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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: The State: Given the alternatives, we nukes (NYT KRYSTOF OP)
2 Bellona:US release of Bellona's latest report The Russian Nuclear In
3 US: Daily Campus - Commentary: America's nuclear secrets - 
4 Times of India: Nuke whistleblower Vanunu trial begins
5 Platts: UK Labour party manifesto calls for energy mix including nuc
6 CNW Group: Martin, Lord Make Backroom Nuke Deal 
7 Hi Pakistan: China defends N-cooperation with Pakistan     --> 
8 Guardian Unlimited: Vanunu Wants Release Restrictions Removed
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
9 US: Tonight's TMI meeting
10 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Byron Nuclea
11 US: Brattleboro Reformer - Editorials: The 'R' in NRC
12 US: Fuel Cell Today: Entergy Sees Nuclear as a Low-Cost Source of Hy
13 US: NRC: NRC Schedules Meetings to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessme
14 Bellona: Former head of Russian Nuclear Regulatory charged with gran
15 Platts: Bodman says two U.S. research reactors are converting to LEU
16 US: Advocate: Feds tell Millstone and N.Y. officials to cooperate on
17 US: York Daily Record: ENERGY: NRC workshop April 20-21 - 
18 US: PRN: PPL Susquehanna Restarts Unit 2 Reactor After Repairing
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
19 General Assembly Adopts Treaty On Nuclear Terrorism; Annan Hails It 
20 [southnews] Sharon told Bush Iran reaching 'point of no return'
21 Guardian Unlimited: Sharon Rules Out Attacking Iran Over Nukes
22 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Says Diplomacy With Iran Is Best
23 BBC: Economy root to N Korea crisis
24 Xinhua: Rumsfeld to hold talks with senior Pakistani officials   
25 Xinhua: Iran denies reported uranium smuggling   
26 US: Roanoke Times: Nuclear nightmare in the making?
27 AFP: Fatwa restrains Iran more on nuclear weapons than treaty - nego
28 Korea Times: NK Nukes Could Be Taken to UNSC - US Scholar 
29 ITAR-TASS: Russia ready to closely cooperate with N Korea 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
30 US: Deseret News: Museum excludes downwinders 
31 US: Columbia Daily Tribune: Officials to hurry payments 
32 US: Tri-City Herald: Downwinder lawsuits reduced 
33 US: Idaho Statesman: Crapo presses for compensation for downwinders
34 US: Hawk Eye: Panel to meet about worker funds 
35 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: Help on the way for more nuke workers - 
36 US: Deseret news: A fallout over eligibility 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
37 US: [CMEP] Groups Affirm Opposition to Private Nuke Dump
38 Author of Suspect Yucca Mountain E-Mails got $4,900 for New
39 US: [NukeNet] gao report on spent fuel
40 US: DailyBulletin.com: Local wells may see $50M for cleanup
41 US: L.A. Daily News: Perchlorate found in well near Riverpark
42 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Lawmakers weigh spent fuel storage
43 US: San Bernardino County Sun: Radium cleanup to cost county almost 
44 US: Whittier Daily News: Inland perchlorate cleanup OK'd
45 US: Nevada Appeal - Opinion: A smart Plan B for nuclear waste dispos
46 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN E-MAILS: No scientists, no hearing 
47 Bellona: European Parliament slams Commission on hazardous substance
48 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet April 18-19
49 Las Vegas SUN: Porter postpones Yucca hearing
50 US: Las Vegas SUN: Feds to study risks of shipping waste to Utah
51 Inyo Register: DOE's current woes 'just tip of the iceberg'
52 US: Washington Times: Energy backs uranium removal
53 Salt Lake Tribune: Yucca e-mail author got new assignment 
54 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Feds will weigh risks of Goshute waste site
55 US: Deseret news: Huntsman takes N-storage opposition to Cheney 
56 US: Deseret news.com: Tooele trims waste zone 
57 US: monticello times: Waste storage meeting draws light attendance
58 US: lamonitor.com: Lab's WIPP loads resume 
59 US: SouthofBoston.com: Opinion: Waste not wanted
60 US: OA Online News: Waste request causes sparks
61 KLAS: Congressional Hearing on Yucca Mountain Canceled
62 US: Guardian Unlimited: Fuel Made From Plutonium Arrives in S.C.
 
                           PEACE
 
63 General Assembly Adopts Treaty Against Nuclear Terrorism
64 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Set to Approve Global Nuclear Treaty
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
65 Tri-City Herald: Bechtel to announce layoffs 
66 The Daily Californian: Lab Competition Stiffens for UC - 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 The State: Given the alternatives, we nukes (NYT KRYSTOF OP)
 
 
 04/13/2

If there was one thing that used to be crystal clear to any
environmentalist, it was that nuclear energy was the deadliest
threat this planet faced. Thats why Dick Gregory pledged at a
huge anti-nuke demonstration in 1979 that he would eat no solid
food until all nuclear plants in the U.S. were shut down. 

Gregory may be getting hungry. 

But its time for the rest of us to drop that hostility to
nuclear power. Its increasingly clear that the biggest
environmental threat we face is actually global warming, and
that leads to a corollary: Nuclear energy is green. 

Nuclear power, in contrast with other sources, produces no
greenhouse gases. So President Bushs overall environmental
policy gives me the shivers, but hes right to push ahead for
nuclear energy. There havent been any successful orders for new
nuclear plants since 1973, but several proposals for new plants
are now moving ahead  and thats good for the world we live in. 

Global energy demand will rise 60 percent over the next 25
years, according to the International Energy Agency, and nuclear
power is the cleanest and best bet to fill that gap. 

Solar power is a disappointment, still accounting for only about
one-fifth of 1 percent of the nations electricity and costing
about five times as much as other sources. Wind is promising,
for its costs have fallen 80 percent, but it suffers from one
big problem: Wind doesnt blow all the time. Its difficult to
rely upon a source that comes and goes. 

In contrast, nuclear energy already makes up 20 percent of
Americas power, not to mention 75 percent of Frances. 

A sensible energy plan must encourage conservation  far more
than Bushs plans do  and promote things like hybrid vehicles
and hydrogen fuel cells. But for now, nuclear power is the only
source that doesnt contribute to global warming and that can
quickly become a mainstay of the grid. 

Is it safe? No, not entirely. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl
demonstrated that, and there are also risks from terrorist
attacks. 

Then again, the world now has a half-century of experience with
nuclear power plants, 440 of them around the world, and they
have proved safer so far than the alternatives. Americas
biggest power source is now coal, which kills about 25,000
people a year through soot in the air. 

To put it another way, nuclear energy seems much safer than our
dependency on coal, which kills more than 60 people every day. 

Moreover, nuclear technology has become far safer over the
years. The future may belong to pebble-bed reactors, a new
design that promises to be both highly efficient and incapable
of a meltdown. 

Radioactive wastes are a challenge. But burdening future
generations with nuclear wastes in deep shafts is probably more
reasonable than burdening them with a warmer world in which
Manhattan is submerged under 20 feet of water. 

Right now, the only significant source of electricity in the
United States that does not involve carbon emissions is
hydropower. But salmon runs have declined so much that we should
be ripping out dams, not adding more. 

What killed nuclear power in the past was cold economics. Major
studies at MIT and elsewhere show that nuclear power is still a
bit more expensive than new coal or natural gas plants, but in
the same ballpark if fossil fuel prices rise. And if a
$200-per-ton tax was imposed on carbon emissions, nuclear energy
would become cheaper than coal from new plants. 

So its time to welcome nuclear energy as green (though not to
subsidize it with direct handouts, as the nuclear industry would
like). Indeed, some environmentalists are already climbing
onboard. For example, the National Commission on Energy Policy,
a privately financed effort involving environmentalists,
academics and industry representatives, issued a report in
December that favors new nuclear plants. 

One of the most eloquent advocates of nuclear energy is James
Lovelock, the British scientist who created the Gaia hypothesis,
which holds that Earth is, in effect, a self-regulating
organism. 

I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop
their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy, Lovelock wrote
last year, adding: Every year that we continue burning carbon
makes it worse for our descendents. Only one immediately
available source does not cause global warming, and that is
nuclear energy. 

Write to Mr. Kristof at nicholas@nytimes.com.   


TheStateOnline
*****************************************************************
 2 Bellona:US release of Bellona's latest report The Russian Nuclear Industry
the Need for Reform

2005-04-13 11:13

  Preliminary agenda for US release of Bellona's latest report
     "The Russian Nuclear Industry: the Need for Reform"
                                
Jointly hosted by The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
     and the Center for Strategic and International Studies 
                                
                          June 3, 2005 
                                
  Venue: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K
                            St., NW, 
                      Washington, DC, 20006
                           202.887.0200
                                 
PROGRAM: 

09:00-9:30  Registration of guests and press, name tags,
distribution of information packets, coffee, light pastries at
CSIS. 

09:30-9:40  Welcome by CSIS	 

09:40-10:00  Introductory remarks and endorsement by Mark
Helmke, Senior Professional Staff, The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee 

10:00-11:30  Presentation of the report by its authors, to
include Alexander Nikitin, Igor Kudrik, Nils Boehmer, Charles
Digges. 

11:30-11:45  Coffee Break. 	
 	 
11:45-12:00  Introductory comments to panel discussion by Rose
Gottemoeller, Senior Associate, The Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. 

12:00-12:45  Panel discussion, comprised of Rose Gottemoeller,
Alexander Nikitin (Bellona St. Petersburg), Mark Helmke, Mary
Beth Nikitin (CSIS), Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, (USEC Executive Vice
President and Chief Operating Officer), Julia Chirstiansen,
(Member of Norwegian Parliament), moderated by Paul Walker
(Global Green). 
	
 Panel discussion will be followed by a Q session for the
invited audience and the media.
 Close. 
                                
                For further information contact: 
Charles Digges at Bellona charles@bellona.no, (in Norway +47 920
                             37 295)
   Mary Beth Niktin at CSIS Mnikitin@csis.org(+1.202.887.0200)
    Toula Papanicolas at CEIP Toula@ceip.org (+1.202.939.2292)
                                 
  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 3 Daily Campus - Commentary: America's nuclear secrets - 

        By Colin Megill         
Published: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

Massive government denial makes it difficult to discern the 
details of Gulf War Syndrome, but what we do know is thousands 
upon thousands upon thousands of Gulf War I veterans have been 
permanently debilitated and we have no idea to what extent the 
sickness will repeat itself this war. 

The numbers are truly staggering. The United States lost 147
troops in combat during Gulf War I, of the 592,561 discharged
veterans. Now, a decade later, the death toll is 11,000 and
hundreds of thousands of veterans are on permanent disability. 

And Gulf War Sickness doesn't even stop with our troops. Strange
illnesses from cancer to birth defects have been affecting the
citizens of Kuwait and Iraq. Afghanis are suffering sicknesses
with all the characteristics of radiation poisoning. The
sickness affected troops from all NATO nations who supported the
United States in military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, as
well as our troops and the citizens there. 

What is the link? Why do these seemingly unrelated American wars
all connect on a single point, a mysterious illness? The answer:
because we have used nuclear weapons against Iraq in 1991 and
Bosnia during the Kosovo conflict and continue to use them
extensively in the War on Terror. 

Depleted uranium (DU) is used in U.S. bombs, tank munitions and
aircraft armaments. It is an incredibly effective weapon in its
capacity to penetrate armor of virtually any thickness.
Specifically, it is the byproduct of nuclear enrichment process
and "experts say the Department of Energy has 100 million tons
of DU and using it in weapons saves the government money on the
cost of its disposal. Rather than disposing of the radioactive
waste, it is shaped into penetrator rods used in the billions of
rounds being fired in Iraq and Afghanistan." 

The U.S. government as well as the British government has
systematically denied any and all negative effects of DU
weapons. However, evidence and rationality is to the contrary. 

Leuren Moret, an ex-researcher at the Livermore nuclear weapons
lab, is currently an activist lobbying for the United States to
stop using DU weapons. In a speech, she describes the science
and health behind the weapons: 

"Uranium metal burns ... when it heats to 170° C. So, as soon as
they shoot them, and the surface of the weapon heats up to 170°
C, it starts burning. And you can see them. They look like
tracers going through the air on the battlefield. They are
creating billions and billions and billions of superfine
particles. These did not settle out by gravity. Gravitational
forces do not pull them out of the air. They stay suspended.
They act like a radioactive gas. And we know - I work with eight
independent scientists - we've measured depleted uranium, which
after it burns, is very very insoluble. It forms oxides that
will almost not dissolve. And because they will not dissolve,
they will not dissolve in body fluids. And so, the body cannot
excrete them through the kidneys in the urine. These particles
are like fairy dust. They go everywhere that a red blood cell or
a white blood cell will go. And they stay in the body - millions
and billions of them. These alpha particles tear through the
cell. They tear through the membrane, which damages the immune
system. They tear through the mitochondria, which is your energy
system. They tear through the DNA, causing mutations." 

The human consequence of employing DU munitions is catastrophic.
Though there are multiple sources confirming our recent wars
have radiated the civilian populations of Afghanistan and Iraq,
Moret again eloquently summarizes: 

"Drab-stricken Afghanistan's underground water supply is now
contaminated by these nuclear weapons. Experts with the Uranium
Medical Research Center reports that urine samples of Afghanis
show the highest level of uranium ever recorded in a civilian
population. Afghani soldiers and civilians are reported to have
died after suffering intractable vomiting, severe respiratory
problems, internal bleeding, and other symptoms consistent with
radiation poisoned." 

The irony is palpable. We invaded a country on the premise it
might have weapons of mass destruction and in all stages of the
war, used weapons of mass destruction. Make no mistake that we
have waged nuclear war. Use of DU weapons are against all
international laws and treaties. 

The Uranium Medical Research Center and the Radiological Society
of North America have both done testing of citizens in Iraq and
Afghanistan to determine exactly how much radiation they have
absorbed. In a report published by the RSNA, they concluded,
"Our results demonstrate the presence of depleted uranium in the
civilians of Baghdad and Basra after Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The cause of the urinary presence of depleted uranium may be
consistent with our previously reported findings of DU
contamination of the Allied Forces veterans in Gulf War I, by
inhalation of DU containing aerosols." 

It's there, it's everywhere and it's hurting a ton of innocent
people and the government knows. As a matter of fact, they've
known uranium in aerosol form was harmful since the Manhattan
Project when they were considering using uranium ground to a
size smaller than bacteria to radiate large areas of Germany.
Check out the declassified government document now on the
Internet.

Here's why this is relevant now and to America since, if you
follow the Warrior's logic, it doesn't matter if we radiate
close to the entirety of two countries as long as they contain
brown people. 

Many of the veterans who returned home from Gulf War I now have
permanent disabilities. The government denied there was anything
wrong with them even after Gulf War Syndrome became a household
term. The veterans, those still alive, continue to suffer from a
host of symptoms too plentiful to list here. 

We have used five times as much Depleted Uranium munitions in
Operation Iraqi Freedom. The next homecoming may be worse, if
not a complete catastrophe. Though, given the corporate media
sitting squarely in the pocket of government, they will probably
suffer in silence. If CNN and company didn't have the clout to
publish the fact the Iraq war has rendered over 10,000 American
amputees, I doubt the corporations will inform the populace
about our current nuclear war.

Tests by independent scientists of soldiers who have come back
from the current war in Iraq have shown some of them to be
heavily irradiated with DU. 

America will feel the consequences of its current nuclear war.
It is harming its own soldiers and the innocent citizens of
countries it invaded and has a responsibility to protect. The
past three administrations have been horrifically irresponsible.
They have broken international laws and treaties, they have
broken foreign societies which will now pass down mutated genes
(the pictures of children in Iraq born mutated because of their
parent's exposure to DU are, in a word, sickening) and they have
broken their own soldiers. 

The government will continue to do this until we demand it
stopped. Angry veterans aren't enough to right the wrongs of
war; the way they were treated after Gulf War I demonstrated
that. Only an informed populace can change this.
 
Copyright 2004 The Daily Campus and College Publisher         
*****************************************************************
 4 Times of India: Nuke whistleblower Vanunu trial begins

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2005
    
AP[ THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2005 08:13:27 AM 		]

  JERUSALEM: Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu on Wednesday
said he is determined to persuade an Israeli court to remove the
restrictions placed on him when he was released from prison in
April 2004. 

Vanunu went on trial Tuesday for allegedly violating the terms
of his release. At the hearing, prosecutors accused Vanunu - who
served an 18-year sentence for revealing secrets of Israel's
atomic programme to London's Sunday Times newspaper - of giving
interviews to foreign media, despite a ban on contacts with
foreigners. 

The former technician at Israel's nuclear plant in the Negev
Desert town of Dimona also is not allowed to leave Israel.
Vanunu, a convert to Christianity, has repeatedly said he wants
to move to the US. Prosecutors asked the court to extend the
restrictions for another six months, Vanunu said. The court is
scheduled to reconvene on May 19. 

"It's a shameful day for Israel's democracy, that a man who
served a full sentence, is brought to court for exercising his
freedom of speech," Vanunu said. 
  
  
  Copyright © 2005 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 5 Platts: UK Labour party manifesto calls for energy mix including nuclear
 
+ The UK Labour party Wednesday published its manifesto ahead of
the May 5 general election, and pledged to work towards a
balanced energy mix including nuclear power. "We have a major
program to promote renewable energy," the manifesto says, "as
part of a strategy of having a mix of energy sources from
nuclear power stations to clean coal to micro-generators." 

The manifesto did not go into greater detail, although it says 
also that the UK is a "leading force" in opening up European 
energy markets and that climate change and security of supply are 
at the heart of energy policy. The manifesto does not seem a 
great shift from the policies already put in place by Labour 
party, which has been in power since 1997. 

The manifesto also includes a pledge to work to include aviation 
in the European Union's emissions trading scheme, another point 
Labour has spoken about previously. And the scope for incentives 
for lower emission vehicles will be examined. New communities, 
such as Thames Gateway housing, will be encouraged to be energy 
efficient.

Labour's 1997 manifesto seemed anti-nuclear, but its 2001 
manifesto was more positive. This story was originally published 
in Platts European Power Alert

http://www.europeanpoweralert.platts.com 

London (Platts)--13Apr2005
 
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   
*****************************************************************
 6 CNW Group: Martin, Lord Make Backroom Nuke Deal 

Invest in Green Power not Nuclear Power, Greenpeace tells PM... 

Canada NewsWire Group 

April 14, 2005 

QUICK 

Attention News Editors: 

OTTAWA, April 13 /CNW Telbec/ - While Environment Minister 
Stéphane Dion releases the federal government's long-awaited 
Kyoto plan today, Prime Minister Paul Martin will be brokering a 
backroom deal with Premier Bernard Lord for up to $600 million in 
federal subsidies to rebuild New Brunswick's Point Lepreau 
nuclear station. 

"Paul Martin will make a mockery of Liberal environmental 
credentials if he bails out New Brunswick's nuclear reactor. 
Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, expensive, and is no solution 
to climate change" said David Martin, Energy Coordinator for 
Greenpeace Canada. 

Premier Lord has threatened to undermine the federal government's 
implementation of Kyoto by building a coal-fired generation 
station if the federal government fails to provide $400 - 600 
million in subsidies to rebuild Point Lepreau in 2008. The total 
cost for rebuilding Point Lepreau is estimated to be $1.4 
billion. 

"Prime Minister Martin must not give in to Premier Lord's 
environmental extortion. A nuclear subsidy for New Brunswick 
would set a precedent to siphon billions of dollars away from 
cleaner and safer energy options," said Martin. 

Natural Resources Canada has admitted that any federal deal to 
subsidize Point Lepreau could obligate the federal government to 
also fund the rehabilitation of nuclear reactors in Quebec and 
Ontario. Hydro-Quebec has been waiting for New Brunswick's 
decision on the future of Point Lepreau before deciding the fate 
of its only reactor Gentilly-2. All of Ontario's reactors must be 
rebuilt or closed over the next 15 years. 

"Jean Chrétien was notorious for his backroom support of the 
nuclear industry. Paul Martin should break with the dirty energy 
politics of the past," said Martin. 

Despite its claim to support green energy, the federal government 
has provided $823 million in nuclear subsidies to Atomic Energy 
of Canada Limited (AECL) over the past five years. By comparison, 
the federal government has committed to spending only $297 
million on wind energy over the next five years as part of its 
Kyoto plan announced today. 

A decision on the future of Point Lepreau is expected for April 
15th when the reactor is scheduled to shut down for maintenance. 

For further information: David Martin, Greenpeace Energy 
Coordinator, 416-597-8408 X 3050, (cell) 416-627-5004; Andrew 
Male, Greenpeace Communications Coordinator, 416-597-8408 X 3050, 
(cell) 416-627-5004; Visit http://www.greenpeace.ca for the 
following documents: - Point Lepreau Background; - Environmental 
Group Letter to Paul Martin (November 18, 2004); - John Efford's 
response; - Greenpeace Letter to Paul Martin (March 21, 2005) 

© 2005 CNW Group Ltd. PRIVACY &TERMS 
*****************************************************************
 7 Hi Pakistan: China defends N-cooperation with Pakistan     --> 
 
April 13 2005     
 
NEW DELHI: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said on
Tuesday Beijing’s nuclear cooperation with Pakistan was fully
compliant with international anti-proliferation norms and
dedicated to peaceful purposes.

Wen, winding up a four-day India visit, told reporters in New
Delhi that China’s nuclear ties with Islamabad are subject to
"the supervision and the safeguards" prescribed by the
International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The nuclear cooperation between China and Pakistan is
completely for the peaceful utilisation of nuclear energy," Wen
told reporters, when asked if nuclear cooperation between China
and Pakistan would hamper relations between New Delhi and
Beijing reaching their full potential.

"And I think China-Pakistan nuclear cooperation, the project of
the Chashma nuclear power plant is a very good example," he
added. "The China-Pakistan nuclear cooperation is in complete
compliance with the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty)."

Wen described his four-day India visit as "historic" and as
having produced "rich results". "We have produced very rich
results through this (India) visit. It is fair to say that this
is a historic visit," Wen said, adding that when he met host
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, Singh had told
him: "Prime minister, actually we two are making new history."

Wen hailed the agreement with India to resolve the decades-old
border dispute as the "very first political guiding document
signed since the resumption of negotiations" in the 1980s to
sort out the dispute. "This is a sign that we have brought our
boundary negotiations to a new stage," he added.

Beijing had taken a number of steps to maintain stability and
tranquillity along its borders with India, he said. "As long as
we have sincerity and patience and as long as we persevere in
this effort, we will be able to build the India-China boundary
into a bond of peace and friendship," Wen said.

The Chinese premier also hailed a joint statement he and Singh
had signed in which the Asian giants agreed to establish an
India-China strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and
prosperity. "...We have taken the relations to a new level," Wen
said, listing the adoption of a programme to boost two-way trade
from $13.6 billion to $20 billion by 2008 and to $30 billion by
2010 as the third "major result" of his trip.

He said the status of Sikkim was "no longer an issue" between
the two countries. China on Monday formally buried its dispute
on New Delhi’s claims over the former British protectorate of
Sikkim after India reiterated Beijing’s sovereign right over
Tibet. Wen said China was working towards setting up a market
for border trade adjacent to Sikkim. "We hope the two sides will
make earnest efforts ... to further develop border trade
cooperation. This would certainly serve the interests of the
people living on the borders," he said.

