***************************************************************** 11/21/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.278 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] "Eerie Repetition" - NY Times on US Case vs Iran 2 [NYTr] Play It Again, Colin: US Claims on Iran Nukes 3 WorldNetDaily: Powell singing pre-war tune on Iran? 4 The Observer: Pentagon turns heat up on Iran 5 The Observer: Why America has got it so wrong on Iran 6 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Korea-China Leaders to Push for Speedy Re 7 BBC: Bush warns N Korea at Apec summit 8 BBC: N Korea 'must halt weapon dreams' 9 Xinhuanet: Seoul sending delegation to IAEA meeting 10 Xinhua: China, US agree to resolve Korean nuclear issue by peaceful 11 UKED: DPRK demands "thorough" probe into S. Korea's nuclear experime 12 Progressive News: Cheney, the Saudis, Saddam and the Bomb 13 US: Arizona Republic: Top Dem real Westerner 14 US: KR Washington Bureau: Spending bill did not include some key ite 15 US: Lexington Herald-Leader: SPENDING BILL 16 Cato Inst: Not All Forms of Nuclear Proliferation Are Equally Bad 17 Bellona: Court may consider Bellona vs. Russian Ministry of Defense 18 IPS: APEC SUMMIT: 'Axis of Evil' Is Uninvited Guest 19 Independent: Putin tries to reassure world over 'unique' nuclear mis NUCLEAR REACTORS 20 US: SD UT: San Onofre reactor shuts down suddenly, causing usage ale 21 US: News Journal: Is Hope Creek gambling with danger? 22 BBC: Chernobyl 'caused Sweden cancers' 23 US: South of Boston: Pilgrim seeks license renewal NUCLEAR SAFETY 24 US: News Messenger: Class-action suit against Brush KO'd - 25 Interfax: Radioactive source found in southern Kazakhstan 26 Bellona: Explosion aboard Russian nuclear submarine kills one and el 27 Sunday Herald: Dounreay workers exposed to lethal plutonium - 28 US: Deseret News: Downwinders get more funding 29 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Opinion We appear evil 30 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Bill hailed as win for downwind Utahns 31 US: South Florida Sun-Sentinel: When fear is nuclear, and very real NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 32 Las Vegas SUN: Lawmakers agree on $577 million to keep Yucca Mountai 33 Washington Times: Yucca's energy role 34 Las Vegas RJ: Bill means Yucca stays alive but won't thrive 35 Las Vegas RJ: Yucca Mountain adviser to Reid to get NRC post 36 Deseret News: Bishop says Reid killed nuke-waste strategy 37 Bellona: MOX-production plant project in Seversk in limbo 38 RGJ: Yucca Mountain funding stays flat 39 US: Times Argus: Yankee studies 'dry cask' storage 40 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Skull Valley Goshutes' elections attempt fail 41 roanoke.com: OP: Send the waste to Yucca Mountain 42 Australian: Island nuke dump 'too risky' 43 AU ABC: Aust nuclear rod shipment heads for France. 44 Saskatoon StarPhoenix: Storing nuclear waste Cameco eager to get ind 45 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast pollution: no report required NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 46 Tri-City Herald: DOE, 2 contractors dismissed from suit 47 Amarillo Globe News: Pantex completes warhead program OTHER NUCLEAR 48 The Day: Last Skipper Says Nautilus' Run Was Amazing For Its Time ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] "Eerie Repetition" - NY Times on US Case vs Iran Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 08:14:07 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [At least we aren't getting the alarmist Chemical Judy treatment from The New York Times on this one: "In an eerie repetition of the prelude to the Iraq war, hawks in the administration and Congress are trumpeting ominous disclosures about Iran's nuclear capacities to make the case that Iran is a threat that must be confronted, either by economic sanctions, military action, or 'regime change.' ... "Leading the charge for a tough line on Iran has been John R. Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and international security." John Bolton, of course, is the flunky whose charges about Cuba's "biological warfare" capabiity in 2002 were so ridiculous that even the brazen Bush regime had to officially retract them. -NY Transfer] The New York Times - Nov 19, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/middleeast/19diplo.html Bush Confronts New Challenge on Issue of Iran by Steven R. Weisman SANTIAGO, Chile, Nov. 18 - While assembling a new national security team, President Bush is confronting what could become the biggest challenge of his second term: how to contain Iran's nuclear program and what some in the administration believe to be Tehran's support of violence in Israel and insurgents in Iraq. In an eerie repetition of the prelude to the Iraq war, hawks in the administration and Congress are trumpeting ominous disclosures about Iran's nuclear capacities to make the case that Iran is a threat that must be confronted, either by economic sanctions, military action, or "regime change." But Britain, France and Germany are urging diplomacy, placing their hopes in a deal they brokered last week in which Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program in return for discussions about future economic benefits. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell thrust himself into the debate on Wednesday by commenting to reporters that fresh intelligence showed that Iran was "actively working" on a program to enable its missiles to carry nuclear bombs, a development he said "should be of concern to all parties." The disclosures alluded to by Mr. Powell were seen by hard-liners in the administration as another sign of Iranian perfidy, and by Europeans as little new. Although Mr. Powell has praised the negotiations between the Europeans and Iran, one administration official said that his comment suggested that there was "a steady tightening of outlook between hawks and doves" that Iran will use the negotiations as a pretext to continue its nuclear program in private. Leading the charge for a tough line on Iran has been John R. Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and international security. At the moment, administration officials say there are no prominent members of Mr. Bush's inner circle enthusiastic about the European approach of negotiating with Iran; most of the moderates are lower-level areas specialists in the State Department. But only last week Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded Mr. Bush to endorse the European approach. Though Mr. Powell will soon leave Mr. Bush's administration, he is about to face a tough choice on Iran - whether to have an extensive conversation with the Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, or to avoid any contact when the two men attend a conference in Egypt next week. "The simple fact is the secretary doesn't want to meet with Kharrazi," said an administration official, adding that he saw little opportunity for dialogue and that Mr. Powell may have been signaling his pessimism when he made the disclosure about Iran's missile capability. The possible Powell-Kharrazi meeting could occur Tuesday at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, where European, Middle Eastern and other envoys are attending a conference on the future of Iraq. A top aide to Mr. Powell said the secretary would go with talking points to discuss ways to improve Iranian-American relations, but that it was up to the Iranians whether the conversation would take place. A European diplomat familiar with the British-French-German initiative said they were also pessimistic that Iran would back off its nuclear ambitions, but that they had no choice but to engage Iran because military options were distasteful or impractical after the troubled invasion and occupation of Iraq. "America clearly understands that Iran will be one of its greatest threats in the second administration," this diplomat said. "But the Europeans understand that even the greatest threats also present a great opportunity to resolve problems." Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former policy and planning director under Secretary Powell, said he favored a major effort to offer incentives to moderate Iran's behavior, combined with threats of tough action if it does not. European leaders say they want the United States to join with them in offering economic incentives to Iran, such as working to get Tehran to join the World Trade Organization - a step that could not occur without active American support. Mr. Haass said it made no sense for the Europeans to offer incentives and for the United States to make threats. Both must be done together, he said. The Iranian issue has vexed the Bush administration for so long that plans to produce a major policy paper within the administration simply ground to a halt last year and have not been revived. American contacts with Iran were cut off last May, when Iran was linked to groups that carried out bombings in Saudi Arabia. Administration officials said there was fresh evidence that Iran supported insurgents in Iraq and had stepped up its support of the militant organization Hezbollah, which Israel now says is helping to subsidize organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad who have carried out suicide bombings there. Indeed, an administration official said that Americans believed that Iran was supporting suicide bombers and insurgents in response to the pressure over its nuclear program - and specifically to warn Israel not to consider the kind of airstrike on a nuclear reactor that it carried out in Iraq more than two decades ago. Officially, administration officials say that a military option like the one employed by Israel in 1981 against Iraq, when it bombed a reactor near Baghdad, is unrealistic because the Iranians have buried their most important nuclear facilities and can rebuild anything that is destroyed. But an administration official said that a military strike or sabotage was not out of the question - "you never take the military option off the table," he said - and that in any case it was "money in the bank" for Iran to be concerned about such an option, because it might be goaded into a more conciliatory approach to the United States. On the other hand, many in the administration say that Iran is not likely to enter into talks with the United States, as the Europeans want, because the revolutionary clerics who control the government are unalterably opposed to engaging with a country it considers the enemy. "You can't call yourself a revolutionary regime and also negotiate with the Great Satan," said an administration official. For months the United States's position has been not to threaten war but to force the issue to the United Nations Security Council, where sanctions - including a ban on oil imports and technology transfers - could be considered. But the European initiative has brought such talk to a halt. But the thinking among many administration officials is that if the European deal to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities falls apart in coming months - if, for example, inspectors are unable to verify compliance - administration hawks will surely enlist others in a campaign to confront Iran with threats. The decision, said European and American diplomats, will be made by Mr. Bush with his new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who is said by aides to be of two minds about the problem just as Mr. Powell is - willing to try diplomacy, not sure that it will work and ready to look at other possibilities if it does not. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 2 [NYTr] Play It Again, Colin: US Claims on Iran Nukes Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 08:00:26 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com US Allegations on Iran Similar to Prelude to War in Iraq Washington, Nov 19 (Prensa Latina) US latest claims of an alleged Iranian nuclear threat were highlighted on Friday as a disturbing repetition of events that marked the prelude to the invasion of Iraq. The New York Times commented on Friday that "hawks in the US administration and Congress are spreading as a bad omen revelations on Iran's nuclear capacity." The NYT comment follows remarks made to the press by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Chile that he had seen reports that indicated that Iran was trying to adapt missiles to carry nuclear warheads. "This should be a cause for concern to all," Powell added. Analysts in this capital recall it was Powel himself who brought US case for war before UN, claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Most of these arguments were based on information provided by unreliable sources and finally were proved false, the Times commented. The Iranian nuclear program and Teheran's support to violence in Israel and insurgency in Iraq might be "the biggest challenge for President George W. Bush during is second term in power,"according to the paper. This is "a disturbing repetition of the prelude to the war on Iraq", this time by saying that "Iran is a threat that should be faced by economic sanctions, military action or a change in regime," the NYT said. The NYT recalled, though, that UN inspectors who worked in Iran for almost two years did not find any evidence of a nuclear warhead design or an atomic weapons program. ef/rma/tgj * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 3 WorldNetDaily: Powell singing pre-war tune on Iran? SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20 2004 © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com When President Bush needed a rationale for invading Iraq, he told Congress that Saddam Hussein posed "a continuing threat to the national security of the United States" by "actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations." Now, every member of Congress knew – or should have known – that Saddam was not actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Just days before Bush invaded Iraq, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei had reported to the Security Council that "after three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq." The IAEA is an agency of the United Nations whose original mission was to facilitate the international transfer of nuclear technology, equipment and materials for peaceful purposes. But the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – which went into force in 1970 – required signatories to make certain materials, facilities and activities subject to the IAEA-NPT Safeguards and Physical Security regime. The IAEA regime thereby became responsible for assuring the Security Council that "declared" materials are not stolen or diverted to the production of nukes. Then, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the IAEA discovered that Iraq had been enriching small quantities of uranium but not declaring it. Worse, they discovered that Iraq actually had a well-funded, but chaotic, nuke development program. Failure to declare the very small quantities of low-enriched uranium was a violation of Iraq's Safeguards agreement. But the Iraqi program the IAEA uncovered – to produce large quantities of very highly enriched uranium for use in nukes – was a violation of the NPT, itself. Hence, under the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire resolution, Iraq was required by the Security Council to cooperate with its agent – the IAEA Action Team on Iraq – in transparently destroying or rendering harmless every vestige of the Iraqi nuclear programs. The IAEA Board of Governors then asked all NPT signatories to voluntarily negotiate an Additional Protocol to their existing IAEA Safeguards agreements. The IAEA's safeguards regime was to be transformed, thereby, from a quantitative system – focused on accounting for declared materials and monitoring of declared activities – to a qualitative system, capable of forming a comprehensive picture of a state's nuclear and nuclear-related activities, including all nuclear-related imports and exports. Each Additional Protocol also provides the IAEA the authority to visit any of the signatory's facilities to investigate questions about – or inconsistencies in – the signatory's nuclear declarations. Iran signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards agreement and immediately invited the IAEA to conduct the exhaustive two-year inspection of Iran's nuclear and nuclear-related activities just completed. Result? As was the case with Iraq in the months immediately preceding Bush's invasion, the IAEA has found no evidence that NPT-proscribed materials have been stolen or diverted, nor that Iran is engaged in any NPT prohibited activity. In particular, there is no evidence that Iran has been enriching uranium in the facilities it has constructed or is constructing. Now, without question, the U.S.-UK invasion of Iraq, in spite of the no-nuke report by the IAEA Action Team, dealt a severe blow to the credibility and effectiveness of the NPT-IAEA regime. And, if Bush-Cheney can get the Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran – or worse – in spite of the no-nuke report by the IAEA, the NPT-IAEA nuke proliferation-prevention regime may be dealt a fatal blow. This week, retiring Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to be developing a rationale for launching – or condoning – a Bush pre-emptive attack against Iran, just as he did just before Bush launched his pre-emptive attack against Iraq. Powell had "seen some information that would suggest that they [Iranians] have been actively working on delivery systems." "I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead," Powell said. " I'm talking about what one does with a warhead." Powell suggests Iran already has nukes that are small enough and light enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile. Worse, Powell implies the IAEA is not competent – even with Additional Protocols in place – to detect such massive and flagrant NPT violations. Two years ago Powell had this to say: "The NPT can only be as strong as our will to enforce it, in spirit and in deed. We share a collective responsibility to be ever vigilant, and to take concerted action when the Treaty – our treaty – is threatened." The NPT is being threatened. And guess who's threatening it. Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. [WorldNetDaily.com] --> news@worldnetdaily.com--> Contact WND ***************************************************************** 4 The Observer: Pentagon turns heat up on Iran | International | [UP] Washington and European Union on collision course over how to neutralise Tehran's nuclear capabilities Peter Beaumont and Gaby Hinsliff Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Pentagon hawks have begun discussing military action against Iran to neutralise its nuclear weapons threat, including possible strikes on leadership, political and security targets. With a deadline of tomorrow for Iran to begin an agreed freeze on enriching uranium, which can be used to produce nuclear weapons, sources have disclosed that the latest Pentagon gaming model for 'neutralising' Iran's nuclear threat involves strikes in support of regime change. Although the United States has made clear that it would seek sanctions against Iran through the United Nations should it not meet its obligations, rather than undertake military action, the new modelling at the Pentagon, with its shift in emphasis from suspected nuclear to political target lists, is causing deep anxiety among officials in the UK, France and Germany. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to meet on Thursday to decide whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for being in breach of non-proliferation measures. Sources close to the Bush administration have warned that Tony Blair will have to choose between the EU's pursuit of the diplomatic track and a more hardline approach from the White House. While George Bush clearly favours more stick and less carrot, it is not yet clear what the stick might be: US administration sources say targeted air strikes - either by the US or Israel - aimed at wiping out Iran's fledgling nuclear programme would be difficult because of a lack of clear intelligence about where key components are located. Despite America's attempt to turn up the heat on Iran, analysts remain deeply uncertain whether the increasingly bellicose noises which are coming from Bush administration figures represent a crude form of 'megaphone' diplomacy designed to scare Iran into sticking to its side of the bargain, or evidence that Washington is leaning towards a new military adventure. Details of the emerging Pentagon thinking have come as US officials have spent the past week turning up the pressure on Iran before the deal comes into force. US officials are expected to meet European diplomats and IAEA officials to complain about Iran's continuing production of substantial quantities of uranium hexafluoride, which can be used in a weapons programme. Although not explicitly barred in the accord, US officials believe it amounts to a serious show of bad faith by Iran. Speaking on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Santiago yesterday, Bush ratcheted up the pressure on Iran. 'It is very important for the Iran government to hear that we are concerned about their desires and we're concerned about reports that show that, before a certain international meeting, they're willing to speed up the processing of materials that could lead to a nuclear weapon,' Bush said. Referring to the European countries that negotiated the deal with Iran, Bush added: 'They do believe that Iran has got nuclear ambitions, as do we, as do many around the world. 'This is a very serious matter. The world knows it's a serious matter and we're working together to solve this matter.' Under a pact reached by the European countries and Iran last week, Iran is due to suspend all uranium enrichment, while it negotiates a deal in which it would receive trade incentives and peaceful nuclear technology. Yesterday, the Foreign Office tried to play down fears that Iran is already breaching the deal which was negotiated with the EU, insisting that the IAEA be allowed to issue its own verdict on Tehran's compliance this week. 'We will wait and see what the report is: the Iranians have got until 25 November,' said a spokesman. But Whitehall sources said the UK accepted that Iran had a complex and extensive nuclear programme that could not be shut down overnight. 'There is a lot of speculation that is unfounded. Obviously there have been a lot of concerns in the past, but there's a deal on the table and we hope that they will stick with it,' said one. Last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has just announced his resignation, told reporters that US intelligence had seen hard evidence that Iran was close to putting a nuclear weapon on a long-range weapons system. The allegation was immediately challenged by officials in the State Department, who said the information, which had come from a single 'walk-in' source, had yet to be verified. