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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [du-list] Recounting Iraq's Sanctions Horror!
2 Scotsman.com: Britain Wanted A 'Sexier' Iraqi Weapons Report Claims 
3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Minister: Nuke Weapons Violate Islam
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Official Hopeful About Deal With EU
5 Senate Nuclear Arms Hearing Today Shadowed by North Korea and
6 Hankyoreh: [Editorial] US Must Be Flexible to Resolve NK Nuclear Iss
7 Guardian Unlimited: South Korea Proposes Talks With North
8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: North Korea Can't Put Nuke Warheads on Mi
9 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Steps Up Pressure on Pyongyang 
10 INSIDE JoongAng Daily Washington: No concessions
11 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Nuclear arms upset balance of militaries
12 Manila Times: OPINION > N. Korea’s nuke claims provoke review of Sun
13 YWS: N.K. Unlikely to Export Nuclear Weapons: U.S. Institute
14 YWS: Impassive Response from U.S. and S. Korea Unsettles Pyongyang
15 DAWN: Pakistan's N-arms can be stolen - CIA -
16 US: [du-list] Specialists on nuclear policy  available for
17 US: Guardian Unlimited: Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post
18 Interfax: NPT withdrawal steps should be discussed - Russia
19 BBC: US nuclear report angers Pakistan
20 Nuclear Test Watch: Nuclear Test Watch - Issue No. 3
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
21 [NukeNet] Basic Facts Re Nuclear Power And Chernobyl 
22 US: sign on to oppose new reactor at North Anna
23 US: No truth to the rumor that California is powerless at the
24 US: [NukeNet] New rule after TMI security slip 
25 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, Ad Hoc Subcommitt
26 US: NRC: Sunshine Federal Register Notice
27 The Australian: 'Serious threat' of attack on reactor 
28 US: Platts: White House formally nominates Lyons and Jaczko to NRC
29 US: Daytona Beach News-Journal: Floating nuclear reactor among river
30 US: Vermont Guardian: Groups take aim at VY dry cask proposal
31 US: NRC: Dr. William J. Hinze and Dr. James H. Clarke Appointed to N
32 US: NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
33 US: NRC: Final Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
34 Bellona: A system of legal measures aimed at ensuring nuclear and ra
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
35 US: The Australian: WA won't support uranium mining 
36 Nevada Appeal - Opinion: Opportunity to change thinking on Yucca
37 Las Vegas SUN: Former Nevada governor says nuclear-waste dump inevit
38 US: eNewMexican: WIPP shipments from Los Alamos to resume       
39 Las Vegas RJ: Repository's backers revive idea 
40 Las Vegas SUN: Federal government taking bids to operate Nevada Test
41 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Chu: DOE underestimated job 
42 Las Vegas SUN: Outgoing Yucca director sees budget as top priority
43 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca Mountain chief says DOE underestimated document
44 Portland Tribune: Brand has our buildings on the brain 
45 US: Daily Free Press: Nuclear waste lost and found in city
46 Korea Times: Nuclear Waste Dump Site to Be Chosen by July 
47 US: PE.com: Officials downplay perchlorate discovery 
48 US: AU ABC: WA uranium off-limits for mining: Gallop. 
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
49 Rocky Mountain News: Union blasts Flats records
50 ST: Heed will of voters by keeping out more waste until Hanford clea
51 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford radiation study under fire
52 Las Vegas RJ: New test site manager sought 
53 Las Vegas SUN: Bodman: DOE must be ready to restart nuke weapons tes
54 Tri-City Herald: Hanford to miss sludge removal deadline 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
55 [du-list] DU in the news - 16th Feb. '05
56 [du-list] DU in the news - 15th Feb. 05
57 Las Vegas SUN: Group complains about federal budget cuts
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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*****************************************************************
 1 [du-list] Recounting Iraq's Sanctions Horror!
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:29:07 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
Recounting Iraq's Sanctions Horror!


On the 26th and 27th January 2005, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign - in both 
Manchester and Liverpool, organised two public meetings called Paying the 
Price - Saving the Children of Iraq! to initiate a campaign to dedicate the 
30th January - as a day for humanity and to honour those, alive, or no 
longer with us, who at often great risk to themselves, have strived to 
bring normality to Iraq over the years.

At both events, Felicity Arbuthnot spoke about her experiances of having 
been to Iraq over thirty times and about what she found there in light of 
the UN imposed sanctions regime and also about the people whom she had the 
honour of meeting.   Below you can read the speech that Felcity Arbuthnot 
gave at the meetings.

I have wondered again and again, where the collective shame is, of the 
international community at what has happened to Iraq. Thirteen years of 
thegrinding misery of the most draconian embargo even implemented by the 
U.S./U.K. driven United Nations, without a glance at the Treaties 
andConventions which protect the innocent, forbid collective punishment - 
anddid the Security Council ever cast an eye over the U.N. Convention on 
theRights of the Child, to which almost every country on earth is signatury 
- except the United States and Sudan. With this in mind, it is worth 
lookingback - and also taking stock of the present humanitarian 
situation.'John Ross, an American journalist who became a human shield in 
Iraq in2003, told me the reason for his stance. He had covered the Basra 
Roadmassacre in 1991.

He told me of the 'litter' of this horror, pepetrated twodays after the 
ceasefire. 'A baby's high chair, a woman's high heeled shoes- and troops 
spraying sports slogans on burned out vehicles with incineratedfamilies 
still inside them - and taking trophy photographs.' Why is anyonesurprised 
by torture, humiliation and bestiality at Abu Ghraib, Basra and nodoubt at 
numerous facilities where the disappeared are taken throughout thecountry.

Two years after the Basra road, a young doctor led me round her 
smallpatients and carefully explained their prognosis - due to lack of 
virtuallyany facilities or medication - in a formerly modern, high tech 
hospital -almost all would die. Suddenly, her composure failed and she 
stoped and said'There is a hole where my heart should be.'The same year, 
doctors made a new diagnosis. Stratospheric inflation meantmany mothers 
were too malnourished to breast feed, but could not afford milkpowder for 
their babies. So they fed them on sugared water, or sugared blacktea. 
Almost all became bloated, chronicall malnourished and died. Doctorscalled 
them 'the sugar babies.'

Cancer and birth deformities were soaring, linked to the depleted 
uraniumweapons -DU - used for the first time in massive quantity, which 
left achemically toxic and radioactive dust throughout the country - and 
where thewind blows. DU remains radioactive for four and a half billion 
years - somescientists say it will still be poisoning the planet when the 
sun goes out.Ironically, treatment for cancers were vetoed, invariably by 
the U.S, andU.K., so little Iraqis, in their irradiated land, could only 
suffer theagonising, detrimental effects of radation but not the 
therapeutic. So alarmed was the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority that they 
'self-initiated' aReport to the govenment estimating that if just fifty 
tonnes of the residualdust remained 'in the region' there would, they 
estimated be an extra half amillion cancer deaths by the end of the century 
- ie 2000. The Pentagoneventually admitted to three hundred and fifty 
tonnes, whilst independent experts estimated up to nine hundred
  tonnes.

Since the 2003 invasion,according to Dr Harry Sharma, for Emeritus 
Professor a the University ofWaterloo, Ontario, the Pentagon has admitted 
to three thousand tonnes.This was also - and remained - the most 
traumatised child population onearth, according to Professor Magne 
Raundalen, probably the world's foremostexpert on children in war zones. 
His interviews with eight to twelve yearolds make searing reading. 'I feel 
alone inside', said one. Another 'I dreamof bodies. When I pass my dead 
friends' houses, I can't look.' 'I can'tbelieve my friends are dead, it's 
not real,' said her classmate.Ten year old Luay's story stood almost alone 
for Raundalen who has devotedhis life to the children of conflict. Luay had 
joined a neighbourhood watchscheme - being small, he could creep into 
spaces in bombed homes which adults could not.

He told Raundalen of crawling into the rubble of a home in1991, in the 
debris and the dark, he found, he said, 'the body of a mother.'Crawling 
further, he found 'the body of her baby.' He described wrigglingback and 
placing the baby on his mother's breast and puting her arms roundhim. 'So 
that is your worst memory' asked Raundalen. 'No, my worst memory isthe 
head.' Luay continued to crawl round, searching, under a coat, he found a 
head. He dreamed every night he said, that he was taking it from hispocket 
and handing it round for identification.

These children, who had their childhood snatched from them, by war and 
embargo, are the youngadults, who now throw grenades and angle rocket 
propelled grenades againstthe armed invaders from the countries who took 
away even their right toplay, schooling, treat meals, normality. By 1995, 
there were mass funerals paid for by the government.

The west sneered that they were propoganda. May be, but the fact remained 
that manypeople could no longer even afford funerals. Seven year old Yasmin 
died in1995. Named after the sweet scented yellow flower, she had been 
diagnosedwith a minor heart ailment in 1990. When the embargo - imposed on 
Hiroshima Day that year - is lifted, we will operate and she will be fine, 
her parentswere assured by doctors. But in five years, a minor problem 
became a majorone and she died as I walked in to the ward. 'I hope they 
told her beforeshe died, that she failed to comply with UN Resolutions', 
said a longtime,gentle friend with me, with apt, shocking fury.

How dementedly delusionalwere policy makers in London and Washington 
believing Iraqis would throw flowers at their illegal 'crusaders'.A 
haunting visit was Basra, Iraq's beautiful, battered, southern city, in 
1998. Dr Jenan Hussein ran out to greet me at the Paediatric and Maternity 
hospital, another dear friend, we hugged, the 'You remember those 
childrenyou write about in June - I am sorry all of them have died.' Every 
child, inevery ward, in a twelve storey, formerly highly specialist 
hospital. Theyincluded seventeen babies of premature weight who did not 
even have oxygen. A doctor ran towards me and photographer, Karen Robinson. 
Did we have aparticular blood type. I thought I did and suggested he test 
to make sure. No laboratory equipment.

It was for a newly born who needed an exchangetransfusion, nestling in a 
blanket covered incubator, since the heatingstrips had been vetoed. The 
terror in his mother's eyes remains with mestill. In the next ward, another 
fledgling life flickered and went out. In amoment of insanity I was 
convinced I could bring him back and asked thestoic Shi'ia grandmother if I 
could hold him. Picking up the tiny, stillwarm being, I held him against my 
shoulder, strokd his back, his head andwilled him back. It was, of course, 
useless and defeated, I laid him back,wrapped him, hugged the family and 
turned away lest I cried in the face oftheir courage.As we walked from the 
hospital, a young soldier, turned from talking withtwo doctors.

He was incandescent with rage. 'You, with your note book, you with your 
camera', he said to us, 'you want a story - go to the fifth floor, these 
doctors have been trying to save a four year old baby for three days, he 
just died, all he needed was oxygen ...' as he ralked, his fingertightened 
and tightened on the trigger of his gun. Inadequately, I tried to explain 
why some of us came back and back, to try and alert as many as possible to 
the horrors of the embargo. We were not doing as well as we should, I said, 
but we were desparately doing our best. The finger went on tightening. 
Suddenly, he dropped his gun on the ground and tears streamed down his 
face. He was so sorry, we were not responsible, but the children, so, so 
many of them, were dying.

In March 2003, the invasion imminent, the sugar babies were back. Two 
monthold Hussein Khadum from Nasyria, would die, said Dr Ra'ad Ghazi, who 
hadworked for eight years at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. He had lost two 
babies already that day. When he had the time to think, it was of his 
eightmonth pregnant wife. 'DU is a weapon of mass destruction - if anything 
affects a child's brain , development in the first two years, survivors 
have a largely useless sixty five years to seventy five year, life. 'At the 
Mansur Hospital, Saheer, 11 and Nesreen, 13, were bleeding from the lungs. 
Their parents had sold all, even the tv, the bedding, to try and save them.

'What does George Bush want from us - to sacrifice our children, ourcountry 
.. Bush is an enemy of humanity, does he know the catastrophe of ourcountry 
- he is against life itself', said Nesreen's father.'Nothing we had seen or 
heard, could have prepared us for this particular devastation, a country 
reduced to a pre-industrial age for a considerabletime to come', wrote 
Maarti Ahtisaari in March 1991 - and it got worse. My last interview before 
the slaughter and carnage called 'liberation' waswith the father of ten 
year old Mohammed, also dying. 'What would you say to George Bush and Tony 
Blair, if you could', I asked him. More tears fell inthis ancient, 
seemingly endlessly tear soaked land, they streamed down hiswife's face, 
dripping on to her immaculate, black abbaya. 'Please, just tell them - stop 
this slaughter of innocents', he said.

This then is the Iraq we have invaded, bombed, poisoned, pounded 
withoutmercy, for nearly two years. We have also destroyed humanities 
history - Theholy cities of Najav and Kerbala, Sammara, where US troops use 
a thousandyear old minarette as a sniper's lair. Mosul, where Jonah is 
believed buriedand St Matthew at a nearby Christian monastry. Falluja, city 
of mosques, allbut destroyed, food and water poisoned, napal, phosphorous 
bombs, nail bombsand 'strange' weapons which caused bodies, reportedly, to 
decompose almostinstantly.

Bodies were eaten by dogs - and Iraqi lives so meaningless to thetroops, 
those not left lying, were piled high in a potato factory. Returnees are 
treated like criminals - and made to wear arms bands for recognition.

Perhaps they should have 'Juden' on them - Iraq, after all, resembles 
aconcentration camp at every level. More practical would be for the 
realcriminals to erect radiation signs and keep out notices round the 
town,while the polluter pays and clean up brigades are sent in and 
heftycompensation is paid.Aid worker Margaret Hassan, abducted in October 
and believed killed,referred to the embargo's children as 'the lost 
generation'. With anotheronslaught looming, she told the Independent's 
Robert Fisk ' Now there willbe another lost generation ...' She, with many 
others, Iraqis andnon-Iraqis, moved heaven and earth to bring some 
semblance of normality tothe abnormality of embargoed childhood.

When disaster struck Margaret,Iraqis in Iraq tried desparately to find and 
save her. Iraqis look aftertheir own.It is in this context that Iraqis in 
the north west of England to create apractical tribute to those who have 
struggled under embargo, occupation andinvasion, risking so much.Ideas so 
far - and some will not be immediately feasable, given thelogistical and 
security problems -are twinning hospitals, cancer, paediatrics and all 
specialities, departmentto department. Hosting Iraqi doctors and 
specialists for a period to catchup on thirteen years of advancement they 
have been denied and sendingspecialists to Iraq to teach.

Twinning schools- starting with children building bridges and writing 
toeach other - a pen pal initiative. Iraq's children have become isolated 
andsee the west as the bringer of all their fears and ills. Avoiding 
futureconflict lies in extending a hand and making friends.Twinning 
Universities and their faculties and departments.Books for Iraq, in 
conjunction with Lancaster University, details to follow.A relentless clean 
up and outlaw of depleted uranium campaign, demandingfrom MPs and relevant 
Organisations that Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkansare returned to their 
previous purity.

Yes it will cost, but if the will canbe forced, the wonder of science can 
and must, find a way. Further, we plan to devise a simple letter, linked to 
posing questions toparliamentary candidates in the coming election, as to 
where they stand on DU, troops withdrawing from Iraq and compensation. 
Those who say they willtake a stand on these issue will be asked to sign 
the statement confirmingthis. It is time all politicians represented the 
will of the people, notself interest, big business and Washington.

Lastly, two promises were made to mankind - the Holocaust would never 
happenagain. It has. One and a half million souls died of 'embargo related 
causes'- the children payed the biggest price.

The Hiroshima Memorial inscription reads ' Rest in Peace, the mistake 
willnot happen again'. It has, but Iraq's, Afghanistan's and the children 
of theBalkans, have died 'not with a bang, but with a whimper.'

On January 30th - ironically the Sunday of the sixtieth commemoration 
ofAuschwitz and the thirtieth anniversary of Belfast's Bloody Sunday - Iraq 
was promised a new start. It seems an unattainable dream, but between now 
and 30th January 2006, let us make at least some dreams of normality come true!

Felicity Arbuthnot was the senior researcher for John Pilger's award 
winning documentry, Paying the Price - Killing the Children of Iraq!

Join the Iraq Solidarity Campaign Today - Get Involved!

Read the article "A Chamber of Horrors Near the Garden of Eden" by Andy 
Kershaw of the Independent.


The Iraq Solidarity Campaign:

www.iraqsolidaritycampaign.blogspot.com




The Iraq Solidarity Campaign


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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 2 Scotsman.com: Britain Wanted A 'Sexier' Iraqi Weapons Report Claims Scientist
 
Mon 14 Feb 2005   			 			
 		   	 	
"PA" 

An Australian scientist involved in the US search for weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq today said the CIA censored his
reporting so that it suggested the weapons existed.
 
He also accused the head of Britainâ€™s Joint Intelligence
Committee of wanting to to make the report â€œsexier.â€
 
Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian
intelligence for more than 20 years, told Australian TV he quit
the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in disgust at the censorship of its
interim report presented to the US Congress in March last year.
 
â€œWe left the impression that, yes, maybe there were ... WMD
out there,â€ Barton said. â€œSo I thought it was dishonest.â€
 
Barton, an experienced weapons hunter who joined the UN search
for Saddam Husseinâ€™s illicit arsenal in 1991, said the
censorship in the US investigation began after Charles Duelfer
became the new head of ISG in February 2004.
 
Barton said Duelfer wanted â€œa different style of report
altogetherâ€ which he had discussed with President George Bush
and the CIA.
 
Barton said the report was to have no conclusions.
 
â€œI said to him, â€™I believe itâ€™s dishonest,â€â€™ Barton
said. â€œIf we know certain things and weâ€™re asked to provide
a report, we should say what we found and what we havenâ€™t
found and put that in the report.â€
 
Duelferâ€™s staff and senior CIA staff had stipulated what
â€politically difficultâ€ information could not be included in
the report, Barton said.
 
The ISG was allowed to mention a find of aluminium pipes but
were not allowed to mention that their probable intended use was
not nuclear.
 
The pipes had earlier been publicly described as likely
components for centrifuges to be used for nuclear enrichment and
were highlighted by the US-led coalition of the willing in the
case for war against Iraq.
 
The report was not allowed to mention two trailers held at the
ISG camp which the CIA had previously labelled mobile biological
weapon laboratories, Barton said.
 
â€œThey were nothing to do with biology,â€ he said. â€œWe
believed that they were hydrogen generators.â€
 
He added, â€œCharlesâ€™ attitude was he did not want to inspect
them or know. Then he could genuinely say to Washington that he
doesnâ€™t know what they are for.â€
 
Barton said the draft report was circulated to Washington and
London.
 
Duelfer refused a request from John Scarlett, chairman of the
United Kingdomâ€™s Joint Intelligence Committee, to include new
elements, Barton said, without saying what the new elements were.
 
â€œBoth Washington and London wanted other things put in and to
make it â€“ I can only use these words â€“ to make it sexier,â€
Barton said.
 
Barton said he quit immediately after the report was completed
and stated in his resignation letter that it was because the
process was dishonest.
 
Barton said Duelfer asked him to return in September last year,
saying he was working on an â€œhonest report.â€ Barton returned
and said he was happy with the final report.
 
Duelferâ€™s final report in October last year said Saddam had no
weapons of mass destruction, had not made any since 1991 and no
capability of making any.
 
Barton said he was going public with his allegations only now,
â€œpartly â€™cause Iâ€™m at the end of this process now, and
partly because I think the world should know some of the truths
which at times I wouldâ€™ve liked the world to have known, but I
couldnâ€™t say anything.â€

*****************************************************************
 3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Minister: Nuke Weapons Violate Islam
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Tuesday February 15, 2005 3:31 AM

By PABLO GORONDI 

Associated Press Writer 

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Iran's foreign minister said Monday his
country has no intention of developing nuclear weapons and does
not fear being attacked by the United States but could defend
itself if needed. 

The European Union is working to persuade Iran to abandon its
uranium enrichment program. The United States fears could be
used to manufacture nuclear weapons and is pushing the Europeans
to take a tougher line on the issue. Iran insists its nuclear
activities are peaceful. 

``Iran does not have any program to produce weapons,'' Foreign
Minister Kamel Kharrazi told reporters. ``Iran is a promoter of
the elimination of nuclear weapons around the world and, based
on our ideology, on our Islamic thinking, it is forbidden to
produce and use nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction.'' 

President Bush earlier this month accused Iran of being ``the
world's primary state sponsor of terror'' and of pursuing
nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last
week that an attack was not on the agenda. 

Kharrazi said Iran does not believe it will be attacked by the
United States, but ``if there will be any threat against Iran,
certainly we can defend ourselves.'' 

``I believe it would not be easy to wage war against Iran,'' he
said after a meeting with Hungarian counterpart Ferenc Somogyi. 

Under an agreement reached last year with France, Britain and
Germany, Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program during
negotiations about European economic, political and
technological aid. Iran has said it will decide soon whether to
continue its suspension, which is monitored by U.N. nuclear
inspectors. 

The agreement left Iran free to produce plutonium, which can
also be used to build nuclear weapons. 

Kharrazi said Iran's nuclear program was his country's
``legitimate right and it does not want anything further than
that.'' 
  
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Official Hopeful About Deal With EU
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

        Tuesday February 15, 2005 12:16 PM

By PABLO GORONDI 

Associated Press Writer 

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamel Kharrazi
said Tuesday he was hopeful his country could reach a fruitful
agreement with European Union countries on Iran's nuclear
activities. 

The European Union is trying to persuade Iran to abandon its
uranium enrichment program, which the United States fears could
be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Iran insisted again
Tuesday that its nuclear activities are peaceful. 

``(The negotiations) are moving, but the final evaluation will
be by mid-March,'' Kharrazi said after a meeting with Katalin
Szili, Hungary's parliament speaker. ``We have to wait until
then to have exactly our conclusion on how the negotiations have
gone.'' 

Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program last year under a
deal struck with France, Britain and Germany. Iran plans to
decide soon whether to continue the suspension, which is
monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors. 

The agreement, which came amid talks on technological and
economic aid, has left Iran free to produce plutonium, which
also can be used to build nuclear weapons. 

``We are hopeful that it may lead to very fruitful agreement,''
Kharrazi said of the negotiations, adding that suspension of
uranium enrichment was a just temporary step. 

``It is not indefinite,'' Kharrazi said. ``It is a temporary
suspension for the time that we are negotiating with each
other.'' 

He said Iran and the EU countries were searching for a
``mechanism that would remove the concerns'' that Iran could
divert its uranium enrichment activities toward the production
of nuclear weapons. 

Kharrazi said it was ``the right of Iran'' to have nuclear
technology for peaceful purposes. ``That's not something that we
could compromise,'' the foreign minister said. 

``So what remains is to continue with these negotiations until
we arrive to such a conclusion.'' 

The current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Luxembourg
Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, said he also saw the chance
for an agreement with Iran. 

``We do think we can convince Iran through negotiations,''
Juncker said on the sidelines of a conference in Budapest of the
International Labor Organization. 

Juncker met here with Kharrazi on Monday evening and said he had
``insisted'' to the Iranian foreign minister about ``the need
for Iran to step away from a direct access to nuclear weapons.'' 

``Iran's possibility of access to nuclear weapons will
destabilize the region,'' Juncker said. 

Asked about North Korea's recent announcement that it possessed
nuclear weapons, Kharrazi said the Iranian situation was
different because inspectors from the International Atomic
Energy Agency were still being allowed to conduct inspections. 

He said Iran was honoring the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
the international agreement barring the spread of nuclear
weapons. 

``Iran has been sticking to membership of the NPT and has always
welcomed the inspectors of the IAEA,'' he said. ``The IAEA
inspectors are currently in Iran carrying out inspections.'' 

Kharrazi also said that while Iran maintained diplomatic
relations with North Korea, Iran ``had not received any specific
message'' from North Korea on nuclear issues. 

``It is only through very close cooperation with IAEA that we
can open the road for more cooperation between Iran and other
countries in the area of nuclear technology,'' Kharrazi said.	 
  
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 5 Senate Nuclear Arms Hearing Today Shadowed by North Korea and
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 01:23:21 -0600 (CST)

 
Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________

	Tuesday, February 15, 2005

	As Senate Holds Hearing on Nuclear Arms Today,
	North Korea and Iran Are Casting Big Shadows

A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today on the Energy Department's 
nuclear weapons budget features testimony from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

While the U.S. government has termed North Korea and Iran "outposts of 
tyranny" and made demands regarding their nuclear programs, the New York 
Times last week reported that U.S. scientists "have begun designing a new 
generation of nuclear arms."

