***************************************************************** 03/31/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.73 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR REACTORS 1 Chernobyl: New Diseases, Most Children Sick In Areas Of Belarus 2 Just In Ukraine, 2.32 Million Treated For Chernobyl Diseases 3 Ukraine Health Ministry: 94.5% Of Liquidators Are Considered Ill 4 [NukeNet] 40% Cancer Increase In Chernobyl Effected Belarus 5 US: ANR File Comments on License Renewals for PA Plants 6 US: TMIA/Natl. Academy of Sci. ask NRC to Publish Report 7 US: StoryPitch: A Radioactive Assault on our Health& Envt: NRC to de 8 UK The Times: Nuclear power 9 US: Berkshire Eagle: Vt. rules against power company 10 US: NRC: NRC to Meet with Arizona Public Service Co. To Discuss Palo 11 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment of Columbia Gene 12 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Susquehanna 13 Daily Yomiuri: Power companies must put safety first 14 FT.com: Nuclear watchdog gets power in its hands 15 US: Middletown Press: Last CY nuke cask stored 16 Asahi Shinbaum: Kansai Electric blasted for lax safety at plant NUCLEAR SECURITY 17 US: [southnews] Doubts on Weapons Were Dismissed 18 The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro? 19 Who Was Right About Iraqi WMDs? Why? What Now? 20 Secrecy News -- 03/31/05 21 US: Guardian Unlimited: Bush Panel: Spies in Dark About Threats 22 US: Deseret News: Nuclear fears 23 US: Deseret News: Most Americans believe nuclear attack coming 24 US: Deseret News: Thousands of nuclear weapons still pose global thr 25 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North says 6-way talks must be wider-ranging 26 Bellona: Canada and US join forces to shut down Russia Pu production 27 Bellona: New Russian arms program to finance nuclear cruiser Admiral 28 Reuters AlertNet: Missing radioactive capsules cause Venezuela alert 29 The Cato Institute: Forcing North Korea's Hand 30 Mos News: Canada, U.S. Agree to Shut Down Russian Plutonium Reactor 31 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Demands Equal Treatment in Talks 32 Guardian Unlimited: al-Qaida Makes Surprising Weapon Advances 33 US: Guardian Unlimited Newsview: Bush Policy May Be Questioned 34 Guardian Unlimited Panel: Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMDs NUCLEAR SAFETY 35 [du-list] "We don't know.... the tonnage.." Hersh at NMSU 36 US: NRC: NRC Begins Special Inspection at South Bend Hospital 37 US: Deseret News: Fund the downwinder study 38 BBC: Coastal cancer claims 39 US: Paducah Sun: Sick workers get first chance to talk of new Labor 40 US: brownsville herald: Brownsville’s Mexico bridges get radiation s NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 41 [NukeNet] Yucca E-Mails Said To Be Ready This Friday 42 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada representative says Yucca e-mails 'tip of iceb 43 Las Vegas SUN: FBI Investigating Suspect Yucca Papers 44 DBNJ: More deception over Yucca Safety of nuclear repository still u 45 US: Deseret news: Goshute admits he took tribal funds but disputes 46 NRC: NRC Authorizes Construction of Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Fac 47 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast group calls on Bush 48 AP Wire: MOX plant receives permit but construction still delayed 49 US: Deseret news: Rare coalition backs Utah wilds plan 50 US: Platts: EIA charts boom in US uranium 51 Las Vegas SUN: Porter calls for punishment of falsifiers of 52 Las Vegas SUN: FBI steps into Yucca document investigation 53 US: Deseret News: Envirocare expansion opposed 54 RGJ: Porter says Yucca e-mails ‘tip of iceberg’ 55 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare looking to expand its operation 56 US: Newswise: Perchlorate, a Groundwater Contaminant, Retards Develo 57 US: decatur daily: Judges OK plan to convert weapons-grade uranium i 58 KLAS: Republican Senator Promoting Alternative to Yucca 59 US: ABC 4: Congress Hatches New Plan To Keep Nuke Waste Out 60 Whitehaven News: NUCLEAR SHIPMENT WON'T HELP CUMBRIA PEACE 61 US: New Mexican: City panel endorses 'no-nukes' resolution 62 US: Guardian Unlimited: Poll: Most in U.S. Oppose Nuclear Weapons US DEPT. OF ENERGY 63 IEEE: The Atomic Fortress That Time Forgot 64 sf new mexican: Lockheed plans to bid on LANL contract 65 ABQjournal: Groups To Appeal LANL Burn Permits 66 Tri-City Herald: Hanford budget offers ray of hope 67 Inside Bay Area: They're baaaaaack 68 lamonitor.com: New Mexico makes history ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Chernobyl: New Diseases, Most Children Sick In Areas Of Belarus Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 02:20:22 -0500 "In our Bragin district, only one child out of ten may be considered healthy by the end of secondary studies," remarks Tatiana Kotlabai, from the Belarusian association "Seeds of Life." "According to the Minister of Public Health's data," indicates Vassili Nesterenko, Director of the Belrad Institute in Minsk, "90% of the children in the zones contaminated today were in good health in 1985, 20% are today." More worrying: the pathologies the children present are not those expected attendant on exposure to radioactivity: instead of cancers, cardio-vascular illness, problems of the immune and digestive canal systems, etc. "When we talk to doctors in these areas," relatesJacques Lochard, "they say that children have old people's illnesses. That is not part of the known systems. All the science about radioactivity is constructed around Hiroshima, a sudden, brutal, external radiation. Chernobyl presents a new situation: millions of people ingest radioactivity with their food. And it certainly seems that other effects beyond the carcinogenic effects are provoked." http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/033005EB.shtml Radioactivity Survival Lessons in Belarus By Hervé Kempf Le Monde Wednesday 16 March 2005 A serious nuclear accident is also possible in Western Europe and we should prepare for it: that's the essential message of the European research program SAGE (Strategies for the development of a culture of radiological safety), the conclusions of which were presented during a colloquium held March 14 and 15 in Paris. Inspired by the experience undergone by Belarus after the Chernobyl nuclear generator explosion, this program, which involves French, British, German, and Belarusian researchers, aims to "implant and disseminate a culture of radiological safety in Western Europe to face the case of an incident or accident with long-term radiological consequences" www.ec-sage.net ). A nuclear accident lastingly contaminates the regions affected over a large area, without the possibility of evacuating all the people who are exposed to fallout. They must live in an environment that is undoubtedly weakly radioactive, but still much more radioactive than the natural background. To limit the health impact of these weak doses, precautionary measures conscientiously applied in daily life - "the culture of radiological safety" - can significantly reduce the risks: so believe the SAGE program's actors, who have developed an educational method for life under radioactive conditions. "It's useful to broadcast this culture in the West for three reasons, explains Jacques Lochard, Director of CEPN (Centre d'étude sur l'évaluation de la protection dans le domaine nucléaire [Study Center for the Evaluation of Nuclear Safety) and SAGE coordinator. "First of all, some of our territories remain significantly contaminated since Chernobyl, in the north of Norway's and southern Scotland. Then, we must be prepared in case there should be a big slip-up. Finally, since September 11, 2001, we must imagine acts of terrorism that could lead to significant contamination." From this perspective, Belarus's experience is critical to imagine what must be done. Situated north of Ukraine, this country - which does not possess a nuclear reactor - received 70% of the radioactive fallout from the 1986 explosion. A million and a half people live in areas where the soil contains radioactivity higher than 37,000 Becquerels (Bq) the square meter. That has translated into a significant mortality. "In our Bragin district, only one child out of ten may be considered healthy by the end of secondary studies," remarks Tatiana Kotlabai, from the Belarusian association "Seeds of Life." "According to the Minister of Public Health's data," indicates Vassili Nesterenko, Director of the Belrad Institute in Minsk, "90% of the children in the zones contaminated today were in good health in 1985, 20% are today." More worrying: the pathologies the children present are not those expected attendant on exposure to radioactivity: instead of cancers, cardio-vascular illness, problems of the immune and digestive canal systems, etc. "When we talk to doctors in these areas," relatesJacques Lochard, "they say that children have old people's illnesses. That is not part of the known systems. All the science about radioactivity is constructed around Hiroshima, a sudden, brutal, external radiation. Chernobyl presents a new situation: millions of people ingest radioactivity with their food. And it certainly seems that other effects beyond the carcinogenic effects are provoked." How can the population's exposure be limited? Given that the principal means of contamination is through food, it appears, thanks notably to the research programs of Ethos and CORE, that it is most essential to inform the inhabitants, to suggest that they regularly measure their level of contamination and that of the food they eat and finally, to suggest that they change their diet. Mrs. Kotlabia, whose association has successfully developed this method in several villages, explains: "The Sadenov family had two children who presented contamination levels of 2,250 and 953 Bq/kg. We talked to the parents, identified the source of contamination - game - and explained to them that they shouldn't eat any game without measuring its radioactivity beforehand. Then we sent the children to a sanatorium with the recommendation that they take pectin. The result: the elder saw his contamination level divided by six, the younger, by twenty-four." This approach remains to be generalized throughout Belarus, a difficult task, given the state's lack of means. On top of that, the approach has incurred the criticism of Vassili Nesterenko, a key person for that effort, because of the Belrad Institute's unceasing activity to redress the affected populations' state of contamination. Mr. Nesterenko is sorry that the CORE program does not encourage distribution of pectin - a powder from apple pulp - while studies (including one published in Swiss Medical Weekly in 2004) tend to demonstrate its effectiveness in reducing the level of contamination. CORE and SAGE's overall approach is keenly criticized by anti-nuclear groups. CEPN's neutrality is questioned, since this organization is financed by EDF, Areva and the CEA [utilities that use nuclear power]. Moreover, participants at the Paris colloquium were greeted by streams of eggs and red paint from a group that left a note signed, "Lonesome cobaye [guinea pig] not so far away from Belarus." This act hardly convinced the participants, especially the Belarusian ones. Mr. Nesterenko described the gesture as "heinous." The note criticized the undertaking of "helping populations act as though they can live normally in conditions that are killing them.... This whole affair aims to organize the social acceptance and trust necessary for the current re-launch of nuclear programs." "What should we do?" asks Jacques Lochard. "Deport people, immobilize their lands? If they want to live there, it would be irresponsible not to give them the means to improve the conditions they live under." It would be better if the question were not posed in Europe. But it has become imaginable. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher. ------- ***************************************************************** 2 Just In Ukraine, 2.32 Million Treated For Chernobyl Diseases Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:46:46 -0500 And the accident continues......................................... ..... ``We must now worry about the children of the children of Chernobyl,'' said Gennady Groushevoy, head of Children of Chernobyl. ``The health danger is reaching into a second generation ... but the government has retreated into a Soviet-era attitude of silence.'' In all, 7 million people in the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered medical problems as a result of the April 25, 1986, accident. In Ukraine, more than 2.32 million people, including 452,000 children, have been treated for radiation-linked illnesses, including thyroid and blood cancer and cancerous growths, according to Ukrainian health officials. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Living-With-Chernobyl.html?oref=login Activists: Chernobyl Radiation Lingers By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 13, 2004 Filed at 8:34 p.m. ET SVETILOVICHI, Belarus (AP) -- The signs say ``KEEP OUT'' and warn of radiation contamination, but the mushroom-pickers trudge right past them carrying their pails. Eighteen years after the reactor at Chernobyl in neighboring Ukraine exploded, spewing a cloud of radiation that blew north and contaminated 22 percent of this ex-Soviet republic, activists warn of a new threat facing Belarusians: the longing to return to normal life. Advertisement The government -- and many Belarusians -- are eager to put the world's worst nuclear accident behind them. President Alexander Lukashenko, branded Europe's last dictator, has made it a priority to repopulate much of the Chernobyl-infected region beyond the hardest hit areas. But opposition parties and advocacy groups such as the Belarus-based Children of Chernobyl accuse the government of overriding warnings that radiation continues to contaminate this region of pine forests and mud-splattered farming villages. Belarusians, many of them poor and ill-informed about radiation, are returning home to villages that still require permanent monitoring because of higher than average radiation levels. Tractors till farmland, cows graze and residents fill their yards with vegetable gardens. Others are venturing into the ``exclusion zones'' -- the worst hit areas -- to forage in the forests for berries and wild mushrooms, which are then sold throughout the region. The critics claim that the government of this tightly controlled nation of 10 million is capitalizing on the plight of desperate jobseekers to repopulate still dangerous areas and boost agricultural production. In the last five years, Belarus has struck 1,000 population centers from the danger list. It has boosted regional farm production by 30 percent, cut Chernobyl-related welfare funding from 14 percent of the approximately $3 billion annual budget to 4 percent, and censored health statistics of rising death and cancer rates, the opponents say. ``We must now worry about the children of the children of Chernobyl,'' said Gennady Groushevoy, head of Children of Chernobyl. ``The health danger is reaching into a second generation ... but the government has retreated into a Soviet-era attitude of silence.'' In all, 7 million people in the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered medical problems as a result of the April 25, 1986, accident. In Ukraine, more than 2.32 million people, including 452,000 children, have been treated for radiation-linked illnesses, including thyroid and blood cancer and cancerous growths, according to Ukrainian health officials. Most villages around the plant remain off-limits today, though some Ukrainians are moving back despite government warnings. Sixty percent of the fallout landed over Belarus, contaminating a region that was home to more than 1.5 million people. Some 125,000 families were evacuated, and large swaths of forest and farmland were declared ``exclusion zones,'' sealed by checkpoints. Many of the evacuees still complain bitterly that household belongings, left behind during their hurried retreat, later turned up for sale in regional markets, while they lived in limbo in shabbily constructed apartment blocks. Nikolai Nagorny, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross' Chernobyl program, said that cases of thyroid cancer -- one of the few radiation-related illnesses that has been well studied around Chernobyl -- have skyrocketed among children in Belarus' affected regions, from just two cases of thyroid cancer before the accident to at least 1,000 in the 10 years after. ``I don't feel any danger, and even if I did -- what would it matter?'' said Raisa Stradayeva, 62, as she and her grandson, Andrusha, trudged home through the rain in Svetilovichi, a village just outside the highly contaminated exclusion zone. ``I have to live somewhere and this is my home,'' she said. Besides, she said, the health risks can't be that severe because ``People are returning all the time.'' Not only Belarusians; foreigners are coming too, mostly from poorer ex-Soviet republics, seeking jobs and housing. Yuri Kuzmich, head of Belarus' Chernobyl exclusion and monitoring zone, rejects accusations that the government is intentionally sending anyone into danger. In his office in Gomel, a city of 500,000 that has suffered increased radiation-related illnesses, Kuzmich said his staff does all it can to keep people out of the worst-hit areas and provide information to those living in the surrounding region. But, he admits, not everyone is on the same page. State-run farms ``have plans to fulfill ... and they want to fulfill these no matter what,'' he said. Those farms need workers, and farm workers come. ``The passage of time and economic necessity take their toll,'' he said, sitting beneath a portrait of Lukashenko. ``Human memory is short. Eighteen years might as well be 100.'' Kuzmich's team oversees the exclusion zone, manning checkpoints, escorting visitors into the region and collecting scientific and medical data. Some employees are also assigned to oversee the villages under radiation monitoring. However, a reporter visiting recently was never questioned when entering the exclusion zone, checkpoints appeared deserted and the mushroom- and berry-pickers walk through on the main road, via forest paths or on buses that still pass through the zone. Margarita Artemyeva, who moved here from Kazakhstan, was helping her 25-year-old daughter, Natasha, wallpaper her new home -- a damp bungalow identical to its neighbors. ``I don't even think about it. I'm not scared at all. If there was a real danger, we'd know it, wouldn't we?'' said Artemyeva, 44. She rejected the claim that the poor are being used to repopulate the area. Critics claim vegetables, milk and meat from Chernobyl-contaminated regions such as Svetilovichi are being sold throughout Belarus. But in a nation where the average monthly salary is about $150, few have the option of putting health concerns first and buying imports. Besides, the berries and wild mushrooms supplement meager diets and also sell well. After Artemyeva mentioned she loved mushrooms, one of Kuzmich's employees took her aside and gently warned her against collecting them in the exclusion zone. ***************************************************************** 3 Ukraine Health Ministry: 94.5% Of Liquidators Are Considered Ill Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:01:29 -0500 The accident continues................... http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/370/12608_Chernobyl.html http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/370/12608_Chernobyl.html Forgotten victims of Chernobyl 04/23/2004 18:06 On the verge of another anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, which took place in now Kiev, Ukraine, Chernobyl victims plan to participate in a national solidarity demonstration. The demonstrators plan to make public their demands from an acknowledged proposal signed by the president of "Union Chernobyl of Ukraine" Yuri Andreev. The document states that the recently adopted state budget-2004 does not guarantee even elementary survival of Chernobyl victims. For instance, Ukrainian government has given only $2,5 USD for ambulatory treatment of one of the victims of the tragedy. In the meantime, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, 94,5% of those who took part in liquidating the catastrophe (i.e. rescue workers, volunteers), are all considered ill. At the same time, significantly lower percentage (89,8%) of local residents who have been evacuated from the region have been diagnosed with illnesses connected to high radiation> Latest News a.. Forgotten victims of Chernobyl b.. Bulgaria recalls 23 troops c.. Tribute to Naval Cold War d.. Poland considering Iraq pullout e.. Dominican Republic and Honduras to withdraw troops from Iraq levels. 79,8% of children are also currently sick. Real numbers. However, the actual numbers appear to be even more frightening, since the overall accuracy of Ukrainian medical statistical analysis has been rather questionable in the past few years. "The Ministry also notes that indicators of mortality rate of Chernobyl victims have drastically increased in recent years. Mortality rate of the catastrophe liquidators is on the rise as well. The highest death rate is among adults who live within the radioactive territory." Health Ministry of Ukraine admits that this year's Ministry's budget does not allow it to aid all victims of the tragedy. As for the victims of Chernobyl, they are also interested in social problems as well as the medical ones. The above mentioned statement also reveals that today the government can afford only 1 ticket to a sanatorium per 100 whoa re in need of such treatment. They are also promised housing "in 1000 years." Authorities however are getting ready for the upcoming 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Andrey Lubensky Read the original in Russian: http://world.pravda.ru/world/2004/5/73/207/16694_Chernobil.html (Translated by: Anna Ossipova) ***************************************************************** 4 [NukeNet] 40% Cancer Increase In Chernobyl Effected Belarus Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:51:40 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) As we approach the 19th anniversary of Chernobyl on April 26, the accident continues as it will for millenia: New paper on cancer rates in Belarus confirms LLRC's predictions The Swiss Medical Weekly has published findings from the Clinical Institute of Radiation Medicine and Endocrinology Research, Minsk, Belarus showing a 40% increase in cancer between 1990 and 2000. The researchers used data from the National Cancer Registry, established in 1973. They compared the post Chernobyl period with rates before the accident on April 26, 1986. Relative Risks all have high statistical significance. Increases in the various oblasts (regions) were: Brest 33% Vitebsk 38% Gomel 52% Grodno 44% Minsk 49% Mogilev 32% Minsk city 18% all Belarus 40% The authors note that increases in breast cancer are happening earlier in populations in the more highly contaminated regions (Gomel and Mogilev) than in less contaminated Vitebsk. This dose related difference in the time lag for radiation-induced cancers is known from other studies and is most marked for breast cancer. In 2001 Chris Busby reported to the Belarus government that cancer would increase by 125% over the lifetimes of the exposed population ( http://www.llrc.org/belarus.htm ). Now, 18 years after the accident, 40% of that increase is apparent. The view of conventional radiation protection "experts", however, is that very little if any cancer has resulted or will result from the fallout. This was expressed, for example, in 2000 by a United Nations committee: "Apart from the substantial increase in thyroid cancer after childhood exposure observed in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine there is no evidence of a major public health impact related to ionising radiation 14 years after the Chernobyl accident. No increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality that could be associated with radiation exposure have been observed. The risk of leukaemia, one of the most sensitive indicators of radiation exposure, has not been found to be elevated even in the accident recovery operation workers or in children. There is no scientific proof of an increase in non-malignant disorders related to ionising radiation. . For the most part [the public] were exposed to radiation levels comparable to or a few times higher than the natural background levels. Lives have been disrupted by the Chernobyl accident but from the radiological point of view, based on the assessment of this Annex, generally positive prospects for the future health of most individuals should prevail." UNSCEAR (2000) United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Sources and Effects of Ionising Radiation 2000. UN General Assembly, with Scientific Annexes. United Nations New York. Annex J Final Summary For evidence of increases in non-malignant disorders see http://www.llrc.org/chernobyl.htm - summaries of 100 papers from the affected territories. The Belarus paper is freely available for download as a pdf:- http://www.smw.ch/pdf200x/2004/43/smw-10221.pdf We have sent you this email circular because you are on our database of people who are concerned about low level radiation and health. If you do not want to receive information from us please reply, putting "remove from LLRC" in the subject line. Richard Bramhall Low Level Radiation Campaign bramhall@llrc.org The Knoll, Montpellier Park Llandrindod Wells, Powys LD1 5LW U.K. +44(0)1597 824771 07887 942043 _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 5 ANR File Comments on License Renewals for PA Plants Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:51:37 -0800 March 31, 2005 For Immediate Release The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is joined by Reactor Communities across the Nation in Providing Comments to the NRC on New Regulations for License Renewals at Nuclear Plants. Representatives from environmental organizations from San Diego to Massachusetts filed comments today on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission¹s new regulations for re-licensing nuclear power plants. A common theme for all those who live in the shadow of aging nuclear plants was a lack of trust and a The NRC regulation proposal out for comment is yet another example of an oversight agency refusing to address the real impacts of continued operation of nuclear plants designed and built in the 1960¹s and 1970¹s. For example, the NRC continues to pretend that: The only issues to address are aging components, Existing nuclear power plants do not need to meet criteria of new nuclear plants; Security issues have not changed since existing nuclear plants were licensed ­ most over 20 years ago; A solution to permanent safe storage of high-level radioactive waste exists; Anyone at the NRC involved in decision-making on relicensing will be in position of responsibility for the duration of license renewals; Degradation of waters offshore of nuclear power plants is not a problem; A new pool of trained nuclear workers is in place or will be place to replace the current aging workforce; License renewals do not change the original land use intent of the facilities by breaching their tech spec designs and converting them into LLRW and HLRW storage facilities; Safe and secure transport exists to remove radioactive waste from nuclear power plant sites to ³somewhere² else. The conclusion by all who filed comments was that site-specific hearings are not necessary for all of the above concerns. The NRC has stated that ³all comments should include supporting justification in enough detail for the NRC staff to evaluate the need for changes in the guidance, as well as references to the operating experience, industry standards, or other relevant reference materials that provide a sound technical basis for such changes.² However, the public who live with the NRC¹s criteria for license renewals are increasing prevented from knowledge of ³operating experience, industry standards and relevant reference materials that would provide a sound technical basis for changes² states Rochelle Becker, Executive Director of the statewide Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. ³This leaves the reactor communities at a great disadvantage and belies the NRC¹s statement that it is ³especially interested in stakeholder comments.² ³Nuclear power plants across our county do not have cookie-cutter designs for components. Some are subject to saltwater and salt air intrusion, some experience tornadoes or other geologic activity and/or weather conditions that can impact how components age. Aging of components can be related to weather, geologic conditions, maintenance, personnel errors, quality of design of components and other factors. These aging issues cannot be considered generic, yet the NRC ignores the site- specific conditions of aging in favor of expediting license renewals for nuclear utility owners.² Eric Epstein, Chairman of TMI-Alert, a safe-energy group based in Harrisburg, added, ³Until regulations for re-licensing are in place to assure that aging reactors and all conditions that impact aging are addressed and resultant impacts of continued operation are considered NO license renewals should be approved.² Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\Relicensing com. 3 30 05.doc" ***************************************************************** 6 TMIA/Natl. Academy of Sci. ask NRC to Publish Report Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:56:07 -0800 NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release: Contact: Jim Warren, (919) 416-5077 March 30, 2005 Deb Katz, (413) 339-5781 Science Panel Confirms Risk to Nuclear Pools, Calls Suppression of Study Unprecedented Citizen Coalition Urges NRC to Release Report, Take Action WASHINGTON, DC ­ In the midst of a scandal over a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on security of high-level nuclear waste, the Nuclear Security Coalition, comprised of 47 grassroots and public interest groups across the nation, reiterated today that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must release the unclassified report as NAS prepared it. The group also insisted NRC take action on a formal petition filed last August to reduce the threat against 32 particularly vulnerable power plants. Those boiling water reactors, representing nearly a third of all U.S. plants, store their waste fuel in densely packed pools high above ground with no substantial protection. ³The NRC claims that radioactive waste pools aren¹t vulnerable to catastrophic attacks, yet they have held the NAS study hostage, ² stated Eric Epstein, Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert. ³We urge the NRC to take action and compel Exelon and PPL to move spent fuel at Limerick, Peach Bottom and Susquehanna to secure and hardened facilities.² The Academy spoke out this week regarding the Bush administration¹s withholding the release of the scientists¹ study on risks from storing ³spent² nuclear fuel rods at the nation¹s power plants. In a top story in Monday¹s Washington Post, NAS head E. William Colglazier said the science panel had never encountered such hurdles in releasing a report, and warned that the public, governors and other leaders need to learn about NAS¹ findings. Experts from Princeton, MIT and elsewhere have previously identified the pools as unparalleled in terms of potential social and economic devastation should they be attacked. Since last June, NRC has blocked release of an unclassified version of the NAS study, citing security concerns. But last week, David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists unearthed a March 14th letter from NRC meant to rebut the NAS study. In the letter, NRC Chairman Nils Diaz revealed a major part of NAS¹ findings, showing that the science panel recommends ³earlier movement of spent fuel from [cooling] pools into dry storage...² to reduce risks of a catastrophic nuclear fire. On March 16, the citizen coalition charged that NRC is blocking the study¹s release because the industry disagrees with the report¹s negative findings, rather than legitimate security concerns. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has seen both classified and unclassified versions of the report, echoed that concern several days later. Maintaining a public perception that nuclear waste storage can be done cheaply and safely is key to the nuclear industry¹s current efforts to expand for the first time in over twenty-five years. The Coalition is pressing Congress to order release of the NAS study and mandate safer storage of the highly radioactive waste, starting with the 32 GE reactors that are most vulnerable. NSC has asked for a meeting directly with NRC¹s five commissioners to discuss the citizens¹ pending petition, after months of NRC indecision. ### To view the Nuclear Security Coalition¹s petition to the NRC, visit http://www.citizen.org/documents/BWRpetitionannex.pdf. To view the Coalition¹s call to release the NAS study, visit http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/ nuclear_power_plants/reactor_safety/articles.cfm?ID=13125. Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\NSC release 3-31-05.doc" ***************************************************************** 7 StoryPitch: A Radioactive Assault on our Health& Envt: NRC to deregulate nuclear waste Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:15:25 -0500 I want to draw your attention to a consequential story that I

