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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 UN To Check Iranian Military Site Allegedly Linked To Nuclear Weapon
2 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA: U.N. to Visit Suspect Iranian Site
3 IPS-English NORTH KOREA-NUCLEAR WEAPONS: U.S. gives Pyongyang
4 Korea Times: Kim Dae-jung Calls for Summit to Break Nuke Deadlock
5 Korea Times: New Negotiators to Reinvigorate Nuclear Talks
6 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Issues Wartime Guidelines
7 Korea Herald: IAEA says N.K. nuke crisis getting worse
8 Xinhua: US urges DPRK to return to six-party talks
9 Japan Times: Koizumi contradicts Yachi on North
10 Korea Times: NK Nuke Crisis Deepening - IAEA Chief
11 Korea Times: NK Issues War Contingency Plans
12 US: US Government Wants To Dismantle The Non-Proliferation Treaty
13 US: Sun News: Sanford outlines budget priorities
14 US: Platts: Bingaman to remain ranking Democrat on Senate Energy Com
15 Hawk Eye: Government support still lagging
16 US: Nuclear Test Watch: Issue No. 2
NUCLEAR REACTORS
17 US: [NukeNet] Two North Jersey articles on NJ Nukes, iincluding
18 US: [NukeNet] Exelon takes over pre-merger; Bakken steps down at
19 US: Re: Bruce Williams announced his retirement from AmerGen
20 US: [CMEP] Comment on NRC Environmental Review of Nuke Plant
21 US: [NukeNet] Comment on NRC Environmental Review of Nuke Plant
22 US: Arizona Republic: Palo Verde probe nets 4 safety violations
23 US: NRC: NRC Establishes Web Page for Information on Safety-Consciou
24 People's Daily: Nuclear application becomes a new growth point
25 US: The Dolphin: Welcome home NR-1
26 US: NRC: Region I - 05-001 - NRC to Discuss Results of Special Inspe
27 US: ER: Play it safe by admitting we don’t know much about earthquak
28 US: NRC: News Release - 2005-002 - NRC Establishes Web Page for
29 US: NRC: Sunshine Act; Meeting
30 ENERGY: French Plan Contradicts Europe's Anti-Nuclear Trend
NUCLEAR SAFETY
31 US: [du-list] Rumsfeld in the MilTox News? - No DU shows in Humvee
32 [du-list] Comparing Iraqi Victims with Victims from the Indian
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
33 US: AP Wire: Nuclear facility says some contaminated material left s
34 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Walker makes a parting pitch on Atlas tailing
35 Las Vegas City Life: New coalition seeks to take advantage
36 AU ABC: Nuclear elements arrive for reprocessing in France
37 US: AU ABC: WA rules out uranium mining.
38 Whitehaven News: ITALY ASKS US TO KEEP ITS N-WASTE FOR 20 YEARS
39 US: Casper Star-Tribune: Huntsman to return donations from future ow
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
40 Colorado Daily: Flats whistleblowers to speak
41 Rocky Mountain News: New lawmaker begins job with his eye on Rocky F
42 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats accusation
43 Rocky Mountain News: Udall opposes idea of radiation warning signs,
44 Rocky Mountain News: Lipsky says he left FBI early to 'tell the trut
45 Rocky Mountain News: Ex-agent outlines Flats allegations
46 Rocky Mountain News: Opinion: Flats cleanup critics peddle needless
47 DenverPost.com: Ex-FBI agent accuses feds of Rocky Flats coverup
48 Summit Daily News: Rocky Flats refuge visitors will be warned of nuc
49 Colorado Daily: Lipsky breaks his Flats silence
OTHER NUCLEAR
50 [NukeNet] listen to Lochbaum and Harvin on radio program
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 UN To Check Iranian Military Site Allegedly Linked To Nuclear Weapons Testing
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 16:00:39 -0500
X-Sender-Hostname: mx3.un.org
X-Temp-Whitephrase: YES NUCLEAR
UN TO CHECK IRANIAN MILITARY SITE ALLEGEDLY LINKED TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS
TESTING
New York, Jan 6 2005 4:00PM
The United Nations atomic watchdog agency will be sending inspectors
in the coming days to the Parchin military site in Iran, following
allegations that it was linked to nuclear weapons testing.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (<"http://www.iaea.org/index.html">IAEA)
announced today that Iran agreed to its
request for access to the site, where the inspectors will take
environmental samples to determine whether nuclear activity has
taken place there.
It is the latest act in a saga that began nearly two years ago when
it became clear that Iran had for many years concealed its nuclear
activities in breach of its legal obligations under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (<"http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/treaty/">NPT).
IAEA said Tehran had agreed to the request for access on the basis
of transparency following the allegations.
In November the IAEA's Board of Governors welcomed Iran's decision
to suspend all uranium enrichment activities and called on it to
grant the access needed to provide "credible assurances" that is
has not engaged in any undeclared nuclear activities.
2005-01-06 00:00:00.000
________________
For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
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2 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA: U.N. to Visit Suspect Iranian Site
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday January 5, 2005 12:01 PM
AP Photo VIE107
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran has agreed to give U.N. inspectors
access to a huge military site that the United States alleges is
linked to a secret nuclear weapons program, the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told The Associated
Press he expected his experts to visit the Parchin site ``within
days or weeks.''
The agency has been pressing Tehran for months to be allowed to
inspect the Parchin military complex, used by the Iranians to
research, develop and produce ammunition, missiles and high
explosives.
In leaks to media last year, U.S. intelligence officials said
that a specially secured site on the Parchin complex, about 20
miles southeast of Tehran, may be used in research on nuclear
arms, specifically in making high explosive components for use
in such weapons.
The IAEA has not found any firm evidence to challenge Iranian
assertions that its military is not involved nuclear activities.
But an IAEA report in October expressed concern about published
intelligence and media reports ``relating to dual use equipment
and materials which have applications ... in the nuclear
military area.''
Diplomats said that phrasing alluded to Parchin.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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3 IPS-English NORTH KOREA-NUCLEAR WEAPONS: U.S. gives Pyongyang
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:03:32 -0800
AP WD TS IF PR
NORTH KOREA-NUCLEAR WEAPONS: U.S. gives Pyongyang ultimatum
Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM)
SEOUL, Jan. 6 (WAM) - Washington has set next month as the deadline for
North Korea to return to the six-party talks over its nuclear weapons
program, a Japanese newspaper 'Sankei Shimbun' said on Thursday, quoting
unidentified sources.
According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency's dispatch from Tokyo, the
United States has decided to refer the North Korean nuclear case to the U.N.
Security Council if the North fails to make a positive response before
President George W. Bush's State of the Union address, slated for Feb. 2.
The decision comes as Washington believes the multinational negotiations
to resolve the North Korean nuclear standoff may lose their effectiveness
should the dialogue be delayed any longer, the newspaper reported.
The U.S. and North Korea have held three rounds of negotiations that also
involved Japan, China, Russia and South Korea, but the participants have
been unable to convene a follow-up to the last round in June because
Pyongyang has refused to return to the negotiating table, citing U.S.
"hostility" toward it.
The Japanese newspaper, however, reported the U.S. will not immediately
try to seek Security Council sanctions on North Korea upon the case's
referral to the highest decision-making body of the United Nations because
China, Pyongyang's closest ally, is expected to oppose them.
Instead, the report said, the U.S. is expected to go through due
procedure and seek a chairman's statement to pressure North Korea to abandon
its nuclear ambitions.
Washington may also try to reinforce its Proliferation Security
Initiative (PSI), a measure aimed at preventing proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction, this year to strengthen its crackdown on North Korean
exports of weapons, drugs and counterfeit money, main sources of hard
currency for the impoverished country, the report said.
But if the North has a positive response to the resumption of the stalled
negotiation process before the U.S. president's address, the report said,
the U.S. administration will move swiftly to prepare the next round.
State of the Union addresses are normally given to Congress before the
end of January, but this year's address was pushed back to the beginning of
next month since President Bush's inauguration ceremony is scheduled for
Jan. 20. (WAM)
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4 Korea Times: Kim Dae-jung Calls for Summit to Break Nuke Deadlock
rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 01-05-2005 17:25
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation
By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter
Former President Kim Dae-jung is urging reclusive North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il to honor his commitment to a second
inter-Korean summit, which he believes could play a vital role in
ending the international standoff over Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear
weapons programs.
``Now is the time for the inter-Korean summit as there has been
a setback in resolving the North Korean nuclear problem,¡¯¡¯ Kim
said in a New Year¡¯s interview broadcast yesterday by local
television station SBS. ``Chairman of the National Defense
Commission Kim Jong-il should keep his promise for a second
inter-Korean summit.¡¯¡¯
However, the former president, whose ``sunshine¡¯¡¯ policy of
engaging Pyongyang culminated in the historic first meeting with
the North Korean leader in June 2000, rejected continuing
speculation that he could act as a special envoy to arrange a
second summit. Officials in the present administration should
take that role, he said.
During the 2000 meeting, North Korea¡¯s leader agreed to travel
to the South for a return summit at an ``appropriate time,¡¯¡¯
but he has since given no indication of when that might be.
Stressing the importance of calming tensions between Washington
and Pyongyang, Kim said President Roh Moo-hyun should seek to
mediate a solution to the nuclear crisis through summit talks.
``It is desirable for President Roh to deliver the U.S. position
to North Korea and play a mediating role to reach an agreement
with the North Korean leader,¡¯¡¯ he said during the interview,
which was conducted Tuesday at the Kim Dae Jung Library in Seoul.
Six-party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear issue have
stalled since the third round closed with little progress in June
last year.
Kim retired from public life at the end of his five-year term in
early 2003, his reputation battered by revelations that his
administration paid the North hundreds of millions of dollars to
participate in the 2000 summit.
Over the past 12 months, however, the Nobel Peace Prize winner
has resumed giving selected media interviews and offered advice
to the current administration on its North Korea policy.
*****************************************************************
5 Korea Times: New Negotiators to Reinvigorate Nuclear Talks
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation
By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter
``New wine for new bottles!¡¯¡¯
With the six-party nuclear process having lain dormant for more
than half a year, there are some ``new faces¡¯¡¯ awaiting the
blooming season to spring out of their winter quarters.
As the multilateral dialogue format is set to enter a second
phase this spring, chief negotiators from the six participating
counties may, first of all, have to try some icebreakers to get
acquainted with one other if the next round of talks is convened.
About 15 months after the ambitious first conference was
launched in August 2003, most of the starters _ who had laid the
groundwork in settling down the format, but failed to make
substantial progress _ have already passed the baton on to their
successors.
China, the host country, replaced its mediator, Wang Yi, last
autumn as the fourth round of talks, which all the parties agreed
in the previous round to hold by September, has not been held. Wu
Dawei, the new vice foreign minister, will chair the conference
from now on. South Korea followed suit last month by selecting
Song Min-soon, a career diplomat, to have him succeed Lee
Soo-hyuck, the outgoing deputy foreign minister who has led the
Seoul delegation to the previous three rounds of talks.
On Tuesday, Japan also named Kenichiro Sasae, director general
of economic affair at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, as its new
negotiator. Mitoji Yabunaka, who has led the past three rounds,
was given a new job, shifting posts with Sasae.
The U.S. chief negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State for
Asia-Pacific Affairs James Kelly, is all but certain to be
replaced as well, when President George W. Bush¡¯s second-term
administration is launched late this month. Senior Director for
Asian Affairs of the National Security Council Michael Green is
tapped as Kelly¡¯s successor, according to sources.
The heads of North Korean and Russian delegations will not
likely be substituted anytime soon, according to experts. But the
two nations had already changed its chief negotiators in the
initial phase of the six-party process. Vice Foreign Minister Kim
Kye-gwan has been representing the North Korean delegation since
the second round of talks last February, and Deputy Foreign
Minister Alexander Alexeyev has been taking part in the talks to
represent Russia since the third round in June.
The change of personnel will apparently give a boost to the
six-party process, once the stalled negotiation formula gets
restarted, some officials said in hopeful voices.
``I think it would be desirable if the nuclear talks can be
refreshed with some new faces at a time when the process has been
somewhat depressed,¡¯¡¯ a Seoul diplomat said. ``I¡¯m not saying
that the previous negotiators performed poorly. But, new
negotiators might show up with more enthusiasm, I hope.¡¯¡¯
General prediction given by diplomatic officials and experts is
that the next round of six-party talks will not be likely at
least until February, when Bush¡¯s second-term security lineup
will take shape.
North Korea, which wants as much compensation as possible for
giving up its nuclear ambitions, has been boycotting the
six-nation talks, taking issue with what it called the hostile
policies of the Bush administration toward it.
jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 01-05-2005 17:26
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Issues Wartime Guidelines
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday January 5, 2005 12:01 PM
By SANG-HUN CHOE
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has ordered its citizens
to be ready for a protracted war against the United States,
issuing guidelines on evacuating to underground bunkers with
weapons, food and portraits of leader Kim Jong Il.
The 33-page ``Detailed Wartime Guidelines,'' published in South
Korea's Kyunghyang newspaper on Wednesday and verified by Seoul,
was issued April 7, 2004, at a time when the communist regime
was claiming it was Washington's next target following the Iraq
war.
The manual - the first such North Korean document made public in
the outside world - was signed by Kim Jong Il in his capacity as
chairman of the Central Military Committee of the ruling
Workers' Party. That ended speculation over whether Kim has
assumed the top military post following the 1994 death of his
father, President Kim Il Sung.
Analysts said the guidelines reflected Pyongyang's fear over a
possible U.S. military strike amid stalled talks on its nuclear
weapons programs. They said the guidelines were also meant to
whip up a sense of crisis among its 22 million people,
reportedly growing discontent amid economic hardship.
``The United States has cooked up suspicion over our nuclear
programs and is escalating an offensive of international
pressure to strangle and destroy our republic,'' the booklet
said. ``If this tactic doesn't work, it plots to use this
(nuclear) problem as an excuse for armed invasion.''
Kyunghyang did not clarify where it acquired the document
classified as ``top secret.''
Seoul's National Intelligence Service said in a one-sentence
statement: ``We believe the document reflects North Korea's
wartime preparations.''
The manual urged the military to build restaurants, wells,
restrooms and air purifiers in underground bunkers, which
government offices and military units will move into if war
breaks out.
When North Koreans evacuate to underground facilities, they
should make sure that they take the portraits, plaster busts and
bronze statues of Kim and his parents so that they can
``protect'' them in a special room, the guidelines say.
The Kim family has ruled North Korea for more than a half
century, creating a powerful personality cult. Portraits of Kim
and his father hang side-by-side on the walls of every house.
Since the Korean War ended in 1953, North Korea has built a 1.1
million-member military, the world's fifth largest, although
most of its weapons are outdated. It already keeps vital
military facilities in an estimated 10,000 underground tunnels
and bunkers, South Korean officials say.
The Pyongyang subway is hundreds of yards below the surface to
double as an air raid shelter, and the North's military has dug
``invasion tunnels'' across the border with the South.
North Korea is locked in a dispute with Washington and its
allies over its nuclear weapons programs.
Pyongyang escalated its threats after the United States invaded
Iraq, which President Bush termed as an ``axis of evil,''
together with Iran and North Korea. North Korean villages are
festooned with slogans exhorting the people to prepare for a war
with ``our sworn enemy, the U.S. imperialists.''
``The North has real fear that it may become the next Iraq under
the Bush administration,'' said Kim Tae-woo, a senior fellow at
Seoul's Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. ``The guidelines
also appear aimed at tightening domestic control on the people
as the economic difficulties erode the regime's grip on power.''
Kim said Washington is building more powerful missiles that
could destroy underground military targets in countries like
North Korea.
On Tuesday, North Korea accused the United States of planning to
deploy those missiles in South Korea for a ``preemptive attack''
on the North. Washington says it wants to end the nuclear
dispute peacefully.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
7 Korea Herald: IAEA says N.K. nuke crisis getting worse
2005.01.07
The crisis caused by North Korea's refusal to abandon its
nuclear weapons ambitions is deepening and needs to be resolved
as soon as possible, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.
"This has been a pending issue for 12 years, and frankly it is
getting worse," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed
ElBaradei told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
"We need to address the whole question and bring it to a
resolution," he said. "I would certainly hope that by the end of
the year we should be there."
North Korea has been locked in a stand-off with its neighbors
and the United States over its nuclear program since 2002, and
it has refused to return to six-country talks on dismantling its
nuclear programs unless Washington drops what it calls a
"hostile policy."
ElBaradei said he hoped 2005 would see a return of IAEA
inspectors to North Korea to conduct rigorous inspections that
would provide guarantees to the world that all North Korean
nuclear facilities and activities are under U.N. safeguards.
The IAEA team was expelled on Dec. 31, 2002 and has not been
allowed to return. Since that time, North Korea has produced
enough plutonium for half a dozen nuclear weapons, according to
estimates by the IAEA and a number of security think tanks.
"I would like to see the six-party talks restarted as early as
possible," ElBaradei said. "I'd like to see by the end of the
year a package agreement that takes care of the nuclear
activities in North Korea and makes sure it is all under
irreversible verification, that their security concerns are
taken care and their humanitarian needs addressed."
The participants in the six-party talks are the United States,
China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas.
The United States listed North Korea, Iran and prewar Iraq as an
"axis of evil" determined to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. Washington has also accused Iran of pursuing
nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy program.
ElBaradei said it was North Korea, not Iran, that posed the
greatest nuclear threat to the world.
"I hope we can start to move on the Korean issue, which is the
number one proliferation threat we are facing," he said.
Asked if the fact North Korea is widely believed to possess
several nuclear weapons changed anything, ElBaradei said it did
not.
"It makes it more urgent, but it doesn't change things. South
Africa had nuclear weapons and they dismantled their program. So
it's an issue we are capable of dealing with once there's an
agreement," he said.
*****************************************************************
8 Xinhua: US urges DPRK to return to six-party talks
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-07 04:12:02
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States on
Thursday urged the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
to return to the six-party talks "as soon as possible."
"It is in North Korea's interest to come back to the
six-party talks as soon as possible," White House spokesman Scott
McClellan said at a news briefing.
"The president wants to see a peaceful, diplomatic resolution
to the situation in North Korea. North Korea needs to stop its
pursuit of nuclear weapons, and then it can realize better
relations with the rest of the international community," he said.
"We will continue to work with all nations in the region who
are sending one unified message to North Korea: We want a
non-nuclear peninsula, and you need to abandon your ambitions for
nuclear weapons. That is the message that is being sent to North
Korea," McClellan said.
Three rounds of the six-party talks, hosted by China and also
attended by the DPRK, the United States, South Korea, Russia and
Japan, have been held to end the nuclear standoff between the
DPRKand the United States. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
9 Japan Times: Koizumi contradicts Yachi on North
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday downplayed the
idea of prioritizing the abduction issue over the nuclear
standoff when dealing with North Korea.
Japan's policy toward the North is to resolve these and other
issues comprehensively.
"None should be particularly delayed," Koizumi told reporters,
referring to a suggestion made Tuesday by new Vice Foreign
Minister Shotaro Yachi.
In his inaugural press conference, Yachi, who was previously one
of Koizumi's secretaries, said, "As the relatives of the
abductees are aging, the abduction issue -- a humanitarian
problem -- should be resolved as soon as possible and before the
nuclear issue."