Wen remained non-committal on supporting India for a permanent
seat in the United Nations Security Council. "China reiterates
that we attach greater importance to the important role of India
in international affairs. India is a very populous country and
is also a very important developing country. We fully understand
and support the Indian aspirations to play an even bigger role
in international affairs, including in the UN," Wen said, while
responding to a question about India’s candidature for the
permanent membership of the UNSC.

Wen told reporters on Tuesday that both countries should build
on their strengths to prosper together. Working in tandem, the
two emerging Asian giants could form a formidable team, Wen told
reporters at the end of a four-day visit to India. He left India
on Tuesday afternoon to return to Beijing.

Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 8 Guardian Unlimited: Vanunu Wants Release Restrictions Removed
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Wednesday April 13, 2005 12:46 PM

AP Photo JRL114 

JERUSALEM (AP) - Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu said
Wednesday he is determined to persuade an Israeli court to
remove the restrictions placed on him when he was released from
prison a year ago. 

Vanunu went on trial Tuesday for allegedly violating the terms
of his release. At the hearing, prosecutors accused Vanunu - who
served an 18-year sentence for revealing secrets of Israel's
atomic program to London's Sunday Times newspaper - of giving
interviews to foreign media, despite a ban on contacts with
foreigners. 

The former technician at Israel's nuclear plant in the Negev
Desert town of Dimona also is not allowed to leave Israel.
Vanunu, a convert to Christianity, has repeatedly said he wants
to move to the United States. 

Prosecutors asked the court Tuesday to extend the restrictions
for another six months, Vanunu said. The court is scheduled to
reconvene May 19. 

``It's a shameful day for Israel's democracy, that a man who
served 18 years, a full sentence, is brought to court for
exercising his freedom of speech,'' Vanunu told The Associated
Press. 

``I have no more secrets. Only Israel has secrets about its
atomic program,'' he added. 

Vanunu was arrested in 1986 and convicted two years later for
divulging information and pictures of the Dimona reactor. The
details led experts to conclude that Israel has the world's
sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds
of warheads. 

Israel neither admits nor denies having a nuclear weapons'
program, following a policy of nuclear ambiguity. 

Israeli security officials have said Vanunu could still have
classified information that he didn't release. Based on this
assessment, prosecutors have asked for the restrictions to be
extended. 

``There is no justification,'' Vanunu said. ``They should
respect my rights, my freedom of speech and my freedom of
movement to leave the country.'' 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 9 Tonight's TMI meeting
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 19:07:40 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
TMI's record falls under public scrutiny
AmerGen, NBC to solicit input Wednesday on nuclear plant's '04 operations
By Rebecca J. Ritzel
Intelligencer Journal

Published: Apr 11, 2005 9:28 AM EST
Subscribe to


LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Residents concerned about living in the shadow of
Three Mile Island will get a chance to ask questions this week of the
plant's operator and the federal agency that oversees TMI.

  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host the annual assessment meeting
for the Dauphin County plant at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Middletown Borough Hall.

At the meeting, NRC officials will recap TMI's performance in 2004. After
federal regulators quiz officials from plant operator AmerGen, they will
open the floor to inquiries from the public.

"We'll try to be prepared to answer whatever questions people may have," NRC
spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

The regulators' presentation includes reviewing the plant's safety record.
The plant last year had 12 "green" violations - the lowest level on the
NRC's four-color scale and considered to be of "very low safety
significance."

A
The nation's 103 commercial reactors accrued 778 green violations last year,
or an average of 7.5 per reactor.

Sheehan said TMI's above-average number could be a topic of discussion,
including the failure by two teams of operators to pass a training test last
winter.

"It's an issue we have taken very seriously, and we have every indication
that AmerGen has moved aggressively in response to the problem," Sheehan
said. "All of the operators who failed the test received remedial training
and subsequently passed the exam."

In addition to facing extra scrutiny from the NRC, TMI has been placed on
training probation by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.

The institute is an independent training and inspection body founded by
utility companies in the wake of the partial meltdown of TMI's Unit 2
reactor in 1979. If the plant does not improve its training practices, it
could lose accreditation with the institute.

INPO spokesman Terry Young declined to comment specifically on TMI's
probation, saying the institute's reports are confidential.

Activist Eric Epstein, coordinator of EFMR Monitoring Group, said the
probation should not be taken lightly. While he opposes INPO's secretive
system, he respects the institute's inspectors.

"They tend to be very critical and very hard-hitting," Epstein said. "This
is a pretty stern wake-up call."

Residents at Wednesday's meeting also are likely to ask questions about a
National Academy of Sciences report, declassified last week, that casts
doubts on the safety of nuclear waste storage, Epstein said.

The annual assessment marks the public's once-a-year opportunity to question
AmerGen and NRC officials.

"It's a very healthy exercise in democracy," Epstein said.

"Be prepared for a contrived and choreographed presentation by the NRC and
AmerGen, but the public-participation portion never disappoints."


  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 10 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Byron Nuclear Power Plant
 
News Release - Region III - 2005-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY 
COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region III No. III-05-014           
April 13, 2005 CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 Viktoria 
Mitlyng (630) 829-9662     E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov  
  


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Exelon Generation Company on Tuesday, April
19, to discuss the agencys assessment of safety performance for
last year at the Byron Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is located
at Byron, Ill. 

The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation,
is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at Byron Forest Preserve, 7993
North River Road, Byron. 

Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from the public on the safety performance of
the Byron plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring safe
plant operation. 

The NRC continually reviews the performance of the Byron plant
and the nations other commercial nuclear power facilities, NRC
Region III Administrator James Caldwell 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 III 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/byro_2004q4.pdf
[PDF Icon] . 

The NRCs assessment concluded that the Byron plant operated
safely during the period. The NRC uses color-coded inspection
findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear plant
performance. The colors start with green and then increase to
white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance
of the issues involved. 

All of the inspection findings and performance indicators for
Byron during 2004 were determined to be green. As a result of
this performance, the NRC will conduct the normal, baseline
level of inspections during the upcoming year. 

Routine inspections are performed by two NRC Resident Inspectors
assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the
Region III Office in Lisle, Ill., and the agencys headquarters
in Rockville, Md. Among the areas of plant operations to be
inspected this year by NRC specialists are reactor vessel head
and vessel head penetration nozzles, pressurizer penetration
nozzles and steam space piping connections, problem
identification and resolution, and modifications. 

Current performance information for Byron is available on the
NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BYRO1/byro1_chart.html
and
 http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BYRO2/byro2_chart.html.
  



  


 	Last revised Wednesday, April 13, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 11 Brattleboro Reformer - Editorials: The 'R' in NRC
 
April 13, 2005 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
                                   
"I would respectfully remind the NRC that the 'R' stands for
'regulatory.'"

 That was the reaction of Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., to a
report by the Government Accountability Office, the
investigative branch of the U.S. Congress, that calls on the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to tighten its oversight of spent
fuel at the nation's 103 nuclear power plants.

 But we know that the "R" doesn't stand for regulatory.

 It stands for "rubber stamp."

 As we've seen from recent incidents of missing spent nuclear
fuel, including the misplaced fuel rods at Vermont Yankee last
year, there is little oversight of the tons of hazardous, highly
radioactive material that is piling up at nuclear plants around
the country.

 There is justified fear that spent nuclear fuel could fall into
the hands of terrorists, or that the spent fuel pools and dry
cask storage areas may present an inviting target for attackers.
Security at nuclear plants is not nearly as good as it could be. 

As the Vermont Legislature and the state Public Service Board
consider giving approval to Vermont Yankee for on-site dry cask
storage of spent fuel, it needs to weigh the GAO's concerns that
security and accountability is sorely lacking at the nation's
nuclear plants and that the NRC is not doing enough to insure
security and accountability.

 Vermont Yankee has yet to be penalized by the NRC for last
year's missing rods. In its last safety review, the plant came
through with a passing grade despite a fire at the plant, cracks
in critical parts of the reactor and the most recent reports of
elevated radiation levels on the plant's perimeter.

 We doubt the NRC will get tough with Vermont Yankee, just as we
doubt the NRC will deny the plant's request for a 20 percent
power increase. That's because the "R" in NRC still stands for
"rubber stamp," until they show us that they really care about
the public safety and not just the concerns of nuclear plant
owners. 		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	
Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., 
*****************************************************************
 12 Fuel Cell Today: Entergy Sees Nuclear as a Low-Cost Source of Hydrogen 

Author: Jeter, Lynne                            

Provider: The Mississippi Business Journal                                              

Originally Published:20050314. 

	Even though Entergy Nuclear CEO Gary Taylor said there were no
immediate plans to build a new nuclear unit at the Grand Gulf
Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, the company filed an application
with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for an early
site permit (ESP) in October 2003 in connection with the U.S.
Department of Energy's (DOE) Nuclear Power 2010 initiative. 

	"We continually evaluate power generation options," said
Taylor. "This is one that could benefit our electric consumers,
the environment, and our country's energy independence." 

	Dan Keuter, vice president of nuclear business development for
Jackson-based Entergy Nuclear, the nation's second-largest
operator of nuclear power plants, said the company has been at
the very forefront of the effort to develop new nuclear options
for the future. 

	"We bought the first nuclear plant (Pilgrim) in July 1999, and
we've been in the forefront of early site permitting at Grand
Gulf, and we've been in the forefront of setting up NuStart and
developing the COL process," he said. 

	NuStart, a consortium of 11 energy industry leaders, was formed
to work with the DOE to demonstrate and test a new licensing
process for obtaining a combined construction and operating
license (COL) for advanced nuclear power reactors. The
consortium will announce later this year two sites for the COL
application. 

	If NuStart selects the Grand Gulf site, Entergy Nuclear, a
major subsidiary of Entergy Corporation, would likely allow
another company to build on its property or strike a deal with
three or four companies to build at the site to spread the
financial risk. Either way, Entergy Nuclear would manage the
operation and own at least 51%, said Keuter. 

	Two months ago, The New York Times sent energy reporter Matt
Wald to Port Gibson to find out why the community located 25
miles south of Vicksburg endorsed the idea of building a new
nuclear reactor at Grand Gulf around the same time city and
county governments in New York were trying to close two Entergy
reactors at Indian Point in Westchester County. 

	"We're willing to do whatever it takes to ... make this
happen," Port Gibson Mayor Amelda J. Arnold told Wald. City
council members and Claiborne County supervisors had already
voted separately to encourage Entergy Corporation to build a
second reactor at the Port Gibson site. 

	Last year, Public Citizen, Mississippi Sierra Club, Nuclear
Information and Resource Service and the Claiborne County
chapter of the Mississippi NAACP filed a petition to intervene
against the ESP for a variety of reasons, but in August, the NRC
rejected those arguments, including an environmental justice
claim. The decision is being appealed. 

	"Nuclear power is non-polluting," said Keuter.
"Environmentalists' main issue is there's no solution to spent
fuel, which is false. A deep repository of spent fuel at Yucca
Mountain, near Las Vegas, is a totally safe solution.
Eventually, the fuel there will he taken out and reprocessed
because 95% can be recycled. Other major countries with nuclear
power, including France, Japan, Russia and the UK, all reprocess
fuel. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, most economical
solutions to produce large amounts of power with the least
environmental impact. Everything has an environmental impact,
including wind turbines." 

	Last month, Southern Nuclear, a subsidiary of Southern Company,
parent of Mississippi Power Company, announced plans to file an
ESP with the NRC. 

	"It should be noted that Southern Company is considering an
application for an ESP but hasn't determined what site would be
selected," said Southern Nuclear spokesperson Steve
Higginbottom. "All options are open, but it would likely be at
one of the three existing sites where we now operate. We're
probably about two or three years behind Entergy." 

	Even though the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), America's
largest public power company, has not publicly discussed
expanding its three nuclear plants, TVA chairman Glenn
McCullough expressed that "nuclear energy is an important part
of TVA's and the nation's energy mix, so it is important to
evaluate new nuclear reactor designs and the new licensing
process." 

	"TVA is pleased to partner with Entergy and other nuclear
utilities in the NuStart consortium, which received a 20 10
award from DOE to demonstrate the new COL process for nuclear
reactors and to complete work on two new advanced reactor
designs," he said. "TVA has no plans to build a nuclear reactor
at this time. However, by investigating the cost, design,
certification and licensing of an advanced nuclear power
reactor, we will keep the nuclear option open for the future." 

	Entergy is pursuing a two-track approach to keep the nuclear
option available, by helping build an advanced light water
reactor near-term and pursuing the development of a supersafe,
meltdown proof, terrorist-hardened, high-temperature gas reactor
that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and be a low-cost
source of hydrogen for a new energy economy in the long term,
said Keuter. 

	"We don't have a crystal ball to foresee the future, but there
are several things we know for sure," he said. "We know there's
increasing demand for electricity, not only in the U.S., but
worldwide, especially in China and India. Environmental
regulations are only going to get stricter. There's a finite
amount of oil and natural gas, which will only get more
expensive. With those things in mind, we believe nuclear power
is very promising." 		

                (C) 2005 The Mississippi Business Journal. via ProQuest
*****************************************************************
 13 NRC: NRC Schedules Meetings to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Point Beach
Plant, License Renewal Inspection Results

News Release - Region III - 2005-01
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region III
  No. III-05-015           April 13, 2005   
  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662     E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov  
  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Nuclear Management Company on Tuesday, April
19, to discuss the agencys assessment of safety performance for
the past year at the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant. The plant
is located near Two Rivers, Wis. 

A second meeting will discuss the results of NRC inspections
which are part of its review of the Point Beach plants
application for renewal of its operating license for an
additional 20 years. 

Both meetings will be held at the Two Creeks Town Hall, 5128
East Tapawingo Road (Corner of Highway 42 and Tapawingo Road),
Two Creeks, Wis. 

The meeting to discuss the results of the NRC license renewal
inspections will begin at 5 p.m., and the performance assessment
meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Both meetings are open
to public observation. Before each meeting is adjourned, NRC
staff will be available to answer questions from the public. 

While the Point Beach plant continues to operate safely, it has
been under heightened NRC scrutiny since 2003 as a result of
significant safety issues with a backup cooling system, said
James Caldwell, NRC Regional Adminstrator. This increased
regulatory attention will continue until the agency has
concluded that the Point Beach plant has demonstrated improved
performance in broad areas of plant activities. 

A letter sent from the NRC Region III 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/poin_2004q4.pdf
[PDF Icon] . 

Nuclear Management Company has developed a performance
improvement program, and the NRC continues to monitor its
progress. During 2004, the NRC observed continuing problems with
the plants corrective action program and with human performance,
although improvements in human performance were noted during the
second half of the year. 

The utility was asked to discuss its efforts in these two areas
during the April 19 meeting. 

As part of the NRCs increased scrutiny at Point Beach, NRC
inspectors will monitor the status and effectiveness of the
utilitys performance improvement activities in addition to its
normal inspection activities. 

Routine inspections at the plant are performed by two NRC
Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by inspection
specialists from the Region III Office in Lisle, Ill., and the
agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md. Among the areas of plant
operations to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are Unit
1 reactor vessel head replacement, maintenance effectiveness,
problem identification and resolution, radiological protection,
and emergency planning. 

Current performance information for Point Beach is available on
the NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/POIN1/poin1_chart.html
and
 http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/POIN2/poin2_chart.html.
  



  


 	Last revised Wednesday, April 13, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 14 Bellona: Former head of Russian Nuclear Regulatory charged with grand larceny 

Former director of the Russian Nuclear Regulatory Yury Vishnevsky 
is charged with grand larceny worth 46 million roubles ($1.6m), 
the court refused to dismiss the case. 

2005-04-13 20:07

According to the lawyer Boris Kuznetsov, Vishnevsky is charged
with stealing property of another by the group of persons, using
his official position, RIA-Novosti reported. 

Vishnevsky worked as the director of the Nuclear Regulatory, or
GAN, from November 1992 till June 2003. According to the
official version he was fired due to his age, however,
environmentalists believe it happened because of his negative
attitude towards import of the foreign spent nuclear fuel to
Russia. He was the only state official who openly criticised the
spent fuel import project. The Russian Nuclear Power Ministry,
or Minatom, tried to stop the activity of the GAN who was
responsible for nuclear sites inspection. 

On April 6, Tverskoy district court in Moscow refused to dismiss
the case against Vishnevsky who is currently under city arrest.
According to the charges, Vishnevsky did not transfer back to
the budget $1.6m from the GAN’s subcontractor after he had left
the GAN. On the other hand, lawyer Boris Kuznetsov said to the
Rossisyskaya Gazeta, that Vishnevsky has the receipts of the
transfer, which shows that all the money were sent back to the
GAN’s account with the reference ”for further transfer to the
state budget”, but the state budget never received it. 
  
  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 15 Platts: Bodman says two U.S. research reactors are converting to LEU
 
+ Two U.S. high-enriched uranium (HEU) fueled research reactors
are converting to low-enriched uranium (LEU), Energy Secretary
Samuel Bodman announced yesterday. Under DOE's schedule, the
reactors at the University of Florida and Texas A University are 
to complete their conversion from HEU to LEU by late 2006. The 
conversions will be a joint effort of DOE's National Nuclear 
Security Administration and Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, 
&Technology, Bodman said. 

For details, see the April 11 edition of NuclearFuel. 

  
Washington (Platts)--12Apr2005
 
  
  

Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved


 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   

*****************************************************************
 16 Advocate: Feds tell Millstone and N.Y. officials to cooperate on emergency plan
 	 	 	
Associated Press
 	 	
April 13, 2005

WATERFORD, Conn. --             Federal regulators have told 
representatives of the Millstone nuclear power complex and 
officials of Suffolk County, N.Y., to avoid a legal fight and 
cooperate on an emergency evacuation plan.

 The three-member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an
independent arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, held a
two-hour public hearing by telephone Tuesday to determine why
Suffolk County should be allowed to proceed with a legal case
during the Waterford nuclear plant's license renewal for updated
emergency planning.

 Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, owner of Millstone, is asking the
NRC to extend the nuclear reactor licenses for two of its three
units for another 20 years, to 2035 for Unit 2 and 2045 for Unit
3. Unit 1 has been permanently shut down. A decision on the
re-licensing may be made by July 2006.

 A 1991 evacuation plan by Millstone includes a 10-mile radius
around the power complex. Part of Suffolk County lies within
that zone, and county officials are trying to intervene in the
license renewal process.

 Matias Travieso-Diaz, a lawyer for Dominion, told the board
that it should reject the county's requests because the county
filed its petition to intervene six months late. He also said a
legal challenge would cause costly delays.

 Board members Michael C. Farrar, Alan S. Rosenthal and Peter S.
Lam gave opposing lawyers until May 6 to come to an agreement on
the issue.

 Jennifer B. Kohn, assistant county attorney, said the power
plant's 1991 evacuation plan is outdated. And Paul Sabatino, the
chief deputy county executive, told the board that the county
has 1.5 million residents to protect in the event of an
emergency.

 Kohn said Millstone's evacuation plan fails to account for
numerous strains on emergency preparedness that are unique to
the county's geography, its road system and how radiation might
travel over Long Island Sound.

 Board members said the county and Millstone should use
Tuesday's proceeding as a chance to develop a long-term
relationship that they need.

 Brooke Poole, the NRC's staff attorney, told the board that the
NRC is ready to cooperate with Suffolk officials to work out an
emergency evacuation plan for the county.

 The board said it would rule on whether to allow the county to
become part of the re-licensing proceedings if the two sides
cannot work out an agreement.

 ----------------

 Information: The Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com, and
The Day of New London, http://www.theday.com.


Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press   
*****************************************************************
 17 York Daily Record: ENERGY: NRC workshop April 20-21 - 
 		
[ydr.com]               [York Daily Record/Sunday News]          

NRC workshop April 20-21 Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct a workshop April 
20 and 21 at Shady Grove Center, 9630 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, 
Md.

        The public seminar will focus on the decommissioning of 
sites formerly used for commission-licensed activities and 
termination of related NRC licenses.

        The workshop will serve as a forum for stakeholders to 
provide feedback on lessons learned in decommissioning.

        The NRC regulates both Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station 
and Three Mile Island in Dauphin County.


Copyright © York Daily Record 2005 122 S. George St., P.O. Box 
15122 York, PA 17405, (717) 771-2000
 				
*****************************************************************
 18 PRN: PPL Susquehanna Restarts Unit 2 Reactor After Repairing
Battery Charger 

[PR Newswire - A United Business Media Company] 

"http://www.pplweb.com"> 

BERWICK, Pa., April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Operators safely 
restarted the Unit 2 reactor at the Susquehanna nuclear power 
plant early this afternoon (4/13) after completing electrical 
repairs to the unit's battery chargers. 

The battery chargers are part of the plant's electrical system 
and are located in a non-nuclear area of the plant. 

"We repaired the charger that was not working properly, and 
performed all necessary inspections and testing to confirm that 
the problem was fully resolved," said Bob Saccone, vice 
president-Nuclear Operations for PPL Susquehanna. 

"Also, because long-term safe operation of Susquehanna drives all 
our actions, before we resumed generating electricity, we 
thoroughly inspected the unit's other three chargers and made 
electrical adjustments intended to prevent a similar situation in 
the future," Saccone said. 

On Sunday, plant workers discovered one of the unit's four 
chargers was not working properly. Because crews could not repair 
the electrical problem and conduct a thorough investigation of 
the Unit 2 direct current electrical system within a specified 
time period, they manually shut down the unit as called for in 
plant procedures. 

Unit 2 came off line at 5:28 p.m. Sunday. Unit 1 continued to 
operate at 100 percent power throughout the repairs. 

The two-unit Susquehanna plant, located about seven miles north 
of Berwick, Pa., is owned jointly by PPL Susquehanna LLC and 
Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc. 

PPL Susquehanna is one of PPL Corporation's generating 
facilities. Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corporation 
(NYSE: PPL) controls more than 12,000 megawatts of generating 
capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets 
and delivers electricity to nearly five million customers in 
Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Latin America. 

More information is available at http://www.pplweb.com. 

SOURCE PPL Corporation 

Web Site: http://www.pplweb.com 

	Copyright © 1996- PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights 
*****************************************************************
 19 General Assembly Adopts Treaty On Nuclear Terrorism; Annan Hails It As 'vital Step'
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 13:00:17 -0400

 
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY ADOPTS TREATY ON NUCLEAR TERRORISM; ANNAN HAILS 
IT AS 'VITAL STEP'
New York, Apr 13 2005  1:00PM
The United Nations General Assembly today <"http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=a/59/766">adopted 
by consensus an international 
treaty against nuclear terrorism which Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan hailed as "a vital step forward" in multilateral efforts 
to prevent terrorists from gaining access to "the most lethal weapons 
known to humanity."

The Nuclear Terrorism Convention, which will open for signature on 
14 September at the high-level plenary meeting scheduled for the 
Assembly's sixtieth session and enter into force after 22 States 
ratify it, strengthens the global legal framework to combat the 
scourge, requires the extradition or prosecution of those implicated 
and encourages the exchange of information and inter-state cooperation.

Mr. Annan <"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=1398">called 
on all States to become parties to the Convention without delay, 
noting that it was one of the key recommendations contained in 
his recent report on overall UN reform called "<"http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/">In 
Larger Freedom."

"The adoption of this Convention, after many years of negotiations, 
is a vital step forward in multilateral efforts to prevent nuclear 
terrorism," he said in a statement on the treaty, which had 
been seven years in the making by a special Assembly committee.