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 5 The Observer: Why America has got it so wrong on Iran [UP] Comment Peter Beaumont Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer What is the likely outcome of a confrontation between the US and Iran? I don't mean the la-la-land futurology, still being served up by friends of the Bush Administration over the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, about how the world will still be a safer place and democracy will spread to areas other Presidents couldn't reach. I prefer to subscribe to a reality that says that the US and its allies have screwed up twice and that Washington is threatening to do so again. That we sleep-walked into an unfolding disaster in Iraq, despite ample warnings of its tragic course. That says that still lawless Afghanistan - awash with a bumper crop of opium - is a glass more than half-empty. And that says Iran is another accident about to happen. The screw-up view of history sees US foreign policy backfire again as, seduced by its own ideological certainty that all it does is right, it continues its project to create a series of failed and fragile states running seamlessly from the borders of Pakistan to within spitting distance of the Dead Sea. Osama bin Laden could not have planned it better. Which leads to the question, is there any evidence at all that Bush's new foreign policy team is likely to be more adept at dealing with Iran than with the previous two crises it confronted? To deal with the issues first. Iran, it is true, presents a series of complex challenges. Operating by the same stretched criteria of distant threat that launched a war against Iraq, Iran appears more dangerous. It has an extant civil nuclear programme and has mastered key nuclear-military technologies. It has long-range missiles which might eventually carry a war head. It has a long history of hostility to Israel. Factions in Iran's political order even now are interfering in Iraq. But the crucial issue is precisely what this agglomeration of detail means? Seen from Washington, where all gaps these days seamlessly join up, it means that Iran is a hostile, terror-sponsoring state, meddling in Iraq and on the verge of acquiring weapons with which it could target Tel Aviv. The European view, which has sought to negotiate a uranium enrichment freeze rather than confront Tehran, is more subtle and factors in the full spectrum of Iran's intentions. Iran, seen from this vantage point, is an infinitely more complex construction, with power structures that are competitive and contradictory - with the greatest competition for a more open society coming from Iran's younger generation. Iran, too, displays a curious mind set. Through its culture and recent history, it sees itself as a player on the world stage. It pricks America in Iraq because it can, not because it has greater ambitions than to have a friendly state next door. Its endless foot-dragging over nuclear inspections and declarations, seen in this light, is inward looking, defensive and as much about pride as hostile intentions. Iran's nuclear ambiguity - like Saddam's over his retention of WMD - and its determination to show it has mastered key elements of the physics and engineering to make a bomb, also serves a purpose. In a world where the US has recently invaded two of Iran's neighbours in quick order, there are hawks who believe in the value of a nuclear deterrent, even if that deterrent is as yet incomplete. Iran, seen from the European viewpoint, feels compelingly real. Seen from Washington it feels like another over-hyped threat. Which leaves a dangerous paradox. For the risk is that the harder America pushes, the more prickly and dangerous Iran is likely to become. Like Iraq, it has the potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which begs the question, why precisely is Washington pushing so hard? According to some senior diplomats it is in part a question of amour-propre, frustration that its is UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, which is handling the dossier, and the Europeans doing the talking. But it is more than that. In July the Israeli Knesset was presented with an annual intelligence assessment that said Iran (now Iraq has been smashed) is its greatest threat. So we step towards confrontation once again. It is clear that Bush, unembarrassed by the fact that the intelligence used to justify the case for war against Saddam was cooked up, is playing the same game again. The claim last week that US intelligence had discovered Iran was close to modifying its missiles to take a nuclear pay load, the Washington Post quickly revealed, had come from a single, unverified 'walk-in source'. There is a sense of déjà vu about all this: that realities once again are being concocted for ideological expediency. And that left to its own devices Washington will screw up the complex problem of Iran. This time Britain cannot be party to it. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ***************************************************************** 6 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Korea-China Leaders to Push for Speedy Resumption of 6-Way talks Updated Nov.21,2004 13:28 KST President Roh Moo-hyun held separate summit meetings with the leaders of China and Canada on the sidelines of the 12th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile. The meetings set the stage for increased cooperation and support in a range of issues including the North Korean nuclear standoff. The leaders of South Korea and China held a summit meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed on the need to hold, as soon as possible, the next round of six-country talks aimed at peacefully resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff. The two leaders also pledged to continue their close cooperation in ensuring progress in the next round of talks according to South Korea's Presidential Office. The Chinese leader said Beijing expects Seoul to play a more-active role during the next round of six-country talks. The comments by President Hu come as the South Korean leader plans to express his plan for Seoul to play a more active role in upcoming six-country talks during a scheduled summit with U.S. President George W. Bush during the APEC forum. Citing what it viewed as a hostile policy by Washington, Pyongyang has refused to return to the six-way talks since September this year. The Seoul-Beijing summit also focused on strengthening economic ties between the two countries. South Korea and China plan to raise the size of bilateral trade to US$100 billion by 2008 but both leaders were optimistic that the targeted amount could be reached by 2006. China has replaced the United States as South Korea's largest trading partner. The South Korean president also held a summit meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. The Canadian leader said he would support Seoul in an ongoing investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency into two isolated and unofficial nuclear experiments by South Korean researchers in the past. Arirang TV ***************************************************************** 7 BBC: Bush warns N Korea at Apec summit Last Updated: Saturday, 20 November, 2004 [Police arrest a protester in Santiago More than 4,000 military-style police were on the streets US President George Bush has warned North Korea that it will face intense pressure to resume six-party talks on its nuclear programme. "The leader of North Korea will hear a common voice," he said, ahead of the Apec summit in Santiago, Chile. He said the US, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia all wanted to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. Police and protesters have clashed outside the summit venue, and further demonstrations are expected later. More meetings American officials say Mr Bush is expected to use the Apec summit to map a strategy to resume talks with Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions. EVOLVING APEC [George W Bush ] 1989: Se up to promote free trade 1993: Bill Clinton proclaims 'Pacific century' 1997: Confidence hit by Asian financial crisis 1999: East Timor crisis He held separate meetings with the Chinese, Japanese, Russian and South Korean leaders before the summit opened. US negotiators have denied reports that some of the countries want more concessions to North Korea, beyond a proposal made in June to allow South Korea and Japan to provide the North with aid. More than 20 nations are represented at the gathering, where the discussions are expected to focus on trade liberalisation and counter-terrorism. Thousands of police have been deployed throughout Santiago to break up unofficial protests. The authorities declared a holiday on Friday but up to 25,000 people marched through Santiago in protest against capitalism and US policy in Iraq and elsewhere. Widened agenda Apec members account for more than half of global economic output and almost half of all international trade. The bloc was set up in 1989 mainly to promote trade among the Pacific rim countries. APEC MEMBERS Australia, Brunei, Canada Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, US, Vietnam Apec summits have a habit of being overshadowed by other issues, and this year's looks set to be no different, says the BBC's Elliott Gotkine in Santiago. Inside the convention hall, the leaders are due to discuss ways to combat terrorism. There are also hopes that Apec could take steps towards creating a free trade area for the Asia-Pacific region, our correspondent adds. ***************************************************************** 8 BBC: N Korea 'must halt weapon dreams' Last Updated: Sunday, 21 November, 2004 [President Bush, left, Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, centre, and Russian President Vladimir Putin wear Chilean ponchos for the official Apec leaders photo ] As usual, leaders dressed up for the official Apec photo The US president says North Korea must abandon any ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons in the face of stiff opposition from other countries. George W Bush told the Asia-Pacific summit in Chile that the message to Pyongyang was clear: "Get rid of your nuclear weapons programmes." North Korea said it would beef up its deterrent defences, official media in Pyongyang reported on Sunday. The Apec summit meeting is being held under tight security in Santiago. On Friday, tens of thousands of people protested on the city streets against capitalism and the Iraq war. At least 189 people were detained. Police have been deployed in strength throughout Santiago to break up unofficial protests. Trade liberalisation and counter-terrorism are high on the agenda of the first official summit involving the leaders of all 21 member states, which include Canada, China, Japan, Russia and the US. Deadlock American officials say Mr Bush is using the Apec summit to map a strategy to resume talks with Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions. He had separate meetings with the Chinese, Japanese, Russian and South Korean leaders before the summit opened. They, together with the US and North Korea, represent the countries involved in the stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. The message is clear to Kim Jong-il: get rid of your nuclear weapons programmes [ src=] George W Bush "Five Apec members are working to convince North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons," Mr Bush told the conference. "I can report to you today, having visited with the other nations involved in that collaborative effort that the will is strong, that the effort is united, and the message is clear to Mr Kim Jong-il [North Korean leader]; get rid of your nuclear weapons programmes." A day after Mr Bush's message, a commentary in Rodong Sinmun, the official paper of the ruling Workers' Party, said North Korea needed to bolster its defences "as long as the US persists in its attempt to stifle the DPRK [North Korea] with nuclear weapons". It said the US has "worked out a nuclear war scenario against the DPRK in top secrecy and has regularly staged drills for dropping nuclear bombs". North Korea failed to attend the latest round of six-party talks in September aimed at resolving the deadlock over its nuclear programme. EVOLVING APEC [George W Bush ] 1989: Se up to promote free trade 1993: Bill Clinton proclaims 'Pacific century' 1997: Confidence hit by Asian financial crisis 1999: East Timor crisis Spotlight on Chile's leader Many detained in protests US negotiators have denied reports that some of the countries want more concessions for North Korea, beyond a proposal made in June to allow South Korea and Japan to supply it with aid. Before his speech, the US leader also had words of warning for Iran, following reports it has accelerated production of uranium material that could be used to make nuclear weapons. "It's very important for the Iranian government to hear that we are concerned about their desires and we're concerned about reports that show that prior to a certain international meeting, they're willing to speed up processing of materials that could lead to a nuclear weapon," Mr Bush was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. The Apec summit is the first big international gathering that Mr Bush has attended since his re-election. Members of the bloc, set up in 1989 mainly to promote trade among Pacific Rim states, now account for more than half of global economic output and almost half of all international trade. The BBC's Elliott Gotkine in Santiago says there are hopes that Apec could take steps towards creating a free trade area for the Asia-Pacific region. ***************************************************************** 9 Xinhuanet: Seoul sending delegation to IAEA meeting www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2004-11-21 14:04:01 BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- South Korea will send a delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors' meeting in Vienna next week. Vice Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin heads the delegation, reported CCTV.com Sunday. The South Korean government hopes to persuade the UN nuclear watchdog, not to refer the country's case to the Security Council. The Council has the power to impose sanctions, if it decides that South Korea violated international non-proliferation agreements, with nuclear experiments. Last week, an Agency report said that some of the nuclear materials produced in the South Korean experiments, were close to weapons-grade. But it conceded that the experiments were not linked to any secret weapons development program. Enditem (CCTV.com) Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Xinhua: China, US agree to resolve Korean nuclear issue by peaceful means Updated: 2004-11-21 08:58 Chinese President Hu Jintao and United States President George W. Bush agreed Saturday to resolve the Korean nuclear issue through dialogue and peaceful means. During their summit on the sidelines of the 12th APEC leadership meeting, Hu told Bush China champions a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue through dialogue so as to maintain peace and stability on the peninsular. The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsular is complicated and all parties concerned should show patience, flexibility and sincerity in resolving this issue, Hu said. China will continue close coordination and cooperation with all parties concerned to push for the convocation of a new round of six-party talks at an early date, the Chinese leader said. Bush, for his part, said the United States appreciates China's positive role in resolving the Korean nuclear issue, and that the US would continue to advance the six-party talks for a peaceful solution of the problem. The six-party talks involve China, the US, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia. Three rounds of the talks have been held so far. www.chinadaily.com.cn ***************************************************************** 11 UKED: DPRK demands "thorough" probe into S. Korea's nuclear experiment english.eastday.com 21/11/2004 8:08 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Saturday demanded a "thorough and understandable" investigation into the nuclear materials produced in the South Korea's experiments. The DPRK also refused to accept the inspection results by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the suspicious nuclear experiments in South Korea, and warned it won't give up its nuclear deterrent force until a "thorough and understandable" investigation is made. "The DPRK can't recognize the results of three inspections made by the IAEA so far and will remain skeptical about the results of further inspections," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)said in a commentary. "The continued disclosure of nuclear-related secret experiments since September prove that south Korea has pursued a nuclear development program for the past more than two decades," said the commentary, adding that "it pose a grave threat to the peace on the Korean Peninsula and regional stability." The commentary assailed the United States of applying double standards. "The US has manipulated the IAEA to drag on its inspection of nuclear research centers in south Korea...and the IAEA showed tendency to downplay the case," it said. "It is the consistent stand of the DPRK to make the whole Korean Peninsula nuclear free,"it said. "The DPRK can never dismantle its self-defensive nuclear deterrent force unless a thorough and understandable probe is made into south Korea's nuclear issue," warned the commentary. Xinhua ***************************************************************** 12 Progressive News: Cheney, the Saudis, Saddam and the Bomb by Rory O'Connor Sunday November21, 2004 published by MediaChannel.Org Vice President Dick Cheney said today that a report by chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer--who found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991-- justifies rather than undermines the Bush Administration's decision to go to war. The Duelfer report shows that "delay, defer, wasn't an option," said Cheney, pointing to a secondary conclusion in the report -- that the UN "Fuel for Food" program was failing -- as proof positive that Saddam needed to be ousted by force. But beyond Cheney's anti-Saddam rhetoric lies a decades-old web of official dealings that call into question the vice president's election-year posturing against the former Iraqi regime. Unfortunately, few in the mainstream media are devote their efforts this year to an analysis of Cheney's long history in the Persian Gulf. Mine Bush and Kerry speeches for the message behind the spin. For those reporters who may be interested in shedding more light on the contradictions 'embedded' in Cheney's current rhetoric, here's a starter kit: On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, and Saddam Hussein's soldiers threatened the vast oil fields of Saudi Arabia. Four days after the invasion, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney arrived in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. As he later told me in an interview for "The Arming of Saudi Arabia," a film I was directing for the PBS documentary series Frontline, "The main purpose for my trip was to try to persuade the king to agree to receive US troops in the kingdom. We simply had to have access to Saudi Arabia. Unless we could get access for our forces to Saudi Arabia, there was very little we could do about Saddam Hussein in Kuwait." Cheney met King Fahd to argue that the time had come to activate a plan long in the making. The king agreed to receive hundreds of thousands of US soldiers on Saudi soil, and the mobilization of military equipment and troops began. America's ability to respond so quickly and massively to Saddam Hussein's threat impressed the world. But as Secretary Cheney and King Fahd were well aware, the operation didn't happen overnight. It was the result of a special military and economic relationship with Saudi Arabia that is far deeper and more extensive than most Americans still know -- Fahrenheit 911 notwithstanding. Not only did that relationship make Saudi Arabia one the of the most heavily armed countries in the world in the years before the first Gulf War, it also involved efforts by both countries to aid their eventual enemy, Iraq, in a massive arms buildup. And, as my film revealed, the Saudis also contributed to Saddam's early attempts to develop a nuclear bomb -- something that Cheney and other high United States officials were aware of as early as 1989. LAYING THE FOUNDATION The story of the Saudi military buildup began during the last days of the shah of Iran. The shah's overthrow took American policymakers by surprise, and when his enormous arsenal of US-made weapons fell into the hands of Iran's Islamic fundamentalists, Washington was shaken. There was great anxiety that this was the beginning of a wave that would sweep across the Gulf -- and that Saudi Arabia might be next. At the time, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter, called for a massive military buildup in the Gulf region, centered inside Saudi Arabia -- the logical choice to replace Iran as a key US ally in the region. Located just across the Persian Gulf, its small ruling elite wanted weapons to protect its oil resources. The oil-dependent United States was eager to help. As Brzezinski explained, "We need their oil, and, therefore, we have to make sure that they are friendly, and, therefore, we are engaged in protecting their security. They, at the same time, are almost completely dependent on us for their security, in a region where they're very vulnerable and very rich. So there is a kind of a curious though asymmetrical interdependence here." The decision to sell expensive weaponry to Saudi Arabia coincided with an explosion in the country's oil income following dramatic price hikes in the 1970s. By 1981, annual Saudi oil revenues reached $116 billion -- part of history's largest transfer of wealth. Many of the petrodollars flowed to American construction and engineering firms such as Bechtel, which cashed in on Saudi Arabia's rapid modernization. But the most important purchases for the Saudis were military. Saudi Arabia ultimately became the largest purchaser of U.S. weapons in the entire world. THE AWACS CONNECTION The key request came in 1979, when the Saudis asked for AWACS, the advanced airborne radar system. AWACS would be the linchpin to an enormous Saudi defense buildup. The Pentagon's point man for the AWACS sale was Air Force General Richard Secord, later of Iran-Contra infamy. As Secord put it, "The supporters of Israel literally were up in arms over this, and they were fighting us every step of the way. And so it became a classical political wrangle." The AWACS wrangle caught the notice of Washington Post reporter Scott Armstrong, who soon realized that the story was much bigger than the sale of a few planes.Armstrong prepared an article stating that the proposed AWACS sale was just the beginning of a secret $50 billion plan to build surrogate military bases in Saudi Arabia. Richard Secord pressured Armstrong's editors to delay publication of his story. He explained how in our interview: "Our public affairs people in the Pentagon, as I recall, called the editorial management of The Washington Post and said, you know, this guy's preparing this cockamamie story, you know, you've got to give us a break on this. This is crazy, you know." Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee told me he "could not recall" any Pentagon pressure to delay Armstrong's article. But it didn't run until after a crucial Senate AWACS vote. As Secord recalled, "On the preceding Friday we showed, at best, a tie. And so the vice-president then, George Bush, was prepared to break the tie if it came out that way. We lucked out and in the last minute a few of the Senators switched their votes over, and so we won it by four votes-which really, if you think about it, is only a two-man swing, 52 to 48." Scott Armstrong's article finally appeared on the front page of The Washington Post four days after the vote. In it, he detailed a hidden plan the congressional debate had never confronted, "a grand defense strategy for the Middle East oil fields…an ambitious plan to build surrogate bases in Saudi Arabia, equipped and waiting for American forces to use." An unwritten, secret understanding lay behind what had been framed as the mere sale of a few planes. "The heart of the understanding is this," Armstrong wrote. "If America will sell the Saudis an integrated package of top-of-the-line military technology, Saudi Arabia will build and pay for a massive network of command, naval and air defense facilities large enough to sustain U.S. forces in intensive regional combat. . ." Armstrong's conclusion that the AWACS sale was the cornerstone of a multi-billion-dollar secret defense buildup inside Saudi Arabia was flatly denied by then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. In the face of Saudi secrecy and Defense Department denials, his article was soon forgotten. But many senior officials of the United States government, including Lawrence Korb, who was assistant defense secretary under Weinberger, later confirmed much of his story. As Korb told me, "What the Saudis allowed the United States to do over in that part of the world was to set up a de facto infrastructure by purchasing airfields, by purchasing very modern ports, by purchasing a lot of American equipment--theoretically to support their forces, by buying a lot of American equipment that would use the same type of facilities that our forces needed. So, in effect, we had a replica of US airfields and ports over in that part of the world paid for by the Saudis, to be used by the United States when and if we had to go over there. In many cases, it was almost better than NATO. With the Saudis, they basically were buying off-the-shelf from us and replicating an American military facility. So, when we showed up, it was just like being at home. Everything fit. Everything worked." Dick Cheney, Caspar Weinberger's successor as Defense Secretary,later openly acknowledged the Saudi buildup. As Cheney told me in a 1992 interview, "During the 80s there was an increased level of cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The provision of additional equipment, the AWACS, early warning airborne system, F-15 fighters… Plus there was a great deal of work done in terms of building facilities - the port facilities and the air fields that were so crucial to our ability to be able to deploy the force rapidly and then to conduct combat operations from Saudi Arabia, were developed in the 1980's with a major investment on the part of the Saudis, but major involvement by the United States." A decade after his Washington Post investigation, Scott Armstrong wrote another article about the Saudi arms buildup, this time for the magazine Mother Jones. By 1992, he concluded, the cost of the military buildup had risen to $156 billion. As Armstrong put it, "The Saudis have been the principal backers and financers of the largest armament system that the world has ever seen in any region of the world. It includes over $95 billion worth of weapons that they bought themselves. Includes another $65 billion worth of military infrastructure and ports that they've put in. It is the ultimate government off-the-books." TAKING GOVERNMENT "OFF-THE-BOOKS" Government off-the-books is characteristic of the Saudi-U.S. relationship. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, for example, the Saudis spent billions to help the U.S. finance its covert support of Afghanistan's mujaheddin rebels. The Saudis later helped finance the US covert war in Central America, as Secord related, "In the 80s, when the Congress was cutting off funds for the contras, I did talk to the Saudis about them possibly anteing up some millions to support the contras during this period, because they are tremendously anti-Communist in their own philosophies. It turned out that was unnecessary, since that was being done at a higher level-- and as we all now know, the Saudis did contribute $20-30 million at the request of the president of the United States." But the most expensive covert joint venture for Saudi and U. S. officials was their attempt to contain the revolution in Iran. And Iraq's Saddam Hussein would become their willing instrument -attacking Iran in 1980 and starting a brutal eight-year war. The Saudis were concerned that Iran would win the war, assume control in Baghdad and establish an Islamic republic, and then threaten the Kingdom. Howard Teicher, who served on the National Security Council from 1982 to 1987, explained the situation. "This was the most important subject on the Saudi agenda in the 1980s: how to, at a minimum, prevent the war from expanding beyond the Iran-Iraq border area and engaging the Saudis." IRAQ'S SECRET SAUDI SUPPORT Throughout the Iran-Iraq war, the Saudis -- with the knowledge and approval of United States government officials -- backed Iraq with money, weapons, and intelligence. As Teicher put it, "They were providing financial assistance; they provided logistics support; they were providing intelligence information…. They took the information that we provided them about our assessments of the Iranian military and provided it to Iraq. I believe that some of that information contributed to Saddam Hussein's decision to invade Iran in the first place." In 1983, US-manned AWACS flying out of Saudi Arabia began direct intelligence sharing with Iraq. But the Saudis also provided tens of billions of dollars to Iraq in cash. James Akins, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1973 to 1975, later told me, "I think Kuwait and Saudi Arabia must have given something on the order of $60 billion, in a ratio of two to one, 40 from Saudi Arabia and 20 from Kuwait." Saudi Arabia also provided American-made weapons to Iraq, despite congressional restrictions on such transfers. In February 1986, hundreds of one-ton MK-84 bombs were sent to Iraq by Saudi Arabia. This illegal Saudi arms transfer was kept secret from the public until April 1992, when reporter Murray Waas broke the story in The Los Angeles Times. The story said the shipment was part of a ten-year covert policy by the Reagan and Bush administrations to arm Iraq. Working with Waas and Frontline investigative reporter W. Scott Malone, I uncovered a much larger story: in 1990, the U.S. government received intelligence information that the Saudis had aided Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The text of a classified CIA report dated June 1990 states that analysts had reliable information that Saudi Arabia had provided $5 billion to Iraq's nuclear weapons program. According to the CIA report, beginning in 1985, some of the money flowed through the Gulf International Bank, which at the time was owned in part by the Saudi and Iraqi governments. We also talked to sources in the CIA and at the Pentagon's National Security Agency who first heard of a Saudi-Iraqi nuclear connection as early as 1986. In addition, I was shown a classified 1989 intelligence assessment prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which detailed money flowing from the Saudi Arabian military through an unnamed bank in Berne, Switzerland to Iraq's secret military procurement network. Although the assessment does not specify how this Saudi money was used, it did note that the purpose of the procurement network was to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Ambassador Akins believed that Saudi involvement in Iraq's nuclear program began after Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor near Baghdad in 1981, and that the Gulf Arabs' desire to assist Iraq's nuclear program may be traced to fears about Israel's nuclear arsenal. "After the Israeli attack on Baghdad -- the Israelis, one must remember, flew across Saudi Arabia to get there, the Saudis were extremely upset about this -there was a decision taken to build a nuclear weapon," Akins recalled. "The Arabs thought 'The only way that we're going to be able to stand up against Israel is to build a nuclear weapon. It will be built in Baghdad, and the countries of the peninsula will pay for it.' There's no doubt the Israelis have a nuclear weapon. They probably have well over 200 nuclear bombs, and they have the means of delivering these bombs to every major Arab city. Certainly every Arab leader thinks that the only way of being able to ensure that Israel does not use this bomb against the Arabs, is to have a deterrent nuclear force of their own." Former Secretary of State James Baker and former CIA head Robert Gates declined comment. And when asked about the intelligence assessments we had reviewed, Cheney would neither confirm nor deny their existence. Instead he neatly skirted the issue, saying "If there were such intelligence reports, it's not something I could talk about anyway. It's all classified." FAST FORWARD TO TODAY The Iran-Iraq war ended in a stalemate in 1988, leaving a million casualties. The off-the-books U.S.-Saudi policy toward Iran may have prevented that country from overrunning Baghdad, yet Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait two years later, threatening the oil fields of his one-time patron, the Saudis. The rest is history. . .but also current events. The report by Charles A. Duelfer, the top American inspector for Iraq, concluded that Iraq had destroyed its illicit WMD stockpiles within months after the Gulf War of 1991. The alleged presence of WMD, of course, was the stated reason for the second American invasion of Iraq in 2003. In addition, the report concluded that Saddam Hussein had deliberately maintained ambiguity about his illicit weapons programs -- including his nuclear weapons program -- as a way to deter its regional rival, Iran. Specifically, Duelfer's report states that "Saddam Hussein ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf War." If the Defense Intelligence Agency reported in 1989 that money was flowing from the Saudi Arabian military to Iraq's secret military procurement network, and that the purpose of the procurement network was to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and the Central Intelligence Agency reported in 1990 that analysts had reliable information that Saudi Arabia had provided $5 billion to Iraq's nuclear weapons program, one wonders why and how US intelligence could have been so wrong about the state of Saddam's WMD programs just a decade later. Perhaps they should have asked the Saudis? Although "The Arming of Saudi Arabia" aired nationally on PBS, none of the other mainstream media in the United States reported on it, (although it made front-page news in Israel) and the story of Cheney, Saddam, the Saudis and the bomb was soon forgotten -- until now. -- Rory O'Connor's blog, "Media Is a Plural," can be found at www.roryoconnor.org. © MediaChannel.org, 2004. All rights reserved. www.ProgressiveTrail.Org ***************************************************************** 13 Arizona Republic: Top Dem real Westerner November 21, 2004 Top Dem real Westerner New Senate player sparks interest Billy House and Mary Jo Pitzl The Arizona Republic WASHINGTON - A politically cagey senator who's a Westerner through and through takes over the reins of minority leader when the U.S. Senate returns here in January, leading some to suggest he could be exactly what the ailing Democratic Party needs. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's ascension to the top Senate Democrat job may not only bring more congressional focus on issues of particular importance to the Southwest and Mountain states, but could also project a whole new face of Democratic leadership, political analysts say. "When Harry Reid first ran for Congress, he ran on the slogan 'Harry Reid - independent like Nevada,' " recalls Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University whose specialty is Congress. "And that's really the kind of guy he is." "It's a trait Easterners admire in some Western lawmakers - like (Sen. John) McCain in Arizona," adds Baker. "And I think it may take a Westerner like Reid to really be able to recast Democrat issues to make Democrats more palatable to Westerners, in places like Nevada and Arizona." For the past six years, Reid, 64, has been in the No. 2 post of Democratic whip, his bespectacled and unassuming image often seen on C-Span directing the Senate floor activities of his party. The soft-spoken Mormon has carried out those duties in workmanlike fashion, shunning fiery oratory or self-promotion. But after the Nov. 2 defeats of both Sen. John Kerry and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Reid moved swiftly to lock up support to become Daschle's successor, leaving him the most powerful elected Democrat in the nation at a time when the party is struggling to redefine itself. Knows Western issues Reid, say friends and foes, brings to his new job as Senate minority leader a personal background and understanding of issues important to Arizona and the West, ranging from future water needs to land management policies that balance rapid growth with conservation. In what has become the dominant issue in his home state of Nevada, Reid has gained high marks from environmentalists for being the most vocal opponent of building a nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The issue is also important to Arizonans, a state through which some of the material may have to be transported. In part, Reid expects to use his new position to "see issues that matter more to the West take a more prominent role in Congress," says a Reid spokeswoman, Shannon Eagan. "I've known Sen. Reid for the better part of my life; we've been friends for years," said Sig Rogich, a Republican strategist from Nevada. "When the needs of the West come up, he won't have to study them. I think it's beneficial to have him in that position - not just for Nevada, but Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah." But how far Reid can really go toward bring more Western issues to the forefront in the Senate's is arguable. Democrats lost three other Senate seats in addition to Daschle's on Election Day, dropping its total in the 100-seat Senate to 45. And as the minority party, the role of Democrats in the Senate "is not to set the agenda," says Jerry Taylor, director of Natural Resources Study at the Washington D.C.-based Cato Institute, an influential public policy think tank. Rags to riches Reid, in a news conference last week spoke of his rags-to-riches rise from a tiny gold-mining hamlet in the southern tip of Nevada called Searchlight that he says should show kids now in school: "If I can make it, anyone can." "It's true that I was raised in a house that had no indoor toilet, had no hot water. My dad worked real hard as a miner, and my mom worked very hard," said Reid, who recalled attending a two-room elementary school. "My parents were uneducated.... We had no social standing even in Searchlight. We had no religion. We had absolutely no money," he added. Reid had to leave Searchlight, which had no high school, to attend one in Henderson, a larger town 40 miles away. When he graduated, local businessmen took up a collection to send him to college. Later, he attended George Washington University Law School, working nights supporting his young family as a Capitol Hill police officer. He served in the Nevada state Assembly and by 1970, at the age of 30, became the youngest lieutenant governor in Nevada history. That success was tempered, however, by the suicide of his father in 1972, back at home in Searchlight. In 1977, Reid was appointed chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, a post in which he served for five years. He would go on to serve in the U.S. House for two terms before being elected to the Senate in 1986. Even though Reid won't necessarily make for a charismatic TV presence when called upon by his party to respond to the president's annual State of the Union addresses or other leadership activities, he declared, "I'm not an untested vessel." "I have been in the Senate for 18 years. I've served for six years as Senator Daschle's assistant. And I think my record speaks for itself on the Senate floor.... I always would rather dance than fight. But I know how to fight," Reid said. Shrewd operator In fact, Reid is highly regarded as a shrewd operator who has mastered the Senate's arcane rules and who, in terms of the Democratic Senate legislative initiatives, strategies and mechanics, "will make the trains run on time," Taylor said. Reid can be expected to be less confrontational that Daschle's "in-your-face" style, said Rogich. And there are a list of positions Reid takes at odds with the majority of his party. He opposes abortion, opposes banning assault weapons, and has been a staunch defender of the mining industry, upsetting environmentalists when he opposed tighter regulations on Western mine owners to pay royalties on minerals taken from federally owned lands. He also voted for Bush's tax cuts, and also voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002. But Rogich and others say Republicans would be making a mistake if they doubted Reid's Democratic loyalty and eagerness to battle over issues, even if he does prefer consensus building to political rancor. Beneath that soft-spoken persona, they say, lies a steely spine and a hard-as-nails approach to politics. Position has limits Others underscore that being minority leader has it's limits, though. Cecil Andrus, a former Idaho governor and U.S. secretary of the Interior, said Reid does have a strong understanding of Western issues that have served him well in the Senate. But for all of Reid's sensitivity and experience, Democrat Andrus doesn't think Western issues will fare better in Congress due to Reid's new position. "It's not Harry's fault. The Republicans have such a dominance that they're going to run amok," said Andus while attending a conference in Boise on forest health. For instance, Reid filibustered against a Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which was President Bush's approach to addressing the nation's overgrown forests. But he ultimately joined the Senate majority in passing the legislation last fall. Prof. James Burchfield, associate dean of the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, echoed Andrus' doubts. However, Burchfield said that Western communities themselves are finding a lot to agree upon regarding such things as the West's overgrown forests, and that "perhaps Congress will take its lead from these communities." Having a Westerner in such a prominent post might help, he said. Expanding Dems' base Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a conference call with reporters after the Nov. 2 elections that Reid's ascension could also help the Democratic Party expand its base. "With changing demographics, I think the West is the place Democrats should turn their attention to," she said. She added: "I'm convinced he's the logical choice at this moment." Reach the reporter at billy.house@arizonarepublic.comor at 1 (202) 906-8136. Copyright © 2004, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 KR Washington Bureau: Spending bill did not include some key items | 11/20/2004 | By James Kuhnhenn Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - As important to what was in a massive spending bill approved by Congress Saturday - $388 billion for domestic programs - is what didn't get in. House and Senate negotiators eliminated: -Language that would have restricted the Bush administration's attempts to privatize more federal jobs. President Bush had threatened to veto the bill if such restriction were included. -Provisions, passed in the House and Senate, that would have eased travel restrictions to Cuba. -A proposal to do away with country-of-origin labels for many foods. President Bush himself didn't get everything he wanted. His education spending proposal came up short, growing by less than 2 percent. His request for $2.5 billion in foreign aid to developing countries that move toward democracy got cut by $1 billion. The White House also wanted additional money for Yucca Mountain, the proposed site for the disposal of nuclear waste. But the negotiators simply met last year's allotment of $577 million to avoid a fight with opponents of the waste site proposal. The legislation covered spending for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. It also covered a slew of energy and water projects, and, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group, 11,700 special spending provisions totaling nearly $15.8 billion. Those include: -$250,000 to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn. -$4.9 million to renovate bath houses at Hot Springs, Ark. -$25,000 for a banana factory for an after school program in Bethlehem, Penn. About KRWashington.com | Terms of Use &Privacy Statement | ***************************************************************** 15 Lexington Herald-Leader: SPENDING BILL | 11/21/2004 | What the government will cost in 2005 Overall bill: For the 2005 federal budget year that began Oct. 1, finances departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. Also covers scores of other agencies, foreign aid and Congress's own operations. Cost: $388 billion. That is 2 percent less than the same programs got last year. Domestic programs covered by the legislation got about a 1 percent increase. To stay within that price tag, as President Bush insisted, all programs in bill will be cut by at least 0.8 percent, with some being cut deeper. (Figures below do not include effects of those across-the-board cuts.) Programs: Education for disabled $11.8 billion, $600 million over 2004 and $400 million below President Bush's request; NASA $16.2 billion, $500 million over 2004 and same as Bush's request; combating AIDS and other diseases in Africa and other poor nations $2.9 billion, $100 million over Bush; aid to state and local law enforcement agencies $1.3 billion, $90 million less than last year; veterans health care $30.3 billion, $1.9 billion over last year and $1.2 billion more than Bush; $577 million to continue preparing nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., $303 million below Bush. Legislative provisions: Extends airlines' war and terrorism risk insurance for a year; more leeway for some health-care providers and insurers to not provide or cover abortions. Provisions not included in the bill: Blocking new administration restrictions on overtime pay; curbing Bush's ability to contract out federal jobs to private companies; liberalizing trade with Cuba; repealing mandatory food labeling showing country of origin. ***************************************************************** 16 Cato Inst: Not All Forms of Nuclear Proliferation Are Equally Bad [The Cato Institute] November 21, 2004 by Ted Galen Carpenter Ted Galen Carpenter, the Cato Institute's vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, is the author of six books and the editor of 10 books on international affairs. The conventional wisdom is that all instances of nuclear weapons proliferation threaten the stability of the international system and the security interests of the United States. Indeed, that is the underlying logic of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, adopted by the bulk of the international community in the late 1960s, which is the centerpiece of the existing nonproliferation system. Members of the arms control community have over the decades spent an enormous amount of time and energy agonizing over the possibility that stable, democratic status quo powers such as Germany, Japan, Sweden and South Korea might decide to abandon the treaty and develop nuclear weapons. Indeed, they have devoted at least as much attention to that problem as they have to the prospect that unstable or aggressive states might build nuclear arsenals. The recent flap over the small scale (and probably unauthorized) nuclear experiments in South Korea is merely the latest example of such misplaced priorities. The hostility toward all forms of proliferation is not confined to dovish arms control types but extends across the political spectrum. As the North Korean nuclear crisis evolved in 2002 and 2003, some of the most hawkish members of the U.S. foreign policy community became terrified at the prospect that America's democratic allies in East Asia might build their own nuclear deterrents to offset Pyongyang's moves. Neoconservative luminaries Robert Kagan and William Kristol regarded such proliferation with horror: "The possibility that Japan, and perhaps even Taiwan, might respond to North Korea's actions by producing their own nuclear weapons, thus spurring an East Asian nuclear arms race . . . is something that should send chills up the spine of any sensible American strategist." That attitude misconstrues the problem. A threat to the peace may exist if an aggressive and erratic regime gets nukes and then is able to intimidate or blackmail its non-nuclear neighbors. Nuclear arsenals in the hands of stable, democratic, status quo powers do not threaten the peace of the region. Kagan and Kristol -- and other Americans who share their hostility toward such countries having nuclear weapons -- implicitly accept a moral equivalence between a potential aggressor and its potential victims. America's current nonproliferation policy is the international equivalent of domestic gun control laws, and exhibits the same faulty logic. Gun control laws have had little effect on preventing criminal elements from acquiring weapons. Instead, they disarm honest citizens and make them more vulnerable to armed predators. The nonproliferation system is having a similar perverse effect. Such unsavory states as Iran and North Korea are well along on the path to becoming nuclear powers while their more peaceful neighbors are hamstrung by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty from countering those moves. The focus of Washington's nonproliferation policy should substitute discrimination and selectivity for uniformity of treatment. U.S. policymakers must rid themselves of the notion that all forms of proliferation are equally bad. The United States should concentrate on making it difficult for aggressive or unstable regimes to acquire the technology and fissile material needed to develop nuclear weapons. Policymakers must adopt a realistic attitude about the limitations of even that more tightly focused nonproliferation policy. At best, U.S. actions will only delay, not prevent, such states from joining the nuclear weapons club. But delay can provide important benefits. A delay of only a few years may significantly reduce the likelihood that an aggressive power with a new nuclear weapons capability will have a regional nuclear monopoly and be able to blackmail non-nuclear neighbors. In some cases, the knowledge that the achievement of a regional nuclear monopoly is impossible may discourage a would-be expansionist power from even making the effort. At the very least, it could cause such a power to configure its new arsenal purely for deterrence rather than for aggressive purposes. Washington's nonproliferation efforts should focus on delaying rogue states in their quest for nuclear weapons, not beating up on peaceful states who might want to become nuclear powers for their own protection. The other key objective of a new U.S. proliferation policy should be to prevent unfriendly nuclear states from transferring their weapons or nuclear know-how to terrorist adversaries of the United States. Those objectives are daunting enough without continuing the vain and counterproductive effort to prevent all forms of proliferation. 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20001-5403 Phone (202) 842-0200 Fax (202) 842-3490 All Rights Reserved © 2004 Cato Institute ***************************************************************** 17 Bellona: Court may consider Bellona vs. Russian Ministry of Defense in absence of the defendant On 22 November at 10:15 a.m. the Presnya District Court in Moscow will hear the complaint lodged by the environmental NGO Bellona against Russia’s Ministry of Defense, insisting that the ministry declassify information about radiological accidents and technical failures aboard Soviet submarines that took place between 1961 and 1985. During this hearing, if the defendant fails to appear, the case will be considered in absence of the defendant. 