***************************************************************** 01/21/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.15 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] Cheney Vows to Attack Iran 2 Guardian Unlimited: Cheney Puts Iran on List of Trouble Spots 3 [NYTr] Hans Blix Blasts US Nuclear Policy 4 US: Deseret News: BYU lecture will focus on future of N-weapons 5 US: Press Herald News: PNS integral to southern Maine economy 6 International Delegation to Israel in April 7 Mos News: Russia Slams U.S. for Accusing Syria of Terrorism - 8 Guardian Unlimited: Diplomat: IAEA Tours Egyptian Laboratory NUCLEAR REACTORS 9 US: [NukeNet] Nuclear Power Makes a Comeback 10 US: [NukeNet] Southern Company Seeks New Nukes (GA or AL) 11 Nigeriaworld: Nuclear Power? – I smell confusion 12 Interfax: Russia, France discuss Iranian nuclear problem 13 US: NRC: NRC Commissioner Jaczko Takes Oath of Office; Commissioner 14 US: Lincoln Journal Star: Cooper upgrades may mean less oversight 15 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Subcommittee Meet 16 Scotsman.com: Berlusconi Reopens Nuclear Debate in Italy 17 St. Petersburg Times: Nuclear Industry 'Wasteful' NUCLEAR SAFETY 18 US: [DU-WATCH] 'Radiation-proof' RVs to launch soon in U.S. 19 Bellona: $35,000 to compensate radioactive pollution 20 US: mcall.com: Officials say metals processing plant is safe 21 asahi.com: EDITORIAL: Korean hibakusha win NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 22 US: [du-list] Mayors & Toxic Rail Shipments 23 The Australian: US nuclear dump won't fix problem 24 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast residents demand a buyout 25 allAfrica.com: Kenya: Was It Oil Exploration Or Dumping of Nuclear W 26 Platts: Repository needed for growth of nuclear, Bodman says 27 Pahrump Valley Times: Bodman promises 'follow through' on Yucca 28 US: CCDR: Radioactive waste disposal sparks concern 29 AU ABC: Reactor approval could follow waste deal 30 AU ABC: Watchdog considers US nuclear waste deal. NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 31 [du-list] Portsmouth -- Apparently your PACE UNION filed a 32 SF Examiner: Regents approve bidding for Lawrence Berkeley lab 33 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford legal battle may expand 34 ABQjournal: UC May Have LANL Partner 35 Daily Nexus: UC Vies for Continued Lab Control - 36 Grist: Ex-FBI agent charges feds with radioactive coverup at Rocky F 37 lamonitor.com: UC handshakes with mystery LANL partner 38 Guardian Unlimited: Los Alamos Lab Ready to Resume Operations OTHER NUCLEAR 39 The Inquirer: Researchers report bubble fusion results replicated ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Cheney Vows to Attack Iran Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 00:30:17 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by mart The State, Jan.21, 2005 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/10696732.htm?template==contentModules/printstory.jsp Cheney says U.S. to confront Iran Israel might act first to destroy Mideast nation's nuclear program, vice president says By PAUL RICHTER Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON - In bluntly threatening terms on inauguration day, Vice President Dick Cheney removed any doubt Thursday that in its second term the Bush administration intends to confront the theocracy in Iran directly. Cheney, who often has delivered the Bush team's toughest warnings internationally, said Iran is "right at the top" of the administration's list of world trouble spots, and expressed concern that Israel "might well decide to act first" to destroy Iran's nuclear program. The Israelis would let the rest of the world "worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward," he added in an MSNBC interview. The tough talk on this day was part of the administration's attempt to halt what Iran contends is a peaceful, civilian nuclear energy program but what Washington believes is a clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons. Facing weak diplomatic and military options, the Bush administration has issued increasingly stern warnings in hopes threats of sanctions and international isolation would convince Iran to shun nuclear weapons. Both President Bush and other top administration officials have spoken in menacing terms about Iran in recent days. But Cheney's words marked the first time a senior official has amplified the threat by suggesting the United States could be unable to prevent a military attack by its close allies in Jerusalem, said analysts and diplomats. The startling reference to an Israeli attack was "the kind of strong language that will get their attention in Tehran," said one allied diplomat in Washington, who asked to remain unidentified. "There's a rhetorical escalation here: They've ratcheted up the threat level by bringing Israel in," said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department official during the Clinton administration. "They're using the fact of the inauguration, and the uncertainty people have about where they're going in the next term, to say, 'Look, we're not going to let up on Iran.'" Despite Iranian denials, Cheney said the United States believes Tehran has a "fairly robust, new nuclear program." Germany, France and Britain are trying to negotiate with Iran on the issue,an approach U.S. officials say they support but refuse to join as they express doubts over its prospects. Cheney said the American emphasis is on diplomacy and supporting the European efforts. But he added, "At some point, if the Iranians don't live up to their commitments, the next step will be to take it to the United Nations Security Council and seek the imposition of international sanctions." U.S. officials cited Iraq's failure to live up to U.N. resolutions on its weapons programs as a reason for launching the war against that nation that has been going on for nearly two years. Despite the administration's insistence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, no such weapons have been found. Reports have swirled over recent weeks that U.S. officials have contemplated ways of taking military action against Iran, but Cheney raised the stakes by suggesting Israel might step in and act first. Cheney addressed the issue when asked whether the United States could ask Israel to take the lead in military action against Iran. "One of the concerns that people have is that Israel might do it without being asked," Cheney said. "If, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant nuclear capability - given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel - the Israelis might well decide to act first." Israeli analysts have said they believe Iran could develop a bomb in two to three years; U.S. intelligence has predicted it could take slightly longer. Israeli officials have said they might turn to military strikes as a last resort and as a way to set the Iranian program back by 10 to 15 years. This week, a report in New Yorker magazine said U.S. commandos had been operating inside Iran to find potential targets for attack. The Pentagon said the report was "riddled with errors," but it did not directly deny that commandos had entered Iran. In response, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's influential former president, said the country "will not be intimidated by foreign enemies' threats and sanctions." Israel has expressed anxiety over Iran's stance. "Iran poses a clear threat to international peace and security," said an Israeli diplomat, who asked to remain unidentified. "Iran is a leading sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East, while actively developing weapons of mass destruction and nuclear programs. The world should unite and pressure Iran from these destructive activities." * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 2 Guardian Unlimited: Cheney Puts Iran on List of Trouble Spots From the Associated Press [UP] Friday January 21, 2005 8:01 AM AP Photo DCPS104 By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush refuses to rule out war with Iran. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami says his country is ready to defend itself against a U.S. attack. The United States is pushing for a peaceful solution to its nuclear impasse with Iran but, with mistrust on both sides running high, encouraging signs are hard to find. ``You look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list,'' Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday in an interview with radio host Don Imus, hours before being sworn in to a second term. Cheney also said it was possible Israel might take action if it became convinced Tehran posed a significant nuclear threat. ``Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,'' the vice president said. On Monday, Bush reaffirmed his support for a diplomatic settlement of Iran's nuclear program but said, ``I will never take any option off the table.'' Perhaps the most pessimistic comment of all this week came from Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. ``There may be nothing we can do to persuade Iran not to develop weapons of mass destruction,'' Biden said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice. Both Rice and Cheney made clear that the nuclear diplomacy the United States has been pursuing in the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency will continue. They said the administration could raise the stakes with Iran by referring the nuclear question to the U.N. Security Council if Iran does not abide by its nonproliferation commitments. The administration has been hopeful that a nonproliferation initiative being carried out with Iran by Germany, France and Britain will produce results. But the administration is skeptical that Iran is bargaining in good faith. For its part, Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at producing energy, not weapons. Rice said U.S. differences with Iran go well beyond its nuclear program. ``It's really hard to find common ground with a government that thinks Israel should be extinguished,'' she told senators. ``It's difficult to find common ground with a government that is supporting Hezbollah and terrorist organizations that are determined to undermine the Middle East peace that we seek.'' Beyond that, Rice listed Iran among six ``outposts of tyranny.'' Khatami, traveling Thursday in Africa, seemed unconcerned about the consequences of a possible U.S. attack. ``We have prepared ourselves,'' he said. He added that he did not anticipate any ``lunatic'' military move by the United States because Washington has too many problems in Iraq. According to an article by Seymour Hersh published this week in The New Yorker, U.S. officials have been trying to get to the bottom of Iran's nuclear puzzle through a covert operation inside Iran that has been under way since last summer. Defense Department officials said the article was filled with mistakes but did not deny its basic point. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 3 [NYTr] Hans Blix Blasts US Nuclear Policy Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:39:01 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com Hans Blix Criticizes US Nuclear Policies Washington, Jan 20 (Prensa Latina) The US nuclear policies and its search for new atomic weapons are discouraging disarmament and promoting the arms race and conflicts, La Jornada daily's web site reported Thursday. The daily published declarations by Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, former UN verification inspector of WMD (weapons of mass destruction). Blix said US nuclear policies in the last years "do not encourage others States to disarmament and non proliferation. There will be more weapons and conflicts if they keep their methods," he stated. He highlighted during a lecture at the Mexican Ibero American University that the war unleashed on Iraq "can not be a pattern to follow" in the Washington-Iran-North Korea conflict about nuclear issues. In reference to threats to countries that incoming State Secretary Condoleezza Rice called tyrannies, the Swedish diplomat emphasized that "the United States has had an overdose of preventive wars for quite a while." He stated that the White House's intentions to undertake unilateral military actions when it predicts its security and interests are in "increasing danger" are "very worrying." While he was the head of the United Nations WMD-inspector group in Iraq, Blix was being watched by the Bush administration when he stated that Saddam Hussein's regime did not have illegal weapons. Blix is currently heading an independent commission for studies on WMD, established by the Swedish government. The final report of its investigation is expected by the beginning of 2006. sus/iom/ool/mf * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 4 Deseret News: BYU lecture will focus on future of N-weapons [deseretnews.com] Friday, January 21, 2005 PROVO — Kerry M. Kartchner, foreign affairs adviser at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the U.S. Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, will discuss nuclear weapons at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 2, in 238 Herald R. Clark Building at Brigham Young University. Kartchner's lecture, "nuclear Weapons and the Future of U.S. National Security: The Emerging Debate," reflects his more than 20 years of experience in the field of national security affairs and his emphasis on nuclear weapons policy and arms control. This lecture will be archived online. For information on Kennedy Center events, see the calendar and news and events online at kennedy.byu.edu. World & Nation + Utah + Sports + Business + Opinion + Front Page © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 5 Press Herald News: PNS integral to southern Maine economy According to an annual report, the shipyard paid about $185 million to the state's workers last year. --> Friday, January 21, 2005 By JEN FISH, Portland Press Herald Writer Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard continues to play an integral role in southern Maine's economy, adding more than 200 workers and $34 million in wages to its payroll in the past year, according to a report on the yard's economic impact released Thursday. The annual report is compiled by the Seacoast Shipyard Association, an advocacy group working to keep the shipyard off the list of base closures due to be announced later this year. William McDonough, spokesman for the association, said the numbers indicate the significant contribution made by the shipyard to the Maine and New Hampshire economies. "This payroll is paying the shipyard that is the best in the country, hands down," he said. "We're very proud of it, we feel it's essential, it contributes to the welfare of the United States. " The yard also contributes to the economic welfare of more than 2,700 Mainers, and pumps about $2.2 million in purchased goods and services into the state's economy. According to the report, the shipyard paid about $185 million to Maine workers in 2004, an increase of about $21 million over last year. The shipyard's overall payroll is more than $318 million to its 4,803 employees from around New England. Advocates for the shipyard hope that these numbers will bolster their case against closure, which they will continue to make when they meet next week with officials from the Navy and Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. Sanford Town Manager Mark Green said Thursday he plans to make the trip. Sanford sends more workers to the shipyard than any other town in Maine. "We need to show the Department of Defense people that we're still very interested and concerned," Green said. Sanford, he said, has done much to recover from losing 320 jobs after electronics manufacturer Vishay-Sprague downsized its operation in 2001. "Since then, we've been building and growing," Green said. "It would certainly be a tough thing to lose the yard, particularly since these are really good jobs, highly technical jobs with good benefits." Maine's congressional delegation has also lobbied the Navy and Department of Defense about the shipyard's value to Maine, the Navy and national security. Besides maintaining and overhauling nuclear submarines, the shipyard is also the homeport to three Coast Guard Cutters: the Tahoma, Campbell and Reliance. U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, said his staff holds regular meetings on how to best advocate for the shipyard. "I believe they ought to be the last to close because of what they've been able to do," Allen said. "All of us in the delegation are going to keep making the case as loud and as frequently as we can before decision time." Allen said that while private yards are capable of doing the same work the shipyard does, "we do it best, we do it faster and less expensively than other yards." Staff Writer Jen Fish can be contacted at 282-8229 or at: © Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 International Delegation to Israel in April Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 19:54:20 -0800 Free Mordechai Vanunu - Info & Action Alert #46 - January 20, 2005 From the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu http://www.vanunu.com and http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ 1) International Delegation to Israel in April INTERNATIONAL DELEGATION TO GO TO ISRAEL IN APRIL 2005 TO SUPPORT NUCLEAR WHISTLEBLOWER MORDECHAI VANUNU'S DEMAND FOR FULL FREEDOM AND HIS CALL FOR NUCLEAR ABOLITION In 2004 an international delegation travelled to Israel to welcome Mordechai Vanunu to freedom on April 21. After spending 18 years in Ashkelon Prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's "secret" nuclear arsenal, Vanunu was finally released after serving his entire sentence. But upon his release, Israel imposed severe restrictions, including forbidding his contact with foreigners, controlling his movements inside Israel, and forbidding him to leave Israel. With these restrictions, Israel has created a special prison just for Mordechai Vanunu. In July 2004, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal of the restrictions, and at a 6-month review in October, the restrictions were renewed. On November 1, armed police stormed the church compound in East Jerusalem where Vanunu's been living and re-arrested him, seizing his computer, cell phone and other belongings, and questioning him about interviews with foreign press before releasing him to a week of house arrest. He was also detained on Christmas Eve while attempting to go to Bethlehem. The next review of the restrictions is scheduled for the first anniversary of Vanunu's release from prison, April 21. The U.S. and U.K. Campaigns to Free Mordechai Vanunu will again be organizing an international delegation to be present in Israel for several days at the time of the one-year anniversary of Vanunu's release. The delegation will participate in activities such as vigils and demonstrations at sites related to the restrictions and to Vanunu's continued call for the abolition of nuclear weapons in Israel and around the world. On April 22 (the day after the one year anniversary of Mordechai's release), if the restrictions are lifted as they should be, the delegation will be there to celebrate with Mordechai and support his next steps to leave Israel. If they are renewed the delegation will be prepared to engage in nonviolent protest. If you would like more information about the delegation to Israel, please contact the U.K. or U.S. Campaign. The Campaign to Free Vanunu and for a Nuclear Free Middle East at , 44-20-7378-9324 The U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu at , 520-323-8697 If the restrictions aren't lifted, there will also be peaceful demonstrations at Israeli embassies, consulates and other locations in cities around the world, either on April 21 or shortly thereafter. Please contact the campaigns if you would plan one in your city. Visit the websites for more information and updates about the case, and to send a much-needed donation (including to help sponsor members of the delegation) - http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ and http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk/ Felice Cohen-Joppa Coordinator U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu POB 43384 Tucson, AZ 85733 Phone/Fax 520-323-8697 freevanunu@mindspring.com www.nonviolence.org/vanunu ***************************************************************** 7 Mos News: Russia Slams U.S. for Accusing Syria of Terrorism - MOSNEWS.COM Created: 21.01.2005 15:29 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:29 MSK Russia has slammed the United States for accusing Syria of having ties to terrorism, criticizing it for harming security in the Middle East with such statements. “It’s well known that slapping labels on countries and unilaterally describing certain states as part of the ’axis of evil’ has not improved anyone’s security,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko was quoted by Interfax as saying on Friday. “Syria is one of the key players in the region and resumption of talks with Israel on the Syrian question is important in the context of the Middle East peace process.” U.S. Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice has warned Syria it faces new sanctions because of its suspected interference in Iraq and ties to terrorism. Russia, meanwhile, is embroiled in a diplomatic crisis with Israel over intentions to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, Israel’s foe. Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Thursday telephone call not to sell arms to Syria because that would strengthen the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla group. Yakovenko’s comments — and Sharon’s telephone call — came just ahead of a visit to Moscow by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad next week. The United States has tried to put pressure on Russia in the past over its nuclear cooperation with Iran, which Washington says seeks to acquire nuclear weapons. SEE ALSO Write us: info@mosnews.com Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: Diplomat: IAEA Tours Egyptian Laboratory From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday January 22, 2005 12:31 AM By ANTONIO CASTANEDA Associated Press Writer CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - U.N. nuclear inspectors toured an Egyptian laboratory during a review of the country's fuel programs prompted by irregularities in Egypt's reporting of its nuclear activities, a Western diplomat said Friday. The diplomat said on the condition of anonymity that the tour by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors was part of the agency's follow-up to revelations that Egypt had dabbled in uranium enrichment and had contemplated processing plutonium. ``It's what the agency does once there (are) grounds to look at past activities,'' said the Western diplomat, who was familiar with the round of inspections in Egypt. Inspectors would be going back on regular tours in the coming weeks, he said. Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said the government was working with the Vienna, Austria-based IAEA on the ``transparency'' of its energy programs. He added that Egypt ``concluded a comprehensive safeguard agreement with IAEA, which states full cooperation between the agency and (Egypt).'' The Associated Press first reported that IAEA inspectors found suspicious traces of plutonium particles in Egypt late last year. Earlier this month, diplomats told the AP that Egypt also was under IAEA investigation for allegedly producing several pounds of uranium metal and uranium tetrafluoride - a precursor to uranium hexafluoride gas. Uranium metal can be processed into plutonium, while uranium hexafluoride can be enriched into weapons-grade uranium - both for use in the core of nuclear warheads. Egypt has denied in the past it was trying to develop a nuclear weapons program. It has been known that Egypt had what appeared to be a nuclear research facility, but no public information has ever emerged that the research had developed very far. The country appeared to turn away from the pursuit of such a program decades ago. The Soviet Union and China reportedly rebuffed its requests for nuclear arms in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, Egypt gave up the idea of building a plutonium production reactor and reprocessing plant. --- Associated Press reporter George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 9 [NukeNet] Nuclear Power Makes a Comeback Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:20:38 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Nuclear Power Makes a Comeback January 20, 2005 — By Robert Manor, Chicago Tribune Decades after it was written off as a costly failure, the nuclear power industry is being revived with plans for new reactors in Illinois and other states. Utilities are considering building or restarting up to eight reactors in Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and Idaho, as well as in Illinois. [Note: They forgot to mention the new nuke planned for Alaska. -Mike] The renewed interest is an about-face for an industry that has not had an order for a new nuclear plant in 30 years. In recent years it was almost a given that nuclear plants were too expensive to build, too difficult to operate and their radioactive waste too hot to handle. That view is changing as Chicago-based Exelon Corp. and other big power companies consider a new generation of cheap, efficient reactors that would produce plenty of power without generating the greenhouse gases of fossil-fuel plants. It's a logical next step, said John Rowe, chief executive of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear operator, with 17 reactors in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. "I am not starting a new crusade, he said in an interview Wednesday. "The nation needs this technology very badly." Nuclear industry advocates and critics agree on almost nothing, but both sides say that if nuclear power is to return, a major taxpayer subsidy will be necessary. In its so-far-unsuccessful efforts to pass an energy bill, the Bush administration has proposed subsidizing construction of new plants, and some in the industry are pressing for loan guarantees of up to 80 percent of the cost of construction, contending that commercial lenders remain too wary. Officials say it is impossible to determine now how much money the industry would need to build even a handful of new facilities. Exelon's plant at Zion cost $2 billion, adjusted for inflation, when it was built in 1973, and critics say the money could be better spent developing renewable energy sources such as wind power and clean-coal technology. "The nuclear industry is asking for huge subsidies, corporate welfare, for unproven technology," said Howard Learner, executive director of the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center, which is trying to block construction of a new nuclear plant in Clinton, Ill., about 20 miles south of Bloomington. Nuclear power was an incandescent issue for years beginning in the late 1960s. Activists nationwide opposed construction of nuclear plants. The country had no place to permanently store the radioactive waste produced by the plants--it still doesn't--which poses a dire threat to the public, opponents contend. After near-disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl, support for nuclear power evaporated. "What the public thought was that the nuclear industry was being phased out," said Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen, which is among groups trying to block construction of new plants. But with encouragement from the Bush administration and the likelihood of subsidies, utilities are again considering nuclear power. Exelon, corporate parent of Commonwealth Edison, is in the earliest stages of seeking regulatory approval for the new reactor in Clinton, where an older nuclear plant has operated since 1987. The company has not committed to the project and says it is unlikely to build a nuclear plant on its own anytime soon, though it is part of a consortium of companies that intends to build a new plant on a still-to-be-determined site. Meanwhile, Entergy Corp. of New Orleans is looking at building a nuclear plant near Port Gibson, Miss., and Dominion Resources Inc., a utility based in Richmond, Va., is considering building a plant near the Virginia community of Mineral. Most of the proposals involve adding reactors to existing nuclear plant sites, but the consortium that includes Exelon is looking for two new sites to build plants. The consortium, called Nustart, plans to seek licensing for a new plant in 2008, with construction starting in 2010. "One of the sites we are looking at is the Savannah River [nuclear] site in South Carolina," said Dan Keuter, vice president of nuclear business development for Entergy, a member of the consortium. He said another potential site is the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls. The Energy Department controls both properties. Illinois has more experience with nuclear power than any other state, though much of it was bad. Commonwealth Edison's nuclear plants spent years on a Nuclear Regulatory Commission watch list because of their chronic safety problems. The plants were subject to frequent cost overruns and fines, and were often shut down for months at a time for repairs. In 1998, for example, the utility permanently closed its two-reactor Zion plant on the shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. Executives concluded they simply would never be able to operate the plant properly. The plant potentially could have generated electricity until 2033. Exelon's Rowe candidly agrees that the company's nuclear fleet suffered colossal cost overruns. He estimates the company lost between $5 billion and $10 billion building and operating its reactors. David Kolata, director of policy for the Citizens Utility Board, said the cost of nuclear power in Illinois was spread across the state. "The ratepayers ate some of it and ComEd ate some of it," he said. "Certainly, consumers paid more than they should have." Nuclear power advocates make clear that the electric power industry will not pay for new plants. They say the government must subsidize construction costs. "The financial risk is considered too high," said Carl Crawford, a spokesman for Entergy. "It's just too great a risk for any single company." Nustart has already won a commitment of $260 million from the Energy Department to complete plant design, said Marilyn Kray, president of the consortium and an Exelon executive. "Our original request was for $400 million," Kray said. She said the industry needs a subsidy for the first nuclear plants it builds, but would not require taxpayer assistance for the plants that would follow. Adding to the uncertainty of the cost of a new plant is the distinct possibility of cost overruns. For example, CUB said the existing Clinton nuclear plant was supposed to cost $430 million, but it wound up costing 10 times that much. Exelon has shown that nuclear plants can be made to run right, however. Over the past five years it has turned some of the nation's worst, least reliable plants into some of the best. But critics of nuclear power say new reactors have a learning curve. Just as it took decades to learn how to properly run existing plants, they argue, it will take an unacceptably long time to learn how to operate new plants. The NRC has approved three new reactor designs and is close to approving a fourth. "These are unproven designs," said Paul Gunter, with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "They have no track record in terms of cost or safety." The NRC says the new reactors are cheaper to build, simpler to operate and include safety systems more reliable than reactor designs of the past. Questions remain, however, about the need for new plants. Nuclear power will not reduce the nation's dependence on imported petroleum. Very little oil is used to produce electricity. Instead, half the nation's power comes from coal. Nuclear supplies 20 percent, natural gas 17 percent, and most of the remainder comes from dams or renewable sources. Nor will there be any shortage of electricity in the near future. The U.S. can produce as much as 30 percent more electricity than it currently consumes. Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 10 [NukeNet] Southern Company Seeks New Nukes (GA or AL) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:50:58 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Southern Co. seeks federal funds to study nuclear plant sites Posted on Fri, Jan. 14, 2005 Associated Press http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/10643737.htm ATLANTA - Southern Co. is asking the U.S. Department of Energy to help pay for a study of possible sites for a new nuclear power plant. The company applied for $245,000 in funding on Dec. 29, but Georgia Power spokesman John Sell insisted Thursday that the proposal is merely for exploratory purposes and does not imply Southern Co. will build another plant. Southern Co. already operates three nuclear plants within its four-state territory. Two of the existing plants are in Georgia, one near Baxley and the other near Waynesboro. Its other plant is in Dothan, Ala. If funding is approved, Southern Co. expects to complete its study by March and decide later whether to apply for permits from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company will examine potential new sites for a plant as well as the possibility of building plants on existing sites. A nuclear power plant has not been licensed in the United States in nearly 30 years - a few years before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. But the Bush administration has been pushing for that to change and has streamlined nuclear licensing. Despite claims that nuclear-plant technology is better than it used to be, opponents insist it is still not environmentally friendly and that the industry has difficulties handling nuclear waste. "We're against it," said Georgia Sierra Club spokeswoman Colleen Kiernan. The Southern Co. is the owner of utility companies in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia. _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 11 Nigeriaworld: Nuclear Power? – I smell confusion Richard Oduntan Friday, January 21, 2005 It is a relief to see that efforts are being directed towards addressing Nigeria's perennial power problems. However, it seems to me that there is so much confusion as to the best ways to solve the problems. Should we build power plants? Yes! Should we deregulate the power sector? I say yes let's carry on. The pros and cons of operating some sort of partially deregulated power sectors are not too complicated. I already tried to weigh in on the issue of attracting private sector investment for power generation in Nigeria and operating a reliable power market. Can we build and operate Nuclear Power plants? Yes, I'm sure we can find a few countries or companies (GE, Westinghouse, AECL etc) that will be willing to undertake such a gigantic task for us. However, is this really the way to go for Nigeria? Are we ready for such level of investments and risks? Nuclear power generation is one of the most complicated and risky activities ever undertaken by man. Nonetheless, to many nuclear experts around the world, designing and operating a nuclear plant has never been easier than it is today (thanks to years and billions of dollars in research). For a country like Nigeria, building and safely operating 2000 MW nuclear power station(s) will be going too far. First, the required investments are enormous. Maybe around 2-3 billion dollars will get us started with 2000 MW station (in smaller units of say 500 MW). If the government is able to commit that kind of money to building, how can we ensure safe operation? Safely operating nuclear power plants on a day-to-day basis requires enormous technical expertise and cash flow. I am not talking about the kind of expertise that you can build over a few years. In that case, the builders can simply stick around forever to help us operate them, only that most of them have never really operated their reactors before; utilities operate reactors not designers. For the sake of argument, let us assume that both capital and expertise will not pose any problems. What about the safety risks involved? While nuclear plants are some of the safest places you can be in the world (I say this with knowledge), they are embodiments of enormous risks. Nigerians have never been particularly known as knowledgeable people when it comes to safety. Thousands have died from numerous oil and gas pipeline explosions, meaningless industrial accidents and pure negligence. The other day, a Nigerian friend was telling me that maybe Nigeria needs a Federal minister in charge of 'common sense' application when it comes to safety. A single nuclear accident can hunt generations yet unborn. The operation of a safe nuclear power station requires an impeccable licensing infrastructure. Nigerians are too corrupt to be put in charge of watching over a sleeping monster. A little bribe here, a little kickback there, maybe some maintenance work will go undone; maybe some leader will put his cousin in charge of some highly technical work he has not been trained for, then what happens? A Chernobyl in Nigeria will re-write history in ways that our descendants will never forget. Having said all these, should we work towards eventually building nuclear power plants? Eventually, we may be ready to generate power using whatever technology we may consider appropriate but a lot still has to be put in place. It takes years to build and license nuclear power plants appropriately; going that route now will not address our immediate power crisis. Now we have research reactors, we can build on those gradually and pay our dues to science in this field. We should prove that we can successfully run airlines, steel plants, refineries, cement factories, fertilizer plants before attempting to put the lives of generations yet unborn on the balance. We have natural gas in abundance, what is wrong with good ol' gas turbines for electricity generation in Nigeria? Richard Oduntan is a Nuclear Design Engineer ***************************************************************** 12 Interfax: Russia, France discuss Iranian nuclear problem Jan 21 2005 1:48PM MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) - The Iranian nuclear problem was in the center of attention at a meeting of the Russian-French Council for Cooperation on Security Matters, held in Moscow on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the final news conference after the talks. The meeting was attended by the Russian and French foreign and defense ministers. "Special emphasis was laid on the Iranian nuclear program and the situation on the Korean Peninsula," Lavrov said. © 1991-2004 Interfax All rights reserved News and other data on this web site are provided for information purposes only, and are not intended for republication or redistribution. Republication or redistribution of Interfax content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Interfax. ***************************************************************** 13 NRC: NRC Commissioner Jaczko Takes Oath of Office; Commissioner Lyons Swearing-In set for Next Week News Release - 2005-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 05-013 January 21, 2005 Gregory B. Jaczko was sworn in as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission today by Chairman Nils J. Diaz in a ceremony at the NRC. Peter B. Lyons is expected to be sworn in next Tuesday at the agency. The additions bring the NRC to its full complement of five commissioners for the first time since March 2003. The other members of the Commission are Edward McGaffigan Jr., and Jeffrey S. Merrifield. Because both commissioners were appointed by the President during a congressional recess, their terms will expire at the end of the Senate's next session in late 2006. Before joining the NRC, Jaczko served four years first as science policy advisor and then as appropriations director to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. He has also been an adjunct professor teaching a science policy course at Georgetown University. Jaczkos professional career has been devoted to science and its use and impact in the public policy arena. He worked as a congressional science fellow in the office of Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and later advised members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on nuclear policy and other scientific issues. Jaczko, a native of New York, earned a bachelors degree from Cornell University and a doctorate in particle physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lyons brings to the NRC eight years of experience as science advisor to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. From 1997 to 2002, he focused on military and civilian uses of nuclear technologies, national science policy and nuclear non-proliferation. More recently, he was involved with issues on national and international nuclear policy, energy research and development, and hydrogen technology. From 1969 to 1996, Lyons worked in progressively more responsible positions at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. During that time he served as director for industrial partnerships, deputy associate director for energy and environment, and deputy associate director-defense research and applications. While at Los Alamos, he spent over a decade supporting nuclear test diagnostics. Lyons has published well over 100 technical papers, holds three patents related to fiber optics and plasma diagnostics, and served as chairman of the NATO Nuclear Effects Task Group for five years. A native of Nevada, Lyons received his doctorate in nuclear astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1969 and earned a bachelors degree in physics/math from the University of Arizona in 1964. Last revised Friday, January 21, 2005 ***************************************************************** 14 Lincoln Journal Star: Cooper upgrades may mean less oversight BY ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could reduce its oversight of Nebraska Public Power District's once-troubled Cooper Nuclear Station. Commission officials plan to meet with NPPD staff Tuesday in Brownville to discuss that possibility and improvements made at the nuclear power plant, located three miles south of Brownville. Cooper has been under increased regulatory oversight by the NRC. On Jan. 30, 2003, the NRC sent NPPD a Confirmatory Action Letter or CAL, outlining what steps needed to be taken to make the plant a top performer again. The letter said Cooper management and employees needed to show sustained improvements in the following areas: emergency preparedness, human performance, material condition and equipment reliability, plant modifications and corrective action program and engineering. The NRC had ranked Cooper in the second-lowest category in terms of performance for nuclear plants nationwide. Cooper's ranking improved two categories in July 2004, mostly due to its improved performance in the area of emergency preparedness, said NPPD spokeswoman Beth Boesch. Last September, NPPD notified the NRC that it had met all of the requirements in the CAL. Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the commission's Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, said the NRC will discuss the improvements made at Cooper and discuss possibly reducing the level of the agency's oversight of the power plant. Said NRC Region IV administrator Bruce S. Mallet in a news release: "At the meeting, we plan to discuss with the licensee whether we can close the CAL as an oversight tool and the steps they will take to ensure improved performance for the long term." Boesch said the utility feels that it has met the full intent of the CAL and has exceeded its requirements: "We are hopeful that the NRC is going to say that we have met all of the requirements to close the CAL." Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 402-473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.c om. If you go Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Nebraska Public Power District officials will meet Tuesday in Brownville to discuss improvements made to Cooper Nuclear Station over the last two years and possibly discuss reducing federal oversight of the nuclear power plant. The public is invited to the meeting, which will begin at 7 p.m. in the Brownville Concert Hall. NRC officials will be available to answer questions after the meeting. Copyright © 2005, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved. 926 P Street Lincoln NE 68508 402 475-4200 • feedback@journalstar.com ***************************************************************** 15 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Subcommittee Meeting FR Doc 05-1088 [Federal Register: January 21, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 13)] [Notices] [Page 3232] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr21ja05-94] on Planning and Procedures; Notice of Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Planning and Procedures will hold a meeting on February 9, 2005, Room T-2B1, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The entire meeting will be open to public attendance, with the exception of a portion that may be closed pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c) (2) and (6) to discuss organizational and personnel matters that relate solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of the ACRS, and information the release of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Wednesday, February 9, 2005--3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. The Subcommittee will discuss proposed ACRS activities and related matters. The Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee. Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, Mr. Sam Duraiswamy (telephone: 301-415-7364) between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (ET) five days prior to the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Electronic recordings will be permitted only during those portions of the meeting that are open to the public. Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged to contact the above named individual at least two working days prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes in the agenda. Dated: January 12, 2005. John H. Flack, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW. [FR Doc. 05-1088 Filed 1-19-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 16 Scotsman.com: Berlusconi Reopens Nuclear Debate in Italy Fri 21 Jan 2005 Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has reopened a debate over whether Italy should use nuclear energy, saying the country was penalised by over-reliance on imported energy. The issue made front page headlines in Rome today, with scientists, environmentalists, and economists offering their views. Italy imports around 85% of its energy, well above the European average. Nuclear power was banned in Italy following a referendum in 1987, a year after the explosion and fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Italy’s four nuclear plants were shut down and dismantled. In September 2003 the country was hit by a blackout that left the whole country in darkness, except for the people of Sardinia and a few tiny islands that have their own electric supplies. The outage apparently began when a tree branch hit a power line in Switzerland during a storm. But Green Party leader Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio reacted to Berlusconi’s comments by dismissing nuclear energy as “dangerous and uneconomical.” “Italy and the European Union should focus on the development of renewable and safe energy, without giving way to nuclear nostalgia,” he said. [ border=] 2005 Scotsman.com ***************************************************************** 17 St. Petersburg Times: Nuclear Industry 'Wasteful' #1037, Friday, January 21, 2005 By Vladimir Kovalev STAFF WRITER Western donors and Russian taxpayers are propping up an outdated and dangerous Russian nuclear power system that is being managed by dubious methods, Norwegian-based environmental organization Bellona says. In the last 10 years, the G-8 group of leading industrial nations, the European Union and the United States have spent billions of dollars keeping the Russian nuclear industry safe and afloat, Bellona spokesman Igor Kudrik said Thursday in a telephone interview from Oslo. The United States alone has transferred up to $10 billion to Russia in the decade and another $20 billion is scheduled to be noted by G-8 by 2010, Kudrik said. "The problem is that while the Russian nuclear industry is undergoing bureaucratic changes, the infrastructure itself still works the way it did during the Cold War and is able to keep operating only because of cash coming from Russian and Western taxpayers," he said. Bellona is about to release in Russian a report called "Russia's Nuclear Industry: the Need for Reform." The report argues that the infrastructure of the country's nuclear sector must be changed, because otherwise the money donated by the foreign counties will be wasted. Representatives of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency said Thursday they were too busy to comment on the Bellona report. "Most of the western financing coming to Russia to promote nuclear safety is being spent only on keeping this Soviet-style industry running," Kudrik said. Russia is still developing many nuclear technologies that the West is on its way to abandoning, including the closed fuel cycle, which involves reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. This has been proven to be unprofitable, but is still used in Russia because it is considered one way for the nuclear power industry to survive, the authors of a new Bellona report states. "The main reason that Russia ... and a mere handful of other countries ... rely on this environmentally dangerous and proliferation-friendly system is based on outmoded assumptions from the 1970s that natural uranium prices would skyrocket, and thus a plan involving plutonium-based fuel was needed to keep the industry in place," the conclusion of the report says, "The United Kingdom and France reprocess, but both countries, even with their well-developed infrastructures, have found reprocessing to be unprofitable. This is because later findings indicated that natural uranium stocks would last until late in the 21st