Japan had been holding bilateral talks with North Korea on the
abduction issue while dealing with the country's nuclear arms
program under a six-party framework that also involves the United
States, South Korea, China and Russia. Both approaches have
recently stalled.
Koizumi has said he would launch normalization talks with North
Korea if it "sincerely abides by" the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration.
yyyyysk
The Japan Times: Jan. 6, 2005 (C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
10 Korea Times: NK Nuke Crisis Deepening - IAEA Chief
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation
By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter
The head of the United Nations¡¯ nuclear watchdog Wednesday
urged Pyongyang to promptly resume multilateral negotiations on
dismantling its nuclear weapons programs, labeling North Korea
the world¡¯s ``number one proliferation threat.¡¯¡¯
``This has been a pending issue for 12 years, and frankly it is
getting worse,¡¯¡¯ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
chief Mohamed ElBaradei said during an interview with Reuters in
Vienna.
ElBaradei¡¯s comments came as a Japanese newspaper reported that
the United States has put a one-month deadline on North Korea to
agree to return to the bargaining table or face U.N. action.
Outlining the nuclear proliferation threats faced worldwide, the
IAEA head said North Korea represents the greatest challenge and
stressed the importance of getting inspectors back on the ground
within this year.
``I¡¯d like to see by the end of the year a package agreement
that takes care of the nuclear activities in North Korea and
makes sure it is all under irreversible verification, that their
security concerns are taken care of and their humanitarian needs
addressed,¡¯¡¯ he said.
IAEA inspectors were kicked out of North Korea in late 2002, a
few months after the current nuclear dispute erupted. Late last
month, ElBaradei estimated Pyongyang had refined enough plutonium
to make six nuclear bombs in the absence of international
monitoring.
``I would like to see the six-party talks restarted as early as
possible,¡¯¡¯ he said in the interview.
The multilateral negotiations aimed at resolving the nuclear
dispute have ground to a halt since the third round closed in
Beijing in June. North Korea says it wants to assess the foreign
policy stance of U.S. President George W. Bush¡¯s second-term
administration before agreeing to further talks.
In a sign of impatience, Washington has set Bush¡¯s upcoming
State of the Union address as the deadline for Pyongyang to
commit to a fourth round of talks, according to Tokyo¡¯s Sankei
Shimbun.
The conservative economic daily quoted unidentified sources
yesterday as saying the U.S. will seek to refer North Korea to
the U.N. Security Council if no progress is made before the
speech, which is likely to be delivered late this month or early
February.
It said Washington would be unlikely to push for immediate
Security Council sanctions but could seek a chairman¡¯s statement
to pressure Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear programs.
The U.S. may also beef up its Proliferation Security Initiative
(PSI), a strategy designed to block the North from exporting
weapons, drugs and counterfeit money, the Japanese report
claimed.
Japanese public sentiment toward North Korea has hardened
considerably over the past month due to allegations of deception
over the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by the communist
nation during the Cold War.
rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 01-06-2005 15:10
*****************************************************************
11 Korea Times: NK Issues War Contingency Plans
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times
NK Ready for War Since Last April
By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter
North Korea enhanced its war readiness in April last year,
putting emphasis on self-defense, according to top-secret
documents signed by Kim Jong-il, the Stalinist country¡¯s leader.
The North¡¯s move came one year after the United States invaded
Iraq in March 2003.
Kim issued a two-page directive and a 31-page bylaw on April 7,
demanding the Workers¡¯ Party, the military and all people assume
wartime readiness, the Seoul government confirmed Wednesday.
The Dear Leader ordered people to be ready to mobilize all
possible resources within 24 hours following the outbreak of war,
increasing the number of available troops through recruiters in
each province, city and county.
The Seoul government said it was scrutinizing the documents,
which were recently obtained by a local daily, the Kyunghyang
Shinmun.
``The North might have released the directive after updating some
parts of it to reflect developing situations such as the war in
Iraq,¡¯¡¯ a government official in Seoul said. ``But every
country has emergency plans for war situations.¡¯¡¯
The official, who asked not to be named, added that Pyongyang
must have been very concerned about the possibility of a
pre-emptive strike by the U.S.
``The U.S. is trying to suffocate us by fanning nuclear
suspicions,¡¯¡¯ the introduction of the bylaw said. ``The U.S.
will take advantage of the nuclear issue as a reason to invade
us.¡¯¡¯
One of the main purposes of the directive, which divided the war
into the three stages of defense, attack and drawn-out warfare,
is to educate North Koreans on how to find safety when the
country is struck by biochemical weapons, experts in Seoul said.
The North¡¯s police and intelligence authorities plan to install
command centers in underground tunnels around the nation and give
orders to the people based on information gathered by unmanned
reconnaissance planes and satellites, according to the documents.
The Pyongyang regime is not believed to have such cutting-edge
information gathering systems.
The North reportedly has around 8,200 underground facilities,
including 180 munitions factories. The U.S. plans to deploy
bunker busters _ small, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons _ to
South Korea this year, according to the Center for American
Progress, a U.S.-based nonpartisan think tank.
North Koreans are first required to take portraits and statues
of the Kim family to safe locations such as underground
facilities, where the regime has already allotted space for these
icons, according to the directives.
Kim, the central military commission chairman, also commanded his
military to boost troop numbers by recruiting South Korean
volunteers if the South is ``liberated¡¯¡¯ by its People¡¯s Army
during the war.
It is not known whether the directive mentioned the possibility
of pre-emptive strikes against South Korea or Japan as the
documents omit 172 clauses from the section on military
operations.
In issuing the directive, Kim used the title of Central Military
Committee Chairman of the Workers¡¯ Party, a position which had
been left vacant since the death of Kim Il-sung, the founding
father of the North, in July 1994.
The committee was the top decision-making body on military
affairs before the Pyongyang government revised its Constitution
in September 1998 to give the commission the highest possible
status.
im@koreatimes.co.kr 01-05-2005 15:52
*****************************************************************
12 US Government Wants To Dismantle The Non-Proliferation Treaty
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 12:12:15 -0500
From: acdn.france
To: ACDN
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 7:13 AM
Subject: ACDN MEDIA RELEASE, 2005-01 : The US
wants to dismantle the NPT... What will do France?
ACDN MEDIA RELEASE 2005-01
Saintes (France), January, 04, 2005
The United States Government wants to
dismantle the Non-Proliferation Treaty
According to a message from the "Kyodo News"
agency dated 31 December 2004 quoting officials in
Washington and sources in Congress, the USA plans
to ask the next Quinquennial Revision Conference
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
which will take place in New York in May 2005, to
invalidate the final document of the previous
conference, dated 19 May 2000.
Arguing on the basis of subsequent events and in
particular of 11 September 2001, the White House
will ask for this document to considered
henceforth as "a simply historical document" which
has lost its validity. Thus the "unequivocal
undertaking" made by the five nuclear powers to
eliminate all their nuclear arsenals, an
undertaking that none of them has yet tried to
implement, will cease to exist as an obligation
under international law.
The Bush Administration, having withdrawn in 2002
from the ABM Treaty which since 1972 had forbidden
Russia and the US to deploy defense systems
against enemy nuclear missiles (so as to keep each
of them threatened by retaliation from the other
and thus avoid the temptation to strike first) is
now pointing to that unilateral withdrawal in
order to annul de jure its undertaking to
strengthen the ABM treaty. In one stroke, all the
"13 steps towards a world without nuclear arms"
will officially lapse.
The NPT was already a mere scrap of paper, used by
certain states to obtain nuclear technology and by
others to sell it. The US Government is preparing
to burn the part that irks it, hoping to preserve
that other part which obliges non-nuclear states
to renounce the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
But these states will not fail to find in this a
motive to depart from their own undertakings and,
in the case of some nations such as Iran, to speed
up their acquisition program. The world, which
the USA has already thrown into a arms race of
various kinds, will see a proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
France, for her part, faces a crucial choice: to
fall in step behind the US or to make herself the
champion of a world freed from the threat of
weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, biological
and chemical. There are only these two options.
This question should be the subject of public
debate in the Parliament and the media, and (why
not?) the subject of consultation of all citizens
by referendum. But the President of the French
Republic can already now make known his preferred
option.
On behalf of ACDN
Jean-Marie Matagne
*****************************************************************
13 Sun News: Sanford outlines budget priorities
| 01/06/2005 |
By Jim Davenport
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA - Gov. Mark Sanford told legislators to spend more on
prisons and students and less on teacher incentives and college
programs in a $5.3 billion budget plan he released Wednesday.
The 346-page budget also renewed last year's pitch to lower
income taxes. Sanford says the change would make the state more
attractive to wealthy retirees and executives and help business
owners.
The Republican governor calls for the state to spend $7 million
on the tax cut beginning in January 2006 as a six-year
initiative begins to bring the state's top income tax rate down
to 4.75 percent from 7 percent.
Because the first-year cost is relatively low, "I think we have
a good chance of getting it through," said House Ways and Means
Chairman Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston.
Harrell's committee will decide what portions of Sanford's
budget make it into the bill the House will debate in March. "On
the whole, I think he's done a pretty complete job again,"
Harrell said.
The budget goes further in some areas than Sanford had
previously described. For instance, Sanford said Monday he
wanted to make new state workers wait for 30 years to retire
instead of 28 in the current plan. The spending plan released
Wednesday says Sanford also wants the state eventually to close
its traditional pension plan to newcomers and cover their
retirements with a defined contribution plan. That would gives
them more control over investments but less certainty of how
much they will receive.
Sanford's proposal also pays down money raided from a variety of
state trust and reserve accounts as legislators tried to head
off deficits during the past three budget years. For instance,
it restores $25 million taken from a fund for future cleanup
costs at a low-level radioactive waste site near Barnwell.
"This is a budget that I think moves us toward getting our
fiscal house in order," Sanford said.
Sanford's budget splits all of what state government does into
1,552 separate programs, a marked departure from the way state
spending plans are usually handled. It was his way of deciding
how the state should spend money or realign programs to cut
duplication.
"We need to do a better job as a state setting priorities,"
Sanford said.
In the end, Sanford and his staff eliminated spending for 67
items on that long list, saving $162 million.
Some programs simply get less. For instance, Sanford changes the
incentive for teachers earning national certification. Those
teachers now get a bonus of $7,500 each year of the
certification's 10-year duration. Sanford would give newcomers
to the program $3,000. Teachers working in critical education
areas or certain schools and districts would be able to get an
extra $4,500 a year.
"I don't agree with that," Harrell said. "We need to stay
focused on improving the quality of the teaching force, and this
is one of the ways we can do it."
Sanford wants to take the $1.4 million saved by making the
incentive change to increase per-student spending to $2,213, up
from $1,852.
Foster said the Education Department still is reviewing the
budget, but it appears Sanford increased the per-student
spending by including money from programs that haven't been used
in that way previously.
Overall, Sanford wants a $92 million increase in spending on
K-12 education to a total of $1.9 billion. But he wants to
reduce college spending by $13 million, including a $10 million
cut in state funding for research university professorships and
programs.
Sanford says college spending is out of line with national
levels and the state has too many colleges. South Carolina
spends nearly twice the national average on colleges though it
has the nation's second-lowest high school graduation rate,
Sanford said.
The "disparity in the rising level of resources devoted to
higher education is apparent and clearly demonstrates the need
for cost controls and systematic reform," Sanford said. The
governor plans to continue pushing to close two University of
South Carolina branch campuses.
"I don't agree with the desire to close schools," Harrell said.
Colleges are needed to help students around the state get the
education that employers are demanding, he said.
Other agencies would get more money under the governor's plan.
The state Corrections Department would get an additional $7
million, much of it earmarked for hiring nearly 200 officers.
INSIDE | See what Gov. Mark Sanford has outlined as priorities
for the budget; a roundup on increases, cuts, savings and
changes, Page 6A #HTMLInfoBox~~Budget roundupPriorities | Gov.
Mark Sanford outlined his spending priorities Wednesday when he
released his $5.3 billion executive budget.
Who gets what | The governor wants to cut income taxes and
increase per-student education spending. He wants to reduce
spending on teacher incentive programs and state colleges.
What's next | The House Ways and Means Committee writes the
state budget and can use as much or as little of the governor's
proposal as it wants.
*****************************************************************
14 Platts: Bingaman to remain ranking Democrat on Senate Energy Committee
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
+ Senator Jeff Bingaman will remain the ranking Democrat on the
Senate Energy &Natural Resources Committee during the 109th
Congress.
Twelve Republicans, same as the previous Congress, will sit on
the committee while Democratic membership has dropped to 10, down
from 11 last year.
The panel's Democratic press office reported today that Sens. Jon
Corzine of New Jersey and Ken Salazar of Colorado will join the
committee.
Relinquishing their seats on the panel are Sens. Bob Graham of
Florida, who did not seek re-election, and Evan Bayh of Indiana
and Charles Schumer of New York.
No information was available at press time, on whether any
changes had been made to the committee's Republican membership.
Washington (Platts)--5Jan2005
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
15 Hawk Eye: Government support still lagging
Thursday, January 6, 2005, Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST
Cabinet secretary pledged medical compensation for munitions
plant workers in 2000.
By KILEY MILLER
kmiller@thehawkeye.com
Five years ago today, then–Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson
sat before a crowd of former Iowa Army Ammunition Plant workers
and their families at Bur–lington's City Hall and asked them to
trust their government again.
Richardson called nuclear workers at the Middletown plant "Cold
War heroes." But have these men and women, many of whom suffer
from illnesses possibly linked to radiation and chemical
exposure on the job, been treated like heroes?
Have they even been treated "properly," as Richardson pledged?
The federal government has compensated fewer than 50 former
Atomic Energy Commission workers at the plant or their family
members for lung problems.
Every cancer claim filed under the flagship Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Program Act has been denied, based in part
on a questionable standard of radiation exposure modeled after
the atomic bombs dropped on Japan to end World War II.
The compensation effort, designed to provide victims or their
surviving family members with up to $150,000, has become a sort
of bureaucratic hot potato, tossed from the Department of
Energy, Richardson's former domain, to the Department of Labor.
Meanwhile, former workers age and die as the stories of their
suffering mount. Retired chemist Jack Polson spent 40 years at
the plant, much of that time on Line 1, where nuclear weapons
work took place.
An unabashed agitator who proudly claims to have "almost got
fired" several times for speaking out, Polson expected a lot
more out of the last five years.
"I thought it would be fought and won and over with by now," he
said this week.
Slow progress
In truth, the fight may be just beginning. But Polson and his
fellow workers have won a few skirmishes in the past
half–decade, as the slow wheels of bureaucracy began to turn.
First and foremost, legislators and the public can no longer
claim ignorance of the nuclear program and the potential health
risks it posed. From Congress to Main Street, nearly everyone
with a connection to southeast Iowa has heard or read of the
problems at the plant.
That should please Bob Anderson, the man who first brought the
Atomic Energy Commission's activities in Middletown out of "Top
Secret" hiding in a letter to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.
Anderson admitted this week he never expected to "be celebrating
anniversaries" of Richardson's visit.
"There are times when I adopt a cynical outlook, when I feel
like nothing is ever going to happen," he said. "Then there are
times when I feel like it's so clear–cut, I don't know why it's
not happening."
Despite a previous tour of the plant, Harkin pled ignorance of
the nuclear weapons program upon receiving Anderson's letter.
In a prepared statement released Tuesday, the Democratic senator
said it was inexcusable that five years after his visit with
Richardson, most former IAAP workers had "not seen a penny."
"The workers at IAAP, many of whom are battling cancer and other
diseases, devoted their lives to our national security and their
compensation is long overdue," Harkin said.
Iowa's junior senator was pleased with legislation passed last
year to improve the reimbursement process for non–cancer cases.
"However, I was very disappointed that Republicans in Congress
stripped my amendment, which would automatically compensate
workers from IAAP who have developed cancer, from the Defense
Authorization bill," Harkin said.
1997 letter
Anderson launched the compensation effort in 1997 when he wrote
his senator on what he calls a hunch: Too many of his friends
and former co–workers had cancer for it to be a coincidence.
While science has not linked Line 1 as the cause and cancer as
the effect, Anderson offers anecdotal evidence and surgical
scars as proof. The former security supervisor was diagnosed in
1988 with non–Hodgkin's lymphoma and had his thyroid removed
last summer. His daughter also developed the disease, as did two
of his buddies.
Then there was the fellow who had four babies, two healthy ones
before taking a job at the plant, and two disabled ones after.
And the folks with lung cancer, prostate cancer and other common
but alarming illnesses.
Anderson compares the government's responsibility now to medical
First Aid.
"You've got to stop the bleeding," he said. "That means stop
making people sick. Then you've got to start the breathing; get
them on the road to recovery. Then you can go on and triage the
patient — you fix what you broke."
The bleeding is slowing, if not fully stanched.
The Department of Energy, descendant of the Atomic Energy
Commission, left the plant in 1975. A long–running cleanup
effort, directed by the Department of the Army and the
Environmental Protection Agency, has begun identifying radiation
and chemical contamination and removing it.
More recently, the Department of Defense stopped using beryllium
copper tools on the conventional weapons lines, eliminating a
significant cause of respiratory illness.
Atomic comparisons
Now come the truly tough challenges, the last two phases of
Anderson's First Aid analogy — breathing and triage.
Under the EEOICPA legislation passed by Congress in 2000,
Department of Labor experts use dose reconstruction to determine
the truth of a medical claim. Analyzing medical records and
plant radiation tallies, they recreate the amount of radiation
that hit a worker on the job, then compare that with the only
large–scale scientific standard — the people of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Unfortunately, the paucity of records from IAAP has made dose
reconstruction all but impossible. That fact, coupled with the
confusing legalese on government forms, has blocked compensation
claims up to now, says Laurence Fuortes, a physician and
researcher from the University of Iowa.
Fuortes and his team are conducting wide–scale medical
screenings of former plant workers, both from the nuclear and
conventional weapons lines. He has near hero status among many
workers and their family members, but he tries to avoid the
label of advocate.
"Advocacy per se won't get you very far in a scientific
argument," he said Tuesday. "Our role is an advocacy role, but
not in the face of evidence to the contrary."
The difference between a successful medical compensation claim
and one that fails can be as simple as one forgotten blank,
Fuortes said. Other times, the problem is much more complex.
That explains why Fuortes guided Anderson, Polson and a corps of
others in requesting consideration as a "special exposure
cohort" under the energy employees compensation program.
In plain terms, designation as a special exposure cohort means
there is too little documentation available for fair dose
reconstruction. Instead, the government acknowledges significant
radiation exposure was likely based on activities at the plant
and grants compensation eligibility to the cohort. In the case
of IAAP, that would include nuclear weapons technicians,
production and safety personnel, engineers, inspectors and
maintenance workers from 1947 to 1974.
Questionable science concerns
Workers at plants in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Alaska were
included in cohorts in 2000 when the compensation program began,
but Iowa bomb–makers were left out because of insufficient
evidence linking their work to fatal illnesses.
The Department of Health and Human Services already has agreed
to review the special exposure cohort application, an important
first step.
Fuortes is growing skilled at staying afloat in the currents of
big government. Part of that skill is recognizing when to be
circumspect. Asked whether the next five years could bring the
first successful cancer claim from an IAAP worker, he chose to
answer a slightly different question.
"I think it's appropriate or I wouldn't be asking for it,"
Fuortes said.