I want to draw your attention to a consequential story that I
think needs to be told.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Staff will today recommend to the
Commissioners that they adopt a controversial deregulation policy that
permits radioactive waste to go to local garbage dumps (which are not
designed to contain it, and are known to contaminate soil and drinking
water), and into recycled materials used for houses, office buildings,
parks, sidewalks, and roads. Because we drink local water and come into
intimate contact daily with recycled materials, this plan will affect
all of us. 116 national and state U.S. groups have today written to the
NRC telling them not to proceed with this policy (see link to this
letter below). From a human health perspective, there is no safe level
of exposure to ionizing radiation. The public should not have to bear
this burden for the nuclear industry.

And it's not just the public that is opposed to this concept. The
steel, concrete, cement, and landfill industries, among others, also
oppose "radioactive recycling" because of concerns about the expected
economic impact and public perception of the proposal. In short, whether
it's dumping on public health or these industries, the nuclear industry
is just passing off its costs to all of us.

You should note that similar NRC efforts, then called "Below Regulatory
Concern", were stopped by Congress in 1992 after an incredible public
outcry. States around the country passed laws requiring the continued
regulation and control of radioactive material, even if the NRC and
other agencies release it. But now, the NRC is back attempting to
implement this same flawed policy under a new name.

We urge you to write about this important issue.

For more information, please give us a call.

Sincerely,

Diane D'Arrigo, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, (202)328-0002  dianed@nirs.org


Melissa Kemp, Public Citizen Energy Program, (202) 454-5176 mkemp@citizen.org


Daniel Hirsch, Committee to Bridge the Gap, (831) 332-3099 cbghirsch@aol.com



Letter Signed by 116 National, State, and Local U.S. Groups:
https://www.citizen.org/documents/ACF65EC.pdf

 

 

 