"The Convention will help prevent terrorist groups from gaining access 
to the most lethal weapons known to humanity. It will also 
strengthen the international legal framework against terrorism, which 
includes 12 existing universal conventions and protocols," he 
added.

The treaty aims to deal with both crisis situations by assisting 
States in thwarting terrorist groups possessing nuclear material, 
and post-crisis situations by rendering the nuclear material safe 
in accordance with safeguards provided by the International Atomic 
Energy Agency (<"http://www.iaea.org/">IAEA).

It was drafted by the Ad Hoc Committee established by the General 
Assembly in 1996 to draw up an international convention for the 
suppression of terrorist bombings and entrusted in 1998 with drafting 
an international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear 
terrorism.
 2005-04-13 00:00:00.000 

________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml
*****************************************************************
 20 [southnews] Sharon told Bush Iran reaching 'point of no return'
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 23:37:03 -0500 (CDT)

 
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ISRAELI prime minister Ariel Sharon has given aerial spy photographs of 
Iran's nuclear sites to US president George Bush. He told Bush that 
intelligence showed the country was near 'a point of no return' in its 
nuclear programme.

Sharon told Bush Iran reaching 'point of no return'
	
Thursday, April14 ,2005
   	
WASHINGTON (AFP)  Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told US President 
George W. Bush on Monday that Iran was near a "point of no return" in 
learning how to make a nuclear weapon, The New York Times said Wednesday 
quoting top Israeli and US officials.

At their meeting in Bush's Texas ranch, Sharon urged the US leader to 
keep pressing Iran to give up its nuclear programme altogether and 
cautioned not to follow Europe's softening stance in its talks with Iran 
that could end up allowing it to hold on to technology to enrich uranium.

The officials said Sharon spread photographs of Iranian nuclear sites  
first reported by Israeli public radio on Tuesday  over a lunch table 
and told Bush that Israeli intelligence showed the Iranians were close 
to developing its own nuclear weapons technology. Sharon told Bush that 
once Iran solves certain technical hurdles, there will be no way of 
stopping it from building a nuclear weapon, even if it does not do so 
immediately, the paper said.

A senior official travelling with the Israeli delegation said the UN 
Security Council needed to take immediate action against Iran in the 
form of sanctions.

"There has to be immediate action taken against Iran," he told 
reporters, warning that time was running out. "There is a time limit 
because Iran will soon reach a technological point of no return. We are 
not talking about when Iran actually produces nuclear weapons but when 
it has the technological ability to do so," he said. The issue needed to 
be immediately addressed by the Security Council, he said. "Within this 
time frame, we have to take this to the Security Council  they are the 
only ones with the tools to do this," he said, referring to sanctions.

"Beyond this point of technological no-return, it will be too late." 
Despite Sharon's urgency, US officials said the information he showed 
Bush was neither startling nor new.

"The Israelis consider the Iranians a big threat and they saw this as 
another opportunity to convey that to the president," a US official 
said, adding that among American experts familiar with the latest 
Israeli imagery "no one thinks this was earth-shattering stuff."

The United States and Israel have both accused Iran of using its atomic 
energy programme as cover for a plan to develop nuclear arms, a charge 
denied by Tehran which says it needs nuclear power as an alternative 
energy source.

Israel itself has never publicly acknowledged that it maintains a 
nuclear arsenal but foreign experts say it has between 100 and 200 
nuclear warheads.

After the Bush-Sharon meeting Monday, White House Spokesman Scott 
McClellan denied they had discussed the possibility of a preemptive 
military strike by Israel, aimed at ensuring Iran does not acquire 
atomic weapons.
Tehran denies secretly shifting processed uranium

TEHRAN (AFP)  Iran denied on Wednesday reports it had secretly shifted 
processed uranium from one of its nuclear facilities in a bid to go on 
with enrichment activities it has agreed to suspend.

Iran is seeking to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, so it 
makes no sense to smuggle uranium and enrich it in the country, said 
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.

This is propaganda by some Western countries. [Such reports] have 
happened before and proven unfounded later, he was quoted as saying by 
the ISNA student news agency. Asefi was reacting to reports that Iran 
has been spiriting an unspecified quantity of processed uranium out of a 
facility in Isfahan, which is monitored by the UN watchdog, to an 
unknown location. Iran has agreed to suspend the enrichment of uranium 
as it negotiates with Britain, France and Germany to win trade, security 
and technology rewards in return for giving guarantees that it is not 
trying to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States accuses Iran of using its nuclear programme as cover 
for a plan to develop arms, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran which 
says it needs nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

Iran agreed in November to suspend enrichment activities as a goodwill 
gesture for a maximum of six months, but the Europeans want the 
suspension to become permanent, a demand the Iranians have termed 
absurd. Negotations are due to resume on April19 .

Tehran says it has the right to enrich uranium to low levels to produce 
atomic fuel for civilian power stations, but highly enriched uranium can 
provide the core for an atomic bomb.

Iran has processed in Isfahan 37 tonnes of raw yellowcake uranium into 
uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), which could be processed further to 
enriched uranium.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said Wednesday on state 
television that restricting uranium enrichment activities had never 
been an issue in its talks with the Europeans.

It is up to the Europeans to take further steps, he said, asked about 
the status of the negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told US President George W. Bush at 
their summit in Texas on Monday that Iran was near a point of no 
return in learning how to make a nuclear weapon, The New York Times 
reported.
-====================================================================

Oil, Geopolitics, and the Coming War with Iran

by Michael T. Klare

As the United States gears up for an attack on Iran, one thing is 
certain: the Bush administration will never mention oil as a reason for 
going to war. As in the case of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 
will be cited as the principal justification for an American assault. 
"We will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon [by Iran]," 
is the way President Bush put it in a much-quoted 2003 statement. But 
just as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq undermined the 
administration's use of WMD as the paramount reason for its invasion, so 
its claim that an attack on Iran would be justified because of its 
alleged nuclear potential should invite widespread skepticism. More 
important, any serious assessment of Iran's strategic importance to the 
United States should focus on its role in the global energy equation.

Before proceeding further, let me state for the record that I do not 
claim oil is the sole driving force behind the Bush administration's 
apparent determination to destroy Iranian military capabilities. No 
doubt there are many national security professionals in Washington who 
are truly worried about Iran's nuclear program, just as there were many 
professionals who were genuinely worried about Iraqi weapons 
capabilities. I respect this. But no war is ever prompted by one factor 
alone, and it is evident from the public record that many 
considerations, including oil, played a role in the administration's 
decision to invade Iraq. Likewise, it is reasonable to assume that many 
factors  again including oil  are playing a role in the 
decision-making now underway over a possible assault on Iran.

Just exactly how much weight the oil factor carries in the 
administration's decision-making is not something that we can determine 
with absolute assurance at this time, but given the importance energy 
has played in the careers and thinking of various high officials of this 
administration, and given Iran's immense resources, it would be 
ludicrous not to take the oil factor into account  and yet you can rest 
assured that, as relations with Iran worsen, American media reports and 
analysis of the situation will generally steer a course well clear of 
the subject (as they did in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq).

One further caveat: When talking about oil's importance in American 
strategic thinking about Iran, it is important to go beyond the obvious 
question of Iran's potential role in satisfying our country's future 
energy requirements. Because Iran occupies a strategic location on the 
north side of the Persian Gulf, it is in a position to threaten oil 
fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, 
which together possess more than half of the world's known oil reserves. 
Iran also sits athwart the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through 
which, daily, 40 percent of the world's oil exports pass. In addition, 
Iran is becoming a major supplier of oil and natural gas to China, 
India, and Japan, thereby giving Tehran additional clout in world 
affairs. It is these geopolitical dimensions of energy, as much as 
Iran's potential to export significant quantities of oil to the United 
States, that undoubtedly govern the administration's strategic calculations.

Having said this, let me proceed to an assessment of Iran's future 
energy potential. According to the most recent tally by Oil and Gas 
Journal, Iran houses the second-largest pool of untapped petroleum in 
the world, an estimated 125.8 billion barrels. Only Saudi Arabia, with 
an estimated 260 billion barrels, possesses more; Iraq, the third in 
line, has an estimated 115 billion barrels. With this much oil  about 
one-tenth of the world's estimated total supply  Iran is certain to 
play a key role in the global energy equation, no matter what else occurs.

It is not, however, just sheer quantity that matters in Iran's case; no 
less important is its future productive capacity. Although Saudi Arabia 
possesses larger reserves, it is now producing oil at close to its 
maximum sustainable rate (about 10 million barrels per day). It will 
probably be unable to raise its output significantly over the next 20 
years while global demand, pushed by significantly higher consumption in 
the United States, China, and India, is expected to rise by 50 percent. 
Iran, on the other hand, has considerable growth potential: it is now 
producing about 4 million barrels per day, but is thought to be capable 
of boosting its output by another 3 million barrels or so. Few, if any, 
other countries possess this potential, so Iran's importance as a 
producer, already significant, is bound to grow in the years ahead.

And it is not just oil that Iran possesses in great abundance, but also 
natural gas. According to Oil and Gas Journal, Iran has an estimated 940 
trillion cubic feet of gas, or approximately 16 percent of total world 
reserves. (Only Russia, with 1,680 trillion cubic feet, has a larger 
supply.) As it takes approximately 6,000 cubic feet of gas to equal the 
energy content of 1 barrel of oil, Iran's gas reserves represent the 
equivalent of about 155 billion barrels of oil. This, in turn, means 
that its combined hydrocarbon reserves are the equivalent of some 280 
billion barrels of oil, just slightly behind Saudi Arabia's combined 
supply. At present, Iran is producing only a small share of its gas 
reserves, about 2.7 trillion cubic feet per year. This means that Iran 
is one of the few countries capable of supplying much larger amounts of 
natural gas in the future.

What all this means is that Iran will play a critical role in the 
world's future energy equation. This is especially true because the 
global demand for natural gas is growing faster than that for any other 
source of energy, including oil. While the world currently consumes more 
oil than gas, the supply of petroleum is expected to contract in the 
not-too-distant future as global production approaches its peak 
sustainable level  perhaps as soon as 2010  and then begins a gradual 
but irreversible decline. The production of natural gas, on the other 
hand, is not likely to peak until several decades from now, and so is 
expected to take up much of the slack when oil supplies become less 
abundant. Natural gas is also considered a more attractive fuel than oil 
in many applications, especially because when consumed it releases less 
carbon dioxide (a major contributor to the greenhouse effect).

No doubt the major U.S. energy companies would love to be working with 
Iran today in developing these vast oil and gas supplies. At present, 
however, they are prohibited from doing so by Executive Order (EO) 
12959, signed by President Clinton in 1995 and renewed by President Bush 
in March 2004. The United States has also threatened to punish foreign 
firms that do business in Iran (under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 
1996), but this has not deterred many large companies from seeking 
access to Iran's reserves. China, which will need vast amounts of 
additional oil and gas to fuel its red-hot economy, is paying particular 
attention to Iran. According to the Department of Energy (DoE), Iran 
supplied 14 percent of China's oil imports in 2003, and is expected to 
provide an even larger share in the future. China is also expected to 
rely on Iran for a large share of its liquid natural gas (LNG) imports. 
In October 2004, Iran signed a $100 billion, 25-year contract with 
Sinopec, a major Chinese energy firm, for joint development of one of 
its major gas fields and the subsequent delivery of LNG to China. If 
this deal is fully consummated, it will constitute one of China's 
biggest overseas investments and represent a major strategic linkage 
between the two countries.

India is also keen to obtain oil and gas from Iran. In January, the Gas 
Authority of India Ltd. (GAIL) signed a 30-year deal with the National 
Iranian Gas Export Corp. for the transfer of as much as 7.5 million tons 
of LNG to India per year. The deal, worth an estimated $50 billion, will 
also entail Indian involvement in the development of Iranian gas fields. 
Even more noteworthy, Indian and Pakistani officials are discussing the 
construction of a $3 billion natural gas pipeline from Iran to India via 
Pakistan  an extraordinary step for two long-term adversaries. If 
completed, the pipeline would provide both countries with a substantial 
supply of gas and allow Pakistan to reap $200-$500 million per year in 
transit fees. "The gas pipeline is a win-win proposition for Iran, 
India, and Pakistan," Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz declared in 
January.

Despite the pipeline's obvious attractiveness as an incentive for 
reconciliation between India and Pakistan  nuclear powers that have 
fought three wars over Kashmir since 1947 and remain deadlocked over the 
future status of that troubled territory  the project was condemned by 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a recent trip to India. "We 
have communicated to the Indian government our concerns about the gas 
pipeline cooperation between Iran and India," she said on March 16 after 
meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh in New Delhi. The 
administration has, in fact, proved unwilling to back any project that 
offers an economic benefit to Iran. This has not, however, deterred 
India from proceeding with the pipeline.

Japan has also broken ranks with Washington on the issue of energy ties 
with Iran. In early 2003, a consortium of three Japanese companies 
acquired a 20 percent stake in the development of the Soroush-Nowruz 
offshore field in the Persian Gulf, a reservoir thought to hold 1 
billion barrels of oil. One year later, the Iranian Offshore Oil Company 
awarded a $1.26 billion contract to Japan's JGC Corporation for the 
recovery of natural gas and natural gas liquids from Soroush-Nowruz and 
other offshore fields.

When considering Iran's role in the global energy equation, therefore, 
Bush administration officials have two key strategic aims: a desire to 
open up Iranian oil and gas fields to exploitation by American firms, 
and concern over Iran's growing ties to America's competitors in the 
global energy market. Under U.S. law, the first of these aims can only 
be achieved after the President lifts EO 12959, and this is not likely 
to occur as long as Iran is controlled by anti-American mullahs and 
refuses to abandon its uranium enrichment activities with potential 
bomb-making applications. Likewise, the ban on U.S. involvement in 
Iranian energy production and export gives Tehran no choice but to 
pursue ties with other consuming nations. From the Bush administration's 
point of view, there is only one obvious and immediate way to alter this 
unappetizing landscape  by inducing "regime change" in Iran and 
replacing the existing leadership with one far friendlier to U.S. 
strategic interests.

That the Bush administration seeks to foster regime change in Iran is 
not in any doubt. The very fact that Iran was included with Saddam's 
Iraq and Kim Jong Il's North Korea in the "Axis of Evil" in the 
President's 2002 State of the Union Address was an unmistakable 
indicator of this. Bush let his feelings be known again in June 2003, at 
a time when there were anti-government protests by students in Tehran. 
"This is the beginning of people expressing themselves toward a free 
Iran, which I think is positive," he declared. In a more significant 
indication of White House attitudes on the subject, the Department of 
Defense has failed to fully disarm the People's Mujahedin of Iran (or 
Mujaheddin-e Khalq, MEK), an antigovernment militia now based in Iraq 
that has conducted terrorist actions in Iran and is listed on the State 
Department's roster of terrorist organizations. In 2003, the Washington 
Post reported that some senior administration figures would like to use 
the MEK as a proxy force in Iran, in the same manner that the Northern 
Alliance was employed against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Iranian leadership is well aware that it faces a serious threat from 
the Bush administration and is no doubt taking whatever steps it can to 
prevent such an attack. Here, too, oil is a major factor in both 
Tehran's and Washington's calculations. To deter a possible American 
assault, Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and otherwise 
obstruct oil shipping in the Persian Gulf area. "An attack on Iran will 
be tantamount to endangering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and, in a word, the 
entire Middle East oil," Iranian Expediency Council secretary Mohsen 
Rezai said on March 1.

Such threats are taken very seriously by the U.S. Department of Defense. 
"We judge Iran can briefly close the Strait of Hormuz, relying on a 
layered strategy using predominantly naval, air, and some ground 
forces," Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, the director of the Defense 
Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee 
on Feb. 16.

Planning for such attacks is, beyond doubt, a major priority for top 
Pentagon officials. In January, veteran investigative reporter Seymour 
Hersh reported in the New Yorker magazine that the Department of Defense 
was conducting covert reconnaissance raids into Iran, supposedly to 
identify hidden Iranian nuclear and missile facilities that could be 
struck in future air and missile attacks. "I was repeatedly told that 
the next strategic target was Iran," Hersh said of his interviews with 
senior military personnel. Shortly thereafter, the Washington Post 
revealed that the Pentagon was flying surveillance drones over Iran to 
verify the location of weapons sites and to test Iranian air defenses. 
As noted by the Post, "Aerial espionage [of this sort] is standard in 
military preparations for an eventual air attack." There have also been 
reports of talks between U.S. and Israeli officials about a possible 
Israeli strike on Iranian weapons facilities, presumably with 
behind-the-scenes assistance from the United States.

In reality, much of Washington's concern about Iran's pursuit of WMD and 
ballistic missiles is sparked by fears for the safety of Saudi Arabia, 
Kuwait, Iraq, other Persian Gulf oil producers, and Israel rather than 
by fears of a direct Iranian assault on the United States. "Tehran has 
the only military in the region that can threaten its neighbors and Gulf 
security," Jacoby declared in his February testimony. "Its expanding 
ballistic missile inventory presents a potential threat to states in the 
region." It is this regional threat that American leaders are most 
determined to eliminate.

In this sense, more than any other, the current planning for an attack 
on Iran is fundamentally driven by concern over the safety of U.S. 
energy supplies, as was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the most 
telling expression of White House motives for going to war against Iraq, 
Vice President Dick Cheney (in an August 2002 address to the Veterans of 
Foreign Wars) described the threat from Iraq as follows: "Should all [of 
Hussein's WMD] ambitions be realized, the implications would be enormous 
for the Middle East and the United States.  Armed with an arsenal of 
these weapons of terror and a seat atop 10 percent of the world's oil 
reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of 
the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's 
energy supplies, [and] directly threaten America's friends throughout 
the region." This was, of course, unthinkable to Bush's inner circle. 
And all one need do is substitute the words "Iranian mullahs" for Saddam 
Hussein, and you have a perfect expression of the Bush administration 
case for making war on Iran.

So, even while publicly focusing on Iran's weapons of mass destruction, 
key administration figures are certainly thinking in geopolitical terms 
about Iran's role in the global energy equation and its capacity to 
obstruct the global flow of petroleum. As was the case with Iraq, the 
White House is determined to eliminate this threat once and for all. And 
so, while oil may not be the administration's sole reason for going to 
war with Iran, it is an essential factor in the overall strategic 
calculation that makes war likely.

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at 
Hampshire College and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and 
Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Oil 
(Metropolitan Books). 	
	

The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ 

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 21 Guardian Unlimited: Sharon Rules Out Attacking Iran Over Nukes
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

	Thursday April 14, 2005 12:01 AM

AP Photo JRL804 

By MARK LAVIE 

Associated Press Writer 

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel will not mount a unilateral attack aimed
at destroying Iran's nuclear capability, Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said Wednesday in a CNN-TV interview. 

Sharon said he did not see ``unilateral action'' as an option.
He said Israel did not need to lead the way on the Iran nuclear
weapons issue, calling for an international coalition to deal
with it. 

Iran is years away from possessing a nuclear weapon, Sharon
said, but warned that Iran is only months away from solving
``technical problems'' toward building a nuclear weapon. 

Sharon said, ``Once they will solve it, that will be the point
of no return.'' He did not give details about the technical
issues or how he drew his conclusions. 

Israel has warned for years about the dangers of Iran acquiring
nuclear weapons. Sharon said a nuclear Iran would threaten not
only Israel but also Europe and other countries. Therefore, he
said, Israel did not need to tackle the matter by itself. 

Israeli media reported that in his meeting Tuesday with U.S.
Vice President Dick Cheney, Sharon aides presented evidence,
including satellite reconnaissance, about the Iranian nuclear
program, but the Americans did not see anything that would
influence them to stick to diplomatic efforts to control Iran. 

Asked about Israel's own nuclear weapons program, Sharon
repeated decades-old Israeli claims: ``Israel will not be the
first one to use or to possess a nuclear weapon.'' 

He said that Iran should be prevented from acquiring such arms,
because ``One should avoid development of nuclear weapons by
irresponsible countries.'' 

During the funeral for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican on
Friday, Israeli President Moshe Katsav shook hands with the
presidents of Syria and Iran, but Sharon dismissed the gestures. 

Iran and Syria continue to be enemies of Israel, Sharon said. 

``If the moderates there (in Iran) speak about the elimination
Israel as the Jewish nation, we don't see any changes,'' he
said. ``Syria continues to (sponsor) Hezbollah on the Lebanese
border, so I don't see any change there.'' 

Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas fought a bloody war
in south Lebanon until Israel's withdrawal in 2000 behind a
U.N.-drawn border. However, Hezbollah charges that Israel is
still holding a piece of Lebanese territory and periodically
attacks Israeli forces there. 

Israel charges that Syria and Iran provide weapons, training and
guidance for the Hezbollah forces, which control much of south
Lebanon. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 22 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Says Diplomacy With Iran Is Best
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Thursday April 14, 2005 12:46 AM

AP Photo JRL804 

By ANNE GEARAN 

AP Diplomatic Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration on Wednesday
reaffirmed its commitment to diplomacy as the best way to stop
Iran from developing a nuclear weapon while Israel's leader
ruled out a military strike to destroy Tehran's nuclear program. 

The White House also sought to play down differences with Israel
over the urgency of the threat. 

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon contended Iran was years
away from possessing a nuclear weapon, but only months short of
overcoming ``technical problems'' in building one. 

``Once they will solve it, that will be the point of no
return,'' Sharon told CNN two days after his meeting with
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at Bush's Texas
ranch. 

That is a darker assessment of Iran's capabilities than U.S.
officials have offered publicly. In addition, White House press
secretary Scott McClellan gave no indication Wednesday that Bush
was swayed by a presentation at the ranch from Sharon and his
chief military adviser, who brought Israeli intelligence
documents on Iran's nuclear reactor program. 

Iran insists its nuclear program is strictly designed to produce
only electrical power. 

The Israelis argued that Iran is nearing a ``point of no
return'' in developing a weapon that could be used against its
declared enemy Israel, U.S. and Israeli officials said after the
meeting. 

Sharon, asked in the television interview if he has ruled out a
unilateral military strike against Iran, said: ``We don't think
that's what we have to do. ... It's not that we are planning any
military attack on Iran.'' He said Israel did not need to take a
leading role in attempts to deny nuclear weapons to Iran and
called again for an international coalition to deal with the
issue. 

Sharon had pressed the president to threaten Tehran with
penalties, an approach Bush favored until recently. 

As part of Bush's second-term effort to repair ties with
European allies, the White House agreed last month to support
arms control negotiations that three European countries have
begun with Iran. Those talks have not moved quickly, and Sharon
argued that European negotiators may be softening their stance. 

``We want to see this resolved through the diplomatic efforts of
the Europeans. We want to see it resolved in a peaceful way,''
McClellan told reporters on Wednesday. 

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher noted that
U.S. intelligence agencies, in assessing Iran's nuclear program,
have used ``an estimate that said that Iran was not likely to
acquire a nuclear weapon before the beginning of the next
decade. That remains the case.'' 

He added, ``We certainly understand Israel - other governments -
are concerned about nuclear developments in Iran, and we talk to
many governments about it.'' 

The latest U.S. assessment on Iran's nuclear program was laid
out in March by the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. 

``Unless constrained by a nuclear nonproliferation agreement,
Tehran probably will have the ability to produce nuclear weapons
early in the next decade,'' Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby told the
Senate Armed Services Committee. 

Jacoby told senators that Iran is probably ``continuing nuclear
weapon-related endeavors in an effort to become the dominant
regional power and deter what it perceives as the potential for
U.S. or Israeli attacks.'' 

Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have said the
United States has no intention of attacking Iran, but have
refused to take the option entirely off the table. 

Cheney has raised the possibility that Israel might make the
first military move if it became convinced that Iran had
significant nuclear capability. 

``Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their
objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well
decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about
cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward,'' Cheney said in a
January interview with MSNBC. 

In 1981, Israel launched a unilateral strike on a suspected
Iraqi nuclear site. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 23 BBC: Economy root to N Korea crisis
 
Last Updated: Tuesday, 12 April, 2005
 
By Paul French   

A North Korean farmer with an ox-cart full walks down the road to 
Pyongyang, 13 February 2003.]                                  
Reforms have not transformed the economy                                                             

The focus of the international community's alarm over North Korea 
is the isolated nation's nuclear arsenal, and its refusal to talk 
about it. 

An aspect that is sometimes overlooked is the dire state of its 
economy, and yet this could be at the heart of the nuclear 
crisis. 

The regime, with few allies in the world, cannot appeal to the 
sort of humanitarian emotions that African or South Asian nations 
have in the past. 

To ensure the flow of food and oil, it must have a bargaining 
chip, and its nuclear arsenal is that chip. 

Therefore Pyongyang's diplomatic bluster is inextricably linked 
to its need to keep what remains of its economy propped up by 
donations. 

North Korea has recently attempted limited reforms to its 
economy, but these have not been comprehensive or well-enough 
planned to work. 

Pushed into reform 

North Korea became an independent state in 1953, and has operated 
a rigid centrally planned, or "command" economy based on that 
developed by Stalin in the USSR. 

Industry and agriculture are planned on a five-year basis, all 
farms are collectivised, volume is praised over value and most 
foods and goods are rationed. 

	

	
                                                        Mr Kim 
has one bargaining ch - his nuclear bombs             
	 	   	

         This model initially allowed for rapid industrialisation 
and rebuilding, but it failed to deliver sustainable growth or 
raise living standards. 

The economy began to collapse, and by the mid-1990s the country 
was in a state of famine. The industrial base and the 
agricultural sector have been in decline ever since. Beijing, 
North Korea's only real ally, decided to act in October 2001 with 
an economics lesson for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. 

	 		

			
			 				  				 			 			   	

		 	 	 

He was shown round a GM plant and a hi-tech factory in Shanghai, 
and received a lecture about the benefits of Chinese-style 
reform. 

The Chinese were effectively telling Mr Kim that it was time for 
change - and that they were fed up with the growing number of 
refugees fleeing over the Chinese border, and increasing demands 
for aid. 

Mr Kim realised he needed to keep China close, and in June 2002 
announced a series of economic reforms. 

Pyongyang partially ended rationing and reformed the wages and 
pricing system. 



Retail prices shot up - rice by 55,000%, corn 5,000%, electricity 
143% and public transport fares 2,000% - but average wages 
increased by just 1,818% - from 110 won to 2,000 won (US$22) per 
month. 

It also allowed private farmers' markets to expand - to provide 
more goods for the consumers this monetary liberalisation had 
created. 

Another major plank of the reforms was the new investment zone in 
Sinuiju - and another one in Kaesong, agreed as part of Kim 
Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy. 

These investment zones used foreign investment to create new 
economic ventures. 

But neither the wage and pricing reform, nor the investment 
zones, have worked. 

Scarce resources 

The government had hoped that inflation created by the reforms, 
if kept under control, would "kick-start" the economy. 

But this theory assumed there was a mass of underutilised 
resources waiting to be kick-started. Twenty-five years of 
decline meant that these resources were now scarce. 

More food found its way into the farmers' markets, but at prices 
ordinary people could not afford. 

This effective legitimisation of private farming and smuggling 
across the border from China only succeeded in increasing the 
availability of goods to the elite - those whose wages were 
protected or had access to foreign currency. 

[Satellite image of North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Centre] 

N Korea's alleged nuclear weapons arsenal is its bargaining chip                                                                 

As for the economic zones, Sinuiju's position, opposite China's 
flourishing economic zone in Dandong, annoyed Beijing. 

It consequently arrested the Chinese businessman hired to run 
Sinuiju, imprisoning him for 18 years for tax evasion and 
effectively ending the project. 

Kaesong survives but all the ventures are foreign-owned, with 
little benefit, therefore, for North Korea. 

By the end of 2002, economic growth was estimated at just 1.2% at 
best, with the average citizen's purchasing power severely 
eroded. 

For most ordinary North Koreans, the end result of the reforms 
was further impoverishment and the eroding of any savings they 
may have been able to build up. 

So, in light of the reforms' failure, North Korea's alleged 
announcement in October 2002 that its country was pursuing an 
enriched uranium programme could be interpreted as a return to 
its old bargaining tactics. 

The international community responded to the announcement by 
setting up six-party talks in August 2003. 

But the diplomacy is failing because North Korea, with no allies 
but the increasingly exasperated Chinese, and little prospect of 
economic revitalisation, needs to ensure a continued drip feed of 
aid. 

That means a hard bargaining process, and Mr Kim has one 
bargaining chip - his nuclear bombs. 

Already twice, as far as we know, Beijing has managed by 
persuasion, and perhaps a little economic pressure, to get 
Pyongyang back to the table after talks have stalled. 

Now Beijing is trying again. Perhaps what Pyongyang wants most is 
a serious package of economic aid from China. 

China may provide it to get the talking started again. 

But the price Beijing will need to demand is that Pyongyang 
restarts economic reform in earnest, and moves away from the 
continual brink of collapse that forces it to make desperate 
diplomatic gambles such as the current crisis. 

As for the economy today, it has to all intents and purposes 
collapsed. 

The reforms were limited, and benefited just the elite of the 
country rather than ordinary people. 

The basic structure remains in place and continues to erode the 
economy. 

However, as long as the regime can keep the country isolated, it 
can survive on this drip-feed indefinitely. 

The endgame is simple - regime survival. It is a long-term 
strategy using diplomatic belligerence and military threat to 
secure enough aid to maintain power and isolation. 

The regime may survive, and may under pressure begin another 
round of tentative reform, but it seems unlikely that life will 
improve for ordinary North Koreans any time soon. 

Paul French is a Shanghai-based writer, and the author of North 
Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula (Zed Books 2005)                                                   



*****************************************************************
 24 Xinhua: Rumsfeld to hold talks with senior Pakistani officials   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-13 12:53:42   

     ISLAMABAD, April 13 (Xinhuanet) -- US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld will arrive in Islamabad Wednesday to hold talks
with top Pakistani leadership on terrorism, nuclear
proliferation, Iraq andAfghanistan as well as other global and
regional issues. 

    The English-language newspaper The Nation quoted official
sources as saying that the US defense secretary will meet with
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and he is also likely to
callon Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other senior officials. 

    During these high-level meetings, host of issues including
war on terror, nuclear proliferation as well as the latest
situation in Iraq and Afghanistan would be taken up for
discussion, the official sources said. 

    Rumsfeld's visit to Pakistan in the wake of abduction of an
official of Pakistani embassy in Iraq is amidst speculations
that he may once again ask for Pakistani troops' deployment in
Iraq. 

    However, Foreign Office Spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani, at his
weekly press briefing on Monday, said there has been no change
in Pakistan's policy on troops for Iraq, saying that Malik
Muhammad Javed appears to have been kidnapped for ransom. 

    Another important issue that would figure up for discussions
during Rumsfeld's visit is the defense ties between Pakistan and
the United States, Pakistani officials said. 

    While Musharraf decided to back the US-led war on terror
after "911" in 2001, which has angered Islamic hard-liners at
home, Washington has rewarded Pakistan for the move. 

    The United States has granted major military and economic
aid to Pakistan in the past three years, and last month
announced thatit would sell Pakistan US-made F-16 fighter jets,
fulfilling a long-standing request by Islamabad. 

    Rumsfeld, who was in Iraq on Tuesday, would also travel to
several other regional countries including Afghanistan. Enditem 
 
  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 25 Xinhua: Iran denies reported uranium smuggling   

  www.xinhuanet.com
    
  www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-13 20:05:05   

    TEHRAN, April 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Wednesday strongly
rejected a report on its alleged smuggling of uranium to other
countries, the official IRNA news agency reported. 

    "Such a claim is not true. Our nuclear activities are
transparent and under the supervision of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Foreign Ministry spokesman
Hamid-Reza Asefi was quoted as saying. 

    "Iran seeks nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and it
will be meaningless for Iran to smuggle and enrich uranium in
other states," Asefi said. 

    "Western media released such news in the past, but their
claims were proved baseless later," Asefi added. 

    Reports emerged lately that the IAEA was making an inventory
of processed uranium in Iran amid concerns that inconsistency in
the tally could mean Tehran secretly shifted some uranium out of
its nuclear facility. 

    Tehran was also accused by some intelligence agencies of
spiriting away processed uranium to an unknown location, which
could be processed further and enriched to make a bomb. 

    Iran, accused by the United States of developing nuclear
weapons covertly, has vehemently rejected the charge and
insisted its nuclear activities are fully peaceful. 

    In order to "build confidence", Tehran has suspended the
sensitive uranium enrichment "temporarily and voluntarily".
Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 26 Roanoke Times: Nuclear nightmare in the making?
 		
Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Editorial
 
 
The responsible federal officials must force power plant 
operators to keep closer tabs on dangerous fuel rods.

 Fresh on the tail of news that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
isn't doing enough to ensure that nuclear power plants take
steps to protect pools containing spent fuel rods from terrorist
attacks comes word that nuclear plants cannot even account for
all the spent fuel rods that are supposed to be in those cooling
pools or dry casks. 

A report by the federal Government Accountability Office warns
that shoddy oversight and gaps in safety procedures leave open
the possibility that the dangerously radioactive fuel rods may
be missing from more than the three nuclear plants that have
reported problems. "NRC inspectors often could not confirm that
containers that were designated as containing loose fuel rods in
fact contained the fuel rods," the report said. "The containers,
in some cases, were closed or sealed and, in other cases, the
contents were not visible when looking into the spent fuel pool.
Thus, spent fuel may be missing or unaccounted for at still
other plants." 

More than three years after 9/11, such a lackadaisical attitude
toward material that could be used by terrorists is not simply
inexcusable, it is unfathomable. 

Once again, the problem appears to be an NRC far too sympathetic
with concerns of the industry and far too reluctant to engage in
genuine oversight. 

As Sen. James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., told The Washington Post, "I
would respectfully remind the NRC that the 'R' stands for
'regulatory.' The days of letting the nuclear industry
self-regulate without proper federal oversight must come to a
long overdue end." 

Responses from NRC officials are hardly comforting. An agency
spokeswoman told The Post that 9/11 had forced a prioritizing of
safety concerns, causing delays in security measures to
safeguard spent fuel rods. 

If keeping track of highly radioactive fuel rods - potential
fuel in bombs that could spread nuclear contamination over
dozens of city blocks - isn't high up on the list of NRC's
safety priorities, it's difficult to imagine what is. 

"When we are dealing with nuclear safety and security, we need
to move in a very careful and deliberate way," said the NRC
spokeswoman. 

Forty-three months after terrorists proved both their
determination to strike the United States and their ability to
innovate, it's a little late to be talking about being "careful
and deliberate." 

The tempting targets of nuclear power plants must be guarded in
all their potentially dangerous aspects.

 
*****************************************************************
 27 AFP: Fatwa restrains Iran more on nuclear weapons than treaty - negotiator - 

  Reuters | AFP | Sky News | Photos
 
Tuesday April 12, 07:35 PM

Click to enlarge photo
  
TEHRAN (AFP) - A religious decree (fatwa) by Iran's supreme
leader has even greater force in preventing the country from
producing nuclear weapons than do treaties signed by Tehran, top
nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani was quoted as saying. "It is
much more important for us to abide by this decree than the
articles of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its additional
protocol," Rowhani said in a meeting with Danish Foreign
Minister Per Stig Moeller on Monday. 

According to Rowhani, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's fatwa forbids the 
production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons, according to 
a report from the IRNA news agency. A top figure in the Islamic 
Republic, Rowhani is not the first official to have cited this 
decree, the text of which has never been made public. 

The supreme leader has the power at all times to issue religious 
decrees, which have the force of law. Iran has always pledged to 
meet its international commitments. Rowhani stressed the "merely 
peaceful nature" of Iran's nuclear activities and said "our main 
concern in our talks with the Europeans is building trust". 

"We are fully aware that moving towards acquiring atomic weapons 
equals losing the international community's trust as well as a 
serious obstacle on the way to development of our country," he 
said.

Iran has been negotiating since December with Britain, France and 
Germany to win EU trade, security and technology rewards in 
return for giving guarantees that it is not trying to develop 
nuclear weapons. Iran agreed in November to suspend enrichment 
activities as a goodwill gesture for a maximum of six months, but 
the Europeans want the suspension to become permanent. The 
Iranians call that demand "absurd". The negotiations are to 
resume on April 19.     

Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 28 Korea Times: NK Nukes Could Be Taken to UNSC - US Scholar 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation   

SEOUL (Yonhap) - The U.S. could lose patience with North Korea
and raise the issue of Pyongyang's nuclear arms program at the
U.N. Security Council if no progress is made in ending the
nuclear dispute, a U.S. scholar said.

 ``There is a possibility that if this matter is prolonged, and
no resumption of talks takes place, that it will be taken to the
U.N. That's quite possible,¡¯¡¯ Robert Scalapino, a professor at
the University of California at Berkeley, said in an interview
with Yonhap News Agency Tuesday.

 His remarks came a day after Undersecretary of State John
Bolton, U.S. envoy-designate to the U.N., indicated that the
North's nuclear weapons program could be referred to the U.N.'s
top decision-making body.

 In March, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also warned
of ``other options¡¯¡¯ if North Korea continues to boycott the
six-way talks, saying that the United States cannot let the
nuclear stalemate ``go on forever.¡¯¡¯

 Scalapino, who came here for a two-day conference on the North
Korean nuclear issue that ends Wednesday, said that the U.S. is
prepared to exercise patience toward the North since it has
major agenda items to deal with _ Iraq, the Middle East and a
number of domestic issues.

 But he warned that the U.S.¡¯s patience would ultimately run
out if the communist regime continues to resist returning to the
six-way talks or shows intransigence in ending the dispute.

 ``There is willingness to be patient in the U.S. for the near
future. There are other global problems, but if this goes on
beyond a certain point, there will be increased pressure from
Congress and White House to take certain actions,¡¯¡¯ he said.

 Despite this, the scholar asserted that the U.S. has no
intention to conduct military action against North Korea, noting
that the U.S. military is stretched too thin from its deep
engagement in the Middle East.

 He said there are divisions of opinion in the U.S. over how to
handle the North Korean nuclear crisis, but currently the
``doves,¡¯¡¯ or what he called moderates, have greater influence
as Washington explores diplomacy with its allies in defusing the
row.

 South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia have met three
times with North Korea, but no breakthrough has been made on the
nuclear row.

 The 30-month nuclear tension gained urgency after Pyongyang
declared on Feb. 10 that it had nuclear weapons and would not
attend future six-way talks on its nuclear program unless
Washington drops its ``hostile¡¯¡¯ policy.

 North Korea has since hardened its position by insisting that
it would consider dismantling its nuclear program only after
establishing formal diplomatic and economic relations with the
United States. 

04-13-2005 17:59         
  
*****************************************************************
 29 ITAR-TASS: Russia ready to closely cooperate with N Korea 

13.04.2005, 20.12

 MOSCOW, April 13 (Itar-Tass) - Russia is ready to closely 
cooperate with Pyongyang in order to solve North Korea’s nuclear 
problem, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said. The 
diplomat said on Wednesday the development of relations between 
Russia and North Korea “was reflected in the 2000 treaty and in 
the agreements signed in Pyongyang and Vladivostok.” “Russia 
notes that Chairman of the National Defence Committee Kim Jong Il 
continues the policy of Kim Il Sung to develop and strengthen 
friendly relations with Korea,” he said. 

       
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,








*****************************************************************
 30 Deseret News: Museum excludes downwinders 

[deseretnews.com] 

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

By Mary Dickson 

Columnist Lee Benson 

("Atomic test museum wins over a Utah visitor," April 8) touts 
his experience at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas as 
"positive and enlightening." Granted, the museum is positive in 
its portrayal of nuclear testing because the victors write 
history while the victims remain nameless and therefore 
invisible. 

Ultimately, the museum is sadly remiss in its accounting 
of the devastating human consequences of the nuclear testing 
"enterprise." 

Countless Americans — not just Utahns — were affected by 
the 904 nuclear tests conducted in Nevada between 1951 and 1992. 
We'll never know for certain how many of us were downwinders 
because definitive proof is so difficult to establish. 

Too many, however, like my own sister as well as 
neighbors and friends, likely died as a result of fallout 
exposure from those atomic blasts. I am in touch with 
downwinders from across this country who fight for their lives 
every day and who are convinced the actions of their own 
government made them sick. Had we become sick or died as soon as 
those bombs in Nevada exploded, our numbers would have been 
considered a national catastrophe. Instead, we become a 
forgotten chapter of American history. 

Benson calls the Cold War "a war we won by shooting off 
bombs at nothing and nobody." His statement is paramount to the 
government calling us a "low-use segment of the population." I 
would hardly call hundreds of thousands of Americans living 
downwind "nobody." Nor would I call the deserts of the West 
"nothing." Testing a bomb means using a bomb. Those bombs were 
used, and the people they ended up being used against were us. 

A National Cancer Institute study released in 1997 
concluded that every county in the continental U.S. received 
some level of fallout from the tests in Nevada and concluded 
that as many as 212,000 lifetime cases of thyroid cancer alone 
may be linked to testing. 

Unfortunately, apart from the NCI study, studies that 
would establish the link between fallout and cancer have been 
scarce. Even more unfortunately, the CDC recently yanked funding 
for one long-term study being conducted by University of Utah 
researcher Dr. Joseph Lyon. 

Bill Heller, an Albany, N.Y., journalist, spent more than 
a decade researching how one nuclear test (Shot Simon, 1953) at 
the Nevada Test Site rained out 2,300 miles over upstate New 
York and is still causing health problems there today. 

None of this story, however, is included in the Atomic 
Testing Museum. By excluding our story, the museum is 
essentially saying we were not only expendable, but that we do 
not deserve a place in history. 

The museum's plaque referring to Shot Harry and noting 
that St. George residents were told to stay indoors for two 
hours afterward does not tell our story. Nowhere does the plaque 
relate the health effects those residents suffered. Footage of 
protesters at the site does not tell the downwinders' story. 

Neither does a scientist admitting that "we put people at 
risk" in a film shown in the Ground Zero Theatre tell our story. 
Nowhere does the film explain what happened and continues to 
happen to the thousands upon thousands of people who were put at 
risk. 

What is missing in this museum is the human face of the 
unwitting people living downwind, who were victims of what one 
New York Times reporter called "the most prodigiously reckless 
program of scientific experimentation in American history." 

We declared victory in the Cold War. But as a result of 
that war, people got sick. People died. Yet those two phrases 
are included nowhere in this museum. Until they are, the history 
as laid out there is incomplete. 

Mary Dickson's article "Living and Dying With Fallout" was 
recently named the best article of 2004 by Dialogue magazine. 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 31 Columbia Daily Tribune: Officials to hurry payments 

www.columbiatribune.com

--> Officials to hurry payments 
Agency to end delay of cancer settlement. 

Published Wednesday, April 13, 2005

 ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Department of Health and Human Services has 
given the go-ahead to speed up payments to some Missouri Cold 
War-era workers stricken with cancer from exposure to radiation, 
Sen. Kit Bond’s office said yesterday.

 The decision takes effect 30 days after it is submitted to 
Congress, unless Congress halts the payments.

 In a February meeting in St. Louis, the National Institute for 
Occupational Safety and Health recommended expedited payments for 
Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. employees with 22 types of cancer tied 
to radiation exposure.

 At that same meeting, NIOSH recommended faster payments for 
former workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown, 
Iowa. But since then, NIOSH has decided to again review whether 
to recommend faster payments for the Iowa workers. A hearing is 
scheduled for April 25-27 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said Maureen 
Knightly, a spokeswoman for Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

 The employees who worked from 1942 to 1948 at the Mallinckrodt 
plant in St. Louis, or their survivors, will be eligible for 
compensation of as much as $150,000 from the federal government.

 "I’m just so happy - so ecstatic for these people," said Denise 
Brock, whose father worked at Mallinckrodt and died of cancer in 
1978. Brock’s family was previously compensated, but she long has 
been an advocate for other stricken workers and their families.

 "This will allow for payments to people who would have never 
received compensation," said Brock of Moscow Mills. "I can’t tell 
you how many people I’ve lost since I started this."

 Bond, R-Mo., also lauded the HHS’ decision to waive the need for 
dose reconstruction, eliminating a time-consuming bureaucratic 
process that could have slowed down payments for several years.

 But Bond called for expedited payments also to those who worked 
at Mallinckrodt from 1949 to 1956. Faster payments for those 
employees also will be considered at the hearing in Cedar Rapids.

 Workers at Mallinckrodt processed uranium for the government and 
were exposed to large doses of radiation. At the Iowa plant, 
nuclear bomb components were tested and warheads were assembled 
and disassembled. Workers there dealt with uranium and several 
other materials now known as hazardous. 

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This 
        
Copyright © 2005 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights Reserved. 

*****************************************************************
 32 Tri-City Herald: Downwinder lawsuits reduced 

This story was published Wednesday, April 13th, 2005 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

The number of Hanford downwinders who will have their cases
heard in a long-anticipated federal trial April 25 has dropped
from 12 to 7 as a judge decided four don't have strong enough
claims and one voluntarily halted her claim. 

Today, defendants in the case will make summary judgment
arguments in Spokane, asking to have the remaining bellwether
plaintiffs dismissed. 

In 1991, the first claims were filed by people who lived
downwind of Hanford when plutonium was being produced during
World War II and the Cold War for the nation's nuclear weapons
program. Radioactive releases, primarily iodine 131, drifted
downwind to settle on crops and the grass where dairy cows
grazed. 

After years of legal maneuvers, appeals and a change of judges
in the case, U.S. District Judge William Fremming Nielsen
ordered that attorneys for the plaintiffs and the early Hanford
contractors each pick six defendants to serve as bellwethers. 

His hope is that by seeing what a jury would decide on a
sampling of plaintiffs will help a settlement to be reached out
of court on the estimated 2,500 plaintiffs in the suit who
believe Hanford emissions damaged their health. 

Nielsen has told downwinder attorneys that the scientific
testimony offered by some of its medical experts does not appear
to be strong enough to support the claims of four of the
bellwethers. 

All four bellwethers appeared to have relatively low doses of
radiation. Radioactive iodine, which could have been consumed in
contaminated milk or fresh produce, settles in the thyroid,
where it can cause cancer or other disease. 

One bellwether plaintiff who will not go to trial, Dorothy
Workman, received four-tenths of a rad dose of radioactive
iodine. In comparison, if a doctor prescribed radioactive iodine
to perform a diagnostic thyroid scan, the dose might be 50 to
150 rad. 

"It's clear to me that (plaintiff's expert witness) can't
conclude that that exposure even comes close to a
more-probable-than-not cause of the thyroid problems that she
had," Nielsen said in a hearing earlier this year to consider
scientific evidence. 