The Office of Compensation Analysis and Support, a division of
NIOSH, will meet next month in St. Louis. If IAAP is on the
docket, Fuortes will be there pushing his case.
He worries questionable science might play a role in the medical
claims process. Some of the denial letters sent to former
workers include specific dose estimates he cannot reconcile with
available documentation. Either government officials have more
information at their disposal, or they are using a different
method.
"One of the things that happens when these claims are denied, I
think, is that people get their feelings hurt," Fuortes said.
"They think, you said there was a problem, then you don't
believe me. Are you calling me a liar."
As for other possible developments over the next five years,
health problems in conventional weapons workers could jump to
the forefront. There is no doubt these men and women were
exposed to beryllium and hazardous chemicals at the plant, but
compensation for all sick, dying or deceased Department of
Defense employees would be both expensive and difficult
politically.
Nonetheless, the University of Iowa researchers are cataloging
medical screenings of DOD workers for future use.
The environmental cleanup at the plant will continue as well.
Despite the progress, however, the core question remains: Has
the promise of Richardson's visit, trumpeted in the headline
"Workers find ally in energy chief," been realized?
Maybe not. But Bob Anderson, whose six–paragraph note was the
first strand in an asymmetrical web linking senators to laborers
and bureaucrats to doctors, is willing to wait a while longer.
"Richardson said at the time, 'If we made you sick, we'll make
it right,' " Anderson said. "Now comes the hard part, the
proof."
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601 319-754-8461
· 1-800-397-1708 · FAX 319-754-6824 · webmaster@thehawkeye.com
*****************************************************************
16 Nuclear Test Watch: Issue No. 2
Looking for Someone to Lie to Me:
Nuclear Test Watch - Issue No. 2
From Michael Roston in New York. Responding to Four More Years.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Happy New Year to Nuclear Test Watch readers. September 23,
2005 will mark the 13th consecutive year in which the United
States has not conducted a nuclear test explosion. Let’s look
forward to that anniversary.
1. The tsunami and the earthquake that caused it have come and
gone and taken too many lives. It was difficult to get warning
about the tsunami, and more difficult to get that warning to the
governments of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and others that
were hit so heavily in the disaster. But some data was available
for early warning, and the source of this information might be a
useful building block for a system to protect peoples living
near Indian Ocean coastlines.
Newspaper reporting on successive days from the International
Herald Tribune and the Washington Post looked to the
International Monitoring System (IMS) set up under the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), and the role
it might have played in providing early warning to the Indian
Ocean coastal states. Many facilities with capability to detect
the earthquake that caused the tsunami are stationed in the
region: a primary seismic station in Chiang Mai, Thailand; six
auxiliary seismic stations in Indonesia, including one in
Sumatra where the worst of the tsunami and earthquake were felt;
an auxiliary seismic station in Sri Lanka; three hydroacoustic
stations and at least one infrasound station on small islands in
the Indian Ocean under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom,
Australia, and France.
The Post’s Colum Lynch suggests that the CTBTO feels some
embarrassment because its staff was on holiday at the time of
the accident, and no one was in Vienna to receive the data that
would have signaled the onset of the disaster. Lynch’s
reporting also quotes geologists in the US who believe the kind
of data available may not have been of any use in predicting a
tsunami.
On January 5, the CTBTO added clarity to the discussion by
issuing a fact sheet. On December 26, despite the holiday
closure of the CTBTO headquarters, computers in Vienna issued
automatic warnings to treaty signatories that have subscribed to
the IMS's information service. Indonesia and Thailand were both
recipients of this information. The CTBTO notice confirms the
IMS information alone cannot provide evidence of a tsunami
threat.
Both newspaper articles noted that the organization lacks the
mandate or resources to staff their International Data Center
year round, or build the system into something that could be
utilized for early warning on natural disasters. The Tribune's
Thomas Fuller also reported that opposition exists among some
parties to the treaty, including China, to far and wide
distribution of data collected by the IMS.
Aggravating these problems, some of the states worst affected
are not parties to the treaty. India has not signed the CTBT,
and strongly opposes the treaty's current terms; Indonesia has
signed, but not ratified the treaty, and claimed in 2001 it was
just a matter of time until it deposited its instruments of
ratification. If scientific and policy communities in these
states were better in touch with the resources available to them
via the IMS, perhaps more of an opportunity would have existed
to prevent this tragedy from reaching its unbelievable scale.
Bodies within those states might have been able to utilize IMS
data as substitutes for the weak geological early warning
capabilities in the region.
Although the United States has been accused of stinginess in its
disaster assistance, it provided $19 million to IMS operations
in FY 2005, an amount that has remained more or less consistent
throughout the Bush administration. However, if the United
States decides to test nuclear weapons again, it is virtually
impossible that the IMS will survive – and at that point, the
world will not be able to build an early warning system for the
Indian Ocean coastal states with the IMS at its core.
2. It has been almost a full month since President Bush made the
unanticipated announcement that Deputy Treasury Secretary Samuel
Bodman would be the nation's next Energy Secretary. There is
nothing in Bodman's background to indicate any predispositions
on America's nuclear weapons posture. The general analysis from
Washington wags suggests that Bodman was selected for his
loyalty, and that he is likely to exhibit his dedication most
strongly while championing Bush's pro-oil and gas industry
energy policy. That loyalty may well apply to questions of US
nonproliferation and nuclear weapons policy.
Hopefully, Bodman's engineering background means he could be
less intimidated on scientific terms when dealing with the
nuclear arms establishment inside the nation's weapons labs.
Perhaps he will be able to see past junk science pedaled in the
labs and recognize that nuclear testing and developments of new
weapons endanger far more than they enhance American security,
and will tell President Bush as much when he advises him on
nuclear planning.
We'll find out more about Bodman on January 19, when he
testifies before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources.
One test of Bodman could emerge later this year. The Global
Security Newswire broke the worrisome possibility in December
that funding for new nuke development could be shuffled from one
budgetary category to another to overcome resistance in the
House of Representatives. The Arms Control Association also
issued a transcript of the December 15 event where this
possibility was publicly aired. Currently, the Energy and Water
Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee makes
decisions on whether or not new nukes will get funded. But the
administration may move the decision to the committee that
allocates funding for the Defense Department where it is less
likely to be opposed. This concept may just be a trial balloon,
and hopefully resistance will emerge from Energy Department
planners wise enough to understand that their policy agenda will
be undermined if funding decisions are hoisted upon them by a
committee with which they are not capable of communicating.
3. Just in time for the New Year, an American newspaper began
beating the drum for testing of nuclear weapons. The editors of
the Yuma Sun in Arizona in a December 30 op-ed insisted that
"Without testing in real world conditions," America cannot rely
on its nuclear arsenal. The stockpile stewardship programs that
the Yuma Sun editors criticize were stated to be sufficient to
obviate additional nuclear testing by the National Nuclear
Security Administration on November 19. Additionally, we were
reminded in 2002 by the National Academcy of Sciences that
arguments like the editors’ of the paper underestimate “the
current capabilities for stockpile stewardship…the effects of
current and likely future rates of progress in improving these
capabilities,†and also exaggerate “the role that nuclear
testing ever played (or would ever be likely to play) in
ensuring stockpile reliability.â€
I would like to encourage readers of Nuclear Test Watch to write
a letter to the editors of the Yuma Sun and remind them of the
dangerousness of this call to action, as I have. You can find
the link for their letters to the editor section here:
http://yumasun.com/opinion/sendletter.php
Perhaps the talking points upon which the Yuma Sun's editorial
were based came from the Center for Security Policy, whose
president Frank J. Gaffney issued a strident written attack
against Ohio Representative David Hobson, the chairman of the
Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the Committee on
Appropriations. Gaffney slanders Hobson’s efforts to rein in
reckless spending on new nuke development, accusing him of
trying to “condemn the United States to a stockpile of
terminally obsolescent nuclear forces and unilateral
disarmament.†He warns Hobson is preventing America from
conducting nuclear tests in as little as three months should it
decide it needs to do so. Gaffney then calls for Hobson’s
head, and hopes the House leadership will remove him from his
chairmanship in the Appropriations subcommittee.
I guess this is how Gaffney would reward a loyal Republican who
helped deliver Ohio for President Bush. I might encourage
Nuclear Test Watch readers to also write a letter to Mr. Gaffney
and his compromised, partisan center. But what’s the point?
They don’t read anything unless it arrives on military
contractor letterhead, and I suspect most of my readership
doesn’t have much of that lying around.
This has been NUCLEAR TEST WATCH.
posted by Michael Roston @
*****************************************************************
17 [NukeNet] Two North Jersey articles on NJ Nukes, iincluding
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:10:17 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Record (Hackensack), Jan. 4, 2005
TOOTH STUDY TIES OYSTER CREEK, CANCER IN KIDS
By Bob Ivry
It's a controversial study ridiculed as "junk science." It's got a
silly nickname and a lead researcher who admits it's too early to draw
significant conclusions.
For parents desperate to figure out why their children have cancer,
the study offers a starting point.
Based on 31 baby teeth collected this year with money from a state
grant, the Radiation and Public Health Project -- also known as the
Tooth Fairy Project -- found a possible link between child cancer
rates and proximity to the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Ocean
County.
Joseph Mangano, the researcher who runs the project, acknowledged that
it's impossible to know anything for sure after examining only 31
teeth.
Addressing concerns
Over the past three days, The Record has outlined concerns about
safety at New Jersey's nuclear power plants. Although there are no
simple solutions, state environmental officials, |independent
scientists and residents say the following could help alleviate some
of their worries:
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should continue to press the owner
of the three Salem County plants to change the work environment.
Employees should not fear they are jeopardizing their jobs by
reporting potential dangers.
Hope Creek should not be brought back online until the issue of the
damaged pump shaft is fully investigated.
Before renewing Oyster Creek's operating license, federal officials
should ensure the area has an effective evacuation plan and the plant
is protected against a terrorist attack.
The studies of the health of residents around nuclear plants,
including the Tooth Fairy Project, should continue to shed light on
whether nuclear power plants affect health in any way.
"The sample is statistically meaningless," Mangano said. "The plan is
to collect more teeth."
The Tooth Fairy Project collects the baby teeth from children with
cancer and tests them for the presence of a radioactive isotope called
strontium-90, a byproduct of nuclear power generation that lodges in
teeth and bones. It's believed to be a carcinogen.
Among those scoffing at Mangano's study are the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission -- the federal agency charged with overseeing the country's
103 commercial reactors -- and officials from Exelon Corp., which owns
Oyster Creek and 16 other nuclear plants and has annual revenues of
$15 billion.
"We believe the Tooth Fairy Project's methodologies are flawed in a
number of ways," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
The NRC and the nuclear industry have pages of evidence to contradict
Mangano. Those pages include a 1990 study by the National Institutes
of Health that found no connection between cancer rates and proximity
to 62 nuclear plants.
They also include a 2001 study by the American Cancer Society that
found no new evidence linking strontium-90 with childhood cancer,
breast cancer or prostate cancer.
New Jersey gave the project $25,000 last year -- even while the state
Commission on Radiation Protection, a branch of the Department of
Environmental Protection, questioned its science.
In a Dec. 17, 2003, letter to Gov. James E. McGreevey, Dr. Julie
Timins, chairwoman of the commission, wrote that approximately 1,400
samples of water, soil, plants and marine life collected annually
around New Jersey's four nuclear plants (Oyster Creek and the three
reactors in Salem County) showed "no increase in radioactivity."
Even with all the evidence to the contrary, it would be wrong to
dismiss Mangano's findings without pursuing further study of baby
teeth, said Dr. Donald Louria, a professor of preventive medicine and
community health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey.
"It's an interesting project and it ought to be expanded," Louria
said. "Is it a potential worry? Yes. Do we need bigger and better
studies? Yes. Should we draw conclusions now? No. But we need to
know."
Mangano defends against the charge of "junk science" by pointing out
other instances where conventional wisdom deemed radiation safe until
conflicting evidence was found, such as prenatal X-rays and atomic
bomb testing.
"There's quite a lot of resistance to the idea that there's any
environmental causes to cancer," he said.
While others denounced the study, Brick Township Mayor Joseph
Scarpelli characterized its findings as a "red warning signal."
Scarpelli was aware the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant was nearby -
about 20 miles south, in Lacey Township -- but he didn't give it much
thought.
Then some parents in town told him about the Tooth Fairy Project and
Scarpelli said something clicked.
"We'd been through this before in this area, with the cancer problems
in Toms River and a controversy about autism in Brick, so I was very
sensitive to these kinds of situations," Scarpelli said.
Today, Scarpelli is one of the leaders of a grass-roots movement aimed
at closing the Oyster Creek nuclear plant, or at least persuading the
NRC not to renew its operating license, which expires in 2009.
Others active in that movement say they, too, became concerned about
Oyster Creek after learning about the Tooth Fairy Project.
"Whether the project's findings turn out to be true or false, it made
me realize that Oyster Creek is a problem," Scarpelli said. "The Tooth
Fairy Project was the catalyst that got me involved."
E-mail: ivry@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2005 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Record (Hackensack), Jan. 4, 2005
EDITORIAL: NUCLEAR WORRIES
By now, the accident reports at New Jersey's nuclear reactors and the
concerns over the power plants' vulnerability to terrorist attacks are
well-documented. Yet they are barely on North Jerseyans' radar
screens.
And that's one of the problems. While people in the metropolitan area
are well aware of the controversies surrounding the nuclear power
plants just up the Hudson River at Indian Point, they may not have
heard that New Jersey's own nuclear plants raise many of the same
worries.
That's why Record Staff Writer Bob Ivry's three-part series is so
important. The series, which concludes today, points out why the
nuclear power plants at Oyster Creek and Hope Creek in South Jersey
are making so many people sound the alarm -- and why the federal
Nuclear Regulatory Commission must hold them to the highest safety
standards.
At the Hope Creek plant in Salem County, for example, federal
regulators must make sure the troubling lack of a "safety-conscious
work environment" is corrected. In October, a pipe burst and sent
radioactive steam into a turbine room -- even though the accident
could have been prevented if standard safety protocols had been in
effect.
Although Hope Creek is currently shut down for refueling and
maintenance, its operator, Public Service Enterprise Group, wants to
restart it soon, even though a wobbly shaft in one of the gigantic
water-recirculation pumps is vibrating so violently that it is
damaging the reactor equipment.
Regulators must not allow the plant to restart until both poor safety
conditions and the wobbly shaft are corrected.
Last week, State Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell went so
far as to write to the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
urge the commission to require PSEG to replace the pump shaft
immediately -- instead of 18 months from now, as part of the next
scheduled shutdown for maintenance.
He's right.
The Oyster Creek Generating Plant in Ocean County, the oldest nuclear
plant in the nation, has an inadequate evacuation plan and safety
operations that have also been criticized. Mr. Campbell and three N.J.
congressmen have expressed opposition to the upcoming renewal of its
operating license.
Says Mr. Campbell, "This plant design is outmoded, and it would not be
approved if presented to the NRC as a new plant today. Significant
components at Oyster Creek are of concern because they are difficult
to inspect, and other significant components are of concern because of
their age. "
While it's too soon to determine whether these problems are indeed
dire enough to block renewing the license, which expires in 2009, the
NRC must take them seriously.
There are also concerns over Oyster Creek's vulnerability to a
terrorist attack. But, incredibly, the NRC does not use that as a
consideration in the relicensing. Why not? In this post-9/11 world,
the agency needs to make sure that all nuclear power plants are more
than adequately fortified.
By providing enough electricity to power 1.6 million homes, New
Jersey's nuclear power plants are a far more integral part of our
power grid than most of us realize. As The Record series underscores,
they deserve far closer scrutiny than they have received.
The NRC must show that it's up to the task of being a serious
regulator.
Copyright © 2005 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
--
Coalition for Peace and Justice
UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; http://www.unplugsalem.org
http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org
"Life is a jelly donut. You don't really know what
its about until you bite into it. Then, just when you decide
its good, you drop a big glob of jelly on your best t-shirt."
Janet Evanovich
--
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18 [NukeNet] Exelon takes over pre-merger; Bakken steps down at
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:17:44 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Investor News NYSE:PEG
For further information, contact:
Brian Smith, Director, Investor Relations Phone: 973-430-6564
Sue Carson, Director, Financial Communications Phone: 973-430-6565
Greg McLaughlin, Sr. Investor Relations Analyst Phone: 973-430-6568
Jairo Chung, Sr. Investor Relations Analyst Phone: 973-430-6596
January 6, 2005
EXELON CORPORATION PREPARES TO PROVIDE
OPERATING SERVICES FOR PSEG NUCLEAR PLANTS
Bakken Offers to Step Aside as CNO of PSEG Nuclear
Levis of Exelon Nuclear Slated to Take Leadership Role
At Salem/Hope Creek Stations
Frank Cassidy, president and chief operating officer of PSEG Power LLC,
the parent company of
PSEG Nuclear, today announced the first steps in the process of
implementing a Nuclear Operating
Services Contract the company signed on December 20, 2004 with Exelon
Corporation. The contract
calls for Exelon to provide management services for plant operations at
PSEG’s Salem and Hope Creek
Generating Stations in Lower Alloways Creek Township, NJ for a period of
two years with a potential
three-year renewal.
Cassidy said the contract, effective January 17, calls for Exelon
personnel to work full time in the
PSEG nuclear organization and to implement the Exelon Nuclear Management
Model. “That working
model has proven to be highly successful across the entire Exelon nuclear
fleet,†said Cassidy, “and we
expect it will produce the same quality results here at our Salem/Hope
Creek plants. Exelon is
recognized as one of the premier nuclear operators in the world and is the
single largest nuclear operator
in the United States. The company has an outstanding track record of
consistent, safe, reliable
operation, and it will be bringing the same working formula used at its 17
nuclear units to our three units
here in New Jersey.â€
While the recently announced merger between PSEG and Exelon is expected to
take 12-to-15
months to receive the required regulatory approvals, the nuclear operating
services contract will begin on
January 17. It calls for Exelon to provide seasoned managers to begin
working at Salem/Hope Creek
immediately and for some PSEG Nuclear employees to transfer to Exelon
nuclear sites.
Cassidy said, “It is understandable that Exelon would want to have its
people who are trained in
its Nuclear Management Model as part of the operating team. As a long-time
co-owner, Exelon is very
familiar with our operation, our staff, and our decision-making. The
transition should be as seamless as
possible.â€
Change in Leadership
Cassidy also announced that A. Christopher Bakken III has decided to step
aside as president of
PSEG Nuclear and chief nuclear officer (CNO) also effective January 17.
“Speaking personally, this is
the most painful part of the transition,†said Cassidy. “Chris Bakken has
been an anchor for this
company during a very difficult period. He has exhibited what we all knew
he could deliver: great
integrity and good judgment under very challenging circumstances; an
enviable ability to motivate and
guide a workforce through a period of great change; and the capacity to
build trust with organized labor,
with regulatory authorities, and with public officials and community
leaders throughout the region. He is
a superb talent. While he has chosen to step aside, we will not lose his
counsel and support. He will
remain with PSEG Power to assist in the transition and will be working
with me as senior vice president
Power Transition.
Bakken said, “This is a very common sense decision for me. Exelon has a
proven track record
of building successful organizations. Plainly put, it deserves the
opportunity to provide its own leadership
trained in the working model and to bring in the leadership team they feel
can run their system.