DAVID CULP, david@fcnl.org, http://www.fcnl.org
Lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Culp has worked 
on nuclear weapons issues for 15 years. He said this morning: "The main 
focus of the hearing today is the administration's support for funding of 
new nuclear weapons which was defeated last year in Congress."

MARYLIA KELLEY, marylia@earthlink.net, http://www.trivalleycares.org
Kelley is executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a 
Radioactive Environment) located in Livermore, California, where nuclear 
arms developers at the Department of Energy's Livermore Lab are redesigning 
weapons into high-yield, nuclear bunker-busters. She said today: "The 
fiscal year 2006 budget request for nuclear weapons activities is $6.6 
billion ... the Department of Energy's Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator 
budget is slated to rise to $16 million for final development tasks in 
2007, with additional monies again put into the Air Force budget for 'drop 
tests' in Nevada and/or Alaska. The DOE budget request also includes funds 
for new and modified weapons in a budget line titled 'Reliable Replacement 
Warhead.' Budget watchers believe that some of the new nuclear weapons 
funds that had been cut last year by Congress are now shifting over into 
this budget line. Furthermore, the DOE weapons labs are spending billions 
to re-design every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal under the so-called 
Stockpile Stewardship's 'Life Extension Program.'"

JAY TRUMAN, hermit@downwinders.org, http://www.downwinders.org
Director of the Downwinders organization, Truman said today: "As a resident 
of the American West growing up in Southwest Utah, and having as my first 
memory in life sitting on my father's knee watching this government 
demonstrate its nuclear weapons prowess by exploding another atom bomb 
above ground at the Nevada Test Site, I fail to see any difference between 
the recent actions of North Korea and those of the United States. 'Do as I 
say, not as I do' is not a policy this nation can ever hope will prevent or 
even delay nuclear proliferation. So who really is to blame, who is the 
perpetrator? But I also have seen some positive activities recently too, 
such as last week's unanimous vote by the Utah State Legislature passing 
and sending to this government the strongest official state government 
resolution ever issued denouncing any resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, 
which this nation will have to eventually do if its push for the 
bunker-buster and new 'more reliable' nuclear weapons comes to pass."

JACQUELINE CABASSO, wslf@earthlink.net, http://www.wslfweb.org
Executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, which focuses on 
nuclear policy, Cabasso said today: "It is difficult if not impossible for 
an outsider to assess North Korea's nuclear capabilities or fully 
understand its motivations and intentions with respect to its nuclear 
weapons program. But it's not difficult to see how North Korea might feel 
increasingly threatened by the United States. Pyongyang's latest 
pronouncement comes after the U.S. has labeled North Korea part of the 
'axis of evil,' identified North Korea as a potential nuclear target in its 
most recent Nuclear Posture Review, invaded and occupied Iraq, purportedly 
to eliminate 'weapons of mass destruction,' made repeated military threats 
against both Iran and North Korea, and blatantly disregarded its own 
disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

"Human Security, Development and Disarmament," an address by Cabasso 
delivered during the Towards a World Without Violence Dialogue at the 
Barcelona Forum 2004, is available online at: 
http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/jc604.htm

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 

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 6 Hankyoreh: [Editorial] US Must Be Flexible to Resolve NK Nuclear Issue 

Updated : Feb.16.2005 03:01 KST     [ border=]   

The foreign ministers of Korea and the United States have met and 
decided to engage in a swift diplomatic effort to have North 
Korea return to the six-party talks at the earliest date 
possible. It is fortunate that despite the North Korean foreign 
ministry's statement of February 10, the nations concerned with 
the North Korean nuclear issue are staying with the principle of 
resolving it diplomatically and peacefully through the six-party 
talks. The problem is the US's hard-line attitude. 

Both foreign ministers agreed that North Korea basic motive for
declaring it possesses nuclear arms is to strengthen its
negotiating position. Just a few days ago, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice wrote off the statement as something the North
has talked about on previous occasions. What that means is that
the issue is still in the negotiation phase. At around the same
time the foreign ministers were meeting, however, the US State
Department declared that the US would not be making any
concessions for the sake of getting the North to return to the
six-party process. The New York Times reports that for the past
several months the US government has been developing a new
strategy to choke off its sources of income. The wall of
distrust between the US and North Korea will not be torn down
with an attitude that calls for talks on the one hand while
nevertheless taking a hard-line approach. 

Instead of stating that it will not make any compromises, the US
needs to approach the matter ready to give a serious ear to what
the North really wants. Instead of calling only for its
unilateral submission, the US needs to be ready to produce a
more realistic and creative proposal that would be acceptable to
the North Koreans. There is no reason for the US to avoid direct
dialogue with North Korea if it really wants to resolve the
nuclear issue. 

More time will be needed to determine exactly what the North's
intention was in making its sudden announcement. It will also
take time to see what becomes of China's effort at mediation. If
you take the North's insecurities about its security into
consideration, however, if should not be too hard to guess what
the statement meant by "the right conditions and atmosphere."
Negotiations happen by recognizing the other side and making
small concessions while pushing and pulling back and forth. The
US has nothing to lose by being flexible. 

The Hankyoreh, 16 February 2005. 

[Translations by (PMS)] 



Copyright 2005 Hankyoreh Plus inc.   
*****************************************************************
 7 Guardian Unlimited: South Korea Proposes Talks With North
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday February 15, 2005 10:46 AM

AP Photo SEL801 

By SOO-JEONG LEE 

Associated Press Writer 

DORA OBSERVATION POST, South Korea (AP) - South Korea has
proposed high-level military talks with North Korea, focusing on
ways to avoid accidental clashes now that the North has claimed
to have nuclear weapons. 

South Korea's defense ministry said the talks would be a way of
engaging the communist North even as it refuses to return to
six-nation talks on its nuclear program. 

``North Korea has yet to respond to our proposal, but we are
expecting the North side to make a sincere and positive
response,'' the ministry said Tuesday. 

In Pyongyang, ruling Workers' Party officials and military
officers gathered Tuesday to celebrate the birthday of leader
Kim Jong Il with defiant rhetoric, according to the North's
official news agency, KCNA. Kim turns 63 on Wednesday. 

``If the U.S. recklessly opts for a war of aggression despite
the repeated warning of the (North), our army and people will
mobilize all potentials ... and deal merciless crushing blows at
the aggressors and achieve a final victory in the confrontation
with the U.S.,'' said Choe Thae Bok, a secretary of the Workers'
Party Central Committee. 

South Korean officials have said it's too early to declare the
North a nuclear power, saying the alleged weapons haven't been
tested or confirmed, and say Pyongyang should return to
six-nation talks aimed at getting it to give up any nuclear
weapons development in return for economic benefits. 

Hong Seok-hyun, South Korea's newly appointed ambassador to
Washington, said Tuesday that he believed North Korea's
announcement ``was meant to boost its negotiating position.'' 

``It also was meant to urge the United States to show more
sincerity,'' Hong was quoted as saying by the South Korean news
agency Yonhap. 

South Korean intelligence officials said Tuesday that even if
North Korea has nuclear weapons, it lacks the technology to
deliver them by missile. 

In a briefing to National Assembly members, the intelligence
officials also said there was little possibility that the North
had exported its nuclear technology, the Yonhap news agency
reported. 

That counters recent claims by U.S. officials who said there is
strong evidence that North has developed another Scud missile
with a longer range and better accuracy than conventional Scud
missiles. A U.S. reconnaissance satellite detected the missile,
with an estimated range of up to 620 miles, one or two years
ago, the daily Chosun Ilbo reported, citing anonymous South
Korean officials. 

North Korea shocked the region in 1998 by testing a three-stage
Taepodong-1 missile that flew over Japan and landed in the
Pacific. That missile is believed to have a 1,540-mile range,
enough to reach all but the most far-flung of Japan's islands. 

On Monday, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in
Washington that North Korea should rejoin the disarmament talks
``as a responsible member of the international community.'' 

U.S. officials ruled out any upfront economic concessions to get
North Korea back to the table, following a meeting between Ban
and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 

``The North Koreans should not be rewarded for causing
difficulties in the reconvening of the talks,'' State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said. 

On Tuesday, dozens of South Korean tourists arrived at Dora
Observation Post to peep into the North. 

Many of the tourists expressed concerns over North Korea's
statement last week, and appeared to be shocked by the closeness
of North Korea as seen from the South Korean military
vantagepoint. 

``It's so close that I am thinking if they invade, we are all
going to die,'' Ji In-jong, a 70-year-old tourist. 	 
  
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: North Korea Can't Put Nuke Warheads on Missiles - NIS
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Feb.15,2005 19:52 KST   
 
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported Tuesday North 
Korea could build one or two nuclear weapons but lacked the 
technology to affix warheads to missiles. The NIS told a 
parliamentary intelligence committee that Pyongyang has yet to 
develop the technology to miniaturize warheads to under 500kg so 
they can be carried by missiles. 

The NIS said even if North Korea produced nuclear weapons they 
would be A-bombs to be dropped from aircraft similar to the one 
that devastated Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II, a 
committee member reported. 

"The NIS said that because North Korea has yet to develop 
miniaturization technology, foreign news reports like those about 
North Korean exports of nuclear technology abroad, or reports 
that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan saw nuclear 
warheads atop missiles when he visited North Korea, were probably 
unreliable," another committee member said. Last year, the 
international press reported Khan as saying he saw missile-use 
nuclear warheads in North Korea. 

The Defense Ministry said in its 2004 White Paper published Feb. 
4 that North Korea could have manufactured one or two nuclear 
devices with about 10-14kg of plutonium the country extracted 
before IAEA inspections in 1992. 

Evaluations of Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear capabilities differ even 
within the government. Both the Defense Ministry and NIS are 
emphasizing the possibility that North Korea has manufactured 
atomic weapons, while the Unification and Foreign ministries are 
noncommittal citing lack of evidence. 

During a parliamentary exchange Monday, Unification Ministry 
Chung Dong-young said the North Korean Foreign Ministry's nuclear 
declaration was merely a claim. While it is certain the North has 
10-14kg of nuclear materials, it is uncertain whether Pyongyang 
has made nuclear weapons, he said. 

Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told CNN on Sunday intelligence on 
North Korea's nuclear capabilities was being minutely analyzed 
and more observation was needed. Deputy Foreign Minister Lee 
Tae-shik, too, recently said it was a matter of interpretation 
whether North Korea's statement amounted to an official admission 
that the country really has nuclear weapons. 

"Because there is no precise intelligence on North Korea's 
possession of nuclear weapons, there is confusion among 
government bodies,¡± Grand National Party lawmaker Kwon Young-se, 
who sits on the National Assembly's intelligence committee, said. 
¡°We need to form a special committee to get to the bottom of the 
issue." 

An official with the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National 
Security said the different responses were attributable to the 
fact that the Foreign and Unification ministries must consider 
the country¡¯s relationship with the North, while the Defense 
Ministry and NIS have to keep in mind battle capabilities. But he 
added, ¡°Only if there is a common grasp of the situation is 
proper government policy possible." 

(Yun Jeong-ho, jhyoon@chosun.com ) 

*****************************************************************
 9 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Steps Up Pressure on Pyongyang 
 
  Home> National/Politics    Updated Feb.15,2005 22:33 KST   
 
direct response to an announcement by North Korea that it has
nuclear weapons, which Washington described as negotiation
tactics. Instead, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told
her South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-moon that Washington would
push for a resumption of six-party talks on Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear
issue while continuing multidirectional pressure on the
Stalinist country. 

The White House and State Department also warned that U.S.
judicial authorities would closely watch illegal North Korean
activity such as counterfeiting and drug smuggling - two avenues
the U.S. believes the North is using to obtain hard currency. 








*****************************************************************
 10 INSIDE JoongAng Daily Washington: No concessions
 
February 16, 2005 KST 14:49 (GMT+9) 

  February 16, 2005 ¤Ñ WASHINGTON ¡ª As U.S. and South Korean
officials continued to discuss responses to North Korea's
declaration last week that it has nuclear arms and will refrain
from the six-nation negotiations over the issue, Washington said
Pyeongyang's assertion would not win it any new concessions.

 "The North Koreans shouldn't be rewarded for causing
difficulties in the reconvening of talks," U.S. State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday, Washington time. He added
that "continued delay by North Korea should not be the reason to
offer them further rewards." 

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and his U.S.
counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, met on Monday
in Washington. They issued no official statement afterward,
though a South Korean official later said that the two had
agreed to seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis through the
framework of the six-party talks.

 In an indication of the significance China is perceived to have
in the crisis, Mr. Ban is reportedly considering leaving for
Beijing later this week after returning to Seoul from
Washington. Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon is expected to
leave for China later this week. 

Beijing plans to send Minister Wang Jiarui, of the Department of
Liaison of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China, to Pyeongyang this week to convince the regime to return
to the talks.

 North Korea surprised the international community last Thursday
with an official declaration that it had nuclear weapons, and
that it would indefinitely "suspend" participation in the
six-nation talks to resolve the issue that began in August 2003.
Though the North had alluded many times to its nuclear weapons
program, it was the communist regime's first outright public
statement that it had such weapons.

 Mr. Boucher said Ms. Rice has appointed Christopher Hill, the
current U.S. ambassador to South Korea, to head the U.S.
delegation to the six-party talks. He said Mr. Hill, who has
been reported to be in line to become the assistant secretary of
state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will meet in Seoul
with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

 Though Mr. Boucher said that Washington had set no time frame
for Pyeongyang to return to the six-nation talks, he said, "I
would point out the longer this goes on, the more difficult
¡ªthe more the difficulties for North Korea increase." 

Asked about the reported possibility of a meeting of delegates
from the five nations involved in the talks with the North, Mr.
Boucher said he expected a variety of meetings to take place in
attempts to resolve the deadlock, specifically citing informal
discussions between Japanese and South Korean officials. "I'm
not aware of any particular plan for a five-party meeting, but I
don't want to rule anything out at this point," the spokesman
said.

 He also said there was a "continuing emphasis" on curtailing
smuggling and other illicit activities engaged in by North
Korea. 		 	 

by Kim Chong-hyuk africanu@joongang.co.kr>   

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/


Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 11 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Nuclear arms upset balance of militaries
   
In international politics, there exists a balance of
intimidation. Say country A has 100 fighters and country B has
10. Given similar capacities, A can sway power while B has to
cater to the needs of A. However, nuclear weapons disrupt the
symmetrical balance. A country with 10 nuclear warheads does not
have to be intimidated by a country with 100. Even one or two
nuclear weapons that survive an initial attack can strike back
at the enemy with devastating destruction. The power of nuclear
weapons evens the field between the top dogs and the underdogs.
 
During the 1948 Berlin blockade, Washington publicly dispatched
two squadrons of B-29 bombers equipped with nuclear warheads to
England. The Soviets soon lifted the blockade. While the
presence of nuclear weapons was not the only reason, the Soviets
must have been reminded of the annihilating power of the nuclear
weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time of the
second Arab-Israeli war in 1956, British and French airborne
divisions retreated from the Suez Canal, surrendering to the
nuclear threat of the Soviet Union. The power of nuclear weapons
was displayed during the conflict between India and Pakistan and
again during the confrontation between the United States and the
Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis.
 
If North Korea indeed possesses nuclear weapons, what will
happen to the South? A military source said, "Once Pyeongyang
strikes the South, it will be the end." The balance of military
power will completely be tipped to the North. The South will be
helpless if Seoul is battered by North Korean long-range
artillery. The Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command cannot charge
north for fear of the "ultimate weapon." U.S. operation plan
5027, which lays out a large-scale augmentation of U.S. troops
by several hundred thousand and a consequent attack on
Pyeongyang, will be infeasible. If Pyeongyang threatens to use
nuclear weapons upon invasion, no U.S. president would risk the
damage and the lives of countless soldiers. South Korea might be
helpless. There would be no balance of intimidation, and only
nuclear blackmailing would remain. Unless we want to find
ourselves caught in the swamp of a nuclear arms race, the only
option is never to tolerate North Korea's possession of nuclear
weapons.
 
The writer is a deputy political news editor of the JoongAng
Ilbo.
 
by Ahn Sung-kyoo askme@joongang.co.kr>
    
  2005.02.15       

Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 12 Manila Times: OPINION > N. Korea’s nuke claims provoke review of Sunshine policy 
	
www.manilatimes.net

Wednesday, February 16, 2005   
      
By Burt Herman, Associated Press Writer  

SEOUL: North Korea’s disclosure that it has atomic weapons was a
slap in the face of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun and
emboldened critics to call for a reassessment of his policy of
engagement with the communist state. 

The opposition lawmakers have lashed out at the government for
being too soft on the North in the latest crisis and for saying
it will continue aid despite Pyongyang’s announcement last week
that it has built nuclear weapons and won’t participate in
disarmament talks. 

“When a father wants his son to quit smoking . . . shouldn’t he
stop giving his son money to buy cigarettes?” the Grand National
Party’s Hong Joon Pyo said in parliament. “Peaceful resolution
is good, but the government lacks concrete measures.” 

Editorial pages of South Korean newspapers have also been filled
with demands for Roh to reconsider his policy. 

“We ask the government to reflect and find out whether the
current situation resulted from its unwarranted optimism that
not getting on Pyongyang’s nerves would lead to the communist
regime giving up its nuclear program and normalizing
inter-Korean relations,” the JoongAng Ilbo daily wrote. 

Since taking office in 2003, Roh has followed the “sunshine”
policy of his predecessor Kim Dae Jung—who won the 2000 Nobel
Peace Prize for fostering relations with the North that
culminated in a landmark summit that year between the South
Korean leader and the North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il. 

The government said Saturday it would continue providing food
and fertilizer aid to the North. 

“If the situation changes, there would have to be consultations
within the government,” Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon said
Saturday in Washington, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news
agency. 

Although separated by the world’s last Cold War frontier lined
by nearly 2 million troops, the two Koreas have dramatically
boosted ties in recent years—mostly through economic projects
that provide the impoverished North with desperately needed
cash. 

Roh’s government is also pushing to abolish the South’s
anticommunist National Security Law. The Defense Ministry said
last month it would stop calling North Korea its “main enemy” in
its military guidelines. 

But the moves have drawn strong criticism from the opposition,
whose ire over relations with the North has grown since
Pyongyang’s declaration last week. 

North Korea’s bargaining tactic of raising tension succeeds
because it knows Roh’s government “has only carrots and no
sticks,” the Grand National Party wrote in a Sunday commentary. 
The South faces a test soon on whether it will punish the North.

Pyongyang has asked Seoul for 500,000 tons of fertilizer, its
largest-ever request. South Korean officials say no decision has
yet been made, but analysts don’t expect any immediate move to
withhold the aid. 

“The South Korean government won’t admit that the policy has
failed,” said Yoo Ho Yeol, a North Korean studies professor at
Korea University. “But I think it will soon change its policy
little by little as the situation is becoming more difficult for
the South.”   
        
Copyright (c) 2001 The Manila Times | Terms of Service
 The Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.     
*****************************************************************
 13 YWS: N.K. Unlikely to Export Nuclear Weapons: U.S. Institute

YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
 
  2005/02/15 17:55 KST   


 SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is currently unlikely to
export any nuclear weapons in its possession, an American 
institute said in a report.

 The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monterey 
Institute of International Studies compiled the report and posted 
it on its Web site (http://cns.miis.edu) on Saturday, the day 
after the North issued a statement in which it claimed to have 
nuclear weapons.

 






*****************************************************************
 14 YWS: Impassive Response from U.S. and S. Korea Unsettles Pyongyang

YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
 
www.yonhapnews.co.kr

  2005/02/15 15:19 KST   


 SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Yonhap) -- Following a high-profile meeting
between South Korean and U.S. foreign ministers on Monday,
speculation is mounting over Washington's unexpectedly calm and 
impassive response over the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

 In her talks with Ban Ki-moon in Washington, U.S. Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice did not display any sense of urgency 
towards the North's nuclear-power declaration.

		 		   
            

	   


*****************************************************************
 15 DAWN: Pakistan's N-arms can be stolen - CIA -

15 February, 2005
 
By Anwar Iqbal
 
WASHINGTON, Feb 14: Use of stolen or purchased nuclear weapons
from Pakistan or Russia by terrorists cannot be ruled out within
the next 15 years, says the latest CIA report. 

Prepared by the prestigious nerve centre of strategic thinking
in the US intelligence community, the National Intelligence
Council, the report says that most terrorist attacks will
continue to employ primarily conventional weapons, incorporating
new twists to keep counter terrorist planners off balance. 

The 119-page report, issued every five years, warns that
terrorists probably will be most original not in the
technologies or weapons they employ but rather in their
operational concepts. 

One such concept that is likely to continue is a large number of
simultaneous attacks, possibly in widely separated locations.
While vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices will remain
popular as asymmetric weapons, terrorists are likely to move up
the technology ladder to employ advanced explosives and unmanned
aerial vehicles, the report says. 

The religious zeal of terrorists increases their desire to
perpetrate attacks resulting in high casualties. "Historically,
religiously inspired terrorism has been most destructive because
such groups are bound by few constraints," the NIC warns. 

"The most worrisome trend," according to this report, has been
an intensified search by some terrorist groups to obtain weapons
of mass destruction. The "greatest concern" of the US
intelligence community, is that these groups might acquire
biological agents or a nuclear device. 

The report says that the possibility of terrorists using
biological agents is stronger, and the range of their options
will grow. "With advances in the design of simplified nuclear
weapons, terrorists will continue to seek to acquire fissile
material in order to construct a nuclear weapon," the NIC report
says. 

This could encourage countries without nuclear weapons,
especially in the Middle East and Northeast Asia, to seek them
as it becomes clear that their neighbours and regional rivals
already are doing so. 

"The assistance of proliferators, including former private
entrepreneurs such as the A. Q. Khan network, will reduce the
time required for additional countries to develop nuclear
weapons. 

"Concurrently, they can be expected to continue attempting to
purchase or steal a weapon, particularly in Russia or Pakistan.
Given the possibility that terrorists could acquire nuclear
weapons, the use of such weapons by extremists before 2020
cannot be ruled out. 

We expect that terrorists also will try to acquire and develop
the capabilities to conduct cyber attacks to cause physical
damage to computer systems and to disrupt critical information
networks. 


© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2005
*****************************************************************
 16 [du-list] Specialists on nuclear policy  available for
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:35:27 -0800

 
<x-flowed>

For media contacts..

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

As Senate Holds Hearing on Nuclear Arms Today,
North Korea and Iran Are Casting Big Shadows

Interviews Available

A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today on the Energy Department's
nuclear weapons budget features testimony from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

While the U.S. government has termed North Korea and Iran "outposts of
tyranny" and made demands regarding their nuclear programs, the New York
Times last week reported that U.S. scientists "have begun designing a new
generation of nuclear arms."

The following specialists on nuclear policy are available for interviews:

DAVID CULP, (202) 415-1594, (202) 547-6000 ext 146, david@fcnl.org,
http://www.fcnl.org
Lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Culp has worked
on nuclear weapons issues for 15 years. He said this morning: "The main
focus of the hearing today is the administration's support for funding of
new nuclear weapons which was defeated last year in Congress."

MARYLIA KELLEY, (925) 443-7148, marylia@earthlink.net,
http://www.trivalleycares.org
Kelley is executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a
Radioactive Environment) located in Livermore, California, where nuclear
arms developers at the Department of Energy's Livermore Lab are redesigning
weapons into high-yield, nuclear bunker-busters. She said today: "The
fiscal year 2006 budget request for nuclear weapons activities is $6.6
billion ... the Department of Energy's Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
budget is slated to rise to $16 million for final development tasks in
2007, with additional monies again put into the Air Force budget for 'drop
tests' in Nevada and/or Alaska. The DOE budget request also includes funds
for new and modified weapons in a budget line titled 'Reliable Replacement
Warhead.' Budget watchers believe that some of the new nuclear weapons
funds that had been cut last year by Congress are now shifting over into
this budget line. Furthermore, the DOE weapons labs are spending billions
to re-design every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal under the so-called
Stockpile Stewardship's 'Life Extension Program.'"