Earlier, bellwether Karla Griffin volunteered to drop out of the
case after realizing that other family members who were not
exposed to Hanford radiation had also developed thyroid disease.
In some cases, a family history of thyroid disease may indicate
that the cause of the disease was primarily hereditary rather
than the result of Hanford emissions. 

The five plaintiffs who will not go to trial were all picked as
bellwethers by defense attorneys. 

"They picked the very weakest (claims) out of 2,500," said
plaintiff attorney Tom Foulds. "Most of the clients of mine and
of other attorneys have more than adequate dose to establish
claims." 

He estimated that at least 90 percent of the 2,500 plaintiffs
easily have stronger claims than the four bellwether cases
questioned by the judge. 

"We are not giving up on anyone the judge will permit us to go
forward on," Foulds said. 

Defense attorneys have said that the claimants they picked were
typical. 

"They have a lot of weak claims," said defense attorney Kevin
Van Wart. "It's plain they have shown no inclination to screen
claims." 

Despite the decision not to allow the four bellwether plaintiffs
to go to trial, plaintiffs "still want to pursue junk claims,"
he said. 

Today he and other defense attorneys will ask the judge to also
dismiss the six bellwethers picked by the plaintiffs and the
remaining defense plaintiff. 

The remaining bellwether picked by the defense is Helen Walker,
who defense attorneys said received about 5.5 rads of radiation
after moving to Colfax when she was 26. She was diagnosed with
thyroid nodules when she was 28. 

That is less than the dose she would have received from normal
background radiation and less than the dose that any study has
observed an increased risk of thyroid nodules among people
exposed to radiation as an adult, the defense is arguing. 

The plaintiffs have made a stronger case that low doses of
radiation could lead to cancer or thyroid nodules than some
other thyroid diseases, such as hypothyroidism, sometimes called
an underactive thyroid. 

© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 33 Idaho Statesman: Crapo presses for compensation for downwinders

Dan Popkey   

The Idaho Statesman | Edition Date: 04-13-2005

Sen. Mike Crapo is working hard to ensure Idaho's downwinders
aren't forgotten again.

Crapo didn't dally when a March 31 deadline passed for release
of a study that could prompt Congress to expand compensation to
Idaho victims of nuclear bomb testing in Nevada.

He's pressing the National Academies of Science to complete
their report so he can win justice for Idahoans who suffer from
cancer related to the bomb blasts.

On Friday, Crapo wrote NAS to ask what was up with the $1
million federally funded study, which will include input from
Idahoans who testified at a seven-hour NAS Board on Radiation
Effects Research hearing in Boise in November.

He repeated his commitment to fight to add four Idaho counties
to the 1990 Radiation Compensation Exposure Act (RECA), which
provides $50,000 to victims of 19 types of cancer in 21 counties
in Nevada, Utah and Arizona. So far, $444 million in payments
have been authorized to 8,900 victims.

More vitally, Crapo wants to expand RECA beyond four counties 
Gem, Blaine, Custer and Lemhi which ranked in the top five in
the nation for cancer-causing radioactive iodine-131 fallout
from above-ground tests between 1951-62, according to a 1997
National Cancer Institute study. All 44 Idaho counties had more
fallout that some RECA-covered counties.

"... it is my expectation that the ... report will provide
evidence that expansion beyond those four counties will be
warranted," Crapo wrote NAS.

That is huge news. Crapo is eager to get moving and use the
report to sell his legislation to colleagues. NAS quickly
replied on Monday that the report is undergoing peer review and
should be done by month's end. It is due to Congress by June 30.

"The report is extremely pivotal, because until we get it we are
in a wait-and-see posture," Crapo told me Monday. "Once the
report is out we can react to it. At that point, I will move
ahead with at least the four counties, and perhaps more. We may
be moving as (an Idaho) delegation; it depends on what the
report says."

Crapo has conferred with Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert
Bennett and Montana Sen. Conrad Burns. Many victims in their
states do not get compensation.

He's drafted a bill to expand RECA to all of Idaho. Though he's
awaiting the report before settling on lines, Crapo said, "It
appeared to me from the meeting in Boise that it was likely
there would be justification for more than four counties."

I spoke with him shortly after his 38th and last radiation
treatment for a recurrence of prostate cancer. With a brother
who died of cancer and a sister who's a survivor, this is more
than just good politics for Crapo.

He's determined to make good on broken promises made to
downwinders eight years ago. Sen. Larry Craig and then-Sen. Dirk
Kempthorne vowed to fight for Idahoans after the 1997 National
Cancer Institute report. Instead, the Idahoans idled while Hatch
got RECA expanded in 2000.

Crapo's advocacy risks alienating his colleagues, who were not
offered the ordinary courtesy of joining the letter to NAS. But
Crapo knows exactly what he's doing. He's tugging his friends
along.

Rep. Mike Simpson grabbed the rope first. He, too, awaits the
study, but said he expects to support Crapo's legislation.
"Preferably it will include the state of Idaho and not just the
four counties," Simpson said.

Craig and Rep. Butch Otter are more circumspect. Craig "has said
publicly on more than one occasion that he would support
legislation for those four counties if the NAS study shows that
Idaho is in the affected area ... and possibly other counties in
southern Idaho," said his spokesman, Mike Tracy.

Otter's spokesman, Mark Warbis, said the government must accept
responsibility but added that "decisions must be based on
science and not on politics" and Otter "looks forward to the
study's findings."

Relying on science is fine and good, but Craig and Otter's
thinking is too narrow. Amending RECA is a political act. Hatch
won expansion over the objection of President Clinton because
Congress was persuaded by "the personal testimonies of the
hundreds of victims themselves," according to a House Judiciary
Committee report.

Crapo listened hard to similar stories at the November hearing.
He can't purge them from his mind.

"It really is proactive of Crapo to be ahead of the report
because of what he heard," said state Rep. Kathy Skippen,
R-Emmett, who played a key role in empowering Idaho's
downwinders.

Skippen, one of the heroes of this story, started with the
Emmett Messenger-Index and wound up getting coverage in my
column, the New York Times, and now, best of all, an eight-page
spread in the May issue of Reader's Digest, titled "Fallout."

With readership of 44 million, Reader's Digest is the largest
general circulation magazine in the United States, epitomizes
the mainstream, and has credibility in Congress.

Shari Garmon, the Emmett native and cancer victim who approached
Skippen in July, is the star of the piece. She's buoyed by
Crapo's urgency and the coalescing of political forces.

"It's fantastic," said Garmon. "Crapo's saying he sat there and
listened to the stories, just like Dr. (Evan) Douple," director
of the Board on Radiation Effects Research, who ran the Boise
hearing.

"In other words, they do their jobs, he'll do his," Garmon said.
"Crapo's ready to help us."   

*****************************************************************
 34 Hawk Eye: Panel to meet about worker funds 

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST   
      
Cedar Rapids meeting set for former Army plant weapons workers'
case. 

By KILEY MILLER
kmiller@thehawkeye.com 

Iowa Army Ammunition Plant workers believed they had won a major
battle for government compensation earlier this year. Instead,
they must fight one more time. 

An advisory board reviewing a petition from former atomic
weapons workers at the Middletown plant will meet from Monday,
April 25, to Wednesday, April 27, at the Crowne Plaza Five
Seasons in Cedar Rapids. 

IAAP is on the docket for Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday
morning. 

The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health ruled in
February that anyone who worked in the nuclear weapons program
at the plant between 1949 and 1974 should automatically get
$150,000 from the federal government if diagnosed with one of 22
different cancers. 

The Atomic Energy Commission and Department of Energy built,
tested and disassembled nuclear weapons components on Line 1 of
the plant from the mid–1940s until the 1970s. 

Many men and women who worked on Line 1 have since died of
cancer. Others still languish with the disease. 

The advisory board members believed it impossible for National
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health researchers to
accurately estimate the amount of radiation IAAP workers
absorbed. Congressional legislation passed in 2000 to assist the
nation's Cold War energy workers specifies automatic
compensation when dose reconstructions are inappropriate. 

Some plant workers and family members who traveled to the
board's meeting in St. Louis were reduced to tears when the
decision was announced, believing their long quest was nearly
over. 

The advisory board at the same meeting also gave a favorable
recommendation to a petition from workers at Mallinckrodt
Chemical Works in St. Louis. 

That petition cleared a second major hurdle Monday when Health
and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt added his backing. 

But soon after the February meeting, NIOSH officials said a new
"site profile" for IAAP had reopened the door to dose
reconstructions for workers there. 

The advisory board had a teleconference Monday to discuss the
petition. 

The board will discuss the newly disclosed site profile April
26, then reconsider the IAAP petition the following morning. 

In a press release issued Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R–Iowa,
said the advisory board should move quickly in Cedar Rapids to
reaffirm the previous recommendation. 

Grassley urged former IAAP workers to attend the meeting. 

"This should be an open–and–shut case," the senator said. "I
still find it hard to believe that just when these workers were
close to getting the compensation they deserved, NIOSH
effectively pulled the rug out from under them." 



The Crowne Plaza Five Seasons is located at 350 First Ave. NE in
Cedar Rapids. For reservations, call 1–319–363–8161   
  
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
· 1-800-397-1708 · FAX 319-754-6824 · webmaster@thehawkeye.com
*****************************************************************
 35 PittsburghLIVE.com: Help on the way for more nuke workers - 


 Who: Former NUMEC workers and likely ARCO and B workers, and
other nuclear industry workers. 

What: Town hall meetings held by U.S. Department of Labor
officials to discuss compensation for former nuclear workers. 

When: 2 and 6 p.m. today (April 13). 

Where: Clarion Hotel and Conference Center, 300 Tarentum Bridge
Road, New Kensington. 

Note: Workers who need help filling out claims can schedule
appointments after the meeting or call toll-free 1-866-363-6993. 

			 
 By Stephanie Ritenbaugh
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
 Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

NEW KENSINGTON -- More people may now be eligible for
compensation through a government program that entitles former
nuclear workers who became ill because of their work on nuclear
weapons to a lump sum payment of $150,000 and medical benefits. 

Today, government officials will be at the Clarion Hotel to
field questions about the changes to the Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICP) of 2000. 


According to Department of Labor spokeswoman Dolline Hatchett,
the amendments, approved in October, expand the coverage to
claimants who worked at the following facilities identified by
the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: 

Aeroprojects, West Chester. 

Aliquippa Forge, Aliquippa. 

Jessop Steel Co., Washington. 

Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC), Apollo. 

Superior Steel Co., Carnegie. 

Vitro Manufacturing, Canonsburg. 

Westinghouse Advanced Reactors, location not listed. 

These sites have been identified as having significant residual
radioactive contamination, according to the U.S. Department of
Labor, which operates the program with the U.S. Department of
Energy. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, the former NUMEC of Apollo provided
enriched uranium to fuel nuclear submarines and nuclear power
plants. The NUMEC site in Apollo laster was operated by
Atlantic-Richfield Co. (ARCO) and Babcock &Wilcox (B). 

While a Labor Department news release on today's meetings does
not mention ARCO or B, workers from those companies also appear
to be covered. 

That's because nuclear work in Apollo continued well after NUMEC
went out of business. 

The Labor Department release goes on to say that employees may
be eligible even if they worked outside of the period of
weapons-related production originally covered under the act. 

It also appears that the Parks nuclear dump site associated with
NUMEC and its successors also could be included, as NUMEC is
listed twice, but with no location attached to the second
listing. 

Attempts to clarify those points with a Labor Department
spokeswoman were unsuccessful. 

Since 2000, the department has granted more than $1 billion in
compensation and medical payments to more than 13,500 claimants. 

Illnesses covered by the act include radiogenic cancers,
beryllium diseases and chronic silicosis. 

Department of Energy contractor employees and certain survivors
also may be eligible. 

Stephanie Ritenbaugh can be reached at sritenbaugh@tribweb.comor
724-226-4702. 

Copyright 2005 Valley News Dispatch   
      
Images and text copyright © 2005 by The Tribune-Review
Publishing Co.
 Reproduction or reuse prohibited without written consent from
PittsburghLIVE.
*****************************************************************
 36 Deseret news: A fallout over eligibility 

[deseretnews.com] 

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News 

A new study released Tuesday concludes that many Utahns who may 
have contracted cancer from Nevada Test Site fallout live in 
locations that are ineligible for federal compensation. 

The study released by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, was 
compiled by House of Representatives investigators who used 
1973-2001 cancer-rate data supplied by the National Cancer 
Institute. 

Matheson said the study may be an argument for expanding 
federal compensation so more Utahns affected by the radiation 
can receive payments that his office said usually equal $50,000. 
But Matheson wants to examine further reports before acting. 

Under the federal fallout compensation law, only 
residents of 10 southern Utah counties — Beaver, Garfield, Iron, 
Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington and Wayne — 
are eligible for the payments. To qualify for payments under the 
1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), they must have 
contracted any of 18 types of cancer tied to radiation exposure. 

But fallout spread far beyond those 10 counties. 

"There clearly are counties outside the RECA counties 
with higher rates of cancer," Matheson told the Deseret Morning 
News in a telephone interview. 

A map of radiation-related cancer rates, part of the 
10-page report, bears that out. Washington, Kane and Piute 
counties, which line up to the northeast of the Nevada Test 
Site, had rates of radiation-related cancer that were in the 
highest category, between 208 and 247 cases per 100,000 
residents. But also in that category were Tooele, Weber, Morgan, 
Salt Lake, Wasatch, Carbon and Grand counties. 

In fact, Utah counties with the highest levels of 
radiation-associated cancers were Tooele, with 243.6 cases per 
100,000 residents; Grand, 238.2; and Salt Lake, 223.8. None is 
within the compensation boundaries. 

When RECA was passed, Matheson said, "there was less 
scientific data out there" about which areas had heavy fallout 
exposure. 

Fallout blew away from the Test Site during almost 100 
open-air tests from 1951 to 1962. Some underground tests also 
vented radiation. 

Most of the 19 Utah counties outside the compensation 
boundaries had higher rates than three in the south that are in 
the RECA area: Millard, Wayne and San Juan (all in the category 
with the lowest rate, 136-177 per 100,000 residents). 

Several variables may be involved to explain the 
differences. 

+ "This (mapping) is based on where the cancer was reported," 
Matheson said. 

People may have come down with cancer after moving away 
from wherever they lived at the time they were exposed to 
fallout. 

+ A huge number of cases may not have been caused by fallout 
but by other carcinogens such as tobacco smoke. Five of the 18 
types of cancer happen to be the most common cancer types. You 
can't blame every case of breast cancer, for example, on fallout.

+ Exposure to fallout from the Nevada Test Site varied based 
on factors like wind direction, precipitation and topography. 
Possibly a mountain range hundreds of miles from the blast, like 
the Oquirrh or Wasatch mountains, would have caught clouds of 
fallout and caused the deadly particles to rain out. 

A National Institutes of Health study released in 1997 
showed much of the United States was exposed to radioactive 
iodine from fallout. 

"There's no question that fallout fell in different areas 
in greater concentration than in some others," Matheson said. 

The report says, "Utah counties with higher rates of 
radiation-associated cancer experienced greater exposure to 
radioactive fallout." 

According to a press release Matheson's office issued, 
the congressman suspects there are "more victims out there than 
we have already acknowledged under the current law." 

Six Utah counties have cancer rates above the state 
average, five of them outside the RECA borders, it added. 

Over the 30 years that the National Cancer Institute has 
recorded rates of these types of illness, "There was an 8 
percent higher rate of radiation-associated cancers in areas 
where residents can't be compensated, under RECA, than in those 
areas whose residents are eligible," Matheson said, according to 
the release. 

"This has implications for thousands of cancer victims in 
19 Utah counties who, by law, cannot file a claim." 

The study was carried out at Matheson's request by the 
Special Investigations Division of the House Committee on 
Government Reform. 

E-mail: bau@desnews.com 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 37 [CMEP] Groups Affirm Opposition to Private Nuke Dump
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:15:03 -0500 (CDT)

 
*** P R E S S    R E L E A S E ***

For Immediate Release: April 4, 2005
Contact: Melissa Kemp, PC (202) 454-5176; Kevin Kamps, NIRS (202)
328-0002 x. 14

Opposition to Private Fuel Storage Mounts from Public Interest Groups
and Tribes

Citing National Security and Environmental Justice Concerns, Groups
Urge Nuclear Agency to Listen to Utah's Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Public interest groups and spokespersons from
indigenous tribes today charged that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is exacerbating the nation's nuclear waste problems --
and endangering national security -- by preliminarily approving a
so-called temporary waste dump in Utah known as Private Fuel Storage
(PFS).

The proposal to build the dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation
in Utah, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is led by a private
consortium of eight commercial nuclear utilities, which plans to
"temporarily" store 44,000 tons of irradiated fuel in dry cask
containers above ground.  According to the utilities, this site will not
serve as a permanent resting place for the nation's waste, but rather
would be an interim storage site until Yucca Mountain is opened.

But PFS poses a national security risk because the high-level nuclear
waste would travel on railways through highly populated regions across
the United States with little to no preparation or training for states
and cities, the groups said. Moreover, questions about the integrity of
the waste casks in a crash remain unresolved.  Nuclear waste remains
dangerous to human health and the environment for hundreds of thousands
of years.  Further, if Yucca Mountain, which is beleaguered by
controversy, never opens, PFS would be poised to become a de facto
permanent storage site.

"This plan is a fatally flawed shell game, unnecessarily risking
transport of dangerous radioactive waste across the country to a
temporary dump, only to have it moved again someday to someplace else,"
said Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist at the Nuclear Information
and Resource Service (NIRS).  "Once parked at Skull Valley, the 4,000
containers of waste would be a radioactive bull's eye for terrorists
directly upwind of Salt Lake City."

"Private Fuel Storage is just another industry-driven scheme to further
energy companies' goals of a nuclear-powered future," said Wenonah
Hauter, director of Public Citizen's energy program.  "We urge the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to rein in this misguided plan and listen
carefully to the state of Utah's legitimate concerns about why its
residents should not bear the burden of hosting 44,000 tons of
radioactive waste in their backyard."

Utah has been fighting the proposal since 1997.  There are no nuclear
power plants within Utah's borders, yet Utah's residents are being
targeted to bear the burden of 80 percent of the country's commercial
high-level radioactive waste.  Further, the private project is sited on
a small, impoverished Indian reservation, which raises serious
environmental justice concerns, an issue the NRC has been negligent in
addressing in recent years.

"Yet again, like the Mescalero Apache in New Mexico that fought off PFS
years ago, and dozens of other tribes before us, our sovereign
reservation is being targeted by aggressive, giant energy corporations
and complicit government agencies," said Margene Bullcreek, a leading
Skull Valley Goshute opponent to PFS. "We do not want this radioactive
waste dump on our sacred land."

On Wednesday, Utah will present oral arguments in its appeal of the NRC
licensing board's recent decision to dismiss Utah's safety concerns. The
oral arguments will be made at a 1 p.m. hearing at the NRC's Rockville,
Md., headquarters that is open to the public.

###

For more information about Public Citizen, please visit
www.citizen.org.

For more information about Nuclear Information and Resource Service,
please visit www.nirs.org.

**********
To SUBSCRIBE to the CMEP ListServ, visit https://www.citizen.org/email/enteremail.cfm

If you would like to be removed from the CMEP ListServ, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe CMEP" in the message.

Questions about the CMEP ListServ can be directed to CMEP-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG.

To learn more about this and other Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program campaigns, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/

-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
*****************************************************************
 38 Author of Suspect Yucca Mountain E-Mails got $4,900 for New
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 09:53:26 -0500 (CDT)

 
ENN: Environmental News Network
Author of Suspect Yucca Mountain E-Mails got $4,900 for New Assignment

April 13, 2005 b By Erica Werner, Associated Press

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=7519

WASHINGTON b A scientist who wrote e-mails about falsifying work on the 
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project was paid $4,900 for a Yucca assignment 
he got after the e-mails became known, the U.S. Geological Survey said 
Tuesday.

Last week, the Energy Department said the scientist -- a USGS hydrologist 
identified by USGS Tuesday as Joe A. Hevesi -- never billed for the work.

Hevesi was a principal author of e-mails written between 1998 and 2000 by 
scientists studying how water moved through the proposed waste dump 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas.

In the e-mails to colleagues, Hevesi discussed making up facts, deleting 
inconvenient data and keeping two sets of files -- "the ones that will keep 
(quality assurance) happy and the ones that were actually used."

USGS Director Charles Groat assured lawmakers at a hearing last week that 
the scientists involved were no longer working on Yucca Mountain. A day 
later, USGS and the Energy Department disclosed that Hevesi had actually 
been given a new, 40-hour assignment in March, several days after Energy 
learned of the e-mails. An Energy spokeswoman said last week that Hevesi 
never actually billed any hours for the assignment.

On Tuesday, USGS spokeswoman A.B. Wade said officials had learned that 
Hevesi had in fact completed the 40 hours of work on the assignment, which 
was to help reconstruct a computer file needed to run models of water 
infiltration through the proposed dump site.

Hevesi was paid his normal weekly salary of $4,900 for the work, and USGS is 
billing the Energy Department for the amount, Wade said.

Energy spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton said the department was still 
gathering information and she couldn't comment further. A message for Hevesi 
left at his USGS office in Sacramento, Calif., was not returned.

USGS scientists validated Energy Department conclusions that water seeped 
relatively slowly through the proposed dump site, which would result in less 
radiation release -- a finding disputed by Yucca critics.

Meanwhile, a congressional panel chaired by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., was 
pushing forward with plans to seek testimony from Hevesi and two other USGS 
scientists involved with the e-mails.

The Interior Department last week turned down a request for the scientists 
to testify before Porter's House Government Reform federal work force and 
agency organization subcommittee. The department cited ongoing criminal 
investigations by the FBI and inspectors general at the Energy and Interior 
departments.

Yucca Mountain is planned as a national repository for 77,000 tons of 
high-level commercial and defense nuclear waste, to be buried for 10,000 
years and beyond in the Nevada desert. The project is strongly opposed by 
Nevada officials, and the most recent completion date of 2010 was recently 
abandoned by the Energy Department.

Source: Associated Press 
*****************************************************************
 39 [NukeNet] gao report on spent fuel
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 19:07:42 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: NRC Needs to Do More to Ensure That
Power Plants Are Effectively Controlling Spent Nuclear Fuel. GAO-05-339,
April 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-339
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highligh

-- 
Coalition for Peace and Justice
UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; http://www.unplugsalem.org
http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org

"A time comes when silence is betrayal.
Even when pressed by the demands of
inner truth, men do not easily assume
the task of opposing their government's
policy, especially in time of war.
Nor does the human spirit move without
  great difficulty against all the apathy
of conformist thought, within one's own
bosom and in the surrounding world."

- Martin Luther King Jr.



-- 
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_______________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
 40 DailyBulletin.com: Local wells may see $50M for cleanup

Article Published: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 -
 		   	 	
By Scott Vanhorne, Staff Writer

 A bill that would provide millions to remove a rocket fuel
chemical from local water cleared the House of Representatives
on Tuesday.

 The bill, introduced by Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, must
be approved by the Senate and signed by the president before the
money flows. The measure cleared the House last year but hit a
snag in the Senate, where lawmakers failed to act on it before
adjourning.

 The legislation, the Southern California Water Remediation Act,
would provide $50 million in an interest-bearing account to
remove perchlorate from drinking water in cities such as Rialto,
Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga that draw from the Santa Ana
watershed.

 Under the new version, the fund would end after 10 years and
would require reauthorization to continue.