“I’m proud of what we’ve managed to accomplish at the site in the seven
months I’ve been CNO.
I feel I have helped stabilize the safety conscious work environment
issues we faced. We’ve greatly
improved labor management relations. We have invested over $70 million
and some 330,000 hours of
work to restore and upgrade many of the systems at the Hope Creek station.
We’ve made significant
progress on our corrective and elective maintenance backlogs and they are
on track to be top quartile by
the end of 2005.
“PSEG and the people in this state and in this region deserve a first-rate
nuclear operation: one
that is unquestionably safe and one that is consistently rated among the
top performers in the nation.
Exelon has proven it can deliver on that promise and it will prove it
again here in New Jersey.â€
Cassidy announced that Bill Levis, currently vice president of
Mid-Atlantic Operations for Exelon
Nuclear, has been designated senior vice president and CNO for Salem/Hope
Creek. Levis brings some
21 years of experience in commercial nuclear operations and has most
recently been responsible for
executive oversight of the day-to-day operations of Limerick, Peach
Bottom, TMI-1 and Oyster Creek
Stations. His broad experience includes start-up, engineering, operations,
performance recovery, and
sustaining excellence. In each of his positions over the years he has made
significant overall operating
improvements in the units he has managed which have resulted in their
performing at the highest levels
in their history.
Cassidy said the new team will manage daily operations but that PSEG Power
will remain the
license holder and retain responsibility for management oversight until
the close of the merger and have
full authority with respect to marketing its share of the output from the
facilities. Accordingly, Levis will
report directly to Cassidy.
Christopher M. Crane, senior vice president of Exelon Corporation and
president and chief
nuclear officer of Exelon Nuclear will provide ongoing technical support
to Levis and will make certain
that the broadly diverse and highly respected skills of the entire Exelon
nuclear organization will be made
available to Levis and to PSEG. Crane has worked in the nuclear industry
for some 25 years and was a
major part of the ComEd nuclear program recovery. He leads a fleet of 10
nuclear stations in the United
States with 17 reactors having about 17,000 MWs of capacity. It is the
third largest fleet in the world and
the largest in the country.
# # #
This filing contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about
the benefits of the business combination
transaction involving Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated and
Exelon Corporation, including future
financial and operating results, the combined company’s plans, objectives,
expectations and intentions and other
statements that are not historical or current facts. Such statements are
based upon the current beliefs and
expectations of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated’s and Exelon
Corporation’s management, are subject
to significant risks and uncertainties and may differ materially from
actual future experience involving any one or
more of such matters. Actual results may differ from those set forth in
the forward-looking statements. The
following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from
those set forth in the forward-looking
statements: the timing of the contemplated merger and the impact of any
conditions imposed by regulators in
connection with their approval thereof; the failure of Public Service
Enterprise Group Incorporated and Exelon
Corporation stockholders to make the requisite approvals for the
transaction; the risk that the businesses will not be
integrated successfully; failure to quickly realize cost-savings from the
transaction as a result of technical, logistical,
competitive and other factors; the effects of weather; the performance of
generating units and transmission
systems; the availability and prices for oil, gas, coal, nuclear fuel,
capacity and electricity; changes in the markets
for electricity and other energy-related commodities; changes in the
number of participants and the risk profile of
such participants in the energy marketing and trading business; the
effectiveness of our risk management and
internal controls systems; the effects of regulatory decisions and changes
in law; changes in competition in the
markets we serve; the ability to recover regulatory assets and other
potential stranded costs; the outcomes of
litigation and regulatory proceedings or inquiries; the timing and success
of efforts to develop domestic and
international power projects; conditions of the capital markets and equity
markets; advances in technology;
changes in accounting standards; changes in interest rates and in
financial and foreign currency markets generally;
the economic and political climate and growth in the areas in which we
conduct our activities; and changes in
corporate strategies. While we believe that our forecasts and assumptions
are reasonable, we caution that actual
results may differ materially. We intend the forward-looking statements to
speak only as of the time first made and
we do not undertake to update or revise them as more information becomes
available. Additional factors that could
cause Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated’s and Exelon
Corporation’s results to differ materially from
those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the 2003
Annual Reports on Form 10-K, and
Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September
30, 2004, and the current reports on
Form 8-K filed on December 21, 2004, and December 20, 2004, of Public
Service Enterprise Group Incorporated
and Exelon Corporation, as such reports may have been amended, each filed
with the Securities and Exchange
Commission and available at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s
website, www.sec.gov.
Additional Information
This communication is not a solicitation of a proxy from any security
holder of Public Service Enterprise Group
Incorporated or Exelon Corporation. Exelon Corporation intends to file
with the Securities and Exchange
Commission a registration statement that will include a joint proxy
statement/prospectus and other relevant
documents to be mailed by Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated and
Exelon Corporation to their
respective security holders in connection with the proposed merger of
Public Service Enterprise Group
Incorporated and Exelon Corporation. WE URGE INVESTORS AND SECURITY
HOLDERS TO READ THE
JOINT PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS WHEN THEY
BECOME AVAILABLE, BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT
PUBLIC
SERVICE ENTERPRISE GROUP INCORPORATED, EXELON CORPORATION AND THE PROPOSED
MERGER. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain these
materials (when they are available) and other
documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission free of charge
at the Securities and Exchange
Commission’s website, www.sec.gov. In addition, a copy of the joint proxy
statement/prospectus (when it becomes
available) may be obtained free of charge from Public Service Enterprise
Group Incorporated, Investor Relations,
80 Park Plaza, P.O. Box 1171, Newark, New Jersey 07101-1171, or from
Exelon Corporation, Investor Relations,
10 South Dearborn Street, P.O. Box 805398, Chicago, Illinois 60680-5398.
Participants in Solicitation
Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated, Exelon Corporation, their
respective directors and executive officers
and other persons may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of
proxies in respect of the proposed
transaction. Information regarding Public Service Enterprise Group
Incorporated’s directors and executive officers
is available in its proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission by Public Service Enterprise
Group Incorporated on March 10, 2004, and information regarding Exelon
Corporation’s directors and executive
officers is available in its proxy statement filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission by Exelon
Corporation on March 12, 2004. OTHER INFORMATION REGARDING THE
PARTICIPANTS IN THE PROXY
SOLICITATION AND A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR DIRECT AND INDIRECT INTERESTS, BY
SECURITY
HOLDINGS OR OTHERWISE, WILL BE CONTAINED IN THE JOINT PROXY
STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND
OTHER RELEVANT MATERIALS TO BE FILED WITH THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE
COMMISSION
WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE.
--
Coalition for Peace and Justice
UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; http://www.unplugsalem.org
http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org
"Life is a jelly donut. You don't really know what
its about until you bite into it. Then, just when you decide
its good, you drop a big glob of jelly on your best t-shirt."
Janet Evanovich
--
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19 Re: Bruce Williams announced his retirement from AmerGen
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:10:15 -0800
on 1/6/05 11:29 AM, Scott D. Portzline at sdportzline@comcast.net wrote:
REGION I
TMI Senior Management Change
Licensee/Facility:
AMERGEN ENERGY CO., LLC
Three Mile Island 1
MIDDLETOWN, Pennsylvania
Dockets: 05000289
[1] B&W-L-LP
License No: Notification:
MR Number: 1-2005-0001
Date: 01/04/2005
Licensee Announcement
Discussion:
Three Mile Island Site Vice President Bruce Williams announced his
retirement from AmerGen. Mr. Russell West, the current Exelon Vice
President of Nuclear Oversight (NOS), will replace Mr. Bruce Williams
effective immediately. However, Mr. Williams will remain at Three Mile
Island through the month of January to ensure a smooth turnover. The new
NOS Vice President will be named in the near future.
Mr. Russell "Rusty" West joined Exelon Nuclear in April 2002 and held the
position of Site Vice President at Peach Bottom prior to assuming his
current position in NOS. Before coming to Exelon, Mr. West held several
management positions with Florida Power & Light at the St. Lucie and Turkey
Point Nuclear Power Stations.
Contacts:
Name Office Abbrev Phone No E-Mail BARKLEY, RICHARD S. R1 (610) 337-5065
RSB1@nrc.gov
Privacy Policy | Site
Disclaimer
Last revised Thursday, January 06, 2005
*****************************************************************
20 [CMEP] Comment on NRC Environmental Review of Nuke Plant
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 13:37:19 -0600 (CST)
!!! A C T I O N A L E R T !!!
Jan. 6, 2005
Submit Comments TODAY on the NRC's Environmental Review of Proposed
Nuclear Fuel Plant in New Mexico
Tomorrow -- Friday, Jan. 7 -- is the deadline for public comments on
the NRC's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the National
Enrichment Facility (NEF) proposed by the foreign-dominated
multinational company Louisiana Energy Services (LES). The company --
which has already been booted out of two communities where it attempted
to locate its polluting plant -- is again seeking a license to build and
operate a uranium enrichment facility that would produce fuel for
nuclear power reactors.
TAKE ACTION!
Public Citizen has prepared sample comments which are pasted below and
may also be sent directly to the NRC (with amendments, if you prefer)
via our Web site:
http://action.citizen.org/pc/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=6790516
You may view the complete comments of Public Citizen and the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service (NIRS) -- which are jointly involved in
a legal intervention against LES's license application -- here (comments
will be posted soon):
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/uranium/
The LES license application and the NRC's DEIS may be viewed through
the NRC's Web site:
http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/lesfacility.html
You may also submit your own comments directly (noted "Docket No.
70-3103" with attention to "Anna Bradford") to:
E-MAIL:
nrcrep@nrc.gov
FAX:
301-415-5397
SNAIL MAIL:
Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mail Stop T6-D59
Washington, DC 20555-0001
==========
[SAMPLE COMMENTS]
Chief, Rules and Directives Branch
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mail Stop T6-D59
Washington, D.C. 20555-0001
Re: Comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the
Proposed National Enrichment Facility in Lea County, New Mexico
(NUREG-1790); Docket No. 70-3103
To Whom It May Concern:
The NRC has determined in its Draft EIS that the environmental impacts
from building and operating a uranium enrichment facility on the site
would be "small" to "moderate," and has recommended that the proposed
license be issued to LES (Draft EIS, ' 2.4).
However, it is my view that the Draft EIS fails to consider important
factors that may contribute to substantial environmental impacts not
adequately represented in this review.
Generally, the Draft EIS does not fully meet the requirement of the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that each federal agency must
consider in an environmental impact statement "the relationship between
local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and
enhancement of long-term productivity" (42 U.S.C. ' 4332(c)(iv)). The
cumulative hazards and dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear power
generation, and nuclear waste management weigh deserve a thorough
accounting in the EIS, which is lacking in this draft version.
Specifically, the Draft EIS is insufficient in the following areas:
SITE SELECTION:
The description of LES's site selection process is misleading in that
it only mentions certain objective criteria of respective sites and
neglects the political situation that led to the selection of the site
in New Mexico. It has been reported that Sen. Pete Domenici of New
Mexico "wooed" the company to his home state when it was having trouble
meeting zoning requirements established at its chosen site in Tennessee.
Officials at the federal, state, and local level in New Mexico were,
unlike in Tennessee, generally favorable to the project, yet nothing of
this is mentioned in the Draft EIS; rather, the process used to select
the site is described as a "multi-attribute-utility-analysis
methodology" (page 2-35, line 5).
Seven candidate sites were eliminated because of the risk of an
earthquake (Draft EIS, Table 2-7); yet the Lea County site lies in a
seismically-active area near, possibly over, a geologic fault. The site
in Bellefonte, Alabama is said to have been eliminated because a
"historic preservation assessment" may have been required (page 2-38,
line 16), but seven archaeological sites have been identified at the Lea
County site. The "costly relocation" of high-voltage transmission lines
is cited as a reason for lowering Bellefonte's rating, but at the Lea
County site is a high-pressure carbon-dioxide (CO2) gas line that would
have to be relocated before the site is developed (page 2-9).
Considering this, why is the Bellefonte site considered to be inferior
to the Lea County site?
NEED FOR THE FACILITY:
The Draft EIS states that "nuclear-generating capacity within the
United States is expected to increase, causing an increase in demand for
low-enriched uranium" (page 2-23, lines 46-47). Given the facts that
(1) no new nuclear power reactor has been ordered in a quarter of a
century; (2) no company has received a license to build a new reactor;
(3) no company has expounded an explicit plan to build a new nuclear
reactor; and (4) Wall Street does not seem to have an interest in
funding a new generation of nuclear reactors, even with government
support, how does the NRC justify the claim that nuclear-generating
capacity is expected to increase in the United States?
SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT:
The NRC judges the socio-economic impact of the proposed NEF to be
"moderate," citing benefits to Lea County and the surrounding region in
the form of jobs and taxes (Draft EIS, Table 2-8, page 2-52; see also '
4.2.9.7). However, per the terms of the agreement between LES and Lea
County on the $1.8 billion in industrial revenue bonds the county
offered to finance the project, LES would not have to pay any property
taxes for the duration of the operational life of the NEF -- roughly 30
years -- and it may be exempt from other taxes as well. According to the
Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, this kind of property
tax exemption could be worth $3 million over 30 years for a $10 million
project. Considering that construction of the NEF is expected to cost
$1.2 billion (Draft EIS, Table 2-8, page 2-52), what does the NRC expect
the total property tax exemption for the NEF to be? Moreover, the
percentage of persons in the region employed in the "Professional,
Scientific, Management, Administration, and Waste Management" fields --
presumably applicable to jobs that would be created at the NEF -- is
less than half the averages for New Mexico and Texas (Draft EIS, Table
3-15, line 27).
"ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE":
The NRC staff judges that the impact of the NEF in the area of
"environmental justice" will be "small." Yet the data are skewed by
comparing the minority and low-income population percentages of the area
to state averages, rather than to national averages. In fact, Hispanics
make up 42.1 percent of the population of New Mexico -- the highest
percentage of any state -- and 39.6 percent of the population of Lea
County, but only 12.5 percent of the U.S. population at-large.
WATER RESOURCES:
In the Draft EIS, the NRC observes that the water requirements of the
NEF are well within the capacity of the Eunice and Hobbs municipal water
systems, but this assessment totally neglects the severe long-term water
shortage problem of Lea County, as documented in the Lea County Regional
Water Plan. According to water plan, groundwater in the county is being
withdrawn at a greater rate than it is being recharged. The report
projects a doubling of water usage by 2040 and warns that "there is
physically not enough water in the Basin to maintain an annual diversion
of this magnitude."
WATER QUALITY:
The site of the proposed NEF lies in the vicinity of several geologic
faults, and earthquakes frequently occur around the designated NEF site,
including one with a magnitude of 5.0 in 1992. Despite this, the NRC
has not conducted an investigation of the possible effects of
earthquakes on groundwater flow; nor has it considered the possibility
of contaminant infiltration into groundwater due to such seismic
activity. Furthermore, the Draft EIS appears to indicate an assumption
by the NRC that the liners employed to impound the contents of the
NEF's wastewater basins will retain their integrity for the
duration of the facility's operation, since there is no estimate of
the likelihood of liner corruption and subsequent leakage of
contaminated liquid effluents from the plant. How long does the NRC
assume that the liners will contain the waste, and on what basis is this
assumption made?
CLASSIFICATION OF DEPLETED URANIUM:
On page 2-27, the NRC states that "[f]or the purpose of this Draft EIS,
the NRC considers the DUF6 generated by the proposed NEF to be a Class A
low-level radioactive waste as defined in 10 CFR ' 61.55(a)(6)." Why is
it assumed in the Draft EIS that DUF6 is low-level waste when (1) LES
itself has not yet determined whether the DUF6 it produces will be
considered a waste or a resource, and (2) the NRC has not finally
determined the proper waste classification of depleted uranium?
DISPOSAL OF DEPLETED URANIUM:
The Draft EIS lists as a second plausible disposition strategy a
scenario in which LES would pay the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for
conversion and disposal of its waste under Section 3113 of the 1996
United States Enrichment Privatization Act which states that the DOE
"shall accept for disposal low-level radioactive waste, including
depleted uranium if it were ultimately determined to be low-level waste"
(Draft EIS, page 2-31; the law is codified as 42 U.S.C. ' 2297h-11).
But the NRC has yet to make a final determination on the waste
classification of depleted uranium; this being the case, transfer to the
DOE cannot be considered a plausible option for disposal of DUF6.
ATMOSPHERIC EMISSIONS:
The Draft EIS notes that the NEF would annually discharge 440 cubic
meters of helium, 190 cubic meters of argon, 53 cubic meters of
nitrogen, 610 liters of methylene chloride, 40 liters of ethanol, 0.8
metric tons of volatile organic compounds, 0.5 metric tons of carbon
monoxide, and 5.0 metric tons of nitrogen dioxide (page 2-23, lines
4-13). What mitigation measures are in place to limit these emissions,
and what negative environmental and public health impacts would their
dispersal into the atmosphere contribute to?
ACCIDENTS:
The Draft EIS describes the most significant accident scenario at the
proposed NEF to be an accidental release of uranium hexafluoride (UF6).
NRC staff judges that the risk of such exposures would increase if the
winds were from the south at the time of the accident, sending the plum
of UF6 towards Hobbs and Lovington, New Mexico (Draft EIS, page 4-25,
lines 21-30). The local wind patterns documented in Section 3.5.2.4 and
represented in Figures 3-8 and 3-10 show that southerly winds prevail in
the area; thus, the likelihood of this worst-case scenario, which is
contingent upon winds from the south, is increased.
CULTURAL RESOURCES:
There are seven archaeological sites within the proposed project area,
each of which has been determined to be eligible for listing in the
National Register of Historic Places. Considering this, how does NRC
deem the NEF's impact on cultural resources as "small"?
CONCLUSION:
In the areas described above, the NRC's Draft EIS for the National
Enrichment Facility (NEF) falls short of a complete evaluation of the
environmental impacts of the proposed facility as required by the
National Environmental Policy Act. Until the above questions and
criticisms are adequately addressed and resolved, the NRC staff's
recommendation that the license for the NEF be approved is premature.
Please enter these comments into the official record on this
proceeding.
**********
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*****************************************************************
21 [NukeNet] Comment on NRC Environmental Review of Nuke Plant
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:10:18 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
!!! A C T I O N A L E R T !!!
Jan. 6, 2005
Submit Comments TODAY on the NRC's Environmental Review of Proposed
Nuclear Fuel Plant in New Mexico
Tomorrow -- Friday, Jan. 7 -- is the deadline for public comments on
the NRC's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the National
Enrichment Facility (NEF) proposed by the foreign-dominated
multinational company Louisiana Energy Services (LES). The company --
which has already been booted out of two communities where it attempted
to locate its polluting plant -- is again seeking a license to build and
operate a uranium enrichment facility that would produce fuel for
nuclear power reactors.
TAKE ACTION!
Public Citizen has prepared sample comments which are pasted below and
may also be sent directly to the NRC (with amendments, if you prefer)
via our Web site:
http://action.citizen.org/pc/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=6790516
You may view the complete comments of Public Citizen and the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service (NIRS) -- which are jointly involved in
a legal intervention against LES's license application -- here (comments
will be posted soon):
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/uranium/
The LES license application and the NRC's DEIS may be viewed through
the NRC's Web site:
http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/lesfacility.html
You may also submit your own comments directly (noted "Docket No.