JAY TRUMAN, (208) 766-5649, hermit@downwinders.org, http://www.downwinders.org
Director of the Downwinders organization, Truman said today: "As a resident
of the American West growing up in Southwest Utah, and having as my first
memory in life sitting on my father's knee watching this government
demonstrate its nuclear weapons prowess by exploding another atom bomb
above ground at the Nevada Test Site, I fail to see any difference between
the recent actions of North Korea and those of the United States. 'Do as I
say, not as I do' is not a policy this nation can ever hope will prevent or
even delay nuclear proliferation. So who really is to blame, who is the
perpetrator? But I also have seen some positive activities recently too,
such as last week's unanimous vote by the Utah State Legislature passing
and sending to this government the strongest official state government
resolution ever issued denouncing any resumption of U.S. nuclear testing,
which this nation will have to eventually do if its push for the
bunker-buster and new 'more reliable' nuclear weapons comes to pass."

JACQUELINE CABASSO, (510) 839-5877, cell: (510) 306-0119,
wslf@earthlink.net, http://www.wslfweb.org
Executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, which focuses on
nuclear policy, Cabasso said today: "It is difficult if not impossible for
an outsider to assess North Korea's nuclear capabilities or fully
understand its motivations and intentions with respect to its nuclear
weapons program. But it's not difficult to see how North Korea might feel
increasingly threatened by the United States. Pyongyang's latest
pronouncement comes after the U.S. has labeled North Korea part of the
'axis of evil,' identified North Korea as a potential nuclear target in its
most recent Nuclear Posture Review, invaded and occupied Iraq, purportedly
to eliminate 'weapons of mass destruction,' made repeated military threats
against both Iran and North Korea, and blatantly disregarded its own
disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

"Human Security, Development and Disarmament," an address by Cabasso
delivered during the Towards a World Without Violence Dialogue at the
Barcelona Forum 2004, is available online at:
http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/jc604.htm

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167




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your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page:
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*****************************************************************
 17 Guardian Unlimited: Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday February 15, 2005 7:16 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President
Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant
secretary of state for the Near East with added
responsibilities. 

Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush
administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary
David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote
democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern
Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday. 

A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and
Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her
father's re-election campaign last year. 
  


      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 18 Interfax: NPT withdrawal steps should be discussed - Russia

Feb 15 2005 5:38PM
 
MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax) - Moscow believes the signatories to
the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) should
discuss the steps that would need to be taken if any of the
members decided to withdraw from the treaty, Russian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said on Tuesday. 

Russia intends to take an active part in the Review and
Extension Conference of the NPT signatories which will take
place in May this year. 

"We believe it is important that the conference should confirm
the significance of this treaty for strengthening the nuclear
nonproliferation regime in the contemporary conditions, and its
participants should also discuss possible steps if some
countries withdraw from the NPT or violate some provisions of
this vital international document," Yakovenko said in an
interview with journalists.     

// Feb 15 2005 9:14PM More news    

© 1991-2004 Interfax
 All rights reserved
 
*****************************************************************
 19 BBC: US nuclear report angers Pakistan
 
  Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 February, 2005
 
		   		 		 		 
By Zaffar Abbas BBC News, Islamabad   

[Ghauri missile, Pakistan]                              

Pakistan says it is a responsible nuclear state                                                               

Pakistan has dismissed a report by a US intelligence agency which 
predicts that the country will be riven by political instability 
in the next decade. 

The foreign ministry said the National Intelligence Council's 
conclusions were "speculative and irresponsible". 

The council says there is a possibility of Pakistan's nuclear 
assets being stolen by Islamic extremists. 

Its worldwide report is posted on the Central Intelligence 
Agency's website, with a detailed chapter on Pakistan. 

One assessment in the council's report - updated every five years 
- is that by the year 2015 there could be political instability 
in Pakistan, with the possibility of civil war. 

It says there could also be inter-provincial rivalry, a sharp 
rise in Islamic extremism and a struggle for possession of 
nuclear weapons. 

'Baseless' 

The council says that attempts could be made to steal nuclear 
weapons, which could even land in the hands of Islamic 
extremists. 

Describing these assessments as "highly speculative", a spokesman 
for Pakistan's foreign office, Masood Khan, said a responsible 
institution like the Central Intelligence Agency should not have 
put them on its website. 

Under plausible scenari Pakistan might use nuclear weapons to 
counter success by the larger Indian conventional forces Central 
Intelligence Agency Global Trends report        

Mr Khan said Pakistan was a responsible nuclear weapons state, 
and has a complete mechanism in place to guard its nuclear 
assets. 

He also described as "irresponsible" the assessment about the 
country's political future. It was baseless and out of place, he 
said. 

Mr Khan criticised a section of Indian media for its reporting of 
the assessment, and said nowhere in the American intelligence 
report had Pakistan been described as a "failed state". 

*****************************************************************
 20 Nuclear Test Watch: Nuclear Test Watch - Issue No. 3
 
Nuclear Test Watch is dedicated to monitoring US Government
activity relevant to the resumption of nuclear testing, and
advocating a continuation of the moratorium on test explosions
of American nuclear weapons. 
Monday, February 14, 2005
 
	 	 Nuclear Test Watch - Issue No. 3 	 
	 	 1.
Since North Korea made its official disclosure as a state armed
with nuclear weapons last week, South Korea has declared it a
bluff. One point in their response has been declarations by
Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young that North Korea has not
conducted a nuclear test, and so it canâ€™t be called a nuclear
state.

However, a European source reports that the International
Monitoring System of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Organization is on alert at the possibility of North Korea
conducting a nuclear test explosion this week to give evidence
of its nuclear capability.

Such a turn of events would be a boon for the advocates of
nuclear testing â€“ they would argue that the moratorium is
tying our hands but having no impact on states like North Korea.
We can only hope that diplomats in Seoul and Beijing will
prevail against Pyongyang demonstrating its capability in this
form.

For some information on the possibilities and obstacles to North
Korea conducting a nuclear test, GlobalSecurity.org has a great
resource on its site. 

2.
Even without the possibility of North Korea setting off a test
explosion, an intellectual case is being built by abusing
scientific reasoning. Itâ€™s not shocking when Frank Gaffney,
Keith Payne, or Peter Huessy are writing in the Washington Times
calling for development of usable small nuclear weapons and a
push to conduct live tests more rapidly.

But it was much more worrisome to see the appearance in the
January/February edition of Foreign Affairs of an article
calling for the resumption of nuclear testing by John Deutch,
former Director of Central Intelligence and occupant of other
positions in the Energy and Defense Departments over the years.

Deutch employs the usual unwillingness to meet any reasonable
burden of proof in his analysis. He calls for a â€œscientific
confirmation testâ€ â€“ and argues that only this novel
criteria for testing can prove that the â€œpractical physics
underpinning the nuclear program still holds." Defenders of
maintaining the moratorium have put the basis for their
arguments out in the open in the form of the National Academy of
Scienceâ€™s 2002 study on the subject, whereas advocates of
testing work behind closed doors, providing no detailed
explanation for why the nuclear bombâ€™s â€œpractical physicsâ€
might have been undermined â€“ just the shadow of the doubt that
there might be some problems off in the distance. The real
questions should be:
 
  + Have the states targeted by our weapons been persuaded for
some reason that they wonâ€™t go off? 
  + If states with advanced nuclear programs were convinced that
some of our weapons did not work, would it be cause enough for
them to decide to launch a pre-emptive strike? 
  + Are the states we protect with our weapons not confident in
the defense provided by our arsenal? 
The former DCI seems to recognize what a stark signal this move
would send internationally. But he is confident that â€œCareful
timing and management of such tests could mitigate the adverse
international reaction they would inevitably cause.â€ An echo
of this non-argument is made in William Broadâ€™s New York Times
article on nuclear weapons developments by former Los Alamos
nuclear scientists Dr. P. Leonardo Mascheroni who suggests that
â€œan innovative system of tiny nuclear blastsâ€¦.would save a
great deal of money and avoid the political firestorm that would
probably accompany any effort to resume full-scale testing.â€

Iâ€™m not sure who has constructed this talking point about
â€œmitigating adverse reactionsâ€ and â€œavoiding political
firestorms,â€ but it seems to have a great deal in common with
the constant efforts of missile defense advocates to downplay
the consequences of Americaâ€™s withdrawal from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. They put the bar unacceptably
low, as itâ€™s unclear just what would constitute
â€œmitigationâ€ of an undeniable â€œadverseâ€ reaction.

What is also being elided is that Americaâ€™s honoring of a
moratorium on nuclear testing has given this country the moral
force to promote the prevention of testing by other states. In
the event that America conducts an occasional test to confirm
that the physics of a warhead, it would need to officially end
its moratorium, and withdraw its signature on the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty. America would not be the only state to take
such action, and the diplomatic, military, and security costs we
would pay far outweigh any benefit of â€œpractical physics.â€

Deutch proposes modifications to the CTBT â€“ giving it a
â€œfive-year termâ€ specifically. But similar proposals were
roundly rejected by the parties that negotiated the treaty.
While it may never enter into force, the United States continues
to honor its signature on this treaty. It is not the only state
to do so: China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Iran, and
Israel are all bound by their signatures not to test nuclear
weapons of their own. The moral force of these moratoriums has
put pressure on Pakistan and India to follow suit, although
perhaps we might be losing the battle with North Korea.

Proposals like Deutchâ€™s would unravel the strength of this
cord that binds international security together and prevents
runaway proliferation of nuclear arms among many of the
worldâ€™s states.

3.
Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Tony Batt was the first to
press with the story that the FY 2006 budget for the Department
of Energy seeks $25 million for enhanced test readiness of
nuclear weapons. NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks hopes that
lead time for testing can be cut in half from 36 to 18 months
with these funds. However, Brooks provided the usual reassurance
that â€œthere is absolutely no indication of any problems in the
stockpile which would cause us to resume testing.â€

What Batt doesnâ€™t report is that the US already claims in this
yearâ€™s budget request for test readiness that it has brought
the time needed to conduct a test explosion down already to 30
months as of FY 2004, and that the target for FY 2005 was 24
months. By the end of this coming fiscal year, the target is 18
months (at page 92).

The true impact of shrinking test readiness should be understood
for what it is: a guarantee that the administration could test
nuclear weapons at will within the span of the second term of
the Bush presidency. With the current 2-to-3 year lead time,
President Bushâ€™s authorization of tests would likely not lead
to live explosions within his term unless he were to authorize
tests more or less immediately. With the shrinkage to eighteen
months, President Bush will have until June 2007 to authorize
testing and ensure that tests are conducted, rather than
cancelled by a successor who might hopefully show more wisdom
and better judgment on the question.

Tomorrow, we will receive an update from the new Energy
Secretary on the FY2006 "atomic energy defense activities" of
the Department of Energy. This will be Dr. Samuel Bodman's first
public hearing on nuclear weapons, and I hope he will
demonstrate that he's learned more on the subject than he
exhibited in his confirmation hearing last month.

This has been NUCLEAR TEST WATCH. 
posted by Michael Roston at   	 
 
+ Name:Michael Roston 
 
*****************************************************************
 21 [NukeNet] Basic Facts Re Nuclear Power And Chernobyl 
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:35:25 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)



    Nineteen months after the
disaster, in Nov. 1987, the U.S. government
officially doubled its estimate of the
"background" radiation to which we are exposed
every year.11 [New York Times, November 20, 1987]


    Nature has also reported that in Greece, 2,800
kilometers from Chernobyl, where radiation
exposures were far lower than in areas close to
the reactor, leukemia has been diagnosed at rates
2.6 times the norm in young people who were in the
womb when the reactor exploded. The British
epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart found long ago
that only one diagnostic X-ray to the pregnant
abdomen increases the risk of leukemia in the
offspring by 40 percent.19 However, the report
from Greece is the first to link Chernobyl's
wreckage to increased leukemia incidence in
children exposed in utero.20 The report has moved
some experts to again warn that the low levels of
radiation to which people are exposed every day
"could contribute to cancer."

 > Let's not also forget some of the testimont
claiming the damage could reach
 > as much as 1,000 miles.

    Minnesota's radiation laced milk about 5,000 to
6,000 miles from Chernobyl and Oregon's  radiation
laced
drinking water and rainfall used for other
purposes such as agriculture derived from rainfall
about 7,000 miles from Chernobyl put a new spin on
10 mile, 17.5 mile and even 1,000 mile evacuation
zones and affected areas from a nuclear power
catastrophe. And:
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1996:
"radiation contamination was detectable over the
entire Northern Hemisphere."

AP, May 15, 1986: "Airborne radioactivity from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so widespread
that it is likely to fall to the ground wherever
it rains in the United States, the EPA said."

AP, April 4, 1996: "Plutonium and other dangerous
particles released in the accident . . . have now
found their way to Ukraine's major waterways . . .
. 'We have billions of tons of radiated earth that
can't be dumped anywhere, and which will pour
plutonium, cesium and strontium into Europe for
decades,' the chief consultant to the Ukrainian
Parliament's Chernobyl commission said."




    See below for massive media distortions of
Chernobyl effects:


   The following is the work of John Laforge of
Nukewatch:


YOU SHOULD ASK FOR AN EMAIL COPY OF MY ARTICLE ON
CHERNOBYL FROM EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL, VOL. 12, NO.
3, SUMMER 1997, P. 28 TOO.

SINCERELY, JOHN LaFORGE
___________
Nukewatch
P.O. Box 649
Luck, WI 54853
Phone (715) 472-4185
Fax (715) 472-4184
Web http://www.nukewatch.com

MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

Published Sunday, May 7, 2000

Chernobyl: For 14 years, the industry has
downplayed the damage to humans and the planet
John M. LaForge

With a heavy dose of half-truth, the commercial
press works overtime to reduce the results of the
April 26, 1986, Chernobyl catastrophe to a
"nervous disorder" confined to the former Soviet
Union and Europe. Understated anniversary reports
of the worldwide radiation disaster help the
nuclear industry hold on against overwhelming
opposition, in spite of what should have been the
final insult from nuclear power.

Efforts at psychological "cleanup" often sound
like Peter Crane, a lawyer at the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC), who says that "the
explosion . . . sent a radioactive cloud into the
atmosphere of Eastern Europe." This is a true
statement. It merely neglects to mention the rest
of planet Earth.

Journalist Michael Specter reports, "The fire,
which burned out of control for five days, spewed
more than 50 tons of radioactive fallout across
Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia." This loaded
sentence is true, in a limited sense. That the
fire burned uncontrolled for two weeks after a
series of three explosions; that perhaps 190 tons
of reactor fuel was catapulted into the
atmosphere; or that the radioactive fallout spread
worldwide, reaching Minnesota's milk, for example,
doesn't make Specter a liar, only a miser with the
truth.

The Associated Press' Dave Carpenter's description
that "deadly reactor fuel shot into the
atmosphere, contaminating some 10,000 square miles
and reaching as far as Western Europe" is likewise
"correct," but Reuters reported on Nov. 28, 1995,
that the contaminated areas include about 61,780
square miles. What is it to understate the total
of irradiated territory by a factor of six? It
isn't the pot calling the kettle black; it's the
cesium calling the strontium a cancer agent.

Carpenter's AP lullaby was published widely and
included the comment that "those living in the
shadow of Chernobyl will be living with its deadly
health and environmental legacy for years."

For years? The word "centuries" would have been
more accurate, if conservative, since radiation's
health effects are multigenerational and not
limited in time. Indeed, some genetic effects
appear to be increasing with each successive
generation.

The AP's Angela Charlson reported that the
explosions sent "a radioactive cloud across parts
of Europe." Understatement was practiced as well
by the New York Times, which said the disaster
"spewed radiation across much of Europe" and that
"a plume of toxic gases and dust . . . spread
across the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe
and Scandinavia." While this uncomfortable fact is
nowadays passe, the contamination of the whole
world was hinted at when the Times reported that
the radiation spread across western Russia "and
beyond."

'Irrational fears'?

While Chernobyl's long-lived carcinogens --
primarily cesium, plutonium, strontium and
iodine -- are well known to be deadly for decades
or centuries, Soviet officials, the United
Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
and U.S. editors have all ridiculed the
common-sense fear of Chernobyl's radioactive
fallout.

The official Soviet paper Izvestia said in 1988
that doctors in the Ukraine were "spending more
time on trying to dispel irrational fears than on
treating the effects of radiation."

The IAEA, which at first refused to conduct a
post-Chernobyl health study, claiming that all the
accident's effects were confined within Soviet
borders, dared to say in a 1991 study that
Chernobyl's health effects were mainly
"psychological." The heavily criticized report did
not consider the health of the emergency-response
workers or of the evacuees from the 18-mile
exclusion zone, 8,000 of whom are now known to
have died from radiation-related diseases.

The IAEA study failed to mention the lengthy
latency period for observed cancer incidence. This
cavalier whitewash of the disaster's inevitable
results came from a nominal nuclear watchdog.
"After all, the IAEA is in the business of
promoting nuclear energy, not discouraging it. For
10 years the agency has attempted to downplay the
consequences of the accident," wrote Alexander R.
Sich in a cover story for the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists. The IAEA, still downplaying in 1995,
said any increase in cancer caused by Chernobyl
would be "undetectable."

Editors across the country have embraced the
IAEA's dismissive attitude, distracting readers
with headlines like "Citizens still suffering
radiation phobia" and "The legacy of Chernobyl:
Fear is the deeper wound." A dread of radiation
doesn't appear irrational in view of 1995's report
that "A second catastrophic explosion at the
Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine could happen
'at any time,' Western scientists have warned."

A short review of Chernobyl's fallout pattern
shows how irresponsible the reporting has become.

AP, May 15, 1986: "Airborne radioactivity from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so widespread
that it is likely to fall to the ground wherever
it rains in the United States, the EPA said."

AP, May 14, 1986: "An invisible cloud of
radioactivity spewed over the Soviet Union and
Europe, and has worked its way gradually around
the world."

AP, May 15, 1986: "State authorities in Oregon
have warned residents dependent solely on
rainwater for drinking that they should arrange
other supplies for the time being."

Star Tribune, May 17, 1986: "Since radiation from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident began floating over
Minnesota last week, low levels of radiation have
been discovered in . . . the raw milk from a
Minnesota dairy."

AP, April 4, 1996: "Plutonium and other dangerous
particles released in the accident . . . have now
found their way to Ukraine's major waterways . . .
. 'We have billions of tons of radiated earth that
can't be dumped anywhere, and which will pour
plutonium, cesium and strontium into Europe for
decades,' the chief consultant to the Ukrainian
Parliament's Chernobyl commission said."

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1996:
"radiation contamination was detectable over the
entire Northern Hemisphere."

Well beyond "Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia,"
and further than "parts of Europe," Chernobyl's
contamination doused at least half the world. But
with so much disparity among estimates, we may
never know the true biological, ecological,
psychological and economic dimensions of
Chernobyl's radiation bomb.

-- John M. LaForge is codirector of Nukewatch, a
peace group based in Wisconsin, and editor of its
quarterly newsletter, the Pathfinder.

© Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved

_______________________________

Chernobyl at Ten:

Half-lives and Half Truths

(Part one of two)


By John M. LaForgeã


With a heavy dose of half-truth, the commercial
press worked over-time to reduce the results of
the Chernobyl catastrophe to a "nervous disorder"
confined to the C.I.S. and Europe. Understated
reports on the 10th anniversary of the world-wide
radiation disaster help the nuclear reactor
industry hold on against overwhelming opposition,
in spite of what should have been the final insult
from nuclear power.

The latest psychological "clean up" often went
like this. Peter Crane, a lawyer at the U. S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said that
"...the explosion... sent a radioactive cloud into
the atmosphere of Eastern Europe." (1) This is a
true statement. It merely neglects to mention the
rest of planet Earth.

Reporter Michael Specter wrote that, "The fire
which burned out of control for five days, spewed
more than 50 tons of radioactive fallout across
Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia." (2) This
loaded sentence is also literally true. The fact
that the fire burned uncontrolled for two weeks,
after a series of three explosions; that perhaps
190 tons of reactor fuel was catapulted into the
atmosphere; or that the radioactive fallout spread
world-wide ¾ reaching Minnesota's milk for example
¾ doesn't make of Mr. Specter a liar, only a miser
with the truth.

Associated Press (AP) correspondent Dave Carpenter
's description ¾ that "deadly reactor fuel shot
into the atmosphere, contaminating some 10,000
square miles and reaching as far as Western
Europe" (3) is likewise "correct," but Reuters
News Service reported on 28 Nov. 1995 that the
contaminated areas include about 61,780 square
miles.

Carpenter practiced perfect obfuscation in his
dispatch, saying of the reckless nuclearists over
there: "In a big lie, Soviet officials. . . first
hushed up the disaster then played down its
severity." What is it to understate the sum of
irradiated territory by a factor of six? It isn't
the pot calling the kettle black; it's the cesium
calling the strontium a cancer agent.

Carpenter's AP lullaby was published widely and
included the comment that, ". . .those living in
the shadow of Chernobyl will be living with its
deadly health and environmental legacy for years."
(4)

For years? The word centuries would have been more
accurate, if conservative, since radiation's
health affects are multi-generational and not
limited in time. Indeed, some genetic effects
appear to be increasing with each successive
generation.

The AP's Angela Charlson went so far as to say the
reactor sent "a radioactive cloud across parts of
Europe ..." (5) Understatement of the overwhelming
facts was practiced as well by the editors of The
New York Times, who said on April 21 that the
disaster "spewed radiation across much or Europe"
(6) and on the anniversary, that "...a plume of
toxic gases & dust...spread across the western
Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia." (7)
Although the contamination of the rest of the
world was hinted at as lately as 6 Oct. 1995, when
the Times reported that the radiation spread
across western Russia "and beyond," this
uncomfortable fact is nowadays passé.


The Disaster's in Your Head

While the explosions' long-lived carcinogens ¾
primarily cesium, plutonium, strontium and iodine
¾ are well known to be deadly for decades and even
centuries, Soviet officials, the U. N's
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and
U.S. editors have all ridiculed the common sense
fear of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout.

The official Soviet paper Izvestia said in 1988
that doctors in the Ukraine were, ". . .spending
more time on trying to dispel irrational fears
than on treating the effects of radiation." (8)

The IAEA which at first refused to conduct a
post-Chernobyl health study, claiming that all the
accident's effects were confined within Soviet
borders (9), dared to say in a 1991 study that
Chernobyl's health effects were mainly
"psychological." This heavily criticized report
didn't even consider the health of the
"liquidators," or the evacuees from the 18-mile
exclusion zone, 8,000 of whom are now known to
have died from radiation related diseases. (10)

The IAEA study failed to mention the lengthy
latency period for observed cancer incidence. This
cavalier white-wash of the disaster's inevitable
results came from a nominal nuclear watchdog,
which in fact is only the most prestigious booster
of nuclear power. "After all the IAEA is in the
business of promoting nuclear energy not
discouraging it. For ten years the agency has
attempted to downplay the consequences of the
accident," wrote Dr. Alexander R. Sich in a cover

story for the May/June Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists. (11) The IAEA, still sticking in its
vacuum, said in 1995 that any increase in cancer
caused by Chernobyl would be "undetectable."
(11.1)

Editors across the country have embraced the IAEA'
s dismissive attitude, distracting readers with
headlines like, "Area Frozen In Fear," "Citizens
Still Suffering Radiation Phobia," and "The Legacy
of Chernobyl: Fear is the Deeper Wound." A dread
of radiation doesn't appear irrational in view of
last year's report that "A second catastrophic
explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in
Ukraine could happen "at any time," Western
scientists have warned." (12)


Reality Officially Forgotten

A short review of Chernobyl's fallout pattern
shows how irresponsible the late reporting has
become. AP, 15 May 1986: "Airborne radioactivity
from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so
widespread that it is likely to fall to the ground
wherever it rains in the United States, the EPA
said." AP, 14 May 1986: "An invisible cloud of
radioactivity spewed over the Soviet Union and
Europe, and has worked its way gradually around
the world." AP, 15 May 1986: "State authorities in
Oregon have warned residents dependent solely on
rainwater for drinking that they should arrange
other supplies for the time being." Minneapolis
Star Tribune, 17 May 1986: "Since radiation from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident began floating over
Minnesota last week, low levels of radiation have
been discovered in... the raw milk from a
Minnesota dairy." AP, 4 April 1996: "Plutonium and
other dangerous particles released in the
accident...have now found their way to Ukraine's
major waterways. ... 'We have billions of tons of
radiated earth that can't be dumped anywhere, and
which will pour plutonium, cesium and strontium
into Europe for decades,' [the chief consultant to
the Ukrainian parliament's Chernobyl commission]
said." Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May 1996, p.
38: "...radiation contamination was detectable
over the entire northern hemisphere."

