
paid, but we do know that he declined an offer to be president
of the Motion Picture Association of America, a job that would
have paid him more than $1 million a year. So the revolving door
in Washington, where members of Congress and the White House
staff can cash in on their positions and connections they've
made with the industries they oversee, is alive and well. Of
course, this revolving door is also what deepens public cynicism
about how Washington works. It is also why, in the case of the
drug industry, we're not optimistic that Congress will actually
do something meaningful to rein in the out-of-control cost of
drugs.
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