70-3103" with attention to "Anna Bradford") to:
E-MAIL:
nrcrep@nrc.gov
FAX:
301-415-5397
SNAIL MAIL:
Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mail Stop T6-D59
Washington, DC 20555-0001
==========
[SAMPLE COMMENTS]
Chief, Rules and Directives Branch
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mail Stop T6-D59
Washington, D.C. 20555-0001
Re: Comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the
Proposed National Enrichment Facility in Lea County, New Mexico
(NUREG-1790); Docket No. 70-3103
To Whom It May Concern:
The NRC has determined in its Draft EIS that the environmental impacts
from building and operating a uranium enrichment facility on the site
would be "small" to "moderate," and has recommended that the proposed
license be issued to LES (Draft EIS, § 2.4).
However, it is my view that the Draft EIS fails to consider important
factors that may contribute to substantial environmental impacts not
adequately represented in this review.
Generally, the Draft EIS does not fully meet the requirement of the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that each federal agency must
consider in an environmental impact statement "the relationship between
local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and
enhancement of long-term productivity" (42 U.S.C. § 4332(c)(iv)). The
cumulative hazards and dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear power
generation, and nuclear waste management weigh deserve a thorough
accounting in the EIS, which is lacking in this draft version.
Specifically, the Draft EIS is insufficient in the following areas:
SITE SELECTION:
The description of LES's site selection process is misleading in that
it only mentions certain objective criteria of respective sites and
neglects the political situation that led to the selection of the site
in New Mexico. It has been reported that Sen. Pete Domenici of New
Mexico "wooed" the company to his home state when it was having trouble
meeting zoning requirements established at its chosen site in Tennessee.
Officials at the federal, state, and local level in New Mexico were,
unlike in Tennessee, generally favorable to the project, yet nothing of
this is mentioned in the Draft EIS; rather, the process used to select
the site is described as a "multi-attribute-utility-analysis
methodology" (page 2-35, line 5).
Seven candidate sites were eliminated because of the risk of an
earthquake (Draft EIS, Table 2-7); yet the Lea County site lies in a
seis
mically-active area near, possibly over, a geologic fault. The site
in Bellefonte, Alabama is said to have been eliminated because a
"historic preservation assessment" may have been required (page 2-38,
line 16), but seven archaeological sites have been identified at the Lea
County site. The "costly relocation" of high-voltage transmission lines
is cited as a reason for lowering Bellefonte's rating, but at the Lea
County site is a high-pressure carbon-dioxide (CO2) gas line that would
have to be relocated before the site is developed (page 2-9).
Considering this, why is the Bellefonte site considered to be inferior
to the Lea County site?
NEED FOR THE FACILITY:
The Draft EIS states that "nuclear-generating capacity within the
United States is expected to increase, causing an increase in demand for
low-enriched uranium" (page 2-23, lines 46-47). Given the facts that
(1) no new nuclear power reactor has been ordered in a quarter of a
century; (2) no company has received a license to build a new reactor;
(3) no company has expounded an explicit plan to build a new nuclear
reactor; and (4) Wall Street does not seem to have an interest in
funding a new generation of nuclear reactors, even with government
support, how does the NRC justify the claim that nuclear-generating
capacity is expected to increase in the United States?
SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT:
The NRC judges the socio-economic impact of the proposed NEF to be
"moderate," citing benefits to Lea County and the surrounding region in
the form of jobs and taxes (Draft EIS, Table 2-8, page 2-52; see also §
4.2.9.7). However, per the terms of the agreement between LES and Lea
County on the $1.8 billion in industrial revenue bonds the county
offered to finance the project, LES would not have to pay any property
taxes for the duration of the operational life of the NEF -- roughly 30
years -- and it may be exempt from other taxes as well. According to the
Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, this kind of property
tax exemption could be worth $3 million over 30 years for a $10 million
project. Considering that construction of the NEF is expected to cost
$1.2 billion (Draft EIS, Table 2-8, page 2-52), what does the NRC expect
the total property tax exemption for the NEF to be? Moreover, the
percentage of persons in the region employed in the "Professional,
Scientific, Management, Administration, and Waste Management" fields --
presumably applicable to jobs that would be created at the NEF -- is
less than half the averages for New Mexico and Texas (Draft EIS, Table
3-15, line 27).
"ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE":
The NRC staff judges that the impact of the NEF in the area of
"environmental justice" will be "small." Yet the data are skewed by
comparing the minority and low-income population percentages of the area
to state averages, rather than to national averages. In fact, Hispanics
make up 42.1 percent of the population of New Mexico -- the highest
percentage of any state -- and 39.6 percent of the population of Lea
County, but only 12.5 percent of the U.S. population at-large.
WATER RESOURCES:
In the Draft EIS, the NRC observes that the water requirements of the
NEF are well within the capacity of the Eunice and Hobbs municipal water
systems, but this assessment totally neglects the severe long-term water
shortage problem of Lea County, as documented in the Lea County Regional
Water Plan. According to water plan, groundwater in the county is being
withdrawn at a greater rate than it is being recharged. The report
projects a doubling of water usage by 2040 and warns that "there is
physically not enough water in the Basin to maintain an annual diversion
of this magnitude."
WATER QUALITY:
The site of the proposed NEF lies in the vicinity of several geologic
faults, and earthquakes frequently occur around the designated NEF site,
including one with a magnitude of 5.0 in 1992. Despite this, the NRC
has not conducted an investigation of the possible effects of
earthquakes on groundwater flow; nor ha
s it considered the possibility
of contaminant infiltration into groundwater due to such seismic
activity. Furthermore, the Draft EIS appears to indicate an assumption
by the NRC that the liners employed to impound the contents of the NEF's
wastewater basins will retain their integrity for the duration of the
facility's operation, since there is no estimate of the likelihood of
liner corruption and subsequent leakage of contaminated liquid effluents
from the plant. How long does the NRC assume that the liners will
contain the waste, and on what basis is this assumption made?
CLASSIFICATION OF DEPLETED URANIUM:
On page 2-27, the NRC states that "[f]or the purpose of this Draft EIS,
the NRC considers the DUF6 generated by the proposed NEF to be a Class A
low-level radioactive waste as defined in 10 CFR § 61.55(a)(6)." Why is
it assumed in the Draft EIS that DUF6 is low-level waste when (1) LES
itself has not yet determined whether the DUF6 it produces will be
considered a waste or a resource, and (2) the NRC has not finally
determined the proper waste classification of depleted uranium?
DISPOSAL OF DEPLETED URANIUM:
The Draft EIS lists as a second plausible disposition strategy a
scenario in which LES would pay the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for
conversion and disposal of its waste under Section 3113 of the 1996
United States Enrichment Privatization Act which states that the DOE
"shall accept for disposal low-level radioactive waste, including
depleted uranium if it were ultimately determined to be low-level waste"
(Draft EIS, page 2-31; the law is codified as 42 U.S.C. § 2297h-11).
But the NRC has yet to make a final determination on the waste
classification of depleted uranium; this being the case, transfer to the
DOE cannot be considered a plausible option for disposal of DUF6.
ATMOSPHERIC EMISSIONS:
The Draft EIS notes that the NEF would annually discharge 440 cubic
meters of helium, 190 cubic meters of argon, 53 cubic meters of
nitrogen, 610 liters of methylene chloride, 40 liters of ethanol, 0.8
metric tons of volatile organic compounds, 0.5 metric tons of carbon
monoxide, and 5.0 metric tons of nitrogen dioxide (page 2-23, lines
4-13). What mitigation measures are in place to limit these emissions,
and what negative environmental and public health impacts would their
dispersal into the atmosphere contribute to?
ACCIDENTS:
The Draft EIS describes the most significant accident scenario at the
proposed NEF to be an accidental release of uranium hexafluoride (UF6).
NRC staff judges that the risk of such exposures would increase if the
winds were from the south at the time of the accident, sending the plum
of UF6 towards Hobbs and Lovington, New Mexico (Draft EIS, page 4-25,
lines 21-30). The local wind patterns documented in Section 3.5.2.4 and
represented in Figures 3-8 and 3-10 show that southerly winds prevail in
the area; thus, the likelihood of this worst-case scenario, which is
contingent upon winds from the south, is increased.
CULTURAL RESOURCES:
There are seven archaeological sites within the proposed project area,
each of which has been determined to be eligible for listing in the
National Register of Historic Places. Considering this, how does NRC
deem the NEF's impact on cultural resources as "small"?
CONCLUSION:
In the areas described above, the NRC's Draft EIS for the National
Enrichment Facility (NEF) falls short of a complete evaluation of the
environmental impacts of the proposed facility as required by the
National Environmental Policy Act. Until the above questions and
criticisms are adequately addressed and resolved, the NRC staff's
recommendation that the license for the NEF be approved is premature.
Please enter these comments into the official record on this
proceeding.
_______________________________________________________________________
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22 Arizona Republic: Palo Verde probe nets 4 safety violations
January 6, 2005
Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Jan. 6, 2005 12:00 AM
Arizona Public Service Co. faces possible fines and heightened
scrutiny from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which said the
power company failed to properly maintain a key safety system at
the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.
The results of a four-month-long investigation, released
Wednesday, cited four safety violations related to the emergency
cooling systems for three nuclear reactors at the plant, which is
west of Phoenix and operated by APS.
The NRC noted that the violations have been corrected and do not
represent a current safety concern.
APS said its own tests have found the condition of the backup
cooling system did not pose a significant safety risk. The
utility will present its case at a hearing, Jan. 27, at the NRC's
regional headquarters in Arlington, Texas.
"We have test data in hand and we believe that data will mitigate
the NRC's findings," APS spokesman Jim McDonald said.
While two of the violations posed minimal safety risks, two might
have compromised the plant's ability to keep its reactors cool
during an emergency, the report said. Those two violations could
lead to fines and other penalties. The agency said it would wait
until after hearing APS' response to determine the extent of the
penalties.
NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the findings don't show that the
plant was being operated in an unsafe fashion, only that the
safety margins had been diminished.
At issue are pipes that deliver emergency cooling water to the
plant's reactor vessels in the event of a breakdown of the
primary cooling system.
Commission inspectors found the pipes dry, instead of filled with
water as prescribed by NRC maintenance procedures.
The NRC contends APS made a decision in 1992 not to maintain
water in the lines.
The agency expressed concerns that the air in the lines could
cause pumps to malfunction during an emergency start-up.
"Essentially they have been operating for more than 20 years with
a degraded emergency cooling system," Dricks said.
McDonald said the utility's tests show that the dry pipes did not
affect the operation of the pumps.
The reactors are contained in large vats of water that is
circulated to maintain a constant temperature.
If that system fails, water is pumped into the tank from an
outside source to maintain the temperature.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent an investigation tem to
Palo Verde in August to determine if the condition of the pipes
presented a significant safety risk.
It was the fourth time since the first of the year that the
agency had sent a special investigative team to the Palo Verde.
A simultaneous investigation looked into a June 14 power surge
in the West Valley that shut down the plant's three reactors.
Investigators also probed a steam generator leak in February,
and in May they investigated allegations of an erosion of a
"culture of safety" because of what was called a disconnect
between management and workers.
The three other probes did not result in penalties or fines.
The June 14 incident was one of five unplanned outages at Palo
Verde that caught regulators' eyes in 2004. Three of the events
involved radiation leaks.
Copyright © 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
23 NRC: NRC Establishes Web Page for Information on Safety-Conscious Work Environment at Salem/Hope
Creek
/News Release - 2005-00 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: No. 05-001 January 5, 2005
The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Web site now includes a page
devoted to the topic of safety-conscious work environment (SCWE)
at nuclear power plants, with a focus on the NRCs ongoing review
at the Salem and Hope Creek plants in New Jersey.
The new page provides the history of SCWE at the Salem and Hope
Creek site, operated by PSEG Nuclear, since the NRCs Region I
office initiated its review in early 2004. The page provides
easy references for the public and other stakeholders to access
information and documents on several topics, including: Ongoing
activities;
Correspondence with PSEG;
Correspondence with the public;
Public meetings;
Frequently asked questions, and
Performance of Salem and Hope Creek.
The page can be found on the NRC web site here:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/hope-creek-salem
-issues.html.
Last revised Thursday, January 06, 2005
*****************************************************************
24 People's Daily: Nuclear application becomes a new growth point
UPDATED: 16:10, January 06, 2005
The annual production value of China's nuclear industry has
reached 40 billion yuan. The market is expected to expand to 100
billion yuan in five years and keep rising at a rate of more
than 15 percent for long.
Nuclear technologies application has been included in the
national special program for hi-tech industries development and
is heading for a boom.
Nuclear technologies are extensively used in agriculture,
industry, and pharmaceuticals in China. more than 300
institutions are engaged in the development and production of
nuclear technologies. China¡¯s nuclear technologies application
is catching up with the international level while some even lead
the world.
China National Nuclear Corporation identifies nuclear
technologies application as one of its pillars. It enjoys
comparative advantages on isotope and radioactive pharma, radial
application equipment and apparatus, and fluorin chemicals.
The company has successfully developed and exported screened
electron beam sterilizers and containers testing system. Its
production of cobalt-60 and incineration system for medical
wastes have promising prospect.
By People's Daily Online
Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
25 The Dolphin: Welcome home NR-1
01/06/2005 -
Photo by JOSA Arianne Anderson
Lt. Cmdr. Dennis J. McKelvey, commanding officer of the Navy's
only nuclear powered, deep submergence, scientific research
vessel, NR-1, waves to family members as the submarine and the
Submarine Support Vessel Carolyn Chouest returned to Naval
Submarine Base New London (SUBASE) following a four-and-a-half
month deployment to the North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea
Dec. 18.
According to the boat's executive officer, NR-1 had sailed about
15,000 nautical miles, about 100 of them doing near-bottom survey
work. The crew also enjoyed port visits in Faslane, Scotland,
Haakonsvern, Norway, and Mayport and Port Canaveral, Fla. While
in Scotland, approximately 25 NR-1 crewmembers aboard the Carolyn
Chouest helped the Canadian submarine Chicoutimi when it suffered
two fires approximately 230 miles off the coast of Scotland last
fall. The Chouest helped tow the Canadian submarine back to port.
©The Dolphin 2005
*****************************************************************
26 NRC: Region I - 05-001 - NRC to Discuss Results of Special Inspection
at Hope Creek Plant
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission [ border=]
NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of
Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov
No. I-05-001 January 3, 2005
CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330
Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail:
NRC RESCHEDULES MEETING ON HOPE CREEK NUCLEAR PLANT TO JAN. 12
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rescheduled a public
meeting at which key issues involving the Hope Creek nuclear
power plant are to be discussed. The reason for the postponement
is to allow adequate time for the NRC staff to complete its
review of issues associated with one of the reactor
recirculation pumps at the Hancocks Bridge (Salem County), N.J.,
facility.
Previously scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 5, the meeting between
NRC staff and representatives of Public Service Electric and Gas
(PSEG), the operator of the plant, will now take place on
Wednesday, Jan. 12. The location will remain unchanged: The
Holiday Inn Select Bridgeport, located off Exit 10 of Interstate
295 in Swedesboro, N.J. Before the session is adjourned, NRC
staff will accept questions and comments from the public.
Another topic of discussion at the meeting will be the results
of an NRC special inspection conducted at the plant in response
to a steam line failure and shutdown with complications that
occurred there on Oct. 10. In addition, issues involving the
exhaust piping for the high-pressure coolant injection pump will
be discussed.
Prior to the meeting, the NRC staff expects to release the
results of its analysis of the issues involving the B
recirculation pump as well as the preliminary results of the
special inspection.
The meeting will take place prior to the plants return to
service from its current refueling and maintenance outage.
Background information regarding the Hope Creek plant can be
found on a portion of the NRCs web site devoted to that plant
and the adjacent Salem reactors. The web address is:
www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/hope-creek-salem-issues
.html. Specific information on the technical issues involving
the Hope Creek B recirculation pump can be found in the NRCs
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System, or ADAMS,
under Accession Numbers ML043480164 and ML043510279. ADAMS can
be accessed at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using
ADAMS is available from the NRC Public Document Room at
1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737.
Privacy Policy | Site Disclaimer
Last revised Thursday, January 06, 2005
*****************************************************************
27 ER: Play it safe by admitting we don’t know much about earthquake risk
The Eureka Reporter... Real News by Real People
1/6/05
by Michael Welch
I have some comments about recent opinion pieces and stories on
local earthquakes and tsunamis in area papers. …
It is horrific to hear of the deaths and damage in the South
Pacific. I agree with local experts that damage from a similar
quake would be lighter here, with far fewer casualties. But,
there is still some other information that is important to get
out to our community.
First, no mention is made of PG's Humboldt Bay nuclear power
plant, which is situated almost directly across from the bay
entrance in King Salmon.
Historically, this plant has been the greatest concern in the
community during discussions of earthquakes. Also, no mention was
made of the Little Salmon earthquake fault, which is directly
under the power plant property, and is assumed to be connected to
the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Thankfully, our local nuke plant has been shut down for many
years – but it still has all of its irradiated fuel (a.k.a.
high-level nuclear waste) on site. The building the dangerous
waste is housed in is not designed to withstand the "big one"
when it happens. Notice that I said, "when" and not "if." The
Little Salmon Fault could slip any time now.
Geology studies have confirmed that the fault has slipped three
times in the past 1,700 years, and that it has been almost 300
years since the last time. Those doing the studies told Redwood
Alliance that the fault slips every 300 to 400 years. Any time,
now, so every household should make preparations.
While I am not a geologist, I question the minor amount of
earthquake damage the so-called "models" predict for a slip in
the Cascadia Subduction Zone and the Little Salmon Fault. Relying
on such models is fraught with danger, though admittedly they are
the only thing scientists have to go by – there is little
real-world experience that is applicable to a big quake in our
region.
For my money, I think we should play it safe and admit that we do
not know enough about what could happen here. We should not
assume that the damage to the Humboldt Bay area infrastructure
and buildings will be light.
Since 1980, Redwood Alliance has been pushing to remove the
irradiated fuel from PG's nuclear reactor building, and store it
in casks designed to survive the earthquake.
At first, the huge corporation refused to consider such a move,
believing high costs were more important than community safety.
But, to the utility's credit and from a new openness to community
feedback, more recent re-evaluations of potential cost savings
have practically guaranteed that cask storage will be implemented
in the next few years – with any luck, before the "big one."
That big concrete smokestack (actually it was the reactor vent)
that was removed a few years ago greatly decreased the earthquake
risks to the building and the irradiated fuel.
The Humboldt nuke plant will also most likely survive the tsunami
after the local quake. Our bay's shores, at least in the
populated areas, will suffer from a gentler "run-up" but not be
hit by a massive, towering wave. Since the plant is situated on a
hillside, it is unlikely the run-up will reach it. Hopefully, the
initial wave will not make it that far inside the bay’s entrance.
Redwood Alliance is a local nonprofit organization that deals
with energy-related issues, and it has been the watchdog for the
Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant since 1978. If the public has
any questions about the plant, cask storage or other related
concerns, please give us a phone call at (707) 822-7884.
P.S. It is a good thing that the liquefied natural gas storage
facility proposed for the Samoa Peninsula was stopped. The
earthquake and tsunami dangers surrounding that proposal were
very scary. Other communities along the northwestern coast, and
also near the Cascadia Subduction Zone, are being looked at and
may not fare so well.