With so much disparity among so many figures, we
may never know the true dimensions of Chernobyl's
radiation bomb.


Notes:

(1) NYT, Op-Ed, 5 April 1996.

(2) International Herald Tribune, 2 April 1996.

(3) Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 14 April 1996.


(4) Minneapolis Star Tribune, 21 April 1996.

(5) St. Paul Pioneer, 27 April 1996.

(6) NYT, 21 April 1996, The Week In Review.

(7) NYT, 26 April 1996, signed editorial by Philip
Taubman

(8) Los Angeles Times, 11 Feb. 1988.

(9) In These Times, 22 April 1987.

(10) AP, 23 April 1992; WISE News Communiqué,
(Amsterdam) No. 449, 10 April 1996.

(11) Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May 1996, p.
38.

(11.1) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June
1996, p. 8.

(12) The London Observer, 26 March 1995; Milwaukee
Journal, 27 March 1995.


Half Lives and Half Truths: Chernobyl Ten Years On


By John M. LaForge ã

(Second of two parts)


The 10th anniversary was no party.

"I have seen the beginning of the end of the
world," is how Michael Mariotte, editor of The
Nuclear Monitor, put it after visiting Chernobyl's
doomed landscape, everything dead or dying for
miles around. "The end of the world begins in
Pripyat, Ukraine, a once-thriving city of 45,000.
Now it sits crumbling, abandoned, a mute but
overwhelming testament to technological arrogance
gone amok."1

Pripyat was the city nearest Chernobyl's Unit 4,
the reactor that exploded on April 26, 1986 and
burned dangerously until October, spewing tons of
cancer-causing isotopes around the world.2

Mr. Mariotte is not known for emotional writing in
The Monitor, but anyone who can stand to
investigate the unfolding human consequences of
the world's worst industrial catastrophe can
understand his choice of words. Izvestia called it
"the greatest technological catastrophe in world
history."3

Cancers and other disease caused by Chernobyl's
radioactive poisons are being recorded thousands
of kilometers from the reactor site. The ninety
million people who lived in the path of the very
worst fallout are learning the hard way that
damage done by ionizing radiation is unrelenting,
cumulative and irreversible.

In the first part of this article (Spring 1996
Pathfinder) I compared the recent trivialization
of Chernobyl's consequences to news accounts that
appeared soon after the explosions and fire. For
example, while the commercial press now tell us
that the disaster "spread radiation across parts
of Europe," the fact is that the federal EPA
announced in mid-May 1986 that, "Airborne
radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident
is now so widespread that it is likely to fall to
the ground wherever it rains in the United
States."4

In this part I look at how much radiation
Chernobyl evidently dumped added to the
"background," at official skewing of the its
inevitable long-term effects, and at recent
reports of its human health consequences.


Answers are Blowin' in the Wind

How much radiation was released? What percentage
of which isotopes were thrown into the atmosphere.
Was it mostly iodine-131? How much of the total
was made up of the far more dangerous cesium-137,
strontium-90 and plutonium?

Piecing together the truth is a dizzying job of
ferreting out bias and vested interest. The
pro-nuclear Time magazine reported in 1989 that
perhaps "one billion or more" curies were
released, rather than the 50 to 80 million
estimated by Russian authorities.5 One curie is
the amount of radiation equal to the
disintegration of 37 billion atoms ¾ 37 billion
becquerels ¾ per second. It is a very large amount
of radiation.

The U.S. government's Argonne Nat. Lab has said
that 30 percent of the reactor's total
radioactivity ¾ 3 billion of an estimated 9
billion curies ¾ was released.6 And scientists at
the U.S. Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab suggested
that one-half of the core's radioactivity was
spewed ¾ 4.5 billion curies, according the World
Information Service on Energy, quoting Science,
6-13-86.

Vladimir Chernousenko, the chief scientific
supervisor of the "clean up" team responsible for
a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor,
says that 80 percent of the reactor's
radioactivity escaped, something like seven
billion curies.7 At the Union of Concerned
Scientists, senior energy analyst Kennedy Maize,
concluded that "the core vaporized" ¾ all 190 tons
of fuel, and all 9 billion curies.8

Former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Joseph Hendrie, concluded likewise,
saying "They have dumped the full inventory of
volatile fission products from a large power
reactor into the environment. You can't do any
worse than that."9

The Russians and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) claimed in a 1986 report, that 50
million curies of radioactive debris, plus another
50 million curies of rare and inert gasses were
discharged. However, the rocketing incidence of
cancers, leukemias and other radiation-induced
illnesses, leads scientists to suspect that the
higher radioactive fallout estimates are likely.
Pandemic numbers of thyroid cancers led even the
cautious Dr. Alexander Sich, in his Chernobyl
cover story for the May 1996 Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists to conclude that the "higher
[radiation] release estimates support the
conclusions drawn by medical experts."

Geneticist Valery N. Soyfer, founder of the former
Soviet Union's first molecular biology laboratory,
analyzed the 1986 report to the IAEA, which has
since been condemned as a cover-up. Dr. Soyfer
says that if only 100 million curies were vented,
then world "background radiation doubled at
once."10 This claim was unsupported by
accompanying evidence, but if "background" was
doubled by 100 million curies, then it was
multiplied 180 times by the release of Chernobyl's
"full inventory." Nineteen months after the
disaster, in Nov. 1987, the U.S. government
officially doubled its estimate of the
"background" radiation to which we are exposed
every year.11


Thyroid Cancers: More, Sooner, Untreatable

Dr. Soyfer further discovered that the Soviets
focused on and publicized the fallout's
radioactive iodine content, but understated the
amounts of other far more dangerous isotopes.
While 10 to 15 percent of the fallout was
iodine-131, the long-lived radionuclides
strontium-90 and cesium-137 made up more than two
thirds of the total contamination.12

Furthermore, the Soviet's 1986 estimate of future
cancer deaths was based only on the impact of
iodine-131, and then only on external doses. As a
result, the IAEA misled the world about Chernobyl'
s cancer threat. People contaminated with
iodine-131 ingested it, first by breathing, then
by drinking contaminated milk for six weeks.
Thyroid cancer is caused by the iodine-131. Its
rates are today ten times higher than the increase
any scientist had anticipated. The U. N. has said
that the number of thyroid cancers among children
in Belarus ¾ where 70 percent of the fallout
landed ¾ are 285 times pre-Chernobyl levels.13

The British Medical Journal reported in 1995 that
the rate of thyroid cancer in the region north of
Chernobyl¾ Ukraine and Belarus¾ is 200 times
higher than normal, and the (British) Imperial
Cancer Research Fund found a 500 percent increase
in thyroid cancers among Ukrainian children
between 1986 and 1993.14

Fear is growing among physicians treating the
young radiation victims, because the thyroid
cancers are appearing sooner than expected and
growing quicker than usual. Dr. Andrei Butenko, at
Kiev Hospital No. 1 in Ukraine, says of his
patients, "Routine chemotherapy seems to have lost
its effectiveness; something has changed in the
immune system."15


Cesium's Genetic Assault: the 300 Years War

Cesium-137 contamination is probably Chernobyl's
most devastating and ominous consequence. The body
can't distinguish cesium from potassium, so it's
taken up by our cells and becomes an internal
source of radiation. Cesium-137 is a gamma emitter
and its half-life of 30 years means that it stays
in the soil, to concentrate in the food chain, for
over 300 years. While iodine-131 remains
radioactive for six weeks, cesium-137 stays in the
body for decades, concentrating in muscle where it
irradiates muscle cells and nearby organs.16

Strontium-90 is also long-lived and, because it
resembles calcium, is permanently incorporated
into bone tissue where it may lead to leukemia.

The Soviet's acknowledged in 1986 that the
influence of cesium-137 on cancer death rates
would be nine times that of iodine-131. They said
that the effects of strontium-90 would "perhaps
have, along with cesium-137, the most important
meaning."17


Early Findings Go from Bad to Worse

Exposure to radiation more often results in
genetic and reproductive damage than cancer. These
hereditary disorders are unlimited in time, since
they pass from generation to generation in the
sperm and ovum. So, as geneticist Soyfer points
out, Chernobyl's enduring biological legacy will
be that of inherited diseases, deformities,
developmental abnormalities, spontaneous abortions
and premature births.

Some recent epidemiological studies confirm the
worst of these inevitable effects. The June 25,
1995 Washington Post reported that birth defects
in the areas most heavily poisoned have doubled
since 1986.

In a long page one story, the Aug. 2, 1995 New
York Times reported that life expectancy has
plummeted in Russia, making it the first nation in
history to ever experience such a public health
status reversal. Male life expectancy is now the
lowest in the world (below even India or Bolivia)
and, at the same time, infant mortality rose 15
percent in both 1993 and 1994, and there are now
epidemic rates of heart disease and cancer. dr.
David Hoel, an epidemiologist at the Medical
University of S. Carolina, is studying whether
Chernobyl's radiation is a major factor in the
spread in cancers and birth defects. "Everyone
assumes the connection," he said.

The journal Nature has published a study of
children born in 1994 to mothers exposed to
Chernobyl's fallout in 1986. Researchers studied
79 families 186 miles from Chernobyl and found
never-before-observed "germ-line" mutations:
changes in DNA of the sperm and ovum. Such
mutations are passed on from generation to
generation.18

Nature has also reported that in Greece, 2,800
kilometers from Chernobyl, where radiation
exposures were far lower than in areas close to
the reactor, leukemia has been diagnosed at rates
2.6 times the norm in young people who were in the
womb when the reactor exploded. The British
epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart found long ago
that only one diagnostic X-ray to the pregnant
abdomen increases the risk of leukemia in the
offspring by 40 percent.19 However, the report
from Greece is the first to link Chernobyl's
wreckage to increased leukemia incidence in
children exposed in utero.20 The report has moved
some experts to again warn that the low levels of
radiation to which people are exposed every day
"could contribute to cancer."

Even the stodgy New York Times has reported that
"cancers are now believed to be the result of
smaller [radiation] doses, and the amount of
damage inflicted by a given dose is now believed
to be larger."21

In a related study, two U.S. geneticists analyzing
animals inside Chernobyl's 6-mile radius found
that small rodents known as voles "sustain an
extraordinary amount of genetic damage." The study
found that "the mutation rate in these animals
is...probably thousands of times greater than
normal." Two findings called "ominous" were,
first, that one-third of the mutations that the
scientists expected to see were not even detected
¾ probably because they were lethal. "It could be
that the animals were never born," said Dr. Robert
Becker of Texas Technical Univ. Second, "the vole
mutations were cumulative, increasing with each
succeeding generation." Both researchers doubted
that any species could sustain such a mutation
rate indefinitely.22


Acceptable Whole-Earth Poisoning

The extent of Chernobyl's radioactive, biological
and ecological damage, and the depth its
psychological and economic devastation are
incalculable.

What everyone does know about nuclear reactors is
that they have a record of whole-earth poisoning,
and that their potential for more of the same is
considered acceptable ¾ authorized in advance.
This potential, for unlimited and uncontrollable
radiation "accidents," has been deliberately
developed, promoted, protected, ignored and then
denied, or forgotten.

Sadly, denial and forgetfulness only make another
Chernobyl inevitable.

Notes:

1 The Nuclear Monitor, newsletter of Nuclear
Information Resource Service (NIRS), April 1996.

2 St. Louis Post Dispatch (SLPD), 7-23-90.

3 SLPD, 4-26-90.

4 Associated Press, 5-15-86.

5 Time, 11-13-89.

6 The Chicago Tribune, 6-22-86.

7 "The Truth About Chernobyl," Critical Mass:
Voices for a Nuclear-Free Future, Ruggiero and
Sahulka, Eds., 1996 by Open Media, p. 127.

8 Not Man Apart, the journal of Friends of the
Earth, March 1987.

9 The Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5-19-86.

10 SLPD, 4-24-87.

11 The New York Times, 11-20-87.

12 SLPD, 4-24-87.

13 The New York Times, 11-29-96.

14 The Washington Post, 3-25-95.

15 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 12-12-94.

16 Caldicott, H., Nuclear Madness, 1994, Norton,
p. 137.

17 SLPD, 4-24-87.

18 The New York Times, 4-25-96.

19 Caldicott, Ibid., p. 43.

20 St. Paul Pioneer, 7-25-96.

21 The New York Times, 6-23-96.

22 The New York Times, 5-7-96, B6. --end--

(Part One ran in NUKEWATCH The Pathfinder, Summer
1996, part Two in Winter 1996/1997 EDITION; an
edited compilation of both parts is published in
Earth Island Journal, Summer 1997, EIJ, 300
Broadway, No. 28, San Francisco, CA 94133.)



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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 22 sign on to oppose new reactor at North Anna
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:32:02 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
Dear Friend:

Would you please sign on to a letter opposing the first proposed nuclear 
reactors in America in over 25 years? The letter below will be submitted at 
a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing this week to protest Dominion's 
plan to build two new nuclear reactors at its North Anna site in Virginia.



* Please email <mailto:annerabe@msn.com>annerabe@msn.com to sign on in 
solidarity with the local groups fighting these reactors and send a 
national message to the NRC (please do not reply to nirsnet@nirs.org). To 
sign on, send your Name, Group, City and State by  10 am, Thursday, 
February 17th to <mailto:annerabe@msn.com>annerabe@msn.com CHEJ's BE SAFE 
campaign is coordinating this solidarity protest letter with Public 
Citizen, NIRS and other groups.



Constructing new reactors would be bad for the environment and public 
health, bad for the safety and security of our country, and bad for 
ratepayers as well as taxpayers. The letter urges the NRC to deny the 
application for an Early Site Permit and for Dominion to instead focus on 
finding alternative methods of addressing expected increases in energy 
demands over the coming years.  Thanks. Anne Rabe, BE SAFE, CHEJ



Coalition Letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:





We, the undersigned organizations and businesses, OPPOSE any plans by 
Dominion to build any new nuclear reactors at its North Anna nuclear power 
station in Virginia.  The site is unsuitable, and many important factors 
are not being considered in the decision of whether to approve Dominions 
application for an Early Site Permit (ESP) at the site.  Constructing new 
reactors would be bad for the environment, bad for the safety and security 
of our country, bad for principles of open and accountable government, and 
bad for ratepayers as well as taxpayers.  For example:



P      The Early Site Permit is part of a new streamlinedlicensing process 
meant to reassure investors that past regulatory delays will not occur 
again.  However, this will prevent citizens from raising crucial safety 
problems that have been at the root of past delays.  The process has gone 
forward rapidly with little effort on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) or Dominion to involve members of the public, either 
locally or nationally, despite its profound implications.



P      Safer, cheaper alternatives to new nuclear generating capacity are 
not being explored as part of the ESP process.  The ESP application also 
doesnt consider what the effect might be on the cost of power in Virginia 
or nationally, or whether there is a need for new generating 
capacity.  Virginia currently has a surplus of electrical generating 
capacity, so excess power will likely be sold outside the state rather than 
being used in-state to lower prices.  Local residents will be forced to 
live with the risks of the nuclear plant without getting the benefits.



P      Nearly 3½ years after September 11th, 2001, legislation to improve 
security at nuclear plants has not been enacted, and security improvements 
by the nuclear industry have been shown to have significant gaps and 
flaws.  Security guards are often ill-trained and ill-equipped.  Mock 
assaults designed to test guards and keep them on their toes are often done 
in an unrealistic manner, with weeks of advanced warning and limited attack 
scenarios.  Further, the company testing security also guards nearly half 
the plants in the country, creating a conflict of interest that prevents 
meaningful security analysis.  Eight state attorneys general submitted 
comments to the NRC in January 2005 calling for vastly improved security 
standards.



P      A major nuclear accident could leave an area the size of 
Pennsylvania uninhabitable for decades.  The area around the Chernobyl 
nuclear plant, site of a major accident in 1986, is still closed to public 
access and radiation levels are still high.  Cleanup costs for a major 
nuclear accident are estimated to be around $500 billion, not including 
broader economic shockwaves.  The nuclear industrys liability for such an 
accident is capped at around $10 billion, leaving taxpayers with an 
estimated $490 billion bill, ratepayers with a bankrupt utility, and 
surviving residents without a home.



P      Emergency plans for dealing with an accident or terrorist attack are 
inadequate, and rely on uninformed teachers, bus drivers, doctors, and 
other civilians to facilitate an evacuation, without taking into account 
the possibility of role abandonment.  Studies of the Three Mile Island 
accident, which took place in 1979 in Pennsylvania, found that doctors and 
other key workers abandoned their posts up to 25 miles from the site to 
tend to their families or save themselves.  In the case of a more severe 
accident, heroic actions would be required to successfully carry out an 
evacuation.



P      There is at this time NO solution to the problem of nuclear waste, 
and constructing new reactors will only worsen that problem.  The proposed 
Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada continues to face strong opposition and 
many scientific questions about the suitability of the site.  The State of 
Nevada and local and national environmental groups were successful in a 
Federal District Court setting aside of a 10,000 year radiation dose 
standard, deemed unsafe for future generations and there are still lawsuits 
currently pending. These court cases have sent the U.S. Department of 
Energy back to the drawing board.  Meanwhile, all of the highly-radioactive 
irradiated fuel from the plants will continue to be stored on-site and 
needs to be protected and monitored. In addition, there is no place to send 
the so-called low-levelradioactive waste from routine operation and 
dismantlement and decommissioning of this proposed new nuclear reactor in 
Virginia.



P      The history of nuclear power demonstrates that constructing nuclear 
reactors is expensive, with final costs often running billions of dollars 
over budget costs that are often passed on to ratepayers.  The first 75 
reactors constructed in the U.S. had a combined cost overrun of over $100 
billion.  The average reactor ran 400% over budget and was over 4 years 
late in start up.  The last reactor in the U.S. to be completed, the Watts 
Bar plant in Tennessee, was finally opened in 1996, 23 years after it was 
first proposed.  It cost $8 billion.  Nuclear power continues to be 
uneconomical.  The cost for the ESP process, as well as the later 
permitting stages, is being split between the industry and the U.S. 
Department of Energy.  The federal energy bill would provide each of the 
first six plants built with a $1 billion subsidy, costing taxpayers as much 
as $6 billion. After a half-century and $74 billion in subsidies, nuclear 
power should be forced to survive or fail on its own.



P      Nuclear power, due to the large generating capacity of one reactor, 
is an inherently centralized form of electricity production.  As a 
consequence, we have to generate more power overall because there has to be 
so much extra capacity to continue meeting demand when just one reactor 
goes down.  Also, taking that much power off the grid at once, as can 
happen in the case of an emergency or during events like the August 2003 
blackout, is very destabilizing and can make the situation worse.  Third, 
it takes a huge amount of money to build a nuclear plant, meaning that it's 
difficult if not impossible for smaller energy companies to enter that 
market, meaning theres less competition.  Plus, the large utilities that 
can afford to build or own nuclear plants are growing ever larger, as 
evidenced by Dominions quest to purchase the Kewaunee reactor and Exelons 
proposed merger with PSEG.  Centralized control means loss of local 
control.  We should be moving toward decentralized, rather than 
centralized, energy systems.



P      Renewable energy sources such as wind power create more jobs per 
investment dollar than does nuclear power.  Those jobs also require less 
specialized education, increasing the chances that local workers will be 
able to secure the jobs rather than requiring outside experts.



In light of these concerns, we urge the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
to DENY Dominions application for an Early Site Permit, and for Dominion to 
instead focus on finding alternative methods of addressing expected 
increases in energy demands over the coming years.



Sincerely,



Your Name, Group, City, State



</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 23 No truth to the rumor that California is powerless at the
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:29:04 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
To:  "Jeff Ballinger, The Tribune" <jballinger@thetribunenews.com>

Tuesday, February 15th, 2005

Dear Sir,

Regarding seismic (the Hosgri Fault ) or any other reason (terrorism and 
its thousand forms, tsunamis, accidental airplane strikes, tornados, 
asteroids, etc.) to close Diablo Canyon:

It is an inaccurate interpretation of the law which causes all the 
California state agencies, one after another, to defer the hard decision to 
close the plant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and which causes you 
to claim (in the third paragraph of your article (shown below)) that 
California is helpless to shut Diablo Canyon (and San Onofre) IMMEDIATELY 
due to being hamstrung by federal authority.  Read the laws which gave up 
that authority.  There is a simple loophole to get it back -- namely, admit 
that the NRC cannot possibly do the job it has been assigned.  They nearly 
failed at Davis-Besse, and the NRC was formed only after the events at 
Three Mile Island proved that the AEC was unable to do the job.

To call nuclear power a catastrophe waiting to happen is a simple statement 
of fact.

Take away the Price-Anderson Act -- a bankrupt (ie, virtually unfunded) 
piece of legislature that should never have been passed -- and the nuclear 
utilities would close the plants themselves.  In other words, holding them 
responsible for their actions is all it would take.

A  terrorist act is also all it would take, but your article assumes that 
such a thing simply cannot happen.  You (and many others) also assume nor 
can large enough tsunamis, tornados, asteroids, etc. happen to cause a 
catastrophe, for where is any of that in your article or in anyone's 
calculation whom you quoted?

Do you think that the NRC is right, the AGs of 7 states are wrong, and the 
plants are properly protected?  What a fantasy -- when does reality set 
in?   The average citizen can see what happened on 9-11, they can see the 
hole in the Cole, and the holes JDAMs can create (remembering that ANY high 
school kid can make a crude JDAM from remote-control airplane parts).  As 
crude as box-cutters?  No, not quite that unsophisticated.  But just as 
effective for the task.

And let me get this straight.  If the first study yields results suggesting 
the Diablo Canyon plant is dangerously close to the Hosgri Fault, THEN 
another study will kick in to see what could be offered to PG&E to get them 
to shut it down?  How about we offer them jail time if they don't?  For 
what, you ask?  How about for holding California hostage to energy 
blackouts due to the unreliability of getting 4,000 Megawatts from nuclear 
power, which is prone to sudden SCRAMs?  How about for creating some 6 to 8 
million pounds of high level radioactive waste without a clue as to how to 
store it safely?  Yucca Mountain is a scientific flop, a political 
disaster, and an ecological nightmare (see quotes from Las Vegas Sun 
article, below).  Las Vegas hates it.  Nevadans all despise it and are 
tired of being rained on by the radioactive debris of society.  And even if 
Yucca Mountain ever does open, every time we move waste to a dry cask, we 
expose our shores and our citizens to additional dangers during the move 
itself.  Crane operators drop things.  Accidents happen.  No industry is 
immune, but only one industry is so dangerous as to require a special 
regulatory agency to oversee it -- but can the NRC really understand crane 
logistics as well as, say, OSHA, with all their national 
experience?  No.  Accidents happen, and have happened.  Do we wait for the 
big one before we stop the process, or do we trust the nuclear industry's 
statistically absurd claims that they will never, ever, ever make the 
ultimate mistake?

Do we learn from what happened at Davis-Besse, and all the other close 
calls that have occurred since nuclear power's inception, some of which are 
so terrifying that to hear about them send chills up your spine?  It's 
obvious the nuclear power industry cannot perform the miracle of perfection 
they have promised.  The miracle of 99.999999%+ containment of their waste 
for 10000 generations.  They can't do that.  So why are the plants open at all?

There is a lot of talk about raising the assumed level of danger from 
so-called "low-level radiation," which is an oxymoron to begin with.  A 
single radioactive decay can destroy 20,000 or more chemical bonds within 
the human body, so even, say, so-called "low energy" tritium is a serious 
health risk.  Just a week or two ago, x-rays were added to the Federal/EPA 
list of known carcinogens.  That x-rays are a danger came as no surprise to 
nuclear activists, but the health physics community is appalled to see it 
listed, not because it is WRONG, but because they are afraid people will 
skip some vital x-rays.  But I assume you believe in an informed 
public.  That is, after all, the duty of journalists everywhere -- to 
inform the public.  Alas, in the nuclear arena, I see very little of that 
going on.  The pro-nuker spokesliars have iron-clad excuses for making up 
any answer to any question, and they'll do so at any time.  Sworn testimony 
at a nuke plant hearing?  I can't recall the last hearing I went to one 
where everyone (or anyone) was sworn in.  So what's a reporter to do?  It's 
hard work to find the truth in the nuclear industry, but worth the effort.