 "I applaud the effort," Rialto Assistant City Administrator
Kirby Warner said. "I hope we do get an opportunity to get a
piece of that money." 

There are 174 wells in the Santa Ana watershed contaminated with
perchlorate. San Bernardino County has 106, Riverside County has
36 and Orange County accounts for 32.

 Perchlorate is a salt used to make rocket fuel, flares,
fireworks and other products. Some scientists suspect the
chemical can affect fetal brain development; others say minute
levels in local wells are benign.

 Perchlorate coming from a former Lockheed-Martin Corp. plant in
Mentone has affected Redlands, Loma Linda and Riverside wells,
but the military contractor has spent millions to help providers
clean up contaminants.

 A pollution plume in northern Rialto that many blame on
military contractors who worked there in the 1950s has tainted
21 wells in the Rialto-Colton groundwater basin. Water providers
have received little help cleaning up the mess, with the
exception of $4 million given by B.F. Goodrich, one of 23
companies the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board
suspects may have released the contaminant.

 West Valley Water District General Manager Anthony "Butch"
Araiza said the federal money would help ease the burden of
treating water to remove perchlorate, which costs more than $1
million per well.

 "I've been reluctant to go back to my rate-payers and have them
pay for it because they didn't cause it," Araiza said.

 Even so, he may ask for a rate increase this year to help pay
for perchlorate treatment and to make up for about $1 million in
tax funding that the state is expected to take over the next two
years.

 Araiza, who has gone to Washington with other local officials
to lobby lawmakers for perchlorate cleanup money, said he's not
counting on the $50 million just yet.

 "It's kind of tight back there right now," he said. "That's why
I don't know if Baca's bill will go anywhere."

 If the bill passes, it will not provide enough money to solve
the perchlorate problems in the watershed, said Kurt Berchtold,
assistant executive officer at the Santa Ana Regional Water
Quality Control Board.

 Some estimates put cleanup cost in the hundreds of millions. A
more precise figure is difficult because it's hard to say how
long perchlorate will remain in the water supply and, as of yet,
no state or federal standards regulate the levels allowed in
drinking water.

Staff Writer Lisa Friedman contributed to this report.


Scott Vanhorne can be reached at (909) 386-3878. 		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	
        Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group     
*****************************************************************
 41 L.A. Daily News: Perchlorate found in well near Riverpark

Santa Clarita
 
www.dailynews.com

Article Published: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 -
 		   	 	
By Eugene Tong, Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Newhall Land has requested the City Council
postpone what may be the final review of its 1,100-home
Riverpark project after an area well tested positive for
perchlorate contamination, officials said Tuesday.

 The test well monitored by Valencia Water Company is located
west of the Bouquet Canyon Road bridge over the Santa Clara
River, about 500 feet from a gasoline station at the
intersection with Soledad Canyon Road, said Glenn Adamick, vice
president for planning at The Newhall Land and Farming Company.

 The developer asked the City Council to continue the hearing
until May 24 to allow the water agency to confirm the result.

 "This is new information," said Adamick, who became aware of
the positive test results Tuesday. "It is in everybody's best
interest to wait for the confirmation process to be done, and be
disclosed as part of the Riverpark process. 

"This is just a piece of information we believe is prudent to
give to the council before approval is given on the project."

 Any cleanup would follow criteria outlined by the Urban Water
Management Plan, which guides development and water policy in
the Santa Clarita Valley, Adamick said.

 The City Council was prepared to certify the environmental
impact report for the development proposed on 695 acres north of
the Santa Clara River, clearing the way for a second and final
reading April 26.

 Newhall Land has offered land and other concessions to build
Riverpark, including $24 million worth of right-of-way
dedications and fees for the city's 8.5-mile east-west Cross
Valley Connector road.

 But critics remained leery of the project's potential dangers,
including environmental damage to the Santa Clara River.

 Perchlorate contamination has hampered development in the
city's core for more than a decade. For nearly 50 years, the
now-defunct Wittaker-Bermite munitions plant tested dynamite,
missiles and small rockets on some 996 acres off Soledad Canyon
Road.

 The operation closed in 1987, but the site is contaminated with
various chemical compounds, which have migrated into the
valley's groundwater system. 

Eugene Tong, (661) 257-5253 eugene.tong@dailynews.com		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	

Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Daily News
*****************************************************************
 42 Brattleboro Reformer: Lawmakers weigh spent fuel storage

April 13, 2005 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					
By CAROLYN LORIÉ 
Reformer Staff

MONTPELIER -- Legislators continue to wrangle with the issue of
dry cask storage at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

 The plant's used fuel is currently stored in a pool on site,
but that is expected to be filled to capacity by 2008 or 2007,
if power production is increased.

 Vermont Yankee officials want approval to move the oldest fuel
from the pool to large concrete casks, so they can continue to
operate the plant at least through its current license, which
ends in 2012.

 Vermont law dictates that the storage of radioactive material
requires the consent of the Legislature as well as a certificate
of public good from the Public Service Board.

 While the law is clear about the requirement for legislative
approval, what has been less clear is what form that approval
should take. Efforts by Vermont Yankee lobbyists to get an
exemption from the law for the plant have been unsuccessful. 

The issue first surfaced at the end of the last legislative
session. This year, the House Committee on Natural Resources and
Energy has spent a lot of time dealing with the issue, trying to
gauge how pressing the matter is and how to best address it.

 On Tuesday, Richard Cowart, director of the Regulatory
Assistance Project and former chairman of the Vermont Public
Service Board, advised the committee that the Legislature has
before it three options.

 The first is to take a simple yes or no vote on the matter:
yes, Vermont Yankee can have dry cask storage; or no, it cannot.

 It could engage in a process similar to what the Public Service
Board does by gathering information, hearing testimony and
weighing the technical matters in the case. But, warned Cowart,
the Legislature is not equipped to take on such a complicated
endeavor.

 Instead, he advised the committee that the Legislature approach
the issue in the larger context of Vermont's energy future.

 Lawmakers, said Cowart, could choose to focus on establishing
the policies and parameters around which they want dry cask
storage handled and then pass that information on to the Public
Service Board.

 The board, he pointed out, is equipped to handle complex
technical matters and could do so within the dictates set forth
by the Legislature.

 Those decrees could include such specifics as whether or not to
assess a fee for each cask and if so how much. The revenue from
the casks could be reinvested into renewable energy, which is
the arrangement currently used in Minnesota.

 Such a cooperative approach, said Cowart, would "combine what
the Legislature is good at with what the board is good at to get
to the best decision."

 Several members of the committee agreed with Cowart's
recommendation.

 "We don't have the capability to hold evidentiary hearings. We
can't put people under oath," said Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Putney.
"We can't force Entergy to give good information."

 Rep. Joseph Krawczyk, R-Bennington, echoed that sentiment.

 "The expert, to me, is the Public Service Board," he said.

 In addition to Cowart, the committee also heard from former
Gov. Phil Hoff, who urged committee members to use their power
to impose the most stringent standards possible on Entergy's bid
for dry cask storage.

 "This is really a plea," said Hoff. "These are our people in
Southern Vermont and we have a right and a responsibility to
protect them."

 After his testimony, Hoff voiced some concern about Cowart's
advice, saying that it may not be in the best interest of the
state to turn over the matter to the Public Service Board, as it
could be comprised of pro-industry members. The former governor
said he was not familiar with the members of the current board.

 A public hearing on dry cask storage will take place on
Thursday at 6 p.m. at Brattleboro Union High School.

 Darrow said he was hopeful that the Legislature would vote on
the issue by the end of the session in May.

       Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., 
*****************************************************************
 43 San Bernardino County Sun: Radium cleanup to cost county almost $200,000

www.sbsun.com

Article Published: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 -
 		     	 	
By Megan Blaney, Staff Writer

One man's hobby to collect vintage airplanes will cost the
county nearly $200,000 to clean up radioactive material at least
temporarily.

 The county will seek reimbursement after cleaning up the
Radium-226 contamination at Chino Airport, where Jeff Pearson,
owner of Preservation Aviation, Inc., stores vintage airplanes
containing the material. The radioactive material was used on
the predominantly American military aircraft to light up the
instrument dials in the dark. The aircraft are mostly from World
War II through the 1960s.

 "In both hangars there is a quantity of old aviation
instruments that have the radium painted on the dial,' county
Director of Airports Bill Ingraham said Monday.

 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined the
radioactive materials exceed the radiation limit and closed off
the area on March 10, deeming it unsafe for entry, Ingraham
said. 

Twelve tenants of nearby hangars are still not allowed into the
building and cannot access their aircraft, Chino Airport Manager
James Jenkins said Tuesday. Their aircraft are not contaminated,
but the area is, he said.

 The county hired New World Environmental Inc. for $110,597 to
clean up the site, and will pay $85,000 to dispose of the
radioactive material in certified landfills. The Board of
Supervisors approved the funding, which comes from the Airports
Capital Improvement Fund, at Tuesday's meeting. 

"Since the county is owner of one building, and we own the land
for the other building, we are ultimately responsible,' Ingraham
said. 

The county intends to recover the cleanup cost from the tenant,
Ingraham said.

 The EPA's investigation of the Chino hangar stemmed from an
investigation into a warehouse in North Hollywood where the same
company was ordered to cease operations because of radioactive
contamination from the same source.

 The FBI served the search warrant to investigate the hangars on
behalf of the EPA.

 New World Environmental Inc. is expected to start cleanup today.

 EPA on-scene coordinator Robert Wise said he could not comment
on the contamination because it was an ongoing investigation.

 Pearson could not be reached for comment. 		   	 	

Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group     
*****************************************************************
 44 Whittier Daily News: Inland perchlorate cleanup OK'd

Article Published: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 -
 		   	 	
By Lisa Friedman , Washington Bureau

For the second time in as many years, the House on Tuesday
approved legislation to help the Inland area clean up
perchlorate-contaminated groundwater.

 The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, authorizes $50
million to reimburse the Cucamonga Valley Water District and
others in the Santa Ana River watershed for the mounting costs
of removing perchlorate from the groundwater.

 Identical legislation passed the House last year but failed to
pass the Senate before Congress adjourned. Baca spokeswoman
Joanne Peters said the congressman plans to ask Sens. Dianne
Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to introduce a Senate version of the
bill.

 "Our communities are tired of watching the finger pointing and
waiting for someone to step up to the plate. It is time that we
stop arguing and start delivering instead,' Baca said in a
statement. 

His bill establishes an interest- bearing account known as the
Southern California Groundwater Remediation Fund, administered
through the Interior Department, to provide grants to local
water authorities in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino
counties.

 Under the new version passed Tuesday, the fund would sunset
after 10 years, after which it would require reauthorization if
it were to continue.

 Perchlorate is a rocket fuel chemical, linked to thyroid
problems, that has seeped into about 350 water supply systems
throughout California, the vast majority of them in San
Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties.

 "By most accounts, perchlorate in water comes from a federal
source,' Baca added. "We must reverse the trend where innocent
hard-working families pay for a federally-created problem that
no one will take responsibility for.' 

--Lisa Friedman can be reached at (202) 662-8731, or by e-mail
at lisa.friedman@langnews.com . 		   	 	
			
Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group     
*****************************************************************
 45 Nevada Appeal - Opinion: A smart Plan B for nuclear waste disposal
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
From Nevada Appeal readers
April 12, 2005

Now that the options for nuclear waste in the United States have 
degenerated into a game of Nuclear Hot Potato between Yucca 
Mountain in Nevada and the Goshute Reservation in Utah, it might 
be time to explore an unpublicized-but-effective process for 
dealing with nuclear waste.

In the rest of the world, where technological decisions are best 
left to the scientific community and not to the politicians, 
those who have the expertise in their field are given benefit of 
trust that should come with their experience. In the rest of the 
world, no nation would think for a minute that burying nuclear 
fuel rods in the earth for eternity is anything other than 
short-term thinking, in this case close to lunacy.

In the rest of the world, nuclear waste from power plants is 
recycled, for the simple reason that most of the potential energy 
of the fuel rods is still unburned. A nuclear fuel assembly loses 
its power not because the uranium is gone but because the 
presence of reaction products from the fission process, iodine 
and xenon, cause the fission process to extinguish, much like 
piling ashes on a campfire.

Russia and France have been recycling power plant waste almost 
from the inception of their nuclear programs. It avoids the need 
to dig more uranium out of the ground and the environmental 
damage caused by mining and processing. Reprocessing is a 
relatively low-tech chemical process that can concentrate the 
dangerous wastes from a huge, 100-ton cask of nuclear fuel down 
to the volume of the bed of a pickup truck.

After that process, that concentrated waste is mixed with ceramic 
material in a process known as "vitrification," where it spends 
the rest of eternity in easily handled containers the size of a 
household garbage can. The material resembles glass and is 
impervious to contact with water or any release back into the 
environment. The uranium recovered goes back into making more 
fuel rods. Those garbage can-size containers can be stored with a 
fraction of the cost or public fuss that attends what is planned 
for Yucca Mountain or Goshute. Although the regulations in the 
United States today specifically prohibit the recycling of this 
waste in the United States, it is an accepted and legal practice 
in the E.U. and Russia.

If politics could be removed from consideration of what to do 
with nuclear waste, Plan B could be the answer to the nuclear 
waste dilemma.

John P. Franks

Silver Springs

All contents © Copyright 2005 nevadaappeal.com
Nevada Appeal - 580 Mallory Way - Carson City, NV 89701                         
*****************************************************************
 46 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN E-MAILS: No scientists, no hearing 
 
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
 

Subpoena remains option, Porter says 

By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
 

WASHINGTON -- Unable to secure key witnesses, Rep. Jon Porter
called off today's House subcommittee hearing on Yucca Mountain
Project e-mail messages that discuss falsifying documents.
 
 Porter, R-Nev., the subcommittee chairman, did not set a new
date Tuesday for the hearing.
 
 He said he would continue to seek information from three
scientists who have been identified as connected with the
messages.
 
 "The subpoena remains an option, and I will not hesitate to use
it, but our counsel continues to reach out to the individuals
and the agencies right now," Porter said.
 
 While investigating the proposed nuclear waste repository,
about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Porter said he plans to
expand the subcommittee's investigation of Energy Department
management practices.
 
 "We are into looking at other projects," Porter said. He
declined to be specific.
 
 On the Yucca e-mails, Porter had invited research hydrologists
Joe A. Hevesi, Alan L. Flint and Lorraine E. Flint to appear
before the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency
Organization.
 
 The scientists are employees of the U.S. Geological Survey, now
assigned to Sacramento, Calif., who worked at the Yucca Mountain
site in the 1990s.
 
 Porter has identified them as principal authors of the e-mails,
written between May 1998 and March 2000, which mention making up
dates and names and keeping multiple sets of documents to shield
shortcomings in documenting research to meet quality assurance
rules.
 
 The hearing, which was scheduled for today, hit a snag when the
Interior Department declined to compel the workers to testify.
The department said that would be inappropriate because of an
investigation by the inspectors general at the Interior and
Energy departments. That investigation could bring criminal
charges. 
One of the invited witnesses sent an e-mail to the subcommittee
Monday and declined to appear voluntarily, citing the
investigation. The other two did not respond to the invitation,
Porter said.
 
 Porter said the scientist who responded indicated he was on
vacation.
 
 The USGS has not taken any job actions against workers tied to
the e-mails, spokeswoman A.B. Wade said.
 
 She said she did not think workers were being told that now
might be a good time to take some time off. "To my knowledge no
suggestions of that nature have taken place," she said.
 
 Also, the USGS told the House subcommittee Monday that the
agency would not meet a deadline to produce personnel records
and other documents regarding workers assigned to Yucca Mountain
who have been linked to the e-mails.
 
 Agency officials have said that two or three workers were the
principal authors of the e-mails and that copies of the messages
were sent to about 10 other people.
 
 Wade said the agency hopes to complete the task by early next
month.
 
 Alan Flint is an 18-year USGS employee, and Lorraine Flint has
worked at the agency for 10 years, according to USGS records.
Hevesi began at USGS in 1992.
 
 Wade said the agency was gathering documents that would clarify
what years the employees worked at Yucca Mountain.
 
 Porter said he was reluctant to subpoena witnesses to appear
before the subcommittee and said such a move could limit the
value of fact-finding.
 
 "There is still a lot out there that we can put together before
we move forward with subpoenas," he said.
 
 
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 47 Bellona: European Parliament slams Commission on hazardous substances
 
For the first time since the adoption of regulations guiding the 
decision-making processes for European Commission committees in 
1999, the European Parliament stated this week that the 
Commission had exceeded its implementing powers regarding the 
Commission’s work waste handling.

  The EC would grant exceptions to the use of hazardous
materials (that could be found in computers and other household
items), which later create hazardous waste. The EU has called
the EC on to the carpet for this.   
  Bellona Arcihve   

Gunnar Grini, 2005-04-13 15:31

The RoHS-Directive was signed by the EU-parliament and the
Council on the February 13th 2003, and stipulates restrictions
on the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and
electronic equipment. According to the Directive Member States
must ensure that, from July 1st 2006, new electrical and
electronic equipment put on the market does not contain lead,
mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls
(PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). 

The Directive allows the Commission to add certain uses to a
list of exemptions from the ban, but only when there are no
viable safer alternatives. On the April 12th , the European
Parliament condemned unanimously a draft decision by the
European Commission to add exemptions to the phase-out of lead
and cadmium in electrical and electronic equipment. 

Parliament found that the Commission gave exemptions where
alternatives were clearly available, thus exceeding its mandate.
The Commission is now obliged to re-examine the draft decision.
If it should then still decide to adopt it unchanged, the
European Parliament will need to take the Commission to court. 

This will have important effects on further decisions. The
Commission has consulted on another 22 exemptions and calls for
a vote on April 19th to exempt a particularly controversial
substance—the brominated flame retardant decaBDE—even though its
own Scientific Committee strongly recommended risk reduction
measures for it. The parliament’s interference is in accordance
with the Bellona Foundation’s response, to the Stakeholder
consultation on possible exemptions under the RoHS-directive.
Read Bellona’s response here. 

The Parliament will now keep a close eye on future exemptions to
the RoHS-directive. Satu Hassi, the Greens/EFA Vice-chair of the
Environment committee stated the following:
 "The European Parliament today sent a very strong message to
the Commission: 'We will not tolerate that key pieces of
environment legislation adopted by Parliament and Council are
undermined via the backdoor of decisions in committee. Where
there is a viable safer alternative, lead and cadmium must be
replaced. It is unacceptable that the Commission and the Council
ignore this when the Parliament does not sit on the table and
adulterate important pieces of environmental legislation due to
commercial considerations that are out of the scope of the
directive. I hope that we can avoid a court case - but that
requires that the Commission takes its political responsibility
to correct this decision." 

“A first test of whether the Commission takes the Parliament
seriously will be next week's vote on the hazardous brominated
flame retardant decaBDE. If the waste unit of the Commission
wants to avoid another Parliament resolution stating that the
Commission exceeds its mandate, it should withdraw its proposal
to exempt decaBDE from the RoHS directive."   

  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 48 NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet April 18-19 in Rockville, Maryland
 
News Release - 2005-06
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION   
  Office of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200   
  Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail:   
  No. 05-066     April 12, 2005   
  

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on
Nuclear Waste will hold a public meeting April 18-19, in
Rockville, Md., where, among other items, members will discuss
rulemaking efforts regarding the National Source Tracking System
and be briefed by members of the Department of Energy on the
status of design and transportation matters related to the
proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. 

The session on Monday will run from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; the
Tuesday session will run from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. The sessions
will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agencys Two White Flint North
Building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. For more information on the
meeting, contact Sharon Steele, at 301-415-6805. A complete
agenda is available on the NRCs Web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acnw/agenda/2005/.
  



  


 	Last revised Wednesday, April 13, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 49 Las Vegas SUN: Porter postpones Yucca hearing

Today: April 13, 2005 at 9:48:22 PDT 

By Suzanne Struglinski 
 SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- Government employees involved with the allegedly
falsified information regarding the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump
will not appear at a House hearing that was scheduled for today.

 Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., postponed the hearing until further
notice. He said Tuesday that the Energy and Interior Departments
have not been cooperating with his subcommittee's investigation.

 "I am not surprised but extremely disappointed," Porter said.

 The Energy Department announced last month that it discovered
e-mails written by U.S. Geological Survey employees in which
they discuss how they "fudge" or "made up" data on the Yucca
Mountain project. The House Federal Workforce and Agency
Organization Subcommittee released redacted copies of the
e-mails and other government documents earlier this month.

 Porter, the subcommittee's chairman, presided over a hearing
last week with officials from the Interior and Energy
departments and scheduled another hearing to take place this
week to continue the discussion.

 Porter asked to have three USGS employees, Joe A. Hevesi, Alan
L. Flint and Lorraine E. Flint, testify at today's hearing but
the Interior Department told him it would not compel them to
appear.

 Porter sent letters to the three scientists individually asking
them to testify. One responded, although declined to come, and
he has not heard from the others, he said. He did not identify
which person responded.

 "Subpoena remains an option and I won't hesitate to use it,"
Porter said.

 At least 10 people are involved with the e-mails, based on what
department officials told Porter last week.

 The subcommittee lawyers and lawyers for the House Government
Reform Committee are still working on their own investigation.
Porter said issuing a subpoena "changes the rules" so the timing
has to be right and all the information has to be in place. Once
a subpoena is issued, an individual can refuse to talk under the
Fifth Amendment and Porter said he still wants to be able to
talk to the scientists. New information is coming in daily so
the committee and subcommittee staff are reaching out to get all
they can before taking that step, Porter said.

 "Literally, this is just the beginning," Porter said. "It's a
first step."

 The problems have a long history, however.

 Clark County Officials have compiled excerpts of past
Government Accountability Office report pointing to past
problems with the quality assurance program at the Yucca
Mountain project.

 The program, known as "QA," is designed to document and verify
scientific conclusions drawn by the department. The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission would use the documented steps to trace
back research on the project the department would use to prove
that it is safe.

 The e-mail messages released by the committee show authors
discussing ways to get around quality assurance steps and a
general disdain for the program, with one e-mail saying "Piss on
QA."

 Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, the son of Sen. Harry
Reid, sent Porter an eight-page digest of GAO reports from 1988,
1991, 1997, 2002, 2003 and 2004 with concerns on quality
assurance as well as insistence the process be "sound."

 "Rather than being an isolated, recent sequence of events, this
information may demonstrate further evidence of a long-standing
pattern of blatant disregard for the federal requirements
associated with this project, and DOE's (the Energy Department)
willingess to defer, delay and deflect its responsibility for
meeting those requirements if they impede progress on this
misguided project," Rory Reid wrote in a letter to Porter sent
Monday.

 A report by County Manager Thom Reilly, also sent to Porter,
said the quality assurance problems extend as far back as 1984,
even before the government singled out Yucca as the only site to
be studied as the country's nuclear waste repository.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 50 Las Vegas SUN: Feds to study risks of shipping waste to Utah

Today: April 13, 2005 at 11:06:31 PDT 

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

 WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department will study risks
associated with shipping nuclear waste to Utah, Gov. Jon
Huntsman Jr. told the Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday.

 The Utah newspaper is reporting that Huntsman Jr. said that
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has agreed to study
the security risks of moving the waste to the proposed temporary
nuclear fuel storage site in Skull Valley, Utah.

 A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department would not
comment this morning on the meeting or the study Huntsman said
was promised.