2004-11-19 01:32 Several earlier court sessions have been postponed because Defense Ministry defendants failed to appear.. “The last time, patience was exhausted: The court sent telegrams to the Ministry of Defense, saying that if they didn’t show up, the case be considered without them”, says Bellona’s lawyer Ivan Pavlov, director of the Institute for Information Freedom Development. According to Clause 7 of the law “On State Secrets”, any information pertaining to civil emergencies and catastrophes that threaten the safety and health of the population, from natural disasters and official forecasts about disasters and their prospective consequences, tos information about ecological conditions, is lawfullyavailable to the public and forbidden being classified by the government. A year and a half has elapsed since the Environmental Rights Center Bellona, or ERC, originally filed a complaint with the Presnya District court of Moscow,—which has jurisdiction over cases concerning the Ministry of Defence—regarding the Navy commander’s refusal to de-classify socially significant information regarding the submarines incidents. But the Presnya District court refused to review the complaint, claimig that this case, which allegedly concerns state secrets, had to be considered by a court with jurisdiction within a subject of the Russian Federation—in this case by the Moscow City Court. Bellona contested the District Court’s decision, insisting that the case did not concern state secrets and the information, and asserted that the Ministry of Defence’s information on these incidents could not be classified by law. In December 2003 Russia’s Supreme Court ended a year of jurisdictional ping-pong, and handed down a decision establishing that the complaint filed by Bellona against the Russian Navy’s Commander must be considered at the Presnya District Court in Moscow. The case will be presided over by judge Larisa Sumenkova. For comments: Environmental Rights Center Bellona, St Petersburg, +7 812 327-29-43, +7 812 995-61-18 Ivan Pavlov +7 812 963-65-11 Presnya court of Moscow (Zoologicheskaya ul., 20) +7 095 254-0232 Read on 2004-01-07 Access to enviroinformation Russian Supreme Court: Bellona suit to declassify information on Soviet-era nuclear sub accidents 2003-09-19 Access to enviroinformation Moscow Courts Play Ping-Pong With Bellona Complaint Against the Defence Ministry 2003-08-25 Access to enviroinformation Bellona Demands Declassification of Accidents Aboard Soviet Submarines Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 18 IPS: APEC SUMMIT: 'Axis of Evil' Is Uninvited Guest Gustavo González SANTIAGO, Nov 20 (IPS) - North Korea, Iran and Iraq, the countries that U.S. President George W. Bush labelled the "axis of evil" in early 2002, are the main unofficial issues being discussed at the 12th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which opened Saturday in the Chilean capital. Bush arrived in Santiago late Friday amidst a massive security presence, and met separately with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to discuss the question of North Korea's nuclear programme. Sources close to the U.S. leader said he also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about North Korea's withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The leaders of China, Japan, Russia and the United States are the most prominent figures attending the gathering, which ends Sunday. APEC, created in 1989, also comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The 21 member economies represent 55 percent of world trade, 57 percent of global GDP, and 40 percent of the world's population. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, and the Pacific Islands Forum are official observers in APEC. Aside from the trade issues on the agenda, the summit is serving as a framework for several of the world's most powerful leaders to catch up on key political questions. The United States, China and Russia are three of the five permanent members on the United Nations Security Council, and the latter two both opposed the March 2003 U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. Putin announced Friday that he would tell Bush that he supported "holding a wide international conference, with participation of all involved parties, especially Iraq," to help Iraqis decide the future of their country. In a private meeting with Chilean parliamentary leaders, the Russian president said a world order run by a single superpower -- an obvious allusion to the United States -- was simply inconceivable. That leads to the cemetery, Putin reportedly told the legislators, although the president of the Chilean Senate, Hernán Larraín, said the Russian leader had referred to the crisis in Iraq "in an elegant and diplomatic manner." The question of North Korea's nuclear ambitions was brought up by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos in a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-hyun, who will host next year's APEC summit. U.S. diplomatic sources told IPS Saturday that the meetings on the issue between leaders at the summit were aimed at generating international pressure for North Korean President Kim Jong Il to agree to negotiations. Bush expressed to the presidents of China and Russia his concern over Iran's nuclear programme, despite the fact that according to Tehran the goal is to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the sources added. The U.S. government hopes the European Union will be able to monitor Iran's nuclear programme and dissuade the government of that country from pursuing any possible plans to develop nuclear weapons, they said. The United States has been the driving force at the APEC summit behind initiatives aimed at the coordination of measures to fight international terrorism, which would include strict controls on materials that could be used to manufacture atomic bombs. Chile is the first country that Bush has visited since he was re-elected on Nov. 2. On Friday, between 25,000 and 40,000 demonstrators came out to protest Bush's visit, in the march that kicked off the first Chilean Social Forum. Disturbances that occurred in the march and in other protests in Santiago, leading to the arrest of 138 demonstrators, were blamed by Deputy Minister of the Interior Jorge Correa on "vandals". Protests against Bush's presence and the APEC summit were held late Friday in poor neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Santiago, where flaming roadblocks were thrown up, and clashes occurred with the Carabineros militarised police. Two police officers and a gas station employee were shot and injured in the unrest. (END/2004) Copyright © 2004 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 19 Independent: Putin tries to reassure world over 'unique' nuclear missile claim www.independent.co.uk By Andrew Osborn in Moscow 21 November 2004 Russia has moved to reassure the international community that it is not embarking on a new arms race, just days after boasting it had developed a new nuclear weapon that "other nuclear powers do not and will not possess". President Vladimir Putin told the country's top military brass last Wednesday that new nuclear missile systems were being tested and would be pressed into service "in the next few years". International terrorism was the main threat facing Russia, he conceded, but the country could not afford to neglect its ageing nuclear arsenal. Mr Putin's comments surprised many analysts. The speech appeared to sit awkwardly with international attempts to prevent Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programmes. But Russian officials say Mr Putin's comments should not be misunderstood. At the United Nations the country's Deputy Foreign Minister, Yuri Fedotov, insisted the rest of the world had nothing to worry about, saying the new missile system was "purely defensive" and merely part of a continuing programme to upgrade Russia's military capability. "As with everything we have it's totally defensive," said Mr Fedotov. "All armed forces need to upgrade and this is part of a natural process ... It is [also] necessary to improve missile systems to avoid accidents." Most analysts believe Mr Putin's comments were mainly for domestic consumption, designed to boost morale in the country's cash-starved armed forces, which are undergoing a radical restructuring. But experts are divided over what kind of nuclear weapon the president was referring to. Some believe it is a ballistic missile for submarines, carrying 10 warheads over a range of 5,000 miles, that has been in development since 1986. Others speculate that it is a new generation of nuclear weapon that would render America's nascent missile defence shield redundant. The Russian weapon, it is claimed, would have a warhead that could detach itself from the main missile during the final phases of its flight and continue as a separate projectile, capable of evading missile defences. Mr Putin's upbeat assessment of the country's nuclear capability clashes sharply with recent Russia media reports, which claim the country's ballistic missile programme isin danger of collapse. © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ***************************************************************** 20 SD UT: San Onofre reactor shuts down suddenly, causing usage alerts SignOnSanDiego.com By Adam Klawonn UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER November 20, 2004 SAN ONOFRE  Officials at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are trying to figure out why one of their twin reactors went offline unexpectedly yesterday morning. The incident triggered alerts to the media from the California Independent System Operator advising customers of San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to curb their electricity usage through Monday during peak hours, from 5 to 8 p.m. The sudden outage occurred at Unit 2, which cranks out 440 of its 1,100 megawatts for SDG&E customers. The rest goes to other areas of Southern California. Unit 2 went offline about 8 a.m. after ground wires in its electrical generator shorted out, San Onofre spokesman Ray Golden said. That automatically shut down the generator, then the turbine and the reactor. Golden said no radioactive materials were released, no workers were hurt and the public suffered no harm. Unit 3 was already offline for a major refueling operation and maintenance. It was the first time in several years that both reactors were off at the same time, Golden said. The power plant is owned by Southern California Edison, SDG&E and the cities of Anaheim and Riverside, and is operated by SCE. Plant officials will investigate further this weekend and hope to have the reactor back online by next week, Golden said. An SDG&E spokesman said that if customers don't conserve power, they may face a bleaker situation. "If we have any other major conditions, we could consider blackouts," spokesman Ed Van Herik said. ***************************************************************** 21 News Journal: Is Hope Creek gambling with danger? www.delawareonline.com Failure of 'bent and broken' pump could be 'worst-case scenario' By JEFF MONTGOMERY / The News Journal 11/21/2004 Deep inside the riot of metal, concrete, pipe and wire that makes up the Hope Creek nuclear plant, a 20-foot-high pump has emerged as the flash point in a public battle over nuclear power safety and corporate risk-taking. The pump, capable of moving more than 100 million pounds of radioactive water an hour, is said to vibrate and sometimes roar "like a freight train." It rattles knobs off valve stems and switches off walls. Its 7-inch-thick, rotating central shaft has cracks, scratches and a microscopic bow that creates a slight wobble when the 1,100-megawatt plant is up and running. The vibrations have left some workers shaken and one nuclear safety group alarmed. The problem also threatens to further rattle public confidence in PSEG Nuclear, a company already reeling from costly breakdowns and mounting reform demands from the Nuclear Reg- ulatory Commission as it recovers from a premature shutdown on Oct. 10. Late last week, company Chief Nuclear Officer Chris Bakken publicly denied that managers are neglecting safety by putting off the estimated $7 million pump overhaul. Bakken said a consultant had found the delay safe and the pump problems within industry standards, and said that PSEG could use the time to better prepare for work on the highly radioactive unit, which would involve increased exposures for employees. "We believe that the pump is safe. We believe that there's a commercial risk we're taking - we may have to shut the plant down before the next refueling outage," Bakken said. "I'm willing to take the commercial risk [in order] to not overstress my organization, give them more [radiation] exposure than they need and increase their probability of making a mistake." The company's defense followed charges from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a national scientific and environmental group, that PSEG's own consultant found that a key part of the pump is "bent and broken," causing sometimes intense vibrations that affect other parts of the reactor. The scientists said pump failure could cause a massive leak of cooling water. That, in turn, would put to the test backup systems that also have had trouble. Norm Cohen, who directs the New Jersey watchdog group Unplug Salem, urged Bakken in a letter to abandon plans to restart without a replacement. "By allowing this aging, vibrating and soon to be defective pump to continue to run, you are putting the citizens of South Jersey at risk," Cohen said. "Do the right thing. Stand up to the PSEG bean counters and fix or replace the pump, and fix all the other problems at Hope Creek. Then do the same at Salem I and II." James Shields, who lives north of Odessa, said he also has concerns about PSEG's decisions. "I'm four miles from the place. They have to do a lot better job than they've been doing," Shields said. "You can only explain so much away. You certainly wouldn't run your vehicle like that. Somebody said the crankshaft was going, you'd probably want to do an overhaul." Nuclear plants identify recirculation pump failures as their worst-case scenario when designing safety systems, making the troubled and sometimes leaky unit at Hope Creek a serious concern. "It's not right to say they can limp along until it meets their schedule," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The better thing to do is face that challenge now." Michael Gitaitis, a farmer whose home is near the Delaware River, within sight of the plant, agreed. "I think they ought to fix it immediately when they see a problem, especially when they see that it could affect the environment of the people who live around it," Gitaitis said. "I have concerns about the safety over there, the reliability and the age of the plant. I certainly don't like the view, because I can remember what it looked like before it was there." Delawareans at risk Hope Creek is a boiling water reactor. Operators carefully manipulate bundles of nuclear fuel to heat and boil water, creating super-hot steam that turns four turbines and generates 1,100 megawatts of electricity. Nearby, the older twin Salem Units I and II are pressurized water reactors, using nuclear fuel to heat water, then using that water to make nonradioactive steam in a separate piping system. The three plants compose the nation's second-largest nuclear power complex. More than 25,000 Delaware residents live inside the 10-mile emergency planning zone that federal regulators consider at greatest risk from a nuclear plant accident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week said it is reviewing the PSEG consultant's pump inspection report at its Rockville, Md., headquarters. The commission plans at least two public meetings on PSEG Nuclear's problems in coming weeks, including one rare session in Delaware, planned for Dec. 2. Delaware's congressional delegation has called for close federal study of the problem. They pointed out that PSEG safety problems led to a prolonged shutdown at both Salem units in the 1990s. Charges were made at the time that PSEG was placing financial considerations ahead of safety. But Bakken, in a briefing for news reporters and analysts on Friday, denied that the $7 million cost for the Hope Creek pump was a consideration. He acknowledged public concerns about the pump, however, and about wider problems involving repair backlogs and concerns that managers had been glossing over worker warnings about safety problems. "I think what people felt was, when they had concerns about issues, they weren't heard. Management would listen and then would issue an edict without explanation," Bakken said. Hope Creek stopped producing electricity Oct. 10 because of maintenance and communication breakdowns. A pipe support that had been broken or disconnected as long ago as 1989 caused a valve to open in a pipe that contained steam and hot water. Workers noticed the problem without being aware of the cause and asked engineers if the steam flow was safe. Engineers found the flow safe, but were unaware that pulses of steam were about to break a weld in the unsupported pipe. "We had the right questions asked by the operators, but the wrong questions answered by the management team," Bakken said. PSEG discovered the scope of the hazard when the pipe opened and mildly radioactive steam began filling a room in Hope Creek's turbine building. Attempts to shut down the reactor revealed other concerns with backup systems as plant operators struggled to manually control critical water levels in the 71-foot reactor core. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would later describe the incident as a "shutdown with complications" and is conducting an investigation. Persistent problem Concern about the pump, meanwhile, was mounting. PSEG had been wrestling with the vibration problem for years. "We had people who wrote into our corrective action system their concerns. I got a number of personal e-mails and I had discussions with senior operators and equipment oper- ators," Bakken said. "We're doing a lot of work." PSEG hired Chicago-based Sargent &Lundy LLC, a global power industry consultant, to assess the problem. Sargent &Lundy found that the pumps had 130,000 to 140,000 hours of operation without a major inspection, compared with a recommended 80,000-hour goal. When the pump speed is minimized in an effort to reduce vibrations, the flow of cooling water also drops, which the company said was a "concern." Conditions were not worsening, Sargent &Lundy concluded, and Hope Creek could "likely" operate for another 18 months, until a scheduled replacement of spent fuel. Lochbaum rejected the conclusions, pointing out that vibrations had continued despite the consultant's finding that conditions were stable. He pointed out that PSEG's consultant had advised the company to have shutdown, replacement and repair plans and equipment at the ready if vibrations increase because "the window between the rise and potential shaft failure is expected to be small." Michael Barrett, who has lived on St. Augustine Road within sight of the nuclear power plants since 1968, said he was not concerned by the latest reports of problems. "I don't pay much attention to it," Barrett said. "I figure I'll be the first to go, so it won't matter. I found out it was shut down when I went out fishing. I always check which way the wind's blowing by the steam coming out of the cooling tower, and it wasn't there." Bakken denied suggestions that PSEG was postponing the work for economic reasons. Hope Creek already is spending $60 million to $70 million and 320,000 working hours on the refueling and repair effort, far above the average of $26 million and 110,000 hours for a typical refueling in reactors. "In the overall scheme of things, another $7 million isn't the issue," Bakken said. "I can spend that $7 million if I need to. I'm fundamentally back to trying to make the right decision for my team at the site, and to explain it to them in a manner that they can understand." One of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's demands to PSEG early this year was a reform of the company's workplace, which the commission thought discouraged worker warnings about safety. Complaints and problems at the plant led the commission to place the complex on oversight status. Nancy Kymn Harvin, a former PSEG employee who filed a federal whistle-blower complaint about safety problems at Salem and Hope Creek, said PSEG's actions contradict their assurances. "They've known there were problems with this pump for several years," Harvin said. "The fact that they're not ready to fix it now makes no difference to the public. They should get ready and fix it and take whatever time it takes rather than risk the health and safety of the public." Art Bready, a senior reactor operator at Hope Creek, said he had confidence in PSEG's decision. "Two years ago it was not very good. The environment was pretty stressful," Bready said. "We were not getting things fixed. The turning point in my mind was we did do some pretty significant changes in the management team." Bakken said that PSEG plans to install an array of new vibration sensors around the pump and reactor piping, and would toughen areas that appear to be threatened by vibrations. "If the sensors tell us we have a problem, I'll shut the plant down, go back in and make another adjustment until we can prove with these sensors that we've solved that problem," Bakken said. "The commitment I've made to the organization is that we will absolutely do the shaft next outage. I want to be well prepared to do this." Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com. The News Journal/JENNIFER CORBETT More than 25,000 Delaware residents live within the 10-mile danger zone of the Hope Creek nuclear power plant on the Delaware River. © 2004 delawareonline.com/The News Journal ***************************************************************** 22 BBC: Chernobyl 'caused Sweden cancers' Last Updated: Saturday, 20 November, 2004 [Chernobyl memorial in Kiev AP] The fallout of Chernobyl has affected millions of lives More than 800 people in northern Sweden may have developed cancer as a result of the fallout of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, a new study says. Swedish scientists said the "Chernobyl effect" was the only likely explanation for 849 cancer cases they came across. But their findings met with scepticism from some other experts who think the radiation fallout in Sweden was not likely to cause such a rise in cases. A radioactive cloud swept across north Europe after the disaster in Ukraine. The study monitored cancer cases among more than 1.1 million people exposed to radioactive fallout in northern Sweden between 1988 and 1996. Martin Tondel, a researcher at Sweden's Linkoeping University who headed the study, said that, of 22,400 cancer cases, 849 could be statistically attributed to Chernobyl. He said that, after other factors such as smoking, population density and age had been taken into account, it seemed the only possible explanation. Doubt "We've tried our best to explain it in other ways, but we can't," he told the Associated Press. "So then you have to believe your data." "With every statistical method we used to look at it, we see an increase (in cases) across the board. That indicates that it's a Chernobyl effect," he added. [Chernobyl reactor] A reactor at the Chernobyl plant blew up on 26 April 1986 He acknowledged there was no significant rise in cases of leukaemia or thyroid cancer, normally the most common types among radiation victims. This would make it "a little harder to convince the world" of the accuracy of his findings, he admitted. Leif Moberg, a radiation expert with the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, questioned the findings' conclusions. "The radiation dosage that we in Sweden got after the accident was too low to produce this many cancer cases," he was quoted by the AP as saying. He also suggested it was a little early to have any definite results, saying: "Most cancer cases don't develop until 20, 30 or 50 years later." His organisation has previously estimated that in 50 years, around 300 people in Sweden would be affected by the Chernobyl fallout. Worst nuclear disaster The new findings have been published in this month's issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published by the British Medical Association. Mr Tondel said the study was finished in 2000, but had not been published until now because of scepticism among science editors, AP reported. The Chernobyl power station, in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, exploded on 26 April 1986. The blast killed at least 30 people and forced the evacuation of 135,000 more due to the level of nuclear contamination in the area. The disaster led to a dramatic rise in the number of cases of thyroid cancer, leukaemia and birth defects, especially in Belarus. Up to seven million people are believed to have been affected in what is the world's worst nuclear disaster. ***************************************************************** 23 South of Boston: Pilgrim seeks license renewal SOUTHOFBOSTON.COM MPG Newspapers 9 Long Pond Rd. Plymouth, MA 02360 (508) 746-5555 By Chris Nelson MPG Newspapers PLYMOUTH (Nov. 20) - The process to renew the operating license for Pilgrim Station nuclear power plant has begun. Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc. will seek federal approval for a license renewal for the 670-watt, single-reactor plant. The current license will expire in 2012. The process is expected to take at least two years, though it could last 30 months. At the time Pilgrim Station was activated in 1972, the federal government issued 40-year licenses to nuclear power plants. If it is granted a license renewal, the plant would receive a new 20-year operating license. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency charged with overseeing the nuclear industry, approved 14 license renewals through Nov. 1. Currently, eight more are being reviewed. The power plant's pursuit of relicensure by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has actually been delayed by a year because of unfavorable economic conditions, according to Pilgrim Station spokesman David Tarantino. "A couple of years ago, Entergy looked at the numbers and saw that natural gas was inexpensive," he said. "Natural gas is an alternative energy source to nuclear power and since prices were expected to continue going down, Entergy wasn't sure if it was favorable for a reapplication." Natural gas, which usually rises in sympathy to crude oil price hikes, has since soared along with petroleum futures. That has created a more favorable market for nuclear power. "The company decided that it was going to hold off on its application for license renewal until the market looked more favorable, and things have turned around," Tarantino said. In addition, Entergy has invested millions of dollars to improve the plant's infrastructure and its efficiency. It also offered severance packages to its workforce, which nearly 80 employees accepted. Tarantino said these actions have saved the company money and made the plant worth keeping around for a while. "A lot of people who are against this plant getting a new license say it isn't worth it because the plant is too old, but we have replaced a lot of components in the facility, including the turbines, the generators and the main steam piping. This is all new equipment," he said. He said the plant generates about 700 jobs and pays about $50 million annually in wages, a boon to the local economy. But the plant still has plenty of critics. Plymouth resident Wedge Bramhall opposes a new license for the plant mainly because of the tons of radioactive waste that are stored on its property. He contends the facility is unsafe and a target for a terrorist attack. "Nuclear power plants generate about 30 tons of waste each year, and right now Pilgrim houses about 800 tons of high-level nuclear waste with no place to go," he said. Bramhall referred to the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear waste disposal site, which has sat in limbo for more than a decade. Bramhall said the nuclear waste at Pilgrim Station, which is in the form of spent uranium fuel rods, is stored in an unsafe manner and poses a danger to the town. "(Entergy) knows that terrorists would love to take that place out," he said. "We never thought that terrorists would fly a jumbo jet into buildings, but look at things now. "If the plant were to get hit somehow, there would be too much damage to the town. It's because of the way they are storing the rods, outside the main facility in a separate building about 40 feet up in the air. There's nothing protecting that waste except for a roof, and it would be a mega-dirty bomb if it got hit." Tarantino said Entergy has invested more than $4 million in security upgrades since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including new security towers and perimeter walls. But Bramhall isn't buying it. He said the plant is old and has been constructed poorly. "Bechtel (Corporation) designed that plant, and they helped design the Big Dig. Look at it now," he said. I think Entergy places too much stock in their smiley-faced public-relations people running around saying things are good over there." | MPG Newspapers, 9 Long Pond Rd., Plymouth, MA 02360 Telephone: (508) 746-5555 ***************************************************************** 24 News Messenger: Class-action suit against Brush KO'd - thenews-messenger.com Saturday, November 20, 2004 By LaRAYE BROWN Staff writer Contract workers will not be able to proceed with a class-action lawsuit against Brush Wellman. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled this week that the thousands of contract workers employed at the beryllium alloy producer's Elmore plant between the 1950s and 1990s do not meet the guidelines for class-action status. "The members of the proposed class span 46 years, multiple contractors, and multiple locations within the plant, and are estimated by the parties to number between 4,000 and 7,000," Justice Maureen O'Connor wrote in her majority opinion, which said there were too many different levels of exposure to make the group a class. Patrick Carpenter, spokesman for Brush Wellman, said the company is pleased the majority of the court agreed with its argument. "What Brush argued is that the contract workers had different jobs with different potential exposure to beryllium," Carpenter said. Louise Roselle, who represented the contract workers, was disappointed by court's 5-2 decision. "We believe that all these workers do have a common cause of action for medical monitoring and that medical monitoring is absolutely something they should get," she said Friday afternoon. She said that although the company provided testing for its employees, it failed to do the same for contract workers, some of whom have contracted chronic berylliosis, a sometimes fatal disease linked to beryllium dust. Roselle said she doesn't think the plaintiffs have reason to appeal the case to federal court and that workers seeking claims against the company will have to sue individually. On Feb. 14, 2000, John Wilson filed the case in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court against Brush Wellman alleging negligence. Wilson later moved to have all Northwestern Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council union members who worked at the Elmore plant between 1953 and 1999 added to the complaint, which sought medical monitoring and punitive damages. The trial court sided with Brush Wellman, and the plaintiffs won on appeal. O'Connor said that when the appeals court overruled the trial court's decision, it "failed to examine the cohesiveness of the suggested class." In coming to her conclusion, O'Connor cited federal court decisions that denied class-action status to groups suing asbestos or tobacco companies. In those cases, the plaintiffs' different exposure levels, family medical histories and the large numbers in the group who had not suffered damages are variables that keep the group from being "cohesive." In her dissenting opinion, Justice Alice Robie Resnick said the majority on the court was wrong to compare the case to the asbestos claims, which involved many more people and at one time comprised more than 6 percent of all federal civil filings. "In terms of size, complexity, cohesiveness, and unity, comparing (the asbestos case) to this case is tantamount to comparing the expanse and intricacies of the entire universe to a marble," wrote Resnick, who was joined in her dissenting opinion by Justice Paul Pfeifer. As with asbestos claims, those affected by tobacco could have been exposed in many other places. The alleged victims in this case, Resnick said, were all exposed to beryllium at the same place. "There is no contention in this case that the beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test or any other prescribed test for chronic beryllium disease would be recommended to individual class members had they not been exposed to beryllium," Resnick wrote. See COURT, A6 LaRAYE BROWN Originally published Saturday, November 20, 2004 Contact Us | Subscribe | Place an ad Copyright ©2004 The News-Messenger. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 Interfax: Radioactive source found in southern Kazakhstan Interfax.com Nov 20 2004 1:41PM ASTANA. Nov 20 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - A radioactive source has been discovered at a vegetable storage facility in the town of Saryagash in the South-Kazakhstan region. Local residents found a metallic container radiating 38-40 micro- roentgen per hour on Friday evening, the Kazakh Emergency Situations Ministry told Interfax on Saturday. "The site where the container was found has been cordoned off by the police," the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The rescue services are exploring ways to safely dispose of the radiation source. [KZ EUROPE ASIA EEU EMRG ENV DIS] va © 1991-2004 Interfax All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 26 Bellona: Explosion aboard Russian nuclear submarine kills one and elicits sceptical responses ST. PETERSBURG—A gas canister blew up inside Russian Delta III class strategic nuclear submarine moored in Russia’s Far East Kamchatcka region last Sunday, killing one sailor who apparently managed to prevent a far greater catastrophe, Navy officials and Russian mass media reported on Friday and Saturday. www.newsru.com Charles Digges, Igor Kudrik, 2004-11-20 16:03 Bellona was informed of a possible submarine accident on Kamchatka as early as November 15, but no official sources denied anything untoward had occurred. Russian media, likewise, remained silent on the topic until the Friday, when the NTV Russian television network reported from the funeral of Dmitry Koval, the 19-year-old seaman killed in the explosion. "I was told that there was an explosion, a gas explosion, and Dima was hit by the shockwave," his mother, Tatyana Koval, said of her son in remarks broadcast on NTV from Koval’s hometown of Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia. Two other crew members, who remain unidentified by naval officials and the Russian media, were injured in the blast, according to NTV. Russian naval officials confirmed the accident happened as early as November 14th, and was supposedly the result of a burst pipeline pumping oxygen into the vessel during maintenance work. This version spread quickly through Russia’s mostly state-owned media. But other experts, including Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin and other naval experts have called that explanation into question, saying the explosion most likely occurred in a higher pressure hose used for cooling the torpedo compartment that was attached to the submarine at the time of the accident. NTV also reported this version of events. Little consensus on what happened The seriousness of the accident would suggest that it occurred in the gas-pressure chambers that fire torpedoes, which, if not contained by Koval, could have led to far worse consequences. The Russian Navy’s press officer, Captain First Rank Sergei Dygalo, told Bellona Web in a telephone interview Saturday that the explosion had occurred “during routine maintenance as the result of a malfunctioning air pipeline passing air into the submarine.” He confirmed the accident had happened on Sunday, November 14th at the Vilyuchink navy base in Kamchatcka. He denied that the accident occurred in the torpedo section of the submarine, but also refused to be more specific about what compartment of the submarine was affected. He said the submarine remains “fully operational.” He commented on why the navy had not made the incident public earlier, saying, it was “an unlucky malfunction during routine maintenance, nothing more.” Yet another source from within the Navy’s Headquarters, who would identify himself as only as an admiral, told the Interfax news agency on Saturday that the accident had resulted from the explosion of a pipe pumping air into the subs fresh water tanks to maintain pressure there. According to the admiral, these were the official results of a special committee’s inquiry into the accident, which have been delivered to the Russian Navy’s Headquarters. The Ministry of Defence, when reached by telephone, acknowledged the incident, but likewise would not be more specific about how it had occurred. They said they were aware of the committee’s findings. Sceptical responses from current and former naval officials Nikitin, a former Captain First Class and reactor engineer on Russian submarines, based his scepticism that a simple oxygen pump had exploded based on calculations of the air pressure that is pumped through such hoses—0.4 kilograms per square centimetre. Nikitin said that, most likely, the accident occurred in a pipe using higher pressure—up to 400 kilograms per square centimetre. This pressure would more likely correspond to coolant pipes used in the torpedo section, said Captain Second Class Andrei Berezin of the Russian navy’s Pacific Fleet. "He saved the lives of the crew of the submarine. The circumstances of his death should be explained by the press service of the Pacific Fleet said Berezin. The Pacific Fleet has yet to do so and calls to their public affairs office went unanswered Saturday. The submarine The submarine affected was the Pacific Fleet’s K-223, project number 667BDR, also known as "Murena." It has been in operation since 1980. Equipped to carry as many as 16 intercontinental nuclear missiles, Delta IIIs are considered to be the backbone of Russia’s current ballistic nuclear missile fleet. It remains unclear whether any missiles were on board during last Sunday’s accident. Over the past four years, Russia has not had a good track record with submarine accidents. In 2000, the nuclear submarine Kursk sank and all 118 crew died. Nine sailors died when another nuclear submarine, the K-159, sank in stormy Arctic seas in summer 2003 while being towed to a dismantlement point near Murmansk. In each case, Russian authorities were sluggish to report on the incidents as they developed and gave contradictory statements to the press. Igor Kudrik and Charles Digges reported from Oslo. Rashid Alimov contributed to this report from St. Petersburg. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 27 Sunday Herald: Dounreay workers exposed to lethal plutonium - Lab sealed off after mucus samples reveal highest contamination levels on record By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor A laboratory at the Dounreay nuclear plant has been closed and sealed off because it has contaminated at least 10 workers with plutonium over the last three months. The Sunday Herald has discovered that high levels of radioactivity have been detected in nose-blow samples taken from three workers. One was 200 times the action level that triggers a health investigation, and the highest that Dounreay safety officials could remember. An investigation has been launched by the governments safety watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. If it finds evidence that safety rules have been breached, it will submit a report to the procurator fiscal, which could lead to Dounreay being prosecuted. Anti-nuclear campaigners claim the contamination is life-threatening and have accused Dounreay of acting irresponsibly. But this is denied by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA ), the government body that runs the plant, near Thurso, Caithness. Plutonium is a heavy metal which emits short-range alpha radiation. Although relatively harmless outside the body, experts say that when it has been inhaled or ingested, it can bombard living cells with radiation and increase the chances that they will trigger cancers. The contamination has come from the Pulsed Column Laboratory, an old plutonium research facility. It was where scientists used to study how best to reprocess the plutonium burnt in fast breeder reactors, which are now defunct. The lab, along with other facilities at Dounreay, was in the process of being decommissioned. But on August 24 a routine nose-blow sample from a worker who had been in the lab was found to contain more radioactivity than the action level of 0.5 becquerels (Bq). On October 19 a sample from another worker in the lab also breached the action level, and decommissioning work was halted. But workers were still sent into the facility to do other work. Then on November 11 three people working on the buildings ventilation system suffered high levels of plutonium contamination. The mucus blown from their noses onto tissues contained respectively 17, 22 and 100Bq of radioactivity. As a result the UKAEA decided to bar all access to the lab while the cause of the contamination is investigated. It accepts that 100Bq is a high level of contamination, but stresses that it will take two or three weeks of additional sampling to discover how far the plutonium has spread into the workers bodies. All five of the workers with nose-blow samples in excess of the action level have been put on a biological monitoring programme. This involves regularly measuring their urine and faeces for plutonium. Another five workers who had nose-blow samples below the action level are also being monitored, along with a further five, who had been in the building, as a precaution. Automatic monitoring systems have not picked up any unexpected levels of contamination, or any leaks to the environment. So far the biological monitoring suggests that the whole-body radiation doses received by two of the 15 workers are well below the safety limits. But the results for the others including those with the worst contaminated nose-blow samples are not yet available. Dounreays spokesman, Colin Punler, stressed that nose-blow samples were just a rough, initial, indication of contamination and that a proper assessment of the risks couldnt be made until full biological monitoring had been completed. But he accepted that the higher the contamination of the samples, the greater the worry. Any unplanned exposure to radiation is a cause for concern, he said. Any incident such as this is a matter of regret. Lorraine Mann, from Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, accused Dounreay of exposing its workers to unnecessary risks. Sending them in when they knew there was a problem is irresponsible in the extreme and quite unforgivable, she said. This is a life-threatening position they put people into. The extent to which they put these guys at risk was appalling. It was an anonymous phone call to Mann last week that first suggested that one of the nose-blow samples had been higher than anyone at Dounreay could recall. The UKAEA had been downplaying the risks, she alleged. They have been deliberately misleading, she claimed. Nothing has changed. They still refuse to tell the truth until they are forced to. She would be astonished if the contamination didnt lead to a prosecution. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate said it had been informed of the contamination by the UKAEA. Inspectors at Dounreay last week had begun an investigation into the cause, but it was too early to say what the outcome would be. A spokesman for the inspectorate argued it had been a prudent step to close the building. If we find any breaches of legal provisions, we will take appropriate action, he said. 21 November 2004 © newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 28 Deseret News: Downwinders get more funding [deseretnews.com] Sunday, November 21, 2004 Congress passes a variety of measures that will aid Utahns By Jerry Spangler Deseret Morning News WASHINGTON — The 108th Congress put finishing touches on its lame duck session in a rare Saturday session that lasted well into the evening. And before the gavel fell, lawmakers had rejected the development of certain nuclear weapons and passed an omnibus $388 billion appropriations act that will keep the federal government running for the next year — and fund several important Utah projects and programs of interest to Utahns. Due in large part to the efforts of Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who sits on the appropriations committee, downwind victims of nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s will get $27.8 million to fund a shortfall in the compensation program. "These funds mean Utah downwinders won't receive another IOU from the government this year," said Bennett. "I'm especially pleased that necessary funds for this important program be available this year. This is an obligation the government must meet." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, principal sponsor of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, also was instrumental in getting the funding for downwinders. "We've been fighting for this funding all year," Hatch said. No compensation act "claimant should receive an IOU because the program ran out of funds. I'll continue pressing for the government to give radiation exposure victims in Utah and across the West the compensation they deserve." The Department of Justice, which oversees the downwinder compensation program, testified before Hatch's Judiciary Committee in August regarding the long-term financial solvency of the program. During that hearing, both Justice Department officials and the Government Accountability Office told Congress the trust fund will run out of money and claimants will be issued IOUs unless additional funding is found. The new funding ensures the Radiation Exposure Compensation act will be financially solvent through 2007. The increased funding also follows another provision already signed into law that allowed uranium miner, miller and transporter compensation act claims to be paid by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. By moving these workers to the energy employees program, more Radiation Exposure Compensation Act trust fund dollars are now available for claimants such as downwinders. Utah has the second-largest number of compensation act claimants in the United States. Also of interest to those living downwind of the Nevada Test Site was the final language of appropriations bills for research and development of nuclear weapons. The Energy and Water Appropriations bill dropped provisions that would fund the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator — a bunker-buster nuclear warhead — and new advanced concepts weapons designs. "I am very proud to be among those who stood up to the administration and said we won't go down the path towards the resumption of nuclear weapons testing," said Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. "Utahns have paid dearly for government deception about the safety of nuclear weapons testing." Matheson said the fight over the resumption of nuclear weapons testing is not over, but he is relishing what he calls a great victory for Utahns living downwind. Vanessa Pierce, program coordinator for Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah, was on Capitol Hill lobbying against the weapons funding, and she said she was pleasantly surprised that the nuclear weapons funding was eliminated from the budget. "We just did not dream they would agree to eliminate the nuclear weapons program," Pierce said. "It's definitely a victory for all Utahns and all the members of Congress who saw those programs as ill-conceived and a waste of taxpayer money." "It's imperative that we prevent a second generation of downwinders," she added. The bill in its final form shifts $9 million from advanced concepts research on new weapons designs to the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. That funding will be used to improve the reliability and longevity of existing nuclear weapons and their components. Altogether, the legislation provides $6.5 billion for weapons activities. Funding also was increased for methamphetamine interdiction in rural Utah. Another $750,000 was added to the program to help Box Elder, Rich, Wasatch, Tooele and Juab counties purchase video monitors, mobile cameras and other surveillance equipment used to locate clandestine labs. "Continued support for law enforcement efforts is essential to combat these dangers and widespread problems," Bennett said. The funding boosts the total for Utah counties to $4.8 million. Utah is one of the top five states for per capita methamphetamine production. The appropriations bill also includes $400,000 to help Utah's rural teachers who teach three or more subject areas to obtain additional training for certification purposes by utilizing distance education. "As Utah educators attempt to meet new demands of No Child Left Behind, they're often called on to do things without adequate compensation," said Bennett. "I'm hopeful these funds will help offset some of the unrealistic burdens of this new law." The Association of Utah Community Health, a private non-profit program, will see an $800,000 appropriation to provide medical services to low income and uninsured populations. "These community health centers offer crucial health services to a segment of our community in need," said Bennett. "Funds to continue these kinds of services is an important and valuable investment in the health of our citizens." Congress also appropriated $5 million more for a new Utah Museum of Natural History to be located in Research Park. That money brings to $8 million the amount of federal funding, which is authorized to increase to $15 million through future appropriations. And $1 million was appropriated to the Utah Shakespearean Festival to aid in the design and construction of a new Elizabethan theater in Cedar City. Lawmakers also reinstated for four years the moratorium on Internet access taxation that had expired on Nov. 1, 2003. The four-year extension is retroactive to Nov. 1, 2003, and will expire on Nov. 1, 2007. In September 2003, the House unanimously passed HR 49, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, which had called for a permanent moratorium on Internet access taxation. The final version worked out between the House and Senate during the lame duck session calls only for a four-year moratorium. "The Internet has exceeded our collective expectations as a revolutionary spring of information, news and ideas," Cannon said. "It is essential that we keep that spring flowing. We must not thwart the Internet's availability by taxing access to it." Cannon said he will continue working to make the moratorium permanent. E-mail: spang@desnews.com © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 29 Salt Lake Tribune: Opinion We appear evil Article Last Updated: 11/20/2004 01:15:28 PM A bubble of interest seems to be occurring on the Web: Google recently had 360,000 hits for “depleted uranium” all within a 24-hour period. I've been following reports of the United States' use of depleted uranium ammunition over the past couple of days on the Web. Our use of this poison has hurt our troops and the people of Iraq and Kosovo. It appears that thousands of tons of this very dense material were used in the Gulf War of 1991. It was used in Kosovo and again in Iraq. It is radioactive and remains dangerous virtually forever, longer than man has walked on Earth. Its most horrible effects appear not from cancer, but in human fetuses. We have been terrified by the thought of some terrorist setting off a dirty bomb and poisoning a U.S. city. Meanwhile we have spread radioactive uranium all over Iraq. Who answers to the Iraqi mothers whose babies cannot live, poisoned in their wombs by dust or vapor from uranium. The earth, air and water in Iraq has been contaminated by our use of depleted uranium munitions. We would call it a war crime if someone else did it. We've sunk to the level of our adversaries the terrorists. The radiation dangers are long-term effects. In the short term, the attack on Fallujah during Ramadan is just the perfect recruitment device for future terrorists. We do appear evil. Steve Worcester Salt Lake City © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 30 Salt Lake Tribune: Bill hailed as win for downwind Utahns Article Last Updated: 11/21/2004 03:01:52 AM No nukes: Spending for research on the bunker- buster bombs is scuttled By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON - Utah legislators say downwinders were winners in the $388 billion spending bill passed by Congress on Saturday before lawmakers went home. The Bush administration had advocated funding for a nuclear bunker-buster bomb known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, as well as new advanced-concepts weapons designs. The House stripped the funds from its version of the bill earlier this year and key senators, like Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., insisted on it being added. The deadlock jeopardized funding for a series of energy and water projects until the Senate backed down and agreed to the funding plan without the weapons research. Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, who resisted funding for the nuclear programs, called it "a great victory for those downwind of the Nevada Test Site." "Utahns have paid dearly for government deception about the safety of nuclear weapons testing," he said. "I am determined to resist that at every turn because this fight is not over. This issue will be revisited, but today is a satisfying victory." Downwinders, those sickened by exposure to radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear tests in Nevada, won another victory as Congress approved $27.8 million to cover a projected shortfall for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program. The program makes a lump payment as an effort to compensate the victims for their cancers and other illnesses. In past years the program has run out of money, and another shortfall was projected. "These funds mean Utah downwinders won't receive another IOU from the government this year," said Republican Sen. Bob Bennett. "This is an obligation the government must meet." As the only Utah member on an appropriations committee - which writes the spending bills - Bennett also was able to secure $5 million for the site preparation for the new Utah Museum of Natural History, bringing to $8 million the federal funds Bennett has secured for the project. He also secured $800,000 for health care services for needy Utahns through the Association of Utah Community Health, $400,000 for Utah's rural school districts to meet the obligations under the No Child Left Behind Act, $1 million for construction on the theater at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, and $750,000 to combat methamphetamine in Box Elder, Rich, Wasatch, Tooele and Juab counties. "Meth use in Utah remains a tremendous threat to our communities and our citizens," said Bennett. "Continued support for law enforcement efforts is essential to combat this dangerous and widespread problem." Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group, included some of the Utah funding among examples of almost $16 billion in wasteful pork in the bill. "Here they go again," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of the group. "The facts speak for themselves. This bill is the fattest legislative hog that we have ever seen and despite record deficits, lawmakers are much more concerned with feathering the nests of their favorite parochial interests. If this bill is an indicator of what's to come, we will be swimming up a river of red ink for quite some time." © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 31 South Florida Sun-Sentinel: When fear is nuclear, and very real [Sun-Sentinel.com] By Pat MacEnulty Special Correspondent Posted November 21 2004 Fear Itself. Candida Lawrence. Unbridled Books. $19.95. 224 pp. In Fear Itself, 80-year-old Candida Lawrence provides a timely testament to the importance of skepticism when it comes to governmental reassurances, especially public health. In the acknowledgements to her third memoir, Lawrence recounts when, as a child, she told her father that she must say the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Her father disagreed, adamantly, telling her: "[You] cannot promise to respect a country today when it might not behave well next month or tomorrow." Later in life, Lawrence experiences the reality of her father's warning firsthand. Shortly after the United States drops the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, she and her distraught physicist husband are sent to Oak Ridge, Tenn., where he continues his top-secret work for the government. Their monthly allotment is not sufficient, so she goes to work at an employment agency where water fountains are labeled "black" and "white." Unable to discuss her husband's work or stomach her own, she feels herself "vanishing inside state power." The couple's next assignment is the Monsanto Chemical Company in Dayton, Ohio. Lawrence works as an assistant to the safety engineer while her husband "disappears into rooms" where she is not allowed. She works in a "hot" building -- where exposure to radiation is likely. Although she and her co-workers are monitored for radiation levels and white blood cell counts, she gets sick. Her skin breaks out in pimples and boils, her head aches, and she is fatigued. But her boss refuses to explain the symptoms or the risks of their work. When a co-worker begins to hemorrhage, Lawrence knows something is terribly wrong. But it is only later, as she desperately tries to conceive a child, that she begins to fathom the extent of damage that may have been done to her. A miscarriage and a stillborn child devastate her. Although Lawrence eventually manages to have children, the fear and the governmental silence shrouding the dangers of its nuclear research haunt her. She becomes obsessed with reports that dribble out over the decades, indicating that the government knowingly put its citizens at risk. After September 11, 2001, the author wonders if her story still has relevance. After all, the so-called evil-doers are only innocuous scientists and bureaucrats -- not religious fanatics with a penchant for dramatic suicides. She writes: "I try to remember nuclear fear. Substitute terrorist fear." But, of course, the story does have enormous relevance as we march lock-step into a dangerous future, rife with opportunities for nuclear and environmental disasters. Lawrence's writing is vividly hypnotic as she recounts her story and the effort it took to face and overcome her fears. Yet, however provocative, the concentration on this aspect of her life makes the book elliptical. It should, perhaps, be read in conjunction with her other memoirs to be completely satisfying. Pat MacEnulty is the author of the novel, Sweet Fire, and the short story collection, The Language of Sharks. She teaches writing at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. Copyright 2004, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive, ***************************************************************** 32 Las Vegas SUN: Lawmakers agree on $577 million to keep Yucca Mountain alive By H. JOSEF HEBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS Lawmakers agree on $577 million to keep Yucca Mountain alive WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers agreed Friday to provide enough money to keep alive plans for a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, but they put off trying to resolve a dispute over radiation protection that could doom the project if not resolved. The compromise limits funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program to $577 million this fiscal year, the same as last year but about two-thirds of the $880 million the Energy Department had said it needed to keep the program on track. The House had approved only $179 million for the project planned for the Nevada desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, an amount that would have essentially shut the program down. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with Yucca Mountain, worked out a compromise with his House counterpart, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, to come up with more money and keep the program going as part of an omnibus budget package. Congressional leaders hoped to pass the $388 billion spending measure, covering most federal agencies, by Saturday. While given enough money keep it operating, the Yucca Mountain project faces numerous thorny problems that must be resolved next year. Already a planned 2010 opening of the waste site is growing increasingly unlikely, say program supporters in Congress and the Bush administration. A federal court ruled this year that the facility's proposed radiation standards failed to follow National Academy of Sciences recommendations as required by Congress. The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to rework its standards to meet the court's objection. The White House tried to get language into the budget legislation that would have ended the requirement that EPA follow the Academy's recommendations. But Republicans backed away from the issue both because they feared it would doom the spending compromise and because of the vehement opposition from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid, a staunch opponent of the waste site who will be the Senate's Democratic leader next year, vowed to fight any legislative provision changing the radiation requirements. The Energy Department had hoped to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year and to develop a transportation plan for moving waste to the site beginning in 2010. The Yucca Mountain repository, dug into a volcanic ridge near the Nevada Test Site, is being built to hold 70,000 tons of used commercial reactor fuel and high-level defense waste that has been accumulating at sites in 39 states. --- On the Net: Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov -- ***************************************************************** 33 Washington Times: Yucca's energy role Editorials/OP-ED - November 20, 2004 Over the foreseeable future, increasing nuclear energy's role in electricity generation would be the most environmentally friendly way of addressing concerns about global warming and the health effects of burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike electricity generated by these carbon-based fuels, the burning of which constitutes the primary source of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, nuclear-generated electricity emits no greenhouse gases. Moreover, an energy policy emphasizing a significantly increased role for nuclear power represents sound geopolitical strategy. It would prevent America from becoming as dependent in the near future upon potentially unstable foreign sources for natural gas as it is dependent today upon the Middle East for its growing demand for imported oil. Throughout the recent campaign, President Bush extolled the benefits of expanding nuclear power. Particularly noteworthy was his success in winning for the second time the five crucial electoral votes of Nevada, a battleground state in which the nuclear issue could not have offered a more striking difference between the two candidates. Pivotal to an increased role for nuclear power is Yucca Mountain. The designated repository for nuclear waste, Yucca Mountain is located 90 miles from Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. In 2002, Mr. Bush approved Yucca for that purpose, and on Nov. 2, he prevailed again. That isn't to say that Nevadans overwhelmingly endorsed the president's position. Rather, he took a bold stand on a highly politicized issue and lived to pursue its implementation. Despite the fact that no nuclear power plants have been ordered since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, Mr. Bush nonetheless endorsed increasing their number. With 45,000 tons of nuclear waste waiting to be transferred to a permanent storage facility, now is the time to move forward on Yucca Mountain. And it is time to pursue the next generation of nuclear power plants. In recent years, the fuel of choice for new electric-power plants has been natural gas, which burns more cleanly than other carbon fuels (but far less cleanly than nuclear power). The United States, however, could soon become dependent for its natural-gas needs on foreign sources beyond Canada. In ascending order, the countries controlling the largest reserves of natural gas are the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia, which is trying to cartelize the market. For both environmental and national-security needs, nuclear power represents a win-win option. ***************************************************************** 34 Las Vegas RJ: Bill means Yucca stays alive but won't thrive Saturday, November 20, 2004 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers agreed Friday to spend $577 million on Yucca Mountain in the next year, enough to keep the nuclear waste project alive but with millions less than the Energy Department had requested. The spending level probably will force the department to re-evaluate segments of the repository program. DOE had asked Congress to spend $880 million, tripling spending for nuclear waste transportation. DOE spokesman Joe Davis said the department would comment on the Yucca budget when it becomes final. The funding was inserted into a $388 billion government-wide spending bill that Congress was working to complete this weekend. The department might choose to juggle its priorities, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. DOE efforts to pursue a repository license have been complicated by a federal appeals court ruling in July that invalidated a 10,000-year radiation safety standard. Also, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission board has ordered DOE to recertify an electronic document database before a license application can be submitted. "Without the ability to have the license application go forward, they probably will be able to spend some of that money on transportation that they would not have done otherwise," Loux said, including studies of a potential railroad through rural Nevada to the repository complex. Senior lawmakers who set 2005 spending on energy and water programs compromised on $577 million for Yucca Mountain, the same amount approved last year. Negotiators declined to add provisions to reclassify a portion of the Yucca Mountain construction fund so that Congress could appropriate larger sums. Congress also did not address the appeals court ruling. Aides to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said this week that the White House had asked Congress to reinstate the 10,000-year radiation standard voided by the court, a move that would clear a major obstacle for DOE to gain a license. Officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget denied that any such request had been made. Efforts to obtain documentation for such a request were unsuccessful. Some congressional officials said it might have been conveyed verbally. Critics of the Yucca program said a White House request to reinstate the radiation standards would call into question President Bush's comments in Nevada during an Aug. 12 campaign visit that he would abide by court decisions on the project. Supporters of the program, including officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said they would defend attempts to involve Congress. They said the court's ruling specifically left open the possibility that lawmakers might choose to revisit the radiation standard. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 35 Las Vegas RJ: Yucca Mountain adviser to Reid to get NRC post Sunday, November 21, 2004 Accord paves way for Senate to fill other high-level federal positions By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he reached an agreement with the White House that will enable his Yucca Mountain adviser, Gregory Jaczko, to be named early next year to the commission that regulates the nuclear power industry. The deal broke an impasse over the nomination of Jaczko to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It also allowed the Senate to confirm dozens of others to high-ranking federal posts before it adjourns early today. "I am pleased we were able to reach a deal that places a strong, independent voice on the NRC while ensuring that nearly a hundred other federal posts will be promptly filled," Reid said in a statement. Bush will appoint Jaczko to the NRC using his executive powers, Reid said. The appointment will be valid for two years, aides said. The commitment was conveyed by White House officials including chief of staff Andrew Card, according to Reid's aides. The five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulates handling of nuclear materials and nuclear waste, and will have a large say in whether the government proceeds to develop a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Senate had been deadlocked on the appointment of Jaczko, 34. In turn, Reid had blocked Senate action on dozens of other federal nominees proposed by President Bush, including ambassadors and high-level executives for the Agriculture, Education, Commerce, Interior, Justice, Labor and Energy departments. A group of Republican senators and the nuclear power industry fought Jaczko's nomination. They contended he likely would become an automatic vote against the Yucca Mountain project because of his association with Reid, who is a leading critic of the repository. Jaczko, a physicist, is Reid's principal adviser on nuclear waste and the Yucca project. Reid said Jaczko "understands and cares deeply about nuclear safety issues, and will put the welfare of the American public above everything else." Bypassing Senate opposition, Reid said White House officials promised that Bush would place Jaczko on the NRC early next year by recess appointment, an executive power that a president can exercise to fill federal vacancies, usually when Congress is not in session. During Jaczko's two-year term on the NRC, the board is expected to begin its review of the Energy Department application to build the Yucca Mountain repository. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 36 Deseret News: Bishop says Reid killed nuke-waste strategy [deseretnews.com] Saturday, November 20, 2004 By Jerry Spangler Deseret Morning News WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was openly displeased when Utah's two Republican senators sided with the White House's plan to ship the nation's stockpile of high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain northwest of Las Vegas — especially after Nevada had supported Utah's opposition to identical wastes. But would Reid, in retribution, torpedo a Utah plan to block the same wastes from going to Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County? "Not technically, but yeah, Harry Reid killed it," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the sponsor of the legislation he said is needed to ensure the viability of the Utah Test and Training Range and Hill Air Force Base. "He just got somebody else to do it." Reid, the newly elected Democratic leader in the Senate, vigorously denied the allegation that he intervened last month to block a rider to the Defense Reauthorization Act that would have designated the Bureau of Land Management lands around Skull Valley as wilderness, potentially blocking the construction of a rail spur needed to transport the waste to tribal lands. "It's just not true," said Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen. "It's absolutely not true. It has nothing to do with (retribution for the Utah senators' votes on) Yucca Mountain." Reid was not on the conference committee and in no position to directly influence the final language of the bill, Hafen said. But he did oppose the legislation because he said it was bad policy to designate wilderness — something created by Congress under a law that clearly states it is to be open to the public — and then turn the management of the wilderness over to the U.S. Air Force, as Bishop's legislation specified. "The Air Force would have the discretion to change the rules on access; and that is just bad wilderness policy," Hafen said. She maintains Reid is opposed to the transportation of waste on the nation's roads and rails, whether it is to Utah or to Nevada. And in that sense, he supports Utah's fight to keep the waste out of the Beehive State. So if Reid didn't kill Bishop's legislation, then who did? Hafen said Nevada's other senator, Republican John Ensign, "worked really hard to kill it." "He took it up for Harry Reid," Bishop said. "The entire goal of the Nevada delegation is to find anything that is an alternative to Yucca Mountain. If Utah is on the table, then Yucca Mountain is less viable." Ensign's office did not return calls. Meanwhile, the Yucca Mountain project remains Congress' preferred nuclear waste repository. In a compromise Friday lawmakers budgeted $577 million this fiscal year for Yucca Mountain, the same amount as last year but about a third less than the Energy Department said was required to keep the nuclear waste storage program on track. A Democratic staff member familiar with the Utah wilderness negotiations pointed fingers at still others in Congress. "Harry Reid didn't need to have the bill killed because it had plenty of opposition from others on both sides of the aisle," the staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Truth be told, it was (Sen. John) Warner who killed it." Warner, a Republican from Virginia and the chairman of Armed Services Committee, whose daughter works for an environmental group, was a member of the House-Senate conference committee working out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The irony is that Utah's environmental organizations supported the legislation. Also opposing the bill was Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. Warner's office did not return calls, and the Levin staff member who dealt with the issue was out of the office and unavailable for comment. One House aide pointed out that both Michigan and Virginia are home to nuclear power plants in dire need of a place to store tons of spent nuclear fuel rods, which would explain why Warner and Levin would join together to kill the legislation. "And never underestimate the nuclear power lobby back here," she said. Three nuclear power plants in Michigan are owned by a company that is part of Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of mostly Eastern nuclear power utilities that have a contract with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to store 40,000 tons of nuclear waste in above-ground canisters on tribal lands about 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. No Virginia plants are listed on the roster of PFS facilities. Utah's Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett lobbied their Senate colleagues long and hard to leave the wilderness language in the bill, but to no avail. The fact Hatch and Bennett could not sway even their Republican colleagues was seen by one House insider as "troubling," perhaps an indication that lawmakers from Eastern states with nuclear power plants are quietly supporting the Goshute proposal as a "fallback" in the event Yucca Mountain is delayed or canceled. The Utah site would be "temporary" storage inasmuch as the contract is for 20 years with an option for a 20-year renewal. But Utah officials have been fighting the proposal, fearing that temporary storage would become permanent and citing a litany of environmental and public health concerns. Blocking PFS through the wilderness designation was only one aspect of the legislation, Bishop said. More importantly, it was designed to protect the Utah Test and Training Range west of Hill Air Force Base. An above-ground nuclear waste facility would be located in the direct flight path of fighter jets. "If they had proposed a site anywhere else, it would not have nearly the significance for the future of UTTR and Hill," Bishop said. "Building it where they want to puts Dugway (Proving Ground) at risk, and it makes one-third of the test and training range unusable. It is very much a military issue." With another round of hearings slated on the closure of additional military bases, Bishop said the viability of the range is critical to making the argument that Hill is essential to the Air Force's live-fire training. "Hill Air Force Base is a national asset that cannot be understated," he said. "And storing nuclear waste in above-ground canisters is not the way to protect it from encroachment." Bishop said the bill is dead for this year but he will try the legislation again next year. E-mail: spang@desnews.com © 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 37 Bellona: MOX-production plant project in Seversk in limbo Neither Russia, nor USA want to be responsible for the MOX plant’s construction. 