Regular releases from dry casks, spent fuel pools, operational reactors, 
and accidents are all valid issues that need to be re-addressed, but 
instead, have been effectively ignored by the NRC and the nuclear industry 
for decades, despite a wealth of new scientific information.  The question 
is really NOT "should the assumed dangers be greater," it's whether they 
should be raised by a factor of, say, 10, 100, or 1000!  According to the 
latest scientific research, it's highly likely that the original, 
decades-old risk-assessment calculations for whether Diablo Canyon is safe 
or not should now include completely revised biological factors for 
whatever Diablo Canyon does release, on a good day or a bad one.  But the 
NRC and the nuclear industry will stick to the old Hiroshima- and 
Nagasaki-based data, thank you very much.  It's much more convenient for 
them to do so, since so much bias was already introduced at the time the 
research was done that it fits their needs to a "T."  Hence, the nuclear 
industry will claim that Chernobyl only killed 28, or perhaps 31 people, 
when the real number, worldwide, is already probably over 100,000 people, 
and perhaps far higher.

As to it taking time for a long-term transition to alternative energy 
sources, in ONE 14-month period after the so-called electricity 
scarcity-related blackouts of 2000-2001, California added more generating 
capacity than ALL FOUR NUKES in California put out on a good day!  I 
contend the blackouts were entirely politically-motivated to prevent people 
THEN from thinking: "Three of four nukes are shut and our lights are ON, 
gee, can't we turn these things off FOREVER?".

So it's time NOW to close these plants -- all four of 
them.  Immediately.  It can be done and there need not be any forced 
blackouts.  It can be done with renewables, and
it would be highly cost-effective for the state.

It can be done and it must be done, or we will have our own Chernobyl.  It 
most certainly CAN happen here.  And assurances from the NRC or the 
industry to the contrary are based on specious claims that our reactors are 
radically different from Russian models, but all that really means is that 
the means to the end -- fuel melt, massive vaporized releases of 
radioactive fission products, and widespread death, pain, suffering, and 
financial loss -- is slightly different.  Following a full-scale meltdown 
of a reactor or burn-up of a dry cask or just a portion of a spent fuel 
pool, millions dead is not impossible, and more than a million dead is 
probable.

But such a catastrophe is not in any California civil servant's calculation 
"for or against" Diablo Canyon or San Onofre.  They consider themselves 
exempt from considering such "minor details" because of this so-called 
authority the NRC claims to have over them, and which they meekly concede, 
without justification, and in absolute abdication of their 
responsibilities.   Such abdication is unheard of in any other 
industry.  But the nuclear industry is not very normal in a lot of ways.

If you actually ask the NRC, as this writer has done, if they have or would 
consider closing the plants down because they don't make sense in the 
larger scheme of things for society, they will tell you FLAT OUT that's not 
their area of concern -- they only monitor the safety of the plants as they 
operate.

Now, whether they'll put it in writing is another thing, but this writer 
has been told on several occasions (at pubic hearings for San Onofre, for 
instance) that those bigger questions are the concern of the DOE, of which 
the NRC is only a small division.

The DOE, in turn, will stonewall the question permanently.

And what of California?  California and all other nuclear states passed 
various bylaws and mandates and so forth stating that until such time as it 
can be seen that the Feds are not doing their job of managing the safety of 
the nuclear industry in California, all state agencies ABDICATE THEIR 
RESPONSIBILITY to the Feds.

These "laws" were passed long before the DOE or the NRC existed.  They are 
posted at various .ca web sites, for instance, and if you look at them, 
you'll see they refer flat-out to the AEC, which was the forerunner of the 
DOE and the NRC, and hasn't existed in more than 25 years.  A fresh look is 
certainly in order!

The fact is, both the NRC and the DOE are ignoring good energy choices for 
society -- nuclear isn't one of them.  It is a safety risk we do not need 
to take.  After all, the plants do JUST boil water!  There are other -- 
better -- ways to boil water, which isn't the ultimate goal, anyway -- 
turning the electrical generator is.  You don't need steam, even (wave 
power could do it).  You don't need a turbine, you don't need a pressurized 
loop at 2200 PSI and 666 or so degrees (F).  You don't need to generate two 
tons or so of spent fuel in California each week, which will have to be 
guarded for 1000 generations (far longer than recorded civilization).  You 
don't need government secrecy, you don't need informants planted in 
activist organizations, you don't need special laws to protect the liars at 
the NRC who will tell citizens that 9-11 type attacks can't happen because 
Homeland Security has the airports covered -- when anyone with a credit 
card that's not maxed out can rent a private jet and crash THAT into a 
spent fuel pool or dry cask, or control room (which would almost surely 
lead to a meltdown as well).

So reporters should stop letting California's legislators, attorney general 
(who, with the six others, doesn't go nearly far enough in his/their 
current claim), health agencies, and environmental agencies off the 
hook.  They all claim they are powerless in the hands of the almighty 
NRC.  But that "power" wasn't ever actually yielded!  It was loaned, and 
ONLY on condition -- not even true at the time but certainly not true now 
-- that the federal agencies (their forerunners, actually) would properly 
protect the public with their "expertise."

They didn't do so, so the deal giving the AEC/DOE/NRC ANY authority was 
long ago NULL AND VOID.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA


1) Some nuke-related educational projects I've created
2) Yucca Mountain still far more fantasy than fact:
3) SLO Tribune article on Diablo Cyn's future, Feb. 13th, 2005
4) SLO Tribune editorial ignores numerous real problems with nuclear power
5) Letter from "A4NR" (Rochelle Becker)
6) Something's fishy: Altering the data to suit the client
7) Contact information for the author of this letter


==================================================
1) Some nuke-related educational projects I've created:
==================================================

One is a complete animated timeline of U.S. nuclear events, including:

21 subcritical tests
1033 bomb blasts on, above, or under continental U.S. soil
113 additional U.S. bomb blasts
10 U.S. Carriers
190 U.S. Nuclear Submarines
28 U.S. Nuclear rockets
9 U.S. Nuclear Cruisers
1 U.S. "Civilian" nuclear ship
41 BWRs (8 closed)
83 PWRs (13 closed)
1 Yucca Mountain
a few dozen mines, also research facilities, processing plants, etc. etc..

To view this animation, you can probably just go to this URL with any browser:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.html
or try:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf

--------------------------------------------------------------

If your browser does not have a Flash player built into it already, you can 
go to the Macromedia web site to get one.  It's free, and 97% or so 
computers are already running it.  You can also read about this amazing tool:

http://www.macromedia.com

This URL will go directly to the Flash player download web page (just one 
more click to download):
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

---------------------------------------------------------

Besides "Poison Fire USA", I more recently (this year) did an animation 
showing "A BAD DAY AT SAN ONOFRE" which tells about the plant and includes 
a copy of a letter the plant management sent to all employees about an 
essay I wrote:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2005/sce_memo/sce_memo_2004.html

---------------------------------------------------------

A few years ago I created a Glossary of Nuclear Terminology (not in Flash):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hotwords/index.htm

---------------------------------------------------------
Here's a list I created of every commercial nuke in the US, with activists, 
output levels, CRAC-2 estimates, years of operation, owners, locations, etc:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist.htm

---------------------------------------------------------

Here's my SHUT SAN ONOFRE site:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/index.htm

---------------------------------------------------------

===================================================
2) Yucca Mountain still far more fantasy than fact:
===================================================

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Las Vegas Sun Editorial: It's politics versus facts, Feb 13th, 2005:

"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."

And here's this comment, from another LVS editorial a few days earlier:

"Yucca Mountain, thankfully, is indeed stalled and its future is
looking bleak. But only because the facts are beginning to get
in the way..."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


===========================================================
3) SLO Tribune article on Diablo Cyn's future, Feb 13th, 2005:
===========================================================

Posted on Sun, Feb. 13, 2005


Diablo quake study wanted
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 
<mailto:jballinger@thetribunenews.com>jballinger@thetribunenews.com. 
Tribune reporter Nick Wilson contributed to this story.


© 2005 San Luis Obispo Tribune and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com


================================================
4) SLO Tribune editorial ignores numerous real problems with nuclear power:
================================================

From: http://www.energy-net.org/N-LET/EN/0RBULL/RB05234.HTM
*****************************************************************
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

*****************************************************************
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.

*****************************************************************



===============================================
5) Letter from "A4NR" (Rochelle Becker):
===============================================


From: beckers@thegrid.net
To: rochelle@a4nr.org
Subject: We have a request for state study to repower nukes in CA

Dear Friends.

I wanted to keep you posted on the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility 
efforts to prohibit license renewals for CA nukes (and hopefully all our 
nation's nukes).  Today a very courageous Republican Assemblyman announced 
he was asking for state backing for study on seismic vulnerability of CA 
nukes and for repowering of CA nuke facilities.  Article and Op Ed below.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispotribune/10891149.htm


If you are a California organization, please send letters supporting this 
action to:

Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee
Capitol Office
State Capitol
Room 5126
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-319-2033
Fax: 916-319-2133

There is also a letter to the Governor on the a4nr.org website under 
newletters, we invite you to subscribe and we will send action alerts as 
they happen.

and please cc: by email to rochelle@a4nr.org or PO 1328, San Luis Obispo, 
Ca 93406-1328

In Peace

Rochelle Becker
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
858 337 2703
a4nr.org

=====================================================
6) Something's fishy: Altering the data to suit the client:
=====================================================

To: /RENEGADE/ <strider@fornits.com>
From: STRIDER <strider@fornits.com>
Subject: U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
Cc: bay_area_activist@yahoogroups ...snip... earthfirstalert@yahoogroups.com>

...More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to 
the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including 
timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political 
pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business...

"Science was ignored - and worse, manipulated, to build a bogus rationale 
for reversal of these listing decisions."


Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:19:48 -0800 (PST)
From: no_face@kaxy.com
Subject: U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings

--------------------
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
--------------------

More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions 
were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation 


--------------------

February 10, 2005
Los Angeles Times - THE NATION
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer

More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say 
they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections 
for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.

The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response 
rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and 
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service 
is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on 
the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need 
to be protected.

More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the 
survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including 
timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political 
pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business.

Bush administration officials, including Craig Manson, an assistant 
secretary of the Interior who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, have 
been critical of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, contending that its 
implementation has imposed hardships on developers and others while failing 
to restore healthy populations of wildlife.

Along with Republican leaders in Congress, the administration is pushing to 
revamp the act. The president's proposed budget calls for a $3-million 
reduction in funding of Fish and Wildlife's endangered species programs.

"The pressure to alter scientific reports for political reasons has become 
pervasive at Fish and Wildlife offices around the country," said Lexi 
Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Mitch Snow, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency 
had no comment on the survey, except to say "some of the basic premises 
just aren't so."

The two groups that circulated the survey also made available memos from 
Fish and Wildlife officials that instructed employees not to respond to the 
survey, even if they did so on their own time. Snow said that agency 
employees could not use work time to respond to outside surveys.

Fish and Wildlife scientists in 90 national offices were asked 42 questions 
and given space to respond in essay form in the mail-in survey sent in 
November.

One scientist working in the Pacific region, which includes California, 
wrote: "I have been through the reversal of two listing decisions due to 
political pressure. Science was ignored - and worse, manipulated, to build 
a bogus rationale for reversal of these listing decisions."

More than 20% of survey responders reported they had been "directed to 
inappropriately exclude or alter technical information."

However, 69% said they had never been given such a directive. And, although 
more than half of the respondents said they had been ordered to alter 
findings to lessen protection of species, nearly 40% said they had never 
been required to do so.

Sally Stefferud, a biologist who retired in 2002 after 20 years with the 
agency, said Wednesday she was not surprised by the survey results, saying 
she had been ordered to change a finding on a biological opinion.

"Political pressures influence the outcome of almost all the cases," she 
said. "As a scientist, I would probably say you really can't trust the 
science coming out of the agency."

A biologist in Alaska wrote in response to the survey: "It is one thing for 
the department to dismiss our recommendations, it is quite another to be 
forced (under veiled threat of removal) to say something that is counter to 
our best professional judgment."

Don Lindburg, head of the office of giant panda conservation at the 
Zoological Society of San Diego, said it was unrealistic to expect federal 
scientists to be exempt from politics or pressure.

"I've not stood in the shoes of any of those scientists," he said. "But it 
is not difficult for me to believe that there are pressures from those who 
are not happy with conservation objectives, and here I am referring to 
development interest and others.

"But when it comes to altering data, that is a serious matter. I am really 
sorry to hear that scientists working for the service feel they have to do 
that. Changing facts to fit the politics - that is a very unhealthy thing. 
If I were a scientist in that position I would just refuse to do it."

The Union of Concerned Scientists and the public employee group provided 
copies of the survey and excerpts from essay-style responses.

One biologist based in California, who responded to the survey, said in an 
interview with The Times that the Fish and Wildlife Service was not 
interested in adding any species to the endangered species list.

"For biologists who do endangered species analysis, my experience is that 
the majority of them are ordered to reverse their conclusions [if they 
favor listing]. There are other biologists who will do it if you won't," 
said the biologist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention Environment -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=ENVIRONMENT&increment=weeks&many=26
[only articles for the last six months will be indexed]

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention Forests -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=FOREST&increment=weeks&many=26
[only articles for the last six months will be indexed]

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention Wildlife -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=WILDLIFE

/RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO:  http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?
and just type in your topic.  For differing results you may uncheck 
"article" and search on just "subject," use "any word" or "phrase," 
etc.  /RENEGADE/ also has "time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor 
your results that way, too.

-----

============================================
7) Contact information for the author of this letter:
============================================



*************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
** (800) 551-2726
** (760) 720-7261
** Fax: (760) 720-7394
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
*************************************************

IF YOU RECEIVED THIS EMAIL IN ERROR AND/OR DO NOT WISH TO RECEIVE ANY MORE 
EMAILS FROM US FOR ANY REASON, PLEASE CONTACT RUSSELL HOFFMAN AT:

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MailTo:rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com?Subject=Unsubscribe-me-please .
Please be sure that "Unsubscribe-me-please" appears in the subject line.


</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 24 [NukeNet] New rule after TMI security slip 
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:29:09 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)



<http://ydr.com/story/business/58776/>http://ydr.com/story/business/58776/





New rule after TMI security slip




An officer failed to check the badge of one of the plant's contracted workers.

By SEAN ADKINS
Daily Record/Sunday News
Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Last November, an armed security officer at Three Mile Island Unit 1 
allowed a contracted worker with an expired access badge to enter the 
protected area of the plant.

The officer, stationed at a remote entry point to the plant, failed to 
check the contractor's badge against TMI's access list for that gate.

The contractor, whose admittance to the protected area had expired one day 
earlier, never had access to the vital area of the plant. "The officer was 
interrupted and distracted at the time of the search process," according to 
a Licensee Event Report.

Three Mile Island included the incident with its Security 60-Day Event 
Report that the plant files with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

As a result of the guard's error, TMI has issued a new rule that requires 
all workers headed for the protected area of the plant to be processed 
through TMI's main access point.

On Nov. 23, two contracted workers drove to TMI's Gate No. 3 with the 
intent of passing through the checkpoint into the protected area of the 
plant. That section of TMI includes various support, engineering and 
equipment buildings, said Neil Sheehan, a commission spokesman.

The vital area of the plant houses the reactor and the spent fuel pool, 
Sheehan said.

Once at the gate, the officer properly searched both contractors but did 
not check the daily access list to ensure both workers had valid passes to 
the protected area.

"It appears the breakdown was at the guard level," Sheehan said. "The guard 
allowed him to enter without making sure his access was up-to-date."

One of the workers' access had expired Nov. 22, based on the fact that the 
contractor had not entered TMI's protected area for 30 days.

"If you don't use your badge within 30 days, it goes inactive," said David 
A. Lochbaum. "It basically suspends your access. It's a way to parse people 
out of the system."

Lochbaum is a nuclear power expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, 
a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit environmental group.

Plant officials later found that the contractor had been granted access at 
another Exelon site until Nov. 18, and had last entered that protected area 
on Nov. 11. When he reported for work at TMI on Nov. 22, the contractor was 
not aware that his protected-area access had been terminated, according to 
the report.

"It was determined that there was no malevolent intent identified in his 
actions," according to the report.

Following the security officer's error, both the contractors drove into the 
plant, spent one hour and 10 minutes working within the protected area and 
proceeded to leave the site through the plant's main access point.

The contractor swiped his badge, but the power-driven turnstiles locked, 
alerting security officials to a potential problem.

Since the individual no longer held access to TMI, he was classified as an 
unauthorized person within the protected area, according to the report.

Aside from requiring all workers to be processed through the plant's main 
access point, TMI briefed all security personnel on the proper use of 
error-prevention tools.

An additional corrective action called for the plant to create a procedural 
checklist for security officers to use as they process personnel at remote 
protected-area gates.

"The point is that they did take their corrective actions," Sheehan said. 
"I'm sure that TMI recognized the problem."

Reach Sean Adkins at 771-2047 or <mailto:sadkins@ydr.com>sadkins@ydr.com.

_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 25 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, Ad Hoc Subcommittee 
 
                         FR Doc 05-2855 
[Federal Register: February 15, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 30)] 
[Notices] [Page 7761] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15fe05-95]                         
 
Meeting on Early Site Permit Applications; Notice of Meeting The 
ACRS Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Early Site Permit Applications will 
hold a meeting on March 2, 2005, Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: 
Wednesday, March 2, 2005--1 p.m. until 5 p.m. The Subcommittee 
will review and discuss the North Anna Draft Safety Evaluation 
Report for early site permit, and the industry proposed plant 
parameter envelope information. The Subcommittee will hear 
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the 
NRC staff and Dominion Nuclear regarding this matter. The 
Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and 
facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as 
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Dr. Medhat M. El-Zeftawy (telephone 301-415-6889) between 7:30 
a.m. and 5 p.m. (e.t.) five days prior to the meeting, if 
possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made. 
Electronic recordings will be permitted.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:30 a.m. and 
5 p.m. (e.t.). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged 
to contact the above named individual at least two working days 
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes to 
the agenda.
 
Dated: February 9, 2005.
 
John H. Flack, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. 05-2855 Filed 2-14-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 26 NRC: Sunshine Federal Register Notice
 
                         FR Doc 05-2952 
[Federal Register: February 15, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 30)] 
[Notices] [Page 7761-7762] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15fe05-96]                         
 
Agency Holding the Meetings: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Date: Weeks of February 14, 21, 28, March 7, 14, 21, 2005.
 
Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, 
Rockville, Maryland.
 
Status: Public and closed.
 
Matters to be Considered: Weeks of February 14, 2005 Tuesday, 
February 15, 2005 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards Programs, Performance, and 
Plans--Waste Safety (Public Meeting) (Contact: Jessica Shin, 
301-415-8117).
 
This meeting will be Webcast live at the Web 
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
 
Week of February 21, 2005--Tentative Tuesday, February 22, 2005 
9:30 a.m. Briefing on Status of Office of the Chief Information 
Officer (OCIO) Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting) 
(Contact: Patricia Wolfe, 301-415-6031).
 
This meeting will be Webcast live at the Web 
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
 
1:30 p.m. Briefing on Emergency Preparedness Program Initiatives 
(Closed--Ex. 1). Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:30 a.m. Briefing 
on Status of Office of Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) Programs, 
Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting) (Contact: Edward New, 
301-415-5646).
 
This meeting will be Webcast live at the Web 
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
 
Thursday, February 24, 2005.
 
1 p.m. Briefing on Nuclear Fuel Performance (Public Meeting) 
(Contact: Frank Akstulewicz, 301-415-1136).
 
This meeting will be Webcast live at the Web 
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
 
Week of February 28, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings 
scheduled for the Week of February 28, 2005.
 
Week of March 7, 2005--Tentative Monday, March 7, 2005 10 a.m. 
Briefing on Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards 
Programs, Performance, and Plans--Materials Safety (Public 
Meeting) (Contact: Shamica Walker, 301-415-5142).
 
This meeting will be Webcast live at the Web 
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
 
Week of March 14, 2005--Tentative Wednesday, March 16, 2005 9:30 
a.m. Meeting with Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) 
(Public Meeting) (Contact: John Larkins, 301-415-7360).
 
This meeting will be Webcast live at the Web 
address--http://www.nrc.gov .
 
Weeks of March 21, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings 
scheduled for the Week of March 21, 2005.
 
The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on 
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call 
(recording)--(301) 415- 1292. Contact person for more 
information: Dave Gamberoni, (301) 415- 1651.
 
Additional Information: ``discussion of Security Issues (Closed-- 
Ex. 1).'' originally scheduled for Thursday, February 24, 2005, 
at 9 a.m. was canceled. The NREC Commission Meeting Schedule can 
be found on the Internet at: 
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html. The 
NRC provides reasonable accommodations to individuals with 
disability where appropriate. If you need a reasonable 
accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need 
this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from 
the public meetings in another format (e.g.
 
[[Page 7762]] braille, large print), please notify the NRC's 
Disability Program Coordinator, August Spector, at 301-415-7080, 
TDD: 301-415-2100, or by e-mail at aks@nrc.gov. Determinations on 
requests for reasonable accommodations will be made on a 
case-by-case basis.
 
This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred 
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like 
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the 
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition, 
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is 
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission 
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic 
message to dkw@nrc.gov. Dated: February 10, 2005.
 
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
 
[FR Doc. 05-2952 Filed 2-11-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M

 
*****************************************************************
 27 The Australian: 'Serious threat' of attack on reactor 

[February 16, 2005]
 	 	
Jonathan Porter

SYDNEY'S dams and airports and the state's nuclear reactor face a 
"serious threat" of a crippling terror attack, according to NSW 
Premier Bob Carr.

And the state's Police Commissioner Ken Moroney believes 
Australia's risk of attack is growing as the US and Europe 
tightened security. 

"The reality for Australia, and NSW (is) that terrorists are 
finding it more difficult to launch attacks in the US or in 
Europe," Mr Moroney told the Critical Infrastructure Forum in 
Sydney yesterday. 

"They will look for other targets in other locations. Therefore 
we must ensure that we are not complacent, vulnerable or exposed. 

"We must ensure that we are no less difficult an environment in 
which to operate as the US and Europe." 

Mr Carr told the conference - which involved heavyweights from 
business and the emergency services and counter-terrorism experts 
- that an attack could cripple the city's critical facilities. 

A government spokesman said these included utilities such as 
power generators, airports, dams and the nuclear reactor. 

"It could cripple a global city like ours. It's a serious threat 
and a threat we take seriously," Mr Carr said. 

"A threat made more serious by the fact our critical assets are 
numerous, they are complex and they are not easy to protect," Mr 
Carr said. 

Outside the conference, Mr Carr said NSW was "ready" for a 
terrorist attack. 

"We're ready in terms of equipment. We're ready in terms of 
training. We're ready in terms of making a co-ordinated 
structure. 

"I've told our people after our exercises: 'I don't want a list 
of things we got right. I want a list of things we got wrong. Go 
through the list and fix them up'," Mr Carr said. 

He said one of the key lessons of the September 11 attacks was 
that emergency workers should "work as if you're working for the 
one badge, the one uniform -- you have to co-operate". 

"I want our people working hand in glove with the commonwealth," 
Mr Carr said. 

Mr Moroney also warned the forum on the dangers of complacency. 
The threat of terrorism was "a real one that has been highlighted 
by Australia's contemporary alliances and its increasing role in 
Southeast Asia", he said. 

"Complacency has never been wise, but at this time of worldwide 
increasing uncertainty it can be downright dangerous and 
irresponsible." 
		 		 	 
  privacy       terms      © The Australian   

*****************************************************************
 28 Platts: White House formally nominates Lyons and Jaczko to NRC
 
  [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   
    
 
+ The White House formally nominated Pete Lyons and Gregory
Jaczko to the NRC today. This is the third time Jaczko's
nomination has been sent to the Senate. President George W. Bush
sent Jaczko's name last February, but the nomination wasn't
acted upon because the other pending NRC candidate, retired Vice
Adm. John Grossenbacher, asked that his nomination be withdrawn.