 Huntsman said the full scope of the Homeland Security
assessment is unclear, but it probably would weigh the dangers
of transportation and the risks of storing the fuel at the
reactors, temporarily on the Skull Valley reservation and at the
proposed permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas.

 Critics of the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump have used the
transportation argument for year as a key drawback to storing
the waste in Nevada. Moving the waste can lead to train or truck
accidents and, after Sept. 11, 2001, of terrorist attack or
sabotage that could lead to radiation exposure and
contamination, they say.

 Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., reintroduced the "Nuclear Waste
Terrorist Threat Assessment and Protection Act," earlier this
year. She has tried to get the bill through Congress several
times, which would require a federal analysis of safety and
security at Yucca itself as well as shipments to the site.

 Berkley said in a statement that Department of Homeland
Security should also looking at the threats to Yucca Mountain
shipments.

 "I welcome a commitment from the Department to protect the
American public by moving forward on a review without waiting
for Congress to act," she said.

 Her bill has seven co-sponsors, including Rep. Jon Porter,
R-Nev.

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide soon
whether to issue a license to Private Fuel Storage, a consortium
of nuclear power companies that aim to store waste in Utah.
However, the state has appeals pending and also could take its
case to court, which Huntsman said could drag the issue out for
years.

 Federal regulators "have looked at the safety issues, but they
haven't looked at security, which, post-9/11, should be
considered," Huntsman told The Salt Lake Tribune. "In the day of
the dirty bomb and car bombs this needs to be elevated to that
level."

 Huntsman said he also discussed the project with Vice President
Dick Cheney, who asked questions about its status and the
logistics of the proposed storage.

 Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, the coalition
of utility companies that has a deal with the Goshutes to store
depleted nuclear fuel rods on the Skull Valley Band's
reservation 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, said PFS has
committed to meeting any Homeland Security requirements to
guarantee the facility is safe.

 She said if studies find further safeguards are warranted, they
will be put in place.

 PFS contends consolidating the spent fuel at one site would
make it easier to protect and that there are advantages to
moving the waste away from the reactors, many of which are in
populous urban areas or on waterways.

 Huntsman has said that a terrorist attack on the PFS facility
could spread radiation across the Wasatch Front and points
further east.

 A spokesman for Sen. Orrin Hatch said the Utah senator asked
Chertoff during the secretary's confirmation hearing to study
the security aspects of the PFS plan.

 "It's a very good sign and a hopeful step that he has chosen to
do so," said Hatch aide Adam Elggren.

 
 
*****************************************************************
 51 Inyo Register: DOE's current woes 'just tip of the iceberg'
 

Opponents of proposed Yucca Mtn. nuclear waste repository 
convinced wrongs go beyond falsified documents   
  
  By Benjamin Grover

Las Vegas Sun     Tuesday, April 12, 2005 6:48 PM PDT   

WASHINGTON - Energy Department officials knew they had quality
assurance problems with Yucca Mountain documents well before it
was disclosed two weeks ago, according to internal department
documents.

Document review memos from 2000 also suggest that the department
may have more than just documentation problems - several memos
indicate that certain scientific data was questionable due to
problems with faulty equipment. 
"We believe that there is so much faulty QA (quality assurance)
stuff in there that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg,"
Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency director Bob Loux said.

Energy Department officials two weeks ago said they had
unearthed e-mails by U.S. Geological Survey employees working on
Yucca that indicated USGS workers had falsified Yucca documents.
Both Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and USGS director Chip Groat
directed their agency inspectors general to investigate.

Roughly 20 e-mails sent by a USGS geologist to a supervisor
between 1998 and 2000 were discovered by Energy Department
contractors on March 11 that indicated documents had been
falsified. The e-mails were found as part of a massive review of
millions of pages of Yucca documents, as the department prepares
to submit an application to construct a national nuclear waste
repository at Yucca.

Bodman disclosed the alleged falsifications last week, but did
not release the actual e-mails. 

Nevada lawyers, seeking to find the e-mails on a Yucca Mountain
document database, uncovered some documents they say are even
more damning.

In May and June of 2000 Energy Department employee James Raleigh
noted lists of document and data problems in three separate
internal reports. He was unavailable for comment.

In several cases, department documents indicate that equipment
was calibrated before the calibration equipment had even been
received. That "does not appear appropriate," Raleigh noted.

The reports catalog numerous examples of sensitive high-tech
equipment not being properly calibrated, which can affect
scientific data results.

Energy Department spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton stressed that
the USGS e-mails and the Raleigh memos were completely separate
sets of documents. In the first set, a federal employee
allegedly willfully falsified documents, she said.

The second set represent a routine "normal back-and-forth" of
information between project managers, she said. It cannot be
immediately known how or whether the issues in the Raleigh
documents were resolved, she said.

"One would expect that there are a number of documents of this
sort, where people are discussing additional questions that need
to be addressed," Womack Kolton said.

(Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service)

©2005 The Inyo Register

*****************************************************************
 52 Washington Times: Energy backs uranium removal
 
                Nation/Politics - April 13, 2005
			

 		 	 	 	 	 	 		 		 	 	 	 	 The Bush administration will
recommend that 12 million tons of radioactive waste in Moab,
Utah, be relocated to protect the nearby Colorado River, which
provides drinking water to 25 million people in four states. 
 
The Energy Department's decision came as a surprise to many
officials and environmentalists, who feared the final
determination would be based on a low-cost solution: storing
decades of uranium mining waste within 750 feet of the river's
edge. 
 
?The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the Southwest, and
it makes sense environmentally and economically to move this
pile now to a safe location,? said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a
Republican and senior member of the Utah congressional
delegation who has lobbied aggressively to move the waste pile. 


 
*****************************************************************
 53 Salt Lake Tribune: Yucca e-mail author got new assignment 

Article Last Updated: 04/13/2005 01:18:41 AM 

He was paid $4,900 after the damaging memos became known to 
officials 

By Erica Werner The Associated Press 

WASHINGTON - A scientist who wrote e-mails about falsifying 
work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project was paid $4,900 
for a Yucca assignment he got after the e-mails became known, 
the U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday. 

Last week, the Energy Department said the scientist - a USGS 
hydrologist identified by USGS Tuesday as Joe A. Hevesi - never 
billed for the work. 

Hevesi was a principal author of e-mails written between 1998 
and 2000 by scientists studying how water moved through the 
proposed waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

In the e-mails to colleagues, Hevesi discussed making up 
facts, deleting inconvenient data and keeping two sets of files 
- ''the ones that will keep [quality assurance] happy and the 
ones that were actually used.'' 

USGS Director Charles Groat assured lawmakers at a hearing 
last week that the scientists involved were no longer working on 
Yucca Mountain. A day later, USGS and the Energy Department 
disclosed that Hevesi had actually been given a new, 40-hour 
assignment in March, several days after Energy learned of the 
e-mails. An Energy spokeswoman said last week that Hevesi 
never actually billed any hours for the assignment. 

On Tuesday, USGS spokeswoman A.B. Wade said officials had 
learned that Hevesi had in fact completed the 40 hours of work 
on the assignment, which was to help reconstruct a computer file 
needed to run models of water infiltration through the proposed 
dump site. 

Hevesi was paid his normal weekly salary of $4,900 for the 
work, and USGS is billing the Energy Department for the amount, 
Wade said. 

Energy spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton said the department was 
still gathering information and she couldn't comment further. A 
message for Hevesi left at his USGS office in Sacramento, Calif.,
was not returned. 

USGS scientists validated Energy Department conclusions that 
water seeped relatively slowly through the proposed dump site, 
which would result in less radiation release - a finding 
disputed by Yucca critics. 

Meanwhile, a congressional panel chaired by Rep. Jon Porter, 
R-Nev., was pushing forward with plans to seek testimony from 
Hevesi and two other USGS scientists involved with the e-mails. 

The Interior Department last week turned down a request for 
the scientists to testify before Porter's House Government 
Reform federal work force and agency organization subcommittee. 
The department cited ongoing criminal investigations by the FBI 
and inspectors general at the Energy and Interior departments. 

Yucca Mountain is planned as a national repository for 77,000 
tons of high-level commercial and defense nuclear waste, to be 
buried for 10,000 years and beyond in the Nevada desert. The 
project is strongly opposed by Nevada officials, and the most 
recent completion date of 2010 was recently abandoned by the 
Energy Department. 

Â© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 54 Salt Lake Tribune: Feds will weigh risks of Goshute waste site

Article Last Updated: 04/13/2005 11:55:14 AM                              
                   
Homeland security: Huntsman says the department will examine the 
post-Sept. 11 security issues
 			 			 			 			 			 			 
  By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune   
  	   
  WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
committed Tuesday to weigh the dangers of shipping high-level
nuclear waste across the country and storing it at a temporary
site in Utah versus leaving it at the reactors where it is now,
says Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. 
   Chertoff's commitment to study the nuclear fuel issue marks
the first time the department has looked at the terrorist threat
and national security implications involved in Private Fuel
Storage's plan to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste in Utah's
desert. 
   Federal regulators ''have looked at the safety issues, but
they haven't looked at security, which, post-9-11, should be
considered," Huntsman said in an interview. "In the day of the
dirty bomb and car bombs this needs to be elevated to that
level." 
   Huntsman also briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on this
issue in his office in the White House's West Wing. The vice
president asked questions about the status of the PFS project
and the logistics of the proposed storage, although Huntsman
said the meeting was simply to make Cheney aware of the issue in
case it is elevated to his level in the future. 
   PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the group of electric
utilities pushing the temporary storage center on the Goshute
reservation about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City has
committed to meeting any Homeland Security requirements to
guarantee the facility is safe. She said if any studies find
further safeguards are   warranted, they will be put in place. 
   PFS has argued that consolidating the spent fuel at one site
would make it easier to protect and that there are advantages to
moving the waste away from the reactors, many of which are in
populous urban areas or on waterways. 
   Huntsman has said that a terrorist attack on the PFS facility
could spread radiation across the Wasatch Front and points
further east. 
   A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security would not
comment on the meeting or the study Huntsman said was promised. 
   Huntsman said the full scope of the Homeland Security 
assessment is unclear, but it probably would weigh the dangers of 
transportation and the risks of storing the fuel at the reactors, 
temporarily on the Skull Valley reservation and in a proposed 
permanent repository inside Yucca Mountain, Nev. 

   The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering whether to
approve the PFS plan to store 4,000 steel and concrete casks of
nuclear fuel on concrete pads in Utah's Skull Valley. 
   An NRC decision is expected within a few weeks, although the
state has appeals pending and could take its case to a federal
appeals court if the NRC grants the license - a battle that
Huntsman said could drag the issue out for several years. 
   The state also continues to press Interior Secretary Gale
Norton to reject the lease between PFS and the Skull Valley Band
of Goshutes. As the trustee for American Indians, the Interior  
Secretary can void business deals found to be harmful to the
tribes. 
   The local Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the lease,
contingent upon completion of necessary environmental studies
and on NRC granting a license. 
   Huntsman said his administration continues to press the
state's case with Interior Department attorneys. 
   The National Academies of Science said last week that dry
cask storage, such as proposed for the PFS facility and which is
in place at several reactors around the country, was safer in
case of a terrorist attack than the pools that many reactors use
to cool the fuel rods. 
   A spokesman for Sen. Orrin Hatch said the Utah senator asked
Chertoff   during the secretary's confirmation hearing to study
the Homeland Security aspects of the PFS plan. 
    "It's a very good sign and a hopeful step that he has chosen
to do so," said Hatch aide Adam Elggren. 
    
Â© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 55 Deseret news: Huntsman takes N-storage opposition to Cheney 

[deseretnews.com] 

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

Governor says security issues not addressed 

By Jerry Spangler Deseret Morning News 

WASHINGTON — With the Nuclear Regulatory Commission poised to 
grant a license for storing high-level nuclear waste in Tooele 
County, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. took the state's opposition 
directly to Vice President Dick Cheney Tuesday. 

And he liked what he heard. 

"He did his homework, he was in a receiving mode and he 
had some questions," Huntsman said after the meeting. "We got a 
very good response." 

Huntsman, who met with the secretary of Homeland Security 
earlier in the day, used his Washington, D.C., meetings — his 
second on the nuclear waste issue in a month — to hammer home a 
point he said the NRC has ignored. 

The research and design of the facility proposed by 
Private Fuel Storage were developed before the terrorist attacks 
of Sept. 11, 2001, he said. But the world changed that day, and 
Huntsman said the NRC has failed to consider homeland security 
issues as part of its deliberations. 

"They looked at safety, but they did not look at 
security," Huntsman told the vice president. "That is the 
message we are trying to get to the highest level." 

PFS, a consortium of nuclear power utilities, wants to 
store as much as 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 
above-ground canisters on Goshute tribal lands in Skull Valley 
in remote Tooele County. The waste would stay there until a 
permanent facility was opened, presumably at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Earlier this year, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, 
a quasi-judicial body that reviews license applications for the 
NRC, recommended that PFS be granted a license. The board is 
currently considering a state request to reconsider, but even 
Huntsman said the decision to grant the license is expected. 

Consequently, the state is focusing its opposition 
efforts on blocking PFS through other administrative means, 
including appeals to the Department of Interior, which would 
still be required to approve the lease with the Skull Valley 
Band of Goshutes and to grant approval for a railroad spur to 
the site. 

Huntsman's meeting with Cheney elevates the stakes by 
bringing Homeland Security into the mix — something where the 
White House might want to intervene. 

"We have got to get people thinking about (the Homeland 
Security risks)," Huntsman said. "And Homeland Security has been 
left out. But the realities of life today have changed 
substantially since 9/11." 

And, he added, the NRC has "not done due diligence on 
homeland security. So why not now?" 

And if not the NRC, maybe the White House will listen. 

E-mail: spang@desnews.com 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 56 Deseret news.com: Tooele trims waste zone 

[deseretnews.com] 

Wednesday, April 13, 2005 

Chunk was bigger than needed, commissioner says 

By Doug Smeath Deseret Morning News 

TOOELE — The swath of land in Tooele County designated as 
potential storage ground for hazardous waste just got a lot 
smaller. 

['Photo'] [''] 
Deseret Morning News graphic 

The County Commission on Tuesday voted unanimously to 
reduce the so-called Hazardous Waste Corridor by 88 percent. The 
78,720-acre L-shaped parcel along I-80 had been specifically 
zoned to welcome companies like Envirocare and other 
waste-storage facilities since 1988. 

But now, the corridor has been broken into three separate 
regions, totaling only 9,440 acres. I-80 used to run right 
through the corridor; now the three regions each surround an 
already existing facility, and the nearest zone will be about 
1.25 miles from the freeway. 

The change came because the huge chunk of land set aside 
for waste-storage companies had proved to be much bigger than 
needed, Commissioner Matt Lawrence said. 

County planners saw how much of the zone was going unused 
"and said, 'We might as well just look at adjusting the size of 
the hazardous-waste zone. It's just too big,' " Lawrence said. 
"This to me was a pretty clear-cut thing. Nothing's going on (in 
the zone outside the existing facilities). Let's shrink it down."

Lawrence's comments were in response to complaints by 
attorneys for Cedar Mountain Environmental, a waste-storage 
company owned by former Envirocare president Charles Judd. 
Attorney Lucy Jenkins said Judd and his company should have been 
notified of last week's public hearing on the issue because Judd 
owns property in the zone. 

Jenkins had asked the commission to postpone making a 
decision to look into Judd's land ownership. 

But the problem is the county has no record of Judd or 
Cedar Mountain owning any land in the area, county planning 
director Nicole Cline said. 

The 80 acres Jenkins said Judd owns are also claimed by 
Envirocare, which bought 315 acres of land from Judd in 
February. Judd had once indicated he wanted to use the land, 
adjacent to Envirocare's property, to store class B and C "hot" 
nuclear waste. 

Envirocare, which once wanted to use its land to store 
similar kinds of waste, announced earlier this year that it has 
backed off those plans. 

At any rate, Lawrence said, the ownership of the land and 
what Judd had planned to do with it did not matter in the 
commission's vote. The changes in the waste corridor were 
tailored to shrink the area permitting waste storage without 
stepping on the toes of companies already operating in the area. 

Because Cedar Mountain does not have an existing facility 
in the area, it is in a different situation from Envirocare and 
the other two companies with facilities in the zone, the Clean 
Harbors Environmental Services incinerator at Aragonite and the 
Grassy Mountain landfill, also operated by Clean Harbors. 

Neither Envirocare nor Clean Harbors challenged the 
zoning change. Jason Groenewold, director of the Healthy 
Environmental Alliance of Utah, has called the change "a step in 
the right direction." 

E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 57 monticello times: Waste storage meeting draws light attendance
                                
www.monticellotimes.com
                                                                                                        
			   			     			 			 			 			  
Thursday, April 14, 2005                

Eric O'Link News Editor
    
  Tom Palmisano, site vice president for Monticello’s nuclear 
plant, uses a model of a waste storage cask as a visual aid 
during his presentation at Monday’s information meeting.(Photo by 
Eric O’Link)   

  Public comment  
  The Minnesota Environmental Quality Board is asking for public
comment on the scope of its EIS.

Direct comments to John Wachtler, 800-627-3529, or
john.wachtler@state.mn.us.

A public comment meeting on Xcel Energy’s license renewal
request to the NRC is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, April
20.
  
At the first public meeting on the state’s decision to approve
dry cask nuclear waste storage at Monticello Nuclear Generating
Plant, the turnout was light.

The Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB), which is
completing an environmental impact statement on the proposed
waste storage site, hosted the meeting Monday evening at the
Monticello Community Center.

The first of three public meetings, Monday’s was a chance for
people to comment on the scope of the EQB’s study. In other
words, the EQB is seeking input from the public about what
things it should consider and study as part of its environmental
impact statement, said the EQB’s John Wachtler, who hosted the
meeting.

“This all leads to a document that helps the (Minnesota Public
Utilities Commission) make a good decision,” Wachtler said.

About 25 people attended the meeting. But when the audience was
asked how many people there were not from Xcel Energy, Nuclear
Management Company (NMC) or a state agency, only four people
raised their hands.

Xcel Energy owns the 600-megawatt Monticello Nuclear Generating
Plant; the plant is operated by NMC. The plant’s current 40-year
operating license expires in 2010, but Xcel is seeking to renew
the license for 20 years to keep the plant operating until 2030.

Xcel and NMC filed an official request to renew the plant’s
operating license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last
month. In a separate but related process, Xcel is also seeking
approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to build
a dry-cask storage bunker for the plant’s spent fuel rods. The
plant will need such a storage facility if the plant is to
continue operation. Xcel plans to store the casks at the plant
until a long-term storage site, like the one proposed at Yucca
Mountain, Nev., becomes available.

Decisions on both requests are expected in 2007.

Monticello is one of 20 nuclear reactors in the United States
for which a license extension is being sought. Of the 150
reactors nationwide, 30 have already been granted operating
extensions from the NRC.

Though a public comment period on the scope of the EIS has been
open for a few weeks, and remains open until Wednesday, April
13, Monday’s meeting provided opportunity for public comments
related to what the EIS should cover.

Tom Palmisano, the site vice president for Monticello’s plant,
began with a 20-minute presentation about the cask storage and
the storage facility, called an Independent Spent Fuel Storage
Installation (ISFSI). He explained that spent fuel rods would be
loaded into storage casks under water, in the plant’s fuel pool.
The casks would then be drained, welded shut, put inside larger
transfer casks and moved from the reactor building to the
fenced, secured outdoor ISFSI storage bunker, a few hundred feet
away. There, they would be slid from the transfer casks directly
into individual slots in the storage bunker, and sealed with
thick concrete plugs.

Palmisano said the storage casks are licensed by the NRC for
both storage and transport. Each cask would store a year’s worth
of fuel.

Dan Lemm, an area resident who lives near the power plant, said
he supported the plant’s license renewal efforts.

“They’ve been a good neighbor and a good big brother,” he said.

He said he was not worried about the waste storage, but did
express some concern about the transfer process and the
possibility of an accident or attack.

Palmisano reiterated that the casks would only be moving a few
hundred feet and that security would be tight during transfer.

Two representatives of he Clean Water Action Alliance of
Minnesota, Andy Edgar and Sara Johnson, also attended the
meeting.

Edgar told Wachtler that he thought an EIS should include a cost
analysis of dedicating the money spent on waste storage at
Monticello toward renewable energy sources, primarily wind.

After the meeting, Edgar told the Times that Clean Water Action
is concerned with the effects of human-related activities on
water, drinking water quality and wildlife. The group is also
advocating renewable energy resources.

“This is a huge plant; it’s been around for a really long time,”
he said. “We just feel like if it’s up for relicensure, this is
our chance to get in and say, ‘There’s other stuff out there.’”

Though the proposed storage facility would be several hundred
feet from the Mississippi River’s banks, Johnson questioned the
proximity of the site to the river.

“We feel the banks of the Mississippi probably isn’t the best
place to put nuclear waste,” she said. “Maybe there’s a better
place for it.”

Wachtler told the Times that he had not yet received much
feedback on the EIS scope. He said he’s taken about five phone
calls and a few e-mails, and that most of those people were
simply seeking information. He sent them information on the
storage site he received from Xcel, he said.

“Typically, you don’t get any comments from people until the day
of the deadline, so we could get a lot more,” he said. “But I’ve
really only gotten about four actual comments on the scope of
the EIS.” 

He said the most negative comments he has heard about waste
storage at Monticello were people expressing concern that should
the state approve waste storage, no one is certain how long the
casks may remain at the plant.

“I’ve had a few people say, ‘Don’t just rubber stamp it. Make
sure that the Public Utilities Commission makes an informed
decision about continuing to generate the spent fuel,’” he said.

He added that he still wants to hear people’s ideas about what
to include in the EIS. Though that public comment period ends
next week, the state will conduct another public comment meeting
when the draft of the EIS is prepared, and a third when the
final EIS is completed.

“Right now,” he said, “if people that live in the area can tell
me what their concerns are...or anything about what they think
the state should study leading up to the decision as to whether
to approve this, I’d love to hear about it.”


Copyright 2005, Monticello Times
*****************************************************************
 58 lamonitor.com: Lab's WIPP loads resume 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
CAROL A. CLARK

lanews@lamonitor.com Monitor Staff Writer

Radioactive waste shipments from Los Alamos National Laboratory 
to WIPP resume today, NNSA spokesperson Bernard Pleau said in a 
telephone interview this morning. 

DOE's underground dump - the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
in Carlsbad - is back on course to meet its goal of 30 shipments
a week.

Lloyd Piper, deputy manager of the DOE's Carlsbad office,
reviewed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant's past performance and
future goals during a meeting Tuesday. 
"It will start out at about one per week and hopefully we'll
ramp it up to about four per week by the end of the summer,"
Piper said.

Dennis Hurtt, public affairs manager for the DOE Carlsbad field
office said in an interview this morning that the DOE is pleased
to see Los Alamos resume shipments. 
Shipments from the nuclear weapons lab were stopped in October
2003 because of problems with testing equipment, and a lab
shutdown last summer further delayed the process.

Piper stressed that WIPP has the capacity to receive 30
shipments a week, but difficulties with testing required at
sites that send waste to WIPP have kept the shipments at roughly
20 per week.

The 2,150-foot-deep repository excavated from underground salt
beds opened in 1999 under a federal law prohibiting high-level
waste.

The facility buries such things as gloves, rags, tools, dried
sludge and other debris contaminated by plutonium during weapons
work.