(Michael Welch is a volunteer at Redwood Alliance in Arcata.)
*****************************************************************
28 NRC: News Release - 2005-002 - NRC Establishes Web Page for
Information on Safety-Conscious Work Environment at Salem/Hope
Creek
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail:
www.nrc.gov
No. 05-002 January 5, 2005
NRC HAS DETERMINED CONTAMINATED ASH AT PENNSYLVANIA SITE
MEETS NRC CRITERIA FOR UNRESTRICTED USE
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined there is
no need for further NRC action on uranium-contaminated ash at
the Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority (KVWPCA) site
in Leechburg, Pa.
The KVWPCA is not under an NRC license; however, the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP)
notified the NRC that elevated uranium concentrations had been
found in an ash sample from the KVWPCA site, where the Authority
operates a waste-water treatment facility.
The NRC conducted dose assessments for potential realistic
scenarios and concluded the ash meets NRC safety criteria for
unrestricted release, said Daniel M. Gillen, Deputy Director for
the Decommissioning Directorate, NRC Division of Waste
Management and Environmental Protection. Because environmental
impacts from NRCs decision to take no further action are
expected to be insignificant, no formal environmental impact
statement is necessary, he added. Although NRC has determined
that no further NRC action is necessary, this does not preclude
PADEP from taking action at the site under Pennsylvanias Solid
Waste Management Act.
The uranium contamination at the Kiski Valley site may have
resulted from the reconcentration of uranium-contaminated
effluents released from the sanitary sewers and laundry drains
of the Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) Apollo facility. During its
operation, the B&W Apollo facility, located in Armstrong County,
about 25 miles east-northeast of Pittsburgh, manufactured and
fabricated nuclear fuel. Active operations at the site ceased in
1983. After successful completion of decommissioning activities,
the NRC terminated the B&W Apollo license on April 14, 1997, and
released the site for unrestricted use. Discharges from the B&W
Apollo facility did not exceed permissible levels in effect
during operation.
From 1976 to 1993, the KVWPCA treated sewage sludge at its
waste-water treatment plant by incineration. It disposed of the
resulting sewage sludge ash by mixing it with water to form a
liquid slurry and pumping this material into an onsite lagoon.
Discharges to the lagoon ceased in 1993, and plans for removal
of the ash and closure of the lagoon were developed in 1994. In
the course of the site closure, PADEP notified NRC that elevated
uranium concentrations had been found in an ash sample.
The contaminated ash was contained in the lagoon and has been
analyzed and characterized in great detail. NRC staff used the
characterization data along with laboratory analyses to conduct
dose assessments for a range of potential scenarios and
determined that, for all of the scenarios, the KVWPCA site meets
the NRC criteria for unrestricted release.
NRC and PADEP have had numerous interactions on the
decommissioning of the KVWPCA site. On Sept. 17 the NRC issued a
draft environmental assessment on the site for public comment.
It found that, whether the material in the KVWPCA ash lagoon is
left in place or excavated, associated radiation doses meet the
NRCs criteria for unrestricted use. No comments were received on
this draft.
Privacy Policy | Site Disclaimer
Last revised Thursday, January 06, 2005
*****************************************************************
29 NRC: Sunshine Act; Meeting
FR Doc 05-318
[Federal Register: January 6, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 4)]
[Notices]
[Page 1278]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr06ja05-79]
DATES: Week of January 3, 2005.
PLACE: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville,
Maryland.
STATUS: Public.
ADDITIONAL MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED:
Week of January 3, 2005
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
2 p.m. Affirmation Session (Public Meeting) (Tentative).
a. Private Fuel Storage (Independent Spent Fuel Storage
Installation); Docket No. 72-22-SFSI (Tentative).
b. Duke Energy Corp. (Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and
2);
Unpublished Board Order (Dec. 17, 2004). (Tentative).
c. Motion for Clarification and Amendment of CLI-04-34 (Rene
Chun)
(Tentative).
\*\ The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to
change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call
(recording)--(301)
415-1292. Contact person for more information: Dave Gamberoni,
(301)
415-1651.
* * * * *
The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the
Internet
at: http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/ policy-making/schedule.html.
* * * * *
The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals
with
disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable
accommodation
to participate in these public meetings, or need this meeting
notice or
the transcript or other information from the public meetings in
another
format (e.g. braille, large print), please notify the NRC's
Disability
Program Coordinator, August Spector, at (301) 415-7080, TDD:
(301) 415-
2100, or by e-mail at aks@nrc.gov. Determinations on requests
for
reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.
* * * * *
This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred
subscribers;
if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like to be added
to the
distribution, please contact the Office of the Secretary,
Washington,
DC 20555 (301) 415-1969. In addition, distribution of this
meeting
notice over the Internet system is available. If you are
interested in
receiving this Commission meeting schedule electronically,
please send
an electronic message to dkw@nrc.gov.
Dated: January 3, 2005.
Dave Gamberoni,
Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05-318 Filed 1-4-05; 9:26 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
30 ENERGY: French Plan Contradicts Europe's Anti-Nuclear Trend
PARIS, Jan 5 (IPS) - The French government plans to earmark 150
billion dollars over the next 30 years for nuclear power plants,
including the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
(ITER), despite experts' warnings on technological and
environmental problems.
ITER was conceived in the 1980s as a cooperation project for
civilian use of nuclear energy, with the participation of the
European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, the former Soviet
Union and the United States.
Later, France told the EU it would double its contribution to
the reactor -- whose costs over the next 10 years reaches 12
billion dollars -- in exchange for building it in Cadarache, in
the southern part of the country.
Over the past 18 months, China, Russia and the EU agreed to that
proposal, and Paris convinced the European bloc to launch the
project even without the participation of the United States or
Japan, the latter of which also offered to build the reactor in
its territory.
In the context of France's opposition to the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, the location of ITER turned into a political matter.
In late November, the European Commission (the executive arm of
the EU) announced that it was willing to finance ITER alone and
to build it in Cadarache. The Commission gave the non-European
participants until the end of 2004 to decide whether they would
remain as partners in the project.
ITER seeks to emulate nuclear fusion of two hydrogen isotopes
(deuterium and tritium) that occurs in stars, and produce helium
with massive generation of electricity.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Rafarin said in November 2003
that the project would provide ''the energy of the future, an
inexhaustible source and with no significant problems, thanks to
the abundance of hydrogen contained in water.''
Scientific data, however, contradict the prime minister's
statements.
Deuterium indeed is abundant in nature, but tritium, which is
radioactive, is very scarce and unstable.
The French nuclear physicists Sebastien Balibar, Yves Pomeau and
Jacques Treiner wrote in the Oct. 25, 2004 edition of Le Monde
newspaper that a thermonuclear reactor poses three technical
problems of first magnitude: the production of the elements to
undergo fusion, their resistance to fusion, and control of this
reaction.
However, they say, the ITER project is only interested in the
last, ''and ignores the other two, the solution of which,
nevertheless, is essential.''
To generate a gigawatt of electricity, a nuclear fusion reactor
would have to burn 56 kg of tritium, but ITER does not see a
problem in producing that isotope, nor in handling the nuclear
waste generated, said the scientists.
Similar doubts are caused by another major French nuclear
project: updating the country's 57 nuclear plants, replacing them
with pressurised water reactors, or EPR (European Pressurised
Reactors).
In late October, Electricité de France (EdF), the state
electricity monopoly, announced that it would begin construction
in 2007 of the first EPR in Flamanville, on the country's
northwest Atlantic coast, and that it is expected to be
operational by 2012, at a cost of four to five billion dollars.
France's current nuclear power facilities will be largely
obsolete in 2020, and replacing half of them with EPR before then
would cost some 150 billion dollars.
France produces 80 percent of its energy in nuclear power
plants, and is second in the world in terms of dependence on
atomic energy, after Ukraine.
Currently, the only European countries with plans to build new
nuclear plants are France, Finland and some of the former
socialist bloc nations.
Belgium, Germany and Sweden are among the European countries, in
contrast, that have begun the gradual dismantling of their
nuclear reactors. France is one of the few absent from the
campaign to achieve 21 percent renewable energy in each EU
country by 2010.
The proportion of renewable energy in France today is less than
15 percent and the country ''should already be producing 7,000
megawatts from wind energy, but barely produces 300,'' Hélène
Gassin, of Greenpeace-France, told Tierramérica.
Construction of the first EPR ''will contribute to the energy
independence of France, and will serve as a window for exporting
this (French and German) technology,'' says EdF president Pierre
Gadonneix.
But the director of the anti-nuclear association Sortir du
Nucléaire, Stephane Lhomme, said in a Tierramérica interview that
''there is practically no EPR operating in the world, and there
are only three being built,'' meaning there are no ''objective
guarantees of the efficiency of that technology.''
Furthermore, the nuclear plants with EPR would have to operate
60 years without interruption in order to ensure profits, and the
authorities have admitted that these facilities were not designed
to withstand terrorist attacks or earthquakes, Lhomme said.
(* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent. Originally published
Jan. 1 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the
Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service
produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations
Development Programme and the United Nations Environment
Programme.)
(END/2005)
Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
31 [du-list] Rumsfeld in the MilTox News? - No DU shows in Humvee
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:17:25 -0800
Internet references to "Humvee up-armor" have exploded from about 100 to
over 67,000 in a few days, making it difficult to scrutinize them
all. While at first it seemed to me an almost sure thing, and worth taking
some risk with on speculation that the audience can provide the missing
pieces, once Mr. Rumsfeld himself was associated with the Humvee armor
issue, further study has brought out only only several indirect indications
for DU and many against DU use.
The astronomical costs mentioned, the delivery bottleneck due to a
monopolistic supply chain, the government's amply documented eagerness to
proliferate use of DU available to it as a waste product, and the
government's policy to talk about DU only when challenged, as well as the
public demands for more armor regardless of anything, seemed to make it
likely that some undeclared DU might be behind the superficial news coverage.
On the other hand, a veteran who knows more about weapons than I cautioned
me that he did not expect any DU on a light vehicle like a Humvee. One can
indeed find many indications that the furor is only about plain steel, and
the astronomical cost and undue delay only due to ordinary corruption or
inefficiency, not nuclear materials: Delivery delays were blamed on steel
having to be imported from Canada because the U.S. has no steel industry
left. Steel was specifically mentioned as the armor material, besides
occasional ceramics. Press pictures show Humvee armor being ground, with
reddish sparks flying, which one would not want to see with DU that has to
be machined under liquid cover because of its pyrophoric property. How
cumbersome, hazardous, and presumably super-expensive it is to process DU
merely into semi-finished goods one can appreciate on www. mnsci.com
. Finally, the Abrams tank is being "upgraded", apparently from DU armor
to encased DU armor if you see
optimistically through the beating-around-the-bush
(http://kalaniosullivan.com/KunsanAB/8thFW/Howitwasb11d4.html, but note the
befuddling http://www.washingtonarmyguard.com/fo-abram.html), because the
NRC has cut back the "allowable" radiation exposure by a factor of 5. (Any
level of ionizing radiation is harmful to people, the published limits only
protect employers and vendors against easy law suits.) Besides, even DU
armor does not protect against rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) (e.g.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/879492/posts ,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1056809/posts ,
http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/007714.html). The military seems aware
now, that DU armor is not an untempered, uncontroversial blessing.
(The encased DU armor in heavier equipment will be somewhat less hazardous
than bare DU, but only as long as it does not get hit. The Abrams armor
update can be viewed as a belated and partial response to the objections
raised by Leonard Dietz in Metal of Dishonor. New York City regulations
now insist on stainless steel encasing of DU used for radioactive materials
transport containers and aircraft counterweights. One could debate if not
using DU at all would be even better, given that "small government"
advocated by Republican administrations has no way to keep track of so much
DU proliferation.)
Roger Belling
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32 [du-list] Comparing Iraqi Victims with Victims from the Indian
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:10:22 -0800
Comparing Iraqi Victims with Victims from the Indian Ocean
Tsunami
by Stan Moore, Media Monitors Network
(Tuesday 04 January 2005)
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/12337/
"Earthquakes may have aftershocks, but tsunamis do not
return to attack their original victims or to attack
rescuers or resisters of their destruction."
The recent destructive tsunami caused by an earthquake in
the Indian Ocean was no doubt a terrible disaster. The human
victims of the disaster certainly deserve rescue, support,
and assistance by the entire world community. And the world
community has rallied to support these victims in a massive
way, which hopefully will be adequate to the cumulative
needs of all the affected people.
Unfortunately, though, the Iraqi people have experienced a
different sort of tragedy, which has killed well over
100,000 innocent Iraqis. The world has largely failed to
rescue, support and assist the Iraqi people in their
prolonged time of travail, which actually has been underway
for well over a decade, but which is considerably worse
since the U.S. led invasion and occupation of that ancient
land. Let us make some comparisons between the tsunami and
the invasion.
It appears that loss of life has been massive from both the
invasion and the tsunami. The invaders have made little
effort to engage in an accurate count, and have even
suppressed attempts to count the total deaths by attacking
and intimidating local Iraqi medical personnel. Yet,
independent workers from abroad have scientifically
estimated over 100,000 casualties from the occupation alone,
which is roughly comparable to the known fatalities from the
tsunami.
The tsunami is expected to cause disease and illness from
contamination of drinking water. Yet, the occupation victims
in Iraq have seen deliberate efforts by the U.S. and its
allies to remove safe drinking water supplies to entire
cities, to prevent Iraqis from obtaining water purification
chemicals during the long period of sanctions, and to
prevent critical, but basic medications from being made
available to the Iraqi victims of invasion and colonization.
Tsunamis usually kill quickly by drowning and rarely
severely injure people. However, Iraqi victims of the
invasion have been subject to attacks by rifle fire from
snipers, by blast from bombs including cluster bombs and
artillery shells, by aerial attack with missiles from jets
and helicopters, and other means. Countless Iraqis have been
maimed, burned, paralyzed, and grievously injured.
Earthquakes may have aftershocks, but tsunamis do not return
to attack their original victims or to attack rescuers or
resisters of their destruction. The invading U.S. led forces
attack "insurgents" who are resisting the brutal subjugation
of Iraqis. Tsunamis do not break in doors in the middle of
the night in order to detain, arrest, and confine innocent
people for weeks, months or even years. Tsunamis do not
detain people for lifetimes as the U.S. military leadership
is attempting to do. Tsunamis do not torture people with
focused technology in order to "break them" or cause them to
divulge information which may not even be in the possession
of the victim. Yet torture is organic and systemic to the
very methodology of control of the invaded population by the
U.S. led forces.
Tsunamis can result in physical renewal, but U.S. forces
spread low-grade radioactivity called depleted uranium which
can continue to degrade human areas of habitation and make
people sick for 4.5 billion years. Depleted uranium and
other toxic residues of the U.S. invasion can result in
deformed babies, sick adults, and short, painful lives.
Depleted uranium even sickens the invading soldiers, who are
then abandoned by their own governmental and military
leadership to lives of pain and chronic illness.
Tsunamis are disasters. Invasions are crimes against
humanity. Tsunamis are unavoidable by human effort.
Invasions and colonization must be resisted, prevented, and
even punished after the fact.
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
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33 AP Wire: Nuclear facility says some contaminated material left site
| 01/06/2005 |
Associated Press
SENECA, S.C. - Low-level contamination has been found on some
equipment used to replace a steam generator at the Oconee
Nuclear Station.
Workers at a nuclear plant in Arkansas and a contractor in Texas
found the contamination on heavy lifting equipment used to
replace the steam generator in the Oconee plant's Unit 3, which
was returned to full power Wednesday after a refueling and
maintenance outage, said Oconee spokeswoman Dayle Stewart.
The equipment has been cleaned, Oconee officials said.
Duke Power, which owns the Oconee plant, and the federal Nuclear
Regulatory Commission said the contamination was minor and posed
no health risk.
But a nuclear watchdog group said it was "unneeded radiation
exposure."
"It doesn't mean it's going to cause mass illness, but even
those kinds of levels have the potential to cause some harm,"
said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Washington
D.C.-based Nuclear Information Resource Service.
The contamination was "a very small fraction of a typical dental
X-ray, so there was never any safety threat to the workers or
the public," Stewart said. "We take it very seriously and are
doing a detailed investigation of our processes to insure that
this does not occur again in the future."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will try to determine how the
contamination happened and if it could have been avoided, but no
disciplinary action is being considered at this point, said
commission spokesman Ken Clark.
"This kind of thing does happen from time to time," Clark said.
"It is not a major health or safety concern."
*****************************************************************
34 Salt Lake Tribune: Walker makes a parting pitch on Atlas tailings
Article Last Updated: 01/06/2005 01:24:32 AM
To the DOE: Four Western governors sign her plea to remove the
uranium pile from the banks of the Colorado River
By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - As one of her last official acts, Utah Gov.
Olene Walker and governors of four Western states urged the
Energy Department to remove the 10.5 million-ton Atlas uranium
tailings pile from the banks of the Colorado River near Moab.
“There is broad support for moving the tailings from local,
state and federal stakeholders that have toiled for several
years to achieve that goal. É We want to make it clear that any
remediation other than an off-site option is unacceptable,”
Walker wrote in a letter approved by the four state governors,
including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Contaminants from the mountain of uranium tailings have been
seeping into the groundwater and the nearby Colorado River,
threatening endangered fish and alarming downstream water users.
The river provides water for more than 25 million people in
Arizona, Nevada and California.
The governors of all three states approved the letter, along
with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was the Energy
Secretary under President Clinton.
Cleanup stalled when the Atlas Corporation declared
bankruptcy in 1998, leaving behind an interim cap over the pile
and inadequate cleanup fund. Since then cleanup has lurched
along sporadically. In 2000, Congress passed legislation
assigning the Energy Department the task of solving the problem.
Under one proposal, the tailings would be covered with an
earthen cap to prevent them from being disturbed and then
efforts would be made to prevent further contamination of the
river and groundwater.
But governors and members of Congress from the Southwest
insist the pile be moved from the river to stop the contamination
and remove the risk that a flood could wash the pile downstream.
"You've got the governor of every state along the Colorado,
from where the tailings pile is located on downstream, saying,
'Hey, we don't think this is an acceptable risk to leave this
stuff here.' And I fully expect there will be a similar letter
from every senator along the river and the members of the
House," said Bill Hedden, executive director of the Grand Canyon
Trust, the environmental group in favor of moving the pile.
"Where you have so many of the leading elected officials
weighing in and saying move it, maybe that means something."
The Energy Department, which has been assigned by Congress
the task of solving the problem, issued a draft environmental
study in November, but the department did not endorse either
option.
Capping the pile would cost about $166 million and take
between seven and 10 years. Moving the tailings would cost $436
million and take eight years to complete. Either option would
require roughly $11 million in additional groundwater
remediation.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
35 Las Vegas City Life: New coalition seeks to take advantage
of proposed nuke dump's benefits
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Waving the white flag
BY EMMILY BRISTOL
While there are a number of organizations dedicated to fighting
the proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, there
have been few (if any) that have formed to seek its possible
benefits -- until now.
A new coalition of business leaders and government lobbyists,
dubbed For a Better Nevada, announced its arrival on Dec. 27. The
group seeks to exploit the dump as a cash cow for Nevadans.
"I think generally people feel this project is going to happen,"
said lobbyist and coalition coordinator Chris Barrett.