2004-11-18 18:12 The head of radiation safety department at the Tomsk region administration Yury Zubkov said that to Regnum.ru. “Who will be held responcible in case of an accident at the MOX-plant? Who will be responsible for the daily operation? These questions are open now. While these questions are not answered neither of the G8 countries will not give money to implement the program. England was the first to announce that” Yury Zubkov said. So, it is early to speak about the MOX plant construction, it can be on hold for a indefenite time. However, the USA try to adopt the French MOX technology MELOX to the conditions in Seversk. According to the Platts news agency, the Department of Energy (DOE) will contract with Cogema to transfer MOX fuel fabrication technology to Russia, DOE announced on November 12. Under the contract, which has yet to be negotiated, Cogema would provide "proprietary intellectual property" and "limited technical support" to the U.S. DOE for construction of a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility in Russia, the department said in a November 12 presolicitation notice. The MOX fuel will be fabricated using some 34 tons of former Russian weapons plutonium as part of the U.S.-Russian plutonium disposition program. Cogema is part of the DCS consortium that plans to construct a MOX fuel plant in the U.S. for plutonium disposition. The contract for work on the project in Russia would run from January 2005 to December 2006, DOE said. The department did not specify a dollar figure for the work. The contract will be negotiated on a sole-source basis because only Cogema can transfer its own MOX technology, DOE said. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 38 RGJ: Yucca Mountain funding stays flat Doug AbrahmsGannett News Service 11/19/2004 11:29 pm WASHINGTON — Congress agreed Friday to fund Yucca Mountain at the same level as last year, providing the nuclear waste project with enough money to continue but not as much as the Bush administration sought. The White House wanted $880 million for Yucca Mountain, but only received $577 million as the project is expected to start moving through the permit process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next month. “The number is half of what they wanted,” said Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who opposes the project. “It will slow it down.” But the funding will keep alive the nuclear waste project, which lies about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and will hold nuclear waste from atomic power plants and government facilities. The funding will be included in a $388 billion spending bill for much of the government. Nevada lawmakers also beat back attempts to take control of Yucca Mountain’s funding away from Congress by giving the Energy Department direct access to the nuclear waste fund, which currently holds about $15 billion. Homeowners and other electric ratepayers have paid into the fund for decades to build a nuclear waste repository, but Congress must agree to spend that money each year. Officials at the Energy Department did not respond Friday to a request for comment. Nevada’s lawmakers made such an issue over Yucca Mountain funding that it held up next year’s energy and water spending bill. After the House originally approved only $179 million for Yucca Mountain, GOP leaders compromised on $577 million just as Congress was wrapping up this year’s spending bills to fund the government for the current fiscal year. “We knew this was as good as we could do. It was a battle to hold it to $577 million,” said U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Limited funding is only one of many issues that still confront Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department was handed a setback this summer when a federal appeals court ruled the radiation standard for the project must be changed to better follow guidelines set by the National Academies of Science. The Energy Department maintains that it will file its license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by year’s end, and that nuclear waste will start moving to Nevada by 2010, although many critics say that date is optimistic. U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, might vote against the massive spending bill to fund most of the government because he opposes any money for Yucca Mountain, spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said. “We shouldn’t continue to spend millions upon millions of dollars on the wrong site and a misguided answer to our nuclear waste problem,” she said. “This is a huge issue for the people in Nevada.” Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc.Newspaper. Use 12/17/2002). ***************************************************************** 39 Times Argus: Yankee studies 'dry cask' storage November 21, 2004 By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer Entergy Nuclear is rapidly running out of storage space for its high-level radioactive fuel at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. Under current power production levels, it would run out of space in late 2008. But if it gets approval to boost power production by 20 percent, it will run out of space 18 months earlier, in early 2007. ROWE, Mass. - The two rows of 10-foot-tall concrete silos look rather benign. But they are surrounded by a chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire and guarded by men armed with assault weapons. The 16 bunkers contain high-level nuclear waste that will remain deadly for at least 10,000 years. Inside the silos are stainless steel canisters containing irradiated nuclear fuel whose temperature can reach 400 degrees. But the nuclear fuel is protected by three inches of steel and 21 inches of reinforced concrete. The Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant, located about a half-mile from the Vermont border, has been shut down since 1992. Its owners decided it was cheaper to pull the plug than to fix its deteriorating safety components. The 185-megawatt plant was the first reactor built in New England and only the third in the country. Now it is one of the first to be dismantled. Its spent nuclear fuel is now stored in what the nuclear industry calls "temporary dry cask storage." Instead of being kept cool in the bottom of a giant watery pool, the old irradiated fuel is taken out, dried with nitrogen gas, sealed with helium gas in stainless steel containers and put inside vertical concrete bunkers. How long they will stay in the bunkers, no one knows. Two dozen nuclear plants across the country are building such waste storage sites because the U.S. Department of Energy failed to meet a 1998 deadline to start shipping spent fuel to a long-term nuclear waste storage facility, such as the one proposed at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Vermont Yankee is expected to run out of storage space in 2008 or early 2007, depending on whether it gets permission to boost power production by 20 percent. And there's the open question of whether Vermont Yankee will continue running beyond 2012, when its current 40-year federal license expires. Entergy will apply to the 2005 Legislature and to the state Public Service Board, for permission to build a facility that was never supposed to be needed. And while nuclear critics and opponents usually support removing the old, highly radioactive fuel from what they consider to be vulnerable fuel pools inside the reactors, they raise questions about increased radiation or "nuclear shine" coming from the small silos and possible increased public exposure. And they ask publicly just what "temporary" really means in the nuclear world. Old nuclear fuel was never supposed to be kept on site when plants such as Vermont Yankee and Yankee Rowe were built in the 1960s and '70s. The federal government was supposed to take it away, either for reprocessing or safe storage. Reprocessing was stopped by President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s as a way of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Since then, used fuel has been piling up at the nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors. State authority Entergy Nuclear bought Vermont Yankee from its New England utility owners in 2002, and at the time the corporation believed it wasn't necessary to obtain permission from the Legislature to build the waste facility. Ordinarily, the company would only seek permission from the Public Service Board for the project. But a legal opinion from the attorney general's office earlier this year, sought by Senate President pro tempore Peter Welch, D-Windsor, to clarify the dispute changed all that. The May opinion stated that the 1977 law dealing with the disposal of high-level radioactive waste only exempted "Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp.," and said that entity would not have to get state permission again to store waste. But the law made no mention of any potential future owner. An ill-fated attempt last year by Entergy Nuclear to get the now infamous "four little words" amendment tacked onto a budget bill in the closing days of the 2004 Legislature was ultimately withdrawn. Those four little words, "its successors or assigns," would have exempted Entergy Nuclear from the state law. Brian Cosgrove, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said Friday that Entergy didn't agree with the interpretation of the 1977 law. But he said the company decided to seek clarification directly from the Legislature rather than fight the matter in court. Cosgrove said Entergy believes that the 1977 exemption applies to the Vermont Yankee site, not just the old Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp., which is now just a business office. "The intent of the original legislation was to cover the site," Cosgrove said. "And we believe the legislative process is the best place to begin. What's really at stake here is the power contract, which runs through 2012." Without on-site storage of its old nuclear fuel, Yankee will have to shut down four years early. And with it will go its power contracts with Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power. Together, Vermont Yankee provides one-third of all the electricity used in Vermont, Cosgrove said. "This issue has broader implications than just dry cask storage," he said. If the Legislature accepts the attorney general's interpretation, Yankee faces a detailed review spelled out in the 1977 legislation. Entergy is now launching a substantial public relations campaign to win support for the facility. To that end, it took some southern Vermont legislators, some Vernon town and state officials, media and others on a tour of the Rowe site last week. The intent was to demonstrate how one nuclear reactor handles its high-level waste. Yankee Rowe has substantially less spent fuel to store, about one-third the amount Vermont Yankee currently has in Vernon. The Yankee Rowe casks are smaller and contain less fuel. Vermont Yankee plans to use a different design, a cask that would hold more fuel. It is planning at least 36 casks, according to Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams. Engineers are still working on the final design. Legislative review Welch, a longtime state senator, said he envisions a detailed examination of Vermont Yankee, its practices and its role in Vermont's energy future this winter. "This is a critical issue," he said. "We came within an eyelash of having that power taken away from us," said the Hartland Democrat, referring to the Entergy amendment. "It is going to be a major issue for the Legislature," Welch said. "It's a very serious issue. It has to be treated in a very serious way. I anticipate comprehensive detailed hearings about what the questions are surrounding Vermont Yankee - not just dry cask, but the other questions about Vermont's energy future. "It's one of the biggest shortcomings of the Douglas administration," he said. "It simply doesn't have an energy policy." Welch said he expects Sen. Roderick Gander, D-Windham, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, whose district includes Vermont Yankee, to play a leading role in the review. Welch said two Senate committees, Finance and Natural Resources and Energy, also will play critical roles. He said many Vermonters have questions about the power boost at the plant, as well as any license extension of Vermont Yankee, whose current license expires in 2012. David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, said the 1977 law spells out a specific review procedure. He said the Legislature must approve the storage of spent fuel in the new facility before the matter can go to the Public Service Board for a technical review. O'Brien said that as a result, the Douglas administration won't take a stand on the issue of dry cask storage, because its role is much different under the 1977 law. "The issue of legislative review has to be resolved," he said. The 1977 law really lays out a semi-judicial role for the Legislature, he said. "It's pretty clear that the Legislature at the time wanted to limit the number of parties who would have radioactive fuel stored in the state," O'Brien said. "There was a fear that Vermont could be host for fuel storage, for other parties," he said. "That's why this statute is as thorough as it is. I didn't think they contemplated a change in ownership." Until the issue is resolved, he said, his department is part of the "investigative process," providing supporting information to the Legislature. The Public Service Board, which hears rate cases and similar cases, also will review the project but only after the Legislature, he said. Raymond Shadis, senior technical adviser for the New England Coalition, an anti-nuclear group, said there were positive aspects to dry cask storage. "No one wants dry cask storage that will enable the company simply to make more waste," Shadis said. "You don't want the company to walk away from it, and leave it as a problem for the state." The facility, by nature of its open design, is vulnerable to someone with explosives. He discounted nuclear industry tests done several years ago, that showed the casks can survive a series of calamities. "There's a different set of vulnerabilities, explosives, ballistics, they are vulnerable to terrorists," he said. "One wants to make sure there's protections, not just the NRC-type 'wishful thinking' protections," he said. The casks do emit radiation, he said. An earthen berm was built around the dry cask storage facility at Maine Yankee nuclear power plant to help absorb the radiation, he said. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2004 Times Argus Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 40 Salt Lake Tribune: Skull Valley Goshutes' elections attempt fails Article Last Updated: 11/21/2004 01:01:57 AM By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune SKULL VALLEY - Tribal elections for the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes didn't proceed as scheduled Saturday when Leon Bear, the disputed tribal leader, declared there wasn't a quorum of voting tribal members and adjourned the meeting a half-hour after its scheduled 10 a.m. start. Margene Bullcreek, who had planned to challenge Bear for the leadership post, said about 35 people were at the meeting when Bear ended it. Half of the estimated 84 to 86 adult tribal members eligible to vote are required for a quorum, she said. Skull Valley Goshutes came from Colorado, Idaho and Nevada for the vote, said Miranda Wash, who also opposes Bear's leadership. "He should have given more time for the people to come in, because a lot were coming in," she said. "The meeting only lasted five or 10 minutes." Bear and his supporters left quickly after he called off the meeting, Bullcreek said. No one from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs was on hand to monitor the proceedings, she said. The agency has attended meetings in the past. A reporter who attempted to approach several tribal members in the Goshute village community center parking lot for comment was told she was trespassing and ordered to leave. Any tribal member can order nonmembers off the property at will. Contacted by telephone, Bullcreek said Bear is an illegitimate leader whose term was up a year ago and had no authority to hold or adjourn the meeting. "We don't have a chairman, we don't have a vice chairman, we don't have a secretary. We haven't had a secretary for the past six months or so," she said. "I told him he shouldn't even be running the meeting because his term was up. . . . He said he could still be in there until he was elected out." Bullcreek said Bear promised to convene a meeting in March and quarterly thereafter where an election could take place. "But when your term is up your term is up," she said. Attempts to reach Bear by telephone at his home were unsuccessful. Bear has been involved in power struggles since he signed a lease in 1997 with Private Fuel Storage, a nuclear power utility consortium, to allow the limited liability company to store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The state opposes the multibillion dollar proposal, and has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the dispute with the sovereign Goshute nation. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering the PFS license application, with a decision expected as early as January. A year ago, the U.S. attorney for Utah indicted Bear on three counts of embezzling $160,952 from tribal programs and three counts of tax fraud. Prosecutors allege Bear reported being unemployed on his personal tax filings but was paid more than $192,316 for tribal business. Bear's trial, scheduled to begin Nov. 3, was continued to Feb. 22. He has denied any wrongdoing. Wash, Sammy Blackbear and Marlinda Moon have claimed they were elected tribal chairman, vice chairman and secretary, respectively, in September 2001. The three, along with attorney Duncan Steadman, are scheduled to go to trial Dec. 13 on charges of embezzlement and bank fraud after moving more than $1 million in tribal accounts amid the leadership struggles stemming from the PFS deal. In March, the nuclear commission declared for the third and final time it wouldn't consider tribal or PFS finances, nor would it delve into corruption allegations against Bear, even though the commission "assumed the truth of the facts alleged." In April, dissidents tried to oust Bear and Lori Skiby, the vice chairwoman, demanding their resignations within 10 days and declaring the tribal council - that is, all the adult members - in charge. Neither the Indian Affairs bureau nor its parent agency, the Department of Interior, has intervened in the turmoil tearing apart the tribe. © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 41 roanoke.com: OP: Send the waste to Yucca Mountain Sunday, November 21, 2004 J. Winston Porter Porter is president of the Waste Policy Center in Leesburg. Here in Virginia, 1,875 metric tons of used nuclear fuel has accumulated at the North Anna and Surry nuclear power plant sites. Wouldn't everyone be better off if we could store all that nuclear waste a half-mile deep in a solid geologic formation that hasn't shifted for 50,000 years? It exists - beneath Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. Yucca Mountain was a significant issue in the presidential campaign. President Bush was in favor of it. Sen. John Kerry spoke against using Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is so remote that a nearby area was used as a test site for nuclear weapons. It is arid and desolate, with no sign of civilization for miles. Within a decade, 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from 131 sites around the nation - sites both for nuclear power plants and for defense nuclear installations - are scheduled to be shipped to Yucca Mountain, sealed in reinforced steel containers and stored in tunnels deep inside the mountain. Congress designated Yucca Mountain as the site for a national waste repository in 1987. Since then, teams of geologists, hydrologists and other scientists have descended on the rocky peak, making it the most researched piece of land anywhere on the planet. In 2002, President Bush approved an Energy Department recommendation to proceed with waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and Congress concurred. By the end of this year, the department expects to submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to construct the repository. If all goes according toplan, the first shipments of used nuclear fuel would begin by rail, but not until at least 2010. Those opposed to the Yucca Mountain repository prefer the status quo. That means leaving all the used fuel rods where they are, indefinitely. Critics maintain that it would be safer to continue storing the nuclear waste at sites in 39 states, many near cities and lakes and rivers. But these facilities - principally engineered water pools - were not designed for permanent storage, and thus require significant outlays for maintenance and security. A panel of the National Academy of Sciences determined that placing the waste in a deep-underground repository would be much safer than storing it indefinitely at scores of sites around the country. We are, it should be noted, experienced in transporting used nuclear fuel. Over the past 40 years, about 3,000 shipments of used nuclear fuel have been completed in this country without a major accident that resulted in any release of radiation. Other countries have also been shipping nuclear waste safely. By opposing Yucca Mountain, anti-nuclear groups have been trying to prevent the operation of nuclear power plants that provide 20 percent of the nation's electricity without depending on foreign nations for fuel or polluting the atmosphere. To those groups, stopping Yucca Mountain is more important that protecting our energy security. This would leave us with very few options. We can continue to store the used nuclear fuel at nuclear power plant sites and build steel casks to hold additional used fuel rods once the water pools reach capacity. In fact, so-called dry casks already are being used at many nuclear plant sites. A more responsible approach is to complete the job at Yucca Mountain. Congress must make clear that we will not abandon Yucca Mountain to the tender mercies of anti-nuclear groups, and must provide the funds needed to complete the project without further delay. © Copyright 2004 ***************************************************************** 42 Australian: Island nuke dump 'too risky' [November 22, 2004] Amanda Hodge HOUSING a nuclear waste dump on a remote Australian island was unnecessarily risky, both geologically and from a security perspective, Australia's former chief defence scientist has warned. Accusing the states of "inexcusable behaviour" for whipping up public hysteria on the waste dump issue for political gain, Richard Brabin-Smith said the federal Government's previously favoured location in northern South Australia was the safest place for the dump. The Government announced last month it would be looking offshore at its own island territories for a possible location to store low and intermediate-level radioactive waste after state anger over the site threatened to cost votes in the federal election. A few months earlier, a South Australian Federal Court challenge successfully repelled federal attempts to locate a dump within its borders. The federal Department of Transport and Regional Services said the commonwealth had jurisdiction over 10 island territories, including Norfolk, Christmas and Ashmore islands. But with islands such as Heard and Macquarie enjoying high levels of environmental protection and others such as Christmas and Cocos Keeling closer to the earthquake-prone and socially unstable regions of Indonesia and Java than Australia, there are no obvious candidates. Dr Brabin-Smith, now a visiting fellow at the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said the country's sparsely populated centre was geologically and strategically a safer location for a repository that would eventually house hundreds of cubic metres of reprocessed nuclear fuel. "Offshore you always have the problem of the need to pay greater attention to security," he said. While a store could be made physically secure, "imagine the concern if any of it were stolen then detonated in the form of a dirty bomb, using ordinary explosives to spread radioactive waste around". The International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no precedent for locating a nuclear waste dump on an island. In the remote Cocos Keeling islands not a whisper had been heard of the commonwealth's intentions for its nuclear waste. But shire chief executive Bill Price was certain there would be no dump on his patch. "We have trouble trying to dispose of our own waste, let alone nuclear waste," he said. "Because of our groundwater, basically they would be putting it straight in the ocean." More than 80 per cent of Australia's nuclear waste is currently stored at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor facility in Sydney's south. Campaigners gathered yesterday outside Lucas Heights to protest the expected transportation of spent nuclear fuel from the facility early today, through Sydney streets and on to a ship destined for reprocessing in France. A spokesman for federal Science Minister Brendan Nelson confirmed the Government was searching for an offshore location but had not completely ruled out a mainland site. © The Australian ***************************************************************** 43 AU ABC: Aust nuclear rod shipment heads for France. 