*****************************************************************
10/20/04 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 12.251
*****************************************************************
   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 US: Guardian Unlimited: Surrogates Take to Airwaves for Kerry
2 US: US Senate: Lawmakers Angered Over Top Bush Trade Rep's Refusal t
3 US: Bush vs. Kerry: Energized over energy
4 UPI: Brazil: no nuclear secrets - 
5 GLOCOM Platform: Beijing's Hour of Nuclear Judgment
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
6 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the AC
7 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Feds to decide B Reactor's fate; it coul
8 Seattle Times: China may get OK on reactors, NRC chief says
9 Xinhuanet: Bulgaria, Russia sign contracts on nuclear power, oil   
10 US: JOURNAL NEWS: 40 Indian Point workers stage sickout
11 Mos News: Russia to Keep Chernobyl-Type Nuclear Reactors — Officials
12 US: EMS: Energy Dept. Records Show Wave of Nuclear Plant License Ren
13 Scotsman.com: Experts Reignite N-Plant Safety Issue
14 Scotsman: Nuclear Plants Safety Risks 'Underestimated'
15 US: TheDay.com: Court Backs Millstone Relicensing
16 US: TheDay.com: NRC To Discuss Millstone's Reactor Monitoring Wednes
17 EU Business: Lithuania wants to keep Soviet-built nuclear plant open
18 US: EMS: Wave of Nuclear Plant Relicensing Will Mean Steep Increase 
19 US: NRC: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., Pilgrim Nuclear Power Sta
20 US: NRC: Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
21 US: [NYTr] NY Times Sugar-coats Risks of DU
22 US: [du-list] Low Level Radiation Risk Reassessed
23 [du-list] Alert re DU in 747 crash in Halifax
24 [du-list] DU denial and acceptance - " 109 Italian soldiers
25 [DU-WATCH] How Dracula rules the Bloodbank
26 UK The Times: Nuclear plant radiation may be 10 times previous estim
27 BBC: Radiation risks 'need updating'
28 Guardian Unlimited: Radiation risks 'could be higher than thought'
29 US: Times-News: Fallout question unites some in search for answer
30 Scotsman: Health Risks from Radioactivity - independent Advice 
31 Scotsman: Report Raises New Questions over Radiation Risks
32 Guardian Unlimited: Danger of nuclear plant discharges underrated
33 US: TheDay.com: Super-Secret Sub Goes Out Of Service
34 US: Public Citizen: Bush Administration Fails to Effectively Fortify
35 News & Star: Fears over low level radiation
36 News & Star: Questions raised over nuclear radiatioin risks
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
37 US: [NukeNet] UT governor warns that risks of nuke waste shipments
38 Epoch Times: Dangerous Nuclear Waste Dumped in Tibet?
39 Bradenton Herald: Growth in Nevada may help Democrats
40 Guardian Unlimited: Notes, Quotes From 2004 Campaign in Nev.
41 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Panel tosses hotter-waste ban proposal
42 US: Salt Lake Tribune: 1st Congressional district debate turns radio
43 US: FLORIDA TODAY: Scientist touts gypsum as landfill life-extender 
44 Pahrump Valley Times: Anti-Yucca meeting Thursday 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
45 Hindustan Times: New Zealand asks India to sign NPT
46 SU: McNamara: No nukes 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
47 DOE: Office of Science; Biological and Environmental Research
48 DOE: National Coal Council
49 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Northern
50 Tri-City Herald: Bush signs bill to study preserving B Reactor as mu
51 Science Daily: Livermore Scientists Join DOE Consortium In Partnerin
52 Newswise: System Eliminates Perchlorate, Helps Scientists Trace Sour
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
53 [du-list] DU in the news - 20th Oct  ( Part Deux )
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 Guardian Unlimited: Surrogates Take to Airwaves for Kerry
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday October 20, 2004 10:16 AM

AP Photo OHDK105 

By LIZ SIDOTI 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Sen. Harry Reid says in a TV ad in 
his state that ``Nevada needs John Kerry as president to protect 
all our families.'' In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell plugs the 
Democrat's candidacy in a commercial. In Florida, Sen. Bob Graham 
has vouched for Kerry in a spot in his home state. 

In the campaign homestretch, and in some of the most competitive 
states in the presidential race, Massachusetts Sen. Kerry is 
turning to ads that feature high-profile hometown surrogates 
singing his praises. 

Kerry used the same strategy during the Democratic primaries, and 
it is credited with helping him to come-from-behind victories in 
Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary. Iowa first lady 
Christie Vilsack, a popular personality there, and former New 
Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vouched for Kerry in TV commercials 
in their states. 

There's no research on the effectiveness of such endorsement ads, 
but the campaigns hope voters - especially the undecided ones - 
will follow the urgings of their favorite hometown sons or 
daughters. 

Some political analysts say Kerry's testimonial ads could tip the 
race his way in close states because the appeal is more personal. 
Still, they warn that campaigns must carefully choose their 
surrogates since all are not well loved by everyone. 

William Benoit, who analyzes political ads at the University of 
Missouri-Columbia, said he doesn't think such ads change the 
minds of the masses. But, he added: ``In a battleground state in 
a very close race, it's conceivable that it would do the trick.'' 

So, Kerry has been on the air with such ads in a couple of the 
most hotly contested states - Nevada, Pennsylvania and Florida, 
among others. His campaign is tailoring its ad strategy to a 
larger degree than President Bush's campaign, choosing where 
certain commercials run and creating others for specific states. 

In Nevada, Reid couples words of praise for Kerry with criticism 
of Bush's handling of the local Yucca Mountain controversy. ``For 
20 years I've been leading the fight to stop the nuclear waste 
dump. I know who stood with our state and I know that George Bush 
broke his word as president, pushing ahead with a nuclear dump 
that's a danger to Nevadans.'' 

Graham, in an ad aired in Florida, criticizes Bush on issues 
important to the state's large retiree population. ``While George 
Bush and the Republicans in Congress have been in control, 
Medicare premiums have gone up 56 percent,'' Graham says. He also 
says Kerry would allow prescription drugs to be imported from 
Canada. 

Up north in Pennsylvania, Rendell holds up a copy of Kerry's plan 
and tells constituents ``I have a suggestion - read this book.'' 
The governor praises the Democrat's proposals for the middle 
class and claims: ``George Bush and the right-wing Republicans 
stand in the way.'' 

In an ad in West Virginia, Sen. Robert Byrd said: ``George Bush 
is no friend to West Virginia. Believe me. In the Bush White 
House, the working man is the forgotten man.'' 

But even the endorsement of a hero among West Virginia Democrats 
couldn't stop Kerry's sliding poll numbers there. The campaign 
has pulled its ads out of most media markets in the state. And 
even though the Democratic Party continues to advertise there, 
Kerry advisers privately acknowledge that their focus is 
elsewhere. 

^--- 

On the Net: 

Kerry campaign: http://www.johnkerry.com 

Bush campaign: http://www.georgewbush.com 
  
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 2 US Senate: Lawmakers Angered Over Top Bush Trade Rep's Refusal to Answer
   Questions About Admin. Relationship with Chemical Industry
 
http://lautenberg.senate.gov/

  October 19, 2004 

Lawmakers Angered Over Top Bush Trade Rep's Refusal to Answer 
Questions About Admin. Relationship with Chemical Industry
 
Response to Lautenberg-Jeffords Letter from USTR 3 Months Late 
and Questions Not Answered Over REACH

WASHINGTON, DC -- In a letter sent to U.S. Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick, United States Senators Frank R. Lautenberg
(D-NJ) and Jim Jeffords (I-VT) today expressed disappointment
over Mr. Zoellick's failure to answer questions the lawmakers
posed back in June of this year over the Bush administration's
apparent catering to the U.S. chemical industry in its
opposition to a proposed European environmental law. At issue is
the European Union's (EU) legislative initiative for the 
Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals 
("REACH"). 

In a letter sent last June, Lautenberg and Jeffords called on Mr. 
Zoellick to explain in detail how the administration developed 
its position, what analysis it performed, and whether it allowed 
public health officials, labor, environmental or consumer groups 
to have a voice in developing the U.S. position. 

"On June 22, 2004, we requested information on the 
Administration's position with respect to the potential trade 
implications of the European Union's proposed chemicals 
regulation, known as Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization 
of Chemicals (REACH). We are very disappointed that, after taking 
over three months to develop your response, you failed to provide 
the information requested. We are troubled by reports that the 
Administration fashioned its position on REACH to reflect 
unsubstantiated cost concerns raised by a narrow segment of U.S. 
industry, without any genuine consideration of the likely health 
and environmental benefits that such policies would generate," 
wrote the lawmakers in a letter sent out this week to Mr. 
Zoellick.

 The EU's REACH initiative would protect public health and safety 
by requiring chemical manufacturers and importers to make 
available toxicity data on chemicals produced in large 
quantities. Information on which chemicals pose the greatest 
health and safety risks would allow manufactures and regulators 
to find safer substitutes.

 October 18, 2004

 The Honorable Robert B. Zoellick United States Trade 
Representative Office of the United States Trade Representative 
600 17th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20508

 Dear Ambassador Zoellick: 

On June 22, 2004, we requested information on the 
Administration's position with respect to the potential trade 
implications of the European Union's proposed chemicals 
regulation, known as Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization 
of Chemicals (REACH). We are very disappointed that, after taking 
over four months to develop your response, you failed to provide 
the information requested. Such treatment violates the 
affirmative duty that obligates all executive agencies and 
offices, barring a claim of executive privilege, to accommodate 
information requests from members of Congress to the maximum 
extent possible.

 As our June letter indicated, we are troubled by reports that 
the Administration fashioned its position on REACH to reflect 
unsubstantiated cost concerns raised by a narrow segment of U.S. 
industry, without any genuine consideration of the likely health 
and environmental benefits that such policies would generate. 
Your office's letter, dated September 3, 2004, reiterated the 
Administration's position, but did not provide the requested 
information explaining how the Administration developed its 
position. Once again, we request information on both the 
substance of the Administration's position and the process by 
which that position was developed. To avoid any misunderstanding 
on your part, this letter repeats the request for information 
from our June 2004 letter and specifically requests all related 
documents. 

Regarding the substance of the Administration's position, please 
provide all analysis and documentation regarding how the REACH 
proposal violates specific WTO articles. Specifically, please 
identify the actual provisions of REACH alleged to be in conflict 
with specific WTO articles, including any articles of the 
Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement that allegedly may be 
violated. Please provide all background memos, reports, analyses, 
or communications related to these claims. In addition, please 
provide all analysis, with related documentation, and all 
communications that your office conducted to assess the likely 
trade impacts of the REACH proposal. For example, we ask that you 
submit the economic analysis by which you concluded that, "The 
costs to implement REACH would be substantial," a statement 
included in the USTR's comments to the World Trade Organizations' 
Technical Barriers to Trade Committee on June 21, 2004.

 Regarding process, please document the precise identities of the 
"broad range of stakeholders" with whom, according to the 
September 3rd letter, your office consulted in developing the 
Administration's position. Specifically, we request a list of all 
persons who participated, formally and informally, as 
representatives of the "formal advisory committees, business, 
consumer, and environmental organizations, and Congressional 
staff" referenced in the letter. Please provide all documentation 
relating to such contacts, including all correspondence, e-mails, 
briefing memos, reports, analyses, etc. developed in preparation 
for, or provided during, such consultations, as well as all 
correspondence and other documents following up on such 
consultations. 

        Finally, we also reiterate the request made in our June 
letter to provide information on the procedures that the USTR 
will adopt and implement to ensure that the views of all U.S. 
stakeholders will be considered during future discussions of the 
U.S. position on REACH. Please provide all memos, reports, 
analyses, or communications that address this matter. 

	We look forward to your prompt response. 

Sincerely,

 Frank R. Lautenberg	James M. Jeffords

[http://lautenberg.senate.gov]   
*****************************************************************
 3 Bush vs. Kerry: Energized over energy
 
Pocketbook issues in the presidential election
 
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 By Elwin Green, Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
 
One of President Bush's first initiatives upon assuming office 
nearly four years ago was the creation of a national energy 
policy. But a task force that was chaired by Vice President Dick 
Cheney, met behind closed doors and solicited input from major 
energy companies met with controversy, stalling action on an 
energy bill.

Bush vs. Kerry: The Economy

This is one in an occasional series of stories leading up to 
November's election about economic issues being put forth by 
President Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry.

An index to the series 
[http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03001/398695.stm] 

 Now, with oil and gasoline prices soaring and natural gas prices 
following suit, energy is back on the front burner of this year's 
presidential race. And it is noteworthy that, all rhetoric aside, 
both the president and Democratic challenger John F. Kerry share 
some common ground. 

Both tout energy independence and agree on some of the ways to 
achieve that; both want to build an Alaska natural gas pipeline; 
both want to provide tax credits for buying more fuel-efficient 
cars; and both want to foster greater use of clean-coal 
technology, building on government research that has focused on 
ways to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from 
coal-fired power plants.

 But when it comes to the dominant energy issue -- oil: how to 
get more of it, how to make better use of it and how to pay less 
for it -- the two sides' differences could not be clearer.

 Bush wants to get more oil by drilling in the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge, a wilderness preserve in northeastern Alaska 
spanning 19,000,000 acres -- the approximate size of South 
Carolina. He says that the drilling could yield 1 million barrels 
of oil a day for 20 years, from a 2,000-acre site.

 Kerry opposes the drilling, both on environmental grounds and on 
the grounds that it will be ineffective. He and his supporters 
say that it may take 10 years for the drilling to produce any 
oil, and that even then, the output would represent only a 
six-month supply. "There is no way for us to drill our way out of 
this crisis," Kerry has said. "We have to invent our way out of 
it."

 Indeed, both candidates promote innovation to varying degrees 
when discussing energy ways to improve the efficiency of 
America's motor vehicles. Kerry emphasizes the need to develop 
new automotive energy sources, such as hydrogen.

 "Hydrogen has the potential to power our cars without 
pollution," Kerry said in an interview with AAA. He said he would 
jump-start the marketplace by fueling 50,000 federal government 
cars and trucks with non-petroleum fuels by 2010.

 Bush hasn't committed the federal fleet, but he does want to 
provide $1.7 billion over five years for the development of 
alternative fuel technologies, including hydrogen and fuel cells.

 But while the country waits for alternative fuel sources, cars 
and light trucks continue to consume 40 percent of the oil used 
in the United States. Kerry has said that he would reduce that 
usage by raising the government's fuel-efficiency standards for 
passenger cars to an average 36 miles per gallon combined 
city-highway by 2015, up from 27.5 mpg now.

 But that would not affect the legion of sport utility vehicles 
on America's roads. They are classified as light trucks, and 
therefore have a less-stringent requirement -- 20.7 mpg. The Bush 
administration last year approved an increase to 22.2 mpg for 
light trucks by 2007, a change it estimates will save about 1 
billion barrels of gasoline over a 10-year period.

 Both Bush and Kerry favor construction of a pipeline to funnel 
natural gas from Alaska to the lower 48 states. While crude oil 
prices are nearly double their level when Bush first took office, 
from just below $28 to more than $54 at the end of last week, the 
price of natural gas has been spottier, plunging during the 2001 
recession but spiking in 2003 and in recent months.. 

Regardless of who is elected, expect your heating bill to go up 
this winter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates 
that Americans will spend 15 percent this year on heating than 
they did last year.

 The candidates also agree on the need for nuclear power, 
although Kerry has not been as vocal about is as Bush has. The 
administration has pushed China to consider Westinghouse Electric 
Co. technology as that country weighs adding more nuclear power 
to meet soaring energy needs.

 The two differ greatly on what to do with nuclear waste. The 
Energy Department under Bush has recommended that the country 
begin storing waste from the nation's nuclear plants in an 
underground facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev., a site that is part 
of a former nuclear weapons testing area. Kerry has been vocal in 
his opposition to the move, in part because getting the waste to 
the Nevada site would require transport through many of the 
country's most densely populated areas.

(Elwin Green can be reached at egreen@post-gazette.com 
[egreen@post-gazette.com] or 412-263-1969.)                      
	 	 	 		 	 			 			 			
[http://www.post-gazette.com/corrections.asp] Copyright 
©1997-2004 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.                                                
*****************************************************************
 4 UPI: Brazil: no nuclear secrets - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  October 20, 2004 			   

Brasilia, Brazil, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Brazilian Defense Minister 
Jose Viegas guaranteed U.N. inspectors Wednesday that the country 
wasn't hiding anything from them during recent inspections. 

"Brazil doesn't have anything to hide regarding its use of 
nuclear material," said Viegas on Wednesday. The country does not 
have any clandestine installations and opens its nuclear facility 
to the (International Atomic Energy) agency."

 Brazil and the IAEA have been at odds recently regarding 
inspections of a plant for enriching uranium in Resende, Rio de 
Janeiro state. The IAEA wanted to view the entire facility this 
week while Brazil demanded they not see their centrifuges saying 
they wanted to protect technology developed at home. 

The inspectors completed their tour of the plant and are expected 
to deliver a report on the Resende facility in two weeks. 

Scientists here claim to have developed a uranium enrichment 
process that is 25 percent more efficient than other methods. 

Some U.N. officials were concerned that Brazil was concealing 
their centrifuge because it obtained plans for its design 
illegally from a rogue Pakistani scientist who sold the design to 
other nations. 

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 5 GLOCOM Platform: Beijing's Hour of Nuclear Judgment
 
[Center for Global Communications]             [GLOCOM Platform]
[Japanese Institute of Global Communications]                  

Last Updated: 14:33 10/19/2004   
    
Jing-Dong Yuan (Associate Professor, Monterey Institute of
International Studies) 

Last Saturday marked 40 years since the Chinese government 
announced its first successful nuclear test, describing it as a 
major victory against US nuclear blackmail and nuclear threat. At 
the same time, Beijing solemnly declared that under no 
circumstances would China be the first to use nuclear weapons. 
China developed its nuclear weapons programme in response to US 
threats. During the Korean war and the 1954-1958 Taiwan Strait 
crises, America had threatened to use nuclear weapons against 
China. In the 1960s, the Kennedy administration even contemplated 
preventive strikes to destroy Beijing's nascent programmes. 

After detonating its first nuclear bomb in October 1964, China 
achieved the capability to produce hydrogen bombs in 1967 and, by 
1981, had deployed its first-generation intercontinental 
ballistic missiles, capable of reaching the continental United 
States. Over the next two decades, Beijing maintained a nuclear 
doctrine of minimum deterrence, relying on a small number of 
nuclear weapons to deliver punitive, countervalue responses to an 
adversary's first strike. 

Today, China has the third-largest nuclear arsenal among the 
so-called permanent five nuclear countries, with more than 400 
weapons. However, most of the systems currently deployed are from 
the 1970s and 1980s, and their vulnerability to disarming first 
strikes undermines both the credibility and effectiveness of 
China's nuclear deterrent capabilities. 

This has prompted Beijing to renew efforts to redress its 
strategic nuclear vulnerability. US decisions on ballistic 
missile defences, and the changing role of nuclear weapons, could 
have a direct impact on the scope and pace of China's nuclear 
modernisation programmes. Analysts have suggested three possible 
options. 

The most likely response would involve continued development of 
the existing forces, focusing on improving the survivability of 
nuclear weapons through greater mobility, shortened launch 
preparation time, improvements in command and control, and 
protection or concealment of hardened silos. 

A second option would be to respond to US missile defence by 
increasing nuclear missile levels as necessary to maintain a 
minimum deterrence. This would be likely to involve a significant 
increase in the number of Chinese missiles aimed at US targets, 
the deployment of countermeasures to defeat US missile defences, 
and the probable deployment of multiple warheads. A third option 
could involve a doctrinal change away from minimum deterrence to 
one of limited deterrence. 

While the chance of a nuclear confrontation between major powers 
in the post-cold war era is remote, uncertainties and concerns 
remain, and miscalculations cannot be completely ruled out in the 
Sino-US context. 

The two countries must address the issue of their long-term 
nuclear relationship. The determining factors will be whether the 
two view each other as strategic foes with irreconcilable 
differences over fundamental issues, competitors with potential 
conflicts of interest, or potential partners on general 
international and regional security issues. 

The history of their bilateral relationship suggests that all 
three scenarios are possible: Washington and Beijing should 
strive to develop a common understanding that minimises, rather 
than enhances, the role of nuclear weapons in interstate 
relations. That is the posture China has maintained since its 
first nuclear test and one that should be endorsed by all nuclear 
powers. 

(Originally appeared in the October 19, 2004 issue of South China 
Morning Post in Hong Kong, reproduced here with permission.)   

  Copyright © Center for Global Communications   
*****************************************************************
 6 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the ACRS 
 
                        FR Doc 04-23429 
[Federal Register: October 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 202)] 
[Notices] [Page 61699] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20oc04-99]                         
 
Subcommittee on Regulatory Policies and Practices; Notice of 
Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Regulatory Policies and 
Practices will hold a meeting on October 28 and 29, 2004, Room 
T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Thursday, 
October 28, 2004--8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of business 
Friday, October 29, 2004--8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of 
business The purpose of this meeting is to review the proposed 
rule package for risk-informing 50.46. The Subcommittee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff and other interested persons regarding this matter. The 
Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and 
facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as 
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. Michael R. Snodderly (Telephone: 301-415-6927) five days 
prior to the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate 
arrangements can be made. Electronic recordings will be permitted 
during the meeting.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Officials between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged 
to contact the above named individual at least two working days 
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes to 
the agenda.
 
Dated: October 14, 2004.
 
John H. Flack, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23429 Filed 10-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 7 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Feds to decide B Reactor's fate; it could become a national park
 	 	 	 	 	 
  [seattlepi.com]     

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

YAKIMA -- President Bush has signed a bill requiring the federal 
government to study the potential for adding historic Manhattan 
Project sites, including a reactor at the Hanford Nuclear 
Reservation, to the national park system. 