century." In another example of purported mismanagement, the environmentalists pointed out an incident involving a nuclear submarine that sank in 2003. Bellona says this is a telling example of international programs being carried out without proper environmental safety. "These problems became very clear after August 2003, when the written-off nuclear submarine K-159 sank," Kudrik said. "It was being taken to be broken up when it sank in stormy weather." When the vessel with 800 kilograms of spent uranium fuel on board ran into the storm off the Kola Peninsula, it sank in 240 meters of water with 9 of its 10-man crew going down with it. Although the submarine was not a part of an international decommissioning project, Bellona said that the sloppy approach to the disposal of the vessel could mean that western-financed projects could result in similar dangerous incidents. In June 2003 Norway allocated $13 million for transportation, removal of nuclear fuel and destruction of two decommissioned submarines of the same type. "These submarines were towed to the dismantlement points the same way as K-159 was," the report says. In November, the report was presented to the European Parliament and was received with great interest by the international audience, according to the authors. "The presentation lasted about four hours; usually during things like that people hang around in a session hall, walking here and there," Kudrik said. "This time everybody stayed where they were." Foreign countries financing nuclear safety measures should come up with a master plan for all of Russia, not only for specific areas such as the Kola peninsula, which is a huge graveyard for nuclear submarines, he said. "There are lots of other places that should be taken into account - the regions of Southern Siberia and the Mayak reprocessing plant [in the Chelyabinsk region], for instance," Kudrik said. Meanwhile, victims of a Soviet-era nuclear industry disaster - 10 men who took part in the cleanup of the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown - continued a hunger strike they started last week in the town of Sestroretsk, a suburb of St. Petersburg On Thursday, one of the hunger strikers was taken to a hospital, Interfax reported. "This morning one of our fellow's temperature shot up and, taking into account that this weekend he already felt bad, we called an ambulance," Sergei Kulish, head of the group, was quoted as saying. "He was diagnosed as having pneumonia. Another two [hunger strikers] got medical assistance, but did not have to leave.". On Wednesday the hunger strikers spoke to Alexander Rzhanenkov, a representative of City Hall, who said the federal government has allocated 40 million rubles ($1.4 million) to cover city debts to Chernobyl disaster workers, Kulish said. He said the group would not quit the hunger strike before the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on financial compensation. [Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993-2004 ***************************************************************** 18 [DU-WATCH] 'Radiation-proof' RVs to launch soon in U.S. Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:52:37 -0600 (CST) http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11313393.htm 'Radiation-proof' RVs to launch soon in U.S. 11 Jan 2005 21:12:38 GMT Source: Reuters CHICAGO, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Two private U.S. companies have designs on building the first luxury recreational vehicle that could withstand nuclear radiation. Parliament Coach Corp., a privately held company in Clearwater, Florida, which converts Prevost buses into high-end RVs, has partnered with Homeland Defense Vehicles to offer consumers a luxury motor coach that can protect occupants against nuclear radiation from dirty bombs as well as biological and chemical attacks. The idea is to offer the option on the pricey vehicles to consumers worried about terror attacks, officials for both companies said Tuesday. "Many people enjoy the RV lifestyle, but we also live in an era when people have some level of fear about terrorism," Parliament Chief Executive Harvey Mitchell said in a statement. "These concerns about terrorism are linked to states where people with RVs like to travel." The vehicles, costing from $1.2 million to $2 million, will be introduced Wednesday at the Tampa Super RV Show in Florida. Parliament takes the Prevost buses, which are like transit buses without seats, and adds a luxury interior that sleeps from two to four people, while also providing such amenities as a satellite navigation system and plasma televisions. The RVs run from $1.1 million to $1.9 million, including a trailer, Parliament said. The filtration system, which uses positive air pressure, will be an option costing about $100,000, added Parliament, which builds 12 high-end RVs a year. Occupants could live for several days in the custom-built motor coach, said Daniel Ayres, president and CEO of Homeland Defense, a privately held company based in Newton, Texas, which makes mobile medical and command center vehicles for universities, county and state governments, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Last week, Homeland Defense introduced a similar filtration system for the luxury version of the Medium Tactical Vehicle used by the U.S. Army and built by Stewart & Stevenson Services Inc. The vehicle, dubbed "Bad Boy Heavy Muscle Truck," weighs more than 13,000 pounds, is 10 feet high and 21 feet long, and has a ground clearance of almost 2 feet. Homeland Defense hopes to sell 50 of the Bad Boy HMTs this year at prices as high as $750,000. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/3iazvD/6WnJAA/xGEGAA/Sj.0lB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 19 Bellona: $35,000 to compensate radioactive pollution Chelyabinsk governor ordered to allocate about $35,000 to Muslyumovo village suffered in the nuclear accident in 1957. 2005-01-21 15:26 December last year, Chelyabinsk region governor Petr Sumin allocated 1 million rubles (about $35,000) for the local program on coping the radiation accidents’ consequences at the Mayak plant. The money for the program come from the extra income of the local budget and taxes from the Mayak plant after reprocessing the foreign spent nuclear fuel, UralPolit.ru reported. The money will be spent on construction of the livestock pond in Muslyumovo village near polluted Techa River. Techa reservoirs contain over 340 million cubic meters of the radioactive water. All this water can penetrate the open water system during a spring flood. The local program on overcoming of the radiation accidents’ consequences at the Mayak plant was adopted by the local parliament in 2002 and should be completed in 2005. Muslyomovo is the most exposed village due to Mayak plant’s former discharge practices. Muslyomovo is situated 30 km downstream of Mayak Chemical Combine, and in 1949 it had a population of 4,000 inhabitants. By 1990, the number had fallen to 2,500 residents. The effective dose received by Muslyomovo's villagers is approximately 2.8 Sv, and the effective dose received by children is 0.05 to 0.1 Sv/y. The residents of Muslyomovo have been subject to compulsory blood and bone marrow testing. The results and findings from these tests however, were kept secret until 1992. In 1994, the administration of Chelyabinsk County passed a resolution to evacuate those of Muslyumovo's inhabitants who had suffered the most, and to build a new village farther away from the Techa River. On August 7 1997, the Chelyabinsk county administration signed a decree on re-settlement of village Muslyumovo and adjacent areas downriver of Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. However, nothing came out of these and other decisions. Read on 2004-05-19 Mayak Nuclear disaster victims to receive compensation Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 20 mcall.com: Officials say metals processing plant is safe [The Morning Call Online] Jan 21, 2005 Nockamixon Twp. site toured after concerns about radioactivity. By Dalondo Moultrie Of The Morning Call Nockamixon Township environmental officials said they are satisfied that an old metals processing plant in Revere is safe after touring the site on Beaver Run Road last week. Township officials requested the tour after Stephen Donovan, a chemist and member of Nockamixon's Environmental Advisory Council, said at a recent supervisors meeting that he found a piece of radioactive slag, which is a byproduct of metal processing, in Rapp Creek near the site. Representatives from Cabot Corp., owner of the Revere site, escorted about 10 township officials around the property and assured them that any health risks are minimal, said Terry Fritz, also a member of the council. ''At least we gained access to the site,'' Fritz said. ''It looks like they've done a fairly good job of cleaning it up.'' Supervisor Bruce Keyser agreed. ''As far as the radioactive contamination, I know it's not high,'' Keyser said. ''It's something you could live with forever and not be affected by it.'' The plant, which is on more than 100 acres, was used as a producer of cesium, rubidium and other metals from the late 1960s to 2001 when Cabot shut down operations, said Timothy Knapp, Cabot's radiation safety officer. He said about 50,000 pounds of material containing radioactive uranium and thorium were processed at the plant during a two-year span in the 1970s. Since 2001 the company has been decommissioning the site, demolishing buildings and clearing away piles of slag, Knapp said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission examined the site in April 2001 and determined that the rock-like piles of slag were about 100 times below the level the NRC deems unsafe, Knapp said. ''That means it does not pose any risk to human health,'' Knapp said. ''It meets their criteria for unrestricted release. That means it's OK for the general public.'' Knapp said Cabot will haul away all of the piles of slag. Donovan, who also toured the site, said he confirmed the slag he found was radioactive by using a Geiger counter. ''Basically our effort with Cabot is to sensitize them to our concern, do a good job and look for hidden dangers that could be present,'' Donovan said. ''They're aware of our concerns and I think they'll do a good job.'' Knapp said radioactivity for Donovan's piece of slag registered at the same levels that Cabot reported to the commission. Knapp said it's important that people in the community know Cabot is interested in being open with its neighbors and doing what it takes to ease residents' minds. ''All the data we have now [shows] there is no environmental impact on that site,'' Knapp said. ''Cabot looks forward to continue working with the township and the EAC. It seems it will be a good working relationship through the remainder of the site closure.'' dalondo.moultrie@mcall.com 215-529-2612 Copyright © 2005, The Morning Call>> Right to your doorstep! - ***************************************************************** 21 asahi.com: EDITORIAL: Korean hibakusha win Helping overseas A-bomb victims is the right thing to do. The Hiroshima High Court on Wednesday handed down a landmark ruling that identifies with the suffering of about 5,000 hibakusha atomic bomb victims who live overseas. Overturning a lower court decision, it said the government's nearly 30-year policy of excluding the plaintiffs from a law providing support to atomic bomb victims was illegal. It ordered the government to pay 48 million yen in compensation to a group of Koreans who filed the lawsuit. The court said the government's decision to suspend the provision of healthcare allowances once an A-bomb victim had left Japan was illegal. The lawsuit was filed by 40 Koreans who were forcibly brought to Japan to work during World War II at factories and other plants operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. They were exposed to nuclear radiation from the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of Hiroshima and returned to the Korean Peninsula after the war. Assuming they do not lose the case on appeal to a higher court, compensation totaling 1.2 million yen will be paid to each plaintiff. Many people who were exposed to nuclear radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still suffering. Those who live in Japan are entitled to medical treatment and healthcare allowances if they have been certified as hibakusha. But those who returned to North or South Korea or migrated to Brazil and elsewhere were unable to enjoy those benefits for many years. That was because the former welfare ministry decreed in 1974 that victims living overseas would be ineligible to receive benefits. But it doesn't matter where people live; their suffering does not lessen. Previous court rulings on the hibakusha issue consistently criticized the central government for pursuing an unjust policy. The decree disallowing benefits to overseas victims was scrapped two years ago. But to receive the assistance, A-bomb victims had to obtain certification that they were indeed hibakusha. This document was issued by prefectural governors, and to obtain it victims had to sit for screening in Japan. Recalling how the law to help A-bomb victims was enacted in the first place, the Hiroshima High Court noted the ``humanitarian spirit'' of the legislation ``in providing assistance to a broad range of victims regardless of their nationality.'' In this way, the court criticized the government's policy of not providing healthcare allowance once the victim left the country. We fully agree with the court's sentiment. As the court noted, the government's policy of refusing to recognize an individual's eligibility for benefits on account of the victim not being able to come to Japan, even because of illness, constituted ``unreasonable discrimination.'' The A-bomb victims who filed the lawsuit not only suffered unjustifiable discrimination. They also could not get proper medical treatment even though they had suffered like other hibakusha. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimates the number of overseas hibakusha at 3,100 on the Korean Peninsula, about 1,000 in North America and 200 in South America. Excluding these people from treatment, the court said, ``is tantamount to punishing a limited number of victims.'' The compensation ordered by the court is rightful atonement for such narrow-minded and unreasonable government policy. The problem is that the victims are still required to come to Japan to receive public assistance. We urge the government not to appeal the ruling to a top court. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration should work on revising existing legislation to make it possible for victims residing overseas to complete formalities entitling them to assistance through Japanese embassies and other diplomatic missions set up in the countries where they live. --The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 20(IHT/Asahi: January 21,2005) ***************************************************************** 22 [du-list] Mayors & Toxic Rail Shipments Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:19:50 -0800 “…the mayors noted that more than 90,000 shipments of cchlorine are transported around the country each year. They restated the conference's repeated calls that city governments be notified of such shipments, a move the railroad industry has resisted.” http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.chlorine21jan21,1,2938905.story?coll=bal-local-headlines&ctrack=2&cset=true Baltimore Sun January 21, 2005 *Notice sought on toxic freight* /Mayors want information on railroad shipments; Letter sent to Tom Ridge; S.C. derailment caused chlorine leak, killed 9 / *By Michael Dresser* *Sun Staff* Baltimore's Martin O'Malley and about four dozen other U.S. mayors are urging the federal government to require railroads to inform local governments of any plans to transport hazardous materials through their communities. In a letter to outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge this week, the mayors pointed to this month's Norfolk Southern train derailment in South Carolina, which led to the rupture of a tank car carrying chlorine. Nine people were killed and about 250 injured by the release of the toxic chlorine cloud in the small town of Graniteville. Nearly 5,500 people were evacuated from their homes, many of them for more than a week. In Baltimore, freight trains carry shipments of hazardous chemicals including chlorine through the Howard Street Tunnel downtown. Baltimore officials say they are notified when the railroads store a chlorine-laden car within the city limits but not when they are moving through. Asked last night whether he thought any good would come of sending the letter, O'Malley said he was not optimistic. "We don't generally get a response from the White House. I hope it will, but I'm not optimistic, given their track record for the last four years," he said. The mayors sent their letter Tuesday at the annual winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington. Ridge spoke to the mayors Wednesday and mentioned the Graniteville incident but gave no specific reply to their request. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security was not available to comment yesterday because federal offices were closed for the inauguration of President Bush. In their letter, the mayors noted that more than 90,000 shipments of chlorine are transported around the country each year. They restated the conference's repeated calls that city governments be notified of such shipments, a move the railroad industry has resisted. "These types of trains run on tracks through the hearts of our cities," the mayors wrote. "Our citizens should have a reasonable expectation that hazardous materials are being shipped in the safest manner possible and that local first responders are aware of such shipments in advance." The railroad industry has taken the position that sharing information about shipments with local officials increases the opportunity for leaks of information to terrorists. Among the mayors signing the letter was Bob Young of Augusta, Ga., about 10 miles from Graniteville. He compared the train wreck to a weapon of mass destruction. "We've been crying for three years, asking the federal government to please assist us with one easy step: Tell us what's coming through our cities," Young said. In Baltimore, visitors to an unfenced, lightly guarded CSX rail yard in the Fairfield section south of the Hanover Street Bridge last week observed cars used to transport chlorine and other chemicals parked on the tracks. CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan said chemical cars stored at that site are sometimes full. He said he could not say whether the ones parked there last week contained chemicals. Critics of the railroad industry contend that taking tank cars carrying dangerous chemicals into densely populated cities makes them an attractive target for terrorists. Sullivan said yesterday that CSX is devoting significant resources to safety. "We believe we are already doing a great deal of work with those communities to see that they are prepared," he said. Sullivan said the mayors' proposal would require the railroad to make more than 1,000 notifications each day. CSX and other railroads are typically tight-lipped about the routing and timing of their shipments of hazardous cargo. Sullivan would not discuss reports that it has been rerouting such shipments around Washington under pressure from the District of Columbia Council. CSX spokesman Gary Sease made an exception to that policy yesterday when he said the railroad will significantly reduce freight traffic around Jacksonville, Fla., particularly in the area of the stadium, when that city is host to the Super Bowl and its preliminaries Feb. 3 to Feb. 6. Sun staff writer Lynn Anderson and the Associated Press contributed to this article. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 23 The Australian: US nuclear dump won't fix problem [January 22, 2005] Amanda Hodge THE US offer to take Australia's spent nuclear fuel for the next decade does not solve the problem of where to dump the radioactive waste in the longer term. The agreement between the US and Australia drew criticism yesterday from the NSW Government, conservationists and the federal Opposition, who all called for a debate about future plans for the storage and transportation of nuclear waste. Under the US deal, about 800 spent nuclear fuel elements from a replacement nuclear reactor at Sydney's Lucas Heights will be transported to the US between now and 2016 in four shipments. However, NSW Environment Minister Bob Debus said the arrangement failed to address how the waste would be safely stored in the interim and then transported. The NSW Government opposes the storage and transport of radioactive waste within its borders, as do all other states and territories. "The state, and particularly the people of southern Sydney, remain in the dark about how long the waste will continue to be stored in NSW and how the commonwealth will ensure it's safe to transport to a secure port," Mr Debus said yesterday. "We're not talking about low-level nuclear waste used in hospitals -- some of this material is highly dangerous. "The NSW Government has repeatedly requested the federal Government to take an open approach on this, and instead we hear of a quick-fix, backroom deal devoid of detail." The Australian Conservation Foundation said the deal did nothing to minimise the risk of storing large volumes of nuclear waste at Lucas Heights, in the middle of a heavily populated suburb, and failed to explain what would be done with the estimated 1500 cubic metres of long-lasting nuclear waste already accumulated at Lucas Heights. "The commonwealth is only talking about spent fuel but there's a whole lot of other waste that reactors produce," ACF spokesman David Noonan said. State and territory governments mutinied last year after a federal government shortlist of potential dump sites across the nation was leaked to the media. Commonwealth land in Puckapunyal in Victoria and Jervis Bay in NSW were among the locations on the list, which emerged just weeks after John Howard backed down in his tussle with South Australia to locate the dump at Woomera in the state's north. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation believes the US deal removes the need for the federal Government to find a dump location before an operator's licence is granted for the replacement research reactor. But the federal Opposition and the Australian Democrats said the question remained of what to do with the nuclear waste due for return from reprocessing in France in 2015, as well as the waste generated from the new Lucas Heights reactor, once the deal with the US ended. © The Australian ***************************************************************** 24 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast residents demand a buyout | 01/21/2005 | [Just yards from one of 11 monitoring wells recently drilled on her property, Laura Ward lists some of the many health issues that have affected members of her family and the community since drilling began in her Tallevast neighborhood.] BRIAN BLANCO-The Herald Just yards from one of 11 monitoring wells recently drilled on her property, Laura Ward lists some of the many health issues that have affected members of her family and the community since drilling began in her Tallevast neighborhood. DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer TALLEVAST - Residents of Tallevast want out - now. Community leaders have demanded immediate relocation in a letter sent to Manatee County Administrator Ernie Padgett and all seven county commissioners. Ongoing drilling to determine the extent of toxic pollution in their back yards is making Tallevast residents sick, wrote Laura Ward and Wanda Washington, officers of FOCUS, a group representing the residents' interests. "The Tallevast community has been and is still being exposed to hazardous waste materials," Ward and Washington wrote in the letter hand-delivered to Padgett's office Jan. 6. "We have been left sitting atop of a virtual time bomb," the letter read. "This cannot/should not continue." They demanded a response from Padgett by Jan. 14. As of Thursday night, neither had heard from him. But county planner Michael Wood called Ward on Wednesday to set up a meeting with FOCUS leaders at 3 p.m. today to discuss progress on county road work and the installation of water lines to Tallevast homes that had been relying until last summer on private wells for drinking water. In 1999, some of those wells have been found to be contaminated with potentially cancer-causing solvents used at the former Loral American Beryllium Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road. While the county, state environmental regulators and Lockheed Martin, then owners of the beryllium plant, knew about the contamination in 2000, Tallevast residents were not told until 2003. Lockheed has assumed responsibility for cleaning up the toxic plume. "The least Padgett could have done was to call and say we have received your letter," Ward said. Padgett said the issue of relocation can't be answered quickly. "What they are asking for is very significant," Padgett said. "That is something the county cannot make a response to in a few days." The county attorneys, said Padgett, still must weigh in on the legal ramifications. "But even beyond the legal question," he added, "they are Manatee County citizens and we have an obligation to assist with any situation." To that end, Padgett said he placed the relocation issue on the Feb. 1 county commission agenda. But Tallevast residents don't have time for more talk, FOCUS leaders said. "We all have had migraines, we have all had bronchitis, we have had all had diarrhea," Washington said. "Is that a coincidence? I don't think so." She blames fumes from the wells drilled by Tetra Tech, an environmental firm hired by Lockheed Martin to measure the underground plume of contamination. By Ward and Washington's count, Tetra Tech has dug nearly twice the number of wells the company had originally planned. Tetra Tech employees were working on two wells in Ward's back yard Thursday. The original drilling plan called for just one test well in Ward's yard. Now there are 10. Ward claims her entire family has been made sick by fumes she says stem from the drilling. She says contaminates are following the natural flow of underground water, pooling to the east of the railroad tracks cutting through Tallevast. "We have done more wells that we were asked to," said Gary Davis, one of the Tetra Tech technicians working on Ward's property Thursday. "Why?" asked Ward. "Just because we needed to," Davis said. Davis said the rigs will return for another 10-day cycle of drilling Jan. 31, well past the original deadline for finishing the project and getting an assessment report to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Nonetheless, Lockheed spokeswoman Gail Rymer said the company is confident it will meet the Feb. 1 deadline to submit the contamination assessment required by the state consent order. The next round of drilling, Rymer said, is outside the scope of the current assessment and will continue past Feb. 1 in two nonresidential areas near the Sun Coast Golf Center. Those are the last areas in which Lockheed has yet to identify the leading edge of the plume. Rymer explained that the consent order defined an area where Lockheed must test groundwater. If Lockheed found contamination at the edge, the consent order then required the company to drill further out at least fives times. After stepping out those five times, contamination is still showing up in the two areas, Rymer said. While Lockheed is not required to go out further in this round of tests, Rymer said the company asked the Florida Department of Environmental Protection if it could complete mapping the contamination immediately. DEP spokeswoman Merritt Mitchell said the state expects Lockheed to meet the Feb. 1 deadline for the assessment and confirmed that the state gave the nod for additional drilling to map out the last edges of the plume. Mitchell said the last tests in the two areas show low levels of contamination but "it is very important that we delineate the full extent of the plume." But Tallevast residents don't want to stick around to find out the results. "We are frightened, we are torn, we are feeling misplaced," Ward and Washington wrote in the letter sent to Padgett and the commissioners. And the women lay the responsibility at county commissioners' feet. "As you and other county officials are aware and have been for sometime now, the spill or spills in our residential area occurred and were reported to you as far back as 1999. No one felt compelled to inform us, the community. It has now been 13 months. We need answers and we need assistance now." Commissioner Donna Hayes, who represents Tallevast, passed the ball to Padgett. "I can't tell you what I feel about the letter until we have some information on costs from Mr. Padgett," Hayes said. Those costs, Hayes said, should be borne by the state and federal government. "I am not saying we are going to do it or that we are not going to do it," Hayes said. "It is my understanding that the county does not have a legal obligation, but our responsibility to the citizens of Manatee County goes beyond legal obligation." Herald Staff Writer Scott Radway contributed to this report. Herald watchdog ***************************************************************** 25 allAfrica.com: Kenya: Was It Oil Exploration Or Dumping of Nuclear Waste? The East African Standard (Nairobi) Posted to the web January 21, 2005 Boniface Ongeri And Victor Obure Nairobi There was tremor of excitement in Kenya during the early 80s when word emerged that there would be a feasibility study on oil exploration in North Eastern Province. The excitement reached fever pitch in 1983 when an American company sent an advance team to sample possible locations for drilling across 126,692 square kilometres of the semi-arid province. Notable sites included Modica, Shanta Abak and Amuma in Garissa District, Gal Adow and Arbajahan in Wajir and Elwak in Mandera District. And the belief that the prospectors would finally strike oil became a foregone conclusion when then President Moi symbolically endorsed the project by visiting Arbajahan in 1988. "At last, oil in Kenya" screamed a headline in the State newspaper the next day. The developments elicited high expectations especially among the impoverished residents of the remote region, who believed that their new found resource would turn their fortunes around. It meant the province, with only four kilometres of tarmacked roads and one of the highest poverty rates in the country, would be transformed into the backbone of the economy after edging out agriculture. Kenya also looked forward to claim her rightful position in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). A resident shows journalists some of the items dug out of a pit excavated by the company According to a resident, Mudey Sambul Hassan, the locals were even contemplating negotiating with the prospecting company for a tangible share of the oil, now that it was in their ancestral land. But all this has since turned out to be castles in the air. No oil was ever discovered in North Eastern and it is further suspected that the American company came to the country with ulterior motives. There are widespread fears that the company was dumping toxic waste in the arid region under the guise of exploring for oil. The anguished residents are now up in arms and want the Government to dispel speculation that the company deposited nuclear waste at the sites. A visit to the region reveals that the company excavated deep trenches and later covered them with concrete slabs. Residents who were employed by the company as casuals during the purported exploration confided that they would be unceremoniously laid off whenever the depth of the trenches reached a certain level. "The top company managers would herd us from the site whenever the project reached a certain stage," says Hassan, who was one of the casual labourers. He further intimated that huge loads from trucks would be offloaded at the sites just before the labourers were laid off, fuelling speculation that the company did not wish the locals to see the contents. Most residents living near the sites have been complaining of strange and incurable diseases, which they claim are caused by the alleged presence of radioactive material. Mrs Nuriya Abdullai, an official with a local non-governmental organisation, Wajir Peace and Development Agency, says some of the alleged victims have been admitted to the district hospital with "very strange deformities." "During the former regime, no one could raise a finger for fear of reprisal from brutal government forces," she says. The company is believed to have left the unknown substances buried in the area and herdsmen have steered clear of it for fear that their animals will die. And true to Abdullai's word, when The Standard team visited one of the affected villages, the residents adamantly refused to accompany them to the exploration site, 16 kilometres away. During a tour by a team from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) last year, the residents claimed that hundreds of their cattle had died after drinking water from points within the precincts of the alleged dumping sites. Nema board chairman Prof Canute Khamala said it was possible for a company to deposit nuclear waste products without the knowledge of the locals. He said he was aware of claims that the alleged rogue company had established a separate road network for its shipment