Diane D’Arrigo

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

1424 16th Street NW suite 404

Washington, DC 20036

dianed@nirs.org

202 328 0002 x 16

 ***************************************************************** 8 UK The Times: Nuclear power April 01, 2005 From Mr B. H. Parker Sir, As a young physicist in the early 1960s I was excited by the prospect of worldwide fusion power in my lifetime. At that time I recall that Atom, the house journal of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, reported substantial progress in fusion power development, with the prospect of commercial stations within 20 years. In the mid-1980s the same journal outlined the splendid progress which had been made in reaching and holding higher temperatures, but considered that practical application of fusion power would not be for 20 years. Now we learn that it will take around 30 years to see whether fusion power lives up to the hype (Science Notebook, March 21). It seems that the closer we get to this answer to world energy problems, the further away it is. Yours sincerely, BRIAN PARKER, Rook House, Victoria Road, Dartmouth, Devon TQ6 9HD. March 22. Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk ***************************************************************** 9 Berkshire Eagle: Vt. rules against power company www.berkshireeagle.com March 31, 2005 Pittsfield, MA By The Associated Press MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Vermont's largest power company has been overcharging its customers and must make $3.3 million in refunds and lower rates by nearly 2 percent, the state Public Service Board ruled Tuesday. Central Vermont Public Service Corp.'s "present rates are higher than is just and reasonable, and must be reduced," the board said at the beginning of its 179-page order. The board listed four reasons why the Rutland-based CVPS' costs were going down, rather than up: + The sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, of which CVPS was the largest owner, in 2002 reduced the company's costs "noticeably," the board said. + CVPS has been able to make money selling excess power. + Low interest rates have made it easier and cheaper for the company to borrow money. + The cost of capital also has been reduced because the sale of Vermont Yankee and Vermont's decision not to move to restructure the electric industry made the company look like a less risky bet to investors. CVPS spokesman Steve Costello said Tuesday it was too soon to comment in detail on the board's order. "We're disappointed, but we want to digest the order, and develop an appropriate plan for moving forward," he said in a statement. The board found the company, which serves about 151,000 customers around Vermont, had been making too much money since 2001, the date of its last rate increase. CVPS asked for a 5.01 percent increase last year, while the Department of Public Service, which represents ratepayers before the board, sought a 6 percent rate decrease for the past year and a 7.16 percent rate cut to take effect this April. David O'Brien, the DPS commissioner, called the decision good news. "In the face of requests to increase rates by the company, we're going to see a refund for the current year and a reduction in rates going forward," O'Brien said. A major goal of the Douglas administration since it took office in 2003 has been to reduce electric rates, particularly those paid by manufacturers and other large power users, as a way to keep them competitive and protect jobs in the state. "I don't think it's a huge step" in that direction, O'Brien said of the board's decision. "I think it's just a reflection of the department doing its job." Aside from the department doing battle with the company, the retirees' group AARP sought and won permission to intervene in board hearings on behalf of its members. AARP's Vermont spokesman, David Reville, said the Department of Public Service was ready to strike a deal with CVPS that was not as good for consumers as the board order that resulted from his group's intervention. "We wouldn't be here today if AARP hadn't intervened" and pointed out the weakness in the department's position, he said. "I don't accept that at all," O'Brien replied later. He said the department's decision to back away from the agreement and litigate the case was prompted mainly by misgivings expressed by the board. "The department did the lion's share of the work," in gathering the evidence presented to the board, he said. Copyright © 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 10 NRC: NRC to Meet with Arizona Public Service Co. To Discuss Palo Verde Performance Issues News Release - Region IV - 2005-00 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV No. IV-05-009 March 31, 2005 CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Arizona Public Service Co. officials on April 5 to discuss performance trends at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. APS operates the plant, located about 55 miles west of Phoenix, Ariz. The meeting will be from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the NRCs Region IV office in Arlington, Texas. The public is invited to observe the meeting and will have one or more opportunities to communicate with the NRC after the business portion, but before the meeting is adjourned. Persons interested in participating in the conference via telephone can do so by calling (800) 952-9677 and asking to be transferred to the meeting. In its annual assessment of plant performance, the NRC staff identified deficiencies in human performance and problem identification and resolution at the plant. Last revised Thursday, March 31, 2005 ***************************************************************** 11 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment of Columbia Generating Station April 6 News Release - Region IV - 2005-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV No. IV-05-010 March 31, 2005 CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov [opa4@nrc.gov] The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Energy Northwest on April 6 to discuss the results of the agencys assessment of safety performance at Columbia Generating Station during 2004. The plant is located near Richland, Wash. The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Energy Northwest Office Complex, Walkley Room, 3000 George Washington Way, Richland. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the plants safety performance, as well as the agencys role in ensuring safe operation of the facility. Each year the NRC staff evaluates the performance of each of the nations commercial nuclear plants, said Region IV Administrator Bruce S. Mallet. This meeting gives us a chance to discuss our assessment with the company, local officials and residents near the plant. We want to make this information available to the public and answer any questions people may have about the plant. A letter sent from the NRC Region IV Office in Arlington, Texas, to plant officials will serve as the basis for the meeting. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/wnp_2004q4.pdf [PDF Icon] . Overall, Columbia operated safely during 2004. The NRC uses color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear plant performance. The colors start with green and increase to white, yellow, and red, according to the safety significance of the issues involved. The NRC noted that deficiencies in the area of problem identification and resolution, mentioned in its mid-cycle letter of August 30, 2004, and the March 3, 2004, annual assessment letter, have been successfully addressed by the company. However, the NRC staff has identified deficiencies in the area of human performance that have resulted in inadequate responses to plant conditions from both an operational and radiological standpoint. Although Energy Northwest has implemented an improvement program, the NRC staff will focus attention on this area as part of routine inspections during 2005. Routine inspections are performed by the NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the Region IV office and the agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md. Current information for Columbia is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/WASH2/wash2_chart.html. Last revised Thursday, March 31, 2005 ***************************************************************** 12 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant News Release - Region I - 2005-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-05-016 March 30, 2005 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: [opa1@nrc.gov] Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of PPL Susquehanna, LLC, on Wednesday, April 6, to discuss the agencys annual assessment of safety performance at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. The period of performance to be discussed is Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2004. PPL operates the twin-reactor plant, which is located in Berwick, Pa. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at the Susquehanna Energy Information Center, 634 Salem Blvd. in Berwick. Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the plants safety performance, as well as the agencys role in ensuring safe operation of the facility. The NRC continually reviews the performance of the Susquehanna plant and the nations other commercial nuclear power facilities, NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins said. This meeting will provide an opportunity for a discussion of our annual assessment of safety performance with the company and with local officials and residents who live near the plant. Our goal is to explain the NRC oversight process and make as much information as possible available to the public regarding our regulation of these facilities. A letter sent from the NRC Region I Office to plant officials addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/susq_2004q4.pdf [PDF Icon] . The meeting notice, with the agenda attached, is available in the NRCs Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under accession number ML050700064. ADAMS is accessible via the agencys web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRCs Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737 or by e-mail at [PDR@nrc.gov] . Overall, the Susquehanna plant operated safely during the period. The NRC uses color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear power plant performance. The colors start with green and then increase to white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. Because all of the inspection findings and performance indicators for the plant during 2004 were determined to be green, the Susquehanna plant will receive a baseline level of inspections during the upcoming assessment period. In its mid-cycle letter dated Aug. 30, 2004, the NRC advised PPL that a substantive cross-cutting issue, a performance issue touching multiple program areas, still existed in the area of Problem Identification and Resolution involving weak evaluations of technical issues. Since then, the company has taken steps to improve its corrective action program and the NRC staff has determined the issue no longer exists due to a reduction in the frequency of findings related to this area. Routine inspections are performed by two NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pa., and the agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md. Among the areas of plant operations to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are radiological safety, fire protection and the requalification program for licensed operators. Current performance information for Susquehanna Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SUSQ1/susq1_chart.html. Current performance information for Susquehanna Unit 2 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SUSQ2/susq2_chart.html. Last revised Thursday, March 31, 2005 ***************************************************************** 13 Daily Yomiuri: Power companies must put safety first The Yomiuri Shimbun A serious warning issued by a government watchdog on nuclear safety must be taken to heart not only by Kansai Electric Power. Co., but all other power utilities. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has said there has been erosion of a serious desire for nuclear safety at KEPCO. On Wednesday, the agency's accident investigation committee issued a final report on a fatal accident that took place at a KEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture in August, killing five workers and injuring six others. The report points a finger at KEPCO, saying the fatal steam blowout at the power utility's Mihama Nuclear Power Plant must be primarily attributed to its inadequate sense of responsibility and its inappropriate maintenance of the facility. The report stated that KEPCO's "safety first" policy had been reduced to an empty slogan over the years, adding that nothing had been done to correct the situation. This means that KEPCO's primary emphasis on business efficiency played a part in causing the accident. A similar lesson was drawn from a scandal that arose over Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s move to falsify records of its inspections of nuclear power stations three years ago. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA)--a nuclear safety watchdog body operated by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry--said TEPCO's nuclear power division had become complacent and did not place enough importance on pursuing safety. === Lesson went unheeded The fatal disaster at the Mihama facility shows that KEPCO did not learn a lesson from the TEPCO scandal. During the initial stage of its probe, the accident investigation committee sought to determine why a secondary coolant pipe installed at the Mihama facility had worn thin. However, progress in the committee's investigation showed that questions must be raised about KEPCO's business attitude. The committee found that the power utility had neglected to properly maintain coolant pipes installed at the facility in question. In late March, KEPCO drew up an action plan aimed at ensuring that the pursuit of safety is the centerpiece of its corporate culture. The move came only after the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had refused to accept plans devised by KEPCO for preventing a recurrence of the Mihama disaster--not once but twice. The agency told KEPCO that its plans were vague on what role top company officials would play in ensuring the safety of the power utility's facilities. The committee's latest report calls on KEPCO to review its business practices, adding that its two action plans were not convincing enough to determine the firm's operational problems would be resolved. The report reflected the committee's distrust in KEPCO's top management. === Deregulation a safety issue Prior to the issuance of the committee's report, KEPCO decided President Yosaku Fuji and Chairman Yoshihisa Akiyama would resign to take responsibility for the Mihama accident. But Fuji will remain a member of the power utility's board, while Akiyama will step down one year later. We find it difficult to say KEPCO has done all it should to take the blame for last year's disaster. The report also said the government should share responsibility for the Mihama accident, saying the disaster was partly attributable to the government's policy of allowing each electric power firm to check the thickness of pipes installed at power stations under their in-house regulations. It is important to ensure all power utilities are thoroughly monitored and given necessary instructions through NISA. As circumstances stand, KEPCO's nuclear power generation accounts for 44 percent of its total electric power production, close to 20 percentage points greater than the average of all power utilities. Until about 10 years ago, the utilization ratio of KEPCO's nuclear power plants was 10 percent or so lower than the national average. This state of affairs caused KEPCO to desperately seek an improvement in its nuclear power operation rate, contributing to a decline in its awareness of the importance of safety. Beginning in April, the government will expand the list of corporations in the electric power industry eligible for deregulation. This will entail even greater competition among companies operating in the industry, forcing them to further curtail their operating costs. All electric power firms must remind themselves of the need to pursue a safety-first policy in this age of deregulation. (From The Yomiuri Shimbun, March 31) Copyright 2005 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 14 FT.com: Nuclear watchdog gets power in its hands By Thomas Catan Published: March 31 2005 03:00 | Last updated: March 31 2005 [nuclear radiation warning sign] A small agency will come into existence tomorrow to deal with one of the largest, most expensive and time-consuming problems Britain will have to face in the decades to come: what to do with the nation's ageing nuclear power plants. In advance of that, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will today take possession of the 20 sites slated for clean-up. It will mark the start of a job that will cost an estimated £48bn and could take more than 100 years to complete. The success or failure of the project's progress will be a crucial factor in the decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to replace the ones being progressively unplugged from the power grid. The rest of this article is for FT.com subscribers only © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005. "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. ***************************************************************** 15 Middletown Press: Last CY nuke cask stored News - 03/31/2005 By JOSH MROZINSKI, Middletown Press HADDAM -- The last cask of radioactive material has been transferred to Connecticut Yankee’s concrete storage pad. Each cask, weighing approximately 125 tons, has a 3.5 inch steel liner and 21 inches of reinforced concrete. The pad, 70 feet by 200 feet, is located three-quarters of a mile from the plant. There are now three casks of greater than Class-C waste, which are pieces of metal from the reactor vessel’s inside, and 40 spent-fuel casks at the pad. Although the completion of this part of the decommissioning is finished, there still is work that the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company and the Community Decommissioning Advisory Committee, or CDAC, must complete. CDAC is starting to work on creating a group to replace it when the process is complete in September 2006, while the fuel still needs transferred to the federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Hugh Curley, CDAC chairman, said they are talking with other communities that have gone through the decommissioning process. The two advisory boards that oversaw the decommissioning of the Maine Yankee and Mass.-based Yankee Rowe nuclear power plants have established boards to monitor the fuel’s storage and advocate for its permanent removal. Curley said they will develop a new group over the next six months. Jeff Nelson, who represents U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2, on CDAC, said they have only four meetings left. "That means we have to get serious about that in the next couple of meetings," said Nelson. He said Simmons is willing to play a role only if the community asks for it. The new committee will be monitoring the waste’s storage with 2012 on their minds. "The latest is that the U.S. Department of Energy has now changed the expected date of operation (of Yucca Mountain) from 2010 to 2012," said Kelley Smith, Connecticut Yankee spokeswoman. "Currently there are no options other than storing it at CY or sending it to a permanent repository, such as Yucca Mountain." She said they are watching, though, the Goshute American Tribe in Utah as it tries to work with private companies to provide storage. "We’re monitoring all aspects associated with spent-fuel storage on a national fronts," Smith said. Nelson thinks 2012 is a realistic date. He said they are trying to get the Department of Energy to move Connecticut Yankee up on the fuel transfer list. Currently, the age of the fuel is considered and not whether the plant has decommissioned. Joyce Rossitter, who represents the Greater Middletown League of Women Voters on CDAC, thinks it is safer the casks are on the pad and not in the pool. She thinks the state is not a place to store them, though, for the long-term. Connecticut Yankee, she thinks, has no other options for storage other than Yucca Mountain. The decommissioning process began in 1998. The interior demolition will be done in the next four to five months. So far 120 million pounds of low-radioactive and none radioactive debris has been transferred. Radioactive debris is transported to facilities in Tennessee, Utah and South Caroline while non-radioactive debris is brought to a facility in Bozrah. The company expects to transport a total of 266 million pounds of debris. Smith said they are in the process tearing down the turbine building, which houses a turbine and generator. She said storing the fuel in the pool near the demolition work caused some constraints. "We had stringent security for the spent-fuel pool," Smith said. "We’re still going to have security at the plant site. but the primary focus will now be at the fuel storage facility." To contact Josh Mrozinski, call (860) 347-3331, ext. 222 or e-mail jmrozinski@middletownpress.com. ©The Middletown Press 2005 ***************************************************************** 16 Asahi Shinbaum: Kansai Electric blasted for lax safety at plant 03/31/2005 Agency says 5 died at Mihama due to blatantly bad management. Sloppy management at Kansai Electric Power Co. was behind the nation's deadliest accident at a nuclear power plant, a government inspection report said Wednesday. The accident occurred last Aug. 9 at Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, when steam spewed from a corroded pipe, killing five and injuring six. The report, drawn up by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), was submitted to an investigation committee of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The agency said it will closely monitor Kansai Electric with on-site inspections to ensure the company is doing its utmost to prevent a recurrence. This switch in tactics signals a change in the government's policy from relying on voluntary company safety measures to actively exerting more control over procedures. The pipe that ruptured was in the turbine building of Mihama's No. 3 reactor; the pipe had corroded from years of hot water and high pressure. In the aftermath of the accident, it became known the pipe had not been inspected since the reactor began operations in 1976. That section of pipe had even been omitted from checklists in 1990, when Kansai Electric ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which was in charge of pipe inspections at that time, to create the checklists. Moreover, the failure was not corrected even after Nihon Arm Co., a subsidiary of Kansai Electric, took over management from Mitsubishi Heavy in 1996. NISA's report fingered Kansai Electric for failing to provide sufficient information concerning the checklists, but it also blamed Mitsubishi Heavy and Nihon Arm for failing to improve what should have been corrected. NISA characterized Kansai Electric's poor pipe management as ``blatant'' and said it had damaged public confidence in the safety of the nation's nuclear facilities. Kansai Electric had long delayed replacing old pipes at its three nuclear power plants in Fukui Prefecture in disregard of the government's safety standards, substituting its own instead. This type of violation was found in 78 cases, ministry officials said. The reasoning behind the delays was that reactors could be kept operating longer if replacements were kept to a minimum, sources said. The NISA report concluded that Mitsubishi Heavy had also been involved in the replacement negligence. The report went so far as to say the companies' actions had resulted in the abdication of social responsibility and that the safety cultures of both companies had decayed. The report also blamed the government for not being involved enough in the power companies' safety management. NISA twice demanded that Kansai Electric's recurrence-prevention plans be redrawn after they were rejected by the government's accident investigation committee. In the latest version, Kansai Electric committed to five safety policies under the name of President Yosaku Fuji, but NISA still regards this as insufficient. As for Fuji, he will step down in late June to assume responsibility for the Mihama accident.(IHT/Asahi: March 31,2005) Copyright Asahi Shibaum ***************************************************************** 17 [southnews] Doubts on Weapons Were Dismissed Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 00:11:59 -0600 (CST) ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> As former secretary of state Colin L. Powell worked into the night in a New York hotel room, on the eve of his February 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council, CIA officers sent urgent e-mails and cables describing grave doubts about a key charge he was going to make. Weapons of Mass Destruction Doubts on Weapons Were Dismissed By Dafna Linzer and Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, April 1, 2005; Page A01 As former secretary of state Colin L. Powell worked into the night in a New York hotel room, on the eve of his February 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council, CIA officers sent urgent e-mails and cables describing grave doubts about a key charge he was going to make. On the telephone that night, a senior intelligence officer warned then-CIA Director George J. Tenet that he lacked confidence in the principal source of the assertion that Saddam Hussein's scientists were developing deadly agents in mobile laboratories. Former CIA director George J. Tenet, left, did not pass on to former secretary of state Colin L. Powell doubts relayed to him by a senior intelligence officer. (Kathy Willens -- AP) "Mr. Tenet replied with words to the effect of 'yeah, yeah' and that he was 'exhausted,' " according to testimony quoted yesterday in the report of President Bush's commission on the intelligence failures leading up to his decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Tenet told the commission he did not recall that part of the conversation. He relayed no such concerns to Powell, who made the germ- warfare charge a centerpiece of his presentation the next day. That was one among many examples -- cited over 692 pages in the report -- of fruitless dissent on the accuracy of claims against Iraq. Up until the days before U.S. troops entered Iraqi territory that March, the intelligence community was inundated with evidence that undermined virtually all charges it had made against Iraq, the report said. In scores of additional cases involving the country's alleged nuclear and chemical programs and its delivery systems, the commission described a kind of echo chamber in which plausible hypotheses hardened into firm assertions of fact, eventually becoming immune to evidence. Leading analysts accepted at face value data supporting the existence of illegal weapons, the commission said, and discounted counter-evidence as skillful Iraqi deception. The commission's anatomy of failure on Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program is a case in point. It begins in early 2001, as Bush took office, when the CIA got its first report that Iraq was trying to buy black-market aluminum tubes. The agency swiftly concluded, after intercepting a sample in April of that year, that Iraq intended the tubes to be used in centrifuges that would enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear weapon. The CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC) never budged from that analysis, the report said. In the following 18 months, WINPAC analysts won a fierce bureaucratic battle against dissenters from other agencies who said the tubes -- roughly three feet long and three inches in diameter -- were the wrong size, shape and material for plausible use in centrifuges. The tubes became the principal evidence for a "key judgment" in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which said Iraq had "reconstituted" a nuclear weapons program and could build a bomb before the end of the decade. To support its assertions about the aluminum tubes, the CIA made a series of arguments that the nation's leading centrifuge physicists described repeatedly as technically garbled, improbable or unambiguously false, the report said. One WINPAC analyst -- identified previously in The Washington Post as "Joe," with his surname withheld at the CIA's request -- responded by bypassing the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the nation's only major center of expertise on nuclear centrifuge technology. Joe commissioned a contractor to conduct tests of his own design, then rejected the contractor's results when they did not meet his expectations. Yesterday's report said the CIA also created a panel of experts to rival the Oak Ridge team. Those experts concluded, based on "a stack of documents provided by the CIA," that the tubes were meant for centrifuges. The CIA refused to convene the government's authoritative forum for resolving technical disputes about nuclear weapons. The Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee proposed twice, in the spring and summer of 2002, to assess all the evidence. The CIA's front office replied, according to yesterday's report, "that CIA was not ready to discuss its position." ..... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17211-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_politics WMD Report_____ Full Commission Report (PDF): The unclassified document released by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities. Transmittal Letter Overview of the Report Part One: Looking Back Chapter One: Case Study: Iraq Chapter Two: Case Study: Libya Chapter Three: Case Study: Al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan Chapter Four: Terrorism: Managing Today's Threat Chapter Five: Iran and North Korea: Monitoring the Development of Nuclear Capabilities Part Two: Looking Forward Chapter Six: Leadership and Management: Forging an Integrated Intelligence Community Chapter Seven: Collection Chapter Eight: Analysis Chapter Nine: Information Sharing Chapter Ten: Intelligence at Home: The FBI, Justice, and Homeland Security Chapter Eleven: Counterintelligence Chapter Twelve: Covert Action Chapter Thirteen: The Changing Proliferation Threat and the Intelligence Response Conclusion Post Script Appendix D: Common Abbreviations Appendix E: Biographical Information for Commissioners and List of Commission Staff The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southnews/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 18 The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro? Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 01:04:32 -0600 (CST) This article appeared earlier on the website of the Arabic Media Internet Network. http://amin.org http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8354.htm The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro? By Dr. Elias Akleh 03/24/05 "AMIN" - - Iran does not pose a threat to the United State because of its nuclear projects, its WMD, or its support to "terrorists organizations" as the American administration is claiming, but in its attempt to re-shape the global economical system by converting it from a petrodollar to a petroeuro system. Such conversion is looked upon as a flagrant declaration of economical war against the US that would flatten the revenues of the American corporations and eventually might cause an economic collapse. In June of 2004 Iran declared its intention of setting up an international oil exchange (a bourse) denominated in the Euro currency. Many oil-producing as well as oil-consuming countries had expressed their welcome to such petroeuro bourse. The Iranian reports had stated that this bourse may start its trade with the beginning of 2006. Naturally such an oil bourse would compete against London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), as well as against the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), both owned by American corporations. Oil consuming countries have no choice but use the American Dollar to purchase their oil, since the Dollar has been so far the global standard monetary fund for oil exchange. This necessitates these countries to keep the Dollar in their central banks as their reserve fund, thus strengthening the American economy. But if Iran followed by the other oil-producing countries offered to accept the Euro as another choice for oil exchange the American economy would suffer a real crisis. We could witness this crisis at the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006 when oil investors would have the choice to pay $57 a barrel of oil at the American (NYMEX) and at London's (IPE), or pay 37 Euros a barrel at the Iranian oil bourse. Such choice would reduce trade volumes at both the Dollar-dependent (NYMEX) and the (IPE). Many countries had studied the conversion from the ever weakening petrodollar to the gradually strengthening petroeuro system. The de- valuation of the Dollar was caused by the American economy shying away from manufacturing local products except those of the military -, by outsourcing the American jobs to the cheaper third world countries and depending only on the general service sector, and by the huge cost of two major wars that are still going on. Foreign investors started withdrawing their money from the shaky American market causing further devaluation of the Dollar. The keen observer of the money market could have noticed that the devaluation of the American Dollar had started since November 2002, while the purchasing power of European Euro had crept upward to reach nowadays to $1.34. Compared to the Japanese Yen the Dollar had dropped from 104.45 to 103.90 yen. The British pound climbed another notch from $1.9122 to $1.9272. Economic reports published at the beginning of this month (March) had pointed towards the deep dive of the American economy and to the quick rise of the deficit up to $665.90 billion at the end of 2004. The worst is still to come. These numbers worried the international banks, who had sent some warnings to the Bush administration. In its economical war Iran is treading the same path Saddam Hussein had started when he, in 2000, converted all his reserve from the Dollar to the Euro, and demanded payments in Euro for Iraqi oil. Many economists then mocked Saddam because he had lost a lot of money in this conversion. Yet they were very surprised when he recuperated his losses within less than a year period due to the valuation of the Euro. The American administration became aware of the threat when central banks of many countries started keeping Euros along side of Dollars as their monetary reserve and as an exchange fund for oil (Russian and Chinese central banks in 2003). To avoid economical collapse the Bush administration hastened to invade and to destroy Iraq under false excuses to make it an example to any country who may contemplate dropping the Dollar, and to manipulate OPEC's decisions by controlling the second largest oil resource. Iraqi oil sale was reverted back to the petrodollar standard. There is only one technical obstacle concerning the use of a euro- based oil exchange system, which is the lack of a euro-denominated oil pricing standard, or oil 'marker' as it is referred to in the industry. The three current oil markers are U.S. dollar denominated, which include the West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), Norway Brent crude, and the UAE Dubai crude. Yet this did not stop Iran from requiring payments in the euro currency for its European and Asian oil exports since spring 2003. Iran's determination in using the petroeuro is inviting in other countries such as Russia and Latin American countries, and even some Saudi investors especially after the Saudi/American relations have weakened lately. This determination had also invited an aggressive American political campaign using the same excuses used against Iraq: WMD in the form of nuclear bomb, support to "terrorist" Lebanese Hezbollah organization, and threat to the peace process in the Middle East. The question now is what would the American administration do? Would it invade Iran as it did Iraq? The American troops are knee-deep in the Iraqi swamp. The global community except for Britain and Italy- is not offering any military relief to the US. Thus an American strike against Iran is very unlikely. Iran is not Iraq; it has a more robust military power. Iran has anti-ship missiles based in "Abu Mousa" island that controls the strait of Hermuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Iran could easily close the strait thus blocking all naval traffic carrying gulf oil to the rest of the world causing a global oil crisis. The price of an oil barrel could reach up to $100. The US could not topple the regime by spreading chaos the same way it did to Mussadaq's regime in 1953 since Iranians are aware of such a trick. Besides Iranians have a patriotic pride of what they call "their bomb". America has resorted to instigate and encourage its military bastard, Israel, to strike Iranian nuclear reactors the way it did to Iraq. Leaked reports had revealed that Israeli forces are training for such an attack expected to take place next June. Israel is afraid of an Iranian bomb. Such an "Islamic" bomb would threaten Israel's military hegemony in the Middle East. The bomb would extract some Israeli concessions and would create an arm race that would gobble a lot of Israeli defense expenditure. Further more the bomb would force the US to enter into negotiations with nuclear Iran that may limit Israeli expanding ambitions. Iran had invested a lot of money and effort to obtain nuclear technology and would never abandon it as evident in its political rhetoric. Unlike Iraq Iran would not keep quiet of Israel strikes its nuclear facilities. Iran would retaliate aggressively which may lead to the destabilization of the whole region including Israel, Gulf States, Iraq, and even Afghanistan. Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US. This article appeared earlier on the website of the Arabic Media Internet Network. http://amin.org ) 2005 Arabic Media Internet Network Internews Middle East . All rights reserved. You may republish under the following conditions: An active link to the original publication must be provided. You must not alter, edit or remove any text within the article, including this copyright notice. -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: cj-subscribe@cyberjournal.org You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland "Escaping The Matrix - Global Transformation: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", somewhat current draft: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs. _____________________________ cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/ http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: cj-unsubscribe@cyberjournal.org For additional commands, e-mail: cj-help@cyberjournal.org ***************************************************************** 19 Who Was Right About Iraqi WMDs? Why? What Now? Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:58:14 -0600 (CST) Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ 2 p.m. ET -- Thursday, March 31, 2005 Who Was Right About Iraqi WMDs? Why? What Now? IMAD KHADDURI, imad.khadduri@rogers.com, http://www.iraqsnuclearmirage.com/index_en.php Khadduri worked on the Iraq nuclear weapons program beginning in 1981. In November 2002, Khadduri wrote the article "Iraq's Nuclear Non-Capability" in which he commented: "Bush and Blair are pulling their public by the nose" with "their hollow patriotic egging on." He is author of the book "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage: Memoirs and Delusions." He said today: "I did work on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program before it ended during the first Gulf War in 1991. From 1991 to 1998 I participated in work related to the inspection teams, we submitted our final report, which was a complete history of the Iraqi nuclear program, in 1998 to the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was only then I could leave Iraq. The Iraqi nuclear weapons program began right after Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor in 1981. I worked on the program because my country had a right to defend itself -- from Israel and, as we have seen, from the U.S., or possibly Iran. Look at North Korea, their nuclear capacity is likely what is protecting them from an attack by the U.S." MORDECHAI VANUNU, vanunumvjc2@yahoo.com, http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1007&searchterms=%22Vanunu%22 Vanunu, who worked at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, revealed Israel's nuclear capacity in 1986. He said today: "Now we hope that Bush can see his mistake and see the real nuclear state in the Mideast -- Israel. That is where the nuclear weapons are in the Mideast. I was imprisoned for 18 years for trying to show this truth to the world. Israel is still trying to silence me, and trying to prevent me from going to the U.S. They do not want this truth to be widely known." Vanunu is available for media interviews. He has been indicted by the Israeli government for speaking to media. His court date is April 6. JAMES JENNINGS, jimjennings@earthlink.net, http://www.conscienceinternational.org President of Conscience International, based near Atlanta, Jennings made numerous humanitarian trips to Iraq between 1991 and 2003. In a Conscience International news release on August 16, 2002, he stated: "Proponents of the war must prove three things: that Iraq has WMD; that Iraq has weaponized these systems; and that Iraq has the capability to deliver them. None of these things are true. Iraq has no nuclear weapons, having been certified as nuclear free by the IAEA and international agencies. UNSCOM claims to have destroyed Iraq's chemical weapons capacity by 1994. Scott Ritter, the former UNSCOM chief weapons inspector, stoutly denies that Iraq is a military threat, saying that Iraq has been 'qualitatively disarmed.' Even the Pentagon does not seriously allege that Iraq possesses a significant missile capability. Yet the war hawks keep urging Mr. Bush to attack Iraq with hugely destructive armaments, including 5,000 lb. bombs, which, when dropped on mud villages, as in Afghanistan, can certainly be described as true weapons of mass destruction." Jennings was featured on an IPA news release, "Bush's War Case: Fiction vs. Facts at Accuracy.org/bush," on October 9, 2002 . JOHN R. MACARTHUR, [via Giulia Melucci] giulia@harpers.org, http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1028-09.htm On October 28, 2002, MacArthur wrote the article "Sounds Fishy, Mr. President: To Drum Up Rage Against Iraq, Bush Senior and Junior Have Been Known to Tell Tall Tales." He is author of the book "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War." In December 2002, MacArthur was quoted on an IPA news release: "Recently, Bush cited an IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report that Iraq was 'six months away from developing a [nuclear] weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.' The IAEA responded that not only was there no new report, 'there's never been a report' asserting that Iraq was six months away from constructing a nuclear weapon...." MacArthur said today: "From the beginning of the 'marketing campaign' for invasion in the fall of 2002, we knew that the administration was fabricating evidence for war." [see: ] RAHUL MAHAJAN, rahul@empirenotes.org, http://www.empirenotes.org Currently in New York City, Mahajan is author of the book "Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond." He said today: "The WMD commission has done the job it was created for: shifting blame from the Bush administration's drive to war regardless of the facts to supposed 'faulty intelligence' gathered by agencies like the CIA, an organization the Bush administration wants to dismantle and remake in its own image. "It didn't take in-depth investigation to see the pattern of deception by the administration on Iraq's WMD. We had Colin Powell showing an artist's rendition of what an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle might look like; Bush's insistence that said UAV's, with a claimed range of several hundred miles, were to be used to 'target' the United States; Dick Cheney's frequent claims about Iraq's nuclear programs in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary; and, underlying it all, the constant insinuation that the U.S. government had access to deep sources of information unavailable to anyone else, when the Duelfer report clearly showed that U.N. weapons inspectors were almost the only source of information the United States had. "The commission blamed intelligence agencies for 'attention-grabbing headlines' that putatively pushed the administration to war; the same administration was not even moved to end vacations of top officials by the [memo] headline, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' "The commission's finding that intelligence operatives experienced no undue political pressure to distort their findings is completely inconsistent with numerous earlier reports, like claims made by ex-CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro as early as the fall of 2002 that 'cooked' information was finding its way to the top. The recommendations the commission has made will unfortunately do little good unless the underlying reasons behind the administration's drive to war are addressed." Mahajan was featured on an IPA news release just before the invasion of Iraq, "White House Claims: A Pattern of Deceit," March 18, 2003 . JOHN STAUBER, stauber@tds.net, http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=465, http://www.prwatch.org/books/wmd.html Co-author of the book "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq" (July 2003), Stauber said today: "It's a ruse to blame the CIA for the disaster in Iraq. The Bush administration deceived and lied the nation into attacking Iraq, cynically exploiting the terrorism of 9/11 to launch a war long on the agenda of neocons including Cheney and Wolfowitz. Bush's pro-war propaganda worked so well that even today more than half of all Americans wrongly believe that Saddam had WMDs and was behind 9/11. ... Big Lies continue. This administration has produced hundreds of fake news stories that have been aired on TV across the country as news, constituting what the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, calls illegal 'covert propaganda.'" Stauber is executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@law.uiuc.edu, http://www.impeach-bush-now.org Professor of international law at the University of Illinois, in October of 2002 Boyle launched a campaign to impeach Bush. He said today: "The Bush administration was lying about WMD in Iraq right from the get-go, and those of us in the American peace movement were saying so at the time, beginning as of late August in 2002 when Vice President Cheney went public with these absurd charges for the express purpose of mongering for war with the American people and the U.S. Congress. ... Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are now desperately trying to have U.S. intelligence agencies take the fall...." Further background from the Institute for Public Accuracy: * "U.S. Credibility Problems," February 10, 2003, http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=554 * "Tough Questions for Bush on Iraq Tonight," March 6, 2003, http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=542 "Considering that the U.S. government has based its case for war against Iraq on a non-existent IAEA report, a plagiarized dossier, non-existent Iraq-Al'Qaida link, and twisting of the words of Saddam's late son-in-law Hussein Kamel (see the March 3 [2003] Newsweek for background information), what evidence can you offer to support your claim that Iraq represents a threat to the world today?" [see: ] For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020 _________________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: public@lists.accuracy.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: public-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/public ***************************************************************** 20 Secrecy News -- 03/31/05 Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:47:32 -0500 SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2005, Issue No. 30 March 31, 2005 ** WMD COMMISSION: US INTEL ON IRAQ WAS "DEAD WRONG" ** NSC STAFF REORGANIZATION ** THE MISSING ABU GHRAIB TORTURE IMAGES ** A VISIT TO TWO IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES WMD COMMISSION: US INTEL ON IRAQ WAS "DEAD WRONG" The Silberman-Robb Commission on WMD Intelligence released its massive report today, which featured blunt criticism of U.S. intelligence agencies and of nearly every aspect of the intelligence production cycle. A copy is posted here: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/wmdcomm.html "We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," the Commission stated in its letter of transmittal to the President. Contrary to some early media reports, the Commission did not absolve the Bush Administration of mishandling or misrepresenting intelligence on Iraq. "We were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community," the Commission Report said (page 8). President Bush welcomed the report in a White House news briefing, and commended its authors for presenting an "unvarnished" review. http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2005/03/wh033105.html But then the President stated inaptly that "in an age in which we are at war, the consequences of underestimating a threat could be tens of thousands of innocent lives." The whole impetus for the Commission was the fact that intelligence had *overestimated* the threat from Iraq, not underestimated it. Thousands of Americans and many more thousands of innocent Iraqis lost their lives or were seriously injured as a result of the ensuing war. On information policy, the Commission took a particularly aggressive stance against unauthorized disclosures ("leaks") of classified information, but also complained that *authorized* disclosures have compromised intelligence sources and methods as well (pp. 380-383). Two examples of problematic authorized disclosures were offered: Intelligence that is shared with foreign countries (though not the general public), and public announcements of classified satellite launches. Of the various types of satellite launch information that are sometimes disclosed, "time of launch and azimuth are probably the most important for placing the payload in track and providing clues to mission type, followed by booster type/configuration," mused Allen Thomson, an independent space policy analyst. "There are things the government might do to make things more difficult for analysts, particularly in the pre-launch period, but I'm skeptical that they could preclude acquisition and tracking of LEO [low Earth orbit] payloads by such measures without going to a very great deal of trouble and expense," Mr. Thomson said. The Report's strong focus on "leaks" may be due in part to the participation of Commission staff member James B. Bruce, an unsurpassed hawk on leaks who in 2002 memorably stated that "We've got to do whatever it takes -- if it takes sending SWAT teams into journalists' homes -- to stop these leaks." See: http://www.thememoryhole.org/cia-swat-journalists.htm The Commission presented perfunctory passing criticism of the classification system: "the rules governing classification of national security information are antiquated and overly complex" (p. 443) and cited "persistent incentives for overclassification" (p. 546), but had no other insights or recommendations to offer on the subject. At one point, the Commission itself appeared to succumb to mindless overclassification. Referring (on p. 383) to a December 9, 2002 DCI Directive concerning unauthorized disclosures, the Commission said in a footnote (p. 386, footnote 35) that the Directive's "title [is] classified." The Directive in question is DCID 6/8 and its title is "Unauthorized Disclosures, Security Violations, and Other Compromises of Intelligence Information (SCI)." There is no indication in other government sources that this innocuous title is classified. NSC STAFF REORGANIZATION On Monday, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley circulated a new organizational chart reflecting changes to the structure of the National Security Council staff. Changes in staff structure were made to reflect the President's five national security priorities, two of which are "Winning the war on terror" and "Explaining the President's strategy at home and abroad." The staff reorganization chart was first reported by InsideDefense.com. A copy of "National Security Council Staff Reorganization," March 28, 2005, is here: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2005/03/nsc-reorg.pdf THE MISSING ABU GHRAIB TORTURE IMAGES Last year, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had viewed the contents of three compact disks containing "blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman" acts of torture and abuse committed by some U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Almost none of those images have been released into the public domain, and they may never be if the government has its way. The Pentagon's successful efforts to deflect Freedom of Information Act requests for disclosure of the images -- with identifying features obscured if necessary -- are traced by Matt Welch in the latest Reason Magazine. See his article "The Pentagon's Secret Stash: Why we'll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos," Reason, April 2005: http://www.reason.com/0504/co.mw.the.shtml Most recently, the Army has said that it has no idea what images are being requested, and that requesters must supply more details. "Please provide the date, location, and names of persons involved in the abuse and we will attempt to conduct a search," wrote Phillip J. McGuire, Director of the Army Crimes Records Center on March 7. A VISIT TO TWO IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES Iran's President Khatami took reporters on a tour of two Iranian nuclear facilities yesterday, and some of the resulting photographs were helpfully collected by the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. See "Iranian President Visits Uranium Conversion Facility of Esfahan," Iranian Students News Agency, March 30, 2005: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/nuke/esfahan.html and "Tehran TV Shows Khatami Visiting Natanz Nuclear Facility," Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1, March 30, 2005: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/nuke/natanz.html The Bush Administration dismissed the tour as "a staged media event." "If there was a commitment to transparency, there are ways -- there are real, effective, meaningful ways to demonstrate that commitment beyond a staged media event like is being reported," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli yesterday. _______________________________________________ Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists. To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org with "subscribe" in the body of the message. To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a blank email message to secrecy_news-remove@lists.fas.org OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html Secrecy News has an RSS feed at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.rss _______________________ Steven Aftergood Project on Government Secrecy Federation of American Scientists web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html email: saftergood@fas.org voice: (202) 454-4691 ***************************************************************** 21 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Panel: Spies in Dark About Threats From the Associated Press [UP] Friday April 1, 2005 12:01 AM AP Photo WHRE103 By KATHERINE SHRADER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A damning report by a presidential commission concluded Thursday that the United States knows ``disturbingly little'' about nuclear and biological threats from dangerous adversaries, years after the Sept. 11 attacks and the nation's intelligence missteps on Iraqi weapons. Urging dramatic changes in the U.S. spy agencies, the commission called crucial intelligence judgments on Iraq ``dead wrong'' and said the flaws it found ``are still all too common.'' ``Our collection agencies are often unable to gather intelligence on the very things we care the most about,'' the panel concluded in its unsparing report. Though he initially opposed the panel's creation, President Bush promised immediate action at a news conference with retired Judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, and former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia, the commission's co-chairmen. ``To win the war on terror, we will correct what needs to be fixed,'' Bush said. The commission offered 74 recommendations aimed at changing the structure and culture of the nation's 15 spy agencies. It called for more clarity in the powers of the newly created national intelligence director, an overhaul of national security efforts in the Justice Department and dozens of changes in intelligence collection and analysis. ``There is no more important intelligence mission than understanding the worst weapons that our enemies possess, and how they intend to use them against us,'' the commission said. ``These are their deepest secrets, and unlocking them must be our highest priority.'' The report, approved unanimously by the bipartisan nine-member panel, followed the failure of U.S. inspectors in Iraq to turn up any weapons of mass destruction. The existence of weapons stockpiles - detailed in dozens of intelligence reports before the March 2003 invasion - was the administration's leading argument for toppling Saddam Hussein. Numerous blue-ribbon panels since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have investigated intelligence shortfalls. This commission - in the bluntest of terms - provided the most comprehensive look so far. The report painted a picture of a clumsy intelligence apparatus struggling to penetrate Iraqi operations and wrongly concluding that Saddam had weapons capable of causing catastrophic damage. Commissioners found intelligence collectors didn't provide enough information or were deceived by discredited sources and analysts relied on old assumptions about Saddam's intentions and overstated their conclusions. ``On a matter of this importance, we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude,'' said the report, which exceeded 600 pages. Robb and Silberman said they found no evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought to change the prewar intelligence in Iraq. The report was silent on whether the administration manipulated the data for political purposes, as Democrats have contended, with commission members saying they were not empowered to examine that. Underscoring the political divide, Democrats - including Bush's 2004 opponent, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry - used the findings to demand faster changes and to point fingers. ``The investigation will not be complete unless we know how the Bush administration may have used or misused intelligence to pursue its own agenda,'' said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The commission warned John Negroponte, whom Bush nominated to coordinate the spy community, of the intelligence agencies' ``almost perfect record of resisting external recommendations.'' It said the CIA and the Defense Department's intelligence agencies ``are some of the government's most headstrong agencies. Sooner or later, they will try to run around - or over'' the new director. The commission found the spy community ill-prepared to penetrate adversarial nations and terror groups. It said agencies must do a better job of preventing attacks with biological agents and learning about the spread of nuclear weapons. ``Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors,'' the report said. ``In some cases, it knows less now than it did five or ten years ago.'' The commission saved for a classified report details about U.S. knowledge of weapons programs in Iran, North Korea, China and Russia. But in the unclassified section, the report said, ``We found that we have only limited access to critical information about several of these high-priority intelligence targets.'' At home, the commission said, the FBI has not done enough to beef up intelligence operations. It warned of potentially ominous consequences from lack of cooperation between the CIA and FBI on terrorism cases that shift from overseas to American soil. ``The failure of CIA and FBI to cooperate and share information adequately on such cases could potentially create a gap in the coverage of these threats, like the one the Sept. 11 attack plotters were able to exploit,'' the commission said. On al-Qaida, the commission found that the intelligence community was surprised by the terrorist network's advances in biological weapons, particularly a virulent strain of a disease that the report kept secret, identifying it only as ``Agent X.'' Previously, U.S. officials have said they found evidence in Afghanistan that the group was working on anthrax weapons. Reaction to the report from the intelligence community was muted. ``We appreciate constructive criticism. We acknowledge mistakes when we make them,'' CIA Director Porter Goss said in a written statement. While criticism dominated the report, the commission praised spy agencies for their role in leading Libya to renounce its weapons of mass destruction programs, exposing the long-running nuclear proliferation network of a Pakistani scientist and successes in counterterrorism. -- Associated Press writers John Lumpkin and Matt Kelley contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 22 Deseret News: Nuclear fears [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 An Associated Press/Ipsos-Public Affairs poll showed: • 66 percent say no country should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. • 53 percent believe a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons is likely in the next five years. • 52 percent believe one country attacking another using nuclear weapons is likely in the next five years. The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted March 21-23, 2005. It has a 3 percent margin of error. © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 23 Deseret News: Most Americans believe nuclear attack coming [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 66% in poll say no nation should have such weapons By Will Lester Associated Press WASHINGTON — Though the Soviet Union is gone, the nuclear fears that fueled the Cold War haven't disappeared. Most Americans think nuclear weapons are so dangerous that no country should have them, and a majority believe it's likely that terrorists or a nation will use them within five years. The Bush administration repeatedly warns about nuclear weapons and is using diplomacy — and force — to try to limit the threat. Still, North Korea claims it has nuclear weapons now and is making more. Iran is widely believed to be within five years of developing such weapons. And security for the nuclear material scattered across the countries of the old Soviet Union remains a major concern. Lurking in the background is the threat that worries U.S. officials the most — terrorists' desire to acquire nuclear weapons. All that helps explain why 52 percent of Americans think a nuclear attack by one country against another is somewhat or very likely by 2010, according to an AP-Ipsos poll. Fifty-three percent think a nuclear attack by terrorists is at least somewhat likely. Two-thirds of Americans say no nation should have nuclear weapons, including the United States, and most of the others say no more countries should get them. "I worry about Pakistan and India," said Barbara Smith, who lives in a Philadelphia suburb. "I don't know what's going to happen with Iran, don't know what's going to happen with North Korea." Smith said she wants to see the spread of nuclear weapons stopped. "It's too dangerous, too many things can go wrong," she said. About one-third of those in an ABC News-Washington Post poll in the mid-1980s — when the Cold War was hot — thought there would be a nuclear war in the next few years between the two superpowers. The AP-Ipsos poll found 44 percent of those surveyed said they frequently or occasionally worry about a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons, while 55 percent said they rarely or never do. "Terrorists are more likely to use a nuclear weapon because they are unpredictable," said John Saint of Syracuse, N.Y., who works for a trucking company. Susan Winter of McLean, Va., says her awareness of the nuclear threat doesn't cause her to fret constantly. "I'm concerned, but I don't worry about it," Winter said. "I'm not a nail biter. I don't lose sleep over it." Fears about the use of a nuclear weapon are pretty evenly spread across all age groups. But a generational divide emerges when Americans are asked whether they approve of the United States' decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. Six in 10 Americans 65 and older approve of the use of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, while six in 10 from 18 to 29 disapprove. Albert Kauzmann, a 57-year-old resident of Norcross, Ga., said using the bomb in 1945 "was the best way they had of ending" World War II. Overall, 47 percent of those surveyed approved of dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while 46 percent disapproved, according to the poll of 1,000 conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs from March 21-23, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The United States, Britain, Russia, France and China have nuclear weapons, and Pakistan and India have also conducted nuclear tests. Many believe Israel has nuclear weapons, but that country has never acknowledged it. North Korea claimed in February that it had nuclear weapons. The threat from nuclear terrorism is greatest, analysts say, because terrorists with nuclear weapons would feel little or no hesitance about using them. That's why those who monitor nuclear proliferation are so concerned about securing weapons stockpiles and dismantling weapons as quickly as possible. "We're in the race of our lives," said Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "and we're not running fast enough." © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 24 Deseret News: Thousands of nuclear weapons still pose global threat [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 Some facts, figures and observations about the nuclear weapons threat: • There are 25,000 to 30,000 assembled nuclear weapons in the world, more than 90 percent of them in the United States or the countries that made up the Soviet Union, said Matthew Bunn, a researcher at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. • The nuclear threat today is as great as it was during the height of the Cold War, but now the threat comes from many different areas and not one place, according to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. • Many feared in the 1960s that dozens of countries would develop nuclear weapons, but the number has been limited to a handful because of nonproliferation agreements, said political scientist Dan Reiter of Emory University. • One of the biggest threats from new countries like Iran getting nuclear weapons is that it could erode the network of treaties and agreements preventing nuclear proliferation because neighboring countries would push to get their own, said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. • Over 180 governments will gather at the United Nations in May to review progress on meeting their obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, intended to control the spread of nuclear weapons. © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 25 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North says 6-way talks must be wider-ranging April 1, 2005 KST 12:34 (GMT+9) April 01, 2005 ¤Ñ North Korea said yesterday that because it has become a nuclear weapons state, the six-party talks on its arms program should be turned into broader regional disarmament talks that would include the other participants in the negotiations. "The six-party talks have to become a place where broad methods are discussed to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a fair way," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The statement said that a U.S. nuclear threat on and around the Korean Peninsula needed to be removed to achieve peace and stability in the Northeast Asian region. Yoon Deok-min, an analyst at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul said, "It does not appear that Pyongyang sincerely wants to resume the talks. They are asking for the impossible. There are no U.S. nuclear weapons here. Pyongyang is pointing to U.S. nuclear weapons at U.S. military installations around Korea." Koh Yoo-han, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University, said the statement is a sign the North may return soon to the negotiations table. "Pyongyang sees itself as a nuclear weapons state so it's natural for the North to view the six-party talks as disarmament talks. It views the talks as a vehicle to address its economic issues," he said. by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr> [http://joongangdaily.joins.com/faq.html] Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 26 Bellona: Canada and US join forces to shut down Russia Pu production reactors Canada and the United States announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at closing one of the last reactors producing military grade plutonium in Russia, Ottawa and Washington said in a joint statement released Thursday. Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierrre Pettigrew. AFP Charles Digges, 2005-03-31 11:02 The memorandum is meant "to assist with the permanent closure of one of the final operating weapons-grade plutonium production reactors in Russia," the countries said in the statement. Ottawa will contribute nine million Canadian dollars $7m US) to the US Department of Energy's (DOE’s) Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production (EWGPP) program. The entire programme is currently estimated to cost at least $466m US. Russia still operates three of its formerly 14 weapons-grade plutonium reactors. Two of the production reactors are located in Tomsk, and the third in Zheleznogorsk, near the Central Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The statement issued by the Canadian and US government did not specify which reactor the new co-operation will affect. The co-operation falls under the G8-led Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. Russia and America OK Deal to Shut Down Plutonium Reactors In an apparent landmark achievement in cooperative threat reduction efforts between Russia and the United States, Moscow and Washington penned an agreement last week to shut down Russia's three remaining weapons grade plutonium producing nuclear reactors thus scrapping core conversion, sources in both governments say. The failed CTR approach The plutonium reactor programme, originally aimed at converting the cores of the last three of Russia’s weapons-grade plutonium reactors by 2000, has been stymied by bureaucracy and poorly developed science by both the US and Russian sides since the Co-operative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme began handling the procedure in 1994. At that time, a process of core conversion, which would prevent the reactors from producing weapons-grade plutonium, yet still keep power and heat available to the communities that depend on them for that purpose. But former CTR officials close to the process, as well as other US and Russian observers, have told Bellona Web that the science of the core conversion process was ill considered and ultimately unsafe. New US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman (seated middle). The DOE steps in, but has yet to save the day The project was handed over to the DOE in 2003, which has opted to simply shut the Tomsk reactors down by 2008 and the Zheleznogorsk reactor by 2011, replacing them with fossil fuel plants to make up for the power and heat deficiency. The plutonium reactors, which pump out some 1,300 kilograms of new weapons-grade plutonium with each year they remain open, pose a proliferation risk and the plutonium could be used to make nuclear arms. This plutonium is stored on site at the reactors in oxide form. But even the fossil fuel approach has fallen badly behind schedule and become burdened by more bureaucracy and the work of 17 US hired contractors—and their own subcontractors, former and current US and Russian officials have told Bellona Web. As of today, neither side has yet produced even the most rudimentary working plan for powering the reactors down, securing the plutonium, building the fossil fuel plants, or dismantling the reactor—the latter of which will take 50 years before it is safe for workers to knock them down. It is not clear how precisely the new Canadian money will be used, and officials handling the agreement in the US and Canada handling the project could not be reached for immediate comment. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew nonetheless hailed the new agreement with Washington at a news conference, AFP reported. "This agreement is key to halting the production of nuclear weapons materials," he said. Samuel Bodman, the newly-initiated US secretary of energy, was equally satisfied, saying: "Ending the production of weapons-grade plutonium is a non-proliferation priority for the United States and the international community. The signing of this MOU with our Canadian partners is another key step toward meeting this priority." Publisher: [bellona@bellona.no] , President: [frederic@bellona.no] 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 ***************************************************************** 27 Bellona: New Russian arms program to finance nuclear cruiser Admiral Nakhimov’s upgrade The money for upgrade and re-design of nuclear cruiser Admiral Nakhimov will be included in the new state arms program. 2005-03-31 19:00 “We are applying for the financing of the new state arms program from 2006 to 2015. And the navy strongly demands about the need for the cruiser repairs” the head of shipbuilding department rear admiral Anatoly Shlemov said to Interfax. But he added that it is hard to say when the cruiser is back in service “as we are talking not about fregate or corvet, but a nuclear ship, therefore we need here significant funds”. “We believe the ship must be repaired and stay in the navy for a long period” Shlemov underlined. 2005-02-14 The Russian Northern Fleet Nuclear cruiser Admiral Nakhimov being upgraded Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 28 Reuters AlertNet: Missing radioactive capsules cause Venezuela alert 31 Mar 2005 20:39:32 GMT Source: Reuters By Tomas Sarmiento CARACAS, Venezuela, March 31 (Reuters) - Venezuelan authorities have launched a nationwide hunt for two capsules of radioactive material that went missing this month and which could kill people exposed to them, officials said on Thursday. One of the two missing capsules of radioactive Iridium-192, which were being used in equipment to check oil industry pipes for faults, disappeared from a barge on March 15 in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela's western oil producing hub. The other went missing after apparently falling off the back of a workers' truck on March 21 in the eastern oil producing state of Monagas, Angel Diaz, Director of Nuclear Affairs at Venezuela's Energy Ministry, told Reuters. "They were lost through negligence... We're in a state of emergency ... we're looking for them," he added. Venezuela's National Guard, Civil Defense Service and police were also involved in the hunt for the capsules, which were encased in protective containers of depleted uranium about the size of a lunchbox. Authorities appealed to the public not to open the red and yellow containers, which carried radiation warning signs. Diaz said if they were opened everyone within a range of at least five yards (metres) would be exposed to harmful radiation. "The health and lives of people around would be at risk," he said. "Since they're quite heavy, people might think they have something valuable inside." Iridium-192 emits powerful gamma radiation. It is often used in treating prostate cancer and in detecting faults in underground industrial pipes. Authorities were concerned that some people might try to use the capsules to cause harm. "They could be used in a malicious fashion. Someone might try to place these capsules near a person or a place where people were gathered, for terrorist purposes," Venezuela's Civil Defense chief Antonio Rivero said. Rivero said authorities had no leads so far as to who might have the capsules. ***************************************************************** 29 The Cato Institute: Forcing North Korea's Hand March 30, 2005 Forcing North Korea's Hand by Ted Galen Carpenter Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of six books and the editor of 10 books on international affairs. His latest book, co-authored with Doug Bandow, is The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea (Palgave/Macmillan, 2004). North Korea’s February announcement that it possesses nuclear weapons sent psychological shock waves throughout East Asia. The United States and other nations in the region are now redoubling their efforts to get Pyongyang to reconsider its refusal to participate in another round of the six-party talks (involving China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, as well as North Korea and the United States) aimed at getting the North to end its nuclear program. An entirely new strategy is needed. Even if North Korea agrees (largely because of Chinese pressure) to rejoin the talks, that would be a meager accomplishment. The multilateral negotiations that began in the spring of 2004 have achieved almost nothing. Indeed, the participants seem to regard it as a major breakthrough when the parties agree simply to talk some more. Those negotiations are reminiscent of the infamous Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks in Vienna between the Soviet Union and the NATO countries during the 1970s and 1980s, which dragged on year after year with no discernable progress. The brutal reality is that despite the six-party talks, North Korea is no closer today to renouncing its quest for nuclear weapons than it was when the negotiations began. Unless something dramatic changes, the country will soon possess a sizable nuclear arsenal even as the diplomats continue to chatter. Kim Jong-il’s regime says that it is willing to give up its nuclear program if the United States ends its “hostile attitude” and offers a variety of political and economic concessions. There is ample reason to doubt Pyongyang’s sincerity. Indeed, there is a very real possibility that North Korea has decided to crash the exclusive global nuclear-weapons club no matter what concessions the United States or the other members of the six-party talks might offer. But we will never know for certain until we test Pyongyang’s intentions. The only way to do that is to bypass to excruciating pace of the six-party talks and to “cut to the chase.” Washington should offer North Korea a “grand bargain” to end the impasse. Pyongyang has said that it wants a binding non-aggression pact from the United States as well as normalized diplomatic and economic relations. The Bush administration should offer all three concessions. In exchange, however, the United States should continue to insist on a complete, verifiable, and irreversible end to North Korea’s nuclear program. That is the proper goal, but the devil is in the details. Achieving such a result would require on-demand international inspections of any suspect site in North Korea (not just those that Pyongyang has admitted to being part of its nuclear program). It would also require the dismantling of all existing nuclear weapons and their removal from North Korean territory. The same standard would be needed with regard to all plutonium and highly enriched uranium stocks so that the North could not reactivate its program at a later date. Such a bold proposal would call North Korea’s bluff. If Pyongyang is sincere about giving up its nuclear-weapons ambitions for a normal relationship with the United States, it would have no choice but to accept the grand bargain. Conversely, if Kim Jong-il turned down the deal, we would then know that North Korea is unalterably determined to become a nuclear power. If that is the case, the United States and the nations of northeast Asia would face a difficult choice about how to respond. They could decide to resort to economic sanctions or military force to compel the North to relinquish its nukes -- with all the dangers such a confrontational course would entail. Or they could decide to accept a nuclear North Korea and rely on deterrence to dissuade Pyongyang from doing anything rash with its new arsenal -- as uncomfortable as that course might be. Either way, we would know where we stand. That is preferable to continuing the seemingly endless charade of the six-party talks, a process that has produced only frustration and uncertainty. This article was published on Foxnews.com, March 30, 2005. 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20001-5403 Phone (202) 842-0200 Fax (202) 842-3490 All Rights Reserved © 2004 Cato Institute ***************************************************************** 30 Mos News: Canada, U.S. Agree to Shut Down Russian Plutonium Reactor - - MOSNEWS.COM Created: 31.03.2005 14:49 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:49 MSK Canada and the United States have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at closing one of Russia’s last reactors producing military grade plutonium, Bellona Web reports. The estimated cost of the entire U.S. Department of Energy’s Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production program is at least $466 million. The co-operation falls under the G8-led Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. Russia currently runs three of its formerly 14 weapons-grade plutonium reactors that are used to provide electricity and heat. Two of them are located in the closed Siberian city of Seversk, and the third in Zheleznogorsk, near the Central Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. They pump out about 1,300 kilos of new weapons-grade plutonium annually, posing a risk that their production, stored on site at the reactors in oxide form, could be used to make nuclear arms. The memorandum does not specify which one will be closed with the help of the U.S. and Canada, but earlier this month Moscow and Washington agreed on the closure of all the reactors, government sources said. The program of Energy’s Elimination Department was originally aimed at converting the cores of Russia’s weapons-grade plutonium reactors by 2000, but later was stymied by bureaucracy and poorly developed science by both the U.S. and Russian sides. According to the latest agreements the Seversk reactors are scheduled to be shut down by 2008 and the Zheleznogorsk reactor by 2011. They will be replaced with fossil fuel plants to make up for the power and heating deficiency. Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com] Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 31 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Demands Equal Treatment in Talks From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday March 31, 2005 1:46 PM By BO-MI LIM Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea said Thursday the United States should dismantle all potential nuclear threats in the region before it would discuss giving up its own nuclear program and demanded to be treated equally in disarmament talks. ``Now that we have become a nuclear power, the six-party talks should be disarmament talks where participants can solve the issue on an equal basis,'' a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. The unidentified spokesman added that the nuclear crisis could no longer be resolved through discussions on a potential reward in return for freezing the nuclear program. ``To realize a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula ... U.S. nuclear threats on the Korean Peninsula and its neighboring region should be removed,'' the spokesman said. The United States has said it has removed its nuclear arsenal from the Korean Peninsula, and it was not clear what the spokesman was referring to. Also Thursday, the United States issued a fresh call for North Korea to return to international talks on its nuclear disarmament. ``We don't think there's any other solution for North Korea than to come to the table,'' Christopher Hill, U.S. special envoy to the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program, told reporters in Hong Kong. ``We hope that they will see their interests more clearly than they have in the past few months,'' said Hill, who is also the U.S. ambassador to South Korea. International efforts to resume nuclear talks gained urgency after the North claimed Feb. 10 that it had developed nuclear weapons and would boycott the meetings indefinitely. The talks - also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia - have been stalled since June. The North is believed to have reprocessed enough nuclear material to make about a half-dozen bombs but has not performed any known nuclear tests that would confirm the capability. In Thursday's statement the North also renewed its criticism of recent joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises as ``preparations for a nuclear war.'' As long as the U.S. nuclear threats persist in the region, the North's atomic weapons will act as a ``basic deterrent that guarantees peace and stability and prevents war on the Korean Peninsula,'' the spokesman said. The North has said it will not return to the international talks until the United States changes its ``hostile'' policy. Washington says it has no intention of invading. Washington has said it would offer security guarantees and other economic and diplomatic benefits to the North, but only after it completely and verifiably dismantles its atomic weapons program. During a visit to the region in March, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to the North as a ``sovereign'' nation, a comment that observers viewed as an attempt to soften her earlier remarks where she labeled North Korea one of the world's ``outposts of tyranny.'' Hill declined to say Thursday what Washington will do if the North keeps shunning the talks, but said the U.S. won't give up until North Korea is free of nuclear weapons. ``One option that is not available to us is to walk away from this,'' he said. ``We have to solve this and we have to solve it in a very real way.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 32 Guardian Unlimited: al-Qaida Makes Surprising Weapon Advances From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday March 31, 2005 4:16 PM By JOHN J. LUMPKIN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida had progressed much further toward developing a particular biological weapon before the Sept. 11 attacks than the United States realized, the presidential commission investigating intelligence on weapons of mass destruction found. The intelligence community was surprised by al-Qaida's advances in a virulent strain in the disease, identified by the commission only as ``Agent X'' to prevent al-Qaida from knowing what the U.S. government has learned. The discovery of al-Qaida's work came only after the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan removed the Taliban from power, the report says. ``Al-Qaida's biological program was further along, particularly with regard to Agent X, than pre-war intelligence indicated,'' the report says. ``The program was extensive, well-organized, and operated for two years before September 11, but intelligence insights into the program were limited.'' It was not so advanced that al-Qaida had a functioning weapon, the report says. U.S. officials have previously said they found signs of al-Qaida's work in anthrax weapons in Afghanistan, but it was not clear if ``Agent X'' referred to anthrax. Other diseases that may be turned into weapons include smallpox, plague and ebola. The work on Agent X was done at several sites in Afghanistan, including two with commercial lab equipment. Some intelligence information suggests cultures of the disease had been isolated and basic production was possible, the report says, but notes this is uncertain information. U.S. assessments of al-Qaida's other efforts to acquire a weapon of mass destruction did not change substantially after U.S. and Afghan forces removed the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11 attacks, the report says. Al-Qaida was studying nuclear weapons and contacted Pakistani scientists to discuss nuclear weapons, it notes. ``We found that just prior to the war in Afghanistan in 2001, the Intelligence Community was able to correctly assess al-Qaida's limited ability to use unconventional weapons to inflict mass casualties,'' the report says. ``Yet when the war uncovered new evidence of WMD efforts, analysts were surprised by the intentions and level of research and development underway by al-Qaida. Had this new information not been acquired, and had al-Qaida been allowed to continue weapons development, a future intelligence failure could have been in the offing.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 33 Guardian Unlimited Newsview: Bush Policy May Be Questioned From the Associated Press [UP] Friday April 1, 2005 12:16 AM AP Photo DCGH103 By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The latest intelligence-failure report to land on President Bush's desk raises serious questions about his policy of pre-emptive action against potential foes. How can he order such strikes if he doesn't have solid information? Findings by the special presidential commission could also complicate American efforts to mend fences with allies who opposed the Iraq war. U.S. officials might have a hard time persuading other nations to accept new American intelligence on the world's next hot spot after being ``dead wrong,'' as the panel put it, on Iraq. ``Obviously the report creates severe doubt about the administration's ability to implement a policy of pre-emption,'' said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank. ``The past failures of our intelligence system have already alienated key allies. Now these findings seem to signal that we can't rely on available intelligence to make such decisions in the future,'' Thompson said. The panel, headed by senior federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, and former Virginia Democratic Sen. Charles Robb, called for a broad restructuring in the intelligence community, better sharing of information and a process for encouraging dissenting views. The panel's 600-page report accused spy agencies of producing ``worthless or misleading'' intelligence on Iraq's weapons capabilities. And, the panel added, ``we still know disturbingly little about the weapons programs and even less about the intentions of our most dangerous adversaries.'' It kept sections dealing with North Korea and Iran classified. Asked about the possible impact of the findings on the U.S. policy of pre-emption, Robb said: ``We did not get into policy matters, period ... and we're not going to go there now.'' At a separate briefing, Fran Townsend, Bush's White House-based homeland security adviser, also sidestepped the question. ``I'm going to demur here. This is well beyond my remit,'' she told reporters. ``I'm really looking right now at the process of going through the report and analyzing the commission's recommendations.'' In many ways, the report emphasized what was already widely known in the intelligence community and by those who oversee it: not enough spies on the ground, a Cold War-vintage bureaucratic system that encourages turf battles, and a pervasive group-think culture. After all, the CIA and its sister agencies were missing things well before Iraq, well before the days leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Intelligence agencies failed to correctly gauge the downward economic spiral taking place inside the former Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, conditions that contributed significantly to its breakup. And the U.S. intelligence community was caught by surprise when both India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998. While the commission said it found no evidence that the White House or the Pentagon put political pressure on intelligence analysts, it also noted it was ``hard to deny the conclusion that intelligence analysts worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom.'' The report makes clear that John Negroponte has his work cut out for him as Bush's choice for the new job of national intelligence director. He is charged with integrating the nation's 15 separate and often feuding intelligence agencies. Bush welcomed the ``unvarnished'' Silberman-Robb report and promised ``concrete actions.'' Still, Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, said it is important for the president - and Negroponte - not to ``do too much while trying to respond to all these reports, not to try to confuse the appearance of activity with meaningful reform.'' And the impact on U.S. relations with its allies? ``The bottom line is that our report, we hope, will provide the basis for a starting point to rebuild the confidence that has been shaken by the inaccurate intelligence that was delivered,'' said Robb. Co-chairman Silberman had a slightly different take: ``It's true, we put our prestige on the line ... but the truth of the matter is that every intelligence agency that we know of, that cooperates with the United States, in the world, had the same views.'' --- EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 34 Guardian Unlimited Panel: Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMDs From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday March 31, 2005 8:46 PM AP Photo WHRE103 By KATHERINE SHRADER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - America's spy agencies were ``dead wrong'' in most prewar assessments about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and know disturbingly little about current nuclear threats, a presidential commission said Thursday. ``Our collection agencies are often unable to gather intelligence on the very things we care the most about,'' the panel concluded in an unsparing report. It recommended dozens of organizational changes, and said President Bush can implement most of them without congressional action. It also urged the president to back up John Negroponte, his choice to be the new director of national intelligence, in any bureaucratic turf battles ahead. ``The central conclusion is one which I share. America's intelligence community needs fundamental change,'' Bush said at the White House after receiving the critique from a commission he was at first reluctant to appoint. He said he had directed Fran Townsend, his White House-based homeland security adviser, to ``review the commission's finding and to assure that concrete actions are taken.'' Bush read a prepared statement, flanked by retired Judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, and former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia, co-chairmen of the panel. The president then strode from the room, leaving the two men behind to field questions on the report that criticized past performance - but didn't stop there. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush discussed the report with members of the commission in the Cabinet Room and that he met in the Situation Room with Cabinet secretaries who might be affected by the recommendations. ``The president stressed to the Cabinet members the importance of taking the recommendations ``Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors,'' the report said. The commission also called for sweeping changes at the FBI to combine the bureau's counterterrorism and counterintelligence resources into a new office. Robb and Silberman agreed they had found no evidence that senior administration officials had sought to change the prewar intelligence in Iraq, possibly for political gain. Robb said investigators examined every allegation ``to see if there was any occasion where a member of the administration or anyone else had asked an analyst or anyone else associated with the intelligence community to change a position they were taking or whether they felt there was any undue influence. And we found absolutely no instance.'' In the months preceding the Iraq war, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly invoked Saddam Hussein's presumed possession of weapons of mass destruction as a reason to invade. The report was the latest tabulation of intelligence shortfalls documented in a series of investigations since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 against the United States. Numerous investigations have concluded that spy agencies had serious intelligence failures before the attacks. Thursday's report concluded that the problem still has not been fixed, three years after al-Qaida struck America. ``The flaws we found in the intelligence community's Iraq performance are still all too common,'' it said. The report, however, praised spy agencies for their role in leading Libya to renounce its WMD programs, exposing the long-running nuclear proliferation network of a Pakistani scientist and successes in counterterrorism. ``There are signs of a boldness that would have been unimaginable before September 11, 2001,'' it said. At the news conference, Robb was particularly blunt when it came to turf wars within the intelligence bureaucracy. Negroponte ``needs the full and unequivocal backing'' of the president, he said, adding that there are ``very distinguished and proud agencies whose culture will work against change.'' The report said ``The daily intelligence briefings given to you (Bush) before the Iraq war were flawed. Through attention-grabbing headlines and repetition of questionable data, these briefings overstated the case that Iraq was rebuilding its WMD programs.'' In an implicit swipe at the Bush administration, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the report did not review how federal policy-makers used the intelligence they were given. ``I believe it is essential that we hold both the intelligence agencies and senior policy-makers accountable for their actions,'' Reid said. The unclassified version does not go into significant detail on the intelligence community's assessment of countries such as Iran, North Korea, China and Russia because commissioners did not want to tip the U.S. hand about what is known. Those details are included in the classified version. Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was pleased by the report and indicated that it concludes all inquiries into intelligence used to make the case for going to war with Iraq. ``I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence,'' the Kansas Republican said. ``I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to re-plow this ground any further.'' Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the failures were widespread. ``I don't think you can blame any one person, although the buck does stop at the top of every one of these agencies,'' Skelton said. ``But quite honestly, the fault is spread out across all the agencies.'' Bush appointed the commission a year ago, signing on to the idea of an independent investigation only belatedly. The White House had said it wanted to give the weapons search in Iraq more time. But pressure grew from Republicans and Democrats alike after the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, resigned saying the prewar estimates of weapons in Iraq, which Bush used to justify war there, ``were almost all wrong.'' Even then, the White House insisted the commission's mandate be broadened to other nations, prompting criticism that the panel might be too overloaded to thoroughly examine its original subject, Iraq. ``We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,'' the report said. ``This was a major intelligence failure.'' The main cause was the intelligence community's ``inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, it said, and serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions rather than good evidence. ``On a matter of this importance, we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude,'' the report said. On al-Qaida, the commission found that the intelligence community was surprised by the terrorist network's advances in biological weapons, particularly a virulent strain of a disease that the report keeps secret, identifying it only as ``Agent X.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 35 [du-list] "We don't know.... the tonnage.." Hersh at NMSU Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:51:49 -0800 A reminder that the USUK actions are mostly done in secret. http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/03/con05117.html#top Seymour Hersh visited New Mexico State University (Las Cruces) on Tuesday, March 29 as part of his speaking tour for his newest book, "Chain of Command: the Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib." Extracts................... "Hersh charged that the American people are not getting a true picture of the status of the war. He reflected on the fact that "there are no embedded reporters now and the bombing continues" even though there are no air defenses. "We don't know how many sorties are being flown or the tonnage involved because there are no reporters. We do know that Navy pilots are doing most of the flying." " ....... "The bombing of Fallujah, according to Hersh, marked a major escalation of the "very careful urban bombing" campaign. Fallujah is "an incredibly important city in Iraq. It led the resistance against the British, it has mosques, it is a fabled place." When Fallujah was bombed, an urban bombing planner told Hersh, "Welcome to Stalingrad, we took it block by block." Hersh said that it was amazing that Fallujah was largely not on the table in America for discussion." " ........ "These days, said Hersh, we hear about the "insurgency" when in truth, "we're fighting the Ba'athists, the Sunni, the tribal people. They decided to let us have Baghdad and fight the war on their terms. It's not an insurgency-that implies that we've put in a government and they're fighting against that government. We haven't accomplished our objective on that score," according to Hersh. The US is fighting cells of 10-15 people and can't find them because it has no intelligence. So the goal now is to make the people who protect the resistance more afraid of US/Iraqi forces than they are of the resistance so they will turn and provide information. Fallujah had too much press coverage, so now everything is being done "off camera." Hersh describes the situation once one leaves Baghdad as "cowboys and Indians" since "we control very little." Hersh noted that Shia cleric Sistani did nothing as Shia Iraqi Guards and Americans took down the Sunni in Fallujah. The same thing is now going on in Ramadi. This long-standing enmity between Shia and Sunni is why, Hersh believes, civil war is probably in Iraq's future." ---------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.0 - Release Date: 3/31/05 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? 