***************************************************************** 02/13/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.34 ***************************************************************** 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 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Nixes Demand to Stop Building Reactor 2 AFP: Iran rejects key EU offer in nuclear talks - 3 The Hankyoreh: [Editorial] Guard Against Hardline Approach to NK 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Position on North Korea Hardening 5 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Top Secret NSC Documents Leaked 6 YWS: NK Nuke Expected to Take Center Stage in Parliamentary Debate 7 BBC: Russia raps NK 'talks pull-out' 8 Guardian Unlimited: China Will Push to Revive Nuclear Talks 9 AFP: Call for united strategy to end North Korea's nuclear weapons p 10 US: reviewjournal.com Opinion: STEVE SEBELIUS: Republicans say: Bad, 11 US: DenverPost.com - EDITORIALS: Bush budget looms tough for Colorad 12 WorldNetDaily: Sandbagging the EU NUCLEAR REACTORS 13 US: [NEWSRELEASES-LIST] Energy Commission Appoints Nuclear Consultan 14 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Blakeslee's atom bomb: Gas-fired Diablo 15 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: It's politics versus facts 16 US: Daily Press: Floating reactor's fate unsure 17 US: Hartford Courant: Millstone Tightens Security 18 US: ITAR-TASS: Small Alaska village plans to install nuclear reactor 19 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo quake study wanted NUCLEAR SAFETY 20 Honolulu Advertiser: Bikini Atoll survivors to gather 51 years later 21 US: Paducah Sun: Nuclear workers fault report NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 22 US: SignOnSanDiego.com: A lingering, toxic mess 23 Las Vegas RJ: Top Yucca manager Chu quits 24 Independent: BNFL in talks with Washington for new $500m nuclear rea 25 US: Florida Sun-Sentinel: FIU repays $11M for federal grant accounti 26 US: DenverPost.com: Ranchers fear waste fallout 27 US: Bradenton Herald: More tests are positive in Tallevast NUCLEAR WEAPONS US DEPT. OF ENERGY 28 Tri-City Herald: Tank ruptures, spills chemical in Richland 29 C Enquirer: Cleanup at Fernald faulted 30 Idaho Statesman: Contractor finished some cleanup work ahead of fore 31 Oakland Tribune: Los Alamos lab's staff vent on blog 32 The New Mexican: Learning lessons from LANL 33 The New Mexican: Keeping secrets safe: Is NNSA fulfilling its missio OTHER NUCLEAR 34 New Depleted Uranium Video 35 Online Citizen Services: Industrial ghosts ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Nixes Demand to Stop Building Reactor From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday February 13, 2005 12:01 PM By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran rejected a European demand to stop building a heavy water nuclear reactor in return for a light-water reactor Sunday, hardening Iran's position on a key part of its nuclear facilities that critics claim is part of a weapons program. Iran has given indications in the past that it will insist on keeping its heavy water nuclear reactor, but Sunday's announcement is its clearest statement yet of its nuclear plans. It underscored the unresolved differences between Iranian and European negotiators, who are continuing their talks over Iran's nuclear program even as the United States escalates its criticism of Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said Iran plans to become a major nuclear fuel supplier in 15 years, part of a program that Iran says is for peaceful domestic energy purposes. ``We intend to turn into an important and a major player in the nuclear fuel supply market in the next 15 years because there will be (an) energy shortage in the future,'' Asefi said. Separately, The Washington Post reported Sunday that the United States has been flying unmanned surveillance drones over Iran since last year to look for evidence of nuclear weapons programs and probe the country's air defenses. Asefi rejected a proposal by European negotiators to stop building a 40 megawatt heavy water nuclear reactor near Arak, in central Iran, in return for a light-water reactor. Iran says it has gone a long way in developing the Arak facility. ``We welcome the European offer ... but this won't replace the heavy water research reactor at all. That will continue. We will pursue that,'' he said. Iran's top leaders have been adamant in recent days that Iran won't scrap its nuclear program, suspected by Washington as a program to produce a nuclear bomb. Asefi said Iran had long and intensive talks - ``early steps forward'' - with Europeans this week. He said Europe should step up efforts to show progress that justify the continuation of the negotiations. ``During the talks, we tried to make it open that the nuclear fuel cycle has economic justification and that we will continue our activities in this field,'' Asefi told reporters. The plants in question can be used to enrich uranium, a critical part in nuclear programs. Uranium enriched to low grades is used for fuel in nuclear reactors, but further enrichment makes it suitable for atomic bombs. Iran suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities in November, hoping to build trust and avoid U.N. Security Council sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency is monitoring the suspension. Iran has said its suspension of uranium enrichment activities are voluntary and temporary. Europeans seek to persuade Iran to turn its temporary suspension of dual use nuclear activities into a permanent cessation. Iranian officials have suggested that any acceptance of a permanent freeze of its nuclear activities would collapse the government since its program is a matter of national pride and prestige. Under an agreement reached with the European Union, Iran will continue suspension of its enrichment activities during negotiations about European economic, political and technological aid. Iran has said it will decide in a matter of months whether to continue its suspension, which is monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: Iran rejects key EU offer in nuclear talks - Sunday February 13, 05:58 PM TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran rejected a European offer aimed at limiting its nuclear fuel activities and warned Washington against "playing with fire" in an increasingly bellicose standoff between Tehran and the West. Iran would not give up construction of a heavy-water reactor, which can be used to make nuclear weapons material, in exchange for a light-water reactor offered by the Europeans, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi insisted. "We welcome such proposals but we will not under any circumstances replace our heavy-water research reactor," Asefi told a news conference. "We will continue working on our heavy-water reactor," under construction at Arak southwest of Tehran. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned Iran it would be referred to the UN Security Council if Tehran resumed nuclear enrichment. "If Iran behaves in an unreasonable way, if for example it restarts enrichment... then that would lead to the Security Council," Fischer told an international security conference in Germany. Asefi was unimpressed. "We have told the Europeans to tell their American allies not to play with fire and the Europeans received that message perfectly well," he said. The conservative-controlled parliament has muddied the waters, drawing up draft legislation requiring Iran to produce some of its own nuclear fuel. Key decisions on Iran's nuclear programme are taken at the highest levels of the regime, but MPs have approved legislation to make a symbolic point. Last October, they passed a bill advocating continued uranium enrichment. Britain, France and Germany are trying to convince Iran it should dismantle an enrichment programme, which the United States says is part of a covert atomic weapons development, in return for economic and political rewards. Diplomats said EU negotiators have offered to send a mission to help Tehran obtain a light-water research reactor in what would be the first concrete move towards rewarding it for abandoning uranium enrichment. But Tehran's stance on the Arak reactor is likely to complicate the European task amid an escalating war of words between Iran and the United States over the clerical regime's nuclear activities. Iran insists its nuclear programme is purely for civilian energy needs, but the United States -- less than two years after its invasion of Iraq in March 2003 -- has hinted at the possible use of military force. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said an attack is not on the agenda for the time being but has urged Europe to take a tough line with Iran. "We don't take Rice's threats seriously," Asefi declared. "Rice and US officials know well Iran's capabilities (of responding)," he added. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the United States has been flying drones over Iran since April 2004, seeking evidence of nuclear weapons programmes and probing for weaknesses in Iran's air defenses. The revelation came after the US National Intelligence Council launched a broad review of its classified data on Iran to assess its alleged weapons drive, and its impact on regional and global security. Tehran insists its talks with the so-called EU3 which began in mid-December, must have concrete results within three months if they are to continue. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, has acknowledged that if Tehran is referred to the UN Security Council, Iran cannot bank on avoiding sanctions. "It is unlikely one of the permanent members would use their veto in favor of Iran," he said. Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the council's five permanent members. Iran agreed last November to suspend uranium enrichment but as a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it has the right to enrich for peaceful purposes. Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 The Hankyoreh: [Editorial] Guard Against Hardline Approach to NK 14 February 2005. Calls for a hardline approach to North Korea are showing signs of surfacing again. It is a problem that North Korea has announced it will not be participating in the six-party talks and that it possesses nuclear arms, but it is shortsighted to call for a hardline response just because of that. The principle about resolving the North Korean nuclear issue diplomatically and peacefully must not be shaken. The calls for a hardline approach generally have the United States as their epicenter, with conservative forces in Japan and Korea in partial agreement. You even see a desire to break up the framework of the six-party talks in their old calls for pressuring North Korea through economic sanctions and the proliferation security initiative (PSI). Examples would be suggestions that China has to be strongly pressured to join in on sanctions, or that there should be "five-party talks" without the North participating. US media reports that US vice president Dick Cheney demanded Korea stop sending fertilizer to North Korea is a reflection of that hardline mood. That approach is irresponsible and dangerous in that it promotes a confrontational situation without anything to function in a way that would ease that confrontation. Instead of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, it will of course only make the situation more tense, because it will further exacerbate the single biggest factor that is making the situation worse, the mutual distrust between the US and North Korea. It is regrettable that the US still refuses to engage in direct dialogue. It is less than convincing when the US says it does not seek regime change in the North while at the same time it avoids meeting with the North directly. The Grand National Party (GNP), for its part, must not use the current situation as means for a political offensive. It is a shortsighted failure to read what is a complex situation to see the North's declaration as proof that policy towards it has been a thorough failure. The government needs to devote all its ability to creating conditions that would have the North participate in the six-party talks. The Gaeseong industrial complex project, fertilizer aid, and other intra-Korean exchange needs to continue without complications. North Korea, in turn, needs to realize that nuclear arms will not guarantee its system of government. We are at the point where an exchange of special envoys between North and South to achieve a breakthrough in resolving the issue has to be considered. Copyright 2005 Hankyoreh Plus inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Position on North Korea Hardening Updated Feb.13,2005 20:19 KST Even as the U.S. officially stresses a diplomatic solution to North Korea¡¯s nuclear weapons program, behind closed doors the idea of sanctions against the Stalinist country is gaining ground. The New York Times reported Saturday (local time) that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney asked South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to suspend fertilizer aid to North Korea. Cheney was said to have told Ban that if Korea wanted to help Kim Jong-il choose between nuclear weapons and deepening isolation, it needed to respond in concert with other nations trying to disarm North Korea. But Ban told a press conference he explained to Cheney that Seoul has yet to decide on Pyongyang¡¯s request for an unprecedented 500,000 tons of fertilizer, adding the vice president himself did not mention the issue. Meanwhile, the American press continues to report plans for sanctions against North Korea. Another NYT report quoted a high-ranking Bush administration official as saying the U.S. government could look for new ways to block the flow of money into North Korea. That is raising fears that intra-Korean economic cooperation like the Kaesong Industrial Zone project could become a bone of contention between the U.S. and South Korea. Ban said his government would push ahead with the project but could review it if the situation deteriorates. He also said the U.S. and South Korea needed to closely analyze Pyongyang¡¯s recent announcement that it has nuclear weapons before making a decision on intra-Korean cooperation. The rift between Pyongyang and Washington showed no signs of healing. White House spokesman Scott McClellan flatly rejected bilateral talks between North Korea and the U.S., while the Chosun Shinbo, the mouthpiece of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, said in a dispatch from Pyongyang on Saturday that 2005 would be the year when North Korea¡¯s strength and U.S. military and diplomatic pressure collide head on. Meanwhile, a leaked dossier from the National Security Council confirms that the chief of the Chinese Foreign Ministry¡¯s North America bureau warned North Korea in January that unless there was progress in the six-party talks within the next two or three months, the U.S. might push for a military solution. (englishnews@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 5 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Top Secret NSC Documents Leaked Home> National/Politics Updated Feb.13,2005 20:16 KST National Security Council (NSC) documents including plans to invite Muammar Gaddafi to North and South Korea. The leaked dossier was 14 pages long and dated Feb. 10 to 14. The documents detail diplomatic contacts with countries like China, the United States and Libya ? giving rise to fears that their publication could leave a black mark on Korea¡¯s diplomatic credibility. Cheong Wa Dae officials said a full-scale security investigation is inevitable. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) is investigating how the dossier was leaked. Cheong Wa Dae assumes they were leaked from an organization other than the NSC, which is briefed by the NIS, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Unification, and Defense. But since the dossier mostly deals with government efforts to solve the North Korean nuclear weapon issues, there is speculation that the leak was intended to benefit the administration's image. (Jeong Woo-sang, imagine@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 6 YWS: NK Nuke Expected to Take Center Stage in Parliamentary Debate YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS www.yonhapnews.co.kr 2005/02/13 22:13 KST (LEAD) SEOUL, Feb. 13 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's self-declared possession of nuclear weapons will top the agenda when the National Assembly convenes a special session this week, party officials said on Sunday. Rival parties are also expected to clash over government-proposed reform measures and ways to revive the slumping economy during the four-day session starting on Monday, they said. ***************************************************************** 7 BBC: Russia raps NK 'talks pull-out' Last Updated: Saturday, 12 February, 2005 [Anti-North Korea rally in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday] North Korea's announcement has attracted international criticism Russia has criticised North Korea after it announced it was withdrawing from international disarmament talks, saying it had made the "wrong choice". Pyongyang also said for the first time on Thursday that it had nuclear arms. It said it needed the weapons as protection against what it considered an increasingly hostile United States. Meanwhile North Korean state media called on its citizens to show "single-minded unity" and "devotedly protect" their leader, Kim Jong Il. 'Strongest weapon' "If the information proves accurate, I would say North Korea has made a wrong choice," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a security conference in Munich on Saturday. "And we have to remember that this state is sharing a common border with Russia." Since 2003, Russia has been involved six-party negotiations with the US, China, South Korea and Japan to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. Mr Ivanov also rejected North Korea's push for bilateral talks with the US. He said: "We should do all we can to keep that state in the (nuclear non-proliferation) treaty framework and for that purpose, compromise solutions will be required ... within the ongoing six party talks." ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: China Will Push to Revive Nuclear Talks From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday February 13, 2005 8:46 AM AP Photo SEL103 By SOO-JEONG LEE Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - China has pledged to try and revive talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programs, after the isolated, Stalinist state's declaration that it had atomic weapons and was boycotting disarmament negotiations. The United States and other countries involved in the six-party talks have called on China to use its influence over North Korea. Beijing is Pyongyang's last major ally and a key supplier of food and energy to the impoverished dictatorship. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing spoke Saturday night by phone with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and said Beijing stands firm in supporting a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the Chinese government said Sunday. Li told Rice that ``China will stay in touch with all relevant parties ... so that the six-party talks could be resumed as soon as possible,'' the Foreign Ministry said. The discussions also involve South Korea, Russia and Japan. South Korea's foreign minister also said he had discussed with U.S. officials ``views that China should strengthen efforts to persuade the North,'' according to a report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. Ban Ki-moon is in Washington on a previously scheduled trip and was to meet Rice on Monday. North Korea announced Thursday that it has built nuclear weapons to defend itself from an alleged threat of invasion by the United States - dramatically raising tensions in the two-year nuclear standoff. Washington denies it intends to attack. North Korea's claim could not be independently verified. North Korea also said it would stay away from the six-nation negotiations. A North Korean diplomat has reportedly requested direct talks with Washington as a way out of the impasse. But the White House rejects such a move and insists that the North participate in the six-party discussions. Three rounds of negotiations have been held in Beijing without any breakthroughs. On Sunday, a North Korean district official in Pyongyang said the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula would help six-party talks. Han Song Nam, a deputy chairman for a district in Pyongyang of the country's communist party, said it ``would be a practical measure in the withdrawal of the United States' hostile policy,'' according to Yonhap, which monitored North Korea's Radio Pyongyang. Washington has been South Korea's key security ally since the 1950-53 Korean war, and keeps thousands of troops based there and neighboring Japan. North Korea didn't say how many nuclear warheads it had in its Thursday statement, but Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Sunday that his country suspected it had two or three atomic bombs. Downer also warned that North Korea's declaration that it had atomic weapons could spur nuclear proliferation in Asia. ``There will be some people in South Korea, some people in Japan who will say, 'Well, if North Korea has nuclear weapons and can threaten us, why shouldn't we have nuclear weapons as well?''' Downer told Australia's Nine Network television. Still, Downer added that he was encouraged by discussions Friday with North Korea's ambassador to Australia that talks could continue when diplomatic circumstances improved. Meanwhile, Ban said the South had no plans to halt aid to the North, noting it provides its longtime rival with fertilizer and rice because of ``humanitarian concerns.'' He also dismissed an American newspaper report that Vice President Dick Cheney asked Seoul to stop providing fertilizer aid. Ban also said the South planned to push ahead with a joint industrial park just north of the inter-Korean border, if the situation doesn't deteriorate further. The North has also repeatedly accused South Korean warships of crossing the countries' disputed sea border in recent weeks. The allegations appear to be ``in relation to North Korea's declaration that it has nuclear weapons,'' South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in comments reported by Yonhap. ``We believe it is part of its scheme to create military tension so that the world's eyes are focused on the Korean Peninsula,'' the South's military command said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 9 AFP: Call for united strategy to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program Monday February 14, 04:01 AM WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States should set the stage for a unified multilateral strategy to end North Korea's nuclear weapons drive, analysts say after Pyongyang publicly boasted it had nuclear arms and rebuffed six-party talks. Washington is the chief sponsor of the protracted talks designed to wean North Korea away from its nuclear program and defuse the crisis in the Korean peninsula. But the parties to the talks -- the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China -- are divided on how to reward and reign in Pyongyang, which last week spurned talks and made an unambiguous declaration it is a nuclear weapons state. The United States has told the other participants that any assistance pledged to cash-starved North Korea cannot be given until it fully discloses upfront its nuclear program. North Korea wants a step-by-step aid-for-disclosure program. Washington has distanced itself from an energy aid program for North Korea which China, Russia, South Korea and Japan have agreed to under a proposal introduced at the talks. The administration of President George W. Bush is also against any one-on-one talks with North Korea outside the six-party process and has refused to give any indvidual security guarantee to North Korea, for whom nuclear arms is the only bargaining chip. Compounding the problem are divisions within the Bush administration -- which is focused on Iraq -- on how to deal with North Korea. China and South Korea meanwhile have refused to use their economic might against the Stalinist regime, which relies heavily on them for investments and trade. "The time has come for the other five (parties) finally to begin speaking with one voice to Pyongyang, to hold it accountable for its own words and actions," said Ralph Cossa of the US Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said that following the flexing of North Korea's nuclear muscle last Thursday, China should call an emergency plenary session of the six-party talks, inviting Pyongyang to attend and provide further explanation of its current stance. "If North Korea receives conflicting signals from Washington, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo, and Moscow in the face of this latest provocation, it will be encouraged to continue this divide and conquer tactic," Cossa said. Furthest away from the crisis flashpoint and having seen North Korea renege on a bilateral deal for ending its nuclear arms program, the United States has the "least pressing need to deal with the problem and yet it is absolutely vital for any breakthrough," said US think tank Strafor's Korea expert Rodger Baker. He said for the hardline communist regime, the United States is the key to any resolution to the nuclear crisis because Washington was a signatory to an armistice that followed the bloody 1950-1953 war between the two Koreas. The two Koreas today remain technically at war -- in which the south was backed by US-led forces -- because the conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. "The US signed the armistice, the South Koreans didn't, the Japanse didn't and so, the US from the North Korean point of view is the main military threat to them," Baker said. Leading US dailies have called for a review of the US policy on North Korea. The Washington Post said "the Bush administration needs to rethink its own failing policy," noting that Pyongyang had been trying, with some success, to convince its neighbors that the United States was "the obstacle to progress because of its refusal to offer the North greater concessions." To achieve diplomatic success, the paper called for "more determined action by North Korea's neighbors and an unambiguous decision by the Bush administration to settle for detente with the North, rather than regime change." Aside from the need for a change in attitude by North Korea, the New York Times suggested "a drastic change of approach by the United States" to end the Asia-Pacific region's most serious deadlock. The Bush administration did not create this problem, the paper said, "but, with a series of avoidable errors, it has made it much worse, much faster than might otherwise have been the case." Bush had, after the deadly September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, termed North Korea an "axis of evil" together with Iraq and Iran. "The strategy of listing North Korea as one of three partners in an axis of evil and then proceeding to invade the partner that was furthest away from a nuclear weapons program was no way to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear deterrent," the paper said. In addition, Washington's nonproliferation diplomacy had also been handicapped by the Bush administration's double standards about the nuclear proliferation offenses of Pakistan and other allies. Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information ***************************************************************** 10 reviewjournal.com Opinion: STEVE SEBELIUS: Republicans say: Bad, bad Reid! February 10, 2005 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal U.S. Sen. Harry Reid couldn't have thought he'd get a free ride. After being the Democrats' loyal No. 2 man for years, Reid carried enough water to fill Nevada's side of Lake Tahoe. And to the Republicans, that opposition research is now compiled in a brief that labels Reid "Chief Democrat Obstructionist." As opposed to the Democrats who are gleefully embracing the Republican agenda? Republicans want to "strip the bark off the Senate minority leader," says Brian Jones, communications director for the report-authoring Republican National Committee, in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Much of the document is a recitation of Reid's past voting record. But the Republicans also hit Reid for such unsurprising things as voting against President Bush's tax cuts, opposing a small handful of conservative judicial nominations and receiving praise from liberal groups. It's those passages that give you the impression this was a late-night term paper that needed padding. If Reid voted for the Republican agenda, wouldn't he be a Republican? - Republicans conclusively prove that Reid voted for higher taxes. And they scored a point in criticizing Reid for a 2001 quote in which he called for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor for judicial nominees. Reid's spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, says votes to end debate --- which require 60 senators to say "aye" --- are the same thing as an up-or-down vote on a nominee. But to win a straight up-or-down vote, a nominee would need the support of just 51 senators. That's not the same. "If this were reversed, the Republicans would never let it come to the Senate floor," Hafen says. Still, the Senate gave its consent to 204 judges in the president's first term, and rejected only 10. - Republicans hit Reid for saying in 1999 that "most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector." But Reid today opposes Bush's plan to create private accounts in Social Security. Hafen says Reid wasn't talking about private accounts, but investing money overall, back in the heady days of budget surpluses, which now evoke the nostalgia of "Lone Ranger" radio dramas. - Republicans blame Reid for "blocking" legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security. But then again, so did President George W. Bush, who objected when the idea was first proposed by Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada. Bush finally backed off. - Reid, Republicans complain, called the president a "liar." The senator was referring to Yucca Mountain and Bush's 2000 campaign-trail promise to let "sound science" decide. Bush authorized the dump after taking office in 2001, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit last year derailed the plan, saying a radiation standard wasn't scientifically sound. Enough said. - Republicans complain about Reid's "taxpayer financed 'war room.' " But as Hafen explains, Reid's "war room" is simply his communications office, the same taxpayer-financed unit that exists in every congressional shop on Capitol Hill and --- yes --- at the White House. - Although Reid is pro-life, Republicans doubt it, citing the unimpeachable Fred Barnes writing in the totally objective Weekly Standard (four times!). Proof? Reid is friends with Barbara Boxer and Kate Michelman, the former president of the National Abortion Rights Action League. He voted to overturn the so-called "gag rule" which prevents doctors at overseas organizations that receive U.S. funds from talking to their patients about abortion. And when he ran for majority leader, pro-choice groups said nothing in opposition. Well, Reid must be pro-choice, then. And, because Reid is friends with Robert Redford and we heard nothing from the Russians or Osama bin Laden when he ran for majority leader, Reid must also be an award-winning actor, a communist and a terrorist, right? Republicans add that Reid introduced a bill (supported by NARAL) that sought money for women's health, family planning and contraception. Do you think the GOP knows what the word "contraception" means? If you don't get pregnant, you won't need an abortion. - And the report faults Reid, who grew up poor in Searchlight, for living in a $750,000 condo at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C. It's surprising to find the Republicans criticizing success, especially because very few of them live in tents on the Mall. Besides, Reid could afford a nice house in Summerlin, Green Valley or Southern Highlands, but he chooses instead to live in Searchlight, where he's built a home. Reid has to live with his record and his votes. But this Republican attack is hardly a master's thesis in political wrongdoing. This professor can smell a paper that's been padded with nonsense. Let's give it a C-minus. Steve Sebelius is the Review-Journal's political columnist and author of the daily e-mail political newsletter the EARLY LINE. His column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at 383-0283 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com. STEVE SEBELIUS Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 11 DenverPost.com - EDITORIALS: Bush budget looms tough for Colorado Article Published: Sunday, February 13, 2005 editorial Cuts for federal labs, wildfire protection and chemical weapons cleanup worry members of Congress. Vets aren't happy about medical benefits. Elaborating on the release of its $2.57 trillion budget for next year, the White House last week provided unique analyses for each state, detailing "special interest" items. Most states had just one or two. Colorado had four. Ohio had nine - more than any other state. Hmmm. With a budget proposal that scales back domestic spending while boosting national security - all while making tax cuts permanent - it stands to reason Colorado, and many other jurisdictions, would end up a loser financially. Indeed, there is some serious damage to Colorado interests in the Bush budget, and we hope Congress will correct the worst flaws. Among them, Bush would slash funding for federal scientific labs in Colorado, zero out the Pueblo Chemical Depot and make dangerous cuts in wildland fire management. Even the White House's own talking points for what Colorado would gain were somewhat forced. Two of the four - Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative and energy assistance for low-income people - are shared by just about every state with a forest and poor people. The other two items keep existing projects on track, including $52 million to maintain construction of the Animas La Plata dam and reservoir project in southwestern Colorado and $664 million to continue cleaning up Rocky Flats. That's a $10 million increase from 2004. Sen. Ken Salazar's staff did identify two possible additional gains for Colorado: An across-the-board increase of 8.4 percent, or $3.4 million, in wind energy money could impact Colorado positively as wind farms continue to grow. A reduction in the amount of subsidies going to corporate-owned farms - from $360,000 annually to $250,000 - could mean more money for family farms. Either way, Salazar believes the reduction makes sense. But the state's losses far outnumber its gains: No money was requested for construction of the $1.6 billion facility in Pueblo to neutralize 780,000 mustard-gas shells at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. Some now fear the 77 percent cut proposed for the Pentagon program that includes the depot could mean the military is planning to scrap plans to build the high-tech facility. Forty-three million dollars in cuts to federal labs in Colorado, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $21 million increase for construction upgrades under the budget, but an overall cut in operational funding, said Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Mark Udall. A 5 percent reduction in subsidies to all crop and dairy farmers. "At a time of drought in Colorado, it severely affects them," says Salazar spokesman Cody Wertz. No funding to prolong the life of the Hubble telescope. Two instruments from the University of Colorado were expected to be placed on the Hubble. "We have the fourth-largest aerospace industry in the country," Pacheco said, so any aerospace cuts hurt. A $26.8 reduction in the Interior Department's Payment In Lieu of Taxes, or PILT, programs, which was decried by members of Congress with federal land in their districts. (The PILT program is meant to at least partly compensate counties with lots of federal land, which is exempt from property taxes.) Meanwhile, Bush wants to increase federal land acquisition funding by $11.3 million, irking Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. "It harms Colorado when the federal government boosts land acquisition and reduces payments to locals communities," she said. Republican Rep. Joel Hefley of Colorado Springs said he'll work to restore PILT funding. Some cuts aren't Colorado-specific, but their impact will weigh heavily here. Nearly 30,000 of Colorado's 430,000 veterans will be forced to pay a new $250 fee to access medical care, along with a doubling of their prescription drug costs. Another 215,000 veterans could be affected by the price hikes. The $71.3 billion requested for the Department of Veterans Affairs includes a slight increase in overall funding to Colorado veterans' benefits programs. But funding of medical care will increase just 1.2 percent, which veterans advocates say is far less than needed to meet demand. Also, a $283 million decrease in money for wildland fire management, including state and volunteer fire assistance and forest health work, could hurt Colorado come fire season. But what really irked some Colorado Democrats is what Bush didn't include in his budget, namely the ongoing costs for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's a smokescreen that looks fiscally responsible, but it has a credit card mentality," Wertz said. "What really looks like a lean budget isn't when you show everything else that's really in it, or should be in it." Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo has his own read on the budget, noting that it has just begun a legislative path that will test all its austerity proposals. "Experience teaches us that efforts to reduce spending in Washington always meet stiff opposition from special interests and politicians protecting pet projects," Tancredo said. "Despite all this talk of reducing spending, I am afraid that after all the smoke clears, Congress will end up approving another bloated spending package." Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 12 WorldNetDaily: Sandbagging the EU Posted: February 12, 2005 © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Last November, the governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom – supported by the High Representative of the European Union – and the Islamic Republic of Iran forwarded to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency an agreement they requested he circulate to all IAEA member states. The agreement began with the Europeans (E3/EU) recognizing "Iran's rights under the NPT exercised in conformity with its obligations under the Treaty, without discrimination." That is, they reaffirmed Iran's "inalienable right" under the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to acquire and operate – subject to the IAEA Safeguards regime – nuclear fuel-cycle facilities. But, President Bush claimed in his 2005 State of the Union Address: "We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium re-processing." Far from making Iran "give up" those programs, the E3/EU and Iran are engaged in negotiations on "a mutually acceptable long-term arrangement" which would (a) "provide objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," but would (b) "equally provide firm guarantees on nuclear, technological and economic cooperation and firm commitments on security issues." Firm commitments on security issues? Wow! Furthermore, the E3/EU-Iran agreement provides for a resumption of negotiations between Iran and the EU on a Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The E3/EU also pledged to "actively support the opening of Iranian accession negotiations" at the World Trade Organization. Now, the U.S. strenuously opposes an EU-Iran Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It would contravene the sanctions we unilaterally impose – or threaten to impose – on companies doing business with the country Bush has designated "the world's primary state sponsor of terror." The U.S. has also prevented Iran becoming a member of the World Trade Organization. So, one of Secretary Rice's missions last week was not to "work with" the Europeans. It was to "sandbag" them, undermining – if possible – the E3/EU-Iranian negotiations. Now, the IAEA is not a party to the E3/EU-Iranian agreement. Nevertheless, the E3/EU declared in the agreement that it "will henceforth support the director general reporting to the IAEA Board as he considers appropriate." That means that Iranian compliance with its Safeguards Agreement constitutes compliance with the E3/EU-Iranian long-term arrangement. Last week, Condi the Sandbagger, repeated the charge frequently made by Likudniks, in and out of various governments, that Iran is using its IAEA Safeguarded programs as a "cover" for pursuing an illegitimate nuclear weapons program. Said Rice: "We have believed all along that Iran ought to be referred to the Security Council. … "It is obvious that, if Iran cannot be made to live up to its international obligations, the IAEA statutes suggest Iran would have to be referred to the U.N. Security Council." Well, now that she's secretary of state, maybe Condi better have another look at the IAEA statute. And read carefully the E3/EU-Iranian agreement of last November. And read especially carefully IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's recent reports on Iran to that organization's Board of Governors. The NPT bestows on the IAEA the responsibility for verifying that a state is living up to its NPT commitments. When the IAEA's inspectors detect possible or actual non-compliance with a Safeguards Agreement – or with the NPT, itself – the director general reports that to the Board. The Board can then decide – by a two-thirds majority – whether or not to refer the director general's reports to the U.N. Security Council for possible action. Thus far, so far as ElBaradei is concerned, Iran is living up to its international obligations. Iran is even in "compliance" with the Additional Protocol, which is not obligatory, since it is not yet in force. Moreover, ElBaradei has reported to the IAEA Board that Iran is in "compliance" with its voluntary suspension of uranium-enrichment activity – which is serving as a "confidence-building" measure for the E3/EU-Iran negotiations. Therefore, with ElBaradei reporting that he can find no "indication" whatsoever that Iran is pursuing – or intends to pursue – a nuclear weapons program, it is inconceivable that the IAEA Board would vote to refer the completely unsubstantiated Likudnik charges to the U.N. Security Council for possible action. And even if the U.S. chose to "end run" the IAEA and take the ridiculous Likudnik charge that the Iranian Safeguarded nuclear program constitutes a threat to the peace in the Mideast, it is certain that China would "veto" any Security Council resolution proposed by Bush-Rice to impose sanctions on Iran, much less authorize the use of force. Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. [WorldNetDaily.com] © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. webmaster@worldnetdaily.com ***************************************************************** 13 [NEWSRELEASES-LIST] Energy Commission Appoints Nuclear Consultant To Diablo Canyon Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 13:12:55 -0800 The following News Release is also available on the California Energy Commission website: http://www.energy.ca.gov/releases/2005_releases/2005-02-04_nuclear_ma.html ************************** For immediate release: February 4, 2005 Contact: MaryAnn Costamgana * (916) 654-4989 Energy Commission Appoints Nuclear Consultant To Diablo Canyon Safety Committee Sacramento * California Energy Commission Chairman William J. Keese today announced the appointment of William Conway to a statewide committee that reviews and recommends safety procedures at PG&E's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. In a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, Keese announced his selection of Conway to the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee (DCISC). Conway has an extensive background in nuclear power plant operations and safety. The Committee is a three-member group. The Governor, the Energy Commission, and the Attorney General each get to appoint one of the members. The Committee meets three times a year to assess and recommend improved safety measures at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. The Diablo Canyon plant, located in San Luis Obispo County, provides electricity for more than two million northern and central Californians from its two 1,100 megawatt units. Conway's appointment extends through June 30, 2006. He replaces Philip R. Clark who served on the Committee since June 1995. Other members of the DCISC now include David Rossin and Per F. Peterson. # # # ***************************************************************** 14 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Blakeslee's atom bomb: Gas-fired Diablo 02/13/2005 | Editorial / Opinion of The Tribune Freshman Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee has a vision for the future of Diablo Canyon: Drop nuclear energy generation in favor of a gas-fired plant. His thinking, driven as much by financial concerns as environmental, calls for legislation that would fund state-of-the-art earthquake studies of Diablo in relation to the Hosgri Fault offshore. If the plant doesn't measure up, he'd give incentives to PG&E to build a gas-powered plant that would preserve jobs and a tax base. "A study would give us a better sense that we've got a facility that would survive a worst-case scenario," says Blakeslee, who holds a doctorate in earthquake studies. "Besides making sure that the plant wouldn't release radiation following a quake from the offshore Hosgri Fault, I want to be sure that Diablo can continue to operate because we need the jobs. It could be years to get the plant back in operation if it were damaged." It's believed Pacific Gas and Electric, owners of the plant, will apply to relicense the plant years before its current licenses expire in 2023 and 2025. Blakeslee believes that's enough lead time to perform the study and negotiate with PG&E. "It may take years to get answers, and if we don't ask questions now, decisions may be made in crisis management mode down the road." Blakeslee's idea is intriguing. We like the idea of assessing earthquake damage potential at Diablo. We also like the long-range planning perspective that he brings to the proposal. But we've also got some fundamental questions: • Wouldn't new gas transmission lines, as large as four feet in diameter, have to be built over mountains, down canyons and through a sensitive environment? What would that cost? The permitting process alone could take years. • Gas-fired power plants don't need the same number of employees as a nuclear plant. For example, Duke Energy's Morro Bay plant can produce 676 megawatts with 30 people. (That's with two units; if all four were operating, it would kick out 1,000 megawatts with a work force of about 70.) By comparison, Diablo generates 2,200 megawatts and employs 1,300. • In light of the opposition to Duke's proposal to modernize its aging plant, would the public and permitting agencies accept a new power plant -- even if it meant closing a nuclear one? • All new power plants that are planned and coming on line in California are fueled by natural gas. Is it wise to be so dependent on one form of energy? Our bottom line: The idea of studying earthquake safety issues at Diablo is good, but Assemblyman Blakeslee should connect a few more dots to bring his plan to reality. ***************************************************************** 15 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: It's politics versus facts February 11, 2005 LAS VEGAS SUN WEEKEND EDITION February 12 - 13, 2005 Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week pounded Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman over the issue of Yucca Mountain, peppering him with questions and comments that illuminated their impatience with the project's near-limbo status. Bodman tried to placate the members, at one point saying, "I share your enthusiasm about Yucca Mountain ... I am eager to work with the committee ... " But the energy secretary also became defensive as the questions flew about how he will resolve the innumerable problems confronting the planned high-level nuclear-waste repository under construction 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Referring to his recent replacement of former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Bodman answered, "I've only been there seven days." The Yucca hawks on the committee grilled Bodman on Wednesday, the same day that the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board was meeting in Las Vegas. This is a scientific panel created by Congress to oversee the Energy Department's handling of the Yucca Mountain Project. While the committee members in Washington were demanding a hurried approach to opening Yucca Mountain, two of the Energy Department's own engineers were warning the review board about why that approach is dangerous. It's long been known that Yucca Mountain, even with deep storage tunnels drilled underneath it, would not itself be sufficient protection against the waste's radiation. To guard against leaks, the Energy Department plans to seal the waste in casks made of a metal alloy. And to protect the casks against the corrosive force of water, it has designed titanium drip shields. Engineers William Boyle and Kirk Lachman told the review board, however, of their concerns about design flaws in the drip shields. This is a long-standing concern that has also been expressed by other engineers and scientists. Yucca Mountain is beset with other critical problems, as illustrated in the Sun's cover story today. Foremost is its overall design, which a federal court has rejected as falling far short of a radiation protection standard set by the National Academy of Sciences. The documents the Energy Department needs to apply for a license to open Yucca Mountain -- and there are millions of them -- are not ready, a factor that weighed in the decision to postpone the projected opening from 2010 to 2012. The department had planned to build a railroad at Caliente, north of Las Vegas, to transport the deadly waste on its final leg to the mountain. But severe flooding there last month has raised serious safety questions. And no specific plan has been developed to transport nuclear waste to Yucca from nuclear power plants all over the country. Yucca Mountain, thankfully, is indeed stalled and its future is looking bleak. But only because the facts are beginning to get in the way of the type of politically driven "enthusiasm" expressed by Bodman. ***************************************************************** 16 Daily Press: Floating reactor's fate unsure HAMPTON ROADS, VA. February 13, 2005 11:03 PM The Army is studying what to do with the defunct nuclear power plant sitting on the James River. Disposing of it will cost millions. BY DAVE SCHLECK 247-7430 FORT EUSTIS -- The sign on a metal hatch in front of Ray Moses said "Caution Radiation." Moses, an electrician with the Maritime Administration, unlatched several locks on a recent morning, broke through a plastic seal on the door and led several visitors inside. Around a dark corridor was the refueling deck of a defunct nuclear reactor that sits on the James River. A large, egg-shaped containment vessel holds the old reactor. Contaminated metal and debris are sealed inside a nearby tank. Steel and concrete encase the entire area. No, this is not Surry Power Station. Nor is it the Savannah, the world's first commercial nuclear-powered ship, which now languishes amid rusty vessels in the federal government's James River Reserve Fleet. This is the Sturgis, a 440-foot-long World War II Liberty ship that the Army converted into a floating nuclear power plant in 1966. It provided power to the Panama Canal until 1976, when the Army decided to return the barge to the United States because of political unrest in Central America, said Hans Honerlah, project manager with the Army Corps of Engineers. "When it was towed back from Panama, it got caught up in a hurricane," Honerlah said. "It sustained structural damage, which I think solidified its end." He pointed to a steel beam on the refueling deck that was originally vertical but is now bowed thanks to something large and heavy that bounced around the refueling deck during the hurricane. Today, the Army Corps is studying what to do with the vessel. Unlike the rest of the James River fleet, it is not under the purview of the Maritime Administration and is not included in a 2006 deadline to dispose of obsolete ships in the reserve fleet. Honerlah stresses that the Army removed the nuclear fuel from the ship long ago. "There's no real health or safety risk or hazard to human health and the environment," he said. Even with today's heightened awareness of terrorism, an explosion that would release the radioactive metal in the ship's tank would have to be huge - big enough to dwarf the risk of the radiation itself. Honerlah is working on an environmental assessment that may be completed in September. The assessment will include the potential cost of fully decommissioning the Sturgis, which will range in the millions. The Army Corps didn't disclose a more precise estimate because the job may eventually go out to bid. The Sturgis dates to an era when the Army was first exploring nuclear power. The service built nine reactors in the 1960s. After the first was built in Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia, several others followed. All were designed to be easily set up and taken down at remote military bases in Wyoming, Alaska, Antarctica and Greenland. "The idea was to provide power for a command post in any area that we occupied," Honerlah said. The Sturgis was the only floating power plant, converted to nuclear use in Alabama. Among the more notable electrician assistants on the project was musician Jimm ***************************************************************** 17 Hartford Courant: Millstone Tightens Security In Response To 9/11 Attacks, Nuclear Plant Adds Safeguards February 12, 2005 Associated Press WATERFORD -- The Millstone nuclear power plant complex has added guard towers, cameras and extra patrols to comply with a federal order designed to better protect nuclear facilities from potential terrorist attacks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ordered protection increased at reactor sites nationwide in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and fear of future assaults. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that Millstone, like other nuclear power facilities, has spent the past two or three years complying with several NRC security orders intended to prevent a catastrophe. The details of those orders have not been made public. "We're not interested in telegraphing to those who would do us harm information about ways in which a nuclear power plant might be vulnerable," Sheehan said. Many of the security improvements at Millstone are being kept secret, but some were on display this week when officials gave a tour of the site to the media. The complex, which is on the shore of Long Island Sound, includes two active reactors and one that has been shut down. Three new guard towers built in the past eight months were visible on the tour. Pete Hyde, a spokesman for power plant owner Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, told The Day of New London that he could not say how many guard towers were built, what they are made of, how tall they are or how they are staffed. Hyde confirmed that Dominion has increased patrols, added security cameras and installed mechanical barriers in the access road to the power station. The company also upgraded its radio system to a more powerful 800-megahertz system, a change that Waterford's emergency responders are also hoping to make this year, in part so they can communicate more easily with Millstone. Sheehan said that upgrades around the country have included security outposts like Dominion's new guard towers, more physical barriers, more checks of incoming and outgoing vehicles, better coordination with law enforcement and military authorities, more intense training and enhanced emergency equipment and communication, and more restrictive site access controls for employees. Those adjustments had to be in place by last Oct. 29, Sheehan said. The NRC has inspected Dominion's security enhancements and will continue to do so, Sheehan said. That includes a force-on-force drill once every three years for each plant, he said. In those drills, security forces respond to various intrusion scenarios. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and attorneys general from six other states recently asked the NRC to require more safeguards against air assaults on the power plants. Because of security concerns, it is difficult to know exactly what safety precautions have been taken. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade organization, has estimated that U.S. nuclear power plants have added about 3,000 officers and spent an additional $1 billion on security since Sept. 11, 2001, Sheehan said. courant.com is Copyright © 2005 by The Hartford ***************************************************************** 18 ITAR-TASS: Small Alaska village plans to install nuclear reactor 12.02.2005, 09.10 TOKYO, February 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Residents of a small Alaska village intend to install a miniature nuclear reactor developed and made by the Japanese Toshiba Corp. Most of the 700 residents of the village of Galena support the idea. As became known on Saturday, the enriched uranium reactor may begin working from 2010 if the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the project. The 10-megawatt reactor designed to work for 30 years is planned to be installed underground. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 19 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo quake study wanted 02/13/2005 | Blakeslee will ask state to assess threat; possibility of converting it to gas raised Jeff Ballinger The Tribune Freshman Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee this week will propose state backing for a study that would examine the threat of an earthquake fault to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Depending on the study's findings, one result could be Diablo Canyon's conversion from nuclear power to natural gas, he said. Any changes in operations, however, would have to be supported by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which owns the plant. Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, will introduce a bill Thursday calling for the study to determine whether the Hosgri Fault just off the coast carries a big enough earthquake threat to the safety and viability of the plant. If so, another element of a bill would kick in to study an alternative to possible closure -- the viability of converting the plant to a natural gas-powered facility. The idea would be to offer incentives to PG&E to build a gas-powered plant. Blakeslee, recently appointed to the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, said recent earthquakes spurred the idea for a state-of-the-art study. He said that any long-term facility transition process would take time. (Licenses for Diablo Canyon's reactors expire in 2023 and 2025, and it is believed the plant owners will apply to re-license the plant years before then.) "A project like this will take many years to accomplish," he said. "We need to start as soon as possible to fully understand the seismic issues using state-of-the-art technology and data and to provide PG&E with an alternative to re-power the facilities." PG&E officials are less than receptive to the idea. "We think this is a very costly and highly impractical idea that would create significant air pollution to replace a power plant that's been declared seismically safe by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," said PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis. Diablo Canyon, which underwent extensive earthquake studying when it was in the licensing phase, is built to withstand a magnitude-7.5 quake on the Hosgri Fault, which lies about 3 miles offshore of the plant. The question of whether Diablo Canyon could withstand a major quake was rekindled a year ago in the weeks following the 2003 San Simeon Earthquake. While Blakeslee acknowledges there have been thick "phone books" of studies performed by the NRC and other consultants on Diablo, he says the assessments have still fallen short in their scrutiny. "The NRC says the plant is safe, but they don't live here," he said. "A study needs to be done to increase the public's confidence." State Sen. Abel Maldonado criticized Blakeslee's proposal, citing a need to maintain the current operation of a facility that provides 1,300 jobs, significant tax revenue and an important portion of the state's energy supply. "The security and maintenance at Diablo Canyon are second to none," Maldonado said. "They bend over backward to make sure that plant is safe." Maldonado also said he will meet with Blakeslee this week to discuss the proposal and his opposition to it. Both Maldonado and Blakeslee have districts that include Diablo Canyon. But 2nd District County Supervisor Shirley Bianchi agreed with Blakeslee that better assessments need to be done, and she also encouraged a transition from nuclear operation. "I'm really pleased," Bianchi said. "I think it's a step in the right direction. There are many scientists who are apprehensive about having a nuclear power plant so close to an earthquake fault. There are all sorts of newer technology that would be able to make a better determination." Lewis, however, cited other concerns. A gas-fired plant would produce an estimated 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide emissions and 14,000 tons of nitrogen dioxide emissions annually, Lewis said. The current plant's waste issues involve radioactive fuel rods, which are stored on site but have been at the center of safety concerns. Also, a natural gas-powered electricity plant producing the same 2,200 megawatts of power would employ fewer than 100 people, he said. Diablo has 1,300 employees now. Blakeslee insisted, however, that if a quake shut down the plant, even temporarily, it would have an economic ripple effect locally and statewide. "It occurs to me that we should first use the most advanced techniques possible to determine the risk to the plant," he said. Members of Mothers for Peace, a local nonprofit activist group on nuclear issues that has long opposed Diablo Canyon's operation, agreed that an extensive study is long overdue. "We've asked for that since 1974," said Liz Apselberg, director of the group. "We have always been worried about that." Blakeslee, a financial planner who also holds a doctorate in earthquake studies from UC Santa Barbara, will propose that the agencies with greatest oversight -- the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission and the California Independent System Operator -- conduct the study. If the review finds the potential for significant damage, he envisions the creation of a list of economic incentives for PG&E to convert the plant. Blakeslee said any alternatives produced by the study would be voluntary for PG&E. The power to compel the company to take action could come only from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. "That's why I'm seeking to create a voluntary consensus and provide information on the risks and the opportunities -- so PG&E can make the decision," he said. Blakeslee said he has spoken with PG&E governmental affairs officials in Sacramento and that their feedback has helped shape his proposal. He declined to characterize their reaction to the plan. It's too early to tell what such a study could cost, Blakeslee said. "This is just a prudent contingency analysis of what could happen and what your options are." Jeff Ballinger covers education for The Tribune and can be reached at 781-7908 or jballinger@thetribunenews.com. Tribune reporter Nick Wilson contributed to this story. ***************************************************************** 20 Honolulu Advertiser: Bikini Atoll survivors to gather 51 years later Posted on: Saturday, February 12, 2005 Advertiser Staff Conferences in Honolulu and in Majuro, Marshall Islands, will commemorate the 51st anniversary of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Atoll, gatherings that will unite survivors of exposure to nuclear radiation. The conferences are set for Feb. 25 to March 1 in Majuro; and March 2 to 5 at Camp Pu'u Kahea in Wai'anae. Dr. Lyudmyla Porokhnyak, a survivor of the 1986 nuclear-reactor disaster at Chernobyl, will attend both conferences. She is medical director of the Ukrainian nonprofit organization Zhinocha Hromada (Women's Society). March 1 is the anniversary of the test of the "Bravo" bomb, delivering a force 1,000 times that of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It was the first of 67 tests that affected the Marshallese people. Deadline is Feb. 26 to register for the O'ahu conference; the $192 fee will cover room and board. Checks, made payable to the U.S.-Japan Committee for Racial Justice, should be mailed to: Julia Estrella, 631 Hausten St. No. 2, Honolulu, HI 96826. For registration information, call Julia Estrella, 941-0317. © COPYRIGHT 2004 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of ***************************************************************** 21 Paducah Sun: Nuclear workers fault report Paducah, Kentucky Several say the health report used to determine whether plant workers are compensated is flawed because it relies on data from DOE. By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8656 Friday, February 11, 2005 Nuclear workers and their advocates have attacked the credibility of a key document used to determine whether the workers are compensated for radiation-induced diseases at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The critics repeatedly drew applause from about 200 people — many of them current and retired plant employees — during a meeting Thursday at the Robert Cherry Civic Center. They were present to comment on a profile of radiation exposure at the sprawling 750-acre plant, which opened in 1952. Several who spoke said the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report is flawed because it relies heavily on exposure data, or lack of it, from the U.S. Department of Energy and its former contractors that ran the plant until six years ago. Lockheed Martin and predecessor firms that operated the uranium enrichment factory are defendants in a 1999 federal whistle-blower lawsuit accusing them of covering up worker exposures to obtain large performance fees from DOE. The defendants have denied wrongdoing, and the case has not gone to trial. In writing a section for the new NIOSH report on workers' internal radiation exposure, health physicist Carol Berger was "literally cutting and pasting" unreferenced data from a 35-year-old report, said Richard Miller, policy analyst for the Government Accountability Project, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group. Miller, former policy analyst for the plant nuclear workers' union, said the old document was done in 1972 for Lockheed Martin's predecessor, Martin Marietta Energy Systems. "Why are you using someone who's tainted by her own previous work?" Miller asked NIOSH officials. NIOSH health physicist Peter Darnell said the conflict of interest was discovered after much of the site-profile work had been done. He said the profile was done liberally to help workers with their claims by assuming maximum exposures well above those documented. Darnell said the document will reflect input from workers, which was the intent of the meeting. "We're trying our best," he said. "That's why we're here." Miller and Ron Fowler, a plant health physicist who helped file the whistle-blower suit, said DOE called the 1972 exposure report "incorrect, inaccurate and incomplete." They suggested NIOSH was underestimating workers' maximum potential exposure. "How many people doubt the validity of the monitoring that was done at that plant?" Miller asked the crowd. Many hands went up. He and Fowler produced several declassified plant memos from health physicists. One, in 1974, talked about an unknown number of worker radiation-monitoring badges being dumped into a landfill. Another, in 1972, expressed concerns about maximum potential radiation levels far above those mentioned in Berger's work. The area of high-exposure concern was a building called the C-410 "feed plant," where workers once combined uranium tetrafluoride, or green salt, with fluorine to create uranium hexafluoride. That product then was fed through the piping system during enrichment. Closed since 1976, the feed plant is identified in DOE reports as perhaps the plant´s most dangerous work area because some of the uranium was recycled from nuclear reactors and contained traces of highly radioactive plutonium and neptunium. Greg Lahndorff, 54, contracted skin cancer and serious thyroid problems after working in the feed plant, said his wife, Barbara Lahndorff. She called exposure profiling "a joke" and asked why the process was even necessary to compensate workers. "How can you define this as anything other than a human rights violation?" she said of workers being exposed without their knowledge. There are about 3,000 backlogged compensation claims from Paducah workers under a program formerly run by the Energy Department. Many workers have been waiting several years for individual exposure profiles to be done. NIOSH officials have not specified the backlog of Paducah profiles but said last month there were about 11,000 cases to be profiled nationwide, partly because NIOSH was understaffed in earlier years and has had trouble getting old DOE records. Although the agency has a process of reviewing claims based on changes in plant profiles, NIOSH officials at the Paducah meeting could not say how soon workers' comments would be addressed as part of profile here. They said the agency has had 30 similar meetings in the last nine months amid doing site profiles nationwide, but the Paducah gathering was the largest. ***************************************************************** 22 SignOnSanDiego.com: A lingering, toxic mess Radioactive pile remains threat near Colorado River By David Hasemyer UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER February 13, 2005 BRIAN CRAGIN / Union-Tribune A 130-acre pile of toxic waste sits 750 feet from the Colorado River near Moab, Utah. MOAB, Utah  Then-U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson thought he'd won a huge environmental victory in January 2000 when he stood by the banks of the Colorado River and announced that 10 million tons of radioactive waste nearby would be moved. "It's the right thing for the environment," he said, emphasizing that moving the pile was the only sure way to protect the river and the more than 20 million people in three states who depend on it for their water. Five years later, the pile remains intact, leaking 15,000 gallons of toxic chemicals into the river a day, according to the U.S Department of Energy. Federal officials say the discharge poses no immediate danger to drinking water because the toxicity is diluted over the river's meandering thousand-mile course south toward San Diego County, which gets two-thirds of its water from the Colorado. They also