from the Indian Ocean. The authority's director-general, Prof Retemo Michieka, said the board would petition the Radiation Board of Kenya to bring experts to the sites with radioactive detectors to authenticate the claims. "The environment in North Eastern Province is very fragile and we cannot allow a foreign company to choke our people with waste products. We discovered similar dumping along the Somali coastline, which has adversely affected that country's marine ecosystem," said Michieka. He said a fact-finding mission along the Kenyan coastline indicated that some species of fish and sea plants had been devastated by radio-active leakage from the said dumping site in nation. Michieka said the mysterious substances buried in NEP would be dug up to establish their nature. Nuclear experts are expected to sample the contents and make their findings public in February. Nema also heard that residents in the affected areas had suffered from strange skin illnesses, throat cancer, barrenness and giving birth to children with deformities. Their livestock too gave birth to strange young ones, they claimed. A spot check further revealed that the vegetation around the alleged dumping sites had long withered, leaving bare fields. Wild animals are also said to have been affected and have allegedly moved to other grazing areas. Although the Government has to-date neither dispelled nor confirmed the presence of the alleged nuclear dumping site, residents believe a senior government official gave the Canadian company the green light to carry out its dirty work. They claimed an influential minister in the former regime allegedly received a colossal amount of money from the company to dump the waste. But the provincial administration declined to comment, terming the matter too sensitive and one that needed experts to unravel. allAfrica.com Copyright © 2005 The East African Standard. All rights ***************************************************************** 26 Platts: Repository needed for growth of nuclear, Bodman says [The McGraw-Hill Companies] + DOE's repository project must move forward in order to have new nuclear power plants in this country, Energy Secretary designate Samuel Bodman said in response to a question during his confirmation hearing Jan. 19. Bodman told the Senate Energy &Natural Resources Committee that he supported the growth of nuclear power and that DOE has several nuclear initiatives that "make sense," pointing to the department's Generation IV and Nuclear Power 2010 programs, which are aimed at the construction of new power reactors. Senators didn't voice any concern about Bodman during the hearing. Committee members will vote on his nomination Jan. 26. Washington (Platts)--20Jan2005 Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill Companies] ***************************************************************** 27 Pahrump Valley Times: Bodman promises 'follow through' on Yucca January 21, 2005 By STEVE TETREAULT PVT WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - Energy secretary nominee Samuel Bodman said Wednesday he will "enthusiastically follow through" to continue developing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Speaking at a confirmation hearing before the Senate energy committee, Bodman said he supported Bush administration initiatives to expand nuclear energy, like the Nuclear Power 2010 program to begin building new reactors by the end of the decade. "But before that can happen, we have to make real progress at Yucca," where spent fuel from existing plants would be buried, Bodman said. "We have to overcome the legal and regulatory issues. I am committed to that." "I view one of my responsibilities is to execute the will of Congress and the president to see to it we follow through with Yucca Mountain," Bodman said. President Bush signed legislation in July 2002 designating the Nevada site 50 miles northwest of Pahrump and roughly 20 miles east and north of Beatty and Amargosa Valley, respectively, for a repository to hold 77,000 tons of spent fuel and government nuclear waste. Bodman received a warm reception from members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during a two-hour confirmation hearing where he was questioned generally on issues including electricity regulation, nuclear nonproliferation and oil drilling in the Arctic. Bodman has been confirmed by the Senate to two other high-ranking posts in the Bush administration. Energy committee leaders said they expected he would win confirmation to the DOE position as well. He is presently deputy secretary at the Treasury Department, the No. 2 agency job. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday he did not know Bodman well and did not know yet how he will vote. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., plans to vote for the nominee, spokesman Jack Finn said. Bodman said he had not yet reviewed the Energy Department's upcoming 2006 budget or even entered the DOE office building, but he pledged to work with senators on their matters of concern. On renewable energy, he told Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., he was "quite enthused" about prospects for wind energy production, particularly if generators could be built near population areas to keep transmission costs low. Bodman also promised Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to hear out her opposition to development of low-yield nuclear weapons and "bunker buster" nuclear bombs. Bodman, 66, is a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a corporate leader who built Boston-based Fidelity Investments into a major financial services firm. Before entering the government in 2001, he was chief executive of Cabot Corp., a specialty chemical firm with manufacturing plants in 25 countries. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the committee chairman, said Bodman's background "bodes well for your success" at the Energy Department. Domenici said the panel may vote on Bodman next Wednesday,. On Yucca Mountain, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., criticized the Bush administration for adopting a budget strategy last year that backfired and hampered funding. He urged Bodman not to make the same mistake. Sen. Lamar Alexander, also focused on Yucca Mountain, saying the program has been underfunded. "DOE needs to take a clear position on the future of Yucca Mountain and stand behind it," Alexander said. He said electricity ratepayers in the Tennessee Valley have contributed almost $700 million into a fund to build the repository, "with no tangible return to date." The amount is about as much as it would cost to install clean air technology at two coal-burning power plants in Tennessee, he said. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 28 CCDR: Radioactive waste disposal sparks concern 1-21-05 [Canon City Daily Record - Canon City and the Royal Gorge Region, Colorado] Tests confirm level of radioactivity in debris has increased James Bouknight Daily Record Staff Writer Several piles of grey dirt on the edge of Tunnel Drive suddenly have turned into a hot topic of conversation because the waste is radioactive. The Cańon City drinking water-treatment plant, which is perched on a hill just north of the Arkansas River at the mouth of the Royal Gorge, generates the debris. Recent tests by the water-treatment plant and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment have determined levels of radioactivity in the debris have increased in the last year, triggering increased scrutiny of the waste’s disposal. Alum, also known as aluminum sulfate, is used in the treatment process to clump miniscule debris that is suspended in the water into larger and larger particles so that it eventually falls out, leaving cleaner water behind. Twice per year, the municipal water-treatment plant cleans its filtering system, collecting all the waste for eventual disposal, producing about 300 to 400 tons of debris that have been disposed of at the Phantom Canyon landfill for the last several years. The 40 Pico curie per gram level is a trigger, requiring notification of state officials, and when that level was reached, the state health department performed an isotropic analysis of the sludge. That type of analysis separates the various radioactive materials from the sludge to determine what is producing the radiation and what sorts of dangers the materials pose. The health department found an average radiation level of 74 Pico curies per gram in the sludge, and the major radioactive constituent was found to be uranium, said Phil Egidi, a radioactive materials specialist with the state health department. “That’s a good thing because it’s the least radioactive,” Egidi said. “This is not a unique situation to Cańon City.” The level of radioactivity found in the alum sludge is equivalent to background radiation in Colorado, Egidi said. Exactly where the increase in radioactive materials comes from is subject to some debate, according to Glen Bogner, the state health department’s chief drinking water expert. But Bogner said the materials themselves are picked up by river water from naturally occurring substances as it makes its way down the watershed. The Environmental Protection Agency recently tightened regulations, reducing the amount and kind of contaminants that can be found in drinking water, and that federal action may have caused the increased radiation found in Cańon City’s alum sludge, he said. Bogner also said the efficiency of water-treatment plants to remove suspended debris from drinking water has increased as a result of the new regulations and that the situation in Cańon City is not unique. “Denver, for example, is seeing an increased level in their sludge,” Bogner said. “Englewood has the worst quality sludge, when it comes to radiation.” Glen Mallory, a solid waste team leader with the state health department, agrees Cańon City is not the first place to see an increase in the radiation measured its alum sludge. “We run into this routinely throughout the year, and more recently, since the EPA regulations,” changed, Mallory said. But in Cańon City, the word “radioactive” catches people’s attention. Because of the increase in radiation contained in the waste, Fremont County officials are required by the state to regulate disposal of the alum sludge, and the sludge was singled out for discussion at Tuesday’s city council meeting when members considered a letter in support of a change in the county permit for Phantom Canyon landfill. Councilwoman Catherine Mortensen pulled the letter from the consent agenda for further discussion. “The level of radiation is already in the riverbed, and we are doing our citizens a service in taking that out,” said Councilman Dan Brixey. “We are looking at a different kind of product because it is already in the community, whereas Maywood was not.” Councilman Mike Near approved of the city’s disposal plan. “Once it’s buried, it’s not a problem,” Near said. “When it’s above ground, it can dry up and blow away. Right now, it’s above ground.” The letter to county officials was approved by majority vote, with Mortensen voting no. The situation also was under consideration at a Fremont County Independent Outreach Committee meeting Thursday evening. “If this comes close to the level of Maywood, the community should be just as concerned,” said Randy Roberts, a FCIOC member. But state officials discourage a comparison of the city’s alum sludge to the Maywood, N.J., soils that were a subject in the Cotter Corp. licensing decision. “You need to put it in perspective,” Egidi said. “This is 400 tons compared to 400,000 tons from Maywood.” Finally, Egidi said, removal of the materials by the treatment plant is probably the safest thing for Cańon City residents. “Why drink water with uranium in it?” Egidi said. Entire contents Copyright Ó 2004 Royal Gorge Publishing Corporation. ***************************************************************** 29 AU ABC: Reactor approval could follow waste deal The World Today - Friday, 21 January , 2005 12:30:00 Reporter: Nick Grimm KAREN PERCY: First the Howard Government floated a plan for an offshore solution to the tricky political problem of where to site a nuclear waste dump. Now comes the news that Australia has clinched a deal to export radio waste to the United States. According to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, ANSTO, the agreement to send spent fuel rods to the US, will help it obtain regulatory approval to build a new reactor at Lucas Heights, in Sydney's southwest. Nick Grimm reports. NICK GRIMM: Australia's first, and so far only, nuclear reactor was built in bushland south-west of Sydney forty years ago. Since then it's used highly enriched uranium to generate radioactive products for use in medicine and industry. But now, the organisation which runs the Lucas Heights facility, ANSTO, wants to build a new reactor, and that's generated controversy. Not only have Sydney's suburbs expanded to surround the reactor site, but there's the persistent problem of the radioactive waste which will be generated by the facility, and what's to be done with it. JOHN LOY: The issue of the disposition of the spent fuel has been a major debate and controversy throughout the development of the replacement reactor. So it certainly… and I've said on a number of occasions that settling that problem is an important part of my considerations. z NICK GRIMM: John Loy is the Chief Executive Officer of Australia's nuclear watchdog, The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, ARPANSA. JOHN LOY: This proposal is obviously a very important development that I will have to take into account as I consider whether to issue the operating licence. NICK GRIMM: By itself, does it overcome the waste issues, associated with the building of a second reactor? JOHN LOY: Well, the proposal is for disposition of a certain type of spent fuel for I think a period of something like 10 years, so that proposal of itself, if it continues, would be certainly a way of disposing of the spent fuel, whether it's a way sufficiently acceptable, is something I'll have to decide once I hear from public submissions and get further advice on the matter. NICK GRIMM: The deal will ease pressure on the Federal Government to come up with a solution to where it should locate a national radioactive waste dump. Last year it was forced to abandon plans for a waste dump in South Australia, when the state government there won a federal court challenge. South Australian Premier Mike Rann still wants to know what will happen to the radioactive waste being temporarily stored at Woomera in South Australia's north. MIKE RANN: I mean, there is a large amount of material that's temporarily stored there – will that be shipped out as well? I certainly hope so. NICK GRIMM: John Loy, again. JOHN LOY: Well, in terms of a store for intermediate level waste, which has been on the agenda for sometime, that's still required for the spent fuel when it returns from overseas for the existing hi-fi reactor, and there are other intermediate level wastes in Australia that need to be looked after in a store. So, the proposal for that national store, and indeed for a low-level waste repository are still important things that I know the government will be pursuing. NICK GRIMM: Does it, to a degree, buy time for the Commonwealth to find the location to position that repository? JOHN LOY: That's something I'd really rather not get into. But certainly, we have ways in Australia now that need to be dealt with. z NICK GRIMM: And critics say the deal with the United States is no more than a short-term political fix. MICHAEL PRICEMAN: That's what it is. Exactly. It's a fix which will persuade the government that ANSTO has a solution and this will allow them, via the regulator ARPANSA, to provide them with an operating licence for the new reactor. NICK GRIMM: Michael Priceman lives near the Lucas Heights reactor and is a spokesman for the lobby group, People Against a Nuclear Reactor. MICHAEL PRICEMAN: It's what ANSTO calls a solution, but it's by no means a solution. All it is, is pushing on the problem to either another community or another country. NICK GRIMM: How so? MICHAEL PRICEMAN: Well, if we send spent fuel back to the US, they have to store it, they have to do something with it and it's not a solution. And, as I say, it's a partial situation because Australia still has fuel rods which have been sent to Scotland and to France and some will be continued to go to France, and the resulting waste from that will come back to Australia, and at this stage of the game, the government has got no idea and no plans for a store to hold the long-lived intermediate level wastes, which lasts for thousands of years. KAREN PERCY: That's Michael Priceman from People Against a Nuclear Reactor, ending that report from Nick Grimm. ***************************************************************** 30 AU ABC: Watchdog considers US nuclear waste deal. 21/01/2005. ABC News Online Update: Friday, January 21, 2005. 