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Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 36 NRC: NRC Begins Special Inspection at South Bend Hospital News Release - Region III - 2005-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-05-011 March 31, 2005 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] at St. Josephs Regional Medical Center in South Bend, Ind., to review the circumstances surrounding the radiation treatment of several patients in 2004. The hospital reported to the NRC earlier this week that the patients had received unintended radiation exposures to their legs during treatment for cervical cancer. The unintended exposures occurred when a small sealed capsule containing a radiation source shifted during treatment, resulting in the radiation dose to the skin of the patients leg instead of the intended treatment area. The hospital reported that five patients may have received the unintended skin doses. Three patients experienced skin ulcerations following the treatments, and two did not. An NRC inspector began an initial review at the hospital on Wednesday, March 30, and two additional inspectors joined the inspection on Thursday. An NRC medical consultant has been retained to evaluate the medical aspects of the unintended radiation exposures. This inspection is one of the NRCs regulatory tools to assure that nuclear materials are used safely for patient care, said Geoffrey Grant, NRC Deputy Regional Administrator. Our inspectors will be carefully reviewing these cases to determine if the agencys safety requirements have been met. The medical center has notified the patients and their physicians of the treatment problems. Following the completion of the inspection, the inspectors will present the results of the inspection to hospital management in a meeting open to public observation. The schedule and location of the meeting will be announced later. The written report of the inspection, when completed, will be available in the NRCs online document collection, known as ADAMS, at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRCs Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737 or by e-mail at PDR@nrc.gov [PDR@nrc.gov] . Last revised Thursday, March 31, 2005 ***************************************************************** 37 Deseret News: Fund the downwinder study [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 Deseret Morning News editorial Then-Gov. Mike Leavitt, quoted in the Deseret Morning News' 2001 series "Toxic Utah," offered Utahns this glimpse into his family's experience with above-ground atomic testing in the 1950s and '60s: He recalled the image of his grandmother hanging out laundry to dry at her home in Bunkerville, Nev., as pink clouds of radioactive dust swirled overhead. He pointed to family members who have had cancers he believes were caused by above-ground nuclear testing. "I remember at the time the fear we had of leukemia," he said. "Everyone was aware of it." Given Leavitt's personal connection to downwinders and his public disdain then of the Atomic Energy Commission's "dishonesty and manipulation of information" regarding the safety of the weapons tests, it is unfathomable that Leavitt, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, would be comfortable, according to a spokesman, with halting the funding for ongoing research into the possible connections between fallout and thyroid abnormalities among Utahns downwind from the Nevada Test Site. Is this the same Leavitt who, in the fight to keep spent nuclear fuel from being relocated to the Goshute Indian reservation in Tooele County, invoked Utah's "epidemic of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses as a result of radioactive fallout from U.S. Atomic Energy Commission nuclear weapons testing in the '50s and '60s"? "We are painfully aware of the risks we face from high-level nuclear waste," Leavitt wrote in 2000 to the Minnesota Public Utility Commission in opposing Private Fuel Storage's proposal for a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Utah. How, then, can Leavitt be "comfortable" with halting a research project on such a critical issue, particularly when earlier work by lead researcher Dr. Joseph L. Lyon of the University of Utah found that study subjects had 3.4 times the number of thyroid abnormalities than would be expected? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency under Leavitt's Department of Health and Human Services' umbrella, says Lyon and his colleagues simply need to hurry and finish the research by Aug. 31. As if it were that simple. The plan of the study was for a team of four medical professionals to examine 4,000 people, many of whom had to be tracked down. Thus far, only 1,300 have been studied. A team member who handles the study's statistics told the Deseret Morning News that "it's simply not possible" to finish the study by Aug. 31. According to Lyon, the research team kept the CDC apprised of its budgetary projections, now only to find out that funding for the research will end before the work can be completed. Initially, the CDC approved a five-year project, which was extended a year in 2003. But Lyon says CDC bureaucracy and requirements consumed much of the time set aside for the study. More resources are needed. Leavitt should have intense interest in the completion of this research, which has already cost some $8 million. Utahns — particularly downwinders and their families — have an obvious self-interest in the completion of this work. It is more important, however, that the medical community have definitive conclusions about the effect of fallout on thyroid disease. Leavitt, as a son of southern Utah with personal connections to downwinders, needs to reassign resources within his department to ensure the completion of this vitally important work and to help win the trust of Utahns, many of whom are rightfully suspicious of the federal government's nuclear weapons testing programs and their aftermath. © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 38 BBC: Coastal cancer claims Last Updated: Wednesday, 30 March, 2005 [Leukaemia generic] The report says firm conclusions could not be drawn Incidences of cancer among children living along the north Wales coast is not linked to discharges of nuclear waste, claim health officials. Disease rates around the Menai Straits were studied by the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit. It said levels of leukaemia had increased recently, but involved small numbers of cases. It was responding to concerns by Green Audit, an environmental consultancy in Aberystwyth. Green Audit claimed the study proved nothing and that child cancer rates were still high in north Wales. However, WCISU's work has been supported by a report from the National Public Health Service for Wales (NPHS) on childhood cancer incidence in Gwynedd and Anglesey. There is no evidence of increase in retinoblastoma or in tumours of the brain and spine in the Menai Straits area Andrew Jones, NPHS Wales Meanwhile, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) praised the analysis of cancer rates by NPHS and WCISU and criticised Green Audit. Comare said Green Audit's analysis had "several significant weaknesses and cannot be regarded as reliable." Dr Chris Busby of Green Audit disagreed and claimed it was "an attempt to rubbish me." Green Audit was funded by the Irish government between 1997 and 2000 to analyse Welsh cancer register data. Ireland did not have a cancer register. In a report in 1998, Green Audit claimed cancer rates among children in north Wales were linked to alleged discharges from Sellafield nuclear power station, in Cumbria. Four Irish people then took British Nuclear Fuels to court on allegations of polluting their bodies, which the power company denied. The case subsequently stalled. Andrew Jones, leader of the environmental team for NPHS Wales, said people living in north Wales could be reassured by its statement. [Dr Chris Busby] Dr Chris Busby disagrees with the latest report "There is no evidence of an increase in retinoblastoma or in tumours of the brain and spine in the Menai Straits area. "Although WCISU did find levels of childhood leukaemia that were raised in the more recent period, their studies involve small numbers of cases which makes it impossible for firm conclusions to be drawn." John Steward, director of WCISU, said: "In studies involving such small numbers of actual cases it is not possible to conclude whether findings are unusual or simply due to random chance. "WCISU is committed to continuing with our ongoing surveillance and geographical analysis of childhood cancers across the north Wales coastline and this has been supported by COMARE." ***************************************************************** 39 Paducah Sun: Sick workers get first chance to talk of new Labor payouts [http://www.paducahsun.com/] The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Two more town-hall meetings are set for today to talk about worker compensation for illness from toxic exposure. By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com 270.575.8656 Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant worker Earl Hobbs says he was fortunate to have bone cancer because it is one of 22 specified radiation-induced diseases for which the U.S. Department of Labor pays $150,000 in lump-sum compensation. "The bone cancer has actually been a blessing in that a lot of stuff has been paid for," he said of his two-year bout with the disease. It started as prostate cancer — which doesn't qualify for the $150,000 — in February 2003 and spread through his lymph system to his bones. Hobbs, 53, of Paducah, was among more than 200 people who attended a Labor Department town-hall meeting Tuesday night at the Robert Cherry Civic Center to outline a new program to compensate nuclear workers for diseases related to toxic exposure. Similar meetings are set for 2 and 6 p.m. today at the center. Hobbs learned that he and others who were paid $150,000 automatically qualify for compensation under the new program. It provides that workers exposed to toxins could get up to $250,000 for lost wages and bodily impairment. Some of the sickest workers could get as much as $400,000 under both programs. This is the first time Labor Department officials have visited Paducah since federal legislation was passed in October to streamline the toxic-exposure program. Congress transferred the program from the U.S. Department of Energy, which had 25,000 claims backlogged nationwide, including nearly 3,400 at Paducah. Hobbs said he's glad the Energy Department was replaced because it had no reason to expedite claims, considering that the agency owns the plant and covered up past worker exposures. His toxic-exposure claim has been in the pipeline for two years, and he believes his cancer stemmed from working without protection in two of several buildings contaminated with plutonium and other deadly substances. Most of the buildings are now closed because of the dangers. "I think anybody who ever set foot in those buildings ought to get a free pass (compensation) from you people," he told Pete Turcic, director of the compensation program. The new program allows surviving spouses and dependent children of workers who died from toxic exposure to receive up to $175,000. An eligible child must have been under 18, a full-time student under 23, or any age and incapable of self-support, at the time of the worker's death. Several adult children of deceased workers complained that the child-survivor provision is unfair and should be changed. Sandy Sams of Paducah said she is ineligible for compensation even though she helped support her family when her father died many years ago from presumed plant exposure. "I think a lot of us feel the same way — that we were cheated out of our parents and now we're being cheated out of compensation," Sams said, drawing applause. Other sick workers complained that their compensation hinges on old, spotty plant records and cumbersome exposure reconstructions. George Bourgois of Paducah, a former plant instrument mechanic, has been waiting nearly five years for an answer to his claim. He suffers from many maladies including chronic lung disease and the slow death of nerves in his lower legs and feet, and says he was exposed to the radionuclide Cobalt 60. "They can't reconstruct my (radiation) dose," he said. The bogged-down toxin-exposure program has paid only about $5 million on behalf of Paducah workers, compared with $186 million for those with radiation-induced cancers. Turcic said all of the backlogged claims have now been transferred to the Labor Department, which by May will have rules, procedures and staffing in place to start processing the bulk of the claims. Claims may be filed at the Paducah Energy Employees Compensation Resource Center, 125 Memorial Drive, next to Milner & Orr Funeral Home off Blandville Road. Phone: 534-0599 or toll-free 866-534-0599. ***************************************************************** 40 brownsville herald: Brownsville’s Mexico bridges get radiation scanners www.brownsvilleherald.com BY EMMA PEREZ-TREVINO The Brownsville Herald March 30, 2005 — Radiation scanners will be installed at Brownsville’s international bridges to detect radioactive material and further enhance national security, said Rick Pauza, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The project is slated for completion in 90 days at the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates, the Gateway International Bridge, the B International Bridge and the Free Trade Bridge at Los Indios, Pauza said Wednesday. Cameron County Bridge System Director Pete Sepulveda hailed the move as another example of cooperation among federal, state and county agencies. "We are always working to enhance the security of our bridges," Sepulveda said. In a CBP news release issued Wednesday, the agency said that the radiation portal monitor (RPM) is a non-intrusive tool that is used to screen trucks and other conveyances arriving at ports of entry for the presence of nuclear and radiological materials. The RPM does not emit radiation; it captures and alerts to energy emitted by radioactive sources that happen to pass near it. Each scanner cost about $280,000, according to The Associated Press. Pauza told The Brownsville Herald on Wednesday that construction has begun at the Veterans bridge, but that construction is taking place during non-peak hours to minimize impact. "We want to take this opportunity to advise the public of this construction project so that they can plan their cross-border trips accordingly," Pauza said. Margie Gutierrez, CBP port director in Brownsville, said in the news statement that "we are asking the public to be patient, allow extra time when necessary and we will do everything we can to process the traffic as efficiently as possible while still maintaining our anti-terrorism mission." CBP is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of the nation’s borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws, the statement also noted. Mar 31, 05 | 12:00 am | Profile The Brownsville Herald 1135 E. Van Buren Brownsville, TX 78520 956-542-4301 1-800-488-4301 © 2000 The Brownsville Herald ***************************************************************** 41 [NukeNet] Yucca E-Mails Said To Be Ready This Friday Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:51:30 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Greatest Threat To Life On Earth: http://www.heatisonline.org 1. Panel examining e-mails that suggest Yucca data falsified 2.State Says Feds' Nuke Rail Plan Broke Laws Re Yucca 1. Bungard, who is in Nevada meeting with Porter's staff, said the e-mails will be made available Friday. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/mar/30/518525773.html?nuclear Today: March 30, 2005 at 9:33:00 PST Panel examining e-mails that suggest Yucca data falsified By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department and Interior Department gave e-mails to a Congressional subcommittee Tuesday in preparation for next week's hearing on alleged falsified scientific information related to the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who is chairman of the House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee will conduct a hearing April 5 focusing on the documentation problems now under investigation by both departments. The Energy Department announced earlier this month that it discovered e-mails by U.S. Geological Survey employees that suggest employees falsified scientific data while studying Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the site to serve as the nation's dump for highly radioactive nuclear waste. Chad Bungard, the subcommittee's deputy staff director and chief counsel, confirmed the subcommittee received the e-mails Tuesday as well as some other documents Porter requested. He expects the department will make other documents available soon. "They are just getting into this, too," he said. Bungard, who is in Nevada meeting with Porter's staff, said the e-mails will be made available Friday. Bungard was scheduled to tour Yucca Mountain today. In addition to Porter's hearing, another hearing regarding Yucca Mountain is planned for April 7. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is conducting that one to look at the status of the Yucca Mountain project. A witness list had not been completed for that hearing as of this morning, Domenici's staff said. This hearing was planned before the documentation problem was known. Domenici asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman at a committee hearing March 3 to complete a status report on the project. He told Bodman he may be the Energy Secretary that has to look at other options because the Yucca project is taking too long but did not elaborate on his comment. The Energy Department was supposed to move used nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants in 1998 but the Yucca Mountain now is not expected to begin taking the nuclear waste until 2012 at the earliest. 2. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/mar/25/518506190.html?nuclear March 25, 2005 State says feds' nuke rail plan broke laws By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department violated several federal laws when it decided to build a rail line in Nevada to move waste to the potential Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Nevada's lawyers allege in court documents filed Thursday. In a 74-page legal brief filed in Washington, the state lays out its arguments against the Energy Department's transportation plans to ship waste across the country to Nevada. The department announced last April that it would build a 319-mile rail line in the "Caliente Corridor" to move waste to Yucca, the proposed nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and would use "mostly rail" to ship waste across the country. If the rail line is not be ready by the time the high-level radioactive waste needs to be moved, the department will ship the waste via truck. It is currently working on a environmental analysis of the Caliente route, which the department anticipates will be done this summer. Nevada claims this violated the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law that requires environmental studies of federal projects. The state's lawyers argue the department did not do the required analyses prior to selecting the route and preferred method of transportation. "Lots of shortcuts were made that we think were inappropriate," said Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams. Nevada argues that the department violated the act by selecting the Caliente route without individually analyzing each transportation option. A final environmental impact statement released in February 2002 contained descriptions of the different options but the department selected the Caliente train route without even notifying citizens, ranchers or local governments about its intention to withdraw 308,600 acres of public land. Adams also said that while the department had public hearings on the project's general environmental study outside Nevada, it was unlikely residents in those areas knew the meetings were also about potentially moving waste through their states too. The state also argues that the department further violated the by failing to conduct a study on interim truck shipments and that the department moved ahead with the largest railroad construction project in 80 years without consulting the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that oversees rail projects. The Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval asked the Council on Environmental Quality to intervene regarding the board's lack of involvement with the proposed rail line, but chairman James Connaughton refused. Sandoval initiated the court case in September when he filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the same court that threw out the nuclear waste storage project's 10,000-year radiation standard last year. The Energy Department has until April 25 to respond to Nevada's filing and Nevada will have until May 24 to file its response to whatever the Energy Department files. Final briefs are due by June 14. There is no date set yet for oral arguments. _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 42 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada representative says Yucca e-mails 'tip of iceberg' March 30, 2005 By BRENDAN RILEY ASSOCIATED PRESS CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - The Nevada congressman who will chair a hearing next week into alleged falsified documents on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump said Wednesday that he expects still more disclosures that will help stop the project. "This issue regarding falsified documents is the tip of the iceberg," Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said in a brief speech to the state Legislature. "We expect there may well be additional information." "It's one more opportunity for us as a state to work together to stop the Yucca Mountain project." Talking to reporters after his speech, Porter said inspectors general for the Department of Energy and the Interior Department will be on hand for the Tuesday meeting of the House Government Reform Committee panel that he will chair. The subcommittee's chief counsel, Chad Bungard, said Wednesday in Washington, D.C., that the FBI also is involved in the case now. Porter said the subcommittee has received copies of e-mails suggesting workers on the Yucca Mountain project may have falsified documents that were used to justify the project, and some of those e-mails will be made available to the public on Friday. The Energy and Interior departments disclosed earlier this month that e-mails written by a U.S. Geological Survey scientist from 1998 to 2000 indicated he had fabricated documentation of his work. At the time, the USGS was studying how water moves through the site of the proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas - a crucial issue in determining the potential spread of radiation from the dump. Porter's hearing of the subcommittee on the federal work force and agency organization will include testimony from Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and Gov. Kenny Guinn, as well as DOE employees and Nevada Yucca Mountain experts. On other subjects, Porter said: -He'd support a move by the state Legislature to get the late Nevada Sen. Pat McCarran's statue out of the U.S. Capitol given new disclosures of his racist, anti-Semitic views. "There are a lot of questions whether he should remain," Porter said when asked about the removal of the statue. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., brought up the idea after her speech last week to the lawmakers. -He supports the idea of all-day kindergarten, although he recognizes the costs in Nevada would be high. Porter added it's important that "these kids get one extra chance." A bill to provide the all-day classes is pending in the Legislature. -- ***************************************************************** 43 Las Vegas SUN: FBI Investigating Suspect Yucca Papers By ERICA WERNER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is investigating possible document falsification by workers on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project in Nevada, a congressional staffer said Wednesday. Chad Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel at a House Government Reform subcommittee, said he learned of the inquiry from the inspector general's office at the Interior Department, which also is investigating. "I think they're doing the right thing by pursuing the criminal matter in this case," he said. FBI spokesman Bryan Sierra declined to comment. Bungard's subcommittee is holding a hearing on the possible document falsification next week and staffers are preparing to release e-mails from a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist that suggest the falsification took place. The e-mails were written from 1998 to 2000 and circulated among a team of scientists studying how water moves through the planned dump site, a key issue in determining whether radiation could escape, and how much. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey validated Energy Department conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape. The Energy and Interior departments revealed the existence of the e-mails March 16, and handed them over Tuesday to the House Government Reform subcommittee on the federal work force and agency organization. The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., plans to make the e-mails public Friday with sensitive information blacked out. "We don't want to compromise the criminal investigation," Bungard said, adding the agencies themselves were deciding what information to black out. The Energy Department's inspector general is also investigating the suspected document falsification, and the department is conducting a scientific review as well. The revelation about the potentially falsified documents was the latest setback to the planned dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas - and a victory for Nevada officials who are fighting the project. Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as the nation's only underground repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste and used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years beneath the Nevada desert. But the project has suffered serious problems, including funding shortfalls and an appeals court decision last summer that's forcing a rewrite of radiation exposure limits for the site. The Energy Department recently abandoned a planned 2010 completion date, and department officials have not given a new date. -- ***************************************************************** 44 DBNJ: More deception over Yucca Safety of nuclear repository still uncertain Daytona Beach News-Journal: Editorials [http://www.news-journalonline.com] Last update: March 31, 2005 In 1982 Congress chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada, some two hours' drive northwest of Las Vegas, as the best and final repository for almost 80,000 tons of nuclear waste that has accumulated around the country for the last half century. The repository was supposed to open in 1998, but conclusive evidence that the site is safe hasn't been produced. There's a valid question about whether it should open at all. If the federal government hadn't been deceptive about what it knows (and doesn't know) about Yucca Mountain, perhaps opposition to turning Yucca into a cemetery for radiation wouldn't be so fierce. The opposition is localized to Nevadans in particular (for understandable reasons), but also to environmentalists in general. In 1997, the Department of Energy's claim that the six inches of rain per year that falls on Yucca would take "hundreds of thousands" of years to reach the storage caverns proved to be false. That year, tests showed that water would reach the storage areas in just 40 years. Water would degrade the fuel caskets, shortening their longevity and exposing Nevada's water table to radiation in a matter of decades rather than millennia. In 2001, the Las Vegas Sun revealed that the law firm the Energy Department had paid $16.5 million for legal work related to the mountain was also lobbying lawmakers to get the project built. Mistrust has since accompanied any government claim that Yucca is the safe repository the government claims it to be. Mistrust intensified this month when Energy Department e-mails came to light showing that the department was falsifying scientific records at the mountain. Instruments designed to measure electrical, gaseous and liquid conditions inside the mountain were being certified as ready for use before the department even had them in hand, while a United States Geological Survey employee admitted to falsifying other work. The employee claimed he was not the only one doing so. The falsified documents were part of an application process leading up to the licensing of Yucca Mountain's readiness for receiving waste. The licensing is designed to certify that the science used to judge Yucca Mountain safe for receiving waste is reliable. But if the licensing process itself is a lie, what is there to trust about the government's science on Yucca Mountain? As the 1990 report of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences concluded, there is "a worldwide scientific consensus that deep geological disposal . . . is the best option for disposing of highly radioactive waste." But it doesn't follow that Yucca is the place, or that now is the time for burial, when the government itself is undermining the scientific community's claims by replacing caution and reasonable certainty with haste and unreasonable politics: Many governors want the waste in their state shipped out, the commercial nuclear industry cannot resume building reactors without a repository in operation, and President Bush wants to satisfy both by delivering Yucca Mountain. Maintaining radioactive waste in caskets around the country sounds less safe. But the caskets are under constant surveillance and are maintained. And they are not traveling the nation's highways and rails, as consolidation of all waste at Yucca would require. Yucca Mountain's repository was to provide rock-solid storage and peace of mind. The rock is there. Solid science and peace of mind aren't. One out of three is a good bet in Vegas. It's folly at Yucca. | [http://www.news-journalonline.com/online/copyright.htm] ***************************************************************** 45 Deseret news: Goshute admits he took tribal funds but disputes amount [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 By Angie Welling Deseret Morning News The precise dollar amount remains in dispute, but a member of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes has admitted to taking money from tribal coffers and using it for his own purposes. Sammy Blackbear pleaded guilty to one count of theft from an Indian tribal organization. Federal prosecutors contend Blackbear took $25,000 in the single act of theft on Oct. 2, 2001. Blackbear, however, maintains it was much less than that and will dispute the amount at a June hearing. Defense attorney David Finlayson acknowledged Monday that $25,000 can be traced back to Blackbear through receipts but said some of it went to legitimate tribal expenses, such as attorneys' fees. Blackbear, 40, was charged in December 2003 along with fellow Goshutes Marlinda Moon and Miranda Wash and tribal attorney Duncan Steadman. Those defendants have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to stand trial on the charges in June. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Blackbear will be required to cooperate, and possibly testify, in the government's case against Moon, Wash and Steadman, as well as a related case against tribal chairman Leon D. Bear. Wash, Blackbear and Moon claimed they were elected tribal chairman, vice chairman and secretary, respectively, in a September 2001 election. The election was not recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah accused the group of using the election to gain access to some $1 million in the band's bank accounts. The trio are part of a faction opposed to Bear's ongoing leadership of the small band. Bear has been a major proponent of storing high-level nuclear waste on Goshute land in Utah's west desert, leading to dissention and contentious leadership disputes among the Goshutes. Bear is scheduled to go to trial next month on a separate federal indictment, also handed down in December 2003. The embattled Goshute leader is charged with one count of theft from Indian tribal organizations, one count of theft concerning federally funded programs, and three counts of fraud and false statements. Blackbear faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on the single theft charge in July. At that time, prosecutors will dismiss five counts of bank fraud, each of which also carried a possible five-year prison sentence. E-mail: [awelling@desnews.com] © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 46 NRC: NRC Authorizes Construction of Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River Site News Release - 2005-05 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 05-058 March 30, 2005 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized Duke, Cogema, Stone & Webster (DCS) to construct a facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to manufacture mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for eventual use in commercial nuclear power plants. The NRC staff performed environmental and safety reviews to ensure that the facilitys design will have minimal environmental impacts and will protect the public health and safety. Although in accordance with NRC procedures the staff has issued the construction authorization, the adjudicatory process on certain issues remains open. The facility, which will be owned by the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration, is part of a bilateral effort between the United States and the Russian Federation to make supplies of surplus weapons-grade plutonium into more proliferation-resistant forms. Converting the plutonium into MOX fuel will enable it to be used in commercial reactors to generate electricity. In the United States, only those reactors authorized by the NRC will be permitted to use MOX fuel. A public version of the NRCs final safety evaluation report for the construction of the MOX fuel fabrication facility is available on the agencys Web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/site-help/new-content.html. This report addresses regulatory requirements for approval of construction and reflects the NRC staffs conclusion that DCS design bases for the facility provide reasonable assurance of protection against natural phenomena and the consequences of potential accidents. The NRCs environmental impact statement on the construction and operation of the proposed facility is available at http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/licensing.html. DCS, which is a contractor for DOE, must still apply for a nuclear materials license before it can take possession of special nuclear material and begin fabricating the MOX fuel. In reviewing that license application, the NRC will conduct additional safety reviews. Although the NRC staff has issued the construction authorization, parties in the adjudicatory hearing before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will have an opportunity to submit late-filed contentions challenging the staffs safety review. On March 3, NRC granted a license amendment to Duke Energy Corp., allowing it to test four MOX fuel assemblies at its Catawba nuclear plant near Rock Hill, S.C. Those lead test assemblies have been manufactured in France using surplus U.S. weapons-grade plutonium. Last revised Thursday, March 31, 2005 ***************************************************************** 47 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast group calls on Bush | 03/31/2005 | Tallevast residents continue to seek answers to the community's contamination. SCOTT RADWAY Herald Staff Writer TALLEVAST - Two vocal community leaders are taking the fight for their contamination-plagued neighborhood to Tallahassee, perhaps even to the office of Gov. Jeb Bush. Laura Ward, president of the community group FOCUS, said state leaders need to hear first-person accounts about the harm the former American Beryllium Co. plant caused Tallevast residents. "They have heard what had happened in Tallevast. They have heard what others have said. They have read the news stories," Ward said. "But they have not heard it directly from our mouths." Ward and Wanda Washington, FOCUS vice president, traveled Wednesday to Tallahassee and plan to seek out officials today. The old plant is the source of widespread groundwater contamination and health problems likely caused by exposure to beryllium dust that was a byproduct of plant operations. The state is working with Lockheed Martin to clean up the contamination as state health officials attempt to assess the cumulative health damage to the 85-home community. Residents have continually complained about inadequate responses and lack of communication from state and local governments. Ward and Washington have put in requests to meet withBush, top officials from the Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection, and key lawmakers. The FOCUS leaders also were gearing up for an invitation to speak to a class from Florida A about environmental justice and Tallevast issues, Ward said. But their schedule was still uncertain Wednesday as they drove toward Tallahassee, Ward said. The governor's press office did not return messages left by The Herald. Ward is a member of the Manatee-Sarasota chapter of The Links Inc., a volunteer African American women's group that raises awareness about health issues in black communities. Ward and Washington will take part in scheduled meetings throughout the day as part of the Links delegation, which is expected to talk with lawmakers and tour Bush's office. "We are going to kill two birds with one stone," Ward said, explaining that she and Washington plan to broach both the overarching health issues facing blacks in the region and in Tallevast - a predominantly black community - and the specific issues stemming from the old plant. State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, is set to meet with Ward and Washington and is arranging a meeting with key lawmakers about a bill he is promoting. Galvano has spearheaded an effort to require notifying the public of contamination issues that could affect them mandatory, and do so under certain time constraints. Galvano said Ward and Washington will help other lawmakers put a real face on the issue of notifying the public. It took four years for Tallevast residents to find out about contamination issues first identified by Lockheed Martin. "I think it is good thing that they are taking initiative to do this," Galvano said. "So they (lawmakers) know these are real problems we are trying to fix." Scott Radway, environmental reporter, can be reached at 708-7919 or at sradway@HeraldToday.com [sradway@HeraldToday.com] . Herald watchdog HeraldToday.com ***************************************************************** 48 AP Wire: MOX plant receives permit but construction still delayed | 03/31/2005 | Associated Press AUGUSTA, Ga. - A proposed facility that would convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants has received the go-ahead to begin construction but complications have delayed the project at least until next spring. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a construction permit Wednesday for the $1.6 billion mixed-oxide fuel plant, a key part of the Bush administration's effort to safeguard 34 tons of plutonium no longer needed. Under an agreement with Russia, both nations plan to blend the plutonium with depleted uranium for use in a commercial power reactor, but a liability issue has delayed construction of a facility in Russia. "There is still the impasse, but we're cautiously optimistic that this will be resolved soon," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Safety Administration, which oversees the MOX project. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said recently the plant won't meet a 2009 deadline to begin production, which could trigger a $1 million-a-day fine. Some environmentalists and nuclear nonproliferation advocates are concerned about how roughly 80,000 gallons of highly radioactive waste will be handled after a decision to delay design work on a Waste Solidification Building was made in President Bush's budget request. "They have to resolve that before they can proceed," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International. "This is just a bureaucratic hurdle that's been removed, but they've still got a ways to go." Wilkes said officials are looking into whether an existing nuclear waste disposal system at SRS can handle waste from the MOX plant. In addition to those hurdles, the plant must still receive approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it begins operating. Information from: The Augusta Chronicle, [http://www.augustachronicle.com/] ***************************************************************** 49 Deseret news: Rare coalition backs Utah wilds plan [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News Strange bedfellows — from the governor to military backers and from a congressman to some of Utah's strongest environmentalists — were prepared to announce support for a wilderness bill today. The measure, to be introduced by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is designed to protect the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range. It would designate a 100,000-acre Cedar Mountain Wilderness in Tooele County. Backers believe it also could block construction of the proposed Private Fuel Storage nuclear-waste facility in Skull Valley, Tooele County. Lawson LeGate, the Sierra Club's Southwest representative, noted that Bishop had introduced the bill in the House last year. "Part of his interest in it is dealing with the Skull Valley issue," LeGate said. "He is united with most Utahns in opposing the nuclear waste above-ground storage there." Bishop's office announced that the bill "would protect the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), designate wilderness lands in Utah and stop the proposed high-level nuclear waste storage facility." The storage facility is planned for land owned by the Skull Valley band of the Goshute Indian tribe. Among the unusual aspects is that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., environmentalists and the pro-military Utah Defense Alliance were joining in a press conference in support of the bill, according to Scott B. Parker, Bishop's chief of staff. The session is scheduled for this afternoon at the state Capitol complex. If wilderness were designated in the region, federal rules would block construction of a railroad spur through the area. The rail spur is planned to service the Private Fuel Storage plant. The 2004 version of the bill, which one environmentalist said is like last year's, included areas of the western Utah desert that are important to wildlife habitat. The Deep Creek Mountains, Fish Springs, Notch Peak and other wilderness areas were involved. The bill passed the House of Representatives last year but not the Senate, said Peter Downing, legislative director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "We need to get the same kind of momentum we had in the House in the Senate side, if we're going to pass this bill," he said. The measure seems to have strong support throughout Utah, he said, from people concerned about nuclear waste, jobs and wilderness. Downing said he is encouraged by Huntsman's backing for the bill. The governor, he added, "adds an important voice to the coalition that we've already got." E-mail: bau@desnews.com [bau@desnews.com] © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 50 Platts: EIA charts boom in US uranium + US uranium exploration, production, and employment all increased in 2004, the first such increases since 1998, according to the US Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. In a report posted late March 29 on its Web site (http://www.eia.gov), EIA said that US uranium production in 2004 was 2.3-million pounds U3O8, a 14% rise over the 2003 level. Employment in 2004 also increased in the uranium production industry to 420 person-years, a 31% increase over the 2003 total, EIA said, and companies spent about $10.6-million directly on exploration and drilling activities in 2004. EIA withheld the 2003 and 2002 figures for drilling expenditures because fewer than three companies reported that information, but said in 2001, about $2.7-million was spent on uranium drilling. Washington (Platts)--30Mar2005 Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill Companies] ***************************************************************** 51 Las Vegas SUN: Porter calls for punishment of falsifiers of Yucca work Today: March 31, 2005 at 10:08:52 PST By Cy Ryan < [cy@lasvegassun.com] > SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said Wednesday that if federal employees did indeed falsify Yucca Mountain nuclear dump documents they should at least be fired and could also be charged criminally. "If Congress has been lied to, Congress will take whatever steps are necessary to make sure they are penalized to the fullest extent of the law," Porter told reporters after addressing a joint session of the Legislature. Any firing would have to be done by the Bush administration, however, he conceded. In his address, Porter noted that as chairman of a subcommittee that has jurisdiction over all federal agencies, he will ensure that a hearing April 5 in Washington seeks the whole truth regarding the allegedly doctored documents involving water seepage studies at Yucca Mountain. The inspector generals in the Energy and Interior departments are already investigating the matter, and the FBI also has reportedly become involved. Porter said his office has secured all of the documents and he will release them Friday in advance of the hearing next Tuesday. He said he expects further revelations will emerge from the documents but he has not had a chance to review them. "We're going to expose any and all improprieties having to do with the documents that members of Congress have based their decision on," he said. "The scientific data that Congress has used is based on faith and trust in these federal agencies. "If in fact those documents are falsified and have impacted the science and the delivery of information to the federal court and to members of Congress, we will take action regarding the falsification of documents." Congress passed a plan to put the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, based on scientific work done by the government. President Bush signed off on the plan, citing "sound science." Critics of the plan say this is proof that the project isn't based on sound science. In other comments to the Legislature, the second-term congressman from Las Vegas also urged the Legislature to pass all-day kindergarten. "There is no question we need it," he said. He said he knew it was a challenge to find the money for the all-day kindergarten, but he added he is looking for federal grants to help the state. He also told the lawmakers the federal government needs to reduce the unfunded federal mandates on state and local governments. Asked later to name one unfunded federal mandate that has been eliminated, he said there were some, but he could not name them. He said a committee is looking at 150 unfunded mandates for possible elimination. Asked about removing the statue of Sen. Patrick McCarran from the Capitol's National Statuary Hall, Porter said. "That's up to the Nevada Legislature, and if the Legislature thinks it's the right thing to do, we should do it. "The new revelations of the some of the things of his past put into question whether he should remain a statue in statuary hall, but I have confidence in the Legislature," he said. A new biography of McCarran paints him as a vindictive racist who was the man behind Sen. Joe McCarthy's red scare witch hunt . ***************************************************************** 52 Las Vegas SUN: FBI steps into Yucca document investigation By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The FBI is examining the documents allegedly falsified by government employees working on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a federal official says. Chad Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel at a House Government Reform subcommittee, said he was told from the beginning of the inspector general investigations at the Interior and Energy departments that the FBI would also be involved. The FBI press office would not confirm the agency's involvement or comment on the matter. The inspector general offices at each department also would not comment due to ongoing investigations. Bungard said this will be pursued as a criminal matter until the Justice Department finds otherwise. "That is why we are only giving our redacted information on Friday. We don't want to compromise anything," Bungard said. The House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee, of which Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., is chairman, is to hold a hearing April 5 looking at the department's discovery earlier this month of e-mails sent by U.S. Geological Survey employees that suggest they falsified scientific information on how water moves through the mountain. Water movement is a key issue in determining the proposed repository's safety because it can help radiation move through the mountain and possibly into the groundwater under the mountain. Porter will review the documents today when he returns to Washington. The department handed them over on Tuesday. "My instincts tell me this is the tip of the iceberg," Porter said. The "sound science" argument has been used all along to convince Congress -- and the public -- that the dump plan is safe, but Porter said if the data has been tampered with, it puts the whole project in jeopardy. Porter said that at his hearing he will seek answers to such questions as how long the departments knew about these problems and why changes to data were made. Rep. Shelley Berkely, D-Nev., said that like Porter she suspects the problems unveiled by the Energy Department go beyond what is known right now, which proves arguments for the last two decades that the project should not move forward. She said she believes she knows the motives for the alleged falsification. "When the science didn't match the reality, they used politics to change the science in order to match the reality," she said. She welcomed the FBI's involvement because tampering with scientific data threatens the future health and safety of Nevadans. "That someone or a group of people colluded to falsify the scientific data on which the entire Yucca Mountain project is based is nothing less than criminal and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There is no excuse for it," Berkley said, adding that those responsible should be "put away for a good long time." Jack Finn, spokesman for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Ensign was pleased the FBI was involved, since that is what the senators asked for. Ensign and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller a day after the Energy Department's announcement about the e-mails asking for an investigation and for protection of the documents involved. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., believes the FBI will be an "impartial and unbiased" investigator, said spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. She said the issue is obviously a serious matter that brings the whole integrity of the project into question. The investigation is the latest stumbling block for Yucca Mountain, which has hit a series of troubles with funding and its planned license application since being approved as the nation's nuclear waste repository. A federal appeals court found that the Environmental Protection Agency did not follow the law when determining how long the mountain should hold radiation, a key scientific standard. The EPA is now reworking the standard. ***************************************************************** 53 Deseret News: Envirocare expansion opposed [deseretnews.com] Thursday, March 31, 2005 By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News An activist group is criticizing plans to expand the Envirocare radioactive waste disposal facility in Tooele County. But Envirocare says expanding its license is just good business. Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environmental Alliance of Utah, said less than two months ago, new owners took over Envirocare of Utah. Now, he said in a news release, "they are already seeking to double the size of the landfill. "The proposal calls for adding 536 acres of land to the existing facility, which would be in addition to the 543 acres Envirocare first obtained in 1987." The news release quotes Claire Geddes, who is well known for her campaigns against nuclear waste, as saying Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has been consistent in saying Utah should not be a dumping ground. Envirocare would require approval by the Legislature and governor if the expansion were to occur, Groenewold said. Waste hotter than the Class A material accepted by Envirocare cannot be imported into Utah, under a law passed by the most recent Legislature. The debate this time isn't over hotter wastes but more area covered by Envirocare's permit. Envirocare officials have stated existing capacity at the facility would keep it operating for 15 to 20 years, according to HEAL Utah. But the expansion "would add an additional 35-50 years of disposal operations to the landfill, further entrenching Utah as a dumping ground for radioactive waste," says the group's news release. Mark Walker, spokesman for Envirocare, said an expansion would involve capital improvements. The company would place them on property it purchased from Charles Judd, adjacent to the existing operation. The company needs to expand its Class A license coverage onto that property, Walker said. The action would bring all of the property Envirocare owns in the vicinity under the closure fund. The fund, required by the state, is intended to make certain that if a hazardous waste facility were to close, cleanup costs would be covered. "The bottom line is, we need to make some capital improvements out there that will do a number of things for us, including increased efficiency," Walker said. Envirocare already is extremely safe for employees, but the change would make it more so, he said. "It's just good business sense to do this," Walker said. E-mail: bau@desnews.com [bau@desnews.com] © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 54 RGJ: Porter says Yucca e-mails ‘tip of iceberg’ + [Reno Gazette-Journal] [Reno Gazette-Journal] [online@rgj.com] ASSOCIATED PRESS 3/30/2005 11:07 pm The Nevada congressman who will chair a hearing next week into alleged falsified documents on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump said Wednesday that he expects still more disclosures that will help stop the project. “This issue regarding falsified documents is the tip of the iceberg,” U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said in a brief speech to the state Legislature. “We expect there may well be additional information.” “It’s one more opportunity for us as a state to work together to stop the Yucca Mountain project.” Talking to reporters after his speech, Porter said inspectors general for the Department of Energy and the Interior Department will be on hand for the Tuesday meeting of the House Government Reform Committee panel that he will chair. The subcommittee’s chief counsel, Chad Bungard, said Wednesday in Washington, D.C., that the FBI also is involved in the case now. Porter said the subcommittee has received copies of e-mails suggesting workers on the Yucca Mountain project may have falsified documents that were used to justify the project, and some of those e-mails will be made available to the public on Friday. [http://www.gannettfoundation.org/] © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] Newspaper. ***************************************************************** 55 Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare looking to expand its operation [http://www.sltrib.com] Article Last Updated: 03/31/2005 01:00:09 AM Critics blast the plan: They call the request an attempt to "supersize" the radioactive waste facility By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune Envirocare of Utah is seeking permission to expand its operations onto 536 acres of land it purchased from a potential competitor when the business changed hands two months ago. The low-level radioactive waste company is requesting a change in its state permit in order to build new waste handling facilities, a rail line, an administration building and a disposal cell. Envirocare spokesman Mark Walker on Wednesday said the company needs to upgrade the aging rail line and "rollover," the part of the rail line where the waste is emptied from train cars. The company also needs a new crusher for waste compaction and a shredder. Building a new administration building will allow the current building to be used for other administrative purposes, he said. Critics quickly seized on the expansion plans, sending out e-mails calling the permit-change request an attempt to "supersize" the facility 80 miles northwest of Salt Lake City. "It hasn't even been two months since the new owners of Envirocare took over the controversial radioactive waste dump and they are already seeking to double the size of the landfill," said Jason Groenewold, director of the environmental advocacy group Healthy Environment Alliance Utah. "They are treating the rail expansion as a Trojan horse to get the approval for waste disposal. Once they get legislative approval, they could begin taking waste," Groenewold said. The expansion would add 35 to 50 years of disposal operations to the landfill, he said. Walker agreed that the waste operation could expand into the acreage Envirocare's new owners purchased from former Envirocare President Charles Judd. "But right now that's not what it would be used for," Walker said. The original acreage allows the facility to operate another 17 to 20 years without expanding onto the new property, he said. Envirocare Chief Executive Steve Creamer and two investment firms bought the 543-acre waste facility from Khosrow Semnani in December. The sale closed Jan 31. At that time, the new owners announced they had bought out Judd, who had said he would not pursue bringing in more radioactive waste than the state currently allows. At that time, Envirocare's new owners announced they would give up their regulatory permit to accept the hotter so-called B and C waste. A law banning the waste has since gone into effect. Walker said Envirocare is crafting a restrictive deed that would prohibit B and C waste and spent nuclear fuel rods from ever being disposed at the facility. "That was something Jason [Groenewold] asked for. We said we'd look into it," Walker said. "We're in the process of doing it." Walker said the additional acreage also needs to be brought in under the Envirocare permit so it can be included in the facility's closure and post-closure surety required by the state. Under state law, the expansion proposal must receive approval from Tooele County, the Legislature and the governor. Some legislators are pushing to have the matter considered at the April 20 special session. © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 56 Newswise: Perchlorate, a Groundwater Contaminant, Retards Development of Young Minnows Source: Environmental Health Perspectives (NIEHS) Released: Thu 31-Mar-2005, 11:20 ET Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Description Fathead minnows exposed to environmentally relevant levels of ammonium perchlorate in the earliest stages of life showed retarded development compared with control fish, according to a study. Newswise  Fathead minnows exposed to environmentally relevant levels of ammonium perchlorate in the earliest stages of life showed retarded development compared with control fish, according to a study published today in the April 2005 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The fish, which were exposed to the chemical for the first 28 days of development after fertilization, had poorly developed scales, poor pigmentation, and altered thyroid hormone levels, and were significantly lower in weight and length than unexposed minnows. Ammonium perchlorate is the primary ingredient of the solid propellant in rockets and missiles. Perchlorate salts are also used in smaller amounts in air bag inflators, road flares, and fireworks, and in the making of leather, fabrics, and paints. Discharge from rocket fuel manufacturing plants, the decommissioning of missiles, and the refueling of rockets are believed to be responsible for most of the ammonium perchlorate released into the environment. In recent years, there has been increased concern about the presence of perchlorate in drinking water. Perchlorate has been shown to inhibit synthesis of thyroid hormones in mammals. However, relatively little research has been performed on the impact of perchlorate exposure on fish. Scientists exposed fathead minnow embryos to water with concentrations of 1, 10, and 100 milligrams per liter (mg/L) ammonium perchlorate, levels that can occur in the environment. The exposed minnows hatched normally, but continued exposure to 10 and 100 mg/L ammonium perchlorate resulted in developmental retardation. These fish had minimal appearance of scales, and their viscera were still visible through their skin. According to the authors, this indicated that “the larval to juvenile transition in these fish had not been completed within the 28-day study period, whereas control fish successfully completed this transition.†The exposed fish were also significantly lighter-weight and shorter than control fish, and had altered whole-body levels of the thyroid hormones T3 and T4. Thyroid hormones are well known to play an important role in larval metamorphosis in certain other types of fish, the authors wrote, although the role played in minnow development is less certain. The authors noted a need to study the fish over a longer period time to understand longer-term impacts of exposure. Dr. Jim Burkhart, science editor for EHP, says, “The potential environmental impacts of perchlorate currently are being widely studied. This research contributes to a more complete understanding of potential impacts on fish and other marine life.†The lead author of the study was Helen M. Crane of the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and AstraZeneca’s Brixham Environmental Laboratory. Other authors included Daniel B. Pickford, Thomas H. Hutchinson, and J. Anne Brown. Funding sources for the research as reported by the authors included AstraZeneca and a Natural Environment Research Council Studentship. The article is available free of charge at [http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7333/7333.html] . EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at [http://www.ehponline.org/] . © 2005 Newswise. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 57 decatur daily: Judges OK plan to convert weapons-grade uranium into fuel for use at Browns Ferry [http://www.decaturdaily.com THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2005 ERWIN, Tenn. (AP)  Two administrative judges have upheld a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff decision allowing Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. to convert surplus weapons-grade uranium into fuel for a Tennessee Valley Authority commercial reactor. "There is simply no basis in the record at hand for a determination on our part that the staff's environmental review failed adequately to consider the possibility of the occurrence of an accident with serious environmental consequences," Judges Alan S. Rosenthal and Richard F. Cole concluded. They dismissed a petition filed by the Sierra Club seeking a full environmental impact statement on the project. The Sierra Club was the only one of several groups that the judges determined had legal standing to challenge the NRC's action. The Sierra Club has 15 days to decide if it will appeal to the NRC. Local chairwoman Linda Modica said it would "exhaust all administrative remedies" before heading to court. The project to "downblend," or dilute, 39 metric tons of highly enriched uranium into low-enriched fuel for TVA, the nation's largest public utility, already is under way and the first shipment has been delivered to TVA's Browns Ferry nuclear station near Athens. Most of the uranium comes from the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. NFS spokesman Tony Treadway hailed the judges' ruling as "really good news for Unicoi County, the region and the taxpayers," noting the project has created 100 jobs at NFS and will save the Department of Energy millions of dollars on storage costs and TVA on fuel purchases. The Sierra Club, however, said NFS documents show the project "poses significant environmental hazards that must be studied carefully and reported to the public in an environmental impact statement." Hazards include chemical spills, radioactive gas releases, explosions and uncontrolled chain reactions that could hurt employees and nearby residents, the group said. Treadway said Sierra Club members "exaggerated their claims far beyond reality." Copyright 2005 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. AP contributed to this report. --> Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 [webmaster@decaturdaily.com] www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 58 KLAS: Republican Senator Promoting Alternative to Yucca March 31, 2005 Nevada lawmakers fighting to keep the Yucca Mountain Project from opening are getting help. A key House Republican is urging the Department of Energy to look at temporary waste storage solutions. The Senate Energy Commitee Chairman, New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici is promoting talk of alternatives to Yucca Mountain. The push comes after allegations surfaced that some documents supporting the project could have been falsified. [http://www.worldnow.com] All content © Copyright 2000 - 2005 WorldNow and KLAS. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 59 ABC 4: Congress Hatches New Plan To Keep Nuke Waste Out LAST UPDATE: 3/31/2005 5:10:18 PM SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop announced Thursday he would resurrect a bill designating 100,000 acres of Utah's West Desert as wilderness -- an ambitious tool perhaps less about preserving open space than pre-empting a plan to store spent nuclear fuel 50 miles west of here. Bishop was joined by U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson and Chris Cannon, Gov. Jon Huntsman and representatives from several environmental groups in announcing he would reintroduce the twice-defeated measure, billed as a win-win situation for all of Utah's interests. Though the legislation says nothing about the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes plan to store nuclear waste on their reservation near the proposed wilderness, the designation would mean the tribe couldn't use a rail spur running through the land to transport the waste to the site. It could also help protect the Utah Test and Training Range, which, combined with nearby Dugway Proving Ground, provides 3.2 million acres of restricted air space for military training, and the only place in the country to test cruise missiles. Some have feared that if the Skull Valley nuclear depository, which has wound its way through the federal regulatory process since 1997, were approved, military activities would be restricted at the range because flight patterns crossing the site engender the possibility of a catastrophic plane crash into a nuclear waste storage cask. The training space is also considered an important asset to nearby Hill Air Force Base, which Utah is fighting to save in a sweeping round of upcoming military base closures and realignment that could cost the state millions of dollars and thousands of jobs if the base is shuttered. The coalition gathered for the Thursday announcement represented a broad spectrum of interests in Utah that don't often agree. The legislation "brings together our concerns and points us toward a common solution," said Heidi McIntosh, with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, adding that it was a rare instance in which there was "unanimous agreement" on a wilderness designation in Utah. The proposed Cedar Mountains Wilderness contains habitat for elk, deer, bats, golden eagles, reptiles and scores of other species. The legislation is virtually identical to a piece that passed the U.S. House last year, but failed in the Senate. The only substantive difference this time is that it also grants the Goshutes development rights on some nearby federal land -- an attempt to compensate the small, impoverished tribe for its inability to turn the barren land into a lucrative radioactive dump. Still, that might not take care of all the obstacles faced before. Though it passed the House unanimously, it had to be tacked onto the Defense Authorization Act late in the Senate session -- forcing Utah's delegation into a tough spot with very little time to lobby colleagues. Bishop said. At an unrelated news conference earlier in the day, Bennett said he doubted the legislation had a great chance this year because it's already failed twice. Bishop acknowledged it would still be difficult, but said this time Bennett and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch will have more time and options for the bill, such as tacking it onto a different piece of legislation or pushing it forward by itself. Previously, it has also faced somewhat complicated opposition from Nevada's U.S. Senate delegation -- perhaps because Hatch and Bennett voted in favor of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear storage site in Nevada, which, if ultimately approved, would one day permanently hold the waste temporarily stored in Utah. Bishop said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was on board until he understood the issue involved the Goshute dump. Still, Bishop said he didn't begrudge Hatch and Bennett for their votes, and hoped Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, R-Nevada, would change their minds. "That's one of the other games," he said. "We have to convince them it's not our range, it's a military asset." As planned, the nuclear storage pad would hold up to 4,000 casks filled with depleted nuclear fuel -- about 10 million rods -- across 100 acres of the Skull Valley. The waste would be shipped mostly from reactors east of the Mississippi River. Utah has no nuclear power plants.  