point out that cleanup efforts in recent years have slowed the seepage, which once was as high as 28,000 gallons a day. But five governors, plus environmentalists and water users, many of whom have worked for decades to get the pile moved and thought a deal had been struck to do so, are warning of a more serious danger: that a cataclysmic flood could wash the entire pile into the river. Graphic: Contamination in groundwater above city limits Graphic: Downstream cities rely on water "We worked hard to come up with a solution that would protect the environment and protect the water," Richardson, who is now governor of New Mexico, said in a recent interview. "It was a win-win situation then. Now it's being turned into a lose-lose situation." That position was supported in 2003 when a study commissioned by the state of Utah revealed that twice within the past 800 years floods have ripped through the river valley where the pile is. The force of the water was so violent, the report said, that if the 130-acre pile had been there, its toxic stew of chemicals  uranium, arsenic, radium-226 and other poisonous chemicals  would have been swept into the river all at once. An Energy Department report last fall reached similar conclusions. Richardson has been joined by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governors of Nevada and Arizona and former Utah Gov. Olene Walker in urging the Energy Department to move the pile. Walker drafted a letter five days before she left office Jan. 3 on behalf of the other governors, making their position unmistakable. "We want to make it clear that any remediation other than an off-site option is unacceptable," read the letter to the Department of Energy. Under legislation signed by former President Clinton, the Energy Department was directed to move the pile and clean up the groundwater. But under the Bush administration, the project has languished with minimal funding and little progress on developing a final plan. In November, the Energy Department was expected to announce whether it preferred to move the pile or leave it in place. Instead of taking a position, however, it offered up the same four scenarios that have been talked about for years. Two of those scenarios call for the pile to be dug up and buried in remote areas up to 30 miles from Moab, where there's no potential for groundwater contamination. The natural terrain in those sites, along with a synthetic liner, would capture leakage. A third option is to pipe the pile's contents  a gray crud with the consistency of toothpaste  85 miles to a commercial mill that disposes of radioactive materials. The fourth option would leave the pile in place and cover it with an impermeable clay material. Rocks and boulders would be added to prevent erosion by the river. The pile, which was created in the 1950s as a waste site for a mill that processed uranium ore for atomic weapons and nuclear reactors, is the largest radioactive dump remaining by the edge of a major river. Since the early 1980s, the Energy Department has moved 22 piles of uranium tailings across the country, saying it was better to relocate the toxic waste than jeopardize a water source. Those piles, which cost close to $2 billion to move, were smaller and less polluting than the pile near Moab. For years the uranium mill was the lifeblood of Moab, pumping millions of dollars into a tiny pioneer town in southeastern Utah that had subsisted on cattle ranching and peach orchards. Today the mill is gone, Moab is a resort city favored by outdoor enthusiasts, and the pile is ringed by a rusting chain link fence with "no trespassing" signs and warnings bearing the international symbol for radioactivity. The local economy now depends on the 2.5 million visitors who come each year to hike, raft or bike in the nearby Arches and Canyonlands national parks. In this jagged natural landscape that was the backdrop for many John Wayne westerns, the pile, a 90-foot-high dirt-sided structure sculpted  like a sand castle with a moist interior  into a hexagon, is conspicuous because of its perfect symmetry. The final decision on the pile probably will be made this year by an undersecretary in the Energy Department who is yet to be appointed as part of Bush's second-term administration. The public has until Friday to comment on the four scenarios for dealing with the waste. Energy Department officials say that by not making a recommendation, all the alternatives can be debated fully in the final week of the comment period. But those who've pushed to have the pile moved say they feel sandbagged by the department's decision not to weigh in. Bill Hedden, a leader in the fight to remove the pile, said the Energy Department's tactic is "subverting public participation" by preventing groups such as his from mounting a focused campaign before the final decision is made. "It'll be a done deal then and nobody will have a chance to say a thing," said Hedden, who is executive director of the environmental group Grand Canyon Trust. Hedden, Richardson and many others fear the Energy Department will choose the cheapest solution rather than one that will best protect the river for future generations. Recent estimates show it will cost $166 million to cap the pile in place, compared with at least $329 million to move the pile away from its spot 750 feet from the river's edge. Richardson said it would be "very narrow sighted" to take the cheaper route. "The decision will leave behind a legacy," said Richardson, who served as energy secretary from 1998 to 2001. "It can be one of responsible stewardship of the environment or one of irresponsible disregard. "The range of vision should be to the future and to protecting a valuable water supply, he said. "There are no arguments that can be persuasive enough to justify the contamination of the river. None." An environmental impact statement issued by the Energy Department in November compares the option of capping the pile in place with three alternatives that involve moving it. One section of the report concedes that the pile will be "a continuing source of contamination" if left in place. The report also estimates that as much as 80 percent of the pile could wash into the river during a severe flood. The consequences, according to the report, would be "serious adverse impacts" on plants and animals and on the health of people who live and work along the river. The report didn't address how such a disaster would affect the quality of the water that comes out of Southern California's faucets. Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah department of environmental quality, said common sense can answer that question. "What do you think 10 million tons of radioactive and poisonous waste would do to the water?" she said. "It would be bad. The only thing we don't know is just how bad." As the Energy Department ponders a final remedy, residents of the small town of Moab wonder how they can make outsiders understand the gravity of the situation in their back yard. Sue Belugamba, a former Colorado River guide who now works with the Nature Conservancy, stood on a red sandstone ledge one recent afternoon, looking out on the distant labyrinth of river canyons. "How can we not protect this precious river?" she said in a respectful whisper. Former Utah Gov. Walker was less introspective and more blunt. "We've sat back long enough on this issue," Walker said in an interview. "This pile has got to be moved. It's time to become accountable for our past and responsible for our future." David Hasemyer: (619) 542-4583; david.hasemyer@uniontrib.com © Copyright 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 23 Las Vegas RJ: Top Yucca manager Chu quits Saturday, February 12, 2005 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU Margaret Chu Leaving Yucca position she assumed in March 2002 WASHINGTON -- The government's top manager for the Yucca Mountain Project has submitted her resignation, the Department of Energy announced Friday. Margaret Chu resigned after almost three years as director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Her job was to prepare the Nevada site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas to become licensed for burial of the government's deadliest radioactive waste and for spent nuclear fuel generated by commercial power plants. Chu was credited for reorganizing the program and focusing on science and quality assurance after she took over in March 2002. But Yucca Mountain fell behind schedule for a 2010 opening after adverse legal rulings and budget problems in Congress during her tenure. Chu "was between a rock and a hard spot," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "She had the tough stuff, to comply with court rulings and deliver on time, and it can't be done." Chu's departure had been expected since Spencer Abraham resigned as DOE secretary in November. Her resignation is further evidence of turmoil within the Yucca program, according to Nevada leaders who contend that the repository is ill-conceived and will cause health and safety problems for the state. "Her legacy is she was in charge of a program that in the final analysis was missing major deadlines and did not make progress on any front," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency For Nuclear Projects. "I think they are in disarray, and this is another example," said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. Despite delays, Rod McCullum, a Nuclear Energy Institute senior project manager, said the Yucca project is in better shape now than before. Chu "put in place a team that functions very much like the management team of a successful commercial facility," McCullum said. "She leaves behind an organization that is highly capable and ready to move through the development process." Chu took over a month after President Bush formally selected Yucca Mountain as the site to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear material. She was previously a manager at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Energy Department's nuclear waste disposal site in New Mexico. Chu could not be reached for comment, but in a statement put out by DOE, she said she was "proud to have been part of this administration and of making critical progress with Yucca Mountain." The statement said Chu was returning to New Mexico because of "personal circumstances." Her resignation would be effective "on or about Feb. 25," it said. Pressed by members of Congress concerned about delays, new Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said this week that he would take an active role in overseeing the Yucca program. "Obviously, there are a lot of people who are proponents of Yucca Mountain that are upset at the ways that things are going," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Alex Flint, staff director for the Senate Energy Committee, told nuclear industry executives at a Jan. 26 conference that it would be difficult for the Bush administration to fill such a Yucca vacancy with a replacement who is capable and could pass Senate confirmation. "Only the ones that are viewed as nonthreatening by the Nevada delegation will be confirmable," Flint said. "I would not have admitted that, but it's good that they are thinking that way," Ensign said in response. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, "As with any nominee, I will take a close look at the background and experience of whoever is nominated and ask some very tough questions before I make any decision." Reid said it might make little difference who runs the repository project. "President Bush has made dumping nuclear waste on Nevada a top priority, and any replacement for Dr. Chu will have those same marching orders," he said. According to industry sources, possible candidates include Eric Knox, a DOE senior policy adviser; Inez Triay, acting manager of the department's field office in Carlsbad, N.M.; and William Derrickson, chairman of IBEX Group, a Florida-based nuclear services company. Ted Garrish, the Yucca project's deputy director, also is a possibility for the post, or to serve as interim director, sources said. Garrish is former DOE assistant secretary for nuclear energy and was a vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a leading trade group. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he hoped Chu's resignation "is an indication the wheels are coming off that program." Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 24 Independent: BNFL in talks with Washington for new $500m nuclear reactor independent.co.uk Kyoto kickstarts revival in nuclear reactors By Tim Webb 13 February 2005 BNFL is in talks with the US Department of Energy about leading a consortium to build a $500m (£267m) nuclear reactor at its research centre in Idaho. Westinghouse, BNFL's US-based technology and services arm, has been holding preliminary talks with the Americans about building a high- temperature, gas-cooled reactor. No official contract to build the reactor has been tendered, but it is expected this will happen later this year. BNFL is proposing to use the same Westinghouse-led consortium which is building a new generation of reactors in South Africa. The operator of the Sellafield reprocessing site in the UK is a big shareholder in the South African consortium, PBMR, which will build 10 new "pebble bed" reactors, costing around $170m each. The news comes as Westinghouse moves closer to bidding for the largest nuclear construction contract in history. China wants to build at least 30 large nuclear reactors, at an estimated cost of $1bn each. It will offer the Chinese its AP1000 reactor model, which was recently licensed in the US. It is in competition with the French state- owned group Areva. If Westinghouse wins both contracts, BNFL is expected to speed up plans to sell the subsidiary. Westinghouse already operates independently to make a demerger easier. Washington resolved a long-standing dispute between the Department of Energy and BNFL last week. It agreed to pay BNFL around $500m to cover losses on nuclear clean-up contracts in Tennessee and Idaho which BNFL signed without doing proper due diligence. The contracts cost much more than it anticipated. Even with the pay- out, BNFL's net loss on the contracts is expected to be $1bn. The deal was brokered by Patricia Hewitt. The Trade and Industry Secretary is also involved in discussions to sell BNFL's main operating subsidiary, British Nuclear Group (BNG), which would be tantamount to a break-up of the group. It is understood that the Government has approached US companies Bechtel and Lockheed Martin about the possible sale. The Government had planned to part-privatise BNFL but scrapped the idea two years ago. The financial collapse of nuclear generator British Energy made raising finance in the City impossible while uncertainty over who will meet clean-up liabilities - and over future government energy policy - continues. BNFL's nuclear liabilities - which include the troubled Sellafield plant - will be transferred in April to a Government agency, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). This will leave BNG free of liabilities and in a position to bid for clean-up contracts from the NDA. ©2005 Independent News &Media (UK) Ltd. ***************************************************************** 25 Florida Sun-Sentinel: FIU repays $11M for federal grant accounting trouble - South [Sun-Sentinel.com] The Associated Press Posted February 12 2005, 2:57 PM EST MIAMI -- Florida International University has agreed to repay $11.5 million in Energy Department grants for nuclear and toxic waste cleanup research to settle questions about accounting errors. Federal auditors have reviewed $50 million in grants to the public university's Hemispheric Center for Environmental Technology from 1995 to 2003 and delayed $7 million in fresh grant money last March. School trustees voted unanimously for the settlement Thursday and plan to pay it with borrowing. The university blamed the problem on poorly maintained records and ``other accounting and related compliance issues'' and said it has made changes to avoid a recurrence. Several administrators have been reassigned, including the center's founding director, M. Ali Ebadian, and a new research vice president and financial officer have been hired. Many school researchers had worried that the center's problems would hamper their ability to get new federal grants, said faculty senate chairman Bruce Hauptli. hereor call 1-877-READ-SUN. Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 26 DenverPost.com: Ranchers fear waste fallout Article Published: Sunday, February 13, 2005 Landfill seeks permission from state to take low-level radioactive material By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer Post / RJ Sangosti Cattle rancher Pam Whelden and others who live near the hazardous-waste landfill on U.S. 36 oppose the request by Clean Harbors Inc. They are wary of radioactive waste seeping into groundwater. Last Chance - A Massachusetts company has asked for state approval to dump low-level radioactive waste in Colorado's only hazardous-waste landfill, worrying ranchers in rural Adams County that more toxic trash is on its way. If state environmental regulators approve plans recently submitted by Clean Harbors Inc., its U.S. 36 hazardous-waste landfill will become the first in Colorado licensed to accept low-level radioactive waste for disposal. "What's next? Waste from the Manhattan Project?" asked Pam Whelden, a cattle rancher who lives about a mile from the facility. "That's really what we're talking about - opening the doors for more to come." Residents near Last Chance worry that the waste will seep out of the dump and wind up in wells that water their livestock and irrigate their crops. They also dread having to renew the bitter battle that preceded state approval to open the only hazardous waste dump in Colorado two decades ago. Company officials have assured community members that they have no intention of accepting waste with the levels of radioactivity often seen at Rocky Flats and other former nuclear weapons plants. In fact, they're willing to put that pledge in writing, said Phillip Retallick, Clean Harbors senior vice president for compliance and regulatory affairs. "We want the community to know that we have no interest in accepting the kind of waste that would be regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Retallick said. "Even by state statute, what we're talking about doesn't meet the legal definition of low-level radioactive waste." State environmental regulators expect to decide by early summer whether to grant the license. If granted, it would allow only the kind of waste spelled out in Clean Harbors' application. That waste is called Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials, or NORM, and Technologically Enhance, Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials, or TENORM. Naturally occurring radioactive materials can be found almost everywhere - in some rocks, water, food and even in the bodies of some people. Similarly, TENORM waste is produced with human activities such as uranium mining, oil and gas production, or sewage treatment that concentrates radionuclides naturally occurring in ores, soils and water. While the license would allow Clean Harbors to accept waste from several industries, Retallick said the company will probably target water utilities. He explained that new federal drinking-water regulations will require utilities to filter out even lower levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials, creating larger volumes of sludge. That sludge - much of which contains TENORM - will have to be dumped somewhere. Post / RJ Sangosti Clean Harbors Inc., which operates the landfill has assured residents that it has no intention of accepting waste with the levels of radioactivity often seen at Rocky Flats and other former nuclear weapons plants. State environmental regulators said the disposal of TENORM waste in Colorado is allowed on a case-by-case basis in commercial landfills scattered throughout the state. For example, more than 400 tons of low-level radioactive sludge from the Cañon City water-treatment plant has been dumped at nearby Phantom Canyon landfill in recent years. Denver Water generates about 18,000 tons of sludge a year - much of which would be considered TENORM. It's currently dumped at facilities in Douglas and Jefferson counties. While drinking-water sludge may sound relatively benign, the property owners near Last Chance still don't want it entombed at the landfill. Gerald Schreiber, a Woodrow cattle rancher, said water is so sparse in the area that any contamination escaping the landfill would devastate farmers. In the early 1980s, many northeast Colorado residents vehemently opposed plans to build the 345-acre landfill. They raised more than a quarter of a million dollars and retained an attorney, but ultimately lost. The landfill began accepting waste in 1987. Since then, the facility has been bought and sold several times. Previous owners were sanctioned by health officials for several violations, including failing to report a fire and accepting unapproved waste. Massachusetts-based Clean Harbors purchased the facility in 2002 and has been accepting only a small amount of waste so far. If the state environmental regulators approve the license, the company will begin accepting the NORM and TENORM waste immediately without making any major modifications to the facility. Whelden said he doesn't understand why the waste can't stay in the communities where it's generated. "The one thing that irks me the most is hearing folks from larger cities scream 'Not in my backyard,"' Whelden said. "Well, this is my backyard. Take a look at it. Is my family any less important than yours?" Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com. All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 27 Bradenton Herald: More tests are positive in Tallevast | 02/13/2005 | DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer Seven out of 241 people screened in a county-funded program have tested positive for beryllium sensitivity, according to new findings. The results announced by Dr. Gladys Branic of the Manatee County Health department stunned Dr. Laurence Fuortes of the University of Iowa, who said the results indicate Tallevast residents and workers' families were exposed to beryllium dust from a former plant there. "These results are going to force the hand of federal agencies to look into community exposure," said Fuortes, a medical doctor who specialized in the treatment of beryllium disease. "Seven out of 241 is about 3 percent. That's a high rate." Six former Loral American Beryllium Co. employees who paid for their own tests also tested positive, according to a Jan. 11 report from Ray Stephens, a former union negotiator at the Tallevast plant. That brings the total number of known positive tests to 13. The results reported this weekend are from the final phase of the county-funded testing program. In December, county commissioners allocated $60,000 to pay for 250 beryllium blood tests for former Loral American Beryllium co-workers and their family members who live in Manatee County, and Tallevast residents who live within a quarter of a mile of the now-defunct plant. Fuortes described the county screening as a "wonderful public health project" bound to draw nationwide attention to the question of community exposure. Fuortes said "factory poisons do not stop at the factory gates." Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS, a group representing Tallevast residents, remembers how much dust blew around the plant. She saw the dust her relatives tracked home after work. Washington also knows that it take up to 30 years for beryllium sensitivity to occur after exposure, according to the experts at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, who analyzed some of the blood tests paid for by the county. "Time is a factor," predicted Washington. "More and more community members and family members are going to show up positive in years to come. If these tests had been done last year, some of these positives may not have shown up then, but they do now." The most recent results, Fuortes said, call into question warnings from one of the world's largest beryllium producers that the county-funded medical screening program was ill-advised. When the county screening program was first proposed last year, Marc Kolanz, vice president of environmental health and safety for Brush Wellman Engineered Materials in Cleveland, warned county commissioners that even in an unexposed population, 1 percent of participants would test positive. Kolanz said that even one positive test result would "heighten uncertainty and anxiety, as well as depress property values, to no one's benefit." Fuortes disagrees. "Even using Brush Wellman's own unpublished data of 1 percent in unexposed population - which I do not accept - these results are higher than averages found in exposed populations," Fuortes said. "This shows that this community was sensitized by living in proximity to this plant." Four of the seven positives in the county program were nonworkers - meaning they were either family members of workers or they lived in the same household as the worker during his or her time of employment, Branic said. Not all of the four nonworkers live in Tallevast, Branic added, but all of them did have a direct connection to the plant. Branic spoke personally with everyone who tested positive. Those notifications will be backed by certified letters to all screening participants, including those who tested negative, she said. Health department staff members will send out the letters Monday. The latest test data from blood drawn Jan. 19 and 26 include three borderline results and one uninterpretable result, meaning that it was neither positive or negative, Branic said. All those who tested positive, borderline or uninterpretable will be retested in a federally funded screening program expected to begin in March, Branic said. The three people who tested positive during the first round of tests Dec. 16 were retested in January and remain positive, Branic added. Those first three positives from December were counted just once in the seven total positive tests, she said. The county also reimbursed nine former workers residing in Manatee County who were previously tested before at their own expense, bringing the total number of people screened to 250, Branic said. She urged caution in interpreting positive test results. "A positive test result just means someone has been sensitized to beryllium," Branic said. "It does not mean they have chronic beryllium disease." Beryllium sensitivity is the forerunner of chronic beryllium disease, a severe and sometimes fatal lung condition that occurs in some people after beryllium exposure. "It is possible for a person to test positive on the first test and negative on the second," Branic said. She stressed that two positive test results are necessary for a diagnosis of beryllium sensitivity. Former workers who test positive may be eligible for medical benefits and possible compensation through a federal program to aid former atomic weapons workers. American Beryllium employees machined the toxic metal to make parts for atomic weapons, missile guidance systems and the Hubble telescope over the past four decades. The National Jewish Center reports that up to 16 percent of machinists working with beryllium develop a sensitivity after exposure. The American Beryllium plant was sold to Lockheed Martin in 1996. A plume of toxic underground pollution was found leaking from the plant in 2000. Three years passed before residents of the historic Tallevast community knew of the poisons in their backyards. They are now pursuing legal action. Lockheed eventually sold the plant to Wire Pro International, the current owners, but the defense giant has accepted liability for the toxic spill since it own the plant when the pollution was found. Tests to determine the extent of the plume are ongoing. ***************************************************************** 28 Tri-City Herald: Tank ruptures, spills chemical in Richland This story was published Sunday, February 13th, 2005 By Melissa Hoyos and Annette Cary, Herald staff writers Richland police blocked off parts of Battelle Boulevard in north Richland Saturday after about 300 gallons of nitric acid leaked from a tank inside a small building belonging to a company that treats low-level radioactive waste. The acid, stored at Pacific EcoSolutions (PEcoS) had been used in test operations to clean resins associated with nuclear operations and was slightly radioactive. A member of the Tri-County Hazardous Materials Team got a small amount of radioactive contamination on his boot, but there were no injuries or direct exposure to the chemical or radioactive contamination, said Keith Ramsay, Richland Fire Department deputy marshal. The spill was detected at 7:30 a.m. by PEcoS employees making routine rounds. They started procedures for containing the spill, said Lori Ramonas, Nuvotec vice president for strategic communications. PEcoS is a subsidiary of Nuvotec. People working across the street from PEcoS called police about an hour later after seeing a yellowish-orange cloud coming from the small storage shed, Ramsay said. Emergency crews arrived to find four employees in protective suits trying to clean up the spill, but quickly evacuated them from the 45-acre facility. A piece of equipment from a pilot plant to treat resins ruptured, causing the spill. The plant had been a project of the past owner, the bankrupt Allied Technology Group, and had never been operated by PEcoS. It is decommissioning the plant. By 2 p.m., the Tri-County Hazardous Materials Team -- a group of Mid-Columbia emergency response agencies-- had cleaned up all of the acid, including a small amount that had spilled outside of the shed onto dirt and gravel, Ramsay said. The team set up a command post in a parking lot near the plant. Emergency crews used an absorbent material to contain the acid until it could be properly disposed of. Richland Fire Chief Grant Baynes said crews were able to keep acid fumes mostly within the shed partly because of low-wind speeds around the area. "The danger would be a major leak into the air," Baynes said. Radioactive particles would not have become airborne in the nitrogen oxides that formed the plume, Ramonas said. The Washington State Department of Ecology was called to investigate the accident and the state Department of Health also was notified. PEcoS shut down processing operations during the incident. Normal PEcoS operations are expected to resume today.The pilot plant is in an isolated area of the PEcoS facility. PEcoS uses a thermal system to treat low-level radioactive waste and similar waste mixed with hazardous chemicals. The low-level radioactive waste facility covers about 13 acres and can treat more than 8 million pounds of solid, liquid and wet waste annually. The mixed radioactive and hazardous waste treatment facility occupies 5 acres and has a permit for the treatment of the highly regulated wastes at a capacity of approximately 21 million pounds of waste annually. © 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 29 C Enquirer: Cleanup at Fernald faulted Saturday, February 12, 2005 Contractor failed safety tests, agency says By Dan Klepal Enquirer staff writer CROSBY TWP. - The federal government's top watchdog of nuclear cleanups says the contractor in charge of the $4.4 billion cleanup at Fernald has repeatedly failed tests meant to show workers can safely remove the most dangerous radioactive material stored in three concrete silos at the Cold War-era uranium plant. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, created by Congress in 1988 to oversee the country's nuclear weapons complexes, also said Fluor Fernald is using the tests improperly - to find and fix problems rather than a demonstration that there are no problems. The most recent failure caused Fluor to shut down the test last week so it could further train workers. The test was to demonstrate that computer operators know how to remove radioactive sludge from storage tanks, mix it with cement and package it for shipment for burial. John T. Conway, chairman of the nuclear safety board, said his agency will meet with Fluor management next week to discuss the boards' concerns. "The problem is that these tests are not a management tool to learn how to get ready," Conway said. "They're meant to be a demonstration that management is ready. (Failure is) an indication that management has not done its job." Two previous tests on different aspects ofcleanup were also fraught with problems. A recent safety board letter to Department of Energy officials at Fernald says the board is unhappy the contractor hasn't learned from past mistakes. "The Board is troubled by the repeated lack of readiness on the part of the Fluor Fernald line organization and the apparent failure of earlier corrective actions to address this problem," said the Feb. 2 letter. Conway said he expects Energy officials to hold the failed tests against Fluor when it comes time for bonuses. Fluor officials said they have operated safely in cleaning up the silos waste, even if trial runs have been less than perfect. "The bottom line is I'm not going to start a facility unless I know it's safe to operate," said Dennis Carr, the project manger. "I believe we've effectively demonstrated that we do safely operate." ***************************************************************** 30 Idaho Statesman: Contractor finished some cleanup work ahead of forecast 2,600 Bechtel BWXT workers at Idaho National Laboratory to get bonuses Edition Date: 02-12-2005 The Associated Press IDAHO FALLS  A contractor in charge of cleanup work at the Idaho National Laboratory plans to share a third of the bonuses it received from the U.S. Department of Energy with employees for completing some work ahead of schedule. The bonuses for 2,600 employees of Bechtel BWXT Idaho will range from $1,200 to $2,500. They helped the company finish work by the end of January, earlier than forecast. Some of the work for which the bonuses were awarded came from decontaminating and demolishing buildings across the site, digging up contaminated dirt, moving spent nuclear fuel into storage and shipping nuclear and hazardous materials off-site. It's the first time a contractor at the Idaho site has shared its profits directly with employees, said a spokeswoman for the Idaho Completion Project, the name of the cleanup project that's due to be largely complete by 2012. "We recognize that they are part of our success," said Frank Russo, deputy project manager for cleanup work at the Idaho site. We couldn't make a profit without their taking ownership of the work." Russo said managers get more money because they could influence more people and increase productivity. The workers are still waiting to see who wins the new cleanup contract at the site, which will be announced March 15 and begins May 1. Bechtel BWXT Idaho is still in the running for the bid. It's up against one consortium made up of companies including BNFL Inc., and another that consists of engineering firms CH2M Hill and Washington Group International. ***************************************************************** 31 Oakland Tribune: Los Alamos lab's staff vent on blog Article Last Updated: 02/13/2005 11:07:03 AM UC-run institution is targeted on the Web By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER The home of Douglas Roberts is a noisy island in the desert quiet of Nambe, N.M., filled as it is with 14 parrots that Roberts and his wife, Ingrun, have adopted from families who tired of the birds' chatter. But it's a tranquil place next to Roberts' home on the Internet, a one-of-a-kind Weblog where outsiders can catch the water-cooler talk inside a secret, federal nuclear-weapons laboratory. Judging by postings to Roberts' blog, lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com, life at Los Alamos National Laboratory these days is anxiety-ridden, the