Barrett said the idea for the coalition stemmed from discussion
following the passage of the new tax code during the last
legislative session. Keeping things like environmental research
in-state funnels more money into local coffers, the group
contends. Likewise, construction contracts and other services
should be given to Nevadans, Barrett said. That may explain why
so many of the coalition's members are linked to construction and
land development.
But some environmentalists see the coffee klatch story as a red
herring.
"Somebody went out and hand-picked those people," said Peggy Maze
Johnson of Citizen Alert. "I'm just furious. Do they think we're
stupid?"
Indeed, in the 1980s, Jim Marsh, one of the founding members, was
involved in a nuclear waste study committee. And according to
Nuclear Waste Taskforce founder Judy Treichel, Marsh is also one
of a few businessmen in the state to already have received
economic benefits from the proposed dump, as he owns a favorite
Yucca Mountain meeting location, the Longstreet Hotel in Amargosa
Valley.
According to the coalition, other possible benefits of the
project include payments equal to taxes to local governments,
transfers of public land for community development and help
meeting state water needs.
"I think the people of Nevada have yet to fully recognize the
positive benefits of what this project can amount to," Candice
Trummell, Nye County Commission chair and coalition co-founder,
said in a written statement.
The coalition's 19 founding members include Ed Burke of Las Vegas
Teamsters Local 631, Reno's Rod Cooper of Granite Construction
Co., CEO of American Pacific John Gibson, Lincoln County
Commission Chair Spencer Hafen and (Reno) Q&D Construction
president Norman Dianda.
Barrett wants to make one thing clear. The point of the new
coalition is not to come out in favor or against the proposed
waste facility.
"Fighting it is the government's job," Barrett said.
Others, of course, disagree.
"These are some greedy individuals who don't want to miss their
chance," Treichel said. "Needless to say, I'm not very pleased
about it."
Emmily Bristol is a CityLife staff writer. She can be reached at
702-871-6780 ext. 344 or bristol@lvpress.com.
Copyright © 2005 Las Vegas City Life
*****************************************************************
36 AU ABC: Nuclear elements arrive for reprocessing in France
. 06/01/2005.
Two-hundred-and-seventy-six spent nuclear fuel elements have
made the journey from Sydney to a facility in France, where they
will be reprocessed.
The elements, which left Sydney in November, were packed in
reinforced casks and transported on a cargo ship designed to
carry nuclear material.
The spent fuel comes from seven years worth of work at the
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's (ANSTO)
research reactor operations.
ANSTO is located 40 kilometres south-west of the Sydney CBD.
© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
37 AU ABC: WA rules out uranium mining.
07/01/2005. ABC News Online
State Development Minister Clive Brown says mining licences for
uranium will not be granted in Western Australia.
Greens MLC Robin Chapple is concerned Canadian company
Aldershot Resources has applied for an exploration licence for a
uranium deposit near Sandstone, about 500 kilometres north-east
of Perth.
Mr Chapple has called on the Government to halt Aldershot's
plans to look for uranium, and to legislate to prevent uranium
mining in the state.
But Mr Brown says no company has been allowed to mine for
uranium in WA since 2002, and those preventions also apply to
Aldershot Resources.
"If the company wants to be stupid and invest lots of money
looking for something that they can't mine, then I can't stop
people doing those things, but under the Labor Government they
would not be able to mine for uranium in Western Australia," he
said.
© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
38 Whitehaven News: ITALY ASKS US TO KEEP ITS N-WASTE FOR 20 YEARS
WEST Cumbria’s possible future as home to foreign nuclear waste
was highlighted again this week with news that Italy wants BNFL
to retain nuclear waste for up to 20 years.
Italian operator Sogin is seeking bids on reprocessing of 235
metric tonnes of spent nuclear fuel.
Sogin’s Ugo Spezia said the company would seek to have the
reprocessor, British Nuclear Fuels or Cogema, keep the final
waste products in storage until the availability of a final
repository in Italy, or for up to 20 years. It would also ask to
receive only vitrified high-level waste (HLW) back from
reprocessing, with the reprocessor keeping other waste
categories, he said.
Uranium and plutonium from past reprocessing of Italian spent
fuel is now in storage at BNFL Sellafield, Spezia said. That
material should return to Italy under the utility's contracts
with BNFL, and future reprocessing contracts would theoretically
follow the same principle. But there is today no facility in
Italy that could use the nuclear fuel materials, so "of course we
are trying to leave all fresh nuclear material [from
reprocessing] at BNFL," Spezia said.
Italy is facing political resistance to its own moves towards a
nuclear waste dump or repository. The announcement that the small
community of Scanzano Ionico in southern Basilicata province had
been chosen for construction of a deep geologic repository
triggered weeks of demonstrations by the public and massive
political opposition, leading eventually to the withdrawal of the
site as a repository candidate.
Asked about the Italian announcement, a BNFL spokeswoman Ali
McKibbin said: “Clearly as we are in the reprocessing business,
we are keeping a close eye on the developments in Italy. However,
we have not had a formal approach from Italy on additional
reprocessing business. Any new business for Thorp will depend
upon the wishes of our customers, the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority, which will assume ownership of the site in 2005, and
ultimately the sanction of Government.
“As with all reprocessing contracts signed since 1976, any
potential future contract would include return of waste
obligations in accordance with UK government policy. If waste
substitution was to be implemented, then additional ILW would be
retained in the UK, however a radiologically equal greater volume
of HLW would be returned to customers. Title to the products of
reprocessing (the uranium and plutonium) would remain with the
customer”.
CORE’s campaign co-ordinator Martin Forwood said: “The whole
point of reprocessing is that the materials are repatriated for
re-use as new fuel by the customer. Impotent Italy can’t do this
and we view the plan as a blatant Italian attempt at dumping via
the back door. We will fight it all the way and believe that any
investigation by UK authorities will reveal the plan to be an
outright scam”
Copeland councillor, Kevin Young, added: “I am all for protecting
the jobs at Sellafield, but not at the expense of turning West
Cumbria into a bigger and bigger nuclear dump.”
*****************************************************************
39 Casper Star-Tribune: Huntsman to return donations from future owner of Envirocare
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Gov. Jon Huntsman will return $40,000 in
campaign contributions from an upcoming owner of Envirocare of
Utah, a move aimed at defusing controversy over Huntsman's stance
on the disposal of so-called hotter nuclear waste in the state.
Steve Creamer was identified as a prospective buyer of
Envirocare a day after he gave $25,000 to Huntsman's political
action committee in December. He had also made a previous
donation of $15,000.
Huntsman will return both donations, Huntsman chief of staff
Jason Chaffetz told The Salt Lake Tribune after he talked with an
environmental activist late Wednesday. Earlier in the day,
Chaffetz indicated Huntsman would keep the donation.
''If it will help ease everybody's mind about our sincerity and
commitment (to oppose hotter nuclear waste), then we will give
the money back to him,'' Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz said Huntsman had no idea Creamer was involved in the
Envirocare purchase, and that the administration feels ''a little
abused by that donation. Access is not for sale.''
Critics have feared Huntsman would reverse his campaign stand on
the disposal issue. Before the election, the then-Governor-elect
repeatedly said he would use the power of his office to make sure
hotter waste never reached Utah.
But because Envirocare already had a conditional permit to
accept such waste, environmentalists were unnerved last month
when Huntsman's staff suggested he was unlikely to take extra
steps to prohibit the hotter waste - reasoning that current state
law already bans it and that any added moves by Huntsman could
create legal challenges.
State officials have said Huntsman could kill the permit by
sending the state Department of Environmental Quality a letter
expressing official disapproval.
Envirocare's facility about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City is
only licensed to dispose of the least dangerous, Class A type of
waste. The company has said it has no plans to use its
conditional permit for the hotter waste, but it also has no plans
to abandon it.
Envirocare announced in December that Creamer had teamed up with
a New York investment firm to purchase the hazardous waste
landfill in Tooele County from businessman Khoshrow Semnani.
Creamer has promised to hold a news conference to release
details about his plans with Envirocare after the sale closes.
Chaffetz repeated Huntsman's original stance against the
higher-level waste.
''It has always been important to us to do everything possible
to make sure no B and C waste comes into Utah,'' he said.
Creamer's donation was listed in the year-end financial
disclosure filed with the state election office Wednesday and was
the second-highest amount Huntsman received since winning Utah's
top office Nov. 2.
State election records show Creamer contributed more than
$80,000 to candidates in the 2004 gubernatorial election,
including $45,000 to Nolan Karras, whom Huntsman defeated in the
GOP primary; $20,000 to former Gov. Olene Walker; and, before the
latest disclosure, $15,000 to Huntsman.
Creamer's wife, attorney Jeannine Bennett, contributed $10,000
to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Scott Matheson Jr.
Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
AP-WS-01-06-05 1742EST
*****************************************************************
40 Colorado Daily: Flats whistleblowers to speak
By RICHARD VALENTY Colorado Daily Staff Writer
The book "The Ambushed Grand Jury" paints a tale of alleged
environmental crimes and high-level government cover-up of said
crimes at Rocky Flats in the late 1980s.
Two of the main characters from in the book will hold a press
conference Wednesday at the state capitol to begin to tell the
rest of the story.
Wes McKinley, a rancher from southeastern Colorado and "Ambushed"
co-author, served as foreman of a special grand jury formed to
complete a report about federal investigations into alleged Flats
violations. The grand jury finished the report in 1992, but large
portions of the report were not made public. McKinley could not
release the details himself due to grand jury secrecy laws.
McKinley was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in
District 64, a multi-county district in the southeastern corner
of the state, in 2004. According to a Monday press release,
McKinley plans to introduce unspecified new state legislation
about Rocky Flats during the 2005 legislative session.
Jon Lipsky, a former FBI Special Agent, participated in a 1989
FBI raid of the Flats facility. Lipsky said he has been "muzzled
for over a decade" by the federal government to keep him from
speaking about Rocky Flats, and Wednesday's event will be his
first public discussion of the Flats investigation.
Caron Balkany, the other "Ambushed" co-author, said Wednesday's
press conference will introduce new information not found in the
book, but said the speakers will probably not focus on alleged
federal obstruction of justice.
"We're focusing on a very specific thing right now, which is what
might have happened or what information there is that would
impact the ongoing plans to open Rocky Flats up to recreation,"
said Balkany.
Parts of the Flats site could be open to hikers or bikers after a
multi-billion dollar cleanup conducted by Kaiser-Hill Company and
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is complete.
According to the press release, Lipsky has offered to meet with
Flats cleanup regulators, including the DOE and the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), to volunteer
additional Flats-related information.
Karen Lutz, DOE spokesperson, said she could not confirm if a
meeting has been arranged between Flats regulators and Lipsky.
"DOE has a process in place to meet with any citizen who has
information that could enhance the cleanup," said Lutz. "If Mr.
Lipsky can avail himself to that process and if he has
information, we would like to obtain the information, meet with
him, and find out if it's pertinent information that we haven't
already addressed."
Balkany said "Ambushed," released in March 2004, is already in
its second printing and has been sold nationally outside of the
Denver area and internationally. Still, she said the average
everyday local citizen needs to learn more about the history and
present status of the former plutonium trigger plant.
"It's one of the reasons Wes and I wrote the book, because we
respect the average citizen," said Balkany. "We think it's
everybody's obligation to participate, and it's our obligation to
get the information out. The message we're supposed to use under
our system of government to inform the people has been co-opted."
McKinley could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but one simple
sentence illustrates his feelings about future recreation on the
Flats site.
"I don't want my children playing in plutonium-laden dust," said
McKinley in the press release.
Lutz along with other DOE and CDPHE officials insist the site
will be safe for casual visitors and full-time employees when the
cleanup is complete.
"The community is going to get a very safe, protective and
conservative cleanup that far exceeds what the law requires us to
do," said Lutz. "We have multiple layers of conservatism built
into this cleanup, and there are a lot of people who have worked
over the last 15 years to get to where we are today."
*****************************************************************
41 Rocky Mountain News: New lawmaker begins job with his eye on Rocky Flats
By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
January 5, 2005
The Colorado cowboy who became a folk hero as foreman of the
Rocky Flats runaway grand jury is now a state legislator. And
he's itching for a fight.
Wes McKinley's first item of business is a plan that he says will
educate people about the dangers that linger at the 6,500-acre
former nuclear-weapons plant in Jefferson County.
McKinley will announce his intention today to introduce a bill
that would require people to be warned of the dangers of
plutonium exposure if they visit the site, which is set to
become a wildlife refuge in about seven years. Under McKinley's
plan, visitors would then have to sign a consent form saying
they are aware of the potential risks.
"Protect the children of Colorado, that's what we want to do.
That's what the government's job is, the protector of the
population and children," McKinley said. "We don't think (the
Rocky Flats site is) safe, and we're bringing attention to
that."
McKinley, elected in November to the Colorado House as a
Democrat from the Plains, will be joined at a Capitol news
conference today by Jon Lipsky, a former FBI agent who tried to
tell Congress about the Rocky Flats grand jury.
McKinley was the foreman of the grand jury that investigated the
nuclear-weapons plant from 1989 to 1991. The panel wanted to
indict individuals at the Department of Energy and Rockwell
International, which ran the plant.
But former U.S. Attorney Mike Norton refused to indict officials
and reached a plea agreement in which Rockwell agreed to pay an
$18.5 million fine. Members of the grand jury have tried to tell
the story, but a federal judge denied their request in March,
saying grand jury proceedings are secret.
Last year, McKinley published a book, The Ambushed Grand Jury,
which accuses the government of lying and covering up
environmental crimes at the site.
McKinley said he wants signs or even a video that will describe
to refuge visitors the fact that nuclear weapons were made on
the site and that exposure to plutonium can cause cancer.
People sign such consent forms when they do other dangerous
activities, such as skydiving or horseback riding, McKinley
said. Information on the plant's legacy would be easy to
incorporate with other educational plans for the refuge, he
said.
"If we're going to be an educational thing, we should inform,"
McKinley said. "We don't even allow lead in our paint because
that's dangerous to our children. Plutonium is much more
dangerous than lead."
lowep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5482
2004 © The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
42 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats accusation
Ex-FBI investigator among group that says public is being misled
about danger
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
January 5, 2005
The long-muzzled FBI agent who led the 1989 raid on the Rocky
Flats nuclear weapons plant is accusing federal prosecutors of
obstructing that investigation and misleading the public on the
danger of radioactive dumping there.
Jon Lipsky, who retired from the FBI last Friday, accuses the
Justice and Energy departments of "potential criminal acts" in
preventing a thorough investigation, which ended in a plea
bargain in 1992.
He and others involved in that probe say in a memo posted on
the Internet that the deception "should result in extreme
skepticism about current government assurances that the cleanup
of dangerous contamination at Rocky Flats is protective of the
public health."
Lipsky will appear at a news conference today to talk about his
allegations.
Energy officials said the $7 billion cleanup is thorough, and a
former federal prosecutor defended the handling of the case.
In 1989, the FBI raided the Department of Energy atom bomb plant
at Rocky Flats, which had been ignoring pollution laws on the
grounds of national security. The raid was the first ever by the
FBI on a sister U.S. government agency and led to a three-year
grand jury investigation.
But the Justice Department rejected what grand jurors considered
to be evidence of serious environmental crimes of dumping and
burning radioactive and toxic waste. A plea bargain allowed
Rockwell International, which ran the plant for the DOE, to pay
$18.5 million in fines. No individual was charged with a crime.
Retired FBI agent Lipsky is joined in his allegations by Rocky
Flats grand jury foreman Wes McKinley, a newly elected Colorado
state legislator; former Rocky Flats worker Jacque Brever; and
their attorney, Caron Balkany. The four posted a memo detailing
their allegations on the Web site www.ambushedgrand jury.com,
where McKinley and Balkany promote their book on the case. They
are calling for a congressional investigation.
The grand jury report with the evidence remains secret. But the
group's memo says midnight burning of toxic waste really did
occur and that officials did not tell the truth about a
plutonium incinerator or dumping of radioactive waste.
The memo claims that deception has interfered with the cleanup
and endangers people who will roam the site after it is
converted to a wildlife refuge.
Department of Energy spokeswoman Karen Lutz said the site has
been thoroughly tested and that all contamination is being
cleaned up according to law.
"Every aspect of this cleanup has been under a microscope," she
said.
Mike Norton, the former U.S. attorney who handled the plea
bargain between the Justice Department and Rockwell, said, "It
is beyond imagination that anybody covered anything up" given
the hundreds of people involved in the investigation.
Generally, Lipsky and his colleagues contend that Energy
officials and their contractors dumped radioactive and toxic
waste at the plant for years and lied about it so they could
build more atom bombs.
Specifically, the memo says the Building 771 incinerator was
used to burn toxic waste when it was supposed to be closed down
- even though the plea bargain said no such evidence was found.
The memo says the Justice Department should have filed charges
for operating that incinerator without a permit and illegally
storing the radioactive ash.
Norton disagreed that there was "proof positive" of that
incinerator burning illegally.
The memo also alleged the Justice Department misled the public
in stating Rocky Flats contractor Rockwell did not cause
substantial physiological harm. It says Rocky Flats sprayed
radioactive and toxic waste over a large area called the East
Spray Fields, and this seeped into groundwater and drinking
water.
However, the DOE's Lutz said the entire area was tested and came
back with such extremely low levels of contamination that it did
not require cleanup.
Years later, officials found radioactive contamination in Great
Western Reservoir and Standley Lake, which contain drinking
water. Great Western was closed, and Standley Lake's plutonium
is considered safely buried in the sediment.
Lutz said the amount of radioactivity in the reservoirs was
found to be well under legal limits.
Norton noted that the decision on charges in the case was made
by numerous officials in the Justice Department.
"I don't know of any outstanding issue that wasn't resolved," he
added. "What we concluded at the time is what we believed at the
time."
Allegations of obstruction
An ex-FBI agent, the head of the Rocky Flats grand jury and
others said the Justice Department:
• Restricted the FBI investigation at Rocky Flats and did not
file charges for the most serious crimes found.
• Denied the public was harmed, even though radioactive and
hazardous waste contaminated ground- and drinking water.
• Ignored evidence and did not file charges that Rocky Flats
illegally stored radioactive incinerator ash.
• Obstructed a special grand jury, Congress and an FBI agent,
and lied to the court and the public about the extent of the
contamination and government crimes at Rocky Flats.
Source: www.ambushedgrandjury.com
imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438
2004 © The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
43 Rocky Mountain News: Udall opposes idea of radiation warning signs, consent forms
By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
January 6, 2005
A Colorado congressman on Wednesday came out against a fellow
Democrat's plan to inform people of the radioactive dangers at
Rocky Flats.
U.S. Rep. Mark Udall said newly elected Colorado Rep. Wes
McKinley's idea will only create confusion over cleanup efforts
at the site.
McKinley, who was foreman of the federal grand jury that tried
to indict private and federal officials with environmental
crimes at the former nuclear weapons plant, is worried about the
government's plan to turn it into a wildlife refuge.
He will introduce a bill when the legislative session begins
Wednesday that would require the posting of signs or an
informational video telling visitors that plutonium triggers for
nuclear warheads were made there and that contamination still
exists on the grounds.
Then, he wants people to sign a statement saying they are aware
of the risks but choose to visit anyway.
"People do have a right to make a choice," McKinley said. "There
are a lot of dangerous activities like horseback riding and
rafting, and people do it, but they know it's dangerous before
they do it."