Former nuclear workers and concerned residents for years have 
been trying to preserve Hanford's B Reactor as a museum. 

The world's first full-scale plutonium production nuclear 
reactor, B Reactor was built as part of the top-secret Manhattan 
Project to build an atomic bomb. 

The south-central Washington reactor produced the plutonium for 
the first man-made nuclear blast, the Trinity test in New Mexico 
on July 16, 1945. 

B Reactor has been placed on the National Register of Historic 
Places as proponents work to save it. 

A decision on its future isn't due until 2006. 

  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
[newmedia@seattlepi.com] 
©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
 8 Seattle Times: China may get OK on reactors, NRC chief says
 	 	 	
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
 			 			 			 			
By Tim Johnson Knight Ridder Newspapers                                                

BEIJING — The Bush administration is likely to permit China to 
buy U.S.-designed, state-of-the-art nuclear reactors within 
several months if it so desires, the top American nuclear 
regulator said yesterday. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Nils Diaz said he 
saw no significant opposition to the sale before a full 
commission vote "within the next couple of months." 

China, hobbled by energy shortages, has said it'll spend $8 
billion to purchase four foreign nuclear reactors in what's 
expected to be the world's most ambitious 
nuclear-power-construction program. 

China plans to double its nuclear capacity by the year 2020, a 
goal that may require it to build as many as 32 large 
1,000-megawatt reactors. China has 11 reactors in use or under 
construction, providing barely 2 percent of its annual energy 
needs, far less than the 16 percent average reliance on nuclear 
energy in developed countries. 

Twenty-four of China's 27 provinces, autonomous regions and 
municipalities have suffered blackouts this year as the nation's 
overburdened power grid tries to keep up with soaring demand. In 
the first six months of this year, power demand surged 16 percent 
over the same period last year. 

China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer after the 
United States, uses mainly coal-fired plants, followed by 
hydropower. But coal is found mainly in the west, and hydropower 
in the southwest, far from the industrialized eastern seaboard. 

Power hungry 

China is the world's second-biggest energy consumer, after the 
United States. 

Coal-fired plants and hydropower provide much of its energy 
needs, but coal is found mainly in the west, and hydropower in 
the southwest, far from the industrialized eastern seaboard. 

China has 11 nuclear reactors in use or under construction, 
providing barely 2 percent of its annual energy needs, far less 
than the 16 percent average reliance on nuclear energy in 
developed countries. 

China plans to double its nuclear capacity by the year 2020, a 
goal that may require it to build as many as 32 large 
1,000-megawatt reactors. 

The nation has nuclear reactors are in Zhejiang and Jiangsu 
provinces in eastern China, and Guangdong province in southeast 
China, abutting Hong Kong. 

Those who oppose a U.S. sale say China shouldn't be rewarded with 
U.S. technology after it promised earlier this year to sell a 
second large nuclear reactor to Pakistan that's capable of 
producing plutonium and fueling Islamabad's nuclear-weapons 
arsenal. 

Despite China's past history in weapons proliferation, the United 
States has decided it's better to work closely with Beijing on 
nuclear issues, particularly in civilian energy programs. 

Companies based in the United States, France and Germany are 
competing for the rights to sell and construct the four reactors. 

Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse, a unit of a United Kingdom 
company, British Nuclear Fuels, is vying with German-based 
Siemens and French-owned Areva. A single bidder could get the 
entire contract. China has said it'll decide on a winning bid 
soon. 

Diaz said the systems in the 1,090-megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 
reactor had undergone years of safety testing, and the overall 
reactor was "almost two orders of magnitude safer than present 
types of reactors." 

"They are looking for a reactor with reduced maintenance, reduced 
monitoring, something that is state-of-the-art. And the AP1000 is 
a state-of-the-art reactor," Diaz said at a news conference. 

Diaz said he thought the NRC would put few conditions on selling 
the reactors to China, although "certain assurances will probably 
be asked" of Beijing not to turn around and sell the reactors to 
other countries. 

The Bush administration may request that China let U.S. 
technicians observe construction, he added. 

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
 9 Xinhuanet: Bulgaria, Russia sign contracts on nuclear power, oil   
 
  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2004-10-20 13:30:15   

    SOFIA, Oct. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Visiting Russian Prime Minister 
Mikhail Fradkov signed an agreement on nuclear energy and oil 
Tuesday with his Bulgarian counterpart Simeon Borissov 
Saxe-Cobur-Gotha. 

    According to the Bulgarian news agency, the agreement said 
that Russia will "actively" participate in the bid for the 
construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant, Belene, 
the largest one in the Balkan area, and help Bulgaria to maintain 
its first nuclear plant, Kozlodui. 

    The agreement said that Russia will invest in building an oil 
pipeline from Bulgaria's harbor, Burgas, to Greek's harbor, 
Alexandroupolis, and expand the Russia-Bulgaria natural gas 
pipeline to increase gas export to Bulgaria and to facilitate the 
sale of Russian gas to Greece, Macedonia and Serbia. 

    It also said that Russian companies will take part in the 
privatization of the Bulgarian energy industry. 

    It is the largest energy cooperation agreement between 
Bulgariaand another country since 1990. 

    Both ministers also signed agreements on transportation, 
communication, environmental protection, tourism and justice. 

    Russia is Bulgaria's traditional cooperation partner. Before 
its collapse, the Soviet Union provided Bulgaria with 98 percent 
of oil, 100 percent of natural gas and 80 percent of electricity. 

    In the 1990s', bilateral relations cooled down, and two-way 
trade slipped to only 160 million US dollars in 2001. 

    Since taking power, the government of Simeon Borissov 
Saxe-Cobur-Gotha has made efforts to rebuild Bugarian-Russian 
relations. 

    Fradkov, who is in Bulgaria on a two-day official visit, will 
meet President Georgi Parvanov and visit the Black Sea port of 
Burgas. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 10 JOURNAL NEWS: 40 Indian Point workers stage sickout

By ROGER WITHERSPOON
 THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: October 20, 2004)

A labor dispute at Indian Point 2 has triggered a sickout by 
scores of electricians and other craft union workers, officials 
confirmed yesterday. 

"We have a number of electricians that have not reported to 
work," said Fred Dacimo, vice president of Entergy Nuclear 
Northeast, which owns Indian Point 2 and 3 in Buchanan. "What 
their reasons are are unclear. We are working with the union 
leadership to resolve the issue." 

The sickout, which began early yesterday, is being staged by 
about 40 members of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of 
Electrical Workers and apparently was triggered by the dismissal 
of six union members. 

Joe Capalbo, a union representative, said he could not comment 
until after he meets tomorrow with Dacimo in an effort to resolve 
the dispute. 

The electricians were among hundreds of workers brought into the 
plant to work during a refueling outage scheduled to begin this 
weekend and last about a month. About one-third of the 
radioactive fuel in the nuclear reactor is replaced every 18 
months, and the spent fuel is transferred to a water-filled pool 
adjacent to the domed containment building. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the 
workers were hired by Stone &Webster, an engineering firm based 
in Baton Rouge, La., that provides staffing for special projects 
at nuclear power plants. 

"Entergy was providing preparatory instruction and training for 
the contractors, and there was a dispute between some of the 
contractors and instructors which led to badges being pulled," 
Sheehan said. 

For security reasons, all workers on a nuclear installation have 
badges granting access to various sections of a plant. Removing 
the badges effectively terminates the workers. 

"About 40 workers called in sick today in sympathy," Sheehan 
said. "Plant management is actively engaged with the union to try 
to resolve these issues." 

Sheehan said the NRC is "monitoring" the talks between Entergy 
and the union. 

Send e-mail to  [rwithers@thejournalnews.com] 

   [http://www.thejournalnews.com] -
  Copyright 2004 The Journal News,  [http://www.gannett.com/] .
Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties
in New York.
*****************************************************************
 11 Mos News: Russia to Keep Chernobyl-Type Nuclear Reactors — Officials -

NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM

Photo from chernobyl.by 

Created: 20.10.2004 15:16 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:20 MSK 

MosNews
 
Russia, under international pressure to boost nuclear security, 
wants to extend the life of some of its old, Chernobyl-type 
reactors by at least 15 years, the Reuters news agency reported 
on Wednesday, citing the country’s atomic energy officials.

The European Union has continuously urged Russia to shut down its 
11 Soviet-build RBMK reactors. But Moscow says they are being 
constantly modernised to avoid a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl 
nuclear disaster. 

“A lot of our reactors are approaching their 30-year limit. We 
want to extend that, and 15 years is what is being discussed at 
the moment,” said an official at a state-run nuclear operator. 

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 
extensions would be granted on a case-by-case basis once Russia’s 
nuclear security watchdog had approved the measure. He could not 
say when that would be. 

Concerns about the dumping of radioactive waste and the Chernobyl 
accident in what was then Soviet Ukraine —- the world’s worst 
civil nuclear accident —- triggered a wave of opposition to 
nuclear power in European countries. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency —- the U.N. nuclear 
watchdog —- blamed the accident on an RBMK design flaw. 

But Russia, the world’s No. 5 civil nuclear power, says it is 
doing everything to ensure security at RBMK plants. 

Most RBMK units were built in the 1970s and would have to shut 
down in the next few years under existing regulations. 

Russian ecology groups reacted with outrage. 

“It’s a disastrous decision. Safety standards at RBMK reactors 
are nowhere near those of Western plants, and it’s technically 
impossible to modernise them accordingly,” said Vladimir Slivyak, 
co-head of the Ecodefence environment group. 

“This is the most serious blow to the safety of the nuclear power 
industry since the Chernobyl disaster.” 

Russia’s oldest reactor —- at the Leningrad Power Plant near the 
border with Finland —- was shut down last year. But officials 
re-launched it this month for at least another five years pending 
modernisation. 

Lithuania, which joined the EU in May, has agreed to shut down 
its Soviet-build Ignalina RBMK plant in coming years as part of 
its accession agreement, although the plant accounts for more 
than two-thirds of the country’s electricity needs. 

Incoming EU Energy Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs of Hungary said in 
September he shared worries about Russian nuclear safety and 
vowed to focus on the issue after assuming the post in November. 

Washington, which is funding Russian efforts to prevent nuclear 
material from finding its way on to the black market, is also 
concerned about the higher-than-normal level of plutonium being 
generated at RBMK reactors as a by-product. Plutonium can be used 
to make a nuclear bomb. SEE ALSO
 
  Write us:  [info@mosnews.com] 
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
 Designed by  [http://design.gazeta.ru/] 
*****************************************************************
 12 EMS: Energy Dept. Records Show Wave of Nuclear Plant License Renewals 
@import url( http://www.ems.org/nws/wp-layout.css );    
	 	
  [Environmental Media Services - Washington, DC]   
   [http://www.ems.org/index.html] Wednesday, 20 October 2004  
    
  [Environmental Media Services] 
                                
  Source: Environmental Working Group Action Fund
 Posted by:  [http://www.ewg.org] - 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/index.php?author=49] 
Posted on: Oct 20, 2004 @ 10:28 am 
[ [http://www.ems.org/nws/pf.php?p=1002] ] 	

EMBARGOED NEWS ADVISORY: 	

FOR OCTOBER 20, 2004 	

CONTACT: Jon Corsiglia, EWG Action Fund
 (202) 667-6982, jon@ewg.org 	

Energy Dept. Records Show Wave of Nuclear Plant License Renewals

Ensures Decades of Storage at Reactor Sites 	

WASHINGTON - An Environmental Working Group Action Fund 
investigation of Department of Energy (DOE) records finds a surge 
in license renewals for nuclear reactors will add thousands of 
tons of high-level nuclear waste and prolong storage problems for 
decades at reactor dumpsites across the country.        

Throughout the bitter 2002 debate over Congressional approval for 
the creation of a permanent storage site for the nation's vast 
accumulation of nuclear reactor waste, Energy Department 
officials and nuclear industry lobbyists repeatedly argued it was 
far better to consolidate lethal radioactive waste in one, 
permanent dumpsite in Nevada than to leave it stored at reactor 
dumpsites at more than 100 locations around the country.        

In short, they said, communities could get rid of their waste. 	

According to DOE records, this claim now appears false, as the 
industry used the 2002 Senate approval as a license to expand. 
Yucca Mountain could not hold all the waste that will be 
generated under current operating licenses without significant 
expansion of its capacity. Even if expanded, the new waste will 
spend a decade cooling on-site before being shipped.    

The EWG Action Fund report provides the only place communities 
can see the size of stockpiles that will be left near them 
whether or not the Yucca Mountain site is opened.       

The investigation is embargoed until 6:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, 
October 20, 2004.       

EWG Action Fund will be holding a briefing in Washington, DC for 
interested reporters and providing advance access to the report 
at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, October 20, 2004. Please contact EWG 
Action Fund (jon@ewg.org) for briefing details.         

[http://www.ems.org/nws/monthly.php] [http://www.ems.org] 
[http://www.wordpress.org] 

Environmental Media Services 1320 18th Street NW 5th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036 (202) 463-6670 Website comments: Copyright © 
2003 Environmental Media Services 
*****************************************************************
 13 Scotsman.com: Experts Reignite N-Plant Safety Issue
 
Wed 20 Oct 2004   			 			
 		     	 
By John-Paul Ford Rojas, PA News 

A committee publishing a report today on low-level radiation was 
accused by a former environment minister of suppressing evidence.
 
Michael Meacher has backed a “minority report” by two 
dissenting experts arguing the risk of cancer is much higher than 
official estimates suggest.
 
Today’s report is expected to reignite the controversy over the 
safety of nuclear plants.
 
Mr Meacher has accused the committee of gagging the dissenting 
experts and called the alleged suppression “criminally 
irresponsible”.
 
It was Mr Meacher who originally set up the Committee Examining 
Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) in 2001.
 
He said the committee’s final report today gives a one-sided 
establishment opinion which does not “accommodate a full and 
fair representation of all views”.
 
The two experts he backs, Richard Bramhall and Chris Busby, 
maintain that radiation doses to children across Europe who 
developed leukaemia could have been 100 times higher than has 
been assumed.
 
According to their theory, inhaled radioactive particles can 
lodge in the body or foetus and damage cells in a confined area.
 
Unborn children are said to be especially at risk. The hazard 
could explain clusters of leukaemia cases near nuclear 
installations in north Wales and Essex, and the Sellafield 
reprocessing plant in Cumbria, it is claimed.
 
But Government experts have always measured small doses of 
radiation received by individuals as if they affect the whole 
body evenly, diluting their impact.
 
There have been doubts over the accepted method of estimating the 
risk of cancer to people living near nuclear plants.
 
The calculations are based on radiation doses received by victims 
of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
 
However the inhabitants of the Japanese city were exposed to a 
short and very intense burst of external radiation. In contrast, 
people living near nuclear sites are exposed to tiny doses from 
eating or breathing contaminated particles over a long period of 
time.                    

scotsman.com
*****************************************************************
 14 Scotsman: Nuclear Plants Safety Risks 'Underestimated'
 
Wed 20 Oct 2004   			 			
 		   	 	
By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News 

Tighter restrictions may have to be imposed on the nuclear 
industry as a precaution against health risks from radioactive 
particles, the head of an expert committee said today.
 
Professor Dudley Goodhead made the prediction after it was 
revealed that low-level radiation from nuclear plants could be 10 
times more hazardous than has previously been estimated.
 
The Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters 
(Cerrie), which Professor Goodhead chairs, found that current 
thinking about nuclear safety was plagued by uncertainty.
 
New scientific evidence suggested that no-one could be sure about 
the dangers from swallowing or breathing in nuclear particles.
 
In some cases the risk might be almost negligible – but in 
others, notably children living near nuclear installations, it 
could be 10 or more times higher than experts had previously 
assumed.
 
Speaking at a news conference in London, Professor Goodhead said: 
“For some of the discharges, it could mean tighter regulations.
 
“It’s really for the policy makers to make that decision. 
They’ve got to recognise the uncertainties and say we can’t 
work with best estimates.
 
“To me, that would mean tighter restrictions on some of the 
radionuclides (particles) that we know least about.”
 
However, he said there was no evidence to support the 
controversial views of two dissenting members of the panel who 
claimed nuclear risks may have been vastly underestimated by a 
factor of as much as 300.
 
Cerrie called for rigorous scientific studies to get a clearer 
picture of the risks.
 
In the meantime, it said a precautionary approach should be taken 
over exposures to radiation emitters inside the body.
 
Radioactive particles can be vented into the air or discharged 
into the sea by nuclear plants.
 
They are also used in medical procedures, such as scans, and may 
be generated naturally in the form of radon gas from rocks.
 
There have been claims that clusters of leukaemia cases among 
children living near installations in North Wales and Essex, and 
the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria, may be linked to 
radioactive discharges.
 
Professor Goodhead said radiation exposure alone – even if 
underestimated – could not explain these cases.
 
Many experts believe the leukaemia clusters are the result of 
mixing populations and nothing to do with nuclear plants.
 
The Cerrie report warned that newly discovered effects of 
radiation, including long-term damage to DNA within cells, and 
inherited DNA changes, were “real biological events that need 
further research”.
 
The radiation watchdog COMARE, (Committee on Medical Aspects of 
Radiation in the Environment), which advises the Government, 
called for more publicly funded research into the biological 
effects of radiation, especially with respect to radon.
 
It pointed out that over the past 18 years, Government spending 
on radiobiological research had been cut by more than half.
 
COMARE agreed with the report’s general conclusions but 
criticised the way Cerrie was set up – in particular how its 
composition was “influenced by environmental politics rather 
than science”.
 
Cerrie was established by former environment minister Michael 
Meacher in 2001 following concerns over reports of increased 
incidence of cancer near nuclear sites and in the wake of the 
Chernobyl disaster.
 
Last month Mr Meacher sparked a row by accusing the committee of 
gagging two dissenting experts.
 
He made his attack at the launch of a “minority report” from 
the experts, Mr Richard Bramhall and Dr Chris Busby, who argued 
that the risk of cancer from low level radiation may have been 
grossly underestimated.
 
According to their “second event” theory, cells could become 
highly vulnerable as they repaired themselves after a first 
“hit” of radiation. Serious damage could result if they were 
subjected to a second hit during this time, it was claimed.
 
If the theory was true it would mean that radioactive particles 
lodged in the body are far more dangerous than has previously 
been supposed.
 
Mr Meacher alleged that attempts had been made to keep a lid on 
the evidence and accused Cerrie of being “criminally 
irresponsible”.
 
Even before the row over the report, members of the committee had 
been divided. One nuclear scientist, Marion Hill, who was part of 
the committee’s secretariat, resigned alleging establishment 
bias.
 
Professor Goodhead said Mr Bramhall and and Dr Busby had been 
confrontational from the start. Their demand for a dissenting 
statement within the main report was refused on legal advice and 
because it fell outside the committee’s remit.
 
He added: “Absolutely categorically I can say the work of the 
committee was not in any way influenced by industry of any sort, 
nuclear or otherwise.”
 
After today’s news conference Mr Bramhall, secretary of the Low 
Level Radiation Campaign, said members of Cerrie had failed to 
grasp the relevance of some of the evidence supporting the second 
event theory.
 
“They obviously didn’t understand it,” he said. “It 
remains a viable hypothesis.”
 
Environment minister Elliot Morley, said in a statement: 
“Together with colleagues from the Department of Health, we 
will now carefully consider CERRIE’s recommendations and 
conclusions on this complex and important matter, along with 
expert advice from the Committee on the Medical Aspects of 
Radiation in the Environment (COMARE)
*****************************************************************
 15 TheDay.com: Court Backs Millstone Relicensing
 		 		 		
Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004   								   									 										
												 												 												 										 										
Coalition's Appeals Dismissed, Group's Lawyer Disbarred

By PATRICIA DADDONA
Day Staff Writer, Waterford
Published on 10/19/2004

The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has dismissed two 
separate appeals brought by the Connecticut Coalition Against 
Millstone in an effort to challenge proposed license renewals at 
Millstone Power Station.

 In doing so, the three federal judges for the New York City 
court also issued an order disbarring coalition lawyer Nancy 
Burton of Redding Ridge from serving as legal counsel in federal 
court, a decision that mirrors one made at the state level by the 
Connecticut Supreme Court last year. 

The Waterford power station owner, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, 
is seeking to renew the original, 40-year operating licenses with 
20-year extensions through 2035 at Millstone 2 and 2045 at 
Millstone 3. A third reactor, Millstone 1, has been permanently 
shut down and is not a candidate for license renewal.

 In a summary statement issued by Judges Roger J. Miner, Jose A. 
Cabranes, and Chester J. Straub on Thursday and distributed 
publicly by the NRC, the court refused to review an NRC decision 
that supports denials by the NRC's Atomic Safety &Licensing Board 
to grant the coalition an administrative law hearing. 

This summer, Burton argued that the hearing was a necessary part 
of the license renewal process, citing cancer clusters near 
Millstone, inadequate steps taken to prevent terrorism and other 
concerns. 

The safety board, an adjudicatory arm of the NRC, twice found 
that Burton failed to back up her assertions according to basic 
legal standards and didn't relate the issues to the aging of the 
reactors, as the NRC requires.

 In rejecting Burton's appeal of the NRC decision, the court 
stated it could only overturn an NRC ruling if it found the 
agency's actions to be arbitrary and capricious. The coalition 
did little more than meet legal requirements that gave it 
standing to petition for the hearing, the court ruled.

 In a related matter, the court also refused to review an NRC 
decision that found the coalition's original petition for a 
hearing, filed the day before new hearing rules were enacted, to 
be premature. The coalition had argued that the new rules 
eliminating rights of discovery and cross-examination were 
unfair.

 The court has no jurisdiction in that matter because no 
proceedings for relicensing had begun by Feb. 12, the day that 
petition was filed.

 Burton, who has spearheaded the grass-roots anti-nuclear power 
organization as both attorney and co-founder, said Monday she 
would fight the court order for disbarment by requesting a stay 
of that decision. 