22/11/2004. ABC News Online "Australian Broadcasting Corporation A shipment of spent nuclear rods is on its way to France from Australia. The rods, from Australia's only reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney, are sent back to France for reprocessing under an international agreement and then returned to Australia as waste. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), says it has worked closely with emergency services, port authorities, stevedores and local councils to prepare for the safe shipment of the material. This is the seventh shipment of Australia's nuclear waste to be sent overseas. The next shipment will be to the United States in a few years time. © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 44 Saskatoon StarPhoenix: Storing nuclear waste Cameco eager to get industry going canada.com network Silas Polkinghorne The StarPhoenix Saturday, November 20, 2004 While a Canadian organization is consulting with Saskatchewan First Nations and Metis groups on the disposal of nuclear waste in the province, the head of a Saskatoon-based uranium company says the issue is clear. "We'd love to have it here whether on a interim basis or a permanent basis," Jerry Grandey, president and CEO of Cameco Corp, said in an interview. Grandey says there are potential economic benefits in nuclear waste disposal. He said Cameco would be "more than happy to step up and do the studies and do the education and work with the government, as long as the Saskatchewan government doesn't stand up and say 'not in my back yard, we're not going to take all that dirty waste.' " Grandey said a take-back fee for spent nuclear fuel would be shared with the communities that are willing to accept the waste, and the province would also benefit through taxes. "There will be plenty of money for everyone," he said. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is developing a proposal for how to safely dispose of used nuclear fuel. Scientists say that the fuel, generated at nuclear power plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, remains radioactive for thousands of years, with varying degrees of danger to human health and the environment. It takes one million years for the waste to return to approximately the same radioactivity it had when it came out of the ground as uranium ore. The right method for disposing of nuclear waste is up for debate in Canada. Industry and Resources Minister Eric Cline said he welcomes discussion, but the Saskatchewan government will likely oppose nuclear waste disposal in the province. "The Liberals and Sask. Party position has them both saying no to nuclear waste disposal," Cline said. "That is probably the position the New Democratic Party would take as well. "I sense an uneasiness about it." Cline noted that decisions on nuclear waste rest with the federal government. A not-for-profit corporation, NWMO was formed as a result of recommendations made by the Seaborn panel, which studied nuclear waste disposal for almost 10 years in the 1990s. NWMO was mandated by the federal Nuclear Fuel Waste Act and created in late 2002. It is funded by the nuclear power producers -- Ontario Power Generation, Hydro Quebec, New Brunswick Power and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) -- and will report back to Parliament in November 2005, although the government is not required to follow the recommendations. When a waste management plan is enacted, NWMO will transform into the organization that co-ordinates waste disposal. For the first seven to 10 years after nuclear fuel is used, it is kept in wet storage pools, which reduce radioactivity and heat. Then it is transferred to dry storage containers made of concrete and reinforced steel, which are designed to last for 50 years. What to do after that is up for discussion. NWMO is looking into three options for long-term storage: deep geological storage, extended storage at the reactor site or centralized storage, which could be above ground or just below the surface. But NWMO is also mandated to look at waste disposal not only from a technical standpoint, but from ethical, social, economic and environmental perspectives as well, said Liz Dowdeswell, president of NWMO, which is based in Toronto. "I often describe this work as trying to develop a contract between science and society," she said. So the group is talking to ordinary Canadians about how to deal with the issue of waste disposal and about their values. "Those values are clearly safety and security -- that was paramount, but they also talked about assuming responsibility now, not leaving it to future generations," said Dowdeswell. "They talked about any kind of mechanism needing to be adaptable." But Dowdeswell said there appears to be no one storage method that meets all of criteria raised by Canadians. "So we're going to be looking at something that is involving tradeoffs, quite clearly," she said. "People told us, for example, that they thought this waste should be stored in remote areas, away from people. And yet at the same time, they told us they didn't want to transport it. They were worried about that. So how do you get it from where it is now to a place like that?" Some argue that spent nuclear fuel would be safe in northern Saskatchewan, because that's where it came from, Dowdeswell noted. "But I don't know that the discussion in Saskatchewan would really be any different than it is elsewhere," she said. Dowdeswell also noted that aboriginals' inherent concern for the land would be a major factor in discussions about disposal in northern Saskatchewan, as it would be in northern Ontario. Nuclear waste disposal is a problem that has to be addressed, even though there is no good environmental solution, says Ann Coxworth, program co-ordinator with the Saskatchewan Environmental Society. "We can't just brush it under the carpet," she said. According to Coxworth, nuclear waste disposal was discussed in the early 1990s in Saskatchewan, but it was a divisive issue. The Meadow Lake Tribal Council pursued the idea, but some member bands strongly opposed it, Coxworth said. When contacted, a representative of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council refused to comment on the issue. Coxworth said some in Saskatchewan would see nuclear waste disposal as a good economic opportunity, while other would view it as irresponsible use of the land. "I know that there would be strong opposition to siting disposal in Saskatchewan, there's no question about that." Coxworth, an opponent of nuclear power in general, does favour deep geological storage, but says the vault should be kept open to allow for monitoring. Other environmentalists say the waste should be kept above ground as a constant reminder to future generations, Coxworth noted. Canada should make a commitment to stop producing nuclear waste and encourage energy producers to invest in sustainable, environmentally friendly sources, she said. "Certainly we would like to see a phase-out of nuclear power," she said. "I think we're really on the edge of a complete transformation of the whole energy picture, globally." See related Editorial Nuclear industry needs to expand; Page A10. c The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004 Copyright © CanWest Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast pollution: no report required | 11/21/2004 | Records would reveal if a cleanup was successful - but they don't exist SCOTT RADWAY Herald Staff Writer TALLEVAST - Inside an abandoned warehouse that abuts the controversial Loral American Beryllium Co. plant is a filtering system once used to clean groundwater contamination. There are also 19 dormant monitoring wells. In the mid-1990s, low levels of a cancer-causing solvent known as trichloroethylene, or TCE, were discovered there and a cleanup was attempted, according to a Manatee County environmental assessment obtained by the Herald. But it has not been determined if the cleanup was successful. The state Department of Environmental Protection apparently has no record of the discovery a decade ago. "There is nothing in Florida law to require a property owner to report when they find contamination," said William Kutash, southwest district environmental administrator for DEP waste management. The county discovered that the site had been contaminated when it began examining whether to buy the parcel for a road-widening project. The property sits at the corner of Tallevast Road and 15th Street East, and its eastern edge is flush with the old American Beryllium plant. To the south is the Sun Coast Golf Center and across Tallevast Road is the start of the single-family homes that fill out the area. County officials do not believe the potential contamination migrated off the site. Environmental assessments of the warehouse from 1994 to 1996 indicate low levels that were contained to areas around a septic tank, according to the county. "This is not a threat to the neighborhood," said Paul Panik, of the county Environmental Management Department. But residents have long associated the plot with the American Beryllium plant that has been tied to widespread groundwater contamination. Residents have voiced concerns that the old warehouse was a second source of pollution to the community. Several companies have operated in the warehouse over the years. American Beryllium operated a "small plating operation" in the southeastern portion of the building in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the county report states. "But after 1960, boat manufacturing was the main business conducted onsite." Other companies that have operated there include the Visioneering Co. and boat makers Wellcraft Boats and Spindrift/Retel. The county's report does not specify who caused the TCE contamination. Now that documentation of past contamination has been found, Manatee officials are conducting a second environmental assessment to determine if there is any remaining TCE and if it could proceed with the land purchase. That assessment is expected within a few weeks. Reporting not required When the county found out about the past groundwater contamination on the site in May, they sent a letter to inform the Florida DEP, which regulates such environmental hazards. It was news to the DEP - but nothing unusual. Florida laws are primarily aimed at large spills and use threshold requirements for reporting, Kutash said. The prospect of reporting and recording all levels of releases in the state would be a "monumental undertaking" for the DEP, Kutash said. Companies often choose to do clean-ups without getting the state involved. "It is called 'off the books.' We have no idea how many go on," Kutash said. When it comes to relatively smaller contamination sites or even sites where there is long-term cumulative pollution - like the former American Beryllium plant - the state and public is mostly dependent on corporate responsibility to protect them, said Cynthia Valencic, vice president of Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, a Tallahassee-based citizen advocacy group. The only reason the county found evidence of past contamination was the county wanted to buy the property and had to do an environmental assessment, Panik said. WHOGAS, the site's current owner, purchased the property in 1996 from La Mancha Dos, said William Hadley, WHOGAS' main stockholder. Hadley said the intent was to renovate the building and relocate the headquarters for Environmental Biotech. Hadley is also a major shareholder in Environmental Biotech. Hadley said environmental consultants for La Mancha Dos told him the property was clean of contaminants. He had begun roofing it when the county approached him about buying the land a few years ago, Hadley said, so he halted renovations. The DEP did preliminary water tests on the perimeter of the WHOGAS property in June, Kutash said, as part of its investigation into the American Beryllium contamination. No contamination was found, so the DEP does not expect to find any migration from the site, Kutash said. DEP also found the American Beryllium plant contamination had generally moved east, away from the WHOGAS site. The county could find that the TCE is gone from the WHOGAS property, but there is no way to know until current data is collected. "We need real-time samples, not data from 1996," Panik said. Community fears worst But in Tallevast there is deep-rooted skepticism that the problem is small. "We are really angry that people are still thinking that whatever they tell us we are supposed to believe," said Laura Ward, president of Tallevast's Family Oriented Community United Strong known as FOCUS. The community was shocked in late 2003 when crews from Lockheed Martin - the current owners of the old American Beryllium plant - entered Tallevast to drill monitoring wells to see if contamination from the former plant had migrated offsite. Lockheed had been investigating the plant site since 2000. Residents only learned about the risks when they inquired about the crews last year. Then in July, the community learned the contamination had spread three times farther than experts had thought. The community was doubly shocked as more information emerges about former plant workers' exposure - and possibly their families' - to beryllium, a carcinogen. Ward said the report about potential contamination at the WHOGAS site has a similar ring to the Lockheed case. Officials "have not been truthful in the past, and we know what kind of things happened in the past," Ward said. Partly fueled by the American Beryllium controversy, the DEP is considering changing the rules on companies reporting contamination that would include a clause forcing them to tell the public when there is an imminent threat to public health. While it would not require companies to report every contamination event, it would require companies to inform the public as soon as there is a potential threat, like in the Lockheed case. That draft regulation goes for a first reading before a DEP oversight body known as Environmental Regulation Commission on Dec. 7 in Tallahassee, said DEP press secretary Russ Schweiss. But that new rule, if passed, would not close all the gaps in reporting, for future releases or past ones. Valencic, from Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, said there will likely be more and more cases in Florida like the WHOGAS property down the road because of those gaps. Properties can change owners many times, and new owners will not be aware of the land's former uses and potential problems. And with the Florida housing market booming, more commercial property is bound to be sought for more houses. "When you take old commercial property and turn it into something like homes and neighborhoods, you are going to find a lot of this," Valencic said. Scott Radway, environmental reporter, can be reached at 708-7919 or at sradway@bradentonherald.com. ***************************************************************** 46 Tri-City Herald: DOE, 2 contractors dismissed from suit This story was published Saturday, November 20th, 2004 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer The Department of Energy and two of its contractors have been dismissed from a federal lawsuit over the award of a subcontract for custom metal fabrication at the Hanford nuclear reservation. Apollo Inc. is accusing the winner of the contract worth up to $22.7 million of breaking an agreement to partner with the Kennewick business in the contract bid proposal after obtaining Apollo's proprietary information. U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley found the matter was "a classic bid protest." As such, complaints against the federal government should be brought to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, not U.S. District Court, he ruled. He also dismissed Fluor Hanford and CH2M Hill Hanford Group from the suit. The two DOE contractors awarded the subcontract for metal fabrication Feb. 9 to Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group. If the U.S. government was being dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, its contractors also must be dismissed, the judge wrote in court papers. The suit will continue with Parsons as the sole defendant. Apollo told the court it had been approached by Parsons, a subsidiary of an international corporation, after DOE said it would favor a contractor that would team with a small business. Apollo believed an agreement was reached in a June 10, 2003, meeting that neither company would proceed without the other, according to court documents. Eight days later, Apollo provided Parsons with pricing and other sensitive information, it said. Parsons said in court papers that an agreement with Apollo never was signed. It decided to drop Apollo as the lead contractor in its proposal just days before bids were due after learning that Apollo might not be able to meet bid requirements pertaining to safety history, according to court documents. Apollo said that it has been awarded other Fluor contracts and had no relevant safety violations regarding the prefabrication contract. Both companies entered separate bid proposals after their falling out 10 days before the proposals were due. Parsons said it did not rely on Apollo information for its bid proposal. © 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 47 Amarillo Globe News: Pantex completes warhead program amarillo.com: 11/20/04 By JIM McBRIDE jim.mcbride@amarillo.com BWXT Pantex and the National Nuclear Administration announced Friday that Pantex has completed the Life Extension Program for the W87 warhead, a weapon carried on the Peacekeeper Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The aim of the W87 Life Extension Program is to extend the shelf life of the warhead by 30 years and structurally enhance the weapon. "This was a priority at Pantex. The entire project team and their ability to work together at Pantex and other sites made it possible to complete this project," BWXT Pantex Manufacturing Division Manager Jeff Yarbrough said in a statement. "The completion of this LEP is a success for the entire weapons complex." The first rebuilt W87 warhead was delivered to the Defense Department in 1999 under a program authorized by Congress in 1994. "The W87 is an integral part of the nation's strategic defense. Completion of this important life extension program assures the continued safety and reliability of this vital part of the strategic nuclear deterrent," Dr. Everet Beckner, the NNSA's deputy administrator for defense programs, said in a statement. Beckner said enhanced stockpile surveillance techniques have helped the agency better understand the effects of aging on warhead safety, security and reliability. Under the NNSA's stockpile stewardship plan, the agency plans to replace or fix weapons components systematically before aging-related problems crop up in the nuclear weapons stockpile. Although deemed a success by NNSA officials, the W87 program was fraught with cost overruns and other problems that drew the attention of congressional investigators. In 2000, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that the program had suffered significant design and production costs that increased the project's price tag by $300 million and delayed the project by two years. The W87 is the first of four planned Life Extension Programs to extend the life of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal. The W80 warhead, designed to be carried on a cruise missile launched from an attack sub or a bomber, is expected to begin production in 2006. The B61 bomb, carried on the B-52 or B-2 bomber, also is expected to start production in 2006. The W76 warhead, carried on the Trident II missile, is slated to begin production in 2007, according to congressional reports. ***************************************************************** 48 The Day: Last Skipper Says Nautilus' Run Was Amazing For Its Time Sunday, Nov 21, 2004 By ROBERT A. HAMILTON Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat Published on 11/21/2004 Groton  Retired Rear Adm. Richard A. Riddell, was the last skipper of the USS Nautilus, leaving Groton in April 1979 for the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California where it was decommissioned and defueled, the first step in making it into a museum ship. During that final journey under its own power, the submarine made its 2,500th dive and logged 510,000 miles on the odometer. Speaking at the Submarine Force Library &Museum last week, Riddell questioned whether people understand how much the Navy and Electric Boat accomplished with Nautilus. I find it astounding that this submarine, with its first-of-a-kind engineering plan, ran hard for 25 years, Riddell said. This is like the Wright Brothers' plane being put into commercial service and carrying passengers for 25 years, or the first Model T being put into service for 25 years as a New York City Taxi. Even more remarkable, he said, is that the world's first nuclear plant for a Navy ship was so rugged and reliable that it still has many features in common with the new plants being put into service. If a sailor trained on the Nautilus, Riddell said, he could probably make the transition to the USS Virginia, which was commissioned this year, without an enormous amount of trouble. Even in its final years Nautilus did cutting-edge operations, including the testing of a Mobile Acoustic Communications System while Riddell was in command. The device, an array of antenna pipes almost as large as the Nautilus sail, was mounted amidships and generated ear-splitting noise on a regular basis. Somehow we learned to live with that noise, to sleep with it, and even on Saturday night to play poker over it, Riddell said. And on an exercise just before its decommissioning, he said he learned there's nothing more beautiful than a periscope image of an aircraft carrier, back lighted by the rising sun, with green flares lighting up the foreground  green flares being the signal that Nautilus had snuck up close enough to it to simulate a kill. When Nautilus was finally retired after 25 years, Riddell said, it was largely a political decision. The longer Nautilus lasted, the fewer submarines Congress would agree to build as replacement ships. In fact, he said, the day it pulled into the shipyard it was still a viable warship. Not that the ship didn't have its quirks, Riddell admitted. For instance, when the crew had to change some generator bearings, the huge foundations had to be cut free from the deck, and then welded back into place when the job was finished, and the diesel engines would not run unless the ship was on the surface, and we could never figure out why. It was also hard to use the ships sonar because of the rattles that would develop when the ship was traveling more than 4 knots, so if you wanted to hear something you slowed way down, Riddell said. And of course throughout its life, Nautilus was always favored with a great deal of attention from Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy  sometimes a bit too much attention. On an occasion when he was trying to make a case for some protective covers over some high-voltage switches in the engineroom, Riddell had his crew take a picture of one of the larger crewmen standing in the passageway, nearly touching the switches on boat sides, to highlight his safety concerns. It drew an almost immediate response from the admiral. Instead of telling me to put up the protective covers, he asked me, Why do you have that fat guy on board? Get that fat guy thin, or get rid of him,'  Riddell recalled. And I never did get the protective covers. 1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************