It would be operated by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight utilities. The site still faces several regulatory hurdles, such as approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but those gathered Thursday said this was a powerful legislative tool that could make those irrelevant. "We are running out of options when it comes to Private Fuel Storage," Matheson said. ***************************************************************** 60 Whitehaven News: NUCLEAR SHIPMENT WON'T HELP CUMBRIA SIR — I read with some concern of UKAEA’s intention to ship a huge amount of low level waste from Dounreay to Drigg. This amount of waste is comparable in volume to 450 double decker buses. The reason given by UKAEA is that a new engineered LLW trench at Dounreay would not be ready before 2010. I suspect the problem at Dounreay is more a lack of planning consent than a construction timescale and I also suspect that if this LLW is shipped to Drigg a new trench at Dounreay will never be constructed. If the LLW has been treated and packaged in a safe and proper manner then temporary surface storage a Dounreay until a new trench is constructed shouldn’t be a problem. Dounreay is, after all, a licensed site, unless, of course the intention is to clear the site. I understand BNFL have a similar problem at Springfields, near Warrington, the company conducted a consultation exercise to identify a site for a very low level waste disposal site in the communities around Springfields. The local population rejected the proposal and BNFL will now have to fall back on plan B – and plan B is to ship it all to Drigg. The population around Springfields have depended on the nuclear industry for jobs and economic activity just as much as the population around Sellafield, yet they rejected any proposal to store or dispense of nuclear waste near them. Whipping these huge amounts of waste to Drigg will not provide one extra job or put one penny into the local economy. This policy by government agencies, of shipping every kilo of nuclear waste to Sellafield and Drigg is grotesque. The interests of the people of Copeland are not best served by Government Agencies, ignoring our concerns and treating us with utter contempt. The two responsible councils – Cumbria and Copeland – could stop this migration of nuclear waste dead in its tracks, if they have the commitment and courage. John HENNEY Cleator Moor ***************************************************************** 61 New Mexican: City panel endorses 'no-nukes' resolution [http://www.santafenewmexican.com March 30, 2005 Santa Fe City Councilor Miguel Chavez's proposed resolution, which asks the United States to halt nuclear-weapons production, looks like a slam dunk. All five councilors on the Public Works Committee endorsed the latest version of the resolution Tuesday. It has yet to be set for a public hearing before the eight-member City Council. Several years ago, Doug Doran of Santa Fe began collecting signatures on a petition asking for an end to weapons production at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. He said the United States already had pledged to stop manufacturing nuclear weapons in a treaty ratified in 1970. Earlier this year, Chavez introduced the resolution at Doran's request. The Los Alamos Study Group has helped Chavez amend it so it also applies to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Among those endorsing the resolution Tuesday were Los Alamos Study Group members Greg Mello, Lidia Clark and Willem Malten. Mellow said the resolution is "mainstream" because 84 percent of Americans in a recent poll supported nuclear disarmament. So far, only Councilor David Pfeffer has opposed the resolution, arguing it is outside the council's purview. Councilors on the committee responded to Pfeffer's criticism Tuesday. Pfeffer doesn't serve on the committee and wasn't at the meeting. Councilor Patti Bushee noted the resolution also seeks to stop the disposal of nuclear waste in Northern New Mexico. "That is more than in our back yard," she said. "That is potentially in our water stream. It is absolutely in our purview to make these statements." Councilor David Coss said President Bush has demanded Iran and North Korea end nuclear-weapons programs. "Somebody once said, 'Get the log out of your eye before you look at the speck in your neighbor's eye,' and I think this resolution says that's just what we ought to do," he said. Chavez read a letter from the mayor of Hiroshima, Japan, who said he had read the resolution and was "deeply impressed by its clarity and depth." Privacy Policy | ©2005, Santa Fe New Mexican, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 62 Guardian Unlimited: Poll: Most in U.S. Oppose Nuclear Weapons From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday March 31, 2005 1:16 PM AP Photo GFX253 By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Most Americans surveyed in a poll say they do not think any country, including the United States, should have nuclear weapons. That sentiment is at odds with current efforts by some nations that are trying to develop the weapons and by terrorists seeking to add them to their arsenal. The only use of an atomic bomb - by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II - provokes sharply different reactions, depending on the age of those asked. Young adults tend to disapprove, while older Americans tend to approve, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Albert Kauzmann, a 57-year-old resident of Norcross, Ga., said using the bomb in 1945 ``was the best way they had of ending'' World War II. Six in 10 people age 65 and older approve of the use of the atomic bomb at the end of World War II; the same percentage of respondents 18 to 29 disapprove. Even though the Soviet Union is gone, the nuclear fears that fueled the Cold War have not gone away. A majority of people believe it is likely that terrorists or a country will use the weapons within five years. North Korea claims it has nuclear weapons now and is making more. Iran is widely believed to be within five years of developing such weapons. Security for the nuclear material scattered across the countries of the old Soviet Union remains a major concern. Lurking in the background is the threat that worries U.S. officials the most: terrorists' desire to acquire nuclear weapons. All that helps explain why 52 percent of Americans think a nuclear attack by one country against another is somewhat or very likely by 2010. Also, 53 percent think a nuclear attack by terrorists is at least somewhat likely. The Bush administration repeatedly warns about nuclear weapons and is using diplomacy - and force - to try to limit the threat. Two-thirds of respondents say no nation should have nuclear weapons, including the United States. Most of the others surveyed say no more countries should get the weapons. ``I worry about Pakistan and India,'' said Barbara Smith, who lives in a Philadelphia suburb. ``I don't know what's going to happen with Iran, don't know what's going to happen with North Korea.'' Smith said she wants to see the spread of nuclear weapons stopped. ``It's too dangerous, too many things can go wrong,'' she said. About one-third of those in an ABC News-Washington Post poll in the mid-1980s - when the Cold War was hot - thought there would be a nuclear war in the next few years between the two superpowers. The AP-Ipsos poll found 44 percent of those surveyed said they frequently or occasionally worry about a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons, while 55 percent said they rarely or never do. Susan Winter of McLean, Va., says her awareness of the nuclear threat does not cause her to fret constantly. ``I'm concerned, but I don't worry about it,'' Winter said. ``I'm not a nail biter. I don't lose sleep over it.'' People were divided about the use of the atomic bomb in 1945, though they were asked about Hiroshima and Nagasaki after a series of questions on the nuclear threat. Overall, 47 percent of those surveyed approved of dropping the bombs on Japan while 46 percent disapproved, according to the poll of 1,000 conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs from March 21-23 with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The United States, Britain, Russia, France and China have nuclear weapons, and Pakistan and India have also conducted nuclear tests. Many believe Israel has nuclear weapons, but that country has never acknowledged it. North Korea claimed in February that it had nuclear weapons. The threat from nuclear terrorism is greatest, analysts say, because terrorists with nuclear weapons would feel little or no hesitance about using them. That's why those who monitor nuclear proliferation are so concerned about securing weapons stockpiles and dismantling weapons as quickly as possible. ``We're in the race of our lives,'' said Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ``and we're not running fast enough.'' ^--- On the Net: Ipsos-Public Affairs: http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 63 IEEE: The Atomic Fortress That Time Forgot [http://www.ieee.org] The world's first plutonium-making reactor is an Atomic Age landmark—and it faces an uncertain future By Erico Guizzo Photographs by Walter Whitman ON A DESOLATE STRETCH OF HIGH DESERT in the northwestern United States, a fortresslike building stands alone, windowless, its massive concrete walls seemingly guarding a secret. But its secret was revealed long ago. What took place here affected the world like no other technology before it. Building 105-B, better known as B Reactor, was the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor. It produced not electric power but plutonium, an invaluable atomic-bomb ingredient when the reactor first went into operation at the height of World War II. It was B Reactor that produced the plutonium used in the first man-made nuclear explosion, the Trinity test in the desert north of Alamogordo, N.M., on 16 July 1945. It also produced the plutonium used in the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945. The reactor is part of the Hanford Site, a 1500-square-kilometer plutonium-production complex in the state of Washington. It was established by the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government's secret program that produced the world's first nuclear weapons during World War II. B Reactor was one of three reactors built during the war, and one of nine eventually constructed at Hanford. They all sit along a 50-kilometer-long crook of the Columbia River. Together, they produced 67.4 metric tons of plutonium, or nearly two-thirds of the total created by the United States before the country ended production in the mid-1990s. Despite its enormous historical significance, however, the reactor—permanently shut down since February 1968—now faces an uncertain future. The U.S. Department of Energy has been laboring for years to clean up the radioactive and chemical contamination at Hanford. The site's several decades of operation resulted in the accumulation of about 500 million curies of radioactivity in the form of atomic wastes dumped into the soil and other nuclear products stored at aging facilities. (For comparison, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs produced a total of less than 5 million curies of radioactivity.) Getting rid of all that mess is expected to cost some US $50 billion and last until 2035. This year the DOE is starting yet another cleanup initiative at the site. The work, distributed over a long stretch of the Columbia River, includes cocooning four of Hanford's reactors, which basically means demolishing all the reactors' structures but their cores and then sealing and roofing them. The B unit is on the list. Before sending the wreckers in, however, the DOE will wait for the outcome of a study that will assess the possibility of converting some of the Manhattan Project's historic sites into parks and museums. In arguing for the U.S. Senate version of the bill proposing the study, Senator Maria Cantwell (D.-Wash.) called B Reactor "a stunning feat of engineering" and exhorted her colleagues to "preserve the reactor for future generations, which must learn about the Manhattan Project and its impact on world history." Although the cost of turning the facility into a museum has not been calculated, Bechtel Hanford, the main contractor at the site, estimates that a full decontamination of B Reactor, plus necessary structural repairs, could cost US $30 million. Several rooms have already been cleaned up, but hazards still exist, including lingering radiation, toxic chemicals, asbestos, heavy metals, and also some sneaky bats and snakes. For many years, occasional visitors were allowed into the decontaminated rooms, where no type of protection is required, though for security reasons access was significantly restricted after September 11, 2001. A LAYER OF MELTING SNOW blankets Hanford's rocky soil and its sparse sagebrush and cheatgrass covering. In the vicinity of B Reactor, the only signs of life on this winter day are a few maintenance workers driving by in pickup trucks and a lonely coyote wandering near the road. It's hard to picture the place as it was 60 years ago, when tens of thousands of workers toiled in scattered facilities all over Hanford, which almost overnight became the third most populous region in Washington State. As you step through B Reactor's main entrance, pale-green double doors are visible straight ahead, at the end of a short hallway. It's behind those doors that B Reactor's atomic heart resides. In a vast, high-ceilinged hangarlike room, the enormous core looms 12 meters tall, its somber façade covered by protruding metal nozzles. The core consists of an inner structure [see photos], called the pile, enclosed by thick shielding layers of iron, steel, and Masonite. The pile is a 2000-ton cubical block of pure graphite that 2004 aluminum tubes traverse horizontally. Workers manually filled those tubes with tens of thousands of aluminum-clad uranium cylinders called slugs, each about the size of a large sausage. When enough slugs were in place, they would form a "critical mass," which would initiate the uranium's transformation into plutonium. Two nuclear reactions took place simultaneously. In one, nuclei of uranium-235, one of the isotopes present in the slugs' natural uranium, started to fission and emit neutrons. These fast neutrons, slowed down by the surrounding graphite, would then hit and split other uranium-235 nuclei in nearby tubes, thereby generating more neutrons, which in turn would split other nuclei, and so on. This fission chain reaction deluged the pile with neutrons. In the other reaction, another isotope in the slugs, uranium-238, would absorb some of the fast neutrons and transmute into plutonium. The fission reaction released enormous quantities of energy. The reactor, originally rated at a thermal power level of 250 megawatts, would simply have melted down if it weren't for a torrent of Columbia River water directed through its tubes. Located nearby, a water plant large enough to serve a city of 300 000 people pumped 114 000 liters of cooling water through the reactor's seething core every minute. The effluent water would stay in a retention basin for 3 or 4 hours and then flow back into the Columbia River. Operators adjusted the reactor's power level from a control room separated from the core by a 1-meter-thick concrete wall [see photos]. From there, they could regulate the chain reaction by inserting or retracting one or more of nine motor-driven neutron-absorbing horizontal control rods, which were interspersed perpendicularly among the uranium-filled tubes. In addition, 29 vertical safety rods, suspended by electromagnets, would drop into the core to shut it down immediately if something went awry. At the control room, operators also kept an eye on a number of gauges and recorders that let them monitor such parameters as the temperature of the pile's shielding and the water pressure of the core's tubes. To see it all today is to drop in on another era—one of dials and knobs instead of liquid-crystal displays and keyboards. B REACTOR'S BASIC DESIGN WAS DERIVED from the experimental pile built by nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi's team in a squash court at the University of Chicago, where the group demonstrated the first controlled self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Fermi himself came to Hanford—where his code name was Eugene Farmer—and supervised the loading of the uranium slugs into B Reactor's tubes, a process that took several days. Finally, at 10:48 p.m. on 26 September 1944—less than two years after Fermi's demonstration—the reactor entered operation, progressively advancing toward higher power levels. All seemed well, but after a few hours, the chain reaction mysteriously began to die out. It turned out that an unexpected fission byproduct, xenon, was absorbing neutrons and thus spoiling the reaction. The solution was simple: override the xenon effect by inserting more slugs into the pile to increase its reactivity. Fortunately, there were several extra channels in the graphite that could readily house additional slugs. The exact reason those extra channels were there is still a matter of debate. The original design created by Eugene Wigner, a physicist and engineer who had worked with Fermi at Chicago, called for 1500 parallel channels arranged circularly (a cross section of the graphite block would show holes uniformly distributed in a circular pattern). But Crawford Greenewalt, an engineer for E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co., the company in charge of the reactor's construction, decided to add 504 extra channels to the block (changing its cross section to a somewhat square pattern of holes). Greenewalt hadn't anticipated the xenon effect but had feared that corrosion would make it necessary to reinforce the slugs' aluminum cladding at some point. If that happened, he had figured, the pile would need more slugs to compensate for its decreased reactivity. Whatever the reason for their inclusion, the extra channels proved instrumental and gave Greenewalt his place in atomic history. He would later become president of Du Pont. Slugs remained inside the pile for several weeks [see photos]. After that period, only one in every 4000 atoms of uranium-238 would have been transmuted into plutonium, but it was nevertheless time to refill the tubes with fresh slugs. Workers would open a tube's front nozzle and insert new slugs through it, pushing the old, highly radioactive slugs out the rear of the tube. These would fall into a water-filled storage pool in the rear of the reactor, where they were left to cool off for a while. Railroad cask cars would then transport the slugs to a plutonium-separation plant a few kilometers south. There, workers operated remotely controlled machines that dissolved the slugs in nitric acid and performed a series of chemical processes on the solution. Tons of uranium slugs would yield only tens of grams of plutonium. During World War II, B Reactor operated around-the-clock for nine months. Its processed output, usually in the form of a concentrated plutonium nitrate paste, was packed into metal cans and driven in U.S. Army ambulances from Hanford to the top-secret laboratory in what is now Los Alamos, N.M. There the team led by the laboratory's director, J. Robert Oppenheimer, designed and built the first atomic bombs. The Nagasaki bomb carried 6 kilograms of plutonium and exploded with a yield equivalent to that of 20 000 tons of TNT, causing 70 000 deaths by the end of 1945. (The Hiroshima bomb, which exploded with a yield of roughly 15 000 tons of TNT, used highly enriched uranium-235, produced at another Manhattan Project industrial complex, in Oak Ridge, Tenn.) B Reactor was fundamental to a project that altered world history forever. For as long as it stands, it will help us remember the technological watershed that marked the Atomic Age's transition from laboratory experimentation to industrial-scale operation and all the profound political and moral consequences it brought with it. TO PROBE FURTHER For more on B Reactor's technology, see http://www.hanford.gov/doe/history/docs/rl-97-1047/ [http://www.hanford.gov/doe/history/docs/rl-97-1047/] . For more on Hanford's contamination, see On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, by Michele S. Gerber (University of Nebraska Press, 1992). ***************************************************************** 64 sf new mexican: Lockheed plans to bid on LANL contract Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:08 pm [http://www.santafenewmexican.com The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE  Lockheed Martin will compete to be the next manager of Los Alamos National Laboratory.The company, which previously said it would not bid to run the nuclear-weapons lab in Northern New Mexico, announced Tuesday that changes to the labs contract make it a better business proposition. Lockheed Martin is fully committed to doing this, spokesman Don Carson said Tuesday. Employees are preparing a bid to submit to the Department of Energy in the next few months, he said.The University of California has held the contract to operate the lab since it was established in 1943. But a series of security, safety and financial problems in recent years led the DOE to put the management contract up for bid in 2003. The UC Board of Regents hasnt voted on whether to bid for the Los Alamos job but has told staff to prepare as though it would bid.Lockheed Martin decided not to bid on the contract in August because its business department said it could not make money on the deal, Carson said.Since then, the Department of Energy made several changes to its request for bid proposals. One change allows the winning bidder to set up a new pension plan, as opposed to using the University of Californias. The high cost of the UC plan was one of the reasons Lockheed Martin originally decided not to bid, Carson said.UCs contract to run Los Alamos expires in September.Lockheed Martin already operates Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. The company in December was awarded a one-year contract extension to manage Sandia because of its outstanding performance. That contract expires in September 2009. Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican ***************************************************************** 65 ABQjournal: Groups To Appeal LANL Burn Permits the Albuquerque Journal newspaper. Thursday, March 31, 2005 Albuquerque Journal--> By Adam Rankin Journal Staff Writer Two local environmental watchdog groups say the state should do a better job regulating Los Alamos National Laboratory's open burning of diesel, high explosives and depleted uranium. They plan to appeal two state permits issued to the lab Tuesday, citing what they say are nonexistent monitoring requirements and other shortcomings. "There are no stacks, there is nothing," Sheri Kotowski, of the Embudo Valley Environmental Monitoring Group, said about the burning conditions at LANL. "All of the emissions are just going out in every which way." Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and the Embudo Valley group plan to appeal permits the state Environment Department issued LANL that will allow the nuclear weapons laboratory to burn a certain amount of hazardous materials each year. The appeal goes before the state Environmental Improvement Board at its next monthly meeting. The permits, issued by the state's Air Quality Bureau, allow LANL to burn a maximum of 3,717 pounds of high explosives, 1,584 pounds of depleted uranium, 800 gallons of diesel fuel and 91,000 pounds of wood each year as part of its fire and transportation container accident tests. The tests take place at LANL's technical area's 11, 16 and 36. For the past 30 years, LANL has been allowed to burn the materials under the state's general burning rules, which regulated open trash burns. For 30 years before that, the environmental groups say LANL burned the materials without regulation. But this year, a new law goes into effect banning open trash burns because of concerns about hazardous and toxic chemical releases. So the state required LANL to apply for new permits under rules that regulate such industrial processes as oil and gas refineries and power plants. State Environment Department spokesman Jon Goldstein said the agency made the regulatory changes at the request of the groups to increase state oversight. "I think we've done everything we can do through our regulations," he said. But Kotowski said LANL's burn permits don't make use of the state's full regulatory authority. "They give LANL free reign through this permit to do what they want to do," she said. "The source is not a threat to public safety, that is their (LANL's) justification." LANL spokeswoman Kathy DeLucas said air emissions from the burns meet all state and federal standards and that the burns are done only rarely, even though the lab is permitted to conduct between five and eight burns a year. "When they do these tests they are under very prescriptive requirements," she said. Joni Arends, director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, said LANL should be required to monitor burn emissions to prove they fall under state limits. Instead, LANL demonstrated it will meet air standards using computer models. "If you don't monitor it, you don't find it— there is no proof," she said. "We have been told, basically, there is an invisible shield and pollutants don't go beyond the boundaries of the lab." Copyright Albuquerque Journal Steve@abqjournal.com ***************************************************************** 66 Tri-City Herald: Hanford budget offers ray of hope This story was published Thursday, March 31st, 2005 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Hanford regulators see reasons to be hopeful about the initial figures for Hanford's 2007 budget, but the proposed $2 billion still won't do all the work needed at the nuclear reservation two years from now, they said at a public meeting Wednesday night. The budget would restore funding to about the levels of this year and last year and would be $200 million above the amount proposed for fiscal year 2006. "But the fact that it's a target doesn't mean it's what will be given," said Nick Ceto, Hanford project manager. The fiscal year 2006 budget was about $100 million larger when initial numbers were released last spring than the amount being considered now, he pointed out. In addition, a flat budget means less buying power each year for cleanup, he said. That makes it particularly difficult to respond to surprises at Hanford, such as new discoveries of contamination on the 580-square-mile nuclear reservation, he said. Inflation, increased security ordered after 9/11 and higher pension costs all will erode the amount of money that can be spent on cleanup in a budget that remains level. Work to clean up Hanford's central plateau will slow, he said. The central area of the nuclear reservation has massive processing plants and contaminated soil and ground water from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. For two years, DOE has been making plans to start cleaning up the U Area, where U Plant was used to recover uranium, as a model for other cleanup work in the central plateau, said Gerald Pollet, of the watchdog group Heart of America Northwest, when the meeting was opened for public comment. But the 2007 budget does not appear to pay for any work that would make the central plateau any cleaner, he said. EPA also is concerned that the 2007 budget would not support the challenging work to clean up the heavily contaminated 618-10 and 618-11 burial grounds, where wastes containing plutonium, strontium and cesium were buried after laboratory experiments and fuel tests during the Cold War. The Washington State Department of Ecology is concerned that the 2007 budget does not include money to work toward a way to treat some of the low-activity waste that cannot be treated by a legal deadline at the vitrification plant under construction, said Laura Cusack, a manager for the state's nuclear waste program. Either the $5.8 billion plant would have to be expanded to turn more of the waste into a stable glass or facilities built to use an alternate technology, such as bulk vitrification. DOE has deadlines coming up after 2007 for retrieving radioactive waste from Hanford's older underground tanks. The proposed budget, as written for 2007, would not have DOE prepared to meet those deadlines, she said. The state also is concerned DOE will need more storage space for the glassified waste to be produced at the vitrification plant. Although high-level vitrified waste is supposed to be sent to a national repository in Yucca Mountain, Nev., it appears unlikely the repository will open on time. DOE will need to start the design of additional storage in 2007 and the budget does not cover that, Cusack said. DOE headquarters recognizes that the 2007 budget as proposed does not cover all the work DOE needs to do that year and has asked the Hanford DOE offices to send revised proposals back to Washington, D.C. That's a promising sign, Cusack said. Pollet said he's concerned about the proposed budget's effect on experienced workers. Because the 2006 budget is so low, there will be layoffs, he said. Should the budget improve in 2007, "will people trained to do a job still be here after being laid off in 2006?" he asked. DOE will continue to accept comment on the budget until April 15. Comments may be sent to Steve Chalk, Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office, P.O. Box 550, MS A7-75, Richland, WA 99352. © 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 67 Inside Bay Area: They're baaaaaack [http://www.insidebayarea.com Last Updated: 03/31/2005 04:38:42 PM By Ian Hoffman - Staff Writer The nation's largest defense contractor is back in the running to challenge the University of California for the helm of Los Alamos National Laboratory, resurrecting a competition that was flagging for lack of an experienced challenger. Lockheed Martin runs part or all of two nuclear weapons labs, Sandia in New Mexico and California and Aldermaston Weapons Establishment in the UK, plus has a hand in operating an Energy Department reactor research facility and the Nevada Test Site. After dropping out of the Los Alamos competition nine months ago, the firm was drawn back by offers of a much higher fee and the proposed separation of Los Alamos from the UC Retirement Plan. Read the rest of the article in tomorrow's paper ***************************************************************** 68 lamonitor.com: New Mexico makes history The Online News Source for Los Alamos [http://www.lac-nm.us] CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com [lanews@lamonitor.com] , Monitor Staff Writer New Mexico made history recently when Benny Shendo Jr. became the nation's first state level Secretary of Indian Affairs. Gov. Bill Richardson fulfilled his campaign promise to elevate Indian affairs in state government by creating the cabinet level department. New Mexico is now the only state in the nation with such a department. On March 10, state senators confirmed Shendo to the groundbreaking position by a vote of 31-0. "Secretary Shendo is uniquely qualified to lead the Indian Affairs Department," Richardson said. "He has an intimate knowledge of New Mexico's 22 tribes and a true commitment to bettering the lives of the Native American citizens of our state. His background in higher education, tribal leadership and business management, and his vision for the Indian Affairs Department signals a new chapter for state-tribal relations." Shendo is from the Pueblo of Jemez just southwest of Los Alamos, which has some 3,500 tribal members. Becoming Secretary of Indian Affairs was the farthest thing from his mind, he said. "I was working at UNM and answered my telephone at 4 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2004, and a lady from the governor's office asked what my interest might be," Shendo said during an interview at the Jemez Pueblo tribal offices Wednesday. "I told her I'd call her back tomorrow. It totally came as a surprise to me - having spent the last 17 years in higher education, I wasn't thinking of something like this." Shendo spoke with UNM Provost Bryant Foster who he said was very supportive. "He told me, 'You don't get a call like that from the governor every day,' and thought I would do a good job," Shendo recalled. "He said my leaving would certainly be a loss to the university but thought I would be a good fit and should throw my hat in the ring." Richardson initially signed a bill April 9, 2003, to begin the process of creating the new department and last May officially elevated it to cabinet-level status and appointed Shendo as Secretary-designate. At the same time, Richardson's bill began the same process for three other departments including the Veterans Service Department, the Aging and Long-Term Care Department and the Cultural Affairs Department. Richardson said during a news conference at the time that the constituencies represented by the four departments had been overlooked for too long. "In the past, thousands of New Mexicans have been left behind - kept away from the table - but those days are gone," he said. The bill authorized Richardson to elevate the four entities by executive order with this year's legislation making the reorganization permanent. "Our governor understands the Native American culture, the languages and the lands that are so important to us," Shendo said. "He worked with the tribes for 16 years as a congressman; he knows what's important and understands that this office needs to be at this level." Shendo said there are certain things as an organization that he wants to set in place to leave for his successor. He wants to make sure the department "acts and behaves" as a cabinet position. He also wants to strengthen the department's policy area because he said sometimes state policies aren't beneficial to the tribes. He also wants to focus on capital outlay money his office is responsible for to ensure it gets to the tribes to fund appropriate projects. Shendo said there is a very delicate balance to maintain in working with the state and the tribes. He said there is always a lot of suspicion as to what the state is up to. He plans to create a leadership development institute sometime in the future to enhance the interaction and understanding between the tribes and the state, he said. "On the one hand there are the tribes that have sovereignty of which the state really has no jurisdiction - so the relationship is always contentious and really has to be built on trust," he said. "I have seen this governor genuinely care about the tribes of this state not just through words but through his actions. "For me and my successors, it's always going to be a difficult position to be in because on the one hand I work for the state, yet on the other hand I live in the Pueblo and am a part of the tribe, so I have to find what's best for both entities." There is a lot of excitement surrounding Shendo these days. "My being in this position is just as exciting for the tribal leadership, spiritual leaders and members of the community as it is for me," Shendo said. "I was born and grew up in the Jemez Pueblo and some of the older residents say, 'You give Jemez a good name - you bring recognition to our village.'" Shendo, 40, was senior manager of Native American Programs for the University of New Mexico and the Assistant Dean of Students and director of the American Indian and Alaskan Native program at Stanford University. He is the father of two children. Eileen, 22, like her father is an advocate of Native American issues. She is very active in social justice issues on her college campus at the University of Colorado at Boulder, her father's alma mater. Shendo's son Benjamin, 16, is an avid golfer who plays on the Rio Rancho High School golf team. Shendo holds a BS in organizational management from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1998 and 2002, he served as the second and then first lieutenant governor, respectively, for Jemez Pueblo. Shendo is a Fellow of the W. K. Kellogg National Leadership Program, Group XVI, and in 1997-2000 he co-founded the San Diego Riverside School, Inc. (K-8) at Jemez Pueblo, which became the first charter school on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. The Pueblo also now has a charter high school. In September, Shendo received the prestigious Mary G. Ross award from Council of Energy Resources Tribes (CERT) for his professional achievements. "I always told my kids and my students that whatever we accomplish, we never do on our own," he said. "That's why we have prayer and songs and ceremony, where we gather strength. And in that sense to this community as a tribal member - I've gained more than I can ever give back." © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************