She is running as a Green Party candidate in the 135th House 
District on a platform that includes a vow to shut down the power 
plants. 

In a written statement, she called the court's decisions 
erroneous rulings (that) ... reward a nuclear industry with 
diminished radiation-control requirements and avoid entirely 
public oversight of the mega-issue of Millstone re-licensing. 
These decisions deal a heavy blow to the public's right to 
participate in critical matters affecting their health and 
safety.

 Judges directed Burton to inform her clients of her changed 
status as a lawyer in federal court. They also underscored the 
NRC's assertion that dismissal of the coalition's recent claims 
would not prevent the group from pursuing future issues with 
different legal representation.

 In September, the coalition challenged a state agency's permit 
for storage of spent fuel at Millstone in New Britain Superior 
Court. A Groton lawyer, Paulann Sheets, is representing the 
group. Dominion has indicated it plans to ask the court to 
dismiss the case.   

1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.   	 	
*****************************************************************
 16 TheDay.com: NRC To Discuss Millstone's Reactor Monitoring Wednesday
 		 		 		
Waterford

By PATRICIA DADDONA Day Staff Writer, Waterford Published on 
10/19/2004

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will discuss how the owner of 
Millstone Power Station monitors the aging of its nuclear 
reactors at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Town Hall.

 The public meeting between the federal agency and Dominion 
Nuclear Connecticut is part of the company's application for 
license extensions at Millstone 2 and 3, and follows in-depth 
inspections by NRC officials at the two power plants. 

Dominion has applied to the federal agency to extend the original 
40-year licenses for another 20 years each, through 2035 at 
Millstone 2 and 2045 at Millstone 3. Millstone 1 has been 
permanently shut down.

 The federal agency has found certain programs used to monitor 
the aging of nuclear reactors to be key to safe operation of the 
plants during the 20-year extensions, said NRC Spokesman Neil 
Sheehan. Environmental and safety issues for the re-licensing 
proposal are still under review, he added.

 A public question-and-answer period will follow discussion 
between NRC and Dominion officials.

 A final decision is expected in July 2006.

 The NRC applications for both power plants are available at the 
Waterford Public Library, Three Rivers Community College's Thames 
River campus library, and at: 
[http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicat 
ions/millstone.html] .   

The Day Publishing Company

1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.   	 	
*****************************************************************
 17 EU Business: Lithuania wants to keep Soviet-built nuclear plant open for longer

(http://www.eubusiness.com

  20 October 2004   

Lithuania is considering asking the European Union to allow it to 
extend the timetable for the closure of its ageing Soviet-built 
nuclear power plant at Ignalina, officials said Wednesday. 

At the EU's insistence Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, 
agreed to shut down the first unit this year and close the plant 
completely by 2009 in tough negotiations over membership of the 
bloc which it joined in May. 

The EU cited worries about safety at the plant, similar to the 
one which exploded in 1986 at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in the 
world's worst civil nuclear disaster. 

But Lithuania is now seeking permission to operate the first unit 
at Ignalina after January 1, 2005. The nuclear power plant 
produces about 70 percent of all energy consumed in the Baltic 
state. 

"Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas Thursday is to hold a meeting 
to discuss the future of the first unit at Ignalina," a 
spokeswoman for the prime minister's office told AFP. 

"If it appears that Lithuania may experience problems with the 
supply of electricity when the first unit is shut down, the 
government may decide to ask the European Union permission to 
extend the the operations of the first reactor," she added. 

The plant operates two Chernobyl-type reactors with 1,300 
megawatt capacity each and employs some 4,500 people. 

Last year Ignalina sold 14.25 billion kilowatt hours of energy, 
almost half of it to neighbouring markets. 

The EU has promised to help meet the closure bill, estimated at 
two to three billion euros (2.5-3.75 billion dollars) over 30 
years, and has already allocated 200 million euros to prepare 
decommissioning of the first reactor. Text and Picture Copyright 

© 2004 AFP. All other copyright © 2004 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights 

 EUbusiness © Copyright EUbusiness Ltd 2004. Privacy Statement | 
*****************************************************************
 18 EMS: Wave of Nuclear Plant Relicensing Will Mean Steep Increase in
Local Waste Stockpiles and Shipments to Nevada 

http://www.ems.org

  [Environmental Media Services - Washington, DC]   

[http://www.ems.org/index.html] Wednesday, 20 October 2004  

For Immediate Release: October 20, 2004       

Contact: Lauren Sucher 202/667-6982 	

Yucca Mountain Approval Followed by Rapid Extension of Reactor 
Licenses        

WASHINGTON — A new analysis of Department of Energy (DOE) 
figures shows that in the wake of the 2002 Senate vote to approve 
the Yucca Mountain dumpsite, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
quickly and quietly approved license extensions at nuclear 
reactors nationwide.    

The EWG Action Fund analysis shows that the rate of nuclear power 
plant relicensing doubled after Congress approved the nuclear 
waste dumpsite in Yucca Mountain. Currently there are renewal 
applications pending for 18 more reactors. No application to date 
has been denied, making it a virtual certainty that these pending 
applications will be approved.     

These plants will produce thousands of tons more waste, ensuring 
large or larger stockpiles near local power plants, much of which 
- after cooling on-site for decades - will probably come to 
Nevada to the Yucca Mountain dumpsite.       

According to EWG Action Fund, if Yucca Mountain opens for storage 
on the day it is proposed to, its storage space will be fully 
claimed. Shortly thereafter, an additional 9,000 tons of nuclear 
waste will be waiting to come to Yucca and even more waste will 
sit at plants around the country. Therefore, Congress must either 
expand Yucca Mountain from its very first day of operation or 
allow nuclear waste to continue to pile up at 79 sites in 35 
states.     

"This analysis confirms what we suspected, but what the public 
was never told, that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site is 
really a nuclear expansion plan in disguise," said Richard Wiles 
of EWG Action Fund.     

Recent court decisions will require reconsideration of radiation 
containment standards at Yucca Mountain. Congress is likely to 
revisit this issue in response to the judicial action.  

EWG Action Fund's interactive website, available at www.ewg.org, 
lists each reactor around the country that has been or will soon 
be relicensed and for how long, along with how many tons of waste 
it will generate while in continued operation. Visitors to the 
site can see how much waste that reactor is permitted to send to 
Yucca, and how much will be left on site. Shipping the extra 
waste to Yucca will take either 6,000 more truck shipments or 
1,050 train shipments through communities in Nevada.         

Communities near each of the power plants were subjected to an 
aggressive public relations campaign by the nuclear industry and 
the Department of Energy that pushed the idea that the Yucca 
Mountain dumpsite would get rid of their waste. The relicensing 
wave means that most of these communities will see large or 
larger amounts of waste sitting on site for decades before being 
shipped to Nevada.      

                              # # #

 
EWG Action Fund is a nonprofit legislative advocacy organization 
based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to 
protect the environment and human health. <B>Recent releases</B> 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/index.php] Daily email update 
[http://www.ems.org/rls_help/rls_update.html] Syndication 
[http://www.ems.org/rls_help/rls_signup_syn.html] Post a new 
release [http://www.ems.org/post] Search for:  Search in: Press 
releases Whole site Releases posted by... 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/auth.php] Monthly archives: October 2004 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/10/] September 2004 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/09/] August 2004 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/08/] July 2004 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/07/] All months... 
[http://www.ems.org/nws/monthly.php] <B>On the EMS.org 
homepage...</B> <span style="text-decoration:none"> <br />NASA 
Scientist: Bush Admin Filters Science... <br />Kyoto Clears Last 
Hurdle... <br />Scientists Begin Tour to Oppose Bush... </span> 
[http://www.ems.org] Powered by WordPress 
[http://www.wordpress.org] 

Environmental Media Services 1320 18th Street NW 5th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036 (202) 463-6670 Website comments: Copyright © 
2003 Environmental Media Services 
*****************************************************************
 19 NRC: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station; 
 
                        FR Doc 04-23427 
[Federal Register: October 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 202)] 
[Notices] [Page 61695-61697] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20oc04-97]                         
 
Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment to Facility 
Operating License, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration 
Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering issuance of 
an amendment to Facility Operating License No. DPR-35 issued to 
Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (the licensee) for operation of 
the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station located in Plymouth, MA.
 
The proposed amendment would approve an engineering evaluation 
performed in accordance with Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station 
Technical Specification (TS) 3.6.D.3 to justify continued power 
operation with safety relief valve (SRV)-3C discharge pipe 
temperature exceeding 212 degrees Fahrenheit ([deg]F) for greater 
than 24 hours as required by TS 3.6.D.4. Before issuance of the 
proposed license amendment, the Commission will have made 
findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended 
(the Act), and the Commission's regulations.
 
The Commission has made a proposed determination that the 
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. 
Under the Commission's regulations in Title 10 of the Code of 
Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 50.92, this means that 
operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed 
amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the 
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated; 
or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of 
accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a 
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10 
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue 
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented 
below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase 
in the probability or consequences of an accident previously 
evaluated? Response: No.
 
Indication of elevated SRV discharge pipe temperature is 
attributed to leakage past the SRV pilot valve. Excessive 
leakage, corresponding to temperatures greater than 255[deg]F, 
has the potential to affect SRV operability by affecting the SRV 
setpoint or response time. Continued operation with the discharge 
pipe of the SRV indicating temperatures less than 255[deg]F 
ensures that the leakage past the SRV is maintained below the 
threshold for a leakage rate that would potentially have an 
effect on SRV setpoint or response time.
 
Administrative controls are in place to ensure that margin to the 
255[deg]F value is maintained to assure reliable operation and to 
reduce the potential for damage to the SRV pilot seat and disc. 
The SRV continues to perform the intended design/safety function 
with no adverse effect because the leakage past the SRV is 
maintained below the threshold for a leakage rate that could 
potentially have an adverse impact on the ability of the SRV to 
perform the design function. The impact of the leakage on other 
systems is small and all systems continue to be able to perform 
their intended design functions. Current accident analyses remain 
bounding and there is no significant increase in the consequences 
of any accident previously evaluated. In addition, as a result of 
the leakage, normal plant operating parameters are not affected 
and consequently there is no increased risk in a plant transient.
 
Therefore, the proposed change does not involve a significant 
increase in the probability or consequences of an accident 
previously evaluated[.] 2. Does the proposed change create the 
possibility of a new or different kind of accident from any 
accident previously evaluated? Response: No.
 
Continued plant operation with elevated SRV-3C discharge pipe 
temperature within the bounds of the established administrative 
controls ensures that the leakage past the SRV is maintained 
below the threshold for a leakage rate that would potentially 
have an effect on SRV setpoint or response time. This ensures 
that the SRV will perform the intended design/safety function. 
The leakage does not adversely impact the ability of any system 
to perform its design function. The methods governing plant 
operation and testing remain consistent with current safety 
analysis assumptions. Therefore, the proposed change does not 
create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident 
from any accident previously evaluated.
 
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a 
margin of safety? Response: No.
 
Continued operation with the of SRV-3C discharge pipe indicating 
temperature in excess of 212 [deg]F does not adversely affect 
existing plant safety margins or the reliability of the equipment 
assumed to operate in the safety analysis. The leakage does not 
result in excess SRV setpoint drift or response time
 
[[Page 61696]] changes. The imposed administrative controls on 
plant operation provide assurance that there will be no adverse 
effect on the ability of the SRV to perform the intended 
design/safety function. There are no changes being made to safety 
analysis assumptions, safety limits or safety system settings 
that would adversely affect plant safety. Therefore, the proposed 
change does not involve a significant reduction in a margin of 
safety.
 
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on 
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR 
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to 
determine that the amendment request involves no significant 
hazards consideration.
 
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed 
determination. Any comments received within 30 days after the 
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making 
any final determination.
 
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the 
expiration of 60 days after the date of publication of this 
notice. The Commission may issue the license amendment before 
expiration of the 60- day period provided that its final 
determination is that the amendment involves no significant 
hazards consideration. In addition, the Commission may issue the 
amendment prior to the expiration of the 30- day comment period 
should circumstances change during the 30-day comment period such 
that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example in 
derating or shutdown of the facility. Should the Commission take 
action prior to the expiration of either the comment period or 
the notice period, it will publish in the Federal Register a 
notice of issuance. Should the Commission make a final No 
Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, any hearing will 
take place after issuance. The Commission expects that the need 
to take this action will occur very infrequently.
 
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and 
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page 
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also 
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal 
workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at 
the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 
Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 
Rockville, Maryland.
 
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to 
intervene is discussed below.
 
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the 
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to 
issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating 
license and any person whose interest may be affected by this 
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the 
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a 
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a 
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with 
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing 
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested persons should consult 
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the 
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File 
Area 01F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, 
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) 
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web 
site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/ 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collecti 
ons/cfr/] .
 
If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is 
filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer 
designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge 
of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the 
request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief 
Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 
will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order.
 
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene 
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner 
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the 
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically 
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with 
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1) 
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or 
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right 
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the 
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property, 
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the 
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in 
the proceeding on the requestors/petitioner's interest. The 
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the 
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
 
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue 
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the 
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the 
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged 
facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which 
the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the 
hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to 
those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is 
aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish 
those facts or expert opinion. The petition must include 
sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with 
the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions 
shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment 
under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven, 
would entitle the petitioner to relief. A petitioner/requestor 
who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least 
one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party.
 
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, 
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to 
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the 
conduct of the hearing.
 
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final 
determination on the issue of no significant hazards 
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when 
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the 
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration, 
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately 
effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing 
held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the 
final determination is that the amendment request involves a 
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take 
place before the issuance of any amendment.
 
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be 
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the 
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that 
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted 
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 
2.309(a)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for 
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail 
addressed to the
 
[[Page 61697]] Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, 
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the 
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, Attention: Rulemaking 
and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of 
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
hearingdocket@nrc.gov [hearingdocket@nrc.gov] ; or (4) facsimile 
transmission addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention: 
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101, 
verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for 
hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent 
to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that 
copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission 
to (301) 415-3725 or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov 
[OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov] . A copy of the request for hearing and 
petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the J. M. 
Fulton, Esquire, Assistant General Counsel, Pilgrim Nuclear Power 
Station, 600 Rocky Hill Road, Plymouth, Massachusetts 02360-5599, 
attorney for the licensee.
 
For further details with respect to this action, see the 
application for amendment dated October 12, 2004, which is 
available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located 
at One White Flint North, File Public Area O1 F21, 11555 
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly 
available records will be accessible from the Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public 
Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should 
contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 
1-800-397-4209, (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to

 
pdr@nrc.gov [ pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 
14th day of October, 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
George F. Wunder, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate 
I, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23427 Filed 10-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 20 NRC: Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No 
 
                        FR Doc 04-23428 
[Federal Register: October 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 202)] 
[Notices] [Page 61697-61699] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20oc04-98]                         
 
Significant Impact for Modification of Exemption From Certain NRC 
Licensing Requirements for Special Nuclear Material for Waste 
Control Specialists, LLC., Andrews County, TX AGENCY: Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Environmental assessment and finding of no significant 
impact.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: James R. Park, Project Manager, 
Environmental and Performance Assessment Directorate, Division of 
Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Telephone: (301) 415-5835; Fax 
number: (301) 415-5397; E- mail: jrp@nrc.gov [jrp@nrc.gov] .
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering issuance of an Order 
pursuant to Section 274f of the Atomic Energy Act that would 
modify an Order transmitted to Waste Control Specialists, LLC 
(WCS) on November 21, 2001. The Order was published in the 
Federal Register on November 15, 2001 (66 FR 57489). The 2001 
Order exempted WCS from certain NRC regulations and permitted 
WCS, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing 
special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than 
specified in 10 CFR part 150, at WCS's facility located in 
Andrews County, Texas, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant 
to 10 CFR part 70.
 
The current action is in response to a request by WCS dated 
August 6, 2003, as modified by letter dated March 15, 2004. NRC 
has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in accordance with 
the requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has 
concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is 
appropriate for the proposed action as modified with additional 
conditions. The modified Order that incorporates the results of 
the NRC staff's evaluation will be issued following the 
publication of this Notice.
 
II. Environmental Assessment Background As stated above, the 2001 
Order exempted WCS from certain NRC regulations and permitted 
WCS, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing SNM, 
in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR part 150, at WCS's 
facility located in Andrews County, Texas, without obtaining an 
NRC license pursuant to 10 CFR part 70. The 2001 Order permits 
WCS to possess SNM without regard for mass. Rather than relying 
on mass to ensure criticality safety, concentration-based limits 
are being applied, such that accumulations of SNM at or below 
these concentration limits would not pose a criticality safety 
concern. The methodology used to establish these limits is 
discussed in the 2001 Safety Evaluation Report (SER) that 
supported the 2001 Order.
 
The WCS facility is licensed by the State of Texas, an NRC 
Agreement State, under a 10 CFR part 30 equivalent radioactive 
materials license. The facility also is licensed by the Texas 
Commission on Environmental Quality to treat and dispose of 
hazardous waste. In 1997, WCS began accepting Resource 
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Toxic Substance Control 
Act (TSCA) wastes for treatment, storage, and disposal. Later 
that year, WCS received a license from the Texas Department of 
Health for treatment and storage of mixed waste and low-level 
waste. The mixed waste and low-level waste streams may contain 
quantities of SNM.
 
By letter dated August 6, 2003, WCS requested that the list of 
reagents identified in Condition 5 of the 2001 Order be modified 
to include an additional 18 reagents. WCS uses reagents in 
chemically stabilizing mixed waste that contains SNM. In response 
to an NRC staff request for additional information dated 
September 30, 2003, WCS submitted a modified request by letter 
dated March 15, 2004.
 
Review Scope The purpose of this EA is to assess the 
environmental impacts of WCS's requested modification to its 2001 
Order. This EA does not approve or deny the requested action. A 
separate Safety Evaluation Report (SER) also will be issued in 
support of the approval or denial of the requested action. This 
EA will determine whether to issue or prepare an Environmental 
Impact Statement (EIS). Should the NRC issue a FONSI, no EIS will 
be prepared.
 
 
[[Page 61698]] Proposed Action The proposed action is to grant 
WCS's March 15, 2004, request to add 22 specified stabilization 
and oxidation-reduction reagents to Condition 5 of the 2001 
Order. These reagents would be used in WCS's stabilization of 
mixed waste that contains SNM.
 
Purpose and Need for Proposed Action WCS is making this request 
so that it can treat incoming mixed waste that contains SNM using 
appropriate reagents. In seeking NRC approval of the reagents 
specified in its request, WCS hopes to avoid making multiple 
requests for NRC approval of stabilization reagents.
 
Alternatives In addition to the proposed action, the NRC staff 
considered two alternatives. One alternative was to deny WCS's 
request and thus not revise the Order (i.e., the no-action 
alternative). The second alternative was to revise the Order to 
remove the specific chemical names from Condition 5 and instead 
to add a per-batch, mass limit for stabilization not to exceed 
the concentration limits in Condition 1 of the Order times 600 
kilograms (kg) of waste.
 
Environmental Impacts of No Action Alternative For the no-action 
alternative, the environmental impacts would be the same as those 
evaluated in the EA that supports the 2001 Order. The regulations 
regarding SNM possession in 10 CFR part 150 set mass limits 
whereby a licensee is exempted from the licensing requirements of 
10 CFR part 70 and can be regulated by an Agreement State. The 
licensing requirements in 10 CFR part 70 apply to persons 
possessing greater than critical mass quantities (as defined in 
10 CFR 150.11). The principal emphasis of 10 CFR part 70 is 
criticality safety and safeguarding SNM against diversion or 
sabotage. Based on previous modeling and past experience, the NRC 
staff considers that criticality safety can be maintained by 
relying on concentration limits, under the specified conditions. 
These concentration limits are considered an alternative 
definition of quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass 
to the weight limits in 10 CFR 150.11; thereby, assuring the same 
level of protection. The 2001 EA concluded that the 2001 Order 
would have no significant radiological or non-radiological 
environmental impacts.
 
Environmental Impacts of Proposed Action By letter dated March 
15, 2004, WCS discussed its use of chemical reagents and 
requested that the list of reagents identified in Condition 5 of 
the Order be modified to include an additional 22 reagents. In 
reviewing WCS's request, the NRC staff identified four reagents 
(potassium permanganate, sulfuric acid, phosphoric acid, and 
hydrochloric acid) that could change the solubility of the SNM in 
the mixed waste being treated, thus potentially changing its 
concentration. As discussed previously, the principal emphasis of 
10 CFR part 70 is criticality safety and safeguarding SNM against 
diversion or sabotage. The addition of reagents that could 
increase the concentration of SNM poses a criticality concern.
 
The proposed action could allow for more SNM to be stored on 
site. In addition, the NRC staff has identified a criticality 
safety concern. Effluent releases and potential doses to workers 
and to the public could increase as a result of WCS's use of 
specific reagents in treating mixed waste containing SNM. These 
releases and doses are regulated by the State of Texas.
 
The proposed action is not expected to result in any changes to 
the transportation impacts identified in the 2001 EA. While WCS's 
request concerns mixed waste containing SNM that currently is or 
will be treated at its facility, WCS believes that approval of 
its request will not result in any change in its market 
opportunities for treating various waste streams.
 
Environmental Impacts of Proposed Action With Additional 
Conditions As indicated previously, the NRC staff identified 
criticality safety concerns with WCS's proposed action. 
Therefore, under the proposed action as modified with additional 
conditions, NRC would modify Condition 5 of the Order to remove 
the names of specific reagents and instead require that WCS, in 
treating each container of mixed waste containing SNM, meet a 
mass limit for stabilization. Currently, Condition 1 sets 
concentration limits for SNM in individual containers and/or 
during processing. The amended Condition 5 would set the mass 
limit for batches of greater than 600 kg of waste at the 
concentration limits in Condition 1 times 600 kg of waste.
 