Although WIPP set a record in 2004 for the highest number of
shipments it received in a calendar year, officials also noticed
a rising number of mistakes in the process of certifying waste
before it's sent to WIPP.

Staff at the sites where drums of waste are stored must perform
a series of tests, such as X-rays and chemical samples, to
ensure the waste meets WIPP regulations.

Those sites include Los Alamos, the Idaho National Engineering
and Environmental Laboratory, the Hanford site in Washington and
the plutonium factory in South Carolina.

Piper said one of DOE's main goals this year is to have no
mistakes at the sites or at WIPP.

"Most of the issues we've had have been with generator sites
making an error in their own processes and procedures," he said.
"But nevertheless, it seems to get reported in the papers as an
issue for WIPP - and we accept that and we work with it and we
work with the generator sites to make them more error free."

This year, WIPP also is seeking approval for its recertification
application from the Environmental Protection Agency. WIPP is
required to complete the application every five years, and this
time it expects to receive approval by December.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.   

  © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 59 SouthofBoston.com: Opinion: Waste not wanted
 
THE PATRIOT LEDGER
THE ENTERPRISE
OLD COLONY MEMORIAL

MPG Newspapers 9 Long Pond Rd. Plymouth, MA 02360 (508) 746-5555 

It's been almost exactly three years since two local selectmen
and the town manager headed west to Yucca Mountain in Nevada to
tour the site of a long-proposed national nuclear waste
depository. It's been more than 20 years since Congress passed a
law requiring the federal government to construct a place to
store the high-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear
plants. Back in 1982, Congress set a deadline of 1998 to get the
depository up and running. The federal government has spent
billions of dollars - with no end in sight. Yucca Mountain is
still years away from accepting its first shipment of waste, if
it ever does.

Meanwhile, spent fuel continues to sit in storage at the Pilgrim
nuclear power plant in Plymouth and at other nuclear plants
scattered across the country.

Life changed on Sept. 11, 2001. Even in Plymouth, a town that
once welcomed its nuclear neighbor with enthusiasm, more people
wonder uneasily now about the risk posed by the nuclear plant
and its spent fuel rods. The National Guard stands at the gate;
the plant's shorefront is off-limits now. It's only prudent for
Plymoutheans to wonder if security is tight enough to keep
Pilgrim - and Plymouth with it - from becoming a target.

It's only natural for Plymoutheans to wonder if the federal
government is ever going to meet its obligation to get that
spent fuel out of Plymouth and other scattered sites and into
one secure location.

Last week, the National Academies released a report on spent
fuel storage. It's a public version of a classified report
requested by Congress and delivered last summer. The report
concludes that terrorist attacks on commercial nuclear plants do
pose a risk. It recommended the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
conduct additional analysis at each plant to better understand
the risks and to make sure plant operators take steps to reduce
them. It found that an attack on a spent fuel pool, like the one
at Pilgrim, might start a fire that could release high levels of
radiation into the environment. It suggested immediate action to
reduce the potential for these fires.

It also observed that current practices on classified material
and security impede the NRC and the industry from sharing
information they need. It recommended that the NRC improve the
way it shares information on spent fuel storage with plant
operators. It also recommended more constructive interaction
with the public and independent analysts to increase public
confidence.

This report and the entire topic of spent fuel storage should be
a priority for the town's newly reactivated nuclear matters
committee when it meets later this month. It should be a
priority for selectmen too. The topic hasn't come up much at
town hall in the last three years, but the issue hasn't gone
away and it won't.

Entergy plans to apply at the end of the year to extend its
federal license to operate Pilgrim. The town will have little
say on the license, but storage of spent fuel is certainly a
question the town needs to fully understand and to raise at
every opportunity during the relicensing process.

Spent fuel will still be an issue for Plymouth even if Pilgrim
doesn't get a license extension. Spent fuel is still stored at
eight sites across the nation where commercial reactors have
shut down, in addition to 65 sites with operating reactors.

It shouldn't be there. The federal government should have met
its obligation - to the public and to plant operators as well -
many years and many billions of dollars ago.

The fuel shouldn't be there, but it is there. It appears it's
going to stay there, for the foreseeable future, at least. It's
only practical for the town and for Entergy to make sure they do
everything possible to reduce the risks.

Got an opinion? E-mail newsroom@mpgnews.com

SUBSCRIBE| CONTACT US
MPG Newspapers, 9 Long Pond Rd., Plymouth, MA 02360
 Telephone: (508) 746-5555
 
*****************************************************************
 60 OA Online News: Waste request causes sparks
 
Wednesday, 13 April 2005

American Online
  
c /o Odessa American 222 E. 4th Street P.O. Box 2952 Odessa, TX 
79760
 
Activist groups follow license amendment
 			
By Ruth Campbell Odessa American


ANDREWS COUNTY The Sierra Club is not the only group concerned 
about Waste Control Specialists getting permission from the state 
to take more waste.
 
The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club on Monday filed for a                       
contested case hearing on the issue. Public Citizen and the 
League of Women Voters among other organizations are also 
tracking the matter, according to Richard Simpson, an adviser to 
Public Citizen in Austin.
 
The State Department of Health Services granted a license 
amendment to Waste Control Feb. 23 allowing the company to store 
1.5 million cubic feet of waste at its western Andrews County 
site. Previously, it could store 250,000 cubic feet.
 
The amendment would allow Waste Control to receive and 
“temporarily” house more than 1 million cubic feet of uranium 
radioactive waste from Fernald, Ohio, the site of an old nuclear 
weapons processing plant run by the United States Department of 
Energy.
 
The DOE has not yet announced where it will send the Fernald 
waste.
 
Richard Ratliff, radiation program officer for the state health                  
department, said a hearing officer will determine if Sierra Club 
has standing for a contested case hearing — which is like a court                         
hearing. Historically, he said you have to be an affected person 
to have standing.
 
Simpson said group members have to achieve standing on their own.
 
An affected person is someone who has or will suffer actual 
injury or economic damage from action by Waste Control, in this 
case, Ratliff said. The affected person also has to live in the 
county hosting the site or in an adjacent county.
 
If the State Office of Administrative Hearings decides the Sierra                  
Club’s hearing request has merit, it will make a recommendation 
to State Health Commissioner Dr. Eduardo Sanchez. Sanchez will 
make the decision on whether to let WCS take the waste or stop 
them, Ratliff said.
 
The license amendment means Waste Control can take waste from 
almost anywhere — something that alarms Sierra Club and Public 
Citizen.
 
Simpson said Public Citizen’s concern centers on the amount of 
waste to be transported to the site — 3,500 truckloads, the 
highly concentrated nature of the Fernald waste and the fact that 
terrorists may want to get their hands on it.

It’s a very unusual kind of uranium byproduct,” Simpson said. 
“It’s much more concentrated and the (radioactive) activity level 
is much higher.”
 
WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said the company has worked closely                         
with the state health department and will continue to do so.
 
“We feel like it’s already been clearly demonstrated that the                     
Andrews site is ideal for storing this waste because the 
geology’s perfect, we now have a record of excellence and, as was 
demonstrated the other night (at a public hearing March 31 in 
Andrews), there is unparalleled community support for the work 
that WCS is doing there,” he said.
 
“I think it’s obvious that neither the Sierra Club nor Public                  
Citizen are speaking on behalf of the citizens of Andrews with 
their request,” McDonald said.
 
WCS has also applied for a license from the Texas Commission on                      
Environmental Quality to permanently dispose of low-level 
radioactive waste.

*****************************************************************
 61 KLAS: Congressional Hearing on Yucca Mountain Canceled

April 13, 2005   

  Tim Zeitlow, Photojournalist

A hearing into allegations that documents about the Yucca
Mountain project were falsified has been canceled. Officials
from the Department of the Interior denied a request by
Congressman Jon Oorter to speak to the scientists accused of
falsifying reports. 
   

  LuAnne Sorrell, Reporter
 
A hearing into allegations that documents about the Yucca
Mountain project were falsified has been canceled. Officials
from the Department of the Interior denied a request by
Congressman Jon Porter to speak to the scientists accused of
falsifying reports. 

Clark County launched that investigation after officials at the
Department of Energy announced, last month, they found emails
from scientists admitting they falsified reports. And what the
county found is that problems at the U.S. Geological survey are
nothing new. 

The Deparment of the Interior will not allow their scientists to
testify in front of the committee because a criminal
investigation is underway. But Nevada Congressman Jon Porter
says he won't let that criminal case stop his efforts to find
the truth. 

Rep. Jon Porter, (R) Nevada, said, "What I see is they're being
uncooperative. We are going to continue our investigation. And
I'll tell you that subpoena remain an option. It's something
that I will use if necessary." 

And Tuesday, Congressman Porter was given even more annunition
in his fight for the truth. Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid
forwarded a county investigation that shows quality assurance
has been a problem at the U.S. Geological Survey for decades. 

Commissioner Reid said, "There's a systemic problem here. They
haven't done their job. They haven't assured the public that
this is safe and it shouldn't be in our back yard." 

The report details numerous documents from the government
accountablity office pointing out problems with quality
assurance dating back to 1984. In some cases, scientists
mislabeled or even lost environmental samples from Yucca
Mountain. 

Emails in which scientists admitted to falsifying documents
sparked last weeks Congressional hearing. Now Porter says the
pieces are beginning to come together despite an attempt to keep
the truth about Yucca Mountain under the rug. 

"Again, this is one technique they are using and apparently they
have something to hide," Porter stated. 

Irene Navis, Clark County liaison, said, "The quality assurance
issue is so important because it forms the corner stone for all
the technical and scientific research that's been done over the
past 22 years." 

Navis is the county's liaison to the Yucca Mountain project.
She's the one who poured over thousands of pages of documents --
documents that showed numerous mistakes made by scientists
working on the repository. "Without that affective quality
assurance we don't have the confidence in the science that we
ought to," Navis said. 

Reid added, "We were told that this was not to happen unless it
was on a scientific basis and unless that science was sound, and
I think there is plenty of evidence now that the science was not
sound and it was done for political reasons. And we can't stand
for it." 

Commissioner Reid hopes that when a new hearing is set, Porter
will introduce the report into the Congressional record. 

Another hearing has not yet been rescheduled.   

SRC="http://klas.static.worldnow.com/images/85439_G.gif"
  
Copyright 2000 - 2005 WorldNow and KLAS. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 62 Guardian Unlimited: Fuel Made From Plutonium Arrives in S.C.
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Wednesday April 13, 2005 1:31 AM

By JACOB JORDAN 

Associated Press Writer 

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A French shipment of nuclear power plant
fuel made from weapons-grade plutonium has arrived in the United
States despite protests it poses environmental and terrorist
risks. 

The shipment of MOX fuel, a mixture of plutonium oxide and
uranium oxide, arrived in Charleston around midnight Monday. It
was then transported to the Catawba Nuclear Station near
Charlotte, N.C., for testing, Duke Power spokeswoman Rose
Cummings said. 

A small group of protesters tried unsuccessfully to follow a
convoy thought to be carrying the fuel. 

Tom Clements of Greenpeace International said he was concerned
the Catawba plant doesn't meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission
security requirements; the NRC said last month several
conditions were still unmet. 

``It's quite clear that their scrambling to meet the conditions
of storage,'' Clements said. ``To me it represents the poor
planning for the overall plutonium disposition program and
they're just trying to make up things as they go along.'' 

He also complained about how easily he was able to ``get right
up near the trucks'' in the convoy as it left the Charleston
Naval Weapons station. ``If we could identify them with minimal
resources then anyone could identify them,'' he said. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration and Duke Power
officials dismissed the concerns. They said the nuclear plant
will have met NRC requirements by the time the shipments arrive
at Catawba. 

``The fuel assemblies are secure and have been secure without
any significant incidents,'' NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said.
``Everything is on schedule, it's been on schedule and according
to plan.'' 

The Energy Department shipped the plutonium to France for
conversion because there's no U.S. plant that can do it.
Officials want to build a conversion facility near Aiken but
construction has been delayed. 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 63 General Assembly Adopts Treaty Against Nuclear Terrorism
 
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 12:00:54 -0400

 
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY ADOPTS TREATY AGAINST NUCLEAR TERRORISM
New York, Apr 13 2005 12:00PM
The United Nations General Assembly today <"http://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/295/27/pdf/N0529527.pdf?OpenElement">adopted 
by 
consensus an international treaty against nuclear terrorism, 
strengthening the global legal framework to combat it, requiring 
the extradition or prosecution of those implicated, and encouraging 
the exchange of information and cooperation among States.

The Nuclear Terrorism Convention, seven years in the making by a 
special Assembly committee, will open for signature on 14 September 
at the high-level plenary meeting scheduled for the Assembly’s 
sixtieth session and enter into force after 22 States ratify it.

The treaty aims to deal with both crisis situations by assisting 
States in thwarting terrorist groups possessing nuclear material, 
and post-crisis situations by rendering the nuclear material safe 
in accordance with safeguards provided by the UN International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

It was drafted by the Ad Hoc Committee established by the General 
Assembly in 1996 to draw up an international convention for the 
suppression of terrorist bombings and entrusted in 1998 with drafting 
an international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear 
terrorism.

“Nuclear terrorism is one of the most urgent threats of our time,” 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said when the Committee finally completed 
work on 1 April. “Even one such attack could inflict mass 
casualties and change our world forever. The prospect should compel 
all of us to do our part to strengthen our common defences.”
 2005-04-13 00:00:00.000 

________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml
*****************************************************************
 64 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Set to Approve Global Nuclear Treaty
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Wednesday April 13, 2005 11:46 AM

By EDITH M. LEDERER 

Associated Press Writer 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - After a seven-year campaign led by Russia,
U.N. member states have reached agreement on a new global treaty
making it a crime for would-be terrorists to possess or threaten
to use nuclear material. 

The 191-member General Assembly body was scheduled to vote
Wednesday on a draft resolution calling on all countries to sign
and ratify the ``International Convention for the Suppression of
Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.'' 

Nicolas Michel, the undersecretary-general for legal affairs,
said a U.N. committee negotiating the convention reached
agreement on the text on April 1 and there is no opposition to
its adoption. 

``It has to be seen as a breakthrough after more than seven
years of negotiations,'' he said at a news conference Tuesday. 

Negotiating the treaty - which has 28 articles - posed major
problems, including defining terms such as ``radioactive
material'' and ``device'' and deciding who should be subject to
criminal prosecution and who should be exempt. 

The treaty makes it a crime for any person to possess
radioactive material or a radioactive device with the intent to
cause death or injury, or damage property or the environment. It
would also be a crime to use such material or devices to damage
a nuclear facility. 

A person would also commit a criminal act by threatening to use
radioactive material or devices - or unlawfully demanding
nuclear material or other radioactive substances. 

Countries that are parties to the treaty would be required to
make these acts criminal offenses under their national laws,
``punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account
the grave nature of these offenses.'' 

Michel said that if the treaty is adopted it will be opened for
signatures on Sept. 14, which means world leaders coming to a
summit that Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called to focus on
U.N. reform will be able to sign it. Twenty-two countries must
ratify it before it comes into force, he said. 

``We support the convention and will call for other governments
to sign on in September when there is an opportunity to do so,''
said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations. 

In recent speeches and in the U.N. reform plan he announced last
month, Annan called for swift adoption of a global treaty
against nuclear terrorism. 

The convention calls for stronger cooperation between states on
sharing intelligence, exchanging ``accurate and verified
information,'' and on mutual legal assistance. 

It also requires all states parties to adopt measures to make
clear that acts designed to provoke terror in the general public
or in specific groups cannot be justified under any
circumstances 'by considerations of a political, philosophical,
ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar
nature.''	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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 65 Tri-City Herald: Bechtel to announce layoffs 

This story was published Wednesday, April 13th, 2005 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

Bechtel National expects to announce more layoffs Thursday, this
time from among construction and nonconstruction workers at the
$5.8 billion vitrification plant being built at Hanford. 

"Unfortunately, more cuts are necessary," said Jim Henschel,
Bechtel National project manager, in a message in the employee
newsletter Tuesday. The company has laid off 276 construction
workers in recent weeks, from a total work force on the project
of about 3,500. 

Bechtel management is hoping that after Thursday, no more
layoffs will be needed in the short term. It will take a look at
staffing again in June, but good estimates now could mean no
layoffs are needed then. 

Nonconstruction workers will be given 60 days notice if they are
laid off. Bechtel expects to announce Thursday how many
nonconstruction workers will be laid off, but individual workers
may not be notified for several days. 

Work has slowed at the construction project since December, when
a new study indicated that the plant might not be adequate in a
worst-case earthquake. Engineers are reviewing and validating
thousands of engineering calculations to increase the design
standard by 38 percent in parts of the plants that will handle
high-level radioactive waste. 

The plant must be ready by 2011 under legal deadlines to treat
radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium at
Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The plant will
turn high-level radioactive waste and some low-activity
radioactive waste into a stable glass form. 

As recently as late February, Bechtel had hoped to avoid
layoffs. 

But because of the seismic issue, other technical issues and
challenges in building the plant, it's become evident that
engineering must advance further ahead of design, said John
Eschenberg, project manager for the Department of Energy's
Office of River Protection. 

Construction started as designing the plant was under way to
meet the 2011 deadline. Now the design is about 70 percent
complete, and construction is about 35 percent complete. 

Eschenberg would like to see engineering, from design to
equipment delivery, completed three to six months ahead of
construction. That would make construction more efficient, said
Jim Betts, Bechtel's project manager. 

Bechtel will have its annual updated estimate of the final cost
for the plant, and when it will be completed, ready at the end
of the month. Now its tentative figures are being evaluated by
the Army Corps of Engineers. 

"There are going to be cost increases," and the project will
likely take longer to complete, Eschenberg said. 

The Corps projected last spring that the cost was likely to be
closer to $6.5 billion than $5.8 billion if the plant is
finished by the legal deadline. 

DOE cannot say before the cost and schedule estimates are
completed whether the 2011 deadline can be met, Eschenberg said. 

DOE has asked Bechtel to submit two cost projections. One will
look at how much work can be done if the project receives $690
million a year. That's the amount DOE has said is needed based
on past cost projections, although a lower budget has been
proposed for fiscal year 2006. 

The second cost projection being prepared would consider how
soon the plant could be done if more money was spent. 

Reviewing and validating thousands of engineering calculations
for the more robust design standard will mean Bechtel continues
to employ many of the 800 engineers it had planned to lay off
through this year. 

Bechtel also will continue working on schedule on parts of the
plant, such as the low-activity waste treatment facility and
analytical laboratory, that don't need to meet the seismic
standards of the two huge buildings that will be used to
separate and treat high-level radioactive waste. 

Construction on the High-Level Waste Facility and the
Pretreatment Facility will advance, but at a much slower pace,
Eschenberg said. 

In addition to new seismic standards, costs also are expected to
rise because of other difficulties. 

Solving other technical problems has taken most of the six
months of contingency time built into the schedule to complete
the plant, Eschenberg said. 

Those included resolving fire safety issues should hydrogen
accumulate in the original design of some of the secondary
piping systems and finding a way to keep waste mixed in some
tanks within the plant. 

The pulse jet mixer system, air-driven pumps that keep waste
mixed with no moving parts in areas of the plant that will be
too radioactive for humans to enter, worked well in tests for
liquid waste. But they needed to be improved for some vessels
that will hold waste that has a gel-like consistency. 

Costs also are being driven up by underestimates of the amount
of material needed as the design work has progressed. 

"There was very little basis to start this estimate," Betts
said, because the plant will be the only one of its type on such
a massive scale. The contract was awarded to Bechtel when the
design was just 10 percent complete in the push to get
radioactive waste out of underground storage tanks and treated. 

Between late 2003 and early 2005, the costs of different types
of steel needed for the plant have increased 19 percent to 50
percent, Betts said. 

The company also has faced challenges because of the lack of
manufacturing facilities prepared to supply materials and
equipment for a plant that must meet nuclear-quality standards.
Nuclear power plants would require the same types of expertise,
but no plant has been built in the United States for 20 years. 

As a result, Bechtel has had to reject some material it ordered.
It is solving the problem by basing employees at some
manufacturing plants to help set up the programs needed to
qualify manufacturing to nuclear standards and, in some cases,
oversee work to make sure it meets the standards. 

The technical, cost and scheduling difficulties on the project
are solvable, say DOE and Bechtel. 

"There are no show stoppers," Betts said. "It's just going to
take longer and cost more." 

© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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 66 The Daily Californian: Lab Competition Stiffens for UC - 
 
Prominent Lab Director To Lead Rival Bidder For Los Alamos

By JENNIFER JAMALL
Contributing Writer
Wednesday, April 13, 2005

	UC may be facing another road block in its journey to maintain
management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

	C. Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratories,
announced Monday that he would be stepping down in order to lead
Lockheed Martin Corporation’s effort to win the bid for the Los
Alamos contract. 

	After tentatively bowing out of the competition in August,
Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest defense technology
contractor, announced last week that it will enter a bid for Los
Alamos. 

	The leadership of Robinson, who began his career in the 1960s
as the Los Alamos chief executive, could provide a substantial
advantage to Lockheed Martin. Both Los Alamos and Sandia are
owned by the U.S Department of Energy. 

	“We picked Paul Robinson because he’s the right person to lead
Los Alamos, and he’s the person we’ll propose to the Department
of Energy if we win the bid,” said Lockheed Martin spokesperson
Don Carson. 

	Lockheed Martin has earned its reputation through management of
large nuclear weapons facilities like the Sandia labs, which
were originally created as divisions of the UC-run Los Alamos
and Lawrence Livermore National labs in New Mexico and
California. 

	Sandia still conducts joint engineering with the Los Alamos
facility. 

	UC advocates have expressed concern that if the $60
million-per-year contract with the energy department to run the
lab is given to a corporate company, the quality of academic
research could deteriorate. 

	“Whatever the future management looks like, science and
technology are of the utmost importance to what the lab does,”
said UC spokesperson Chris Harrington. 

	Although the UC Regents have not formally backed a bid, UC
signalled its intention to move forward with the bid last month
when it created the New Mexico Consortium with three New Mexico
research institutions to enable collaborative research between
the institutions and the lab. 

	Carson and Harrington both said that Lockheed Martin and UC
have been in discussions with University of Texas to run the
lab. The corporation hopes the collaboration with UT will ensure
the continuation of research at Los Alamos. 

	“Research will not suffer under Lockheed Martin,” Carson said.
“The standard of excellence will stay.” 

	Despite Robinson’s prestigious 10-year career at Sandia,
government watchdog group Project On Government Oversight said
Sandia has also had its own share of safety and security
problems. 

	“Parts of Sandia have had to be shut down because of security
issues,” said project spokesperson Danielle Bryan, project.
“Lockheed Martin is touting Robinson’s participation as a big,
giant step ... The primary concern is to make sure the lab is
managed in a way that doesn’t create homeland security
vulnerability.” 

	UC has managed the Los Alamos lab since its opening in 1943,
but security and financial blunders prompted then-Secretary of
Energy Spencer Abraham to open the contract to competitive
bidding in 2003. 

	A revised edition of the bid proposal will be released later
this month by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Meanwhile, UC remains optimistic about its chances. 

	“Los Alamos is producing solutions to a wide variety of
challenges that face our nation, from nuclear stockpiles to AIDS
research,” Harrington said. “We plan to continue bringing the
strong science and research to the management of this lab.” 

Contact Jennifer Jamall at jjamall@dailycal.org.

 (c) 2005 Berkeley, California dailycal@dailycal.org  
    
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