The two nominations were to have been considered together by the
Senate. Jaczko's name was submitted Jan. 4 to the new 109th
Congress, but this time paired with Albert Konetzni Jr., another
retired Navy officer who turned down the post just days later.

Bush made Jaczko and Lyons recess appointments to the NRC on
Jan. 19, which means their nominations had to be submitted by
March 1 for them to be paid and, if not confirmed, they can only
serve until the end of the Senate session in 2006. Lyons was
science advisor to Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Jaczko was a
science policy advisor to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). 

Washington (Platts)--14Feb2005
 
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]       

*****************************************************************
 29 Daytona Beach News-Journal: Floating nuclear reactor among river's 'Ghost Fleet' 

Environment
 
THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF VOLUSIA & FLAGLER COUNTIES    

Associated Press 

Last update: February 15, 2005 

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- 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 Jimmy Buffett, who
describes working on the Sturgis as a teenager in his book "A
Pirate Looks at Fifty."

The ship's engine and propeller were removed and a nuclear
reactor was built in the center portion of the vessel. Workers
added an 18-inch-wide bulge of concrete as a collision barrier.

Mike Hunter served on the Sturgis during its first and only
deployment to Panama in the 1970s. Hunter, now a civilian
working for the Army Corps in Fort Belvoir, fondly remembers his
eight-hour shifts.

"It was very unique," Hunter said. "It was a wonderful climate.
And I really liked the people down there, the Panamanians." The
Sturgis provided power to the canal during the dry season, when
the hydroelectric dams in the region could not provide as much
electricity.

Hunter said there were never any nuclear close calls on the
vessel, which is now called a barge instead of a ship, since it
is no longer self-propelled.

A list of regulations eventually made the nuclear business too
expensive for the Army.

Hunter helped seal the barge's nuclear containment vessel at
Fort Belvoir in 1976, before it was towed to the James River. In
2001, Honerlah and six safety specialists, environmental
scientists and engineers opened the containment vessel to
evaluate its contents.

"The biggest challenge for us was there was no air in there,"
Honerlah said. Air rushed into the vacuum after a crane removed
a heavy concrete plug.

"You could hear the whoosh as good air was moving in, the bad
air was moving out," Honerlah said. The assessment crew
evaluated the volume and types of waste for their environmental
report. They also catalogued the asbestos, PCBs and other
hazardous materials in the rest of the barge.

The Maritime Administration helps with security and maintenance
of the Sturgis.

"We have flood alarms and fire alarms, too," said Moses, who has
mapped in his mind the location of each of the alarms situated
in the depths of the barge's hull.

Moses is the vessel's unofficial tour guide, taking infrequent
visitors through areas, such as the reactor control room, which
is full of buttons and red tags dating from 1976 when the Army
Corps decommissioned the plant.

Bare counters now stand out in a chemistry lab where scientists
once sampled the water onboard to make sure it wasn't
radioactive. The Army estimated that the Sturgis would have a
50-year safe storage period when it was decommissioned.

Malcolm McLeod, who provided engineering support for the Army's
reactors in the 1970s, said the Sturgis represents the country's
shifting philosophies on nuclear power.

"The country first had a philosophy of, 'Let's show a lot of the
good things we could do with nuclear power,' " said McLeod. That
was in the 1960s, when the Army built its reactors.

"But the philosophy toward nuclear power changed," he said. "In
the 1970s, nuclear power was seen as a hazard, particularly for
the environmental impacts. That's not true. Our plants were very
clean. But it was harder to site them. No one wanted them in
their back yard."

 			 			   
*****************************************************************
 30 Vermont Guardian: Groups take aim at VY dry cask proposal

By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian 

BRATTLEBORO  An anti-nuclear group is urging state legislators
to limit Vermont Yankees waste storage capacity to the amount of
spent fuel the plant will produce during its existing license. 

In a letter sent this week, Nuclear Free Vermont exhorts
lawmakers not to yield to Entergy Vermont Yankees pressure to
make a decision quickly and not to give the plant blanket
permission to store radioactive waste in Vernon. 

Instead, we urge the Legislature to maintain oversight over the
storage of radioactive waste and to set conditions and limits on
this waste, e.g. only allow enough storage until their license
expires in 2012, the letter states. 

The letter was sent just as anti-nuclear activists were set to
testify before the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee
as it confronts the question of whether Vermont Yankee will be
allowed to build a dry-cask storage facility for the highly
radioactive nuclear waste that now resides in the plants crowded
spent fuel pool. 

In its long-awaited formal proposal unveiled last week, Vermont
Yankee officials are asking permission to build a heavily
reinforced concrete pad just north of the reactor building to
accommodate a group of steel-and-concrete containers. Each of
the containers has the capacity to hold 68 fuel assemblies. 

The proposal does not explicitly specify the number of
containers, or casks, that Vermont Yankee would install. A map
included in the proposal indicates that the fenced pad could
hold as many as 40. 

However, VY spokesman Rob Williams said pads capacity would be
36 containers, leaving four open spaces to provide space to move
the others around. You need that extra room to move around the
36, to accommodate shipping and handling, Williams said. 

But Judy Davidson, a member of Nuclear Free Vermont, said that
number of spaces could allow the plant to store enough waste
facilitate operation for 20 years beyond its current license. 

They are planning for up to 40 casks, which would take them
through a 20-year license extension, Davidson said in an e-mail
to the Vermont Guardian. They would only need five to six casks
to take them through 2012. 

In their proposal, Entergy officials said VYs spent-fuel pool
will reach capacity sometime in 2007. If no additional temporary
storage is added, Entergy VY will have to shut the station down
before expiration of its license  in 2012. 

Dry cask storage, as the company has proposed, will allow
Entergy VY to provide reliable baseload energy through its
currently license, and to timely prepare for shipping [spent
nuclear fuel] off site as soon as a federal or private
depository is ready and allowed to receive shipments from the
station, according to the proposal. 

Ray Shadis, technical advisor to the nuclear watchdog New
England Coalition echoed Nuclear Free Vermonts call to limit the
plants waste capacity. If VY absolutely can prove that they need
to do some small amount of dry cask storage, the wise thing
would be to limit that to the two, three or four casks, whatever
is needed  until 2012. If theyre going to allow it, they ought
to limit it; and there really be conditions to maximize
protections to Vermonters and the environment, said Shadis, who
testifies today before the House Natural Resources and Energy
Committee on the issue. 

Both the New England Coalition and Nuclear Free Vermont question
the safety of VYs dry cask storage proposal, which includes no
measures that could help deflect radiation shine from the casks. 

In its letter to lawmakers, Nuclear Free Vermont said Entergy
should be required to use the safest possible casks. 

VY plans to use the HI-STORM 100S fuel storage system,
manufactured by Holtec International. The system is licensed by
the NRC for 20 years, and would require no further federal
licensing for use at Vermont Yankee. 

Under the proposal, spent fuel would be transferred into casks
inside the storage pool in the reactor building. The casks would
then be removed from the pool and moved to a decontamination
area, still within the reactor building, where they would be
drained, dried, decontaminated, filled with helium and welded
shut. They would then be transferred by railcar out of the
reactor building and into a containment access building where
they would be inserted into steel and concrete sleeve, or
overpack. The overpack is 19 feet high and 11 feet in diameter,
made of concrete two feet thick. It weights about 395,000 pounds
when filled. 

From there, the overpack containing the fuel-loaded cask would
be transported on airpads to the outdoor concrete pad. The pad
would be three-feet thick and measure 76 feet by 132 feet. It
would be surrounded with a 10-foot-high chain-link fence,
lighted and guarded from a new addition to second floor of the
existing administration building. 

In a 2004 report on dry cask storage, Kevin Kamps, a nuclear
waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource
Service in Washington, cites problems with casks that have
arisen not after decades or a century, but almost immediately in
the first few years, raising serious questions about the NRC
cask certification process itself. 

Kamp cites a whistleblower who has alleged nine major
quality-assurance violations involving Holtec storage/transport
containers, including unauthorized welding, departures from
design specifications, use the use of potentially shoddy
materials. 

The Rowe, MA-based Citizens Awareness Network, has also
criticized VYs dry-cask proposal as too vulnerable to terorrist
attack. 

There are options to reduce vulnerability that state legislators
could adopt, that could decrease Vermont Yankees vulnerability
and also address Entergys stated need for dry-cask storage, CAN
said in a statement this week. 

Nuclear Free Vermont has called on the legislature to require
storage of the casks in a building or earth-and-concrete berm. 

CAN and Nuclear Free Vermont have arranged for expert testimony
Wednesday morning before the House Natural Resources and Energy
Committee by Gordon Thompson, a research professor at Clark
University in Worcester, MA. 

Posted February 15, 2005 

  site map| contact information| privacy policyNorthern Vermont:
PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404
 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT
05301
 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382
(toll-free)

 ©2004-2005 Vermont Guardian | info@vermontguardian.com
*****************************************************************
 31 NRC: Dr. William J. Hinze and Dr. James H. Clarke Appointed to NRCs Advisory Committee on Nuclear
Waste
News Release - 2005-02

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs     
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov No. 05-029     February 14, 2005   
  


The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has appointed Drs.
William J. Hinze and James H. Clarke to its Advisory Committee
on Nuclear Waste (ACNW). They will provide independent technical
advice on activities, programs and issues related to regulating,
managing and disposing of radioactive waste. Their appointments
bring the committee to a full five-member complement. 

Hinze is currently a professor emeritus at Purdue University. He
has taught and done research on solid-earth geophysics at
Michigan State and Purdue Universities for more than 40 years.
He has been a graduate advisor to approximately 100 masters and
doctorate students, and his research has been supported by a
variety of governmental, industrial, and research organizations.
He has had a major role in developing and applying geophysical
techniques, particularly geopotential methods, to the
exploration of the continental crust. 

Additionally, Hinze served on the ACNW from 1989 to 1997 and has
served as an advisor to such federal departments and agencies as
NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy,
as well as engineering, mining and petroleum organizations. He
has also been senior editor of the Journal of Geophysical
Research-Solid Earth and chairman of the board of journal
editors of the American Geophysical Union. 

Clarke is currently a professor of the Practice of Civil and
Environmental Engineering and the director of Graduate Studies
for Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University. His
expertise and experience are in the environmental effects and
transport of chemicals and radionuclides in the environment,
risk assessment, hazardous and radioactive waste management, and
the investigation and remediation of contaminated sites. 

His research has focused on the long-term management of legacy
hazardous and radioactive waste sites, and applying risk
assessment to decision making at contaminated sites. He has
provided assistance and independent peer review to the
Department of Energy and the NRC in the investigation and
remediation of subsurface contamination, risk-informed
approaches to contaminated site remediation, and the management
of high-level, hazardous and mixed waste. 

Other Members of the Committee are: 

Michael T. Ryan, independent consultant and faculty member,
Charleston, S.C.; Allen G. Croff, consultant, former manager of
Environmental Management Program Development, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory; and Ruth F. Weiner, consultant, Sandia National
Laboratory, Albuquerque, N.M.   



  


 	Last revised Monday, February 14, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 32 NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
 
                         FR Doc 05-2853 
[Federal Register: February 15, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 30)] 
[Notices] [Page 7777-7778] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15fe05-98]                         
 
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for 
public comment a draft revision to an existing guide in the 
agency's Regulatory Guide Series. This series has been developed 
to describe and make available to the public such information as 
methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing 
specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that the 
staff uses in evaluating specific problems or postulated 
accidents, and data that the staff needs in its review of 
applications for permits and licenses.
 
The draft Revision 2 of Regulatory Guide 1.92, entitled 
``Combining Modal Responses and Spatial Components in Seismic 
Response Analysis,'' is temporarily identified by its task 
number, DG-1127, which should be mentioned in all related 
correspondence. Like its predecessors, the proposed revision 
describes methods that the NRC staff finds acceptable for 
complying with the NRC's regulatory requirements in Criterion 2, 
``Design Bases for Protection Against Natural Phenomena,'' as it 
appears in Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria for Nuclear 
Power Plants,'' to Title 10, Part 50, of the Code of Federal 
Regulations (10 CFR Part 50). Specifically, Criterion 2 requires, 
in part, that nuclear power plant (NPP) structures, systems, and 
components (SSCs) that are important to safety must be designed 
to withstand the effects of natural phenomena (such as 
earthquakes) without losing their capability to perform their 
respective safety functions.
 
For several decades, the nuclear industry fulfilled Criterion 2 
using the response spectrum method and the time history method 
for seismic analysis and design of NPP SSCs. Then, in 1976, the 
NRC issued Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide 1.92, which described 
then-up-to-date guidance for using the response spectrum and time 
history methods. Since that time, research in the United States 
has resulted in improved methods that yield more accurate 
estimates of SSC seismic response, while reducing unnecessary 
conservatism. In view of those improvements, DG-1127 describes 
methods that the NRC staff finds acceptable for combining modal 
responses and spatial components in seismic response analysis. 
The NRC staff initially published Revision 2 of Regulatory Guide 
1.92 as DG-1108, dated August 2001. The staff subsequently 
considered stakeholders' feedback on DG-1108, and incorporated 
the necessary changes in DG-1127.
 
The NRC staff is soliciting comments on Draft Regulatory Guide 
DG- 1127, and specifically on the new regulatory position 
regarding residual rigid response of the missing mass modes, as 
described in Sections 1.4 and 1.5 of DG-1127. Comments may be 
accompanied by relevant information or supporting data. Please 
mention DG-1127 in the subject line of your comments. Comments on 
this draft regulatory guide submitted in writing or in electronic 
form will be made available to the public in their entirety in 
the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS). Personal information will not be removed from your 
comments. You may submit comments by any of the following 
methods.
 
Mail comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001.
 
E-mail comments to: NRCREP@nrc.gov. You may also submit comments 
via the NRC's rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. 
Address questions about our rulemaking Web site to Carol A. 
Gallagher (301) 415-5905; e-mail CAG@nrc.gov. Hand-deliver 
comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
 
Fax comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301) 
415-5144.
 
Requests for technical information about draft regulatory guide 
DG- 1127 may be directed to Dr. T.Y. Chang, at (301) 415-6450 or 
via e-mail to TYC@nrc.gov. Comments would be most helpful if 
received by April 15, 2005. Comments received after this date 
will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is 
able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or 
before
 
[[Page 7778]] this date. Although a time limit is given, comments 
and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides 
currently being developed or improvements in all published guides 
are encouraged at any time.
 
Electronic copies of the draft regulatory guide are available 
through the NRC's public Web site under Draft Regulatory Guides 
in the Regulatory Guides document collection of the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/. Electronic copies 
are also available in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS) at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under Accession 
ML050230006. Note, however, that the NRC has temporarily 
suspended public access to ADAMS so that the agency can complete 
security reviews of publicly available documents and remove 
potentially sensitive information. Please check the NRC's Web 
site for updates concerning the resumption of public access to 
ADAMS.
 
In addition, regulatory guides are available for inspection at 
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), which is located at 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland; the PDR's mailing address is 
USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001. The PDR can also be reached 
by telephone at (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205, by fax at (301) 
415-3548; and by e- mail to PDR@nrc.gov. Requests for single 
copies of draft or final guides (which may be reproduced) or for 
placement on an automatic distribution list for single copies of 
future draft guides in specific divisions should be made in 
writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services 
Section; by e-mail to DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov; or by fax to (301) 
415-2289. Telephone requests cannot be accommodated. Regulatory 
guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not 
required to reproduce them.
 
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)). Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 3rd day of 
February, 2005.
 
For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Michael E. Mayfield, 
Director, Division of Engineering Technology, Office of Nuclear 
Regulatory Research.
 
[FR Doc. 05-2853 Filed 2-14-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 33 NRC: Final Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
 
                         FR Doc 05-2854 
[Federal Register: February 15, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 30)] 
[Notices] [Page 7778] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15fe05-99]                         
 
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a 
revision to an existing guide in the agency's Regulatory Guide 
Series.
 
This series has been developed to describe and make available to 
the public such information as methods that are acceptable to the 
NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's 
regulations, techniques that the staff uses in evaluating 
specific problems or postulated accidents, and data that the 
staff needs in its review of applications for permits and 
licenses.
 
Revision 3 of Regulatory Guide 1.75, ``Criteria for Independence 
of Electrical Safety Systems,'' describes a method that is 
acceptable to the NRC staff for complying with the NRC's 
regulatory requirements concerning the physical independence of 
the circuits and electrical equipment that comprise or are 
associated with safety systems.
 
Toward that end, the guide endorses, with minor exceptions, the 
``Standard Criteria for Independence of Class 1E Equipment and 
Circuits, which the Institute for Electrical and Electronics 
Engineers (IEEE) promulgated on June 18, 1992, as IEEE Std. 
384-1992. In December 2003, the NRC staff published a draft of 
this guide as Draft Regulatory Guide DG-1129. Following the 
closure of the public comment period on March 12, 2004, the staff 
considered all stakeholder comments in the course of preparing 
Revision 3 of Regulatory Guide 1.75. The NRC staff encourages and 
welcomes comments and suggestions in connection with improvements 
to published regulatory guides, as well as items for inclusion in 
regulatory guides that are currently being developed. You may 
submit comments by any of the following methods.
 
Mail comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001.
 
Hand-deliver comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 
4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
 
Fax comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301) 
415-5144.
 
Requests for technical information about Revision 3 of Regulatory 
Guide 1.75 may be directed to NRC Senior Program Manager, Satish 
Aggarwal, at (301) 415-6005 or SKA@nrc.gov. Regulatory guides are 
available for inspection or downloading through the NRC's public 
Web site in the Regulatory Guides document collection of the 
NRC's Electronic Reading Room at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/. Electronic copies 
of Revision 3 of Regulatory Guide 1.75 are also available in the 
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) 
at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html , under Accession 
ML043630448. Note, however, that the NRC has temporarily 
suspended public access to ADAMS so that the agency can complete 
security reviews of publicly available documents and remove 
potentially sensitive information. Please check the NRC's Web 
site for updates concerning the resumption of public access to 
ADAMS.
 
In addition, regulatory guides are available for inspection at 
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), which is located at 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland; the PDR's mailing address is 
USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001. The PDR can also be reached 
by telephone at (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205, by fax at (301) 
415-3548, and by e- mail to PDR@nrc.gov. Requests for single 
copies of draft or final guides (which may be reproduced) or for 
placement on an automatic distribution list for single copies of 
future draft guides in specific divisions should be made in 
writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services 
Section; by email to DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov; or by fax to (301) 
415-2289. Telephone requests cannot be accommodated. Regulatory 
guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not 
required to reproduce them.
 
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)). Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 2nd day of 
February, 2005.
 
For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. John W. Craig, Deputy 
Director, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
 
[FR Doc. 05-2854 Filed 2-14-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 34 Bellona: A system of legal measures aimed at ensuring nuclear and radiation safety
 
Working paper:

Bellona’s working paper gives a detailed overview of the 
legislation regulating nuclear and radiation safety in the 
Russian Federation. 

  Full text of the Bellona's working paper "A system of legal
measures aimed at ensuring nuclear and radiation safety"

2005-02-15 16:58

 Introduction

 Radioactive substances pose enormous dangers to humans, animal
and plant life. Nuclear disasters and other accidents, including
Chernobyl, have had an extremely negative impact on the health
of human beings, as well as on the environment and economies of
the countries affected. Breaches of regulations on the mining,
processing, manufacturing, use, storage, transport, and disposal
of radioactive substances also pose a serious risk to the health
and life of human beings. The risk of future nuclear accidents
or legal violations makes it clear that it is extremely
important to ensure radiation and nuclear safety in the Russian
Federation. 

Nuclear and radiation safety form an integral part of
environmental safety, which involves state protection of the
population, animal and plant life, a region or an entire country
against the impact of man on the environment or against natural
disasters. Radioactive materials must be handled and used in
such a manner as to preclude any chance of harmful effects
(disasters, accidents, radiation contamination, and exposure to
human beings). In other words, environmental safety must be
ensured when handling radioactive materials. 

An array of legal, technical, economic, and other measures are
used to ensure nuclear and radiation safety, i.e., to ensure
that the general population, personnel working at nuclear
facilities, and the environment (land, subsoil, water, air,
plant and animal life, and man- made facilities and structures
of all kinds) are adequately protected from the risks posed by
nuclear and radioactive materials. 

Accidents at nuclear reactors and other similar facilities,
resulting in the release of radioactive materials into the
environment, the contamination of facilities and other
structures, and human exposure, are usually caused by inadequate
observation or a breach of nuclear and radiation codes or legal
provisions by officials or personnel. 
  
  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 35 The Australian: WA won't support uranium mining 

[February 15, 2005]
 	 	
WEST Australian Labor will never support uranium mining in the 
state, Premier Geoff Gallop said today.

Dr Gallop was responding after federal Labor leader Kim Beazley 
gave qualified support to uranium exports to China.

 Mr Beazley said he would support such exports but "not without a 
very firm agreement on all the issues in relation to 
proliferation".

 "If all those agreements are put in place then it is a market 
for us," Mr Beazley told reporters in Perth.

 Today, Dr Gallop said WA was off limits to uranium mining but 
exports from existing mines in other states were another 
question. 

"There's no way that my government will accept uranium mining in 
Western Australia," he said.

 "It doesn't matter who's in power in Canberra, we have a clear 
policy to have no uranium mining in Western Australia and that's 
going to be our approach.

 "My government will work very, very strongly to make sure that 
policy is upheld."

 Dr Gallop said the safety of the electorate was at the heart of 
the policy. 
		 		 	 	 	   		 		

  privacy       terms      © The Australian   

*****************************************************************
 36 Nevada Appeal - Opinion: Opportunity to change thinking on Yucca
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
February 15, 2005     				 				
                         
 The conflicting signals coming our way from Yucca Mountain may 
be seen, in the long run, as cracks in the foundation of the 
nuclear-storage plan that could allow a bit of common sense to 
seep in.

In recent weeks, the news has been:

n A decrease in funding in President Bush's budget for annual 
operations at the Southern Nevada site.

n The resignation of the Department of Energy project manager, 
Margaret Chu.

n A report by the Washington, D.C.-based National Commission on 
Energy Policy calling for interim aboveground nuclear storage 
sites. 

n Resurrection of a proposal to shift management of the Yucca 
project away from the federal government to an independently 
managed corporation.

You can see why it's difficult to get a read on whether this 
behemoth is moving forward, sitting still or sliding backward.

There's not enough money to meet the schedule for permitting, yet 
the resignation of Chu is seen as one way to light a fire under 
the process. For once, a group of experts related to the nuclear 
industry is seeing the practicality of above-ground storage, yet 
a shift away from the federal government would be one means to 
accelerate the decision-making at Yucca Mountain.

Nevertheless, the shifting sands provide Nevadans with several 
opportunities to reiterate their points: 

n Get away from the dogmatic thinking at DOE (and Congress and 
the White House) that since 1987 has made Yucca Mountain the one 
and only solution being studied.

n Realize dry cask storage at above-ground sites - such as being 
done now near the plants actually producing nuclear waste - is a 
workable solution for the next century or so.

n Concentrate research efforts on recycling and disposal methods, 
which will reduce the amount of waste needing to be stored and 
not threaten groundwater for 10,000 or more years.

All contents © Copyright 2005 nevadaappeal.com
Nevada Appeal - 580 Mallory Way - Carson City, NV 89701                         
*****************************************************************
 37 Las Vegas SUN: Former Nevada governor says nuclear-waste dump inevitable
 

 By ELIZABETH WHITE
 ASSOCIATED PRESS 

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Proponents of a high-level nuclear
waste dump at Yucca Mountain told state legislators on Tuesday
that the federal project in the southern Nevada desert is
inevitable despite some setbacks. 

Former Nevada Gov. Robert List told the Senate Judiciary
Committee "the likelihood of this project is greater than it has
ever been." That's despite "a very valiant fight against Yucca
Mountain" by state officials and the state's congressional
delegation, he added. 

List and Michael Bauser, associate general counsel for the
Nuclear Energy Institute, updated legislators on litigation,
both completed and pending, related to the project 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas. NEI sets policy for the nuclear industry
and includes companies that operate nuclear power plants and
nuclear fuel suppliers. 