Condition 1 concentration limits would continue to apply to 
batches of 600 kg of waste or less. Use of the mass limit in 
Condition 1 for contiguous masses of waste of greater than 600 kg 
reduces criticality safety concerns since accumulations of SNM at 
this concentration limit would not pose a criticality safety 
concern.
 
In an electronic mail message (email) to WCS dated April 26, 
2004, the NRC staff documented telephone discussions with WCS 
concerning the proposed action with additional conditions. By a 
response email dated April 27, 2004, WCS agreed to the NRC 
staff's proposed revision to Condition 5 of the Order.
 
This modification would allow WCS to use the chemical reagents 
identified in its submittals, as well as other reagents, so long 
as the applicable mass limit for stabilization was met. WCS would 
continue to be restricted from using magnesium oxide in the 
treatment, per Condition 2 of the 2001 Order.
 
In addition, the amended Condition 5 would continue to allow WCS 
to use reagents as part of its currently approved stabilization 
process, which includes oxidation-reduction, pH adjustment, and 
bulking.
 
This understanding was clarified in a series of emails dated 
August 3, 10, and 13, 2004, between the NRC staff and WCS.
 
Other conditions of the Order would remain unchanged.
 
Currently, WCS is permitted to possess SNM without regard for 
mass.
 
Instead, to insure criticality safety, a concentration limit is 
applied, such that accumulations of SNM at or below this 
concentration limit would not pose a criticality safety concern.
 
Effluent releases and potential doses to the public are regulated 
by the State of Texas and are not anticipated to change as a 
result of this action. WCS will continue to conduct its radiation 
protection program with an emphasis on maintaining doses as low 
as reasonably achievable. Occupational exposure are expected to 
remain within regulatory limits.
 
The proposed action would not result in any changes in the 
transportation impacts identified in the 2001 EA. While WCS's 
request concerns mixed waste containing SNM that currently is or 
will be treated at its facility, WCS believes that approval of 
its request will not result in any change in its market 
opportunities for treating various waste streams.
 
All other environmental impacts would be the same as evaluated in 
the EA that support the 2001 Order.
 
Conclusion Based on its review, the staff concluded in the SER 
for this exemption request that the proposed action (i.e., revise 
the exemption as requested by WCS without additional conditions) 
would not provide sufficient protection of health, safety, and 
the environment.
 
 
[[Page 61699]] Therefore, staff's preferred alternative is to 
revise the 2001 Order with additional conditions. These include 
adding a per-batch, mass limit for stabilization not to exceed 
the concentration limits in Condition 1 of the exemption times 
600 kg of waste and continuing to restrict WCS from using 
magnesium oxide in stabilization, per Condition 2 of the 
exemption. The staff has concluded that, with these revised 
conditions, the conclusion in the 2001 EA associated with the 
2001 Order remains valid.
 
Agencies and Persons Consulted A draft copy of this EA was 
provided to officials from the State of Texas Department of 
Health (TDH). By an e-mail dated August 11, 2004, the TDH 
recommended certain editorial changes. The NRC staff has modified 
the EA to address the TDH comments.
 
III. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the EA, NRC 
has concluded that there are no significant environmental impacts 
from the proposed amendment and has determined not to prepare an 
environmental impact statement.
 
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action, 
including the application for amendment and supporting 
documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html] 
.
 
From this site, you can access the NRC's Agencywide Document 
Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and 
image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession 
numbers for the documents related to this notice are: 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- Document description                     Accession No.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- August 6, 2003, WCS initial request.....  ML032590937 
September 30, 2003, NRC request for       ML032731010 additional 
information.
 
March 15, 2004, WCS modified request....  ML041350224 September 
2004 NRC SER..................  ML042250362 April 26 and 27, 
2004, NRC and WCS email  ML042450534 messages.
 
August 11, 2004, TDH email message......  ML042450520 August 3, 
10 and 13, 2004 NRC and WCS     ML042450511 email messages.
 
November 21, 2001, NRC EA, SER, and       ML030130085 Order.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the 
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 
1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by email to pdr@nrc.gov 
[pdr@nrc.gov] . These documents may also be viewed electronically 
on the public computers located at the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One 
White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The 
PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 14th day of October 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Mark Thaggard, Section Chief, Environmental & Performance 
Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management and 
Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23428 Filed 10-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 21 [NYTr] NY Times Sugar-coats Risks of DU
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 11:01:15 -0500 (CDT)

 
Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Andy Pollack

This is how the #%$%'s cover the DU story. Buried at the bottom of page A13
(about 2 1/2 square inches). And they've SEEN the front-page Daily News
exposures of the story and how it deformed vets' kids.

The New York Times - October 19, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/politics/19uranium.html

Danger From Depleted Uranium Is Found Low in Pentagon Study

By MATTHEW L. WALD
 
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - A Pentagon-sponsored study of weapons made from
depleted uranium, a substance whose use has attracted environmental
protests around the world, has concluded that it is neither toxic enough
nor radioactive enough to be a health threat to soldiers in the doses
they are likely to receive. 

In a five-year, $6 million study, researchers fired depleted uranium
projectiles into Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks, in a steel
chamber at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, and measured the
levels of uranium in the air and how quickly the particles settled. 

The conclusion, said Dr. Michael E. Kilpatrick, deputy director of the
Deployment Health Support Directorate of the Defense Department, is that
"this is a lethal but safe weapons system." 

The new study did not seek to measure how depleted uranium traveled
through the environment or its potential for entering drinking water or
crops. 

But it did measure how quickly uranium that is inhaled was passed through
the body. Lt. Col. Mark A. Melanson, the program manager for health
physics at the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine,
said that the aerosolized particles of depleted uranium were "moderately
soluble," and that inhaled particles would dissolve in lung fluids and
eventually pass through the kidneys and enter the urine, with half the
uranium being excreted in 10 to 100 days. Uranium that is eaten would
pass through far faster and with little absorption, Colonel Melanson
said. 

He said the long-term risks were tiny compared with the risk of being
killed outright by the weapon. 

The study, conducted by contractors led by the Battelle Memorial
Institute, is scheduled to be released Tuesday. Dr. Kilpatrick said the
test results and the findings would be publicly posted for peer review. 

But opponents of using depleted uranium, who have not yet seen the study,
were skeptical of the findings. 

"We do know that depleted uranium is radioactive and toxic," said Tara
Thornton, of the Military Toxics Project, a nonprofit group in Lewiston,
Me., which seeks to clean up military pollution. "Studies have shown
health impacts on rats and other things." Depleted uranium is a byproduct
of nuclear weapons production. It is almost entirely a form called
Uranium 238, which is left after the more valuable Uranium 235, the kind
useful in bombs and reactors, has been removed. Depleted uranium is 1.7
times more dense than lead and penetrates armor easily.

The United States military has never confronted an opponent that used
depleted uranium. Most exposure to American military personnel has been a
result of fire from their own forces. 

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
================================================================= 
*****************************************************************
 22 [du-list] Low Level Radiation Risk Reassessed
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:06:11 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

This JUST appeared today in New Scientist.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996550

*Risks from low-level radiation reassessed*


11:00 20 October 04

NewScientist.com news service


The risk of getting cancer from tiny amounts of radioactivity inside the
body could be 10 times higher than previously thought - but not hundreds
of times higher.

That is the conclusion of an exhaustive investigation into the health
effects of low-level radiation in the body by UK government advisers. It
could prompt a rethink of the international safety limits for exposure
to such radiation, which occurs during medical radiation therapy and
when pollution from nuclear plants and weapons' tests are taken into the
body via air, water or food.

In a report published on Wednesday, the Committee Examining Radiation
Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) says that there are major
uncertainties in estimating the dangers from plutonium and similar
radionuclides inside the body.

But the uncertainties could cut both ways, either greatly increasing
cancer risks or reducing them to almost zero. In the circumstances,
CERRIE urges the adoption of a precautionary approach to protect public
health.

"We have to be particularly careful in judging the risks of radiation
sources inside the body," says CERRIE's chairman, Dudley Goodhead. "The
uncertainties in these internal radiation risks can be large, and these
need to be taken properly into account in policy and regulatory decisions."


*Substantial contradictions*

However, he firmly rejects widely-publicised suggestions from two CERRIE
members that the cancer risks might be hundreds of times higher than
currently assumed. "The committee concluded that the available
scientific evidence did not support these hypotheses, and in many cases
substantially contradicted them," he says.

CERRIE was set up in 2001 and includes a dozen experts from the
government's National Radiological Protection Board, the nuclear
industry, universities and environmental groups.

Surprisingly, the committee has come to broad agreement about the level
of uncertainty involved in calculating the radiation doses received by
different parts of the body, and in working out how much damage the
radiation will inflict upon cells.

The committee has also accepted that indirect damage caused to cells by
low-level radiation are "real biological events". Laboratories in Europe
and North America have shown that the descendants of cells that seem to
survive radiation can suffer delayed damage, a phenomenon known as
"genomic instability".

Cells adjacent to those that are irradiated can also be damaged, known
as the "bystander effect". And increased mutations have been found in
small pieces of DNA called minisatellites which are passed from one
generation to the next.


*Childhood leukaemias*

Ten of CERRIE's members, however, decided that other theories put
forward by two committee members, Chris Busby and Richard Bramhall, were
invalid.

Busby and Bramhall argued that the incidence of childhood leukaemias
after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 suggested that the risks of
radiation in the body had been underestimated by "possibly up to 1000
times".

Bramhall, from the Low Level Radiation Campaign, alleges that the CERRIE
report "seriously misrepresents" the Chernobyl evidence.

"The nuclear industry is a major cause of the global epidemic of
cancer," he told *New Scientist*. "The committee has surveyed an ocean
of ignorance and uncertainty about the fundamental basis of radiation
protection" and ended up underestimating the risks, he says.



Rob Edwards




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 23 [du-list] Alert re DU in 747 crash in Halifax
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:05:53 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

   <>Original equipment on the Boeing 747-244BSF, manufactured 1980, ser.
no. 22170, registration 9GMKJ  included depleted uranium counterbalance
weights totalling approx. 850 kg. Most of the weights are in the tail
section, others are in the wings. Depleted uranium is pyrophoric if
involved in a fire exceeding 600 degrees celsius. The very fine products
of combustion are radioactive and if inhaled by emergency workers during
the fire (or later as re-suspended dust) without a P100 mask, may
eventually be fatal as the radioactive particles migrate to bone marrow
and cause genetic mutation. The radioactivity can be detected by a gamma
meter, and the masks and clothing are radioactive waste.
<>
www.aviation-safety.net,   www.planemad.net <http://www.planemad.net>
or visit www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/ruxew
<http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/ruxew>

Boeing shed their liability by offering tungsten alloy counterweights
siince 1981. For safety's sake, a detailed inventory of which weights
are still depleted uranium should be provided by MK Airplanes. As with
previous crashes in Tenerife, Lockerbie, and Bjilmer, every kilo of
depleted uranium should be accounted-for using detailed drawings showing
the location of all counterweights obtained from Boeing or MK Airplanes. <>

"Crew of 747 killed in Halifax airport fireball" Mike Tutton, Canadian
Press Oct. 14, 2004 6:26 pm on the www.thestar .com





------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 24 [du-list] DU denial and acceptance - " 109 Italian soldiers
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:06:57 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

  http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200410191947-1213-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia

Today in Italy
Special service by AGI on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister's office


DEPLETED URANIUM: OBSERVATORY LAMENTS DENIAL
(AGI) - Rome, Italy, Oct. 19 - According to the Italian Military Health 
Observatory a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to 
exposure to depleted uranium. The observatory stressed the fact that 41 pct 
of active personnel casualties relate to disease. According to Domenico 
Leggiero at the Military Health Observatory, "The total of 109 casualties 
exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road 
accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting 
out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there 
due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium". Leggiero 
pointed out the fact that the Senate has to date failed to establish a 
probe committee on this matter: "it is proof of a worrying lack of 
oversight on matters which are frankly dramatic". Members of the 
Observatory have petitioned a urgent hearing "in order to study effective 
prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst 
our serving soldiers". (AGI) -
191947 OTT 04
       COPYRIGHTS 2002-2003 AGI S.p.A.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 25 [DU-WATCH] How Dracula rules the Bloodbank
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 00:16:36 -0500 (CDT)

 
This item from the Cerrie Minority Report which I filed at du-list.  
I hope  some of you have the time to read this press-parsed text - it 
is a very interesting story of how Dracula (read IAEA) rules the 
Bloodbank (read WHO).

Cheers,
Robert

CERRIE Minority Report 2004

[page]134

Appendix 4: Atomic Lies

Chris Busby
It would be reasonable to ask, why it is that these Russian language
reports which we are translating or reviewing (with no financial
assistance from the government, incidentally, despite the undisputed
recommendation made at the Summer Workshop in Oxford that this
would be important) have not influenced the perception of risk from
radioactive contamination. This is part of a large issue, first 
addressed by me in Wings of Death (1995) and which I will address 
again elsewhere. 

However, a flavour of what happens is given in the
following account of a conference I attended in Kiev in 2001.
The first WHO conference on Chernobyl health effects was
jointly organised with the IAEA in Geneva in November 1996. Over
700 doctors and scientists attended and made representations. These
were a potential disaster for the development of the nuclear industry 
and the proceedings were suppressed by the IAEA. 

This was stated in an interview between Prof Michel Fernex and Prof 
Hiroshi Nakajima filmed in Kiev at the beginning of the second 
conference. 

Nakajima, who was Director General of WHO at the time of the Geneva 
conference says: Six years ago we tried to have a conference. The
proceedings were never published. This is because in this matter the
organisations of the UN are subordinate to the IAEA.

Fernex, retired now from the University of Basle in Switzerland, and
who worked with the WHO remarks: Since 1986, the WHO did nothing
about studying Chernobyl. It is a pity. The interdiction to publish 
which fell upon the WHO conference came from the IAEA. 

The IAEA blocked the proceedings; the truth would have been a 
disaster for the nuclear industry..

After our paper on the Chernobyl infants was published (Busby
and Scott-Cato 2000) we were invited to come to Kiev for the second of
the WHO conferences. It was hoped that this conference would see a
freeing up of the information about the true consequences. 

The Association Physicians of Chernobyl, which jointly organised the 
affair, asked Nakajima to be honorary President of the meeting. At 
the start of the conference, on the first day Fernex hoped this would 
help the truth to emerge. 

But Nakajima said: Although the agencies of the United Nation are in 
principle equal, for atomic, military and civil use of the atom, the 
IAEA command. The agencies are all subordinate to the Atom.

Fernex said: The IAEA signed an agreement with the WHO in 1959.

They are prevented from researching health in this area or even from
warning exposed populations. The IAEA will be here. And to buy
scientists in poor countries is cheap. 100,000 dollars buys a lot of
scientists.

CERRIE Minority Report 2004
135

We had to go. But the cost would involve fares, accommodation
and the #500 conference fees. We applied to the Joseph Rowntree
Charitable Trust who agreed to fund our trip. All this happened at the
last minute, and I had to rush down to London to organise Ukrainian
Visas. 

To find somewhere Molly and I could afford to stay, I emailed
the Green Party of the Ukraine. They organised for us to stay on a
steamboat, the Maxim Rilsky, moored on the river Dnieper. This is the
advantage of the Green Party: there are always friends in every 
country!  We were helped enormously by the Ukraine Greens in Kiev.

The conference was extraordinarily illuminating. I will give some 
examples here since it is an account of how the truth becomes created 
or changed and how messages appear that have little to do with 
reality. 

Imagine then the Health Ministry building in Kiev, a rather drab 
building set in the centre of a park. Hundreds of internationally
renowned scientists appear here to present papers on their findings 
or to discuss them from the floor. There are also physicians and 
researchers from the affected territories. Many cannot come as it is 
too costly. 

On the stage sit five or six Soviet style men-in-suits, perhaps there 
is also a woman at times. There are translators and everyone has 
headsets. They look grim. They also look nervous and shifty. 

At the start, Abel Gonzalez of the IAEA is at the microphone:
The known effects of the Chernobyl accident are 31 deaths in
liquidators and 200 thyroid cancers in children. Whether any other
effects have occurred is an epistemologically insoluble problem, we 
just don't know. There are no other internationally agreed effects.

The IAEA data he is talking about is that validated by the US Los
Alamos Laboratory and the French Nuclear industry, the CEA. Other
reports are ignored. There is uproar from the floor, also applause 
from the men in suits. 

Dr D Zupka of the United Nations (OCHA) goes to the microphone:
The consequences of Chernobyl do not fade away. They are only just
beginning. There are 9 million victims. The tragedy is only beginning.
More applause, more shouts and headshaking. This is science in the
making. This is as much science as the studies themselves and their
reported results. Did you think science was about nature having the
truth wrested from her by experiment? Oh Naove!

Up gets Norman Gentner of the United Nations Scientific Committee on
the Effects of Atomic Radiation, UNSCEAR:

The risk of leukaemia does not seem to be elevated even in the
liquidators. I agree with the IAEA, positive perspectives exist. For 
those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not 
believe,no explanation is possible. (He should know) We use the most 
rigorous possible data so that the people and the decision makers can 
get the right information.

CERRIE Minority Report 2004
136

Prof Alexey Yablokov of the independent Centre for Russian
Environmental Policy (kind of Russian Green Audit) is there at the
microphone:
This is Shocking, Shocking! An impudent presentation of non-objective
data. What scares me is it's said openly, presented as scientific
conclusions. There were irremidiable falsifications of official health
data. Don't you know that the leaders of the State Committee for
Statistics were arrested two years ago for falsifying data.

UNSCEAR knows it. They know the data were falsified! They use them
to say that the consequences of Chernobyl were not so serious. 

They say there are no genetic effects after Chernobyl, but the 
genetic effects are the most serious. Tens of papers in serious 
scientific journals show this, Bandashevsky shows the effects in 
children, sudden deaths, organ damage. Increases in mortality, 
cancers, congenital malformation, immune system disorders, 
exhaustion, slow growth. How is it possible to reject this? Silencing 
these facts is incorrect! It is science.

There is loud applause from the audience. The men in suits look 
unwell. Gentner looks terrified. Yablokov is a member of the Russian 
Academy of Sciences and was advisor on environmental matters to 
Presidents Gorbachov and Yeltsin.

Up gets Prof S.Yarmonenko from Moscow, author of a standard textbook 
on radiation and health:
In the name of the radiobiological community of Russia I want to
apologise to the international community. I apologise for Mr Yablokov
who is not a radiobiologist or a radiologist.

The audience shouts at him to sit down. A blonde woman doctor in a
coat gets up and shouts: Who paid you to say this!

>From the audience Prof Rose Goncharova, a biologist and geneticist,
author of studies showing significant genetic effects in fish from the
Chernobyl fallout some 200 miles from the plant, moves to the
microphone. She is intense and angry:

As scientists we are dealing with a new phenomenon and will have to
accept new information! The Radiation Effects Foundation in Japan
have found that radiation effects general somatic mutation, This is a
new phenomenon.
Loud applause.

Chair, Prof Oxana Garnets: Sit down. This is absolute nonsense! This
session is about social phenomena.

Audience: Shame, let her finish!

Goncharova: I will finish what I want to say. This is a social
phenomenon.

The meetings and presentations went on in the same vein throughout the
conference. All the reports which were invited showed no effects (with
the curious exception of ours). At the same time, arguments from the

CERRIE Minority Report 2004
137

floor suggested terrible and widespread effects. 

After a presentation suggesting that the ill health was a consequence 
of malnutrition an infuriated woman doctor jumped up and said: 
We are not ill because we have no bread. It is news that lack of food 
causes brain tumours.

At the point where I was listed to give the Chernobyl Infants paper, 
Yarmonenko, who was before me, tried hard to extend his time at the 
microphone. The Chair allowed this, indeed seemed to encourage it.

He ignored my interruption. I could see that this was an attempt to
squeeze my presentation of our results out altogether and stood up and
complained to the chair again. Nothing happened, 

Yarmonenko went on and on and on. I got up and walked to the 
microphone and took it from him. This took some nerve, I can tell 
you, but no one arrested me. I gave the paper. 

He jumped up and said the results were impossible. I said they had 
been reported from five countries by different research teams.

The most important item was the final resolution of the conference, 
for whatever that stated, would be an official line that the
agencies would have to consider. It was vital for the nuclear mafia to
control this. 

This is where rapportage comes in. The Chair stated that they were 
grateful for the assistance given by Norman Gentner in preparing the 
draft resolution. 

Yes, that's right, the draft resolution was prepared by Norman 
Gentner of UNSCEAR. It completely ignored the presentations of ill 
health and took the line that there were no effects apart from those 
already accepted by IAEA, the nonsense spouted by Gonzalez. 

At this point, five of us there, Yablokov, Solange Fernex, Michel 
Fernex, Nestorenko and Yablokov and I went to the microphone
one after the other and attacked the draft. 

It was an outrageous misrepresentation of what had occurred. What 
about the Chernobyl Infants? It was as if I hadn't given this paper! 

Nakajima was in the Chair. He concurred. Change the draft, he said to 
me, the conference will accept your alteration. The conference voted 
to agree. 

I quickly rewrote the draft and altered it to say that there were 
significant health consequences and that research should continue 
(Gentner's version said that the research was no longer necessary, 
there was nothing to find). I gave my handwritten version to 
Nakajima. 

The apparatchiks looked sick. Gentner looked furious. But had we won?
The Swiss camera crew were still active. They hovered discreetly 
around the conference organiser, Prof Angelina Nyagu who was in a 
heated conversation with Prof. Yarmonenko.

Yarmonenko: It was a catastrophe, undoubtedly, but not a radiological
one. My new edition of my handbook! Everything is in chaos!