4:23pm (AEDT) [Greenpeace says the waste plan is a band-aid solution.] Greenpeace says the waste plan is a band-aid solution. The head of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), John Loy, says he has not decided whether a deal for the US to take Australian nuclear waste is sufficient to allow a new reactor to begin operating. Environment groups argue that the ultimate fate of the waste from the Lucas Heights facility in southern Sydney is still uncertain. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) says the deal for the US to take spent fuel from the new reactor for a decade is a firm waste plan. But Mr Loy says he is still deciding whether it is enough. "This is an important development I have to take into account in considering the operating licence," Mr Loy said. "That proposal of itself, if it continues, would be a way of disposing of the spent fuel. "Whether it's sufficiently acceptable is something I'll have to decide once I hear from public submissions and receive advice on the matter," he added. But Greenpeace nuclear campaigner James Courtney says it is not a waste plan. "They have a bit of a band-aid. It is a patch that will send spent nuclear fuel or high-level waste to the United States," he said. "There is still no answer about what they plan to do with the low-level and medium-level waste that will be produced by the replacement reactor." Mr Courtney says sites for low-level and intermediate-level nuclear waste should be found before a licence to start up the reactor is granted. "I would say it's impossible that they would find a community that's prepared to have this waste dumped on them," he said. "We've got to remember that there is waste sitting in France and the United Kingdom that has to come back to Australia, and the big unknown is where they plan to put that." Operating licence approval also depends on a cold run of the reactor planned for July. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation says an agreement to send spent nuclear fuel rods to the US will help it obtain regulatory approval to build a new reactor in Sydney's south-west. © 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 31 [du-list] Portsmouth -- Apparently your PACE UNION filed a Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:20:34 -0800 --- In mtpbases@yahoogroups.com, "vcolley" wrote: We wonder why NIOSH chose to leave out the start up years of the Portsmouth plant locate in PIKETON, OHIO This plant started up production around1955... From 1955 until 1991 Portsmouth did 97 % high assay bomb grade material ..Don't they know that workers at the Piketon/Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant had allot of exposures from the start up of the plant to NOW...We wonder why NIOSH left out sick ex-workers for input? Was NIOSH afraid we could tell them what is or has been at the plant? Why are we wasting more money on these agency to do more studies? Why is the Department of Labor and Congress letting this happen to sick and dying workers. Do we all need to die before are families get paid ?The records have been lost or someone hide them, and we must remember they forgot to test the workers. So many are sick and dying now and that is why the EEOICPA ACT was put in place...Someone help me understand why sick and dying workers have to go through more studies like the one NIOSH is doing ? My co-worker Paul Smith is number 5 on the NIOSH list.. Paul has been number five for a few years now.. RE: the Portsmouth site profile issue Perhaps you will be interested that your P.A.C.E. union officials filed this site profile information in April 2004 which is archived at the NIOSH WEB site. Just click on the URL below. ========================================= http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/pdfs/d22/minter.pdf [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- End forwarded message --- ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 32 SF Examiner: Regents approve bidding for Lawrence Berkeley lab By Associated Press | Published on Friday, January 21, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO -- The University of California became competitors Thursday, voting to submit a bid to hang on to the job of manager of the Lawrence Berkeley national lab they have run for decades. Still to come are decisions on whether UC will go after the management contracts of the two nuclear weapons labs it manages, the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore lab in Northern California. Regents Chairman Gerald Parsky said the vote Thursday was "an important first step" in the process but doesn't necessarily indicate how the other decisions will fall. "We do view this process as one contract at a time," Parsky said. © 2004 San Francisco Examiner ***************************************************************** 33 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford legal battle may expand High court's opinion sought [seattlepi.com] Friday, January 21, 2005 By SHANNON DININNY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- State authorities yesterday asked a federal judge to refer some questions regarding a Hanford nuclear waste initiative to the state Supreme Court. Initiative 297, overwhelmingly approved by Washington voters last fall, bars the U.S. Department of Energy from sending more nuclear waste to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation until all existing waste there is cleaned up. A federal judge ordered a temporary halt to enforcement of the initiative last month, pending resolution of a lawsuit to overturn it. In that lawsuit, the federal government contends that the initiative violates federal laws governing nuclear waste, among other things. The state Attorney General's Office has promised to defend the initiative in court. However, state authorities believe some questions about the initiative must be resolved by a state court first. State attorneys filed a motion with the federal court in Yakima yesterday, asking Judge Alan McDonald to refer those questions to the state Supreme Court -- and stay the federal lawsuit pending a state high court ruling. There was no indication when McDonald might rule. According to the filing, the questions include whether the initiative bars movement of waste already on the site or disposal of sealed nuclear reactor vessels from retired Navy submarines. The state also wants clarification on the definition of "mixed waste" under state law and how waste in unlined trenches should be characterized. In the event that the federal judge finds only part of the initiative unconstitutional, the state also wants the state Supreme Court to decide if the entire measure would be nullified. At issue are the federal government's plans for disposing of waste from nuclear weapons production nationwide. The Energy Department chose Hanford to dispose of some mildly radioactive waste and mixed low-level waste, which is laced with chemicals. The site also would serve as a packaging center for some transuranic waste before it is shipped elsewhere for long-term disposal. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take thousands of years to decay to safe levels. Waste shipments to the site already had been halted under another lawsuit. The initiative has raised questions on other fronts as well. Tuesday, a state lawmaker from Richland raised concerns that the initiative would impact cancer research in the region. When Initiative 297 went into effect Dec. 1, the Energy Department immediately began taking action to halt some cleanup projects at Hanford, as well as research involving radioactive material at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a national Energy Department science lab. In addition, cancer research conducted at the lab under a contract involving a private Richland company, the Energy Department and the lab was halted. On Dec. 2, McDonald stayed enforcement of the initiative. The sponsor of the initiative, Hanford watchdog group Heart of America Northwest, said the measure does not -- and was not intended to -- regulate medical isotope production. However, several state lawmakers are working with the group to draft legislation to clarify that position, the group said yesterday in a news release. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com ©1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 34 ABQjournal: UC May Have LANL Partner Albuquerque Journal newspaper. Friday, January 21, 2005 UC May Have LANL Partner Albuquerque Journal--> By Adam Rankin, The Associated Press contributed to this story. Journal Staff Writer The University of California may be close to a "handshake" deal to partner with a corporation in an effort to keep the Los Alamos National Laboratory management contract, according to the school's vice president for laboratory management. S. Robert Foley, the school's vice president for laboratory management, told the UC Board of Regents Thursday in San Francisco that an agreement establishing a potential partnership could come soon, but he wouldn't divulge details, according to University of California spokesman Chris Harrington. Foley gave the regents an update on the school's effort to evaluate whether it will compete to keep the LANL contract, now up for grabs for the first time in the university's 60-plus years of managing the nuclear weapons research lab. Harrington has said the university has been preparing as if it will compete for the contract, but a final decision by the regents has not been made. Late last week, the regents received a strong endorsement from the New Mexico Legislature's LANL oversight committee, which encouraged the board to pursue the LANL contract. "We believe that the University of California, the largest public research institution in the world, with an unmatched reputation in science and technology, is the best partner for LANL and our state," wrote Rep. Roberto Gonzales, House Speaker Ben Lujan and Sen. Phil Griego, all Democrats. In their Jan. 13 letter, the legislators said LANL and the university are "an integral part of northern New Mexico" and help advance regional education and economic development. Outgoing Energy Department Secretary Spencer Abraham announced LANL's contract would be put out for competitive bidding in 2003 after a series of financial and security management failures that elicited congressional scrutiny of the University of California's management of the lab. UC's contract to run the lab expires at the end of September. Following that announcement, Congress mandated that DOE had to allow competitive bidding for any national lab contract not put up for bids in the last 50 years. The law affected five labs in total and all three of the DOE labs managed by the University of California— the Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. The university has been in close negotiations over potential corporate partnerships for LANL for more than a year. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate committee that funds DOE and LANL, has urged the university to seek a viable corporate partner and has said such a coupling could greatly increase its chances of winning the LANL contract. In its draft request for proposals from potential LANL operators, DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration promotes a more business-like approach to running the laboratory, including initiatives to use industry standards, where appropriate, and to achieve greater cost efficiencies. Comments on the draft criteria are due today. While the UC regents continue to deliberate on the LANL bid, the board voted unanimously Thursday to bid for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory contract as the prime contractor. A proposal to run that laboratory is due to DOE by Feb. 9. Operated by the university since its inception in 1931, the Lawrence Berkeley lab focuses on basic science research and has 4,000 employees and a $500 million budget. Regents Chairman Gerald Parsky said the vote Thursday to bid on the Lawrence Berkeley contract was "an important first step" in the process but doesn't necessarily indicate how decisions on other labs will fall. "We do view this process as one contract at a time," Parsky said. Before the contract vote Thursday, some speakers urged regents not to bid for the weapons labs, saying the competition would be expensive and the labs are out of step with UC's mission as an educational institution. Harrington said the regents also voted to keep the Lawrence Berkeley staff as university employees and included as part of the university's systemwide pension and benefits program. LANL employees have voiced concern that even if the university wins the LANL contract, it might decide to keep LANL employees off the university's impressive benefits system. Copyright 2005 Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 35 Daily Nexus: UC Vies for Continued Lab Control - Activist To Sit on Board of Regents Hoping to hang on to the management contract for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the University of California Regents voted Thursday to bid on continuing its stewardship of the research facility. The Regents decision allows UC President Robert C. Dynes to submit a proposal to the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE), which runs the 10 national research laboratories across the country. The university has until Feb. 9 to submit its proposal, and LBNL Communications Director Ron Kolb said DOE might announce a final decision by early April 2005. In a statement, Dynes said the Berkeley lab and its employees are a critical part of the UC system, and they provide a tremendously valuable scientific contribution to the nation. Our strong bid will continue our proud tradition of public service and scientific discovery, while ensuring that the best management practices are in place at the laboratory, Dynes said in the statement. The University has overseen the Berkeley lab, which conducts unclassified research, since its inception in 1931. In 2003, Congress required all labs that have been under the same control for more than 50 years to be opened for competitive management bids. All three national laboratories managed by the UC  Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos  are affected by the Congressional action. The current contract to manage the LBNL will expire Jan. 31. The UC lengthened its management of the laboratory in October 2002 under a series of contract extensions, including a one-year extension signed by the University on Jan. 30, 2004. Unlike the Berkeley Lab, the Livermore and Los Alamos labs conduct classified nuclear and weapons research. The UCs management of the two nuclear labs was criticized after a series of security lapses at Los Alamos. The U.S. Dept. of Energy announced that it would call for bids when the Los Alamos management contract expired this year. UC spokesman Chris Harrington said the University has taken a significant number of actions at the Berkeley lab to address a wide variety of management and security issues, but the University is declining to release any specifics of the proposal because of the competitive nature of the bidding process. We recognize our competitors are watching us, Harrington said. Once the proposal has been made for the management of the labs, we will release the proposal. But Kolb said its unlikely that the UC would lose its post as manager of LBNL. He said the DOE had previously held talks with parties interested in taking over the management of the Berkeley lab, but Kolb said it was pretty obvious there was little interest in the contract. It would be very difficult for any other organization to manage this lab because of our integral connection with the Berkeley campus, he said. Kolb said the UC has been a very competent and conscientious steward of the labs. We have no complaints and no problems with how [the UC has] managed us, and weve made no secret of our preference that the UC be our manager, Kolb said. Harrington said the DOE budgets roughly $4 to $5 billion annually to the three research laboratories that are under the UCs supervision  the Berkeley Lab receives $504 million, about $1.9 billion goes to the Livermore facilities and around $2 billion is allocated to the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico. Harrington said DOE pays the UC about $14 to $16 million a year, including monies for employee benefits and salaries, to manage the three laboratories. Both the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos contracts will end this year. Harrington said its expected that the DOE will extend the Lawrence Livermore contract by two more years. The regents have not decided whether or not to bid for continued management of the two laboratories. Located in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, the Berkeley lab was founded in 1931 by Ernest O. Lawrence, winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics. The facility performs research, including quantitative biology, nanoscience and new energy systems and environmental solutions. [spacer image] [spacer image] [spacer image] [spacer image] All content, photographs, graphics and design Copyright © 2000-2005 Daily Nexus. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, in part or in full, in print format or digital format without express written permission from the Daily Nexus. [spacer image] [spacer image] [spacer image] [ Page generated in: 9.496785 seconds | Using Cache: Yes ] ***************************************************************** 36 Grist: Ex-FBI agent charges feds with radioactive coverup at Rocky Flats By Amanda Griscom Little | Grist Magazine | Muckraker | 21 Jan 2005 By Amanda Griscom Little 21 Jan 2005 The plotline sounds as absurd as a made-for-TV movie: An FBI agent exposes deadly contamination at an old nuclear-weapons plant, but the federal government conceals the findings. Years later, Congress votes to convert the tract into a wildlife refuge and open it to school field trips and public recreation. The site becomes a poster child for eco-friendly nuclear-waste disposal -- with a dangerous radioactive secret lurking below the surface. [Aerial view of Rock Flats] An aerial view of Rocky Flats. Photo: Los Alamos National Laboratory. Fact, of course, can be stranger than fiction -- even bad Sunday-night-on-CBS fiction -- and former FBI agent Jon Lipsky is one of several insiders who say the above scenario is unfolding right beneath Uncle Sam's nose. In 1989, Lipsky led an FBI raid on the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant in Colorado after receiving reports that the plant posed a huge public-health threat. His raid, which took place over 18 days and involved more than 100 FBI and EPA officials, gave way to a nearly three-year criminal investigation into widespread radioactive contamination of the air, water, and soil at the 6,240-acre site and the surrounding suburbs of nearby Denver. The raid prompted the Department of Justice to assemble a special grand jury to investigate the evidence against U.S government officials and Rockwell International, the private defense contractor that managed Rocky Flats from 1975 to 1989 on behalf of the Department of Energy. Rockwell pleaded guilty to certain counts of negligence and paid a fine, but never fessed up to the full extent of the crimes Lipsky says he witnessed. The case was settled with a plea bargain agreement, and the Department of Justice sealed the contamination evidence from the public. Next month, Lipsky will be party to a lawsuit against DOJ in conjunction with Wes McKinley, the former leader of the Rocky Flats grand jury, and Jacque Brever, a former chemical operator at the plant who suffers from radiation exposure, in an effort to unseal the documents. The plaintiffs are concerned, in particular, about a 2001 congressional decision to turn Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge, which may have as many as 16 miles of trails for hiking and horseback riding. On Dec. 31, Lipsky retired early from the FBI to protest the agency's orders that he keep mum about the Rocky Flats controversy. "I left so I could help expose the truth," he told Muckraker. "Without the truth there can be no real understanding of the extent of this environmental crime, and there can be no thorough cleanup." Lipsky describes the DOE's ongoing cleanup effort at the nuke site, scheduled to be completed by 2006, as "woefully inadequate -- a farce." As for the decision to make Rocky Flats a tourist destination, he said, "There is nothing safe or sane about it." Before the vote on the Rocky Flats designation, Lipsky wrote an open letter to Congress putting his objections in no uncertain terms: "I am an FBI agent. My superiors have ordered me to lie about a criminal investigation I headed in 1989. The Justice Department covered up the truth ... I have refused to follow the orders ... Some dangerous decisions are now being made based on that government cover-up." He exhorted members of Congress to read the book The Ambushed Grand Jury, a chronicle of the cover-up by Colorado lawyer Caron Balkany, who is representing Lipsky et al. in their lawsuit, and McKinley, the former grand-jury member, who was just elected to the Colorado state legislature. The DOE dismisses Lipsky's charges as bunk. Department spokesperson Karen Lutz flatly denies that there's anything to be concerned about. "Our Rocky Flats cleanup effort has been going on for 15 years, and the whole time it has been meticulous, thorough, and transparent, with full community participation. We've had this under a microscope -- the oversight has been incredibly vigilant. There is nothing legitimate about these allegations." The Department of Justice did not respond to Muckraker's request for comment. [Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge] What lurks beneath the tallgrass? Photo: RFETS. The critics counter that DOE wanted to keep the public in the dark to cut corners on cost, not to mention protect itself from criticism for environmental negligence. The department allocated $7 billion to the cleanup, a sum initially criticized as far too low to enable a thorough job. And less than 8 percent of the allocated sum is even being used to decontaminate the site, the plaintiffs say; the rest is going to administrative costs and decommissioning the plant. Former Rocky Flats employee Jacque Brever, who claims to have read more than 16,000 documents on the cleanup, told Muckraker that the effort is "so bad you wouldn't even believe it." She said several fields and hillsides that had been dumping grounds for toxic and radioactive wastes have been excluded from the cleanup. Additionally, she said, the sampling techniques for determining contamination levels are misleading, and the standards for soil and water purification are weak. "There is no question in my mind that the grounds are still hot [radioactive] at that site, and will be for a long time," she said. "That plant was spewing radioactive ash and effluent for nearly 40 years. We dumped radioactive stuff in areas they're not even looking at. We buried drums that corroded underground, and they're looking only at the surface of the soil." Brever worked at the plant for 10 years and her fiancé for 19 years. Both spent most of their careers in "hot" areas of the facility where they were directly exposed to plutonium. Brever now has thyroid cancer and her fiancé has a rare form of eye cancer, both illnesses associated with long-term exposure to radioactivity. They haven't been able to get financial compensation for their medical treatment, she said, because some key records pertaining to their exposure have been suppressed. "We're having difficulty proving our case. That's why we're taking it to the courts -- to get the rest of our records released." [Congressman Udall and Senator Allard] Allard (left) and Udall introduce the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge Act. The effort to transform Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge was lead by Colorado Rep. Mark Udall (D) and Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard (R). But at the time, says Lipsky, Udall and Allard, like everyone else, didn't have access to all the facts. "Congress didn't know that there was midnight plutonium burning. Congress didn't know that there was extensive offsite contamination. Congress didn't know the site had an irrigation system that dispersed radioactive liquid from the holding ponds throughout the surrounding fields to skirt discharge constraints." McKinley has announced that he will introduce a bill in the Colorado legislature that would require officials at the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge to warn visitors of the site's past. "People shouldn't visit a so-called park that for half a century has been a radioactive waste dump without knowing about the malfeasance that happened there," he said. "You get warning labels on hot coffee, why shouldn't you be warned that you could be walking on 'hot' ground?" What concerns attorney Balkany the most is that the Rocky Flats cleanup could be used to fuel the myth that nuclear waste can be safely handled. "I believe the main goal of the DOJ and the nuke industry at Rocky Flats is greenwashing. It helps both nuclear power and the nuclear-weapons industries to convince people that industries and government can deal with their waste in a safe way," she said. This could be of particular interest to the Bush administration, given that just last week, in President Bush's first newspaper interview since his reelection, he told The Wall Street Journalof his hopes to spark a nuclear-power renaissance, glorifying nuclear power in ways that many would deem delusional: "I believe nuclear power answers a lot of our issues," he said. "It certainly answers the environmental issue." He later added: "It's a renewable source of energy." Who's ever heard of renewable energy that creates cancer-causing waste? "Just watch," said Brever. "They're going to hold up Rocky Flats as the nuclear-waste success story, the flagship. It's going to happen all over the country: Washington is going to make nuclear-waste dumps into plutonium playgrounds." Muck it up: We welcome rumors, whistleblowing, classified documents, or other useful tips on environmental policies, Beltway shenanigans, and the people behind them. Please send 'em to muckraker@grist.org. - - - - - - - - - - Amanda Griscom Little writes Grist's Muckraker column on environmental politics and policy and interviews green luminaries for the magazine. Her articles on energy and the environment have also appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New York Times Magazine. Grist Magazine: Environmental News and Commentary [a beacon in the smog (sm)] ©2005. Grist Magazine, Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 lamonitor.com: UC handshakes with mystery LANL partner The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor At a meeting of the University of California Board of Regents Thursday, Vice President for Laboratory Management Robert Foley said talks with potential industrial partners for the Los Alamos National Laboratory contract had gone well. "We have signed nothing. We have agreed to nothing. We have handshaked," he said. Foley told the regents that the matter was now under preparation by university legal staff, but that he hoped to formalize a team in time for the submission of proposals. A Request for Proposal for the management contract for LANL is supposed to be issued no earlier than Feb. 15, after which bidders would have 60 days to prepare proposals. "NNSA wants to award by July 1," he said. "We'll see." Because of the competitive aspects of the bidding, Foley said, the university does not plan to announce any partners until the award is made, "or at the earliest after submitting a proposal." A draft RFP was issued on Dec. 1 last year. A period of public comment, after a two-week extension, expires today. The Source Evaluation Board, headed by Tyler Przybylek, conducted a site visit and a pre-bid conference for interested parties in December. Przybylek also discussed employee concerns about benefits and pensions at a special meeting in Los Alamos last Sunday. A number of students and some faculty members used brief moments of time for public comments to advise the board against continuing management of nuclear weapons laboratories. During the committee meeting the regents heard a speech from Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny (D-San Diego), who encouraged participating in the competition and delivered an endorsement of a UC bid from the New Mexico legislature. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson made a similar personal appeal at the regents' last meeting. While UC officials continued to refrain from affirming their intention to bid on the LANL contract, awaiting the final RFP, the board of regents did decide Thursday to compete for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. UC has managed LBNL since 1931, more than a decade longer than LANL, without previous competition. Recent news articles have suggested that there may be no other competitors for the Berkeley lab. Chris Herrington, UC spokesman, said the board voted unanimously to proceed with the LBNL bid which is due Feb. 9. A question arose during the discussion on whether the regents should decide one laboratory at a time, for regents who might want to bid on all three or none of the DOE laboratories managed by the university, Herrington said the question of process was decided prior to the vote. "They are three distinct competitions, to be taken up as individual decisions based on the RFP and issues at the time," he said. The regents' next meeting is March 16-17 in Los Angeles, about a month before the final proposals might be due for the Los Alamos contract. "We are working aggressively here in terms of preparations," should the regents give the go-ahead, Herrington said. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 38 Guardian Unlimited: Los Alamos Lab Ready to Resume Operations From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday January 22, 2005 2:46 AM LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - One of the nation's leading nuclear weapons laboratories is ready to resume normal operations after security and safety lapses last summer forced a shutdown of hazardous, high-risk operations at the lab. Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Pete Nanos told employees Wednesday it should ``look like a normal day'' at the lab by Jan. 31, with ``productive work proceeding without impediment.'' ``I'm not going to give up the progress we made,'' he said. ``It's been a long six months, and we've all paid the price in one way or another.'' Los Alamos shut down virtually all its divisions for review after two computer disks believed to contain classified information were reported missing and an intern suffered an eye injury from a laser. Nearly all of the lab' nonhazardous projects restarted soon after, but some high-risk operations - mostly involving weapons work - have had to wait until now. According to lab spokesman Kevin Roark, the lab identified some 3,000 issues that needed to be improved, including better training, a new way to store and track computer disks containing top-secret information, and a safety program under which individuals take responsibility for their actions. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a government-funded advisory group, has questioned the lab's track record in fixing problems. ``Over the years, LANL has often identified valid issues, prepared corrective-action plans that appeared credible, and then failed to execute,'' according to a Dec. 31 memo from two board technicians stationed at Los Alamos. Nanos insisted the lab wants ``a continually improving state where we don't slip backward.'' ``This will be a tough year, but I feel that fundamentally we are moving in the right direction and laying the groundwork to ensure this institution's future...'' he said. A management contract - held by the University of California since the lab's creation as a top-secret World War II project to develop the atomic bomb - has also been put up for bid. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., on Friday urged a quick selection. ``This process has already created an enormous distraction for lab employees and they must get on with the work of national defense, combating nuclear proliferation and other scientific research,'' he wrote. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 39 The Inquirer: Researchers report bubble fusion results replicated Cold fusion no longer confusion By Nick Farrell: Friday 21 January 2005, 08:10 [Tyan Tomcat i7221 Server board] BOFFINS FROM the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) have managed to replicate controversial cold fusion experiments. A March 2002 an article in Science (Vol. 295, March 2002), indicated that boffins had managed to use bubble fusion successfully, but this data was questioned because it was made with imprecise instrumentation. Now Physical Review E is publishing an article by the team of researchers stating that it has replicated and extended previous experimental results and this time has used the right instruments. Cold fusion is a bit of a holy grail in the science world because if it could be made to work, it could produce a lot of energy without having to have a large amount of energy to start it. Scientists have managed to do it in the past, but it always required more energy to be put into it than could be taken out, which is defeating the point a bit. A press release going into the details can be found . µ ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************