Bauser said that out of 13 cases, nine of which were initiated
by the state, all but one of the challenges to the Yucca
Mountain project were rejected. 

The successful challenge involved the Environmental Protection
Agency's radiation standard. A federal appeals court found the
standard inconsistent with a National Academy of Science
recommendation and told the EPA that it can either revise its
regulations or go to Congress for legislation to clear up the
matter. 

While that will take time, Bauser said the U.S. Department of
Energy still plans to submit its application for a dump license
sometime this year. 

There also are two cases in the courts that Bauser said were
"procedural in nature, and do not address any basic element of
the project fundamental to its viability." They deal with a
state request for funding related to the project and a challenge
to the DOE's transportation plan for moving the waste. 

Bauser also said holdups on the project - the DOE is putting the
opening date at 2012, two years later than originally scheduled
- have nothing to do with the litigation and are results of the
"inability of DOE to complete tasks in a timely fashion." 

Robert Loux, who heads the state agency fighting the DOE's
efforts, has recently said the project is limping along and is
likely dead. 

Loux asked the Senate Finance Committee last week for $2 million
in state general funds for each of the next two years to fund
the state's legal fight against the project. 

*****************************************************************
 38 eNewMexican: WIPP shipments from Los Alamos to resume       
 	
 Tue Feb 15, 2005 4:55 pm                                                                                                       

Associated Press                

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - Los Alamos National Laboratory says it 
won't be able to finish moving its highest-risk radioactive waste 
from its dump and storage site to a Carlsbad repository until 
October at the earliest.

The nuclear weapons laboratory missed a December deadline for 
shipping that waste to the federal government's Waste Isolation 
Pilot Plant.

An audit report released by the lab Monday blamed a work shutdown 
in July and problems following U.S. Department of Energy 
procedures for the missed deadline, but said the DOE's failure to 
provide critical resources contributed.

Lab operations shut down in July after two computer disks 
believed to contain classified information were reported missing 
and an intern suffered an eye injury from a laser. Operations 
were gradually restarted during the following months.

The lab took much of the blame for falling nearly two years 
behind schedule in shipping waste left from years of weapons 
work. The audit by the DOE's Office of the Inspector General said 
the lab "did not adhere to waste certification requirements."

But the audit also said the DOE never delivered two mobile waste 
processing units the lab expected to use to sort about 19,000 
drums of waste.

        The shutdown and failure to follow procedures cost the 
DOE about $23 million, the audit said.

In the five years before 2003, the lab shipped about 1,600 drums 
to WIPP.

The audit blamed the lab's attempt to increase the shipping rate 
for part of the program's woes.

"When Los Alamos attempted to increase shipping rates to 2,000 
drums in a single year, operating procedures failed," it said.

The audit said the lab might not finish removing waste from 
decades of weapons work before 2014, four years after the DOE 
originally pledged to complete shipments from the lab. The 
project will be more than $70 million above the projected costs.

Greg Mello, director of the watchdog Los Alamos Study Group, said 
the waste is dangerous.

"It sits in tents and some of the drums contain 
proliferation-sensitive quantities of waste," he said. "It is 
safer at WIPP than where it is."

Lab officials said they are working with the DOE to get shipments 
restarted by April to WIPP, which buries plutonium-contaminated 
waste 2,150 feet below ground in ancient salt beds.

The lab stopped shipping waste in October 2003 after federal 
officials discovered 98 drums had not been properly certified for 
disposal in WIPP. The waste largely consists of such things as 
gloves, tools, clothing and radioactive sludge.

Sorting the waste resumed last summer, but was halted again by 
Los Alamos' shutdown.

Kathy DeLucas, a lab spokeswoman, said Los Alamos is working with 
the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration to implement 
proper procedures and resume waste shipments.

The Los Alamos lab has produced about 40,000 drums of waste over 
about 60 years and has spent more than $350 million to sort, 
certify and dispose of it since 1997.

The Bush administration proposed increasing WIPP's operating 
budget next year, despite the DOE's failure to meet waste 
disposal goals.

WIPP critic Don Hancock, director of the nuclear safety project 
for the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, 
said WIPP is being rewarded for not producing.

Last year, the DOE told Congress it planned 1,700 shipments to 
WIPP. It sent 966.

For fiscal 2006, the DOE cut its shipping goal to 1,300 shipments 
and is asking for a 12 percent increase in WIPP's operating 
budget to $188 million.

Ines Triay, acting manager of WIPP for DOE, said the higher 
budget would allow the shipment rate to rise to meet the new 
target. Shipments come from DOE facilities around the nation.

Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican                                                                                             

*****************************************************************
 39 Las Vegas RJ: Repository's backers revive idea 
 
Monday, February 14, 2005

Supporters of Yucca Mountain Project consider shifting
management from government By STEVE TETREAULT 
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- Frustrated by setbacks on the Yucca Mountain
Project, states and utilities are reviving an idea to shift
management of the proposed nuclear waste repository away from
the Department of Energy. 

The redesign envisions creation of a government-chartered
corporation with some independence to manage construction of the
$58 billion program, which again has been knocked off schedule. 
The idea would allow managers more freedom to spend money from
the nuclear waste fund and to raise and manage fees for the
project. 

A 1994 study, which has been dusted off and is circulating among
Yucca Mountain backers, contends such an organization would have
the advantages of a private business to hire and fire managers,
set salaries to attract talent and promote accountability. 

The Yucca Mountain Project would enjoy "increased credibility"
after being removed from the Energy Department, the study said. 

But Congress would have to go along, and the idea might not be
attractive to lawmakers who oversee Yucca Mountain and its
construction fund, which holds a $16.3 billion balance. 

When management change was floated in the mid-1990s, "it went
nowhere," said Ronald Callen, an author of the 1994 report when
he was a staff member for the Michigan Public Service
Commission. 

"This is more than wishful thinking," said David Cherry, a
spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a repository
opponent. 

State officials and utility lobbyists taking a new look at the
idea are focusing on change taking place if the Energy
Department gets a repository construction license from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

A corporation-styled approach might be better suited than a
government bureaucracy to oversee complex repository
construction, some argue. 

Blueprints call for a 155-mile warren of tunnels to be carved
within Yucca Mountain to hold 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear
waste and spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants. 

"DOE is not a building contractor," said Greg White, legislative
liaison for the Michigan Public Service Commission and chairman
of a nuclear issues staff subcommittee for the National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. 

Also, White said, "The other side of the coin would be that we
don't seem to be getting what we need done, and maybe somebody
else could do a better job." 

White and other officials said that removing Yucca Mountain from
the Energy Department is just an idea now, and they were unsure
whether it would attract interest. 

The idea was discussed Sunday during a conference of the
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. 

The proposal reflects frustration among states and utility
interests that have supported a government repository for
nuclear spent fuel. Customers of nuclear utilities have
contributed about $24 billion into a fund to build a Nevada
repository. 

The Energy Department signed contracts with utilities promising
to take ownership of nuclear waste by 1998, but a repository has
yet to be finished. 

Last week, the department abandoned its latest deadline and said
a 2010 target for a Yucca Mountain repository would be postponed
until 2012 or later. 

Many experts think Yucca Mountain will not open until 2015 or
2018. 

Nevada officials have said they believe the project has been
fatally crippled because of state lawsuits, DOE mistakes and
efforts by Yucca foes such as Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to block
the program. 

"As far as I can see the problems remain largely the same,"
Callen said. "For the first time since 1983, we don't have a
(repository opening) date."
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 40 Las Vegas SUN: Federal government taking bids to operate Nevada Test Site
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The federal government is taking bids on the
contract to manage and operate the Nevada Test Site and
satellite facilities. 

A request for proposals issued Monday is for a contract
beginning Oct. 1, according to a statement from the Energy
Department's National Nuclear Security Administration. 

Bechtel Nevada has had the $500-million-per-year contract to
operate the 1,350-square-mile test site since Jan. 1, 1996. That
contract expires Sept. 30. 

A Bechtel Nevada spokeswoman said the company intends to bid on
the new contract. 

The company employs 3,400 people at locations including the test
site, based 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and at national
laboratories in Livermore, Calif., and Los Alamos, N.M. 

--- 

On the Net: 

Nevada Test Site Management and Operating Contract:
http://www.doeal.gov/nevadacontractrecompete/

*****************************************************************
 41 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Chu: DOE underestimated job 
 
Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Failure to grasp enormity of database compilation task has
helped delay project, director says 

By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department underestimated the job of
compiling millions of documents into an electronic database for
Yucca Mountain, a problem that has contributed to missed
deadlines for the Nevada nuclear waste repository, the departing
project director said Monday.
 
 Margaret Chu said DOE managers did not grasp the magnitude of
cataloging studies, reports and e-mails created over 20 years of
examining the Yucca site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
 
 When DOE tried to certify the database last summer as part of a
repository licensing process, Nevada officials charged it was
riddled with mistakes, and an administrative law panel told the
department to rebuild the network.
 
 "We underestimated the magnitude, but I don't know how to do it
a different way because it was just the magnitude," Chu said.
"People had left behind tons, millions of e-mails, and we had to
sort them out, figure out criteria of what was relevant and what
was not. The magnitude was just horrendous." 
Chu spoke with reporters at a utility regulators conference
three days after DOE announced she had resigned as director of
the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Her
resignation is effective later this month.
 
 Shortfalls with the electronic database, known as the Licensing
Support Network, were among the issues causing DOE to push back
its deadlines for the Yucca project to 2012 or beyond,
department officials have said. 
Chu said the database fix was a matter she was leaving for a
successor to complete. She said it had been her intention to
manage the Yucca program for one presidential term. 
Speaking at the conference of the National Association of
Regulatory Utility Commissioners, Chu said progress at Yucca
Mountain will be tied to DOE's ability to obtain adequate money
from Congress. 
"I am confident we will eventually get there," she said.
 
 Chu said management initiatives she promoted have improved the
Yucca project. "I believe that program morale has never been
better despite setbacks here and there," she said. 
After Chu's address, another speaker at the regulators'
conference offered a different view. 
Don Keskey, a former assistant attorney general of Michigan,
said utility ratepayers who are contributing to a Yucca Mountain
construction fund are being put at financial risk by delays with
the program.
 
 Electricity consumers served by nuclear utilities pay a
one-tenth-of-one-cent-per-kilowatt-hour charge on their electric
bills. Utilities pass the fee into a nuclear waste account that
has accumulated $24 billion since 1983. The current balance is
$16.3 billion.
 
 Keskey urged utility commissioners to consider withholding the
fees, or placing them in escrow.
 
 "There is a compelling need for commissions to act to protect
ratepayers," said Keskey, who now is in private practice.
"Deadlines are not being met and are not being taken seriously
as deadlines." 
By withholding fees, "you will be announcing to the country that
states are not ignoring this issue and are concerned."
 
 Jay Silberg, an attorney who represents utilities, cautioned
against that approach. He said power companies could get caught
in a crossfire, jeopardizing their licenses and the nuclear
waste contracts they signed with the government. 
"If you disallow (fees), you are pressuring the wrong guys,"
Silberg said. "It is not the utilities' fault we are in this
situation."
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 42 Las Vegas SUN: Outgoing Yucca director sees budget as top priority
 

By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON 
BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's outgoing Yucca Mountain
project chief is confident the nuclear waste repository will
open, but she said Congress has to allocate enough money first.

 When Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management, resigned Friday, her farewell
e-mail to employees included a line about her confidence that
used nuclear fuel will be put inside Yucca, she told the
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
conference on Monday. She said this was not just a line, but her
true feeling.

 "It has to succeed," Chu told the commissioners. "I think this
organization has made a lot of progress in the past few years."

 Chu said she considers putting John Arthur as Yucca Mountain
project deputy director and creating a more organized management
team her "legacy."

 "I can say that with a straight face," she said. "The
operations are better."

 She said she had two goals when taking on her position, to
create a stronger organization and hand in the project's license
application.

 A federal court ruling last year that threw out a Environmental
Protection Agency radiation standard and regulatory and budget
problems made the Energy Department miss the deadline to file an
application for a construction license, but she said she did not
have much control over that. The department plans to submit a
license application for the proposed nuclear waste repository at
Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by the end of this year.

 Chu said if the Environmental Protection Agency establishes a
new standard quickly, it will not affect the program much, but
if the agency takes a long time to set a new standard it will
push it farther off track. She expects the repository will not
open until 2012, rather than 2010 as the department had planned
for decades.

 Chu expects to stay through Feb. 25 before returning to New
Mexico, but she said she has no plans on what she will do next.
She had been planning to leave for six months and she said most
people knew she had planned to stay for only one term. She said
she was, overall, quite pleased with her time heading up the
program.

 "It's a daunting, difficult program," Chu said.

 The biggest obstacle the project still faces is the budget, she
said.

 "It takes a lot of money to build and operate a nuclear
repository," Chu said.

 She believes Congress will eventually pass a change to budget
rules that would allow fees paid for nuclear power users for the
repository to go directly toward the program without affecting
other federal programs. Under current rules, lawmakers who want
to fund Yucca have to take money away from other projects in the
energy and water spending bill.

 Chu said it does not take a lot of explanation to Congress for
why it should change the rules and it will only be a matter of
time before it is done, although she would want to see it ready
for the fiscal year 2007 budget.

 Meanwhile, the state utility commissioners for the last two
days have been discussing their frustration with nuclear power
users paying for a repository they have yet to see, while
nuclear companies have to pay to store used fuel at their
nuclear power plants.

 The department was supposed to take the waste in 1998. Congress
has shortchanged the project $1 billion below the department's
requests over the past decade while $16 billion sits in the fund
waiting to be spent.

 Don Keskey, an attorney with Michigan law firm Clark Hill, said
state regulators should create separate accounts for ratepayer
money owed to the fund and hold onto it rather than sending it
to Washington.

 But Jay Silberg, an attorney with Washington, D.C., law firm
Shaw Pittman, advised against opening separate accounts because
it could violate a contract created under federal law with the
department and put a nuclear power plant's operating license on
the line.

 Another option, discussed Sunday, was to pull the Yucca project
from the department completely and create a separate government
corporation tasked solely with building the repository.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 43 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca Mountain chief says DOE underestimated document job
 
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Energy Department underestimated how hard
it would be to plug 20 years of documents into a database to
support its application for a license for a national nuclear
waste repository in Nevada, the departing project director said. 

"People had left behind tons, millions of e-mails, and we had to
sort them out, figure out criteria of what was relevant and what
was not," Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management, told reporters at a utility
regulators conference Monday in Washington, D.C. "The magnitude
was just horrendous." 

Chu announced last week she will resign Feb. 25. The inability
to post all relevant documents on an Internet database called
the Licensing Support Network for review by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission contributed to missed deadlines for the
Nevada nuclear waste repository the Energy Department plans 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

Department officials have pushed back a target date for opening
the $58 billion project by at least two years. Chu said last
week it may not open until after 2012. 

Chu said Monday she had expected to head the Yucca Mountain
program for one presidential term. She was appointed to the job
in March 2002. 

Chu told the National Association of Regulatory Utility
Commissioners that progress at Yucca Mountain depends on funding
from Congress. 

"I am confident we will eventually get there," she said. 

Don Keskey, a former Michigan assistant attorney general, said
utility ratepayers contributing to a Yucca Mountain construction
fund were at financial risk because of delays with the program. 

Electricity consumers served by nuclear utilities pay
one-tenth-of-one-cent-per-kilowatt-hour into the fund, which has
accumulated $24 billion since 1983. The current balance is $16.3
billion. 

Keskey urged utility commissioners to consider withholding the
fees, or placing them in escrow to show "that states are not
ignoring this issue and are concerned." 

However, Jay Silberg, an attorney representing utilities, said
power companies would be caught in the middle if the
commissioners acted to withhold fees. 

He said licenses and governmental nuclear waste contracts could
be jeopardized. 

"If you disallow (fees), you are pressuring the wrong guys,"
Silberg said. "It is not the utilities' fault we are in this
situation." 

--- 

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 44 Portland Tribune: Brand has our buildings on the brain 
 
PortlandTribune.com | 

When it comes to structures, take long view, author advises 
By JOSEPH GALLIVAN     

Issue date: Tue, Feb 15, 2005 
The Tribune 

   Anyone who reads Wired magazine will be aware of Stewart
Brand, the missing link between the hippies and the technocrats.
Born in 1938, he has a Zelig-like résumé that includes military
service, dropping acid with the Merry Pranksters, boosting the
ecology movement and working in early personal computers.

    He also founded the Whole Earth Catalog in 1968. This begat
the Whole Earth Lectronic Link in 1984, the Bay Area electronic
bulletin board that was the cybernautical equivalent of
Magellans circumnavigation.

    These days he confounds normal left-right divides by being a
consultant with both the Global Business Network and Portlands
Ecotrust. Hes also helping build a clock that ticks once a year 
a cuckoo pops out every thousand years  to encourage long-term
thinking.

    It was his book How Buildings Learn: What Happens After
Theyre Built (Viking-Penguin, 1994) that gave the Illahee
lecture series its 2005 title, How Cities Learn: Portlands Place
on Earth. Illahee is a nonprofit whose mission is to provide the
Northwests forum for science-based, policy relevant
environmental inquiry. This means they like trees, but they
wouldnt hug one.

    Illahee President Peter Schoonmaker relates that Brand and
others were talking on the roof of the Columbia Square building
and Brand was arguing for a vision that took earthquakes into
account.

    At that moment, the 6.8 magnitude Nisqually quake hit,
Schoonmaker says. And while everyone was cowering, Stewart was
jumping around saying, See! See! 

    I love earthquakes, says Brand, who has lived on a tugboat
in Sausalito, Calif., for the last 22 years. I was probably
jumping around more in glee than in smugness.
    
    Planning stage
    
    Brand, whose current lecture is titled The Future of Cities
as if the Past Mattered, makes a distinction between long-term
planning and long-term thinking, favoring the latter because we
cant know the future.

    With the clock, were trying to get people comfortable with
the 10,000- to 20,000-year time frame, Brand says. The
9-foot-tall prototype of the Millennium Clock currently resides
on public display at the Science Museum in London. A full-size
version is supposedly being built to be housed inside limestone
cliffs in Nevadas Great Basin National Park.

    Institutions max out at 40 to 50 years; some universities
have lasted a thousand years. Religions  some poop out pretty
quickly  while cities vary enormously, such as capitals of
dynasties. Jerusalem has been an important town for 2,000 years.

    He compares aerial photos of earthquake-devastated Turkey
from the 1990s with those of recently tsunami-ravaged Asia.

    All the buildings went down except the mosques, he says.
This is because some parts of civilization move faster than
others. Islam is ancient, but modern businesses bought off the
government to get around building codes, he says.

    More heretically, he thinks nuclear waste disposal methods
that limit the options of future generations are short sighted.

    Yucca Mountain (in Nevada) is probably the right place to
keep nuclear waste safe for 100,000 years, until we figure out
some other solution, Brand says. Humanitys not going to be the
same in 100 years. Chipmunks will be the same, but humans will
be way different.

    He dares to suggest that humans might be living like cave
men again in a few centuries, in which case radiation leaks will
be the least of their worries.

    He even cites Martin Cruz Smiths 2004 novel, Wolves Eat Dogs.

    The area around Chernobyl is now the greatest wildlife park
in Europe, Brand says cheerfully.

    Brand also recommends Robert Neuwirths book Shadow Cities,
which says the worlds shantytowns arent that bad, and claims
world population is plummeting because of declining birth rates
in the 50 percent of the populace that lives in urban centers.
    
    Talk the talk
    
    Back to urban morphology. The preservation movement to
maintain historic buildings is a pretty recent invention, 100
years or so, he says. Its never had a charismatic leader or
important book, and it was fought every step of the way by
architects and real estate agents and city government.

    But this was a grass-roots conservative revolution that
slowed down the visual change of the cities. Even New York City
realized it gets most of its money from tourists who want to see
buildings theyve seen in pictures.

    Brands talk will touch on cities such as London and Boston,
but there will be a Portland angle, since his brother and son
both live here and he is a frequent visitor.

    At least he will have somewhere to run if his opinions tick
off the natives.
    
  Stewart Brand When: 7.30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16 Where: First 
Congressional Church, 1126 S.W. Park Ave., 503-222-2719 Cost: $15

© 2004 THE PORTLAND TRIBUNE 
*****************************************************************
 45 Daily Free Press: Nuclear waste lost and found in city

        By Greg Hellman         

Published: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 

Federal authorities found a large piece of radioactive material 
in Boston last Thursday, lost last December by Texas-based 
Halliburton Energy Services.
 
According to Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Diane 
Screnci, "19-and-a-half Torrs" of radioactive Americium went 
missing upon shipment from Russia to Houston, Texas and was 
accidentally labeled for delivery to Boston. Halliburton 
originally intended for the package to be delivered to a freight 
facility in Newark, N.J., before getting shipped to Houston.
 
The package of Americium appeared untampered when Homeland 
Security and FBI officials found it at the Forward Freight 
facilities in Boston.
 
"It was packaged in a shipping container that was designed to 
transport this material and it's designed to protect," Screnci 
said.
 
The Americium's packaging prevented any possible danger of 
exposure to the public, Halliburton's Director of Communications 
Wendy Hall said.
 
Halliburton contacted the shipping company multiple times after 
the package left Russia and was told the shipment was in progress 
to Houston, Hall said.
 
"The shipping company that was responsible for the shipment made 
a mistake and sent the material to the wrong location," she said.
 
Halliburton informed the NRC last Thursday of the missing 
material, triggering a massive investigation that lasted less 
than 24 hours.
 
"We notified NRC immediately when we found out it was missing," 
Hall said.
 
The NRC allows a company a reasonable grace period to determine 
exactly what is missing before requiring a report, Screnci said.
 
Currently, the material is en route to its original destination.
 
According to Screnci, incidents of missing radioactive material 
like this one have prompted the NRC to reform their policies, 
including the implementation of a new tracking system by 2007.
 
"We have taken steps toward developing a cradle-to-grave tracking 
system," Screnci said, "from the beginning of when it starts as a 
source to when it becomes waste."
 
Halliburton uses the material to provide data from wells, Hall 
said.
 
Both Texas and federal la1w enforcement authorities are involved 
in an investigation of the incident. Halliburton will conduct its 
own internal investigation, Hall said. 

*****************************************************************
 46 Korea Times: Nuclear Waste Dump Site to Be Chosen by July 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation   

By Jung Sung-ki
 Staff Reporter

 The government and ruling Uri Party agreed yesterday to
finalize the selection of a site to build a nuclear waste dump
by July, government officials said. 

In a joint meeting at the National Assembly, the two sides
agreed to pass a special bill to provide 300 billion won ($290
million) in a subsidy to a local government to house the waste
dump during the current extraordinary National Assembly session. 

The government will receive applications from townships across
the country from next month, the officials said. 

``We will carefully review all candidate sites from the
beginning,'' Rep. Kim Tae-hong of the ruling Uri Party said. The
government will provide sufficient information and stage
promotional campaigns regarding nuclear waste disposal to
residents from applicable regions to avoid repeating
confrontation as the candidate site of Wido in Puan County,
North Cholla Province, he added. 

The government has failed to name a site to build a nuclear
waste disposal facility due to strong resistance over the past
year and a half in all designated regions. The latest attempt to
build the facility in Wido, an islet off the coast of Puan
County, was also frustrated last year as more than half of the
residents backed by environmental activists opposed the plan.
The residents staged violent demonstrations for months in 2003,
demanding that the bid forwarded by the county mayor be
scrapped. 

The majority of Puan residents expressed opposition to the
facility through a poll conducted last year, while there are
still residents who favor the project because of its economic
potential. The results of the survey showed that some 90 percent
of the polled opposed the plan. However, the government said the
vote was invalid as residents, not the local government,
organized it. 

``A legitimate poll is the only answer to the issue (of building
a waste dump),'' said Lee Young-taek, head of a local
organization in favor of the project. ``The construction of the
facility can be the growth engine for North Cholla provinces.'' 

Lee said the safety of the nuclear dump has been proved by a
series of on-site studies, in which some 10,000 residents
participated. The organization will continue to collect
signatures of approval for the project from 20,000 residents, he
added. 

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr 02-15-2005 17:22         
  
*****************************************************************
 47 PE.com: Officials downplay perchlorate discovery 

| Inland Southern California | Local News

SANTA ANA RIVER: Rain has carried the chemical downstream from
the Stringfellow acid pits. 