Nyagu: Please calm yourself. You are like Dr Guskova, a worried soul.
Yarmonenko: How can I be calm, I am working on the next edition of
my book. My handbook. And here everything ends in chaos.

CERRIE Minority Report 2004
138

Nyagu, putting her arm around him and turning away from the camera:
There will be a great turmoil over the draft of the resolution. We 
will work on it with you this evening. . .

Yarmonenko (looking relieved): With pleasure

Nyagu: Even the IAEA understands that they must turn around
difficulties, but you, you are shooting right away.

Yarmonenko: That is true, one needs diplomacy.

Nyagu: Do you think that it is not a radiological accident?
Yarmonenko: The radiological factor exists, it is true, but it is the
smallest.

Nyagu (takes his arm and laughs conspiratorially): Very well!
At this point Yarmonenko notices the cameraman. He is alarmed: Who
is this?

Nyagu: Television

Yarmonenko: Television???

Nyagu: Swiss Television.

Yarmonenko (relieved): Oh Swiss Television. Swiss Television is like
ours.

Well, he was wrong, the whole affair was captured on videotape
and became Wladimir Tcherkoff's Swiss TV documentary, Atomic Lies.

But Nyagu was correct. They got together and changed the resolution,
or someone did. The final conference resolution did not contain the
material I wrote down for Nakajima and which the whole conference
had voted on accepting. It was a slightly modified version of the
previous attempt to change reality.

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/Sj.0lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

[Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
 26 UK The Times: Nuclear plant radiation may be 10 times previous estimates
 
October 20, 2004                       

By Jenny Booth, Times Online
		   		 		
Low-level radiation from nuclear plants may be up to ten times 
more hazardous than has been previously estimated, a panel of 
experts said today. 

A committee set up to examine radiation safety said that action 
was needed after new information about the risks from radioactive 
particles that can be swallowed or inhaled. 

But the report from the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of 
Internal Emitters (CERRIE) fell well short of the controversial 
claims published by two of its members in a minority report last 
month, saying that radiation doses to child leukaemia victims 
across Europe could have been a 100 times higher than experts 
believe. 

Instead it said that the level of risk from exposure to 
radioactive particles was uncertain, and could range from ten 
times the previous estimate to almost zero. 

CERRIE was established by Michael Meacher, the then Environment 
Minister, in 2001 after concerns about radiation risks, including 
reports of increased incidents of cancer near nuclear sites and 
in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. 

Last month Mr Meacher provoked a row by accusing the committee of 
gagging the two dissenting experts. 

He made his attack at the launch of the minority report by the 
experts, Richard Bramhall and Chris Busby, who argued that the 
risk of cancer from low level radiation was much higher than 
officials estimated. 

According to their theory, inhaled radioactive particles could 
lodge in the body of a foetus and damage cells in a confined 
area. 

Unborn children were said to be especially at risk. The hazard 
could explain clusters of leukaemia cases near nuclear 
installations in North Wales and Essex, and the Sellafield 
Reprocessing plant in Cumbria, it was claimed. 

Mr Meacher alleged that attempts had been made to keep a lid on 
the evidence. He told the Guardian: "The idea was to examine all 
the questions, and where there was disagreement to recommend 
further research. 

"It is criminally irresponsible not to allow all the evidence to 
come out so there can be a properly organised, informed public 
debate." 

The row over reports followed deep divisions among members of the 
committee. One nuclear scientist, Marian Hill, who was part of 
the committee’s secretariat, resigned alleging establishment 
bias. 

Launching today’s report, CERRIE chairman Professor Dudley 
Goodhead acknowledged that there had been disagreements but said 
that the report had tried to reflect the diversity of opinion. 

He said: "The main findings of the committee’s report is that we 
have to be particularly careful in judging the risks of 
radioactive sources inside the body.                    

							   	 	
Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk
*****************************************************************
 27 BBC: Radiation risks 'need updating'
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 20 October, 2004
 
[Sizewell B (BBC)]                              

Nuclear stations such as Sizewell may have their operations 
changed                                                              

Official estimates of the likely risks associated with long-term 
exposure to low-level radiation could be out by a factor of 10, a 
UK panel reports. 

Some divisions marked the work of the Committee Examining 
Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters and two of its 12 members 
issued a minority report. 

An internal emitter is any radioactive particle retained inside 
the body. 

The findings could prompt changes at nuclear plants and affect 
the way some medical procedures are undertaken. 

The uncertainties are rea they cannot be avoided and we must deal 
with them Prof Dudley Goodhead, Cerrie chairman           

Any changes at nuclear power and reprocessing facilities are 
likely to be operational ones that further restrict the amount of 
radioactive material that can be released into the environment. 

The chairman of the committee, Professor Dudley Goodhead, said 
the main finding of the report was that we had to be particularly 
careful in judging the risks of radioactive sources inside the 
body. 

"The uncertainties are real; they cannot be avoided and we must 
deal with them," he said. 

He added that these uncertainties could be reduced through 
rigorous scientific research that sought to better understand how 
certain materials behaved in the body, particularly in children. 

Atomic tests 

Although the risks associated with high doses of external 
radiation are reasonably well known - not least from the gamma 
and X-ray exposures experienced by atom bomb survivors in Japan - 
it is sometimes less clear what the consequences are of 
swallowing or breathing in small quantities of radioactive 
particles over long timescales. 

Some of these radionuclides are "natural" - radioactive lead and 
polonium are in the rocks and get incorporated into food plants 
and animals which we then eat. 

But the Cerrie initiative was driven by the concern over the 
presence in the environment of increasing quantities of 
human-produced materials, such as the plutonium from atomic tests 
and fuel reprocessing. 

In medicine, too, substances like technetium, thallium and iodine 
are being put into our bodies to image and treat disease. 

Cerrie was set up to address whether the models and methods for 
assessing the radiation risks and doses involved were reliable - 
and the majority report of the committee found that they were. 

However, it said some of the uncertainties involved were wider 
than previously thought, meaning in some cases we might be 
exposed to 10 times the risk and in others we may be faced by 
almost zero risk. 

'Environmental politics' 

The UK government's radiation adviser, Comare (Committee On 
Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment), said it agreed 
with most of Cerrie's findings and shared the view that no 
fundamental change in radiological protection standards was 
needed. 

It also noted that it had reservations about the way the 
committee was set up and in particular how its composition "was 
influenced by environmental politics rather than science". 

It highlights uncertainty a the precautionary principle, which 
Greenpeace has been pushing, and that means we now have more 
arguments to restrain the nuclear industry Pete Roche, 
anti-nuclear campaigner     

Comare chairman, Professor Bryn Bridges, said it would have been 
better for an independent science group to work through the 
evidence presented by "stakeholders" rather than to ask those 
stakeholders to try to reach a consensus. 

"I think they have done their science pretty well," Professor 
Bridges, explained. "I just don't think it was the most 
cost-effective way of going about it." 

In the end, two members of Cerrie - Richard Bramhall, from the UK 
Low Level Radiation Campaign, and Dr Chris Busby, from Green 
Audit - refused to back the committee's findings and issued their 
own minority assessment. 

They believe the health effects of man-made radioactivity in the 
environment have been underestimated by a factor of at least 100 
and possibly up to 1,000 times. 

They claim the mainstream scientific community has a closed mind 
on hypotheses that could explain how low-dose radiation could 
cause disease, such as leukaemia in children. 

"The reality is that the committee has surveyed an ocean of 
ignorance and uncertainty about the fundamental basis of 
radiation protection," Richard Bramhall said. 

Reactor life 

He is supported by Michael Meacher, the former environment 
secretary who set up Cerrie in 2001. 

Ahead of Wednesday's official publication of the Cerrie report, 
the politician said the findings reflected one-sided 
establishment opinion and did not "accommodate a full and fair 
representation of all views". 

But Cerrie member Pete Roche, an anti-nuclear campaigner and 
former Greenpeace representative, expressed his satisfaction with 
the committee's outcome. 

"It's a good report," he told BBC News. "It highlights 
uncertainty and the precautionary principle, which Greenpeace has 
been pushing, and that means we now have more arguments to 
restrain the nuclear industry. 

"This is likely to come up next when they look to extend the 
lives of some of the AGRs (Advanced gas-cooled reactors) because 
as they get older, their emissions go up." 





*****************************************************************
 28 Guardian Unlimited: Radiation risks 'could be higher than thought'
 
Press Association
Wednesday October 20, 2004 		
 		
Low level radiation from nuclear power plants could be up to 10 
times more dangerous than had previously been thought, a panel of 
experts said today. 

A committee set up to examine radiation safety said action was 
needed to deal with new information about risks from radioactive 
particles that could be swallowed or inhaled. 

However, the report from the committee examining radiation risks 
of internal emitters (Cerrie) fell short of recent controversial 
claims made by two of its members, who said radiation doses to 
child leukaemia victims across Europe could have been 100 times 
higher than experts believed. 

Cerrie - whose members include university scientists and members 
of Greenpeace and British Nuclear Fuels - said uncertainties 
meant the risk faced by people exposed to nuclear particles could 
range from 10 times the previous estimate to almost zero. The 
report concluded there was no "no clear evidence" that current 
radiation risk assessments were "substantially wrong". 

The government radiation watchdog, Comare (committee on medical 
aspects of radiation in the environment) said it agreed with 
Cerrie that the available data did not support a "speculative 
hypothesis" that risks had been radically underestimated. 

It also agreed that current evidence did not indicate a need for 
a fundamental change in radiological protection standards. 

However, Comare said it had reservations about the way in which 
Cerrie had been set up, and claimed its composition "was 
influenced by environmental politics rather than science". 

Cerrie was established by the then environment minister Michael 
Meacher in 2001 amid concerns over radiation risks, including 
reports of increased incidents of cancer near nuclear sites and 
in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. 

Mr Meacher last month sparked a row by accusing the committee of 
gagging two dissenting experts. His comments came at the launch 
of a "minority report" from Richard Bramhall and Chris Busby, who 
argued that the risk of cancer from low level radiation was much 
higher than officials estimated. 

According to their report, inhaled radioactive particles could 
lodge in the body of a foetus and damage cells in a confined 
area. 

Unborn children were said to be especially at risk, and it was 
claimed the hazard could explain clusters of leukaemia cases near 
nuclear installations in north Wales and Essex, and the 
Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria. 

Mr Meacher alleged attempts had been made to suppress the 
evidence, and last month told  the Guardian 
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1299369,00.html] : 
"The idea was to examine all the questions and, where there was 
disagreement, to recommend further research. 

"It is criminally irresponsible not to allow all the evidence to 
come out so there can be a properly organised, informed public 
debate." 

Even before the row over reports, the issue had divided members 
of Cerrie. One nuclear scientist - Marian Hill, who was part of 
the committee's secretariat - resigned, alleging establishment 
bias. 

Launching today's report, the Cerrie chairman, professor Dudley 
Goodhead, said: "The main findings of the committee's report is 
that we have to be particularly careful in judging the risks of 
radioactive sources inside the body. The uncertainties in these 
internal radiation risks can be large.

"The report examines the views of all members, including 
hypothesis for very large risks put forward by two members, who 
finally dissented from the report," he added. 

"The committee concluded that the available scientific evidence 
did not support these hypothesis and, in many cases, 
substantially contradicted them." 

The report warned that newly discovered affects of radiation - 
including long term damage to DNA within cells, and inherited DNA 
changes - were "real biological events that need further 
research". 
	
 	
        Special report The nuclear industry

Graphics Nuclear map of Britain

Useful links Cerrie [http://www.cerrie.org/] British Energy 
[http://www.british-energy.com/] British Nuclear Fuels Ltd 
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Greenpeace 
[http://www.greenpeace.org/homepage/] 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 29 Times-News: Fallout question unites some in search for answer
 			 			 			 			 			 				 
    www.magicvalley.com         The Times-News | AG Weekly |
    
    Wednesday, October 20, 2004   •   Twin Falls, Idaho   

By Michelle Dunlop

Times-News writer

TWIN FALLS -- Sitting side by side, they look like sisters. Or, 
at least, very old friends. 

A connection between the two women is obvious. They listen 
attentively to each other speak, nodding and smiling back and 
forth. Linda Morrey even tears up for a moment as Sarah Wolfe 
shares stories about her struggle with cancer. 

Cancer is the bond that connects the two women. They had not met 
before attending a meeting on the College of Southern Idaho 
campus Tuesday evening. The event held by the Snake River 
Alliance, a nuclear watchdog group, was organized for people just 
like Morrey and Wolfe whose cancer may have been caused by 
fallout from nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s.

"We were sitting down one morning and the ground shook," Wolfe 
said. "I can remember my dad saying it must have been the bomb 
that went off." 

Researchers have concluded that Nevada Test Site bombs, like the 
one Wolfe remembers, dusted cancer-causing radioactive iodine 
across the land -- with major areas of "downwind" concentration 
landing in Nevada, Utah and Arizona. A 1997 study by the National 
Cancer Institute determined that four out of the five counties in 
the country that received the largest doses of radioactive iodine 
were in Idaho.

During the years of nuclear testing, Wolfe lived on a farm. She 
never thought twice about eating vegetables out of the garden or 
drinking fresh cow's milk. Scientists now know that nuclear 
fallout landed on those very crops. Cows consumed contaminated 
crops. Radioactive iodine concentrated in cow's milk, as well as 
goat's milk. Once drank by humans, the radioactive iodine wound 
up in individuals' thyroids. 

Thyroid cancer is one of 19 cancers eligible for federal 
compensation. While the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act 
covers residents who lived in Nevada, Utah and Arizona, it does 
not cover Idaho residents like Wolfe and Morrey. 

"All of Idaho was exposed to some sort of fallout," said Ester 
Ceja, a spokeswoman for Snake River Alliance. 

Ceja emphasized her two reasons for holding the event: to listen 
to individuals' stories and to encourage them to attend a meeting 
in Boise next month. At the meeting, representatives of the 
National Academy of Sciences will hear Idaho downwinders' 
testimony in an effort to determine whether compensation should 
be extended to Idaho. 

"I strongly encourage you to attend," Ceja told the group. 

The bond between Morrey and Wolfe will continue as both plan to 
testify at the November meeting. For additional information, 
contact Ceja at 344-9161.

Times-News reporter Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3229 or 
at  [mdunlop@magicvalley.com] .

Downwinder hearing information Idahoans not covered under the 
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act may testify about fallout 
from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s. Individuals must 
sign up in advance of the meeting; there will be no opportunity 
to register on the day of the event. Event time and location: 9 
a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 6, at Boise State University's Taco 
Bell Arena (formerly the Pavilion). How to register: Contact Dr. 
Isaf Al-Nabulsi in the National Academy of Sciences Board on 
Radiation Effects Research by phone at (202) 334-2671 or by 
e-mail at  [ialnabul@nas.edu] .                 

Copyright © 2004, Lee Publications Inc.

Magicvalley.com is an on-line division of The Times-News, 
published daily at 132 W. Fairfield St., Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 
by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises.  
*****************************************************************
 30 Scotsman: Health Risks from Radioactivity - independent Advice 
Welcomed by Defra and the Department of Health
 
1:31pm (UK)

DEPARTMENT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS News
Release (408/04) issued by the Government News Network on 20
October 2004 

Defra and the Department of Health today welcomed the publication 
of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal 
Emitters’ (CERRIE) final report and subsequent advice from the 
Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment 
(COMARE).
 
CERRIE – an independent committee made up from experts from 
academia, pressure groups, the National Radiological Protection 
Board and industry – was set up in July 2001 to consider the 
models used to assess health risks from internal radionuclides, 
radioactive sources that are either inhaled or ingested, in light 
of new scientific research. The committee were also asked to 
identify any areas for further research.
 
CERRIE’s parent committee, COMARE, the independent expert 
committee that advises Government in this area, has also 
published its own report today responding to the CERRIE Report 
and providing advice to Ministers, highlighting in particular the 
health risks presented by radon, a naturally occurring 
radioactive gas.
 
Mr Morley said: “I am extremely grateful to CERRIE for 
producing this report, which is the fruit of three years of work 
reviewing the best available scientific evidence and research 
that is currently available. Together with colleagues from the 
Department of Health, we will now carefully consider CERRIE’s 
recommendations and conclusions on this complex and important 
matter, along with expert advice from the Committee on the 
Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE).
 
“COMARE’s advice that more work needs to be done to combat 
the effects of radon is timely. Radon is the second most 
significant cause of cancer after smoking. While successive 
Governments have supported radon awareness and remediation 
programmes since 1987, Defra’s current programme comes to an 
end in March next year. We will be considering carefully what 
more we can do to help householders to reduce risk from this 
naturally occurring radioactive gas and how such a programme 
might be financed and organised.”
 
To read CERRIE’s report in full, please see the committee’s 
website at: www.cerrie.org
 
Notes for Editors
 
CERRIE’s parent committee, COMARE, the independent expert 
committee that advises Government in this area, has also 
published its own report today responding to the CERRIE Report 
and providing advice to Ministers.
 
1. To find out more about the Committee Examining Radiation Risks 
of Internal Emitters, who sits on the committee and for more 
information about their work, see their website at www.cerrie.org
 
2. During the course of Cerrie’s work, two members of the 
committee stepped down and prepared their own report on radiation 
risks of internal emitters. The committee ultimately voted 
against including it in their final report. While Defra does not 
support the views and statements made in the separate report, it 
is available from www.llrc.org/index.html
 
3. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the 
Environment (COMARE) was established in November 1985. COMARE is 
an independent expert advisory committee with members chosen for 
their medical and scientific expertise and recruited from 
universities and research institutes. Members are appointed by 
the Chief Medical Officer, but the Committee advises all 
Government Departments. The Committee offers Government 
independent medical and scientific advice on the health effects 
of ionising and non-ionising radiation in the environment, 
whether natural or man-made. For more information see 
www.comare.org.uk
 
4. Radionuclides are radioactive elements, some occur naturally 
but others are produced in processes such as nuclear power 
generation. People may be exposed to radiation from external 
sources, however radionuclides can also be ingested and inhaled.
 
5. Radon, is a naturally occurring radioactive gas found in rocks 
and soils, and can cause lung cancer. All rocks and soil produce 
radon to some extent. While radon is ubiquitous, the risks 
increase as the levels of radon in the air increase. Parts of 
England – Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Northamptonshire and 
Derbyshire – are particularly affected.
 
6. Successive Governments have sponsored work on identifying 
homes at greatest risk since 1987. In that time more than 400,000 
Government-funded measurements have been carried out to identify 
homes with high radon levels. Every home in England with a 
greater than 5% probability of being above the radon “Action 
Level” has been offered a free measurement.
 
7. Since 2001, Defra has been working in partnership with 27 
local authorities in English high-risk areas to aid householders 
to tackle their radon problem.
 
8. More information on radon along with advice to householders 
and local authorities is available from Defra’s website 
www.defra.gov.uk/radioactivity/radon
 
9. A map highlighting areas at risk from radon is available from 
the National Radiological Protection Board at: 
http://www.nrpb.org/radon/radon–maps/index.htm
 
Press enquiries 020 7238 5391; Public enquiries 08459 335577;
 
Press notices are available on our website www.defra.gov.uk
 
Defra’s aim is sustainable development
 
Nobel House
 
17 Smith Square
 
London SW1P 3JR
 
Telephone 020 7238 1134
 
Fax 020 7238 5529
 
Out of hours telephone 020 7270 8960
 
Out of hours fax 020 7270 8125
 
Website www.defra.gov.uk                 

*****************************************************************
 31 Scotsman: Report Raises New Questions over Radiation Risks
 
[http://www.scotsman.com/]                                             
 		   		   			
Wed 20 Oct 2004                                                 

By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News 

Low level radiation from nuclear plants may be up to 10 times 
more hazardous than has been previously estimated, a panel of 
experts said today.
 
A committee set up to examine radiation safety said action was 
needed to take on board new information about the risks from 
radioactive particles that can be swallowed or inhaled.
 
But the report from the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of 
Internal Emitters (CERRIE) fell well short of the controversial 
claims made by two of it’s members that radiation doses to 
child leukaemia victims across Europe could have been a 100 times 
higher than experts believe.
 
CERRIE pointed out that uncertainties meant that the risk faced 
by people exposed to nuclear particles could range from 10 times 
the previous estimate to almost zero.
 
However the report concluded there was no “no clear evidence” 
that current radiation risk assessments were “substantially 
wrong”.
 
The Government radiation watchdog, COMARE (Committee On Medical 
Aspects of Radiation in the Environment) said it agreed with 
CERRIE that available data did not support a “speculative 
hypothesis” that the risks were radically underestimated.
 
It also agreed with the majority view of CERRIE that present 
evidence did not indicate a need for a fundamental change in 
radiological protection standards.
 
But COMARE added that it had reservations about the way CERRIE 
was set up and in particular how it’s composition “was 
influenced by environmental politics rather than science”.
 
CERRIE was established by former environment minister Michael 
Meacher in 2001 following concerns about radiation risks, 
including reports of increased incidents of cancer near nuclear 
sites and in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
 
Last month Mr Meacher sparked a row by accusing the committee of 
gagging two dissenting experts.
 
He made his attack at the launch of a “minority report” from 
the experts, Richard Bramhall and Chris Busby, who argued that 
the risk of cancer from low level radiation was much higher than 
officials estimated.
 
According to their theory, inhaled radioactive particles could 
lodge in the body of a foetus and damage cells in a confined 
area.
 
Unborn children were said to be especially at risk, the hazard 
could explain clusters of leukaemia cases near nuclear 
installations in North Wales and Essex, and the Sellafield 
Reprocessing plant in Cumbria, it was claimed.
 
Mr Meacher alleged that attempts had been made to keep a lid on 
the evidence. He told the Guardian :“The idea was to examine 
all the questions, and where there was disagreement to recommend 
further research. It is criminally irresponsible not to allow all 
the evidence to come out so there can be a properly organised, 
informed public debate.”
 