Udall, who sponsored the bill creating the refuge with
Republican U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, issued a statement saying
that he doubts the need for McKinley's legislation.
The law requires that Rocky Flats must be cleaned up so it's
safe for future visitors, employees and surrounding communities,
Udall said.
The cleanup also will require certification from the state of
Colorado and the Environmental Protection Agency, he said.
"Mandating the state to require people to provide a consent form
if they want to recreate on the site may be well-intentioned but
is largely unnecessary," Udall said.
['E.W. Scripps Co.']
*****************************************************************
44 Rocky Mountain News: Lipsky says he left FBI early to 'tell the truth'
By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
January 6, 2005
Jon Lipsky stepped to the podium in a hot, cramped press room
Wednesday and began his testimony.
"I've been muzzled since 1992," he said.
Then, Lipsky systematically and publicly laid out his evidence
in the Rocky Flats case for the first time, occasionally wiping
the sweat from his brow with a blue bandanna and stopping twice
to remove his wire-rim glasses.
He had been an FBI agent 26 years and nine months. He had been
retired five days.
"I can't stand silent," said Lipsky, 50. "I took early
retirement so I could come here and tell the truth."
Growing more comfortable before the dozens of reporters and
activists packed into the small room at the state Capitol,
Lipsky detailed evidence from the raid he led on the plant 15
years ago, when he was an environmental crimes investigator
based in the Denver FBI office.
Lipsky said he thought, even after a plea bargain was reached
with the operator of Rocky Flats, that he could work on the case
"on the inside." But Jan. 6, 1993, two weeks after Congress
issued a scathing report on the deal based in part on his
subpoenaed testimony, he was transferred from Denver to
south-central Los Angeles to work on a street gang squad.
Lipsky stayed in touch with Wes McKinley, foreman of the federal
grand jury that wanted to charge Rocky Flats' operator with
environmental crimes.
On Aug. 23, 2004, he was on vacation, "on my own nickel,"
driving down Interstate 70 to go to a news conference in Denver
to promote McKinley's book. He received a call from Steve
Gurley, acting assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles
office, who told him the U.S. attorney's office in Denver was
"going ballistic" about his role in the news conference.
Gurley said "we don't want to really upset the director," Lipsky
recounted.
Gurley, who has been transferred to Louisville, Ky., said
Wednesday that he didn't say anything to Lipsky about the U.S.
attorney.
He said he warned Lipsky that he could be breaking the law,
because grand jury reports must be kept secret under the law and
that he could be disciplined because Lipsky hadn't sought
official permission to attend the news conference, which is FBI
protocol.
"I told him to please be mindful of those two things and please
consider the ramifications of that down the road," Gurley said.
"I said 'Jon, please use your good sense and good judgment.' "
Lipsky went to the news conference anyway, and afterward he
started calculating.
"I did the math. If I don't work for the FBI," he said, "then I
can talk."
So Lipsky retired Friday - leaving as head of an intelligence
unit on gangs and terrorism - and made plans to come to Denver.
He will become a private investigator in California, where he
lives in Orange County.
He said life turned good for him last Saturday, the first day of
the end of his FBI career.
Now, he said, after so much time, he says it's critical that he
speak out about Rocky Flats. The federal government will begin
work on turning it into a wildlife refuge in 2006, and by 2010
people could be touring the site.
"We don't have much time," he said.
© The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
45 Rocky Mountain News: Ex-agent outlines Flats allegations
He says evidence of contamination in '89 was covered up
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News January 6, 2005
Newly retired FBI agent Jon Lipsky on Wednesday laid out a list
of long-secret evidence of dumping and burning of radioactive
waste at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, which he said
prosecutors stopped him from pursuing a dozen years ago.
In 1989, Lipsky led an FBI raid on Rocky Flats, searching for
evidence of environmental crimes. That investigation ended with a
1992 plea bargain that grand jurors in the case consider a slap
on the wrist.
Today, Lipsky worries that the evidence indicates tiny but
dangerous amounts of radioactive materials were spread by wind
and water across the entire 6,400 acres of Rocky Flats as well
as off-site areas near the plant 16 miles northwest of Denver.
Lipsky says he took early retirement last Friday specifically to
speak out after 12 years of being muzzled because he doesn't
want children to be playing in radioactive dust when the site is
opened for hiking, biking and horseback riding.
At a news conference, he listed documents and testimony he said
had been uncovered by his agents during the three-year
investigation. He said this evidence of extensive contamination
should have been pursued.
Lipsky is telling his story now because the state is running out
of time to demand a more thorough cleanup of Rocky Flats if it
wants to do so. The Department of Energy expects to finish the
$7 billion job in less than two years. It might even finish by
the end of this year.
After the work is done, Rocky Flats will become a wildlife
refuge, with 5,200 of its 6,400 acres eventually opened to the
public. The closed portion includes the central industrial area,
where low-level nuclear waste is being left buried six feet
below the surface.
Department of Energy officials insist they've tested the area
completely and are cleaning up everything that exceeds pollution
limits. But Lipsky questions whether officials can be trusted
given that "I found evidence of tampering with monitors and data
falsification" in 1989 by the Energy Department and its
then-contractor, Rockwell.
So for Lipsky and others at his press conference Wednesday who
were involved in the grand jury probe, it comes down to a simple
question: How can you believe the Department of Energy is
telling the truth today that Rocky Flats will be clean?
"I do not believe them," said Jacque Brever, a former Rocky
Flats employee and grand jury witness. "They've told one too
many lies."
Added Lipsky: "How can they invite children out there when they
know they haven't cleaned it up?"
A frustrated DOE spokeswoman, Karen Lutz, said allegations that
the agency has not sufficiently tested for contamination "are
absolutely absurd."
"If you don't believe the DOE, ask the people who are overseeing
us," she said.
Victor Holm, head of the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, is
one of those watchdogs.
He thinks there are safeguards today that didn't exist in 1989
that ensure the testing is accurate, including independent labs,
the state health department and the Environmental Protection
Agency.
"I've personally sampled," he said, "and personally taken the
samples to the labs. I get the same result they do."
He said tests show there are, in fact, tiny amounts of
radioactivity on the east side of the plant's buffer zone and
off-site into Westminster near Indiana Street and the former
town of Leyden on the south. But the levels are so low that
cleanup of the soil is not required, Holm said.
Holm believes the state health department and U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency are doing a good job of overseeing the
cleanup. But still, he says, DOE's practices in 1989 were very
bad, and the grand jury group is "bringing up things that
someone should investigate."
Lipsky said he tried to investigate but was blocked by federal
prosecutors from following some leads.
For instance, he said, there was testimony and heat sensing that
indicated Rocky Flats burned tons of contaminated waste,
producing huge amounts of radioactive ash.
"Where is it?" he asks. "Where did they hide it?"
Lutz responded that the cleanup is dealing with all
contamination on the site. Thousands of truckloads of
radioactive waste have been shipped to nuclear waste dumps out
of state, she said.
Lipsky said he was barred from investigating a Rocky Flats study
documenting widespread low-level contamination by strontium, a
dangerous radioactive element typically produced by a nuclear
reactor or a potentially fatal flash of radioactivity called a
criticality. Rocky Flats didn't have a nuclear reactor, but it
did have a lab that experimented with criticalities.
Lutz said strontium has been found but not in amounts that
needed to be cleaned up.
Lipsky also said Justice Department prosecutors specifically
stopped him from pursuing charges of fraud or false statements
about what the Department of Energy or its contractor, Rockwell,
had been doing with radioactive waste.
Then in June 1991, he said, he was told he could not seek
criminal charges against individuals, which might have meant
prison terms. That meant the only punishment could be fines
against Rockwell. The company paid $18.5 million in the plea
bargain.
Prosecutors said at the time that the evidence was not strong
enough to make charges stick.
But grand jurors were furious, convinced that they had proof and
that individuals should have gone to prison. One of the most
vocal was grand jury foreman Wes McKinley, now a newly elected
state legislator. He backed Lipsky on Wednesday.
Although the group accused the Justice Department of obstruction
of justice in shutting down the investigation, their attorney,
Caron Balkany, said they are not asking for charges to be filed.
She said the group instead intends to sue to open the grand jury
records and prevent public recreation at Rocky Flats.
The group also wants a congressional investigation and wants the
Department of Energy removed from control of the cleanup, she
said.
imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5438
© The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
46 Rocky Mountain News: Opinion: Flats cleanup critics peddle needless fear
Cover-up claims aren't obviously linked to safety
January 6, 2005
When federal and state regulators craft a cleanup plan for an old
mine or industrial site, they don't judge what needs to be done
solely on data supplied by the company that ran the operation.
They take samples of soil, air and groundwater. Lots and lots of
samples.
Officials naturally did precisely this at Rocky Flats, the site
northwest of Denver where plutonium was once processed into parts
for nuclear bombs, before they started cleaning it up, too. Which
is why it was odd to hear a former FBI agent and a newly elected
state representative claim at a press conference Wednesday that
the Rocky Flats cleanup is jeopardized by an alleged cover-up of
crimes there 15 years ago.
Former agent Jon Lipsky, who was part of a Justice Department
probe into possible environmental violations at Rocky Flats that
began in 1989, and Rep.-elect Wes McKinley, who served as Rocky
Flats federal grand jury foreman, both decried the possibility
of sending children onto a wildlife refuge slated to open on
much of the old Rocky Flats grounds. Lipsky in particular argued
that allegedly incomplete or deceptive information provided long
ago by Rockwell International and the Department of Energy
helped shaped the current cleanup plan in ways that leave the
public vulnerable to contamination.
We're not in a position to declare with certainty whether
Justice and Energy officials covered up environmental crimes
that may have occurred at Rocky Flats in the 1970s and '80s, but
this much is clear: The present cleanup is based upon a vast
amount of data gathered in recent years. "We are not basing this
cleanup on data that was produced 15 or 20 years ago," explains
the Energy Department's Karen Lutz. Moreover, she notes, the
data have been reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency
and the state Department of Public Health and Environment.
It's one thing for the two groups that called Wednesday's press
conference, the Ambushed Grand Jury Citizens' Investigation and
the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, to argue that the
cleanup standard at Rocky Flats is too lax. Reasonable people
can dispute, we suppose, whether ensuring that soil down to
three feet emits no more than 50 picocuries of radiation per
gram is safe enough, even though the standard would allow no
significant boost to the radiation we experience in everyday
life. But it's inflammatory to suggest a few hours' visit to a
wildlife refuge a few years from now could put children at risk
of cancer. As U.S. Rep. Mark Udall - whose environmental
credentials are not in dispute - said in a press release
Wednesday, "I remain confident that the site will be cleaned up
to the highest standard and will be safe for public use. I
wouldn't have sponsored the legislation if I thought otherwise."
Lipsky and McKinley feel passionately that the Rocky Flats probe
was mishandled and the plea bargain with Rockwell was a
travesty. Any new information they provide needs to be carefully
reviewed. As long ago as 1993, we urged that grand jurors be
given immunity to testify before Congress; in 1997, we said
jurors should be free to release their own report. But we've
also been skeptical of a cover-up, in part because it was the
Justice Department itself that initiated the probe and because
of how many people would be implicated in any such conspiracy.
Why would then-U.S. Attorney Mike Norton and his staff initiate
an unprecedented probe of a nuclear facility and then risk their
reputations by whitewashing the behavior of their original
target? It doesn't seem to make sense, and Lipsky and McKinley
were no help Wednesday in clarifying the mystery.
© The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
47 DenverPost.com: Ex-FBI agent accuses feds of Rocky Flats coverup
Published: Thursday, January 06, 2005
By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer
Post / John Epperson
Jon Lipsky said he took early retirement so he could "tell the
truth."
The former FBI agent who led the 1989 raid at Rocky Flats
accused federal prosecutors Wednesday of railroading his
investigation at the former nuclear-weapons plant.
Saying he took early retirement last week so he could finally
"tell the truth" about Rocky Flats, Jon Lipsky said he had
uncovered many instances of tampering with environmental
monitoring and data falsification before his investigation was
cut short by federal prosecutors.
"It became apparent to me during the investigation of Rocky
Flats that the Department of Energy and the Department of
Justice were primarily concerned about minimizing the extent to
which the public became aware of the contamination at Rocky
Flats, both off site and on site," Lipsky said, speaking at a
news conference held at the state Capitol by the authors of "The
Ambush Grand Jury" and the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice
Center. "The less contamination people knew about, the less they
would have to spend to clean it up."
Officials with the Justice Department have repeatedly defended
their investigation, which concluded in 1992 with an $18.5
million plea agreement between federal prosecutors and the plant
contractor, Rockwell International Corp.
Former FBI agent Jon Lipsky says he had uncovered many instances
of tampering with environmental monitoring and data
falsification at Rocky Flats before his investigation was cut
short by federal prosecutors.
The DOE has denied allegations by Lipsky and others that it
deceived environmental regulators about hidden contamination
throughout the 6,240- acre site, where it built plutonium
triggers for more than 70,000 nuclear warheads.
"We're not saying that there's no contamination on site, but we
have done a very thorough inventory, characterized that
contamination and now have a cleanup plan that's safe and
protective for the entire community," said Karen Lutz, a DOE
spokeswoman.
But many continue to doubt the adequacy of the $7 billion
cleanup, expected to wrap up in 2006.
Newly elected state Rep. Wes McKinley, foreman of the grand jury
that tried to indict federal and private officials for
environmental crimes at Rocky Flats, said Wednesday he plans to
introduce legislation requiring managers to warn visitors of
potential dangers on the site when it becomes a wildlife refuge
in 2007.
"The federal government lied to the citizens of Colorado for
years about the dangers of Rocky Flats," said McKinley, speaking
at a news conference featuring Lipsky. "They're still lying, and
now they want to take our schoolchildren out there on field
trips."
All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
48 Summit Daily News: Rocky Flats refuge visitors will be warned of nuclear past
for Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper and Frisco Colorado - News
January 6, 2005
STEVEN PAULSON
the associated press
DENVER — A newly elected state legislator who led a grand jury
investigation of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant
said Wednesday he will introduce a bill requiring managers of the
site to warn visitors of the potential dangers once it is
converted to a wildlife refuge.
Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, was the foreman of a federal grand
jury that tried to indict private and federal officials over
contamination at the site in 1992, but prosecutors settled the
case with plea bargains.
“People do have a right to make a choice. There are a lot of
dangerous activities like horseback riding and rafting and people
do it, but they know it’s dangerous before they do it. I don’t
think anyone should go out there,” McKinley said.
McKinley, who was elected in November, said his bill would
require visitors to the wildlife refuge to sign a statement
acknowledging they had been warned about the potential dangers.
He said the federal government has lied about the extent of
contamination at the site and that schoolchildren especially
should not visit the facility.
Spokesmen for Kaiser-Hill Corp., which is handling the cleanup,
and the Department of Energy, which oversees the site, did not
immediately return phone calls.
Federal officials have proposed allowing hiking, cycling,
horseback riding and other activities on 16 miles of trails at
Rocky Flats once it is converted to a refuge by 2008.
A $7 billion cleanup of the 6,420-acre site west of Denver is
scheduled to be complete in 2006. Rocky Flats made plutonium
triggers for nuclear warheads until 1992, when it was shut down
because of safety concerns and because of the end of the Cold
War.
All contents © Copyright 2005 summitdaily.com
Summit Daily - 40 West Main Street - Frisco, CO 80443
*****************************************************************
49 Colorado Daily: Lipsky breaks his Flats silence
By RICHARD VALENTY Colorado Daily Staff Writer
Jon Lipsky, a former FBI Special Agent, led a an FBI raid on the
former Rocky Flats plutonium trigger plant in June 1989, armed
with what he felt was solid evidence of illegal incineration and
other environmental violations at the plant.
Fifteen years later, Lipsky held his first public discussion
about the ensuing investigation into alleged environmental
crimes. Lipsky and Colorado Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, spoke
Wednesday at the state capitol before a crowd of media,
anti-Flats activists and other citizens.
McKinley was the foreman of a Special Grand Jury formed in 1989
to gather information, create a report and submit the report to
the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Justice ended the
investigation in March 1992, and prosecutors decided to settle
the case with an $18.5 million plea bargain settlement with
then-Flats contractor Rockwell International instead of going to
trial.
"I was nauseous. I was very disappointed," said Lipsky when
asked for his reaction to the plea-bargain settlement.
Lipsky said he believed a great deal of important information
from the grand jury would not reach the public, and testified
before a Congressional subcommittee warning about possible DOJ
obstruction of justice. He said he was transferred from Denver
to a gang squad in Los Angeles several weeks later, and has been
unable to speak freely about the case since.
"I've been muzzled since 1992," said Lipsky Wednesday.
Lipsky said Caron Balkany and McKinley, co-authors of the book
"The Ambushed Grand Jury," contacted him in 2001 for
information. He said federal authorities would allow him to talk
to the "Ambushed" writers, but they ordered him to lie about
sensitive information.
"In August 2004 I came to Denver on my own nickel," said Lipsky.
"I took early retirement (from the FBI) so I could come here and
tell the truth."
Lipsky and others, including former Flats employee Jacque
Brever, believe some on-site contamination could be escaping the
attention of current Flats cleanup authorities.
Lipsky said he believes authorities covered up information about
a 'fluid bed incinerator" operation in Flats Building 776. He
said a 776 chemical engineer admitted to him that the
incinerator had operated for "about 5,000 hours," and Lipsky
said he doesn't know where disposal records for the resulting
radioactive ash are.
Lipsky said he believes cleanup authorities have only identified
about "one-third" of an area called the "east sprayfields,"
where contaminated liquids were sprayed. He said the EPA
instructed Flats authorities not to spray above an area called
the "east trenches," where radioactive waste is buried, but it
happened anyway.
McKinley said he will introduce a bill during the 2005
legislative session requiring managers of the site to inform
visitors to the future Flats National Wildlife Refuge about the
former plutonium plant before they use the site for recreation.
McKinley said he has draft legislation ready, and said he has
talked to several legislators and has received support. He said
his bill would require visitors to receive significant
information about possible radiation dangers and Flats history,
but it would not delve into minute detail.
"Before you go horseback riding out there, you ought to know the
dangers," said McKinley, who is a rancher. "Who could argue with
the fact that you ought to educate the people?"
Congressman Mark Udall, D-Colo, co-sponsor of legislation
creating the future Refuge, released a statement Wednesday
saying he doubts the need for state legislation since the bill
requires the site to be certified as "clean for recreational
use" before it will be open to the public.
"I respect Wes McKinley and applaud his interest in the Rocky
Flats cleanup, but if the legislature looks carefully at the
Allard-Udall legislation, I think it will be clear that the
proposed consent law is a solution in search of a problem,"
wrote Udall.
Erin Hamby of Boulder's Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
said McKinley, RMPJC, Brever, Lipsky and Ron Avery would file a
petition "within four to eight weeks" asking for the release of
grand jury information to the cleanup parties.
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50 [NukeNet] listen to Lochbaum and Harvin on radio program
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:10:12 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
David Lochbaum and Dr. Kymn Harvin will be on radio nationally syndicated
program tonight at 10:06 est.
click this link for live stream
http://sce.m2ktalk.com:8030/listen.pls
or go to
http://www.gcnlive.com/monday-friday.htm
schedule is Central Standard Times
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