11:36 PM PST on Monday, February 14, 2005 

By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise 

The state agency overseeing the cleanup of the Stringfellow acid
pits has for the first time detected a rocket fuel chemical in a
creek that flows through northwest Riverside County to the Santa
Ana River, officials said Monday. 

Although Pyrite Creek runs behind an elementary school and
through the back yards of some homes in the semi-rural Jurupa
Valley, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control
said there is no immediate health risk from the perchlorate. 

The potential for human contact is low, given that the chemical
is not easily absorbed through the skin and it moved quickly in
the rain-swollen creek when tests were conducted last month,
said Allen Wolfenden, chief of the state agency's Stringfellow
Branch. 

Elliott Duchon, superintendent of the Jurupa Unified School
District, said the discovery should not pose a hazard for
children at Glen Avon Elementary School since the creek, which
is a concrete-lined channel near the campus, is fenced off.
Wolfenden said the levels of perchlorate dropped in the creek to
trace amounts before it reached the Santa Ana River, which is
used downstream by Orange County for drinking water. 

Mike Wehner, water quality director at Orange County Water
District, said the agency would review the test results and
verify the river hasn't been tainted. 

"I'm just grateful we got everyone off the groundwater ... so we
don't have to panic every time something like this is found,"
said Penny Newman, Stringfellow activist and executive director
of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice in
Glen Avon. 

"Like anything," she said, "it's something we have to watch." 

Perchlorate, which has been linked to thyroid illness, has
seeped into groundwater supplies across the Inland region as a
result of leaks and spills at factories and military bases that
used perchlorate in solid-state rocket fuel, munitions and
fireworks. 

The chemical was detected four years ago in an underground plume
of contamination coming from the Stringfellow acid pits, nestled
in a canyon above Glen Avon, where 35 million gallons of toxic
waste were dumped until the pits closed in 1972. 

Given the recent heavy rains that can carry contamination from
soil into waterways, Wolfenden said the state agency decided to
test surface water in the vicinity of the pits. 

The tests showed perchlorate levels ranging from 1.8 to 42 parts
per billion. The state has set a draft health goal of 6 parts
per billion for drinking water and is expected to set a drinking
water limit later this year. 

It is unknown if the perchlorate is also coming from just west
of the pits in the Jurupa Mountains where aerospace companies
used to conduct testing that may have used perchlorate,
Wolfenden said. More tests will be conducted during upcoming
storms to pinpoint the source, he said. More headlines... 

Engine stalls on approach

High-speed pursuit ends in arrest

Fire displaces two adults

Charge dropped in teen&#039;s slaying

Interchange project halted over disputeMore... ARTICLE TOOLS:

*****************************************************************
 48 AU ABC: WA uranium off-limits for mining: Gallop. 

15/02/2005. ABC News Online
 	
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

The Western Australian Premier has sent a strong message that
his state remains off-limits for uranium mining, after federal
Labor leader Kim Beazley gave in-principle support for an export
deal.

 The Federal Government is trying to negotiate a deal to export
uranium to China. 

Kim Beazley says Australia and China would need to establish
very firm guidelines for the use of the uranium. 

"If all those agreements are put in place, then it is a market
for us," Mr Beazley said. 

The State Government is yet to fulfil a promise to introduce
legislation banning the mining of uranium in Western Australia. 
But the Premier, Geoff Gallop, says the state's deposits would
remain off-limits under any export deal. 

"The question of whether the uranium comes from some of the
existing mines over east is a separate one," he said. 

The Premier says any nuclear waste dump in Western Australia is
also out of the question. 

&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
 49 Rocky Mountain News: Union blasts Flats records

Federal aid urged for stricken workers

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
February 15, 2005

Rocky Flats workers are finding out years later that they were 
contaminated by plutonium on the job, the Steelworkers Union said 
Monday. 

Some of the plutonium traces are being found in urine samples of 
workers who had no record they had inhaled or ingested the deadly 
radioactive metal, which they used in manufacturing atom bombs. 

 As a result, the union has asked the federal government to
admit that radiation exposure records at Rocky Flats are so poor
they should not be used to decide which workers with cancer
receive federal aid. 

Union local President Tony DeMaiori said large numbers of Rocky
Flats workers with cancer are being denied compensation. 

In 2000, Congress ordered payments of $150,000 and medical care
for nuclear weapons plant workers who came down with cancer and
other diseases due to contamination on the job, saying they had
put their lives at risk for national security. 

But workers must prove enough radiation exposure to cause their
cancer. The union's petition asks that Rocky Flats be added to a
short list of weapons sites where workers don't need to show
that proof because records are so inadequate. 

The petition was sent Monday to the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health, which is figuring out workers'
radiation exposures from their records and then using computer
models to decide if they qualify for aid. 

The union says exposure levels in the records are too low
because plutonium counters missed extremely small particles
formed in accidental fires or when the metal was heated during
manufacture at Rocky Flats. 

In addition, the union says, workers often wore radiation badges
under their lead aprons because it was thought only the torso
was susceptible to radioactivity. Radiation exposure to the head
was not measured and now workers are showing up with
radiation-caused brain cancer, the union president said. 

"All over the country, they're rejecting plutonium cancer
claims" under the compensation program, DeMaiori said. 

Department of Labor statistics say 860 Rocky Flats claims have
been denied of 2,108 filed for various illnesses, while 408 have
been approved. The statistics do not break out cancer cases. 

One of those workers is Harry Charles Wolf of Highlands Ranch,
who has managed to survive a particularly deadly form of brain
cancer, but only with dangerous surgeries and drugs and a bone
marrow transplant. The chemical engineer, who ran cleanup and
dismantling of certain buildings at Rocky Flats, said he's tried
for 21/2 years to win compensation, and his claim has been
denied.  

   
SITE MAP PHOTO REPRINTS CORRECTIONS    2005 © The E.W. Scripps
Co.
*****************************************************************
 50 ST: Heed will of voters by keeping out more waste until Hanford cleaned up

Seattle Times: 

Opinion: 

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. 	 	
 	
By Mark Wahl and Lunell Haught 		
Special to The Times 	 	 		

Michael Osbun / OP ART 				 				 				
 				 			 			 			 	 	 	
Last fall, we joined more than 1.8 million voters to pass the 
state's radioactive waste measure, Initiative 297. We had good 
reason to: The federal government was not only failing to clean 
up the Hanford nuclear reservation as promised, but planned to 
put even more mixed nuclear waste there. 

Washington voters wanted to take care of Hanford before a bigger 
mess was made. We ended up winning nearly a 70 percent majority  
a landslide by any measure  as we agreed the Evergreen state 
can't continue to be a dumping ground without equal weight being 
given to public health, safety and environmental issues. 

The voters spoke loudly, but has the government listened? 

Now we read that, as a result of part of a lawsuit brought by the 
U.S. Department of Energy, the Washington Department of Ecology 
is barred from interpreting the rules and guidelines of I-297. 

Ordinarily, Ecology gets the power to make reasonable adjustments 
and clarifications to a measure like this. But the Energy 
Department suit has opened the door for scare-tactic claims that 
the initiative could have unintended consequences involving 
medical isotopes and cleanup activities, and Ecology can't step 
in to make clear this isn't so. 

Fortunately, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and initiative 
sponsors has written legislation to clarify the text of the 
initiative and ensure that its intent is unambiguous: The federal 
government cannot add new waste to Hanford until the site is in 
compliance with environmental laws. 

A hearing already has been held in the state Senate on Senate 
Bill 5445; a companion bill, House Bill 1474, also has been 
through a committee hearing in the House. 

These bills warrant the support of the Legislature. They are 
well-thought-out and focused on ensuring that the will of 
Washington voters is carried out, that their obviously deep 
concerns are addressed, and nothing more. 

We worry about contamination in the Columbia River from leaking 
high-level-waste tanks at Hanford. We worry about the impacts of 
this contamination on salmon and other fish. We worry about the 
risks of contamination from a radioactive release. We worry about 
our children. We know downwinders harmed by Hanford releases and, 
frankly, we don't want to repeat the mistakes of ignoring the 
situation and hoping for the best. 

The Hanford nuclear reservation was developed in the 1940s to 
produce plutonium for nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan 
Project. 

In the 1950s, the government conducted secret radiation-exposure 
tests. Spokane is directly downwind of Hanford, according to the 
federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Many 
Spokane professionals and residents believe that higher rates of 
thyroid cancer and multiple sclerosis occur in Spokane and are 
linked to exposure from planned releases at Hanford. 

Hanford stores more than 60 percent of the nation's nuclear 
defense waste. 

Much of the most dangerous waste is stored in leaking tanks that 
are located adjacent to the Columbia River. Tens of thousands of 
barrels of waste are stored in unlined soil trenches located near 
the river. 

Initiative 297 strengthens the state's authority to require 
Hanford cleanup. This is common sense. 

Don't bring in more mixed waste until the existing mess is 
cleaned up. 

The bills before the House and Senate will remove any uncertainty 
about the initiative's intent and they are good examples of the 
collaborative problem-solving that we could use more of in this 
state. 

They're also a wonderful way to show the voters' voices are being 
heard. 

Mark Wahl is a retired mathematics professor from Langley, Island 
County. Lunell Haught is president of the Washington chapter of 
REPAmerica, Republicans for Environmental Protection. She is a 
self-employed small-business owner from Spokane. 

		 		
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company 	 	 		
*****************************************************************
 51 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hanford radiation study under fire
                            
[seattlepi.com]     

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 

 Newspaper: Review was tailored to fight iodine-131 lawsuits 
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SPOKANE -- A landmark study that estimated radiation doses to
the public from emissions from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation
was conducted in part to defend the federal government from
lawsuits, a newspaper reported. 

The Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project, a $27
million study that began in the late 1980s, contained
significant conflicts of interest, The Spokesman-Review of
Spokane reported Sunday. 

The study is part of a massive class-action lawsuit, finally
headed for trial in April, in which alleged victims of radiation
releases say their health was damaged. 

The records were obtained by lawyers for more than 2,000 people
who sued Hanford contractors starting in 1990 over their
exposure to radioactive iodine-131 releases during World War II
and the Cold War, the newspaper reported. 

The first phase of their trial starts April 11 in Spokane. 

The documents show that after the secret Hanford releases were
finally made public in 1986, the Justice Department opposed a
dose study as useless public relations but changed its mind when
the first lawsuit for radiation damages was filed. 

Some of the Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories staff
members in Richland who worked on the study also worked for the
Justice Department and for Kirkland &Ellis, the Chicago law firm
hired to defend Hanford contractors against radiation injury
claims, the documents showed. 

The documents provide "startling evidence" that the study was
shaped to "support the litigation positions that the government
and Hanford defendants anticipated," including choosing
radiation dose estimates that minimize the estimated radiation
exposures, Seattle lawyer Tom Foulds said in a court motion. 

Kevin Van Wart, of Kirkland &Ellis, lead attorney for the
Hanford contractors, denied the project was set up to favor the
defense. Plaintiffs lawyers also wanted a dose reconstruction
study in the 1980s as a guide to future litigation, he said. 

"It's absurd. This is all smoke. At trial, each side is going to
present their own best estimates of the doses the plaintiffs
received," Van Wart said. 

The study's radiation dose estimates were also used by a second
group of scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center in Seattle for the $21 million Hanford Thyroid Disease
Study, which explored the possibility of a link between the
Hanford releases and thyroid disease in 3,440 people exposed as
children. 

In 1999, that study concluded it could find no link between
Hanford's radiation clouds and excess thyroid death and disease
downwind. 

That result was at odds with other studies in the Marshall
Islands and Ukraine that showed clear associations between
iodine-131 exposures and an increase in thyroid cancers and
disease. 

Lawyers for the downwinders will critique the two Hanford
studies at the April trial, while the defense will present them
as sound science.                 

  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
©1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
 52 Las Vegas RJ: New test site manager sought 
 
Tuesday, February 15, 2005

By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The National Nuclear Security Administration is seeking requests
for a new contract to manage and operate the Nevada Test Site
and satellite facilities.
 
 The request for proposals is for a contract beginning Oct. 1,
according to a statement Monday from the administration, a
branch of the Department of Energy.
 
 The 1,350-square-mile test site, located 65 miles northwest of
Las Vegas, is currently managed and operated for the
administration by Bechtel Nevada. 
Bechtel Nevada has held the current contract since Jan. 1, 1996.
The company's $500-million-per-year contract for five years with
five, one-year extensions is set to expire Sept. 30.
 
 A Bechtel Nevada spokeswoman said the company intends to submit
a bid on the new contract for the test site and satellite
operations.
 
 The company employs 3,400 at various locations, including the
national laboratories in Livermore, Calif., and Los Alamos, N.M.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 53 Las Vegas SUN: Bodman: DOE must be ready to restart nuke weapons tests
 
By Suzanne Struglinski 
<>
 SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said it is
important for the Energy Department to meet its October 2006
goal to be ready to restart testing nuclear weapons within 18
months of a presidential order to do so.

 The department is working to get the Nevada Test Site ready for
weapons testing again, should tests be needed. There has been no
call for tests at this point, but Bodman told the Senate Armed
Services Committee Tuesday that the department was committed to
being ready and is on track to meet the deadline.

 The administration has requested $25 million for fiscal year
2006 for the effort.

 Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee wants detailed
descriptions from Bodman on the department's plan for a new
nuclear weapon trigger plant and how it intends to keep the
country's nuclear weapons arsenal up to date, Chairman John
Warner, R-Va., said.

 Bodman appeared before the committee today to discuss the
department's budget request for the National Nuclear Security
Administration, an agency within the department that controls
nuclear weapons. The committee controls two-thirds of the
department's budget.

 Warner wanted Bodman to detail how the department is handling
liquid radioactive waste in storage tanks in South Carolina,
Idaho and Washington. Congress passed a law last year changing
how waste would be treated in South Carolina and Idaho, but not
in Washington.

 Bodman said he expects a report soon from within the department
on how it will address the new cleanup plans. The department
also expects complete cleanup at three sites, one in Colorado
and two in Ohio, this year.

 Just two weeks into his job, Bodman did not know exact details
of the department's plans for the Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator, also known as the Bunker Buster, or its effort to
build a new Modern Pit Facility, which would make plutonium pits
or triggers for nuclear weapons, but gave general descriptions.

 Bodman said he understands the Bunker Buster does not require
nuclear testing, but experiments on how deep material can go and
stay in tact.

 Warner said the program was "essential and necessary" but
wanted Bodman to submit a justification to the department for
the money. The department requested $4 million to restart the
program, which did not get any funding for this fiscal year, and
$14 million for fiscal year 2007.

 As for the pit facility, Bodman told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas,
that the United States is the only country with nuclear weapons
that does not have a factory to make the triggers. A few can be
made at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Bodman
said.

 The department requested $249 million to get the lab able to
produce pits by 2007 as well as future planning fo a new pit
factory.

 The Nevada Test Site could be a site for the Modern Pit
Facility.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 54 Tri-City Herald: Hanford to miss sludge removal deadline 

This story was published Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

Fluor Hanford has no hope of meeting a March 1 legal deadline to
have radioactive sludge in the leak-prone K Basins at Hanford
vacuumed into containers. 

But regulators are encouraged that the difficult and
problem-plauged project may at last be headed toward success. 

Fluor Hanford was fined $935,000 last summer for multiple and
extensive safety violations as it prepared to start pumping
sludge from the K Basins in spring 2003. Earlier it had been
fined $76,000 for missing a 2002 deadline to start removing
sludge. 

Pumping did not start until last November under a new plan, new
management and new deadlines. 

But vacuuming up the sludge has taken far more time than Fluor
budgeted. Now it may not have the sludge corralled in containers
until summer. 

"It is a slow process, but it is going to get us there," said
Larry Gadbois, a scientist with the Environmental Protection
Agency, the regulator for the project. "It's very painstaking --
more than we thought." 

The K Basins, two huge indoor pools of water, were built in the
1950s to hold fuel irradiated in Hanford reactors until
plutonium could be removed for the nation's nuclear weapons
program. The basins were far past their design life in the
mid-1980s when 2,300 tons of irradiated fuel were stranded in
the water when Hanford stopped reprocessing fuel. 

The last of the fuel was removed last year. But left behind was
a radioactive sludge from fuel that had decayed over decades in
the water, desert dust and concrete that sloughed off the sides
of the pools. When the sludge is disturbed, it disperses in a
muddy cloud in the water. 

Work to remove the most radioactive sludge started about three
months ago in what workers called the weasel pit, a small
extension off the K East Basin where they once put potentially
damaged fuel or equipment for closer inspection. 

The sludge there had accumulated to about 4 feet deep. Compared
to the sludge dispersed among debris in the main part of the
basin, the project looked easy: "Go down and stick a vacuum into
a pile of dirt," said Pete Knollmeyer, Fluor Hanford vice
president of K Basins Closure. 

But as in so much of the sludge project, the unexpected
occurred. 

Because of the high radioactivity of the sludge, workers stand
on steel grating about 21 feet above the bottom of the pool and
use long-handled tools poked through the bars to accomplish much
of the work. The water must remain until water is drained to
shield workers from radiation. 

First the water turned too murky for workers to see more than a
few inches with cameras lowered in the pool. Then a system to
collect small particles of sludge floating in the water did not
operate as expected. 

It wasn't until the end of December that video cameras could
take pictures that were clear enough to show what was hidden in
the pool. Workers were surprised by a jumble of chunks of
concrete, welding blankets, pieces of scaffolding and hardware
needed to move tools. 

It appeared that not only was everything dropped inadvertently
into the weasel pit over decades still there, but that debris
also had been intentionally dumped there, Knollmeyer said. In
some cases, the sludge had hardened around debris. 

Workers also found that a drain had been grouted over, leaving a
tilted surface where a sludge container was supposed to sit. 

Most of the sludge has been removed from the weasel pit, but
instead of taking the nine work days budgeted, it took 42 days,
Knollmeyer said. 

Work has begun on vacuuming up the sludge in the three sections
of the main pool. Although Fluor had budgeted 20 working days
for each, it now expects each to take 60 days of work. 

Vacuuming around even the underwater debris that workers knew
was there has been more difficult that expected. The nozzles
that suck up the debris are having to be moved too often. 

"Try vacuuming a kid's playroom with all the toys on the floor,"
Knollmeyer said. 

Different nozzles have been developed with worker advice for
different sections of the pool. Some have steel crossbars on the
end to break up hardened sludge, and others look like rakes to
sweep across sections where sludge is shallow. 

Fluor also is tackling the problem by trying to remove debris
from sections of K East that will be vacuumed next. In addition,
crews are working to remove debris from the less contaminated K
West Basin, where the sludge from K East will be moved before it
is treated for disposal. 

Fluor has considered sending divers into the basins to help pick
up debris. Divers are sometimes used at nuclear power plants and
have been used in a less contaminated pool at DOE's Idaho site. 

Evaluation of that plan is on hold, in part because workers have
been able to remove debris by maneuvering tools through the
grating that covers the pools. About 6,300 of 7,000 empty fuel
canisters and 1,500 of 6,000 canister lids have been removed
from K West, where fuel was consolidated and repackaged during
cleanup. 

Once the sludge is in containers, the project should proceed
more smoothly, said Matt McCormick, DOE's assistant manager for
Hanford's central plateau. The sludge will be "much more
homogeneous from here on out," he said. 

The staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board toured
the K Basin sludge program recently and remains concerned that
Fluor Hanford has not learned from past mistakes on the project.
It's asking for a report from DOE by early April on the
effectiveness of corrections. The federal board provides
independent oversight of DOE's nuclear cleanup projects. 

Despite expecting to miss the March 1 deadline for getting
sludge in containers, Fluor believes it still can meet a January
2006 deadline for having the water drained from K East Basin.
That will be a major step in protecting the Columbia River,
which flows just 400 yards from the basins. 


© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 55 [du-list] DU in the news - 16th Feb. '05
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:31:59 -0800

 
<x-flowed>



Marquette Tribune, Tue, 15 Feb 2005 6:22 AM PST
Uranium cause for worldwide pollution 
http://www.marquettetribune.org/282624712835047.bsp
In a speech on campus, the co-director of a peace and environmental action 
group accused the United States of polluting areas around the globe with 
more than 700,000 tons of radioactive uranium since 1991.

Sun-Sentinel, Tue, 15 Feb 2005 10:27 AM PST
EPA places Vieques on track for cleanup 
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/orl-asecvieques15021505feb15,0,4606066.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has 
placed the island of Vieques -- once a warfare-training ground for the U.S. 
Navy -- on its National Priorities List of toxic sites slated for cleanup.

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 56 [du-list] DU in the news - 15th Feb. 05
 
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:35:31 -0800

 
<x-flowed>
             The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children

             http://www.smh.com.au/news/Review/The-Doctor-the-Depleted-Uranium-and-the-Dying-Children/2005/02/14/1108229917886.html

             Sydney Morning Herald Mon, 14 Feb 2005 4:03 AM PST
             This documentary follows the efforts of a German professor and 
Canadian medical researcher to prove that depleted uranium shells and 
bullets, used in two Gulf wars, have contributed to a range of appalling 
health problems in Iraqi locals as well as veterans.











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 57 Las Vegas SUN: Group complains about federal budget cuts

Today: February 15, 2005 at 9:56:15 PST 

By Cy Ryan <cy@lasvegassun.com> SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- President Bush's budget would cut millions of
dollars from Nevada's programs that affect the poor, elderly and
children, a coalition of 29 groups says.

 Jan Gilbert, coordinator for the Progressive Leadership
Alliance of Nevada, told a press conference Monday that Bush is
proposing tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting back programs for
low-income people. She said this is a strategy to force the
state to pick up the programs. Her group said Congress could
make deeper cuts.

 And it hurts Nevada more because of its fast-growing
population, said Gilbert.

 After the press conference, Gov. Kenny Guinn said both Democrat
and Republican governors are concerned about the reductions.
"We're all on the same line," said the governor.

 "We know we are going to lose some," said Guinn. But he said
the governors don't want cutbacks on Medicaid in programs for
the disabled, seniors, children and poor.

 He will attend the National Governors Conference in Washington
Feb. 28. The governors will be hosted at a dinner at the White
House and the next day will meet with Bush and members of the
cabinet.

 During the press conference, the most dramatic testimony came
from Chuck Fulkerson, executive director of the Nevada Office of
Veterans Services.

 With his voice choking with emotion, Fulkerson said the
proposed reductions will mean the nation is "not living up to
its obligations to the veterans." He said, "This is truly
without heart."

 In a press release, Fulkerson said the state Veterans Home in
Boulder City will see a reduction in funds. "The administration
is paying for the present war by reducing care promised to
veterans of prior wars," said Fulkerson, who heads the state
agency that handles veterans affairs.

 At present the federal Veterans Administration contributes $59
for every veteran admitted to the home. Fulkerson said the
proposal is to allow the $59 only to former POWs and those
severely injured in the line of duty. That would mean a great
impact on Nevada.

 The group composed of labor, education and social organizations
is calling itself "Nevadans against Cuts and Caps." Nevada,
according to the organization, will lose $166 million in the
next 10 years in Medicaid, the program that provides medical
care for the poor.

 The state could lose more than $16 million in the next 10 years
to pay for childcare for 6,300 kids of low-income families.

 Jon Sasser, statewide advocacy coordinator for Legal Services,
said the next three weeks are critical because Congress starts
marking up its proposed budget for the next fiscal year. He said
"There may be deeper cuts by Congress" and there is no
filibuster permitted to stop this.

 Sasser and others urged Nevadans to write their congressional
representatives opposing the reductions. He said Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is "very supportive" of the effort.

 Ken Lange, executive director of the Nevada State Education
Association, said there are proposed cuts for such programs as
Head Start, after-school sessions and the safe and drug free
project in schools.

 The state would also lose $16 million in childcare assistance
over the next 10 years, according to Families USA.

 Sasser said "Washington is once again trying to dump on Nevada."

 "This time instead of unloading nuclear waste, they are trying
to shift the cost of deficit reduction onto our backs," Sasser
said.

 Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said the
items being cut in the Bush plan "are not luxuries." She said
these cuts would dump the problem in the lap of the state. She
said these proposed reductions are "unconscionable."

 


 
    
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