Even before the row over reports, the issue had divided members 
of the committee. One nuclear scientist, Marian Hill, who was 
part of the committee’s secretariat, resigned alleging 
establishment bias.
 
Launching today’s report, CERRIE chairman Professor Dudley 
Goodhead said: “The main findings of the committee’s report 
is that we have to be particularly careful in judging the risks 
of radioactive sources inside the body. The uncertainties in 
these internal radiation risks can be large and these need to be 
taken properly into account in policy and regulatory decisions.
 
“There is much public debate about the risks to health from 
ionising radiation, with widely differing views being held. This 
is particularly so with radiation from radioactive materials 
taken into the body, whether from nuclear discharges, or natural 
sources of radioactivity in air and food. The CERRIE committee 
was set up to reflect these differing views.
 
“The report examines the views of all members, including 
hypothesis for very large risks put forward by two members, who 
finally dissented from the report. The committee concluded that 
the available scientific evidence did not support these 
hypothesis and, in many cases, substantially contradicted 
them.”
 
The report warned that newly discovered affects of radiation, 
including long term damage to DNA within cells, and inherited DNA 
changes, were “real biological events that need further 
research”.             

*****************************************************************
 32 Guardian Unlimited: Danger of nuclear plant discharges underrated
 
Ian Sample and Owen Bowcott
Thursday October 21, 2004
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]  		
 		
Radioactive discharges from nuclear power plants may be more 
strictly controlled in the light of a government report which 
finds that the health risk from particles taken into the body may 
be 10 times greater than previously thought. 

The report, commissioned by the then environment minister Michael 
Meacher in 2001, says the existing safety guidelines do not take 
into account recent scientific studies which indicate a greater 
degree of uncertainty in judging the risk. 

Consequently the guidelines either underestimate or overestimate 
the danger posed by some radioactive materials by up to 10 times, 
the report says. 

The findings may go some way to explaining the clusters of 
childhood leukaemia cases near Sellafield in Cumbria and other 
nuclear power plants. 

"These uncertainties go part way to bridging the gap, but it 
would be a big jump to say they're sufficient to close the gap," 
said Dudley Goodhead, chairman of the committee examining 
radiation risks of internal emitters (Cerrie), who produced the 
report. 

Despite the lack of hard evidence to link radioactive discharges 
to cancer clusters, the government might consider imposing 
tighter controls on nuclear plants as a precautionary measure, he 
added. 

"It's really for the policy makers to recognise the 
uncertainties. For me, it would mean tighter restrictions on some 
of the radionuclides, particularly if they're in the environment 
in the sort of situation where [children] are most likely to be 
exposed," he said. 

The study was commissioned to re-evaluate the danger of 
radioactive particles that get into the body, by inhalation, 
ingestion or in medical procedures. These range from plutonium 
particles discharged by nuclear plants to substances entering the 
food chain from rocks and soil. 

In the body these particles can cause damage to DNA and increase 
the risk of cancer. 

The report says that although the risks associated with materials 
such as caesium are well known those relating to others, 
especially plutonium in children, are poorly understood. 

Turning to the risks associated with medical procedures, Prof 
Goodhead said at his London press conference yesterday: "It 
becomes a balance between the medical benefit of the diagnosis 
and the risk of the procedure. 

"Doctors have got to make judgments and part of that surely must 
be knowing as well as possible what the risk is." 

The report recommends studies to better understand some of the 
recently discovered effects of radiation. It has been passed to 
the committee on medical aspects of radiation in the environment 
(Comare) which will advise the government directly. 

Last month Mr Meacher supported a minority report by two members 
of Cerrie, Richard Bramhall of the Low Level Radiation Campaign 
and Dr Chris Busby of Green Audit, who resigned and argued that 
the health effects of manmade radiation had been underestimated 
by a factor of at least 100. 

This week he said he feared that "really important evidence that 
ought to be in the public domain ... is being suppressed." 

"The traditional model [used by Cerrie] is based on the victims 
of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 and measures the impact of 
gamma radiation on the body," he said. 

The control samples taken for those studies were from people who 
lived so close by that they too had ingested traces of residual 
radiation from dust and debris. 

"The only effect measured, therefore, was the impact of radiation 
from the initial blasts. 

"Those living near nuclear reactors are obviously the most 
vulnerable [to ingesting radioactive material]. 

"My belief is that the traditional model may underestimate the 
[effects] by between 100 to 300 times, possibly more." 
	
 	
        Special report The nuclear industry

Graphics
The Mox ships' journey around the world (pdf)
[http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2002/09
/17/nuclear_ship.pdf] 
Nuclear map of Britain
US nuclear map

Useful links
British Energy [http://www.british-energy.com/] 
Department of Trade and Industry [http://www.dti.gov.uk/] 
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] 
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] 
Greenpeace [http://www.greenpeace.org/homepage/] 
HSE nuclear glossary [http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] 
UK atomic energy authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] 
National Radiological Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] 
Friends of the Earth
[http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/dump_nuc
lear/index.html] 
World Nuclear Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] 
World Nuclear Transport Institute [http://www.wnti.co.uk] 

[UP] 

      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 33 TheDay.com: Super-Secret Sub Goes Out Of Service
 		 		 		
Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004   								   									 										
												 												 												 										 										
What did the USS Parche do on those missions? her crew will
never tell

    
       Navy Photo  
  The attack submarine USS Parche returns to port for the final
time at the Marginal Pier at Naval Base Kitsap, Wash. The
Parche, the last active Sturgeon-class attack sub, was
decommissioned on Tuesday.  


By ROBERT A. HAMILTON Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric 
Boat Published on 10/20/2004

Chief Petty Officer Richard Okrasinski of Plainfield wears the 
black, gold and red ribbon of a Presidential Unit Citation, one 
of the most prestigious medals in any of the services.

 He can't tell you what he did to earn it. He can't even tell you 
when he got it. But if you obtain a copy of his service history, 
you can narrow it down to sometime between 1996 and 2000, when he 
served on the USS Parche.

 The Parche, the Navy's double-super-secret spy submarine, was 
taken out of service Tuesday in Bangor, Wash., ending more than 
three decades of spook missions by submariners who are 
notoriously closed-mouth, even by the standards of the Silent 
Service.

 The Parche earned its own chapter in the book Blind Man's 
Bluff, which detailed a number of Cold War submarine missions, 
but people who know about submarines say the book barely 
scratched the surface of what the Parche has done over the past 
32 years. And the Parche sailors aren't talking, not even to 
other submariners.

 If an admiral asked a junior enlisted man on the Parche crew how 
he earned the medals on his chest, the admiral would get a polite 
refusal to answer.

 Most people have come to understand that I'm not going to tell 
them anything about that part of my life, Okrasinski said. My 
wife doesn't want to know, my father is curious, and my mother 
doesn't even want to admit I go to sea  she worries about me 
whenever I'm not at home.

 We mostly did a really good job of keeping a very low profile, 
said Adam Bridge of Davis, Calif., who put the Parche into 
commission as a nuclear electronics technician in 1972 and served 
aboard the sub until August 1977.

 Civilians just look at you and say, Oh yeah, a submarine. 
Great.' But every once in a while someone will have read Blind 
Man's Bluff' and starts to ask questions, Bridge said in a 
telephone interview. I just say there's nothing I can comment 
on, that by the nature of their operations, all submarine 
missions are secret. 

And then I add that, as a taxpayer, I think they got their 
money's worth.

 Bridge's son, Eric, is a machinist mate 3rd class aboard the 
Jimmy Carter, the third Seawolf-class submarine that is being 
heavily modified at Electric Boat to fill the void left by 
Parche's decommissioning. 

We've already defined a set of boundaries, Bridge said. We 
agreed that if I ask a question and he doesn't know the answer, 
he will say, I don't know.' And if the answer would be something 
that he can't speak about, he'll say, I can't say.' 

 """

 The Parche is a stretch hull Sturgeon-class submarine, one of 
nine lengthened by 10 feet to 302 feet to accommodate extra 
equipment.

 It's rumored that the Parche was the quietest of the nine, and 
was picked for more extensive modifications in the late 1970s at 
Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California, including a 100-foot 
special section that gave it a unique ocean interface, which 
meant it could deploy divers or special equipment without 
surfacing.

 For the last quarter-century it has boasted some unusual 
features that are visible on top of its hull as well, but nobody 
has ever offered any explanations for their use.

 I used to say forward of the sail is our bowling alley, and 
back by the stern was just the hump, Okrasinski said. Most 
people were interested in what was up front.

 The Parche was originally homeported in Charleston, S.C. It was 
moved to Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the 1970s when it began 
doing special missions, and then to Bangor, Wash., after its 
modifications were completed.

 Because of the demand for its services, the Parche has long been 
one of the busiest boats in the fleet. Okrasinski said during his 
first year he did 200 days at sea. Whereas other attack 
submarines would do six months at sea followed by 18 months of 
shore time, maintenance and local operations, Parche did two or 
three three-month deployments every year, as well as a 
three-month repair period.

 The Parche was also the only attack submarine homeported in 
Bangor for most of its life, in part because the Navy didn't want 
the crew mingling with other SSN sailors, or even with the 
ballistic missile submarine crews that call Bangor home.

 Nobody talked to the Parche sailors, Okrasinski said. We 
lived in our own barracks, had our own pier, and had our own 
parking. We just kept to ourselves.

 """

 Retired Vice Adm. Bernard M. Kauderer, who was commander of the 
Pacific and Atlantic submarine forces at a time when the Parche 
had already established its reputation in the 1980s, said he was 
delighted to learn that the Carter would get a special 100-foot 
hull section to replace the capabilities that will be lost with 
the Parche's decommissioning.

 The way the program is planned, it can sustain a gap, Kauderer 
said. 

In fact, he said, with the Carter slated to go on sea trials next 
year and to be delivered to the Navy shortly after that, it won't 
be much different than if the Parche had gone in for an overhaul.

 You just plan the kind of operations this submarine does for 
when the asset is available, Kauderer said. It's not like a 
normal SSN (attack submarine), where it has to be instantly 
available to surge. These are very carefully planned operations, 
planned well in advance, so it's easy to plan something like this 
around the schedule.

 It's a great move to have a specially configured submarine 
asset ready to perform those very unique missions. It's a mission 
that no other platform, really, can conduct.

 There is one Parche mission that leaked out to the public, 
thanks to Ronald Pelton, a National Security Agency analyst who 
spied for the Russians in the 1970s and 1980s. 

For five years, the submarine snuck into shallow water in the Sea 
of Okhotsk between two large Soviet naval bases to tap a 
communications cable that carried military signals. Parche might 
have been caught in the act if not for satellite photos that 
showed intense Soviet interest in the area before it went in to 
retrieve the recordings that its tap had made.

 It's not a mission that the Navy can credibly deny  the tap is 
in a museum at the former KGB headquarters in Moscow.

 It was missions like that, and others even more hair-raising, 
that have earned the submarine a number of Presidential Unit 
Citations. The medal is awarded for extraordinary heroism in 
accomplishing a mission under extremely difficult and hazardous 
conditions. It is a rarity on the Groton waterfront, and if you 
see it on a sailor you can be sure he's done a tour on the Parche 
at some point. Some jokingly call it the Parche Unit Citation.

 Does it bother him that he can't discuss why he earned such a 
prestigious award?

 Not really, he said. There was a reason that we got it, and I 
understand there is a reason we can't talk about the reason.

 r.hamilton@theday.com   

About The Day Publishing Company

1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.   	 	
*****************************************************************
 34 Public Citizen: Bush Administration Fails to Effectively Fortify 
Nation’s Defenses Against Terrorism; Statement of Public Citizen 
President Joan Claybrook
 
Oct. 18, 2004 

Since the 9/11 attacks, President Bush has made protection of
the American people from terrorism the rhetorical centerpiece of
his presidency.  He has continued to warn of terrorist attacks,
and the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly raised
the alert levels. 

But are Americans safer today as a result of this
administrations efforts to fortify our key infrastructure
against attacks?  The answer is a resounding no.  The White
House says Americans are safer, but the rhetoric does not match
the reality on the ground. 

The polls show that this is an area Americans are deeply
concerned about. 

The fact is, while focusing most of its efforts on aviation
security and overseas wars, this administration has failed to
take the steps necessary to protect the public from potentially
catastrophic attacks on chemical plants, nuclear reactors,
seaports, hazardous materials transport and water systems. 

Prior to 9/11, these were highly vulnerable, high-impact targets
 and they still are today. 

Just 4 to 6 percent of the 8 million cargo containers that
arrive at our ports every year are inspected.  Millions of
containers are loaded directly onto trucks and train cars that
travel into our cities and into the heartland.  Imagine the
massive loss of life and the economic gridlock that would ensue
if terrorists managed to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction
into our ports.  But this president  and his Republican
Congress  have barely lifted a finger to secure the ports,
which are $1 billion short of funding to make what the Coast
Guard says are basic, needed improvements. 

But the problem with this administration is much deeper than
money. 

Eighty-five percent of this countrys critical infrastructure
lies in the hands of private business.  Most corporations simply
will not spend the money to secure the homeland unless the
government creates standards and enforces those standards.  This
administration, which has filled the top levels of government
with corporate CEOs, lobbyists and lawyers, simply does not want
to regulate business  even when the safety and security of
Americans is at stake. 

Corporate lobbyists have worked to block new security
initiatives needed to protect us from the gravest threats. These
risks include toxic clouds from chemical plants that remain
unsecured. 

The administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
actually opposed legislation that would have required nuclear
plants to withstand attacks comparable to 9/11, and the NRC is
even proposing to weaken fire safety standards at nuclear
reactors. 

Security requirements for trucks that carry hazardous materials
are ridiculously weak. Although the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration has conducted site visits with these carriers, it
has hesitated to issue crucial standards, opposes electronic
tracking systems, and has undermined the power of others to
improve security. 

In addition, the administration and Congress have failed to
provide the funds needed just to assess the vulnerabilities of
local drinking water systems. 

This administration has worked hand-in-hand with corporate
lobbyists.  Maybe its because these industries were talking
about have provided 30 of President Bushs Rangers and Pioneers,
his super fund-raisers. Maybe its because they have contributed
almost $20 million to his campaigns, his inauguration committee
and the Republican National Committee since the 2000 election
cycle.  Maybe its because they spent $200 million to lobby the
White House and Congress. 

Whether it is blind obedience to an anti-regulation ideology or
simply cronyism with campaign financiers, or both  this
president and this Congress are not getting the job done.  The
report we are releasing today outlines these failures and the
money connections in great detail. 

This tragic failure must be confronted if the United States is
going to secure our highly vulnerable vital infrastructure
against terrorism.  Failure to do so will not only result in
needless deaths and injuries but terrible disruption of our
economy as well. 

### 

To read the press release, click here
[http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1808] . 

*****************************************************************
 35 News & Star: Fears over low level radiation
 						
Published on20/10/2004                                                                                                                                              
                                                        
A REPORT out today claims that low level radiation from nuclear 
plants such as Sellafield could be more harmful than previously 
thought.
 
Former Environment Minister Michael Meacher originally set up the 
Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters 
(CERRIE), which publishes its findings today.
 
But Mr Meacher claims the committee has ignored the views of two 
experts who disagree with the way the findings have been 
analysed.
 
The two experts, Richard Bramhall and Chris Busby, have published 
their own report, claiming that radiation doses to children 
across Europe who developed leukaemia could have been 100 times 
higher than assumed.
 
						 					 				 				 					
[http://www.nwemail.co.uk/]  | 
[http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/] | 
[http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/] 				| 
[http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/] 			 		 		 	 		 	 
*****************************************************************
 36 News & Star: Questions raised over nuclear radiatioin risks
 						
Published on 20/10/2004                                                                                                                                              
                                                        
Low level radiation from nuclear plants may be up to 10 times 
more hazardous than has been previously estimated, a panel of 
experts said today.
 
A committee set up to examine radiation safety said action was 
needed to take on board new information about the risks from 
radioactive particles that can be swallowed or inhaled.
 
But the report from the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of 
Internal Emitters (CERRIE) fell well short of the controversial 
claims made by two of it’s members that radiation doses to 
child leukaemia victims across Europe could have been a 100 times 
higher than experts believe.
 
CERRIE pointed out that uncertainties meant that the risk faced 
by people exposed to nuclear particles could range from 10 times 
the previous estimate to almost zero.
 
However the report concluded there was no “no clear evidence” 
that current radiation risk assessments were “substantially 
wrong”.
 
The Government radiation watchdog, COMARE (Committee On Medical 
Aspects of Radiation in the Environment) said it agreed with 
CERRIE that available data did not support a “speculative 
hypothesis” that the risks were radically underestimated.
 
It also agreed with the majority view of CERRIE that present 
evidence did not indicate a need for a fundamental change in 
radiological protection standards.
 
But COMARE added that it had reservations about the way CERRIE 
was set up and in particular how it’s composition “was 
influenced by environmental politics rather than science”.
 
CERRIE was established by former environment minister Michael 
Meacher in 2001 following concerns about radiation risks, 
including reports of increased incidents of cancer near nuclear 
sites and in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
 
Last month Mr Meacher sparked a row by accusing the committee of 
gagging two dissenting experts.
 
He made his attack at the launch of a “minority report” from 
the experts, Richard Bramhall and Chris Busby, who argued that 
the risk of cancer from low level radiation was much higher than 
officials estimated.
 
According to their theory, inhaled radioactive particles could 
lodge in the body of a foetus and damage cells in a confined 
area.
 
Unborn children were said to be especially at risk, the hazard 
could explain clusters of leukaemia cases near nuclear 
installations in North Wales and Essex, and the Sellafield 
Reprocessing plant in Cumbria, it was claimed.
 
Mr Meacher alleged that attempts had been made to keep a lid on 
the evidence. He told the Guardian :“The idea was to examine 
all the questions, and where there was disagreement to recommend 
further research. It is criminally irresponsible not to allow all 
the evidence to come out so there can be a properly organised, 
informed public debate.”
 
Even before the row over reports, the issue had divided members 
of the committee. One nuclear scientist, Marian Hill, who was 
part of the committee’s secretariat, resigned alleging 
establishment bias.
 
Launching today’s report, CERRIE chairman Professor Dudley 
Goodhead said: “The main findings of the committee’s report 
is that we have to be particularly careful in judging the risks 
of radioactive sources inside the body. The uncertainties in 
these internal radiation risks can be large and these need to be 
taken properly into account in policy and regulatory decisions.
 
“There is much public debate about the risks to health from 
ionising radiation, with widely differing views being held. This 
is particularly so with radiation from radioactive materials 
taken into the body, whether from nuclear discharges, or natural 
sources of radioactivity in air and food. The CERRIE committee 
was set up to reflect these differing views.
 
“The report examines the views of all members, including 
hypothesis for very large risks put forward by two members, who 
finally dissented from the report. The committee concluded that 
the available scientific evidence did not support these 
hypothesis and, in many cases, substantially contradicted 
them.”
 
The report warned that newly discovered affects of radiation, 
including long term damage to DNA within cells, and inherited DNA 
changes, were “real biological events that need further 
research”.
 
nw evening mail 
[http://www.nwemail.co.uk/]  |
cumberland news [http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/] | times and 
star [http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/] | whitehaven news 
[http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/]                                                                                         
*****************************************************************
 37 [NukeNet] UT governor warns that risks of nuke waste shipments
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:05:47 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
         boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C4B6E8.35A988EC"

Actually, very little if any testing or evaluation on transport of 
irradiated nuclear fuel has been done, by the US Nuclear Waste Technical 
Review Board, DOE, NRC, DOT, or anyone else!



---Kevin Kamps, NIRS



--TRANSPORT SAFETY STUDY FOCUSED ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN WON'T HELP UTAH if a 
privately owned spent fuel storage facility opens there, Utah Gov. Olene 
Walker said. Transport cask safety and proposed routes for moving spent 
nuclear fuel from nuclear plants to a proposed federal repository in Nevada 
are being assessed in detail, but meantime, similar waste may be moved to a 
private sector storage facility in Utah "without the benefit of any 
testing, technical evaluation, planning, or emergency response 
preparedness," she said. In an address to the Nuclear Waste Technical 
Review Board's transportation panel today in Salt Lake City, Walker 
stressed that work is geared for the DOE repository program, which won't 
begin moving spent fuel before 2010. "However, if the proposed PFS [Private 
Fuel Storage] facility in Utah is licensed by the NRC, transportation of 
the same spent nuclear fuel could begin as early as 2006," she said. PFS, a 
consortium of nuclear utilities, is seeking an NRC license for 
away-from-reactor spent fuel storage on Goshute tribal lands in Utah.



---Platts Nuclear News Flashes, 10/14/04
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 38 Epoch Times: Dangerous Nuclear Waste Dumped in Tibet?
 
Oct 20, 2004  
      
The Dalai Lama’s representative in Tibet has accused the Chinese 
Communist Party (CCP) of dumping nuclear waste in Tibet and 
excessively extracting various resources such as oil, water, and 
timber. Even though the Dalai Lama did not respond directly to 
this accusation during a recent visit to Mexico City, he said 
more and more animals and birds have been born with deformities 
in remote areas of Tibet, indicating that the CCP has leaked 
dangerous nuclear waste there. 

The CCP has five nuclear bases in Tibet, and the largest 
intercontinental ballistic missile base in Asia. On Tibet’s 
northern plateau, the CCP detonated a nuclear device in 1964 and 
had discussions about using the area as a nuclear waste dump. 
Many residents and children living nearby have died from rare 
diseases, prompting fears of radiation leaking from a nearby 
nuclear weapons base at Lake Qingdao. 

As reported by the United Evening News, the Dalai Lama stated, 
“It follows common sense that the population density in China is 
so high, Tibet is the only place to dump nuclear waste.” 

Mexico was the Dalai Lama’s last stop in his recent visit to 
North America. Mr. Vicente Fox, the President of Mexico chose not 
to meet with him to avoid angering Beijing. 