atmosphere poisonous, the staff verging on mutiny. "That would not be inaccurate if you had to describe Los Alamos today," Roberts said. He's become the unlikely conduit for a surging, Internet-powered opposition to seniormanagement at the laboratory, operated by the University of California since 1943. On any given day, the blog features lab staffers, named and anonymous, railing at Los Alamos director George "Pete" Nanos and demanding his resignation. Lab public relations officials say Roberts' blog is the latest refuge of "the same, small but highly vocal (group of) people who have always been there" criticizing lab managers, as spokesman Kevin Roark puts it. But lab scientists say dissatisfaction with senior management runs wide at Los Alamos and that morale is worse even than in 1999, when some in Congress cast Los Alamos as an open vault for Chinese nuclear spies and an out-of-control forest fire left hundreds homeless. For his part, Roberts was happily, even blissfully, employed at Los Alamos, like his father before him. For 20 years, he found the work rewarding and respected his superiors all the way up to the lab director, who used to know staff scientists by name and drop by to talk about their work. Roberts doesn't handle government secrets. He builds computer simulations of living cities. Think SimCity, the computer game where players create a metropolis and, if desired, inflict disasters upon it. But Roberts' cities are more or less real. Everyone who lives in Dallas, Portland, Chicago and soon Los Angeles has a digital twin inside a computer at Los Alamos. These simulated people create traffic jams, they get sick, they pollute, they have real urban problems. Will a dollar spent on mass transit or highways buy less traffic congestion and smog? City planners come to Roberts and colleagues to find out. Their latest is EpiSIMS, a disease model woven into a moving city. The common flu or a bioterror attack spreads as easily as someone getting on a crowded bus. Over the course of 15 years those projects brought $100 million from government agencies into lab coffers. Suddenly that work is drying up. Not long after being tapped to shape up Los Alamos, retired Vice Admiral Pete Nanos was hit with reports of missing classified information and a laser accident that nearly cost an intern's eyesight. The admiral ordered an indefinite labwide shutdown and thundered at the lab's scientists, calling them "cowboys" and "buttheads" and suggesting they had an overly high opinion of themselves. Los Alamosans split over Nanos' speech. Many judged it a much-needed wake-up call. Others recoiled in apprehension and horror. After months of shutdown, one of Roberts' teammates gave up on Los Alamos and left, taking with him a five-year, $3 million flu simulation project for the National Institutes of Health. Roberts and his remaining colleagues were told the agency no longer was confident that Los Alamos could meet its deadlines. Alarmed, Roberts and others tried airing their gripes in the lab's online newsletter. But few of their complaints were published. The lab's Readers' Forum had dried up. Lab editors delayed some letters for up to a month-and-a-half and rejected others as "mean-spirited" or "incendiary." "You can't call people 'idiot' or 'liar,'" Roark said. "Some of it bordered on libel." Now those missives appear on the Internet. LANL: The Real Story went hot last month as a blog devoted to the unvarnished frustrations of scientists in the nation's oldest nuclear weapons lab. "My attempt has been to try to provide a truly unbiased, uncensored blog for people at the lab to express themselves," Roberts said. "If Pete Nanos himself were to send a post to the blog I would have it up within 39 seconds." People do defend the University of California and lab executives on Roberts' blog, but more often it's a place where the rank and file of the military-industrial complex go after the higher ups. Now that federal weapons officials have admitted that no classified information was lost, one departing staffer is using the blog to circulate a petition calling on UC president Robert Dynes and U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks to fire Nanos immediately. Other lab scientists have waded in with detailed analyses and defenses of Los Alamos' security and safety record. The latest data, for example, shows that Los Alamos' sister lab, Lawrence Livermore, actually had more serious security violations in 2004. According to recent postings, virtually everything that people used to love about Los Alamos has gone down the drain: Formerly venerated management by the University of California is now "invertebrate," if not "complicit in trying to dismantle the lab." Lab director Nanos is dishonest, tyrannical, the "most highly placed double dipper" at Los Alamos or "the inside saboteur for who-knows-whom." "I fear (the laboratory) is in a death spiral from which it may not recover for years, if ever," wrote one scientist. "I'd rather not be there at the bottom. As I told my group leader, I'd rather work at Wendy's." With morale sagging fast, Roberts' page hits are soaring. They're at 3,000 page views a day and rising. In physics lingo, the blog's gone asymptotic, varying inversely with LANL's fortunes. Roberts' wife, Ingrun, worries that his job security could vary inversely with the blog's popularity. "It's been an interesting ride, I tell you that," Roberts said. There's no telling whether the blog will survive Los Alamos' current management or vice versa, but Roberts doesn't want to quit the field until the lab is back to being the place he once knew. "I think there has been some damage done, and I'm worried about the institution," he said. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. The Oakland Tribune| Alameda Times-Star| The Argus| © 2005 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 32 The New Mexican: Learning lessons from LANL Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:38 am eNewMexican Although it appears no weapons designs have fallen into enemy hands in recent years, the federal government remains deeply concerned by failures in security management at Los Alamos National Laboratory. A senior official with the National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington, D.C., which oversees security at the lab, admitted last week that the agency hasn't been doing its job there. Bill Desmond, acting associate administrator for defense nuclear security, said neither NNSA nor the lab was aware of the extent to which lab employees disregarded security procedures until two classified computer disks were thought to be missing this summer. An inventory showed that large amounts of top-secret material -- besides the pair of disks -- were not properly tracked. Desmond took personal responsibility for the fact the agency did not know the lab lacked effective procedures to protect classified material. In an interview, he said NNSA's Los Alamos office "didn't have the people (in both numbers and expertise) to look at incidents in the detail that we think incidents should be reviewed at the site office." NNSA, a semiautonomous agency in the U.S. Department of Energy, was created in 2000 after the Wen Ho Lee nuclear-secrets scandal to try to reduce security lapses at the nation's nuclear-weapons laboratories. A search for the missing disks exposed the deficiencies in the security procedures and led to an unprecedented, six-month stand down at the facility that cost taxpayers approximately $1 billion. All employees set aside normal work, for weeks or months, to focus on safety and security matters. The investigation, which recently concluded the missing disks never existed, disclosed that NNSA, the University of California, DOE and other agencies had substantial evidence Los Alamos was having trouble following safety and security procedures prior to the missing-disk incident. According to the report: " In the first six months of 2004, top-secret data was transmitted via e-mail 18 times at LANL, more than the three other labs combined. " The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a federally funded group that tracks problems on a weekly basis, notified DOE and LANL that 32 percent of all nuclear-safety complaints filed between 2002 and 2004 concerned Los Alamos. " The fines levied by the federal government against the lab were four times the total assessed against all other NNSA facilities. " Los Alamos' combined injury and near-miss rate exceeded that of the other three labs, although the difference might be related to the greater complexity of operations at LANL. Further evidence of security breakdowns emerged from a report on violations over three years at the nation's four nuclear-weapons labs prepared at the request of The New Mexican. It revealed 74 violations considered to potentially pose the most serious threats to national security. Of those, 35 took place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; 22 at Los Alamos. But few of these lapses resulted in top-secret information getting to an unauthorized person. In many instances, the violations are as simple as a guard falling asleep, a vault left unlocked overnight or a visitor bringing a camera into a restricted area. In 10 cases, however, secret information was disclosed, but all were low-impact and occurred inside a DOE institution, according to NNSA. A typical example would be an instance when a lab secretary, who does not hold a security clearance, inadvertently sees top-secret information. Of the four facilities, only Sandia's two labs in Albuquerque and Livermore, Calif., listed the number of times classified information got to unauthorized people. On Friday, NNSA said that, over the three years, there were four disclosures of classified information at both Los Alamos and at Lawrence Livermore. Another 60 incidents of all types are still under investigation, but none of those is believed to be serious. When lab workers, after-hours security forces, the NNSA site office or others suspect classified material has been compromised, the facility where the lapse occurred has 24 hours to categorize the incident according to level of threat and report the three most serious levels to the NNSA. Other layers of protection usually keep security lapses from becoming a dangerous affair, said Ron Detry, chief security officer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. It's like in your home, he said. If you forget to lock the door, you might have other defenses in place: a locked gate and a guard dog, for instance. "NNSA is concerned whenever there is a security incident," said Desmond of the NNSA. "However, we have a process in place -- the incident-reporting process -- which allows us, our site offices, our contractors to address each and every security incident. And we're satisfied the process works reasonably well. We don't establish a goal because any incident is not acceptable." But NNSA said it has learned a lesson -- it will no longer rely on documents to gauge the work of site offices scattered across the country. It has relied on each lab's self-assessment, each site office's annual security survey of its lab and on visits every two years from Energy Department investigators. This year, Desmond plans to organize a group to review, in person, whether the site offices around the country are carrying out their responsibilities, he said. Meanwhile, security specialists are gradually being added to Los Alamos' site office. Although Desmond is concerned Los Alamos' site office hasn't been aggressive enough in tracking security at the lab, he believes, in general, that the agency's larger program is a good one. The lab and the site office declined comment for this story. ! Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican Comments By Chris Mechels (Submitted: 02/13/2005 11:28 am ) This is an area were major reform is needed within the DOE complex. A task force chartered by DOE Secretary O'Leary (early 90s) found that far too much information was classified, and that within this huge amount of information the really important stuff was not getting the protection it deserved. She was right. However, her new direction was opposed, by LANL and others, and the problems remain. We are spending huge amounts of money on classified rubbish and doing a poor job protecting the important secrets. LANL is especially bad in this area. They have done a lot of "convenient" classification, where important data is "down classified" for easier handling. In the Wen Ho Lee case and the "hard drive" case "SRD" data was being handled at lower classification levels, for ease of handling. This was criminal, but the managers responsible were never punished. These included Dr. Steve Younger, who was promoted to higher posts. Having avoided punishment for their criminal handling of secure data, LANL management has continued to treat security matters as a nuisance, and the problems continued, until today. LANL's history in this area leaves little hope that the problems have been fixed. Policy | ©2005, Santa Fe New Mexican, all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 The New Mexican: Keeping secrets safe: Is NNSA fulfilling its mission? Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:38 am U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, who fought five years ago for the creation of an agency to protect America's nuclear secrets, now says it should be abolished if it can't do a better job. In an interview last week, the New Mexico Republican said: "Frankly, I've implied that if they can't shape it up and show that they're doing it right, that maybe they shouldn't exist. That'll be a big shock to read, but that's what I told them." The National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency within the Department of Energy, was launched in 2000 to correct long-standing management and security problems at nuclear facilities that came to light when classified computer hard drives disappeared and Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was charged with 59 counts of mishandling nuclear secrets. Today, with a budget of $700 million plus funding for remote offices, NNSA oversees 11 nuclear-weapons labs and factories. "There's no question that what we considered to be the things that NNSA should do -- how they should do it, what management scheme they should set up, the kind of personnel slots they should fill -- in our opinion are far less than the law expected," the senator said. But Bill Desmond, acting associate administrator for defense nuclear security, said his agency overall has an outstanding and robust security program, although there have been ongoing problems at the site office in Los Alamos. "The NNSA has the best security program in the United States government," he said. And when NNSA makes mistakes, "we don't cover it up." Desmond admitted NNSA can always do better. But he emphasized: "We have not lost any nuclear weapons. There have been no attacks on our facilities." Almost since it began, NNSA has had a troubled existence. Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson didn't want it. And U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., feared the agency would make the weapons labs less attractive for science not related to defense. By 2003, criticism had mounted. The General Accounting Office, a government investigation agency, said management problems at NNSA had slowed the improvement of security at nuclear-weapons labs. "The labs must be like a candy store with the front door left wide open and nobody at the register," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, was quoted as saying. Last week, Bingaman said he doesn't know whether NNSA has helped resolve security issues at the labs. "Obviously, there have continued to be problems with security at our national labs," Bingaman said. "Whether those are any less significant than they otherwise would have been, I don't know." z There's no good way to measure that, he said. Meanwhile, Domenici is upset that NNSA has slashed funding for the University of California, which operates the Los Alamos lab for the government. Domenici thinks the university and the lab are not totally responsible for the problems. "Maybe NNSA ought to investigate its own performance, because it could very well be that they haven't done as good a job as they should, but they don't get any fees, so we couldn't cut their fees," he said. Jay Coghlan, head of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, a nonprofit group seeking the contract to run LANL, offered a contrary view. "Over the last three years, the two nuclear-weapons labs run by the University of California have had a higher percentage of serious security infractions than Sandia. Given that, the NNSA should be biased against continuing lab management by UC," Coghlan said. "As to the NNSA," he added, "it was established largely to address security concerns, yet the number of incidents keeps growing under its watch. Congress should hold the NNSA more accountable in nuclear-security matters as that is where the buck really needs to stop." NNSA isn't the only agency responsible for security oversight at the labs. The General Accounting Office, the Office of the Inspector General and a group of Energy Department inspectors also review security issues. ! Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican Comments By Chris Mechels (Submitted: 02/13/2005 11:46 am ) Now this is a real laugh! Senator Domenici flogging the NNSA, which was created, over Richardson's objections. A big part of the ongoing problems at LANL is that Pete won't keep his bloody hands off. Every time someone tries to "shape up" LANL with a bit of criticism or discipline, LANL screams to Pete and he threatens the DOE. This creates an impossible situation, which Pete is responsible for. If he wants to see the "real problem" at LANL he need only look in the mirror. Sometimes I wonder about his sanity. The NNSA was created, with LANL support, not to have better oversight, but to shield LANL from oversight. The NNSA was also more vulnerable to Domenici's meddling. It has worked; LANL oversight is rotten, the worst in the DOE complex. Nice going Pete!! To fix this mess, two steps are necessary; chop the phone lines between Pete and the DOE; and get rid of the University of California and their (mis)management. Pete won't go for either of these ideas; so I guess that means we have to fire Pete. He's a big part of the problem, though he blames everyone else. Fire Pete!! By Paul Henrickson (Submitted: 02/13/2005 8:22 am ) I would suppose, Senator Domenici, that you had in mind not to do away with security as such, but simply with those presently in charge of it. That would be my reasonable understanding. I believe I would agree. I would also apply this principle to your office. When twenty years ago over your signature I was told that because there existed some pique over my alleged (not specified) behavior I would not be allowed to meet you in your office to discuss events in Norway. Events I had created but into which you had inserted yourself (uninvited) through the services of your Director of Correspondence, Benedicta Valentina Carnie, who was later promoted to House Keeper at Blair House. I had been involved in highly successful international cultural exchanges in the past (1954 onward) without the assistance of people in positions such as yours. My allowing you to be a part of this project was out of politeness and nothing more. Your inappropriate response to me refleted who you are. I had wanted to inform you while you were here in Santa Fe otensibly available to local constituents but was rudely rebuffed. One of your agents a Mr. Gonzalez, I believe, when I discussed his matter with him was entirely sympathetic and advised me that probably you had never seen the letter beneath which your signature appeared. My comment to this gentleman was "then what is the Senator there for?" In the light of these currently published comments I ask the question again. Even you, perhaps, can undertand how I might feel disenfranchised of my rights as a citizen of the United States to confront one posing as my representative. When I discussed aspects of this cultural exchange with the United States Embassy in Oslo I was told that they would have helped me without the "contribution of the Senator." Answer me now on this matter, I dare you. Paul Henrickson Privacy Policy | ©2005, Santa Fe New Mexican, all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 New Depleted Uranium Video Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 02:22:10 -0600 (CST) Forwarded with Compliments of Free Voice of America (FVOA): Accurate News and interesting Commentary for Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free. From: d_kyne@hotmail.com Subject: depleted uranium video Date: February 12, 2005 5:05:10 PM GMT+07:00 Hello This is my latest video addressing Depleted Uranium it runs approximately 12 minutes http://homepage.mac.com/dkyne It is free to view, and pass along it is for educational purposes, and the producers have decided to gift it to the world please let me know what you think http://homepage.mac.com/dkyne peace dennis www.denniskyne.com Support the Truth ***************************************************************** 35 Online Citizen Services: Industrial ghosts PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD Annual civilian payroll: $318.3 million Employees: 4,803 (2,771 in Maine, 1,878 in New Hampshire) Purchased goods and services: $49.5 million ($30.7 million went to New England states, $2.3 million to Maine) Source: Seacoast Shipyard Association BRUNSWICK NAVAL AIR STATION Annual payroll: $147 million Employees: 5,227 4,410 military personnel paid $124.9 million 817 civilians paid $22 million Naval Air Reserve personnel on base paid more than $21 million Regional economic impact: $333.6 million Source: Report to Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, 2004 BATH IRON WORKS Annual payroll: $300 millionn Employees: 6,200 Spends $40 million yearly with 470 suppliers throughout Maine. Taxes: BIW pays Bath $4.4 million; it pays Brunswick, where it has several facilities, about $708,000. State corporate and personal income tax figures are not public. Sources: BIW, towns of Bath, Brunswick Industrial ghosts dot Maine: Textile mills shuttered long ago; machines that once made shoes standing idle; paper mills that supported entire communities for generation after generation, now closed. Today, some observers warn that Maine's naval defense industry could be the next traditional sector to wither. Defense analysts say two facilities, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery and the Brunswick Naval Air Station, are likely Pentagon targets in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will send recommen- dations for realignments and closures to the BRAC Commission by May 16. "I would say the probability of Brunswick and Portsmouth closing is above 50 percent in both cases," said Loren B. Thompson, defense analyst for the Lexington Institute. Both bases were geared toward fighting the Cold War, and the world has moved on, he said. The Portsmouth shipyard specializes in submarine repair, and Brunswick supports anti-sub warfare. Soviet and U.S. subs no longer chase each other around the North Atlantic. Then there's Bath Iron Works. The Navy can't close the shipyard because it's owned by a corporation, but recent Pentagon cuts in the number of destroyers to be built over the next decade make the shipyard's future uncertain. "BIW is not going to shut down, but if current plans go forward, they're going to be on kind of a roller coaster - they may be down 2,000 jobs for a couple of years then up 4,000 jobs for a few years and then back down again," said Charles Colgan, an economist at the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service. Local communities, state officials and Maine's congressional delegation are fighting to keep BNAS and the Portsmouth shipyard open, but the closure of both bases is a real possibility, with potentially dire consequences. + BNAS employs 5,227, with a total payroll of $147 million. That's more than one in seven jobs in the Bath-Brunswick labor market. + The Portsmouth shipyard employs 4,803 with an annual payroll of $318.3 million. That represents nearly a quarter of the Kittery-York labor market. + If BIW's work force of 6,200 enters an up-and-down cycle as Colgan suggests, the region's labor market would gyrate. If both BNAS and the Portsmouth shipyard close, Maine would lose at least two years of economic growth, said Colgan. Roughly 10,000 jobs would be gone at the two naval facilities, and another 5,000 to 10,000 jobs would be lost as the economic impact rippled through support industries. Some losses would be in New Hampshire, but the bulk would be in Maine. Other areas have survived losses of this magnitude, caused by previous defense cuts, and even thrived in their aftermath. In 1996, Charleston, S.C., lost 22,000 jobs when a submarine base, a shipyard and some other small Navy facilities closed. That was about 15 percent of the area's work force. "Our economy here is almost supercharged right now. We had a 5.25 percent job growth rate last year and a record low of unemployment," said Al Parish, professor of economics and director of the center for economic forecasting at Charleston Southern University. "You can look back on it now, and (the closures) turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us." LOSS OF A SHIPYARD EXPECTED President Bush's budget package, released last week, added to the uncertainty and concern in Maine's naval-defense sector. The spending plan called for major cuts in the next-generation destroyer program. Some defense analysts say Navy shipbuilding plans could easily force at least one of the shipyards in the United States to close. That possibility is a worry that keeps state Sen. Arthur F. Mayo III, D-Bath, awake in the early morning hours. "If Bath Iron Works ramps down and for whatever reason has to close, what happens to that facility? Is it a usable facility? I question its use by any other industry that is non-shipbuilding," said Mayo. "It is so geared to the type of ship it constructs. What do you use it for, if not for building the DD(X) and the current (destroyer)? And that is scary." The community impact would be enormous, Mayo said. Bath has much larger police and fire departments than a community of 9,500 would normally need because of the 6,000 or so BIW workers traveling in and out daily, he said. The shipyard paid Bath $4.4 million in taxes last year. Brunswick, where BIW has several large facilities, received about $708,000. Mayo said he thought state and community leaders were considering how to deal with the worst-case scenario - a shutdown of BNAS, the Portsmouth shipyard and BIW. "I think, over time, we would attract jobs, just as they have at Loring, but they're not going to be the same type of jobs, paying the same wages, having the same benefits," said Mayo, referring to the former Air Force base in northern Maine. "Nothing against the call-center situation, but call centers by and large are not paying what the paper mills paid. The same thing will be true in this." BROADER HISTORICAL TREND Thompson said the impending danger to BIW, BNAS and the Portsmouth shipyard is part of a much broader historical trend. "In many ways, the migration of manufacturing out of New England and the end of the Cold War are working in tandem to harm the Maine economy," he said. "The whole economy has become distinctly unfriendly to blue-collar workers, and the Pentagon is simply reflecting that trend." The BRAC commission has until Sept. 8 to send its report to President Bush. He must accept or reject the recommendations in their entirety by Sept. 23. If Bush accepts the recommen- dations, Congress will have 45 days to reject them in their entirety or they become binding. Thompson said the Pentagon wouldn't "cross-reference" its decisions in the coming BRAC round; shipbuilding plans for BIW won't be considered as it looks at whether to close BNAS or the Portsmouth shipyard. Colgan said the closings of BNAS and the Portsmouth shipyard present different challenges. In Brunswick, most of the workers are military personnel, so job cuts wouldn't flood the labor market. The personnel would move elsewhere. Even so, the $147 million payroll is largely spent in Maine, and that would drain out of the economy. The base's economic impact on the state is estimated at $333.6 million, through payroll and expenditures. About 2,400 active military personnel live off base; if they left the region, there would be a housing glut. There are 643 military dependent children in Brunswick's schools, and the town gets more than $800,000 in federal subsidies to teach them. The 3,400 acres of total space the base has around Brunswick would probably become a mixed-use development, said Colgan. Housing, light industrial, office space and parkland would likely be developed there, he said. The Portsmouth shipyard is a different situation. "Portsmouth carries such a large skilled work force that it's going to dump (people) on the local labor market with no place to go," said Colgan. The shipyard has 4,800 employees, mostly civilians. Of that total, 2,771 live in Maine, 1,878 in New Hampshire and about 150 in other New England states. The yard is located on Seavey Island, a location that could be prime real estate, said Colgan. However, he suspects there would be some serious environmental contamination on the island that would have to be cleaned up. "I doubt if the Navy has been meticulously clean in its dealings with nuclear matter over the last 50 years there - that's just a guess," said Colgan. "On the other hand, once it's cleaned up, it will become extremely prime real estate." If the land becomes developable, said Colgan, he predicts upper-scale housing, a marina, a hotel and possibly some light office space as new tenants. "When you look at each of the three locations, Kittery, Bruns- wick and Bath, the location that is best able to absorb the economic impact from something like this is Kittery, due to the more rapid economic growth in the southern part of the state," said Daniel Innis, dean of the University of Maine's School of Business, Public Policy and Health. "The impact on Brunswick would be huge," he said. "I do think the economy is somewhat resilient down there and might be able to absorb it, but it would take some years." The loss of a military base or shipyard echoes losses felt around Maine when shoe factories, textile mills and, most recently, paper mills pulled up stakes. When a blue-collar business that supported an entire community for generations suddenly goes, the town is left to somehow fill in a massive void. "It again points to the importance of diversifying our economy in the state of Maine," said Innis. Federal studies show that communities bounce back after bases close, said Richard Gsottschneider, president of RKG Associates Inc., a Durham, N.H., company hired by Brunswick to develop a plan should BNAS close. One of the best success stories in Maine is the former Loring Air Force Base in rural Aroostook County. When the base closed in 1994, 1,100 civilians lost their jobs. Today, 1,242 people work at redeveloped Loring, with an annual payroll of $27 million and further growth projected. "It doesn't happen overnight, but it can happen," said Gsottschneider. PREPARING FOR THE WORST Of course, southern Maine's economy is far different from that of Aroostook County. And different, in turn, from Charleston. Still, there are lessons from that Southern success story. When the federal government announced the shipyard and sub base would close, business activity in Charleston stopped, said Mary Graham, vice president of public policy at the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. "It was like the business community was frozen in indecision for 12 to 18 months. People were afraid of what the impact was going to be, so they didn't want to make a move one way or the other," said Graham. Parish, the Charleston economics professor, said the psychological effect was devastating. "The advantage to having a military presence is that it helps your community be recession-resistant," he said. "It's subject to the political cycle, if you will, but it's not subject to the business cycle." The unemployment rate hit 5.2 percent the year the bases closed. Charleston, like other communities with threatened bases, found itself with dual roles. "You have to prepare for it. Sure you have a committee (fighting the closure), that's fine, but you also need to be preparing for 'What if they do?' " said Parish. "It is funny in that way - you're hoping for the best and preparing for the worst." One thing Charleston did was market its unemployment rate - the city suddenly had a highly skilled work force available. "The one thing you will have is that pool of available labor that is hard to find in almost any community," said Graham. "You have to sort of play up on the things you have." About 18 months after the decision to close was made public, a major steel company announced it would open a $600 million plant in the city, providing 500 jobs. That was only a fraction of the jobs lost, but the psychological effect was important, said Graham. The announcement combined with a rising economic tide nationwide and low interest rates. "All the stars were aligned on Charleston," she said. The Pentagon put Charleston workers who lost their jobs on a priority list for Defense Department positions around the country. About 2,500 people took those positions. To a degree, Charleston exported its unemployment. The political clout of Sens. Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings also proved key, said Graham. Navy operations that were shut in other locations moved to Charleston, said Graham, and those units have flourished. The military employs about 27,000 people there now. Also, she said, once a base is on the closure list, it opens the door to federal resources, grants and experts to help survive the shuttering. "It's not like they're saying, 'We're closing it. See ya,' " she said. GOING AFTER JOBS Parish suggested that Maine should have one group working on attracting jobs to both Brunswick and Kittery, in case the facilities close. A company might move in that could provide jobs in both locations. He said a redevelopment/business attraction group should be put together that includes people who normally don't get along. Labor leaders would need to work with business owners, as would politicians with opposing political views. If these people can get along, it sends a strong signal to the community that the redevelopment will happen, said Parish. That necessitates a strong chairman for the group, he added. "You've heard of stepping on toes? Your chairman needs to break feet," said Parish. Most importantly, said Parish, communities should focus on replacing the jobs lost, not necessarily on redeveloping the sites. For instance, if a company wants to open and provide 100 jobs in the greater Brunswick area, a redevelopment group should embrace that, rather than try to shoehorn the business into the old military base. "That's what crucial, for the community to realize it's the jobs they need to replace," said Parish. "We still have not completely reused (the Charleston base). It may take you a long time to redevelop that property." While Charleston is eyeing this BRAC round nervously, said Graham, its economy is much more diversified than it was in the early 1990s. The economy continues to grow there, said Parish, pointing to the recent ground-breaking for a $350 million facility to make fuselages for Boeing. "Our economy is less resistant to recession, certainly. We do get affected more by the business cycle, but our growth has really revved up," said Parish. "Our employment growth rate doubled the month the Navy closed, and it hasn't turned back since." Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at: the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram © Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************