Click here to read the original article in Chinese 
[http://epochtimes.com/gb/4/10/4/n679266.htm                    
                                                                
Chinese Version [http://www.epochtimes.com]  | About Us |
  Copyright 2004 - The Epoch Times   	 
*****************************************************************
 39 Bradenton Herald: Growth in Nevada may help Democrats

| 10/20/2004 | 

LAURA KURTZMAN

 Knight Ridder Newspapers

LAS VEGAS - In the four years since George W. Bush beat Al Gore 
by about 22,000 votes in Nevada, the state has added nearly 15 
times that many people. 

Many are thought to be blue-collar workers drawn by Las Vegas' 
thriving tourist industry, and as much as anything in this 
unsettled political season, these newcomers are keeping Nevada 
and its five electoral votes in play. 

Bush won the state by 4 percentage points in 2000 and Republicans 
swept all six statewide offices two years later. 

But as the nation's fastest-growing state, Nevada is beset by 
growth-related problems - from too few schools to inadequate 
health care - that could make the state ever more friendly to the 
Democrats. 

Nevada grew by a phenomenal 70 percent from 1990 to 2000. 

"Demographically, what you find is people who might be more 
likely to identify with the Democratic Party," said David Damore, 
an assistant professor of political science at the University of 
Nevada at Las Vegas. 

But he cautioned that the boom would help the Democrats only if 
they succeed in turning out their voters, an area where 
Republicans have always done better. "At the same time," he 
added, "I've never seen a year like this." 

With many different groups signing up voters, Democrats have seen 
a bonanza in registration numbers. 

Although they began the year at a numeric disadvantage, the 
Democrats pulled even with Republicans by August and are now 
slightly ahead, according to officials with both parties. The 
number of Democratic voters in Clark County, where Las Vegas is 
and where about 1.6 million of the state's 2.4 million people 
live, increased by 25 percent. 

Polls show the Nevada race remains tight. A Mason-Dixon poll for 
the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Review-Journal.com done in 
mid-September found Bush leading Democratic presidential 
challenger John Kerry 50 percent to 45 percent among likely 
voters in the state. The margin of error was 4 percentage points. 
Four other polls, all done before the first debate between Bush 
and Kerry on Sept. 30, also had Bush in the lead, with margins 
ranging from 2 to 9 percentage points. 

Some analysts are surprised to find that Bush needs to fight for 
the state. Nevada's booming economy, as evidenced by the 
construction cranes that rise above the Las Vegas strip, should 
be good news for the president. 

But his decision to allow the nation's nuclear waste to be stored 
at an underground repository in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas, appears to have hurt him with some 
voters. 

Republicans also are heartened by the presence of independent 
candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot, although he's barely 
registered in the polls. 

Democrats, however, may have other reasons to hope for victory. 

A ballot measure to raise the minimum wage and a hot race in the 
3rd congressional district, which includes the southern portion 
of Las Vegas, are expected to bring Democrats to the polls. 

An occasional series spotlighting key states in this year's 
election.   

*****************************************************************
 40 Guardian Unlimited: Notes, Quotes From 2004 Campaign in Nev.
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
Wednesday October 20, 2004 7:46 PM

By RON FOURNIER 

AP Political Writer 

A high-level nuclear waste site 90 miles outside Las Vegas may be 
Sen. John Kerry's main hope for beating President Bush in Nevada. 

The economy may not be as potent an issue as elsewhere, not with 
90,000 more jobs than when Bush took office. But a weak economy 
in other states reduces tourism, the key to Las Vegas' health. 

The state's demographics could help Kerry, because the 
Democratic-leaning Hispanic population is booming. But the 
president's team believes Bush can cut into Kerry's margins among 
Hispanics, and make up for any lost ground in the growing 
GOP-leaning suburbs around Las Vegas. 

Nevada is fighting the Bush administration over a decision to put 
a big nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas. 
Kerry has voted against it. Bush supports it. Kerry says Bush's 
stance broke a 2000 campaign promise; Bush's campaign says the 
president is following scientists' best advice. 

Despite the controversial nature of the site, polls suggest that 
it's not the top issue for Nevada voters. Homeland security and 
the war on terror rank higher, and those are Bush's political 
strengths. But Kerry's team says his ratings in Nevada spike 
every time he visits the state and makes an issue of the dump. 
They plan to increase their criticism of Bush's position, using 
it to argue more broadly that Bush's word can't be trusted. 

Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in Nevada by 4 percentage points in 
2000. Polls show the race this year is close, with Bush clinging 
to a slender lead in some surveys. 

The state is part of the so-called cactus caucus, along with 
Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Arizona is leaning Bush while 
Colorado (won by Bush in 2000) and New Mexico (won by Gore) are 
up for grabs. 

--- 

BY THE NUMBERS: 

5 - Nevada's electoral votes. 

1.1 million - Record number of Nevadans registered to vote. More
than 800,000 registered as Republicans or Democrats - almost
equally divided. Some 155,000 nonpartisan. 

22 - Percentage of Nevadans who are Hispanic. 

17 - Consecutive years, including this year, Nevada has led the
nation in rate of population growth. 

--- 

QUOTABLE: 

- ``What bothers me is when anybody starts picking on the
veterans.'' - Carson City ironworker Donnie Woods. ``John Kerry
was on a Swift boat in the Mekong Delta. That's a narrow river,
taking machine gun fire from both sides. Where was Bush? Texas?
Alabama? Playing pingpong and drinking beer?'' 

- ``I like the idea that he's letting the war be on someone
else's turf instead of ours'' - Andy Jaramillo, 50, of Reno,
speaking of Bush. ``And since nothing else has happened in the
country since Sept. 11, I think he has done a good job.'' 

--- 

NOTABLE: 

With more than 100 get-out-the-vote organizations operating in
Nevada, the number of newly registered voters exceeded 230,000,
more than triple the number during the 2000 election. 

Besides the presidential race, Nevadans are being drawn to the
polls by ballot questions that deal with malpractice insurance
and frivolous lawsuits, by state Supreme Court contests and by
legislative races that have focused on positions taken by
incumbents during a big tax battle in 2003. 

--- 

WHAT TO WATCH ON ELECTION NIGHT: 

When the first returns come in, most of the numbers will reflect
early voting that preceded the actual Election Day balloting.
The percentage of the vote that opposing candidates get in the
early voting historically has been close to the final results. 

--- 

IN NEVADA FOUR YEARS AGO: 

During his only visit to Nevada in 2000, Bush said any decision
on the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain would be
based on ``sound science.'' That statement was slightly stronger
than Al Gore's - and some Democrats say it was just enough to
swing voter sentiment Bush's way. He ended up with 49.5 percent
of the vote to Gore's 46 percent - and then approved the dump in
early 2002. 

--- 

AP Correspondent Brendan Riley contributed to this report from
Carson City. 

--- 

On the Net: 

An interactive look:
http://wid.ap.org/campaign2004/battleground-nv.html 
  
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 41 Salt Lake Tribune: Panel tosses hotter-waste ban proposal
 			 			 			 			 			 			
 [http://www.sltrib.com]       

Article Last Updated: 10/20/2004 03:10:12 AM                              

  By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune 
  	   
  A legislative task force on Tuesday killed a proposed bill to
ban B and C level radioactive waste in Utah. The vote favoring
the bill was 5-4 by House members, 3-4 by senators. It would
have had to pass both bodies for the committee to send it on for
further legislative review. Here is how the committee members
voted:
   Against a ban
   
   Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo
   Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park
   Sen. Beverly Evans, R-Altamont
   Sen. Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City
   Rep. David Hogue, R-Riverton
   Rep. Eli Anderson, D-Tremonton
   Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan
   Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove
   
   For a ban
   
   Sen. Patrice Arent, D-Murray (sponsor)
   Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights
   Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan
   Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George
   Rep. Pat Jones, D-Holladay
   Rep. Susan Lawrence, R-East Millcreek
   Rep. Joe Murray, R-Ogden
   Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville

    A last-ditch attempt to recommend banning a certain type of
radioactive waste from Utah died Tuesday at the final meeting of
a legislative task force charged with reviewing state law on
hazardous waste regulation and taxation.

   Sen. Patrice Arent, D-Murray, crafted the proposal that would
have prevented any entity in the state - so far, limited to
Envirocare of Utah - from accepting so-called class B and C
radioactive waste while also forbidding the waste from being
known as "low-level." It lost by a single vote. Had it passed,
the committee would have sent it to lawmakers for further action.

   Sen. Curtis Bramble, the Provo Republican whose legislation
established the Hazardous Waste Regulation and Tax Policy Task
Force and who served   as its co-chairman, said an overt ban
isn't needed because state law now says no company can accept B
and C waste without express permission from both the Legislature
and the governor.

   "Our position today is it's banned. It's illegal," said
Bramble. An outright ban could be unconstitutional, he said.

   But the committee's legislative counsel, Robert Rees, said
there was no constitutional problem with a ban. And critics
testifying at Tuesday's hearing said the committee, by refusing
to endorse Arent's proposal, left the door open to Envirocare. 

   Others professed bewilderment that lawmakers haven't already
banned hotter waste, given residents' opposition.

   "That is your central failure in your report and the work
you've done today," said Salt Lake County resident Mary Draper.

   Provo resident Jim O'Neal said the task force's
recommendation was a weak watchdog.

    "It doesn't bark. It doesn't whimper. It will never bite,"
he said.

   The years, approved a draft report on radioactive waste issues 
and forwarded to the Legislature a proposed bill to set up new 
oversight regulations for Envirocare.

   The Tooele County disposal site accepts about 98 percent of
the nation's class A low-level radioactive waste. Class A waste,
the least radioactive but most abundant form of nuclear waste,
is the only type now permitted in Utah. B and C waste can be
thousands of times more radioactive, and includes some material
from nuclear power plants.

    Envirocare has received a permit from the state Division of
Radiation Control to receive higher-level B and C waste that
expires in June 2006. Tim Barney, Envirocare senior vice
president, said after Tuesday's hearing that the company "has no
plans" to pursue renewal of the permit.

   A Tribune poll in January showed 86 percent of Utahns oppose
higher levels of waste coming into the state. Jon   Huntsman Jr.
and Scott Matheson Jr., the two major candidates for governor,
oppose allowing hotter waste into the state.

   "The public should demand that Envirocare terminate its
license to dump higher level waste in Utah," said Jason
Groenewold, Healthy Environment Alliance spokesman. "The good
thing is we have two gubernatorial candidates willing to lead on
this issue. It doesn't look like the Legislature is willing to."

   The task force recommended that the state Solid and Hazardous
Waste Control Board every five years review whether enough money
is being set aside to manage the Envirocare site in the
centuries after it closes.

   The draft report also recommended increased fines for
violating state law on hazardous waste and new rules for the
disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), toxic compounds
used in electrical equipment. It also recommends elimination of
a tax exemption on mixed wastes.

   The panel approved language in its report declaring that 
low-level radioactive waste operations in the state "pose a lower 
risk than many other chemical and mining facilities that 
currently operate in the state." But it decided not to draft 
legislation governing ownership of the site during the "perpetual 
care" time period, which begins 100 years after the site is 
cleaned up and padlocked.
   
© Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 42 Salt Lake Tribune: 1st Congressional district debate turns radioactive                                                                                                                                              

[http://www.sltrib.com] 

Article Last Updated: 10/20/2004 02:06:36 AM 

By Kirsten Stewart The Salt Lake Tribune 

Education, nuclear waste and the survival of Hill Air Force 
Base were among the issues debated by candidates for Utah's 1st 
Congressional district Tuesday evening at KUED. 

The debate, broadcast live and before a studio audience, 
marked one of a handful of times that one-term Republican Rob 
Bishop and Democratic challenger Steve Thompson will square off 
this election season. 

Both have been criticized for mounting lackluster campaigns. 
But on Tuesday, they dug into a broad range of issues, 
disagreeing mostly on practice, not principle. 

Saving Hill AFB from closure ranks at the top of both 
candidates' priority lists. Bishop's strategy is to expand 
activities at the Utah Test and Training Range and Dugway 
Proving Ground in Tooele to ensure that Utah stays on the 
Department of Defense's map. 

Thompson, a Logan City councilman, emphasized the role that 
cities and counties play by investing in the "infrastructure" - 
schools and community centers - that keep the Roy community 
thriving. 

They also agree that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) isn't 
working in Utah. 

Bishop, a former teacher, wasn't in Congress when President 
Bush's education reform package was approved, but said he would 
have voted against it. 

"If you want to reform education, you need parental choice, 
not high-stakes tests administered by bureaucrats in Washington 
or Utah," Bishop said. 

Thompson, a small businessman, criticized the Republican 
Congress that passed NCLB for taking control away from "our 
teachers and administrators who know best" and then failing to 
fund the reform. 

Doing so forced state lawmakers to Thompson said. 

The exchange grew heated when an audience-member asked 
candidates what they will do to prevent the temporary storage of 
spent nuclear fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. 

Thompson saw the question as an opportunity to slam Bishop 
for proposing a change in the law that would have allowed 
Envirocare of Utah to dispose of more highly radioactive 
material than it now accepts. Bishop once lobbied for Envirocare 
at the state Legislature. 

"That's bad government. We ought to send [Bishop] back to 
Brigham City to teach school," said Thompson, who believes 
Republicans and Democrats need to come to a bipartisan agreement 
on what to do with radioactive and nuclear waste. 

Bishop opted against rebutting Thompson's remarks, choosing 
to "stick to the question" and tout his bill, which seeks to 
establish a wilderness area in Utah's west desert, thereby 
blocking a rail line needed to deliver waste to the reservation. 

© Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 43 FLORIDA TODAY: Scientist touts gypsum as landfill life-extender 

   [http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/index.htm]   
  
 Oct 19, 8:54 PM 

EPA reviews environment, health worries for radioactive byproduct 

BY JIM WAYMER FLORIDA TODAY 

A former Florida Tech professor wants to mix a low-grade 
radioactive byproduct of phosphate mining with our garbage to 
help rot away refuse at the Cocoa landfill. 

If it works, his technique could double the life span of 
landfills and cut the cost we pay to expand them. 

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has held up 
Chih-Shin Shieh's research for more than four years because of 
concerns about the health and environmental risk of the gypsum 
left over from fertilizer manufacturing. 

"The whole thing was very frustrating for many, many years," said 
Shieh, a former Florida Tech scientist-turned-environmental 
consultant. Several other Florida Tech scientists and one from 
the Florida Solar Energy Center would be involved with the 
research. 

"We might find it's not practical in the field. First, we want to 
make sure there's no negative impact on the environment." 

The EPA plans to decide by late November whether to allow 25 tons 
of gypsum -- about one semi-tractor trailer from a US 
Agri-Chemicals Corp. mine in Fort Meade -- to go into Brevard's 
landfill at 2250 Adamson Road, west of Cocoa. The gypsum could 
arrive about three months after EPA approval, as cover for 
several layers of garbage. 

EPA approval for the pilot project could open the regulatory door 
for new ways to manage the 32 million tons of radioactive gypsum 
stacked up annually in Florida. 

Gypsum from Florida's phosphate mines is stored in 25 huge piles 
called stacks, some nearly 200 feet tall and each covering as 
much as 740 acres. EPA studies of samples from stacks have found 
arsenic, lead, cadmium and copper at levels high enough to pose 
significant health risk. 

In storms, the acidic water in gypsum ponds atop the stacks also 
threaten nearby fish and wildlife. The state required several 
phosphate plants to release about 400 million gallons to prevent 
worse spills from dike breaches during the hurricanes. 

Some spills occurred anyway, and state regulators say fines are 
pending. Two spills in September dumped about 75 million gallons 
and may have caused fish kills in Tampa Bay. 

EPA officials say the stacks still are the best way to store the 
gypsum and that the Brevard project must first do no harm. 

"We haven't seen any safer alternative yet than stacking them," 
said John Millett, a spokesman for EPA in Washington, D.C. "They 
need to pass the test to be as safe as the stacks themselves." 

Health concerns

Natural gypsum, used to make wallboard, is relatively harmless. 
But EPA has concerns about the increased cancer risk from 
exposure to the gypsum left over from phosphate mining, called 
phosphogypsum, because it is from slightly more radioactive 
phosphate rock. 

The EPA's concerns revolve around the prospect that homes might 
one day go on top of the radioactive material. Those pushing the 
Shieh's research say that even if that happened, the increased 
lifetime risk is nil, about that of smoking one cigarette. 

"It would take a ton and half of phosphogypsum to equal the 
radiation you have in a smoke detector," said Mike Lloyd, 
director of chemical processing research at the Florida Institute 
of Phosphate Research, a trade association established by the 
state Legislature in 1978 and funded by the phosphate industry. 
The institute would pay for the $653,000, four-year study at the 
Brevard landfill. 

Another study commissioned by the institute found less than a 
three-in-10,000 risk of cancer for someone living their entire 
life atop a landfill with the gypsum. 

"For people putting the phosphogypsum on as daily cover, or 
people living next door or playing soccer on a covered landfill, 
the risk is zero, it's tiny," said Doug Chambers, a health 
physicist at SENES, the Toronto firm that conducted the study. 

David Birch, 37, still wants to know more about the risks. He has 
others to consider at his home, which sits a stone's throw from 
the landfill's northern edge. 

"If it's dangerous, I've got kids around here and pets," he said 
this week. "I've never even heard about it." 

'Unduly pessimistic'

The gypsum that would go into the landfill is more than twice as 
radioactive as what EPA allows farmers to fertilize soil with. 

The agency's health risk studies led to a 1992 ban on use of 
phosphogypsum that exceeds 10 picocuries per gram of 
radioactivity. Shieh wants a waiver of that rule to put 
phosphogypsum with 24.8 picocuries per gram of radioactivity into 
the landfill. 

"Personally, I think the EPA risk assessment is flawed. I think 
they're unduly pessimistic here," Chambers said. 

Lloyd said the gypsum could greatly lessen the expense of 
landfills. Brevard's, for example, has enough space for another 
11 years of garbage, said Euri Rodriguez, Brevard's solid waste 
director. To expand it another 40 acres would cost roughly $9 
million. Additional 40-acre landfill "cells" on top of that -- 
each cell lasts about five years -- would also cost several 
million dollars each. The gypsum could defer that spending. 

"You would save about 50 percent of the volume of the landfill in 
about five years," Lloyd said. 

While clay layers and plastic liners keep contaminants from 
leaking out of landfills, they also "entomb" the garbage, 
preventing the elements from decomposing it. The gypsum would add 
a source of energy and oxygen to speed up decomposition. 
Landfills could conceivably handle about one-tenth of Florida's 
gypsum waste, Shieh said. 

If allowed as fill for roadbeds, the stuff could cut the cost of 
road building by $100,000 a mile, Lloyd said. 

Shieh hopes to clear the regulatory hurdles soon and try what 
he's seen work so well in the lab. 

"We hope this will help solve the phosphogypsum management 
problem in Florida," he said. "We want to be creative and help 
solve the problem."

Contact Waymer at 242-3663 or jwaymer@flatoday.net 

Process of approval 

+ The Environmental Protection Agency plans to publish in late 
November notice of its intended decision on the phosphogypsum 
pilot project. Notice would go in newspapers and libraries near 
the test site in Brevard and where the stack is located in Fort 
Meade. The public has 30 days after that to comment on EPA's 
decision. 

+ If there are no substantive comments, such as data or research, 
EPA's decision becomes final. If there are, EPA will review, 
possibly revise and issue final approval or denial of the 
petition. 

For more information 

For information about phosphogypsum, visit the Florida Institute 
of Phosphate Research: http://fipr.state.fl.us/southintro.htm 

Phosphogypsum and radiation 

+ Radiation is measured in picocuries per gram. 

+ Phosphogypsum from Central Florida is 20 to 35 picocuries per
gram. 

+ In 1992, EPA banned use of phosphogypsum, except that which has 
less than 10 picocuries per gram. The ban was based on a cancer 
risk of one in 10,000 to one in 1 million over a 70-year life 
span. 

+ A former Florida Tech researcher wants an exception to that 
rule to use phosphogypsum containing 24.8 picocuries per gram. 

Source: Florida Institute of Phosphate Research and EPA 

   [charrison@flatoday.net]     Submit a letter to the Editor   

  [http://www.flatoday.com/terms.htm] (updated December 2002).
                Copyright © 2004 FLORIDA TODAY. 
*****************************************************************
 44 Pahrump Valley Times: Anti-Yucca meeting Thursday 

October 20, 2004

PVT 

The grassroots environmental group Citizen Alert is hosting a 
series of town hall meetings in 25 Nevada communities as part of 
a "Back to Our Routes" tour. The presentations are a forum to 
remind Nevadans that the use of Yucca Mountain as a repository 
for nuclear waste can still be prevented. Attendees will receive 
up-to-date information and materials they can use to contest the 
Yucca Mountain project.

 Citizen Alert will provide advocacy training, teaching attendees 
how to get involved and how to influence their elected officials.

 Citizen Alert will be at the Bob Ruud Community Center from 6-8 
p.m. Thursday. 

		 		   	 

For comment or questions, please e-mail 
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com 
[webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com] Copyright © Pahrump Valley 
Times, 1997 - 2004 
*****************************************************************
 45 Hindustan Times: New Zealand asks India to sign NPT

   [http://www.hindustantimes.com/

  Wednesday, October 20, 2004 | Updated: 22:10 IST    

  New Zealand asks India to sign NPT, curb economic protectionism  

   Press Trust of India
    
New Zealand, a leading advocate of nuclear disarmament, on 
Wednesday said India and other countries should become parties to 
nuclear non-proliferation and comprehensive test ban treaties.

It also called for changes in India's economic policies to reduce 
the high levels of protectionism and facilitate greater market 
access.

"While New Zealand and India see eye to eye on most issues there 
are inevitably some points of difference....We have always urged 
nations to become parties to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty 
and the comprehensive test ban treaty", New Zealand Prime 
Minister Helen Clark said.

New Zealand declared itself nuclear free in the 1980s and remains 
proudly so, she said addressing an industry function.

She said her country saw India as more fully engaged 
internationally now than at any time since the 1960s.

"It is important for us to have a stepped up dialogue with India 
on a wide range of issues, from those of mutual interest in the 
Asia-Pacific, west Asia, central Asia to the WTO's Doha Round and 
United Nations reform", she added.

Clark also expressed concern that her country's export growth had 
been constrained by continuing high levels of protection in India 
and a higher exchange rate.

New Zealand will continue to advocate changes in India's economic 
policy settings to give competitive primary produce exporters 
like New Zealand better prospects, she said.

"To date, Indian companies have been more active in New Zealand 
than the other way round", she added.   

[salil@hindustantimes.com]   
  
   [http://www.hindustantimes.com]   © 
*****************************************************************
 46 SU: McNamara: No nukes 

Stanford University Home [http://www.stanford.edu]   
    
October 20, 2004   
 
  Rod Searcey [mcnamara]       

Forty-two years ago this week, the United States and the Soviet
Union came within a hair's breadth of unleashing nuclear
destruction upon one another during the Cuban missile crisis,
Robert McNamara, defense secretary under the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations, told scholars and others gathered at a dinner
Monday night organized by the Center for International Security
and Cooperation. In post-Cold War meetings between principal
players in the crisis, including Soviet generals and Fidel
Castro, it became clear that the decision-making process of all
three governments had been distorted by misinformation and
misjudgment, he said. "Events will always slip out of control,"
McNamara said as he repeated one of the lessons delineated in
the 2004 documentary Fog of War: The indefinite combination of
human fallibility with nuclear weapons leads to human
destruction. "The only way to eliminate the risk is to eliminate
nuclear weapons," he said. The current weapons policy of the
United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is
folly, the 88-year-old McNamara said. In 45 years of working on
nuclear weapons issues, "I've never seen a document outlining a
plan that shows how we would benefit by using nuclear weapons,"
he said. To use such weapons against a nuclear state is suicide,
to use them against a non-nuclear state would be politically
unwise and morally repugnant, he added. --Barbara Palmer 


*****************************************************************
 47 DOE: Office of Science; Biological and Environmental Research
 
                        FR Doc 04-23480 
[Federal Register: October 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 202)] 
[Notices] [Page 61660-61661] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20oc04-48]                         
 
Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Biological and 
Environmental Research Advisory Committee. Federal Advisory 
Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public 
notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Wednesday, November 3, 2004, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and 
Thursday, November 4, 2004, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: American Geophysical Union, 2000 Florida Avenue, NW., 
Washington, DC 20009.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. David Thomassen 
(301-903-9817; david.thomassen@science.doe.gov 
[david.thomassen@science.doe.gov] ), or Ms. Shirley Derflinger 
(301-903- 0044; shirley.derflinger@science.doe.gov 
[shirley.derflinger@science.doe.gov] ), Designated Federal 
Officers, Biological and Environmental Research Advisory 
Committee, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office 
of Biological
 
[[Page 61661]] and Environmental Research, SC-70/Germantown 
Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 
20585-1290. The most current information concerning this meeting 
can be found on the Web site: 
http://www.science.doe.gov/ober/berac/announce.html 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.science.doe.gov/ober/berac/anno 
unce.html] .
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Meeting: To provide 
advice on a continuing basis to the Director, Office of Science 
of the Department of Energy, on the many complex scientific and 
technical issues that arise in the development and implementation 
of the Biological and Environmental Research Program.
 
Tentative Agenda Wednesday, November 3, and Thursday, November 4, 
2004: Comments from Dr. Raymond Orbach, Director, Office of 
Science.
 
Report of Subcommittee on Genomics: GTL Facility for the 
Production and Characterization of Proteins and Molecular Tags.
 
Report by Dr. Ari Patrinos, Associate Director of Science for 
Biological and Environmental Research.
 
Discussion of process that BERAC will use to regularly evaluate 
BER's interim progress towards achieving its long term 
performance goals.
 
Update on the Artificial Retina.
 
Final Report of the Committee of Visitors review of the Climate 
Change Research Division.
 
Preliminary Report of the Committee of Visitors review of the 
Environmental Remediation Sciences Research Division.
 
Discussion of BERAC report on future directions and beneficial 
uses of synthetic genome research.
 
Presentation on ES Net.
 
BER Distinguished Scientist Award Program.
 
Science talk.
 
New business.
 
Public comment (10 minute rule).
 
Public Participation: The day and a half meeting is open to the 
public. If you would like to file a written statement with the 
Committee, you may do so either before or after the meeting. If 
you would like to make oral statements regarding any of the items 
on the agenda, you should contact David Thomassen or Shirley 
Derflinger at the address or telephone numbers listed above. You 
must make your request for an oral statement at least five 
business days before the meeting. Reasonable provision will be 
made to include the scheduled oral statements on the agenda. The 
Chairperson of the Committee will conduct the meeting to 
facilitate the orderly conduct of business.
 
Public comment will follow the 10-minute rule. This notice is 
being published less than 15 days before the date of the meeting 
due to programmatic issues that had to be resolved prior to 
publication.
 
Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public 
review and copying within 30 days at the Freedom of Information 
Public Reading Room, IE-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC between 9 a.m. and 4 
p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
 
Issued in Washington, DC on October 15, 2004.
 
Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee, Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23480 Filed 10-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 48 DOE: National Coal Council
 
                        FR Doc 04-23481 
[Federal Register: October 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 202)] 
[Notices] [Page 61662] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20oc04-50]                         
 
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the National Coal 
Council (NCC). Federal Advisory Committee Act (Public Law 92-463, 
86 Stats. 770) requires notice of these meetings be announced in 
the Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Wednesday, November 10, 2004, at 9 a.m. to 12 Noon.
 
ADDRESSES: Wyndham Washington Hotel, 1400 M Street, NW., 
Washington, DC.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Kane, Phone: (202) 
586-4753, or Estelle W. Hebron, Phone: (202) 586-6837, U.S. 
Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, Washington, DC 
20585.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Committee: The purpose 
of the National Coal Council is to provide advice, information, 
and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy on matters 
relating to coal and coal industry issues. The purpose of this 
meeting is to recognize the important contributions that the NCC 
has made to the Department and other Federal agencies over the 
last 20 years.
 
Tentative Agenda: Call to order by Mr. Tom Kraemer, Chairman. 
Remarks of Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham.
 
Council Business: Communication Committee Report, David Surber, 
Chairman Finance Committee Report, Rich Eimer, Chairman Study 
Group Report, Michael Mudd, Chairman Presentation of guest 
speaker from the Department of the Interior, to be announced.
 
Presentation of guest speaker from EPA, to be announced.
 
Presentation of guest speaker from CEQ, to be announced.
 
Other Business.
 
Adjourn.
 
Pubic Participation: The meeting is open to the public. The 
Chairman of the NCC will conduct the meeting to facilitate the 
orderly conduct of business. If you would like to file a written 
statement with the Committee, you may do so before or after the 
meeting. If you would like to make oral statements regarding any 
of the items on the agenda, you should contact Robert Kane or 
Estelle W. Hebron at the address or telephone numbers listed 
above. You must make your request for an oral statement at least 
five business days prior to the meeting, and reasonable 
provisions will be made to include the presentation on the 
agenda. Public comment will follow the 10 minute rule. 
Transcripts: The transcript will be available for the public 
review and copying within 30 days at the Freedom of Information 
Public Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 4 
p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
 
Issued in Washington, DC on October 15, 2004.
 
Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23481 Filed 10-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 49 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Northern 
 
                        FR Doc 04-23482 
[Federal Register: October 20, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 202)] 
[Notices] [Page 61661-61662] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr20oc04-49]                         
 
New Mexico AGENCY: Department of Energy.
 
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental 
Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Northern New 
Mexico. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 
Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be 
announced in the Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 1 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: Cities of Gold Hotel, Pojoaque, NM., FOR FURTHER 
INFORMATION CONTACT: Menice Manzanares, Northern New Mexico 
Citizens' Advisory Board, 1660 Old Pecos Trail, Suite B, Santa 
Fe, NM 87505. Phone (505) 995-0393; fax (505) 989-1752 or e-mail: 
mmanzanares@doeal.gov [mmanzanares@doeal.gov] .
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of 
the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of 
environmental restoration, waste management, and related 
activities.
 
Tentative Agenda Wednesday, November 17, 2004 1 p.m.--Call to 
Order by Ted Taylor, Deputy Designated Federal Officer (DDFO); 
Establishment of a Quorum; Welcome and Introductions by Chair; 
Approval of Agenda; Approval of Minutes of September 29, 2004 
1:15 p.m.--Board Business A. Recruitment/Membership Update B. 
Report from Chair C. Report from Department of Energy; Ted 
Taylor, DDFO D. Report from Executive Director, Menice S. 
Manzanares E. New Business 2 p.m.--Break 2:15 p.m.--Reports A. 
Executive Committee--Tim DeLong B. Waste Management Committee, 
Jim Brannon C. Environmental Monitoring, Surveillance and 
Remediation Committee, Tim DeLong D. Community Involvement 
Committee, Grace Perez E. Ad Hoc Committee on Bylaws, Jim Brannon 
Second Reading and Action on Bylaws Amendment 12 Second Reading 
and Action on Bylaws Amendment 13 F. Comments from Ex-Officio 
Members 3:30 p.m.--Presentation on TRU Waste Management Program 
at LANL 5 p.m.--Dinner Break 6 p.m.--Public Comment 6:15 
p.m.--Consideration and Action on Board Recommendations or 
Resolutions 6:45 p.m.--Presentation on Implementation of NMED 
Order on Consent during FY 2005-2006.
 
7:30 p.m.--Break 7:45 p.m.--Continue Presentation on 
Implementation of NMED Order on Consent during FY 2005-2006 8:30 
p.m.--Adjourn This agenda is subject to change at least one day 
in advance of the meeting.
 
Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public.
 
Written statements may be filed with the Committee either before 
or after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral 
statements pertaining to agenda items should contact Menice 
Manzanares at the address or telephone number listed above. 
Requests must be received five days prior to the meeting and 
reasonable provision will be made to include the presentation in 
the agenda. The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to 
conduct the meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly 
conduct of business. Each individual wishing to make public 
comment will be provided a maximum of five minutes to present 
their comments at the beginning of the meeting.
 
Minutes: Minutes of this meeting will be available for public 
review and
 
[[Page 61662]] copying at the Freedom of Information Public 
Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence 
Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., 
Monday-Friday, except Federal holidays. Minutes will also be 
available at the Public Reading Room located at the Board's 
office at 1660 Old Pecos Trail, Suite B, Santa Fe, NM. Hours of 
operation for the Public Reading Room are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Monday 
through Friday. Minutes will also be made available by writing or 
calling Menice Manzanares at the Board's office address or 
telephone number listed above. Minutes and other Board documents 
are on the Internet at: http://www.nnmcab.org 
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving 
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nnmcab.org] . Issued at 
Washington, DC on October 15, 2004.
 
Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 04-23482 Filed 10-19-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6405-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 50 Tri-City Herald: Bush signs bill to study preserving B Reactor as museum 

This story was published Wednesday, October 20th, 2004 

By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

A bill that directs the National Park Service to study preserving 
Hanford's B Reactor as a museum was signed Tuesday by President 
Bush. 

"It's great news and another step forward," said Del Ballard, 
president of the B Reactor Museum Association. "Now we need to 
get the funding and the action under way." 

B Reactor was the world's first full-scale plutonium production 
reactor and produced the plutonium used in the "Fat Man" bomb 
dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, ending World War II. It began 
operating 60 years ago in September. 

"I can think of no better anniversary gift than having our bill 
signed into law," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in a prepared 
statement. 

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Hastings wrote the bill and 
worked to get it approved in both houses of Congress. In addition 
to B Reactor, the study would look at possible preservation of 
several other Manhattan Project facilities across the nation. 

"Hanford's B Reactor is an important historical marker for our 
nation," Cantwell said in a prepared statement. "This site would 
be a tribute to both the scientific contributions and the 
enormous sacrifices of those who labored at the B Reactor during 
its remarkable run." 

Construction started on the reactor just six months after 
scientists demonstrated the ability to maintain a nuclear chain 
reaction. The plant that was designed and built not only produced 
the plutonium used for the World's first nuclear explosion -- the 
Trinity Test in New Mexico -- but it also continued to produce 
plutonium for the Cold War until the late 1960s. 

Today the plant looks much like it did when it was shut down, 
except for the addition of displays prepared for occasional tours 
that are allowed of the reactor. 

The bill signed Tuesday calls for a yearlong study estimated to 
cost $500,000 to $750,000. The law is a necessary step before 
money can be allocated for the study, said Jessica Gleason, 
spokeswoman for Hastings. 

Chances are small that an appropriation to pay for the study will 
be approved for the 2005 fiscal year, but Hastings and Cantwell 
are working to get the money for fiscal year 2006, she said. 

The National Park Service now has a backlog of studies with too 
little money to pay for them. Officials with the agency have also 
told a Senate committee that they're concerned about the cost of 
maintaining old nuclear facilities and potential safety issues. 

The Department of Energy has agreed to withhold B Reactor from 
planned environmental cleanup work at Hanford until at least 
October 2006. 

But if money cannot be found to maintain the reactor as a museum, 
it likely would meet the same fate as the other eight 
plutonium-production reactors that were built along the Columbia 
River. Plans call for most of them to be demolished down to the 
shield walls surrounding their reactor cores and for roofs to be 
installed to "cocoon" them for long-term storage. 

Groups supporting developing a B Reactor historical park include 
the Atomic Heritage Foundation, the Tri-Cities Visitor and 
Convention Bureau and the B Reactor Museum Association. 

© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 51 Science Daily: Livermore Scientists Join DOE Consortium In Partnering With 
Private Company To Develop Artificial Retina
 	 	 	 	 	
[ScienceDaily Magazine &#13;Your source for the latest

[http://www.llnl.gov]    		 				 							
                        
CHICAGO, Ill. - A Department of Energy consortium of national 
laboratories including Livermore and universities today signed an 
agreement with Second Sight Medical Products Inc. to jointly 
develop technology that could restore sight to those who have 
lost vision later in life.                      

Researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory checks the 
circuit continuity in a flexible polymer microelectrode array for 
possible implantation in a test subject's eye. (Photo courtesy of 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) Related News Stories                                                                                                          
 					  
The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)
allows Second Sight Medical Products Inc. of Sylmar, Calif. to
obtain a limited exclusive license for inventions developed
during the DOE Retinal Prosthesis Project. 

"The Department of Energy has led the way to many scientific
breakthroughs, especially when several scientific disciplines
combined to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts,"
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said. "This project is one such
example where biology, physics and engineering have joined
forces to deliver a capability that will enable blind people to
see. This agreement between the DOE laboratories and the private
sector will facilitate transfer of many aspects of DOE
technology to a clinical device that has the potential of
restoring sight to millions of blind individuals. 

An artificial retina could restore vision to millions of people
suffering from eye diseases such as macular degeneration (the
leading cause of blindness in people over 60), retinitis
pigmentosa (the leading cause of blindness in people under 50),
or those who are legally blind due to the loss of photoreceptor
function. 

Lawrence Livermore partnered with four other national
laboratories, three universities and Second Sight on the
project. 

Engineers from LLNL's Center for Micro- and Nanotechnology
specifically are developing a flexible silicone implant
(microelectrode array) that sits on the surface of the retina.
The electrode array can contact delicate retinal tissue without
damaging it. 

The implantable retinal prosthesis is based on a system that
converts a video camera signal into a stimulation pattern that
is applied directly to the intra-ocular retinal surface. This is
referred to as an epiretinal implant - the device is in contact
with the surface of the retina. Visual signals are captured by a
small video camera in the eyeglasses of the blind person and
processed through a microcomputer worn on a belt. 

Although the device will not restore full vision, it is expected
to provide enough optical resolution for patients to read and
recognize fine shapes. 

LLNL's pioneering use of polydimethlsiloxane, or PDMS, allowed
the microelectrode array to conform to the curved shape of the
retina. 

"PDMS has the look and feel of thin plastic food wrap," said
Livermore's principal investigator, Courtney Davidson. "Yet it's
biocompatible, making it a good candidate material for long-term
implants." 

Partners in the project include Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia and
Los Alamos national laboratories, the University of California,
Santa Cruz, the University of Southern California Doheny Eye
Institute and North Carolina State University. 

Project leader Dr. Mark Humayun of USC has shown that electrical
stimulation of the viable retinal cells can result in visual
perception. These findings helped spark the worldwide effort to
develop a retinal prosthesis device. 

The first patient to receive a prototype implant in 2002 was
able to see large letters and to differentiate between a cup, a
plate and a knife after being blind for more than 50 years. To
date, six volunteers have received implants of a
micro-electronic device that rests on the surface of the retina
to perform the function of normal photoreceptive cells. 

The artificial retina technology was featured today at the
department's "What's Next Expo," an event designed to showcase
the newest, most innovative, cutting-edge scientific and
technological advances to interest young people in pursuing
careers in math and science. 

Second Sight was founded in 1998 to create a retinal prosthesis
to provide sight to patients blinded from outer retinal
degenerations. 

### 

Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a
national security laboratory, with a mission to ensure national
security and apply science and technology to the important
issues of our time. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is
managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department
of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. 

Editor's Note: The original news release can be found here
[http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/06news/NewsReleases/2004/NR-04-10-03.ht
ml] . 			
 			
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 			  

Web sciencedaily.com 
———————   Copyright © 1995-2004 ScienceDaily LLC   |  
Contact: editor@sciencedaily.com [editor@sciencedaily.com]  
*****************************************************************
 52 Newswise: System Eliminates Perchlorate, Helps Scientists Trace Source
 		 		
  Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory           

Released: Wed 20-Oct-2004, 15:40 ET 
  
DescriptionAn award-winning system developed at Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory to clean up perchlorate pollution is now also 
helping scientists determine whether the contamination is natural 
or man-made.            

Newswise  An award-winning system developed at Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory to clean up perchlorate pollution is now also 
helping scientists determine whether the contamination is natural 
or man-made.

This latter application could be instrumental in tracking 
environmental perchlorate, finding its source and resolving 
resulting liability issues, said ORNL scientist Baohua Gu, who 
headed development of the treatment system. 

Perchlorate, or ClO4-, disrupts the thyroid gland that regulates 
metabolism in adults and physical development in children and is 
increasingly being found in soil and water. It is used to make 
solid rocket propellant and explosives but also occurs naturally, 
as in nitrate soils from Chile used to make fertilizers, making 
the source sometimes difficult to trace. 

Conventional treatments use tiny resin beads to trap the 
perchlorate, but the spent resin becomes contaminated, and 
disposal is costly or impractical. 

The ORNL system removes and breaks down perchlorate into harmless 
chloride and water and recharges the resin so it can be reused 
many times. The process costs up to 80 percent less than 
conventional methods and is one of R&D Magazine’s top 100 
inventions for 2004.

But Gu and ORNL colleagues Jusuke Horita and Gilbert Brown along 
with others from Louisiana State University, University of 
Illinois, and USGS have found another benefit: the process of 
removing perchlorate also purifies it, allowing the scientists to 
isolate trace quantities and examine the compound more closely 
than ever before.

Using isotopic analysis, they compared naturally-occurring 
perchlorate from Chile’s Atacama Desert to synthetic or 
manufactured samples and found the natural type had a much higher 
value of the oxygen-17 isotope (an oxygen atom with 8 protons and 
9 neutrons in the nucleus) but a lower chlorine-37 value (a 
chlorine atom with 17 protons and 20 neutrons in the nucleus).

A report on the study appears in the current edition of 
Environmental Science and Technology, which is published by the 
American Chemical Society.

“Isotopic comparison of natural and non-naturally occurring 
perchlorate has not been feasible because of the difficulties in 
extracting and analyzing trace quantities of perchlorate from 
soil or groundwater that contain large quantities of impurities 
like nitrates and other salt deposits,” Gu said. “Our 
findings show that the ORNL treatment system provides a tool for 
the identification and forensics of perchlorate contamination in 
the environment.”

ORNL has licensed the resin technology to the Purolite company 
and the regeneration and recovery technology to Calgon Carbon 
Corporation. The system also is being tested at two contaminated 
sites in California. Gu will present findings from those tests at 
meetings this month with municipal water utilities and 
environmental remediation groups in California.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed one part per billion 
in 2002 as the legal limit for perchlorate in drinking water, but 
that standard is under debate, Gu said.

“The presence of natural or atmospheric perchlorate in the 
environment obviously has far-reaching ramifications, ranging 
from public health issues to huge liabilities that could be 
imposed by agricultural and environmental cleanup needs,” Gu 
said. “It recently has been found in lettuce and milk, which 
begs the questions: How is it getting there and migrating through 
the environment? Where is the liability?

“Our technology could have a huge impact on how those questions 
are answered.” 

ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy.

© 2004 Newswise.  All Rights Reserved.                                  
*****************************************************************
 53 [du-list] DU in the news - 20th Oct  ( Part Deux )
 
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:07:04 -0700

 
<x-flowed>


DEPLETED URANIUM: OBSERVATORY LAMENTS DENIAL
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia - Italy
19 - According to the Italian Military Health Observatory a total of 109 
Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. ...


Tramps Find Uranium in Central Russia
MOSNEWS - Russia
Homeless people found three containers with depleted uranium in the Central 
Russian city of Saratov. They brought these stainless ...
See all stories on this topic

Project Censored : Censored articles to Email to the Hypnotized
Axis of Logic - Boston,MA,United States
... Center studied Afghan civilians a few months after US attacks and found 
that of the samples taken, every single one had levels of non-depleted 
uranium, 4 to 20 ...





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
    
*****************************************************************

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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************